Note 188 — Chapter IX · CHRISTENDOM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Despite the ostensibly rationalistic nature of his argument, however, Anselm stipulated for absolute submission of the intellect to the creed of the Church;188 so that the original subtitle of his Proslogium, Fides quaerens intellectum, in no way admits rational tests. In the next century we meet with new evidence of sporadic unbelief, and new attempts to deal with it on the philosophic side. John of Salisbury (1120–1180) tells of having heard many discourse on physics “otherwise than faith may hold”;189 and the same vivacious scholar put in his list of “things about which a wise man may doubt, so ... that the doubt extend not to the multitude,” some “things which are reverently to be inquired about God himself.”190 Giraldus Cambrensis (1147–1223), whose abundant and credulous gossip throws so much light on the inner life of the Church and the laity in his age, tells that the learned Simon of Tournay “thought not soundly on the articles of the faith,” saying privately, to his intimates, things that he dared not utter publicly, till one day, in a passion, he cried out, “Almighty God! how long shall this superstitious sect of Christians and this upstart invention endure?”; whereupon during the night he lost the power of speech, and remained helpless till his death.191 Other ecclesiastical chroniclers represent Simon as deriding alike Jesus, Moses, and Mahomet—an ascription to him of the “three impostors” formula.192 Again, Giraldus tells how an unnamed priest, reproved by another for careless celebration of the mass, angrily asked whether his rebuker really believed in transubstantiation, in the incarnation, in the Virgin Birth, and in resurrection; adding that it was all carried on by hypocrites, and assuredly invented by cunning ancients to hold men in terror and restraint. And Giraldus comments that inter nos there are many who so think in secret.193 As his own picture of the Church exhibits a gross and almost universal rapacity pervading it from the highest clergy to the lowest, the statement is entirely credible.194 Yet again, in the Romance of the Holy Grail, mention is twice made of clerical doubters on the doctrine of the Trinity;195 and on that side, in the crusading period, both the monotheistic doctrine of Islam and the Arab philosophy of Averroës were likely to set up a certain amount of skepticism. In the twelfth century, accordingly, we have Nicolas of Amiens producing his tractate De articulis (or arte) catholicæ fidei in the hope of convincing by his arguments men “who disdain to believe the prophecies and the gospel.”196