Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/188

 AVEMPACE

150

AVERROES

^ocular priests, 11 regulars, 80 seminarians, 90 ohurehes and chapels.

Annuario Eccl. (Rome. 1907); Cappelletti, Chiese d'ltalia (18841, xix; ZrxGARELLi, Storia delia catiedra di Avehnoe di suoi pastori. elc. (Naples. 1856). j;. BuoXAITITI.

Avempace (Ibn B.U)sha, or Ibx B.vdja, called by the Scholastics Avex-Pace and A\T:JtPACE), Arabian philosopher, physician, astronomer, mathematician, eleventh centurj'; d. at Fez, 113S. In lUS he was at SevOle, where he wrote several treatises on logic. Later, he went to Granada and to Africa. He was, according to Arabian accounts, poisoned by rival physicians. He wrote treatises on mathematics, medicine, and philosophy, and commented on several of Aristotle's works, notablj^ on the '" Physics", "■ Me- teorologica", "De Generatione et Corniptione", por- tions of "Historia; Animalium" and "De Partibus .\nimalium". His works on philosophy included logical treati-ses, a work "On the Soul", "The Her- mit's Guide" (Hunk tran.slates the title "Regime du SoUtaire''), "On the Union of the Intellect vrith Man", and a " Valedictorj' Letter" (cited in Latin as " Epistola de Discessu " and " Epistola Espeditionis"). Avempace's logical treatises are said to exist in MSB. in the Escorial Librarj-. His other writings are either lost or still undiscovered. Fortunately, however, a .Jewish writer of the fourteenth century, Moses of Narboime, has left us an accoimt of "The Hermit's Guide", which supplements Averroes' unsatisfactory allusions to that work, and enables us to describe the doctrines it contains. The aim of the ti-eatise is to show how man (the hermit) may, bj' the devel- opment of his own powers of mind, attain a union with the Active InteUect. (See Arabi.oi School of Philosophy.) Avempace distinguishes two kinds of action: animal action, which is a product of the animal soul, and human action, wh.ch is a product of the hu- man soul, that is of free wiU and reflection. The man who smashes a stone because it has hurt him performs an animal action; but he who smashes the stone so that it will not injure others performs a human ac- tion. \ow, the first step in the moral education of the hermit is to teach himself to be ruled by will and reason, so that his actions may all be human. That, however, is only the first step. Having attained it, the hermit must strive to higher perfection, so that his actions may become divine. He must strive to come in contact with the spiritual forms, which ascend in increasing degrees of incorporeity from the ideas of the individual soul up to the Actual Intellect itself, above which are only the forms of celestial bodies, that is to say, spiritual substances which, while they have an important cosmic func- tion, have no relation to moral excellence in man. Through ideas, therefore, to the ideas of ideas, through these to abstract ideas of things, and through these last, to the pure form of the Active Intellect — this, according to Avempace, is the way of perfec- tion. The mind which has come into contact with the Active Intellect becomes itself an intellect, the Acquired Intellect (httelkcttis Adeptits). It is in reference to this last point that the Schoolmen, not- ably Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas, mention Avempace and his teacliing. Their ac- quaintance with the author of "The Hermit's Guide" was made, probably, through his disciple and ad- mirer -Aiverroes, though certain passages in the "Con- tra Gentiles" would justify the surmise that St, Thomas had perhaps a firsthand acquaintance with the "Epistola Expeditionis".
 * ind poet, b. at Saragossa towards the end of the

MrxK, Mdanges de phUosophie juive et arabe (Paris, 1S59). 410-418; MrxK. in Dictionnnire des sciences philosophiqiLes (Paris. 1844-52), s. v. Ibn-Badja; St. Thomas, Conlra Gentiles, II. 41:Casiri. Bihliolheca Araba-hispana (Madrid, 1760), I, 179: Ueberweg-Heixze, Gesch. der Phil.. II, 9th ed. 249 sqq,, Ir. I, 414; Stocke, Gesch. der Phil. d. M. A. (Mainz, 1865), II, ''S^^- WrLLUM TURN-ER.

Avendano, Ferxaxdo, priest, b. at Lima, Peru, either towards the end of the sixteenth, or in the begin- ning of the seventeenth, centurj-; d. at Lima, in 1665. shortlj' after being appointed Bishop of Santiago de Chile. He was one of the most diligent investigators into survivals of the primitive rites and customs of the Peruvian Indians and left valuable notes on the subject, fragments of them being preserved in the work of Arriaga. Of great importance to linguistics are his " Sermones de los inisterios de nuestra santa Fe catolica '. published in 16-19 by order of the Archbishop of Lima, Pedro VUlagomez. These ser- mons were delivered in Quichua. and are published with their translation into Spanish,

Mendiburu, Diccionario historico-bivffrdfico; Jimenez de l.v EsPAD.A, Tres Relaciones de Aniiguedades peruanas; Abbiaga, Eztirpacion de la IdoUUrla en el Peru (1621).

Ad. F. Bandeuer.

Aventinus. See Tt-RM.uR, John.

Averroes (.^bul W.u-id M.\hommed Ibx Achmed Ibx M.uiommedIbxRoschd), Arabian philosopher, a.s- tronomer. and wTiter on jurisprudence; b. at Cordova 1126; d. at Morocco, 119S. Ibn Roschd, or .wenoe.-;. as he was called by the Latins, was educated in his native city, where his father and grandfather had held the office of cadi (judge in civil affairs) and had played an important part in the political historj' of Andalusia. He devoted himself to jurisprudence, medicine, and mathematics, as well as to philosqphv and theology. Under the Caliphs Abu Jacub Jusu'f and his son, Jacub .\1 Mansur, he enjoyed extraor- dinary favour at court and was entrusted with sev- eral important civil offices at Jlorocco, Seville, and Cordova. Later he fell into disfavour and was ban- ished with other representatives of learning. Shortly before his death, the edict against philosophers was recalled. Many of his works in logic and metaphys- ics had, however, been consigned to the flames, so that he left no school, and the end of the dominion of the Moors in Spain, which occurred shortly after- wards, turned the current of A\'erroism completely into Hebrew and Latin channels, through which it influenced the thought of Christian Europe down to the dawn of the modern era. Averroes' great med- ical work, " Cullij'j'at " (of which the Latin title "CoUiget'' is a corruption) was published as the tenth volume in the Latin edition of Aristotle's Tvorks, Venice, 1527. His "Commentaries" on Aris- totle, his original philosophical works, and his treat- ises on theology have come down to us either in Latin or Hebrew translations. His " Commentaries '. which earned for him the title of the Commentator, were of three kinds: a short paraphrase or analysis, a brief exposition of the text, and a more extended exposition. These are kno^^■n as the Minor, the Mid- dle, and the Major Commentarj', respectively. None of them is of any value for the textual criticism of Aristotle, since Averroes, being unacquainted with Greek and Syriac, based his exposition on a verj' imperfect Arabic translation of the Syriac version of the Greek text. They were, however, of great influence in determining the philosophical and scien- tific interpretation of Aristotle. His original philo- sophical treatises include: a work entitled "Tehafot al Tehafot", or "Destructio Destructionis" (a refu- tation of -ilgazel's "Destructio Philosophonmi ") published in the Latin edition, Venice, 1497 and 1527; two treatises on the union of the Active and Passive Intellects, also published in Latin in the Venice edition; logical treatises on different parts of the "Organon ", published in the Venice edition un- der the title "Qua>sita in Libros Logics Aristotelis"; physical treatises ba.sed on .Aristotle's " Physics" (also in the Venice edition); a treatise in refutation of Avicenna, and another on the agreement between philosophy and theologj'. Of the last two, onlv Hebrew and Arabic texts exist.