The Sabbatean Prophets

The Early Modern Context 25
mists, including R. Joseph Taytatzak, R. Hayyim Vital, and Dr. Benjamin
Mussaphia, and, later, the Ba’al Shem of London. 100
Astrology, as it was practiced in the Renaissance and early modern period,
shared an essential common principle with both alchemical and apocalyptic
thought: the concept of a cycle of birth, growth, decay, destruction, and rebirth.
101 “Therefore of necessity all things shall be made anew, the heavens,
the stars, this world and our bodies shall arise again,” according to the anonymous
author of De vetula (cited in Eugenio Garin). 102 Garin points out that,
“As one can see, the themes of ‘newness’—of a new life, a new age, new
worlds, new heavens, new earths—which would run so eloquently through
the centuries of the Renaissance up till the celebrated writings of Tomaso
Campanella and G. B. Vico—was originally nothing more than an astrological
commonplace.” 103 This, of course, is an incomplete pedigree, for the very
phrases “new heavens and new earth” and “new age” were well known to
the astrologers from biblical prophecy.
The late medieval period was marked by an intensification of the influence
of astrology, a trend which often reflected a messianic or apocalyptic
mindset. The key figure in this growth was the French scholar and cardinal,
Pierre d’Ailly (1350–1420), who pioneered a scientific scheme of astrological
interpretation which would yield an infallible understanding of scriptural
prophecy’s unfolding in history. His system was controversial and antithetical
to the spirit of medieval attitudes about the stars, 104 but with the
dawn of the Reformation the previous control of the authorities over astrology
and portent interpretation was severely compromised in both Catholic
and Protestant lands, and this type of thinking exploded. D’Ailly became a
standard guide to all those interested in prophetic history, including Christopher
Columbus, who avidly read and annotated the cardinal’s works. 105
D’Ailly’s insistence on clarity and historical concreteness in astrological prophetic
interpretation was one of the elements that would influence the slow
shift from astrology to astronomy in the seventeenth century. Johannes
Kepler, who continued casting and interpreting horoscopes while he was
working out the essential principles of modern astronomy, was part of this
legacy. 106 So was John Dee, reputed to be the most learned man in Elizabethan
England, 107 and numerous others.
The other obvious connection between astrology and prophetic messianism
is that astrologers seek to predict the future—sometimes on matters of a
strictly personal nature and sometimes on important world affairs. The sixteenth-century
attempt to cast Jesus’ horoscope in order to know more