CHAPTER LII
WILLIAM OF AUVERGNE
The man and his writings—His respect for science—And for experimentation—Influenced by Christian doctrine—Importance of his account of magic—Its main points summarized—Demons and magic—Magic and idolatry—Magic illusions—Natural magic—Is not concerned with demons—Some instances of natural magic—“The sense of nature”—Magic’s too extreme pretensions—Wax images—Factitious gods—Characters and figures—Power of words denied—Use of divine names—Christian magic—Magic of sex and generation—William’s contribution to the bibliography of magic—Plan of the rest of this chapter—Theory of spiritual substances—Spirits in the heavens—Will hell be big enough?—Astrological necromancy—False accounts of fallen angels—Different kinds of spirits—Limited demon control of nature—Can demons be imprisoned or enter bodies?—Susceptibility of demons to the four elements and to natural objects—Stock examples of natural marvels—The hazel rod story—Occult virtues of herbs and animals—Virtues of gems—A medley of marvelous virtues—Divination not an art but revelation—Divination by inspection of lucid surfaces—Other instances of divination, ancient and modern—His treatment of astrology—The philosophers on the nature of the heavens and stars—William’s own opinion and attitude—Objection to stars as cause of evil—Virtues of the stars—Extent of their influence upon nature and man—Against nativities, interrogations, and images—Astrology and religion and history—Comets and the star of Bethlehem.
We now come upon a Christian theologian whose works present an unexpectedly detailed picture of the magic and superstition of the time.[1102] He is well acquainted with both the occult literature and the natural philosophy of the day, and has much to say of magic, demons, occult virtue, divination and astrology. Finally, he also gives considerable information concerning what we may call the school of natural magic and of experiment. This theologian is William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 to his death in 1249, and previously a canon of that city and a master of theology in its university. Judging from his age when he received this degree Valois estimates that he was born about 1180. He was made a bishop at Rome by the pope, where he had come as a simple deacon to pursue his appeal in the recent disputed election.[1103] He granted the Dominicans their first chair of theology at Paris during a quarrel of the university in 1228 with Queen Blanche of Castile and the dispersion of the faculties to Angers and Rheims.[1104] He took a prominent part in the Parisian attack upon the Talmud and was perhaps the first Christian doctor of the Latin west to display an intimate acquaintance with the works attributed to Hermes Trismegistus.[1105] These facts suggest the extent of his reading in occult lore. We shall consider his views as expressed in his various writings, “On Sins and Vices,” “Of Laws” (or Religions), in the frequent medieval use of the word, lex, “Of Morals,” “Of Faith,” but especially in his voluminous work on “The Universe” which deals more with the world of nature than do his other theological treatises. Indeed, in the sixteenth century edition of his works he is called “a most perfect mathematician” and “a distinguished philosopher” as well as “a most eminent theologian.”
William at any rate has respect for natural philosophy and favors scientific investigation of nature. Like his namesake of Conches in the preceding century he has no sympathy with those who, when they are ignorant of the causes of natural phenomena and have no idea how to investigate them, have recourse to the Creator’s omnipotent virtue and call everything of this sort a miracle, or evade the necessity of any natural explanation by affirming that God’s will is the sole cause of it. This seems to William an intolerable error, in the first place because they have thus only one answer for all questions, and secondly because they are satisfied with the most remote cause instead of the most immediate one. There is no excuse for thus neglecting so many varied and noble sciences.[1106]
In another passage William apologizes to the person to whom the De universo is addressed for the summary and inadequate discussion of the stars in which he has just been indulging.[1107] He knows that certitude in this subject calls for a most thorough investigation and requires a separate treatise. Moreover, his remarks have been in the nature of a digression and have little direct bearing on the question under discussion. But he has introduced them in order that his reader might see something of the depth and truth of philosophical discussion and not think that it can be despised as some fools do, who will accept nothing unless it is armed with proofs and adorned with flowers of rhetoric and who still more insanely regard as erroneous whatever they do not understand.
Thus we see the scientific standards of William of Conches in the twelfth century still influential and probably more universally prevalent in the thirteenth. Like his namesake of Conches again, William of Auvergne states that our common fire is not the pure element, since it is largely made up of burning coal or wood or other consumed objects.[1108] He also states that “innumerable experiences” have proven that moles do not live on earth but hunt worms in it.[1109] William is aware that many sailors and navigators have found by experience that certain seas open into others, and as another indication that all seas are really only one connected sea, he adduces hidden subterranean channels, and mentions the report that Sicily is supported on four or five mountains as if by so many columns. Such are some illustrations of the bits of scientific information and the trust in natural experiment to be found in William’s work. It is indeed surprising the number of times he alludes to “experimenters” and to “books of experiments.”
On the other hand William, of course, maintains such doctrines as that of creation against the Peripatetic theory of the eternity of the universe. He also does not confuse the world soul with the Holy Spirit as William of Conches and Theodoric of Chartres had done.[1110] More important than these particular points is the general hypothesis running through and underlying much of William’s thought that the Creator can interfere again in the course of nature at any time and in any way He wills.[1111] The atmosphere of the miraculous and the spiritual is almost constantly felt in William’s account of the universe. To a certain extent, however, he evades the difficulties between science and religion by holding that one thing is true in philosophy and quite another in theology. Thus he affirms that one who says that the stars and lights of the sky do not receive addition or improvement, speaks the truth if the matter is regarded from the standpoint of natural science, for nature cannot add anything to their natural perfection. “Yet you ought to know that learned Christian doctors teach ... and the prophets seem to say expressly that they will undergo improvement.”[1112] It is, then, as we said to begin with, the account of magic, demons, occult virtue, divination, astrology and experimental science, of a theologian not ignorant of nor unsympathetic with science that we have now to consider.
William’s account of magic is a remarkable and illuminating one. Most of it occurs in the closing chapters of the De universo. William himself there states that nothing has come down from previous writers on the things of which he has just been speaking.[1113] He admits that his remarks are incomplete but he has at least made a beginning which will prove welcome to the reader. Probably, however, he is indebted to previous Christian writers; at any rate we recognize some of his statements as familiar. But he also has a wide acquaintance with the literature of magic itself—in his youth he examined the books of judicial astronomy and the books of the magicians and sorcerers[1114]—and he combines the results of his reading in a sane manner. We feel that his view is both comprehensive, including all the essential factors, and marked by insight into the heart of the situation. For his time at least he sees remarkably clearly what magic is, what it cannot do, and how it is related to the science of that age.
The chief characteristics of magic as it is depicted by William may first be briefly summarized, and then illustrated in more detail. He constantly assumes that its great aim is to work marvels. He holds that often the ends are sought by the help of demons and methods which are idolatrous. Evil ends are often sought by magicians. On the other hand the apparent marvels are often worked by mere human sleight-of-hand or other tricks and deceptions of the magicians themselves. But the marvel may be neither human deceit nor the work of an evil spirit. It may be produced by the wonderful occult virtues resident in certain objects of nature. To marvels wrought in this manner William applies the name “natural magic,” and has no doubt of its truth. But he denies the validity of many methods and devices in which magicians trust, and contends that marvels cannot be so worked unless demons are responsible. William furthermore constantly cites books of experiments and narrates the feats of “experimenters” in discussing magic, and he often implies a close connection of it with astronomy or astrology. Here again as in the case of natural magic we see an intimate connection between the development of magic and of natural science. Finally, these various characteristics and varieties of magic are not always kept distinct by William, but often overlap or join. The demons avail themselves of the forces of nature in working their marvels and their marvels too are often only passing illusions and empty shams. The experimenters and operators of natural magic also deal in momentary effects and deceptive appearances as well as in more solid results.
William holds then that much of magic is performed by the aid of demons and involves the worship of them or other forms of idolatry.[1115] One reason why magic feats are so seldom performed in Christian lands and William’s own time is that the power of the evil spirits has been so repressed by Christianity. But the books of the magicians and of the sorcerers assume the existence of armies of spirits in the sky.[1116] In the necromantic operation called “The Major Circle” four kings of demons from the four quarters of the earth appear with numerous attendants according to the statements of those who are skilled in works of this sort.[1117] William has also read in the books of experiments that water can be made to appear where there really is none by use of a bow of a particular kind of wood, an arrow of another kind of wood, and a bow-string made of a particular sort of cord.[1118] As far as an arrow is shot from this bow so far one is supposed to behold an expanse of water. But William does not believe that the bow and arrow possess any such virtues, and hence concludes that the mirage is an illusion produced by the demons and that the ceremony performed by the magician is a service to the evil spirits. Another writer in his book of necromancy bids one to take as an oblation such and such a wood or stone or liquor on such a day at such an hour. Here too, perhaps because of what he regards as superstitious observance of times and seasons, William holds that the word “oblation” covers some diabolical servitude or cult, which has been concealed by the writers of such experiments. He also states that sorcerers and idolaters often go off into deserts to have dealings with the demons who dwell there.[1119] He cites “a certain magician in his book on magic arts” who says that in order to philosophize he went to places destitute of any inhabitant and there lived for thirty years with those who dwelt in light and learned from them what he has written in his book.
In his treatise De legibus William, like Maimonides, endeavors to explain some of the questionable provisions and prohibitions in the Mosaic law as measures to guard against idolatry and magic.[1120] Under the head of idolatry he groups not only the worship of idols proper and of demons, but also superstitious observance of the stars, the elements, images, figures, words and names, times and seasons, beginnings of actions and finding objects.[1121] In another passage he adds the observance of dreams, auguries, constellations, sneezes, meetings, days and hours, figures, marks, characters and images.[1122] Also incantation is not without idolatry. Thus many features of the magic arts are condemned by him.
We come next to those magic works which are “mockeries of men or of demons.”[1123] First there are those transpositions which are accomplished by agility and hability of the hands and are popularly called tractationes or traiectationes. They are a source of great wonderment until men learn how they are done. A second variety are mere apparitions which have no truth. Under this head fall certain magic candles. One made of wax and sulphurated snakeskin, burned in a dark place filled with sticks or rushes makes the house seem full of writhing serpents. William’s explanation of this is that the powdered snakeskin as it burns makes the rushes appear similar in color to serpents, while the flickering of the flame gives the illusion that they are moving. Possibly, however, this may be a defective recipe for some firework like the modern “snake’s nest.” William is more sceptical whether in the light of a candle made of wax and the tears or semen of an ass men would look like donkeys. He doubts whether wet tears would mix with wax or burn if they did, and whether these internal fluids possess any of the substance, figure, and color of an ass’s external appearance. He concedes nevertheless that the semen has great virtue and that the sight is of all senses the most easily deceived. At any rate “experimenters” (experimentatores) have said things of this sort, and you may read in the books of experiments a trick by which anyone’s hand is made to appear an ass’s foot, so that he blushes to draw it from his bosom.[1124]
The work of necromancy called “The Major Circle” is also in the nature of a delusive appearance. The four demon kings from the four quarters of the earth seem to be accompanied by vast hosts of phantom horsemen, jugglers, and musicians, but no prints of horses’ hoofs are visible afterwards. Moreover, if real horsemen appeared, they would be seen by everyone, not merely by those within the magic circle. Another common apparition, produced by “these sorcerers and deceivers” by means of sacrifices and other evil observances which William will not reveal, is a wonderful castle with gates, towers, walls, and citadel all complete. But it is seen only during the magic operation and when it vanishes leaves no trace behind. William compares such illusions to some fantastic dream which leaves behind nothing but horror on the faces of the participants. He argues that if corporeal things outside us make the strong impression on our senses that they do, it is no wonder if spiritual substances like demons who are full of forms can impress our minds potently. It will, of course, occur to the modern reader that such illusions, like certain marvels of India, were perhaps produced by hypnotic or other suggestion. William notes that illusions of this sort are shown only to the gullible and “those ignorant of natural science,” and that necromancers dare not produce or suggest such phantasms in the presence of learned and rational men.
There are, nevertheless, occult forces and powers in nature and those men who are acquainted with them work many marvels and would work much more wonderful ones, if they had an abundant supply of the necessary materials.[1125] This is “that part of natural science which is called natural magic.”[1126] “Philosophers call it necromancy or philosophica, perhaps quite improperly, and it is the eleventh part of all natural science.” This rather strange association of necromancy with natural science for which William seems to apologize, we shall meet again in Albertus Magnus and we have already met with it in Gundissalinus, Daniel of Morley, and Al-Farabi. With them, however, necromancy was one of only eight parts of natural science or astrology. In a third passage William omits mention of necromancy, but again asserts that certain marvels are natural operations and that knowledge of them is one of the eleven parts of natural science.[1127] It is with it that the books of experiments are especially concerned.[1128] From them and from “the books of natural narrations” you can learn “the causes and reasons of certain magic works, especially those which are by the art of natural magic.” The materials possessed of the marvelous virtues essential for this art are very rare in Europe, but in India and lands near it they abound, and hence natural magic flourishes vigorously there, and there are many experimenters there who work marvels by their skill.[1129]
Between this natural magic and that due to demons William makes a decided distinction.[1130] In natural magic nothing is done by the aid of demons. The workers of the one are called magi because they do great things (magna agentes) although some may have evilly interpreted the word as meaning evil-doers (male agentes).[1131] And these others who perform such works by the aid of demons are to be regarded as evil-doers. William indeed perhaps uses the word malefici (sorcerers) more often than magi for workers of evil magic, but he cannot be said to observe any such distinction uniformly. He does, however, express his intention of setting forth “the causes and ways and methods” by which even the phantasies and illusions of magic are produced naturally, but of “perditious methods such as nefarious sacrifices and oblations and sacrilegious observances” he intends to reveal nothing.[1132] In natural magic William seems to see no harm whatever, unless it is employed for evil ends. He grants, however, that some of its works are so marvelous that they seem to the ignorant to be the works of gods or demons, and that this has been one cause of idolatry in times past.[1133] So in order that Christianity might prevail, it was ordered that anyone performing such works should be considered evil and a sorcerer (malus et maleficus), and that works of this sort should be regarded as performed not by the virtue of any natural object but rather by the aid and power of demons. But specialists in such matters are not “surprised at these feats but glorify the Creator alone in them, knowing that nature alone in accordance with His omnipotent will operates both in the customary manner known to men and contrary to custom not only in new ways but new things.” In another context William again affirms that natural magic involves no offense or injury to the Creator unless one works evil or too curiously by that art.[1134]
One example of the marvels worked by means of natural magic is the sudden generation of such animals as frogs and worms. Here the natural processes of generation are hastened by applying certain aids, and William does not doubt the assertion of Emuth that by mixing seeds new animals can be bred.[1135] Other phenomena belonging under natural magic are the marvels worked outside its own body by the soul of the basilisk and certain other animals and certain human souls—a hint that the power of fascination is natural magic.[1136] In short, all use of occult virtue in nature may be classed as natural magic.
Of William’s statements concerning occult virtue we shall hear more under that head. But we may note here what he says of “the sense of nature,”[1137] which he calls “one of the roots of natural magic,” which he often mentions, and which in his opinion accounts for a number of wonderful things.[1138] It is “a sublimer sense than any human apprehension and nobler and more akin to prophecy.” By it one senses the presence in the house of a burglar or harlot who is otherwise unperceived by any of the ordinary senses. By it some dogs can detect a thief in a crowd.[1139] It is the mysterious power by which vultures foresee the coming battle, sheep detect the approach of the wolf, and the spider that of the fly. William tells of a woman who could feel the presence of the man she loved when he was two miles distant[1140] and of another woman who so abhorred her husband that she fell into an epileptic fit whenever he entered the house.[1141] In the main, this sense of nature seems about the same as what other writers call the power of natural divination. William, however, in several cases accounts for it by the strong sympathy or antipathy existing between the two persons or animals concerned.
While William accepts such marvels and strange forces, there are many claims of magic which he refuses to grant.[1142] As we shall see later he sets limits even to the powers of demons. Much less will he allow the extreme powers asserted of human magicians. In the books of the magicians appear subversions of nature of every sort. They would bind fire so that it cannot burn, robbers that they may not steal in a certain region, a well or spring so that no water may be drawn from it, and so with merchants and ships. They would even stop water from flowing down hill. William contends that such works are possible only by divine miracle, and that if the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Arabs could really accomplish the lies in their books, they would have conquered the world long ago. Nay, the world would be at the mercy of any single magician or sorcerer (magi seu malefici). William then raises the objection that if two magicians tried to gain the same object at once, the magic of one or the other would prove a failure or they would both share an imperfect and half-way success, and in either case the promises of their art would prove a failure. The same logic might be applied to the advice how to succeed given to young men by some of our “self-made” millionaires (are they magi or malefici?) who have exploited natural resources. William, however, goes on to explain that the books of magic say that not all artificers are equally skilful or born under a lucky star. He points out the limitations of Pharaoh’s magicians in much the usual manner.[1143]
William not only denies that magic can attain some extreme results, but also denies that some of the methods employed in magic are suited or adequate to the ends aimed at. He especially attacks the employment of images and characters, words, names, and incantations. The use of wax images in magic to harm the person or thing of whom the image is made seems to him a futile proceeding. He will not believe that Nectanebo—the magician of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, it will be remembered—could sink the ships of the enemy by submerging wax images of them.[1144] Such magic images possess neither intelligence nor will, nor can they act by bodily virtue, since that requires contact either direct or indirect to be effective.[1145] If someone suggests that they act by sense of nature, he should know that inanimate objects are incapable of this.[1146] The only way in which the occasional seemingly successful employment of such images can be accounted for is that when the magician does anything to the image, demons inflict the same sufferings upon the person against whom the image is used, and thus deceive men into thinking that the virtue of the image accomplishes this result.[1147]
Hermes Trismegistus speaks to Asclepius in the Liber de hellera or De deo deorum of terrestrial gods, associated each with some material substance, such as stones and aromatics which have the natural force of divinity in them.[1148] Hermes, however, distinguished from natural gods “factitious gods,” or statues, idols, and images made by man, into which “the splendor of deity and virtue of divinity” is poured or impressed by celestial spirits or the heavens and stars, “and this with observation of the hours and constellations when the image is cast or engraved or fabricated.” William regrets to say that traces of this error still prevail “among many old women, and Christians at that.” And they say that sixty years after their manufacture these images lose their virtue. William does not believe that there is divinity in stones or herbs or aromatics, or that men can make gods of any sort.[1149] Minds and souls cannot be put into statues,[1150] and William concludes that Trismegistus “erred shamefully” and “was marvelously deceived by the evil spirits themselves.”[1151] He also calls impossible “what is so celebrated among the astrologers (astronomos), and written in so many of the books, namely, that a statue will speak like a man if one casts it of bronze in the rising of Saturn.”[1152]
William likewise holds that characters or figures or impressions or astrological images have no force unless they are tokens by which the evil spirits may recognize their worshipers.[1153] There is no divinity in the angles of Solomon’s pentagon. William states that some are led into this error from their theories concerning the stars, and that the idolatrous cult of the stars distinguishes four kinds of figures: seals, rings, characters, and images.[1154] Such are the rings and seal of Solomon with their “execrable consecrations and detestable invocations.” Even more unspeakable is that image called idea Salomonis et entocta, and the figure known as mandel or amandel. So excessive are the virtues attributed to such images that they belong only to God, so that it is evident that God has been shorn of His glory which has been transferred to such figures. Artesius in his book on the virtue of words and characters asserts that by a certain magic figure he bound a mill so that the wheels could not turn.[1155] But William is incredulous as to such powers in characters. He thinks that one might as well say that virtue of the figure would run the mill without water or mill-wheels. If the mill did stop, it must have been the work of demons. Nor can William see any sense in writing the day and hour when thunder was heard in that locality on the walls of houses in order to protect them from lightning.[1156] It seems to him an attribution of the strongest force to the weakest sort of an incidental occurrence.
William indeed denies that there is magic power in mere words or incantations. Mere words cannot kill men or animals as sorcerers claim.[1157] William argues scholastically that if spoken words possessed any such virtue they must derive it either from the material of which they are composed, air, or from their form, sound; or from what they signify. Air cannot kill unless it is poisoned by a plague, dragon, or toad. Sound to kill must be deafening. If what is signified by the word is the cause, then images, which are more exact likenesses, would be more powerful than words. William’s opinion is that when sorcerers employ magic words and incantations they are simply calling upon the demons for aid, just as the worshipers of God sometimes induce Him to work wonders by calling upon His name.
This brings William to the delicate question of divine names. He censures the use of the name of God by “magicians and astronomers” in “working their diabolical marvels.”[1158] He also notes that they employ a barbaric name and not one of the four Hebrew names of God. They forbid anyone who is not pure and clad in pure vestments to presume to touch the book in which this name is written, but they try to gain evil ends by it and so blaspheme against their Creator. William, however, seems to feel that the names of God have a virtue not found in ordinary words and he states that not only servants of God but even wicked men sometimes cast out demons by making use of holy exorcisms.
In short, incantations possess no efficacy, but exorcisms do. This is an indication, not merely of William’s logical inconsistency, but also of the existence of a Christian or ecclesiastical variety of magic in his day. He will not believe in Nectanebo’s wax images, but he believes that the forms of wax which have the likeness of lambs receive through the benediction of the pope the virtue of warding off thunderbolts.[1159] He denied that magic words had efficacy through their sound but he affirms that consecrated bells prevent storms within the sound of their ringing, and that salt and water which have been blessed obtain the power of expelling demons. William, however, takes refuge in God’s omnipotent virtue to explain the efficacy of these Christian charms.
Magic appears to have always devoted considerable attention to matters of sex and generation, and William’s works give one or two instances of this. He states that sorcerers investigate the cohabiting of certain animals, thinking that if they kill them at that hour they will obtain from their carcasses potent love-charms and aids to fecundity.[1160] We are also told that men have tried to produce, and thought that they succeeded in producing human life in other ways than by the usual generative process.[1161] “And in the books of experiments may be found mockeries of women similar to those which the demons called incubi work and which certain sorcerers have attempted and left in writing for posterity.” They have recorded a delusive experiment by which women who have been known only once or twice think that this has occurred fifty or sixty times.
As has been already incidentally suggested, William offers considerable information as to the bibliography of magic in his day. Besides his many general allusions to works of magic, writings of sorcerers and prestidigitateurs and astrologers and books of experiments, he mentions several particular works ascribed to Aristotle and Avicenbros, to Hermes Trismegistus and Solomon, the “cursed book” of Cocogrecus on “Stations to the cult of Venus” and, what is perhaps the same, of Thot grecus on “The cult of Venus.”[1162] An Artesius or Arthesius, whom in one passage he calls a magician and cites concerning divination by water and whom in another passage he calls both a magician and a philosopher who had written a book on the virtue of words and characters,[1163] is probably the same Artesius who is cited concerning divination by the rays of the sun or moon in liquids or mirrors in a work of alchemy in a twelfth century manuscript,[1164] and further identical with the Artephius who Roger Bacon says lived for one thousand and twenty-five years,[1165] to whom a treatise is ascribed in the Theatrum Chymicum[1166] and a Sloane manuscript,[1167] and who seems to have been the same as Altughra’i, a poet and alchemist who died in 1128.[1168] There also are a number of magic books of which William does not give the author’s name or the title, but of which he gives descriptions or from which he makes citations which would be sufficiently definite to identify the works should one meet with them elsewhere. In our chapters on pseudo-literature and experimental literature we treat of many of these works.
From our survey of magic proper as delineated in William’s works we now turn to what he represents as the two chief forces in magic, namely, the demons and the occult virtues in nature, and to two subjects which he closely connects with magic, namely, divination and astrology. These four topics will be taken up separately in the order stated.
Since William attributes so much of magic to demons, it is important to note what he has to say concerning these “spiritual substances.” He proposes to follow as his sources on the subject “authentic accounts” (sermones authentici): first of all the statements of the divinely inspired prophets, and after that the opinions of the philosophers and also of the magicians. He observes elsewhere, however, that there is a lack of literature on the subject; the sages have only dipped into it and not yet plumbed it to its depths: in fact, only the treatise of Avicenbros has come to his hands, and while that authority has said and written many sublime things, far removed from popular comprehension, still he has made only a beginning in this field.[1169] William also utilizes, however, the works of Hermes Trismegistus[1170] and other books of necromancy and magic—among them Thot Graecus[1171]—the testimony of medical men[1172] and “innumerable experiences” of men at large.[1173]
William professes himself open to conviction and new light on the question of the assumption of bodies by good and bad spirits.[1174] And it must be said that his whole treatment of spirits is full of inconsistencies and difficulties. Part of the time he draws a hard and fast line between spiritual substances and physical creation, but only part of the time. He also essays the difficult task of explaining how and to what extent these spiritual substances are able to disturb physical creation, and how far they in turn are affected by it.
To begin with, William takes up the difficult position—or rather he makes it difficult for himself—but the usual one with medieval theologians, that angels occupy physical space and are located in their own heaven as the stars are in theirs.[1175] Some modern believers in spiritualism hold a very similar position.[1176] He also declares that the tenth and last or empyrean heaven will be the eternal abode of men whose souls are saved, although the resurrected bodies of the saved would presumably still be corporal substances.[1177] This raises the further difficulty that apparently the empyrean heaven cannot be the abode of the angels, as some theologians and saintly doctors have held (for a corporal place cannot be filled except with corporal substances), for those superficial persons who mock the authentic divine revelation of scripture will say that “if that heaven is a corporal place it cannot be filled except by corporal substances.”
Another point which puzzles William is whether there will be room in hell for all the evil spirits and resurrected bodies of the damned destined to make it their ultimate abode. The infernal regions, located in the interior of our terrestrial globe, seem very small to him compared with the vast expanse of the empyrean heaven which is even greater than that of the fixed stars. And our earth is a mere dot compared to the sphere of the fixed stars. If then that entire empyrean heaven is to be filled with glorified men, how shall the infernal regions hold all the damned?[1178] It will be seen that Dante’s later cosmology is very similar to William’s.