Volume 1

Opus majus / edited, with introduction and analytical table by John Henry Bridges.

  • Roger Bacon
Date:
1897-1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Opus majus / edited, with introduction and analytical table by John Henry Bridges. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    VOL. I. PAGES proved from Aristotle, when rightly interpreted, and from his com- mentators Alpharabius and Avicenna. Reason comes from God: therefore philosophy is divine 38-41 CHAPTER VI. But we may go farther. Wisdom was a direct revelation of God to the philosophers of antiquity. Aristotle, Cicero, and Augustine may be cited to show this . . . . . . . . .41-42 CHAPTER VII. Indeed the very purpose of philosophy is to lead up through know- ledge of the creature to knowledge and service of the Creator . 42-43 CHAPTER VIII. The Scriptures tell of the creature, and reveal its final cause: leaving the efficient cause to be dealt with by philosophy, which as yet has but imperfectly done her work. The rainbow is an illustra- tion 43-44 CHAPTER IX. 'I'he most important point of all has now to be explained. Philo- sophy is not an invention of heathen nations: it was revealed in its entirety to the first patriarchs, by the same Spirit who revealed to them the oracles of God. We learn from Josephus that Noah and his sons taught the Chaldaeans; Abraham the Egyptians. That philosophy originated with the patriarchs is admitted by Aristotle. From the Chaldaeans and Egyptians, thus taught, further progress ensued, the history of which may now be traced in parallel lines with that of the Hebrews. Isis and Pallas were contemporary with Jacob and Esau. Under Phoroneus, the second king of the Argives, a few years later, moral philosophy was first taught. Then came Prometheus and Atlas, contemporary with Moses. Hermes was the grandson of Atlas ; by him or by another wise man, Apollo, Asclepius was taught, the founder of medical art ; though probably medicine was better known to the sons of Adam and Noah, who thus attained great longevity 44-49 CHAPTER X. In the time of Othoniel, the Hebrew judge, Cadmus gave the art of writing to the Greeks. [Under the name of Hercules as under that of Apollo several distinct persons living at widely different periods are included.] Orpheus was a contemporary of Gideon. VOL. I. g