THIRD PERIOD.

THE AGE OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

(CONTINUED).

THIRD DIVISION.

ANTHROPOLOGY.

§ 173.

GENERAL DEFINITIONS.

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THE Greek church adhered to the opinions of the earlier fathers, which were collected and more fully developed by John Damascenus. He, as well as most of the Western theologians, adopted the current twofold division into body and soul. While John Scotus Erigena regarded the bodily constitution of man, and even his condition as a creature, as a result of sin, John of Damascus and the disciples of the school of St. Victor, recognized in the union of the soul with the body a higher purpose of God, and a moral lesson for man." The theory designated as Creatianism, which had contested the victory with Traducianism during the preceding period, was now more precisely defined.* The psychological views of the mystics stood in a close relation with their entire system, founded upon subjective experience; and at all events, it had a greater tendency to lead into the depths of religious contemplation, than the subtleties of the scholastics, which had rather to do with what is external.

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1 On the one hand, cosmology was introduced into the doctrine of creation; on the other, both psychology and physiology were introduced into anthropology. With respect to the last two, theologians founded their notions especially upon the physics of Aristotle. Thus John Damascenus, De Fide Orthod. ii. 12-28, treated of the four temperaments (humoribus, xvuoic) of man, as corresponding to the four elements of the world; of the various faculties of the soul, etc. He everywhere retained the principal definitions

of earlier theologians concerning human liberty, etc. (Compare especially c. 25-28.)

* De Divis. Naturæ, iv. 10: Non enim homo, si non peccaret, inter partes. mundi administraretur, sed universitatem omnino sibi subditam administraret, nec corporeis his sensibus mortalis corporis ad illum regendum uteretur, verum sine ullo sensibili motu vel locali vel temporali, sola rationabili contuiter naturalium et interiorum ejus causarum facillimo rectæ voluntatis usu secundum leges divinas æternaliter ac sine errore gubernaret. [For a full exposition of the views of Erigena on body and soul, see Christlieb's work, Leben u. Lehre der Joh. Scot. Erigena, 1860, p. 248, sq. He rests on the Aristotelian view, that formless matter is incorporeal, and can only be known by reason. The body in relation to man is an accident. Omnis ovoía incorruptibilis est. Omne incorruptibile corpus materiale non est. Omnis igitur ovoía corpus materiale non est (De Div. Nat. i. 49). The body, he says, is made up of points, lines, surfaces, and solidity, all of which are incorporeal, etc.]

3 John Damascenus, 1. c. c. 12. According to Hugo of St. Victor, (quoted by Liebner, p. 395), the union of the soul with the body is a type of the mystical union of God with man. Richard of St. Victor adopted the same opinion (see Engelhardt, p. 181), which was also held by Peter Lombard (Sent. Lib. i. Dist. 3. 9., and Lib. ii. Dist. 17). Thomas Aquinas gave a more fully developed system of psychology. (Summa P. i. 9. 75–90. Cramer vii. p. 473.) [Comp. Plassmann, Psychologie d. Schule des Aquin.,

1860.

Anselm defended creatianism negatively, by opposing traducianism, De Conceptu Virginali, c. 7: Quod autem mox ab ipsa conceptione rationalem animam habeat (homo), nullus humanus suscipit sensus. Hugo St. Victor pronounced positively in favor of creatianism; de Sacram. Lib. i. P. vii. c. 30: fides catholica magis credendum elegit animas quotidie corporibus vivificandis sociandas de nihilo fieri, quam secundum corporis naturam et carnis humanæ proprietatem de traduce propagari. Comp. Liebner, p. 416. [Also in De Anima, ascribed to Hugo (see Note 5): Dicimus autem rationales animas pro essentia fieri quotidie de nihilo novas, sed pro consimili natura ex institutione divina non utique novas. Quales enim in exordio Deus die sexto masculo et feminæ dedit, tales quotidie inspirat singulis, nova de nihilo creatione, non nova institutione.] Robert Pulleyn brought forward some very singular and abstruse arguments against traducianism, see Cramer, vi. p. 474. Peter Lombard also espoused creatianism in decided terms, Sent. Lib. ii. Dist. 17. C.: De aliis (i. e., the souls posterior to Adam and Eve), certissime sentiendum est, quod in corpore creentur. Creando enim infundit eas Deus, et infundendo creat.-Thomas Aquinas, Summa P. i. Qu. 118, Art. 1, made a distinction between the anima sensitiva and anima intellectiva (which was similar to the distinction formerly made between pvx and πveõμa, or vous.) The former is propagated in a physical manner, inasmuch as it is allied to the physical; the latter is created by God. [Comp. Aquinas, Contra Gentes, ii. 89: Anima igitur vegetabilis, quæ primo inest, cum embryo vivit vita plantæ, corrumpitur, et succedit anima perfectior, quæ est nutritiva et sensitiva simul; et tunc embryo vivit vita animalis; hac autem

corrupta, succedit anima rationalis ab extrinseco immissa, licet præcedentes fuerint virtute seminis. Aquinas's chief argument (in Summa Theol. Pt. I. qu. 118, Art. 2, is, that an immaterial substance could only be produced by creation.] More precise definitions were given by Odo of Cambray (a. d. 1113), De Peccato Originali, Lib. ii. (in Maxima Biblioth. PP. Ludg. T. xxi. p. 230-34). Comp. Schröckh, xxviii. p. 436. He designated creatianism as the orthodox opinion.--Friar Berthold illustrated this theory in a popular way in his sermons, quoted by Kling, p. 209 (Grimm, p. 206): “ As life is given to the child in his mother's womb, so the angel pours the soul into him, and God Almighty pours the soul with the angel into him." The preexistence of the soul still had a defender in Fredegis of Tours, in the ninth century; see Ritter, Gesch. d. Phil. vii. 190, sq.

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Concerning the mystical psychological views of the disciples of the school of St. Victor, see Liebner, p. 334, ss. The three fundamental powers by which the soul knows, are imaginatio, ratio (rather understanding than reason), and intelligentia. Cogitatio corresponds to the first, meditatio to the second, and contemplatio to the third. [Hugo in his Comm. in Joelem (Schöpff's Aurora, iv. 38): Tria quoque sunt genera visionum; prima est materialis, secunda spiritualis, tertia intellectualis. Prima concipit elementata, secunda imaginata, tertia ab omni circumscriptione est aliena, utcunque Deum concipiens, virtutes quoque et vitia.] The treatise De Anima, Lib. iv., reprinted in Opp. Hugonis Ed. Rothomag. T. ii. p. 132, ss., which was used as a compendium by the earlier scholastics no less than by the mystics, is sometimes attributed to IIugo of St. Victor, but has probably Alcherus, abbot of Stella (A. D. 1147), for its author. See Liebner, p. 493, ss., and Engelhardt, Dogmengeschichte ii. p. 119.-Bonaventura and Gerson adopted the same. psychological notions. According to the former, spiritual vision is the principal idea. We see all things in God through the medium of a supernatural light (comp. above, vol. 1, § 161.) He, too, distinguished between sensation, imagination, reason (understanding), intellectus, the highest faculty of the mind, and the synteresis, or conscience.-Gerson De Theol. Myst. consid. x.-xxv.) divided the essence of the soul into two fundamental powers (vis cognitiva et vis affectiva.) Starting from its higher functions, he then divided the former as follows: intelligentia simplex (the pure faculty of intellectual vision), ratio (understanding), and sensualitas (the faculty of perception by the senses.) They are related to each other, as contemplatio, meditatio, and cogitatio. The highest degree of the vis affectiva is the Synteresis,* the next is the appetitus rationalis, and the lowest is the appetitus animalis; see Hundeshagen, p. 37, ss., Ch. Schmidt, p. 76, ss. [Schwab's John Gerson, 1859.]

* Synteresis est vis animæ appetitiva, suscipiens immediate a Deo naturalem quandam inclinationem ad bonum, per quam trahitur insequi motionem boni ex apprehensione simplicis intelligentiæ præsentati, quoted by Liebner, p. 240. Comp. Bonavent. Compend. II. 51.

§ 174.

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

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The assertion of some of the earlier Greek theologians, that the vvxý, as such, is not immortal, but obtains immortality only from its connection with the veμa, was repeated in the Greek church by Nicolas of Methone.' In the West, the schoolmen generally taught the immortality of the soul as a theological truth; but the chief leaders of the scholastic sects, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, were at issue on the question, whether reason furnishes satisfactory proofs of that doctrine. Raimund of Sabunde rested belief in God, as well as belief in immortality, upon the idea of freedom, and the necessity of moral sanctions. But the advocates of Platonism, in particular, towards the close of the present period, were at much pains to prove the immortality of the soul, in opposition to the Aristotelians. At last, the Council of the Lateran, held A. D. 1513, under Pope Leo X., pronounced the natural immortality of the soul to be an article of faith, and discarded the distinction between theological and philosophical truths as untenable."

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John Damascenus taught (De Fide Orthod. ii. 12, p. 179), that the soul is álávaτoç. Nicolas of Methone, on the contrary, expressed himself as follows (Refut. p. 207 and 208, quoted by Ullmann, p. 89, 90): “It is not every soul that neither perishes nor dies, but only the rational, truly spiritual and divine soul, which is made perfect through virtue, by participating in the grace of God. For the souls of irrational beings, and still more, of plants, may perish with the things which they inhabit, because they can not be separated from bodies which are made up of parts, and may be dissolved into their elements." Compare with this passage what he said, Refut. p. 120 "If any created being is eternal, it is not so by and for itself, nor through itself, but by the goodness of God; for all that is made and created has a beginning, and retains its existence only through the goodness of the Creator."

2 The scholastics, by closely adhering to Aristotle, were naturally led to the inquiry, in what sense their master himself had taught the immortality of the soul, in the definition he gave of its essence, viz., that it is Evтλéxeiα † πρÚTη OwμATOS øvσikov ópуavikov (De Anim. ii. 1); comp. Münscher, cdit. by Von Cölln ii. p. 90. But Christianity set forth the immortality of the soul in so convincing a manner, that it became necessary, either to return to the old distinction made between natural immortality, and that immortality which is communicated by grace, which was, however, possible only in connection with the threefold division (viz., body, soul and spirit), or to admit a collision between theological and philosophical truths. The distinction which Thomas Aquinas drew between anima sensitiva and anima intellectiva (§ 173, note 3), enabled him to ascribe immortality to the latter

alone. Comp. Summa P. 1. Qu. 76, Art. 6., where he in fact contented himself with saying: Animam humanam, quam dicimus intellectivum principium, esse incorruptibilem. But he also held that the intellectus alone is above space and time (hic et nunc), while the sensus moves in these categories and is restricted in its knowledge to the images (ideas, phantasms) borrowed from this sphere (intelligere cum phantasmate). As Anselm of Canterbury had inferred the existence of God himself from the idea of God, so Thomas Aquinas proved the immortality of the soul, in a similar manner, by an ontological argument: Intellectus apprehendit esse absolute et secundum omne tempus. Unde omne habens intellectum naturaliter desiderat esse semper. Naturale autem desiderium non potest esse inane. Omnis igitur intellectualis substantia est incorruptibilis. Com. Engelhardt, Dogmengeschichte ii. p. 123.-On the other hand, Scotus, whose views were more nearly allied to those of the nominalists, maintained: Non posse demonstrari, quod anima sit immortalis (Comm. in M. Sentent. L. II. Dist. 17. Qu. 1. Comp. Lib. iv. Dist. 43. Qu. 2). Bonaventura, on the contrary, asserted, De Nat. D. ii. 55: Animam esse immortalem, auctoritate ostenditur et ratione. Concerning the further attempts of Moneta of Cremona (who lived between the years 1220 and 1250), William of Auvergne (bishop of Paris from 1228 to 1249), and Raimund Martini (in his Pugio Fidei adv. Maur. P. i. c. 4), to prove the immortality of the soul, comp. Münscher, edit. by Von Cölln, p. 91, 92.

Theol. Naturalis Tit. 92: Quoniam ex operibus hominis, in quantum homo est, nascitur meritum vel culpa, quibus debetur punitio vel præmium, et cum homo, quamdiu vivat, acquirit meritum vel culpam, et de illis non recipit retributiones nec punitiones dum vivit, et ordo universi non patitur, quod aliquid quantumcunque modicum remaneat irremuneratum neque impunitum: ideo necesse est, quod remaneat liberum arbitrium, quo fiat radix meritorum et culparum, ut recipiat debitum et rectam retributionem sive punitionem: quod fieri non posset, nisi remaneret liberum arbitrium. Unde cum culpa vel meritum remanet post mortem, necesse est etiam quod maneat liberum arbitrium, in quo est culpa vel meritum, et cui debetur punitio sive retributio, et in quo est capacitas præmii vel punitionis.

* Marsilius Ficinus, De Immortalitate Anime Libri xviii. (Opp. Par. 641. fol.) an extract from which is given by Buhle (Geschichte der neuern Philosophie, vol. ii. p. 171-341.) "This work," says Gieseler, Dogmengesch. 498, "is the one among all that are extant, containing the greatest variety of proofs of the spirituality and immortality of the soul."

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Acta Concil. Reg. T. xxxiv. (Par. 1644. fol.) p. 333, quoted by Münscher, ed. by Von Cölln, p. 92, 93.

§ 175.

MAN IN HIS STATE OF INNOCENCE PRIOR TO THE FALL.

It was one of the characteristic features of scholasticism, to waste the greatest amount of acuteness upon those parts of doctrinal