Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/577

 AVERRHOISM. 561 1291 we find the Council of Tarragona ordering the punishment of those who disbelieved in a future existence. It was from To- ledo that Michael Scot came with translations of Aristotle and Averrhoes, and was warmly welcomed at the court of Frederic, whose insatiable thirst for knowledge and whose slender reverence for formulas led him to grasp eagerly at these unexpected sources of philosophy. It was probably these translations which formed the body of Aristotelism distributed by him to the universities of Italy. Hermannus Alemannus continued Michael's work at Tole- do and brought versions of other books to Manfred, who inherited his father's tastes, so that by the middle of the century the prin- cipal labors of Averrhoes were accessible to scholars.* The infection spread with rapidity almost incredible. Already, in 1243, Guillaume d'Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, and the Masters of the University condemned a series of scholastic errors, not in- deed distinctively Averrhoist, but manifesting in their bold inde- pendence the influence which the Arab philosophy was beginning to exercise. In 1247 the papal legate Otto, Bishop of Frascati, condemned Jean de Brescain for certain heretical speculations concerning light and matter ; he was banished from Paris and for- bidden to teach, or dispute, or to live where there was a college. At the same time a certain Master Kaymond who had been im- prisoned for his erroneous views was found to be contumacious and was ordered back to prison, while, for the future, logicians were forbidden to argue theologically and theologians logically, as they were growing accustomed to do. This accomplished little, and as little was effected by Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aqui- nas, who employed their keenest dialectics to check the spread of these dangerous opinions. Bonaventura likewise denounced the audacious philosophy which denied immortality and asserted the unity of intellect and the eternity of matter, showing that Domin- icans and Franciscans could co-operate against a common enemy. In 1270, Btienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris, was called upon to con- demn a series of thirteen errors, distinctively Averrhoist, which found defenders among the schools, to the effect that the intellect of all men is the same and is one in number ; that human will is Ampliss. Coll. VII. 294).— Renan, pp. 205-16. III.— 36
 * Partidas, P. vn. Tit. xxvi. 1. 1. — Concil. Tarraconens. arm. 1291 c. 8 (Martene