Little Question Three of Principal Question Three
How, according to some, all things are subjected to fate
It is asked how the aforesaid philosophers, astrologers, and Stoics prove that all things are subjected to and necessitated by fate.
To this it is answered that they prove this opinion of theirs by reason, authorities, and examples.
First, by reason, thus: when a sufficient cause has been posited, the effect follows of necessity. But fate and the series of secondary causes are the sufficient cause of all natural and voluntary effects below the Moon. Therefore, all things proceed from it of necessity.
The major premise is known, and they prove the minor through Boethius, who says in Book IV of the Consolation:
The series of fate moves the heaven and the stars, tempers the elements with one another, and transforms them by alternate transmutation. The same series renews all things which are born and die through the similar advances of offspring and seeds. It also constrains the acts and fortunes of human beings by an indissoluble connection of causes.
These are his words.
Hence Seneca said in the tragedies: “The mortal race is ruled by the fates.” And again in the same place: “Whatever we mortals suffer, whatever we do, comes from on high.” And in On Consolation: “We cannot change the fates. They stand harsh and inexorable.”
And Damascene says in Book II of the Sentences: “The celestial bodies constitute habits, complexions, and dispositions in us.”
And Ptolemy the astronomer says in Book III of the Quadripartitum: “The Sun has the power of killing and preserving.” And in the same place he says: “The celestial bodies compel a human being to sin and to do well.”
And many poets have said the same thing. For Lucan says in Book VI:
Fate drives all things headlong; intervening diseases do not divide life and death.
And Ovid, in Book I of the Tristia:
No reason has strength to conquer fate.
And Juvenal says in Book III:
The fates will give kingdoms to slaves and triumphs to captives.
And again in his final book:
For an hour of kindly fate has greater power than if a letter of Venus should commend us to Mars.
And the Samian mother, that is, Cybele, mother of the gods, is called Samian from the island of Samos, where she was worshiped. And in Satire VII, which begins “Both hope and reason,” he says:
For it makes a difference what stars receive you as you are just beginning to utter your first cries and are still red from your mother.
And Quintus Curtius says in Book V: “Let those mock, of course, who have been persuaded that human affairs are rolled and driven by chance and at random. For my part, I would believe that, by an eternal constitution and a chain of hidden causes determined long before, each thing runs through its own order by an immutable law.”
And Pliny says in Book I of the Natural History: “Individual stars have been assigned to us: bright ones to the rich, lesser ones to the poor, and obscure ones to the deceased, and, according to the lot of each, shining for mortals unto their offices.”
And Quintilian says in the book of Declamations: “By fate we live, grow sick, recover, and die. What do you accomplish, medicine, except that no one despair while beside you?”
Hence it is also said in a certain epitaph:
Refrain, I beg you, from pouring forth sad laments; I have lived. No longer hour was in my fates.
And in another epitaph it is said:
Alas, born unhappy under an adverse star, falling headlong from his horse, he died before his day.
This is also evident from examples. For Cicero, in the book On the Nature of the Gods, adduces the example of two brothers who, since they had been born together, afterward also began to grow sick together; their illness began to grow worse in the same manner, and they were cured by the same medicine. Concerning them Posidonius the astronomer says that these things happened to them equally and uniformly because they had the same constitution of the stars at conception and birth.
The example is also evident in a son of Lord John of Lignano in the time of Pope Martin. For this Lord John, a most learned jurisconsult and most celebrated astronomer, foresaw from the nativity that a certain son of his was to be affixed to a cross. Being unwilling to come to the aid of fate’s natal disposition, he caused his son to be initiated into sacred orders and to be excellently instructed in the liberal disciplines. But not even in this manner could the son escape the force of what fate had decreed.
For when the Bolognese homeland sent him as legate to Martin, the Supreme Pontiff, to arrange peace, he secretly betrayed his homeland to the pontiff, more to its destruction than its advantage. When this became known to the lords after his return, they affixed him to a gallows at night. When his father saw him hanging at daybreak, he lamented and said: “Alas, my son, you were unable to overcome your most unhappy fate either by the human supports of letters or by divine ministries.”
From these sayings of foolish philosophers and astronomers, therefore, many conclude and say that all things are moved and governed by fate, and that no one can turn aside from or pass beyond the ranks of the fates.
From this also it is that certain astronomers thrust themselves forward to judge the future outcomes of human beings: the life and death of kings; the peace and wars of peoples; the riches and poverty of human beings; the fertility and sterility of wives; the abundance and famine of harvests; and the honors and indignities of prelates—very often predicting true things, or rather prophesying them.
But because their teachings are of the greatest importance and concern attending to the state of human life, they will therefore have to be cited and adduced in the following article, and refuted by us, lest we too be deceived, impelled by the authority of human beings who think themselves wise and have been found foolish.