The same antiihesi.s between faith and knowledge which occupied Anselm's attention rea]ipears after his time. But while with Anselm the traditional, philo- so|)liical, and ethical elements were held in comparative equipoise, with some of his successors the centre of grav- ity was seriously lost. This is particularly the case with
Bernard of Clairvaux and Abelard. Of the two, Bcr- narii (died 1153) was by far the more churchly-minded. He looked upon the s])eculation8 of Abelard as daring innovations; he was a man of faith rather than of sci- ence; he bowed with awe before the body of Cliristiaii dogmas as held by the historical Church ; and yet he was not a mere tmthinking traditionalist. But he en- deavored to appropriate the traditional system with a vital and intelligent faith. His spirit, however, is of a mystical rather than of a philosophical cast. The intellect cannot take by storm the mysteries of salva- tion; it is only by means of ecstatic contemplation that distant glimpses of their meaning can be obtained. What the soul sees in its mj'stic soarings are true fore- sights of what will lie open before us in our state of eternal bliss. This position of Bernard led him into violent personal opposition to his great contemporary Abelard.
Abelard (died 1142) had devoted himself at first to dialectics, i. e. pliil(iso|)liy, and had adhered primarily to the nominalists and subsequently to the realists; and those opposite standpoints are frequently clearly rec- ognisal)le in his writings. Indeed, it is probable that Abelard himself never came to a clear decision between the two systems. His general position, however, seems to have been that which hekl the universalia in re, and which is best designated by the term conceptiialism. On devoting himself to theology, Abelard subjected the Avhole series of dogmas to a vigorous philosophical treatment, endeavoring to commend them to the under- standing by a clear presentation of their harmonj' with reason. He serioush' complains of a failure to do this on the part of his predecessors, and insists that the ex- acting of faitli in doctrines before the reasonableness of the doctrines has been explained can only lead to cre- dulity and superstition^ Such a course also deprives the Christian subject of the means of convincing the doubter and of refuting the opponent. Moreover, it rests upon an imwise rejecting of the benefits of world- ly science growing out of an ungrounded fear of its misuse. But Abelard is not a thorough rationalist; he does not make intellectual processes the generator of faith. He holds simplj' that philosophical arguments may facilitate the acceptance of Christian doctrine, while the final producer of converting faith is the in- fluence of the Holy Spirit. He further holds that no true and full knowledge can arise without the help of personal faith. Nevertheless, it is the plain duty of the believer to strive after a scientific comprehension of that which the Church presents as a system of formal doc- trine. But Abelard differs from Anselm in this — that while Anselm assumes at once the absolute truth of the official system of orthodox doctrines, and tests all phi- losophy by the touchstone of formal dogmas, Abelard, on the contrary, regards the official doctrines as simply a human develo|)ment of what exists in germ in the Holy Scriptures, while these Scriptures themselves, to- gether with tlie primitive creeds, are the real source and norm of all Christian truth. In his work Sic et Nov, Abelard presents a series of contradictory authorities on the several dogmas with this express purpose — to show that the Church fathers are to be read, not cum credendi necessitate, sed cum jiidicnndi libertate. He even gave much offence by insisting that the Bible itself is not to be fully appreciated without a discriminating exercise of the midorstanding. His general tendency was to embrace the natural and the supernatural in a single view, and to establish a bond of unity between all sys- tems of religious faith. His stan<lpoint was that of a formal siqiernafuralism with a noticeable tendency to material rationalism. The polemical conflicts in which his life was involved prevented him from coming to any very clear self-consistency of system. They also led him, in some cases, to aim rather at a momentary dia- lectical triumph than at a solid development of Chris- tian truth.
The sharp antitheses of tendency between the mysti-
SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY 419 SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY
cism of Bernard and the dialectics of Abelard led to mediatory efforts. Promiiient iicre is the school of the St. Victors. Hug-o St. Victor (died cir. 1140) held to the Anselmic position that Scripture and tradition are the objective, and faith the sulijective, norm of theo- logical science ; but he deviates from Anselm in making a broad distinction between alia ex ratiune, alia secun- dum rationem, alia supra rationem, and alia contra ra- tionem, i. e. between necessaria, prohahilia, mirabilia, and incredibilia. What falls under the first and the fourth head is not an object of faith, but only what falls under the second and third. Under the second head fall the so-called doctrines of natural religion. Here faith is helped by reason (7-ulione adjuvalur), as also reason is perfected l\v faith {ratio fide perficitiir). Under the third head fall the specifically Christian doctrines of Scripture and tradition. Here ratio does not help faith, because the olijcct is beyond its range, though it may offer grounds for revering the faith which grasps that which is above it. Thus Hugo St. Victor rejects the endeavor of Anselm to demonstrate the rationabilis ne- cessitas of the orthodox dogmas, and concedes only our philosophical ability to strengthen the probabilitas of the dicta of natural religion. And this is essentially the role which reason plays in all subsequent medieval theology. The motive of Hugo in thus restricting the r(Me of reason was (1 ) to put a check to the subtle and fruitless freaks of dialectics, and ("2) to assure room for full play for his own mystical system. His real position was this: inasmuch as scholastic dialectics is unable to attain to absolute truth, therefore there must be a proc- ess of immediate intuition whereby the absolute truth is directly laid hold upon with the certainty of actual vision. He further held that there are progressive de- grees in which this truth is grasped, depending upon the progress of our subjective sanctification through personal communion with God. In carrying out his system Hugo is guilty of unconsciously transgressing the bounds he had set up for reason, for he subjects the ofticial form of doctrine to no little free criticism; and he endeavors to make clear to reason the grounds of the revealed system of truth. This is simply what was to be expected ; for Hugo was to some considerable degree a genius of really productive power. His mystical sys- tem as a whole had, however, more indirect than direct influence on his age ; it served as a powerful check to the mad freaks of uncurbed dialectics. He has greater significance as the first systematizer of the whole body of Christian doctrine. In his Summa ISententiarum he treats successively of all the dogmas of the Church, sus- taining them by citations from Scripture and from the fathers, adducing, then, the various objections of oppo- nents, and finally deciding each case according to Script- ure and tradition. His work De Sacramentis, though of more speculative power than the Summa, has been much less read. And though his Summa was subse- quenth- largely displaced by the Summa of Peter Lom- bard, yet the work of Hugo exerted a very important influence upon later scholastics, particularly upon Lom- bard himself and upon Thomas Aquinas, but very es- pecially upon theologians of a mystical tendency, such as Bonaventura and Gerson.