st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
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"<br />
ON NATURAL SCIENCE. 173<br />
Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter,<br />
Saturn. These heavenly bodies were set by God in<br />
the firmament <strong>of</strong> heaven, to be for signs and for<br />
seasons, and for days and years. It is to the sun,<br />
accordingly, that we owe the alternations <strong>of</strong> the four<br />
seasons. It was in the fir<strong>st</strong> <strong>of</strong> these, the spring, that<br />
the world was made a<br />
; yearly reminder <strong>of</strong> which we<br />
have in the reappearance <strong>of</strong> plants and flowers in<br />
spring. Its duration is from March 2151^0 June<br />
24th. The summer quarter extends from June 24th<br />
to September 25th, the autumn from this latter date<br />
to December 25th, and so on. Each quarter has its<br />
special effect upon the temperament ; spring tending<br />
to increase the sanguineous humour, summer the<br />
choleric, autumn the melancholy or atrabilious, and<br />
2<br />
winter the phlegmatic. It may have been owing to<br />
passages such as this, or the fragment Quid e<strong>st</strong> homo,<br />
to be afterwards noticed, that John <strong>of</strong> Damascus came<br />
to be regarded as a proper writer for a Doctour<br />
<strong>of</strong> Phisicke," like Chaucer s,<br />
to <strong>st</strong>udy. For the poet s<br />
physician<br />
"<br />
was grounded in a<strong>st</strong>ronomic :<br />
He kept his pacients a full gret dele<br />
In houris by his magike naturell."<br />
And for many ages afterwards the healing<br />
art was<br />
1<br />
An obvious correction <strong>of</strong> the Greek text as it here appears<br />
in Migne<br />
s edition is to alter OTTO Mapriov mi /**XP<br />
l<br />
K.r.A., to<br />
OTTO Mapriov *cd,<br />
March 2i<strong>st</strong>.<br />
i.e., from<br />
3<br />
The same arrangement <strong>of</strong> influences is given in Velcurio,<br />
before quoted, p. 144.