Compendium of the Study of Theology

imperite). Another string of quotations from some of the above authors, with the addition of Aristotle, the Vita Aristotelis, and Chrysostom. The multitude has generally been wrong, as is shown by the number of false religions and heresies and by the scanty obedience to the gospel shown even by those who have remained in the true faith, those whose faith is informis and dead for want of works. Josephus and "Aristotle" (Secreta Secretorum) are cited in support of the proposition that the truth of philosophy was originally given to the Jewish patriarchs and prophets before the dawn of Gentile philosophy. Among the Greeks only the Peripatetics, according to Aristotle himself, "remained in the truth of philosophy," while he pronounced the Pythagoreans, Platonists and Stoics (!) to be in error. Roger appeals to the life of Aristotle for the statement that that author wrote a thousand volumes, and to Cicero's Topics for the fact that Aristotle was known to few. He alludes to Aristotle's "exile" to show that he "shunned the multitude and philosophized with very few," and then follows the important and often-quoted historical statement that Aristotle's "Natural Philosophy and Metaphysics, and the commentaries of Averroes and others upon them, were translated in our times, and were excommunicated at Paris before the year of our Lord 1237 on account of the eternity of the world and of time, and on account of the book about divination of dreams, which is the third about sleep and waking, and on account of many other things erroneously translated. His logical works also were received and read at a late date (tarde). For the blessed Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first who lectured at Oxford upon the books of Elenchs in my times, and I have seen Master Hugo, who was the first to read the book of Posteriors, and I have seen his work." He continues : "There were then but few who were held worthy on the aforesaid Philosophy of Aristotle, . . . and almost none up to this year of our Lord 1292, as shall be most copiously and evidently shown in the following chapters. And later still were made known the Ethics of Aristotle, and they were but lately and rarely read by the Masters ; and the whole of the