Note 310 — Chapter IX · CHRISTENDOM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Between such humanistic influences and that of more systematic and scholastic thought, Italy in that age was the chief source of practical criticism of Christian dogmas; and the extent to which a unitarian theism was now connected with the acceptance of the philosophy of Averroës brought it about, despite the respectful attitude of Dante, who gave him a tranquil place in hell,310 that he came to figure as Antichrist for the faithful.311 Petrarch in his letters speaks of much downright hostility to the Christian system on the part of Averroïsts;312 and the association of Averroïsm with the great medical school of Padua313 must have promoted practical skepticism among physicians. Being formally restricted to the schools, however, it tended there to undergo the usual scholastic petrifaction; and the common-sense deism it encouraged outside had to subsist without literary discipline. In this form it probably reached many lands, without openly affecting culture or life; since Averroïsm itself was professed generally in the Carmelite order, who claimed for it orthodoxy.314