History of the Conflict Between Religion and ScienceDraper, John William
Religion
History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science
Draper, John William
Religion and science -- History
The coexistence of three religions in Andalusia--the Christian, the
Mohammedan, the Mosaic--had given opportunity for the development of
Averroism or philosophical Arabism. This was a repetition of what had
occurred at Rome, when the gods of all the conquered countries were
confronted in that capital, and universal disbelief in them all ensued.
Averroes himself was accused of having been first a Mussulman, then a
Christian, then a Jew, and finally a misbeliever. It was affirmed that
he was the author of the mysterious book "De Tribus Impostoribus."
In the middle ages there were two celebrated heretical books, "The
Everlasting Gospel," and the "De Tribus Impostoribus." The latter was
variously imputed to Pope Gerbert, to Frederick II., and to Averroes.
In their unrelenting hatred the Dominicans fastened all the blasphemies
current in those times on Averroes; they never tired of recalling the
celebrated and outrageous one respecting the eucharist. His writings had
first been generally made known to Christian Europe by the translation
of Michael Scot in the beginning of the thirteenth century, but long
before his time the literature of the West, like that of Asia, was full
of these ideas. We have seen how broadly they were set forth by Erigena.
The Arabians, from their first cultivation of philosophy, had been
infected by them; they were current in all the colleges of the three
khalifates. Considered not as a mode of thought, that will spontaneously
occur to all men at a certain stage of intellectual development, but as
having originated with Aristotle, they continually found favor with men
of the highest culture. We see them in Robert Grostete, in Roger Bacon,
and eventually in Spinoza. Averroes was not their inventor, he merely
gave them clearness and expression. Among the Jews of the thirteenth
century, he had completely supplanted his imputed master. Aristotle had
passed away from their eyes; his great commentator, Averroes, stood in
his place. So numerous were the converts to the doctrine of emanation
in Christendom, that Pope Alexander IV. (1255) found it necessary to
interfere. By his order, Albertus Magnus composed a work against the
"Unity of the Intellect." Treating of the origin and nature of the
soul, he attempted to prove that the theory of "a separate intellect,
enlightening man by irradiation anterior to the individual and surviving
the individual, is a detestable error." But the most illustrious
antagonist of the great commentator was St. Thomas Aquinas, the
destroyer of all such heresies as the unity of the intellect, the denial
of Providence, the impossibility of creation; the victories of "the
Angelic Doctor" were celebrated not only in the disputations of the
Dominicans, but also in the works of art of the painters of Florence
and Pisa. The indignation of that saint knew no bounds when Christians
became the disciples of an infidel, who was worse than a Mohammedan.
The wrath of the Dominicans, the order to which St.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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