John Pecham Quotes on Knowledge
John Pecham (c. 1230–1292), the Franciscan Archbishop of Canterbury, was the leading defender of Augustinian-illuminationist epistemology against the rising Aristotelian Thomism of the late thirteenth century. The Tractatus de anima and Quaestiones de anima develop the doctrine that no truth can be known without the active concurrence of divine illumination — a position Pecham defended in the institutional disputes that issued in the 1277 condemnations at Paris and the parallel ones at Oxford. The Perspectiva communis, by contrast, became the standard medieval textbook on optics and on the geometry of vision.
Quotes
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Attributed to John Pecham:
“Light is the common bond between the eye and the world.”
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Attributed to John Pecham:
“Optics shows that the visible world is shaped by mathematical law.”
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Attributed to John Pecham:
“Theology must remain faithful to the wisdom of Augustine.”
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Attributed to John Pecham:
“Truth is one, but the paths to it are many.”
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“Letter DLIV (June 14, 1284) Archbishop Peckham to King Edward I., from (Charles Trice Martin, ed.) Registrum epistolarum fratris Johannis Peckham: Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis quoted in Georg Herzfeld (ed.) An Old English Martyrology (1900)”
And therefore, Sire, altho' I am ready, so far as is in me, to dedicate the place for the Cistercian monks at Meynan , yet I could not do it without the full assent of the bishop and of his chapter, and of the parson of the place, who, with plenty of other people, have a very great horror of the approach of the forsaid monks. For though they may be good men, if God please, still they are the harde -
“As you see double if you push the eye out of its place with your finger; so prelates, through evil counsel, judge a priest to be worthy of two benefices , when he ought to be contented with one.”
De Oculo Morali quoted in Georg Herzfeld (ed.) An Old English Martyrology (1900) -
“De Oculo Morali quoted in Georg Herzfeld (ed.) An Old English Martyrology (1900)”
As you see double if you push the eye out of its place with your finger; so prelates, through evil counsel, judge a priest to be worthy of two benefices , when he ought to be contented with one. -
“Formerly the Church with its prelates of old time, was golden in wisdom, silver in cleanness of life, brazen in eloquence, which are three things needful to a preacher ; that is, brightness of wisdom, cleanness of life, and sonorousness of eloquence. But of the feet , the last, that is the modern prelates, part is iron through their hardness of heart, and part is clay by their carnal luxury.”
De Oculo Morali quoted in Georg Herzfeld (ed.) An Old English Martyrology (1900) -
“De Oculo Morali quoted in Georg Herzfeld (ed.) An Old English Martyrology (1900)”
Formerly the Church with its prelates of old time, was golden in wisdom, silver in cleanness of life, brazen in eloquence, which are three things needful to a preacher ; that is, brightness of wisdom, cleanness of life, and sonorousness of eloquence. But of the feet , the last, that is the modern prelates, part is iron through their hardness of heart, and part is clay by their carnal luxury. -
“[ Perspectiva communis was written to] compress into concise summaries the teachings of perspective, which [in existing treatises] are presented with great obscurity.”
as quoted by John Freely , Before Gaileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (2012)