g of the thirteenth century, but long
before his time the literature of the West, like that of Asia, was full
of these ideas. We have seen how broadly they were set forth by Erigena.
The Arabians, from their first cultivation of philosophy, had been
infected by them; they were current in all the colleges of the three
khalifates. Considered not as a mode of thought, that will spontaneously
occur to all men at a certain stage of intellectual development, but as
having originated with Aristotle, they continually found favor with men
of the highest culture. We see them in Robert Grostete, in Roger Bacon,
and eventually in Spinoza. Averroes was not their inventor, he merely
gave them clearness and expression. Among the Jews of the thirteenth
century, he had completely supplanted his imputed master. Aristotle had
passed away from their eyes; his great commentator, Averroes, stood in
his place. So numerous were the converts to the doctrine of emanation
in Christendom, that Pope Alexander IV. (1255) found it necessary to
interfere. By his order, Albertus Magnus composed a work against the
"Unity of the Intellect." Treating of the origin and nature of the
soul, he attempted to prove that the theory of "a separate intellect,
enlightening man by irradiation anterior to the individual and surviving
the individual, is a detestable error." But the most illustrious
antagonist of the great commentator was St. Thomas Aquinas, the
destroyer of all such heresies as the unity of the intellect, the denial
of Providence, the impossibility of creation; the victories of "the
Angelic Doctor" were celebrated not only in the disputations of the
Dominicans, but also in the works of art of the painters of Florence
and Pisa. The indignation of that saint knew no bounds when Christians
became the disciples of an infidel, who was worse than a Mohammedan.
The wrath of the Dominicans, the order to which St. Thomas belonged, was
sharpened by the fact that their rivals, the Franciscans, inclined to
Averroistic views; and Dante, who leaned to the Dominicans, denounced
Averroes as the author of a most dangerous system. The theological odium
of all three dominant religions was put upon him; he was pointed out
as the originator of the atrocious maxim that "all religions are false,
although all are probably useful." An attempt was made at the Council
of Vienne to have his writings absolutely suppressed, and to forbid all
Christians reading them. The Dominicans,