ABSTRACT
The way in which Greek thought first reached Western Europe is not very clear. It is certain that it was by more than one route. But we find that whereas the chief channel by which it reached Baghdad was through the efforts of Jacobite and Nestorian Christians, here it was through the intermediary of Arab and Jewish philosophers in Spain and North Africa, and Islamic writings. Here again Plato was the first favourite because of the works of St Augustine, and was then forsaken in favour of Aristotle, and the final phase was the attempt to reconcile the two. Here also interest in Greek medicine and natural philosophy went side by side with interest in logic and metaphysics. And here the whole movement seemed to culminate in the person of St Thomas Aquinas, whose position corresponds in some ways to that of Avicenna, though they did not always agree.
