The discussion in the De natura rerum of the seven regions of the air and their humors, namely, dew, snow, hail, rain, “laudanum,” manna and honey, reminds one of Michael Scot’s treatment of the same subject,[1308] but seems to be drawn from a common source rather than directly copied from it. Thomas states that Aristotle has treated more fully of these humors in his Meteorology, but in reality Aristotle says nothing of the last three named in the Meteorology, although in the History of Animals he says that honey is distilled from the air by the stars. Thomas draws the same distinction as Michael Scot had made between natural honey and the artificial sort made by bees. He is willing to grant that the manna upon which the children of Israel lived was created in this region of the sky, although especially prepared for them by a divine miracle.
The astrological passages of the De natura rerum are neither striking nor novel. In his books on animals Thomas had stated that various animal substances such as the brains of wolves or the livers of mice vary in size with the waxing and waning of the moon. He denies that the planets possess sense or that their movements are voluntary, but he quotes Pliny’s statement that by the influence of Venus all things on earth are generated, and states the influence of each planet when it is in the ascendant. Under Mars men become choleric and bellicose. Jupiter is such a source of safety and good health that Martianus declared that were Jupiter the only planet, men would be immortal. Such, however, was not the Creator’s will. The word “Jupiter” is not without reason derived from iubens and pater, since during the ascension of this planet all terrestrial things are born. For unless seeds were severed from their beginnings by some occult virtue, they would always remain immovable in the state in which they were created. God accordingly put such power in the spheres of the stars and especially the planets that created things might obey his command to increase and multiply. They return, however, to the earth from which they came; the processes of nature are unceasingly repeated; and, as Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun. Thomas therefore reaches the usual conclusion that except for human free will and special manifestations of divine will, all nature is placed by God under the rule of the stars. The influence of sun and moon is manifest, and “why should we not with entire reason believe the same of the other planets?”
The nineteenth book opens with a discussion of the universe and creation and closes with a discussion of the four elements. Fire has eight effects expressed in the couplet:
Thomas illustrates each of these effects by a verse of Scripture. Fire also has six properties, likewise expressed in a couplet:
Concerning these properties also Thomas quotes Scripture. He then treats briefly of that purest fire which is above the seven regions of the air. Demons dwell in the air “awaiting with torments the judgment day.”[1310] When they appear to men, they assume bodies from that part of the air which is densest and most mixed with the other three elements. But angels coming as messengers to mankind assume bodies in the region of pure fire extending from the sphere of the moon to the firmament.
In the life of Albertus Magnus written by Peter of Prussia toward the end of the fifteenth century[1311] it is stated on the authority of the chronicle of Brother Jacobus de Zuzato, master of theology, that Thomas of Cantimpré translated word for word from Greek into Latin “all the books of Aristotle in rational, natural, and moral philosophy and metaphysics which we now use in the schools,[1312] and this at the instance of Saint Thomas of Aquinas, for in Albert’s time all commonly used the old translation.”[1313] The task of translating Aristotle was scarcely one for which Thomas of Cantimpré was qualified, and his name almost never appears in the extant manuscripts of translations of Aristotle.[1314] Peter of Prussia and his source have probably confused William of Moerbeke with Thomas of Cantimpré, as they both came from Brabant, and their names are juxtaposed in a fourteenth century list of writings by Dominicans, where, however, William is said to have “translated all the books of natural and moral philosophy from Greek into Latin at the instance of brother Thomas.”[1315] Because of Thomas of Cantimpré’s chapters on gynecology, the De secretis mulierum usually ascribed to Albertus Magnus has sometimes been attributed to him, but Ferckel denies this.[1316]
[1254] Only extracts of the De natura rerum have been printed (by J. B. Pitra, Spicilegium Solesmense, III, and in HL and Ferckel as noted below). Some discussion of the MSS and a partial list of them will be found in Appendix I to this chapter. I have chiefly used MSS Royal 12-E-XVII, 13th century; Royal 12-F-VI, 14th century; Egerton 1984, 13th century, fols. 34-145; Arundel 323, 13th century, fols. 1-98; and Arundel 164, 15th century, at the British Museum; and BN 347B and 523A at Paris. As any topic to which a chapter is devoted can be found without much difficulty in these MSS, which are divided into books and chapters and equipped with tables of contents, I shall usually not take the time and space to make specific citations by folio in the ensuing chapter.
Of Thomas’s Bonum universale de apibus I have used the 1516 edition.
Some books and articles on Thomas and his natural science are: Bormans, “Thomas de Cantimpré indiqué comme une des sources où Albert le Grand et surtout Maerlant ont puisé les matériaux de leur écrits sur l’histoire naturelle”; in Bulletins de l’Acad. roy. des Sciences de Belgique, XIX, 132-59, Brussels, 1852.
Carus, Geschichte der Zoologie, Munich, 1872, pp. 211-33.
HL 30 (1888) 365-84, Delisle, “La Nature des Choses, par Thomas de Cantimpré,” supplementing and correcting the earlier account by Daunou in HL 19 (1838) 177-84, where the De natura rerum had been called an anonymous work known only from Vincent of Beauvais’ citation of it.
A. Kaufmann, Thomas von Cantimpré, Cologne, 1899, 137 pp., an unfinished work published posthumously without a projected section on Thomas’s natural science, which the author had scarcely begun.
Stadler, “Albertus Magnus, Thomas von Cantimpré, und Vincent von Beauvais,” in Natur und Kultur, IV, 86-90, Munich, 1906.
C. Ferckel, Die Gynäkologie des Thomas von Brabant, ausgewählte Kapitel aus Buch I de naturis rerum beendet um 1240, Munich, 1912 (in G. Klein, Alte Meister d. Medizin u. Naturkunde).
[1255] V. Rose (1875), pp. 335, 340.
[1256] HL 30: 380.
[1257] Sometimes the work concludes with the extraordinary Explicit, “the book of Lucius Annisius Seneca of Cordova, disciple of Fortinus the Stoic, De naturis rerum,” as in Arundel 323.
[1258] III, 16.
[1259] In the preface.
[1260] Bonum universale de apibus, I, 19, vii.
[1261] Ibid., II, 57, lix. At I, 5, ii, 1252 is given as the date of the “recent” murder of a Dominican by heretics at Verona; at II, 57, iii, great winds and thunders are mentioned, which frightened men in Germany nearly out of their wits in 1256.
[1262] Aquinas died in 1274, Albert in 1280.
[1263] Bonum universale de apibus, I, 20, xi.
[1264] Ibid., II, 57, li, “venerabilis ille frater ordinis predicatorum magister Albertus.”
[1265] From this statement one might infer either that Bartholomew’s book was not yet published or that Thomas did not know of it.
[1266] HL 30: 384.
[1267] As HL 30: 374-5 has already noted.
[1268] HL 30: 383 mentions three such MSS; see also CLM 6908, where, however, the three last books are missing; Lincoln College 57, 13th century; CU Trinity 1058, 13th century; Wolfenbüttel 4499, 14th century.
[1269] As has been said above, it is doubtful if there was any close relation of master and disciple between Albert and Thomas.
[1270] HL 30: 377.
[1271] Jacobus de Vitriaco, libri duo ... prior Orientalis ... alter Occidentalis Historiae, 1597, Hist. Orient. caps. 85-92.
[1272] Experimentator, however, is also cited concerning the properties of air.
[1273] Thomas’s extracts from Adhelmus were printed by Pitra (1855) III, 425-7. Concerning St. Aldhelm see above, chapter 27, page 636.
[1274] Michael Scot is cited concerning silk-worms and gourds in Egerton 1984, fols. 100r and 121r, and, judging from the catalogue notice, also in Corpus Christi 221, but not in the corresponding passages in either Royal 12-E-XVII or 12-F-VI. The Histoire Littéraire, however, gives a citation of Michael’s translation of Aristotle’s History of Animals from three Paris MSS.
[1275] Ferckel (1912), p. 4, “und tatsächlich ist fast das ganze Kapitel De Impregnatione ein Teil des folgenden und die erste grössere Hälfte des Kapitels 73 fast wörtlich der Philosophia des Wilhelm von Conches entnommen.”
[1276] “Tanta fides in hoc auctorum est et tanta concordia ut nulli umquam de hoc dubitare relinquatur.”
[1277] In the condensed version of Egerton 1984 and Arundel 323 the castration story is omitted, but the other statement is made.
[1278] A fuller form of the title is: Liber apum aut de apibus mysticis sive de proprietatibus apum seu universale bonum tractans de prelatis et subditis ubique sparsim exemplis notabilibus.
[1279] See especially Historia animalium, VI, 31; VIII, 5, IX, 44.
[1280] In Egerton 1984 and Arundel 323 this statement occurs later and is ascribed to “Alexander”. These MSS add that in its fore-quarters the lion is of a hot nature, in the hind-quarters cold, like the Sun in Leo.
[1281] “Firmitas autem in pectore est.”
[1282] Egerton 1984, “to be feverish all the time.”
[1283] EB, 11th edition, “The number of cubs at a birth is from two to four, usually three.”
[1284] Ibid. “The lion ... seldom attacks his prey openly, unless compelled by extreme hunger.... He appears ... as a general rule only to kill when hungry or attacked, and not for the mere pleasure of killing, as with some other carnivorous animals.”
[1285] EB, “Though not strictly gregarious, lions appear to be sociable towards their own species.”
[1286] Also Aristotle, IX, 44.
[1287] EB, 11th edition, “On no occasions are their voices to be heard in such perfection, or so intensely powerful, as when two or three troops of strange lions approach a fountain to drink at the same time.”
[1288] Ibid. “He, moreover, by no means limits himself to animals of his own killing, but, according to Selous, often prefers eating game that has been killed by man, even when not very fresh, to taking the trouble to catch an animal himself.”
[1289] For instance, I found the passage in Royal 12-E-XVII, but not in Royal 12-F-VI.
[1290] Aristotle, instead of Experimentator, in Egerton 1984 and Arundel 323. Of the small amount of marrow in lions’ bones Aristotle treats twice, Historia animalium III, 7 and 20.
[1291] I am told, however, that in a recent moving picture lions are seen climbing trees to escape from dogs.
[1292] HL 30: 367.
[1293] Egerton 1984 and Arundel 323.
[1294] Omitted in the two MSS mentioned in the preceding note.
[1295] Compare the similar description of the magnetised needle in Neckam, De naturis rerum, II, 98 (RS 34: 183).
[1296] HL 30: 370 does not mention this introductory passage but quotes a somewhat similar passage which occurs later on. In fact, Thomas makes practically the same statement at least three times in the course of his fourteenth book.
[1297] “Rechel” in Royal 12-F-VI, fols. 106-7. Printed by Pitra (1855) III, 335-7, as “Cethel aut veterum Judaeorum Physiologorum de lapidibus sententiae.”
[1298] A further discussion of them will be found in Appendix II to this chapter.
[1299] Steinschneider (1906) 54-5, 103-4, fails to include our treatise on seals in his mentions of Zaël’s works; but in BN 16204, 13th century, the Seals of Theel is immediately preceded by two treatises of “Zehel the Israelite” on interrogations and elections.
[1300] In the astrological miscellany of Petrus Liechtenstein, Basel, 1551, fols. 122-7, Introductorium de principiis judiciorum; 127-38, De interrogationibus; 138-41, De electionibus; 141-2, De significatione temporis ad judicia. Steinschneider mentions only the Elections as printed in 1551, but also notes a 1533 edition of it and 1493 and 1519 editions of all these treatises.
[1301] In cap. 6, Introductio, “Scito quod signa sunt duodecim”; in cap. 9, Judicia Arabum, “Cum interrogatus fueris”; De significatione temporis, “Et scito quod tempore excitat motus”; in cap. 10, Liber electionis, “Omnes concordati sunt”; Quinquaginta praeceptorum, “Scito quod significata lunae.”
[1302] CCAG V, 3, 98-106.
[1303] Steinschneider (1905), p. 34, names Hermann the Dalmatian as translator and notes CUL 2022, 15th century, fols. 102r-115v, Hermanni secundi translatio. “Explicit Fatidica Ben Bixir Caldei....,” but the Gi in the Explicit of the following MS might stand for Gerardi and indicate Gerard of Cremona, who would, it is true, have been but twenty-four in 1138: Digby 114, 14th century, fols. 176-99, “Explicit fetidica Zael Banbinxeir Caldei. Translacio hec mam. Gi. astronomie libri anno Domini 1138, 3 kal. Octobris translatus (sic) est.”
Some other MSS which Steinschneider does not mention are: Harleian 80; Sloane 2030, 12-13th century, fols. 41-76; Amplon. Quarto 361, 14th century, fols. 96-113, Chehelbenbis Israelite; and perhaps Sloane 3847, 17th century, fols. 101-12, Zebel alias Zoel, liber imaginum, but more probably this is the Pseudo-Zebel found in Berlin 965, 16th century, fols. 1-63, and printed at Prague, 1592, “Incipit zebelis sapientis arabum de interpretatione diversorum eventuum secundum lunam in 12 signis zodiaci.”
[1304] This consecration of gems also follows Techel’s treatise on seals in Ashmole 1471, fol. 67v, while in Canon. Misc. 285 the work of Thetel is preceded at fol. 36v by De consecratione lapidum, and at fol. 38 by De modo praecipuos quosdam lapides consecrandi.
[1305] Or, in one MS, “sicut dicunt phisici.”
[1306] This fact has already been noted by the HL.
[1307] Called andena in one MS, and alidea in another.
[1308] See above, chapter 51, page 324.
[1309] Or perhaps “ascendit.”
[1310] Compare Bede, De natura rerum, cap. 25.
[1311] Petrus de Prussia, Vita B. Alberti Magni, (1621), p. 294.
[1312] Trithemius, De script, eccles. probably has Peter and Jacobus in mind when he states that some writers say that Thomas of Cantimpré knew Greek and translated the works of Aristotle used in the schools.
[1313] As Albert lived six years beyond Aquinas, this would indicate that his Aristotelian treatises were completed early in life. Yet some accuse him of using Thomas’s De natura rerum in these works.
[1314] Additional 17345, late 13th century, imperfect, ascribes the antiqua translatio of the fourteen books of Metaphysics to him, but is the only such MS I know of.
[1315] One wonders if this can mean Thomas Brabantinus, whose name immediately follows that of Wilhelmus Brabantinus in the list, rather than Thomas Aquinas.
[1316] Ferckel (1912), pp. 1-2, 10.