Bodin, Jean: Universæ Naturæ Theatrum in quo rerum omnium effectrices causa et fines contemplantur, et continuæ series quinque libris discutiuntur. Frankfort, 1597. Book V translated into English by the writer and compared with the French translation by François de Fougerolles, (Lyons, 1597).
Section 1: On the definition and the number of the spheres.
Mystagogue: ... Now to prove that the heavens have a nature endowed with intelligence I need no other argument than that by which Theophrastus and Alexander prove they are living, for, they say, if the heavens did not have intelligence, they would be greatly inferior in dignity and excellence to men. That is why Aben-Ezra,[443] having interpreted the Hebrew of these two words of the Psalm: "The heavens declare," has written that the phrase Sapperim (declare) in the judgment of all Hebrews is appropriate to such great intelligence. Also he who said "When the morning stars sang together and shouted for joy,"[444] indicated a power endowed with intelligence, as did the Master of Wisdom[445] also when he said that God created the heavens with intelligence.
Theodore. I have learned in the schools that the spheres are not moved of themselves but that they have separate intelligences who incite them to movement.
Myst. That is the doctrine of Aristotle. But Theophrastus and Alexander,[446] (when they teach that the spheres are animated bodies) explain adequately that the spheres are agitated by their own coëssential soul. For if the sky were turned by an intelligence external to it, its movement would be accidental with the result that it, and the stars with it, would not be moved otherwise, than as a body without soul. But accidental motion is violent. And nothing violent in nature can be of long duration. On the contrary there is nothing of longer duration, nor more constant, than the movement of the heavens.
Theo. What do you call fixed stars?
Myst. Celestial beings who are gifted with intelligence and with light, and who are in continual motion. This is sufficiently indicated by the words of Daniel[447] when he wrote, that the souls of those who have walked justly in this life, and who have brought men back to the path of virtue, all have their seat and dwelling (like the gleaming stars) among the heavens. By these words one can plainly understand the essence and figure of the angels as well as of the celestial beings; for while other beings have their places in this universe assigned to them for their habitation, as the fish the sea, the cattle the fields, and the wild beasts the mountains and forests, even as Origen,[448] Eusebius, and Diodorus say, so the stars are assigned positions in the heavens. This can also be understood by the curtains of the tabernacle which Moses, the great Lawgiver, had ornamented with the images of cherubim showing that the heavens were indicated by the angelic faces of the stars. While St. Augustine,[449] Jerome,[450] Thomas Aquinas[451] and Scotus most fitly called this universe a being, nevertheless Albertus, Damascenus, and Thomas Aquinas deny that the heavenly bodies are animated. But Thomas Aquinas shows himself in this inconsistent and contradictory, for he confesses that spiritual substances are united with the heavenly bodies, which could not be unless they were united in the same hypostasis of an animated body. If this body is animated, it must necessarily be living and either rational or irrational. If, on the other hand, this spiritual substance does not make the same hypostasis with the celestial body, it will necessarily be that the movement of the sky is accidental, as coming from the mover outside to the thing moved, no more nor less than the movement of a wheel comes from the one who turns it: As this is absurd, what follows from it is necessarily absurd also.
Theo. How many spheres are there?
Myst. It is difficult to determine their number because of the variety of opinions among the authorities, each differing from the other, and because of the inadequacy of the proofs of such things. For Eudoxus has stated that the spheres with their deferents are not more than three and twenty in number. Calippus has put it at thirty, and Aristotle[452] at forty-seven, which Alexander Aphrodisiensis[453] has amended by adding to it two more on the advice of Sosigenes. Ptolemy holds that there are 31 celestial spheres not including the bodies of the planets. Johan Regiomontanus says 33, an opinion which is followed by nearly all, because in the time of Ptolemy they did not yet know that the eighth sphere and all the succeeding ones are carried around by the movement of the trepidation. Thus he held that the moon has five orbits, Mercury six, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn each four, aside from the bodies of the planets themselves, for beyond these are still the spheres and deferents of the eighth and ninth spheres. But Copernicus, reviving Eudoxus' idea, held that the earth moved around the motionless sun; and he has also removed the epicycles with the result that he has greatly reduced their number, so that one can scarcely find eight spheres remaining.
Theo. What should one do with such a variety of opinions?