Truly an anachronism, That the religious institution against which the Western mind revolted, is the same that contributed, from an unknowing sense to its awakening.
The first spark was with the Dominican Order, and its founder is Saint Dominic, This monasticism was interested in the East, and settled early in Constantinople, Tunis, and Baghdad, and later in Mosul.
The men of this monasticism had a great advantage over central and modern Europe, Because thanks to their translations from Arabic, the teachers of monasticism discovered in theology, the philosopher Aristotle and Averroes.
Among these teachers were Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, who interpreted Averroes and Avicenna and spread their ideas among thirsty Western minds.
Then scholastic philosophy descended from the schools of Christian monasticism, Which was the basis from which the oldest European universities during the Middle Ages arose.
The spread of these universities during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in Italy, France, Spain, and England, represented the dawn of the European Enlightenment, and on this grounds of scholastic philosophy, the mind of the European Renaissance arose.
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Reference:
(Book: Unity of Philosophical Experience: Etienne Gilson)
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