38 



its sacraments, yet therein it found itself in a 

 dilemma between the conceptions of a Creator 

 working under conditions, and of a spirit imma- 

 nent in matter ; and when theological philosophy 

 culminated in St Thomas, and was fixed by him as 

 it now rules in Rome, this difficulty was rather con- 

 cealed in his system than resolved 1 . Every scheme of 



profitentur, se studeant laudabiliter exercere, nee philosophos 

 se ostendant, sed satagant fieri theodocti : nee loquantur in 

 lingua populi, et populi linguam hebrseam cum azotica con- 

 fuudentes" [azotiea or arethica means the profane tongue 

 (Ducange) ; Hebrew being a Sancta lingua]. The pantheistic 

 outburst of the later twelfth century, although deriving in 

 part from Erigena, was probably fed by the commentary of 

 Alexander of Aphrodisias. This commentary was widely 

 read in Arabic and Arab-latin translations, the latter of which 

 were made, as we know (v. A. Jourdain, p. 123 and seq.), by 

 Gerard of Cremona (d. 1187). Alexander's more material 

 interpretation of v\rj involved the return of All into God; 

 hence no resurrection, no future life. In his followers these 

 doctrines become grosser and grosser, and, fused with other 

 Arabian doctrine, prepared for and afterwards strengthened 

 the Averroism of Padua, in the xv xvith century, in which 

 system it was taught that the universal soul, dipping for the 

 time into the individual man, is at death resumed into the 

 universal soul. This virtual denial of personal immortality was 

 of course bitterly resented by the Church. (Vid. p. 68, note.) 

 Thus from the thirteenth century onwards pantheistic infidelity 

 survived and even defied the menaces and the punishments 

 of the Church. 



1 Both Albert and Aquinas were inconsistent. Haureau 

 points out that St Thomas was a vitalist in physics, an animist 

 in metaphysics, a nominalist in philosophy, and a realist in 



