The first way is obvious enough, inasmuch as patristic and antique matter palpably make the substance of mediaeval theology and philosophy. The second is less obvious, but equally important. This mass of dogma, knowledge, and opinion, existed finished and complete. Men imperfectly equipped to comprehend it were brought to it by the conviction that it was necessary to their salvation, and then gradually by the persuasion also that it offered the only means of intellectual progress. The struggle to master such a volume of knowledge issuing from a more creative past, gave rise to novel problems, or promoted old ones to a novel prominence. The problem of universals was taken directly from the antique dialectic. It played a monstrous rôle in the twelfth century because it was in very essence a fundamental problem of cognition, of knowing, and so pressed upon men who were driven by the need to master continually unfolding continents of thought.[422] This is an instance of a problem transmitted from the past, but blown up to extraordinary importance by mediaeval intellectual conditions. So throughout the whole scholastic range, attitude and method alike are fixed by the fact that scholasticism was primarily an appropriation of transmitted propositions.
In considering the characteristics of mediaeval thought, it is well to bear in mind these diverse ways in which its antecedents made it what it was: through their substance transmitted to it; through the receptive attitude forced upon men by existing accumulations of authoritative doctrine, and the method entailed upon mediaeval thought by its scholastic rather than originative character. Also one will not omit to notice which elements came from the action of the patristic body of antecedents, rather than from the antique group, and vice versa.
Since the antique and patristic constituted well-nigh the whole substance of philosophy and theology in the Middle Ages, a separate consideration of what was thus transmitted would amount to a history of mediaeval thought from a somewhat unilluminating point of view. On the other hand, one may learn much as to the qualities of mediaeval thought from observing the attitudes of various men in successive centuries toward Greek philosophy and patristic theology. The Fathers had used the concepts of the former in the construction of their systems of acceptance of the Christian Faith. But the spirit of inquiry from which Greek philosophy had sprung, was very different from the spirit in which the Fathers used its concepts and arguments, in order to substantiate what they accepted on the authority of Scripture and tradition. It is true that Greek philosophy in the Neo-Platonism of Porphyry and Iamblicus was not far from the patristic attitude toward knowledge. But the spirit of these declining moods of Neo-Platonism was not the spirit which had carried the philosophy of the Greeks to its intellectual culmination in Plato and Aristotle, and to its attainment of the ethically rational in Stoicism and the system of Epicurus.
Thus patristic thinking was essentially different in purpose and method from the philosophy which it forced to serve its uses; and the two differed by every difference of method, spirit, and intent which were destined to appear among the various kinds of mediaeval thinkers. But the difference between Greek philosopher and Church Father was deeper than any that ever could exist among mediaeval men. Some of the last might be conventionally orthodox and passionately pious, while others cared more distinctly for the fruits of knowledge. But even these could not be as Greek philosophers, because they were accustomed to rely on authority, and because they who drew their knowledge from an existing store would not have the independence and originality distinguishing the Greeks, who had created so much of that store from which they drew.[423] Moreover, while neither Plato’s inquiry for truth, nor Aristotle’s catholic search for knowledge, was isolated from its bearing on either the conduct or the event of life, nevertheless with them rational inquiry was a final motive representing in itself that which was most divinely human, and so the best for man.[424] But with the philosophers of the Middle Ages, it never was quite so. For the need of salvation had worked in men’s blood for generations. And salvation, man’s highest good, did not consist in humanly-attained knowledge or in virtue won by human strength; but was divinely mediated and had to be accepted upon authority. Hence, even in the great twelfth and thirteenth centuries, intellectual inquiry was never unlimbered from bands of deference, nor ever quite dispassionately rational or unaffected by the mortal need to attain a salvation which was bestowed or withheld by God according to His plan authoritatively declared.
Accordingly all mediaeval variances of thought show common similitudes: to wit, some consciousness of need of super-rational and superhuman salvation; deference to some authority; and finally a pervasive scholasticism, since mediaeval thought was of necessity diligent, acceptant, reflective, rather than original. One will be impressed with the formal character of mediaeval thought. For being thus scholastic, it was occupied with devising forms through which to express, or re-express, the mass of knowledge proffered to it. Besides, formal logic was a prominent part of the transmitted contents of antique philosophy; and became a chief discipline for mediaeval students; because they accepted it along with all the rest, and found its training helpful for men burdened with such intellectual tasks as theirs.
Within the lines of these universal qualities wind the divergencies of mediaeval thought; and one will notice how they consist in leanings toward the ways of Greek philosophy, or a reliance more or less complete upon the contents and method of patristic theology. One common quality, of which we note the variations, is that of deference to the authority of the past. The mediaeval scholar could hardly read a classic poet without finding authoritative statements upon every topic brushed by the poet’s fancy, and of course the matter of more serious writings, history, logic, natural science, was implicitly accepted. If the pagan learning was thus regarded, how much more absolute was the deference to sacred doctrine. Here all was authority. Scripture was the primary source; next came the creed, and the dogmas established by councils; and then the expositions of the Fathers. Thus the meaning of the authoritative Scripture was pressed into authoritative dogma, and then authoritatively systematized. The process had been intellectual and rational, yet with the driven rationality of Church Fathers struggling to formulate and express the accepted import of the Faith delivered to the saints. Authority, faith, held the primacy, and in two senses, for not only was it supreme and final, but it was also prior in initiative efficiency. Tertullian’s certum est, quia impossibile est, was an extreme paradox. But Augustine’s credimus ut cognoscamus was fundamental, and remained unshaken. Anselm lays it at the basis of his arguments; with Bernard and many others it is credo first of all, let the intelligere come as it may, and as it will according to the fulness of our faith. The same principle of faith’s efficient primacy is temperamentally as well as logically fundamental with Bonaventura.
Here then was a first general quality of mediaeval thought: deference to authority. Now for the variances. Scarcely diverging, save in emphasis, from Augustine and Bonaventura, are the greatest of the schoolmen, Albert and Thomas. They defer to authority and recognize the primacy of faith, and yet they will, with abundant use of reason, deliminate the respective provinces of grace and human knowledge, and distinguish the absolute authority of Scripture from the statements even of the saints, which may be weighed and criticized. In secular philosophy, these two will, when their faith admits, accept the views of the philosophers—Aristotle above all—yet using their own reason. They are profoundly interested in knowledge and metaphysical dialectic, but follow it with deferential tempers and believing Christian souls.
Outside the company of such, are men of more independent temper, whose attitude tends to weaken the principle of acceptance of authority in sacred doctrine. The first of these was Eriugena with his explicit statement that reason is greater than authority; yet we may assume that he was not intending to impugn Scripture. Centuries later another chief example is Abaelard, whose dialectic temper leads him to wish to prove everything by reason. Not that he stated, or would have admitted this; yet the extreme rationalizing tendency of the man is projected through such a passage as the following from his Historia calamitatum, where he alludes to the circumstances of the composition of his work upon the Trinity. He had become a monk in the monastery of St. Denis, but students were still thronging to hear him, to the wrath of some of his superiors.
“Then it came about that I was brought to expound the very foundation of our faith by applying the analogies of human reason, and was led to compose for my pupils a theological treatise on the divine Unity and Trinity. They were calling for human and philosophical arguments, and insisting upon something intelligible, rather than mere words, saying that there had been more than enough of talk which the mind could not follow; that it was impossible to believe what was not understood in the first place; and that it was ridiculous for any one to set forth to others what neither he nor they could rationally conceive (intellectu capere).”
And Abaelard cites the verse from Matthew about the blind leaders of the blind, and goes on to tell of the success of his treatise, which pleased everybody, yet provoked the greater envy because of the difficulty of the questions which it elucidated; and at last envy blew up the condemnation of his book, at the Council of Soissons, in the year of grace 1121.[425]