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Title: The place of magic in the intellectual history of Europe: studies in history, economics and public law edited by the faculty of political science of Columbia University
Author: Thorndike, Lynn
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The place of magic in the intellectual history of Europe: studies in history, economics and public law edited by the faculty of political science of Columbia University" ***
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF EUROPE ***
1
THE PLACE OF MAGIC IN THE INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF EUROPE
STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW
EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Volume XXIV] [Number 1
THE PLACE OF MAGIC
IN THE
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF EUROPE
BY
LYNN THORNDIKE, Ph.D.,
_Sometime University Fellow in European History_
[Illustration]
New York
THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, AGENTS
LONDON: P. S. KING & SON
1905
COPYRIGHT, 1905,
BY
LYNN THORNDIKE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
ILLUSTRATIONS OF BELIEF IN MAGIC IN MEDIÆVAL AND IN EARLY MODERN TIMES
PAGE
General belief in witchcraft, in astrology, and in the existence
of magicians 11
Even the most educated men believed in astrology 12
Further illustration of such beliefs among men of learning, and
even among scientists 13
Isidore and Bede 14
Alexander of Neckam 15
Michael Scot 16
Roger Bacon 18
Bacon’s acceptance of astrology 18
Bacon’s belief in occult influence 19
Vincent de Beauvais, Bernard Gordon, Albertus Magnus, Arnald of
Villanova 19
Cabalistic doctrines of Renaissance scholars 20
Jerome Cardan 22
Paracelsus and Tycho Brahe 22
Francis Bacon 23
Summary of these beliefs 23
Question whether they are all closely connected 24
Question whether they were regarded by their authors as magic 25
Importance of magic 26
CHAPTER II
MAGIC; ITS ORIGINS, AND RELATIONS TO SCIENCE
Magic once regarded as a reality 27
Magic præternatural rather than supernatural 27
Belief in magic perhaps older than belief in divine beings 28
Magic not originally a secret art 28
Attitude of primitive man towards nature 29
His effort to explain strange phenomena 30
His belief in lucky things 31
His desire to know the future 31
Hence the probable origin of belief in magic 31
Chief characteristics of magic 32
Difficulty in defining magic 33
Gradual disappearance of magic before science 34
Possible union of magic and science 34
Importance of union of magic and science 35
Method of treating that theme in this essay 36
CHAPTER III
PLINY’S NATURAL HISTORY
A fitting starting-point for our discussion 37
I. _The Character of the Work_:
Its extensive treatment of both science and magic 37
Objections to regarding it as a true picture of ancient
science 38
Reasons for so regarding it 39
Pliny the Boswell of ancient science 40
Pliny’s relation to mediæval science 41
II. _Pliny’s Discussion of Magic_:
Its significance 41
Pliny’s remarks concerning the history of magic 42
“Magic” false, according to Pliny 42
“Magic” an obscene and criminal art, according to Pliny 44
III. _Illustrations of Pliny’s Fundamental Belief in Magic_:
Inconsistency of his declared scepticism 44
His belief that animals possess magic properties 45
His belief that plants have similar occult virtues 45
Strange qualities of minerals 46
Magical powers of man 47
Efficacy of magical ceremonial 48
Pliny’s belief unmistakable 49
Though probably limited 49
Question as to extent of his belief in astrology 50
His account of the heavenly bodies 50
Influence of the stars upon our planet 51
Influence of the stars upon man 52
Belief of Pliny in portents 53
Attitude of Pliny towards various popular superstitious
observances 53
Pliny not esoteric 54
Conclusions to be drawn from the _Natural History_ 54
CHAPTER IV
SOME ANTECEDENTS OF THE BELIEF IN MAGIC IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Derivative and cosmopolitan character of intellectual life during
the imperial period 56
Extent of our discussion of its antecedents 56
Question as to freedom of Greek thought from magic 57
Some evidence to the contrary 57
Doctrines of the Stoics favorable to magic 59
Pythagorean theory of numbers 59
Attitude of Plato towards “magic,” as he understood the word 60
Plato’s fantastic view of nature 60
Aristotle’s acceptance of astrology 61
Aristotle’s _History of Animals_ 62
Cato’s _De Re Rustica_ 63
CHAPTER V
BELIEF IN MAGIC IN THE EMPIRE
Outline of contents of this chapter 65
I. _General Attitude_:
Prejudice against “magic” and condemnation of Magi 65
Views of Apuleius and of Philostratus 66
In reality a widespread belief in magic 67
Explanation of apparent opposition to astrology 68
Galen 69
Neo-Platonism 70
Philosophy confounded with magic 71
II. _Philo of Alexandria and Allegorical Interpretation_:
Question as to connection of allegorical interpretation
with magic 72
Historical importance of allegorical interpretation and of
Philo 73
Nature of Philo’s allegorical interpretation 73
His influence in the Middle Ages 75
III. _Seneca’s Problems of Nature and Divination_:
Scientific traits of Seneca 75
His tendency to be esoteric and mystical 76
Ground covered by his book 77
His partial rejection of magic 77
His acceptance of divination 78
His discussion of divination from thunder 79
IV. _Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos and Astrology_:
An illustration of the astrology of the scientist 80
Ptolemy and his influence 80
Scientific tone of the preliminary remarks in the
_Tetrabiblos_ 81
An attempt to base astrology upon natural law 82
Ptolemy’s explanation of the influence of the planets 82
Summary of remaining contents of his first book 83
Contents of the other three books 83
V. _The Hermetic Books and Occultism_:
Their nature and history, legendary and actual 84
Their contents 86
Their importance 87
CHAPTER VI
CRITICS OF MAGIC
Review of the usual attitude towards magic in the Roman Empire 88
I. _Opponents of Astrology_:
Cicero, Favorinus and Sextus Empiricus 89
Considerations which discount their scepticism 89
Inadequacy of their arguments 90
Astrology attacked as being impracticable 91
General problem of sidereal influence left untouched 92
II. _Cicero’s Attack upon Divination_:
In a way an attack upon magic as a whole 93
Form and arrangement of _De Divinatione_ 94
Its relations to the past and to the future 94
Appeal of Quintus to antiquity and to tradition 94
Cicero’s reply; condemnation of reliance on tradition 95
Divination declared quite distinct from science 95
Divination declared quite contrary to the laws of science 96
Idea of magical sympathy rejected 97
Cicero’s attitude very unusual for his time 98
Question as to his consistency 98
CHAPTER VII
THE LAST CENTURY OF THE EMPIRE
Intellectual characteristics of the period 99
Marcellus of Bordeaux 99
Ammianus Marcellinus 99
His description of the state of learning at Alexandria 100
His justification of divination as a science 101
His extraordinary misquoting of Cicero 102
Synesius 103
His belief that all parts of the universe are in magic sympathy 103
Further instances of his trust in magic 104
Macrobius 106
CHAPTER VIII
CONCLUSION 108
ERRATA
Page 21, line 19, instead of _verbe_ read _verbo_.
Page 49, lines 9 and 10, instead of _marvelour_ read _marvelous_.
Page 58, at close of first foot-note, instead of 66 read 67.
Page 71, line 10 of foot-note, instead of άλλὰ read ἀλλὰ.
Page 101, line 8 of foot-note, instead of _factorum_ read _fatorum_.
Page 105, line 2 of second foot-note, instead of εἷναι read εἶναι.
CHAPTER I
ILLUSTRATIONS OF BELIEF IN MAGIC IN MEDIÆVAL AND IN EARLY MODERN TIMES
Even a slight acquaintance with European history reveals the existence
of a number of curious and apparently unreasonable beliefs prevalent
throughout a period extending from early mediæval to comparatively
recent times. There is the belief in witchcraft, for instance. From the
canons of synods in the early Middle Ages down to the pitiless
executions during the witchcraft delusion, there is abundant evidence of
its prominence. It played its part not only in humble life, but in court
intrigues and in the accusations brought at state trials.
The belief that one’s future could be learned by observing the stars was
equally widespread. Astrologers throve at the courts of kings, and
sometimes their advice was taken even by him whose every act was held to
be under special divine direction. It would be a great mistake to think
that the astrologer was maintained merely for the amusement of king and
court, like the jester. His utterances were taken most seriously, and
the principles of his art were so generally accepted as to become the
commonplaces of the thought and the conversation of daily life. In 1305,
for instance, when certain cardinals urged Pope Clement V to return to
Rome, they reminded him that every planet was most powerful in its own
house.[1] Indeed, even in our speech to-day numerous vestiges of the
astrological art survive.[2]
Moreover, a grander and more imposing witchcraft displayed itself in the
stories of the wizard Merlin and in the persons of the wicked magicians
with whom knights contended in the pages of mediæval romance. So strong
was the tendency to believe in the marvelous, that men of learning were
often pictured by subsequent tradition, if not by contemporary gossip,
as mighty necromancers. Even Gerbert, who seems to have done nothing
more shocking than to write a treatise on the abacus and build a
pipe-organ, was pictured as running off with a magician’s book and
daughter, hanging under bridges between earth and water to escape
noxious spells, and making compacts with Satan.[3]
The attitude of the average mind as it has just been illustrated was to
a large extent characteristic of the best instructed and most widely
read men. The erudite poet Dante accepted the influence of the
constellations upon human destiny. Bodin maintained in his
_Republic_—perhaps the greatest book on political science written during
the sixteenth century—that astrology was very useful in tracing the
development of society.[4] Aquinas, chief of the mediæval theologians,
accepted astrological theory, except as limited by human free will, and
further admitted that most men make little use of their liberty of
action but blindly follow their passions, which are governed by the
stars.[5] Among other great mediæval churchmen and canonists, d’Ailly
and Gerson both believed that God signified important events in advance
through the stars, and d’Ailly made some astrological predictions
himself. Astrology was much taught in the mediæval universities,[6] and
was regarded as the climax of mathematics and as an essential part of
medicine.
It is with such beliefs, accepted by educated men and forming a part of
the learning and science of the times, that we are concerned in this
essay. First, it is necessary to give some further evidence of the
nature and of the general acceptance of these beliefs. This object will
be most quickly and effectively secured by a résumé of the views of a
few of the men most prominent in the intellectual history of the past.
These men should offer fair, if not flattering, illustrations of the
learning and culture of their times. In especial we shall notice the
curious notions of those who wrote on scientific subjects or showed even
a considerable approach towards the modern scientific spirit. This we
shall do partly because their writings seem at first thought the place
where we should least expect to find such notions, and hence furnish
striking illustration of the almost universal acceptance of these
beliefs; partly because, as we shall soon find reason to conclude, there
is really some connection between such beliefs and science.
The early Middle Ages are not distinguished for the prevalence of
education and of culture in Latin Christendom, to say nothing of
profound knowledge or original thought in any particular branch of
learning. But in such learning and science as there was may be found
examples of the beliefs which we wish to consider. We see them in
Isidore of Seville, whose _Etymologies_, we may well believe,
constituted an oft-consulted encyclopedia in many a monastic library for
several centuries after the seventh, when it appeared. This saint, like
almost all good Christians of his day, believed that marvels could be
effected through magic by the aid of demons, although such resort to
evil spirits he could not condemn too strongly.[7] But he saw no harm in
holding that certain stones possess astonishing powers,[8] that the
dog-star afflicts bodies with disease, and that the appearance of a
comet signifies pestilence, famine or war.[9] He maintained that it was
no waste of time to look into the meaning of the numbers which occur in
the Bible. He thought that they might reveal many sacred mysteries.[10]
Bede expressed similar views in his scientific treatises.[11] Also, if
we may regard as his two little essays about the authenticity of which
there is some question, he ascribed such extraordinary influence to the
moon as to maintain that the practice of bleeding should be regulated by
its phases, and wrote—with some hesitation lest he should be accused of
magic—an explanation of how to predict coming disasters by observing the
time and direction of peals of thunder.[12]
Passing over several centuries during which judicial astrology is very
conspicuous in the mathematical treatises which formed the greater part
of the scientific literature of the times,[13] we come at the close of
the twelfth century to the _De Naturis Rerum_ of Alexander Neckam
(1157–1217). We find him ecstatically musing over the consonance of
celestial harmony and associating the seven planets with the seven
liberal arts and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit,[14] as if believing
that there is some occult virtue in that number or some potent sympathy
between these material bodies and such abstractions as branches of
learning and generic virtues. Descending from the skies to things
earthly—the transition is easy since he believes in the influence,
saving human free will, of the planets on our lower creation[15]—he
tells us that mug-wort prevents the traveler from feeling fatigue,[16]
and that the Egyptian fig makes the wrinkles of old age vanish and can
tame the fiercest bulls once they are gathered beneath its branches.[17]
He describes fountains with properties as marvelous as those of the herb
or of the tree.[18] He tells of stones which, placed on the head of the
sleeping wife, provoke confession of marital infidelity,[19] or which,
extracted from the crop of a rooster and carried in one’s mouth, give
victory in war.[20] What is more, words as well as plants and stones are
found by the careful and industrious investigator of nature to have
great virtue, as experiment shows beyond doubt.[21]
Neckam, despite the fact that according to his editor, Thomas Wright, he
“not infrequently displays a taste for experimental science,”[22] was,
after all, more of a moralizing compiler than anything else. But greater
men than Neckam, men who were interested in learning and science for
their own sake, men who knew more and wrote more, still cherished
beliefs of the same sort. There was Michael Scot in the early years of
the thirteenth century, the wonder of the cultured court of Frederick
II, perhaps that monarch’s tutor, the “Supreme Master” of Paris, the man
who helped much to make the treasures of learning amassed by the Arabs
in Spain the common property of Latin Christendom, the introducer to
Western Europe of a Latin version of Averroes and of an enlarged
Aristotle.[23] Scot composed a primer of astrology for young scholars.
His writings on alchemy show that he experimented in it not a little.
His _Physionomia_ accepts the doctrine of signatures, tells us that
these signs on the outward body of the soul’s inner state are often
discovered through dreams, and contains a chapter giving an extended
description of the rules of augury—an art on which the author, though a
Christian, apparently bestowed his sanction. Prophetic verses
foretelling the fate of several Italian cities have come down to us
under his name. A poem of Henri d’Avranches, written in 1235–6, recalls
to mind the fact that certain prophecies concerning the emperor had been
made by the then deceased Michael Scot, whom the poet proceeds to call a
scrutinizer of the stars, an augur, a soothsayer, a _veridicus vates_,
and a second Apollo.[24] A most interesting recipe for invoking demons
to instruct one in liberal arts is attributed to Michael Scot in a
manuscript collection of _Occulta_ in the Laurentian library.[25]
Later in the same century stands forth the famous figure of Roger Bacon,
the stout defender of mathematics and physics against scholasticism.
Some have ascribed to him numerous important innovations in the realm of
natural science and of the mechanical arts, and have regarded his
promulgation of the experimental method, guided by the mathematical
method, as the first herald note of that modern science which was not
destined really to appear for yet several centuries. Yet he held that
the alchemist, if given sufficient time and money, could discover a way
not only to meet the state’s expenses by converting baser metals into
gold, but also to prolong human existence beyond that limit to which it
can be drawn out by nature.[26] Indeed these objects constituted two of
the three examples he gave of the great advantages to be gained from the
pursuit of that experimental science which was to disprove and blot out
all magical nonsense.[27]
How far Bacon let the principles of astrology carry him a citation or
two will show. That a woman had succeeded in living twenty years without
eating was, he explained, no miracle, but due to the fact that during
that period some constellation was able to reduce the concourse of the
four elements in her body to a greater degree of harmony than they
usually attain.[28] Nor is it health alone that the stars control; they
affect human character.[29] They implant in the babe at birth good or
evil dispositions, great or small talents. Human free will may either
better these innate tendencies through God’s grace or modify them for
the worse by yielding to Satan’s temptings; but in general the stars so
far prevail that there are different laws and customs and national
traits under different quarters of the heavens.[30] Nay more, astrology
offers proof of the superiority of Christianity to other religions and
gives insight into the nature of Antichrist.[31]
As one might surmise from Bacon’s belief in the potent effect of
sidereal emanations, he makes much of the theory that every agent sends
forth its own virtue and species into external matter. This leads him to
accept fascination as a fact. Just as Aristotle tells that in some
localities mares become pregnant by the mere odor of the stallions, and
as Pliny relates that the basilisk kills by a glance, so the witch by
the vapor from her bleary eye draws her victims on to destruction. In
short, “Man can project virtue and species outside himself, the more
since he is nobler than all corporeal things, and especially because of
the virtue of the rational soul.”[32] Hence the great effects possible
from spoken words or written characters; although one must beware of
falling into the absurdities and abominations of the magicians. Bacon,
moreover, was like Scot a believer in the doctrine of signatures.[33]
Other men of the same period prominent in science who held similar
beliefs we can scarcely stop to mention. There was Vincent de Beauvais,
the great encyclopedist, and Bernard Gordon, a physician of Montpellier
and a medical writer of considerable note, who nevertheless recommended
the use of a magic formula for the treatment of epilepsy.[34] There was
Albertus Magnus with his trust in such wonderful powers of stones as to
cure ulcers, counteract potions, conciliate human hearts, and win
battles; and his theory that ligatures and suspensions, and gems carved
with proper images possess similar strange virtues.[35] There was Arnald
of Villanova who propounded such admirable doctrines as that a physician
ought first of all to understand the chief functions of life and chief
organs of the body and that the science of particular things is the
foundation of all knowledge, and yet who believed in astrological
medicine, wrote on oneiromancy and interpreted dreams, translated
treatises on incantations, ligatures and other magic devices, and
composed a book on the _Tetragrammaton_ or ineffable name of
Jehovah.[36]
That marvelous power of words—especially of the divine names of angels
and of the Supreme Deity—which we may suppose Arnald to have touched
upon in his _Tetragrammaton_, was discussed at length by a series of
scholars at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
century whose names are most familiar to the student of those times.
These men pushed the practice of allegorical interpretation of sacred
writings, which had been in constant vogue among religious and
theological writers from the days of the early Christian Fathers, to the
extreme of discovering sublime secrets not only by regarding every
incident and object in Scripture as a parable, but by treating the text
itself as a cryptogram. Not only, like Isidore, did they see in every
numerical measurement in the Bible mystic meaning, but in the very
letters they doubted not there was hidden that knowledge by which one
might gain control of all the processes of the universe; nay, penetrate
through the ten sephiroth to the unspeakable and infinite source of all.
For our visible universe is but the reflected image of an invisible, and
each has subtle and practically unlimited power over the other. The key
to that power is words. Such were the doctrines held by Pico Della
Mirandola (1463–1494) who asserted that no science gave surer proof of
Christ’s divinity than magical and cabalistic science;[37] such were the
doctrines of the renowned humanist, John Reuchlin, who connected letters
in the sacred text with individual angels;[38] of Henry Cornelius
Agrippa (1486–1535) who, inspired by Reuchlin’s _De verbo mirifico_ and
_De arte cabalistica_, declared that whoever knew the true pronunciation
of the name Jehovah had “the world in his mouth;”[39] of Trithemius from
whom Paracelsus is said to have acquired the “Cabala of the spiritual,
astral and material worlds.”[40]
Moreover, the writings of men primarily devoted to science continued
through the sixteenth and on into the seventeenth century to contain
much the same occult theories that Michael Scot, Roger Bacon and
Albertus Magnus had accepted and discussed. Jerome Cardan, one of the
most prominent men of his time in mathematics and medicine—indeed, the
discoverer of new processes in the former science—nevertheless believed
in a strong attraction and sympathy between the heavenly bodies and our
own, cast horoscopes and wrote on judicial astrology. In his
_Arithmetic_ he treated of the marvelous properties of certain numbers;
in other writings he credulously discussed demons, ghosts, incantations,
divination and chiromancy. His thirteen books on metoposcopy explain how
to tell a person’s character, ability and destiny by a minute
examination of the lines on different portions of the body and by warts.
He owned a selenite which he believed prevented sleep and a jacinth to
which he attributed an opposite influence.[41]
The vagaries of Paracelsus are notorious, and yet he was far more than a
mere quack. Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) was a faithful follower of
experimental method. He saw that the science of the stars could amount
to little unless based on a mass of correct observations, and was one of
the first to devote his life to that foundation of patient and
systematic drudgery on which the great structure of modern science is
being reared. His painstaking endeavor to have accurate instruments and
his care to make allowance for possible error were the marks, rare
enough in those days, of the true scientist. Yet he made many an
astrological prognostication, and was, as his biographer puts it, “a
perfect son of the sixteenth century, believing the universe to be woven
together by mysterious connecting threads which the contemplation of the
stars or of the elements of nature might unravel, and thereby lift the
veil of the future.”[42] He also dabbled in alchemy, believed in
relations of occult sympathy between “the ethereal and elementary
worlds,” and filled his mind with the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus,
Geber, Arnald of Villanova, Raymond Lullius, Roger Bacon, Albertus
Magnus, and Paracelsus.
Finally, even Francis Bacon, famed as the draughtsman of the chart which
henceforth guided explorers in the domain of science, thought that there
was considerable value in physiognomy and the interpretation of natural
dreams, though the superstition and phantasies of later ages had debased
those subjects;[43] and in divination if not “conducted by blind
authority.”[44] He said that by a reformed astrology one might predict
plagues, famines, wars, seditions, sects, great human migrations and
“all great disturbances or innovations in both natural and civil
affairs.”[45]
Such are the beliefs which for a long time pervaded the thought and
learning of Europe; beliefs of the widespread acceptance of which we
have noted but a few striking illustrations. They constitute a varied
and formidable class of convictions. There was the notion that from such
things as the marks upon one’s body, or from one’s dreams, or from peals
of thunder, flight of birds, entrails of sacrificial victims and the
movements of the stars, we can foretell the future. There was the
assumption that certain precious stones, certain plants and trees and
fountains, certain animals or parts of animals have strange and
wonderful virtues. There was the idea that man, too, possesses marvelous
powers to the extent that he can fascinate and bewitch his fellows. Nor
should we forget the attribution to the heavenly bodies of an enormous
influence over minerals and vegetation, over human health and character,
over national constitutions and customs, even over religious movements.
We find this notion of occult virtue extended to things without physical
reality: to words, to numbers, to written characters and formulæ. It is
applied to certain actions and ways of doing things: to “ligatures and
suspensions,” for instance. Then there was the belief that wonders may
be wrought by the aid of demons, and that incantations, suffumigations,
and the like are of great value in invoking spirits. Finally, there was
a vague general notion that not only are the ethereal and elementary
worlds joined by occult sympathy, but that all parts of the universe are
somehow mystically connected, and that perhaps a single magic key may be
discovered by which we may become masters of the entire universe.
How shall we classify these beliefs? What shall we call them? What is
their meaning, what their origin and cause? As for classification, it is
easy to suggest names which partially apply to some of these notions, or
adequately characterize them individually. The art of signatures,
oneiromancy, augury, divination, astrology, alchemy, the Cabala,
sorcery, and necromancy are some designations which at once come to
mind. But no one of them is at all adequate as a class name for all
these beliefs and the practices which they involve, taken together. Are
not these notions, nevertheless, closely allied; is there not an
intimate relation between them all? And is not “magic” a term which will
include them all and denote the general subject, the philosophy and the
art, of which they all are branches?
True, many of the holders of the beliefs above enumerated declaimed
against “magic.”[46] But sometimes fear of being accused of magic was
their very reason for so doing. Bede had such a fear when he treated
of divination by thunder. Roger Bacon took suspicious care to insist
that his theories had nothing to do with magic, which he declared was
for the most part a mere pretense and could bring marvels to pass only
by diabolical assistance.[47] The writer of the _Speculum
Astronomiae_—probably Albertus Magnus—found it necessary to write a
treatise to distinguish books of necromancy from works on “astronomy,”
_i. e._, astrology.[48] Coming to a later age, we find Agrippa frankly
owning his trust in magic, and including under it, in his three books
of _Occult Philosophy_, practically all the beliefs that we have
mentioned. For him magic embraced the fields of nature, mathematics
and theology. Indeed, men of his day and of the century following
displayed a tendency to stretch the term to include true science. He
himself called magic “the acme of all philosophy.” Giovanni Battista
della Porta (1540–1615), not it is true without considerable
justification, called his encyclopedic work on nature _Natural
Magic_.[49] Lord Bacon chose to understand magic “in its ancient and
honorable significance” among the Persians as “a sublimer wisdom or a
knowledge of universal nature.” He said that as physics, investigating
efficient and material causes, produced mechanics, so metaphysics,
studying into forms, produced magic.[50]
Apparently, then, magic has a broad significance and a long history. The
word itself takes us back to the Magi of ancient Persia; the thing it
represents is older yet. It will form the theme of our next chapter,
where we shall discuss its history and its meaning, and then the
particular significance of those beliefs accepted by men of learning
which have been enumerated in the present chapter.
CHAPTER II
MAGIC: ITS ORIGINS AND RELATIONS TO SCIENCE
To men of the past—how long ago does not at present matter—magic meant
far more than the performance for their amusement of clever tricks,
which however puzzling they knew well enough were based upon illusion
and deception. There was a real magic for them.
This faith in the reality of magic was not, moreover, merely the outcome
of men’s belief in the existence of evil spirits, in the power of those
spirits to work changes in matter or to predict the future, and in man’s
power to gain their services. We sometimes speak of magic and necromancy
as if they were identical, and mediæval writers often did the same
thing, but such is not the case. If we but consider the meaning of the
word “magic” when used as an adjective, we perceive that thus to
restrict its scope as a noun is incorrect. What is a magic cloak, for
instance? It is simply a cloak possessing properties which cloaks in
general do not possess and which we are surprised to find in cloaks.
Most cloaks keep us warm or improve our personal appearance; this cloak
makes us invulnerable and invisible. A demon or a fairy may have endowed
the cloak with these extraordinary qualities, but that is a secondary
consideration. What makes the garment a magic cloak is the fact that it
has such properties, no matter where or how it got them. Or what is a
magic change? Is it merely a change wrought by spirits good or evil? By
no means. It is any change with characteristics and results which we do
not expect nor usually see in changes. In short, magic is præternatural
rather than supernatural.
Thus we find the existence of magic in the earliest period of human
thought generally assumed by anthropologists, but some writers deny that
man always has believed in supernatural beings. He first, they tell us,
had a vague notion that by propitiating or by coercing nature he might
secure for himself happiness; and that if anything external was to have
power over the workings of the natural structure, it must be man, for
both gods and God were yet unknown. Only gradually, they hold, through
his belief in tree-spirits, through his devotion to plants or fetishes
made sacred by their supposed efficacy in serving human wishes, perhaps,
too, through his attitude toward human beings whose reputation for skill
in magic finally led to deification, did man come to a belief in more or
less divine beings and turn to them for the power and the happiness
which in his savage and untutored impotency he had been unable to win by
his own efforts.[51] Then only would the performance of magic by the aid
of supernatural beings commence.
There is another misleading idea which we should avoid. Fairy tales and
romances picture magicians to us as few in number, adepts in a secret
art. Instinctively, moreover, looking as we do upon magic as a mere
delusion, we are prone to regard it as the creation of the popular
imagination, and to believe that what magicians there were outside of
the ordinary man’s imagination were a few imposters who took advantage
of his fancies, or a few self-deceived dreamers whose minds such fancies
had led astray. This is a superficial view. It does not explain how the
ordinary man came to imagine the existence of magic. Magicians in the
true sense were no mere imaginary order existent only in the minds of
men, nor a profession of dreamers and imposters. Magic was not the
outright invention of imagination; it was primitive man’s philosophy, it
was his attitude toward nature. It was originally not the exercise of
supposed innate, marvelous powers by a favored few nor a group of secret
doctrines or practices known to but a few; it was a body of ideas held
by men universally and which, during their savage state at least, they
were forever trying to put into practice. Everybody was a magician.
To understand magic, then, we should consider this attitude of primitive
man—I use the word primitive in no narrow sense—and should try to
picture to ourselves what his attitude would be. It is a safe assumption
that he would interpret the world about him according to his own
sensations, feelings and motives. Whether he looked upon nature at large
or in detail, he would in all probability regard it not as an inexorable
machine run in accordance with universal and immutable laws, but as a
being or world of beings much like himself—fickle, changing, capable of
being influenced by inducements or deterred by threats, beneficent or
hostile according as satisfied or offended by treatment received. To
make life go as he wished, he must be able to please and propitiate or
to coerce these forces outside himself.[52] In this endeavor his faculty
of association probably led him to conclude that things resembling each
other or having any seeming connection must be related by strong bonds
of sympathy and have power over each other. Since he had already
attributed human characteristics to matter, he naturally now observed no
distinction between the animate and the inanimate, the material and the
spiritual. A wooden image might be used to affect the fate of a human
being, or the utterance of alluring and terrifying sounds to produce
change in unfeeling and unresponsive matter.
Moreover, as man observed the world about him, he would note many a
phenomenon in nature which he could explain only by assuming strange and
subtle influences. There was, for instance, the magnet, so different
from other stones; the hot spring, so different from other waters; the
action of electricity—still a mystery. Such things, too, as a calf with
five legs, a dream, a sneeze, appealed to him as peculiar and striking,
and perplexed him. He thought that they must have some important
significance. His attempt to explain all such phenomena generally led
him into magic.
Man often had to decide between two or more courses of action,
apparently equally pleasing and advantageous or displeasing and
disadvantageous. Should he turn to the right or to the left; should he
begin his journey to-day or to-morrow? The thought probably came to him
that one of these directions, one of these days, would in the end prove
more advantageous than the other, though at present he could see no
difference between them. One must be lucky, the other unlucky. This
belief in lucky times, places and actions was magic. For such times,
places and actions were magical as truly as the cloak that is unlike
other cloaks or the change that differs from other changes.
Akin to man’s desire to discover what course of action would bring him
good luck was the longing he doubtless had to know the future; a
knowledge which would be as interesting as those tales of his ancestor’s
doings in which he delighted, and of more practical use. As he had no
difficulty in granting to matter spiritual qualities or in subjecting to
trivial material influences mind and soul without power of resistance,
so now he sought in the present sure signs of his own future. Such
indications seemed to him to be found not only in dreams, which indeed
had some connection with his personality, but also in such things as the
flight of birds or the movements of the stars. He often did more than
assign magic powers to the heavenly bodies; often he worshiped them as
gods. His effort thus to learn the future from inadequate and irrelevant
present phenomena was divination or magic.
These notions of primitive man do not exhaust the field of magic. As he
became educated, he would extend the attribution of magic properties to
such things as numbers and written characters or formulæ. His original
ideas might be elaborated or refined. But already he accepted the
principles upon which a belief in magic founds itself. These principles
were evidently common property. Of course some men would come to surpass
others in their knowledge of the supposed bonds of sympathy between
different things, or of lucky objects, seasons and methods, of ways to
coax and control natural forces, of the meaning of portents and of means
to predict the future. In the progress of time the finer mysteries of
the art might become the monopoly of a priesthood. But everybody
believed in magic; everybody understood something about it.
To attempt to define magic further than has been done in our description
of the notions of primitive man is like trying to embrace a phantom.
Magic rested upon man’s conjecture of the characteristics and processes
of nature, not on a knowledge of nature correctly deduced from
observation and experiment. As one would expect, there went with these
mistaken notions a fantasticalness both in reasoning and in practical
procedure. The follower of magic is apt to be on the watch not for facts
or laws, but for hidden mysteries; he is fond of ceremonial and symbols;
he enjoins upon himself and his fellows the necessity of secrecy in
their operations and mysticism in their writings. Again, magic is, as
has been said, præternatural; its outcome is to be marvelous. It assumes
the existence of wonderful properties in various objects and of
wonderful bonds of sympathy between different things. Finally, we should
remember that man always is a factor in magic. His knowledge, skill or
power is always essential to the performance of a feat of magic. Even
when demons do the deed, they must be invoked. A miracle may be contrary
to natural law but it is not magic, for man is not the cause of it. Even
if wrought in answer to his prayer, the miracle is not magic, for the
gods answer only if they choose. But the magic formula compels the
desired marvel; by it man coerces nature or even deity.
Such are some of the chief characteristics of magic. Yet with these
granted, it remains, like superstition or religion, a vague term at
best. The reader may disagree with me as to exactly what beliefs and
practices should be included under it, and it is indeed a nice question
just where magic begins and ends. Much of alchemy, for example, was
nothing but chemistry of a rude sort, and perhaps even its theories that
metals may be transmuted and life greatly prolonged will some day prove
to have had much truth in them. On the other hand, alchemy was based to
a considerable extent on a belief that plants, animals and minerals have
properties and powers which they cannot have: and if we ever do succeed
in making gold or putting off old age, it is quite certain that such a
consummation will never be accomplished by the fantastic methods which
alchemists usually employed. Similarly we shall see that the practice of
allegorical interpretation of past writings and the Pythagorean doctrine
of numbers, which perhaps at first thought one would not regard as magic
at all, nevertheless bear at least some resemblance to it. But after all
our thesis is not to establish a certain definition for the word
“magic,” or to prove that such and such ideas and acts are magical. A
name signifies little, and the word magic has had too many different
meanings in different periods and for different men to allow any one to
assert with confidence that he has found an absolutely correct
definition. I employ the word simply because it seems the most
convenient, most intelligible and most justifiable term for denoting a
number of beliefs which I believe are all intimately related and which
are the marks of a certain attitude towards the world.
So much for the definition of magic and for the nature of its origin.
But the discussion of these two points does not fully explain the
meaning of the beliefs which were illustrated in our first chapter. We
have yet to bring out the full significance of the presence of such
notions in the minds of mediæval thinkers and scientists.
It was stated above that the outcome of magic is præternatural,
marvelous; but this statement, while in one sense perfectly true,
requires some qualification. Perhaps to inexperienced primitive man the
results which he wished to accomplish or the crude theories on which he
based his operations seemed nothing remarkable. Perhaps incantation
seemed to him the natural way to bring rain, and sorcery the sole cause
of disease. But as time went on and observation taught men, it must have
been impressed upon their minds that either the events they sought to
produce, or the methods by which they sought to produce them, were a
little out of the ordinary, although of the possibility of the events
and of the validity of the methods they still remained convinced. If we
wish to sum up the whole history of magic in a sentence, we may say that
men first regarded magic as natural, then as marvelous, then as
impossible and absurd. Evidently then magic is subjective, as anything
false must be. To-day in the thought of educated and sensible people it
is limited in actual significance to stage illusions; once it was a
universal attitude towards the universe. As one false hypothesis after
another was superseded by true notions, the content of magic narrowed in
men’s minds until at last it became an acknowledged deception. Meanwhile
its mistaken premises and strange proceedings first mingled with and
then vanished into science and scientific methods.
This, then, is the significance of the beliefs of which we were speaking
in the first chapter. They are phenomena in that union—or struggle—of
magic and science which marked the decay of the former and the
development of the latter. As such, they warn us not to picture a
magician to ourselves as armed with a wand, clad in solemn robes, and
attended by a black cat. They warn us, on the other hand, not to regard
the learned students of nature, mathematics and medicine in ages past as
modern scientists in mind and spirit, who were merely handicapped by
such obstacles as crude instruments and want of data. We perceive the
anachronism involved in explaining away as mere passing fancies,
personal eccentricities or anomalous beliefs the superstitious or
bizarre notions of those to whom tradition has accorded great fame. We
are warned to consider carefully whether such notions were not ingrained
in the very being of those men and characteristic of their whole mental
attitude.
Science and magic are very unlike, but even the distinction between East
and West varies according to where the speaker takes his stand. We have
come to regard science as abstract truth, scientific investigation as
necessarily correct and sensible; we forget that science has a past. In
their actual history science and magic were not unassociated. Scientists
might accept magical doctrines and magic might endeavor to classify its
fancies and to account for them by natural causes. Roger Bacon could
regard the attainment of magical results as the great end of
experimental science. Francis Bacon could place magic in the same
category with metaphysics and physics.
It is with this mingling of magic and science—or more broadly of magic
with learning in general—in the history of our Western world that this
essay has to do. It is a theme of no narrow interest. Such ideas as have
been cited, not only held by the most learned men of the times but
incorporated in their scientific and philosophical systems—in so far as
they had any—deserve consideration in the history of science and
philosophy as well as in that of magic, or in an investigation of the
mental make-up of the men of the past.
While, however, the place of magic in the intellectual history of Europe
is our general subject, the present essay is far from being an attempt
at a complete treatment of it. The aim is rather to illustrate that
theme by a survey of learning during the period of the Roman Empire,
when the divers threads of the thought and knowledge of the ancient
world were to some extent united. The prominence of magic in mediæval
science is perhaps better known and more generally admitted. Accordingly
this essay will take for granted, except in so far as it has been
illustrated in our first chapter, the presence of magic in mediæval
learning, and will try to show that magical doctrines, credulity,
mysticism, and love of the marvelous were not traits peculiar to
mediæval thought, but that in this respect (as in others) there was
close resemblance, probably strict continuity between the Roman world
and later times. It was largely in order to bring out this resemblance,
continuity and influence that the beliefs of various writers in the
Middle Ages and early modern times were given in the first chapter. Let
the reader compare them with those notions of men in the Roman Empire
which will presently be set forth. If we are justified in thus regarding
the Roman world as summarizing ancient science and helping to explain
mediæval thought, we evidently, in taking our stand in that period
secure a broad prospect and ought to obtain a fair idea of the place of
magic in the intellectual history of Europe. In defining the field which
we are to cover, it should be further said that Christian thought will
not come into our discussion, since it did not greatly influence science
and other secular learning until the close of the Roman Empire. Lastly,
it should be clearly understood that we are here concerned with magic
only as connected with science and with learning—only as accepted by
educated men.
CHAPTER III
PLINY’S NATURAL HISTORY
We should have to search long before finding a better starting-point for
the consideration of the union of magic with the science of the Roman
Empire and of the way in which that union influenced the Middle Ages
than Pliny’s _Natural History_. Its encyclopedic character affords a
bird’s-eye view of our entire subject. Its varied contents suggest
practically all the themes of our discussion in succeeding chapters.
Chronologically considered, it is satisfactory as an introduction, since
it appeared in the early part of the Empire (77 A. D.).
I. _The character of the work._—Pliny’s treatise is far more than what
we understand by a “Natural History.” It is an attempt to cover the
whole field of science; _rerum natura_ is its subject.[53] This, as
Pliny says, is a task which no single Greek or Roman has before
attempted. He tells us that he treats of some 20,000 topics gleaned from
the perusal of about 2,000 volumes, with the addition of many facts not
contained in previous works and only recently brought to light.[54] At
first thought, then, the _Natural History_, vast in its scope and
constituting a summary of the views of previous authorities, would seem
the best single example of the science of the classical world. The fact
that it touches upon many of the varieties and illustrates most of the
characteristics of magic makes it the more fitting a starting-point for
us. Indeed, Pliny makes frequent mention of the Magi, and in the opening
chapters of his thirtieth book gives the most important extant
discussion of magic by an ancient writer.
It is true, however, that Pliny does not seem to have been a man of much
scientific training and experience. He said himself that his days were
taken up with the performance of public duties, and that consequently
his scientific labors were largely carried on in the evening hours.[55]
Probably we should regard his book as little more than a compilation,
and perhaps no very judicious compilation at that, in view of his maxim
that there is no book so bad but that some good may be got from it.[56]
Perhaps we may not unjustly picture him to ourselves as collecting his
material in a rather haphazard fashion; as not always aware of the
latest theories or discoveries; as occasionally citing a fantastic
writer instead of a more sober one; or as quoting incorrectly statements
which his limited scientific knowledge prevented him from comprehending.
Perhaps, too, he derived some of his data directly from popular report
and superstition. Certainly to us to-day his work seems a disorderly and
indiscriminate conglomeration of fact and legend on all sorts of
subjects—disorderly, in that its author does not seem to have made any
effort to sift his material, to compare and arrange his facts, even in
his own mind; indiscriminate, in that Pliny seems to lack any standard
of judgment between the true and the false, and to deem almost nothing
too improbable, silly or indelicate to be mentioned. Ought we to
consider such a work as truly representative of the beliefs of preceding
centuries, or as an example of the best educated thought and science of
its author’s own age? This is a question which we must consider.
Yet as we read Pliny’s pages we feel that he possessed elements of
greatness. If he was equipped with little scientific training or
experience, we should remember that little training or experience was
necessary to deal with the science of those days. At least he sacrificed
his life in an effort to investigate natural phenomena. Moreover, his
faults were probably to a great extent common to his age. The tendency
to regard anything written as of at least some value did not begin with
him. Material had often before been collected in a haphazard manner.
Lewes, in his book on the science of Aristotle, has described with truth
even the famous _History of Animals_ as unclassified in arrangement and
careless in the selection of material.[57] Many of Pliny’s marvelous
assertions and absurd remedies purport to be from the works of men of
note, although possibly he was sometimes deceived by spurious writings.
He frequently gives us to understand that he himself intends to maintain
a cautious and critical frame of mind, and he makes great pretensions to
immunity from that credulousness of human nature over which he will
occasionally smile or philosophize.[58] When we take up Aristotle’s
_History of Animals_ and Seneca’s _Natural Questions_, it will become
evident that Pliny’s “science” was not very different in quality from
that of the Greeks or from that of his own age. If he seldom gives us a
clear-cut or complete exposition of a subject, it is probably because
there was seldom one to be found. If he seems in a chronic state of
mental confusion and incoherency, it is because his task staggered him.
His work was by its nature so far impersonal that we can attribute its
defects only in part to his personality.
On the whole, then, we probably shall not be greatly misled if we regard
the _Historia Naturalis_ as a sort of epitome of what men had believed
about nature in the past or did believe in Pliny’s own day. The author
may not have portrayed past and present thought at their best but he
portrayed them, and that in detail. “The greatest gull of antiquity”[59]
was the Boswell of ancient science.
Pliny makes almost as good a representative of mediæval science as of
that of the Roman world, and thus well illustrates the influence which
the one had upon the other. Indeed not only is the _Natural History_
just the sort of work that delighted the Middle Ages, but Pliny seems to
have exerted a considerable direct influence on writers down through the
sixteenth century. Isidore of Seville practically copied his unfavorable
comments on the magi and his discussion of the powers of stones.[60]
Bede seems to have owed a good deal to him. Alcuin openly praised that
“most devoted investigator of nature.”[61] Roger Bacon quoted him; the
_Natural History_ was a mine whence Agrippa dug much of the material for
his _Occult Philosophy_ and to which Porta seems equally indebted in his
_Natural Magic_.
II. _Pliny’s discussion of magic._—Before illustrating Pliny’s
combination of magical lore with true and sane statements about nature,
we should consider his discussion of what he was pleased to call magic;
for just as he prided himself upon his freedom from excessive credulity
in the abstract, so in regard to magic in particular he seems to have
flattered himself that his position was quite different from what it
actually was.
Pliny did have, however, a fairly clear idea of the extensive scope of
magic as well as of its great age and currency. Not only did he declare
that of all known arts it had exerted the greatest influence in every
land and in almost every age, but “no one,” he said, “should wonder that
its authority has been very great, since it alone has embraced and
combined into one the three other subjects which appeal most powerfully
to man’s mind.”[62] For magic had invaded the domain of religion and had
also made astrology a part of itself,[63] while “no one doubts that it
originally sprang from medicine and crept in under the show of promoting
health as a loftier and more holy medicine.”[64] Indeed, he thinks that
the development of magic and of medicine have been parallel[65] and that
the latter is now in imminent danger of being overwhelmed by the follies
of magic which have made men doubt whether plants possess any medicinal
properties at all.[66] Pliny, moreover, sees the connection of magic
with the lore of the magi of Persia. Indeed, “magus” is his only word
for a magician. But this does not lead him to admit what some
persons—the philosopher Eudoxus, for instance—have asserted, that magic
is the most splendid and useful branch of philosophy.[67] For Pliny,
magic is always something reprehensible.
The magi are either fools or imposters. They are a _genus
vanissimum_.[68] They believe such absurdities as that herbs can dry up
swamps and rivers, open all barriers, turn hostile battle-lines in
flight, and insure their possessor, wherever he may be, abundant
provision for every need.[69] They make statements which Pliny thinks
must have been dictated by a feeling of contempt and derision for the
human race. They affirm that gems carved with the names of sun and moon
and attached to the neck by hairs of the cynocephalus and feathers of
the swallow will neutralize the effect of potions, win audience with
kings, and, with the aid of some additional ceremony, ward off hail and
locusts.[70] They have the impudence to assert that the stone
“heliotropium,” combined with the plant of the same name and with due
incantations, renders its bearer invisible.[71] “Vanitas” is Pliny’s
stock-word for their statements. Nero proved how hollow are their
pretenses by the fact that, although he was most eagerly devoted to the
pursuit of magic arts and had every opportunity to acquire skill in
them, he was unable to effect any marvels through their agency and
abandoned the study of them.[72]
Moreover, magi or magicians deal with the inhuman, the obscene and the
abominable. Osthanes, and even the philosopher Democritus, are led by
their devotion to magic into propounding such remedies as drinking human
blood or utilizing in magic compounds or ceremonies portions of the
corpses of men violently slain.[73] Magic is a malicious and criminal
art. Its devotees attempt the transfer of disease from one person to
another or the exercise of baleful sorcery.[74] “It cannot be
sufficiently estimated how great a debt is due the Romans who did away
with those monstrous rites in which to slay a man was most pious; nay
more, to eat men most wholesome.”[75] In fine, we may rest persuaded
that magic is “execrable, ineffectual and inane.” Yet it possesses some
shadow of truth, but is of avail through “veneficas artes ... non
magicas,”[76] whatever that distinction may be.
III. _Illustrations of Pliny’s fundamental belief in magic._—Pliny, we
have seen, made a bold pretense of utter disbelief in magic, and also
censured the art on grounds of decency, morality and humanity. Yet
despite this wholesale condemnation, in some places in his work it is
difficult to tell where his quotations from magicians cease and where
statements which he accepts recommence. Sometimes he explicitly quoted
theories or facts from the writings of the “magi” without censure and
without any expression of disbelief. If it is contended that he none the
less regarded them as false and worthless, we may fairly ask, why then
did he give them such a prominent place in his encyclopedia? Surely we
must conclude either that he really had a liking for them himself and
more than half believed them, or that previous works on nature were so
full of such material and his own age so interested in such data that he
could not but include much of this lore. Probably both alternatives are
true. Finally, many things which Pliny states without any reference to
the magi seem as false and absurd as the far-fetched assertions which he
attributes to them and for which he shows so much scorn. Indeed, it
hardly seems paradoxical to say that he hated the magi but liked their
doctrines.
What clearer example of magic could one ask than the conclusion that the
odor of the burning horn of a stag has the power of dispelling serpents,
because enmity exists between stags and snakes, and the former track the
latter to their holes and extract the snakes thence, despite all
resistance, by the power of their breath? Or that on this same account
the sovereign remedy for snake-bite comes “ex coagulo hinnulei matris in
utero occisi?” Or that, since the stag is not subject to fever, the
eating of its flesh will prevent that disease, especially if the animal
has died of a single wound? What more magical than to fancy that the
longest tooth of a fish could have any efficacy in the cure of fever? Or
that excluding the person who had tied it on from the sight of the
patient for five days would complete a perfect charm? Or that wearing as
an amulet the carcass of a frog, minus the claws and wrapped in a piece
of russet-colored cloth, would be of any aid against disease?[77] Yet
the _Natural History_ is full of such things.
To plants, for example, Pliny assigns powers no less marvelous than
those which he has attributed to animals. There is one plant which, held
in the hand, has a beneficial effect upon the groin;[78] another
overcomes the asp with torpor, and hence, beaten up with oil, is a
remedy for the sting of that snake.[79] Fern, he says, if mowed down
with the edge of a reed or uprooted by a ploughshare on which a reed has
been placed, will not spring up again.[80] Moreover, in his
twenty-fourth book, immediately after having announced that he has
sufficiently discussed for the present the marvelous properties
attributed to herbs by the magi,[81] he proceeds to mention the
following remedies. One is a quick cure for headache, and consists in
gathering a plant growing on the head of a statue and attaching it to
your neck with a red string. Another is a cure for tertian fever, and
consists in plucking a certain herb before sunrise on the banks of a
stream and in fastening it to the patient’s left arm without his
knowledge. A third recipe instructs us that plants which have taken root
in a sieve that has been thrown into a hedge-row “decerptae
adalligataeque gravidis partus adcelerant.” A fourth would have herbs
growing on dunghills a cure for quinzy, and a fifth assures us that
sprains may be speedily cured by the application of a plant “iuxta quam
canes urinam fundunt,” torn up by the roots and not allowed to touch
iron.[82]
Coming to minerals we find Pliny rather more reticent in regard to
strange qualities. His account of gems is written mainly from the
jeweler’s point of view. When marvelous powers are mentioned, the magi
are usually made responsible, and such powers are frequently rejected as
absurd. Pliny, however, grants some magic properties in certain stones.
Molochitis, by some medicinal power which it possesses, guards infants
against dangers;[83] and eumecas, placed beneath the head at night,
causes oracular visions.[84] To water Pliny allows powers which we must
regard as magical, for according to him certain rivers pass under the
sea because of their hatred of it.[85]
In man, moreover, as well as in other creatures upon earth, there is
magic power. Pliny mentions men whose eyes are able to exert strong
fascination,[86] others who fill serpents with terror and can cure
snake-bite by merely touching the wound, and others who by their
presence addle eggs in the vicinity.[87] Pliny takes up the power of
words and incantations in connection with man. Whether they have potency
beyond what we expect ordinary speech to possess is a great and
unanswered question. Our ancestors, Pliny says, always believed so, and
in every-day life we often unconsciously accept such a view ourselves.
If, for instance, we believe that the Vestal virgins can, by an
imprecation, stop runaway slaves who are still within the city limits,
we must accept the whole theory of the power of words. But, taken as
individuals, the wisest men lack faith in the doctrine.[88]
Pliny, then, believed in the possession of magic properties by well-nigh
all varieties of terrestrial substances, nay even by colors and numbers,
and in strange relations of occult sympathy, love and hatred between
different things in the realm of nature. His acceptance of ceremony as
efficacious has also been brought out to some extent. We have seen him
attributing importance to death from a single wound, to suspension by a
single hair, to fastening an amulet without the patient’s knowledge, or
to the absence for a time from the patient’s sight of the person who
attached it. We will consider one or two more such instances among the
many which exist in his pages.
He who gathers the iris should be in a state of chastity. Three months
beforehand let him soak the ground around the plant with hydromel—as a
sort of atonement to appease the earth. When he comes to pluck it, he
should first trace three circles about it with the point of a sword,
and, the moment he plucks it, raise it aloft towards the heavens.[89] In
another passage, in connection with the application of a mixture to an
inflammatory tumor, Pliny says that persons of experience regard it as
very important that the poultice be applied by a naked virgin and that
both she and the patient be fasting. Touching the sufferer with the back
of her hand, she is to say, “Apollo forbids a disease to increase which
a naked virgin restrains.” Then, withdrawing her hand, she is to repeat
the same words thrice and to join with the patient in spitting on the
ground each time.[90]
Pliny occasionally prefaces his marvelous remedies by some such
expression as “it is said.” This circumstance is scarcely to be taken as
a sign of mental reservation, however, as the following absurd
statement, which he makes upon his own authority and declares is easily
tested by experiment, will indicate. “If a person repents of a blow
given to another, either by hand or with a missile, let him spit at once
into the palm of the hand which inflicted the blow, and all resentment
in the person struck will instantly vanish.” This is often proved,
according to Pliny, in the case of beasts of burden, which can be
induced to increase their speed by this method after the use of the whip
has failed.[91]
One can, perhaps, make some distinction between the strange influences
which Pliny credited and the statements of the magi which he rejected. I
believe that he did not go to the length of affirming that plants or
parts of animals could cause panics, procure provisions, win you royal
favor, gain for you vengeance on your enemies, or make you invisible.
But he was inconsistent enough. After asserting that a single fish but a
few inches long could immediately arrest the progress of the largest
vessel by attaching itself to the keel of the ship,[92] was it for him
to declare false the notion that a stone can calm winds or ward off hail
and swarms of locusts? He characterized as “idle talk” the assertion of
the magi that the stone “gorgonia” counteracted fascination,[93] but he
had already written: “Id quoque convenit, quo nihil equidem libentius
crediderim, tactis omnino menstruo postibus inritas fieri magorum artes,
generis vanissimi, ut aestimare licet.”[94] Apparently, then, the only
charge which he could bring against magicians without reflecting upon
himself was that of malicious and criminal practices. His beliefs were
much like theirs.
Indeed, the varieties of magic in the _Natural History_ have not yet
been exhausted. For one thing, we must consider Pliny’s position in
regard to magic properties of the stars as well as of terrestrial
matter. He believed in astrology, at least to some extent, although one
might not think it if one read only the passage in which he speaks of
the debt of gratitude mankind owe to the great geniuses who have freed
them from superstitious fear of eclipses.[95] He could, nevertheless, in
naming some prominent personage in each of the primary arts and
sciences, mention Berosus, to whom a public statue has been erected by
the Athenians in honor of his skill in prognostication, in connection
with astrology.[96]
Pliny himself holds that the universe is a divinity, “holy eternal,
vast, all in all—nay, in truth is itself all,” a proposition rather
favorable to astrological theory.[97] The sun is the mind and soul of
the whole world and the chief governor of nature.[98] The planets affect
each other. A cold star renders another approaching it pale; a hot star
causes its neighbor to redden; a windy planet gives those near it a
lowering aspect.[99] Saturn is cold and rigid; Mars a flaming fire;
Jupiter, located between them, is temperate and salubrious.[100] When
the planets reach a certain point in their orbits, they are deflected
from their regular course by the rays of the sun.[101]
Besides effects upon each other the planets exert especial influence
upon the earth. “Potentia autem ad terram magnopere eorum
pertinens.”[102] They govern, each according to its nature, the weather
on our globe.[103] The planets also have great influence upon diseases
and on animal and plant life in general, although Pliny does not dwell
upon this point at any length.[104] The moon, a feminine and nocturnal
star, stirs up humors on earth and is powerful in producing putrefaction
and corruption in matter.[105] By the nature of Venus every thing on
earth is generated.[106]
To what extent the planets rule man’s life Pliny does not specify—an
instance of prudent reticence on his part, if he really consciously
avoided the question. He disclaims any belief in the vulgar notion that
a star, varying in brightness according to our wealth, is assigned to
each of us, and that the eternal stars rise and fade at the birth or
death of insignificant mortals. “Non tanta caelo societas nobiscum est
ut nostro fato mortalis sit ibi quoque siderum fulgor.”[107] But thus to
deny that the stars are ruled by man’s destiny or doings is far from
refusing to believe that men’s lives are ordered by the stars. Pliny, as
we have seen, holds that Venus has a considerable influence over the
process of birth in all animals. Also he certainly accepts the
portentous character of various particular celestial phenomena. “From
the stars celestial fire is vomited forth bearing omens of the
future.”[108] He gives instances from Roman history of comets which
signalled disaster, expounds the theory that their significance is to be
determined from the direction in which they move and the heavenly body
whose powers they receive, and states that the particular phase of life
to which they apply may be deduced from the shape which they assume or
from their position in relation to the signs of the zodiac.[109]
Pliny’s belief in portents seems to have been general and not limited to
celestial phenomena. In a passage on earthquakes he declares, “Never has
the city of Rome shaken but that this was a forewarning of some future
event.”[110]
Pliny is less certain in regard to the superstitious observances so
common then, to secure good luck or ward off evil fortune. In chapter
five of his twenty-eighth book he gives quite a list of practices, such
as selecting persons with lucky names to lead the victims at public
lustrations, saluting those who sneeze, placing saliva behind the ear to
escape mental anxiety, removing rings while eating, averting the
ill-omen of mentioning fire at meal-time by pouring water beneath the
table, and other superstitious table etiquette. He cites beliefs of the
same nature, as that odd numbers are for every purpose the more
efficacious, that medicines do no good if placed on a table before being
administered, that baldness and headaches may be prevented by cutting
the hair on the seventeenth and twenty-ninth days of the moon, and that
women who walk along country roads twirling distaffs, or even having
these uncovered, bring very bad luck, especially to the crops. He seems
to have inclined to the belief that there was a modicum of truth, at any
rate, in these notions and customs—and certainly we have already seen
him affirming the validity of analogous practices—but he finally decides
that amid the great variety of opinion existing in the matter he will
not be dogmatic and that each person may think as he deems best. His
attitude is much the same in regard to divination from thunder and
lightning.[111]
With all the foolish notions which he imbibed from antiquity or into
which his mind, over-hospitable to the fantastic and marvelous, led him,
Pliny had one good scientific trait. He might believe in magic but he
had no liking for the esoteric. His mind might be confused but it was
not mystical. He had no desire to hide the “secrets” of science and
philosophy from the public gaze, to wrap them up in obscure and
allegorical verbiage lest the unworthy comprehend them. On the contrary,
he sharply remarked apropos the lack of information about the medicinal
properties of plants, that there was a most shameful reason for this
scarcity, namely, that even those who knew were unwilling to give forth
their knowledge, “as if that would be lost to themselves which they
passed on to others.”[112]
Such, then, is the _Natural History_. Pliny gives evidence that many of
the most intelligent men were coming to doubt a large part of the
superstitious beliefs and observances once universally prevalent, and he
himself makes a brave effort to assume a critical and judicious
attitude. Yet his work contains a great deal of magic and reveals, what
this essay in its entirety will make further evident, the error of such
a statement as the following from Dr. White’s _Warfare of Science and
Theology_:
Under the old Empire a real science was coming in and thought
progressing. Both the theory and practice of magic were more and more
held up to ridicule. Even as early a writer as Ennius ridiculed the
idea that magicians, who were generally poor and hungry themselves,
could bestow wealth on others; Pliny, in his _Natural Philosophy_,
showed at great length their absurdities and cheatery; others followed
in the same line of thought, and the whole theory, except among the
very lowest classes, seemed dying out.[113]
CHAPTER IV
SOME ANTECEDENTS OF THE BELIEF IN MAGIC IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Writers who have discussed the intellectual life under the Roman Empire
generally agree that it was not marked by originality and creative
power, and owed a perhaps unusually large debt to the past. The
cosmopolitan character of the Empire, the mingling at that time of the
science, theology, philosophy and superstition of different nations,
religions and races, deserve equal emphasis. The lore of the magi of
Persia, the occult science of Egypt, perhaps even the doctrines of the
gymnosophists of India, may be regarded, together with that belief in
divination which played such a rôle in classical religion and government
and with other superstitious notions of Greeks and Italians, as
contributory to the prominence of magic in the Empire.
To discuss with any attempt at completeness the influence of the past
upon the belief in magic in the Empire lies, however, outside the
province of this essay. Pliny has shown us something of the union of
magic with science in the literature before his day. Philo of
Alexandria, Apuleius and the fame of Hermes Trismegistus may give us
some notion of the influence of the East. In other writers of the period
of which we treat one may discern further traces of the thought and
learning of the past. In general such evidence must suffice. We shall,
however, presently take occasion to support our contention that Pliny
gives one a fairly good idea of science before his day, by a few
citations from two writers of repute, one a Greek and one a Roman, of
the period before the Empire. Moreover, the great historical importance
of Greek philosophy and the fact that, besides playing a prominent part
in Roman culture, it exercised a powerful direct influence on Christian
Europe long after the fall of Rome, seem to justify some treatment of
its doctrines. Especially may we mention Plato and Aristotle, who
exerted great influence not only during classical times, but also the
one in the Middle Ages, the other in the period following the decline of
Scholasticism.
We naturally incline to regard this earlier period of more or less
distinctively Greek thought and learning as a golden age, comparatively
speaking, characterized by sane thinking if not also by careful
investigation of nature, and free from superstition, credulity and
mysticism. The general opinion seems to be that magic entered science
and learning and was accepted by men of intellectual prominence only
when mental decay had set in and when Oriental influence had become a
powerful force.
Yet something might be said for the opposite view that this earlier age
combined magic with its science and philosophy as much, if not more,
than the later time. We know that Greek philosophy had its beginnings in
mythology; and if the representatives of its maturity accepted the Greek
religion with its auspices drawn from sacrifices, its oracles and the
like, we may with reason ask, is it probable that they would hesitate to
give similar doctrines a place in their scientific and philosophical
systems? Pliny, for his part, evidently regarded himself as less
credulous and as less inclined to magic than the ancient Greeks,
although it is true that he attributed their belief to Oriental
influence. He declared that Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus and Plato
had learned the magic art abroad and had taught it on their return.[114]
Beside the name of Hippocrates in the field of medicine he set that of
Democritus in the domain of magic.[115] Elsewhere he said that
Pythagoras and Democritus, having embraced the doctrine of the magi,
first expounded the properties of magic plants in the Western
world.[116] In Cicero’s _De Divinatione_, Epicurus is alone of the Greek
philosophers declared free from trust in divination, and Panætius is
said to have been the only Stoic to reject astrology.[117]
Fortunately we are not here concerned to measure either relatively or
absolutely with any attempt at exactness the amount of magic in the
learning of the closing centuries of Greek national life, but only to
investigate whether in the philosophy of the Greeks there were not
theories at least liable to encourage a later age to belief in magic.
There was, for instance, the view of the Stoics that the universe is a
single living whole—a theory well fitted to form the starting-point for
a belief in sympathetic magic. Also their doctrine that events are all
arranged in a fatal causal series was favorable to divination. Quintus
Cicero, represented as upholding the truth of that art, cites the Stoics
as authority, and we may safely assume that Seneca drew his view of
divination largely from the same source.
The doctrine of Pythagoras also deserves mention, for it has played a
great rôle in history. He is said to have held that the whole world is,
and that the life of man ought to be, harmoniously ordered in accordance
with mathematical principles; nay more, that such principles are living
things and that numbers are the essence of the universe. The logical
conclusion is that by skilful use of mere numbers man can move heaven
and earth. As the poet, eulogizing Michael Scot, put it; the
“mathematici” by their art affect numbers, by numbers affect the
procession of the stars, and by the stars move the universe. The
employment of characters constructed of numbers or of geometrical
figures, the use of numerical formulæ as remedies or of compounds of
three portions of three kinds of drugs applied during three successive
days, is raised from the plane of superstition to the level of science.
It is not unreasonable to suppose that the heavenly bodies with their
apparently unchanging regularity of movement are the governors of our
existence. Plato, who adopted the Pythagorean doctrines at least to a
considerable extent, declared that the loftiest function of the sense of
sight was to survey the heavens, an occupation by which we gain
philosophy.[118] Like the Pythagoreans also, he associated the four
elements with regular solids. The cube represented earth; the octohedron
was water; the tetrahedron, fire; and the icosahedron, air.[119] The
remaining regular solid, the dodecahedron, was held to represent the
universe as a whole.
Towards magic, as he understood it, Plato’s attitude seems to have been
sceptical, though perhaps not confidently so. He maintained that persons
acquainted with medicine and prophets or diviners were the only ones who
could know the nature of poisons which worked naturally, and of such
things as incantations, magic knots and waxen images; and that since
other men had no certain knowledge of such things, they ought not to
fear but to despise them. He admitted, however, that there was no use in
trying to convince most men of this and that legislation against sorcery
was necessary.[120] He himself occasionally mentioned charms or
soothsaying in a matter-of-fact way.
Whatever Plato’s opinion of vulgar magic, his view of nature was much
like that of primitive man. He humanized material objects and
materialized spiritual characteristics. For instance, he asserted that
the gods placed the lungs about the heart “as a soft spring that, when
passion was rife within, the heart, beating against a yielding body,
might be cooled and suffer less, and might thus become more ready to
join with passion in the service of reason.”[121] He affirmed that the
liver was designed for divination, and was a sort of mirror on which the
thoughts of the intellect fell and in which the images of the soul were
reflected, but that its predictions ceased to be clear after death.[122]
Plato spoke of the existence of harmonious love between the elements as
the source of health and plenty for vegetation, beasts and men. Their
“wanton love” he made the cause of pestilence and disease. To understand
both varieties of love “in relation to the revolutions of the heavenly
bodies and the seasons of the year is,” he tells us, “termed
astronomy.”[123] This suggests that he believed in astrology—in the
potent influence of the stars over all changes in earthly matter. He
called the stars “divine and eternal animals, ever abiding.”[124] The
“lower gods,” of whom many at least are identical with the heavenly
bodies, form men who, if they live well, return after death each to a
happy existence in his proper star.[125] The implication is, though
Plato does not say so distinctly, that the stars influence human life.
Aristotle’s doctrine was similar. Windelband has well expressed his
view:
The stars themselves were ... for Aristotle beings of superhuman
intelligence, incorporate deities. They appeared to him as the purer
forms, those more like the deity, and from them a purposive rational
influence upon the lower life of the earth seemed to proceed—a thought
which became the root of mediæval astrology.[126]
Moreover, “his theory of the subordinate gods of the spheres of the
planets ... provided for a later demonology.”[127] And a belief in
demons fosters a belief in magic. For such subordinate gods—on the one
hand movers of nature’s forces, and on the other hand subject to
passions like man and open to influence through symbols and
conjurations—are evidently most suitable agents for the worker of magic
to employ. We must also mention Aristotle’s attribution of “souls” to
plants and animals, a theory which would readily lend itself to an
assumption of magic properties in herbs and beasts.
Aristotle himself in his works upon natural science accepts such
properties to a considerable extent. A few citations from his
_History of Animals_[128] will show that we have not been misled in
inferring from Pliny that Greek science at its best was not
untainted by magic. The _History of Animals_ seems to attribute
undue influence to the full moon and the dog-star,[129] and to hold
that honey is distilled from the air by the stars and that the wax
alone is made by the bees.[130] Aristotle repeats the story that the
salamander is a fire-extinguisher.[131] He mentions as a cure for
the sting of a certain snake the drinking of a small stone “taken
from the tomb of one of the ancient kings.” Like Pliny, he makes
human saliva a defense against serpents.[132] He says of certain
things that they are ominous of certain events.[133] He affirms that
the hen-partridge is affected by the mere breath of the cock or by a
breeze from his direction.[134] He thinks that insects are
spontaneously generated from mud, dung, wood, or flesh.[135] He says
it is plain that the Narce causes stupefaction in both fish and
men.[136] He has not only an idea that those with lice in their hair
are less subject to headaches, but also a notion that those who have
lice and take baths become more liable to the pest when they change
the water in which they wash themselves.[137] Another amusing
illusion which he records is that calves will suffer less in their
feet if their horns are waxed.[138] Thus the pages of Aristotle give
ground for belief that the fantasticalness of mediæval science was
due to “the clear light of Hellas” as well as to the gloom of the
“Dark Ages.”
The book by a Roman which we are to consider as illustrative of the
condition of science before the age of the Empire is Cato’s treatise on
agriculture. Several passages emphasize the importance of such
conditions as that the moon should be new or waning or not shining
during the performance of such acts as the transplanting of trees or the
manuring of meadows.[139] It is also directed that in administering
medicine to oxen the man giving the dose shall have fasted previously
and that both he and the ox stand upright during the operation.[140] One
medicine prescribed for cattle is a mixture of 3 grains of salt, 3
leaves of laurel, 3 fibres of leek, 3 tufts of ulpican leek, 3 sprigs of
the savin, 3 leaves of rue, 3 stalks of the white vine, 3 white beans, 3
live coals, 3 sextarii of wine. Each ox is to be given a portion for
three days and the whole is to be divided so that it will suffice for
exactly three doses.[141] To heal a sprain or fracture the singing of
the following nonsensical incantation or formula is recommended: “In
alios S. F. motas vaeta daries dardaries astataries dissunapiter.”[142]
This was written by a man generally supposed to have had much common
sense and who was enlightened enough to wonder how two augurs could let
their eyes meet without laughing.
CHAPTER V
BELIEF IN MAGIC IN THE EMPIRE
Having shown reason for believing that the _Natural History_ is a fairly
accurate mirror of the science of the past, we come now to examine
Pliny’s own age and to observe to what extent his attitude towards magic
was characteristic of it. “His own age,” I say, but this is only roughly
speaking, for it is the general period of the Roman Empire that we shall
now consider, with the exception of the closing century which we reserve
for later discussion. We shall have now to speak first of the general
attitude towards magic in the Empire, and then in particular of two or
three men or works that corroborate the rich evidence which Pliny, for
the most part unconsciously, gave of the place of magic in the
intellectual life of the time.
I. _General attitude._—At the start, just as in our discussion of the
_Natural History_, we find it necessary to distinguish the position of
men towards what they called “magic.” Pliny’s condemnation of the magi
and of all their beliefs as a matter of general principle was probably
the regular attitude. A stigma seems to have been attached to the word
“magic;” and magi seem to have been regarded as dangerous characters. In
his history Dio Cassius represents Mæcenas as warning Octavius Cæsar
that while the practice of divination is necessary, and augury by
sacrifices and flight of birds an art to be encouraged, magicians ought
to be entirely done away with. For, telling the truth in some cases but
lying in more, they incite many persons to revolt.[143] The prejudice in
the Empire against magic is further illustrated by the fact that pagan
and Christian controversialists seldom failed to impute to the opposing
religion the practice of this malign art.
Now and then some learned man like Eudoxus might hold that the doctrines
of the magi of Persia called for eulogy rather than reproach. Thus
Apuleius, in his _Defense_ against the accusation of magic brought
against him, explained that _magus_ in the Persian language was
equivalent to the Latin _sacerdos_ or priest, and that, among the four
greatest men of the realm selected to educate the heir to the Persian
throne, one had the task of instructing him in the magic of Zoroaster.
This magic dealt with “the rules of ceremonial, the due observance of
things sacred, the law of religious rites.”[144] It was the cult of the
gods.
Do you hear, you who rashly charge me with magic, that this art is
acceptable to the immortal gods, consists of celebrating and
reverencing them, is pious and prophetic, and long since was held by
Zoroaster and Oromagus, its authors, to be noble and divine? Nay, it
is included among the chief studies of royalty, and the Persians no
more think of rashly allowing any one to become a magician than to
become a king.[145]
But if his accusers mean magic in the popular sense, that is, Apuleius
grants, a different matter.
Even educated men, however, probably more often, like Pliny, regarded
the magi as all one with other magicians. Philostratus, in his life of
Apollonius of Tyana, seems to approximate much closer to this position
than to that taken by Apuleius, although one would expect a biographer
of that mystic personage to view the magi with favor. Philostratus
declares that Apollonius was no magician, although he did associate with
the magi of Babylonia, the Brahmins of India, and the gymnosophists of
Egypt. For he was like Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democritus and Plato who
frequented those sects and yet did not embrace the (magic) art.[146]
Of what we should call magic, however, there was a plenty in the Roman
Empire, as in fact the words of Dio Cassius have indicated.[147] Besides
the general acceptance of divination there was a great deal of
superstitious medicine. There seems to be little room for doubt that
Pliny’s diatribes against the medical art were justifiable, and that his
own trust in marvelous medicinal properties of animals and plants was
often equalled. Men of the highest eminence in public life, whom one
would expect to have had at their disposal the best medical talent of
the time, are reported to have employed the most absurd remedies.
Suetonius tells us that the Emperor Augustus wore seal’s skin, his
successor Tiberius laurel leaves, as a protection against
lightning.[148] Pliny recounts how M. Servilius Nonianus, _princeps
civitatis_, fearing ophthalmia, had fastened to his neck a piece of
linen containing some paper on which were written the Greek letters Ρ
and Α. This was done before any mention of the disease was allowed to be
made to him or by him. Mucianus, thrice consul, carried a live fly
around in a bit of white linen for a similar purpose, and of course both
men attributed their escape from disease to these bizarre methods.[149]
Moreover, much magic has been supposed to have been involved in the
numerous Mysteries to which men sought initiation and in the Oriental
cults which became so popular. Astrology was seemingly as universally
cultivated as in the Middle Ages, and that, too, though perhaps in Roman
times it was in appearance less of a science and more of a superstition.
There were occasional imperial edicts against astrologers, it is true,
and even sporadic persecution of them. But the explanation of such
measures is belief, not scepticism, and they denote not disbelief in the
art itself but disapproval of the use to which it was put—such as
revealing the fate of the present and the name of the coming ruler.
Almost every emperor had an astrologer at his court, and the historians
of the period delighted in telling stories of astrologers who foretold
their own deaths, or of monarchs who in vain attempted to thwart the
decrees of fate.[150] Alexander Severus is said to have founded chairs
of astrology salaried by the state and with provision for scholarships
for students.[151] Occasional persecution perhaps made the _mathematici_
more highly valued, and the jibes of the satirists against astrologers
and their followers attest rather than disprove the popularity of the
art. Pliny the Elder and Tacitus asserted its great currency.[152]
The best science of the Empire reflected to a considerable extent these
superstitions sanctioned by public opinion, as our discussion of Seneca
and Ptolemy will indicate in some detail. For the present we may observe
how the great Galen—whose authority reduced to a single school the many
quarreling medical sects of his day, was later implicitly accepted by
the Arabs, and then dominated European medicine to the time of
Paracelsus—was not above astrological medicine or the use of fantastical
remedies. He displayed trust in amulets and believed that such things as
the ashes of frogs or “hippocampi” have remedial power.[153] He held
that the critical days of disease are largely influenced by the moon,
and affirmed that we receive “the force of all the stars above.”[154] It
should be noted moreover that in one passage, in giving expression to
his zeal for astronomy as the handmaid of the healing art, Galen accused
many physicians of paying no attention to the stars. But he asserted
that in this neglect they were no true followers of the great
Hippocrates, whom they extolled but never imitated, for Hippocrates had
maintained that astronomy had no small bearing on the art of the
physician and that geometry was its indispensable precursor.[155]
Philosophy as well as science was not unfavorable to some varieties of
magic. Neo-Platonism, the most prominent school of philosophy in the
Empire, probably led men on to belief in magic more than any previous
classical system. Nature was looked upon as real only in so far as it
was soul, and its processes were regarded as the expression of the
world-soul’s mysterious working. The investigation of nature thus tended
to become an inquiry concerning spirits and demons, a study into the
strange and subtle relations existing between things united, as all
things are, by bonds of spiritual sympathy. True, the earlier
Alexandrines are said to have condemned magic arts,[156] but we have
seen that such condemnation need not amount to much. Plotinus attacked
only the most extreme pretensions of astrology, and was ready to grant
that the stars were celestial characters and signs of the future. He
even conceded that prediction might be made from birds. But to him
astrology and augury seemed of comparatively small importance, for he
believed everything to be joined to and dependent upon every other thing
and that in any object the wise man might see signs of everything
else.[157] Succeeding Neo-Platonists, at any rate, were often devoted to
magic. The name of Iamblichus, for instance, is one of the most
prominent in the field of the occult.
Moreover, in the time of the Empire a tendency was noticeable to confuse
philosophy with magic. If this tendency was not justifiable, it is at
least suggestive. Dio Cassius, in the passage above quoted, represents
Mæcenas as saying that not a few of those who pretend to be philosophers
practice magic.[158] Apuleius, accused of magic, stated in his
_Apologia_ that he was undertaking not only his own defense but that of
philosophy.[159] The accusation against him also suggests similar
charges brought against mediæval men of learning during their lives or
reputations which they won after death. Apuleius, having married a rich
widow older than himself, was charged by some sycophant, jealous rival
or other personal enemy with having obtained her affections by use of
sorcery. Apuleius seems to have studied medicine, if no other branch of
physical science, for he asserts that certain verses laid to his charge
by the accuser deal with nothing more harmful than a recipe for making
tooth-powder, and that a woman whom he was said to have bewitched had
merely fallen into an epileptic fit while consulting him concerning an
ear-ache.[160] This might be taken to show that the pursuit of science
was already liable to give one a bad reputation as a wizard; but it
should be said that the love-verses of Apuleius, as well as his poetical
prescriptions, were used to support the accusation, and that the
purchase of fish was also brought forward as a suspicious circumstance.
Apuleius affirms in his oration that “philosophers” have always been
subjected to such charges. He says, however, that the investigators of
physical causes like Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus
generally have the epithet atheist cast in their teeth, while it is the
seekers into the mysteries of theology and religion like Epimenides,
Orpheus, Pythagoras and Ostanes who are reputed to be magi.[161]
II. _Philo of Alexandria and allegorical interpretation._—Allegorical
interpretation, unless of a very mild character, is usually a fantastic
and mystical method of deriving information or inspiration. Even if an
author intended to conceal secret mysteries beneath the letter of his
text, there is very slight chance that the far-fetched and intricate
mode of solution employed by the interpreter will be the one which the
writer had in mind. In most cases, however, after due allowance has been
made for figures of speech and play of poetical imagination, it is an
erroneous and absurd assumption to suppose that an author did not mean
what his language indicates and no more. Therefore the believer in
allegorical interpretation would seem to be accepting something quite
like a magical doctrine. Indeed, allegorical interpretation is liable to
lead one into a belief that words, besides possessing a mystical
significance with which the thought of their writer had endowed them,
have in and of themselves great power. It borders upon the occult
reveries of the Cabalists and upon that magic power of words which we
have seen upheld by Roger Bacon, John Reuchlin and Henry Cornelius
Agrippa.
This allegorical interpretation of literature has played a great part in
human history. It was rife in the age of the Roman Empire, when Philo
Judaeus of Alexandria (approximate date, 30 B. C. to 54 A. D.) was
perhaps its greatest exponent, as he was also the chief member of the
Jewish-Alexandrian school of philosophy.
Philo carried allegorical interpretation to an absurd extreme even if he
did not go quite so far as Reuchlin and Agrippa. Not only did he make
such assertions as that by Hagar was typified “encyclical education,”
that Ishmael was her “sophist son,” and that Sarah stood for “the ruling
virtue,”[162] but in general he tried to read into the Old Testament all
the doctrines of Greek philosophy and science. He declared that all
knowledge, whether in religion, philosophy or natural science, might be
acquired by allegorical interpretation of the Pentateuch. Now we can say
without manifesting any semblance of irreverence towards true religion,
that to endeavor to gain from the books of the Old Testament—especially
by the methods which Philo employed—either the key to all philosophy or
adequate knowledge of natural science and extensive control of the
forces of nature, would, if possible, be as marvelous a feat, and is as
fallacious and fantastic a proceeding, as to try to coin gold from
copper, or to learn the future from the stars, or even to obtain a
solution of the problems of philosophy and a knowledge and control of
nature by invoking demons to instruct and to assist you. The very notion
that some man like Moses a thousand or more years ago had at his command
all the knowledge that can ever be got is magical itself. Moses must
have been a magician to know so much. Philo, moreover, if he did not
believe in a magic power of words, at least showed that they seemed to
him to have a most extraordinary significance. In his treatise, _De
Mutatione Nominum_, he relates with great unction the just punishment of
hanging which overtook an impious scoffer who derided the notion that
the change in the names of Abraham and of Sarah had any profound
meaning.[163] As one would naturally expect from what has been said
about Philo thus far, he regarded knowledge as something sacred and
esoteric. In his writings he liked to talk of mysteries and to request
the uninitiated to withdraw. This attitude, while in itself not exactly
magic, is, as has been already suggested, the product of a mind attuned
to magic. Finally, Philo, following Pythagoras, attached great
significance to numbers.
Philo not only represents a widespread tendency during the Roman Empire,
but probably well illustrates the influence of that tendency upon later
times. His numerous works were apparently much consulted by the church
fathers, and thereby exerted a strong influence upon the Middle Ages. It
is needless to enlarge upon the prominence of allegorical interpretation
in the works of mediæval ecclesiastical writers. The conception of
knowledge as esoteric was also prevalent then, though perhaps to a less
extent. To give an early instance from patristic literature, Clement of
Alexandria, in his _Stromata_, insists upon the necessity of veiling
divine truth in allegories, and has a long discussion in favor of
mysticism in learning, citing as examples Greek philosophers as well as
Hebrew writers.[164] Moreover, to Philo as source we may trace back the
disquisitions upon the mystic, if not magic, properties of six and other
numbers which we find in Augustine[165] and apparently in almost every
mediæval writer who had occasion to speak of the six days of creation
and of the seventh day of rest.
III. _Seneca’s Problems of Nature and divination._—We shall next
consider the _Problems of Nature_—or _Natural Questions_, if one prefers
merely to transcribe the Latin—of Seneca, who was practically a
contemporary of Pliny. Seneca impresses one as a favorable
representative of ancient science. He tells us that already in his youth
he had written a treatise on earthquakes and their causes.[166] His aim
is to inquire into the natural causes of phenomena; he wants to know why
things are so. He is aware that his own age has only entered the
vestibule of the knowledge of natural phenomena and forces, that it has
but just begun to know five of the many stars, that “there will come a
time when our descendants will wonder that we were ignorant of matters
so evident.”[167]
One must admit, however, that along with Seneca’s consciousness of the
very imperfect knowledge of his own age there goes a tendency to
esotericism. The following language would come fittingly from the mouth
of a magician:
There are sacred things which are not revealed all at once. Eleusis
reserves sights for those who revisit her. Nature does not disclose
her mysteries in a moment. We think ourselves initiated; we stand but
at her portal. Those secrets open not promiscuously nor to every
comer. They are remote of access, enshrined in the inner
sanctuary.[168]
Seneca seems to regard scientific research as a sort of religious
exercise. His enthusiasm in the study of natural forces appears largely
due to the fact that he believes them to be of a sublime and divine
character, and above the petty affairs of men.
Indeed, the phenomena which he discusses are mainly meteorological
manifestations, such as winds, rain, hail, snow, comets, rainbows,
and—what he regards as allied subjects—earthquakes, springs and rivers.
Probably he would not have regarded the study of zoölogy or of
physiology as so sublime. At any rate he considers only a comparatively
few “natural questions,” and hence the amount and variety of belief in
magic which he has occasion to display is correspondingly limited.
It is evident enough, however, that Seneca by no means accepted magic as
a whole. He tells us that uncivilized antiquity believed that rain could
be brought on or driven away by incantations, but that to-day no one
needs a philosopher to teach him that this is impossible.[169] And,
although he affirms that living beings are generated in fire, believes
in some rather peculiar effects of lightning, such as removing the venom
from snakes which it strikes, and recounts the old stories of floating
islands and of waters with power to turn white sheep black, he is
sceptical about bathing in the waters of the Nile as a means of
increasing the female’s capacity for child-bearing.[170] He qualifies by
the phrases, “it is believed” and “they say,” the assertions that
certain waters produce foul skin-diseases and that dew in particular, if
collected in any quantity, has this evil property.[171] I imagine he did
not believe the story he repeats that the river Alphæus of Greece
reappears in Sicily as the Arethusa, and there every four years, on the
very days when the victims are slaughtered at the Olympian games, casts
up filth from its depths.[172] The themes Seneca discusses of course
afford him less opportunity for the taking up of the magic properties of
plants, animals and other objects, but he was probably less credulous in
this respect than Pliny, unless his pretensions are even more deceptive.
Seneca did believe, however, that whatever is caused is a sign of some
future event.[173] He accepts divination in all its ramifications. Only
he holds that each flight of a bird is not caused by direct act of God
nor the vitals of the victim altered under the axe by divine
interference, but that all has been arranged beforehand in a fatal and
causal series.[174] He believes that all unusual celestial phenomena are
to be looked upon as prodigies and portents.[175] But no less truly do
the planets in their unvarying courses signify the future. The stars are
of divine nature and we ought to approach the discussion of them with as
reverent an air as when with lowered countenance we enter the temples
for worship.[176] Not only do the stars influence our upper atmosphere
as earth’s exhalations affect the lower, but they announce what is to
occur.[177] Seneca employs the statement of Aristotle that comets
signify the coming of storms and winds and foul weather, to prove that
comets are stars; and declares that a comet is a portent of a storm in
the same way as the Chaldeans say that a star brings good or ill fate to
men at birth.[178] In fact, his chief, if not sole, objection to the
Chaldeans would seem to be that in their predictions they take into
account only five stars.
What? Think you so many thousand stars shine on in vain? What else,
indeed, is it which causes those skilled in nativities to err than
that they assign us to a few stars, although all those that are above
us have a share in the control of our fate? Perhaps those nearer
direct their influence upon us more closely; perhaps those of more
rapid motion look down on us and other animals from more varied
aspects. But even those stars that are motionless, or because of their
speed keep equal pace with the rest of the universe and seem not to
move, are not without rule and dominion over us.[179]
Seneca accepts a theory of Berosus, whose acquaintance we have already
made, that whenever all the stars are in conjunction in the sign of
Cancer there will be a universal conflagration, and a second deluge when
they all unite in Capricorn.[180]
It is on thunderbolts as portents of the future that Seneca dwells
longest, however. “They give,” he declares, “not signs of this or that
event merely, but often announce a whole series of events destined to
occur, and that by manifest decrees and ones far clearer than if they
were set down in writing.”[181] He will not, however, accept the theory
that lightning has such great power that its intervention nullifies any
previous and contradictory portents. He insists that divination by other
methods is of equal truth, though perhaps of minor importance and
significance. Next he attempts to explain how dangers of which we are
warned by divination may be averted by prayer, expiation or sacrifice,
and yet the chain of events wrought by destiny not be broken. He
maintains that just as we employ the services of doctors to preserve our
health, despite any belief we may have in fate, so it is useful to
consult a _haruspex_. Then he goes on to speak of various
classifications of thunderbolts according to the nature of the warnings
or encouragements which they bring.[182]
IV. _Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos and astrology._—Astrology was more than a
popular belief which extended to men high in social rank and public
life; it was held by scientists as well, though naturally in a less
naïve and more scientific form. Nevertheless, the astrology of the
scientist might be of an extreme enough type and of a more clearly
magical variety than we were able to gather from Pliny, who, moreover,
does not seem to have been acquainted with any systematic doctrine of
the influence of the stars.
Such a systematized treatment Claudius Ptolemaeus set forth in the
little volume known as the _Tetrabiblos_, or _Quadripartitum_. It would
seem as if we ought to be able to regard a book by that noted geographer
and astronomer as an example of the best science of his time, the middle
of the second century. His works quickly became classics, and in the
third century Porphyry commented on the _Tetrabiblos_. The Arabs eagerly
accepted his writings, and it is generally held that in the Middle Ages
his word was law in all the subjects of which he treated. The
_Tetrabiblos_, therefore, would seem a landmark in the entire history of
astrology as well as a crucial instance of how that branch of magic
formed a part of science in the Roman Empire. True, Ptolemy does not
cover the whole field of sidereal influence. He limits himself to the
effects of the stars on man and does not attempt to trace out how they
affect all varieties of matter and of life upon our globe. However, to
make the stars control each individual man is the climax of astrology
and implies that the heavenly bodies govern everything else here on
earth. So the _Tetrabiblos_ is a very satisfactory instance of belief in
astrology by a scientist and its contents may well be briefly
considered.[183]
The first of the four books opens with the trite contention that the art
itself is not to be rejected because frequently abused by imposters, and
with the admission that even the skilful investigator often makes
mistakes owing to the incompleteness of human knowledge. In the first
place, our doctrine of the nature of matter rests, Ptolemy says, more on
conjecture than on certain knowledge. Secondly, old configurations of
the stars cannot be safely used as the basis of present-day predictions.
Indeed, so many are the different possible positions of the stars and
the different possible arrangements of terrestrial matter in relation to
the stars that it is difficult to collect enough instances on which to
base judgment. Moreover, such things as diversity of place, of education
and of custom must be reckoned with in foretelling the future of persons
born under the same stars. But although predictions frequently fail, yet
the art is not to be condemned any more than one rejects the art of
navigation because of frequent shipwrecks.
Thus far one might take Ptolemy for a well-balanced and accurate
scientist in the modern sense of the term, but he does not maintain this
level. After showing that it is useful to know the future and that
astrology does not depend on fatal necessity, he proceeds to explain why
the stars give knowledge of the future. This he intends to show from
natural causes: _ubique naturalium causarum rationem sequentes_. This
sounds well but his reasoning is superficial and childish, as his
discussion of the influence exercised by the planets will indicate.
In each planet one of the four elemental qualities predominates (or
perhaps two divide the supremacy) and endows the star with a peculiar
nature and power. The sun warms and, to some extent, makes dry, for the
nearer it comes to our pole the more heat and drought it produces. The
moon, on the contrary, causes humidity, since it is close to the earth
and gets the effect of vapors from the latter. Evidently the moon
influences other bodies in this way, rendering them soft and producing
putrefaction. It also warms a little owing to the light it receives from
the sun. Saturn, however, chills and, to some extent, dries, for it is
very far from the heat of the sun and the damp mists of the earth. Mars
emits a parching heat, as its color and proximity to the sun lead one to
infer. Jupiter, situated between cold Saturn and burning Mars, is of a
sort of lukewarm nature, but tends more to warmth and moisture than to
the other two qualities. So does Venus, but conversely, for it warms
less than Jupiter but makes moist more, since its large area catches
many damp vapors from the neighboring earth. In Mercury, situated near
the sun, moon and earth, neither drought nor dampness predominates; but
that planet, incited by its own velocity, is a potent cause of sudden
changes. In general, the planets are of good or evil influence according
as they abound in the two rich and vivifying qualities, heat and
moisture, or in the detrimental and destructive ones, cold and drought.
Ptolemy then goes on to discuss the powers of fixed stars. These powers
he would seem to make depend chiefly on the relation of the fixed star
to the planets or on its position in some constellation. Then he treats
of the influence of the seasons and of the four cardinal points, to each
of which he assigns some one predominating quality. A discussion of the
importance of such things as the twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve
“houses,” the _Trigones_ (equilateral triangles each comprising three
signs of the zodiac), and the position of the star in reference to the
horizon, ends the first book and also the presentation of fundamental
considerations.
The other three books contain “doctrinam de praedictione singularium.”
The second book, however, deals in the main with four points of general
though subordinate bearing: under what stars different regions belong,
how the effects of the stars vary according to time as well as place,
how the heavenly bodies influence the nature of events, and finally how
they determine their quality, good or bad. The third and fourth books,
besides taking up separately the particular effects of each planet as it
enters into conjunction with each of the others, comprise chapters with
such headings as the following: “_de parentibus_,” “_de fratribus_,”
“_de masculis et femellis_,” “_de geminis_,” “_de natis qui nutrire non
possunt sed mox extinguuntur_,” “_de dignitate_,” “_de magisterio_,”
“_de coniugiis_,” “_de liberis_,” “_de amicis et inimicis_,” “_de
servis_,” “_de perigrinatione_,” “_de genere mortis_.” These two books
discuss how length of years, fortune, diseases, and various qualities of
body and mind may be predicted from the stars; in short, how man’s
entire life is ordered by the constellations. Such is the book which
Bouché-Leclercq calls “science’s surrender.”[184]
V. _The hermetic books and occultism._—An account of belief in magic in
the Roman Empire would be incomplete without some reference to the
famous hermetic books. Hermes Trismegistus might, as deservedly as any
other man—had he only been a man and not a myth—be called the father of
magic, just as he used to be known as the father of Egyptian science and
just as he was regarded by many as the inventor of all philosophy.[185]
In the time of Plato the Egyptian god Thoth acquired the name of Hermes
from the similarity of his functions to those of the Greek god. He also
came to be considered as the author of pretty much all knowledge and was
given the epithet of “Thrice Great.” The entire body of Egyptian occult
lore was attributed to him, and Manetho, who pictured him as reigning
over the ancient Egyptians, declared that in addition to his royal
duties he succeeded in turning off some 36,000 volumes. Clement of
Alexandria, however, speaks of but forty-two books as “indispensably
necessary,” and says that the priests having charge of the hermetic
books, by memorizing these forty-two, cover the entire philosophy of the
Egyptians.[186] Diocletian is said to have dispersed the priests and
burned their books, because he came to the conclusion that the frequent
revolts in the locality received pecuniary aid by means of gold
artificially manufactured in the temples.[187] Before that, however,
lore supposed to be similar to that contained within the books had
become disseminated. In the days of Hadrian and the Antonines, Jews and
other Orientals at Rome offered to initiate persons into those occult
sciences previously the monopoly of the Egyptian priesthood. Marcus
Aurelius, in his later years, was thus instructed by an Egyptian
diviner, who followed him in all his campaigns.[188] Also the custom
grew up rather early of passing off works on occult subjects under
Hermes’ name and of ascribing to him all such books which were of
doubtful authorship. Of alchemy was this tendency especially true, so
that it came to be known as the hermetic art. Sosimus, Stephanus and
other Greek writers cited alchemical treatises under Hermes’ name, and
the practice of publishing spurious hermetic books continued well into
the Middle Ages.[189] Several such alchemical treatises are still
extant; and writings on astrological medicine and the magical powers of
gems, plants and animals have also come down to us under Hermes’
name.[190]
Some of the supposed writings of Hermes were mystical rather than
magical; for instance, the famous _Poemander_,[191] which consists
mainly of brief and disconnected utterances concerning God and the human
soul and other subjects of a religious character. Still, one does not
have to read far into its sixteen “books” before finding evidence of
belief in astrology, of the mysticism of number and of an esoteric view
of knowledge. It tells us “to avoid all conversation with the multitude”
and to “take heed of them as not understanding the virtue and power of
the things that are said.” It speaks frequently of the seven circles of
heaven, the seven zones, and the seven “Governors.” It affirms that “the
Gods were seen in their Ideas of the Stars with all their signs, and the
stars were numbered with the Gods in them.” Hence, it is probably safe
enough, when, for instance, we hear that Theon, father of Hypatia,
celebrated in his day as a mathematician, and professor at the
Alexandrian Museum, lectured upon the writings of Hermes Trismegistus
and of Orpheus[192]—another legendary worthy charged with works of an
occult character—to conclude that we have met one more case of the
mingling of magic with learning.
In short, then, the mythical figure of Hermes Trismegistus became an
actuating ideal to the Middle Ages, and the works appearing under his
name had a considerable influence in extending belief in magic.
Secondly, the hermetic books serve to typify that mass of Eastern occult
philosophy and occult science which was so strong a force in the mental
life of the Roman Empire.
CHAPTER VI
CRITICS OF MAGIC
The reader will remember how men in the Roman Empire condemned “magic”
but understood the word in a restricted and bad sense; how Pliny made
pretensions to complete freedom from all belief in magic and how
inconsistent was his actual attitude; how Seneca rejected magic only in
part, accepting divination in all its ramifications. This partial
rejection and partial acceptance of magic by the same individual seem
characteristic of the age of the Empire, as one would expect of a time
when magic was in a state of decay and science in a process of
development. It is true that this rejection of certain varieties of
magic often proceeded from the motive of morality rather than of
scepticism. Thus in Cicero’s _De Divinatione_, Quintus Cicero is
represented as closing his long argument in favor of the truth of
divination by solemnly asserting that he does not approve of sorcerers,
nor of those who prophesy for sake of gain, nor of the practice of
questioning spirits of the dead—which nevertheless, he says, was a
custom of his brother’s friend Appius.[193] But there were some men, we
may well believe, who would reject even those varieties of magic which
found a welcome in the minds of most educated people and in the general
mass of the thought and science of the age. Such cases we shall now
consider.
I. _Opponents of astrology._—Astrology, as we have seen, was very
popular. Yet there was some scepticism as to its truth beyond the
ridicule of satirists, who perhaps at bottom were themselves believers
in the art. Outside of Christian writers the three chief opponents of
astrology in the Roman world, judging by the works that have come down
to us, were Cicero—who lived before the Empire in the constitutional
sense can be said to have begun—in his _De Divinatione_; Favorinus, a
Gaul who resided at Rome in the reigns of Hadrian and Trajan, and was a
friend of Plutarch, and whose arguments against astrology have been
preserved only in the pages of Aulus Gellius; and Sextus Empiricus, a
physician who flourished at about the beginning of the third century of
our era.[194]
When, however, we come to examine both the men and their arguments, we
somehow do not find their assault upon astrology especially impressive
or satisfactory. First, as to the men. Gellius says that he heard
Favorinus make the speech the substance of which he repeats, but that he
is unable to state whether the philosopher really meant what he said or
argued merely in order to exercise and to display his genius.[195] There
was reason for this perplexity of Gellius, since Favorinus was fond of
writing such essays as Eulogies of Thersites and of Quartan Fever. There
is no particular reason for doubting Sextus’s seriousness, but, besides
being a medical man, he was a member of the sceptical school of
philosophy, a circumstance which warns one not to attribute too much
emphasis to his attack on astrology. Indeed, the attack occurs in a work
directed against learning in general, in which he assails grammarians,
rhetoricians, geometricians, arithmeticians, students of music,
logicians, “physicists,” and students of ethics as well as astrologers.
Cicero was not prone to such sweeping scepticism or sophistry, but the
force of his opposition to astrology is somewhat neutralized by the fact
that in his _Dream of Scipio_ he apparently attributes to planets
influence over man.
Now as to their arguments. We have spoken of their “attack on
astrology,” but in reality they can scarcely be said to attack astrology
as a whole. Indeed, it is the doctrines of the Chaldeans which Cicero
makes the object of his assault; he says nothing about astrology.
Favorinus will not even admit that he attacks the “disciplina
Chaldaeorum” in any true sense, but affirms that the Chaldeans were not
the authors of such theories at all, but that these have originated of
late among traveling fakirs who beg their bread by means of such deceits
and trickeries.[196] Some of the arguments of our sceptics are really
directed merely against the methods of interpreting the decrees of the
stars which they give us to understand that the astrologers employ. Such
objections might suffice to pierce the presumption of the ordinary
popular astrologer but they fall back blunted from the system of
Ptolemy.[197] If our sceptics thought that they were overthrowing the
astrology of the man of learning by such arguments, they labored under a
misapprehension, and in the eyes of one who really understood the art
must have cut the figure of ignoramuses making false charges against a
science of which they knew next to nothing.
As some of the arguments of our sceptics apply solely to defects in
method of which the best astrologers were not guilty, so others do not
deny the existence of sidereal influence over the life of man, but
contend that it is impossible to determine with essential accuracy what
will be the effects of that influence. Sextus, for example, seems to lay
most stress upon such points as the difficulty of exactly determining
the date of birth or of conception, or the precise moment when a star
passes into a new sign of the zodiac. He calls attention to the fact
that observers at varying altitudes, as well as in different localities,
would arrive at different conclusions, that differences in eyesight
would also affect results, and that it is hard to tell just when the sun
sets owing to refraction.[198] He almost becomes scholastic in the
minuteness of his objections, leaving us somewhat in doubt whether they
are to be taken as indicative of a spirit of captious criticism towards
an art the fundamental principles of which he tacitly recognized as
well-nigh incontestible, or whether he is simply trying to make his case
doubly sure by showing astrology to be impracticable as well as
unreasonable.
The main thing to be noted about Cicero, Favorinus and Sextus is that
they pay almost no attention to the general problem of sidereal
influence on terrestrial matter and life. It is to the denial of an
absolute, complete and immutable rule of the heavenly bodies over man
that they devote their energies. The premises of astrology they leave
pretty much alone. One might accept almost all their statements and
still believe in a large influence of the stars over our physical
characteristics and mental traits. The question of sidereal influence
upon lower animal life, vegetation and inert matter they avoid with a
sneer.[199]
II. _Cicero’s attack upon divination._—A more satisfactory example of
scepticism may be found in other chapters of the _De Divinatione_ than
those which assail the art of the Chaldeans. Moreover, although the
discussion is limited to the specific theme of divination, still that is
a subject which admits of very broad interpretation, and Cicero employs
some arguments which are capable of an even wider application and oppose
the hypotheses on which magic in general rests. He rejects divination as
unscientific. It is to such arguments that we shall confine our
attention. “Natural divination,” that is, predictions made under direct
divine inspiration without interposition of signs and portents, is not
magic and so the discussion of it will not concern us. Much less shall
we waste any time over such trite contentions against divination in
general as that there is no use of knowing predetermined events since
you cannot avoid them,[200] and that even if we can learn the future we
shall be happier not to do it.
_De Divinatione_ takes the form of a suppositious conversation, or
better, informal debate, between the author and his brother Quintus. In
the first book Quintus, in a rather rambling and leisurely fashion, and
with occasional repetition of ideas, upholds divination to the best of
his ability, citing many reported instances of successful recourse to it
in antiquity. In the second book Tully proceeds, with an air of somewhat
patronizing superiority, to pull entirely to pieces the arguments of his
brother, who assents with cheerful readiness to their demolition.
It is interesting to note that as Pliny’s magic was not his own, so
Cicero’s scepticism did not originate wholly with himself. As his other
philosophical writings draw their material largely from Greek
philosophy, so the second book of the _De Divinatione_ is supposed to
have been under considerable obligations to Clitomachus and
Panætius.[201] As for the future, the _De Divinatione_ was known in the
Middle Ages but its influence seems to have often been scarcely that
intended by its author.
One of the main points in the argument of Quintus had been his appeal to
the past. What race or state, he asked, has not believed in some form of
divination?
For before the revelation of philosophy, which was discovered
recently, public opinion had no doubt of the truth of this art; and
after philosophy came forth no philosopher of authority thought
otherwise. I have mentioned Pythagoras, Democritus, Socrates. I have
left out no one of the ancients save Xenophanes. I have added the Old
Academy, the Peripatetics, the Stoics. Epicurus alone dissented.[202]
When Tully’s turn to speak came, he rudely disturbed his brother’s
reliance upon tradition. “I think it not the part of a philosopher to
employ witnesses, who are only haply true, often purposely false and
deceiving. He ought to show why a thing is so by arguments and reasons,
not by events, especially those I cannot credit.”[203] “Antiquity,”
Cicero declared later, “has erred in many respects.”[204] The existence
of the art of divination in every age and nation had little effect upon
him. There is nothing, he asserted, so widespread as ignorance.[205]
Both brothers distinguished divination from the natural sciences and
assigned it a place by itself.[206] Quintus said that medical men,
pilots and farmers foresee many things, yet their arts are not
divination. “Not even Pherecydes, that famous Pythagorean master, who
prophesied an earthquake when he saw there was no water in a well
usually full, should be regarded as a diviner rather than a
physicist.”[207] In like manner Tully pointed out that the sick seek a
doctor, not a soothsayer, that diviners cannot instruct us in astronomy,
that no one consults them concerning philosophic problems or ethical
questions, that they can give us no light on the problems of the natural
universe, and that they are of no service in logic, dialectic or
political science.[208] Such would be the ideal condition, but in
practice, as we have seen much reason to believe, divination, at least
in the broad sense, was confused with science and with other subjects to
no small extent both under the Empire and in the Middle Ages. A doctor
might be something of a diviner as well: the astrologer was skilled in
astronomy; “mathematicus” came within a short time after Cicero’s own
day to be the word regularly used to denote a soothsayer;[209] Pierre du
Bois and Bodin found astrology an aid to political science.
Cicero, however, went further than the assertion that divination had no
connection with science and declared that it was contrary to science.
Such a figment, he scornfully affirmed, as that the heart will vanish
from a corpse for one man’s benefit and remain in the body to suit the
future of another, was not believed even by old wives now-a-days.[210]
Nay more, he asked, how can the heart vanish from the body? Surely it
must be there while life lasts, and can it disappear in an instant?
Believe me, you are abandoning the citadel of philosophy while you
defend its outposts. For in your effort to prove soothsaying true you
utterly pervert physiology.... For there will be something which
either springs from nothing or suddenly vanishes into nothingness.
What scientist ever said that? The soothsayers say so? Are they then,
do you think, to be trusted rather than scientists?[211]
Cicero does not think they are.
Also he shows that the methods of divination are not scientific. He
asks: Why did Calchas deduce from the devoured sparrow that the Trojan
war would last ten years rather than ten weeks or ten months?[212] He
points out that the art is conducted in different places according to
quite different rules of procedure, even to the extent that a favorable
omen in one locality is a sinister warning elsewhere.[213] In short,
whether he got his idea from the Greeks or not, he has come, long before
most men had reached that point, to have a clear idea of the essential
contradiction between science and magic. “Quid igitur,” he asks, “minus
a physicis dici debet quam quidquam certi significari rebus
incertis?”[214]
Besides this sharp separation of divination from science and besides his
rejection of tradition, a third creditable feature of Cicero’s book is
his question: What intimate connection, what bond of natural causality
can there be between the liver or heart or lung of a fat bull and the
divine eternal cause of things which rules the world?[215] He refuses to
believe in any extraordinary bonds of sympathy between things which, in
so far as our daily experience and our knowledge of nature’s workings
can inform us, have absolutely no connection. He appeals to the canons
of common sense. In fact, it is generally true throughout his treatise
that where he cannot disprove, he pooh-poohs superstition.
On the whole Cicero’s attitude probably represents the most enlightened
scepticism to be found in the ancient world. Though some of his
arguments seem weak, he deserves credit for having argued at all.
Against what they were pleased to call magic, men, especially during the
Middle Ages, were apt to rant rather than reason.
But, alas, unless we assume that the famous _Dream of Scipio_ is a
purely imaginative production, that the fantastic beliefs there set
forth (borrowed, no doubt, from Greek thought) are presented for
dramatic purposes alone and do not represent Cicero’s actual views, we
must grant that our sceptical Cicero believed in some magic after all.
For the _Dream_, despite its author’s animadversions against Chaldæan
astrology, speaks of Jupiter as a star wholesome and favorable to the
human race, of Mars as most unfavorable.[216] Also it calls the numbers
seven and eight perfect and speaks of their product as signifying the
fatal year in Scipio’s career.[217]
CHAPTER VII
THE LAST CENTURY OF THE EMPIRE
We come now to consider some indications of the intermixture of magic
with learning in the last century of the Roman Empire, the border-time
of the Middle Ages. It was a time when interest in science was slight
and when the ability to use florid rhetoric was apparently the chief aim
of those who assumed to be the highest intellectual class. What science
there was was largely permeated with magic, as a glance at a few men of
intellectual prominence then will illustrate.
Marcellus of Bordeaux, court physician of Theodosius I, and a writer
upon medicine, throws some light upon the state of medicine in his day.
He affirmed that pimples might be removed by wiping them the instant you
saw a falling-star. He said that a tumor could be cured if one half of a
root of vervain were tied about the sufferer’s neck and the other half
suspended over a fire. His theory was that as the vervain dried up in
the smoke of the fire, the tumor would by force of magic sympathy
likewise dry up and disappear. Marcellus added for the benefit of unpaid
physicians that so persistent would be the sympathetic bond established
that if the root of the vervain were later thrown into water, its
absorption of moisture would produce a return of the tumor.[218]
Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote at the close of the fourth century, and
who has been regarded by his critics from Gibbon down as a historian of
distinguished merit, gives us an idea of mental conditions in his time,
and was himself not free from belief in magic. It is true that in
declaiming against the degeneracy of the Roman aristocracy he ridicules
their trust in astrology, saying that many of them deny the existence of
higher powers in heaven, yet think it imprudent to appear in public or
dine or take a bath without first having consulted an almanac as to
Mercury’s whereabouts or the exact position of the moon in Cancer.[219]
Yet he believed in omens, portents and auspices, as the following
citations will indicate and as one might show by other passages.
The first passage is one in which Ammianus speaks of Alexandria as
formerly having been a great place of learning and as even in his
degenerate days a considerable intellectual centre. According to him, it
is a sufficient recommendation for any medical man if he say that he was
educated at Alexandria.[220]
There whatever lies hidden is laid bare by geometry; music is not
utterly forgotten nor harmony neglected; among some men, though their
number may not be great, the motion of the world and stars is still a
matter of consideration; there are not a few of those skilled in
numbers.
This is not all. “Besides these things they cherish the science which
reveals the decrees of fate.”[221]
The Emperor Julian was continually inspecting entrails of victims and
interpreting dreams and omens, and even proposed to reopen a prophetic
fountain which Hadrian was said to have blocked up for fear that others,
like himself, might win the imperial throne through obedience to its
predictions.[222] The mention of such practices of Julian leads Ammianus
in another passage to attempt a justification of divination as a science
worthy of the study and respect of the most erudite and intelligent. He
says:
Inasmuch as to this ruler, who was a man of culture and an inquirer
into all branches of learning, malicious persons have attributed the
use of evil arts to learn the future, we shall briefly indicate how a
wise man is able to acquire this by no means trivial variety of
knowledge. The spirit behind all the elements, seeing that it is
incessantly and everywhere active in the prophetic movement of
everlasting bodies, bestows upon us the gift of divination by those
methods which we acquire through divers studies; and the forces of
nature, propitiated by various rites, as from exhaustless springs
provide mankind with prophetic utterances.[223]
That is, we can foreknow, if not control, the results of the processes
of universal nature. Since it is through the forces of nature that we do
this, augury, oracular utterances, oneiromancy and astrology all become
for Ammianus but subdivisions of physical science. He admits that there
are persons who disagree with him, who object that predictions are often
erroneous; but against such persons he employs the old refutation that
occasional mistakes are to be attributed to man’s imperfect knowledge
and faulty observation, and that by such mistakes the validity of
divination is no more disproved than is grammar forever discredited
because a grammarian speaks incorrectly, or music because a musician
sings out of tune.[224] Opposition to the arts of divination he calls
“vanities plebeia,” and upon such loud-mouthed ignorance of the vulgar
he looks down with much the same superior smile that the lover of
speculative philosophy to-day bestows upon the man in the street who
irritably disputes the utility of that subject.
Indeed, the strength of Ammianus’s attachment to divination is so great
that he quotes its arch-opponent, Cicero, in its support. For he
concludes his discussion of the subject in these words: “Wherefore in
this as in other matters Tully says most admirably, ‘Signs of future
events are shown by the gods.’”[225] Unless perchance Ammianus was
acquainted with the first book only of _De Divinatione_, this
remark—which ought to have proved more potent than any necromantic spell
in invoking Cicero’s slandered Manes—must be taken as a startling
revelation of the mental calibre of both its maker and his age.
Synesius (370–430 A. D.), Bishop of Ptolemais, furnishes a good example
of what was probably the position of the average Neo-Platonist who did
not go to extremes in the last period of the Roman Empire. In the
present survey we are not concerned with Christian belief in the Empire,
and so it is only as a Neo-Platonist that Synesius will at present
interest us. He is the more interesting for us in that he was a man with
some taste for science. He knew some medicine and was well acquainted
with geometry and astronomy, subjects which he probably studied under
his friend Hypatia. He believed himself to be the inventor of an
astrolabe and of a hydroscope. He played his part in secular politics
and as bishop defended his people from oppression. He was fond of the
chase and of his dogs and horses, and said so. He was a great lover of
books also, but thought that their true use was to call one’s own mental
powers into action. Philosophy, mathematics and literature all claimed
his attention. Yet broad and independent-minded as he was for his age,
and interested as he was in science, he believed in magic. Indeed, there
was apparently no form of magic in which he would not have believed.
Synesius regarded the universe as a unit and all its parts as closely
correlated. This belief not only led him to maintain, like Seneca, that
whatever had a cause was a sign of some future event, or to hold with
Plotinus that in any and every object the sage might discern the future
of every other thing, and that the birds themselves, if endowed with
sufficient intelligence, would be able to predict the future by
observing the movements of human bipeds.[226] It led him also to the
conclusion that the various parts of the universe were more than passive
mirrors in which one might see the future of the other parts; that they
further exerted, by virtue of the magic sympathy which united all parts
of the universe, a potent active influence over other objects and
occurrences. The wise man might not only predict the future; he might,
to a great extent, control it.
For it must be, I think, that of this whole, so joined in sympathy and
in agreement, the parts are closely connected as if members of a
single body. And does not this explain the spells of the magi? For
things, besides being signs of each other, have magic power over each
other. The wise man, then, is he who knows the relationships of the
parts of the universe. For he draws one object under his control by
means of another object, holding what is at hand as a pledge for what
is far away, and working through sounds and material substances and
forms.[227]
Synesius explained that plants and stones are related by bonds of occult
sympathy to the gods who are within the universe and who form a part of
it, that plants and stones have magic power over these gods, and that
one may by means of such material substances attract those deities.[228]
He evidently believed that it was quite legitimate to control the
processes of nature by invoking demons. His devotion to divination has
been already implied. He regarded it as among the noblest of human
pursuits.[229] Dreams he viewed as significant and very useful events.
They aided him, he wrote, in his every-day life, and had upon one
occasion saved him from magic devices against his life.[230] Of course,
he had faith in astrology. The stars were well-nigh ever present in his
thought. In his _Praise of Baldness_ he characterized comets as fatal
omens, as harbingers of the worst public disasters.[231] In _On
Providence_ he explained the supposed fact that history repeats itself
by the periodical return to their former positions of the stars which
govern our life.[232] In _On the Gift of an Astrolabe_ he declared that
“astronomy” besides being itself a noble science, prepared men for the
diviner mysteries of theology.[233] Finally, he held the view common
among students of magic that knowledge should be esoteric; that its
mysteries and marvels should be confined to the few fitted to receive
them and that they should be expressed in language incomprehensible to
the vulgar crowd.[234]
Macrobius, who wrote at the beginning of the fifth century and displayed
considerable interest in physical questions for a person of those days,
reinforces the evidence of Ammianus and of Synesius, although he held no
very extreme views. Unless, however, we except his Philonian notion that
all knowledge may be derived from a few past writings. For Macrobius
affirmed that Virgil contains practically all man needs to know, and
that Cicero’s brief story of the dream of Scipio was a work second to
none and contained the entire substance of philosophy.[235] Macrobius
also believed that numbers possess occult power. He dilated at
considerable length upon each of those from one to eight, emphasizing
their perfection and far-reaching significance. He held the good old
Pythagorean and Platonic notions that the world-soul is constructed of
number, that the harmony of celestial bodies is ruled by number, and
that we derive the numerical values proper to musical consonance from
the music of the spheres.[236] He was of the opinion that to the careful
investigator dreams and other striking occurrences will reveal an occult
meaning.[237] As for astrology, he believed that the stars are signs but
not causes of future events, just as birds by their flight or song
reveal matters of which they themselves are ignorant.[238] The sun and
planets, though in a way divine, are but material bodies, and it is not
from them but from the world-soul (pure mind), whence they too come,
that the human spirit takes its origin.[239] Macrobius also displayed
some belief in the possession of occult properties by objects about us.
In the _Saturnalia_, Disaurius the physician is asked and answers such
questions as why a brass knife stuck in game prevents decay.[240]
Macrobius by the way, had considerable influence in the Middle Ages.
Abelard makes frequent reference to him, and called him “no mean
philosopher.”[241] Aquinas cited him as an authority for the doctrines
of Neo-Platonism.
CHAPTER VIII
CONCLUSION
Our survey of the Roman Empire and of the ancient world of thought which
it represented is finished. We have found reason to believe that hatred
and dread of “magic,” the confusion of science or of philosophy with
magic, the incurring of reputations as wizards by men of learning, were
phenomena not confined to the Middle Ages. We have seen some evidence of
the prominence of magic in the intellectual life of the Roman Empire, in
the writings and in the conduct of physicians and astronomers, of
statesmen and philosophers. Just how prominent magic was one hesitates
to estimate, but one may safely affirm that it was sufficiently
prominent to merit the attention of the student of those times. It is
almost useless to chronicle the events if we do not understand the
spirit of an age.
Can the student of that age, we may ask in concluding, rightly interpret
and appreciate it, can he make proper use of its extant records, unless
he recognizes not merely that men made mistakes then and accepted a mass
of false statements concerning nature, but that the best minds were
liable to be esoteric and mystical, to incline to the occult and the
fantastic, to be befogged by absurd credulity and by great mental
confusion, to be fettered by habits of childish and romantic reasoning
such as occurs in Ptolemy’s _Tetrabiblos_ and in Plato’s _Timaeus_? Have
we a right to attribute to the minds of that age our definiteness and
clarity of thought, our common sense, our scientific spirit? Is it fair
to take the words in which they expressed their thought and to interpret
these according to our knowledge, our frame of mind; to read into their
words our ideas and discoveries; to rearrange their disconnected
utterances into systems which they were incapable of constructing; to
endeavor by nothing else than a sort of allegorical interpretation to
discover our philosophy, our science, our ideals in their writings? Have
not even words a greater definiteness and value now than once? When we
translate a passage from an ancient language are we not apt to
transfigure its thought? These are, however, only questions.
Certainly there was much true scientific knowledge in the Roman Empire.
There was sane medical theory and practice, there was a great deal of
correct information in regard to plants, animals and the stars. Science
was in the ascendant; magic was in its latter stages of decay. We
flatter ourselves that it has now quite vanished away; then its
doctrines were accepted only in part or in weakened form by men of
education. Perhaps, though I am far from asserting this, magic played a
less prominent part then in science and in philosophy than in the later
Middle Ages. Perhaps we may picture to ourselves the minds of men in the
twelfth and thirteenth and succeeding centuries as awakening from a
long, intellectual torpor during the chaotic and dreary “Dark Ages,”
and, eager for knowledge and for mental occupation, but still
inexperienced and rather bewildered, as snatching without discrimination
at whatever came first to hand of the lore of the past. Thus for a time
we might find the most able men of the later age taking on the worst
characteristics of the earlier time. But this again is mere speculation.
Moreover, we must remember that, if magic was accepted only in part by
men of learning in the Roman Empire, there was no thoroughgoing
scepticism. We sought in vain for an instance of consistent disbelief.
If, too, there was an effort to make the magic, which was accepted,
scientific by basing it upon natural laws, as Quintus Cicero, Seneca and
Ptolemy tried to do, there was also, besides the definite approval of
magical doctrines, often a mystical tone in the science and philosophy
of the time. The question of the relative strength of magic and of
science in those days must, then, be left unsettled. It is difficult
enough to judge even a single individual; to tell, for instance, just
how superstitious Cato was.
In closing we may, however, sum up very briefly those elements which we
selected as combining to give a fairly faithful picture of the belief in
magic which then prevailed among educated people. Native superstitions
from which science had not yet wholly freed itself; much fantastical and
mystical lore from Oriental nations; allegorizing and mysticizing in the
interpretation of books—which in Philo went to the length of a belief
that all knowledge could be secured by this means; a portrayal of nature
which attributed to her many magic properties and caused medicine to be
infected with magic ceremony and to be based to some extent on the
principle of sympathetic magic; a widespread and often extreme belief in
astrology; a speculative philosophy which was often favorable to the
doctrines of magic or even advanced some itself; and the system of
Neo-Platonism in especial, with which we may associate the
view—prevalent long before Plotinus, however—that everything in the
universe is in close sympathy with everything else and is a sign of
coming events—these were the forces ready at the opening of the Middle
Ages to influence the future.
-----
Footnote 1:
H. C. Lea, _History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages_ (1887),
vol. iii, p. 437. Mr. Lea’s chapter on “Sorcery and the Occult Arts”
is very interesting and contains much material which it is difficult
to find elsewhere.
Footnote 2:
We speak of persons as jovial or saturnine or mercurial in
temperament; as ill-starred, and so on.
Footnote 3:
The classic on the theme of magic reputations incurred by the learned
in ancient and mediæval times is Gabriel Naudé’s “_Apologie pour tous
les grands personages qui ont esté faussement soupçonnez de Magie_.”
Paris, 1625. That such reputations were often unjustly incurred was
recognized long before Naudé, however. To say nothing now of Apuleius’
_Apologia_, to which we shall refer later, attention may be called to
the fact that even William of Malmesbury, while relating with apparent
credulity the legends in regard to Gerbert, had the grace to admit
that “the common people often attack the reputation of the learned,
and accuse any one of dealing with the devil who excels in his art.”
_Gesta Regum Anglorum_, book ii, secs. 167, 168.
Footnote 4:
_République_, book iv, ch. 2, cited by W. E. H. Lecky, _History of
Rationalism_ (1900), vol. i, p. 28. The chapter upon “Magic and
Witchcraft” contains considerable material bearing upon our theme. A
similar attitude to that of Bodin is found in a political treatise of
about the year 1300, probably written by Pierre du Bois, where an
argument for the universal rule of a French monarch is based on
astrology. N. de Wailly, _Mémoire sur un opuscule anonyme_ (Mémoires
de l’Institut Impérial de France), vol. xviii, pt. ii, p. 442.
Footnote 5:
_Summa Theologica_, pars prima, quæst. 115, arts. 3 and 4.
Footnote 6:
For some data on this point see Hastings Rashdall, _The Universities
of Europe in the Middle Ages_ (1895), vol. i, pp. 240–250; vol. ii,
pp. 290, 452, 458, 459.
Footnote 7:
_Etymologiae_, bk. viii, ch. 9. In Migne’s _Patrologia Latina_, vol.
lxxxii.
Footnote 8:
_Ibid._, bk. xvi, _passim_.
Footnote 9:
_Ibid._, bk. iii, ch. 71. He condemned astrology, however. See
_ibid._, and bk. iii, ch. 27.
Footnote 10:
“Liber Numerorum qui in Sanctis Scripturis Occurunt.” (Also in Migne,
vol. lxxxiii, col. 179.) “Non est superfluum numerorum causas in
Scripturis sanctis attendere. Habent enim quamdam scientiae doctrinam
plurimaque mystica sacramenta.”
Footnote 11:
_De Natura Rerum_, ch. 24; _De Temporum Ratione_, ch. 28. The
scientific writing of Bede may be found in vol. vi of his works as
edited by J. A. Giles. London, 1843.
Footnote 12:
_De Tonitruis ad Herefridum_, and _De Minutione Sanguinis sive
Phlebotomia_. Many spurious treatises were attributed to Bede but
there are some reasons for believing these genuine, although they are
not named by Bede in the list of his writings which he gives in his
_Ecclesiastical History_. Giles included them in his edition after
some hesitation.
Footnote 13:
For the predominance of astrology in the mathematics of the 9th, 10th,
11th and 12th centuries, cf. _Histoire Littéraire_, vol. v, p. 183;
vi, 9; vii, 137; ix, 197.
Footnote 14:
_De Naturis Rerum_, bk. ii, ch. 173, and bk. i, ch. 7. Volume xxxiv of
_The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain_. (The Rolls Series.)
Footnote 15:
_Ibid._, bk. i, ch. 7.
Footnote 16:
_De Naturis Rerum_, bk. ii, ch. 63.
Footnote 17:
_Ibid._, bk. ii, ch. 80.
Footnote 18:
_Ibid._, bk. ii, ch. 3 _et seq._
Footnote 19:
_Ibid._, bk. ii, ch. 88. In chapter 87 he writes: “Chelidonius autem
rufus portantes se gratissimos facit; niger vero gestatus optimum
finem negotiis imponit, et ad iras potentium sedandas idoneus est.”
Footnote 20:
_Ibid._, bk. ii, ch. 89.
Footnote 21:
_Ibid._, bk. ii, ch. 85. “In verbis et herbis et lapidibus multam esse
virtutem compertum est a diligentibus naturarum investigatoribus.
Certissimum autem experimentum fidem dicto nostro facit.”
Footnote 22:
Preface, p. xii in vol. xxxiv of the Rolls Series.
Footnote 23:
My information concerning Michael Scot is mainly derived from his
biography (Edinburgh, 1897) by Rev. J. Wood Brown, who has studied the
manuscript copies of Scot’s works in various European libraries and
has succeeded in dispelling much of the uncertainty which previously
existed concerning the events of Scot’s career and even the dates of
his life. Of Scot’s works the _Physionomia_ exists in printed form;
indeed, eighteen editions of it are said to have been issued between
the years 1477 and 1660.
Footnote 24:
The poem is printed in _Forschungen zur Deutschen Geschichte_, vol.
xviii, (1878) p. 486.
Footnote 25:
The part of the manuscript containing the experiment was written
between 1450 and 1500, Brown thinks, but purports to be a copy “from a
very ancient work.” If spurious, its fabricator at least shows
considerable familiarity with Scot’s life. See Brown, pp. 18–19. The
recipe is given in full in the appendix of Brown’s book.
Footnote 26:
_De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae et de Nullitate Magiae_, ch. 7.
Contained in the Appendix of vol. xv of the Rolls Series, edited by J.
S. Brewer, London, 1859.
Footnote 27:
_Opus Maius_, vol. ii, pp. 204–221. Edited by J. H. Bridges, Oxford,
1897–1900. On page 210 _et seq._ Bacon gives an elaborate recipe for
an _elixir vitae_.
Footnote 28:
_Opus Minus_, Rolls Series, vol. xv, pp. 373–4.
Footnote 29:
Bridges, _Opus Maius_, vol. i, pp. 137–139.
Footnote 30:
_Compendium Studii_, Rolls Series, vol. xv, pp. 421–422.
Footnote 31:
Bridges, _Opus Maius_, vol. i, pp. 253–269.
Footnote 32:
_De Secretis_, ch. 3, discusses this question of fascination and also
the power of words and of the human soul. In regard to characters and
incantations, see _De Secretis_, ch. 2, and the _Opus Tertium_, which
is also contained in vol. xv of the Rolls Series, ch. 26.
Footnote 33:
_Opus Tertium_, ch. 27.
Footnote 34:
“Gaspar fert myrram, thus Melchoir, Balthasar aurum.
Haec tria qui secum portabit nomina regum
Solvitur a morbo Christi pietate caduco.”
_Hist. Litt._, vol. xxv, p. 327.
Footnote 35:
See _Liber Mineralium_. _Opera Omnia_, ed. Borgnet (1890), vol. v,
page 23 _et seq._
Footnote 36:
Two good accounts of Arnald are those in the _Histoire Littéraire_,
vol. xxviii and Lea, _History of the Inquisition_, vol. iii, pp.
52–57. Older accounts are generally very misleading.
Footnote 37:
J. M. Rigg, _Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola_, London, 1890, pp. viii-x.
Footnote 38:
Janssen, _History of the German People_, vol. iii, p. 45, of the
English translation by A. M. Christie (1900).
Footnote 39:
Henry Morley, _Life of Agrippa von Nettesheim_ (London, 1856), vol. i,
p. 79. This biography includes a full and instructive outline of
Agrippa’s work on _Occult Philosophy_.
Footnote 40:
A. E. Waite, _Hermetical and Alchemistical Writings of Paracelsus_,
vol. i, p. xii.
Footnote 41:
For Cardan, see the biography in two volumes by Henry Morley, London,
1854, and that in one volume by W. G. Waters, London. 1898.
Footnote 42:
J. L. E. Dreyer, _Tycho Brahe. A Picture of Scientific Life and Work
in the Sixteenth Century_ (Edinburgh, 1890), p. 56. A valuable book.
Footnote 43:
_De Augmentis Scientiarum_, bk. iv, ch. 1.
Footnote 44:
_Ibid._, bk. iv, ch. 3.
Footnote 45:
_Ibid._, bk. iii, ch. 4.
Footnote 46:
Bodin for instance condemned “magic” in his _De Magorum Daemonomania_
(Paris, 1581).
Footnote 47:
Bridges, _Opus Maius_, vol. i, p. 241. See too the _De Secretis
Operibus Artis et Naturae et de Nullitate Magiae_. Rolls Series, vol.
xv, appendix.
Footnote 48:
_Spec. Astron._, ch. 17. Albertus Magnus, _Opera Omnia_, ed. Borgnet
(1890), vol. x, pp. 629 _et seq._ And he finally came to the
conclusion that “concerning books of necromancy the better
judgment—prejudice aside—seems to be that they ought rather to be
preserved than destroyed. For the time is perchance near at hand in
which, for reasons which I now suppress, it will be advantageous to
consult them occasionally. Nevertheless, let their inspectors abstain
from abuse of them.” Ch. 17.
Similarly Roger Bacon, in his _De Secretis_, ch. 3, after mentioning
books of magic to be eschewed, remarked that many books classed as
magic were not such but contained worthy wisdom.
Footnote 49:
_Magiae Naturalis Libri XX._ Lyons, 1651.
Footnote 50:
_De Augmentis_, bk. iii, ch. 4.
Footnote 51:
This view is set forth at length in J. G. Frazer’s _The Golden Bough_
(3 vols., London, 1900). The book also furnishes many illustrations of
the magic of primitive man. Mr. Frazer holds that “religion”
supplanted magic and is in turn itself being supplanted by science.
His definition of religion would probably not be generally accepted.
Footnote 52:
Alfred Maury, in the introduction to his _La Magie et l’astrologie
dans l’antiquité et au moyen âge_, (Paris, 1860), expresses a
practically identical view and has the conception of magic gradually
fading away before the advance of science. (See also the article on
“Magic” in the _Encyclopædia Brittanica_, 9th edition.)
Maury’s work is not, however, as satisfactory as one is led to think
from reading its introduction. Although he has defined magic almost in
so many words as the attitude of primitive man towards the universe,
he himself interprets magic much more narrowly when he comes to write
his book proper, as indeed its title, _Magic and Astrology_, suggests.
In short the thought that science and magic may at one time have
mingled does not seem to impress him, and his work is of little aid to
one considering our present subject. For instance, he cites Pliny only
as an opponent of magic. Maury’s work, moreover, comprising in its
historical portion but a little over two hundred pages—and these
nearly half filled by foot-notes—can hardly be regarded as more than a
brief narrative sketch of the subject.
Considerable erudition is displayed in Maury’s references, especially
those to Greek and Roman writers, and from page 208 to 211 Maury gives
a good bibliography of some of the chief secondary works dealing with
magic. More was written upon the subject shortly before his time than
has been since.
Footnote 53:
“Praeterea iter est, non trita auctoribus via, nec qua peregrinari
animus expetat. Nemo apud nos qui idem temptaverit, nemo apud Graecos
qui unus omnia ea tractaverit.” From his dedication to the Emperor
Vespasian. C. Plinii Secundi, _Naturalis Historiae Libri xxxvii_.
Ludovicus Janus, Lipsiae, 1870. 5 vols. in 3. I shall refer to
passages by the division into chapters found in the editions of
Hardouin, Valpy, Lemaire and Ajasson. Three modes of division are
indicated in the edition of Janus. There is an English translation of
the _Natural History_, with an introductory essay, by J. Bostock and
H. T. Riley, London, 1855, 6 vols. (Bohn Library).
Footnote 54:
“Viginti milia rerum dignarum cura ... ex lectione voluminum circiter
duum milium, quorum pauca admodum studiosi attingunt propter secretum
materiæ, ex exquisitis auctoribus centum inclusimus xxxvi voluminibus,
adiectis rebus plurimis quas aut ignoraverant priores aut postea
invenerat vita.” Also from the dedication. Pliny uses more than one
hundred writers, however.
Footnote 55:
“Homines enim sumus et occupati officiis, subcisivisque temporibus
ista curamus, id est nocturnis, ne quis vestris putet cessatum horis.”
From the dedication.
Footnote 56:
Pliny the Younger to Macer in his _Letters_, bk. iii, ep. 5, ed. Keil,
Leipzig, 1896.
Footnote 57:
Geo. H. Lewes, _Aristotle; a Chapter from the History of Science_,
London, 1864. Lewes also holds that while Aristotle often dwelt upon
the value of experiment and the necessity of having a mass of facts
before making general assertions, he in practice frequently jumped at
conclusions.
Footnote 58:
_Nat. Hist._, bk. xxvi, ch. 9. “Mirum esset profecto hucusque
profectam credulitatem antiquorum saluberrimis ortam initiis, si in
ulla re modum humana ingenia novissent atque non hanc ipsam medicinam
ab Asclepiade repertam probaturi suo loco assemus evectam ultra Magos
etiam. Haec est omni in re animorum condicio, ut a necessariis orsa
primo cuncta pervenerint ad nimium.” _Cf._ also bk. xxviii, ch. 1.
“Quamquam et ipsi consensu prope iudicata eligere laboravimus
potiusque curae rerum quam copiae institimus.” In Pliny’s dedication,
however, occurs a sentence which gives one the impression that he felt
rather in duty bound to accept tradition. “Res ardua, vetustis
novitatem dare, novis auctoritatem, obseletis nitorem, obscuris lucem,
fastiditis gratiam, _dubiis fidem_, omnibus vero naturam et naturae
suae omnia.”
Footnote 59:
Quoted without reference by E. Eggleston, “_The Transit of
Civilization from England to America in the Seventeenth Century_” (N.
Y., 1901), p. 16. This interesting and valuable book contains much
material illustrative of the science and superstitions of the times.
Footnote 60:
_Etymologies_, bk. xvi, Migne, vol. lxxxii.
Footnote 61:
_Alcuini Epistolae_, 103, vol. vi, pp. 431–432, of _Bibliotheca Rerum
Germanicarum_, ed. Philip Jaffé, Berlin, 1873. “Vel quid acutius quam
quod naturalium rerum divitissimus [or devotissimus] inventor, Plinius
Secundus, de caelestium siderum ratione exposuit, investigari valet?”
In Migne’s _Patrologia Latina_, vol. c, col. 278, the letter is given
as number 85. For other references to Pliny by earlier writers, see
_Bibliothèque Latine-Française_, C. L. F. Panckoucke, vol. cvi which
forms the opening volume of Pliny’s work in that set.
Footnote 62:
_Nat. Hist._, bk. xxx, ch. 1. “Auctoritatem ei maxumam fuisse nemo
miretur, quandoquidem sola artium tris alias imperiosissimas humanae
mentis conplexa in unam se redigit.”
Footnote 63:
_Ibid._ He uses the words “mathematicas artes” instead of
“astrologiam” but the words following make his meaning evident: “nullo
non avido futura de sese sciendi atque ea e caelo verissime pati
credente.”
Footnote 64:
_Ibid._ “Natam primum e medicina nemo dubitat ac specie salutari
inrepisse velut altiorem sanctioremque medicinam.”
Footnote 65:
Bk. xxx, ch. 2.
Footnote 66:
Bk. xxvi, ch. 9.
Footnote 67:
Bk. xxx, ch. 2. “Eudoxus qui inter sapientiae sectas clarissimam
utilissimamque eam intellegi voluit.”
Footnote 68:
Bk. xxviii, ch. 23.
Footnote 69:
Bk. xxvi, ch. 9.
Footnote 70:
Bk. xxxvii, ch. 40. The word in this passage which I render as
“potion” is in the Latin “veneficium”—a word difficult to translate
owing to its double meaning. “Venenum” signifies a drug or potion of
any sort, and then in a bad sense a drug used to poison or a potion
used to bewitch. In a passage soon to be cited Pliny contrasts
“veneficæ artes” to “magicæ artes” but I doubt if he always preserved
such a distinction. A similar confusion exists in regard to the Greek
word φάρμακον, as Plato sets forth clearly in his _Laws_. There are,
he says, two kinds of poisons employed by men which cannot be clearly
distinguished. One variety injures bodies “according to a natural
law.” “There is also another kind which persuades the more daring
class that they can do injury by sorceries and incantations....”
_Laws_, bk. xi, p. 933 (Steph.). Jowett’s translation.
Footnote 71:
Bk. xxxvii, ch. 60. “Magorum inpudentiæ vel manifestissimum in hac
quoque exemplum est....”
Footnote 72:
Bk. xxx, ch. 5, 6.
Footnote 73:
Bk. xxviii, ch. 2. Pliny’s own medicine is not prudish, and elsewhere
he gives instances of devotees of magic guarding against defilement.
(Bk. xxx, ch. 6 and xxviii, ch. 19).
Footnote 74:
Bk. xxviii, ch. 23. “Quanta vanitate,” adds Pliny, “si falsum est,
quanta vero noxia, si transferunt morbos!”
Footnote 75:
Bk. xxx, ch. 4.
Footnote 76:
Bk. xxx, ch. 6. “Proinde ita persuasum sit, intestabilem, inritam,
inanem esse, habentem tamen quasdam veritatis umbras, sed in his
veneficas artis pollere non magicas.”
Footnote 77:
Concerning the stag, see bk. viii, ch. 50. On the use of frogs and
fishes to cure fevers, bk. xxxii, ch. 38.
Footnote 78:
Bk. xxvi, ch. 59.
Footnote 79:
Bk. xxi, ch. 105.
Footnote 80:
Bk. xviii, ch. 8.
Footnote 81:
Bk. xxiv, ch. 102.
Footnote 82:
Bk. xxiv, chs. 106, 107, 109, 110, 111. Evidently these last remedies
derive their force not merely from magic powers inherent in
vegetation. The effect of ceremony and of circumstance becomes a
factor.
Footnote 83:
Bk. xxxvii, ch. 36.
Footnote 84:
Bk. xxxvii, ch. 58.
Footnote 85:
Bk. ii, ch. 106.
Footnote 86:
Bk. vii, ch. 2. “... Qui visu quoque effascinent interimantque quos
diutius intueantur, iratis praecipue oculis, quod eorum malum facilius
sentire puberes. Notabilius esse quod pupillas binas in singulis
habeant oculis.”
Footnote 87:
Bk. xxviii, ch. 6. The eggs, however, it should be said, are
represented as being beneath a setting hen.
Footnote 88:
Bk. xxviii, ch. 3. “Ex homine remediorum primum maxumae quaestionis et
semper incertae est, polleatne aliquid verba et incantamenta carminum.
Quod si verum est, homini acceptum fieri oportere conveniat, sed
viritim sapientissimi cuiusque respuit fides. In universum vero
omnibus horis credit vita.... Vestalis nostras hodie credimus nondum
egressa urbe mancipia fugitiva retinere in loco precationibus, cum, si
semel recipiatur ea ratio et deos preces aliquas exaudire aut illis
moveri verbis, confitendum sit de tota coniectione. Prisci quidem
nostri perpetuo talia credidere, difficilimumque ex his etiam fulmina
elici, ut suo loco docuimus.”
Pliny seems inclined to narrow down the problem of the power of words
to the question whether the gods answer prayer or not, a question
which takes us out of the field of magic unless he regarded prayer as
a means of coercing the gods.
Footnote 89:
Bk. xxi, ch. 19.
Footnote 90:
Bk. xxvi, ch. 60. “Experti adfirmavere plurumum referre, si virgo
inponat nuda ieiuna ieiuno et manu supina tangens dicat; ‘Negat Apollo
pestem posse crescere cui nuda virgo restinguat,’ atque ita retrorsa
manu ter dicat totiensque despuant ambo.”
Footnote 91:
Bk. xxviii, ch. 7. “Mirum dicimus, sed experimento facile: si quem
paeniteat ictus eminus comminusve inlati et statim exspuat in mediam
manum qua percussit, levatur ilico in percusso culpa. Hoc saepe
delumbata quadripede adprobatur statim a tali remedio correcto
animalis ingressu.”
Footnote 92:
Bk. xxxii, ch. 1.
Footnote 93:
Bk. xxxvii, ch. 59.
Footnote 94:
Bk. xxviii, ch. 23.
Footnote 95:
Bk. ii, ch. 9. Indeed, in bk. ii, ch. 30, he gives examples of ominous
eclipses of the sun, although it is true that they were also of
unusual length.
Footnote 96:
Bk. vii, ch. 37. “Astrologia Berosus cui ob divinas praedictiones
Athenienses publice in gymnasio statuam inaurata lingua statuere.”
Footnote 97:
Bk. ii, ch. 1. “Mundum ... numen esse credi par est. Sacer est,
aeternus, inmensus, totus in toto, immo vero ipse totum.”
Footnote 98:
Bk. ii, ch. 4. “Hunc esse mundi totius animum ac planius mentem, hunc
principale naturae regimen ac numen credere decet opera eius
aestimantes.”
Footnote 99:
Bk. ii, ch. 16.
Footnote 100:
Bk. ii, ch. 6.
Footnote 101:
Bk. ii, ch. 13.
Footnote 102:
Bk ii, ch. 6. See also bk. ii, ch. 39. “Ut solis ergo natura
temperando intellegitur anno sic reliquorum quoque siderum propria est
quibusque vis et ad suam cuique naturam fertilis.”
Footnote 103:
Bk. ii, ch. 39. For the general physical interaction of earth and
stars as conceived by Pliny see bk. ii, ch. 38. “Terrena in caelum
tendentia deprimit siderum vis, eademque quae sponte non subeant ad se
trahit. Decidunt imbres, nebulae subeunt, siccantur amnes, ruunt
grandines, torrent radii et terram in medio mundi undique inpellunt,
iidem infracti resiliunt et quae potuere auferunt secum. Vapor ex alto
cadit rursumque in altum redit. Venti ingruunt inanes iidemque cum
rapina remeant. Tot animalium haustus spiritum e sublimi trahit, at
ille contra nititur, tellusque ut inani caelo spiritum fundit.”
Footnote 104:
Bk. ii, ch. 41.
Footnote 105:
Bk. ii, ch. 104.
Footnote 106:
Bk. ii, ch. 6. “Huius natura cuncta generantur in terris, namque in
alterutro exortu genitali rore conspergens non terrae modo conceptuus
inplet verum animantium quoque omnium stimulat.”
Footnote 107:
Bk. ii, ch. 6.
Footnote 108:
Bk. ii, ch. 18. “A sidere caelestis ignis exspuitur praescita secum
adferens.”
Footnote 109:
Bk. ii, ch. 23. The part dealing with the shape and position of the
comet reads: “Tibiarum specie musicae arti portendere, obscenis autem
moribus in verendis partibus signorum, ingeniis et eruditioni, si
triquetram figuram quadratamve paribus angulis ad aliquos perennium
stellarum situus edant, venena fundere in capite septentrionalis
austrinaeve serpentis.”
Footnote 110:
Bk. ii, ch. 86. “Numquam urbs Roma tremuit, ut non futuri eventus
alicuius id praenuntium esset.” See also bk. ii, ch. 85.
Footnote 111:
Bk. ii, ch. 54.
Footnote 112:
Bk. xxv, ch. 6. “Turpissima causa raritatis quod etiam qui sciunt
demonstrare nolunt, tamquam ipsis periturum sit quod tradiderint
aliis.”
Footnote 113:
Vol. i, p. 382. Dr. White’s book, which imputes well-nigh every
fantastic feature of mediæval science to Christian institutions and
theology, is written with too little use of primary sources, and
considerable ignorance of the character of ancient science.
Aside from unfairness in the general tone and mode of
presentation,—Cosmas Indicopleustes, for instance, is set forth as a
typical representative of mediæval science of the clerical type, while
Albertus Magnus is not permitted to stand as a representative of
“theological” science at all but is pictured as one inclined to true
science who was frightened into the paths of theology by an
ecclesiastical tyranny bitterly hostile to scientific endeavor—the
author makes some inexcusable mistakes in details. For instance, after
speaking of “theological” methods, he proceeds (vol. i, p. 33): “Hence
such contributions as that the basilisk kills serpents by his breath
and men by his glance,” apparently in serene ignorance of the fact
that this statement about the basilisk was a commonplace of ancient
science. Again (vol. i, p. 386) he tells us that in 1163 the Council
of Tours and Alexander III “forbade the study of physics to
ecclesiastics, which of course in that age meant the prohibition of
all such scientific studies to the only persons likely to make them.”
On turning to the passage cited we find the prohibition to be that
persons who have vowed to lead a monastic life shall not absent
themselves from their monasteries for the purpose of studying
“physica” (which the context indicates means medicine, not physics),
or reading law. The canon does not apply to all ecclesiastics, and it
is as absurd to infer from it that “all such scientific studies were
prohibited to the only persons likely to make them” as to conclude
that henceforth no one could study civil law. To argue from a single
piece of legislation is hazardous in any case. (For the canon, see
Hardouin, vol. vi, pt. ii, p. 1598. Canon viii.)
On the whole the book strikes one as an unscientific eulogy of science
and a bigoted attack on bigotry. The inconsistency of the author’s
professions and practice, to say nothing of the somewhat perplexing
arrangement of his material, reminds one of Pliny’s _Natural History_.
Footnote 114:
_Nat. Hist._, bk. xxx, ch. 2. “Certe Pythagoras, Empedocles,
Democritus, Plato ad hanc discendam navigavere exsiliis verius quam
peregrinationibus susceptis. Hanc reversi praedicavere, hanc in
arcanis habuere.” Philostratus, as we shall see, mentioned the same
men as associating with the magi, although he denied that they
embraced the magic art. (See _infra_, p. 67.)
Footnote 115:
Bk. xxx, ch. 2. “Plenumque miraculi et hoc, pariter utrasque artis
effloruisse, medicinam dico et magicenque, eadem aetate illam
Hippocrate, hanc Democrito inlustrantibus.” Pliny may have got a false
idea of the teachings of Democritus by accepting as genuine works
which were not. He tells us (bk. xxx, ch. 2) that some persons have
vainly tried to save Democritus’ reputation by denying that certain
works are his. “Democritus Apellobechen Coptiten et Dardanum et
Phoenicem inlustravit voluminibus Dardani in sepulchrum eius petitis,
suis vero ex disciplina eorum editis, quae recepta ab ullis hominum
atque transisse per memoriam aeque ac nihil in vita mirandum est. In
tantum fides istis fasque omne deest, adeo ut qui cetera in viro
probant, haec opera eius esse inficientur. Sed frustra. Hunc enim
maxume adfixisse animis eam dulcedinem constat.”
Footnote 116:
Bk. xxiv, ch. 9. “In promisso herbarum mirabilium occurrit aliqua
dicere et de Magicis. Quae enim mirabiliores? Primi eas in nostro orbe
celebravere Pythagoras atque Democritus, consectati Magos.”
Footnote 117:
_De Divinatione_, bk. i, ch. 39, and bk. ii, ch. 42.
Footnote 118:
_Timaeus_, p. 47 (Steph.). The passage may be found in English
translation in vol. iii, p. 466, of B. Jowett’s _Plato’s Dialogues_
(3d edit.), London, 1892.
Footnote 119:
_Timaeus_, pp. 53–56 (Steph.); Jowett, vol. iii, pp. 473–476.
Footnote 120:
_Laws_, bk. xi, p. 933 (Steph.).
Footnote 121:
_Timaeus_, p. 70 (Steph.). The translation is that of Jowett, vol.
iii, p. 492.
Footnote 122:
_Ibid._, p. 71 (Steph.).
Footnote 123:
_Symposium_, p. 188 (Steph.). Translated by Jowett, vol. i, p. 558.
Footnote 124:
_Timaeus_, p. 40 (Steph.). Jowett, vol. iii, p. 459.
Footnote 125:
_Ibid._, pp. 41, 42 (Steph.).
Footnote 126:
W. Windelband, _History of Philosophy_, p. 147. English translation by
J. H. Tufts. Macmillans, 1898.
Footnote 127:
Windelband, _Hist. of Ancient Philos._, p. 272. Eng. transl. by H. E.
Cushman. Scribners, 1899.
Footnote 128:
_Aristotelis De Animalibus Historiae Libri X_ (Graece et Latine. Io.
Gottlob Schneider. Lipsiae, 1811). Vol. i contains the Greek text. In
the following foot-notes I shall refer to the book, chapter and
section by Roman and arabic numerals, but in the text the book and
chapters are denoted by letters of the Greek alphabet. There is an
English translation of the work by Richard Creswell, London, 1862.
(Bohn Library.)
Footnote 129:
Bk. v, ch. xx, sec. 2; bk. vi, ch. xi, sec. 2; bk. vi, ch. xiv, sec.
1; bk. vii, ch. xi; bk. viii, ch. xvii, sec. 4; bk. viii, ch. xx, sec.
12.
Footnote 130:
Bk. v, ch. xix, sec. 4. Γίγνεται δὲ κηρίον μὲν ἐξ ἀνθῶν. κήρωσιν δὲ
φέρσοσιν ἀπὸ τοῦ δακρύου τῶν δένδρων, μέλι δὲ τὸ πίπτον ἐκ τοῦ ἀέρος
καὶ μάλιστα ἐν ταῖς τῶν ἄστρων ἐπιτολαῖς, καὶ ὅταν κατασκήφῃ ἡ ἶρις.
Ὅλως δ’ οὐ γίγνεται μέλι πρὸ πλειάδος ἐπιτολῆς. τὸν μὲν οὖν κηρὸν
ποιεῖ, ὥσπερ εἴρηται, ἐκ τῶν ἀνθέων, τὸ δὲ μέλι ὅτι οὐ ποιεῖ, ἀλλὰ
φέρει τὸ πίπτον, σημεῖον. ἐν μιᾷ γὰρ ἢ ἐν δυσὶν ἡμέραις πλήρη
εὑρίσκουσι τὰ σμήνη οἱ μελιττουργοὶ μέλιτος. Ἔτι δὲ τοῦ μετοπώρου ἄνθη
γίγνεται μὲν, μέλι δ’ οὒ, ὅταν ἀφαιρεθῇ.
Footnote 131:
Bk. v, ch. xvii, sec. 13.
Footnote 132:
Bk. viii, ch. xxviii, sec. 2.
Footnote 133:
Bk. iii, ch. ix, sec. 7 and bk. vi, ch. ii, sec. 4.
Footnote 134:
Bk. v, ch. iv, sec. 7 and bk. vi, ch. ii, sec. 9. See also bk. vi, ch.
xvii, sec. 4.
Footnote 135:
Bk. v, ch. xvii, sec. 2.
Footnote 136:
Bk. ix, ch. xxv, sec 2.
Footnote 137:
Bk. v, ch. xxv, sec. 2.
Footnote 138:
Bk. viii, ch. ix, sec. 1.
Footnote 139:
_De Re Rustica_, chs. 26, 31, 37, 40, 50. Scriptores Rei Rusticae
Veteres Latini. Tomus Primus. Io. Matthias Gesnerus, Lipsiae, 1773.
The speed with which I progressed through the _De Re Rustica_ was
accelerated by the fact that Mr. E. H. Oliver, Ph. D., then of the
School of Political Science, Columbia University, kindly lent me an
English translation which he had made of that work.
Footnote 140:
_De Re Rustica_, ch. 71. See also _ibid._, ch. 70.
Footnote 141:
_De Re Rustica_, ch. 70.
Footnote 142:
_De Re Rustica_, ch. 160. “S. F.” probably means “Sanitas Fracto.” Two
alternative charms are also suggested, namely, “Huat hanat huat ista
pista sista domiabo damnaustra” and “Huat huat huat ista sis tar sis
ardannabon dunnaustra.”
Footnote 143:
Dio Cassius, ch. lii, sec. 36. μαντικὴ μὲν γὰρ ἀναγκαία ἐστί, καὶ
πάντως τινὰς καὶ ἱερόπτας καὶ οἰωνιστὰς ἀπόδειζον, oἷς οἱ βουλόμενοι
τι κοινώσασθαι σονέσονται. τοὺς δὲ δὴ μαγευτὰς πάνυ οὐκ εἶναι
προσήκει. πολλοὺς γὰρ πολλάκις οἱ τοιοῦτοι, τὰ μέν τινα ἀληθῆ, τὰ δὲ
δὴ πλείω ψευδῆ λέγοντες, νευχμοῦν ἐπαίρουσι.
Lecky translates the passage in his _History of European Morals_
(1889), vol. i, p. 399. The next sentence of the passage is also worth
quoting: τὸ δ’ αὐτὸ τοῦτο καὶ τῶν φιλοσοφεῖν προσποιουμένων οὐκ ὀλίγοι
ποιοῦσι.
Footnote 144:
_Apologia_, ch. xxv (Van der Vleet, _Apologia et Florida_. Lipsiae,
1900). “Leges cerimoniarum, fas sacrorum, ius religionum.”
Footnote 145:
_Ibid._, ch. xxvi. “Auditisne, magiam, qui eam temere accusatis, artem
esse diis immortalibus acceptam, colendi eos ac venerandi pergnaram,
piam scilicet et divini scientem, iam inde a Zoroastro et Oromazo,
auctoribus suis nobilem, caelitum antistitam? Quippe qui inter prima
regalia docetur, nec ulli temere inter Persas concessum est magum
esse, haud magis quam regnare.” This definition reminds one of Agrippa
von Nettesheim’s praise of “that science divine beyond all human
tracing.” In a less degree—for with Apuleius magic is the cult of the
gods and not much concerned with material things—it recalls the high
place assigned to magic by Porta and Francis Bacon.
Footnote 146:
Bk. i, ch. 2 of the life of Apollonius in the works of Philostratus as
edited by Gottfridus Olearius. Lipsiae, 1709. ὁμιλήσαντες μάγοις καὶ
πολλὰ δαιμόνια εἴποντες οὔπω ὑπήχθησαν τῇ τέχνῃ.
Footnote 147:
Indeed “magic,” though condemned, was popular, and charlatans calling
themselves “magi” did a thriving business.
Footnote 148:
Suetonius, Aug., ch. xc; _Tiber._, ch. lxix. Cited by W. E. H. Lecky.
_Hist. of European Morals_ (London, 1899), vol. i, p. 367. Lecky gives
a large amount of material on superstition in the Roman Empire.
Footnote 149:
_Nat. Hist._, bk. xxviii, ch. 5.
Footnote 150:
A. Bouché-Leclercq. “L’Astrologie dans le monde romain.” _Revue
Hist._, vol. lxv, pp. 249 _et seq._ If we may believe the Roman
historians, Tiberius was a devotee of astrology; Caligula was warned
of his death by the stars; Nero, among other acts dictated by his
trust in the art, ordered a number of executions in order to avoid the
evils threatened by a comet; Galba, the three Flavians and Vespasian
all had their astrologers; Titus was himself an adept in the art;
Domitian, when disposing of persons whom the stars designated as
dangerous, made the fatal error of sparing Nerva because the
constellations allowed him but a brief additional term of life; _etc._
Footnote 151:
_Revue Hist._, vol. lxv, p. 252.
Footnote 152:
_Nat. Hist._, bk. xxx, ch. 1, and Tacitus, _Annals_, bk. vi, ch. 22
(28 in some editions).
Footnote 153:
Carolus Gottlob Kuhn. _Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia._ (Lipsiae, 1821, 19
vols.), vol. xii, p. 362. _De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis
ac facultatibus._
Footnote 154:
_De diebus decretoriis_, _ibid._, vol. ix, pp. 901 _et seq._ πάντων
μὲν τῶν ἄνωθεν ἄστρων ἀπολαύομεν τῆς δυνάμεως.
Footnote 155:
“Quod optimus medicus sit quoque philosophus.” _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 53.
Footnote 156:
Vacherot, _L’Ecole d’Alexandria_, vol. ii, p. 115.
Footnote 157:
Ricardus Volkmann, _Plotini Enneades_, Lipsiae (Teubner) 1883. Ennead
ii, ch. iii, sec. 7. ἀλλ’ εἰ σημαίνουσιν οὗτοι τὰ ἐσόμενα, ὥσπερ φαμὲν
πολλὰ καὶ ἄλλα σημαντικὰ εἶναι τῶν ἐσομένων, τί ἂν τὸ ποιοῦν εἴη; καὶ
ἡ τάξις πῶς; οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἐσημαίνετο τεταγμένως μὴ ἑκάστων γιγνομένων.
ἔστω τοίνυν ὣσπερ γράμματα ἐν οὐρανῷ γραφόμενα ἀεὶ ἢ γεγραμμένα καὶ
κινούμενα, ποιοῦντα μέντοι ἔργον καὶ ἄλλο. ἐπακολουθείτω δὲ τῷδε ἡ
παρ’ αὐτῶν σημασία, ὡς ἀπὸ μιᾶς ἀρχῆς ἐν ἑνὶ ζῴῳ παρ’ ἄλλου μέρους
ἄλλο ἄν τις μάθοι. καὶ γὰρ καὶ ἦθος ἄν τις γνοίη εἰς ὀφθαλμούς τινος
ἰδὼν ἤ τι ἄλλο μέρος τοῦ σώματος καὶ κινδύνους καὶ σωτηρίας. καὶ οὖν
μέρη μὲν ἐκεῖνα, μέρη δὲ καὶ ἡμεῖς. ἄλλα οὖν ἂλλοις. μεστὰ δὲ πάντα
σημείων καὶ σοφός τις ὁ μαθὼν ἐξ ἄλλου ἄλλο. πολλὰ δὲ ἤδη συνηθείᾳ
γιγνόμενα γινώσκεται πάσι. τίς οὖν ἡ οὐνταξις ἡ μία; οὕτω γὰρ καὶ τὸ
κατὰ τοὺς ὄρνεις εὔλογον καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ξῷα, ἀφ’ ὦν σημαινόμεθα ἕκαστα.
συνηρτῆσθαι δὴ δει ἀλλήλοις τὰ πάντα, καὶ μὴ μόνον ἐν ἑνὶ τῶν καθ’
ἕκαστα τοῦ εὖ εἰρομένου σύμπνοια μία, ἀλλὰ πολὺ μᾶλλον καὶ πρότερον ἐν
τῷ παντί. This entire third chapter of the _Ennead_ deals with the
subject. περὶ τοῦ εἰ ποιεῖ τὰ ἄστρα.
See _The Philosophy of Plotinus_, Dunlap Printing Co., Phila., 1896,
page 40, for further references to passages in his works giving his
views anent astrology. He believed that the souls of the dead are
still able to benefit men and to inspire with powers of divination.
_Ennead_, iv, ch. vii, sec. 15.
Footnote 158:
Page 66, note 1.
Footnote 159:
_Apologia_, ch. iii. Even if the oration was a satire and not a speech
actually delivered, the inferences to be drawn from it would be
practically the same.
Footnote 160:
Apuleius may have been guilty of attempting to practice magic.
Certainly he believed in its possibility. He affirmed the existence of
subordinate gods, or demons,—interpreters and ambassadors between
mankind and the superior gods, who live far away from us and have no
direct concern with our affairs. The demons, he believed, were
susceptible to human influence and capable of working marvels. He
stated that the art of divination was due to them. See his _De Deo
Socratis_.
Footnote 161:
_Apologia_, ch. xxvii. Evidently hostility to magic did not commence
with Christianity. Not even, as Roger Bacon thought, did the practice
of confusing philosophy with magic originate among Christian writers.
Bridges, _Opus Maius_, vol. i, p. 29.
Footnote 162:
See Philo’s treatise _De Cherubim_, cited in vol. ii, p. 243, of Rev.
James Drummond’s _Philo Judaeus; or The Jewish-Alexandrian Philosophy
in its Development and Completion_ (2 vols., London, 1888). Concerning
Philo see also Edouard Herriot, _Philon le Juif_ (Paris, 1898), where
a full bibliography of Philonian and Jewish-Alexandrian literature may
be found. A third important secondary book on Philo is by Siegfried:
_Philo von Alexandria_ (Jena, 1875).
Footnote 163:
Drummond, vol. i, p. 13.
Footnote 164:
_Stromata_, bk. v, ch. 9. Nor was such mysticism advocated by
theological writers alone. Roger Bacon—but one instance from
many—declared that one lessened the majesty of knowledge who divulged
its mysteries, and even went to the length of enumerating seven
methods by which the arcana of philosophy and science might be
concealed from the crowd (_a vulgo_), _De Secretis Artis et Naturae et
de Nullitate Magiae_. Rolls Series, vol. xv, pp. 543–544.
Footnote 165:
_De Civitate Dei_, bk. xi, ch. 30.
Footnote 166:
“Aliquando _De Motu Terrarum_ volumen iuvenis ediderim.” L. Annaei
Senecae _Naturalium Quaestionum Libri Septem_, bk. vi, ch. 4. The
edition by G. D. Koeler, Gottingen, 1819 has convenient summaries
indicating contents at the head of each book, and devotes several
hundred pages to a “Disquisitio” and “Animadversiones” upon Seneca’s
work. In Pancoucke’s _Library_, vol. cxxxxvii, a French translation
accompanies the text.
Footnote 167:
“Veniet tempus, quo posteri nostri tam aperta nos nescisse mirentur.
Harum quinque stellarum ... modo coepimus scire.” Bk. vii, ch. 25.
Footnote 168:
Bk. vii, ch. 31. “Non semel quaedam sacra traduntur. Eleusin servat
quod ostendit revisentibus. Rerum natura sacra sua non simul tradit.
Initiatos nos credimus; in vestibule eius haeremus. Illa arcana non
promiscue nec omnibus patent; reducta et in interiore sacrario clausa
sunt.”
Footnote 169:
Bk. iv, ch. 7. “Et apud nos in duodecim tabulis cavetur ne quis
alienos fructus excantassit. Rudis adhuc antiquitas credebat et
attrahi imbres cantibus, et repelli; quorum nihil posse fieri, tam
palam est, ut huius rei causa nullius philosophi schola intranda sit.”
Footnote 170:
Bk. v, ch. 6 for animals being generated in flames.
Bk. ii, ch. 31 for snakes struck by lightning.
Bk. iii, ch. 25 for the Nile. Bk. iii _passim_, for marvelous
fountains, _etc._
Footnote 171:
Bk. iii, ch. 25.
Footnote 172:
Bk. iii, ch. 26.
Footnote 173:
Bk. ii, ch. 32. “Quidquid fit, alicuius rei futurae signum est.”
Footnote 174:
Bk. ii, ch. 46.
Footnote 175:
Bk. i, ch. 1.
Footnote 176:
Bk. vii, ch. 30. “Egregie Aristoteles ait, numquam nos verecundiores
esse debere, quam quum de diis agitur. Si intramus templa compositi,
si ad sacrificium accesuri vultum submittimus, togam adducimus, si in
omne argumentum modestiae fingimur; quanto hoc magis facere debemus,
quum de sideribus, de stellis, de deorum natura disputamus, ne quid
temere, ne quid impudenter, aut ignorantes affirmemus, aut scientes
mentiamur?”
Footnote 177:
Bk. ii, ch. 10.
Footnote 178:
Bk. vii, ch. 28. “Chaldean” was often used to denote an astrologer
without reference to the person’s nationality.
Footnote 179:
Bk. ii, ch. 32. “Quinque stellarum potestatem Chaldaeorum observatio
excepit. Quid tu? tot millia siderum judicas otiosa lucere? Quid est
porro aliud, quod errorem incutiat peritis natalium, quam quod paucis
nos sideribus assignant: quum omnia quae supra nos sunt, partem sibi
nostri vindicent? Submissiora forsitan in nos propius vim suam
dirigunt; et ea quae frequentius mota aliter nos, aliter cetera
animalia prospiciunt. Ceterum et illa quae aut immota sunt, aut
propter velocitatem universo mundo parem immotis similia, non extra
ius dominiumque nostri sunt. Aliud aspice et distributis rem officiis
tractas. Non magis autem facile est scire quid possint, quam dubitari
debet, an possint.”
Footnote 180:
Bk. iii, ch. 29.
Footnote 181:
Bk. ii, ch. 32. Seneca has been describing other manifestations of the
“divina et subtilis potentia” of thunderbolts; he proceeds, “Quid,
quod futura portendunt: nec unius tantum aut alterius rei signa dant,
sed saepe totum fatorum sequentium ordinem nuntiant, et quidem
decretis evidentibus, longeque clarioribus, quam si scriberentur?”
Footnote 182:
His discussion of divination by thunderbolts is contained in bk. ii,
ch. 31–50.
Footnote 183:
The edition of the _Tetrabiblos_ which I used is that by Philip
Melanchthon, 1553. It gives the Greek text, a Latin translation and an
introduction of interest, in which Melanchthon affirms his own more
modest trust in astrology.
Two other treatises of considerable length setting forth the
principles of astrology and which have come down to us from the Roman
Empire, are a poem consisting of five books of about 900 lines each by
Manilius, probably of the Augustan age; and a prose treatise in eight
books, and apparently left unfinished, by Firmicus who was a
Neo-Platonist of about 350 A. D. M. Manilii _Astronomicon_, London,
1828, Delphin edition. Iulii Firmici Materni _Matheseos Libri VIII_,
(ediderunt W. Kroll et K. Skutsch, Lipsiae, 1897, 2 vols., Teubner
edition). The essay on astrology purporting to be by Lucian is
probably spurious.
Footnote 184:
“C’était la capitulation de la science.” _Rev. Hist._, vol. lxv, p.
257, note 3.
Footnote 185:
Roger Bacon, _Opus Minus_, Rolls Series, vol. xv, p. 313, speaks of
“Hermes Mercurius, pater philosophorum.”
Footnote 186:
_Stromata_, bk. vi, ch. 4.
Footnote 187:
Ammianus Marcellinus, however, writing during the latter fourth
century, says of Egypt: “Hic primum homines longe ante alios ad varia
religionum incunabula, ut dicitur, pervenerunt et initia prima
sacrorum caute tuentur condita scriptis arcanis.” Bk. xxii, ch. xvi,
sec. 20. Again, in bk. xxii, ch. xiv, sec. 7, Ammianus speaks of the
Egyptian mystical books as still extant.
Footnote 188:
F. J. Champagny, _Les Antonins_, vol. iii, p. 81 (Paris, 1863).
Footnote 189:
See article on “Hermes” in _La Grande Encyclopédie_ by Berthelot who
has made an extended study of the history of alchemy; and who, in his
_La Chimie au Moyen Age_ holds that Greek alchemistic treatises were
continuously extant in Italy during the Dark Ages—a circumstance which
diminishes the importance of Arabian influence on the study of the
hermetic art in the later Middle Ages.
Footnote 190:
See Anthon’s _Classical Dictionary_, 1855 (no adequate account of
Hermes Trismegistus exists in any of the more recent classical
dictionaries).
Footnote 191:
The _Poemander_ (or _Pymander_) has been reproduced in the Bath
_Occult Reprint Series_ (London, 1884) from the translation “from the
Arabic by Dr. Everard, 1650.” It has an introduction by Hargrave
Jennings, “author of the Rosicrucians,” giving some account of Hermes
Trismegistus. Vol. ii in the same Bath _Occult Reprint Series_—which
seems to have been instituted on behalf of “students of the occult
sciences, searchers after truth and Theosophists”—is Hermes’ _Virgin
of the World_. Besides Berthelot’s article, an account of Hermes may
be found in pages 181–190 of _The Literary Remains of the late Emanuel
Deutsch_ (London, 1879). There is a French translation of the
_Poemander_ by Menard with an introductory essay which, however,
Deutsch characterized as “deplorably shallow.”
Footnote 192:
J. B. Bury, _Later Roman Empire_ (N. Y., 1899), vol. i, p. 208.
Footnote 193:
_De Divinatione_, bk. i, ch. 58. “Haec habui, inquit, de divinatione
quae dicerem. Nunc illa testabor non me sortilegos neque eos qui
quaestus causa hariolentur, ne psychomantia quidem quibus Appius
amicus tuus uti solebat, agnoscere.”
Footnote 194:
For the arguments of Favorinus, see Aulus Gellius, _Noctes Atticae_,
bk. xiv; ch. 1. (Delphin & Variorum Classics [1824] ex editione Jacobi
Gronovii.) Fragments of Favorinus’s writings are also to be found in
Stobæus.
The edition of the _Opera_ of Sextus Empiricus which I used was that
by Johannes Albertus Fabricus, (Lipsiae, 1718), giving the Greek text
and a Latin translation.
For Cicero’s arguments, see _De Divinatione_, bk. ii, chs. 42–47.
Footnote 195:
“Adversum istos qui sese chaldæos seu genethliacos appellant, ac de
motu deque positu stellarum dicere posse, quae futura sunt,
profitentur, audivimus quondam Favorinum philosophum Romae Graece
disserentem egregia atque illustri oratione; exercendine autem, anne
ostentandi gratia ingenii, an quod ita serio judicatoque existimaret,
non habeo dicere.” _Noctes Atticae_, bk. xiv, ch. 1, sect. 1. A
foot-note in the Delphin edition expresses preference in place of the
words “exercendine autem, anne ostentendi” for the shorter reading
“exercendi autem, non ostentandi”—which reading is adopted by Hertz in
his edition of the year, 1885.
Footnote 196:
“Disciplinam istam Chaldaeorum tantae vetustatis non esse, quantae
videri volunt; neque eos principes eius auctoresque esse, quos ipsi
ferant: sed id praestigiarum atque offuciarum genus commentos esse
homines aeruscatores, et cibum quaestumque ex mendaciis captantes.”
_Noctes Atticae_, bk. xiv, ch. 1, sect. 2.
Footnote 197:
For instance, the charge that astrologers disregard the differing
aspects of the heavens in different regions does not hold true in the
case of Ptolemy. Also the objection to the doctrine of nativities,
that men born at different times often suffer a common fate in battle
or some such general disaster, is a weak argument at best, for the
fact that you and I are born under different stars does not
necessitate that our careers have absolutely nothing in common, and it
was nullified by Ptolemy’s explanation that great general events like
earthquakes, wars, floods and plagues overrule any contradictory
destiny which the constellations may seem to portend for the
individual. See Bouché-Leclercq, _Rev. Hist._, vol. lxv, p. 268.
Footnote 198:
Similarly Favorinus declared that, if the different fate of twins was
to be explained by the fact that after all they are not born at
precisely the same moment, then to determine one’s destiny the time of
his birth and the position of the stars at the same instant must be
measured with an exactness practically impossible. “Atque id velim
etiam, inquit, ut respondeant: si tam parvum atque rapidum est
momentum temporis, in quo homo nascens fatum accipit, ut in eodem illo
puncto, sub eodem circulo coeli, plures simul ad eamdem competentiam
nasci non queant; et si idcirco gemini quoque non eadem vitae sorte
sunt, quoniam non eodem temporis puncto editi sunt; peto, inquit,
respondeant, cursum illum temporis transvolantis, qui vix cogitatione
animi comprehendi potest, quonam pacto aut consulto assequi queant,
aut ipsi perspicere et deprehendere; quum in tam praecipiti dierum
noctiumque vertigine minima momenta ingentes facere dicant
mutationes.” _Noctes Atticae_, bk. xiv, ch. 1, sect. 10.
Footnote 199:
Favorinus declares that the astrologers may congratulate themselves
that he does not propose such a question to them as that of astral
influence on minute animals; Cicero says that if all animals are to be
subjected to the stars, then inanimate things must be too, than which
nothing could be more absurd.
“Illud autem condonare se iis dicebat, quod non id quoque requireret,
si vitae mortisque hominum rerumque humanarum omnium tempus et ratio
et causa in coelo et apud stellas foret, quid de muscis aut vermiculis
aut echinis, multisque aliis minutissimis terra marique animantibus,
dicerent? An ista quoque isdem, quibus homines, legibus nascerentur,
isdemque itidem exstinguerentur.” Aulus Gellius, _Noctes Atticae_, bk.
xiv, ch. 1, sect. 12.
“Et si ad rem pertinet, quo modo coelo affecto compositisque sideribus
quodque animal oriatur; valeat id necesse est etiam in rebus inanimis.
Quo quid dici potest absurdius?” _De Divin._, bk. ii, ch. 47.
Favorinus, however, does hint in one place that the sole evidence that
we possess of any influence of the stars upon us is a few such causal
connections as that between the phases of the moon and the tides of
the ocean.
Footnote 200:
Ptolemy made a fair retort to this argument by holding that
foreknowledge, even if it could not enable us to avoid the coming
event, at least served the purpose of breaking the news gently and
saving us the more vivid shock which the actual event, if unexpected,
would cause by its raw reality.
Footnote 201:
See T. Schiche, _De Fontibus Librorum Ciceronis qui sunt de
Divinatione_, (Jena, 1875) and K. Hartfelder, _Die Quellen von Ciceros
zwei Büchern de Divinatione_ (Freiburg, 1878).
Footnote 202:
Bk. i, ch. 39. “Neque ante philosophiam patefactam, quae nuper inventa
est, hac de re communis vita dubitavit; et postea, quam philosophia
processit, nemo aliter philosophus sensit, in quo modo esset
auctoritas. Dixi de Pythagora, de Democrite, de Socrate; excepi de
antiques praeter Xenophanem neminem; adiunxi veterem academiam,
peripateticos, stoicos. Unus dissentit Epicurus.” This trust in
tradition, it may be here observed, formed one of the chief grounds
for mediæval belief in magic as well.
Footnote 203:
Bk. ii, ch. 11. “Hoc ego philosophi non arbitror, testibus uti, qui
aut casu veri aut malitia falsi fictique esse possunt. Argumentis et
rationibus oportet quare quidque ita sit docere, non eventis, iis
praesertim quibus mihi liceat non credere.”
Footnote 204:
Bk. ii, ch. 33. “Errabat enim multis in rebus antiquitas.”
Footnote 205:
Bk. ii, ch. 36.
Footnote 206:
As Tully (bk. ii, ch. 5) puts it, “Quae enim praesentiri aut arte aut
ratione aut usu aut conjectura possunt, ea non divinis tribuenda putas
sed peritis.”
Footnote 207:
Bk. i, ch. 50.
Footnote 208:
Bk. ii, chs. 3, 4.
Footnote 209:
We saw Pliny use “mathematicae artes” as an equivalent of divination
or astrology.
Footnote 210:
Bk. ii, ch. 15.
Footnote 211:
Bk. ii, ch. 16. “Urbem philosophiae, mihi crede, proditis dum castella
defenditis. Nam dum aruspicinam veram esse vultis, physiologiam totam
pervertitis. Caput est in jecore, cor in extis: iam abscedet, simul ac
molam et vinum insperseris; deus id eripiet, vis aliqua conficiet, aut
exedet. Non ergo omnium interitus atque obitus natura conficiet; et
erit aliquid quod aut ex nihilo oriatur, aut in nihilum subito
occidat. Quis hoc physicus dixit unquam? Aruspices dicunt? His igitur
quam physicis potius credendum existimas?”
Footnote 212:
Bk. ii, ch. 28.
Footnote 213:
Bk. ii, ch. 12.
Footnote 214:
Bk. ii, ch. 19.
Footnote 215:
Bk. ii, ch. 12. “Atqui divina cum rerum natura tanta tamque praeclara
in omnes partes motusque diffusa, quid habere potest commune, non
dicam gallinacum fel (sunt enim qui vel argutissima haec exta esse
dicant) sed tauri opimi jecur aut cor aut pulmo, quid habet naturale,
quo declarari possit quid futurum sit?”
Footnote 216:
“Deinde est hominum generi prosperus et salutaris ille fulgor qui
dicitur Jovis. Tum rutilus horribilisque terris, quem Martium dicitis.
Deinde subter mediam fere regionem Sol obtinet, dux et princeps et
moderator luminum reliquorum, mens mundi et temperatio,” _etc._
Footnote 217:
“Nam cum aetas tua septenos octies solis anfractus reditusque
converterit, duoque hi numeri, quorum uterque plenus, alter altera de
causa habetur, circuitu naturali summam tibi fatalem confecerint,
_etc._”
Footnote 218:
These recipes are given in Frazer’s _Golden Bough_, vol. i, p. 23,
from the _De Medicamentis_ of Marcellus, bk. xv, ch. 82 and bk. xxxiv,
ch. 100.
Footnote 219:
Ammianus Marcellinus. _Rerum gestarum libri qui supersunt._ F.
Eyssenhardt recensuit. Berlin, 1871. Book xxviii, ch. iv, sec. 24.
“Multi apud eos negantes esse superas potestates in caelo, nec in
publico prodeunt nec prandent nec lavari arbitrantur se cautius posse,
antequam ephemeride scrupulose sciscitata didicerint, ubi sit verbi
gratia signum Mercurii, vel quotam cancri sideris partem polum
discurrens optineat luna.” Very likely, however, Ammianus—whom we
shall see defending divination in general—himself cherished a moderate
trust in astrology and was rather satirizing the infidelity of the
nobles—their inconsistency in so minutely ruling their lives by the
planets when they denied the existence of “superas potestates _in
caelo_.” There is an English translation of Ammianus by C. D. Yonge
(London, 1862; Bohn Library).
Footnote 220:
_Ibid._, bk. xxii, ch. xvi, sec. 18. “Pro omni tamen experimento
sufficiat medico ad commendandam artis auctoritatem, si Alexandriae se
dixerit eruditum.”
Footnote 221:
_Ibid._, bk. xxii, ch. xvi, sec. 17. “Et quamquam veteres cum his,
quorum memini floruere conplures, tamen ne nunc quidem in eadem urbe
doctrinae variae silent; nam et disciplinarum magistri quodam modo
spirant et nudatur ibi geometrico radio quidquid reconditum latet,
nondumque apud eos penitus exaruit musica nec harmonica conticuit, et
recalet apud quosdam adhuc licet raros consideratio mundani motus et
siderum, doctique sunt numeros haud pauci; super his scientiam callent
quae fatorum vias ostendit.”
Footnote 222:
Bk. xxii, ch. xii, sec. 8.
Footnote 223:
Bk. xxi, ch. i, sec. 7. “Et quoniam erudito et studioso cognitionum
omnium principi malivoli praenoscendi futura pravas artes adsignant,
advertendum est breviter unde sapienti viro hoc quoque accidere
poterit doctrinae genus haud leve. Elementorum omnium spiritus, utpote
perennium corporum praesentendi motu semper et ubique vigens ex his
quae per disciplinas varias affectamus, participat nobiscum munera
divinandi; et substantiales potestates ritu diverso placatae, velut ex
perpetuis fontium venis vaticina mortalitati subpeditant verba.”
Footnote 224:
Bk. xxi, ch. i, sec. 13.
Footnote 225:
Bk. xxi, ch. i, sec. 14. “Unde praeclare hoc quoque ut alia Tullius
‘signa ostenduntur’ ait ‘a dis rerum futurarum.’” “Dis” seem to be
practically identical in Ammianus’s mind with natural forces.
Footnote 226:
Περὶ ἐνυπνίων. (_On Dreams_) ch. 2. _Synesii Cyrenâei Quae Extant
Opera Omnia._ Io. Georgius Krabinger. Landishuti, MDCCCL. Tomus I. All
following references to and quotations from the works of Synesius
apply to this edition. There is a French translation with several
introductory essays by H. Druon, Paris, 1878. For an account in
English of Synesius and his writings see W. S. Crawford, _Synesius the
Hellene_, London, 1901. See also, H. O. Taylor, _Classical Heritage of
the Middle Ages_, pp. 78–82, New York, 1901. This interesting work
gives illustrations in various fields of the continuity of culture
during the transition from Roman times to the Middle Ages.
Footnote 227:
Περὶ ἐνυπνίων (_On Dreams_) ch. 3. Ἔδει γαρ, οἶμαι, τοῦπαντὸς τούτου
συμπαθοῦς τε ὄντος καὶ σύμπνου τὰ μέρη προσήκειν άλλήλοις, ἅτε ἑνὸς
ὅλου τὰ μέλη τυγχάνοντα. Καὶ μή ποτε αἱ μάγων ἵυγγες αὖται· καὶ γὰρ
θέλγεται παρ άλλήλων, ὢσπερ σημαίνεται· καὶ σοφὸς ὁ εἰδὼς τὴν τῶν
μερῶν τοῦ κόσμου συγγένειαν. Ἔλκει γὰρ ἄλλο δἰ ἄλλου, ἔχων ἐνέχυρα
παρόντα τῶν πλεῖστον ἀπόντων, καὶ φωνὰς, καὶ ὔλας καὶ σχήματα....
Evidently Synesius did not regard the magi as mere imposters.
Footnote 228:
Περὶ ἐνυπνίων, ch. 3. Καὶ δὴ καὶ θεῷ τινὶ τῶν εἴσω τοῦ κόσμου λίθος
ἐνθένδε καὶ βοτάνη προσήκει, οἴς ὁμοιοπαθῶν εἴκει τῇ φύσει καὶ
γοητεύεται. In his _Praise of Baldness_ (Φαλάκρας ἐγκώμιον), ch. 10,
Synesius tells how the Egyptians attract demons by magic influences.
Footnote 229:
Περι ἐνυπνίων, ch. 1. Αὐται μὲν ἀποδείξεις ἔστων τοῦ μαντείαν ἐν τοῖς
ἀρίστοις εἶναι τῶν ἐπιτηδευομένων ἀνθρώποις.
Footnote 230:
_Ibid._, ch. 18.
Footnote 231:
Φαλάκρας ἐγκώμιον, ch. 10.
Footnote 232:
Αἰγύπτιοι ἤ περὶ προνοίας, bk. ii, ch. 7.
Footnote 233:
Πρὸς παιόνιον περί τοῦ δώρον, ch. 5.
Footnote 234:
Δίων, ch. 7. Περι ἑνυπνίων, ch. 4. Ἐπιστολαί, 4 and 49.
Footnote 235:
“Universa philosophiae integritas.” Commentary on _Dream of Scipio_,
bk. ii, ch. 17. For Macrobius on Virgil see T. R. Glover, _Life and
Letters in the Fourth Century A. D._ (Cambridge, Eng., 1901), p. 181,
and Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, bk. i, ch. xvi, sec. 12. Macrobius has
been edited in French and Latin by Nisard. Paris, 1883.
Footnote 236:
_Commentary_, bk. i, chs. 5 and 6; ii, ch. 1 and 2.
Footnote 237:
_Ibid._, bk. i, ch. 7.
Footnote 238:
_Ibid._, bk. i, ch. 19.
Footnote 239:
_Commentary_, bk. i, ch. 14.
Footnote 240:
Glover, _op cit._, p. 178.
Footnote 241:
Glover, _op cit._, p. 187, note 1.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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3. History of Military Pension By WILLIAM HENRY GLASSON, Ph.D.
Legislation in the United States. Price, $1.00.
4. History of the Theory of By CHARLES E. MERRIAM, Jr., Ph.D.
Sovereignty since Rousseau. Price, $1.50.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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