the "Book of Sentences," in the Parma edition, which was received with
great admiration for its logical precision, and its opposition to the
rationalistic tendencies of the times. In it are discussed all the great
theological questions treated by Saint Augustine,--God, Christ, the Holy
Spirit, grace, predestination, faith, free-will, Providence, and the
like,--blended with metaphysical discussions on the soul, the existence
of evil, the nature of angels, and other subjects which interested the
Middle Ages. Such was his fame and dialectical skill that he was taken
away from his teachings and sent to Rome to defend his Order and the
cause of orthodoxy against the slanders of William of Saint Amour, an
aristocratic doctor, who hated the Mendicant Friars and their wandering
and begging habits. William had written a book called "Perils," in which
he exposed the dangers to be apprehended from the new order of monks,
in which he proved himself a true prophet, for ultimately the Mendicant
Friars became subjects of ridicule and reproach. But the Pope came to
the rescue of his best supporters.
On the return of Thomas to Paris he was made doctor of theology, at the
same time with Bonaventura the Franciscan, called "the seraphic doctor,"
between whom and Thomas were intimate ties of friendship. He had now
reached the highest honor that the university could bestow, which was
conferred with such extraordinary ceremony that it would seem to have
been a great event in Paris at that time.
His fame chiefly rests on the ablest treatise written in the Middle
Ages,--the "Summa Theologica,"--in which all the great questions in
theology and philosophy are minutely discussed, in the most exhaustive
manner. He took the side of the Realists, his object being to uphold
Saint Augustine. He was more a Platonist in his spirit than an
Aristotelian, although he was indebted to Aristotle for his method. He
appealed to both reason and authority. He presented the Christian
religion in a scientific form. His book is an assimilation of all that
is precious in the thinking of the Church. If he learned many things at
Paris, Cologne, and Naples, he was also educated by Chrysostom, by
Augustine, and Ambrose. "It is impossible," says Cardinal Newman, and no
authority is higher than his, "to read the _Catena_ of Saint Thomas
without being struck by the masterly skill with which he put it
together. A learning of the highest kind,--not mere literary book
knowledge which may have supplied the place of indexes and tables in
ages destitute of these helps, and when they had to be read in
unarranged and fragmentary manuscripts, but a thorough acquaintance with
the whole range of ecclesiastical antiquity, so as to be able to bring
the substance of all that had been written on any point to bear upon the
text which involved it,--a familiarity with the style of each writer so
as to compress in a few words the pith of the whole page, and a power of
clear and orderly arrangement in this mass of knowledge, are qualities
which make this _Catena_ nearly perfect as an interpretation of
Patristic literature." Dr. Vaughan, in eulogistic language, says: "The
'Summa Theologica' may be likened to one of the great cathedrals of the
Middle Ages, infinite in detail but massive in the grouping of pillars
and arches, forming a complete unity that must have taxed the brain of
the architect to its greatest extent. But greater as work of intellect
is this digest of all theological richness for one thousand years, in
which the thread of discourse is never lost sight of, but winds through
a labyrinth of important discussions and digressions, all bearing on the
fundamental truths which Paul declared and Augustine systematized."
This treatise would seem to be a thesaurus of both Patristic and
Mediaeval learning; not a dictionary of knowledge, but a system of truth
severely elaborated in every part,--a work to be studied by the
Mediaeval students as Calvin's "Institutes" were by the scholars of the
Reformation, and not far different in its scope and end; for the
Patristic, the Mediaeval, and the Protestant divines did not materially
differ in reference to the fundamental truths pertaining to God, the
Incarnation, and Redemption. The Catholic and Protestant divines differ
chiefly on the ideas pertaining to government and ecclesiastical
institutions, and the various inventions of the Middle Ages to uphold
the authority of the Church, not on dogmas strictly theological. A
student in theology could even in our times sit at the feet of Thomas
Aquinas, as he could at the feet of Augustine or Calvin; except that in
the theology which Thomas Aquinas commented upon there is a cumbrous
method, borrowed from Aristotle, which introduced infinite distinctions
and questions and definitions and deductions and ramifications which
have no charm to men who have other things to occupy their minds than
Scholastic subtilties, acute and logical as they may be. Thomas Aquinas
was raised to combat, with the weapons most esteemed in his day, the
various forms of Rationalism, Pantheism, and Mysticism which then
existed, and were included in the Nominalism of his antagonists. And as
long as universities are centres of inquiry the same errors, under other
names, will have to be combated, but probably not with the same methods
which marked the teachings of the "angelical doctor." In demolishing
errors and systematizing truth he was the greatest benefactor to the
cause of "orthodoxy" that appeared in Europe for several centuries,
admired for his genius as much as Spencer and other great lights of
science are in our day, but standing preeminent and lofty over all, like
a beacon light to give both guidance and warning to inquiring minds in
every part of Christendom. Nor could popes and sovereigns render too
great honor to such a prodigy of genius. They offered him the abbacy of
Monte Cassino and the archbishopric of Naples, but he preferred the life
of a quiet student, finding in knowledge and study, for their own sake,
the highest reward, and pursuing his labors without the _impedimenta_ of
those high positions which involve ceremonies and cares and pomps, yet
which most ambitious men love better than freedom, placidity, and
intellectual repose. He lived not in a palace, as he might have lived,
surrounded with flatterers, luxuries, and dignities, but in a cell,
wearing his simple black gown, and walking barefooted wherever he went,
begging his daily bread according to the rules of his Order. His black
gown was not an academic badge, but the Dominican dress. His only badge
of distinction was the doctors' cap.
Dr. Vaughan, in his heavy and unartistic life of Thomas Aquinas, has
drawn a striking resemblance between Plato and the Mediaeval doctor:
"Both," he says, "were nobly born, both were grave from youth, both
loved truth with an intensity of devotion. If Plato was instructed by
Socrates, Aquinas was taught by Albertus Magnus; if Plato travelled into
Italy, Greece, and Egypt, Aquinas went to Cologne, Naples, Bologna, and
Rome; if Plato was famous for his erudition, Aquinas was no less noted
for his universal knowledge. Both were naturally meek and gentle; both
led lives of retirement and contemplation; both loved solitude; both
were celebrated for self-control; both were brave; both held their
pupils spell-bound by their brilliant mental gifts; both passed their
time in lecturing to the schools (what the Pythagoreans were to Plato,
the Benedictines were to the angelical); both shrank from the display of
self; both were great dialecticians; both reposed on eternal ideas; both
were oracles to their generation." But if Aquinas had the soul of Plato,
he also had the scholastic gifts of Aristotle, to whom the Church is
indebted for method and nomenclature as it was to Plato for synthesis
and that exalted Realism which went hand in hand with Christianity. How
far he was indebted to Plato it is difficult to say. He certainly had
not studied his dialectics through translations or in the original, but
had probably imbibed the spirit of this great philosopher through Saint
Augustine and other orthodox Fathers who were his admirers.
Although both Plato and Aristotle accepted "universals" as the
foundation of scientific inquiry, the former arrived at them by
consciousness, and the other by reasoning. The spirit of the two great
masters of thought was as essentially different as their habits and
lives. Plato believed that God governed the world; Aristotle believed
that it was governed by chance. The former maintained that mind is
divine and eternal; the latter that it is a form of the body, and
consequently mortal. Plato thought that the source of happiness was in
virtue and resemblance to God; while Aristotle placed it in riches and
outward prosperity. Plato believed in prayer; but Aristotle thought that
God would not hear or answer it, and therefore that it was useless.
Plato believed in happiness after death; while Aristotle supposed that
death ended all pleasure. Plato lived in the world of abstract ideas;
Aristotle in the realm of sense and observation. The one was religious;
the other secular and worldly. With both the passion for knowledge was
boundless, but they differed in their conceptions of knowledge; the one
basing it on eternal ideas and the deductions to be drawn from them,
and the other on physical science,--the phenomena of Nature,--those
things which are cognizable by the senses. The spiritual life of Plato
was "a longing after love and of eternal ideas, by the contemplation of
which the soul sustains itself and becomes participant in immortality."
The life of Aristotle was not spiritual, but intellectual. He was an
incarnation of mere intellect, the architect of a great temple of
knowledge, which received the name of _Organum_, or the philosophy of
first principles.
Thomas Aquinas, we may see from what has been said, was both Platonic
and Aristotelian. He resembled Plato in his deep and pious meditations
on the eternal realities of the spiritual world, while in the severity
of his logic he resembled Aristotle, from whom he learned precision of
language, lucidity of statement, and a syllogistic mode of argument well
calculated to confirm what was already known, but not to make
attainments in new fields of thought or knowledge. If he was gentle and
loving and pious like Plato, he was also as calm and passionless as
Aristotle.
This great man died at the age of forty-eight, in the year 1274, a few
years after Saint Louis, before his sum of theology was completed. He
died prematurely, exhausted by his intense studies; leaving, however,
treatises which filled seventeen printed folio volumes,--one of the most
voluminous writers of the world. His fame was prodigious, both as a
dialectician and a saint, and he was in due time canonized as one of the
great pillars of the Church, ranking after Chrysostom, Jerome,
Augustine, and Gregory the Great,--the standard authority for centuries
of the Catholic theology.
The Scholastic Philosophy, which culminated in Thomas Aquinas,
maintained its position in the universities of Europe until the
Reformation, but declined in earnestness. It descended to the discussion
of unimportant and often frivolous questions. Even the "angelical
doctor" is quoted as discussing the absurd question as to how many
angels could dance together on the point of a needle. The play of words
became interminable. Things were lost sight of in a barbarous jargon
about questions which have no interest to humanity, and which are
utterly unintelligible. At the best, logical processes can add nothing
to the ideas from which they start. When these ideas are lofty,
discussion upon them elevates the mind and doubtless strengthens its
powers. But when the subjects themselves are frivolous, the logical
tournaments in their defence degrade the intellect and narrow it.
Nothing destroys intellectual dignity more effectually than the waste of
energies in the defence of what is of no practical utility, and which
cannot be applied to the acquisition of solid knowledge. Hence the
Scholastic Philosophy did not advance knowledge, since it did not seek
the acquisition of new truths, but only the establishment of the old.
Its utility consisted in training the human mind to logical reasonings.
It exercised the intellect and strengthened it, as gymnastics do the
body, without enlarging it. It was nothing but barren dialectics,--"dry
bones," a perpetual fencing. The soul cries out for bread; the
Scholastics gave it a stone.
We are amazed that intellectual giants, equal to the old Greeks in
acuteness and logical powers, could waste their time on the frivolous
questions and dialectical subtilties to which they devoted their mighty
powers. However interesting to them, nothing is drier and duller to us,
nothing more barren and unsatisfying, than their logical sports. Their
treatises are like trees with endless branches, each leading to new
ramifications, with no central point in view, and hence never finished,
and which might be carried on _ad infinitum_. To attempt to read their
disquisitions is like walking in labyrinths of ever-opening intricacies.
By such a method no ultimate truth could be arrived at, beyond what was
assumed. There is now and then a man who professes to have derived light
and wisdom from those dialectical displays, since they were doubtless
marvels of logical precision and clearness of statement. But in a
practical point of view those "masterpieces of logic" are utterly
useless to most modern inquirers. These are interesting only as they
exhibit the waste of gigantic energies; they do not even have the merit
of illustrative rhetoric or eloquence. The earlier monks were devout and
spiritual, and we can still read their lofty meditations with profit,
since they elevate the soul and make it pant for the beatitudes of
spiritual communion with God. But the writings of the Scholastic doctors
are cold, calm, passionless, and purely intellectual,--logical without
being edifying. We turn from them, however acute and able, with blended
disappointment and despair. They are fig-trees, bearing nothing but
leaves, such as our Lord did curse. The distinctions are simply
metaphysical, and not moral.
Why the whole force of an awakening age should have been devoted to such
subtilties and barren discussion it is difficult to see, unless they
were found useful in supporting a theology made up of metaphysical
deductions rather than an interpretation of the meaning of Scripture
texts. But there was then no knowledge of Greek or Hebrew; there was no
exegetical research; there was no science and no real learning. There
was nothing but theology, with the exception of Lives of the Saints. The
horizon of human inquiries was extremely narrow. But when the minds of
very intellectual men were directed to one particular field, it would be
natural to expect something remarkable and marvellously elaborate of
its kind. Such was the Scholastic Philosophy. As a mere exhibition of
dialectical acumen, minute distinctions, and logical precision in the
use of words, it was wonderful. The intricacy and detail and
ramifications of this system were an intellectual feat which astonishes
us, yet which does not instruct us, certainly outside of a metaphysical
divinity which had more charm to the men of the Middle Ages than it can
have to us, even in a theological school where dogmatic divinity is made
the most important study. The day will soon come when the principal
chair in the theological school will be for the explanation of the
Scripture texts on which dogmas are based; and for this, great learning
and scholarship will be indispensable. To me it is surprising that
metaphysics have so long retained their hold on the minds of Protestant
divines. Nothing is more unsatisfactory, and to many more repulsive,
than metaphysical divinity. It is a perversion of the spirit of
Christian teachings. "What says our Lord?" should be the great inquiry
in our schools of theology; not, What deductions can be drawn from them
by a process of ingenious reasoning which often, without reference to
other important truths, lands one in absurdities, or at least in
one-sided systems?
But the metaphysical divinity of the Schoolmen had great attractions to
the students of the Middle Ages. And there must have been something in
it which we do not appreciate, or it would not have maintained itself in
the schools for three hundred years. Perhaps it was what those ages
needed,--the discipline through which the mind must go before it could
be prepared for the scientific investigations of our own times. In an
important sense the Scholastic doctors were the teachers of Luther and
Bacon. Certainly their unsatisfactory science was one of the marked
developments of the civilization of Europe, through which the Gothic
nations must need pass. It has been the fashion to ridicule it and
depreciate it in our modern times, especially among Protestants, who
have ridiculed and slandered the papal power and all the institutions of
the Middle Ages. Yet scholars might as well ridicule the text-books they
were required to study fifty years ago, because they are not up to our
times. We should not disdain the early steps by which future progress is
made easy. We cannot despise men who gave up their lives to the
contemplation of subjects which demand the highest tension of the
intellectual faculties, even if these exercises were barren of
utilitarian results. Some future age may be surprised at the comparative
unimportance of questions which interest this generation. The Scholastic
Philosophy cannot indeed be utilized by us in the pursuit of scientific
knowledge; nor (to recur to Vaughan's simile for the great work of
Aquinas) can a mediaeval cathedral be utilized for purposes of oratory
or business. But the cathedral is nevertheless a grand monument,
suggesting lofty sentiments, which it would be senseless and ruthless
barbarism to destroy or allow to fall into decay, but which should
rather be preserved as a precious memento of what is most poetic and
attractive in the Middle Ages. When any modern philosopher shall rear so
gigantic and symmetrical a monument of logical disquisitions as the
"Summa Theologica" is said to be by the most competent authorities, then
the sneers of a Macaulay or a Lewes will be entitled to more
consideration. It is said that a new edition of this great Mediaeval
work is about to be published under the direct auspices of the Pope, as
the best and most comprehensive system of Christian theology ever
written by man.
AUTHORITIES.
Dr. Vaughan's Life of Thomas Aquinas; Histoire de la Vie et des Écrits
de St. Thomas d'Aquin, par l'Abbé Bareille; Lacordaire's Life of Saint
Dominic; Dr. Hampden's Life of Thomas Aquinas; article on Thomas
Aquinas, in London Quarterly, July, 1881; Summa Theologica; Neander,
Milman, Fleury, Dupin, and Ecclesiastical Histories generally;
Biographic Universelle; Werner's Leben des Heiligen Thomas von Aquino;
Trench's Lectures on Mediaeval History; Ueberweg & Rousselot's History
of Philosophy. Dr. Hampden's article, in the Encyclopaedia
Metropolitana, on Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastic Philosophy, is
regarded by Hallam as the ablest view of this subject which has appeared
in English.
THOMAS BECKET.
* * * * *
A.D. 1118-1170.
PRELATICAL POWER.
A great deal has been written of late years on Thomas Becket, Archbishop
of Canterbury in the reign of Henry II.,--some historians writing him
up, and others writing him down; some making him a martyr to the Church,
and others representing him as an ambitious prelate who encroached on
royal authority,--more of a rebel than a patriot. His history has become
interesting, in view of this very discrepancy of opinion,--like that of
Oliver Cromwell, one of those historical puzzles which always have
attraction to critics. And there is abundant material for either side we
choose to take. An advocate can make a case in reference to Becket's
career with more plausibility than about any other great character in
English history,--with the exception of Queen Elizabeth, Cromwell, and
Archbishop Laud.
The cause of Becket was the cause of the Middle Ages. He was not the
advocate of fundamental principles, as were Burke and Bacon. He fought
either for himself, or for principles whose importance has in a measure
passed away. He was a high-churchman, who sought to make the temporal
power subordinate to the spiritual. He appears in an interesting light
only so far as the principles he sought to establish were necessary for
the elevation of society in his ignorant and iron age. Moreover, it was
his struggles which give to his life its chief charm, and invest it with
dramatic interest. It was his energy, his audacity, his ability in
overcoming obstacles, which made him memorable,--one of the heroes of
history, like Ambrose and Hildebrand; an ecclesiastical warrior who
fought bravely, and died without seeing the fruits of his bravery.
There seems to be some discrepancy among historians as to Becket's birth
and origin, some making him out a pure Norman, and others a Saxon, and
others again half Saracen. But that is, after all, a small matter,
although the critics make a great thing of it. They always are inclined
to wrangle over unimportant points. Michelet thinks he was a Saxon, and
that his mother was a Saracen lady of rank, who had become enamored of
the Saxon when taken prisoner while on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land,
and who returned with him to England, embraced his religion, and was
publicly baptized in Saint Paul's Cathedral, her beauty and rank having
won attention; but Mr. Froude and Milman regard this as a late legend.
It would seem, however, that he was born in London about the year 1118
or 1119, and that his father, Gilbert Becket, was probably a respectable
merchant and sheriff, or portreeve, of London, and was a Norman. His
parents died young, leaving him not well provided for; but being
beautiful and bright he was sent to school in an abbey, and afterwards
to Oxford. From Oxford he went into a house of business in London for
three years, and contrived to attract the notice of Theobald, Archbishop
of Canterbury, who saw his talents, sent him to Paris, and thence to
Bologna to study the canon law, which was necessary to a young man who
would rise in the world. He was afterwards employed by Theobald in
confidential negotiations. The question of the day in England was
whether Stephen's son (Eustace) or Matilda's son (Henry of Anjou) was
the true heir to the crown, it being settled that Stephen should
continue to rule during his lifetime, and that Henry should peaceably
follow him; which happened in a little more than a year. Becket had
espoused the side of Henry.
The reign of Henry II., during which Becket's memorable career took
place, was an important one. He united, through his mother Matilda, the
blood of the old Saxon kings with that of the Norman dukes. He was the
first truly English sovereign who had sat on the throne since the
Conquest. In his reign (1154-1189) the blending of the Norman and Saxon
races was effected. Villages and towns rose around the castles of great
Norman nobles and the cathedrals and abbeys of Norman ecclesiastics.
Ultimately these towns obtained freedom. London became a great city with
more than a hundred churches. The castles, built during the disastrous
civil wars of Stephen's usurped reign, were demolished. Peace and order
were restored by a legitimate central power.
Between the young monarch of twenty-two and Thomas, as a favorite of
Theobald and as Archdeacon of Canterbury, an intimacy sprang up. Henry
II. was the most powerful sovereign of Western Europe, since he was not
only King of England, but had inherited in France Anjou and Touraine
from his father, and Normandy and Maine from his mother. By his marriage
with Eleanor of Aquitaine, he gained seven other provinces as her dower.
The dominions of Louis were not half so great as his, even in France.
And Henry was not only a powerful sovereign by his great territorial
possessions, but also for his tact and ability. He saw the genius of
Becket and made him his chancellor, loading him with honors and
perquisites and Church benefices.