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

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