John Duns Scoto



John Scotto was born in Duns, in Scotland, around 1265, entered the Order of the Little Brothers around 1280 and was ordained a priest on April 17, 1291. He completed his studies in 1291 in Paris. He taught at Cambridge, and Oxford. He obtained a doctorate, with a letter of introduction from the General Minister of the Order, Father Gonzalo Hispánico, who had been his teacher.

At the end of 1307 Juan Duns Escoto was in Cologne, where he taught. Perhaps there is no more outstanding medieval doctor than this Scottish Franciscan. His theories about the Virgin and the incarnation get centuries after confirmation in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

He used his wit of ingenuity in the systematization of the great loves of San Francisco: Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

He had numerous disciples and soon became and continued to be the head of the Franciscan school, which began with Blessed Alexander of Hales, developed with St. Bonaventure, Seraphic Doctor of the Church, and reached its culmination in Blessed John Duns Scotus.

His doctrine is in perfect harmony with his spirituality.

After Jesus, the Blessed Virgin took first place in her life. Duns Escoto is the theologian par excellence of the Immaculate Conception.

In a public dispute, he remained silent until about 200 theologians exposed and proved their sentences that God had not wanted the Mother of his Son free from original sin.

Finally, after all, Juan Duns Escoto demonstrated with the Holy Scripture, with the writings of the Holy Fathers and with a keen dialectic, that such a privilege was in accordance with the faith and that for the same reason should be attributed to the great Mother of God, synthesizing it in the famous axiom: "Potuit, decuit, ergo fecit (He could, he agreed, then he did)".

In Cologne, where he taught, he died on November 8, 1308. John Paul II approved his cult on March 20, 1993.


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