Medieval Discussions of the Eternity of the World

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MEDIEVAL DISCUSSIONS OF THE ETERNITY OF THE WORLD

BRILL'S STUDIES IN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY General Editor

BY

A. J. V ANDERJAGT, University of Groningen Editorial Board

RICHARD C. DALES

M. CousH, Oberlin College J .I. IsRAEL, University College, London J.D. NoRTj-1, University of Groningen R.H . PoPKIN, Washington University, St. Louis- UCLA VOLUME 18

E.J. BRILL LEIDEN • NEW YORK • K0BENHA VN • KOLN 1990

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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1

I. The Legacy from Antiquity................................................ .

3

II. Eriugena and his Followers................................................

18

III. The Second Quarter of the Twelfth Century......................

27

rv. Exotic Views..... ............................................................ .....

39

V. The Early Thirteenth Century...........................................

50

VI. The Decade of the 1250s ................................................. .

86

VII. The Development of the Controversy................................

109

VIII. The Condemnation of 1270 and its.. Afterinath.................. '

129

IX. The Climax of the' Controversy..........................................

156

X. The Aftermath of the Condemnation.................................

178

XL The Fourteenth Century: Oxford....... .. ................. ..............

199

XII. The Fourteenth Century: Paris.................................. .........

231

Epilogue........... .. ............. .............................................................

254

Select Bibliography......................................................................

262

Index of Names...................................... ..... .................................

281

Subject Index...............................................................................

296

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ISSN 0920-8607 ISBN 90 04 09215 3

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Introduction ................................................................................ .

Copyright 1.990 by E.}. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche or any other means without written pennission from the publisher I'RINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

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INTRODUCTION

In the 1270s savage debates among philosophers, theologians, and clerical administrators at the University of Paris centered principally around three issues: the unicity of th~ active intellect; the animation of the heavens; and the eternity of the world. The only one of these which still seems important today, and the only one which has not become irrelevant because of a change in the world view, is the eternity of the world, or, more precisely, the possibility of a beginningless world. Although the question is not so central to our concerns as it was to the scholastics, it continues to evoke considerable interest, and indeed it has never been solved. I should like to study the development of medieval debates on the eternity of the world between the Carolingian period and the midfourteenth century, and in the process to throw some light on the nature of the philosophical conflicts of the period of high scholasticism. I have tried to suppress whatever presuppositions I may have brought to the task and allow the evidence of the texts to dictate the shape of the story. Since the words of our authors are of paramount importance in a study of this kind, I have included many extensive quotations and paraphrases in the book, and I have tried to confine my generalizations to what the texts, accessible to the reader, will support. I have been aided by the work of many scholars, some of whom I know well, others whom I have never met, all of whom are acknowledged in the notes. I am particularly indebted to Steven Baldner, who read the first six chapters, and to Norman Kretzmann, who read chapters 1 through 4, 6, and 11 and 12. Both men made numerous helpful and perceptive comments, which have significantly improved upon my original text. Much of the content of this book has previously appeared in the form of articles in various periodicals: much of chapters 2 and 3 appeared in "Discussions of the Eternity of the World During the First Half of the Twelfth Century," Speculum 57 (1982), 495-508; portions of chapters 4 and 8 appeared in "Maimonides and Boethius of Dacia on the Eternity of the World," The New Scholasticism 56 (1982), 306-19; much of chapter 5 appeared as "Early Latin Discussions of the Eternity of the World in the Thirteenth Century," Traditio 43 (1987), 171-97; the material on Eustace of Arras in chapter 7 is based on "Fratris Eustachii Atrebatensis Quaes-

2

INTRODUCfiON

tiones septem de aeternitate," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen llge 55 (1986) , 111-37 and 56 (1987), 59-102, while that on Arlotta of Prato is based upon "Friar Arlotto of Prato On the Eternity of the World," Collectanea Franciscana 56 (1986), 37-51; much of the discussion of Henry of Harclay in chapter 12 appeared in "Henricus de Harclay. Quaestio Utrum Mundus Potuit Fieri ab Aeterno," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen llge 51 (1983), 267-99 and "Henry of Harclay and the Infinite," Journal of the History of Ideas 45 (1984), 295-301; portions of chapters 5 and 9 appeared in 'Time and Eternity in the Thirteenth Century," Journal of the History of Ideas 49 (1988), 27-45. I should like to thank the editors of these journals for permission to use their copyrighted material in this study.

CHAPTER ONE THE LEGACY FROM ANTIQUITY

Concerning the origin of all things, the book of Genesis taught that In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. But the earth was shapeless and empty, and there was darkness upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was borne over the waters. And God said: "Let light be made." And light was made. And God saw that the light was good, and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light day and the darkness night. And there was made evening and morning, one day.

There is much that is obscure in this account, but one thing which seems quite clear is that God Created the world where before there had been nothing. "In the beginning" denoted a starting point. In any case, this was the standard way Christians understood the account which they had inherited from the Jews. But the ancient philosophers had seemed to say something quite different/ and in the Latin West, from the fourth century on, 'Christian writers had to take account of the writings of the philosophers. The three principal authors 'to whom medieval Latin philosophers were indebted for their knowledge of ancient thought on the eternity of the world were Plato, Augustine, and Boethius. Although others were recovered during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, these three were known uninterruptedly, and until the second quarter of the thirteenth century they provided the context, the point of departure, and many of the stock arguments on both sides of the question. Even after the recovery of Aristotle's natural philosophy and the translation of medieval Jewish and Muslim works into Latin, these three authors maintained their preeminent position among the authorities.

1 By far the best discussion of the eternity of the world in antiquity is Richard Sorabji, Time, Creation, & the Continuum (Ithaca, 1983}. Also of considerable interest are H. A. Wolfson, •Patristic Arguments against the Eternity of the World,• Harvard Theological Review 59 (1966) 351-67 and i Baudry, Le PTobleme de I'Origine et de I'Eternite du Monde (Paris, 1931).

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THE LEGACY FROM ANTIQUITY

THE LEGACY FROM ANTIQUITY

Plato

turing the world -- since it is the most beautiful of all created things and he is the greatest of causes. And since the world was modelled on that which is apprehended by reason and prudence, it must, I believe, be a copy of something. And since explaining the reason for the origins [of anything] is not easy to do, the natures of the copy and the exemplar must be distinguished. The causes which they adduce for why each and every thing is are akin to the things themselves. Thus, those of the permanent and enduring and intelligible must be lasting and constant, and the cause of something clear to the intellect and mind should be found in a clear and unchanging and unassailable reason. But the reason for those things which are made according to the model of the unchanging and perpetual but are themselves images and likenesses of reason may be analogously approximate, by so much as truth is more excellent than rumor and unsure opinion. Therefore, Socrates, I say now that if, while the nature of all things is being discussed, I should not be able to give explanations which are completely unassailable, do not be surprised that I offer explanations which are only more likely than any other. Remember that I, who am speaking, and you, who are judging, are men, and on such sublime subjects a probable explanation of this great thing is the burden of our labor.... I will tell you then why the founder and maker of the world of generation thought that he should make this thing. He was absolutely good, and envy is far removed from the absolutely good. Consequently he wished to make all things similar to himself insofar as th~ nature of each thing was capable of such blessedness. If someone should assert that the will of god is the surest origin of things, he ·would oe· right. And so god, wishing all things to be good and nothing bad, so far as the nature of each thing which came to be allowed, and finding the whole visible body lurching about with a disorderly motion and never being still, brought order out of disorder, knowing that the condition of ordered things was more excellent than that of disordered and confused. But it was not fitting that the most excellent goodness do anything except what was beautiful, and it was certain to so great a divinity that, of those things which are sensed, nothing stupid and lacking intelligence was better than the intelligent, and that intelligence arises only in the soul. Therefore, having placed intellect in soul and soul in body, he put together the whole circle of the living world with an eternal light. From this, it is clear that the sensible world is an intelligent living being by the sanction of divine providence. Let us accept this and go on to the next stage, to the likeness of what animal its founder constituted the world. Similar to no specific animal (for perfection is in the genus, not in the species, and therefore the world was not made similar to an imperfect

According to Aristotle, Plato was the first philosopher to assign a beginning to time; 2 according to Calcidius 3 and Boethius, 4 Plato considered the world to be without a temporal beginning. Plato's own words give support to either of these interpretations. There was no consensus in antiquity or in the Middle Ages on Plato's meaning, and there is no more today. Perhaps Robert Grosseteste put it best when he said: "Plato seems to contradict himself." 5 Still, the Timaeus was the seminal work for discussions of the eternity of the world. The crucial portion is 28A38C: Now, everything that comes into being must necessarily do so by virtue of some cause, for nothing comes into being whose origin is not preceded by an a~propriate cause and reason. The workman determines the kind of thing he makes. When he makes his works according to the unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an unchanging model, the likeness is necessarily made beautiful and perfect; but when he models his work on a created pattern it will not be beautiful. Was the heaven then, or the world, or whatever more appropriate name you wish to call it, always in existence and without a beginning, or was it made, and did it come into being with time? It was made, inasmuch as it is visible and tangible and has a body, and is therefore sensible, since all sensible bodies of this kind and all corporeal natures are perceived by sense and opinion, and all things which come into being derive their substance from another act of coming into being. And indeed those things which come into being must have an author. But it is both difficult and profane to discover the begetter and craftsman of the universe. Certainly there is no doubt as to which kind of pattern was used as the model for the construction of the world, whether the immutable and perpetual or the created. For if it is (as indeed it is) that the world is incomparably beautiful, and its maker and craftsman is the very best, it is clear that the model according to which the world was made was immutable and pure, and it would be blasphemous to say that it was made from a created model. Since the latter would be contrary to reason, it is clear that the craftsman god followed the eternal plan in consti-

2

Aristotle, Physica 8, 1 (251b). Calcidius, In Timaeum Commentarium 23, ed. J. H. Waszink, Platonis Timaeus a Calcitiio translatus commentarioque instructus (London, 1962), p. 74. 4 Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae 5, pr. 6. 5 Grosseteste, Hexaemeron 1, 11, 2, ed. R. C. Dales and Servus Gieben, O.F.M.Cap. (London, 1982), p. 63. 3

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THE LEGACY FROM ANTIQUI1Y

THE LEGACY FROM ANTIQUI1Y

thing), but of that in which there are all kinds and, as it were, certain sources of intelligible animals; since the other world encompasses genera of animals in the same manner as this world encompasses us and other things subject to sight and other senses. Therefore, god the craftsman, wishing to make this world similar to the most excellent and primary of intelligible substances, constructed a single sensible and visible animal containing within its bounds all things consistent with its nature which enjoyed life. Now it ought to be determined whether we should call the world one or several, and we should even consider whether there are innumerable worlds. One, clearly, since it was formed according to its model, for that whi~h contains all intelligible beings could not exist along with something else. ... In order then that it might be similar in number to the exemplar which it resembled, god made neither two worlds nor an infinite number, but he made it unique. ... Such was the whole plan of the eternal god about the god that he was about to make: He made it smooth and even, having a surface equidistant in every direction from the center, a body whole and perfect and formed from perfect bodies. And in the center he put the soul, and he ordered it to be extended uniformly throughout the body, and he made the world a circle moving in a circle, one and solitary, yet because of its excellence able to converse with itself and in need of no other friendship. And so he brought into being a most blessed thing, endowed with divine power. God did not make the soul after he made the body, even though we speak of them in this order. ... Therefore, when the whole substance of the rational animal was born according to the will of the father, he joined it to the whole body, center to center. But the soul, embracing the limits of the sky and infused throughout it and enclosing its circle, turning around on itself, began the divine origin of unwearying rational life without interruption. The body of the sky or world which was thus made was visible, but the soul itself was invisible, yet partaking of reason and harmony, since it was made more excellent than all the other intelligible beings by the most excellent cause .... When its begetter observed what he had made to be moving and living, a likeness of the immortal gods, rejoicing, he determined that another specimen ought to be made which emulated its model even more closely. Therefore, as the model was immortal and sempiternal, so he also made the world an immortal serisible animal. But the kind of thing which is an animal is not by its nature on the same level as the eternal, and thus it seemed that the status of the work he had made and given birth to was not compatible with eternity. Therefore, to the [eternal] structure which he had made, god joined its image, moving and creeping along according to number. This moving image is called time, while the eternal structure remains pure and motionless. Then, when the

world was being born, he commanded the days and nights and months and years to be, for they did not exist before the adornment of the sky. All these things are parts of time, and when we assign them to eternity, that is, to the solitary nature, we incorrectly imagine that an indivisible thing has parts. For we say "was," "is," and "will be," but according to true and proper though.t, "is" alone is proper to it, and "was" and "will be" are improper. Indeed, these are the begetters of time properly speaking, for they are motions, the one of what has gone before, the other of what is yet to be, not of eternity, but of time; for the abode of the eternal is perpetual and immutable. Therefore, it neither was nor will be younger or older, nor will it undergo any of those things which a sensible nature undergoes. All these are things which imitate eternity. But perhaps there will later be a more suitable place to discuss these matters . Time is the same age as the sky so that, having risen together they might be dissolved together if there should ever be a proper reason for their dissolution, so that at the same time both worlds might be similar to the eternal model. The archetype is always existent through all eternity, and this sensible image of it has existed and will exist through all time. 6 6 "Omne autem quod gignitur ex causa aliqua necessario gignitur; nihil enim fit, cuius ortum non legitima causa et ratio praecedat. Operi porro fortunam dar opifex suus; quippe ad immortalis quidem et in statu genuino persistentis exempli similitudinem atque aemulationem formans operis effigiem honestum efficiat simulacrum necesse est, at uero ad natiuum respiciens generatumque contemplans minime decorum. Omne igitur caelum vel mlfndus se1;1 _quo alio dignatur nomine -- faciendum est enim, quod in omni tractatu fieri · decet, ut ' inter initia consideretur, quid sit quo de agitur; item mundus fueritne semper citra exordium temporis an sit originem sortitus ex tempore, considerandum -- factus est, utpote corporeus ·et qui uideatur atque tangatur, cuncta siquidem huius modi sensilis corporeaeque naturae, sensilia porro ea quae opinio sensu aliquo commota praesumit eaque omnia facta sunt habentque ex aliqua generatione substantiam; et uero ea quae fiunt habere auctorem suum constitit. Igitur opificem genitoremque universitatis tam inuenire difficile quam inuentum impossibile digne profari. Certe dubium non est, ad cuius modi exemplum animaduertit mundani operis fundamenta constituens, utrum ad immutabile perpetuamque obtinens proprietatem an ad factum et elaboratum. Nam si est -- ut quidem est -- pulchritudine incomparabili mundus, opifexque et fabricator eius optimus, perspicuum est, quod iuxta sincerae atque immutabilis proprietatis exemplum mundi sit instituta molitio, sin uero, quod ne cogitari quidem aut mente concipi f