• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 3312 0

basis for St Augustine's political philosophy. Then came the barbarian invasion, followed by a long time of confusion and increasing ignorance. Between Boethius and St Anselm, a period of over five centuries, there is only one eminent philosopher, John the Scot, and he, as an Irishman, had largely escaped the various processes that were moulding the rest of the Western world. But this period, in spite of the absence of philosophers, was not one during which there was no intellectual development. Chaos raised urgent practical problems, which were dealt with by means of institutions and modes of thought that dominated scholastic philosophy, and are, to a great extent, still important at the present day. These institutions and modes of thought were not introduced to the world by theorists but by practical men in the stress of conflict. The moral reform of the Church in the eleventh century, which was the immediate prelude to the scholastic philosophy, was a reaction against the increasing absorption of the Church into the feudal system. To understand the scholastics we must understand Hildebrand, and to understand Hildebrand we must know something of the evils against which he contended. Nor can we ignore the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire and its effect upon European thought.

For these reasons, the reader will find in the following pages much ecclesiastical and political history of which the relevance to the development of philosophic thought may not be immediately evident. It is the more necessary to relate something of this history as the period concerned is obscure, and is unfamiliar to many who are at home with both ancient and modern history. Few technical philosophers have had as much influence on philosophic thought as St Ambrose, Charlemagne, and Hildebrand. To relate what is essential concerning these men and their times is therefore indispensable in any adequate treatment of our subject.

* * *

Part I

The Fathers

* * *

1

THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE JEWS

The Christian religion, as it was handed over by the late Roman Empire to the barbarians, consisted of three elements: first, certain philosophical beliefs, derived mainly from Plato and the Neoplatonists, but also in part from the Stoics; second, a conception of morals and history derived from the Jews; and third, certain theories, more especially as to salvation, which were on the whole new in Christianity, though in part traceable to Orphism, and to kindred cults of the Near East.

The most important Jewish elements in Christianity appear to me to be the following:

1. A sacred history, beginning with the Creation, leading to a consummation in the future, and justifying the ways of God to man.

2. The existence of a small section of mankind whom God specially loves. For Jews, this section was the Chosen People; for Christians, the elect.

3. A new conception of 'righteousness'. The virtue of almsgiving, for example, was taken over by Christianity from later Judaism. The importance attached to baptism might be derived from Orphism or from oriental pagan mystery religions, but practical philanthropy, as an element in the Christian conception of virtue, seems to have come from the Jews.

4. The Law. Christians kept part of the Hebrew Law, for instance the Decalogue, while they rejected its ceremonial and ritual parts. But in practice they attached to the Creed much the same feelings that the Jews attached to the Law. This involved the doctrine that correct belief is at least as important as virtuous action, a doctrine which is essentially Hellenic. What is Jewish in origin is the exclusiveness of the elect.

5. The Messiah. The Jews believed that the Messiah would bring them temporal prosperity, and victory over their enemies here on earth; moreover, he remained in the future. For Christians, the Messiah was the historical Jesus, who was also identified with the Logos of Greek philosophy; and it was not on earth, but in heaven, that the Messiah was to enable his followers to triumph over their enemies.

6. The Kingdom of Heaven. Other-worldliness