was buried in the parish church before the altar of St. George *." For such a soul terror, perhaps, was the only medicine. A similar vision was granted to Wettin, a monk of Reichenau, on Sunday the 29th of October, in the year 824. This was written down by Hetto on tablets from the mouth of Wettin. The following year Walafried Strabo, who was of the same monastery, verified the relation in a Latin poem, and not only Germany, but the Christian world, immediately received the vision as genuine ↑. "Here," says a recent historian, "there is no room for incredulity. If the vision of Wettin be rejected, so may every other fact of history." But it is time to bring this chapter to an end, and return to observe the blessed clean of heart, in their enjoyment of the sight of God. CHAPTER XIV. THE observation of the visible world was not the only study subservient to the ultimate object of the pure. Indeed this was but an elementary step in their progress to the highest illumination, and even the next left them at an immeasurable distance from the clearer vision to which they subsequently attained. Having shewn that the ancient Catholic society evinced an inherent antipathy to Paganism, and that it possessed a philosophy complete in itself, we may naturally be called upon to account for a fact which seems to rise in contradiction to such views, and to explain upon what ground so much importance was attached to the study of the ancient philosophy. With what diligence the holy Fathers had studied the writings of the ancients, has been already shewn. St. Augustin spoke in terms of such admiration of the Pythagorean wisdom, that afterwards in his retractions, he was obliged to qualify it, lest, as he says, it might be thought that he supposed Pythagoras to have erred in nothing, whereas he did in many and capital points. It Ad an. 1321. † Mabil. Acta, san. Ord. S. Bened. tom. v. is true we find a distinction sometimes made between the studies becoming youth and age. Thus Lanfranc being asked to solve certain profane questions, replied to Domnoald, "to solve these questions of secular letters, is not the business of a bishop; formerly, indeed, we spent our youthful years in such studies, but assuming the pastoral care we determined to renounce them." However, as Mabillon observes, the examples of Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, and other holy bishops of the early church, will prove, that it was of immemorial usage for the holy doctors to be learned in the writings of the Gentiles*. Such then was the fact, but the difficulty arising from it is soon removed; for to account for their fervour in studies of that kind, we have only to observe that the stores of Pagan erudition imparted to their eyes, in a certain manner, the sight of God, since that ancient philosophy enabled them to confirm religion by the testimony of human reason, and to behold divine truth in the great original traditions of the human race. In the middle ages it is true the study of heathen philosophy seemed less necessary than in primitive times; for, even in the fifth century, the Pagan superstition was so fallen, that some Christian writers thought it useless to argue any longer against it, but others, amongst whom appeared the monk Evagrus, maintained that it was still highly important to treat on it, in the way of contrast with the holiness and simplicity of our religion †. Touron says, "that St. Thomas studied the Pagan philosophers, in order to refute those weak minds, which thought a thing might be true according to faith, and not true according to the philosophers; and that he only sought to show that even these philosophers confirmed faith, since of truth might be said, 'tuum erat ubicumque erat.' "Plato, that sweet and wondrous stranger, as a French theologian styles him, was introduced into the Christian school, as a witness the most renowned and admirable of the ancient philosophy; Aristotle was found useful, because all that had been saved from the wreck of human science was contained in his books, and he had treated on most subjects of thought with method and perspicuity. The Christian schools, therefore, laid hold *Præf. in 1II. Sæcul. Benedic. دو of the Stagyrite, as after the deluge one would have taken possession of whatever monuments had escaped the waters. "It is well to collect every thing good,' says St. Clement of Alexandria, "from the Greeks and Barbarians *." Such, too, was the maxim of the middle ages. "If it should happen sometimes," says Alanus de Insulis, "that you are transferred from the books of theology to those of the earthly philosophy, you should look at them in passing, and observe whether you cannot find something to edify manners, which is agreeable to the Catholic faith, that the Hebrews may be_enriched with the spoils of Egypt, that gold from the Egyptians may be applied to the construction of the tabernacle, and wood to the building of the temple." "Sic tamen transire debemus," he adds, "in aliena castra, ut simus exploratores et peregrini, non incolæ t." Hugo of St. Victor, on the same ground accepts the service of the heathen writers. How many monuments of excellent genius," saith he, " have they left, where the secrets of nature and occult properties of things are investigated! We read of arts, and study, and discipline, and many precepts of reason, which they discovered with the faculties given to them, and transmitted in writings to their posterity-logic, ethics, mathematics, physics, on the form of reasoning, and of life and manners, on the disposition and order, and causes, and progress of all things; and they were able on this side to apprehend truth, because, by them, who were not the children of life, was to be administered that truth which was not to life. Therefore was it given to them for our sakes, for whom the consummation was reserved, that they should find that truth which it was necessary the children of life should receive for the service of the highest truth ‡.” The inconstancy respecting the reception or rejection of the books of the Stagyrite, in the university of Paris, concerning which Launois wrote a book, entitled on the Various Fortunes of Aristotle, only shews the unwillingness of that body to admit the study of philosophy, as Stromat. lib. i. 9. Alani de Ins. Sum. de Arte Prædicat. cap. 36. Hug. St. Vict. Comment. in Coelest. Dion. Hierarch. lib. i. c. 1. forming a distinct faculty from that of arts. His fate had been settled from the first; since, as St. Thomas observes, "faith had for ever determined the metaphysical question; but as a logician, it was clear he might be received, and those who merely employed him for that purpose were never reprobated+.” It was in this latter capacity that his writings exercised such an influence during the middle ages, and, besides, as Staudenmaier remarks, “he was regarded as an authority, for having shown that every science rests upon three things, on principles, definitions, and demonstrations, or syllogism." The same observation was made by Francis Picus of Mirandula, in his work on the Study of Divine and Human Philosophy, in which he shows the utility that may be drawn to the Church from the study of the Gentile writers. "Alluding to its love for Aristotle," he says, "nor does the theology of the university of Paris seem to me to be any thing but a certain mixture of divine doctrines, developed or confirmed by natural reasons; a beautiful and honourable mode of combating the adversary, using thus his own weapons to conquer him. For it is an admirable thing to show to the impious, that the nature itself which they say they follow, demonstrates to us that we should acknowledge and honour the Creator, casting off all superstitions, while nourishing and holding fast the true religion §." Already, therefore, we can perceive how the study of the ancient philosophy was made by the clean of heart subservient to the purposes of that vision, in which their eternal happiness was to consist. But another manner of pursuing those studies, still more conducive to the same end, consisted in the exercise of discovering from them the great original traditions of the human race, which perpetuated in some degree the remembrances of the first divine revelation. It is remarkable that the wisest of the ancient philosophers themselves recognized this object as the most important of all in philosophic pursuits. Keuffel Hist. Schol. † Berthier, Discours sur les Etudes aux Siècles, XII. XIII. XIV. and xv. John Scot, &c. 463. § Joan F. Picus Mirand. de Studio Divinæ et Hum. Philosophiæ, lib. i. 3. Pindar constantly appeals for his authority to the old traditions of men *. Socrates ascribes to them all that he knows: "it is clear to me," he says, "that I must have heard this from some of the ancients, for that I have not known it from myself I am convinced, being assured of my own ignorance. It must have been poured into me as if from a vessel, though I have forgotten how and by whom t." "Let us advance to this discourse," says Critias, "invoking above all the Gods Memory, since to her we must trust for the greatest things, and the whole of this argument, for it is by remembering and recording the things which were delivered by the priests, and which were transmitted to us by Solon, that we shall fulfil what is now required of us ." Plato even thinks that men are preserved from the greatest crimes by the influence of such traditions, conveyed by general language and by poets. All his provision for the virtue of a state is in prescribing that the government should take energetic measures to preserve uncorrupted the ancient maxims and traditionary wisdom of men, so that neither poets nor actors in theatres, should ever dare to contradict them §. Cicero, in arguing to prove the immortality of the soul, speaks of the necessity in the first instance of searching into the doctrines of antiquity, of those ancients whom Ennius calls Cascos, who all held that the soul was immortal; and he appeals also to the pontifical law and ceremonies, which rest upon the same conclusion. He believes souls to be immortal, on the ground that all nations agreed in believing it; "for whatever they held with one consent, is to be considered," he says, "the law of nature ||." He pays no regard to what single voices may utter, but to what is perpetual and constant T. "Above all things," Quinctilian says, “it is proper to know and keep ever in mind the sayings and deeds of the ancients;" and, indeed, "though," as St. Clement of Alexandria says, "the self-conceit of the Greeks proclaimed certain men to be masters," and though Aristotle says, "that the first philosophy on all points did but lisp like a child **," it would have puzzled them to * Olymp. vii. Plato, Phædrus. Tuscul. lib. i. **Metaphys. lib. i. c. 4. Critias. |