| #### 5. THE RENAISSANCE OF CATHOLIC THOUGHT |

| #### #### The century which followed the disappearance of Erigena was intellectually, the most sterile of all the long transitional period. Of any writers in the first half of it (c. 880-930) literally no record at all has survived. The life of the second half is perhaps best seen in Gerbert, head of the school at Rheims, Abbot of Bobbio (982) Archbishop of Rheims (991), of Ravenna (996), and pope, as Silvester II, from 998 to 1003. Gerbert was, like Alcuin and Rabanus Maurus, a man of encyclopaedic knowledge. He had studied in Spain, and was a famous mathematician, but he is chiefly important as a teacher. One of his pupils, Fulbert, became Bishop of Chartres and under his rule the school of Chartres became the first great nursery of the revival of intellectual life. #### The school first attained a more than local fame through Fulbert's own pupil, Berengarius (999-1089), whose philosophising led him into a controversy, about the nature of the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, which lasted for thirty years and more. The controversy had a more general importance in that it raised, for the first time for centuries, the bitterly disputed question as to whether it was lawful to use the secular science of dialectic to scrutinise and explain the teachings of faith Berengarius was typical of the passionate enthusiasm of this first generation to learn again the rules of logic. Its formal rules were, indeed, almost all that was known of the Aristotelian philosophy to the men of this time. This new instrument they must apply universally, and Berengarius turned to examine with it the traditional faith of the Church that Jesus Christ is really present in the Holy Eucharist. Berengarius -- for whom the conclusions of his dialectic were the ultimate source of truth, and to whose mind no accident could exist in separation from its proper substance -- from the fact that in the Holy Eucharist the appearances of bread and wine continue after the consecration, deduced that the bread and wine still continued to exist. Jesus Christ was really present, he thought. but in the bread and wine. #### His great opponent was Lanfranc of Pavia (1005-1089), Prior of Bec in Normandy and later (1070) Archbishop of Canterbury. For years the discussions continued, Berengarius condemned repeatedly in different councils, yielding each time, signing the required retractations and then publishing explanations of his retractations that emptied them of all meaning. Into the controversy two of the great figures of the reform movement were drawn -- Gregory VII and St. Peter Damian. It was Gregory VII, as the legate Hildebrand, who presided over the stormy council of Sens in 1054 at which Berengarius was heard and from which he was cited to Rome, and who, as pope, in 1079, accepting as sincere his latest profession of faith, took the old theologian into his special protection So far as the Holy See was concerned this ended the controversy; but in France the discussion as to the sincerity of Berengarius continued as long as he lived. #### St. Peter Damian's intervention in this confused affair was of quite another kind. Berengarius, thanks to a certain mastery of the arts of grammar and logic, had thrown doubts on the traditional belief about the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. What else could be expected if men presumed to examine and discuss what the very angels could only adore? The first grammarian obviously was the devil, teaching the first man and woman to decline "God" in the plural; [ ] and to apply the profane sciences to the things of God was an outrage whence serious troubles were bound to follow. #### There was evidently urgent need for the nature and office of reason to be made clear; and for its relations to belief to be set forth in such a way that the mischief of the confused hostility to intellectual activity, to which St. Peter Damian, among others, bore witness, might be arrested. In this useful task, which was to occupy all the efforts of all the thinkers from now on until St. Thomas, one of the pioneers was Lanfranc, with his careful insistence that a distinction must be made between the art of logic and its misuse. Between that art and the teaching of faith there is no opposition and, rightly used, the art assists belief and confirms it. #### The controversy that centred round Berengarius was a kind of preliminary skirmish in which the parties who were to fight the long triangular battle of the next two hundred years made their first appearance; the philosophers, using an imperfect knowledge of what reason is, and reasoning, to criticise the traditional doctrine; the theologians denying the lawfulness of any application of philosophical methods to explain the traditional doctrine; and the middle party whom the conflict between the traditional doctrine and the results of the re-discovered dialectic urges to an ever deeper study Or the dialectic and, ultimately, to a truer understanding of what the human reason is, what its province, and what its limitations. #### The first great name in the development of the middle party was also a contemporary of Berengarius, St. Anselm. Like Lanfranc he was from the north of Italy, born in 1033 at Aosta, and, again like Lanfranc, a monk of Bec, where, indeed, in 1063 he had succeeded Lanfranc as prior. Thirty years later he succeeded his old master in a still more distinguished post when he was named Archbishop of Canterbury by William II. For the remaining sixteen years of his life (he died in 1109) he is perhaps the chief figure of English history, leading in England that fight for reform and for the emancipation of religion from State control the story of which, in continental Europe, has already occupied us. [ ] #### St. Anselm, in whom something of the spirit of St. Augustine comes to life again, wrote his first book -- the Monologium -- to satisfy the monks of Bec who asked for a treatise on God in which all the proofs should be from reasoning and, as far as possible not based on the authority of Sacred Scripture. From the beginning then the author is led to propound a theory of the relation between reason and belief, and to set forth their respective roles The teachings of the Faith are for him data beyond all discussion, facts and realities which reason must understand and interpret. Belief in them is the necessary preliminary to understanding their content. But such belief is not the end of man's concern with the mysteries of the Faith. There is a duty of using the reason -and therefore the art of dialectic -- to explore ever more deeply the meaning and implications of what is believed. It is not enough to say that the Fathers have already explained as much as is necessary. Had they lived longer they would have explained more. Much still awaits explanation, nor does God ever cease to enlighten the Church. How far can reason go in this matter of explaining revelation? Can it, ultimately, be expected to explain everything? Here St. Anselm shows himself optimistic. His confidence in the power of reasoning knows no limits. Even the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Trinity are proper fields for the operation of this explanatory dialectic which is not unable to prove the existence of both. This exaggeration of the role of reason, due to an imperfect understanding of what reason is and of the nature of rational proof, is a serious weakness in St. Anselm's work. But the distinction between reason and belief and the delimitation of their respective domains -- a distinction between philosophy and theology as sciences -- is an immense advance in methodology on their identification by Erigena, the last constructive thinker to appear before St. Anselm #### The chief contribution of St. Anselm to the philosophical revival is his carefully worked out system of Natural Theology, rational proofs of the existence of God and deductions thence as to God's attributes, His relation to the universe in general and to man in particular. The saint's proofs of the existence of God, the famous proof based on the possibility of our conceiving the idea of God as the Being than whom nothing is greater, brought him into controversy with another monk, Gaunilo of Marmoutier. #### Another contemporary thinker against whom St. Anselm wrote was Roscelin, and with this controversy begins the history of the medieval contribution to a problem related to that of the relations between reason and belief, the problem, namely, of the value of general judgements or universals. How can we -- since all our experience is of the individual, the particular -- justify our formulation of judgements which are universal? Such general judgements are the basis of all scientific knowledge. Can they really be said to be true? and in what sense? Do universals really exist? This immensely important question had come to the medieval thinkers through the translation by Boethius of Porphyry's introduction (Isagoge) to one of Aristotle's treatises on Logic, the Categories. #### Porphyry stated the problem but, since it was not a purely logical problem (and not a matter for beginners in logic) offered no solution. Boethius summarised the solutions of both the Platonist and the Aristotelian schools. The solution indeed, whatever it was, would have far-reaching effects. Ultimately-although, as is often the case, those who first attempted a solution did not suspect these ramifications -- the solution must involve the whole philosophical position, reaching speedily from logic to metaphysics. For thinkers who were Catholics their solution would also determine the character of their whole philosophical exposition and defence of revelation. On the solution they adopted was to depend, ultimately, the future of Catholic Theology. More immediately, what was involved was the prestige of Platonism as the Catholic philosopher's instrument in explaining scientifically the data of faith. According to the Platonic philosophy, universals really existed as such, in another world. The individuals which exist in this, our own, world, and of which alone we have experience. reflect the natures of these elsewhere-existent universals. It was this opinion of the nature of universals which had so far prevailed. It was, for example, adopted by Erigena. #### Now, in the last half of the eleventh century, thanks to Roscelin, a new explanation began to compete with it. Roscelin (born in 1050) was a pupil of John the Physician who was himself, like Berengarius, a pupil of Fulbert of Chartres. It is apparently not easy to define exactly Roscelin's contribution to the discussion since all e know of his thought we know from the writings of his opponents. But this much is certain that, for him, it is the individual alone who possesses reality: universals are merely words. Men exist: mankind is merely a name, a mental construction devised to assist thought. Roscelin next proceeded to apply his theory to the mystery of the Trinity, much as Berengarius had attempted to philosophise about the Holy Eucharist. The result was an explanation of the mystery that was indistinguishable from a theory that the three persons are three Gods, the one divine nature of the three persons being a universal, and therefore only a name, the reality being the three divine persons. Roscelin was condemned at Soissons in 1092, and at Rheims two years later. He retracted, apparently, his theories on the Trinity, hut, unmolested by authority, continued to teach his nominalistic logic until his death. #### This opening of the controversy on universals at the close of the eleventh century is the first great event of the new intellectual life. [ ] The appearance of Peter Abelard among the masters is a second. Abelard was born in Brittany in 1079. He studied at Paris under William of Champeaux, at Laon under Anselm of Laon, and at Compiegne under Roscelin. It is hard to exaggerate the ascendancy so speedily gained by this bright and gifted spirit over the student world of his time. A passion for hard work, a mastery of dialectic that made him an invincible adversary imagination and the artist's temperament all combined to make Abelard's genius a brightly coloured legend even in his own lifetime. His education was hardly finished before his debating skill routed one after another of the great men of the day. Wherever he opened a school students deserted the official school to enrol themselves as his pupils. He was little more than thirty when he succeeded his recent victim, William of Champeaux, as the chief of the school at Paris. Then came the great tragedy, his falling in love with his pupil, Heloise, the birth of their child, the secret marriage, his mutilation at the hands of her guardian. Abelard resigned his post, became a monk at St. Denis and, after a few more turbulent years of success and failure, went into retirement (I 125). #### Abelard was not a profoundly original thinker like St. Anselm, nor a great organiser of knowledge like Erigena. But he had an understanding of Aristotle's theory of knowledge that surpassed anything hitherto known, and he was one of the greatest teachers of all time. His influence here far exceeded what his books alone might have effected. A worker, and a master who produced other workers, he was responsible for the greatest impetus so far given to the work of the logical reconstruction of Theology. #### Of all his books the Sic et Non is, from this point of view, the most important, for with it there appears for the first time the methodology which comes to perfection in the Summa of St. Thomas. It consists in setting side by side judgements from the Fathers, or from Sacred Scripture, that are apparently contradictory. Authority being at variance with itself the student can only solve the problem by reasoning. Abelard, in this, is an early precursor of St. Thomas. His theory of the role of reason in matters of faith is that of St. Anselm. Not philosophy, but the traditional faith is the all-important thing. "I have no desire to be a philosopher in contradiction with St. Paul," he wrote to Heloise, "nor an Aristotle separated from Christ, for there is no other name under heaven in which I can be saved. The rock on which I have built my knowledge is that on which Christ has built his Church. " A second innovation in method is his combining-in the Introductio ad Theologiam -- the dialectical exposition of doctrine with that based on the writings of the Fathers, a combination of philosophy with the historical method that sounds singularly modern. He wrote also a treatise on morals -- Scito Teipsum (Know Thyself) -- which is a scientific analysis of actions good and bad, and of the all-important intention from which derives their moral quality. #### But, along with the Sic et Non, Abelard's greatest service is his destructive criticism of the Platonic theory of universals as so far held by practically all Catholic philosophers. It was on this point that he routed his master, William of Champeaux, and drove him into retirement. His own solution it is not easy to ascertain, for he fought Roscelin as successfully as he fought William. Though his language hesitates, there seems little doubt that he placed the reality of the universal primarily in the concept, while at the same time it has for him a source in the individual things themselves. The intelligence acquires its knowledge of universals by consideration of the common resemblance of the individual members of the class, and an activity of abstraction. #### Like the great majority of the pioneers of this new movement to apply reason to the teaching of revelation, Abelard came into conflict with authority. His errors were many, on the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Redemption and Original Sin. His book on the Trinity was condemned to be burnt at Soissons in 1121, and he was obliged to declare publicly his acceptance of the Athanasian creed. How far personal considerations entered into this movement to prosecute the philosopher, and influenced the atmosphere in which the legal proceedings took place, it is not easy to say. There is no doubt that good men were divided and that some of them showed hearty vindictiveness wherever there was question of Abelard -- as there is no doubt that Abelard's rapid and easy rise to fame, his brilliance, and the arrogance with which he conducted himself, had made him as many foes as admirers. Nor were his troubles to end with his retirement to Brittany in 1125. [ ] ####  |