General estimate of his learning.

Michael Scot may be said to manifest some of the failings of the learning of his time in a rather excessive degree. His mind, curious, credulous, and uncritical, seems to have collected a mass of undigested information and superstition with little regard to consistency or system. Occasionally he includes the most childish and naïve sort of material, as we shall illustrate later. He continues the Isidorean type of etymology, deriving the name of the month of May, for example, either from the majesty of Jupiter, or from the major chiefs of Rome who in that month were wont to dedicate laws to Jupiter, or from the maioribus in the sense of elders as June is derived from Juniors.[995] He also well illustrates the puerilities and crudities of scholastic argumentation. Thus one of the arguments which he lists against regarding a sphere as a solid body is that solids can be measured by a straight line and that it cannot.[996] Asking whether fire is hot in its own sphere, he says that it might seem not, because fire in its own sphere is light and light is neither hot nor cold.[997] This argument he rebuts in the end, and he finally decides that a sphere is a solid. But he would have seemed wiser to the modern reader to have omitted these particular contrary arguments entirely. Such propositions continue, however, to be set up and knocked down again all through the thirteenth century, and such famous men as Thomas Aquinas and Peter of Abano are guilty of much the same sort of thing. To Michael Scot’s credit may be mentioned his considerable power of experimentation and of scientific observation. Perhaps some of the “experiments” attributed to him are spurious, but they show the reputation which he had for experimental method, and on the whole it would seem to be justified. The note in his name in a thirteenth century manuscript at Cambridge,[998] giving a carefully dated and detailed account of two human foetuses which had solidified into stones like eggs, shows a keen sense of the value of thorough observation and a precise record of the same. Experimental science would seem to have received considerable encouragement at the court of Frederick II, judging from the stories told of that emperor and the pages of his own work on falconry.[999]

God and the stars.

But let us examine Michael’s views and methods more particularly. In opening the long preface to his voluminous Introduction to Astrology he states that hard study is requisite to become a good astrologer, but he finds incentive to such effort in citations from Seneca, Cato, and St. Bernard that it is virtuous to study and to be taught, and in the reflection that one who knows the conditions and habitudes of the superior bodies can easily learn those of inferior bodies. The signs and planets are not first movers or first causes, and do not of themselves confer aught of good or evil, but by their motion do indicate “something of truth concerning every body produced in this corruptible world.” The hour of conception is important and Michael explains why two persons born at the same moment may be unlike. He then jumbles together from Christian and astrological writers such assertions as that the stars are only signs, not causes, and that their influence on inferior creation may be compared to the action of the magnet upon iron, or that we see on earth good men suffer and bad men prosper, which has usually been regarded as a better argument for a fatalistic or mechanical universe than for divine control. He agrees that the universe is not eternal and that everything is in God’s power, but insists that much can be learned concerning the future from the stars.[1000]

A theological digression.

Michael then embarks upon a long theological digression[1001] in the course of which he quotes much Scripture concerning the two natures, angelic and human. After telling us of the nine orders of angels in the empyrean heaven, he deals with the process of creation, just as William of Conches and Daniel of Morley had done in their works of astronomy and astrology. In the first three days God created spiritual substances such as the empyrean heaven, angels, stars, and planets; in the other three days, visible bodies such as mixtures of the elements, birds, fish, and man. Michael also answers various questions such as why man was created last, although nobler than other creatures, what an angel is, whether angels have individual names like men, and much concerning the tenth part who fell. Perhaps the emperor Frederick is supposed to put these queries to Michael, but there seemed to be no indication to that effect in the manuscript which I examined. The reply to the question where God resides is, potentially everywhere but substantially in the intellectual or empyrean heaven.[1002] Michael discusses the holy Trinity and thinks that we have a similitude of it in the rational soul in the three faculties, intellect, reason, and memory,[1003] although he attempts no association of these with the three Persons as William of Conches imprudently did in the case of power, wisdom, and will. He indulges, however, in daring speculation as to where the members of different professions will go after they die. Philosophers, “who die in the Lord,” will be located in the order of Cherubim, which is interpreted as plenitude of science; sincere members of religious orders and hermits will become Seraphim; while pope, emperor, cardinals, and prelates will enter the order of Thrones.[1004] Michael also contributes the following acrostic of eight sins whose initials compose the word, “Diabolus”:

The three Magi.

In the course of the foregoing digression Michael inserted an account of the Magi and the star that appears to be based in part but with variations on the spurious homily of Chrysostom. He makes them three in number, one from Europe, Asia, and Africa respectively; and states that forewarned by Balaam’s prophecy they met together annually for worship on the day of Christ’s nativity, which they appear to have known beforehand. They stood in adoration for three days continuously on Mount Victorialis until on the third day they saw the star in the form of a most beautiful boy with a crown on his head. Then they followed the star upon dromedaries which, Michael explains, can go farther in a day than horses can in two months. Beside the star three suns arose that day at equal distances apart and then united in token of the Trinity; and Octavianus, emperor of the Romans, saw the Virgin holding the Child in the center of the sun’s disk. As for the word magus, Michael explains that it has a threefold meaning,—which, however, has nothing to do with the Trinity,—namely: trickster, sorcerer, and wise man, and that the Magi who saw the star were all three of these until their subsequent conversion to Christianity.[1006]

Astrology distinguished from magic.