Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

CHAPTER IX: AVICENNA AND THE WEST

The intellectual movement in Western Europe during the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries followed a course in many respects similar to that which took place in the Islamic world. In both cases it develop as a challenge and response process involving concepts and beliefs. The impact of Greek thought had shaken Islamic thinkers by challenging some of the fundamentals of their Faith. Not until modern times and the onrush of western scientific civilization has there been anything of the same magnitude and significance. The small and much-maligned group of Falasifa rose to the challenge, and braving the formidable opposition of the theologians, engaged in what was to be one of the most far-reaching conflicts in the history of ideas. Their response took the form of synthesis - a fact that needs to be emphasized. Although endowed with gifts not unequal to those of the Greeks, they were handicapped by the absence of that complete freedom of thought and expression which the Athenians had enjoyed. They worked under the constant threat of ostracism. And although they rather falteringly asserted their faith in a divine presence, it is safe to assume that they were rationally cognizant of a religious aspect of truth which the Greeks missed. Some modern scholars may reject their protestations of faith, others may generously give them the benefit of the doubt. There really seems no reason to disbelieve them, for whatever may be said of Avicenna, he certainly did not lack courage.

The struggle was repeated when Arabian and Jewish savants brought Greek thought to the heart of the Catholic world in Western Europe. This was not the first impact of Greek philosophy upon Christianity. Long before the Arabs and the advent of Islam, the struggle had begun; but, strangely enough, it hardly ever became very heated. It was sometimes even friendly, and if not to their mutual benefit, it seemed to their satisfaction. We need not go into all that later Christian beliefs owe to Greek and Gnostic ideas. We only wish to point out that the meeting of the two was not as friendly on the western shores of the Mediterranean as it had been on the eastern. And it is to be stressed that here as in Muslim lands, the response to the challenge took the form of synthesis until it was disrupted by the Reformation and the Renaissance. Some would say this was only a natural outcome, others might contend that it was actually the result of the Islamic synthesis.

The way in which Greek thought first reached Western Europe is not very clear. It is certain that it was by more than one route. But we find that whereas the chief channel by which it reached Baghdad was through the efforts of Jacobite and Nestorian Christians, here it was through the intermediary of Arab and Jewish philosophers in Spain and North Africa, and Islamic writings. Here again Plato was the first favorite because of the works of St Augustine, and was then forsaken in favor of Aristotle, and the final phase was the attempt to reconcile the two. Here also interest in Greek medicine and natural philosophy went side by side with interest in logic and metaphysics. And here the whole movement seemed to culminate in the person of St Thomas Aquinas, whose position corresponds in some ways to that of Avicenna, though they did not always agree.

Boethius was among the first to take Aristotle to the West. His translation of theCategories and the De Interpretatione reached it very early. Hundreds of years later theMetaphysica reached Paris from Byzantium. And the Ethics, the Physics and the De Animacame from Greece in the thirteenth century. By far the most important source, if not the earliest in date, was the Arab. To the medical school at Salerno, Constantine the African carried his knowledge of Arabian medicine, and went to Monte Casino to take up translation about the year 1070 and continued until his death in 1087. Although his Latin versions are considered corrupt and confused, he did manage to translate Hippocrates, Galen, Haly Abbas and Rhazes from the Arabic. His work was continued at Monte Casino by Johannes Aflacius. In 1085 Toledo, the greatest of Muslim centres of learning founded in the West, fell to the Spanish Christians. And the first prominent European to come to it was Adelard of Bath, the philosopher and mathematician who translated Euclid in consequence of this visit. And a Spanish Jew baptized under the name of Petrus Alphonsi became the physician of Henry I and was the first to spread Muslim science in England.

An unexpected development that was to have important and lasting results was the establishment of a school of translation at Toledo through the initiative of Archbishop Raymond of Toledo. It continued to flourish down to the thirteenth century, with much work to its credit. This was placed under the direction of Archdeacon Domingo Gundisalvo or Gundisalinus. The school corresponded very closely to the Bait al-Hikma which the Abbasid caliphs had founded in Baghdad; and the part of the polyglot Christians and Harranians was now being performed by Jews who spoke Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish and sometimes Latin. These usually helped the Europeans who were really responsible for the Latin versions. Thus the converted Jew known as Johannes Hispanus - or Avendeath or Ibn Daud - used to translate from Arabic, and sometimes orally, into a Castilian dialect, from which the matter used to be translated into Latin by Gundisalvo. There was also another assistant by the name of Solomon who was very helpful.

The most prominent and prolific translator at Toledo, however, was the Italian Gerard of Cremona who had one Christian and one Jewish assistant. He occupies the same position in the Western world that Hunain held in the Islamic world of Baghdad. Rightly called the father of Arabism in Europe, he was born in Cremona in 1114, went to Toledo, and by the time of his death in 1187 had produced as many as eighty translations as a result of an amazing industry that earned him great renown. Among the authors that he put into Latin were Kindi, Farabi and also Avicenna who, in consequence, was being studied in European centres of learning not much more than a hundred years after his death. A younger contemporary of Gerard was Mark, Canon of Toledo, who translated works of Hippocrates and Galen from the Arabic. Then at the school of Sicily that was nourishing at that time came Michael Scot (d. 1235) and Berengar of Valencia (d. c. 1313). They were both among the translators of Avicenna who were now growing in number. Together with Gundisalvo, Avendeath had translated many mathematical and astronomical as well as astrological books into Latin which were seized upon with keen interest especially at the school of Palermo where those subjects were taught. It has been observed that the Crusaders had surprisingly little to do with the transmission of Arabic and Islamic learning, but really it would be more surprising if they had. The absorption of Arabo-Hellenic learning that had started in Spain in the eleventh century continued down to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in various parts of Europe; and we find Andrea Alpago (d. 1520) in Italy deeply occupied with new translations of Avicenna, Averroes and other Islamic authors as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century. Latin versions of Arabic books immediately became the subject of study at Bologna, Montpellier, Paris and Oxford, among other seats of European learning in the twelfth century. Generally it may be said that the first two concentrated primarily on Arabian medicine and possessed most of the manuscripts, while Paris and Oxford were absorbed by their interest in philosophy and theology.

From the list of the translations of Archdeacon Gundisalvo in Spain, it appears that he had rendered a number of the works of Kindi and Farabi into Latin; and in order to follow the historical sequence he had continued by translating parts of the Epistles of the Brethen of Puriti; and had then arrived at Avicenna. From him he took up the metaphysics of theShifa, besides one or two minor treatises, then proceeded to Ghazali and various other authors.

It is only lately that European scholars have devoted much attention to the list of the works of Avicenna that were translated into Latin during the Middle Ages. To begin with there was a translation of his autobiography, as recorded by Juzjani, made by Avendeath under the title of Prologus Discipuli et Capitula Avicennae. Then we have the evidence of Roger Bacon to the effect that the Shifa was never translated in its entirety. “The Latins”, he says, “possess certain parts of the first which is called the Book of Assipha, that is the Book of Sufficiency”. Of the section on Logic with which the magnum opus begins, only the commentary on the Eisagoge of Porphyry was translated, again by Avendeath, under the title of De Universalibus. The section on Metaphysics was translated in its entirety by Gundisalvo under the title of Metaphysica Avicennae . de Prima Philosophia. The section on Psychology was translated by Avendeath in its entirety under the title of Liber de Animaand so was the section on plants under the title of Liber de Vegetalibus. He also translated the section on Physics under the title of Sufficientia Physicorum, but apparently not in its entirety. These two, either jointly or separately, also translated some minor works by Avicenna.

After these early versions there appeared later translations which included the Metaphysics, the Psychology, and other sections of the Shifa, as well as the Kitab al-Najat. There is no evidence that the Isharat was ever put into Latin, nor the fragment known as the Logic of the Orientals; though further research may add much to our knowledge. Ghazali had been mistakenly supposed to be a disciple of Avicenna, and as his writings were translated almost at the same time, many got their knowledge of Avicenna through him.

The medical works did not come any later. The Canon of Medicine was translated only by Gerard of Cremona in the second half of the twelfth century, but earlier the Cardiac Remedies had been done into Latin by Avendeath. Some two hundred years later the Canonwas translated into Hebrew. Towards the close of the thirteenth century Armengaud, son of a French physician by the name of Blaise at Montpellier, translated a medical poem by Avicenna from Arabic into Latin and called it Avicennae Cantice. This, when printed later at Venice, included a glossary by Averroes. It had been preceded by the translation by Moses Farachi (or Faragut) of al-Hawi, the voluminous medical compendium of Rhazes.

These translations of Avicenna, whether of medical or philosophical works, were received with great enthusiasm all over Europe. And when the manuscripts were finally printed- mostly at Strasburg and Venice - they ran into innumerable editions; sometimes separately and sometimes together with the works of Farabi and Kindi. And there is evidence of their widespread use at various centres of learning.

The combination of Greek ideas with Christian teachings which was to form the basis of European Scholasticism could not but be profoundly influenced by the Islamic synthesis not only in form but in substance. The theology of the Church in patristic times had been deeply imbued with Platonism; and the writings of St Augustine which dominated Christian thought up to the twelfth century, had incorporated much of the spirit if not the letter of Neo-Platonism. So that by the beginning of the period during which Arabic learning influenced Western thought, although they had only the translation of the Timaeus in Latin, the general attitude was platonic in spirit. With the arrival of Arabic versions of Greek texts, and commentaries or original works by Islamic authors, knowledge of Greek thought was immediately enriched far more than had been anticipated; and incidentally interest shifted almost entirely from Plato to Aristotle. The Aristotelianism that had reached the Islamic world had been greatly altered through the many restatements and commentaries of the Hellenistic Age; and what reached Europe by way of Spain was clad in an Arabic and Islamic garb. The case of the actual texts was somewhat different. The Arabic renderings had always been rather awkward and obscure in expression; but were very faithful to the original Greek and that made them valuable. In fact they still retain their usefulness because of that. This extensive Arabic literature which had now been made available in Latin, became a decisive and potent factor in the three cultural developments that were to help the general awakening in the thirteenth century. These were, first the growth of the universities out of the old cathedral schools; second, the discovery and appropriation of Aristotle; and third, the new activity of Dominican and Franciscan monks. Italy had been more interested in law and medicine, whereas at the University of Paris and later at Oxford the chief subjects were theology and philosophy, especially now that the new learning was being rapidly translated from Arabic sources. By 1250 they were in full possession of almost everything that had been transmitted by way of Spain and North Africa; and mediaeval knowledge came to be composed of (1) patristic materials, (2) early Platonic and Aristotelian translations such as those of Boethius, and (3) Arabian works.

Almost all the Islamic Falasifa were represented among the books rendered into Latin, and we find Kindi and Farabi at the head of them all; but it was Avicenna and Averroes who exerted the greatest influence on Scholasticism whether as commentators on Aristotle or through their own personal views. Of these two, Averroes who is more important in Christian than in Islamic philosophy, became a highly controversial figure. He dominated many but repelled others. His followers who preferred his purer form of Aristotelianism to the adaptations of Avicenna, founded a whole school of Averroism which became the chief intellectual heresy of the thirteenth century, and had its stronghold at the University of Paris. Here Siger de Brabant was one of the leading representatives of the group who drew the fire of St Thomas. These Averroists accepted Aristotle as presented to them by Averroes, particularly on the universal oneness of the human intelligence, the anima intellective which involved denial of individual immortality with rewards and punishments; the eternity of the visible world as uncreated and everlasting; and also the determinism which precluded freedom of human action and moral responsibility. Such conceptions were bound to provoke the opposition of many a devout churchman.

The influence of Avicenna, which has lately attracted the attention of many Catholic scholars, preceded that of Averroes and continued long after it, and eventually proved a far more vital force. Yet in spite of all its importance and widespread penetration, it was rather vague and indefinite in form. It did not crystallize into a specific set of doctrines to be accepted by a clearly marked group as did the teaching of Averroes. We find traces of Avicenna in almost every Scholastic author in a form that has been described as “augustinisme avicennisant”. Although there never developed such a thing as a school of Avicennaism, he is everywhere a constant and pervasive excitant. He was identified with the concept of being which had been the core of his metaphysics. His distinction between essence and existence became widely adopted. His deterministic view that God was the Creator necessarily proved provocative; and his idea of divine Providence, liberalitas, survived also. It is therefore best to seek him in individual authors and with reference to some of the special problems that occupied them in that age. It was not easy for people who were invariably clericals to welcome the views of a philosopher who was from the religious point of view an infidel and intellectually an alien. It stands to their credit that they studied him with courage and open-mindedness, and adopted whatever they felt they could sincerely reconcile with the fundamentals of their Faith.

Scholastic thinkers are usually divided according to their religious Orders into Dominicans and Franciscans, but one problem that occupied them all irrespective of the views they held on religious matters, was the reality or non-reality of universals. Do universals as such exist independently and apart? Plato had said that they were real and existed before all things. Aristotle had had two different views, one when combating Plato, and the other when thinking for himself; so that his position seemed equivocal. The problem had reached Western Europe when Porphyry's Eisagoge, as an introduction to Aristotle's Categories and treating of what came to be known as the five universals, had been rendered into Latin by Boethius. And for some reason it had suddenly become a most pressing philosophical problem in the first part of the twelfth century. For them it was a logical question of knowledge and cognition that came to involve both metaphysics and theology. Roscellin, teaching at Besançon, had said that universals were merely breath and sound,flatus vocis. Abelard, who had been unacquainted with the other logical treatises of Aristotle, and only knew the Categories and the De Interpretation in Boethius's rendering, said that the universals existed neither in things as such nor in words, they consisted rather in general predicability, which thus repeated what Aristotle had said in the De Interpretatione. Things resemble each other, Abelard said, and these resemblances give rise to the idea of universals. But the points of resemblance between things are not in themselves things. Yet universals exist as patterns for creation in the mind of God.

With the arrival of Islamic philosophy and the translation of a large part of the Shifa, which included the whole of the Metaphysics and some opening sections of the Logic, Avicenna's views on the problem of the universals became the subject of special study and ended by becoming almost generally adopted with or without criticism and some minor modifications. In a separate chapter of the Shifa, the universals and the manner of their existence had been discussed at great length. He had done the same in his commentary on the Eisagoge of Porphyry which he had placed at the beginning of the Logic. According to him genera, that is universals, have a triple existence. They are before things, ante res, they are in things, in rebus, and they are after things, post res, at one and the same time. By saying that they exist before things, he means that they have some existence in the understanding of God, and later in the active intelligence. If God decides to create man or animal, he must have some idea of what a man or an animal is; and that idea is in this respect anterior to man or animal in the concrete, as was seen in his conception of creation. And by existence in things, he means a sensible existence as attached to matter, and in natural objects. And by existence after things, he means when the genera are abstracted by the mind from the particulars of sense-perception, and we retain a conceptual notion of their existence. We notice different species of the same genus, we see their likenesses, and even when the experience has passed, there comes to exist in our mind the idea that that genus represents. Betrand Russell remarks that this view is obviously intended to reconcile different theories.

The problem of the universals was actually part of a much wider controversy which divided scholastic logicians into realists and nominalists. Again the source of the dispute was Porphyry and centred round three questions: (1) Are genera and species substances? (2) If substances, are they corporeal or incorporeal? (3) And if incorporeal, are they in sensible things or separated from them? Can we, or instance, say that humanity or animality are real substances found, in all human beings and in all animals respectively? The realists maintained that they were indeed substances, whereas the nominalists said that these were merely class names arbitrarily chosen and did not exist as distinct entities. This seemingly sterile disputation was highly important because of its religious implications, and we find every scholastic taking one side or the other. Thus Roscellin, the protagonist of the nominalist party, did not hesitate to apply his logical principle to the doctrine of the Trinity. If, he said, the real is the universal, then the Three Persons are but one thing, and become incarnate with the Son. And if it is the singular that is real, then it is proper that we should speak not of one but of three Gods. This heretical conclusion naturally infuriated the more conservative churchmen who set themselves diligently to refute him. And this conflict acted as a powerful stimulus to the mediaeval mind, and helped the establishment of schools of dialectic on which the conservative theologians frowned, but which nevertheless introduced the dialectical spirit into the teachings of theology itself.

The similarity with what happened in Baghdad is so striking that it is well to remind ourselves that there too interest was first centred on logic, and that logical reasoning gradually invaded the domain of theology which was forced to defend itself, and that the outcome was the development of dialectics which were eventually reduced to sterile disputations. However, Abelard, as with the problem of the universals, attempted to discover a middle way between the absurdities of the orthodox realists and the blasphemies of the nominalists. Yet the dispute continued and not a single author dealing with logic failed to take part. The attitude of Avicenna was, therefore, bound to be of interest and importance to all. The Islamic Falasifa had not been unanimous on this question. There were some who were inclined towards nominalism, as for instance Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher of Spain, who helped to introduce many of their ideas to the Western world. This led some European scholars to assume that they could all be regarded as nominalists. This was certainly not so in the case of Avicenna. As has already been pointed out, sometimes his realism is extremely close to that of Plato, whereas at other times, particularly in logic, he tends towards nominalism. Just as in the case of the universals he is prepared to concede that there is some truth in both conceptions. It is therefore more correct to call him a conceptualist. And this attitude influenced many of the scholastic philosophers who took sufficient interest in his works.

John Scotus Erigena, “the most astonishing person of the ninth century”, does not directly concern us here because he nourished long before the arrival of Islamic philosophy. But it is well to remember that as a competent Greek scholar who was an exponent of the Platonic and Neo-Platonic traditions under the influence of St Augustine, he was among the earliest to revive interest in Greek thought in Western Europe. Coming from Ireland, he spent most of his life at the court of King Charles the Bold of France. He set reason above faith, and did not care for the authority of the ecclesiastics; so that the spirit of his writings is very different from that of any other mediaeval author.

Perhaps the first European to incorporate Avicennian ideas into his own works was Gundisalvo, the translator. He who had been engaged in translating Avicenna into Latin was naturally influenced by him. Although his De Anima is inspired by St Augustine, and he takes the old traditional views about most things, he draws on Avicenna freely. Next we find William of Auvergne (d. 1249) deeply imbued by the spirit as well as the letter of the new learning that had been transmitted by way of Spain. By 1225 he is teaching at the University of Paris, and in his writings quoting extensively not only from Aristotelian works, till then unknown to the Western world, but from a host of Arab and Islamic philosophers whose very names must have been new to his pupils. Of Plato he seems to have known only theTimaeus, with a good deal of Aristotle which could have reached him only through the translation of Arabic commentaries. He mentions various Islamic authors, among them Farabi, Avicenna, Ghazali, Averroes, and Avicebron, for whom he has special praise. The movement away from Plato and towards Aristotle had already started, and we find his preference for the latter being freely expressed. His attitude in connection with the commentaries and independent works of the Arabians is generous and friendly but rather cautious. He does not hesitate to criticize them when he feels they go counter to his principles. He may have been the first scholastic to take up the cudgels against Averroes who was to become the exponent of a heresy frowned on by the Church. He also combated astrology, made popular as a result of some Arabic treatises on the subject.

As to Avicenna, William of Auvergne, though frequently critical of him, throughout shows considerable respect for his views, and does not hesitate to adopt them in some cases. This was typical of the scholastic attitude towards him in the first half of the twelfth century. William denounces Avicenna along with Aristotle and Farabi for denying personal immortality; and he is violently against Averroes regarding the activities of the intellect agent. The religious doctrines to which he strictly adhered could allow him to accept neither Avicenna’s theory of creation, the eternity of matter, nor his cosmogony in general, nor his belief that matter was the basis of individuation. Yet when we come to his proofs for the existence of God, we find that though he is influenced by St Augustine, he is far more influenced by the Islamic philosophers, and most of all by Avicenna. The scholastics of the thirteenth century were to come under exactly the same influences, adopt the same position and use similar arguments. On the problem of the universals he was a moderate realist, and this also might have been due to the moderation of Avicenna’s attitude. It is above all in his distinction between essence and existence that he owes everything to the Persian philosopher. He is supposed to be the first scholastic to expound this already famous point. In brief, at a time when Platonism, Aristotelianism, Neo-Platonism and Jewish and Arab ideas were clashing with Christian thought, William of Auvergne combated some of the philosophical theses that he thought undesirable and contrary to the doctrines of the Church, yet accepted much that he deemed valid and fruitful.

Almost contemporary with William of Auvergne was Alexander of Hales (d. 1245). HisSumma universal theologiae was the first scholastic work in which full use was made of the physics, metaphysics and natural history of Aristotle. Pope Gregory IX had lifted the prohibition that had been hanging over the works of Aristotle and the Arabian philosophers, and he openly cites the Metaphysics of Avicenna which proves his acquaintance with that work. He is particularly drawn to Avicenna's Psychology, with his isolating of the estimative faculty, to which reference has already been made. This was considered by the scholastics one of Avicenna’s most original contributions in this field.

St Bonaventure (d. 1274), though a contemporary of Albertus Magnus, who studied together with St Thomas at the faculty of Theology in Paris, was an Augustinian and consequently more of a Platonist; and seems to have come least under the influence of the Islamic thinkers who were mostly Aristotelians. He did not, however, altogether avoid “the master of those who know”, and because of it he is constrained to remark that so it appears that among philosophers, the word of wisdom was given to Plato, and the word of knowledge to Aristotle. As a religious man it was natural for him to find Plato more congenial, and he could not but take strong exception to the notion of a separate active intelligence that ran counter to his doctrinal beliefs.

In Robert Grosseteste, Chancellor of Oxford and Bishop of Lincoln, on the other hand, the Islamic influence is not totally absent, though very diffuse and indefinite. His interests covered a wide field, but he had a special inclination towards scientific subjects such as optics and meteorology which the Islamic authors before him had brilliantly developed. He, moreover, occupied himself with the translation of Greek texts directly into Latin. Like so many others he found the psychology propounded by the Islamic thinkers something of a stumbling-block; difficult to reconcile with Church doctrines and religious principles. Like St Bonaventure and the other Franciscans, he was a devout Augustinian and therefore profoundly imbued with Platonism; but Roger Bacon, his renowned pupil, took up the study of the new learning with great determination and ended as a great admirer of Avicenna.

With Albertus Magnus (d. 1280) the synthesis that was to form the pattern of all philosophical speculation in mediaeval times gained a broad basis of general knowledge without which it could have made little progress. Born a nobleman, he joined the Dominican Order at Padua; and taught chiefly at Cologne before moving to Paris, in those days a famous school of philosophy, where he became a lecturer. It may be presumed that it was here, where the best manuscripts were available, that he continued the study of the Islamic authors which he had started in Italy. And it was in Paris that he undertook the voluminous writings that were to establish eventually his position as one of the most learned leaders of scholastic thought. With extraordinary industry and massive erudition, he devoted himself to the task of making all branches of science and philosophy, including physics and mathematics, accessible to all who knew Latin; and he had certainly succeeded in placing them all within reach of his contemporaries, whether at Paris or Cologne, when he finally returned to his native land. As the greatest transmitter of the Greek and Islamic systems to the scholastic world, Albertus spent some fifty years in assembling the largest mediaeval store houses of learning. And while avowedly a follower of Aristotle, he protested against regarding him as infallible. “He who believes that Aristotle was God” he says, “ought to believe that he never erred. If one regards him as a man, then surely he may err as well as we”. And where orthodoxy required it, he disagreed with the Stagirite, and unlike the Averroists did not follow him blindly. Thus we find him insisting that the world was created in time. In fact he was among the few in those days who took, the line that philosophy and theology were entirely separate sciences, one concerned with the application of human reason to all problems, and the other with revelation. Of course not everyone agreed with him in this, which was the very same attitude that some of the Islamic philosophers had been forced to adopt. St Thomas was to follow practically the same line. In his writings, Albertus devotes much space to the material that had been collected in Arabic books, and he borrows extensively. He is most indebted to Avicenna and everywhere speaks with admiration and appreciation of him even when not completely in agreement. He was the first to adopt in its entirety what had come to be known as Arabian logic, and incorporate it into the Schul-logik of the thirteenth century. Substantially this was the logic of Avicenna. Albertus’s De Anima is an exhaustive paraphrase of Aristotle and of what his Hellenistic and Islamic commentators had had to add - except where it came into conflict with religious doctrine.

It has been found that the conception of time which he expounds in his Physics was deeply influenced by what Avicenna had written on the subject in the Shifa, - a section which we know to have been already translated at least partly into Latin. And though he quotes Farabi and Averroes frequently, supposing that he is giving their views, he is in fact reproducing Avicenna's statements, with which he seems in general agreement. On the distinction between essence and existence, however, he is critical; and this must have been due to the influence of Averroes who had taken a contrary position from the very beginning.

With St Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), the greatest of the scholastics and the author of the most comprehensive synthesis in the Catholic world, we arrive at a stage when the influence of Avicenna becomes a recognized element of Christian mediaeval thought, and when his views are treated with much deference whether in agreement or disagreement. So far he had been just another Islamic commentator welcomed chiefly as an aid to the understanding of Aristotle; now he becomes a distinct and vital force not comparable to Averroes or any of the others. St Thomas, by birth an Italian nobleman, is said to have studied philosophy in Naples; but it was probably only after going to Cologne and sitting at the feet of Albertus Magnus that he became properly acquainted with the Islamic thinkers whom his master had so diligently studied. He was to make much use of these materials in his lectures at Paris and in his elaborate system of Thomist philosophy. The Angelic Doctor is commonly regarded as one of the opponents of Avicenna with whom he was certainly in frequent disagreement. While this may be partly true, it did not prevent Thomas from borrowing extensively and quoting constantly from Avicenna. In fact Catholic scholars who have lately studied the subject are finding that Thomas was far more indebted to Avicenna than was previously supposed. Of course there had been some fundamental differences between the two. In St Thomas the religious temperament predominates, while in Avicenna the rational tendency was stronger; though the former preferred the purer Aristotelianism of Averroes to the more critical expositions of the latter. St Thomas may have felt at liberty to criticize, modify or even alter Avicenna's statements, but his work testifies constantly to the latter’s influence. To take the conception of God and the proofs for his existence as a specific case; St Thomas, who had maintained that there is nothing in revelation that is contrary to reason, had to advance proofs, since he believed that the human intelligence is capable of proving the existence of God and the immortality of the soul - a conviction that had already been affirmed by Avicenna. And when presenting his proofs, we find in his most influential work, the Summa Theologiae, some five points: (1) God as the Unmoved Mover; (2) God as the first cause; (3) God as the source of all necessity; (4) God as the source of perfection; and (5) God as the final cause. Of these five, four are clearly of Aristotelian origin, and may have come to him directly or by way of Averroes; but one is manifestly the Necessary Being of Avicenna, only rather differently expressed. And when St Thomas states his conception of God as pure activity not a body because he has no parts simple not a genus - the good of every good - that which cannot be defined, he is just following Aristotle, whose work was available to him either through Arabic sources or from the direct translations from Greek which he had made his friend William of Moerbecke, the Flemish scholar, undertake. Furthermore, when St Thomas says God is intelligent and his act of intelligence is his essence, he is quoting verbatim from Avicenna, even though both statements might have been ultimately derived from the Stagirite. He did dissent, however, from both Aristotle and Avicenna when insisting that God was aware of all particular things, singularia, directly. And contrary to Avicenna, he asserted that God created out of His own free Will, and not necessarily. Moreover the act of creation was ex nihilo just as it is according to the Scriptures.

William of Auvergne had criticized Avicenna’s cosmology, but adopted his psychology. St Thomas in his De Anima found himself in opposition to much that Averroes had asserted to be the true views of the Peripatetics, and also to some points that Avicenna had made. He maintained the unity and separate existence of the soul against all forms of division and he insisted upon personal immortality in conformity with religious doctrine. There was no common human soul as the Averroists at Paris had taught, but as many souls as there are men. There is on the other hand much of Avicenna in the De Anima. Again, in his conception of angels as separate immaterial substances, there is much of Avicenna’s doctrine. It is, however, in his distinction between essence and existence that he is avowedly and most consistently Avicennian. The metaphysics of the Shifa in which Avicenna had expatiated on this distinction had been translated in full into Latin and it may be assumed that St Thomas knew it well. Moreover, earlier scholastics had commented on it and almost invariably adopted it; it was therefore only natural that it should figure in the De Ente et Esentia in which he constantly appeals to Avicenna. By opening the gap between essence and existence, Avicenna may have provided the thirteenth century with one of its hotly debated questions, but the outcome had already been foreseen by William of Auvergne. The notion of contingent existence was highly congenial to the Biblical doctrine of creation, while Avicenna's cosmogony, in spite of some deceptive similarities, was utterly different from Christian

Those who have been engaged in discovering traces of Avicenna in St Thomas are finding an increasing amount of interesting material, all going to show that his impact on the mind of the Angelic Doctor could be considered the most serious and prolonged encounter of Christianity with Islamic philosophy in Europe. That the former should adopt everything that the latter had taught was hardly to be expected; but there is no doubt that it proved extremely stimulating to St Thomas and abundantly profitable in the construction of his Christian synthesis. A case only recently pointed out is in connection with the theory of prophecy which, as has been seen, Farabi and Avicenna had expounded with some ingenuity. In his Summa Theologiae and in his De Veritate St Thomas expresses the belief that there are two kinds of prophecy, one which he calls 'divine' and the other 'natural' prophecy. He strongly disapproves of the explanation that Farabi and Avicenna had given of the reasons and the way in which Prophets are delegated and the powers that they come to possess. A prophet, he insists, is chosen by God and his special powers are granted to him usually through the intermediary of an angel; and he goes on to give the doctrinal view on the subject. It is to be remembered that Ghazali had done the same thing in a book already rendered into Latin. And yet when he comes to what he calls natural prophecy, we find him making it conditional on exactly those extraordinary faculties of the imagination, insight and clear thinking that Farabi and Avicenna had said were the distinguishing marks of the prophet. In other words, he felt that their explanation applied to natural and not to divine prophecy.

Of all the great authors of the thirteenth century, the best informed on the life and works of Avicenna is supposed to have been Roger Bacon (d.c. 1294). Not much admired in his own day, and, it is thought, sometimes over-estimated in modern times, Bacon was encyclopedic in his learning and profound in erudition; and that is one reason why theDoctor mirabilis has been called the greatest genius of the Middle Ages. It has been determined that he knew Hebrew and Arabic among other languages, though it is not clear whether he learnt them at Oxford or Paris. In the latter place he was under surveillance and some sort of imprisonment because of his suspected heresy. There he met Hermann Allemanus, the translator, and questioned him on many Arabic books. There is no evidence that he translated any Arabic works into Latin himself; but it is known that he strongly disapproved of the language and the lack of faithfulness of some of the versions in common use in those days. There is, however, no reason to suppose that he read Avicenna and Ghazali in the original.

Bacon was different from St Thomas, and the influence which Avicenna had on him was of an entirely different kind. St Thomas was bent on a system of synthesis, and made use of Avicenna and his arguments to the extent to which he found them suitable. Bacon, on the other hand, was interested in linguistics, mathematics, astronomy, optics and chemistry, and was obsessed with the idea that philosophy as well as all branches of learning should be made to serve theology. Obviously Avicenna could not be of much help in all these matters, and perhaps least in the service of theology. As a man of outstanding originality and insight himself, highly critical of his contemporaries, and not at all concerned to develop a comprehensive system, he must have found Avicenna stimulating as much as instructive, even though he regarded him and Farabi as mere interpreters of Aristotle. Contrary perhaps to everybody else, he thought logic was useless and that no time should be wasted on it; whilst he found alchemy, which Avicenna had denounced, worth writing seriously about. On the basis of various Arabic sources, he treated of perspective in some detail. Aristotle was for him a great philosopher who had his limitations and should be read critically; and after him came Avicenna the prince and leader of philosophy as he called him. As a result of his wide reading, he quotes freely from Arabic authors and is not at all averse to profiting from them and their knowledge. That makes him cite Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes in support of his own views on various matters in the course of discussion. In holding that the active intelligence is separate from the soul, he agrees with Avicenna, and like him he has little use for Porphyry.

Some mention may be made here of the Franciscan Roger Marston who studied in Paris and later became a professor at Oxford. He also accepts the Avicennian notion of an active intelligence, and like Bacon identifies it with God who had inspired and illuminated the soul of St Augustine. It is in connection with him and his views that Gilson defines his happy phrase of “augustinisme avicennisant”. This explains a specific mediaeval doctrine of knowledge and cognition, the essential elements of which had been borrowed directly from St Augustine and also from Avicenna’s work, in its Latin form. Farabi was brought in to support the other two; and Avicenna was taken as the true interpreter of Aristotle, in contrast to Averroes and the Averroists of Paris who had taken him as their guide. Gilson maintains that there may be said to be a case of Avicennizing Augustinism whenever a mediaeval philosopher or commentator teaches that God is the active intelligence or the intellectual agent, and particularly when the author affirms that this can be proved by establishing a true accord between St Augustine and Aristotle as interpreted by Avicenna. In a way this corresponds to the old Neo-Platonic attempt to reconcile Plato with Aristotle. It has been seen that this endeavor had been repeated by the Islamic authors and especially by Farabi without any very valuable results. And now the Scholastics were malting yet another effort which was to prove no more successful. St Augustine had already accepted much from Plato and Neo-Platonism. To add a good measure of Aristotelianism by way of Avicenna could not be an easy task. And yet mere were many Avicennizing Augustinians, especially among the lesser figures in the Middle Ages. Of the more prominent men who chose this course William of Auvergne and Roger Bacon deserve special mention because they provoked many to strong opposition. They were followed by a host of minor authors such as Peckham and Vital du Four. None of these, however, had any important contribution to make. They were just good and earnest Augustinians who realizing the increasing popularity and the widespread diffusion of Avicennian thought, came to feel that a reconciliation would be desirable and even fruitful.

Mathew of Aquasparta (d. c. 1302), though a follower of St Bonaventure, was nevertheless drawn to Aristotle through his acquaintance with the works of Avicenna whom he frequently mentions in his writings. And Duns Scotus (d. c. 1308), while carrying on the Franciscan controversy with St Thomas, attempted a synthesis between philosophy and theology which did not reach the completeness of Thomism nor gain the same measure of acceptance, but which developed under the same influences and was motivated by the same purpose. Although an Augustinian and therefore more Platonic, he was bound to bring in Aristotle in the construction of his synthesis and to make use of the Jewish and Islamic commentators. Like all philosophers after the thirteenth century, Scotus was well versed in both Avicenna and Averroes, and frequently had the difficult task of choosing between their views. Yet it is Avicenna who eventually becomes his point de départ.

His Quiestiones opens with a discussion as to what constitutes the proper subject of metaphysics. Averroes had claimed that it was God and the Intelligences, and had cited passages from Aristotle's Metaphysica in support of his view. For Avicenna it had been being as being. He had argued that no science can prove the existence of its own subject, it has to take it for granted. Metaphysics could not have God as its proper subject because its chief concern is to prove the existence of God. Scotus, who had been hesitant, declares himself in his Opus Oxoniense entirely in favor of the Avicennian standpoint, and decides that it is Avicenna and not Averroes who should be considered the true interpreter of Aristotle. All Scotist metaphysics, in consequence, is centred on the idea of being, ens, and the Avicennian principle that being is not a genus in itself. As the first object of intellection, it is neither a substance nor accident, nor any of the ten genera that they call categories. And yet it should not be supposed that Scotus copied blindly all that Avicenna had said. There was much in the Persian that was unacceptable for a Christian philosopher. Gilson insists that “confondre la philosophic de Duns Scotus avec celle d’Avicenne serait une erreur pire que d’ignorer leurs relations”. Avicenna is a starting-point for him, and throughout Avicenna is his chief guide. He studies, discusses, modifies, and with approbation follows him. “Avicenne doit être sur notre table comme il était sur la sienne”, adds Gilson. This strong predilection may be explained by the fact that there had developed at Oxford a current of Avicennian thought that was becoming a regular tradition, and Scotus, who though born in Scotland studied at Oxford and there became a Franciscan, must have been deeply influenced by it. And when he left to spend his later years at Paris, he found the same tradition reigning there too. Only through St Thomas did Avicenna lose some ground.

On the question of the Active Intelligence - a very delicate point, difficult for a Christian to accept -we find Scotus openly contradicting Avicenna and accepting the conclusions of St Thomas. Gilson, who as a noted catholic scholar admits that the history of Arabian philosophy and Christian thought are inseparable, even if we accept Averroism and the development after St Thomas, likes to remind us that “entre Avicenne et Duns Scotus il y a saint Thomas d'Aquin”.

The religious element in Scotus made him totally averse to the cosmological conceptions of Averroes and his naturalistic tendencies due to Aristotelian influence, and he repudiated the arguments in favor of the eternity of the world. Nor did he regard Avicenna as more helpful. He could not forgo the belief in the ultimate contingence of the world, created ex nihilo and out of the gratuitous exercise of the free will of God. Even though Avicenna had conceded that the world was in the category of the possible, creation could not be ex nihilo, he had said, and it proceeds from God necessarily. Duns Scotus had also to differ from Averroes over the question of the emergence of the many from the one. It has already been seen that under Neo-Platonic influence Avicenna explained how from the absolutely simple and transcendent One only one emanation could proceed immediately, but that through a succession of emanations multiplicity eventually follows. Scotus could accept no such theory of emanations and insisted on the doctrinal view of the creation of the whole universe. It was probably for this reason that he ended by declaring that the union of metaphysics and theology cannot be maintained, and henceforth they stand on opposite pinnacles ruling their separate domains. This was a development that did away with a good deal of confusion and rather futile attempts at reconciliation of specific points mat seemed obviously irreconcilable.

Some think that William of Occam (d. 1349) was the most important schoolman after St Thomas. First at Oxford, then Paris, he had been the pupil of Duns Scotus and lived to become his rival. His teacher had with his penetrating criticism prepared the way for him by renouncing all attempts to unihy philosophy and theology. It is perhaps in his logic that Occam shows best the manner and the degree of Avicenna’s entry into the body of Scholastic logic. Albertus Magnus had already repeated his view that the controversy over the question whether logic is a science or an instrument of science is irrelevant. He had also adopted the important distinction between primary and secondary intelligibles, and that in the field of logic, where we proceed from the known to the unknown, we are concerned with the secondary intelligibles. Many followed Albertus in accepting the principle that the function of logic is the application of the intentiones secundae to the first intentions, and among them was Duns Scotus. It is not therefore surprising to find this division also in Occam.

Duns Scotus was a realist, but Occam was a nominalist, at least in logic, though he has been called a conceptualist in metaphysics. The nominalists of the fifteenth century considered him the founder of their school. For Occam, logic is an instrument of science and philosophy, and that is the old Peripatetic conception of Alexander of Aphrodisias. It has been said that Occam was concerned to restore a pure Aristotelianism, by removing the misinterpretations of Duns Scotus for which the influence of St Augustine and partly of Avicenna were responsible; and also, it may be added, not least the Eisagoge of Porphyry. As a result, logic and the theory of knowledge, scientiae, the ilm of the Arabs, had become confused and intermingled with metaphysics and theology. The strict nominalism of Occam was naturally far removed from the Avicennian moderate conceptualism, and he denied the existence of the universal in re, which was one of the three forms that his Persian predecessor had been willing to accept. Nevertheless there remain in his logic more Avicennian conceptions that is generally realized. If he ever deliberately attempted to free himself of all Arabic influences, as some have thought, he certainly did not succeed in the field of logic. Even the maxim which after him is called “Occam’s razor”, can, without too great a stretch of the imagination, be traced back to a principle that Avicenna had clearly laid down in his metaphysics, even though Occam used it for an entirely different purpose. But what is most striking is his use of the concept of first and second intentions which is a distinctive Avicennian contribution; and proves for him just as clarifying as it had been for its originator. It helped to place logic, whether it be considered a science or just an instrument of thought, on a firm and justified basis with a definite object in view, and with specified terms and limits of its own. It was not to be regarded as an appendage of the sciences, even when called an instrument. It was a necessary element, a prerequisite in the search after thefirst intentions.

There are also Stoic influences in Occam’s logic, as in his statement that propositions about future contingents are as yet neither true nor false, an assertion that the Stoics had already made and discussed at length; now he was elaborating it in spite of its disturbing effect on religious dogma. Whether the thought had come to him directly, from translations of Stoic works, or indirectly by way of Avicennian and Islamic writings, it is not easy to say. The tradition had been continuous and had penetrated all branches of study. In his metaphysics, too, some of the conceptions propounded by Avicenna are not difficult to find. They are obviously modified so as not to conflict too violently with Church doctrine, but they nevertheless betray profound agreement with him. Hence the reason why his teachings have been sometimes described as destructive by theologians; and have earned him the reputation of being one of those who helped to bring about the breakdown of scholasticism. On some points he went even farther than Avicenna and maintained that the immortality of the soul which the Persian philosopher had so elaborately demonstrated was actually indemonstrable; and even that the arguments adduced to prove the existence of God were not entirely satisfying. Nor is Avicenna absent from his psychology. Together with him, he believes that the faculties of sensation and intellection are entirely distinct in man, who with his appetitive power could very well desire something that his sense of understanding and right judgment will reject. He also accepts Avicenna’s view that everyone has a soul of his own; and rejects the belief of Averroes that after death they all join one common soul.

There were thus four main currents in mediaeval scholasticism. First came what may be called Augustinism, then in historical succession Aristotelianism, then Averroism and finally Avicennaism. This last may not have been the strongest, but it certainly was one of the most influential and enduring, and found its way into almost every held of knowledge. Avicenna’s influence was not confined to medicine and philosophy. Together with Averroes he helped to bring about the first phase of that scientific revolution that had its effective beginnings in the thirteenth century. It was already a hundred years since they had begun to translate his works; and by the time of Roger Bacon we find many of his scientific ideas being accepted and favorably commented upon. In what was the first important Western study on the subject, Bacon adopts his wave theory of light, and his explanation of the nature of vision, and of the phenomenon of the rainbow. Bacon also takes from him all that he says about the anatomy and the working of the human eye, and concerning the formation of images behind a lens. He also finds him just as helpful in mathematics. That was one of the many reasons why he thought so highly of him; and placed him far above Averroes, whose accomplishments could not come anywhere near those of Avicenna.

And yet the chief concern of the Scholastics were the problems of theology and philosophy which in spite of some dissenting views were generally considered as parts of the same subject, and which were not definitely separated until the Renaissance. In those days theology was naturally supreme; and in the words of St Anselm, the father of Scholasticism, all had to remember that the right course was credo ut intelligam laying down the principle that the human mind must set out from faith and then proceed to knowledge in order to arrive at proper understanding. This had led to the doctrine of the twofold truth to which many had come to adhere, and which has not yet completely disappeared. When it is remembered that up to the thirteenth century practically every educated person in Europe was a cleric, and that lay philosophers do not begin to appear till after the age of Dante, the significance and the effect of the statement of St Anselm becomes apparent. But then came the era of what we have called the new learning, that valuable yet disturbing combination of Graeco-Islamic literature that was to prove so challenging. The theory of intelligences with the Active Intelligence at the head of them, was a thorn in the flesh of official theology. St Augustine had known nothing about this development, and had never taught that God was to be equated with the active intelligence or the intellect agent. Nor was the originally Neo-Platonic theory of emanation, now introduced by Islamic thinkers, any easier to accept. As an explanation of creation it ran counter to some of the most fundamental principles of the Church, and with which even the most liberal minded of men found it impossible to compromise. Notwithstanding all that, the scholastics eventually adopted a great deal of the new learning in spite of their bitter criticism of many of its teachings. And we find a western scholar admitting that without the influence of Arabian peripatetism the theology of Aquinas is as unthinkable as his philosophy. And it is this Graeco-Islamic influence which in their view is mainly due to Avicenna; in spite of the cross current of Averroism. As has been repeatedly stated they curiously enough took the former not only as the true interpreter of Aristotle, but also as the chief exponent of Islamic philosophy. And yet there were formidable obstacles in the way of accepting Avicenna and all that he stood for. Even William of Auvergne, who had shown great sympathy towards the new learning, had found it impossible for a conscientious churchman to accept the view that the world began in pre-eternity and will extend and last till post-eternity. Or that it came into being through successive stages of emanation proceeding from God. The idea that creation did not depend on God’s free will, and was something that took place necessarily, was wholly unacceptable; for this deterministic conception reduced the power of God and the omnipotence which was one of His chief attributes. How could it be conceded that God did not have direct and immediate knowledge of every individual life, since that breaks the long-cherished relation between man and his Creator? And that elaborate cosmogony of which Avicenna was the author even though it had its roots in a host of Greek and Hellenistic truth-seekers, may be interesting but must be wide of the truth, because God creates directly; and these things that he called separate intelligences could not be justifiably equated with the Cherubim, and could not by any means be accepted as intermediaries between God and His creatures. That would carry man away still farther from his Father in heaven, and place him in hands much less puissant. How could that personal worship so essential to the religious life be maintained when it had to pass through the mediation of such pure abstractions as intelligences which are no more than mere concepts? And finally, in the vital question known to the scholastics as “the principle of individuation”, no one faithful to the teachings of his Faith could accept the Avicennian contention that it depended on matter; that it was simply matter that differentiated one person, from another and not form as essential religious teaching held.

These were serious difficulties that with an the goodwill that could be mustered it was found impossible to dismiss or ignore. The beliefs so staunchly held and clearly cherished militated against it at every point. And one has only to look back a little farther and farther afield, to see that the same challenging issues had arisen in the Islamic world. There also religious thinkers with equal charity and devout sincerity had been disturbed and even distressed by what seemed to them new-fangled ideas that could be devastating in their consequences. Some chose to protest, others thought it necessary to denounce all such conceptions together with their author who had been led into error through supposedly excessive and unwise reading combined with futile speculation. In the Christian West there stood over against Avicenna St Augustine and his soul-satisfying message; while in the Muslim east there stood the towering figure of Ghazali to dispute his arguments, deny the value of his rationalism, and invite men to the realms of faith with its happy vistas that lead to the only form of knowledge that is worth attaining. There was no ground, they all agreed, for compromise over fundamentals.

It stands to Avicenna’s eternal credit that notwithstanding such undeniable and not altogether unjustified opposition he succeeded in reaching the head, if not the heart, of a large and distinguished group in both the East and the West. Even for the most irreconcilable of his detractors he seemed to provide some food for thought that could not be lightly disregarded. In Christian lands we find the author of De Erroribus Philosophorum fiercely opposing Averroes, but significantly mild and full of understanding in his criticism of Avicenna. And Dante with unconcealed admiration placed him in Limbo along with other noble souls who had not received the Christian revelation. While in his homeland theologian after theologian paid tribute to him as a great mind.

Nor did his influence end with the Scholastic age and the advent of the Renaissance in western Europe. Admittedly philosophy began to take an entirely different course; and the increasing authority of experimental science completely transformed the climate of thought. Nevertheless, whenever thinkers looked back to their predecessors of the Middle Ages, they could not fail to encounter his provocative ideas and suggestive methods of inquiry. In medicine and related subjects it has been seen that they continued to study and even teach from his books down to modern times; and in the field of rational and also religious speculation it may be safely said that so long as Thomism is studied in European centres of learning - which at present it increasingly is - the Persian philosopher will continue to be heard.