Petrus Joannis Olivi

c.1248-98. Augustinian philosopher and leader of Spiritual Franciscans. Born at Sérignan, he entered the Franciscan Order at Béziers (c.1260). He studied at Paris and possibly Oxford. Accused of heresy at Strasbourg (1282), he established his orthodoxy at Montpellier (1287) and Paris (1292). He became lector at the convents of Nîmes, Florence, and Montpellier. He was greatly venerated by the Spiritual Franciscans after his death. His commentary on Revelation, Postilla super Apocalypsim, with its overtones of Joachitism and identification of the papacy with Antichrist, was condemned by John XXII (1326). Anthropologically, he distinguished between ontological and conceptual orders, concluding that man is composed of matter and spirit, and that there is plurality of forms in corporal beings. Concerned to keep body and soul separate, he divorced the intellectual soul from the vegetative and sensitive souls, making the latter alone the body's form. This idea was condemned by the Council of Vienne* (1311-12).