History of Dogma - Volume VI

3. On the History of Ecclesiastical Science.

In connection with the history of piety we have been already obliged to enter upon the history of theology; for piety and theology are most intimately related in the Middle Ages. In the former chapter also (p. 23 ff.) a sketch of the history of science till the close of the twelfth century has been given. From the immense amount of material in the thirteenth to the fifteenth century only some cardinal points shall be brought more prominently to view.²⁴⁷²⁴⁷See the histories of philosophy by Erdmann, Ueberweg-Heinze (where are the fullest lists of literary works), Stöckl and Werner (Monograph on Thomas v. Aqu., various dissertations on Duns Scotus, Die Scholastik des spateren Mittelalters in 3 vols., 1881 f.: (1) Johannes Duns Scotus. (2) Die Nachscotistische Scholastik. (3) Der Augustinismus des späteren Mittelalters). Baur, Vorles. über die christl. Dogmengesch. 2 Bd., p. 199 ff. We owe to Bach a beautiful dissertation on Albertus M., distinguished by thorough knowledge and abundant points of view.

The great advancement of mediæval science from the beginning of the thirteenth century was occasioned (1) by the immense triumph of the Church and the papacy under Innocent III. and his successors; (2) by the intensification of piety in consequence of the Mendicant Orders movement;²⁴⁸²⁴⁸On the entrance of the Minorite Order into the scientific movement, see Werner, Duns Scotus, p. 4 ff. (3) by the enrichment and extension of general culture, which was partly a consequence of inner developments, and partly arose from contact with the East, in Palestine, Constantinople, and Spain.²⁴⁹²⁴⁹Cf. Books 6-8 of the History of the Aufklärung by Reuter, especially the sections on the Averrhoistic Aufklärung, as well as on the importance of the Arabic and Jewish middle-men, also on the influence of the Natural Sciences and on the University of Paris in the thirteenth century. The Arabs Avicenna (ob. 1037) and Averrhoes (ob. 1198), the former supranaturalistic, the latter pantheistic, in his tendency, were the most important commentators on Aristotle, whose works became known to the West by means of Spanish Jews. But by Averrhoes, who exercised a powerful attraction, Aristotle was in the first instance discredited, so that several Church interdicts were issued against him. But it was soon observed that Aristotle, so far from favouring pantheism, really refuted it. Scotus Erigena and Averrhoes — his system meant for the Church of the thirteenth century what Gnosticism in the second century, Manichæanism in the fourth, Socinianism in the seventeenth, meant for Church Christianity, see Renan, Averroes et l’Averroisme — were now regarded as the real enemies of Church dogma. Naturalistic pantheism in general now became the chief object of persecution; to oppose it, the supranaturalistic elements were derived from Aristotelianism, and this Aristotelianism had the widest scope given to it (see Schwane, Dogmengesch. des Mittelalters, p. 33 ff.). Among the Jewish scholars it was chiefly Maimonides who influenced the Schoolmen of the thirteenth century. Thomas owed very much to him, and in part transcribed him (see Merx, Prophetie des Joel, 1879). In this way the juristic-casuistic element in Scholasticism was still further strengthened, and pharisaic-talmudic theologoumena crept into mediæval theology, which are partly traceable to the Persian age of Judaism. But besides this, Neoplatonic and Aristotelian material found its way to the schoolmen from the translations of the Jews, who had rendered the Arabic versions of the Greek philosophical writings into Latin; see Bardenhewer, Die Schrift de causis, 1882. Here the acquaintance, now obtained for the first time, with the true Aristotle, the teacher of logic, physics, ethics, and politics, became of supreme importance. His philosophy, understood as dogmatism,²⁵⁰²⁵⁰In the sense in which Kant exposed and refuted dogmatism. It was only Roger Bacon who stoutly fought his way out of these fetters in the thirteenth century; see Reuter, II., p. 67 ff. was hailed as a gospel, or at least as 151the necessary introduction to one (“præcursor Christi in naturalibus”) and through him the science of the thirteenth century received an almost incalculable amount of material, and, above all, impulses to master the material.

The two new forces of commanding importance in the period, the Mendicant Orders²⁵¹²⁵¹Among all the Orders the Dominican was the first to adopt into its rules directions as to study (see Denifle, Archiv. fur Litt.-u. Kirchengesch. des Mittelalters I., p. 165 ff. and Aristotle, had first to achieve a position for themselves. At the beginning they met with hostility from the old Orders, and from the teachers and universities that were in alliance with them. An attitude of self-defence was assumed towards both. The new Aristotelianism, indeed, came under ecclesiastical proscription, and there was a wish to exclude theologians of the Mendicant Orders from university chairs. There were always some, too, who still were influenced by the attacks in general on the scientific-dialectic theology, which had been made by such men as John of Salisbury and Walter of St. Victor.²⁵²²⁵²Cf. e.g., for the period about 1250 the Chronicle of Salimbene and Michael l.c., p. 39 f. That in the Dominican Order itself a tendency had at first to be checked, which, after the style of the older Orders, emphasised asceticism so strongly that no room was left for study, which indeed described science (including theology) as dangerous and pernicious, has been convincingly proved by Wehofer O. P. from the book of the Dominican Gérard de Frachet, “Vitas Patrum” (published not long after 1256, issued in the Monum. Ord. Frat. Prædic. Historica. Löwen, 1896), and from the attitude of Humbert of Romans (General of the Order from 1254 to 1263; Gorres-Jahrbuch f. Philos. Bd. IX., 1896, p. 17 ff.) That “propter philosophiam” one goes to hell or at least — after a great example — receives here already on earth a sound cudgelling from angels, was never forgotten in the Catholic Church. The founder of the Trappist Order simply attempted to bring into force again an old monastic tradition: “study, i.e., philosophy is sin.” But the new movement asserted itself with an irresistible energy, and the opposition was silenced.

Yet this was only possible because the new factors really furnished nothing new, but completed the triumph of the Church over everything spiritual. The new Aristotle, as he was understood, taught the theory of knowledge, metaphysics and politics, which admitted of a surer vindication of dogma against such opposition as had formerly appeared, e.g., in William of Champeaux and Roscellin, and offered a defence against the 152dangers both of an eccentric realism and of an empirical mode of thought. If it is permissible, nay necessary, to conceive of the universals on the one hand, as the archetypes that express the cosmos of ideas in the thought of God, then they exist ante rem (before the thing); if on the other hand they must be regarded as simply realised in things (categories and forms) then they are in re (in the thing); if, finally, it is undeniable that it is only by the observation of things that they are obtained, that accordingly the intellect derives them from experience, then they are post rem (after the thing). In this way it was possible to apply to every dogma the epistemological mode of view which seemed best fitted to defend it. The “qualified” realism, which could assume the most different forms, and which had been already represented by Abelard, certainly more in a spirit of sceptical reserve than with a view to speculative construction, became dominant in the thirteenth century. But what was of most importance was that the great theologians who developed it showed even greater energy than their predecessors in subordinating the whole structure of thought to the principle that all things are to be understood by tracing them back to God.

But the tracing back to God was equivalent to subjecting all knowledge to the authority of the Church. The same science which displayed an astonishing energy of thought, and through such scholars as Thomas made a really important advance upon antiquity in the ethical and political sciences, appeared in many respects still more fettered than the science of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; for in its view, not only the old dogma (“articuli fidei”), but the entire department of ecclesiastical practice, the principles of which were traced back to the articuli fidei, was absolutely authoritative, and it proceeded much more frankly than before on the principle that in particular questions every instance of authority had as much weight as a deliberate reflection of the understanding.

It was only in the thirteenth century — and by the theologians of the Mendicant Orders — that the whole existing structure of ecclesiasticism was theologically vindicated, and its newest and most questionable parts, as well as the oldest and 153most important, declared inviolate by “science”; it was only in the thirteenth century that there was introduced that complete interblending of faith on authority and of science which means that at one and the same level there is a working at one time with the “credo,” at another time with the “intelligo”; such interblending is not yet found in Anselm, for example. Certainly it was still theoretically held that theology, resting on revelation, is a (speculative) science.²⁵³²⁵³See the first question in Part I. of the Summa of Thomas; Art. I.: “Utrum sit necessarium præter philosophicas disciplinas aliam doctrinam haberi.” Art. II: “Utrum sacra doctrina sit scientia.” Answer: “Sacram doctrinam esse scientiam. Sed sciendum est quod duplex est scientiarum genus. Quædam enim sunt, quæ procedunt ex principiis notis lumine naturali intellectus sicut Arithmetica; quædam vero sunt quæ procedunt ex principiis notis lumine superioris scientiæ, sicut Perspectiva procedit ex principiis notificatis per Geometriam. . . . Et hoc modo sacra doctrina est scientia, quia procedit ex principiis notis lumine superioris scientiæ, quæ scil. est scientia dei et beatorum. Unde sicut Musicus credit principia revelata sibi ab Arithmetico, ita doctrina sacra credit principia revelata sibi a deo.” Art. III.: “Utrum sacra doctrina sit una scientia?” Conclusio: “Cum omnia considerata in sacra doctrina sub una formali ratione divinæ revelationis considerentur, eam unam scientiam esse sentiendum est.” Artic. IV.: “Utrum s. doctrina sit scientia practica?” Conclusio: “Tametsi s. theologia altioris ordinis sit practica et speculativa, eminenter utramque continens, speculativa tamen magis est quam practica,” etc.^. But it was not held as required, nor even as possible, to rear on the basis of faith a purely rational structure: there was rather an alternating between authority and reason; they were regarded as parallel methods which one employed. The object in view indeed continued to be the knowledge that culminates in the visio dei; but there was no longer the wish always to eliminate more fully as knowledge advanced the element of faith (authority) in order to retain at the last pure knowledge; at all stages, rather, the element of authority was held as justifiable and necessary. Nay, there was now the conviction that there are two provinces, that of natural theology, and that of specific (revealed). The two, certainly, are thought of as being in closest harmony; but yet the conviction has been obtained that there are things known, and these, too, the most important, which belong simply to revealed theology, and which can be interrelated certainly, but not identified with natural theology. Natural theology, moreover, must subordinate itself to revealed, for theology has its foundation in revelation. In point of fact, however, the dogmatic theologian alternated between 154reason and revelation, and his structure derived its style from the former; for in particular questions the content of revelation is not derived solely from the thought of redemption — however truly this, as the visio dei, may be the contemplated end — but is set forth also in a thousand isolated portions, which are nothing else than heterogeneous fragments of a real or supposed knowledge of the world. It was the effect of holding that very conception of the goal of redemption as visio dei that the view of the content of revelation threatened to become broken up into an incalculable number of things known, and, in spite of the still retained title, acquired the character of a natural knowledge of supernatural things. Accordingly there was now introduced also the idea of articuli mixti, i.e., of such elements of knowledge as are given both in a natural way and by revelation, only in the latter way, however, in perfection. What appeared outlined already in Tertullian (see Vol. V. c. ii.) as the distinctive character of Western theology, now came to its fullest development.

From the newly-discovered Aristotle the scholars derived courage to advance from the compilation of mere “sentences” to the rearing of entire doctrinal systems. The imposing form of the Church also, with the unfolding of its uniform power, may have been a co-operating influence here; for the Scholasticism of the thirteenth century presents the same spectacle in the sphere of knowledge, which the Church of which it is the servant presents in the sphere of human life generally. In the one sphere as in the other everything is to be reduced to subjection; in the one as in the other everything is to be brought into a harmonious system; in the one as in the other the position is held, tacitly or expressly, that the Church is Christ, and Christ is the Church. Thus the theological science of the thirteenth century can be described as the submitting to dialectic-systematic revision of ecclesiastical dogma and ecclesiastical practice, with the view of unfolding them in a system having unity and comprehending all that in the highest sense is worthy of being known, with the view of proving them, and so of reducing to the service of the Church all the forces of the understanding and the whole product of science. But most intimately connected with this end is the other, namely, the theologian’s attaining in this way 155to the visio (fruitio) dei; these two ends, indeed, are mutually involved, for all knowledge of Church doctrine and of Church practice is knowledge of God — this was taught by the Church itself. Now, if the gradual knowledge of God is the only means whereby the individual can attain to salvation (visio dei), then in theology the objective and subjective aims simply coincide; one serves the Church in serving himself, and the converse is equally true. The great Schoolmen by no means felt that they wrought as slaves, labouring under compulsion for their masters. The only end indeed that was clearly before them was their own advancement in the knowledge of God; but, standing as faithful sons within the Church, to which all power was given in heaven and on earth, their speculations necessarily served, with more or less of intention on their part, to glorify the Church’s power and give a divine character to all that it did. And yet how many things did they come to know, the truth of which is entirely independent of the truth of Church theory and practice; how necessary and how helpful was even this period in the general history of science and theology; and how many seeds were sown broadcast by the great Schoolmen, of the development of which they did not allow themselves to dream! Never yet in the world’s history was any science quite fruitless which served God with true devotion. Theology has at any time become a hindrance, only when it has lost faith in itself or become vacillating. We shall see that this was verified also in medieval theology.

For all that has been stated up to this point applies only to the pre-Scotist Scholasticism; it applies above all to Thomas. He exercised, moreover, an enduring influence on the period that followed, and his influence is still at work at the present day. His predecessors and contemporaries have passed out of view in him. The Thomist science, as embodied above all in the “Summa,” is characterised by the following things: (1) by the conviction that religion and theology are essentially of a speculative (not practical) nature, that they must therefore be imparted and appropriated spiritually, that it is possible so to appropriate them, and that ultimately no conflict can arise between reason and revelation; (2) by strict adherence to 156Augustinianism, and in particular to the Augustinian doctrines of God, predestination, sin and grace,²⁵⁴²⁵⁴Thomas shows himself an Augustinian by his estimation also of Holy Scripture. Scripture alone was for him absolutely certain revelation. All other authorities he held as only relative. Very many passages can be quoted from Thomas to prove that the “formal principle of the reformation” had a representative in the great Schoolman. Cf. Holzhey, Die Inspiration d. hl. Schrift in der Anschauung des Mittelalters, 1895. This book, which did not necessarily require to be written, gives an account of the estimation of Holy Scripture on the part of the mediæval theologians and sectaries from the period of Charles the Great till the Council of Trent. The author remarks very correctly (p. 164 f.) that the view of Holy Scripture, or the mode of apprehending the notion of inspiration, does not pass beyond what is furnished by the Church Fathers, and that even among the theologians from the time of Alcuin till the beginning of the sixteenth century the greatest agreement regarding Holy Scripture prevailed. But when the author says further, that the doctrine of the absolute perspicuity and sufficiency of the Bible finds no confirmation in the mediæval Church — for even if expressions of the kind were to be met with among the mediæval theologians, yet the living union with the Church and tradition is at the same time presupposed — then that is in one respect a platitude. It is such also (but only in one respect) when the author remarks that the Middle Ages always recognised the exposition of Holy Scripture as an attribute of the Church. But on the really interesting problem Holzhey has scarcely touched, namely whether even in the Middle Ages a unique importance does not belong to Scripture as rule for the vita Christiana and whether it was not held by very many in this respect as absolutely clear and sufficient. That this question is to be answered affirmatively is to me beyond doubt. To the sentence of Duns Scotus: “Sacra scriptura sufficienter continet doctrinam necessariam viatori,” many parallels may be adduced. Besides, there is still another question on which Holzhey has scarcely entered: since when was the decision of the Church in matters of faith placed as another kind of authority alongside Scripture as of equal weight? Certainly not yet since Thomas, scarcely only since Duns, but, as Ritschl likewise (Fides implicita, p. 31 f.) remarks, only since Occam, and even since his time not yet generally. but on the other hand by contesting on principle Averrhoism; (3) by a thoroughly minute acquaintance with Aristotle, and by a comprehensive and strenuous application of the Aristotelian philosophy, so far as Augustinianism admitted in any way of this (under the conception of God the Areopagitic-Augustinian view is only slightly limited); (4) by a bold vindication of the highest ecclesiastical claims by means of an ingenious theory of the State, and a wonderfully observant study of the empirical tendencies of the papal ecclesiastical and sacramental system. Aristotle the politician and Augustine the theologian, two enemies, became allies in Thomas; in that consists the importance of Thomas in the world’s history. While he is a 157theologian and an Augustinian, he is still always an absolute thinker full of confidence; and yet it must not be overlooked that in him there are already recognisable the seeds of the destruction of the absolute theology. Although hidden, arbitrary and relative elements have already found a place for themselves in him. It is still his aim to express all things in the firm and sure categories of the majesty of the deity whose pervasive power controls all things, and to prove the strict necessity of all theological deliverances: the Christian religion is believed in and demonstrated from principles; but yet at not a few points the strength failed, and the thinker was obliged to fall back upon the authority which supports the probable, although he understood how to maintain for the whole the impression of absolute validity.²⁵⁵²⁵⁵Anselm proves in part the articuli fidei; in principle Thomas refuses to do so (Pars. I., Quæst. I., Art. 8); yet the ratio bases itself on the articuli fidei in order to prove something else. We shall see how, as the development proceeded, Scholasticism always relied less on ratio in divine things. This may be an appropriate place for a short description of the “Summa” (see Portman, Das System der theol. Summe des hl. Thomas, Luzern 1885). The 1. Part (119 Quæst.) treats of God and the issue of things from God, the 2. Part (1. Sect.) of general morality (114 Quæst.), the 2. Part (2. Sect.) of special morality (189 Quæst.) from the point of view of the return of the rational creature to God, the 3. Part of Christ and the Sacraments (90 Quæst.) As a supplement there has been added, from the commentary on the Lombard, the concluding part of the doctrine of the Sacraments, and the eschatology (102 Quæst.) Every Quæstio contains a number of articuli, and every articulus is divided into three parts. First the difficultates are brought forward, which seem to answer in the negative the question propounded, then the authorities (one or more, among them here and there also Aristotle), then follows the speculative discussion, dealing with principles, and thereafter the solution of the particular difficulties (the conclusiones are not formulated by Thomas himself, but by his commentators). The scheme corresponds with the Pauline-Augustinian thought: “From God to God.” The introduction (Quæst. i) comprises the questions on theology as a science, on the subject (object) of theology — God and all else sub ratione dei, — on the methods (auctoritas and ratio, theology as doctrina argumentativa, sed “hæc doctrina non argumentatur ad sua principia probanda, quæ sunt articuli fidei, sed ex eis procedit ad aliquid aliud probandum . . .nam licet locus ab auctoritate quæ fundatur super ratione humana sit infirmissimus, locus tamen ab auctoritate quæ fundatur super revelatione divina est efficacissimus. Utitur tamen sacra doctrina etiam ratione humana, non quidem ad probandam fidem [quia per hoc tolleretur meritum fidei], sed ad manifestandum aliqua alia, quæ traduntur in hac doctrina. Cum enim gratia non tollat naturam, sed perficiat, oportet quod naturalis ratio subserviat fidei, sicut et naturalis inclinatio voluntatis obsequitur caritati. . . . Sacra doctrina utitur philosophorum auctoritatibus quasi extraneis argumentis et probabilibus, auctoritatibus autem canonicæ scripturæ utitur proprie et ex necessitate arguendo, auctoritatibus autem aliorum doctorum ecclesiæ quasi argumentando ex propriis sed probabiliter. Innititur enim fides nostra revelationi apostolis et prophetis factæ, qui canonicos libros scripserunt, non autem revelationi, si qua fuit aliis doctoribus facta”), on the exposition of Holy Scripture, etc. Quest. 2-27 of the I. Part treat of God’s existence (five proofs for God), the nature of God (primum movens, ens a se, perfectissimum, actus purus), His attributes, His unity and uniqueness, His knowableness, the name of God, further of the inner life-activity in God (of His knowledge, His world of ideas, His relation to truth, His life, His will, the expressions of His will, providence and predestination); lastly, of the outer activity of God or the divine omnipotence, and of the divine blessedness. Then follows in Q. 27-44 the investigation de processione divinarum personarum (Trinity); lastly, Q. 44-119, the doctrine of creation, and here (1) the origination of things (creation out of nothing, temporality of the world); (2) division of creation (doctrine of angels, doctrine of the world of bodies, doctrine of man, here minute investigations into the substance of the soul, the union of body and soul, the powers of the soul, human knowledge; then concerning the creation of man, the divine image in man, paradise and the original state); (3) the doctrine of the divine government of the world (on angels as means of providence, etc.). The II. Part (1 sect.) is grounded entirely on the Aristotelian Ethics. It begins with an introduction on man’s end (the bonum = beatitudo = deus ipse = visio dei), and proceeds to treat of freedom, the nature of free acts of the will, the goodness and badness of acts of the will (to the goodness belongs the rationality of the act of the will), merit and guilt (Q. 6-21). Thereon follow investigations into the emotional life of man (passiones), which is minutely analysed (Q. 22-48). Now only comes the account of the principles of moral action, of “habitus” or of the qualities of the soul. After an introduction (Q. 49 sq.) the doctrine of virtue is discussed (divided according to the object into intellectual, moral, and theological virtues), the cause of the virtues, their peculiarities (virtue as moderation or the “middle” course between two extremes) and the culmination of the virtues in the gifts of the Holy Ghost (the eight beatitudes and the fruits of the Spirit). This is followed by the doctrines of the nature of sin (contrary to reason and nature), of the division of sins, of the relation of sins to one another, of the subject (the will), the causes (inner and outer) of sin, of original sin and its effects (the deterioration of nature, darkening = macula, the reatus pœnæ, mortal sins and venial sins). All this belongs to the inner principles of moral conduct. This part concludes with the discussion of the outer principles, namely, the law and grace. The “law” is discussed on all sides, as eternal law (that is, the law according to which God Himself acts, and whose reflected rays are all laws valid for the creatures), as natural law, as human law, as Old Testament and New Testament law, and as law of “counsels” for special perfection. But the New Testament law, as it is inward, and infused by grace, is the law of grace, and thu the way is prepared for passing to the second outer principle of moral acts — to grace which gives man aid for the good. Grace is the outer principle of the supernatural good; in the intellectual sphere it is not necessary for the knowledge of natural truths, but it is so for the knowledge of the supernatural; it is likewise requisite for ability to do the supernatural good. Here there is a keen polemic against Pelagianism: man cannot by naturally good acts even prepare himself sufficiently for grace; he can neither convert himself, nor continue always steadfast in goodness. An inquiry into the nature, division, causes, and effects of grace (doctrine of justification, doctrine of the meritoriousness of good works), forms the conclusion. The II. Part, 2. section now contains special ethics, namely, first, the precise statement of the theological virtues (faith, hope, and love), the commands corresponding to these virtues, and the sins against them, then the discussion of the cardinal virtues, wisdom, righteousness (here in Q. 57-123 the most exhaustive account is given, inasmuch as religiousness as a whole is placed under this term), courage, and moderation; lastly, the discussion of the special virtues, i.e., of the gifts of grace and duties of station (Q. 171-189). Under this last title there are dealt with (a) the charisms, (b) the two forms of life (the contemplative and the active), (c) the stations of perfection (namely, the station of the bishops as the virtuosi in neighbourly love, and the station of the monks, with special reference to the Mendicant monks). The III. Part now aims at showing by what provision and means the return of the rational creature to God has become possible by way of faith, hope, and love, namely, through Christ and the Sacraments. To this there is the intention to add eschatology. Hence there is a treatment here (1) of Christ, in particular of His incarnation and His natures. After a discussion of the necessity of the incarnation (on account of sin, and since a satisfactio de condigno was requisite) for the removal of original sin, the personal unity, the divine person, of Christ, and His human nature are set forth (in which connection, Q. 8, there is reference to the Church as the mystic body of Christ, and the thought of “Christus” as the head of mankind is strongly accentuated); then the consequences of the personal union (communicatio idiomatum) and all bearings of the constitution of the Godman are explained. On this follows (2) a section on the work of Christ, which, however, contains almost no speculation whatever, but illustrates in an edifying way the history of Christ from his entrance into the world (Q. 27-31, the doctrine of Mary). In connection with the suffering and death of Christ, the point of view of the “conveniens” as distinguished from the “necessarium” has special prominence given to it. Immediately after the work of Christ the doctrine of the Sacraments is added (Q. 60 sq.); for redemption is imparted to individuals only through the Sacraments, which have their efficacy from Christ, and through which men are incorporated into Christ. The statement begins with the general doctrine of the Sacraments (nature, necessity, effect, cause, number, connection); then follows the discussion of baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, and penance. Here Thomas was obliged to lay down his pen. It was not granted to him to complete his “Summa.” What was still wanting, as has been remarked, was supplied from his other works; but in this supplement we miss somewhat of the strictness marking the expositions given by himself in the Summa, since it was mainly constructed out of notes and excursus on the text of the Lombard. Observe lastly, that in the Summa repetitions are not only not avoided, but occur to an incalculable extent.

But was this strict necessity of any service at all to the Church? Should the Church not rather have been gratified, when the understanding perceived its incapacity to follow up the decisions of authority, and therefore abandoned further 159effort? To this question the reply must not be absolutely affirmative, but still less must it be negative. The Church, as it then already was, and as it still is to-day, needs both things; it 160is indispensable to it that its articuli fidei and modes of practice be also proved, and their rationality brought to view; but it is still more needful to it that there be a blind surrender to its authority.

In this respect there was still obviously too little done by Thomas. In him, the determination of the relation of ratio to auctoritas is, indeed, marked by a quite special amount of confusion, the claims of faith (as faith on authority) and of knowledge receive no elucidation whatever, not to speak of reconciliation, and he stated not a few propositions in which there was a complete surrender to authority, that “faith” might not be deprived of its “merit” (see the sentence quoted above: “Sacred doctrine, however, uses human reason also, not indeed for proving faith, for through this the merit of faith would be lost” [Utitur tamen sacra doctrina etiam ratione humana, non quidem ad probandam fidem, quia per hoc tolleretur meritum fidei]). Yet his real interest in theology is still the same as that of Augustine. Theology is cognition of God in the strict sense; the necessity, which is accentuated in God, must also pervade the whole cognition of Him. The articuli fidei, and all results of world-knowledge, must be merged in the unity of this knowledge which truly liberates the soul and leads it back to God. At bottom the imposing and complicated system is extremely simple. Just as the perfect Gothic Cathedral, from its exhibiting what is really an organic style, expresses a single architectural thought, and subordinates all to this, even making all practical needs of worship serviceable to it, so this structure of thought, although all ecclesiastical doctrines are submissively and faithfully taken account of, still proclaims the one thought, that the soul has had its origin in God, and returns to Him through Christ, and even the Augustinian-Areopagite turn given to this thought, that God is all in all, is not denied by Thomas.

But this attitude is dangerous. There will always be a fresh development from it of the “Spurious Mysticism,” as the Catholics call it, in which the subject is eager to go his own way, and avoids complete dependence upon the Church. Nevertheless, the course of scientific development came to be helpful 161to the Church, and we may almost say that the Church here gathered figs of thistles. The assiduous study of Aristotle, and the keener perception gained through philosophy and observation, weakened the confidence of the theologians regarding the rationality and strict necessity of the revealed articles of faith. They began to forego revising them by means of reason, and subordinating them as component parts of a system to a uniform thought. Their scientific sense was strengthened, and when they now turned to the revealed tenets, they found in them, not necessity, but arbitrariness. Moreover, the further they advanced in psychology and secular science and discovered what cognition really is, the more sceptical they became towards the “general”: “latet dolus in generalibus” (deception lurks under general conceptions). They began to part with their inward interest in the general, and their faith in it. The “idea,” which is to be regarded as “substance,” and the “necessity” of the general, disappeared for them; they lost confidence in the knowledge that knows everything. The particular, in its concrete expression, acquired interest for them: will rules the world, the will of God and the will of the individual, not an incomprehensible substance, or a universal intellect that is the product of construction. This immense revolution is represented in mediæval science by Duns Scotus, the acutest scholastic thinker;²⁵⁶²⁵⁶See Baur, l.c. II., p. 235: “The thorough reasonableness of the ecclesiastical faith, or the conviction that for all doctrines of the ecclesiastical system some kind of rationes can be discovered, by which they are established even for the thinking reason, was the fundamental presupposition of Scholasticism. But after Scholasticism had risen to its highest point in Thomas and Bonaventura, it became itself doubtful again of this presupposition. This very important turning-point in the history of Scholasticism, after which it tended increasingly to fall to pieces, is represented by Duns Scotus.” (Doctrine of double truth as consequence of the Fall!) Besides Duns Scotus, and after him, it was chiefly the doctor resolutissimus Durandus who, at first a Thomist, passed over to Nominalism and obtained currency for its mode of thought (see his commentary on the Lombard). He worked in the first third of the fourteenth century; on him see Werner in the 2. vol. of the “Scholastik des spateren Mittelalters.” but only with Occam did it attain completion.

We should expect that the result of this revolution would have been either a protest against the Church doctrine, or an attempt to test it by its foundations, and to subject it to critical 162reconstruction. But it was 200 years before these results followed, in Socinianism on the one hand, and in the Reformation theology on the other. What happened at first was quite different: there was a strengthening of the authority of the Church, and, along with full submission to it, a laying to its account of responsibility for the articles of faith and for the principles of its practice.²⁵⁷²⁵⁷Even the sufficiency of the Bible was doubted by Duns (against Thomas). What was once supported by reason in league with authority must now be supported by the latter alone. Yet this conversion of things was felt to be by no means an act of despair, but to be an obviously required act of obedience to the Church, so complete was the supremacy of the latter over the souls of men, even though at the time it might be in the deepest debasement.

When Nominalism obtained supremacy in theology and in the Church, the ground was prepared for the threefold development of doctrine in the future: Post-Tridentine Catholicism, Protestantism and Socinianism are to be understood from this point of view.²⁵⁸²⁵⁸Nominalism only achieved its position in the Church after a hard struggle. From the clays of Roscellin it was viewed with suspicion, and the appearing of Occam in its support could not be in its favour (Occam’s writings prohibited in 1389 by the University of Paris). But from the middle of the fourteenth century it established itself, and even Dominicans — although the controversy between Thomists and Scotists continued — became advocates of it. Indeed, when Wyclif and other Reformers (Augustinians) again adopted realism, a new chapter began. Realism now, from the close of the fourteenth century, became ecclesiastically suspected (on account of the spiritualism, the determinism, and the intellectualistic mysticism, which seemed to endanger ecclesiasticism). The most important representatives of Post-Scotistic Scholasticism are Petrus Aureolus, John of Baconthorp, Durandus, and Occam. On the “theological mode of thought and the general mental habit” of these scholars, see Werner, Nachscotist. Scholastik, p. 21 ff. On the Thomist scrutiny applied by Capreolus to Post-Scotistic Scholasticism, see ibid., p. 438 ff. That Nominalism, in spite of its dogmatic probabilism, did not, at least at the beginning, weaken dogma, is best illustrated by the fanatical attack on the peculiar doctrine of Pope John XXII.

Nominalism exhibits on one side a number of outstanding excellences: it had come to see that religion is something different from knowledge and philosophy; it had also discovered the importance of the concrete as compared with hollow abstractions, 163and to its perception of this it gave brilliant expression,²⁵⁹²⁵⁹See Siebeck, Die Anfänge der neueren Psychologie in der Scholastik, in the Zeitschr. f. Philos. u. philos. Kritik, 1888, 1889. e.g, in psychology; through recognising the importance of will, and giving prominence to this factor even in God, it strongly accentuated the personality of God, and so prepared the way for the suppression of that Areopagite theology, from which the danger always arose of its causing the world and the reasonable creature to disappear in God;²⁶⁰²⁶⁰Duns also rejected the Thomist idea that in created things the absolute divine original form is pictured forth, and, under the direction of Aristotle, passed over to a naturalistic doctrine of the world. finally, by placing restrictions on speculation it brought out more clearly the positiveness of historic religion. But this progress in discernment was dearly purchased by two heavy sacrifices: first, with the surrender of the assurance that an absolute accordant knowledge could be attained, there was also surrendered the assurance of the categorical imperative, of the strict necessity of the moral in God, and of the moral law; and secondly, among the historic magnitudes to which it submitted itself, it included the Church with its entire apparatus — the commands of the religious and moral are arbitrary, but the commands of the Church are absolute. The haven of rest amidst the doubts and uncertainties of the understanding and of the soul is the authority of the Church.

Neither the latter nor the former was, strictly speaking, an innovation.²⁶¹²⁶¹Still less, as frequently happens, is the Jesuit Order, with its casuistic dogmatic and ethic, to be made accountable here, as if it was the first to introduce the innovation. This Order simply entered into the inheritance of mediæval Nominalism. Through the institution of penance an uncertainty about the moral had for long become widely diffused: it was only a question of expressing in theory what had for centuries been the fundamental thought in practice — the sovereign right of casuistry.²⁶²²⁶²For the speculative Scholasticism there was substituted the empirico-casuistic. The Nominalists sought to show, with an immense expenditure of acuteness and speculation, that there could not be a speculative Scholasticism. When they had furnished this “proof,” there remained over purely hollow forms, which were bound to collapse, or could be maintained only through the compulsory force of a powerful institution. What was not brought within the view of Nominalism, in spite of all its progress, was the idea of personality (see for the first time the Renaissance), and consequently the person of Christ (see the Reformation), and above all, history (see the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). For it the place of history was still occupied always by the rigid Church It is not otherwise still to-day with the science of the Jesuits. They consistently trifle with history, and can treat it, in the tone of a man of the world, with a certain amusement and easy scorn, when once they have estabished the things which the conception of the Church requires to be established. Moreover, the contradictory mode of procedure, 164which the great Schoolmen (Thomas at the head of them), in obedience to the spirit of jurisprudence, applied to each particular dogma and each ethical position, necessarily had the effect of shaking the conviction that there is something absolutely valid. If, as any page of Thomas will suggest, from two to twelve grounds can be adduced for every heresy and for many immoral assertions — if, e.g., there are a dozen grounds on which it may be alleged that simplex fornicatio is no mortal sin (Thomas), how can the belief be firmly maintained in face of this that it must nevertheless be regarded as such?

From the conflict between yes and no will there always result certainty on behalf of the answer which the dogmatic theologian prefers? How can certainty be reckoned on at all, so long as there is still one ground only for the counter position, and so long as the one ground cannot be shown which alone is valid? Nominalism only continued here what Realism had begun; it merely did still more in the way of differentiating and distinguishing; it extended the recognised method of the acute advocate to ever new fields, to the doctrine of God, to the doctrines of creation and providence, to the holiness and the honour of God, to sin and reconciliation, and it always came to the conclusions, (1) that all is relative and arbitrary — but even in Thomas’s dogmatic already much that is very important in the doctrine of religion is only “conveniens”; (2) that the doctrines of revealed religion conflict with natural theology, with the thought of the understanding about God and the world (doctrine of double truth). Finally, when Nominalism taught that, since belief (credere) and understanding (intelligere) cannot be reconciled, there must be a blind surrender to the authority of the Church, and that it is just in this blind obedience that both the nature, and also the merit, of faith consist, here also it only wrought out fully a general Catholic theorem; for Tertullian had as little doubt as Thomas that all faith begins with submission. 165Though afterwards — from the time of Augustine — many considerations had been adduced for modifying the original theorem and changing faith into inward assent and love, nevertheless the old position remained the same, that faith is originally obedience, and that in this it has its initial merit. But if it is obedience, then it is fides implicita, i.e., submission is enough. When the later Nominalism declared with increasing distinctness the sufficiency of fides implicita, or laid it at the foundation of its theological reflections, because many truths of faith, taken in general, or as dealt with by individuals, do not admit of being accepted in any other way, it only gave to an old Catholic thought a thoroughly logical expression;²⁶³²⁶³ The juristic Popes from Gregory VII. onwards, especially the Popes of the thirteenth century, anticipated the Nominalist doctrine of fides implicita: “In his commentary on the Decretals (in lib. I., c. 1 de summa trinitate et fide Catholica) Innocent IV. laid down two momentous rules. First, that it is enough for the laity to believe in a God who recompenses, but with regard to everything else, of dogma or moral doctrine, merely to believe implicitly, that is to think, and to say, I believe what the Church believes. Second, that a cleric must obey even a Pope who issues an unrighteous command” (Döllinger, Akad. Vorträge II., p. 419). The latter position does not interest us here; there is interest, however, in the more precise definition of the former given by Innocent, (1) that the lower clergy, who cannot carry on the study of theology, are to be regarded as laymen; only they must believe in transubstantiation; (2) that an error with regard to Christian doctrine (the doctrine of the Trinity even) does not do harm to a layman, if he at the same time believes (believes erroneously) that he holds to the doctrine of the Church. Ritschl (Fides implicita, 1890) has dealt more minutely with this important doctrine. He shows that it originated from a passage of the Lombard (1. III., dist. 25). But the terminology, the range and the validity of the fides implicita remained uncertain among the theologians and Popes till the end of the thirteenth century. The great teachers of the thirteenth century (above all Thomas) confined it within narrow limits, and in this contradicted the Popes (even Innocent III. comes under consideration; see Ritschl, p. 5 f.). Even Duns differs little from Thomas (p. 20 ff.). But Occam reverted to the exposition of Innocent IV. (p. 30 f.); nay, although he is a doctor, he claims fides implicita for himself (with regard to the doctrine of the Eucharist): “quidquid Romana ecclesia credit, hoc solum et non aliud vel explicite vel implicite credo.” Occam wishes to get free play for his doctrine of the Eucharist, which diverges from the traditional view; he saves himself therefore by roundly acknowledging the Church doctrine, that he may then make his divergence appear as a theological experiment. Here therefore the fides implicita is turned to account for another purpose. It is remarkable that in its original purpose it was rejected (no doubt on account of Thomas) by Gregory XI. (against Raymund Lullus); but by Biel it is again accepted, and treated apparently with reserve, but in the end there is seen just in it the proof of fides as infusa (as the work of God). Neither Occam nor Biel wishes by this to treat dogma ironically, on the contrary they show their want of inner freedom in relation to dogma; but when Laurentius Valla winds up his critical supplementings with the assertion that he believes as mother Church does, the irony is manifest, In what way the fides implicita extended into the period of the Reformation has been shown by Ritschl, p. 40 if., who also traces out the doctrine among later Catholic teachers. That there is an element of truth in the recognition of the fides implicita is easily seen; but it is not easy to define theologically what is right in it. Where value is attached to the mere act of obedience, or where, for that part, there is also something of merit attributed to it, the limit of what is correct is transgressed. for the danger of transforming 166religion into an ecclesiastical regime was at no time absent from Western Catholicism.²⁶⁴²⁶⁴Into the philosophy of Duns Scotus (see Werner, l.c., and the summary in the article by Dorner in Herzog’s R.-E., 2 ed.) and of Occam (see Wagemann in the R.-E.) I cannot here enter further. Important theological doctrines of both will fall to be spoken of in the following section. It is well known that Duns Scotus himself was not yet a Nominalist, but prepared the way for applying this theory of knowledge to dogmatics. He already emphasised the independence of the secular sciences (even of metaphysics) as over against theology, while in general he brought out much more clearly the independence of the world (in continual discussions with Thomas) as over against God. To balance this he gives wide scope to the arbitrary will of God as over against the world. Yet that this opinion may not lead to everything being plunged in uncertainty, the knowledge of God derived from revelation (as distinguished from rational knowledge) is strongly accentuated. In Duns we still observe the struggle of the principle of reason with the principle of arbitrariness tempered by revelation and made conceivable; in Occam the latter has triumphed. To the understanding, which Occam brings into court against dogma, the task is assigned of showing that logic and physics cannot be applied to the articles of faith, and to the supernatural objects that answer to them. All doctrines of faith are full of contradictions; but so also it must be, according to Occam; for only in this way do they show themselves to be declarations about a super-sensible world, which to the understanding is a miracle. This theologian has been misunderstood, when his criticism of dogma has been taken as suggesting the irony of the doubter. If, after proving the doctrine of transubstantiation impossible, he finally holds it as more probable than any other doctrine, because the Church has fixed it, and because the omnipotence of God appears in it most unlimitedly, i.e., because it is the most irrational doctrine that can be thought of, in this he is severely in earnest, however much he might like to maintain his own dialectic doctrine on this point. And what holds good of the doctrine of the Supper holds good also of all other cardinal doctrines of the Church. Unreasonableness and authority are in a certain sense the stamp of truth. That is also a positivism, but it is the positivism whose sins have fully developed. Here, too, it applies, that one abyss calls up another. The Pre-Nominalist theology had loaded reason with a burden of speculative monstrosities, and at the same time required it to bear the whole weight of religion; the sobered ratio abandoned entirely the thought of a λογικὴ λατρεία, became always more prepared to recognise the faith of ignorant submission as religion, and fell back on knowledge of the world. On Biel, see Linsenmaun in the Tub. Quartalschr., 1865.

What has already been briefly hinted at above may be distinctly stated here — the problem was the elimination of Augustinianism from the ecclesiastical doctrine. The whole turning from Realism to Nominalism can be represented theologically under this heading. Augustine falls and Aristotle rises — ostensibly not in theology indeed, but only in the field of world-knowledge, yet as a fact in theology as well; for no one can keep 167metaphysics and theology entirely asunder, and the theological doctrines of the Nominalists prove that, while they have reverently called a halt before the old dogmas, after having shown them irrational, on the other hand they have revised in a new-fashioned way the circle of the new, and really living, doctrines (Sacraments, appropriation of salvation). This work directed itself against Augustine, in its directing itself against Thomas.

We have frequently pointed out already, that the history of Church doctrine in the West was a much disguised history of struggle against Augustine. His spirit and his piety undoubtedly rose far above the average of ecclesiasticism, and the new discoveries which he made were in many ways inconvenient to the Church as an ecclesiastical institution, and did not harmonise with its tendencies. No doubt the Church had accepted Augustinianism, but with the secret reservation that it was to be moulded by its own mode of thought. We have seen to what extent there was success in that in the period that ends, and in the period that begins, with Gregory the Great. Gottschalk already experienced what it costs in Catholicism to represent Augustinianism. In the time that followed there was developed in the sacramental and penance systems a practice and mode of thought that was always the more plainly in conflict with Augustinianism; all the more important was the fact that the Dominican Order, and especially Thomas, sought to rejuvenate the theology of Augustine. Duns Scotus and the Nominalist theology directed themselves in the first instance against Augustine’s philosophy of religion, against those doctrines of the first and last things, which gravitated so strongly to pantheism. But in controverting these doctrines, and shaking confidence in the doctrine of God as the All-One, they also 168shook confidence, for themselves and others, in the Augustinian doctrines of grace and sin, which certainly had the closest connection with his doctrine of God. These Nominalists, who (following Duns Scotus) always insisted that reason relates to the realm of the worldly, and that in spiritual things there must simply be a following the traditional authority of revelation, that the understanding, therefore, must be left out of play, really wrought in a most vigorous way, and with the utmost use of the “understanding,” within the lines of the Church doctrine. Under certain circumstances “not to speculate” leads also to a metaphysic, or at least does not hinder a traditional speculation from being corrected and transformed in many of its details, and so also in its entire cast. At any rate this principle did not prevent the Nominalist theologians from revising the existing dogma under the protection of authority. But not only did this work now acquire an entirely external, formalistic character, but there were also introduced into everything the principles of an arbitrary morality, of the “conveniens” too, the expedient and the relative. One might say, that the principles of a cosmopolitan diplomacy in matters of religion and morals were applied to objective religion and to subjective religious life. God is not quite so strict, and not quite so holy, as He might be imagined to be; sin is not quite so bad as it appears to be to the very tender conscience; guilt is not immeasurably great; redemption by Christ, taken as a whole, and in its parts, is very serviceable, but not really necessary; faith does not require to be full surrender, and even of love a certain amount is really enough. That is the “Aristotelianism” of the Nominalistic Schoolmen, which Luther declared to be the root of all mischief in the Church; but that is also the “Aristotelianism” which must be most welcome to the hierarchy; for here they hold the key of the position, seeing that they determine how strict God is, how heinous sin is, etc. That at the same time they neither can nor will part entirely with Augustinianism (Thomism) was remarked above. But they determine where it is to come in, and they showed that they watched jealously the extent to which it was applied.

In the Pelagianism and Probabilism of Nominalism there lies 169the express apostasy from Augustinianism.²⁶⁵²⁶⁵Also from the ancient Church and from dogma in its original sense as a whole. Whoever transforms all dogmatic and ethic into casuistry, thereby proves that he is no more inwardly, but only outwardly, bound. But just because the apostasy was so manifest, there could not fail to be a certain reaction — though certainly no longer a strong one — in the Church. Not only did the Dominican Order, in their defending the theology of their great teacher, Thomas, persistently defend Augustine also (though not, as a rule, in the most important points), but men also appeared in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries who observed the Pelagian tendency of Nominalism, and strenuously resisted it in the spirit of Augustine.²⁶⁶²⁶⁶Werner has the credit of having described the reaction of Augustinianism in the third vol. of his “Scholastik des Spätteren Mittelalters.” Yet his account is by no means complete. In pp. 1-232 he treats of “the representation of the Scholastic Augustinianism given by the mediæval Augustinian-Hermit School,” i.e., almost exclusively of the doctrines of ægidius (ob. 1315), the great defender of Thomas, and of Gregory of Rimini; then, in pp. 234-306, of Bradwardine’s doctrine. Stöckl also goes into the Augustinianism of the fifteenth century, but in his own way. Moreover, Werner will not admit a rejuvenated Augustinianism. “The earlier and later attempts to obtain a specific Augustinianism fall under different points of view, according as they signify a reaction against the enfeebling and externalising of the Christian ecclesiastical thought of salvation, or the opposition, supported by the name of Augustine, of a resuscitated one-sided Platonism to Aristotelianism, or, finally, as they arose from a vague fusion of the respect for Augustine in the Church generally, with the authority of the head and leader of a particular school. It was to such a vague fusion that the Mediæval Order-theology of the Augustinian Hermits (?) owed its origin, which came into existence as schola ægidiana, and, under many changes, continued to exist till last century” (p. 8 f.). Here Bradwardine must first be mentioned (ob. 1349) who placed the entire Augustine, together with the predestination doctrine, in strong opposition to the Pelagian tendency of the period.²⁶⁷²⁶⁷See Lechler, Wiclif I. Bd., and the same author’s monograph on Bradwardine, 1863. Bradwardine made a further endeavour to create a philosophy adequate to the Christian conception of God, and on that account went back on the Augustinian Anselmic speculation as regards an absolutely necessary and perfect being, from which all that is and can he is to be deduced. But yet he shows himself to be dependent on Duns in this, that he represents God and the world exclusively under the contrast of the necessary and the contingent (see his book de causa dei adv. Pelag., Werner pp. 255 ff. 299), while in other respects also very strong influences of Nominalism are discernible in him. Yet these influences disappear behind the main tendency, which is directed to showing the “immediate unity and coincidence of theological and philosophical thought,” and to restoring Augustine’s doctrine of grace together with Determinism. (“All willing in God is absolute substance.”) Werner will have it that he has proved that Bradwardine is no Thomist, but that he reverts to the pre-Thomist Scholasticism. That is right in so far as Bradwardine is a logical Augustinian. But Werner has an interest in emphasising as strongly as possible the peripatetic elements in Thomas; for only when these are emphasised in a one-sided way can Thomas continue to he the normal theologian. “According to the ‘universal feeling’ the Aristotelian basis was indispensable for the ends of a methodically conducted theological scholastic science, and as a rational restraint upon giving a false internal character to the Christian ecclesiastical religious consciousness” (p. 305). On 170him Wyclif was dependent as a theologian, and as Huss took all his theological thoughts from Wyclif, and introduced them into Bohemia and Germany, Bradwardine is really to be signalized as the theologian who gave the impulse to the Augustinian reactions that accompanied the history of the Church till the time of Staupitz and Luther, and that prepared the way for the Reformation. In the fifteenth century the men were numerous, and some of them influential too, who, standing on the shoulders of Augustine, set themselves in opposition to Pelagianism. But they neither overthrew, nor wished to overthrow, the strong basis of the Nominalist doctrine, the authority of the Church. Moreover, Augustinianism exercised an influence in many ways on the reform parties and sects; but as no new theology resulted, so also all these efforts led to no Reformation. The Augustinians still allowed a wide scope to the fides implicita and the Sacraments, because even they believed in the idol of Church authority. The reigning theology remained unshaken so long as it was not assailed at the root. Even attacks so energetic as those of Wesel and Wessel passed without general effect.²⁶⁸²⁶⁸Even the rejection of all philosophy and of the whole of Scholasticism, of which we have an instance in Pupper of Goch (O. Clemen, l.c. p. 135 ff.) — whom Luther described as “Vere Germanus et gnosios theologus” — changed nothing. But the fact is unmistakable, that in the course of the fifteenth century the Nominalist Scholasticism fell steadily into disrepute. While the period revelled in new, fresh impressions and perceptions, that theological art became always more formalistic, and its barren industry was always the more keenly felt. While the rediscovered Platonism was being absorbed with delight, that art still lived under the impulses of the Aristotle who had arisen 250 years before. The spirit of the Renaissance and of Humanism was in its innermost nature alien to the old Scholasticism; for it had no wish for formulæ, 171 syllogisms, and authorities; it wished neither the darkness nor the illumination of the “Aristotelian” Scholasticism, but was eager for life, that can be reproduced in feeling, and for perceptions that elevate above the common world and the common art of living.²⁶⁹²⁶⁹ Burckhardt, Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien. 4. Aufl., 1885. Voigt, Wiederbelebung des class. Alterthums. 2 Aufl. 2 Bde., 1880 f. For the poets and humanists — though not for all, yet certainly for the most of them — the ecclesiastical theology, as represented in the Scholastic labours of the Schoolmen, was like stagnant, filthy water. But still there was always the endeavour to find the redeemers in antiquity. Plato, at length the true Plato, was discovered, revered and deified. It was not by chance that the Platonic reaction coincided with the Augustinian in the fifteenth century; for the two great spirits of ancient times had an elective affinity — Plato’s Dialogues and Augustine’s Confessions are not incapable of being united. The influence of Plato and Augustine guided all the movements in the fields of science and theology in the fifteenth century that rose against a Scholasticism which, in spite of its rich perceptions, had become fossilised and hollow, and had lost touch with the needs of the inner life and of the present time. The reflection of the Germans was more serious than that of the Italians and French. In the last third of the fifteenth century Germany took the lead in thought and scholarship. The Romanic nations did not produce in the fifteenth century a man like Nicolas of Cusa.²⁷⁰²⁷⁰See Stöckl, l.c., Janssen, Gesch. des deutschen Volkes Bd. I., Clemens, Giordano Bruno u. N. v. K., 1847. Storz, Die specul. Gotteslehre des. N. v. K. in the theol. Quartalschr., 1873, I. Laurentius Valla is superior to Nicolas as a critic, but otherwise not on a level with him. Nicolas was the precursor and leader of all the distinguished men who, in the following century, starting from the Platonic view of the world, brought so strong and fresh a current of real illuminism into the world. Though fantastical in many ways and even greatly interested in magic and ghosts, some of them at once discoverers and charlatans, these men laid, nevertheless, the basis for the scientific (even experimental) observation of nature, and were the restorers of scientific thought. Assurance of the unity of all things and the bold flight of imagination — both of which had been lost by scholastic wisdom — made the new 172science possible. This science by no means arose because Nominalism, or the philosophy of the great student of nature, Aristotle, as it was then treated, was always growing more empirical, and gradually developed itself into exact science, but a new spirit passed over the withered leaves of Scholasticism, scattered them boldly to the four winds, and derived confidence and power for gathering out of nature and history their secrets, from the living speculations of Plato that grasp the whole man, from the original historic sources now discovered, and from converse with the living reality.

By theology little advantage, certainly, was derived from this in the fifteenth century. The Italian Humanists, the fathers of this European movement, practically took nothing to do with it — at the most they instituted some historical investigations, with the view of annoying the priests and monks (Laurentius Valla: favours from Constantine, origin of the Apostolic Symbol, writings of the Areopagite) — and even the Germans made no real contributions to progress.²⁷¹²⁷¹Yet, “German patriotism effected a union in many ways of the anti-Romish traditions with Humanistic Illuminism” (Loofs). One could help all other sciences by going back upon antiquity, but not theology. What it could learn from Plato and the Neoplatonists it had learned long before. When men like Nicolas of Cusa sought to release it from the embraces of the Schoolmen, they themselves knew of no better form for it than that which had been given to it by Augustine and Mystics like Eckhart. But trial had been made of this form of long time. Just because it appeared unsatisfactory, and there was an unwillingness any longer to breathe in this fine fog, there had been, in course of time, a passing over to Nominalism. Now, there must be a reverting to the beginning — though it might be better understood. Another prescription was not offered. Theology seemed doomed to move helplessly in a circle; fundamentally it remained as it was; for the iron ecclesiastical authority remained. Then came the help, not from Aristotle, nor even from Plato and Augustine, but from the conscience of a Mendicant Monk.

But what the Renaissance and Humanism did indirectly for theology²⁷²²⁷²Drews, Humanismus und Reformation, 1887. must not be ignored. While it was not really 173demolished by them, and still much less re-shaped, yet for the future re-shaping they certainly rendered most valuable services. The sources of history were gradually disclosed for it also, and the Humanist Erasmus not only laid the foundation of textual criticism of the New Testament and scientific patrology, but carried them at once to a high state of perfection. From a taste for the original, criticism grew up. What had died out in the Church with Origen, nay, in some measure even before Origen, or what — keeping out of view a few Antiochians — had never really developed themselves strongly, namely, historic sense and historic exegesis, developed themselves now. The Reformation was to reap the benefit of them; but by the Reformation also they were soon to be swallowed up again. For the history of theology, and of dogmas, in the strictest sense of the term, Humanism was otherwise quite unfruitful. Theology was put aside by it with a respectful recognition, or with an air of cool superiority, or with saucy ridicule. Scarcely anyone approached it with serious criticism. Erasmus aimed at giving it a humanistic ennoblement and freeing it from restrictions. When the Reformation dawned, he pronounced, among other things, the controversy about indulgences to be a monks’ quarrel, or a delightful dilemma for causing stir among the parsons. When things then grew serious and a decision had to be made, it became apparent that the Franciscan ideal, in peculiar combination with antique reserve and humanistic worldliness, with silent hatred of dogma and Church, and external submission, had a stronger hold on many aspiring souls than a liking for the gospel.²⁷³²⁷³Dilthey (Archiv. f. Gesch. d. Philos. 5 Bd., p. 381 ff.), in a way that seems to me substantially correct, but somewhat forced, has described Erasmus as the founder of theological Rationalism with accommodation to the Church. Erasmus was too many-sided, and too uncertain of principles, to found anything beyond methods. The scholar, besides, would not let himself be disturbed by the din of the “Lutheran rogues.” Theological doctrine was held to be something indifferent: “Quieta non movere” — (let things that are at rest not bestirred) — or, at least, only in the form of a learned passage of arms. The avenger was at the door; the following 150 years showed the terrified scholars to a frightful extent that theology will not be mocked.

4. The Moulding of Dogma in Scholasticism.

In the Scholasticism of the thirteenth century the Latin Church attained what the Greek Church attained in the eighth century — a uniform systematic exhibition of its faith. This exhibition had as its presuppositions, first, Holy Scripture and the articuli fidei, as these had been formulated at the Councils; second, Augustinianism; third, the ecclesiastical (papal) decisions and the whole development of ecclesiasticism from the ninth century; fourth, the Aristotelian philosophy.

We have shown in the third and fourth chapters of Vol. V. how the old scheme of Christian doctrine had undergone a trenchant modification at the hands of Augustine, but how, in its ultimate basis — as regards the final aim of religion and theology — it did not lose its recognised validity, its form, rather, having only become more complicated. While Augustine described the influences of grace that operate in the Sacraments as the influences of love, he allowed the old view of the Sacraments to remain, namely, that they prepare for, and help to secure, the enjoyment of God. But he at the same time gave the most powerful impetus to a dual development of piety and ecclesiastical doctrine; for the forces of love that operate in the Sacraments establish also the “kingdom of righteousness” on earth, produce in this way the life in love that corresponds with the “law of Christ,” and qualify the individual for those good works which establish merit before God and create a claim for salvation.

In this last turn of thought Augustine had subordinated (by means of the intermediate idea, “nostra merita dei munera” [our merits gifts of God]), his new view of divine grace as a gratia gratis data (grace freely given) to the old, chiefly Western, view of religion, as a combination of law, performance, and reward, and in the period that followed this subordinating process always continued to be carried further. Grace (in the form of the Sacraments) and merit (law and performance) are the two centres of the curve in the mediæval conception of Christianity. But this curve is entirely embedded in faith in the Church; for 175 since to the Church (as was not doubted) the Sacraments, and the power of the keys dependent on them, were entrusted, the Church was not merely the authority for the whole combination, but was in a very real sense the continued working of Christ Himself, and the body of Christ, which is enhypostatically united to Him. In this sense mediæval theology is science of the Church (Ecclesiastik), although it had not much to say about the Church. But on the other hand, at least till Nominalism triumphed, this theology never lost sight of the fundamental Augustinian aim: “Deum et animam scire cupio. Nihilne plus? Nihil omnino” (I desire to know God and the soul. Nothing more ? No, nothing whatever), i.e., it never discarded the view that in all theology what is aimed at ultimately is exclusively the cognition of God and of the relation of the individual soul to Him.²⁷⁴²⁷⁴In Nominalism this became otherwise. The exhibition of the ecclesiastical doctrine became more and more an end in itself, and was detached from the philosophy of religion. That on this account the originality and independence of the Christian religion as a historic phenomenon came to view again more plainly, is not to be denied. It was the intermingling of theology as ecclesiasticism with theology as nourishment for the soul that produced within mediæval theology its internal discords, and lent to it its charm. From this intermingling also there is to be explained the twofold end here set before the Christian religion, although to the theologians only one of the ends was consciously present: religion and theology must on the one hand lead the individual to salvation (visio dei or surrender of the will), but it must on the other hand build up on earth the kingdom of virtue and righteousness, which is the empirical Church, and bring all powers into subjection to this kingdom.²⁷⁵²⁷⁵In their definition of salvation or of the finis theologiæ, the Schoolmen exhibit a Mystic, i.e., an Augustinian, i.e., an old Catholic tendency. The fruitio dei is held to be the final end, whether it is realised in the intellect or in quiescence of the will in God. For this individualistic mode of viewing salvation, which is indifferent to the moral destiny of man, the Church is either not taken into account at all, or is taken into account simply as a means, and as an auxiliary institution. Only in so far as man conceives of himself as a being that is earthly, bound to time, and must train himself, are all his ideals, and the forces that render him aid, included for him in the Church (salvation in time is salvation in the Church), and he must reverence the Church, as it is, as the mother of faith, as the saving institution, nay, as the regnum Christi. But this regnum has in the world beyond a form totally different from its present form. In this whole view Scholasticism nowhere passed beyond Augustine. The relation is not drawn between the aim to be realised in the earthly, and the aim to be realised in the heavenly Church. In the last resort Roman Catholicism was then, and is also to-day, no phenomenon with but one meaning, as the Greek Church is, and as Protestantism might be. At one time it points its members to a contemplation that moves in the line of knowledge, love, and asceticism, a contemplation that is as neutral to the Church as to every association among men, and to everything earthly; at another time it directs men to recognise in the earthly Church their highest goods and their proper aim. These directions can only be followed alternately, not together. In consequence of this, Roman Catholics maintain two notions of the Church, which are neutral towards each other, the invisible communion of the elect and the papal Church.

Augustine utilised in quite a new way the articuli fidei; for him they are no longer faith itself; but, re-shaping them in many ways, he builds up faith by means of them. Yet their authority was not thereby shaken, but in a certain way was still further increased, inasmuch as the external authority became greater in the degree in which the internal — that faith identified itself exclusively with them — became less. This was exactly how things continued to move on in the Middle Ages. It was solely the articles of faith of ecclesiastical antiquity that were, in the strict sense, dogmas. Only the doctrine of transubstantiation succeeded in winning for itself equal dignity with the old dogmas,²⁷⁶²⁷⁶See the Symbol of 1215. by the quid pro quo that it is implied in the doctrine of the incarnation. When in this way the doctrine of transubstantiation took its place side by side with the old dogmas, everything really was gained; for by this link of attachment the whole sacramental system might be drawn up to the higher level of absolute Christian doctrine. This, too, afterwards took place, although, prior to the Council of Trent, the distinction was never made in detail between what belongs to dogma and what is simply a portion of theology, and even after the Council of Trent the Church wisely avoided the distinction. It is thus explained how, about the year 1500, no one except the most decided papists could affirm how far the province of necessary faith in the Church really extended.

The task of Scholasticism, so far as it was dogmatic theology, was a threefold one. Following Augustine, it had to shape the 177old articuli fidei so that they would adjust themselves to the elliptic line drawn round the sacrament and merit; it had to revise the doctrine of the Sacraments, which had come to it from Augustine in an extremely imperfect form;²⁷⁷²⁷⁷In this lies the greatest importance of Scholasticism within the history of dogma. and it had to gather from observation the principles of present-day Church practice, and to bring these into accord, on the one hand with the articuli fidei, raised to the level of theology, and with the doctrine of the Sacraments, and on the other hand with Augustinianism. This task became more complicated from the fact that the Schoolmen — at least the earlier — uniformly combined dogmatics with philosophy of religion, and thus introduced into the former all the questions of metaphysics, as rising out of the general state of knowledge at the time. But this great task was really faithfully carried out by mediæval theology. That theology fulfilled the claims that were made upon it; indeed, there has probably never been a period in history when, after hard labour, theology stood so securely in command of the situation, i.e., of its age, as then. At the same time it knew how to maintain for itself until the fifteenth century the impression of a certain roundedness and unity, and yet left room, as the contrast between the Franciscan and Dominican dogmatists shows, for different modes of development. Yet on the other hand it must not be denied that the opinion here expressed by no means applies when we deal with the relation between piety and theology. In the case of Thomas, it is true, the claims of the latter and former still coincide, although not so perfectly as in the Greek Church at the time of the Cappadocians and of Cyril. But from the close of the thirteenth century piety and theology manifestly held an increasingly strained relation to each other. The former recognised itself always less clearly in the latter. They were one, it is true, in their ultimate ground (finis religionis, authority of the Church); even the most devoted piety was not really able to free itself from these bonds. But starting from the common basis, theology unfolded a tendency to treat the holy as something authoritative, external and made easy by the Church, and this tendency piety viewed with growing suspicion and annoyance. 178In the doctrines of the Sacraments and of grace, as Scholasticism gave fuller shape to them — developing germs which were not wanting even in Thomas — the strain between theology and piety reached clearest expression. The Augustinian reactions from the middle of the fourteenth century, at one time noisy in their course, at another time moving on silently and steadily, were the result of this strain. The official theology of the fifteenth century must be recognised only in a relative way as the expression of the true Catholic piety of the period. This applies even to Tridentine Catholicism, and holds true to the present day. The doctrine, as it is, is not the sphere in which vital Catholic faith lives. But because its foundations are also the foundations of this faith, the faith lets itself in the end be satisfied with this doctrine.

As we have not to do with the philosophy of religion, we must confine ourselves in what follows to describing the scholastic revision of the old articuli fidei, the scholastic doctrine of the Sacraments, and the scholastic discussion of Augustinianism as related to the new Church principles, which led finally to an entire dissolution of the Pauline Augustinian doctrine. With regard to the first of these points the statement can be quite brief, seeing that in the revision of the old articuli fidei theological doctrines were dealt with which, as scientifically unfolded, never acquired a universal dogmatic importance, and seeing that this revision leads over at many points into the philosophy of religion.

A. The Revision of the Traditional Articuli Fidei.

1. The article “de deo” (on God) was the fundamental and cardinal article.²⁷⁸²⁷⁸See the excellent selection of passages from the sources in Miinscher-Coelln II., 1, § 118, 119. Schwane, l.c., p. 122 ff. In the strictly realistic Scholasticism the Areopagitic Augustinian conception of God was held as valid: God as the absolute substance. Where this conception was adhered to, its absolute necessity for thought was also asserted (Anselm’s ontological proof,²⁷⁹²⁷⁹Anselm’s discussions of the conception of God, in which there is the first step of advance beyond the Areopagite conception, are not taken note of at all by the Lombard, who adhered simply to the patristic tradition. Thomas is the first to adopt Anselm’s speculations.) and a high value was ascribed to 179the proofs for God. Through the acquaintance with Aristotle, however, the Areopagite conception of God was restricted, which had developed itself in Scotus Erigena, Amalrich of Bena and David of Dinanto, as well as among the adherents of the Averrhoistic Aristotelianism, into pantheism. The cosmological proofs, to which preference was more and more given,²⁸⁰²⁸⁰See Thomas, P. I., Q. 2, Art. 3, where the cosmological argument appears in a threefold form. led also to a stricter distinguishing between God and the creature, and Thomas himself, although the Areopagite Augustinian conception of God is still for him fundamental, stoutly combated pantheism.²⁸¹²⁸¹Ritschl, Gesch. Studien z. christl. L. v. Gott, Jahrbb. f. deutsche Theol., 1865, p. 277 ff., Joh. Delitzsch, Die Gotteslehre des Thomas, 1870. Ritschl has shown (see also Rechtfert. u. Versöhnungslehre, Bd. I., 2 Aufl., p. 58 ff.,) that the Aristotelian conception had already a strong influence on Thomas. Following Anselm, Thomas also linked the conception of God as the absolute substance with that of self-conscious thought, adopted, still further, from Aristotle the definition of God as actus purus, and thus gave the conception a more living and personal shape. But he had at the same time the very deepest interest in emphasising absolute sufficiency and necessity in God; for only the necessary can be known with certainty; but it is on certain knowledge that salvation, i.e., the visio dei, depends. Thomas accordingly now conceived of God, not only as necessary being, but also as an end for Himself, so that the world, which He creates in goodness, is entirely subordinated to His own purpose, a purpose which could realise itself indeed even without the world.²⁸²²⁸²Summa, P. I., Q. 19, Art. 1, 2. Yet Duns already combated (against Richard of St. Victor, see also Anselm, Monolog.,) the notion of a necessary existence due to itself, and thereby really abandoned all proofs of God:²⁸³²⁸³In Sentent. Lomb., I. Dist. 2, Q. 2, Art. I. On Duns’ doctrine of knowledge and of science, see Werner, Duns Scotus, p. 180 ff.; ibid., p. 331 ff., on his doctrine of God, which only admits of an a posteriori ascertainment of the qualities of the divine Being. the infinite is not cognisable by demonstration, and hence can only be 180believed in on authority. Occam made as energetic an attack on the “primum movens immobile” (prime immovable mover) and likewise fell back on authority. But with the impossibility of demonstrating the infinite, and of giving life by speculation to the notion of the “necessarium ex se ipso,” there disappeared also for Nominalism the conception of the necessity of the inner determinedness of the infinite Being, of whom authority taught. God is not summum esse (supreme being) and summa intelligentia (supreme intelligence) in the sense in which intelligence belongs to the creature, but He is, as measured by the understanding of the creature, the unlimited almighty will, the cause of the world, a cause, however, which could operate quite otherwise from the way in which it does. God is thus the absolutely free will, who simply wills because He wills to, i.e., a cognisable ground of the will does not exist. From this point of view the doctrine of God becomes as uncertain as, above all, the doctrine of grace. Occam went so far as to declare monotheism to be only more probable than polytheism; for what can be strictly proved is either only the notion of a single supreme Being, but not His existence, or the existence of relatively supreme beings, but not the one-ness. Accordingly the attributes of God were quite differently treated in the Thomist and in the Scotist schools. In the former they were strictly derived from a necessary principle, but only to be cancelled again in the end, as identical in the one substance, in the latter they were relatively determined; in the former — in accordance with the thesis of the summum esse — a virtual existence of God in the world was assumed, and in the last analysis there was no distinguishing between the existence of God for Himself and His existence for the world, in the latter — as the world is a free product of God’s will, entirely disjoined from God — only an ideal presence of God is taught. As can easily be seen, the contrast is ultimately determined by different ideas of the position of man and of religion. For the Thomists, the idea is that of dependence on God Himself, who comprehends and sustains all things, for the Scotists the idea is that of independence in relation to God. It certainly meant an important advance upon Thomas when God was strictly conceived 181of by Duns as will and person, and was distinguished from the world; but this advance becomes at once a serious disadvantage when we can no longer depend upon this God, because we are not permitted to think of Him as acting according to the highest categories of moral necessity,²⁸⁴²⁸⁴Werner, l.c., p. 408: “It is a genuinely Scotist thought that the absolute divine will cannot be subjected to the standard of our ethical habits of thought (!)” and when, accordingly, the rule holds, that the goodness of the creature consists in surrender to the will of God, of which the motives are inscrutable, while its content is clearly given in revelation (so Duns).²⁸⁵²⁸⁵In contrast with this, Thomas had taught (P. I., Q. 12, Art. 12) that indeed “ex sensibilium cognitione non potest tota dei virtus cognosci et per consequens nec ejus essentia videri,” but that both the existence of God and “ea quæ necesse est ei convenire” can be known. Duns and his disciples denied this; but, on the other hand, they asserted that God is more cognisable than the Thomists were willing to grant. The latter denied an adequate (essential) knowledge of God (cognitio quidditativa); the Scotists affirmed it, because it was not a question at all about the knowledge of an infinite intelligence, but about the knowledge of the God who is will, and who has manifested His will. The view that contemplates God as also arbitrariness, because He is will, becomes ultimately involved in the same difficulties as the view that contemplates Him as the all-determining substance, for in both cases His essence is shrouded in darkness. But the narrow way that leads to a sure and comforting knowledge of God, the way of faith in God as the Father of Jesus Christ, the Schoolmen would not follow. Therefore their whole doctrine of God, whether it be of a Thomist or of a Scotist cast, cannot be used in dogmatic. For on this point dogmatic must keep to its own field of knowledge, namely, the historic Christ, and must not fear the reproach of “blind faith” (“Kahlerglaubens,” collier’s faith,) if it is blind faith that God can be felt and known only from personal life — and, in a way that awakens conviction, only from the personal life of Christ. This does not exclude the truth that Thomistic Mysticism can warmly stir the fancy, and gently delude the understanding as to the baselessness of speculation. How far, as regards the conception of God, mediæval thought in Nominalism had drifted from the thought which had once given theological fixity in the Church to the articulus de deo, can best be seen when we compare the doctrine of God of Origen, 182Gregory of Nyssa, or John of Damascus with that of Duns or Occam.²⁸⁶²⁸⁶On this, and the acute criticism of the Aristotelian doctrine of God, see Werner, Nachscotistiche Scholastik, p. 216 ff. But the whole of dogmatic is dependent on the conception of God; for that conception determines both the view of salvation and the view of reconciliation.²⁸⁷²⁸⁷It is a special merit of Ritschl that in his great work in the department of the history of dogma he has shown everywhere the fundamental importance of the conception of God. Finally, it must be pointed out, that mediæval theology strongly emphasises the conception of God as judge, though this conception was not introduced by it into speculations as to the nature of God.

2. Stormy debates on the right way of understanding, and the right way of mentally representing the doctrine of the Trinity,²⁸⁸²⁸⁸See Münscher, § 120, Schwane, l.c. p. 152 ff., Bach, Dogmengesch. Bd. II., Baur, L. v. d. Dreieinigkeit, Bd. II. had already run their course, when the Mendicant Orders made their appearance in science. The bold attempts to make the mystery more intelligible, whether by approximating to tritheism (Roscellin),²⁸⁹²⁸⁹ Application of the Nominalist mode of thought; against him Anselm; see Reuter I., p. 134 f.; Deutsch, Abelard, p. 256 f. or by passing over to Modalism (Abelard), were rejected in the period of Anselm and Bernard (against Gilbert).²⁹⁰²⁹⁰ There was a disposition to detect even tritheism in Abelard; on his doctrine of the Trinity, see Deutsch, p. 259 ff. Ahelard’s wish was to reject both the Roscellin conception and strict Sabellianism, yet he does not get beyond a fine Modalism (see Deutsch, p. 280 ff.). It is noteworthy that, like Luther at Worms, he stated in the prologue to his Introductio in theol., that he was ready to be corrected, “cum quis me fidelium vel virtute rationis vel auctoritate scriptum correxerit” (see Münscher, p. 52). Where Augustine’s treatise De trinitate was studied and followed, a fine Modalism introduced itself everywhere,²⁹¹²⁹¹Thus it was with Anselm and the Victorinians, especially Richard, who reproduced and expounded the Augustinian analogies of the Trinity (the powers of the human spirit). and it was easy for any one who wished to convict another of heresy to bring the reproach of Sabellianism against his opponent who was influenced by Augustine. Even the Lombard was charged with giving too much independence to the divina essentia, and with thus teaching a quaternity, or a species of Sabellianism.²⁹²²⁹²Joachim of Fiore made it a reproach that the 4th Lateran Council, c. 2, took the Lombard under its protection and decreed: “Nos (i.e., the Pope) sacro et universali concilio approbante credimus et confitemur cum Petro (scil. Lombardo), quod una quædam summa res est, incomprehensibilis quidem et ineffabilis, quæ veraciter est pater et filius et spiritus, tres simul personaæ, ac singulatim quælibet earundem. Et ideo in deo trinitas est solummodo, non quaternitas, quia quælibet trium personarum est illa res, videlicet substantia, essentia sive natura divina, quæ sola est universorum principium, præter quod aliud inveniri non potest. Et illa res non est generans neque genita nec procedens, sed est pater qui generat, filius qui gignitur, et spiritus sanctus qui procedit, ut distinctiones sint in personis et unitas in natura.” The lesson derived in the thirteenth 183century from these experiences was to guard the trinitarian dogma by a still greater mustering of terminological distincions than Augustine had recourse to. The exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity continued to be the high school of logic and dialectic. In Thomism the doctrine still had a relation to the idea of the world, in so far as the hypostasis of the Son was not sharply marked off from the world-idea in God. Thomism was also necessarily obliged to retain its leaning to Modalism, as the conception of God did not at bottom admit of the assumption of distinctions in God, but reduced the distinctions to relations, which themselves again had to be neutralised. The Scotist School, on the other hand, kept the persons sharply asunder. But this school, especially in its later period, could equally well have defended, or yielded submission to, the quaternity, or any other doctrine of God whatever. But before this the whole doctrine had already come to be a mere problem of the schools, having no relation to living faith. The respect that was paid to it as the fundamental dogma of the Church was in flagrant contrast with the incapacity to raise it in theological discussion above the level of a logical mystery. Like Augustine in his day, the mediæval theologians let it be seen that they would not have set up this dogma if it had not come to them by tradition, and the decree of the Lateran Council (see page 182, note 7,) which places behind the persons a “res non generans neque genita nec procedens” (a thing not begetting nor begotten nor proceeding) really transforms the persons into mere modalities κατ᾽ ἐπινοίαν (existing for thought), or into inner processes in God. Or is it still a doctrine of the Trinity, when the immanent thinking and the immanent willing 184in God are defined and objectified as generare and spirare (begetting and breathing)? But in Nominalism the treatment of this dogma grew no better. The Thomist School was certainly still regulated by a concrete thought, when it sought to make the Trinity more intelligible by means of analogies; for according to these the finite world, and especially the rational creature, show traces of the divine nature and the divine attributes. But this idea Scotism had set aside, emphasising the threefold personality as revealed fact. Its “subtle investigations,” even Schwane confesses,²⁹³²⁹³L.c., p. 179. “went astray too much into a region of formalism, and came to be a playing with notions.”

3. The doctrine of the eternity of the world²⁹⁴²⁹⁴See Münscher, § 121, 122, Schwane, pp. 179-226. was universally combated, and the creation from nothing adhered to as an article of faith. But only the Post-Thomist Schoolmen expressed the temporality of the world, and creation out of nothing, in strict formulæ. Although Thomas rejected the pantheism of the Neoplatonic-Erigenistic mode of thought, there are still to be found in him traces of the idea that creation is the actualising of the divine ideas, that is, their passing into the creaturely form of subsistence. Further, he holds, on the basis of the Areopagite conception of God, that all that is has its existence “by participating in him who alone exists through himself” (participatione ejus, qui solum per se ipsum est). But both thoughts obscure the conception of creation.²⁹⁵²⁹⁵For a pantheistic view of creation in Thomas an appeal, however, can scarcely be made to the expression frequently employed by him, “emanatio” (processio) creaturarum a deo; for he certainly does not employ the expression in a pantheistic sense. If he says, P. I., Q. 45, Art. I: “emanationem totius entis a causa universali, quæ est deus, designamus nomine creationis,” just for that reason he shows in what follows, that “creatio, quæ est emanatio totius esse, est ex non ente, quod est nihil.” Hence it is characteristic of Thomas, who elsewhere, as a rule, finds strict necessity, that he refrains from showing that the world’s having a beginning is a doctrine necessary for thought; Summa., P. I., Q. 46, Art. 2: “It is to be asserted that the world’s not having always existed is held by faith alone, and cannot be proved demonstratively: as was asserted also above regarding the mystery of the Trinity . . .that the world had a beginning is 185credible, but not demonstrable or knowable. And it is useful to consider this, in case perhaps some one, presuming to demonstrate what is of faith, should adduce reasons that are not necessary, thus giving occasion for ridicule to infidels, who might think that on the ground of such reasons we believe what is of faith.” If only Thomas had always taken to heart these splendid words, which, moreover, were directed against Bonaventura and Albertus Magnus, who undertook to prove the beginning of the world in time a doctrine of reason! Duns Scotus and his school naturally followed Thomas here, in so far as they held the temporality of the world as guaranteed simply by the authority of faith.²⁹⁶²⁹⁶Scotus holds the possibility of a divine creation from eternity as not unthinkable, but disputes the arguments by which Thomas sought to corroborate the position that a beginning of creation in time cannot be proved; see Werner, Duns Scotus, p. 380 ff. Yet the view of Albertus certainly survived at the same time in the Church. The purpose of the creation of the world was taken by all the Schoolmen to be the exhibition of the love (bonitas) of God, which seeks to communicate itself to other beings. Even Thomas, correcting the Areopagite conception of God, declared the creation of the world no longer a necessary, but only a contingent, means, whereby God fulfils His personal end. Yet he certainly represented the personal end of God, which is freely realised in creation, as the supreme thought: “divina bonitas est finis rerum omnium”²⁹⁷²⁹⁷P. I., Q. 44, Art. 4; see also Q. 14, 19, 46, 104. (the divine love is the end of all things), i.e., God’s willing His own blessedness embraces all movements whatever of that which exists, His willing it by means of creation of the world is His free will; but as He has so willed to create, the end of the creature is entirely included in the divine end ; the crea