CHAPTER LXXXVII.
ASTROLOGY. ALMANACKS. PRISCILLIANISM RETAINED IN THEM TO THIS TIME.
I wander 'twixt the poles
And heavenly hinges, 'mongst eccentricals,
Centers, concentricks, circles and epicycles.
ALBUMAZAR.
The connection between astrology and the art of medicine is not more firmly believed in Persia at this day, than it was among the English people during the age of almanack-makers. The column which contained the names of the saints for every day, as fully as they are still given in Roman Catholic almanacks, was less frequently consulted than those in which the aspects were set down, and the signs and the parts of the human body under their respective governance. Nor was any page in the book regarded with more implicit belief than that which represented the “Anatomy of Man's body as the parts thereof are governed by the twelve Constellations, or rather by the Moon as she passeth by them.” In those representations man indeed was not more uglily than fearfully made,—as he stood erect and naked, spiculated by emitted influences from the said signs, like another St. Sebastian; or as he sate upon the globe placed like a butt for him, while they radiated their shafts of disease and pain.
Portentous as the Homo in the almanack is, he made a much more horrific appearance in the Margarita Philosophica which is a Cyclopedia of the early part of the 16th century. There Homo stands, naked but not ashamed, upon the two Pisces, one foot upon each, the Fish being neither in air, nor water, nor upon earth, but self-suspended as it appears in the void. Aries has alighted with two feet on Homo's head, and has sent a shaft through the forehead into his brain. Taurus has quietly seated himself across his neck. The Gemini are riding astride a little below his right shoulder. The whole trunk is laid open, as if part of the old accursed punishment for high treason had been performed upon him. The Lion occupies the thorax as his proper domain, and the Crab is in possession of the abdomen. Sagittarius, volant in the void, has just let fly an arrow, which is on the way to his right arm. Capricornius breathes out a visible influence that penetrates both knees; Aquarius inflicts similar punctures upon both legs. Virgo fishes as it were at his intestines; Libra at the part affected by schoolmasters in their anger; and Scorpio takes the wickedest aim of all.
The progress of useful knowledge has in our own days at last banished this man from the almanack; at least from all annuals of that description that carry with them any appearance of respectability. If it has put an end to this gross superstition, it has done more than the Pope could do fourteen centuries ago, when he condemned it, as one of the pernicious errors of the Priscillianists.
In a letter to Turribius, Bishop of Astorga, concerning that heresy, Pope St. Leo the Great says: “Si universæ hæreses, quæ ante Priscilliani tempus exortæ sunt, diligentius retractentur, nullus pene invenitur error de quo non traxerit impietas ista contagium: quæ non contenta eorum recipere falsitates, qui ab Evangelio Christi sub Christi nomine deviarunt, tenebris se etiam paganitatis immersit, ut per magicarum artium prophana secreta, et mathematicorum vana mendacia, religionis fidem, morumque rationem in potestate dæmonum, et in affectu syderum collocarent. Quod si et credi liceat et doceri, nec virtutibus præmium, nec vitiis pœna debebitur, omniaque non solum humanarum legum, sed etiam divinarum constitutionum decreta solventur: quia neque de bonis, neque de malis actibus ullum poterit esse judicium, si in utramque partem fatalis necessitas motum mentis impellit, et quicquid ab hominibus agitur, non est hominum, sed astrorum. Ad hanc insaniam pertinet prodigiosa illa totius humani corporis per duodecim Cœli signa distinctio, ut diversis partibus diversæ præsideant potestates; et creatura, quam Deus ad imaginem suam fecit, in tantâ sit obligatione syderum, in quantâ est connectione membrorum.”
But invention has been as rare among heretics as among poets. The architect of the Priscillian heresy (the male heresy of that name, for there was a female one also) borrowed this superstition from the mathematicians,—as the Romans called the astrological impostors of those times. For this there is the direct testimony of Saint Augustine: Astruunt etiam fatalibus stellis homines colligatos, ipsumque corpus nostrum secundum duodecim signa cœli esse compositum; sicut hi qui Mathematici vulgo appellantur, constituentes in capite Arietem, Taurum in cervice, Geminos in humeris, Cancrum in pectore, et cetera nominatim signa percurrentes ad plantas usque perveniunt, quas Piscibus tribuunt, quod ultimum signum ab Astrologis nuncupatar.