Need of qualifying the patristic attitude—Plan of this chapter—Julius Firmicus Maternus—Date of the Mathesis—Are the attitudes in Firmicus’ two works incompatible?—De errore is not unfavorable to astrology—Attitude of both works to the emperors—Religious attitude of the Mathesis—An astrologer’s prayer—Christian objections to astrology met—Astrology proved experimentally—Information to be gained from the third and fourth books—Religion and magic; exorcists—Divination—Magic as a branch of learning—Interest in science—Diseases in antiquity—Place of Firmicus in the history of astrology—Libanius accused of magic—Declamation against a magician—Faith of Libanius in divination—Magic and astrology in Pseudo-Quintilian declamations—Fusion of Christianity and paganism in Synesius of Cyrene—His career—His interest in science—Belief in occult sympathy between natural objects—Synesius on divination and astrology—Synesius as an alchemist—Macrobius on number, dreams, and stars—Martianus Capella—Absence of astrology—Orders of spirits—The Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite.

In reading the writings of the Christian fathers one is impressed by the fact that their tone is almost invariably that of the preacher. In estimating therefore the practical effect of their utterances it is well to remember that these are counsels of perfection which were probably often not realized even by those who gave utterance to them. This is not to accuse the fathers of being pharisaical, but to suggest that as both clerics and apologists they were professionally bound to take up an irreproachable position morally and dogmatically. Basil has shown us that the audience who listened to his sermons were still under the spell of Roman amusements, dice, theater, and arena. And the average lay Christian mind was probably more easy-going in its attitude toward magic and superstition than Augustine. Not merely laymen, moreover, but Christian clergy and apologists of the declining Roman Empire might still hold to divination and astrology. It was a time, as has often been remarked, of religious syncretism, of fusion of pagan and Christian thought, when it is not always easy to tell whether the author of an extant writing is Christian or Neo-Platonist or both. Mr. Gwatkin states that “the surface thought” of Constantine’s time, “Christian as well as heathen, tended to a vague monotheism which looked on Christ and the sun as almost equally good symbols of the Supreme.”[2208] Others believed that astrology was the truth back of all religions.[2209]

In this chapter we shall therefore consider some writers of the fourth and fifth century who attest the existence of magic and astrology then, the influence of paganism on Christianity and of Christianity on paganism, and the fusion of Neo-Platonism, Christianity, and astrological theory. This, indeed, we have already done to some extent, as our previous chapters on Neo-Platonism and on the Christian fathers have carried us more or less into those centuries. But now as an offset to Augustine we take up other writers who have not yet been treated: Firmicus, the Latin Christian apologist and the astrologer of the mid-fourth century; Libanius, the Greek sophist of the same century; Macrobius and Synesius, Neo-Platonists writing respectively in Latin and Greek at the beginning of the fifth century, and of whom one was a Christian bishop; and probably in the same century the discussion of spirits by Martianus Capella in Latin and the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in Greek. Except for Libanius and Synesius, these authors were very influential in medieval Latin learning and might serve as well for an introduction to our following book on The Early Middle Ages as for a conclusion to this.

Julius Firmicus Maternus[2210] flourished during the reigns of Constantine the Great and his sons. Sicily was his native land; he was of senatorial rank and very well educated for his time, showing interest in natural philosophy, literature, and rhetoric. Two works are extant under his name: one, On the Error of Profane Religions,[2211] is addressed to Constantius and Constans, 340-350 A. D., and urges them to eradicate pagan cults. The other, Mathesis,[2212] is a work of astrology written at the request of a similarly cultured friend, Lollianus or Mavortius, who is spoken of in the preface as ordinario consuli designato,[2213] an office which we know that he held in 355 A. D. The writing of two such works by one man has long given critics pause, and is a splendid warning against taking anything for granted in our study of the past. Not long ago the general opinion was that there must have been two different authors by the name of Firmicus. This very unlikely theory has now been universally abandoned, as unmistakable similarities in style and wording have been noted in the two works. But it is still maintained that “there is no question but that he was a pagan when he wrote his astrological book.”[2214] This involves two considerations, whether the attitude expressed in the two works is really incompatible and whether the Mathesis was written before or after the De errore.

Mommsen contended that “it is beyond doubt”[2215] that the Mathesis was written between 334 and 337 A. D., relying chiefly upon several apparent mentions of Constantine the Great as still living. The names, Constantine and Constantius are frequently confused in the sources, however,[2216] and even while the words, “Constantinum maximum principem et huius invictissimos liberos, domines et Caesares nostros,” seem to refer unmistakably to Constantine, it must be remembered that they occur in a prayer to the planets and to the supreme God that Constantine and his children may “rule over our posterity and the posterity of our posterity through infinite succession of ages.” As this is simply equivalent to expressing a hope that the dynasty may never become extinct, it is scarcely proof positive that Constantine the Great was still living when Firmicus published his book. On the other hand, to maintain the early date Mommsen was forced to treat the mention of Lollianus as ordinario consuli designato as mere prophetic flattery or as an appointment held up by Constantius for eighteen years. We know that Firmicus addressed the De errore to Constantius and Constans, probably between 345 and 350; we know that Lollianus was city prefect of Rome in 342, consul ordinarius in 355, and praetorian prefect in the following year; whereas we know nothing certainly of either of them before 337. Furthermore Firmicus explicitly states that the writing of the Mathesis has been long delayed,[2217] and when the promise to compose it was first made, it is evident that neither he nor Lollianus was a young man. Lollianus was already consularis of Campania and according to inscriptions had previously held a number of other offices; while still in this position Lollianus had frequently to spur his friend on to the task which Firmicus as frequently “gave up in despair.” Then Lollianus became Count of all the Orient and continued his importunities. Finally, after Lollianus has become proconsul and ordinary consul elect, Firmicus completes the work and presents it to him. Meanwhile Firmicus himself—who had formerly “resisted with unbending confidence and firmness” factious and wicked and avaricious men, “who from fear of law-suits seemed terrible to the unfortunate”; and who “with liberal mind, despising forensic gains, to men in trouble ... displayed a pure and faithful defense in the courts of law,” by which upright conduct he incurred much enmity and danger;[2218]—has retired from the sordid sphere of law courts and forum to spend his leisure with the divine men of old of Egypt and Babylon and to purify his spirit by contemplation of the everlasting stars and of the God who works through them. Yet we are asked to believe—if we accept a date before 337 for the Mathesis—not merely that he writes a vehement invective against “profane religions” a decade later, but also that twenty years after Lollianus is still a vigorous administrator.[2219] It is possible, but seems unlikely.

Certainly the date of the Mathesis should be determined without any assumption as to what Firmicus’ religion was when he wrote it. For, if we regard his attitudes in Mathesis and De errore as incompatible, it will be as difficult to explain how he could write the De errore after having composed the Mathesis as vice versa. After the steadfast affirmation of astrological principles in the Mathesis it is no easier to explain the fierce spirit of intolerance toward paganism in the De errore than it is after the mention of Christ in the De errore to explain the omission of that name in the Mathesis. But are the two works really incompatible? My answer is, No. The divergences are such as may be explained by the different character of the two works and the different circumstances under which they were written. De errore is an impassioned polemic very possibly delivered as an oration before the emperors; Mathesis is a learned compilation on a pseudo-scientific subject composed at leisure for a friend with the help of previous treatises on the subject. Why should Firmicus mention Christ in the Mathesis? Does Boethius, after nearly two centuries more of Christian growth and although he wrote a work on the Trinity, mention Christ in The Consolation of Philosophy? Some apparent petty inconsistencies there may be between Firmicus’ two works, but if we accept a host of contradictions in Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, why balk at some inconsistency in a writer who urges Constantine’s children against profane cults? On the other hand, there are some striking correspondences between the De errore and Mathesis.

It is noteworthy in the first place that in the De errore Firmicus does not attack astrology. But if he had been converted to Christianity since writing the Mathesis and had abandoned the astrological doctrine there expounded, would he have failed to attack the error of that art like Augustine who testified that he had once believed in nativities? It is therefore obvious that Firmicus does not regard astrology as an error even at the time when he is penning the De errore as a Christian apologist. Moreover, his view of nature in the De errore is quite in accord with that of the astrologer, and he manifests the respect for natural science or physica ratio which one would expect from the author of the Mathesis. Thus we find him criticizing certain pagan cults as sharply for their incorrect physical notions as he does others for travestying Christian mysteries. In its opening chapters certain oriental religions are criticized for exalting each some one of the four elements above the others, and for neglecting that superior control of the world of terrestrial nature in which both Christian and astrologer confided. Another argument against pagan worships is that they include human and immoral elements which cannot be explained as based upon natural law[2220] and the rule of that supreme God or “God the fabricator,” “who composed all things by the orderly method of divine workmanship,”—phrases which, as Ziegler has shown,[2221] occur both in the De errore and Mathesis. Furthermore, in the De errore Firmicus’ allusions to the planets, which include a representation of the Sun making a reproachful address to certain pagans,[2222] indicate that he regarded the stars as of immense importance in the administration of the universe.

It is also worth remarking that in both works Firmicus sets the emperors above the rest of mankind and closely associates them with the celestial bodies and “the supreme God.” If in Mathesis he prays for the perpetuation of the line of Constantine and forbids astrologers to make predictions concerning the emperor on the ground that his fate is not subject to the stars but directly to the supreme God, “and inasmuch as the whole surface of the earth is subject to the emperor, he too is reckoned in the number of those gods whom the principal divinity has established to perform and preserve all things”:[2223]—if he says this in Mathesis, in De errore he repeatedly addresses the emperors as “most holy”[2224] and in one passage says, “You now, O Constantius and Constans, most holy emperors, and the virtue of your venerated faith must be implored. It is erected above men and, separated from earthly frailty, joins in alliance with things celestial and in all its acts so far as it can follows the will of the supreme God.... Your felicity is joined with God’s virtue, with Christ fighting at your side you have triumphed on behalf of human safety.”[2225]

If the author of De errore is not unfavorable to astrology the author of the Mathesis is strongly inclined towards monotheism and decidedly religious. He indignantly repels the accusation that astrology, which teaches that “all our acts are arranged by the divine courses of the stars,” draws men away “from the cult of the gods and of religions.” “We cause the gods to be feared and worshiped, we demonstrate their might and majesty.”[2226] The passage just quoted and some others are suggestive of polytheism, and Firmicus frequently speaks of the planets as “gods.” Probably in this he is reproducing the phraseology and reflecting the attitude of the astrological works which he uses as his authorities and which belong to the period of the pagan past. His apotelesmata, too, or predictions of nativities for various horoscopes, give little or no indication of being especially adapted to a Christian society, although in some other respects they fit his own age.[2227] But while the work contains a considerable residue of paganism, its prevailing conception of deity is one supreme God, the rector of the planets, “who composed all things by the arrangement of everlasting law,”[2228] and who made man the microcosm from the four elements.[2229] He is prayed to thus:

“But lest my words be bereft of divine aid and the envy of some hateful man impugn them by hostile attacks, whoever thou art, God, who continuest day after day the course of the heavens in rapid rotation, who perpetuatest the mobile agitation of ocean’s tides, who strengthenest earth’s solidity in the immovable strength of its foundations, who refreshest with night’s sleep the toil of our earthly bodies, who when our strength is renewed returnest the grace of sweetest light, who stirrest all the substance of thy work by the salutary breath of the winds, who pourest forth the waves of streams and fountains in tireless force, who revolvest the varied seasons by sure periods of days: sole Governor and Prince of all, sole Emperor and Lord, whom all the celestial forces serve, whose will is the substance of perfect work, by whose faultless laws all nature is forever adorned and regulated; thou Father alike and Mother of every thing, thou bound to thyself, Father and Son, by one bond of relationship; to Thee we extend suppliant hands, Thee with trembling supplication we venerate; grant us grace to attempt the explanation of the courses of thy stars; thine is the power that somehow impels us to that interpretation. With a mind pure and separated from all earthly thoughts and purged from every stain of sin we have written these books for thy Romans.”[2230] Doubtless these words might have been written by a Neo-Platonist or a pagan, but it also seems likely that they were penned by a Christian astrologer.

Firmicus provides not only for divine government of the universe and creation of the world and man, but also for prayer to God and for human free will,[2231] since by the divinity of the soul we are able to resist in some measure the decrees of the stars. He also holds that human laws and moral standards are not rendered of no avail by the force of the stars but are very useful to the soul in its struggle by the power of the divine mind against the vices of the body.[2232] Indeed, not only is the astrologer himself urged at considerable length to lead a pure, upright, and unselfish life, but “to show the right way of living to sinful men, so that, reformed by your teaching, they may be freed from the errors of their past life.”[2233] The human soul is also immortal, a spark of that same divine mind which through the stars exerts its influence upon terrestrial bodies.[2234] All this may be consistent or not both with itself and with the art of astrology, but it meets the chief objections that Christians might make and had made to the art.

These and other objections to the art of nativities are the theme to which the first of the eight books of the Mathesis is devoted. Firmicus points out that some of the other objections to astrology do not correctly state the doctrines of that art; others he admits are ingenious arguments which sound well on paper but he insists that if the opponents of astrology, instead of protesting that the influence of the stars at a given instant is incalculable, would put the matter to the test experimentally,[2235] they would soon be convinced of the truth of astrologers’ predictions, although he grants that unskilful astrologers sometimes give wrong responses. But he insists that persons who have not tested astrology experimentally are unfit to pass upon its merits.[2236] He affirms that the human spirit which has discovered so many other sciences and to which so much of divinity and religion has been revealed is capable also of casting horoscopes, and that astrological prediction is a relatively easy task compared to the mapping out of the whole heavens and courses of the stars which the mathematici have already performed so successfully.[2237] And he does not see why anyone persists in denying the power of fate in human affairs when all about him he can see the innocent suffering and the guilty escaping; the best men such as Socrates, Plato, and Pythagoras meeting an ill fate; and unprincipled persons like Alcibiades and Sulla prospering.[2238]

The remaining seven books of the Mathesis are given over to the art of horoscope casting. The second book consists chiefly of preliminary directions, but the others state what men will be born under various constellations. Of these the last four books are extant only in manuscripts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, while the first four are found in manuscripts going back to the eleventh century. Moreover, although books five to eight cover more pages than books three and four, they do not supply so many details or so satisfactory a picture of human society in their predictions. These divergences, which are mainly ones of omission, do not invalidate the results which we gain from an analysis of the third and fourth books, but do raise the question whether the later books, especially the fifth and sixth, are genuine. In them the wording becomes vaguer, little knowledge is shown of conditions at the time that Firmicus wrote, the predictions are more sensational and rhetorical. Only the latter part of the eighth book carries the conviction of reality that books three and four do. These two books are both independent units and through their predictions of the future supply a general picture of human society, presumably that of Firmicus’ own time or not long before. One naturally assumes that those matters to which Firmicus devotes most space and emphasis are the prominent features of his age. Let us see what his picture is of religion, divination, the occult science and magic, natural science and medicine.[2239]

To religion Firmicus gives less space than to politics. There are no clear references to Christianity, but there are few allusions to any particular cults. Firmicus, however, indicates the existence of many cults, speaking five times of the heads of religions, and characterizing men as “those who regard all religions and gods with a certain trepidation,” “those devoted to certain religions,” “those who cherish the greatest religions,” and so on. Temples,[2240] priests, and divination[2241] are the three features of religion that he mentions most. Magic and religion are closely associated in his predictions, for instance, “temple priests ever famed in magic lore.” Sacred or religious literatures and persons devoted to them are mentioned thrice, while in a fourth passage we hear of men “investigating the secrets of all religions and of heaven itself.” Other interesting descriptions[2242] are of those who “stay in temples in an unkempt state and always walk abroad thus, and never cut their hair, and who would announce something to men as if said by the gods, such as are wont to be in temples, who are accustomed to predict the future”; and of “men terrible to the gods and who despise all kinds of perjuries. Moreover, they will be terrible to all demons, and at their approach the wicked spirits of demons flee; and they free men who are thus troubled, not by force of words but by their mere appearing; and however violent the demon may be who shakes the body and spirit of man, whether he be aerial or terrestrial or infernal, he flees at the bidding of this sort of man and fears his precepts with a certain veneration. These are they who are called exorcists by the people.” Religious games and contests are mentioned four times: the carving, consecrating, adoring, and clothing of images of the gods, twice each; porters at religious ceremonies, thrice; hymn singers, twice; pipe-players once. Five passages represent persons professionally engaged in religion as growing rich thereby.

We are told that men “predict the future either by the divinity of their own minds or by the admonition of the gods or from oracles or by the venerable discipline of some art.”[2243] Augurs, aruspices, interpreters of dreams, mathematici (astrologers), diviners, and prophets are mentioned. Once Firmicus alludes to false divination but he usually implies that it is a valid art.

From religion and divination we easily pass to the occult arts and sciences, and thence to learning and literature in general, from which occult learning is scarcely distinguished in the Mathesis. Magicians or magic arts are mentioned no less than seven times in varied relations with religion, philosophy, medicine, and astronomy or astrology, showing that magic was not invariably regarded as evil in that age, and that it was confused and intermingled with the arts and philosophy as well as with the religion of the times.[2244] There are a number of other allusions to secret and illicit arts or writings; these, however, appear to be more unfavorably regarded and probably largely consist of witchcraft and poisoning.

The evidence of the Mathesis suggests that the civilization of declining Rome was at least not conscious of the intellectual decadence and lack of scientific interest so generally imputed to it. We find three descriptions of intellectual pioneers who learn what no master has ever taught them, and one other instance of men who pretend to do so. We also hear of “those learning much and knowing all, also inventors,” and of those “learning everything,” and “desiring to learn the secrets of all arts.” This curiosity, it is true, seems to be largely devoted to occult science, but it also seems plain that mathematics and medicine were important factors in fourth-century culture as well as the rhetorical studies whose rôle has perhaps been overestimated. Let us compare the statistics. Oratory is mentioned eighteen times, and it is to be noted that literary attainments and learning as well as mere eloquence are regarded as essential in an orator. Men of letters other than orators are found in six passages, and poets in only three. A passage reading “philologists or those skilled in laborious letters” suggests that four instances of the phrase difficiles litterae should perhaps be classed under linguistic rather than occult studies. There are four allusions to grammarians and two to masters of grammar, as against one description of “contentious, contradictory dialecticians, professing that they know what no teaching has acquainted them with, mischievous fellows, but unable to do any effective thinking.”[2245] On the other hand, there are fourteen allusions to astronomy and astrology (not including the mathematici already listed under divination), three to geometry, and six to other varieties of mathematics.[2246] Philosophers are mentioned five times; practitioners of medicine, eleven times;[2247] surgeons, once; and botanists, twice. These professions seem to be well paid and are spoken of in complimentary terms.

Death, injury, and disease loom up large in Firmicus’ prospectus for the human race, making us realize the benefits of nineteenth-century medicine as well as of modern peace.[2248] No less than 174 passages deal with disease and many of them list two or more ills. Mental disorders are mentioned in 37 places;[2249] physical deformities in six. Other specific ailments mentioned are as follows: blindness and eye troubles, 10; deafness and ear troubles, 5; impediments of speech, 4; baldness, 1; foul odors, 1; dyspeptics, 4; other stomach complaints, 7; dysentery, 2; liver trouble, 1; jaundice, 1; dropsy, 5; spleen disorders, 1; gonorrhoea, 2; other diseases of the urinary bladder and private parts, 6; consumption and lung troubles, 6; hemorrhages, 6; apoplexy, 3; spasms, 5; ills attributed to bad or excessive humors, 12; leprosy and other skin diseases, 6; ague, 1; fever, 1; pains in various parts of the body, 6; internal pains and hidden diseases, 9; diseases of women, 5. There remain a large number of vague allusions to ill-health: 21 to debility, 12 to languor, 3 to invalids, and 49 other passages. Only eight passages allude to the cure of disease. Among the methods suggested are cauterizing, incantations, ordinary remedies, and seeking divine aid, which last is mentioned most often. The eleven references to medical practitioners should, however, be recalled here. The predictions as to length of life are inadequate to the drawing of conclusions on that point.

Firmicus regards his work as a new contribution so far as the Latin-speaking world is concerned.[2250] Not that there had not been previous writing in Latin on the subject. Fronto “had written predictions very accurately,” but “as if he were addressing persons already perfect and skilled in the art, and without first instructing in the elements and practice of the art.”[2251] Firmicus supplies this essential preliminary instruction, which hardly anyone of the Latins had given, and corrects Fronto’s faulty presentation of antiscia, in which he followed Hipparchus, by the correcter method of Navigius (Nigidius?) and Ptolemy.[2252] Firmicus gives no systematic account of his authorities[2253] but occasionally cites them for some particular point and in general professes to follow not only the Greeks but the divine men of Egypt and Babylon, chief among whom seem to be Nechepso and Petosiris and the Hermetic works to or by Aesculapius and Hanubius. An Abram or Abraham is also cited several times. But Firmicus also gives the Sphaera Barbarica, “unknown to all the Romans and to many Greeks,” and which escaped the notice even of Petosiris and Nechepso.[2254] Firmicus himself is named by no ancient author[2255] but was well known in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as we shall see. In the Mathesis he cites two previous astrological treatises of his own[2256] and expresses his intention of composing another work in twelve books on the subject of Myriogenesis.[2257] The astrologer Hephaestion of Thebes, who wrote later in the fourth century, seems also to have been a Christian, so that Firmicus was not a solitary case or an anomaly.[2258]

The writings of Libanius, 314-391 A. D., the sophist and rhetorician, throw some light on the relations between magic and learning in the fourth century, show that sorcery and divination were actually practiced, and largely duplicate impressions already received from Apuleius, Apollonius, and Galen, and a Christian like John Chrysostom as well as just now from Firmicus. Libanius tells us how Bemarchius, a rival of his at Athens, who would have poisoned him if he could, instead circulated reports that he (Bemarchius) was the victim of enchantments, and that Libanius had consulted against him an astrologer who was able to control the stars, so that he could confer benefits upon one man and work sorcery against another. This incidentally is another good illustration of how easily astrology passed from mere prediction of the future to operative magic, and of the essential unity of all magic arts. The mob was aroused against Libanius and a praetor who tried to protect him was ousted and another installed at daybreak who was ready to put Libanius to death. Torture was prepared and Libanius was advised to leave Athens, if he did not wish to die there, and took the advice and left.[2259]

Among the declamations of Libanius is one against a magician,[2260] supposed to have been delivered under the following circumstances. The city was afflicted with a pestilence and finally sent an embassy to the Delphic oracle to learn how to escape the scourge. Apollo replied that they must sacrifice the son of one of the inhabitants who should be determined by lot, and the lot fell to the son of a magician. The father then offered to stay the plague by means of his magic art, if they would agree to spare his son. Against this proposal Libanius argues, urging the people to carry out their original decision and not to anger the Delphic god by violating his oracle, whose reliability is attested by “long time and much experience and common testimony.” He declares that magic is an evil art, and that magicians make no one happy but many wretched, ruining homes, bringing disaster to persons who have never harmed them, and disturbing even the spirits of the dead. He also censures the magician for not having offered to save the city from the plague before, and expresses some scepticism as to his magic power, asking why he did not prevent the fatal lot from falling to his son, or why he does not save him now by causing him to vanish from sight, or vouchsafe some other unmistakable sign of his magic power. It appears that the magician had asked a delay, saying that he must wait for the moon before he could operate against the plague. Libanius points out that meanwhile the citizens are perishing and that fulfillment of Apollo’s oracle will bring instant relief. It would seem, however, that some of the citizens had more faith in the magician than in the god, which supports the oft-made general assertion that the magic arts waxed as pagan religion and its superstitious observances waned. Libanius concludes his oration or imaginary oration with the cutting and heartless witticism that the magician can lose his son more easily than can anyone else, since he will of course still be able to invoke his spirit from the dead.

Libanius’ own faith in divination is not only suggested by the attitude toward the Delphic oracle in the foregoing declamation but is attested by two passages in his autobiography. His great-great-grandfather had so excelled in mantike that he foresaw that his children would die by steel, although they would be handsome and great and good speakers. It also was rumored that a celebrated sophist had predicted many things concerning Libanius himself, which Libanius assures us had since come to pass.[2261]

Of the same type as Libanius’ declamation against the magician is the fourth pseudo-Quintilian declamation in Latin concerning an astrologer’s prediction, which we shall later in the twelfth century find Bernard Silvester enlarging upon in his poem entitled Mathematicus. In another of the pseudo-Quintilian declamations the word experimentum is used of a magician’s feat. “O harsh and cruel magician, O manufacturer of our tears, I would that you had not given so great an experiment! We are angry at you, yet we must cajole you. While you imprison the ghost, we know that you alone can evoke it.”[2262]

That more than fifty years after Firmicus adherence to Christianity might be combined with trust in divination of the future, occult science, and magical invocation of spirits, and with various other pagan and Neo-Platonic beliefs, is well illustrated by the case of Synesius of Cyrene,[2263] a fellow-African and contemporary of Augustine. Synesius, however, traced his descent from the Heracleidae, wrote in Greek, and displayed a Hellenism unusual for his time,[2264] and, while he did not find the Athens of his day entirely to his taste, continued the philosophical and rhetorical traditions of the sophists of the Roman Empire, like Libanius of whom we have just spoken. His extant letters show that Hypatia was numbered among his friends and had been his teacher at the Neo-Platonic and mathematical school of Alexandria. Hypatia was murdered by the fanatical Christian mob of that city in 415. But very different was the attitude of the people of Ptolemais to the like-minded Synesius. A few years before they had elected him bishop![2265] Moreover, he distinctly stipulated[2266] that he should not renounce his wife and family nor his philosophical opinions, which seem to have involved a sceptical attitude towards miracles and the resurrection, and a belief in the eternity of the world and pre-existence of the soul rather than in creation,[2267] in addition to the views which we are about to set forth. It has been observed also that his doctrine of the Trinity is more Neo-Platonic than Christian.[2268]

The dates of Synesius’ birth and death are uncertain. He seems to have been born about 370. His last dateable letter appears to be written in 412, but some give the date of his death as late as 430. Others contend that he did not live to hear of Hypatia’s murder. Before he was made bishop he had been to Constantinople on a mission to the emperor to secure alleviation of the oppressive taxation in Cyrene. He had lived in Athens and Alexandria as a student, and in Cyrene on his country estate. Here, if in his fondness for books and philosophy he constituted a survival of the past, in his fondness for the chase and dogs and horses and his repulsion of an invasion of Libyan marauders he was the forerunner of many a medieval feudal bishop. And after he became bishop, he launched an excommunication against the tyrannical prefect Andronicus.

But our particular interest is less in his political and more purely literary activities than in his taste for mathematics and science. He knew some medicine and was well acquainted with geometry and astronomy. He believed himself to be the inventor of an astrolabe and of a hydroscope.

With this interest in natural and mathematical science went an interest in occult science and divination. His belief that the universe was a unit and all its parts closely correlated 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, and that the birds themselves, if endowed with sufficient intelligence, would be able to predict the future by observing the movements of human bipeds.[2269] 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.”[2270] 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.[2271] He evidently believed that it was quite legitimate to control the processes of nature by invoking demons.