XI

Introduction.

Meanwhile, the path which the book On Causes Original Latin: de causis took through the Christian speculation of the Middle Ages was much more clearly defined and much easier to follow than previous accounts would lead one to expect.

The book On Causes played the role of an "unknown quantity" in the historiography of medieval philosophy; it seemed that many were all the more eager to invoke it—sometimes suspecting and slandering it, sometimes recognizing and celebrating it in the most undeserved manner—the more it eluded their control.

Hauréau Barthélemy Hauréau (1812–1896), a French historian of scholasticism concludes the previously mentioned summary of the contents with a phrase entirely lacking any foundation: "Behold this ‘Book of Causes’ which has made so much noise; which, according to the Church, has lost so many consciences; which has produced, at the very least, so many scandals."¹ Original French: "Voilà ce ‘Livre des causes’ qui a fait tant de bruit; qui, suivant l’Église, a perdu tant de consciences; qui a produit, du moins, tant de scandals."

M. Joel, on the other hand, led by Albert the Great into the belief that our book was of Jewish origin, identifies with strange seriousness Ibn Gabirol An 11th-century Sephardic philosopher and poet, also known as Avicebron and the author of the book On Causes as "the two Jewish philosophers whose works are known to have helped build and shape the Scholasticism of the thirteenth century."²

Even more strange, if possible, is the judgment of E. Renan: that the "undecided character" French: le caractère indécis of the book On Causes "held all of Scholasticism in suspense."³ French: a tenu en suspens toute la scolastique

I cite these remarks for their more general implications. In detail, one would need to recall the claims of A. Jourdain and others regarding the origin of the teachings of Amalric of Bène and David of Dinant, Hauréau’s statements about Alain de Lille and Robert Grosseteste German: Robert Greathead, and C. Prantl’s judgment regarding Thomas Aquinas.⁴

The result of my investigations can be summarized by saying that the book On Causes indeed, according to Hauréau’s

1 On Scholastic Philosophy I, 389—390; History of Scholastic Philosophy II, 1, 53.
2 Something regarding the influence of Jewish philosophy on Christian Scholasticism — in Frankel’s Monthly, Year 1860, pp. 205—217 — p. 214. A reprint of this treatise concludes the first volume of the Contributions to the History of Philosophy by Joel (Breslau 1876). A more detailed report on the same was given by Schneid in the work cited above, pp. 71—74.
3 Averroes and Averroism, 3rd ed. (Paris 1866), p. 93.
4 See below pp. 221—222, p. 211 and p. 228, p. 256.