Ch. 15 - The Mystics

The schoolmen of the twelfth century thought they could reach God by
reason; the Council of Sens, guided by Saint Bernard, replied that
the effort was futile and likely to be mischievous. The council made
little pretence of knowing or caring what method Abelard followed;
they condemned any effort at all on that line; and no sooner had
Bernard silenced the Abbot of Saint-Gildas for innovation than he
turned about and silenced the Bishop of Poitiers for conservatism.
Neither in the twelfth nor in any other century could three men have
understood alike the meaning of Gilbert de la Poree, who seems to
one high authority unworthy of notice and to another, worthy of an
elaborate but quite unintelligible commentary. When M. Rousselet and
M. Haureau judge so differently of a voluminous writer, the Council
at Rheims which censured Bishop Gilbert in 1148 can hardly have been
clear in mind. One dare hazard no more than a guess at Gilbert's
offence, but the guess is tolerably safe that he, like Abelard,
insisted on discussing and analyzing the Trinity. Gilbert seems to
have been a rigid realist, and he reduced to a correct syllogism the
idea of the ultimate substance--God. To make theology a system
capable of scholastic definition he had to suppose, behind the
active deity, a passive abstraction, or absolute substance without
attributes; and then the attributes--justice, mercy, and the rest--
fell into rank as secondary substances. "Formam dei divinitatem
appellant." Bernard answered him by insisting with his usual fiery
conviction that the Church should lay down the law, once for all,
and inscribe it with iron and diamond, that Divinity--Divine Wisdom
--is God. In philosophy and science the question seems to be still
open. Whether anything ultimate exists--whether substance is more
than a complex of elements--whether the "thing in itself" is a
reality or a name--is a question that Faraday and Clerk-Maxwell seem
to answer as Bernard did, while Haeckel answers it as Gilbert did;
but in theology even a heretic wonders how a doubt was possible. The
absolute substance behind the attributes seems to be pure Spinoza.

This supposes that the heretic understands what Gilbert or Haeckel
meant, which is certainly a mistake; but it is possible that he may
see in part what Bernard meant and this is enough if it is all.
Abelard's necessitarianism and Gilbert's Spinozism, if Bernard
understood them right, were equally impossible theology, and the
Church could by no evasion escape the necessity of condemning both.
Unfortunately, Bernard could not put his foot down so roughly on the
schools without putting it on Aristotle as well; and, for at least
sixty years after the Council of Rheims, Aristotle was either