Astrology and the Fortunes of Churches

North, John

doi:10.1111/j.1600-0498.1980.tb00375.x

Cited by 17 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Like so many medieval and Renaissance astrologers (North 1980), Cardano thought that God had tuned the heavens in order to bring about historical transformations. Cardano actually gives this idea an original twist.…”

Section: Laughing Babies and Immortal Souls In The Contradicentia Medicamentioning

confidence: 99%

A Hot Mess: Girolamo Cardano, the Inquisition, and the Soul

Regier¹

2021

HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Girolamo Cardano makes a number of surprising, even shocking, claims about the soul in his De subtilitate, one of the most widely read works of natural philosophy in the sixteenth century. When he was finally investigated by the Roman Inquisition and the Index, these claims did not go unnoticed. This study will narrow in on three passages marked as heretical by the first Holy-Office censor of De subtilitate. It will consider the Inquisition's priorities and ask about materialism, determinism, and conceptual inconsistency in Cardano's views on the soul. The study will give special attention to the claim made by Cardano that souls can be reduced to celestial heat. In addition to De subtilitate, several other of Cardano's works will be considered for added perspective, especially Contradicentium medicorum libri duodecim.Was there any position on life that could be construed as non-animist in the sixteenth century?One is reminded of Lucien Febvre's famous denial of any atheist community in Renaissance Europe: the necessary social and intellectual conditions did not exist to support it (Febvre 1947). I would consider sixteenth-century "non-animism" far more intellectually untenable than atheism. Hylomorphism was so dominant that there was perhaps no conceptual language to describe an active, organized body without recourse to form-the soul, of course, was that form. Yet if soul was omnipresent, it also became a complex and contested entity in the period, this due to a number of factors: the diffusion of Platonic and Neoplatonic translations, the reintroduction of Epicurean and Stoic philosophies, an expanded Hippocratic and Galenic corpus, new readings of Aristotle, the accessibility of Greek and Arabic commentary, and confessional sensitivities. The soul, and specifically the rational or intellective soul, was a medical-philosophical-theological pressure point (e.g., Kessler 1988; Des Chene 2000;* Acknowledgments: This paper owes its existence to a panel at the 2018 HOPOS congress in Groningen. I would like to thank all the participants of that panel, especially Charles Wolfe and Boris Demarest, who coorganized it with me. Much of this paper was written during a stay at Meiji University (Tokyo). I am grateful to my host, Kuni Sakamoto, and to Meiji University for that wonderful intellectual experience. Thanks are also due to the two anonymous referees and to HOPOS editor-in-chief Lydia Patton for all the hard work she has done to make this special issue a reality. Research presented here has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement n. 893982.

show abstract

Section: Laughing Babies and Immortal Souls In The Contradicentia Medicamentioning

confidence: 99%

A Hot Mess: Girolamo Cardano, the Inquisition, and the Soul

Regier¹

2021

HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Thorndike 1923–58, 4:159, 322, 417, 566; 7:151; 8:324; Allison 2005, 28–34). This includes d’Ailly, who on multiple occasions stated the object was miraculous; he also ensured his readers that astrological forces only acted on the natural aspects of the faith, while the supernatural was beyond the domain of astrology (North 1980, 201; Smoller 1994, 44–52).…”

Section: Astrology Applied To Jesusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Eventually the works of Islamic astrologers would become known to the West in the twelfth century through Latin translations, along with other scientific works (North 1980). About the same time in the Byzantine Empire, a monk named Michael Glycas disputed with the emperor Manuel Comnenus over astrology and its truth pertaining to Matthew's Star.…”

Section: Astrology Applied To Jesusmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Star of Christ in the Light of Astronomy

Adair¹

2012

Zygon

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Centuries of both theologians and astronomers have wondered what the Star of Bethlehem (Matt 2:2, 9) actually was, from miracle to planetary conjunction. Here a history of this search is presented, along with the difficulties the various proposals have had. The natural theories of the Star are found to be a recent innovation, and now almost exclusively maintained by scientists rather than theologians. Current problems with various theories are recognized, as well as general problems with the approach. The interactions between the sciences and religion are categorized and explored.

show abstract

“…The late thirteenth and early fourteenth century witnessed a major resurgence of such prophecies, as the persecuted Spiritual Franciscans in particular seized upon the Joachimist identification of "new spiritual men" who would usher in the perfect third status. John of Rupescissa, as we have seen, produced a series of eschatological treatises that incorporated Joachite, Sibylline, and astrological materials (DeVun 2004, North 1980Boudet 1990, 636-33 Edition: "Die tiburtinische Sibylle" 1898; pseudo-Bede 1995-2006. A fourteenth-century manuscript in the British library contains the text, just after a treatise De Antichristo: Arundel 326, fol.…”

Section: Astrology Sibylline Prophecy and Natural Theologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Astrology and the Sibyls: John of Legnano's De adventu Christi and the Natural Theology of the Later Middle Ages

Smoller

2007

Sci Context

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ArgumentMedieval authors adopted a range of postures when writing about the role of reason in matters of faith. At one extreme, the phrase “natural theology” (theologia naturalis) was used, largely pejoratively, to connote something clearly inferior to revealed theology. At the other end, there was also a long tradition of what one might term “the impulse to natural theology,” manifested perhaps most notably in the embrace of Nature by certain twelfth-century authors associated with the school of Chartres. Only in the fifteenth century does one find authors using natural reason to investigate religious truths who also employ the term “natural theology,” now in a positive light, for their activities. Among such thinkers, astrology and eschatology frequently played an important role. In that respect, the writings of fourteenth-century Bolognese jurist John of Legnano offer an important example of the place of astrological, prophetic, and apocalyptic material in late medieval natural theology. In his 1375 treatise De adventu Christi, Legnano demonstrated that ancient poets, pagan seers such as the Sibyls, and non-Christian astrologers had all predicted, like Old Testament prophets, the virgin birth of Christ. For Legnano, not simply was Creation part of God's revelation, but, equally importantly, the very categories of reason and revelation blur in a way that points toward the works of Renaissance humanists and lays a foundation for a model of natural vaticination that showed reason's capability to reach fundamental religious truths.

show abstract

Astrology and the Fortunes of Churches

Cited by 17 publications

References 1 publication

A Hot Mess: Girolamo Cardano, the Inquisition, and the Soul

A Hot Mess: Girolamo Cardano, the Inquisition, and the Soul

The Star of Christ in the Light of Astronomy

Astrology and the Sibyls: John of Legnano's De adventu Christi and the Natural Theology of the Later Middle Ages

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About