The Place of Magic in the Intellectual History of Europe/Chapter 7

by Lynn Thorndike

 

CHAPTER VII

The Last Century of the Empire

We come now to consider some indications of the inter-mixture 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.^[1]

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.^[2] 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.^[3]

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."^[4]

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.^[5] 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.^[6]

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.^[7] 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.'"^[8] 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 astrolable 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.^[9] 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.^[10]

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.^[11] 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.^[12] 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.^[13] 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.^[14] 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.^[15] 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.^[16] 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.^[17]

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.^[18] 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.^[19] He was of the opinion that to the careful investigator dreams and other striking occurrences will reveal an occult meaning.^[20] 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.^[21] 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.^[22] 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.^[23] Macrobius by the way, had considerable influence in the Middle Ages. Abelard makes frequent reference to him, and called him "no mean philosopher."^[24] Aquinas cited him as an authority for the doctrines of Neo-Platonism.

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1. 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.
2. 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, nee in publico prodeunt nee prandent nee 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).
3. Ibid., bk. xxii, ch. xvi, sec. 18. "Pro omni tamen experimento sufficiat medico ad commendandam artis auctoritatem, si Alexandriae se dixerit eruditum."
4. 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 nee harmonica conticuit, et recalet apud quosdam adhuc licet raros consideratio mundani motus et siderum, doctique sunt numeros baud pauci; super his scientiam callent quae factorum vias ostendit."
5. Bk. xxii, ch. xii, sec. 8.
6. Bk. xxi, ch. i, sec. 7. "Et quoniam erudite et studioso cognitionum omnium principi malivoli praenoscendi futura pravas artes adsignant, advertendum est breviter unde sapienti viro hoc quoque accidere potent doctrinae genus haud leve. Elementorum omnium spiritus, utpote perennium corporum praesentendi motu semper et ubique vigens ex his quae per discipHnas varias aflfectamus, participat nobiscum munera divinandi; et substantiales potestates ritu diverse placatae, velut ex perpetuis fontitmi venis vaticina mortalitati subpeditant verba."
7. Bk. xxi, ch. i, sec. 13.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. Περὶ ἐνυπνίων (On Dreams) ch. 3. Ἔδει γὰρ, οἶμαι, τοῦ παντὸς τούτου συμπαθοῦς τε ὄντος καὶ σύμπνου τὰ μέρη προσήκειν ἀλλήλοις, ἅτε ἑνὸς ὅλου τὰ μέλη τυγχάνοντα. Καὶ μή ποτε αἱ μάγων ἴυγγες αὗται· καὶ γὰρ θέλγεται παρ' ἀλλήλων, ὥσπερ σημαίνεται· καὶ σοφὸς ὁ εἰδὼς τὴν τῶν μερῶν τοῦ κόσμου συγγένειαν. Ἕλκει γὰρ ἄλλο δι' ἄλλου, ἔχων ἐνέχυρα παρόντα τῶν πλεῖστον ἀπόντων, καὶ φωνὰς, καὶ ὕλας καὶ σχήματα . . . . . Evidently Synesius did not regard the magi as mere imposters.
11. Περὶ ἐνυπνίων, ch. 3. Καὶ δὴ καὶ θεῷ τινὶ τῶν εἴσω τοῦ κόσμου λίθος ἐνθένδε καὶ βοτάνη προσήκει, οἷς 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.
12. Περὶ ἐνυπνίων, ch. 1. Αὗται μὲν ἀποδείξεις ἔστων τοῦ μαντείαν ἐν τοῖς ἀρίστοις εἶναι τῶν ἐπιτηδευομένων ἀνθρώποις.
13. Ibid., ch. 18.
14. Φαλάκρας ἐγκώμιον, ch. 10.
15. Αἰγύπτιοι ἢ περὶ προνοίας, bk. ii, ch. 7.
16. Πρὸς παιόνιον περὶ τοῦ δώρου, ch. 5.
17. Δίων, ch. 7. Περὶ ἐνυπνίων, ch.4. Ἐπιστολαί, 4 and 49.
18. "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.
19. Commentary, bk. i, chs. 5 and 6; ii, ch. 1 and 2.
20. Ibid., bk. i, ch. 7.
21. Ibid., bk. i, ch. 19.
22. Commentary, bk. i, ch. 14.
23. Glover, op cit., p. 178.
24. Glover, op cit., p. 187, note 1.