Description
Book SynopsisThe Liber de causis (De causis et processu universitatis a prima causa), a monotheistic reworking of Proclus' Elements of Theology, was translated from Arabic into Latin in the twelfth century, with an attribution to Aristotle. Considering this Neoplatonic text a product of Aristotle''s school and even the completion of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Albert the Great concluded his series of Aristotelian paraphrases by commenting on it.
To do so was to invite controversy, since accidents of translation had made many readers think that the Liber de causis taught that God made only the first creature, which in turn created the diverse multitude of lesser things. Thus, Albert's contemporaries in the Christian West took the text to uphold the supposedly Aristotelian doctrine that from the One only one thing can emanatea doctrine they rejected, believing as they did that God freely determined the number and kinds of creatures. Albert, however, defended
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“This relatively short, but amply footnoted, work is written in the light of an exhaustive bibliography, and with a meticulous care in establishing the best provisional text of Albert’s commentary on the Liber de causis.” —Journal of Ecclesiastical History
* Journal of Ecclesiastical History *
“A study of an ‘Aristotelian paraphrase’ by the 13th-century German Scholastic philosopher and saint Albert Magnus.” —The Chronicle of Higher Education
