Abstract

Esoteric knowledge, reserved for a few specially trained thinkers, as opposed to an exoteric faith disseminated to the masses, is not usually associated with scholastic theology. It is therefore interesting to find that William of Auvergne, longtime theologian at the University of Paris and bishop of that city from 1228 until his death in 1249, applied the concept to his account of the fires of hell and purgatory. Because he considered the infernal and purgatorial fires as deterrents to antisocial acts, William was very concerned to protect belief in the physical nature of punishment after death. Yet, as a theologian abreast of the Aristotelian and Arabic philosophical literature recently translated into Latin, he understood the challenge that this sophisticated tradition posed for Christian orthodoxy. He also knew that contemporary heretics, the Albigensians, or Cathars, denied hell and purgatory altogether. To prevent these competing views from confusing the mass of believers, he advocated the dissemination of a simple, literal view to the faithful, even while he elaborated an esoteric, metaphorical position of his own. In so doing, William adapted ideas drawn from the Arabic philosopher Avicenna and fashioned an innovative theory of infernal and purgatorial fire