A Remembrance of His Wonders. David I. Shyovitz
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a quite detailed manner. In their treatment of this device, the Pietists betray a familiarity with the state of the art of medieval technology—the compass was first introduced into medieval Europe during the late twelfth century and early thirteenth centuries, when it appeared in scientific and encyclopedic works like the De Naturis Rerum of Alexander Neckham, the Historia Orientalis seu Hierosolymitana of Jacques de Vitry, and the Liber Particularis of Michael Scot.177 These early authors had a difficult time determining how the compass functioned—like the magnet itself, the workings of the compass were considered to be hidden, and it is not until later in the thirteenth century that figures like Thomas of Cantimpre, Albertus Magnus, and especially Peter Peregrinus authored more detailed accounts of the workings of magnetism. Nonetheless, Neckham, Jacques de Vitry, and others described the compass in a mechanistic manner, rather than attributing its workings to magic or the supernatural, indicating that they understood this object to function naturalistically despite its occult status.
Where did the Pietists come upon this knowledge? One possibility emerges from the passage in Arugat ha-Bosem cited above, in which Abraham b. Azriel invokes “the power of stones” (ko’ah avanim) as an archetypical “remembrance” of God’s wonders. As we have seen above, the notion that stones have intrinsic “powers” was a mainstay of contemporary lapidaries, which listed the properties and uses of various minerals and gems. Magnets features prominently in these collections—and, significantly for our purposes, the composition and translation of lapidaries were a site of intellectual exchange between medieval Jews and Christians.178 The best known medieval lapidary, Marbode of Rennes’ eleventh-century Liber de lapidibus, was translated several times into Hebrew (notably by the twelfth-century French polymath Berakhiyah ha-Nakdan) and circulated in Ashkenaz during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.179 Indeed, many of these lapidaries circulated under the generic title Sefer Ko’ah ha-Avanim—indicating that these scientific treatises on the occult properties of various gemstones were likely what Abraham had in mind when he invoked the ko’ah ha-avanim in his explication of Psalms 111:4 in Arugat ha-Bosem. Recently, Gad Freudenthal and Jean-Marc Mandosio have suggested that the Hebrew translations of Marbode’s lapidary achieved popularity in northern France and Germany due to the role they played in the rabbinic curriculum, helping biblical exegetes to understand passages in the Bible (such as the description of the High Priest’s breastplate in Exodus 28) based on the realia described in learned vernacular texts.180 Moreover, these texts were at times “Judaized” in addition to being translated: at least one Hebrew lapidary from medieval Germany was modified so as to include elements that correspond to the writings of Judah and Eleazar.181 Significantly, that same text contains a detailed description of the use of magnets as nautical compasses, reminiscent of Judah’s own description cited above.182
Judah’s repeated invocation of the therapeutic powers of the “preserving stone” similarly suggests that the Pietists treat wondrous gems not as supernatural phenomena, but rather as natural objects that function via occult means. After all, lapidaries consistently discuss the amulets that can be made from the various stones they treat, and numerous stones are described as being useful specifically for preventing miscarriages.183 Indeed, the manner in which Judah describes the even tekumah itself indicates that he saw it not as a deviation from natural causality, but rather as an object whose workings could—and should—be accounted for rationally. As we saw above, Judah believes that this amulet is effective because it works in a physical manner—namely through scent. He takes pains to clarify this point over and over again in his writings. At one point, for instance, he explicitly asks how it is possible for an amulet to have a physical effect: “And if one were to ask: ‘How can a fetus benefit from the even tekumah?’ It is possible to respond that the fetus enjoys the smell of it, and does not leave its appointed place, and remains at rest. And if one were to ask: ‘What scent does a stone have?’ It is possible to respond that the beeswax we light on the Day of Atonement has no smell that we can discern, but the bees smell it. So too, even though we cannot smell it, the fetus smells [the even tekumah] and closes the womb, and does not leave until the stone is removed.”184 Judah is clearly troubled here by the fact that the effectiveness of this object cannot be accounted for in any discernable way. He therefore attempts to explain it by reference to the beeswax candles lit by his community on the Day of Atonement—a “proof” of God’s existence that also recalls their invocation of dogs’ olfactory abilities discussed above.
The Pietists invoke scent in their discussions of other magical phenomena as well. A transplanted nose will fall off when its original owner dies because “it smells the death of its [original] body, since some substance reached it, even though it is too subtle to see.”185 Indeed, just as in the case of magnetism, the existence of some “subtle” substance that can account for the physical workings of apparently magical practices is proposed over and over again. Thus in discussing the use of excrement to damage a person, Judah argues that “there must be some connection between the two which is too subtle to see.”186 He draws a similar conclusion regarding various spells and charms which protect a person from being harmed by swords or fire—these result in “some barrier that prevents him from being cut or burned, even though it is too subtle to see.”187 Once again, the strategy employed by the Pietists in making sense of these magical “remembrances” is functionally equivalent to the scholastics’ invention of “occult qualities.” In both instances, apparent deviations from natural causality are nevertheless subordinated to the natural world, through the positing of an innate, physical cause for phenomena whose workings are not understood. And just as there must be an invisible link that physically effectuates an array of magical processes, the Pietists argue, so too invisible spiritual entities can be said to exist. This argumentation is precisely the sort used by Christian practitioners of “natural magic,” who argued that their magical practices functioned not via maleficent means, but rather by exploiting the occult sympathies and antipathies intrinsic to the objects they utilized.
PIETISTS, “PHILOSOPHERS,” AND POLEMICISTS
There is reason to believe, moreover, that the Pietists came to this understanding of the workings of magic through contacts with practitioners in their surrounding culture. The Pietists refer throughout their writings to conversations with “the philosophers” (ha-filosofim). As Scholem long ago noted, the Pietists “[use] the term ‘philosophers’ in the same sense in which it is used in the medieval Latin writings on alchemy and occultism, i.e. as the designation of a scholar versed in these occult sciences.”188 But it seems that their references to these philosophers reflect not merely a terminological parallel, but rather direct exposure on the part of the Pietists to the very same occultists Scholem mentioned. For the philosophers are invoked by the Pietists in reference to practices that were commonplace in the surrounding magical culture, both in scholastic universities and among priests who inhabited what Richard Kieckhefer has termed “the clerical underworld.”189 For example, the Pietists frequently discuss a divinatory practice called sarei kos u-sarei bohen (“the divine beings of the cup and thumbnail”), which could reveal the whereabouts of a thief by asking a small child to interpret the images he sees reflected in a pool of oil poured into a vessel, or spread on his fingernails.190 This magical practice was invested with great import by the Pietists, who invoke it repeatedly in their attempts to understand the mechanics of prophetic revelation (in which the prophet analogously sees ontologically blurred images that are “reflections” of the divine). Moreover, they repeatedly describe conversations with the “philosophers” about the workings of this phenomenon, conversations in which the Pietists and their non-Jewish contemporaries debate the workings of this practice, and its implications for comprehension of divine revelation. It is thus especially significant that the very same divinatory practices were common within the Pietists’ immediate milieu. Divination through interpretation of images on reflective surfaces (“captoptromancy”) was discussed in the abstract by such Christian thinkers as Michael Scot and William of Auvergne;191 others, like John of Salisbury, recorded their own firsthand experience with this practice:
During my boyhood I was placed under the direction of a priest, to teach me psalms. As he practiced the art of crystal gazing, it chanced that he after