Schmitt C.B. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
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Astrology
an
à magic
277
of
these human acts. The response to a magical charm comes not
intentionally from heavenly
will
but spontaneously from the organic
sympathies
that
bind the living cosmos together. Of the metaphors
illustrating Plotinus' reasoning, the most intricate compares the cosmos to a
dancer; changes in the cosmos to changes in a dancer's body; and
configurations
(ax^jLcartajLtot)
of parts of the cosmos (stars and planets) to a
dancer's gestures. The stars in a celestial figure no more cause the events
signified
by the figure than the dancer's gesturing limb causes what the
dancer's whole body communicates. The dancer and the cosmos are the
true
causes
of meanings communicated and events signified, but as the dancer
thinks beyond particular gestures to the whole performance, so the cosmos
has no intention
of
forming
the physical figures made up of stars, much less
the terrestrial events influenced by the figures. Weaving an elaborate fabric
of
puns, Plotinus applied the word ox
1
?^ not only to the dancer's gestures
but also to the stellar and planetary figures; more broadly, his ax^a,
referred to any figure, shape or form.
28
Thus,
the celestial axvi
JLara
°f Plotinus are also €L8T] or forms; they
participate as
Aoyoi
of soul in the system of psychic intermediation set forth
in the first part of
Enneads
iv.3. Since lower forms celestially educed in
matter also qualify as
Aoyot,
the Plotinian apparatus of form, figure,
Xoyos
and species satisfied certain requirements
that
Ficino had established for a
naturally efficacious talisman: 'A talisman
(imago)
will
be more effective if
the elementary power in its matter is
well
adapted to the specific power
naturally implanted in the same matter and if this also adapts to the other
specific
power to be received through a figure from the action of the
heavens.'
A gem carved with a zodiacal figure meets the requirement for
cosmic
conformity if its substantial or specific form adapts, as a member of
the same species, to a figure or form in the heavens. In Plotinian terms, the
Xoyos
that
is the
etSos
of the gem is in the same order with the
Aoyos
that
is a
axypa
made of stars.
29
Ficino's other requirements, however, were for
ontological
conformity between the specific form educed in the gem and
the elementary material constituents of the gem; and for taxonomic
conformity
between
thefigura
carved on the gem and a celestial figure
of
the
same species.
The
abject status of matter in the metaphysics of Plotinus ruled out a
28. Ficino 1576, 11, pp. 1745-6; Plotinus, Enneads iv.4.31-7;
Sleeman
and
Pollet
1980,
cols.
983-6;
Umanesimo
e esoterismo
i960,
p. 29 (Garin); Walker 1958, p. 3, n. 2; Copenhaver 1986.
29. Ficino 1576, 1, p. 554: 'Praeterea
imaginem
emcaciorem
fore
si virtus in materia
eius
elementaris
conveniat
cum
speciali
eiusdem
virtute naturaliter
insita,
atque
haec
insuper
cum virtute altera
speciali
per figuram
coelitus
capienda'; ibid., pp. 531-2, 542, 552, 558,11, p. 1746; Plotinus, Enneads
iv.4.34.9-11, 33-8;
35-4-8,
12-22,
65-70;
40.14-19.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
278
Natural philosophy
strong, active relationship between material qualities and substantial form,
so
Ficino had to seek his ontological conformity elsewhere, in the
Peripatetic and scholastic conception
of
hylemorphic composition. And to
give
fuller meaning to the notion of taxonomic kinship between artificial
and celestial figures
of
the same kind, he turned to Thomas Aquinas as
well
as Proclus, both of whom treated various aspects of this question in more
detail than Plotinus.
30
Before seeing how Proclus and Thomas Aquinas
contributed to Ficino's magic, it
will
be useful first to examine the uses of
Iamblichus, Synesius and the
Chaldaean
Oracles
in De
vita
in, for these later
Neoplatonic texts also led Ficino in directions not set by the
Enneads.
All
magic for Plotinus was natural magic, nothing more nor less than the
realisation of cosmic sympathies. Plotinus never mentioned theurgy, a
magical
approach to divinity introduced by Porphyry, so he had no reason
to sort out good religious magic from bad demonic magic. Although magic
is
not a fit occupation for the sage because its concerns are merely material, it
is
not bad as such; any
evil
that
comes
of
magic
is human
evil.
In the first part
of
his treatise De
insomniis
(which Ficino translated and whose pneumatol-
ogy
he exploited), Synesius recapitulated the magic-theory of
Enneads
iv.4
but emphasised its moral dangers. He distinguished a good magic
that
freed
man from matter from a bad magic
that
trapped him in it.
31
Similarly, in De
mysteriis
(which Ficino also translated) Iamblichus described a lower
theurgy and a higher theurgy. The mechanisms and objects of lower
theurgy are material, while the higher theurgy to which it leads seeks to
transcend matter. While acknowledging the continuity of the two
theurgies, Iamblichus preferred the higher to the lower. Moreover, he
distinguished theurgy, which aims at contemplating the
true
forms (€L8TJ) of
the gods, from thaumaturgy, which merely handles their images
(ei'ScoAa),
and his leading example of false thaumaturgy is
elbcoXoTToua,
or statue-
making.
Ficino knew
that
Iamblichus shunned statue-magic as dangerous
demonolatry and
that
in condemning this form of thaumaturgy he had in
mind the bad Egyptian magic
of
the
Hermética,
as opposed to a more refined
Chaldaean magic. Ficino cited the
Chaldaean
Oracles
together with Synesius
for
their doctrine
of
ivyyes
or
Hikes,
immaterial magical baits
that
paralleled
the function
of
the Plotinian
Xóyot
in bringing higher powers earthward.
32
30.
Deck
1967, pp.
74-~7;
Cambridge
History
1970, p. 256 (A. H.
Armstrong);
see n. 27
above;
nn. 34-5,
39-42
below.
31.
Ficino
1576, 1, pp. 549,
570-1,
11, p. 1969;
Plotinus,
Enneads
iv.4.40.1-12,
42.14-17,
43.12-19;
Synesius,
De insomniis 131A7-9,132c
3-5,132D
10-13,133B
14-c 2; A.
Smith
1974, pp.
92-4,122-7,
147; A. H.
Armstrong
1955-6,
P- 77;
Dodds
1968, pp. 285,
291-5;
Walker
1958, p. 39, n. 1.
32.
Ficino
1576, 1, pp.
530-1,
551, 558, 571, 573, 11, pp.
1890-2;
Synesius,
De insomniis 132c 3-4;
Iamblichus,
De
mysteriis
91.9-15,
130.3-6,
167.9-176.2,
190.8-12,
246.16-248.2;
Chaldaean Oracles
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Astrology
and
magic
279
Ficino
also called attention
to
Iamblichus' repudiation
of
the deceitful
and
demon-ridden Egyptians
in the
concluding chapter
of De vita
111,
but in
the same place
he
associated
the
same Hermetic statue-magic with
the
Plotinian metaphysics
that
he so
much admired.
On the
specific topic
of
the
Hermetic statues
as on the
broader question
of
talismanic magic, Ficino
ended
his
treatise ambiguously,
and his
ambiguity was probably
a
product
of
his having been
the
first Latin philosopher since antiquity
to
have read
in
Greek
not
just Plotinus
but
most
of the
surviving texts
of
Neoplatonism.
Had
a
lesser erudition permitted
him to
base
his
theory
of
magic only
on
Plotinus,
he
might have avoided
the
temptation implicit
in the
higher
theurgy
of
Iamblichus. This religiously motivated magic, which aimed
loftily
at
contemplation
and
union with
the
divine, could only have been
seductive
for the
Platonist
in
Ficino,
but the
Christian
in him
must have
trembled
to
approach heaven
on
paths
not
blessed
by the
church. And
as a
reader
of
Iamblichus, Ficino must also have known
that
later Neoplatonism
compromised
the
very idea
of a
natural magic immune
to
demonic
influence.
For
Iamblichus natural objects have magical power precisely
because they
are
tokens
(спл^/хата)
or
signs
(autxjSoAa)
of
demonic
and
divine presence whose activation
is
automatic, unconstrained
by the
magician's intentions.
33
If
all magic was natural magic
for
Plotinus,
for his
successors
there
could
be no
purely natural magic
—
a
problem
that
Ficino
must have understood better
than
any of his
contemporaries.
Another Neoplatonist
who
treated natural objects
as
magical tokens
of
the divine
was
Proclus, whose Перс rrjs
ка&*
"EWrjvas
ceparcKrjg
rex^rjs
Ficino
translated under
the
title
De
sacrificio,
imbedding
it
into
his
theory
of
magic
in De vita m.
Proclus' point
in De
sacrificio
was
that
magic
had a
metaphysical
and
cosmological basis
in
various interactions between
heavenly
and
earthly entities.
In the
Platonic
Theology,
the
Elements
of
Theology
and
other works known
to
Ficino, Proclus
set
forth more
extensively
the
philosophical principles outlined
in the
brief De
sacrificio.
34
What Proclus wrote about
aecpac
(chains)
or
razees (orders) was particu-
larly
useful
to
Ficino
in
filling
out
what Plotinus taught about communica-
tion between various entities (e.g.,
the
animal lion,
a
lion carved
on a
gem,
frgs.
77,
150,
206;
Psellus,
Commentarius
in
Oracula
Chaldaica
изз
а
з-
Ь
4,
1149*1
o-
b
u; G.
Pico
1942,
p.
152; A.
Smith
1974, pp. 90-9,
105-7,
no, 149;
Walker
1958, p. 42, n. 3.
33.
Ficino
1576,
1, pp.
571,
и, pp. 1882,
1898-9;
Iamblichus,
De
mysteriis 96.11-97.19,
232.5-234.4;
Copenhaver
forthcoming
b; see n. 25
above.
34.
Ficino
1576,
1, pp.
549-52,
570, H, pp.
1928-9;
Catalogue
des
manuscrits
1924-32,
vi, pp.
139-51
(Proclus,
De
sacrificio);
Proclus,
Elements
of
Theology
28-9, 32, 103, 105 in
1963,
pp.
ix-xi,
xx,
xxii,
216-19,
222-3,
254;
Zintzen 1965,
pp.
77-9,
84, 91, 94-6;
Rosan
1949,
pp. 73,
104-5, 213,
245-54;
Copenhaver
forthcoming
a.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
280
Natural
philosophy
the constellation
Leo)
within
the
same species
or
kind.
In De sacrificio
Proclus described
a
hierarchical taxonomy
of
things
that
make
up the
universe
and a set
of
rules governing relations among them.
The
lion
and the
cock,
for
example,
are in the
same solar order whose
chief
or
henad
is
Apollo.
The
cock
crows
at
sunrise;
Leo is a
solar constellation.
But the
cock
stands
higher
than the
lion
in the
solar series because
he is a
creature
of the air,
nearer
to the sun and
clearly receptive
to it in his
waking behaviour.
To
ward
off the
lion-faced Apollonian demon
who
haunts
the
noon hour,
it
will
therefore
be
effective
to
carve
a
cock
on
sunstone. Ficino described this
and other instances
of
Proclus' chains
or
orders:
From each and every
star
. . .
there
depends
a series of
things
proper
to it, even to
the very lowest.
Under
the
heart
of Scorpio,
after
its
demons
and its men and the
animal
scorpion, we can also locate the
plant
aster
. . .
Under
Sirius, the solar
star,
come first the Sun,
then
Phoebean
demons
as well, which sometimes
appeared
to
men in the form
of
lions or cocks, as Proclus testifies. . . And
there
is no
reason
why
the lion fears the cock except
that
in the Phoebean
order
the cock is higher
than
the
lion. For the
same reason,
says Proclus, the Apollonian demon, who sometimes
appeared
in the
shape
of a lion, immediately
disappeared
when a cock was
displayed.
35
Ficino's
magic, which
may
seem bizarre
and
idiosyncratic,
is
actually based
on
his
original
and
subtle analysis
of
important philosophical positions from
respected
and
authoritative thinkers such
as
Proclus
and
Plotinus.
Contrary
to
common opinion, however, Ficino's theory
of
magic
in De
vita
in
cannot reasonably
be
called Hermetic
any
more
than it can be
called
Galenic
or
Thomist, even though
(as we
shall
see)
these latter adjectives
are
less
misplaced
than the
former. Although
he had
translated fourteen
of the
Hermetic discourses into Latin early
in his
career,
his
intimate knowledge
of
the Greek
Hermetica
led
Ficino
to
cite them nowhere
in his
treatise
on
magic,
where
he
seldom mentions
the
name
of
Hermes Trismegistus. None
of the
three passages (only
two
actually mention Hermes)
that
refer
to the god-
making texts
of the
Latin
Asclepius is
unambiguously favourable
to the
thrice-great Mercurius
- and no
wonder, since Ficino
had
doubts about
35.
Ficino 1576, 1, pp. 549—50: 'desuper ab unaquaque Stella . . . seriem rerum illi propriam usque ad
extrema
pendere. Sub ipso Scorpionis corde post eiusmodi daemonas atque homines scorpiumque
animal,
collocare possumus etiam herbam asterion . . . Sub Stella solari, id est Syrio, solem primo,
deinde daemonas quoque Phoebeos, quos aliquando sub leonum vel gallorum forma hominibus
occurrisse, testis est Proclus. . . Nec alia ratione leo veretur gallum nisi quoniam in ordine Phoebeo
gallus
est leone superior. Eadem ratione, inquit Proclus, Apollineum daemonem, qui nonnunquam
apparuit
sub figura leonis, statim obiecto gallo disparuisse';
Catalogue
des
manuscrits
1924-32, vi, p.
150
(Proclus, De
sacrificio);
Proclus,
Elements
of
Theology
140—5 in 1963, pp. xvii, 129,208—9, 257—60,
267,
273; Rosan 1949, pp- 67, 85-7, 104; Walker 1958, pp. 49-50.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Astrology
and magic
281
talismans operating naturally, let alone idols working demonically.
36
As for
the other Greek treatises, anyone who reads them
will
understand why
Ficino
failed to cite them in a philosophical work devoted to the theory of
magic.
Ficino's
Hermetica
are not about magic, and what philosophy they
contain is
of
small interest; they are banal expressions
of
a spirituality whose
main concerns were theology, cosmogony, cosmology, anthropogony,
anthropology, psychology, ethics, soteriology and eschatology. Although
some
of
the treatises allude to ingredients
of
the magical worldview
that
was
a given in the Hellenistic culture
that
produced them, these few astrological
and magical commonplaces could be of little theoretical value to Ficino,
especially
when compared to the riches he found in Proclus or Plotinus.
From a philosophical point of
view,
even the non-magical piety of the
Hermetica
is eclectic and incoherent: unlike the Neoplatonic systems with
which
it is often confused, the
corpus
Hermeticum
has little to offer anyone
who
requires a consistent conceptual and terminological framework for
analysis
of the problems it presents. As far as Renaissance magic was
concerned, the
chief
task of Hermes Trismegistus was genealogical or
doxographic.
Along
with Zoroaster (to whom Ficino usually
gives
priority
as an inventor of magic), Orpheus, Plato and other
prisci
sapientes,
Hermes
could
lend eponymous authority to the practice of magic even if his
contributions to its theory were slight.
37
More
significant were the two god-making passages
that
Ficino (like
Augustine)
found in the Latin
Asclepius
and described in the culminating
chapter of De
vita
m. His ambivalence about the Hermetic statues was
ethical and religious, not physical or metaphysical; he doubted their
legitimacy,
but he did not seriously question their
efficacy.
To them as to
astrological
talismans he granted the power to attract celestial
gifts.
But
because the statues were pagan idols inhabited by demons and constructed
36.
Ficino
1576,1, pp. 548, 561, 571-2,11, pp. 1836-71; Marcel 1958, pp.
255-8,
487-96,
747-9;
Ficino
1937,i> PP-
cxxix—cxxxi;
cf.
Yates
1964, pp.
28-35;
see
also
Kristeller
1956a,
pp.
223-4,
233;
i960,
pp. 3-10; Catalogus translationum
i960-,
1, pp. 137-56;
Walker
1972, pp. 13—21;
Lefevre
d'Etaples
1972, pp. 134-7;
Purnell
1976, pp. 155-8;
Grafton
1983, pp.
88-92;
see nn. 31-3
above;
nn.
39-42
below.
37.
Ficino
1576,1, pp. 25, 156, 268,
386,673,
854, 871-2,11, pp. 1537,1836;
Festugiere
1944-54,11, pp. 5,
7, 10,
44-^7,
iv, pp.
54-78;
1967, pp.
34-40,
53-5, 66-7;
Copenhaver
forthcoming
a and c.
Other
references
in De vita coelitus comparanda (pp.
540-1,
550) are not to the Greek
treatises
that
Ficino
translated
or to the
Latin
Asclepius but to
works
classified
among
the
'popular'
- as
opposed
to
'philosophical'
- Hermetica by
Festugiere
1944-54,
11, p. 1; 1967, pp. 30-2.
Claims
(to my
mind
dubious)
for a
stronger
relation
than
Festugiere
would
allow
between
the
popular
and the
philosophical
treatises
have
been
made
by
Yates
1964, p. 44, n. 2, and Garin 1977, pp.
342-4.
For the
debate
on
Hermeticism,
see
also
Garin 1976b, pp.
462-6;
1976c,
pp. 44, 52, 73-4, 81;
Westman
and
McGuire 1977;
Schmitt
1981, § iv;
Copenhaver
1978b;
Vickers
1979; Occult and Scientific Mentalities
1984, pp. 1-6
(Vickers).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
282
Natural
philosophy
as
part
of a
religious fraud,
it was
difficult
not to put
them beyond
the
line
that
divides unarguably sinful demonic magic from conceivably licit
natural
magic. Talismans,
if
cleared
of
demonic influence,
are the
limiting
case
of
natural
magic
that
falls
on the
safer side
of the
line:
to
certify their
legitimacy
and his
orthodoxy, Ficino called
on
Thomas Aquinas.
38
Unlike
Augustine,
who
objected even
to
undecorated amulets, Thomas
in
the
Summa
contra
gentiles
grudgingly
and
briefly admitted
that
certain
decorated talismans might
be
permissible
to
Christians
if
they were
not
addressed
to
demons.
If the
marks
on a
talisman
are
signs
—
words,
for
example
—
that
can
only
be
directed
to
another personal intelligence, then
the being addressed must
be an
evil
spirit.
But if the
marks
are
pictures
-
zodiacal
figurae,
for
instance
—
their activity need
not
involve persons.
The
figure
of a
lion
cut
into
a
stone awakens
the
powers
of the
celestial
Leo
(another
figura
or
ax^fxa
in
Plotinian terms) because
the
carving
of the
lion
on
the
stone places
the
talisman
in the
same species with
the
heavenly lion.
Ficino
explains Thomas' position
in
this way:
he
thinks
that
a
talisman gains
celestial
power through
its
figure
not so much because such a figure is in
this
matter
as because such a composite object
has now been
situated
in some
particular
species of the artificial such
that
it
conforms to the heavens. [Thomas] says
this
in book m
of
the Contra gentiles, where
he ridicules
characters
and
letters
added
to figures, but figures not so much unless in
place of certain signs they are directed to demons.
39
The
'composite object'
of
which Ficino writes
is a
substance,
the
hylemorphic union
of
matter
and
form.
To say
that
substantial form makes
the composite what
it is, is,
from another point
of
view,
to say
that
this
object
belongs
to a
species
of
like objects; 'substantial form'
and
'specific
form'
are
names
for
different aspects
of the
same principle.
But
Thomas
taught
that
figure
is an
accident,
not a
substance
at
all,
yet it is like a
substance
because
it
locates
the
figured artificial composite
in a
species
and
because
the
figure
(or
shape)
of a
natural
composite
gives
most information about
its
38. Ficino
1576,1,
pp. 548, 561,
571; Asdepius
23-4, 37-8; Augustine, De
civitate
Dei
vm.24;
seenn. 32-3
above.
39. Ficino
1576,1,
p. 558: 'Thomas . . . minus tribuit imaginibus. Tantum namque virtutis duntaxat per
figuras
coelitus putat acquirere quantum conducat ad illos effectus [naturales] . . . Non tarn quia
[figura
talis] sit in ea materia quam quoniam compositum tale iam positum est in certa quadam
artificii specie qualis cum coelo consentiat. Haec ait in libro
Contra
gentiles tertio, ubi characteres et
literas figuris additas ridet, figuras vero non adeo nisi pro signis quibusdam ad daemones
adiungantur';
Thomas Aquinas,
Summa
contra gentiles
in.
104—5;
Summa
theologiae 11-11.96.2
resp., ad
1-2;
De
occultis operibus
naturae
14,
17-20;
Augustine, De
doctrina Christiana
11.23.36,
29.45; Walker
1958,
pp. 42-4; Copenhaver 1984, pp. 528, 53i~3 and especially 537, n. 39, where the first eight
words of the passage translated are a mistaken interpolation.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Astrology
and
magic
283
species.
As
Ficino
put it,
figura
is quasi-substantialis.
Thus,
in
addition
to the
well-known
Thomist doctrine
of
celestially educed substantial forms,
which
reinforced
the
Plotinian principle
of
cosmic
conformity between
the
ctSos
of the
talisman
and the ox^a in the
heavens, Ficino also found
in
Thomas taxonomic
and
ontological conformities missing
or
indefinite
in
Plotinus.
The
engraving
of the
figure
put the
talisman
in the
species
(the
ra^is
of
Proclus)
of its
heavenly analogue,
thus
assuring their taxonomic
kinship.
And the
truly expert
magus,
who had
read
his
Aquinas, would also
stimulate
an
ontological connection
by
matching
a
material quality
of the
talisman, such
as its
colour, taste
or
texture,
to the
series
of
forms, earthly
and heavenly, with which
the
talisman
was
meant
to
communicate.
Thomist hylemorphism encouraged
the
stronger interactivity between
matter
and
form
that
was
impeded
by the
poverty
of
matter
in the
metaphysics
of
Plotinus.
40
Other properties
of
matter indispensable
to the
magus
were called
qualitates
occultae or
'hidden qualities'
to
distinguish them from
the
'manifest' features
of
matter perceptible through
the
primary
(hot,
cold,
dry, moist)
or
secondary (soft, hard, sweet, sour,
etc.)
qualities arising from
the four elements
and
their combinations. Ficino
had
read
the
work,
De
occultis operibus
naturae,
in
which Thomas certified
the
existence
and
efficacy
of
occult
qualities
and
associated them with
the
substantial forms educed
in
matter
by
stellar
and
planetary power.
As a
physician writing
a
book
on
astrological
medicine, Ficino also knew
that
the
topic
of
substantial forms
and occult qualities
was a
favourite
in
medieval medical literature, where
Taddeo Alderotti, Arnald
of
Villanova,
Jacopo
da
Forli
and
many other
eminent physicians debated
the
issue.
41
Occult qualities
had
entered
the
medical tradition secondarily from Avicenna's
Canon but
originally from
Galen,
who
called them
L8L6TT}T€S
dpprjroL
or
'undescribable properties'.
40. Ficino
1576,1,
p. 555: 'Sed ne figuris nimium forte difHdas, meminisse iubebunt, in regione hac sub
luna eiementari, elementarem quoque qualitatem
posse
quam plurimum in transmutatione
videlicet ad aliquid elementare tendente, calorem scilicet et frigus et humorem atque siccitatem.
Qualitas
autem quae minus elementares materialesve sunt, scilicet lumina, id est colores, numeros
quoque similiter et figuras, ad talia forsitan minus posse, sed ad coelestia munera, ut putant, valere
permultum.
Nam et in coelo lumina et numeri et figurae sunt ferme omnium potentissima ... Sic
enim figurae, numeri, radii, quum non alia sustineantur ibi materia, qua[s]i substantiales
esse
videntur';
Thomas Aquinas, Summa
contra gentiles
11.58.92;
111.104;
Summa
theologiaei.3.7
resp.; 7.1 ad
2; 50.2 ad 1-2; 65.4 resp.; 76.3, resp.; 85.5 ad 3; 118.2 ad 2;
Commentarium
in
Physica,
lib. 7, lect. 5;
Commentarium
in
Metaphysica,
lib. 7, lect. 2; De
occultis operibus
naturae
7,9,11,14;
Copenhaver 1984,
PP-
539~46; see nn. 27, 29, 30 above.
41.
Ficino
1576,1,
pp. 558, 562, 573; Thomas Aquinas, Summa
theologiae
1.45.8 resp.; 65.4 resp.; 115.3 ad
2;
Commentarium
in De
generatione,
lib. 1, lect. 8;
Commentarium
in De
anima,
lib. 2, lect. 14; Siraisi
1981,
pp. 64-6,
141-2,146,150-61,179,
258; Zanier 1977, pp. 21,23,47; Hutchison 1982, pp. 233-
53;
Copenhaver 1984, pp. 539, 542-9.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
284
Natural
philosophy
Galen
believed
that
he could explain many medical phenomena by
reducing them to the elements and manifest qualities of post-Aristotelian
matter-theory. But because certain problems - various drugs, foods,
poisons, antidotes and amulets, for example — resisted this reductive
strategy, Galen reluctantly referred them to qualities
that
he could not
describe, and he connected such qualities with action /ca#' SXrjv rrjv ovotav,
'from the whole substance'. The great Moslem physicians eventually (and
reasonably) identified Galen's whole substance with Aristotle's substantial
or specific form,
thus
opening another channel of magical activity for
Ficino's
astral medicine.
42
Given
the well-established medical teaching on
occult
qualities and substantial forms, which was respectable enough to
convince
even St Thomas, Ficino could confidently forge another link in his
magical
chain of causation binding earthly to heavenly objects.
To
complete this review of magical principles
that
Ficino found in
authoritative philosophical and medical texts, we may end with the topics
of
TTvevfia
or
spiritus
and imagination. The basic function of
spiritus,
conceived
as tenuous
matter
or crass spirit or something in between, was to
bridge the gap between man's material and immaterial components. Since
Galen's
time, the concept of medical spirits, based on Peripatetic and Stoic
sources, had accounted for various physiological and psychological
processes without obligatory reference to magical action, but Galen also
knew
that
Plato's description of the
o'x^/xa
or vehicle of the soul implied an
astrological
context for spirits. Since the Stoic
Trvevfxa
operated as a principle
of
coherence both in the cosmos and in the human microcosm, it was
natural
for the Neoplatonists to expand Plato's idea into the
fully
developed
doctrine of the astral body of the soul, an aetheric or spiritual garment
accreted by the soul as it descends through the
stars
and planets into an
earthly body. The astral origins of this spiritual vehicle enhance magical
capacities implicit even in the innocent medical spirits, which, because they
unite
things held separate
under
normal requirements for contact action,
helped explain phenomena otherwise unexplainable. Thus, Ficino used
medical
spiritus
to account naturalistically
forfascinatio
or the
evil
eye, but he
also
employed the magical consonance between cosmic and human spirits
to show how music of proper astrological proportions acting through the
medium of
spiritus
could awaken a beneficent resonance between a man and
42.
Galen
1821,
VIII,
pp.
339-40
{De locis affectis v.6), xn, pp. 192, 356 (De simplicium
medicamentorum
temperamentisix.1.4,
xi.1.34),
xix, pp.
677-8
(De
renum
affectibus);
Avicenna
1507, f. 33;
Rohr
1923,
PP- 95, 99,
108-13;
Copenhaver
1984, pp.
525-6,
540-1.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Astrology and magic
285
a planet, which always emits a music of its own.
43
If
spiritus
is the basic
medium for Ficino's magic, man's
chief
magical faculty is the imagination,
which
as the Peripatetic common sense or as fantasy links corporeal objects
to the incorporeal subject, soul or mind. Since imagination, a faculty of the
lower
soul, transmits sense data from material objects to the immaterial
mind, it is closer to matter than the higher faculties of
will
and intellect and
hence more sensitive to astral influences
that
act directly on matter but not
on soul. Thus, when Ficino read in Avicenna
that
imagination could act
outside the body of the subject and in Synesius
that
an imaginative irvev^a
constitutes the soul's astral body, he had important confirmations for his
theory of astrological magic.
44
PHILOSOPHY
AND
OCCULTISM
IN THE
LATER
RENAISSANCE
Given
the propensity of Renaissance thinkers to infer the value of an idea
from
its age (a habit of mind whose strongest expression was the
prisca
sapientia
that
Ficino helped make famous), it is difficult to exaggerate the
influence
of
the revival
of
ancient learning on the renaissance
of
occultism
—
in particular, the realisation
that
Greek and Latin philosophers gave serious
consideration to magic, astrology and demonology and often admitted
their reality. Although Ficino called on various scholastic and Moslem
authorities
—
Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus,
Alkindi,
the
Picatrix
—
in
composing
De
vita
m, for a man of his humanist commitments the absence
of
classical testimony would have made a philosophical theory of magic
unthinkable. The newest and most prominent witnesses were the
Neoplatonists whom Ficino introduced to the Latin West, but the humanist
impulse to
return
to the sources also stimulated a closer scrutiny of other
texts,
including some familiar to the Middle
Ages,
that
nourished the debate
on occultism. Through the medical writers and the Neoplatonists,
fragmentary evidence of Stoic
views
on irvev^a influenced Ficino's magical
spiritus,
and Pomponazzi cited 'the opinion
that
the Stoics held . . .
that
all
43.
Ficino
1576,1, pp. 178, 555,
562-3,
612,11, pp. 1357-8, 1453, 1885;
Walker
1958, pp. 3-18,
38-40;
1985,§x,
pp.
120-3;
Spiritus 1984, pp.
223-6
(Walker);
Culianu
1981, pp.
369-72,
389-94;
seen.
14
above;
see
also
M.J. B.
Allen
1984a,
pp. 25-7 for the
special
connection
between
music
and
demons
in
Ficino.
44.
Ficino
1576, 1, pp. 562, 609, 651;
Thomas
Aquinas,
Summa
theologiae 1.111.3-4;
i
J
4-4;
Avicenna
1507, f- 33
v
;
Kristeller
1953a,
pp. 250, 392;
Klein
1970, pp.
65-72;
Walker
1958, pp.
38-40,
76-80;
E.
R.
Harvey
1975, pp.
49—50.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
286
Natural philosophy
things
are
subject
to
fate such
that
all are
foreseen
and
preordained
by
God'.
Telesio
and his
follower
(see
below) took inspiration from
the
Presocratics
for
a
matter-theory which,
by
challenging Peripatetic hylemorphism,
weakened
one of the
traditional foundations
of
magic
but
also engendered
new reasons
for
belief
in
magical vitalism.
Newly
translated pseudo-
Pythagorean texts like
the De mundi anima
attributed
to
Timaeus
of
Locri
and
the De universi natura
assigned
to
Ocellus
of
Lucania,
as
well
as the
biographies
of
Pythagoras
by
Porphyry
and
Iamblichus, lent philosophical
authority
to
geomancy, numerology, cabala
and
other occult sciences
associated especially with Pythagoras. Astrology,
by
contrast, stood
threatened when Giovanni Pico's nephew, Gianfrancesco, became
the
first
Latin writer
to
take full advantage
of
the sceptical attack
on
astrology
in the
Adversus mathematicos of
Sextus Empiricus. Although medieval scholars
knew
the
philosophical medicine
of
Galen,
the
Renaissance knew more
of
it
and knew
it
better
in the
original Greek. Medical
and
philosophical
philology
bore magical fruit
in the
work
of
Jean
Fernel, whose
De abditis
rerum causis (i
548)
is an
apotheosis
of
occult
qualities based
on a
close analysis
of
such key terms as Ihionqres apprjroi
and
KCL9
9
SXrjv
rrjv ovaiav
in
Galen and
Pseudo-Alexander
of
Aphrodisias.
45
But
for
Fernel,
as for
most proponents
or
opponents
of
magic,
the
most
authoritative
(if
not
the
most
abundant)
texts were
to be
found
in
Aristotle
or Plato. Fernel took
a
whole chapter
of
De
abditis to
argue
'out
of
Aristotle
that
the
forms
and
first substances
of all
things
are
drawn from heaven'.
Fernel's opponent, Thomas Erastus,
who
understood
the
importance
to his
rival
of
Aristotle's doctrine
of
forms, remarked
that
'Aristotle would have
left
us a
better philosophy
if
he
had
understood
the
true
origin
of
forms
. . .
[which
is] not
from
the
heavens
by the
cycles
of the
stars
. . . [but
from]
God's
command.' While Erastus chose
to
refute
the
authorities with whom
he disagreed
-
Aristotle, Plato, Galen, Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas
-
another tactic
was to
assert
that
occultism
was
simply beneath
the
philosopher's dignity.
46
Giovanni
Pico,
who
knew better, used this
rhetorical ploy
in the Disputationes,
claiming
that
'Plato
and
Aristotle
. . .
45.
Pomponazzi
1957,
p. 190:
'Superest
igitur
. . .
pertractare
opinionem
quam
Stoici
tenuerunt
. . .
quod
omnia
subsunt
fato
sic
quod
omnia
sunt
praevisa
et a Deo
praeordinata';
Walker 1958,
pp. 12,
38; 1985,
§ x, pp.
123-6;
Verbeke
1945,
pp. 37,
172-3, 219;
Sambursky
1959,
pp. 2, 5, 27, 66; n. 56
below;
Heninger
1974,
pp. 46-9,
59-61,234-5;
Copenhaver
1977;
Schmitt
1967,
pp.
49-54;
Popkin
1979, PP-
18-23;
Long 1982,
pp.
185-6;
Fernel
1550,
pp.
155-6,195,219, 281;
Bianchi
1982,
pp. 187,
196-8,
exaggerates
the
differences
between
Fernel
and
Galen
on
occult
qualities.
46.
Fernel
1550, pp. 101-8 (cap. 8):
'Rerum
omnium
formas
primasque
substantias
de
coelo
duci
ex
Aristotele';
Erastus
1574, pp. 31-6, 87-8: 'Si
Aristoteles
veram
formarum
originem
ita, ut nos
novimus,
percepisset,
philosophiam
nobis
. . .
meliorem
. . .
reliquisset.
. .
Haec
[forma]
non ex
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