Yet to Frederic II. may be attributed the introduction of Averrhoism in central Europe. In Spain it was so prevalent that about 1260 Alonso X. describes heresies as consisting of two principal divisions, of which the worst was that which denies the immortality of the soul and future rewards and punishments, and in 1291 we find the Council of Tarragona ordering the punishment of those who disbelieved in a future existence. It was from Toledo that Michael Scot came with translations of Aristotle and Averrhoes, and was warmly welcomed at the court of Frederic, whose insatiable thirst for knowledge and whose slender reverence for formulas led him to grasp eagerly at these unexpected sources of philosophy. It was probably these translations which formed the body of Aristotelism distributed by him to the universities of Italy. Hermannus Alemannus continued Michael’s work at Toledo and brought versions of other books to Manfred, who inherited his father’s tastes, so that by the middle of the century the principal labors of Averrhoes were accessible to scholars.[609]
The infection spread with rapidity almost incredible. Already, in 1243, Guillaume d’Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, and the Masters of the University condemned a series of scholastic errors, not indeed distinctively Averrhoist, but manifesting in their bold independence the influence which the Arab philosophy was beginning to exercise. In 1247 the papal legate Otto, Bishop of Frascati, condemned Jean de Brescain for certain heretical speculations concerning light and matter; he was banished from Paris and forbidden to teach, or dispute, or to live where there was a college. At the same time a certain Master Raymond who had been imprisoned for his erroneous views was found to be contumacious and was ordered back to prison, while, for the future, logicians were forbidden to argue theologically and theologians logically, as they were growing accustomed to do. This accomplished little, and as little was effected by Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, who employed their keenest dialectics to check the spread of these dangerous opinions. Bonaventura likewise denounced the audacious philosophy which denied immortality and asserted the unity of intellect and the eternity of matter, showing that Dominicans and Franciscans could co-operate against a common enemy. In 1270, Étienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris, was called upon to condemn a series of thirteen errors, distinctively Averrhoist, which found defenders among the schools, to the effect that the intellect of all men is the same and is one in number; that human will is controlled by necessity; that the world is eternal and there never was a first man; that the soul is corrupted with the corruption of the body and does not suffer from corporeal fire; that God does not know individual things, he knows nothing but himself, and cannot give immortality and incorruptibility to that which is mortal and corruptible.[610]
This availed as little as the previous effort. In 1277 it was deemed necessary to invoke the authority of John XXI., under which Bishop Tempier condemned a list of two hundred and nineteen errors, mostly the same as the previous ones, or deductions drawn from them, tending to systematize materialism and fatalism. The daring progress made by free-thought is shown by the sharply defined antagonism proclaimed between philosophy and theology: The philosopher must deny the creation of the world because he relies upon natural causes alone, but the believer may assert it because he relies upon supernatural causes; the utterances of the theologians are based upon fables, and theology is a study unworthy the pursuing, for philosophers are the only sages and the Christian law impedes the progress of learning: prayer, of course, is unnecessary, and sepulture is not worth consideration by the wise man, but confession may be practised to save appearances. The Averrhoist theory of the universe and the celestial spheres was fully expressed, as well as the controlling influences of the stars upon human will and fortunes, for which, as we have seen, Peter of Abano and Cecco d’Ascoli subsequently suffered. In addition we have the speculation that with every cycle of thirty-six thousand years the celestial bodies returned to the same relative positions, producing a repetition of the same series of events.[611]
About the same time Robert Kilwarby, Archbishop of Canterbury, together with the Masters of Oxford, condemned some errors evidently originating from the same source, but not asserting materialism in a manner so absolute, and this condemnation was confirmed in 1284 by Archbishop Peckham, but the only punishment threatened was deposition for a Master, and for a Bachelor expulsion with disability for promotion. These articles were combined with those of Bishop Tempier, and together the collection had wide currency, as shown by the number of MSS. containing it. That the opinions thus condemned continued to be regarded as a source of real danger to the Church is manifested by the articles being customarily printed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries at the end of the fourth book of the Sentences, and also in an edition each of Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Bonaventura.[612]
Yet after the death of Bishop Tempier these articles aroused considerable complaint as interfering with freedom of discussion, and they became the object of no little debate. In fact, in so long a list of errors, many of them scarce apprehensible save by the scholastic mind, it was almost impossible to avoid trenching upon positions held to be orthodox in a theology of which the complexity had grown beyond the grasp of finite intelligence and finite memory. Considerable trouble was occasioned by the fact that some of the articles assailed positions held by Thomas Aquinas himself; others were attacked by William of Ockham and Jean de Poilly. How perilous, indeed, was the position of the theological expert in the war of dialectics is seen in the case of the Doctor Fundatissimus, Egidio Colonna, better known as Egidio da Roma. There was no more earnest and active opponent of Averrhoism, and his list of its errors long continued to be the basis of its condemnation. Yet he translated a commentary on Aristotle, and in 1285 he was accused in Paris of entertaining some of the errors condemned in 1277. After considerable discussion the matter was carried before the Holy See, and Honorius IV. referred him back to the University of Paris for sentence. He made his peace so effectually that Philippe le Bel, whose tutor he had been, presented him to the great archbishopric of Bourges.[613]
At the close of the thirteenth and the commencement of the fourteenth century the principal figure in the contest with Averrhoes is Raymond Lully—aptly styled by Renan the hero of the crusade against it—but the career of Lullism was so remarkable that it must be considered independently hereafter. All efforts failed to suppress a philosophy which offered such attractions to the rising energies of the human intellect. An avowed school of Averrhoists arose, whose tenets, introduced in the University of Padua seemingly by Peter of Abano, reigned there supreme until the seventeenth century. The University of Bologna likewise adopted them. Jean de Jandun, the collaborator of Marsilio of Padua, was a modified Averrhoist, as were Walter Burleigh, Buridan, and the Ockhamists. John of Baconthorpe, who died in 1346 as General of the Carmelites, rejoiced in the title of Prince of Averrhoists, and through him the philosophy became traditional in the Order. These men might conceal to themselves the dangerous irreligion which lurked under their cherished theories, but when these spread among the people, divested of the subtle dialectics of the schools, they developed into frank materialism. Dante’s description of the portion of hell where
“Suo cimitero da questa parte hanno
Con Epicuro tutti i suoi seguaci
Che l’anima col corpo morta fanno” (INFERNO, X.)
manifests by its occupants that Averrhoism in its crudest form was openly professed by men high in station; and some proceedings of the Inquisitions of Carcassonne and Pamiers in the first quarter of the fourteenth century indicate that even in the lower strata of society such opinions were not uncommon. The indignation of Petrarch shows us how fashionable and how outspoken by the middle of the century this indifferentism had become in the Venetian provinces, where men did not hesitate to ridicule Christ and to regard Averrhoes as the fountain of wisdom. In Florence the tradition of the same philosophic contempt for dogma is indicated by Boccaccio’s story of the Three Rings, wherein Melchisedech the Jew, by an ingenious parable, conveys to Saladin the conclusion that all three religions are on the same plane, with equal claims for reverence. In Spain, although philosophy was little cultivated, Moorish tradition seems to have kept Averrhoism alive. The revolted nobles who, in 1464, presented their complaints to King Enrique IV., declare him suspect in the faith because he keeps about his person enemies of Catholicism, and others who, while nominally Christians, boast of their disbelief in the immortality of the soul.[614]
Averrhoism had thus fairly conquered a position for itself, and it is one of the inscrutable problems why the Inquisition, so unrelenting in its suppression of minor aberrations, should have conceded impunity to speculations which not only sapped the foundations of Christian faith, but by plain implication denied all the doctrines on which were based the wealth and power of the hierarchy. Even the University of Paris, so vigilant in its guard over orthodoxy, seems during the remainder of the fourteenth century to have abstained from condemning Averrhoism and its deductions, although there were numerous decisions against minute errors of scholastic theology. Yet to Gerson Averrhoes was still the most insolent adversary of the faith; he was the man who had condemned all religions as bad, but that of the Christians as worst of all, for they daily ate their God; and, in the allegorical paintings of Orcagna, Traini, Taddeo Gaddi, and their successors, Averrhoes commonly figures as the impersonation of rebellious unbelief.[615]
It was not till 1512 that Averrhoism had its first recorded victim since Peter of Abano, in the person of Hermann of Ryswick, who, in 1499, had been condemned for teaching its materialistic doctrines—that matter is uncreated and has existed with God from the beginning, that the soul dies with the body, and that angels, whether good or bad, are not created by God. He abjured and was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, but escaped and persisted in propagating his errors. When again apprehended, in 1512, the inquisitor at The Hague had no hesitation in handing him over as a relapsed to the secular arm, and he was duly burned.[616]