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

"
De
"
"
"
THE "FONS SCIENTLE." 7 I
with the Latins for works of this class, as we may see
by the Sententiae of Bandinus ;
which resembled
Peter the Lombard s so closely in form, that it. has
been disputed which of the two imitated the other. 1
The division of Damascenus himself is into one
hundred chapters, possibly meant to correspond with
the hundred sections of his De Hasresibus Liber;"
and a separation into four books really breaks the
connection between chapters meant to be consecu
tive ; as, for example, the forty-third and forty-fourth
(on the providence of God, and on His foreknow
ledge).
Besides passages from Holy Scripture, which are
largely quoted, though in a way that may often seem
to us far-fetched, the chief quotations are from
Gregory of Nazianzus, and his namesake of Nyssa,
Basil, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Nemesius, and some
others. The writings ascribed to Dionysius the
Areopagite should not be left out ;
in particular, the
.
Divinis Nominibus." In fact, the amount of his
indebtedness to these and similar writers is greater
than might at first sight be obvious, from his way of
using their language at times without troubling to
specify their names. Thus, for example, towards the
end of the second chapter, when treating of the
impossibility of knowing God, or comprehending the
nature of the Incarnate Word, he has recourse to the
illustration used by the Areopagite Div. Norn." c.
("
ii.), namely, the walking upon the sea. The division
into books being, as was said above, in all probability
1
Gieseler, iii., p. 291, n.