John Punch, O.F.M. Obs. (†1661)

Life

John Punch was born in County Cork, Ireland, about 1599.¹ “He has been frequently but erroneously called Ponce, from the Latinized surname Poncius.”² He was formed in the Irish Colleges abroad: he entered the Franciscans in Louvain, studied philosophy in Cologne, returned to Louvain to study theology, and in 1625, when the College of St. Isidore was founded in Rome, he was in the first group of students. Here he studied under Anthony Hickey, who had been a student of MacCaghwell.³ He taught the cursus of philosophy twice at St. Isidore’s, and then taught theology there. While in Rome, he collaborated on the Wadding edition, supplementing Licheto’s commentary. He is best known for having written the first cursus of Scotist philosophy, which was well received by Caramuel, but was harshly criticized by Mastri. In the course of its five editions (1643–1672, the last being a posthumous reprint), it was refined, and responses to Mastri’s criticism were added. Part of the problem was Punch’s originality: he considered it sufficient for a Scotist to agree with the Subtle Doctor’s conclusions, without necessarily accepting his arguments.⁴ In 1648 he left Rome for France, and spent most of the rest of his life in Paris at the Grand Couvent. During this period he published a cursus of theology in 1652, and a commentary on the Opus Oxoniense in 1661. For some decades it was held that he died in 1672 or 1673.⁵ This contention was disproved by the publication of a necrology from the Grand Couvent that records his death there on May 26, 1661, on the feast of the Ascension.⁶

Works 👷‍♂️

• Theologia cursus …:
  • 1652 ed.
  • 1671 ed
• Commentary on Op. Ox. (1661):
  • There are two Parisian editions in the same year, but with different publishers, both in Via Iacobea. Since the two editions have a different image on the frontispiece, I gather that this is not simply a case of different groups of people paying to each print a part of the required number of copies.
    • Both editions start p. 582 in exactly the same place. Maybe they printed it together and put different frontispieces on it for the different shops.
  • Vol. 1, part 1 (book I, dd. 1–11):
    • Simeonis Piget (The scan also includes part 2, with d. 12 starting on p. 701).
    • Sebastian Huré et Frederíc Leonard
  • Vol. 1, part 2 (book I, dd. 12–48)
    • Paris: Sebastian Cramoisy, Denis Bechet, Louis Billaine, Simeon Piget, Sebastian Huré et Frederíc Leonard
  • …
• See PRDL for more.

---

1. On his life see Benignus Millet, “Punch, John,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 11 (Washington, D.C.: Guild Press, 1967), 1025; Maurice Grajewski, “John Ponce, Franciscan Scotist of the Seventeenth Century,” Franciscan Studies 6 (1946): 54–92.↩︎

2. Millet, “Punch, John,” 1025.↩︎

3. Cf. Grajewski, “John Ponce,” 60; Alessandro M. Apollonio, “L’intellezione dei singolari materiali nelle ‘Annotationes’ di Hugo Cavellus alle Quaestiones super libros Aristotelis De anima attribuite al beato G. Duns Scoto” (PhD thesis, Pontificia Universitas Sanctae Crucis, 2003), 91.↩︎

4. Cf. Grajewski, “John Ponce,” 91.↩︎

5. Cf. Grajewski, 63–64.↩︎

6. Cf. Jérôme Poulenc, “Deux registres de religieux décédés au grand couvent de Paris au XVIIe siècle,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 59 (1966): 344.↩︎