Between Aquinas and Eymerich: The Roman Inquisition’s Use of Dominican Thought in the Censorship of Alchemy

Abstract

In the latter half of the sixteenth century the Roman Inquisition developed criteria to prosecute a series of operative arts, including various forms of divination and magic. Its officials had little interest in alchemy. During that period the Roman Inquisition tried few people for practising alchemy, and it was rarely discussed in official documents. Justifications for prosecuting alchemists did exist, however. In his influential handbook, Directorium inquisitorum, the fourteenth-century inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich had developed a clear rationale for the investigation and prosecution of alchemists as heretics. His position was endorsed in the 1570s by Francisco Peña in his commentary on Eymerich’s handbook. In this article I explore the reasons why alchemy held this ambiguous status. I argue that members of the Dominican Order developed two traditions of thinking about alchemy from Aquinas’s thought. The first, and closest to Aquinas’s own belief, held that alchemy was a natural art that posed no danger to the Christian faith. The second, developed by Eymerich from a selective reading of Aquinas’s writings, indicated specific circumstances in which alchemists could be investigated. The Roman Inquisition’s response to alchemy vacillated between the positions advocated by Aquinas and Eymerich.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to my co-editors – Andrew Campbell and Lorenza Gianfrancesco – for carefully reading earlier drafts of this essay, and to our fellow contributors Peter Murray Jones and Justin Rivest for their comments on an early draft. I also wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and helpful comments.

Notes on contributor

Neil Tarrant is a temporary lecturer in the Department of History at the University of York. His research focuses on the ecclesiastical censorship of science in early modern Italy. He has published on the censorship of science and magic in sixteenth-century Italy, the thought of the Italian heretic Francesco Pucci, and Italian historical writings in the period 1850–1950. Address: Department of History, University of York, Vanbrugh College, York YO10 5DD, UK. Email: [email protected].

Notes

1 Ugo Baldini and Leen Spruit, Catholic Church and Modern Science Volume 1 XVIth Century Documents, 4 tomes (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2009). For further discussion see Neil Tarrant, “Censoring Science in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Recent (and Not-So-Recent) Research,” History of Science 52 (2014): 1–27.

2 Baldini and Spruit, Catholic Church and Modern Science, tome 1, 419–23.

3 Zachary A. Matus, “Alchemy and Chemistry in the Middle Ages,” History Compass 10 (2012): 934–45, on 939.

4 Martha Baldwin, “Alchemy and the Society of Jesus: Strange Bedfellows?,” Ambix 40 (1993): 41–64, on 43–45.

5 Chiara Crisciani, Il papa e l’alchimia: Felice V, Guglielmo Fabri e l’elixir (Rome: Viella, 2002), 43–54.

6 William R. Newman, “Technology and Alchemical Debate in the Late Middle Ages,” Isis 80 (1989): 423–45; William R. Newman, Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), chapter 2; William R. Newman, “Art, Alchemy, and Demons: The Case of the Malleus maleficarum and Its Medieval Sources,” in The Artificial and the Natural: An Evolving Polarity, ed. Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and William R. Newman (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2007), 109–33.

7 Neil Tarrant, “Giambattista Della Porta and the Roman Inquisition: Censorship and the Definition of Nature’s Limits in Late Sixteenth-Century Italy,” British Journal for the History of Science 46 (2013): 601–25.

8 For a brief biography of Peña and his role in the Congregation of the Index, see the biographical vademecum in Baldini and Spruit, Catholic Church and Science, vol. 1, tome 4, 2905–06.

9 For a concise overview of the development of alchemy see Lawrence M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2013), chapters 1–3.

10 First Lateran Council, canon 15, in Rev. H. J. Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils: Texts, Translation, and Commentary (St Louis and London: B. Herder Book Co., 1937), 543: “Quicumque monetam falsam scienter fecerit aut studiose expenderit, tanquam maledictus et pauperum virorum oppressor, nec non civitas turbator, a fidelium consortio separetur.”

11 Newman, “Technology and Alchemical Debate,” 425.

12 For a discussion of the origins and use of the Sciant artifices by medieval Christian and Muslim authors see Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 36–43; Newman, “Technology and Alchemical Debate,” 427–33; Principe, Secrets of Alchemy, 58–62.

13 Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 44–50; the quotation from Albertus is Newman’s translation, on 46.

14 On Albertus and alchemy see: J. R. Partington, “Albertus Magnus on Alchemy,” Ambix 1 (1937): 3–20; Pearl Kibre, “Alchemical Writings Attributed to Albertus Magnus,” Speculum 17 (1942): 499–518; Pearl Kibre, “Albertus Magnus on Alchemy,” in Albertus Magnus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays, ed. James A. Weisheipl (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980), 187–202.

15 Newman, “Technology and Alchemical Debate,” 431–33.

16 Aquinas, Super sententiis, lib. 2. d. 7.

17 Aquinas, Super sententiis, lib. 2. d. 7 q. 3. a. 1 co.: “Daemones virtute propria nullam formam in materiam influere possunt, nec accidentalem nec substantialem.”

18 Aquinas, Super sententiis, lib. 2. d. 7 q. 3. a. 1 co.

19 Aquinas, Summa theologica, II^a–IIae q. 11.

20 Aquinas, Summa theologica, II^a–IIae q. 81 a. 5 co.; on virtue observing a mean see I^a–IIae q. 64 a. 1 co.

21 On superstition see Aquinas, Summa theologica, II^a–IIae, q. 92 a. 1 co.: “Sic igitur superstitio est vitium religioni oppositum secundum excessum, non quia plus exhibeat in cultum divinum quam vera religio, sed quia exhibet cultum divinum vel cui non debet, veleo modo quo non debet.”

22 Aquinas, Summa theologica, II^a–IIae, q. 92 a. 2 co.

23 Aquinas, Summa theologica, II^a–IIae, qq. 93–96.

24 For further discussion see Tarrant, “Giambattista Della Porta and the Roman Inquisition,” 609–12.

25 Aquinas, Summa theologica, I^a q. 114 a. 4 ad. 2: “sed possunt adhibere quaedem semina quae in elementis mundi inveniuntur, ad huius modi effectus complendos; ut Augustinus dicit III De trinitate.”

26 Augustine De trinitate, III. 8. For further discussion of Augustine, seeds, and alchemy see Barbara Obrist, “L’art de l’alchimiste, du peintre et du sculptuer face à la nature: du moyen âge à la ‘revolution scientifique’,” in Alchimies: Occident-Orient, ed. Claire Kappler and Suzanne Thiolier-Méjean (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006), 15–44, on 26.

27 Aquinas, Summa theologica, I^a q. 114 a. 4 ad. 2: “Ideo dicendum est quod omnes transmutationes corporalium rerum, quae possunt fieri per aliquas virtutes naturales, ad quas pertinent praedicta semina, possunt fieri per operations demonum, huiusmodi seminibus adhibitis; sicut cum aliquae res transmutantur in serpents vel ranas, quae per putrefactionem genari possunt.”

28 Aquinas, Summa theologica, I^a q. 114 a. 4 ad. 2.

29 Aquinas, Summa theologica, II^a–IIae q. 77. a. 2. ad. 1: “quae non convenient in auro sophisticato”; “veram speciem non habeat auri et argenti.”

30 Aquinas, Summa theologica, II^a–II^ae q. 77 a. 2. ad. 1: “Si autem per alchimiam fieret aurum verum, non esset illicitum ipsum pro vero vendere, quia nihil prohibet artem uti aliquibus naturalibus causis ad producendum naturales et veros effectus; sicut Augustinus dicit, in III De trinitate, de his quae arte Daemonum fiunt.”

31 Recent research has questioned whether the Cathars genuinely constituted an organised group of heretics awaiting discovery. See for example Mark Gregory Pegg, A Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); R.I. Moore, The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe (London: Profile Books, 2012).

32 For a discussion of the factors driving the Dominicans’ participation in inquisition, see Christine Caldwell Ames, Righteous Persecution: Inquisition, Dominicans and Christianity in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).

33 For a discussion of the development of the Inquisition, see Edward Peters, Inquisition (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), chapters 1–2; Andrea del Col, L’inquisizione in Italia, dal XII al XXI secolo (Milan: Mondadori, 2006), part 1. On the institutionalisation of the Office of Inquisitor see Richard Kieckefer, “The Office of the Inquisition and Medieval Heresy: The Transition from Personal to Institutional Jurisdiction,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 46 (1995): 36–61.

34 For a discussion of inquisitorial handbooks see L. J. Sackville, “The Inquisitor’s Manual at Work,” Viator 44 (2013): 201–16. An English translation of the Ordo processus narbonensis is available in Walter L. Wakefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France, 1100–1250 (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1974), 250–58; for the Summa de Catharis et Pauperibus de Lugduno see Walter L. Wakefield and Austin P. Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 329–46.

35 Corpus iuris canonici (Rome, 1582), lib. 5. 2. 8, col. 622: “nisi haeresim saparent manifeste.”

36 Corpus iuris canonici, lib. 5. 2. 8, col. 622: “in sicut est circa aras idolorum nefarias preces emittere, sacrificia offerre, daemones consulere, eorum responsa suscipere. 26 q. 2. hi qui. & q. 4. igitur. vel associant sibi propter sortes exercendas haereticos. vel faciant praedicta cum corpore vel sanguine Christi, vel in sortibus ut possint habere respo[ns]a, puerum rebaptizant. vel his similia.”

37 Spondent quas non exhibitent in Liber sextus decretalium d. Bonifacii Papae VIII Clementis Papae V Constitutiones, Extravagantes tum viginti d Ioannis Papae XXII tum communes (Lyons, 1584), col. 332: “suae ignorantiae conscii … ut tandem quod non est in rerum natura, esse verum aurum vel argentum sophistica transmutatione confingant.”

38 For the text of the letters see Joseph Hansen, Quellen und Untersuchungenzur Geschichte de Hexenwahns und der Hexenverfolgungim Mittelalter (Bonn: Carl Georgi, Universitäts-Burchdruckerei und Verlag, 1901), 4.

39 Richard Kieckhefer estimated that in the period 1300–1330 there were as few as one trial for magic per year across Europe in every type of court. See European Witch Trials: Their Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300–1500 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976), 10.

40 Bernard Gui, Practica inquisitionis heretice pravitatis, ed. C. Douais (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1886), 292–93. For further discussion of Gui’s text see James Given, Inquisition and Medieval Society: Power, Discipline, and Resistance in Languedoc (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997), 46; Sackville, “Inquisitor’s Manuals,” 210.

41 Hansen, Quellen, 5: “ad infligendas poenas omnes et singulas, praetor bonorum confiscationem dumtaxat, quas de iure merentur heretici.” For a discussion of the context in which the bull was produced see Alain Boureau, Satan the Heretic: The Birth of Demonology in the Medieval West, trans. Teresa Lavender Fagan (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2006); Michael D. Bailey, Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies: The Boundaries of Superstition in Late Medieval Europe (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2013).

42 Nicholas Eymerich, Directorium inquisitorum (Rome, 1587), Pars II, qq. 42–43, fols. 234–41.

43 Eymerich, Directorium, fols. 236–240, Super illius specula cited on fols. 239–40.

44 Eymerich, Directorium, fols. 234–35, quotation on fol. 234: “quae quidem sapiunt haeresim manifeste.”

45 Eymerich, Directorium, Pars III, fol. 295: “nam quando non possunt pertingere ad finem intentum, daemonis auxilium quaerunt, invocant & implora[n]t & implorando obsecrant & sacrificant tacite, vel expresse.”

46 For a survey of recent literature on the observant movement see James D. Mixson, “Religious Life and Observant Reform in the Fifteenth Century,” History Compass 11 (2013): 201–14; and on observant movement in the Dominican Order, see Robin Vose, “The Dominican Order in Late Medieval and Early Modern History,” History Compass 11 (2013): 967–82. See also the essays in James Mixson and Bert Roest, A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015), especially Michael D. Bailey “Reformers on Sorcery and Superstition,” 230–54.

47 On Nider and the Formicarius see Michael D. Bailey, Battling Demons: Witchcraft, Heresy, and Reform in the Late Middle Ages (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), in particular chapter 5.

48 Johannes Nider, Praeceptorium divinae legis, sive Expositione decalogi (Paris, 1474), 1.11. A.: “quis aut occulta, aut futura i[n]vestigare nitit[ur] p[er] pacta aut occulta, aut manifesta inita cu[m] demonibus.”

49 Nider, Praeceptorium, 1.11.7: “An veru[m] sit quod malefici possint facere vera a[n]i[m]alia arte suas.”; 1.11.8: “An op[er]e demonu[m] tra[n]sformat[i]o[n]es p[ossu]nt fieri ho[m]ine[m] in bestias.”

50 Nider, Praeceptorium, 1.11.8. Since Nider’s text differs slightly from the version of Aquinas cited in n. 28 above, I have included the passage here: “Dicit t[ame]n Tho[mas] p[ar]te p[ri]ma q. cxiiii. Ar. Iiii. Q[uo]d om[n]es tra[n]smutationes corp[or]arliu[m] rer[um], q[uae] possunt fieri p[er] aliquas v[ir]tutes naturales, ad quas p[er]tinent semina q[ui] in eleme[n]tis huius mu[n]di inveniu[n]t[ur], po[ssu]nt fieri p[er] op[er]ationes demonu[m], h[uius] mo[d]i semi[n]ibus adhibitis.”

51 Nider, Praeceptorium, 1.11.7 and 8.

52 Christopher S. Mackay, The Hammer of Witches: A Complete Translation of the Malleus Maleficarum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 1, q. 5, on 145–46; c.f.: Aquinas, Summa theologica II^a–II^ae q. 95 a. 5. On talismans see Hammer 1 q. 2 ag. 8 and ra. 8, on 108 and 118.

53 Mackay, Hammer of Witches, part 1, q 1, 91–105, quotation on 96.

54 Mackay, Hammer of Witches, 1, q. 1, 92–105. For a contrasting interpretation of this passage see Newman, “Art, Alchemy, and Demons,” especially 110–17 and 127.

55 On the formation of the Roman Inquisition see Christopher Black, The Italian Inquisition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009) chapters 1–2; Peters, Inquisition, chapter 4; Del Col, Inquisizione, part 2.

56 On the inquisition of magic in late fifteenth-century Italy, see Michael M. Tavuzzi, Renaissance Inquisitors: Dominican Inquisitors and Inquisitorial Districts in Northern Italy, 1474–1527 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007), chapter 5; on the period after 1542, see Ruth Martin, Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1550–1650 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989); Jonathan Seitz, Witchcraft and Inquisition in Early Modern Venice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

57 For the Indices of 1559 and 1564 see Index des livres interdits, ed. Jesús Martínez de Bujanda (Sherbrooke: Centre d’études de la Renaissance, Université de Sherbrooke, 1990), vol. 8.

58 On the Tolentino case see Baldini and Spruit, Catholic Church and Modern Science, vol. 1, tome 1 “Alchemy,” docs. 1–4, especially doc. 2, “Pedro de Lunel, Bishop of Gaeta, to Scipione Rebiba Cardinal of Pisa, in Rome (Gaeta, 21 June 1574),” 425–26: “in uno pretende, che la materia prima fu prodotta da Dio, e non creata da donde inferisce che eternamente rimane … Demone in forma di huomo negro, ma con corona sul capo.”

59 On the Inquisition and the regulation of knowledge claims about the natural world, see Francesco Beretta, “Orthodoxie philosophique et inquisition romaine au 16e–17e siècles. Un essai d’interprétation,” Historia philosophica 3 (2005): 67–96.

60 Francisco Peña, In tres partes Directorii Inquisitorum Nicolai Eymerici Scholiorum, seu Adnotationum (Rome, 1578), fol. 143: “Nam cum multi vera arte destituti, mirailla opera, de quibus diximus, fabricare non possent, ad demones confugerunt, qui haec illos docerent.” For a more detailed discussion of Peña’s account of natural magic see Tarrant, “Giambattista Della Porta,” 620–21.

61 Peña, Scholiorum, fol. 144: “Non est contemnendum hoc Eymerici consilium adversus Alchimistas, quod verum esse multis posset exemplis comprobari. Nam ut ceteros omittam, Arnaldum Villanovam scimus Alchimistam, magnum fuisse haereticum, et daemonum invocatorem.”

62 Peña, Scholiorum, fol. 144: “verior ettutior sente[n]tia eorum est, qui inutilem et reipublicae perniciosam esse fatentur.”

63 Peña, Scholiorum, fol. 144: “ne quis prorsus improbabilem esse credat hanc Eymerici sententiam.”

64 Peña, Scholiorum, fol. 144: “gravissimas poenas illis imponit, qui alchimitum aurum, vel argentum, aut monetam ex illis confectam vendunt: nam hae transformations sophisticate sunt, non verae, ut optime scribit ibi Romanus Pontifex.”