THE SCHOOLMEN AND THEOLOGY
[Sidenote: Secular Studies.]
Mediaeval learning, whether sacred or secular, was founded upon
authority. The Scholasticus, who took the place of the ancient
Grammaticus, was not an investigator, but merely an interpreter. On
the one side the books of the sacred Scriptures as interpreted by the
Fathers were the rule of faith; on the other side as the guide of
reason stood the works of the Philosopher, as Aristotle was called in
the Middle Ages. But until the thirteenth century few of his works
were known, and those only in Latin translations. Here were the
materials, slight enough, on which hung future development. The
secular knowledge taught in the ordinary schools was that represented
by the division of the Seven Arts into the elementary Trivium of
Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, followed by the Quadrivium of Music,
Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy. The scope of the Trivium was much
wider than the terms denote. Thus Grammar included the study of the
classical Latin authors, which never entirely ceased; Rhetoric
comprised the practice of composition in prose and verse, and even a
knowledge of the elements of Roman Law; Dialectic or Logic became the
centre of the whole secular education, because it was the only
intellectual exercise which was supposed to be independent of pagan
writers. In the Quadrivium--the scientific education of the
time--Arithmetic and Astronomy were taught for the purpose of
calculating the times of the Christian festivals; Music consisted
chiefly of the rules of plain-song. It was the subjects of the
Quadrivium which were subsequently enlarged in scope by the
discoveries of the twelfth century. Apart from these subjects little
attempt was made at a systematic training in theology. In so far as
any such existed it was purely doctrinal, and aimed merely at enabling
those in Holy Orders to read the Bible and the Fathers for themselves
and to expound them to others.
[Sidenote: Scholasticism.]
Now the speculative intellect trained in dialectic had no material to
work upon save what could be got from the Scriptures, the Fathers, and
the dogmas of the Church; and Scholasticism is the name given to the
attempt to apply the processes of logic to the systematisation and the
interpretation of the Catholic faith. The movement was one which,
narrow as it seems to us, yet made for ultimate freedom of human
thought; for it meant the exercise of the intellect on matters which
for long were regarded as beyond the reach of rationalistic
explanation. There was much difference of opinion among the thinkers
as to the limits to be assigned to such freedom of speculation on the
mysteries of the faith, some starting from the standpoint of idealists
and endeavouring to avoid the logical consequences of their
speculations; while others, adopting so far as possible a position of
pure empiricism, set tradition at defiance, and hoped by the aid of
reason to reach the conclusions of divine revelation.
[Sidenote: Realists and Nominalists.]
The philosophical problem to which the mediæval thinkers addressed
themselves is one that it is essential to the progress of human
thought to solve. Whence do we derive general notions (Universals, as
they were called), and do they correspond to anything which actually
exists? Thus for the purpose of classifying our knowledge we use
certain terms, such as genera, species, and others more technical. Do
these in reality exist independently of particular individuals or
substances? One school of philosophers, basing their reasoning upon
Plato, maintained that such general ideas had a real existence of
their own, and hence gained the name of Realists. But another school,
who took Aristotle as their champion, held that reality can be
asserted of the individual alone, that there is nothing real in the
general idea except the name by which it is designated; while some of
these Nominalists, as they came to be called, even proclaimed that the
parts of an individual whole were mere words, and could not be
considered as having an existence of their own. With the application
of these definitions to theological dogmas we reach the beginning of
Scholastic Theology. Here both sides were soon landed in difficulties.
Nominalism, in its denial of reality to general notions, undermined
the Catholic idea of the Church: in its recognition of none except
individuals it destroyed the whole conception of the solidarity of
original sin; while those of its professors who allowed no existence
of their own to the parts of an individual whole, resolved the Trinity
into three Gods. On the other hand, the danger of Realism was that,
since individuals were regarded merely as forms or modes of some
general idea, these philosophers were inclined to make no distinction
between individuals and to fall into pantheism. As a result, the
personality of man, and with it the immortality of the soul,
disappeared, and even the personality of God threatened to lose itself
in the universe which He had created. These tendencies will be clear
from a short account of the chief schoolmen or writers on Scholastic
Philosophy.
[Sidenote: Roscelin and Anselm.]
The first great names are those of Roscelin and Anselm of Canterbury.
Roscelin (between 1050 and 1125), primarily a dialectician, rigidly
applied his logic to theological dogmas. If we may judge from the
accounts of his opponents, Anselm and Abailard, he took up a position
of extreme individualism and denied reality alike to a whole and to
the parts of which any whole is commonly said to be composed. The
application of this principle to the doctrine of the Trinity landed
him in tritheism, and he did not shrink from the reproach. Roscelin, a
theologian by accident, was answered by Anselm who was primarily a
theologian, and a dialectician by accident. If Roscelin was the
founder of Nominalism Anselm identified Realism with the doctrine of
the Church. But Anselm's Realism is not the result of independent
thought. In his methods he has been rightly styled the "last of the
Fathers." His keynote was Belief in the Christian faith as the road to
understanding it. Thus his object was to give to the dogmas accepted
by the Church a philosophical demonstration. To him Realism was the
orthodox philosophical doctrine because it was the one most in harmony
with Christian theology. He applied philosophical arguments to the
explanation of those tenets of the faith which later scholastic
writers placed among the mysteries to be accepted without question.
[Sidenote: Abailard.]
The reputed founder of definite Realism was William of Champeaux
(1060-1121), a pupil of Roscelin himself, a teacher at Paris, and
ultimately Bishop of Chalons. By the account of his enemy Abailard, he
held an uncompromising Realism which maintained that the Universal was
a substance or thing which was present in its entirety in each
individual. It was the presence of such crude Realism as this which
gave his opportunity to the greatest teacher of this early period of
Scholasticism, Peter Abailard (1079-1142). A pupil of both Roscelin
and William of Champeaux--the two extremes of Nominalism and
Realism--he aimed in his teaching at arriving at a _via media_ to
which subsequent writers have given the name Conceptualism. According
to him the individual is the only true substance, and the genus is
that which is asserted of a number of individuals; it is therefore a
name used as a sign--a concept, although he does not use the word.
Thus he does not condemn the Realistic theory borrowed from Plato, of
Universals as having an existence of their own; he regards them as
ideas or exemplars which existed in the divine mind before the
creation of things. But he opposes the tendency in Realism to treat as
identical the qualities which resemble each other in different
individuals, since that abolishes the personality of the individual
which to him is the only reality. Like Roscelin he did not hesitate to
apply his dialectic to theology. Here, while repudiating the tritheism
of his master, he practically reproduced the old heresy of Sabellius
which reduced the Trinity to three aspects or attributes of the Divine
Being--power, wisdom, and love. "A doctrine is to be believed," he
held, "not because God has said it, but because we are convinced by
reason that it is so." His whole attitude was that of the free, if
reverent, enquirer. "By doubt," he says, "we come to enquiry; by
enquiry we reach the truth." His book _Sic et Non_, a collection
of conflicting opinions of the Christian Fathers on the chief tenets
of the faith, was to be the first step towards arriving at the truth.
[Sidenote: Mysticism.]
He was condemned twice--his doctrine of the Trinity at Soissons in
1121, his whole position at Sens in 1141. The leaders of orthodoxy met
him not with argument but with a demand for recantation. St. Norbert
during the early part of his life, and St. Bernard both early and
late, pursued him with their enmity. Their objection was not to his
particular views, but to his whole attitude towards divine revelation;
and the conclusions in which the use of the scholastic method landed
its advocates perhaps justified the rigid theologians in the general
distrust of the exercise of reason on such subjects. St. Bernard did
not hesitate to attack even Gilbert de la Porrée, Bishop of Poictiers,
an avowed Realist, who attempted to explain the Trinity. In fact, St.
Bernard represents the reaction from Scholasticism, which took the
form of Mysticism, that is, the purely contemplative attitude towards
the verities of the Christian creed. In this he was followed with much
greater extravagance by the school which found its home in the great
abbey of St. Victor--Hugh (1097-1143), who formulated the sentence
"Knowledge is belief, and belief is love," and Richard (died in 1173),
who applied to the intuitive perception of spiritual things and to the
love of them the same dialectical and metaphysical methods as the
Schoolmen applied to reason.
[Sidenote: After Abailard.]
The results of Abailard's work are seen in two directions. His _Sic
et Non_ became the foundation of the work of the "Summists," who,
in the place of Abailard's purely critical work, occupied themselves
in systematising authorities with a view to the reconciliation of
their conflicting opinions. The greatest of these was Peter the
Lombard (died 1160), who became Bishop of Paris, and whose
_Sententiae_ was taken as the accredited text-book of theology
for the next three hundred years. With the Summists theology returned
to its attitude of unquestioning obedience to the conclusions of the
early Fathers. But in the second place, Abailard was indirectly
responsible for "the troubling of the Realistic waters," which
resulted in many modifications of the original position.
[Sidenote: Classical revival.]
A justification for the attitude of the Church towards the followers
of Abailard is to be found in the apparent exhaustion of the
speculative movement which had started at the end of the eleventh
century, and the consequent degeneracy of logical studies. It was a
result of this that in the second half of the twelfth century many of
the best minds were directing their energies into the channel of
classical learning which was to prepare the way for the next phase of
Scholasticism. Besides being a philosopher and a theologian, Abailard
was also a scholar well read in classical literature. The cathedral
school of Chartres, founded by Fulbert at the beginning of the
eleventh century, was the centre of this classical Renaissance, and it
rose to the height of its fame under Bernard Sylvester and his pupil,
William of Conches; while the greatest representative of this learning
was a pupil of William of Conches, John of Salisbury, an historian of
philosophy rather than himself a philosopher or theologian.
[Sidenote: Origin of universities.]
It was in the twelfth century and out of the cathedral schools that
the medieval universities arose. The monastic schools had spent their
intellectual force, and during this century they almost ceased to
educate the secular clergy. St. Anselm, when Abbot of Bec in Normandy,
was the last of the great monastic teachers. But it was not from the
school of Chartres but from that of Paris that the greatest University
of the Middle Ages took its origin. Paris was identified with the
scholastic studies of dialectic and theology, and it was the fame of
William of Champeaux, and still more that of Abailard, which drew
students in crowds to the cathedral school of Paris. But no university
immediately resulted. Indeed, the Guild of Masters, from which it
originated, is not traceable before 1170, and the four Nations and the
Rector did not exist until the following century. Its recognition as a
corporation dates from a bull of Innocent III about 1210. Its
development starts from the close of its struggle with the Chancellor
and cathedral school of Paris, in which contest it obtained the papal
help. Before the middle of the thirteenth century the University had
acquired its full constitution. But its great fame as a place of
education dates from the teaching of the two great Dominicans,
Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas in the convent of their Order in
Paris during the middle years of the century. This new outburst of
philosophical studies was due to the recovery of many hitherto unknown
works of Aristotle, and as a consequence classical studies were
completely neglected and Chartres was deserted for Paris.
[Sidenote: Aristotle in the East.]
We have seen that the contemporaries of Abailard knew none but
Aristotle's logical works, and these only in part and in Latin
translations. So far nothing had interfered with the development of
thought along "purely Western, purely Latin, purely Christian" lines.
Churchmen who did not disapprove of dialectic altogether, had accepted
and used Aristotle so far as they understood what they had of his
works. Heretics there had been, but hitherto none had questioned the
authority of the Bible or the Church. Meanwhile in the east a
completer knowledge of Aristotle's works had been communicated by the
Nestorian Christians to their Mohammedan masters. Greek books were
translated into Arabic, and Arabian philosophy, already monotheistic,
became permeated with Aristotelian ideas. Moreover, the union of
philosophical and medical studies among the Arabs caused them to
attach a special value to Aristotle's treatises on natural science. In
Spain the Arabs handed on their knowledge of Aristotle to the Jews,
and it was from the Jews of Andalusia, Marseilles, and Montpellier
that the works of the Greek philosopher and his Arabian commentators
became known in the west.
[Sidenote: Revival in the west.]
By the middle of the twelfth century the chief of these works--texts,
paraphrases, commentaries--had, at the instance of Raymond, Archbishop
of Toledo, been rendered into Latin by Archdeacon Dominic Gondisalvi,
assisted by a band of translators. But the translations of Aristotle's
own works were not from the original Greek, but from the Arabic, which
laid stress upon the most anti-Christian side of Aristotle's thought,
such as the eternity of the world and the denial of immortality. The
result was an outbreak of heretical speculation along pantheistic
lines. Swift steps were taken: the heretics were hunted down, and in
1209 the Council of Paris forbade the study of Aristotle's own works
or those of his commentators which dealt with natural philosophy;
while in 1215 the statutes of the University renewed the prohibition.
But such prohibition did not include any of the logical works; and in
1231 a bull of Gregory IX only excepted any of Aristotle's works until
they had been examined and purged of all heresy. Finally, in 1254, a
statute of the University actually prescribed nearly all the works of
Aristotle, including even the most suspected, as text-books for the
lectures. Meanwhile fresh translations were made from the Arabic by
Michael Scot and others at the instance of Frederick II, so that by
1225 the whole body of his works was to be found in Latin form.
Further still, the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204 had
brought back to the west a knowledge of a large part of Aristotle's
writings in their original form. Translations were now made into Latin
straight from the Greek; and Thomas Aquinas, seconded by Pope Urban
IV, took especial pains to encourage such scholarship.
[Sidenote: The later Scholasticism.]
By this medium there was developed the great system of orthodox
Aristotelianism which was the form taken by Scholasticism in the later
Middle Ages. This was the work of the Friars, who, for the purpose of
giving to their own students the best procurable training in theology,
established houses of residence in Paris and elsewhere. The quarrels
between the University of Paris and the municipality in the first half
of the thirteenth century gave their opportunity to the Friars, and
even after the settlement of the quarrels they remained and became
formidable rivals to the teachers drawn from the secular clergy. It
was only in 1255 that, after a severe struggle, the University was
forced by a bull of Alexander IV to admit the Friars to its
privileges, although it succeeded in imposing upon them an oath of
obedience to its statutes.
[Sidenote: The change of position.]
It was the Franciscans who began this new intellectual movement in the
persons of the Englishman, Alexander of Hales (died 1245), who was the
first to be able to use the whole of the Aristotelian writings, and
his pupil, the mystic Bonaventura (died 1274). But the scholastic
philosophy as it is taught to this day was the work of the two great
Dominicans, Albert of Bollstädt, a Suabian, known as Albertus Magnus
(1193-1280), and his even greater pupil, Thomas of Aquino, an Italian
(1227-74). The endeavour of these writers was to take over into the
service of the Church the whole Aristotelian philosophy. It was a
consequence of this that the old question of the nature of Universals
was not so all-important, or that at any rate it ceased to be treated
from a purely logical standpoint. The great Dominicans were very
moderate Realists; but they treated Logic as only one among a number
of subjects. Albert wrote works which in print fill twenty-one folio
volumes (whence his name Magnus); but his fame has been somewhat
obscured by the more methodical, if almost equally voluminous (in
seventeen folio volumes) works of his successor. The result of their
labours was a wonderfully complete harmonisation of philosophy and
theology as these subjects were understood by their respective
champions. This was brought about by the use of two methods. In the
first place, the works of Aristotle on the one side, and the Bible and
the writings of the Fathers on the other side, were treated as of
equal authority in their respective spheres The ingenuity of the
theologians was to be employed in harmonising them. It is, in fact,
only from this period that "the Scholastic Philosophy became
distinguished by that servile deference to authority" which we
ordinarily attribute to it.
[Sidenote: Reason and faith.]
But, in the second place, any such harmonisation could only be carried
out by some demarcation of territory. The earlier orthodox writers
like Anselm, as we have seen, did not hesitate to attempt a
philosophical explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity. But
Aristotle and his Arabian commentators were monotheistic, and
consequently the reconciliation between the Aristotelian philosophy
and the Christian faith could only be effected by distinguishing
between natural and revealed religion. The truths of the former were
demonstrable by reason, of which Aristotle was the supreme guide. The
truths of the latter were mysteries to be accepted on an equally good
though different authority. By such methods these later schoolmen
excepted and accepted the doctrines of the Trinity and the
Incarnation, though they allowed the doctrine of the existence of God
to be susceptible of logical proof. But notwithstanding these
exceptions, the teaching of the Dominicans was a wonderful attempt to
abolish the inevitable dualism between faith and reason.
[Sidenote: Thomists and Scotists.]
The history of Scholasticism after Thomas Aquinas is largely occupied
by an account of the quarrel between the rival schools of Thomists and
Scotists. The great teacher of the generation after St. Thomas was a
Franciscan, Duns Scotus, the "Subtle Doctor," who taught at Oxford and
Paris and died in 1308. His teaching differed in two ways from that of
his Dominican predecessor. In the first place he excepted a larger
number of theological doctrines as not being capable of philosophic
proof, so that his teaching tended to bring back and to emphasise the
dualism between faith and reason. It is for this reason that his
system has been considered as the beginning of the decline of
Scholasticism. In the second place, the real quarrel between Thomists
and Scotists centred round the question of the freedom of the will.
The followers of St. Thomas maintained that although the will is to
some extent subordinate to the reason, yet it is free to determine its
own course of action after a process of rational comparison, by
contrast with the animals which act on the impulse of the moment. The
Scotists, on the other hand, taught that what is called the will is
merely a name for the possibility of determining without motive in
either of two opposite directions. The importance of this difference
of view consisted in this--that whereas the Thomists held that God
subjects His will to a rational determination and therefore commands
what is good because it is good, the Scotist taught that good is so
because God wills it; if He chose to will the exact opposite, that
would be equally good--in other words, he attributed to God an
entirely arbitrary will. The two greatest disciples of St. Thomas were
Dante and the Franciscan Roger Bacon (1214-92), the latter of whom
fell into disfavour with the superiors of his own Order in consequence
of his scientific studies, and spent many years at the end of his life
in prison.
[Sidenote: Results of Scholasticism.]
The Scholastic philosophy failed to justify the doctrines of the
Church to a rapidly expanding world. But it is unjust and ungrateful
to stigmatise its results as barren. In the first place it gave a most
valuable training in logical method to the keenest intellects of the
time. Moreover, the very attempt to establish the Christian faith by
argument was an unconscious homage to the supremacy of reason as the
ultimate guide; while, finally, in the philosophy of St. Thomas, all
nature was regarded as a fit subject for enquiry, and some of the
greatest Schoolmen, as we have just seen, were noted for their
investigations into natural phenomena.