Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/580

 504: INTELLECT AND FAITH. Averrhoists arose, whose tenets, introduced in the University of Padua seemingly by Peter of Abano, reigned there supreme until the seventeenth century. The University of Bologna likewise adopted them. Jean de Jandun, the collaborator of Marsilio of Padua, was a modified Averrhoist, as were Walter Burleigh, Buri- dan, and the Ockhamists. John of Baconthorpe, who died in 1346 as General of the Carmelites, rejoiced in the title of Prince of Averrhoists, and through him the philosophy became traditional in the Order. These men might conceal to themselves the dan- gerous irreligion which lurked under their cherished theories, but when these spread among the people, divested of the subtle dialec- tics of the schools, they developed into frank materialism. Dante's description of the portion of hell where K Suo cimitero da questa parte hanno Con Epicuro tutti i suoi seguaci Che ranirna col corpo morta farmo" (Inferno, X.) manifests by its occupants that Averrhoism in its crudest form was openly professed by men high in station ; and some proceedings of the Inquisitions of Carcassonne and Pamiers in the first quarter of the fourteenth century indicate that even in the lower strata of society such opinions were not uncommon. The indignation of Petrarch shows us how fashionable and how outspoken by the middle of the century this indifferentism had become in the Vene- tian provinces, where men did not hesitate to ridicule Christ and to regard Averrhoes as the fountain of wisdom. In Florence the tradition of the same philosophic contempt for dogma is indicated by Boccaccio's story of the Three Pings, wherein Melchisedech the Jew, by an ingenious parable, conveys to Saladin the conclusion that all three religions are on the same plane, with equal claims for reverence. In Spain, although philosophy was little cultivat- ed, Moorish tradition seems to have kept Averrhoism alive. The revolted nobles who, in 1464, presented their complaints to King Enrique TV., declare him suspect in the faith because he keeps about his person enemies of Catholicism, and others who, while nominally Christians, boast of their disbelief in the immortality of the soul.* MSS. des Bibliotheques dltalie, p. 103. — Petrarchi Lib. sine Titulo Epist. xvm.
 * Reran, pp. 318-20, 322, 325, 339, 342, 345-6. — Molinier, Etudes sur quelques