But this superstition went still further. It became more and more incorporated into what was considered "scriptural science" and "sound learning." The encyclopedic statements exhibiting the science of the middle ages and the Reformation period furnish abundant proofs of this.[1]
Yet scientific truth was slowly undermining the structure: the inspired prophecy of Seneca had not been forgotten: even as far back as the ninth century, in the midst of the "sacred learning" so abundant at the court of Charlemagne and his successors, we find a scholar protesting against the doctrine.[2]
So, too, in the sixteenth century we have Paracelsus writing to Zwingle against it; and, in the century following, men like De Gamon and Pierre Petit taking similar ground.[3]
At first this skepticism only aroused the horror of theologians and increased the vigor of ecclesiastics; both asserted all the more strenuously what they conceived to be scriptural truth. During the sixteenth century France felt the influence of one of her greatest men on the side of this superstition. Jean Bodin, so far before his time in political theories, was as far behind it in religious theories: the same reverence for the mere letter of Scripture which made him so fatally powerful in supporting the witchcraft delusion led him to support this theological theory of comets; but with a difference—he thought them the souls of men wandering in space, bringing famine, pestilence, and war.[4]
In England, too, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there was at least literary acquiescence in this received doctrine of comets. Both Shakespeare and Milton recognize it, whether they fully accept it or not. Shakespeare makes the Duke of Bedford, lamenting at the bier of Henry V, say:
"Comets, importing change of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky;
And with them scourge the had revolting stars,
That have consented unto Henry's death."
Milton, speaking of Satan preparing for combat, says:
". . . On the other side,
"Incensed with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burned,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the Arctic sky, and from its horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war."
- ↑ See Vincent de Beauvais, and the various editions of Reisch's "Margarita Philosophica."
- ↑ See Champion, p. 156; also Leopardi, "Errori Popolari," p. 165.
- ↑ For these exhibitions of skepticism, see Champion, pp. 155, 156.
- ↑ See Champion, p. 89; also a vague citation in Baudrillart, "Vie de Bodin," p. 360.
