Blessed Albertus. Albert the Great, the Dominican doctor, scientist, philosopher, and theologian. Born circa 1206; died at Cologne, 15 November, 1280. He is called the Great and Doctor Universalis on account of his extraordinary genius and encyclopaedic knowledge, for he surpassed all his contemporaries in every branch of learning cultivated in his day. He is certainly one of the glories of the Order of Preachers. Ulrich Endelbert speaks of him as: Uir in omni scientia adeo divinus, ut nostri temporis stupor et miraculum congrue vocari possit (De summo bono, III, iv). Perhaps at the present day his extraordinary genius is not sufficiently recognized, for he was certainly one of the most learned men of all time. The latest edition of his complete works, Paris (Louis Vives), 1890-99, in thity-eight quarto volumes, was published under the direction of the Abb Auguste Borgnet, of the diocese of Reims. De animalibbus will be found in Vols. XI-XII. The feast of Albertus Magnus is celebrated on 15 November. He was beatified by Gregory XV in 1622, so in this translation I call him Blessed by anticipation.
Bernard. Junior, or Modernus, a canonist who lived in the middle of the thirteenth century, called Compostellanus from the fact that he possessed an ecclesiastical benefice in Compostella. He was also known as Brignadius from his birthplace in Galicia, Spain. Bernard was chaplain to Innocent IV, who reigned 1243-54, and was himself a noted canonist. Bernard's Commentaries on Canon law are very copius and very celebrated. He is termed Modernus to distinguish him from Bernard Antiquus, a canonist of the early thirteenth century, a native of Compostella, who became Professor of Canon law in the University of Bologna.
Giovanni d'Andrea. This distinguished canonist was born at Mugello, near Florence, about 1275; died 1348. He was educated at the University of Bologna, where he afterwards became Professor of Canon law. He had previously taught at Padua and Pisa, and his career as a lecturer extended for nearly half a century. His works are Glossarium in VI decretalium librum, Venice and Lyons, 1472; Glossarium in Clementinas; Nouella, siue Commentarius in decretales epistolas Gregorii IX, Venice, 1581; Mercuriales, siue commentarius in regulas sexti; Liber de laudibus S. Hieronymi; Additamenta ad speculum Durand (1347).
Pope Nicholas. Nicholas V, 1397-1455, the great patron of learning.
Raymond of Sabunde. Born at Barcelona, Spain, towards the end of the fourteenth century; died 1432. From 1430 to his death he taught theology, philosophy, and medicine at the University of Toulouse. Of his many works only one remains, Theologia Naturalis. It was first written in Spanish, and translated into Latin at various times: December, 1487; Strasburg, 1496; Paris, 1509; Venice, 1581, etc. Montaigne, who translated the book into French, Paris, 1569, bears witness to the extraordinary popularity it enjoyed in his own day.
S. Ambrose. On dsigne depuis le XVI sicle sous le nom d'Ambrosiaster )= psuedo-Ambroise) l'auteur anonyme d'un commentair sur les Epîtres de saint Paul ( l'exclusion de Epître aux Hbreux), qui au moyenâge, peut-être même ds l'poque de Cassiodore, fut imput inexactement saint Ambroise. Cette paraphrase est tout fait remarquable; c'est l'une des plus intressantes que l'antiquit chrtienne nous ait lgues. Labriolle, Histoire de la Litterrature Latine Chrtienne, c. III.
Innocent V. Petrus a Tarentasia, born in Tarentaise, towards 1225, elected at Arezzo, 21 January, 1276; died at Rome, 22 June, 1276. At the age of sixteen he joined the Dominican Order, and he won great distinction as a Professor at the University of Paris, whence he is known as Doctor Famosissimus. He is the author of several works dealing with philosophy, theology, and Canon law, some of which are still unpublished. The principal of these is the Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. I have used the edition, Toulouse, 1652.
De passionibus. This treatise on physical science may be found in Vol. IX. of Abb Bornet's edition of the Opera omnia.
“Galatians.” iii, i. The original Greek is , ; Curtius doubts the etymological connexion between and Latin “fascino” as from a root . In classical times the charm was dissolved by spitting thrice. Cf. Theocritus, VI, 39: , .
Avicenna. Abn Ali Al Hosian Ibn Addalah Ibn Sina, Arabian physician and philosopher, born at Kharmaithen, in the province of Bokhara, 980; died at Hamadan, in Northern Persia, 1037. It should be noted that the Schoolmen were aware of the pantheistic tendencies of Avicenna's philosophical works, and accordingly were reluctant to trust to his exposition of Aristotle.
Al-Gazali. Abu Hamid Mohammed Ibn Mohammed, the celebrated Arabian philosopher, born at Tous in Khorasan in 1038; died at Nissapour in 1111. He passed through complete scepticism to the mysticism of the Sufis. It is often said that Blessed Albertus Magnus wrote thus: Non approbo dictum Avicennae et Algazel de fascinatione, quia credo quod non nocet fascinatio, nec nocere potest ars magica, nec facit aliquid ex his quae timentur de talibus. But thus passage is more than suspicious.
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali:
Munkidh min al-Dalal (Confessions, or Deliverance from Error), c. 1100 CE
The Remembrance
Second Dialogue. The Dialogorum Libri IV is one of the most famous of S. Gregory's works, and very many separate editions have appeared.
Vincent. Little is known of the personal history of this celebrated encyclopaedist. The years of his birth and death are uncertain, but the dates most frequently assigned are 1190 and 1264 respectively. It is thought that he joined the Dominicans in Paris shortly after 1218, and that he passed practically his whole life in his monastery in Beauvais, where he occupied himself incessantly upon his enormous work, the general title of which is Speculum Maius, containing 80 books, divided into 9885 chapters. The third part, Speculum Historiale, in 31 books and 3793 chapters, bring the History of the World down to A.D. 1250.
Zoroaster. Pliny, Historia Naturalis, XXX, ii, says of magic: Sine dubio illic orta in Perside a Zoroastre, ut inter auctores conuenit. Sed unus hic fuerit, an postea et alius, non satis constat. Apuleius, De Magia, XXVI, mentions Zoroaster and Oromazus as the inventors of sorcery. Audustine magiam . . . artem esse dis immortalibus acceptam . . . a Zoroastro et Oromazo auctoribus suis nobilem, caelitum antistitam?
Cham. A.V. Ham. Lenglet du Fresnoy in his History of the Hemetic Philosophy repeats an old tradition: Most alchemists pretended that Cham, or Chem, the son of Noe, was an adept in the art, and thought it highly probable that the words Chemistry and Alchemy are both derived from his name. Lactantius, De Origine Erroris, II, says of the descendants of Cham: Omnium primi qui Aegyptum occupauerunt; caelestia suspicere, atque adorare coeperunt.
Réalit de la Magie et des Apparitions, Paris, 1819 (pp. xii-xiii), has: Le monde, purg par le dluge, fut repeupl par les trois fils de No. Sem et Japhet imitèrent la vertu de leur pre, et furent justes comme lui. Cham, au contraire, donna entre au démon dans son coeur, remit au jour lart excrable de la magie, en composa les rgles, et en instruisit son fils Misraim.
Cent trente ans aprs le dluge, Sem habitait la Perse. Ses enfans pratiguaient la religion naturelle, que Dieu mit dans le coeur du premier homme; et leurs vieillards se nommaient mages, qui veit dire sages en notre langue. Dans la suite, les descendans de Cham se partagrent, et quielques-uns passrent en Perse; Cham, qui vivait encore, tait leur tête. Il opéra tant de Zoroastre, cest--dire, astre vivant; et transportrent ceux de sa secte le nom honorable de mages, que les adorateurs du vrai Dieu abandonnrent, ds quiils le virent ainsi profan: et cest de l que nous est venu le nom de magie, pour signifier le culte du dmon.
Cham, ou Zoroastre, fut encore linventeur de lastrologie judiciaire; il regarda les astres comme autant de dininits, et persuada aux hommes que tout leur destin dpendait de leurs bonnes ou mauvaises influences. Ainsi lon commença leur rendre un culte religieux, qui fut lorigine de lidolâtrie. La Chalde fut le premier thâtre de ces garemens; et alors, Chalden, astrologue et magicien taient trius mots synonymes.
Nembroth. S. Augustine, De Ciuitate Dei, XVI, 3, quotes: Chus autem genuit Nebrothl hic coepit esse gigans super terram. Hic erat gigans uenator contra Dominum Deum. Nebroth is the English Nimrod, who was considered a past master of magic, and even by lat
er ages a demon. So we have: Nembroth. Un des esprits que les magiciens consultent. Le mardi lui est consacr, et on lvoque ce jour-l: il faut, pour le renvoyer, lui jeter une pierre; ce qui est facile. Collin de Plancy (Dictionnaire Infernal, sixime dition, 1863).
Cast by the eyes. In Ireland it was supposed that certain witches could cast a spell at a glance, and they were commonly called eye-biting witches.
“On Sleep.” This is one of the smaller treatises connected with Aristotle's great work “On the Soul”, .
Qui timent. Psalm li, 8: Uidebunt iusti et timebunt.
Incubi. For a very full discussion of the whole subject see Sinistrari's Demoniality with my Commentary and glosses, Fortune Press, 1927.
Dionysius. A series of famous writings attributed to S. Dionysius the Areopagite (Acts xvii, 34), who was also popularly identified with the Martyr of Gaul, the first Bishop of Paris. The writings themselves form a collection of four treatises and ten letters. These will all be found in Migne, Patres Graeci, III. The treatises are generally referred to under their Latin names, De Diuinis nominibus; Caelestis heirarchia; Ecclesiastica hierarchia; Theologia mystica. The main source from which the Middle Ages obtained a knowledged of Dionysius and his doctrine was undoubtedly the Latin translation by Scotus Eriugena, made bout 858. There are ample commentaries by many great writers such as Hugh of Saint-Victor, Blessed Alburtus Magnus, S. Thomas, and Denys the Carthusian. The works of Dionysius the Aeropagite and the identification of this writer with S. Denys were accepts by Saints and Schoolmen, and perhaps we should do well to follow them without curious questions and impertinent discussion.
Esaias. See my gloss upon this passage, Demoniality, Introduction, xxvi-xxviii.
Overlaying. Nider, Formicarius, ix, writes: Incubi dicuntur ab incumbendo, hoc est struprando.
Dusii. De Ciuitate Dei, XV, 23, where S. Augustine has: Et quosdam daemones, quos Dusios Galli nuncupant, adsidue hanc immunditiam et efficere, plures talesque adseuerant, ut hoc negare impudentiae uideatur.
A Fig Faun. Jeremias l, 39, the desolation of Babylon, has: Propterea habitabunt dracones cum faunis ficariis: et habitabunt in ea struthiones: et non inhabitabutur ultra usque in sempiternum, nec exstruetur uque ad generationem, et generationem. Which Douay translates: Therefore shall dragons dwell there with the fig fauns: and ostriches shall dwell therein, and it shall be no more inherited for ever, neither shall it be built up from generation to generation. The English gloss says: Fig fauns. Monsters of the desert, or demons in monstrous shapes: such as the ancients called fauns and satyrs: and as they imagined them to live upon wild figs, they called them fauni ficarii or fig fauns. Mirabeau, Erotika Biblion (pseudo-Rome), 1783, under Bhmah writes: Les satyrs, les faunes, les égypans, toutes ces fables en sont une tradition trs remarquable. Satan en arabe signifie bouc; et le bouc expiatoire ne fut ordonn par Moyse que pour dtourner les Isralites du goût quils avoient pour cet animal lascif. (Maimonide dans le More Nevochin, p. III, c. xlvi, stend sur les cultes des boucs). Comme il est dit dans lExode quon ne pouvoit voir la face des dieux, les Isralites toient persuads que les dmons si faisoient voir sous cette forme. . . . On a enquite confondu les incubes et les succubes avec les vritables produits. Jrmie parle de faunes suffoquans. (Jrm., l, 39. Faunis sicariis et non pas ficariis. Car des faunes qui avoient des figues ne voudroit nen dire. Cependant Saci la traduit ainsi; car les Jansnistes affectent la plus grande puret des moeurs, mais Berruyer soutient le Sicarii et rend ses faunes trs actifs.) Hraclite a dcrit des satyres qui vivoient dans les bois, et jouissoient en commun des femmes dont ils semparoient. But the Vulgate has Fauni ficarii, which settles the point. That the reading was very disputed is clear from Nider, Formicarius, who has: Quem autem uulgo Incubonem uocant, hunc Romani uicarium dicunt. Ad quem Horatius dicit: Faune Nympharum fugientium amator meos per fines et aprica rura lenis incedas. Insuper illud Apostoli I Cor. xi. Mulier debet uelamen habere super caput suum propter Angelos: Multi Catholici exponunt quod sequitur, propter angelos, id est Incubos. The quotation from Horace is Carminum, III, 18.
Bede. Born 672 or 673, died 735. This great work, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, giving an account of Christianity in England from the beginning until his own day, has been recognized as a masterpiece by the scholars of all ages and countries. An authoritative edition was published by Plummer, two vols., Oxford, 1896.
William of Paris. William of Auvergne, was born at Aurillac in Auvergne towards the end of the twelfth century, and died at Paris, of which city he had in 1228 been consecrated Bishop, in 1249. Although not a Summa Theologica, his de Universo is a practical endeavour to found a science of reality on principes opposed to those of the Arabian commentators upon and perverters of Aristotle. His theological works are particularly interesting as devoting much attention to a refutation of the Manichees, whose heresies had been recently revived. There is a good study by Valois, Guillaume dAuvergne, Paris, 1880.
Almagest. Claudius Prolemaus was a celebrated mathematician, astronomer, and geographer. Of the details of his life nothing appears to be known beyond the facts that he was certainly at Alexandria in A.D. 139, and since he survived Antoninus Pius he was alive later that March, 161. His Geography, is very famous, but perhaps even more celebrated was the , usually known by its Arabic name of Almagest. Since the Tetrabiblus, the work on astrology, was also entitled , the Arabs, to distinguish between the two, called the greater work , and afterwards ; the title Almagest is a compound of this last adjective and the Arabic articels. The work is divided into thirteen books, of which VII and VIII are the most interesting to the modern astronomer, as they give a catalogue of the stars. The best edition of the Almagest is considered to be that by Halma, Paris, 1813-16, two vols., 4to.
Sapiens homo dominabitur astris. This famous tag is continually quoted. Cf. Tomkis' Albumazar (acted at Cambridge, March, 1615), I, 7, where Albumazar says:
Indeed th' Ægyptian Ptolemy, the wise,
Pronounc'd it as an oracle of truth,
Sapiens dominabitur astris. In Book III, Epigram 186, of John Owen's first published volume, we get:
Fata regunt reges; sapiens dominabitur astris.
Sir Sampson Legend in Congreve's Love for Love, was produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields, 30 April, 1695, II, I, bantering old Foresight, who loudly acclaims the influence of the stars, throws at him: I tell you I am wise; and
sapiens dominabitur astrust; there's Latin for you to prove it. According to W. Aldis Wright's note on Bacon's Advancement of Learning, II, xxiii, 12: Mr. Ellis says this sentence is ascribed to Prolemy by Cognatus. The reference is to Cognati's collection of Adages, which together with the Adagia of Erasmus and other famous repertories of saws and proverbs may be found in the voluma Adagia compiled by Joynaeus. Joannes Nevizanus, Sylva Nuptialis, II, 96, notes: Dicit tamen Bal. in c.j. at lite pand. quod sapiens dominabitur astrist. Bal. is Baldus, Baldo degli Ubaldi (b. 1327), the most famous canonist of his day and Professor utriusque iuris at the Universities of Padua, Perugia, and Piacenza, who wrote ample glosses on the Corpus Iuris Ciuilis. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, quotes spapiens, etc., and A.R. Shilleto in his notes says that it is also cited by Jeremy Taylor, and that C.G. Eden, his best editor, could not trace the origin of the phrase.
S. John. S. John Damascene, Doctor of the Church, was born at Damascus about 676, and died some time between 754 and 787. The quotation is from , which is the third part of the most important of all his works, , Fountain of Wisdom. This third part, The Orthodox Faith, to which reference is made here, must be considered the most notable of all writings of S. John Damascene, and it is in this treatise that he discloses so comprehensive a knowledge of the astronomy of his day. It may be pointed out that Sprenger regards the authority of S. John far too lightly, for the Doctor's words carry great weight. The only complete edition of the works of S. John Damascene is that by Michael Lequien, O.P., published at Paris, 1717, and Venice, 1748. Migne has reprinted this, Patres Græci, XCIV-XCVI, with the addition of certain works by so
me attributed to the same author.
Mathematicians. Although in Cicero and in Seneca mathematicus means a mathematician, in later Latin it always signifies an astrologer, a diviner, a wizard. The Mathematici were condemned by the Roman law as exponents of black magic. Their art is indeed forbidden in severest terms by Diocletian (A.D. 284-305): Artem geometriae discere atque exervere oublice interest, ars autem mathematica damnabilis interdicta est omnino. The world mathematician was used in English sometimes to denote an astrologer, a fortune-teller. So in Shirley's comedy The Sisters, III, licensed April 1642, when the bandist disguised as diviners visit the castle, Giovanni enters crying out: Master Steward, yonder are the rarest fellows! In such fantastical habits, too; they call themselves mathematicians. What do they come for? the steward asks. To offer their service to my Lady, and tell fortunes, is the reply. When Antonio sees them he grumbles:
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