two experiments

Among the works of Alan of Lille which are printed by Migne is a treatise of unusual interest, whose authorship has long been a matter of dispute. The De Arte Catholicae Fidei is a complete systematic theology in five books. The truth of a series of points of doctrine is demonstrated as though they were Euclidean theorems, with the aid of definitions, postulates and axioms. A superficial similarity of ‘axiomatic method’ between Alan's Regulae Theologicae and the De Arte Catholicae Fidei encouraged the attribution of both works to Alan of Lille, not only by modern scholars, but also by the copyists of several of the manuscripts of the work. M. T. d'Alverny gives the work to Alan's contemporary, Nicholas of Amiens, on the basis of a comment of his own in the preface to his Chronicle, that he has discussed a certain point more fully in the Liber de Arte Catholicae Fidei. The preface is so close in subject-matter to the De Arte that there can be no doubt that this attribution is correct.2 Even if we take this work away from Alan, the Regulae Theologicae, which antedates it by a decade, remains a pioneering work comparable with Proclus' Elements of Theology in its theological audacity.

The exercise attempted by Alan of Lille and Nicholas of Amiens appears to have attracted few imitators – unless we count the extra book someone added to Nicholas' treatise.