O. Ö. Professor an der Universität Breslau. Band I, Heft i. Die dem Boethius fälschlich zugeschriebene Abhandlung des Dominicus Gundisalvi De Unitate. Herausgegeben und philosophiegeschichtlich behandelt von Dr. Paul Correns. Münster, 1891. Druck und
Verlag der Aschendorffschen Buchhandlung. — pp. 56.Gundisalvi's brief treatise of a half-dozen octavo pages De unitate has some interest as one of the philosophic forms into which Platonic, Aristotelian, Neoplatonic conceptions were combined in the Middle Ages. Hauréau supposes it to have a further interest as one of the sources of David of Dinant's pantheism. Correns, however, shows that this pantheism is in no wise derivable from the tract DC unitate. The treatise was first printed amongst the works of Boethius and is ascribed to him in two Florentine MSS. of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and in a MS. of the Paris National Library of the fourteenth century. In a MS. (Cod. 86, not collated by Correns) of Corpus Christi, Oxford, the treatise is ascribed to Dominicus Gundisalvi. Since Hauréau (Mémoires de l’académie des inscriptions, vol. 29, 2, p. 328) the authorship of Gundisalvi has been generally accepted. The. mediæval character of the Latin and the evident use made of a post-Boethian book, viz., Ibn Gabirol's work Fons vitae preclude the authorship of Boethius. Determining grounds for the authorship are: 1. The treatise could not have been written before the above-mentioned Latin version of the Fons vitae, as the parallel passages arranged by Correns clearly show. 2. The author must have had an intimate acquaintance with the Fons vitae. 3. The use made of the Bible and of Boethius show that we must look for the author amongst Christian thinkers. These conditions are met in Dominicus Gundisalvi, who with Johannes Hispanus translated the Fons vitae, and to him the authorship of De unitate is attributed in Cod. 86 of Corpus Christi.
The basis of Correns' text is the Basel edition of 1546 and collations of the following MSS., all in the National Library of Paris: 1. Bibl. nat. fonds lat. 16605, perg. MS. of the thirteenth century. 2. Bibl. nat. fonds lat. 14700, perg. MS. of the fourteenth century. 3. Bibl. nat. fonds lat. 6443, perg. MS. of the fourteenth century. The readings of these MSS. are given at the bottom of the pages, and in an Appendix the readings of a Munich and two Vienna MSS. are given. The main doctrines set forth in the treatise are: 1. At the head of the entire cosmical order is the supreme uncreated One. 2. This absolute One as creative Unity (creatrix unitas) brought into existence a second, subordinate Unity, the created world (creata unitas). 3. The created world in
