Synesius regarded the universe as a unit and all its parts as closely correlated. This belief not only led him to maintain, like Seneca, that whatever had a cause was a sign of some future event, or to hold with Plotinus that in any and every object the sage might discern the future of every other thing, and that the birds themselves, if endowed with sufficient intelligence, would be able to predict the future by observing the movements of human bipeds.[[226]] It led him also to the conclusion that the various parts of the universe were more than passive mirrors in which one might see the future of the other parts; that they further exerted, by virtue of the magic sympathy which united all parts of the universe, a potent active influence over other objects and occurrences. The wise man might not only predict the future; he might, to a great extent, control it.
For it must be, I think, that of this whole, so joined in sympathy and in agreement, the parts are closely connected as if members of a single body. And does not this explain the spells of the magi? For things, besides being signs of each other, have magic power over each other. The wise man, then, is he who knows the relationships of the parts of the universe. For he draws one object under his control by means of another object, holding what is at hand as a pledge for what is far away, and working through sounds and material substances and forms.[[227]]
Synesius explained that plants and stones are related by bonds of occult sympathy to the gods who are within the universe and who form a part of it, that plants and stones have magic power over these gods, and that one may by means of such material substances attract those deities.[[228]] He evidently believed that it was quite legitimate to control the processes of nature by invoking demons. His devotion to divination has been already implied. He regarded it as among the noblest of human pursuits.[[229]] Dreams he viewed as significant and very useful events. They aided him, he wrote, in his every-day life, and had upon one occasion saved him from magic devices against his life.[[230]] Of course, he had faith in astrology. The stars were well-nigh ever present in his thought. In his Praise of Baldness he characterized comets as fatal omens, as harbingers of the worst public disasters.[[231]] In On Providence he explained the supposed fact that history repeats itself by the periodical return to their former positions of the stars which govern our life.[[232]] In On the Gift of an Astrolabe he declared that “astronomy” besides being itself a noble science, prepared men for the diviner mysteries of theology.[[233]] Finally, he held the view common among students of magic that knowledge should be esoteric; that its mysteries and marvels should be confined to the few fitted to receive them and that they should be expressed in language incomprehensible to the vulgar crowd.[[234]]
Macrobius, who wrote at the beginning of the fifth century and displayed considerable interest in physical questions for a person of those days, reinforces the evidence of Ammianus and of Synesius, although he held no very extreme views. Unless, however, we except his Philonian notion that all knowledge may be derived from a few past writings. For Macrobius affirmed that Virgil contains practically all man needs to know, and that Cicero’s brief story of the dream of Scipio was a work second to none and contained the entire substance of philosophy.[[235]] Macrobius also believed that numbers possess occult power. He dilated at considerable length upon each of those from one to eight, emphasizing their perfection and far-reaching significance. He held the good old Pythagorean and Platonic notions that the world-soul is constructed of number, that the harmony of celestial bodies is ruled by number, and that we derive the numerical values proper to musical consonance from the music of the spheres.[[236]] He was of the opinion that to the careful investigator dreams and other striking occurrences will reveal an occult meaning.[[237]] As for astrology, he believed that the stars are signs but not causes of future events, just as birds by their flight or song reveal matters of which they themselves are ignorant.[[238]] The sun and planets, though in a way divine, are but material bodies, and it is not from them but from the world-soul (pure mind), whence they too come, that the human spirit takes its origin.[[239]] Macrobius also displayed some belief in the possession of occult properties by objects about us. In the Saturnalia, Disaurius the physician is asked and answers such questions as why a brass knife stuck in game prevents decay.[[240]] Macrobius by the way, had considerable influence in the Middle Ages. Abelard makes frequent reference to him, and called him “no mean philosopher.”[[241]] Aquinas cited him as an authority for the doctrines of Neo-Platonism.
CHAPTER VIII
Conclusion
Our survey of the Roman Empire and of the ancient world of thought which it represented is finished. We have found reason to believe that hatred and dread of “magic,” the confusion of science or of philosophy with magic, the incurring of reputations as wizards by men of learning, were phenomena not confined to the Middle Ages. We have seen some evidence of the prominence of magic in the intellectual life of the Roman Empire, in the writings and in the conduct of physicians and astronomers, of statesmen and philosophers. Just how prominent magic was one hesitates to estimate, but one may safely affirm that it was sufficiently prominent to merit the attention of the student of those times. It is almost useless to chronicle the events if we do not understand the spirit of an age.
Can the student of that age, we may ask in concluding, rightly interpret and appreciate it, can he make proper use of its extant records, unless he recognizes not merely that men made mistakes then and accepted a mass of false statements concerning nature, but that the best minds were liable to be esoteric and mystical, to incline to the occult and the fantastic, to be befogged by absurd credulity and by great mental confusion, to be fettered by habits of childish and romantic reasoning such as occurs in Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos and in Plato’s Timaeus? Have we a right to attribute to the minds of that age our definiteness and clarity of thought, our common sense, our scientific spirit? Is it fair to take the words in which they expressed their thought and to interpret these according to our knowledge, our frame of mind; to read into their words our ideas and discoveries; to rearrange their disconnected utterances into systems which they were incapable of constructing; to endeavor by nothing else than a sort of allegorical interpretation to discover our philosophy, our science, our ideals in their writings? Have not even words a greater definiteness and value now than once? When we translate a passage from an ancient language are we not apt to transfigure its thought? These are, however, only questions.
Certainly there was much true scientific knowledge in the Roman Empire. There was sane medical theory and practice, there was a great deal of correct information in regard to plants, animals and the stars. Science was in the ascendant; magic was in its latter stages of decay. We flatter ourselves that it has now quite vanished away; then its doctrines were accepted only in part or in weakened form by men of education. Perhaps, though I am far from asserting this, magic played a less prominent part then in science and in philosophy than in the later Middle Ages. Perhaps we may picture to ourselves the minds of men in the twelfth and thirteenth and succeeding centuries as awakening from a long, intellectual torpor during the chaotic and dreary “Dark Ages,” and, eager for knowledge and for mental occupation, but still inexperienced and rather bewildered, as snatching without discrimination at whatever came first to hand of the lore of the past. Thus for a time we might find the most able men of the later age taking on the worst characteristics of the earlier time. But this again is mere speculation.
Moreover, we must remember that, if magic was accepted only in part by men of learning in the Roman Empire, there was no thoroughgoing scepticism. We sought in vain for an instance of consistent disbelief. If, too, there was an effort to make the magic, which was accepted, scientific by basing it upon natural laws, as Quintus Cicero, Seneca and Ptolemy tried to do, there was also, besides the definite approval of magical doctrines, often a mystical tone in the science and philosophy of the time. The question of the relative strength of magic and of science in those days must, then, be left unsettled. It is difficult enough to judge even a single individual; to tell, for instance, just how superstitious Cato was.
In closing we may, however, sum up very briefly those elements which we selected as combining to give a fairly faithful picture of the belief in magic which then prevailed among educated people. Native superstitions from which science had not yet wholly freed itself; much fantastical and mystical lore from Oriental nations; allegorizing and mysticizing in the interpretation of books—which in Philo went to the length of a belief that all knowledge could be secured by this means; a portrayal of nature which attributed to her many magic properties and caused medicine to be infected with magic ceremony and to be based to some extent on the principle of sympathetic magic; a widespread and often extreme belief in astrology; a speculative philosophy which was often favorable to the doctrines of magic or even advanced some itself; and the system of Neo-Platonism in especial, with which we may associate the view—prevalent long before Plotinus, however—that everything in the universe is in close sympathy with everything else and is a sign of coming events—these were the forces ready at the opening of the Middle Ages to influence the future.