Synesius on divination and astrology.
The devotion of Synesius to divination has been already implied. He regarded it as among the noblest of human pursuits.[2272]Dreams, on which he wrote a treatise, he viewed as significant and very useful events. They aided him, he wrote, in his every-day life, and had upon one occasion saved him from magic devices against his life.[2273]Warned by a dream that he would have a son, he wrote a treatise for the child before it was born.[2274]Of course, he had faith in astrology. The stars were well-nigh ever present in his thought. In hisPraise of Baldnesshe characterized comets as fatal omens, as harbingers of the worst public disasters.[2275]InOn Providencehe explained the supposed fact that history repeats itself by the periodical return to their former positions of the stars which govern our life.[2276]InOn the Gift of an Astrolabehe declared that “astronomy” besides being itself a noble science, prepared men for the diviner mysteries of theology.[2277]
Synesius as an alchemist.
Finally, he held the view common among students of magic that knowledge should be esoteric; that its mysteries and marvels should be confined to the few fitted to receive them and that they should be expressed in language incomprehensible to the vulgar crowd.[2278]It is perhaps on thisaccount that one of the oldest extant treatises of Greek alchemy is ascribed to him. Berthelot, however, accepted it as his, stating that “there is nothing surprising in Synesius’ having really written on alchemy.”[2279]
Macrobius on number, dreams, and stars.
Synesius influenced the Byzantine period but probably not the western medieval world. But the Commentary of Macrobius onThe Dream of Scipioby Cicero is one of the treatises most frequently encountered in early medieval Latin manuscripts. In the twelfth century Abelard made frequent reference to Macrobius and called him “no mean philosopher”; in the thirteenth Aquinas cited him as an authority for the doctrines of Neo-Platonism.[2280]Macrobius himself affirmed that Vergil contained practically all necessary knowledge[2281]and that Cicero’sDream of Scipiowas a work second to none and contained the entire substance of philosophy.[2282]Macrobius believed that numbers possess occult power. He dilated at considerable length upon every number from one to eight, emphasizing the perfection and far-reaching significance of each. He held the Pythagorean doctrine that the world-soul consists of number, that number rules the harmony of the celestial bodies, and that from the music of the spheres we derive the numerical values proper to musical consonance.[2283]His opinion was that dreams and other striking occurrences will reveal an occult meaning to the careful investigator.[2284]As for astrology, he regarded the stars as signs but not causes of future events, just as birds by their flight or song reveal matters of which they themselves are ignorant.[2285]So the sun and other planets, though in a way divine, are but material bodies, and it is not from them but from the world-soul (pure mind), whence they too come, that the human spirit takes its origin.[2286]Inhis sole other extant work, theSaturnalia, Macrobius displays some belief in occult virtues in natural objects, as when Disaurius the physician answers such questions as why a copper knife stuck in game prevents decay.[2287]
Martianus Capella.
The medieval vogue of the fifth century work of Martianus Capella, TheNuptials of Philology and Mercury, and the Seven Liberal Arts,[2288]has been too frequently demonstrated to require further emphasis here, although it is still a puzzle just why a monastic Christian world should have selected for a text book in the liberal arts a work which contained so much pagan mythology, to say nothing of a marriage ceremony. Nor need we repeat its fulsome allegorical plot and meager learned content. Cassiodorus tells us that the author was a native of Madaura, the birthplace of Apuleius, in North Africa, and he appears to be a Neo-Platonist who has much to say of the sky, stars, and old pagan gods, often, however, by way of brief and vague poetical allusion.
Absence of astrology.
Of astrology there is very little trace in Capella’s work. In a discussion of perfect numbers in the second book the number seven evokes allusion to the fatal courses of the stars and their influence upon the formation of the child in the womb; but the eighth book, which is devoted to the theme of astronomy as one of the liberal arts, is limited to a purely astronomical description of the heavens.
Orders of spirits.
The chief thing for us to note in the work is the account of the various orders of spiritual beings and their respective location in reference to the heavenly bodies.[2289]Juno leads the virgin Philology to the aerial citadels and there instructs her in the multiplicity of diverse powers. From highest ether to the solar circle are beings of a fiery and flaming substance. These are the celestial gods who prepare the secrets of occult causes. They are pure and impassive and immortal and have little or no direct relation with mankind. Between sun and moon come spirits who have especial charge of soothsaying, dreams, prodigies, omens, and divination from entrails and auguries. They often utter warning voices or admonish those who consult their oracles by the course of the stars or the hurling of thunderbolts. To this class belong the Genii associated with individual mortals and angels “who announce secret thoughts to the superior power.” All these the Greeks call demons. Their splendor is less lucid than that of the celestials, but their bodies are not sufficiently corporeal to enable men to see them. Lares and purer human souls after death also come under this category. Between moon and earth the spirits subdivide into three classes. In the upper atmosphere are demi-gods. “These have celestial souls and holy minds and are begotten in human form to the profit of the whole world.” Such were Hercules, Ammon, Dionysus, Osiris, Isis, Triptolemus, and Asclepius. Others of this class become sibyls and seers. From mid-air to the mountain-tops are found heroes and Manes. Finally the earth itself is inhabited by a long-lived race of dwellers in woods and groves, in fountains and lakes and streams, called Pans, Fauns, satyrs, Silvani, nymphs, and by other names. They finally die as men do, but possess great power of foresight and of inflicting injury.[2290]It is evident that Capella’s spiritual world is one well fitted for astrology, divination, and magic.
The Celestial Hierarchyof Dionysius the Areopagite.
Very different are the orders of spirits described inThe Celestial Hierarchy, supposed to be the work of Dionysius the Areopagite, where are set forth nine orders of spirits in three groups of three each: Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; Dominions, Virtues, and Powers; Princes, Archangels, and Angels. The threefold division reminds us of Capella, but there the resemblance ceases. The pseudo-Dionysius takes all his suggestions from the Old and New Testaments, rather than from classical mythology and such previous classifications of spirits as that of Apuleius. Andwhile his starting from such verses of the Bible as “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, descending from the Father of lights,” and “Jesus Christ the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” and his using such phrases as “archifotic Father” and “thearchic ray,” lead us to expect some Gnostic-like scheme of association of the spirits with the various heavens and celestial bodies, in fact he throughout speaks of the spirits solely as celestial and deiform and hypercosmicminds, and unspeakable and sacred enigmas of whose invisibility, transcendence, infinity, and incomprehensibility any description can be merely symbolic and figurative. Their functions seem to consist chiefly in contemplation of the deity or their superior orders and illumination of man and their inferior orders. They are not specifically associated by Dionysius with the celestial bodies, much less with any terrestrial objects, and so his account lays no foundation for magic and astrology, unless as its transcendent mysticism might pique some curious person to attempt some very immaterial variety of theurgy and sublimated theosophy. Although the Pseudo-Dionysius wrote in Greek,[2291]his work was made available for the Latin middle ages by the translation of John the Scot in the ninth century.[2292]