theory of how the Christian salvation is conveyed through sacraments to sinful men. On the other hand, a theology which is mainly sacramental is overtaken pretty soon by dumbness. It is of the essence of a sacrament to be an inscrutable process.
Theories of legal merit, amount of debt, supererogatory good- ness, and ascetic claim—representing the aspect of Catholicism as law—are more and more worked out. The occasion of the formal separation of East and West—the Western doctrine of the twofold " procession " of the Holy Spirit, incorporated in the (so-called Nicene) creed itself (“filioque”)—is of little or no real theological importance. The schism was due to race rivalries, and to dislike for the ever-growing claims of the see of Rome.
An important contribution to doctrine is contained in the Cur Deus Homo of Anselm of Canterbury. The doctrine of Atonement, destined to be the focus of Protestant evangelicalism, has remained undefined in Catholic circles,[1] an implicate or presupposition, but no part of the explicit and authorized creeds. When treated in the early centuries, it was frequently explained by saying that Christ's sufferings bought off the devil's claim to sinful man, and some of the greatest theologians (e.g. Gregory of Nyssa) added that the devil was finely outwitted—attracted by the bait of Christ's humanity, but caught by the hidden hook of His divinity. Anselm holds that it was best for the injured honour of God to receive from a substitute what the sinner was personally in no condition to offer. Whatever other elements and suggestions are present, the atmosphere of the medieval world, and its sense of personal claims, are unmistakable. With Anselm Ritschl takes Abelard, who explains the Atonement simply by God's love, and thus is the forerunner of " moral " or " subjective " modern theories as Anselm is of the " objective " or " forensic " theory. It must be admitted, however, that there is less definiteness of outline in Abelard than in Anselm. He does not even deal with the doctrine as a specialist, in a monograph, but only as an exegete.
Contemporaneously with the new and vivid intellectual life of an Anselm or an Abelard, the “freezing up” of traditionalism is evidenced by the preparation of volumes of Sentences from Scripture and the Fathers. One of the earliest of such collections is that of Isadore (q.v.) of Seville (560–636), who, from this and other writings, ranks among the few channels which conveyed ancient learning to the middle ages. His Sentences are selected almost (though not quite) exclusively from Augustine and Gregory the Great. Direct influence from the Greek Fathers upon the West is vanishing as the Greek language is forgotten. The great outburst of Sentences at a later time has been referred to the consternation produced by Abelard's Sic et Non. The modern reader can hardly banish the impression that Abelard writes in a spirit of sheer mischief. Probably it would be truer to say that he riots in the pleasures of discussion, and in setting tasks to other irresponsible and ingenious spirits. He does not fear to contrast authority with authority, upon each point in succession; the harder the task, the greater the achievement when harmony is reached! In regard to Scripture alone does he maintain that seeming error or discrepancy must be due to our misinterpretation. If throughout the middle ages Scripture is treated as the ultimate authority in doctrine, yet Abelard seems to stand alone in definitely contrasting Scripture with later authorities. Moderns will question the possibility of asserting Bible infallibility a priori; but it is more really startling and noteworthy that Abelard should preserve a living sense of fallibility outside the Bible.
There are many great collections of Sentences, notably by Hugh of St Victor and Peter Lombard. The last-named—though with more continuity of texture than Isidore—quotes largely from the Bible and the Latin Fathers. If Abelard stands for the intel- lectual daring of scholasticism, Lombard represents its other pole — interest in piety, i.e. in the Church. He is almost timidly cautious. He does not open up difficulties like Abelard, but smoothes them over. This suits the coming age. The great writers of the early centuries were to tell on men s minds not in the breadth of their treatment but in a theological pemmican. And the characteristic task for living theologians was to consist in writing commentaries on the Lombard's Sentences; for a time these Sentences themselves had been suspected, but they gained immense influence.
Had this been all, Western theology might have sunk into a
purely Chinese devotion to ancient classics. But the medieval
world had not one authority but two. Thin and
turbid, the stream of classical tradition had flowed
on through Cassiodorus or Boetius or Isidore; through
these, at second-hand, it made itself known and did its work.
Guarantees of progress.
Arabian study of Aristotle.
But before the great outburst of scholasticism, ancient literature
found a somewhat less inadequate channel in Arabian and
partly even in Jewish scholarship. Aristotle was no
longer strained through the meshes of Boetius;
and the new light inspired Roscellinus with heresy.
True, we must not exaggerate this influence. There was
no genuine renaissance of civilization, such as marked the
dawn of modern history. The medieval world did not copy
the free scientific spirit of Aristotle; it made him, so far as
known, a sort of philosophical Bible side by side with the theo-
logical Bible. But it was a very great matter to have two
authorities rather than one. And if any man was to be put in
the preposterous position of a secular Bible, no writer was fitter
for it than Aristotle. The middle ages did their best in this
grouping; only here and there a rare spirit like Roger Bacon
did something more, something altogether superior to his age,
in showing that the faculty of independent scientific inquiry
was not quite extinct. It is possible to exaggerate the influence
of the revived knowledge of Aristotle; but, so far as one can
trace causes in the mysterious intellectual life of mankind,
that influence gave scholasticism its vigour. (See Arabian Philosophy,
Scholasticism.)
With the new knowledge and impulse, there came a new method. Alexander of Hales is the first to adopt it, in place of the “rhetorical” method of previous theologians. Everything is now matter of debate and argument. The Sentences had resolved theology into a string of headings; with scholasticism each topic dissolves into a string of arguments for and against. These arguments are made up of “rationes” and “auctoritates,” philosophical authorities and theological autho- rities. They are as litigious as a lawsuit—without any summing up; the end comes in a moment with a text of Scripture or an utterance by one of the great Fathers. Once such a dictum has been cited, the rest of the discussion is treated as by-play and goes for nothing. “I am a transmitter,” Confucius is reported to have said. The great schoolmen were transmitters—putting in order, stating clearly and consecutively, conclusions reached by wiser and holier men in earlier times. Are the systems self-consistent? Their guarantee is the tireless criticism carried on by rival systems. No parallel display of debating acuteness has ever been seen in the world's history. It is easy to underrate the schoolmen. Indolence in every age escapes difficulties by shirking them, but the schoolmen's activity raised innumerable awkward questions. On the other hand, they possessed to perfection the means of making their speech evasive. If there are hollow places in the doctrinal foundations of the Church, it will be a tacit understanding among the schoolmen that such questions are not to be pressed. Above all, one must not look to a schoolman to speak “a piercing and a reconciling word.” There is no revision of the premises in debate from a higher or even from a detached and independent point of view. The premises from which he may select are fixed; many of the conclusions to be reached are also fixed. He speaks, most cleverly, to his brief, but he will not go outside it. He may argue as he likes so long as he respects the Church's decisions and reaches her conclusions.
The systems of the leading schoolmen must rank above their commentaries upon the Lombard's Sentences, as the greatest of all systems of theology. Especially is that honour due to St Thomas Aquinas's larger Summa Theologiae.[2] We may well believe that he Aquinas.represents scholastic divinity at its best. He is not an Augustine, still less perhaps an Aristotle, but he is the Aristotle and the Augustine of his age, the normal thinker of the present and the lawgiver of the future. He teaches the medieval Platonic realism, but he accepts the Aristotelian philosophy of his day, marking off certain truths as proved and understood by the light of nature, and stamping those which are not so proved as not understood nor understandable, i.e. as " mysteries,"
- ↑ Even the Council of Trent defined what Protestants had challenged—nothing else.
- ↑ The Summa contra Gentiles has a more polemic or apologetic interest than the dogmatic Summa, but deals almost equally with the contents of Christian theology as a whole. Books i.–iii. are said to deal with what is later known as natural theology, and Book iv. with what is later known as dogmatic. But Aquinas appeals to the Bible as an authority all through. That is not the procedure of modern natural theology.
