“Lipsius on the World-Soul between Roman Cosmic Theology and Renaissance 'Prisca Theologia',” in Hiro Hirai and Jan Papy (eds.), Justus Lipsius and Natural Philosophy (Brussels: Royal Academy of Belgium, 2011), pp. 63-79. more

JUSTUS LIPSIUS ON THE WORLD-SOUL BETWEEN ROMAN COSMIC THEOLOGY AND RENAISSANCE PRISCA THEOLOGIA Hiro Hirai Center for the History of Philosophy and Science Radboud University Nijmegen Ad mentem Cumontianam 1. Introduction The Physiologia Stoicorum (Antwerp, 1604) of Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) is a product of his long-lasting study.1 Some might consider it a Renaissance prototype of Hans von Arnim’s monumental work, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1903-1924), the real foundation for a modern reconstruction of the ancient Stoic philosophy. Lipsius’ treatise was, however, created in a totally different spirit.2 As an editor of Seneca’s complete works (Antwerp, 1605), he composed the Physiologia for a better understanding of the Roman moralist’s ideas. He used Latin sources close to Seneca more extensively than Greek materials. Thus the restoration of the ‘philologically pure’ doctrines of the ancient Stoics was not his primary goal. The notion of the ‘World-Soul’ (anima mundi) occupied an important place in Lipsius’ presentation of the Stoic natural philosophy. The idea of a universal soul was, of course, not peculiar to the Stoics.3 But it was indispensable to their cosmobiology, where the universe is costrued as a great living being. To reconcile the Stoic doctrines with Christianity, Lipsius tried to attenuate their materialistic aspects. This concern influenced his attitude toward the notion of On Lipsius, see Léontine Zanta, La renaissance du stoïcisme au XVIe siècle (Paris: Champion, 1914), pp. 153240; Jason Lewis Saunders, Justus Lipsius: The Philosophy of Renaissance Stoicism (New York: Liberal Arts, 1955); Jacqueline Lagrée, Juste Lipse et la restauration du stoïcisme (Paris: Vrin, 1994); Christian Mouchel (ed.), Juste Lipse (1547-1606) en son temps (Paris: Champion, 1996); Marc Laureys (ed.), The World of Justus Lipsius (Brussels: Institut historique belge de Rome, 1998). 2 On this treatise, see Zanta, La renaissance, pp. 225-240; Saunders, Lipsius, pp. 117-217; Jacqueline Lagrée, ‘Juste Lipse: théorie des principes et théologie naturelle,’ in Juste Lipse (1547-1606), pp. 31-47; Gianni Paganini, ‘La Physiologia Stoicorum à la fin de la Renaissance: Juste Lipse’, in Philosophies de la nature, ed. Olivier Bloch (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2000), pp. 79-91; Idem, ‘Umano e divino in un contemporaneo di Bruno: l’antropologia di Giusto Lipsio’, Bruniana & Campanelliana, 6 (2000), 437-468. I have used as text Justus Lipsius, Physiologia Stoicorum (Antwerp: J. Moretus, 1604) [hereafter PS]. 3 See among others Joseph Moreau, L’âme du monde de Platon aux stoïciens (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1939); David E. Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977), pp. 136-184. 1 63 the World-Soul. His approach was also conditioned by the belief in the ‘ancient theology’ (prisca theologia). Reactivated by the Florentine metaphysician Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) and developed in the stream of Renaissance Neoplatonism, this belief was in vogue among Lipsius’ contemporaries.4 In a previous study I have shown its liveliness at the University of Louvain, namely in the work of the royal professor of medicine Cornelius Gemma (1535-1578), whose writings the Flemish philosopher knew well. The present study aims to examine Lipsius’ interpretation of the Stoic conception of the World-Soul in its historical and intellectual context. I shall first explore the connection between this universal soul and God, then its nature and status in the macrocosm, followed by its implications regarding the origin of the human soul. I shall pay special attention to Lipsius’ handling of sources in order to understand his aim, method and strategy. 2. God and the World-Soul 2.1. The nature of God Following Seneca, Lipsius first divides Stoic physics into two parts. One deals with corporeal beings and the other with incorporeal realities. The latter group comprises place, void, time and ‘that which is sayable’ (lekton). Among the corporeal beings, the primacy is accorded to the principles, which give birth, and to the elements, which are produced in turn. Lipsius enumerates two entities for the principles: God and matter. According to him, the study of God is for the Stoics ‘theology’, also called ‘first philosophy’ or simply ‘wisdom’ after the Greek tradition. As this discipline also treats the nature of inferior daemons, providence and fate, it is equally called ‘natural theology’. As for corporeal beings Lipsius first treats the distinction between the principles and the elements. Referring to the testimony of Diogenes Laertius, he holds that the elements are produced from the principles whose existence precedes all.5 He designates one principle as agent, the other as patient. Following Seneca, he teaches that matter is a substance without quality, inert and passive while God is a cause or ‘reason’ (ratio), or ‘reason-principle’, which forms and transforms matter into all beings.6 Lipsius finds an agreement between the Platonists and the Stoics in this connection. He also remarks that the double principle theory was advanced by ancient sages such as Homer well before the emergence of these two schools. According to the Flemish philosopher, even Thales shared the same idea, positing the ‘mind’ (mens) and water to designate God and matter. Charles B. Schmitt, ‘Perennial Philosophy from Agostino Steuco to Leibniz’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 27 (1966), 505-532; Daniel P. Walker, The Ancient Theology: Studies in Christian Platonism from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London: Duckworth, 1972); Cesare Vasoli, ‘Dalla pace religiosa alla prisca theologia’, in Firenze e il concilio del 1493, ed. Paolo Viti (Florence: Olschki, 1994), I, 3-25; Idem, ‘Il mito dei prisci theologi come ideologia della renovatio’, in Idem, Quasi sit Deus: studi su Marsilio Ficino (Lecce: Conte, 1999), pp. 1150; Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Philosophia perennis: Historical Outlines of Western Spirituality in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Thought (Dordrecht: Springer, 2004). 5 PS, I, 4, p. 8. Cf. Diogenes Laertius VII, 134 = SVF I, 493. 6 PS, I, 4, p. 8. Cf. Seneca, Epistulae, 65, 2, 12 = SVF II, 303. In my discussion I will use ‘reason’ and ‘reasonprinciple’ interchangeably. 4 64 Then Lipsius quotes several ancient authors to show that the Stoic God is immanent to the universe. For example, Cicero called God ‘nature’ and ‘matter’ because God, ‘inserted’ (insertus) into the world, animates and sustains it. Quoting elsewhere in Cicero: ‘There is thus a nature which sustains and preserves the entire world, and she is not devoid of sense and intelligence’,7 Lipsius asks why this nature ‘is not devoid of sense’. Is it because she is taken as God who is ‘sentient and intelligent’ (sentiens et intelligens)? To confirm this idea, he draws another passage from Cicero, which is very important for his entire argument: [Cicero says]: ‘The world and its parts are held together by a sentient nature possessed of a perfect reason which is identical and eternal. [The Stoics] say that this force is the animus of the world and is the divine mind and wisdom.’ You see clearly that this nature is the mind and reason of God, in short, God himself […].8 Lipsius reinforces this reasoning with the words of Seneca, Pliny and Lactantius, all of whom attest the identification of the divine force, called ‘nature’, with God. It is because God, after all, as the first nature created the world with which God himself is integrated. Lipsius makes it clear, however, that this nature is not the particular nature of things but the universal one.9 At this point he notices that the Stoics differed from those who judged nature as something brute and devoid of sense in producing and sustaining everything. Who attributed such a force to universal nature for informing the formless and raw matter? Facing this doubt, Lipsius presents Plato’s testimony according to which many believed that nature spontaneously produces everything by its own force without any productive reason-principle. But Plato himself judged, counters Lipsius, that God produces everything by divine reason and knowledge.10 Thus an active principle endowed with formative reason-principle is required. Lipsius continues his discussion on the Stoic universal nature, that is, God. He first argues that God is fire not only for the Stoics but also for other ancient sages. He finds in Diogenes Laertius and Cicero the famous definition of God as the ‘artful creative fire’ (ignis artificialis or artificiosum).11 Why fire? Because the Stoics placed in fire all force and life of the world and thus God himself. That is why God is, so to speak, fire. Evidently, it is not the destructive fire that human beings employ in daily life but the artful and creative one. This fire is endowed with reason and art to vivify and sustain everything in the world. According to Lipsius, Diogenes Laertius interpreted it well, saying that there is something similar to fire and art in the divine Cicero, De natura deorum, II, 11, 29. PS, I, 5, p. 10: ‘“Mundum et eius partes natura sentiente teneri, in qua ratio perfecta insit, quae sit eadem sempiterna. Quam vim animum esse dicunt mundi, eamdemque esse mentem sapientiamque divinam.” Vides clare, hanc naturam, mentem esse Dei et rationem, uno verbo Deum […].’ Cf. Cicero, Academica, I, 7, 28-29; Martin Van den Bruwaene, La théologie de Cicéron (Louvain: Université de Louvain, 1937), pp. 157-163; Pierre Boyancé, ‘Sur la théologie de Varron’, Revue des études anciennes, 57 (1955), 57-84 (p. 78); Jean-G. Préaux, ‘Deus Socratis (De Varron et Cicéron à Tertullien)’, Revue belge de philologie, 35 (1957), 333-355 (p. 342); Jean Pépin, Théologie cosmique et théologie chrétienne (Ambroise, Exam. I 1, 1-4) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964), p. 134; Idem, Mythe et allégorie: les origines grecques et les contestations judéo-chrétiennes (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1976), p. 319; Carlos Lévy, Cicero academicus: recherches sur les Académiques et sur la philosophie cicéronienne (Rome: École française de Rome, 1992), p. 554. 9 PS, I, 5, p. 10. Cf. Seneca, De beneficiis, IV, 7, 1 = SVF II, 1024; Idem, Naturales quaestiones, II, 45, 2; Lactantius, Divinae institutiones, II, 9; Pliny, Historia naturalis, II, 27. 10 Plato, Sophist, 265 C. 11 PS, I, 6, p. 12. Cf. Diogenes Laertius VII, 156 = SVF I, 171 e; Cicero, De natura deorum, II, 22, 57 = SVF I, 171. On fire in Lipsius, see also the contribution of Bernard Joly in the present volume. 8 7 65 spiritus. Everything is produced by fire and from fire, and nothing exists without being commingled with fire. That is why the Stoics assigned the definition of creative fire to their God. Lipsius quotes Plutarch’s testimony which attests that for the Stoics this fire advances to generate the world and holds in itself all seminal reasons by which each being is produced after its fate.12 He interprets this testimony: [Plutarch] speaks of the generation of the world and not that of particular things because the first work of God is this [world], and in it are embraced, under the form of hidden seeds of fate, the birth and death of each of all things and what is related to it. Indeed he says that this fire embraces in it all seminal reasons, that is, the Ideas or models and forms of all things, for Plato calls them as such. By contrast, our [Stoics] use the analogy of seeds because what will be produced is enclosed and hidden in these [seeds].13 Lipsius affirms that this image of seeds is also favored by Hermes who, using the metaphor of a farmer, said that God ‘sows’ immortality in heaven, and life and motion in the universe.14 In this way Lipsius explains the notion of seminal reasons which are the causes of beings to come. It is important to stress here that he often needs confirm his interpretation of Stoic ideas by the authority of Hermes. Lipsius thinks that all these ideas do not contradict reason. If the Stoics saw all force and life coming from fire or its heat, even well before them, Parmenides had identified the principle of everything with fire. What is this principle if not God? Lipsius adds that, defining God as an eternal fire which ‘envelops and circulates’, Heraclitus designated by this heavenly bodies and the ether. Lipsius also knows that Homer spoke of divine fire. He does not forget to add the famous passage of the Hippocratic treatise On Fleshes, which attests that immortal, animate and intelligent fire perceives, sees, hears and knows all that is and that will be.15 For Lipsius the Hippocratic author attributed eternity, sense, intelligence, knowledge and presage to this fire. But how could the author who lived before the coming of the Stoics be more Stoic than they were? In this way as elsewhere, he carefully stresses the agreement of the ancient sages with the Stoics. PS, I, 6, pp. 12-13. Cf. Ps.-Plutarch (Aetius), Placita, I, 7, 33 = SVF II, 1027. PS, I, 6, p. 13: ‘Dicit et mundi, non rerum singularium generationem; quia primarium Dei opus illud est, et in eo, occultis fati seminibus, singularium rerum ortus abortusque, et quod adhaeret, inculsi. Nam ignis ille “complectitur” inquit “in se rationes omnes seminales”; id est, rerum omnium ideas, sive exemplaria formasque, ut Plato appellat. Sed nostri seminum comparatione magis utuntur; quia inclusa in iis et occulta, quae mox producuntur.’ On the idea of seminal reasons in the Renaissance, see Hiro Hirai, ‘Concepts of Seeds and Nature in the Work of Marsilio Ficino’, in Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy, ed. Michael J. B. Allen - Valery Rees (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 257-284; Idem, Le concept de semence dans les théories de la matière à la Renaissance: de Marsile Ficin à Pierre Gassendi (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005); Idem, ‘La fortune du concept de semence de Marsile Ficin au XVIe siècle’, Accademia, 4 (2002), 109-132. 14 PS, I, 6, p. 13. Cf. Corpus Hermeticum, XIV, 10. 15 PS, I, 6, p. 14. Cf. Hippocrates, On Fleshes, 2 (Littré, VIII, 585); Hiro Hirai, ‘Prisca Theologia and Neoplatonic Reading of Hippocrates in Fernel, Cardano and Gemma’, in Cornelius Gemma: Cosmology, Medicine and Natural Philosophy in Renaissance Louvain, ed. Hiro Hirai (Rome: Serra, 2008), pp. 91-104; Idem, ‘Il calore cosmico in Telesio fra il De generatione animalium di Aristotele e il De carnibus di Ippocrate’, in Thylesius Redivivus: Bernardino Telesio tra naturalismo rinascimentale e scienza moderna, ed. Emilio Sergio et al. (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbetino, forthcoming). 13 12 66 Lipsius goes even further to argue that these Stoic ideas are not incompatible with the Christian faith. That is why, instead of collecting further views of the pagans, he proceeds to examine the ‘Sacred’ writings. Curiously enough, he turns to Hermes, not to the Bible or the Church Fathers, for this purpose. Indeed Lipsius thinks that Hermes concurred on many points with Moses. For example, Hermes called God ‘the light’ (lumen) and God’s son ‘the bright word’ (lucidum verbum). Is the fire of the Stoics, asks Lipsius, not the ‘light’ (lux) and splendor? Noting that Moses also attributed this image of light to God, he concludes that the Stoics were not absurd even if they accorded divinity to their creative fire. For him it was completely natural since this idea was commonly shared by the ancients. As I have shown elsewhere for the case of the French Paracelsian Joseph Du Chesne (1546-1609), the perfect contemporary of Lipsius, the agreement of Hermes with Moses was fundamental to his natural philosophy based on the belief in the prisca theologia.16 2.2. God, spiritus and the World-Soul Lipsius addresses other definitions of God such as spiritus, the soul, mind or reason-principle which is diffused through all things. According to him, the Stoics came closer to the truth when they defined God not as fire but as a ‘fiery spirit’ (spiritus igneus). Following a passage attributed by Stobaeus to Posidonius, he explains that God is considered an intelligent spiritus. ‘Who will deny it?’ says Lipsius with assurance.17 As for another idea of Posidonius whereby God has no form, Lipsius interprets that God bears no visible form. Here again he calls upon Hermes who affirmed that God has his own form which is not subject to human senses because it is incorporeal and spiritual while all corporeal forms are observed through bodies. That is why no one sees God.18 In this way God’s spiritual invisibility is emphasized. Lipsius thus finds the agreement of Zeno with Posidonius who asserted that God is a spiritus which pervades the entire world. He adds that Cicero attributed to Zeno the idea that God is the ‘reason’ which pervades the whole nature.19 To Lipsius’ eyes the terms spiritus or reason designate the same thing because spiritus is considered synonymous with ‘intellect’ (animus), ‘mind’ (mens) or ‘reason’ (ratio). Stressing that animus or mens is the noblest part of the soul, he also delivers the idea, attributed by Cicero to Pythagoras, that God is the animus diffused and present in the nature of everything.20 He does not forget to add the famous verses of Virgil: Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus | Mens agitat molem.21 But that is not all. Lipsius continues with Cicero: ‘The world is wise and has a mens that constructed itself and the world, Hiro Hirai, ‘Paracelsisme, néoplatonisme et médecine hermétique dans la théorie de la matière de Joseph Du Chesne à travers son Ad veritatem hermeticae medicinae (1604)’, Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences, 51 (2001), 9-37. 17 PS, I, 7, pp. 14-15. Cf. Stobaeus, Eclogae, I, 1, 29 B = Posidonius, fr. 101 (Edelstein - Kidd) = Ps.-Plutarch (Aetius), Placita, I, 7, 19; Marie Laffranque, Poseidonios d’Apamée: essai de mise au point (Paris: PUF, 1964), pp. 318-319, 338-339. 18 PS, I, 7, p. 15. Cf. Corpus Hermeticum, XI, 16. 19 PS, I, 7, p. 15. Cf. Cicero, De natura deorum, I, 14, 36 = SVF I, 154. 20 PS, I, 7, p. 15. Cf. Cicero, De natura deorum, I, 11, 27. On the distinction between anima and animus, Lipsius says (PS, III, 16, p. 181): ‘Notemus discrimen inter animam et animus, quod fere priscis latinis fuit. Nam illa est, qua vivimus, ac sentimus; iste, quo intelligimus sapimusque.’ See also Gianni Paganini’s article in the present volume. 21 Virgil, Aeneid, VI, 726-727. On its Varronian background, see Préaux, ‘Deus Socratis’, 345. 16 67 and orders, moves and governs all.’22 This passage is so important to the Flemish philosopher that he quotes it on several occasions throughout his treatise. Next Lipsius argues that Seneca called ‘Jupiter’ the animus and spiritus of the world. He adds the words of Diogenes Laertius: ‘The mens pervades all the members of the world just as the soul does in us.’23 With this quote which implies the analogy between macrocosm and microcosm, Lipsius introduces the notion of the World-Soul: Let us note well: there is a certain soul of this great world like [this soul] in our small [world]; it is a director and God himself. There is an old opinion of the Academics which Cicero presents as follows: ‘In a sentient nature resides a perfect reason. They say that this force is the animus of the world.’ He shows that the Stoics held this opinion. Cleanthes, certainly, and Oenopides among them, according to Stobaeus, [say]: ‘God is the animus of the world.’ In general Lactantius says: ‘Thus the Stoics sometimes confused all, seeing God as the mens of the world, and the world as the body of God.’24 According to Lipsius, when the Stoics said that God is the world, they meant by God the soul of the world since, as Manilius sang, the world is an animal governed by reason and nourished by spiritus. Lipsius confirms this interpretation with Plato’s words: ‘The world is a rational animal endowed with the soul’, and with Posidonius’ sentence: ‘The world is an animate and sentient nature.’ For Lipsius all these philosophers referred to such nature as ‘God’.25 Facing the identification of the world (or its soul) with God, he recalls Tertullian’s remark: ‘The Platonists and the Stoics held God to be corporeal.’26 Lipsius makes it clear that there Tertullian called ‘God’ the world although Plato regarded the world’s supreme mens as God. Then he adds a fragment of Seneca, preserved by Augustine, according to which God is devoid of body for Plato and devoid of animus for Strato. To explain this sentence, Lipsius states that Plato spoke of God as the supreme, architect-like and immortal mens, whereas Strato understood God to be the nature of things, that is, the world without any governing principle or mens.27 Lipsius affirms that, since the world is God for the Stoics, they accorded a spherical form to it. Thus God is a living being, but not in a form similar to human beings. For Lipsius this opinion disagrees with his own Christian perception and the position of Platonists such as Plutarch. Facing this quandary, he finds in Varro a more reasonable explanation: Cicero, Academica, II, 37, 119. Diogenes Laertius VII, 138 = SVF II, 634. Cf. Seneca, Naturales quaestiones, II, 45, 1 on Jupiter. On the importance of Seneca’s Naturales quaestiones, II, 45, for Lipsius, see my article: ‘The World-Soul, Providence and Eschatology: Seneca’s Naturales quaestiones in Justus Lipsius’s Physiologia Stoicorum’, in Seneca e le scienze, ed. Francesco Citti - Marco Beretta (Florence: Olschki, forthcoming). 24 PS, I, 7, p. 16: ‘Nota, nota: est magni huius mundi sua quaedam anima, ut in parvo haec nostra; atque illa rector est, et Deus. Est Academicorum vetus sententia, et ponit ita Cicero: “In natura sentiente ratio perfecta inest; quam vim animum dicunt esse mundi”; et adsignificat Stoicos tenuisse. Cleanthes quidem et Oenopides ex iis apud Stobaeum: “Deum esse, mundi animam.” Et Lactantius universe: “Ita Stoici interdum confundunt, ut Deus sit ipsa mens mundi, et mundus corpus sit Dei.”’ Cf. Cicero, Academica, I, 7, 28-29; Ps.-Plutarch (Aetius), Placita, I, 7, 17 = SVF I, 532; Lactantius, Divinae institutiones, VII, 3 = SVF II, 1041. 25 PS, I, 8, p. 17. Cf. Manilius, Astronomica, II, 64-66; Plato, Timaeus, 30 B-C; Posidonius, fr. 99 a (Edelstein Kidd) = Diogenes Laertius VII, 142-143 = SVF II, 633; Laffranque, Poseidonios, pp. 320-321. 26 Tertullian, Apologia, 47 = SVF II, 1034. 27 PS, I, 8, p. 17. Cf. Augustine, De civitate Dei, VI, 10. 23 22 68 But Varro seems to settle [the problem] and turn it more toward the truth, if we listen to him carefully. Here are his beautiful words quoted by Augustine: ‘In the preamble on natural theology Varro says that God is considered the World-Soul and that this world itself is God.’ But he then adds a distinction that I would like you to note: ‘Just as a wise man, made of soul and body, we call him “wise” by his soul, likewise the world is called “God” by its soul although it is made of soul and body.’ By this [Varro] means that the world is not God in itself or by itself, but only by its superior part, that is, by its eternal mens which is, however, inserted into the world like that which is in the human being. Thus the world is not God ‘by its substance’ or ‘by its nature’ but ‘by its participation’ as say the Greeks. For it participates in that mens and communicates with it.28 Lipsius confirms this idea through a statement which Cicero attributed to Chrysippus: ‘The divine force is placed in the reason, animus and mens of universal nature, and this world itself is called “God”, its animus being diffused everywhere.’29 Thus for Lipsius God is primarily the reason or mens, and secondarily the world into which this animus is diffused. It should be understood as such, when Seneca said: ‘What is God? The mens of the universe. What is God? All that you see and all that you do not see.’30 God is thus firstly the supreme mens and secondly the seat of this mens, that is, the mass of the universe. Lipsius reinforces this interpretation with the authority of Hermes, first by the sentence: ‘The world is a second god and an immortal animal’, then by the other: ‘God is really the first of all entities, eternal, unbegotten and craftsman of the universe.’ For Lipsius it is in the same manner as Hermes that the Stoics discussed God, separating him from the body of the world.31 The Stoics associated the animus with the world as its superior part. Lipsius recalls that the animus is for Seneca the best part of the soul. He argues with Lactantius that, although the divine spiritus is diffused in the world and holds together everything, this spiritus cannot be considered God himself since it is mingled with corruptible elements. Here Lipsius makes it clear that God is contained in natural things but is not confused with them. For him God forms these things, but is not their form, and animates them, but is not their soul.32 Relying on the words of John of Damascus, he confirms the idea that God penetrates all entities without being blended and communicates his force to them. Lipsius continues with Plutarch: PS, I, 8, p. 18: ‘Tamen Varro mitigare et ad veritatem magis flectere videtur, si bene exaudimus. Pulchra haec eius in Augustino: “Varro de naturali theologia praeloquens dicit, Deum se arbitrari animam mundi: et hunc ipsum mundum esse Deum.” Sed discrimen deinde addit, quod valde velim notes. “Sicut hominem sapientem, cum sit ex animo et corpore, tamen ab animo dicimus sapientem, ita mundum Deum dici ab animo, cum sit ex animo et corpore.” Hoc vult, mundum a se aut per se non esse Deum; tantum a parte meliori, id est mente illa aeterna, quae tamen insita mundo, ut illa aliqua in homine. Non igitur mundus οὐσιωδῶς et sua natura Deus, sed κατὰ μετάδοσιν ut dicunt Graeci, et quia communicat et participat illam mentem.’ Cf. Augustine, De civitate Dei, VII, 6 = Varro, Antiquitates rerum divinarum, fr. 226 (Cardauns). See Préaux, ‘Deus Socratis’, 343; Stephen Gersh, Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism: The Latin Tradition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), pp. 819-820, 838. See also Boyancé, ‘Varron’, 79-82; Pépin, Théologie cosmique, p. 228; Idem, Mythe et allégorie, pp. 315-319; Yves Lehmann, Varron théologien et philosophe romain (Brussels: Latomus, 1997), pp. 226-233, but also pp. 150-153. On Lipsius’ use of Varro, see also Kuni Sakamoto’s article in the present volume. 29 Cicero, De natura deorum, I, 15, 39 = SVF II, 1077. 30 Seneca, Naturales quaestiones, I, pref. 13. Cf. Gersh, Middle Platonism, p. 166. 31 PS, I, 8, pp. 18-19. Cf. Corpus Hermeticum, VIII, 1 and 2. 32 PS, I, 8, p. 19. Cf. Lactantius, Divinae institutiones, VII, 3. 28 69 Finally, to conclude, we shall partly examine the Stoics with Plutarch’s words: ‘The Stoics say that god is the world, stars and earth but that the supreme [God] is the mens in the ether.’ It is the most secret mens of those which can be called otherwise ‘gods’ and participate in divinity. But this mens is one, real and supreme, and is found in the ether. I did not add this [explanation] in vain. For that principal [part] of the soul, or the hegemonikon for the Greeks, has its seat in the ether.33 In this connection Lipsius finds a certain disagreement among the Stoics. Indeed, according to Diogenes Laertius, their majority identified the world’s ‘ruling part’ (hegemonikon) with the ether, but Posidonius with heaven. By contrast, following Cleanthes, Pliny chose the sun as the animus of the entire world and as the director of nature.34 Lipsius thus concludes in his typical manner of exegesis: Do not be misled as if these [celestial bodies] were themselves God. But as I have said, they are his house and seat just as the citadel of our head receives our mens (certainly for the Platonists). Whatever he said, Tertullian made a false accusation against Zeno, by imposing: ‘[Zeno] held the air and ether as gods.’ [Zeno] did never make it, at least in this sense, nor Chrysippus, I think, even if Cicero also [says] of him: ‘[Chrysippus] pretended that the ether is that which people call “Jupiter”.’ Rather [it is placed] in the ether, and you said the truth.35 3. The World-Soul and the macrocosm 3.1. The Creation of the world and its seed Now Lipsius tackles the problem of bodies which result from the two principles (God and matter). Following Cicero, he says first that the Stoics conceived all that has matter as a body. But they tended to extend this definition to everything that exists. Thus not only daemons and souls, since they are all placed in matter, but also God and matter can be called ‘bodies’. Even qualities, spiritus and Ideas are seen as bodies by the Stoics. However, Lipsius observes that Seneca judged incorporeal the supreme cause of the universe in one passage: ‘It is in the intention of the great Creator of the universe, whoever that may be, an almighty God, incorporeal reason PS, I, 8, p. 19: ‘Concludimus denique, et in parte tuemur Stoicos Plutarchi hisce verbis: “Deum Stoici dicunt, et mundus, et stellas, et terram, sed supremum illum, mentem in aethere.” Ipsa est intima mens eorum, alia posse dici deos, et divinitatem communicare: sed unum, verum, summum esse mentem: atque eam in aethere. Non enim otiosus hoc quoque audi. Quia principale istud animae, sive Graecis ἡγεμονικόν, in aethere sedem habet.’ Cf. Ps.Plutarch (Aetius), Placita, I, 7, 33 = SVF II, 1027. On the notion of ‘hegemonikon’, see Hahm, Stoic Cosmology, pp. 157-159. 34 PS, I, 8, p. 19. Cf. Diogenes Laertius VII, 139 = SVF I, 499; Pliny, Historia naturalis, II, 13. On the idea of Cleanthes, see Pierre Boyancé, ‘La religion astrale de Platon à Cicéron’, Revue des études grecques, 65 (1952), 312-349 (p. 345); Idem, ‘L’Apollon solaire’, in Mélanges d’archéologie, d’épigraphie et d’histoire offerts à Jérôme Carcopino (Paris: Hachette, 1966), pp. 149-170 (pp. 165-169); Friedrich Solmsen, ‘Cleanthes or Posidonius?: The Basis of Stoic Physics’, Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (Letterkunde), 24 (1961), 263-289. On Pliny, see below. 35 PS, I, 8, pp. 19-20: ‘Neque haec tamen ita laeve capies, quasi ipsa illa sint Deus, sed ut dixi, domus eius et sedes; ut arx ista capitis mentem nostram (Platonicis quidem) habet. Tertullianus calumniam, liceat dicere, Zenoni struxit, cum impingit, “aera et aethera deos statuisse”. Numquam, illo quidem sensu, fecit; neque, opinior, Chrysippus, etsi Cicero etiam de illo, quod “disputarit aethera esse eum, quem homines appellant Jovem”. Immo in aethere, et rem dixisti.’ Cf. Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem = SVF I, 154; Cicero, De natura deorum, I, 15, 40. 33 70 contriving vast works or divine spiritus pervading all things with uniform intensity.’36 Identifying this ‘incorporeal reason’ with God, Lipsius notes that this sentence is formulated not in a Stoic but a Platonic spirit. He concludes that for the Stoics even the primordial reason, which is the cause of the universe, is a body.37 For the moment let us leave it as such, but we shall see below that his true opinion as for this passage of Seneca is different. After having explained what the world is, Lipsius takes up its birth. He first presents the opinion which Diogenes Laertius attributed to Zeno: According to Diogenes Laertius, Zeno [says]: ‘In the beginning when God existed alone, he transformed all essence into water via the air. Just as a seed is contained in the sperm, likewise God, who is the seminal reason of the world, remained like such a seed in the moisture and rendered matter easy and suitable for his work in the generation of things. Then he first gave birth to the four elements, fire, air, water and earth.’38 With the help of another passage attributed by Stobaeus to Zeno: ‘the reason-principle of the universe, which some people call “fate” like a seed in the sperm, circulated through matter’,39 Lipsius interprets Zeno’s idea on the presence of ‘reason’ (ratio or logos) in the world’s birth: There you see the same image [as here] and, by those words, [water] is placed like here. But it means matter, immobile by itself and inefficient, [which] is animated by that fire (which is God and the reason-principle) just as the seed, its spiritus and its heat form, augment and feed the fetus. We should remark here a small word, logos, which the [Stoics] often use in the subject of generation.40 Then once again Lipsius invokes Seneca’s concept ‘incorporeal reason contriving vast works’. Referring by ‘vast works’ to the Creation of the world, Seneca established the incorporeity of this reason-principle since it is the mens of God and, so to speak, the animus of fire, which is also called ‘fate’ by Zeno and ‘providence’ by the others.41 In this manner Lipsius tries to harmonize Stoic teachings with Christian doctrines. Lipsius takes up the second point of the quoted sentence of Diogenes Laertius: ‘[God] remained like such a seed’ (tale semen reliquisse). In his interpretation, Zeno called the fire or its heat which is mixed up with moisture ‘seed’ (semen), in which an ‘incorporeal reason’ is Seneca, De consolatione ad Helviam, VIII, 3. Cf. Anna Lydia Motto, ‘Seneca on Theology’, Classical Journal, 50 (1955), 181-182; Gersh, Middle Platonism, pp. 166-167, 820-822; Paganini, ‘Physiologia’, p. 82. 37 PS, II, 5, p. 79. 38 PS, II, 8, p. 87: ‘Zeno apud Laertium ita prodit: “Deum in principio, cum apud se esset, essentiam omnem per aerem in aquam convertisse. Et ut in foetu semen continetur, ita Deum qui seminalis ratio mundi est, tale semen reliquisse in humido, quod facilem aptamque operi materiam praeberet, ad rerum deinceps generationem. Deinde progenuisse primum elementa quattuor, ignem, aquam, aerem, terram.”’ Cf. Diogenes Laertius VII, 136 = SVF I, 102 b. Here Lipsius translates as foetus the original Greek word γονή which means the sperm or seminal moisture. On this point, see Aristotle, Generation of Animals, 2.3, 736b27-29. 39 PS, II, 8, p. 89. Cf. Stobaeus, Eclogae, I, 11, 5 = SVF I, 87. 40 PS, II, 8, p. 89: ‘Vides eamdem ibi imaginem, et ipsis verbis, uti hic ponitur. Significat autem, immobilem per se et inefficacem materiam animari ab hoc igne (illo qui Deus, et ratio) non aliter quam semen eiusque spiritus et calor faetum formant, augent, alunt. Notanda igitur et hic vocula: qua crebro in hac generationis re utuntur.’ 41 PS, II, 8, p. 89. Cf. Seneca, De consolatione ad Helviam, VIII, 3. 36 71 always placed. That is why Plutarch argued that the Stoics qualified this fire as the ‘seed of the world’.42 Lipsius then explains the nature of this creative fire, combining the words of Cicero with those of Hermes: Then what is this fire? [It is] not like our [fire] which destroys and scatters all, but is ‘vital and salutary and preserves all, feeds, augments, sustains and endows with sense’. We find such a fire in heavenly bodies […]. [Hermes] adds: ‘But [the earth and water] were moved by the spiritual reason which moved upon them.’ Assuredly here, this ‘reason’ is that ‘fire’. In Moses himself, was the spiritus of the Lord not moving over the waters in the beginning of things? On these matters [Hermes] Trismegistus and Zeno, who said above ‘the reasonprinciple circulated through matter’, are in a perfect agreement.43 In this way Lipsius establishes a harmony of the Stoics with Hermes and even with Moses as to the ‘incorporeal, spiritual and creative reason’, which is assimilated with the mind of the Creator God. Evidently, it is not what is recognized today as the orthodox doctrine of the ancient Stoics. Here is again Lipsius’ continuous intention to harmonize the ideas of eminent ancient sages. This kind of operation was frequent in the Renaissance on the basis of the belief in the prisca theologia.44 3.2. The universe as a rational animal After having established the birth of the world from the divine seed, Lipsius takes up the idea that the world is an animal endowed with sense and reason and its soul is God.45 For him the Stoics held unanimously that the world perceives, understands and knows everything like a rational animal. Although he finds a similar idea in Plato and other ancient sages, here Lipsius wants to focus on the opinions of the Stoics. He presents a reasoning attributed by Diogenes Laertius to Zeno: The world is living, rational and intelligent because, if a living being is superior to that which is inanimate, as there is nothing that is superior to the world, the world must be animate. The human soul is also said to be detached from the world.46 For the statement ‘a living being is superior to that which is inanimate’, Lipsius finds the same reasoning in Plato’s Timaeus. Indeed Plato taught that the supreme God produces what is supreme. Since there is nothing superior to the intelligent nature, the world must be intelligent. PS, II, 8, p. 89. Cf. Plutarch, De communibus notitiis, 1077 B = SVF II, 618. PS, II, 8, pp. 89-90: ‘Qualis autem hic ignis? Non ut ille noster, qui cuncta disturbat ac dissipat: sed “vitalis ac salutaris, qui omnia conservat, alit, auget, sustinet sensuque afficit”: qualem in sideribus videmus. […]. Additque [Hermes] mox: “Movebantur autem, a ratione spiritali, quae super ea ferebatur, ad auditum.” Est sane nostra hic “ratio”, est “ignis”. Quid in ipso Moyse, rerum primordiis, nonne “spiritus Domini ferebatur super aquas?” Quibus profecto paria et Trismegistus, et Zeno supra, “rationem per materiam decurrere.”’ Cf. Cicero, De natura deorum, II, 15, 41 = SVF I, 504; Corpus Hermeticum, I, 5; Genesis 1:2. On the duality of fire, see also Pierre Boyancé, Études sur le Songe de Scipion: essais d’histoire et de psychologie religieuse (Paris: De Boccard, 1936), pp. 6768, 70; Michael Lapidge, ‘Archai and Stoicheia: A Problem in Stoic Cosmology’, Phronesis, 18 (1973), 268-270. 44 See also Kuni Sakamoto, ‘Creation, Trinity and prisca theologia in Julius Caesar Scaliger’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 73 (2010), pp. 195-207. 45 Bernard Joly, ‘“Mundum animal esse” (Physiologia Stoicorum II, 10): retour au stoïcisme ou triomphe de l’hermétisme?’, in Juste Lipse (1547-1606), pp. 49-69. Cf. Hiro Hirai, ‘Âme de la terre, génération spontanée et origine de la vie: Fortunio Liceti critique de Marsile Ficin’, Bruniana & Campanelliana, 12 (2006), 451-469. 46 Diogenes Laertius VII, 142-143 = SVF II, 633. 43 42 72 Since something intelligent cannot exist without the soul, the world is animate.47 As for the parts of the world as a living animal, Lipsius draws the testimony of Plutarch, followed by the words of John of Damascus who introduced the notion of World-Soul: ‘The Stoics say that God is the soul of this universe and its body is the universe itself, whereas his eyes are the sun, moon and stars.’48 To explain further the quoted statement of Diogenes Laertius, Lipsius addresses the part: ‘the human soul is detached from the [world]’ (nostra ex eo anima avulsa). To his eyes anything that yields the soul is itself animate, so is the world. He then appeals to the words of Sextus Empiricus: ‘What emits the seed of that which participates in the reason, participates in the reason. The world emits such a seed, so it participates in the reason.’49 Lipsius also finds the confirmation of this idea in Cicero: this world for the Stoics is wise and has a mens, which constructed the world, and orders, moves and governs everything.50 As we have seen, this passage is so important to Lipsius that he repeats it on several occasions. Although he knows that even Aristotle called the world ‘animal’, Lipsius especially makes recourse to Hermes who taught that the first animal is the world, the second is humankind.51 In this manner he tries to show the agreement of the ancient philosophers with the Stoics. Turning again to the quotation of Diogenes Laertius ‘the human soul is detached from the world’, Lipsius inquires as to the exact origin of the soul. His answer is that the human soul does not come from the entire world but from the soul accorded to the universe. So he concludes that this universal soul is the fire and God of the Stoics. At this point he notes their disagreement with the Platonists. These two schools attributed the soul to the world and qualified it as ‘God’, but in a different way: Plato held that the World-Soul is born from God, whereas the Stoics identified it as God himself. Lipsius explains that Plato’s World-Soul is a god, yet second and son, not first and father. To interpret the Stoic position, he presents the view of his admired Varro, first through the passage quoted by Isidore of Seville: ‘The animus of the world is fire since it governs all in the world like the animus in the human being’;52 then through the sentence quoted by Augustine: ‘God is the soul which governs the world by its movement and reason.’53 It is in this context that Lipsius reintroduces the notion of the hegemonikon with Cicero’s words which we have already seen: Then Cicero, here as a Stoic, [says]: ‘The world is held together by a sentient nature possessed of a perfect reason which is identical and eternal. [The Stoics] say that this force is the animus of the world and that it is itself the perfect mens and wisdom which they call “God”.’ Thus for them it is the soul and its hegemonikon reason-principle in the world, as is placed under this name, and this reason-principle is God in a proper sense.54 Plato, Timaeus, 30 A-B. John of Damascus, De haeresibus, 7 = SVF II, 1026. Cf. Plutarch, De facie in orbe lunae, 928 C. 49 Sextus Empiricus, Adversus mathematicos, IX, 101 = SVF I, 113. 50 Cicero, Academica, II, 37, 119. 51 Corpus Hermeticum, X, 12. For Aristotle, see De caelo, II, 2, 285a29-30; II, 12, 292a21-22. 52 Varro, Antiquitates rerum divinarum, fr. 23 (Cardauns) = Isidore, Etymologiae, VIII, 6, 21 = Tertullian, Ad nationes, II, 2, 19. Cf. Préaux, ‘Deus Socratis’, 346; Gersh, Middle Platonism, p. 839; Lehmann, Varron, p. 142. 53 Varro, Antiquitates rerum divinarum, fr. 13 (Cardauns) = Augustine, De civitate Dei, IV, 31. Cf. Gersh, Middle Platonism, p. 819. 54 PS, II, 10, p. 95: ‘Cicero, ibi Stoicus: “Mundum natura sentiente teneri, in qua ratio perfecta insit, quae sit eadem sempiterna. Quam vim animum esse dicunt mundi, eamdemque esse mentem sapientiamque perfectam quam Deum dicunt.” Est igitur iis anima, est et eius ἡγεμονικόν ratio in mundo, sicut in nomine ponimus: atque ea ratio proprie Deus.’ Cf. Cicero, Academica, I, 7, 28-29. 48 47 73 Lipsius deduces that for the Stoics the divine force, which governs the world, is the animus of the universe and that this supreme hegemonikon reason-principle of the world is nothing but God. This passage of Cicero’s Academics furnishes the foundation of Lipsius’ interpretation of Stoic natural philosophy. Lipsius closes his discussion with Philo who witnessed that all these ideas came from the Chaldeans, known for their art of astrology. According to Philo, this people recognized the visible world alone as God and placed in it a universal soul. For Lipsius this corresponds well to the idea of the Stoics who regarded the reason-principle in the World-Soul as fate and providence. But Philo condemned the Chaldeans’ contemplation of human fate on the basis of visible things as an extreme impiety.55 So Lipsius makes recourse to Arnobius who attested that the Stoics defined the world as a rational animal by a ‘probable’ (probabilis) argument. He concludes that the divine force pervades all parts of the world ‘like a soul’. At the same time he rejects its identification with the very ‘soul’ (anima) of the world since this thesis confuses the eternal and supreme principle of the world with corruptible and impure things.56 Under such cover of precaution Lipsius boldly advances his reconstruction of Platonizing Stoicism. 3.3. The ether, the stars and the World-Soul As for its status as an element, Lipsius regards fire as an equivalent of the ether since the Stoics placed it in heaven, that is, in the ether. He argues that for them a pure, brilliant, subtle and mobile fire pervades everything, vivifies, augments and sustains all. That is why they called it ‘World-Soul’ and ‘God’. However, Lipsius makes it clear that this fire is not identical to the ether but is placed within it. For this reason the Stoics believed that something divine has its seat in heaven. This reasoning is confirmed by the words that Cicero attributed to Cleanthes.57 Lipsius then argues that the purest part of fire, the ether, is the seat of the divine ‘incorporeal reason’ for the Stoics. To reinforce this unusual interpretation, he makes recourse to Clement of Alexandria who, also of a Platonic inclination, placed God in heaven as the mens of all.58 Among celestial bodies in the ether the sun is the most eminent and regarded as a king. Lipsius thus goes further to show that the sun is the hegemonikon of the World-Soul. He first delivers the opinion attributed by Stobaeus to Zeno: the sun and stars are also creative fire. Indeed, dividing fire into two kinds, Zeno regarded one to be devoid of art and destroying all, whereas the other is creative and vivifies all like what is observed in plants and animals as their nature and soul. This fire is the very essence of celestial bodies.59 Lipsius thus identifies the sun with the artful creative fire of the Stoics. To show the agreement of the ancients, he adds that the same opinion was shared by Anaxagoras, Democritus and Epicurus. 55 Philo, De Abrahamo, 178-180 = SVF II, 532. PS, II, 10, p. 96. Cf. Arnobius, Adversus gentes, III, 35. See also the articles of Gianni Paganini and Guido Giglioni in the present volume. 57 PS, II, 12, p. 101. Cf. Cicero, De natura deorum, I, 14, 37 = SVF I, 530. 58 Clement of Alexandria, Protreptic, VI, 72, 4. On the Platonic tendency of Clement, see among others Henry Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement, and Origen (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966); Robert M. Berchman, From Philo to Origen: Middle Platonism in Transition (Chico: Scholars Press, 1984), pp. 55-81. 59 Stobaeus, Eclogae, I, 25, 5 = SVF I, 120. 56 74 Then Lipsius enumerates Firmicus and Pliny among those who regarded the sun as the mens of the world. In particular the sun is for Pliny not only the governor of seasons, climates and celestial bodies but also the World-Soul and, more precisely, the mens of the universe, the principal ‘director’ (regimen) and ‘divinity’ (numen) of nature.60 Interpreting this regimen as the hegemonikon, Lipsius argues: Most of the Stoics agree with Pliny, although, as I have said, others advocated that the supreme ether was the hegemonikon. But with the clearness and magnitude of its effects [the sun] wins this position of dignity and is estimated by many as the supreme God or, at least, as the seat of his mens or reason. Thus ancient natural philosophers named it ‘the heart of heaven’.61 Lipsius adds that the Peruvians and the Chinese venerate the sun even today as supreme deity. Lastly, he makes recourse, as always, to his favorite authority Hermes who affirmed that the sun is the supreme God to whom all heavenly gods submit as to a king.62 As for the other stars Lipsius argues that the ether and ethereal bodies are gods to the Stoics since they participate in the divine fire and result from it. Then he quotes Augustine according to whom the Stoics believed that all celestial beings belong to Jupiter, live and have a rational soul and are regarded as gods.63 To this he adds Cicero’s words: ‘The stars are placed in the ethereal region, and since the ether is very subtle and always in motion and actuality, it is necessary that every animal, produced in it, is endowed with the quickest sense and the swiftest motion.’64 So Lipsius concludes that the stars are rational and immortal or, at least, perennial. He reinforces this idea by the authority of Church Fathers such as Origen.65 Pliny, Historia naturalis, II, 12-13. Cf. Franz Cumont, ‘La théologie solaire du paganisme romain’, Mémoires présentés par divers savants à l’Académie des inscriptions, 12 (1909), 447-479 (p. 461); Boyancé, Songe de Scipion, pp. 98-104; Mary Beagon, Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), pp. 28-32. See also Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (New York: Dover, 1960), pp. 6975. 61 PS, II, 13, p. 104: ‘Et plerique e Stoicis cum Plinio sentiebant, etsi alii supremum aethera, ut dixi, hegemonikon volebant. Sed claritate et magnitudine effectuum, tum et sua, itemque situs dignitate obtinuit, a multis supremus Deus censeri, aut certe mentis sive rationis illius sedes. Itaque et “cor caeli” physici veteres nominabant.’ On the analogy between the sun and the heart, see Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, I, 20, 6; Cumont, ‘La théologie solaire’, 458-459, 477; Roger Miller Jones, ‘Posidonios and Solar Eschatology’, Classical Philology, 27 (1932), 113-135; Boyancé, Songe de Scipion, pp. 78-104; Idem, ‘La religion astrale’, 346; Idem, ‘L’Apollon solaire’, pp. 166-167; Thomas Ricklin, ‘Le cœur, soleil du corps: une redécouverte symbolique du XIIe siècle’, Micrologus, 11 (2003), 123-143. On Renaissance perceptions of the sun in general, see Le soleil à la Renaissance: science et mythes (Brussels: Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles, 1965). 62 Corpus Hermeticum, V, 3. 63 PS, II, 14, p. 108. Cf. Augustine, De civitate Dei, IV, 9. 64 Cicero, De natura deorum, II, 15, 42. 65 On the animation of celestial bodies, see Harry A. Wolfson, ‘The Problem of the Souls of the Spheres from the Byzantine Commentaries on Aristotle through the Arabs and St. Thomas to Kepler’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 16 (1962), 67-93, repr. in Idem, Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, 2 vols (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), I, 22-59; Alan Scott, Origen and the Life of the Stars: A History of an Idea (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991). See also Richard C. Dales, ‘The De-Animation of the Heavens in the Middle Ages’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 41 (1980), 531-550. 60 75 4. The World-Soul and the microcosm 4.1. The celestial seed and human generation According to Lipsius, God is for the Stoics the father of human beings. But he notices that the Stoic explanation of human generation differs from the one found in the Sacred writings. Quoting Cicero’s words: ‘[The seed of humankind] was spread and sown on the earth’ (in terras sparsum et satum), Lipsius first argues that the animus of human beings comes from fire, that is, from God into matter.66 To confirm this idea, he calls upon Ovid’s verses which imply the notion of the divine and celestial seed in the origin of humankind: Sanctius his animal, mentisque capacius altae Deerat adhuc et quod dominari in cetera posset: Natus homo est. Sive hunc divino semine fecit Ille opifex rerum, mundi melioris origo; Sive recens tellus, seductaque nuper ad alto Aethere, cognati retinebat semina caeli.67 Lipsius proceeds to explain the nature of the human seed. For this purpose he quotes a passage attributed by Diogenes Laertius to Zeno: ‘The seed which a man emits with moisture is mingled with the parts of the soul.’68 Lipsius wonders if these ‘parts’ of the soul include all the parts. His answer is negative because he believes that the soul’s rational part alone comes from outside, not from the seed. Here is an important deviation from the doctrine of the Stoics since the extrinsic origin of the rational soul was not in the scope of their teachings. Indeed Lipsius prefers to share the idea which is not only in the agreement with the Church dogma but also is widely accepted among his contemporaries including medical philosophers.69 To reinforce his interpretation, Lipsius turns to Seneca. Contrary to the testimony of Tertullian who wanted to be a faithful defender of the Roman moralist, Lipsius tries to show that Seneca also supported the extrinsic origin of the human soul. According to him, Seneca did not say that the human soul is ‘inserted from the beginning’ (ab initio insita), that is, ‘innate since the conception’ (a conceptu ingenita), but is ‘inserted at birth’ (insita a prima nativitate).70 Although Seneca argued that the seed contains the ‘outline of the entire body’, he mentioned no animus.71 Tertullian himself recognized, adds Lipsius, that for the Stoics the mother’s womb retains only the flesh of a child while the ‘soul is introduced from outside’ (animam extrinsecus imprimi) ‘when the child is born’ (effuso jam partu).72 Lipsius also calls upon Lactantius who employed PS, III, 4, p. 153. Cf. Cicero, De legibus, I, 8, 24; Pierre Boyancé, ‘Cicéron et les semailles d’âme du Timée’, Romanitas, 3 (1961), 111-117; André-Jean Festugière, La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste (Paris: Gabalda, 1949), II, 430, n. 2. 67 Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, 76-81. 68 Diogenes Laertius VII, 158 = SVF I, 128 g. On the embryology of the Stoics, see Jean-Baptiste Gourinat, ‘L’embryon végétatif et la formation de l’âme selon les stoïciens’, in L’embryon, formation et animation, ed. Luc Brisson et al. (Paris: Vrin, 2008), pp. 59-77. 69 See Hiro Hirai, Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy: Renaissance Debates on Matter, Life and the Soul (Leiden: Brill, 2011). 70 PS, III, 7, p. 160. Cf. Tertullian, De anima, 20; André-Jean Festugière, ‘La composition et l’esprit du De anima de Tertullien’, Revue des sciences philologiques et théologiques, 33 (1949), 129-161. 71 Cf. Seneca, Naturales quaestiones, III, 29, 3. 72 Tertullian, De anima, 25 = SVF II, 805. 66 76 the term insinuari to say that for the Stoics the human soul is not ‘drawn’ from matter but is ‘introduced’ from the outside into the body. To this list he adds Lucretius who adopted the term insinuari in his refutation of the Stoics.73 But Lipsius finds a clearer confirmation in Plutarch, who witnessed that Plato viewed the fetus as already an animal, while the Stoics compared it to the fruit of trees.74 As for the moment of the human soul’s introduction, Lipsius notes that although Hippocrates observed the soul ‘since the formation of the seed’ (statim a formato semine), Porphyry, like the Stoics, held that the soul comes ‘in the first development of the newborn child’ (in prima statim editione nati infantis).75 In this way he tries to establish the human soul’s postnatal introduction as a Stoic doctrine. 4.2. The human soul, ether and World-Soul Next Lipsius takes up the question of where exactly the human soul originates. He answers that it comes from heaven, eternal fire, celestial nature and, in a word, from God himself. To reinforce this idea, he relies on Seneca’s words: ‘The human animus [comes] from those from which divine beings are established.’76 Lipsius interprets that these ‘divine beings’ are heavenly bodies. Then, quoting another passage of Seneca: ‘The human being is part of the divine spiritus as if certain tiny sparks of sacred things were spread over the earth’, Lipsius identifies these ‘tiny sparks of sacred things’ with the stars.77 He finds the confirmation of this interpretation in Cicero, Pliny and Firmicus. Emphasizing their use of the term ‘kindred’ (cognatio), Lipsius explains that the human soul has some kindred with the divine seeds and their essence, that is, the parts of gods. Thus he shows through the quotations from Epictetus and Cicero that the human soul is connected with the nature of gods and, so to speak, with God.78 In this context Lipsius relates the human soul to the World-Soul: Thus here are those magnificent words of Seneca: ‘And why not suppose something divine in a being which is a part of God?’ Moreover: ‘You seem surprised that the human being can penetrate among gods? But God himself comes down among human beings and, moreover, into human beings.’ Again: ‘God is close to you, with you and in you.’ Why [can] these things [be said]? It is because the [Stoics] are persuaded that from God, that is, from the World-Soul comes this soul.79 Here is a typical case of Lipsius interpreting the ethical arguments of Seneca in the context of natural philosophy in order to harmonize Stoicism with Christianity. This is manifestly the main PS, III, 7, pp. 160-161. Cf. Lactantius, Divinae institutiones, III, 18; Lucretius, De rerum natura, III, 671. Ps.-Plutarch (Aetius), Placita, V, 15, 2 = SVF II, 756. 75 Cf. Stobaeus, Eclogae, I, 49, 41. 76 Seneca, De consolatione ad Helviam, VI, 7 and 8. 77 PS, III, 8, p. 163. Cf. Seneca, De otio, V, 5. 78 Cf. Epictetus, Discourses, I, 14; Cicero, De divinatione, I, 49, 110; Idem, Tusculanae disputationes, I, 26, 65; Pépin, Théologie cosmique, pp. 147, 229. On the term cognatio, see Guido Giglioni’s article in the present volume. 79 PS, III, 8, p. 163: ‘Inde magnificae illae voces Senecae: “Quid est autem, cur non existimes in eo divini aliquid exsistere, qui Dei pars est?” Et magis: “Miraris hominem ad deos ire? Deus ad homines venit, immo, quod propius est, in homines venit.” Iterumque: “Prope est a te Deus, tecum est, intus est.” Unde haec talia? Quia persuasum iis, a Deo, id est mundi anima; animam hanc esse.’ Cf. Seneca, Epistulae, 92, 30 (= SVF, II, 637); 73, 16; 41, 1. 74 73 77 goal of his natural theology. In any event Lipsius reinforces his idea, quoting a sentence attributed by Diogenes Laertius to Zeno: ‘The souls of animate beings are the parts of the soul of the universe.’ Does this mean that souls come from the World-Soul not only for human beings but also for other living beings? Lipsius answers in the affirmative although he does not forget to warn that some souls are more closely tied to the World-Soul than the others.80 He goes even further to quote Apuleius according to whom the World-Soul is the source of all souls. Again he adds a stipulation that the rational soul is more closely associated with God or, at least, with his part.81 That is why Plutarch said: ‘The soul, the sister of the mens and reason, is not only the work of, but also the part of, God. It is not made by God, but from God.’82 In this way Lipsius calls upon the Platonists at crucial moments to justify his interpretation of Stoic doctrines. This is the usual modus operandi of the Flemish philosopher. So he concludes that other souls are also parts of God, that is, of the World-Soul. But again, as a precaution, he expresses a reservation that it is rather the force and nature which emanates from God.83 Lipsius notes that the ancient sages generally preferred to relate human beings to the entire body of the world, considering them members of the universe. He observes this tendency not only among the Stoics but also among the Platonists. Thus he appeals to Hermes who affirmed: ‘All the souls come from one single soul, the soul of the universe.’84 Lipsius interprets this sentence, arguing that Hermes meant by this ‘single soul of the universe’ the essence of God as the source of the souls of all beings. To explain further the relationship between the World-Soul and this divine essence, he adds another passage of Hermes: ‘The animus or mens has not been cut off from God’s essence, but it has, so to speak, expanded from this source like the light of the sun.’85 According to Lipsius, Hermes meant by this that just as the rays of the sun emanate without damaging the sun’s substance, souls are diffused from the great World-Soul without causing it any harm. Here it would not be totally wrong if one called him ‘Lipsius Platonicus’. But in his usual meticulous manner Lipsius does not forget to stress that the human soul is not tantamount to an actual ‘part’ of God. 5. Conclusions Thus far we have analyzed the main line of Lipsius’ arguments on the Stoic doctrine of the World-Soul. Among convergent opinions of the ancients about this soul, he seems to prefer that of Varro in particular.86 In the construction of Lipsius’ discourse there are also three key quotations from the ancients, which provide the basis of his singular interpretation and to which he returns on several occasions. The first one comes from Cicero’s Academics, II, 119. According to this passage, the world is wise and has a mens that constructed the world and moves and governs everything. This passage offers Lipsius the legitimacy to develop his thesis that the world is a rational animal whose mens can be identified with God or, at least, with the part of 80 81 Cf. Diogenes Laertius VII, 156 = SVF II, 774. Cf. Apuleius, De Platone, 9. 82 Plutarch, Platonicae quaestiones, 1001 C. 83 PS, III, 8, p. 164. 84 Corpus Hermeticum, X, 7. 85 Corpus Hermeticum, XII, 1. 86 On Varro’s ideas in Lipsius, see also PS, III, 16, pp. 180-181. Cf. Augustine, De civitate Dei, VII, 23 = Varro, Antiquitates rerum divinarum, fr. 227 (Cardauns); Boyancé, ‘Varron’, 278; Lehmann, Varron, pp. 227-228. 78 divinity. The second quotation also comes from Academics, I, 28-29. Through the figure of ‘Varro’ in the dialogue, Cicero argued there that the world is held together by a sentient nature possessed of a ‘perfect and eternal reason’ and whose force is the animus of the world, the divine mens and wisdom. These two quotations suit each other well and, thus far, there is no serious divergence from the orthodox Stoic teachings which are recognized today. But with the third key quotation from Seneca this landscape changes completely. It is the passage taken from the Consolation to My Mother Helvia, VIII, 3, where Seneca identified the Creator of the universe with the almighty God, with the ‘incorporeal reason’ contriving vast works or with the divine spiritus pervading everything with uniform intensity.87 It is true that Lipsius himself recognizes that this passage was formulated in a Platonic rather than a Stoic spirit. However, still on the basis of this passage, he develops a series of arguments to establish the idea that the mens of God, who created and governs this universe, is a ‘perfect, incorporeal and spiritual reasonprinciple’ even for the Stoics. To conceive the notion of this incorporeal reason-principle, creative and directive of the universe, Seneca himself seems to have relied on the theological idea of Varro who established a philosophical synthesis based on both Platonism and Stoicism. In reality the position of Cicero, once a student of Varro, was not far from this synthesis which was the intellectual foundation for the cosmic theology of Roman intellectuals as is shown by the studies of Cumont, Festugière, Boyancé, etc.88 As for Lipsius, relying on Latin sources close to Seneca rather than Greek materials, he incorporates, whether consciously or not, a singular aspect of this cosmic theology in his interpretation of the World-Soul. His originality thus consists in his mobilization of Latin sources although this tendency is often criticized.89 That is why Hermes’ teachings, replete with both Platonic and Stoic elements, are compatible with the reconstructed philosophy of the Stoics to his eyes, as he venerates this mythical figure as a ‘sacred’ authority. Here is the very foundation of his natural theology which enables him to harmonize Stoicism with the general tendency of Christian Platonism of the Renaissance. For Lipsius it is completely natural to conceive the study of Stoic philosophy on the basis of heterogeneous sources, including not only Bible and patristic writings but also problematic texts, especially the Corpus Hermeticum. This is above all evidence of his belief in the prisca theologia.90 Seneca was indebted to Varro for the theological notion of ‘incorporeal reason’, based on the Platonic and Stoic synthesis. See Ilsetraut Marten, ‘Ein unbeachtetes Zeugnis von Varros Gotteslehre’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 43 (1961), 41-51; Gersh, Middle Platonism, pp. 821-822; Lehmann, Varron, pp. 147-148. On Varro’s cosmic theology, see Boyancé, ‘Varron’; Préaux, ‘Deus Socratis’; Pépin, Théologie cosmique, pp. 133-134; Idem, Mythe et allégorie, pp. 315-323; Gersh, Middle Platonism, pp. 809-840. Cf. also Cumont, ‘La théologie solaire’, 473. 88 The references of their studies are given in the notes of the present article. 89 As a recent critique, see Anthony A. Long, ‘Stoicism in the Philosophical Tradition: Spinoza, Lipsius, Butler’, in Hellenistic and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Jon Miller - Brad Inwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 7-29. 90 I thank Clare Felton Hirai, Kuni Sakamoto and Jan Papy for their help in the preparation of the present study whose original version appeared as ‘L’âme du monde chez Juste Lipse entre théologie cosmique romaine et prisca theologia renaissante’, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 93 (2009), 251-273. 87 79 KONINKLIJKE VLAAMSE ACADEMIE VAN BELGIE VOOR WETENSCHAPPEN EN KUNSTEN JUSTUS LIPSIUS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY 30 November 2007 Hiro Hirai and Jan Papy CONTACTFORUM Handelingen van het contactforum “Justus Lipsius and Natural Philosophy” (30 november 2007, hoofdaanvrager: Prof. dr. Fernand Hallyn, Universiteit Gent) gesteund door de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten. Afgezien van het afstemmen van het lettertype en de alinea’s op de richtlijnen voor de publicatie van de handelingen heeft de Academie geen andere wijzigingen in de tekst aangebracht. De inhoud, de volgorde en de opbouw van de teksten zijn de verantwoordelijkheid van de hoofdaanvrager (of editors) van het contactforum. KONINKLIJKE VLAAMSE ACADEMIE VAN BELGIE VOOR WETENSCHAPPEN EN KUNSTEN Paleis der Academiën Hertogsstraat 1 1000 Brussel Niets uit deze uitgave mag worden verveelvoudigd en/of openbaar gemaakt door middel van druk, fotokopie, microfilm of op welke andere wijze ook zonder voorafgaande schriftelijke toestemming van de uitgever. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photo print, microfilm or any other means without written permission from the publisher. Printed by Universa Press, 9230 Wetteren, Belgium © Copyright 2011 KVAB D/2011/0455/?? ISSN 978 90 6569 ??? ? KONINKLIJKE VLAAMSE ACADEMIE VAN BELGIE VOOR WETENSCHAPPEN EN KUNSTEN Justus Lipsius and Natural Philosophy TABLE OF CONTENTS Lipsius’ Stoic Physics and the Neostoic Reading of the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan Papy La physique de Lipse comme métaphysique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jacqueline Lagrée Justus Lipsius and the Notion of oἰκείωσις: A Note on the Early Modern Notion of Self-Preservation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guido Giglioni Principe, élément ou qualité: le problème du feu dans la physique stoïcienne de Juste Lipse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bernard Joly Justus Lipsius on the World-Soul between Roman Cosmic Theology and Renaissance Prisca Theologia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hiro Hirai Les enjeux de la cosmobiologie à la fin de la Renaissance: Juste Lipse et Giordano Bruno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gianni Paganini Eclecticism as Seneca’s Heritage: Evil and the Cosmic Cycle in Justus Lipsius . . . . . . . Kuni Sakamoto 9 19 33 53 63 81 97 Francis Bacon and Justus Lipsius: Natural Philosophy, Natural Theology and the Stoic Discipline of the Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Dana Jalobeanu 5