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Library / Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume I

Book Two — the heavens and the stars

QUESTION IX. Whether the stars move of themselves, the orbs being unmoved—as birds through the air—or are moved only by the motion of their orbs

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QUESTION IX. Whether the stars move of themselves, the orbs being unmoved—as birds through the air—or are moved only by the motion of their orbs.1

QUAESTIO IX. Utrum stellae moveantur per se immotis orbibus, sicut aves per aërem, an tantum moveantur motu suorum orbium.

And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars: and God set them in the firmament of heaven, that they might shine upon the earth.2

Fecitque Deus duo luminaria magna: luminare maius ut praeesset diei, et luminare minus ut praeesset nocti, et stellas; et posuit eas Deus in firmamento caeli ut lucerent super terram.

MOSES tradit hoc loco Deum posuisse sydera in firmamento caeli: quod dubiam habet sententiam. Potest enim intelligi sydera esse infixa in caelo tanquam eius partes paulo densiores spissioresque ei cohaerentes et continuatas, tales nimirum quales in tabula quapiam sunt nodi, ita ut sydera per se propriis motibus non agantur, sed solius caeli cuius partes sunt motu convertantur. Potest etiam intelligi sydera esse posita in caelo non ut ei cohaerentia et affixa, sed quia [iussu Dei]...
MOSES delivers in this place that God set the heavenly bodies in the firmament of heaven: which has a doubtful meaning. For it can be understood that the heavenly bodies are fixed in the heaven as somewhat denser and thicker parts of it, cohering with it and continuous with it—just such, indeed, as the knots are in some board—so that the heavenly bodies are not moved by their own proper motions, but are turned only by the motion of the heaven whose parts they are. It can also be understood that the heavenly bodies are placed in the heaven not as cohering with and affixed to it, but because [by God's command]...3
...[quia] iussu Dei per ipsum caelum motus suos peragunt tanquam per spatium sibi a Deo determinatum, quod quaeque suo cursu emetiri et conficere debeant. Vetus est et complurium scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum auctoritate nobilis opinio stellas non esse haerentes et affixas caelo, sed propriis motibus per spatium caeleste circumagi. Hoc enim tradit Iustinus martyr respondens ad 93 quaest. Orthodoxorum; Origenes autem in lib. 5 contra Celsum et lib. 1 περὶ ἀρχῶν cap. 7 ait sydera propriis motibus agi, nec esse partes caeli, nec secus in caelo esse quam sunt in terris animantes, pisces in aqua, in aëre volucres. Idem prodiderunt Eusebius Emissenus et Diodorus Tarsensis in exponendo hunc locum Geneseos, tum super cap. 7 eiusdem libri idem habet; sed nemo disertius et enucleatius hoc docet quam Chrysostomus: is enim hom. 6 et 13 in Genesim, Absit, inquit, ut cogitemus Deum affixisse caelo astra: cernimus namque ea moveri et de uno loco in alterum transferri. Dicitur autem Deus posuisse ea in firmamento, quia voluit et iussit ut essent in caelo et per ipsum spatia sua cursusque conficerent: sicut infra dicitur Deus posuisse Adam in paradiso, hoc est iussisse ut in paradiso commoraretur et habitaret. Et in hom. 12 ad populum Antiochenum idem confirmat: ait enim caelum esse fixum et immobile, solem autem cum ceteris astris in ipso quotidie circumvolvi. Philastrius Brixiensis in catalogo haereseon caelum per se moveri et eius motu una cieri astra non solum non probat, sed etiam tanquam haeresim damnare non dubitat.
...because by God's command they accomplish their motions through the heaven itself, as through a space determined for them by God, which each must measure and complete by its course. It is an old opinion, noble by the authority of very many Ecclesiastical writers, that the stars are not clinging to and affixed to the heaven, but are driven round by their own motions through the celestial space. For this Justin Martyr delivers, answering the 93rd question of the Orthodox; and Origen, in book 5 against Celsus and book 1 of On First Principles, chapter 7, says that the heavenly bodies are moved by their own motions, and are not parts of the heaven, and are no otherwise in the heaven than living things are on the earth, fishes in the water, birds in the air. The same Eusebius of Emesa and Diodorus of Tarsus set forth in expounding this passage of Genesis, and likewise on chapter 7 of the same book; but no one teaches this more clearly and explicitly than Chrysostom: for in homilies 6 and 13 on Genesis, Far be it, he says, that we should think God affixed the stars to the heaven: for we see them moved and carried from one place to another. And God is said to have set them in the firmament because He willed and commanded that they should be in the heaven and accomplish their spaces and courses through it—just as below God is said to have set Adam in paradise, that is, to have commanded that he dwell and abide in paradise. And in homily 12 to the people of Antioch he confirms the same: for he says that the heaven is fixed and immovable, but that the sun, with the other stars, daily revolves in it. Philastrius of Brescia, in his catalogue of heresies, not only does not approve that the heaven is moved of itself and the stars set in motion along with its motion, but does not hesitate even to condemn it as a heresy.4
Scribit enim ad hunc fere modum: Est haeresis asserens stellas esse caelo infixas, cum certum sit eas de thesauris locisque absconditis et a Deo dispositis in vesperum iussu divino repente procedere, statisque horis suo lumine et motu ministerium a Deo sibi impositum agnoscere et exequi. Contrariam autem sententiam decernit Philastrius alienam esse fidei Catholicae, eiusque assertores paganae vanitatis magis quam Christianae doctrinae habere consortium. Beatus Augustinus libro secundo de Genesi ad litteram cap. 10, licet probe novisset eiusmodi opinionem a doctoribus Philosophis et Mathematicis sine dubitatione ulla reprobari, non adeo tamen iudicavit improbabilem et absurdam ut ea, si quidem opus fuerit, non possit defendi. Sic enim scribit: Si veritas Scripturae caelum stare persuaserit, impediri nos circuitu syderum ne hoc intelligere possimus non est existimandum: quippe et ab ipsis qui hoc curiosissime et otiosissime quaesierunt inventum est, etiam caelo non moto, si sola sydera verterentur, fieri potuisse omnia quae in ipsis syderum conversionibus animadversa atque comprehensa sunt. Sic Augustinus.
For he writes in about this manner: It is a heresy to assert that the stars are fixed in the heaven, since it is certain that they come forth suddenly at evening, by the divine command, from hidden storehouses and places arranged by God, and at set hours, by their light and motion, recognize and carry out the ministry imposed on them by God. And Philastrius decrees the contrary opinion to be alien to the Catholic faith, and that its assertors have fellowship rather with pagan vanity than with Christian doctrine. The blessed Augustine, in the second book On Genesis according to the Letter, chapter 10, although he well knew that an opinion of this kind is rejected without any doubt by the learned Philosophers and Mathematicians, nevertheless did not judge it so improbable and absurd that it could not, if need be, be defended. For thus he writes: If the truth of Scripture should persuade us that the heaven stands still, it is not to be supposed that the revolution of the stars hinders us from understanding this: for it has been found even by those who have most curiously and most idly inquired into the matter, that, even with the heaven unmoved, if the stars alone were turned, all could come to pass that has been observed and comprehended in the revolutions of those stars. Thus Augustine.5
CERTE hanc fuisse opinionem Stoicorum liquet ex iis quae apud Ciceronem libro secundo de natura Deorum disputat Balbus; quinetiam vetustiorem fuisse Stoicis indicium facit Aristoteles, qui in libro secundo de Caelo, a textu 43 usque ad 52, diligenter eam tractat acriterque confutat. Et vero iam pridem explosa est [Philosophis]...
CERTAINLY that this was the opinion of the Stoics is clear from what Balbus disputes in Cicero, in the second book On the Nature of the Gods; and indeed that it was older than the Stoics, Aristotle gives a sign, who in the second book On the Heaven, from text 43 to 52, treats it diligently and sharply refutes it. And in truth it has long since been exploded [by the Philosophers]...6
...[explosa] est Philosophis iuxta et Mathematicis, nec sane immerito: nam qui istud sensere, necesse fuit etiam eos sentire vel in caelo esse plurimum vacui, vel corpus caeleste, cum per ipsum feruntur astra, perrumpi et dissecari; vel caelum esse corpus quoddam fluxum labileque ac facillime solidiori corpori cedens, simile nimirum vel aëris vel aquae: quae omnia et rationi et naturae dignitatique corporis caelestis videntur aliena, praesertim vero cum apud Iob c. 37 divina Scriptura doceat solidissimos et tanquam ex aere conflatos esse caelos. Nec sane fugiunt haec incommoda qui fingunt in caelo nescio quos canales, suum cuique stellae per quem ipsa cursus agat suos assignantes; quos aiunt plenos esse quodam tenui corpore et ad cedendum molli, ita ut et locum concedat stellae quae fertur per ipsum, nec quicquam tamen vacui relinquat.
...by the Philosophers and the Mathematicians alike, and not without good reason: for those who held this had also of necessity to hold either that there is very much void in the heaven, or that the celestial body, when the stars are borne through it, is broken and cut apart, or that the heaven is a certain fluid and unstable body, most easily yielding to a more solid body—like, namely, air or water: all of which seem foreign to reason and to the nature and dignity of the celestial body, especially since in Job, chapter 37, divine Scripture teaches that the heavens are most solid, and as it were cast from bronze. Nor indeed do those escape these difficulties who feign in the heaven I know not what channels, assigning to each star its own, through which it accomplishes its courses; which they say are full of a certain thin body, soft so as to yield, in such a way that it both gives place to the star borne through it, and yet leaves no void.7
VERUM, respuit animus credere caelum esse tot canalibus pertusum et perforatum, et alieno corpori caelestis naturae dissimillimo commixtum. Sed esto, sint in caelo istiusmodi canales: nihilo magis tamen per eos plene apteque reddi potest ratio eorum quae de situ motuque syderum et cernuntur oculis et longinqua observatione comperta sunt. Etenim quae de planetarum statione, retrogradatione, acceleratione, retardatione aliisque motus variationibus animadversa sunt a Mathematicis, ea profecto, si per istiusmodi canales moverentur planetae, constare nequaquam possent. Luna vero si per canalem suum ferretur, quotiescumque in eadem esset parte canalis, eodem modo se habere videretur versus terram, hoc est aequaliter distans vel propinqua; atqui deprehensum est a Mathematicis Lunam in eodem zodiaci puncto aliquando visam esse propiorem terris, aliquando remotiorem. Verumenimvero, ut aliae deessent rationes adversus istam opinionem, nonne satis esset argumenti ad eam confutandam quod in confesso sit apud omnes non posse idem numero corpus eodem tempore simul deferri ad diversa loca diversis motibus distractum, nisi una duntaxat ratione, nempe ut per se quidem uno tantum motu agatur, aliis autem motibus feratur propter id in quo est, vel tanquam in vehiculo vel tanquam pars in toto? Manifestum autem est eundem planetam simul diversis et quodammodo adversis motibus cieri, hoc est ab Oriente ad Occidentem et eodem tempore ab Occidente ad Orientem, simulque aliis motibus secundum alias differentias. Lunam enim minimum sex diversis motibus simul agi deprehensum est. Sed haec curiosius discutienda et limatius tractanda Philosophis et Mathematicis relinquamus: quae quidem diligenter et accurate tractarunt cum alii, tum in primis Christophorus Clavius nostrae Societatis, in Commentariis quos admodum copiosos et eruditos in sphaeram edidit, vir sane (ut multa eius declarant scripta) in disciplinis Mathematicis subtiliter doctus et excellenter versatus. At enim quaeret ex nobis fortasse quispiam, si haec ita sunt ut diximus, qui fit ut nunquam Scriptura de motu cae[lorum]...
BUT the mind refuses to believe that the heaven is pierced and perforated with so many channels, and mingled with a foreign body most unlike the celestial nature. But grant that there are channels of this kind in the heaven: nevertheless no more can the account of those things be fully and aptly rendered by them, which both are seen with the eyes and have been ascertained by long observation concerning the position and motion of the heavenly bodies. For what has been observed by the Mathematicians concerning the station, retrogradation, acceleration, retardation, and other variations of the planets' motion—these surely, if the planets were moved through channels of this kind, could by no means hold good. And if the Moon were borne through its channel, then as often as it were in the same part of the channel, it would seem to stand in the same way toward the earth, that is, equally distant or near; but it has been detected by the Mathematicians that the Moon, at the same point of the zodiac, has sometimes been seen nearer the earth, sometimes farther. But in truth, even if other reasons were lacking against this opinion, would it not be enough of an argument to refute it, that it is confessed by all that one and the same body cannot at the same time be borne to different places, drawn apart by different motions, except by one means only—namely, that of itself it is driven by one motion only, but is carried by the other motions on account of that in which it is, either as in a vehicle or as a part in the whole? But it is manifest that the same planet is set in motion at once by different and in a manner opposite motions—that is, from East to West and at the same time from West to East, and at once by other motions according to other differences. For it has been detected that the Moon is borne by at least six different motions at once. But let us leave these things to be more curiously examined and more finely handled by the Philosophers and Mathematicians: which indeed others have treated diligently and accurately, but above all Christophorus Clavius of our Society, in the very copious and learned Commentaries which he published on the Sphere—a man, as many of his writings declare, subtly learned and excellently versed in the Mathematical disciplines. But perhaps someone will ask of us, if these things are as we have said, how it comes about that Scripture never speaks of the motion of the hea[vens]...8
...[cae]lorum, de astrorum autem motu saepenumero verba faciat? Verum in promptu est responsum: Caelorum naturam et motum latere sensus nostros, astra vero luce sua et perpetua conversione sub aspectum nostrum cadere. Quapropter Scripturam de caelorum motu nullam, de syderum autem conversionibus crebram facere mentionem, velut cernere est in Psal. 18, in principio libri Ecclesiastae, apud Iob cap. 9 et 38, apud Isaiam cap. 38, in libro Iosue capite 10, et in libro Ecclesiastici capite 48.
...heavens, but often speaks of the motion of the stars? But the answer is ready: that the nature and motion of the heavens lie hidden from our senses, but the stars fall under our sight by their light and perpetual revolution. Wherefore Scripture makes no mention of the motion of the heavens, but frequent mention of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies—as may be seen in Psalm 18, at the beginning of the book of Ecclesiastes, in Job chapters 9 and 38, in Isaiah chapter 38, in the book of Joshua chapter 10, and in the book of Ecclesiasticus chapter 48.9

Translator’s notes

  1. The ninth question of Book II. ↩
  2. Genesis 1:16–17 — the scriptural lemma for this question (printed marginal heading: GENES. CAPVT 1. VERS. 16. & 17.). ↩
  3. Moses says God set the heavenly bodies in the firmament—a phrase of doubtful sense: either they are fixed in the heaven as denser parts of it (like knots in a board), moved only by the heaven; or they are placed in it not as affixed but as moving through it by God's command. Sentence continues onto the next page (catchword ‘quia’). ↩
  4. Marginal gloss: "Sydera propriis motibus agi, sicut pisces per aquam, per aerem volucres, censuerunt auctores... Iustinus martyr." The moving-stars view: Justin (Resp. ad orth. 93); Origen (Contra Celsum 5; Peri Archon 1.7—the stars move on their own, like land-animals, fish, birds); Eusebius of Emesa; Diodorus of Tarsus; and most plainly Chrysostom (Hom. 6, 13 in Gen.; Hom. 12 ad pop. Antioch.). Philastrius of Brescia condemns the affixed-stars view as heresy. ↩
  5. Philastrius (De haeresibus): it is heresy to assert the stars fixed (they come forth at evening from hidden storehouses at God's command); the contrary view is alien to the Catholic faith. Augustine (De Genesi ad litteram 2.10): though the astronomers reject the moving-stars view, it is not so improbable as to be indefensible—even with an unmoved heaven, the same phenomena could occur if the stars alone turned. ↩
  6. This was the Stoics' view (Cicero, De natura deorum 2, in the mouth of Balbus); older than the Stoics (Aristotle, De Caelo 2, texts 43–52, treats and sharply refutes it). Sentence continues onto the next page (catchword ‘est’). ↩
  7. The moving-stars view has long been (rightly) rejected, for it implies either much void, or a heaven broken as the stars pass, or a fluid heaven like air or water—foreign to reason and to the dignity of the celestial body (Job 37 teaches the heavens are most solid, as if cast from bronze). The ‘channels’ (canales) theory does not escape these troubles. ↩
  8. Marginal gloss: "Christophorus Clavius, egregius nostri temporis Mathematicus." Pererius rejects the ‘channels’: they cannot account for planetary stations/retrogradations, nor for the Moon being seen nearer/farther at the same zodiacal point; decisively, one body cannot be borne by opposite motions at once except as carried (the Moon has at least six motions). He commends his fellow Jesuit Christophorus Clavius's learned Commentary on the Sphere (In Sphaeram Ioannis de Sacro Bosco). Sentence continues onto the next page (catchword ‘lorum’). ↩
  9. An objection answered: why does Scripture never name the heavens' motion, but often the stars'? Because the heavens' nature and motion lie hidden from our senses, while the stars fall under sight by their light and revolution. Hence the references to the stars' courses (Ps 18[19]; Ecclesiastes 1; Job 9 & 38; Isaiah 38; Joshua 10; Ecclesiasticus 48). ↩