GAULMINI DEDICATIO.

GAULMIN’S DEDICATION.

When they thought they knew things well, that was the very moment they began to be truly ignorant. Eventually, with the rising of Christ, the sun of justice, the truth—which had shone upon the world alongside Him—emerged. Only then did we truly come to know the demons and their previously unknown nature (the knowledge of which was of the highest necessity, if only so that we might guard against their frauds and impostures). For holy men have taught many things by warning us about them; many others have also written in different centuries on matters that have been lost through the ravages of time. Finally, in the latter days, around the year 1050 of Christ, Michael Psellus—tutor to Michael Ducas, nicknamed Parapinaces, and a most studious follower of the Platonic discipline—contributed his own share to this feast. Being most highly instructed in the knowledge of many sciences and languages, he wrote the booklet On the Operation of Demons original: "Περὶ ἐνεργείας δαιμόνων", a work more accurate and elegant than any other that has appeared among the ancient Greeks in this genre of writing. We offer and dedicate this booklet to you, most illustrious Verdun, annotated as well with notes that were born while it was being printed. If you ask for the reasons for this dedication, I know of none other than those that are most well-known to everyone and to me: your singular erudition, your marvelous skill in the Greek language 1, and your greatest humanity.

1) It seems he knew Greek so well that he almost did not know his own vernacular. I remember reading in the Menagiana a collection of anecdotes about Gilles Ménage that when Verdun was acting as a patron, arguing a case in the presence of a lawyer who had blathered much that was irrelevant, he said, being weary of the garrulousness: "That is adiaphore irrelevant/indifferent to the case."