Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/579

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AVERRIIOISM. 563 with those of Bishop Tempier, and together the collection had wide currency, as shown by the number of MSS. containing it. That the opinions thus condemned continued to be regarded as a source of real danger to the Church is manifested by the articles being customarily printed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries at the end of the fourth book of the Sentences, and also in an edi- tion each of Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Bonaventura.* Yet after the death of Bishop Tempier these articles aroused considerable complaint as interfering with freedom of discussion, and they became the object of no little debate. In fact, in so long a list of errors, many of them scarce apprehensible save by the scholastic mind, it was almost impossible to avoid trenching upon positions held to be orthodox in a theology of which the com- plexity had grown beyond the grasp of finite intelligence and finite memory. Considerable trouble was occasioned by the fact that some of the articles assailed positions held by Thomas Aqui- nas himself; others were attacked by William of Ockham and Jean de Poilly. How perilous, indeed, was the position of the theolog- ical expert in the war of dialectics is seen in the case of the Doctor Fundatissimus, Egidio Colonna, better known as Egidio da Roma. There was no more earnest and active opponent of Averrhoism, and his list of its errors long continued to be the basis of its con- demnation. Yet he translated a commentary on Aristotle, and in 1285 he was accused in Paris of entertaining some of the errors condemned in 1277. After considerable discussion the matter was carried before the Holy See, and Honorius IY. referred him back to the University of Paris for sentence. He made his peace so effectually that Philippe le Bel, whose tutor he had been, pre- sented him to the great archbishopric of Bourges.f At the close of the thirteenth and the commencement of the fourteenth century the principal figure in the contest with Aver- rhoes is Raymond Lully — aptly styled by Renan the hero of the crusade against it — but the career of Lullism was so remarkable that it must be considered independently hereafter. All efforts failed to suppress a philosophy which offered such attractions to the rising energies of the human intellect. An avowed school of

  • D'Argentrfc 1. 1. 185, 212-13, 234.

t D'Argentre 1. 1. 214-15, 235-6.— Renan, pp. 467-70.— Eymeric. pp. 238, 241.