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The Schools and the Universities

The Latin line begins with Augustine and Boethius. Augustine taught “non aliam esse philosophiam, id est sapientiae studium, et aliam religionem”, that philosophy, the pursuit of wisdom, is not one thing and religion another (De vera religione 5.8), and if wisdom is God, “verus philosophus est amator Dei”, the true philosopher is a lover of God (City of God VIII.1). Boethius closed a theological tractate to John the Deacon with “fidem si poterit rationemque coniunge”, “if possible, reconcile faith and reason” (tr. Stewart and Rand); in his Consolation of Philosophy, Philosophy comes to the prisoner as a physician: “the time,” she says, “calls rather for healing than for lamentation”, and he recognises “the face of my physician … my nurse, Philosophy” (I pr. 2–3, tr. James). In the ninth century Eriugena put it in both directions: “veram esse philosophiam veram religionem conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam”, true philosophy is true religion and true religion true philosophy (De divina praedestinatione).

Anselm’s Proslogion first bore the title “Fides quaerens intellectum”, faith seeking understanding, and its first chapter says: “Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam. Nam et hoc credo: quia ‘nisi credidero, non intelligam’”, I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand; for this too I believe, that unless I believe I shall not understand. The schools worked by questions. Abelard’s Sic et Non set the Fathers’ conflicting sayings side by side, for “through doubting we come to questioning and through questions we perceive the truth” (tr. Lewis). In the schools the reading of authoritative texts (lectio) grew into the disputed question, in Bazán’s definition “a regular form of teaching, apprenticeship and research, presided over by a master, characterized by a dialectical method which consists of bringing forward and examining arguments based on reason and authority which oppose one another”, where “the master must come to a doctrinal solution by an act of determination”. Hugh of St Victor set the seven liberal arts at the base of study, and wrote that among the ancients “nemo tunc temporis nomine magistri dignus videbatur, qui non harum septem scientiam profiteri posset”, no one in those times was thought worthy of the name of master who could not profess these seven; the scholars of his own day, he complained, kept no such order (Didascalicon III.3).

In the universities Aristotle became the curriculum, read with his Arabic commentators. In Toledo in the second half of the twelfth century Gerard of Cremona and Dominicus Gundissalinus translated al-Fārābī’s Enumeration of the Sciences, and through Gundissalinus al-Fārābī’s emphasis on demonstration as the means to certain knowledge reached the Latin West. The translation of Ibn Rushd began with Michael Scot around 1220, and by the 1230s he was known as “the Commentator”. In 1255 the statutes of the Paris arts faculty made all known works of Aristotle required reading, and Ibn Rushd’s commentaries became the principal secondary literature of the universities.

Aquinas set philosophy’s place within that order. “It was necessary for man’s salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason” (Summa Theologiae I q.1 a.1, tr. English Dominican Fathers), and the theology that belongs to sacred doctrine “differt secundum genus ab illa theologia quae pars philosophiae ponitur”, differs in kind from the theology counted a part of philosophy (ad 2). Sacred doctrine “non accipit ab aliis scientiis tanquam a superioribus, sed utitur eis tanquam inferioribus et ancillis”, does not take from the other sciences as from superiors but uses them as inferiors and handmaids; “Other sciences are called the handmaidens of this one” (a.5). “Cum enim gratia non tollat naturam, sed perficiat, oportet quod naturalis ratio subserviat fidei”: “since therefore grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith” (a.8). He called Ibn Rushd “non tam … Peripateticus, quam philosophiae Peripateticae depravator”, not so much a Peripatetic as a corrupter of Peripatetic philosophy, and answered an opponent who said “per rationem concludo de necessitate, quod intellectus est unus numero; firmiter tamen teneo oppositum per fidem”, by reason I conclude of necessity that the intellect is one in number, yet I firmly hold the opposite by faith: faith would then be “de falso impossibili”, of a false impossibility. He argued, he said, “non per documenta fidei, sed per ipsorum philosophorum rationes et dicta”, not from the teachings of faith but from the philosophers’ own reasons and words (De unitate intellectus).

Among the masters of arts, Boethius of Dacia, a leading master at Paris in the 1270s, wrote in On the Supreme Good: “Haec est vita philosophi, quam quicumque non habuerit non habet rectam vitam. Philosophum autem voco omnem hominem viventem secundum rectum ordinem naturae”, this is the life of the philosopher, and whoever does not have it does not have a right life; and I call a philosopher every man who lives according to the right order of nature. “Ideo philosophus ducit vitam valde voluptuosam”, so the philosopher leads a life full of delight, though few men “studio sapientiae vacant”, give themselves to the pursuit of wisdom. “Fides non est scientia”, faith is not knowledge, he wrote on the eternity of the world.

On 7 March 1277 the bishop of Paris condemned 219 articles. Among them: “Quod non est excellentior status, quam vacare philosophie”, that there is no more excellent state than to give oneself to philosophy (40); “Quod sermones theologi fundati sunt in fabulis”, that the theologian’s discourses rest on fables (152); “Quod nichil plus scitur propter scire theologiam”, that nothing more is known for knowing theology (153); and “Quod sapientes mundi sunt philosophi tantum”, that the wise of the world are the philosophers alone (154). Also condemned was the view, shared by al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Rushd and rejected by Aquinas, that happiness comes by conjunction with the active intellect and can be had in this life (176). The prologue charges masters of arts “proprie facultatis limites excedentes”, exceeding the limits of their own faculty, with saying things “vera secundum philosophiam, sed non secundum fidem catholicam, quasi sint due contrarie veritates”, true according to philosophy but not according to the Catholic faith, as if there were two contrary truths. The decree names no one. The word averroista came into use in the later thirteenth century, but rarely, and “Latin Averroism” is a later label.