he disclaims any idea of treating the two as coordinate :
yet in ethical and even in theological matters he repeatedly
confirms and, as it were, recommends the authority of
Scripture by that of Plato or of Latin antiquity, just as
though he had been the pupil of Abailard in other things
besides dialectic. John s classical predilections assisted
in his case a confusion of thought with which the happy
ambiguity of the word scriptura had a good deal to do.
Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, he would s like to understand of literature at large; and he quotes the maxim of saint Jerom, Love the knowledge of the Scriptures and thou wilt not love the lusts of the flesh, in proof of the advantage that springs from all reading. He is speaking now of the study of the classics, and warns us so to read them that authority do not prejudice to reason. Authority here is that of the
masters of antiquity, and reason is the mental faculty
considered as educated and enlightened by Christianity.
The typical opposites have for the moment changed places;
and the change is highly indicative of the regard in which
the classics could now be held even by men the correctness
of whose religious character was no less assured than was
that, let us say, of the arch-enemy of learning, the champion of a rustic faith, saint Peter Damiani, a century earlier.
John’s classical tastes had no small share in determining his attitude towards the philosophy and especially the dialectics of his time. We have seen from the language in which he concludes the narrative of his youthful studies, how dissatisfied he was with the prevalent method of teaching logic. The nominalists had brought it into vogue as a means of asserting the rights of human reason ; the realists had been driven to cultivate it in support of the religious tradition : but now both parties were subdued by the overmastering sway of argumentation. Dialectics had become not a means but an end ; its professors were interested not to discover truth but to prove their superiority over rival disputants. The result was a competitive
