Jacques Maritain Center :
A History of Western Philosophy Vol. II /
by Ralph McInernyAlready in the time of Boethius, it is fair to say, the lights of learning were out or going out across the European continent -- a fact that indicates the urgency as well as the poignancy of Boethius' plan to put into Latin the writings of the two greatest philosophers of antiquity, Plato and Aristotle. His failure to complete even a significant portion of that task is understandable but portentous. The age called for a holding operation, and this commences with the plan of Cassiodorus to have the monks of Vivarium devote a good part of their time to the copying of books, a way of preserving the cultural heritage which was to become particularly important. Isadore of Seville and the Venerable Bede were not original thinkers; they were primarily concerned with transmitting in summary form the lore that had come down to them. The period known as the Dark Ages, those centuries when learning in any formal or institutional sense was all but unknown, may be considered to extend to the ninth century, when Charlemagne made a concerted and momentarily successful effort to reestablish the schools.
During the Dark Ages there were, of course, isolated instances of learned men; Gregory of Tours (539-594), for instance, who wrote a History of the Franks. Gregory chronicled the sad plight of the Church in a disruptive and violent age and lamented the limits of his own intellectual formation. An individual priest teaching a gifted youngster could hardly be expected to turn the tide of the times, even if the times were conducive to learning; what was needed was the establishment of schools, of formal education, a systematic and sustained effort to roll back the barbarism brought on by successive waves of invaders. The motives for this increasing concern for education were at once ecclesiastical and political, and the greatest beneficiaries of education were the present and future clergy. However, the move to reestablish the schools was extremely important, and its consequences justify talk of a Carolingian Renaissance. As will become apparent, the curriculum Charlemagne instituted was hardly more than elementary, and the level of instruction, particularly at the beginning, remained low; yet, considered against its historical background, Charlemagne's reestablishment of schools marked a dramatic forward step, without which the later and gradual rise in the quality and quantity of instruction would scarcely have been possible.
The chief mentor and instrument of Charlemagne's plan was Alcuin, but it should not be thought that the Emperor's interest in learning began with his contact with Alcuin. Prior to the great Briton's arrival on the scene a number of Italian masters who were brought back by Charlemagne laid much of the groundwork for later efforts. The first of these was Peter of Pisa, who was an old man when Charlemagne induced him to come to his court to teach grammar. Peter was also a poet, as was Paul the Deacon, another Italian, a monk of Monte Cassino. Paul the Deacon was an historian of some accomplishment, the author of a History of the Lombards and a Roman History. He wrote a history of the bishop of Metz which traces tbe origins of the Carolingian dynasty, and a homilary, a book of lessons for the Divine Office which also served as a book of sermons. A third Italian, Paulinus, a grammarian, was at the court at the same time as Alcuin.
Alcuin was to speak of the palace school that he directed at Aachen as not only equal to that of ancient Athens but, because of its Christianity, the superior of even the cultural milieu that produced Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. He was doubtless in a sanguine mood when he penned those lines; the historical facts render the parallel ridiculous. Indeed, we have to wait until that later Renaissance which has come to usurp the very name before we encounter similarly inflated self-estimates. In the so-called capitulary of 787 we find a description of what Charlemagne set out to accomplish. This document, probably written by Alcuin, gives a clear picture of the modesty of their aims. The capitulary addresses the bishops and abbots as follows:
Be it known to your devotion, pleasing to God, that in conjunction with our faithful we have judged it to be of utility that in the bishoprics and monasteries committed hy Christ's favor to our charge care should be taken that there shall be not only a regular manner of life and one conformable to holy religion but also the study of letters, each to teach and learn them according to his ability and the divine assistance. For even as due observance of the rule of the house tends to good morals, so zeal on the part of the teacher and the taught imparts order and grace to sentences; and those who seek to please God by living aright should also not neglect to please him by right speaking. It is written "by thine own words shall thou be justified or condemned," and although right doing be preferable to right speaking, yet must the knowledge of what is right precede right action. Everyone, therefore, should strive to understand what it is that he would fain accomplish, and this right understanding will be the sooner gained according as the utterances of the tongue are free from error. And if false speaking is to be shunned by all men, especially should it be shunned by those who have elected to be the servants of truth. During past years we have often received letters from different monasteries intorming us that at their sacred services the brethren offered up prayers on our behalf, and we have observed that the thoughts contained in these letters, though in themselves most just, were expressed in uncouth language, and while pious devotion dictated the sentiments, the unlettered tongue was unable to express them aright. Hence there has arisen in our mind the fear lest if the skill to write rightly were thus lacking, so too would the power of rightly comprehending the Sacred Scriptures be far less than were fitting, and we all know that though verbal errors be dangerous, errors of the understanding are yet more so. We exhort you, therefore, not only not to neglect the study of letters but to apply yourselves thereto with perseverance and with that humility which is well pleasing to God, so that you may be able to penetrate with greater ease and certainty the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures. For as these contain images, tropes, and similar figures, it is impossible to doubt that the reader will arrive far more readily at the spiritual sense according as he is the better instructed in learning. Let there, therefore, be chosen for this work men who are both able and willing to learn, and also desirous of instructing others, and let them apply themselves to the work with a zeal equaling the earnestness with which we recommend it to them. . . .
The capitulary obviously aims at the very rudiments of learning. Subsequent instructions are somewhat more specific regarding the content of the schooling envisaged. Psalms, musical notation, chant, computation of the seasons of the liturgical year, and grammar were to be taught. Parish priests were later enjoined to set up schools for the children and to teach without payment, although they were allowed to accept small gifts from grateful parents. At the same time, teachers were cautioned to make certain that they had corrected copies of the books used.
We will return to the effects of Charlemagne's exhortations; we want now to indicate something of the background which produced Alcuin, who was induced to leave his native England by Charlemagne and who, more than anyone else, was the spirit behind the letter of such capitularies.
The Barbarian invasion of the British Isles did not extend to Ireland, where learning continued to flourish when it had been all but extinguished elsewhere. The Irish monks were missionaries, moreover, and it was through their efforts that the learning retained in Ireland was brought to Scotland and Northern England. This is not to say that England was totally devoid of remnants of past splendor. In the seventh century, with the appointment to the archbishopric of Canterbury of Theodore of Tarsus, learning experienced a forward surge in England. The twin monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, founded by Benedict Biscop (628-690), soon became a repository of books, and it was there that one of Benedict's pupils, the Venerable Bede, acquired the learning that enabled him to write his great compilations and thesauri. Bede's friend, Egbert, became archbishop of York in 732 and founded the cathedral school there, amassing a great library for it. Aelbert was his scholasticus, or schoolmaster, and it was there that Alcuin studied and later taught, becoming in time the scholasticus. Thus, when he was asked by Charlemagne to become master of the palace school at Aachen in 782, he brought to it a training in divine and secular learning perhaps as great as could be had at that time.
Little is known for certain of Alcuin's origins, although he is thought to have been born of noble Northumbrian parents. He was a young boy when he entered the cathedral school at York where he was to become master in 767. For fifteen years he devoted himself to this school, putting considerable emphasis on the expansion of the library. He made several trips to the Continent to seek copies of books. In his poem "On the Saints of the Church of York" he describes the life at his school and indicates the contents of its library. The curriculum consisted of liberal studies and Scripture, the same general plan that was to be followed in the palace school. Alcuin met Charlemagne in Parma while he was returning from a trip to Rome, and the following year he accepted the invitation to Aachen.
We have commented that the liberal arts formed the basis of instruction both at York and later at the palace school. In earlier chapters we have indicated the traditional content of the liberal arts and the work of Martianus Capella, which had set down the doctrine in an allegorical fashion. It is a matter of some interest to see how Alcuin speaks of these arts and how he relates them to philosophy.
Among Alcuin's pedagogical writings is a dialogue entitled On Dialectic,{1} in which he is being questioned by Charlemagne. Before turning to the subject of the dialogue, the king asks about more general matters, and when he asks "What is philosophy?" Alcuin replies with the words of Isadore (Etym., VIII, 6), who in turn had borrowed them from Cassiodorus (Inst., III, 3, n. 5), who is expressing yet earlier views: "Philosophy is an inquiry into natures, knowledge of things human and divine insofar as this is possible for man." (PL, 101, col. 952) Moreover, it is rightness of life concerned with living well, meditation on death, and contempt for the world, "which is especially fitting in Christians who have with discipline conquered secular ambition and live in imitation of a future life."
Alcuin goes on to say that philosophy is made up of science and opinion and proceeds to define each. Asked what the parts of philosophy are, he replies that they are three: physics, ethics, and logic. At this point he attaches the discussion to the liberal arts. There are, he notes, four parts of physics: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Logic, on the other hand, has two parts: dialectic and rhetoric.{2} Finally, he reduced the quadrivium to physics and the trivium to logic. Since philosophy is also divided into inspective and actual, that is, theoretical and practical, ethics would presumably fall within the practical part of philosophy. Elsewhere, in On Grammar (PL, 101, 853), Alcuin calls the liberal arts septem gradus philosophiae, the seven stages on the way to wisdom; they are the seven pillars which support wisdom, and one will acquire science only if he is lifted up by the seven arts. But if the liberal arts are considered a necessary preparation for the reading of Scripture, the Scriptures themselves are thought to be divisible according to the threefold division of philosophy. Thus, Genesis and Ecelesiastes are concerned with nature, Proverbs as well as other books with morals, and (believe it or not) the Canticle of Canticles and the Gospels with logic. All this is quite derivative, of course, and it seems that Alcuin had only the haziest notion of the relation of the liberal arts to the divisions of philosophy with which his sources acquaint him.
What books were used to convey these various arts? To learn grammar, the students used texts by Priscian and Donatus and studied reading and composition in Latin prose and verse. Cicero and Quintilian were read for rhetoric, and logic, or dialectic, was studied by using Porphyry's Isagoge and Aristotle's Categories and On Interpretation, together with the commentaries on them by Boethius. Bede's Liber de temporibus and Liber de ratione temporum, which dealt with the liturgical cycle, were studied after the rudiments of arithmetic were acquired. Some Euclid was studied for geometry, and Pliny and Bede were the sources for astronomy. Boethius and Bede provided the texts for music. Despite the scope indicated by the curriculum and booklist, not all of the arts were studied with equal thoroughness. Actually, the emphasis was placed on grammar and rhetoric, with not only the quadrivium but also dialectic treated lightly. Later, when a shift from rhetoric to dialectic occurs, a shift of no little significance for the development of scholastic theology, there will be impassioned resistance to the change. Alcuin's dialogue on rhetoric, which is basically an adaptation of Cicero, relates the art of preaching but conveys as well something of the scope rhetoric had in antiquity.{3}
In 796 Alcuin was made abbot of St. Martin of Tours and, what was unusual at the time, took up residence there. He devoted himself to strengthening the monastery school and collecting books. There are grounds for believing that the palace school was now divided, with an Irishman named Clement undertaking the instruction of the young at the palace while Alcuin gave theological instruction at Tours. As previously at York and Aachen, students came from far and near, and Alcuin's influence spread through them when they left to set up their own schools and/or to become prominent churchmen. Rhabanus Maurus studied under Alcuin at Tours, and later the Abbey of Fulda, to which he returned, was to exercise a tremendous influence. Fredegisus was Alcuin's successor at Tours. Other important men of the time may be mentioned here, notably Theodolphus of Orleans, a Spaniard by birth, and the author of the Gloria, Laus which is sung on Palm Sunday. There was also one Dungal the Recluse, another Irishman, to whom Charlemagne was to write concerning Fredegisus' strange little work, De nihilo et tenebris.
Before discussing other figures, however, we must attempt a summary statement on Alcuin. While no original contributions to philosophy were made by him, Alcuin's pedagogical work helped to remove from eclipse some of those disciplines without which philosophy in the classical sense is not even a possibility. It would be wrong to adopt a condescending attitude toward Alcuin because of the derivative character of his writing on the arts. While his own understanding of the ultimate sources of what he passes on seems in many cases to be severely limited, his own efforts were deliberate attempts to proportion to the recently awakened interest of his contemporaries the content of works summarizing a lost tradition. Through his teaching Alcuin played a great part in feeding the spark of curiosity in his students, acquainting them with the achievements of an all-but-forgotten time and thereby preparing remotely for the resurgence which was to begin several centuries later. A second Athens the court of Charlemagne assuredly was not, and there is something at once delightful and sad in the report that the men gathered there were wont to appropriate the names of ancients; Alcuin was called Horace, Charlemagne David, others Homer, and so on. But this palatine parody was unintentional, and what we should see in the picture this report induces is a sincere delight in learning, an openness to pagan and secular learning, always in conjunction with the Christian vocation. How easily the effort might not have been made, and if not . . . . If we cannot discern in history the cunning of Reason, we can at least appreciate the contingent character of important efforts.
We cannot leave Alcuin without mentioning his theological endeavors. He was an exegete of power, and his commentary on John's Gospel is said to betray the salutary influence of that great man the Venerable Bede. Alcuin's works on the Trinity and the procession of the Holy Ghost and his views on the Adoptionist heresy have won praise for their sureness and force. Finally, he was a poet, and if not the best, nevertheless interesting and good.
We have already mentioned that Fredegisus succeeded Alcuin as abbot of St. Martin of Tours. He wrote a letter to the scholars at the palace school entitled De nihilo et tenebris (On Nothing and Darkness; PL, 105, 751-756), which is curious but of some interest because it raises questions concerning the signification of terms, questions which have their importance for the dispute about universals which was later to engage the attention of many.
Few words suggest the problems attached to meaning more clearly than "nothing," as Augustine suggested in his dialogue On the Teacher. What do we mean by "nothing"? What is signified by the term? If we say that "nothing" means nothing, we begin to appreciate the difficulties that attracted Fredegisus.
Is nothing something or, indeed, nothing? If we say it is nothing, we seem to get into the position of saying that there is something which is not. In other words, in order to affirm that nothing is not, it seems necessary to suggest that somehow it is. Fredegisus suggests that we admit that nothing is indeed something. He will endeavor to show that is the case both by argument and by an appeal to authority. The argument moves from the assertion that every finite noun signifies something to the inevitable conclusion that the finite noun "nothing" signifies something. As soon as a finite noun is uttered, we understand at once what it means. The noun "man," we are told, designates the "universality of men placed outside any difference." So too "rock" and "wood" are said to "include their generality." In the same way, "nothing" refers to what it signifies; it means something, And since every signification is of something which is, "nothing" signifies an existent thing.
Fredegisus then appeals to Scripture to bolster his point. God, we read, created the world from nothing. Consequently, nothing must be one of the first and principal creatures. Since Fredegisus also reads in Scripture that darkness lay over the face of the deep, we are prepared for his defense of the reality, indeed, the corporeality, of darkness. His argument is quite grammatical. Whatever functions as the subject of an affirmative proposition is, according to Fredegisus, asserted to exist. "Darkness" can function as the subject of an affirmative sentence. Therefore, darkness is asserted to exist.
This rather crude theoretical flight was rebutted by Agobard of Lyon. Agobard is the author of Contra objectiones Fredegisi (PL, 104, 159-174), in which the Archbishop takes the Abbot to task for a number of theological errors. Fredegisus' thought has detained us only because he anticipates disputes to come. Quite apart from the example of "nothing," the little work suggests the problems associated with the recognition that such common nouns as "man" involve a universality whose source and locus are not easy to determine.
Rhabanus Maurus, called the Teacher of Germany (Praeceptor Germaniae), entered the monastery at Fulda when quite young. After studying under Alcuin at Tours, he returned to his own monastery, where he was put in charge of the monastic school. The zeal with which Rhabanus performed his task was apparently unshared by his abbot, Ratgar; the latter felt that monks were more profitably employed in building than in study. The monastic school was shut down for a time, and, it is said, Rhabanus' notebooks were confiscated by the Abbot. The setback was temporary, however, and eventually Rhabanus himself was elected abbot. In his new capacity he not only put the monastic school on a firm footing but also completed the building program started by his predecessor. Rhabanus became archbishop of Mainz in 847. He was a voluminous writer -- five volumes are devoted to his works in the collection of Migne. There are many commentaries on Scripture, an encyclopedia, and the De clericorum institutione (On the Formation of the Clergy). This last work, despite its immediately clerical goal, became a model of German education and won for Rhabanus the title mentioned above.
Before considering the De clericorum institutione, let us pause for a moment before Rabanus' encyclopedic work, De universo. The title could be translated On Everything, and the twenty-two books of the work justify the title. The work begins with a discussion of the Triune God and ends with a discussion of garden tools and bridles and reins. In between, Rhabanus has treated the important figures of the New and Old Testaments, discussed the matter of the canonical books of Scripture, and spoken of man's body, the ages of man, procreation, family relations, and death. He treats of beasts, serpents, worms, fish, birds, and bees; in successive books he takes earth, time, water, and world as leading ideas and scoops into the discussion whatever can conceivably be attached to those ideas; languages, rocks, weights and measures, agriculture, the military -- everything is brought into play. The procedure is noteworthy. Rhabanus will appeal to Scripture as to a source book of biology. In book fifteen, when he gives a list of philosophers, he quotes verbatim from Isadore. (Etym., VIII, 6) One pages through this massive work with fascination and disbelief, trying to imagine what lay behind the industry that is almost palpable even on the yellowing pages of Migne with their crowded, cracked type and intimidating double columns. There is a drive toward unity certainly, a zestful desire to dominate knowledge and to turn it to religious advantage. Perhaps it is not fanciful to catch a different tone here, or at least a sharpening of the tone one hears in Cassiodorus. This encyclopedist looks backward still, but there is that naive optimism of the Carolingian Age which makes the De universo seem less like twenty-two sandbags against a seige than a summary of the basis from which one may proceed.
The De clericorum institutione is, as has been mentioned, a manual outlining what the monk should know. It is a kind of seminary curriculum, we might say, and its first two books are almost exclusively concerned with the religious life; the third sketches the profane knowledge which can also be of use to the religious. The first book deals with ecclesiastical orders, with vestments, and with sacraments. It emphasizes baptism, the Eucharist, and the Mass according to the Roman rite. The second book deals with the Divine Office, or canonical hours, and goes on to discuss fasting, confession and penance, lessons and chant. it ends with a discussion of the Catholic faith with reference to various heresies. Of the third book Rhabanus in his preface says, "it teaches how all the things written in the sacred books are to be investigated and learned as well as whatever in profane studies and arts is useful to a churchman." From chapters eighteen through twenty-five (PL, 107, 395-403) Rhabanus devotes himself to the liberal arts. Grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, mathematics (arithmetic), geometry, music, and astronomy -- Rhabanus devotes a chapter to each. The influence of the Augustine of De doctrina christiana is evident in this third book of the De clericorum institutione as are traces of Cassiodorus, Isadore, and Bede. The great justification for studying the liberal arts remains religious and utilitarian. One well-versed in these arts is better equipped to understand Scripture. This is the purpose and ideal that was contained in the capitulary quoted earlier, of course, and it would be surprising indeed if Rhabanus would have thought otherwise, particularly in a work aimed as his was at the formation of monks.
Rhabanus Maurus figured in the Eucharistic controversy which began after the appearance of Paschasius Radbertus' work De corpore et sanguine Christi (PL, 120, 1255-1350). Paschasius insisted on the identity of the Sacrament of the Altar with the Body of Christ that had been born of Mary and been crucified. Rhabanus, in a difficult statement, speaks of the reception of the sacrament as uniting us in faith with Christ, so that we form with him one body. Gottschalk, in Dicta cujusdam sapientis, flails Paschasius, whom he makes to mean that Christ on the altar suffers again and dies again. Yet Gottschalk does not in any way deny that the body and blood of Christ are an objective reality on the altar. Ratramnus of Corbie, in his own De corpore et sanguine domini (PL, 121, 125-170), continues the criticism of Paschasius, who took the occasion of a commentary on Matthew for a reply (FL, 120, 890-899). The controversy is of interest because it exhibits the need for a precise language if theological debate is to be effective; moreover it presages the later debate between Berengar and Lanfranc when the nature and status of reason in settling such matters will be the real topic of discussion.
Another theological controversy of the time centered on the question of predestination and involved Gottschalk, Rhabanus Maurus, Hinemar of Rheims, John Scotus Erigena, and many others. Far more bitter and involved than the Eucharistic controversy had been, it is yet another instance of theological debate which had not yet found its method and vocabulary.
Candidus of Fulda is known to us through an opusculum entitled Dicta Candidi de imagine dei, which Hauréau printed in his Histoire de la philosophie scolastique (vol. 1 [Paris, 1872], pp. 134-137). It proceeds in fairly catechetical fashion through twelve dicta, relying heavily on Augustine. The twelfth is entitled Quo argumento colligendum sit deum esse? (From What Argument Can It Be Inferred That God Exists?). Here is Candidus' reply: "The totality of things can be divided into three kinds: what is, what lives, what understands; and these, as they differ in power, differ as well in goodness. For example, as the beast which lives can do more than the stone which does not, so man who both lives and understands can do more than the beast who lives but does not understand. Moreover, in the same way, just as that which is and lives is better than that which is alone and does not live, so what lives and understands is better than that which lives and does not understand. The least among things with respect to power and goodness, then, is that which is alone and is not alive; in the middle range falls what is and lives; the highest is that which is, lives, and understands. Therefore, as this argument shows, the most perfect among things is that which has understanding, namely, man who understands, and he attempts to understand his understanding and to examine the power of understanding itself. He asks if he who because of understanding is better and more powerful than other things is omnipotent, that is, capable of doing whatever he wishes. Now if he finds, as indeed he would, that he cannot do whatever he wills . . . he knows that there is one superior to and better than himself possessing the power which permits man to remain in the bodily realm so long as he wishes and, when he wishes, causes him to leave it. No one can doubt that this omnipotent one who dominates those who live and understand is God." We recognize here the influence of Augustine, of course, but the repetition of the proof is important. Gilson tells us that it is the first dialectically developed proof we come across in the modern part of the Middle Ages. (History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, p. 608, n. 4)
Under the impetus of imperial decrees two kinds of schools came into being in northern Europe. First, there were the monastic schools, which had a twofold purpose. Primarily they were intended for the instruction of oblates (literally, the "offered," the children offered to the religious life by their parents) and young boys who lived in the monastery; the monastery also provided schooling for young men who did not live in the monastery, although this second purpose was the first to be dropped in difficult times. Secondly, there were cathedral schools, set up by the bishop and presided over, as we saw to be the case at York, by a schoolmaster, a magister scholarum or scholasticus. On rare occasions this was the bishop himself. Of these two main types of schools the more permanent was the monastic. Not every bishop had a school, but it was a rare monastery which did not have at least a school for its oblates. We have seen that Alcuin himself came to be situated at the monastery at Tours, and Rhabanus Maurus at that of Fulda. From the latter the influence spread to Reichenau, where Walafrid Strabo lived. Rhabanus' influence was also felt in France, where Lupus Servatus was abbot of Ferrières. Schools were also set up at Rheims, Auxerre, Laon, and Chartres, some of which would eventually provide an education for the most illustrious men of the Early Middle Ages. Schools came into being in the Lowlands and, to the south, in Northern Italy. Thus did the leaven of the palace school spread throughout the empire, renewing what already existed but principally causing centers of learning to be inaugurated. The invasions from the north prevented a continuous development, and the great beginning was checked, receding for the most part back to the monastic schools during the period known as the Benedictine centuries. Despite this gloomy end to the Carolingian revival there are many figures of interest to us as the darkness closes again. The most important by any standards is John Scotus Erigena, to whom we now turn.
{1} Besides the De dialectica there are two dialogues on grammar, one on orthography, another on rhetoric and the virtues, and an astronomical work. Sce Migne's Patrologiae latinae cursus completus (PL), 101.
{2} "In his quippe generibus tribus philosophiae etiam eloquia divina consistunt. -- C. Quomodo? -- A. Nam aut de natura disputare solent, in Genese et in Ecclesiaste; aut de moribus, ut in Proverbiis et in omnibus sparsim libris; aut de logica, pro qua nostri theologiam sibi vindicant, ut in Cant. Cant. et in sancto Evangelio. -- C. Theologia quid sit? -- A. Theologia est, quod latine inspectiva dicitur, qua supergressi visibilia de divinis et coelestibus aliquid mente solum contemplamur. Nam et in his quoque partes philnsophia vera dividitur, idest in inspectivam et actualem." (col. 952) The text fairly echoes with echoes, of course, and however faintly we can catch Boethian strains.
{3} See Wilbur Samuel Howell, The Rhetoric of Alcuin and Charlemagne: A Translation, with an Introduction, the Latin Text, and Notes (Princeton, 1941).