denial of Providence, the impossibility of creation; the victories of “the Angelic Doctor” were celebrated not only in the disputations of the Dominicans, but also in the works of art of the painters of Florence and Pisa.  The indignation of that saint knew no bounds when Christians became the disciples of an infidel, who was worse than a Mohammedan.  The wrath of the Dominicans, the order to which St. Thomas belonged, was sharpened by the fact that their rivals, the Franciscans, inclined to Averroistic views; and Dante, who leaned to the Dominicans, denounced Averroes as the author of a most dangerous system.  The theological odium of all three dominant religions was put upon him; he was pointed out as the originator of the atrocious maxim that “all religions are false, although all are probably useful.”  An attempt was made at the Council of Vienne to have his writings absolutely suppressed, and to forbid all Christians reading them.  The Dominicans, armed with the weapons of the Inquisition, terrified Christian Europe with their unrelenting persecutions.  They imputed all the infidelity of the times to the Arabian philosopher.  But he was not without support.  In Paris and in the cities of Northern Italy the Franciscans sustained his views, and all Christendom was agitated with these disputes.

Under the inspiration of the Dominicans, Averroes oceanic to the Italian painters the emblem of unbelief.  Many of the Italian towns had pictures or frescoes of the Day of Judgment and of Hell.  In these Averroes not unfrequently appears.  Thus, in one at Pisa, he figures with Arius, Mohammed, and Antichrist.  In another he is represented as overthrown by St. Thomas.  He had become an essential element in the triumphs of the great Dominican doctor.  He continued thus to be familiar to the Italian painters until the sixteenth century.  His doctrines were maintained in the University of Padua until the seventeenth.

Such is, in brief, the history of Averroism as it invaded Europe from Spain.  Under the auspices of Frederick ii., it, in a less imposing manner, issued from Sicily.  That sovereign bad adopted it fully.  In his “Sicilian Questions” he had demanded light on the eternity of the world, and on the nature of the soul, and supposed he had found it in the replies of Ibn Sabin, an upholder of these doctrines.  But in his conflict with the papacy be was overthrown, and with him these heresies were destroyed.

In Upper Italy, Averroism long maintained its ground.  It was so fashionable in high Venetian society that every gentleman felt constrained to profess it.  At length the Church took decisive action against it.  The Lateran Council, A.D. 1512, condemned the abettors of these detestable doctrines to be held as heretics and infidels.  As we have seen, the late Vatican Council has anathematized them.  Notwithstanding that stigma, it is to be borne in mind that these opinions are held to be true by a majority of the human race.