History of Philosophy Third Period of Scholasticism: Alexander of Hales to Ockam (1200-1300) byTurner, William (S.T.D.)
The second period in the history of Scholastic philosophy was the
period of storm and stress; the third is the period of relative
perfection -- the Golden Age of Scholasticism. The twelfth century
was a century of criticism and controversy; the thirteenth
is a century of synthesis and construction. The great masters of
Scholastic thought in the thirteenth century take as lively an interest
in the problem of universals as Roscelin and Abelard did; they have all
Abelard's relish for the use of dialectic, without any of his frivolous
love of display; they are not less appreciative of the value of piety
and contemplation than the Victorines were; they are as keenly alive to
the advantages to be gained from the learning of the Greeks and
Arabians as were the members of the school of Chartres; in a word, they
neither despise nor neglect what their predecessors accomplished, but,
going beyond the limits which circumstances set to the speculations of
their predecessors, they carry the Scholastic idea and the Scholastic
method into new regions of inquiry and succeed in constructing the
great Scholastic systems of metaphysics and psychology. The schoolmen
of the thirteenth century are not, like their predecessors, condemned
to work and think in a milieu unfavorable to constructive speculation.
The time is ripe for vast constructive attempts. From the union of the
Latin and German races there has sprung up a new Europe, dominated
everywhere by Christian ideals; the new civilization has reached its
complete development, and the time has come for Christian thought to
put forth its best efforts.
There were three events which more than any others influenced the
development of Christian thought at the beginning of the thirteenth
century: the introduction of the works of Aristotle, the rise of the
universities, and the foundation of the mendicant orders.
INTRODUCTION OF THE WORKS OF ARISTOTLE
Authorities. A. Jourdain, Recherches sur l'age et l'origine
des traductions latines d'Aristote (2me éd., Paris, 1843);
Mgr. Talamo, L'Aristotelismo della Scolastica (1873); Launoy,
De Varia Aristotelis in Academia Parisiensi Fortuna (ed. at
Wittenberg in 1820); Brother Azarias, Aristotle and the Christian
Church (in Essays Philosophical, Chicago, 1896).
The schoolmen of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were, for the most
part, acquainted with Aristotle merely as a master of dialectic.
Indeed, it was not until the time of John of Salisbury that even the
Organon was known to Christian philosophers in its entirety. It
is true that some of the physical doctrines of Aristotle were known to
the members of the school of Chartres, but it was only at the beginning
of the thirteenth century that all the physical, metaphysical, and
ethical treatises of Aristotle were translated into Latin and became
part of the library of the schoolmen.
The first translations were made from the Arabic, probably
through the medium of the Hebrew. The work of translating, begun in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries by Constantine the African, Adelard
of Bath, and Herman the Dalmatian, was systematized between
the years 1130 and 1150 by Raymond, bishop of Toledo, who
founded a college of translators. To this college belonged John
Avendeath (Johannes Hispanus), Dominicus Gundisalvi, Alfred de
Morlay, Gerard of Cremona (1114-1187), and, at a later time (about
1230), Michael Scott [1] and Herman the German. The
translations, as has been said, were often made through the medium of
Hebrew. This is true of the translations of commentaries and possibly
also of the translations of the text of Aristotle's works. Renan [2]
says of the commentaries of Averroës, "The printed editions of his
works are a Latin translation of a Hebrew translation of a commentary
made upon an Arabic translation of a Syriac translation of a Greek
text."
[1] Cf. Jourdain, Reckerches, etc., pp. 124 ff.; Renan,
Averroës, etc., p. 205, and Chartul. (ed. Denifle), I, 105,
110.
[2] Op. cit., p. 52.
The translations made directly from the Greek are, as a rule, of later
date than the translations from the Arabic. Before the year 1215 or
1220 none of Aristotle's works except the Organon was translated
from the Greek. It was after the year 1240 that Robert Greathead
(1175-1253) [3] translated Aristotle's Ethics, and Henry of
Brabant and Thomas of Cantimpré translated some other
portions of Aristotle's works. About 1260 William of Moerbeka,
at the request of St Thomas, and, as it appears, of Urban IV,
translated the complete works of Aristotle into Latin. This version,
known as the "translatio nova," imperfect as it was, held its place as
the authoritative translation of Aristotle till the dawn of the era of
the Renaissance, although it is evident that in St. Thomas' time there
were several other translations in use.
[3] Cf. F. S. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste (London,
1899).
In the light of the foregoing facts the attitude of the Church towards
the study of Aristotle's works is seen to be perfectly consistent.
When, in 1210, the provincial Council of Paris, which condemned the doctrines of
Amaury and David of Dinant, prohibited the reading of Aristotle's works
and the commentaries thereon ("nec libri Aristotelis de naturali
philosophia nec commenta legantur Parisiis publice vel secreto"), the
prohibition was directed against the Arabian translations rendered into
Latin and against the Arabian commentaries. When, in 1215, Robert of
Courçon, the papal legate, drew up the statutes for the guidance
of the masters of the University of Paris, and therein forbade the
reading of the physical and metaphysical treatises, the regulation once
more referred to the Arabian Aristotle. When, in 1231, Gregory IX
directed that the libri naturales be expurgated of errors, it
was a sign that the true Aristotle was beginning to be distinguished
from the false, and, indeed, in 1254 we find the writings of Aristotle
prescribed by the Faculty of Arts as text-books for the masters'
lectures in the University of Paris. The Aristotle that was twice
condemned was professedly hostile to Christianity. To the controversies
of former centuries Aristotle had contributed merely the weapons of
dialectical debate: but as soon as translations were made from the
Arabic, and Arabian commentaries were appended to them, Aristotle's
works were made to yield material for a new rationalism and a new
pantheism essentially hostile to Christian faith and to theism. When,
however, translations were made from the Greek text, it became clear
that Peripateticism and Scholasticism were by no means hostile to each
other; and from the time of Alexander of Hales onward Aristotle's
philosophy was made the basis of a rational exposition of dogma:
Aristotle became for the schoolmen what Plato had been for the Fathers,
-- "praecursor Christi in naturalibus."
RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES
Authorities. For the history of the University of Paris, with
which we are chiefly concerned here, the authorities, besides Du
Boulay's Historia Universitatis Parisiensis (a very uncritical
work), are Denifle's Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis
(1889-1891) and Die Entstehung der Universitäten des
Mittelalters bis 1400 (1885); Rashdall's Universities of Europe
in the Middle Ages, Vol. I (Oxford, 1895); Laurie's Lectures on
Rise, etc., of Universities (London, 1886), a work not always
reliable; Feret's La faculté de théologie de Paris
(Paris, 1894); and articles in Catholic University Bulletin, July,
October, 1895. [4]
[4] Vol. I, pp. 349 ff. and 493 ff.
The event which is now universally admitted as the starting point of
the history of the University of Paris is the union of the masters and
students of
the schools in the island into a corporation (Universitas
Magistrorum et Scolarium) under the presidency of the chancellor of
the cathedral. This event took place about the end of the twelfth
century. During the first decades of the thirteenth century the
faculties were organized. About the same time the nations
were organized among the students and the masters of the faculty of
arts, and a struggle began between the rector of the nations and the
chancellor of the university.[5] Privileges bestowed both by the popes
and the French kings extended the influence and prestige of the
university; Paris became the "city of books," the center of the
intellectual life of Christian Europe, and the scene of the greatest
triumphs of Scholasticism. It was at Paris all the great masters
studied and taught, and so intimately is the history of Scholastic
philosophy connected with the University of Paris, that to understand
the conditions in which Scholasticism attained its highest development
it is necessary to know something of the arrangements made for the
study of philosophy at the university.
[5] Chartul., I, xi.
By statutes issued at various times during the thirteenth century it
was provided that the professor should read, that is, expound,
the text of certain standard authors in philosophy and theology. In a
document published by Denifle, [6] and by him referred to the year 1252,
we find the following works among those prescribed for the Faculty of
Arts: Logica Vetus (the old Boethian text of a portion of the
Organon, probably accompanied by Porphyry's Isagoge);
Logica Nova (the new translation of the Organon);
Gilbert's Liber Sex Principiorum; and Donatus'
Barbarismus. A few years later (1255), we find the following
works prescribed: Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics, De Anima, De
Animalibus, De Coelo et Mundo, Meteorica, the minor psychological
treatises, and some Arabian or Jewish works, such as the Liber de
Causis and De Differentia Spiritus et Animae. [7] The first
degree for which the student of arts presented himself was that of
bachelor. The candidate for this degree, after a preliminary test
called responsiones (this regulation went into effect not later
than 1275), presented himself for the determinatio, which was a
public defense of a certain number of theses against opponents chosen
from the audience. At the end of the disputation, the defender summed
up, or "determined," his conclusions. After determining, the bachelor
resumed his studies for the licentiate, assuming also the task of
"cursorily" explaining to junior students some portion of the
Organon. The test for the degree of licentiate consisted in a
collatio, or exposition of several texts, after the manner of
the masters. The student was now a licensed teacher; he did not, however, become magister, or
master of arts, until he had delivered what was called the
inceptio, or inaugural lecture, and was actually installed
(birrettatio). If he continued to teach he was called
magister actu regens; if he departed from the university or took
up other work, he was called magister non regens. It may be said
that, as a general rule, the course of reading was: (1) for the
bachelor's degree, grammar, logic, and psychology; (2) for the
licentiate, natural philosophy; (3) for the master's degree, ethics,
and the completion of the course of natural philosophy. [8]
[6] Op. cit., I, 227.
[7] Cf.op. cit., I, 279, note 10. The work De
Differentia Spiritus et Anima was published by Barach, Innsbruck,
1878.
[8] Cf. Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle
Ages, I, 437.
THE MENDICANT ORDERS
The University of Paris owed its origin to the union of the cathedral
schools, which were in charge of the diocesan clergy. Soon, however,
the two great orders, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, were founded,
and began to revive in their monasteries the best traditions of the
Benedictine cloister schools of former centuries. On the occasion of
the great dispersion of 1229, when, after having had recourse to a
cessatio, or suspension of lectures, the masters left the city,
as a protest against the infringement of their privileges, the
Dominicans obtained a license to establish a chair in the convent of
St. James. After the return of the secular masters, in 1231, the
Dominican master was allowed to continue his lectures. In the same year
the Dominicans secured another chair, and the Franciscans obtained
their first chair in the university, Alexander of Hales being installed
as the first Franciscan master. [9] In 1252 or 1253, under circumstances
very similar to those of 1229, the great body of masters once more
proclaimed a cessatio, and a struggle between the "regulars" and
"seculars" was precipitated by the refusal of the regular professors to
leave their chairs or to swear obedience to the statutes of the
university. This controversy was still raging in 1257, when St. Thomas
presented himself for his solemn inceptio as master in theology.
William of St. Amour was the champion of the seculars, while St. Thomas
and St. Bonaventure advocated the cause of the regulars. [10]
The outcome was that the mendicants obtained a secure standing in the
university, and the fate of Scholasticism was practically committed to
the teachers who belonged to the Dominican and Franciscan orders.[11] In
this way, within the Scholastic movement itself, two distinct currents
of thought soon began to be defined, -- the Dominican tradition and
the tradition of the Franciscan schools. The mendicant orders are thus
associated with the greatest triumph of philosophy in the thirteenth
century, as well as with the tendencies which, in subsequent centuries,
led to the downfall of Scholasticism.
[9] Cf.Chartul., I, 135, n.
[10] The status of the mendicants was defined in the bull Quasi
lignum vitae (1255; apud Denifle, Chartul., I, 279), which
settled practically every point in favor of the regulars. Meantime, the
controversy was extended beyond the question of university privilege,
and touched on the rights of religious in general, the vow of poverty,
etc. After the death of Alexander IV, the university obtained a
confirmation of its privileges, and the mendicants quietly submitted to
take the oath to which they had formerly objected.
[11] In 1252, seven chairs out of twelve were occupied by regulars.
cf. Denifle, op. cit., I, 258, note 12.
