Image Analysis Flashcards
The mysteries of Isis & Osiris (fresco, Pompeii)
The rites of the mystery cults were typically framed in terms of death and resurrection, often in imitation of one of the gods of rebirth, like the Egyptian god Osiris, whose cult was pervasive in the late ancient world. The Greek world had its own indigenous mystery cults, including the rites of Orpheus.
European sources credit one Berthold Swartz (‘the black’), a 14th century alchemist, with the discovery of gunpowder, but he is likely a legendary figure, his name being an epithet for the ‘black powder’ itself. In reality, this chemical synthesis of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre, was first discovered by Chinese alchemists in the 9th century, ironically enough in their search for an elixir of immortality.
Compendium Maleficarum (17th century) The Devil’s Sabbath
The lore of the Witches’ Sabbath reflected a deep-seated paranoia about the resurgence of paganism—now equivalent to the worship of the Devil and his minions. The rites of the Sabbath were imagined as inversions of the Christian religion.
Chartes Cathedral (France), begun 12th century
Tournus Abbey, France (Romanesque)
- The rediscovery of Aristotelian natural philosophy coincided with, and reinforced, a new appreciation for the natural world. We see this reflected on many cultural levels—e.g. in the gradual evolution (during the 12th century) of Gothic art and architecture from the earlier Romanesque styles.
- Strasbourg, France (Gothic)
Relics of Saint Theodore (5th century)
The Church developed its own “magic”. Relics, the remains of holy men, were (and still are) regarded as talismans—material receptacles infused with divine potency.
Analogous pagan rites were rejected as diabolical “necromancy”.
Compendium Maleficarum (17th century) The Devil’s Sabbath
The lore of the Witches’ Sabbath reflected a deep-seated paranoia about the resurgence of paganism—now equivalent to the worship of the Devil and his minions. The rites of the Sabbath were imagined as inversions of the Christian religion.
Ancient learning was recovered by Christian medieval scholars through cultural exchanges with Muslim scholars. The reconquest of Toledo in Spain (in 1085) was particularly significant. An important translation school was formed here, translating Arabic versions of ancient sources into Latin.
From the 12th century we see the rise of universities in major urban centres, like Paris, Oxford and Bologna, where the implications of the new learning from Islam were sorted out.
Transition to the High Middle Ages
Animal or human-powered mill
(c. 1000-1200 CE)
Renaissance depiction of the production of Theriac
Theriac, a complex medicine synthesized from a variety of plants, along with the flesh of a viper, was used anciently as an anti-venom, a kind of vaccine, working on the principle that like cures like. It was also used to treat the plague. Bacon’s point here is that the methods of the apothecaries are too crude and imprecise to deal safely with poisonous materials.
Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome (5th century).
Built over the remains of the temple of Cybele, a mother goddess. The Christian strategy was not eradicate paganism, but to assimilate and transform its practices. The cult of the saints absorbed many of the “magical” elements of pagan religion.
Ismaili alchemy introduced the key concept of the al-iksir, which later became the elixir or philosopher’s stone of the European tradition. The volatile mercury, the prime matter of the metals, had to be coagulated by the vapours of sulphur, so that it could be transformed into a stable medicine. This elixir was then projected onto base metals, driving off their earthy impurities. It was crucial that the ‘stone’ was stable enough to resist the fire, but volatile enough to penetrate the molten metal and transform its deep structure.
Hermes & his ‘Emerald Tablet,’ a legendary text of alchemical secrets, supposedly discovered in the tomb of Hermes
- Through initiation the adept became one with the Hidden Divinity behind the cosmos and was able to “see into” the secret forms and patterns of reality. This gnosis was not just a theoretical knowledge, but a transformation of the very being of the adept to a god-like state in which they not only saw like God but acted like God:
- The idea that alchemical secrets were encoded in the hieroglyphs forms the background to the famous Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. This was supposedly a compendium of alchemical knowledge buried with Hermes in his tomb. The earliest extant version was written in Arabic in the 8th century by Ismaili alchemists, who developed a complete mythology surrounding the origin and discovery of the work. According to this Ismaili lore, the tablet was discovered by the pagan holy man, Apollonius of Tyana (1st century CE), who descended into the tomb of Hermes and deciphered the hieroglyphic code.
Herakles rescues Alkestis from Hades, taming Cerberus, the guardian of the underworld (Christian catacombs, 4th century CE)
Herakles rescues Alkestis from Hades, taming Cerberus, the guardian of the underworld (Christian catacombs, 4th century CE). The myth reminded Christians of the descent of Jesus into Hell and his promise of redemption.
A subterranean ‘grotto’, in which initiations were performed into the mysteries of the Persian god Mithras; Christian churches were sometimes built over the remains of these chambers
Proclus (5th century CE), ‘On the Priestly Art’
“as above, so below”: illustrating the continued importance in western esotericism of the ancient esoteric principle “as above, so below”
•Strasbourg, France (Gothic)
This signifies?
•The rediscovery of Aristotelian natural philosophy coincided with, and reinforced, a new appreciation for the natural world. We see this reflected on many cultural levels—e.g. in the gradual evolution (during the 12th century) of Gothic art and architecture from the earlier Romanesque styles.
Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (17th century)
To what extent was the understanding of anatomy conditioned by the authority of ancient medical sources? What kind of experimental posture is required for genuine ‘autopsy’, seeing with one’s own eyes? Was such an experimental posture possible within the medieval structures of knowledge?
•By the 4th century, the Roman empire was effectively split into a Western-Latin kingdom and an Eastern-Greek kingdom (Byzantium), ruled by two different imperial courts.
An astrological guide to phlebotomy (13th century; from Lanfranc’s ‘Great Surgery’)
Notice how the restricted opportunities to perform or even observe dissections are clearly in tension with the prohibitions around clandestine (non-sanctioned) dissections. The activities of grave-robbers, so-called ‘resurrectionists’, as suppliers of medical schools continue into the 19th century.
Constantine and his bishops, displaying the creed of Nicaea
- 3rd century CE: Constantine, first Christian Emperor
- 313: Edict of Milan (Christianity tolerated)
- 325: Council of Nicaea
- 380: Edict of Thessalonica (Nicene Christianity becomes the official religion of the Empire)
- 389-391: Theodosius I outlaws paganism and sanctions destruction of pagan holy sites
- 431: “Nestorianism” proscribed at Council of Ephesus
The order of study: the medieval ‘curriculum’
At the top of university curriculum sits theology (study of sacred doctrine);
supported at the 2nd tier by physics and moral philosophy;
below this, the mathematical sciences (the Quadrivium: music, astronomy, geometry, arithmetic);
at the bottom, the logical studies (the Trivium: logic, grammar, rhetoric).
‘grade school’: the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic
Unlike the operative arts, championed by Roger Bacon, the liberal arts were thought to be branches of ‘Scientia’, the knowledge of principles and causes. Thus they could be taught through rational and systematic presentation.
Flying buttress of a Gothic cathedral, illustrating the reconciliation of opposing forces through a subtle engineering device.
Gothic architecture is preoccupied with symmetry, a delicate balancing of opposing forces . . .
Microcosm and Macrocosm
Microcosm and Macrocosm: just as the heart is analogous to the aether, so the intellect (which for M., is housed in the heart) is analogous to Deity (which confers motion to the heavens).
Astrology in the University: Contested issues
Astrology was often aligned with the suspect practice of alchemy—knowledge of astrological correspondences (‘sympathies’) was deemed essential to transforming natural substances (each metal correlated to one of the planets, etc.).
Like alchemy, astrology was presented often in esoteric terminology and symbology. Both subjects were very technical in their methods, but obscure in their presentation.
Like alchemy, again, astrology seemed to make grandiose claims about the scope of human knowledge and power. With all pre-moderns accepted a key role for the heavens in governing the basic cycles of nature, there were debates about the limits of astrological prediction.
Christ as Orpheus (from the Christian catacombs)
In the absence of surviving portraits of Jesus, the early Christians modelled his likeness after pagan analogues, like Orpheus, Herakles or Osiris, human beings who had been elevated to a divine status. The figure of the divine-man was commonplace in late antiquity. This was the model that the initiate sought to emulate in the mysteries: to die and be reborn like Osiris or Jesus into an enlightened divine state of being, free of the limitations of mortality.
Was alchemy a proper scientia or a lowly mechanical art?
On the one hand, alchemy had much in common with metallurgy, one of the traditional mechanical arts (along with agriculture and engineering); on the other hand, the alchemical texts were premised on a learned conception of the cosmos, based on the physical theories of the Greek philosophers. Thus it could be regarded as a form of ‘Scientia’, learned knowledge.
Defenders of alchemy, like Bacon, latched on to medicine as a comparable model, bridging theory and practice.
In the 13th century medicine was both ars and Scientia, a technique requiring practice and a form of demonstrative, teachable knowledge.
At the top of university curriculum sits theology (study of sacred doctrine); supported at the 2nd tier by physics and moral philosophy; below this, the mathematical sciences (the Quadrivium: music, astronomy, geometry, arithmetic); at the bottom, the logical studies (the Trivium: logic, grammar, rhetoric).
Unlike the operative arts, championed by Roger Bacon, the liberal arts were thought to be branches of ‘Scientia’, the knowledge of principles and causes. Thus they could be taught through rational and systematic presentation.
In the University of Paris, the study of medicine was a graduate course, required a foundation in Aristotle’s natural philosophy and Ptolemy’s astronomy. Medicine assumed a knowledge of natural and celestial causes.
In the University of Bologna, medicine could be studied concurrently with liberal arts (with a strong focus on Aristotle). There was in addition a third mandatory stream in astronomy and astrology.
The Medievals called alcohol aqua vitae (water of life) or aqua ardens (burning water). It was also called “quintessence,” i.e. the fifth essence or element, in virtue of its power to arrest the natural processes of elemental decay. The alchemists believed that it was the “dew of heaven,” a trace or residue of the celestial aether, which was transmitted through stellar and planetary radiations.
Nestorian missionaries in China
The Nestorian Church was an Eastern Christian Church originating during the late 1st century AD in Assyria, then the satrapy of Assuristan in the Parthian Empire, before spreading to other parts of Asia during the late antiquity period and throughout the middle ages. It originated as an eastern branch of Syriac Christianity, and used the East Syriac Rite in liturgy.
It developed distinctive theological and ecclesiological traditions, and played a major role in the history of Christianity in Asia. Its Schism of 1552 led to a series of internal divisions among Assyrian Christians during the early modern period, and ultimately branched into the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. The Ancient Church of the East also traces its roots to the Church of the East.
The Church of the East officially declared itself separate from the state church of the Roman Empire in 424–427.
Expansion of Islam: 7th-9th centuries
- 830- founding of the “House of Wisdom” at Baghdad by Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun.
- 809–873-life of the Nestorian scholar and translator, Hunayn ibn Ishaq.
Arab alchemists and mystics were fascinated by the enigmatic symbols on the tombs and temples of the Egyptian ruins. They believed that the hieroglyphs were surviving traces of the primordial language of humanity.
Aristotle instructing Alexander the Great on the occult powers of herbs and stones
(from a 14th century manuscript of the pseudo-Aristotelian, Secretum Secretorum)
13th century manuscript of Constantine’s Latin translation of the Isagoge ad Tegni Galieni of ‘Johannitius’ (the latinized name of the 9th century Nestorian translator of Galen, Hunayn ibn Ishaq)
Constantine’s translation of Hunayn’s introduction to Galen was the nucleus around which an authoritative collection of medical sources took shape in the medical school of Salerno, in Southern Italy in the 11th century. This included some works of Hippocrates along with minor Greek Byzantine treatises. It was later named the Articella, Italian for “little art”. This introductory curriculum was assimilated by the medieval Universities in the 12th century and was supplemented by many new translations of Galen (the “new Galen”) and Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine in the 13th.
Transition to the High Middle Ages
(c. 1000-1200 CE)
•In this period the population of Europe doubled, leading to a new urbanization, & commercial expansion:
–technologies related to industrial and craft production
–Trade expansion, in both raw resources and manufactured goods, supported by advances in transportation technology
–Expansion of agricultural production
Waterwheel mills on the bridge
source:
Gies and Gies, Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel
Twelve Signs of the Zodiac (each comprising 30 degrees of space along the ecliptic path in the later Babylonian astronomy);
the sun occupies one sign per month on its annual course. The motions of the planets were traced with respect to these constellations. The moon spends between 2-3 days in each, completing one revolution in a month (a lunar month of 27 1/3 days).
Gothic architecture is preoccupied with symmetry, a delicate balancing of opposing forces . . .
Flying buttress of a Gothic cathedral, illustrating the reconciliation of opposing forces through a subtle engineering device.
The tomb of Dhu’l Nun in Cairo
Sufism evolved in the 9th century as an indigenous form of Islamic gnosis (‘irfan, ma’rifat). The Sufis taught that spiritual union with God could be cultivated in this life through ascetic and devotional practices. The realization of gnosis was dependent on initiation under a spiritual master (shaykh), who could communicate the inner teaching of Islam. This inner or esoteric interpretation of the Koranic religion was called the batin, as distinct from its outer or literal meaning, the zahir.
One of the earliest Sufis was the Egyptian Dhu’l Nun al-Misri (died ca 860), born in Akhmim—the home of Zosimos centuries earlier. He is described by later authors as an alchemist and according to legend he discovered the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs on the Egyptian temples.
Orpheus taming the animals with the magical power of music (Roman era mosaic).
The mysteries of Orpheus were closely aligned with early Pythagoreanism
The Orphic Mysteries were a set of religious beliefs and practices originating in ancient Greece which spread through the Mediterranean at the time of the Roman Empire. Their origin can be traced to the hero Orpheus, a legendary musician, prophet and poet in Greek myth.
Orphism was the first Western system to combine the ideas of reincarnation and union with God. As far back as the seventh century B.C., the Orphics, taught that within each of us resides a divine particle. They believed that this divine nature is buried in the body as in a tomb. They sought to release it through mystic initiations, secret rites and righteous living—during more than one lifetime if necessary.
The earliest Orphic literature dates from the sixth century B.C., surviving only in papyrus fragments, and Orphic poetry was recited in mystery rites and rituals of purification. The path of Orphism included an ascetic way of life and secret initatory rites, which aimed to free the soul from the round of rebirth and open the way to communion with the gods.
Both Plato and Pythagoras were students of Orphism.
European sources credit one Berthold Swartz (‘the black’), a 14th century alchemist, with the discovery of gunpowder, but he is likely a legendary figure, his name being an epithet for the ‘black powder’ itself. In reality, this chemical synthesis of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre, was first discovered by Chinese alchemists in the 9th century, ironically enough in their search for an elixir of immortality.
The original alchemical still (or ‘alembic’), invented by ‘Maria’, a Jewish alchemist ca. 2nd century CE.
Distillation: extraction of the components of a mixture which have a relatively low boiling point (the more volatile or ‘spiritual’ components) by converting them into vapour and then condensing them again to liquid form.
Innovations in cooling the distillate to facilitate separation: the ‘Moor’s head’ and condensing barrel
Alcohol has a low boiling point (79 degrees), compared with water (100 degrees). Alcohol is so volatile that it can’t be effectively extracted from wine or vinegar, unless one has a mechanism for gradual cooling.
Roman water-powered mills
Roman water-powered mills
Aristotle instructing Alexander the Great on the occult powers of herbs and stones
(from a 14th century manuscript of the pseudo-Aristotelian, Secretum Secretorum)
- In the course of the 5th century the Western Empire is gradually over-run by ‘barbarian’ tribes, leading to a general collapse of infrastructure, de-urbanization and a decline of education and literacy.
- The Latin West gradually lost contact with the primary sources of Greek philosophy and science. Of Aristotle, only the ‘logical’ works were known in Latin translation, due to the efforts of the early Christian scholar Boethius (5th-6th century). Of Plato, only the Timaeus was preserved, along with a commentary, both by the Roman pagan Calcidius (4th century).
The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas, Gozzoli (15th cen.); Plato and Aristotle stand to the left and right; Averroes is humbled below.
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was a staunch opponent of Siger and Latin Averroism. Ultimately, his more cautious synthesis of Aristotelianism and Catholic doctrine triumphed. Aquinas was canonized in the 14th century and Aristotle was baptized as “the philosopher,” the preeminent authority in Western science until the scientific revolution.
Perfect (“fractional”) distillation required large quantities of wine
William Ockham
- Biographical details:
- Born 1320 in Normandy; mid 1340s begins study at the University of Paris; by 1356 enjoys close association with French Royal family; becomes royal advisor, ambassador to French court; elevated in 1377 to Bishop of Lisieux; dies in 1382.
–Potentia absoluta vs. potentia ordinata
–Nominalism (universals are names, not essences or forms in the Platonic or Aristotelian sense)
–Voluntarism instead of essentialism: Will is not bound by Intellect (the universe is not a mirror of God’s mind, in Plato’s sense, but a creation of God’s free will)
Anticipated in the condemnations of 1277:
163A. That the will necessarily pursues what is firmly held by reason, and that it cannot abstain from that which reason dictates [this was the view of Aquinas, among others; now regarded as heresy]
Greek fire (12th century ms)
Traditional solar icons: the winged scarab (‘Khepri’) bearing the sun disk , the Nile lotus, and the ankh, symbol of life and regeneration.
The Opening of the Mouth (Book of the Dead, c. 1300 BCE)
The Neo-Aristotelian Cosmos
Maimonides adopts the Neoplatonized Aristotelianism of Al-Farabi—a metaphysics of emanation and light
Greek fire projected through a syphon (Hero of Byzantium, c. 10th century)
Gold was a solar icon, a symbol of spiritual rebirth, the transformation of the corruptible self into an incorruptible being, sharing in the luminous substance of the heavens. It represented the ‘flesh of the gods’
13th century image of Constantine the African (11th century medical translator), conducting uroscopy
13th c. Christ (the logos = Plato’s ‘demi-urge’ ) creating the cosmos by means of mathematics:
Thierry of Chartes and the 12th c. ‘naturalism’ (or the ‘rationalistic turn’—Lindberg, p. 206), inspired by works such as Plato’s Timaeus in its Calcidius translation, with commentary drawing on variety of sources, and which presents paraphrased accounts of Aristotle on concentric spheres, matter, elements, spherical universe, distinction of sublunar/celestial realms.
Reconciling God’s revelation in the Bible with philosophy (human reason): “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and the darkness was upon the face of the deep…. (Genesis, I:1, 2)
Mineral Acids:
The ‘Green Lion’ consumes Sol
- H2SO4, sulphuric acid, produced by dry distillation of metallic sulphates;
- HNO3, Nitric Acid: add saltpetre (potassium nitrate) to sulphuric acid—this dissolves silver;
- HNO3+HCl, Aqua Regia, add sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) to nitric acid—this dissolves gold
This was the language of God and the angels, spoken by humans before the Flood and before the splintering of human tongues at the Tower of Babel. Attempts were made to reconstruct this antediluvian script.
“Temple doors opened by fire on an altar” From the Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria (1st century ce).
The explosion of interest in magic in the late ancient world coincided with a new interest in the mechanical arts, from Archimedes (3rd century bce) to Hero of Alexandria (1st century ce). What these studies have in common is their focus on mastering the hidden mechanisms and mathematical principles of the cosmos.
An astrological guide to phlebotomy (13th century; from Lanfranc’s ‘Great Surgery’)
Proclus (5th century CE), ‘On the Priestly Art’
“as above, so below”: illustrating the continued importance in western esotericism of the ancient esoteric principle “as above, so below”
The disputed question is whether it is the outer heaven of the fixed stars that moves daily around the earth—as it seems to the naked eye—or whether the appearance of this heavenly motion is caused by an axial rotation of the earth itself. Oresme is suggesting that the apparent east-west rotation of the heavens could be explained by a west-east rotation of the earth on its axis.
•The disputation occurs in the context of a commentary (or ‘gloss’) on a passage from Aristotle’s text, On the Heavens. In this passage—as Oresme translates it—Aristotle seems to be ascribing to Plato the doctrine of the earth’s axial rotation:
The Sassanid Persian Empire:
important institutes were located at Nisibis and Jundishapur; through these centres classical learning was transmitted to Islam beginning in the 7th century
Relics of Saint Theodore (5th century)
The Church developed its own “magic”. Relics, the remains of holy men, were (and still are) regarded as talismans—material receptacles infused with divine potency.
Analogous pagan rites were rejected as diabolical “necromancy”.
The Geocentric Cosmos
(beginning with Eudoxos, 4th cen. BCE)
The earth sits at the centre of the cosmos surrounded by the spheres of the 7 planets all contained within the outermost sphere of the fixed stars (indicated here by the symbols of the zodiac). All entities in the world below the moon are mixtures of earth, air, fire and water; the heavens, by contrast, are composed of an incorruptible aether (or ‘pneuma’).
Whereas Aristotle drew a sharp boundary between the celestial aether and the sub-lunar world, the Platonic and Hermetic thinkers tended to see the universe as a continuum. They suggested that the aether was not only concentrated in the heavenly bodies themselves, but it emanated from them into the terrestrial world. In a very radical sense, then, the physical world around us is derivative of the heavens; This is what the late pagans meant by Fate, a kind of astrological determinism.
The Aristolelian Cosmos
The heavens as cause of mixture
