PART II. widely as possible, even kings and emperors order- CENT. XIV. ed the works of Aristotle to be translated into the native language of their respective dominions. Among the most eminent of this class was Charles V. king of France, who ordered all the writings of the ancients, and especially those of Aristotle, to be translated into French by Nicholas Oresme." Those however who professed themselves philosophers, instead of being animated by the love of truth, were inflamed by a rage of disputation, which led them to perplex and deform the pure, simple doctrines of reason and religion, by a multitude of idle subtilties, trifling questions, and ridiculous distinctions. It is needless to enlarge on the barbarity of their phraseology, in which they supposed the whole strength of their art consisted; as also on that utter aversion to every branch of polite learn. ing in which they foolishly gloried. Those who have a mind to be acquainted with their methods of argumentation, and whatever else relates to this wrangling tribe, need only consult John Scotus, or Walter Bulæus. But though they all followed one common track, there were several points on which they differed among themselves. and nominal VII. The old disputes between the realists and The realists nominalists, which had lain dormant a long time, ists. were now revived with unextinguishable ardour, by an English franciscan friar of the severer order, named William Occam, who was a follower of the great Scotus, and a doctor of divinity at Paris. The Greeks and Persians never fought against each other with more hatred and fury, than these two discordant sects, whose angry disputations subsisted without any abatement, till the appearance of Luther, who soon obliged the scholastic divines to w Jo. Launoius, Hist. Gymnas. Navarr. tom. iv. opp. pars i. p. 504. Boulay, Histor. Acad. Paris. tom. iv. p. 379. Le Boeuf, Dissert. sur Hist. Eccles. et Civile, Par, tom. iii. p. 456, 463, s. PART II. CENT. XIV. terminate their mutual wranglings, and to listen to terms of accommodation. The realists despised their antagonists as philosophers of a recent date, branding them with the name of moderns, while, through a great mistake, they ascribed a very high antiquity to the tenets of their own party. The nominalists, on the other hand, inveighed against them as a set of doating visionaries, who, despising substantial matters, were pursuing mere shadows. The nominalists had the most eloquent, acute, and subtile doctors of Paris for their leaders, among whom, beside Occam, the famous John Buridan was very eminent; nevertheless, through the countenance given them by successive popes, the realists prevailed. For when Occam joined the party of the franciscan monks, who strenuously opposed John XXII. that pope himself, and his successors after him, left no means untried to extirpate the philosophy of the nominalists, which was deemed highly prejudicial to the interests of the church ;" and hence it was, that in the year 1339, the university of Paris, by a public edict, solemnly condemned and prohibited the philosophy of Occam, which was that of the nominalists. But as it is natural for men to love and pursue what is forbidden, the consequence was, that the party of the nominalists flourished more than ever. Astrology mingles itself losophy of the VIII. Among the philosophers of these times, with the phi- there were many who mingled astrology with their times, and is philosophy, i. e. the art of telling fortunes by the aspect of the heavens, and the influence of the stars; considered as magic. * Rob. Guaginus wrote a particular account of this famous man, as we learn from Jo. Launoius, in his Historia Gymnasii Navarreni, tom. iv. opp. part i. p. 722, see also p. 296, 297, 530, and Boulay, Histor. Acad. Paris. tom. iv. p. 282, 307, 341, &c. y Steph. Baluzii Miscellanea, tom. iv. p. 532. z Boulay, Hist. Acad. Paris. tom. iv. p. 257, tom. v. p. 708. Car. Pless d'Argentre, Collectio judiciorum de novis erroribus, &c. see Mo PART II. and notwithstanding the obvious folly and absurd- CENT. XIV. ity of this pretended science, all ranks of people, from the highest down to the lowest, were fond of it even to distraction. Yet, in spite of all this popular prejudice in favour of their art, these astrological philosophers, to avoid being impeached of witchcraft, and to keep themselves out of the hands of the inquisitors, were obliged to behave with great circumspection. The neglect of this caution was remarkably fatal to Ceccus Asculanus, a famous peripatetic philosopher, astrologer, and mathematician, first of all physician to pope John XXII. and afterward to Charles Sineterra, duke of Calabria. This unhappy man having performed some experiments in mechanics, that seemed miraculous to the vulgar, and having also offended many, and among the rest his master, by giving out some predictions which were said to have been fulfilled, was universally supposed to deal with infernal spirits, and burnt for it by the inquisitors at Florence, in the year 1337. There is yet extant a commentary of his upon the Sphere of John de Sacrobosco, otherwise named Holywood, which shows its author to have been deeply tainted with superstition." IX. Raymund Lully was the author of a new and The philoso very singular kind of philosophy, which he en- Phy of Lully. deavoured to illustrate and defend by his voluminous writings. He was a native of Majorca, and admirable for the extent and fecundity of his genius; yet, at the same time, a strange compound of reason and folly. Being full of zeal for the propagation of the gospel, and having performed many * Paul Anton. Appianus wrote a defence of this unhappy man, which is inserted in Domen. Bernini Storia di tutte l'heresie, tom. iii. see. xiv. cap. iii. p. 210, s. We have also a further account of him in Jo. Maria Crescimbenus, Commenturi della volgar. Poesia, vol. ii. part ii. lib. iii. cap. xiv. b Gabr. Naudæus, Apologie pour les grands hommes qui ont ete soupsonnez de Magie, p. 270, s. PART II. CENT. XIV. Voyages, and undergone various hardships to promote it, he was slain at Bugia, in Africa, in the year 1315, by the mahometans, whom he was attempting to convert. The franciscans, to whose third order it is said he belonged, extol him to the skies, and have taken great pains to persuade several popes to canonize him; while many on the contrary, and especially the dominicans, inveigh bitterly against him, calling him a hairbrained chymist, a hotheaded fanatic, a heretic, a magician, and a mere compiler of the works of the more learned mahometans. The popes entertained different opinions of him; some esteeming him a harmless pious man, while others pronounced him a vile heretic. But whoever peruses the writings of Lully without prejudice, will not be biassed by either of these parties. It is at least certain, that he would have been a great man, had the warmth and fertility of his imagination been tempered with a sound judgment.c • See John Salzinger's preface to Raymund Lully's Works, which John William, elector Palatine, caused to be collected at a great ex pense, and to be published, in 1720, in five folio volumes. Luc. Waddingus, Annal. Minor. tom. iv. p. 421, tom. v. p. 157, 316, tom. vi. p. 229. Concerning the famous invention of Lully, see Dan. Georg. Morhofius, Polyhistoire, lib. ii. cap. v. p. 352, s. CHAPTER II. CONCERNING THE DOCTORS AND GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH I. PART II. state of the 1. THE governors of the church in this period, CENT. XIV, from the highest to the lowest orders, were addicted to vices peculiarly dishonourable to their sa- The corrupt cred character. We shall say nothing of the Gre- clergy. cian and oriental clergy, who lived, for the most part, under a rigid, severe, and oppressive government, though they deserve their part in this heavy and ignominious charge. But with regard to the Latins our silence would be inexcusable, since the flagrant abuses that prevailed among them were attended with consequences equally pernicious to the interests of religion and the well being of civil society. It is however necessary to observe, that there were, even in these degenerate times, several pious and worthy men, who ardently longed for a reformation of the church, both in its head and members, as they used to express themselves. Laudable as these desires undoubtedly were, many circumstances concurred to prevent their accomplishment; such as the exorbitant power of the popes, so confirmed by length of time that it seemed immoveable, the excessive superstition that enslaved the minds of the generality, together with the wretched ignorance and barbarity of the age, by which every spark of truth was stifled, as it were, in its very birth. Yet, firm and lasting as the do, minion of the Roman pontiffs seemed to be, it was gradually undermined and weakened, partly by d Matt. Flacius, Catalogo testium veritatis, lib. xiii. p. 1697. Jo. Launoius, De varia fortuna Aristotelis, p. 217. Jo, Henr. Hottingeri Historia Eccles. Sæc. xiv. p. 754. |