But besides all this the universities had a spirit of their own. In most cases they were creations of the State, and betrayed their origin in the principles which they advocated. We shall have occasion hereafter to refer to the part taken by Paris university during the struggle between Philip le Bel and Boniface VIII. That Pontiff had been prodigal of his favours to the French schools, and had done more than any preceding Pope to extend their privileges; yet at the bidding of the crown the Paris doctors did not hesitate to give their sanction to the monstrous charges by which Philip sought to blacken the reputation of the man he had resolved to destroy. They certified to the truth of accusations drawn up at the king’s direction, representing the Sovereign Pontiff as having a familiar demon, and as blaspheming the doctrine of the real Presence. Crevier says one cannot but smile at these articles, which were notoriously destitute of a shadow of foundation, and in which not one man who signed them for a moment believed. Yet, he adds, the university of Paris gave in its adhesion to this act, and her example was followed by that of Toulouse, because they deemed it proper to support the authority of the Crown. His own comments on these facts are not less startling than the facts themselves. “It was an act,” he says, “of great consequence, and the university has constantly adhered to this sound doctrine, and made it her greatest glory that, owing all her privileges to the power of the Popes, she has never sought to extend their power beyond its just limits, but on the contrary, has ever been the scourge of theologians and canonists flattering to the court of Rome.”[183] In the preface to his work he lays down this sound doctrine of the university in very plain terms, which we commend to the attentive study of the reader, as indicating the inevitable bias of State institutions. “The university of Paris is intimately united to the State, of which it forms a part. It finds in the public power that protection which it requires, and acquits itself of all its duties towards the State by inspiring with all possible care into the disciples whom it trains the sentiments of citizens and Frenchmen. This is one of the chief characteristics, I may say, the peculiar glory, of our university. Its first object is God and religion. But it knows that God Himself commands us to regard as the first of duties those which refer to our country and our sovereign, who resumes all the rights of the nation in his own person. Hence that enlightened and courageous zeal which has always animated the university of Paris for the defence of our precious maxims on the independence of the Crown, the distinction of the two powers, the legitimate rights of the Head of the Church, and the respective rights of the Church herself, as opposed to her Head. These maxims, so important to the tranquillity of Church and State, have always had adversaries, and our university shares with the Parliament the glory of having ever faithfully maintained them.”
These words were written in the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI. Who can regret that an institution, the character of which is thus depicted by one of its own professors, should have been doomed to extinction in the midst of that storm which overthrew both state and monarchy, and taught the terrible lesson how little stability is to be looked for in any civil power which seeks to base itself on the “precious maxims” of State supremacy? Yet, this spirit was not confined to the university of Paris alone; her doctors put it forth, perhaps, with peculiar boldness and precision, but it was shared by almost all her sister academies, as may be seen by the part which the universities of Europe took in the contest between Henry VIII. and the Holy See, and the active support which he obtained from their professors. And there is no doubt that this is in great part to be attributed to the excessive predominance of the study of the Roman law, which rendered popular a certain Cæsarism in politics, which eventually proved as destructive to civil, as it did to religious, liberty.
So far, our observations apply to the universities at all periods of their existence. But, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, there existed some dangers peculiar to the time. The new academies threatened to prove no less hostile to the purity of doctrine than to the purity of manners. Aggregations of schools incorporated by royal charters are not the appointed guardians of the deposit of faith, nor has the promise of infallibility been given to doctors and theological professors. The monastic scholars had, for the most part, been secured from error by their reverence for tradition, and from the fact of their naturally contemplating truth, rather through the heart, than through the reason. But the new scholastics contemplated it through the metaphysics of Aristotle, and, what is more, through Aristotle as he was rendered by Arabic interpreters, who added to the errors of the pagan philosophers a pantheistic system of their own. At the head of these was Averrhoes, the son of an Arabian physician, whose religion it would be hard to determine, as he scoffed alike at Christianity, Judaism, and Mahometanism. His commentaries on Aristotle found such favour in the eyes of the free-thinking students of the day that they commonly spoke of him as “the Commentator.” His grand doctrine was that which averred all mankind to possess but one common intellect. All after death were to be united to what the modern Germans would call the Over-Soul, and hence the dogma of reward and punishment, according to individual merit, crumbled away, and there was no difference between saint and sinner—between St. Peter and Mahomet. These doctrines were propagated by wandering minstrels, and supported by imperial scholars. Frederic II. entertained at his court the two sons of Averrhoes, whose religious views, in the main, coincided with his own. He patronised the Arabian schoolmen, partly out of a love of the natural sciences which they cultivated, and partly from a sympathy with their sceptical philosophy; and his support helped to set the fashion. Soon the new philosophy linked itself to those Manichean doctrines, the poison of which was always lurking somewhere within the fold. Secret societies were formed, the members of which were bound together by oaths, and were to be found in most of the great universities; and Bulæus tells us that an organisation existed for disseminating their opinions among the people by agents disguised as pedlars. A new translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics appeared in 1167, and, says Crevier, “men’s minds became wholly filled with them.” Many fell into open unbelief, and he relates the well-known story of Simon of Tournai, who, after explaining all the doctrines of religion with great applause, blasphemously boasted that it was as easy for him to disprove, as to prove the existence of God. He offered to do so on the following day, but, in the midst of his impious speech, he was struck with apoplexy, and the event was regarded as a manifestation of the Divine displeasure.
Another of the Paris professors, Amauri de Bene, was regent of arts about the same time with Simon. He was remarked as being fond of singular opinions; and as having a way of thinking on most subjects peculiar to himself, but in his own lifetime the real truth was never suspected. But after his death startling discoveries were made. He was found to have been the head of one of the Albigensian sects who preserved the name of Christianity, while rejecting all its dogmas. The doctrine of the sacraments was swept away; a new religion was announced to the initiated as the work of the Spirit, which was to replace that which had been introduced by the Son; and this second gospel was associated with hideous immorality. All this had been cautiously propagated among disciples bound to secresy by oath. On investigation it proved that the greater number of the Paris professors were infected with this poison, and the university found itself compelled to limit the number of its doctors in theology to eight. A council being called at Paris in 1210, it was resolved to strike at the evil in its head by prohibiting the study of Aristotle’s Philosophy in the schools. It was in consequence of this decree that Robert de Courçon in his statutes interdicted the reading of Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics. In 1231 Gregory IX. rendered the prohibition less absolute, but before the end of the century a recurrence of the old disorders rendered it once more necessary to condemn a whole system of pagan errors taught by the Parisian masters.[184] “Even those who did not push the abuse to such extremes,” says Crevier, “altered, at least in part, the purity of Christian dogma, by interpretations more conformable to the principles of Aristotle than of the Fathers.” And it was this that caused Gregory IX., true friend to ancient learning as he was, to fulminate a bull against the Paris professors, charging them with presumptuous arrogance, and forbidding them to mingle their philosophic opinions with the truths of revelation.
Decrees of this nature were, however, insufficient to meet the evil. The intellect of Europe, as it flowed into these academies, was trembling on the brink of infidelity, and so long as the schools of philosophy were in the enemy’s hands, it was vain to expect to put down error by the simple voice of authority. What power, then, was to be evoked in defence of Christian dogma? Where were the champions to be found to meet the teachers of error on their own ground, and beat them with their own weapons? The monastic orders had ever proved the militia of the Church at such crises, but in the present case their position seemed to preclude their taking a prominent part in the contest. Though they were beginning to make use of the universities for the education of their younger members, yet this was felt by many to be a straining of their rule, and a very general prejudice against the practice prevailed among the monks themselves. Certainly it would never have been tolerated for them to have aspired to the professor’s chair, yet the battle, it was plain, would have to be fought in the arena of the schools. Something seemed required in which the spirit of the schools and of the cloister should be combined; in which all the science of the one should be united to all the unworldly self-devotedness of the other. A new institute seemed called for in the Church, and at the moment that it was called for, it appeared. The Divine Householder, bringing out of His treasure-house things new as well as old, had in His providence prepared the shield which was to cast back the weapons of the new scholasticism on those who wielded them; to Christianise the schools, and press philosophy into the service of the faith. And this gigantic work was to be wrought by the ministry of doctors indeed, but of men who were not merely doctors, but saints. But of them and of their triumphs we must speak in a separate chapter.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE DOMINICANS AND THE UNIVERSITIES.
A.D. 1215-1300.