st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

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1 68 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
Africa to the rest of Europe chiefly by means of the
Jews about the tenth and eleventh centuries and
;
of astronomy as a science which the Arabians
engrafted upon medicine." Bailly has given a more
just estimate of their claims to our respect, as being
the safe-keepers and continuers of a learning that
would have been lost but for them ;
while yet, on the
other hand, their existence is scarcely marked by a
single memorable discovery.
2
In giving an abstract
of what one of the authors named above by Chaucer,
our own Damascene, has left on scientific subjects,
it will be our aim to show the part taken by Syrian
Christians in the transmission of ancient lore. If he
studied in his youth the Diophantine arithmetic,
which was the germ of our modern algebra ; if he
epitomized the Organum of Aristotle, and made him
self acquainted with the astronomical system of
Ptolemy, and that before the seat of Mussulman
empire was removed to Bagdad we may see in him
one evident link at least, by which the knowledge
of ancient Greece was conveyed to the new con
querors.
The part played by Syria in the history of the
world has not been conspicuous, either in arms or
1
"Hist, of English Poetry," sect. xvii.
a "Les Arabes ne sont recommandables que pour avoir etc
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entrepot des sciences, pour avoir conserve le feu sacre, qui se
seroit eteint sans eux. Mais s ils nous ont transmis les sciences,
ils nous les ont fait passer a peu pres telles qu
ils les avoient
re9ues ; a peine une decouverte memorable marque-t-elle leur
existence." "Hist, de 1 Astronomie Moderne (1785), t. i.,
p. 221.