''Homo unius libri'' ('(a) man of one book') is a

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

phrase attributed to

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

by bishop

Jeremy Taylor Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) was a cleric in the Church of England who achieved fame as an author during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. He is sometimes known as the "Shakespeare of Divines" for his poetic style of expression, and he is fr ...

(1613–1667), who claimed that Aquinas is reputed to have employed the phrase "''hominem unius libri timeo''" ('I fear the man of a single book'). The poet

Robert Southey Robert Southey (; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic poetry, Romantic school, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth an ...

recalled the tradition in which the quotation became embedded: The phrase was in origin a dismissal of

eclecticism Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories i ...

, i.e. the "fear" is of the formidable intellectual opponent who has dedicated himself to and become a master in a single chosen discipline. In this first sense, the phrase was invoked by

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

founder

John Wesley John Wesley ( ; 2 March 1791) was an English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a principal leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies ...

to refer to himself, with "one book" () taken to mean the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

."in 1730 I began to be homo unius libri, to study (comparatively) no book but the Bible." Letter to John Newton, May 14, 1765. He wrote privately on another occasion :"I receive the written word as the whole and sole rule of my faith..... From the very beginning, from the time that four young men united together, each of them was homo unius libri... They had one, and only one, rule of judgement with which to regard all their tempers, words and actions; namely, the oracles of God." Wesley used it more publicly in the ''Preface'' to his collected sermons; :"He came from heaven; He hath written it down in a book. O give me that Book! At any price, give me the Book of God. I have it; here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri!" However, the phrase today most often refers to the interpretation of expressing "fear" of the opinions of the

illiterate Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...

man who has "only read a single book".In ''The Portable Twentieth-Century Russian Reader'', Clarence Brown, editor (Penguin) 1985, p. 246; see '' The Hedgehog and the Fox'' for further discussion of this phrase.

Notes

*Eugene H. Ehrlich, ''Amo Amas Amat and More: How to use Latin to Your Own Advantage and the Astonishment of Others'', p. 279. "An observation attributed to Aquinas"

External links

{{Thomas Aquinas Latin literary phrases