Machine summary:
BENZ* HE very strong influence of Islamic culture upon the Christian philoso• phy and theology in Europe can be understood well by studying the enormous importance of the Islamic culture as mediator of the great philosophical tradition of the classical antiquity) especially of Aristotle, Plato and ofneoplatonic philosophy.
of all sciences in the Christian scholastic as well as the development of the mystical theology in the middle ages is immediately and directly influenced by this new contact with the long forgotten tradition of Greek philosophy and sciences mediated to the Christian scholars by the great thinkers of Islam.
and then let us consider, secondly, the very interesting return of this classical philo• sophical heritage through the Islamic philosophers from the East to the extreme West in Spain, and thirdly, let us consider especially the history of the trans• lations of Aristotle in the 12th to 14th century as the basis of the develop• ment of the Christian theology, philosophy and sciences of the medieval scholastic.
interesting fact that in that Islamic tradition we find some writings under the title of Aristotle which influenced deeply the Islamic and also later the Christian philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages, but which were in no way original · writings of Stagirite, but extracts from the writings of neoplatonic philosophers of the third or fourth century.
The. discovery of the "theology of Aristotle" was understood as a kind of new revelation, and so that book, translated into Latin, was used as a main authority by all the represen• tatives of the different theological schools of the Christian Middle Ages.