Does the title apply to any one particular treatise?
ThePhysiologusis commonly described as a symbolic bestiary, in which the characteristics and properties of animals are accompanied by Christian allegories and instruction. Some have almost gone so far as to hold that any passages of this sort are evidence of an author’s having employed thePhysiologus, which some have held influenced the middle ages more than any other book except the Bible. But Pitra’s point is well taken that thePhysiologusis one thing and the allegorical interpretation thereof another. In the case of the discordant versions or fragments which he gathered and published from different manuscripts, centuries, and languages, he noted one common feature, that the allegorical interpretation was sharply separated from the extracts fromPhysiologusand sometimes omitted entirely. This is what one would naturally expect since aphysiologusis a natural scientist on whose statements concerning this or that the allegorical interpretation is presumably based and added thereto. But this suggests another difficulty in identifyingPhysiologusas a single work. The abbreviations for the word in medieval manuscripts are very easily confused with those for philosophers orphisici(physical scientists), and just as medieval writers often cite what the philosophers say or thephisicisay without having reference to any particular book, so may they not cite whatphysiologior evenphysiologussays without having any particular writer in mind? In theDe bestiisascribed toHugh of St. Victor of the twelfth centuryphysiciare cited[2151]as well asPhysiologus. When Albertus Magnus states in the thirteenth century in his work on minerals that thephysiologihave assigned very different causes for the marvelous occult virtue in stones, he evidently simply alludes to the opinions of scientists in general and has no such work or works as the so-calledPhysiologusin mind.[2152]This is also clearly the case in a fragment from the introduction to a Latin translation from the Arabic of some treatise on the astrolabe, in which we findphisiologicited as astronomical authorities.[2153]Furthermore, even in works which deal with the natures of animals and which either have the wordPhysiologusin their titles or cite it now and then in the course of their texts, there exists such diversity that it becomes fairly evident not only that it is impossible to deduce from them the list of animals treated in the originalPhysiologusor the details which it gave concerning each, but also that it is highly probable that the titlePhysiologushas been applied to different treatises which did not necessarily have a common origin. Or at least the greatest liberties were taken with the original text and title,[2154]so that the wordPhysiologuscame to apply less to any particular book, author, or authority than to almost any treatment of animals in a certain style.
And to what sort of a treatise?
But of what style? It has too often been assumed that theology dominated all medieval thought and that natural science was employed only for purposes of religious symbolism. Of this general assumption thePhysiologushas been seized upon as an apt illustration and it has been represented as a symbolic bestiary which influenced the middle ages more than any other book except the Bible[2155]and whose allegories accounted for the animal sculpture of the Gothiccathedrals and the strange or familiar beasts in the borders of the Bayeux Tapestry, the margins of illuminated manuscripts, and so on and so forth.
Medieval art shows almost no symbolic influence of thePhysiologus.
The more recent scientific study of medieval art has largely dissipated this latter notion. It has become evident that in the main medieval men represented animals in art because they were fond of animals, not because they were fond of allegories. Their art was natural, not symbolic. They were, says Mâle, “craftsmen who delighted in nature for its own sake, sometimes lovingly copying the living forms, sometimes playing with them, combining and contorting them as they were led by their own caprice.” St. Bernard, although “the prince of allegorists,” saw no sense in the animal sculptures in Romanesque cloisters and inveighed against them. In short, with the exception of the symbols of the four evangelists, “there are few cases in which it is permissible to assign symbolic meaning to animal forms,” and it is “evident that the fauna and flora of medieval art, natural or fantastic, have in most cases a value that is purely decorative.” “To sum up,” concludes Mâle, “we are of the opinion that the Bestiaries of which we hear so much from the archaeologists had no real influence on art until their substance passed into Honorius of Autun’s book (Speculum ecclesiae, c. 1090-1120) and from that book into sermons. I have searched in vain (with but two exceptions) for representations of the hedgehog, beaver, tiger, and other animals which figure in the Bestiaries but which are not mentioned by Honorius.”[2156]
Physiologus was more natural scientist than allegorist.
These assertions concerning medieval art hold true also to a large extent of medieval literature and medieval science, although they were perhaps less natural and original than it and more dependent on past tradition and authority. But medieval men, as we shall see, studied nature from scientific curiosity and not in search for spiritual allegories, and even Goldstaub recognizes that by the thirteenth century thescientific zoology of Aristotle submerged that of thePhysiologusin writers like Thomas of Cantimpré and Albertus Magnus who, although they may still embody portions of thePhysiologus, divest it of its characteristic religious elements.[2157]But were its characteristic elements ever religious? Were they not always scientific or pseudo-scientific? Ahrens holds that the title was taken from Aristotle in the first place, and that Pliny was the chief source for the contents. The allegories do not appear in such early texts as the Syriac version or the fragments preserved in the Latin Glossary of Ansileubus. Not even the introductory scriptural texts appear in the Greek version ascribed to Epiphanius. Moreover, in the Bestiaries where the allegorical applications are included, it is for the natures of the animals, the supposedly scientific facts on which the symbolism is based, and for these alone thatPhysiologusis cited in the text. Thus the symbolism would appear to be somewhat adventitious, while the pseudo-science is constant. It is obvious that the allegorical applications cannot do without the supposed facts concerning animals; on the other hand, the supposedly scientific information can and does frequently dispense with the allegories. We do not know who was responsible for the allegorical interpretations in the first instance. Hommel would carry the origin of their symbolism back of the Christian era to the animal worship of Persia, India, and Egypt.[2158]But we are assured over and over again that Natural Scientist orPhysiologusvouches for the statements concerning the natures of animals. Thus the symbolic significance of the literature that has been grouped under the titlePhysiologushas been exaggerated, while the respect for and interest in natural science to which it testifies have too often been lost sight of.