Effect of sin upon nature.
Neckam harbored the notion, which we met long before in the pagan Philostratus, in the Hebraic Enoch literature, in the Christian Pseudo-Clementines and Basil’s Hexaemeron, and more recently in the writings of Hildegard, that man’s sin has its physical effects upon nature. To Adam’s fall he attributes not only the spots on the moon but the wildness of most animals, and the existence of insects to plague, and venomous animals to poison, and diseases to injure mankind.[605] But for the fall of man, moreover, all living creatures would be subsisting upon a vegetarian diet.
Neckam on occult virtues.
Magic is hardly mentioned in the De naturis rerum. In a passage, however, telling how Aristotle ordered some of his subtlest works to be buried with him, Neckam adds that he so guarded the neighborhood of his sepulcher “by some mysterious force of nature or power of art, not to say feat of the magic art, that no one in those days could enter it.”[606] But Neckam is a believer in occult virtues and to a certain extent in astrology. He would also seem to believe in the force of incantations from his assertion that “in words and herbs and stones diligent investigators of nature have discovered great virtue. Most certain experience, moreover, makes our statement trustworthy.”[607] He mentions a much smaller number of stones than Marbod, but ascribes the same occult virtues to those which he does name. In the preface to his first book he says that some gems have greater virtue when set in silver than when set in gold. A tooth separated from the jaw of a wild boar remains sharp only as long as the animal remains alive, an interesting bit of sympathetic magic.[608] The occult property of taming wild bulls possessed by the fig-tree which we have already seen noted by various authors is also remarked by Neckam.[609] A moonbeam shining through a narrow aperture in the wall of a stable fell directly on a sore on a horse’s back and caused the death of a groom standing nearby. Out-of-doors the effect would not have been fatal, since the force of the moon’s rays would not have been so concentrated upon one spot and the humidity would have had a better chance to diffuse through space.[610]
Fascination.
After telling of the fatal glances of the basilisk and wolf, Neckam says that fascination is explained as due to evil rays from someone who looks at you. He adds that nurses lick the face of a child who has been fascinated.[611]
His limited belief in astrology.
Neckam will not believe that the seven planets are animals.[612] He does believe, however, that they not merely adorn the heavens but exert upon inferiors those effects which God has assigned to them.[613] Each planet rules in turn three hours of the day. As there are twenty-four hours in all, the last three hours of each day are governed by the same planet which ruled the first three. Hence the names of the days in the planetary week, Sunday being the day when the sun governs the first three and last three hours, Monday the day when the moon controls the opening and closing hours of day, and so on.[614] But the stars do not impose necessity upon the human will which remains free. Nevertheless the planet Mars, for instance, bestows the gift of counsel; and science is associated with the planet Venus which is hot and moist, as are persons of sanguine temperament in whom science is wont to flourish. Neckam also associates each of the seven planets which illuminate the universe with one of the seven liberal arts which shed light on all knowledge.[615] He alludes to the great year of which the philosophers tell, when after 36,000 years the stars complete their courses,[616] and to the music of the spheres when, to secure the perfect consonance of an octave, the eighth sphere of the fixed stars completes the harmony of the seven planets. But he fears that someone may think he is raving when he speaks with the philosophers of this harmony of the eight spheres.[617]
Neckam’s farewell.
At Jesus College, Oxford, in a manuscript of the early thirteenth century, which is exclusively devoted to religious writings by Neckam,[618] there occurs at the close an address of the author to his work, which is in the same hand as the rest of the manuscript, which we may therefore not unreasonably suppose to have been Neckam’s own writing. As he is spoken of in the manuscript as abbot of Cirencester, perhaps these are also actually the last words he wrote. We may therefore appropriately terminate our account of Neckam by quoting them.