THE SCENE: The following dialogue, between a prominent scholar (Halbertstadt) and an occultist with access to God’s secrets (Faustus) gives insight into the ways that science and religion could blend in the medieval mind.
THE TEXT: I know that to be true, saith this doctor. But my Lord Faustus, how is it with the spirits who vex men and thwart their works (as some people say) by day and by night as well?
Doctor Faustus answered: We ought not to begin with this topic, but with the ordinances and creation of God, it being in accordance with these that the sun doth at break of day turn again toward the world with his radiance (it being also nearer in summer than in winter), and that the spirits then move beneath the cloud sphere where God hath committed them that they may discover all his portents. As the day progresses, they rise upward beneath the cloud sphere, for they are granted no affinity with the sun: the brighter it shines, the higher they do seek to dwell. In this context we might speak of forbidden days, for God hath not granted them light nor allowed them such a property.
But by night, when it is pitch dark, then they are among us, for the brightness of the sun–even though it is not shining here–is in the first Heaven so intense that it is as daylight there (this being why in the blackness of night, even when no stars shine, men still perceive Heaven) .It followeth therefore that the spirits, not being able to endure or to suffer the aspect of the sun, which hath now ascended upwards, must come near unto us on earth and dwell with men, frightening them with nightmares, howling and spooks. Now what will ye wager and bet: when ye go abroad in the dark without a light–if ye dare do such a thing–a great fear will seize you. Furthermore, if ye are alone by night ye are possessed by strange phantasies, although the day bringeth no such things. At night some will start up in their sleep, another thinks there be a spirit near him, or that one be groping out for him, or that another will walk round in the house, or in his sleep, etc. There are many such trials, all because the spirits are at that hour near to vex and plague men with multitudinous delusions.
I thank you very much, spake the doctor, my dear Lord Faustus, for your brief account. I shall remember it and ponder upon it my life long. But, if I may trouble you further, would ye not instruct me once more as concerns the brilliance of the stars and their appearance by night.
Yea, very briefly, answered Doctor Faustus. Now it is certain, so soon as the sun doth ascend into the Third Heaven (if it should move down into the First Heaven, it would ignite the earth–but the time for that is not yet come, and the earth must still proceed along her God-ordained course), when the sun doth so far withdraw itself, I say, then doth it become the right of the stars to shine for as long as God hath ordained. The First and Second Heavens, which contain these stars, are then brighter than two of our summer days, and offer an excellent refuge for the birds by night.
Night, therefore, observed from Heaven, is nothing else than day, or, as one might also aver, the day is half the night. For ye must understand that when the sun ascends, leaving us here in night, the day is just beginning in such places as India and Africa. And when our sun shineth, their day waneth, and they have night.
But I still do not understand, spake the Doctor from Halberstadt, the action of the stars, how they glitter, and how they fall down to earth.
Doctor Faustus answered: This is nothing out of the ordinary, but an everyday happening. It is indeed true that the stars, like the Firmament and other Elementa, were created and disposed in the Heavens in such a fashion that they are immutable. But they do undergo certain changes in color and in other external qualities. The stars manifest superficial changes of this sort when they give off sparks or little flames, for these are bits of match falling from the stars–or, as we call them, shooting stars. They are hard, black, and greenish. But that a star itself might fall–why this is nothing more than a fancy of mankind. When by night a great streak of fire is seen to shoot downward, these are not falling stars, although we do call them that, but only slaggy pieces from the stars. They are big things, to be sure, and, as is true of the stars themselves, some are much bigger than others. But it is my opinion that no star itself falleth except as a scourge of God. Then such falling stars bring a murkiness of the Heavens with them and cause great floods and devastation of lives and land.
– Historia vnd Geschicht Doctor Johannis Faustj des Zauberers, 16th Century AD
