not, like Augustine, resolve them all into the one central affection
of love of God.
Under the influence of Ambrose and Augustine, the four cardinal virtues furnished a basis on which the systematic ethical theories of subsequent theologians were built. With them the triad of Christian graces, Faith, Hope and Love, and the seven gifts of the Spirit (Isaiah xi. 2) Ecclesiastical morality in the “Dark Ages.” were often combined. In antithesis to this list, an enumeration of the “deadly sins” obtained currency. These were at first commonly reckoned as eight; but a preference for mystical numbers characteristic of medieval theologians finally reduced them to seven. The statement of them is variously given,—Pride, Avarice, Anger, Gluttony, Unchastity, are found in all the lists; the remaining two (or three) are variously selected from among Envy, Vainglory, and the rather singular sins Gloominess (tristitia) and Languid Indifference (acidia or acedia, from Gr. ἀκηδία). These latter notions show plainly, what indeed might be inferred from a study of the list as a whole, that it represents the moral experience of the monastic life, which for some centuries was more and more unquestioningly regarded as in a peculiar sense “religious.” It should be observed that the (also Augustinian) distinction between “deadly” and “venial” sins had a technical reference to the quasi-jural administration of ecclesiastical discipline, which grew gradually more organized as the spiritual power of the church established itself amid the ruins of the Western empire, and slowly developed into the theocracy that almost dominated Europe during the latter part of the middle ages. “Deadly” sins were those for which formal ecclesiastical penance was held to be necessary, in order to save the sinner from eternal damnation; for “venial” sins he might obtain forgiveness, through prayer, almsgiving, and the observance of the regular fasts. We find that “penitential books” for the use of the confessional, founded partly on traditional practice and partly on the express decrees of synods, come into general use in the 7th century. At first they are little more than mere inventories of sins, with their appropriate ecclesiastical punishments; gradually cases of conscience come to be discussed and decided, and the basis is laid for that system of casuistry which reached its full development in the 14th and 15th centuries. This ecclesiastical jurisprudence, and indeed the general relation of the church to the ruder races with which it had to deal during this period, necessarily tended to encourage a somewhat external view of morality. But a powerful counterpoise to this tendency was continually maintained by the fervid inwardness of Augustine, transmitted through Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, Alcuin, Hrabanus Maurus, and other writers of the philosophically barren period between the destruction of the Western empire and the rise of Scholasticism.
Scholastic ethics, like scholastic philosophy, attained its completest result in the teaching of Thomas Aquinas. But before giving a brief account of the ethical part of his system, it will be well to notice the salient points in the long and active discussion that led up to it. In Medieval moral philosophy. the pantheistic system of Erigena (q.v.) (circa 810–877) the chief philosophic element is supplied by the influence of Plato and Plotinus, transmitted through an unknown author of the 5th century, who assumed the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. Accordingly the ethical side of this doctrine has the same negative and ascetic character that we have observed in Neoplatonism. God is the only real Being; evil is essentially unreal and incognizable; the true aim of man’s life is to return to perfect union with God out of the degraded material existence into which he has fallen. This doctrine found little acceptance among Erigena’s contemporaries, and was certainly unorthodox enough to justify the condemnation which it subsequently received from Honorius III.; but its influence, together with that of the Pseudo-Dionysius, had a considerable share in developing the more emotional orthodox mysticism of the 12th and 13th centuries; and Neoplatonism (or Platonism received through a Neoplatonic tradition) remained a distinct element in medieval thought, though obscured in the period of mature scholasticism by the predominant influence of Aristotle. Passing on to Anselm (1033–1109), we observe that the Augustinian doctrine of original sin and man’s absolute need of unmerited grace is retained in his theory of salvation; he also follows Augustine in defining freedom as the “power not to sin”; though in saying that Adam fell “spontaneously” and “by his free choice,” though not “through its freedom,” he has implicitly made the distinction that Peter the Lombard afterwards expressly draws between the freedom that is opposed to necessity and freedom from the slavery to sin. Anselm further softens the statement of Augustinian predestinationism by explaining that the freedom to will is not strictly lost even by fallen man; it is inherent in a rational nature, though since Adam’s sin it only exists potentially in humanity, except where it is made actual by grace.
In a more real sense Abelard (1079–1142) tries to establish the connexion between man’s ill desert and his free consent. He asserts that the inherited propensity to evil is not strictly a sin, which is only committed when the conscious self yields to vicious inclination. With a similar stress on the self-conscious side of moral action, he argues that rightness of conduct depends solely on the intention, at one time pushing this doctrine to the paradoxical assertion that all outward acts as such are indifferent.[1] In the same spirit, under the reviving influence of ancient philosophy (with which, however, he was imperfectly acquainted and the relation of which to Christianity he extravagantly misunderstood), he argues that the old Greek moralists, as inculcating a disinterested love of good—and so implicitly love of God as the highest good—were really nearer to Christianity than Judaic legalism was. Nay, further, he required that the Christian “love to God” should be regarded as pure only if purged from the self-regarding desire of the happiness which God gives. The general tendency of Abelard’s thought was suspiciously regarded by contemporary orthodoxy;[2] and the over-subtlety of the last-mentioned distinction provoked vehement replies from orthodox mystics of the age. Thus, Hugo of St Victor (1077–1141) argues that all love is necessarily so far “interested” that it involves a desire for union with the beloved; and since eternal happiness consists in this union, it cannot truly be desired apart from God; while Bernard of Clairvaux (1091–1153) more elaborately distinguishes four stages by which the soul is gradually led from (1) merely self-regarding desire for God’s aid in distress, to (2) love him for his loving-kindness to it, then also (3) for his absolute goodness, until (4) in rare moments this love for himself alone becomes the sole all-absorbing affection. This controversy Peter the Lombard endeavoured to compose by the scholastic art of taking distinctions, of which he was a master. In his treatise, Libri sententiarum, mainly based on Augustinian doctrine, we find a distinct softening of the antithesis between nature and grace and an anticipation of the union of Aristotelian and Christian thought, which was initiated by Albert the Great and completed by Thomas Aquinas.
The moral philosophy of Aquinas is Aristotelianism with a Neoplatonic tinge, interpreted and supplemented by a view of Christian dogma derived chiefly from Augustine. All action or movement of all things irrational as well as rational is directed towards some end or good,—that Thomas Aquinas. is, really and ultimately towards God himself, the ground and first cause of all being, and unmoved principle of all movement. This universal though unconscious striving after God, since he is essentially intelligible, exhibits itself in its highest form in rational beings as a desire for knowledge of him; such knowledge, however, is beyond all ordinary exercise of reason, and may be only partially revealed to man here below. Thus the summum bonum for man is objectively God, subjectively the happiness to be derived from loving vision of his perfections; although there is a lower kind of happiness to be realized here
- ↑ Abelard afterwards retracted this view, at least in its extreme form; and in fact does not seem to have been fully conscious of the difference between (1) unfulfilled intention to do an act objectively right, and (2) intention to do what is merely believed by the agent to be right.
- ↑ He was condemned by two synods, in 1121 and 1140.
