investigation, the less power it would have in suppressing the dialectical tendency which was so deeply rooted in the spirit of the age. Nor was the mystic Joachim equal to a contest with the dialecticians in the dogmatical province. Pope Innocent the Third, who had himself studied under the Parisian theologians, and in whose canonical decisions the scholastic form there acquired is doubtless to be recognized, pronounced in favor of Peter Lombard at the Lateran council, in the year 1215. But the mystical bent of theology was not less deeply rooted in the very spirit of these centuries than the dialectic; nor had either power enough to overcome the other. And it greatly contributed to promote a healthy action of the spiritual life, that they should mutually act as checks on each other, and mutually supply each other's defects. The dialectic theology, without some such check, would have become, through the excessive predominance of the notional conception, too far estranged from the life of the heart; and the mystic theology, by reason of the great uniformity of feelings, intuitions, and thoughts moving in a narrow circle; the excessive license, the vague, undefined, and fluxional character of its matter, would have proved injurious to the spiritual life. It was necessary that it should be closely accompanied with a stronger tendency to the objective, a more severe and discriminating mode of thought, a richer fund of ideas. One of Bernard's contemporaries was the German mystic, abbot Rupert of Deutz, but not to be compared with him for force and depth. He was the author of a diffuse commentary, full of arbitrary, allegorizing expositions on various books of Scripture and passages of sacred history. Another writer deserving to be mentioned here is Richard, who went from Scotland, united with the Victorines in Paris, became a disciple of Hugo, and was prior in that foundation till his death, in the year 1173. Though he had not so much to do with the movements of the dialectic theology as his teacher Hugo, yet, by his uniting a speculative element with the contemplative, we see that he was a true disciple of the latter. He would by no means prohibit reason and the intellect from attempting to explore into divine things. But he considers purification of the heart a necessary prerequisite in order to correctness of understanding. He holds it necessary that the matter known, should be a matter of the heart, something that determines the affections; that reason should be conscious of its own limits, should learn how to distinguish things relatively and absolutely suprarational from those which it is capable of knowing out of itself; and, with Bernard, he believes in a stage of ecstatic intuition, not mediated by any process of thought, but exalted above thought. The mystic theology led man from the outward world into that inner sanctuary of the spirit which is akin to God; from the depths of self-knowledge conducted him to the heights of the knowledge of God. "The rational mind," says Richard, " finds, without doubt, in itself the most annon nihil, Christus annon Christus sit nescis. Du Boulay, Hist. univers. Paris, t. ii, f. 402, where he gives extracts from the four books of this work. 412 MAXIMS AND THOUGHTS OF RICHARD DE ST. VICTOR. excellent mirror wherein to see God. For if God's invisible essence may be known from his works, where can we find those marks that lead to the knowledge of him more clearly stamped than in that which is his own image? Every one, therefore, who longs to see God, should cleanse the mirror of his own spirit.' Nothing," says he, "is capable of judging correctly, which does not know itself. He knows not how all the glory of the world lies under his feet, who has not learned to estimate the dignity of his own nature. If thou art not yet capable of entering into thyself, how wilt thou be capable of exploring what is within thee, and above thee."2 "The truth imparted by the divine grace of knowledge," says he, "must be stamped also by our own efforts, under the coöperation of divine grace, upon our inclinations. What better is the science of holiness without a good disposition, than a picture without life ?"4 In that which constitutes the object of faith, he distinguishes what is above reason, and aside of reason (the supra rationem and the praeter rationem); but adds, that the latter holds of the relation to human, not of the relation to the divine reason.5 "As it respects the truths of revelation which are above reason, all evidences and analogies fall short of them, it is true; but to him who has once been conducted by revelation to faith, reasons and analogies flow in abundance from all sides, which serve for the confirmation or defence of his convictions." But those other truths, to which he applies the predicate praeter rationem, seem to have all analogies and all rational grounds against them. He distinguishes the three following stages of religious development: that in which God is seen by faith; that in which he is known by reason; that in which he is beheld by contemplation.8 "To the first and second stages men may ascend; but to the third they can never arrive except by ecstatic transportation of the spirit above itself. The soul, raised above itself, beholds things too high for reason in the light of the Godhead, where the thinking reason retires back."10 This highest moment of inspiration, he considers, it is true, as a thing not to be attained by any efforts, as something which is solely the gift of God. Yet he says: "None obtain so great grace without strenuous efforts, and ardent 1 De praeparatione animi ad contemplationem, c. lxxii. rat. Nihil recte aestimat, qui seipsum ignoNescit quam sub pedibus suis omnis mundana gloria jaceat, qui conditionis suae dignitatem non pensat. Si nondum idoneus es, quomodo ad illa rimanda idoneus eris, quae sunt intra vel supra temetipsum. De contemplatione, c. vi. 3 Veritatis imago, quae ex inspirante gratia impressa est cognitioni, per humanam industriam et coöperantem gratiam imprimatur et affectioni. De statu interioris hominis, c. xxvi. Scientia sanctitatis sine intentione bona quid aliud est quam imago sine vita? De eruditione hominis interioris, c. xxxviii. 5 Quicquid enim in illa summa et divina essentia esse constiterit, summa et incom. mutabili ratione subsistit. De contemplatione, c. iii. Fideli menti multae undique rationes occurrunt, multa denique argumenta emergunt. 7 Tam exempla quam argumenta contradicunt. L. c. Aliter Deus videtur per fidem, aliter cognoscitur per rationem, atque aliter cernitur per contemplationem. Nisi per mentis excessum supra seipsos rapti numquam pertingunt. 10 Mens enim ad illud, quod supra se, elevata et in extasi rapta, de divinitatis lumine conspicit, omnis humana ratio succumbit. GUIGO. UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 413 longing." And he supposes such a connection of this loftiest ecstatic moment with the whole of consciousness, that one may afterwards, by thought, reproduce the matter of such intuitions, and bring them down. to the common understanding by rational arguments and illustrations (the squrveia of the plaiooa). But he declaims against certain false philosophers who appeared in these times (among whom he would doubtless include Abelard), men whose sole aim was to invent something new, and get themselves a name; whose wisdom was born and died with themselves. To show the vanity of these endeavors, he points to such examples of conversion among the disciples of this sham wisdom as have been mentioned on a former page.3 That once glorious wisdom of the world has so utterly become foolishness, that we see every day countless numbers, who once professed it, begin to deride and abhor it, desiring to know nothing save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Behold, how many that formerly labored in the shop of Aristotle, following a sounder conviction, learn finally to labor in the office of our Saviour.”4 The "Meditations" of Guigo" (the fifth prior of the Carthusians, one of Bernard's earlier contemporaries) are especially distinguished for an ethical element of mysticism. "The more noble and mighty any creature is," says he, among other things, "the more willingly does he subject himself to the truth; nay, his nobleness and his might depend on this very self-subjection to the truth. The way to God is easy, for a man walks in it by unburdening himself. It would be hard, were it necessary for him to take up a load. Throw off, then, every burden, by denying all else, and thyself." It is not to be doubted that in the great metropolis of scientific and theological education at Paris, the powerful influence of the Victorine school on the interior life was greatly needed, to counteract the ungodly courses pursued by the theologians who fell in with the tendency to a dead, formal knowledge; for we hear those who were most zealously devoted to the interests of the church, complaining that the lives of both teachers and pupils were in direct contradiction to a study professing to relate wholly to divine things. Jacob of Vitry, who had himself studied at Paris, depicts in the most vivid colors the loose morals of the students, by whom the more seriously disposed were hooted at with contempt; the worldly tastes, jealousies, envyings, and cupidity of the teachers, whose knowledge he likens to sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.7 De praeparatione animi ad contemplationem, c. lxxiii et lxxiv. * Id quod per excessum mens vidit multa retractatione vehementique discussione capabile seu etiam comprehensibile sibi efficit et tum rationum attestatione, tum similitudinum adaptatione ad communem intelligentiam deducit,- or in other words: Theophaniam raptim perceptam ad communem intelligentiam paululum inclinamus. contemplatione, c. xii. Page 358. De 4 L. c. c. ii. In the Biblioth. patr. Lugd. t. xxii. Facile est iter ad Deum, quoniam exonerando itur. Esset autem grave, si onerando iretur. In tantum ergo te exonera, ut dimissis omnibus, te ipsum abneges. Jacob of Vitry in his Historia occidentalis, c. vii, p. 277, seqq.: Tunc autem amplius in clero quam in alio populo dissoluta pernitiosa exempla multos hospites undique ad eam affluentes corrumpebant. - In PETER CANTOR AGAINST WORLDLINESS IN THE CHURCH. 414 In the last times of the twelfth century, Peter Cantor, a man with the spirit of a reformer, and a practical, scriptural turn of mind, held a prominent place among the Victorines. He had his surname from the office which he filled in that foundation. Afterwards, from the year 1194, he was bishop of Tournay. He fought with great earnestness against secularization in the church; he saw the impossibility of effecting a renovation of church life without an improvement in theological studies. For the instruction and admonition of the young men that consecrated themselves to the service of the church, he composed his Summa, a work treating for the most part of moral and ecclesiastical matters. The same Jacob of Vitry, who so vividly described the corruption of the Parisian theologians, signalizes him as a light that shone far and wide; a man, who accomplished so much the greater things, as his life and his teaching were both of a piece. He declared himself opposed to that mode of treating theology which chiefly busied itself with vain and fruitless questions, to the neglect of those matters which tended to the sanctification and benefit of the church.3 He spoke against those who labored by their arbitrary interpretations to bring the unchangeable, eternally valid commands of our Lord into harmony with their fleshly lusts; explaining away whatever was too high for them, as barely temporal and local, as a consilium and not a praeceptum. "How is it," he asks, "that we who hold every una et eadem domo scholae erant superius, prostibula inferius. Si qui secundum apostolicum mandatum sobrie et juste et pie inter illos vivere voluissent, avari et miseri et hypocritae, superstitiosi confestim ab impudicis et mollibus judicabantur. Respecting the teachers of theology, he says: Docentes et non facientes facti sunt velut aes sonans et cymbalum tinniens. Non solum autem sibi invidebant, et scholares aliorum blanditiis attrahebant gloriam propriam quaerentes, de fructu autem animarum non curantes, praebendas sibi multiplicabant et vendebantur dignitates. We may here add the description of William of Paris: "Adeo tepide, adeo remisse verba Dei annunciant, ut extincta in labiis eorum penitus videantur, propter quod, sicut et ipsi frigidi sunt et extincti, sic frigidos et extinctos relinquunt et utinam non faciant adhuc pejores." He adduces the example of a friend of his, who, to avoid becoming colder and colder under the sermons and lectures at Paris, and having every spark of his spiritual life finally extinguished (ne tandem spirituali gelicidio extingueretur), had fled from the spot and betaken himself to monks of fervent piety. Vide De moribus, c. viii, t. i, f. 120. He laments over the Parisian teachers, who exerted themselves only to increase the number of their hearers, and not to promote their spiritual improvement: "Non de profectu eorum spirituali curant, sed de repletione scholarum suarum nec minus turpiter quam inverecunde sonat creberrime in labi is hujusmodi magistrorum : hic est clericus meus, hic incepit sub me." He then remarks that many such had by their own fault lost their hearers, so as finally to be obliged to discontinue their lectures, "Quia promissi onibus et muneribus instar meretricum eos (auditores) vel emunt vel conducunt, interdum etiam precibus, et terroribus extor quent ab iis, ut ita dicam, viclentia audientiem." L. c. c. ccxix. 1 His Summa theologiae, or Verbum abbreviatum, published by the Benedictine Gallopin, at Bergen, A. D. 1639. Morum honestate pondus et gravitatem conferens doctrinae suae, coepit enim facere et docere, velut lucerna ardens et lucens, et civitas supra montem posita. Hist. occident. c. viii. He finally resigned his bishopric, became a monk among the Cistercians, and died before he had closed his novitiate. Caesarius of Heisterbach, who reports this, says of him: Vita et exemplo multos aedificaverat. Distinct. xii, c. xlviii, f. 353. 3 In the above-mentioned Verbum abbre viatum, p. 7: Non ergo clamandum in disputationibus theologiae, non disputandum de frivolis sed, ut ait Seneca, de justitia, de pietate, de frugalitate, de utraque pudicitia mentis scilicet et corporis mihi disputa. Deponamus igitur hujus declamationis acutae concinnationes, quaestiunculas inutiles. 4 Qui mandata ipsa confirmata in saeculum sacculi dicit esse temporalia, localia, personalia et praecepta consilia, addens et PETER CANTOR AND PETER DE BLOIS. 415 thing in Christ's teaching to be easy and clear, have, by our explanations and allegories, departed farther from the life-giving spirit and the plain letter of the gospel, than the Jews did from that letter which killeth?" The unpractical direction given to theological culture was attacked also by archdeacon Peter of Blois: "What does it profit them," says he, speaking of the theologians, " to spend their days in studies that can find their application neither at home nor in war, nor in the court nor in the cloister, nor in the senate nor in the church, nor anywhere else, save only in the schools?" He declaims, like Hugo a St. Victore, and John of Salisbury, whose scholar he was, against the men who dove into purely speculative matters before they had learned anything else ;3 against those who, in their eagerness after the latest novelty, left all that was old in utter neglect. "Of what use is it," says he, " to heap up copies of lectures, to commit to memory the Summas, to condemn the writings of the ancients, and to reject everything that is not to be found in the teacher's notes ?" He declaimed against that bold speculation on divine things which would own no limits, and against the unfruitful disputes of the schools. The essence of faith consisted, in his opinion, in its power of grasping that which is not attainable by reason. Where reason discovers its impotence, there the might of faith, he thought, was most conspicuously manifested. It was the interest of reason to repose on faith; for the merit of faith redounded not to its own benefit, but directly to that of reason. For faith must one day cease, and make way for perfect knowledge. But reason would remain forever constantly passing on from one stage of development to another, and would one day discover how she owed it to faith, kept in this present life, that after faith had ceased she had risen to perfect knowledge. Peter of Blois found reason to complain also of theologians, who, having spent almost their whole lives in the study of the ancients, of philosophy, or of the civil law, had become so wholly estranged from the study of the Bible as to have lost all sense7 for depth in simplicity, so that the language of the Bible seemed to them childish and spiritless. subtrahens, interpretans et exponens ad vo- 3 Quidam antequam disciplinis elemen⚫ taribus imbuantur, docentur inquirere de puncto, de linea, de superficie, de quantitate animae, de fato. de pronitate naturae, de casu et libero arbitrio, de materia et motu, quid sit tempus, quid locus, de essentia universalium et aliis quampluribus, quae plenioris scientiae fundamentum et eminentiores exigunt intellectus. Quae utilitas est, schedulas evolvere, firmare verbotenus summas, et sophismatum versutias inversare, damnare scripta veterum et reprobare omnia, quae non inveniuntur in suorum schedulis magistro rum. Hodie (says he, ep. 140) varia est inter multos sententiarum contentio, factaeque sunt aquae Siloës, quae cum silentio currebant, aquae contradictionis, apud quas demeruerunt Moses et Aron terrae promissionis introitum. Attingit fides, quod non praesumit ratio, et, quod mirabilius est, ex rationis defectu fortius convalescit. Apprehendit fides per gratiam, quod non potuit ratio capere per seipsam, ratio succumbit, ut fides amplius mereatur, nec invidet ratio merito fidei, sed libenter et humiliter acquiescit. Quod enim fides meretur, non sibi ipsi meretur, sed potius rationi. Sane fides evacuabitur et ratio permanebit. 7 Peter of Blois writes to such an one, ep. 76: In fabulis paganorum, in philosophorum studiis, tandem in jure civili dies tuos usque in senium expendisti et contra omnium diligentium te voluntatem sacram |