chapter four

, book second, bears the title: “Quod aliter considerat de creaturis Philosophus et aliter Theologus” (“That the philosopher views the creation in one way and the theologian in another”). In the text he says:

“The science (_doctrina_) of Christian faith considers creatures so far as there may be in them some likeness of God, and so far as error regarding them might lead to error in things divine.... Human philosophy considers them after their own kind, and its parts are so devised as to correspond with the different classes (_genera_) of things; but the faith of Christ considers them, not after their own kind, as for example, fire as fire, but as representing the divine altitude.... The philosopher considers what belongs to them according to their own nature; the believer (_fidelis_) regards in creatures only what pertains to them in their relationship to God, as that they are created by Him and subject to Him. Wherefore the science of the Faith is not to be deemed incomplete, if it passes over many properties of things, as the shape of the heaven or the quality of motion.... It also follows that the two sciences do not proceed in the same order. With philosophy, which regards creatures in themselves, and from them draws on into a knowledge of God, the first consideration is in regard to the creatures and the last is as to God. But in the science of faith, which views creatures only in their relationship to God (_in ordine ad Deum_), the first consideration is of God, and next of the creatures.”

Obviously _sacra doctrina_, which is to say, _theologia_, proceeds differently from _philosophia humana_, and evidently it has to do with matters of ultimate importance, and therefore of ultimate intellectual interest. The passage quoted from the _Contra Gentiles_ may be taken as introductory to the more elaborate statement at the beginning of his _Summa theologiae_, where Thomas sets forth the principles by which _sacra doctrina_ is distinguished from the _philosophicae disciplinae_, to wit, the various sciences of human philosophy:

“It was necessary to human salvation that there should be a science (_doctrina_) according with divine revelation, besides the philosophical disciplines which are pursued by human reason. Because man was formed (_ordinatur_) toward God as toward an end exceeding reason’s comprehension. That end should be known to men, who ought to regulate their intentions and actions toward an end. Wherefore it was necessary for salvation that man should know certain matters through revelation, which surpass human reason.”

Thomas now points out that, on account of many errors, it also was necessary for man to be instructed through divine revelation as to those saving truths concerning God which human reason was capable of investigating. He next proceeds to show that _sacra doctrina_ is science.

“But there are two kinds of sciences. There are those which proceed from the principles known by the natural light of the mind, as arithmetic and geometry. There are others which proceed from principles known by the light of a superior science: as perspective proceeds from principles made known through geometry, and music from principles known through arithmetic. And _sacra doctrina_ is science in this way, because it proceeds from principles known by the light of a superior science or knowledge which is the knowledge belonging to God and the beatified. Thus as music believes the principles delivered to it by arithmetic, so sacred doctrine believes the principles revealed to it from God.”

The question then is raised whether _sacra doctrina_ is one science, or many. And Thomas answers, that it is one, by reason of the unity of its formal object. For it views everything discussed by it as divinely revealed; and all things which are subjects of revelation (_revelabilia_) have part in the formal conception of this science; and so are comprehended under _sacra doctrina_, as under one science. Nevertheless it extends to subjects belonging to various departments of knowledge so far as they are knowable through divine illumination. As some of these may be practical and some speculative, it follows that sacred science includes both the practical and the speculative, even as God with the same knowledge knows himself and also the things He makes.

“Yet this science is more speculative than practical, because on principle it treats of divine things rather than human actions, which it treats in so far as man by means of them is directed (_ordinatur_) to perfect cognition of God, wherein eternal beatitude consists. This science in its speculative as well as practical functions transcends other sciences, speculative and practical. One speculative science is said to be worthier than another, by reason of its certitude, or the dignity of its matter. In both respects this science surpasses other speculative sciences, because the others have certitude from the natural light of human reason, which may err; but this has certitude from the light of the divine knowledge, which cannot be deceived; likewise by reason of the dignity of its matter, because primarily it relates to matters too high for reason, while other sciences consider only those which are subjected to reason. It is worthier than the practical sciences, which are ordained for an ulterior end; for so far as this science is practical, its end is eternal beatitude, unto which as an ulterior end all other ends of the practical sciences are ordained (_ordinantur_).

“Moreover although this science may accept something from the philosophical sciences, it requires them merely for the larger manifestation of the matters which it teaches. For it takes its principles, not from other sciences, but immediately from God through revelation. So it does not receive from them as from superiors, but uses them as servants. Even so, it uses them not because of any defect of its own, but because of the defectiveness of our intellect which is more easily conducted (_manuducitur_) by natural reason to the things above reason which this science teaches.”

Thomas now shows, with scholastic formalism, that God is the _subjectum_ of this science; since all things in it are treated with reference to God (_sub ratione Dei_), either because they are God himself, or because they bear relationship (_habent ordinem_) to God as toward their cause and end (_principium et finem_). The final question is whether this science be _argumentativa_, using arguments and proofs; and Thomas thus sets forth his masterly solution:

“I reply, it should be said that as other sciences do not prove their first principles, but argue from them in order to prove other matters, so this science does not argue to prove its principles, which are articles of Faith, but proceeds from them to prove something else, as the Apostle, in 1 Corinthians xv., argues from the resurrection of Christ to prove the resurrection of us all. One should bear in mind that in the philosophic sciences the lower science neither proves its own first principles nor disputes with him who denies them, but leaves that to a higher science. But the science which is the highest among them, that is metaphysics, does dispute with him who denies its principles, if the adversary will concede anything; if he concede nothing it cannot thus argue with him, but can only overthrow his arguments. Likewise _sacra Scriptura_ (or _doctrina_ or sacred science, theology), since it owns no higher science, disputes with him who denies its principles, by argument indeed, if the adversary will concede any of the matters which it accepts through revelation. Thus through Scriptural authorities we dispute against heretics, and adduce one article against those who deny another. But if the adversary will give credence to nothing which is divinely revealed, sacred science has no arguments by which to prove to him the articles of faith, but has only arguments to refute his reasonings against the Faith, should he adduce any. For since faith rests on infallible truth, its contrary cannot be demonstrated: manifestly the proofs which are brought against it are not proofs, but controvertible arguments.

“To argue from authority is most appropriate to this science; for its principles rest on revelation, and it is proper to credit the authority of those to whom the revelation was made. Nor does this derogate from the dignity of this science; for although proof from authority based on human reason may be weak, yet proof from authority based on divine revelation is most effective.

“Yet sacred science also makes use of human reason; not indeed to prove the Faith, because this would take away the merit of believing; but to make manifest other things which may be treated in this science. For since grace does not annul nature, but perfects it, natural reason should serve faith, even as the natural inclination conforms itself to love (_caritas_). Hence sacred science uses the philosophers also as authority, where they were able to know the truth through natural reason. It uses authorities of this kind as extraneous arguments having probability. But it uses the authorities of the canonical Scriptures arguing from its own premises and with certainty. And it uses the authorities of other doctors of the Church, as arguing upon its own ground, yet only with probability. For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the Apostles and Prophets, who wrote the canonical books; and not upon the revelation, if there was any, made to other doctors.”[421]

Mediaeval thought was beset behind and before by the compulsion of its conditions. Its mighty antecedents lived in it, and wrought as moulding forces. Well we know them, two in number, the one, of course, the antique philosophy; the other, again of course, the dogmatic Christian Faith, itself shot through and through with antique metaphysics, in the terms of which it had been formulated. These two, very dual and yet joined, antagonistic and again united, constituted the form-giving principles of mediaeval thinking. They were, speaking in scholastic phrase, the substantial as well as accidental forms of mediaeval theology, philosophy, and knowledge. Which means that they set the lines of mediaeval theology or philosophy, and caused the one and the other to be what it became, rather than something else; and also that they supplied the knowledge which mediaeval men laboured to acquire, and attempted to adjust their thinking to. Thus, through the twelfth, the thirteenth, and the fourteenth centuries, they remained the inworking formal causes of mediaeval thought; while, on the other hand, the moving and efficient causes (still speaking in scholastic-Aristotelian phrase) were the human impulses which those formal causes moulded, or indeed suggested, and the faculties which they trained.

The patristic system of dogma with the antique philosophy, set the forms of mediaeval expression, fixed the distinctive qualities of mediaeval thought, furnished its topics, and even necessitated its problems--in two ways: First, through the specific substance which passed over and filled the mediaeval productions; and secondly, simply by reason of the existence of such a vast authoritative body of antique and patristic opinion, knowledge, dogma, which the Middle Ages had to accept and master, and beyond which the substance of mediaeval thinking was hardly destined to advance.

The first way is obvious enough, inasmuch as patristic and antique matter palpably make the substance of mediaeval theology and philosophy. The second is less obvious, but equally important. This mass of dogma, knowledge, and opinion, existed finished and complete. Men imperfectly equipped to comprehend it were brought to it by the conviction that it was necessary to their salvation, and then gradually by the persuasion also that it offered the only means of intellectual progress. The struggle to master such a volume of knowledge issuing from a more creative past, gave rise to novel problems, or promoted old ones to a novel prominence. The problem of universals was taken directly from the antique dialectic. It played a monstrous rôle in the twelfth century because it was in very essence a fundamental problem of cognition, of knowing, and so pressed upon men who were driven by the need to master continually unfolding continents of thought.[422] This is an instance of a problem transmitted from the past, but blown up to extraordinary importance by mediaeval intellectual conditions. So throughout the whole scholastic range, attitude and method alike are fixed by the fact that scholasticism was primarily an appropriation of transmitted propositions.

In considering the characteristics of mediaeval thought, it is well to bear in mind these diverse ways in which its antecedents made it what it was: through their substance transmitted to it; through the receptive attitude forced upon men by existing accumulations of authoritative doctrine, and the method entailed upon mediaeval thought by its scholastic rather than originative character. Also one will not omit to notice which elements came from the action of the patristic body of antecedents, rather than from the antique group, and _vice versa_.

Since the antique and patristic constituted well-nigh the whole substance of philosophy and theology in the Middle Ages, a separate consideration of what was thus transmitted would amount to a history of mediaeval thought from a somewhat unilluminating point of view. On the other hand, one may learn much as to the qualities of mediaeval thought from observing the attitudes of various men in successive centuries toward Greek philosophy and patristic theology. The Fathers had used the concepts of the former in the construction of their systems of acceptance of the Christian Faith. But the spirit of inquiry from which Greek philosophy had sprung, was very different from the spirit in which the Fathers used its concepts and arguments, in order to substantiate what they accepted on the authority of Scripture and tradition. It is true that Greek philosophy in the Neo-Platonism of Porphyry and Iamblicus was not far from the patristic attitude toward knowledge. But the spirit of these declining moods of Neo-Platonism was not the spirit which had carried the philosophy of the Greeks to its intellectual culmination in Plato and Aristotle, and to its attainment of the ethically rational in Stoicism and the system of Epicurus.

Thus patristic thinking was essentially different in purpose and method from the philosophy which it forced to serve its uses; and the two differed by every difference of method, spirit, and intent which were destined to appear among the various kinds of mediaeval thinkers. But the difference between Greek philosopher and Church Father was deeper than any that ever could exist among mediaeval men. Some of the last might be conventionally orthodox and passionately pious, while others cared more distinctly for the fruits of knowledge. But even these could not be as Greek philosophers, because they were accustomed to rely on authority, and because they who drew their knowledge from an existing store would not have the independence and originality distinguishing the Greeks, who had created so much of that store from which they drew.[423] Moreover, while neither Plato’s inquiry for truth, nor Aristotle’s catholic search for knowledge, was isolated from its bearing on either the conduct or the event of life, nevertheless with them rational inquiry was a final motive representing in itself that which was most divinely human, and so the best for man.[424] But with the philosophers of the Middle Ages, it never was quite so. For the need of salvation had worked in men’s blood for generations. And salvation, man’s highest good, did not consist in humanly-attained knowledge or in virtue won by human strength; but was divinely mediated and had to be accepted upon authority. Hence, even in the great twelfth and thirteenth centuries, intellectual inquiry was never unlimbered from bands of deference, nor ever quite dispassionately rational or unaffected by the mortal need to attain a salvation which was bestowed or withheld by God according to His plan authoritatively declared.

Accordingly all mediaeval variances of thought show common similitudes: to wit, some consciousness of need of super-rational and superhuman salvation; deference to some authority; and finally a pervasive scholasticism, since mediaeval thought was of necessity diligent, acceptant, reflective, rather than original. One will be impressed with the formal character of mediaeval thought. For being thus scholastic, it was occupied with devising forms through which to express, or re-express, the mass of knowledge proffered to it. Besides, formal logic was a prominent part of the transmitted contents of antique philosophy; and became a chief discipline for mediaeval students; because they accepted it along with all the rest, and found its training helpful for men burdened with such intellectual tasks as theirs.

Within the lines of these universal qualities wind the divergencies of mediaeval thought; and one will notice how they consist in leanings toward the ways of Greek philosophy, or a reliance more or less complete upon the contents and method of patristic theology. One common quality, of which we note the variations, is that of deference to the authority of the past. The mediaeval scholar could hardly read a classic poet without finding authoritative statements upon every topic brushed by the poet’s fancy, and of course the matter of more serious writings, history, logic, natural science, was implicitly accepted. If the pagan learning was thus regarded, how much more absolute was the deference to sacred doctrine. Here all was authority. Scripture was the primary source; next came the creed, and the dogmas established by councils; and then the expositions of the Fathers. Thus the meaning of the authoritative Scripture was pressed into authoritative dogma, and then authoritatively systematized. The process had been intellectual and rational, yet with the driven rationality of Church Fathers struggling to formulate and express the accepted import of the Faith delivered to the saints. Authority, faith, held the primacy, and in two senses, for not only was it supreme and final, but it was also prior in initiative efficiency. Tertullian’s _certum est, quia impossibile est_, was an extreme paradox. But Augustine’s _credimus ut cognoscamus_ was fundamental, and remained unshaken. Anselm lays it at the basis of his arguments; with Bernard and many others it is _credo_ first of all, let the _intelligere_ come as it may, and as it will according to the fulness of our faith. The same principle of faith’s efficient primacy is temperamentally as well as logically fundamental with Bonaventura.

Here then was a first general quality of mediaeval thought: deference to authority. Now for the variances. Scarcely diverging, save in emphasis, from Augustine and Bonaventura, are the greatest of the schoolmen, Albert and Thomas. They defer to authority and recognize the primacy of faith, and yet they will, with abundant use of reason, deliminate the respective provinces of grace and human knowledge, and distinguish the absolute authority of Scripture from the statements even of the saints, which may be weighed and criticized. In secular philosophy, these two will, when their faith admits, accept the views of the philosophers--Aristotle above all--yet using their own reason. They are profoundly interested in knowledge and metaphysical dialectic, but follow it with deferential tempers and believing Christian souls.

Outside the company of such, are men of more independent temper, whose attitude tends to weaken the principle of acceptance of authority in sacred doctrine. The first of these was Eriugena with his explicit statement that reason is greater than authority; yet we may assume that he was not intending to impugn Scripture. Centuries later another chief example is Abaelard, whose dialectic temper leads him to wish to prove everything by reason. Not that he stated, or would have admitted this; yet the extreme rationalizing tendency of the man is projected through such a passage as the following from his _Historia calamitatum_, where he alludes to the circumstances of the composition of his work upon the Trinity. He had become a monk in the monastery of St. Denis, but students were still thronging to hear him, to the wrath of some of his superiors.

“Then it came about that I was brought to expound the very foundation of our faith by applying the analogies of human reason, and was led to compose for my pupils a theological treatise on the divine Unity and Trinity. They were calling for human and philosophical arguments, and insisting upon something intelligible, rather than mere words, saying that there had been more than enough of talk which the mind could not follow; that it was impossible to believe what was not understood in the first place; and that it was ridiculous for any one to set forth to others what neither he nor they could rationally conceive (_intellectu capere_).”

And Abaelard cites the verse from Matthew about the blind leaders of the blind, and goes on to tell of the success of his treatise, which pleased everybody, yet provoked the greater envy because of the difficulty of the questions which it elucidated; and at last envy blew up the condemnation of his book, at the Council of Soissons, in the year of grace 1121.[425]

Here one has the plain reversal. We must first understand in order to believe. Doubtless the demands of Abaelard’s students to have the principles of the Christian Faith explained, that they might be understood and accepted rationally, echoed the master’s imperative intellectual need. Not that Abaelard would breathe the faintest doubt of these verities; they were absolute and unquestionable. He accepted them upon authority just as implicitly (he might think) as St. Bernard. Herein he shows the mediaeval quality of deference. But he will understand with his mind the profoundest truths enunciated by authority; he will explain them rationally, that the mind may rationally comprehend them.

Men of an opposite cast of mind foresaw the outcome of this rationalization of dogma more surely than the subtle dialectician for whom this process was both peremptory and proper. And the Church acted with a true instinct in condemning Abaelard in spite of his protestations of belief, just as with a like true instinct Friar Bacon’s own Franciscan Order looked askance on one whose mind was suspiciously set upon observation and experiment--and cavilling at others. _Celui-ci tuera cela!_ The ultra-scientific spirit is dangerous to faith--and Bacon’s asseverations that no knowledge was of value save as it helped the soul’s salvation, was doubtless regarded as a conventional insincerity. Yet Roger Bacon had his mediaeval deferences, as will appear.[426]

Neither one extreme view nor the other was to represent the attitude of thoughtful and believing Christendom; not William of St. Thierry and St Bernard, nor yet (on these points) Abaelard and Friar Bacon should prevail; but the all-balancing and all-considering Aquinas. He will draw the lines between faith and reason, and bulwark them with arguments which shall seem to render unto reason the things of reason, and unto faith its due. Yet it is actually Roger Bacon who accuses Thomas of making his _Theology_ out of dialectic and very human reasonings. It was true; and we are again reminded how variant views shaded into each other in the Middle Ages, and all within certain lines of similarity. Practically all mediaeval thinkers defer to authority--more or less; and all hold to some principle of faith, to the necessity of _believing_ something, for the soul’s salvation. There is likewise some similarity in their attitudes toward intellectual interests. For all recognized their propriety, and gave credit to the human desire to know. Likewise all saw that salvation, the _summum bonum_ for man, included more than intellection; and felt that it held some consummation of other human impulses; that it held love--the love of God along with the intellectual ardour of contemplation; and well-nigh all recognized also that the faith held mystery, not to be solved by reason. Thus all were rational--some more, some less; and all were devotional and believing, pietistic, ardent--some more, some less; according as the intellectual nature dominated over the emotional, or the emotions quelled the conscious exercise of reason, yet reached out and upward from what knowledge and reason had given as a base to spring from.

Thus the mediaeval spirit, variant within its lines of likeness; and of a piece with it was the field it worked in, which made its range and scope. Here as well, a saving knowledge of God and the soul was central and chief among all intellectual interests. None denied this. Augustine, the universal prototype of the mediaeval mind, had cried, “God and the soul, these will I know, and these are all.” But wide had been the scope of _his_ knowledge of God and the soul; and in the centuries which hung upon his words, wide also was the range of knowledge subsumed under those capitals. How would one know God and the soul? Might one not know God in all His universe, in the height and breadth thereof, and backwards and forwards through the reach of time? Might not one also know the soul in all its operations, all its queries and desires; would not it and they, and their activities, make up the complementary side of knowledge--complementary to the primal object, God, known in His eternity, in His temporal creation, in His everlasting governance? Wide or narrow might be the intellectual interests included within a knowledge of God and the soul. And while many men kept close to the centre and saving _nexus_ of these potentially universal themes, others might become absorbed with data of the creature-world, or with the manifold actions of the mind of man, so as to forget to keep all duly ordered and connected with the central thought.

So the search for knowledge might roam afield. Likewise as to its motive; practically with many men it was, in itself, a joy and end; although they might continue to connect this end formally with the salvation of the soul. Roger Bacon of a surety was such a one. Another was Albertus Magnus. The laborious culling of twenty tomes of universal knowledge surely had the joy of knowing as the active motive. And Aquinas too; no one could be such an acquisitive and reasoning genius, without the love of knowledge in his soul. Yet Thomas never let this love point untrue to its goal of research and devotion, to wit, sacred doctrine, theology, the Christian Faith in its very widest compass, yet in its unity of saving purpose.

In Thomas Aquinas the certitude of faith, the sense of grace, the ardour of love, never quenched the conscious action of the reasoning and knowing mind; nor did reasoning quench devotion. A balance too, though perhaps with one scale higher than the other, was kept by Bonaventura, whose mind had reason’s faculty, but whose heart burned perpetually toward God. Another rationally ardent soul was Bonaventura’s intellectual forerunner, Hugo of St. Victor. In these men intellect did not outstrip the fervours of contemplation. But such catholic balance did not hold with Abaelard and Bacon, who lacked the pietistic temperament. With others, conversely, the strength of the pietistic and emotional nature overbore the intellect; the mind was less exacting; and devotional ardour used reason solely for its purposes. The mightiest of these were Bernard and Francis. To the same key might chime the woman, St. Hildegard of Bingen. We narrow down from these to hectic souls content with a few thoughts which serve as a basis for the heart’s fervours.

The varying attitudes of mediaeval thinkers toward reason and authority, and even their different views upon the limits of the field of salutary knowledge, are exemplified in their methods, or rather in the variations of their common method. Here the factors were again authority and the intellect which considers the authority, and in terms of its own rational processes reacts upon the proposition under view. The intellect might simply accept authority; or, on the other hand, it might, through dialectic, seek a conclusion of its own. But midway between a mere acceptance of authority, and the endeavour of dialectic for a conclusion of its own, there is the reasoning process which perceives divergence among authorities, compares, discriminates, interprets, and at last acts as umpire. This was the combined and catholic scholastic method. It contained the two factors of its necessary duality; and its variations (besides the gradual perfecting of its form from one generation to another) consisted in the predominant employment of one factor or the other.

The beginning was in the Carolingian time, when Rabanus compiled his authorities from sources sacred and profane, scarcely discriminating except to maintain the pre-eminence of the sacred matter. His younger contemporary, Eriugena, was a translator of his own chief source, Pseudo-Dionysius, him of the _Hierarchies_, Celestial and Ecclesiastical. Yet he composed also a veritable book, _De divisione naturae_, in which he put his matter together organically and with argument. And while professing to hold to the authority of Scripture and the Fathers, he not only took upon himself to select from their statements, but propounded the proposition that the authority which is not confirmed by reason appears weak. Eriugena made his authorities yield him what his reason required. His argumentative method became an independent rehandling of matter drawn from them. It was very different from the plodding excerpt-gathering of Rabanus.

We pass down the centuries to Anselm. Contemplative and religious, his reverence for authority was unimpaired by any conscious need to refashion its meaning. Though he possessed creative intellectual powers, they were incited and controlled by his deep piety. Hence his works were constructed of original and lofty arguments, but such as did not infringe upon either the efficient or the final priority of faith.

With Abaelard of many-sided fame the duality of method becomes explicit, and is, if one may say so, set by the ears. On the one hand, he advances in his constructive theological treatises toward a portentous application of reason to explain the contents of the Christian Faith; on the other, somewhat sardonically, he devises a scheme for the employment and presentation of authorities upon these sacred matters, a scheme so obviously apt that once made known it could not but be followed and perfected.

The divers works of a man are likely to bear some relation and resemblance to each other. Abaelard was a reasoner, more specifically speaking, a dialectician according to the ways of Aristotelian logic. And in categories of formal logic he sought to rationalize every matter apprehended by his mind. Swayed by the master-interest of the time, he turned to theology; and his own nature impelled him to apply a constructive dialectic to its systematic formulation. The result is exemplified in the extant portion of his _Theologia_ (mis-called _Introductio ad Theologiam_), which was condemned by the Council of Sens in 1141, the year before the master’s death. The spirit of this work appears in the passage already quoted from the _Historia calamitatum_, referring to what was substantially an earlier form of the _Theologia_.[427] The _Theologia_ argues for a free use of dialectic in expounding dogma, especially in order to refute those heretics who will not listen to authority, but demand reasons. Like Abaelard’s previous theological treatises, it is filled with citations of authority, principally Augustine; and the reader feels the author’s hesitancy to reveal that dialectic is the architect. Nor, in fact, is the work an exclusively dialectic structure; yet it illustrates (if it does not always inculcate) the application of the arguments of human reason to the exposition and substantiation of the fundamental and most deeply hidden contents of the Christian Faith. Obviously Abaelard was not an initiator here. Augustine had devoted his life to fortifying the Faith with argument and explanation; Eriugena, with a far weaker realization of its contents, had employed a more distorting metaphysics in its presentation; and saintly Anselm had flown his veritable eagle flights of reason. But Abaelard’s more systematic work represents a further stage in the application of independent dialectic to dogma, and an innovating freedom in the citation of pagan philosophers to demonstrate its philosophic reasonableness. Nevertheless his statement that he had gathered these citations from writings of the Fathers, and not from the books of the philosophers (_quorum pauca novi_),[428] shows that he was only using what the Fathers had made use of before him, and also indicates the slightness of his independent knowledge of Greek philosophy.

On the other hand, Abaelard’s way of presenting authorities for and against a theological proposition was more distinctly original. He seems to have been the first purposefully to systematize the method of stating the problem, and then giving in order the authorities on one side and the other--_sic et non_; as he entitled his famous work. But the trail of his nature lay through this apparently innocent composition, the evident intent of which was to emphasize, if not exaggerate, the opposition among the patristic authorities, and without a counterbalancing attempt to show any substantial accord among them. This, of course, is not stated in the Prologue, which however, like everything that Abaelard wrote, discloses his fatal facility of putting his hand on the raw spot in the matter; which unfortunately is likely to be the vulnerable point also. In it he remarks on the difficulty of interpreting Scripture, upon the corruption of the text (a perilous subject), and the introduction of apocryphal writings. There are discrepancies even in the sacred texts, and contradictions in the writings of the Fathers. With a profuse backing of authority he shows that the latter are not to be read _cum credendi necessitate_, but _cum judicandi libertate_. Assuredly, as to anything in the canonical Scriptures, “it is not permitted to say: ‘The Author of this

## book did not hold the truth’; but rather ‘the codex is false or the

interpreter errs, or thou dost not understand.’ But in the works of the later ones (_posteriorum_, Abaelard’s inclusive designation of the Fathers), which are contained in books without number, if passages are deemed to depart from the truth, the reader is at liberty to approve or disapprove.”

This view was supported by Abaelard’s citations from the Fathers themselves; and yet, so abruptly made, it was not a pleasant statement for the ears of those to whom the writings of the holy Fathers were sacred. Nothing was sacred to the man who wrote this prologue--so it seemed to his pious contemporaries. And who among them could approve of the Prologue’s final utterance upon the method and purpose of the book?

“Wherefore we decided to collect the diverse statements of the holy Fathers, as they might occur to our memory, thus raising an issue from their apparent repugnancy, which might incite the _teneros lectores_ to search out the truth of the matter, and render them the sharper for the investigation. For the first key to wisdom is called interrogation, diligent and unceasing.... By doubting we are led to inquiry; and from inquiry we perceive the truth.”

To use the discordant statements of the Fathers to sharpen the wits of the young! Was not that to uncover their shame? And the character of the work did not salve the Prologue’s sting. Abaelard selected and arranged his extracts from pagan as well as Christian writers, and prepared sardonic titles for the questions under which he ordered his material. Time and again these titles flaunt an opposition which the citations scarcely bear out. For example, title iv.: “Quod sit credendum in Deum solum, et contra”--certainly a flaming point; yet the excerpts display merely the verb _credere_, used in the palpably different senses borne by the word “believe.” There is no real repugnancy among the citations. And again, in title lviii.: “Quod Adam salvatus sit, et contra”--there is no citation _contra_. And the longest chapter in the book (cxvii.) has this bristling title: “De sacramento altaris, quod sit essentialiter ipsa veritas carnis Christi et sanguinis, et contra.”

Because of such prickly traits the _Sic et non_ did not itself come into common use. But the suggestions of its method once made, were of too obvious utility to be abandoned. First, among Abaelard’s own pupils the result appears in _Books of Sentences_, which, in the arrangement of their matter, followed the topical division not of the _Sic et non_, but of Abaelard’s _Theologia_, with its threefold division of Theology into _Fides_, _Caritas_, and _Sacramentum_.[429] But the arrangement of the _Theologia_ was not made use of in the best and most famous of these compositions, Peter Lombard’s _Sententiarum libri quatuor_. This work employed the method (not the arrangement) of the _Sic et non_, and expounded the contents of Faith methodically, “Distinctio” after “Distinctio,” stating the proposition, citing the authorities bearing upon it, and ending with some conciliating or distinguishing statement of the true result. In canon law the same method was applied in Gratian’s _Decretum_, of which the proper name was _Concordia discordantium canonum_.

These _Books of Sentences_ have sometimes been called _Summae_, inasmuch as their scope embraced the entire contents of the Faith. But the term _Summa_ may properly be confined to those larger and still more encyclopaedic compositions in which this scholastic method reached its final development. The chief makers of these, the veritable _Summae theologiae_, were, in order of time, Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas. The _Books of Sentences_ were books of sentences. The _Summa_ proceeded by the same method, or rather issued from it, as its consummation and perfect logical form; thus the scholastic method arrived at its highest constructive energy. In the _Sentences_ one excerpted opinion was given and another possibly divergent, and at the end an adjustment was presented. This comparative formlessness attains in the _Summa_ a serried syllogistic structure. Thomas, who finally perfects it, presents his connected and successive topics divided into _quaestiones_, which are subdivided into _articuli_, whose titles give the point to be discussed. He states first, and frequently in his own syllogistic terms, the successive negative arguments; and then the counter-proposition, which usually is a citation from Scripture or from Augustine. Then with clear logic he constructs the true positive conclusion in accordance with the authority which he has last adduced. He then refutes each of the adverse arguments in turn.

Thus the method of the _Sentences_ is rendered dialectically organic; and with the perfecting of the form of _quaestio_ and _articulus_, and the logical linking of successive topics, the whole composition, from a congeries, becomes a structure, organic likewise, a veritable _Summa_, and a _Summa_ of a science which has unity and consistency. This science is _sacra doctrina, theologia_. Moreover, as compared with the _Sentences_, the contents of the _Summa_ are enormously enlarged. For between the time of the Lombard and that of Thomas, there has come the whole of Aristotle, and what is more, the mastery of the whole of Aristotle, which Thomas incorporates in a complete and organic statement of the Christian scheme of salvation.[430]

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