Astrology in the Byzantine Empire

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In the Byzantine Empire (from the 7th century), parts of the culture and spiritual life of ancient Greece were passed on, now under the auspices of the Christian church. Long before the Latin Christian Western Europe, which was in him Hellenistic embossed Astrology late antiquity not quite over, but obviously without a break. Accordingly, most of the Greek-language astrology manuscripts collected and published in the authoritative Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum come from the Byzantine Empire. These manuscripts have only been partially evaluated and edited so that the picture of astrology in Byzantium is still incomplete. But the existing works and publications already give an idea of ​​the extent and importance of the astrology practiced there.

history

Personal influences

At around the beginning of the Byzantine Middle Ages stands the philosopher, teacher and astronomer-astrologer Stephanos of Alexandria , whom Emperor Herakleios (reign 610-641) himself had brought from Alexandria to Constantinople during a time of cultural revival.

The zodiac in a Byzantine edition of the Tetrabiblos from the 9th century

With the astrological heyday in the neighboring Islamic-Arabian Orient, the astrology there, including the Hellenistic or classical astrology works received, was widely received in the competing Byzantine Empire. As a mediator and stimulator in the context of a growing interest in astronomy in Byzantium, a Stephanos Philosophos (8th century) was apparently active. Stephanos, who moved to Constantinople from Islamic Persia , spoke, among other things, of the high scientific rank of astrology and demanded that in Christianity the stars were of course not entitled to divine veneration, nor should they be subject to any autonomy of will. The works of Theophilos von Edessa , the scholar and astrologer at the Islamic caliphate in Baghdad, who also tried to harmonize Christianity and astrology, were received quite widely in Byzantium from the 9th century. This also applies to the astrological texts of Islamic scholars and astronomer-astrologers such as Abu Ma'schar and Sahl ibn Bischr

The cultural and intellectual exchange between Constantinople and the expanding Arab-Islamic empire is also evident in the fact that Caliph al-Ma'mūn (first half of the 9th century) Leon wanted to bring the mathematician from Constantinople to Baghdad, probably also because of his astrological scholarship . In the 11th / 12th In the 19th century, there was apparently a varied transfer between the Egyptian Fatimid Empire and the Byzantium of the Comnenen dynasty, also on astrological level. At that time Egyptian astrologers were apparently working in Constantinople, probably also for the imperial court there, while the so-called Great Hakimitic Tables ('al-Zij al-Kabir al-Hakimi') by Cairo astronomer Ibn Yunus , the ephemeris for astronomical such as Astrological calculations that were used in Byzantium.

developments

During Byzantine history, interest in astrology-astronomy and its practice fluctuated considerably, as elsewhere and in other epochs. Around the end of the 8th century, after many decades of military conflicts, first with the Sassanid Empire , then with the expanding Arab-Islamic Empire, their attention rose sharply. Practice and teaching reached a high point during the Macedonian Renaissance in the 9th / 10th centuries. Century. For example, natal charts including detailed interpretations have been created for Emperor Constantine VII (10th century). In the 11th and 12th centuries there was another boom during the Komnenen dynasty. Horoscopes for the moment of coronation have been created for both Alexios I Komnenus and his grandson Manuel I Komnenos - in Sassanid tradition - Manuel I even has a treatise on the defense of a Christian astrology. Anna Komnena , the historian and daughter of Alexios I. Komnenos, explains in her well-known historical work Alexiade (written around 1148) the new nature of the natal chart in relation to the capabilities of the ancient models such as Plato or Eudoxus of Knidos , the 'ancients' in Connection with a spectacular forecast of the late 11th century.

Manuel II. Palaiologos: Traditional horoscope for the proclamation as co-emperor (September 25, 1373)

For the Byzantine Palaiologos dynasty (13th-15th century), another golden age of astrology are detected, at which even the imperial court was involved in Constantinople Opel. For example, a proclamation horoscope (1373) has been handed down, this time from Manuel II. Palaiologos , but only for his office as co-emperor of Johannes V. Palaiologos In the late 14th century there are now two scholars and astronomer-astrologers, Johannes Abramios and Eleutherios von Elis , among a group of other students and astrologers, probably working in Constantinople, among others, is tangible through various, sometimes more extensive, manuscripts.

Position of astrology

As in late Christian antiquity and in medieval Islam, astrologers were repeatedly expelled from Constantinople, astrological activity was temporarily prohibited and astrology was criticized and discredited, especially by church people and theologians. Regardless of this, centuries before the use of a learned astrology in Latin-Christian, Western Europe, one finds in the Byzantine Empire often the use of demanding, learned techniques and methods such as natal chart, hourly astrology or so-called military astrology, methods which are always academic 'Required knowledge of mathematics and astronomy. In addition, in some cases, techniques which late ancient Hellenistic astrology were not yet familiar with and which Byzantium had only received as a further development from the Islamic-Arabic Orient. Whether independent astrological techniques or areas of astrology were developed in the Byzantine Empire has not yet been a subject of scientific research, as far as can be seen.

Byzantium and Western Europe

On the other hand, it is clear that learned supporters of humanism, which first emerged in Italy from the late 14th century as part of the European Renaissance, used Greek-language manuscripts to a large extent, actually or supposedly ancient works in Byzantium of the Palaiologian dynasty and in earlier areas of Byzantine Buy or copy an empire. The discovery of Greek texts from the Corpus Hermeticum in Macedonia in 1463, which was believed to have transmitted the oldest wisdom teachings to mankind , also belongs in this context, which was extremely important for the emerging esotericism such as occultism or hermeticism of the Renaissance . Above all, the legendary Hermes Trismegistus , who gave it its name , was astrologically equated with Mercury . As a result of the translation and publication of the corpus texts, many poets and astrologers of the Renaissance identified with Mercury, and astrology was subsequently taught and considered more often as part of hermetics. At the same time various Byzantine scholars worked in Italy such as Bessarion and Georgios Gemistos Plethon , especially in Florence. Numerous astronomical-astrological treatises from the Byzantine period came as manuscripts to Italy, among others, such as those from the environment of Johannes Abramios. Because of the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, more Byzantine scholars left their homeland for Italy and more western Europe. It can be assumed that the transfer of these manuscripts, as well as the work of Byzantine scholars in Italy and Latin-Christian Europe, were able to make an independent contribution to or further boost the development of astrology in the Renaissance. However, there is apparently no relevant work on this yet.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bartel Leendert van der Waerden : Astrology II: Byzantine Empire . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 1, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7608-8901-8 , Sp. 1136 f.
  2. ^ Gerd Mentgen, Astrology and the Public in the Middle Ages . Anton Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2005, pp. 168-169.
  3. ↑ Hildebrand Beck: Providence and predestination in the theological literature of the Byzantines . Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, Roma 1937. p. 68.
  4. ^ David Pingree: From Alexandria to Baghdad to Byzantium. The Transmission of Astrology. In: International Journal of the Classical Tradition , Vol. 8, No. 1, Summer 2001, pp. 3-37. P. 12.
  5. ↑ Hildebrand Beck: Providence and predestination in the theological literature of the Byzantines . Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, Roma 1937. pp. 68 f., P. 71
  6. ↑ Manfred Ullmann : The natural and secret sciences in Islam . E. J. Brill, Leiden 1972. P. 310, 317. ( Handbook of Oriental Studies . First Division. Supplementary Volume VI, Section 2)
  7. ^ Herbert Hunger : The high-level profane literature of the Byzantines: 2. Philology, profane poetry, music, mathematics and astronomy, natural sciences, medicine, war studies, legal literature . C. H. Beck Verlag, Munich 1978. P. 237 ff.
  8. ^ Gerd Mentgen, Astrology and the Public in the Middle Ages . Anton Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2005. p. 170.
  9. ^ Efthymios Nicolaidis: Science and Eastern Orthodoxy: From the Greek Fathers to the Age of Globalization . The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore (Maryland) 2011. pp. 107f.
  10. ^ David Pingree, The Horoscope of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. In: Dumbarton Oaks Papers. Vol. 27 (1973), pp. 219-231, here p. 221.
  11. ^ Herbert Hunger : The high-level profane literature of the Byzantines: 2. Philology, profane poetry, music, mathematics and astronomy, natural sciences, medicine, war studies, legal literature . C. H. Beck Verlag, Munich 1978. p. 242.
  12. ↑ Stephan Heilen: 'Hadriani genitura' - the astrological fragments of Antigonus of Nikaia. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2015. p. 315 ('Greek Horoscopes').
  13. ^ Gerd Mentgen, Astrology and the Public in the Middle Ages . Anton Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2005. p. 169 f.
  14. ^ David Pingree, The Astrological School of John Abramius , in: Dumbarton Oaks Papers , Vol. 25 (1971), p. 193.
  15. ↑ Stephan Heilen: 'Hadriani genitura' - the astrological fragments of Antigonus of Nikaia. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2015. p. 316 ('Greek Horoscopes').
  16. ^ David Pingree, The Astrological School of John Abramius , in: Dumbarton Oaks Papers , Vol. 25 (1971), p. 193.
  17. ^ Herbert Hunger : The high-level profane literature of the Byzantines: 2. Philology, profane poetry, music, mathematics and astronomy, natural sciences, medicine, war studies, legal literature . C. H. Beck Verlag, Munich 1978. pp. 254 f.
  18. ↑ Kocku von Stuckrad: History of Astrology . Verlag C. H. Beck, Munich 2003. p. 212.
  19. ↑ Wolfgang Hübner , Astrology in the Renaissance , in: Klaus Bergdolt , Walther Ludwig (ed.), Future Predictions in the Renaissance . Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005. P. 267 f.
  20. ↑ Evangelos Konstantinou (ed.): The contribution of the Byzantine scholars to the occidental renaissance of the 14th and 15th centuries. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2006. p. 9 f.
  21. ↑ James Herschel Holden: A History of Horoskopic Astrology. From the Babylonian Period to the Modern Age. Tempe (Arizona, USA) 2006. pp. 143, pp. 153-154, pp. 101-102.
  22. ↑ Wolfgang Hübner , Astrology in the Renaissance , in: Klaus Bergdolt , Walther Ludwig (ed.), Future Predictions in the Renaissance . Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005. pp. 241-279, here p. 244.