Philo not only represents a widespread tendency during the Roman Empire, but probably well illustrates the influence of that tendency upon later times. His numerous works were apparently much consulted by the church fathers, and thereby exerted a strong influence upon the Middle Ages. It is needless to enlarge upon the prominence of allegorical interpretation in the works of mediaeval ecclesiastical writers. The conception of knowledge as esoteric was also prevalent then, though perhaps to a less extent. To give an early instance from patristic literature, Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromata, insists upon the necessity of veiling divine truth in allegories, and has a long discussion in favor of mysticism in learning, citing as examples Greek philosophers as well as Hebrew writers.[1] Moreover, to Philo as source we may trace back the disquisitions upon the mystic, if not magic, properties of six and other numbers which we find in Augustine[2] and apparently in almost every mediaeval writer who had occasion to speak of the six days of creation and of the seventh day of rest.
III. Seneca’s Problems of Nature and divination. We shall next consider the Problems of Nature—or Natural Questions, if one prefers merely to transcribe the Latin—of Seneca, who was practically a contemporary of Pliny. Seneca impresses one as a favorable representative of ancient science. He tells us that already in his youth he had written a treatise on earthquakes and their causes.[3] His
- ↑ Stromata, bk. v, ch. 9. Nor was such mysticism advocated by theological writer's alone. Roger Bacon—but one instance from many—declared that one lessened the majesty of knowledge who divulged its mysteries, and even went to the length of enumerating seven methods by which the arcana of philosophy and science might be concealed from the crowd (a vulgo), De Secretis Artis et Naturae et de Nullitate Magiae. Rolls Series, vol. xv, pp. 543-544.
- ↑ De Civitate Dei, bk. xi, ch. 30.
- ↑ "Aliquando De Motu Terrarum volumen iuvenis ediderim." L.
