Although Albert in this section of the Summa approaches the subject of the influence of the stars from the unfavorable standpoint of fate instead of the favoring one of nature, it is noteworthy that he is not content merely to reproduce the attacks upon astrologers by Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, but endeavors to reconcile them with the views of such scientific or pseudo-scientific authorities as Ptolemy, Hermes Trismegistus, “Socrates,” and other Astronomi. The keynote of his solution is found in the definition of Boethius that “Fate is the disposition inherent in movable things by which Providence binds each by its order.” Thus there is no necessary conflict between Providence and the rule of the stars. But Albert maintains that “neither fate nor stars nor even Providence takes away from human free will its liberty of action,”[1956] quoting Ptolemy as usual to the effect that the wise man rules the stars and that what the stars do they do per aliud et accidens. Albert therefore rejects absolute fatal necessity as heretical[1957] and the doctrine of the magnus annus that history repeats itself as the stars repeat their courses as “horrible.”[1958] On the other hand, he insists that “it cannot be denied that the stars by the figures of their positions pour radiations of diverse figures upon the place of generation,”[1959] or that “the stars in truth are rulers of the world in those things which are subject to the world,”[1960] namely, things corporeal. He also admits that the soul may be inclined to the body, though not coerced. Thus a choleric person is likely to choose different food and occupation from a phlegmatic one. Hence Socrates “says that voluntary elections are made in accordance with the diversity of habits previously existing in the chooser.”[1961] But Socrates means that such habits incline but do not compel us. Later Albert qualifies Gregory of Nyssa’s assertion that our choosing precedes “fortune” by again pointing out that the influence of the stars “inclines the will to choose this or that.”[1962]
Glossing over Augustine.
Albert has to force his authorities a good deal to arrive at this compromise. Thus he interprets Augustine’s grudging concession that it “can be said not utterly absurdly that certain sidereal afflations effect mere differences of bodies, as we see that the seasons of the year vary with the approach and withdrawal of the sun and some sorts of things, such as shellfish and the wonderful tides of ocean, increase and diminish with the waxing and waning of the moon,”—Albert interprets this as favoring his own much more sweeping assertion that the stars rule the universe in most respects and change the souls as well as the bodies of plants and brutes.[1963] Again, Augustine, asking “What is so pertinent to the body as sex?” contended against the astrologers that twins of opposite sex might be born under the same constellation; yet Albert maintains that Augustine did not mean here that sex of the body is not subject to the stars, but only that the constellations are not the sole and entire cause of natural bodily processes, and this for the reasons given above from Ptolemy, namely, that the influence of the stars depends upon the capacity of matter to receive it and operates per aliud et accidens.[1964]
Christ and the stars.
In connection with the question, “Whether Christ was subject soul and body to fate or fortune or eupraxia?” Albert makes an exception to the influence of the stars, and apparently holds that even in respect to His body Christ was not subject to the power of the constellations. The argument is advanced that the Lawgiver is not subject to the law. The opposing contentions that in becoming man Christ assumed the defects of our mortality and that, since fate is the disposition inherent in all mobile objects, Christ was subject to fate as much as any other man,—these are denied on the ground that Christ became man voluntarily and suffered as man only what and when He would, and that from the moment of conception He possessed “grace and all knowledge.” It is also held that when the Magi said that they had seen His star in the east, they did not mean a constellation ruling His nativity but a new celestial sign which demonstrated the new birth of a heavenly king.[1965]
Patristic arguments against astrology upheld, but perhaps not by Albert.
Scarcely consistent with the apparent approval with which Albert cited the views of the “astronomers” and such a work as the Tetrabiblos or Quadripartitum of Ptolemy in the preceding discussion, and with the general tone of much of it, seems a supplementary passage at the close of this section on fate[1966] after he has apparently completed the discussion of the four questions concerning fate which he put at the start. In this supplementary passage are upheld against the “calumnies” of the astrologers such objections of Augustine and Gregory the Great to the art of nativities[1967] as that Jacob and Esau were conceived and born under the same constellation, that a queen and slave may be conceived at the same instant, and that there are countries where no one born under Aquarius becomes a fisherman or under the Balances a money-changer. The argument employed in this connection, which we cannot follow in detail, involves such a dubious piece of physics as that the pyramid of light which gradually spreads from a distant luminous point exercises the same force on all points lying within its base. The astronomers would doubtless retort that the rays of light falling perpendicularly and the shortest distance would be stronger and more efficacious than the oblique ones, or that pyramids must also be taken into account with the point in the object affected and the base in the constellation. Indeed, Albert in this very section On fate has previously shown[1968] from the science of perspective and Liber de speculis that in Ethiopia the sun’s direct ray “reflected upon itself” produces fire and makes the child born there fiery and black, while near the pole the great obliquity of the incidences of the rays produces cold and damp. For such reasons as these I am inclined to wonder if this supplementary passage, which is not essential to the plan or main argument of the section On fate, has not been added by someone other than Albert. Whoever the author is, he also agrees with Augustine that, when asked to account for two persons falling sick, growing worse, and recovering at the same times, Hippocrates gave the better answer in saying that they were conceived and born together of the same parents, than Posidonius did in saying that they were born under the same constellation. For Hippocrates named the immediate cause, whereas Posidonius mentioned the extrinsic and indirect one, for the stars are not a cause, it is again reiterated, except per aliud et accidens. But the author, like Albert before, holds that Augustine does not deny that there is some force from the stars inclining though not compelling us. This is equivalent to sanctioning astrology.
[1692] Hist. Eccles., XXII, 17 (Muratori, XI, 1150).
[1693] Epitaphs of Albert and Aquinas, opening respectively, “fenix doctorum” and “in luctu citharae,” are preserved in CLM 19608, 15th century, fols. 219-21. A portrait of Albert is found in CLM 27029, fol. 88, in the midst of a treatise copied in 1388 A. D.
[1694] Hist. Eccles. XXII, 19 (Muratori, XI, 1151).