[Margin: 1. Opinion, making the stars Gods.]

[I.] The first opinion, and the most ancient, of very many, was that the heavens and the stars are animate with an intellective, blessed—nay, even divine—soul. For the Egyptians and the Stoics numbered the stars among the Gods, as Theodoret relates (bk. 3, On the [false] Gods); Eusebius of Caesarea (bk. 1 On the Preparation for the Gospel, ch. 6); nay, even the Athenians—for St. Augustine relates (City of God bk. 18, ch. 41), and Laertius (in the Life of Anaxagoras), that this very Philosopher, Anaxagoras, was condemned for impiety by the Athenians, because, asserting the Sun to be a fiery stone, he maintained [it to be] neither a God nor animate. Lucilius, certainly, the Stoic (in Cicero, and Lactantius bk. 2, ch. 5), discoursed thus: “This constancy, therefore, in the stars; this so great agreement of times [seasons] in courses so various, throughout all eternity—I cannot understand without mind, reason, and counsel; which [qualities], since we see them to be in the stars, we cannot but place those very [stars] in the number of the Gods”; and a little before: “It remains,” he says, “that the motion of the stars be voluntary; and he who sees this would act not only ignorantly, but also impiously, if he should deny that they are Gods.” The same Cleanthes believed (in Cicero, bk. 2, On the Nature of the Gods); and Plato, in the Epinomis, and in the Timaeus—whose words, addressing the stars as Gods, St. Augustine reports (City of God bk. 13, ch. 16), and concerning Plato the same testifies St. Cyril (bk. 2 Against Julian). But Plato and the Stoics added also a vegetative soul, as I shall say under num. 4.

[Margin: 2. Philo’s opinion.]

[II.] The second Opinion was that of those who thought the stars animate with an intellective soul, yet not placing them among the Gods: for Philo, in the book On Dreams, says: “The individual stars are said [to be] not only living beings, but also most pure minds.” And in the book On Giants he says: “It is necessary that the whole World have a soul in all its parts,” etc.—likewise the heaven and the stars: “For these, as a whole, are immortal and divine souls; and therefore they are moved in a circle, which motion is akin to mind. For the mind of each of these is most perfect.” Which very [thing] Martinengus (p. 881) and the Conimbricenses (bk. 2 On the Heavens, ch. 1, q. 1) ascribe to Rabbi Moses [Maimonides]. And Origen (homily 28 on Numbers, and more clearly bk. 1 On First Principles, ch. 7, and vol. 1 of the Commentary on John), considering that [text] of Isaiah ch. 45, “I have commanded the host of heaven,” after many [words] concludes: “But the stars are moved with so great order and so great reason, that in no [case] at all has the course of them ever been seen impeded. How is it not beyond all stupidity, [to think] that the observance of so great an order, and so great a discipline of reason, is required of, or fulfilled by, irrational [beings]?” Then, on account of that saying of Job 25, “The stars are not pure in his sight,” he judged the stars to be capable of vice and virtue; and finally, because in Romans 8 it is said that the creature is subject to vanity and is to be freed from servitude, he thought the souls of the stars are to be freed from the body of their globe—and that of old the souls of the stars were outside the globes, but afterward dragged into them, as into a prison. There are also those who suspect that Athanasius in part clung to Origen, because, expounding that [text] of Matthew 11, “All things are delivered to me by my Father,” he adds: “The Angels did not keep their order, and the stars are not held pure before him, and the devil fell from heaven; but Adam became rusted [corrupted].”

Among the more recent [writers] too, Cajetan, on Psalm 133, and in the treatise On Indulgences, expounding that [text] “Who made the heavens in [by] understanding”; and that [phrase] in the Preface of the Canon of the Mass, “the heavens and the powers of the heavens,” says: “What does he understand by the powers of the heavens? Surely [not] the Angels [as] movers? But above he had reckoned the Angels themselves, and ought not to repeat them. Surely [not] the very forces of the heavens? But he ought not to mix the insensate [things] with the Angelic orders, and the discourse would then be inept, if with the most excellent substances the forces and accidents of the heavens be coupled. Therefore by the powers of the heavens he understood the very souls of the heavens and stars.” Cassiodorus likewise shows himself doubtful in this matter, on Psalm 148, when he says: “Wherefore the Prophet bade the Sun, Moon, and Stars—whether by their own reason, or by other sensible and demonstrable substances—praise the Lord.” Likewise Haymo, on the same psalm, indicated his hesitation, saying: “If the Sun is said to have a spirit, then the Moon and the rest of the Stars can of themselves praise God; [but] if they do not praise thee well, because they are matter, why should we [bid] them praise thee?” St. Jerome too seemed to some [to be] doubtful in this, because (bk. 9 on Isaiah), explaining that [text] “The light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun, and the light of the Star shall be sevenfold,” he says: “That the Moon and Sun may obtain the rewards of their labor and course.” And on ch. 1 of Ecclesiastes, expounding of the Sun that [text] “The spirit goeth forward,” among other expositions he hands down that [one] according to the mind of Virgil and Plato, saying: “Or because the spirit within feeds both the Moon, the shining globe, and the Titanian stars, and the mind, infused through the limbs, sets the whole mass in motion,” etc. But he himself [Jerome] expressly condemns Origen’s opinion, both in letter 59 to Avitus, and in bk. 13 on Isaiah. Likewise St. Augustine (bk. 2 On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 18) seemed to doubt, as also in bk. 13 of the City of God, ch. 16; but afterward—

[…continues on p. 245 (PDF 280): “…he retracted himself (Retractations bk. 1, ch. 5 and 11). And the other light of the Theologians, St. Thomas, although in several works (following Aristotle) he attributes to the celestial bodies an intellective soul, yet in the Summa (Prima Pars, q. 70, art. 3) concludes that the soul of a celestial body is not united to it as a form, but only as a mover to the movable, by contact of power…”]

(printed p. 245 — Chapter VIII continued: the page notes that Augustine afterward retracted his earlier view, in bk. 1 of the Retractations, chs. 5 and 11.)

[Margin: What of St. Thomas?]

And the other light of the Theologians, St. Thomas—although, following Aristotle, in the Disputed Questions (the question On the Soul, art. 8), and in the second [book] Against the Gentiles, and in the Opusculum On the Angels, he teaches that the celestial bodies are informed by a certain intellective soul, striving in the motion of the heaven to imitate the divine likeness; and which [soul], according to the Philosopher (On the Soul bk. 2, and Metaphysics bk. 11), is merely intellective, and not, as Avicenna will have it, also imaginative; and which, finally, could have sinned but did not sin, and pertains to the society of the Angels—yet (Prima Pars, q. 70, art. 3) he concludes that the soul of a celestial body is not united to it as a form, because in no operation is it aided by the body, but only as a mover [is united] to the movable, by contact of power. His final words are: “It remains, therefore, that for the sake of motion alone”—understand, “[the soul] is united to the celestial body; but for this, that it move [it], it is not necessary that it be united to it as a form, but [united] by contact of power, as a mover is united to the movable”; and he adds the example of the prime mover moving itself, and (by Aristotle, Physics bk. 8) composed of a part moving and a part moved, which are united by contact; and finally, “the Platonists too,” he says in the same place, “did not posit souls to be united to bodies except by contact of power, as a mover [to] the movable.” From which passage Cajetan and very many Thomists have judged that St. Thomas changed his opinion—as one who, in the Summa, left his last will declared as it were by testament; but Ferrariensis (2 Against the Gentiles, ch. 70) and Vielmius think that he constantly adhered to neither side.

[Margin: Vielmius’s opinion.]

And Vielmius himself—the teacher of Ascanius Martinengus—(lecture 19 on Genesis) judged this to be an open question [problema], notwithstanding the decree of the Parisian Academy [University]; for he says, on the question whether the heaven is animate: “And let what has been said up to here be for the negative opinion, which I least of all doubt to be the more probable—so that, accordingly, the affirmative was also long ago placed among the articles condemned at Paris, as Richard writes in the cited place.” But nevertheless I judge that the reasons brought on both sides can be answered, in [academic] disputations, in such a way that it certainly appears that neither were those unlearned who thought otherwise, nor is it now nefarious [forbidden] to ventilate that [question].

[Margin: Aureolus. Scotus.]

Likewise Aureolus (on [Sentences] 2, dist. 14, q. 2, art. 2, and q. 3, art. 1) and Scotus (ibid., q. 2) judged the affirmative part—concerning an intellective soul of the heaven—probable, the reasons being regarded; [Scotus] saying: “If the stars are not animate, that will be a thing believed rather than demonstrated.”

[Margin: What of Aristotle?]

[III.] Thus far concerning the ancient Philosophers before Aristotle, and concerning the Theologians. But what Aristotle thought, and after him the Peripatetics or the other Philosophers, is disputed. For (bk. 2 On the Heavens, text 13 and 61; and Metaphysics bk. 12, text 35) he seems to attribute to the heaven an intellective soul as a form; and thus Themistius, Averroes, Simplicius, [and] Philoponus interpret him, and also St. Thomas (2 Against the Gentiles, ch. 50; and in the Disputed Questions, the question On the Soul, art. 8, ad 3), and Vasquez (Prima Pars, q. 183), Niphus (On the Substance of the Orb bk. 1, ch. 29), Pomponazzi (On the Immortality of the Soul), Achillini (On the Orbs bk. 3, dub. 1), Balduinus, and Mercenarius (in the question On the Soul of the Heaven). But from bk. 8 of the Physics (texts 40, 41, 52, and 12) and the Metaphysics (texts 30 and 43), it seems to be gathered that Aristotle does not attribute to the heaven an Intelligence as an informing form, but only as a pure act assisting [it]—like a sailor [to] a ship; nay, not even moved with the motion of the heaven—as Scotus interprets him (Quodlibet 7), Piccolomini (On the Heavens, ch. 17), Jandun (2 On the Heavens, q. 4), and Alexander (in [the report of] Simplicius). Likewise an intellective soul attributed to the heaven Iamblichus, Porphyry, [and] Proclus (in [the report of] Psellus, on the oration of St. [Gregory] Nazianzen, 38 and 42); Julius Firmicus (Mathesis bk. 1, ch. 3); Bellantius (in Alexander, On the Angels bk. 1, Against the Astrologers, ch. 13); Marsilio Ficino (the dialogue On the Laws, argument 10); [and] Carpentarius, himself also a Platonist (ch. 12).

[Margin: 3. Opinion, on a vegetative and sensitive soul of the heavens.]

[IV.] The third Opinion was that of those who, besides an intellective soul, attributed to the heaven a sensitive—nay, even a vegetative and locomotive—soul; among whom [are] those who thought the stars are nourished. Concerning whom Plutarch [speaks] thus (bk. 2 On the Opinions, ch. 17): “Heraclitus and the Stoics [held] that the stars are nourished by vapors ascending from the earth. Aristotle [held] that the celestial bodies do not need nourishment, for [they] cannot be corrupted, but are eternal. Plato and the Stoics [held] that, just as the whole world, so the stars too take nourishment”—but Plato is to be read in the Epinomis. In which opinion was, without doubt, Pliny (bk. 2, ch. 8): “The fellowship of heaven with us is not so great, that for us [too] the splendor of the stars should be subject to mortal fate. They [the stars], by excess of nourishment, give back the moist matter in abundance when they are believed to fall [as shooting stars]”; and (ch. 9) to this he refers the spots of the Moon, saying: “But the stars without doubt are fed by earthy moisture, because [the Moon] with half its orb is never seen but spotted—namely, because there is not yet enough [force] available to drink up [the moisture] beyond the due measure; for the spots are nothing else than impurities of earth snatched up with moisture.”

[Margin: Avicenna. Simplicius.]

Moreover Avicenna (Metaphysics bk. 12, ch. 2), besides an intellective soul remotely moving the heaven, gave it a sensitive [soul] produced by the intelligence, as proximately moving by the imagination of sensible motion; but Simplicius (On the Heavens bk. 1, text 50) added those three senses—namely, sight, hearing, and touch.

[Margin: Tycho.]

Tycho (in the Letters of the year 1590 to Rothmann), moreover, acknowledged a divine vital spirit in them, saying: “But these things come about in the celestial [bodies] in a certain celestial, and more lively and exquisite, manner than in terrestrial or watery living beings; since that divine philosophy of the Platonists seems not without reason to hold that the heaven too is animate, and that the celestial bodies themselves are certain living beings of the heaven, endowed with a vital spirit.”

[Margin: Kepler.]

Moreover Kepler (in the book On the New Star, and in the Physiology [of Comets]) attributes to the heaven a certain soul, whose [task] it is at [certain] times to gather the soot and impurities of the heaven, which would infect the splendor of the Sun and stars, and the transparency of the ether, unless they were kindled into Comets; for when a great abundance of such impurities has arisen—“Then, therefore,” he says (p. 99), “there is need of a cleansing and purgation, which that faculty performs which is in the very substance of the ethereal breeze, a faculty similar to the vegetative or vital one.” And in the introduction to the Commentaries on Mars, he will have the Sun to be endowed with a soul, so that it may preserve for the Sun [its] light and the power of moving the other Planets; and he calls [it] a moving soul, attributing a corporeal life to the Sun.

[Margin: Baranzanus.]

And Baranzanus (part 1 of the Uranoscopia, dub. 3) attributes to the celestial bodies a certain soul, midway between the intellective and the brute [soul], agreeing with these only analogically.

[Margin: 4. The Negative Opinion.]

[V.] The fourth, and true and sound, opinion is that the Heaven and the stars are inanimate, and lack altogether every soul that would be a form informing the celestial bodies; but [that], if they are moved by an Intelligence, they are moved by it not as by an informing form, but as by an assisting Mover. For this opinion contend: Catharinus (on ch. 1 of Genesis), where he denies that Cajetan’s opinion can be defended by a Christian; Ascanius Martinengus (in the great Gloss, pp. 887 and 890), who, however—Origen’s error excepted—thinks it an open question whether the stars are animate with a rational soul, but confirms the negative part [as] far more probable by reasons and authorities; Mastrius and Bellutus (disp. 2, On the Heavens, q. 2, art. 2, from num. 62); [and] John Punch (disp. 22, Physics, q. 3). And from the writers of our Society: Pererius (On Genesis bk. 2, q. 7), the Conimbricenses (2 On the Heavens, ch. 1, q. 1, art. 2), Toletus (2 On the Heavens, ch. 5), Rubius (1 On the Heavens, ch. 2, q. 8), Tanner (the dissertation On the Heavens, q. 4; and vol. 1 of the Summa of Theology, disp. 6, q. 2), Amicus (tract 3, On the Heavens, q. 4), Arriaga (the single disputation On the Heavens, sect. 2), Oviedo (the single controversy On the Heavens, point 1), [and] Baltasar Téllez (disp. 43, Physics)—in whom [are cited] other Scholastics. And so let [the following] be [the conclusion]:

The Single Conclusion

The Celestial Bodies are animate with no soul—neither an Intellective or rational, nor a sensitive, nor a vegetative.

[Margin: 1. Argument.]

It is proved, first, by the Authority of the Fathers—especially St. Cyril (bk. 2 Against Julian), St. Basil (homily 3 of the Hexaemeron), [and] St. Ambrose (Hexaemeron bk. 2, ch. 4)—the latter two of whom refute Origen [by arguing] that dew too, and frost, and cold, and hoar-frost would have to be called animate, because they are invited to praise God; St. Gregory Nazianzen (oration 38), where, on the interpretation of Psellus, he condemns the impious positions of the Platonists about the soul of the heavens; St. Chrysostom (homily on Psalm 4), where among other things he pronounces: “For the Sun has neither reason, nor mind, nor thought”; likewise Theophilus of Alexandria (the 1st Paschal letter), where he says that Origen builds up dogmas contrary to the faith; and St. John Damascene, saying: “Let no one think the heavens or the Luminaries animate, for [if they had] a soul, they would also feel [perceive].” The same, with St. Basil, Procopius teaches (in the Commentaries on Genesis); and Lactantius (bk. 2 of the Divine Institutes, ch. 5) acutely assails the Gentiles with this argument: that if, on account of—

[…continues on p. 246 (PDF 281): “…their constancy in motion, the stars seem [to some] to be reckoned among the Gods, rather from that very [constancy] it had to be gathered that they lack not only divinity, but intellect and will; for if they were Gods, endowed with intellect and will, they would wander freely hither and thither at their pleasure; but since this does not happen, but they are compelled perpetually to weave the same path, as if fixed to a treadmill, their motion is not voluntary, but necessary.”]

(printed p. 246 — Chapter VIII concluded, completing the 1st proof of the Conclusion: the very constancy of the stars’ motion shows they lack not only divinity but intellect and will, for if they were Gods they would wander freely at their pleasure, whereas their perpetual fixed path proves their motion necessary, not voluntary. Riccioli notes this argument would also strike the moving Intelligences, and refers the reader to the remaining Fathers in Ascanius Martinengus.)

[Margin: 2. Argument.]

It is proved, secondly, from the definition of the Church; for in the fifth General Synod, which was the second of Constantinople, among the other errors of Origen—as Nicephorus relates (Ecclesiastical History bk. 17, ch. 27 and 28), Iaverius (in the Summa of the Councils, vol. 2), and Liberatus (in the Breviarium, ch. 23)—this too was condemned by that decree: “If anyone says that the Heaven, and the Sun, and the Moon, and the Stars, and the waters which are above the heavens, are certain animate [beings] and material powers, let him be anathema.” Where “the material powers of the heavens” are taken, according to the mind of Origen, for souls informing the bodies of the stars. And the Synod distinctly condemned the error of Origen about souls produced before the heaven, as Nicephorus relates in that ch. 27; wherefore, by that other decree, a distinct error is condemned—namely, that by which an intellective soul is attributed to the heaven and the stars. Moreover, in the chapter “Firmiter,” On the Supreme Trinity and the Catholic Faith, among rational creatures none are reckoned but Angels and Men; and St. Jerome numbers this [opinion] among the heresies; and St. Epiphanius (bk. 1 of the Panarion) and St. Irenaeus (bk. 1 Against Heresies) number, among the condemned dogmas of the Marcosians, the opinion about the soul of the heavens.

[Margin: Censure on the opposite opinion.]

Wherefore, on account of these and similar authorities, the opinion asserting that the heaven and stars are animated with an intellective or rational soul, they judge to be erroneous in faith: St. Bonaventure (on [Sentences] 2, dist. 14), Peter of Tarentaise (in [the report of] the Carthusian, on 2, dist. 14, q. 2), the Directory of Inquisitors (from p. 239), Tanner, Téllez, Punch, [and] the Conimbricenses, in the places reviewed above. But that it is [merely] not consonant with the faith, teach Capreolus (on [Sentences] 2, dist. 9, q. 1, art. 1), Gabriel [Biel] (ibid., q. 1), [and] Pererius (bk. 2 On Genesis, q. 7); and Catharinus (on ch. 1 of Genesis) says that it cannot be defended by a Christian. But Pineda (on ch. 1 of Ecclesiastes, p. 124) calls our opinion “an Ecclesiastical Dogma, and next to [a matter of] Faith”; Lorinus, however (in the same place, verse 6), denies that the opposite is an open error—granted that he himself holds, against Paolo Ricci, that the Heavens are not animate. But if anyone attribute to the heaven or the stars only a sensitive, or a vegetative, or a locomotive soul, Tanner (above, assertion 1) and Téllez judge that proposition “Absurd” and erroneous in Philosophy; and Martinengus [judges it] altogether to be exploded and rejected, yet not contrary to the Faith. Granted that not even that [opinion] which gives them an intellective soul did Vielmius (lecture 19 on Genesis) and Martinengus (in the Gloss, p. 890) judge erroneous in Faith, but [held it] to be an open question in the way [tradition] of the Fathers; yet that same Vielmius, from Richard, admits [it] was condemned by the Parisian Academy [University].

[Margin: 3. Argument.]

It is proved, thirdly, by Theological Arguments: for if those souls were intellective, blessed, and holy, it would be permitted to adore them with some worship and veneration—if not of latria [the worship due to God alone], at least of hyperdulia or dulia, as the Theologians speak. But this is against Deuteronomy ch. 4 and 17, where worship and adoration are forbidden not only of strange Gods, but also of the Sun, Moon, and all the host of heaven; nor did the Church ever permit even this worship of dulia toward the stars—nay, [such worship] is execrable, as the sacred interpreters teach on that [passage] of Job: “If I beheld the Sun when it shone, and the Moon walking in brightness, and [if] I kissed my hand [with] my mouth—which is the greatest iniquity, and a denial against the most high God”; that is, “if I worshiped the Sun and Moon.” But if those souls are damned, then the place of the lower regions [hell] would already be in the heaven itself; or the heavens and stars would at some time have to be thrust down into hell and eternal fire, which is the common place of all the damned, as is gathered from Matthew 25, verse 41. But because someone could imagine that those souls are not capable of merit and demerit, I therefore subjoin the fourth Proof.

[Margin: 4. Argument.]

It is proved, fourthly: Because neither in the heaven nor in the stars do we have any indication a posteriori, from their operation, of a sensitive, or vegetative, or rational soul; nor do there appear in them any organs necessary, mediately or immediately, for these operations. Therefore an informing soul is rashly and without foundation posited in them. But if you say that those bodies do not need organs or dissimilar parts, [then] this very kind of soul—animating a non-organic body—is gratuitously imagined; and for their regular motions the external direction of an assisting and moving Intelligence suffices.

[Margin: Objections resolved.]

Nor does that [text] of Psalm 135 [136] stand in the way: “Who made the heavens in [by] understanding”; for that is to be understood of the wisdom of God himself, by which he founded and ordered the heavens and their motions—as there expound St. Augustine, Euthymius, Cassiodorus, [and] Haymo; or [it is to be understood] of the Word, who is the Son of God, as St. Bruno [holds]. And that [text] of Psalm 18 [19], “The heavens declare the glory of God,” etc.; and Psalm 148, “Praise him, Sun and Moon”; and Job 38, “When the morning stars praised me”—is to be understood objectively, not formally; namely, because they are a most fitting object for arousing Angels and men to praise God. And that [text] of Isaiah 45, “My hand has stretched out the heavens, and I have commanded all their host”; and Habakkuk 3, “They were called, and they said, here we are,” etc.—is to be taken metaphorically; or [else] an obediential power is indicated, by which every creature, although inanimate, is subject to and serves the command of God. Finally, that [text] of Ecclesiastes 1, about the Sun, “The spirit, surveying all things in its circuit, goeth forward,” can be understood either of the Intelligence governing the Sun, or in other ways, concerning which [I shall treat] below in Section 2, where [I treat] of the Movers of the heavens.

[Margin: A soul lower than the rational can, without prejudice to the faith, be attributed to the stars.]

It is to be noted, however, with St. Thomas (2 Against the Gentiles, ch. 7), that it pertains little to the Faith whether the stars be called animate or not—provided they be not said to have an intellective soul.

[Here Chapter VIII ends.]