Part 65

3. England’s greatest and most famous teacher was the Anglo-Saxon, the =Venerable Bede=. Trained in the monastery of Wearmouth, he subsequently took up his residence in the monastery of Jarrow, where he died in A.D. 735. He was a proficient in all the sciences of his time and withal a model of humility, piety and amiability. While his numerous pupils reached the highest places in the service of the church, their famous teacher continued in quiet retirement as a simple monk. He himself wished nothing else. Even on his deathbed he continued unweariedly to teach and write. Immediately before his death he dictated the last chapter of an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Gospel of John. By far his most important work for us is the _Hist. ecclest. gentis Anglorum_ in 5 Bks. reaching down to A.D. 731 (Engl. Transl. by Giles, Lond., 1840; and by Gidley, Lond., 1871). Connected with this are his biographies of several saints of his native land, also a history of the monastery of Wearmouth, and a _Chronicon de sex ætatibus mundi_ reaching down to A.D. 729. His commentaries ranging over almost all the books of the Old and New Testament give evidence of a wonderful knowledge of the fathers. His numerous sermons are mostly exegetical and practical, rarely doctrinal. He was distinguished too as a poet in Latin as well as in his mother tongue.

§ 90.3. =The most distinguished Theologians of the Age of Charlemagne.=

1. The brightest star in the theological firmament of this period was the Anglo-Saxon =Alcuin= (Albinus) with the Horatian surname of Flaccus, which he got for his poetical productions. He was educated in the famous school of York under Egbert and Elbert. When the latter was made archbishop in A.D. 766, Alcuin undertook the presidency of the schools. While on a visit to Rome in A.D. 781 he met Charlemagne who took him to his court, where he became the emperor’s teacher, friend and most trusted counsellor. Down to his death in A.D. 804 he was the king’s right hand in all religious ecclesiastical and educational matters. In order to allay a feeling of home-sickness, he undertook a journey in A.D. 789 to his native country as ambassador of Charlemagne, returned in A.D. 793, and did not again quit France. In A.D. 796 Charles gave him the abbacy of Tours. He soon raised its monastic school to the highest rank as a seminary of learning. His exegetical works are mere compilations. The _Ll. II. de fide s. et Individuæ Trinitatis_ may be regarded as his dogmatic masterpiece; a compendium of dogmatics based upon Augustine’s writings. The _Quæstiones de Trin._ treat of the same matter in the catechetical form of question and answer. He contributed to the doctrinal controversies of his time the _Libellus de processione Spiritus S._ (§ 91, 2) and by several learned controversial tracts against the leaders of the Adoptionists (§ 91, 1). It is doubtful whether at all, and if so to what extent, he had to do with the composition of the _Libri Carolini_ (§ 94, 1) which appeared during his stay in England. His numerous epistles, about 300 in number, are very important for the history of his times. In his Latin poems he sometimes very happily imitates his classical models.[253]

2. =Paulus Diaconus= or Paul (the son of) Warnefrid, of an honourable Longobard family, was next to Alcuin the most distinguished scholar of his age. Probably sorrow at the overthrow of his people (§ 82, 2) drove him into the monastery of Monte Cassino; but Charlemagne took him to his court in A.D. 782, where he was an object of admiration as a Homer among the Grecians, a Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, among the Latinists, and a Philo (!) among the Hebraists. Love of his native land, however, led him back to his monastery in A.D. 786, where he died at a very advanced age in A.D. 795. What was specially praiseworthy in this learned and amiable man, all the more that few then took interest in those matters, was love and enthusiasm for the language, the national legends and heroic tales, the old laws and customs of his fellow-countrymen. His most important work is the _Historia s. de Gestis Langobardorum_ in 6 bks., reaching down to A.D. 774. The earlier _Hist. Romana_, composed at the wish of a daughter of king Desiderius, is, so far as its earlier periods are concerned, compiled from the classical historians, but for the later periods down to the overthrow of the Gothic rule is more independent. At the Frankish court he composed the _Hist. Episcoporum Mettensium_. He was also distinguished as a poet. On his _Homiliarius_ comp. § 88, 1.[254]

3. =Theodulf, bishop of Orleans=, distinguished as a Christian poet and learned theologian, and especially as a promoter of popular education, stood in high repute with Charlemagne, but under Louis the Pious, being suspected of treasonable correspondence with Bernard of Italy, was deposed and banished in A.D. 818. Subsequently, however, he was pardoned and recalled, but died in A.D. 821 before he reached his diocese. His book _De Spiritu S._ was a contribution to the controversy about the procession of the Holy Spirit (§ 91, 2). At Charlemagne’s request he described and explained the baptismal ceremony in the book _De ordine baptismi_. His numerous poems have been published in 6 bks.

4. =Paulinus=, patriarch of Aquileia, who died in A.D. 804, and bishop =Leidrad of Lyons=, who died in A.D. 813, took

## part in Alcuin’s controversy against the Adoptionists by

the publication of able treatises.

5. Of the works of =Hatto=, abbot of Reichenau, subsequently bishop of Basel, who died in A.D. 836, we still have the so-called _Capitulare Hattonis_, with prefatory directions for the official guidance of the Basel clergy, and the _Visio Wettini_, describing the vision of a monk of Reichenau called Wettin, who in A.D. 824 three days before his death was conducted by an angel through hell, purgatory and paradise. Hatto wrote it in prose and Walafrid Strabo rendered it into verse. It made a great impression on his contemporaries and was probably not without influence upon Dante’s _Divina Comediá_.

§ 90.4. =The most distinguished Theologians of the Age of Louis the Pious.=

1. =Agobard of Lyons=, a Spaniard by birth, died as archbishop of Lyons in A.D. 840. As the resolute defender of the integrity of the empire and the head of the national church party among the Frankish clergy, he was drawn into a conspiracy against Louis the Pious in A.D. 833 (§ 82, 4), which led to his deposition and banishment in A.D. 835. After two years, however, he was pardoned. He was a man of remarkable culture and extraordinary force of character, and withal a vigorous opponent of all ecclesiastical and extra-ecclesiastical superstition. On his writings referring to these matters see § 92, 2. In the book _Adv. dogma Felicis_ he contended against Adoptionism (§ 91, 1). In connection with his battle against the insolence and pride of the numerous and wealthy Jews in his diocese he wrote and dedicated to the emperor the accusatory tract _De insolentia Judæorum_, followed by several similar addresses to the most influential councillors of the crown. Another series of writings from his pen was devoted to the vindication of the attitude which he had assumed in the struggle between Louis the Pious and his sons. Several treatises on the position and task, the rights and duties of the ministerial office show a reformatory tendency. He engaged in a passionate controversy with Amalarius of Metz about the necessity of a liturgical reform. Against Fredigis of Tours, Alcuin’s successor, he maintained the view regarding the prophets and apostles that the Holy Spirit _non solum sensum prædicationis et modos vel argumenta dictionum inspiraverit, sed etiam ipsa corporalia verba extrinsecus in ora illorum ipse formaverit_.

2. =Claudius, bishop of Turin=, who died in A.D. 839, was also a Spaniard by birth and a scholar of Felix of Urgel (§ 91, 1), without, however, imbibing his heretical views. He was throughout his whole career a zealous and determined reformer. His reformatory notions were set forth first of all in his exegetical works that covered almost the whole range of Scripture. Of these only the commentary on Galatians is now extant. He also vindicated his position against the attacks of his old friend the abbot Theodemir in his _Apologeticus_ (§ 92, 2).

3. =Jonas of Orleans=, the successor of Theodulf, was one of the most distinguished prelates of his age, who wrought earnestly and successfully for the restoring of discipline and order in his diocese. In the struggle between Louis the Pious and his sons he resolutely took the side of the old king. He died in A.D. 844. His three books, _De institutione laicali_ constitute a handbook of morals for married persons, which also, because it deals with the sins and vices that were then rampant, is of value as a picture of the moral condition of his age. The book _De institutione regia_, addressed to Louis’ son Pepin, may be regarded as an appendix to the former treatise. In opposition to the iconoclastic opinions of Claudius (§ 92, 2) he wrote _Ll. III. De cultu imaginum_.

4. The principal work of the priest =Amalarius of Metz= is his _De ecclesiasticis officiis_ in 4 bks., a detailed description of all the ceremonies of public worship and the ecclesiastical furniture and vestments, with many arbitrary mystico-allegorical explanations, which called forth a crushing rejoinder from Agobard. On his revision of the rule of Chrodegang, see § 84, 4.

5. From the pen of the German monk =Christian Druthmar= of Old Corbei we have a commentary on Matthew, which is remarkable for the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper which it sets forth (§ 91, 3), as well as for the hermeneutical principle there laid down, that first and foremost the exegete must secure a thorough understanding of the historical literal sense, before he may think of developing the spiritual sense, which must have the former as its basis.

6. =Rabănus [Rabanus] Magnentius Maurus=, the most distinguished scholar of his age, was descended from an old Roman family but one that had long been Germanized at Mainz. His earliest education was received at the monastery of Fulda. He then became a pupil of Alcuin at Tours. In A.D. 803 he became himself a teacher at Tours, and in A.D. 822 was made abbot of Fulda. After the death of Louis the Pious he took the side of Lothair against Louis the German, and was consequently obliged to resign his position as abbot and to quit Fulda in A.D. 842. Subsequently, however, he obtained Louis’ favour, and upon Otgar’s death in A.D. 847 (§ 87, 3) was appointed his successor in the archiepiscopal see of Mainz. He died in A.D. 856. The monastic school at Fulda was raised by him to the highest eminence. His commentaries extending over almost all the Old and New Testaments are mainly occupied with the development of the so-called spiritual sense, manifest wonderful familiarity with the writings of the Latin fathers from Ambrose to Bede, and were held in the highest esteem throughout the Middle Ages. The same may be said of his numerous homilies. The encyclopædic work _De universo_ in 22 bks., is a continuation of Isidore’s _Origines_. His book _De institutione clericorum_ in 3 bks. affords a summary of all that was then to be learnt by the clergy for the practical work of the ministry. The _Tractatus de diversis quæstionibus ex V. et N. T. contra Judæos_ is an apologetic treatise. He wrote against Gottschalk’s doctrine of predestination in a letter to bishop Noting of Verona (§ 91, 5), and another to the abbot Eigil of Prüm against Radbert’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper (§ 91, 3). Of his many other works we may mention a _Martyrologium_ based upon ancient authorities.

7. =Walafrid Strabo= received his early training in the monastery of Reichenau. He studied subsequently under Rabanus at Fulda, in which institution he became a teacher. About A.D. 842 he was made abbot of Reichenau; the seminary here he raised to high repute, although he died in his early prime in A.D. 849. Among his evangelical writings his so-called _Glossæ ordinariæ_, _i.e._ short explanations of the Latin text of the Bible, mostly culled from the commentaries of Rabanus, were extremely popular, and continued in use throughout the Middle Ages as an exegetical handbook. In the liturgical department we have his treatise _De exordiis et incrementis rerum ecclesiasticarum_, in which he expresses himself on the image controversy in the spirit of the old Frankish church (§ 92, 1). Walafrid was also famous as a writer of sacred and secular poems.

§ 90.5. =The Most Distinguished Theologians of the Age of Charles the Bald.=

1. The powerful metropolitan =Hincmar of Rheims=, who died in A.D. 882 (§ 82, 7; 83, 2), was not indeed strong in dogmatics, but in his writings just as well as in his life and struggle he was heart and soul a church leader and statesman. His most important work from a theological point of view is the _Capitula Synodica ad presbyteros parochiæ suæ_ on various points of worship and discipline, a notable witness to the zeal and care which this man, so much taken up with affairs of state and ecclesiastical controversies, showed in the discharge of his ministerial duties. Of his writings in connection with the Gottschalk controversy (§ 91, 5, 6) only the prolix work _De predest. Dei et libero arbitrio_ vindicating the decrees of Quiersy of A.D. 853 are now extant.

2. =Paschasius Radbertus=, who died about A.D. 865, was monk, and, from A.D. 844-851, also abbot of the monastery of Corbei in Picardy. But among the monks of that place there was a cotery which occasioned the most profound grief to the pious-minded abbot; especially the learned monk Ratramnus under the protection of court favour took delight in contesting the somewhat ultra-pietistic views of his abbot. Probably it was this that led Radbertus to resign his office in A.D. 851. Besides the two treatises controverted by Ratramnus he composed biblical commentaries, which are more independent and contain more of his own than was common at that time. He also wrote 3 bks. on faith, love and hope; besides several Hagiographies.

3. =Ratramnus=, the antagonist of the former, takes a very prominent place among the clear and subtle thinkers of that age. Besides his controversial treatises against Radbertus (§ 91, 3, 4) and against Hincmar (§ 91, 5, 6), he took part in the burning controversy between the Greeks and Latins (§ 67, 1) and wrote, _Contra Græcorum opposita Romanam eccl. infamantium_.

4. =Florus Magister= was a cleric of the diocese of Lyons distinguished no less for great learning than for poetic gifts. His principal work _De actione Missarum, s. expositio in Canonem Missæ_ is, notwithstanding its title, not so much a liturgical treatise as a controversial tract against Radbertus’ doctrine of the Eucharist (§ 91, 3). In the liturgical controversy between Agobard and Amalarius, he took the side of Agobard and argued against Amalarius in several epistles. In the predestinarian controversy he published the work _Contra J. Scoti Erigenæ erroneas definitiones_ (§ 91, 5). He also composed a _Martyrologium_.

5. =Haymo, bishop of Halberstadt=, who died in A.D. 853, won great reputation not only by his compiled exegetical works and his _Homiliarium_ for the festival part of the year, but also as author of a Church History, which, however, is nothing more than a working up of extracts from Rufinus.

6. =Servatus Lupus=, scholar of Rabanus, was from A.D. 842 abbot of Ferrières. His 130 epistles are important for the history of his time, as he was in constant correspondence with the most famous men of his day. On the side of Gottschalk in the predestinarian controversy he wrote his treatise _De tribus quæstionibus_.

7. =Remigius of Auxerre=, who died about A.D. 908, was teacher of the monastic school at Rheims, and subsequently at Paris. Besides numerous commentaries on the books of the Old and New Testaments in the usual compilatory and allegorical style, he has left in his _Expositio Missæ_ a mystico-allegorical explanation of the ceremonies of the mass.

8. =Regius of Prüm=, abbot of the monastery there, subsequently resigned his rank and retired into the monastery of Treves. He died in A.D. 915. His _Chronicon_ reaching down to A.D. 906 is of great value for his own times. His 2 bks. _De cantis synodalibus et disciplinis ecclesiasticis_ are a directory for the visitation of churches to be carried out by means of synodical judicatures.

§ 90.6.

9. =Anastasius Bibliothecarius= was abbot of a Roman monastery and librarian under popes Nicholas I., Hadrian II. and John VIII., and visited the Byzantine court in A.D. 869 as member of an embassy of Emperor Louis II., and was also present at the 8th œcumenical Council at Constantinople (§ 67, 1). He translated the acts of this synod into Latin, wrote the lives of several saints, and composed a _Hist. ecclest. s. Chronographia tripartita_ drawn from three Byzantine historical works of that period. To the _Liber Pontificalis s. de vitio Roman. pontificum_, reaching down to the death of Stephen V. in A.D. 891, which has been ascribed to him, he can only have contributed the _Vita_ of pope Nicholas I., and perhaps also the _Vitæ_ of his four immediate predecessors. It is a history of the popes gathered together from various sources that had their origin at different times, the earliest of which goes back to A.D. 354. The oldest extant recension of it reaches down to Pope Conon in A.D. 687, and forms an important link in the chain of Romish fabrications and interpolations, by means of which the numerous fabricated acts of Romish martyrs, as well as already existing fables referring to particular popes and emperors (comp. _e.g._ § 42, 1), gained credence, more recently introduced liturgical practices had assigned to them a more remote antiquity, and the popes were represented as legislators for the whole church. The complete biographies often written by contemporaries preserved in this collection are of great historical value.

10. =Eulogius of Cordova= was chosen archbishop in A.D. 858, but was not received by the Moorish government, and suffered martyrdom in A.D. 859 (§ 81, 1). The most important of his writings is the historical _Memoriale Sanctorum s. Ll. III. de Martyrib. Cordubens_. The _Apologeticus Sanctorum_ is a continuation of the former with violent invectives against Islam and its false prophet. =Paulas [Paul] Alvarus= of Cordova, from his youth closely associated with Eulogius, wrote his life and vindicated in a _Judiculus luminosus_ the tendency to court martyrdom then frequently shown by Christians but often objected to.

§ 90.7.

11. =Joannes Scotus Erigena=, the miracle as well as the enigma of his age, by birth probably an Irishman, who flashed out as a brilliant meteor in the court of Charles the Bald and passed away from view, without its being known whence he came or whither he went, was the greatest scholar, the most profound, subtle and liberal thinker of his times, with a speculative power the like of which was not seen for centuries before and after. He died after A.D. 877. His extant works embrace fragments of his commentary on the Areopagite (§ 47, 11), and a Latin faithful, literal and therefore hard to understand translation of the Areopagite’s writings, also a translation of a work of Maximus Confessor on difficult passages from the writings of Gregory Nazianzen (_Loca ambigua_), his controversial treatise _De prædestinatione_ (§ 91, 5), a homily on the prologue of John’s gospel, a fragment of a speculative-mystical treatise _De egressu et regressu animæ ad Deum_, and the _Opus palmare_ of the author, by far the most comprehensive of his writings, the 5 bks. _De divisione naturæ_. Based upon the gnosis of the school of Origen, but resting mainly on the theosophical mysticism of the Areopagite and the dialectic of Maximus Confessor, he produced in this treatise a system of speculative theology of magnificent dimensions which, in spite of every effort to hold by the doctrinal position of the church, is but one piece of heterodoxy from beginning to end. He starts from the principle that true theology and true philosophy are only formally different, but essentially identical. The _Fides_ have to express the truth as _Theologia affirmativa_ (καταφατική) in the biblically revealed and ecclesiastically communicated shell, accommodating itself to the finite understanding by figurative and metaphorical expressions. But the task of the _Ratio_ is to strip off this shell (_Theologia negativa_, ἀποφατική), and by means of speculation raise the faith to knowledge. The title of this book is to be explained from its fundamental thought that nature, _i.e._ the sum of all being and non-being, by which he understands everything the existence of which is yet unknown, or merely potential, or necessarily belonging to things past, comprises four forms of existence:--_Natura creatrix non creata_, _i.e._ God as the potential sum of all being, _Natura creatrix creata_, _i.e._ the eternal thoughts of God regarding the world as the eternal primal types of all creation, _Natura creata non creans_, _i.e._ the world in time as the visible product and sensible realization of the eternal invisible world of ideas, and _Natura nee creata nee creans_, _i.e._ God as the final end of all created being, to whom all creation when all contradictions have been overcome returns in the ἀποκατάστασις τῶν πάντων. The Aristotelian threefold division into the unmoved and moving, the moved and moving, and the moved and not moving, seems to have afforded him the starting-point for his fourfold division; while the divergent conception of them, their enlargement and development may be traced to Platonic and Neo-Platonic influences.--That such a system must essentially tend to pantheism soon became evident, but on the other hand Erigena’s own Christian consciousness strongly reacted against the pantheistic current of his thought, and he was anxiously concerned to preserve the fundamental truths of Christian Theism. By the fundamental fourfold division of his system he could not give to the doctrine of the Trinity a necessary and controlling but only an accidental and occasional position. Only the presence of this doctrine in Scripture and tradition obliged him to maintain it. He speaks indeed of three persons in God, but he uses the expression only in an improper sense, and has no intention of explaining Father, Son and Spirit as mere names of divine relations (_habitudines_, _relationes_): _Pater vult, Filius facit, Spir. S. perficit_. In the Son as the creative Word of God are all original causes of things, undistinguished, unordered; by the Spirit are they differentiated into the various phenomena and effects in the kingdom of nature as well as of grace. On his doctrine of evil, comp. § 91, 5. As Origen has in himself the germs of all orthodoxy and heterodoxy of the ancient church undeveloped and uncontrasted, so also in Erigena are there the germs of the contradictions of later scholasticism and mysticism. Had he lived three centuries later he would probably have set the whole learned world astir, but now he passed unhonoured, misunderstood, scarcely regarded worth dealing with for heresy (§ 91, 5), and apparently leaving little trace behind him. His great work _De divisione naturæ_ was first condemned by a provincial Council at Sens, and this judgment was confirmed by Honorius III. in A.D. 1225. The book was characterized as _Scatens vermibus hæreticæ pravitatis_; orders were given that it should be sought out everywhere and burnt.[255]