ABSTRACT
History teaching, princes may examine as though in a mirror past actions to see what is to be done, what avoided, what fled and what pursued. The slavery of the Mosaic Law to the lighter burden of Christ's law, humanity was to be fulfilled in the spiritual freedom of the Holy Spirit, when all were to receive and live on earth some part of the monastic calling. Critics of Averroist Aristotelianism and Thomistic theology hunted for ways to release God from bondage to His own creation. From Augustinians of Bonaventure's persuasion through Duns Scotus to the later Ockhamists, they criticized past attempts to demonstrate the deity's existence and qualities by arguing from analogies seen in the natural world. Natural philosophers, however, refused to be deprived of certitude. Astrologer and medical doctor Peter of Abano was reported as saying that he and others dealt with things describable 'by human certitude' and not, as did theologians, with those held by simple credulity.
