[2056] Such seems to me the most plausible theory of the writing of the three works and the one which agrees best with Bacon’s own statements; but it is only a hypothesis from the printed texts of his works which should be verified by examination of the manuscripts. Probably some of Bacon’s statements can be interpreted to conflict with this hypothesis, but they sometimes conflict with each other, and he could not even keep the scriptum principale and Opus Maius distinct in his own mind according to Brewer’s text (p. 3, “duo transmisi genera scripturarum: quorum unum est principale,” and p. 5, “principalis scripturae,” whereas at p. 60 we read, “Patet igitur quod scriptum principale non potui mittere”). See also Gasquet, p. 503, and Opus Tertium, Brewer, p. 58. I have been stimulated by but cannot accept the conclusions of Father Mandonnet’s “Roger Bacon et la Composition des Trois ‘Opus’,” Revue Néo-Scolastique (Louvain, 1913), pp. 52-68 and 164-180. Mandonnet holds that the Opus Maius was written after the other two works, which were never finished nor sent, but from which Roger took some passages to insert in the Opus Maius, which Mandonnet believes was sent only in 1268.
[2057] “Quae tibi videntur adhibenda remedia circa illa, quae nuper esse (occasione?) tanti discriminis intimasti: et hoc quanto secretius poteris facias indilate.” E. Jordan, Les Registres de Clement IV, etc., gives “esse,” which would seem the correct reading rather than the “occasione” of Martene and Brewer. If one follows their version, as I did in “The True Roger Bacon,” 242-43, the passage would have to be translated, “What remedies you think should be applied in those matters indicated by you recently on so critical an occasion.” But apparently there was no such crisis.
[2058] Part of the Opus Tertium of Roger Bacon (ed. A. G. Little, Aberdeen, 1912), 80-82. This passage is the fourth one and in it Bacon lists the three earlier statements: “Scripsi in tribus locis Vestre Glorie de huiusmodi secretis.” Roger ultimately decides that he will not reveal the whole secret even in this fourth instalment, because alchemists never put the full truth into writing; he therefore “reserves some points for word of mouth.”
[2059] See the article on “Roger Bacon” by Theophilus Witzel in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
[2060] In our chapter on Galen we noted his similar complaints, and in the coming chapter on Peter of Abano we shall speak of his similar experience in having his Phisionomia stolen. Daunou wrote of Vincent of Beauvais in the Histoire Littéraire, XVIII (1835), p. 453: “il dit des occupations pénibles qui interrompaient son travail d’écrivain, et le forçaient à employer des copistes.”
[2061] Gasquet, 500. “Et ideo componere penitus abhorrebam,” etc.
[2062] Gasquet, 500.
[2063] Ibid.
[2064] Ibid., 502.
[2065] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 15.