The earliest bibliography of Aquinas’ works seems to be that which Ptolemy of Lucca, who had known him personally, gives in his Ecclesiastical History.[2024] Among the Opuscula, which Ptolemy lists with considerable care, giving their Incipits as well as their titles, appears the treatise De fato.[2025] It also appears in the Table of writings of the Order of Preachers, a bibliography completed in the second quarter of the fourteenth century.[2026] It is not, however, in the official list of Thomas’ works drawn up preliminary to his canonization in 1323, and which Father Mandonnet would accept as an absolute criterion of the authentic writings of Aquinas. Other early catalogues of Aquinas’ writings are all derived from one of these three prototypes.[2027] Our treatise has also been attributed to Albertus Magnus,[2028] and much of its attitude toward astrology and other occult arts is just the opposite of Thomas’ position elsewhere as we have already noted it. I have therefore reserved the De fato for separate consideration. This problem of “fate” also sometimes formed the subject of a section of theological Summae or other long works, as we have seen in the case of Albertus Magnus, and the manuscripts contain other separate discussions of it[2029] than this one associated with Aquinas. As might be expected there is a general resemblance between the aspects of the problem considered and the authorities cited in all these treatises. No doubt it was a common topic of scholastic disputation.
Fate and the stars.
Fate is defined in our treatise as the power of the stars exercised through their movements and relations to one another. After citing in typical scholastic fashion a number of authorities pro and con,—Aristotle and Boethius are made to supply many arguments for astrology; and after agreeing with most of the favoring arguments and answering some of the opposing ones, the author finally concludes that fate in this sense does prevail. But he distinguishes between fate and fatal necessity, holding that the stars do not impose fatal necessity upon inferiors. While their own motion is “necessary, inevitable, and inalterable, ... in things generated it is received mutably and contingently because of their changeable natures.” Like Aquinas and other authors, he then approvingly quotes Ptolemy’s familiar qualification that the stars exert their influence per aliud et per accidens and that “the wise man rules the stars.” Properties of inferior objects may be used by man to counteract the effects of the constellations, or imaginations of the mind may operate to weaken their force. The author then argues that fate as he has defined it is knowable, in other words that the art of astrology is practicable, that the influence of the stars can be discerned and measured. He goes so far as to defend the assertion of Ptolemy that “when the luminaries are in the head of Algon, that is, of the Gorgon, if Mars shines in hostile aspect, the child then born will be mutilated of hands and feet, and crucified.”
Contradictions between De fato and other works of Aquinas.
The De fato seems at variance with the opinions of Aquinas as expressed elsewhere upon the following points. It correctly cites Boethius’ De consolatione philosophiae that the incident of finding hidden treasure while digging a grave is an example of “the inevitable connection of causes which proceeds from the fount of the knowledge of God,” whereas Aquinas incorrectly cited it as an illustration of an accidental event. Again, the author of De fato regards the story of the Magi and the star of Bethlehem as an evidence of the truth of astrology. He also seems to believe that “intelligence through the motion of the sky rules and causes the intellectual operations of the soul,” which Aquinas refused to concede. De fato also explains fascination somewhat differently from Aquinas. It appears to agree with him that the soul of the person exercising the power of fascination affects the person fascinated through the sense of sight; but it suggests that the soul of the fascinator has been endowed by the stars with power over the soul of the fascinated, whereas Aquinas denied that certain men were made magicians by their nativities. Finally De fato does not, like Aquinas, reject astrological images, but declares that celestial influence is received by artificial as well as by natural objects, “and therefore the figures of magic images are engraved according to the constellations.”
[1969] Ptolemy of Lucca, Hist. Eccles., XXIII, 7 (Muratori, XI, 1169), recounting the death of Aquinas remarks, “Unde cum multa devotione et mentis puritate et corporis qua semper floruit et in Ordine viguit, quemque ego probavi inter homines quos umquam novi qui suam saepe confessionem audivi et cum ipso multo tempore conversatus sum familiari ministerio ac ipsius auditor fui, ex hac luce transiit ad Christum....”
[1970] Ibid., XXII, 20 (Muratori, XI, 1152).
[1971] Brewer (1859), p. 426.
[1972] Bonum universale de apibus, I, 20, xi.
[1973] Peter of Prussia (1621), pp. 90-104.