Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/336

318 by Boëthius' text:' this is the preface beginning, Omnium quae rebus percipiendis suppeditant rationum. But, says Dr. Usener, in a Vatican manuscript (Lat. 560) of the thirteenth century we find further Item alius prologus, and this also appears in a manuscript of Saint Victor. It was written, he thinks, for a second edition of Gilbert's Commentary, after the council of Paris and thus presumably in preparation for that of Rheims. The hypothesis is no doubt possible, but it is curious that Dr. Usener should be unacquainted with John of Salisbury's account, with which it is natural to connect this 'new preface.' It is more curious that the editor should not have observed that this very preface, only in a briefer form, is to be found in the very edition of Boëthius which Dr. Usener had in his hands (that of Basle 1570), prefixed not to the Commentary but to the treatise of Boëthius itself. The preface is therefore not a discovery; it is only an enlarged edition of that identical 'general preface,' the supposed absence of which puzzled Dr. Usener.

3. The new part is however of sufficient interest to be transcribed here, especially because when printed in the midst of a mass of old matter its importance does not immediately attract attention. It is inserted, after the words scriptoribus recedamus, before the concluding sentence, exactly where we should expect such an addition to be made; and it runs as follows:

Quamvis nos ab eis dissentire garriant quidam fennii atque preconii, qui cum nichil didicerint, opinione sua nesciunt nihil, homines sine ratione philosophi, sine visione prophete, precep- tores impossibilium, indices occultorum, quorum mores plurimis notos describere nil nostra interest. Ipsi vero tanquam excussi propriis aliena negotia curant et obliti suorum satiras sati- rorum [sic] de ceteris animi ingenio et vite honestate preclaris multarum personarum fingunt comedias. Qui etiam in Deum blasphemi illos de ipso profitentur errores quorum nomina diffitentur. Nam, ut ita dicatur, hereticorum catholici in Sabellii, Donati, Pelagii, et aliorum huiusmodi pestilencium verba iurati, horum nomina (eo quod edictis publicis dampnata