After the time of Occam the development of theology becomes fitful and sporadic. The iiiHiience of Scotus led to a constantly more pronounced I'elagianism. The iiiHiience of Acjuinas occasioned various attempts at a revival of Augustinian determinism. In a few cases, e. g. Wycliffe and Huss, it became a herald of t lie Kefor- ination. The last scholastic proper, (iabriel Biel (died 1405), made earnest but fruitless endeavors to prop up the tottering superstructure of the old system. Further attempts in the same direction — by liaimund of Satiunde, Nicolas de Cusa, Gersou, and otlicrs of a less scholastic character — were equally unsuccessful, ami serve<l only to show the need of a thorough reformation of the whole body of theology.
The latest phenomena in theological science imme- diately before the Beformation were these three: An effort to revive an earnest Christian mysticism ((Jcrson and others); a revival of an Aristoteliaiiism of a scep- tical tendency (Pomponatius) ; and a syncretistic and fanciful Xeo-Platonistn (Ficinus, Picus JMirandula). Of these three, the lirst was necessarily impotent in its main endeavor, as it still held fast to the okl scholastic fuun
dation, while the second and third served only, by their sce])tical and pagan tendencies, to give a final thrust at the entire effete system.
The so-called ante-Keformers — Wycliffe, Huss, Jerome, Savonarola, Wessel — still linger under the dominion of scholastic forms and traditions. It was only the radi- cally revolutionary spirit of the Keformers themselves that gave to scholastic theology its definitive death- blow. But even subsequently to this point there have a|)i)eared not a few (though unimportant) scholastics, sc/iul(is/ici post scholasticisnwm. Luther himself con- fesses his indebtedness to scholasticism : " Ego scholas- ticos non clausis oculis lego, non rejicio omnia eorum, sed non probo omnia." So also Melancthon. And it is only the shallowness of rationalism or the bigotry of ignorance that can declaim (as is often done) against the worthlessness of scholastic theology as a whole. Philosophers like Leibnitz, Hegel. Bitter, Cousin, Ke- niusat, and Haureau, and theologians like Engelhardt, Bettberg, Liebner, Hasse, Gass, Neander, and Baur. have spoken in a very different tone; and have contributed, in some degree, to acquaint modern times with a part of the rich treasures of thought and speculation which it contains. The dry, superficial 18th century mocked at the scholastics from the sim]>le reason of its ignorance aiul its incapacity to appreciate them. The revival of theological originality since the time of Schleierinacher and the contemporary new birth of art in the romantic schools of (Germany and France have awakened a very different state of mind. Even Semler has frankly de- clared that many a modern theologian who has abused the scholastics would not have been able to serve them as a mere amanuensis.
Faint reproductions of the scholastic period of Cath- olic theology have appeared in Protestantism. The 17th century was for the Lutheran and Beformed churches a really scholastic age. The systematic theologians of that century stood in the same relation to the fathers of Protestantism as the mediaeval scholastics to the paires of Catholicism. So is it with each of the most insignificant sects of Protestantism. Whenever any Church begins to let the writings of any of its eminent ministers staiul between it and a free and direct inter- pretation of the Scriptures in the light of intuition and experience, that moment it enters into its scholastic stage. See Neander, C/»/rc/i ///.«/. vol. iv ; Hagenbach, Hist, of jMictrines ; and especially Herzog, Real-Ency- klop. (J. P. L.)
Scholasticism (Scholastic Philosophy — Phi- LOSoi'HY OK THK Schoolmen), a notable phase of spec- ulation which prevailed throughout the Middle Ages whenever any activity of thought was displayed, and which gave a distinctive character to the reasonings, to the controversies, and to the whole intellectual habit of those centuries. Scholasticism especially denotes the peculiar mode of argimientation then practiced, and the spirit by which it was guided. The Scholastic Philos- ophy designates the whole body of diverse and often conflicting doctrine which was generated under the scholastic procedure. The Philosophj- of the School- men signifies the same thing, but directs attention par- ticularly to the very remarkal)le succession of acute and profound inquirers who applied and developed the scho- lastic method. The schoolmen were the theologians, the metaphysicians, the dialecticians, the encvclopas- dists, the thinkers, and the teachers of the niedia'Viil period. The scholastic philosophy rejiresented the atn- ))le and often bewildering, but always systematic, results of tiu'ir labors, especially after their method had attain- ed its curious but consimimate perfecticm. Scliolasti- cism was the peculiar process of investigation and dem- onstration pursued by the schoolmen, with various thor- oughness but unvarying uniformity, for much more than hall'a millennium. The schoolmen have long fallen into disrepute; little more than their names are renumbered by the majority even of educated jiersons. Their works arc unread and lie mouldering and undisturbed on the
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