Why Aristotle deserved more than others the name of philosopher.
That Aristotle erred in many ways; that he is eminent in Logic.
John of Salisbury clearly recognized the supremacy of Aristotle among logicians. After naming Apuleius, Cicero, Porphyry, Boethius, Augustine, and others, he adds:
But while individually they shine forth because of their own merits, they all boast that they worship the very footsteps of Aristotle; to such a degree, indeed, that by a sure pre-eminence he has made peculiarly his own the common name of all philosophers. For by Antonomy par excellence.
It is clear, however, that Aristotle had by no means attained, at the middle of the twelfth century, the authoritative position which he held a hundred years later. This appears in the chapter "On those who Carp at the Works of Aristotle":
I cannot sufficiently wonder what sort of a mind they have (if, that is, they have any) who carp at the works of Aristotle, which, in any case, I proposed not to expound but to praise. Master Theodoric, as I recall, ridiculed the Topics,—not of Aristotle, but of Drogo. Yet he once taught those very Topics. Certain auditors of Master Robert of Melun calumniated this work as practically useless. All decried the Categories. Wherefore I hesitated some time about commending them; but [there was no question as to] the rest of his works, since they were commended by the judgment of all; but I did not think that they should be praised grudgingly. Yet opposition is made to the Elenchi [Sophistical Refutations], though stupidly, because it contains poetry; but clearly the idiom of [the Greek] language does not lend itself readily to translation. In this respect the Analytics seem to me preferable, because they are no less efficient for actual use, and because by their easier comprehension they stimulate eloquence.[18]
The slowness with which these works made their way is described by Roger
Bacon at the end of the thirteenth century.
But a part of the philosophy of Aristotle has come slowly into the use of the Latins. For his Natural Philosophy and Metaphysics, and the Commentaries of Averrhoes and of others, were translated in our times, and were excommunicated at Paris before the year of our Lord 1237 on account of [their heretical views on] the eternity of matter and of time, and on account of the [heresies contained in the] book on Interpretation of Dreams (which is the third book on Sleep and Wakefulness), and on account of the many errors in the translation. The Logicalia were also slowly received and read, for the blessed Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first at Oxford, in my time, to lecture on the book of Elenchi [Sophistical Refutations] and I saw Master Hugo who at first read the book of Posterior Analytics, and I saw his opinion. So there were few [books] which were considered worth [reading] in the aforesaid philosophy of Aristotle, considering the multitudes of Latins; nay, exceedingly few and almost none, up to this year of our Lord 1292. So, too, the Ethics of Aristotle has been tardily tried and has lately been read by Masters, though only here and there. And the entire remaining philosophy of Aristotle in a thousand volumes, in which he treated all the knowledges, has never yet been translated and made known to the Latins.[19]
The last sentence of the account displays an ignorance of the number of Aristotle's extant writings which was doubtless shared by all of Bacon's contemporaries. Earlier writers, beginning with Andronicus of Rhodes (first century B.C.), had also placed the number at one thousand; Bacon probably copied the statement from one of these.
The attitude of ecclesiastical authorities toward the study of Aristotle at Paris is expressed in a series of regulations extending over nearly half a century (1210-1254). They indicate at first a fear of certain of the newly translated books on account of their heretical views, as is stated by Roger Bacon (p. 44). This suspicion gradually disappears; and by 1254 all the more important works of Aristotle are not only approved, but prescribed for study.