The succeeding century, however, did bring with it an anxious problem. There came a large influx of new learning out of the pagan past—the encyclopædic knowledge of Aristotle. Aristotle had been introduced into the world of Latin Christianity long ere this through the medium of Boëthius in the days of Theodoric.[72] The Dark Ages had intervened since then. Now came a second and a much more significant advent of Aristotle. This time he came through a non-Christian medium, through the interpretations of the ‘great commentator,’ the Moslem Ibn-Roschd, Averrhoës. Could the Stagirite be won for Christ; could his teachings be enlisted for the Christian theodicæa? The Church could not but be alive to the risks involved in any converse with Aristotelianism. There were radical contrasts between the Platonic and Aristotelian methods. The latter was inductive, non-committal, denoted an impartial examination of natural phenomena, the range of which was infinitely more comprehensive than anything which any other human mind had ever attempted. Aristotle seemed intent rather upon coldly collecting evidence from the operations of a soulless Nature than extolling the wonders of God in a beatific vision. The extent of secular knowledge opened up in the writings of Aristotle was, then, vast and their attraction to the alert and curious mind correspondingly vivid; but the attractiveness had to be viewed with caution.
The Church perceived that there were in the Peripatetic philosophy elements which must be repugnant to truly devout minds. This would have been true even had the pure unadulterated text of Aristotle been in question; it was the more cogently true seeing that Aristotle was presented to the Christian world through the voice of Averrhoës and the commentary was more familiar than the original.
During the tenth and eleventh centuries when Christendom was for the most part wrapped in a barbarous ignorance, Saracen culture, in the caliphates of Baghdad and Cordova, had kept alive the sciences—mathematics, astronomy, medicine—and speculative thinkers had preserved, not indeed uncorrupted, yet always as a vital influence, the ancient philosophy of Greece, when to the Christian world it was lost in oblivion. Side by side with an orthodox philosophy in consonance with the teachings of the Koran, Islam had produced a heretic philosophy, which though written in a Semitic language and modified by an oriental environment, was essentially Greek, essentially Aristotelian.[73] To the Arabian thinkers the Stagirite represented the utmost limit of the human intelligence; they could not conceive that there could ever be improvement upon knowledge so Catholic, synthesis so complete.
The first of the great Arabian philosophers, Alfarabi, had been Neoplatonist in thought, Aristotelian in method.[74] His great successor, Avicenna, was Aristotelian both in the content and the logical scheme of his work.[75] The distinctive teachings of Avicenna were, first, the nominalist doctrine that universality exists not in reality, but in thought only; secondly, that matter is uncreated and eternal; thirdly, that the first and only direct emanation from God or the First Cause is Intelligence, νοῦς, but that this communication of intelligence to lesser beings is not a single act in time, but a constant process or an everlasting act. While in the eastern caliphate these bold speculations were strongly denounced by the later philosopher of Baghdad, Ghazali, and were repudiated in a powerful orthodox reaction;[76] in Spain at the beginning of the twelfth century Avempace and Abubacer were teaching that the life of the soul is a progress from a purely instinctive existence shared with the lower animals to a spiritual absorption in the divine essence and intellect; while the latter philosopher added the contention that religious creeds were but types of, or approximations to, absolute truth, which the philosopher, but never the mere theologian, may attain. The greatest of all the Arabian thinkers, Averrhoës, whose life extended over the greater part of the twelfth century was, in even greater degree than Avicenna, a worshipper of Aristotle.[77] While Avicenna occasionally questioned his great original, Averrhoës never did. He laid no claim to originality. To him the substance of human wisdom could never alter, being enshrined for ever in Aristotle’s pages. If Averrhoïsm differs from Aristotelianism, it does not differ consciously. Averrhoïsm is simply and solely the undiluted gospel of Aristotle, as Averrhoës conceived it.
Its principal theses—the Averrhoïst version of Aristotle—are the eternity of matter and the unity of the intellect.[78] Matter is uncreated. God did not create; He is Himself the primordial element in things, the latent force or impulse in the universe, which gives it both its being and continuance. Emanating from the First Cause is the active intellect. For Averrhoës makes an important distinction between νοῦς ποιητικός and νοῦς ποθητικός, the latter being the human intellect. Averrhoës explains the difference by the analogy of the sun and the human vision. Just as by the light which it sheds the sun produces the capacity to see, so the active intellect produces the capacity to understand. But the human intellect has no individual immortality, being at death absorbed in the universal mind. Man, indeed, possesses no personal immortality. Only in man’s power of reproducing his species can there be said to be any human immortality. The human race is permanent. In the fullest sense, however, only the active intellect is eternal.
The attitude of Averrhoës to Islam, and indeed to all religion, is important. It may be summed up by saying that he was the friend of religion, the enemy of theology, for which he could see no excuse. There could be no compromise between faith and philosophy. The theologian was at the outset hopelessly hampered in the search for truth, because he had to premise all the articles of his creed. His system, thus conditioned, became a mere hodge-podge of sophistic quibblings, groundless distinctions, fanciful allegories, which did but serve to obscure and distort the religion which it pretended to expound. The sincere and exact thinker could accept no such postulates, start with no preconceptions. Philosophy and religion must be kept completely apart; the attempt to suffuse them—made in theology—did but corrupt both. They were not, however, mutually subversive. Religion was no branch of knowledge, no matter of arid formularies; it was an inward power, an inspiration. It was indispensable, because it was the basis of morality for the multitude who could not aspire to philosophy. But while Averrhoës thus discountenanced any attempt to instil religious doubts into the popular mind, his attitude towards religion was exclusively utilitarian, and he obviously regarded it as the inferior of philosophy. The special religion of philosophers, he declared, was to study what exists, for the noblest worship of God was in the contemplation of his works. Philosophy, in short, the pursuit of wisdom, was the highest form of religion, higher than that which is based upon prophecy.[79]
Averrhoïsm speedily penetrated into Christendom. Aragon and Castile naturally received it early. In Languedoc, at the schools of Montpellier, Narbonne, Perpignan, Arabian medicine and philosophy both flourished. Scholars from central and western Europe, visiting the medical schools of the Moors, no doubt brought back with them the current views of the Saracen philosopher as well as the Saracen physician. The first Latin version of Averrhoës’ commentaries is attributed to Michael Scot, who came fresh from Toledo to the court of Frederick II; while there is a tradition that the son of Averrhoës lived for a time in the palace of that most eclectic potentate.[80] From Saracen Toledo itself, from Christians and Jews in Spain and Provence, came translations of Averrhoës. It was probably with extraordinary rapidity that the ideas of the Arabian philosopher became the common property of the Christian schoolmen.[81] Quite certainly Latin Averrhoïsm was a force to be reckoned with by the middle of the thirteenth century.[82]
The Averrhoïst was not the only Latin version of Aristotle current in western Christendom in the twelfth century. The capture of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204 had brought Catholic Europe directly into contact with Greek philosophy, and translations direct from the Greek into Latin had been attempted, one of the earliest being made by Bishop Grosseteste. Various translations of Aristotle were, then, available. Were they to be regarded as open without restriction to the curious eye of scholarship? The Church decided against such freedom. In 1210 a council of the ecclesiastical province of Sens, held at Paris, having publicly condemned the heresies of Amaury de Bène, went on to protect the unwary from another source of possible contamination by commanding that neither the works of Aristotle nor the commentaries upon him should be read in Paris under pain of excommunication.[83] The commentaries referred to must be either those of Averrhoës or similar Arabian treatises. In 1215 this prohibition was renewed by the papal legate, under whose supervision the schools of Paris came. Gregory IX, in a regulation addressed to the masters and students of Paris on April 13, 1231, made the prohibition provisional, until such time as the books of Aristotle could be examined and expurgated. At the same time he entrusted this important task to William of Auxerre and two others. The project is very much to the credit of the Pope, a genuine supporter of learning who, however, had probably not realized how great an undertaking it was. At all events it came to nothing; and the prohibition, although renewed by Urban IV, in January 1263, would appear to have remained a dead-letter. In 1255 the ‘Physics’ and ‘Metaphysics’ of Aristotle were prescribed for the course in the Arts’ faculty in the University. In fact the Aristotelian impulse in the vivid and vigorous atmosphere of the youthful Parisian schools was too strong. Neither Aristotle nor Averrhoës could be got rid of by papal inhibition. The keenest interest had been aroused in them. It were better, as it was simpler, to utilize such keenness rather than to attempt to combat it. Of all the great services rendered to the Church by the Dominican order none was greater than its capture of profane learning for orthodox Christianity. The great Franciscans were expounding the current theology of the day with its tinge of Platonism; the Dominicans now came forward to adapt Aristotle for the service of Christianity. In 1256 Alexander IV commissioned Albertus Magnus to write his ‘De unitate intellectus contra Averroëm’: a fact that is proof positive of the headway that had already been made not only by Aristotelianism but by the tenets of the ‘great commentator.’ The tractate is indeed written against Averrhoës himself, not Averrhoïsts, but the fact that the Pope entrusted Albert of Cologne with the task of answering the former is evidence of the activity of the latter.[84] Fifteen years later Thomas Aquinas produced another work on the same subject: but this one definitely ‘contra Averroïstas.’ Between the years 1261 and 1269 Aquinas was, together with William of Moerbeke, at the court of Rome engaged upon the great task, now at length undertaken under the auspices of the Holy See, of making a translation and commentary on Aristotle. In the latter year he appeared at Paris on the occasion of the assembly there of a chapter-general of the Dominican order. It has been maintained that the real reason of his presence was to clear the Prædicants of the suspicion of Averrhoïsm.[85]
The middle and the latter half of the thirteenth century were years of violent controversy in the University of Paris. Fundamentally the source of this was the jealousy of the secular clergy against the Mendicant orders, which had succeeded in establishing themselves in the University earlier in the century, the Dominicans securing their first chair in 1217, the Franciscans theirs in 1219. Apprehensive lest the Friars should achieve a complete predominance, the seculars under the leadership of Gerard of Abbeville and the acrimonious William of Saint-Amour led a heated attack upon them, first only on the practical question of university privileges. But it was not long before matters of doctrine were involved, and regulars and seculars were soon denouncing each other as heretics and antichrist.[86] It is not easy to discover what was the doctrinal position of the seculars, but they seem to have reproached the Dominicans at all events with overfondness for philosophy as distinct from theology.[87] Together with the contest between seculars and regulars in the University there went also one between the two great Mendicant orders. The same charge seems to have been preferred against the Prædicants by their rivals. They cared too much for knowledge that was not wholly sacred; they were too scientific, too intellectualist.[88] Such is the gist of the diatribes launched against the Dominicans, especially Thomas Aquinas, by Archbishop Peckham.[89] There is no doubt that he deliberately tried to involve Aquinas in the suspicion of Averrhoïsm. A certain Gilles de Lessines, sending to Albertus Magnus a list of fifteen errors current in Paris, includes in the number thirteen definitely Averrhoïst doctrines together with two theories of Aquinas, not Averrhoïst, to which, however, the Augustinians took exception.[90] Clearly the Franciscans were endeavouring to discredit not only the Averrhoïsts, but the Aristotelians. In the year 1270 there appeared two important treatises: the one by a certain Siger of Brabant, entitled ‘De anima intellectiva,’ the other by Aquinas, ‘De unitate intellectus contra Averroïstas.’ The latter is defending himself vigorously against the charge of Averrhoïsm by himself vigorously attacking the Averrhoïsts. In a sermon preached before the University of Paris St. Thomas vehemently denounced the self-confidence and self-sufficiency of the Averrhoïsts, and contrasted the contradictions and the uncertainties of philosophy with the clearness and certitude of revealed religion.[91] In this same year 1270 the Bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier, solemnly condemned the thirteen propositions mentioned in Gilles de Lessines’ letter to Albertus of Cologne. They were the doctrines being taught at the time by the two leaders of Averrhoïsm in the University, the Siger of Brabant just mentioned and Boëthius of Dacia.