592 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1204.
At first the Stagyrite was looked upon with suspicion or even prohibited by the popes and synods as adapted to breed heresy and spiritual pride.1 But, from 1250 on, his author ity continued supreme. The saying of Gottfried of St. Vic tor became current in Paris.
Every one is excluded and banned
Who does not come clad in Aristotle's armor.2
The Reformers shook off his yoke and Luther, in a mo ment of temper at the degenerate Schoolmen of his day, denounced him as " the accursed pagan Aristotle " and in his Babylonish Captivity called the mediaeval Church " the Thomistic or Aristotelian Church."
The line of the Schoolmen begins in the last year of the eleventh century with Roscellinus and Anselm. Two cen turies before, John Scotus Erigena had anticipated some of their discussions of fundamental themes, and laid down the principle that true philosophy and true religion are one. But he does not seem to have had any perceptible influence on Scholastic thought. The history divides itself into three periods: the rise of Scholasticism, its full bloom, and its decline.3 To the first period belong Anselm, d. 1109, Roscellinus, d. about 1125, Abselard, d. 1142, Bernard, d. 1153, Hugo de St. Victor, d. 1161, Richard of St. Victor, d. 1173, and Gilbert of Poictiers, d. 1154, The chief names of the second period are Peter the Lombard, d. 1160, Alexander of Hales, d. 1243, Albertus Magnus, d. 1280, Thomas Aquinas, d. 1274, Bonaventura, d. 1274, Roger Bacon, d. 1294, and Duns Scotus, d. 1308. To the period of decline belong, among others, Durandus, d. 1334, Bradwardine,
1 The council of Paris, 1209, forbade the use of his Natural Philosophy. Gregory IX., 1231, condemned the Physics, but in 1254 the University of Paris prescribed the number of hours to be devoted to the explanation of Aristotle's works.
2 Omnis hie excluditur, omnis est abjectus.
Qui non Aristotelis venit armis tectus. Chart., I. p. xviii. 8 Cousin made three periods, the first when philosophy was in subjection to theology, the second when they were in union, and the third when they were separated.
§ 96. DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOLASTICISM. 593
d. 1349, and Ockam, d. 1367. England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain made contributions to this galaxy of men. Gabriel Biel, professor at Tubingen, who died 1495, is usually called the last of the Schoolmen. Almost all the great Schoolmen were monks.
The two centuries included between the careers of Anselm and Duns Scotus show decided modifications of opinion on important questions such as the immaculate conception, and in regard to the possibility of proving from pure reason such doctrines as the incarnation and the Trinity. These two doctrines Thomas Aquinas^ as well as Duns Scotus and Ockam, declared to be outside the domain of pure ratioci nation. Even the existence of God and the immortality of the soul came to be regarded by Duns Scotus and the later Schoolmen as mysteries which were to be received solely upon the authority of the Church. The argument from probabil ity was emphasized in the last stages of Scholastic thought as it had not been before.
In their effort to express the minutest distinctions of thought, the Schoolmen invented a new vocabulary unknown to classical Latin, including such words as ens, absolutum identitas, quidditas, hcecceitas, aliquiditas, aleitas.1 The sophis tical speculations which they allowed themselves were, for the most part, concerned with the angels, the Virgin Mary, the devil, the creation, and the body of the resurrection. Such questions as the following were asked and most solemnly discussed by the leading Schoolmen. Albertus Magnus asked whether it was harder for God to create the universe than to create man and whether the understandings of angels are brighter in the morning or in the evening. " Who sinned most, Adam or Eve ? " was a favorite question with Anselm, Hugo de St. Victor,2 and others. Alexander of Hales attempted to settle the hour of the day at which Adam sinned and, after a long discussion, concluded it was at the ninth hour, the hour at which Christ expired. Bonaventura debated whether several angels can be in one place
1 " Otherness," applied by Rich, de St. Victor to the Trinitarian distinctions. 2de sacram., I. 7 ; Migne's ed., 17(5, 200. 2Q