Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 37:1 (Fall 1974)
Article: Calvin On Astrology
Author: Christine McCall Probes

WTJ 37:1 (Fall 1974) p. 24

Calvin On Astrology

Christine McCall Probes

“There has been for a long time a foolish curiosity which consists of judging by the stars all that should happen to men, and of inquiring of them what course to take …. Rejected in the past as pernicious to the human race this phenomenon is in full revival today, with the result that many people who believe themselves to be of sound mind and who indeed have the reputation of being so are almost bewitched.”1

The quotation from Calvin indicates a resurgence of interest in astrology during the Renaissance. Eugene Defrance in his book on the astrologers and magicians of Catherine de Medici says that thirty thousand sorcerers, alchemists, diviners and astrologers lived on the credulity of sixteenth-century Paris.2 Astrology flourished everywhere, even in the study of the theologian. Michael Servetus was found discussing astrology in his lectures on geography and astronomy at the medical faculty of Paris. His formal defense, published in 1538 in answer to the dean’s criticism and burned less than a year later by decree of Parliament, was the Apologetica disceptatio pro astrologia.3 The eminent reformer Melanchton has been judged perhaps the most important defender of astrology in the mid-sixteenth century. Don Cameron Allen in chapter two of his excellent monograph The Star-Crossed Renaissance summarizes Melanchthon’s claims for astrology as a probable science and places the reformer among its more moderate exponents.4 Luther, who himself cast the superstition of his time aside, mockingly said that Melanchthon

WTJ 37:1 (Fall 1974) p. 25

pursued the study of astrology, “as I take a drink of strong beer when I am troubled with grievous thoughts.”5

John Calvin’s views on astrology are found principally in his treatise Admonitio adversus astrologiam, quam Judiciariam vocant and in some twenty-one passages of his Commentaries.6 The treatise in relatively unknown and unavailable today except for a 1962 reprint of the French edition.7 No English version since the initial one of 1549 is recorded in the Erichson and Niesel Bibliographies.8 Neither of the recent English collections of tracts and treatises include it (neither the Library of Christian Classics volume of 1954 nor Eerdmans’ three-volume set of 1958).

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