Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IV

36 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
Since the thirteenth century theologians had looked to Aristotle for
philosophical support of the Christian doctrine on the soul. Pomponazzi was
effectively ruling out this role. The theologians were quick to fight back, publicly
burning the treatise, lobbying the pope to compel Pomponazzi to retract the work
and writing, along with philosophers who shared their perspective, a stream of
attacks on him. Pomponazzi responded to this onslaught by restating his position
that immortality was not rationally demonstrable since it was contrary to natural
principles. As an article of faith, it could—and should—only be founded on
supernatural revelation. 113 The theologians, for their part, continued to insist that
it was possible to demonstrate immortality. But Pomponazzi forced them to shift
their ground. No longer did they argue in terms of natural philosophy; instead,
discussions of the soul were transferred to the discipline of metaphysics, where
theological considerations were allowed to hold sway. Aristotelian natural
philosophy, abandoned by the theologians, was left to the natural philosophers,
who were much freer to interpret Aristotle as they chose and to develop an
autonomous science of nature. 114
Pomponazzi himself contributed to the development of this science in his De
naturalium effectuum causis sive de incantationibus, in which he demonstrated
that events normally regarded as miraculous could be explained in natural terms.
Dismissing the supernatural agency of angels and demons, he argued that the
celestial spheres, governed by the Intelligences, were responsible for most socalled
miracles. 115 Scholastic natural philosophy, combining Aristotle with
Arabic astrology, regarded the stars as secondary causes by means of which God
controlled the sublunary realm. 116 The heavens, though mediators of divine
action, were part of nature, operating according to constant, regular and
predictable laws, which could be studied scientifically. So Pomponazzi’s
emphasis on astrological causation transformed miracles into natural
phenomena, accessible to reason. He did not, however, apply this scientific
explanation to all miracles: those in the New Testament were exempted on the
grounds that they, unlike other wondrous occurrences, violated the natural order
and could therefore only have been brought about by direct divine
intervention. 117 As with the immortality of the soul, he conceded that in religious
matters the probable hypotheses provided by scientific enquiry were overruled
by the absolute truths of Christian revelation. But in the domain of nature, from
which he had excluded theological and supernatural explanations, rational
criteria constituted the sole authority.
Alongside the scholastic Aristotelianism of Pomponazzi, the humanist variety
continued to thrive, even moving into the universities. Pomponazzi’s Paduan
colleague Niccolò Leonico Tomeo (1456–1531) was the first professor to lecture
on the Greek text of Aristotle. As a Venetian of Greek parentage, Leonico
Tomeo inherited the mantle of Byzantine scholars such as Gaza and Argyropulos
along with that of Italian humanists like Poliziano and Barbaro. He brought, like
his predecessors, an increased accuracy and enhanced elegance to an ever wider
range of Aristotelian texts. His finely tuned philological skills— good enough to