The Sphere of Johannes de Sacrobosco

PREFACE.

From this, one can easily judge that in the mixing of the temperaments of bodies and talents, the nature of light referring to celestial light also plays a part among other causes. I do not judge that education, custom, institution, laws, and counsel contribute nothing to the governing of these inclinations, but I also place these within this class of actions that proceed from nature.

The other class consists of actions that exist in man divinely, above nature. For it is the mark of a Christian mind to understand and feel that men are protected and governed divinely. And although God governs in such a way that He also leaves their parts to nature in some manner, yet He nonetheless corrects many things in nature, and grants the outcomes of many things to be different from those which nature proposes. For Moses was not saved by the benefit of the stars when he escaped, with the path opened through the sea; nor was Peter freed by the benefit of the stars when he was led out of prison by an angel; nor was Paul made pious from an enemy of the Gospel by the power of the stars. Everyone understands that the cause of such works must be referred properly to God.

Therefore, just as we accept the forces of nature in other parts only so far as they do not abolish the kingdom of Christ, so we shall attribute their own forces to light only so far as nothing is detracted from the glory of Christ; to whom, since all things are subject, it must also be rightly felt that the forces of the stars ought to obey Him. And good minds should raise and confirm themselves with this sentiment against the sad significations, which not infrequently perturb minds in such great weakness of human nature. And just as we ought to prefer the word of God to our own opinions in other matters, so against these significations, minds must be confirmed by the word of God and divine promises. And the common sentence teaches this, which is cited from Jeremiah: "Do not be afraid of the signs of the heavens, for which the Gentiles are afraid." For he does not