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‘illat al-tab‘ assigned to the celestial world.
150
Instead of attributing it
to the motion of the celestial bodies, Morley, however, opts for the Pla-
tonic conceptualization of influence that we encountered in Macrobius’s
and Capella’s works and describes the compositum as a kind of genera-
tive harmony.
151
Some scholars restrict the influence of Abu Ma‘shar in
the works of William of Conches and Bernard to the discussion of the
elemented and elementing cause;
152
while others deny that the terms
were derived from John of Seville’s translation of the Great Introduction
and instead suggest an early twelfth-century commentary on the Isagoge
Iohannicii ad artem Galieni.
153
However, the strong astrological streak in
the Cosmographia and the enunciation of astral causality affirms the debt
it owes to the Great Introduction beyond just terminology that describes
the material cause.
After elaborating on the material and astral causes, Bernard turns his
attention to the animating principle. Enter Endelechia: she is the Uni-
versal Soul, the second emanation in the Neoplatonic scheme, issuing
from Noys.
154
She is also described as a ‘vitalizing spark’ which gives
life to the cosmos and its members. Now we have a ‘mutual agree-
ment of soul and cosmos’. Furthermore, Endelechia has the power to
eternally sustain life in the stars and planets, but in the lower levels
of existence her power is diminished by ‘the sluggishness of bodily
existence’ and the hold of corruption in it.
155
The stars, however, are
intermediaries between the Universal Soul and the terrestrial world.
They are also responsible for the harmony between body and soul in
individuals reflecting that harmony between the Universal Soul and its
Body.
156
As noted before, Abu Ma‘shar establishes that the motions of
the celestial bodies produce heat that initiates generation, namely union
of matter and form and bringing together body and soul in harmony.
157
Bernard conceives this heat as ‘ethereal fire’ which ‘effecting the gener-
ation of all things, gives over that life which he has begotten by his heat
to the nurture of the baser elements. When the vital spirit of animate
life has been summoned from the vault of heaven, earth applies herself
to providing nurture for bodily existences.’
158
It is hence confirmed that all generation is from the celestial world;
‘for anything which is brought forth to assume the mode of being proper
to its kind derives the causes and nature of its substantial existence from
Textual and Intellectual Reception of Arabic Astral Theories
65
the celestial sphere. As if from a life-giving god.’
159
Natural things thus
receive their substantial form – formed matter – from the heavens.
160
Furthermore, every creature receives vitality from the Universal Soul
or Endelechia.
161
Therefore, it is evident that the causality established
in the first part of the Cosmographia dealing with the macrocosm is
identical to that posited by Abu Ma‘shar.
After ordering the macrocosm, Natura sets out to create man, the com-
pletion of the success and glory of Noys’s creation. To do so she needs
to summon Urania and Physis, the sources of the higher and lower
natures respectively that make up man.
162
Urania represents the celestial
world and she is Noys’s offspring and Natura’s sister.
163
In her search for
Urania, Natura has to traverse the vast heavenly region. In this journey
the nature of heavens and its functions are described. Natura reaches
Aplanos – a term used in Macrobius’s Commentary on the Dream of Scipio
and borrowed by Adelard of Bath to refer to the fixed stars.
164
Aplanos
is ‘all-forming region’ where Natura finds the Usiarchs who have the
‘office of delineating and giving shape to the forms of things’.
165
The
word ‘Usiarch’ is derived from Asclepius’s ‘Ousiarches of heaven’ who are
generators of the inferior world.
166
Those encountered by Natura rep-
resent the celestial principles responsible for fashioning and assigning
the forms of all things that join matter in the process of generation;
167
therefore, for each planetary sphere there exists a Usiarch.
168
The forms
of the Usiarchs are derived from patterns based on manifold celes-
tial configurations dominated by the planetary spheres (Saturn, Jupiter,
etc.) in which they reside; ‘for the whole appearance of things in the
subordinate universe conforms to the heavens, whence it assumes its
characteristics, and it is shaped to whatever image the motion of the
heavens impart’.
169
This is an allegorical rendering of Abu Ma‘shar’s
discussion of forms in the Great Introduction where he states that the vari-
ation (tafsil) of forms and species results from ‘the power of the natural
motions’ of the celestial bodies.
170
Usiarch directs the gaze of Natura towards the dazzling sight of
Urania.
171
Urania’s role is limited to the soul and the noetic potential
of man. She must establish a link between his soul and the heavens
before the soul is joined with its earthly vessel so that a consciousness
of his heavenly nature is instilled. With wisdom and astrology, this
consciousness can be nurtured after being dulled by the body:
The human soul must be guided through all the realms of heaven,
that it may have knowledge: of the laws of the fates, and inexorable
destiny, and the shiftings of unstable fortune; what occurrences are
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