One perceives the effect of classical studies; yet the passage is good twelfth-century Latin, quite different from the compositions of the Carolingian epoch, those, for example, from the pen of Alcuin, who had studied the Classics like John, but unlike him had no personal style. One gains similar impressions from the diction of the Polycraticus, a lengthy, discursive work in which John surprises us with his classical equipment. Although containing many quoted passages, it is not made of extracts strung together; but reflects the sentiments or tells the opinions of ancient philosophers in the writer's own way. The following shows John's knowledge of early Greek philosophers, and is a fair example of his ordinary style:
"Alterum vero philosophorum genus est, quod Ionicum dicitur et a Graecis ulterioribus traxit originem. Horum princeps fuit Thales Milesius, unus illorum septem, qui dicti sunt sapientes. Iste cum rerum naturam scrutatus, inter caeteros emicuisset, maxime admirabilis exstitit, quod astrologiae numeris comprehensis, solis et lunae defectus praedicebat. Huic successit Anaximander ejus auditor, qui Anaximenem discipulum reliquit et successorem. Diogenes quoque ejusdem auditor exstitit, et Anaxagoras, qui omnium rerum quas videmus, effectorem divinum animum docuit. Ei successit auditor ejus Archelaiis, cujus discipulus Socrates fuisse perhibetur, magister Platonis, qui, teste Apuleio, prius Aristoteles dictus est, sed deinde a latitudine pectoris Plato, et in tantam eminentiam philosophiae, et vigore ingenii, et studii exercitio, et omnium morum venustate, eloquii quoque suavitate et copia subvectus est, ut quasi in throno sapientiae residens, praecepta quadam auctoritate visus est, tam antecessoribus quam successoribus
they exist), and depreciating those of others. And he deems his neighbour's defect to be his own advancement.
"Now it is indubitable to all truly wise, that Nature, kindest parent of all, and best-ordering directress, among the other living beings which she brought forth, distinguished man with the prerogative of reason and ennobled him with the exercise of eloquence (or 'with the use of speech'): executing this with unremitting zeal and best-ordering decree, in order that man who was pressed and dragged to the lowest by the heaviness of a clodlike nature and the slowness of corporeal bulk, borne aloft as it were by these wings might ascend to the heights, and by obtaining the crown of true blessedness excel all others in happy reward. While Grace thus fecundates Nature, Reason watches over the matters to be inspected and considered; Nature's bosom gives forth, metes out the fruits and faculty of individuals; and the inborn love of good, stimulating itself by its natural appetite, follows this (i.e. the good) either solely or before all else, since it seems best adapted to the bliss descried" (Metal. i. 1; Migne 199, col. 825). These translations are kept close to the original, in order to show the construction of the sentences.
