John of Reading (Johannes de Reading, Johannes Radingia) (died 1346) was an English Franciscan theologian and scholastic philosopher. He was an early opponent of William of Ockham, and a follower of Duns Scotus. He wrote a commentary on the Sentences around 1320, at the University of Oxford. He argued for the unity of science. John of Reading also is credited with the "Prose for Christmas Day", the source for the Christmas Hymn: O come, all ye faithful (Adeste Fideles).
In 1322 he moved to a teaching position at Avignon, which in modern times is a commune in the Vaucluse department in southeastern France. Reading is buried at Avignon.
Famous quotes containing the word reading:
“Like dreaming, reading performs the prodigious task of carrying us off to other worlds. But reading is not dreaming because books, unlike dreams, are subject to our will: they envelop us in alternative realities only because we give them explicit permission to do so. Books are the dreams we would most like to have, and, like dreams, they have the power to change consciousness, turning sadness to laughter and anxious introspection to the relaxed contemplation of some other time and place.”
—Victor Null, South African educator, psychologist. Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure, introduction, Yale University Press (1988)