The Sleepwalkers (41 page)

This
danger
was
further
diminished
when,
in
A.D.
999,
Gerbert,
the
most
accomplished
classical
scholar,
geometer,
musician
and
astronomer
of
his
age,
ascended
the
papal
throne
as
Sylvester
II.
He
died
four
years
later,
but
the
impression
that
the
"magician
Pope"
made
on
the
world
was
so
powerful
that
he
soon
became
a
legend.
Though
he
was
an
exceptional
individual,
far
in
advance
of
his
age,
his
papacy,
at
the
symbolical
date
A.D.
1000,
nevertheless
marks
the
end
of
the
darkest
period
of
the
Middle
Ages,
and
a
gradual
change
of
attitude
toward
the
pagan
science
of
antiquity.
From
now
onward,
the
spherical
shape
of
the
earth,
and
its
position
in
the
centre
of
space,
surrounded
by
the
spheres
of
the
planets,
became
again
respectable.
What
is
more,
several
manuscripts
from
approximately
the
same
period
show
that
the
"Aegyptian"
system
of
Herakleides
(where
Mercury
and
Venus
are
satellites
of
the
sun)
had
been
rediscovered,
and
that
elaborate
drawings
of
the
planetary
orbits
were
circulating
among
the
initiates.
But
they
did
not
make
any
noticeable
impression
on
the
dominant
philosophy
of
the
age.

Thus
by
the
eleventh
century
A.D.,
a
view
of
the
universe
had
been
achieved
roughly
corresponding
to
that
of
the
fifth
century
B.C.
It
had
taken
the
Greeks
some
two
hundred
and
fifty
years
to
progress
from
Pythagoras
to
Aristarchus'
heliocentric
system;
it
took
Europe
more
than
twice
that
time
to
achieve
the
corresponding
progress
from
Gerbert
to
Copernicus.
The
Greeks,
once
they
had
recognized
that
the
earth
was
a
ball
floating
in
space,
had
almost
at
once
set
that
ball
in
motion;
the
Middle
Ages
hastily
froze
it
into
immobility
at
the
centre
of
a
rigid
cosmic
hierarchy.
It
was
not
the
logic
of
science,
not
rational
thought
that
determined
the
shape
of
the
next
development,
but
a
mythological
concept
which
symbolized
the
needs
of
the
age:
the
tabernacular
universe
was
succeeded
by
the
universe
of
the
Golden
Chain.

II THE
WALLED-IN
UNIVERSE

1.
The Scale of Being

IT
was
a
walled-in
universe
like
a
walled-in
medieval
town.
In
the
centre
lies
the
earth,
dark,
heavy,
and
corrupt,
surrounded
by
the
concentric
spheres
of
the
moon,
sun,
planets
and
stars
in
an
ascending
order
of
perfection,
up
to
the
sphere
of
the
primum
mobile,
and
beyond
that
the
Empyrean
dwelling
of
God.

But
in
the
hierarchy
of
values,
which
is
attached
to
this
hierarchy
in
space,
the
original
simple
division
into
sub-lunary
and
supra-lunary
regions
has
now
yielded
to
an
infinite
number
of
sub-divisions.
The
original,
basic
difference
between
coarse,
earthly
mutability
and
ethereal
permanence
is
maintained;
but
both
regions
are
sub-divided
in
such
a
manner
that
the
result
is
a
continuous
ladder,
or
graded
scale,
which
stretches
from
God
down
to
the
lowliest
form
of
existence.
In
a
passage,
frequently
quoted
throughout
the
Middle
Ages,
Macrobius
sums
up
the
idea:

"Since,
from
the
Supreme
God
Mind
arises,
and
from
Mind,
Soul,
and
since
this
in
turn
creates
all
subsequent
things
and
fills
them
all
with
life
...
and
since
all
things
follow
in
continuous
succession,
degenerating
in
sequence
to
the
very
bottom
of
the
series,
the
attentive
observer
will
discover
a
connection
of
parts,
from
the
Supreme
God
down
to
the
last
dregs
of
things,
mutually
linked
together
and
without
a
break.
And
this
is
Homer's
Golden
Chain,
which
God,
he
says,
bade
hang
down
from
heaven
to
earth."
¹

Macrobius
echoes
the
Neoplatonist
"theory
of
emanations"
which
goes
back
to
Plato
Timaeus
.
The
One,
the
Most
Perfect
Being
"cannot
remain
shut
up
in
itself";
it
must
"overflow"
and
create
the
World
of
Ideas,
which
in
turn
creates
a
copy
or
image
of
itself
in
the
Universal
Soul,
which
generates
"the
sentient
and
vegetative
creatures"
–
and
so
on
in
a
descending
series,
to
the
"last
dregs
of
things".
It
is
still
a
process
of
degeneration
by
descent,
the
very
opposite
of
the
evolutionary
idea;
but
since
every
created
being
is
ultimately
an
emanation
of
God,
partaking
of
His
essence
in
a
measure
diminishing
with
distance,
the
soul
will
always
strive
upward,
to
its
source.