§ 103.2. On account of their characteristic tendencies Avicenna was most popular with the Schoolmen and after him Algazel, while Averroes, though carefully studied and secretly followed by some, was generally regarded with suspicion and aversion. Among his secret admirers was Simon of Tournay, about A.D. 1200, who boasted of being able with equal ease to prove the falseness and the truth of the church doctrines, and declared that Moses, Christ, and Mohammed were the three greatest deceivers the world had ever seen. The Parisian scholars ascribed to Averroes the Theory of a twofold Truth. A positive religion was required to meet the religious needs of the multitude, but the philosopher might reach and maintain the truth independently of any revealed religion. In the Christian West he put this doctrine in a less offensive form by saying that one and the same affirmation might be theologically true and philosophically false, and vice versa. Behind this, philosophical scepticism as well as theological unbelief sought shelter. Its chief opponents were Thomas Aquinas and Raimund Lull, while at a later time Duns Scotus and the Scotists were inclined more or less to favour it.

§ 103.3. The Appearance of the Mendicant Orders.—The Dominican and Franciscan orders competed with one another in a show of zeal for the maintenance of the orthodox doctrine, and each endeavoured to secure the theological chairs in the University of Paris, the principal seat of learning in those days. They were vigorously opposed by the university corporation, and especially by the Parisian doctor William of St. Amour, who characterized them in his tract De periculis novissimorum temporum of A.D. 1255 as the precursors of antichrist. But he was answered by learned members of the orders, Albert the Great, Aquinas, and Bonaventura, and finally, in A.D. 1257, all opposition on the part of the university was checked by papal authority and royal command. The Augustinians, too, won a seat in the University of Paris in A.D. 1261.—The learned monks gave themselves with enthusiasm to the new science and applied all their scientific gains to polemical and apologetical purposes. They diligently conserved all that the earlier Fathers down to Gregory the Great had written in exposition of the doctrine and all that the later Fathers down to Hugo St. Victor and Peter the Lombard had written in its defence. But what had been simply expressed before was now arranged under elaborate scientific categories. The Summists of the previous century supplied abundant material for the work. Their Summæ sententiarum, especially that of the Lombard, became the theme of innumerable commentaries, but besides these, comprehensive original works were written. These were no longer to be described as Summæ sententiarum, but assumed with right the title of Summæ theologiæ or theologicæ.

§ 103.4. Distinguished Franciscan Schoolmen.—Alexander of Hales, trained in the English cloister of Hales, doctor irrefragabilis, was the most famous teacher of theology in Paris, where in A.D. 1222 he entered the Seraphic Order. He died in A.D. 1245. As the first church theologian who, without the excessive hair-splitting of later scholastics, applied the forms of the peripatetic philosophy to the scientific elaboration of the doctrinal system of the church, he was honoured by his grateful order with the title of Monarcha theologorum, and is still regarded as the first scholastic in the strict sense of the word. His Summa theologica, published at Nuremberg in A.D. 1482 in 4 folio vols. was accepted by his successors as the model of scientific method and arrangement. The first two vols. treat of God and His Work, the Creature; the third, of the Redeemer and His Work; the fourth, of the Sacraments of the O. and N.T. The conclusion, which is not extant, treated of Præmia salutis per futuram gloriam. Each of these divisions was subdivided into a great number of Quæstiones, these again into Membra, and these often into Articuli. The question at the head of the section was followed by several answers affirmative and negative, some of which were entitled Auctoritates (quotations from Scripture, the Fathers, and the teachers of the church), some Rationes (dictates of the Greek, Arabian, and Jewish philosophers), and finally, his own conclusion. Among the authorities of later times, Hugo’s dogmatic works (§ [102, 4]) occupy with him the highest place, but he seems to have had no appreciation of his mystical speculations.—His most celebrated disciple John Fidanza, better known as Bonaventura, had a strong tendency to mysticism. Born at Bagnarea in the district of Florence in A.D. 1221, he became teacher of theology in Paris in A.D. 1253, general of his order in A.D. 1257, was made Cardinal-bishop of Ostia by Gregory X. in A.D. 1273, and in the following year was a member of the Lyons Council, at which the question of the reunion of the churches was discussed (§ [67, 4]). He took an active part in the proceedings of that council, but died before its close in A.D. 1274. His aged teacher Alexander had named him a Verus Israelita, in quo Adam non peccasse videtur. Later Franciscans regarded him as the noblest embodiment of the idea of the Seraphic Order next to its founder, and celebrated the angelic purity of his personality by the title doctor seraphicus. Sixtus IV. canonized him in A.D. 1482, and Sixtus V. edited his works in 8 fol. vols. in A.D. 1588, and gave him in A.D. 1587 the sixth place in the rank of Doctores ecclesiæ as the greatest church teacher of the West. Like Hugo, he combined the mystical and doctrinal sides of theology, but like Richard St. Victor inclined more to the mystical. His greatest dogmatic work is his commentary in 2 vols. fol. on the Lombard. His able treatise, De reductione artium ad theologiam, shows how theology holds the highest place among all the sciences. In his Breviloquium he seeks briefly but with great expenditure of learning to prove that the church doctrine is in accordance with the teachings of reason. In the Centiloquium, consisting of 100 sections, he treats summarily of the doctrines of Sin, Grace, and Salvation. In the Pharetra he gives a collection of the chief authorities for the conclusions reached in the two previously named works. The most celebrated of his mystical treatises are the Diætæ salutis, describing the nine days’ journey (diætæ) in which the soul passes from the abyss of sin to the blessedness of heaven, and the Itinerarium mentis in Deum, in which he describes as a threefold way to the knowledge of God a theologia symbolica (=extra nos), propria (=intra nos) and mystica (=supra nos), the last and highest of which alone leads to the beatific vision of God.

§ 103.5. Distinguished Dominican Schoolmen.—(1)Albert the Great, the oldest son of a knight of Bollstadt, born in A.D. 1193, at Laningen in Swabia, sent in A.D. 1212, because too weak for a military career, to the University of Padua, where he devoted himself for ten years to the diligent study of Aristotle, entered then the Dominican order, and at Bologna pursued with equal diligence the study of theology in a six years’ course. He afterwards taught the regular curriculum of the liberal arts at Cologne and in the cloisters of his order in other German cities; and after taking his doctor’s degree at Paris, he taught theology at Cologne with such success that the Cologne school, owing to the crowds attracted to his lectures, grew to the dimensions of a university. In A.D. 1254 he became provincial of his order in Germany, was compelled in A.D. 1260 by papal command to accept the bishopric of Regensburg, but returned to Cologne in A.D. 1262 to resume teaching, and died there in A.D. 1280, in his 87th year. His amazing acquirements in philosophical, theological, cabalistic, and natural science won for him the surname of the Great, and the title of doctor universalis. Since the time of Aristotle and Theophrastus there had been no investigator in natural science like him. Traces of mysticism may be discovered in his treatise Paradisus animæ, and in his commentary on the Areopagite. Indeed from his school proceeded the greatest master of speculative mysticism (§ [114, 1]). His chief work in natural science is the Summa de Creaturis, the fantastic and superstitious character of which may be seen from the titles of its several books: De virtutibus herbarum, lapidum, et animalium, De mirabilibus mundi, and De secretis mulierum. He wrote three books of commentaries on the Lombard, and two books of an independent system of dogmatics, the Summa theologica.The latter treatise, which closely follows the work of Alexander of Hales, is incomplete.[305]

§ 103.6. The greatest and most influential of all the Schoolmen was the Doctor angelicus, Thomas Aquinas. Born in A.D. 1227, son of a count of Aquino, at his father’s castle of Roccasicca, in Calabria, he entered against his parents’ will as a novice into the Dominican monastery at Naples. Removed for safety to France, he was followed by his brothers and taken back, but two years later he effected his escape with the aid of the order, and was placed under Albert at Cologne. Afterwards he taught for two years at Cologne, and was then sent to win his doctor’s degree at Paris in A.D. 1252. There he began along with his intimate friend Bonaventura his brilliant career. It was not until A.D. 1257, after the opposition of the university to the mendicant orders had been overcome, that the two friends obtained the degree of doctor. Urban IV. recalled him to Italy in A.D. 1261, where he taught successively in Rome, Bologna, Pisa, and Naples. Ordered by Gregory to take part in the discussions on union at the Lyons Council, he died suddenly in A.D. 1274, soon after his return to Naples, probably from poison at the hand of his countryman Charles of Anjou, in order that he might not appear at the council to accuse him of tyranny. John XXII. canonized him in A.D. 1323, and Pius V. gave him the fifth place among the Latin doctores ecclesiæ.—Thomas was probably the most profound thinker of the century, and was at the same time admired as a popular preacher. He had an intense veneration for Augustine, an enthusiastic appreciation of the church doctrine and the philosophy which are approved and enjoined by this great Father. He had also a vein of genuine mysticism, and was distinguished for warm and deep piety. He was the first to give the papal hierarchical system of Gregory and Innocent a regular place in dogmatics. His Summa philosophiæ contra Gentiles, is a Christian philosophy of religion, of which the first three books treat of those religious truths which human reason of itself may recognise, while the fourth book treats of those which, because transcending reason though not contrary to it, i.e. doctrines of the incarnation and the trinity, can be known only by Divine revelation. He wrote two books of commentaries on the Lombard. By far the most important work of the Middle Ages is his Summa theologica, in three vols., in which he gives ample space to ethical questions. His polemic against the Greeks is found in the section in which he defines and proves the primacy of the pope, basing his arguments on ancient and modern fictions and forgeries (§ [96, 23]), which he, ignorant of Greek and deriving his knowledge of antiquity wholly from Gratian’s decree, accepted bona fide as genuine. His chief exegetical work is the Catena aurea on the Gospels and Pauline Epistles, translated into English by Dr. Pusey, in 8 vols., Oxf., 1841, ff. In commenting on Aristotle Thomas, unlike Albert, neglected the treatises on natural science in favour of those on politics.—The Dominican order, proud of having in it the greatest philosopher and theologian of the age, made the doctrine of Thomas in respect of form and matter the authorized standard among all its members (§ [113, 2]), and branded every departure from it as a betrayal not only of the order but also of the church and Christianity. The other monkish orders, too, especially the Augustinians, Cistercians, and Carmelites, recognised the authority of the Angelical doctor.Only the Franciscans, moved by envy and jealousy, ignored him and kept to Alexander and Bonaventura, until the close of the century, when, in Duns Scotus (§ [113, 1]), they obtained a brilliant teacher within their own ranks, whom they proudly thought would prove a fair rival in fame to the great Dominican teacher.[306]

§ 103.7. Reformers of the Scholastic Method.—Raimund Lull, a Catalonian nobleman of Majorca, born in A.D. 1234, roused from a worldly life by visions, gave himself to fight for Christ against the infidels with the weapons of the Spirit. Learning Arabic from a Saracen slave, he passed through a full course of scholastic training in theology and entered the Franciscan order. Constrained in the prosecution of his mission to seek a simpler method of proof than that afforded by scholasticism, he succeeded by the help of visions in discovering one by which as he and his followers, the Lullists, thought, the deepest truths of all human sciences could be made plain to the untutored human reason. He called it the Ars Magna, and devoted his whole life to its elaboration in theory and practice. Representing fundamental ideas and their relations to the objects of thought by letters and figures, he drew conclusions from their various combinations. In his missionary travels in North Africa (§ [93, 16]) he used his art in his disputations with the Saracen scholars, and died in A.D. 1315 in consequence of ill treatment received there, in his 81st year. Of his writings in Latin, Catalonian, and Arabic, numbering it is said more than a thousand, 282 were known in A.D. 1721 to Salzinger of Mainz, but only 45 were included in his edition of the collected works.

§ 103.8. Roger Bacon, an English monk, contemporary with Lull, worked out his reform in a sounder manner by going back to the original sources and thus obtaining deliverance from the accumulated errors of later times. He appealed on matters of natural science not to corrupt translations but to the original works of Aristotle, and on matters of theology, not to the Lombard but to the Greek New Testament. He prosecuted his studies laboriously in mathematics and the Greek language. Roger was called by his friends Doctor mirabilis or profundus. He was a prodigy of learning for his age, more in the department of physics than in those of philosophy and theology. He was regarded, however, by his own order as a heretic, and imprisoned as a trafficker in the black arts. Born in A.D. 1214 at Ilchester, he took his degree of doctor of theology at Paris, entered the Franciscan order, and became a resident at Oxford. Besides diligent study of languages, which secured him perfect command of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, he busied himself with researches and experiments in physics (especially optics), chemistry, and astronomy. He made several important discoveries, e.g. the principle of refraction, magnifying glasses, the defects of the calendar, etc., while he also succeeded in making a combustible material which may be regarded as the precursor of gunpowder. He maintained the possibility of ships and land vehicles being propelled most rapidly without sails, and without the labour of men or animals. Yet he was a child of his age, and believed in the philosopher’s stone, in astrology, and alchemy. Thoroughly convinced of the defects of scholasticism, he spoke of Albert the Great and Aquinas as boys who taught before they learnt, and especially reproached them with their ignorance of Greek. With an amount of brag that smacks of the empiric he professed to be able to teach Hebrew in three days and Greek in the same time, and to give a full course of geometry in seven days. With fearless severity he lashed the corruptions of the clergy and the monks. Only one among his companions seems to have regarded Roger, notwithstanding all his faults, as a truly great man. That was Clement IV. who, as papal legate in England, had made his acquaintance, and as pope liberated him from prison. To him Roger dedicated his Opus majus s. de emendandis scientiis.At a later period the general of the Franciscan order, with the approval of Nicholas IV., had him again cast into prison, and only after that pope’s death was he liberated through the intercession of his friends. He died soon after in A.D. 1291.[307]

§ 103.9. Theologians of a Biblical and Practical Tendency.

  1. Cæsarius of Heisterbach near Bonn was a monk, then prior and master of the novices of the Cistercian monastery there. He died in A.D. 1230. His Dialogus magnus visionum et miraculorum in 12 bks., one of the best specimens of the finest culture and learning of the Middle Ages, in the form of conversation with the novices, gives an admirable and complete sketch of the morals and manners of the times illustrated from the history and legends of the monks, clergy, and people.
  2. His younger contemporary the Dominican William Peraldus (Perault), in his Summa virtutum and Summa vitiorum, presents a summary of ethics with illustrations from life in France. He died about A.D. 1250, as bishop of Lyons.
  3. Hugo of St. Caro (St. Cher, a suburb of Vienne), a Dominican and cardinal who died in A.D. 1263, gives evidence of careful Bible study in his Postilla in univ. Biblia juxta quadrupl. sensum (a commentary accompanying the text) and his Concordantiæ Bibliorum (on the Vulgate). To him we are indebted for our division of the Scriptures into chapters. At the request of his order he undertook a correction of the Vulgate from the old MSS.
  4. Robert of Sorbon in Champagne, who died in A.D. 1274, was confessor of St. Louis and teacher of theology at Paris. He urged upon his pupils the duty of careful study of the Bible. In A.D. 1250 he founded the Sorbonne at Paris, originally a seminary for the education and support of the poorer clergy who aspired to the highest attainments in theology. Its fame became so great that it rose to the rank of a full theological faculty, and down to its overthrow in the French Revolution it continued to be the highest tribunal in France for all matters pertaining to religion and the church.
  5. Raimund Martini, Dominican at Barcelona, who died after A.D. 1284, was unweariedly engaged in the conversion of Jews and Mohammedans. He spoke Hebrew and Arabic as fluently as Latin, and wrote Pugio fidei contra Mauros et Judæos.[308]

§ 103.10. Precursors of the German Speculative Mystics.—David of Augsburg, teacher of theology and master of the novices in the Franciscan monastery at Augsburg, deserves to be named first, as one who largely anticipated the style of speculative mysticism that flourished in the following century (§ [114]). His writings, partly in Latin, partly in German, are merely ascetic directories and treatises of a contemplative mystical order, distinguished by deep spirituality and earnest, humble piety. The German works especially are models of a beautiful rhythmical style, worthy of ranking with the finest creations of any century. He is author of the important tract, De hæresi pauperum de Lugduno, in which the pious mystic shows himself in the less pleasing guise of a relentless inquisitor and heresy hunter.—A brilliant and skilful allegory, The Daughter of Zion, the human soul, who, having become a daughter of Babylon, went forth to see the heavenly King, and under the guidance of the virgins Faith, Hope, Love, Wisdom, and Prayer attained unto this end, was first written in Latin prose; but afterwards towards the close of the 13th century a free rendering of it in more than 4,000 verses was published by the Franciscan Lamprecht of Regensburg. Its mysticism is like that of St. Bernard and Hugo St. Victor.—In speculative power and originality the Dominican Theodorich of Freiburg, Meister Dietrich, a pupil of Albert the Great, far excelled all the mystics of this century. About A.D. 1280 he was reader at Treves, afterwards prior at Würzburg, took his master’s degree and taught at Paris, A.D. 1285-1289. About A.D. 1320, however, along with Meister Eckhart (§ [114, 1]), he fell under suspicion of heresy, and nothing further is known of him. Among his still unpublished writings, mostly on natural and religious philosophy, the most important is the book De beatifica visione Dei per essentiam, which marks him out as a precursor of the Eckhart speculation.—On Female Mystics, see § [107].