JOSEPH ZIEGLER
The history of medieval thought could be written in terms of limitations demanded from reason to make room for faith. The church would be depicted as an inherently thought-curbing institute that constantly and efficiently exerted pressure on intellectuals for the defence of orthodoxy. The oppressed intellectuals exposed to threats of ecclesiastical or university condemnations could easily become the heroes of this story.1 But at the same time faith was subtly employed to make room for reason. From the twelfth century onwards, it became natural for scholars immersed in an academic environment (school or university) to employ reason to probe into subject areas that had not been explored before, as well as to discuss possibilities that had not previously been seriously entertained.2
Surely, those who applied reason to the solution of problems in theology knew that, when it came to determining the answer, reason was subordinate to faith. Yet the very idea that questioning certain articles of faith could endanger one's salvation, that vain curiosity (vana curiositas) particularly among theologians was undermining the academic vocation of theologians, created the need for due legal/judicial procedures that would limit or even abolish such dangerous dynamics and save faith (salvare fidem). The efficacy and the impact of ecclesiastical censorship apparatus (from simple verbal intimidations to condemnations, book burning and imprisonment) are stiff debated.3 What is generally accepted though as far as academic
* This paper tremendously benefited from the comments of participants in the colloquium of the Max Plank Institut fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin, Abteilung II (3 February 2005).
1 L. Bianchi, Censure et liberte intellectuelle a I’universite de Paris (Xllle-XIVe siecles) (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1999).
2 E. Grant, God and Reason in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), esp. 13-16, 182-282, 356-64.
3 J. M. M. H. Thijssen, Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris 1200-1400 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 1-39; Bianchi, Censure et liberte, 53-67.
Condemnations are concerned is that university censures normally did not target full-fledged masters of theology, but rather members of the junior faculty, bachelors of theology and members of the inferior arts faculty. Their proneness to fall into error may be related to their young age: in their desire for fame they may have been less careful in both style and content and consequently were more in need of disciplinary guidance (or correction) on how to investigate the truth and how to discuss it in public with cautious carefulness and in a sober and honourable way. Within the University of Paris and without, doctrinal correctness was not imposed through judicial authority (bishop, prelate or pope), but through academic superiority (the masters' professional expertise and teaching authority). The theology masters, by their discursive reasoning and analytical methods demonstrated to the wayward academic that his views did not conform to faith.
It has already been shown how unhelpful and anachronistic it would be to depict the disciplinary and juridical proceedings for censuring suspect teaching as glaring signs of constraints imposed upon academic freedom.696 In the thirteenth century and throughout the coming centuries the concept of libertas scholastica was interpreted in one sense only: the freedom of the university to manage its own affairs. As such neither the condemnation of 1277, nor any of the proceedings launched against individual masters in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries threatened the academic freedom, a concept which was much narrower than ours for it neither comprised the freedom of learning for students nor the freedom to teach. Even theology masters (such as Godfrey of Fontaine) who debated in the fourteenth century the question of how to react to an episcopally condemned article which the master believes is patently true believed that academic discussion should not transgress the boundaries of faith. Only when a wrong condemnation causes an impediment to the inquiry into knowledge of the truth that concerns salvation should the theologian insist that it ought to be revoked, and he should certainly not comply with a condemnation he believes to be incorrect.
Books of natural philosophy were sometimes proscribed by ecclesiastical authority (local or papal).697 However, there were relatively few books of natural philosophy that were of real concern to the Holy See or the local church official so as to instigate a ban on them. Ecclesiastical attention was directed mostly at writings that contained specifically theological errors. When works of philosophy were subjected to ecclesiastical proscription, as happened in 1210, 1215 and 1231 with Aristotle's Libri naturales and the commentaries on them, it was not because of magic, but because they had been implicated in the profession of heresy or specific doctrinal errors. There was no overall condemnation of the study of Aristotle's Libri naturales, whose teaching was prohibited but not their individual reading. Expurgations demanded in 1231 remained a dead letter, and there is ample evidence that in the 1230s and 1240s (weU before the statutes of 1255 which declared the study of the entire Aristotelian corpus as a necessary precondition for entrance into the advanced faculties of medicine, law and theology) many of Aristotle's Libri naturales were studied within the Parisian academic space.
In the particular case of the Secretum secretorum (a most influential compilation of texts heavily loaded with magic, physiognomy, alchemy, astrology and medicine) it is now clear that not only did the papal court play a dominant role (together with the imperial court) in the dissemination of the text after its translation in c. 1230, but also that there was no systematic attempt to censure the text through expurgation of suspicious parts.698 After his translation of the Secretum secretorum, the cleric Philip of Tripoli was rewarded with various benefices by the papacy. The text soon made its way to the academic heart of Christian Europe, the University of Paris and to other high profile institutions such as Oxford University across the Channel.
The study of the relationship between faith and reason has been overshadowed by the censorial act of the condemnation of 219 propositions in philosophy and theology by Bishop Stephen Tempier on 7 March 1277.699 The episcopal involvement in the condemnation naturally linked the church in general to the censorial spirit underlying the document. The condemnation of 1277 has often been used as a demonstration for the opposition between faith and reason, caused in that particular case by the repercussions of the introduction of the newly translated philosophical texts by Aristotle and his commentator Averroes into the arts faculty. The condemnation was portrayed as a response to the unbearable challenges to faith posed by the absorption of non-Christian philosophical learning. In cases of conflict between reason and faith, the truth was always supposed to be on the side of faith. But despite many difficulties, both theologians and natural philosophers warmly received Aristotle's natural philosophy. Theologians assigned to natural philosophy a vital role to explicate matters of faith and doctrine, and we can see no relenting of this approach after 1277. Few people could cite around 1300 the details of the document of condemnation whose actual impact may have been substantially weaker than we were led to believe. Students of medieval science seem to agree that among the more significant outcomes of the condemnation was a growing emphasis among theologians and philosophers on the reality and importance of God's absolute power (potentia Dei absoluta) to do whatever he pleases short of bringing about a logical contradiction. This encouraged thinkers to introduce into their philosophical debates subtle, daring and imaginative questions which generated new and interesting replies and substantially broadened the scope of scientific thought well beyond the constraints of Aristotelianism. The natural impossibilities that were explored presented additions to natural philosophy (though they did not alter its main body which remained strictly Aristotelian). And despite multiple cases of judicial condemnation of individual scholars, ideas and books, the notion of a systematic ecclesiastical repression of people and ideas does not conform to the reality characterised well into the end of the fourteenth century by an enormous, original, varied and ever more experimental intellectual output within the various scholastic institutions and disciplines.
In the context of this essay, part of the opening statement from Tempier's introductory letter should be highlighted because it suggests that among the causes motivating him to act as he did was a deep fear that some members of the arts faculty were transgressing the limits of their own faculty.700 This fear of transgression of boundaries persisted despite the statute from April 1272 prescribing that no master or bachelor of arts shall presume to determine or even dispute any purely theological question; that whenever a master or bachelor of arts happens to dispute a question that appears to touch on both faith and philosophy, he shall not determine it contrary to the faith; and that whenever a master or bachelor of arts happens to read or dispute a question that seems to undermine the faith, he shall either refute the arguments in so far as they are against faith, or concede that they are absolutely false.701 The tendency to move from one discipline to the other could be enhanced by an analytic questioning technique that became widespread among the literate class and throughout all disciplines (including natural philosophy and theology). This questioning technique entailed asking hypothetical questions and facilitated the way for theologians to delve into natural philosophy and vice versa and hence rendered the disciplinary boundaries permeable. Theologians started asking questions which increasingly were drawn directly from natural philosophy. Many of these questions probed the domain of God's powers: what God could and could not do, and what God knows or does not know, and they all reflect the desires of an intellectual class that sought to know as much as they could by reason alone.
Now does this mean that one should accept the notion shared by some historians according to which theology and natural philosophy before the seventeenth century should not be regarded as distinct disciplines?702 Whether or not one can speak of 'a Dominican version of natural philosophy' being based on Aristotle in order to counter the arguments of the Cathars, who themselves used the work of Aristotle to deny the truths of catholic Christianity; and of 'a Franciscan version of natural philosophy' (in particular optics or a scientia perspectiva) being based on pseudo-Dionysius (and hence on Neoplatonism) in order to promote particular spiritual practices and to study the continual creative activity of God in the universe - the fact that medieval natural philosophy was initially shaped by clerics many of whom were religious (Robert Grosseteste, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, John Pecham, Jean Buridan, Nichole Oresme or Albert of Saxony, just to name the most prominent ones) invites the historian to assess the motivation of these people when studying the physical and material dimensions of the universe. Was it a direct extension of their preoccupation with God and his creation, or were they simply studying nature, as a modern scientist would do today?703 The cases of Arnau de Vilanova and Galvano da Levanto, two academic physicians active around 1300 who smoothly extended their professional preoccupation to making a significant contribution to contemporary spiritual and theological discourse indicates that the first option was possible and did occasionally materialise, at least among physicians. Arnau de Vilanova was urged by Boniface VIII to practise medicine rather than mingle himself in theology and had to pay a dire personal price for not heeding this advice.704
But Edward Grant has shown that medieval natural philosophers largely ignored in their questions themes related to God, the faith or church doctrine, and it seems that on the whole God and faith played little role in medieval natural philosophy. This happened because the objective to provide natural explanations for natural phenomena rendered questions regarding faith irrelevant. Even those theologians who wrote treatises on natural philosophy (normally in the shape of a commentary on one of Aristotle's books) normally chose to keep the theologisation of natural philosophy to a minimum. Natural philosophy was never significantly infiltrated by theology because the two were different disciplines. It was, of course, about God's creation, but it was about that creation as a rational construction that could only be understood by reason. Hence the boundary between theology and natural philosophy was rarely blurred beyond recognition when looking from the angle of natural philosophy.
Certain natural philosophical themes as the eternity or creation of the world and the possibility of a vacuum had immediate theological consequences. Some philosophers such as Boethius of Dacia insisted that theology must be kept out of physics. Others, like Buridan, adopted a different approach.705 Whereas Boethius of Dacia had argued that a philosopher should conclude that the world is eternal because he argues on the basis of physical principles, Buridan accepted the creation of the world in physics as in theology, resolving Aristotle's and Averroes' arguments against the possibility of a new creation.
Alternately the theological doctrine of transubstantiation forced him to admit, against Aristotle, the possibility of real accidental being. Buridan alternated his metaphysics to accommodate the separability of accidents dictated by the doctrine of faith. He reached this non-Aristotelian conclusion by Aristotelian arguments. But when offering a new definition of the notions 'substance' and 'accidents', he remained in the realm of the general level of metaphysics and refrained from giving any explanation of the mode of existence of the eucharistic accidents. As a philosopher he could not allow himself to trespass on the domain of the theologians.706
Things looked entirely different from the theological end: theology needed natural philosophy and was utterly dependent on it.707 In spite of the congruity of Platonism and Christianity, Aristotelianism came to dominate speculation and scholarship at the beginning of the thirteenth century, leaving to theology its own field for scientific activity. The development of theology into a rigorous, scientific discipline was an important reason for this switch of allegiance.708 Then, the struggle against the Cathars forced the church to resort to reason and philosophy to defend faith.709 From the second third of the thirteenth century Sentences commentaries and quodlibets became saturated with questions and arguments taken from the realm of natural philosophy and applying reason to theology. Commentaries on book i of the Sentences, for example, included dense natural philosophical discussions of the infinite on all its aspects (infinite space, eternity of the world); book ii acquired dense natural philosophical discussions of the heavens (including spiritual bodies and angels), celestial bodies and light, digestion and heredity; book iii allowed the commentators to boast their detailed knowledge of embryology; and book iv encouraged theologians to use both natural philosophy and medicine to describe the bodies of Adam and Christ. Exemplary are the Quodlibets of John of Naples from 1315-17 (OP; d. c. 1350) which were saturated with interest in the body in all its aspects.710
In his Sentences commentary from c. 1325, the Carmelite theologian John Baconthorpe discussed, like many of his colleagues, the mystery of the birth of Christ born of a woman as a result of non-seminal generation. As part of an area of thought which has acquired the name of 'divine embryology',711 several key questions prompted theologians to long and detailed biological discussions concerning the exact role of Mary in the generation of Christ, her virginity after conception, and the primary material she supplied to the body of Christ. A detailed investigation of the role of the Holy Spirit as a substitute for the active male sperm, of the development and the life of Christ at the foetal stage (that is, whether his body was formed instantaneously or gradually), and of the possible astral influences at the moment of his conception were also part of the same trend to put the mystery of Christ in a scientific context. The answers to these questions were far more important than providing an indication for the increasingly naturalistic tendencies among thirteenth-century theologians. They had a decisive impact on the fundamental question of what made Christ belong to the human species when no male seed was involved in his generation.
Baconthorpe uniquely discussed another such question: did Christ resemble Mary?712 The very question suggests that Baconthorpe thought of Christ biologically. The issue of resemblance between mother and her children was one of the most crucial arguments raised in debates among Galenists and Aristotelian philosophers and physicians discussing the role of women in generation.713 For the Galenists it provided a crucial common-sensical proof for the validity of their theory which allowed the female sperm a certain active role in generation. For the positive answer to the question Baconthorpe uses two categories of similarity: ad speciem (which is divided into two kinds: first according to the substantial form, that is the belonging to the human species, and second, according to the individual characteristics or signa personalia) and accidental (secundum aliquod accidens - skin colour, gender, physical faults). According to Baconthorpe, the substantial form of a mixture of two animals will always be determined by the father, hence the similarity with the mother (in this case Mary) who nourishes the foetus with her blood applies only to the signa personalia. Here Baconthorpe introduces a zoological example which consequently becomes the foundation for a crucial analogy. The product of copulation between a dog and a fox physically resembles the feminine animal because from the mother the foetus draws its nourishment. The subject of the analogy probably taken from Aristotle, De generatione animalium II.7 (746a), is Jesus who is also the product of a mixture between two different species (Mary and the Holy Spirit) and should be analysed as a crossbreed between two animals. This similarity is not according to the substantial form which is always introduced by the father, but rather according to the signa personalia (in Christ's case Mary's humanity - humanitas). This resemblance is particularly strong in the case of Christ and Mary because of the lack of a male seed in the process. In Mary's case the overwhelming influence of the mother's nourishment is not hindered by the non-existent male seed. The language and style of Baconthorpe's partly Galenic explanation is purely biological, and he makes specific references to Aristotle's De generatione animalium. A similarly biological frame of mind applies to Baconthorpe's explanation for Christ's sex: he was born masculine because Mary, not feeling any pleasure normally felt at intercourse, emitted no superfluous humour (humidum superfluum) which when mixed in the menses usually is responsible for the birth of girls.
Why is this discussion pertinent to an essay on faith and the intellectuals? Because it reveals the basic trends and the subtle rules that characterised the encounter between theology and natural philosophy. While before 1240 theologians stressed the miraculous explanation of the events leading to Christ's birth (Mary received from the Holy Spirit a supernatural generative power that allowed her to generate a child without a man and without harming her virginity), after 1240 more and more theologians (Franciscans in particular, but not conclusively) stressed Mary's natural contribution to the foetus. This led to more detailed comparisons between Mary's role and the role of ordinary women (and other female animals) in the birth of their offspring. Theologians increasingly and systematically came to cite philosophical (in particular books 15 and 16 in Aristotle's Libri de animalibus, or the corresponding books i and 2 of De generatione animalium) and medical sources (in particular Avicenna's Canon).22 The Galenic approach to women's role in the formation of the embryo (active through their seed, though not as active as the males) was here particularly helpful and in accordance with the Franciscan adoration of Mary and with Franciscan desire to elevate her prestige and solidify her cult. The more Aristotelian theologians (many of 714 whom were Dominicans) happily used Aristotle's notion of the passive woman whose menstrual blood is the main component of the embryo's flesh nourishing the embryo in its early days, whose vaginal secretion has no seminal significance but only a lubricating function facilitating coitus, who need not feel pleasure in the sexual act to conceive, and who plays no active role in the formation of the foetus, but rather supplies only the material. They linked all these characteristics to Mary's role in the formation of Christ. In many respects theological discourse underwent a process of naturalisation.
The theologians certainly did not abandon the basic mystery of Christ's birth, but they reduced the miraculous scope of the event by supplementing parts of the miraculous story with naturalistic explanations. The question of the gradual (and hence natural) formation of Christ's embryo versus its instantaneity (and hence miraculous character) was overwhelmingly determined in favour of the miraculous approach, in order to prevent the natural explanation from entirely taking over the miracle.715 But by adding a scientific depth to the traditional story of Christ's birth, they reflect the intellectual needs of a milieu which was no longer satisfied with simple and supernatural explanations. This mental change allowed adding a third epistemological category to the traditional natural or supernatural things, namely preternatural things (marvels which demand natural explanations but are still a cause for wonder and admiration). Why did this change of sensitivities in relation to the miraculous take place among intellectuals in the second third of the thirteenth century is a question that still demands further study. But the obvious need to render miracles and the mysteries of faith more reasonable most probably had to do with the challenge created by the newly assimilated scientific knowledge. Its attractiveness in the eyes of the young and the bright scholars meant that, if theology was to maintain its position as the queen of aU sciences, theologians had to accommodate their discourse accordingly and render it updated and relevant to the current natural philosophical issue.716
The biological debates concerning the nature of the generation of Christ were not without limits. Thus, for example, the Galenic story of generation as the result of the mixture of the male and female seeds (adopted by many Franciscan theologians) inevitably gave rise to the question whether Mary ejaculated seed (seminavit) and whether this ejaculation entailed a feeling of pleasure as is normally the case with ejaculating men and women.717 Even the hypothetical possibility that Mary could feel some pleasure at the conception of Christ has led Albert the Great to denounce the abominable ideas of Galenic theologians. There were two ways out. The first was to deny the possibility that Mary emitted seed in conception and that instead the Holy Spirit used several drops of her blood to form the body of Christ. What distinguished Mary from other women was that her blood was separated from her body by the Holy Spirit and not naturally following the physical stimulation by a male. Christ's body possessed everything necessary for his humanity through the chaste and pure blood (ex castis etpurissimis sanguinibus) of his mother. Mary's menses remained wholly pure because no pleasure was involved in conceiving Christ under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The second way out was to define the very question of Mary's sexual excitement by the Holy Spirit and consequent ejaculation as shameful (turpis), as an act of curious stupidity, and as an affront to any authoritative source treating the topic. According to Bonaventure, one should avoid sliding into this unsafe territory. Instead it is enough simply to say that the Virgin supplied the matter suitable for the generation of the son of God secundum carnem.718 The case of Albert the Great discussion of sodomy is another example of self-censorship that demonstrates the inability or unwillingness of intellectuals to disengage their thought from the constraints of orthodox religion. Albert consciously ignored Avicenna's physiological explanation of sodomitic inclinations (which cannot be altered and therefore should not be cured) and stuck to the traditional religious discourse that linked sin and sodomy and harshly condemned the sodomitic habitus.719
But despite these self-imposed restrictions, the basic inclination to reflect on all biblical stories and orthodox beliefs also through a scientific lens tremendously enriched the theological discourse from the second third of the thirteenth century onwards. This mood did not dramatically change the questions asked, but rather made the answers more subtle, and less simple, well anchored in up-to-date scientific theory.
The generation of Christ was not the only focus of scientific speculation among late medieval theologians. Thirteenth-century theologians were far removed from the mood accompanying the papal buU of 1567 issued by Pius V and vehemently condemning the notion that Adam's immortality was not the result of divine favour but rather the product of his natural condition.720 They debated a series of questions such as: how should one explain Adam's immortality in status innocentie? Was he immortal because of God's grace, or was his body naturally endowed with physical properties which assured his immortality? How exactly can one describe the effect of eating from the Tree of Life on Adam's body? By using key terms borrowed from medical theory (complexion, complexio equalis, radical and nutrimental moistures, natural heat) they described Adam's body before sin as a naturally perfect body whose perfectly balanced complexion resisted any form of corruptibility and hence death. They portrayed the effect of the Tree of Life on the body's health as a substance that prevents the natural and inevitable consumption of the radical moisture (the basic explanation for the inevitability of death). By doing so they did not deny the role of grace in the explanation, they only pushed it further away and wrapped it with natural explanations. In this case medical theory (directly borrowed from medical texts) played an important auxiliary role in theological exegesis which underwent a process of medicalisation.721 722 Similarly, when debating the biological transmission of original sin from Adam to his offspring, theologians wrapped a key theological concept, veritas humane nature (that core substance that will arise in resurrection, unique to every person and determining his/her corporeal identity) in a state-of-the-art scientific envelope using the medical/biological concept of radical moisture (humidum radicale).30 This happened almost parallel to the assimilation of this key concept into medical theory.
Yet another focus of scientific speculation among theologians was Christ's body during and after the crucifixion.723 One such peculiar question, which highlights the theologians' tendency to enrich their exegesis through scientific insights, targeted the blood emitted as sweat by the suffering Christ (Luke 22.44): was the sweat of the suffering Christ on the cross natural ('utrum sudor Christi quem sudavit in agonia fuerit naturalis')?724 This quodlibet question posed in 1269 by John Pecham in Oxford and then repeated by his student Roger Marston in 1284 invited a detailed explanation of why Christ's perfect complexion did not allow superfluities (such as ordinary sweat) to be formed, and therefore he could only sweat pure blood. Pecham's solution, that the sweat of blood in Christ was natural and a result of an ideal mechanism of digestion and a fully balanced complexion, includes a scientific description of the physiological effects of Christ's Passion. First, his agony affected the humoural constitution of his heart and led to the concentration of blood around it. This blood was consequently dispersed to the other organs through the action of heat and emitted in the form of sweat mixed with blood. Secondly, Christ imagined the forthcoming bloodshed and, according to the physical law that imagination moves the humours, his blood, moved by his imagination, was dispersed outside the body in the form ofsweat. And thirdly, his most noble complexion was highly refined and delicate, and consequently was particularly disposed to efficient evaporation of residual humours.
Ah the above examples for the enrichment of theological discourse through high-level scientific information were related to the human body. But ecclesiastical interest in the human body was not only speculative. The papal court around 1300 was a leading agent in a new intellectual mood that venerated the human body and was far removed from the traditional contempt towards the inevitably corruptible cover wrapping the immortal soul. The clerical elites of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and in particular within and around the papal court (Boniface VIII was their most typical representative and was reprimanded for his particular, some would say excessive, care of the body), were the main promoters (together with a few lay rulers, such as Frederick II) of the 'new sciences', namely medicine, alchemy, physiognomy and optics. All these provided important strategies for the prolongation of one's life.725
How did the Church react to these sciences? It is now clear that the papacy did not oppose dissections for forensic or academic purposes. Dissections were regulated by papal concessions but not prohibited. At the same time that the papacy expressed its opposition to the dismemberment of corpses for funerary practices (in the famous bull from 27 September 1299, Detestande feritatis) we witness the first public dissections for medical or juridical purposes under papal approval. Boniface VIII who issued the bull was motivated by the notion of the overwhelming importance of the integrity of the body as well as the belief in the possibility of a smooth/direct passage from life to death and resurrection, and not by any abhorrence towards academic dissections. Therefore, to rejuvenate and consequently prolong life with the help of experimental sciences (alchemy, medicine, optics) and especially the use of potable gold was an essential precondition for approaching the final state of the resuscitated body. Such a perfect, young body was an instrument of salvation and the means to acquire it had to be cultivated.726
Alchemy was well received by the church in the thirteenth century, though one can detect a growing suspicion towards it from the beginning of the fourteenth century exactly when alchemy assumes mystical dimensions.727 In the fifteenth century its critics would link it to magic and demonology. The fact that alchemy essentially deviated from the dominant characteristics of scholastic science (by denying the master-disciple relationship, eliminating the basic exercise of a commentary, and stressing the solitary dimension of the alchemist's studies) added perhaps to its suspicious status. But all this did not amount to a concerted ecclesiastical effort to curb alchemical thought in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. On the contrary, it seems that the religious dimension of alchemy rendered it acceptable to the ecclesiastical authorities and at the same time filled those engaged in it with a sense of religious vocation.
What did alchemy have in common with faith and religion? Alchemical discourse was suffused with the language of Christianity. From the earlier alchemical texts images of death and resurrection prefigured the dissolution of the prime matter and its reconstitution into the glorious stones. A religious and holy life was often thought a prerequisite for a successful alchemist whose knowledge was the product of divine revelation. The alchemical priest was expected to be chaste, morally upright and temperate in his behaviour and habits. Alchemical knowledge was perceived to be the gift of God (Donum dei) and alchemical science was depicted as partim divinad728 Alchemy and Christian religion thus penetrated one another as was the case with all other sciences. Nevertheless, I am not suggesting that the alchemists did not primarily aim at changes of a chemical kind, but rather used chemical language and terminology only to hide spiritual, moral or mystical processes in allegorical robe.729 The alchemist's goals were primarily chemical, and material, but the fact that the mysteries of the Christian faith increasingly came to be depicted and explained by means of chemical analogies legitimised the study of alchemy and its practice despite its dubious scientific status. Alchemy's function as a source of tropes and imagery for rhetorical purposes or didactic exemplifications contributed to its recognition by theologians as a licit preoccupation.
When thinking about or even producing medicine which could prolong the life of humans, alchemists used the concept of complexio equalis, that is, a perfectly balanced complexion where the qualities of the four elements exist in a condition of perfect harmony, to describe the physical state they were seeking. The concept of complexio equalis, which they borrowed from medical theory, came in the second third of the thirteenth century to be heavily loaded with religious connotations.730 Prelapsarian Adam and Christ were the only human creatures characterised by this unique complexion that assured their immortality. Such a perfect temperament would also exist in the bodies of the resurrected (both the blessed and the damned) who would be immortal. Bodily immortality was thus a natural characteristic of the human species, and thus all health defects could be repaired by natural means. Alchemy (in the form of the elixir) supplied an artificial means of acquiring such a body of equal complexion, which, although it would not become immortal, approached very much the final state of the resurrected body characterised also by immortality.
Assuming this role, Roger Bacon called alchemy instrumentum salutis and gave it a liberating role allowing the humans to free themselves from the pessimistic views of church writers who tied original sin and corruptibility in an unbreakable knot. In his Liber sex scientiarum Bacon asserted that even postlapsarian man should naturally attain to a longer life span than he currently obtains.731 His corrupted complexion arises overwhelmingly from natural causes and should therefore be capable of a natural correction restoring to the body a form of equal complexion. When such a form has been provided, the body will become balanced (corpus equale), old age will slow down remarkably, and all defects already accumulated by the body (through bad habits or heredity) will be removed. Aided by celestial virtue, the balanced body produced from the separated and purified humours derived from human blood would be able to propagate species which, though not incorruptible, would assure longevity characterised by extraordinary wisdom and perfect health. The neglect of a proper regimen throughout the generations is responsible for the body's swift corruptibility which neither God nor nature imposed. This neglect is due to human stupidity (stultitia hominis) not to sin (individual or original). Such a theology of the body was developed by the Oxford Franciscan in various texts he prepared for Pope Clement IV. But this was not a unique case: a set of thirteenth-century popes such as Innocent IV, Clement IV and Boniface VIII were the clients or commissioners of medico-alchemical treatises discussing the prolongation of life, the slowing down of the aging process and the preservation of youth.
The fact that alchemy was of little interest among Jewish thinkers is a counterfactual proof for the importance of the Christian dimension in alchemy which came to be linked to the eternal search for salvation. Thus in some pseudo-Arnaldian texts (such as Tractatus parabolicus) the eucharist could be matched with the philosophers' stone - the efficient but incomprehensible or even miraculous agent of nature's restructuring and change; like Christ so the stone was created miraculously, and both had to undergo physical suffering prior to acquiring curing powers; this inevitably lent a prophetic aura to the ancient authorities of alchemy who in the philosophers' stone predicted every detail of Christ's story. The search for immortality through elixir was tightly linked to strong beliefs in the integrity of the body, and its importance in the state of glory (thus rendering it at the same time sinful and glorious) could find common grounds with the complicated alchemical transformations in which one material could have several specific forms along a period of time. The alchemical possibility for the concomitant existence of opposing qualities helped to explain the possibility of Mary's immaculate conception or the miracle of the eucharist. The salutary effect of Christ's death on the cross was metaphorically compared to theriac, the ultimate and most powerful medicine, alchemically produced and efficient against all diseases. And Christ on the cross is described as a magnet attracting to him the sins of all humankind.732
The papal court in the second half of the thirteenth and in the fourteenth centuries was well familiar with the religious character of the alchemical texts, some of whose manuscripts were stocked in the papal library. So there is no indication that this sliding into the religious or spiritual analogies created any suspicion among the ecclesiastical authority. Condemnations of alchemy as expressed in the decretal Spondent issued by John XXII in 1317, or in Contra alchimistas composed by the Inquisitor of Aragon, Nicholas Eymeric in 1399, targeted metallurgic alchemy and the problem of falsification of coins, but not the religious expression of alchemical discourse. In Eymeric's text the suspicion that alchemy was too magical or even demonical was a new contribution to the alchemical debates.
The flourishing of learned astrology and alchemy in the thirteenth century and beyond is yet another indication that scholastic Aristotelianism was unable to prevent scholastic and naturalistic discourse within scientific fields of knowledge outside the Aristotelian corpus. The condemnations of 1277 roundly denounced the fatalistic aspects of judicial astrology, though they left open some room for astral medicine. And the learned and semi-learned clerical milieu was impregnated with interest and curiosity in occult sciences and accommodated it with its orthodox Christian beliefs. The Dominican Albert the Great and the Franciscan Roger Bacon are just two prominent figures in the thirteenth century who represent a much larger group of clerical scientists on all levels and in all fields who were keenly interested in various aspects of the occult. Each produced his own version of fusing faith and science and of setting the boundaries for the licit and illicit when it came to scientific speculation or practice. Thus the inevitable tensions between free scientific curiosity and the demands of faith did not undermine the clerical contribution to these sciences. Perhaps on the contrary: much of the investigation was motivated by religious concerns, or at least wrapped in thick religious or spiritual language. Once the determinism or anything hampering free will was rejected, the scope of scientific research was broad indeed. In the case of astrology or alchemy, though it was impossible artificially to change the specific form of things (a prerogative kept for God alone), it was possible to present a causal chain in which the astrological (or alchemical) cause was linked to the talisman through the instrumental agent of the artist whose art was totally subjected to natural causality and in particular to astral influences.733
In this context the emergence of the notion of astrological images (imagines astronomice), talismans used for various protective purposes and whose efficacy was explained by natural (astrological) causation, is remarkable indeed. The seeds of natural magic were sown in the thirteenth century by thinkers such as the anonymous author of Speculum astronomie, who envisaged a way of producing and using talismans and amulets that did not involve the invocation of other deities or supreme intelligences, but derived all their power solely from physical (mainly celestial) influences.734 Introducing himself as zelatorfidei et philosophie, he managed to create a subtle compromise between the demands of faith (preserving the Christian monopoly over ritual and contacts with God and his celestial agents) and the ever growing scientific interests in natural philosophy that included the more occult or marginal sciences such as astrology and other practices of divination.
A further example of a fusion between theology (and ecclesiastical career) and high-level astrological speculation without any signs ofunease is provided by Pierre d'Ailly's work (d. 1420). In his writings astrology emerges as an integral part of the rational view of the world in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.735 The belief that the heavenly bodies have some sort of influence on the earth below was just as pervasive as the notion that God had a plan for the world's destiny. He saw astrology not as a magical art by which he could manipulate the future course of the world, but rather as a rational science by which he could discern the broad patterns of earthly events. Like many people who used astrology in medicine, in making business decisions and for political advice, he believed that he was turning science for knowledge. Pierre d'Ailly's defence of astrology was motivated by his will to establish astrology as a 'natural theology', which could be used to interpret prophecy as well as to validate the chronology of religious history. And more specifically, after 1410 astrological calculations confirmed his hopeful interpretation of the schism, for they put the advent of the Antichrist in the distant future.
The renascent art and science of physiognomy provide the last decisive evidence of the rhetorical and intellectual mechanisms that allowed clerics to tolerate and even cultivate the preoccupation with a body of knowledge that potentially undermined Christian ethics and the Christian notion of free will.736 If the external traits of the body teach us all we need to know about one's character, and since all these external traits inhere in one from birth or even from conception, then one's behaviour is determined at birth, there is little place for free will or voluntary choice, and the consequences for Christian pastoral theology are dire.
There were several strategies adopted by different intellectuals to legitimise physiognomy. First, those who accepted astronomical principles as indicators for the validity of a body of certain knowledge presented physiognomy as a reflection of the overwhelming powers of the stars over nature. For them, physiognomy therefore could not be regarded as a superstitious divinatory art.737
Second, authors and scribes used the proemia to physiognomic texts to explain the rationale of physiognomy in a way consonant with Christianity and to limit the scope ofphysiognomy thereby reducing its potential danger to Christian morality. One could claim, as did Albert the Great, that physiognomy merely shows inclinations which reflect the quality of the blood and physical spirits. But these inclinations can be, if necessary, curbed by reason.738
The legend about Hippocrates' disciples who clashed with the physiognomer Phylemon over his judgment that their master was lascivious, devious and sexually compulsive was Albert's exemplary proof that one can control all negative inclinations, that philosophy is nothing but abstinence and the subjugation of lust, and that nothing is predetermined by nature. In the case of Hippocrates, it was by the love of philosophy and decency that he subdued his lust. What has been denied him by nature he received through intellectual effort (studium). Others stressed that the human nature decoded by the physiognomic gaze imposed no necessity and that for both humankind and beasts nutritiva (nourishment in the broadest sense, both spiritual and intellectual) can be stronger than nature and hence effectively change it.47
Sometimes a more explicit textual alteration seemed to be necessary in order to minimise the potential dangers of physiognomy. The scribe of a
Pastoral codex which includes a version of the Secretum secretorum physiognomy altered the last chapter of the text and turned it into a moral excursus about the possibility to resist and defeat the apparently innate character which nature had forced upon humanity.48 For him the physiognomic discourse fuses smoothly with the discourse about vices and virtues. Physiognomy reveals only potential sins, so for an accurate judgement it is essential to compare the signs and their meanings with the actual deeds and behaviour of the person. Though it is difficult to obviate lust and other desires to which we are naturally inclined by virtue of our anatomy and corporeal disposition, it is still possible to do so. In this struggle, good deeds which counter the vices and a soul governed by a well-functioning rational appetite (racionalis appetitus) are the main means. The story of Hippocrates is again the example for this possibility to fight the natural inclinations.
Third, the scribe or an odd user would draw the reader's attention to the danger of rash physiognomic judgement and to the possibility and desirability of defeating the natural inclinations, by adding pointing fingers and other nota bene signs at the margins of the story of Hippocrates' disciples or the last paragraph of the Secretum secretorum version which warns against rash judgements based on one sign only. The scribe could add at the closing title his own remark which would underline the fact that physiognomy is about probability
Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1916), vol. 1, 46/127; Quaestiones de animalibus, Liber I q. 21, ed. E. Filthaut, in Alberti magni Opera omnia, vol. 12 (Aschendorff: Monasterii Westfalorum in aedibus Aschendorff, 1955), 94-5.
47 L. Ladouzy and R. Pepin, eds., Le regime du corps du maitre Aldebrandin de Sienne (Paris: Honore Champion, 1911), 193-202; and Ziegler, 'Text and Context', 163 n. 12.
48 Paris, BnF, MS nouv. acq. lat. 711, fol. 29r-v.
And not about necessity.739 740 Another ingenious way to divert attention from the danger of physiognomy was to entitle it in a manner which turned it into a pious piece of Christian morality. Thus, in thirteenth-century Cerne Abbey (Dorset) a version of the Secretum secretorum Physiognomy was entitled in red: Ypocras de contemptu mundi.50 By turning the story of Hippocrates' disciples and its moral lesson to the centre of the science of physiognomy, the scribe could both diffuse the danger inherent in this science and fully expose his readers to aU its principles. For if the message of the text is so perfectly congruent with the monastic ideal of contemptus mundi, surely it can be read by aU.
And fourthly, by creating a Christian physiognomic ideal type as early as the mid-thirteenth century, the users of physiognomy were led to believe that, though it is designed to teach who the humans around us really are, it can get us nearer to grasping the unfathomable, namely what Christ looked like. For the medieval physiognomer the ideal physiognomic type (characterised by a perfectly balanced complexion as attested by a perfectly proportioned body, hence perfect character and behaviour) was not an individual belonging to a specific ethnic group. It was Christ - a super-national second Adam representative of humankind in general. According to the physician Michele Savonarola, two of the foremost characteristics of the well-tempered person (homo temperatus) were a weU-proportioned mixture of white and red colour, combined with fine, brilliant skin.741 Savonarola linked the description of the weU-tempered person who was well proportioned and characterised by medi-ocritas - the key physiognomic category for the ideal personality - to the widely disseminated thirteenth-century Latin text describing the face of Christ along what seem to be clearly physiognomic lines.742 This description, which Savonarola fully transcribed immediately after he identified the bodily signs of the well-tempered person, included the assertion that Christ's face was without a wrinkle or any spot and that a moderate touch of red beautified it. The imaginary skin of Christ, his medium-sized and erect stature, his moderately straight hair, and his blue, variegated and bright eyes thus became the model for the ideal body which contains the morally perfect personality. AH these classical categories belonging to the best-tempered personality were Christianised and re-offered to the Western imagination as keys for deciphering the perfect personality. Physiognomy thus acquired religious legitimacy.
Despite mechanisms of ecclesiastical control and censorship, despite the overwhelming grip ofAristotelianism on natural philosophers and theologians alike, and despite the sincere reverence towards religious orthodoxy and Scripture, thirteenth - and fourteenth-century intellectuals from aU fields of knowledge were engaged in vibrant dialogues with the ideas of their colleagues from other disciplines. Theologians enthusiastically interwove into their theological debates high-level, sophisticated and up-to-date scientific knowledge they borrowed directly from medical and philosophical books. In as far as experimental sciences dealing with the human body are concerned, there is no indication for a systematic repressive approach on behalf of the ecclesiastical authorities: on the contrary. And alchemists, astrologers and physiognomers adopted a series of rhetorical and doctrinal approaches to accommodate their profession to religious orthodoxy. The boundaries between the different disciplines were fixed and clear, but at no stage were they impenetrable for curious incursions by outsiders.
World History
