588 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
the Schoolmen, returned to the fountain of Scripture, and restated its truths.
The leading peculiarities of Scholasticism are that it sub jected the reason to Church authority and sought to prove the dogmas of the Church independently by dialectics. As for the Scriptures, the Schoolmen accepted their authority and show an extensive acquaintance with their pages from Genesis to Revelation. With a rare exception, like Abaslard, they also accepted implicitly the teaching of the Fathers as accurately reflecting the Scriptures. A distinction was made by Alexander of Hales and others between the Scrip tures which were treated as truth, veritas, and the teach ing of the Fathers, which was treated as authority, auctoritas.
It was not their concern to search in the Scriptures for new truth or in any sense to reopen the investigation of the Scriptures. The task they undertook was to confirm what they had inherited. For this reason they made no original contributions to exegesis and biblical theology. They did not pretend to have discovered any new dogmas. They were purveyors of the dogma they had inherited from the Fathers.
It was the aim of the Schoolmen to accomplish two things, — to reconcile dogma and reason, and to arrange the doctrines of the Church in an orderly system called summa tJieologice. These systems, like our modern encyclopaedias, were intended to be exhaustive. It is to the credit of the human inind that every serious problem in the domains of religion and ethics was thus brought under the inspection of the intellect. The Schoolmen, however, went to the extreme of introducing into their discussions every imaginable question, — questions which, if answered, would do no good except to satisfy a prurient curiosity. Anselm gives the best example of trea tises on distinct subjects, such as the existence of God, the necessity of the Incarnation, and the fall of the devil. Peter the Lombard produced the most clear, and Thomas Aquinas the most complete and finished systematic bodies of divinity.
With intrepid confidence these busy thinkers ventured
§ 95. LITERATURE AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 589
upon the loftiest speculations, raised and answered all sorts of doubts and ran every accepted dogma through a fiery or deal to show its invulnerable nature. They were the knights of theology, its Godfreys and Tancreds. Philosophy with them was their handmaid, — ancilla, — dialectics their sword and lance.
In a rigid dialectical treatment, the doctrines of Chris tianity are in danger of losing their freshness and vital power, and of being turned into a theological corpse. This result was avoided in the case of the greatest of the mediaeval theologians by their religious fervor. Anselm, Thomas Aqui nas, and Bonaventura were men of warm piety and, like Augustine, they combined with the metaphysical element a mystical element, with the temper of speculation the habit of meditation and prayer.
He is far from the truth who imagines the mediaeval speculations to be mere spectacular balloonings, feats of in tellectual acrobatism. They were, on the contrary, serious studies pursued with a solemn purpose. The Schoolmen were moved with a profound sense of the presence of God and the sacrifice of the cross, and such treatments as the ethical portions of Thomas Aquinas' writings show deep in terest in the sphere of human conduct. For this reason, as well as for the reason that they stand for the theological literature of more than two centuries, these writings live, and no doubt will continue to live.1
Following Augustine, the Schoolmen started with the ft principle ,that faith precedes knowledge — fides prcecedit in- I tellectum. Or, as Anselm also put it, " I believe that I may understand ; I do not understand that I may believe " credo ut intelligam, non intelligo ut credam. They quoted as proof text, Isa. 7:9. " If ye will not believe, surely ye shall
Jl. Milman, IftsZ. of Lat. Christianity, VIII. 257, is certainly unjust when he says: " With all their search into the unfathomable, the Schoolmen have fathomed nothing ; with all their vast logical apparatus, they have proved nothing to the satisfaction of the inquisitive mind." One has only to think of the pntolpgical argument of Anselm and the cosmological arguments of Thomas Aquinas and the statements wrought out on the satisfaction of Christ to feel that the statement is not true.