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Understanding the History of Astrology working on this material has inspired these reflections and I sincerely hope that others (and Magic) Accurately: Methodological will find them useful. The entire process has Reflections on Terminology and Ana- unfolded as a series of increasingly refined approximations, tacking back and forth be- chronism tween big picture issues and detailed treat- H. Darrel Rutkin ments of particular people and institutions Unit for History and Philosophy of Science, within their broader socio-political and reli- University of Sydney gious contexts and structures, all of which (Australia) require focused attention. To grasp astrology accurately in its proper historical perspective, I have found 1. Introduction: Grinding that we should first identify and correct for New Conceptual Lenses two broader distorting modern biases drawn from a fundamentally anachronistic, yet still nderstanding the history of astrol- virtually ubiquitous understanding of astrol- ogy accurately as 20th- and 21st- ogy’s complex range of places within the century historians of science, phi- premodern map of knowledge. Since the Ulosophy, religion, politics and culture poses various focuses of conceptual lenses seem a complex range of challenges—conceptual mainly to be ground, as it were, on the basis and contextual—some of which will be ex- of fundamental distinctions and disciplinary plored in what follows. Many more will be configurations, I will endeavor to replace explored in my soon to be forthcoming these outdated historiographical lenses with monograph, Reframing the Scientific Revolu- new more accurate ones, ground in accord- tion: Astrology, Magic and Natural Know- ance with three fundamental premodern ledge, ca. 1250-1800, volume I of which, conceptual structures. Structures: 1250-1500, will soon see the light Before we can see more clearly, however, of day.1 The twenty some-odd years of we must first remove the distorting older spectacles. To know both which lenses dis- tort and how to properly grind new ones, we 1 This essay is very deliberately lightly footnoted. must be keenly aware of when we are using There should be enough information in the text to track down every relevant source. Otherwise, I give actors’ categories and when we are imposing more specific information in the footnotes. Many of modern distinctions on the past. Getting the the references can also be found in my Astrology, in right focus is particularly difficult when past The Cambridge History of Science, Vol. 3: Early Mo- disciplinary configurations resonate strongly dern Science, eds. L. Daston and K. Park, Cambridge, with modern assumptions and/or preju- Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 541-61, and in dices, which we then tend—usually uncon- my monograph. sciously—to read back into the past. I hope
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that the analysis adumbrated here and de- within the Hermetic and/or Esoteric tradi- veloped in detail in my monograph will pro- tions as well.2 vide a new more accurate prescription for Whether called the Hermetic, Occult or use in future investigations, allowing us to Esoteric traditions, which are essentially see in sharper focus both the broader pat- progressive variations on a theme, the same terns and the many specific details of past strictures apply. Accurately historicizing conceptual and disciplinary structures re- these terms is required, but very difficult to lated to the history of astrology. Therefore, achieve, especially if we are dealing with a close attention to the range of terminology broader audience or one of non-specialists, and its respective conceptual referents will that is, most readers. At this point, my sug- be a central concern in what follows. gestion is to reject these overarching fram- ing terms altogether, at least for the present, unless they are properly delimited and 2. Deconstruction solidly historicized, as in the introduction to Daniel Stolzenberg’s recent Egyptian Oedi- will first simply—and proscrip- pus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of An- tively—identify two of the more tiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago problematic conceptual structures Press, 2013). pervadingI the historiography that should be In my view, our understanding is funda- removed (or at least set aside) at the very mentally compromised and/or distorted by beginning. First, a fundamentally anachro- predisposing it from the very beginning in a nistic disciplinary configuration. In modern way that deeply influences and orients both scholarship, astrology is almost always a broad range of further assumptions and the closely associated with the other so-called related ‘natural’ questions to ask, especially ‘occult sciences’, especially magic, alchemy when some sort of deeper unity (if not and the kaballah, as we find it in numerous fundamental identity) among these disci- influential studies by (among others) Wayne plines is also assumed. This is particularly Shumaker, Brian Vickers and Brian Copen- problematic when modern scholars begin by haver. This presumed configuration with the assuming—as in Keith Thomas’s classic Re- occult sciences is, although not entirely mis- ligion and the Decline of Magic—that astrol- taken, deeply problematic conceptually— ogy is somehow a part or subset of magic. unless skillfully nuanced—when applied to astrology ca. 1250-1800. For similar reasons, the same applies for including astrology 2 Frances Yates coined the term <
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For now, we will simply not make any as- entiarum (III.4).3 We find it in a recog- sumptions along these lines, highlighting as- nizable form, however, in Rule IX of the In- trology’s configuration with other disci- dex of Prohibited Books from 1564 on. plines as a question to ask and historicize ra- In normal premodern usage, all astrologi- ther than an assumption to make a priori, cal predictions—whether relating to a per- based on our modern (or postmodern) map son’s nativity or revolution, the weather, of knowledge with its characteristic concep- medicine or political events—were called tual and disciplinary structures. We should astrological judgments (iudicia), and thus in verify, refine or reject entirely this configu- some real sense may be called ‘judicial as- ration of astrology with the ‘occult sciences’ trology’. We can see this as early as the based on both its accuracy and its related 1260s in the Speculum astronomiae,4 but also utility for characterizing the premodern map in the work of Placido Titi, professor of as- of knowledge. The first steps in reconstruc- trology at the University of Pavia, who tion must be taken carefully, since the basic makes this very point (among others) in the patterns established early on become a foun- mid-17th century.5 Likewise, astrology’s cau- dation for all that follows. To shift the meta- sal ‘naturalness’ vis-à-vis its legitimacy (or phor again: as with conceptual lenses, each otherwise) will also be discussed extensively distortion tends to compound the next. To in my monograph. In the meantime, we will clarify these issues, I will explicitly discuss set this distinction aside along with astrol- astrology’s relationship to magic and divina- ogy’s configuration among the occult sci- tion by focusing on two paradigmatic prac- ences, removing them both (at least for the tices in particular: [1] predicting the future time being) from our interpretive frame- (in relation to divination), and [2] making images or talismans (in relation to magic). 3 The second conceptual structure to be set FRANCIS BACON, De augmentis scientiarum, in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. J. Spedding et al., 14 aside and brought up for review is the vols., London: Longmans, 1857–74; repr. Stuttgart, equally pervasive historiographic distinction Frommann, 1963, 1: pp. 554–60. between ‘natural’ and ‘judicial’ astrology. 4 Secunda magna sapientia, quae similiter astronomia di- Although this may end up being a useful dis- citur, est scientia iudiciorum astrorum […] III.2-3 in the tinction, we must first clarify what it actually text with translation printed in PAOLA ZAMBELLI, means and trace its existence up to and be- The Speculum astronomiae and its Enigma: Astrology, Theology and Science in Albertus Magnus and his Con- yond its modern use in Ephraim Chamber’s temporaries, Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1992. Cyclopedia article “Astrology” of 1728 (162- 5 PLACIDO TITI, Tocco di paragone, ed. Giuseppe 63). By contrast, Francis Bacon did not use Bezza, Milan, Nuovi Orizzonti, 1992, ch. 6, «Il titolo this distinction in his 1623 proposals for di giudiciaria si conviene ad ogni scienza», pp. 50-54. astrological reform in the De augmentis sci- The Tocco di paragone was originally published in Pa- via in 1666. I discuss Titi in volume III of my mono- graph.
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work in order to assess their value. They properly orient what follows. The first will will not be missed, nor their consequent also require a digression on terminology and built-in confusions. By the end of volume II anachronism. of my monograph, we will have a much bet- The first conceptual structure involves ter sense of their utility or otherwise. the most basic terminology, namely, the term ‘astrology’ itself, and concerns the ut- terly fundamental distinction between what 3. Reconstruction we call ‘astronomy’ and ‘astrology’. This fundamental conceptual distinction is found aving removed the old distorting in what came to be its classic formulation in spectacles and set them aside, the the first chapter of Ptolemy’s foundational first step of reconstruction will text for this entire tradition of ‘scientific as- beginH by identifying and grinding the basic trology’, namely, the Apotelesmatika, Tetra- framing structures for new interpretive biblos or Quadripartitum, which was com- lenses as deeply informed by the three fol- posed in the middle of the 2nd century C.E. lowing fundamental distinctions and con- and has had an extraordinarily influential figurations. Not superimposed on the his- international Nachleben. In brief (and to be torical material by questionable modern refined), ‘astronomy’ (that is, mathematical understandings or misunderstandings, these astronomy, as opposed to physical astron- structures, rather, derive from within the omy) is concerned primarily with analyzing patterns of premodern natural knowledge. and predicting the motions of the luminaries More accurately reflecting our premodern (the sun and moon) and the planets, whereas actors’ conceptual categories, we may thus ‘astrology’ treats their influences or effects on perceive them more accurately. This princi- the earth itself, its atmosphere and inhabit- ple is at the core of my historicizing meth- ants. odology, and will permit, I hope, a more ac- Ptolemy used the same overarching de- curate ‘thick description’ of the material in scriptive phrase to refer to both, namely, question. In my view, accurate descriptions “foreknowledge through the science of the of sufficient ‘thickness’ are utterly essential stars” (“prognostikon tes astronomias”). In for accurate broader historical discussions.6 fact, both of the terms astronomia and For now, I will simply indicate the basic astrologia—in Latin, Greek and numerous conceptual framing structures in order to vernaculars—were normally used inter- changeably throughout the entire premod- 6 As far as I know, Clifford Geertz coined the term ern period to refer to both of the intimately «thick description» and used it to marvelous effect in related but conceptually distinct parts of the many of his numerous writings. For a useful introduc- overarching category «the science of the tion, see his The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Es- stars», which is how both ‘astronomia’ and says, New York, Basic Books, 1973. ‘astrologia’ should usually be translated. We
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distinguish them today (and have for some tions. Revolutions were concerned with time now) as ‘astrology’ and ‘astronomy’ large-scale changes, including in the employing a distinctive terminology. This weather, the harvest and state affairs. This does not mean, however, that the premodern was a major feature of the annual prognosti- actors confused the disciplines because they cations found in almanacs and elsewhere, used the same term to refer individually and and included the doctrine of great conjunc- collectively to both major parts, as is some- tions. Nativities, on the other hand, involved times claimed in the scholarship. From the astrological configuration at a person’s Ptolemy on, the disciplinary distinction both birth, and is thus related to issues involving conceptually and in practice was well under- fate. Interrogations entertained questions on stood. a broad range of topics, including personal, The two other essential framing struc- medical and business affairs, for which the tures for our new conceptual spectacles de- astrologer would erect a horoscope for the rive from two disciplinary configurations, time the question was asked. Finally, elec- one of which situates astrology within the tions determined the most favorable moment broader realm of natural knowledge; the to begin an enterprise or perform an activity, other differentiates astrology’s practical di- such as crowning a ruler, passing the baton mension. In addition to revealing astrology’s of command to a general, or laying the normal locations within the premodern map cornerstone of an important building, in- of knowledge, the first disciplinary configu- cluding Saint Peter’s in Rome or the ration also serves to situate astrology within Fortezza da Basso in Florence. Elections also one of its most important institutional loca- included the controversial practice of mak- tions, the premodern university, where it ing astrological images or talismans. These was studied, taught and passed down as practices all required the erection and inter- ‘normal science’ in Europe from generation pretation of horoscopes. to generation for roughly 500 years from the Finally, if we begin by importing a typical 13th throughout the 17th century. As I have view of modern-day astrological thought argued elsewhere, astrology was integrally and practice, we will also have started off on configured within three fundamental scien- the wrong foot, introducing at the outset tific disciplines, namely, mathematics, natu- significant conceptual distortions, especially ral philosophy and medicine, in which it was if we have in mind the sorts of low-level studied and taught at the finest European practices found in daily newspaper ‘horo- universities. We can see this clearly in the scopes’, a 20th-century innovation. I also University of Bologna’s 1405 statutes and in make a fundamental distinction between much other corroborating evidence. practical astrology and astrology’s natural The third and final fundamental structure philosophical foundations that is developed is the four types of astrological praxis: revo- at length in my monograph. Both are lutions, nativities, elections and interroga- fundamental to a complete understanding,
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but to explore this here in its proper depth trology in order to preserve and protect as- would take us too far afield7. tronomy by isolating and rejecting astrol- ogy. Here Pico stamped the traditional con- ceptual distinction with a clear and distinc- 4. Terminology and Anachronism tive terminology, although he was not the (1): Astrology and Astronomy first to do so. I should emphasize that Pico’s construction of the two disciplines and their crisp, clear and accurate grasp of relationship also intended to afflict astrology terminology is essential to the suc- with a profoundly negative evaluation that is cess of my study. A central feature also distinctively modern. ofA what makes astrology in all its ramifica- As already noted, both before and after tions difficult to clearly understand for mod- Pico, the same terms—either astronomia or ern scholars is the complex interplay be- astrologia—were normally used interchan- tween [1] trying to understand the premod- gably to refer to both parts of the science of ern material in its own terms, and [2] trying the stars, what we differentiate terminologi- to understand, discuss and explain it in an cally as “astronomy” and “astrology,” and accurate manner as a 21st-century historian. usually also (following Pico) with a negative Both poles are crucial for a sound under- valence for the latter. This situation raises standing: we need first to accurately under- some interesting issues (and tensions) con- stand the premodern terminology and re- cerning terminology and anachronism, and lated conceptual structures in their own the importance of clarifying what our usage terms, and then we must be able to com- will be and why. municate these structures accurately in a Confusion easily arises because the very modern historically sound and conceptually same terms can be used in both modern and clear idiom. premodern contexts, but often with signifi- To engage with this question more cantly (if not always starkly) different con- deeply, we should examine one of the earli- ceptual referents with their respective se- est and clearest terminological distinctions mantic fields. Thus, both modern and pre- along modern lines, namely, that between modern usage, once identified and clarified, astronomy and astrology. In the proem to can more easily be sharpened and refined. his Disputations against Divinatory Astrology Likewise, such awareness can also help us published in 1496, Giovanni Pico della identify characteristically premodern termi- Mirandola distinguished astronomy from as- nological and conceptual structures, and thus trace how they remain continuous 7 In the meantime, see my Astrology and Magic, in A and/or transform over time in the complex Companion to Albert the Great: Theology, Philosophy long-term transition from premodern to and the Sciences, ed. I. M. Resnick, Leiden, Brill, 2013, modern and now postmodern usage. «Mo- pp. 451-505. tion» and «mathematics» are two further in-
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structive examples that are both particularly numerological interpretation of a person’s subject to inadvertent conceptual slippage name, which is then translated into recog- due to what I like to call ‘interparadigmatic nizable astrological elements, for example, refraction’. The result is somewhat akin to planets, signs and lunar nodes. Thus, nume- walking on conceptual ice, some areas of rology is the basis for the divinatory prac- which are thicker than others, but all of tice, not the location of actual planets in the which are extremely slippery. I will discuss heavens and their influence and effects on mathematics briefly below. earth, which are for me the essential ele- I would now like to introduce what I find ments required for a practice to be called to be a useful distinction regarding ana- ‘astrological’ or ‘astrology’ proper.8 chronism, namely, that between termino- Juste countered my arguments by noting logical and conceptual anachronism, which I [1] that these authors themselves called their will illustrate by exploring the term ‘astrol- practice “astrology,” and [2] that these texts ogy’ itself in relation to both its premodern occur in company with other uncontrover- and modern usages. The main goal is two- sially astrological texts. Thus, my usage is fold: [1] to understand the premodern con- anachronistic, imposing my modern catego- ceptual structures and their proper terminol- ries and definitions on the premodern ma- ogy, and [2] to agree on how we should talk terial. Thinking these issues through in- about astrology in a historically and concep- spired the distinction between conceptual tually sound manner. If we can do this suc- and terminological anachronism, a prime ex- cessfully with such fundamental concepts ample of which arises with the term “astrol- and terminology, we will then be on a much ogy” in itself, relating our normal contem- more solid footing. At the very least, we porary usage to—and distinguishing it should energetically strive to be as conscious clearly from—Ptolemy’s classic formulation and explicit as possible about both termino- in Tetrabiblos I.1. logical and conceptual issues. Nicolas Weill-Parot recently offered a The terminological issue arose for me valuable distinction between addressative pointedly in a recent correspondence with (destinatif) and non-addressative magical David Juste, an increasingly significant his- (and other) practices.9 Although it is com- torian of medieval astrology. In a review of his superb recent book on the Alchandreana, 8 DAVID JUSTE, Les Alchandreana primitifs: Étude I expressed strong reservations about calling sur les plus anciens traités astrologiques latins d’origine the onomantic techniques articulated there arabe (Xe siècle), Leiden, Brill, 2007, reviewed in «E- ‘astrological’, preferring instead a descrip- arly Science and Medicine», XIII, 2008, pp. 507-9. tive circumlocution, such as «a numerologi- 9 Astral Magic and Intellectual Changes (Twelfth- cally-based type of divination with an Fifteenth Centuries): ‘Astrological Images’ and the Con- astrologizing veneer». In the Alchandreana, cept of ‘Addressative’ Magic, in The Metamorphosis of Magic from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, a ‘horoscope’ is constructed based on the
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posed entirely of modern terminology, it is consideration, and for straightening out and still extremely useful because “addressative” clarifying basic structures in the historiogra- refers in a value-neutral manner to practices phy. directed toward any sentient being, whether In studying magic in relation to astrology, angel or demon, daemon or spirit. Non- we must first ask what we as early 21st-century addressative practices, on the other hand, do historians mean by these terms, which will in- not involve sentient beings. Weill-Parot evitably inform our interpretation of what the notes that he coined the term precisely for its premodern actors understood by them. Both analytic value, fully recognizing that it is must be carefully distinguished. In fact, the terminologically anachronistic. Thus he more conceptual space we can open up be- provides a modern terminological distinc- tween our 20th and 21st-century configuration tion to clarify a premodern conceptual dis- of the map of knowledge and their 13th- to 18th- tinction. Likewise, Brian P. Copenhaver’s century concepts and categories, problems and prescriptive distinction between amulets and practices—and respective terminology—the talismans is very useful, despite its self- sharper our ability to understand both astrol- conscious terminological anachronism.10 It is ogy and magic will become. The main goal is valuable precisely because it can clarify for to encourage and facilitate clarity, in large us an important premodern conceptual dis- measure by minimizing conceptual slippage or tinction that did not also possess such a use- muddiness, which, in any case, is not fully ful terminological distinction. preventable. This is particularly tricky when we currently use the same terms that they did, and even moreso when there is significant 5. Terminology and Anachronism conceptual overlap in the respective semantic (2): Astrology, Mathematics and fields, but also revealing and characteristic dif- Magic ferences. In the historiography, we throw around will continue discussing terminology, the terms “magic” and “astrology” as if we all now concerning astrology in relation to know what we mean—and that we all mean mathematics, magic and divination, a no- the same things—by these simple sounding toriouslyI tricky but valuable undertaking. terms that refer to complex, multifold and This issue is significant with respect, both, to richly historically-conditioned semantic fields. fully grasping the historical material under Furthermore, we often blithely call “magical” thought or behavior what our historical actors eds. J.N. Bremmer and J.R. Veenstra, Leuven, Pee- would strenuously object to having so de- ters, 2002, pp. 167-87, esp. p. 169 ff. scribed, as we will see just below in discussing 10 Scholastic Philosophy and Renaissance Magic in the Roger Bacon. Although Marsilio Ficino’s late De vita of Marsilio Ficino, «Renaissance Quarterly», 15th century De vita is often called a seminal XXXVII, 1984, pp. 523-54 at p. 530. text for Renaissance magic and its theoretical
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or philosophical foundations, Ficino himself one person who wrote and acted in the same did not primarily represent it as such, but, ra- historical milieu. The fewer unexamined as- ther, as both part of a medical text for the sumptions we import, the more likely we are health of scholars and as a commentary on to see the historical material more accurately particular texts by Plotinus, the late antique and in sharper focus. In the rest of this essay, I Neoplatonist. Most premodern thinkers—at will illustrate the general point by briefly dis- least in the 13th through 15th centuries—did cussing a few relevant cases where our 20th- not go out of their way to describe what they and 21st-century terminology and conceptual were doing as magic, which was normally referents relate complexly—and sometimes used as a term of accusation and/or abuse, problematically—with premodern usage. given that it was usually closely associated As a first approach, we should clarify the with demons, heretics and illegitimate super- complex semantic fields of what we call astrol- stitious practices of various sorts.11 ogy and magic. Then we can more crisply and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was a glar- soundly approach the historical material and ing counterexample for the late 15th century thus compare and refine our definitions. Even with his enthusiastic promotion of what he ex- such a basic question as what we mean when plicitly called «natural magic» in his Oratio, we use the terms ‘astrology’ and ‘magic’ is not Conclusiones and Apologia of 1486-87. Al- particularly clear, and it is rarely consistent be- though we would call part of what Ficino dis- tween scholars, as we can amply see in the his- cusses ‘magic’, namely, his treatment of im- toriography. We need to reconstruct these re- ages or talismans, he rarely does; and when he lationships in their own terms, concepts and does, he almost always does so in an evasive practices—and as particularized by individual manner. One of Ficino’s tactics is to always writers—and to stop projecting our contem- retain ‘deniability’, particularly by using the porary distinctions and constructions onto the apotropaic motto, “I describe, I do not ap- past, at least as much as this is possible. prove” (narro non probo), in relation to talis- A useful focus related to both astrology and mans. magic is ‘mathematics’, where both contempo- The upshot is that we need to be acutely rary scholars and our premodern actors often sensitive to both the significant and the subtle use the same (or a closely related) term to re- differences in our historical actors’ thought— fer to what is in many respects an intimately both to the terminology and to the underlying related, but also a significantly different con- conceptual content and structures—even (and ceptual field, albeit with much overlap. In the especially) if we are considering more than premodern period, mathematics (or the quad- rivium) referred to the four main mathematical 11 The classic study is Dieter Harmening, Superstitio: arts: arithmetic, geometry, astronomia and Überlieferungs- und theoriegeschichtliche Untersuchun- music. Although we do not normally think of gen zu kirchlich-theologischen Aberglaubensliteratur des music as a mathematical art, anyone who has Mittelalters, Berlin, E. Schmidt, 1979. studied music theory even superficially knows
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well that there is a significant mathematical calls true and false mathematics (vera et falsa component. mathematica or mathesis).12 For Roger, true But when we think of mathematics, we mathematics embraces astrology as a legiti- would not naturally think of ‘astrology’ in any mate mode of knowledge and practice, for respect as part of its semantic field. Neverthe- which he also provides his famous geometri- less, this was the case in the premodern map of cal-optical analysis of celestial influences as knowledge, and it was institutionalized in its natural philosophical foundations. For medieval and early modern university educa- Roger, true astrological mathematics has tion, where astrology was taught as a normal significant benefits both for individual hu- part of the scientific curriculum in three dis- man beings (including in medicine) and for tinct disciplines: [1] in the mathematic’s the Church overall. Roger is also careful to course, which was called alternately «math- argue that true astrology does not impinge ematica», «astronomia» or «astrologia», as the on human free will or imply necessity in na- sister science of the stars along with math- ture, both of which, by contrast, he explicitly ematical astronomy. It was also taught [2] in characterizes as a part of false magical as- the natural philosophy course, with core texts trology. by Aristotle, and [3] in the medical course, Roger associates this bad astrology— with core texts by Galen. It is also well known explicitly called ‘magic’ or ‘magical’—with that astrologers were often referred to simply false mathematics. In fact, this illegitimate as «mathematici», even in antiquity. Thus, the astrology is one of the five types of what similarity of terminology without a clear his- Roger calls magic (pp. 239, 24-240, 8): [i] torical understanding can easily lead to signifi- «mantike», which is divination; [ii] math- cant conceptual slippage with its resultant con- ematics, which is astrology with predictive fusions. certainty, and thus the undermining of free will; [iii] «maleficium», which deliberately does or intends harm; [iv] «praestigium», 6. Roger Bacon on Mathematics, As- which makes illusions, optical and other- trology and Magic wise; and [v] «sortilegia», the casting of lots, which is often misleadingly translated as ext I would like to briefly describe sorcery. In this configuration, Roger follows the terminological and conceptual Hugh of St Victor. nexus in Roger Bacon’s Opus Furthermore, Roger offers another Nmaius of the mid-1260s and related texts fundamental distinction within this same concerning his use of what we would call as- conceptual nexus, that between what we trology and magic, beginning with his fundamental distinction between what he 12 The main texts are Opus maius, book IV (Bridges ed., vol. 1), and Bacon’s edition of the pseudo- Aristotelian Secret of Secrets.
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might transliterate as judicial vs. operative astronomy («astronomia iudiciaria et opera- 7. Thomas Aquinas on Astrology tiva»), which is very different than our nor- and Divination mal but problematic distinction between natural and judicial astrology (Sec. sec., ed. would also like to briefly introduce the Steele, p. 3, 1-3). It also relates closely to configuration of knowledge and prac- what we call astrology and magic. First tice in Thomas Aquinas, who distin- Roger discusses the four branches of true Iguishes sharply between legitimate astrology mathematics: arithmetic, geometry, «astrolo- and illegitimate divination, even though we gia» and music. Then he explicitly subdi- often call astrology a type of divination, vides what he calls «astrologia» into «astro- since they are both concerned with predict- nomia iudiciaria et operativa». «Astronomia ing the future. Thomas’s distinction con- iudiciaria» (which we should refrain from cerning knowledge and praxis in Summa simply translating as ‘judicial astrology’, at theologiae II.a II.,ae Questions 92 to 96 (com- least in the first instance) refers to know- posed around 1270) relates directly to ledge-based astrological practices deriving Roger’s last distinction between «astronomia from its four canonical types, namely, revo- iudiciaria» and «operativa», although lutions, nativities, interrogations and elec- Thomas does not use this terminology. tions. It is primarily concerned with the The knowledge part discussed in Ques- making of astrological interpretations or tions 92 to 95 concerns astrology and divina- ‘judgments’. tion with respect to legitimate and illegiti- ‘Operative’ astrology («astronomia opera- mate techniques for foreknowing and pre- tiva»), on the other hand, concerns operat- dicting what will certainly or likely happen ing, doing or acting by means of the science in the future. Because they rely on causal of the stars. Elsewhere, Roger further di- knowledge, Thomas considers both of what vides operative astrology into two main we call astronomy and astrology to be le- parts, namely, those dealing with what he gitimate. Astronomy admits certain know- calls the words and works of wisdom («verba ledge and astrology conjectural, or what we et opera sapientiae»), with the latter (i.e. the would call probable knowledge. Although opera) referring specifically to talismans, Thomas refers to each separately as «astro- which Roger (and others) call «imagines». nomia», he clearly distinguishes each con- The former refer to the words and their ceptually and in practice. Neither should be power uttered in various contexts, including called divination, he emphasizes, which does in relation to talismans to increase their po- not make predictions based on causal know- tency. Both are performed in relation to ledge, but instead relies on demons. He astrological timing or elections, of which enumerates several examples, including «imagines» are an explicit sub-part. augury and pyromancy.
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With legitimate and illegitimate practices clearly that a close attention to terminology for foreknowing and predicting the future and its conceptual referents concerning both thus differentiated, and with astrology char- modern scholarly and our premodern actors’ acterized as legitimate, Thomas turns to usage is crucial for attaining an accurate his- talismans («imagines astronomicae») in Ques- torical understanding of astrology, magic tion 96, which he in no way considers le- and divination. gitimate, except insofar as their matter has its own elemental qualities and virtues. Thomas’s rejection of talismans also relates 8. Conclusion: Astrology vis-à-vis to the significantly different but closely re- Magic and Divination. lated contemporary analyses in Albertus Magnus’s authentic works and in the delib- hese issues of terminological and erately anonymous and most likely pseu- conceptual anachronism are thus donymous Speculum astronomiae.13 Never- central to both an accurate under- theless, Thomas’s, Albert’s and the Speculum standingT of the premodern material and to a astronomiae’s analyses—as well as Roger scholarly discussion thereof that is as clear Bacon’s—are all articulated within the same and accurate as possible. To further compli- framework of natural vs. demonic action or cate matters, I have found that individual causation. This is a fundamental distinction thinkers—even in the same place at the same for determining a practice’s legitimacy or time—can have significantly different views otherwise, as is the protection of free will on the very same subjects, as one finds in vis-à-vis the certainty of prediction, and the both the 13th- and 15th-century figures dis- resultant implications for necessity in nature. cussed so far. This is as much the case for In fact, Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, Al- the deeply influential writings of Albertus bertus Magnus and the author of the Specu- Magnus and his most famous student, lum astronomiae all embrace astrology as a Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th century as it is legitimate mode of knowledge if practiced for Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della within these bounds. We can now see more Mirandola in the 15th. Thus we should al- ways try to ‘localize’ our interpretations, 13 I discuss Albert and the Speculum more fully in my first, in an individual thinker’s writings, and Astrology and Magic, in A Companion to Albert the Gre- then in comparison with others. Only then at: Theology, Philosophy and the Sciences, ed. I.M. Re- snick, Leiden, Brill, 2013, pp. 451-505. For an extra- will we have a properly thick and accurate ordinarily insightful and thorough study on talismans terminological and conceptual basis to accu- in the medieval period, see NICOLAS WEILL- rately trace trends and make comparisons PAROT, Les «images astrologiques» au Moyen Âge et over broader periods of time. à la Renaissance: Spéculations intellectuelles et pratiques Although it is highly unfortunate, I have magiques (XIIe-XVe siècle), Paris, Honoré Champion, repeatedly found in the current state of 2002. scholarship that one should assume—
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especially when treating both astrology and In other words, the texts we possess are magic (either individually or in relation to the best approximations we have to anthro- each other)—that very little of the histori- pological informants, since the past is indeed ography is fully reliable (with a handful of a foreign country. On the basis of their ‘re- notable exceptions). Therefore, all state- ports’, I offer in my monograph a reasonably ments and especially broader conclusions thick description of premodern concepts, need to be checked against the evidence categories and practices relevant to our his- from primary sources, thus allowing us to torical actors’ views on astrology and magic. build interpretations on more solid founda- To this end, I focus in volumes I and II on tions. Towards this end, I encourage the two primary issues: [1] predicting the future practice of thick description with its con- (concerning knowledge and divination), and commitant extensive citation and translation [2] making talismans (concerning operations of primary sources as being much more and magic) at two significant historical valuable than the normal practice of sum- “moments”: [1] 1250 to 1280 (vol. I), and [2] maries, however incisive they may be. Being 1480 to 1500 (vol. II). able to accessably evaluate an interpretation Fortunately, we possess many texts in is essential at this stage of the historiography which the premodern actors tell themselves of both astrology and magic, and thus also of or each other—and thereby tell us—what their relationship. they themselves were thinking. These cir- The upshot of this methodological discus- cumstances strongly encourage the readers sion is that I attempt in all three volumes of of this essay and/or my monograph to set my monograph to accurately grasp how a aside as far as possible his or her ‘know- range of influential thinkers in the 13th ledge’—including assumptions, visceral re- through 18th centuries understood and used, actions, sympathies and antipathies—of developed and reformed, criticized and/or what we think about astrology in the early rejected astrology and its natural philosophi- 21st century within our post-Newtonian and cal foundations in their various contexts: post-Einsteinian mental universes and, in an conceptual, institutional, religious, socio- open-minded leap of historical imagination, political and cultural. I am emphatically not try to understand what smart people in the trying to understand what they thought past (in the West) thought about astrology about what we think astrology is (obvi- and its natural philosophical foundations ously!—but it still needs to be said); rather, within their premodern, fundamentally Aris- to learn from them what they thought it was totelian, Ptolemaic and Galenic mental and how it worked. Thus, we first need to world. reconstruct their views as accurately as pos- sible and as fully as necessary (or possible) in order to attain an adequate understanding.
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