Iain Pears - The Dream of Scipio

Still, his excitement was limited, for his concern was above all with the golden age of Rome, the age of Catullus, of Vergil, of Horace and Ovid, and, above all, of Cicero. Even this period was perceived only dimly, but everybody knew that it was the most valuable. The dying songs of the Roman world were secondary, interesting only insofar as they cast a light back still further to the glorious days of Augustus and Athens. This is why Olivier copied, and why, perched unsteadily on his horse the next day, he found his mind wandering back to what the manuscript had said. He knew little enough of ancient philosophy, and these words he had been reading were scarcely comprehensible to him.

“A man worthy of God would be a god himself, and can achieve this state through death alone; the man dies when the soul leaves the body, yet the soul dies a sort of death when it leaves its source and falls to earth. Man’s striving for virtue is the soul’s desire to return whence it came. Until the soul achieves virtue, it must remain below the moon. Pure love is a reminiscence of the beautiful and a striving to return to it. Only through its accomplishment is the soul freed.”

In word, clear enough perhaps, but there were many things Olivier found disturbing. A man becoming a god himself; souls dying when they are born; love a reminiscence; all these were turns of the mind he found baffling to the point of being nonsensical. Perhaps indeed they were ravings, but there was a lyricism to the writing and a sureness to the prose that made him hesitate to dismiss the manuscript so readily. He said as much to his cardinal when he handed the work, and seven others, over to him. They were the payment, at last, for his shoes.

“And who wrote this?” the cardinal asked.

They were sitting together in Ceccani’s summer study halfway up the great tower, a room dark and dank in winter, but perfectly refreshing in the fierce brilliance of June, a blissful refuge from the overpowering heat of the day. Ceccani had a jug of fresh water on his desk, kept cool by being collected as ice from the hills in winter, brought by cart to his palace, and stored deep underground, far below the cellars, until it was needed. This precious, delicious liquid he poured by himself; he enjoyed his conversations with Olivier and wanted no interruptions to them. Every time his wayward protégé came back from his travels, Ceccani cleared at least an hour or two from his busy schedule and looked forward with the eagerness of a schoolboy to hearing about the young man’s adventures and discoveries. It was, indeed, uncertain who had infected whom with the passion for manuscripts, or indeed which of the strange couple most envied the other, for while Olivier saw the cardinal’s power and glory, Ceccani saw only Olivier’s freedom and exuberant youth.

“It begins, ‘Manlius Hippomanes, servant of philosophy, to Lady Wisdom, greetings.’ There is also a reference to deeds done in the reign of Majorian, who was, I think, one of the last emperors.”

“But not a Christian document?”

“There is not a single reference to Christianity in it. On the other hand, Saint Manlius is still revered and lived in the same period; he is a saint from the town where I was born. It is not a common name; they must be one and the same person. And if that is the case, then Lady Wisdom, Lady Sophia as he calls her, may well have some connection with the Saint Sophia you know well. That is only a guess, of course. And it makes it all the more perplexing.”

“Why?”

Olivier thought, trying to explain what were little more than feelings. “It stays in my mind, although I don’t know why,” he said eventually. “Parts of it I am sure I have heard before somewhere. Others I feel I understand but when I think more carefully, I realize I don’t understand them at all. And I do not know how to find out whether it contains sense or nonsense.”

“What is it about?”

“Partly it is a commentary on Cicero, hence its name. Partly it is a discourse on love and friendship, and the connections between those and the life of the soul and the exercise of virtue. That much I can understand. But not much more. Then there is the last section, in which the teacher takes this Manlius into the heavens and shows him all eternity. This is the most baffling part. All I know is that anyone who wrote this sort of thing down now might find themselves in grave difficulties. So I don’t know who I can talk to about it.”

“You will have to go and ask Cardinal de Deaux’s Jew,” said Ceccani with a smile. “He might know. And he will hardly denounce you. I will ask Brother de Deaux to give you an introduction. He will not deny me the favor, I think, despite the fact that we loathe each other cordially. Knowledge is neutral territory in our warfare.”

Olivier was half surprised, half excited by the prospect. He had, of course, heard of the cardinal’s Jew, but had never met him; few people had. How he had attached himself to Bertrand de Deaux no one knew, although it was known that even the pope brought him in, on occasion, for some form of advice. When he arrived in Avignon he talked to no one, and those curious who tried to engage him in conversation were met with a quizzical sort of disdain, a polite but utterly distant response that suggested that their good opinion really was not necessary to him in any way. Many, not surprisingly, found this offensive, considering that such a person should be flattered and honored by their willingness to converse with him at all, but their opinions seemed to count for little in his mind.

Olivier had always assumed that this Gersonides was, if not a money changer, then a physician; such being the most notable occupations that Jews followed, and because the law forbidding Christians to use their services was universally ignored. Certainly the curia had need of the former; not to lend money, for its revenues were titanic, but to channel that great river of gold throughout Europe, so that it reached the right people with dispatch. Well-connected Jews were ideal for such purposes and, in return for protection, could be relied on to perform such services honestly and cheaply. Such people, however, were not obvious choices for the elucidation of obscure manuscripts from the evening of Rome.

“Oh, he is not a money man,” said Ceccani with a chuckle. “He is as poor as can be, and has no sense in that direction at all. I have consulted him myself on occasion but have long since stopped giving him gold; he only gives it away before he is a dozen paces outside the door. Asceticism and poverty are noble and holy things, but I confess I do find them annoying in a client.”

“So? What is he?”

“He is a man of learning, my dear Olivier, and his people value this so much that they give him money merely to make himself more learned. You, no doubt, would appreciate this habit of theirs. He is what they call a rabbi, and what we would call a philosopher, as he seems to exercise no priestly functions at all. He lives in Carpentras and rarely leaves his house. Even the pope almost has to beg him to answer his letters. You can take it as an indication of his worth that His Holiness is willing to do so. I will get you a letter of introduction and you must go and see him. He will talk to you if de Deaux insists. Do not expect to like him, however, for he tries hard to make himself disagreeable and generally succeeds very well.”

IT IS HARD to believe that so little is known about one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages that no one is even sure within thirty years when he died, and yet this is the case with Levi ben Gershon, also known as Gersonides and, to those with a cryptic turn of mind, as Ralbag from the Hebrew letters of his name. Officially he died in 1344, as this is the last time his name appears in the archives and in 1352 he is referred to as being already dead. Others, however, dismiss this and point to evidence that suggests he was still alive in 1370. No one, however, has devoted much time to the mystery, as his life is such a blank page that discovering when he died would add little. Apart from the fact that he lived his entire life in Provence, and was known to the curia of Avignon, almost nothing remains of his daily existence.