No More Learning

Meanwhile Proclus undertook to carry out methodically this
logical schema of emanation, and out of regard for this principle subordinated a number of simple and likewise unknowable " henads" beneath the highest, completely characterless h>. In so doing he found himself under the necessity of demanding a proper dialectical principle for this logical procession of the particular from the uni
versal. Such a schematism the systematiser of Hellenism found in the logico-metaphysical relation which Plotinus had laid at the basis
of the development of the world from the deity. The procession of the Many forth from the One involves, in the first place, that the particular remains like the universal, and thus that the effect abides or persists within the cause; in the second place, that this product is a new self-subsisting entity in contrast with that which has pro duced and that proceeds forth from the same and finally, that by virtue of just this antithetic relation the individual strives to return again to its ground. Persistence, procession, and return (nmrq, rpoo&K, triorpo*f>jj), or identity, difference and union of that which has been distinguished, are accordingly the three momenta of the dialectical process; and into this formula of emauistic development, by virtue of which every concept should be thought of as in itself — out of itself — returning into itself, Proclus pressed his entire combined metaphysical and mythological construction, — construc tion in which he assigned to the systems of deities of the different religions their place in the mystical and magical universe, arranging
them in the series divided again and again by threes, according to kis law of the determination of concepts. 1
In contrast with this, the peculiarity of Cliristian philosophy consists essentially in this, that in its apprehension of the relation of God to the world, sought to employ throughout the ethical
point of view of free, creative action. Since from the standpoint of its religious conviction held fast to the conception of the person ality of the Original Being, conceived of the procedure of the world forth from God, not as a physical or logical necessity of the
Personally, Proclua characterised by the mingling of superabundant credulous piety with logical formalism carried even to pedantry, combina tion which is highly interesting psychologically. Juki for thin reason lie is, fvrhapa, the most pronounced type of this period which concerned in putting iu ardent religiosity into a scientific system.
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252 Hellenistic- Roman Thought : Religious Period. [Pabt II.
unfolding of his essence, but as an act of will, and in consequence of this the creation of the world was regarded not as an eternal process, but as a fact in time that had occurred once for all. The conception, however, in which these motives of thought became concentrated, was that of the freedom of the will.
This conception had had at first the meaning (with Aristotle) of conceding to the finite personality acting ethically the capacity of a decision between different given possibilities, independently of external influence and compulsion. The conception had then taken on, with Epicurus, the metaphysical meaning of a causeless activity of individual beings. Applied to the absolute, and regarded as a quality of God, it is developed in the Christian philosophy into the thought of " creation out of nothing," into the doctrine of an un caused production of the world from the will of Ood. Every attempt at an explanation of the world is thereby put aside ; the world is
because God has willed and such as because God has willed so to be. At no point the contrast between Neo-Pla- tonism and orthodox Christianity sharper than at this.
Meanwhile, this same principle of the freedom of the will is employed to overcome the very difficulties which resulted from it. For the unlimited creative activity of the omnipotent God forces the problem of " theodicy " forward still more urgently than in the other theories of the universe, — the problem how the reality of evil in the world can be united with God's perfect goodness. The optimism involved in the doctrine of creation, and the pessimism in volved in the felt need of redemption, the theoretical and the practical, the metaphysical and the ethical momenta of religious faith strike hard against each other. But faith, supported by the feeling of responsibility, finds its way of escape out of these difficulties in the assumption that God provided the spirits and human souls which he created, with freedom analogous to his own, and that through their guilt evil came into the good world. 1
This guilt, the thinkers of the Church find not to consist properly in the inclination toward matter or the sensuous; for matter- as created by God cannot in itself be evil. * The sin of free spirits consists rather in their rebellion against the will of God, in their
This expressed abstractly by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. IV. 13, 606) in the form, that evil only an action, not substance (oiVm), and that there fore cannot be regarded as the work of God.
Just for this reason the metaphysical dualism of the Gnostics must be in its principle heterodox, and that, too, no matter whether bore the stamp rather of Oriental mythology or of Hellenistic abstract thought — even though in the ethical consequences which drew coincided in great part with the doctrine of the Church.
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Cmxr. 2, 5 20. ] God and the World : Origen. 253
longing after an unlimited power of self-determination, and only secondarily in the fact that they have turned their love toward God's creations, toward the world instead of toward God himself. Here too, therefore, there prevails in the content of the conception of evil the negative element of departure and falling away from God; ' but the whole earnestness of the religious consciousness asserts itself in this, that this falling away is conceived of not merely as absence of the good, but as a positive, perverted act of will.
In accordance with this the dualism of God and the world, and that of spirit and matter, become indeed deeply involved in the Christian theory of the world. God and the eternal life of the spirit, the world and the transitory life of the flesh, — these are here, too, sharply enough contrasted. In contradiction with the divine pneuma the world of sense is filled with "hylic" spirits,' evil demons, who ensnare man in their pursuits which are animated by hostility to God, stifle in him the voice of universal natural reve lation, and thereby make special revelation necessary ; and without departure from them and from the sensuous nature there is for the early Christian ethics, also, no rescue of the soul possible.
But still this dualism is not regarded as being in its intrinsic nature either necessary or original. It is not the opposition be tween God and matter, but that between God and fallen spirits; it is the purely inner antagonism of the infinite and the finite will. In this direction Christian philosophy completed through Origen the metaphysical spiritualising and internalising or idealising of the world of the senses. In it the corporeal world appears as completely permeated and maintained by spiritual functions, — yes, even as much reduced to spiritual functions, as is the case with Plotinus; but here the essential element in these functions is relations of will.
As the passing over of God into the world is not physical necessity, bnt ethical freedom, so the material world is not a last streaming forth of spirit and soul, but a creation of God for the punishment and for the overcoming of sin.
To be sure, Origen, in developing these thoughts, took up a motive which was allied to Xeo-1'latonism, a motive which brought, him ioto conflict with the current mode of thought in the Church. For strongly as he held fast to the conception of the divine personality and to that of creation as a free act of divine goodness, the scientific thought which desires to see action grounded in essence was yet too strong in him to allow him to regard this creation as a causeless
' In this «ttBM (Ten Origen could call the evil ri ewe t* (in Joh. II. 7, 6o). > Tatiaa. Oral, ad Or<sc 4.
254 Hellenistic- Roman Thought : Religious Period. [Part U.
act taking place once for all in time. The eternal, unchangeable essence of God demands rather the thought that he is creator from eternity even to all eternity, that he never can be without creating, that he creates timelessly. '
But this creation of the eternal will is, therefore, only one that relates to eternal Being, to the spiritual world (owria). In this eternal manner, so Origen teaches, God begets the eternal Son, the Logos, as the sum-total of his world-thoughts (ISia t&cwy), and through him the realm of free spirits, which, limited within itself, surrounds the deity as an ever-living garment. Those of the spirits that continue in the knowledge and love of the Creator remain in unchanged blessedness with him ; but those that become weary and negligent, and turn from him in pride and vainglory, are, for pun ishment, cast into matter created for this purpose. So arises the world of sense, which is, therefore, nothing self-subsistent, but a symbolic eternalisation of spiritual functions. For what may be regarded as Real in it is not the individual bodies, but rather the spiritual Ideas which are present, connected and changing within them. "
So, with Origen, Platonism becomes united with the theory of the creative will. The eternal world of spirits is the eternal prod uct of the changeless divine will. The principle of the temporal and the sensuous (yo>e<w) is the changing will of the spirits. Corporeality arises on account of their sin, and will vanish again with their improvement and purification. Thus will, and the rela-
1 Orig. De Princ. I. 2, 10 ; III. 4, 3.
9 This idealising of the world of sense was treated in great detail, quite ac cording to the Platonic model, by the most important of the Oriental Church fathers, Gregory of Nyssa (331-394). His main treatise is the XAvot «arijx'? - tikAj. Edition of his works by Morellus (Paris, 1675) [Eng. tr. in Vol. V. , 2d series, Lib. Nicene and Poet-Nicene Fathers, ed. Schaff and Wace, Oxford, Lond. , and N. Y. 1890]. Cf. J. Rupp, 0. des Bisehoft von Jv". Leben tout
Meinungen, Leips. 1834. — This transformation of Nature into psychical terms found an extremely poetic exposition among the Gnostics, particularly with the most ingenious among them, Valentinus. The origin of the world of sense is portrayed as follows in his theogonic-cosmogonic poetic invention : When the lowest of the vEons, Wisdom (eo<pla), in over-hasty longing, would fain have plunged into the original Ground and had been brought back again to her place by the Spirit of Measure (Spos), the Supreme God separated from her her passionate longing (riffos) as a lower Wisdom (iti-ru tropin), called Achamoth, and banished it into the "void" (cf. § 20, 4). This lower <ro<j>ta,nevertheless, impregnated by tpot for her redemption, bore the Demiurge and the world of sense. On this account that ardent longing of oo<t>l* expresses itself in all forms and shapes of this world ; it is her feelings that constitute the essence of phenomena ; her pressure and complaint thrills through all the life of Nature. From her tears have come fountains, streams, and seas ; from her benumbing before the divine word, the rocks and mountains ; from her hope of redemption, light and ether, which in reconciliation stretch above the earth. This poetic invention is farther carried out with the lamentations and penitential songs of <roi>L<Lin the Gnostic treatise, IKonc <ro<t>la.
sap. 2, f 21. ] Philosophy of History. 255
turn of personalities to one another, in particular that of the finite to the infinite personality, are recognised as the ultimate and deepest meaning of all reality.
§ 21. The Problem of Universal Hiitory.
With this triumph of religious ethics over cosmological meta physics, thus sealed by Christianity, is connected the emergence of a farther problem, to solve which a number of important attempts were made — the problem of the philosophy of history.
1. Here something which is in its principle new comes forward, as over against the Greek view of the world. For Greek science had from the beginning directed its questions with reference to the +wn«, the abiding essence (cf. p. 73), and this mode of stating the question, which proceeded from the need of apprehending Nature, had influenced the progress of forming conceptions so strongly that the chronological course of events had always been treated as something of secondary importance, having no meta physical interest of its own. In this connection Greek science regarded not only the individual man, but also the whole human race, with all its fortunes, deeds, and experiences, as ultimately but an episode, a special formation of the world-process which repeats itself forever according to like laws.
This is expressed with plain grandeur in the cosmological begin nings of Greek thought; and even after the anthropological tendency had obtained the mastery in philosophy the thought remained in force as theoretical background for every projected plan of the art
of living, that human life, as it has sprung forth from the unchang ing process of Nature, must flow again into the same (Stoa). Plato had indeed asked for an ultimate end of earthly life, and Aristotle had investigated the regular succession of the forms assumed by political life; but the inquiry for a meaning in human history taken a* a whole, for a connected plan of historical development, had never once been put forward, and still less had it occurred to any of the old thinkers to see in this the intrinsic, essential nature of the world.
The most characteristic procedure in just this respect is that of Neo-Platonisin. Its metaphysics, also, follows the religious motive as its guide; but it gives this motive a genuine Hellenic turn when it regards the procession of the imperfect forth from the perfect as an eternal process of a necessary nature, in which the human individual also finds his place and sees it as his destiny to tesk salvation alone by himself by return to the infinite.
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256 Hellenistic-Roman Thought : Religious Period. [Part II
2. Christianity, however, found from the beginning the essence of the whole world-movement in the experiences of personalities : for it external nature was but a theatre for the development ul the relation of person to person, and especially of the relation of the finite spirit to the deity. And to this were added, as a further determining power, the principle of love, the consciousness of the solidarity of the human race, the deep conviction of the universal sinfulness, and the faith in a common redemption. All this led to_ regarding the history of the fall and of redemption as the true metaphysical import of the world's reality, and so instead of an eliernaljjrocess of Nature, the drama of universal history as an on- ward flow of events that were activities of free will, became the con tent of Christian metaphysics.
There is perhaps no better proof of the power of the impression which the personality of Jesus of Nazareth had left, than the fact that all doctrines of Christianity, however widely they may other wise diverge philosophically or mythically, are yet at one in seeking in him and his appearance the centre of the world's history. By hnu the conflict between good and evil, between light and darkness, is decided.
But this consciousness of victory with which Christianity believed in its Saviour had still another side : to the evil which had been overcome by him belonged also the other religions, as by no means its least ■important element. For the Christian mode of thought of those days was far from denying the reality of the heathen gods ; it regarded them rather as evil demons, fallen spirits who had seduced man and persuaded him to worship them, in order to prevent his returning to the true God. 1
By this thought the conflict of religions, which took place in the Alexandrian period, acquires in the eyes of Christian thinkers a metaphysical significance : the powers whose struggling forms the world's history are the gods of the various religions, and the history of this conflict is the inner significance of all reality. And since every individual man with his ethical life-work is implicated in this great complex process, the importance of individuality becomes raised far above the life of sense, into the sphere of metaphysical reality.
3. With almost all Christian thinkers, accordingly, the world's history appears as a course of inner events which draw after them the origin and fortunes of the world of sense, — a course which takes place once for all. It is essentially only Origen who holds fast
1 So even Origen ; cf. Cont. CO*, ill. 28. -. . . -. _♦.
Caur. 2, 1 21. ] Philosophy of History : Christianity. 25fi
to the fundamental character of Greek science (cf. p. 27, ch. 1). so far as to teach the eternity of the world-process. Between the two motives, the Christian and the Greek, he found a way of escape by making a succession of temporal worlds proceed forth from the eternal spiritual world, which he regarded as the immediate creation of -God, and by holding that these temporal worlds take their origin with the deolension and fall of a number of free spirits, and are to nod their end with the redemption and restitution of the same ( n-CMcaraaTaaif ) . '
The fundamental tendency of Christian thought, on the contrary, was to portray the historical drama of fall and redemption as a connected series of events taking place once for all, which begins with a free decision of lower spirits to sin, and has its turning- point in the redemptive revelation, the resolve of divine freedom.
In contrast with the naturalistic conceptions of Greek thought, kistory is conceived of as the realm of free acts of personalities, taking place but once, and the character of these acts, agreeably to the entire consciousness of the time, is of essentially religious significance.
4. It is highly interesting now to see how in the mythico- metaphysical inventions of the Gnostics, the peculiar relation of Christianity to Judaism is brought to expression in cosmogonic garb. In the Gnostic circles the so-called Gentile Christian ten dency is predominant, the tendency which desires to define the new religion as sharply as possible, as over against Judaism, and this tendency just through the Hellenistic philosophy grows to the most open hostility against Judaism.
The mythological form for this is, that the God of the Old Testa ment, who gave the Mosaic law, is regarded as the fashioner of the world of sense, — for the most part under the Platonic name of the Demiurge, — and is assigned that place in the hierarchy of cosmic forms or Mom, as well as in the history of the universe, which belongs to him in accordance with this function.
At the beginning this relation is not yet that of pronounced oppo sition. A certain Cerinthus (about 115 a. d. ) had already distin guished the God of the Jews as Demiurge, from the Supreme God who was not defiled by any contact with matter, and had taught that in contrast with the "law" given by the God of the Jews, Jesus had brought the revelation of the Supreme God. * So, too,
1 Orig. Dt Prinr. III. 1, 3. These worlds, on account of the freedom from which they proceed, are not at all like one another, but are of the moat mani fold variety; lb. II. 3. 3 f.
• A -"**'~,'l~' which Numenlus also adopted, evidently under Gnostic influ- eaota. Cf. Eoseb. Prop. Ev. XI. 18.
258 Hellenistic- Roman Thought : Religion* Period. [Part II.
with Saturninus, the God of the Jews appears as the head of the seven planetary spirits, who, as lowest emanation of the spiritual realm, in their desire to rule tore away a portion of matter to form from it the world of sense, and set man as guardian over it. But a conflict arises, since Satan, to conquer back this part of his kingdom, sends against man his demons and the lower "hylic" race of men. Iu this conflict the prophets of the Demiurge prove powerless until the Supreme God sends the iEon voxn as Saviour, in order that he may free pneumatic men and likewise the Demiurge and his spirits from the power of Satan. This same redemption of the Jewish God also is taught by Basilides, who introduces him under the name of the " great Archon " as an efflux of the divine world-seed, as head of the world of sense, and represents him as made to tremble by the Supreme God's message of salvation in Jesus, and as brought to repentance for his undue exaltation.
In a similar manner, the God of the Old Testament, with Carpo- crates, belongs to the fallen angels, who, commissioned to form the world, completed it according to their own caprice, and founded sep arate realms in which they got themselves reverenced by subordinate spirits and by men. But while these particular religions are, like their Gods, in a state of mutual conflict, the Supreme Deity reveals in Jesus the one true universal religion which has Jesus as its object, even as he had already before made revelation in the great educators of humanity, a Pythagoras and a Plato.
In more decided polemic against Judaism Cerdo the Syrian further distinguished the God of the Old Testament from that of the New. The God announced by Moses and the prophets, as the purposeful World-fashioner and as the God of justice is accessible even to natural knowledge — the Stoic conception; the God re vealed through Jesus is the unknowable, the good God — the Philonic conception. The same determinations more sharply defined are employed by Marcion1 (about 150), who conceives of the Chris tian life in a strongly ascetic manner, and regards it as a warfare against the Demiurge and for the Supreme God revealed through Jesus,1 and Marcion's disciple Apelles even treated the Jewish God
1 Cf. Volkmar, Philosophoumena und Marcion ( Theol. Jakrb. Tubingen, 1864). Same author, Das Evange. Uum Jiarcion't (Leips. 1862).
3 An extremely piquant mythological modification of this thought is found in the sect of the Ophites, who gave to the Hebraic narrative of the fall the interpretation, that the serpent which taught man to eat of the tree of knowl edge in Paradise made a beginning of bringing the revelation of the true God to man who had fallen under the dominion of the Demiurge, and that after man had on this account experienced the wrath of the Demiurge, the revela tion had appeared victorious in Jesus. For this knowledge which the serpent desired to teach is the true salvation of man.
CHAr. 2, J 21. ] Philosophy of History : Gnostics, Patristics. 259
as Lucifer, who brought carnal sin into the world of sense which had been formed by the good " Demiurge," the highest angel, so that, at the petition of the Demiurge, the Supreme God sent the Re deemer against him.
5. In contrast with this view we find the doctrine firmly held,
not only by the Recognitions,' ascribed to Clement of Rome
arose about 150 a. d. ), but in the entire orthodox development of
Christian doctrine, that the Supreme God and the creator of the
world, the God of the New and the God of the Old Testaments, are a
the same. But a wellplanned educative development of the divine ^JLuCu revelation is assumed, ancTTn This the history of salvation, i. e. the
inner history of the world, is sought. Proceeding in accordance
with the suggestions of the Pauline epistles,' Justin, and especially
Irenaens, took this standpoint. The theory of revelation did not
become complete until it found this elaboration in the philosophy
of history (cf. § 18).
For the anticipations of Christian revelation, that emerge on the
one hand in Jewish prophecy, on the other in Hellenic philosophy, are regarded from this point of view as pedagogic preparations for Christianity. And since the redemption of sinful man constitutes, according to the Christian view, the sole significance and value of the world's history, and so of all that is real aside from God, the well-ordered succession of Ood's acts of revelation appears as the essential thing TIT the entire~"course of the world's events.
Th the main, corresponding to the doctrine of revelation, three stages of this divine, saving activity are distinguished. 3 As divided theoretically there are, first, the universal-human revelation, given objectively by the purposiveness of Nature, subjectively through the rational endowment of the mind ; second, the special revelation imparted to the Hebrew people through the Mosaic law and the promises of the prophets ; and third, the complete revelation through Jesus.
Divided according to time, the periods extended from Adam to Moses, from Moses to Christ, from Christ to the end of the world. 4 This triple division was the more natural for ancient Christianity, the stronger its faith that the closing period of the world's redemj>
1 Edited by Geradorf (Leips. 1838). Cf. A. Hilgenfcld, Die clementiniaehen RrcagnitioKtn und Hamihen (Jena, 1848); G. Chlhorn, Die Homilien und rUrrstnUionen det CI. R. (Gottingcn, 1864).
' which treat the " law " as the " schoolmaster " unto ChrUt (waiUywyli tit 1+*t4,); Gal. iii. 24.
•Thia had been done in part already by the Gnostics, by Basilides at least, according to Hippolytus.
• The later (heretical) development of eschatology added to these three pehods yet a fourth, by the appearance of the " Paraclete. " Cf. , e. g. , Ter- tallian. De Virg. Vet. 1, p. 884 O.
(which
*
260 Hellenistic-Roman Thought: Religious Period. [Part II.
tion, which had begun with the appearance of the Saviour, would be ended in a very short time. The eschatological hopes are an essential constituent of the early Christian metaphysics ; for the philosophy of history which made Jesus the turning-point of the world's history had, as by no means its slighest support, the expectation that the Crucified would return again to judge the world, and to complete the victory of light over 'darkness. However varied these ideas become with time and with the disappointment of the first hopes, however strongly the tendencies of dualism and monism assert themselves here also, by conceiving of the last Judgment either as a definite separation of good and evil, or as a complete overcoming of the latter by the former (o7ro»caTa<rrao-is irdvriav with Origen), and however much a more material and a more spiritual view of blessed ness and unhappiness, of heaven and hell, interplay here also, — in every case the last Judgment forms the conclusion of the work of redemption, and so the consummation of the divine plan of salva tion.
6. The points of view from which the world's history is regarded by Christian thinkers are thus indeed exclusively religious ; but the more general principle of a historical teleology gains recognition within them. While Greek philosophy had reflected upon the pur- posiveness of Nature with a depth and an energy which religious thought could not surpass, the completely new thought rises here that the course of events in human life also has a purposeful mean ing as a whole. The teleology of history becomes raised above that of Nature, and the former appears as the higher in worth, in whose service the latter is employed. '
Such a conception was possible only for a time that from a ripe result looked back upon the vivid memory of a great development in the world's history. The universal civilisation of the Roman Empire found dawning in the self-consciousness of its own inner life the presentiment of a purpose in that working together of national destinies through which it had itself come into existence, and the idea of this mighty process was yielded especially by the continued tradition of Greek literature embracing a thousand years. The religious theory of the world, which had developed from this ancient civilisation, gave to that thought the form that the meaning of the historical movement was to be sought in the preparations of God for the salvation of man ; and since the peoples of the ancient civilisation themselves felt that the time of their efficient working was complete, it is comprehensible that they believed they saw the
' Cf. Irenasus, Bef. IV. 38, 4, p. 702 t *t
CHAr, 2, § 21. ] Philosophy of History : Patristics. - 261
end of history immediately before them, where the sun of their day was sinking.
But hand in hand with this idea of a systematically planned unity in human history goes the thought of a unity of the human race, exalted above space and time. The consciousness of common civil- isatiou, breaking through national boundaries, becomes complete in the belief in a common revelation and redemption of all men. Inas- much as the salvation of the whole race is made the import of the
divine plan for the world, it appears that among the provisions of " this plan, the most important is that fellowship («<c<cAipria) to which all members of the race are called, by sharing in faith the sarile work of redemption. The conception of the Church, shaped out from the
Hfe of the Christian community, stands in this connection with the religiuus philosophy of history, and accordingly, among its constitu tive- marks or notes, universality or catholicity is one of the most important:
~T. TrTThis way, man and his destiny becomes the centre of the universe. This anthropocentric character distinguishes the Christian view of the world essentially from the Neo-Platonic. The latter, indeed, assigned a high metaphysical position to the human individ ual, whose psychico-spiritual nature it even held to be capable of deification ; it regarded the purposeful connected whole of Nature also from the (Stoic) point of view of its usefulness for man, — but never would Neo-Platonism have consented to declare man, who for it was a part of the phenomena in which divine efficiency appears, to be the end of the whole.
Just this, however, is the case in the philosophy of the Fathers. According to Irenatus, man is the end and aim of creation : it is to him as a knowing being that God would reveal himself, and for his sake the rest, the whole of Nature, has been created ; he it is, also, who by abuse of the freedom granted him, made farther revelation and redemption necessary ; it is he, therefore, for whose sake all kiatory also exists. Man as the highest unfolding of psychical life
ms Gregory of Nyssa teaches, the crown of creation, its master and king creation's destiny to be contemplated by him, and taken back into its original spirituality. But with Origen, too, men are just those fallen spirits, who, for punishment and improvement, hare been clothed with the world of sense: Nature exists only on account of their sin, and will cease again when the historical
has attained its end through the return of all spirits to the
Thus the anthropological movement, which at first forced its way into Greek science only as shifting of the interest, as change in
process (rood.
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262 Hellenistic- Roman Thought : Religious Period. [Pabt IL
the statement of the problem, developed during the Hellenistic- Roman period to be more and more the real principle from which the world was considered, and at last in league with the religious need it took possession of metaphysics. The human race has gained the consciousness of the unity of its historical connection and re gards the history of its salvation as the measure of all finite things.
What arises and passes away in space and time has its true signifi- cance only in so far as it is taken up into the relation of man to his God.
Being and Becoming were the problems of ancient philosophy at . its beginning : the conceptions with which it closes are God and the human race.
PART III.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
Rousselot, Etude* stir la Philosophie du Moyen Age. Paris, 1840-42.
B. Ilaurgau, De la Philotophie Scholastique. Paris, 1850.
B. Haurfeau, Histoire de la Philotophie Scholastique. Paris, 1872-80. A. Stdckl, Ueschichte der Philotophie des Mittelalters. Mainz, 1864-66.
Whkn the migration of the peoples broke in devastation over the Roman Empire, and the latter lacked the political strength to defend itself against the northern barbarians, scientific civilisation, also, was in danger of becoming completely crushed out; for the tribes to whom the sceptre now passed brought still less mind and
understanding for the finely elaborated structures of philosophy than for the light forms of Grecian art. And, withal, ancient civ ilisation was in itself so disintegrated, its vital force was so broken, that it seemed incapable of taking the rude victors into its school.
Thus the conquests of the Greek spirit would have been given over to destruction beyond hope of rescue, if in the midst of the breaking down of the old world, a new spiritual power had not grown strong, to which the sons of the North bowed, and which, with firm hand, knew how to rescue for the future the goods of civilisation, and preserve them during the centuries of subversion. This power was the Christian Church. What the State could not do, what art and science could not achieve, religion accomplished.
Inaccessible still for the fine workings of aesthetic imagination and abstract thought, the Germans were laid hold of in their deepest filings by the preaching of the gospel, which worked upon them with all the power of its grand simplicity.
Only from this point of religious excitation, therefore, could the process of the appropriation of ancient science by the peoples of the Europe of to-day begin ; only at the hand of the Church could the new world enter the school of the old. The natural conse quence, however, of this relation was, that at first only that portion of the intellectual content of ancient civilisation remained alive
268
264 Mediaeval Philosophy. [Part IIL
which had been taken up into the doctrine of the Christian Church,, and that the teaching authority rigidly excluded all else, and espe cially that which was opposed to her. By this means, to be sure, confusion in the youthful mind of these nations, which would not have been able to comprehend and elaborate much and many kinds of material, was wisely guarded against; but thereby whole worlds of the intellectual life sank to the depth from which they could only be drawn forth again long after, by toil and conflict.
The Church had grown to its great task of becoming the educator of the European nations, first of all, because from the invisible beginnings of a religious society it had developed with steadily growing power to a unified organisation, which amid the dissolution of political life presented itself as the only power that was firm and sure of itself. And since this organisation was supported by the thought that the Church was called to become the means of bring ing the salvation of redemption to all humanity, the religious edu cation of the barbarians was a task prescribed by its own nature. But the Church was all the more able to take this in hand, since in her inner life she had proceeded with the same certainty amid numerous deviating paths, and had attained the goal of a unified and completed system of doctrine. To this was further added the especially favourable circumstance, that at the threshold of the new epoch she was presented with the sum-total of her convictions, worked out into the form of a thorough scientific system by a mind of the first order, — Augustine.
Augustine was the true teacher of the Middle Ages. Not only do the threads of Christian and Neo-Platonio thought, the_irloBf el Urigen and ot Plotinus, unite in his philosophy, but he also concen- . trated tne entire thought of his time with creative energy about the need of salvation and the fulfilment of this need by the church community. His doctrine is the philosophy of the Christian Church. Herewith was given, in pregnant unity, the system which became the basis of the scientific training of the European peoples, and in this form the Romanic and Germanic peoples entered upon the inheritance of the Greeks.
But for this reason the Middle Ages retraced in the reverse direc- tlon the path which the Greeks had gone over in their relations to science. Jn antiquity science had arisen from the pure aesthetic joy in knowledge itself, and had only gradually entered into the service of practical need, of ethical tasks, and of religious longings. The Middle Ages begins with the conscious subordination of knowledge tS the great ends of faith ;_ it sees in science at the beginning only the task of the intellect to make clear to itself and express in
Mediaeval Philosophy. 265
Abstract thought that which it possesses surely and unassailably In feeling and conviction. Kut in the midst of this work the joy in knowledge itself wakes anew, at first timorously and uncertainly, then with ever-increasing force and self-certainty; it unfolds itself at first scholastically, in fields which seem to lie far distant from faith's unassailable sphere of ideas, and at the end breaks through victoriously when science begins to define her limits as against
faith, philosophy hers as against theology, and to assume a con scious independent position.
The education of the European peoples, which the history of the lihiliisophv of the Middle Ages sets forth, has then lur its startlng-
l«>int the Church doctrine, and for its goal the dev"1"pTMfinti "f
Mi. ,
Under such conditions it is easy to understand that the history of this education awakens psychological interest and an interest connected with the history of civilisation, rather than presents new ami independent fruits of philosophical insight. In the appropria tion of the presented material the peculiar personality of the disciple may assert itself here and there ; the problems and con ceptions of ancient philosophy may, therefore, find many fine trans
formations when thus taken up into the spirit of the new peoples, and in forging out the new Latin terminology in the Middle Ages acuteness and depth often contend emulously with pedantry and insipidity ; but in its fundamental philosophical thoughts, medieval philosophy remains enclosed within the system of conceptions of the Greek and the Hellenistic-Roman philosophy, — not only as
regards its problems, but also as regards their solutions. Highly as we must estimate the worth of its labours for the intellectual education of European peoples, its highest achievements remain in the last instance just brilliant productions of scholars or disciples, not of masters, — productions in which only the eye of the most refined detailed investigation can discover the gently germinating beginnings of a new thought, but which show themselves to be, on the whole, an appropriation of the world of thought of the depart ing antiquity. Mediaeval philosophy is, in its entire spirit, solely the continuation of the Hellenistic-Roman, and the essential dis tinction between the two is that what in the first centuries of our era had been coming into existence amid struggles was, for the Middle Ages, given and regarded as something in the main complete sad definitive.
t. -ifntitje •ijiixii_ The intellectual civilisation of antiquity is brought to modern peoples in the religious form which it assumed at its close, and develops in them gradually the maturity for prop- rrly scientific work.
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2t»6 Mediceval Philosophy. [Part III.
This period, in which the humanity of today was at school, lasted a full thousand years, and as if in systematically planned pedagogic steps its education proceeds toward science by the suc cessive addition of ancient material of culture. Out of the antith eses which appear in this material grow the problems of philosophy, and the ancient conceptions taken up and amplified give the form to the scientific theories of the world prevalent in the Middle Ages.
An original discord exists in this tradition between Xeo-PIatonism and the Church doctrine defended by Augustine, — a discord which indeed was not equally strong at all points, since Augustine in very essential points had remained under the control of Neo-Platonism, and yet a discord which amounted to an opposition with reference to the fundamental character of the relation of philosophy to faith. The system of Augustine is concentrated about the conception of the Church ; for it philosophy has as its main task to present the Church doctrine . is a scientific system, te pefohHoK TMA dm. ni^p a . in so far as it prosecutes this task mediaeval philosophy is the science of the schools, Scholasticism. The Xeo-PIatonic tendency, 6ft the contrary, takes the direction of guiding the individual, through knowledge, to blessed oneness of life with the deity : in. _so far as the science of the Middle Ages sets itself this end it is Mvsl i- cism.
Scholasticism and Mysticism accordingly supplement each other without being reciprocally exclusive. As the intuition of the Mystics may become a part of the Scholastic system, so the proclamation of the Mystics may presuppose the system of the Scholastics as its background. Throughout the Middle Ages, therefore, Mysticism is more in danger than Scholasticism of becoming heterodox ; but it would be erroneous to see in this an essential mark for distinguish- ing between the two. Scholasticism no doubt, in the main entirely orthodox but not only do the theories of the Scholastics diverge widely in the treatment of dogmas which are still in the process of formulation, but many of the Scholastics, even in the scientific investigation of the doctrines which were given, pro ceeded to completely heterodox theories, the expression of which brought them into more or less severe conflicts without and within. As regards Mysticism, the Neo-Platonic tradition often forms the theoretical background of the secret or open opposition offered to the monopolising of the religious life on the part of the Church;1
Cf. H. Keuter, Oeschichtt dtr religidsen Aufklarung im MitUlalter, vols. (Berlin, 1876-77). Cf. also H. v. Eicken, Oeschichte tier mittelalterlichen Welt anschauung (Stuttgart, 1888).
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2
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Mediaeval Philotophy. 267
bat we meet on the other hand enthusiastic Mystics who feel them selves called to take the true faith into their protection against the excesses of Scholastic science.
It appears thus to be inappropriate to give to the philosophy of the Middle Ages the general name of " Scholasticism. " It might rather prove, as the result of a more exact estimate, that in the maintenance of scientific tradition as well as in the slow adaptation and transformation of those philosophical doctrines which were effective for the after time, a part belongs to Mysticism which is at least as great as the part played by Scholasticism, and that on the other hand a sharp separation of the two currents is not practicable in the case of a great number of the most prominent philosophic thinkers of the Middle Ages.
Finally, it must be added that even when we put together Scholas ticism and Mysticism, we have in nowise exhausted the character istics of mediaeval philosophy. While the nature of both these tendencies is fixed by their relation to the religious presuppositions of thought, — in the one case the established doctrine of the Church,
in the other personal piety, — there runs along side by side with these, especially in the later centuries of the Middle Ages though noticeable still earlier, a secular side-current which brings in an in creasing degree the rich results of Greek and Roman experience of the world, to science building itself anew. Here, too, at the outset the effort prevails to introduce organically into the Scholastic system this extensive material and the forms of thought which are dominant in it; but the more this part of the sphere of thought develops into an independent significance, the more the entire lines of the scientific consideration of the world become shifted, and while the reflective interpretation and rationalisation of the relig ious feeling becomes insulated within itself, philosophical knowl edge begins to mark off anew for itself the province of purely theoretical investigation.
From this multiplicity of variously interwoven threads of tradi tion with which ancient science weaves its fabric on into the Middle Ages, we can understand the wealth of colour in which the philosophy of this thousand years spreads out before historical research. In the fraquent exchange of friendly and hostile contact, these elements of a tradition changing in compass and content from century to century play back and forth to form ever new pictures ; a surprising fineness in the transitions and shadings becomes developed as these elements are woven together, and thus there is developed also a wealth of life in the work of thought, which manifests itself in a
considerable number of interesting personalities,
in an astonishing
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268 Mediaeval Philosophy. [Part III
amount of literary production, and in a passionate agitation of scien tific controversies.
Such living variety in form has as yet by no means everywhere received full justice at the hands of literary-historical research,1 but the main lines of this development lie before us clearly and dis tinctly enough for the history of philosophic principles, which nevertheless finds but a meagre field in this period for the reasons already adduced. We must, indeed, be on our guard against aiming to reduce the complex movement of this process to formulas that are all too simple, and against overlooking the multitude of positive and negative relations that have come and gone in shifting forms between the elements of ancient tradition which found their en trance in the course of centuries by irregular intervals into mediaeval thought.
In general, the, course of science among the European peoples of the Middle Ages proceeded along the following lines.
The profound doctrine of Augustine had its first efficiency, not in the direction of its philosophical significance, but as an authoritative presentation of the doctrine of the Church. Side by side with this a Neo-Platonic Mysticism maintained itself, and scientific schooling was limited to unimi>ortant compendiums, and to fragments of the Aristotelian logic. Nevertheless, a logico-metaphysical problem of great importance developed from the elaboration of the logic, and about this problem arose a highly vigorous movement of thought, which, however, threatened to degenerate into barren for malism in consequence of the lack in knowledge to form the content of thought. In contrast with this the Augustinian psychology began gradually to assert its mighty force ; and at the same time the first effects of contact with Arabian science disclosed themselves, a science to which the West owed, primarily at least, a certain stimulus toward employment with realities, and further a complete widening
1 The grounds for this tie, certainly in part, in the but gradually vanishing prejudices which long stood in the way of a just appreciation of the Middle Ages ; but in no less a degree they lie also in this literature itself. The circum stantial and yet for the most part sterile prolixity of the investigations, the schematic uniformity of the methods, the constant repetition and turning of the arguments, the lavish expenditure of acuteness upon artificial and sometimes absolutely silly questions, the uninteresting witticisms of the schools, — all these are features which perhaps belong inevitably to the process of learning, appro priating, and practising, which mediaeval philosophy sets forth, but they bring with them the consequence that in the study of this part of the history of phi losophy the mass of the material, and the toil involved in its elaboration, stand in an unfavourable relation to the real results. So it has come about that just those investigators who have gone deeply, with industry and perseverance, into mediieval philosophy have often not refrained from a harsh expression of ill- humour as to the o"bject of their research.
Mediaeval Philosophy. 269
and transformation of its horizon. This development was in the main attached to the acquaintance gained by such by-ways with the entire system of Aristotle, and the immediate consequence of this - acquaintance was that the structure of Church doctrine was pro- / jected in the grandest style and carefully wrought out in all its/ parts with the help of his fundamental metaphysical conceptionsj Meanwhile Aristotelianism had been accepted from the Arabians (and Jews) not only in their Latin translation, but also with their commentaries, and in their interpretation which was under strong Neo- Platonic influence ; and while by this means the Neo-Platonic elements in previous tradition, even in the Augustinian form, found vigorous confirmation in various directions, the specific elements of the Augustinian metaphysics were forced into sharper and more energetic expression, in violent reaction against the Neo-Platonic tendency. Thus while both sides lean upon Aristotelianism, a cleft in scientific thought is produced, which finds its expression in the separation of theology and philosophy. This cleft became widened by a new and not less complicated movement. Empirical research
in medicine and natural science had also made its way from the East, hand in hand with Aristotelianism ; it began now to rise also among the European peoples ; it conquered the domain of psychology not without assistance from the Augustinian current, and favoured the development of the Aristotelian logic in a direction which led far from the churchly Aristotelian metaphysics. And while thus the interwoven threads of tradition were separating on all sides, the fine filaments of new beginnings were already finding their way into this loosening web.
With such various relations of mutual support or retardation, and with such numerous changes of front, the thoughts of ancient philosophy move through the Middle Ages ; but the most important and decisive turn was doubtless the reception ofAristotelianism, which became complete about the year 1200. This divides the whole field naturally into two sections which in their philosophical import are so related that the interests and the problems, the antitheses and the movements, of the first period are repeated in broader, and at the same time deeper, form in the second. The relation of these two divisions, therefore, cannot be generally designated in this case by differences in the subject matter.
CHAPTER I. FIRST PERIOD.
(Until about 1200. ) i/oo - ife*°
W. Kaulicli, Geschichte der scholastichen Philotophie, I. Theil. Prague, 1863.
The line of thought in which mediaeval philosophy essentially moved, and in which it continued the principles of the philosophy of antiquity, was prescribed for it by the doctrine of Augustine. He had moved the principle of internality (Innerlkhkeit). which had been preparing in the whole closing development of ancient science, for tfrp fixat *iTM" '"+" th« p. nntrolling central position of philosophic thought, and the position to which he is entitled in the history of philosophy is that of the beginner of a new line of development. For the bringing together of all lines of the Patristic as well as' the Hellenistic philosophy of his time, which he com pletely accomplished, was possible only as these were consciously united in that new thought which was itself to become the germ of the philosophy of the future. But only of a more distant future : his philosophical originality passed over his contemporaries and the
,\ immediately following centuries without effect. Within the circuit jS\ J\ of the old civilisation the creative power of thought had become extinguished, and the new peoples could only gradually grow into
scientific work.
k ^ In the cloister and court schools which formed the seats of this
newly beginning civilisation, permission for instruction in dialectic by the side of the arts most necessary for the training of the clergy had to be conquered step by step. For this elementary logical instruction they possessed in the first centuries of the Middle Ages only the two least important treatises of the Aristotelian Organon, De Categoriis and De Interpretations, in a Latin translation with the introduction of Porphyry, and a number of commentaries of the Neo-Platonic time, in particular those of Boethius. For the material of knowledge (of the Quadrivium) they used the com- pendiums of departing antiquity, which had been prepared by Marcianus Capella, Cassiodorus, and-Isidorus of Sevilla. Of the
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270 "ice
Chap. 1. ]
First Period. 271
great original works of ancient philosophy, only the Platonic Timeeus in the translation of Chalcidius was known.
j "nder these circumstances, scientific activity in the schools was mainly directed toward learning and practising the schematism of rormal logic, and the treatment even of the material parts of knowl- edge, in particular of religious dogma which was indeed regarded as something essentially complete and in its contents unaftaa. ila. hlp, took the direction of elaborating and setting forth what was given and handed down by tradition, in the Forms and according to the rules ot the Aristoielian-Stoic logic, in this process the main em phasis must necessarily tail upon formal arrangement, upon the formation and division of class-concepts, upon correct syllogistic
conclusions. Already in the Orient the ancient school logic had been put into the service of a rigidly articulated development of Church doctrine by John Damascenus, and now this took place in the schools of the West also.
Meanwhile this pursuit, which had its basis in the conditions of the tradition, had not only the didactic value of a mental exercise in the appropriation of material, but also the consequence that the beginnings of independent reflection necessarily took the direction of an inquiry as to the significance of logical relations, and so we find emerging early in the Western literature, investigations as to the relation Of Llic UUlll'eption on the one hand, to the word, and on
tin- tlirrrgr
The problem thus formed became strengthened by a peculiar com
plication. By the side of the Church doctrine there persisted, half
tolerated and half condemned, a mystical transmission of Chris
tianity in Neo-Platonic form. It went back to writings which had
arisen in the fifth century, but which were ascribed to Dionysius
the Areopagite, and it gained wider extension when these writings
were translated in the ninth century by John Scotus Erigena, and
made the basis of his own doctrine. In this doctrine, however,
a main point was that identification of The different grades of ab-_ A
"■taction with the stages of metaphysical reality, which had been ««Iffanh propounded in the older flatonism and in Weo-riatonism
JeT**''
In consequence of these incitements the question as to the meta- ^ Vf <y vhfticai significance of logical genera l>ecame, duriny the next, centuries, jff
dkB centre of philosophic thought. About this were grouped the
otber logical and metaphysical problems, and the answer given to
this question decided the party position of individual thinkers. Amid the great variety of decisions given in this controversy over universal*, three tendencies are prominent :c3tealisrny which main-
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272 Mediaeval Philosophy. [Part III.
tains the independent existence of genera and species, is the doctrine of Anselm of Canterbury, of William of Champeaux, and of the Platonists proper, among whom Bernard- of Chartres is prominent ; Nominalism, which sees in universals only designations or terms
,vhich apply commonly, is defended in this period principally by
finally a mediating theory, which has been called 'onceptualism or' Sermonism, is attached principally to the name of
A^rJeTaT* '
"" xhese conflicts came to an issue principally in the endless dispu- tations at the Paris University, which for this period and on into the following period formed the centre of scientific life in Europe and these battles, conducted with all the arts of dialectical dexterity, exercised upon this age fascinating power like that which the disputes of the Sophists and Socratic circles had once exercised upon the Greeks. Here as there the unreflective life of the popular consciousness was awakened to thought, and here as there wider
•circles were seized by feverish thirst for knowledge, and by pas sionate desire to take part in such hitherto unwonted intellectual games. Far beyond the narrow circles of the clergy, who had pre-
Roscellinus^
\r viously been the transmitters of scientific tradition,, the impulse
toward knowledge, thus awakened, forced its way to the surface.
— But this excessive vigour in dialectical development found at the ' same time manifold opposition. In fact, hid within itself a seri
ous danger. This brilliant performance, in which abstract thought proved its power, lacked all basis of real knowledge. With its dis tinctions and conclusions was carrying on to a certain extent juggler's game in the open air, which indeed set the formal mental' powers into beneficial motion, but which, in spite of all its turns and windings, could lead to no material knowledge. Hence, from intelli- gent men like Gerbert, who had receivedTnformation from the empir ical studies of the Arabians, went out the admonition to abandon the formalism of the schools and turn to the careful examination of Nature and to the tasks of practical civilisation.
But while such call still echoed mainly unheard, dialectic met more forcible resistance in the piety of faith and in the power of the ChuxcJ*. —The result was inevitable that thfl1"(j;'"11 wnrlrj^g nvnr nf the metaphysics of the Church's faith, and the consequences which were developed ill tft~ Strife about SaSacaal^ — ajTTjTst-without any reference to their religious bearing, — should come into contradiction wit-.