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February 24 - March 19, 2019
In 1098 the Cistercian Order was founded, and in 1113 it was joined by Saint Bernard.
The laity, however, everywhere preferred their priests celibate. Gregory stirred up riots of the laity against married priests and their wives, in which both often suffered brutal ill-treatment. He called on the laity not to attend mass when celebrated by a recalcitrant priest.
Saint Anselm was, like Lanfranc, an Italian, a monk at Bee, and archbishop of Canterbury (1093-1109), in which capacity he followed the principles of Gregory VII and quarrelled with the king. He is chiefly known to fame as the inventor of the “ontological argument” for the existence of God. As he put it, the argument is as follows: We define “God” as the greatest possible object of thought. Now if an object of thought does not exist, another, exactly like it, which does exist, is greater. Therefore the greatest of all objects of thought must exist, since, otherwise, another, still greater,
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Thomas Aquinas rejected it, and among theologians his authority has prevailed ever since. But among philosophers it has had a better fate. Descartes revived it in a somewhat amended form; Leibniz thought that it could be made valid by the addition of a supplement to prove that God is possible. Kant considered that he had demolished it once for all. Nevertheless, in some sense, it underlies the system of Hegel and his followers, and reappears in Bradley’s principle: “What may be and must be, is.”
CHAPTER X Mohammedan Culture and Philosophy
THE attacks upon the Eastern Empire, Africa, and Spain differed from those of Northern barbarians on the West in two respects: first, the Eastern Empire survived till 1453, nearly a thousand years longer than the Western; second, the main attacks upon the Eastern Empire were made by Mohammedans, who did not become Christians after conquest, but developed an important civilization of their own.
The religion of the Prophet was a simple monotheism, uncomplicated by the elaborate theology of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The Prophet made no claim to be divine, nor did his followers make such a claim on his behalf. He revived the Jewish prohibition of graven images, and forbade the use of wine. It was the duty of the faithful to conquer as much of the world as possible for Islam, but there was to be no persecution of Christians, Jews, or Zoroastrians—the “people of the Book,” as the Koran calls them, i.e., those who followed the teaching of a Scripture.
Suddenly, in the course of some twenty years, men accustomed to all the hardships of a meagre existence on the fringe of the desert found themselves masters of some of the richest regions of the world, able to enjoy every luxury and to acquire all the refinements of an ancient civilization.
The Arabs, although they conquered a great part of the world in the name of a new religion, were not a very religious race; the motive of their conquests was plunder and wealth rather than religion. It was only in virtue of their lack of fanaticism that a handful of warriors were able to govern, without much difficulty, vast populations of higher civilization and alien religion.
The Persians, on the contrary, have been, from the earliest times, deeply religious and highly speculative. After their conversion, they made out of Islam something much more interesting, more religious, and more philosophical, than had been imagined by the Prophet and his kinsmen.
The Persians have always belonged to the Shiah sect.
The change was marked by the removal of the capital from Damascus to Baghdad.
Under the early Abbasids the caliphate attained its greatest splendour. The best known of them is Harun-al-Rashid (d. 809), who was a contemporary of Charlemagne and the Empress Irene, and is known to every one in legendary form through the Arabian Nights.
Nevertheless, the caliphate lingered on; the last caliph of the Abbasid dynasty was put to death by the Mongols in 1256, along with 800,000 of the inhabitants of Baghdad.
Commerce was greatly developed, the more so as the caliphate occupied a central position between East and West. “Not only did the possession of enormous wealth create a demand for costly articles, such as silks from China and furs from Northern Europe, but trade was promoted by certain special conditions, such as the vast extent of the Muslim empire, the spread of Arabic as a world-language, and the exalted status assigned to the merchant in the Muslim system of ethics; it was remembered that the Prophet himself had been a merchant and had commended trading during the pilgrimage to Mecca.”
Gradually, however, the empire broke up into fractions—Spain, Persia, North Africa, and Egypt successively split off and acquired complete or almost complete independence.
The Syrians, at the time of the conquest, were admirers of Aristotle, whom Nestorians preferred to Plato, the philosopher favoured by Catholics.
About 830, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarazmi, a translator of mathematical and astronomical books from the Sanskrit, published a book which was translated into Latin in the twelfth century, under the title Algoritmi de numero Indorum. It was from this book that the West first learnt of what we call “Arabic” numerals, which ought to be called “Indian.”
They were also remarkable as mystics, which other Mohammedans were not. The Sufi sect, which still exists, allowed itself great latitude in the mystical and allegorical interpretation of orthodox dogma; it was more or less Neoplatonic.
He was even more famous in medicine than in philosophy, though he added little to Galen.
Averroes was concerned to improve the Arabic interpretation of Aristotle, which had been unduly influenced by Neoplatonism. He gave to Aristotle the sort of reverence that is given to the founder of a religion—much more than was given even by Avicenna. He holds that the existence of God can be proved by reason independently of revelation, a view also held by Thomas Aquinas.
Arabic philosophy is not important as original thought. Men like Avicenna and Averroes are essentially commentators. Speaking generally, the views of the more scientific philosophers come from Aristotle and the Neoplatonists in logic and metaphysics, from Galen in medicine, from Greek and Indian sources in mathematics and astronomy, and among mystics religious philosophy has also an admixture of old Persian beliefs.
The Pentateuch is not always to be taken literally; when the literal sense conflicts with reason, we must seek an allegorical interpretation.
CHAPTER XI The Twelfth Century FOUR aspects of the twelfth century are specially interesting to us: (1) The continued conflict of empire and papacy; (2) The rise of the Lombard cities; (3) The Crusades; and (4) The growth of scholasticism. All these four continued into the following century. The Crusades gradually came to an inglorious end; but, as regards the other three movements, the thirteenth century marks the culmination of what, in the twelfth, is in a transitional stage.
The papal party based its claims partly on the forged Donation of Constantine, partly on the relations of Saul and Samuel as told in the Old Testament.
The cities of North Italy, while, in their later development, they showed much similarity to the cities of ancient Greece, repeated the pattern, not from imitation, but from analogy of circumstances: that of small, rich, highly civilized republican commercial communities surrounded by monarchies at a lower level of culture.
CONFLICT OF EMPIRE AND PAPACY From the time of Gregory VII to the middle of the thirteenth century, European history centres round the struggle for power between the Church and the lay monarchs—primarily the Emperor, but also, on occasion, the kings of France and England.
Eleven years later, however, by the Concordat of Worms in 1122, Pope Calixtus II compelled Henry V to give way on investitures, and to surrender control over episcopal elections in Burgundy and Italy.
Barbarossa’s end was seemly. In 1189 he went on the third Crusade, and in the following year he died.
The maritime cities, Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, never had to fight for their liberty, and were therefore less hostile to the Emperor than the cities at the foot of the Alps, which were important to him as the gateways to Italy. It is for this reason that Milan is the most interesting and important of Italian cities at this time.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, many of them adopted heresies of a Puritan sort, like the merchants of England and Holland after the Reformation. Later, they tended to be free-thinkers, paying lip-service to the Church, but destitute of all real piety. Dante is the last of the old type, Boccaccio the first of the new.
There were large-scale murders of Jews in Germany at the time of the first Crusade, and in England, at the time of the third Crusade, on the accession of Richard Cœur de Lion.
He was always vain, disputatious, and contemptuous; after his misfortune he was also angry and humiliated. Héloïse’s letters are much more devoted than his, and one can imagine him composing them as a balm to his wounded pride.
The great men of the thirteenth century were very great: Innocent III, Saint Francis, Frederick II, and Thomas Aquinas are, in their different ways, supreme representatives of their respective types.
There were also great achievements not so definitely associated with great names: the Gothic cathedrals of France, the romantic literature of Charlemagne, Arthur, and the Niebelungen, the beginnings of constitutional government in Magna Carta and the House of Commons.
To some degree, the Venetians got the better of him in the matter of the fourth Crusade. The soldiers of the Cross were to embark at Venice, but there were difficulties in procuring enough ships. No one had enough except the Venetians, and they maintained (for purely commercial reasons) that it would be much better to conquer Constantinople than Jerusalem—in any case, it would be a useful stepping-stone, and the Eastern Empire had never been very friendly to Crusaders. It was found necessary to give way to Venice; Constantinople was captured, and a Latin Emperor established.
Culturally, however, Sicily had great advantages. Muslim, Byzantine, Italian, and German civilization met and mingled there as nowhere else. Greek and Arabic were still living languages in Sicily. Frederick learnt to speak six languages fluently, and in all six he was witty.
He was said to be the author of a book De Tribus Impostoribus—the three impostors were Moses, Christ, and Mahomet.
Frederick wanted to remain in Italy to deal with the cities, but in 1227 Honorius died, and was succeeded by Gregory IX, a fiery ascetic who loved Saint Francis and was beloved by him. (He canonized Saint Francis two years after his death.)
However, Frederick was duly crowned in Jerusalem, and no one could deny that he had been successful. Peace between Pope and Emperor was restored in 12 30.
The Church was rich and largely worldly; very many priests were grossly immoral. The friars brought accusations against the older orders and the parish priests, asserting abuse of the confessional for purposes of seduction; and the enemies of the friars retorted the accusation.
The ferreting out of heresy had been the business of the bishops, but it became too onerous to be performed by men who had other duties, and in 1233 Gregory IX founded the Inquisition, to take over this part of the work of the episcopate.
It never penetrated to Scandinavia or England, but the English were quite ready to make use of it against Joan of Arc.
The Church, in the early thirteenth century, was in danger of a revolt scarcely less formidable than that of the sixteenth. From this it was saved, very largely, by the rise of the mendicant orders; Saint Francis and Saint Dominic did much more for orthodoxy than was done by even the most vigorous popes.
Saint Francis of Assisi (1181 or 1182-1226) was one of the most lovable men known to history. He was of a well-to-do family, and in his youth was not averse to ordinary gaieties. But one day, as he was riding by a leper, a sudden impulse of pity led him to dismount and kiss the man. Soon afterwards, he decided to forgo all worldly goods, and devote his life to preaching and good works. His father, a respectable business man, was furious, but could not deter him. He soon gathered a band of followers, all vowed to complete poverty. At first, the Church viewed the movement with some suspicion; it
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In the matter of saintliness, Francis has had equals; what makes him unique among saints is his spontaneous happiness, his univ...
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A small minority, called the Spirituals, remained true to his teaching; many of these were burnt by the Inquisition for heresy.
The net result of Saint Francis’s life was to create yet one more wealthy and corrupt order, to strengthen the hierarchy, and to facilitate the persecution of all who excelled in moral earnestness or freedom of thought.
Saint Dominic (1170-1221) is much less interesting than Saint Francis. He was a Castilian, and had, like Loyola, a fanatical devotion to orthodoxy.
The Dominicans were even more active than the Franciscans in the work of the Inquisition.
