Philosophy

Jerome of Prague was a quadruple master of arts, who never studied at any other faculty than the faculty of arts. He was, therefore, in the first place a philosopher. His philosophical views are known in particular from his philosophical quaestiones, which he prepared during his stay at various European universities. These quaestiones indicate that Jerome was an adherent to philosophical realism. His philosophical position can be formally divided into three principal groups that are mutually interconnected and together form the core of his philosophy: (a) the uncreated world, (b) the created world, (c) the realist logic.

A separate group - which interpenetrates the three above-mentioned areas - is represented by the sources which Jerome uses as his points of departure, and to which he refers in solving individual problems. As noted in the first part of this entry, Jerome utilized in preparing his texts 'magnum quodam volumen’,’ which obviously contained the sources on which he based his assertions. Although the volume is not extant in our times, we may surmise that it encompassed a large collection of arguments and textual excerpts from other authors, inasmuch as references to a great number of such authorities can be found in Jerome’s writings. The Bohemian philosopher often cites, especially, St. Augustine, Boethius, Seneca, and, of course, the Bible. In some of his texts he also explicitly mentions John Wyclif, as his authority, which then was not a common practice (Herold 1985). Of importance is also Jerome’s acquaintance with at least a fragment of Chalcidius’ translation of Plato’s Timaeus. In his own texts, Jerome calls Plato “the king of philosophers.’’ It can also be said that Jerome uses Platonic sources, especially Augustine and Wyclif, as starting points in his texts. On the other hand, it seems odd that Jerome does not refer to the authority of Thomas Aquinas; this omission may indicate a certain measure of antipathy (Herold 1989).