Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages
- Book Review,
by Richard E. Rubenstein
From Publishers Weekly
In 12th-century Toledo, in Spain, a group of Christian monks, Jewish sages and Muslim teachers gathered to study a new translation of Aristotle's De Anima (On the Soul). In Rubenstein's dazzling historical narrative, this moment represents both the tremendous influence of Aristotle on these three religions and the culmination of the medieval rediscovery of his writings. In the fourth century B.C., Aristotle fashioned a new system of philosophy, focusing on the material world, whose operations he explained by a series of causes. As Rubenstein (When Jesus Became God) explains, in the second and third centuries A.D., Western Christian scholars suppressed Aristotle's teachings, believing that his emphasis on reason and the physical world challenged their doctrines of faith and God's supernatural power. By the seventh century, Muslims had begun to discover Aristotle's writings. Islamic thinkers such as Avicenna and Averroes, in the 11th and 12 centuries, embraced Aristotle's rationalist philosophy and principles of logic. Christian theologians rediscovered Aristotle through the commentaries of the monk Boethius, who argued in the sixth century that reason and understanding were essential elements of faith. There resulted a tremendous ferment in the study of Aristotle in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, culminating in the work of Thomas Aquinas, who used Aristotle's notion of an Unmoved Mover and First Cause to construct his arguments for God's existence. Aquinas, too, argued that reason was a necessary component of faith's ability to understand God and the world. Although the book purports to trace Aristotle's influence on Christianity, Islam and Judaism, it devotes more attention to Christianity. Even so, Rubenstein's lively prose, his lucid insights and his crystal-clear historical analyses make this a first-rate study in the history of ideas. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School--This is a challenging, intricate book for mature students who are fascinated by the paradox of the Middle Ages: How was the knowledge of Greece and Rome lost, and how was it found again? To set the scene, Rubenstein provides an introduction to the lives and works of Plato and Aristotle, and to the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West. He then shifts his focus to the year 1136, when a group of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars working together in Toledo began translating the philosopher's forgotten works. The dissemination of those translations sent shock waves through Europe as religious leaders tried to reconcile Aristotle's scientific theories with Church doctrine. The struggles between secular rulers and the Church hierarchy, and the development of the medieval universities, are presented with rich detail and feeling. The author shows readers the similarities between those conflicts and the Darwinist/creationist clashes. Students researching topics on the Middle Ages will find this title a useful reference source. Multiple pages are devoted to the lives and works of important figures, such as Abelard, Aquinas, and Innocent II, but the author does not neglect the less well known, such as William of Ockham or Siger de Brambant. Religious orders, heretical movements, and philosophical works are equally well covered. This is a compelling account of how the rediscovery of the writings of Aristotle changed the way the Western world looked at humans, God, and nature.--Kathy Tewell, Chantilly Regional Library, VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Library Journal
Rubinstein's background as a professor of conflict resolution must have come in handy as he was crafting this tale of one of history's biggest conflagrations: the introduction of Aristotle's philosophy to the Churchbound Europe of the Middle Ages. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* In today's sterile disputes between dogmatic religionists and chop-logic rationalists, political scientist Rubenstein sees evidence of cultural amnesia: we have forgotten how the Aristotelian thinkers of the late middle ages once reconciled faith with reason. To reverse this amnesia, Rubenstein resurrects the complex personalities who first delved into the treasure trove of Aristotelian manuscripts made available to European scholars by the Spanish reconquest of Toledo in the late fifteenth century. Without wearying general readers with excessive detail, Rubenstein chronicles the daring work that reshaped Aristotelian philosophy into a cogent Catholic synthesis of metaphysics, morality, and science--a synthesis dispelling the doubts of the pious and silencing the sophistry of the heretic. But the Christian-Aristotelian synthesis proved volatile: a canny historical sleuth, Rubenstein exposes the political calculations behind papal strategies for managing the Aristotelian revolution, and he probes the private ambitions of the incendiary scholars who subverted or defied these strategies. Rubenstein mourns the eclipse of Aristotle and the consequent divorce of religion and reason, which he blames for the vacuity of modern debates that pit superstition against desiccation. Perhaps like manuscripts recovered long ago in Toledo, Rubenstein's book will rekindle interest in a thinker who promises wholeness. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Jack Miles, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of God: A Biography
"An intellectual thriller. The real-life adventure of how the great thinker was found again. told with zest and excitement."
Edward Grant, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Indiana University
"With a lively, engaging style, ARISTOTLE'S CHILDREN is a remarkable book that iilluminates the long-standing relations between faith and reason."
Marc Gopin, author of Holy War: Holy Peace: How Religion Can Bring Peace to the Middle East
"Anyone who wants to understand where we are going in the great political strugggles over religion, read this amazing story."
John L. Esposito, author of What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam
"Christianity's 'rediscovery' of Aristotle through Muslim Spain...challenges gennerations today to reclaim the interrelatedness of reason, science and religion.
School Library Journal
"A compelling account of how the rediscovery of Aristotle changed the way the Weestern world looked at humans, God, nature."
Alibi
"[An] accomplished, entertaining history of ideas."
Alibi
"[An] accomplished, entertaining history of ideas."
Review
"Relevant and captivating."
Book Description
Europe was in the long slumber of the Dark Ages, the Roman Empire was in tatters, and the Greek language was all but forgotten, until a group of Arab, Jewish, and Christian scholars rediscovered and translated the works of Aristotle. His ideas spread across Europe like wildfire, offering the scientific point of view that the natural world, including the soul of man, was a proper subject of study. The Catholic Church convulsed, and riots took place at the universities of Paris and Oxford.
Richard Rubenstein recounts with energy and vigor this magnificent story of the intellectual ferment that planted the seeds of the scientific age in Europe and reflects our own struggles with faith and reason.
About the Author
Professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs at George Mason University, Richard Rubenstein is an expert on religious conflict in both its historical and modern manifestations. He has appeared on many talk shows in the aftermath of the September events. A graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School, he was a Rhodes Scholar and studied at Oxford University. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia. His most recent Harcourt book , WHEN JESUS BECAME GOD, was a Publishers Weekly top religion book and also honored by the ALA.
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