# doctrina verae philosophiae, quae Christus est



## Enrico Davide Torò

Hi everybody,

Many thanks for checking in on this post. I'm Enrico, a Ph.D. student in philosophy with a passion for classics. I'm only now taking up again my Latin since High School and I'm currently trying to translate short Latin passages from some pagan and Christian authors alike. Could you help me out?


4) the fourth passage is from Abelard's _Opera, ed. V. Cousin, vol. II, p. 100. _It's a very short one: "_doctrina verae philosophiae, quae Christus est." _

I decided to render it as: "the doctrine of true philosophy, which is Christ."

< Other questions have been given their own threads.  Cagey, moderator >

Many thanks to anyone who's willing to check these preliminary translations out. Any help is appreciated.

Best,

Enrico


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## bearded

Hello
Your translation of that very short passage looks correct to me. However, could you please quote some more context - at least the preceding and the subsequent sentence, so that the (somewhat odd, in modern terms) correspondence person=doctrine (or person=philosophy) may become clearer or better justified?


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## Enrico Davide Torò

Dear bearded,

Many thanks for your response. My apologies again for not providing more context to the quote. Let me explain: I'm drawing on a secondary, modern source quoting these Latin references. That's why at times there's no much context. This secondary author does not provide much. Anyhow, the original Latin comes from Victor Cousin's edition of Abelard's _Opera,_ accessible for free here. Here's the text in context: 

_Quod et nos providentes, alias quasdam similitudines, tam secundum Grammaticos quam secundum Philosophos superius induximus, quas proposito nostro magis convenire credamus, sed eam praecipue quae sumpta est de Philosophis majori ratione praeditis, ac per hoc a *doctrina verae Philosophiae quae Christus est*, minus remotis. _


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## bearded

Enrico Davide Torò said:


> "the doctrine of true philosophy, which is Christ."


Thank you for providing the context.  I think that your translation is correct. 
 I would have expected ''quae in Christo est'', though (well, it is not classical Latin..). The identification of Christ as (the doctrine of) a philosophy sounds odd, unless the author understands 'doctrina' as _source. _But it's understandable within the frame of ecclesiastical terminology.


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## Enrico Davide Torò

Many thanks for this, Bearded, 

I really appreciate it. It does sound odd the identification of the figure of Christ with a doctrine, though!


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## Scholiast

saluete omnes de nouo!

Not much nearer to establishing Abelard's sense, except to observe that for him _doctrina_ will have meant 'learning' in a more general sense than modern English 'doctrine' (and, I suspect, Ital. _dottrina_*) implies—as in a 'settled or established or codified system of belief which needs to be accepted (or not) in its entirety'. Much the same applies to _philosophia_: as I understand it, in the context this is more or less equivalent to _sapientia_, so 'wisdom' or just plain 'sense'.

Of course I will only too gladly accept controversion by anyone more expert than I.

Σ

_*_[Edited footnote]: _Grazie_ to bearded for his correction of my Italian.


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## bearded

Scholiast said:


> I suspect, Ital. _doctrina_)


Dottrina


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