Aliquid Amplius. Berthold of Moosburg's Neoplatonism as Going Beyond Metaphysics

Berthold of Moosburg’s Commentary on the Elements of Theology of Proclus (written between 1323 and 1363) still awaits to be disclosed as a self-standing, original work in the field of metaphysics. A deeper understanding will be gained by explaining why Berthold insists on the contrast between Aristotle and Plato. Berthold interprets Aristotle’s metaphysics as a science of being qua adequate object of the intellect: according to him, this approach to metaphysics does not grant the possibility of an adequate natural theology. This representation of Aristotle’s metaphysics displays clear features connecting it to the shift in the way first philosophy was conceived in Berthold’s times: to counterbalance the limits of his contemporaries, he recurs to the Platonic tradition, which he considers to be transmitted by Proclus’ Elements of Theology. Building upon both Platonic and Christian authorities, he articulates an original metaphysics, which I suggest should be labeled as Scholastic Neoplatonism: the foundations of his system emerge in the demonstration of God’s existence as found in the commentary to the first 13 out of the 211 propositions of the Elements of Theology. Here, one can appreciate the originality of his thought, in which the central concepts are: the relation between unity and multiplicity, the relation between good and being, universality of separation, deification, and the transcendence of divine will. To place Berthold’s enterprise in the wider context of the transformation of metaphysics between the 13th and the 14th centuries, is important to reassess the two years he spent in Oxford: from Thomas of York’s Sapientiale he draws a deep reflection on the relation between philosophical inquiry and the achievement of happiness; another author whose influence may be traced in Berthold’s Commentary is Henry of Harclay, Chancellor of Oxford in the years in which Berthold was there. In Harclay’s Quaestiones ordinariae, one can find the central doctrine that Berthold would criticize: the claim that one can prove God’s existence starting from a concept of being that has no extra-mental existence.