How many people today know anything of Martianus Capella, the author of the oldest book on the subject of the seven Liberal Arts? With the exception of a few philologists, very few among our contemporaries. Those who have studied him speak of an eccentric, nay even insipid writer with whom it is impossible to make any real headway. But were there any scholars of the Middle Ages who did not know him? Through many centuries, very, very few! There is no doubt at all that he was one of the most widely read and influential writers in medieval culture and in connection with the cultivation of the seven Liberal Arts his name cannot be ignored.

Even today the central significance of these seven Liberal Arts in medieval culture as a whole impresses itself upon every student of that period of civilisation. The secular education which was given concurrently and also in conjunction with theological training consisted precisely in the cultivation and development of the ‘trivium’ and the ‘quadrivium,’ i.e., of Grammer, Rhetoric and Dialectic as the elementary subjects; Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy as subjects pertaining to the higher grades of training. A clear idea of the real nature of these seven Arts is therefore essential to an understanding of the spiritual hisotry of mankind. In many lectures Rudolf Steiner made such an understanding possible.

The seven Liberal Arts lead us out into wide cosmic spaces and back into remote ages of human evolution. Rudolf Steiner taught us that in ages long past, seven soul-powers streamed forth from the cosmos into man. The soul, gifted with clairvoyance, felt her life to be a confluence of these seven powers streaming from divine-spiritual Beings. The close-knit unity of thought, feeling and will working from the Ego-centre which characterises the intellectual consciousness of today had not yet arisen within man. The unity has only been present in marked form since the time of Moses and as a result of the development of the Hebrew people. It was Moses who extricated this people from a culture still based upon ancient clairvoyance and led them on to a phase of development fraught with such infinite significance. The Bible tells us that in the land of Midian Moses met the seven daughters of Jethro. These seven—a symbol as it were of the Eternal Feminine—personified the seven soul-powers of the man of antiquity. Later on, they were no longer known in this living form. They became more and more abstract as the ages went by. And strange as it may sound to begin with, Rudolf Steiner told us many years ago that we may recognise in the seven Liberal Arts of medieval culture the seven powers which once came to expression on the stage of the human soul.

Moses took one of the daughters of Jethro to wife. This indicates that he made a special link with one of the seven soul-powers, namely that power which gathers together the others into a unitary life of Egohood. The further development of the Hebrew people—but at the same time that of later humanity in general—is thus inaugurated, together with the power whereby man can grasp the world intellectually, from his Ego-consciousness.

Hearing this, we cannot but be deeply impressed when, from quite another side, we find Cassiodorus, the Roman writer of the fourth century A.D. and a Christian, saying that “Moses knew the seven Arts in their whole reality and the heathen had merely stolen a few shreds of his knowledge.”[ii] Cassiodorus himself wrote a kind of text book on the subject of the seven Liberal Arts and indicates with much emphasis that the germs from which these Arts unfold are already contained in the sacred writings. At this point, too, he refers to Moses as a model. This suggests still another line of connection. Cassiodorus also says that Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. It is natural, therefore, to enquire into the form in which the later seven Arts were known to the Egyptians, and into the general purport and content of these arts and sciences.

To supersensible knowledge the several Zodiacal constellations resound in the consonants; the planets in the vowels. In his physical body man bears a reflection of the cosmic consonants, in his etheric body a reflection of the cosmic vowels which he received into himself during his passage through the cosmos before birth. Therefore when he spoke, the man of antiquity still experienced—in clairaudience—his connection with the whole universe. In the alphabet, as in one great primordial sentence, he voiced the whole glory of Divine Being. In ancient times, utterance of the alphabet and astronomical lore were one and the same thing. Originally—and even in historical ages it was so—to be versed in Grammar signified that a man had become acquainted with the true mysteries of the single letters. In the letter he learnt to know the star. Rhetoric implied that he could apply and put into practice the astronomical lore he had made living within him. Dialectic was the process of grasping and elaborating this in thought.

Arithmetic was known to contain the mysteries of numbers. Rudolf Steiner indicated in this connection how the unit was always taken as the starting-point—the unit as greatest and all-embracing. The unit separated and the two arose, similarly the three and so on. Today, as the outcome of our atomistic thinking, we go the other way to work. We take the unit as the smallest and arrive at the two and the three by addition. The ancient way, however, led on from the unit organically into the reality of the mysteries of number. So too in Geometry—until the feeling arose that Geometry, truly conceived, is the ‘Music of the Spheres.’ Geometrical forms were experienced as musical tones. From Geometry man passed upward to Music. And finally in Astronomy as the last of the seven Arts, he returned, now with full consciousness, to the point of departure.

Now it was the ancient Egyptians who in the age when their civilisation had reached its prime, cultivated more particularly the four branches of knowledge (the later quadrivium): Geometry, Astrology, Arithmetic and Music. They looked at the physical body of man and knowing that it had been built up from the earth by supersensible forces, tried to conserve it in the mummy. In its spatial configurations they regarded the spatial forms of this body as having been shaped according to the laws of Geometry, as being subject to the influences of the stars according to the laws of Astrology, as active from within according to the laws of Arithmetic, constructed in inner harmony according to the laws of Music. The Greeks, on the other hand, paid more attention to the inner elements of soul and of life which mould the human body as a plastic work of art. Hence to the Greeks, Geometry, Astrology and Arithmetic became mere sciences.

The Romans no longer regarded the body as a work of art filled with soul and with life. They unfolded an inner consciousness, inasmuch as they let the spirit speak out of the life of soul. The spirit and soul of man actually manifest on earth through Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric—such was the conception of the Romans. In Grammar man reveals himself as spirit through the word; in Dialectic the soul manifests through the forming of the thought. In the Roman world, therefore, the trivium was cultivated in a new and living way. The sciences of the quadrivium were merely a legacy; they became abstract sciences, forming part of higher education. The three sciences of Grammar, Rhetoric and Dialectic were the starting-point. And so it went on through all the Middle Ages, although these three sciences too very soon began to wither and lose their life. In earlier times men knew: when I use Grammar, the Logos is speaking in me.—But this consciousness died away more and more as time went on.

In such connections Rudolf Steiner frequently spoke of the great significance of the fourth century A.D.—the central period of the Graeco-Latin epoch. At that time concrete spiritual experience was extinguished and the increasingly abstract spiritual life of the later age had its rise. Immediately afterwards, not actually in the fourth century but at all events before the year 429, Martianus Capella wrote his book on the seven Liberal Arts. Martianus Capella lived in Northern Africa but had received a Roman education. According to Cassiodorus he was born in Madaura (not far from Carthage). I consider this significant in itself. As the result, presumably, of conditions of blood-inheritance, remnants of old clairvoyant faculties had persisted in greater strength in Africa than in Italy or Greece during the age of late antiquity. A particularly live imagination was characteristic of these African writers. The circumstances of Martianus Capella’s life and his style of writing give one the impression that in him we have to do with a combination of Graeco-Roman learning with elements which if not typically Egyptian were none the less ultimately derived from the third post-Atlantean epoch—in other words, his knowledge seems to be a combination of the trivium and the quadrivium. And so on the one hand the seven Liberal Arts are presented in his work as living, allegorical figures rather than as descriptions of processes taking place in the world of Gods. On the other hand, however, the Arts discourse in very prosaic language about the seven sciences. In these passages Martianus has borrowed extensively from other authors known at the time. This proximity of allegory (concerned as it is with the supersensible) and prosaic intellectuality is characteristic of the configuration of the cosmic timepiece in Capella’s age. To say in the terminology of modern philology that the actual teachings have merely been ‘clothed’ in imagination and allegory is wholly to misunderstand what is at issue here. It was precisely this allegorical, imaginative character which gave the work of Martianus the significance attached to it through subsequent centuries in the Middle Ages.

Capella’s work bears the title: De Nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae. Its theme is therefore the marriage of the God Mercury with Philologia. The first book tells us that Mercury desires to wed. After he has tried in vain to win the hand of Sophia, Mantice and Psyche, his brother Apollo suggests Philologia, the most learned maiden of age-old parentage. Mercury now goes to the palace of Jupiter. His desire to wed Philologia is placed before Jupiter whereupon a council of the Gods is convened for the purpose of making the decision. Mercury’s wish is granted but Philologia must first be raised to the rank of a Goddess.

In the second book we find the bride. She has misgivings about her betrothan with a God whom she dearly loves and she must first overcome these misgivings by calculating his number and her’s—3 and 4 respectively—from their several names. Her mother Phronesis (intelligence, cleverness) adorns her for the wedding at which all animal substances are expressly to be avoided. Muses and Graces greet her and Athanasia, the daughter of Apotheosis, appears to the accompaniment of ecstatic music to conduct her to heaven. But Philologia must first rid herself of all the earthly elements within her. Therefore she emits from her mouth a number of books in different languages which are greedily snatched by beings representing the arts and sciences. Apotheosis hands her still another draught of immortality and Philologia now rises to the regions of heaven in a stately chair bedecked with stars. Led by Juno, she first passes through the region of the air, then through the planetary circle to the sound of the music of the spheres and finally comes before the throne of Jupiter in the Milky Way. Here, in the midst of the circle of Gods and Goddesses, appears Mercury, the bridegroom (accompanied by Gods, Demi-Gods and human souls—Homer, Virgil, Orpheus, Pythagoras and Aristotle, the latter “in the very heights of heaven investigating the Entelechia even more assiduously than before.”). The marriage pacts are sealed and the canny mother of the bride then calls for the reading of the Roman Law Papia Poppawa (relating to the dowry); she also demands that the dowry shall be paid forthwith. Apollo now leads in seven of the noblest servants of his brother Mercury, as belonging to the dowry. These are the seven Liberal Arts. They are dealt with individually in the later books. Their forms and attributes are described and they expound the content of their several sciences.

That the theme of the wok is a marriage is in itself significance, for this image is frequently used in writings which deal with supersensible events. The mention of Mercury in such a connection was explained in the Middle Ages as follows. It was said: in mystical writings, for example in that of Martianus Capella, Mercuty betokens now the star and now fluency of speech (eloquentia), just as Saturn may signify time (tempus) as well as the star. Bernardus Silvestris, one of the great teachers in the School of Chartres, writes to this effect in the twilfth century. And he says that when martianus makes Mercury wed Philologia, this signifies a union between eloquence and wisdom, for eloquence without wisdom is not only of little use but actually harmful, whereas wisdom without eloquence could only be of use to herself—a thought expressed by Cicero too, but in his case without reference to Mercury. John of Salisbury, a somewhat later teacher at Chartres, also writes in the same vein: the Mercury is always what the neighbouring planets make him for the time being, for his is a changeable nature, following whatever happens to be the most powerful at the moment. He is usually taken to be the archetype of eloquence, because eloquence if united with wisdom is of great service, if united with wickedness, exceedingly harmful. Plotinus associates Mercury (Hermes) with the Logos—a teaching wholly reconcilable with the other conception. Philologia is she who loves the Logos and endeavours to ascend to Him. It is very characteristic that Martianus makes her leave her earthly book-lore behind. The human soul, striving for wisdom or for the Logos, attains a right to a home in the spiritual world only when the seven maidens are given as a dowry by the God Mercury. Again we recognise those seven ancient powers of soul of which Rudolf Steiner speaks. We shall see that Capella’s work makes it clear that these Mercury maidens who ‘belong to the dowry’ are connected with the world of the planets, whence their radiance streams down to the realm of earth and man. Another point comes into consideration here: Mercury was formerly revered as Psychopompos, he who accompanies souls after death. He leads the souls into the spiritual world, in other words into the planetary spheres. And so too he leads men who while still incarnate give themselves up to the cultivation of the seven Liberal Arts, into this same sphere. Lastly, we said that in Egypt the Liberal Arts—especially those of the later quadrivium—were cultivated and developed in a most wonderful way. There can be no doubt but that they formed part of the Hermes wisdom of ancient Egypt. The very name of this wisdom indicates its close connection with the being also of the God Hermes-Mercury. And Moses again was initiated into this sacred Hermes wisdom of the Egyptians.

We will not return to Martianus Capella and consider certain characteristic traits of his seven Liberal Arts.

In the third book, Apollo presents Grammatica as the first of the servants of Mercury. She is a woman well advanced in years. She relates that she came into the world in Memphis, under the rulership of Osiris, and having lived in long concealment was found and instructed by Hermes; that later on she came to Attica, clothed in the robe of a Greek philosopher. (Remigius of Auxerre, a commentator of repute in the ninth and tenth centuries, remarks in this connection that Grammar is more ancient than all the other arts, for she alone makes discussion upon them possible; all the arts, he says, were discovered in Egypt.) In Martianus’ work Grammatica is equipped with certain tokens pertaining to medicine and some of the Gods at first take her to be a doctor; for example, she holds a kind of scalpel with which she can perform operations on the tongue and teeth in order to facilitate speech. With other medicaments she tries to promote the strength of the voice and speech. She proceeds (over forty pages) to expound innumerable principles of Grammar.—If we compare her attributes with what was said above in connection with the essential nature of Grammar, it is quite clear that we are here concerned with a being who is associated with the workings of the Sun, with the Logos, inasmuch as she cultivates the word.

Apollo then brings forward Dialectica. She is a wan-faced woman, dressed in a black robe. Her eyes sparkle and flash in constant movement and her fair is bound. She too hails from Egypt, having come from there to the School of Parmedides and to Attica. She has devoted herself to the wisdom of Socrates and Plato. She is praised by Athene for her temperance. In her left hand she holds a serpent, hiding its descriptive coils under her robe. She also carries symbols of other attributes, for example a kind of fishing-hook, which according to Remigius are indicative of the deceptive, seductive character of this science, its insidious conclusions, sophistries and the like. Dialectica then proceeds to give a comprehensive exposition of her science. When, finally, she proposes to deal with the most complicated and obscure theme of all, the bridegroom grows impatient and Athene bids her hold her peace. In a few verses Dialectica obediently takes her leave, and is silent. “But some of the Gods who at the beginning had laughed at her, shuddered!” Here ends the fourth book, having described that power of soul which originates in the sphere of the Moon and stimulates intellectual thought in man—in other words, thinking that is bound to the physical brain. This power of the soul brings man to his unitary, intellectual view of the world, enabling him to experience himself as a Ego-centric being. It was developed pre-eminently by the Jewish people. Dialectica’s serpent in Capella’s work and the brazen serpent set up by Moses have, in the deeper sense, one and the same meaning.

And now there is a noise of trumpets; the ether resounds once more and Rhetorica enters—a dazzling, majestic figure who imitates Jupiter’s thunder in the swinging of her weapons. “It seems that she could hurl the lightning like Jupiter himself.” Many different varieties of flowers and figures are embroidered on her robe. Demosthenes, Cicero and other famous orators follow her. Finally she kisses the bride amid much noise, for ‘she could do nothing silently, even if she would.’

In the sixth book, Geometria is presented as the ‘measurer’ of the earth. She is an indefatigable walker and has a robust, powerful body. ‘She might well be taken for a man.’ She carries a pair of compasses in her right hand, a sphere in her left. She is clothed in a peplus on which the courses of the stars and the shadow cast in the sky by the earth are portrayed. At the bidding of the Gods, many of whom have never set foot on the earth, she explains its form, position and distribution, according to Pliny and Solinus. Finally she hands to the Gods the works of Euclid. This masculine figure indicates that we are concerned with a being who is related to Mars. This point will be confirmed later.

The seventh book deals with Arithmetica. Pythagoras precedes her with a torch. She is a beautiful woman, of stately appearance and distinguished age (‘for,’ says Remigius,’ number comes from all eternity’). Her fingers move ‘with incredible mobility,’ and are flexible as worms, indicating numbers—a picture as it were of her mecurial, quicksilvery nature. A kind of veil spreads over the figure of the maiden ‘who hides in the works of all nature.’ From her brow a hardly perceptible ray shines forth. From this one ray a second proceeds, then a third and a fourth, up to a ninth and tenth. In variable groups of two and three, these rays wind around the whole form, multiplying ad infinitum, and then gradually returning to unity. Remigius teaches that the first ray is the monad; the second, the two and so forth. This picture is a marvellous confirmation of what Rudolf Steiner expressed in the language of thought about ancient Arithmetic, namely that the unit wherein all numbers are contained was always taken as the greatest. Arithmetica now expatiates upon the nature and being of numbers, from the monad to the ten, beginning: “Above all let us honour the holy monad…” She speaks of the seven (heptas venerandam) with reverence, pointing, for instance, to the seven-year periods in the life of man.

When Arithmetica has finished her many teachings, Astronomia, the next of the Mercury maidens draws near at the command of Apollo. The Gods see a sphere of light and fire slowly approaching and in its midst a maiden, sparkling with diamonds. Eyes of spark shine from her limbs and her head is adorned with a crown of stars. Golden wings with crystal feathers move in the air. In one hand she carries an astronomical instrument, in the other a book in which the paths of the Gods and the procession and regression of the stars are recorded on differently coloured metals. (These ‘differently coloured metals’ may well be the metals associated with the several planets). Astronomia too proceeds to expound her teachings. At the beginning she relates that “for centuries untold she lay concealed in the holiest sanctuary of Egypt in order not to be profaned by vulgar tittle-tattle.”

When Astronomia has finished and Venus has repeatedly reminded the Gods that evening has come, Musica is presented (in the ninth book) as the only maiden now left. Medicine and architecture are expressly forbidden to present themselves, for it is said that they are concerns of mortals on earth and have nothing to do with the ether. (This seems to me a point of great significance. In his Outline of Occult Science, Rudolf Steiner describes the different “Oracles’ of Atlantis—the Vulcan, Mercury and Venus Oracles among others. The adherents of the Vulcan Oracle “laid the first foundations of what afterwards arose among men as the arts and sciences, whereas the Mercury Initiates inaugurated the knowledge of things more specifically supersensible in their nature; and in a still higher degree this was also the case with the Venus Initiates.” According to this we can see that from a certain point of view architecture and medicine cannot be regarded as belonging to the arts of Mercury, however strange this may at first sight appear in regard to medicine. It would seem that their origin must be sought in the direction of the Vulcan Oracle in days of yore). It is Musica, or Harmonia, therefore, ‘the darling of the heavens and the constellations’ who is alone permitted to speak. A symphony of magic sounds announces her. Fair Gods and goddesses such as the Graces precede her with song, playing on strings. Demi-Gods and heroes of song like Orpheus accompany her. She herself—a sublime figure—walks between Apollo and Athene. Her head is adorned with gold, her robes are studded with gold and harmonies resound whenever she moves. In her right hand she holds a round instrument which emits wonderful harmonies; from her left hand hang golden pictures portraying the joys of the theatre. (According to remiguis the round instrument symbolises heavenly music, the pictures, earthly music). Her mother Venus follows her.[iii] Harmonica chants a lengthy song in many rhythms and then she too expounds the theory of her art. Finally she conducts the bride to the sleeping-chamber singing a slumber song.

And so in the seven Liberal Arts, Martianus Capella still lets sun, moon and stars resound. From his whole style one feels that he is giving something like a last echo. He closes his work with a poem to his son (also called Martianus) which begins with the words: “Here, then, thou hast the fable of age (senilam fabulam). . . .” This may well refer to the author’s great age. But may it not also at the same time imply that Martianus himself feels his fable to be the final echo of something hoary with age, something that stretches back into the far remote past?

In a similar connection Rudolf Steiner once spoke of Martianus and his seven Liberal Arts. He was speaking of the spiritual life of the Greeks more particularly, but also of that of the Romans through long periods of time. Individuals here and there attain to visionary consciousness; in the spiritual world they experience concepts and ideas and then bring them down to the world of sense. Only so does the world of sense become intelligible. This element works in the declining world of Rome in men like Martianus Capella who still seeks in the spiritual world for what, by his day, had become increasingly abstract. More ancient thought would have known that it is the ‘Angel’ who leads man into the spiritual world. The Greeks called these beings “Watchers.’ In Capella’s time, truly spiritual beings like the nine Muses of the Greeks had become, for example, Grammar. In earlier times man knew: in the words and combinations of words there works the ‘Angel,’ the ‘Watcher.’ Grammar and Rhetoric were the outcome of spiritual perception. They were not only teachings, but creative beings, accessible to those who ascended to the realm of Spirit. In Martianus Capella’s work they have become allegories, but for all that they are still allegories. Rudolf Steiner spoke of the figures depicted by Martianus as so many jocose ‘ladies’ who although emaciated and dried up, were still full-blooded in comparison with the abstractions which they grew to be in later times. They were, after all, still able to transport Martianus to the spiritual world. Rudolf Steiner said that Capella might have ended the description of his path to wisdom with the words: “The seven fold Feminine draws us upwards and on.” And then, later on, even allegory came to an end and intellect alone remained.—Thus does the path of human consciousness pass onwards into abstraction.

It has already been said that Capella’s book played an exceedingly important part in medieval culture. Even in the days of Gregory of Tours (6^th century) it was recognised as a text-book of instruction in the seven Liberal Arts. It is, however, generally believed that it was the Irish who were the first to attempt any exegesis of the text, turning chiefly to the Greeks for enlightenment. One of the oldest commentaries was written by the Irish scholar Dunchad who is said to have drawn upon sources of Phthagorean wisdom. About the same time a more extensive commentary was compiled in the ninth century by no less influential a thinker than Scotus Erigena who had been instructed in Irish schools of learning. It is very symptomatic that precisely in this region intensive study should have been given to Martianus Capella. As a pupil of Dunchad and Scotus Erigena we have St. Remigius of Auxerre who presumably based his views wholly on those of the Hibernian school and who about the year 888 wrote the commentary of which mention has already been made. Notker Labeo of St. Gallen (1022 A.D.) translated the first two books of the ‘Marriage’ into old high German—that is to say the purely mythological portion of the work. It is curious that the celebrated Dutch scholar and statesman Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), one of the characteristic standard-bearers of the culture of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, should have approached Capella’s difficult work as a philologist and published it when he was a boy of only fifteen years. It is as though he felt compelled to understand something of the mind of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch before embarking on his new and arduous activities. Finally, Leibnitz too wished to bring out a new edition of Capella’s work.

In many other places we find traces of Capella’s influence upon later works dealing with the seven Liberal Arts, notably upon Alanus ab Insulis’ great poem the Anticlaudian, written in the twelfth century. I intend to deal with this work in another connection and will therefore merely say here that the seven Liberal Arts are there presented in a way that is strongly reminiscent of Martianus. Moreover they build a chariot for ‘Prudentia’ who desires to ascend to the rank of a Goddess. With this chariot, Prundentia—who represents intelligence or mental endeavour—is able to journey to the world of stars, to begin with to the planetary world. Here again we have a mode of allegorical treatment fraught with deep meaning. Here too it emerges quite clearly that the seven Arts are the powers of soul whereby man may unite himself with the cosmos.

For a long time I have been occupied with the problem of the relation between medieval or somewhat later writers and the earlier authors upon whose sources they draw. Modern philology greatly simplifies this problem, being content to ‘prove the source’ of a later writing in an earlier one. (Indeed it often seems that this connection with earlier works is the only point of interest to modern philologists). But obviously the matter is not nearly so simple. It appears to me that precisely in the ‘drawing’ upon other sources we have a weighty problem of the whole mental attitude of the Middle Ages. In an age when ancient seership was dying out more and more it is understandable that the weight attached to the authority of earlier scholars and the significance of tradition should increase. On the other hand, medieval thinkers—living as they did before the age of the Spiritual Soul—were much freer of the ambition merely to give voice to their own, ‘personal’ discoveries. They attached far greater importance to information which was an authentic component of the stream of knowledge flowing through the centuries than to this individualism of authorship. With feelings of inner reverence they gave themselves up to contemplation of the wisdom of their predecessors and the continuity running through medieval spiritual life is the outcome of this attitude of soul. But another element too comes into consideration. As the observations, imagery, ideas and concepts of earlier scholars passed to those who came later, they fell upon a soil which, although intimately akin, was far less productive than of yore. The reaction to the imagery and ideas thus absorbed was that they were grasped in living, acting contemplation and became independent experiences on the part of the medieval teachers themselves. Out of these independent experiences they could then write, interpreting, substantiating and developing the old. But at the end of the fourth post-Atlantean period—that is to say in the fifteenth century—the outermost boundary had been reached beyond which this weakening stream would not have been able to continue its onward flow, at all events not in a healthy way.

We have an exact analogy in the artistic achievements of the Middle Ages. Here too there is great continuity through the centuries. Art and philosophy, wisdom teaching and theology were for long ages closely and intimately connected. Thus we see the seven Liberal Arts of Martianus working on for centuries in sculpture and painting. True, it was not possible for the artists to portray the seven Mercury maidens with all the attributes with which Martianus endows them, but for all that we find many characteristic features. In any case there were always the seven. Emile Male has many interesting things to tell us in this connection. The portrayal of the seven Liberal Arts which most faithfully follows the imagery of Martianus is to be found on the old portal in Chartres dating from the twelfth century.[iv] Nowhere in the Middle Ages, says Male, was more veneration paid to the seven maidens of Martianus Capella than in Chartres. We see them there just as he describes them: at the feet of each, a personage of distinction in the corresponding science, for example, Aristotle, Cicero, Pythagoras, Euclid, Ptolemy. In many another cathedral too we find portrayals of the seven maidens. According to Male, this can always be taken as a sign that schools of instruction in the seven Liberal Arts flourished in the place. So, for example, we find Grammatica in a long robe, holding an instrument as in Martianus’ description—one of the oldest portrayals again being in Chartres. Dialectica carries the serpent in her hand, but here Chartres is an exception; the serpent has there become the scorpion. Alanus ab Insulis too described Dialectica thus in his poem. In portraying Arithmetica the artists have endeavoured to express the mobility of her fingers (a point on which stress has already been laid) in their carving. Geometria too is nearly always found with the same attributes as in the scene of the marriage of Mercury and Philologia. From all this it is clear that the power of Martianus’ imagery worked on through many centuries.

Once again—but now in a great cosmic setting—we meet with the seven Liberal Arts in the alchemical wisdom of Basilius Valentinus who lived in the fifteenth century. An edition of the “Chemical Writings” ascribed to him dates from the year 1677. There we find, for example, seven poems under the title: “On the splendours of the seven planets, their nature, qualities, powers and courses, their hidden mysteries and metamorphoses, etc.” In each of the poems, one of the planets declares its nature in profound words, telling us the name of its own ‘Angel’ (Gabriel, for example is the Angel of the Moon), its own ‘virtue,’ its own day of the week, with which precious stone and colour it is connected and so, too, its corresponding Liberal Art. This is one of the finest co-orborations of the descriptions given by Martianus.

I will here add a portion of the table of correspondences given by Basilius Valentinus, leaving it to the reader to meditate further upon the many profound and illuminating connections and merely remarking that the virtues and as their opposites, the corresponding ‘vices,’ occupied a very important place both in medieval thought and works of art.

It is a source of profound satisfaction to learn from Anthroposophy that all the faculties once possessed by man—which he lost in the course of time and the last remnants of which died away in the Middle Ages—can in the future be regained by him in a new way, but now from out of his Ego-consciousness permeated with the Christ Impulse. This suggests the question: how and in what form will the seven Liberal Arts make their appearance? The answer is to be found in Rudolf Steiner’s Occult Science, albeit the Liberal Arts are not named by him in that book. In the chapter on the present and future of the evolution of the world and of man, as well as in other places, it is said that at a certain stage of development, thinking, feeling and willing become independent forces in the pupil; they become as it were three independent ‘beings,’ three personalities. In the course of further development, the power of thinking which has now become independent quickens into existence a fourth ‘being’ of soul and spirit who may be described as a direct inpouring into man of streams akin to thoughts. Likewise feeling and willing stimulate two forces in the soul and finally yet a seventh force, of ‘being’ akin to the Ego, is added. “Thus at a certain stage of development man discovers that he is composed of seven beings whom he has to direct and control.” This indicates how the seven soul-powers which since the days of Moses united to form the unitary Ego-consciousness, begin to separate from one another in new way. Rudolf Steiner also spoke of these seven powers of the soul in a course of lectures given in 1913 at The Hague: The Significance of Occult Development on the Sheaths and the Self of Man. There too he showed how in progressive spiritual development the self of man divides, gradually separating off ‘seven selves.’ In a most wonderful picture which cannot be repeated here, Dr. Steiner compared these seven selves with the seven planets. . . . And so there can arise before the soul a premonition of how in the future, on his way back to the spiritual realms of the cosmos which in ages long past he forsook in order to become an Ego, man can again acquire the same powers of soul once perceived by ancient clairvoyance as they streamed into him from cosmic spaces and from which as we have seen, the seven Liberal Arts proceeded.

[i] Translated and published by kind permission, from Die Drei, Vol. IV., No. 12 (Uhlandstrasse 4, Stuttgart).

[ii] See Emile Male’s fine work: L’Art religieux du XIIIe siecle en France. 5^th ed. Paris, 1923. P. 76.

[iii] Bernadus Silvestris also writes that the true Venus is the cosmic music, the mundana musica, i.e. aequalis mundanarum proportio.

[iv] Over this portal there is a celebrated statue of the Mother of God with which the portrayal of the Liberal Arts is undoubtedly connected in a very deep sense.

[v] This particular detail is not found in Basilius Valentinus but is obviously indicated as the other six arts are named. Moreover it is in accordance with Martianus Capella’s description.

From ANTHROPOSOPHY, No. 3, Michaelmas 1930. Vol. 5.