a Grace Notes course History of the Christian Church VOLUME 5. The Middle Ages, the Papal Theocracy in Conflict with the Secular Power from Gregory VII to Boniface VIII, AD 1049 to 1294 By Philip Schaff CH512 Chapter 12: Scholastic and Mystic Theology History of the Christian Church Volume 5 The Middle Ages, the Papal Theocracy in Conflict with the Secular Power from Gregory VII to Boniface VIII, AD 1049 to 1294 CH512 Table of Contents Chapter 12. Scholastic and Mystic Theology .................................................................................2 5.95. Literature and General Introduction ......................................................................................... 2 5.96. Sources and Development of Scholasticism .............................................................................. 4 5.97. Realism and Nominalism ........................................................................................................... 6 5.98. Anselm of Canterbury ................................................................................................................ 7 5.99. Peter Abelard ........................................................................................................................... 12 5.100. Abelard’s Teachings and Theology ........................................................................................ 18 5.101. Younger Contemporaries of Abelard ..................................................................................... 21 5.102. Peter the Lombard and the Summists ................................................................................... 22 5.103. Mysticism ............................................................................................................................... 25 5.104. St. Bernard as a Mystic .......................................................................................................... 26 5.105. Hugo and Richard of St. Victor .............................................................................................. 28 down to Jesuitism and Jansenism.—R. REUTER Chapter 12. Scholastic and Mystic (Prof. of Ch. Hist. at Goettingen, d. 1889): Theology Gesch. d. Rel. Aufklaerung im Mittelalter, 2 vols. Berlin, 1875–1877. Important for the 5.95. Literature and General Introduction skeptical and rationalistic tendencies of the M. LITERATURE: I.—The works OF ANSELM, ABELARD, A.—TH. HARPER: The Metaphysics of the PETER THE LOMBARD, HUGO OF ST. VICTOR, School, London, 1880.—K. WERNER (Rom. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, THOMAS AQUINAS, Cath.): D. Scholastik des spaeteren Mittelalters, BONAVENTURA, DUNS SCOTUS, and other 4 vols. Wien, 1881–1887. Begins with DUNS Schoolmen. SCOTUS.—The relevant chapters in the Histories II.—R. D. HAMPDEN (bishop of Hereford, d. of Doctrine, by HARNACK, LOOFS, FISHER, SEEBERG, 1868): The Scholastic Philos. considered in its SHELDON, and the Rom. Cath. divines, and J. Relation to Christ. Theol., Bampton Lectures, BACH: Dogmengesch. d. Mittelalters, 2 vols. Oxf., 1832, 3d ed. 1848.—B. HAUREAU: De la 1873–1875, and *J. SCHWANE: Dogmengesch. d. philos. scholast., 2 vols. Paris, 1850.—W. mittleren Zeit, 1882.—The Histories of Philos. KAULICH: Gesch. d. scholast. Philos., Prag, by RITTER, ERDMANN, UEBERWEG-HEINZE, and 1863.—C. PRANTL: Gesch. d. Logik im Scholasticism, by PROF. SETH, in Enc. Brit. XXI. Abendlande, 4 vols. Leip., 1861–1870:—P. D. 417–431. MAURICE (d. 1872): Med. Philos., London, SCHOLASTICISM is the term given to the 1870.—*A. STOECKL (Rom. Cath.): Gesch. d. theology of the Middle Ages. It forms a Philos. d. Mittelalters, Mainz, 3 vols. 1864– distinct body of speculation, as do the works 1866. Vol. I. covers the beginnings of of the Fathers and the writings of the Scholasticism from Isidore of Seville to Peter Reformers. The Fathers worked in the the Lombard; Vol. II., the period of its supremacy; Vol. III., the period of its decline quarries of Scripture and, in conflict with heresy, wrought out, one by one, its teachings History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 3 CH512: Volume 5, Chapter 12 a Grace Notes course into dogmatic statements. The Schoolmen to satisfy a prurient curiosity. Anselm gives collected, analyzed and systematized these the best example of treatises on distinct dogmas and argued their reasonableness subjects, such as the existence of God, the against all conceivable objections. The necessity of the Incarnation, and the fall of the Reformers, throwing off the yoke of human devil. Peter the Lombard produced the most authority, and disparaging the Schoolmen, clear, and Thomas Aquinas the most complete returned to the fountain of Scripture, and and finished systematic bodies of divinity. restated its truths. With intrepid confidence these busy thinkers The leading peculiarities of Scholasticism are ventured upon the loftiest speculations, that it subjected the reason to Church raised and answered all sorts of doubts and authority and sought to prove the dogmas of ran every accepted dogma through a fiery the Church independently by dialectics. As for ordeal to show its invulnerable nature. They the Scriptures, the Schoolmen accepted their were the knights of theology, its Godfreys and authority and show an extensive Tancreds. Philosophy with them was their acquaintance with their pages from Genesis handmaid,—ancilla,—dialectics their sword to Revelation. With a rare exception, like and lance. Abelard, they also accepted implicitly the In a rigid dialectical treatment, the doctrines teaching of the Fathers as accurately of Christianity are in danger of losing their reflecting the Scriptures. A distinction was freshness and vital power, and of being made by Alexander of Hales and others turned into a theological corpse. This result between the Scriptures which were treated as was avoided in the case of the greatest of the truth, veritas, and the teaching of the Fathers, medieval theologians by their religious which was treated as authority, auctoritas. fervor. Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and It was not their concern to search in the Bonaventura were men of warm piety and, Scriptures for new truth or in any sense to like Augustine, they combined with the reopen the investigation of the Scriptures. metaphysical element a mystical element, The task they undertook was to confirm what with the temper of speculation the habit of they had inherited. For this reason they made meditation and prayer. no original contributions to exegesis and He is far from the truth who imagines the biblical theology. They did not pretend to medieval speculations to be mere spectacular have discovered any new dogmas. They were ballooning, feats of intellectual acrobatics. purveyors of the dogma they had inherited They were, on the contrary, serious studies from the Fathers. pursued with a solemn purpose. The It was the aim of the Schoolmen to Schoolmen were moved with a profound accomplish two things,—to reconcile dogma sense of the presence of God and the sacrifice and reason, and to arrange the doctrines of of the cross, and such treatments as the the Church in an orderly system called summa ethical portions of Thomas Aquinas’ writings theologiae. These systems, like our modern show deep interest in the sphere of human encyclopedias, were intended to be conduct. For this reason, as well as for the exhaustive. It is to the credit of the human reason that they stand for the theological mind that every serious problem in the literature of more than two centuries, these domains of religion and ethics was thus writings live, and no doubt will continue to brought under the inspection of the intellect. live. The Schoolmen, however, went to the Following Augustine, the Schoolmen started extreme of introducing into their discussions with the principle that faith precedes every imaginable question,—questions knowledge—fides praecedit intellectum. Or, as which, if answered, would do no good except Anselm also put it, “I believe that I may History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 4 CH512: Volume 5, Chapter 12 a Grace Notes course understand; I do not understand that I may used all the forces of logic and philosophy to believe” credo ut intelligam, non intelligo ut vindicate the orthodox system of theology, credam. They quoted as proof text, Isaiah 7:9. but they used much wood and straw in their “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be constructions, as the sounder exegesis and established.” Abelard was an exception, and more scriptural theology of the Reformers reversed the order, making knowledge and these later days have shown. precede faith; but all arrived at the same result. Revelation and reason, faith and 5.96. Sources and Development of science, theology and philosophy agree, for Scholasticism they proceed from the one God who cannot The chief feeders of Scholasticism were the contradict himself. writings of Augustine and Aristotle. The In addition to the interest which attaches to former furnished the matter, the latter the Scholasticism as a distinct body of intellectual form; the one the dogmatic principles, the effort, is its importance as the ruling theology other the dialectic method. in the Roman Catholic Church to this day. The Augustine, who ruled the thought of the Such dogmas as the treatment of heresy, the Middle Ages, was the churchly, supremacy of the Church over the State, the sacramentarian, anti-Manichean, and anti- immaculate conception, and the seven Donatist theologian. It was the same sacraments, as stated by the Schoolmen, are Augustine, and yet another, to whom Luther