Liber XXIV philosophorum

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The Liber XXIV philosophorum ("Book of 24 Philosophers") is a medieval compilation consisting of 24 theses . In terms of content, there is agreement with statements by Aristotle , Plotinus , Proclus , Augustine , Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita , Macrobius , Boethius and Eriugena as well as parallels to the Liber de causis . The text was attributed to Hermes Trismegistus through a deliberate fiction . The authorship is unclear. The text is quoted in the 12th century by Alanus from Insulis , and then by many authors from the 13th century.

The text gives the definitions of 24 unnamed philosophers gathered on the question of what God is. Some of these definitions have become classic topoi in mystical literature, such as the first definition: “God is the monad who creates a monad by reflecting its inner glow”, the second definition: “God is an infinite sphere, its center everywhere and the periphery of which is nowhere ”or the 23rd definition“ God is what one knows more about what he is not than what he is ”.

There are translations of the treatise in German, Italian, Spanish, French, Norwegian, and Russian.

The twenty-four definitions in Kurt Flasch's translation are :

  1. God is the monad who creates a monad and bends it back on himself as a single breath of fire.
  2. God is the infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
  3. God is whole in everything that is in him.
  4. God is spirit who creates a word while maintaining connection.
  5. God is that beyond which nothing better can be thought.
  6. God is that in relation to which every being is only a quality and every quality is nothing.
  7. God is reason without reason, process without change, goal without goal.
  8. God is love that hides itself more the more we have it.
  9. God is that to whom everything is present that belongs to time.
  10. God is that whose ability is not counted, whose being is not included, whose goodness is not limited.
  11. God is beyond being, is necessary and in abundance alone suffices.
  12. God is that whose will equals his god-creating power of his divinity.
  13. God is eternity that is active in itself without dividing itself or gaining a quality.
  14. God is the opposite of nothing through being.
  15. God is life, whose way to form is truth and whose way to unity is being good.
  16. God is the only being who, because of his precedence, does not designate words and who also spiritual beings do not recognize because of their dissimilarity.
  17. God, that is the term only of itself, who does not tolerate any predicate.
  18. God is the sphere that has as many points as circumference.
  19. God, that is that which is immobile, always moving.
  20. God is the only being who lives from his self-knowledge.
  21. God is the darkness in the soul that remains after all light.
  22. God is that from which everything is, without being divided, by whom it is, without him changing, in which it is, without being mixed with him.
  23. God is what the mind knows only in ignorance.
  24. God is the light that does not appear broken as a shine of light. It penetrates. But in things it is only godliness.

Text editions and translations

  • Françoise Hudry (Ed.): Liber viginti quattuor philosophorum (= Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis , Vol. 143 A). Brepols, Turnhout 1997, ISBN 2-503-04434-4 (critical edition with detailed introduction)
  • Françoise Hudry (ed.): Le Livre des XXIV Philosophes. Millon, Grenoble 1989 (text with French translation)
  • Kurt Flasch : What is God? The book of the 24 philosophers. Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-60709-7 (text with German translation and commentary)

literature

Overview representations

Investigations

  • Markus Enders : On the concept of infinity in Western thought. Infinity of God and infinity of the world (= Boethiana , vol. 86). Kovač, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8300-3961-7
  • Françoise Hudry: Le liber XXIV philosophorum et le Liber de causis dans les manuscrits. In: Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 59, 1992, pp. 63-88
  • Zénon Kaluza: Comme une branche d'amandier en fleurs. Dieu dans le Liber viginti quattor philosophorum. In: Paolo Lucentini et al. (Ed.): Hermetism from Late Antiquity to Humanism. Brepols, Turnhout 2003, pp. 99-127

Web links

Wikisource: Liber viginti quattor philosophorum  - Sources and full texts (Latin)

Remarks

  1. Kurt Ruh : History of occidental mysticism , Vol. 3, Munich 1996, p. 34.
  2. Kurt Ruh: History of occidental mysticism , Vol. 3, Munich 1996, p. 33.
  3. Kurt Ruh: History of occidental mysticism , Vol. 3, Munich 1996, p. 36.
  4. Quoted from Franco Volpi : Liber XXIV philosophorum. In: Julian Nida-Rümelin (Hrsg.): Lexikon der philosophischen Werke , Stuttgart 1988, p. 410.