‘Whether in the State of Innocence There Would Have Been the Loss of Virginity’. Durand of Saint-Pourçain on the Question (Super Sent., II, 20, 2)

Abstract

The 14^th-century Dominican theologian and philosopher Durand of Saint-Pourçain was among the intellectuals who took part in the medieval debate on virginity, especially on the relationship between virginity and marriage. This paper discusses a question of his Sentences Commentary (Super Sent., II, d. 20, q. 2), in which Durand poses the question of “whether or not there would have been a loss of virginity in marriage” (utrum in actu matrimoniali fuisset amissio virginitatis) both in statu innocentiae and in statu post peccatum. This paper shows how Durand’s solution to the problem is in opposition to Augustine’s and Thomas Aquinas’s views, based on formal and material aspects of virginity.