The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

IV. Scholasticism’s Contribution to Papal Power

Having outlined in the preceding paragraphs the tremendous influence of monasticism upon the upsurge of papal power, we have now to notice another strand of influence which helped to form the tightly woven pattern of Roman Catholicism. PFF1 643.4

1. CATHEDRAL SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES EMERGE

Along with the growth of the towns, large churches and cathedrals were erected into which generations of skilled workmen contributed their best efforts. Then schools came to be attached to these cathedrals, which often outshone the purely monastic schools. Tours, Orléans, Rheims, Chartres, and Paris became famous for such training, and during the eleventh and twelfth centuries the greatest scholars of the age came from these cathedral schools. PFF1 644.1

And during this period yet another type of institution entered the picture—the universities. These sprang up on the soil of the cathedral schools, but were of independent growth. Their organization was patterned after that of the guilds. They became, in fact, the literary guilds, each representing a community of intellectual workers. At first they centered around groups of brilliant and enthusiastic teachers. The famous school of medicine, at Salerno, was perhaps the first on European soil to resemble the later universities. And in the twelfth century a group of students of law in Bologna organized and formed an association, out of which developed the University of Bologna. ⁵² PFF1 644.2

A similar institution was founded in Paris, which became the center of theological studies, but it soon came under super vision of the church. Oxford, Cambridge, Toulouse, Valencia, Naples, Salamanca, and others followed. During the late Middle Ages, Paris became the most important educational institution in Europe, so that a saying of the thirteenth century ran: “The Italians have the Papacy, the Germans have the Empire, but the French have the University.” ⁵³ At Prague, Vienna, and Heidelberg universities were established by the princes. So, by the fourteenth century there were forty-five separate universities in Europe. PFF1 644.3

The courses of studies in these centers of learning were based on the so-called seven liberal arts. At that time, however, the term “arts” did not have the same connotation as it has today. “Arts” merely meant the different branches of learning taught at that time. These were divided into two groups: First came the trivium, embracing grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics—in other words, the sciences of language, oratory, and logic. The quadrivium comprised the second group, consisting of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. The period of study extended over seven to nine years. Four to five years were required for the degree of baccalaureus artium (B.A.), and three to four more for the magister artium (M.A.). PFF1 644.4

To receive a Master’s degree, the candidate was required to know most of the philosophy of Aristotle, that is, the ethics, metaphysics, and politics. After having received his Master’s degree, the student then went on to the higher faculties of theology, law, or medicine. The course of theology at Paris required a minimum of eight years before the degree of Doctor was conferred upon the student. ⁵⁴ However, the bulk of the clergy was not materially affected by the universities. The country priests, and many city priests as well, did not commonly come to them. PFF1 645.1

2. PHILOSOPHY BECOMES MASTER OF RELIGION

In the cathedral schools, and later in the universities, dialectics were applied intensively to the religious field, and great efforts were made to translate dogma into rational concepts and revelation into a philosophy. That is, an attempt was made to understand and to interpret all religious truth by philosophical reasoning. Scholasticism really began with the conflict between traditional ism and free inquiry. Philosophy was at first considered to be the handmaid of religion, but soon became its master, leaving its imprint on all dogma and interpreting all doctrine. PFF1 645.2

In defining a doctrine and deciding a case Aristotle and his metaphysics was the final authority more often than the Bible. Thus scholasticism was established as a philosophico-theological system, professing to revive the vanished science of dogma. The variations of the syllogism were sedulously studied, in order to acquire facility in reasoning about dogma. But scholasticism retained the monopoly. ⁵⁵ PFF1 645.3

This era of scholasticism is often divided into three periods: its infancy, from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries; its maturity, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth, when the great universities and religious orders were flourishing; and its decline, from the fifteenth to the end of the sixteenth centuries. ⁵⁶ Among the great names of the first period are Anselm, Abelard, and Peter Lombard. The second period embraces Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Roger Bacon, and Duns Scotus; and the third period includes William of Occam. ⁵⁷ PFF1 646.1

3. SCRIPTURE MADE TO SUPPORT EVERY EXTRAVAGANCE

The Bible was considered to have a deep, mystical meaning, and its plainest verses were allegorized to such an extent that nothing of the simplicity of the Word remained. Theology developed more and more into a system of mental gymnastics, and subjects of no practical importance were discussed to unbelievable lengths. For instance, they sought to establish the very hour when Adam sinned, or whether an angel can be in several places at the same time, and so on. Gross perversions resulted. Legates trampled upon the decrees of emperors on the basis of “feed my lambs.” The plural of “keys” was proffered as proof that the pope had kingly as well as pontifical power. The forged Donation of Constantine was considered only a just restitution. And the Inquisition was defended with the words, “They gather them in bundles and burn them.” ⁵⁸ PFF1 646.2

Orthodox scholasticism treated the letter of Scripture—even its plainest portions—as an enigma, destroying the meaning of the Old Testament in an attempt to make it speak the language of church tradition. Useless and irrelevant parallels resulted, with plays on words and idle Jewish fancies. Farrar refers to this way of explaining the Scripture as not only the PFF1 646.3

“helpless secondhandness of the mediaeval commentators, but also the absurdity to which their systematic allegorising often led them.” ⁵⁹ This naturally nullified all understanding of prophecy. Under scholasticism every part of Scripture was subjected to a multiple exposition, borrowed from Jewish Talmudism and Cabalism, or traced back to Origen and his triple meaning—which the scholars now expanded to four or five. Thus they made the Scriptures a book of deep mysteries, with seals that only the priests and monks could unlock, thereby keeping them out of the hands of the multitude. PFF1 647.1

Verily the scholastics had woven interminable webs. They were afflicted with boundless prolixity, and ponderous tomes were produced. They were cursed with a mass of verbiage, word-splitting, tyrannical dogmatism, and wordy wars about nothings—the number of angels that could dance upon the point of a pin, whether man in the resurrection will receive back the rib he lost in Eden, or what happens to a mouse which eats a crumb of the consecrated host. ⁶⁰ Nothing short of a revolutionary reformation could shake the walls of such a structure and rescue the Scriptures from centuries of misuse. PFF1 647.2

4. BATTLE BETWEEN “NOMINALISM” AND “REALISM.”

Such endless and profitless discussions brought scholasticism into grave disrepute, and justly so. But the main battle in that age was really fought out on a different issue. It was waged around the philosophical concepts of what were termed “nominalism” and “realism.” To grasp the intent of these terms, we must understand that “nominalism” defended the premise that the general conceptions at which we arrive—the “universals,” as they were called in medieval language—are mere names, and have no real or objective existence. This meant that the general conception of tree exists only in one’s mind; and that there is no reality to support the conception. PFF1 647.3

The same principle was applied to esthetics and ethical conceptions. For example, beauty and ugliness are both simply conceptions of the mind, gotten from the observation of objects which are considered ether beautiful or ugly. But beauty and ugliness do not exist in themselves. This doctrine found expression in the statement universalia post rem, that is, the abstract becomes known after the concrete. PFF1 647.4

The other side was represented in “realism.” This, in its unmodified form, states that our conceptions of the universals have a real existence, that they, in fact, are creative types—exemplars in the divine mind, from which spring the diversity of the actual types. In other words, a tree exists, unspecified, and all the many kinds of trees, as birch, beech, and oak trees, are only the offspring of this original conception of a tree. This maxim was stated in the words universalia ante rem, that is, the universals exist before the individual, concrete object. PFF1 648.1

This difference may seem to be of trifling importance in our age, but it would be fallacious to underestimate its concern to the Fundamentalists of their day, as they might be termed, bent on defending the reality of spiritual truth. The Nominalists were the Rationalists, accepting as reality only what could be grasped by the senses. In modern parlance we would call it the struggle between the principle of faith and the evidence of science. PFF1 648.2