possible, as Milman supposes, that it contributed not a
little to the growth of Christian mythology. William of
Malmesbury, who was singularly well informed about
John and his works, has a good word to say even of the
Division Of Nature, which he describes as P very useful for
solving the difficulty of certain questions, albeit he have to be
pardoned, for some matters wherein, holding his eyes fast upon
the Greeks, he has deflected from the path of the Latins.
The acuteness of this criticism enhances the value of
William s opinion ; he was well aware that John had
been deemed a heretic, and he confessed that there are
truly very many things in his book, the which, unless we
carefully examine them, appear abhorrent from the faith of the
catholics. This temperate judgement is repeated by the
most popular of the encyclopaedists of the middle ages,
Vincent of Beauvais. There is also evidence that the
name of John Scotus was known and honoured not only
at Malmesbury but also in that Saxon monastery of
Corvey which preserved its Carolingian culture longer
perhaps than any other : so late as the middle of the
twelfth century, its abbat, Wibald, writing to Manegold of
Paderborn, commemorates the philosopher as closing the
line of great masters of the age which began with Bede
the Venerable, and went on with Haimon of Halberstadt
and Rabanus Maurus, men most learned, who by writing
and reasoning left in the church of God illustrious monuments
of their genius.[1]
- ↑ Quid loquar de caeteris viris doctissimis qui post predictos in aecclesia Dei scribendo et disserendo preclara ingenii sui monimenta reliquerunt ? Bedam, dico, et Ambrosium Aupertum, Heimonem, Pvabanum, lohannem Scotturn, et rnultos preterea, quorum opera legimus; nee non illos quos vidimus, Anselmum Laudunensem, Wilhelmum Parisiensem, Albricum Remensem, Hugonem Parisiensem, et alios plurimos, quorum doctrina et scriptis mundus impletus est : Epist. clxvii, in Jaffe, Biblioth. 1. 278; 1864. See other instances in Haureau, Hint. 2 (1) 59; 1880.
