Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/455

 ASTROLOGY. 433 other hand, as early as the twelfth century John of Salisbury, while asserting that the power of the stars was grossly exagger- ated, declares that astrology was forbidden and punished by the Church, that it deprived man of free-will by inculcating fatalism, and that it tended to idolatry by transferring omnipotence from the Creator to his creations. He adds that he had known many astrologers, but none on whom the hand of God did not inflict divine vengeance. These views became virtually the accepted doctrine of the Church as expounded by Thomas Aquinas in the distinction that when astrology was used to predict natural events, such as drought or ram, it was lawful ; when employed to divine the future acts of men dependent on free-will, it involved the operation of demons, and was unlawful. Zanghino says that though it is one of the seven liberal arts and not prohibited by law, yet it has a tendency to idolatry, and is condemned by the canonists. There was, in fact, much in both the theories and prac- tice of astrologers which trenched nearly upon heresy, not only through demoniac invocations, but because it was impossible that astrology could be cultivated without denying human free-will and tacitly admitting fatalism. The very basis of the so-called science lay in the influence which the signs and planets exercised on the fortunes and characters of men at the hour of birth, and no ingenious dialectics could explain away its practical denial of supervision to God and of responsibility to man. Even Roger Bacon failed in this. He fully accepted the belief that the stars were the cause of human events, that the character of every man was shaped by the aspect of the heavens at his birth, and that the past and future could be read by tables which he repeatedly and vainly sought to construct, yet he was illogical enough to think that he could guard against it by nominally reserving human free- will.* All astrologers thus practised their profession under liabil- vin. Chron. (lb. VIII. 705).— Raynald. aim. 1305, No. 7.— Savonarola contra V As- trologia, fol. 25.— Villari, Storia di Savonarola, Ed. 1887, 1. 197-8.— MS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 229-30.— Doat, XXXVII. 258.— Bern. Guidon. Pract. P. v.— Johann. Saresberiens. Polycrat. 11. xix., xx., xxv., xxvi. — Th. Aquin. Sumrn. Sec. Sec. xcv. — Zanchini Tract, de Hseret. c. xxii. — D'Argentre, I. 1. 263 ; 11. 154. — Eymeric. p. 317,— Manilii Astron. Lib. iv.— Rogeri Bacon Op. Tert. c. xi.(M. R. Series I. 35-6. Cf. 559-61).
 * Rolandini Chron. Lib. Xll. c. 2 (Murat. S. R. I. VIII. 344).— Monach. Pata-