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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2016
The Earthly Paradise was a favorite topic of medieval theologians, philosophers, poets, and artists. Drawn as much from the biblical paradisus voluptatis (Gen. 2:8–14) and hortus conclusus (Song of Sol. 4:12) as from Greek and Roman accounts of a locus amoenus, the general outlines of paradise were well established by the patristic period: it is a garden or garden-like natural place, on Earth but set aside by God, perfect in every attribute, wholly uncorrupted, temperate in its climate, gently watered by rivers and fountains, ever fertile in its soil, rich in fruits and beasts of every kind; its inhabitants do not experience exertion, passion, illness, pain, or shame; in short, it is a place free of the consequences of sin. These attributes were frequently applied to both the Garden of Eden enjoyed by the first parents and the Heaven enjoyed by the blessed after death, so “paradise” could be understood in both terrestrial and celestial forms, overlapping spiritually and materially.
1 Studies abound of ancient and medieval conceptions of paradise. An enlightening popular introduction is Delumeau, Jean, The History of Paradise: The Garden of Eden in Myth and Tradition , trans. O'Connell, Matthew (Champaign, IL, 2000). Although concerned primarily with cartography, Alessandro Scafi's Mapping Paradise: A History of Heaven on Earth (Chicago, 2006), is more thorough and detailed in its sources.Google Scholar This essay was presented in the University of Tennessee Marco Institute seminar series “Medieval Frontiers” in 2011, and has benefitted from the comments and support of the faculty and students attending, especially Thomas Burman, Jay Ruben-stein, and Mary Dzon. I am also grateful for the comments and suggestions of the anonymous readers of Traditio. Google Scholar
2 On the relation of paradise to the locus amoenus, see Curtius, E. R., European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages , trans. Trask, W. R. (New York, 1953), 195–200; and Bartlett Giamatti, A., The Earthly Paradise and the Renaissance Epic (Princeton, 1967), 11–86.Google Scholar
3 Comestor, Petrus, Scolastica historia, Liber Genesis 14, lines 14–16, ed. Sylwan, Agneta, CCM 191 (Turnhout, 2005), 29, “Est etiam paradisus celum empyreum et dicitur spiritualis, quia et regio est spirituum. Dicitur etiam spiritualiter paradisus uita beata uel ecclesia.” Anderson, Heather J., in “The Terrestrial Paradise: A Study in the ‘Intermediacy’ and Multi-levelled Nature of the Medieval Garden of Eden” (PhD diss., SUNY-Buffalo, 1973), argues that Eden must be understood as a halfway point between the Earth and Heaven, sharing attributes of both places.Google Scholar
4 Lozovsky, Natalia, “The Earth is our Book”: Geographical Knowledge in the Latin West ca. 400–1000 (Ann Arbor, MI, 2000), 59. My composite picture of paradise is based primarily on Books 8 and 9 of St. Augustine's The Literal Meaning of Genesis , trans. Hammond, John Taylor, 2 vols. (New York, 1982), 2:32–95.Google Scholar
5 Enoch: Gen. 5:24 and Heb. 11:5; Elijah: 4 Kings 2:1, 11. Cf. Comestor, Petrus, Scolastica historia, Liber Genesis 25, lines 43–45 (ed. Sylwan, , 47), “Ablatus enim fuit ad tempus intrantibus Helya et Enoch, penitus uero non donec in morte Christi fuit extinctus.” Google Scholar
6 For general overviews of journeys to paradise, see Dronke, Peter, Imagination in the Late Pagan and Early Christian World: The First Nine Centuries AD (Florence, 2003), 132–42, and Graf, Arturo, Miti, leggende e superstizioni del Medio Evo, 2 vols. (Turin, 1892–93), 1:73–126. On the Alexandri Magni iter ad paradisum, see Delumeau, , History of Paradise, 46, and Cary, George, The Medieval Alexander , ed. Ross, D. J. A. (Cambridge, 1956), 19–20. For other versions of Alexander's journey to paradise, see Lascelles, Mary, “Alexander and the Earthly Paradise in Medieval English Writings,” Medium Aevum 5 (1936): 31–47, 79–104, 172–88. Delumeau, (History of Paradise, 49) also discusses paradise in the Gospel of Nicodemus, which tells the story of the elderly Adam sending his son to the Earthly Paradise to find some healing oil. The angel at the gates of Eden gives him instead an “oil of mercy” that allows Adam to die in peace.Google Scholar
7 William of Auvergne, De universo Iae-Ia, cap. 58 (Guilielmi Alverniensis episcopi Parisiensis … Opera omnia, 2 vols. [Paris, 1674], 1:675): “Ego autem dico hic, quia locus paradisi non est habitatio congruens hominibus pro statu, in quo modo sunt, et hoc est, quoniam delitiae corporales valde noxiae sunt animabus humanis. Inebriant enim illas, et alienant a veritate, et rectitudine, et inducunt eas in oblivionem creatoris, et illaqueant eas, atque captivant, et inducunt eas in servitutem omnimodae corruptionis.” Translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.Google Scholar
8 See Scafi, , Mapping Paradise , 125–79, where he briefly looks at William of Auvergne's comments on the Earthly Paradise (171–72). For a nuanced exploration of the function of paradise in medieval cartography, see Akbari, Suzanne Conklin, “The Shape of the World,” in Idols in the East: European Representations of Islam and the Orient, 1100–1450 (Ithaca, NY, 2009), 20–66.Google Scholar
9 Nadia Tazi offers a curious and lyric meditation on these tensions among early Christian writers in “Celestial Bodies: A Few Stops on the Way to Heaven,” in Fragments for a History of the Human Body , part 2, ed. Feher, Michel (New York, 1989), 518–52. The most thorough study of this topic is by Bynum, Caroline Walker, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York, 1995).Google Scholar
10 Gilson, Etienne, Elements of Christian Philosophy (Garden City, NY, 1960), 11; Teske, Roland J., “William of Auvergne's Arguments for the Newness of the World,” Mediaevalia: Textos e Estudios 7–8 (1995): 287–302, repr. Teske, , Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne (Milwaukee, 2006), 145–59.Google Scholar
11 On William's use of Avicenna, see d'Alverny, Marie-Thérèse, Avicenne en Occident (Paris, 1993), II, XVI; and Teske, Roland J., “William of Auvergne's Debt to Avicenna,” in Avicenna and His Heritage , ed. Janssens, Jules and Smet, Daniel De (Leuven, 2002), 153–70, repr. Teske, , Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne, 217–37.Google Scholar
12 On the first four authors, see Teske, Roland J., “William of Auvergne's use of the Avicennian Principle: ‘Ex uno, In quantum unum, Non nisi unum,’” Modern Schoolman 71 (1993): 1–15, at 3, repr. Teske, , Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne, 101–19, at 103. William, cites Avicebron in his De universo IIae-Ia, cap. 33 (Opera omnia 1:834), as discussed by Marrone, Steven P., William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste: New Ideas of Truth in the Early Thirteenth Century (Princeton, 1983), 47. William also admired Albategni, who is discussed below.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 “Parmi les clercs, il convient de distinguer d'une part, les théologiens, et d'autre part ceux que nous pouvons nommer, au sens large, les savants, professeurs des facultés des Arts, médecins, amateurs des sciences de la nature, qui lisent Aristote et les philosophes arabes, ainsi que les traités de mathématiques, d'astronomie, de médecine traduits au XIIe et au XIIIe siècles. Leur attitude vis-à-vis du monde islamique est différente, quoiqui'il arrive que le même homme se place successivement sur les deux plans.” d'Alverny, Marie-Thérèse, “La connaissance de l'Islam au temps de Saint Louis,” in d'Alverny, , La connaissance de l'Islam dans l'Occident médiévale (Aldershot, 1994; originally published 1976), VI, 235–46, at 236.Google Scholar
14 Paradise Interpreted: Representations of Biblical Paradise in Judaism and Christianity , ed. Luttikhuizen, Gerard P. (Leiden, 1999); Paradise in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Views, ed. Markus Bockmuehl and Guy G. Stroumsa (Cambridge, 2010).Google Scholar
15 St. Augustine, , The Literal Meaning of Genesis , trans. Taylor, John Hammond, 2 vols. (New York, 1982), 2:33.Google Scholar
16 Sancti Aureli Augustini de Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim , ed. Zycha, Joseph, CSEL 28 (Vienna, 1894), 1–435 (Book 8 at 229–67 and Book 12 at 379–435); Augustine, , The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 2:32–69 and 2:178–231. For summaries of Augustine's exposition of multiple paradises, see Kabir, Ananya Jahanara, Paradise, Death and Doomsday in Anglo-Saxon Literature (Cambridge, 2001), 23–30; and Scafi, , Mapping Paradise (n. 1 above), 36–41. On the bosom of Abraham in relation to Paul's vision of the third heaven, see Tabor, James D., Things Unutterable: Paul's Ascent to Paradise in its Greco-Roman, Judaic, and Early Christian Contexts (Lanham, MD, 1986), and Hilhorst, A., “A Visit to Paradise: Apocalypse of Paul 45 and Its Background,” in Luttikhuizen, Paradise Interpreted, 128–39.Google Scholar
17 Augustine, , De Genesi ad litteram 12, cap. 28 (ed. Zycha, , 422–23; trans. Taylor, , 2:219–20): “And why should not the name ‘paradise’ be given to this also, as well as to that place where Adam lived in the body among the shade trees and the fruit trees? For the Church also, who gathers us into the bosom of her charity, is called a paradise with the fruit of the orchard. But this was said figuratively on the ground that the Church was signified, through a figure of what was to come, by that Paradise where Adam actually was.” Google Scholar
18 On the reality of allegory to medieval theologians, see Russell, Jeffrey Burton, A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence (Princeton, 1997), 3–17.Google Scholar
19 For patristic treatments of paradise, see Daniélou, Jean, “Terre et paradis chez les Pères de l'Eglise,” Eranos Jahrbuch 22 (1953–54): 432–72; and Grimm, Reinhold R., Paradisus coelestis, Paradisus terrestris: Zur Auslegungsgeschichte des Paradieses im Abendland bis um 1200 (Munich, 1977), 22–71.Google Scholar
20 Delumeau, , History of Paradise (n. 1 above), 18–21.Google Scholar
21 Grimm, , Paradisus coelestis, Paradisus terrestris , 147–70.Google Scholar
22 E.g., Gilbert de la Porrée, writing in the 1140s, and his followers, the Porretani. See Häring, N. M., “Die Sententie Magistri Gisleberti Pictavensis Episcopi (II): Die Version der Florentiner Handschrift,” Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 46 (1979): 45–105, in his section “De creatione hominis” XIII:48–76 (101–5).Google Scholar
23 For example, Ziegler, Joseph, “Medicine and Immortality in Terrestrial Paradise,” in Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages , ed. Biller, Peter and Ziegler, Joseph (York, 2001), 201–42.Google Scholar
24 Lombard, Peter, Sentences II.17.5; The Sentences: Book 2; On Creation , trans. Silano, Giulio (Toronto, 2008), 74.Google Scholar
25 Aquinas, Thomas, Treatise on Human Nature: The Complete Text (Summa Theologiae I, Questions 75–102) , trans. Freddoso, Alfred J. (South Bend, IN, 2010), 239–339.Google Scholar
26 William's natural philosophy has been outlined in detail by Quentin, Albrecht, Naturkenntnisse und Naturanschauungen bei Wilhelm von Auvergne , Arbor Scientiarum 5 (Hildesheim, 1976).Google Scholar
27 Marrone, , William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste (n. 12 above), 25–134; Autour de Guillaume d'Auvergne (†1249) , ed. Morenzoni, Franco and Tilliette, Jean-Yves (Turnhout, 2005); see also the many essays of Teske, Roland J., reprinted in his Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne (Milwaukee, 2006); and de Mayo, Thomas B., The Demonology of William of Auvergne: By Fire and Sword (Lewiston, 2007). The only extended biography of William is still that of Noël Valois, Guillaume d'Auvergne, évêque de Paris (1228–1249): sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris, 1880). For a more recent, brief biography see Teske, , “William of Auvergne: An Overview,” in his Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne (n. 10 above), 17–28.Google Scholar
28 The English title of the work, and more details on its history, come from the introduction to William of Auvergne, The Universe of Creatures , trans. Teske, Roland J. (Milwaukee, 1998), 13–17.Google Scholar
29 Marrone, , William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste , 28–31; Wippel, John F., Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II (Washington, DC, 2007), 31–64.Google Scholar
30 Scafi, , Mapping Paradise (n. 1 above), 47–49.Google Scholar
31 William of Auvergne, De legibus , cap. 19, in Opera omnia 1:54, quoted and translated in Teske, , “William of Auvergne's Debt to Avicenna,” 156, repr. in Teske, , Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne, 220.Google Scholar
32 The annotator scornfully says of Muhammad in the margin of Paris, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, MS lat. 1162, “Notice that everywhere he promises a paradise … of carnal delights”; translated by Burman, Thomas in Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, c. 1050–1200 (Leiden, 1994), 85 and n. 172.Google Scholar
33 William's, older contemporary Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo (1209–47), wrote with similar concerns about Jewish Talmudic and Midrashic teachings on the Messiah and the afterlife in Book 5 of his Dialogus libri uite (written after Las Navas de Tolosa, 1212), ed. Valverde, Juan Fernández and Antonio, Juan Sola, Estévez, CCM 72C (Turnhout, 1999), 302–53. On this work, see Pick, Lucy K., Conflict and Coexistence: Archbishop Rodrigo and the Muslims and Jews of Medieval Spain (Ann Arbor, 2004), especially 138–64. There is no indication that William knew of Rodrigo's work. Nor is there evidence that William knew the account of the Prophet's night journey (isrā') and visit to paradise, which was translated by 1264 as Liber scalae Machometi, and then into Italian and Castilian, among other vernaculars. See Silverstein, Theodore, “Dante and the Legend of the Mi'rāj: The Problem of the Influence of Islamic Literature of the Otherworld,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 11 (1952): 89–110; 187–97; with recent bibliography in Echavarria, Ana, “Liber scalae Machometi,” in Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History; Volume 4 (1200–1350) , ed. Thomas, David and Mallett, Alex (Leiden, 2012), 4:425–28.Google Scholar
34 Forty-four extant manuscripts of De universo, more than any other of William's works, are listed by Ottman, Jennifer R. in “List of Manuscripts and Editions,” in Autour de Guillaume d'Auvergne , 375–99, at 387–88.Google Scholar
35 William had taught in the schools of Paris in the 1220s, during the Albigensian Crusade, and he helped bring it to its conclusion as a recently elected bishop in 1229. He understood Catharism primarily as Manicheism reborn, as was typical of theologians steeped in Augustinian teaching: Bernstein, Alan E., “William of Auvergne and the Cathars,” in Autour de Guillaume d'Auvergne , 271–89, and de Mayo, , The Demonology of William of Auvergne, 16–19, 33–37, 132–34. See also Teske, Roland J., “William of Auvergne and the Manichees,” Traditio 48 (1993); 63–75; repr. in his Studies in the Philosophy of William of Auvergne (n. 10 above), 81–99.Google Scholar
36 See n. 7 for the Latin.Google Scholar
37 William of Auvergne, De universo Iae-Ia, cap. 56 (Opera omnia 1:674): “Post haec incipiam loqui de paradiso terrestri, quem plantasse Deum ab initio, vel ad orientem, legis Hebraeorum lator idemque propheta aperte dixit. Sunt etiam de eo narrationes historiographorum, sed et testimonia experimentatorum, qui eum se vidisse testati sunt, et posteris tradiderunt.” See also Ziegler, , “Medicine and Immortality in Terrestrial Paradise” (n. 23 above). Ziegler's primary concern is scholastic discussion of the knowledge of medicine in paradise and how this reflected on Adam's immortality. To this end, Ziegler uses only William's chapter on the lignum vitae and its effects on the prelapsarian body: De universo Iae-Ia, cap. 59 (Opera omnia 1:676).Google Scholar
38 De universo Iae-Ia, cap. 56 ( Opera omnia 1:674): “Si quis autem velit credere historiographis, et maxime his, qui de mundi mirabilibus, et velut historiam naturae scripserunt, non mirabitur in extremis partibus orientis, regionem esse tantae amoenitatis, atque vernantiae, ut hortus voluptatis, et paradisus terrestris a tanto propheta, et legislatore merito sit vocata, cum et regionem Sodomorum ante subversionem illam famosam civitatum, quae in ea erant, paradisum vocare propter amoenitatem ejusdem, atque foelicitatem non dubitaverit.” Google Scholar
39 “Sed et si quis attendat ea, quae narrantur ab historiographis, et historiae naturae descriptoribus de amoenitate, et fertilitate quarundam regionum, et locorum, quae in majori India sunt, nobilitatem, etiam arborum, et fructuum, herbarum etiam, et arbustorum: non reputabit incredibile, quidquid vel a propheta, vel ab aliis sapientibus dictum est. Si enim ut aliqui scripserunt, tanta temperies, tantaque clementia aeris est in partibus illis Indiae et tanta terrae, ut ita dicam, nobilitasi quomodo non verisimile est etiam nobiliorem esse regionem, a qua tam nobilia flumina, tam salubres aquae, et tam copiosae manare noscuntur? Scientiae quoque naturalis, et astrorum professores, non tam probabile, quam etiam certum, hoc facile affirmarent, cum isti solem dicant patrem vegetabilium; illi vero Jovem temperantissimum partibus illis praeficiant” (ibid.).Google Scholar
40 Scafi, , Mapping Paradise (n. 1 above), 49–50. Lombard, Peter, Sententiae II, d. 17, cap. 5 (The Sentences: Book Two; On Creation , trans. Silano, , 75), “And so some want paradise to be in the Eastern parts, hidden from the regions inhabited by men by a long intervening stretch of sea or land; and it is placed on high, extending up to the moon's orbit. So it was that the waters of the Flood did not reach there.” Google Scholar
41 William of Auvergne, De universo Iae-Ia, cap. 57 (Opera omnia 1:674–75): “Opiniones vero hominum brevis intellectus, et paucae exercitationis in rebus naturalibus, et doctrinalibus, circa haec errores multos induxerunt, et quaestiones plurimas reliquerunt. Quidam namque dixerunt Paradisum esse regionem a tota terra, quae in medio coeli est, sicut alibi didicisti, longe a tractu terrae, maris, aerisque distantem et usque ad lunarem circulum elevatum. Hoc autem nec natura patitur, nec ratio: primum, quia tantam molem aer sustinere non posset; quare ab initio suae creationis tam ingenti ponderositate corruisset, et totam terram, ac maria concussisset. Amplius: Ista regio esset in igne elemento totaliter. Jam enim patefactum est tibi in his, quae praecesserunt, quia ignis elementum est inter aera, et coelum lunae. Impossibile igitur esset ibi vivere vegetabilia quaecunque….” Google Scholar
42 See the essays in Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages , ed. Biller, Peter and Ziegler, Joseph (York, 2001), especially Ziegler, “Medicine and Immortality in Terrestrial Paradise” (n. 23 above). Contemporary with William (second quarter of the thirteenth century) is a manuscript (Cambridge, Peterhouse College, MS 178) of the so-called “Salernitan Questions” on natural and medical topics. One of the quaestiones is “Why, according to medical theory [phisicam], was Adam placed in Paradise, and why did he sin there?” (Question P35, The Prose Salernitan Questions, Edited from a Bodleian Manuscript [Auct. F. 3. 10] , ed. Lawn, Brian [London, 1979], 220). This is placed immediately after a similarly philosophical treatment of the story of Jacob placing striped sticks in the water for his ewes to bear lambs with striped wool (Gen. 30:37) (Question P34, ibid., 220).Google Scholar
43 William of Auvergne, De universo Iae-Ia, cap. 58 (Opera omnia 1:675): “Multi autem sunt usus, et utilitates regionis illius, lignorumque, et fructuum ejusdem. Et prima, et praecipua utilitas illorum est, quia ut possunt, potentiam, sapientiam, et bonitatem creatoris insinuant, innuunt, et loquuntur; non quidem vocibus audibilibus, sed ipsa veritate bonitatis, pulchritudinis, et mirificentiae, quae causa est, et finis communis creationis omnium, secunda est complementum, atque perfectio universi: si enim deesset, multum detractum esset, non solum perfectioni ipsius, sed etiam decori. Sunt et aliae utilitates, sicut eruditio hominum, et correctio: dum enim audiunt amisisse habitationem tam nobilem, et hoc irrecuperabiliter, erudiri ex hoc debent, et provocari ad obedientiam creatoris, et deterreri a similibus culpis illi, propter quam patria illa haereditas ablata est, et miseriae praesentis exilium irrogatum.” Google Scholar
44 The treatise De providentia is the comparatively short (in thirty-three chapters) third part of the first book of William's De universo, printed in his Opera omnia 1:754–806. Teske, Roland J. has translated this section in The Providence of God Regarding the Universe: Part Three of the First Principal Part of The Universe of Creatures , Medieval Philosophical Texts in Translation 43 (Milwaukee, 2007).Google Scholar
45 William of Auvergne, De universo Iae-Ia, cap. 58 (Opera omnia 1:675): “De hoc vero, quod dicit, quia debuit creator benedictus alios homines in paradiso substituere scilicet incorruptos, quibus habitatio illa delitiarum congrueret. Respondeo, quia meliores, et incorruptiores, quam Adam, et uxor ejus naturaliter fieri non poterant; quare verisimile est, quod idem de illis accideret, quod de Adam, et ejus uxore jam acciderat, et per hanc viam iret res in infinitum.” Cf. Lottin, Odon, Psychologie et morale aux xiie et xiiie siècles, 6 vols. in 7 (Louvain and Gembloux, 1942–60), 5:37; Ziegler, , “Medicine and Immortality in Terrestrial Paradise” (n. 23 above), 209–10; Reynolds, P. L., Food and the Body: Some Peculiar Questions in High Medieval Theology (Leiden, 1999), 29–35.Google Scholar
46 William of Auvergne, De universo Iae-Ia, cap. 58 (Opera omnia 1:675): “Contraria vero delitiarum corporalium purificant, atque clarificant, et abstergunt ab eis crassitudinem, atque rubiginem vitiorum, et malarum passionum; quapropter utilis est multipliciter animabus humanis habitatio respersa miseriis….” Google Scholar
47 “Jam enim innuit tibi, quia delitiae corporales non poterant praedicta nocumenta, vel alia inferre mentibus eorum propter puritatem, et bonitatem, atque fortitudinem naturae ipsorum, quemadmodum vides, quia vinum, licet fortissimum, quosdam ex hominibus inebriare non potest propter bonitatem complexionis ipsorum, bonamque dispositionem capitis eorundem: quosdam autem, licet debilissimum, et ad modicum sumptum, statim inebriat propter mollitiem complexionis ipsorum, et debilitatem capitum eorundem; sic factum est in toto genere humano, postquam natura humana in Adam, et ejus uxore corrupta est, et infirmata; omnes corporales delitiae factae sunt eis in vinum vehementis inebriationis, et in augmentum corruptionis, et aegritudinis ex primis parentibus, Adam scilicet et uxore ejus” (ibid.). In two of his works, William uses instead the metaphors of feet and walking to compare the state of Adam's natural virtues before and after the Fall. He had full use of his natural virtues in paradise, and his soul could “walk” without impediment. Sin crippled the “feet” of his soul, so that his soul walked poorly and weakly, as if with crutches or even wooden legs. He compares the forced practice of “customary virtues” to crutches, which help the crippled soul (or even to an iron hook in place of a lost hand): De legibus, cap. 1 (Opera omnia 1:20); De virtutibus, cap. 10 (Opera omnia 1:130).Google Scholar
48 De legibus (Opera omnia 1:18–102); De virtutibus (Opera omnia 1:102–91), translated in William of Auvergne, On the Virtues: Part One of On the Virtues and Vices , trans. Teske, Roland J. (Milwaukee, 2009). Concerning Islamic exegesis of Qur'an 2:29–37, see Zilio-Grandi, Ida, “Adam's Paradise in the Koran and in the Muslim Exegetical Tradition,” in The Earthly Paradise: The Garden of Eden from Antiquity to Modernity , ed. Regina Psaki, F. and Hindley, Charles (Binghamton, NY, 2002), 75–90.Google Scholar
49 William of Auvergne, On the Virtues (trans. Teske, ), 113–14; Opera omnia 1:131: “Ex hoc etiam manifestum esse tibi debet paradisum carnalem, qualem Macometi perfidia somniavit, esse non posse cum paradiso spirituali: non autem declarabimus, quia nec etiam per se, nec nomen paradisi hujusmodi spurcitiae si possibile esset, aliter ei conveniret, quam sterquilinio, et volutabro paradisum esse porcorum: nulla enim immunditia comparabilis illi paradiso cogitari potest.” Google Scholar
50 William of Auvergne, De universo Iae-Ia, cap. 43 (Opera omnia 1:644): “Glorificandis hominibus ex necessitate danda est habitatio quae congruat gloriae illorum. Quia igitur gloria illorum quantum ad animas simul erit, et aequalis gloriae sanctorum ac beatorum Angelorum, ex necessitate eadem dabitur habitatio eis, quam nunc non obtinens sancti angeli, ac beati. Si igitur verum est, quod habitatio hujusmodi Angelorum empyreum coelum sit, erit similiter habitatio hominum glorificatorum.” Google Scholar
51 On the start of anti-Islamic polemic, which is partially founded on reading genuine Islamic texts, see Tolan, John, “Peter the Venerable on ‘Diabolical Heresy of the Saracens,’” in The Devil, Heresy and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey B. Russell , ed. Ferreiro, Alberto (Leiden, 1998), 345–67, a corrective to James Kritzeck's perhaps too generous portrayal of an irenic Abbot Peter in Peter the Venerable and Islam (Princeton, 1964).Google Scholar
52 William of Auvergne, De legibus , caps. 18–19 (Opera omnia 1:49–52). Summarized by Smith, Lesley, “William of Auvergne and the Law of the Jews and the Muslims,” in Scripture and Pluralism: Reading the Bible in the Religiously Plural Worlds of the Middle Ages and Renaissance , ed. Heffernan, Thomas J. and Burman, Thomas E. (Leiden, 2005), 123–42, at 138–39. De fide has been translated, but not De legibus: William of Auvergne, “On Faith,” in Selected Spiritual Writings: Why God Became Man; On Grace; On Faith, trans. with introduction by Teske, Roland J. (Toronto, 2011), 74–120.Google Scholar
53 William of Auvergne, De legibus , cap. 18 (Opera omnia 1:50): “Nec autem opineris ipsum fuisse Macometum philosophum, qui vocatus est Albategin [sic]; hujus enim librum de astrologia, Plato Tiburtinus ex Arabico eloquio, transtulit in latinum, quae libri illius nobilitas philosophica, atque profunda solum nomen Macometi ipsum habuisse, commune tamen cum homine illo, ne dicam rusticano, sed ut ait quidam verissime vaccino, atque porcino, comprobat evidenter. Absit enim, ut tantus philosophus ita desiperet, itaque peculariter sentiret.” Google Scholar
54 Compare the Liber denudationis, a thirteenth-century Latin translation of a lost Arabic Christian condemnation of Islam, edited and translated by Thomas Burman in Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs (n. 32 above), 215–385. The author of this work, who knew the Qur'an, devotes only a portion of one chapter to a condemnation of the Islamic paradise ( Religious Polemic , 324–31). The author resorts, however, not to philosophical dissection as a means of refuting this idea, but rather to a vulgar comparison of Muslims enjoying paradise to horses copulating (ibid., 329). This is not the place to review the actual Islamic views of paradise; for an introduction to the topic see McDonald, John, “Paradise,” Islamic Studies 5 (1966): 331–83. For the pictorial tradition see Images of Paradise in Islamic Art , ed. Blair, Sheila S. and Bloom, Jonathan M. (Hanover, NH, 1991).Google Scholar
55 Mayo, De, Demonology of William of Auvergne (n. 27 above), 120–23.Google Scholar
56 Smith, , “William of Auvergne and the Law of the Jews and the Muslims,” 131–35.Google Scholar
57 De legibus, cap. 19 ( Opera omnia 1:50): “Radicales autem errores quibus gentem illam brutalem seduxit, in hoc loco destruere intendimus. De Paradiso Macometi, scilicet, et foelicitatem quam nonnisi carnalem eis promisit, et illam spurcissimam. Promisit si quidem eis delitias epularum corporalium, dapiferos, et pincernas Angelos. Deinde pretiositatem vestium, et lectorum, umbraculorumque amoenitates. Tertio, delitias concupiscentiarum, et blandimentorum muliebrium.” Google Scholar
58 De legibus, cap. 19 ( Opera omnia 1:50–51): “manifestum est, quia non alia bona, quam habeat vita ista, promisit deceptor iste deceptis suis. Cum enim promisit eis flumina lactis, et vini, et mellis, non promisit eis alios liquores secundum speciem, quam habeat vita ista, et si forte gustu suaviores: eodem modo se habet, et de saporibus, cum determinati sint numero specierum suarum, nec ampliores, aut alii esse possint. Eodem modo se habet de omnibus generibus ciborum. Quare manifestum est, quia non aliam foelicitatem promisit, et carnalem, quam habebat vita ista, nec aliam vitam praedicavit, quam sit vita ista; sed eandem majorem, aut melioratam. Ex quo relinquitur, quod divites, et abundantes hujusmodi delitiis, hic, id est in hac vita, obtineant hujusmodi promissiones ipsius. In vanum igitur eos propter hujusmodi delitias, et divitias oneravit observatione mandatorum suorum, in vanum eas alibi, vel sperandas, vel quaerendas praecepit; stultissimum enim est propter bona, quae abundanter hic haberi possunt, ut alibi habeantur laborare, nisi forsitan propter hoc, ut quia hic per mortem amittenda sunt, alibi recuperentur.” Google Scholar
59 De legibus, cap. 19 ( Opera omnia 1:51): “Quaerimus autem ab eis, utrum cibi hujusmodi, et potus, corpora hominum nutriant; quod si nutriant, nutrimentum autem non erit, nisi reparatio consumptionis, quae fit per motum, et calorem vitalem; erit igitur ibi consumptio, et reparatio corporum, quare corpora erunt et consumptibilia et reparabilia, quare et defectibilia, et mortalia in se, et moritura de necessitate, nisi morti eorum, et consumptioni per nutrimentum occurrunt.” Google Scholar
60 “Haec autem est admixtio magna miseriae, videlicet quotidianus conflictus contra ruinam corporis, et quotidiana refectio contra ejus continuam defectionem, sive consumptionem, eruntque epulae hujusmodi non solum foelicitatis, sed etiam urentissimae necessitatis, qua per consumptionem corpora in mortem fluentia, necesse est quotidianae refectionis alimonia retineri” (ibid.).Google Scholar
61 William's “desires” (desideria) must be understood as midway between “desire” and “need,” and containing more a sense of necessity than the modern English sense of “desire.” Google Scholar
62 De legibus, cap. 19 (Opera omnia 1:51): “Quare quantum in vita illa foeliciores erunt, quam in ista, tantum et miseriores.” Google Scholar
63 De universo Iae-IIa, cap. 48 ( Opera omnia 1:753): “Ibi etiam declaravit tibi, quod neque regio corporalis, etiam solas spurcitias egestionum aliarumque immunditiarum quae hujusmodi errorem sequuntur, capere ullatenus sufficieret, etiam si esset coelo ultimo centies millies major.” Google Scholar
64 De legibus, cap. 19 ( Opera omnia 1:52): “Quaerimus etiam ab eis, utrum sint ibi digestiones, et egestiones ciborum et potuum? quos utique ibi esse necesse est: cum enim cibi, et potus multas partes habeant, quae non conveniant ad nutrimentum humanorum corporum; eas igitur per digestionem necesse est separari ab eis, quae conveniunt hujusmodi nutrimento, et in secessum mittit, et tandem egerit? Quare cum hujusmodi digestiones, et egestiones finem non habeant, non sufficit. Paradisus illa etiam sola stercora egestionum capere, cum omnis regio corporalis finita sit magnitudine. Pulchre autem irrisit quidam Christianus quendam Saracenum ex hoc dicens ei, Maledicta Paradisus in qua tantum cacatur. Quod si forte dixerit, quia ea erit ibi vis ventrium, ut totam superfluitatem consumant, quanto fortius dicere debuit; quia ea erit virtus corporum, ut consumptionem, seu resolutionem non patiantur, multo enim minus est non pati consumptionem ab alio, quam facere consumptionem in cibo?” Google Scholar
65 De universo Iae-Ia, cap. 43 ( Opera omnia 1:644): “Cum igitur familiam e proximo sibi assistentem pascere spiritualibus epulis necesse habeat creator, tanquam praelargus paterfamilias habet ex necessitate coenaculum congruens, sive conveniens talibus epulis talibusque convivis, et hoc est coelum empyreum videlicet creatoris commensalium, et convivarum praeclarum, ac praemagnificum coenaculum, in quo spirituales epulae solummodo ministrantur, sicut alibi declaravi tibi, ubi et carnalem paradisum, hoc est, carnalium delitiarum, evidenter destruxi, et spirituales delitias, quales creator daturus est diligentibus se, nullo modorum cum carnalibus delitiis posse esse, sicut genus Sarracenorum stultissime opinatur, evidenter ostendi.” Google Scholar
66 See n. 67 for the Latin.Google Scholar
67 De universo Iae-IIa, cap. 34 ( Opera omnia 1:738–39): “Generaliter ergo scito, quia delectationes sensibiles, hoc est per sensus, quaecunque erunt ibi, non erunt sensibiles per modum, quo hic, quod est dicere, quoniam non stabunt animae nostrae in rebus sensibilibus, neque haerebunt eis per delectationes istas, sed magis erunt eis viae ad bonitatem, pulchritudinem, atque suavitatem creatoris, omnes bonitates, pulchritudines, atque suavitates creaturarum. Tunc enim juxta sermones sapientum et sanctorum, creaturae omnes glorificatis hominibus intuentibus, et sentientibus eas, manifeste apparebunt vestigia, viae, nutus, et signa creatoris, ducentes ad ipsum, et ostendentes ipsum, et hic est error, quo gens Sarracenorum involuta est miserabiliter, et seducta, quoniam sic se credunt esse delectandos in rebus sensibilibus, et per sensum delectabilibus, sicut delectari se sentiunt hic, cum indubitanter res sensibiles, et per sensum delectabiles, non detineant tunc animas glorificatas hominum, quin potius ducant eas, et transferant in creatorem, et propter hoc, quod maxime delectabit homines glorificatos in creaturis, erit ipse creator, et forsitan, quod proprie, ac per se, quemadmodum in vestigiis, et aliis signis, cum sint delectabilia per ea solummodo, quorum vestigia, vel signa sunt, illa proprie, et per se delectant, quorum signa, vel vestigia sunt, et forsitan non est delectatio veri nominis, aut verae rationis, quam gens Sarracenorum somniat, aut qua inebriantur, et qua captivantur animae stultorum.” Google Scholar
68 De universo IIae-IIa, cap. 82 ( Opera omnia 1:937): “Licet autem creator benedictus paradisus glorificatarum animarum, et etiam beatissimorum Angelorum, convenientissime, verissimeque dicatur, nihilominus tamen coelum ultimum paradisus est, et habitatio gloriae beatorum Angelorum, et hominum glorificandorum. Et vocatur etiam spiritualis paradisus coelum hujusmodi, licet corpus sit, contra paradisum carnalem; qualem gens Sarracenorum stultissime, sicut alibi tibi declaratum est, expectat, propter quod et spirituali paradiso se defraudat. Non solum enim incompossibilis est carnalis paradisus spirituali, sed etiam per se impossibilis, quemadmodum alibi didicisti.” Google Scholar
69 Elliott, Dyan, “The Physiology of Rapture and Female Spirituality,” in Medieval Theology and the Natural Body , ed. Biller, Peter and Minnis, A. J. (York, 1997), 141–73; Elliott, Dyan, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1999), 43–44.Google Scholar
70 Ziegler, , “Medicine and Immortality in Terrestrial Paradise” (n. 23 above).Google Scholar
71 Marrone, Steven P., “Magic and the Physical World in Thirteenth-Century Scholasticism,” in Evidence and Interpretation in Studies on Early Science and Medicine: Essays in Honor of John E. Murdoch , ed. Sylla, Edith Dudley and Newman, William R. (Leiden, 2009), 158–85.Google Scholar
