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<br />
THE "FONS SCIENTLE."<br />
67<br />
the sixty-eight short chapters or sections, into which<br />
the work is divided. The nature <strong>of</strong> some <strong>of</strong> them<br />
entity,<br />
"<br />
genus,"<br />
On species,"<br />
predications," &c. It is, in fact, in the main, a<br />
may be gathered from the headings : "<br />
On<br />
sub<strong>st</strong>ance, and accident,"<br />
"<br />
On<br />
summary <strong>of</strong> the "<br />
Categories, together with the<br />
Isagoge,"<br />
or introduction to them, <strong>of</strong> Porphyry.<br />
It would be impossible to make any detailed<br />
account <strong>of</strong> such a subject intere<strong>st</strong>ing to the readers<br />
for whom this little work is designed. But it<br />
any rate, in<strong>st</strong>ructive to note, that we have here a<br />
Greek Chri<strong>st</strong>ian <strong>of</strong> Pale<strong>st</strong>ine, in the eighth century,<br />
expounding one <strong>of</strong> the treatises <strong>of</strong> the Organon, and<br />
applying<br />
its methods to Chri<strong>st</strong>ian doctrine. Boethius,<br />
in the fifth century, had translated into Latin all the<br />
is,<br />
at<br />
treatises <strong>of</strong> which Ari<strong>st</strong>otle s great work consi<strong>st</strong>s ;<br />
but <strong>of</strong> these the "Analytics,"<br />
the "Topics,"<br />
and the<br />
"Elenchi Sophi<strong>st</strong>ici," seem to have lain in oblivion<br />
until the beginning <strong>of</strong> the twelfth century. The<br />
"Categories"<br />
and the "De<br />
Interpretatione,"<br />
were<br />
practically the whole <strong>of</strong> Ari<strong>st</strong>otle known in Europe<br />
during that long interval. If, then, we see John <strong>of</strong><br />
Damascus familiar with one <strong>of</strong> these in the year 743,<br />
and making its method and application known by<br />
his "Dialectic," it should raise our opinion <strong>of</strong> the<br />
importance <strong>of</strong> his work in the hi<strong>st</strong>ory <strong>of</strong> philo<br />
sophical inquiry. There has long been a tendency<br />
to overrate the services rendered by the Arabians<br />
to art and literature. The imagination<br />
is<br />
apt to<br />
be dazzled by the glories <strong>of</strong> Bagdad and Cordova ;<br />
by <strong>st</strong>ories <strong>of</strong> Al-Mansour and Haroun-al-Raschid.<br />
But John <strong>of</strong> Damascus wrote before Bagdad was<br />
F 2