MILKY WAY VICISSITUDES: MACROBIUS TO GALILEO

Copyright20© 18 MAA Open Access. Printed in Greece. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1477993 MILKY WAY VICISSITUDES: MACROBIUS TO GALILEO George Latura Independent researcher Received: 27/02/2018 Accepted: 26/06/2018 George Latura (glbeke@me.com) ABSTRACT Amongst the many astronomical phenomena that have inspired speculation regarding their nature, the Milky Way takes a prominent position. In late antiquity, the Galaxy (from Greek gala, or milk) held pride of place in Martianus Capella‟s Marriage of Philology and Mercury and in Macrobius‟ Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, two texts that transmitted classical astronomical knowl edge to medieval Latin Europe. But these works also transmitted pagan beliefs that ecclesiastical authorities found disturbing. One such pagan idea held that the Milky Way was the celestial abode of souls, a belief that had been reported by Heraclides of Pontus, Cicero, Manilius, Numenius, Martianus Capella and Macrobius. Several strategies seemed to have evolved in the medieval era in order to minimize the impact of this pagan notion. One strategy was to demonize the Milky Way, as in Michael Scot‟s „Daemon Meridianus‟ th mortals should fear and avoid. Another strategy would be to ignore the Milky Way altogether, as in Sacrobosco‟s popular astronomical textbook De Sphaera Mundi. But the most effective strategy against the pagan idea of the Milky Way as celestial abode would be to remove the Galaxy from the heavens. In antiquity, Aristotle had declared that the Milky Way was an atmospheric phenomenon, thereby removing it from the celestial regions. Although Aristotle‟s theory of a sublunary Milky Way had been criticized and mostly ignor antiquity, it would resurface when Aquinas adopted Aristotle as The Philosopher. It took some time for the Church and university scholars to embrace Aristotle, but his dictum that the Milky Way was an atmospheric phenomenon would become the prevailing view for centuries. Published in 1610, Sidereus Nuncius was arguably the most important booklet in the history of science. There Galileo reported his telescopic confirmation of the Milky Way‟s celestial status tha been denied by the medieval Aristotelian tradition. KEYWORDS: Medieval Platonism, Chartres, Aristotle, Aquinas

1. INTRODUCTION seventh century BC onwards” (Torjussen,o-2008). T ward the end of the Roman Empire, the pagan belief At the beginning of his paper on Antiplatonism in that the Milky Way harboured virtuous souls was the Middle Ages, Hankins frames his question reassociated with Platonist cosmology, as presented in garding this historical phenomenon as follows: Martianus Capella‟s Marriage of Philology and Mercury and in Macrobius‟ Commentary on the Dream of I should like to address in this paper an issue Scipio. These two texts transmitted classical astr ocentral to our understanding of the developnomical knowledge to Latin medieval Europe ment of philosophy and theology in the Mid(McCluskey, 1998). Also they transmitted the pagan dle Ages. It is also an issue that, oddly enough, belief that the Milky Way was the heavenly abode, a has been almost completely neglected in the belief that drew reactions from ecclesiastical authorihistoriography of philosophy. The issue I refer ties. to is the secular shift from the patristic and Several strategies, seemingly adopted to combat early medieval situation, where philosophy this pagan heresy, can be traced in the time period and rationalistic theology took Plato as its covered by Hankins, from the High Middle Ages to point of departure, to the high and late mediethe Renaissance. One strategy was Michael Scot‟s val situation where Aristotle dominates the inversion of the Milky Way (early 1200‟s) from an curriculum in arts faculties and becomes the abode of virtuous souls to an abode of learned degreat philosophical authority to be reckoned mons that mortals ought to fear, a region denomiwith in theology faculties. The question I nated as Daemon “ Meridianus.” Another strategy should like to ask is why this shift took involved ignoring the Milky Way in astronomical place… The eclipse of Platoarticularly is p discussions altogether, as in Sacrobosco‟s De Sphaera hard to understand. (Hankins, 1996) Mundi, one of the most popular astronomical tex tThe medieval shift from Platonism to Aristotelianbooks of the era, written in the first half of the thirism that, as Hankins says has “been almost comteenth century. pletely neglected,also ” played out in a different, But the most effective strategy would harken back though related, arena: cosmology. toPlato‟sfamous student atthe – Academy Aristotle The Platonist conception of the universe had sur– who explained away the Milky Way as an atmo svived into the twelfth–century renaissance of the pheric phenomenon in Meteorologica, thereby remov“school”ofChartresmainlythroughMacrobius‟ rea ing it from the heavens. The Aristotelian theory rely fifth–century Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. garding the Milky Way was “widely rejected n-in a But the pagan underpinnings of the Platonist cosmic tiquity” (Wilson, 2013). Yet medieval ecclesiastical view elicited strong reactions from ecclesiastical auand scholastic authorities eventually embraced Aristhorities. For example, c. 1140, the abbot Bernard of totle‟s dictum regarding the Milky Way on the Clairvaux (later canonized as a saint) attacked Peter strength of Aquinas‟ adopti on of Aristotle as The Abelard for his Platonist leanings. In a letter to the Philosopher. The Milky Way was no longer considDuchess of Burgundy, Bernard accused Abelard of ered an astronomical phenomenon. Centuries later, being a heretic: “ Here while he exhausts his strength the Aristotelian interpretation of the Milky Way to make Plato a Christian, he proves himself a heawould be proved incorrect by Galileo, who reported then.” (Letters, trans. Eales, 1904). his telescopic observations in Sidereus Nuncius (1610). Accusations of heresy would hound Chartrian Platonist scholars, but a more lasting solution was 2. THE MILKY WAY IN ANTIQUITY needed. Enter Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), whose Before Aristotle gives his opinion about the nature readings of William of Moerbeke‟s new translations of the Milky Way in Meteorologica (trans. Lee, 1916), from Greek would put Aristotle on the path to behe mentions the purported opinions of others: Pycoming, as Hankins put it, the“ great philosophical thagoreans, the schools of Anaxagoras and Democr iauthoritytobereckoned with. The pivot ..” from Platus, etc.ButAristotle‟s own explanationof theMilk tonist cosmology to Aristotelian cosmology – which Way as a non–celestial phenomenon would be mostparallels the philosophical shift that Hankins highly ignored in antiquity, and rejected in late antiquity lights – may have hinged, at least in part, on the inby Olympiodorus. terpretation of a prominent astronomical phenomenon. Olympiodorus (fl. 530),a Neoplatonist…felt The Milky Way had been seen in pagan antiquity no qualms about laying bare Aristotle‟s re as a heavenly abode. “A connection between milk rors. He noted at the outset of his comments and the stars, heaven, and especially the Milky Way, on Aristotle‟s explanation of the Milky Way is confirmed in a number of written sources from the that all those whom Aristotle criticized of-

fered better ideas than he did. “All of themruns in a circle around the gods shone down were eager to have the galaxy in the hea vupon him, and through it he saw in visions ens, except Aristotle who mistakenly insistthat he personally experienc ed the whole ed upon saying that it was in the upper air.” truth about souls. (Texts and Translation, (Jaki, 1972) trans. Schutrumpf, 2008). Philoponus (c. 505) also pointed out Aristotle‟s re What could be the celestial “light that r- runs in a c rors concerning the location of the Milky Way in the cle?” According to Damascius, the last head of the upper atmosphere. Academy before it was shut down by Theodosius in These are Aristotle‟s opinions about 529,Heraclides‟ the circleoflightwastheMilkyWay. Milky Way. But his account contains many Damascius appropriates the hypothesis of incongruities and impossibilities and merely Empedotimus concerning the Milky Way, arbitrary statements. For, if the Milky Way calling it a fact and not a myth. For he says were, like a comet, a condition of the air, that the Milky Way is the path of souls that why is it always the same, never becoming travel through the Underworld in the sky. different either generally or in some of its (Texts and Translation, trans. Schutrumpf, parts…? On ( Aristotle: Meteorology, trans. 2008) Kupreeva, 2012) The belief in the Milky Way as heavenly abode Though Aristotle mentions some “Pythagorean” appeared in the Dream of Scipio at the end of Cicero‟s myths as explanation of the Milky Way, he fails to De Re Publica, and here too the Milky Way is referred relate the explication that would best survive: the to as a circle of light. belief that the Milky Way was the celestial abode of But, souls. Why was there this failure in Aristotle‟s hmetScipio, imitate your grandfather here, imitate me, your father; love justice and duodology of rejecting previous explanations? ty, which are strictly due to parents and Heraclides of Pontus, another scholar at Plato‟s kinsmen, but most of all to the fatherland. Academy, had attended lectures given by PythagoSuch a life is the road to the skies, to that reans (Gottschalk, 1980), while Plato himself had gathering of those who have completed their befriended the Pythagorean strategos Archytas on his earthly lives and been relieved of the body, journey to Magna Graecia. Following his teacher Plaand who live in yonder place which you to, who had composed the mythic Vision of Er at the now see [it was the circle of light which end of Republic, Heraclides wrote of the vision of blazed most brightly among the other fires], Empedotimus that paralleled the afterlife vision of and which you on earth, borrowing a Greek Er. In these afterlife visions, Plato wrote about a light term, call the Milky Circle. (De Re Publica, that is the “girdle of the heavens, while Heraclides ” wroteaboutthe“lightthatrunsinacircle.” trans. Keyes, 1928) But when seven days had elapsed for each group in the meadow, they were required to rise up on the eighth and journey on, and they came in four days to a spot whence they discerned, extended from above throughout the heaven and the earth, a straight light like a pillar, most nearly resembling the rainbow… this light was the girdle of the heavens… (Plato, Republic X, 616b, trans. Shorey, 1935). Nor is it impossible that a human soul gained the divine truth of the situation in the Underworld and reported it to humans. This is also shown by the account according to Empedotimus, which Heraclides Ponticus narrated. Heraclides says that while Empedotimus was hunting in some place with other people at high noon, he himself was left alone, and after encountering the epiphany of Pluto and of Persephone the light that The Milky Way as celestial abode journeyed through the Roman world in the writings of Cicero, Ovid (Metamorphoses, trans. Miller, 1916), Manilius (Astronomica, trans. Goold, 1977), Numenius (trans. de Ley, 1972), Martianus Capella (The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, trans. Stahl et al., 1977) and Macrobius (Commentary, trans. Stahl, 1952). Macrobius‟ writings especially would be influential transmitting Platonist beliefs to medieval Latin Europe, where illustrations for his Commentary on Cicero‟s Dream of Scipio show the Platonist cosmos composed of the intersecting circles of the Planetary orbits and the Milky Way. The latter is the celestial abode where Scipio meets his ancestors (Figure 1). Such surviving depictions illustrate the continuing fascination that ancient Platonist cosmology held for post–classical and medieval scholars for almost a millennium, with the Milky Way as the heavenly abode of souls that have lived a virtuous, pious and dutiful life while on earth.

She [Noys, or Providence] divided the heaven into quarters with encircling colures… and set out the circle of the Zodiac… eLik wise that milky band whose radiance is produced by clustering stars was cast across the sky. (Cosmographia, trans. Wetherbee, 1973) Bernardus Silvestris expresses no doubts here co ncerning the heavenly nature of the Milky Way, whose brightness is produced by “clustering stars.” In this astronomical discussion, Silvestris mentions the Zodiac and the Milky Way, at whose intersections Macrobius‟ Commentary had located the heavenly portals (cited by Stahl, 1952). Regarding the Milky Way, William of Conches, who taught at Chartres, recommended Macrobius to his reader in Dragmaticon. The second of the visible circles is called the galaxy ( galaxias) by the Greeks, that is, the Milky Way. For galac is “milk”, xios is “ci rcle” … It is called the Milky Way on account of its remarkable brilliance. If you wish to know the reason for this brilliance, you ought to read Macrobius. (A Dialogue on Natural Philosophy, trans. Ronca, Curr, 1997) Figure 1.IllustrationoftheDreamofScipioinMacrobius’ Commentary showing the intersecting circles of the Planetary orbits and the Milky Way (Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 7, 1469). WilliamofConches‟seemingreluctancetodelveany further into the Platonist question of the Milky Way may have been linked, like the charges that Bernard 3. THE MILKY WAY, MACROBIUS AND of Clairvaux levelled at Abelard, to his Platonist CHARTRES views. William of Conches narrowly missed being charged with heresy (Dutton, 2006), as the study of Cicero‟s Dream of Scipio survived in medieval Platonist texts brought the full weight of ecclesiast iWestern Europe (though the rest of De Re Publica did cal opprobrium upon offending Chartrian scholars not) because Macrobius included it in his commen(Ellard, 2007). tary on Cicero‟s soteriological text. eMacrobius d scribes his understanding of the soul descending to 4. ANTIPLATONISM IN MEDIEVAL this earthly life from the Milky Way, and eventually COSMOLOGY returning there. As in Hankins‟ research, a pattern ofoAntiplat Pythagoras also thinks that the infernal renism appears to emerge in medieval cosmological gions of Dis [Hades] begin with the Milky and astronomical writings. In order to combat the Way, and extend downwards, because souls perceived heretical tendencies of Platonist scholars, falling away from it seem to have withvarious strategies seemed to have evolved regarding drawn from the heavens. He says that the the Milky Way that in antiquity had been seen as the reason why milk is the first nourishment ofcelestial abode. fered to the newborn infant is that the first Turning the Milky Way from a heavenly abode to movement of souls slipping into earthly one inhabited by demons, Michael Scot inverted the bodies is from the Milky Way. Now you see, ancient Platonist view into Daemon theMeridi“ too, why Scipio, when the Milky Way had anus” that mortals should fear (Bertola, 2003; Harris, been shown to him, was told that the souls 2012). Illustrations of this demonic Milky Way surof the blessed proceed from here and return vive(Fig.2),asdoesScot‟sastrologicalassessmentof hither. (Commentary, trans. Stahl, 1952) those who are born under this so–called constella“ tion. ” Macrobius‟s Commentary managed to migrate to the twelfth–century Chartrian “ mini–renaissance,” where the Milky Way is mentioned by Bernardus Silvestris (fl. 1136) in his Cosmographia. For the constellation, Galaxia: One born in this sign will always be sick, wretched, poor, and in the desolation of peoples, wherefore

he will spend his life in hospital and…will beunfortunate… (cited by Thorndike, 1965) Whereas in antiquity the Milky Way had been seen as divine, for Michael Scot and his followers a connection to the Milky Way was unfortunate and demonic. Considered in the historical perspective of thirteenth–century ideas, Thomism emerges as the culmination of all the efforts of arts scholars and speculative theologians to build a new philosophy on an Aristotelian foundation, while taking into account the soundest philosophical conclusions reached since Aristotle, and the essential requirements of Christian thought. (Steenberghen, 1955) For centuries, Christian culture embraced Aristotelian thought as its own, reconciling his philosophy with theology and ecclesiastical doctrine. (Martin, 2014). Figure 2.TheMilkyWayas‘DaemonMeridianus,’abode of demons (Warburg Institute Iconographic Database. Original (1435) in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Misc. 554, fol. 154v) Parallel to Hankins‟ “eclipse of byPlato” the resurrection of Aristotle‟s texts in medieval Europe Platonist view of the Milky Way as heavenly abode was eclipsed by the Aristotelian opinion that it was but a sublunary phenomenon, an opinion that prevailed for centuries in medieval Latin Europe. What would it take to re–openpeople‟seyestothecelestial nature of the Milky Way? Another strategy for dismissing the Milky Way as 5. MILKY WAY AND GALILEO a celestial abode seems to have been to ignore it. SacIn 1610, Galileo published Sidereus Nuncius. There robosco‟s astronomical textbook De Sphaera Mundi, Galileo gave a report of his observations of the Milky or Tractatus de Sphaera (c. 1230) was very popular in Way. this era, proving its “ dominance of the astronomical What we observed in the third place is the curriculum” with hundreds “ of surviving manuessence, namely the matter, of the Milky scripts and over seventy early printed editions” Way, which can be seen so clearly with the (McCluskey, 1998). Sacrobosco, who taught at the aid of the telescope that what philosophers University of Paris, makes no mention of the Milky for centuries found an excruciating problem Way in De Sphaera (see Thorndike, 1949) nor do has been solved with ocular certainty, thus commentaries on his work (Jaki, 1972). freeing us from wordy disputes. For the A third strategy would prove, perhaps unwittingGalaxy is nothing else but a collection of i nly, to be the most effective. Using Moerbeke‟s recent numerable stars heaped together. In whattranslations from the Greek (c. 1260), Thomas Aquiever part of the Milky Way you point the nas embraced Aristotle as The Philosopher, displacing spyglass, a vast crowd of stars immediately Plato from that lofty standing. By discussing the present themselves. (Sidereus Nuncius, trans. Milky Way in Meteorologica, Aristotle had argued Shea, 2009) that the Milky Way was not a celestial, but an atmospheric, phenomenon, a view that Aquinas The “excruciating problem” that Galileo refers to passed along in his commentary on Aristotle‟s Meteis the Aristotelian dictum that the Milky Way was orologica (c. 1270). composed of vaporous exhalations that reside in the atmospheric regions. The resolution to this problem Aquinas clearly grasped the substance of Arwas brought about by the “ocula r certainty” that istotle‟stheory.Hisacceptanceofitaccorded Galileo‟stelescopeprovided. with his intention to reject only that part of Aristotle‟s physical and cosmological othe As a consequence of Galileo‟s telescopic ries which patently contradicted tenets of observations, the whitish, cloudlike Milky the faith. The Milky Way, as Aristotle exWay was seen to be composed of clusters of plained it, presented no area of conflict. small stars that were individually (Jaki, 1972) indiscernible to the naked eye. That they were perceived as stars in the celestial region Aquinas‟ acceptance of Aristotle as ultimate ophil marked a radical departure from the sophical authority would eventually be adopted by medieval Aristotelian tradition, which the Church and by university faculties.

denied the Milky Way celestial status and located it in the upper reaches of the sublunary region. (Grant, 1996). tres, whose Platonist scholars would at times face charges of heresy. Attacks on the Milky Way included its moral inversion into the “Daemon i- Merid anus,” an abode of demons, as well as a strategy of Galileo‟s astronomical observations would help ignoring it entirely in astronomical textbooks. The disprove the geocentric model of the universe, while low point of the Milky Way‟s fall from grace came his report that the Milky Way was composed of when Aquinas adopted Aristotle as The Philosopher, stars, a fact observable by anyone with a spyglass, thus eclipsing Platonist cosmology for centuries. would bring into question Aristotle‟sh-status as hig The removal of the Milky Way from the heavens est authority on questions of natural philosophy. by Aristotle, with his claim that it is an atmospheric phenomenon, seems to have provided a philosophi6. CONCLUSIONS cal dictum to ecclesiastical authorities that might Interpretations of the nature of the Milky Way have been looking to end possibly heretical Platonist underwent precipitous reversals, vertiginous vicissispeculations. Galileo pointing his telescope at the tudes, in the period between the end of the Roman Milky Way upset the Aristotelian atmospheric interEmpire and the days of Galileo. Macrobius, followpretation. Once again, the Milky Way was seen in ing Cicero, wrote of the pagan belief that the Milky the night sky as an astronomical phenomenon, an Way was the heavenly abode of souls, a belief assoinspiration for humanity‟s cosmological a- investi ciated with Platonist philosophy. Macrobius‟ Comtions. mentary survived in the medieval “school” of Char- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My gratitude to James Brannon for his presentation at the 2015 Notre Dame Biennial Workshop on the History of Astronomy, where he spoke of the different treatments of the Milky Way by William of Conches and Sacrobosco, and to Bernadette Brady for her pointing to Aquinas at the 2016 SEAC Conference at Bath, UK. My thanks also to the reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. REFERENCES Aristotle. Meteorologica (trans. Lee, H. D. P. 1916). Loeb Classical Library 397. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 57–69. Bernard of Clairvaux . Letters (trans. Eales, S. J. 1904; ed. Mabillon, J.). London: John Hodges, p. 273. Bernardus Silvestris. Cosmographia (trans. Wetherbee, W. 1973). Records of Western Civilization. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 77. Bertola, F. (2003) Via Lactea. Cittadella: Biblos, pp. 87, 196. Cicero. De Re Publica, De Legibus (trans. Keyes, C. W. 1928). Loeb Classical Library 213. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, p. 269. Dutton, P. E. (2006) The Mystery of the Missing Heresy Trial of William of Conches. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. p. 1. Ellard, P. (2007) The Sacred Cosmos: Theological, Philosophical, and Scientific Conversations in the Early Twelfth Century School of Chartres. Scranton: University of Scranton Press, pp. 149–158. Galilei, Galileo [1610] Sidereus Nuncius (trans. Shea, W. R. 2009) Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications, p. 73. Gottschalk, H. B. (1980) Heraclides of Pontus. Oxford Reprints. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 5. Grant, E. (1996) Planets, Stars and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200–1687. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, p. 448. Hankins, J. (1996) Antiplatonism in the Renaissance and the Middle Ages. Classica et Mediaevalia: Revue DanoisedePhilologieet.d’Histoire Vol. XLVII, pp. 359–377. Harris, L. (2012) Visions of the Milky Way in the West: The Greco–Roman and Medieval Periods. Campion, N. and Sinclair, R., eds. Culture and Cosmos, Volume 16, nos. 1 and 2, pp. 280–282. Heraclides of Pontus. Texts and Translation (ed. Schutrumpf, E. 2008). Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities. Vol. XIV. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, pp. 127, 125. Jaki, S. (1972) The Milky Way: An Elusive Road for Science. New York: Science History Publications, pp. 21, 61, 43. Ley, de, H. (1972) Macrobius and Numenius: A Study of Macrobius, In Somn. I, c. 12. Bruxell es: Latomus Revue d‟EtudesLatines.

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