Quote Analysis

Question 1

“That a surgeon must possess direct knowledge of the complexions of the body and its parts, and of medicines, is demonstrated in this way through a concrete case (experimentum). Suppose that two men of identical age are wounded at the same moment and in the same location—say, pierced through the middle of the arm by a sword or a similar blade. However, one of them is of a hot and humid [i.e. sanguine] complexion and the other is cold and dry [i.e. bilious]. The practice and prevailing view of laymen concludes that both can be treated in the same way, but the science of complexion, which is confirmed rationally by the practice of surgery, teaches us that both cannot be cured in one and the same way” (Lanfranc of Milan, 239).

Answer 1

Surgery is guided by Scientia: theory and practice are mutually supportive

Question 2

“a disputed question is a regular form of teaching, apprenticeship and research, presided over by a master, characterized by a dialectical method which consists of bringing forward and examining arguments based on reason and authority which oppose one another on a given theoretical or practical problem and which are furnished by participants, and where the master must come to a doctrinal solution by an act of determination which confirms him in his function as master” (Bazán, 1985, 40).

Answer 2

•One of the distinctive forms in which contested issues were debated in the university classroom was the ‘disputation question’.

Question 3

“In sum, correct operation having its principles in the art, and following the way of demonstration, depends on a twofold habit, namely what is knowable and teachable, which is in the intellective mind and from experimental habit, that is, acquired through the exercise of the art upon particular cases. This habit is teachable, but [as something] to which one can become accustomed, as we said, and then the practitioner is made perfect” (228).

Answer 3

Lafranc’s observation about the integrated nature of theory and practice, is elaborated in the 14th century by Gentile of Foligno (University of Bologna), in his influential commentary on the Canon of Avicenna.

Foligno employs the method of disputation to consider whether medicine is a science (Scientia) or an art (ars)—in the sense of a merely mechanical art. His answer, having weighed both alternatives, is that it bridges this divide:

Question 4

“On the one hand, there is a demonstration of His separateness, may He be exalted, from the world and of His being free from it; and on the other hand, there is a demonstration that the influence of His governance and providence . . . exists” (178).

Answer 4

The rationality and interconnectedness of the cosmos require a stable, governing force (the fifth body), else the elements would never maintain order and mixture; in turn, the heavens must be moved by an intelligence, which confers on them the power to move and ensoul natural beings (through emanation). That intelligence is Deity. But in order for Deity to ground the eternal procession of the heavens, through endless time, it must stand outside of time and contingency—it must be meta-physical.

Question 5

“So by observing such things and connecting them to the appropriate heavenly beings, the ancient wise men brought divine powers into the region of mortals, attracting them through likeness” (p.138).

Answer 5

‘As above, so below’: Visible analogies and resemblances disclose occult connections between earthly beings and celestial principles.

Question 6

“He [Dhu’l Nun] professed the art of alchemy and belongs to the same class as Jabir ibn Hayyan. He devoted himself to the science of esoterics (ilm u’l batin) and became proficient in many branches of philosophy. He used to frequent the ruined temple (barba) in Akhmim . . . And it is said that knowledge of the mysteries therein was revealed to him by the way of saintship; and he wrought miracles” (Al-Qifti, History of the Philosophers, trans. Nicholson, “A Historical Enquiry Concerning the Origin and Development of Sufism” (p.311,1906)).

Answer 6

The association of alchemy with the secret meanings of the hieroglyphs can be traced back to the writings of Zosimos. It has been suggested that a more or less continuous tradition of Egyptian alchemy may have persisted in Akhmim (Panopolis) into Islamic times. Dhu’l Nun seems to have been an important tributary bridging the pagan and Islamic traditions.

Question 7

“All things pray according to their own order and sing hymns, either intellectually or rationally, or naturally and sensibly, to heads of entire chains. And since the heliotrope is also moved toward that to which it readily opens, if anyone hears it striking the air as it moves about, he perceives in the sound that it offers the king the kind of hymn that a plant can sing” (138).

Question 8

“In as much as the fifth body as a whole is engaged perpetually in a circular motion, it thus engenders forced motion in the elements because of which they leave their places . . . In consequence a mixture of the elements comes about . . . changes occur in the mixture so that . . . the various species of minerals, then all the species of plants, then many species of living beings in accordance with what is determined by the composition of the mixture” (171).

Question 9

“Yet, nevertheless, every one holds, and I believe, that they (the heavens), and not the earth, are so moved, for “God created the orb of the earth, which will not be moved” (Ps. 92:1), notwithstanding the arguments to the contrary. [This is] because they are ‘persuasions’ which do not make the conclusions evident . . . Thus, that which I have said by way of diversion in this manner can be valuable to refute and check those who would impugn our faith by argument” (Oresme, 261).

Answer 9

If scientific theories are not metaphysical absolutes, how do we choose between them?

Reason cannot ultimately determine any general principle of physics (e.g. whether the universe is created or eternal). Thus when faced with competing alternatives we should either accept the simplest theory consistent with the facts (Ockham’s razor), or where the authority of scripture is unambiguous, we should follow the teachings of the faith.

•Though the principle of parsimony is a useful heuristic device, its force is merely “persuasive” and rhetorical; it doesn’t satisfy the demands of certainty:

Question 10

“the immaterial and immortal part of the human soul, the ‘intellective soul,’ is not individual or personal but a unitary intellect shared by all humans” (Lindberg, 290).

Answer 10

•Averroes was followed in this teaching by Siger de Brabant, a prominent & influential lecturer in the faculty of arts at Paris. Averroism was officially condemned as heresy in 1270.

Question 11

Yet the magus, who possessed the special gift of being able to “see” nature’s secrets, could manipulate them to produce wonders beyond the abilities of ordinary humans (Eamon, 135)

Answer 11

•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:

Question 12

“Know that . . . the forces that come from heaven to this world are four: [1] the force that necessitates the mixture . . . this force suffices to engender the minerals; [2] the force that gives to each plant a vegetal soul; [3] the force that gives to each animal an animal soul; [4] the force that gives to every rational being a rational faculty” (172).

Question 13

Preface, “Thessalos the Philosopher on the Virtues of Herbs”

(1st-2nd century CE)

Answer 13

•The pilgrim discovers a secret book of alien wisdom, which points him beyond the limits of conventional or accepted knowledge—but he struggles to decode the book;

Question 14

“The influence of the moon is also seen in the things that are beneath it and is particularly evident in wet things, so that it is seen in the flow and ebb of the sea, and in the regular flow of menstruation, and in the growth and diminution of brains and bone marrow” (242).

Answer 14

The Summary on Crises and Critical Days (anonymous, 13th century)

Question 15

“The Law has given us a knowledge of a matter the grasp of which is not within our power, and the miracle attests to the correctness of our claims . . . Know that with a belief in the creation of the world in time, all the miracles become possible and the Law becomes possible, and all questions that may be asked on this subject, vanish. Thus it may be said: Why did God give prophetic revelation to this one and not to that?” (181).

Answer 15

God’s providence is inscrutable​

Question 16

“Aristotle regarded the deity, the Prime Mover, as eternally unchanging and therefore incapable of intervening in the operation of the cosmos; the cosmic machinery thus runs inevitably and unchangeably onward, initiating a chain of causes and effects that descend into and pervade the sub-lunar realm. The danger here is that within the Aristotelian framework no room can be found for miracles” (196).

Question 17

“some people, in choosing the time for bloodletting, insist on diligent attention to the state of the heavens. And, of these, some are particularly attentive to the quarters of the moon, because the moon exerts power over the moist parts of the body and because it is the planet closest to us . . . But Galen . . . the Prince [Avicenna] and Averroes pay little heed to this. This is because the heavens are the most remote cause of human dispositions and it is enough for the doctor to understand their more immediate causes. It is also because the judgments of astrology are for the most part uncertain, unstable, ambiguous and often deceptive . . . due to the diversity of intermediate causes and circumstances and of countless different things that often impede and check the influence of the heavens” (245).

Answer 17

Do the stars control only the regular cycles of nature (the seasons), or do they determine the idiosyncrasies of human destiny? Can a person’s fate be predicted based on the condition of the stars and planets at their time of birth?

Critics of astrology, like Jacques Despar (University of Paris, 15th cen.), argued that the planets are not as directly impactful on the course of a person’s life and health as medical astrologers claimed:

Question 18

“When magicians do what holy men do, they do it for a different end and by a different right. The former do it for their own glory: the latter, for the glory of God: the former by certain private compacts: the latter by the evident assistance and command of God, to whom every creature is subject” (Aquinas, quoting Augustine, Summa theologica).

Answer 18

The power of the relics was “miraculous,” whereas pagan “magic” (allegedly) worked through demonic agency

When the magician turns to demons (whether he believes them to be demons or not) he enters, knowingly or unknowingly, into a “private compact” with them.

Question 19

•(b) §§ 3–5: empirical evidence against sky’s rotation

(i) § 3: changes in relative motion alone can be detected: “one can perceive movement only in such a way as one perceives one body to be differently disposed in comparison with another”.
(ii) § 4: the earth’s atmosphere moves with the earth: “if air were enclosed in a moving ship, it would seem to the person situated in this air that it was not moved”.
(iii) § 5: and so does a vertical projectile, which would move with a combination of linear and circular motion, due to the eastward movement of the atmosphere.

Question 20

“In the poison of the dragon lies the highest medicine: Mercury, properly and chemically precipitated or sublimated, resolved into its proper water, and again coagulated”

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

“All Muslims [including the Asharites!!] accept the principle of allegorical interpretation; they only disagree about the extent of its application” (161).

He argues that Ghazali’s condemnation of the philosophers as unbelievers is based on a spurious literalism to which no Muslims consistently adhere:

“Such a charge cannot be definite, because there has never been a consensus against allegorical interpretation. The Qur’an itself indicates that it has inner meanings which it is the special function of the demonstrative class to understand” (162).

Answer 21

There is no way to avoid the use of rational argument in determining the correct reading of scripture—the boundaries between the literal and figurative dimensions are not self-evident.

Granted that philosophers should be the arbiters of the inner meaning of scripture, what if philosophy cannot arrive at certain or “demonstrative” conclusions, but only plausible conclusions? After all, as Averroes notes, Aristotle and Plato disagreed, one arguing for an eternal cosmos, the other for creation from a pre-existing matter (the ‘receptacle’). Indeed, Averroes argues that the view of the Asharites is similar in crucial respects to the view of Plato—they too acknowledge that past time is finite.

So how are we to decide?

Is this a question that human rationality can decide? Modern cosmologists still debate whether the universe is eternal or whether time had a beginning.

Question 22

“The introduction of the spirit and of the apprehensive and motive faculties into the semen of animals does not proceed from the natures contained in the qualities of heat, cold, moisture and dryness . . . their existence comes from the First One either without any intermediation or through the intermediation of the angels that are appointed over the things that come to be” (252).

“They hold, however, that the principles from which proceed the things that come to be act by necessity and nature, not by way of deliberation and choice, as, for example, the procession of light from the sun” (253).

“In God’s power there are strange and wondrous things, not all of which we have observed. How is it proper that we should deny their possibility or affirm their impossibility?” (254).

Answer 22

The philosophers agree that all active powers derive from God, but they continue (perversely) to hold to the idea of secondary causes, thus limiting God’s freedom and omnipotence.The philosophers agree that all active powers derive from God, but they continue (perversely) to hold to the idea of secondary causes, thus limiting God’s freedom and omnipotence.

Question 23

“It picks up the properties of all herbs, save only violets, from their flowers and roots, if they are steeped in it for three hours. The effects of this water are universal in the human body, for it quickly and miraculously cures all the cold afflictions . . . ailments of the brain, the nerves and joints” (Alderotti, 248).

Answer 23

•Some speculated that alcohol might be the prime matter of vegetable life—something more basic than the four elements. This seemed to be confirmed by certain experimental phenomena: essential oils of plants which aren’t soluble in water or oil, are soluble in alcohol:

Question 24

To the Hellenistic polymaths, the physical world was a spectacle of the uncanny. Mysterious and impenetrable, nature seemed too full of wonder for philosophy to comprehend. In the last analysis, thought many, it could be known only by divine revelation (192)

Answer 24

The Roman polymath Pliny (23-79 CE) in his scientific encyclopedia, Natural History, catalogued much of the ancient lore regarding the marvels of nature.

Question 25

•B. Reason can’t decide whether earth rotates or not:

§ 6: reasons for sky’s rotation

(i) otherwise all astronomy would be false, i.e. we would have to reject the authority of astronomical tradition;
(ii) the evidence of Holy Scripture, e.g. the miraculous halting of the sun at Josh. 10: 12-14.

Question 26

“Demons cannot work except through the method of art. But art cannot give a substantial form, whence it is said in the chapter on minerals [i.e. by Avicenna] that the authors of alchemy should know that species cannot be transformed. Therefore neither can demons induce substantial forms”.

Answer 26

• Thomas Aquinas set the groundwork for the art’s eventual condemnation by linking the claims of alchemy to the claims of demonic sorcery. The transmutations of alchemy, like the alleged transformations of witches, are illusions produced by demons:
• In 1317, John XXII issued a papal edict against alchemy. While alchemy, was an open question in the 13th century—debated within the university—by the 14th century the case was closed, and alchemy was officially condemned.

Question 27

“They also err greatly when they believe themselves able, through such natural means as they use, to call forth or to drive away malign spirits; and they err also when they try to please them with invocations, prayers, and sacrifices” (Bacon p.215).

“Mages stupidly seize upon symbols and characters because they ascribe a virtue to them, and, in the pursuit of them, relinquish the work of Nature and Art” (Bacon, 215).

“while many things are hidden . . . in the books of the Philosophers, the wise man ought to be prudent in dealing with them, to the end that he may reject the magic symbols and characters and study the work of Nature and Art” (Bacon p.215)

Answer 27

Bacon’s rejection of ‘magic’

• Roger Bacon seeks to rehabilitate the occult sciences by making a distinction between natural magic and ceremonial magic. However, in our letter he avoids the use of the word “magic” altogether, speaking more cautiously of “Art”.
• In essence, Bacon is trying to salvage what we might call the proto-scientific side of magic; he wants to separate out this scientific dimension from the mystical side of magic, which was so worrisome to Aquinas and the Church authorities.
• Bacon called this natural magic “scientia experimentalis,” experimental science. It involved the investigation, testing and technological mastery of the hidden properties of nature.

Question 28

“belief in eternity, the way Aristotle sees it—that this, the belief according to which the world exists in virtues of necessity . . . and that the customary course of events cannot be modified with regard to anything—destroys the Law in its principle, necessarily gives the lie to every miracle, and reduces to inanity all the hopes and threats that the Law has held out” (180).

Question 29

“Even if Nature is powerful and marvelous, yet Art using Nature for an instrument is more powerful by virtue of Nature, as we see in many instances. Indeed whatever is beyond the operations of Nature or of Art is not human or is a fiction and doing of fraudulent persons” (Bacon, 214).

Answer 29

By “not human’ Bacon means demonic—acknowledging the authoritative view of Aquinas that magic is the Devil’s work. Art, by contrast, works within the legitimate boundaries of nature.

Question 30

Why is a figurative reading inappropriate in this case?

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1.1-2).

“Know that our shunning of the affirmation of the eternity of the world is not due to a text figuring in the Torah according to which the world has been produced in time. For the texts indicating that the world has been produced in time [i.e. ex nihilo] are not more numerous than those indicating that the deity is a body. Nor are the gates of figurative interpretation shut in our faces or impossible of access to us regarding the subject of the creation of the world in time. For we could interpret them as figurative, as we have done when denying His incorporeality” (179-80).

Answer 30

1. Whereas the incorporeality of God has been demonstrated philosophically, there is no philosophical consensus on the issue of creation and eternity. Philosophy cannot decide;
2. Whereas belief in the incorporeality of God supports the foundations of the Law, “belief in eternity, the way Aristotle sees it—that this, the belief according to which the world exists in virtues of necessity . . . and that the customary course of events cannot be modified with regard to anything—destroys the Law in its principle, necessarily gives the lie to every miracle, and reduces to inanity all the hopes and threats that the Law has held out” (180).

Question 31

• “because many disputes and rumours habitually arise over finding and asking for the bodies from which, or on which, the anatomy shall be made, the university authorities legislate and ordain that no doctor or student or any other person shall dare or presume to acquire for himself any dead body . . . without prior license from the lord rector”
• “no more than twenty people may attend any anatomy of a man, and no more than thirty that of a woman”
• “anyone who has seen the anatomy of a man once may not see it again in the same year. He who has seen it twice may not see it again at Bologna, except if it is the anatomy of a woman, which can be seen only once and not again”

“also let no one dare to petition the lord rector for an anatomy at the time of his election in the Church of St. Francis”

Answer 31

Medical anatomy was a crucial part of developing sound “experimental habit”—but the practice was stigmatized and highly restrictive

What can we infer from the regulations of the University of Bologna?

Question 32

“Although medicine is partly a manual art, it is guided by theory and logical demonstration, not only by practice: “the art of medicine differs from the other arts, because many of the other arts like tailoring and tanning . . . are acquired by practice, and we do not employ the way of logical demonstration” (226).

As a manual art, medicine also requires the development of a “habitual condition,” which is not teachable, but “acquired by application”. It is a know-how as well as a scientia. But even the know-how of medicine, the modus operandi, can be called scientia in the sense that it is guided by logical principles (e.g. the theory of humours): “modi operandi are proven by these evident logical demonstrations. Therefore theory and practice are both true science” (227).

Answer 32

Lafranc’s observation about the integrated nature of theory and practice, is elaborated in the 14th century by Gentile of Foligno (University of Bologna), in his influential commentary on the Canon of Avicenna.

Foligno employs the method of disputation to consider whether medicine is a science (Scientia) or an art (ars)—in the sense of a merely mechanical art. His answer, having weighed both alternatives, is that it bridges this divide:

Question 33

§ 7-8: reasons against the sky’s rotation

(i) the data of traditional astronomy would still be valid (“the tables of the movements and all other books would be just as true”) if we substitute a rotating earth for the rotating heavens. As he has already established, the phenomena look the same either way.
(ii) Some passages of Holy Scripture must be interpreted metaphorically—for instance when it says that God is ‘angry’ or that He has a ‘body’. When scripture says God is angry, this is just a loose way of saying that we feel chastised; in the same way maybe it seemed to Joshua that God halted the sun during his battle with the Amorites, when in fact He halted the earth.

But then, what about Psalms 92:1? “God created the orb of the earth, which will not be moved”. As he say in the conclusion, some Biblical passages are unambiguous in their reference to an immobile earth.

Answer 33

• Now that the arguments for celestial rotation have been weakened, he presents positive arguments in favour of the earth’s rotation—appealing chiefly to Ockham’s principle of parsimony as a way of deciding between the competing theories:
• (1) It requires the positing of an excessively great speed for the outer spheres: “if such a circuit is completed in one day, one could not imagine nor conceive of how the swiftness of the heaven is so marvellously and excessively great”.
• (2) It also requires us to introduce two kinds of motion in the heavens (the east-west motion of the whole heaven and the planetary motions on the ecliptic).

Question 34

Preface, “Thessalos the Philosopher on the Virtues of Herbs”

Initiatory topoi in the tale of ‘Thessalos’

(1st-2nd century CE)

Answer 34

• 1. Enlightenment requires divine revelation; human reason and ingenuity are inadequate to grasping the “occult” causes;
• 2. The turn to the “East” for wisdom (Egyptian temples, Persian magi, etc), often framed as a kind of pilgrimage to distant lands;
• 3. The quest involves suffering and disillusionment with one’s mundane self and the world;

Question 35

The scientific investigator was no ordinary person having the normal faculties of intelligence and reason, but a man gifted with a special form of knowledge, a magus, someone “in touch with” the occult relations in the universe (133).

Answer 35

•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:

Question 36

“why is there such a distinction made today between the physician and the surgeon? Perhaps because physicians abandoned manual operation to laymen? Or because, as some say, they disdain to work with their hands? Or, as I believe, because they do not understand the method of operation which is necessary? . . . Let everyone know therefore that a man who is wholly ignorant of surgery cannot be a good physician” (235-36).

Answer 36

Lefranc defends the importance of surgery against the bias of the learned university doctors’:

Question 37

20. That God of necessity makes whatever comes immediately from Him. – This is erroneous whether we are speaking of the necessity of coercion, which destroys liberty, or of the necessity of immutability, which implies the inability to do otherwise.

27A. That the first cause cannot make more than one world.

66. That God could not move the heaven in a straight line, the reason being that He would then leave a vacuum.
67. That God cannot produce the effect of a secondary cause without the secondary cause itself.
68. That it is impossible to refute the arguments of the Philosopher concerning the eternity of the world unless we say that the will of the first being embraces incompatibles.
69. That nothing happens by chance, but everything comes about by necessity, and that all the things that will exist in the future will exist by necessity, and those that will not exist are impossible, and that nothing occurs contingently if all causes are considered.
70. That the intellect, which is man’s ultimate perfection, is completely separated.

Selected Condemnations of 1277 (translated by Prof. Gyula Klima: http://www.fordham.edu/gsas/phil/klima/Blackwell-proofs/MP_C22.pdf)

Answer 37

The philosophers agree that all active powers derive from God, but they continue (perversely) to hold to the idea of secondary causes, thus limiting God’s freedom and omnipotence.

Three years after the death of Aquinas, in 1277, the Bishop of Paris condemned 219 articles relating to the Aristotelian teachings of the Faculty of Arts. Aristotle’s claims regarding the eternity of the world and the necessary character of the physical cosmos (its inherent causal structures and relations) were seen as threats to the freedom of God and as attempts to impose human rationality onto the Divine.

Question 38

“Sacred doctrine is a science (scientia). We must bear in mind that there are two kinds of sciences. There are some which proceed from principles known by the natural light of the intellect, such as arithmetic and geometry and the like. There are also some which proceed from principles known by the light of a higher science: thus the science of optics proceeds from principles established by geometry, and music from principles established by arithmetic. So it is that sacred doctrine is a science because it proceeds from principles made known by the light of a higher science, namely, the science of God” (Aquinas, Question 1, Art.2).

Question 39

‘Like attracts Like’: as the magnet attracts the loadstone, or the heated wick attracts the flame; or again, as one musical instrument causes another to vibrate in sympathy (today we call this ‘sympathetic resonance’).

Answer 39

•Note in the background the old Pythagorean idea of the musical cosmos. Even in Newton’s day the phenomenon of “action at a distance” was hard to explain without recourse to this principle (e.g. gravitational “force”).

Question 40

Aries: Beware of incision in the head or in the face, nor should you make an incision in the great vein of the head.

Taurus: Beware of incision in the neck or in the throat, nor should you make an incision in a vein in these places.

Gemini: Beware of incision in the person’s arms or hands, nor should you open a vein in these places.

Answer 40

An astrological guide to phlebotomy (13th century; from Lanfranc’s ‘Great Surgery’)

Question 41

“Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate (‘we should not multiply entities unnecessarily’).”

Answer 41

Ockham’s Razor (the ‘principle of parsimony’)

• Scientific explanation does not require metaphysical essences or causal forces (causality is just a description of regularity);
• Whatever God chooses to create through secondary causes, He can create directly. Here again he follows the lead of the condemnations (further back we recognize the view of Al-Ghazali and the Asharites):
• Condemned thesis 69: That God cannot produce the effect of a secondary cause without the secondary cause itself.

Question 42

Preface, “Thessalos the Philosopher on the Virtues of Herbs”

Initiatory topoi in the tale of ‘Thessalos’

(1st-2nd century CE)

Answer 42

• 5. Finally, a vision of the deity provides the key to decoding the mysteries of the cosmos. The initiate is transformed, liberated from fear and ignorance, elevated to a divine level of insight (i.e. gnosis).
• 6. He preaches this doctrine to others thus becoming another link in the transmission of a secret tradition, a prophet-scientist.

Question 43

“The reason why we have received in Scripture texts whose apparent meanings contradict each other is in order to draw the attention of those who are well grounded in science to the interpretation which reconciles them” (Averroes, 161).

“For my purpose is that the truths be glimpsed and then again be concealed, so as not to oppose that divine purpose which one cannot possibly oppose and which has concealed from the vulgar among the people those truths especially requisite for His apprehension” (Maimonides, 163-64).

Answer 43

Esotericism as a strategy for resolving discrepancies between reason and revelation

Question 44

“It was necessary for man’s salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God, besides the philosophical sciences investigated by human reason . . .

Sacred doctrine is a science (Scientia) . . . It proceeds from principles made known by a higher science, namely the science of God” (Aquinas 198).

Answer 44

Image: 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.

Question 45

“Since all the effects which we see can be accomplished, and all the appearances saved, by substituting for this [diurnal movement of the heavens] a small operation, i.e. The diurnal movement of the earth . . . and since this can be done without making the [number of necessary] operations so diverse . . . it follows that [if the heaven rather than the earth is moved] then God and Nature would have made and ordained things for nought (261).”

Answer 45

•All other things being equal, we should choose the simplest theory, since God and Nature do nothing in vain, as Aristotle himself argues(!!):

Question 46

•“The connection between what is customarily believed to be a cause and what is believed to be an effect is not necessary . . . the connection of these occurs because the decree of God preceded their being created in this sequence, not because the existence of this connection is necessary in itself . . . On the contrary, it is within the power of God to create satisfying hunger without eating, to create death without decapitation . . . The philosophers, however, deny the possibility of this and affirm its impossibility” (Incoherence of the Philosophers, 252).

“[The philosopher] has no other proof except the observation that burning occurs when there is contact with fire . . . but it does not prove that one occurs through the agency of the other. Indeed, there is no other cause but God” (252).

Answer 46

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (c. 1056-1111), Sufi mystic and Asharite Theologian

Question 47

• Text: ‘And some say that the earth is at the center of the universe and that it revolves and moves circularly around the pole established for this, just as is written in the book of Plato called the Timaeus’ (255).
• This is the passage from Plato that Aristotle discusses:
• The earth, which is our nurse, clinging around the pole which is extended through the universe . . . (Plato, Timaeus)

Answer 47

•The Greek participle translated here as “clinging around” can also mean “winding around”. Is Plato saying that the earth is ‘packed around’ the axis of the universe, or that it ‘winds around’ the axis like a spinning top? Our translation (in the reader) rightly opts for the former sense: since Plato states emphatically that the outer heaven moves around the earth, what role could the earth’s axial rotation possibly serve? It makes no sense in Plato’s cosmology. Nor is it clear that Aristotle, in the passage quoted by Oresme, means to ascribe axial rotation to Plato. There are similar ambiguities in Aristotle’s Greek.

Question 48

“Every mention of approaching and coming near that you find in the books of prophecy referring to a relation between God, may He be exalted, and a created being has this last [figurative] meaning. For God is not a body, as shall be demonstrated to you in this Treatise. And accordingly He, may He be exalted, does not draw near to or approach a thing, nor does anything draw near or approach Him, may He be exalted, inasmuch as the abolition of corporeality entails that space be abolished . . . For in all these verses nearness through cognition, I mean cognitive apprehension, is intended, not nearness in space” (Handout, Guide of the Perplexed I.18).

Answer 48

References to the body of God must be read figuratively—as examples of ‘equivocal’ language

Question 49

“Wise men . . . have sought to devise means of dealing not only with the specific defect of the regimen of a particular man, but also with the corruption of our parents, not in expectation of attaining to the years of Adam . . . but that their life might be prolonged a century or more beyond the usual age of men now living . . . For there is a limit in Nature, imposed upon the first men after the Fall” (Bacon, 219).

Answer 49

Bacon on prolongation of life through the alchemical elixir or ‘quintessence’ (continued)

Question 50

“All this takes place through the intermediary of the illumination and the darkness resulting from the light in heaven” (172).

Question 51

“You should not think that these great secrets are fully and completely known to anyone among us. They are not. But sometimes truth flashes out to us so that we think it is day, and then matter and habit in their various forms conceal it so that we find ourselves again in an obscure night . . . Among us there is one for whom the lightning flashes time and time again, so that he is always, as it were, in unceasing light . . . That is the degree of the great one among the prophets . . . Among them there is one to whom lightning flashes only once in the whole of his night . . . There are others between whose lightning flashes there are greater or shorter intervals. Thereafter comes he who does not attain a degree in which his darkness is illumined . . . It is illumined, however, by a polished body or something of that kind . . . It is in accord with these states that the degrees of perfect vary” (165).

Answer 51

Knowledge of the deepest truths requires gnostic illumination

Question 52

(a) § 2: empirical evidence for heaven’s rotation
(i) we see rotation with our eyes, “the sun and moon and many stars rise and set from day to day, and some stars turn around the arctic pole”.
(ii) If the earth were moving rapidly eastward (creating the appearance of the stars westward motion), then “it should seem to us that the air and the wind blow continuously and very strongly from the east”.
(iii) vertical projectiles land at our feet; but if we were moving rapidly to the east, we should expect them to fall far to the west of us.

Answer 52

•A. experience/observation can’t decide whether earth rotates or not

Question 53

“The ultimate attainment, in which the whole complement of Art joined with all of the power of Nature is effective, is the prolongation of life for a long time. Many experiences show moreover that this is possible . . . A farmer who was tilling his field plowed [sic] up a golden flask filled with noble liquor, and, judging it to be the dew of heaven, he washed his face and drank with the result that he was renewed in body and spirit” (Roger Bacon, 219).

Answer 53

Bacon on prolongation of life through the alchemical elixir or ‘quintessence’

Question 54

“The most perfect compounding of this water: If you want to achieve the highest degree of perfection, take a tenth part in the first distillation and distil in this way for ten times, taking just the tenth part in every distillation. After the seventh distillation the water is called perfect, since it acts so marvelously” (Taddeo Alderotti, 13th century, reader p.248).

Answer 54

Fractional distillation

Question 55

1. Whereas the heart is profited by the other parts of the body, the heavens do not depend on the earth and the elements;
2. Whereas the heart is in the middle of the body, the fifth body contains the earth (is not contained by it); its influence “overflows into what is inside it” (177);
3. Whereas the rational faculty is not separable from the human body, God “is not a faculty subsisting in the body of the world” (177).

Answer 55

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) by Maimenodes

Question 56

“Temple doors opened by fire on an altar” From the Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria (1st century ce).

Question 57

“When you eat of [the fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”(Genesis 3:5).

Answer 57

The “polemic against curiosity”

•At the root of the “fall” of Adam and Eve was the promise of the serpent—the forbidden fruit of divine knowledge. On the Christian view, the desire to know the mysteries of the cosmos—to know as God knows—is an arrogant presumption. Curiosity is the temptation of the Devil.

Question 58

“And just as in the body of man there are ruling parts and ruled

parts requiring for their continued existence the governance of the ruling part governing them, so are there in the world as a whole ruling parts—namely, the fifth encompassing body—and ruled parts requiring a governor—they are the elements . . . And just as the ruling part, which is the heart is always in motion and is the principle of every motion . . . whereas the other parts of the body are ruled by the heart . . . so heaven in virtue of its motion exerts governance over the other parts of the world” (171).

Question 59

“whoever wishes to see an anatomy well must see it many times, diligently, in detail, and one member after another. But since that cannot be done because the opportunities for obtaining a human body for an anatomy are rare and also because it is prohibited by the Church, I myself undertook to present an anatomy in pictures” (231).

Answer 59

The 14th century medical scholar, Guido of Vigevano, argues for the utility of anatomical images to compensate for the lack of access to medical dissection

To what extent are such images based on actual autopsy, rather than preconceived theoretical models derived from Avicenna, Galen and other medical authorities?

Question 60

“There are a great many difficulties that arise on account of the lack of knowledge of alchemy, because when the art of medicine teaches the use of the virtues of drugs without the substance, and it is necessary to do this in an infinite number of cases on account of the whole mass of poisonous earthy material, no distinction between them can be made except by means of alchemy which alone gives the method of extracting each virtue from any substance whatsoever; because it is necessary in working with drugs that there be resolutions and dissolutions of one thing from another . . . not only should the useful virtue be separated from the substance, but also the poisonous virtue from the useful substance, as for example in viper’s flesh” (Bacon, On the Errors of the Doctors, 246).

Answer 60

Alchemy and pharmacy

Question 61

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1.1-2).

“Know that our shunning of the affirmation of the eternity of the world is not due to a text figuring in the Torah according to which the world has been produced in time. For the texts indicating that the world has been produced in time [i.e. ex nihilo] are not more numerous than those indicating that the deity is a body. Nor are the gates of figurative interpretation shut in our faces or impossible of access to us regarding the subject of the creation of the world in time. For we could interpret them as figurative, as we have done when denying His incorporeality” (179-80).

Answer 61

1. Allusions to radical creation (as in the opening of Genesis: “In the beginning . . .”, are not especially numerous (one could find passages that suggest the opposite—a pre-existent cosmos; after all, what is the status of the “deep”);
2. The passages that do exist could be interpreted figuratively—just as allusions to the body of God must be interpreted figuratively.

Question 62

“There are a great many difficulties that arise on account of the lack of knowledge of alchemy, because when the art of medicine teaches the use of the virtues of drugs without the substance, and it is necessary to do this in an infinite number of cases on account of the whole mass of poisonous earthy material, no distinction between them can be made except by means of alchemy which alone gives the method of extracting each virtue from any substance whatsoever; because it is necessary in working with drugs that there be resolutions and dissolutions of one thing from another . . . not only should the useful virtue be separated from the substance, but also the poisonous virtue from the useful substance, as for example in viper’s flesh” (Bacon, On the Errors of the Doctors, 246).

Answer 62

Lanfranc’s complaint about the university physicians’ ignorance of surgery parallels the critique of Roger Bacon about their ignorance of chemical technique.

Question 63

“Do you not see the following fact? God, may his mention be exalted , wished us to be perfected and the state of our societies to be improved by His laws regarding actions. Now this can come about only after the adoption of intellectual beliefs, the first of which being His apprehension, may He be exalted, according to our capacity. This, in its turn, cannot come about except through divine science, and this divine science cannot become actual except after a study of natural science . . . Hence God, may he be exalted, caused His book to open with the Account of the Beginning, which, as we have made clear, is natural science” (166).

Answer 63

Thus natural science reveals the transcendence and incorporeal nature of Deity—which forms the basis of theology. Without this philosophical apprehension of Deity, the Law cannot be adequately fulfilled. This is one of the main points of Book 1 of the Guide.

Question 64

“Know that this whole of being is one individual and nothing else. I mean to say that the sphere of the outermost heaven with everything that is within it is undoubtedly one individual having in respect of individuality the rank of Zayd and Umar . . . In that sphere there is absolutely no vacuum; it is solid and filled up. Its center is the sphere of the earth, while water encompasses the earth, air encompasses the water, fire encompasses the air, and the fifth body encompasses the fire” (169).

Question 65

“Hence God, may he be exalted, caused His book to open with the Account of the Beginning, which, as we have made clear, is natural science” (166).

Answer 65

The ‘scientist’ as prophet

What was revealed to Moses in the Book of Genesis are the principles of natural science encoded in the form of parables, suitable for the instruction of the masses.

Here we encounter again—now in a more explicit form—the conception of the philosopher as a ‘divine man’, a thread we have traced from Pythagoreanism and Plato through the gnostic mystery cults of late antiquity.

Question 66

“Over and above all this, these opinions about the world [the view of the Asharites, i.e. creation ex nihilo] do not conform to the apparent meaning of Scripture. For if the apparent meaning of Scripture is searched, it will be evident from the verses which give us information about the bringing into existence of the world that its form really is originated, but that being itself and time extend continuously at both extremes, i.e. without interruption. Thus the words of God the Exalted, “He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in six days, and His throne was on the water” (xi, 7), taken in their apparent meaning imply that there was a being before this present being, namely the throne and the water, and a time before this time, i.e. the one which is joined to the form of this being, namely the number of the movement of the celestial sphere. And the words of the Exalted, “On the day when the earth shall be changed into other than earth, and the heavens as well” (xiv, 48), also in their apparent meaning imply that there will be a second being after this being. And the words of the Exalted, “Then He directed Himself towards the sky, and it was smoke” (xii, 11), in their apparent meaning imply that the heavens were created from something.”

Answer 66

Averroes on creation: the Asharite doctrine of creation ex nihilo is not based on the literal meaning of scripture; thus the theologians must concede the value of allegorical interpretation (since they assume it).

Question 67

“So by observing such things and connecting them to the appropriate heavenly beings, the ancient wise men brought divine powers into the region of mortals, attracting them through likeness” (p.138).

Question 68

“you never hear that one of the ancients has said that an ass or a horse is a small world. This has been said only about man. This is because of that which is a proprium of man only, namely, the rational faculty . . . In the same way there exists in being something that rules it as a whole and puts into motion its first principal part granting it the power of putting into motion, in virtue of which this part governs the things that are other than itself . . . This thing is the Deity, may its name be exalted” (171-72).

Answer 68

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). Maimonedes