Abstract

There has been much disagreement among modern scholars about the philosophical meaning and significance of the De Mundi Universitate of Bernard Silvestris, an allegorical treatise in mixed prose and verse on the creation of the universe and man, written about the middle of the twelfth century in France, and dedicated to Thierry of Chartres. I have made a detailed study of Bernard's use of classical philosophical sources. Perhaps the chief value of this study will be in showing how one mind of the twelfth century, a lover and admirer of ancient pagan works of philosophy, science, and literature, yet also a Christian, has appropriated those classical works with which he was aquainted and brought them together into one comprehensive work and philosophy of the world and man. ;Chapter II studies his use of the three main accounts of creation available to him: the Book of Genesis, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the Latin Timaeus. While Bernard's story of creation corresponds in certain respects more closely to the former two works than to the latter, it is the Latin Timaeus which has provided Bernard with a quite detailed framework or plan for his work. Chapter III discusses a group of Bernard's sources: three philosophical works of Apuleius and the Hermetic treatise Asclepius. These works have been considered not only as sources, but also as illustrations of the development of a new world view during the early Imperial period differing in certain important respects from any of the earlier schools of Greek philosophy. ;Chapters IV, V, VI, and VII deal respectively with Chalcidius' Commentary on the Timaeus, Macrobius' Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis, Martianus Capella's De Nuptiis, and Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and other works. All these have been important sources for Bernard in a variety of ways. Macrobius' Commentary is especially important in that it introduces a neo-Platonist strand into the De Mundi Universitate, somewhat at variance with Bernard's other thought. ;Chapter VIII draws some brief conclusions concerning Bernard's methods of using and combining his sources, and makes some suggestions concerning Bernard's aims and interests in writing the De Mundi Universitate