Abstract
One of the most celebrated opinions of Maimonides is his repudiation of astrology. His denunciation of that pseudo-science, reiterated in the strongest of language throughout the Maimonidean corpus, has earned for its author the praises of modern readers who are impressed by Maimonides’ courage and clearsightedness in the face of a widespread and deeply rooted superstition. Moreover, in contrast to such topics as cosmogony and epistemology, in which there exists some ambiguity about Maimonides’ opinion, there does not seem to be any doubt about his “true” position concerning astrology: astrology is categorically rejected without any reservation.
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Notes
“Letter on Astrology,” trans. Ralph Lerner, Medieval Political Philosophy, ed. R. Lerner and M. Mandi (1963); rprt., in I. Twersky, A Maimonides Reader (New York, 1972) 465;
R. Lerner, “Maimonides’ Letter on Astrology,” History of Religions 8 (1968): 143–58.
“Epistle to Yemen,” trans. Boaz Cohen, in A. Halkin, Iggeret Teman (New York, 1952); rprt., in Twersky, Maimonides Reader 453.
Qpublished concerning various aspects of the medieval debate over astrology, although in my view scholars have yet to become fully alerted to the richness of this body of texts for intellectual history. We can cite here only a few studies. For classical antiquity and early Christianity, see the thorough study of Dom David Amand, Fatalisme et liberté dans l’antiquité grecque (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1973). For Islam: the groundbreaking studies of C.A. Nallino, e.g. “Sun, Moon, and Stars (Muhammadan),” Hasting’s Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics,vol. 12 (Edinburgh and New York, 1921) 88–101, and Raccolte di Scriti,vol. 5 (Rome, 1944); the recent surveys of M. Ulmann, Die Natur-and Geheimwissenschaften im Islam (1972), chap. 5, and F. Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, vol. 7 (1979); and the summary of an actual tenth-century round-table discussion on astrology in J.L. Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revivial during the Buyid Age (Leiden: Brill, 1986) 150–62; see also below, n. 23. For the Christian
West: M.L.W. Laistner, “The Western Church and Astrology during the Early Middle Ages,” HTR 34 (1941): 251–75;
M.T. d’Alverny, “Astrologues et Théologiens au XIIe siècle,” Mélanges offerts it M.D. Chenu (Paris: Vrin, 1967), 31–50. For the Christian East:
G. Graf, “Die Widerlegung der Astrologen von Abdallâh ibn al-Fadl,” Orientalia 6 (1937): 337–46.
For Judaism: see Halkin’s introduction to Iggeret Teman, and, more recently, R. Barkai, “L’Astrologie juive médiévale,” Le Moyen Age 93 (1987): 323–48. Further bibliography may be found in F. Boll, C. Bezold, and W. Gundel, Sternglaube and Sterndeutung, 6th revised edition with bibliographical appendix by G. Gundel (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1974). In past decades there was considerable controversy over the suitability of the history of astrology as a subject for academic research. See Lynn Thorndike, “The True Place of Astrology in the History of Science,” Isis 46 (1955): 273–78.
“Letter on Astrology” 465: “The first thing that I studied is that science which is called judicial astrology.”
A. Freimann, “Responsa of R. Maimon ha-Dayyan, the Father of Maimonides,” Tarbiz 6 (1935): 408–20 [Hebrew], first responsum (pp. 413–14). R. Maimon gives here a straightforward response to an inquiry concerning astrologically unfavorable days for blood-letting, without a murmur of protest against the very notion; however astrological medicine was usually exempt from the controversies that surrounded astrology, and, therefore, our evidence regarding the position of R. Maimon is not conclusive.
See Bar Hiyya’s “Epistle” in defense of astrology published by A. Schwartz in Festschrift Adolph Schwarz, ed. S. Kraus (Berlin and Vienna, 1917), Hebrew sec., 23–36.
See the complete text of Bahya’s Duties of the Heart, Arabic and Hebrew translation, published by Y. Kafah (Jerusalem, 1973) 5.5:254–56; this entire passage is missing from the translation of Ibn Tibbon.
See Y.T. Langermann, “Some Astrological Themes in the Thought of Abraham ibn Ezra,” in Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra, eds. I. Twersky and J.M. Harris (Cambridge, USA, 1993).
See the recent edition of J. Levinger (Tel Aviv, 1984), part 3.
S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society,5 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 196788) 5: 420–22. Goitein acknowledged inter alia his reliance on the series of studies by D. Pingree and B.R. Goldstein of horoscopes preserved in the Genizah.
Mishneh Torah, Laws of Idolatry and Ordinances of the Heathens 11.16, Twersky, Maimonides Reader 75–76.
Tshuvot ha-Rashba, responsum no. 413 (p. 144ba).
L. Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1923) 513.
This work is purported to be a translation with commentary of a Nabatean work. Over the past century a considerable amount of energy has been expended in scholarly debate over its true nature. See the synopsis and bibliography in F. Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, vol. 4 (Frankfurt a. M., 1971) 318–29. A facsimile edition of this important work based on several manuscripts, but unfortunately incomplete, was published in five volumes by F. Sezgin (Frankfurt a. M., 1984).
See Mishneh Torah, Laws of Idolatry and Laws of the Heathens, end of chap. 1; Twersky, Maimonides Reader 74; and the uncensored version of Mishneh Torah,Law of Kings and Wars, end of chap. 11; Twersky, Maimonides Reader 226–27.
Laws of Repentance 5.4; Twersky, Maimonides Reader 78.
See below, pp. 149 ff., and the articles of S. Pines and A. Altmann cited in n. 97–98, below.
Have used the edition of Y. Kafah (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1965).
Compare al-Fârâbî, “On What Is Correct and What Is Incorrect in Astrology,” F. Dieterici, Alfârdbi’s Philosophische Abhandlungen (Leyden, 1890; rprt., 1982), para. 23, p. 112 (Arabic), p. 183 (German); ibn Sînâ, “On the Refutation of Astrology,” Arabic text in Rasâ’il Ibn Sind,vol. 2 (Istanbul, 1953) 56, French translation by M.A. Mehren, “Vues d’Avicenne sur l’astrologie,” Le Muséon 3 (1884): 383–403, esp. 392; J.W. Livingston, “Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah: A Fourteenth Century Defense Against Astrological Divination and Alchemical Transmutation,” JAOS 91 (1971): 96–103, esp. 98–99.
Fayd may also be translated as “emanation” or “overflow”; the latter is preferred by Prof. Pines in his translation of the Guide. See e.g. Guide 2.10:270 (“the four spheres having stars have forces that overflow from them”); 2.11:275 (“from the spheres… forces and good things overflow to this body”).
Hints at a physical interpretation of this sort may be found even in the astrological literature. Cf. Ptolemy, Tetrahiblos, 1.24. The notions of “the mixture of the rays” (mi:dj al-shu’a’) is found as early as the writings of Teukros (Tinkalûshâ al-Bâbili, fl.ca. 1st cent., B.C.E.; see Sezgin 71–73), quoted in Safinat al-Ahkeim (MS Dublin, Chester Beatty 3640, fol. 7a). See also the definition of radd al-nûr in Ibn Hibintâ (10th cent.), Al-Mughni fi ahkâm al-nujtim, facsimile edition (Frankfurt a. M., 1987) 2.16. These are just a few random references; a fuller study of the physical side of astrological theory in medieval Islamic civiliziation remains a major desideratum. It should be noted that these ideas were accompanied by an elaborate mathematical apparatus; see E.S. Kennedy and H. Krikorian-Preisler, “The Astrological Doctrine of the Projection of the Rays,” E.S. Kennedy, Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences (Beirut, 1983), 372–84.
There is strong reason to believe that in this matter Maimonides followed the lead of Alexander of Aphrodisias. For Alexander’s ideas, see Amand 140–41. Publication of some of the extant Arabic texts of Alexander will facilitate the elucidation of this point.
Very little work has been done on this problem. See David Pingree, “Abû Ma’shar,” Dictionary o e f Scientific Biography I (New York, 1970) 32–39, esp. 34.
Guide 21.9:307: “all that he [Aristotle] has explained to us regarding what is beneath the sphere of the moon follows an order conforming to what exists, an order whose causes are clear”; cf. also Guide 2.22: 319.
See, for example, Ptolemy’s defense of astrology in Tetrahiblos 1.1–3. Ptolemy appeals to the evident effects of the sun and the moon, the usefulness of prognostication, and the aesthetic appeal of astrological theory, but it seems that he concedes that the very ambition of connecting terrestrial to celestial events precludes the possibility that astrology will ever achieve exhaustiveness. Ptolemy, however, does not seem to be particurly concerned with astrology’s formal structure.
Maimonides’ views will be spelled out in detail presently. Cf. A.M. Goichon, Léxique de la langue philosophique d’ibn Sind (Paris, 1938) 39, no. 84, s.v. mujarrabât.
See, Guide, “Translator’s Introduction” lxix-Ixxi, and now, in great detail, J.L. Kraemer, “Maimonides on Aristotle and Scientific Method,” E.L. Ormsby, ed., Moses Maimonides and His Time,Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, vol. 19 (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1989) 53–88“
Trans. p. 280, “All this follows imagination, which is also in true reality the evil impulse”.
Vol. 1 of the facsimile edition (see above, note 17), p. 293.
His arguments are reproduced in J.C. Vade, “Une défense de l’astrologie dans le Madhal d’Abû Ma`sar al-Balhi [!],” Annales Islamologiques 5 (1963): 131–80. In the course of his defense Abu Ma`shar incorporated much Aristotelian physics into his book and, ironically, the Madhal later served as an important vehicle for the transmission of Aristotle’s ideas to Europe. See R. Lemay, Abu Ma’shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century (Beirut, 1962).
In the Introduction to his Zurat ha-Arez he writes: “The scholars who are versed in the method of scholarship (derekh ha-hokhmah) do not give it [astrology] such a high ranking because its proofs are not correct proofs. Rather, they all derive from conjectures (sevarot) and experiences.”
“On Astrology” see n. 23 above), passages 28–29, 114 (Arabic), 185 (German Fârâbî’s discussion of tajribah,in a somewhat different context, in passage 8, p. 107 (Arabic), p. 175 (German).
My translation from the original Judaeo-Arabic, which survives uniquely in MS Paris, BN Heb. 1211, fol. I9a. I acknowledge with gratitude the efforts of Mr Benjamin Richter of the National Library at Jerusalem, who speedily located and faxed to me a copy of the page in question. Compare the Hebrew translation of Shmuel Beneviste, published by S. Minter in Maimonides’ Medical Writings, vol. 4 (Jerusalem, 1965) 97. Maimonides may have learned of the classical debate between “Dogmatists” and “Empiricists” from the work of Galen published by R. Walzer, Galen on Medical Experience (London: Oxford University Press, 1944). Note in particular the argument of the “Empiricist” on p. 98 (p. 18 of the Arabic text), who mocks those who, if their position be taken to its extreme, would not rely on the experienced helmsman who “has not fathomed the logos of nature”; Maimonides seems to be presenting here some form of the converse of that argument.
My translation from the Arabic, published with a new Hebrew translation, by Y. Kafah, Letters of Maimonides (Jerusalem, 1972), 134–35.
See, e.g. the very detailed arguments of al-Jawziyyah, Mih ta dâr al-Sa âdah, (Cairo, 1905–1907
Commentary on the Mishnah, Seder Zera`im, Introduction, ed. Y. Kafah (Jerusalem, 1963) 5.
Cf. Pines’ slightly different rendering, see Guide 3.37:543.
I cite in order from Pines’ translation: Guide 1.72:186, “Inasmuch as the fifth body as a whole is engaged perpetually in circular motion, it thus engenders forced motion in the elements”; in Guide 2.10, Maimonides says much about the governance of the spheres, e.g. (p. 271), “the elements moved by the spheres are four,” and, at the end of the chapter (p. 273), he makes clear that it is “the bodies of the spheres” of which he is speaking; and especially in 2.12 (280), “Thus the overflow of the sphere is spoken of, though its actions proceed from a body.” Note also that in 2.6 Maimonides remarks that the orbs and stars are lords of every body (jism); this point is obscured in Pines’ translation (p. 261), “the lords are everybody.”
See now T. Langermann, “The True Perplexity; The Guide of the Perplexed 11, 24,” Perspectives on Maimonides,ed. J.L. Kraemer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 193–208.
I have discussed this problem in some detail in “Gersonides on the Magnet and the Heat of the Sun” in G. Freudenthal, ed. Studies on Gersonder (Lerden, 1992), 267–284. It should also be borne in mind that in Guide 2.19:305, Maimonides cites the opinion of the later scholars, with whom he appears to be in agreement, that the very term “body” is used equivocally for the sublunar and celestial realms.
See Ibn Bâjja’s recension of On Generation and Corruption, Arabic text published by M. Ma`sûmi in Révue de l’Académie arabe de Damas 42 (1967):255–61, 426–50, esp. 444; Ibn Rushd, Middle Commentary on De Caelo, Hebrew trans., MS Paris BN Heb. 947, fol. 41b.
Trans. 187: “… so the death of the world as a whole and the abolition of everything within it would result if the heavens were to come to rest”
Kuzari 4.9, trans. H. Hirschfeld (rprt. New York: Schocken Books, 1964) 215: “The particulars are unknown to us. The astrologer boasts of knowing them, but we repudiate it.”
“On What Is Correct and What Is Incorrect in Astrology,” para. 13, 109 (Arabic), gY,“ P p.() p. 178 (German).
Al-Shifä; al-liâhiyyât, vol. 2, ed. I. Madkour (Cairo, 1960), bk. 9:413. On Ibn Sinâ’s opposition to the Aristotelians of Baghdad, see the classic study of S. Pines, “La ‘Philosophie orientale’ d’Avicenne et sa polémique contre les Bagdadiens,” Archives d’histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age 27 (1952): 5–37. For another possible instance of a polemic between Ibn Sînâ and the Baghdadis on an issue of natural science, see my paper on Levi ben Gerson, n. 8–11 (see n. 52, above).
This emerges very clearly from Levi’s six axioms, which he sets down in Wars 5, pt. 2, chap. 6.
Trans., 187: “For this way of representing the matter to oneself is most necessary or most useful for the demonstration that the deity is one.”
F. Jadaane, L’Influence du Stoicisme sur la pensée musulmane (Beirut, 1968), 161–62.
Guide 2.10:270 “even individuals… have forces of the stars that are specially assigned to them… yet there also exists a force specially assigned to a certain species.” Maimonides’ specific concern with the relationship between the stars and vegetation clearly derives from the remark which he quotes from Genesis Rabbah. Cf. the early association of stars and plants in Indian astrology, which is due to Babylonian influence, reported by D. Pingree, “Astronomy and Astrology in India and Iran,” Isis 54 (1963): 229–46, esp. 232.
In his letter to Samuel ibn Tibbon, Maimonides indicates that Ibn Zadiq has followed in the path of the ikhwân; however, a variant reading substitutes “those who [believe in positive] attributes” See the new edition of Letters of Maimonides, ed. and trans. Y. Shailat, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1988), 552 and n. 12.
See Guide 3.29:514 on the Sabean belief that “the sun governs the upper and lower world” and Abraham’s rebellion; cf. 3.45:575 concerning the concept that the shekhinah dwells in the west.
For a detailed look at the important cosmic functions which were assigned to tetrads by one thinker of the fifth century, see now N. Aujoulet, Le Néoplatonisme alexandrin: Hiéroclés d’Alexandrie (Leyden, 1986) 119–27. For Hierocles, the tetrad is “cause créatrice et ordonnatrice de toutes choses” (p. 127). For a discussion of this Pythagorean notion in an Arabic text, see N. Linley, “Ibn at-Tayyib. Proclus’ Commentary on the Pythagorean Golden Verses,” Arethusa Monographs, vol. 10 (Buffalo, 1984), 78–81.
See, e.g. Abraham bar Hiyya’s defense of astrology (cited above, n. 8). Bar Hiyya concedes (p. 28 11. 29–31) that “it is possible that one may think that the Chaldean science, concerning which our Rabbis have forbidden us to inquire, may be the science of the stars [astrology] about which we have been talking.”
Aristotle, Metaphysics 12.8; Guide 1.72:185–86, and 2.4:255–59; and, in general, H.A. Wolfson, “The Problem of the Souls of the Spheres from the Byzantine Commentaries on Aristotle through the Arabs and St. Thomas to Kepler,” rprt. in Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, eds. I. Twersky and G.H. Williams, vol. 1 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1973) 22–59.
Rasâ’ il Ikhwân al-Safâ, vol. 1 (Beirut, 1957), risâlah no. 3, p. 353; Y. Marquet 104.
A.L. Ivry, “Providence, Divine Omniscience and Possibility: The Case of Maimonides,” T. Rudaysky, ed. Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy (1985), chap. 9, p. 148.
Guide 3.45:576–77; note that here again Maimonides takes care to point out that “all these [angels or spiritual beings] are beyond the Sphere and its stars”
Guide 2.12:279: “This term, I mean ‘overflow’ [fayd, efflux] is sometimes applied in Hebrew to God,may He be exalted.”
Thus, e.g. condemnatory excurses concerning talismans are found in Maimonides’ commentaries to the following mishnayot of ’Avodah Zarah: 3:1, 3:3, 3:4, 4:7.
Traces of a debate concerning the stature of the separate intelligences in general may be found in a difficult passage attributed to Ibn Bâjja and published by Jimâl al-Din al-`Uluwî,Rasâ il Falsafayyah li-abi Bakr bin Bdjja (Beirut, 1983) 198. Ibn Bâjja criticizes al-Fârâbî for claiming that “one of the ancients” had severely restricted the status of the separate intelligences. The real culprit, Ibn Bâjja asserts, is the “errant” Ikhwân al-Safâ’!
Mishneh Torah… on the basis of Yemenite Manuscripts, with a Comprehensive Commentary [Hebrew], ed. and comm. Y. Kafah, vol. 1, Mada` (Jerusalem, 5744/1984), 107, n. 21: “This whole matter of the orbs’ possessing souls, knowledge, and intelligence, even though our Master [Maimonides] set it down here and in the Guide - it seems to me that our Master retracted all of this… I know that people will say that the wish to square the view of our Master with currently accepted opinion has led me to this opinion and to this conclusion. But in truth that is not so”
See note 2 above; Eight Chapters, beginning of last chapter, Twersky, Maimonides Reader 379–80.
S. Pines, “Studies in Abûl-Barakât al-Baghdâdî’s Poetics and Metaphysics,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 6 (1960) 195–98
A. Altmann, “The Religion of the Thinkers: Free Will and Predestination in Saadia, Bahya, and Maimonides,” S.D. Goitein ed., Religion in a Religious Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1974) 25–52, esp. 41 f.
Twersky, Maimonides Reader 384.
Mishneh Torah,Teshuvah 5:5(12), and, more fully, Guide, 3.20.
B.S. Kogan, Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation (Albany, 1985) 176.
See Amand 135–56; Paul Moraux, Alexandre d’Aphrodise. Egégète de la Noétique d’Aristote (Liège and Paris, 1942) 195–202.
However, in another study (“A Tenth Century Philosophical Correspondence,” PAAJR 24 [1955] 103–36; rprt. in Essays in Medieval Jewish and Islamic Philosophy, ed. A. Hyman [New York, 1977] 357–90), Pines does discuss several of Alexander’s treatises (pp. 125–29) and also refers (end of n. 889) to Julius Guttmann, “Das Problem der Willensfreiheit,” Jewish Studies in Memory of George A. Kohut (New York, 1935) 325–49, who, in an appendix (pp. 346–49), does discuss the possible influence of De fato on Jewish and Islamic philosophy.
I consulted the English translation, published alongside the Greek text by A. FitzGerald, Alexander of Aphrodisias on Destiny (London, 1931); the anti-fatalist arguments of this treatise are summarized by Amand 143–48.
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Langermann, Y.T. (2000). Maimonides’ Repudiation of Astrology. In: Cohen, R.S., Levine, H. (eds) Maimonides and the Sciences. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 211. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2128-8_8
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