unique position less to his writings than to his personal influence as a teacher; as a teacher too not of moral but of natural philosophy, as a master not of theology but of statecraft. The stores of his knowledge, – were they acquired from the Arabs during his stay in the Spanish march, or won by long practice and research in every library accessible to him, – were no doubt unequalled. Gerbert was a mathematician, a natural philosopher, and a pioneer of natural philosophers; his learning was believed to be universal: but, except in the domain of positive science, he was but the ready accumulator and diffuser of what was actually within the range of any well-read student of his day. In theology and metaphysics he produced little or nothing. If we exclude the necessary official productions of a dignitary of the church, sermons and speeches addressed to synods and similar gatherings, and these too concerned not with theology but with ecclesiastical politics,[1] we shall find that Gerbert composed not one theological work, or, it he wrote any, they have been lost; for the only treatise of this class which has been ascribed to him is certainly not his.[2]
It was indeed in practical affairs that Gerbert's interest
- ↑ It would be more accurate to say, one sermon (De inform. episc., Migne 139. 169-178) and one speech of a substantive character and of undisputed authenticity (that delivered before the council of Mouzon in 995, Mansi 19. 193 D-196 B; 1774): see the bibliography in Fabricius, Biblioth. Lat. med. et inf. Aet. 3. 43 sq., ed Florence 1858.
- ↑ The book De corpore et sanguine domini (Migne 139. 177 sqq.), at first printed as anonymous, was reëdited by Pez from a manuscript at Goettweih which bore Gerbert's name: see the editor's dissertatio isagogica to his Thesaurus Anecd. noviss. 1 pp. lxviii, lxix; and the ascription has been generally admitted. See the Histoire littéraire de la France 6. 587 sq., 1742; Neander, History of the Christian Religion and Church 6. 308; Gfrörer, Kirchengeschichte 3. 1585; cf. supra, p.76, n. 24. Long ago, however, the laborious Mabillon found reason to attribute the work to Heriger abbat of Lobbes; see his preface to the Actt. SS. O. S. B. 4 (2) pp. xxii-xxiv, Paris 1680 folio: and this opinion was favoured by Dr R. Koepke (praef. in Herigeri et Anselmi Gest. episc., Pertz 7. 146 sq.) and Dr Vogel, Ratherius 2. 46 sqq. [Neither view seems to be tenable, for Heriger's own work, which is altogether different from that printed by Pez, has been discovered in MS. 909 in the University Library at Ghent: see E. Dümmler, in the Neues Archiv 26 (1901) 755-759, and A. Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, 3. 319 n. 2, ed. 3, 1906.]
