Nature of the stars.
The problem of the nature of the stars is one which Augustine prefers to leave unsolved, although it comes up several times in his writings.[2200] Whether they are simply lucid bodies without sense or intelligence, as some think; or have happy intellectual souls of their own, as Plato taught; whether they are to be classed with the Seats, Dominions, Principalities, and Powers of whom the apostle speaks; and whether they are ruled and animated by spirits: all these are questions which Augustine puts, but concerning whose answers he feels uncertain. His fullest discussion of the matter is in a letter against the Priscillianists to which we now come.
Orosius on the Priscillianists and Origenists.
An interchange of letters between Augustine and his Spanish disciple Orosius deals with the error of the Priscillianists and Origenists.[2201] Nothing is said to convict them of magic, which was, however, the charge on which Priscillian was put to death, but astrological tenets are ascribed to them. Orosius states that Priscillian taught that the soul was born of God and instructed by angels, but that it descended through certain circles of the heavens and was caught by evil principalities and thrust into different bodies; and that it remained subject to Mathesis or the laws of astrology until Christ set it free by His passion on the cross. Like the astrologers, continues Orosius, Priscillian associated the signs of the zodiac with the different members of the human body, Aries and the head, Taurus and the neck, and so on;[2202] and he also taught that the names of the patriarchs of the twelve tribes were “members of the soul,” Reuben in the head, Judah in the breast, Levi in the heart, and so on. Orosius adds that the Origenists regard the sun, moon, and stars not as elemental luminaries but as rational powers; and we have seen that Origen himself did so.
Augustine’s letter.
Augustine in his reply states that we can see that the sun, moon, and stars are celestial bodies, but not that they are animated. He agrees firmly with Paul that there are Seats, Dominions, Principalities, and Powers in the heavens, “but I do not know what they are or what the difference is between them.” On the whole, Augustine is inclined to regard this state of ignorance as a blissful one. He is somewhat troubled by the verses in the Book of Job, “How shall man be just in the sight of God, or how shall one born of woman purify himself? If He commands the moon and it does not shine, and if the stars are not pure before Him, how much more is man rottenness and the son of man a worm?” From this passage the Priscillianists infer that the stars have a rational spirit and are not free from sin, yet are placed in the heaven because their fault is less than that of sinful mankind. Origen too had argued, “If the stars are living and rational beings, there will undoubtedly appear among them both an advance and a falling back. For the language of Job, ‘the stars are not clean in His sight,’ seems to me to convey some such idea.”[2203] Augustine evades this difficulty by questioning whether this passage is to be received as of divine authority, since it is uttered by one of Job’s comforters and not by Job himself, of whom alone it is said that he had not sinned with his lips against God.
Attitude towards astronomy.
So set is Augustine against astrology that he even holds that Christians may well leave the subject of astronomy alone, “because it is related to the most pernicious error of those who utter a fatuous fatalism,” although he recognizes that there is nothing superstitious in predicting the future positions of the stars themselves from knowledge of their past movements. But except that to know the course of the moon is useful in determining the date of Easter, knowledge of the stars is of little or no help in interpreting the divine Scriptures.[2204] In another passage Augustine is somewhat perturbed by the assertion of astronomers that there are many stars equal to or greater than the sun in size, but which seem smaller because they are farther off,—an assertion which seems to conflict with the statement of Genesis that in creating the sun and moon “God made two great lights.” Augustine, however, does not stop to contest the point at length but leaves it with the excuse that Christians have many better and more serious matters to occupy their time than such subtle investigations concerning the relative magnitude of the stars and the intervals of space between them.[2205]
Perfect numbers.
Augustine himself, however, was not above occupying his readers’ time with discussion of the occult significance of numbers, towards belief in which he shows himself inclined. Six was a perfect number in his estimation, since God had created the world in six days, although He might have taken less or more time; and the Psalmist made no idle remark in saying that the Deity had ordered all things according to measure, number, and weight. Also six is the first number which can be obtained from adding together its factors: one, two, and three. Augustine was going on to say that seven was also a perfect number, when he checked himself lest he digress at too great length and seem “too eager to display his smattering of science.” Hence he merely added that one indication of seven’s perfection was its composition of the first complete odd number, three, and the first complete even number, four.[2206] It is therefore not surprising to find ascribed to Augustine a sermon on the correspondence between the ten plagues of Egypt and the ten commandments which opens by remarking that it is not without cause that the number of precepts in God’s law is the same as the number of plagues with which Egypt was afflicted.[2207]