Mind of the Church

The mind of the Church, faithfully rendered into English

Library / Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume I

Book Two — the heavens and the stars

QUESTION X. Whether the stars are of a fiery nature and truly hot

LatineEnglish

QUESTION X. Whether the stars are of a fiery nature and truly hot.1

QUAESTIO X. An sint Astra naturae igneae et vere calida.

ILLUD quoque hoc loco in disceptationem adduci potest: Utrum astra ignea constent natura et sint vere ac proprie calida—hoc est non ea duntaxat ratione quia calorem efficiant, sed etiam quod in se ipsa calorem habeant. In scholis ita loquerentur: utrum sint actu et formaliter calida, an tantum virtualiter et effective. Huius quaestionis tractandae magnam nobis antiqui Patres dedere occasionem, quorum sane complures ignea esse astra et per se calida prodiderunt. Augustinum certe id sensisse non inficiatur Magister sententiarum distinct. 14 libr. 2, et ipsemet Augustinus ita se opinari multis in locis non obscure declarat. Namque cum is quattuor duntaxat agnoscat simplicia corpora e quibus totus hic mundus coagmentatus est, terram, aquam, aërem et ignem, hunc maxime caelo et astris assignat. Basilius homilia 3 in Genesim et Ambrosius libro 2 in Hexameron longa et accurata oratione argumentantur sydera esse ignea et calida, idque vel ipso visu tactuque, non tantum argumentis, constare. Quinetiam eiusdem sententiae putandum est fuisse scriptores Ecclesiasticos quicumque aquas supra firmamentum caeli positas, et esse veras aquas, et ad refrigerandum temperandumque ardorem syderum inibi a Deo locatas esse, tradiderint. Scriptura quoque divina huic opinioni adesse videtur: non semel enim docet solem esse calidissimum. Nam in Psalmo 18 de sole loquens, Non est, inquit, qui se abscondat a calore eius. Sed lucentius hoc tradit in libro Ecclesiastici cap. 43: Sol, ait, in meridiano exurit terram, et in conspectu ardoris eius quis poterit sustinere? Tripliciter sol exurens montes, radios igneos exsufflans et refulgens, radiis suis obcaecat oculos.
THIS too can be brought into dispute in this place: Whether the stars consist of a fiery nature and are truly and properly hot—that is, not only on this account, that they produce heat, but also because they have heat in themselves. In the schools they would put it thus: whether they are actually and formally hot, or only virtually and effectively. The ancient Fathers have given us great occasion for treating this question, of whom indeed very many have declared that the stars are fiery and hot of themselves. That Augustine certainly held this the Master of the Sentences does not deny, in distinction 14 of the second book, and Augustine himself declares not obscurely, in many places, that he is of this opinion. For since he recognizes only four simple bodies, of which this whole world is compacted—earth, water, air, and fire—he assigns this last chiefly to heaven and the stars. Basil, in homily 3 on Genesis, and Ambrose, in the second book on the Hexameron, argue at length and accurately that the heavenly bodies are fiery and hot, and that this is established even by sight and touch themselves, not only by arguments. Moreover, those Ecclesiastical writers are to be reckoned of the same opinion, whoever have handed down that the waters placed above the firmament of heaven are real waters, and were placed there by God to cool and temper the burning of the heavenly bodies. Divine Scripture too seems to favor this opinion: for more than once it teaches that the sun is most hot. For in Psalm 18, speaking of the sun, There is none, it says, that can hide himself from its heat. But it delivers this more brightly in the book of Ecclesiasticus, chapter 43: The sun, it says, at noon burns the earth, and who can endure in the sight of its burning? Threefold the sun, burning the mountains, breathing out fiery beams and shining, with its rays dazzles the eyes.2
Trita vero illa in scholis distinctio, qua et haec et alia similia Scripturae testimonia solent eludi, de duplici calido, vel formaliter vel effective seu virtualiter, parum videtur probabilis. Non enim alia via et ratione cognosci et iudicari potest aut ignem aut quodvis aliud corpus esse proprie et formaliter calidum, quam iudicio sensus ipsoque effectu caloris, videlicet quod et nos et alia corpora ab illis rebus calescere sentiamus; hanc rationem e medio si tollas, nihil fiat reliquum quo quid sit vere cali[dum]...
But that hackneyed distinction in the schools, by which both this and other similar testimonies of Scripture are wont to be evaded—of a twofold ‘hot,’ either formally or effectively (that is, virtually)—seems hardly probable. For there is no other way and means by which it can be known and judged that fire, or any other body, is properly and formally hot, than by the judgment of sense and by the very effect of heat—namely, that both we and other bodies feel warmth from those things; and if you take this criterion away, nothing remains by which one might judge what is truly ho[t]...3
...re calidum aut non sit explorari et certo dignosci queat. Nos autem non aliter a sole calescere quam ab igne, nisi qui nimium frigidus est, negabit nemo.
...something is truly hot or not could be explored and certainly discerned. But that we grow warm from the sun no otherwise than from fire, no one—unless he be one excessively cold—will deny.4
POTEST etiam huic sententiae auctoritas et fides adiungi ex ipsa Gentilium philosophia. Etenim praeter unum Aristotelem, omnium philosophorum concors fuit sententia caelum et astra vel ex duobus vel ex eorum uno aliquo constare. Nam caelestium corporum quintam esse quandam naturam ab omnibus rerum sublunarium naturis longe semotam diversamque proprium fuit Aristotelis inventum. Certe prisca Aegyptiorum disciplina inter alia et hoc habebat, stellas esse caelestes ignes, quorum temperata commixtione cuncta nascerentur. Anaximander solem dixit aequalem terrae, et ignem esse purissimum. Anaxagoras solebat dicere solem candens esse ferrum ac penitus ignitum: quapropter fertur eum impietatis accusatum a Cleone, quod solem dixerit candentem esse laminam; quare discipulus eius Euripides solem in Phaëtonte fabula Auream glebam appellavit. Plato in Timaeo necessarium esse docet, quia caelum visibile est, ex igne constare. Universa item Stoicorum secta hoc in primis habet disciplinae suae decretum, sydera esse ignea pascique et ali vaporibus ex aquis et terra sublatis et ad sese tractis; atque hanc fore causam futurae conflagrationis et interitus mundi, quod, deficiente aliquando syderibus alimento, cuncta sint incendio arsura atque peritura. Cum enim viderent isti nostratem ignem sine pabulo non posse constare, idem astris quae faciebant ignea accidere existimaverunt. Quam opinionem secutus Plinius in libro 2 extremis verbis noni capitis ita scribit, Sydera vero haud dubie humore terreno pasci, quia orbe dimidio nonnunquam maculosa cernantur, scilicet nondum suppetente ad hauriendum ultra iusta vi: maculas enim non aliud esse quam terrae raptas cum humore sordes. Sic Plinius. Multa item pro hac Stoicorum sententia in libr. 2 de Natura deorum apud Ciceronem disputat Balbus.
Authority and credit can also be added to this opinion from the very philosophy of the Gentiles. For, except Aristotle alone, the opinion of all the philosophers was in accord that the heaven and the stars consist either of two, or of some one, of the elements. For that the celestial bodies are a certain fifth nature, far removed and different from all the natures of sublunary things, was Aristotle's own invention. Certainly the ancient discipline of the Egyptians held, among other things, this too, that the stars are celestial fires, by whose tempered commingling all things are born. Anaximander said that the sun is equal to the earth, and that it is the purest fire. Anaxagoras used to say that the sun is a glowing iron, thoroughly fired; wherefore he is reported to have been accused of impiety by Cleon, because he said the sun is a glowing plate of metal; and so his pupil Euripides, in the tragedy of Phaethon, called the sun a ‘golden clod.’ Plato, in the Timaeus, teaches that it is necessary, because the heaven is visible, that it consist of fire. The whole Stoic school, likewise, holds this as a chief decree of its teaching, that the heavenly bodies are fiery, and are fed and nourished by vapors raised from the waters and the earth and drawn to themselves; and that this will be the cause of the future conflagration and perishing of the world: that, the nourishment of the heavenly bodies one day failing, all things will be burned up by fire and perish. For since these men saw that our fire cannot subsist without fuel, they supposed that the same befalls the stars, which they held to be fiery. Following this opinion, Pliny, in book 2, in the last words of the ninth chapter, writes thus: But the stars are without doubt fed by earthy moisture, because at the half-orb they are sometimes seen spotted—namely, when there is not yet enough supply to draw further with due force; for the spots are nothing else than the filth of the earth caught up with moisture. Thus Pliny. Balbus, too, in Cicero, in the second book On the Nature of the Gods, argues many things for this opinion of the Stoics.5
CETERUM, astra per se nec esse calida nec igneae naturae multis nec dubiis rationibus conclusum est a Sapientibus. Principio, supra demonstratum est caelum et astra naturae esse incorruptibilis; non igitur sunt ignea: ignis enim, cum et materiam habeat et contrarium, non potest non obnoxius esse corruptioni. Deinde, naturalis motus ignis est sursum ferri, quo motu perpetuo carent astra; quare praeter naturam suam et violente moverentur; motus item circularis esset illis violentus sicut est igni, cum tamen in illis perpetuus sit et aequabilis. Nec fingi potest tam motum qui sit sursum quam qui in orbem agitur astris esse naturalem, quippe unius corporis simplicis unus modo est motus simplex; cumque circularis motus genere ipso differat a motu qui sit sursum, non potest uterque eidem corpori naturaliter congruere. His addunt quidam, si astra essent ignea, haud dubie futurum fuisse ut iampridem omnia defla[grassent]...
BUT that the stars are neither hot of themselves nor of a fiery nature has been concluded by the wise by many and indubitable reasons. First, it has been demonstrated above that the heaven and the stars are of an incorruptible nature; therefore they are not fiery: for fire, since it has both matter and a contrary, cannot but be liable to corruption. Next, the natural motion of fire is to be carried upward, of which motion the stars are perpetually devoid; wherefore they would be moved beyond their nature and violently; and likewise circular motion would be violent to them, as it is to fire, whereas in them it is perpetual and even. Nor can it be feigned that both the motion which is upward and that which is driven in a circle are natural to the stars, since of one simple body there is but one simple motion; and since circular motion differs in its very genus from the motion that is upward, both cannot naturally belong to the same body. To these some add that, if the stars were fiery, it would without doubt have come to pass that long since all things would have been burned u[p]...6
...[defla]grassent et syderum ardore consumpta interiissent. Etenim in octavo caelo sunt mille viginti duae stellae, quarum quaelibet multis partibus maior est quam universa terra; quibus si addas superiores quatuor planetas, etiam quam est terra longe ampliores, erit profecto caelestium ignium supra omnem terram excessus propemodum incomparabilis. Sed hoc argumentum eludi posset, vel dicendo vim et potentiam astrorum languidiorem et imbecilliorem esse ob longissimam eorum a terra distantiam, vel etiam retorquendo argumentum in eius auctores: nam cum sydera non minus calefaciant quam si essent actu calida, prorsus eodem ipsi urgentur et premuntur incommodo. Verum, illi fortasse responderent, si astra essent vere ignea, fore multo potentiora et ardentiora ad calefaciendum et urendum quam nunc sunt, quia non per lucem modo, ut nunc, sed per calorem etiam calefacerent.
...burned up and, consumed by the burning of the heavenly bodies, would have perished. For in the eighth heaven are one thousand and twenty-two stars, each of which is many times larger than the whole earth; to which if you add the four superior planets, also far larger than the earth, there will surely be an excess of celestial fires over the whole earth almost incomparable. But this argument could be evaded, either by saying that the force and power of the stars is feebler and weaker on account of their very great distance from the earth, or even by retorting the argument upon its authors: for since the heavenly bodies heat no less than if they were actually hot, they are pressed and burdened by exactly the same difficulty. But those men would perhaps reply that, if the stars were truly fiery, they would be far more powerful and burning for heating and scorching than they now are, because they would heat not only by light, as now, but also by heat.7
QUOD autem Plinius et Stoici et his vetustiores alii Philosophi atque Poëtae dixerunt, solem pasci humoribus terrenis et aqueis in sublime ad ipsum attractis, puerilem esse opinionem nec dignam Philosopho scite dixit Aristoteles in libro 2 Meteororum: quasi vapores ad solem usque subveherentur et non tantummodo ad mediam usque regionem aëris, vel coacti densatique resolvuntur in pluvias et, unde sublati fuerant, eodem relabuntur. Quoniam autem ignis qui pabulo alitur non idem durat, sed identidem mutatur, necessum esset solem non modo quotidie novum existere (ut aiebat Heraclitus) sed singulis etiam prope momentis novum generari. Praeterea, cum par sit ratio aliorum astrorum atque solis, dicendum istis fuit ea quoque omnia nutriri vaporibus: sed unde tantum pabuli et alimenti tot tantisque syderibus perpetuo suppeditaretur? Fierent etiam nonnunquam astra vel maiora, videlicet prout minus plusve vaporum in pabulum eis suggereretur.
But that which Pliny and the Stoics and others, older than they, both Philosophers and Poets, said—that the sun is fed by earthy and watery moistures drawn up on high to it—Aristotle aptly said, in the second book of the Meteorology, to be a childish opinion and unworthy of a Philosopher: as if the vapors were carried up all the way to the sun, and not only as far as the middle region of the air, where, condensed and thickened, they are dissolved into rains, and slide back to the same place whence they had been raised. And since fire that is nourished by fuel does not endure the same, but is continually changed, it would be necessary that the sun not only come into being new daily (as Heraclitus used to say), but be generated new almost at every single moment. Moreover, since the case of the other stars is the same as the sun's, they had to say that all those too are nourished by vapors: but whence would so much fuel and nourishment be perpetually supplied to so many and so great heavenly bodies? The stars would also sometimes become larger or smaller, namely according as less or more of vapor were supplied to them for fuel.8
SOL igitur et astra calefaciunt non quod per se calida sint, sed quod vim habeant gignendi calorem in rebus sublunaribus eius qualitatis capacibus. Non enim inusitatum est in natura agens aliquod facere tale aliquid quale ipsum non est: quam multa facit Deus sui dissimillima! An non torpedo piscantis manum per arundinem stupefacit, cuius stuporis nec ipsa nec arundo est particeps? Nonne in confesso est apud Philosophos et Theologos duplicem esse productionem effectus: alteram univocam, in qua producens simillimum est rei productae; alteram aequivocam, in qua utriusque magna est dissimilitudo? Atque hanc rationem productionis in praestantioribus causis efficientibus esse cernimus. Quid est in his quae intra lunae gyrum continentur tam dissimile solis, ad cuius tamen generationem vis et efficientia eius non pertineat? Nam si quia sol calefacit propterea necesse est ipsum esse calidum, ergo cum Sa[turnus]...
The sun, therefore, and the stars give heat, not because they are hot in themselves, but because they have the power of generating heat in sublunary things capable of that quality. For it is not unusual in nature for some agent to make something such as it itself is not: how many things does God make most unlike Himself! Does not the torpedo-fish numb the fisherman's hand through the rod, of which numbness neither it itself nor the rod is partaker? Is it not agreed among the Philosophers and Theologians that the production of an effect is twofold: the one univocal, in which the producer is most like the thing produced; the other equivocal, in which there is great unlikeness between the two? And we discern this manner of production in the more excellent efficient causes. What is there, among the things contained within the orbit of the moon, so unlike the sun, to whose generation, nevertheless, the force and efficiency of the sun does not pertain? For if, because the sun heats, it is therefore necessary that it itself be hot, then, since Sa[turn]...9
...[Sa]turnus, ut plerique autumant, vim habeat refrigerandi, erit quoque frigidus, ob idque contrarius soli; eritque inter haec sydera mutua actio et passio, et quae is necessario consequens est, corruptio.
...Saturn, as most suppose, has the power of cooling, it too will be cold, and on that account contrary to the sun; and there will be between these heavenly bodies a mutual action and passion, and, what necessarily follows upon this, corruption.10
QUA igitur vi et facultate Sol calefacit si non est ipse calidus? Per motum, inquiunt nonnulli: at, quo motu? eone quo ipse movetur? Atqui eiusmodi motus per se nullam habet vim agendi, et cum sit unius modi, aequaliter perpetuo calefaceret tam in hyeme quam in aestate, tam noctu quam interdiu. An calefacit per motum quo ipse concutit, atterit et attenuat aërem? quod videtur innuere Aristoteles in primo libro Meteororum et in libro secundo de Caelo text. 42. Verum ea ratione magis calefacere deberet luna, quae propior est aëri: sol enim tanto intervallo ab aëre remotus non aeque atque luna eum commovere et coagitare potest. Et vero, si res ita se haberet, quo quaeque pars aëris superior et propior esset caelo, eo calidior esset; immo inferior aër tantum calesceret quantum a superiori esset calefactus: quod falsum esse patet argumento mediae regionis aëris quae est frigida. Quis porro inducat in animum credere, quo tempore sol et luna, imperante Iosue, cohibito motu suo constiterunt, eo tempore solem res sublunares non calefecisse? Quin tantum abest ut sol calefaciat per motum, ut, si non moveretur, ardentius esset calefacturus: radios enim solis acriores potentioresque esse ad calefaciendam rem stabilem et immotam quam quae moveatur confirmat Aristoteles sectione 4 problemate 34; et praeterea indicium eius rei est speculum cavum, quod, si agitetur, non concipiet ignem, concipiet autem ocyus si immotum soli opponatur: nihil autem ad hoc refert corpusne quod calefacit an quod calefit aut moveatur aut quiescat. Alii existimant solem calefacere tantummodo per reflectionem radiorum: sed reflectio non facit ut sol calefaciat, verum ut vehementius plusque calefaciat; si enim lumen per se non calefaceret, nec reflexum profecto calefaceret.
By what force, then, and faculty does the Sun give heat, if it is not itself hot? By its motion, some say: but by what motion? by that with which it itself is moved? But motion of this kind has of itself no power of acting, and, being of one manner, it would heat equally and perpetually, as much in winter as in summer, as much by night as by day. Or does it heat by the motion with which it shakes, wears, and rarefies the air? which Aristotle seems to hint in the first book of the Meteorology and in the second book On the Heaven, text 42. But by that reasoning the moon ought to heat more, which is nearer the air: for the sun, removed by so great an interval from the air, cannot move and agitate it as much as the moon. And in truth, if the matter were so, the higher and nearer to the heaven each part of the air were, the hotter it would be; nay, the lower air would grow as hot as it had been heated by the upper: which is plainly false, by the argument of the middle region of the air, which is cold. Who, moreover, could bring himself to believe that, at the time when the sun and moon, at Joshua's command, stood still with their motion checked, the sun did not at that time warm sublunary things? Indeed, so far is it from heating by its motion, that, were it not moved, it would heat more fiercely: for that the rays of the sun are sharper and more powerful for heating a thing fixed and unmoved than one that is moved, Aristotle confirms in section 4, problem 34; and besides, a sign of this thing is the concave mirror, which, if it be shaken, will not catch fire, but will catch it more quickly if, unmoved, it be set against the sun: and it makes no difference to this whether the body that heats, or the body that is heated, be moved or at rest. Others think that the sun heats only by the reflection of its rays: but reflection does not make the sun heat, but rather that it heat more vehemently and more; for if light did not heat of itself, neither, surely, would reflected light heat.11
ARBITRAMUR igitur astra luce sua calefacere: quae quanto copiosior et abundantior est in sole quam in ceteris astris, tanto potentior illis est sol ad calefaciendum. Quid igitur sibi voluit Aristoteles cum dixit solis motu et attritu calorem et ignem effici? Haud dubie non intellexit de omni calore qui in rebus sublunaribus a sole gignitur, sed de calore et inflammatione quae fit in superiori aëris ora, ubi multiformes flammas et varia ignitorum corporum genera mirabili mortalium spectaculo edit natura. Quanquam dictum illud Aristotelis ma[gnam]...
We judge, therefore, that the stars give heat by their light: which, by how much more copious and abundant it is in the sun than in the other stars, by so much is the sun more powerful than they for heating. What, then, did Aristotle mean when he said that heat and fire are produced by the motion and attrition of the sun? Without doubt he did not understand it of all the heat that is generated in sublunary things by the sun, but of the heat and inflammation that occurs in the upper border of the air, where nature, to the marvelous spectacle of mortals, produces manifold flames and various kinds of fiery bodies. Although that saying of Aristotle has gr[eat]...12
...[ma]gnam habet obscuritatem et admodum varias Aristotelicorum interpretationes atque sententias: quocirca et ob eam causam, et quia proposito nostro et divinarum litterarum tractationi alienum est, Philosophorum arbitrio discutiendum diiudicandumque relinquamus. Ad illud autem quod obiiciebatur, solem esse calidum et sensu et ipso effectu deprehendi: respondendum est corpus omne quod calefacit iudicari debere esse calidum, nisi contra esse vel sensus vel ipsa ratio demonstret. Sensus quidem, sicut in vino, quod, licet epotum viscera inflammet et adurat, tactu tamen frigidum esse cognoscitur; quare non actu calidum esse, sed tantum potentia, iudicandum est. Ratio autem, sicut in astris, quae cum natura constent incorruptibili et motus circularis sit eis aut naturalis aut certe non violentus, fieri non potest ut naturam igneam aut calorem in se habeant. Verum quae de caelis et astris adhuc sunt explicata, pro ratione nostri instituti satis esse possunt. Deinceps ad alteram partem huius voluminis, in qua pugnandum est nobis cum Astrologis super divinatione quae petitur ex astris, transeamus.
...has great obscurity, and very various interpretations and opinions of the Aristotelians: wherefore, both for that cause, and because it is foreign to our purpose and to the treatment of the divine writings, let us leave it to the judgment of the Philosophers to discuss and decide. But to that which was objected—that the sun is hot, and is detected to be so both by sense and by its very effect—it must be answered that every body which heats ought to be judged hot, unless either sense or reason itself demonstrate the contrary. By sense, as in wine, which, though when drunk it inflames and burns the inward parts, is yet known by touch to be cold; wherefore it is to be judged not actually hot, but only potentially. By reason, as in the stars, which, since they consist of an incorruptible nature and circular motion is to them either natural or at least not violent, cannot possibly have a fiery nature or heat in themselves. But the things that have so far been explained concerning the heavens and the stars can be enough for the measure of our undertaking. Let us pass next to the other part of this volume, in which we must do battle with the Astrologers concerning the divination that is sought from the stars.13

Translator’s notes

  1. The tenth question of Book II. ↩
  2. Marginal gloss: "Qui ex auctoribus Ecclesiasticis senserint fere astra esse ignea et vere calida." The question: are the stars truly and formally hot (not merely heat-producing)? Many Fathers held them fiery: Augustine (per Peter Lombard, Sent. II d.14—assigning fire to heaven and the stars); Basil (Hom. 3 in Gen.) and Ambrose (Hexaem. 2, evident even to sight and touch); those who held the waters above the firmament real, placed to cool the stars' heat. Scripture: Psalm 18[19]:7 (‘none can hide from its heat’); Ecclesiasticus 43:3–4 (the sun burning the earth at noon). ↩
  3. Marginal gloss: "An valeat distinctio de duplici calido, aut formaliter aut virtualiter." Pererius questions the scholastic distinction (formally vs. effectively/virtually hot): the only way to judge something properly and formally hot is by the judgment of sense and the effect of heat; remove this criterion and nothing is left to judge by. Sentence continues onto the next page (catchword ‘re cali’; signature G). ↩
  4. Completes the sentence from the previous page (the only test of ‘hot’ is the sense and effect of heat). ↩
  5. Marginal glosses: "Praeter unum Aristotelem, qui fecit quintam quandam caeli naturam, ceterorum Philosophorum consensu caelum igneae naturae est"; "Stoici putarunt sydera terrae et aquae vaporibus pasci." The pagans (except Aristotle, who made the heavens a fifth nature) held them fiery: the Egyptians; Anaximander; Anaxagoras (the sun a glowing iron—accused by Cleon; his pupil Euripides's ‘golden clod,’ Phaethon); Plato (Timaeus); the Stoics (the stars fed on vapors, whence the future conflagration); Pliny (NH 2.9); Cicero, De natura deorum 2 (Balbus). ↩
  6. Marginal gloss: "Auctoris sententia, non esse ignea nec propterea calida sydera." Pererius's view: the stars are neither hot nor fiery—(1) the heavens are incorruptible, but fire is corruptible; (2) fire's natural motion is upward (which the stars lack), and circular motion would be violent to fire, yet is perpetual and even in the stars; a single simple body has but one simple motion; (3) were the stars fiery, all would long since have burned up. Sentence continues onto the next page (catchword ‘defla’). ↩
  7. The burning-up argument: the 1,022 stars (each many times larger than the earth) plus the four superior planets make the excess of celestial fires almost incomparable. This could be evaded (the stars' power weakened by distance; or the argument retorted, since they heat as if hot anyway); but the reply: were they truly fiery, they would heat far more (by heat, not only by light). ↩
  8. Marginal gloss: "Sydera non pasci vaporibus ex aquis terrave sublatis." Aristotle (Meteorology 2) rightly called the vapor-feeding theory childish: vapors rise only to the middle air (where they condense into rain), not to the sun; and fuel-fed fire is ever-changing, so the sun would be new not just daily (Heraclitus) but almost every moment; and whence the perpetual fuel for so many stars? ↩
  9. The sun and stars heat not by being hot, but by the power of generating heat in sublunary things—an agent can make what is unlike itself (the torpedo-fish numbs through the rod; cf. the univocal/equivocal distinction of causation). Sentence continues onto the next page (catchword ‘turnus’). ↩
  10. Completes the Saturn argument: if ‘heats → hot,’ then Saturn (which cools) would be cold and contrary to the sun, yielding mutual action/passion and corruption among the stars. ↩
  11. Marginal glosses: "Iosue 10"; "Quomodo Sol calefaciat cum ipse non est calidus." The sun heats not by motion (uniform, so it would heat equally winter/summer, night/day); not by shaking the air (else the moon would heat more, and the middle air—actually cold—would be hot; and Joshua's stayed sun still warmed, Josh 10:12–13); indeed an unmoved sun heats more (Aristotle, Problems 4.34; the concave mirror catches fire only when still); nor merely by reflection (which only intensifies). ↩
  12. Marginal glosses: "Auctoris sententia"; "Aristoteles." Pererius's view: the stars heat by their LIGHT (the more abundant in the sun, the more powerful). Aristotle's ‘heat from the sun's motion and attrition’ refers not to all sublunary heat, but to the inflammation in the upper air (the manifold flames and fiery phenomena—i.e., meteors). Sentence continues onto the next page (catchword ‘gnam’). ↩
  13. Marginal gloss: "Solutio obiectionis." Aristotle's dictum is too obscure to settle here and foreign to the purpose, so left to the philosophers. The objection (the sun is hot by sense and effect) answered: every heating body is judged hot unless sense or reason show otherwise—by sense, wine is cold to the touch though it inflames the innards; by reason, the stars (incorruptible, non-violent motion) cannot have heat in themselves. Transition to Part 2 of Book II: the disputation against the Astrologers. ↩