of the sages at enmity
with God, lest we incur the condemnation of endless death by the
sentence of our Lord." Saint Augustine deplored the waste of time
spent in reading Virgil, while Alcuin regretted that in his boyhood he
had preferred Virgil to the legends of the saints. With the monks such
considerations gave excuse for laziness and disregard of rhetoric.

But in this movement of hostility to the new learning, the church went
too far, and soon found the entire ecclesiastical system face to face
with a gross ignorance, which must be eradicated or the superstructure
would fall. As Latin was the only vehicle of thought in those days, it
became a necessity that the priests should study Virgil and the other
Latin authors, consequently the churches passed from their opposition
to pagan authors to a careful utilization of them, until the whole
papal court fell under the influence of the revival of learning, and
popes and prelates became zealous in the promotion and, indeed, in the
display of learning. When the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent became
Pope Leo X, the splendor of the ducal court of Florence passed to the
papal throne, and no one was more zealous in the patronage of learning
than he. He encouraged learning and art of every kind, and built a
magnificent library. It was merely the transferrence of the pomp of
the secular court to the papacy.

Such was the attitude of the church toward the new learning--first, a
bitter opposition; second, a forced toleration; and third, the
absorption of its best products. Yet in all this the spirit of the
church was not for the freedom of mind nor independence of thought. It
could not recognize this freedom nor {353} the freedom of religious
belief until it had been humiliated by the spirit of the Reformation.

_Scholastic Philosophy Marks a Step in Progress_.--There arose in the
ninth century a speculative philosophy which sought to harmonize the
doctrine of the church with the philosophy of Neo-Platonism and the
logic of Aristotle. The scholastic philosophy may be said to have had
its origin with John Scotus Erigena, who has been called "the morning
star of scholasticism." He was the first bold thinker to assert the
supremacy of reason and openly to rebel against the dogma of the
church. In laying the foundation of his doctrine, he starts with a
philosophical explanation of the universe. His writings and
translations were forerunners of mysticism and set forth a