Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 2.djvu/186

174 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