Note 2055 — II. His Criticism of and Part in Medieval Learning

I cannot agree with Gasquet, 497, that it “is obvious from numberless expressions in the work itself” that the Opus Maius was “addressed to the pope directly.” The last chapter of the first book in Bridges’s text is evidently addressed to the pope, but it is identical with a portion of the Opus Minus and evidently does not belong in the Opus Maius and is not found in the two oldest manuscripts. Similarly a passage of some 16 pages in Bridges on calendar reform, which gives the present year as 1267, is practically identical with a chapter of the Opus Tertium and was evidently transferred from that work to the Opus Maius at some later date. When we have excluded these passages the work is surprisingly free, compared to the other two works, from passages suggesting that it is addressed to the pope. The one mention of the “Apostolic See” (Bridges, I, 77; III, 94) is impersonal and does not imply that Foulques was pope, and does not occur in one of the manuscripts. Epithets such as “Your Wisdom” (Bridges, I, 17, 23, 305), “Your Highness” (I, 210; II, 377), “Your Glory” (I, 305; III, 96), “Your Reverence” (I, 376; II, 219), “Your Holiness” (I, 81; III, 101), “Your Beatitude” (I, 2, 72; III, 88) do not occur frequently and are equally applicable to a cardinal, or not found in all the manuscripts, suggesting the possibility of their having been inserted later.