AMALRIC (Fr. AMAURY) OF BENA (d. c. 1204-1207)  , French theologian, was born in the latter part of the 12th century at Bena, a village in the diocese of Chartres . He taught philosophy and theology at the university of Paris and enjoyed a great reputation as a subtle dialectician; his lectures developing the philosophy of Aristotle attracted a large circle of hearers . In 1204 his doctrines were condemned by the university, and, on a personal appeal to Pope Innocent III., the sentence was ratified, Amalric being ordered to return to Paris and recant his errors . His death was caused, it is said, by grief at the humiliation to which he had been subjected . In 1209 ten of his followers were burnt before the gates of Paris, and Amalric's own body was exhumed and burnt and the ashes given to the winds . The doctrines of his followers, known as the Amalricians, were formally condemned by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215 . Amalric appears to have derived his philosophical system from Erigena (q.v.), whose principles he developed in a one-sided and strongly pantheistic form . Three propositions only can with certainty be attributed to him: (r) that God is all; (2) that every Christian is bound to believe that he is a member of the body of Christ, and that this belief is necessary for salvation: (3) that he who remains in love of God can commit no sin . These three propositions were further developed by his followers, who maintained that God revealed Himself in a threefold revelation, the first in Abraham, marking the epoch of the Father; the second in Christ, who began the epoch of the Son; and the third in Amalric and his disciples, who inaugurated the era of the Holy Ghost . Under the pretext that a true believer could commit no sin, the Amalricians indulged in every excess, and the sect does not appear to have long survived the death of its founder . See W . Preger, Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Miltelaltee (Leipzig, 1874, i .

167-173) ;

Haureau, Hist. de la Phil. scol . (Paris, 1872) ; C . Schmidt, Hist. de l'Eglise d'Occident pendant le moyen dge (Paris, 1885) ; Hefele, Conciliengesch . (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1886) .