Liber de Causis (The Book of Causes)

B. Significance of the Text

The significance of the Liber de causis for contemporary historians is twofold, for the treatise exercised a double influence on medieval thought: literary and doctrinal. The small work is divided into 31 or 32 propositions, or chapters, containing a total of 219 aphorisms. Its structure is similar to that of its principal source, the Elements of Theology, in that both endeavor to establish demonstrations more geometrico original: "more geometrico"; modern: "geometrically" or "by the geometric method" of the propositions stated. As with the argumentation of the Elements, however, many of the intended demonstrations of the Liber are more properly systematic commentaries than strict a priori original: "a priori"; modern: "deductive" or "from theoretical necessity" deductions. The importance of this literary form for the medievals has been signaled by Professor Etienne Gilson:

From the point of view of literary form, they [the propositions] have favored the development of the aphoristic style of which Boethius and Alan of Lille had already given striking examples. Every time a philosophical or theological short work consists of concise aphoristic statements, often alliterative, and attended or not by a short commentary, the influence of the Book of Causes can at least be suspected. 33.

The aphoristic style also favored a wider dissemination of the thought of the Liber. Many of the axioms 34. of the work became common knowledge during the succeeding years. Propositions such as "The first of things created is being" (Prop. 37) and "The First Cause is above all description" (Prop. 57) were unhesitatingly accepted and frequently repeated, even by those who did not embrace the entire doctrine of the De causis.

It was, however, in its doctrinal content that The Book of Causes