Medicine, Religion, and Magic in Early Stuart England by Ofer Hadass

Author:Ofer Hadass
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press

Attaining Divine Knowledge

Speculation about angels reached its peak in the thirteenth century with the theological debates of Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, both of whom had developed systematic, comprehensive angelologies. Their inquiries into the nature of angels helped the understanding of the mechanics of angelic cognition, foreknowledge, communication, and locomotion.215 Many of these issues were of real theological importance, both in defending the portrayal of angels as ministering spirits and because they directly concerned the economy of salvation (since angels were transmitters of prayers to God). The condemnations of 1277 issued by Bishop Stephen Tempier of Paris, one-seventh of which concerned angels, marked a break in the endeavor to create positive knowledge of the celestial world. Leading figures of the Reformation such as Philip Me-lanchthon and John Calvin went further in denouncing this “idle scholastic quarreling,” no longer relevant for salvation.216 Nevertheless, Reformed writers continued to investigate angels extensively.217 Early modern scholars had often very different ideas regarding the nature and epistemology of angels, but in a way revived the same medieval discussions about them as a way to knowing God. A practicing conversant with angels, Napier too attempted to utilize his Jacob’s ladder to further probe some of these cosmic obscurities:218

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