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De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae (English: On the Miraculous Things in Sacred Scripture) is a Latin treatise written around 655 by an anonymous Irish writer and philosopher known as Augustinus Hibernicus or the Irish Augustine.
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The author's nickname is in reference to the philosopher Augustine of Hippo. This pseudo-Augustine was born in Ireland sometime in the first half of the seventh century and is noted especially for his natural philosophy.
Around the year 655 he wrote a treatise called De mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae. It has long been regarded as an exceptional work, in that it demonstrates a strictly scientific approach in the matter of making direct observations of nature and subjecting them to a strictly logical interpretation.
His treatise seeks to explain each miracle in the Scriptures as an extreme case of phenomena, yet still within the laws of nature. Augustine also gives a list of the terrestrial mammals of Ireland, and solves the problem of how they reached Ireland after the flood of Noah by proposing a solution – hundreds of years ahead of its time – that the island had been cut off from continental Europe by marine erosion.
Further reading
edit- Bracken, Damian (1998), "Rationalism and the Bible in seventh-century Ireland", Chronicon, 2
- Duddy, Thomas (2002), A History of Irish Thought, New York: Routledge
- Esposito, Mario (1919), "On the Pseudo-Augustinian treatise De mirabilibus sanctae scripturae written in Ireland in the year 655", Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 35 C: 189–207
- MacGinty, Gerard (1987), "The Irish Augustine: De mirabilibus sacrae Scripturae", in Ní Chatháin, Próinséas; Richter, Michael (eds.), Irland und die Christenheit: Bibelstudien und Mission / Ireland and Christendom: the Bible and the Missions, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, pp. 70–83
- Ó Fiannachta, Pádraig (1990), "De mirabilibus sacrae Scripturae", Léachtaí Cholm Cille, 20: 119–139
- Reeves, William (1861), "On Augustin, an Irish Writer of the Seventh Century", Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 7: 514–522