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Beacon Lights of History, Volume V
Thomas Aquinas
by Lord, John (LL.D.)
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A.D. 1225(7)-1274.
THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY.
We have seen how the cloister life of the Middle Ages developed
meditative habits of mind, which were followed by a spirit of inquiry on
deep theological questions. We have now to consider a great intellectual
movement, stimulated by the effort to bring philosophy to the aid of
theology, and thus more effectually to battle with insidious and rising
heresies. The most illustrious representative of this movement was
Thomas of Aquino, generally called Thomas Aquinas. With him we associate
the Scholastic Philosophy, which, though barren in the results at which
it aimed, led to a remarkable intellectual activity, and hence,
indirectly, to the emancipation of the mind. It furnished teachers who
prepared the way for the great lights of the Reformation.
Anselm had successfully battled with the rationalism of Roscelin, and
also had furnished a new argument for the existence of God. He secured
the triumph of Realism for a time and the apparent extinction of
heresy. But a new impulse to thought was given, soon after his death, by
a less profound but more popular and brilliant man, and, like him, a
monk. This was the celebrated Peter Abélard, born in the year 1079, in
Brittany, of noble parents, and a boy of remarkable precocity. He was a
sort of knight-errant of philosophy, going from convent to convent and
from school to school, disputing, while a mere youth, with learned
teachers, wherever he could find them. Having vanquished the masters in
the provincial schools, he turned his steps to Paris, at that time the
intellectual centre of Europe. The university was not yet established,
but the cathedral school of Notre Dame was presided over by William of
Champeaux, who defended the Realism of Anselm.
To this famous cathedral school Abélard came as a pupil of the veteran
dialectician at the age of twenty, and dared to dispute his doctrines.
He soon set up as a teacher himself; but as Notre Dame was interdicted
to him he retired to Melun, ten leagues from Paris, where enthusiastic
pupils crowded to his lecture room, for he was witty, bold, sarcastic,
acute, and eloquent. He afterwards removed to Paris, and so completely
discomfited his old master that he retired from the field. Abélard then
applied himself to the study of divinity, and attended the lectures of
Anselm of Laon, who, though an old man, was treated by Abélard with
great flippancy and arrogance. He then began to lecture on divinity as
well as philosophy, with extraordinary éclat. Students flocked to his
lecture room from all parts of Germany, Italy, France, and England. It
is said that five thousand young men attended his lectures, among whom
one hundred were destined to be prelates, including that brilliant and
able Italian who afterwards reigned as Innocent III. It was about this
time, 1117, when he was thirty-eight, that he encountered Héloïse,--a
passage of his life which will be considered in a later volume of this
work. His unfortunate love and his cruel misfortune led to a temporary
seclusion in a convent, from which, however, he issued to lecture with
renewed popularity in a desert place in Champagne, where he constructed
a vast edifice and dedicated it to the Paraclete. It was here that his
most brilliant days were spent. It is said that three thousand pupils
followed him to this wilderness. He was doubtless the most brilliant and
successful lecturer that the Middle Ages ever saw. He continued the
controversy which was begun by Roscelin respecting universals, the
reality of which he denied.
Abélard was not acquainted with the Greek, but in a Latin translation
from the Arabic he had studied Aristotle, whom he regarded as the great
master of dialectics, although not making use of his method, as did the
great Scholastics of the succeeding century. Still, he was among the
first to apply dialectics to theology. He maintained a certain
independence of the patristic authority by his "Sic et Non," in which
treatise he makes the authorities neutralize each other by placing side
by side contradictory assertions. He maintained that the natural
propensity to evil, in consequence of the original transgression, is not
in itself sin; that sin consists in consenting to evil. "It is not,"
said he, "the temptation to lust that is sinful, but the acquiescence in
the temptation;" hence, that virtue cannot be tested without
temptations; consequently, that moral worth can only be truly estimated
by God, to whom motives are known,--in short, that sin consists in the
intention, and not in act. He admitted with Anselm that faith, in a
certain sense, precedes knowledge, but insisted that one must know why
and what he believes before his faith is established; hence, that faith
works itself out of doubt by means of rational investigation.
The tendency of Abélard's teachings was rationalistic, and therefore he
arrayed against himself the great champion of orthodoxy in his
day,--Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, the most influential churchman
of his age, and the most devout and lofty. His immense influence was
based on his learning and sanctity; but he was dogmatic and intolerant.
It is probable that the intellectual arrogance of Abélard, his flippancy
and his sarcasms, offended more than the matter of his lectures. "It is
not by industry," said he, "that I have reached the heights of
philosophy, but by force of genius." He was more admired by young and
worldly men than by old men. He was the admiration of women, for he was
poet as well as philosopher. His love-songs were scattered over Europe.
With a proud and aristocratic bearing, severe yet negligent dress,
beautiful and noble figure, musical and electrical voice, added to the
impression he made by his wit and dialectical power, no man ever
commanded greater admiration from those who listened to him. But he
excited envy as well as admiration, and was probably misrepresented by
his opponents. Like all strong and original characters, he had bitter
enemies as well as admiring friends; and these enemies exaggerated his
failings and his heretical opinions. Therefore he was summoned before
the Council of Soissons, and condemned to perpetual silence. From this
he appealed to Rome, and Rome sided with his enemies. He found a
retreat, after his condemnation, in the abbey of Cluny, and died in the
arms of his friend Peter the Venerable, the most benignant ecclesiastic
of the century, who venerated his genius and defended his orthodoxy, and
whose influence procured him absolution from the Pope.
But whatever were the faults of Abélard; however selfish he was in his
treatment of Héloïse, or proud and provoking to adversaries, or even
heretical in many of his doctrines, especially in reference to faith,
which he is accused of undermining, although he accepted in the main the
received doctrines of the Church, certainly in his latter days, when he
was broken and penitent (for no great man ever suffered more humiliating
misfortunes),--one thing is clear, that he gave a stimulus to
philosophical inquiries, and awakened a desire of knowledge, and gave
dignity to human reason, beyond any man in the Middle Ages.
The dialectical and controversial spirit awakened by Abélard led to such
a variety of opinions among the inquiring young men who assembled in
Paris at the various schools, some of which were regarded as
rationalistic in their tendency, or at least a departure from the
patristic standard, that Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris, collected in
four books the various sayings of the Fathers concerning theological
dogmas. He was also influenced to make this exposition by the "Sic et
Non" of Abélard, which tended to unsettle belief. This famous manual,
called the "Book of Sentences," appeared about the middle of the twelfth
century, and had an immense influence. It was the great text-book of the
theological schools.
About the time this book appeared the works of Aristotle were introduced
to the attention of students, translated into Latin from the Saracenic
language. Aristotle had already been commented upon by Arabian scholars
in Spain,--among whom Averroes, a physician and mathematician of
Cordova, was the most distinguished,--who regarded the Greek philosopher
as the founder of scientific knowledge. His works were translated from
the Greek into the Arabic in the early part of the ninth century.
The introduction of Aristotle led to an extension of philosophical
studies. From the time of Charlemagne only grammar and elementary logic
and dogmatic theology had been taught, but Abélard introduced dialectics
into theology. A more complete method was required than that which the
existing schools furnished, and this was supplied by the dialectics of
Aristotle. He became, therefore, at the close of the twelfth century, an
acknowledged authority, and his method was adopted to support the dogmas
of the Church.
Meanwhile the press of students at Paris, collected into various
schools,--the chief of which were the theological school of Notre Dame,
and the school of logic at Mount Geneviève, where Abélard had
lectured,--demanded a new organization. The teachers and pupils of these
schools then formed a corporation called a university (Universitas
Magistrorum et Scholarium), under the control of the chancellor and
chapter of Notre Dame, whose corporate existence was secured from
Innocent III. a few years afterwards.
Thus arose the University of Paris at the close of the twelfth century,
or about the beginning of the thirteenth, soon followed in different
parts of Europe by other universities, the most distinguished of which
were those of Oxford, Bologna, Padua, and Salamanca. But that of Paris
took the lead, this city being the intellectual centre of Europe even at
that early day. Thither flocked young men from Germany, England, and
Italy, as well as from all parts of France, to the number of twenty-five
or thirty thousand. These students were a motley crowd: some of them
were half-starved youth, with tattered clothes, living in garrets and
unhealthy cells; others again were rich and noble,--but all were eager
for knowledge. They came to Paris as pilgrims flocked to Jerusalem,
being drawn by the fame of the lecturers. The old sleepy schools of the
convents were deserted, for who would go to Fulda or York or Citeaux,
when such men as Abélard, Albert, and Victor were dazzling enthusiastic
youth by their brilliant disputations? These young men also seem to have
been noisy, turbulent, and dissipated for the most part, "filling the
streets with their brawls and the taverns with the fumes of liquor.
There was no such thing as discipline among them. They yelled and
shouted and brandished daggers, fought the townspeople, and were free
with their knocks and blows." They were not all youth; many of them were
men in middle life, with wives and children. At that time no one
finished his education at twenty-one; some remained scholars until the
age of thirty-five.
Some of these students came to study medicine, others law, but more
theology and philosophy. The headquarters of theology was the Sorbonne,
opened in 1253,--a college founded by Robert Sorbon, chaplain of the
king, whose aim was to bring together the students and professors,
heretofore scattered throughout the city. The students of this college,
which formed a part of the university, under the rule of the chancellor
of Notre Dame, it would seem were more orderly and studious than the
other students. They arose at five, assisted at Mass at six, studied
till ten,--the dinner hour; from dinner till five they studied or
attended lectures; then went to supper,--the principal meal; after which
they discussed problems till nine or ten, when they went to bed. The
students were divided into hospites and socii, the latter of whom
carried on the administration. The lectures were given in a large hall,
in the middle of which was the chair of the master or doctor, while
immediately below him sat his assistant, the bachelor, who was going
through his training for a professorship. The chair of theology was the
most coveted honor of the university, and was reached only by a long
course of study and searching examinations, to which no one could aspire
but the most learned and gifted of the doctors. The students sat around
on benches, or on the straw. There were no writing-desks. The teaching
was oral, principally by questions and answers. Neither the master nor
the bachelor used a book. No reading was allowed. The students rarely
took notes or wrote in short-hand; they listened to the lectures and
wrote them down afterwards, so far as their memory served them. The
usual text-book was the "Book of Sentences," by Peter Lombard. The
bachelor, after having previously studied ten years, was obliged to go
through a three years' drill, and then submit to a public examination in
presence of the whole university before he was thought fit to teach. He
could not then receive his master's badge until he had successfully
maintained a public disputation on some thesis proposed; and even then
he stood no chance of being elevated to a professor's chair unless he
had lectured for some time with great éclat Even Albertus Magnus,
fresh with the laurels of Cologne, was compelled to go through a three
years' course as a sub-teacher at Paris before he received his doctor's
cap, and to lecture for some years more as master before his
transcendent abilities were rewarded with a professorship. The dean of
the faculty of theology was chosen by the suffrages of the doctors.
The Organum (philosophy of first principles) of Aristotle was first
publicly taught in 1215. This was certainly in advance of the seven
liberal arts which were studied in the old Cathedral schools,--grammar,
rhetoric, and dialectic (Trivium); and arithmetic, geometry, music, and
astronomy (Quadrivium),--for only the elements of these were taught. But
philosophy and theology, under the teaching of the Scholastic doctors
(Doctores Scholastici), taxed severely the intellectual powers. When
they introduced dialectics to support theology a more severe method was
required. "The method consisted in connecting the doctrine to be
expounded with a commentary on some work chosen for the purpose. The
contents were divided and subdivided, until the several propositions of
which it was composed were reached. Then these were interpreted,
questions were raised in reference to them, and the grounds of affirming
or denying were presented. Then the decision was announced, and in case
this was affirmative, the grounds of the negative were confuted."
Aristotle was made use of in order to reduce to scientific form a body
of dogmatic teachings, or to introduce a logical arrangement. Platonism,
embraced by the early Fathers, was a collection of abstractions and
theories, but was deficient in method. It did not furnish the weapons to
assail heresy with effect. But Aristotle was logical and precise and
passionless. He examined the nature of language, and was clear and
accurate in his definitions. His logic was studied with the sole view
of learning to use polemical weapons. For this end the syllogism was
introduced, which descends from the universal to the particular, by
deduction,--connecting the general with the special by means of a middle
term which is common to both. This mode of reasoning is opposite to the
method by induction, which rises to the universal from a comparison of
the single and particular, or, as applied in science, from a collection
and collation of facts sufficient to form a certainty or high
probability. A sound special deduction can be arrived at only by logical
inference from true and certain general principles.
This is what Anselm essayed to do; but the Schoolmen who succeeded
Abélard often drew dialectical inferences from what appeared to be true,
while some of them were so sophistical as to argue from false premises.
This syllogistic reasoning, in the hands of an acute dialectician, was
very efficient in overthrowing an antagonist, or turning his position
into absurdity, but not favorable for the discovery of truth, since it
aimed no higher than the establishment of the particulars which were
included in the doctrine assumed or deduced from it. It was reasoning in
perpetual circles; it was full of quibbles and sophistries; it was
ingenious, subtle, acute, very attractive to the minds of that age, and
inexhaustible from divisions and subdivisions and endless
ramifications. It made the contests of the schools a dialectical display
of remarkable powers in which great interest was felt, yet but little
knowledge was acquired. In one respect the Scholastic doctors rendered a
service: they demolished all dreamy theories and poured contempt on
mystical phrases. They insisted, like Socrates, on a definite meaning to
words. If they were hair-splitting in their definitions and
distinctions, they were at least clear and precise. Their method was
scientific. Such terms and expressions as are frequently used by our
modern transcendental philosophers would have been laughed to scorn by
the Schoolmen. No system of philosophy can be built up when words have
no definite meaning. This Socrates was the first to inculcate, and
Aristotle followed in his steps.
With the Crusades arose a new spirit, which gave an impulse to
philosophy as well as to art and enterprise. "The primum mobile of the
new system was Motion, in distinction from the Rest which marked the old
monastic retreats." An immense enthusiasm for knowledge had been kindled
by Abélard, which was further intensified by the Scholastic doctors of
the thirteenth century, especially such of them as belonged to the
Dominican and Franciscan friars.
These celebrated Orders arose at a great crisis in the Papal history,
when rival popes aspired to the throne of Saint Peter, when the Church
was rent with divisions, when princes were contending for the right of
investiture, and when heretical opinions were defended by men of genius.
At this crisis a great Pope was called to the government of the
Church,--Innocent III., under whose able rule the papal power
culminated. He belonged to an illustrious Roman family, and received an
unusual education, being versed in theology, philosophy, and canon law.
His name was Lothario, of the family of the Conti; he was nephew of a
pope, and counted three cardinals among his relatives. At the age of
twenty-one, about the year 1181, he was one of the canons of Saint
Peter's Church; at twenty-four he was sent by the Pope on important
missions. In 1188 he was created cardinal by his uncle, Clement III.;
and in 1198 he was elected Pope, at the age of thirty-eight, when the
Crusades were at their height, when the south of France was agitated by
the opinions of the Albigenses, and the provinces on the Rhine by those
of the Waldenses. It was a turbulent age, full of tumults,
insurrections, wars, and theological dissensions. The old Benedictine
monks had lost their influence, and were disgraced by idleness and
gluttony, while the secular clergy were ignorant and worldly. Innocent
cast his eagle eye into all the abuses which disgraced the age and
Church, and made fearless war upon those princes who usurped his
prerogatives. He excommunicated princes, humbled the Emperor of Germany
and the King of England, put kingdoms under interdict, exempted abbots
from the jurisdiction of bishops, punished heretics, formed crusades,
laid down new canons, regulated taxes, and directed all ecclesiastical
movements. His activity was ceaseless, and his ambition was boundless.
He instituted important changes, and added new orders of monks to the
Church. It was this Pope who instituted auricular confession, and laid
the foundation of a more dreadful spiritual despotism in the form of
inquisitions.
Yet while he ruled tyrannically, his private life was above reproach.
His habits were simple and his tastes were cultivated. He was charitable
and kind to the poor and unfortunate. He spent his enormous revenues in
building churches, endowing hospitals, and rewarding learned men; and
otherwise showed himself the friend of scholars, and the patron of
benevolent movements. He was a reformer of abuses, publishing the most
severe acts against venality, and deciding quarrels on principles of
justice. He had no dramatic conflicts like Hildebrand, for his authority
was established. As the supreme guardian of the interests of the Church
he seldom made demands which he had not the power to enforce. John of
England attempted resistance, but was compelled to submit. Innocent
even gave the archbishopric of Canterbury to one of his cardinals,
Stephen Langton, against the wishes of a Norman king. He took away the
wife of Philip Augustus; he nominated an emperor to the throne of
Constantine; he compelled France to make war on England, and incited the
barons to rebellion against John. Ten years' civil war in Germany was
the fruit of his astute policy, and the only great failure of his
administration was that he could not exempt Italy from the dominion of
the Emperors of Germany, thus giving rise to the two great political
parties of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,--the Guelphs and
Ghibellines.
To cement his vast spiritual power he encouraged what doubtless seemed
even to him a great fanaticism, but which he found could be turned to
his advantage,--that of the Mendicant Friars, established by Saint
Francis of Assisi, and Saint Dominic of the great family of the Guzmans
in Spain. These men made substantially the same offers to the Pope that
Ignatius Loyola did in after times,--to go where they were sent as
teachers, preachers, and missionaries without condition or reward. They
renounced riches, professed absolute poverty, and wandered from village
to city barefooted, and subsisting entirely on alms as beggars. The
Dominican friar in his black habit, and the Franciscan in his gray,
became the ablest and most effective preachers of the thirteenth
century. The Dominicans confined their teachings to the upper classes,
and became their favorite confessors. They were the most learned men of
the thirteenth century, and also the most reproachless in morals. The
Franciscans were itinerary preachers to the common people, and created
among them the same religious revival that the Methodists did later in
England under the guidance of Wesley. The founder of the Franciscans was
a man who seemed to be "inebriated with love," so unquenchable was his
charity, rapt his devotions, and supernal his sympathy. He found his way
to Rome in the year 1215, and in twenty-two years after his death there
were nine thousand religious houses of his Order. In a century from his
death the friars numbered one hundred and fifty thousand. The increase
of the Dominicans was not so rapid, but more illustrious men belonged to
this institution. It is affirmed that it produced seventy cardinals,
four hundred and sixty bishops, and four popes.
It was in the palmy days of these celebrated monks, before corruption
had set in, that the Dominican Order was recruited with one of the most
extraordinary men of the Middle Ages. This man was Saint Thomas, born
1225 or 1227, son of a Count of Aquino in the kingdom of Naples, known
in history as Thomas Aquinas, "the most successful organizer of
knowledge," says Archbishop Trench, "the world has known since
Aristotle." He was called "the angelical doctor," exciting the
enthusiasm of his age for his learning and piety and genius alike. He
was a prodigy and a marvel of dialectical skill, and Catholic writers
have exhausted language to find expressions for their admiration. Their
Lives of him are an unbounded panegyric for the sweetness of his temper,
his wonderful self-control, his lofty devotion to study, his
indifference to praises and rewards, his spiritual devotion, his loyalty
to the Church, his marvellous acuteness of intellect, his industry, and
his unparalleled logical victories. When he was five years of age his
father, a noble of very high rank, sent him to Monte Cassino with the
hope that he would become a Benedictine monk, and ultimately abbot of
that famous monastery, with the control of its vast revenues and
patronage. Here he remained seven years, until the convent was taken and
sacked by the soldiers of the Emperor Frederic in his war with the Pope.
The young Aquino returned to his father's castle, and was then sent to
Naples to be educated at the university, living in a Benedictine abbey,
and not in lodgings like other students. The Dominicans and Franciscans
held chairs in the university, one of which was filled with a man of
great ability, whose preaching and teaching had such great influence on
the youthful Thomas that he resolved to join the Order, and at the age
of seventeen became a Dominican friar, to the disappointment of his
family. His mother Theodora went to Naples to extricate him from the
hands of the Dominicans, who secretly hurried him off to Rome and
immured him in their convent, from which he was rescued by violence. But
the youth persisted in his intentions against the most passionate
entreaties of his mother, made his escape, and was carried back to
Naples. The Pope, at the solicitation of his family, offered to make him
Abbot of Monte Cassino, but he remained a poor Dominican. His superior,
seeing his remarkable talents, sent him to Cologne to attend the
lectures of Albertus Magnus, then the most able expounder of the
Scholastic Philosophy, and the oracle of the universities, who continued
his lectures after he was made a bishop, and even until he was
eighty-five. When Albertus was transferred from Cologne to Paris, where
the Dominicans held two chairs of theology, Thomas followed him, and
soon after was made bachelor. Again was Albert sent back to Cologne, and
Thomas was made his assistant professor. He at once attracted attention,
was ordained priest, and became as famous for his sermons as for his
lectures. After four years at Cologne Thomas was ordered back to Paris,
travelling on foot, and begging his way, yet stopping to preach in the
large cities. He was still magister and Albert professor, but had
greatly distinguished himself by his lectures.
His appearance at this time was marked. His body was tall and massive,
but spare and lean from fasting and labor. His eyes were bright, but
their expression was most modest. His face was oblong, his complexion
sallow; his forehead depressed, his head large, his person erect.
His first great work was a commentary of about twelve hundred pages on
the "Book of Sentences," in the Parma edition, which was received with
great admiration for its logical precision, and its opposition to the
rationalistic tendencies of the times. In it are discussed all the great
theological questions treated by Saint Augustine,--God, Christ, the Holy
Spirit, grace, predestination, faith, free-will, Providence, and the
like,--blended with metaphysical discussions on the soul, the existence
of evil, the nature of angels, and other subjects which interested the
Middle Ages. Such was his fame and dialectical skill that he was taken
away from his teachings and sent to Rome to defend his Order and the
cause of orthodoxy against the slanders of William of Saint Amour, an
aristocratic doctor, who hated the Mendicant Friars and their wandering
and begging habits. William had written a book called "Perils," in which
he exposed the dangers to be apprehended from the new order of monks,
in which he proved himself a true prophet, for ultimately the Mendicant
Friars became subjects of ridicule and reproach. But the Pope came to
the rescue of his best supporters.
On the return of Thomas to Paris he was made doctor of theology, at the
same time with Bonaventura the Franciscan, called "the seraphic doctor,"
between whom and Thomas were intimate ties of friendship. He had now
reached the highest honor that the university could bestow, which was
conferred with such extraordinary ceremony that it would seem to have
been a great event in Paris at that time.
His fame chiefly rests on the ablest treatise written in the Middle
Ages,--the "Summa Theologica,"--in which all the great questions in
theology and philosophy are minutely discussed, in the most exhaustive
manner. He took the side of the Realists, his object being to uphold
Saint Augustine. He was more a Platonist in his spirit than an
Aristotelian, although he was indebted to Aristotle for his method. He
appealed to both reason and authority. He presented the Christian
religion in a scientific form. His book is an assimilation of all that
is precious in the thinking of the Church. If he learned many things at
Paris, Cologne, and Naples, he was also educated by Chrysostom, by
Augustine, and Ambrose. "It is impossible," says Cardinal Newman, and no
authority is higher than his, "to read the Catena of Saint Thomas
without being struck by the masterly skill with which he put it
together. A learning of the highest kind,--not mere literary book
knowledge which may have supplied the place of indexes and tables in
ages destitute of these helps, and when they had to be read in
unarranged and fragmentary manuscripts, but a thorough acquaintance with
the whole range of ecclesiastical antiquity, so as to be able to bring
the substance of all that had been written on any point to bear upon the
text which involved it,--a familiarity with the style of each writer so
as to compress in a few words the pith of the whole page, and a power of
clear and orderly arrangement in this mass of knowledge, are qualities
which make this Catena nearly perfect as an interpretation of
Patristic literature." Dr. Vaughan, in eulogistic language, says: "The
'Summa Theologica' may be likened to one of the great cathedrals of the
Middle Ages, infinite in detail but massive in the grouping of pillars
and arches, forming a complete unity that must have taxed the brain of
the architect to its greatest extent. But greater as work of intellect
is this digest of all theological richness for one thousand years, in
which the thread of discourse is never lost sight of, but winds through
a labyrinth of important discussions and digressions, all bearing on the
fundamental truths which Paul declared and Augustine systematized."
This treatise would seem to be a thesaurus of both Patristic and
Mediaeval learning; not a dictionary of knowledge, but a system of truth
severely elaborated in every part,--a work to be studied by the
Mediaeval students as Calvin's "Institutes" were by the scholars of the
Reformation, and not far different in its scope and end; for the
Patristic, the Mediaeval, and the Protestant divines did not materially
differ in reference to the fundamental truths pertaining to God, the
Incarnation, and Redemption. The Catholic and Protestant divines differ
chiefly on the ideas pertaining to government and ecclesiastical
institutions, and the various inventions of the Middle Ages to uphold
the authority of the Church, not on dogmas strictly theological. A
student in theology could even in our times sit at the feet of Thomas
Aquinas, as he could at the feet of Augustine or Calvin; except that in
the theology which Thomas Aquinas commented upon there is a cumbrous
method, borrowed from Aristotle, which introduced infinite distinctions
and questions and definitions and deductions and ramifications which
have no charm to men who have other things to occupy their minds than
Scholastic subtilties, acute and logical as they may be. Thomas Aquinas
was raised to combat, with the weapons most esteemed in his day, the
various forms of Rationalism, Pantheism, and Mysticism which then
existed, and were included in the Nominalism of his antagonists. And as
long as universities are centres of inquiry the same errors, under other
names, will have to be combated, but probably not with the same methods
which marked the teachings of the "angelical doctor." In demolishing
errors and systematizing truth he was the greatest benefactor to the
cause of "orthodoxy" that appeared in Europe for several centuries,
admired for his genius as much as Spencer and other great lights of
science are in our day, but standing preeminent and lofty over all, like
a beacon light to give both guidance and warning to inquiring minds in
every part of Christendom. Nor could popes and sovereigns render too
great honor to such a prodigy of genius. They offered him the abbacy of
Monte Cassino and the archbishopric of Naples, but he preferred the life
of a quiet student, finding in knowledge and study, for their own sake,
the highest reward, and pursuing his labors without the impedimenta of
those high positions which involve ceremonies and cares and pomps, yet
which most ambitious men love better than freedom, placidity, and
intellectual repose. He lived not in a palace, as he might have lived,
surrounded with flatterers, luxuries, and dignities, but in a cell,
wearing his simple black gown, and walking barefooted wherever he went,
begging his daily bread according to the rules of his Order. His black
gown was not an academic badge, but the Dominican dress. His only badge
of distinction was the doctors' cap.
Dr. Vaughan, in his heavy and unartistic life of Thomas Aquinas, has
drawn a striking resemblance between Plato and the Mediaeval doctor:
"Both," he says, "were nobly born, both were grave from youth, both
loved truth with an intensity of devotion. If Plato was instructed by
Socrates, Aquinas was taught by Albertus Magnus; if Plato travelled into
Italy, Greece, and Egypt, Aquinas went to Cologne, Naples, Bologna, and
Rome; if Plato was famous for his erudition, Aquinas was no less noted
for his universal knowledge. Both were naturally meek and gentle; both
led lives of retirement and contemplation; both loved solitude; both
were celebrated for self-control; both were brave; both held their
pupils spell-bound by their brilliant mental gifts; both passed their
time in lecturing to the schools (what the Pythagoreans were to Plato,
the Benedictines were to the angelical); both shrank from the display of
self; both were great dialecticians; both reposed on eternal ideas; both
were oracles to their generation." But if Aquinas had the soul of Plato,
he also had the scholastic gifts of Aristotle, to whom the Church is
indebted for method and nomenclature as it was to Plato for synthesis
and that exalted Realism which went hand in hand with Christianity. How
far he was indebted to Plato it is difficult to say. He certainly had
not studied his dialectics through translations or in the original, but
had probably imbibed the spirit of this great philosopher through Saint
Augustine and other orthodox Fathers who were his admirers.
Although both Plato and Aristotle accepted "universals" as the
foundation of scientific inquiry, the former arrived at them by
consciousness, and the other by reasoning. The spirit of the two great
masters of thought was as essentially different as their habits and
lives. Plato believed that God governed the world; Aristotle believed
that it was governed by chance. The former maintained that mind is
divine and eternal; the latter that it is a form of the body, and
consequently mortal. Plato thought that the source of happiness was in
virtue and resemblance to God; while Aristotle placed it in riches and
outward prosperity. Plato believed in prayer; but Aristotle thought that
God would not hear or answer it, and therefore that it was useless.
Plato believed in happiness after death; while Aristotle supposed that
death ended all pleasure. Plato lived in the world of abstract ideas;
Aristotle in the realm of sense and observation. The one was religious;
the other secular and worldly. With both the passion for knowledge was
boundless, but they differed in their conceptions of knowledge; the one
basing it on eternal ideas and the deductions to be drawn from them,
and the other on physical science,--the phenomena of Nature,--those
things which are cognizable by the senses. The spiritual life of Plato
was "a longing after love and of eternal ideas, by the contemplation of
which the soul sustains itself and becomes participant in immortality."
The life of Aristotle was not spiritual, but intellectual. He was an
incarnation of mere intellect, the architect of a great temple of
knowledge, which received the name of Organum, or the philosophy of
first principles.
Thomas Aquinas, we may see from what has been said, was both Platonic
and Aristotelian. He resembled Plato in his deep and pious meditations
on the eternal realities of the spiritual world, while in the severity
of his logic he resembled Aristotle, from whom he learned precision of
language, lucidity of statement, and a syllogistic mode of argument well
calculated to confirm what was already known, but not to make
attainments in new fields of thought or knowledge. If he was gentle and
loving and pious like Plato, he was also as calm and passionless as
Aristotle.
This great man died at the age of forty-eight, in the year 1274, a few
years after Saint Louis, before his sum of theology was completed. He
died prematurely, exhausted by his intense studies; leaving, however,
treatises which filled seventeen printed folio volumes,--one of the most
voluminous writers of the world. His fame was prodigious, both as a
dialectician and a saint, and he was in due time canonized as one of the
great pillars of the Church, ranking after Chrysostom, Jerome,
Augustine, and Gregory the Great,--the standard authority for centuries
of the Catholic theology.
The Scholastic Philosophy, which culminated in Thomas Aquinas,
maintained its position in the universities of Europe until the
Reformation, but declined in earnestness. It descended to the discussion
of unimportant and often frivolous questions. Even the "angelical
doctor" is quoted as discussing the absurd question as to how many
angels could dance together on the point of a needle. The play of words
became interminable. Things were lost sight of in a barbarous jargon
about questions which have no interest to humanity, and which are
utterly unintelligible. At the best, logical processes can add nothing
to the ideas from which they start. When these ideas are lofty,
discussion upon them elevates the mind and doubtless strengthens its
powers. But when the subjects themselves are frivolous, the logical
tournaments in their defence degrade the intellect and narrow it.
Nothing destroys intellectual dignity more effectually than the waste of
energies in the defence of what is of no practical utility, and which
cannot be applied to the acquisition of solid knowledge. Hence the
Scholastic Philosophy did not advance knowledge, since it did not seek
the acquisition of new truths, but only the establishment of the old.
Its utility consisted in training the human mind to logical reasonings.
It exercised the intellect and strengthened it, as gymnastics do the
body, without enlarging it. It was nothing but barren dialectics,--"dry
bones," a perpetual fencing. The soul cries out for bread; the
Scholastics gave it a stone.
We are amazed that intellectual giants, equal to the old Greeks in
acuteness and logical powers, could waste their time on the frivolous
questions and dialectical subtilties to which they devoted their mighty
powers. However interesting to them, nothing is drier and duller to us,
nothing more barren and unsatisfying, than their logical sports. Their
treatises are like trees with endless branches, each leading to new
ramifications, with no central point in view, and hence never finished,
and which might be carried on ad infinitum. To attempt to read their
disquisitions is like walking in labyrinths of ever-opening intricacies.
By such a method no ultimate truth could be arrived at, beyond what was
assumed. There is now and then a man who professes to have derived light
and wisdom from those dialectical displays, since they were doubtless
marvels of logical precision and clearness of statement. But in a
practical point of view those "masterpieces of logic" are utterly
useless to most modern inquirers. These are interesting only as they
exhibit the waste of gigantic energies; they do not even have the merit
of illustrative rhetoric or eloquence. The earlier monks were devout and
spiritual, and we can still read their lofty meditations with profit,
since they elevate the soul and make it pant for the beatitudes of
spiritual communion with God. But the writings of the Scholastic doctors
are cold, calm, passionless, and purely intellectual,--logical without
being edifying. We turn from them, however acute and able, with blended
disappointment and despair. They are fig-trees, bearing nothing but
leaves, such as our Lord did curse. The distinctions are simply
metaphysical, and not moral.
Why the whole force of an awakening age should have been devoted to such
subtilties and barren discussion it is difficult to see, unless they
were found useful in supporting a theology made up of metaphysical
deductions rather than an interpretation of the meaning of Scripture
texts. But there was then no knowledge of Greek or Hebrew; there was no
exegetical research; there was no science and no real learning. There
was nothing but theology, with the exception of Lives of the Saints. The
horizon of human inquiries was extremely narrow. But when the minds of
very intellectual men were directed to one particular field, it would be
natural to expect something remarkable and marvellously elaborate of
its kind. Such was the Scholastic Philosophy. As a mere exhibition of
dialectical acumen, minute distinctions, and logical precision in the
use of words, it was wonderful. The intricacy and detail and
ramifications of this system were an intellectual feat which astonishes
us, yet which does not instruct us, certainly outside of a metaphysical
divinity which had more charm to the men of the Middle Ages than it can
have to us, even in a theological school where dogmatic divinity is made
the most important study. The day will soon come when the principal
chair in the theological school will be for the explanation of the
Scripture texts on which dogmas are based; and for this, great learning
and scholarship will be indispensable. To me it is surprising that
metaphysics have so long retained their hold on the minds of Protestant
divines. Nothing is more unsatisfactory, and to many more repulsive,
than metaphysical divinity. It is a perversion of the spirit of
Christian teachings. "What says our Lord?" should be the great inquiry
in our schools of theology; not, What deductions can be drawn from them
by a process of ingenious reasoning which often, without reference to
other important truths, lands one in absurdities, or at least in
one-sided systems?
But the metaphysical divinity of the Schoolmen had great attractions to
the students of the Middle Ages. And there must have been something in
it which we do not appreciate, or it would not have maintained itself in
the schools for three hundred years. Perhaps it was what those ages
needed,--the discipline through which the mind must go before it could
be prepared for the scientific investigations of our own times. In an
important sense the Scholastic doctors were the teachers of Luther and
Bacon. Certainly their unsatisfactory science was one of the marked
developments of the civilization of Europe, through which the Gothic
nations must need pass. It has been the fashion to ridicule it and
depreciate it in our modern times, especially among Protestants, who
have ridiculed and slandered the papal power and all the institutions of
the Middle Ages. Yet scholars might as well ridicule the text-books they
were required to study fifty years ago, because they are not up to our
times. We should not disdain the early steps by which future progress is
made easy. We cannot despise men who gave up their lives to the
contemplation of subjects which demand the highest tension of the
intellectual faculties, even if these exercises were barren of
utilitarian results. Some future age may be surprised at the comparative
unimportance of questions which interest this generation. The Scholastic
Philosophy cannot indeed be utilized by us in the pursuit of scientific
knowledge; nor (to recur to Vaughan's simile for the great work of
Aquinas) can a mediaeval cathedral be utilized for purposes of oratory
or business. But the cathedral is nevertheless a grand monument,
suggesting lofty sentiments, which it would be senseless and ruthless
barbarism to destroy or allow to fall into decay, but which should
rather be preserved as a precious memento of what is most poetic and
attractive in the Middle Ages. When any modern philosopher shall rear so
gigantic and symmetrical a monument of logical disquisitions as the
"Summa Theologica" is said to be by the most competent authorities, then
the sneers of a Macaulay or a Lewes will be entitled to more
consideration. It is said that a new edition of this great Mediaeval
work is about to be published under the direct auspices of the Pope, as
the best and most comprehensive system of Christian theology ever
written by man.
AUTHORITIES.
Dr. Vaughan's Life of Thomas Aquinas; Histoire de la Vie et des Écrits
de St. Thomas d'Aquin, par l'Abbé Bareille; Lacordaire's Life of Saint
Dominic; Dr. Hampden's Life of Thomas Aquinas; article on Thomas
Aquinas, in London Quarterly, July, 1881; Summa Theologica; Neander,
Milman, Fleury, Dupin, and Ecclesiastical Histories generally;
Biographic Universelle; Werner's Leben des Heiligen Thomas von Aquino;
Trench's Lectures on Mediaeval History; Ueberweg & Rousselot's History
of Philosophy. Dr. Hampden's article, in the Encyclopaedia
Metropolitana, on Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastic Philosophy, is
regarded by Hallam as the ablest view of this subject which has appeared
in English.
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