§ 113.2. Thomists and Scotists.—The Dominicans and Franciscans were opposed as followers respectively of Thomas and of Scotus. Thomas regarded individuality, i.e. the fact that everything is an individual, every res is a hæc, as a limitation and defect; while Duns saw in this hæcitas a mark of perfection and the true end of creation. Thomas also preferred the Platonic, and Duns the Aristotelian realism. In theology Duns was opposed to Thomas in maintaining an unlimited arbitrary will in God, according to which God does not choose a thing because it is good, but the thing chosen is good because He chooses it. Thomas therefore was a determinist, and in his doctrine of sin and grace adopted a moderate Augustinianism (§ 53, 5), while Duns was a semipelagian. The atonement was viewed by Thomas more in accordance with the theory of Anselm, for he assigned to the merits of Christ as the God-Man infinite worth, satisfactio superabundans, which is in itself more than sufficient for redemption; but Duns held that the merits of Christ were sufficient only as accepted by the free will of God, acceptatio gratuita. The Scotists also most resolutely contended for the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, while the Thomists as passionately opposed it.—Among the immediate disciples of Duns the most celebrated was Francis Mayron, teacher at the Sorbonne, who died in A.D. 1325 and was dignified with the title doctor illuminatus or acutus. The most notable of the Thomists was Hervæus Natalis, who died in A.D. 1323 as general of the Dominicans. Of the later Thomists the most eminent was Thomas Bradwardine, doctor profundus, a man of deep religious earnestness, who accused his age of Pelagianism, and vindicated the truth in opposition to this error in his De causa Dei c. Pelagium.He began teaching at Oxford, afterwards accompanied Edward III. as his confessor and chaplain on his expeditions in France, and died in A.D. 1349 a few weeks after his appointment to the archbishopric of Canterbury.[332]

§ 113.3. Nominalists and Realists.—After nominalism (§ [99, 2]) in the person of Roscelin had been condemned by the Church (§ [101, 3]) realism held sway for more than two centuries. Both Thomas and Duns supported it. By sundering philosophy and theology Duns opened the way to freer discussion, so that by-and-by nominalism won the ascendency, and at last scarcely any but the precursors of the Reformation (§ [119]) were to be found in the ranks of the realists. The pioneer of the movement was the Englishman William Occam, a Franciscan and pupil of Duns, who as teacher of philosophy in Paris obtained the title doctor singularis et invincibilis, and was called by later nominalists venerabilis inceptor. He supported the Spirituals (§ [112, 2]) in the controversies within his order.He accompanied his general, Michael of Cesena, to Avignon, and escaping with him in A.D. 1328 from threatened imprisonment, lived at Munich till his death in A.D. 1349. There, protected by Louis the Bavarian, he vindicated imperial rights against papal pretensions, and charged various heresies against the pope (§ [118, 2]). In philosophy and theology he was mainly influenced by Scotus.In accordance with his nominalistic principles he assumed the position in theology that our ideas derived from experience cannot reach to a knowledge of the supernatural; and thus he may be called a precursor of Kant (§ 171, 10). The universalia are mere fictiones (§ [99, 2]), things that do not correspond to our notions; the world of ideas agrees not with that of phenomena, and so the unity of faith and knowledge, of theological and philosophical truth, asserted by realists, cannot be maintained (§ [103, 2]). Faith rests on the authority of Scripture and the decisions of the Church; criticism applied to the doctrines of the Church reduces them to a series of antinomies.—In A.D. 1339 the University of Paris forbade the reading of Occam’s works, and soon after formally condemned nominalism. Thomists and Scotists forgot their own differences to combine against Occam; but all in vain, for the Occamists were recruited from all the orders.The Constance reform party too supported him (§ [118, 4]).[333] Of the Thomists who succeeded to Occam the most distinguished was William Durand of St. Pourçain, doct. resolutissimus, who died in A.D. 1322 as Bishop of Meaux. Muertius of Inghen, one of the founders of the University of Heidelberg in A.D. 1386 and its first rector, was also a zealous nominalist. The last notable schoolman of the period was Gabriel Biel of Spires, teacher of theology at Tübingen, who died A.D. 1495, a nominalist and an admirer of Occam. He was a vigorous supporter of the doctrine of the immaculate conception, and delivered public discourses on the “Ethics” of Aristotle.

§ 113.4. Casuistry, or that part of moral theology which seeks to provide a complete guide to the solution of difficult cases of conscience, especially where there is collision of duties, moral or ecclesiastical, makes its first appearance in the penitentials (§ 89, 6), and had a great impetus given it in the compulsory injunction of auricular confession (§ [104, 4]). It was also favoured by the hair-splitting character of scholastic dialectics. The first who elaborated it as a distinct science was Raimundus [Raimund] de Pennaforte, who besides his works on canon law (§ [99, 5]), wrote about A.D. 1238 a summa de casibus pœnitentialibus. This was followed by the Franciscan Antesana, the Dominican Pisana, and the Angelica of the Genoese Angelus of A.D. 1482, which Luther in A.D. 1520 burned along with the papal bull and decretals. The views of the different casuists greatly vary, and confuse rather than assist the conscience. Out of them grew the doctrine of probabilism (§ [149, 10]).

§ 113.5. The Founder of Natural Theology.—The Spaniard Raimund of Sabunde settled as a physician in Toulouse in A.D. 1430, but afterwards turned his attention to theology. Seeing the need of infusing new life into the corrupt scholasticism, he sought to rescue it from utter formalism and fruitless casuistry by a return to simple, clear, and rational thinking. Anselm of Canterbury was his model of a clear and profound thinker and believing theologian (§ [101, 1]). He also turned for stimulus and instruction to the book of nature. The result of his studies is seen in his Theologia naturalis s. liber creaturarum, published in A.D. 1436. God’s book of nature, in which every creature is as it were a letter, is the first and simplest source of knowledge accessible to the unlearned layman, and the surest, because free from all falsifications of heretics. But the fall and God’s plan of salvation have made an addition to it necessary, and this we have in the Scripture revelation. The two books coming from the one author cannot be contradictory, but only extend, confirm, and explain one another. The facts of revelation are the necessary presupposition or consequences of the book of nature. From the latter all religious knowledge is derivable by ascending through the four degrees of creation, esse, vivere, sentire, and intelligere, to the knowledge of man, and thence to the knowledge of the Creator as the highest and absolute unity, and by arguing that the acknowledgment of human sinfulness involved an admission of the need of redemption, which the book of revelation shows to be a fact. In carrying out this idea Raimund attaches himself closely to Anselm in his scientific reconciling of the natural and revealed idea of God and redemption. Although he never expressly contradicted any of the Church doctrines, the Council of Trent put the prologue of his book into the Index prohibitorum.

§ 113.6. Nicholas of Cusa was born in A.D. 1401 at Cues, near Treves, and was originally called Krebs. Trained first by the Brothers at Deventer (§ [112, 9]), he afterwards studied law at Padua. The failure of his first case led him to begin the study of theology. As archdeacon of Liège he attended the Basel Council, and there by mouth and pen supported the view that the council is superior to the pope, but in A.D. 1440 he passed over to the papal party. On account of his learning, address, and eloquence he was often employed by Eugenius IV. and Nicholas V. in difficult negotiations. He was made cardinal in A.D. 1448, an unheard of honour for a German prelate. In A.D. 1450 he was made bishop of Brixen, but owing to a dispute with Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, he suffered several years’ hard imprisonment. He died in A.D. 1464 at Todi in Umbria. His principal work is De docta ignorantia, which shows, in opposition to proud scholasticism, that the absolute truth about God in the world is not attainable by men. His theological speculation approaches that of Eckhart, and like it is not free from pantheistic elements. God is for him the absolute maximum, but is also the absolute minimum, since He cannot be greater or less than He is. He begets of Himself His likeness, i.e. the Son, and He again turns back as Holy Spirit into unity. The world again is the aggregated maximum. His Dialogus de pace, occasioned by the fall of Constantinople in A.D. 1453, represents Christianity as the most perfect of all religions, but recognises in all others, even in Islam, essential elements of eternal truth. Like Roger Bacon (§ [103, 8]), he assigns a prominent place to mathematics and astronomy, and in his De separatione Calendarii of A.D. 1436 he recommended reforms in the calendar which were only effected in A.D. 1582 by Gregory XIII. (§ [149, 3]). He detected the pseudo-Isidore (§ 87, 2) and the Donation of Constantine (§ 87, 4) frauds.

§ 113.7. Biblical and Practical Theologians.

  1. The Franciscan Nicholas of Lyra, doctor planus et utilis, a Jewish convert from Normandy, and teacher of theology at Paris, did good service as a grammatico-historical exegete and an earnest expositor of Scripture.Luther gratefully acknowledges the help he got in his Bible translation from the postils of Lyra.[334] He died in A.D. 1340.
  2. Antonine of Florence played a prominent part at the Florentine Council of A.D. 1439, and was threatened by Eugenius IV. with the loss of his archbishopric. He discharged his duties with great zeal, especially during a plague and famine in A.D. 1448, and during the earthquake which destroyed half of the city in A.D. 1457. As an earnest preacher, an unwearied pastor, and upright churchman he was universally admired, and was canonized by Hadrian VI. in A.D. 1523. He had a high reputation as a writer. His Summa historialis is a chronicle of universal history reaching down to his own time; and his Summa theologica is a popular outline of the Thomist doctrine.
  3. The learned and famous abbot John Trithemius, born in A.D. 1462, after studying at Treves and Heidelberg, entered in A.D. 1487 the Benedictine cloister of Sponheim, became its abbot in the following year, resigned office in A.D. 1505 owing to a rebellion among his monks, and died in A.D. 1516 as abbot of the Scottish cloister of St. James at Würzburg. Influenced by Wessel’s reforming movement (§ [119, 10]), he urged the duty of Scripture study and prayer, but still practised and commended the most extravagant adoration of Mary and Ann. Though he was keenly alive to the absurdity of certain forms of superstition, he was himself firmly bound within its coils. He lashed unsparingly the vices of the monks, but regarded the monastic life as the highest Christian ideal. He pictured in dark colours the deep and widespread corruption of the Church, and was yet the most abject slave of the hierarchy which fostered that corruption.
§ 114. The German Mystics.[335]

The schoolmen of the 13th century, with the exception of Bonaventura, had little sympathy with mysticism, and gave their whole attention to the development of doctrine (§ [99, 1]).The 14th century was the Augustan age of mysticism. Germany, which had already in the previous period given Hugo of St. Victor and the two divines of Reichersberg (§ [102, 4], [6]), was its proper home. Its most distinguished representatives belonged to the preaching orders, and its recognised grand-master was the Dominican Meister Eckhart. This specifically German mysticism cast away completely the scholastic modes of thought and expression, and sought to arrive at Christian truth by entirely new paths. It appealed, not to the understanding and cultured reason of the learned, but to the hearts and spirits of the people, in order to point them the surest way to union with God. The mystics therefore wrote neither commentaries on the Lombard nor gigantic summæ of their own composition, but wrought by word and writing to meet immediate pressing needs. They preached lively sermons and wrote short treatises, not in Latin, but in the homely mother tongue. This popular form however did not prevent them from conveying to their readers and hearers profound thoughts, the result of keen speculation; but that in this they did not go over the heads of the people is shown by the crowds that flocked to their preaching. The “Friends of God” proved a spiritual power over many lands (§ [116, 4]). From the practical prophetic mysticism of the 12th and 13th centuries (§§ [107]; [108, 5]) it was distinguished by avoiding the visionary apocalyptic and magnetic somnambulistic elements through a better appreciation of science; and from the scholastic mysticism of that earlier age (§§ [102, 3], [4], [6]; [103, 4]) by abandoning allegory and the scholastic framework for the elevation of the soul to God, as well as by indulgence in a somewhat pantheistic speculation on God and the world, man and the God-Man, on the incarnation and birth of God in us, on our redemption, sanctification, and final restoration. Its younger representatives however cut off all pantheistic excrescences, and thus became more practical and edifying, though indeed with the loss of speculative power. In this way they brought themselves more into sympathy with another mystic tendency which was spreading through the Netherlands under the influence of the Flemish canon, John of Ruysbroek. In France too mysticism again made its appearance during the 15th century in the persons of d’Ailly and Gerson (§ [118, 4]), in a form similar to that which it had assumed during the 12th and 13th centuries in the Victorines and Bonaventura.

§ 114.1. Meister Eckhart.—One of the profoundest thinkers of all the Christian centuries was the Dominican Meister Eckhart, the true father of German speculative mysticism. Born in Strassburg about A.D. 1260, he studied at Cologne under Albert the Great, but took his master’s degree at Paris in A.D. 1303. He had already been for some years prior at Erfurt and provincial vicar of Thuringia. In A.D. 1304 he was made provincial of Saxony, and in A.D. 1307 vicar-general of Bohemia. In both positions he did much for the reform of the cloisters of his order. In A.D. 1311 we find him teacher in Paris; then for some years teaching and preaching in Strassburg; afterwards officiating as prior at Frankfort; and finally as private teacher at Cologne, where he died in A.D. 1327. While at Frankfort in A.D. 1320 he was suspected of heresy because of alleged intercourse with Beghards (§ [98, 12]) and Brothers of the Free Spirit (§ [116, 5]). In A.D. 1325 the archbishop of Cologne renewed these charges, but Eckhart succeeded in vindicating himself. The archbishop now set up an inquisition of his own, but from its sentence Eckhart appealed to the pope, lodged a protest, and then of his own accord in the Dominican church of Cologne, before the assembled congregation, solemnly declared that the charge against him rested upon misrepresentation and misunderstanding, but that he was then and always ready to withdraw anything that might be erroneous. The papal judgment, given two years after Eckhart’s death, pronounced twenty-eight of his propositions to be pantheistic in their tendency, seventeen being heretical and eleven dangerous. He was therefore declared to be suspected of heresy. The bull, contrary to reason and truth, went on to say that Eckhart at the end of his life had retracted and submitted all his writings and doctrines to the judgment of the Holy See. But Eckhart had indignantly protested against the charge of pantheism, and certainly in his doctrine of God and the creature, of the high nobility of the human soul, of retirement and absorption into God, he has always kept within the limits of Christian knowledge and life. Attaching himself to the Platonic and Neoplatonic doctrines, which are met with also in Albert and Thomas, and appealing to the acknowledged authorities of the Church, especially the Areopagite, Augustine, and Aquinas, Eckhart with great originality composed a singularly comprehensive and profound system of religious knowledge. Although in all his writings aiming primarily at quickening and edification, he always grounds his endeavours on a theoretical investigation of the nature of the thing.But knowledge is for him essentially union of the knowing subject with the object to be known, and the highest stage of knowledge is the intuition where all finite things sink into the substance of Deity.[336]