Andrew Halliday Douglas

“ POMPONAZZI had formed a distinct idea of an order of nature of nature as a system, governed by pervading and uniform principles. His work De Incantationibus is a deliberate attempt to extend the conception of that order to all phenomena without exception, by bringing all the marvellous events and powers observed in experience or recorded in history within the scope of principles common to all nature. He seeks to trace analogies between the extraordinary and the familiar, and to interpret what is most exceptional in terms of nature's common operations. ”

“ The great reason why Pomponazzi brings wonders and magic within the scope of the astral influences is just that universal nature is subject to those influences. Thus the whole motive and implication of this reference in the case of the marvellous is that those exceptional phenomena are to be viewed according to the analogy of nature generally. If, his argument is, the celestial powers uphold and direct the whole frame of nature, why should they not likewise be supposed to govern these particular events? Unusual these events may be; it may lie beyond our power to trace their causes in detail ”

“ We must endeavour rather to separate the true from the false; and in the case of facts which appear to be well established, we must attempt to find the most feasible and the most natural explanation 1 . ”

“ But besides this general assertion of the Divine causality in them, he brings the whole phenomena of religious history the changes of religious belief, and the phases of thaumaturgic power under certain universal laws of nature. Of these facts as of all others, he suggests, there is a natural and a rational explanation; in them the powers that are at work in all nature are still operative; and they are subject to the laws and conditions that govern nature generally the laws of change, of development, of growth and decay, and transformation in decay. ”

“ He describes the powers possessed by such men, whom, he says, we may justly call " sons of God." They reveal mysteries, they predict the future; they heal the sick, and have power even over the winds and seas, and the elements of nature. Without these powers, the great task of planting a new religion could not be accomplished 4 . At the same time he sees in such powers only what is natural only a particular manifestation of forces and potentialities permanently resident in different degrees in various beings in nature 5 . ”

“ On this ground St Thomas had invoked spiritual agency. But, says Pomponazzi, the natural causes do not remain unchanged: on the contrary it is their variation which accounts for the facts 1 . He accordingly dismisses the spirit theory as a vulgar superstition 2 . Combined, then, with an astrological explanation, we have a natural history of the prophetic afflatus. Its first condition is an original endowment of nature. The gift may take different forms, but it has its basis in a certain temperament common to all who possess it 3 . ”

“ He takes the example of the connection which we see to exist between a rainbow and fair weather: we do not say that the rainbow is the cause of the fair weather, but the rainbow appears because the cloud grows thin, and the clearing of the cloud causes the rain to cease. ”

“ Pomponazzi denied the inference and offered a natural explanation of the facts. His explanation is twofold. First, he says, much may be assigned to the power of imagination and belief 1; and this will explain why some are healed and not others 2 . Secondly, he accounts for the variation observed in phenomena of this class by a purely physiological explanation: persons differ in physical constitution; and so, he suggests, their bodies may have different effects, in relation, say, to various diseases, or to the diseases of various persons. ”

“ His own theory of the connection between prayers and their fulfilment is a different one. It is that the prayers are included with the fulfilment in one Divine purpose, as a stage in it or incident of it not indeed, in one sense, necessary to its accomplishment, but ordained in the course of its execution " for the good of men." It is not correct to say that prayers change God's purpose ("preces nihil novi induxerunt in Deum ") , still less that the prayers cause their fulfilment (" neque preces in duxerunt serenitatem ") . ”

“ So the forms of religion, while perpetually succeeding one another, and, as individuals, of a possibly infinite number, are not infinite " secundum species." They come " per circulum et vicissitudines." With regard to religious forms it holds true that " nihil est quod simile non fuerit, et consimile non erit: nihil erit quod non fuit, nihil fuit quod non erit 4 ." Although he does not illustrate these remarks by examples, they show that Pomponazzi had observed the common features and parallelisms of different religions. ”

“ The first natural explanation suggested is a highly strained theory of the power of the human mind over matter ascribed to Avicenna 3 .
Although he does not himself accept this theory, Pomponazzi develops it in his usual impartial way. In nature, he says, there are material objects, such as certain herbs, trees, stones, etc., which have an influence upon the weather: then why not also the " animal spirits " in men, especially in a large number of men gathered together and desiring the same thing 4? ”

“ Prayer does not secure its fulfilment by a necessary causation; conversely the obtaining of the fulfilment is not necessary to the utility and benefit of prayer, for, as Pomponazzi puts it, the prayer does not exist for the sake of that result. Prayers often go unfulfilled; yet they are not therefore useless (vanae) . He distinguishes two ends (fines) of prayer: a " separable " and an " inseparable " end. The former is " ad obtinendum votum, utpote sanitatem "; " et hie finis est secundarius, et multotiens frustratur." The latter is " pietas et in Deum religio " ”

“ Exceptional powers of this sort are not, in the belief of Pomponazzi, confined to one religion; but the like miracles as are recorded of the beginning of the Christian religion attended the foundation of the Mosaic and Pagan and Mohammedan religions 2 . And it is in this connection that Pomponazzi explains that what he means by a miracle is not anything contrary to nature or to the orderly working of the heavenly powers, but only an operation very rare and infrequent, and out of the usual course of nature.
Besides a natural origin and growth, religions have also their decay. ”

“ It is true that all men have not the gift, and that, in those who possess it, it is of variable exercise: human oracles, for example, are not always true. But these variations are to be accounted for, without reference to the agency of spirits, by the variable operation of the causes named that is, on the one hand, of the proximate cause which is the particular incitement (acting on the original endowment or dispositio in potentia and producing the dispositio propinqua or ultima, the actual exercise of the gift) ”

“ It is a leading idea with Pomponazzi that the thaumaturgic powers resident (under celestial influence) in man and in nature have their most marked activity on occasion of the initiation of a new religion. At such times men present themselves gifted with unusual powers. And in this he sees a peculiar fitness and Divine intention, seeing that the change from one religion to another is so momentous in itself and so difficult to effect 3 . ”

“ A caterpillar becomes a butterfly by a change than which hardly any could be imagined greater a worm becoming a flying thing 2 .
Coming now to phenomena more properly connected with religion, we find Pomponazzi maintaining the same attitude of mind. ”

“ It deems that the inward and spiritual exist for the sake of the material, while the truth is the exact contrary of this 1 .
Pomponazzi adds 2 a further explanation of fulfilled prayers, which he introduces as a third theory but treats as practically a modification (which it is) of the theory just described. It is that a certain state of mind, represented by devout prayer, constitutes a condition or " disposition " upon which God can give his gifts in answer. In this sense the prayer has a real part in its own fulfilment. ”

“ Verum hi decipiuntur, cum aliquando haec fabulosa comperta sint, et aliquando visae sunt illusiones, ex particular! universale intulerunt: quod ex Dialecticae imperitia provenire manifestum est: neque enim si aliqua istorum talia sunt, falsa sunt omnia: neque si aliqua eorum quae referuntur, vera comperiantur, existimandum est omnia esse vera. Utrumvis horum ex eadem deceptione procedit. Supposito igitur haec fore vera in aliquibus, et maxime ea quae a fide dignis authoribus referuntur, temptandum est addere absolutionem istorum. ”

“ Other marvellous narratives are of the nature of instructive fables, invented by lawgivers or philosophers for an ignorant and sensuous multitude only capable of learning by sensible images and concrete representations ”

“ The time comes to each to decline and give way to another 3 . Religious systems may stand so long that this truth has become obscured: the law of change seems not to apply to them, and it looks as if they had always been and were to endure for ever. But it is not really so 4 .
Finally, Pomponazzi applies this law of change and necessity of decline to Christianity itself. It had its origin with signs and portents, and marvellous powers persisting for a time ”

“ Pomponazzi specifies the varieties of the prophetic gift: some seers, he says, have uttered oracles without understanding them, even like birds and beasts that give omens; others have had the power of interpreting their own dreams and oracles ”

“ In this sense prayers are a good thing 2 and never useless or vain 3 . They always fulfil their end where they are sincere (" si ardenti mente sint ") . But they are in a sense an end to them selves as constituting in men piety and virtue 4 .
Pomponazzi takes the opportunity of vindicating the philoso phers from the charge of impiety. On this view of prayer, he
1 " Imo scire debes saltern apud philosophos nunquam preces esse vanas. ”

“ He expressly brings forward the astrological as a natural explanation, contrasting it in this respect with the theory of spiritual agency 1 . He brackets "nature and the heavenly powers " together as the " efficient cause " of phenomena 2 , or, by
1 " Infra limites naturales stabimus," he says; and again, " Si sine ilia multipli- catione daemonum et geniorum salvare possumus, supervacuum videtur ilia ponere... corpora ergo coelestia secundum suas virtutes haec miranda producunt." ”

“ Considering the great and innumerable concerns included in the realm of nature and governed by the heavenly powers, why should we place beyond their capability " effects " which are few in number after all, and intrinsically small and unimportant, when compared with the vastness and variety of universal nature 2? ”

“ Accordingly, in undertaking to explain the cessation of the heathen oracles, he sets out from some highly general considerations about the law of change in mortal things. Whatever has begun, he says, must cease to be: its duration is limited, and it has its appointed stages of growth and decay. Once more, every mortal thing, when it passes away, generates in its decline some thing different from itself 2 . ”

“ Quare, nihil prohibet vapores tantos et tales sic affectos (sunt enim taliter affecti qualiter spiritus infirmi) in tanta multitudine fuisse potentes, ut imbres expellerent, nam repugnantiam habent ad imbres: si enim possunt inducere sanitatem et languorem, nihil videtur obstare, quin et imbres possint expellere: sunt enim veluti quaedam aegritudo: et tempore siccitatis velut sanitas. ”

“ This last explanation, then, by the place each religion occupies in the designs of the heavenly powers " recta et ordinata dispositio " has the advantage of explaining not answers to prayer only, but all the (so-called) supernatural or abnormal phenomena connected with the religions 3 .
The view thus suggested, of the various religions of history, was further developed by Pomponazzi in answer to another question. ”

“ With regard to portents in nature, and indeed to oracles, prophecies, and marvellous events generally, he remarks that their occurrence is recorded in connection with great events in history, such as the rise and fall of nations or dynasties, the changes of religions, the birth and death of remarkable personages, and the like appropriate occasions, he suggests, for the special activity of the heavenly influences ”

“ Necromancy in the strict sense he declares impossible 3 , while allowing that, if we could believe in the immortality of the soul, there would be no absolute reason to deny the possibility of raising the dead. ”