The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason (2 page)

Terminology and Sources

This book draws heavily on recent research, particularly in “late antiquity.” Much of this is to be found in specialist journals and expensive academic books, and the writing of this book without the help of the Cambridge University Library would have been impossible. Once again I record my thanks to its ever helpful and courteous staff.

I have recorded my sources either in the text or in notes. In addition I have used the notes to recommend further reading and to explore some topics where a digression in the text would have disrupted the flow of argument. So in the section on Alexander (chapter 4) I recommend a recent biography that reflects the state of research (note 3), give references to other sources I have used in the text (notes 4, 5, 6), and then provide a digression on the legacy of Alexander with further sources, both ancient and modern (note 7). The aim is to provide a coherent and readable narrative for the reader, with the notes available as supplementary material.

Finding the right terminology in this area is always difficult. Many of the concepts used in this book, “faith” for instance, shifted with time, and I have used the text and notes to indicate the shifts and explore the difficulties. Some terms need further mention here. The word “pagan” as used nowadays is often one of abuse, associated with witches, hedonistic living and minority spiritual ideas. Even the most cursory knowledge of the wide variety of pagan thought and movements in the Roman empire shows that to use the term in a derogatory sense is inappropriate. The word is used in this book to describe the diverse traditions of spirituality that predated and continued to exist alongside Christianity. They included cult worship of the traditional Greek and Roman gods, mystery religions and highly sophisticated philosophical approaches to the divine. It is obvious that this very variety makes any value judgment about paganism as a whole meaningless, but it is worth saying at this stage that pagans were normally tolerant of each other and that a number of distinct spiritual allegiances could be held by an individual without impropriety. So long as public order was not threatened, an individual could follow his, or in many cases her, spiritual instincts wherever they led.

Studies of early Christianity used to stress the uniformity of Christian belief; they now stress its diversity. It is as difficult to generalize about the early Christian communities as it is to generalize about paganism, but I have used the words “church” (small
c
) or “Christian communities” when appropriate. This should not imply any common agreement in doctrine or belief—such an agreement took many centuries to evolve and never became complete between the Christian communities. (In fact, one of the arguments of this book is that the debate by its very nature could not come to much in the way of agreement.) I have used “Church” (capital C) only when I quote directly from another writer who has done so, or in describing the Roman Catholic Church, which could be said to have had some understanding of its distinctiveness as the church of the west from the time of Gregory in the late sixth century. It was at about this time that the word “pope” was first used as a title for the bishop of Rome, and I have avoided using the word for the earlier bishops on the grounds that it was not a title they used themselves. (The question of the primacy of the bishops of Rome, actual or otherwise, over other bishops is, of course, a separate topic that I explore at appropriate points in the text.) When the emperors began to define and enforce Christian doctrine through law, I have described the doctrines they promulgated as “orthodox” (small
o
), although it should be remembered that in this period an imperial definition of orthodoxy did not mean that Christian communities necessarily became “orthodox” (despite enormous financial incentives to do so). The Roman empire, even in its more authoritarian phase in late antiquity, simply did not have the power to enforce uniformity of thought. In fact, the impassioned nature of much Christian preaching may be seen as a recognition of the churches’ continuing impotence in the face of Judaism, paganism and rival Christian traditions. “Orthodox” (capital O) is used to refer to the Greek-speaking churches of the east that remained true to their traditions as the popes gradually consolidated an independent western (and Latin-speaking) church in the first millennium.

A particularly difficult concept to define, at least so far as the fourth century is concerned, is “Nicene orthodoxy.” The concept that God the Father and Jesus the Son were
homoousios,
“of identical substance,” was first proclaimed at the council of eastern (Greek-speaking) bishops meeting at Nicaea under the auspices of the emperor Constantine in 325. Yet, contrary to traditional interpretations of the council, recent research is stressing the difficulties the
homoousios
formula had in being accepted by the church as a whole (as the text will explain). In the eastern church it was only fully accepted as orthodoxy after the Council of Constantinople in 381, and even then there remained much opposition to the concept. However, in the western church there was always greater sympathy for the idea that Father and Son were of equal divinity, even though, as a result of the linguistic and geographical isolation of the western church, there seems to have been little awareness of the actual Nicene formulation before the 350s. I have tended to use the term “Nicene orthodoxy” rather loosely to describe those in the west who saw Father and Son as being of equal grandeur, whether they knew of or used a strictly Nicene formulation or not.

I have acknowledged translators where possible in the notes. Most of the quoted texts from the Old and New Testaments are from the Jerusalem Bible, which I have long found the most congenial modern translation.

1

THOMAS AQUINAS AND “THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH”

A friar in the black-and-white habit of the Dominicans sits in a niche set within an elaborate columned edifice crowned by a vault. Carved on the panels either side of him are
fasces,
rods bound together, a symbol of authority that reaches back through the history of ancient Rome to the Etruscans. Conventionally, as those who are attuned to the more sinister aspects of modern European history will be all too well aware, an axe is fixed within the bundle, but here it is omitted and the
fasces
are lit. Even in ancient times the presence of the axe was associated with tyrannical authority, so the omission suggests a deliberate attempt to evoke an authority that is benign rather than menacing. A setting in Rome is confirmed by the views behind the imposing structure. On one side there is part of St. John Lateran, the cathedral church of Rome, fronted by an equestrian statue believed in the 1480s, the date of this fresco, to be of the emperor Constantine, its founder.
¹
On the other is the Porta Ripa Grande, the port alongside the river Tiber in Rome. The fresco itself is in the Carafa Chapel in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, a Dominican church in the city.
²
Even if the fasces are not menacing, one aspect of the fresco nevertheless is. The friar crushes a scowling old man beneath his feet. The old man is a personification of evil, and he clutches a banner with the Latin inscription “Wisdom conquers evil.” The friar himself is none other than the great Dominican theologian Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–74). Above him in a roundel are the verses from the Book of Proverbs with which he chose to begin one of his finest works, the
Summa contra gentiles,
“a summary of the case against the heretics”: “For my mouth shall speak truth and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.” Also above him, on panels held by
putti,
appears a declaration of the importance of the revealed word of God: “The revelation of Thy words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” The most important text, however, must be that which Thomas has selected to hold in his left hand; it is from the Apostle Paul: SAPIENTIAM SAPIENTUM PERDAM, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.” As this book will suggest, the phrase, supported by other texts of Paul which condemn the “empty logic of the philosophers,” was the opening shot in the enduring war between Christianity and science.
³

Here Thomas is in a position of authority, defending the revelatory power of God against “the wisdom of the wise.” Yet this “wisdom” is allowed some place. Alongside the saint sit four further personifications, in order from the left, those of Philosophy, Theology, Grammar and Dialectic. Philosophy (largely the study of formal logic), grammar and dialectic (the art of disputation) were the first subjects of the traditional medieval curriculum. However, though they may appear at ease alongside Thomas, they are clearly subordinate to the word of God, as preliminaries that had to be mastered before any advanced study in theology, the longest and most challenging course, could begin. Theology’s prominence over the others is shown here by her crown and her hand raised to heaven, as well as by her position immediately to the right of Thomas.

Below Thomas and his intellectual companions two groups of men stand back from a clutter of books and manuscripts. A debate has been in progress, and it seems that its settlement has resulted in a disposal of discarded arguments. The reference here is to the fourth and fifth centuries, when the empire, newly if not fully Christianized, was rocked with debate over the nature of Jesus and his relationship with God. The Arians (followers of Arius) claimed that Jesus was a distinct and lower creation, divine perhaps but not fully God. At the opposite extreme, the followers of Sabellius, a Roman cleric, claimed that the Godhead was one and Jesus on earth was only a temporary manifestation of that Godhead, in no way distinct from it. In the fresco Arius stands on the left, a serious and thoughtful man as tradition records, wearing yellow robes. In front of him a book bearing the words of his thesis, “There was a time when the Son was not,” lies condemned. Sabellius, shown as an austere Roman in a red robe, gazes down on his work with its own heretical assertion, that the Father is not to be distinguished from the Son, likewise condemned. Other heretics, including the Persian Mani (to the right of Sabellius in a furred hood), to whose sect St. Augustine belonged before his conversion to Christianity, are in the crowd. These heretics had all been subject to specific refutation by Thomas in his works. What Thomas now upholds is the final solution to the issue, the doctrine of the Trinity. God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct persons within a single Godhead. It is a doctrine, as Thomas himself wrote in his other great work, the
Summa theologiae,
that cannot be upheld by reason, but only through faith.

The “triumph of faith,” as depicted here by the Florentine painter Filippino Lippi,
⁴
reflects the theme of this book. “Faith” is a complex concept, but whether it is trust in what cannot be seen, belief in promises made by God, essentially a declaration of loyalty or a virtue, it involves some kind of acquiescence in what cannot be proved by rational thought. What makes faith a difficult concept to explore is that it has both theological and psychological elements. At a psychological level one could argue that faith must exist in any healthy mind. If we cannot trust anyone, have any optimism that “all will be well,” we cannot live full lives. Such faith will include positive responses to individuals, as evinced by those who met and travelled with Jesus. Here we cross a conceptual boundary because faith in Jesus, and in particular in the saving nature of his crucifixion and resurrection as taught by Paul, was of a different order from faith in the general sense that “all will be well.” With the elaboration of Christian doctrine, faith came to mean acquiescence in the teachings of the churches—to be seen as a virtue in itself.
⁵

In the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., however, faith in this last sense achieved prominence over reason. The principles of empirical observation or logic were overruled in the conviction that all knowledge comes from God and even, in the writings of Augustine, that the human mind, burdened with Adam’s original sin, is diminished in its ability to think for itself. For centuries any form of independent scientific thinking was suppressed. Yet, and this is the paradox of the Carafa fresco, it was actually Thomas, through reviving the works of Aristotle, who brought reason back into theology and hence into western thought. Once again it was possible for rational thought and faith to co-exist. We will meet the other Thomas, the Thomas who champions reason alongside faith, in the final chapter of this book.

We begin by returning to ancient Greece and exploring in particular how reason became established as an intellectual force in western culture. Then we can see how Christianity, under the influential banner of Paul’s denunciation of Greek philosophy, began to create the barrier between science—and rational thought in general—and religion that appears to be unique to Christianity. Far from the rise of science challenging the Christian concept of God (as is often assumed by protagonists in the debate), it was Christianity that actively challenged a well-established and sophisticated tradition of scientific thinking.