516
HILARY M. CAREY
Christopher Hill noted that astrology was associated in the minds of some
seventeenth-century people with the work of Antichrist and that the subject was well
worth further investigation.5
This article presents a case for the significance of astrology in some kinds of
prophetic calculations of the coming of Antichrist, beginning with the speculations
of Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century. But it can be acknowledged that, for much
of the Middle Ages, astrology and prophecy of the kind attributed to Merlin, the
Sybil, Joachim and others were distinct genres and there was little in the way of
cross-fertilization. This is puzzling because the two discourses appear to cover
similar territory. Both employ a symbolic syntax to encode interpretations about the
present and future state of society. Both employ numerical calculations to decipher
past and future things. In the case of Joachimist-style prophecy, the numbers and the
argument are derived from scripture, whereas astrology follows a method that was
generally perceived in the Middle Ages to be rational and scientific. But overall,
there would appear to be all the makings of a demarcation dispute.
It is not until late in the Middle Ages that Pierre dAilly deployed the full
astrological apparatus: the calculation of planetary longitudes, conjunction theory,
and the citation of major astrological authorities, to compute a precise date for the
arrival of Antichrist, namely 1789.6 As Laura Smoller has shown, this prediction was
intended to calm contemporary prophetic exuberance, not encourage the
employment of astrology for millennialist speculation.7 Boudet, North and Smoller
have examined the work of a number of other late medieval authors who used
astrology to consider possible dates for the coming of Antichrist, the second coming
of Christ, and the end of the world.8 But questions remain about why it took so long
the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988); Robin
Bruce Barnes, Images of Hope and Despair: Western Apocalypticism, c. 15001800, in
McGinn, The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, II, 14384; and articles collected in Astrologi
hallucinati: Stars and the End of the World in Luthers Time, ed. by Paula Zambelli (Berlin:
de Gruyter, 1986). For English examples see Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology
in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989).
5
517
for these kinds of speculation to come to astrological fruition. What were the
medieval seeds of the astrological eschatology of Reformation Europe?
For the status of the Preface and its relationship to Bacons major work, see Stewart
Easton, Roger Bacon and His Search for a Universal Science (Oxford: Blackwell, 1952),
pp. 14466. Bacons repeat of this statement is noted by Southern, Aspects, p. 172;
Southerns citation is cited by Emmerson, Antichrist, p. 14; Bernard McGinn,
Apocalypticism and Church Reform: 1001500, in McGinn and others, The Encyclopedia of
Apocalypticism, II, 87. It is the only quote in North, Fortunes of Churches, p. 190; Smoller,
Alfonsine Tables, p. 220.
10
The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, ed. by John Henry Bridges, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1897), I, 26869:
Nolo hic ponere os meum in coelum, sed scio quod si ecclesia vellet revolvere textum
518
HILARY M. CAREY
12
13
Bacon, Opus Majus, I, 30102: Et haec cognitio locorum mundi valde necessaria est
reipublicae fidelium et conversioni infidelium et ad obviandum infidelibus et Antichristo, et
aliis. Easton, Roger Bacon, p. 72 considers that the conviction that all the sciences are
connected and mutually interdependent was Bacons personal credo, and the key to his whole
work.
14
For review, see Jeremiah Hackett, Roger Bacon on AstronomyAstrology: The Sources
of the scientia experimentalis, in Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays, ed.
by Jeremiah Hackett (Leiden: Brill, 1997).
15
George A. Molland, Roger Bacon and the Hermetic Tradition in Medieval Science,
Vivarium, 31 (1993), 14091; George A. Molland, Roger Bacon as Magician, Traditio, 30
519
recently, Paul Sidelko has argued that Bacons particular enthusiasm for astrology
was instrumental in his condemnationthough there is very little to suggest that
Bacon was ever actually disciplined for anything, and even less to suggest what the
cause might be.16 For some years it was considered that the Secreta secretorum had a
central place in Bacons intellectual development. This has been challenged by
Steven Williams who has argued for the relatively late dating of Bacons edition of
the Secreta secretorum and his extensive, mostly astrological, commentary on it.17
Whatever the dating of Bacons Secreta, it seems undeniable that astrology was
important to Bacon to an extent unmatched by his contemporaries in science.18 But
he was not wholly uncritical in his examination either of prophecy, or of astrology.
As Connell argues, Bacon was, on some points at least quite sceptical about the
prophecies of Antichrist.19 Overall, the picture of Bacon as a magician is not very
satisfying, even if marginally preferable to the older stereotype of Bacon the
scientist. What appears to have driven Bacon to complete his heroic programme of
research was not only his faith in the analytical power of astrology, but the moderate
Joachimist sympathies of the Franciscan circles of Oxford and Paris in which he
moved.
Steven J. Williams, Roger Bacon and his Edition of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum
secretorum, Speculum, 69 (1994), 5773.
18
James A. Weisheipl, Science in the Thirteenth Century, in History of the University of
Oxford; Vol. I: The Early Oxford Schools, ed. by J. I. Catto (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).
See also John D. North and A. C. Crombie, Roger Bacon (12191292), in Dictionary of
Scientific Biography, ed. by Charles Coulston Gillispie, 16 vols (New York: Charles
Scribners Sons, 197080), I, 37785 (p. 382).
19
C. W. Connell, Western Views of the Origin of the Tartars, Journal of Medieval and
Renaissance Studies, 3 (1973), 11537.
520
HILARY M. CAREY
was essential that close attention be given to anything that might spare Christian
blood in the churchs struggle against infidels and rebels, and above all in the future
dangers of the time of Antichrist.20 Such dangers might easily be averted, with the
grace of God, if prelates and princes undertook appropriate study and were more
aggressive in hunting down the secrets of nature and art.21 This was tactical and
strategic warfare and Bacon appears to have been all in favour of the medieval
equivalent of biological and nuclear weapons. Such steps were justified on the basis
that these means were already employed by eastern princes, who were known to rule
their people through the advice of men skilled in both divination and certain
branches of higher learning, such as astrology (astronomia) and experimental
science, or the arts of magic.22 This is all pretty reprehensible, not least because it put
Christian prelates and princes on a par with Antichrist himself, who was known to
perform false miracles and signs through demonic trickery.23 Even for political
reasons, it was not really sensible for Bacon to ally the science of astrology so
blatantly to the more practical arts of magic.
As to when Antichrist would come, Bacon is notably circumspect, reflecting
the climate of re-assessment and caution that followed the condemnation of Gerardo
of Borgo San Donnino in 1256 and the failure of his prediction of the coming of
Joachim of Fiores third status in 1260.24 Bacon considered that it was more than
likely that the Tartars should be identified with the race of the stock of Gog and
Magog who, according to Ethicus, were to break out from behind the Caspian gates
to cause great devastation, and go on to meet Antichrist and call him God of Gods.25
20
Bacon, Opus Majus, II, 222: Et hoc deberet ecclesia considerare contra infideles et
rebeles, ut parcatur sanguini Christiano, et maxime propter futura pericula in temporibus
Antichristi, quibus cum Deo gratia facile esset obviare, si praelati et principes studium
promoverent et secreta naturae et artis indagerent.
21
Bacon, Opus Majus, II, 222: Et hoc deberet ecclesia considerare contra infideles et
rebeles, ut parcatur sanguini Christiano, et maxime propter futura pericula in temporibus
Antichristi, quibus cum Deo gratia facile esset obviare, si praelati et principes studium
promoverent et secreta naturae et artis indagerent.
22
Bacon, Opus Majus, I, 368: Nam principes ibi regunt populum per divinationes et
scientias quae instruunt homines in futuris, sive sint partes philosophiae, ut astronomia et
scientia experimentalis, sive artes magicae, quibus totum oriens est deditum et imbutum.
23
On Antichrist and false miracles, see Emmerson, Antichrist; Augustine, Patrologia Latina, 41, 867. On
Antichrists power to deceive and work every kind of miracle and signs and lying portents,
see Augustines discussion of II Thessalonians 2. 112 in City of God, Book XX. xix:
Augustine, De civitate Dei, ed. by T. E. Page and others, Loeb Classical Library, 7 vols
(London: Heinemann, 1957), VI, ed. and trans. by William Chase Greene, esp. pp. 36467.
24
On San Donnino and the Eternal Gospel, see Bernard McGinn, The Calabrian Abbot:
Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1985).
25
Bacon, Opus Majus, II, 234. Dicit igitur Ethicus philosophus quod circa tempora
Antichristi erit una gens de stirpe Gog et Magog contra ubera Aquilonis circa portum
521
Bacon, Opus Majus, II, 234: Et Albumazar in libro Conjunctionum verificat similiter
hoc principium, dicens et ostendens quod veniet princeps cum lege foeda et magica post
legem Machometi, qui destruet alias leges ad tempus. Sed parum durabit malitiae
magnitudinem.
27
Bacon, Opus Majus, I, 265: Nam Albumazar octava differentia libri secundi de
conjunctionibus dicit, quod mora sectae et regni et permutatio accidunt praecipue secundum
quantitatem decem revolutionum Saturniarum, praecipue si Saturno conveniet mutatio ad
signa mobilia. Compare Ab Macar, On Historical Astrology: The Book of Religions and
Dynasties (On the Great Conjunctions), ed. by Keiji Yamamoto and Charles Burnett, 2 vols
(Brill: Leiden, 2000), II: The Latin versions Albumansar, De magnis conjunctionibus, ed.
and trans. by Charles Burnett, 1. 4. 4, pp. 2929:
Dicamusque quia, cum Iupiter per naturam significet fidem, et diversitates legum in
temporibus et in hominibus sectarum et in vicibus regnorum fiant ex complexionibus
Saturni vel ex complexionibus ceterorum planetarum cum eo, necesse est ut
aspiciamus Iovem, qui si fuerit in loco fidei ab abscendente coniunctionis que
significat mutationem, et almubtez super locum fidei fuerit ei complexus, erit narratio
in hoc secundum ipsum.
522
HILARY M. CAREY
In 1623, Dandalus was named by Gabriel Naud among an impressive list of false
prophets who should not attract the attention of his countrymen. Cited by Marjorie Reeves and
Warwick Gould, Joachim of Fiore and the Myth of the Eternal Evangel in the Nineteenth
Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), p. 13.
31
Harold Lee, Marjorie Reeves and Giulio Silano, Western Mediterranean Prophecy: The
School of Foachim of Fiore and the Fourteenth-Century Breviloquium (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1989), p. 40.
32
Though see the claim of Symon de Phares that Joachim was an expert astrologer. Simon
may have known of pseudonymous works, such as Horoscopus, which justified this opinion.
Le Recueil des plus celebres astrologues de Simon de Phares, ed. by Jean-Patrice Boudet, 2
vols (Paris: Librairie Honor Champion, 1997), I: dition critique, 398.
33
Reeves, Influence of Prophecy; Marjorie Reeves, Some Popular Prophecies from the
Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries, Popular Belief and Practice, ed. by G. J. Cuming
and Derek Baker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 10734; Marjorie
Reeves and B. Hirsch-Reich, The Figurae of Joachim of Fiore (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
523
By the thirteenth century, however, Joachims ideas were being subjected to the
pressure of ever-increasing theological and scientific scrutiny.34 Not only were his
ideas raked over to allow the identification of particular historical figures and
political events, but also to facilitate the calculation of the date of the coming of
Antichrist and the end. This is the context in which Roger Bacon was writing. And
while it is probably going too far to identify Bacon himself as a Joachimisthe is
much too quirky and temperamental for thathe does show awareness of Joachims
authority as a prophet and of the expectation that 1260 might be a date of particular
significance.35 While it might seem to be only a matter of time before someone
attempted a more thorough marriage of Joachimism with astrology, there were some
formidable theological hurdles to cross before this could happen.
By the central Middle Ages, while some conservative theologians continued to
proscribe all forms of astrology, there was little resistance to its major tenets,
particularly in relation to natural events. Augustine was the key authority, but even
he had allowed that astronomia consisted of both licit and illicit branches.36 The
general ambiguity is nicely conveyed by Isidore of Seville in his definition and
comments on Lucifer, the evening star, which he describes as a type of Antichrist,
who rises up in the evening over the sons of the earth, just as the blindness of the
succeeding night obscures the carnal mind, but which is then overthrown by Christ
in his manifestation at the morning star.37 The stars could act as the representatives
of both Christ and Antichrist, according to the wisdom of the one investigating them.
In the thirteenth century, there were at least three techniques that could be
employed by scientific astrologers to consider the events of the final days, namely:
astral omens, the Platonic Year and conjunctionism. The latter is also referred to by
historians of astrology as the doctrine of the great conjunctions or historical
astrology. These three forms of astrological divination overlap to some extent. In
addition, the Book of Revelation and ancient astrology shared a symbolic and
1972).
34
Reviewed by Roberto Rusconi, Antichrist and Antichrists, in McGinn and others, The
Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, II, 287325.
35
The major patristic authority objecting to the practice is Augustine, see especially De
civitate Dei, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 47 and 48 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955),
p. 652. The best recent review of the theological debate about astrology in the
Middle Ages is Smoller, History, Prophecy and the Stars, chap. 2, though the elegant survey
of Theodore Wedel, Mediaeval Attitude toward Astrology, Yale Studies in English, 60 (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1920) remains of value.
37
524
HILARY M. CAREY
numerological language they inherited from the Chaldean sources of both ancient
astrology and Judaeo-Christian apocalyptic.38 It might therefore be argued that the
rise of astrological prophecy in the late medieval and early modern period represents
nothing more than the natural rejoining of the divided streams of prophetic
interpretation. Of these traditions, there is space in this article to consider only one,
namely conjunctionism and, in particular, the conjunctionism described in Ab
Macars Book of Religions and Dynasties (On the Great Conjunctions).
Conjunctionism
In the Latin west, translations of Ab Macars Book of Religions and Dynasties (On
the Great Conjunctions) was the most important source for knowledge of
conjunctionism, that is the astrological theory that events in human history were
influenced by the periodical cycles of conjunctions of the major planets.39 Written
sometime before 197/813, Macars Book of Religions and Dynasties (On the Great
Conjunctions was first translated in the second quarter of the twelfth century where
it was generally known under the title De magnis coniunctionibus. It was printed in
1489 and 1515 and published again some 485 years later, only a few months before
the Leeds International Medieval Congress at which this paper was presented.40
Historical astrology was also disseminated through rather less challenging tracts,
such as John of Sevilles Quadripartitum and De ratione circuli, which are discussed
by North.41 It is conjunctionism that allowed for the casting of horoscopes for such
significant moments as the nativity, crucifixion and second coming, the coming of
Antichrist and the end of the world. While horoscopes of Antichrist do not seem to
have survived, horoscopes of other events in Christian history are not uncommon,
and there was no theoretical impediment to the practice.42
The basic theory of Ab Macars great treatise is not complicated and relies on
the happy accident that the period between successive conjunctions of the two
largest planets, Saturn and Jupiter, is about twenty years.43 In addition, each
38
39
40
41
42
Medieval horoscopes are very rare. See J. D. North, Horoscopes and History (London:
Warburg Institute, 1986) for a collection of surviving examples. I have not seen a
contemporary horoscope of the birth of Antichrist.
43
The explanation in Ab Ma ar, On Historical Astrology, II, 58283 is short and clear
525
successive major conjunction tends to occur about 120 of longitude, or three signs
of the zodiac, further along the zodiac than the last. According to an ancient
tradition, the twelve signs of the zodiac are broken up into four triplicities, or groups
of three zodiac signs usually identified as airy, fiery, watery and earthy, within
which each sign is linked to the two others which are 120 apart from it.44 This leads
to the astrologically significant effect that successive conjunctions of the two major
planets tend to occur in the same triplicity where it will recur, although falling in a
different sign within the triplicity, for about 240 years before shifting to a new one.
After 960 years, the whole process begins again. Although the astronomical
movements of the two planets are not quite as neat as this, the whole process
provided a powerful symbolic system for analysing long spans of time and linking
them to historical changes in cycles of 20-, 240- and 960-year periods.45
Although religion is central to the matters given consideration in On the Great
Conjunctions, Ab Macar does not provide a crib to date the coming of Antichrist.
To state the obvious, Ab Macar wrote for an Islamic audience for whom the idea
of a single hostile opponent of Christ or the Prophet was not a familiar one and for
whom the birth and death of Jesus Christ and the rise of Christianity were not the
culmination of religious history. It was possible for translators to make superficial
compensation for this. For example, where the Arabic refers to the Prophet (Upon
him be peace!), the Latin has instead super quem sit maledictio.46 It was harder to
get around the fact that Ab Macar makes only two references to Christianity in the
entire book, neither of them very complimentarythough Bacon does try.47
On the other hand, Ab Macar did understand and cater for an age wracked by
religious sectarianism, false prophets, heresy and schism, just the sort of effects that
and draws on the more technical explanation in North, Fortunes of Churches, pp. 18587
including his useful diagram. See also Edward S. Kennedy, Ramifications of the World-Year
Concept in Islamic Astrology, Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of the
History of Science (1962), 35859.
44
Evidence of the Chaldean origin of triplicities is discussed by Francesca RochbergHatton, New Evidence for the History of Astrology, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 43, 2
(1984), 11540. According to standard texts, such as the Ysagog Minor, the Latin verson of
c
Ab Ma ars Abbreviation of the Introduction to Astrology, ed. by Charles Burnett, Keiji
Yamamoto and Michio Yano (Leiden: Brill, 1994), p. 102.
45
46
47
For example, the Arabic original of Ab Ma ar, On Historical Astrology: The Book of
Religions and Dynasties (On the Great Conjunctions), ed. by Keiji Yamamoto and Charles
Burnett, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 2000), I: The Arabic Original, ed. and trans. by Keiji
Yamamoto and Charles Burnett, I, 4, 45: If the mixer with [Jupiter, the indicator of faith] is
Mercury, it indicates Christianity, and every faith containing antipathy, doubt and trouble.
Bacon, Opus Majus, I, 257 gushes: Et dicunt, quod lex Mercurales est difficilior ad
credendum quam aliae, et habet multas difficultates supra humanum intellectum.
526
HILARY M. CAREY
Nam secundum quod Albumazar dicit viii capitulo secundi libri, non potest lex
Mahometi durare ultra sexcentos nonaginta tres [693] annos [. . .] Et nunc est annus
Arabum sexcentesimus sexagesimus quintus [665] a tempore Mahometi, et ideo cito
destruetur per gratiam Dei [. . .] Et huic sententiae concordate Apocalypsis xiii
capitulo. Nam dicit quod numerus bestiae est 663, qui numerus est minor praedicto
per xxx annos.
c
Bacon, Opus Majus, I, 266: Et hic forsan voluit Deus, quod non exprimeretur totaliter,
sed aliquantulum occultaretur, sicut caetera quae in Apocalypsi scribuntur. Ashenden comes
to repeat this suggestion in his tract on the conjunction of 1365, where it is noted by North,
Fortunes of Churches, p. 195.
52
Bacon, Opus Majus, I, 268: Et [. . .] post legem Mahometi non credimus quod aliqua
secta veniet nisi lex Antichristi, et astronomi similiter concordant in hoc.
527
plain when we examine Bacons earlier argument, again drawn from Ab Macars
On the Great Conjunctions,53 on the basis of which Bacon maintained that there
could only be six laws or religions, and the last would only arise when the law of
Mohammed was crushed. This final episode in the history of religion would arise as
a consequence of a greatest conjunction that occurred when Jupiter, the major
determiner in matters of religion, was mixed in its influence with the moon. This
religion, according to Bacon, would be that of Antichrist:
After the law of Mohammed, we do not believe that any other law will come
except the law of Antichrist, and astronomers likewise agree in this, that there is some
powerful one who will establish a foul and magical law after Mohammed which law
will suspend all others.54
Bacon then asserts that this danger was sufficiently plain for the church to take
precautionary measures in preparation for the coming of Antichrist.
Despite his inventiveness, Bacon never really does any more than play with the
idea of conjunctionism. He does not go on to produce astrological history and/or
prophecy of his own.55 Fully developed astrological histories, which account for the
rise and fall of an entire people, are not common, though it is interesting, in the light
of Roger Bacons fears about the use to which the Tartars were putting astrology,
that an astrological history based on the career of Genghis Khan (d. 1227) does
survivealbeit one created in the seventeenth century.56 But it is clear that they
could also be potent political propaganda. In its original form, for example, the lost
Arabic text of Mallhs Thousands predicted the downfall of the Abbasid
dynasty and the restoration of Iranian rule in 200/815.57 In Muslim Spain, political
and historical astrology, based on the interpretation of conjunctions and celestial
53
55
Though he does claim (The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, trans. by Robert Belle Burke
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1928), p. 400) that the dreadful comet of
1264 was generated by the force of Mars and was clearly a factor in the wars of England,
Spain, Italy and other countries, which happened about that time. Oh, how great an advantage
might have been secured to the Church of God, if the characteristics of the heavens in those
times had been discerned beforehand by scientists, and understood by prelates and princes,
and transferred to a zeal for peace.
56
528
HILARY M. CAREY
For an account of the diffusion of this key text, see Pingree, The Thousands of Ab
Ma har, and Charles S. F. Burnett, The Legend of the Three Hermes and Ab Ma hars
Kitb al-Ulf in the Latin Middle Ages, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 39
(1976), 23134.
60
J. Fontaine, Isidore of Seville et lastrologie, Rvue des tudes latines, 31 (1953), 271
300.
61
Sams, The Early Development, pp. 23031; and Juan Vernet, Astrologa y poltica en
la Crdoba del siglo X, Revista del Instituto de Estudios Islamicos en Madrid, 15 (1970),
91100.
62
Andalusian Astronomy: Its Main Characteristics and Influence in the Latin West, in
Sams, Islamic Astronomy and Medieval Spain, paper I, pp. 123.
63
Charles Burnett, The Contents and Affiliation of the Scientific Manuscripts Written at,
or Bought to Chartres, in the Time of John of Salisbury, in The World of John of Salisbury,
ed. by Michael Wilks (Oxford: Blackwell, for the Ecclesiastical History Society, 1984), p.
132.
529
Burnett, The Contents and Affiliation, p. 135. Haskins noted the date 1135 on fol. 116:
In hoc anno quando erant anni a nativitate Christi MCXXXV in kal. Iulii fuit Venus incensa
in Cancro. The incipit suggests that the text concerned the interpretation of the great
conjunctions: Incipit de planetarum coniunctione. Si Saturnus et Iuppiter.
65
For a short text, including comments on conjunctions from 2509 (the founding of Rome)
c
to 1225 (the deposition of Frederick by Innocent IV), see Ab Ma ar, On Historical
Astrology, II, 34851.
66
Ab Ma ar, On Historical Astrology, II, 351: Et, quia anno Christ 1225 fuit coniunctio
Saturni et Iovis in primo gradu Aquarii, significaviit cessationem imperii apud Teutonicos.
67
For an introduction to the literature, see Monika Asztalos, The Faculty of Theology, in
A History of the University in Europe, ed. by Walter Regg, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992), I: Universities in the Middle Ages, ed. by Hilde de Ridder-Symoens,
pp. 42033.
68
530
HILARY M. CAREY
Paola Zambelli, The Speculum Astronomiae and its Enigma: Astrology, Theology and
Science in Albertus Magnus and his Contemporaries (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1992).
For Albertus on astrology, see Betsy B. Price, The Physical Astronomy and Astrology of
Albertus Magnus, in Albertus Magnus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays 1980, ed.
by James A. Weisheipl (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980), pp. 15585.
70
Albertus Magnus, Summa theologiae, in Opera omnia, ed. by Petrus Jammy (Paris, 1651),
XVIIXVIII:
Talis enim stellarum qualitas trahere potest corpora et mutare animos etiam plantarum
et brutorum, sed animam et voluntatem hominis, quae ad imaginem Dei in libertate sui
constitua est, domina est surorum actuum et suarum electionum nec mutare nec
trahere postest coactiva coactione, licet forte eatenus qua anima inclinatur ad corpus
secundum potentias quae affiguntur organis (sicut sunt potentiae animae sensibilis et
animae vegetabilis) anima humana inclinative, non coactive a tali qualititate trahi
possit.
Quoted in Zambelli, The Speculum Astronomiae and its Enigma: Astrology,
Theology and Science in Albertus Magnus and his Contemporaries, p. 165; for Aquinas
see Thomas Litt, Les corps cleste dans lunivers de Saint Thomas dAquin
(Leuven: Nauwelaerts, 1963).
71
Albertus Magnus, De quatuor coaequaevis cit., tr. III. Q. 8, a. 1; in Jammy, Opera omnia,
XIX, pl. 75a: astra habent virtutem in transmutatione elementorum et in mutatione
complexionum et in motibus hominum et insuper etiam in habitibus inclinantibus ad opera et
etiam in eventibus praeliorum. Cited by Zambelli, The Speculum Astronomiae, p. 165.
531
Zambelli, The Speculum Astronomiae, [chap.] VII, p. 228: [Hic] indicatur quid
operatur Deus gloriosus et sublimis in eodem anno per stellas sicut per instrumenta super
divites quorundam climatum et in universitatem vulgi eorum ex gravitate vel levitate annonae,
ex guerra vel pace, ex terraemotu et diluviis, ex scintillis et prodigiis terribilibus, et caeteris
esse quae accidunt in hoc mundo.
73
On the transmission of the idea that the Assumption was prefigured by the first decan of
the sign of Virgo, see R. Lemay, Fautes et contresens dans les traductions arabo-latines
mdivales: lIntroductorium in astronomium dAbou mashar de Balkh, Revue de synthse,
89 (1968), 11920; Jean-Patrice Boudet, Lire dans le ciel: la bibliothque de Simon de
Phares, astrologue de XVe sicle (Bruxelles: Centre dtude des manuscrits, 1994), p. 73.
74
Si enim ex figura revolutionis annis, aut eclipsis, aut coniunctionis, quae significat
sectam, significatur terraemotus sive diluvium, aut scintillae, aut super divites et
universitate vulgi guerra vel pax, fama sive mortalitas, caeterum apparitio alicuius
magni prophetae sive haeretici, aut ortus horrendi schismatis univeralis vel
particularis, secundum quod providit Deus altissimum, quid ad arbitrium liberum?
Numquid est in potestate hominis talia immutare?
75
532
HILARY M. CAREY
For the Platonic/Hipparchan Great Year, see Godefroi de Callata, Annus Platonicus
(Louvain-la-Neuve: Universit Catholique de Louvain, 1996).
78
Arnald does not appear to have written on astrological medicine, and the one work
attributed to him, De medicina secundum astrologiam danda, is probably apocryphal; Boudet,
Lire dans le Ciel, no. 23, item 46.
533
Astrologi vero, qui probant, quod motus retardationies octave sphere compleri nequit
in paucioribus annis quam in XXXVI millibus, debent scire, quod suam potentiam et
sapientiam Deus non alligavit naturalibus causis. Set sicut in productione mundi fuit
naturalibus causis, sic et in consummatione huius seculi supernaturaliter operabitur. Et
si totius retardationis revolutio necessaria foret, ut asserunt, ad univeralem
perfectionem, nichilominus Deus est potens motum orbium velocitare, quantum
placuerit, et revolutionem complere brevissimo tempore, ita ut revolutiones L vel
centum annorum compleantur in uno anno vel dimidio, quod utique futurum esse circa
finem mundi scriptura testatur Petri ultimo dicens: Adveniet dies domini sicut fur.
Though actually, if this was the Creators preferred methodit is hard to think that speeding
up the orbits of the celestial bodies would be a particularly sneaky way to go about it.
81
De tempore Antichrist, Citt del Vaticano, Bibl. Apost. Vat., MS Vat. Lat. 3824, fol.
59r; cited by Harold Lee, Scrutamini Scripturas: Joachimist Themes and Figurae in the Early
Religious Writings of Arnald of Villanova, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes,
37 (1974), 3356; and Harold Lee, Marjorie Reeves, and Giulio Silano, Western
Mediterranean Prophecy: The School of Joachim of Fiore and the Fourteenth-Century
Breviloquium (Toronto : Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1989), p. 28. Lee supports
dating the De tempore to around 128890. Smoller, Alfonsine Tables, pp. 21516, notes
Arnalds reluctance to accept calculations of the end based on motion of the eighth sphere.
534
HILARY M. CAREY
For the argument of John of Paris, see Smoller, Alfonsine Tables, and refs.
83
Franz Pelster, Die Quaestio Heinrichs von Harclay ber die zweite Ankunft Christi und
die Erwartung des baldigen Weltendes zu Anfang des XIV. Jahrhunderts, Archivio italiano
per la storia della piet, 1 (1951), 3246.
84
85
Pelster, Die Quaestio Heinrichs von Harclay, p. 79: Sed et hoc est mirandum michi
quod viri alias intelligentes nituntur istam opinionem de duracione secte Machometi etc.
86
For Ashenden on prophecy and astrology, see Keith Voltaire Snedegar, John Ashenden
and the Scientia Astrorum Mertonensii, with an edition of Ashendens Pronosticationes
(unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oxford, 1988), pp. 24859. Snedegar discusses
Harclays refutation of the treatises of Arnald of Villanova and John Quidort (John of Paris)
and typically hard-line views of John Wyclif, who also attacked the Great Year.
87
535
Conclusion
What conclusions can be made concerning the use of conjunctionism and other
forms of astrology to make predictions about the coming of Antichrist in the Middle
Ages? In the first place it is evident that from the time of its arrival in Europe in the
first quarter of the twelfth century, there were attempts to use Ab Macars On the
Great Conjunctions to underpin forecasts about political and religious matters.
Secondly, in the later part of the twelfth century, the rise of a heightened
eschatological consciousness, particularly where there was an intersection of
Franciscan scholars with scientific training who were also sympathetic to
Joachimism, led to a limited number of direct attempts to predict the coming of
Antichrist using conjunctionism. Thirdly, Roger Bacon can be considered the most
important figure in facilitating the use of astrology for religious predictions. This is
because he provided a Christianized interpretation of the conjunctionism of Ab
Macar that, although it did considerable violence to the intention of the original,
provided a relatively simple formula for the prediction of the coming of Antichrist.
Nevertheless, Bacons suggestions were not taken up to any great extent by the
practising astrologers of the later Middle Ages.
Why was there such resistance to the employment of conjunctionism for
religious purposes, in marked contrast to the history of the same theory in the
Islamic world? One possible reason is that the reading of Ab Macar provided by
Bacon was not very good astrology, in the sense understood by those experts who
used Ab Macars other work for purposes such as weather prediction. And
although Bacon had been careful not to provide a particular date for the coming of
Antichrist, it was also, as John Ashenden was later to point out, easy to disprove
once the nominated years had come and gone. On the other hand the failure of a
predicted date was rarely an insuperable problem for a determined millennialist. In
this case, Bacons favoured predictions do not seem to have gathered any heat.
The main factor restraining the development of astrological theory for religious
predictions was theological and academic opposition to the practice. And whereas
church objections to astrology were not sufficient to prevent the rise of a flourishing
industry of astrological predictions for secular affairs, particularly in the courts of
northern Europe, it did act as an effective break on religious predictions of more
weighty events, such as the coming of Antichrist. Casting a figure for the coming of
Antichrist remained perfectly possible on the basis of well-known astrological
theory, but it does not appear to have been done. From one point of view, there was
nothing impious about this activity. As long as the cosmos was considered to be a
reflection of Gods orderly universe, then the heavens might be anticipated to show
signs of both Christs returnand that of his opponent. The stars were, as the
Speculum Astronomie put it, no more than His instruments. But astrologers appear to
have resisted the temptation to put God to the test.
University of Newcastle, New South Wales