KRZYSZTOF POMIAN

Astrology as a Naturalistic Theology of History

Introductory remarks

We know in general four different types of inquiries about history: (1)

Chronography, i. e. description of events we are witnesses to as they
arrive one after another or of facts we reconstruct applying the principles
of historical criticism to whatever may be interpreted as an evidence
about the past. - (2) Chronometry, i. e. measuring of temporal intervals
between events or between facts. - (3) Chronology, i. e. localization of
events or of facts in a temporal frame where some event or some fact is
chosen as a point of reference out of which starts the counting of days,
years, centuries, etc. - (4) Chronosophy, i. e. integration of the past, the
present and the future of the object under study into one image or a
description of its future in order to complete the history of its past and its
present. Every chronosophy is therefore dependent upon some proce-
dure supposed to predict the future, sometimes even a very distant one,
with a reasonable if not absolute certainty.
The essential questions of every chronosophy are either those of
intelligibility or those of meaning of particular events (or facts) or of some
segment of history or of the history taken as a whole. The two questions
are different from one another. The first is asking for the sufficient
reason of what one wants to understand and so the answer may point out
to some blind, regular and repetitive mechanism producing events or
facts which constitute our historical data. The second is asking for the
purpose to which an intelligent agent subordinates the choice it operates
in the set of possible events, facts or ways to be followed by the object
under study. The second question is then a special case of the first: to
have a meaning is to have a sufficient reason but a sufficient reason
identical not with a blind mechanism, but only with an agent acting
purposefully, be it God, historical hero, Weltgeist or mankind driven by
an inbuilt tendency towards progress.
The most ancient form of chronosophy taken here into account
tries to provide history with the intelligibility and/or a meaning looking
for the sufficient reason of its course (assimilated to a succession of
events) not only outside history itself but even outside the world human
beings are living in. I call it "theology of history". Another form of

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chronosophy may be named "psychology of historical agents". It tries to

make history intelligible and/or to find a meaning of it referring events
to some principle operating in the souls of individuals who are active in
history, who supposedly are doing it. Very old, older than the written
history itself, theology of history is until our days an important constit-
uent of Jewish, Christian and Moslem religions in their various denom-
inations. Psychology of historical agents is much younger. If one leaves
aside its important ancient antecedents, its appearance can be dated
from the XVth century. And it is still alive, not in the academic history
however, but in literature.
The third form of chronosophy is a philosophy of history caracter-
ized by its effort to find the principle of intelligibility of history and/or its
meaning inside the history itself. We cannot analyze here the problems
posed by the coexistence of three forms of chronosophy and the solu-
tions they received. Suffice it to say that the domination of the philos-
ophy of history extends itself since the first half of the XVIIIth century
until the end of the XlXth. Afterwards, at least in the field of the
professional academic history (identified with the study of facts), it was
eroded by the advance of the social sciences. This substitution of the
social sciences to the philosophy of history in the role of chronosophy
had for the academic history very important consequences. First of all
the very idea of universal history was undermined and even rejected;
professional historians now believe rather in a plurality of histories with
different rhytmes, speeds, directions, etc. Secondly, the very question of
the meaning of history was ruled out as meaningless. The only accepta-
ble question for a professional historian is today that of the intelligibility
of history. But the philosophy of history preserves nevertheless its
importance as a constituent of any ideology.
For the Western culture the standard paradigm of the theocentric
theology of history is contained in the book of Daniel (or rather in
commentaries to it) and in the teaching of St Augustine. Without
entering into details and leaving aside the differences between the two, I
shall try to make explicit the most important assumptions common to
both:
1. There is one and only one universal history, i.e. the history of
mankind as a whole, which cannot ever repeat itself. This unique
universal history must be distinguished from and opposed to the plural-
ity of particular histories.
2. The principle unifying the history of mankind is invisible. Its
existence, nature and purposes may be learned only from the Holy
Scriptures. What is visible, is human diversity.
3. The universal history is the history of the Church as a commu-
nity of spirits. Particular histories are those of political entities, of men as

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 Astrology as a Naturalistic Theology of History 31

bodies. This is the distinction between the sacred and the profane
history, and between the City of God and the City of Evil.
4. The universal history is punctuated by direct interventions of God
into human affairs, of the invisible into the visible, starting with the very
creation of the visible and ending with its destruction. The most impor-
tant of such interventions is the descent of God among men. His incarna-
tion and death on the Cross. Particular histories, on the contrary, are com-
posed of events which for the most part are insignificant from the per-
spective of the universal history, the only exceptions being those which
appear under inspection as interventions of the invisible, i. e. miracles.
5. Because of direct interventions of God in its course, the universal
history is linear and irreversible, and thus may be patterned after the
development of human individual. Particular histories, on the contrary,
are circular and none of them introduces durable changes into the
world.
6. Events which punctuate the universal history enable us to divide
its linear time in periods. Hence the correspondences between six ages
of history, six days of creation and six stages of the individual life. This
sixfold division may be replaced by a twofold (before and after the
incarnation) or a threefold (founded on the correspondence between
the ages and the persons of the Trinity) or by the periodization according
to four kingdoms of Daniel. Any such division in periods distinguished
one from another, whatever they be, is however peculiar to the sacred
history, the only one in which there is an order. The profane histories
cannot be divided in periods other than arbitrary (for instance, changes
of dynasties).
7. The identification of the history of mankind with the develop-
ment of the individual human being makes possible the knowledge of
the future. Thus we know that the birth of Christ inaugurates the last
period in the history of the world. The future is also given to the sight of
the spiritual eyes of prophets. But in any case it may be legitimately
known only owing to a divine revelation.
To conclude 1 : for the commentators of the book of Daniel from St
Jerome on, as well as for St Augustine and his followers, the diversity is
subordinated to the unity, the cycle to the line, the particular to the
universal, the corporeal to the spiritual, the profane to the sacred, the
visible to the invisible and the spatial to the temporal. For all of them the
only true history is the sacred history which encompasses the whole of
mankind since its beginning to its end, as if it was identical with a single
individual. Such a history is the only meaningful one, because it has the

1
For details and references see K. Pomian, L'Ordre du temps (Paris, 1984), particularly pp.
105 fT.

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definite purpose: to reconduct the Creation to the Creator, to'secure the

triumph of the City of God over the Kingdom of Evil.1

Astrology and History

In an article written almost a century ago but still stimulating, von
Bezold insisted on the relevance of astrology to medieval representation
of history and illustrated it by a lot of examples.2 Much more recently
Gregory concentrated himself upon the opposition of astrological and
christian conceptions of time and on its consequences for the idea of
history in the later Middle Ages.3 My purpose in what follows is to look
more closely and more systematically on solutions given by astrology to
such problems as that of the unicity of human history, that of a distinc-
tion between universal history and particular histories, that of periodiza-
tion, that of relations between spatial and temporal dimensions of his-
tory, etc. In other words my purpose is to show that astrology was a coher-
ent chronosophy and more specifically: a naturalistic theology of his-
tory opposed to and logically incompatible with its theocentric variant.
Until the XVIth century the existence of a connexion between
celestial and terrestrial bodies and between celestial and terrestrial
events was admitted by everyone as self-evident. But on the nature of
this connexion there was no agreement. The augustinian current con-
sidered celestial events as signs of terrestrial ones. The former an-
nounce the latter, because God conferred upon them such a meaning.
And this meaning can be truly understood only by those who are
looking on the skies guided by the divinely inspired scriptures. To such
an attitude expressed with particular vigour by William of Auvergne4,
the aristotelians opposed their conviction that celestial events are causes
of terrestrial ones. In order to understand their action one has therefore
to inquire into their powers in conformity with the principles of natural
science.5 Between these two poles lay an entire spectrum of intermedi-
ate positions which tried to reconcile or to synthesize Augustine with
Aristotle, theology with physics and astronomy, significance with cau-
sality, prophecy with prediction. The most influent among them was
that of Aquinas.6

2
F. von Bezold, „Astrologische Geschichtskonstruction im Mittelalters", Deutsche Zeit-
schrift fir Geschichtswissenschaft, V i l i (1892), pp. 29-72.
3
T. Gregory, «Temps astrologique et temps chrétien» in: Le temps chrétien de la fin de
ΓAntiquité au Moyen Age (111e-XI11' s.) (Paris, 1983), pp. 557-573.
4
Cf. for example Guillelmi de Alvernia De Universo, I a l a e , 46 in Idem, Opera omnia
(Paris, 1674), t. II, col. 658 A-E.
5
Cf. a good summary of E. Grant, "Cosmology" in: D. C. Lindberg, ed., Science in the
Middle Ages (Chicago-London), 1978, pp. 288-290.
6
Cf. T. Litt, Les corps célestes dans l'univers de saint Thomas d'Aquin (Louvain-Paris, 1963).

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 Astrology as a Naturalistic Theology of History 33

While the admission of celestial causality enables one to explain

the cycles of generation and corruption by the cyclical movements of
celestial bodies, it does not suffice to render intelligible a series of
historical events. If one wishes to build up an astral chronosophy which
may by effectively applied to this last, one has to introduce three
complementary assumptions:
(1) The causal action of celestial bodies exerts itself on all inani-
mate and animate beings, humans included. Celestial causality is there-
fore defined as having an universal extension which justifies its frequent
identification with the universal nature. 7
(2) In human beings the celestial causality influences not only
bodily characters and purely bodily activities but also, even if only
indirectly and per accidens, the intellect and the will. Such a position,
that of Aquinas8, is the weakest still compatible with the recognition of
the validity of astrology, for if one denies to celestial bodies any in-
fluence on human intellect and will, one denies them almost all in-
fluence on history other than that which exerts itself through diseases,
plagues, famines, inundations, earthquakes, bad weathers, etc. As this
position is also compatible with Christian dogmas, it seems to have been
adopted, since the last decades of the Xlllth century, by numerous
Western practitioners of or believers in astrology. But there were also
adherents to a much more radical position expressed or implied by
Ancient and Arabic writers, and according to which all human actions,
even those proceeding from intellect and will, are positively determined
by celestial causes. This means that man is not inclined to act in some
direction, which leaves him the freedom to choose another one, but that
he must of necessity behave in a definite manner, his will being submit-
ted to and dependent on the action of celestial bodies.9
(3) Different celestial bodies have different qualities10, exert differ-
ent influences and are connected with different individuals, peoples,
institutions, etc. Each celestial event is therefore a peculiar combination
of qualities and influences and as such it makes intelligible the peculiar
character of a terrestrial event it is considered to be the cause of. Hence

7
Cf. R. de Vaux, Notes et textes sur l'avicennisme latin aux confins des XIIe-XIIIe siècles
(Paris, 1934), p. 115. - R. Bacon, Liber primus Communium Naturalium, p.I, d.2, c.2 and
p.II, d.2, C.7; Opera hactenus inedita, ed. R. Steele, t.II (Oxford, s.d.), pp. 21 and 92. - T.
Litt, op. cit., pp.154-166 where 15 texts of Aquinas are quoted.
8
Cf. T. Litt, op. cit., pp.200-219 with 40 texts of Aquinas, and particularly pp.205-207.
9
Such a position was condemned in 1277 by the bishop of Paris, E. Tempier. Cf. theses 74,
1 1 0 , 1 1 2 , 1 3 2 , 1 3 3 , 1 4 3 , 1 6 1 , 1 6 2 , 2 0 6 in: H. Denifle and E. Chatelain, ed., Chartularium
Universitatis Parisiensis, t.I. (Paris, 1899), pp.547, 549, 551, 552, 555.
10
T. Litt, op. cit., pp.240-241 shows that this assumption was accepted by Aquinas. It was
explicitely rejected by Ibn Khaldûn, Discours sur l'histoire universelle (Al-Muqaddima),
chapters 6, 31; transi, by V. Monteil (Paris, 1978), t. Ill, p. 1188.

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34 Krzysztof Pomian

an astrologer who knows what celestial events will happen in the future
and when, is able to forecast the terrestrial events which will necessarily
follow them, in other words, to make a horoscope of an individual, a
dynasty, a city, etc. Likewise the knowledge of dates of past terrestrial
events opens the possibility of identifying their celestial causes and thus
of setting up of a historical horoscope.11 The description of qualities of
celestial bodies, of the range of influence of each one of them, of the
peculiarities of different events which happen in the sky and of their
supposed terrestrial effects furnishes the greatest part of the content of
astrological books, as one can easily ascertain turning over the pages of
the Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy12 or of the De magnis coniunctionibus of
Albumasar (Abu Ma'shar)13, two specimens of astrological literature
referred to with the greatest frequency during the Middle Ages.
The immediate consequence of these three assumptions is that an
astrological anthropology sees in human diversity not only an empirical
and hence negligible fact but also, or rather primarily, a visible effect of
the essential, qualitative diversity of celestial bodies themselves. Thus,
according to Ptolemy, every triangle composed of zodiacal signs related
to the same element, has an affinity to one part of the inhabited world.
Whence the division of the latter in four regions or climes governed by
different couples of planets and divided in turn in kingdoms, provinces
and cities connected with individual zodiacal signs or their parts and
with different planets.14 The ideas of Albumasar on this subject are
much more complex and do not seem to be consistent.15 Once he
distinguishes four parts of the world which correspond to four elements
and to four zodiacal triangles. Then he distinguishes four kingdoms
produced by the projection on the surface of the earth of the division of
zodiacal signs in as much triplicities. Later he evokes the division in
seven climates every one of which is submitted to one planet and to the
zodiacal sign considered as its house. And Albumasar establishes fur-
thermore a set of correspondences between zodiacal signs and lands,

11
Cf. D. Pingree, "Historical Horoscopes", Journal of American Oriental Society, 82 (1962),
pp. 487-502.
12
Cf. Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, transi, and ed. by E. E. Robbins, (London-Cambridge, Mass.,
1964; The Loeb Classical Library).
13
Cf. Albumasar, De magnis coniunctionibus, annorum revolutionibus ac eorum profectio-
nibus octo continens tractatus (Augsburg, 1489). On Johann Engel who was responsible
for this edition as well as for that of Pierre d'Ailly I quote later, see E. Knobloch,
„Astrologie als astronomische Ingenieurkunst des Hochmittelalters. Zum Leben und
Wirken des Iatromathematikers und Astronomen Johannes Engel (vor 1472-1512)",
Sudhoffs Archiv, Band 67, Heft 2 (1983) pp. 129-144.
'4 Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, II, 3.
15
This was noted by Pierre d'Ailly, Tractatus de Legibus et Sectis contra superstitiosos
Astronomes [...], c.IV in: Johannis Gersonii Opera omnia (Antwerp, 1706), 1.1, col.
785 Α.

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 Astrology as a Naturalistic Theology of History 35

provinces and places characterized by some physical features, and be-

tween zodiacal signs, planets and stars, on the one side, and cities and
countries on the other.16
Our two authors disagree on several important points and the same
would be true of almost any two astrologers chosen at random. Never-
theless all of them apply the same principles. They divide the terrestrial
space in qualitatively different cells which form a hierarchy of increasing
magnitudes going from portions of space occupied by small groups
(cities, countries) to four regions, climates or kingdoms. And they
explain the qualities peculiar to each cell connecting them with the
qualities peculiar to a celestial body (or to celestial bodies) it is governed
by. As every large cell encompasses smaller and smaller ones, so the
general influence of celestial bodies is modulated and modified by
particular circumstances of their rising and of the relation between any
one of them and all the others. Hence an enormous variety of local
determinations which makes intelligible an enormous variety of exter-
nal appearances of men, of collective and individual temperaments, of
customs, institutions, conditions, etc. etc. For astrology those local
determinations are more important than the community of origin of all
human beings, because the destinies of individuals and the histories of
peoples are dependent principally upon them. The visible diversity of
men is not therefore a mere empirical fact. It follows necessarily from
the qualitative diversity of celestial bodies. It acquires reasonableness
and dignity.
Such an insistence on human diversity does not hinder an applica-
tion of astrology to history as long as it is a history of a country, of a city,
of a dynasty or of an individual ruler. In a word, as long as it is a local
history. But what about the universal history taking into account only
these events which affect the destinies of mankind as a whole? Is the
very notion of mankind as a whole compatible with an astrological point
of view? There is obviously a problem here. The first answer to it is the
idea of a world-year according to which "the universe is cyclically
created and destroyed, and the successive cataclysms coincide with
grand conjunctions of all planets at the zero point of the ecliptic"17, i. e. at
0° of Aries. Together with the assumption of the positive and necessitat-
ing determination of terrestrial events by their celestial causes, this idea
of world-year leads to a belief that after some definite period whose
length was variously appreciated by different astrologers, all celestial
and therefore all terrestrial events will repeat themselves, and then, after
the same interval, they will repeat themselves once more, and so on ad

16
Albumasar, De magnis coniunctionibus, tract. I, dif. II; tract. IV in fine (after dif. XII).
17
E. S. Kennedy, The world-year concept in islamic astrology (1962) in: E. S. Kennedy and
al., Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences, (Beirut, 1983), pp. 351-371.

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36 Krzysztof Pomian

infinitum. Whoever is not committed to the assumption of positive and

necessitating astral determination of terrestrial events, is not logically
compelled to accept such an image of a strictly circular history qualified
as an absurdity by Aristotle18 and condemned by St Augustine.19 But it is
enough to believe in a world-year to deny the uniqueness of our actual
history, because it was preceded and it will be followed by innumerable
other histories, even if they will be filled with events different from
those of our past, our present and our future. Whether these doctrines,
that of the infinite repetition of the same history and that of the
multiplicity of histories, were effectively accepted by Western philoso-
phers and astrologers, is difficult to say. But they were sufficiently known
to be condemned. 20
Much more interesting and useful for a student of history is the
second solution of the problem of universal history in an astrological
framework. It consists in the establishment of an hierarchy of celestial
events the top of which is reserved for conjunctions of Saturn and
Jupiter, two planets which appeared to ancient and medieval astronomy
as the most distant from the earth and therefore as the oldest, the former
being older than the latter, and exerting the greatest influence on
human affairs. Since Saturn has a period of about 30 years that of Jupiter
being close to 12 years, their conjunctions occur approximately every 20
years, while every 30 years those two planets are opposed one to an-
other, i. e. are separated by the maximal distance. If the first conjunction
is located at the starting point of the ecliptic, then several following
conjunctions will be situated in the same triangle composed of Aries,
Leo and Sagittarius and which is the triangle of fire. But, due to the slow
drift of places where the conjunctions occur, approximately every 240
years they shift from one triangle to another: from fire to earth, then to
air, then to water. The return to the starting point happens after every
960 years.21
We have thus not only a general hierarchy of celestial events but
also, more specifically, the hierarchy of Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions
with the grand conjunction occuring after every 960 years, the middle
occuring every 240 years and the small occuring every 20 years; every 30
years the two planets are in opposition.22 The first advantage of this

18
Aristotle, Problemata, XVII, 3,916,18-39 quoted in: P. Duhem, Le Système du monde.
Histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic, 1.1, (Paris, 1913), pp. 168-169.
19
St Augustine, De Civ. Dei, XII, 10-20 and cf. H.-Ch. Puech, En quête de la Gnose, t.I,
(Paris, 1978), pp. 6-13 and 227-233.
20
Cf. the theses 6, 9, 10 condemned by Tempier in 1277: Chartularium Universitatis
Parisiensis, 1.1, p. 544.
21
Cf. E. S. Kennedy, op. cit., pp. 358-360.
22
Albumasar, Demagnis coniunctionibus, tract. I, dif. I; tract. II, dif. III; - Ibn Khaldun, op.
cit., chapter 3, 51, pp. 689-692; Pierre d'Ailly, op. cit., c. IV, col. 782 D-786 A.

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 Astrology as a Naturalistic Theology of History 37

system is the proximity of the 960 years period to that of millennium,

which opens the way to attempts to harmonize these two divisions of
historical time. The second is its easy compatibility with the idea of
world-year and, albeit not so easily, with the theocentric theology of
history. And the third is its capacity to serve as a frame into which
historical events can be distributed in conformity with their importance
and which, making possible to render explicit the hidden repetitions and
regularities of history, converts a mere sequence of events into an in-
telligible pattern.
Now Saturn and Jupiter are jointly responsible for religion, proph-
ecy, empires, kingdoms, dynasties.23 An universal history punctuated
by their conjunctions acquires therefore a definite content. It is prima-
rily the history of changes of religious beliefs, of rises and falls of
empires, peoples, dynasties, of victorious and lost battles. And it is
secondarily, because of the influence of other celestial bodies, the
history of natural calamities: epidemics, famines, floods, etc. A good
example of such a history is offered by the book of Mäshä' allah with
the programmatic title On Conjunctions, Religions, and Peoples, a long
fragment of which survived embedded in a work of another astrologer.24
It covers the interval going from the Deluge to the times of its author
and divided in the millenia placed under the patronage of planets and in
periods inaugurated by grand conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter. The
major events for which Mäshä'alläh has cast horoscopes are: the shift
indicating the Deluge, the conjunction indicating the Deluge itself, the
conjunction indicating the Nativity of Christ, the shift indicating the
Rise of Islam, the conjunction indicating the Nativity of the Prophet, the
conjunction indicating the Fall of the Sassanians and the Rise of the
Arabs, the conjunction indicating the Rise of the 'Abbasids and the shift
indicating the beginning of the Caliphate of al-Ma'mün.
All these celestial and terrestrial events, connected as causes and
effects, belong to the universal history and as such provide an all
encompassing chronological frame in which local histories can easily be
situated. Every event in all its details seems to be explained in this
history by astral determinations. Thus it has a sufficient reason. And the
history as a whole, despite its being purposeless and therefore meaning-
less, is intelligible due to the intelligibility of Saturn-Jupiter conjunc-
tions. Moreover its intelligibility enables the astrologer-historian to
forecast events which will happen after his death. And so the book of
Mäshä'alläh ends with five horoscopes announcing the future configu-
rations of celestial bodies out of which follow the prediction of the

23
Albumasar, De magnis coniunctionibus, tract. I, dif. IV; tract. III, dif. I.
24
E. S. Kennedy and D. Pingree, The Astrological History of Mäshä'alläh (Cambridge,
Mass., 1971).

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38 Krzysztof Pomian

instability of the state, of wars, of much killing and death in the eastern
region, of the appearance of an opponent to sultan in these same
regions, and later, of death and wars among the Arabs, of the locust and
the cold, and still later of death which will be widespread in the lands of
Persia and Andalusia, and of a violent butchery at Isfahan and its
regions, etc. etc.
Astrological chronosophy cannot be separated from chronology
and chronometry. Thus the idea of world-year leads to complex calcula-
tions in order to determine its length, frequently drawn by Arab authors
from their Indian or Persian predecessors. Sometimes the world-year is
defined as a period of 180000 years between two grand conjunctions of
all planets in 0° Aries, as in the chronological system of Abu Ma'shar,25
sometimes the period taken in consideration is estimated to be of36000
years only.26 But this long duration attributed by Arab astrologers to the
world was for its most part void of events, their history starting only with
the creation of the first man or with the Flood. Thus more important
than those vertiginous calculations was the very significance attached by
astrologers to the determination of the length of intervals separating
celestial events, which had an influence on the practice of chronosophy.

Conclusions: two theologies of history

The texts quoted up to now were deliberately chosen so as to show the
application of astrology to history in its purest form, i. e. not distorted by
the influence of religious dogmas, even if God is frequently invoked in
stereotyped formulas. From this presentation of astrology as chronos-
ophy it follows that it was effectively a theology of history, for it tried to
provide the latter with an intelligibility looking for the sufficient reason
of its course outside the world humans are living in. In other words,
looking for such a reason in a different region of being, separated from
the sublunar one by an insuperable frontier and preceding it in time.
And it follows also that the sufficient reason of the course of history is
identified here with the succession of celestial events resulting neces-
sarily from the circular motion of celestial bodies endowed with qual-
ities or powers peculiar to any one of them. Instead of the idea of
providence directing history towards some final state, giving it the
purpose and therefore the meaning, we have here the idea of a necessary
chain of causes and effects, which allows the human mind to understand
the past events and to foresee the future ones but which obliges to draw
aside the very question of purpose and meaning. From the astrological
point of view human history is intelligible but meaningless exactly like

25
Cf. D. Pingree, The Thousands of Abîi Ma'shar (London, 1968), particularly pp. 27-45.
26
Cf. E. S. Kennedy, op. cit., pp. 354-358.

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 Astrology as a Naturalistic Theology of History 39

any succession of events which happen in nature. Therefore one can

legitimately characterize astrology as a naturalistic theology of history.
Both the naturalistic and the theocentric theologies of history
suppose that the sufficient reason of its course may be found only
outside the world h u m a n s are living in. But in order to find it, the first
uses principally the sight as if it was convinced that, to answer the
question of the intelligibility of history, it is enough to look attentively at
celestial and terrestrial events and to establish, inferring it from proxim-
ities and similarities, the causal nexus between the former and the latter.
It goes from the visible to the invisible, but the visible has the priority.
For the second, on the contrary, in order to answer the question of
intelligibility, one has to listen to the voice of revelation speaking either
directly or through the letter of the Holy Scriptures, because this voice
alone can tell us what all which happens is for. The priority is here
conferred to the invisible to which the visible must be subordinated, this
being for it the only way to acquire a meaning.
This being so, one understands easily why the naturalistic theology
of history takes into account the space, while the theocentric one
considers it as irrelevant and is interested in temporal succession only.
And why the former stresses the corporeal diversity of the h u m a n kind,
while the latter insists on its spiritual unity. Hence the different status of
the universal history which, from naturalistic perspective, starts anew
in every new world-year or even repeats itself in all its peculiarities, and
is identified with the history of mankind in its corporeal diversity, while
from the theocentric point of view it is unique and is identified with the
history of mankind as a spiritual unity, whose visible manifestation is
the Church. T h e first is divided in cycles of different length inaugurated
by visible celestial events, while the second is linear and irreversible
because it is punctuated by the purposeful interventions of the invisible,
which introduce into it the division in periods or stages. In a word, the
naturalistic and the theocentric theologies of history are not only op-
posed under several aspects. They are logically incompatible because
they attribute to the same object mutually exclusive properties. 27
This notwithstanding in the European thought of XHIth-XVth
centuries n u m e r o u s attempts were undertaken aimed at some com-
promise or even at some synthesis of those two theologies of history.
One of the most interesting among t h e m was that of Pierre d'Ailly who
in 1410 published a treatise De legibus et sectis contra superstitiosos
astronomos and in 1414 three treatises with significant titles: Vigintilo-
quium de concordantia astronomiceveritatis cum theologia, De concordan-

27
This is true not only of Christian but also of Muslim theology. Cf. Ibn Khaldun, op. cit.,
chapter 6, 51, pp. 1188-1190.

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40 Krzysztof Pomian

tía astronomie cum histórica narratione, Elucidarium astronomice concor-

die cum theologica et histórica ventate.29 In 1418 d'Ailly published De
persecutionibus Ecclesiae in which he tries to interpret the prophecies of
saint John concerning the date of the arrival of the Antichrist using
astrological computations.28
Pierre d'Ailly's general position towards astrology is consonant
with that of Aquinas: he accepts the celestial causality but at the same
time he withdraws from its influence the human will determined by the
celestial bodies only indirectly, through the human body, and without
depriving it of its freedom of choice.30 This via mediail is followed by
d'Ailly also when he tries to solve the problem of relations between
astrology and history. He maintains therefore that laws and confessions
are submitted to celestial determination but only in so far as they are
natural phenomena. This conclusion is applied by d'Ailly also to Chris-
tianity and even to Christ himself as far as He was a man. Hence it is
legitimate to cast a horoscope of Christ. Now, if religions as natural
phenomena are submitted to celestial determinations, then all religions
created by men or by the devil are governed by celestial bodies only,
because there is nothing in them of miraculous or supernatural. But the
laws of Moses and of Christ are not submitted to astral determination.
They are dependent upon the divine will alone.32
The sphere of influence of celestial bodies is therefore delimited:
there are things in the world which are beyond their reach. And they are
included themselves in the sphere of influence of God for they are like
signs written by Him, but which announce only those future events they
are natural causes of.33 The sphere of influence of celestial bodies being
subordinated to that of God, astrology is subordinated to theology or, to
use the terms introduced in this paper, a naturalistic theology is subor-
dinated to a theocentric one. This means that if a contradiction appears
between the two, it is the latter who has the decisive word. Thus d'Ailly
rejects the idea of world-year especially because of its incompatibility
with the Christian doctrine.34 In order to be harmonized with theology,
astrology has to be expurgated of everything which implies an auton-

28
Cf. De Legibus et Sectis, op. cit. and Petri de Aliaco Concordantia astronomie cum
theologia; Concordantia astronomie cum hysterica narratione, et elucidarium dourum
precedentium (Augsburg, 1490).
29
Cf. Ν. Valois, «Un ouvrage inédit de Pierre d'Ailly. Le De Persecutionibus Ecclesiae»,
Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes, CXV (1904), pp. 557-574.
30 Pierre d'Ailly, De Legibus et Sectis, c. VI, col. 788 B-789 C.
31
Cf. Pierre d'Ailly, Sermo in die Sanctorum (1416) quoted in L. Salembier, Petrus de
Alliaco, (Lille, 1886), p. 182.
32 Pierre d'Ailly, De Legibus et Sectis, c. VII, col. 789 D-792 C.
33 Ibid., col. 791 D-792 A.
Ibid., c. VIII, col. 796 A-B, 798 C. - Elucidarium, c. III.

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 Astrology as a Naturalistic Theology of History 41

omy of nature and deprives the universal history of its transcendent

meaning.
But the subordination of astrology to theology has other conse-
quences as well. For it means that astrology is or may be an auxiliary
discipline of theology which it can help in certain specific areas and
particularly in its search for the intelligibility of history, history being
the domain where God and nature, providential choices and astral
determinations, spiritual aspirations and bodily appetites interfere one
with another. More specifically astrology may be useful to theology
when the latter wishes to attain some precision in its knowledge of the
past and in its forecast of the future, i. e. in the study of chronology and
in that of chronosophy. The purpose of Pierre d'Ailly in his writings
whose titles I just quoted was to give to the theocentric theology of
history a firm chronological basis build up using the astrological doc-
trine of Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions and then to attain at such an
interpretation of prophecies, and first of all of the Apocalypse, as to be
able to propose probable dates of events to come.35
Following Albumasar, Pierre d'Ailly divides history in periods of
960 years each separated by the grand conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter
in Aries. In his opinion justified by the description he gives of the sky at
the origin of the universe36, the first such conjunction occurred 320 years
after the creation. From then on it is enough to add 960 years to each
date of a conjunction in order to know the date of that which follows.
But this general periodization has to be put in accordance with the
Christian chronology and the Christian chronosophy. This is obtained
due to the interpretation of the third conjunction which occurred in
2240 after the creation as the cause of the Flood and primarily due to the
identification of the sixth conjunction (5120 after the creation) with the
announcement of the birth of the Christ 225 years later. It follows that
since the creation until the days of Pierre d'Ailly there were seven grand
Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions, the last of which occurred in 735 of the
Christian era and announced the expansion of Islam. Therefore the next
conjunction will occur in the year 7040 from the creation being the year
1695 of the Christian chronology.37
In such a general frame, Pierre d'Ailly distributes three categories
of events: the events of the sacred history described in the Scriptures,
those of the ancient history as it was known in the later Middle Ages and
those of modern history posterior to the rise of Christianity. The events

35
Pierre d'Ailly, Concordantia astronomie cum theologia, prop. 12 and 13. - De Persecutio-
nibus Ecclesiae, p. 574 and cf. L. Salembier, op. cit., pp. 181-190.
36
Pierre d'Ailly, Concordantia astronomie cum theologia, between the prop. 19 and the
prop. 20.
37
Ibid., prop. 20. D'Ailly situates the next conjunction not in 1695 but around 1693.

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42 Krzysztof Pomian

of the sacred history give the definite meaning to the third, the fourth
and the fifth conjunctions which open respectively the periods of Noe,
of Abraham and of David. D'Ailly establishes thus a correspondence,
albeit an imperfect one, between the augustinian division of the univer-
sal history in six aetates mundi and his astrological periodization accord-
ing to grand Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions. The first epoch, from Adam
to Noe, ends with the third conjunction. It is much longer than any other
for it occupies more than two millennia. Then comes the second epoch,
from Noe to Abraham, closed by the fourth conjunction which opens
the third epoch going from Abraham to David and separated from the
following one by the fifth conjunction. The fourth epoch goes however
not from David to the Babylonian captivity but directly to Christ whose
birth, contrary to the traditional division, opens therefore the fifth and
not the sixth epoch. This last seems to be reserved to the coming of the
Antichrist.
The first event of the ancient history mentioned by d'Ailly is of
course the fall of Troy following immediately the death of Moses and
preceding the fifth conjunction. Then comes the foundation of Rome,
the establishment of the Roman republic, the reign of Alexander the
Great and his wars against Persians, the wars between Rome and
Carthage, which follow immediately the sixth conjunction. From then
on the histories of the gentiles (Romans, Macedonians, Egyptians), of
Jews and later of Christians constantly interfere one with another until
one arrives to the modern history which for an important part is that of
the Church: of the rise of the Islam, of twenty-two different schisms and
particularly of the Great Schism which is the last chapter of the human
history before the eighth great conjunction and the coming of the
Antichrist. According to the computation of d'Ailly this last event will
happen in 1789 when the grand conjunction of 1695 will give its full
effect.38 Thus a continuous transition leads from the most remote past
via the near one and the present to the future and to the ultimate days of
the mankind. From history to prophecy. The astrological interpretation
of the Apocalypse applies to it the same proceeding in order to deter-
mine the dates of the events it describes, even if d'Ailly stresses that
these dates can be only probable, the true date of the end of the world
being known to God alone.39
Pierre d'Ailly tried to harmonize not only Arab astrology with
Christian theology. He did this also as to different periodizations - that
38
Pierre d'Ailly, De concordantia astronomie cum hysterica narratione ch. 1 and 2 (theory of
Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions), ch. 12 (Abraham), 19 (Troy), 20 (the fifth conjunction), 22
and 25 (history of Rome), 26 and 27 (Alexander), 28 (the sixth conjunction), 52 and 53
(the seventh conjunction and Mahomet), 58 (22 schisms), 59 (the Great Schism), 60
(the eighth conjunction).
39
Ibid., c. 63 and 64 and De Persecutionibus Ecclesiae, pp. 573-574.

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 Astrology as a Naturalistic Theology of History 43

which refers to four monarchies with that which refers to aetates mundi-
and as to different chronological systems.40 He made use of an entire
library specialized in theology, astronomy, astrology and history. His
synthesis is full of learning and very ingenious. But all its qualities
notwithstanding, it was a dead-end. It does not seem to have exerted the
slightest influence on the practice of studying history revolutionized
since the beginning of the XVth century by humanists and later by the
role history played in the polemics between catholics and protestants.
The theocentric theology of history, albeit modified, preserved some
intellectual potency at least until Bossuet.41 Similarly the naturalistic
theology of history in its astrological form had its last important repre-
sentative at the end of the XVIIth and the beginning of the XVIIIth
century in the person of Henri de Boulainvillers.42 It is significant how-
ever that the astrology which he tried to apply to the universal history43
seems to have been left by him aside when he worked on the history of
France.
Since the XVIth century, astrology as a chronosophy was only a
marginal current deprived of an impact on the evolution of the historical
research, historical writing and historical thinking and the same is true
of a theocentric theology of history. Both were supplanted by a new
model of chronosophy: the psychology of historical agents. But both
have left a lasting legacy which, as far as astrology is concerned, can be
summarized under three headings. It learned to attach importance to
the space, to the visible human diversity, to local environmental deter-
minations. It learned also to attach importance to chronology and to try
to establish it on a firm basis offered by astronomy. And, last but not
least, it learned that history can be intelligible despite its being meaning-
less.

40
Pierre d'Ailly, De concordantia astronomie cum hysterica narratione, ch. 44, 45, 46 and
Elucidarium, ch.V.
41
Cf. J.-B. Bossuet, Discours sur l'histoire universelle (Paris, 1681).
42
Cf. R. Simon, Henry de Boulainvillers, historien, politique, philosophe, astrologue (Paris,
1940). - D. Venturino, «Metodologia della ricerca e determinismo astrologico nella
concezione storica di Henri de Boulainvilliers», Rivista storica italiana, XCV (1983),
pp. 389-418.
43
Cf. Henri de Boulainvillers, Astrologie mondiale. Histoire du mouvement de l'apogée du
Soleil ou pratique des règles d'astrologie pour juger des événements généraux [1711]
(Garches, 1949).

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