Page:Duns Scotus, defender of the Immaculate Conception (1955).djvu/29

 the university authorities, respected doctors of the various accredited schools and religious orders, and a great concourse of university students, Duns Scotus successfully defended Mary’s privilege of the Immaculate Conception. Béraud de St. Maurice, in her recent book, Jean Duns Scot, $30$ gives a graphic description of this public debate. She tells how learned doctor after learned doctor rose to cross argumentative swords with Scotus, and how the Subtle Doctor as sole defending knight against a united field took on all comers and emerged victorious. Although the historical truth of the event here narrated has been questioned by some historians, notably Father Denifle, O. P., $31$ still, after careful study and consideration, competent Scotistic scholars, e. g ., Father Ephrem Longpré and Father Charles Balic, $32$ maintain that in substance the tradition affirming the debate is based upon facts.

Regardless of any doubt, however, concerning the occurrence of the debate, the milieu portrayed in the story reveals a reigning mental academic atmosphere. This is so true that even when Scotus defended the privilege of the Immaculate Conception within the cloistered walls of his monastery lecture hall, he was fully aware that he was doing so as practically a lone champion against the field of current theological opinion. It would seem to us that the method employed by Scotus in unfolding his thesis in favor of the Immaculate Conception, as recorded in the Oxford and Paris commentaries, reflects this keen awareness.

Realizing that the weight of traditional authority, both in number of defendants and in accumulated argument, 13