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He begins with the thesis 'Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He says Repent, desires that the whole life of the believer should be one of repentance. He means, as the subsequent theses express it, that true inward repentance, that sorrow for sin and hatred of one's own sinful self, from which must proceed good works and mortification of the sinful flesh.
His theses, or philosophical positions, which he printed in compliance with the practice of that university, ran through several editions in a few weeks, and no testimony of regard was wanting, that could contribute to animate him in his progress.
Returning to Avignon, in the possession of his new degree, he commenced an important task which took him nearly twenty years to complete: a painstaking treatise on the Sphaeriaceae of Vaucluse, that singular family of fungi which cover fallen leaves and dead twigs with their blackish fructifications; a remarkable piece of work, full of the most valuable documentation, as were the theses whose subjects I have just detailed; but without belittling the fame of their author, one may say that another, in his place, might have acquitted himself as well.
It was from the licentiousness of cardinals and the wanton revels of the Vatican in Leo's time that young Luther the "barbarian" fled with horror to nail up his theses on the doors of the churches in Wittenberg. The history of tapestry in Italy at the Seventeenth Century was all in the hands of the great families.
In the controversies which started immediately after the publication of the Ninety-five Theses, Luther was led step by step to a greater clearness in his view of sin and grace, faith and works, human reason and the divine revelation.
I mention further the Descrittione dell' Africa by Leon l'African, the Arabian Histories of Ibn-Khaldoun, of Al-Iaquob, of El-Bekri, of Ibn-Batoutah, of Mahommed El-Tounsi.... In the midst of this Babel, I remember the names of only two volumes of contemporary French scholars. There were also the laborious theses of Berlioux and of Schirmer. Paris, 8vo, 1874, with two maps. Paris, 8vo, 1892.
To characterize briefly the methods of the Mutakallimun, Maimonides continues, I would say that the first among them, the Greeks and the Mohammedans, did not follow reality, but adopted principles which were calculated to help them in defending their religious theses, and then interpreted reality to suit their preconceived notions.
For it is a set of theses, not doctrines or dogmas, and they are put, according to custom, in an obscure and enigmatic way. Otherwise, if I had been able to foresee what was coming, I should have taken care, for my part, that they would be easier to understand. Now what shall I do? I cannot recant them; and yet I see that marvelous enmity is inflamed against me because of their dissemination.
It is said that a few of the old men succumb to the strain at each examination. The theses or essays of but eighty-three of the competitors can be accepted, and the fortunate ones are rewarded by the Bachelor of Arts degree.
Something resembling these disputations still survives in a shadowy form at Oxford, in the requirements for the degrees of B.D. and D.D. A candidate for the B.D. has to read in the Divinity School two theses on some theological subject approved by the Regius Professor, a candidate for the D.D. has to read and expound three passages of Holy Scripture; in both cases notice has to be given beforehand of the subject, a custom which survives from the time when the candidate might expect to have his theses disputed; but now the Regius Professor and the candidate generally have the Divinity School to themselves.
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