Little Question Three of Principal Question Five
Whether a certain divinatory practice concerning future events can be obtained from the stars and images
It is asked whether human beings can possess from the stars and such images some certain and divinatory practice concerning effects and future events.
It seems at first that they can, because the species of generable things are eternal and fixed, although individuals ebb and flow.
It follows consequently that some fixed face in heaven corresponds to each species of such things, from which it depends and is preserved, and that its individuals are formed and receive their countenances from it, as even the Philosopher seems to intimate in Book II On Generation.
Likewise, Ptolemy says in proposition 9 of the Centiloquium: “The faces of this lower world are subjected to celestial faces.”
Likewise, we see that the power of some image, which the individuals of species obey, can be stably impressed upon some elemental matter fashioned artificially.
For a certain image of a scorpion was found which had been formed by a certain astronomer at the time when the image of Scorpio flourished in heaven, and it cured human beings bitten by a scorpion.
Likewise, the astrologer Haly Abenragel, in Book IV, which concerns natural things, chapter 1, relates concerning a certain son of a king who was born with Libra in the ascendant and several planets above it, namely Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury.
For this reason astrologers were summoned. Among them Haly at last said that, if the boy passed beyond the third day, there would be a great marvel concerning him and it would be possible for that boy to utter some prophecy.
And it happened that, before twenty-four hours had passed, that boy sat up and began to speak, saying: “I have been unhappily born to announce the destruction of the nation of Almazar and to indicate the transfer of the kingdom of Azdexit to foreigners.”
Having said this, he fell and died. Therefore.
Likewise, it has been experienced that a boy born with the Bear in the ascendant or in the first house of the hemisphere acquired a countenance and physiognomy like that of a she-bear. And so he would have acquired the face of an ape if the image of the celestial ape had been ascending, and according to this manner in other cases.
Likewise, Master Lawrence of Perugia, a barber, teaches from the inspection of images in a book which he published that future events of this kind can be known. Therefore.
But to the contrary is Isidore in Book III of the Etymologies, who says that the business of the images of heaven is superstitious.
And under the title On Mathematicians, the civil laws judge that superstitious mathematicians are to be expelled entirely from political communities, and so do the saints.
Pope Sixtus V, through letters patent in the year of the Lord 1586, decreed that such persons were to be expelled and punished as corrupters of morals and of the Christian religion, subjecting them to censures and penalties, both ecclesiastical and secular.
Their arguments are answered as follows.
First, in answer to the first argument, the consequence is denied. The reason for the denial is that species of things are perpetuated through the generative power implanted by the Creator in corruptible things when they were first created, and likewise through the natural instinct and inclination which we see to be present in all animals to generate something like themselves. Thus the Sun and stars contain these inferior things virtually, not figuratively.
To the second, concerning Ptolemy’s proposition, it is said that, if he understood that every terrestrial species so depends upon some corresponding celestial image that, when that image flourishes above, the species flourishes below; that, when it makes something fortunate above, it makes it fortunate below; and that it can establish and impress upon some artificially fashioned elemental matter a power which the individuals of that species obey—I say that he spoke while deceived by the fame of the opinion which then flourished concerning such images.
To the point concerning the fashioned image of a scorpion, it is said that the effect of curing a scorpion’s bite did not come from the intrinsic power of the image in heaven. Rather, it could have arisen in many other ways through accidental things concurring in the cured arms-bearer and in those similarly injured.
For it is also said in the same place that the image was inscribed upon a certain precious stone, from which such a power could have arisen.
Likewise, it is said there that the ancients carved celestial faces in a stone and mixed with it other things necessary for this purpose.
Again, it is also said there: if the ring had such a power from the celestial Scorpion, how then did it cure scorpion poisoning and not rather increase the danger by conforming itself to the nature of that species of venom?
From these things the response to the third argument is evident.
To the fourth it is said that, since it lies beyond the power of the natural course for a boy of twenty-four hours to sit up, speak, and prophesy concerning future things, it is clearly apparent that this effect was not from the stars but rather from demons, who offered themselves there to mock credulous persons—various and superstitious human beings who would believe that the origin of prophets came from the action of the stars and not from a special gift of God.
The response to the fifth was given above under the fourth cause for transferring the images.
To the point concerning Master Lawrence, who recently made a book concerning fortune, it is said that it is scorned by the learned with the same ease with which it is approved by fools.
For, just as the alcocoden and ylech—which are not planets but places from which the years and lifespans of those born are sought—were invented by the Chaldaeans and Arabs for the deception of human beings, so also the casting of dice or the first fruits of the novenary fortune of the planets possess no property.
And when it is said that Sacred Scripture often speaks of those images—for example, of Arcturus, Orion, and so forth—it is answered that it does not follow that God constituted such images at the beginning so that human beings might attribute the effects of superstitions and vanities to them.
Rather, he did so that, upon seeing the figures of such images, they might praise God, their maker, in all his holy and marvelous works.