Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/461

 ASTROLOGY CONDEMNED. 445 century, both Pedro the Cruel of Castile and Pedro IV. of Aragon kept many astrologers whom they constantly consulted, but in 1387 Juan I. of Castile included astrology among other forms of divination subject to the penalties of the Partidas. Yet it con- tinued to number its votaries among high dignitaries of both State and Church. The only shade on the lustre of Cardinal Peter d'Ailly's reputation was his earnest devotion to the science, and it would have gone hard with him had justice been meted out to him as to Cecco d'Ascoli, for it was impossible for the astrologer to avoid fatalism. It was a curiously erroneous prediction of his, uttered in 1414, that, in consequence of the retrogression of Jupiter in the first house, the Council of Constance would result in the destruction of religion, and peace in the Church would not be ob- tained ; that, in fact, the Great Schism was probably the prelude to the coming of Antichrist. More fortunate was the computa- tion by which he arrived at the date of 1789 as that which would witness great perturbations if the world should so long endure. The tolerance which spared Cardinal d'Ailly did not proceed from any change in the theory of the Church as to the heresy of inter- fering with the doctrine of free-will. Alonso de Spina points out that the astrological belief that men born under certain stars can- not avoid sinning is manifestly heretical. None the less so was the teaching that when the moon and Jupiter were in conjunction in the head of the Dragon any one praying to God could obtain whatever he wanted, as Peter of Abano found when he used this fortunate moment to secure stores of knowledge beyond the ca- pacity of the unassisted human mind. Sprenger, the highest authority on demon ology, held that in astrology there was a tacit pact with the demon.* All this shows that in the increasing hos- tility to occult arts astrology had gradually come under the ban, and the disputed question as to its position was finally brought to Gerardi Magni Epistt. pp. 111-19. — Amador de los Rios (Re vista de Espafia, T. XVIII. p. 9). — Novisima Recopilacion, Lib. xn. Tit. iv. 1. 1 — Concord. Astron. Veritatis et Narrat. Histor. c. lix., lx. (August. Vindel. 1490). — Fortalic. Fidei Lib. 11. Consid. vi. — Savonarola contra l'Astrol. fol. 26. — Bayle, s. v. Apone. — Malleus Malef. P. I. Q. xvi. The supreme power of the conjunction of Jupiter and the moon above alluded to is probably based on Albumasar de Magnis Conjunctionibus Tract. 111. Diff. 2.
 * Petrarchi de Rebus Senilibus Lib. in. Epist. 1. — Eymeric. p. 443. — Acquoy,