Adolf Harnack · 10 of 17

3. On the History of Ecclesiastical Science.. · Part 1

3. On the History of Ecclesiastical Science.

In connection with the history of piety we have been already obliged to enter upon the history of theology; for piety and theology are most intimately related in the Middle Ages. In the former chapter also (p. 23 ff.) a sketch of the history of science till the close of the twelfth century has been given. From the immense amount of material in the thirteenth to the fifteenth century only some cardinal points shall be brought more prominently to view.

The great advancement of mediæval science from the beginning of the thirteenth century was occasioned (1) by the immense triumph of the Church and the papacy under Innocent III. and his successors; (2) by the intensification of piety in consequence of the Mendicant Orders movement; (3) by the enrichment and extension of general culture, which was partly a consequence of inner developments, and partly arose from contact with the East, in Palestine, Constantinople, and Spain. Here the acquaintance, now obtained for the first time, with the true Aristotle, the teacher of logic, physics, ethics, and politics, became of supreme importance. His philosophy, understood as dogmatism, was hailed as a gospel, or at least as the necessary introduction to one (“præcursor Christi in naturalibus”) and through him the science of the thirteenth century received an almost incalculable amount of material, and, above all, impulses to master the material.

The two new forces of commanding importance in the period, the Mendicant Orders and Aristotle, had first to achieve a position for themselves. At the beginning they met with hostility from the old Orders, and from the teachers and universities that were in alliance with them. An attitude of self-defence was assumed towards both. The new Aristotelianism, indeed, came under ecclesiastical proscription, and there was a wish to exclude theologians of the Mendicant Orders from university chairs. There were always some, too, who still were influenced by the attacks in general on the scientific-dialectic theology, which had been made by such men as John of Salisbury and Walter of St. Victor. But the new movement asserted itself with an irresistible energy, and the opposition was silenced.

Yet this was only possible because the new factors really furnished nothing new, but completed the triumph of the Church over everything spiritual. The new Aristotle, as he was understood, taught the theory of knowledge, metaphysics and politics, which admitted of a surer vindication of dogma against such opposition as had formerly appeared, e.g., in William of Champeaux and Roscellin, and offered a defence against the dangers both of an eccentric realism and of an empirical mode of thought. If it is permissible, nay necessary, to conceive of the universals on the one hand, as the archetypes that express the cosmos of ideas in the thought of God, then they exist ante rem (before the thing); if on the other hand they must be regarded as simply realised in things (categories and forms) then they are in re (in the thing); if, finally, it is undeniable that it is only by the observation of things that they are obtained, that accordingly the intellect derives them from experience, then they are post rem (after the thing). In this way it was possible to apply to every dogma the epistemological mode of view which seemed best fitted to defend it. The “qualified” realism, which could assume the most different forms, and which had been already represented by Abelard, certainly more in a spirit of sceptical reserve than with a view to speculative construction, became dominant in the thirteenth century. But what was of most importance was that the great theologians who developed it showed even greater energy than their predecessors in subordinating the whole structure of thought to the principle that all things are to be understood by tracing them back to God.

But the tracing back to God was equivalent to subjecting all knowledge to the authority of the Church. The same science which displayed an astonishing energy of thought, and through such scholars as Thomas made a really important advance upon antiquity in the ethical and political sciences, appeared in many respects still more fettered than the science of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; for in its view, not only the old dogma (“articuli fidei”), but the entire department of ecclesiastical practice, the principles of which were traced back to the articuli fidei, was absolutely authoritative, and it proceeded much more frankly than before on the principle that in particular questions every instance of authority had as much weight as a deliberate reflection of the understanding.

It was only in the thirteenth century — and by the theologians of the Mendicant Orders — that the whole existing structure of ecclesiasticism was theologically vindicated, and its newest and most questionable parts, as well as the oldest and most important, declared inviolate by “science”; it was only in the thirteenth century that there was introduced that complete interblending of faith on authority and of science which means that at one and the same level there is a working at one time with the “credo,” at another time with the “intelligo”; such interblending is not yet found in Anselm, for example. Certainly it was still theoretically held that theology, resting on revelation, is a (speculative) science.. But it was not held as required, nor even as possible, to rear on the basis of faith a purely rational structure: there was rather an alternating between authority and reason; they were regarded as parallel methods which one employed. The object in view indeed continued to be the knowledge that culminates in the visio dei; but there was no longer the wish always to eliminate more fully as knowledge advanced the element of faith (authority) in order to retain at the last pure knowledge; at all stages, rather, the element of authority was held as justifiable and necessary. Nay, there was now the conviction that there are two provinces, that of natural theology, and that of specific (revealed). The two, certainly, are thought of as being in closest harmony; but yet the conviction has been obtained that there are things known, and these, too, the most important, which belong simply to revealed theology, and which can be interrelated certainly, but not identified with natural theology. Natural theology, moreover, must subordinate itself to revealed, for theology has its foundation in revelation. In point of fact, however, the dogmatic theologian alternated between reason and revelation, and his structure derived its style from the former; for in particular questions the content of revelation is not derived solely from the thought of redemption — however truly this, as the visio dei, may be the contemplated end — but is set forth also in a thousand isolated portions, which are nothing else than heterogeneous fragments of a real or supposed knowledge of the world. It was the effect of holding that very conception of the goal of redemption as visio dei that the view of the content of revelation threatened to become broken up into an incalculable number of things known, and, in spite of the still retained title, acquired the character of a natural knowledge of supernatural things. Accordingly there was now introduced also the idea of articuli mixti, i.e., of such elements of knowledge as are given both in a natural way and by revelation, only in the latter way, however, in perfection. What appeared outlined already in Tertullian (see Vol. V. c. ii.) as the distinctive character of Western theology, now came to its fullest development.

From the newly-discovered Aristotle the scholars derived courage to advance from the compilation of mere “sentences” to the rearing of entire doctrinal systems. The imposing form of the Church also, with the unfolding of its uniform power, may have been a co-operating influence here; for the Scholasticism of the thirteenth century presents the same spectacle in the sphere of knowledge, which the Church of which it is the servant presents in the sphere of human life generally. In the one sphere as in the other everything is to be reduced to subjection; in the one as in the other everything is to be brought into a harmonious system; in the one as in the other the position is held, tacitly or expressly, that the Church is Christ, and Christ is the Church. Thus the theological science of the thirteenth century can be described as the submitting to dialectic-systematic revision of ecclesiastical dogma and ecclesiastical practice, with the view of unfolding them in a system having unity and comprehending all that in the highest sense is worthy of being known, with the view of proving them, and so of reducing to the service of the Church all the forces of the understanding and the whole product of science. But most intimately connected with this end is the other, namely, the theologian’s attaining in this way to the visio (fruitio) dei; these two ends, indeed, are mutually involved, for all knowledge of Church doctrine and of Church practice is knowledge of God — this was taught by the Church itself. Now, if the gradual knowledge of God is the only means whereby the individual can attain to salvation (visio dei), then in theology the objective and subjective aims simply coincide; one serves the Church in serving himself, and the converse is equally true. The great Schoolmen by no means felt that they wrought as slaves, labouring under compulsion for their masters. The only end indeed that was clearly before them was their own advancement in the knowledge of God; but, standing as faithful sons within the Church, to which all power was given in heaven and on earth, their speculations necessarily served, with more or less of intention on their part, to glorify the Church’s power and give a divine character to all that it did. And yet how many things did they come to know, the truth of which is entirely independent of the truth of Church theory and practice; how necessary and how helpful was even this period in the general history of science and theology; and how many seeds were sown broadcast by the great Schoolmen, of the development of which they did not allow themselves to dream! Never yet in the world’s history was any science quite fruitless which served God with true devotion. Theology has at any time become a hindrance, only when it has lost faith in itself or become vacillating. We shall see that this was verified also in medieval theology.

For all that has been stated up to this point applies only to the pre-Scotist Scholasticism; it applies above all to Thomas. He exercised, moreover, an enduring influence on the period that followed, and his influence is still at work at the present day. His predecessors and contemporaries have passed out of view in him. The Thomist science, as embodied above all in the “Summa,” is characterised by the following things: (1) by the conviction that religion and theology are essentially of a speculative (not practical) nature, that they must therefore be imparted and appropriated spiritually, that it is possible so to appropriate them, and that ultimately no conflict can arise between reason and revelation; (2) by strict adherence to Augustinianism, and in particular to the Augustinian doctrines of God, predestination, sin and grace, but on the other hand by contesting on principle Averrhoism; (3) by a thoroughly minute acquaintance with Aristotle, and by a comprehensive and strenuous application of the Aristotelian philosophy, so far as Augustinianism admitted in any way of this (under the conception of God the Areopagitic-Augustinian view is only slightly limited); (4) by a bold vindication of the highest ecclesiastical claims by means of an ingenious theory of the State, and a wonderfully observant study of the empirical tendencies of the papal ecclesiastical and sacramental system. Aristotle the politician and Augustine the theologian, two enemies, became allies in Thomas; in that consists the importance of Thomas in the world’s history. While he is a theologian and an Augustinian, he is still always an absolute thinker full of confidence; and yet it must not be overlooked that in him there are already recognisable the seeds of the destruction of the absolute theology. Although hidden, arbitrary and relative elements have already found a place for themselves in him. It is still his aim to express all things in the firm and sure categories of the majesty of the deity whose pervasive power controls all things, and to prove the strict necessity of all theological deliverances: the Christian religion is believed in and demonstrated from principles; but yet at not a few points the strength failed, and the thinker was obliged to fall back upon the authority which supports the probable, although he understood how to maintain for the whole the impression of absolute validity.

But was this strict necessity of any service at all to the Church? Should the Church not rather have been gratified, when the understanding perceived its incapacity to follow up the decisions of authority, and therefore abandoned further effort? To this question the reply must not be absolutely affirmative, but still less must it be negative. The Church, as it then already was, and as it still is to-day, needs both things; it is indispensable to it that its articuli fidei and modes of practice be also proved, and their rationality brought to view; but it is still more needful to it that there be a blind surrender to its authority.

In this respect there was still obviously too little done by Thomas. In him, the determination of the relation of ratio to auctoritas is, indeed, marked by a quite special amount of confusion, the claims of faith (as faith on authority) and of knowledge receive no elucidation whatever, not to speak of reconciliation, and he stated not a few propositions in which there was a complete surrender to authority, that “faith” might not be deprived of its “merit” (see the sentence quoted above: “Sacred doctrine, however, uses human reason also, not indeed for proving faith, for through this the merit of faith would be lost” [Utitur tamen sacra doctrina etiam ratione humana, non quidem ad probandam fidem, quia per hoc tolleretur meritum fidei]). Yet his real interest in theology is still the same as that of Augustine. Theology is cognition of God in the strict sense; the necessity, which is accentuated in God, must also pervade the whole cognition of Him. The articuli fidei, and all results of world-knowledge, must be merged in the unity of this knowledge which truly liberates the soul and leads it back to God. At bottom the imposing and complicated system is extremely simple. Just as the perfect Gothic Cathedral, from its exhibiting what is really an organic style, expresses a single architectural thought, and subordinates all to this, even making all practical needs of worship serviceable to it, so this structure of thought, although all ecclesiastical doctrines are submissively and faithfully taken account of, still proclaims the one thought, that the soul has had its origin in God, and returns to Him through Christ, and even the Augustinian-Areopagite turn given to this thought, that God is all in all, is not denied by Thomas.

But this attitude is dangerous. There will always be a fresh development from it of the “Spurious Mysticism,” as the Catholics call it, in which the subject is eager to go his own way, and avoids complete dependence upon the Church. Nevertheless, the course of scientific development came to be helpful to the Church, and we may almost say that the Church here gathered figs of thistles. The assiduous study of Aristotle, and the keener perception gained through philosophy and observation, weakened the confidence of the theologians regarding the rationality and strict necessity of the revealed articles of faith. They began to forego revising them by means of reason, and subordinating them as component parts of a system to a uniform thought. Their scientific sense was strengthened, and when they now turned to the revealed tenets, they found in them, not necessity, but arbitrariness. Moreover, the further they advanced in psychology and secular science and discovered what cognition really is, the more sceptical they became towards the “general”: “latet dolus in generalibus” (deception lurks under general conceptions). They began to part with their inward interest in the general, and their faith in it. The “idea,” which is to be regarded as “substance,” and the “necessity” of the general, disappeared for them; they lost confidence in the knowledge that knows everything. The particular, in its concrete expression, acquired interest for them: will rules the world, the will of God and the will of the individual, not an incomprehensible substance, or a universal intellect that is the product of construction. This immense revolution is represented in mediæval science by Duns Scotus, the acutest scholastic thinker; but only with Occam did it attain completion.

We should expect that the result of this revolution would have been either a protest against the Church doctrine, or an attempt to test it by its foundations, and to subject it to critical reconstruction. But it was 200 years before these results followed, in Socinianism on the one hand, and in the Reformation theology on the other. What happened at first was quite different: there was a strengthening of the authority of the Church, and, along with full submission to it, a laying to its account of responsibility for the articles of faith and for the principles of its practice. What was once supported by reason in league with authority must now be supported by the latter alone. Yet this conversion of things was felt to be by no means an act of despair, but to be an obviously required act of obedience to the Church, so complete was the supremacy of the latter over the souls of men, even though at the time it might be in the deepest debasement.

When Nominalism obtained supremacy in theology and in the Church, the ground was prepared for the threefold development of doctrine in the future: Post-Tridentine Catholicism, Protestantism and Socinianism are to be understood from this point of view.

Nominalism exhibits on one side a number of outstanding excellences: it had come to see that religion is something different from knowledge and philosophy; it had also discovered the importance of the concrete as compared with hollow abstractions, and to its perception of this it gave brilliant expression, e.g, in psychology; through recognising the importance of will, and giving prominence to this factor even in God, it strongly accentuated the personality of God, and so prepared the way for the suppression of that Areopagite theology, from which the danger always arose of its causing the world and the reasonable creature to disappear in God; finally, by placing restrictions on speculation it brought out more clearly the positiveness of historic religion. But this progress in discernment was dearly purchased by two heavy sacrifices: first, with the surrender of the assurance that an absolute accordant knowledge could be attained, there was also surrendered the assurance of the categorical imperative, of the strict necessity of the moral in God, and of the moral law; and secondly, among the historic magnitudes to which it submitted itself, it included the Church with its entire apparatus — the commands of the religious and moral are arbitrary, but the commands of the Church are absolute. The haven of rest amidst the doubts and uncertainties of the understanding and of the soul is the authority of the Church.

Neither the latter nor the former was, strictly speaking, an innovation. Through the institution of penance an uncertainty about the moral had for long become widely diffused: it was only a question of expressing in theory what had for centuries been the fundamental thought in practice — the sovereign right of casuistry. Moreover, the contradictory mode of procedure, which the great Schoolmen (Thomas at the head of them), in obedience to the spirit of jurisprudence, applied to each particular dogma and each ethical position, necessarily had the effect of shaking the conviction that there is something absolutely valid. If, as any page of Thomas will suggest, from two to twelve grounds can be adduced for every heresy and for many immoral assertions — if, e.g., there are a dozen grounds on which it may be alleged that simplex fornicatio is no mortal sin (Thomas), how can the belief be firmly maintained in face of this that it must nevertheless be regarded as such?

From the conflict between yes and no will there always result certainty on behalf of the answer which the dogmatic theologian prefers? How can certainty be reckoned on at all, so long as there is still one ground only for the counter position, and so long as the one ground cannot be shown which alone is valid? Nominalism only continued here what Realism had begun; it merely did still more in the way of differentiating and distinguishing; it extended the recognised method of the acute advocate to ever new fields, to the doctrine of God, to the doctrines of creation and providence, to the holiness and the honour of God, to sin and reconciliation, and it always came to the conclusions, (1) that all is relative and arbitrary — but even in Thomas’s dogmatic already much that is very important in the doctrine of religion is only “conveniens”; (2) that the doctrines of revealed religion conflict with natural theology, with the thought of the understanding about God and the world (doctrine of double truth). Finally, when Nominalism taught that, since belief (credere) and understanding (intelligere) cannot be reconciled, there must be a blind surrender to the authority of the Church, and that it is just in this blind obedience that both the nature, and also the merit, of faith consist, here also it only wrought out fully a general Catholic theorem; for Tertullian had as little doubt as Thomas that all faith begins with submission. Though afterwards — from the time of Augustine — many considerations had been adduced for modifying the original theorem and changing faith into inward assent and love, nevertheless the old position remained the same, that faith is originally obedience, and that in this it has its initial merit. But if it is obedience, then it is fides implicita, i.e., submission is enough. When the later Nominalism declared with increasing distinctness the sufficiency of fides implicita, or laid it at the foundation of its theological reflections, because many truths of faith, taken in general, or as dealt with by individuals, do not admit of being accepted in any other way, it only gave to an old Catholic thought a thoroughly logical expression; for the danger of transforming religion into an ecclesiastical regime was at no time absent from Western Catholicism.

What has already been briefly hinted at above may be distinctly stated here — the problem was the elimination of Augustinianism from the ecclesiastical doctrine. The whole turning from Realism to Nominalism can be represented theologically under this heading. Augustine falls and Aristotle rises — ostensibly not in theology indeed, but only in the field of world-knowledge, yet as a fact in theology as well; for no one can keep metaphysics and theology entirely asunder, and the theological doctrines of the Nominalists prove that, while they have reverently called a halt before the old dogmas, after having shown them irrational, on the other hand they have revised in a new-fashioned way the circle of the new, and really living, doctrines (Sacraments, appropriation of salvation). This work directed itself against Augustine, in its directing itself against Thomas.

We have frequently pointed out already, that the history of Church doctrine in the West was a much disguised history of struggle against Augustine. His spirit and his piety undoubtedly rose far above the average of ecclesiasticism, and the new discoveries which he made were in many ways inconvenient to the Church as an ecclesiastical institution, and did not harmonise with its tendencies. No doubt the Church had accepted Augustinianism, but with the secret reservation that it was to be moulded by its own mode of thought. We have seen to what extent there was success in that in the period that ends, and in the period that begins, with Gregory the Great. Gottschalk already experienced what it costs in Catholicism to represent Augustinianism. In the time that followed there was developed in the sacramental and penance systems a practice and mode of thought that was always the more plainly in conflict with Augustinianism; all the more important was the fact that the Dominican Order, and especially Thomas, sought to rejuvenate the theology of Augustine. Duns Scotus and the Nominalist theology directed themselves in the first instance against Augustine’s philosophy of religion, against those doctrines of the first and last things, which gravitated so strongly to pantheism. But in controverting these doctrines, and shaking confidence in the doctrine of God as the All-One, they also shook confidence, for themselves and others, in the Augustinian doctrines of grace and sin, which certainly had the closest connection with his doctrine of God. These Nominalists, who (following Duns Scotus) always insisted that reason relates to the realm of the worldly, and that in spiritual things there must simply be a following the traditional authority of revelation, that the understanding, therefore, must be left out of play, really wrought in a most vigorous way, and with the utmost use of the “understanding,” within the lines of the Church doctrine. Under certain circumstances “not to speculate” leads also to a metaphysic, or at least does not hinder a traditional speculation from being corrected and transformed in many of its details, and so also in its entire cast. At any rate this principle did not prevent the Nominalist theologians from revising the existing dogma under the protection of authority. But not only did this work now acquire an entirely external, formalistic character, but there were also introduced into everything the principles of an arbitrary morality, of the “conveniens” too, the expedient and the relative. One might say, that the principles of a cosmopolitan diplomacy in matters of religion and morals were applied to objective religion and to subjective religious life. God is not quite so strict, and not quite so holy, as He might be imagined to be; sin is not quite so bad as it appears to be to the very tender conscience; guilt is not immeasurably great; redemption by Christ, taken as a whole, and in its parts, is very serviceable, but not really necessary; faith does not require to be full surrender, and even of love a certain amount is really enough. That is the “Aristotelianism” of the Nominalistic Schoolmen, which Luther declared to be the root of all mischief in the Church; but that is also the “Aristotelianism” which must be most welcome to the hierarchy; for here they hold the key of the position, seeing that they determine how strict God is, how heinous sin is, etc. That at the same time they neither can nor will part entirely with Augustinianism (Thomism) was remarked above. But they determine where it is to come in, and they showed that they watched jealously the extent to which it was applied.

In the Pelagianism and Probabilism of Nominalism there lies the express apostasy from Augustinianism. But just because the apostasy was so manifest, there could not fail to be a certain reaction — though certainly no longer a strong one — in the Church. Not only did the Dominican Order, in their defending the theology of their great teacher, Thomas, persistently defend Augustine also (though not, as a rule, in the most important points), but men also appeared in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries who observed the Pelagian tendency of Nominalism, and strenuously resisted it in the spirit of Augustine. Here Bradwardine must first be mentioned (ob. 1349) who placed the entire Augustine, together with the predestination doctrine, in strong opposition to the Pelagian tendency of the period. On him Wyclif was dependent as a theologian, and as Huss took all his theological thoughts from Wyclif, and introduced them into Bohemia and Germany, Bradwardine is really to be signalized as the theologian who gave the impulse to the Augustinian reactions that accompanied the history of the Church till the time of Staupitz and Luther, and that prepared the way for the Reformation. In the fifteenth century the men were numerous, and some of them influential too, who, standing on the shoulders of Augustine, set themselves in opposition to Pelagianism. But they neither overthrew, nor wished to overthrow, the strong basis of the Nominalist doctrine, the authority of the Church. Moreover, Augustinianism exercised an influence in many ways on the reform parties and sects; but as no new theology resulted, so also all these efforts led to no Reformation. The Augustinians still allowed a wide scope to the fides implicita and the Sacraments, because even they believed in the idol of Church authority. The reigning theology remained unshaken so long as it was not assailed at the root. Even attacks so energetic as those of Wesel and Wessel passed without general effect. But the fact is unmistakable, that in the course of the fifteenth century the Nominalist Scholasticism fell steadily into disrepute. While the period revelled in new, fresh impressions and perceptions, that theological art became always more formalistic, and its barren industry was always the more keenly felt. While the rediscovered Platonism was being absorbed with delight, that art still lived under the impulses of the Aristotle who had arisen 250 years before. The spirit of the Renaissance and of Humanism was in its innermost nature alien to the old Scholasticism; for it had no wish for formulæ, syllogisms, and authorities; it wished neither the darkness nor the illumination of the “Aristotelian” Scholasticism, but was eager for life, that can be reproduced in feeling, and for perceptions that elevate above the common world and the common art of living. For the poets and humanists — though not for all, yet certainly for the most of them — the ecclesiastical theology, as represented in the Scholastic labours of the Schoolmen, was like stagnant, filthy water. But still there was always the endeavour to find the redeemers in antiquity. Plato, at length the true Plato, was discovered, revered and deified. It was not by chance that the Platonic reaction coincided with the Augustinian in the fifteenth century; for the two great spirits of ancient times had an elective affinity — Plato’s Dialogues and Augustine’s Confessions are not incapable of being united. The influence of Plato and Augustine guided all the movements in the fields of science and theology in the fifteenth century that rose against a Scholasticism which, in spite of its rich perceptions, had become fossilised and hollow, and had lost touch with the needs of the inner life and of the present time. The reflection of the Germans was more serious than that of the Italians and French. In the last third of the fifteenth century Germany took the lead in thought and scholarship. The Romanic nations did not produce in the fifteenth century a man like Nicolas of Cusa. Nicolas was the precursor and leader of all the distinguished men who, in the following century, starting from the Platonic view of the world, brought so strong and fresh a current of real illuminism into the world. Though fantastical in many ways and even greatly interested in magic and ghosts, some of them at once discoverers and charlatans, these men laid, nevertheless, the basis for the scientific (even experimental) observation of nature, and were the restorers of scientific thought. Assurance of the unity of all things and the bold flight of imagination — both of which had been lost by scholastic wisdom — made the new science possible. This science by no means arose because Nominalism, or the philosophy of the great student of nature, Aristotle, as it was then treated, was always growing more empirical, and gradually developed itself into exact science, but a new spirit passed over the withered leaves of Scholasticism, scattered them boldly to the four winds, and derived confidence and power for gathering out of nature and history their secrets, from the living speculations of Plato that grasp the whole man, from the original historic sources now discovered, and from converse with the living reality.