and was only induced to withdraw the opinion by a threat
and a reminder of Abailard’s fate.
Thus, with whatever limitations and reserves on the part of professed theologians, there was a general tendency among scholars to take the motive of their theology from philosophy. Christianity was put into a Neo-Platonic setting; and if the result was in some ways fantastic, it was not the less a distinct gain, in an age when everything tended towards a coarse materialism, to have a philosophy which should bring into relief those spiritual and ideal elements of Christianity which have in all times been in danger of suppression under the weight of an organised dogmatic system. It was that characteristic of the Creator so emphatically seized in the Timaeus, namely his essential goodness, which was adopted as paramount by the Platonists of the twelfth century, as it had been by John Scotus in the ninth.[1] The thought passed into current theology and could not fail of influence as a counterweight to those dark theories of the divine government which lingered on, partly believed, never entirely disowned, from the predestinaiianism of Augustin. Augustin has indeed
- ↑ It was in this way that Abailard could consider the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost, as consisting in a denial of God s Goodness : Heloissae Problem, xiii. Opp. 1. 256 sq. No doubt the same sense of God a absolute goodness led him to reject the doctrine of redemption as elaborated by saint Anselm, and to maintain that the work of Christ consisted in attaching mankind to God by the bond of love. See especially the Sententiae (Epitome theologiae Christianae), cap. xxiii. Opp. 2. 569 sqq. Remusat’s treatment of the whole subject, vol. 2. 402-451, is full of interest. Compare Deutsch 367-387 : Was bei Abalard wirklich fehlt, ist der Begriff der stellver-tretenden Genugthuung in dem Sinne dass die Vergebung der Sünden dadurch bedingt war, dass die Strafe derselben von Christo anstatt der Menschen getragen wurde, p. 383.
Spiritus sanctus, id est, divina et benigna concordia que est id a quo omnia habent esse, moveri, crescere, sentire, vivere, discernere. Qui bene dicitur naturalis vigor, quia divino amore omnia crescunt et vigent. Qui bene dicitur anima mundi, quia solo divino amore et caritate omnia que in mundo sunt vivunt et habent vivere. . . Quedam vegetat et facit sentire, ut bruta animalia, quedam facit discernere, ut homines, una et eadem manens anima ; sed non in omnibus exercet eamdem potentiam, et hoc tarditate et natura corporum faciente, undo Virgilius : Quantum non noxia corpora tardant.
