THE IMPACT OF THE NEW GREEK TREATISES

As nonscholastic interpretations and approaches to nature gained adherents during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many of whom would be among the leading scientific and philosophical thinkers of the period, a common attitude toward scholastic authors and their works developed. When not characterized by downright hostility and contempt, this attitude is best described as indifference. With regard to discussions of space and vacuum generally and infinite space in particular, indifference was usually manifested by silence. Except for occasional mention of an opinion or attitude of the “schools” or “schoolmen,” and even one specific and respectful citation of scholastic sources, nonscholastic authors chose to document and support their varied arguments about space, whether associated with God or not, with ancient Greek authors (Plato, Proclus, Epicurus, the Stoics, Hero, Simplicius, Plutarch, Philoponus, Hermes Trismegistus, etc.), the Church Fathers, Cabbalists, and nonscholastic predecessors and contemporaries. Silence about, or contempt for, the large and detailed scholastic literature on infinite space does not and cannot legitimize the inference that scholastic ideas about space and God played no role in shaping nonscholastic interpretations and opinions. It only makes the determination of such influences difficult to demonstrate and document. As the previous chapters have shown, the problem of infinite space and its relationship to the deity had engaged the attention of scholastic authors since the fourteenth century.