[455] Domino ac beatissimo Patri Gerberto, Remorum archiepiscopo, Richerus Monchus, Gallorum congressibus in volumine regerendis, imperii tui, pater sanctissime Gerberte, auctoritas seminarium dedit.
[456] In epistle 17 (Havet collection) he speaks of the "De multiplicatione et divisione numerorum libellum a Joseph Ispano editum abbas Warnerius" (a person otherwise unknown). In epistle 25 he says: "De multiplicatione et divisione numerorum, Joseph Sapiens sententias quasdam edidit."
[457] H. Suter, "Zur Frage über den Josephus Sapiens," Bibliotheca Mathematica, Vol. VIII (2), p. 84; Weissenborn, Einführung, p. 14; also his Gerbert; M. Steinschneider, in Bibliotheca Mathematica, 1893, p. 68. Wallis (Algebra, 1685, chap. 14) went over the list of Spanish Josephs very carefully, but could find nothing save that "Josephus Hispanus seu Josephus sapiens videtur aut Maurus fuisse aut alius quis in Hispania."
[458] P. Ewald, Mittheilungen, Neues Archiv d. Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde, Vol. VIII, 1883, pp. 354-364. One of the manuscripts is of 976 A.D. and the other of 992 A.D. See also Franz Steffens, Lateinische Paläographie, Freiburg (Schweiz), 1903, pp. xxxix-xl. The forms are reproduced in the plate on page 140.
[459] It is entitled Constantino suo Gerbertus scolasticus, because it was addressed to Constantine, a monk of the Abbey of Fleury. The text of the letter to Constantine, preceding the treatise on the Abacus, is given in the Comptes rendus, Vol. XVI (1843), p. 295. This book seems to have been written c. 980 A.D. [Bubnov, loc. cit., p. 6.]
[460] "Histoire de l'Arithmétique," Comptes rendus, Vol. XVI (1843), pp. 156, 281.
[461] Loc. cit., Gerberti Opera etc.
[462] Friedlein thought it spurious. See Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik, Vol. XII (1867), Hist.-lit. suppl., p. 74. It was discovered in the library of the Benedictine monastry of St. Peter, at Salzburg, and was published by Peter Bernhard Pez in 1721. Doubt was first cast upon it in the Olleris edition (Œuvres de Gerbert). See Weissenborn, Gerbert, pp. 2, 6, 168, and Picavet, p. 81. Hock, Cantor, and Th. Martin place the composition of the work at c. 996 when Gerbert was in Germany, while Olleris and Picavet refer it to the period when he was at Rheims.
[463] Picavet, loc. cit., p. 182.
[464] Who wrote after Gerbert became pope, for he uses, in his preface, the words, "a domino pape Gerberto." He was quite certainly not later than the eleventh century; we do not have exact information about the time in which he lived.