Part 27 (1/2)
In the Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis expresses a sentiment quite similar to theirs. ”Surely a humble husbandman that serveth G.o.d, is better than a proud philosopher who, neglecting himself, is occupied in studying the course of the heavens.” Like the Fathers, a Kempis had reason to be disgusted with the astronomy of his time, for it was beginning to be impregnated again with the virus of Astrology. By refusing to follow such pseudo-scientific teachings, both a Kempis and the Fathers did a real if seemingly negative service to the science of astronomy.
”He was born under a lucky star.” Language of this sort, used now only in pleasantry, recalls a form of superst.i.tion which was once accepted seriously by all men throughout the civilized world. In many a period, mankind has believed literally that the stars and planets exercised a real influence in shaping human lives. And there have been many epochs, ancient, medieval, and even modern, when astrology, the telling of fortunes by the stars, was given a rank among the learned professions.
Even now there occur occasional sporadic outbreaks of the same superst.i.tion. Along with other quacks and necromancers, astrologers are still occasionally in evidence, advertising their trade through the columns of the press. Indeed it is affirmed by the Catholic Encyclopedia that the growth of occultistic ideas is reintroducing astrology into society.
_Errors of Astrology_.--Whatever the popularity of this practice in the past, and whatever its prospective vogue in the near future, it is to be set down without qualification or hesitation as a delusion and a snare. To suppose that the heavenly bodies have an influence on human conduct is in its origin a pagan error, closely allied with the pagan myth that the sun, moon and stars are presided over by as many separate deities. Only thus could have originated the delusion that Jupiter and Venus would procure a blessed destiny, and Mars and Saturn a troubled one, for the children born at the time of their rising.
Nor can the cult be justified by an array of the names of those who have been its votaries. It is true that many astronomers in the {489} past, including the great Kepler himself, have practised the astrological art, casting horoscopes for their clients. But in most cases it would be found, at least in the modern period, that these scientists merely yielded through tolerance to the weakness of their age. In true astronomy there is no place whatever for astrology.
Besides being groundless the practice is to be condemned for its perilous moral tendencies. Distracting the soul from the wors.h.i.+p of the spiritual G.o.d, who alone governs the universe, it subst.i.tutes for His action that of mere material objects, stars and planets, which it thus elevates to the rank of lesser G.o.ds or demons.
Pretending to forecast from birth what each man's course in life shall be, it robs the will of its proper share in moulding human conduct.
_The Christian Fathers_.--An interesting testimony to the former prevalence of this erroneous belief is found in one of Sir Walter Scott's novels, ”Guy Mannering,” whose whole plot turns upon the fulfilment of an astrological prediction. Reading the history at hand the novelist had learned what complete sway the cult had formerly exercised, almost down to the time of his writing. It would have interested the celebrated author to know that there was, however, one long period in which astrology was absolutely and effectually excluded from Christian Europe. For over a thousand years Christendom remained free from this blight, thanks to the teachings of the Fathers of the Church.
In discussing the relations of the Fathers towards the astral science, we have already shown how they purged it of some of its grossest errors. But their princ.i.p.al service to the science remains now to be told. For amongst all the vagaries of the science of the heavens, astrology is both in theory and in practice the most deplorable. That the Fathers placed the weight of their great authority in the scale against this superst.i.tion, is one of the most praiseworthy of their achievements.
_First Efforts at Reform_.--At the time that the Fathers began to write, in the century just following the labors of the Apostles, astrology formed everywhere an integral part of the science of astronomy. It was taught in all the schools, Chaldean, Jewish, Grecian and Roman. Almost from the beginning the defenders of the Christian faith proceeded to attack this pernicious error, realizing how inimical it was to the spread of truth which Christ had come to impart. Already in his address to the Greeks, Tatian was heard denouncing the absurdities of Grecian astronomy and astrology. This was in the middle of the second century, just at the close of what is called the Apostolic Period.
A little later, Tertullian, the famed apologist of the then flouris.h.i.+ng African Church, placed himself on record as the uncompromising enemy of astrology. With his usual vehemence of language he declared that ”of astrologers there should be no speaking even” among Christians; and went to the length of saying that ”he cannot hope for heaven whose finger or wand abuses the heavens.” These and many similar utterances may be found in his Treatise on Idolatry.
_Respect for True Astrology_.--With this denunciation of magic and idolatry there went hand in hand, however, a genuine respect {490} for the proper science of the heavens. Contemporary with Tertullian, and like him one of the great Christian masters of the period, was Clement Alexandria. To the Catholic astronomer of to-day it is gratifying to find this Father of the Egyptian Church giving generous testimony to the worth of astronomical science. With just discrimination he praises astronomy as ”leading the soul nearer to the creative power, as helpful to navigation and husbandry, and as making the soul in the highest degree observant, capable of perceiving the true and detecting the false.”
Another contemporary, Hippolytus, was indeed unsparing in his denunciation of astrology. In a treatise of eleven quarto pages, contained in his ”Refutation of All Heresies,” he riddled with merciless logic the vain pretensions of the Greek astrologers. But he showed that he had no quarrel with a well ordered study of the heavens, by giving liberal praise to Ptolemy, the ablest of the astronomers.
_A Universal Teaching_.--In far distant Syria, then a choice realm in the Church's patrimony, there was at the beginning of the third century another school of Christian philosophers who joined with their brethren in West and East in waging war on the same dread enemy. A Syrian work, called the Book of the Astrologers, has two quarto pages of excellent quality recounting and scoring the absurdities of current astrological practices. It is so like Hippolytus' work that one seems an echo of the other.
Perhaps the most interesting of all these concordant denunciations is that found in the ”Recognitions of Clement,” a patristic writing probably of the third century. Here the treatises on astrology run to full ten chapters, a sign that the author had abundant knowledge of the subject. In this work astrology is refuted particularly from the moral point of view. It is convicted of the double charge of being fatalistic in its tendency and subversive of all morality.
”Men's conduct,” says the author's thesis, ”is due to their own free will and not to the configuration of the planets.”
_Golden Age of Patristic Literature_.--So ran on in perfect unity and harmony the steady flow of patristic teaching. It reached its climax, as we should expect to find, in the heroic writers of the fourth century, the golden era of patrology. Lactantius, the Christian Cicero, re-echoed the voices of the past in p.r.o.nouncing astrology the work of demons. An Augustine, the greatest of the Fathers, confirmed the decision of his predecessors by protesting against the amalgamation of astrology with the true science of nature.
So effectual indeed was the opposition to astrology of the earlier Christian writers, confirmed by the masters of the post-Nicene period, that the practice came to be regarded by all the faithful as a superst.i.tion and a danger, and continued to be so esteemed down to the time of the Crusades. For a full millennium, Christian Europe midst all its vicissitudes was spared the absurdities of astrological belief and practice, thanks to the patristic school of writers.
_A Surprising Omission_.--We have thought it well to bring to light these none too well-known facts regarding one important part of the astronomical teachings of the Fathers. How they could have {491} escaped the attention of Andrew D. White, or how he could have failed to find place for them in his voluminous work, it is difficult to understand.
His book bristles with accounts of superst.i.tions, always telling against the theologians, and in favor of the scientists. But astrology is absent even from the index of his work. Had he allotted it a chapter, his numerous readers would have learned that one great school of theological writers, enduring for a thousand years, did wage war on a certain sort of science, to wit, the pseudo-science of astrology.
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APPENDIX VIII.
SCIENCE IN AMERICA.
For Americans it is very probable that the chapter in the history of science which will demonstrate most clearly that there was not only no opposition on the part of the Popes or the Church authorities to the teachings of science or its development, but on the contrary encouragement and patronage, in spite of our English traditions to the contrary, is that which gives even very briefly the story of the evolution of science and its teaching on the American continent.
Notwithstanding the very prevalent impression, indeed we might say the practically universal persuasion, that there was nothing worth while talking about in any department of education in America before the nineteenth century, except what little there was in the English colonies, and while it is confidently a.s.sumed that above all science received no attention from our Southern neighbors, Spanish America not only surpa.s.sed English America in education, but far outdistanced English America in what was accomplished for scientific research and the evolution of the knowledge of a large number of scientific subjects in a great many ways.
Even those among us who thought themselves well read in American history have, as a rule, known almost nothing of this until comparatively recent years. Professor Bourne of Yale, whose untimely death deprived the United States of a distinguished historical scholar, was the first to point out emphatically how far ahead of the English were the Spanish colonies in every mode of education, but particularly in the cultivation of science. In many places Prescott had more than hinted at this, but the materials for the whole story were not available until our time.