Book of the 24 Philosophers

Both definitions and commentary echo and weave numerous late ancient and medieval views on the first cause and the nature of divinity.

[2] During the Middle Ages, the Liber was variously attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, Aristotle or simply quoted anonymously by theologians and philosophers.

[3] According to others, the text would belong to a lost work by Aristotle, the De philosophia, known to medieval Europe through the Arab translators of the Toledo School.

There are notably German, French and Italian studies of the text available,[4] with no English translation yet in print, although online editions exist.

[5] The influence of this work on medieval scholarship and literature has revealed traces of its ideas among the works of Jean de Meung, Dante, Meister Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa, Giordano Bruno, Martin Luther,[6] Robert Fludd, Pascal, and Leibniz.

Page from the Book of the 24 Philosophers in a 14th-century manuscript now in Paris. The name at the top of the page attributes the text to Hermes Trismegistus.