SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY, Sylvester Hassell The Scholastic Theology is generally reckoned to have begun with Anselm, “Archbishop of Canterbury” (1033-1109), and terminated with Eckhart of Germany (1250-1329), thus extending from the middle of the eleventh to about the middle of the fourteen century. It was an application of Aristotelian logic to the support of Catholic doctrines, and a sublimation of theology of theology into metaphysics. Beginning with Realism (the doctrine that universal ideas are real things), it ended in Nominalism (the doctrine that such ideas are only the names of things); and after weary, hair-splitting debates of three centuries, the system resulted in rationalism, skepticism, and pantheism.
“The Schoolmen,” says Taine, “seem to be marching, but are merely marking time.” They served, perhaps, to keep thought alive, and prepare the way for modern thought. The initial point of the debate was the denial (about 1050) by Berengar of Tours that the bread and wine in communion are changed into the real body and blood of Christ; Lanfranc and Anselm, of Canterbury, endeavored, in reply, to establish the doctrine of Transubstantiation (that, while the sensible properties of the elements are not changed, their underlying “substance” is changed into the “substance” of Christ’s body). Twice was Berengar forced by the Catholic authorities to sing a recantation, which twice he revoked, “leaving a memory curiously mingled of veneration and abhorrence.”
Under the influence of the Nominalism of William Occam, Martin Luther substituted for transubstantiation the doctrine of “consubstantiation” (that the body of Christ is actually, substantially present with the bread and wine); but, “as the logic of Protestantism became clear and self-consistent, this weak compromise faded quite away.”
The schoolman Albertus Magnus (1193-1280) is said to have been familiar with all the learning of his time; and his disciple, Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), in 2,000 folio pages, 600 topics, 3,000 articles and 15,00 arguments, made the most complete and authentic exposition of Catholic theology (Summa Theologie)” (Hassell)