The possibility of arguing on the Three Questions which SERVATUS had pointed out was exploited by GOTTSCHALK, 808-867, a monk of Fulda and a friend of WALAFRID STRABO. His work on Predestination attempted to define what AUGUSTINE had left indefinite. It affirmed that as God decrees eternal life to the elect, and the elect to eternal life, so also does He decree everlasting punishment to the reprobate, and the reprobate to everlasting punishment. Although a vigorous and original thinker, GOTTSCHALK was a rather reactionary theologian; his teaching was in essence a form of fatalism foreign to the genius of Christianity. His book has disappeared, and is only known from the criticisms of its opponents, but its main thesis was defended by its author in both a Longer, and a Shorter Profession of Faith.

The Predestination raised a tremendous controversy in which many took part. GOTTSCHALK was condemned as a heretic, 849, degraded from the priesthood, ordered to be beaten with rods, imprisoned and forced to cast his book into the fire. He died in prison firmly maintaining the truth of his views.

"Only within recent times have certain lyrics of his been brought to light Yet more recently GOTTSCHALK has been accepted as the author of a poem very famous for six or seven centuries after him, the Eclogue of Theodulus" (Theodulus Gottschalk i.e. God's slave, in Greek). This Eclogue is a colloquy between Truth and Falsehood, with Reason for an umpire. Falsehood cites a number of incidents from pagan mythology, giving a quatrain to each. Truth caps each incident with a citation from Scripture. The verdict is a foregone conclusion. In length and subject the poem was admirably fitted to be a school book, and as a school book it survived well into the Renaissance period.3 An even more important and certainly a more lasting conCambridge Mediæval History, Vol. III., p. 529.

troversy sprang from The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, 831, written by RADBERT PASCHASIUS, d. 860. This is the first systematic treatise on the doctrine of the Eucharist in Christian literature, and it contains the first dogmatic statement of the idea of transubstantiation. In 844 PASCHASIUS presented to Charles the Bold, 823-877, a revised and popular version of the work with the title The Body and Blood of Christ. The mood of the age welcomed the idea of a fleshly element in the Eucharist and the treatise became "in the subsequent period the authoritative exposition of the rite." But Augustinianism, to which the idea was repugnant, was still strong, and an interminable discussion began in which RATRAMNUS was the leading opponent of the new teaching. His book bearing the title The Body and Blood of the Lord, was written at the request of Charles the Bold.

Many disputants entered into the fray without reaching agreement. The controversy continued for centuries, and, throughout the later history of Christian literature, works constantly appear either to oppose or to defend the thesis of PASCHASIUS.

Among so much that is technical the examples of pure literature are most welcome. The ninth century witnessed the first use of rhyme in Germany; this use connects with the writing of Christian hymns in imitation of popular Latin poetry. The cult of literature spread among women and Charlemagne's daughters joined the company of scholars.

The nun HROTSUIT, commonly called ROSWITHA, 935990, who belonged to the nunnery of Gandersheim wrote a Life of Otto the Great, and a famous series of sacred legends and plays with various titles, Gallicanus Dulcitius, Abraham, etc. These are characterised by rapidity of action, frequent change of scene, and interplay of conflicting feelings. Their one theme is the "battle of vice and virtue, the triumph of Christian martyrdom over the temptations and sins of the

world." They are noteworthy as being the first dramatic attempts in the literatures of modern Europe, and they were honoured by being among the first books printed in Southern Germany.

I, the strong voice of Gandersheim, have not hesitated to imitate in my writings a poet (Terence) whose works are so widely read, my hope being to glorify, within the limits of my poor talent, the laudable chastity of Christian virgins in that self same form of composition which had been used to describe the shameless acts of licentious women . .

I have been at pains, whensoever I have been able to pick up some threads and scraps torn from the old mantle of philosophy, to weave them into the stuff of my book, in the hope that my lowly ignorant effort may gain more acceptance through the introduction of something of a nobler strain."

4 The Plays of Roswitha, trans. by Christopher St. John, The Mediaeval Library (1923), pp. xxvi., xxix.

CHAPTER XXII

THE RISE OF SCHOLASTICISM

The impetus of the Carolingian revival did not bring about a great development of pure literature. From the tenth to the sixteenth century, German literature, for example, was at its lowest ebb. The poetry of the ninth century was forgotten by the twelfth. This condition was, in great measure, due to the growing interest in problems of philosophy and Christian doctrine. The Scholastic movement had begun.

JOHN of Damascus is regarded as the founder of the scholastic type of thought; but as Greek was almost unknown in the West the early Scholastics nourished their minds on translations and on such philosophy as they could find in The Satyricon of MARTIAN of Capella, fl. 400-435, in The Arts of CASSIODORUS, The Origins by ISIDORE of Seville, and the writings of AUGUSTINE.

Foremost among the makers of the mediaeval ecclesiastical philosophy stands JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA, c.800-880, the great Irish divine. He was head if the Palace School for thirty years, 845-875, during the short-lived revival of literature under Charles the Bold. His rare knowledge of Greek enabled him to read Aristotle, the early Church Fathers, and some of the neo-Platonists who affected him deeply. He was "the metaphysician of the ninth century.'

His first known work controverted the teaching of PASCHASIUS and advanced the view that the Eucharist is symbolical and commemorative only. Having been officially appointed to refute GOTTSCHALK he wrote The Divine

Predestination, 851, which aroused the deepest suspicions of his own orthodoxy. It begins thus:

Since, in earnestly investigating and attempting to discover surely the reasons of all things, every means of attaining to a pious and perfect doctrine lies in that science and discipline which the Greeks call philosophy, we think it necessary to speak in a few words of its divisions and classifications. 'It is believed and taught,' says St. Augustine, 'that philosophy, that is, the love of wisdom, is no other than religion; and what proves it is, that we do not receive the sacraments in common with those whereof we do not approve the doctrine.' What, then, is the object of philosophy but to set forth the rules of true religion, whereby we rationally seek and humbly adore God, the first cause and sovereign of all things? From thence it follows that true philosophy is true religion, and conversely, that true religion is true philosophy.

Philosophy or reason was thus given the fundamental or primary place, and religion was regarded as derived and secondary. This aspect of his work was seriously challenged by FLORUS of Lyons whose book opens thus:

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, against the follies and errors of a certain presumptuous man named John, on predestination and divine prescience, and the true liberty of human thought.

JOHN then undertook, at the request of Charles the Bold, the task of translating the works of pseudo-DIONYSIUS the Areopagite. His great work however was entitled The Division of Nature. This is written in dialogue form, and offers a more or less pantheistic interpretation of the universe. Nature is divisible into four realms, of which the first is God as the origin of all things, the second and third are