Note 599 — Chapter VI · COSMOGONY, COSMOLOGY, AND COSMOGRAPHY

See above, pp. 15–16. Belief in the World Soul (anima mundi) was a doctrine of Platonism. Theodoric of Chartres (De sex d. op., pp. 60–62), Bernard Sylvester (De mundi univ., passim), and William of Conches (see Poole, op. cit., p. 151) shared it with Peter Abelard (Hauréau, op. cit., p. 253). The two latter, like Theodoric, identified this mysterious unifying conscious spirit of all things with the Holy Ghost and maintained that belief in the World Soul was not inconsistent with the Christian teaching that each individual has a personal soul of his own. The personal soul in some way was thought to be merged with and to form a portion of the World Soul. The theory of the World Soul, however, could not be purged of an heretical taint. At the very beginning of our period Manegold argued as vigorously against it (Contra Wolfelmum Coloniensem opusculum, 1–3) as he argued against the possibility of antipodeans (see above, p. 161). It was also severely condemned by other defenders of more old-fashioned and orthodox beliefs. Peter Comestor says, for example: “Hunc locum male intellexit Plato, dictum hoc putans de anima mundi” (Hist. schol., Gen. 1, 2), and Peter Lombard’s whole treatment of the question of the Trinity in the Sententiae (II, 17) precludes the possibility of a World Soul. Peter Lombard specifically states that the soul of man is not of the same substance as the soul of God.