[104] See A. Hildebrand, Boëthius und seine Stellung zum Christentum (Regensburg, 1885), and works therein referred to.
[105] See Prantl, Ges. der Logik, i. 679 sqq.
[106] See his Life in Hodgkin’s Letters of Cassiodorus; also Roger, Enseignement des lettres classiques d’Ausone à Alcuin, pp. 175-187 (Paris, 1905).
[107] Migne 70, col. 1281.
[108] Migne 70, col. 1105-1219.
[109] Gregory’s works are printed in Migne, Patrologia Latina, 75-79. His epistles are also published in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. On Gregory, his life and times, writings and doctrines, see F. H. Dudden, Gregory the Great, etc., 2 vols. (Longmans, 1905).
[110] Migne, Pat. Lat. 75, col. 516.
[111] Ep. xi. 54 (Migne 77, col. 1171).
[112] This is the view expressed in the Commentary on Kings ascribed to Gregory, but perhaps the work of a later hand. Thus, in the allegorical interpretation of 1 Kings (1 Sam.) xiii. 20, “But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe.” Says the commentator (Migne, Pat. Lat. 79, col. 356): We go down to the Philistines when we incline the mind to secular studies; Christian simplicity is upon a height. Secular books are said to be in the plane since they have no celestial truths. God put secular knowledge in a plane before us that we should use it as a step to ascend to the heights of Scripture. So Moses first learned the wisdom of the Egyptians that he might be able to understand and expound the divine precepts; Isaiah, most eloquent of the prophets, was nobiliter instructus et urbanus; and Paul had sat at Gamaliel’s feet before he was lifted to the height of the third heaven. One goes to the Philistines to sharpen his plow, because secular learning is needed as a training for Christian preaching.
[113] See post, Chapter X.