a sect of peripatetic philosophers, who appeared in Italy some time before the restoration of learning, and attacked the immortality of the soul. They took their denomination from Averroes, the celebrated interpreter of Aristotle (see the preceding article), from whom they borrowed their distinguishing doctrine.

The Averroists, who held the soul was mortal, according to reason or philosophy, yet pretended to submit to the Christian theology, which declares it immortal. But the distinction was held suspicious; and this divorce of faith from reason was rejected by the doctors of that time, and condemned by the last council of the Lateran under Leo X.