Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/292

 doctrines of John Scotus' Periphysis, and the prohibitions dealing with them cite passages from Scotus verbatim. The Periphysis itself was condemned by Honorius III. in 1225. But the decrees of 1209 also forbade the use of Aristotle's Natural Philosophy and the "commenta," whilst the Legate's orders of 1215 allowed the logical works of the old and new translations where perhaps the "new translations" refers to the "new" translations made from the Arabic as contrasted with the "old" versions of Boethius, though it is just possible that some version direct from the Greek was in circulation and known as the "new translations," and also forbade the reading of the Metaphysics, Natural Philosophy, etc., all material which had become accessible through the Arabic.

In 1215 Frederick II. became Emperor, and in 1231 he began to reorganize the kingdom of Sicily. Both in Sicily and in the course of his crusading expeditions in the East Frederick had been brought into close contact with the Muslims and was greatly attracted to them. He adopted oriental costume and many Arabic customs and manners, but, most important of all, he was a great admirer of the Arabic philosophers, whose works he was able to read in the original, as he was familiar with German, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Arabic. Contemporary historians represent him as a free-thinker, who regarded all religions as equally worthless, and attributed to him the statement that the world had suffered from