with the unbounded authority that belonged to one who was ranked with Cicero among the chief of Latin philosophers. Gilbert's general mode of approaching his subject suggests to a great extent, consciously or unconsciously, that of John Scotus.[1] He seeks to unite theology and philosophy, and he arrives at a similar result. Although he has not the affirmative and negative antithesis which forms so characteristic an element in the Scot's system, he is not the less precise in excluding the nature of God from the domain of human enquiry. God is to him, on the one hand, the supreme abstraction, of which we can predicate nothing; on the other, he is the fulness of all being, which sums up and unites that which in the universe exists only in division and variety. The dominant idea, however, in Gilbert's mind is plainly the former.[2] He undertook to prove, just as Abailard had done, that the highest truths of theology stand apart from and above the comprehension of our understanding, can only be hinted at by analogies and figures of speech. Yet in fact he started from a precisely opposite principle to Abailard's, since he held that in theology faith precedes reason, reason
- ↑ He has even the Scot's four-fold division of nature: 'Perfecta vero esset [Boëthii] divisio si ita dixisset, vel quod facere et non pati, vel quod pati et non facere, vel quod pati et facere, vel quod nec facere nec pati potest:' in Boëth. iv. p. 1227, ed. 1570.
- ↑ Those who wish to examine the intricate subject of Gilbert's views in detail will find some light in Ritter 3. 442-448, and still more in an article by Dr. Lipsius entirely devoted to Gilbert's theology, under his title, in Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine Encyklopädie, sect. 1 vol. 67; 1858. Bishop Hefele's summary, Conciliengeschichte, 5. 446 sqq., cf. pp. 460 sq., is interesting; but he gives too much credit to the accounts of Gilbert's opponents, and would perhaps have been less adverse to the accused bishop in all respects, had the history of John of Salisbury been published at the time he wrote. Previously it was of course permissible to prefer the narrative of an eye-witness, Geoffrey of Auxerre, to that of Otto of Freising who knew what he records only by report. See below, pp. 161 sq.
edition of the Philosophiae consolatio and Opuscula sacra, 1871) are expressly attributed to Boëthius in a brief notice contained in a Reichenau manuscript of the tenth century which there is reason to believe to be by Cassiodorus. See the edition of this Anecdoton Holderi by H. Usener, 1877. Dr. von Prantl however was not convinced by this evidence and adhered to the opinion of Nitzsch: Geschichte der Logik 2 (2nd ed.) 108 n. 35.]
