At the darkening close of the patristic period, Gregory the Great was still partially creative in his barbarizing handling of patristic themes.[1] After his death, for some three centuries, theologians were to devote themselves to mastering the great heritage from the Church Fathers. It was still a time of racial antipathy and conflict. The disparate elements of the mediaeval personality were as yet unblended. How could the unformed intellect of such a period grasp the patristic store of thought in its integrity? Still less might this wavering human spirit, uncertain of itself and unadjusted to novel and great conceptions, transform, and so renew, them with fresh life. Scarcely any proper recasting of patristic doctrine will be found in the Carolingian period, but merely a shuffling of the matter. There were some exceptions, arising, as in the case of Eriugena, from the extraordinary genius of this thinker; or again from the narrow controversial treatment of a matter argued with rupturing detachment of patristic opinions from their setting and balancing qualifications.[2] But the typical works of the eighth and ninth centuries were commentaries upon Scripture, consisting chiefly of excerpts from the Fathers. The flower of them all was the compendious Glossa Ordinaria of Walafrid Strabo, a pupil of the voluminous commentator Rabanus Maurus.[3]
Through the tenth and eleventh centuries, one finds no great advance in the systematic restatement of Christian doctrine.[4] Nevertheless, two hundred years of devotion have been put upon it; and statements of parts of it occur, showing that the eleventh century has made progress over the ninth in its thoughtful and vital appropriation of Latin Christianity. A man like German Othloh has thought for himself within its lines;[5] Anselm of Canterbury has set forth pieces of it with a depth of reflection and intimacy of
- ↑ See post, Chapter V.
- ↑ The Predestination and Eucharistic controversies are examples; post, Chapter X.
- ↑ See post, Chapter X.
- ↑ The lack of originality in the first half of the tenth century is illustrated by the Epitome of Gregory's Moralia, made by such an energetic person as Odo of Cluny. It occupies four hundred columns in Migne's Patrologia Latina, 133. See post, Chapter XII.
- ↑ See post, Chapter XIII.
