NOTRE DANlE TEXTS IN MEDIEVAL CULTURE

Vol. 2

The Medieval Institute University of Notre Dame

John Van Bngen and Bdward D. Bnglish, Bditors A Dialogue on Natural Philosophy (Dragmaticon Philosophiae)

Translation of the New Latin Critical Text with a Short Introduction and Explanatory Notes

gc;.~'!JC.Y $'1'0'1!'1 0'!'

~ ~1\1 .------ . "":11'1' o'!' '1'\'11':1'1?'1''''

By Italo Ronca and Matthew Curr

University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana

© 1997 by The University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

All Rights Reserved

Designed by Wendy McMillen Set in ro.s/r3 Trump Mediaeval by The Book Page, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data William, of Conches, roSa-ca. rrso.

[Dragmaticon philosoplriae. English] A dialogue on natural philosophy "" Dragmaticon philosophiae /

William of Conches; translation of the new Latin critical text with a short introduction and explanatory notes, ltalo Ronca and Matthew Curr.

p. em- (Notre Dame texts in medieval culture; v. 2) Includes llibliographical ref~rynces and indexes. ISBN 0-26H-oo88I·7 (alk. pape[j '·1

I. Sciene~:~, Medieval. 2. Philosophy, Medieval. I. Ronca, Italo. II. Cun, Matthew. Ill Title. IV. Series. QI24·97 .wssr3 I997 rq-dc2o

oo The paper 11sed in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of

Pap.~r for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 239·48-1984

Manufactured in the United States of America

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

CoNTENTS

WILLIAM OF CONCHES: A DIALOGUE ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

(DRAGMATICON PHILOSOPHIAE)

BOOK I

I. Prologue 2. Definition of Substance

3· The Creating Substance: The Author's Confession of Faith 4· The Created Substance: The Five Classes

of Rational Beings s. Demons or Angels 6. The Elements 7. Chaos and the Work of the Creator and Nature

BOOK II

I. Prologue

2. The Creation of the Four Elements from Chaos 3. What Caused the Creation of Such Elements 4. Why God Created Two Middle Elements s. The Syzygy, or the Interconnection of the Elements 6. The Movement of the Elements

v

ix

xi

xiii

XV

3 6

7

8 10

13 17

21

22

25 27 29 32

i CONTENTS CONTENTS vii

BOOK III BOOK VI

I. Prologue 37 I. Prologue II9

2 . There Axe No 'Waters above the Heavens 38

3· The Creation of the Stars 42 Part One: The Earth

4· The Creation of Animals and Man 43 2. The Form of the Earth !20 5. The Quintessence 46 3. The Qualities of the Earth 124 6. The Movement of the Stars and the Firmament 47

4. The Four Aieas of Habitation of the Earth !26 7. The Heavenly Circles 51 5. Our Habitable Area !27

BOOK VI 6. Things Supported by the Earth 130

I. Prologue 57 Part Two: Man

2. The Planets: Saturn 58 7. Sperm 134 3· Jupiter and Mars 59 8. Intercourse '35 4· The Retrograde Motion and Standstill of the Planets 6o

9· Conception and the Formation of the Fetus 138 5. Venus and Mercury 63

IO. Birth and Infancy 140 6. The Movement of Venus and Mercury 66

I I. Sensation 141 7. The Natural Movement of the Sun 67

I2. The Working of the Natural Virtues in Humans 142 8. The Four Seasons: Winter 70

. I3. Growth 146 9· Spring 7' 14· Sleep 148

IO. Summer 72 I 5. The Virtue of Breath 150

II. Autumn 73 I6. The Virtue of the Soul 150 12. The Accidemal Motion of the Sun 76

I?. The Head and the Hair 151 I3. The Eclipse of the Sun 79 I8. The Meninges and the Brain 154 I4. The Moon 83 19. The Eyes and the Sight rs6 I5. The Eclipse of the Moon 88

20. Mirror Images and Other Amazing Phenomena COncerning Sight r6o

BOOKV 21. Ears and Hearing !62 91 22. The Other Senses r6s I. Prologue

23. Voluntary Motion !66 2. Winds 92

3· Rain 97 24. Imagination and the Other Functions of the Soul !67 98 25. The Human Soul r68 4· The Rainbow

IOI 26. The Faculties of the Soul 170 5. Hail and Snow 2 7. Teaching and Learning 173 6. Thunder, Coruscation, and Lightning 102

7. Shooting Stars 105

8. Comets 107 Notes

9· Water and the Tides of the Ocean 109 177

IO. Why the Sea Is Salt II3 Select Bibliography 207

II. The Origin of the Water in Wells II4

12. Flood and Conflagration II5

PREFACE

"-W' -,1': •

'j

( -L.~<his is the first English translation of the Dragmaticon as a G'w iif'&. It developed together with my critical edition of the Latin

text, published in the Corpus christianorum series ( Continuatio mediaevalis). The translation is not meant to be definitive, nor is it intended to be an elegant· work of art-an aim alien to the forma mentis of William of Conches.

Rather, in this translation Matthew Curr and I have tried, after several attempts in various directions, to achieve the modest goal of a faithful rendering of William's own style. Even so, William's some­times obscure brevity and variable technical terminology proved a constant challenge to our ideal of fidelity to his Latin. Technical terms in the language of twelfth-century natural philosophy have been ren­dered literally whenever it was possible to do so without danger of serious misunderstanding. Thus, in speaking of the elements, we pre­ferred the literal" acute/obtuse" to "sharp/blunt," but we clearly had to abandon literalness in the case of animales actiones: "the faculties of the soul" and not "animal actions"!

A real dilemma was posed by the remarkable (and certainly in­tentional) difference in style between the prologues and the dialogue proper: any serious attempt at rendering the original difference would have resulted in pomposity. So we did not resort to any rhetorical device, leaving the difference to shine through the vocabulary or the syntax.

Another difficulty was the rendering of the more subtle dif­ferences in style between the first books and the 11anthropological" section of Book VI, or between this and the u meteorological" parts of

ix

X PREFACE

Book V. Such differences derive from William's massive, sometimes verbatim, utilization of different source materials (Constantine the African for Book 'n, Seneca's. Naturales quaestiones for Book V). These alterations in style cannot always be reflected in the transla­tion. We have also been concerned to provide an English version that is fluent and readable.

As coauthors of this book, Matthew Curr and I have shared the task in the following way: Curr did the first draft, which we discussed together section by sectioni I then rewrote the translation, paying par­ticular attention to the factual correctnessi Curr finally revised it, focusing his attention on idiom and style.

After a three-year maturation (during which I prepared the Latin edition for the Corpus christianorum), I undertook a new and thor­ough revision of the whole text while writing the explanatory notes. For these and the introduction (which was written last), I am solely responsible. The introduction was partly adapted from the more de­tailed and technical introduction to the critical edition, but it was conceived anew for less specialized readers who are not necessarily fluent in Latin. The notes are usually (though not always) expansions on selected items taken from the source register of the Latin text (the apparatus fontium). Finally, the diagrams !except for the English cap­tions) are adapted from my edition of the Latin text. They are based on the medieval n1anuscripts, particularly on MS Montpellier, Fac. de Medecine, H 145.

Italo Ronca

!1 '

) "'"""'\ !!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

••

r. , .._;J .wi~h. to thank all o.ur friends and colleagues (impossible to nan:e Indi~llduallyJ for theu continuous support and encourage­ment, In particular those who were involved in one way or an th whether reading through the early drafts, typing, editing, or m~ki~ numerous valuable suggestions. We are especially grateful to Charles ~urnett of the Warburg Institute, University of London, who me­ticulously read the final version, improving it in many details and t Mark ~· Jo~dan of the University of Notre Dame, who sho~ed in~ ter~st In this translation and recommended it for publication in th Umted States. e

I tala Ronca and Matthew Curr

xi

ABBREVIATIONS

CC Corpus christianorum. Series latina

Du Cange Du Cange, Sieur (Ch. Du Fresnel, Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis

Gl. Boet. William of Conches, Glosae super Iioethium

Gl. Macrob. William of Conches, Glosae super Macrobium

Gl. Plat.

Gl. Prise.

LS)

MGH

Philos.

PL

William of Conches, Glosae super Platonem

William of Conches, Glosae super Priscianum

H. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. )ones, A Greek-English Lexicon

Monumenta Germaniae historica

William of Conches, Philosophia

Patrologia latina cursus completus . .. , ed. J. P. Migne

xiii

INTRODUCTION

William of Conches's Life and Career

~~,;;;-,

"?'-' ('> V _ . :f]:,n hardly add anything new to Tullio Gregory's circumstantial ~t of William of Conches's life and works, 1 and this brief intro­

duction is not the right forum for yet another discussion of the scanty jand largely inferential) evidence at our disposal. Instead, I will sum­marize William's life and career so as to enable readers to put the Dragmaticon into some kind of historical frame.

William was born at Conches, a small town near Evreux, in Nor­mandy, "in a country of mutton-heads under the dense sky of Nor­mandy,"2 probably around 1090. We know from his famous disciple John of Salisbury (c. IIIS-8o) that, before "forming his own disciples in grammar, 11 William had himself been formed at the solid school of Bernard of Chartres,3 becoming after him 11 the most splendid teacher of grammar. 114 John further informs us that he himself "went of his own free will to the grammarian from Conches and heard him for a period of three years."5 There is still no agreement on where John of Salisbury heard William. It seems reasonable to think of Chartres, as was first argued in detail in 1862 by C. Schaarschmidt, whom nearly all modem authorities (Klibansky, Garin, Gregory, Jeauneau, Dronke, Haring) follow. R. W. Southern, however, questioned both the signifi~ cance of the 11School of Chartres" and John's staying there, adducing inferential proofs in favor of Paris.6 This opened a long controversy with P. Dronke and N. M. Haring.' With Dorothy J. Elford I am in­clined "to believe that William both studied and taught at Chartres."8

XV

{Vi lNTRODUCTlON

It is possible that he began his teaching career at the cathedral school of Chartre:s where Bernard himself, who had been a teacher there since II I4 and chancellor since I 124, might have appointed his former disciple. A clue in the prologue to Book VI also points to the early I I20S as a probable beginning of his scholastic career. There William admits to still experiencing some difficulty in '\etaining and understanding completely and perfectly" all the complex philosophi­cal doctrines he professes, although he has "taught them to others for twenty years and longer. 119 Since those words, and the composition of the Dragmaticon as a whole, m_ay be approximately dated to the years II44-49 (and more precisely to II47-49L his career may have begun around I 125, not long before he set out to write the "youthful// Pbi­losophia !usually dated between II25 and II30).

John of Salisbury informs us of the circumstances of William's possible early retirement after he lost his popular stand in the bitter controversy with the "Cornificians," facile educational reformists who propounded a drastic shortening of the basic school training.10 He does not say, however, whether William was reinstated in his former post when the Cornificians themselves were eventually defeated. 11 It is possible, though not certain, that 11 embittered by the decadence of the schools and the attack of William of St. Thierry who denounced him as heretic, he left Chartres to return to his native Normandy, under the protection of Geoffrey Plantagenet.1112 Here he was probably appointed a private tutor to Geoffrey's two young sons, one of whom, Henry {born at Le Mans in 1I33), was to become Henry II, king of England.l3 And here,- supported by his mighty protector 11 the Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, 1114 he was able to rewrite at his leisure the imperfect Philosophia as a largely new work (in fact, his major systematic treatise), the Dragmaticon. In this work William constructed a dialogue resembling those of Plato and Cicero in every­thing except the fixed roles assigned by the 11dramatic genre 11 to the two partners: the 11Duke of Normandy" asks questions, and a //name­less philosophe.r11 (that is, William of Conches) answers them.

That the Dragmaticon is, and was intended to be, more than a mere 11 second edition11 of the Philosophia 15 has been forcefully proven by Gregory and confirmed by Elford in a systematic comparison of the philosophical contents of both works." Elsewhere, I have also dealt with this question in detail. 17

Of Williain's last years we know nothing except that he must have survived his noble patron (who died in IISI) by a few years, since he was still alive in II 54: Alberic of Trois-Fontaines I died after 1252), the compiler of an important chronicle, mentions our philosopher in

INTRODUCTION XVii

~is entry for I 154, the year Henry II became king: 11 in his [Henry's] tnne Master William of Conches was regarded as a philosopher of great fame. 1118

The Relative Chronology of William of Conches's Works

By addressing his patron as "Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou," William provides one of very few clues to an approximate d.ating of the general prologue of the Dragmaticon (and, by implica­tlOn, of the entire dialogue): since Geoffrey Plantagenet assumed the title of "duke of Normandy11 in 1144 and passed it on to his son Henry at the end of 1149, 11

We have the two terms within which to locate William's work." 19 Assuming that William worked on the Dragmati­con while he was a tutor to Geoffrey's sons, we may narrow down the approximate date of composition to the years II47-49, a time when Henry was in Normandy and mature enough to be instructed in natural philosophy (he had been in Bristol in II42/43, 1146/47, and again m r 149/so, when Geoffrey transferred to him the duchy of Norrnandy). 20

. An additional (more speculative) clue to narrowing down the time frame to the years around I I48 might be the outcome of Gilbert de la Porrf.e's appearance at the council of Reims (1148). Contrary to what had happened to Abelard at Sens in r 140, "Gilbert's subtlety and learning impressed the assembly; and conceding perhaps more to his opponents than he really believed, Gilbert managed to substitute, for the condemnation they demanded, an undertaking that he would cor-

..-rect his book in accordance with an agreed profession of faith, if it needed correction. "21 If this is true, it is a remarkable parallel to what happened to William, who included at the beginning of his new work both a retractatio errorum and a carefully worded confessio fidei. The striking similarity in the reaction of the two "Chartrians 11 to similar ecclesiastical accusations would at least point to a similar intellec­tual climate surrounding both events-an indication that the council of Reims and the composition of the general prologue may not have been far apart from each other in time as well as in place. But this re­mains speculation. For want of hard historical evidence, the six years II44-49 (and especially II47-49) are the most likely period for the composition of the Dragmaticon.

As for William's other works, the list of those certainly authentic is ~ot yet complete or definitive. Apart from the systematic treatises, which can be attributed to his "youth" and "maturity" respectively,

iii INTRODUCTION

William of Conches wrote several comments on authors (glosae super auctores), mostly-but not exclusively-philosophers. As it is, not all comments that he planned to write, and may have written, have been recovered: this is the case of the comment on Martianus Capella, which the Glosae super Boethium (William's earliest known work) announces as being planned for the immediate future. 22

On the other hand, some of the extant Glosae, transmitted iD: double (and even triple) versions believed to have been composed by William himself at different stages in his scholastic career, might still prove, on a close :;crutiny, to be nothing more than different textual traditions of one and the same original, with "corrections," expan­sions, or omissions by intelligent readers or innovative scribes. To some extent this seems to be the case of the Glosae super Platonem, for which Gregory23 implied two different versions, one preceding and the other following the Philosophia. However, the editor of the "later" Timaeus glosses rightly suspected that the so-called "ear­lier redaction" known from MS C.620 of the University Library, Uppsala, and ~dited by Toni Schmid, could just as well be "the work of a compiler summarizing William of Conches or making lavish use of his works." 24 \Ve now know that the supposed earlier redaction in fact "contains a mixture of passages extracted from the independent glosses of Bernard [of Chartres], William, and others by a late twelfth­or thirteenth-century scribe."25

On the strength of these considerations, I take the liberty further to update and slightly modify the provisional list and relative chro­nology of William of Conches's authentic works compiled by Edouard Jeauneau. My ve:rsion is as follows:

Youthful Works r. Glosae super Boethium (De cons. phil.) 2. Glosae super Macrobium (Comm. in Cic. Somn.) 3· Philosophia 4· Glosae super Priscianum (first version)

Mature Works 5. Glosae super Platonem (in Timaeum) 6. Dragmaticon 7. Glosae super Priscianum (second version)

With regard to some still controversial questions about the rela­tive chronology of those certainly authentic works and the dubious

INTRODUCTION xiX

authorship of others that have been attributed to William of Conches the following points should be noted: '

1. The Glosae in Iuuenalem, of which an inadequate modern edition exists (ed. B. Wilson [Paris, r98o]), is no longer attrib­uted to William.

2. The Glosae super Martianum, if it was ever written could be placed second or third (before or after the Glasa~ super Macrobium).

3· I cannot follow Jeauneau in assigning the Glosae super Priscianum to William's 11 old age." William can hardly have died long after r I 54 I the year of his death is usually given as IISS ), that is, only a few years after the Dragmaticon was completed. How could he become old so suddenly and still have the stamina to write such a long and demanding work?

4· The attribution of a very popular florilegium of moral max~ ims drawn from pagan authors, the Moralium dogma phi­losophorum, earlier attributed to various authors and then to William, remains uncertain. 26

5. The Compendium philosophiae, sometimes called the Tertia philosophia, in six books recalling the Dragmaticon, known from three MSS and partly published by C. Ottaviano, 27 is not William's work, but a manipulation of William's Philosophia by some theologian near to Hugh of St. Victor: the compiler rewrote the entire first book of the Philosophia, expanding it into Books I-III, and reproduced the rest as Books IV-VJ.28

6. The Magna de naturis philosophia, mentioned in earlier lit­erature as William's "main work/' of which his Philosophia was assumed to be an excerpt, 29 has never existed. The tradi­tion "goes back to an article in the Histoire littiraire de la France (Paris, r763), pp. 455-66, "30 whose author was perhaps thinking of Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum natmale.

7- Similarly, B. Lawn's assumption of a "much fuller version" of · the Dragmaticon, antedating the Philosophia and used by the compiler of the gynecological section of the Oxford MS Bod!. Auct. F.3.10 (in his Prose Salernitan Questions= MS B, writ­ten c. 12oo), cannot be validated and should be dismissed. A sensible refutation of Lawn's "proto-Dragmaticon" theory is given by Elford. She in turn suggests as one of many pos­sible alternatives to that theory the existence of a fuller ver­sion of the Dragmaticon compiled later.31 But a "deutero-

:X INTRODUCTION

Dragmaticon'1 is as improbable as a 11 proto~Dragmaticon11

: a close comparison of all"gynecological" texts that B shares with the Dragmaticon proves beyond doubt that the anony­mous compiler of B borrowed (and variously adapted) them from an M.S of the lesser class of our extant Dragmaticon. 32

The Dragmaticon

Authorship and Title

Th<it Master William of Conches is the author of the Dragmaticon has never been questioned. His name and title, "Magister Guilel~ mus de Conchisn (with the usual orthographical variations for the name, sometimes spelled Guil[i}elmus, Guillermus, or VVil[l}elmus), is well attested by the MSS and the indirect tradition, despite Wrl­liam's declared intention to figure in the dialogue as 11 a nameless philosopher." incidentally, his name in the MSS is usually an addition by the rubricator

1 or some later hand, in the genitive case (genitivus

auctoris). I have argued elsewhere33 that the expression 11philosophus sine nomine' is used with subtle irony as a rejoinder to the vehement attack by William of St. Thierry. The Cistercian abbot of Signy and biographer of St. Bernard had accused William of Conches of heresy for his 11 roodernisticn approach to theological questions in his Phi~ losophia and refused to recognize any merit in the work of a man

11

of obscure name and no authority.n34

The question of the title is more complex and requires a some~ what punctilious analysis. It is not known with certainty what title William of Conches originally gave to his major systematic work on natural philosophy. Nor do we know for sure the precise date of composition and the circumstances of 11publicationn of what we call the Dragmaticon. The title Dragmaticon philosophi(a)e appears in two MSS only (the 11twins'' Hand Pin my eO.ition, namely, Montpel~ lier, Faculte de Medecine, B I45 1 and Paris/ Bibl. Nat., Lat. 6415) and might have been extrapolated by a clever redactor from I. r. 7 andi. r. II ( ' 1philosophice igitur de substantiis tractare ... "; 11nostram orat10nem dragmatice distinguemus"). Of all the other MSS, a good half have no title at all; the remaining MSS give either Philosophia or Secunda philosophia as the title (one has secunda editio, another philosophw ultima). Now, Philosophia is the title of the 11youthful" systemattc work, which William wrote approximately twenty years bef~re the Dragmaticon (see VI. r. r); this and the explicit mention of this tttle for

INTRODUCTION xxi

that treatise at I.r.8 make Philosophia a confusing and inappropriate title for the dialogue. Secunda philosophia would be appropriate but can hardly be authentic: William reedited and made "second edi­tions'1 of most of his comments on the auctores, but not one is known to have been titled Secundae glossae or the like.

What is, then, the merit of Dragmaticon philosophi( a)e, apart from the scanty manuscript evidence? The word dragmaticon (used as a neuter noun and spelled with ~gm- or -mm-J is a late medieval transliteration of the Greek adjective 5pa1J.anK6v. The -gm- cluster and the substantivization is due to the analogy with pragmaticon3s and didascalicon, respectively. The Greek adjective is attested in Latin as early as Diomedes' Ars grammatica, Book III, where it quali~ fies one of the three kinds of poems, the poema dramaticon, or "the active one, in which characters act alone without the poefs in~ teracting." Diomedes distinguishes the "dramatic or active poem 1

'

(exemplified by classical drama and Virgil's first Eclogue) from the "exegetic or narrative" (exemplified by the first three Georgics and Lucretius/ poem1 '1where the poet himself speaks without the in­terference of any character") and the "common or mixed" (the case of the Homeric poems and Virgil's Aeneid, "where both the poet himself and the characters speak").36 This passage may have been influenced by Suetonius' De poematis and appears to be an expansion on Aris­totle's Poetics 3, dealing with the three "manners of poetic imitation11

IJ.(IJ.T}O'L<;;. It was first excerpted by ne~r-contemporary grammarians of the fourth and fifth centuries, such as Dositheus, Philargyrius1 and an anonymous commentator of Donatus.Jl Some three hundred years later, Bede incorporated the entire Diomedes passage into his De arte metrica.38

Besides the grammarians, several commentators on the classics in late antiquity used the adjective dramaticus as a· synonym of "dialogic11

: for example, Porphyrion on Horace, Sat. L9.1; Servius on Vergil1 Eel. Ill. I; Donatus on Terence, Phorm. 102; and Calcidius on Plato, Tim. 138.39 Of all these con:;tmentaries1 William of Conches cer~ tainly knew that of Calcidius.

William appears to have been the first medieval writer to re~ interpret the three genres of classical Greco-Roman poetic theory and apply them to contemporary dialogic prose. In two of his various Glosae, William explains with similar words the three forms of lit­erary dialogue. In the longer version of his Glosae super Priscianum, the poematos tria genera of Diomedes/Bede become 11 three kinds of conversation according to Bo[ethius}."40 Somewhat later the gram~ marian Petrus Helias records the word dragma as the equivalent of

tii INTRODUCTION

"question'' {interrogatio) and its derivative adjective dragmaticum as a quasi-synonyrri of 1'questioning" (interrogativum), since this kind of dialogue 11 takes place through question and answer."41 Fur­thermore, the word dragmaticon appears in an amplified redaction of doubtful authenticity in a fifteenth-century MS of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marcial1a in Venice containing the Glosae super Platonem (that is, William's comment on the Latin Timaeus translated by Cal­cidius).42

Although dragmaticon looks very much like William's own coinage, the question still remains to be asked whether or not he in­tended to give his dialogue the title of Dragmaticon philosophiae. The phrase would make sense to readers who knew that dragmaticon was one of three possible kinds of twelfth-century dialogue. Still, the descriptive genitive philosophiae sounds awkwardi one would expect de philosophia or de substantiis from Dragmaticon l.I.7 and II. The genitive can only be 11 descriptive" or epexegeticus (as in 11 arbor fici" ). The phrase sounds awkward to us because the noun in the genitive case, the nomen specificum, is well known, while the nomen generi­cum presupposes a currency as a technical term of twelfth-century literary rhetoric for which only poor evidence can be adduced. Never­theless, the phrase is idiomatically correct and seems likely to cor­respond to William's own intention (a generic title of Dragmaticon alone would perhaps have sounded vague to him, much as Dialogue would to us).

On the other hand, no mention is made of a dragmaticon (as a treatise in dialogue form) or of a dragmaticon (philosophiae) in the known indirect tradition. The crown witness for the indirect tradi­tion, the Speculum naturale of Vincent of Beauvais, refers only to 11Guil(i)elmus de Conchis"i and the title Dialogus de substantiis physicis, given 1t0 the first printed edition of the Dragmaticon by Guglielmo Gratarolo !Strasburg, rs67), is not found in the MSS.

For all these reasons, I am no longer inclined to regard the con­ventional title Dragmaticon as an early redactor's extrapolation from 1. r. I r ( 11 dragmatice distinguemus" ). The grammarian William knew the word as a technical term at least from Calcidius and from the ancient grammarians' tradition. He needed an appropriate title to distinguish the dialogue from its 11 first redaction," the Philosophia. Moreover, in choosing the dialogue form and widening the scope of his subject matter to a near-encyclopedia, he had probably cherished the thought of emulating Hugh of St. Victor's Didascalicon !com­pleted before ri37). The popularity of this title, a bold innovayon of the I 13os, and the consideration of the Diomedes/Bede passage, are

INTRODUCTION XXiii

likely to have suggested the analogic choice of Dragmaticon. Thus, the dialogue may have been called Dragmaticon by Willianr himself, a title soon expanded to Dragmaticon philosophiae by the redactor re­sponsible for several additions to the text of the twin MSS I perhaps by analogy with Philosophia mundi).

The Purpose of the Dragmaticon

A close comparison with the Philosophia reveals a multiplicity of purposes of the Dragmaticon, most of them explicitly stated by the author himself in the general prologue. William wants:

• To rewrite and update the Philosophia by retaining what is still true or applicable, by omitting certain sections now out­dated or wrong, and by adding some new material, unknown or not considered in his youth (Vl.r.r), in fact, more than the reader of the prologue is made to assume l!.r.S).

• To retract his youthful errors (LI.8-rr) and, by implication, to satisfy the suspicious hierarchy of his Catholic orthodoxy by a circumstantial (sometimes ironically ambiguous and tongue­in-cheek) profession of faith IL3.r-s).

• To provide his powerful protector, purported to be keenly in­terested in philosophical questions, 43 and his noble pupils with 11Something that pertains to science11 (that is, 11suitable to scientific studies," I. I.S )-an understatement, typical of the general prologue, that is intended to mean 11a relevant contri­bution to modern science." This overall intent is further narrowed down a few lines later, when the Dragmaticon is de­scribed as a work 11dealing with substances philosophically" and "relevant to the reading of the philosophers who are stud­ied in today's schools" II.r.6-7)

According to William's unassuming modesty, the Dragmaticon is a work of his maturity, intended to replace the imperfect and outdated youthful Philosophia with a corrected, updated, and somewhat en­larged version-as it were a second edition of essentially the same work. At-close scrutiny1 this "second edition" reveals itself as a sub­stantially new work, both in form and in content. The classical dia­logue form, involving the mighty duke as co-protagonist (at times as an orthodox inquisitor), is after all a clever device, aiming at removing in the reader any residual or possible suspicion about the author's 11Abelardian" (and heretical) views. At the same time the "philosophus

!dV INTRODUCTlON

sine nomine, 11 overtly supported by such an authority, may still vent his strong feelings at his archenemies of old, the prelates, and do so with impunity, therefore more boldly than ever before (despite re­tractatio and confessio fidei). As for the contents, the Dragmaticon is a considerably e11larged and much more balanced new "reference work."44 It is written not only for the private use of the duke and his sons, but also for the better understanding of the school authors-that is, for the benefit of all serious students of natural philosophy.

NOTES

r. T. Gregory, Anima mundi. La fi-losofi_a di Guglielmo di Conches e la Scuola di Chartres (Florence, 1955 ).

2. Dragmaticon V1.r.r, "in patria ueruecum crassoque sub aere Nor­manniae sum natus": an adaptation of Juvenal's Satire X. so in typical self­irony.

3· See John of Salisbury, Metalogicon L24 (PL 199:856). 4· John of Salisbury, Metalogicon l.5 (PL 199:832). 5. John of Salisbury, Metalogicon IL1o (PL 199:868). The triennium

has been narrowed down to the years II37/38-1140/41: see Gregory, Anima mundi, p. 2 n.5.

6. R. W. Southern, "Humanism and the School of Chartres," in Me­dieval Humanism and Other Studies (Oxford, 1970), pp. 61-85.

7. Dronke replied to Southern in "New Approaches to the School of Chartres," Anuario de estudios medievales 6 (1971): II7-40; and Haring in "Chartres and Paris Revisited," in Essays in Honor of Anton Charles Pegis, ed. J. R. O'Donnell {Toronto, 1974), pp. 268-329. Southern countered in his 1978 Stenton Lecture, Platonism, Scholastic Method, and the School of Chartres (Reading, 1979) and "The Schools of Paris and the School of Char­tres," in Renaiss.ance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. R. L. Benson and G. Constable with Darol D. Lanham (Oxford, 1982), pp. 113-37. He was supported by K. S. B. Keats-Rohan in "The Chronology of John of Salisbury's Studies in France: A Reading of Metalogicon II.ro," Studi medievali 28 (198?): 193-203.

8. D. J. Elford, 11William of Conches," inA History of Twelfth-CentUiy Western Philosophy, ed. P. Dronke {Cambridge, 1988), p. 309 n. 7.

9. Dragmaticon V1.r.1. 10. john of Salisbury, Metalogicon L24(PL 199:856). rr. John of Salisbury, Metalogicon Ls (PL 199:832). 12. Gregory, Anima mundi, p. 3· 13. Dragmaticon I.r.s. M.D. Knowles, "Henry II of England," in E~cy­

clopaedia Britannica, 1977 edition, Macropaedia, 8:y64. Gregory, Amma mundi (p. 8 n.4) gives the improbable year r 139 {a printing error?) as Henry's date of birth.

14.- Dragmaticon Lr. r. The phrase "Dux Normannorum et Comes An­degauensium" is therefore the most important clue to the dating of the gen­eral prologue and, by implication, of the dialogue as a whole.

j 1 .

} l

I i

INTRODUCTION XXV

15. Against the opinion of early scholars, subsumed in G. Manitius's notorious statement, "Dies ist ... kein neues Werk, sondern nur die in Dialogform-zwischen Philosophus und Discipulus [sic]-gebrachte Philoso­phia mundi" {Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, vol. 3 [Munich, 1931], p. 217).

r6. Gregory, Anima mundi; D. J. Elford, "Developments in the Natural Philosophy of William of Conches" (diss., Cambridge, 1983).

17. See L Ronca, "Ragione e Pede in Guglielmo di Conches: per una edi­zione critica del 'Dragmaticon','' in Studi di filologia classica in onore di Giusto Monaco (Palermo, 1991) 4:1535-59, especially pp. 1538 and following.

18. Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores, val. 23, ed. Scheffer­Boichorst {Berlin, 1874), p. 842.

19. Gregory, Anima mundi, p. 7 n.s. 20. J. D. North, "Some Norman Horoscopes," in Adelard of Bath,

ed. Ch. Burnett (London, 1987), p. 158. 21. J. Marenbon, Early Medieval Philosophy (480-I IJO}: An Introduc­

tion {London, 1983), p. rr8. _22. See E. Jeauneau, Glosae super Platonem {Paris, 1965), p. 12 n.s,

quoting from Gl. Boet. (MS Troyes, Bibl. mun. nor, foL 17vb}. 23. Gregory, Anima mundi, pp. I4-I7; E. Garin, Studi sui Platonismo

medievale (Florence, 1958), pp. 56-62. 24. "L'oeuvre d'un compilateur resumant Guillaume de Conches ou

puisant abonda.rnment dans ses oeuvres" (Jeauneau, Glosae super Platonem, p. 14). Jeauneau's hypothesis is confirmed by similar cases of later compilers or deliberate innovators within the textual transmission of the Dragmati­con, as I have shown in the introduction to my critical edition.

25. P. E. Dutton, The "Glosae super Platonem" of Bernard of Chartres (Toronto, 1991), pp. 19, 2o--2r, 259-60.

26. See Gregory, Anima mundi, pp. 19-26. 27. C. Ottaviano, Un brano inedito della "Philosophia" di Guglielmo

di Conches (Naples, 1935 ). 28. See Gregory, Anima mundi, pp. 28-40. 29. So, for instance, K. Werner, "Die Kosmologie und Naturlehre des

scholastischen Mittelalters mit spezieller Beziehung auf Wilhelm von Conches," Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften, philos. -hist. Klasse 75 (1873 ): 309.

30. Elford, "Developments," p. 207. 31. B. Lawn, I quesiti salemitani {Cava dei Tirreni, 1969), Nota ag­

giunta G {pp. 236-38}; Lawn, The Prose Salemitan Questions (London, 1979), pp. x:v-x:vii; Elford, "Developments,'' pp. 204-14.

32. Lawn has replied to Elford's criticism in "An Answer to Mrs. El­ford's Criticism," typescript dated 25 May 1985. I thank Charles Burnett for sending me, at the suggestion of the author, a copy of this unpublished text, which I was not able to consider before. Lawn's answer, however, has not convinced me of his basic assumption of the existence of a fuller text of that section, antedating the vulgate Dragmaticon and compiled by William of Conches himself.

33· L Ronca, "Reason and Faith in the Dragmaticon: The Problematic Relation between Philosophica Ratio and Diuina Pagina," in Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval Philosophy: Proceedings of the Eighth Intema-

cvi INTROOUCT10N

tional Congress of Medieval Philosophy, Helsinki 24-29 August 1987, vaL 2, ed. S. Knuuttila, R. Ty6rinoja, and S. Ebbesen (Helsinki, 1990), pp. 331-41.

34· "Obscuri quidem nominis et nullius auctoritatis." So William of St. Thierry in his letter of II41 to Bernard of Clairvaux, "Concerning the Errors of William o.f Conches" (De erroribus Guilelmi de Conchis, PL I8o: 333-40). See the modern critical edition by J. Leclercq in Revue benedictine 79(1969): 375-91, especially 382-91.

35· See H. Flatten, Die Philosophie des Wilhelm von Conches (Koblenz, I929), p. II ll.I3.

36. Diomedes, edited by H. Keil in Grammatici latini (Lipsiae r855; reprint, Hildesheim, I961), 1:482.I4-25.

37· See Grammatici latini, 7:428.7-I4 (Dositheus) and 4: 487.I7-23 (Anon., In artem Donati)i Servius, In Vergilii carmina comm. (ed. Hagen [Lipsiae 1902; reprint, Hildesheim, I96IJj, 3: fasc. 2 (Philargyrius).

38. See Grammatici latini, 7:259.14-260.2. 39· See ThLL V.2o67 .14-28. 40. MS Paris, Bibl. Nat., Lat. 15130, fol. 5b: "S[unt] igitur teste Bo[ecio]

tria genera coll[ocu]tionis: didascalic[um] quod fit inter magistrum et dis­cipulum, didascalos enim est magisterfi] dra[g]mati[c)o[n] id est interro­gationum, dragma enim est interrogatio; enar[ratiuu]m [,]quod fit inter lo­quentem er audientem, continua [enim] or[aci)o est."

4I. Petrus Hdias, Summa super Priscianum, ed. L. Reilly {Toronto, 1993), I:r58.59-61: "Invenitur etiam dragma matis tercie declinationis et est 'interrogatio', unde dragmaticus [read rather dragmaticum, with W] genus loquendi dicitur quasi 'interrogativum' quod fit per interrogationem et re­sponsionem.''

42. MS Marcianus Lat. Z 225 (=I87o). Contrary to Garin (Studi sui Pla­tonismo medieva.le, p. 71) and Gregory (Anima mundi, p. IS), who have considered the amplified redaction as authentic, I am convinced that the first chapters of the Glosae in the MS Marcianus are the result of a deliberate am­plification by a late redactor.

43· This is the apparent reason why the duke of Normandy is assigned the role of questioner in the dialogue. There are other reasons, less transpar­ent and more subtle; see Ronca, "Reason and Faith."

44· Despite :its enlarged contents, the Dragmaticon is still far from being, and was never meant to be, a comprehensive scientific summa or en­cyclopedia: see, e.g., III.6. I, VI.4.8, 6. r, 6.I2.

~ l

I

HERE BEGINS THE DIALOGUE ON

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY BY THE MASTER

WILLIAM OF CONCHES

BooK ONE

1. Prologue

[r] You ask, venerable Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, why teachers in our time are less trusted than in the past. The reason for this, you should understand, lies not only with the teachers them~ selves but also with the pupils and the prelates. For two things make a person's teaching reliable: namely, when it is known that he pas~ sesses the particular quality that, first, would not allow him to be deceived by another and, second, would not make him wish to de­ceive another. The first of these is acquired by science, the second by justice.

[2] Science, in fact, not only teaches the nature of things, but also presses home the proper meanings of words and uncovers the tricks of sophistry. t Therefore, once he has acquired such abilities through eager learning and strengthened them through habit and practice, a teacher cannot easily be deceived regarding either the nature of things or the use of words. Justice, on the other hand, which is the habit of the mind of bestowing what is right upon each per­son/ expels from the mind any desire to deceive and, as it were, com-­pels everyone to teach. Therefore, because virtually everyone of our time approaches the office of teaching without these two requisites, they are themselves the reason why they are less trusted.

[3] The pupils are also not without blame: they have aban­doned the Pythagorean model of teaching, according to which a pupil should listen and believe for seven years, and ask questions only in the eighth.3 Instead, from the first day of school, even before sitting

3

4 BOOK ONE

down, they question and, in fact, what is worse, they pass judgment. They study carelessly for the space of a single year and think that the whole of wisdom has accrued to them, whereas they have merely snatched rags from it;' they leave school full of the wind of loquacity and pride, empty of a solid knowledge of things. And when their par­ents or others listen to them and discover that there is little or noth­ing of any use in what they say, they are at once led to believe that this is all the pupils received from their teachers: so the authority of the teacher is impaired.

[4] The prelates, too, but especially the bishops, are not with­out blame either, since they see to their own interests and not Jesus Christ's;5 in fact, to be able to squander the goods of their churches without any opposition, they exclude wise and noble men from the clergy and, just to keep positions filled, include foolish and ignoble people, shadows of clerics, not clerics at all. As a result, those who could advance in science if they devoted themselves to studying, realizing that they would gain nothing but hatred and envy from such studies, and that the bishops are seeking a rich coffer rather than a rich mind, follow a different path in life: they crave wealth and profit and, while impoverishing their minds, only labor to enrich their coffers.

[s] These are therefore the reasons, most illustrious Duke, why all the dignity and prestige of teachers hasfaded away, and all sci­entific endeavor has virtually disappeared, without hope. In you, however, and in your sons there rests some hope: you have imbued them from a tender age not, as others do, with a taste for playing dice, but with love for the liberal arts, the fragrance of which they will long preserve, as in that saying of Horace: 11The jar will long keep the fragrance of what it was once steeped in when new. 116 Therefore, ex­cited and encouraged by that hope, we have set out to write for you and your sons something suitable to scientific stUdies. If this work will find favor with you, we shall under your gracious auspices also obtain the approbation of others. For who will dare to disapprove of something that one hears is approved of by people of such standing and character?

[6] But since science in all its branches is concerned with either things or words, and since a thing can be either a substance or an accident, we are now going to deal with substances, and we shall do so in terms of philosophy. 7 For the same matter can be dealt with in terms of dialectic, sophistry, rhetoric, or philosophy. To ·consider whether something is individual or universal is the concern of dia­lectic; to prove that that same thing exists, when it does not, or

PROLOGUE

that it does not exist, when in fact it does, is the aim of sophistry; to prove whether that same thing is worthy of praise or blame is ~he task ?£ rhetoric; but to examine the nature of that same thing, Its behavwr and functions, is the task of philosophy. Therefore the dialectician, sophist, orator, and philosopher can debate about' one and the same thing from different points of view and with differ­ent aims.

[ 7] Now some people, failing to understand this, have rooted out al~ real things from dialectic and sophistic disputes, but they have re­tamed the names of things, which alone they proclaimed to be uni­versal or individual. Then an even more foolish age succeeded, one that excluded both the things and their names and reduced all dis­putation to four or five mere nouns.8 However, because they were not of God, both sects failed of their own accord. Therefore, we have decided to deal philosophically with substances. Anyone who con­siders the matter thoroughly will find this approach useful for the pursuit of science and necessary for reading the philosophers.

. [8] There is, however, a little book of ours on the same subject, entltled Philosophia; it is quite imperfect, as it was composed in our imperfect youth. In that booklet truths are interspersed with false­hoods and many points that ought to have been made were omitted. It is our plan, therefore, to retain whatever is true in that booklet to condemn its falsehoods, and to supply its omissions. But bef~re the proper dialogue begins, we have determined to condemn indi­vidually all those wrong statements that seem to us to be contrary to the Catholic faith. Consequently, we call on those who possess that little book to condemn and remove these same statements as we do. For it is not words that make a heretic, but stubborn defense.

[9] In that booklet we said that there were three constituents in the Godhead: power, wisdom, and will; and that power was the Father, wisdom the Son, and will the Holy Spirit. What we have said ab?~t power, that it is the Father, or about will, that it is the Holy Spult, may be defended in one way or another. However, since this idea is found neither in the Gospel nor in the writings of the Church fathers, we condemn it in the words of the apostle: "Avoid profane novelty in words."9 Concerning wisdom, that is the Son, we do not condemn our statement, since the apostle says: 11Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.'' 10 In that same little book we at­tempted to show in what way the Father begot the Son, and that the question "Who shall declare his generation?" 11 implied difficulty, not impossibility. This again we condemn and declare that it should be condemned by others.

6 BOOK ONE

[ro] When we spoke in that little book about the creation of the first man1 we said that God neither took a rib from Adam nor created the woman from a rib1 but from a part of that same mass of clay out of which he had molded the body of the man. We then concluded that the statement 11 the woman was created from a rib of Adam 11 was meant metaphorically. This1 too1 we condemn and advise others to do likewise, according to holy and divine Scripture, which says: "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and He took one of his ribs'112 and used it as material to form the woman.

[n] These, then, are the points that we condemn in that book; we do not list all the other points individually as false or futile but simply do not cite them in this work. But so much for these things. Now let us deal with the substances, as we proposed. But because an uninterrupted exposition produces boredom, 13 and boredom annoy~ ance, we shall divide up our discourse in the form of a dialogue. You, therefore, most serene Duke, should ask the questions; let a philoso­pher who shall remain unnamed reply to them.

2. Definition ol Substance

[r] DuKE. Seeing that I have been given the task of questioning/ and since you propose to deal with substance, I ask whether you under­stand the term "substance" to have only one or several meanings.

PHILOSOPHER. Nobody who understands the writings of the authors correctly would doubt that this term has many meanings. For some­times the body, sometimes the spirit and sometimes the compound of both is called substance; whence some writers give the following definition of substance: "Substance is a thing existing in itself.n 14

Sometimes those things themselves as well as their genera and spe­cies are termed substance, so that Aristotle divides it into a first and a second subst:ince.15

Sometimes, in the same way that the act of living is called life, so the act of subsisting is called substance, as in "Generation is an en­trance to substance; corruption is a departure from substance. " 16

Sometimes possession, because it makes man's existence possible1 is called substance1 as in 11Give me the portion of the substance that is my due, 1

' 17 and again, "He wasted his whole substance on whores and riotous living. " 18

[2] DuKE. Since this term is used to mean so many things, say which meaning you accord it in this work.

THE CREATING SUBSTANCE 7

PHILOSOPHER. Virtually everywhere in this work the term 11 sub­stance" is understood to be a thing existing in itself.

DUKE. Now that we agree about the meaning of the term go on with the subject matter. '

PHILOSOPHER. Substance is a thing existing in itself, but there is one subst_ance that creates and another that is created. Concerning the creatmg su?stance, which precedes the other in time and dignity, we shall bnefly state our faith, lest it be thought to differ from the Catholic faith. But you should defer your questioning for the time being and not ask for explanations, since it is written

1 "There is

no merit in a faith for which human reason provides experiential evidence."l9

DuKE. So be it.

3· The Creating Substance: (The Author's Confession of Faith]

~I] PHILOSOPHER. We believe that there is one creating substance, 1m~ense beyond length or width or thickness, wise and just without application or disposition, compassionate and pious without suffer­ing, moving everything without being moved, existing in every place essentially, neither expanded nor contracted, always present without past and future1 omnipotent

1 omniscient.

[2] We believe that there are three persons in the Godhead: the Father unbegotten; the Son only begotten by the Father, never parted ~rom him, neither succeeding nor preceding; the Holy Spirit proceed­mg from both. That no one of these persons is the same as the otheri however, that all three are the same, all are equal in power, wisdom, will, and action; that many things they can do they choose not to do but nothing they choose to do they cannot do. That each one of the~ is a person-namely, an individual essence endowed with rational nature-that all of them are one existing reality and one God.

[3] We believe that one of these persons, that is the Son, was incarnate from a virgin, so that He, who was a son in divinity, would be a· son in humanity; that He is true God and true man in two na­tures/ neither nature mingling with or changing the other; brought into being from true flesh and rational soul

1 though without a father

according to the flesh; and that the same person as before is both cre­ator and created, maker and made. And so what was earlier unheard

8 BOOK ONE

of is now true: the Creator is a creature, because God is a man. For with what effrontery would anyone who accepts God to be a man, deny the Creator to be a creature? But who does not accept this is not

a Catholic. [4] It is also true that this man created heaven and earth, that

this God has been dead; He was not, however, a man when He ere· ated these things, but was God when dead. We believe that this true God and inan suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, and died. That his body, with its divinity but without its divine soul, lay in the sepulcher; his soul and his same divinity without body descended to hell. On the third day He arose with soul and body united; He often appeared to the apostles in many manifestations. On the forti· eth day He ascended to heaven, while they watched. On the fiftieth day He sent the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire; and He will come to judge the living and the dead.

(5] Thus we believe, approving some propositions with human reason; others, although possibly contrary to human reason, we yet believe and profess with absolute certainty because they were written by men to whom the Spirit had revealed them: men who professed neither to lie nor to affirm anything but certainty. But if any religious person should read this small work of ours, and some· thing in it should appear to deviate from the faith, he should cor­rect it either by spoken or by written word, and we will not object to altering it.

DuKE. It seems to me you have ended the confession of your faith. It remains, therefore, that you next speak about created substance.

4· The Created Substance: [The Five Classes of Rational Beings]

[r] PHILOSOPHER. Created substance is divided in two, for it is either invisible or visible. But in order to dwell a little longer on the subject of visible substance, which needs much more discussion, concerning the invisible we will not adduce our own opinion, but Plato's.

DUKE. If the opinion of a pagan is to be cited, I prefer you to quote Plato than any other, for he accords better with our faith.

[2] PHILOSOPHER. Plato, the most learned of philosophers, divided the world into five regions: heaven, ether, air, the moist region, and earth.

THE CREATED SUBSTANCE 9

r. The five regions of the world and their creatures.

He calls heaven the region in which the fixed stars are found· ether the region stretching from there as far as the lunar circle· ~ir th~ upper half of the atmosphere; the moist region, the lower p~rt o

1

£ the atmosphere. He wanted none of these regions to be without rational living beings. Therefore, he said that there existed in heaven a visible rational, immortal, and impassible living being, namely, the stars; that on earth there was a visible, rational, passible, and mortal being, namely, man; in the three middle regions, he said, there were crea­tures that shared some of the qualities of the two outermost regions but differed in others [fig. r ]. 20

[3] We shall give a definition common to these three groups of intermediate creatures; the intelligent reader may work out, from the definition, which characteristics they share with the outermost ones and which they lac.k. So, the middle creature, which is located in the three regions, is defined by Plato as rational, immortal, invis· ible, passible. The three groups differ, however, with regard to their passions. For owing to their natural goodness, the two higher ones love human beings, rejoice with them in their prosperity and mourn at their adversity. In this way they are passible, for joy and sorrow are counted among the passions.

[4] The creature of the ether, however, has greater knowledge and dignity, so that it sometimes rules over the creature of the air.

IO BOOK ONE

But the creature of the air runs to and fro between God and man almost as a mediator and reveals the will of God to men through a voice, a dream, imagination, or visible signs. He reports the prayers of man to God, who is not ignorant of his needs yet wishes to be asked. For this reason he is called an angel, that is, a messenger.

[s] The c:reature of the moist region is passible in a different way: he is full of wickedness, hatred, and envy; it tortures him to see men do well, but it delights him to see them in distress, because he fell through his pride from the very place to which man ascends through humility. This Creature suggests base thoughts, makes man sharp-tongued and quarrelsome, causes backbiting and false testi­mony, incites men to dishonest actions: in short, he rushes about to prevent all good. Sometimes he takes on some bodily fonn and has intercourse with a woman; from that union a human being is often produced.

[6] DuKE. This seems to be abhorrent to our faith.

PHILOSOPHER. If you do not believe me, believe Augustine, who affirms that the Huns were born like this in the marshes of the Maeotis.21

DUKE. Let it be, then, as we are not allowed to contradict such an au­thority. But go on to the next point.

s. [Demons or Angels]

[ r] PHILOSOPHER. These three classes of living beings are called demons by the Greeks.

DuKE. You appear to contradict yourself. For at first you laid down that two classes Were good and the third was wicked; now you call all of them demons. How then is it possible that one and the same class should be good as well as demonic?

PHILOSOPHER. Now you are speaking like one of the commoners. For you think, as I infer from your words, that a demon is the same as a devil, which is not the case. For a demon is said to be any in­visible being which uses reason, as if knowing. Of these the two higher orders are called calodemons, that is, ugood knowing ones"; the lower order is called cacodemon, that is, 11 evil knowing one,

11 for

DEMONS OR ANGELS II

calos means (/good," cacos "bad. 1122 So what do you find confusing in this? After all, both types of demons are called angels.

[2] DUKE. When Plato divides the good angels into two categories, and Scripture divides them into nine, it seems that there are too few categories in the former and too many in the latter.

PHILOSOPHER. Although it may seem like that to some, it is in fact not true. For it so happens that one and the same thing may be di­vided, according to different points of view, sometimes into more and sometimes into fewer parts, without there ever being too many or too few. Therefore, Plato divided the calodemons, or good angels, into two according to place; Scripture, on the other hand, divided them into nine according to rank.

[3] DuKE. Since Plato calls them living beings and since every living being is a body, or at least has a body, he differs greatly from Scrip­ture, which says about the good angels, "Who makes the spirits his own angels, 1123 and about the bad angels, "When an unclean spirit has come out of a man, etc. 1

'24

PHILOSOPHER. If Plato had been in agreement with Scripture in every instance, he would not have been an Academic. But why do you con­sider him to be contrary to Scripture in view of the above, when the same Scripture accords with him in this very issue? For Gregory says in his Moralia [Commentary on Job], "By comparison with our bodies they are spirits, but by comparison with the highest and infinite Spirit they ought to be called bodies. " 25 And Augustine, in a chapter of his Enchiridion, asks, "What sort of bodies do angels have?"26

[4] DuKE. An example which tries to resolve one dispute by means of another achieves nothingY But tell me whose opinion you support and how you explain these authors.

PHILOSOPHER. Since each opinion is defended by a great judge, and on this point neither danger nor salvation of the soul is at stake, we confirm or condemn neither. But those who hold that angels are corporeal explain the authorities that seem to contradict them as fol­lows: air is sometimes called a spirit, as in "The spirit of God moved upon the face of the water'';28 whence the inhalation and exhalation of air is called 11breathing" [spirare}.

I2 BOOK ONE

[s] Therefore, angels are spirits-that is, thin aerial or ethereal bodies-so that by their natural agility they are able at once to be here and somewhere else. As is the case of the visual beam, which nobody doubts is material, it is at one moment in the east and then suddenly in the west, and touches sun and earth almost in the same instant. As a result of this, some believe that demons have a knowl­edge of the future. For when someone consults them about some­thing they do not know, for example, whether a friend tarrying abroad will soon return, immediately, in the wink of an eye, they arrive at that place where he is; seeing that he has already begun the journey back, they count how many days he will take to return, and say, 11 He will arrive at such and such a time." Similarly, a human being could look into the future if his sight were not deficient or the swelling of the earth did not prevent him seeing further, when he turns his eyes in the direction of that person.

[6] Others believe that demons read men's minds because, before anyone can tell that I want something, they often predict what it is; however, they do this not from knowledge, but from conjecture.29

For hom time immemorial, by long practice and experience, they are used.to recognizing the signs that precede, accompany, or follow an event. Thus when they see signs preceding an event, they care­fully turn over in their minds what it may be. As when, for example, they see someone often directing his gaze to a woman: because they know that where there is pain there is a hand, and where there is love there is an eye,30 seeing that he turns pale at one moment and blushes at the next, that he stammers or talks brokenly, they conjec­ture he is in love, but do not really know.

[7] So it is that demons were never certain about Christ while He was on earth. For they saw in Him some signs typical of man, such as hunger, thirst, and such like; others typical of God, such as bringing the dead back to life and healing the blind. But thinking in their own pride that it would not be fitting for God to become man, they Were unaware of what Christ was. For if they had known this, they would never have urged men to crucify Him.

[8] DUKE. I see the point of those who hold that angels are bodies; but as to those who say those same angels are spirits, I do not know how they interpret the authorities cited above.

PHILOSOPHER. Those who hold this opinion explain Gregory's au­thority as follows: the angels share this with the Creator, that they are not bodies; they have this in common with our bodies, that they

THE ELEMENTS I3

are confined within one place, so that nothing of them exists outside it, whereas the Creator is everywhere in his totality.

[9] Therefore, by comparison with our bodies they are spirits, but compared with the Creator, who is spirit uncircumscribed by place, they should be called bodies. For they are like bodies in that they are confined within one place. It does not follow however that if they are bodies by comparison with the Creator, th~y "are," there­fore, "bodies": in the same way human wisdom, compared to divine knowledge, is nothing, although it is not true that "human wisdom is nothing." Again, one might say that the earth, by comparison with the heavens, has no dimension; this, however, does not mean that the earth "has no dimension."

[ro] DUKE. It is certain that such deductions can be disproved by many similar examples, but it is not clear to me how they explain Augustine's authority.

PHILOSOPHER. They maintain that Augustine, when he asks what types of bodies angels have, is actually asking what bodies they assume when they appear to men in human form: as in the case of the three angels who appeared to Abraham at the foothill of Mamre when he saw three but adored one;31 or in the case of those wh~ were received as guests by Lot; 32 or with that angel who led Tobias the younger to Raguel. 33 Augustine asks in these cases whether they are really human bodies or other kinds of bodies having the appear­anceofmen.

[rr] DUKE. It is not safe to go on disputing such issues. Let us, there­fore, dismiss them and deal with the other invisible things.

PHILOSOPHER. Apart from the angels, the souls of men are invisible. But because we are to speak about man later, let us defer talking about them until then, so that the discussion of man may be a single continuous piece.34 Further the two upper elements are invisible, so we will discuss them next, together with the other two.

6. The Elements

[ r] DuKE. Since you intend dealing with the elements, would you please take your time over it. For it is impossible for something to

14- BOOK ONE

gain praise for both haste and perfection; moreover, no author has given an accurate account of the elements.35

PHILOSOPHER. I shall do as you wish, but before I deal with the ele­ments, I ask you not to require necessary reasons in every case: it is quite sufficient for us to provide probable reasons.36 But compare our account with the accounts of other writers and give your approval to those who in your opinion have written best on this subject. For it should not be asked who said something, but what they said. How­ever, I do not deny that personal excellence should give greater distinction to a. g~:lOd work.

[2] DUKE. I shall be satisfied with mere probability, when necessity cannot be found.

PHILOSOPHER. An element is what is found to be the first thing in the constitution of a body and the last in its resolution.37 First in the con­stitution is that which constitutes but is not constituted; last in the resolution is that which divides but is not divided. Now reason de­mands that just as each body can be divided into two largest parts, so it can be divided into an infinite number of smallest ones. For each body has a boundary and an end. Therefore, in each single body there are particles that compose it in such a way that t~ey ~hemselves a~e not composed from parts. These are first in constitutiOn and last In

resolution.

[3] DuKE. In one and the same statement you contradict bot~ your­self and Boethius: for you say that all bodies can be resolved Into an infinite number of smallest particles, then you go on to say that there are certain elements in them that are last in resolution. Now Boethius again says: "Magnitude decreases into infinity. "38

PHILOSOPHER. The term 11 infinite" is used with different meanings according to :number, measure, or species. But even when we say "something is infinite in number/' the term does not have only one set meaning. For instance, certain things are said to be infi~ite i.n number when their number never remains the same, and 1n this sense Plato says that individuals are infinite: in fact, being subje.ct to generation and corruption, they are sometimes more, sometimes

fewer. [4] Again, other things are said to be infinite in number not be­

cause there is no limit to their number, but because it is virtually

THE ELEMENTS 15

impossible for us to ascertain their actual number. Therefore, all things that are said to be infinite in number are limited in number, but some of them are sometimes in one number, sometimes in an­other; some are always in the same number, but this number is such as to exceed human comprehension. When, therefore, we said that a body can be resolved into an infinite number of smallest particles, and when Boethius said that 11 magnitude decreases into infinity," in­finity was meant in the second sense.

[5] There is another philosophical view, which holds that as multitude39 increases into infinity (not, however, each or some, for each has a definite limit), so magp.itude40 decreases into infinity (not, however, each or some, but because no name is found for so small a part that if nature should make an even smaller one, it would not be its name).41

DuKE. Explain more clearly what you are saying.

PHILOSOPHER. Every fraction decreases in size as its denominator increases in number, just as it increases in size as its denominator decreases in number; as the number of its parts decreases, so its size increases, and the more parts it has, the smaller it becomes. So a half is larger than a third, and a third is larger than a fourth. 11 Magni­tude," therefore, 11 decreases into infinity" not according to the num­ber of its parts, but according to their names.

[ 6] DuKE. Return to the main argument.

PHILOSOPHER. There are, therefore, in each body minimal compo­nents that when joined together, constitute a single large object. These we call elements. Constantine agrees with this opinion when he says, 11 An element is the simple and least particle of a body. "42

Certain of these particles are hot and dry, which are properly called fire; certain cold and dry, and these form the earth; certain cold and wet, and these are properly called water; certain hot and wet, and these are properly called air.

[?]DuKE. Since these particles are infinite, and diverse bodies consist of diverse particles, how can what has been said make sense: there are four elements, and everything consists of these same elements?

PHILOSOPHER. Just as every word is a part of speech, although there are eight parts of speech, so we say that each single particle is an ele~

16 BOOK ONE

ment, although there are four elements, because they fall into four classes. And as we .say that the two sentences "Socrates reads 11 and 11 Plato debates 11 consist of the same parts of speech, but neither of the same particles nor of the same words, so we say that bodies consist of the same elements, but not of the same particles. From di­verse combinadons of these four categories of particles, God created bodies in the way we are about to discuss.

[81 DUKE. As it seems to me, you are secretly falling back on the opinion of the Epicureans, who said that the world consists of atoms.

PHILOSOPHER. No philosophical doctrine is so false that it does not have some truth mixed with it, though obscured by the addition of some falsehood. When the Epicureans said that the earth consists of atoms, they were correct. But it must be regarded as a fable when they said that those atoms were without beginning and flew to and fro separately through the great void,43 then massed themselves into four great bodies. For nothing can be without beginning and place except God.

[9] We say, therefore, that God created these particles simultane­ously and not separated, but in the constitution of a single whole, as we shall presently explain. In the same way He created the two hemispheres of the earth, not separated or before the earth, but in the earth and together with the earth. For He that spoke, and things came to be, 44 was able to create the parts and the whole simultane­ously.

[ro] DUKE. What do you say about these particles, which you desig­nate elements: are they visible or invisible? After all, if they are visible, they do not lack all dimensions; if they are invisible, since they are perceived by none of the senses, how does this agree with what Lucretius says, 11Do not believe that anything perceptible can be born out of something imperceptible, 1145 and Macrobius, 11When doubled, every quality increases, but never produces its contrary, 1146

whence something imperceptible joined to something else impercep­tible never produces anything perceptible, since this is its contrary?

[ r r] PHILOSOPHER. An imperceptible thing is one that, be it alone or joined to others of its own kind, cannot be perceived by any one of the senses of the body, as in the case of the soul, because neither one soul nor a multitude of souls is perceived by the senses. But if a single particle cannot in itself be perceived, it is, however, perceived

CHAOS AND THE WORK OF THE CREATOR AND NATURE 17

when linked to others. After all, what is a body, other than particles hnked together? Therefore, when a particle is joined to another, the do:ubled quality increases, it does not produce its contrary.

[12] DuKE. If these particles are perceptible, they are bodies. But if they ar~ bodies, they have three dimensions-namely, length, breadth, and th1ckness-because, as Boethius says, "no single body is to be found without these dimensions."

~HILO~OPHER. What makes you ask this mass of annoying ques­tions Is that you do not know the difference between original and metaphorical terms. The person who first called something a "body11

gave that name to a thing constituted of the four elements that hap­pened to be before his eyes. So Boethius says, "The human intellect gave names to things actually existing and remaining in the consti­tution of nature, "47 calling the constitution of nature their being con­stituted of the four elements.

. [ 13] Then the philosophers, considering the first principles of thmgs, transferred the names to the particles48 and called these "bodies/' adding "simple" to distinguish them from the compound b_odies. For as there is a simple and a compound present, so there is a s1mple and a compound body.49 Thus, when Boethius says that "it is impossible to find any body without these three dimensions," what he means to express is "according to the original sense of the term not its transferred philosophical use." Therefore, although the par~ ticles under discussion are bodies according to the philosophical transfer, they do not have three dimensions.

7· (Chaos and the Work of the Creator and Nature]

[I] DUKE. When you say that those particles were not created sepa-rately, say in what and with what they were created. .

PHILOSOPHER. The Creator created those particles in one large body. They were not locally distinct, but mixed throughout· the whole, so that none of the particles was outside this body. It occupied the whole place now occupied by all bodies. Because of the mixture of the particles, this large body has been called chaos by th~ philoso­phers, which can be translated as "confusion." For joined1:6gether in it without proportion or intermediate space, hot and cold particles clashed continually with each other, just as wet particles clashed

I8 BOOK ONE

with dry ones. Whence Ovid said, "A rough and confused mass," and then added, 11 The cold elements struggled with the hot ones, the wet elements with the dry ones."50 But from that large body the Creator immediately created the four bodies-which some people call ele­ments nowadays-in distinct places, as we shall presently explain.

[2] DuKE. The Creator created everything with his word alone and knows everything before it comes into being; why then did He com­bine something out of four elements, which He knew would not last for long?

PHILOSOPHER. What you are asking hardly becomes anyone. For we see the works of the Creator, but we are ignorant of the causes. For who was his counsellorJ51 First, however, we shall say what we think about this question and then what others say about it. Everything is the work of either the Creator, or nature, or a craftsman. The work of the Creator is the creation of the elements and the souls from noth­ing, bringing the dead back to life, causing a virgin to give birth, and such like.

[3 J DuKE. Before you explain how nature works, would you please define "nature"?

PHILOSOPHER. As Ciceio says; 11 it is difficult to define nature"; 52

however, as the term is understood here, nature is a certain force im­planted in things, producing similar from similar. 53 It is, therefore, the work of nature that men are born of men, asses from asses, and so on. But whatever is constructed by man to provide for his natural needs, such as clothes against cold or a house against inclement weather, is the work of a craftsman.

[4] But when nature produces a certain thing, she produces some­thing rough and confused at first, then gradually forms and divides it: for example, first she produces must, 54 then she drags what is sedi­mentary and heavy in it to the lowest place [of the vat], whatever is light to the top, and what is in between to the middle place. Similarly she creates, mixed in milk, four substances, 55 which man afterward skillfully separates with the help of nature. Therefore, because nature and the craftsman were unable to come up to the Creator's work, the Creator determined to come down to their standard. For, if this were not so, it would be thought to be a weakness in nature whenever things were created mixed by her. Or, as others say, God created_ a

CHAOS AND THE WORK OF THE CREATOR AND NATURE 19

mixed thing to show how much confusion of things was possible if his own love were not ordering them.

[5[ DUKE. I am satisfied with that. But tell me, was that primeval mixture rna bile or immobile?

PHILOSOPHER. Reason proves that it was immobile. For since it filled every place, it could not move from one place to another; or how could what was mixed from every kind of mobile things be able to move in a circle?

DuKE. You openly contradict Plato, whose friend you claim to be. For he says, "God reduced to order, out of a disordered agitation, every physical object floating about with an aimless movement."s6

[ 6] PHILOSOPHER. When Plato said1 "every physical object floating with an aimless movement," he had in mind the natural motion of the elements, by which two move toward the center, two away from the center, as we are about to say. And when he said, 11He reduced to order from a disordered agitation," he did not mean an agitation that actually existed, but one that might have existed, had He not ordered things in this way. But, as far as I can see, putting questions tires you since you are not accustomed to it. So, if it pleases you

1 most illus­

trious Duke, let us continue-our dialogue tomorrow in order tore­vive the spirit and voice.

DuKE. I agree.