Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 679

Chap. V]

PREMATURELY CLAIMED TRIUMPH

§ 103.

beincT bears the

name

of Scholasticism,

which name

655 is

derived

from docere in scola, and for this reason Scholasticism is also At first acconnected with the rise of the universities. quaintance the classical world did not stand high in the The beautiful in the world of old Hellas general esteem. and the virility in the world of old Rome was not loved by This love flamed up only the Middle Ages and Scholastics. when the Byzantine scholars fled from Turkish violence into Italy,

and when,

as a fruit of their activity.

Humanism made

No, the Scholastics cared less for Homer, ^schyits entry. lus, Virgil and Horace, than for Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. On the first acquaintance with the works of Greece's great philosophers especially, it was soon evident that these men were profounder students than the clergy of the times. And

knew too

Greek to read Aristotle by their acquaintance with the thinker of Stagira about such an impression as a Zulu necrro must receive from a visit to the arsenal at Woolwich. What were the weapons they had thus far used, when compared to the rich supply of arms from the arsenal of Aristotle ? And as the Christian knights were inspired to high exploits by crusade upon crusade undertaken against Islam, the sight

since these Scholastics

little

at once in the original, they obtained

of this glittering arsenal in the writings of Aristotle

made

the

scholars of those days quickly cast aside the sling and stone and immediately arm themselves with the lances of Aristotle's categories

and with the armor

of his distinctions,

so to gain trophies for their Christian faith. they foresaw none of the danger this implied.

and

At the outset As yet they

perceived nothing of what was to come to light in Abelard, They in the Nominalists, and presently in the Humanists. did not surmise that the Greek-Roman tradition held a spirit peculiar to itself, and that when once called out from its

grave this spirit would soon prove able to enlist once more the sympathies of thinking minds, and for a second time let loose against the Church the old enemy which had spoken in

They thought they were simply dealwith the armor of a buried hero, and that they had a perfect right to appropriate this armor to themselves. Celsus and Porphyry.

ino-

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