=183=: 21. =Paris=, etc. The great Universities reached the zenith of
excellence in the thirteenth century, the age of Pope Innocent III, St.
Thomas, and Dante.
=185=: 10. =Bec.= Famous monastery founded by a poor Norman knight,
Herluin. Bec drew the great Lanfranc and others to its school. Many are
accustomed to regard the Renaissance as the fountain whence have issued
all streams of art, literature, and science. It is only necessary to
turn to any of the teeming university or monastic centers of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries to dispel this so common illusion.
THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF
UNIVERSITIES: ABELARD
=186=: 15. =Abelard.= Born in Brittany, 1079. He was a contentious,
arrogant, but brilliant and fascinating rationalist. He triumphed over
William of Champeaux, but was defeated in a theological contest by St.
Bernard.
=187=: 29. =Heresy of= (_a_) =Tertullian=, (_b_) =Sabellius=. (_a_)
Modified Montanism; belief in rigid asceticism, the Montanists being,
according to their doctrine, "Pneumatics," the Catholics, "Psychics,"
_i.e._ men of heaven, men of earth. (_b_) A heresy which attempted to
_explain_ the Trinity, and which denied the Personality of Jesus Christ.
=188=:28. =Scholastic philosophy.= A constructive system founded by
Aristotle, Christianized by Boethius, amplified by St. Anselm, Albert
the Great, and others, perfected as a school, in its being harmonized
with theology, by St. Thomas of Aquin. Love of subtilizing and of
display, and barbarity of terminology, caused its decline after the
thirteenth century. Political and religious strife also accelerated
decadence, until the Council of Trent restored philosophy to its true
position as queen of human sciences and handmaid of Religion. The chief
feature of Christian scholastic philosophy is the harmonizing of natural
and supernatural truth, _i.e._ the unifying of philosophy and theology,
or the perfect conciliation of reason with faith--_distinction_ without
_opposition_.
=192=: 10. =The Seven Arts.= The Trivium and Quadrivium: Grammar, Logic,
Rhetoric; Music, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Geometry,--these seven
comprising the Liberal Arts.
=193=: 19. =John of Salisbury.= Noted English scholar of the twelfth
century. In disfavor with Henry II, because of his defense of St. Thomas
à Becket.
=195=: 17. St. James iii. 17.
=195=: 23. St. James iii. 6.
=196=: 21. =Samson and Solomon.= Type of bodily and of spiritual
strength--strength forfeited by folly. One of Newman's striking
comparisons.
=199=: 18. =Heu, vitam....= Alas, I have wasted my life by doing nothing
thoroughly.