William has much to say against astrological images, but his attitude has already been partially indicated in stating his attitude towards images, figures, and characters in general. He declares that belief in astrological images “derogates more from the honor and glory of the Creator than the error which attributes such virtue to the stars and luminaries themselves.” It seems to him “a strange and quite intolerable error to think that stars which cannot help themselves can bestow such gifts as invincibility, social graces, temperance or chastity.”[1249] Yet elsewhere we have heard him mention with seeming complaisance the bestowal of riches and checking of evil passions by emeralds and topazes. His best argument as against figures and characters in general is that such lifeless bodies cannot produce intellectual and moral effects in living human beings, especially when the engraved gems are, as is usual, hidden away somewhere, or buried underground.
Astrology and religion and history.
William condemns as error the association of the world’s leading religions with the planets, as Judaism with Saturn, Islam with Venus, and Christianity with the sun.[1250] The stars, he declares, are subject to religion, not religion to the stars, and Joshua made even the sun and moon stand still. William is candid enough to recognize that the seven-branched candlestick in the Jewish tabernacle designated the seven planets, but elsewhere states that the Mosaic Law forbade observation of the stars.[1251] William also considers the doctrine of the magnus annus or Platonic year, that after 36,000 solar years history will repeat itself down to the minutest detail owing to the recurrence of the former series of positions of the constellations.[1252] Since this has the support of men of great reputation, he lists various arguments advanced in its favor and rebuts them in detail.
Comets and the star of Bethlehem.
William believes that comets appear in the sky and in the air “as signs of slaughters and other great events in the world.” He mentions “the universal belief” that they foretell the deaths of kings and political changes.[1253] But he asserts that the star announcing Christ’s birth was not of this sort and that the darkness at the time of the Crucifixion was not due to an ordinary eclipse.
[1102] Gulielmi Alverni episcopi Parisiensis mathematici perfectissimi eximii philosophi ac theologi praestantissimi Opera omnia per Joannem Dominicum Traianum Neapolitanum Venetiis ex officina Damiani Zenari, 1591. The De universo occupies nearly half of the volume, pp. 561-1012. My references will be to this edition and to the De universo unless some other title is specified. In it—and in such other editions of William’s works as I have seen—the chapter headings are often very poor guides to the contents, especially if the chapter is of any length. There are at Paris thirteenth century MSS of the De fide and De legibus (BN 15755) and De universo (BN 15756).
The chief secondary work on William of Auvergne is Noel Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne, Paris, 1880. One chapter is devoted to his attitude to the superstitions of his age, and goes to the other extreme from Daunou, HL XVIII, 375, whom Valois criticizes for calling William extremely credulous. The inadequacy of Valois’ chapter, at least from our standpoint, may be inferred from his total omission of William’s conception of “natural magic.” Valois has no treatment of William’s attitude to natural science but contents himself with a discussion of his philosophy and psychology. (See also M. Baumgartner, Die Erkenntnislehre des Wilhelm von Auvergne, Münster, 1893.) The chapter on William’s attitude to superstition is largely given over to examples of popular superstitions in the thirteenth century, supplementing legends of Brittany and other stories told by William with similar anecdotes from the pages of Stephen of Bourbon, Caesar of Heisterbach, and Gervaise of Tilbury. Valois’ citations of William’s works are from an edition in which the pages were numbered differently from those in the one I used.
[1103] Valois (1880), pp. 9-11.
[1104] Valois (1880), p. 53.
[1105] HL 18, 357.