1

Marriage and Divorce of Astronomy and Astrology,

A History of Astral Prediction from Antiquity to Newton
ISBN 978 - 1 -41 16- 8326 -6

Gordon Fisher
gfisher@shentel.net

Contents

Chapter 1. Some Sources of Astral Beliefs

Chapter 2. From Astral Beliefs to Kepler, Fludd and Newton

Appendix to Chapter 2: Newton’s Laws
Chapter 3. Some Astrological Techniques

Chapter 4. From Babylon to Copernicus

Chapter 5. Stoics, Kepler, and Evaluations

Appendix to Chapter 4: Diodorus Siculus (of Sicily), Bibliotheca Historica, Book II, 28:29-31
Chapter 6. Earlier Christians and Astrology

Chapter 7. From Ptolemy to Newton

Appendix to Chapter 7: Pierre d'Ailly, and Newton Again

Updates and Addenda

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Chapter 1. Some Sources of Astral Beliefs

Even a god cannot change the past.

Agathon, born c. 445 B.C.E

It has been said that though God cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps because they
can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.
Samuel Butler, Erewhon Revisited, 1901

Who says there’s a past? Show me where it is!

1. The heavens, the ones where the stars and other assorted celestial objects are, were for
a long time regarded as the place where the gods are, and the place from which directions are
given and powers exerted for what takes place on earth. Aristotle said there is something beyond the
bodies which are on earth, different and separate from them, and that the glory of this something
grows greater as its distance from this world of ours increases. The primary body, he says, the one
at the greatest distance from earth, is eternal and unchanging. For, Aristotle says confidently,
surely there are gods, and they are immortal, and everyone agrees they are located in the highest
place in the universe. He avers that the evidence of our senses tells us, at least with the certainty
attainable by humans, that in the past, as far as our records reach (meaning as far as the records he
looked at seemed to him to reach) no change has taken place in the outermost heavens. So he
concluded that the primary body is something beyond earth, air, fire and water, which, he
believed, make up the sort of things and activities we find on earth. This primary body is called the
aether, Aristotle says, because it runs forever. 1

2. Aristotle based his theory on the evidence of our senses. He says phenomena confirm
his theory. He also says his theory confirms the phenomena. That is, predictions made with his

1 Aristotle (384 -322 B.C.), De caelo (On the Heavens), 269b12- 16, 270b1-23, translated by J. L. Stocks.

In classical Greek, transliterated into Roman letters (more or less), aei thein means “to go on forever”. On the other
hand, aither (often transliterated aether for some reason) means “upper air” or “the sky”, which suggests an origin of
aither from the notion that the upper air or the sky goes on forever, as distinguished from the lower air, called by the
Greeks aer (e = eta, not epsilon). One may be struck by the similarity of theo (o = omega, not omicron), “I run” to theos
(o = omicron, not omega), “god”, but that may be accidental. On the other hand, Cicero says in his De natura deorum
(On the Nature of the Gods) that “Zeno declares that the aether is god - if there is any meaning in a god without
sensation, a form of deity that never presents itself to us when we offer up our prayers and supplications and make our
vows.” (That’s the Stoic, Zeno of Citium, not Zeno of Elea, he of the paradoxes.) Plato stated in his Timaeus that the
aither is a fifth element, and was quite taken with the analogy betweenfive elements and the five regular solids, as was
Johannes Kepler much later. As shown in Euclid’s Elements, there are five and only five regular solids, the
tetrahedron, the cube, the octahedron, the dodecahedron, and the icosahedron.
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theory were verified by observation. He had an empirically based procedure, contrary to what
some have said. Generously speaking, his failures appear often to have been due to lack of
information, or incorrect interpretation of it; or to phenomena unnoticed or not examined closely
enough; or to new stars (if any were known to him) and comets being regarded as being relatively
near to our earth, perhaps because they showed change; or to insufficient knowledge of the
chemical constitution of matter; and so on. That celestial objects are alive wasn't a bad conjecture
in the context of what was known, since they appear to be self-moving. It seemed obvious that this
is a characteristic of living entities, although there are some quite sessile creatures. Other motions,
then, such as flight of spears or running water, must be caused by some entity or entities, or
forces, acting on them from outside of themselves. This suggests that birds and caterpillars, for
example, can move themselves, without external motivation or incitement, when they are alive
and in a mobile condition.

3. That the celestial objects are divine wasn't too bad a conjecture, either, given the
overall regularity and permanence of many of them visible without instrumental aids, over periods
of time which are long relative to human lives. When Aristotle associates the divine with the outer
heavens, he doesn't actually say the outer heavens or the stars are gods. He says they are like gods
by virtue of their unchanging nature.2 On earth, change is everywhere. The living are born or
sprout or otherwise come to be, are transformed or transform themselves, and eventually die or
pass away or otherwise cease to exist. 3 Ores in the earth can be changed to metals, metals rust.
Mountains explode or wear down. Waters flood or dry up, spring from the earth or fall from
above; when boiled (usingfire) water turns into air and when frozen water turns into a transparent
form of earth (the four basic elements in the theory of Empedocles and Aristotle are water, earth,
fire and air). Only the stars appear permanent and unchanging, he says. But, he asks, are there any
bodies which last forever in one form? Those who believe there are immortal gods, says Aristotle,
may be prepared to believe this too, and that the planets and stars are such bodies.

4. The divinity and regularity of the movements of the sun, moon, planets and stars were
taken by many ancients as evidence that these celestial objects regulated or at least influenced
various kinds of changes on earth. The objects were considered by some to be quite tyrannical,
and to dictate events on earth. This extraterrestrial autocracy was taken to mean that one can
make predictions about events on earth. If everything, or at least something, is dictated in
advance, then it is reasonable to try to find out in advance what will happen. Success of
prediction depends on events being completely or at least partly determined in advance of their
happening. There was an association of the divinity and the regularity of celestial objects with
what we may rather pedantically call astral determinism, the doctrine that some, at least, of the
myriad changes on earth are dictated by stars and planets. 4 This, in turn, is associated with the

2 We can get around a potential contradiction here to the fact that Aristotle says stars are like gods, rather than that
they are gods, by considering divine here as indicating that stars partake in someway of the gods, or by regarding
them as permanent instruments of the gods, or in various other ways.
3 Aristotle also wrote a book called Peri geneseos kaiphthoras, otherwise known as De generatione et corruptione,
often rather euphemistically translated into English as On coming- to- be and passing- away.
4 In ancient times, the planets were commonly taken to include our earth’s sun and moon, as well as the planets (in
today’s sense of the term) which were visible to unassisted eyes, viz. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The
word planet traces back to the Greek word planasthai, to wander, since these five celestial beings, together with
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ancient but perennial (and frustrating) problem of determinism in general. Crudely, the problem is
to decide whether or not everything that happens is in some way determined in advance, and if so to
find out as much as one can about how this happens and what will happen. This is notoriously
possible in connection with movements of celestial objects themselves. The question is, how many
and what kind of changes on earth are determined in advance, and who or what determines them?
One may conjecture that that really big and bright object, the sun, together with that smaller and
not as bright one, the moon, and the (other) quite tiny five planets known to the ancient Greeks, are
among the entities responsible, or at least executors under the command of some superior council
or executor?

5. Connections between religion, astronomy, astrology and prediction are very ancient, no
doubt prehistoric. In The Etruscans Begin to Speak, Zaharie Mayani describes a relatively late
ceremony5 which unites the three. His description is based on a fresco on the wall of a tomb, known
as the Tomb of the Augurs, which dates from 530 B.C.E. Two priests are seen marking out the
bounds of a holy area consisting of a square in which two medians were marked, one running from
north to south and the other from east to west. The quarters of the square are also subdivided, and
each resulting section is assigned to a particular deity. The square is a kind of mirror of the
heavens, since the divisions of the square correspond to a conceptual division of the sky. A priest
could stand in the center of the square and with the help of a speci al staff determine in which zone
of the square the direction of a celestial omen fell, hence which deity was sending the omen. Thus
the holy area or templum constituted an observatory for determining positions of omens which
could be used for predicting future events. The observations were a means of learning the will of
the gods. 6

6. David Chandler writes: "In the mid-1970s …. Eleanor Moron began studying the
dimensions of the temple7 in detail, convinced that these might contain the key to the way the
temple had been encoded by the savants who designed it. After determining that the Cambodian
measurement used at Angkor, the hat, was equivalent to approximately 0.4 meters (1.3 feet),
Moron went on to ask how many hat were involved in significant dimensions of the temple, such as
the distance between the western entrance (the only one equipped with its own causeway) and the
central tower. The distance came to 1,728 hat, and three other components of this axis measured,
respectively, 1,296,867, and 439 hat. Moron then argued that these figures correlated to the four
‘ages’, or yugas, of Indian thought. The first of these, the Krita Yuga, was a supposedly golden
age, lasting 1,728,000 years. The next three ages lasted for 1,296,000, 864,000, and 432,000
years, respectively. The earliest age, therefore, was four times longer than the latest, the second
earliest, twice as long. The last age is the Kali Yuga, in which we are living today. At the end of
this era, it is believed, the universe will be destroyed, to be rebuilt by Brahman along similar lines,
beginning with another golden age. The fact that the length of these four eras correlates exactly
with particular distances along the east-west axis of Angkor Wat suggests that the “code” for the
temple is in fact a kind of pun that can be read in terms of time

our sun and moon, appear to wander, albeit with notable regularity, among the stars (not including one being, our
sun).
5 I.e., relative to prehistory, or for that matter to the beginning of historical records, or at least those which have been or
are still known to historians or other recorders.
6 Zaharie Mayani, The Etruscans Begin to Speak, translation by Patrick Evans, 1962, of Les Étrusques commen çent
parler, 1961, p. 222- 224.
7 at Angkor Wat in present -day Cambodia, built 12 th century C.E.
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and space. The distances that a person entering the temple will traverse coincide with the eras that
the visitor is metaphorically living through en route to the statue of Vishnu in the central tower.
Walking forward and away from the west, which is the direction of death, the visitor moves
backward into time, approaching the moment when the Indians proposed that time began. In her
research, Moron also discovered astronomical correlations for ten of the most frequently
occurring distances at Angkor Wat. Astronomers working with her found that the siting of the
temple was related to the fact that its western gate aligned at sunrise with a small hill to the
northeast, Phnom Bok. Moreover, at the summer solstice ‘an observer …. standing just in front of
the western entrance can see the sunrise directly over the central tower of Angkor Wat’. This day,
June 21, marked the beginning of the solar year for Indian astronomers and was sacred to a king
whose name, Suryavarman, means ‘protected by the sun’ and who was a devotee of Vishnu. 8 The
close fit of these spatial relationships to notions of cosmic time, and the extraordinary accuracy
and symmetry of all the measurements at Angkor, combine to confirm the notion that the temple
was in fact a coded religious text that could be read by experts moving along the walkways from
one dimension to the next. The learned pan dits who determined the dimensions of Angkor Wat
would have been aware of and would have reveled in its multiplicity of meanings. To those lower
down in the society, perhaps, fewer and fewer meanings would be clear. We can assume,
however, that even the poorest slaves were astonished to see this enormous temple, probably with
gilded towers rising 60 meters (200 feet) above the ground and above the thatched huts of the
people who had built it.” 9

7. This lining up of temples could serve utilitarian purposes. Ernst Zimmer reports that
temples were aligned by the ancient Egyptians so they could be used as star clocks. Sun clocks
were used for daytime measurement, and the Egyptians had water clocks which could be used day
or night. However, they also determined the hours of the night by noting when certain
constellations reached their highest point in the sky. In order to determine these zeniths, it was
necessary to known where the meridian was. "This presented no difficulty for the Egyptians," says
Zimmer, "since the determination of the north-south and east-west directions at the laying of the
foundation-stone of a temple was among the most important functions of the king. The process of
determining these directions was depicted in exactly the same way on reliefs from the 4th
millennium up to the birth of Christ." 10 The measuring apparatus used by the king consisted of a
straight edge (an alignment stick) bent upward at one end and with a plumb line attached, together
with the split rib of a palm leaf. There are tables found in the burial chambers of the Egyptian
pharaohs Ramses VI and IX dating from between about 1160 and 1120 B.C.E. which list what
constellations correspond to what hour of the night, and show a picture of a sitting man. The process
of observing the passage of the hours of the night required two such observers, aligned along the
meridian.

8. These examples show ways stars were connected to prediction and time -keeping.
People have tried to predict the future in many ways besides observing stars. Seneca says of the

8 Suryavarman commissioned the building of Angkor Wat. Vishnu, in the Hindu triad of main gods, is, among other
things, the preserver of the universe. The other two members of the triad are Brahma, the creator, and Shiva, the
destroyer.
9 David Chandler, A History of Cambodia, Westview Press (HarperCollins), 2nd edn updated, 1996, p. 5 1 -52. And
then, of course, there are Stonehenge and other European stone circles and the like, the alleged alignment of the
Egyptian pyramids, and so on and on.
10 Ernst Zimmer, Die Geschichte der Sternkunde, von den ersten Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, 1931, p. 12.
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Etruscans that they were consummately skilled in foretelling future events by interpreting
lightning. We (the Romans), Seneca says, think that because clouds collide, lightning is emitted;
they (the Etruscans) think the clouds collide so lightning will be emitted. In this way, they say,
the gods can send messages to humans about what is destined to happen. 11

9. Sometimes visions of the future were read in bowls of water. E. R. Dodds speaks of
this use of scrying, as it is sometimes called, for precognition. This is future-telling carried out by
staring into a translucent or shining object, called a speculum, until a moving vision or
hallucination is produced which seems to come from within the object. It is said that only a small
proportion of people will be able to see such pictures. In modern times, the process is best known as
crystal-gazing, but it can be carried out with other objects besides crystals. Crystals don't seem to
have been used as specula before Byzantine times, but the practice of scrying is much older. In
one ancient method, a mirror was used as a speculum (presumably this would guarantee pictures
could be seen). Catoptromancy is divination using a mirror or other reflecting object. 12

10. In another ancient method, used more frequently as time went on, the speculum
was simply a bowl of water. Sometimes a film of oil (occasionally, flour) was spread on the
surface of the water. This method was known as lecanomancy, meaning "divination by bowl".
The Greeks and Romans got this method from the Middle East, where it had a long history. It
appears to have developed from a method in which events were foretold by spreading oil on
water, and interpreting the moving shapes formed by the oil. Evidently prolonged staring at the
shapes led to visions in some seers, and eventually the visions in the seers became more
important than the shapes in the oil. It was later realized that visions could be induced just by
staring into the water, without the oil. However, the oil was sometimes still used, presumably
because it was traditional or because it increased luminosity. The Greeks and Romans took up
the practice in the 1 st century B.C.E. or earlier, probably importing it from Egypt. By this time, the
use of oil seems to have been abandoned. 13

11. A more direct way to know the future is by means of revelation. Among the
ancient Babylonians and Assyrians (and others), this was often taken to happen in dreams. A god
appeared in a "night vision" and sometimes clearly predicted the future or gave clear commands.
Sometimes, though, the dream was mysterious, and had to be interpreted. Besides interpretation
of dreams, there were methods of divination based on observations of the births of humans, sheep
and other animals, especially abnormal and monstrous births. There were techniques based on
observations of involuntary facial movements of people, and on physiognomy, the features of
people's faces and skulls. In another popular method, the diviner read the entrails of animals
killed or sacrificed. With entrails in general, the method was known as extispicy or haruspicy, and
with livers, hepatoscopy.14

11 Seneca, Questiones naturales (about 62 A.D.), II.32, translated by Thomas Corcoran, 1971, v. 1, p. 150-151.
12 A. Delatte, La catoptromancie grecque et ses derivés, 1932.
13 E. R. Dodds, "Supernormal Phenomena in Classical Antiquity", in The Ancient Concept of Progress, and other
Essays on Greek Literature and Belief, 1973, p. 186- 188.
14 ~douard Dhorme, Les Religions de Babylonie et d'Assyrie, 1949, p. 276- 28 1.
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12. Divination no doubt has its sources in basic features of animal behavior and learning.
Specific expectations are linked to specific observations. Signs are recognized. Among humans,
signs of future events or processes may be described with language, and transmitted from person to
person. The use of such signs can be very helpful in making decisions, and for overcoming
indecisiveness. In favorable cases, such signs are always or at least frequently followed by the
signified, and may indicate caused events. Occasional failures may be attributed to faulty
observation or interpretation of the sign, to intervention of external powers, to chance, etc. A
preponderance of failures may, or may not, lead to alteration in interpretation of the signs, or even
abandonment of a project to use such signs for predictions and projections of future events.

13. Certain decisions based on chance are a kind of limiting case of decisions based on
signs. Gamblers, for example, read thrown dice, flipped coins, dealt cards, etc., and make
decisions based on their readings about who gets to possess certain amounts of money. The signs
in this case—the numbers on the dice, etc.—cause money to be distributed in this or that way in
some sense of "cause", but not, it seems, in the sense we use when we say, for example, that the
earth causes an eclipse of the moon when it gets between the moon and the earth. A person who
makes investments on the stock market according to hunches (which are kinds of signs) may or
may not be gambling in the same way as people who play roulette, depending on the source of
the hunches. If the hunches are based in some way, perhaps unconsciously, on actual economic
trends, the investor's chances of profiting are customarily considered by many to be better than if
they are not so based. Inside traders (those who use information about future financial transactions
illegally) read signs of a kind which reduces their chances of loss considerably—unless, perhaps,
if they're caught at it. We can only conjecture about how many important political, military and
business decisions have been made by flipping a coin or an equivalent, or—sometimes reducing
the chances of failure to some degree—on the basis of probabilities drawn up by statisticians,
engineers or managers.

14. One motive for wanting to predict the future is the removal of anxiety, temporary
though it may be. It can be very consoling to decide one knows in advance what an outcome will be.
Even if the decision proves to have been wrong, the previous peace of mind will not be taken away.
Nancy Reagan, wife of the former U.S. president Ronald Reagan, says in her memoirs, regarding
her use of astrology to make schedules for the president: "Astrology was simply one of the ways I
coped with the fear I felt after my husband almost died" (referring to the assassination attempt of
March 30, 1981). Speaking of an astrologer she consulted, Joan Quigley, Nancy says: "Joan's
recommendations had nothing to do with policy or politics—ever. Her advice was confined to
timing—to Ronnie's schedule, and to what days were good or bad, especially with regard to his
out-of-town trips." (Of course, timing is a part of politics.) "While I was never certain," says
Nancy, "that Joan's astrological advice was helping to protect Ronnie, the fact is that nothing like
March 30 ever happened again. Was astrology one of the reasons? I don't really believe it was, but
I don't really believe it wasn't. But I do know this: it didn't hurt, and I'm not sorry I did it." 1 5

15. One can, of course, have faith in signs of this sort without attributing religious
significance to them. But, as Walter Burkert tells us, in ancient cultures signs about the future—

15 Nancy Reagan, with William Novak, M y T u r n , T h e M e m o i r s o f N a n c y R e a g a n , 1989, p. 44,47,49.

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omens—were often considered to come from gods. The gods use signs, clear or crypti c, to give
orders and guidance to men. Among the classical Greeks and Romans, who had no written
scriptures, signs were a principal way for gods to communicate with men. Thus among the Greeks,
someone who doubted the efficacy of divination was liable to be suspected of impiety or
godlessness. All of the Greek gods dispense signs, and especially the king of them all, Zeus. The
ability to interpret divine signs requires special inspiration, and this ability is dispensed by
Apollo, the son of Zeus.

16. Among the classical Greeks, a specialist in interpreting signs was a seer, a mantis,
someone who makes contact with the gods. The word for god, theos, is closely related to the art of
the seer. A seer is a theopropos, one able to sense—see or hear—the gods. An uninterpreted sign is
a thesphaton, a saying or command of the gods. What a seer performs is a theiazein or entheazein,
an act inspired by the gods. In the Iliad, the seer Kalchas is the son of Thestor. In the Odyssey, the
seer with second sight is Theoklymenos, and the tribe which guards the Oracle of the Dead in
Epirus is called the Thesprotoi, those who see the gods, the see-ers of the gods. A seer may speak
in an abnormal state 16 so a specially endowed interpreter of the words of a seer, a prop hetes, may be
required. Thus the art of interpretation becomes a more or less rational technique, even when the
words of the seer—hence of the gods—are cryptic.17

17. Any abnormal occurrence which can't be manipulated could become a sign for the
ancient seers: a dream, a sudden sneeze, a stumble, a twitch, a chance encounter, the sound of a
name caught in passing, celestial phenomena such as lightning, comets, shooting stars, eclipses of
sun or moon, even a drop of rain. We see here a kind of border zone between divination, and
scientific psychology, meteorology and astronomy. The observation of the flight of birds played a
special role in Greek prediction, perhaps from a prehistoric Indo-European tradition. In sacrifices,
everything is a sign: whether the animal goes willingly to the altar and bleeds to death quickly;
whether or not the fire flares swiftly, what happens when parts of the animal are burned in the fire;
how the tail curls and the bladder bursts. The inspection of the livers of the victims developed into
a special art. How the various lobes are formed and colored was evaluated at every stage of
slaughter. This technique appears to have been transmitted from Mesopotamia, probably in the 8 t h
or 7th century B.C.E. There is an allusion to the practice by Homer. The Etruscans obtained their
much more detailed haruspicina (as these gut omens were called) from the same source, not via the
Greeks. The inspection of entrails was the prime task of the seers who accompanied armies into
battle. Herds of sacrificial victims were driven along with the armies, although the animals were
also used for food. Without favorable signs no battle was joined. Before the battle of Plataea (479
B.C.E.), the Greeks and Persians stayed encamped opposite each other for ten days because the
omens didn't advise either side to attack.18

18. The philosophical question as to how omens, predetermination, and so-called

freedom of the will can be reconciled began to be discussed extensively in Hellenistic times.
The discovery of natural laws in the sphere of astronomy acted as a catalyst in this discussion,

16 The word mantis for seer is related to the English term “mania”, but also to the term “mentor”.
17 Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, translation of Griechische Religion der archaischen und klasischen
Epoche, 1977, by John Raffan, 1985, p. 111- 1 14.
18 Burkert, l.c.
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and at the same time produced a new and very influential form of divination in the shapes and
forms of astrology. Earlier, one could always try to avoid the outcomes predicted by unfavorable
signs by waiting and hoping the outcome would not occur after all, or by acting or not acting in
ways which lead to circumvention, or by performing purification, or by praying, etc. But
according to some astrological beliefs, outcomes necessarily follow their astrological signs, at
least for events of some kinds. In other methods of prediction, it was frequently important that
even favorable omens be accepted wi th an approving word or vow to the gods in order for them to
achieve their fullest efficacy, but it was often believed that in the case of astrological signs,
whether or not they were of divine origin, appeals were useless. 19

19. In classical Greece, seers or priests or priestesses, called oracles, were attached to
particular localities where they could be asked to consult with the gods. The localities were also
known as oracles, and cults were attached to them. The gods were especially disposed to give
signs in these places. Success in the interpretation of such signs led, from the 8 t h century B.C.E.
onward, to the fame and importance of certain places which extended beyond the region of the
oracle, sometimes becoming international. The Greeks called a place of this kind a chresterion
(place where chresmos is performed, i.e. where needed answers are provided) or manteion (place of
divination, of contact with gods). The Romans called such a place an oraculum. It appears that
preservation of oracular utterances was one of the earliest applications of writing in Greece, starting
about 750 B.C.E. Thus the utterances were freed from the context of question and answer sessions
with the gods, and could become important at other places at other times. Age inspires respect,
sometimes, so ancient sayings were collected in writing and thus were always more or less readily
at hand. However, about the same time as actual sayings began to be recorded, forged sayings also
appeared. 20

20. Revelation is customarily considered to be the basis of Biblical prophecy, both in the
sense in which prophets of the Bible predicted the future, and in the sense in which people up to
our own time have interpreted the Bible as providing knowledge of their own futures. It is always
arresting to remember that the arch-scientist Sir Isaac Newton was a life -long student of biblical
prophecy, and that his last work, published posthumously, was Observations on the Prophecies in
Daniel and Revelation (1732). The kind of revelation which is at the root of biblical prophecy is
often direct communication from an omniscient deity. It is only occasionally communicated in
dreams. In general, no inspection and interpretation of natural events and no inferential reason ing
are required. The content, nature and validity of biblical prophecy is, of course, a vast subject
which we will not broach here.

21. For some, the age of Biblical prophecy did not end with the prophets of the Old
Testament and apostles of the New Test ament. For example, there was Nostradamus (1503-
1566), who has played an extraordinary role in people's attempts to know the future. Richard
Popkin reports that Nostradamus first asserted that he was a prophet in the Biblical sense, and
that God had reveal ed future events to him, despite the fact that the prevailing view of the
Church was that prophecy of this kind terminated with the death of the apostles. Nostradamus
told King Henri II of France that he was a member of one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, the

19B u rk e rt , l . c . 20Burkert,l.c.,p.
114,117.
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Issachar, which had been given the gift of prophecy.21 Nostradamus was the grandson of two
prominent rabbis who converted to Christianity shortly before his birth. He became a court
physician, astrologer and advisor. At some point, says Richard Popkin, he abandoned his stance
as a prophet in the biblical sense, and told his son that God had revealed future events to him by
means of astronomical cycles, i.e. astrology. However, it seems that Nostradamus left no
indication of the astrological techniques he used. We have only his completed predictions, in
verse form, in his Centuries (1555).

22. Among all the techniques devised by people to predict the future, the concentration
here will be mainly on ones based on observations of celestial objects. This includes what we now
call astronomy and astrology. For many centuries the terms astronomy and astrology (or their
equivalents in various languages) were widely used as synonyms. It has been suggested that
astronomy originally referred merely to the connection of meteorological phenomena with the
risings and settings of certain stars and constellations. An astronomer, in this sense, was someone
who assigned individual stars or whole constellations roles in prognosticating or even determining
weather, presumably on the basis of accumulated observations. By the 5 t h century B.C.E.,
however, a more extended meaning had been given to the term. Socrates, according to Plato in his
dialogue Theaetetus, defined astronomy as the discipline devoted to investigating the movements of
the stars, including the sun and moon, and the relations of their speeds. This term did not find
favor with the next generation, and Aristotle customarily used the term astrology (astrologia)
where Plato and others had used astronomy (astronomia). Aristotle's influence lent a long life
span to this use of astrology. The development of astrology as understood in most present-day
senses of the word led to a separate term for astronomy in our sense of the word: the term was
mathematics (mathematike). This term in turn was in time usurped to apply to mathematics in our
sense of the word. Near the end of antiquity, the circle closed. Once again astronomy
(astronomia) came to denote, as it still does, people's scientific endeavors to find rational
explanations for the nature and motions of the stars. But not until the 17 th century of our era did this
readopted term come to definitely exclude astrology. 22

23. Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636) distinguished in his Etymologiae between natural and
superstitious astrology. The former, he says, is just another name for astronomy, while the latter "is
that science which is practised by the mathematici, who read prophecies in the heavens, and who
place the twelve constellations as rulers over the members of man's body and soul, and who predict
the nativities and dispositions of men by the courses of the stars." 23 In the Etymologiae, the
mathematici and genethliaci (casters of natal horoscopes) appear in company with many other
representatives of magic. However, Laura Smoller reports that Isidore in his Etymologiae
distinguishes between astronomia which deals with the motions of the heavens and astrologia
which deals with their effects. But she goes on to say: "The neat distinction between the two
words did not persist, however, and the terms were blurred, jumbled, and sometimes reversed
throughout the Middle Ages. Pierre d'Ailly, for example, fairly consistently used astronomia for

21 Richard Popkin, "Predicting, Prophecying, Divining and Foretelling from Nostradamus to Hume", History of
European Ideas,v. 5, 1984, p. 117-135.

22 Frederick Cramer, Astrology in Roman Law and Politics, 1954, p.3.

23 Quoted by Theodore Otto Wedel in The Mediaeval Attitude toward Astrology, Particularly in England, 1920, p.
27.
 11

"astrology" and astrologia for "astronomy." (p. 27). Presumably the reason she uses the
quotation marks in to indicate that "astrology" and "astronomy" are here used in some present-
day senses. 2 4

24. Lynn Thorndike reports that John of Salisbury (1 120(?)-1 180)uses magica,
mathematica and maleficium almost synonymously. Thorndike doesn't translate, but I take these to
mean magical art, mathematical art and sorcery, respectively Furthermore, John explains that the
word mathesis, when it has a short "e", denotes learning in general, but when it has a long "e", it
signifies the "figments of divination, whose varieties are many and diverse". 25 Wedel remarks:
"Although John of Salisbury was unusually sane and enlightened in the matter of medieval
superstitions, he subscribed fully to the patristic doctrine of demonology. The Church Fathers, he
says, rightly denounced all forms of magic—species mathematicae —inasmuch as all of these
26
pestiferous arts spring from an illicit pact with the devil." Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great;
1193-1280) distinguishes two kinds of mathematics. One is the abstract science in our sense of the
word. The other, more probably called mathesis (with a long "e”, this time) is divination by the
stars, which may be either good or bad, superstitious or scientific. 27

25. Richard Lemay tells us that John of Salisbury also distinguished between the
mathematicus, concerned with mathesis, and the physicus, concerned with the philosophy of
nature. The former, according to John, studies abstract figures extracted from nature, while the
latter studies processes concretely embedded in nature. The mathematici are therefore concerned
with stable, unchanging objects, while the physici depend on evidence of the senses. Both,
however, try to discover the courses of nature, and the extent of their regularity or irregularity. In
John's view, physica had absorbed much of what had long been considered as the proper object of
mathematica. In particular, foreknowledge of the future, formerly the concern of the
mathematicus, he considered to have become a domain of the physicus. However, in making his
distinction between mathematics and physics, John was embarassed by the ancient strictures
placed on mathesis by the Church Fathers, because much that had been linked with mathesis had
become the proper concern of aphysicus. 28 Thus John indicates not a union of mathematica and
physica, not a mathematical physics, but a movement from investigations based on mathema tical
abstractions to investigations based on the human senses.

26. Michael Scot (early 13th century) often used astronomia to denote what today would
usually be called astrology and "distinguishes between mathesis, or knowledge, and matesis
(without an “h”), or divination, and between mathematica (with an "h"), which may be taught
freely and publicly, and matematica (without an "h"), which is forbidden to Christians".29
Thorndike states that by the time of Peter of Abano (1250-131 8(?)), the words "astronomy" and
"astrology" were beginning to be used in about their present meaning. 30 This

24Laura Smoller, History, Prophecy, and the Stars, 1995.

25Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 1923-1958, v. 2, 1923, p. 158.
26Wedel, ibid., p. 37.
27Thorndike, ibid., p. 580.
28Richard Lemay, Abu Ma'shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century, The Recovery of Aristotle's
Natural Philosophy through Arabic Astrology 1962, p. 300-307.
29Lemay, ibid., p. 319.
30Tho rndike, ibid., p. 890.
 12

may be compared with the claim of Frederick Cramer, referred to above, that it was not until the 1
7 t h century that this occurred—more precisely, Cramer places the distinction in the "Age of
Newton". Perhaps it is a matter of who was using the terms—philosophers (natural or otherwise),
poets, educated or uneducated people, etc. In any case, Peter himself sought to establish, against
various theologians and scholastics who had distinguished between the two, that they were
actually the same. 31

27. Astrology, as formerly practiced, was intertwined with other methods of prediction,
with various kinds of magic, and with alchemy. There were many links between astrology, magic,
sorcery and witchcraft. Astrology sometimes provided a coherent justification for such methods
of prediction as geomancy, palmistry, physiognomy and similar activities. Cornelius Agrippa,
author of a famous work on magic in the early 16 th century, declared that all these skills of
divination are rooted and grounded upon astrology. Palmists and physiognomists, for example,
assigned different parts of the hand or head to different signs of the zodiac according to
correspondences postulated between heavenly bodies and earthly substances.

28. Geomancy was especially linked to astrology. The word geomancy is somewhat
elastic in meaning, but in a narrow sense it is a method of divination in which a set of 16 patterns is
obtained by getting someone (a child, perhaps) to draw lines in sand or on a slate or paper, or
obtaining other presumably random outcomes, such as by spinning wheels in such a way that
exactly two outcomes are possible, or flipping a coin, or grasping a number of beans and seeing
whether there are an odd or even number, etc. Each of the sixteen patterns consists of 4 choices of
"even" and "odd" depending on whether the number of lines or beans drawn is even or odd, or
whether the coin comes up head or tails, etc. Each of the 16 patterns is a house, and the set of
patterns are interpreted according to various rules. Geomancy, as customarily practiced, also
employed the astrological hou ses, often taken to be 12 in number. Analogies were drawn between
the astrological houses and the geomantic houses. According to a leading textbook of the time on
the subject (1591), geomancy was "none other than astrology". 32

29. Until relatively recently, astronomy/astrology was commonly compounded with

alchemy, magic, medicine, divination and weather prediction by many people. Some people
still do associate some or all of these.

30. It has often been conjectured that astrology/astronomy originated in a marriage of

religion and science. Apparently it was born in Babylonia and reached an apex in the Hellenistic
era. Here Babylonia is taken to be synonymous with Chaldea and Mesopotamia, and to include
lands occupied at various times by Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians and Iraqis. In Hellenistic
times, Egypt, and especially Alexandria, was a renowned center for astrological and astronomical
studies. In a narrow sense, the Hellenistic period ran roughly from the time of Alexander the
Great (356-323 B.C.E.) to the 1 st century B.C.E., when the Romans under Augustys conquered
Egypt in 30 B.C.E. This conquest culminated in the battle of Actium at which the forces of Mark
Antony and Cleopatra were defeated by the forces of Octavian. Others

31 Graziella Vescovini, "Peter of Abano and Astrology", in Astrology, Science and Astrology, Historical Essays,
1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 23-24.
32 See J. D. North, Chaucer's Universe, 1988, p. 234-243.
 13

make the Hellenistic era run from the time of Alexander the Great to the end of the ancient
world, often taken to be marked by the victory of Christianity in the 4 t h century C.E., the age of
Constantine the Great.

31. The first extant horoscope is said to date from 410 B.C.E. However personal or
judicial astrology, requiring the casting of individual horoscopes, developed later than omen
astrology, the prediction of events involving kings and kingdoms on the basis of planetary
positions and appearances, and on various meteorological phenomena. Personal astrology was
based on investigation of planetary positions (including the sun and moon) at the time of birth or
conception, and seems to have been founded on a thoroughly deterministic conception of the
cosmos. Side by side with it flourished catarchic astrology, which only assumed non-fatalistic
influences on mundane enterprises like travel, marriage and business. Some have suggested that
the two kinds of astrology, fatalistic and non -fatalistic, have conflicting bases. Either stars exert
an immutable or merely an avoidable influence on affairs, although this distinction might not have
been clearly made by individual users of astrology. However, it is not inconsistent to believe that
stars exert an immutable influence on some affairs and not on others, nor even to believe that stars
exert mutuable influences.

32. Although the origin of omen astrology is usually attributed to the ancient
Babylonians,judicial (personal, horoscopic) astrology appears to have arisen in Egypt, during the
Hellenistic era. This is what most people understand by the unmodified word "astrology" today.
The originators of judicial astrology may actually have been Greeks living in Egypt, rather than
native Egyptians (whoever they might have been). W. and H. G. Gundel have recorded numerous
indications of the Egyptian origin of judicial astrology in Hellenistic texts, including numerous
writings in the collection called the Hermetica, other writings in a handbook attributed to King
Nechepso (reigned 677-672 B.C.E.) and his high priest Petosiris, and other
33
sources.

33. As to the Mesopotamians, the Gundels say: "The investigation of the sources leads to
the result that for the Seleucid era in Mesopotamia [312-65 B.C.E.] the later much-praised
ideological-philosophical foundations of a 'Babylonian' system cannot be established. The
assertion that the 'Babylonians' had considered the grandiose idea of cosmic sympathies as the
essence of astrology, and expressed this conception in systematic and technical works and books of
oracles, must be regarded as a fantasy of later authors who do not attain real value as sources." 34
For example, in their omen astrology, the Babylonians might base a prediction on whether or not
such and such a planet was visible at some position in the sky, located by means of a nearby
constellation, but there appears to have been nothing corresponding to a systematic interpretation
of the positions of the planets (including the sun and moon) in a zodiac or system of decans.
(Decans are, roughly speaking, subdivisions of the zodiac, with 3 decans to a zodiac sign).

33 (W. and H. G. Gundel, Astrologumena, Die astrologische Literatur in der Antike und ihre Geschichte,
1966, p. 40.)
34 Gundel and Gundel, ibid., p. 51.
 14

34. According to Otto Neugebauer: "Before the fifth century B.C. celestial o min a
probably did not include predictions for individuals, based on planetary positions in the signs of
the zodiac and on their mutual configurations. In this latest and most significant modification
astrology became known to the Greeks in the hellenistic period. But with the exception of some
typical Mesopotamian relics the doctrine was changed in Greek hands to a universal system in
which form alone it could spread all over the world. Hence astrology in the modern sense of the
term, with its vastly expanded set of "methods" is a truly Greek creation, in many respects
parallel to the development of Christian theology a few centuries later." 3 5

35. What was it that made fatalistic astrology-astronomy survive in the face of persistent
onslaughts from the best minds of the Greek world? One answer, proposed by Frederick Cramer,
is a faith which was as deep as the skepticism of their enemies—a faith in reason.
Astrologer/astronomers and their followers believed that descending through the ages since the
creation of the world, there have been unending chains of cause and effect relations which have
obeyed immutable laws of nature which not even a deity can contravene. They believed, like later
scientists have, that the cosmos functions like a supremely well-designed machine constructed on
rational principles and governed entirely by rational nature laws.

36. Certain philosophers of the Hellenistic era found in rational fatalism the faith in
reason which scientists of all ages have hoped for: assurance that their concepts of the nature of
things possess cosmic validity in space and time. Ancient scientists became supporters of fatalism,
and many of them championed fatalistic astrology/astronomy. Their logic seemed sound. That
stars—for instance, the sun—have some powerful influence on people is unquestionable. Five
other "stars" besides the sun and moon were known whose orbits wandered among the fixed
stars—the five then-known planets of our solar system. Weren't these also likely to influence
mundane affairs? The zodiac can be used to trace the wandering of the sun among the other stars.
Wasn't the zodiac therefore to be reckoned with?36

37. The fallibility of astrologers was in many cases obvious but instead of probing to see
if the axiomatic foundations of astrology were at fault, many people were inclined to blame
failures on human fallibility. Astrologers were compared to physicians. Who condemns medical
science as a whole because a physician occasionally makes a wrong diagnosis, and fails to be able
to cure all diseases? It may seem inconceivable to modern minds that highly cultured Greeks and
Romans succumbed to the spell of what to some of us seems a monstrous web of truth and fiction.
Yet unless we try to place ourselves as best we can into the spirit of a given historical period, we
cannot hope to understand it from a point of view which resembles to some extent how a person
who lived during that period might have understood it. The two premises on which the fascination of
astrology for many of the best minds of the time was based, according to Cramer, were these: (1) by
the use of the proper techniques the future can be ascertained; (2) astrology alone is a truly
scientific method for doing this. Today many no longer subscribe to these tenets, but many still
believe that anything rationally possible is at least theoretically attainable by scientific means.
When condemning beliefs and actions of the ancient astrologers, one should in fairness remember
their glowing faith in reason.37 It can be sobering to realize that

35 Otto Neugebauer, A Hi sto ry of Ancien t Math ema tical A strono my, 1975, Part Two, p. 613.
36 Cramer, ibid.
37 Cramer, ibid., p. 28 1- 283.
 15

people who lived in past times had as many varieties and degrees of certainty and uncertainty
about their knowledge of the world as we do today. Furthermore, today we can only work with
what fragments of their writings or other material traces have survived up to our present times,
and each of us must interpret such traces as we come in contact with according to our own lights,
and must likewise interpret reports and interpretations of others more recent than the people of the
historical period under consideration.

38. The stars move according to patterns, accessible to reason. Do our lives move
according to patterns accessible to reason? Astrologers of all epochs have believed they do, and
that the patterns of our lives and the patterns of the stars are related in some way. The underlying
argument may be based on analogy. The gods, or God, rules the stars systematically, likewise he
rules us. And—a crucial assumption for astrologers—our movements and the movements of the
stars—by which astrologers customarily meant the planets, taken to include the sun and moon—
are somehow correlated, since they must obey the same commands or laws. From this point of
view, astrologers may fail because they postulate over-simple relationships. As Einstein is reputed
to have once said, everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

39. The Stoics were prime supporters of astrology. Stoicism was one of the foremost
philosophical doctrines of the Hellenistic era. The Stoics as a whole tried to base their views on
what they took to be the best physical science of their time, and they did a fair bit of theorizing
about the nature of things. The physics of the Stoics has been viewed as a kind of deterministic
thermodynamics. According to S. Sambursky, the cornerstone of Stoic physics is the concept of a
continu um in all of its aspects. Among the later Stoics, a revolutionary advance was made when
the dynamic functions of fire and air were extended to cover all natural phenomena. "From a
certain standpoint," he says, "this may be called a first tentative approach to the conception of
thermodynamic processes in the inorganic world, a conception which began to percolate through
into the scientific view of later generations." In addition to the continuum itself, the Stoics had
the concept of pn euma, that which binds matter together. The most significant quality of the
pneuma is a kind of tension "by the force of which", Sambursky says, "it becomes an entity not
altogether unlike the concept of a physical field in contemporary science". 3 8

40. It appears, however, that the Stoics differed among themselves as to the constitution
of nature. According to David Hahm, Zeno, one of the three heads of the heads of the Stoa in the 3 rd
century B.C.E., defined nature as "a craftsmanlike fire, proceeding methodically [literally, by a
path] to genesis." Hahm emphasizes that Zeno means that nature is fire, one of the four basic
elements in the Aristotelian theory of the constitution of nature. 39 Zeno's dynamic "fire" suggests
the concept of energy as used in present-day science. Here Zeno differs sharply from Aristotle, for
whom fire or heat was the most active and important element in nature, but still only a tool that
nature uses to accomplish its ends, and not nature itself. 40

38 S. Sambursky, The Physical World of the Greeks, translated from the Hebrew by Merton Dagut, 1960, p. 132-133,
135.
39 David Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology, 1977, p. 200.
40
Hahm, ibid., p. 207.
 16

41. One of the other heads of the Stoa, Cleanthes, held a similar view, although he seems
to have spoken of "vital heat" rather than fire as the substance that holds together the cosmos. 41
Hahm comments that "the most striking thing about the three functions of heat in Cleanthes is that
they correspond exactly to the three functions of soul in Aristotle"—the nutritive, perceptive and
rational faculties of the soul. (Hahm, l.c., p. 146-7.) What for Aristotle is caused by soul, for
Cleanthes is caused by the vital heat. Finally, Chrysippus, the third of the heads of the Stoa, held the
theory of pneuma which Sambursky refers to. The pneuma according to Chrysippus is a kind of
mixture of fire and air, and it is what the "world-soul" is made out of—for the Stoics believed that
the universe has a soul, albeit a material one. In Chrysippus' view, it is this pneuma which holds
everything together. 42

42. Some of the Stoics were as strict, or stricter, determinists than Laplace. Pierre Simon
Laplace (1749-1827) is a symbol of belief in the usefulness of Newton's laws of classical
mechanics for predicting the future and retrodicting the past, on the basis that the future and past are
completely determined, and completely describable by means of these laws. According to
Newton's prescription, this is to be done by setting up differential equations using his laws of
motion, and solving them to find expressions from which quantitative predictions and
retrodictions can be derived. In his works on celestial mechanics and theory of probabilities,
Laplace asserts that all events, no matter how momentous or insignificant, follow certain
mathematically formulable laws of nature just as surely, he says, as the revolutions of the planets
follow from Newton's laws of motion and gravitation. When people don't know what links events
to the rest of the universe, they may attribute them to final causes, goals to which they tend, or to
divine purpose, or to sheer chance. But, he says, these are only expressions of our ignorance of
true causes. An event can't occur without a cause. We make choices only when we are caused to.
Otherwise our choices would be the result of blind chance, which Laplace rejects. We should
regard the present state of the world as the effect of its previous states, and the cause of its
subsequent states. An intelligence who could know at a given instant values for all the forces or
momenta which propel nature, and values for the positions of all the bodies in it, could enter these
values into statements of the laws of mechanics and calculate future or past momenta and positions.
However much of nature is determined by forces and positions—Laplace evidently believed this
to be all of nature—could be predicted or retrodicted in this way. However, Laplace says, the
human mind offers only a weak idea of such an intelligence, as seen in the perfection which it has
been able to bring to astronomy and mechanics. By way of comparison, for the Stoics everything
comes to pass in the world according to an unbroken causal connection, according to a law of fate,
in which not even a god can change something.43 Manilius' line, fata regunt orbem, certa stant
omnia lege (the fates rule the world, all things exist by law), may be regarded as pure Stoicism. 44

43. Aristotle thought there were two kinds of physics, one for the sublunary world, and
one for the heavens. Some hold that the Stoics invented astrophysics, in a manner of speaking,
41 Hahm, ibid., p. 142.

43 Cf. Max Pohlenz, Die Stoa, Geschichte einer geistigen Bewegung, 1948, v. 1, p. 102.
42 Hahm, ibid., p. 158, 165.
44 Manilius, Astronomica, between 9 and 15 A.D.
 17

because they believed that the same physical laws apply throughout the universe. They believed
that such laws determine everything that happens. Nevertheless, they maintained we are still free in
the sense that we can always choose to accept what is going to happen as Fate and Nature decree,
or not. This constitutes living according to nature. Whether or not we do live according to Nature
makes no difference to what happens. What is bound to happen will happen anyway. But how we
choose makes a great difference to the quality of our lives. We can act in conflict with Nature,
and suffer disappointment and pain and grief. Or we can walk with Fate, and achieve peace.
Furthermore, according to the Stoics, since all things are constituted of one and the same stuff,
and subject in every respect to the same laws, there is a kind of universal "cosmic sympathy" among
things, which is what makes divination and astrology work.45

44. H. Rackham says: "The Stoics ... held that the universe is controlled by God, and in
the last resort is God. The sole ultimate reality is the divine Mind, which expresses itself in the
world-process. But only matter exists, for only matter can act and be acted upon; mind therefore is
matter in its subtlest form, Fire or Breath or Aether. The primal fiery Spirit creates out of itself
the world that we know, persists in it as its heat or soul or 'tension,' is the cause of all movement
and all life, and ultimately by a universal conflagration will reabsorb the world into itself. But
there will be no pause: at once the process will begin again, unity will again pluralize itself, and all
will repeat the same course as before. Existence goes on for ever in endlessly recurring cycles,
following a fixed law or formula (logos); this law is Fate or Providence, ordained by God: the
Stoics even said that the 'Logos' is God. And the universe is perfectly good: badness is only
apparent, evil only means the necessary imperfection of the parts viewed separately from the
whole. The Stoic system then was determinist: but in it nevertheless they found room for freedom
of the will. Man's acts like all other occurrences are the necessary effects of causes; yet man's
will is free, for it rests with him either willingly to obey necessity, the divine ordinance, or to
submit to it with reluctance. His happiness lies in using his divine intellect to understand the laws
of the world, and in submitting his will thereto." 4 6

45. Auguste Bouch ª-Leclercq says of Stoic attitudes toward astrology: "That which
especially predisposed the Stoics to declare themselves guarantors of astrological speculations,
and to look for demonstrable reasons for them, was their unshakable faith in the legitimacy of
divination, of which astrology is only one particular form. They never wanted to depart from a
kind of reasoning that their adversaries considered a vicious circle and which can be summarized
like this: ‘If the gods exist, they speak; in fact they speak, therefore they exist.’ 47 The conception
of beings of superior intelligence that would be forbidden to communicate with man appeared to
them to be nonsense." However, Bouch ª-Leclercq says, an ordinary person wants to know the future
in order to avoid predicted dangers. On the face of it, this involves the person in a contradiction. For
he or she wants to be able to modify what has been predicted to be certain to happen. Some of the
Stoics "exhaust themselves in vain efforts to reconcile logic, which leads

45 Cf. Jim Tester,A History of Western Astrology, 1987, p. 30, 32, 68-69.
46 H. Rackham, Introduction to edition and translation (1933, 1951) of De natura deorum (On the Nature of the
Gods) by Cicero (106-43 B.C.), p. viii- ix.
47 This employs the fallacy of affirming the consequent, or assuming the converse, but Bouch ª-Leclercq says in a
note that it is "the citadel" of the Stoics —this is hard to believe, given the acuteness of some Stoics.
 18

straight to fatalism, with practical common sense, which demands of divination some usable
warnings."

46. It appears, though, that we can escape from this contradiction by holding that when
we divine the will of the gods, we find what will happen if such and such conditions aren't met— a
sacrifice or other offering is not made, or the like. Bouché-Leclercq argues against this. He says:
"If the future is conditional, it cannot be foreseen, since the conditions could be too, in which
case there would be no more place among them for free acts, with freedom escaping by definition
because of the necessity of arriving at a decision set down in advance." That is, if some future
outcomes depend on and can be influenced by actions previous to the outcomes, then the
outcomes cannot be predicted. For if they could be predicted, then what previous actions will be
taken could also be predicted, since the previous actions are themselves future outcomes. Thus
there is no real choice possible among previous actions to be taken. 4 8

47. However, Bouch ª-Leclercq assumes here unrestricted divination. The Stoic Epictetus
(1 st century A.D.) says: "What can the diviner see more than death or danger or disease or
generally things of that sort? Does he know what is expedient, does he know what is good, has
he learnt signs to distinguish between good things and bad, like the signs in the flesh of victims
[animals sacrificed]? Therefore that is a good answer that the lady made who wished to send the
shipload of supplies to Gratilla in exile, when one said, 'Domitian will take them away': 'I would
rather', she said, 'that Domitian should take them away than that I should not send them.' What
then leads us to consult diviners so constantly? Cowardice, fear of events. That is why we flatter
the diviners. 'Master, shall I inherit from my father?' "Let us see; let us offer sacrifice.' 'Yes,
master, as fortune wills.' When he says, 'You shall inherit', we give thanks to him as though we
had received the inheritance from him. That is why they go on deluding us." 49 Epictetus seems to
be suggesting that a diviner can see some things which will happen in the future (death, danger,
disease), but not others (what is good or bad). To this extent, he doesn't admit unrestricted
divination. No matter what diviners say is portended, we should do what is good, not what is bad.
Presumably, then, we are free to choose our moral attitudes to what is inevitable.

48. Bouch ª-Leclercq continues: "The Stoics valiantly accepted the consequences of their
own principles. They used them to demonstrate the reality of Providence, the certainty of
divination,and they went into ecstasies at every turn about the beautiful order of the world, due to
the punctual carrying out of a divine plan, as immutable as it is wise. But they were no less
decisive in rejecting the moral consequences of fatalism, above all the 'lazy reasoning', which
always ends by letting inevitable destiny alone. Chrysippus turned out prodigies of ingenuity to
loosen, without breaking, the links with Necessity, distinguishing between necessity properly so-
called, and predestination, between 'perfect and principal' causes and 'adjuvant' [auxiliary,
catalytic] causes, between things fated in themselves and things "cofated" or fated by association;
trying to distinguish, from the point of view of fatality, between the past, of which the contrary is
in reality impossible, and the future, of which the contrary is also impossible, but

Auguste Bouch ª- Leclerq, L'Astrologie grecque, 1899, reprinted 1963, p. 3 1- 32.

48
49Arrian'sDiscourses of Epictetus, II.47; translated by P. E. Matheson, in The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers,
1940, edited by Whitney Oates, p. 293.
 19

which can be conceived as possible. All things considered, the Stoic school succeeded in saving
only the freedom of the Sage, which consists in freely wanting what the universal Intelligence
wants. The Sage exercises this freedom better, the better and longer in advance he knows the
divine plan."50

49. Here is how it appeared in the 2 n d century A.D. to a Stoic astrologer, Vettius Valens:
"Fate has decreed for every human being the unalterable realization of his horoscope, fortifying it
with many causes of good and bad things to come. Because of them, two self-begotten goddesses,
Hope and Chance, act as the servants of Destiny. They rule our lives. By compulsion and
deception they make us accept what has been decreed. One of them [Chance] manifests herself to
all through the outcome of the horoscope, showing herself sometimes as good and kind,
sometimes as dark and cruel The other [Hope] is neither dark nor serene; she hides herself and
goes around in disguise and smiles at everyone like a flatterer and points out to them many
attractive prospects that are impossible to attain. By such deceit she rules most people, and they,
though tricked by her and dependent on pleasure, let themselves be pulled back to her, and full of
hope they believe that their wishes will be fulfilled; and then they experience what they do not
expect Those who are not familiar with astrological forecasts and have no wish to study them
are driven away and enslaved by the goddesses mentioned above; they undergo every kind of
punishment and suffer gladly But those who make truth and the forecasting of the future their
profession acquire a soul that is free and not subject to slavery. They despise Chance, do not
persist in hoping, are not afraid of death, and live unperturbed. They have trained their souls to be
brave and are not puffed up by prosperity nor depressed by adversity but accept contentedly what
comes their way. Since they have renounced all kinds of pleasure and flattery, they have become
good soldiers of Fate. For it is impossible by prayers or sacrifice to overcome the foundation that
was laid in the beginning and substitute another more to one's liking. Whatever is in store for us
will happen even if we do not pray for it; what is not fated will not happen, despite our prayers.
Like actors on the stage who change their masks according to the poet's text and calmly play kings
or robbers or farmers or common folk or gods, so, too, we must act the characters that Fate has
assigned to us and adapt ourselves to what happens in any given situation, even if we do not
agree. For if one refuses, "he will suffer anyway and get no credit" [Cleanthes]."51

50. Tamsyn Barton is somewhat skeptical about considering Stoics to have been as much
devoted to astrology as has been claimed by some. She says, in connection with the flourishing of
astrology in Late Republican Rome: "Much has been attributed to the influence of the Stoic
Posidonius on Rome on elite Romans in the generation before Cicero and Caesar in making
astrology intellectually respectable. But, as A. A. Long (1982) observes, the older authorities who
formed this consensus, such as Cumont, were writing at a time when it was fashionable to see
Posidonius’ tademark everywhere. Long rightly casts a skeptical eye over the evidence for Stoic
enthusiasn for astrology in the earlu period. It is true that in Stoicism the existence of the gods
required divination and that astrology would suit the Stoic search for natural signs revealing

50 Bouch ª-Leclercq, l.c.

51 Vettius Valens, Anthologiae, quoted and translated by Georg Luck in Arcana Mundi, Magic and the Occult in the
Greekand Roman Worlds, 1985, p. 349-350.
 20

the order of the universe, but the evidence is scanty. … This is the period in which horoscopic
astrology takes off in the Hellenistic world, and it could be seen as a natural move from other
sorts of divination. He concludes, however, that astrology was at most a subordinate feature of
Stoic interest in divination." On the other hand, Barton says "Long is surely right to recognize
that the Stoics cannot be convincingly isolated as the determining factor in the rise to
prominence of astrology in Rome, though he overstates the case against their interest, in this
period. It seems clear that Stoic ideas, as generally diffused among the ruling elite, did lend
themselves to the support of astrology, and that their concept of cosmic sympatheia (harmony)
binding together the heavens and the earth became the first axiom of philosophical astrology. "5 2

51. Laplace's deterministic methods of prediction might well have been welcomed by
Hellenistic astrologers, since his methods, derived from those of Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Euler
and other scientists of their time, would have enabled them to calculate the past and future
positions of the stars with techniques in some ways superior to those of Ptolemy. Such
calculations are the basis of astrology, in most any way the term is properly defined. Frederick
Cramer says that in republican Rome from 140 B.C.E. to the death of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.E.,
the more a person adhered to Stoicism, the more liable he or she would be to accept fatalistic
astrology. The 96 years from the consulate of Laelius (140 B.C.E.) to the death of Julius Caesar
encompassed a crucial period in the history of astrology in the Roman republic. In 139 B.C.E.
astrologers had been summarily expelled as undesirable foreigners. By the time of Julius Caesar's
death, the majority of Rome's upper class had been converted to a belief in it. To a humanist who
believed in rationalism and the governance of nature by immutable laws linking cause and effect,
astrology was scientific, and it linked mundane causality with the cosmic laws which regulated
the movements of the stars and ruled the universe. 53

52. Tamsyn Barton says that "It is striking that astrology in any form was marginal to
Roman elite politics until the late Republic." 54 Barton is especially concerned with relations of
astrologers and astrological practices (as well as physiognomy and medicine) to political power. It
seems sure that knowledge of the future is often related to desire for or use of power, from
political power on a large scale down to power of individuals over some parts of their daily lives.
What is wanted or expected or declared to be in a future will give, for non-fatalists, opportunities
to change outcomes, and for strict fatalists, opportunities to accommodate to them. In studying this
question for high-level political power in the Late Roman Republic, Barton distinguishes three
kinds of forecasting or divination. "First, there was the college of augurs, who were originally
concerned with interpreting the movements and cries of birds, though by the first century B.C. and
probably for some time before that the auspices were generally taken by feeding the sacred fowl.
… Second, there the XV viri sacrisfaciundis (literally, the Fifteen Men for Doing Sa cred Things),
the keepers of the Sibylline Books, a set of poems in Greek supposedly bought from a prophetess
by the last king of Rome … The third group is more confusing. The name haruspices,
traditionally associated with Etruria, is used to describe interpreters of both prodigies and the
entrails of sacrificial animals. … The keynote of roman

52 Tamsyn Barton, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Physiognomics, and Medicine under the Roman Empire,
1994, p. 37-3 8. The reference to Long is A. A. Long, "Astrology: arguments pro and contra" in Science and
Speculation: Studies in Hellenistic Theory and Practice, ed. J. Barnes et al., 165 -92, 1982.
53 Cramer, ibid., p. 58, 80.
54 Barton, ibid., p. 33.
 21

divination remains clear, however. It was a matter of establishing and maintaining the pax
deorum (peace of the gods) in relation to the city. Divination, like other religious activity, is
closely implicated in political activity; indeed, it is an integral part of it." 55

53. A reverent attitude toward the stars was not universal in the Hellenistic era. However, for
the Stoics, the starry sky was the "purest embodiment of reason in the cosmic hierarchy, the
paradigm of intelligibility, and therefore of the divine aspect of the sensible realm."56 Marcus
Aurelius tells us that we should watch the stars in their courses as if we were running along with
them, and that we should continually think about how the elements change into one another, for
such thoughts wash away the foulness of life on earth.57 But this view of the world was turned
upside down by some of the so-called Gnostics. Here I refer to Gnosticism in a sense intended to
cover certain variant forms of Christianity, such as that of Origen (c. 185-255 C.E.).58

54. "On the other hand," E. R. Dodds says, "some modern scholars apply the term to any
system which preaches a way of escape from the world by means of a special enlightenment not
available to all, and not dependent on reason." Dodds calls St. Paul a Gnostic in this latter sense,
citing Corinthians 1:2.14-15, and observes that the Hermetica , the liturgy of the Mithraists and
the obscure Chaldean Oracles have been called "pagan gnosis." 59

55. Simon Magus, Simon the Magician, self-styled messiah, a rival of Jesus, is often
counted as a Gnostic. Many believe he is the Simon who appears in the New Testament: "But
there was a man named Simon who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the
nation of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great." 60 Simon professed conversion to
Christianity, but when he saw the apostles Peter and John laid hands on people of Samaria so they
could receive the Holy Spirit, he offered them money for this power. Peter stingingly rebuked
him, telling Simon that his heart was not right before God, and that he was in the bond of
iniquity.61 The contrast here is presumably between the truly religious, who strive to be without
sin and submit to God's will, and magicians, who strive for power over men, nature and even the
gods themselves. Simon sometimes used the nickname Faustus, "the favored one". Jonas says:
"...this in connection with his permanent cognomen "the Magician" and the fact that he was
accompanied by a Helena [whom he said he had found in a brothel in Tyre and] whom he claimed to
be the reborn Helen of Troy shows clearly that we have here one of the sources of the Faust legend
of the early Renaissance. Surely few admirers of Marlowe's and Goethe's plays have an inkling
that their hero is the descendant of a Gnostic sectary, and that the beautiful Helen called up by his
art was once the fallen Thought of God through whose raising mankind was to be saved."62

55 Barton, ibid., p. 33- 34.

56 Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, 2 nd edition, 1963, p. 254.
57 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VII.47
58 Cf. Michael A. Williams, Rethinking "Gnosticism ”: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category, 1996.
59 E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age ofAnxiety, Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus
Aurelius to Constantine, 1968, p. 18.
60 Acts 8.9, Revised Standard Version.
61 Acts 8.9 -24.
62 Jonas, ibid., p. 111, 104.
 22

56. Gnosticism, in one of its major forms, is a kind of extreme cosmic pessimism which
splits the world into a divine part completely unknowable by man, and a physical part, including
man, which is totally separated from the divine, and was created not by the unknown God, but by an
inferior spirit, a demiurge, a perversion of the divine, whose main traits are domination and
power. Gnostic beliefs were considered blasphemous by many among both the classical Greeks
and the early Christians. For these Greeks, Gnosticism ran counter to the conceptions of the
divinity of the cosmos, the ordered, animated and intelligent world, in which man, though not
perfect, could aspire to the greater perfection of the stars. This perfection is a harmony, a fitting
together of the parts of the world into a unified whole, which according to mathematicians in the
tradition of Pythagoras (c. 500 B.C.E.) produced a "music of the spheres", inaudible to humans,
but within the range of human reason (as Kepler so fervently believed), and therefore audible
within, like music remembered. Many Christians could not accept the doctrine of the creation of
world by an inferior spirit, nor the severance of God from the government of the physical world
and man. The rule of the Gnostic demiurge who controls the physical world was taken to be a kind
of tyranny, not a kind of providence.

57. Gnostics opposed the deification of the chief heavenly bodies, as found in most of
the religions of antiquity. The world-view of astrology had evolved among the Stoics from
Babylonian star worship into a religion in which the cosmic is identified with the divine. This
played into the hands of Gnostics. The astrological beliefs of the Stoics required a passive
subjection to a rigid necessity. Hence no value could be attached to the cosmos. The aim of the
majority of Stoics was to maintain a neutral attitude toward good and evil, and to submit to what
must be. Gnostics looked at and evaluated the world of the Stoics from outside of it, and the
experience of the cosmos for them changed from a worshipful to a terrifying one.

58. "We can imagine," Jonas says, "with what feelings gnostic men must have looked up
to the starry sky. How evil its brilliance must have looked to them, how alarming its vastness and
the rigid immutability of its courses, how cruel its muteness! The music of the spheres was no
longer heard, and the admiration for the perfect spherical form gave place to the terror of so
much perfection directed at the enslavement of man .... Here we can discern the profound
connection which exists between the discovery of the self, the despiritualizing of the world, and the
positing of the transcendental God." 63

59. Lynn Thorndike reports on a sect, the Mandaeans, derived from or having sources in
common with Gnosticism which seems to still exist, or at least did in the late 19 th century. Their
adherents represent the planets as evil beings, and Jesus Christ as a false prophet and magician
produced by the planet Mercury. They had great affection for numerology. Thorndike says: "A
peculiarity of Mandaean astronomy and astrology is that the heavenly bodies are all believed to
rotate about the polar star. Mandaeans always face it when praying; their sanctuaries are built so
that persons entering it face it; and even the dying man is placed so that his feet point and eyes
gaze in its direction." 64 In the Northern Hemisphere, it certainly looks like most of the heavenly
bodies rotate about the polar star.

63 Jonas, ibid., p. 261, 263.

64 Thorndike, A H i s t o r y o f M a g ic a n d E x p e r i me n t a l M e d i c i n e , 1923-1958, v. 1, 1923, p. 383-384.
 23

60. Tamshyn Barton remarks that an "indication of the subversive potential that led to
the repression of astrology [by various Christian authorities] is the fact that the Fathers [of the
Church] also discuss it in connection with heretical doctrines. Indeed, it is the Gnostics who
seem to spark off the first direct attacks on astrology … Hippolytis of Rome (martyred 235)
attacked the Gnostics with particular emphasis on their astrology in his Refu ta tion o fAll
Heresies, taking his detailed argumentation from Sextus Empiricus. He justifies this excursus,
having carefully disclaimed any knowledge of the art: “But since, estimating the astrological art as
a powerful one, and availing 'themselves of the testimonies adduced by its patrons, they wish to
gain reliance for their own attempted conclusions, we shall at present, as it has seemed expedient,
prove the astrological art to be untenable, as out intention is to invalidate the Peratic system [of
certain Gnostics], as a branch growing out of an unstable root.'"65

61. Among the philosophical views of the Hellenistic era, it is the Stoic, with its
reverence for an orderly cosmos, which is closest to that of the physical cosmology of our own
day, even given the uncertainties and indeterminacies of quantum mechanics. The views of the
Gnostics are compared by Jonas to those of our recent past in which people declare, with
Nietzsche, that God is dead. 66 Gnostics declare that the God of the cosmos is dead. Still, Gnostics
believe they can achieve a kind of freedom by coming to know the fix we are in --hence their
name, from gnosis, knowledge. Gnosticism resembles nihilism of a Nietzschean kind, being based
on a view of nature in which there is no reference to ends or purpose, in which values and
meanings can no longer be found, but must be willed by us, when we can. This at least makes our
wills free. Dreadful freedom, the existentialists called it. An estrangement of Man and Nature can
arise from believing that nature, like the Gnostic God, is indifferent to man. However, even
estranged from nature, we can find value in nature's orderliness, experienced as beauty, and
satisfaction in understanding and manipulating what we can of it.

62. One of the other great philosophical doctrines of antiquity was Epicureanism.
Rackham says: "Epicurus [based] his main theory of nature ... upon the atomism of Democritus,
holding that the real universe consists in innumerable atoms of matter moving by the force of
gravity through an infinity of empty space. Our world and all its contents, and also innumerable
other worlds, are temporary clusters of atoms fortuitously collected together in the void; they are
constantly forming and constantly dissolving, without plan or purpose ... The gods (like
everything else) consist of fortuitous clusters of atoms ... But it is impious to fancy that gods are
burdened with the labour of upholding or guiding the universe; the worlds go on of themselves,
by purely mechanical causation; the gods live a life of undisturbed bliss in the intermundia, the
empty regions of space between the worlds."67

63. Broadly speaking, the contrast is between a universe in which there are irreducible
chance, disorder, probabilities, and unpredictability, compared with a universe in which there are
order, law, regularity and certainties, perhaps to the point of complete determinism. It is possible to
have it both ways. For example, a number of American Indian groups maintained myths which
combined chance and order. For example, Ray Williamson says that the hogan , the

65 Thorndike, ibid., p. 63.

66 Jonas, ibid., Chapter 13.
67 Rackham, ibid., p. viii.
 24

prototype of the traditional Navaho dwelling, appears in Navaho creations myths as the home of
many different creatures, and also as a place of creation. The stars, for example, are created there.
"The story of the creation of the stars is central to the Navajo conception of the universe," says
Williamson, "a universe that is essentially ordered just as the hogan is ordered but which also
contains mischievous forces of disorder. In this story, Coyote, the trickster, introduces disorder
into the heavens by upsetting the intended orderly arrangement of the stars." 68

64. According to Gladys Reichard, Coyote is an exponent of irresponsibility and lack of

direction. He seems to be an uncontrolled aspect of either Sun himself, or as the child of Sun or
Sky, Coyote represents lust on earth, thus matching Sun's promiscuity as a celestial being.
Reichard says: "Coyote, however, observes no rules. Sun, though reluctant and protesting,
assumes responsibility for his childred; Coyote sates his desire and leaves confusion or worse
behind him. Any good that Coyote accomplishes is fortuitous; Sun's good deeds, though forced,
result in control. Coyote does all the daring things Sun would like to do—in fact, once did; Sun
secretly gloats over them, but of necessity appears to disapprove Order, the foundation of
Navaho ritual, is reversed in Coyote's character. He threw the stars into the sky in a haphazard
manner, he defied hunting rules, he vacillated between evil and good in the ceremonial assembly, he
chose October, a changeable and uncertain month, to be his. Plants representing him in the rites
are unselected, as are his arrow feathers, and his songs are not grouped in order. After the Bats
had killed him, they ground up his skin with soil from undesignated places and scattered the mixture
in every direction." 69

65. Williamson says of the Chumash Indians of California: "For the Chumash the entire
universe and the supernatural powers within it were constantly in flux. Without supernatural
intervention from humans, the powers of the world could readily produce events with cataclysmic
results. The astronomers of the 'antap cult ... had within their province the duty to seek out the
necessary knowledge from the celestial beings, to foresee the future, and to take the proper steps to
alter the upcoming course of events for the well-being of their fellow Chumash For the native
Californian, the celestial realm was a place of power and danger. By carefully timing their
intercessions with the beings who peopled the Upper World, the shamans who understood the
movements of the sky could wrest some of the celestial power to their own uses. Because that
power could also be highly dangerous, the shamans had to be especially careful to watch for just
the right moment, lest they bring ill to the people for whom they strove to understand and use the
power of the cosmos." 70

66. None of us, it seems, is important on the scale of galaxies or electrons, at least if
importance is to be judged by size. Some believe we have not evolved according to a master plan.
Many biologists nowadays subscribe to a lack of premeditated design. One might say that among
Darwinists, or rather neo-Darwinists, there are few Stoics, many Epicureans. Epicurean
Darwinists, if they are consistent, appear to be left in a world without plan, subject to vicissitudes of
fortune, though they tend to call it randomness, since fortune has an overtone of outside
influence. Many wish to be saved from such a world. Mircea Eliade says:. "It could be said that

68 Ray Williamson, L i v i n g t h e S k y , 1984, p. 162.

69 Gladys Reichard, N a v a h o R e l i g i o n , 1950, p. 79, 183.
70 Williamson, ibid., p. 279, 297.
 25

the promise of salvation attempts to exorcise the redoubtable power of the goddess Tyche
(Chance; Latin, Fo rtu na ). Capricious and unpredictable, Tyche indifferently brings good or evil
...............[To overcome this] Destiny ends by being associated with astral fatalism. The existence of
individuals as well as the duration of cities and states is determined by the stars. This doctrine and,
with it, astrology—the technique that applies its principles—develop under the impulse given by
the Babylonians' observations of the heavenly bodies. To be sure, the theory of micro-
macrocosmic correspondences had long been known in Mesopotamia ... and elsewhere in the
Asian world. However, this time man not only feels that he shares in the cosmic rhythms but
discovers that his life is determined by the motions of the stars."71

67. Notions of a regular universe are intimately tied to motions of the stars. Pliny says:
"For all over the world, in all places, and at all times, Fortune is the only God whom every one
invokes; she alone is spoken of, she alone is accused and is supposed to be guilty; she alone is in
our thoughts, is praised and blamed, and is loaded with reproaches wavering as she is, conceived
by the generality of mankind to be blind, wandering, inconstant, uncertain, variable, and often
favouring the unworthy. To her are referred all our losses and all our gains, and in casting up the
accounts of mortals she alone balances the two pages of our sheet. We are so much in the power of
chance, that chance itself is considered as a God, and the existence of God becomes doubtful. But
there are others who reject this principle and assign events to the influence of the stars, and to the
laws of our nativity; they suppose that God, once for all, issues his decrees and never afterwards
interferes. This opinion begins to gain ground, and both the learned and unlearned vulgar are
falling into it." 72

68. In the Hellenistic Age, Michael Grant reports, "tens of thousands of people were
gripped by an unreasonable, dismal, desperate conviction that everything in the world was under
the total control of Tyche: Fortune, Chance or Luck. There was a deep-seated feeling that men
and women were adrift in an uncaring universe, and that everything was hazardous, beyond
human control or understanding or prediction. And so the cult of Chance swept conqueringly
over the Mediterranean " To many it seemed that Chance and Fortune were beyond the
comprehension of human beings.

69. The historian Polybius of Megalopolis (c. 200 -- after 118) placed Tyche at the center
of the world he was depicting because he felt that the taking over of the Mediterranean area by the
Romans was an event that could only be explained in this way. "However," says Grant, "his
interpretations of what 'Fortune' actually means are varied and shifting, like most people's views on
the subject. Sometimes he sees Tyche as everything that lies beyond human control, or displays
no rational causes. Sometimes her name is his label to describe purely haphazard coincidences—
or to reflect the fact that anything can happen to anyone at any time. Occasionally there is a hint of
a purposive Providence, or of the old Greek idea, so familiar from

71 Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, 1978; translation by Willard Trask of Histoire des croyances et des
id ªes religieuses, 1976, v. 1, p. 69, 83.
72 Pliny, Natural History, 77 A.D., II.v.22 -24, Latin edited by H. Rackham, 1938, p. 182, 184, translation to English
by John Bostock and H. T. Riley, 1855, p. 23-24. From Rackham's preface, p. vii -viii: “[Pliny's] interest in science
finally cost him his life, at the age of 56. He was in command of the fleet at Misenum on the Bay of Naples in A.D.
79 when the famous eruption of Vesuvius took place on August23 and 24, overwhelming the little towns of
Herculaneum and Pompeii. Pliny as a man of science sailed across the bay to obtain a nearer view; he landed at
Stabiae, and there was killed by poisonous fumes."
 26

the tragic drama, that it is Fortune's task to see that mortal wickedness, or even excessive
prosperity, is penalized. Yet Polybius also views Tyche as basically amoral, and just as likely to
hurt the virtuous. But it is in large-scale operations that his Tyche really comes into play: when
huge and capricious events upset the balance of history, and the fortunes of nations are abruptly
and sensationally reversed. However, when another, rational cause is perceptible, he prefers to
invoke that instead, calling upon Tyche only when no such rational cause can be detected." 73

70. During the centuries immediately before and after the beginning of the Christian era,
people started to speak less about Fortune and more about Fate and Destiny: "Fate was often
viewed as a general scheme ruling the world and creating a chain of remorseless mechanical
causation. Certainly, there wasn't always much difference, in people's minds, between 'chance
would have it so' and 'it was fated to be so'. But some writers, realizing that it is illogical to
believe in them both at one and the same time, tried to distinguish between them." For example,
Zeno the Stoic (d. 263 B.C.E.) saw belief in Fate and causation as the more respectable, and his
follower Cleanthes coupled Destiny with Zeus himself. The Stoics identified Fate with Divine
Reason, which determines everything and demands our acceptance. Epicurus, however, believed
it was worse to serve such Fate than to serve even the useless popular gods. The wise, said
Epicurus, scorn Fate. Many others felt oppressed by the inescapable and boring despotism of
Fate, which appeared to ruthlessly restrict the value of human behavior. Nevertheless, millions
accepted its tyranny.74

71. "A clear proof that what happens above affects what happens below seemed to be
provided by the visible influence that the heavenly bodies exert on the world: the sun makes the
vegetation grow and die, and causes animals to sleep and go on heat; storms and floods come and go
according to the rise and fall of constellations; and the moon appears to control the tides like a
magnet—the laws of tide-generating gravitation being unknown, this relationship (in so far as it
interested the dwellers round an almost tideless sea) was explained by cosmic sympathy between a
supposedly watery planet and the element of water in earth. So the whole doctrine seemed to hang
together neatly, completely, and rationally, in coherence with the sciences. Yet it is based on a
complete fallacy. The generalization that links all human activities, as well as the physical
properties of the earth, to the heavenly bodies is quite without foundation. The pedigree of this set
of beliefs had been antique and complex. The Greek tragic poets described sun, moon and stars as
deities, and Plato accepted this belief, weaving an elaborate astral theology into the fabric of his
ideal state. Aristotle, too, far from hostile to a relationship between earth and stars, regarded the
latter as intelligent, divine beings—an interpretation that almost all Hellenistic writers shared.
People were learning with fascinated interest about the star-worship and astrological practices of
the Babylonians, for example from Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 390-340); and once Alexander the Great
had absorbed Babylonia into the world of the Greeks, professional astrologers began to transmit
and adapt its traditions to the west." 75

72. "The moon,” Pierre Duhem says, plays a preponderant role in the astrology ultimately
based on this principle, and "the laws of the tides prove, with evidence, the reality of this lunar
action and consequently of all the influences which emanate from celestial bodies." Duhem

73 Michael Grant, From Alexander to Cleopatra, The Hellenistic World, 1982, p. 2 14- 222.
74 Grant, ibid.
75 Grant, ibid.
 27

shows how one of the most influential of the early Stoic astrologers, Posidonius (c. 135-50
B.C.E.), was also much interested in explaining tides. Also, the 9t h century Arabian astrologer Abu
Ma'shar (Albumasar) devoted 6 chapters of his Introductorium to a theory of tides, from which
Duhem quotes extensively. 76 This work by Abu Ma'shar was very influential on European
scholars during the European Middle Ages, as a source of both astrology and of the works of
Aristotle on nature.

73. The Eudoxus of Cnidus referred to by Grant was one of the great mathematicians and
cosmologists of classic Greece. Otto Neugebauer refers to the "oft -quoted remark of Cicero that
Eudoxus has written that one should not believe the Chaldean practice of predicting the fate of a
person from the day of his birth", which appears to say that Eudoxus rejected horoscopic
astrology. 77 However, Neugebauer goes on to observe that "from the day of birth" may not refer to
astronomical prediction, but to a practice like that attested to by Herodotus (II, 82), who says that
the Egyptians "assign each month and each day" to a god and that "they can tell what fortune,
what end, and what disposition a man shall have according to the day of his birth."78

74. This view of Neugebauer seems to have been misunderstood by P. M. Fraser who
says flatly of astrology (in general) that "Eudoxus is the first to reveal familiarity with it, even
though he rejects its doctrines." 79 Fraser's chief source for this evaluation appears to be the
remark made by Cicero. He also refers to Neugebauer's evaluation, saying that Neugebauer
"questions whether this is necessarily a reference to astronomical prediction," without noticing
that this leaves open the possibility that Eudoxus may have approved of some of the astrological
doctrines of the Chaldeans. Fraser, like Grant, is eager to separate the scientific from the pseudo-
scientific achievements of the Ptolemaic Alexandrians, according to what scientists of Fraser's
time considered scientific and pseudo-scientific. Astrology, along with alchemy and astrological
medicine, he counts among the "corrupted" sciences, "superstitions" which have "encroached on
scientific thought". "There is indeed," he says, "scarcely a branch of science which did not, in the
course of time, produce its own bastard—the fruit of a decline in scientific originality, combined
with superstition and philosophical fatalism." 80 There is reminiscent of trying to decide whether
viruses are forerunners of cells or bacteria, or degenerate cells or bacteria, or something else.

75. Grant and Fraser are hard on believers in astrology. Presumably they mean people
who believe in judicial or horoscopic astrology of the kind introduced in Hellenistic Egypt,
versions of which are still prevalent today. Perhaps, though, they are condemning astral fatalism in
general. They may be objecting to an overextended determinism which so many people find
morally repugnant or instinctively incredible. But in former times a kind of compound of
astronomy and astrology was the rule, and separating the two by today's criteria may distort both
the motivation and the legacy of the achievements of the astronomer/astrologers of the past.

76 Pierre Duhem, Le Syst ©me du Monde, 1913, v. 2, p. 280- 286,

377-386, 390.
77 Cicero, De divinatione II, 42, 87.
78 Otto Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 1957, p. 88. 1
79 P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1972, v. 1, p. 435, and 2, p. 629, of the reprint of 1984. v.
80 Fraser, ibid.
 28

76. One of the great goals of mathematicians, astronomers, physicists and other natural
philosophers has been to discover and describe quantitative constancy, invariance, pattern, and
order in nature, and, on the other hand, to find quantitative ways to deal with variability,
turbulence, randomness and chance. The first of these aims tends to lead them to determinism, and
the second tends to leads them to limitations of determinism. In favorable cases, scientists of this
kind find laws or other devices for predicting future and retrodicting past behavior of physical
systems with some acceptable degree of accuracy. In cases even more favorable, they find laws
which require only small amounts of information and time, relative to human lifetimes, for useful or
revealing applications of predicting and retrodicting. Such laws are especially useful when they
are mathematical in nature.

77. "I will not go so far as to say," A. N. Whitehead once said, "that to construct a
history of thought without profound study of the mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like
omitting Hamlet from the play which is named after him. That would be claiming too much. But
it is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia. This simile is singularly exact. For
Ophelia is quite essential to the play, she is very charming—and a little mad."81

78. One may conjecture that development of mathematical thought beyond mere counting
was initiated, or at least strongly accelerated, by consideration of celestial objects. Archeo-
astronomers have found increasing evidence that many ancient peoples in parts of the world from
Scotland to south of the Sahara desert, from pre- Hispanic Mexico to the Egypt of the Pharaohs,
had a fairly sophisticated understanding of celestial phenomena, to some extent mathematical in
nature.82

79. Development of mathematics went hand-in-hand with development of astronomy. In

contrast with unpredictable and capricious gods of nature, there arose, in connection, it seems,
with consciousness of time, a vision of the divine manifesting itself in a temporal dominion over
the precise and apparently unvarying cyclic paths of the sun, moon, planets and stars. Such
thoughts are found in Plato's E pi n omis. Plato asks how we are to get wisdom. He runs through a
number of domains of knowledge—farming, the useful and fine arts, sciences of war, medicine
and transportation, and says that none of them constitute wisdom. He asks what single science
there is which, if it were taken away from mankind or never had made its appearance, people
would become thoughtless and foolish creatures. Answer: mathematics, the knowledge of number.
And, Plato says, our knowledge of mathematics comes to us from Ouranos, the god of the heavens.
Call him Ouranos, Cosmos, or whatever you please, he is the source of all good things, such as the
seasons and our food. And with the sequence of whole numbers, Ouranos gives us understanding.
This, says Plato, is the greatest gift of all, if people will only accept it, and let their minds range
over the heavens. 83

80. Similar thoughts are found in Plato's dialogue Timaeu s: "Sight, then, in my judgment
is the cause of the highest benefits to us in that no word of our present discourse about the
universe could ever have been spoken, had we never seen stars, Sun, and sky. But as it is, the

81 Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1928, p. 26-27.
82 See, e.g., James Cornell, The First Stargazers, An Introduction to the Origins ofAstronomy, 1981.
83 Plato, translation by Raymond Klibansky in Philebus and Epinomis, 1956, reprinted in The Collected Dialogues
of Plato, 1961, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, p. 1519-1520.
 29

sight of day and night, of months and the revolving years, of equinox and solstice, has caused the
invention of number and bestowed on us the notion of time and the study of the nature of the
world; whence have derived all philosophy, than which no greater boon has ever come or shall
come to mortal man as a gift from heaven." 84 Plato evidently took philosophy to include what
many today would classify as science and mathematics.

81. Of the Demiurge, the Creator, Plato says in the cosmological myth in the Timaeus,
that "he took thought to make, as it were, a moving likeness of eternity; and, at the same time that
he ordered the Heaven, he made, of eternity that abides in unity, an everlasting likeness moving
according to number—that to which we have given the name Time."85 The phrase "at the same
time" may be confusing. Benjamin Jowett translates: "Wherefore he resolved to have a moving
image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving
according to number, but eternity itself rests in unity, and this image we call time."86 A little later
Plato says: "Time came into being together with the Heaven, in order that, as they were brought
into being together, so they may be dissolved together, if ever their dissolution should come to
pass." 87

82. But consciousness of time brings consciousness of aging and death. This incites
countermeasures, such as a paradise lost in the past, or a heaven and hell to go to, or an end of
time, or attempts to preserve the present with all its blemishes, or a changeless world of ideas, or a
better or worse world to come on earth. The ancient Iranians, for example, developed a religion,
Zoroastrianism, in which it was held that the world was created in a year, and each subsequent
year was a repetition of the year of creation. Yet they also envisaged a continual struggle between
forces of good and evil, represented by the gods Ahura Mazda (later, Ormazd) and Ahriman, which
would eventually be decided in favor of good. Inasmuch as each year repeats the year of creation,
the time of the Iranians was periodic. The world eternally returns to its beginning, and starts anew.
But inasmuch as the battle between good and evil will eventually end with the victory of good, the
time of the Iranians was pointed along a line toward a future goal.

83. It appears, then, that ideas of time have been intimately related to ideas about celestial
motions, and hence to views of determinism. There were various ideas about time in the ancient
world. The ancient Jews tended to concentrate on a future which would bring new things. This
may be taken to imply a time line, rather than a time circle of the sort one needs for periodicity and
cycles and repetition of the same events over and over. The prophet Isaiah says in the Bible:
"Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new
thing." 88 And later: "The sun shall be no more your lig ht by day, nor for brightness shall the moon
give light to you by night; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your
glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your
everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended. Your people shall all be righteous;
they shall possess the land for ever, the shoot of my planting, the work of my

84 Plato, Timaeus, 47a- b, translated by Francis Cornford, Plato's Cosmology, 1937, p. 157- 158 of 1957 edition.)
85 Plato, Timaeus, 37d, translated by Francis Cornford in Plato's Cosmology, 1937, p. 98 of 1957 reprint.
86
p. 1167 of The Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, 1961. 87
Timaeus, 38b.
88
Isaiah, 43.18, Revised Standard Version.
 30

hands, that I might be glorified. The least one shall become a clan, and the smallest one a mighty
nation; I am the Lord; in its time I will hasten it." 89 Thus the periodic and repetitious movements of
celestial objects will cease, and time will flow only forward—or cease altogether. In the
meantime, we will go forward in time and history to approach the consummation—no turning
back.

84. This looking into the future by the Jewish prophets is quite unlike the astrological
prediction which grew up in Babylonia and other nearby cultures. In astronomy, the future is
calculated, or based on calculations, as when an equinox or eclipse or sunrise or tide is predicted. In
astrology, predictions of the future are based on astronomical calculations. But in biblical
prophecy, the future is beheld, proclaimed, believed in. Furthermore, the prophets looked forward
in a kind of linear time. The tacit use of a linear rather than a circular time generated a looking
backward as well as forward, to see when it all began. Certain ancient Jews settled on the date
October 7, 3761 B.C.E. of the Christian calendar for the beginning of the world. The official
calendar of present-day Israel is built around this date. Today's scientific cosmologists put the
date of creation (the so-called "big bang") earlier, at around 15 thousand million years ago, give
or take 5 million years or so The time intervals are different, but the principle is the same.

85. We hear of an Eden far off in time, and ancient Greeks spoke of an island of the
blessed far off in the western sea and of hyperboreans who live far to the north in a region of
sunshine and everlasting spring, beyond the northern wind. The tendency of ancient Greeks
toward spatialization of ideas, and limitation of time as far as possible to the present, point to a
preference for the constant and enduring, and for order and harmony. Rudolf Wendorff says that
in thinking about how change occurs and has to be overcome, the Greek philosophers generally
took one or more of the following approaches: (1) they looked the other way, or didn't take time
seriously; (2) they contrasted temporal becoming with timeless being so time becomes secondary
and derived; (3) they tried to keep change under control by means of unvarying laws or principles
that don't allow for accidents and arbitrariness; 4) they tamed time, up to a point, by concentrating
on cyclical repetition of processes that allow motion in time but preclude a "goingbeyond-the
banks" onto a linear time going to infinity, in which there are always completely new and
unpredictable possibilities.90

86. For Parmenides (early 500's B.C.E.), time is an illusion. Only in myths, he wrote, is
there an origin of the universe in time, and a genesis of being. For reason (logos), the very
question about such an origin loses its meaning. Being, the material of reason (so to speak), is
unborn, unchanging, immovable, eternal. Being never was or will be. It is totally present now,
one and indivisible.

87. I propose to take astrology seriously here. Patrick Curry says that until quite
recently, "Astrology was customarily regarded an inseparable mixture of what is now
distinguished between as 'science' and 'mathematics' on the one hand, and 'magic' on the other.
The former elements makes it difficult for historians of science to avoid completely; but the
latter, equally, makes it (along with alchemy) uniquely irritating. This reaction undoubtedly
8 9 I s a i a h 6 0 . 1 9- 2 0 .
9 0 R u d o l f W e n d o r f f, Z e i t u n d K u l t u r , 1 9 8 0 , p . 5 6 .
 31

stems from an often uncritical loyalty of historians of science to modern science. To put it another
way, the efforts of early modern science to define itself against magic and neo-Aristotelianism has
rubbed off on many of its historians—an attitude aggravated by the continued existence of
astrology, in defiance of scientific enlightenment. This is quite evident in the literature, beginning
with the doyen of history of science, George Sarton, who was unable to mention astrology (in
relation to early Greek science) without descending into abusive caricature, explicitly to his
feelings about modern astrologers. For this he was reproved by Otto Neugebauer, in a short but
powerful paper entitled 'The Study of Wretched Subjects', which defended against such
destructiveness 'the very foundations of our studies: the recovery and study of the texts, regardless
of our own tastes and prejudices.'" 91

88. "The great discovery of the sacerdotal astronomers of Babylonia," says David Amand,
"was that of the immutable constancy of the sidereal revolutions, whose periodicity allows us to
predict the return at fixed dates of astronomical phenomena. By accumulating observations, these
priests were naturally led to the notion of a necessity, which was conceived either as resulting
from the will of the gods, or as being superior to them. It was in Chaldea that the idea was born of
a Fatality related to the regular movements of the sun, moon and planets distributing good and
evil to people. However, this determinism was not pushed to its ultimate logical consequences.
The priests believed in the arbitrary intervention of a divine will in the order of nature. They
predicted the future by the stars. But by purifications, sacrifices and incantations, they claimed to
remove the evils and to obtain more surely the announced benefits. In the Alexandrian epoch,
certain schools of astronomer priests, very probably under the influence of Stoicism, professed a
more rigorous doctrine. Fatality became the sovereign mistress; it governed God himself, that is,
the living universe, and with the stars as intermediaries produced all physical, intellectual and
moral phenomena."92

89. Thus was born a religious science or scientific religion compounded of astronomy,
astrology, and astrolatry, or, as the Germans say, Sternkunde, Sterndeutung, and Sternglaube,
which etymologically suggest star information (or more poetically, tidings from the stars),
explanation of the stars, and star-faith. Astrolatry I take to include astral religion of all kinds—
worship of celestial objects as gods or goddesses or powers or angels or souls of the dead, and so
on. By astrology, concerned with prediction using the stars, I often mean, according to context,
something broader than generally understood today. 93 In particular, in what follows, when I say
astrology, unqualified, I will oftem be referring to something more general than horoscopic
astrology, which is also known as judicial astrology because it is used to make judgments on the
basis of celestial objects. Furthermore, it should be kept in mind that astrology is not a fixed body
of knowledge which has always stayed the same. Its techniques and visions of the world have
evolved, sometimes progressively and sometimes retrogressively. Its principal aim has always
been to establish and define relations between humanity and the heavens, and to discover

91 Patrick Curry, Astrology, Science and Society, Historical Essays, 1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 2.
92 David Amand, Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque, Recherches sur la survivance de l'argumentation
morale antifataliste de Carnéade chez les philosophes grecs et les théologiens chrétiens des quatre premiers siècles,
1945, p. 1-2.
93 If it weren't for custom and awkwardness, it might be better to say deterministic astralism rather than astrology.
 32

laws which rule them both. But during its long history, astrology, in its broadest sense, has
assumed numerous forms, and has been a part of many different cultures.94

90. Astrologe rs and astronomers have long been among the foremost promoters and
defenders of kinds of determinism. In his capacity as a classicist (which is how he made his
living), the poet A. E. Housman edited the Astronomica, a long poem on astrology written by
Manilius in the 1 st century A.D. Manilius was a strict determinist, or fatalist, who believed we
are ruled by the stars. Housman once said that his elaborate work on Manilius's poem would be
remembered long after his own poems were forgotten. However this may be, while Housman
bowed to a kind of determinism, some part of him was free, to judge from this poem by him:

The laws of God, the laws of man, He

may keep that will and can; Not I: let
God and man decree Laws for
themselves and not for me; And if my
ways are not as theirs Let them mind
their own afairs.
Their deeds Ijudge and much condemn,
But when didI make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they Need
only look the other way. But no, they will
not; they must still Wrest their neighbor
to their will, And make me dance as they
desire With jail and gallows and hell-
fire. And how am I to face the odds Of
Man's bedevilment and God's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong:
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly To
Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if we can,
These foreign laws of God and man. 9 5

91. For many years, astrology and astral religions, as well as other studies such as
alchemy and theology, were entangled with astronomy. This is the major reason I am in the
present context taking astrology and star worship as seriously as I take astronomy and
mathematics. There are, of course, many who feel that a study of the history of astrology is a
waste of time, as well as quite a number who do not. However, I agree with Patrick Curry who, in
his study of astrology in 17th and 18th century England, rejects the idea of considering astrology
to be "simply one of history's 'losers' ".96 In my view, we distort history if we

94 Cf. Jacques Halbronn, Le Monde Ju if et l'Astrologie, Histoire d'un vieux couple, 1979, p. 8.
95 A. E. Housman, The Collected Poems of A. E. Housman, 1939, from Last Poems, 1922, XII.
96
Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power, Astrology in Early Modern England, 1989, p. 3.
 33

separate the star worship and astrology of the past from the history of astronomy as presently
practiced.

92. Fortunately, I will not be concerned with truth or falsity or probability of astrological
claims. Those interested in such matters may wish to consult the works of the psychologist Michel
Gauquelin. For more than 30 years, he made a series of statistical studies of birth data in an
attempt to prove or disprove that there is a positive correlation between the positions of planets in
the sky at birth, and subsequent characteristics of the person born, as indicated by his or her
success in various professions.97 In the process, he has cast considerable doubt on the efficacy of
traditional astrological practices. Some consider that he has definitively refuted the claims of
horoscopic astrologers with solid statistical evidence. However, he also claims to have found
statistical evidence for some influence of planets on people's character, that is, on their
professional success.

93. As far as I know, no satisfactory explanation of the effect apparently detected by

Gauqelin has yet been given. Many proposals have been made, including some offered tentatively
by Gauquelin himself. For example, Percy Seymour, an astronomer (not astrologer in a modern
sense!), described in 1988 "how the planets control the overall direction of the solar magnetic
field near the poles, and how conjunctions, oppositions and squares of the planets as seen from the
Sun control the onset of violent storms on the Sun," and "how solar activity is linked to
geomagnetic activity, the northern and southern lights, short-term terrestrial weather and long-
term climate." From this, Seymour proceeds to a very briefly stated and (I think) largely
unsupported hypothesis according to which "it is possible for post-natal fluctuations of the
geomagnetic field to recall, via its own 'machine code' [as in computers], some of the pre-natal
programming which it fed into the brain of the developing foetus, and thus influence its behaviour
in certain circumstances."98

94. On the other hand Gauquelin himself says: "Astrology has always remained enigmatic
and, to the perfectly proper question, 'Should one believe it?', I can only answer by rejecting both
the unconditional opponents and the confirmed upholders .... My ideas on astral influence have
changed continually, swinging back and forth like a pendulum Though I am so full of my
subject, so determined to defend it, so proud of my discoveries, I am still tormented by two
asserting demons. The first is the fear of having been mistaken in asserting that astral influence is
real; the second is the agonizing thought of all that I have been unable to discover or explain."99

95. Gérard Simon, in his study of the influence of astrology on the work of the great
astronomer Kepler, is concerned, among other things, to reveal the categories of thought which
were available to Kepler. He says: "We start from the idea that before we study the way which a
man in a particular epoch conceptually elaborates the facts available for him to reflect on, it's a
good idea to ask ourselves at the outset about the norms he obeys when he conceptualizes in
general; and therefore an analysis of what was thinkable for him ought to precede an analysis of

97 See, for example, Michel Gauquelin Dreams and Illusions of Astrology, 1979, and Birth -Times, 1983, both
translated from French; the latter is called The Truth about Astrology in the British edition.
98 Percy Seymour, Astrology, the Evidence of Science, 1988, p. 140, 149.
99 Michael Gauqelin, Birth- Times, 1983, p. 180- 181.
 34

what was th o u g h t by him."100 We can ask how much of what was thinkable and sensible for our
predecessors, but has become unthinkable or nonsensical for us, is well forgotten, and how much
should be preserved or revived, or at least commemorated.

96. Astrology thus has narrow and broad meanings. In a narrow sense, it has to do with
predicting character, fate and events on the basis of zodiacal signs and houses, planetary aspects and
the like. In a broad sense, it is study and knowledge of an y influences of celestial objects on human
affairs, on the basis of which predictions can be made. This might include gravitational influences
of the moon on the earth, on the basis of which we can predict (for example) tides, which
influence human affairs in certain ways. Perhaps this is too broad a definition of astrology. But
where do we draw the line? Planets and stars certainly have so me detectable effects on us.
Otherwise we couldn't see them. Furthermore, quite aside from physical interactions, the orderly
movement of celestial objects has served, at times, as a paradigm for priests, statesmen,
philosophers, poets and a multitude of others. Who really knows—for sure— what the limits of
such effects are?

97. Some have maintained that the non-astronomical content of astrology belongs to
psychology. Such a position allied was taken by the psychologist (or psychoanalyst) Carl Jung,
who made proposals along this line to explain the prevalence and what he considered to be
occasional successes of horoscopic astrology.101 If today's physical cosmologists are right in
holding that people have ultimately evolved from stars, our brains and minds may respond to
them, at conception or birth, or later on, in ways we have not yet discovered. A more exact
astrology may yet be found, based not on horoscopes but on some other quantitative
correspondences of celestial with human activity. Or maybe not.

98. Jacques Halbronn has advanced the idea that astronomers are not, by virtue of their
profession, entitled to pronounce on the validity or invalidity of astrology. "If man is related to
the stars," he says, "this is not the fault of the stars, it is the fault of man .... It is a
neurophysiological problem more than a cosmobiological or astrophysical problem. It is not a
question of asking if the stars emit but if men receive " It is one thing, Halbronn says, if
the relation between men and the stars posited by astrologers is a regrettable aberration, and another
if it has turned out not to be real. In some ancient religions, bulls were worshipped. Do we have to
ask a zoologist or agriculturalist if such a practice has any rationale, or if it is part of the nature of
bulls to be worshipped? Do we have to ask an astronomer if there is any rationale in star worship,
or if it is in the nature of a planet called Jupiter to play the role it has played in astrology? Is it in
the nature of tobacco, Halbronn asks, to be a habit for millions of human beings?102

99. While this may be true for astrology and astronomy as these terms are now general ly
understood, the fact remains that the two disciplines were in most people's minds linked together for
much of their history, for several thousand years or more, until they began to separate about

100 Gérard Simon, Kepler astronome astrologue, 1979, p. 11.

101 See, e.g., the article on "synchronicity" in Naturerklärung und Psyche by Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli
1952, English translation by Priscilla Silz, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, 1955.
102 Jacques Halbronn and Serge Hutin, Histoire de l'Astrologie, 1986, p. 145.
 35

three or four hundred years ago. This interrelationship has left traces on both the astronomy and
astrology of today. Astrologers, for example, often take into account new discoveries of
astronomers, such as the new planets discovered since antiquity, including the asteroids. Some
astrologers, more conservative, maintain that for astrological purposes one can consider the sun
and moon as planets, along with the five other planets known to the ancients, and that the new
planets are irrelevant. Such astrologers only use old astronomy.

100. Astronomers, on the other hand, often feel it their duty to try to prove there is
nothing worthwhile in astrology. To that extent at least astronomers are still concerned with
astrology. More generally, while astronomers may become enthusiastic about the wonders of
heaven and earth as explained by their theories and tested by their observations, they are usually
constrained in their professional work to express this wonder in non-religious as well as non-
astrological ways. Individual astronomers may write articles and books connecting or
disconnecting their professional beliefs from religious beliefs. But this is not considered as part of
their astronomy. It is something added on, dispensable as far as the practice of their profession is
concerned.
 36

Chapter 2. From Astral Beliefs to Kepler, Fludd and Newton

1. In the Chinese Co mmen ta ry o n th e Ch u a n g T zu by Kuo Hsiang (4th century A.D.) we

find: "The principles of things are from the very start correct. None can escape from them.
Therefore a person is never born by mistake, and what he is born with is never an error. Although
heaven and earth are vast and the myriad things are many, the fact that I happen to be here is not
something that spiritual beings of heaven and earth, sages and worthies of the land, and people of
supreme strength or perfect knowledge can violate Therefore if we realize that our nature and
destiny are what they should be, we will have no anxiety and will be at ease with ourselves in the
face of life or death, prominence or obscurity, or an infinite amount of changes and variations,
and will be in accord with principle.”103

2. In a charming although perhaps not authoritative book, Peter Lum says: "The Chinese
believed that the world of stars was exactly similar to that of men. It was perforce a happier land,
without flood or famine, but it was subject to the same laws as China, and its immortal inhabitants
were very similar to the Chinese. The familiar world known to mankind, with its obvious
imperfections, was rather like a reflection in troubled waters of that ideal world which existed
above. And the Chinese believed that as long as life on earth followed the pattern of the star world
in every detail, there would be peace and happiness. It was only when, owing either to insufficient
knowledge or else to lack of skill in carrying out their instructions, the earth got out of step with
the sky world that discontent and war and suffering followed. If there was a famine, or rebellion,
or civil war, it must be because the astronomers were held responsible. It was a theory which
certainly led to a rapid development of astronomical knowledge, especially when the unfortunate
astronomers discovered that if they made a mistake, or even failed to predict an eclipse, they
might lose not only their jobs but their heads as well."104

3. Another version is given by Evan Hadingham, based on the annals of the Formal Han
Dynasty (202 B.C.E. -8 C.E.). The Chinese Emperor's rule was sanctioned, Hadingham says, by a
blending of earthly and cosmic forces. The King was said to have Heaven for father and Earth for
mother. The main task of the state astronomers was to detect imbalances in this relationship by
watching for portents such as eclipses, meteors, comets and other unusual celestial phenomena.
This responsibility placed them in a position of immense power in the Han bureaucracy. An
examination of the annals shows that the scribes edited them, making additions, deletions, and
alterations. Certain omens, such as eclipses, were reported on dates which were astronomically
impossible, which suggests that the importance of obtaining a sign overrode the Han astronomers'
concern for facts.105

4. Some native Americans simply attributed errors of their astronomers to incompetence.

Ray Williamson speaks about the su n- wa tch e r s, or sun priests, functionaries of the Pueblo
Indians, the Hopi and Zuni, who maintained a kind of solar horizon calendar by monitoring
positions of the sun from day to day, and correlated them with various ceremonies, e.g., at the
solstices. He reports a journal entry for April 18, 1921, made by Crow Wing, a Hopi Indian:

103 A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 1963, translated and compiled by Wing-Tsit Chan, p. 332.
104 Peter Lum,The Stars in our Heaven, Myths and Fables, 1948, p. 16- 17.
105
Evan Hadingham, Early Man and the Cosmos (1984), p. 247; Hadingham cites W. Eberhard, "The Political
Function of Astronomy and Astronomers in Han China" in Chinese Thought and Institutions, 1957, p. 38.
 37

"We think the Sun-Watcher is not a very good man. He missed some places, he was wrong last
year. All the people think that is why we had so much cold this winter and no snow." 106

5. We see why star-watchers, who were often also weather -watchers, were in demand. We
have a flourishing weather prediction industry today, also not as reliable as we might like, but no
doubt better than once upon a time. One can find reports in newspapers of summer and winter
solstices and equinoxes, eclipses, comets, meteor showers, and so on. Supernovae are reported,
and are especially valued by our cosmologist/astronomers, who make use of them when they make
predictions about the future and past of the whole universe. Just as people have done for
thousands of years, we teach our young how to read and use calendars, what solstices and
equinoxes are, at least in terms of change of seasons, and how such things are related to predicting
future changes in daily sunlight and weather. We may teach them current theories of how eclipses
work, and what meteors and comets are thought to be. We also find in our newspapers predictions
about the affairs of individuals, in daily horo scopes written (one supposes) by astrologers. And
we hear of officials who consult astrologers about propitious times for taking actions, although it
is rather rare to find officials who admit this publicly.

6. Edward Schafer says of the role of astronomy and astrology in China during the T'ang
dynasty (618-907 A.D.) that astronomical and calendrical affairs were a monopoly of the court.
This was because astronomical activities had a ritualistic and religious component which involved
the sovereign, the Son of Heaven, who was the link between celestial energy flowing from above
and terrestrial responsibility flowing from below. Only the Son of Heaven could possess true
knowledge of the stars. Prying into such affairs could be treasonable. To understand the workings
and readings of the armillary sphere and star chart was to approach dangerously close to state
secrets. Thus ordinary citizens of the T'ang empire were forbidden to dabble in such matters.
Officials maintained that this taboo was intended prevent inexpert interpreters and charlatans from
misleading and defrauding the ignorant masses. There were stringent penalties for the possession
and use of most implements and books which could be used to obtain exact astrological of what the
T'ang code called "our occult counterparts in the sky". 107

7. "The 'star gods' of ancient China were not mere ensouled stars," says Schafer, "exce pt,
perhaps, to the vulgar. They were inconceivable beings whose masks and costumes were always
hanging in the Vestry or Green Room of the sky, ready for occasional use when the formless
powers who owned them chose to show themselves more closely to advanced students of the
Highest Clarity than they ever did to mortals whose vision was more clouded by the obsessive
fogs of ordinary careers and mundane preoccupations The beginnings of official Chinese worship
and propitiation of these remote and sublime intelligences are lost in the roots of Chinese history.
In Han times [25-220 A.D.], however, when we begin to have some clear idea of official cult
practices and beliefs, star-worship was already firmly established. A prominent place was given to
it in the state rituals connected with the worship of heaven carried out in the capital city. An
example, under the date of A.D. 26, was the great imperial sacrifice to Heaven, with offerings of
oxen to the sky-gods, inaugurated in the southern suburb of Lo-yang. The rite was conducted on a
central round "altar" (i.e., ceremonial platform) and external altars to the five paramount gods of
the directions. The place of sacrifice was furnished with representations of

106 Ray Williamson, Living the Sky, The Cosmos of the American Indian, 1984, chapter on sun-watchers and p.
111.
107 Edward Schafer, Pacing the Void, T'ang Approaches to the Stars, 1977, p. 11-12.
 38

the purple palace of the pole and with blazons representing the positions of the sun in the east,
the moon in the west, and of the Northern Dipper. There were also lesser altars for the planets.
These celestial deities were always paramount in the state cult, since they had a special
relationship with the imperial house, the earthly nexus of the power that radiated from them." 108

8. Schafer goes on to say that state ceremonies conducted by the Son of Heaven himself,
or by his surrogates, were momentous and complex affairs in which numerous potent spirits were
invoked. At the winter solstice, in the most honorable position on a great round platform -- the
northern one, facing south --the imperial court worshipped the ritual presence of the "Supreme
Theocrat of the Heaven of Primal Light". This epithet refers to "the white radiance of the eternal
breath which pervades the cosmos". Schafer emphasizes that we should not regard Taoist star
worship merely as worship of the stars. If we do so, we misunderstand their faith as much as if we
regarded the adoration of St. Michael and St. Gabriel as bird worship because these creatures of
pure spirit are often represented with wings. To the Taoists, the stars were not gods but tokens and
guises of cosmic beings, who might assume other guises and reveal themselves in other symbols.
"They were deities whose location was nowhere, who existed simultaneously in the brain and in
outer space, and could exhibit their numinous presence in any manner or place that seemed
desirable." Taoist priests and initiates wore special costumes which symbolized their spiritual
advancement and embodied mana which was revealed outwardly by magical diagrams and
talismans. Their divinites were often described as wearing costumes just like those of their earthly
hierophants. Most prominent of these vestments was the "star hat", referred to very often in T'ang
poetry. A westerner might imagine this as the conical hat of an Arabian Nights' sorcerer, or white-
bearded Merlin, or a fairy godmother, or a wicked witch. However, it appears that no graphic
representation of a Taoist star-hat has survived from T'ang times.109

9. According to the B o o k o f T'a n g astrology was unnecessary in the golden ages of

China's remotest past: "In the Grand Tranquillity of antiquity, the sun was not eroded and the
stars did not explode." Is this a reference to sun spots, comets and meteors? to supernovae? In
any case, after the rule of godlike supermen in the earliest times came to an end, Schafer says,
"the skies over the Middle Kingdom were soon flashing with warnings from the All Highest."
Interpretation was needed. The earliest Chinese astrology, like the earliest Mesopotamian
astrology, was an omen or portent astrology, whose function was to predict on behalf of the
monarch and nation. The fate of individuals was only of interest as far as it bore on the fate of
the empire. Astrologers were officers of the kingdom, "devoted to the interpretation of strange
lights and movements in the heavens, and the timely anticipation of disasters".

10. Apparently not long before the beginning of the Han dynasty, the body of lore
associated with such startling phenomena acquired a theoretical framework, chiefly the cosmic
dualism of yin and yang, along with the doctrine of the Five Activities, which could be made to
correspond with the five visible planets. Along with these, there was a fundamental "theory of
correspondences". Schafer says: "Celestial events are the "counterparts" or "simulacra" of
terrestrial events, sky things have doppelgangers below, with which they are closely attuned
The germinal essences of the Myriad Creatures in every case have counterparts up in
the sky." They form shapes or contours under the sky. "Correspondence" has been defined as the
relation
108 S cha fer, ibid ., p . 222- 225.
109 S cha fer, ibid .
 39

between the cosmic and political realms, and between the natural and human worlds, between
macrocosm and microcosm. The emperor, the Son of Heaven, is a critical nexus between them all,
"dedicated to maintaining the exactness of the correspondences by means of ritual observances".
As a consequence, the early Chinese philosophers pondered relationships rather than substance, a
matter which preoccupied the Eleatics. However, Schafer observes, there were always skeptics. 110

11. Among the earliest of the Chinese philosophical skeptics was Wang Chhung [sic, 2
h’s; 27-97 A.D.], said by Joseph Needham and Wang Ling to have been "one of the greatest men of
his nation in any age ..." They say: "[He] made a frontal attack upon the Chinese State 'religion'
by an uncompromising resistance to anthropocentrism of any kind. Again and again he returns to
the charge that man lives on the earth's surface like lice in the folds of a garment. At the same
time, he admits that among the 300 (or 360) naked creatures, man is the noblest and most
intelligent. But if fleas, he said, desirous of learning man's opinions, emitted sounds close to his
ear, he would not even hear them; how absurd then it is to imagine that Heaven and Earth could
understand the words of Man or acquaint themselves with his wishes. This position once gained,
the whole weight of Wang Chhung's attack on superstition was deployed. Heaven, being
incorporeal, and Earth inert, can on no account be said to speak or act; they cannot be affected by
anything man does; they do not listen to prayers; they do not reply to questions." 111

12. Still, paradoxically, Wang Chhung favored individual or horoscopic astrology, and
may even have introduced it into China. He believed "that among the most important of all
influences acting upon men during the formative period of their lives were those of the stars
The paradox lies in the probability that it was precisely Wang Chhung's scientific
naturalism which pushed him into this theory. as a means of escaping from the arbitrary
endowments of local gods and spirits and other 'supernatural' agencies. The stars were at least
regular in their motions." 1 1 2

13. Astral religion may be an important ingredient in a religion as a whole. Charles

Dupuis (1742-1809) went so far as to claim that all religions have grown out of astral religions.
Dupuis was a scholar who became a member of the revolutionary government in France in 1792,
and also served briefly in Napoleon's government. However, he soon retired from politics, and
devoted the rest of his life to his studies. In 1795 he published an extensive work called Origine
de tous les cultes, ou la religion universelle in which he propounded his theory of the astral origin
of all religions, and futhermore that the place where all organized religion originated was northern
Egypt. The work stirred up considerable controversy, and is said to have led to the expedition
organized by Napoleon for the exploration of Egypt, an invasion which had enormous political and
archeological consequences.

14. Few believe at present that all religion originated in Upper Egypt, or that all religion
grew out of worship of celestial objects. However, that astrolatry had a considerable influence on
the development of many religions is undeniable, as shown by Dupuis's own impressive
110 Schafer, ibid., p. 55-57.
111 Joseph Needham and Wang Ling, S ci ence and Civ ili sation in Ch ina, v. 2, "History of Scientific
Thought, 1969, p. 368, 374- 375
112 Needham and Ling, ibid, p. 384.
 40

scholarship which covers a multitude of times and places and peoples. He begins by asserting that
in the beginning all religion was pantheistic. Of the early idea of God, he says: "When man began
to reason upon the causes of his existence and preservation, also upon those of the multiplied
effects, which are born and die around him, where else but in this vast and admirable Whole could
he have placed at first that sovereignly powerful cause, which brings forth everything, and in the
bosom of which all reenters, in order to issue again by a succession of new generations and under
different forms. This power being that of the World itself, it was therefore the World, which was
considered as God, or as the supreme and universal cause of all the effects produced by it, of which
mankind forms a part. This is that great God, the first or rather the only God, who has manifested
himself to man through the veil of the matter which he animates and which forms the immensity
of the Deity."

15. Dupuis goes on: "Although this God was everywhere and was all, which bears a
character of grandeur and perpetuity in this eternal World, yet did man prefer to look for him in
those elevated regions, where that mighty and radiant luminary seems to travel through space,
overflowing the Universe with the waves of its light, and through which the most beautiful as
well as the most beneficent action of the Deity is enacted on Earth. It would seem as if the
Almighty had established his throne above that splendid azure vault, sown with brilliant lights,
that from the summit of the heavens he held the reins of the World, that he directed the
movements of its vast body, and contemplated himself in forms as varied as they are admirable,
wherein he modifies himself incessantly." Dupuis quotes Pliny the Elder (Natural History, II.1):
"The World, says Pliny, or what we otherwise call Heaven, which comprises in its immensity the
whole creation, is an eternal, an infinite God, which has never been created, and which shall
never come to an end. To look for something else beyond it, is useless labor for man, and out of
his reach. Behold that truly sacred Being, eternal and immense, which includes within itself
everything; it is All in All, or rather itself is All. It is the work of Nature, and itself is Nature.”113

16. Later, Dupuis says: "It would be a mistaken idea to believe, that [the Ancients]
considered the World merely as a machine, without life and intelligence, moved by a blind and
necessary force As the World seemed animated by a principle of life, which circulates in
all its parts, holding it in eternal activity, it was believed that the Universe lived as man did and the
other animals, or rather that these lived only because the Universe, being essentially animated,
communicated them for a few instants an infinitesimal portion of its immortal life, which it
infused into the coarse and inert matter of sublunary bodies. Was it restored back to itself? Man
and beast died and the Universe alone, always alive, circulated around the remains of their bodies
by its perpetual motion, and organized new beings, The active Fire or the subtle substance, which
animated it, by incorporating itself in its immense mass, was the universal soul

113Charles Dupuis, T h e Or i g i n o f a l l R e l i g i o u s W o r s h i p , 1871, p. 15- 16, anonymous translation of material from

Dupuis' work. It is difficult to trace the exact provenance of the material. Dupuis's work of 1795 was revised by P. R.
Auguis and published in 1822, 10th edition, 1835-1836. An abridgement by Count M. de Tracy was published in
1804. While the content, roughly speaking, of the anonymous translation into English can be found in the edition of
1835-1 836, the semantically equivalent passages are quite different linguistically.
 41

of it. This is the doctrine, which is embodied in the system of the Chinese, on Yang and Yin, one of
which is the celestial matter, moveable and luminous, and the other the terrestrial one, inert and
gloomy, of which all bodies are composed."

17. "This is the dogma of Pythagoras," Dupuis continues, "contained in those beautiful
verses in the sixth book of the Aeneid [of Virgil], where Anchises reveals to his son [Aeneas] the
origin of the souls and their fate after death. 'You must know, my son, he said, that Heaven and
Earth, the Sea, the luminous globe of the Moon and all the Stars, are moved by a principle of
eternal life, which perpetuates their existence; that there is a great intelligent Spirit extended in all
the parts of the vast body of the Universe, which, while mixing itself in All, is agitating it by an
eternal motion. It is this soul, which is the source of life of man, of the beasts, of the birds and all
the monsters living within the bosom of the Ocean. The vital force, which animates them,
emanates from that eternal Fire, which shines in the Heavens, and which while it is held captive in
the raw material of the bodies, is only developed as much, as the various mortal organizations
permit it, which subdue its power and activity. At the death of each creature, these germs of a
particular life, these portions of an universal breath, return to their principle and to their source of
life, which circulates in the starred sphere.'"

18. Matching lives of men with lives of stars is nearly universal. In Africa, according to
Harold Courlander, the following cosmogony is told among the Yoruba people of Nigeria. "In
ancient days, at the beginning of time, there was no solid land here where people now dwell.
There was only outer space and the sky, and, far below, an endless stretch of water and wild
marshes. Supreme in the domain of the sky was the orisha, or god, called Olorun, also known as
Olodumare and designated by many praise names. Also living in that place were numerous other
orishas, each having attributes of his own, but none of whom had knowledge or powers equal to
those of Olorun. Among them was Orunmila, also called Ifa, the eldest son of Olorun. To this
orisha Olorun had given the power to read the future, to understand the secret of existence and to
divine the processes of fate. There was the orisha Obatala, King of the White Cloth, whom Olorun
trusted as though he also were a son. There was the orisha Eshu, whose character was neither
good nor bad. He was compounded out of the elements of chance and accident, and his nature was
unpredictability. He understood the principles of speech and language, and because of this gift he
was Olorun's linguist "

19. "Down below, it was the female deity Olokun who ruled over the vast expanses of
water and wild marshes, a grey region with no living things in it " The two worlds were
separate, and the orishas of the sky took no notice of what went on below, except for Obatala,
King of the White Cloth. In order to overcome the monotony of what lay below, he went to
Orunmila to ask how land could be introduced below. By casting palm nuts in his divining tray,
Orunmila determined that Obatala should make a golden chain with which to descend to the
water with sand, to make land with. This Obatala did. He planted a palm nut, and there was
vegetation in the land, but no people, so Obatala decided to make people out of clay. After
making a number, he got thirsty and began to drink palm wine. He drank so much that he got
drunk, and some of the people he made after that were misshapen. A city called Ife was founded.
Olokun, the orisha of the sea, angry that water had been covered with land, flooded it, and many
people were drowned. After a while, Orunmila, the deity of divination, whose name means "The
Sky Knows Who Will Prosper", came down from the sky and turned back the sea.
 42

He also taught certain orishas who had come to live below on the land, and certain men, the arts of
controlling unseen forces, and others the art of divining the future, "which is to say the
knowledge of how to ascertain the wishes and intentions of the Sky God ....... Earthly order -- the
understanding of relationships between people and the physical world, and between people and
the orishas was beginning to take shape." 114

20. Peter Lum relates that in the myths of Britain, the constellation of the Great Bear
(Ursa Major, the Big Dipper) is interwoven with the story of King Arthur and the Round Table.
His name was alleged to have come from the words "Arth" and "Uthyr", meaning "bear" and
"wonderful". Some of his followers are said to have claimed that he was an incarnation of the
spirit of the Great Bear. The Round Table may have referred to the circle made by the swinging of
the Great Bear's tail each night when it swept the northern sky. "Fiona Macleod tells an old
story," Lum says, "of how Arthur once fell asleep on the seashore, long before he had any
thought of being king, and in his sleep a spirit came to him and guided him far up to the north
where the stars of the Great Bear were bright. There he found the knights of heaven seated at a
great circular table, resplendent as the shining stars, and they spoke to him and gave him wise
counsel. They told him that his name should be Arthur, that he would be king, and that he must
pattern his life and the rule of his kingdom on that of the kingdom of heaven." 115

21. Gene Weltfish tells how some Native Americans who lived along the Missouri River
saw the connection of the heavens with the affairs of men: "The Pawnees had many tasks to
accomplish in the early spring before the time of planting. Some of them were practical and some
ceremonial, but to the Pawnees who believed that nothing on earth could move without the
heavens, no practical task could be undertaken unless the appropriate ceremony had preceded it
The round of spring renewal ceremonies was heralded by the appearance of two small
twinkling stars known as the Swimming Ducks in the northeastern horizon near the Milky Way.
They notified the animals that they must awaken from their winter sleep, break through the ice,
and come out into the world again."116 And Ray Williamson relates that according to Pawnee
stories, they received from of their ritual direction from the stars. They claimed that at one time
they organized their villages according to patterns of the stars, and each village possessed a
sacred bundle given to it by one of the stars. When the different villages assembled for a
communal ceremony, they arranged themselves in a way which reflected the celestial positions of
the stars whose bundles they possessed. There were 18 Skidi Pawnee villages, each associated
with a different star." 117

22. The Oglala Dakota, a branch of the Sioux Indians, were among those who defeated
Custer at the battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. (Cf. Evan S. Connell, Son of the Mo rn ing Sta r,
1984) Their chief god, great spirit, creator and chief executive was (is?) Wakan Tanka, who is
sixteen individuals in one, each of the four categories containing four individuals. As great
spirit, he is sky. Paul Radin says of this religion: "The sky is an immaterial god whose

A Treasury of African Folklore, edited by Harold Courlander, 1975, p. 189-193; this story is from his own
114
Yoruba Gods and Heroes, 1973.
115 Lum, ibid., p. 38-39.
116 Gene Weltfish, The Lost Universe: Pawnee Life and Culture, 1965, p. 79.
117 Ray Williamson, Living the Sky, 1984, p. 229.
 43

substance is never visible. His titles given by the people are taku skan-skan and nagi tanka or
the great spirit, and those given by the priests are skan and to, blue. The concept expressed by the
term taka-skan-skan is that which gives motion to anything that moves. That expressed by the
shamans by the word skan is a vague concept of force or energy and by the word to is the
immaterial blue of the sky, which symbolizes the presence of the great spirit. His domain is all
above the world, beginning at the ground. He is the source of all power and motion and is the
patron of directions and trails and of encampment. He imparts to each of mankind at birth a
spirit, a ghost, and a sicun [an invisible god] and at the death of each of mankind he hears the
testimony of the ghost and adjudges the spirit. His word is unalterable except by himself. He
alone can undo that which is done. His people are the stars and the feminine is his daughter." 118

23. Plato speaks in many places of the workings of the stars. For example, there is the
myth of Er in the 10th book of Plato's meditation on the nature ofjustice, the Republic. Er, the son
of Armenius, is killed in battle, but comes to life again just before he is to be burnt on a funeral
pyre. He describes what he has seen in the other world. This includes a vision of the structure of
the universe, described like this by Francis Cornford in his translation of the Republic: "What the
souls actually see in their vision is not the universe itself, but a model, a primitive orrery in a
form roughly resembling a spindle, with its shaft round which at the lower end is fastened a solid
hemispherical whorl. In the orrery the shaft represents the axis of the universe and the whorl
consists of 8 hollow concentric hemispheres, fitted into one another 'like a nest of bowls,' and
capable of moving separately. It is as if the upper halves of 8 concentric spheres had been cut
away so that the internal 'works' might be seen. The rims of the bowls appear as forming a
continuous flat surface; they represent the equator of the sphere of fixed stars and, inside that, the
orbits of the 7 planets. The souls see the Spindle resting on the knees of Necessity. The whole
mechanism is turned by the Fates, Clotho (the Spinner), Lachesis (She who allots), and Atropos
(the Inflexible). Sirens sing eight notes on consonant intervals forming the structure of a scale
(harmonia) which represents the Pythagorean 'music of the spheres.'" 119

24. "All this imagery," Cornford concludes, "is, of course, mythical and symbolic. The
underlying doctrine is that in human life there is an element of necessity or chance, but also an
element of free choice, which makes us, and not Heaven, responsible for the good and evil in our
lives." In the myth, after the souls have completed their journey to the Spindle resting on the
knees of Necessity (probably the Milky Way) Lachesis, daughter of Necessity, distributor of
human fates, says: "Souls of a day, here shall begin a new round of earthly life, to end in death.
No guardian spirit will cast lots for you, but you shall choose your own destiny." (Cornford's
translation, p. 355). The dead souls are shown a large number of sample lives to choose from. The
man who had drawn the first lot chose, in thoughtless greed, to be reborn as a tyrant. He did not see
the many evils this life contained, and that he was fated to devour his own children. Plato
attributes his choice to innocence and ignorance: "He was once of those," Plato says, "who had
come down from heaven, having spent his former life in a well -ordered commonwealth and
become virtuous from habit without pursuing wisdom. It might indeed be said that not the least
part of those who were caught in this way were of the company which had come from heaven,

118 Paul Radin, Primitive Man as Philosopher, English translation 1927, p. 329-332, quoting James Walker, "The
Sun Dance of the Oglala Divison of the Dakota," Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural
History, XVI, Part II, p. 72-92.
119
Republic, translated by Francis Cornford, 1941, p. 350.
 44

because they were not disciplined by suffering; whereas most of those who had come up out of
earth, having suffered themselves and seen others suffer, were not hasty in making their choice."
(ibid., p. 357). Cornford draws attention to Plato's intention that such stories be taken as myth. By
this means Plato synthesizes older speculative interpretations in the manner of Pythagoreans with
newer ideas of rational philosophy.

25.
Plato's visions still exerted great cultural force near the close of the 16th century, just
before the advent of new cosmologies based on the works of such people as Copernicus, Kepler,
Galileo and Descartes, unified by Newton in his system of the world. At Florence, in 1589, an
elaborate theatrical production known as the intermezzi was presented at the Medici court in honor
of the marriage of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Here is the opening scene, as described by Roy
Strong: "On May 2nd 1589 the front curtain on the Teatro Mediceo parted to reveal a Doric
temple and above it a cloud, surrounded by rays of light, which slowly descended to the ground.
On this rode the Doric Harmony, singing of her descent to mortals The initial statement of the
Doric Harmony was carried to fruition in the first intermezzo which took the form of a
representation of the Harmony of the Spheres according to Plato's cosmology, and in particular as
described in the tenth book of Plato's Republic. The prospettiva [a view of the city of Pisa in
perspective] was suddenly covered with star-spangled clouds. Eight Platonic sirens plus two more
of the ninth and tenth sphere sat on clouds telling how they had forsaken the heavens to sing the
praises of the bride. On a central cloud sat Necessity on a throne with a diamond spindle of the
cosmos between her knees. She was attended by the three Parcae or Fates and they in turn were
flanked by clouds bearing the seven planets and Astraea, whose advent on earth signalled the
return of the Golden Age Above were twelve heroes and heroines, each pair embodying
virtues attributed to the onlooking couple [the Duke and his bride]. Both the sirens and the planets
joined in a dialogue describing the joy of the cosmos at so auspicious an alliance and as the
clouds arose from the lower part of the stage sunlight streamed in, while above night approached.
A concluding madrigal expressed hopes of 'glorious heroes' as a result of the match. As the cloud
vision faded the stage was filled with sunlight, revealing the prospettiva of the city of Pisa " 120

26. The Renaissance court festival, says Roy Strong, "unlike its medieval forebearers,
stemmed from a philosophy which believed that truth could be apprehended in images Our
guide to it is a vast tract of literature, books of emblems and imprese and mythological manuals.
These compilations were an extension and elaboration, under the impact of Florentine
Neoplatonism, of the inherited tradition of hidden meanings Although these texts were known to
the middle ages, they were studied with renewed fervour during the renaissance, when scholars
examined them to recover a lost history or secret wisdom, pre-dating the Christian revelation,
that was passed down through Moses and the Egyptian priests by way of Hermes Trismegistus to
the Greeks The acceptance of a pagan theology that descended from Zoroaster through Hermes
Trismegistus to Orpheus, Pythagoras and Plato enabled Renaissance man to assimilate the whole
heritage of classical mythology and history."121

120 Roy Strong, Arts and Festivals, Renaissance Festivals 1450-1 650, 1973 (1984); p. 137 and 23-24.
121 Strong, ibid.
 45

27. Goethe (1749-1832) wrote:

Wie an dem Tag, der dich der Welt verliehen,

Die Sonne stand zum Grusse der Planeten, Bist
alsobald und fort und fort gediehen Nach dem
Gesetz, wonach du angetreten.
So musst du sein, dir kannst du nicht entfliehen,
So sagten schon Sibyllen, so Propheten; Und
keine Zeit und keine Macht zerstückelt Geprägte
Form, die lebend sich entwickelt ..............................
Das Liebste wird vom Herzen weggescholten,
Dem harten Muss bequemt sich Will und Grille.
So sind wir scheinfrei denn, nach manchen Jahren
Nur enger dran, als wir am Anfang waren.

The way the sun stood at the planets' greeting,

The way it stood the day the world endowed you,
You were from that time on developed
According to the law by which you entered.
Thus must you be, and you can't escape,
The sybils and the seers have said it;
No time nor force can disassemble
Imprinted form that grows itself in living ................
What's loved is kept away from hearts that want it,
Will and whim are shaped to a Must unyielding. We
only seem free, and after many years,
We're more bound than when we started. 1 2 2

28. We have said that Stoics were devoted to astrology in the Hellenistic era. There
were others in that era who embraced astrology. There were, for example, the
Hermeticists. The works called Hermetica, or the Corpus Hermeticum, are Greek and
Latin writings of uncertain origin, evidently composed from about 200 to 500 A.D., which
contain religious or philosophic teachings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, the "thrice-
greatest" Hermes, perhaps a mythical person or god. Some say this Hermes is not the Greek
Hermes, but the Egyptian god Thoth, perhaps identified with Hermes by Alexandrian
Greeks. However this is uncertain. William Grese says that "the predominant view is that
the Hermetica are a Hellenistic development of Greek (especially Platonic and Stoic)
philosophy, and the leading exponent of this position has been André-Jean Festugière."12 3
However, as Grese observes, in addition to the religious and philosophic elements in the
Hermetica, there are also magical and astrological elements. These writings are to this day
an important part of the so-called occult tradition.

122From "Urworte, Orphisch",German text taken from German Poetry from 1750 -1900, 1984, edited by Robert
Browning, p. 66, 68, my translation.
123(William Grese, "Magic in Hellenistic Hermeticism, in Hermeticism and the Renaissance, Intellectual History and
the Occult in Early Modern Europe, edited by Ingred Merkel and Allen Debus, 1988, p. 45.)
 46

29. A definition of occult, in this sense, is given by Edward A. Tiryakian: "I understand
intentional practices, techniques, or procedures which: a) draw upon hidden or concealed forces in
nature or the cosmos that cannot be measured or recognized by the instruments of modern
science, and b) which have as their desired or intended consequences empirical results, such as
either obtaining knowledge of the empirical course of events or altering them from what they
would have been without this intervention ......To go on further, in so far as the subject of occult
activity is not just any actor, but one who has acquired specialized knowledge and skills
nevessary for the practices in question, and insofar as these skills are learned and transmitted in
socially (but not publicly available) organized, routinized, and ritualized fashion, we can speak
of these practices as occult sciences or occult arts." 124 The word esoteric is also used in this
connection, and Tiryakian says "esoteric" systems are the "religio -philosophic belief systems
which underlie occult techniques and practices; that is, it [the word "esoteric"] refers to the more
comprehensive cognitive mappings of nature and the cosmos, the epistemological and ontological
reflections of ultimate reality, which mappings constitute a stock of knowledge that provides the
ground for occult procedures."125

30. F. L. Peters observes that Hermeticism was an extremely complex phenomenon. The
theoretical and speculative works of the Corpus Hermeticum were accompanied by an immense
variety of tracts on practical Hermeticism, which is to say, on the manipulation of natural
substances. Hermeticism had a considerable influence on Muslim culture. With the assistance, it
seems, of Iranian astrologers, Hermes Trismegistus was incorporated into Islamic learning a
generation before Plato or Aristotle found a firm base there. Many Muslims believed in the
influence of stars on individuals. One of the greatest of the early Muslim scientists was al-B iruni
(11th century a.D.). Among his many works was an Instruction on the Elements of Astrology,
which became a standard work on the subject. Peters says: "Once again, even in Biruni, one can
see the two faces of Islamic science; the secular tradition of trigonometric functions, astronomical
tables and schemes of world chronology was accompanied and contaminated by a parallel
tradition of horo scopes, astral influences and elaborate theories of the descent of occult wisdom
from the hoary past into the bosom of Islam ... Each discipline had authentic credentials that
established it as a science; and if astrology was somewhat less exact in its predictions, as Ptolemy
willingly conceded, it was not more so than ethics, for example, with respect to geometry." 126

31. An Hermeticist, Joannes Stobaeus (c. 500 A.D.), says: "For the stars are the
instrument of destiny; in acccordance with this they bring to pass all things for nature and for
men." 127 A passage from the Latin Hermetic work known as the Asclepius reads:

"Asclepius: But tell me, Trismegistus, what part of the government of the universe is
administered by Destiny?."

124 Edward A.Tiryakian, "Toward the Sociology of Esoteric Culture", American Journal of Sociology 78, 1972, p.
491-512; quoted by Mircea Eliade, Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural Fashions, 1976, p. 48.
1 2 5 Quoted by Eliade, l.c.
126
F. L. Peters, Allah 's Commonwealth, A History of Islam in the Near East 600-1100 A.D., 1973, p. 270, 274, 351. 127
Quoted in Hermetica, edited by Walter Scott, 1924, v. 1, p. 434.
 47

"Trismegistus: That which we name Destiny, Asclepius, is the force by which all events are
brought to pass; for all events are bound together in a never-broken chain by the bonds of
necessity. Destiny then is either God himself, or else it is the force which ranks next after God; it
is the power which, in conjunction with Necessity, orders all things in heaven and earth according
to God's law. Thus Destiny and Necessity are inseparably linked together and cemented to each
other. Destiny generates the beginnings of things; Necessity compels the results to follow. And in
the train of Destiny and Necessity goes Order, that is, the interweaving of events, and their
arrangement in temporal succession. There is nothing that is not arranged in order; it is by order
above all else that the Kosmos itself is borne upon its course; nay, the Kosmos consists wholly of
order. Of these three, the first is Destiny, which sows the seed, as it were, and thereby gives rise
to all that is to issue from the seed thereafter; the second is Necessity, by which all results are
inevitably compelled to follow; and the third is Order, which maintains the interconnexion of the
events which Destiny and Necessity determine. But Destiny, Necessity, and Order, all three
together, are wrought by the decree of God, who governs the Kosmos by this law and by his holy
ordinance. Hence all will to do or not to do is by God's ruling wholly alien from them. They are
neither disturbed by anger nor swayed by favour; they obey the compulsion of God's eternal
ordinance, which is inflexible, immutable, indissoluble. Yet chance or contingency also exists in
the Kosmos, being intermingled with all material

things...... "1 2 8

32. In the Lord's Prayer of the Christian New Testament we have:

Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven. 1 2 9

33. The influence of Hermeticism in the European Renaissance, and on the origins of
modern science has been much debated. There can be no doubt that its influence was
considerable in some ways. A translation and publication of the Corpus hermeticum was
completed in 1471 by Marsilio Ficino, and this and subsequent translations and related works
were in considerable demand. An ancient pedigree was sought for Hermes Trismegistus. The
pedigree according to Ficino runs from Plato (who, Ficino claims, couldn't have thought up all
his wisdom by himself) to Philolaus, then to Pythagoras (said to have obtained his wisdom in
Egypt), and so on, back to Hermes. What about Hermes' source? "Here," says Wayne Shumaker,
"we pass out of the world altogether. Mercury 'puts aside the fogs of sense and of fancy, bringing
himself thus to an approach to mind; and presently Pimander, that is, the divine mind, flows into
him, whereupon he contemplates the order of all things.' The pedigree of the pimander [divine
intelligence] terminates in God Himself, whose word must perforce be accepted."130 What
emerges, says Shumaker, is una priscae theologiae ubique sibi consona secta, "a system of
aboriginal theology everywhere harmonious with itself". That is, a certain

128 Translated by Walter Scott in Hermetica, 1924, v. 1, p. 362-364.

129 Mark, 6.7-12,Revised Standard Version, 1952, revision of American Standard Version, 1881-1885, 1901, in
turn a revision of King James Version, 1611.
130
Wayne Shumaker, Occult Sciences in the Renaissance, A Study in Intellectual Patterns, 1972, p. 204.
group of Renaissance scholars and their followers sought in the Hermetic writings a pattern
which would allow the reconciliation of any pagan system with Christianity. It was a kind of
structuralism. Shumaker remarks that a vestige of it is found in George Eliot's Middlemarch, in
which Mr. Casaubon is attempting to work out a "Key to All the Mythologies". The aim of
Renaissance syncretists like Ficino (who was an enthusiastic astrologer) was not to contrast
mythologies, nor to criticize them, but to unite them in a harmonious concordance.

34. In her Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964) and subsequent works,
Frances Yates tried to show that Hermeticism was a major influence on the development of
modern science. "The Renaissance magus," she says, "was the immediate ancestor of the
seventeenth century scientist." 131 Karin Johannisson summarizes this point of view. The Hermetic
tradition in the Renaissance, she says, started in the 15th century with the translation of Neoplatonic
writings by Marsilio Ficino and his circle in Florence, Italy. This included the Corpus
Hermeticum. "Here," says Johannisson, "the proud notion of a pristine knowledge was depicted, a
gift from God to Adam and an exhortation to Man to complete the work of creation by unlocking
it and decoding its underlying structure ... Nature has its own language, and the means of
interpreting it was a secret alphabet, derived from Greek number mysticism and the cabala,
accessible only to the chosen." This Hermetic tradition was carried further by Paracelsus and his
followers, and such people as Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), John Dee (1527-1608) and Robert
Fludd (1574-1637). These traditions, according to Johannisson, were transformed into a concrete
program in two renowned Rosicrucian manifestos, the Famafraternitas (1614) and the
Confessiofraternitas (1615). Johannisson takes these to have made a positive contribution to the
development of early modern science.

35. "They maintained," Johannisson says, "the idea that knowledge cannot be limited by
given methods, and that against rationality, objectivity, and critical doubt as the cardinal virtues of
science must be polace proud hope that the boundaries of science can always be transcended, the
dream of a perfectible science in the service of mankind." Johannisson takes the story to the end of
the 18th century, when during the years around the French Revolution, "the concepts of magic
and science once again seem to merge in the intense mystical activity of the orders, and when the
scientific academy and the secret society fulfill similar functions as platforms for scientific
activity and propaganda."132

36. Johan nisson asserts that a 16th and 17th magus considered himself to be a natural
philosopher in the same way, say, as Kepler, Galileo and Newton were natural philosophers. (The
terms "scientist" and "physicist" were not yet in common use.) "The magus," she says,
"understands nature as an animate and active network of ultimately spiritual forces, the scientists
sees it as a "machine," a manifestation of the universal laws of nature." Thus Johannisson regards
laws of nature as antithetical to spirituality, rather than as rules complementary to spirituality, or
perhaps rules which even spirits must obey. "The magus believes that because

131Frances Yates, "The Hermetic Tradition in Renaissance Science", in Art, Science and History in the Renaissance,
1968, edited by C. S. Singleton, p.258.
132
Karin Johannisson, "Magic, Science, and Institutionalization in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries", in
 49

Hermeticism and the Renaissance, Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe, 1988, based on a
1982 meeting, edited by Ingrid Merkel and Allen G. Debus, p. 251- 261.
 50

nature is animate -- not completed and finished -- he can enter into it, operate on it, and
manipulate it."

37. But a magus is himself a part of nature, and had no choice about entering it. And to
say that nature is not complete is not to say that it doesn't obey natural laws, be they only laws of
probability. Johannisson says: "The scientist on the other hand would not attempt to exceed
nature; his task is to understand and to describe it, to come as close as possible to its unassailable
mechanism; for him the laws of nature are inexorable and unbreakable, absolute criteria for what is
natural and supernatural. For the magus, the supernatural simply coincides with the unusual, the
marvelous, the artificial; the laws of nature are not regarded as absolute and can be exceeded by art
Magic and science work with different methods. Whereas science is based on the
conviction that experience and reason are valid instruments of knowledge, magic is based on the
conviction that such values cannot be fixed, and the aim is continually set far beyond the
boundaries of what is empirically and rationally verifiable. The theories of science are dictated by
logic, those of magic by analogy. In opposition to rationality and understanding (episteme) stand
irrational hope and use (techne). At its most general, then, magic can be characterized as the
utilization of art in order to attain specific desired ends, not in order to attain knowledge and
understanding Magic strove to transcend the laws of nature, science to decode them, but also to
accept subordination to them." 133

38. But there isn't, and never has been, a clear demarcation between science as
knowledge and understanding, and technology as use of science and other practical arts.
Scientists, on the whole, must use and create or rely indirectly on technology in their pursuit of
understanding, and technicians must use and create scientific understanding in realizing their
goals. There is, however, a clear demarcation between technology as use limited by natural
laws, and magic as use not limited by natural laws.

39. "To summarize," Johannisson says, "magic as a scientific activity builds on a defined
conception of knowledge -- derived from the Hermetic tradition-- stressing experiments and
rationality in a mathematical sense, together with a visionary utopianism aiming at practical
results." The Hermetic tradition, however, shows few signs of appreciating what applied
mathematics is like, as understood by such people as Archimedes, Newton, and mathematicians
today. On the contrary, Hermeticists are prone to engage in numerology, number mysticism and
number magic, which are not applied mathematics in the same sense.

40. Number mysticism and numerology go back to ancient times. The Hellenistic era, the
period of the Hermeticists, the Gnostics, the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Academics, and early
Christianity, was also the period of the Neoplatonists, who looked back not only to Plato but to
the Pythagoreans, some of whom have customarily been taken to have been among the great
mathematicians of ancient Greece, and some of whom (not necessarily the best mathematicians)
were devoted to a kind of numerology. How much of classical Greek mathematics was due to
Pythagoras or his immediate followers, and how much to other pre-Socratic or later Greeks has
been for a long time a difficult and debated question.

133 J ohanni s s on, ib id.

 41. Pythagoras himself appears to have been a kind of shaman, "the wisest of men", a
miracle-worker who founded a secret society in which he taught metempsychosis (the
reincarnation or migration of souls), the music or harmony of the heavens or spheres, immortality
of souls among the stars, and various magical rituals and practices. Walter Burkert holds that the
general belief in the Pythagorean origin of mathematics (mathematics, say, as Aristotle and
Euclid understood it) stems from no earlier than the Neoplatonic and neo-Pythagorean scholastic
traditions of late antiquity, many hundreds of years after the introduction of mathematical science
in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.E.

42. It is questionable, says Burkert, that Greek mathematics originated in the revelation
of a guru, within a secret society founded to do mathematics, since it arose in close connection
with the development of Greek naturalistic views of the world by Pythagoreans and non-
Pythagoreans alike. Geometry was an important component of astronomy among the classical
Greeks, and some of the geometers were not Pythagoreans. Earlier than in other fields, geometry
and astronomy became the domain of specialists because their increasing complexity required
special talent, and the existence of such talent is independent of membership in any particular
school. The Sophists, who were not mathematically inclined, were detached from the natural
philosophers, and the exactness of the mathematical parts of natural philosophy contrasted more
and more with the uncertainty of other kinds of philosophy. By Plato's time, mathematics was
already the model science. Individual Pythagoreans had some part in this development, but the
mathematics of the classical Greeks was Greek, not merely Pythagorean.134

43. Some early Pythagoreans, perhaps including Pythagoras himself, were devoted to
numerology, which Burkert takes to be of pre-historic origin. Indeed, number dominates the
Pythagoreans' general view of the world. But devotion to number in the form of number
mysticism and number symbolism is quite different from devotion to mathematics as a science.
Burkert gives this as another reason that Greek mathematics in the manner of Euclid or
Archimedes didn't arise from the Pythagoreans. He says: "It has long been known that conscious
and unconscious, rational and irrational impulses, logic and mysticism, interpenetrate in a
complicated and nearly inextricable fashion. As Kepler discovered his second planetary law in
'Pythagorean' manipulation of regular polyhedra, so one might find it obvious that precisely the
pre-philosophical lore of Pythagoras provided the stimulus for Pythagorean science. But not only
does the cosmic significance of number [as in numerology] come from pre-logical number
symbolism, but, even in that which Aristotle presents as the philosophy of the Pythagoreans, there
emerges again and again a spirit and method directly opposite to that of exact mathematics, so that
the latter cannot have arisen from the activities of the Pythagoreans. It is not an unbroken unit of
science and religious-ethical teaching that we find in the Pythagorean tradition, but a groping
attempt to mediate between two levels, to transpose an ancient interpretation of the world into the
language of the recently founded philosophia." 135

44. It appears, then, that the contrast of numerology with mathematics related to
experience is found already among the pre-Socratic Greeks. In the early 17th century, in the

134
Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, translation with authorized revisions by Edwin L.
Minar, Jr., 1972, of Weisheit and Wissenschaft: Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolaus und Platon, 1962, p. 406, 426-
 52

427.
1 3 5 Burkert, ibid., p. 466, 479-480.

52 S c ott , ibid ., 167 .

 53

work of people like Johannes Kepler and Robert Fludd, heirs of a neo-Pythagorean revival in the
European Renaissance of a neo-Pythagorean upsurge in Hellenistic times in North Africa, we find
a mixture of the two, with mathematics and its relation to experience having mostly the upper
hand in Kepler, and numerology and magic having mostly the upper hand in Fludd. 136

45. Burkert concludes that the Pythagorean philosophy synthesized scientifically valid
mathematics with scientifically invalid numerology. He regards this synthesis as largely the the
work of Philolaus, following some prodomal attempts by Hippasus. He says: "The tradition of
Pythagoras as a philosopher and scientist is, from the historical point of view, a mistake. But the
fascination that surrounded, and still surrounds, the name of Pythagoras does not come, basically,
from specific scientific connotations, or from the rational method of mathematics, and certainly
not from the success of mathematical physics. More important is the feeling that there is a kind of
knowing which penetrates to the very core of the universe, which offers truth as something at once
beatific and comforting, and presents the human being as cradled in a universal harmony. In the
figure of Pythagoras an element of pre-scientific cosmic unity lives on into an age in which the
Greeks were beginning, with their newly acquired method of rational thought, to make themselves
masters of their world, to call tradition into question, and to abandon long-cherished beliefs. The
price of the new knowledge and frreedom was a loss in inner security; the paths of rational thought
lead further and further in different directions, and into the Boundless. There the figure of the
ancient Sage, who seemed still to possess the secret of unity, seemed more and more refulgent.
Thus after all, there lived on, in the image of Pythagoras, the great Wizard whom even an
advanced age, though it be unwilling to admit the fact, cannot entirely dismiss."137

46. Nicomachus and Iamblichus and other neo-Pythagoreans of the 2nd through 4th
centuries A.D. (part of the Hellenistic era, in the extended sense) associated numbers with ethical
and social entities, taking themselves to be following a tradition established long before by the
Pythagoreans themselves. To take one case, justice was associated with square numbers, perhaps
because there are two "balanced" factors in a square (4 = 2·2, 9 = 3·3 etc.). One of Aristotle's
commentators, Alexander of Aphrodisias, reports that some took the number 4 to represent justice,
or even to b e justice, since it is the lea st square of a whole number (not counting 1). Others took 9
to represent justice, perhaps because (as a guess) it is the square of the "balanced" number 3 which
has a beginning, middle and end. The number 2 might be considered as balanced, but some
Pythagoreans took odd numbers to be "limited" and even numbers to be "unlimited", and perhaps
3, as the least of the limited numbers, was considered more appropriate for justice. Or maybe this
wasn't the way it happened at all. W.K.C. Guthrie observes, thus complicating matters, that some
late commentators took 3, 5 or 8 for justice. 138

47. To take another example, marriage is associated with 5, or is 5, because it is the

union of ma le, associated with odd numbers (in particular 3), and femal e, associated with even
numbers (in particular 2), and, of course, 3 + 2 = 5. Again, opportunity, or "fit and proper" time
was identified with 7 "because in nature the times of fulfilment with respect to birth and maturity
go in sevens." A man, for example, can be born after 7 months, cut teeth after another 7, reach

136 I will give details about the contrast and clash between Kepler and Fludd later.
137
Burkert, ibid., p. 480, 482.
1 3 8 W.K.C. Guthrie, Hi stor y of Gr eek Philo sophy , 1967, v. 1, p. 303 -304.
 54

puberty after the second period of 7 years, grow a beard after the third period of 7 years, etc. As
inaccurate as this sounds, the reckoning of human lives in multiples of 7 is said by Guthrie to
have been a commonplace of Greek thought.

48. Aristotle severely criticized theories of this kind in his Metaphysics. Nevertheless,
so me of the followers of Pythagoras were so me of those who initially developed the classical
Greek mathematics which culminated with the works of such mathematicians and astronomers as
Eudoxus, Euclid, Eratosthenes, Apollonius and Archimedes. Many of these works are
theoretically sound and of practical value to this day. Mathematics, especially, has the peculiar
property, among sciences, that while there continue to be new developments in it, often the old
developments remain useful, or even essential. On the whole, good mathematics may be forgotten,
ignored, re-invented, re-formed or reformed, extended, placed in more general contexts, placed on
new foundations, and so on -- but not shown to be mistaken.

49. Edward Strong argues against such authors as E. A. Burtt 139 that the triumphs of
mathematical philosophy in the work of people like Galileo, Descartes and Newton did not
descend from the mathematical philosophy of the neo-Platonists and neo-Pythagoreans which
had been elaborated by a number of Italian philosophers in the 15th and 16th centuries. "The
Florentine Platonism of the fifteenth century and the Pythagorean-Platonic metamathematics of the
sixteenth century are not historically eligible for the honor of having instructed men to turn from
classification to measurement."140

50. The "classification" which Strong refers to is a kind of numerology, and the
measurement a kind of applied mathematics. In Platonic philosophy, numbers, as such, have an
intermediate existence between what can be sensed and the eternal ideas of which they are
instances. Among the neo-Platonists, this led to a kind of theological mathematics, as Strong
calls it. This is found in such neo-Platonists as Nicomachus and Theon. "Neither one," Strong
says, "attempts to deduce mathematical or 'scientific' truths from the mystery of numbers; rather we
see them treating number as possessing properties which they insist is other than that of their
arithmetical work. Both recognize that arithmetic is a self-contained science, but they also
consider it as the way of initiation into realities which lie beyond the limited procedures of the
mathematicians."141

51. In theological arithmetic, properties of the soul, society, ethics, the elements, and so
on, are identified with numbers by a succession of analogies. "Numbers provide a symbolism and
method of classification -- a symbolism of unity and multiplicity in explaining creation, and a
classification of hierarchical relationships and essential virtues by means of triadity and
triangularity, and so forth. Number as a kind of 'universal and exemplary plan' in the mind of
God has its fundamental meaning not so much in the notion of law as in the notion of efficacy or
power Efficacy and creation rather than law and quantitative relations, divinity rather than
demonstration, divine numbers as transcending the physical and mathematical rather than a

139 Edwin A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, 1925, revised edition, 1954.
140 Edward W. Strong, Procedures and Metaphysics, A Study in the Philosophy of Mathematical- Physical
Science in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century, 1936, p. 10.
141 Strong, ibid., p. 28.
 55

vision of mathematical order 'saving' appearances: these contrasts emphasize the transformation
which mathematics undergoes in its elevation to the status of divine arithmetic." 142

52. In ancient Hebrew, Greek and Arabic, numerals are letters of the alphabet, though
perhaps specially marked in some way. It appears to have been this that gave rise to the view that
hidden meanings and correspondences of written words can be found by adding together the
numerical values of their letters. Among the Jewish cabalists, this was known as gem atria,
among the Greeks isopsephia, among the Muslims, hisab al-jumal. 143 Various Christian writers
also use the technique. Such techniques are still practiced today, here and there. Idries Shah gives
a number of examples in one of his works on the Sufi mysticism of the Muslims, which began to
spread with the advent of Islam in the 7th century of the Christian calendar, and which still lives
today. Shah regards the Sufis to have means of contacting the underlying wisdom of humanity,
and to "correspond to the inner reality of Islam, as with the equivalent aspect of every other
religion and genuine tradition. " 1 4 4

53. Unfortunately, this wisdom seems to exist largely in cryptic or secret form, and
illogicality is said by Shah to be a key feature of Sufism. In any case, in Arabic, most words can
be assigned roots consisting of 3 consonants. Many words will then have the same root.
Furthermore, there is a standard way of associating letters of the Arabic alphabet with numbers
(given on p. 174 of The Sufis). The Hisab el-Jamal (different transliteration of the hisab al-jumal of
Ifrah) is said to be the "standard rearrangement of letters and numbers". 145 With these things in
mind, Shah says, in a comment on the significance of "dots" to Sufis: "Among the Sufis, NQT --
"dot," "point," sometimes "abbreviation" -- has an important value in conveying teachings. In one
aspect this is connected with the mathematical part of Sufism. The Arabic word for "geometrician"
or "architect" is muhandis. It is composed of the letters M, H, N, D, S, which are equivalent to the
numbers 40, 5, 50, 4, 60. These total 159. These numbers, resplit conventionally into tens,
hundreds and units, yield 100 = Q, 50 = N, 9 = T. These three consonants, combined in the order
2,1,3, provide the root NQT. This root means "dot," "point." In certain ceremonial usages,
therefore, the word "point" is used to convey the concealed word which is its parent -- the word
muhandis, the Prime Builder."146

54. Gershom Scholem describes a short Jewish work called the Sefer Yesirah or Book of
Creation which seems to date from the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. It circulated widely in many
lands during the European Middle Ages, and is found today even outside of academies, especially
among occultists. Scholem considers that it probably originated from neo-Pythagorean sources
such as the writings of Nichomachus of Gerasa (c. 140 A.D.), together with the idea of "letters by
means of which heaven and earth were created" which may have come from within Judaism. 55.
The basic thesis of the work, accoording to Scholem, is that: "All reality is consituted in the three
levels of the cosmos -- the world, time, and the human body, which are the fundamental realm of
all being -- and comes into existence through the

142 Strong, ibid., p. 33.

143 Cf. George Ifrah, From One to Zero, A Universal History of Numbers. 1985, translation by Lowell
Bair of Histoire Universelle de Chifres, 1981, Part IV, Ch. 16-21.
144 Idries Shah, The Sufis, 1964, p. 28.
145 Shah, ibid., p.110.
146 Shah, ibid., p. 372.
 56

combination of the twenty-two consonants [of the Hebrew alphabet], and especially by way of the
'231' gates, that is, the combinations of the letters into groups of two (the author apparently held
the view that the root of Hebrew were based not on three but on two consonants)." The 22
consonants are divided into 3 groups according to a peculiar phonetic system. The groups contain
3, 7 and 12 letters. The group of three consists of "matrices" (sometimes translated "mothers"),
corresponding to ether (or spirit), water and fire. From these everything else came into being, and
correspond also to the 3 seasons of the year (3 rather than 4 was an ancient Greek partitioning), and
the 3 parts of the body: head, torso and stomach. The letters in the group of 7 correspond
especially to the 7 planets, 7 heavens, t days of the week and 7 orifices of the body. They also
represent 7 fundamental opposites: life and death, peace and disaster, wisdom and folly, wealth
and poverty, charm (or beauty) and ugliness, sowing (or fruitfulness) and devastation, domination
and servitude. And they correspond to the six directions of heaven: above (or height), below (or
depth), east, west, north and south [presumably the 7th is earth, or an observer?] The 12
remaining consonants correspond to the 12 principal activities of man, the 12 signs of the zodiac,
the 12 months of the years, and the 12 chief limbs of the human body. Scholem observers that the
scheme of the Sefer Yesirah betrays its relationship with astrology, although it is based on
language mysticism. From such ideas, says Scholem, "direct paths lead to the magical conception
of the creative power of letters and words".147

55. There have been numerous other species of number magic and mysticism. Examples
are beliefs in special values of certain numbers, such as a belief that 7 must be especially
significant since in Genesis God is said to have created the universe in 7 days, and there are many
other places in the Bible where the number 7 appears. The connection with the Bible is stressed in
an unusually elaborate and worked out treatment of the religious significance of small integers in
two volumes by the Christian writer Paul Lacuria. 148 The number 7 is especially considered in
Chapters XV-XVIII. Sample: the 7 divine attributes Life, Liberty, Light, Holiness, Wisdom-Justice
(linked) and Eternity correspond (in these orders) to the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue -
indigo and violet, to the musical notes do, re, mi, fa, sol -la (linked), ti (v. 1, p. 196-197), and the
integers 1 through 7. Of course there are also 7 days in a week, according to the ancients 7
"planets" (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), etc.

56. Henry Corbin describes the "science of the balance" ('ilm al-M ¯z £n) associated with
the Muslim writer J£bir ibn Hayy £n, as described by the Muslim Sh ¯-ite writer Haydar Amli (8th
century A.D., 14th century A.H.), and said by him to have been originated by Pythagoras. Haydar
Am µli explains that 1 is the cause of number, 2 is the number of the First Intelligence as second
existence; 3 is the number of the universal Soul; 4 is the number of nature; 5 of "prime matter"; 6
of space ("corporeal volume"); 7 of the celestial Sphere; 8 of the Elements; 9 of the 3 natural
kingdoms, mineral corresponding to 10's, vegetable corresponding to 100's, animal corresponding
to 1000's. "Each number carries by itself an esoteric secret which is not found in any other
number."

147 Gershom Scholem, p. 24-35 of Origins of the Kabbalah, 1987, translation of Ursprung undAnfänge der
Kabbala, 1962; there is an English translation of the Sefer Yesirah by Knut Stenring under the title The Book of
Formation or Sepher Yetzirah, 1923, and another in The Qabala Trilogy, unattributed, called the "The Sepher
Yetsira", based on the French translation by Carlo Suarès, 1968.
148 Paul Lacuria, Les Harmonies de l' «tre, exprim ª e par les nombres, 1899.
 57

57. There are "balances" of 7 and 12, "correspondences b etween the astronomy of the
visible [exterior] Heaven and the astronomy of the spiritual [interior] Heaven, between the
esoteric hierarchy and its cosmic correspondences." The 7 divine attributes as given here are Life,
Knowledge, Power, Will, Word, Hearing and Sight, to which correspond 7 names called the "Imams
of the divine Names". In the spiritual world, there are 7 prophets who are manifestations of the 7
"ecstatic Angels of love": Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus and Mohammad. There are 7
planets, 7 climates corresponding to them, 7 Earths and 7 peoples who inhabit them, and 7 degrees
of hell. One has the 12 primordially created angels, the 12 Imams who are the 12 friends of God,
and the 12 signs of the zodiac.

58. There is also a "balance" of 19, which is of greatest importance, "for the system of the
world is ordered according to the number 19." This is because "the whole universe is in the image
of God." There are 7 planets and 12 signs of the zodiac: total 19. There are the Intelligence and
Soul of the universe, 9 celestial spheres, 4 elements, 3 natural kingdoms, and Man: total 19. There
are 7 great prophets and 12 Imams belonging to them: total 19. The 28 letters of the Arabic
alphabet are reduced to 19 "degrees" of letters by a rather complicated process. And so on. There
is a balance of 28, and other balances. Corbin ends his treatment of this numerological system
with a description, derived from Ibn 'Arab ¯ of the "knights of the invisible", the Sages who, it is
said in the Koran, understand the true meaning of certain parables: "it is thanks to them that we can
have in this world a 'science of correspondences'." 1 4 9

59. Another familiar kind of numerology is a belief in magical properties of square

matrices of numbers, "magic squares", in which the entries are the integers from 1 to n 2 for some n,
and the sums are the same in rows, columns and main diagonals. For example, if the 4 rows 1-15-
14-4, 12-6-7-9, 8-10-11-5, 13-3-2-16 are arranged into a square in this order, the sums are all 34.
This particular example appears in a work called Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652) by Athanasius
Kircher, a noted 17th century Jesuit "Hermetic pseudo-Egyptologist" 150

60. Such correspondences fail to be applied mathematics, as mathematicians today

understand this term, because the mathematical structures don't correspond naturally to anything in
the events or things they are purported to apply to. Gematria, the association of numbers with
qualities like justice or institutions like marriage are examples of what I call appliqu ªed
mathematics. This is an attempt to attribute a mathematical structure to something which doesn't
have a mathematical structure, or at least has no interesting or revealing mathematical structure.
One may be trying to quantify the unquantifiable. Examples might be attempts to apply partial
differential equations to political movements in ways in which such equations are applied to
physical phenomena (although statistical sampling methods as used in polls might be applicable), or
to the movements of Beethoven's symphonies (which isn't as wild an idea as it might seem, since
timed sounds can in a certain sense be specified by such equations). Natural philosophers and
their descendants, the natural scientists, must submit to the mathematics which is in the cosmos;
magicians and astrologers try to force some mathematics on it which doesn't belong to it.

149 Henry Corbin, Temple et Contemplation, Essais sur l'Islam Iranien, 1980, "La science de la balance
et les correspondences entre les mondes en gnose islamique, p. 67- 141.
150 So characterized by Frances Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, 1972, p. 230; the square is given by
Hans Biedermann, Handlexikon der magischen K½nste, 2nd edition, 1973, p. 316.
 58

61. Edward Strong warns that the cabalistic and numerological maneuvers of such
Florentine Platonists and Hermeticists as Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico did not provide a
metaphysical foundation for the 16th and 17th century mathematical philosophers. These
Platonists were neither mathematically nor empirically minded. They were concerned with such
problems as comparing the views of Plato and Aristotle on knowledge and being, and with the
reconciliation of neo-Platonism and Hermeticism with orthodox Christianity. They did not engage
in a mathematical realism, but in a mystical number symbolism. "Through love and through the
knowledge of superior numbers, one penetrates into the inner mysteries. The way upward yields
to spiritual love; but if one would know the workings of the creative spirit in the created things,
he should consider symbolic number. As in Proclus, the divine numbers are defined in respect to
their status and function: their status is to symbolize and classify the incorporeal and incorruptible
beings, and their function is to create copies in matter. Upon its own showing, the doctrine does
not display the universe as a structure of mathematical order and relations. Rather, a religious and
mystical system borrows number as a useful symbol of incorporeality and turns arithmetic into
arithmology. The divine appropriates the arithmetic, and arithmetic the divine, in the 'divine
arithmetic' of these Neo-Platonists." 151

62. The distinction between applied and appliqu ªed mathematics was made by Kepler
(not in these terms) in his controversy with the physician, Robert Fludd, who was also an
alchemist, astrologer and Hermeticist.152 It appears to have been Kepler's harmony theory which
led to the controversy with Fludd, who also had propounded a theory of musical correspondences in
his Utriusque Cosmi ... historia (1617-1618). In Kepler's appendix to his Harmonice mundi (1619
-- sometimes called Harmonices mundi), Kepler compares his own work with that of Ptolemy in
the 3rd book of Ptolemy's Harmonica, and also with the work of Fludd. As to Fludd, Kepler
objects that whereas he (Kepler) develops musical theory in considerable detail and then
demonstrates a celestial counterpart, Fludd gives a condensed version of a textbook for musicians,
and then deals with practical matters of music-making. Kepler says: "... he differs from me as a
practitioner from a theoretician. For while he considers [musical] instruments themselves, I
investigate causes or consonances in nature, and when he teaches how one can compose a tune
with many voices, I produce instead many mathematical demonstrations, that are in songs formed
by nature as well as choral pieces."153

63. Furthermore, Kepler observes that Fludd derives his harmonies purely from
properties of numbers, whereas he (Kepler) finds his from astronomical measurements. Indeed,

151 Strong, ibid., p. 196-197.

152 This interchange is described by (among others) Max Caspar in Kepler, 1946, translated from German by C.
Doris Hellman, 1959, p. 290-293; by the Nobel physicist Wolfgang Pauli, "The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the
Scientific Theories of Kepler", in Naturerkl¥ rung und Psyche by Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli, 1952, English
translation by Priscilla Silz in The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, 1955; by Frances Yates in Giordano
Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, 1964, p. 440-444; by Robert Westman, "Nature, art, and psyche", in Occult and
Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance, 1984, p. 177-229; and by Judith V. Field in Kepler's Geometrical
Cosmology, 1988, p. 179-187.

153 Johannes Kepler, Harmonice mundi, 1619, vol. 6 of Gesammelte Werke, p. 374; cf. the translation into
German by Max Caspar, Weltharmonik, 1939, reprinted 1971, which has something like this, translated into English (p.
362): "For while he [Fludd] considers the instruments, I investigate the causes of nature or consonances, and when he
teaches how one composes a song with many voices, I produce instead of this mathematical proofs for very many
laws that are valid for choral as well as the many-voiced singing out of nature."
 59

Fludd never makes any reference in his theories to an observed astronomical quantity. Kepler
remarks that Fludd's Hermetic analogies 'are dragged in by the hair'. Field says: "The crucial
difference between Kepler and Fludd seems ... to be that Kepler demanded that his cosmological
theories should be in good numerical agreement with measured properties of the observable
Universe." 154 That is, the mathematics should be applied, not appliquéed.

64. In Fludd's opinion Kepler's science refers only to the "outside of things", whereas he
(Fludd) penetrates to the inner, invisible depths and holiness of things. Fludd distinguished
between formal mathematics (his own kind) and vulgar mathematics (Kepler's kind). The
mathematics of Fludd was, in fact, largely numerology -- a kind of purely verbal manipulation of
numbers. These verbal manipulations were, in turn, often extracted from or references to elaborate
engravings which were basic in Fludd's system. This has been emphasized by Westman who says
we must look at Fludd's engravings "not as illustrations but rather as ways of knowing,
demonstrating, and remembering."155 Fludd's pictures, however, do not function in the way
geometrical diagrams do for Kepler. "It is as though Fludd's pictures," Westman says, which
appear to be about nature, are really pictures of psychic states; they are visualizations of intuitions
and feelings projected onto the world, but lacking any sufficient criterion of correspondence to an
external reality." 156

65. The mathematics of Kepler (1571-1630) was awakened in him by the cosmos, tested
by way of observations, and found not to be purely a matter of words. "The divine voice," he says
in the Astronomia nova (1609), "which commands men to learn astronomy, expresses itself in the
world, not in words and syllables, but through things themselves and through the agreement of the
157
human intellect and senses with the entirety of celestial bodies and phenomena." Kepler's
pictures -- geometric diagrams --were projections of correspondences between geometrical
relations and images in his mind and geometrical relations realized outside him. Kepler's view in
his Ha rmonice mund i of the relationship between the human mind and the Divine Mind -- based
on an analogy with the center, circumference and radii of a circle -- fits in very well, as Pauli
observes, with an interpretation of knowledge as a "matching" of external impressions with pre-
existent inner images. 158

66. Kepler says: "For, to know is to compare that which is externally perceived with
inner ideas and to judge that it agrees with them, a process which Proclus expressed very
beautifully by the word "awakening," as from sleep. For, as the perceptible things which appear in
the outside world make us remember what we knew before, so do sensory experiences, when
consciously realized, call forth intellectual notions that were already present inwardly; so that
that which formerly was hidden in the soul, as under the veil of potentiality, now shines therein
in actuality. How, then, did they [the intellectual notions] find ingress? I answer: All ideas or
formal concepts of the harmonies, as I have just discussed them, lie in those beings that possess the
faculty of rational cognition, and they are not at all received within by discursive reasoning;

154 Field, ibid., p. 187.

155 Westman, ibid., p. 181.
156 Westman, ibid., p.211.
157 Quoted by Alexandre Koyr ª, Astronomical Revolutions, 1973, p. 163, translation by R. E. W. Maddison
of La rªvolution astronomique, 1961.
158 Pauli, ibid., p. 162.
 60

rather they are derived from a natural instinct and are inborn in those beings as the number (an
intellectual thing) of petals in a flower or the number of seed cells in a fruit is innate in the forms
of the plants. " 1 5 9

67. Kepler's cosmic harmonies are given by proportions. For example, Kepler asserted in
the Harmonices mundi that the slowest angular velocity of a planet at aphelion (position on the
planet's elliptical orbit furthest from the sun) is to the largest angular velocity of the planet at
perihelion (position nearest the sun) as one small whole number is to another. Stated in another
way, the ratio of the angular velocities equals the ratio of two whole numbers. One of the ratios in
this proportion (a proportion is an equality of ratios) is between two whole numbers, but the other
is between two quantities (the velocities) which can be represented by geometrical magnitudes.
Furthermore, Kepler calculated that the ratios of the small whole numbers were ratios
corresponding to consonant musical intervals, such as a fifth, or a major or minor third, and thus,
for example, equal to the ratios of the lengths of a string (or strings) which would produce the
sounds of these intervals. For example, for Mars, he found a fifth, and for Earth, a minor
semitone.160

68. When tw o geometric magnitudes, or magnitudes which can be represented by

geometric magnitudes (such as velocities or weights) are compared in a ratio, the terms in the
ratio must be in the same units -- for velocities, both feet per second, or both kilometers per hour,
etc. Kepler's third law of planetary motion maintains that the squares of the periods (times taken
for one revolution around the sun) of two planets are to each other as the cubes of the semi-major
axes of the elliptical orbits on which they move (approximately) -- provided the the two periods
are in the same units, and the two lengths of the semi-major axes are in the same units. The
periods, or the lengths of the semi-major axes, might be incommensurable (in the mathematical
sense, related to the difference between rational and irrational numbers) with some unit of
measure, but the ratios could still be equal to a ratio of small whole numbers. For example, in
modern terms, the ratio of 3 times pi to 2 times pi equals the ratio of 3 to 2.

69. Kepler took geometry to be fundamental to God's creation, and God's geometrical
relationships to be basic features of the cosmos which can be awakened in us by our sensory
contacts with the world outside us. He criticized the algebraists of his time for their lack of
depth and their utilitarian attitudes. When it is a question of the foundations of mathematics, he
said, it is necessary to return to geometry. 161 The cosmic harmonies which he derived he
considered to be characteristic of the cosmos by virtue of the fact that they arose from taking
ratios of geometrical magnitudes which appear in nature, and in us. That the magnitudes which
appear in us do indeed correspond to the ones outside of us can be verified by making
measurements outside of us to see if the proposed ratios of these magnitudes do indeed obtain.
However, he says in the Ha rmonice mund i that we are born with archetypal harmonies in our
soul which are not images of harmonies, but the harmonies themselves -- indeed, these
harmonies a re the soul.162 Fludd also was much concerned with cosmic harmonies, but Kepler

159Quoted by Pauli, ibid., p. 162-163.

160
Alexandre Koyr ª, The Astronomical Revolution, 1973, p. 335; translation by R. E. W. Maddison of La rªvolution
astronomique, 1961.
161 Cf. Gª rard Simon, Kepler astronome astrologue, 1979, p. 149-153.
162 Simon, ibid., p. 141.
 61

complained that Fludd's ratios did not arise from taking ratios of objective geometrical
magnitudes, but from subjective and arbitrary assignments of numbers to various pictures which
Fludd carried around in his mind. Fludd's ratios were ratios of small whole numbers not
connected with actual cosmological magnitudes, except in the case of musical intervals.

70. Pauli remarks on Fludd's aversion to the quantitative, in the sense in which physicists
take this word. In Fludd's system, there are two polar fundamental principles, form as a principle of
light, coming from above, and matter, a dark principle, dwelling in the earth. Pauli says: "Fludd's
depreciation of everything quantitative, which in his opinion belongs, like all division and
multiplicity, to the dark principle (matter, devil), resulted in a further essential difference between
Fludd's and Kepler's views concerning the position of the soul in nature. The sensitivity of the soul
to proportions, so essential according to Kepler, in in Fludd's opinion only the result of its
entanglement in the (dark) corporeal world, whereas its imaginative faculties, that recognize unit,
spring from its true nature originating in the light principle (fo rma ). While Kepler represents the
point of view that the soul is a part of nature, Fludd even protests against the concept "part" to the
human soul, since the soul, being freed from the laws of the physical world, that is, in so far as it
belongs to the light principle, is inseparable from the whole worldsoul."163 It appears that Fludd
used the wordfo rma rather as we commonly use the word symbol today.

71. Pauli says: "Fludd's attitude, however, seems to us somewhat easier to understand
when it is viewed in the perspective of a more general differentiation between two types of mind, a
differentiation that can be traced throughout history, the one type considering the quantitative
relations of the parts to be essential, the other the qualitative visibility of the whole. We already
find this contrast, for example, in antiquity in the two corresponding definitions of beauty: in the
one it is the proper agreement of the parts with each other and with the whole, in the other (going
back to Plotinus) there is no reference to parts but beauty is the eternal radiance of the "One"
shining through the material phenomenon. An analogous contrast can also be found later in the
well-known quarrel between Goethe and Newton concerni ng the theory of colours: Goethe had a
similar aversion to "parts" and always emphasized the disturbing influence of instruments on the
'natural' phenomena."164

72. Kepler's mathematical images didn't always participate in correspondences in the

way Kepler thought they would to begin with -- as comparison with nature external to him
revealed to him at times -- but in his view, they were intended to be used to establish
correspondences of something implanted in him with something outside of him. Furthermore, his
mathematics was based on the works of great mathematicians of antiquity such as Euclid,
Apollonius and Archimedes, augmented by the work of numerous later "vulgar" mathematicians of
the same kind (to use Fludd's pejorative designation), including himself. Most of this
mathematics is as valid today as it ever was, and much of it is still widely applicable, though
often buried in complex mathematical systems and traditions elaborated since Kepler's time.

164
163 Pauli, ibid., p. 198-199. Pauli, ibid., p. 205 -206.
 62

73. Kepler was sometimes extravagant in his correspondences, by today's standards. For
example, there was his proposal in the Mysterium cosmographium 165 that the number and distance
of the planets follow a priori from properties of the five regular solids. However, he devoted
incredible labor to testing this proposition against Tycho Brahe's observations. In his last major
work, the Harmonices mundi (1619), this proposition had evolved into Kepler's third law of
planetary motion, that the squares of the periods of the planets are proportional to the to the cubes
of the semi-major axes of the ellipses in which they move. This law still stands, to a first
approximation. Kepler's theory of the connection of musical harmony with the motions of the
solar system, a quantitative theory of the Pythagorean "music of the spheres", elaborated in the
Harmonices Mundi, hasn't fared as well as his laws of planetary motion. But it was not occult
philosophy. "I hate all cabalists," said Kepler.

74. Pauli commented on the difference between people like Kepler, who are concerned
with the quantitative relations between parts of things, and people like Fludd, who are concerned
with qualitative visibility of wholes of things. There are other contrasts between the viewpoints of
Fludd and Kepler. One lies in the use of language. In Chapter V of his work De stella nova (On
the new star) (1606), Kepler argues at some length that the names of the signs of the zodiac are
arbitrary, and don't have any occult significance. Gªrard Simon observes that these pages are
characteristic of Kepler's attitude, and show that Kepler grasped the fact that traditional judicial
astrology is based on a lack of distinction between the thing and the symbol, between the symbol
and the name, between the name and the meaning. "It is a question," Simon says, "of knowing if
words conform to things."166

75. In the appendix to the Harmonices mundi, Kepler accuses both Ptolemy and Fludd of
concocting cosmic harmonies which are "pure symbolisms ... poetical and rhetorical". It's an old
story: the debate about the relation of language to the rest of reality, which goes back at least to
Plato's Cratylus. The example of the zodiac doesn't reveal the profundity of the question. It is
quite easy to believe that the names of the signs of the zodiac are named after quite arbitrary
shapes assigned to certain constellations, and that, for example, Libra, the Scales, has no
particular connection with justice or fair-mindedness (although astrologers believe otherwise).
But is all use of language arbitrary in this way?

76. In the De stella nova, Kepler ridicules the cabalists for regarding language as a direct
gift of God, and for extracting extravagant hidden meanings from words and phrases by
transposing their characters. It must be remembered, though, that on the basis of the book of
Genesis, the cabalists believed, as do many others, that God spoke the world into existence. And,
as Robert Westman brings out, Fludd's major works are of the genre of commentaries on Genesis,
and while "Fludd had a strong interest in the created world of nature -- perhaps much more so
than preceding commentators on Genesis -- his ultimate concern was still with Genesis itself." 167

165 1st edition, 1597; 2nd edition with extensive added notes, 1621.
166 G ªrard Simon, ibid., p. 102.
167 Robert Westman, "Nature, Art and Psyche" in Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance, 1984,
p. 125-229, especially p. 191 -200; Westman cites Arnold Williams, The Common Expositor: An Account of the
Commentaries on Genesis, 1527- 1 633, 1948.
 63

77. Brian Vickers examines the distinction between analogy and identity, and between
literal and metaphorical language. He says: "In the scientific tradition, I hold, a clear distinction is
made between words and things and between literal and metaphorical language. The occult
tradition does not recognize this distinction: Words are treated as if they are equivalent to things and
can be substituted for them. Manipulate the one and you manipulate the other. Analogies, instead
of being, as they are in the scientific tradition, explanatory devices subordinate to argument and
proof, or heuristic tools to make models that can be tested, corrected, and abandoned if necessary,
are, instead, modes of conceiving relationships in the universe that reify, rigidify, and ultimately
come to dominate thought. One no longer uses analogies: One is used by them. They become the
only way in which one can think or experience the world." 168

78. Vickers considers such exemplars of occult attitudes toward language as Boehme,
Ficino, Agrippa, Paracelsus, Comenius and John Webster, and critics (as least by implication) of
such attitudes like Francis Bacon, Galileo, Seth Ward, John Wilkins, Daniel Sennert, Johann Van
Helmont, Robert Boyle and John Locke. For example, there is Galileo's remark in "The Assayer",
addressed to Lothario Sarsi, a pseudonymn of a Jesuit priest, Horatio Grassi: "I am not so sure
that in order to make a comet a quasi-planet, and as such to deck it out in the attributes of other
planets, it is sufficient for Sarsi or his teacher to regard it as one and so name it. If their opinions
and their voices have the power of calling into existence the things they name, then I beg them to
do me the favor of naming a lot of old hardware I have about my house, "gold." 169 Later in the same
work, we find: "To excite in us tastes, odors, and sounds I believe that nothing is required in
external bodies except shapes, numbers, and slow or rapid movements.
I think that if ears, tongues, and noses were removed, shapes and numbers and motions would
remain, but not odors or tastes or sounds. The latter, I believe, are nothing more than names
when separated from living beings, just as tickling and titillation are nothing but names in the
absence of such things as noses and armpits."170

79. Isaac Newton had similar views. In a letter to Richard Bentley of 25 February
1692/1693, he complains about a statement of Bentley's "representing it as absurd as that there
should be positively an infinite arithmetical summ or number wch is a contradiction in terminis:
but you do not prove it as absurd. Neither do you prove that what men mean by an infinite summ
or number is a contradiction in nature. For a contradiction in terminis argues nothing more then
an improperty of speech. Those things wch men understand by improper and contradictious
phrases may be sometimes really in nature wthout any contradiction at all. A silver inkhorn a
paper Lanthorn an iron whetstone are absurd phrases & yet ye things signified are really in
nature."171

80. Vickers also refers to the controversy between Kepler and Fludd. Kepler's attitude
toward analogy is illustrated by a quotation from a letter of Kepler to Maestlin of 1605: "Every

168 Brian Vickers, "Analogy versus identity: the rejection of occult symbolism, 1580-1680", in Occult and
scientific mentalities in the Renaissance, 1984, p. 95.
169 Galileo, "The Assayer" (Il Saggiatore), 1623, in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, 1957, translations
and notes by Stillman Drake.
170 Galileo, ibid., p. 277.
171 The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, edited by H. W. Turnbull, v. 3, 1961, p. 254.
 64

planetary body must be regarded as being magnetic, or quasi-magnetic; in fact, I suggest a

similarity, and do not declare an identity."172 In short, Kepler understood the limitations of
mathematical models.

81. Vickers quotes a 1968 Malinowski lecture of S. J. Tambiah, "The Magical Power of
Words", concerning the effect of "sacred words" which are "thought to possess a special kind of
power not normally associated with ordinary language", derived from the widespread "ancient
belief in the creative power of the word". Examples are found in the Vedic hymns of the Hindus, in
certain Buddhist doctrines, in the Iranian Parsi religion, in the religions of the ancient Sumerians,
Egyptians and Semites who believed that the world and its objects were created by the word of
God, and among the Greeks whose doctrine concerning logos postulated that the essence of things
lies in their names. In the Bible, for example, we find: "So shall my word be that goeth forth out
173
of my mouth; it shall not reutrn unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please."

82. In fact, the 3rd verse of the first book of Genesis reads in the Revised Standard
Version: "God said let there be light."—"God said let there be light." A little later, in Genesis
2.19-20, it is said of the first man Adam: "So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of
the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them;
and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all
cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field " In the Christian Gospel of
John, we have "in the beginning was the Word" and "the Word was God" and "the Word made
flesh". Here "Word" is a translation of logos, whose meaning is rather elastic, but which many
agree in this context refers to the "word of God" as understood in the Old Testament. Perhaps
John also intended the word to carry its connotation of reason, and of order, as opposed to chaos.
In any case, a great many Jewish, Muslim and Christian commentators stress the fact that God
created by speaking. Occasionally, a commentator will say that it is as if God created by
commanding orally, so creation would be analogous to language acts. But many hold that God's
acts of creation, as described in Genesis, were language acts. As a consequence, they regard
language as a most powerful and holy instrument. God gave this gift to Adam and, it is said, when
God let Adam name the creatures, he gave them dominion—power—over them.

83. Questions of divinity aside, language is, of course, a most powerful instrument. Who
would deny the power of command, promise, entreaty, description, lying, literature, and all the
other effective acts of language? In Plato's Cratylus, Socrates calls Pan the declarer and mover of
all things, and says he is speech, or the brother of speech. Who can conceive of human society,
civilization, culture, not founded on the motive power of language? But mover of all things? Of
the sun and planets, and the particles or waves or wavicles that compose them?

84. The limits of language a re under constant review. Suffice it here to quote two
opposed points of view. "Learning to speak," says Han-Georg Gadamer, "does not mean to use a
preexistent tool for designating a world already somehow familiar to us; it means acquiring a
familiarity and acquaintance with the world itself and how it confronts us Language is not a
delimited realm of the speakable, over against which other realms that are unspeakable might
172 Ko yr ª , loc . ci t., p. 252 .
173 Isa iah 55 :11 .
 65

stand. Rather, language is all-encompassing. There is nothing that is fundamentally excluded

from being said, to the extent that our act of meaning intends it."174

85. Contrarily, Alfred North Whitehead says: "Language was developed in response to
the excitements of practical actions. It is concerned with the prominent facts But the
prominent facts are the superficial facts .......There are other elements in our experience, on the
fringe of consciousness, and yet massively qualifying our experience ....... Language is incomplete
and fragmentary, and merely registers a stage in the average advance beyond ape-mentality. But
all men enjoy flashes of insight beyond meanings already stabilized in etymology and grammar.
Hence the r µle of literature, the r µle of the special sciences, and the rµle of philosophy: -- in their
various ways engaged in finding expressions for meanings as yet unexpressed." 175

86. Kepler made the point that naming a sign of the zodiac Scorpio after a tenuous
resemblance of a constellation to a scorpion does not give the sign, or planets in the sign, any
capacity to instill in humans any of the characteristics of scorpions. This is a false conclusion
based on an invalid analogy. But Kepler didn't reject the usefulness of analogy in general.
Alexandre Koyrª observes that in Kepler's Astronomia nova, when Kepler was concerned with the
nature of the force which causes the planets to revolve around the sun, he says we can only
proceed by analogy with other more usual, better known emanations, notably light and magnetic
force. Kepler commented that if we proceed in this way, our knowledge of the motive force of
the sun will be vague and incomplete. But it gives some idea of the kind of reality we are dealing
with. 176

87. Kepler's attitude toward analogy resembles to a degree (is analogous to!) Galileo's
attitude toward idealization, about which Koyré wrote so eloquently in his ~tudes galil ªennes.
Galileo conceived of bodies falling in vacuums, frictionless surfaces, undisturbed objects moving
forever with constant velocities equal to their initial velocities (in circles, to be sure), the orbits of
cannonballs being perfect parabolas (just as the ancients had conceived of the paths of the stars as
being perfect circles -- but the cannonballs are sublunary), simple pendulums being isochronous
(a little off, but nearly right for small oscillations). As we would say today, Galileo produced
mathematical models for various physical states or processes, and such models capture only certain
quantitative aspects of phenomena. Kepler was also much given to making geometric models, and
he was especially fond of his exotic model of the solar system based on the regular and star-
shaped polyhedra.

88. Neither Kepler's nor Galileo's models agreed exactly or completely with reality.
Mathematical models seldom do. They are idealizations or abstractions, and, in the case of
quantities conceived of as continuous, inevitably introduce some degree of approximation.
Galileo's treatise in which he founds the science of strength of materials contains drawings of
unidealized wooden beams, with knots in the wood visible, and showing plants growing out of

174 Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Man and Language" (1966), in Philosophical Hermeneutics, 1976, p. 63, 67,
translated by David Linge from Gadamer's Kleine Schriften.
175 Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures in Ideas, 1933, p. 166-167, p. 227- 228.
176
Koyr ª, ibid, p. 199.
 66

crevices in the stone wall in which the beam is anchored.177 Galileo's geometrical idealizations
and abstractions obviously don't capture all the properties of such objects, but only certain
essential properties -- essential for Galileo's purpose.

89. As for Kepler, he realized in the long run that his lovely model with inscriptions and
circumscriptions of the regular solids in the planetary spheres didn't match reality, and that not
even the introduction of the star-shaped semi-regular polyhedra would give an exact model. But the
model served to guide him to the discovery of his three planetary laws, which have endured. They
too, however, apply only to idealized systems, such as the pair consisting of one planet and the sun,
with the sun fixed, in which the effects of other planets and objects are ignored. And even here
one often considers the planet and the sun as mere points, rather than extended bodies. Thus the
laws yield only good approximations to certain behavior of planets. It isn't too easy to give a
precise meaning to the "good" in "good approximations", but it is clear to many who compare the
predictions of the laws with actual measurements that the approximations given by the laws are not
subjective assignments of numbers to the phenomena: the laws can be used to estimate something
which is happening outside their users.

90. We have seen something of the gulf between number mysticism and applied
mathematics. Johannisson's assertion that the Hermetic tradition stressed "rationality in a
mathematical sense" must not be taken as support for the contention that natural philosophers
were led by Hermeticists to realize the place or importance of mathematics in such sciences as
astronomy and physics. People applying mathematics to nature on the whole have had to struggle
against the influence of Hermeticists. This judgement is not a new one. For example, Robert
Westman concludes in a study of the supposed contributions of Hermeticism to the Scientific
Revolution: "Kepler and Galileo provide specific criteria for allowing us to weight one theory
above another in terms of their mathematical intelligibility and their empirical adequacy. This the
Hermeticists failed to do because they either separated mathematics from natural philosophy or
could not see how they were connected or totally subordinated mathematical statements to
physical ones What significant physical and mathematical insights Bruno and other alleged
Hermeticists arrived at came from their individual, creative intuitions, often under the influence of
doctrines first formulated in medieval natural philosophy, and in spite of their adherence to
Hermetic doctrines."178

91. Johannisson also discusses the role of Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism in early
modern science. "The Rosicrucians," she says, "-- whether existing as an actual society or not --
integrated in their program an open view of the world and a rejection of the Church's authority
together with a passionate belief in science as the way to progress." (ibid.) Their science was
based on Hermeticism and Paracelsianism, and comprised chiefly magic, cabala and alchemy. To
these, Johannisson adds "mathematics, physics, cosmology, and a medicine that stressed
humanitarian ends." However, the mathematics and physics were more in the manner of Fludd

177 Galileo Galilei, Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno … due nuove scienze, 1638; the drawings are
on p. 116 and 119 of the translation into English by Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio, Dialogues concerning Two
New Sciences, 1914.
178 Robert Westman, "Magical Reform and Astronomical Reform: The Yates Thesis Reconsidered", in
Hermeticism and the Scientific Revolution, 1977, p. 71, his italics.
 67

than of Kepler, and show little trace of the tradition of Euclid, Apollonius, Archimedes or the
quantitative natural philosophers of the Middle Ages who studied the motions of physical
objects.

92. A number of the theses of Frances Yates, especially those having to do with
Rosicrucianism have been toned done by most of her followers -- Johannisson, it seems, is one of
the more faithful. In 1979, Brian Vickers went so far as to argue at length that in her book The
Rosicrucian Enlightenment, "Yate's proposed rewriting of Renaissance history is an edifice built
not on sand but on air." 179 Still, Merkel and Debus say in 1988 that "there are few who would now
dispute that, taken in context, the Rosicrucian tracts were of great concern to seventeenth -century
scientists and physicians representing many schools of thought."

93. Newton wrote a few comments on a Hermetic tract, described by Betty JoTeeter
180 181
Dobbs. Newton carried out extensive alchemical studies. Alchemy is of an age and nature
comparable to astrology, and connections between the two are ancient. For example, the basic
metals were associated with planets (as always, including the sun and moon), and astrological
and alchemical significances of the planets and the metals were interwoven.

94. The psychologist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung argued at length that much of the
symbolism of such studies, especially of alchemy, arose from projections of changes of the
personality of the investigators onto their material. The older alchemy, according to Jung, never
had as its central aim the investigation of the nature of matter and its combinations. Such
maneuvers as it undertook that we would be willing to today to admit as bonafide chemistry were
secondary to the work of psychological transformation which was performed by way of alchemical
operations. In this view, only during the course of the 17th century did a kind of rationalistic and
materialistic alchemy precipitate out of the older alchemy, by way of corpuscular and mechanical
theories of matter, in whi ch matter was conceived to be made of tiny particles moving according to
regular patterns.

95. It should be kept in mind that in our concentration on the heavens, on astral religion
and astrology, and later, on mathematical cosmology and the initiation of celestial mechanics, we
must guard against a distortion of the attitudes of the people who have pursued these subjects.
Although of course there were individual differences, such people were often also very interested in
the transformations of matter on earth, and didn't always try to live with their heads above the
lunar sphere. Whatever the merit of Jung's theories about the psychological burden of alchemy,
many natural philosophers were concerned with what we would call chemical reactions, although to
be sure until the 17th century these were usually presented in a context of some four or five
element theory (fire, air, earth, water, and "fifth essence" —quintessence or aether) inherited from
antiquity.

179 Brian Vicker, "Frances Yates and the Writing of History", Journal of Modern History, v. 51, no. 2, 1979, p.
287 -316.
180 "Newton's Commentary on the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus: Its Scientific and Theological
Significance", 1988, in Hermeticism and the Renaissance, Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern
Europe, 1988, based on a 1982 meeting, edited by Ingrid Merkel and Allen G. Debus, p. 182-191. The remark in
the previous paragraph is from the introduction, by Merkel and Debus.
181 Betty Jo TeeterDobbs, The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy, or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon ", 1975.
 68

96. During the late 16th and early 17th century in Europe there was a kind of flowering
of alchemy, analogous to the flowering of astrology in that period. Dobbs says: "In their rejection
of the pagan accounts of natural phenomena offered by Aristotle and Galen, Renaissance
Hermeticists had come to emphasize anew the importance of the first chapter of the book of
Genesis. In Genesis was a divine account of the creation of the world, one which could not be
disputed, and one which could lend itself to interpretation as a divine chemical separation. If the act
of creation itself was to be understood chemically, then all of nature was to be understood
similarly. In short, chemistry was the key to all nature, the key to all the macrocosmic-
microcosmic relationships sought by Robert Fludd and others. A study of chemistry was a study
of God as He had Himself written out His word in the Book of Nature. Such a study could only
lead one closer to God and was conceived as having moral value as well as contributing to the
better grasp of the workings of nature and to the providing of better medicines for the relief of
man's illnesses."182

97. In the 17th century, it was a common assumption of the "corpuscularians" -- of

whom Robert Boyle (1627-169 1) is perhaps the most famous -- that everything natural is made of
elementary corpuscles or particles, all made of the same kind of matter. Dobbs says: "The
primitive particles might differ in figure and magnitude, as did the letters of the alphabet; larger
units, like words, were formed by the combinations of the primitive particles in different orders,
groups, and positions. The alphabet analogy was quite commonly drawn upon to explain
chemical changes. Yet however the particles might differ in size, shape, and arrangement, they
were all made from the same basic substance." 183 Thus we are tempted to make a link between
Jewish kabbalism and the alphabetical notation of our own chemistry.

98. Newt on spent considerable time and effort on alchemy, but it remains difficult to say
exactly how alchemy and Hermeticism influenced his work in mechanics. J. E. McGuire has
argued that "Newton's intellectual orientation embodies a framework of concepts that largely
emerge from the Neoplatonism developed by his Cambridge contemporaries" and that "traditions of
magic and alchemy did not play a significant role in shaping Newton's conception of nature."
Hermeticism played a limited role in Cambridge natural philosophy, he says, because the
Cambridge Platonists sought a restoration of Neoplatonism, which they tried to legitimize by
relating their writings to Christian Hermeticism. "For a short time in the early 1 690s," McGuire
says, "Newton explicitly accepted this ideology, but, like his Cambridge contemporaries, he did
not accept any specific Hermetic doctrines." 184

99. On the other hand, Richard Westfall argues: "I am seeking the source of the
Newtonian concept of forces of attraction and repulsion between particles of matter, the concept
that fundamentally altered the prevailing philosophy of nature and ushered in the intellectual
world of modern science, I am offering the argument that alchemy, Newton's involvement in
which a vast corpus of papers establishes, offered him a stimulus to consider concepts beyond the
bare ontology of the mechanical philosophy. It appears to me that the Newtonian concept of

182
Dobbs, ibid., 1975, p. 61.
183 Dobbs, ibid., p. 46.
184
J. E. McGuire, "Neoplatonism and Active Principles: Newton and the Corpus Hermeticum", in Hermeticism and
the Scientific Revolution, 1977, p. 13 1-133.
 69

force embodies the enduring influence of alchemy upon his scientific thought."185 Westfall says
he sees no necessary opposition between his views and McGuire's. He takes McGuire to have
shown that the Platonism of Newton's teachers at Cambridge, in which one finds a concept of
"active principles", influenced Newton's conception of force. Westfall agrees, and says that
alchemy influenced Newton's conception of force, too. He observes that: "... for every page in
Newton's papers of direct reference to [the Cambridge Platonists] More and Cudworth there are
well over a hundred on alchemy. I cannot make those papers disappear." 186

100. Dobbs, Westfall and others, have said that Newton's concept of force, one of the
central and more mysterious concepts in Newton's mechanics (his theory of how pieces of matter
behave), descended at least partly from his alchemical ideas. There has been an enormous debate
over the ontological status of Newton's forces. Newton himself indicates at the beginning of his
Principia that there are three kinds of forces: resistive force, or inertia; impressed force, which
tends to change the state of a body from rest or uniform (constant velocity) motion, and of which he
mentions the three kinds, from percussion, from pressure and centripetal; and attracting force,
such as gravity (repelling force is not mentioned here, although presumably a centripetal force
might be interpreted as repelling -- Newton does speak of repelling forces elsewhere in the
Principia.187 Procedures for quantitatively measuring forces are provided by Newton's three laws
of motion 188 , especially the second law which, in our terms, asserts that a force on body is to be
measured by the rate of change in momentum of the body it produces, where the momentum of a
body is to be found by measuring the mass and velocity of the body, and multiplying these
together.189 Thus, in the case of a mass constant in time, a quantity of force acting on a body is
proportional to the acceleration of the body, the rate at which its velocity changes.

101. The question has often been asked, do Newton's definitions and axioms constitute a
definition of force? Is "force" just a word we use for rates of changes of momentum, or is there
something in addition to this which constitutes the force, a "power" or "cause" or "activity"? 190 A
number of physicists and philosophers have taken the attitude that Newton's statements should be
interpreted as defining the word "force", and felt that to postulate any additional underlying
properties would be to introduce non-existent or useless or nonsensical "metaphysical" principles.
The only way we know a force to be present, in this view, is to make physical measurements, and
interpret them according to Newton's laws. For a fixed mass, if an acceleration is found by
measurement, then a force has acted, and not otherwise.

102. In the earlier years of the debate, beginning in Newton's own lifetime, the word
"occult" rather than "metaphysical" was often used. Many natural philosophers, especially
Descartes and his followers, wished to eliminate "occult properties" from physical science. This
indeed was one of the most revolutionary aspects of the Cartesian philosophy, and one which

185 Richard Westfall, "Newton and alchemy", p. 330 in Occult and scientific mentalities in the Renaissance,
1984, p. 3 15-335.
186 Westfall, ibid., p. 331.
187 Isaac Newton, Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (MathematicalPrinciples of Natural
Philosophy, familiarly known as the Principia), 1687, Motte's translation revised by Cajori, 1934, p. 2.
188 ibid., p. 13; see Appendix to this chapter.
189
Newton's definition, ibid., p. 1.
1 9 0 See, for example, Ernst Nagel, The Structure of Science, 1961, Chapter 7, esp. p. 186- 192.
 70

goes a long way toward explaining its enormous success in connection with physics, even though
Descartes' detailed physical theories were often faulty, and also the considerable opposition it
provoked among theologians, despite Descartes' care to avoid controversy with ecclesiastical
authorities. Descartes argued for a sharp separation between matter and spirit, and to a large
extent reduced matter to mere extension, something amenable to mathematical description. In the
astrological, alchemical and theological contexts of the time, this must have seemed to some like
an infusion of pure oxygen, and to others like an intrusion of poison gas. In either case, it was not
something philosophers could take lightly.

103. Descartes’ views were not wholly agreeable to Newton and some of his teachers and
followers for a number of both physical and theological reasons, and a considerable debate grew
up around this question. One of the reasons Newton wrote the Principia was to make a
contribution to the overthrow of certain aspects of the Cartesian philosophy, as Euclid's motive in
the Elements may have been to introduce people to the theory of regular polyhedra -- both works
turned out to be monumentally more applicable. Part of the continuing debate hinged on whether
or not there are spiritual components of forces. Questions like these were asked: are the planets
held in their courses by continual divine action, or were they set in motion by divine action and
left to run on their own, or were they set in motion by purely physical actions, or have they simply
been running forever?

104. The arguments of later philosophers, especially a host of positivists from Comte to
the present, over whether or not Newtonian forces can only be recognized by making physical
measurements and seeing whether or not they satisfy Newton's laws leave out the way Newton
arrived at the concept of force. Some positivists have said about this, roughly speaking, that they are
only interested in reconstructing mechanics on a sound logical basis, and not in how the
discoveries were made. Some years ago, reference was prevalent to a "context of discovery"
versus a "context of verification". It is certainly true that physicists since the 17 th century C.E.
have paid little serious attention to the astrological and alchemical background of classical
mechanics, and seem in many ways to have been the better for it. Still, we may enquire whether or
not a knowledge of the background might lead to the re-introduction, suitable refined and
modified, of some of the older notions which are excluded by a positivistic point of view. Indeed,
we may go further and ask whether or not many physicists still harbor and frequently make use of
thoughts about forces and energy which go beyond measurements interpreted according to
mathematical equations. For one thing, with the advent of quantum mechanics, observers have
catapulted back into a prominence which they formerly had. If Carl Jung and his followers are
right, one of the great differences between alchemy and chemistry as we know understand lies in
the amount to which the minds and emotions of observers is present within the practice of alchemy
itself, and absent from our practice of chemistry -- at least officially.

105. The physicist Paul Davies says: "In daily life we see the activity of forces all
around us. The force of gravity guides the planets in their motion and raises the ocean tides.
Electrical forces display themselves in thunderstorms. Mechanical forces drive our machines
and our own bodies. Everywhere we look, matter is subjected to forces of some sort, arising
from a multitude of agencies The world is full of objects -- people, planets, clouds, atoms,
flowers -- and full of motion. Things happen when moving objects act collectively. How do
objects know about each other? How do they respond to the presence and activities of other
 71

objects? ..... Although uniform motion is natural and needs no explanation, changes in motion
require the action of some external agency. Because the state of uniform motion is regarded as
natural, we say that when a body is disturbed from this state it is beingforced. The agencies
which produce forced motion are called forces. It is the action of forces which enriches the
activity of our universe, and which enables different parts of the world to be aware of each
other's existence. Without forces, nothing could act on or influence anything else, and all the
matter in the universe would disintegrate into its elementary constituents, each subatomic
particle moving independently of all the others." 191

106. Just so: agencies, actions, influences. Davies goes on: "The effect of a force on a
material body is to bring about an acceleration. This is described by Newton's second law To
determine how a body responds to a given force F, which may be varying from time to time and
place to place in both magnitude and direction, it is necessary to solve [ F = ma] for the position
of the body."192 The force is there before the acceleration, and before the equation, and it takes a
brave philosopher to maintain this is only manner of speaking.

107. The physicist James Trefil remarks that the Nobel laureate physicist Richard
Feynman once said, in the witty way he had, that in pre-Newtonian theories of planetary motion,
"you have to have angels following the planets along, flapping their wings to move them." He
added that in Newton's explanation, "the angels flapped their wings to push each planet toward the
sun, rather than along its orbit."193 I don't know if this was a pure joke, or if Feynman was
revealing a knowledge of how theories of planetary motion actually developed. We will see later
that the theory that angels control the planets was a popular one in the European Middle Ages. For
example, St. Thomas Aquinas held a version of it.

108. At one stage in his work, up through the 1670's, Newton postulated a kind of
"universal subtle matter" or "aether", which could be used to explain the attractive force of
gravity and other forces.194 It was, so to speak, a kind of "unified field theory", or GTE (Grand
Theory of Everything). Newton never could quite make this theory work, but he didn't abandon
the idea of a universal aether entirely. In what appear to have been his last ruminations about the
mechanism of the world, in the Queries at the end of his Opticks195 , he speculates on a very thin,
exceedingly "elastick and active" aetherial medium -- definitely not a fluid -- which conveys light
and heat, and "pervades all Bodies", and is "(by its elastick force) expanded through all the
Heavens", and can also be used to account for the mechanism of vision.196

109. Newton goes so far as to ask: "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one
another, and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which
enter their Composition?"197 There is considerable speculation in the Queries on the nature of

191 Paul Davies, The Forces of Nature, 2nd edition, 1986, p. 1-2.
192 Davies, ibid., p. 3.
193 James Trefil, Reading the Mind of God, 1989, p. 8.
194 Shades of Plato’s aether!
195 4th edition, 1730.
196 Isaac Newton, Opticks, 1730, Dover edition, 1952, p. 339-406.
197
Newton, ibid., p. 374.
 72

chemical interactions, based on a corpuscular theory of matter. And in the very last sentence of
the Opticks, he takes a swipe at astral religion: "And no doubt, if the Worship of false Gods had
not blinded the Heathen, their moral philosophy would have gone farther than to the four Cardinal
Virtues; and instead of teaching the Transmigration of Souls and to worship the Sun and Moon,
and dead Heroes, they would have taught us to worship our true Author and Benefactor, as their
Ancestors did under the Government of Noah and his Sons before they corrupted themselves."
(ibid., p. 406.)

110. While Newton failed to make his unified aether theory work in general, he certainly
made his theory of forces work in the domains to which he applied them. In Dobb's words: "The
universe lived again as Newton's thoughts swung on toward the Principia in the 1680's, for forces
and active principles were everywhere. Not only was there the attractive force of gravity binding
the planets into a vibrant whole, there was also activity in the sub-structure of matter. Gone, in
Newton's mind, were the inert particles of Cartesian matter resting quiescently together between
impacts. In their place were structured corpuscles of increasing complexity, held together upon
occasion by attractive forces of their own, but also capable upon other occasions of repelling each
other. Change was the order of the day in the little world and matter matured and decayed and
was constantly replenished by active principles."198 Newton's universe did not run like a clock. An
untellable number of writers have referred to Newton's system of the world as a clockwork or
machine-like universe, but as far as Newton himself is concerned -- aside from various of his
followers -- the accusation is not just. It might be better attributed to Descartes or even Leibniz,
with whom Newton was frequently at odds.

111. In his Introduction to the Principia, Newton defines rational mechanics (as
distinguished from practical mechanics) to be "the science of motions resulting from any forces
whatever, and of the forces required to produce any motions, accurately proposed and
demonstrated." He offers his work as "the mathematical principles of philosophy", and says that
this philosophy consists in this -- "from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of
nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena; and to this end the
general propositions in the first and second Books are directed." Newton continues: "In the third
book I give an example of this in the explication of the System of the World; for by the
propositions mathematically demonstrated in the former Books, in the third I derive from celestial
phenomena the forces of gravity with which bodies tend to the sun and several planets. Then from
these forces, by other propositions which are also mathematical, I deduce the motions of the
planets, the comets, the moon, and the sea. I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of
Nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles, for I am induced by many
reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies,
by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards one another, and cohere
in regular figures, or are repelled and recede from one another. These forces being unknown,
philosophers have hitherto attempted the seach of Nature in vain; but I hope the principles here laid
down will afford some light either to this or some truer method of philosophy."199 It appears from
this that he had even greater goals in mind than those he

198 Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy, or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon", 1975., p.
212.
199
Newton, ibid., p. xvii- xviii.
 73

achieved in the Principia, and that the Queries in the Opticks are as close as he came to reaching
them. Do you suppose Newton thought he had failed in what he wanted to do?

112. Paul Davies wrote a second version of his The Forces of Nature, he says, to take
account of new theories that there is a single "superforce" in which all forces have their origin.
(Davies, ibid., p. vii.) There has been great hope among certain physicists that a GUT (Grand
Unified Theory) of this kind will be generally accepted in the near future. But even if this
doesn't come to pass, the success that Newton had with his forces remains, suitably altered to
meet the demands of relativity and quantum theory.

113. James Trefil says of his book Reading the Mind of God:: "This book is about an
idea, one of the most astonishing and least appreciated ideas in modern science. I call it the
principle of universality. It says that the laws of nature we discover here and now in our
200
laboratories are true everywhere in the universe and have been in force for all time." Trefil
goes on to say that has found in lecturing to a wide variety of audiences that those not made up
of university scientists give evidence of not knowing about this kind of universality. His
explanation is: "The principle of universality is so important that it is never explicitly taught. We
[scientists] learn about it almost by osmosis. It pervades our work, particularly in fields like
astronomy, but is seldom explicitly stated." 201 If Trefil is right, many people even today assume
unless taught otherwise that celestial objects play according to different rules than material
things on earth.

114. This doesn't, though, in itself exclude theories in which angels control planets,
unless angelic control is confined to a kind of perfect celestial matter, different in kind from
terrestrial matter. One need only extend angelic control to everything that moves. Furthermore,
Newton's idea of universality had precedents. Some of the Stoics, for example, believed that the
universe, the Divine Mind and ordinary matter everywhere, is made of one kind of stuff, such as
Chrysippus'pneuma, and they had the idea that Fate rules the world with the orderliness of the
heavens, akin to the idea that there are natural laws which are the same throughout the physical
world. Some of the pre-Socratic philosophers of Greece had ideas of the same genre, concerning
elements or atoms, and logos or cosmos. A number of them had systems in which there was more
than one kind of stuff, but most of these postulated the same several kinds of stuff everywhere.
There were also the long-lived theories, popular among astrologers and poets, of man, a
microcosm, correlated with the universe, the macrocosm. All of these are kinds of physical
universality.

115. What was different about Newton's kind of universality? Newton had a concept of
momentum, which can be very simply measured by multiplying inertial mass times velocity, and a
concept offorce as a rate at which momentum is changed. And he had a mathematical technique,
the calculus, which could be used, in some important cases, to find mathematical expressions for
determining the motion of a body when mathematical expressions for the forces acting on the body
are known. His law of gravity gave an expression for one force, the inverse square expression for
gravity. That there is something reasonable about the way matter moves was not a novel idea in
the time of Newton, nor was the idea that there are quantitative

200 J am es Trefi l, R e a d i n g t h e M i n d o f Go d , 1989, p . 1.

201 Trefi l, ibid. , p. 2.
 74

expressions describing such motions, nor was the idea that matter is made of the same kind of
stuff everywhere. But who would have thought, until Newton, that a program for deriving
mathematical expressions giving the successive of moving objects could be laid down with three
such simp le laws, which can be stated in three sentences? Such a simple program! Alas, finding
expressions for all the relevant forces acting on an object is seldom easy and probably sometimes
impossible, and even when such expressions have been found, carrying out the program has
turned out in many important cases to be mathematically very difficult, and most likely sometimes
impossible in any deterministic or at least determinable (or, as some say, computable) way. But
when Newton's method works, it works like magic!
 75

Appendix to Chapter 2: Newton’s Laws

A1. In the latter part of the 17th century, Isaac Newton, building on the work of many
predecessors, formulated a small number of laws from which quantitative predictions about
the movements of objects in the heavens can be made. It was soon realized that some
movements of terrestrial objects could also be predicted with Newton's laws. While celestial
objects are nowadays seen to change, and even in a certain sense to be born, live and die,
the Newtonian laws according to which they change seem to be permanent, although they
have been extended in various ways. Newton's laws and the myriad of consequences which
have been drawn from them make up classical or Newtonian mechanics, sometimes called
rational or analytical mechanics. The part of classical mechanics which applies to the
motions of objects in the heavens is commonly called celestial mechanics.

A2. In his textbook on classical mechanics (1985), Laurence Taff observes that
classical mechanics rests on Newton's three Laws of Motion, and he states them as they are
in Newton's Principia, 1687 (translated from Latin):

Newton's First Law. "Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right
line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it."

Uniform motion of a body is motion with a constant velocity, that is, with unchanging speed
and direction. A right line is what we now call a straight line.

Newton's Second Law. "The change of motion is proportional to the motive force impressed
and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed."

The motion of a body is defined by Newton to be the product of a quantity called the mass of
the body, which measures its reluctance to change its state, with the velocity of the body,
which measures the rate at which its distance from some reference point is changing, and
also specifies a direction in which the change is taking place. This is called momentum
today. The velocity and/or direction may change at each instant of time. The change in
motion is actually the rate of change of momentum. Except in a few simple cases a
quantitative statement tha t this rate of change of momentum is proportional to impressed
forces requires the techniques of the mathematical discipline known as calculus. To say the
rate of change of momentum is proportional to the impressed forces is to say that it is
some fixed nu mber multiplied by the quantity which measures the force at each point of
space and instant of time. The particular fixed number or constant to be used is different
for different units of measurement for time, distances and forces (second or years, meters
or feet or miles, pounds or dynes, etc.). Often impressed forces are different at each point of
space, but at any one given point are the same for each instant of time.

Newton's Second Law is the most dominant of the three laws of motion since it gives a
recipe for forming differential equations. These are statements made using concepts of
calculus. In many cases they can be solved using methods of calculus, in one or another
sense of the word solved (including approximate solutions), to give quantitative descriptions
of the behavior of a great number of physical, chemical, biological, geological, statistical,
and other kinds of systems. It can be shown that the first law can be derived as the special
 76

case of the second law in which the magnitude of the impressed forces is zero.

When the word motion in the second law is interpreted as momentum, and this
meaning is used in the first law, the statement in the first law that a body tends to continue
in a state of uniform motion in a straight line can be interp reted to mean that the
momentum of a body in such a state will stay the same as it moves, so Newton's First Law
contains a law of conservation of linear momentum.

Newton's Third Law. "To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or, the
mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal and directed to contrary
parts."

This should not be taken to mean that objects never move. If I push on you, thus exerting a
force, and you move backwards, an explanation according to Newton’s Third Law is that your
reaction push was at the instant of contact equal in magnitude to my push, though in the
opposite direction (along a straight line). This diminished the magnitude of my push in an
amount equal to the magnitude of the push you exerted. Howe ver, although my push was
weakened, there was still some more of my push it left over, so to speak, so you were
subjected to an acceleration in the direction of my push –-- and you moved.

To do celestial mechanics, Taff observes, one supplements these postulates with

Newton's Law of Gravitation:

Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. "Every particle in the Universe attracts every other
particle in the Universe with a force that varies directly as the product of their masses and
inversely as the square of the distance between them; furthermore, this force acts along the
line joining the two particles."

Thus the force of gravity exerted by one particle on another particle can be measured by
finding numbers measuring their masses in some way, and multiplying these together; then
finding the distance between the particles in some way and squaring it and dividing the
result into the product of the masses; and finally, multiplying by a fixed number determined
by the units of measurement being used. (Laurence G. Taf f, Celestial Mechanics, A
Computational Guide for the Practitioner, 1985, p. 1-2; Taff's quotations from Newton's
Principia are from the translation by Florian Cajori, 1934, p. 13-14, and Newton's definitions
of motion, mass (or quantity of matter and vis insita), impressed force, etc., are given on p. 1-
6.) The gravitational forces which bodies exert on other bodies are determined by regarding
bodies as made up of particles in some way, and using techniques of calculus. This is not a
very easy task, on the whole. Its study is known as potential theory (for reasons we won't go
into here).

A3. Having stated these laws of classical mechanics, and supplemented it with
Newton's Law of Gravitation in order to do celestial mechanics, Taff observes that there i s
essentially no more physics in his book -- the rest is mathematics. In effect, Taff defines
classical mechanics to consist of the consequences of Newton's three laws of motion, as
worked out using methods of mathematics, and celestial mechanics to consist of the
consequences of the laws of motion together with the law of gravitation. From this point of
 77

view, the "impressed forces" spoken of in Newton's Second Law are confined to gravitational
forces when doing what one might call “pure” celestial mechanics.

A4. The word mechanistic is open to conflicting interpretations. Some have taken it to
be opposed to animistic, so a mechanistic universe is one in which planets and the like have
no internal principles of change, as they did for Aristotle and countless others. In particular, for
some, divine guidance is precluded in a mechanistic universe. The attitude is captured in a
story about Laplace. Napoleon is supposed to have asked Laplace why he never mentioned
the Creator in his work on celestial mechanics, and Laplace is supposed to have replied:
"Sire, j'ai pu me passer de cette hypothèse" -- "Sir, I have been able to dispense with that
hypothesis."

A5. Others have taken a mechanistic universe to be one made out of gear wheels,
pulleys, levers, springs and the like, in the manner of a machine, which runs and has run
forever on its own. However, the author of the Laws of Motion, Newton, believed that a
Creator was involved in the working of the world. Aside from divine guidance, he also speaks
in Definition III of the Principia of bodies having inertia or vis insita (innate force), an internal
power of resisting change in motion, tending to make it continue in whatever state it is in. This
attributes to machines something beyond their mere extension in space and time. Because of
this proposal, and because he was not able to find a satisfactory mechanical model for his
theory of gravity (although he made a few conjectures), Newton was accused by followers of
Descartes of introducing so-called "occult powers" into natural philosophy of the kind which
had been popular among medieval scholastic philosophers, and which Descartes had been at
great pains to banish. Descartes himself had tried to base a theory of gravity on the motion of
vortices -- little whirlpools, so to speak. An important part of Newton's purpose in writing his
Principia was to show that Descartes's model doesn't work as an explanation of gravitation.

A6. Thus the connection of classical mechanics with machines is not as close as some
have thought. There is also the question of mathematics. E. J. Diksterhuis made a study of
the transition to "classical science" which took place during the 17th century, and came to
this conclusion: "The mechanization of the world-picture during the transition from ancient to
classical science meant the introduction of a description of nature with the aid of the
mathematical concepts of classical mechanics; it marks the beginning of the
mathematization of science, which continues at an ever-increasing pace in the twentieth
century." (E. J. Dijksterhuis, The Mechanization of the World Picture, 1961, p. 501,
translation by C. Dikshoorn of De Mechanisering van het Werelbeeld, 1950.) That is,
according to Dijksterhuis, the transition to a mechanized universe was characterized not
merely by the use of machine-like models, but by the introduction of mathematically based
descriptions and theories. However, mathematical descriptions are sometimes more than
descriptions of machines. Or so I believe -- there are those who have maintained otherwise.
 78

Chapter 3. Some Astrological Techniques

1. We have discussed astrology, and in particular judicial or horoscopic astrology, as a

method of prediction, but we haven't yet gone into much detail about its techniques. In fact, the
details and methods have undergone much change over the course of centuries. However, in
Europe, at the time of the Renaissance, the basic procedures of that branch of predictive astrology
concerned with casting horoscopes were roughly as they are now. The process of casting a
horoscope (or "figure" or "scheme") begins with locating the positions of various celestial objects.
For birth horoscopes (nativities or genitures), one starts with as exact a value as one can determine
of the day, hour and minute of birth of a person, together with the longitude and latitude of the
place of birth. Using tables calculated by astronomers for a fixed time, longitude and latitude
(different astrologers may use different tables), the positions of the planets (taken to include the sun
and moon), and perhaps certain stars, are calculated using the local time and geographical
coordinates, and located in one of the signs of the zodiac. The sun and moon are considered as
planets for this purpose, and the sun is considered as the most important of the planets.

2. The zodiac, which is an imaginary band centered on the ecliptic, the yearly path of the
sun among the stars (equivalent to the earth's yearly motion around the sun), is defined in
different ways by different astrologers, but in a popular and ancient version, the zodiac is 17o
wide (or so) and is divided into 12 zones or "signs", named and symbolized according to
constellations found in them. Ancient Egyptian astrologers used 36 decans of 10o each rather than
12 sections of 30 o each, each assigned a name and symbol. Versions of these were used by
numerous astrologers during the Middle Ages and later, but appear to play only a small role in
present-day astrology.202 The "sun sign" of a person is the zone of the zodiac in which the sun is
located when a person is born, or in some systems, conceived. When someone is said to be a
"Libra" or to have been born "with the sun in Libra", it means the sun was in the Libra zone of the
zodiac when he or she was born. Similarly, each person has a moon sign, and since the positions
in the zodiac of all the known planets are customarily taken into consideration, one could also
speak of a "Venus sign", "Mars sign", etc., although this isn't often done.

3. The ascendant of a person may be defined as the sign of the zodiac which was rising in
the east at the instant the person was born. This is determined by the daily motion of the stars in
the sky (equivalent to the earth's rotation on its axis). The sun sign and other planetary signs of a
person are determined by the year, month and day of birth, but for the ascendant one needs the
hour and place (determined by latitude and longitude). Most astrologers have considered the
ascendant to be at least as important a determinant as the sun sign. Just as the zodiac is divided
into 12 signs, the apparent daily movement of the stars is divided into 12 houses. There are
numerous ancient and modern ways of doing this. Each house is considered to govern a different
sector of human life. Usually the zones of the houses are identified by numbers, and in one
method, these are assigned in the direction opposite to the movement of the stars, starting from
the ascendant (more precisely, from the degree of the ecliptic which was rising at the instant of
birth, which is a position in one of the signs of the zodiac).

C f. Wi lh elm Gund el, Dekane und Dekanstern, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Sternbilder der Kulturv ·lker,
202
1936.
 79

4. In relatively recent times, a circular diagram has been used to record this data, with the
zodiac represented in a relatively narrow band between the outer circumference of the circle and the
circumference of an inner circle, and the houses represented as sectors of the inner circle. The
positions of the planets are recorded in these sectors. Formerly (apparently into the 18th century),
a square diagram was used, with the houses represented by triangles, 4 on the sides of an inner
square, and 8 upside down with respect to these, 2 for each side of an outer square. The positions
of the planets are recorded in the triangles. In either case, casting a horoscope consists of
determining and recording this data, and the resulting diagram is called a horoscope. Often certain
angles, or approximate angles, which planets make with each other as views from earth are noted
on horoscopes. These are called aspects, and they include conjunction, opposition, trine, square
or quartile, and sestile or sextile, corresponding to angles of separation of 0, 180, 90 and 60
degrees. The calculations needed to cast a horoscope are fairly complicated, and numerous
different techniques have been proposed.

5. Besides the significance attached to planetary positions in zodiacal signs, to the

positions of planets in the houses, and to planetary aspects, there were a number of other
astrological interpretations. A number of the these are summarized by J. D. North in his study of the
extensive role of astronomy/astrology in the works of Chaucer 203

6. The planets themselves are assigned various characteristics, regardless of their

positions in the sky. Saturn, for example, is on the whole intrinsically evil, and detailed
descriptions of its (or his) particular evils are given. The Sun is associated with brightness,
intelligence, understanding, etc. And so on. The zodiacal signs and constellations which
determine them are also assigned various characterics of their own. Besides these intrinsic or
essential properties of planets and signs, there are additional accidental properties of the planets
(besides the signs, houses and aspects), due to their positions. For example, there are the five
dignities, namely: domiciles, exaltations, triplicities, terms and faces. These dignities, which are
of Hellenistic origin or earlier, are explained by the Arabian astrologer Alkabucius in a treatise
widely used in the Middle Ages and later. 2 0 4

7. A domicile (or domus) of a planet is a sign of the zodiac regarded as a home for a
planet. The domiciles of Mercury, for example, are Gemini and Virgo, with Gemini being the
gaudium of Mercury, the sign in which it "rejoices". Two planets have only one domicile --there
are 12 signs and 7 planets. A sign opposite to a domicile of a planet is a detriment, which is
especially alien to the planet. An exaltation is a sign in which a planet is especially powerful. A
sign opposite to an exaltation is a dejection. A triplicity is a triple of signs forming an equilateral
triangle in a horoscopic diagram. The terms arise from a subdivision of each zodiacal sign into five
unequal parts, and the faces from a subdivision of each zodiacal sign into ten equal parts (so the
ecliptic is subdivided into 360 parts, the number of days in an ancient Egyptian year). The faces
derive from the ancient Egyptian decans. Three different ways of determining the terms are given
by Ptolemy, two which he identifies as Egyptian and Chaldean, and one of his own.

203 J. D. North, Chaucer's Universe (1988); Chapter 5, "Some Generall Rewles of Theorike in Astrologie".
204
Alkabucius (al- Qabisi; fl. 950 A.D.), Introductorium ad scienciam astrologiejudicialis.
 80

8. In addition to these dignities, there were the notions of hyleg (pronounced "high -
ledge") and alcochoden (or alchocoden), to be used in determining how long a person could be
expected to live. The hyleg was one of four specific places in the ecliptic assigned to a person on the
basis of his natal horoscope by means of complicated and inscrutable rules. The alcochoden was
the planet which had most dignity in the place of the hyleg. There was also an elaborate system of
lunar mansions, arising from a subdivision of the ecliptic into 27 or 28 equal parts --the mansions
-- corresponding to the number of days in a lunar month (about 27 and a half solar days). The
moon's status (waxing, waning, full, new, etc.) in each mansion, and its position in the zodiac,
were all involved.

9. There is more. But this should be enough to show how complex and intricate a
discipline astrology can be. The assignment of positions of planets and houses and aspects in
horoscopes is a kind of applied observational astronomy, in the modern sense of the word
"astronomy". An interpretation of these positions is the special province of astrology. A basic
assumption of astrologers is that the planets exert influences on characters and fates of
individuals. The positions of the sun, moon and other planets at birth indicate determining
influences. Each of the houses in a person's horoscope is taken to govern some department of
life. The various dignities and virtues and powers of the planets are taken into consideration.
The aspects are good or bad indicators, depending on which approximate angle and which
planets are involved.

10. On the basis of birth horoscopes, astrologers make determinations of both the
characters and the fates of individuals. In addition to these nativities, there are also hour or horary
horoscopes, which are cast to show the positions of the planets at a given time so they can be used
to answer questions about what will happen after that time. These can be correlated in various
ways with the birth horoscopes of questioners. The result can be used for determining predictions,
or "elections", which are courses of action or non-action which questioners are advised to follow,
or "interrogations", in which the answers to specific questions of many kinds are obtained. And so
on. Horoscopic astrology is a complicated subject.

11. Judicial astrology is used not only to predict the future, but also to read character.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, speaking from the standpoint of modern Islam, says: "Human types can
also be divided astrologically, here astrology being understood in its cosmological and symbolic
rather than its predictive sense. Astrological classifications, which are in fact related to
traditional medical and physical typologies, concern the cosmic correspondences of the various
aspects of the human soul and unveil the refraction of the archetype of man in the cosmic mirror in
such a way as to bring out the diversity of this refraction with reference to the qualities
associated with the zodiacal signs and the planets. Traditional astrology, in a sense, concerns
man on the angelic level of his being but also unveils, if understood in its symbolic significance, a
typology of man which reveals yet another facet of the differentiation of the human species. The
correspondence between various parts of the body as well as man's mental powers to astrological
signs and the intricate rapport created between the motion of the heavens, various "aspects" and
relations between planets and human activity are also a means of portraying the inward link that
binds man as the microcosm to the cosmos."205

205 S e y ye d H o s s ei n Na s r, K n o w l e d g e a n d t h e S a c r e d , 1 9 8 1 , p . 1 7 8 - 1 7 9 .
 81

12. An essence of some people's reaction to judicial astrology, particularly in the face of
its complexity, is captured by Stephen Leacock: "I was born at Swanmoor, Hants, England, on
December 30, 1869. I am not aware that there was any particular conjunction of the planets at the
time, but should think it extremely likely."206

13. I have two pieces of antique computer software called LodeStar and HoroScopics,
put out for astronomical hobbyists by a company called Zephyr Services. 207 The Lodestar
program will show a diagram of the sky for any date from 9999 BC to 9999 AD, giving the
locations of over 9000 stars, planets and galaxies, and the sun and moon. The HoroScopics
program will give a birth horoscope, with houses and aspects. I don't have the source code for
these programs, but it appears that the HoroScopics program consists basically of part of the
computer code for the LodeStar program extended by some code which graphs a horoscope
instead of a diagram of the sky, and which assigns interpretations to classes of positions of the
basic planets of astrology (including the sun and moon). Naturally, only a part of the code for
LodeStar is needed for HoroScopics, since the influence of only a few celestial objects are
needed for casting horoscopes. This illustrates rather vividly how astronomy, as we now
understand it, is fundamental to astrology, but is nowadays quite sharply separable from it.

14. The sun, moon and planet signs are different for different people on account of the
sun's motions through the zodiac, which are equivalent to the earth's approximately elliptical
(nearly circular) revolutions around the sun. The astrological houses are different for different
persons on account of the daily motions of the heavens, equivalent to the earth's rotations on its
axis. There is another motion of the earth, the precession of the equinoxes, equivalent to a
revolution in a circle of the earth's axis around a central line, a so-called "wobble", so that the
positions of the axis trace out a right circular cone. This causes observers on earth to see a
movement with respect to the constellations in the zodiac of the places where the ecliptic, the
central circle of the zodiac and apparent path of the sun through the sky, crosses the celestial
equator, which is the imaginary extension of the earth's equator into the heavens. These two
places are called the spring and autumn equinoxes, and their motion is called the precession of
the equinoxes. The precession is slow compared to human lifetimes, taking about 25920 years
for a complete circuit. Taking this motion of the earth -- or the heavens as viewed from earth --
into account has caused many serious astrologers considerable trouble.

15. The precession of the equinoxes may seem to moderns to be something of interest
only to astronomers and perhaps people concerned with long range calendars. However, there is
evidence that when it was first discovered, it had a powerful effect on some people. There was a
religion in the ancient Roman world known as Mithraism which has often attracted historians
because, among other things, it was one of Christianity's major competitors in the Roman Empire.
Ernest Renan once declared that "if Christianity had been stopped at its birth by some mortal
illness, the world would have become Mithraic."208 Mithraism was one of the mystery or secret
religions, and has been difficult to interpret. For some 75 years or so, the dominant interpretation
was that of Franz Cumont, who traced it to a Roman importation of an Iranian (Persian) cult
based a god Mithra. This interpretation has come into question. It seems now that

206 Stephen Leacock, preface to Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, 1912, p. vii.
207 On 5 1/4" floppies, if you remember those.
208 Ernest Renan, Marc-Aur ©le et lafin du monde antique, 1923, p. 579.
 82

the Roman god Mithras may have corresponded to the Iranian god Mithra in name only, and that
Iranian names and details were attached to Mithraism chiefly to give it an exotic and esoteric
coloring. David Ulansey has proposed that the Mithraic religion originated in an interpretation of
the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus about 128
B.C.E.209

16. A prominent characteristic of the Mithraic religion is its basic symbol of a man killing a
bull. Roughly speaking, this symbol is to Mithraism what the cross is to Christianity. The symbol
normally contains other items besides Mithras and a bull -- a scorpion, a dog, a snake, a raven, a
lion and a cup. In 1869, a German scholar named K. B. Stark suggested that the symbol could be
interpreted as a star map, with Mithras being identified with the constellation named after Perseus
-- who was commonly associated with Persia -- and the bull being identified with the constellation
Taurus (which, of course, means "bull"). This interpretation was not accepted by Cumont, but
various scholars have recently revived it. What the killing of the bull signifies, according to
Ulansey, is the heliacal setting of Taurus (last day it is visible on the horizon just after sunset),
symbolized as a killing of Taurus by the constellation just above it -- Perseus, or Mithras. This
had been for some hundreds of years before the discovery of the precession been associated with
the spring equinox which occurred about the same time, although by the time of Hipparchus the
heliacal setting of Taurus was occurring later than the spring equinox by a couple of weeks.

17. How could the discovery of precession have had such a powerful effect? As viewed
from earth, regarded as fixed by most ancient astronomers, the precession of the equinoxes can be
taken as evidence for a gradual rotation of the entire heavens, as the equinoctial points slowly move
along the celestial equator. Only a very powerful god could move the entire heavens. Ulansey
says: "I have argued that Mithraic iconography was a cosmological code created by a circle of
religious-minded philosophers and scientists to symbolize their possession of secret knowledge:
namely, the knowledge of a newly discovered god so powerful that the entire cosmos was
completely under his control. It is not difficult to understand how such knowledge could have
come to form the core of an authentic religious movement. For the possession of carefully guarded
secret knowledge concerning such a mighty divinity would naturally have been experienced as
assuring privileged access to the favors which this god could grant, such as deliverance from the
forces of fate residing in the stars and protection for the soul after death during its journey
through the planetary spheres. If we understand salvation to be a divinely bestowed promise of
safety in the deepest sense, both during life and after death, then the god whose presence we have
discerned beneath the veils of Mithraic iconography was well suited to perform the role of
savior."210 From this beginning, Mithraism evolved into a religion based on an ideology of power
and hierarchy, especially attractive to the military and militant.

18. The place of horoscopic astrology in the past is difficult to understand for a 20th
century reader whose knowledge of this kind of astrology is chiefly based on newspaper and
magazine articles dealing only with sun signs. The system seems too simple for anyone to have
taken seriously. But in fact serious casters of horoscopes both past and present base their
character analysis and forecasting on more complex considerations, as the above sketch shows.
209 Da vid Ulans ey, The Origins of theMithraic Mysteries, Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World,
1989.
210 Ulan s ey, ibid ., p . 125.
 83

Furthermore, their methods are based not only on astronomical observations but on information
and proposed correlations gathered over long periods of time. Thus astrology has many of the
characteristics of a science, and has been taken by numerous intelligent and thoughtful people to be
a science, according to their definitions of "science" (or a natural philosophy in earlier times).

19. In understanding the place of astrology in the past, it has been thought useful for a long
time to distinguish between judicial astrology, as we have just described it, and natural astrology.
Hugh Dick says: "The chief source of confusion in virtually all modern discussions of the place of
astrology [during the Renaissance] has arisen from the failure to define terms and to distinguish
between the various kinds of belief. During the Renaissance, the two basic divisions of the pseudo
science were natural and judicial astrology. According to the doctrines of the former, the heavenly
bodies exercised certain powers upon the earth, but not all these were what we should call occult.
To believe that the sun gives heat and the moon affects tides was to accept the teachings of
natural astrology, though before the conception of the macro-microcosm was destroyed m ost
believers went further than this. Judicial astrology, on the other hand, concerned not merely the
influence of the stars but also the prognostication of events or tendencies through knowledge
gained by this study."211

20. Dick quotes John Ferne, a writer on heraldry who conveyed conventional ideas on the
subject: "The third of the Mathematicals is Astronomy or Astrologie... Astronomy (as I have been
taught) comprehendeth the revolution of the Heavens, the rising, going downe, and motion of
Starres. But Astrologie is divided into two members, the one is called naturall, and the other
superstitious [i.e., judicial]. That part which is naturall, noteth the stations of times, the courses of
the Moone and Starres, but that which is called superstitious ... teacheth, by the judicials of the
Starres and heavenly bodies, to give a prediction of seasons of the yeere, of nativities, and the
manners of men: of fates, and fortunes future, to kingdomes, provinces, and townes, to the states
and conditions of people."2 12

21. Dick notes that the doctrines of the two branches of astrology overlapped, and that it is
not always easy to draw a line of demarcation between them, yet he says that to men of the time
the dichotomy was apparent. This may be so, but the distinction needn't have been of much help
in deciding what should part of astrology should be rejected. It wasn't possible to simply accept
all natural astrology and reject all judicial astrology. For example, according to the doctrines of
natural astrology, the heavenly bodies exercise certain powers on the earth and its inhabitants.
These included the sun's heating and the moon's action on bodies of water, along with influences we
now longer allow, such as certain actions on the human body which physicians had to take into
account. Now, to say that the sun heats us seems unobjectionable by any criterion. Can we make
reliable predictions about the sun's heating? Yes, we can. Not as reliable as we would like, but
predictions of temperature changes and precipitation as made in today's weather reports are a useful
guide. Physicists and cosmologists also make long range predictions about the sun's heating, on
the basis of thermodynamics and the evolution of stars. As to the moon's influence,

From the Introduction by Hugh G. Dick to Albumazar: A Comedy (1615) by Thomas Tomkis, edited by Dick,
211
1944, p. 18-19.
212
John Ferne, The Blazon of Gentrie, 1586, quoted by Hugh Dick, loc. cit., p. 19; I have modernized some though
not all spellings.
 84

predictions of low and high tides can be found today in newspapers and television weather
reports.

22. In these two prototypical cases, the natural and judicial components are intertwined,
and both can claim successes. We no longer say that weather and tide predictions are applications
of astrology, but this is what they were taken to be by most people during the Renaissance.
Alleged planetary influences on the fates and fortunes of individuals, and the special branch of
judicial astrology concerned with the casting of horoscopes, have not been verified in this way.
This seems to be true even in the case of the reformed astrology based on planetary aspects, as
recommended by Kepler, although, as noted earlier, the results of Michel Gauquelin in relatively
recent years raised some questions about the total failure of this kind of astrology. In this case,
the underlying planetary influence, the natural astrology component, has not been found, nor have
the predictions, the judicial component, been very successful. In the case of the sun's heat and the
moon's tides, the influences, the natural component, are granted today in the form of gravitation,
and meteorological and nuclear processes, and the predictions, the judicial component, are made
using mathematics as well as elaborate observations.

23. Corresponding to the distinction between judicial and natural astrology, a more general
distinction can be made between magical and naturalistic beliefs. William Hine has argued that in
studying magical and astrological beliefs in the 17th century, and how they may have arisen out of
Renaissance ideas, we should make a distinction between magic proper, as dealt with by certain
prominent Renaissance figures, and a Renaissance naturalism independent of magic, which is not
yet the naturalism of Galileo or Francis Bacon. Hine bases his argument on work of Marin
Mersenne (1588-1648), a prominent scientist and churchman, friend of Descartes, who maintained
a wide correspondence with other scientists of his time. In his Quaestiones celeberrime in
Genesim, 1623, Mersenne distinguishes between magicians and atheists, the latter corresponding to
Renaissance naturalists who were not magicians. The naturalists or atheists deny God's role in the
world and "attribute everything to nature alone", while the magicians "worship demons" and
attribute many activities to evils. On the one hand, Mersenne was concerned to limit the claims of
magicians without undermining the authenticity of Christian miracles, which he felt were a
guarantee of the authenticity of Christianity itself. On the other hand, he was concerned to show
that the atheists were wrong to try to explain everything by nature alone, since, among other
things, the Christian miracles are authentic, in his view.

24. As an example, Mersenne analyzes the work of Giulio Cesare Vanini who had been
convicted of atheism and burned at the stake in Toulouse. Mersenne felt that the execution of
Vanini was justifiable because Vanini would not acknowledge the existence of God, nor of angels
and demons. He "attributed all things to fate, and adored Nature as the bounteous mother and
source of all being." Vanini claimed there were people who had a natural power to cure diseases,
analogous to magnetism. Magicians also drew analogies with magnetism, but related their powers
to the influence of angels and demons, or heavenly influences of an astrological nature. Thus,
Hines concludes, "it may well be that later scientists such as Newton, for example,
 85

saw in attraction a representation not of a hidden magical power, but of an occult, natural
power." 213

25. As to the place of astrology in this classification, Hine says: "For both naturalists and
magicians the stars played a significant role in influencing the terrestrial world. For the former,
however, the influence of the stars amounted to a form of determin ism, providing a source and
guarantee of regularity and order in the universe .... In contrast to the naturalist view, which
emphasized natural law and ran the risk of determinism, magic was based on a certain conception
of human freedom .... In magic the question is not whether man's destiny is determined for him by
his stars, but whether he can discover the stellar influences on his life and take steps to counteract
214
them, if necessary, or direct them for his own benefit." Mersenne mounted a considerable
attack on astrology in his Quaestiones celeberrime in Genesim.

26. There was during the European Renaissance a kind of flowering of astrology. Wayne
Shumaker describes some of the most notable writings on astrology and magic during this era.215 He
gives, for example, an analysis of the influential work by the physician Marsilio Ficino, De vita
coelitus comparanda, 1489 (On Guiding One's Life by the Stars, or perhaps On Obtaining Life
from the Heavens; third part of De vita triplici). Ficino, like all physicians of his time, was versed
in astrology, and this work, by a physician for physicians, is saturated with astrological lore. For
example, Ficino describes "how tones, or compositions of tones, can be discovered which belong
to specific heavenly bodies. The method requires, first, that we find out the power or effects of a
star, a constellation, or even an aspect and what things are repelled by it, or attracted. The next
step is to consider what star dominates what place and what men, and to observe the tones and
songs used there so that you will be able to use the same ones and the meanings implicit within
them Finally, we must study the daily positions and aspects of the stars, and, under these, find
out the speeches, songs, motions, and leapings (saltus), together with the customs and actions, to
which men are moved by them so that we may be able to imitate these in the songs which we will
address to a given part of the sky." 216 And: "The occult virtues of things have not an elemental
source but a celestial one. Stellar and planetary rays are alive; they shine, as it were, from the
eyes of living bodies, and offer wonderful gifts from the imaginations and minds of celestial
beings." 217 Nevertheless, Ficino was not an astrological fundamentalist, and in his later writings
pointed up a number of deficiencies in the astrological practices of his time. Don Allen Cameron
remarks that Ficino said in later life "that he has no patience with those who trust the stars instead
of God, but in some forms of business it is wise to consult the heavens." 218

27. Ernst Cassirer describes the work of Pietro Pomponazzi on fate, free will and
predestination, Defato, libero arbitrio etpraedestinatione (1520): [For Pomponazzi] divine

213 William L. Hine, "Mersenne: naturalism and magic", in Occult and scientific mentalities in the
Renaissance, 1984, edited by Brian Vickers, p. 165-176.
214 Hine, ibid., p. 168.
215 Wayne Shumaker, The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance, A Study in Intellectual Patterns, 1972.
216 Shumaker, ibid., p. 133.
217 Shumaker, ibid.,, p. 129

218 Don Cameron Allen, The Star - Crossed Renaissance, The Quarrel about Astrology and Its Influence in
England, 1941,p. 11.
 86

foreknowledge does not necessarily conflict with the freedom of human action .... Man grasps the
past and present according to its 'that', but grasps the future only according to his knowledge of the
'why', because the future is not immediately given to him, but is rather only deducible through its
causes. But this difference between an immediate and mediate, between given and deduced
knowledge, is not valid for divine knowledge. For in divine knowledge all temporal differences,
so necessary for our conception of the world, disappear. To know the future divine knowledge
needs no mediation, no discursive succession of the conditions by virtue of which the future comes
to be."

28. As to another problem, that of "the compatibility of divine omnipotence with human
freedom and responsibility", Cassirer says of Pompanazzi: "Although he does not quite dare to
express himself unambiguously on this point, Pomponazzi's judgment tends unmistakably towards
a strict determinism. In his work on natural philosophy, De naturalium efectuum admirandorum
causis, the causality of events is interpreted in a strictly astrological sense. The world of history
and the world of nature are both viewed as necessary results of the influence of the heavenly
bodies. And elsewhere too, whenever he is speaking freely, Pomponazzi considers Fate in the
Stoic sense the relatively most satisfactory and rational solution. What makes the acceptance of
this solution difficult are not so much logical as ethical objections. A substantial part of the work
is dedicated to the removal of these objections [W]ith an energetic blow, Pomponazzi
severs the bond that had hitherto conjoined metaphysics and ethics. In principle, each is
completely independent of the other. Our judgment concerning the value of human life is not
dependent on our ideas concerning the continuation of life or the immortality of the human soul;
and similarly the question of the value or non-value of our actions must be considered from a point
of view other than what caused these actions. No matter how we may decide this latter question,
the ethical-practical judgment remains free. This freedom is what we need, not some chimerical
causelessness."219

29. Eugenio Garin says that Pomponazzi had "no doubts concerning the celestial
connection, and therefore the determination on the part of the stars, of all human events."
Pompanazzi believed that the whole world rises and falls in successive cycles. Pomponazzi says
in Defato: "And as we see that the earth which is now fertile will be barren, and the great and the
rich will become humble and wretched, so the course of history is determined. We have seen the
Greeks dominate the Barbarians, now the Barbarians dominate the Greeks, and so everything goes
on and changes. So it is probable that he who is now a king will one day be a slave, and vice
versa If then someone asks you, what kind of game is this? You would be well advised to
reply that it is the game of God." Garin says: "Having established this eternal and universal
vicissitude of things, this perennial cycle of ascent and descent, the revival of astrology with all
its great themes follows logically from it." But Pomponazzi separated astrology and magic from
the supernatural. "What matters to Pomponazzi," Garin says, is to bring every apparently
abnormal phenomenon back into the sphere of rational interpretation and natural causes. Not
demons nor miracles, but nervous tension, force of the imagination, powers and qualities which

Ernst Cassirer, The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, 1963, p. 82-83 of the translation by
219
Mario Domandi of Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance, 1927.
 87

are occult not because they are supernatural but because they have not yet been understood: these
are the causes of miraculous events."220

30. The most elaborate and famous of the Renaissance compendia of magic is no doubt the
De occultaphilosophia libri tres (1531) of Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim. Shumaker
describes the contents of the first of these three books, which is concerned with "natural magic": "It
discusses the elements; the occult virtues in things; sympathies and antipathies; the dominance of
superiora over inferiora; the powers and influences of the planets, the signs, and certain fixed
stars; how to attract 'the divinities who rule the world, and their ministers the daemons'; poisons;
fumigations; unguents and philters; rings; lights and colors; fascination; divination and auguries;
presages and prodigies; geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, and pyro mancy (one divinatory skill
for each of the elements); the revival of the dead; dreams; passions and their effects on the body;
the virtues of words, including proper names; incantations and enchantments; the relations of
letters in several languages (Hebrew, 'Chaldaean,' Greek, and Latin) to signs and planets; and
much else."

31. The subject of numbers is brought up in the first book. Shumaker says that in Book I:
"... we are informed that the order, the numbers, and the shapes of letters 'are not arranged by
chance or accident (non fortuito, nec casu) or by the caprice of men, but are formed divinely, so
that they relate to and accord with the heavenly bodies, the divine bodies, and their virtues.' Of all
languages Hebrew is sacratissima not only in its shapes (figuris) but also in its vowel points and
accents, ;as if consisting in matter, form, and spirit, having been produced in God's seat, which is
Heaven, by the positions of the stars.' Briefly, the letters are not, as is understood today,
conventional symbols chosen from an almost unlimited range of possibility but are so
representative of the actual structure of the universe, or its parts, that manipulations of them have
intrinsic power. The belief requires no explanation. It is still common among illiterate people and
among children, who, if told that 'eau' means 'water,' may say, 'But it's really 'water,' isn't it?' With
what degree of seriousness I do not know, C. S. Lewis plays with a similar idea in his cosmic
trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength, in which the 'Old Solar'
spoken beyond the sphere of the moon not merely expresses but contains the real nature of things.'
The 22 Hebrew character "are like secrets or sacraments and are vehicles, as it were, of their
material referenda and of the 'essences' and powers these contain For this reason Origen
believed that Hebrew names lost their force when translated. 'Accordingly the twenty-two letters
are the basis of the world and of all the creatures which exist and are named by them.'" 2 2 1

32. Numerology is especially developed in the second of the three books of Cornelius
Agrippa, which is concerned with "celestial magic". Numbers, Shumaker remarks, are the basis of
the entire quadrivium of the universities: arithmetic, astronomy, geometry and music. (This
could be misleading, since astronomical theories and observations, geometric abstractions and
diagrams, and melodic and harmonious sounds are more basic than numbers in astronomy,
geometry and music, respectively). And Book II of Agrippa's occult philosophy opens with a
praise of mathematics and a claim that "everything which is done in terrestrial affairs by natural
220
Pietro Pomponazzi, quoted by Eugenio Garin, Astrology in the Renaissance, 1983, p. 98-101, translation of Lo
Zodiaco della Vita, 1976.
2 2 1 Shumaker, ibid., p. 135 -137.
 88

energies is accomplished, led, or governed by number, weight, measure, harmony, movement,

and light."

33. The mathematics of Agrippa, like the mathematics of Fludd, is largely numerology.
Shumaker reproduces a number of elaborate drawings by Fludd and others which illustrate such
matters as cosmic harmonies and the relations of numbers to the heavens. An example of
Agrippa's numerology reproduced by Shumaker consists of a matrix called scala novenarii (the
scale of nines) with 6 rows and 11 columns, showing significances of the number 9. We have such
things as the names of God in 9 letters, the 9 choirs of angels and 9 angels who preside over
heaven, the 9 moving sphers, the 9 orders of bad daemons, and so on. Many numbers are
considered by Agrippa. We learn, for example, that "the human foetus becomes a perfect body,
ready to receive a reasonable soul, on the fortieth day; women require forty days to recover from a
birth; an infant does not smile for forty days; Christ preached forty months, was in the tomb forty
hours, mounted into the sky forty hours after his Resurrection." There is a consideration of
"geometrical figures, musical and other sounds, and similar harmonies and proportions in the
human body and soul." We find that the geometrical figures "have no less power than the numbers
themselves." The pentagram, which has five acute and five obtuse angles, along with five
triangles, has all the qualities of the number five, and has wonderful force against demons. Other
regular polygons have other qualities and virtues. We hear again about celestial harmonies, and
how the "proportions, measure, and harmony of the human body resemble those of the universe."
"Every part or member of man," we are told, "corresponds to 'some sign, some star, some
intelligence, some divine name." 222

34. Book III of Agrippa's Occultaphilosophia is concerned with "religious magic". There is
an extensive treatment of the names of God and their use in magic, along cabalistic lines. God's
members are discussed, and God's ministers: spirits, daemons, and angels, including those which
govern the signs, stars, winds, the 4 elements, and those formerly called fauns, satyrs, Pans,
nymphs, naiads, nereids, dryads, muses, genii, and lemurs. The names of these spirits and
daemons are elaborated upon. There are instructions for attracting good daemons and repelling
bad ones. There is material on the divinity of kings, princes, and pontiffs; how the seven planets act
as instruments for bestowing virtues on man; why man has mastery over all other living creatures;
and how to carry out various purifications, expiations, adorations, vows, sacrifices and oblations.

35. It should not be thought that astrology enchanted all scholars during the Renaissance.
Shumaker analyzes the refutation of astrology, Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem of
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1495 -- Agrippa's Occultaphilosophia was 1531). Pico seems to
have started as a believer in magic who was working toward a summa of the kind achieved by
Cornelius Agrippa. But Pico underwent a passionate about-face. A story was told by Tycho
Brahe, the astronomer and mentor of Kepler, that Pico was moved to his attack on astrology when
three Italian astrologers predicted his death at a certain time in his 33rd year. According to Brahe,
the prediction came true even though Pico shut himself up in his room when the time approached.
However, Shumaker says that Pico actually died at age 31. Another possible motive for the attack
is Pico's admiration for Savonarola, who regarded astrology as a superstition unworthy of
Christians.

222 Shumak er, ib id., p. 137 -146.

 89

36. Pico's treatise is long, and is characterized by Shumaker as being full and well-
informed. Its gist is summarized by Shumaker: "For a cosmic universe which was conceived
animistically, in which planets 'rejoiced' and were 'dejected,' 'looked at' each other with friendly
or unfriendly feeling, and varied from 'benevolence' to 'malevolence' in their attitudes toward
men, Pico wanted to substitute one in which the heavenly bodies performed quite dispassionately
and without consciousness roles assigned them at the beginning by a Creator-God who allowed
the evil initiated by men to cause suffering but did not place in the skies forces which would
dispose them to act well or badly As an example let us take Aristotle. His soul did not come
from the stars because, as he himself proved, it was immortal and incorporeal. His body, fit to
serve his soul, did not come from the sky ... but from his parents. As a result of the power of
choice inherent in his mind and body he elected to philosophize. His progress came from his plan
and his industry, and that it was especially great was a consequence of his teacher's doctrine and the
good fortune of his age, when a good beginning had been made and materials were at hand to
bring philosophy to perfection. He was superior to his disciples because he had not a better star
but a greater genius, the source of which was God. Similarly, the greatest of all philosophers,
Socrates, ascribed his wisdom not to the luminaries but to a god or daemon who kept him
company."223

37. However, Thorndike says of Pico that his work against astrology on the whole "is
rambling and ineffective as far as orderly presentation and cumulative argument are concerned."
Furthermore, Thorndike says of the first part: "This effort to give the impression that most of the
great minds of the past have condemned astrology is weak and unconvincing to anyone at all
acquainted with the past history of the subject. Pico selects only those persons and data that
support his contention, suppressing the evidence to the contrary, or misrepresents the attitude of
other personages On the whole, his citations are about as unconvincing as those of the
astrologers in favor of their art. He had a wide, if not exhaustive, acquaintance with the past
literature germane to his theme, but the use he makes of it is that of the advocate and dialectical
disputant, almost at times that of invective, rather than that of the impartial historian of ideas." In
general, according to Thorndike, "One cannot but feel that the importance of Pico della Mirandola
in the history of thought has often been grossly exaggerated." 224

38. Still, the historian Jacob Burckhardt called Pico's piece Oratio de hominis dignitate one
of the noblest bequests of the Renaissance. Here Pico speaks on the question of free will. Of God,
he says: "He formed man according to a general image that contained no particularities, and, setting
him in the centre of the world, said to him: 'We have given you, Adam, no definite place, no form
proper only to you, no special inheritance, so that you may have as your own whatever place,
whatever form, whatever gifts you may choose, according to your wish and your judgment. All
other beings have received a rigidly determined nature, and will be compelled by us to follow
strictly determined laws. You alone are bound by no limit, unless it be one prescribed by your
will, which I have given you. I have placed you at the centre of the world, so that you may more
easily look around you and see everything that is in it. I created you as a being neither heavenly
nor earthly, neither mortal nor immortal, so that you may freely make and master yourself, and take
on any form you choose for yourself. You can degenerate to animality

223 Shumaker, ibid., p. 16-27.

224
Lynn Thorndike, A Histo ry of Magic and E xper imental S cien ce, 1923- 1958, v. IV, 1934, p. 532, 529- 530, 485.
 90

or be reborn towards divinity ...... Animals bring forth ... from the bodies of their mothers
everything they ought to have. The higher spirits are, from the beginning or soon afterwards,
everything they will be for eternity. But on man, the Father conferred, at the moment of birth, the
seeds and germ of every form of life. Those which he cultivates will grow in him and bear fruit.
If they are the plant seeds, he will vegetate; if he follows the senses, he will become an animal; if
he cultivates the power of reason within him, he will become a celestial creature; if he follows
intelligence, he will become an angel and a son of God.'" 225

39. Here Pico attributes magical powers to man. Only man has no strictly determined
nature and is subject to no strictly deterministic laws, contrary to what some Stoics and
astrologers have claimed. A person can do anything he or she wants to. This illustrates a
fundamental distinction between astrology and magic, or astrology and other kinds of magic.
Magic, generally speaking, concentrates on giving power and understanding to people, aims
which magic shares with science. Astrology seeks to understand certain powers of nature over
people, so they can accommodate to it, or take steps to deal with it. No astrologer or astronomer
undertakes to change the stars.

40. Despite the refutations of Pico della Mirandola and others, people continued to put
stock in astrology. Shumaker quotes Paul Kocher226 who observed that "of the six full-scale
polemics published in England against astrology in the Elizabethan age, five -- those by William
Fulke, John Calvin, William Perkins, John Chamber, and George Carleton -- came from
ecclesiastics."227 In addition to these, Dick lists Thomas Cranmer, James Pilkington, Roger
Hutchinson, and Andrew Willett and remarks that he could give many more. (Dick, loc. cit., p.
23-25.) Furthermore, the State issued various proclamations and statutes against sorcery, taken to
include astrological prediction. It was recognized that such prognostications could be a cause of
disorder in the Commonwealth. In the same treatise in which he revealed his belief in witches,
his Daemono lg ies in Fo rme of a Dialogue (1597), King James attacked judicial astrology.

41. But after discussing opposition to astrology, Kocher goes on: "And who, on the other
side, spoke up for astrology? To the bewilderment of the modern analyst, chiefly the foremost
scientific men of the age ... an almost solid front of physicians, astronomers, and other natural
philosophers, renowned for their achievements." This seems to be overstated, since many of the
natural philosophers were skeptical about various kinds of astrology, and tended only to think
there was something in it. This too is understandable, since scientists took it that there are laws
which are independent of human will, and of chance. "Were a choice necessary," Shumaker says,
"causation might, after all, be better laid to physical rays emanating from planets and stars, which
at least were subject to observation, than to mystical numbers, cabalistic verbal formulas, and
devils." 228 Physicians in those days were especially prone to accept astrological theories. They
were a part of their standard repertoire.

225
Pico della Mirandola, quoted by Ernst Cassirer in The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy
(1927, 1963), p. 85-86.
226 Paul Kocher, Science and Religion in Elizabethan England, 1953.
227 Kocher, p.202; the work by Carleton is called Astrologomania: The Madnesse of Astrologers, 1624.

228 Kocher, ibid., p. 54.)

 91

42. Keith Thomas discusses the practice, role and relations with religion of astrology in
England in the 16th and 17th centuries. In connection with religion, he says: "Committed to the
belief that the will was necessarily free, the clergy therefore reasoned that it was impossible to
predict future human behaviour. If the astrologers did so, it could only mean that they were in
league with the Devil. Charms and spells, said Bishop Carleton [in 1624], were the Devil's
rudiments, but judicial astrology was the Devil's university. Astrologers in tacit league with Satan
deserved the fate prescribed for every other kind of witch. They were also suspect because of their
mathematical calculations. The memory of Roger Bacon had been much besmirched by the
assumption that mathematics was part of the black art, and it was notorious that the Edwardian
reformers had destroyed mathematical books at Oxford under the delusion that they were
conjuring books. 'Where a red letter or a mathematical diagram appeared, they were sufficient to
entitled the book to be Popish or diabolical.' (This may account for the disappearance at this
period of nearly all the works of the fourteenth-century Merton College school of astronomers.)"

"Modern historians tend to think that few genuine Elizabethan scientists were liable to
43.

be accused of witchcraft. Yet both John Dee and Thomas Hariot suffered from such suspicions
and in the seventeenth century John Aubrey recalled how the Elizabethan astrologer, Thomas
Allen, was maligned by the belief, 'in those dark times', that astrologer, mathematician and
conjurer were all the same thing. During the reign of Mary, a clergyman, William Living, was
arrested by an ignorant constable who found among his books a copy of the astronomical
textbook, John de Sacrobosco's S p h ere, exclaiming, 'It is no marvel the Queen be sick, seeing
there be such conjurers in privy corners; but now, I trust, he shall conjure no more.' The
Elizabethan surveyor, Edward Worsop, also commented on the popular assumption that books
with crosses, circles and Greek geometrical terms were likely to be works of conjuration. Such
prejudices lasted well into the seventeenth century, and were fanned by the widespread
conviction that anything mysterious must have a diabolical origin The sequestrators who
seized the papers of the mathematician Walter Warner in 1644 were reported to be 'much
troubled at the sight of so many crosses and circles in the superstitious algebra and that black art of
geometry.'" 2 2 9

44. Don Cameron Allen discusses many defenders and detractors of astrology in Europe
during the 250 years or so from about 1450 to 1700. Among the early works by writers in Italy,
along with those of Ficino, who was rather ambiguous about the powers of astrology, and Pico
della Mirandola, who made a thorough and influential attack on its powers (after having published
a favorable description earlier), Allen analyzes the work of an early staunch defender, Giovanni
Pontano. In his Defo rtu n a (1501), Pontano was much concerned with the relation ship of chance
or fortune to stellar influences. He held that stellar influences incline us this or that way, but that
they can be overcome, for example by prudence and reason. (This is a very old idea, going back at
least to Ptolemy of Alexandria).

45. Our fo rtu n e comes from the stars, but reason and prudence are sometimes useful in
perfecting fortune. Allen says: "The arch stone of Pontano's theory is his notion of the fortunate.
Nature, he says, begets certain men who are the children of fortune and others who are not. The

229 Ke i t h Th o m a s , R e l i g i o n a nd t h e De c l i n e o f M a g i c , 1 9 7 1 , p . 3 6 2 -3 6 3 .
 92

fortunate man, unlike the virtuous man, does not need to follow a code of conduct; he has only to
follow his natural impulses, and he will be carried to the highest goals. Pontano admits that he
does not know why this is so; reason can no more explain it than it can explain why one man wins
at dice and another man loses. The fortunate are like prophets, sybils, and poets; they are agitated
by a divine power. Reason and study have nothing to do with their successful careers; in fact, the
fortunate often lose their occult power when they try to reason or begin to study."230 When a
learned friar complained that Pontano had not given enough place to providence in his views,
Pontano found an answer in the stars. "God, he says, created the stars and gave them power over
everything below save the wills of men; therefore, fate is a sort of partner of men's wills in the
governing of earthly business."231

46. In England, the practice of astrology reached an apex of influence and respectability
during the Elizabethan and Stuart eras, that is, in the late 16th century and during the first three
quarters or so of the 17th century, and yet at the same time came under attack from many
quarters. In his biography of William Lilly, the leading astrologer during the middle two quarters
of the 17th century, Derek Parker uses Shakespeare as a source from which we can get an idea of
the place of astrology in the minds of most English people during Elizabethan times. Shakespeare
makes many allusions to astrology in his plays and sonnets. For example, in Julius Caesar, Cassius
says to Brutus:

Men at some time are masters of their fates.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But
in ourselves that we are underlings. 2 3 2

These lines, says Parker, have often been misunderstood. The meaning is that there are times
when men are best able to master their fates -- which a competent astrologer could calculate for
them -- and that a man is an underling if he doesn't act at a moment when the planetary positions
are propitious for him. To say that the fault is not in the stars of the conspirators is to say that the
planetary positions are propitious for the assassination of Caesar. There is something compelling
about this interpretation, given the context of the whole play, and it indicates a faith in astrology,
together with a view that the stars incline but do not compel.233 Numerous other passages from
Shakespeare's writings show a similar attitude toward astrology. Prospero, in The Tempest, says in
the manner of Cassius:

... by my prescience
Ifind my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star, whose influence If
I now court not but omit, my fortunes
234
Will ever after droop.

230 Don Cameron Allen, The Star- Crossed Renaissance, The Quarrel About Astrology and Its Influencein England, p.
42.
2 3 1 Allen, ibid., p. 43.

2 3 2 J u l i u s C a e s a r , I.ii, 140- 141.

2 3 3 Derek Parker, Familiar to All, William Lilly and Astrology in the Seventeenth Century, 1975, p. 47-54.

234 The Tempest, I.ii, 180-184.

 93

One may take it that Shakespeare could expect such beliefs to be common in his audiences.

47. Parker cites a speech of Ulysses from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida as showing
"more vividly than any other easily accessible quotation the Elizabethan vision of a parallel
system of heavenly and earthly order, and ... of the palpable connection between them":

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,

Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Ofice, and custom, in all line of order: And
therefore is the glorious planet Sol In noble
eminence enthron'd and spher'd Amidst the
other; whose med'cinable eye Corrects the ill
aspects ofplanets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad: but when the planets In
evil mixture, to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny! What
raging of the sea! shaking of earth! Commotion in
the winds!frights, changes, horrors, Divert and
crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married
calm of states Quite from their fixture! 2 3 5

235 The History of Troilus and Cressida, I, iii, 85- 10 1.

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Chapter 4. From Babylon to Copernicus

1. Among the most famous of past astrologers have been the Babylonians.236 The religion
and science of the ancient Babylonians, especially of their soothsayers, worshippers of Bel
(Marduk), were bound to the stars. There was much concern with the foretelling of human
destiny. The notion of a connection between astral bodies and human destinies appears to have
been part of a central concept that the cosmos contains nothing fundamentally dead or inimical.
The observations made by Babylonian astronomer-priests reflect a longing to establish precisely
the interdependence between stars and earth and man. S. Giedion says: "In an often retold dream
of that great figure of the early period, Gudea of Lugash, the goddess Nisibis appeared to him not
only as the goddess of intelligence, wisdom, mathematics, and writing; she also 'bore the tablet of
the good star' -- in other words, she was simultaneously goddess of astrology."237

2. Édouard Dhorme says of the early Mesopotamians: "For the Sumerians and Akkadians,
the sky was, in effect, a great map on which their destiny was inscribed. Men called the
constellations 'the writing of heaven' or 'the writing of the firmament'." The experience of the night
side of life, and the feeling of being utterly at the mercy of destiny, permeated Mesopotamian
existence. Later, the Greeks took over the idea of destiny, without being led into the deep
pessimism already revealed in the depressing adventures of Gilgamesh, around 2600 B.C. This
interest in destiny was closely linked with a desire to fathom in advance the will of the gods. The
stars were identical with the deities. They influenced all happenings and were thus guides to
man's fate. Everything depended on whether the initiate was able to read the decisions of the gods
from the movements of the stars. It has not been clearly proven just when this sort of belief in the
stars arose. But it must be closely linked with an anthropomorphization of the universe, and thus
it must have found its form shortly before or at the beginnng of historical
times .... " 238

3. The Mesopotamians built awe-inspiring structures called ziggurats, towers composed

of series of terraces joined by steps, with temples on top, probably containing places for making
sacrifices. "Both ziggurat and pyramid derive their existence," says Giedion, "from man's
awakened urge toward the vertical as a symbol of contact with the deity, contact with the sky...
The notion of a ladder between heaven and earth was marvelously portrayed." 239 The tower of
Babel in the Bible is probably the great ziggurat at Babylon. The word "Babel" means "gate of
the God" in Akkadian. There is a similar-sounding word in Hebrew which means "confusion."
There appears to be a pun in the Biblical story of the tower of Babel.

4. Relatively late in their history, certain Babylonians were also pioneers in mathematical
astronomy. However, they made accurate celestial observations for a long time before they
developed their mathematical astronomy. Simplicius, for example, in his commentary on
Aristotle's De caelo (6th century C.E.) speaks of a sequence of observations sent

236 See Appendix to this Chapter for the description of Babylonian (Chaldean) astrologers by Diodorus of
Sicily (100-30 B.C.E.), Philo of Alexandria (20 B.C.E.-50 C.E.), and Flavius Josephus (37-98 C.E.)
237 S. Giedion, The Beginnings of Architecture, 1964, p. 9, 19, 138- 139.
238 ~douard Dhorme, Les Religions de Babylonie et d'Assyrie, 2nd edition, 1949, p. 282, p. 138-140.
239 Dhorme, ibid., p. 219, 225.
 95

by Callisthenes to Aristotle (4th century B.C.E.) which had extended over 1903 years. 2 4 0 We
may take with a grain of salt, Rutten says, the assertion of Iamblichus (c. 250-330 A.D.) that the
Babylonians had observed the stars for 72,000 years.

5. Did the Babylonians' astronomy grow out of their astrology, or vice versa --or did they
grow up together? Otto Neugebauer says, comparing astronomy and astrology: "It has often been
said that astronomy originated from astrology. I see no evidence for this theory The best
description of the true situation might be the statement that we know equally little about the origin
of astrology or astronomy and that the relative influence of these two disciplines on one another is
largely a matter of conjecture."241

6. Rutten quotes Strabo, the geographer (c. 60 B.C.E.-20 C.E.): "There is in Babylonia a
caste or colony of indigenous philosophers called "Chaldeans" who concern themselves chiefly
with astronomy. Some also specialize in casting horoscopes, but they do not have the approval of
the others." 242 According to Rutten, this proves that alongside the astrologer-diviners there were
true astronomers, in the modern sense of the word. Unfortunately, one can construe Strabo's
statement to mean that some of the philosophers frowned on personal astrology concerning
individuals, as contrasted with omen astrology, concerning nations or peoples, or natural
phenomena.

7. Neugebauer saw no evidence that astronomy grew out of astrology, but ~douard
Dhorme did. He says: "It was inevitable that a close relationship be established between
observation of the stars and the calendar, which gives measurements of the celestial vault. The
astrologers were in this way led to study the lives of the gods not only in space, but also in time. It
was necessary for them to take note of the celestial phenomena which gave to each day of the
month and of the year its peculiar physiognomy. The necessity of avoiding errors and giving a
mathematical precision to the results obtained quickly caused the synthesis of astrological
observations to be transformed into an exact science. In this way, astronomy detached itself from
astrology. The religious apparatus which surrounded the calculations of the diviners ended by
passing into the background. The divination tables were only empirical findings, but they
continued to answer to the need of the human soul to probe into the darkness of the future.
Astrology acquired a new expansive force by separating itself from its indigenous culture. It is in
this way that it penetrated into Asia Minor, in particular among the Hittites, and from there as far
as Greece and Rome, where the Chaldeans distinguished themselves as drawers of horo scopes
and fortune-tellers."243

8. Despite the fact that the Babylonian astrologer/ astronomers are customarily said to
have been priests (Herodotus called them this), some Babylonians may have taken a relatively
secular attitude toward the stars. A. Laurent says: "In Egypt, most of the books which treated
science were considered sacred books, composed and revealed by the gods themselves. The
Chaldeans, and later their disciples the Assyrians, attributed a less elevated origin to their similar
books. For them, they were simply the fruit of the experience of educated men and of

240 Referred to by Marguerite Rutten in La Science des Chaldªens, 1970, p. 8 9 -90.

241 Otto Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 1957, p. 168.
242
Rutten, ibid., p. 89.
2 4 3 Dhorme, ibid., p. 288-289.
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generations of patient observers. In particular, the treatises on divination (astrology, the science
of omens, haruspicy, etc.) appear to us, in fact, quite like the work of a number of scholars who,
through the centuries, have recorded from day to day the relations which seemed to them to exist
between the events of political or private life and different sidereal or terrestrial phenomena.
Neither the Chaldeans nor the Assyrians did anything to obscure the human origins of these
treatises." 244

9. Observations of the stars have long been connected with determination and maintenance
of calendars. Dhorme, speaking of this relation, attributes to the Babylonians a calendar having a
year of 12 months with 30 days each, plus a 5-day intercalary period. This calendar, however,
appears to have originated with the Egyptians. Plutarch (c. 46-120 A.D.) says: "They say that the
Sun, when he became aware of Rhea's intercourse with Cronus, invoked a curse upon her that she
should not give birth to a child in any month or any year; but Hermes, being enamoured of the
goddess, consorted with her. Later, playing at draughts with the moon, he won from her the
seventieth part of her illumination, and from all the winnings he composed five days, and
intercalated them as an addition to the three hundred and sixty days. The Egyptians even now call
these five days intercalated and celebrate them as the birthdays of the gods."245

10. Neugebauer says of the Egyptian calendar of 12 30-day months plus 5 intercalated
days that "this calendar is, indeed, the only intelligent calendar which ever existed in human
history."246 He thus goes further than Herodotus (c. 485-425 B.C.E.), who says that the priests of
Egypt with whom he talked "all agreed in saying that the Egyptians by their study of astronomy
discovered the solar year and were the first to divide it into twelve parts --and in my opinion their
method of calculation is better than the Greek; for the Greeks, to make the seasons work out
properly, intercalate a whole month every other year, while the Egyptians make the year consist of
twelve months of thirty days each and every year intercalate five additional days, and so complete
the regular circle of the seasons." 247 It may be that Dhorme confuses this Egyptian calendar with
the Babylonian lunar calendar in which some years have 12 months and others 13 months of 30
days each. This was at first done irregularly, and later with 7 13-month years every 19 years 2 4 8
Such a 13th month of 30 days can be considered to be an intercalation. Dhorme, indeed, speaks of
intercalating a month of 30 days into a 12 month calendar of 30 days each.

11. Did the Sumerians already have astrology in early Mesopotamian culture? O. R.
Gurney says: "The only clear evidence that the Sumerians already practised astrology comes from
the cylinder of Gudea (c. 2 143-2124 BC). In his first dream this ruler saw the goddess Nisaba
studying 'a tablet of the star (or stars) of heaven', which was interpreted to mean that she was
proclaiming 'the pure star for the building of the temple'. In what way the star was thought to give
such a sign is not explained. From Mari, of the time of Hammurapi (c. 1780 BC), there is a letter
from the b a r û [professional omen inspector, a priest] Asqudum, which is very revealing. The
diviner reports an eclipse of the moon; he knows that this is a bad omen, but no more,

244 A. Laurent, La Magie et la Divination chez les Chaldeo- Assyriens, 1894, p. 58.
245 Plutarch, "Isis and Osiris", in Plutarch's Moralia, translated by Frank Cole Babbitt, 1936, v. 5, p. 31.
246 Otto Neugebauer, Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 1957, p. 81.
247 Herodotus, The Histories, ii.4, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt, 1954, p. 130.
248 Neugebauer, ibid., p. 102.
 97

proceeds to check the findings by haruspicy, and declares that after all the outlook is favourable.
Evidently at this time haruspicy was the only reliable form of divination...... It seems that it was
not till much later that astrology rose to prominence as a rival to haruspicy. That it eventually did
so is seen in some 600 reports on ominous events sent in to the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (680-
669 BC) from scholars posted in widely distributed centres throughout the empire. The great
majority of these are astrological in character and are often in response to an enquiry from the
king as to the meaning of an ominous event. Like the extispicy reports, they quote the relevant
omens from the handbook, here complete with the prediction, and a conclusion is drawn regarding
the general significance of the omen for the king, but never in relation to a particular matter of
policy. Astrology could not be used, as extispicy was, to answer specific questions. The officials
who write these reports are not barû priests but scholars with various professional designations.
One is called 'scribe of "When Anu and Enlil"'. A special title which does not occur elsewhere is
'Chief of the team often'."

12. "Horoscopic astrology, the 12 signs of the zodiac, and the doctrine of the hypsomata
were a still later development. The earliest horoscope (now in Oxford) dates from 410 BC. Two
astrological manuals show drawings of the hypsomata, or positions of greatest astrological
influence: the moon in Taurus, Jupiter in Cancer, Mercury in Virgo. They date from the Seleucid
period (after 300 BC). The texts attached to these drawings have by now reached the refinement
of dividing each sign of the zodiac into twelve 'microzodiacs' of 2 1/2 days each. This
sophisticated astrology, for which the 'Chaldeans' were renowned in the Roman world, was only
developed after the fall of Babylon to the Persians in 539 BC." 249

13. Samuel Angus makes the claim that astrology made the Greek and Roman methods
of inquiry into the future antiquated. Augury and haruspicy were practically abandoned. Official
oracles, like the one at Delphi, though revived under the empire, had stiff competition, he says,
from the Chaldaei and mathematici, as well as from Christian and Gnostic apocalypses. 2 5 0

14. Prominent Greek scientists such as the astronomer and mathematician Eudoxus (c.
390-340 B.C.E.) and Theophrastus (c. 372 -286 B.C.E.), student and successor of Aristotle,
studied the star-worship and astrological practices of the Babylonians. According to Proclus (c.
412-485 B.C.E.) in his commentary on Plato's Timaeus, Theophrastus, in his book On Signs,
credited the Chaldeans of his time with a theory with which they could predict "every event, and the
life and death of every person." 251 Near the end of the 3rd century B.C.E., professional astrologers
from Babylonia set up business among the Greeks. Michael Grant tells us: "The first of these
practitioners was said to be the Babylonian priest Berossus, translator of The Eye of Bel, who
moved to Cos and founded an astrological school on the island (c. 280 [B.C.E.]). But it was not until
after 200 that the movement reached the proportions of a flood. This was the time when Bolus of
Mendes in Egypt (a country that had learnt its astrology from Mesopotamia) compiled a treatise On
Sympathies andAntipathies which explained and justified the fictitious correspondence between
heavenly bodies and human beings. His book became one of the most

249 O. R. Gurney, in Oracles and Divination, 1981, edited by Michael Loewe and Carmen Blacker, p. 160- 162.
250 Samuel Angus, The Mystery-Religions and Christianity, A Study in the Religious Background of
Early Christianity, 1925,p. 167.
251 Pierre Duhem, Le Syst ©me du Monde, 1913, v. 2, p. 275.
 98

influential best-sellers of all time. Another successful work was an astrological textbook,
probably written c. 150-120, which went under the probably fictitious Egyptian names of
Nechepso and Petosiris."252

15. These beliefs fit easily into Stoic doctrines, and the Stoics maintained astrological
doctrines from early on. It was, as we said earlier, an understandable outgrowth of dismay at a
world which seemed to be rules by chance and fickle fortune. One of the leaders of the Stoic
school, Diogenes 'the Babylonian' from Seleucia on the Tigris (d. 152 B.C.E.), maintained that
the souls of men and women contain a spark of the power that rules the heavens. Grant says of
this Diogenes: "Building on his forerunner Cleanthes' veneration of the sun and the celestial
bodies, [he] became the traitor withing the gates who welcomed astrology for its apparently
convincing proof of this 'Sympathy of all Creation'." Another Stoic, Panaetius of Rhodes (c.
185-109 B.C.E.) rejected the idea that the sun, moon and stars causally affect the affairs of the
world, although he was willing to accept the validity of divination. But soon afterwards an
influential Stoic, Posidonius of Apamea in Syria (c. 135-50 B.C.E.), welcomed the basic
astrological principles as keys to the harmony of the universe.

16. Some believers in such principles allowed a limited scope for free will, but
nevertheless considered themselves to be ruled by the unchanging and inescapable heavenly
spheres, which predestine all that happens. Others revolted against a pitiless mechanical
inevitability and sought means to circumvent or reduce the oppressiveness of the astral powers.
This required finding out what the powers had in store, and how to arrange one's activities to
avoid their most hostile intentions. For this, experts were needed: professional
astrologer/astronomers. These became an influential group, who provided numberless believers
with a principal interest, consolation and excitement. They cast horoscopes, in which the future
destiny of a person was worked out from the positions of heavenly bodies at the time of his or
her birth. The astrologer/ astronomers not only prophesied future destinies, but also counseled
people on how to outwit what had been destined. They mixed a kind of science with a kind of
magic.

17. In science, as in religion, a kind of submission seems to be required to some degree to

what there is and must be, while with magic a there is customarily intent to dominate, to
manipulate the gods, or the way nature works, or to interfere with fate. With technology,
including applications of science, we often try to manipulate nature. But with magic, we try to
change the will of the gods, or the laws of nature. Magic rests on the assumption that we are not
underlings in ways that science or religion profess. Not even the sky is the limit. Belief in the
power of magical manipulations was widespread in Hellenistic times. There were some who
investigated the laws by which the stars move, without trying to alter either the laws or the stars,
but a man might be at the same time an astronomer and an astrologer, and maybe a magician, too.

18. The Babylonians were known to the Greeks and Romans not only as astrologers,
astronomers and magicians, but as diviners by other methods. Writing about 161 or 162 C.E., the
satirist Lucian tells how Menippus makes a descent into Hades to find out the right way to live.
He finds that the good life is not that of the rich and powerful, nor that of a philosopher,

252 M i c h a e l Gra n t , From Alexander to Cleopatra, TheHellenistic World, 1 9 8 2 , p . 2 1 4 -2 2 2 .

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but the ordinary life of one who lives in the present and laughs a lot. To make his descent into
Hades, Menippus says: "... I resolved to go to Babylon and address myself to one of the Magi, the
disciples and successors of Zoroaster, as I had heard that with certain charms and ceremonials
they could open the gates of Hades, taking down in safety anyone they would and guiding him
back again ............................Well, springing to my feet, I made straight for Babylon as fast as I
could go. On my arrival, I conversed with one of the Chaldeans, a wise man of miraculous skill,
with grey hair and a very majestic beard; his name was Mithrobarzanes. By dint of supplications
and entreaties, I secured his reluctant consent to be my guide on the journey at whatever price he
would. So the man took me in charge, and first of all, for twenty-nine days [approximately a lunar
month], beginning with the new moon, he took me down to the Euphrates in the early morning
toward sunrise, and bathed me; after which he would make a long address which I could not follow
very well, for like an incompetent announcer at the games, he spoke rapidly and indistinctly. It is
likely, however, that he was invoking certain spirits."

19. "Anyhow, after the incantation he would spit in my face thrice and then go back again
without looking at anyone whom he met. We ate nuts, drank milk, mead, and the water of the
Coaspes, and slept out of doors on the grass. When he considered the preliminary course of
dieting satisfactory, taking me to the Tigris river at midnight he purged me, cleansed me, and
consecrated me with torches and squills and many other things, murmuring his incantation as he
did so. Then after he had be charmed me from head to foot and walked all about me, that I might not
be harmed by phantoms, he took me home again, just as I was, walking backward. After that, we
made ready for the journey. He himself put on a magician's gown very like the Median dress, and
speedily costumed me in these things which you see -- the cap, the lion's skin, and the lyre besides;
and he urged me, if anyone should ask my name, not to say Menippus, but Heracles or Odysseus or
253
Orpheus."

20. The ancient Chinese, on the whole, seem not to have become as secular-minded as the
Babylonians about the stars. Edward Schafer says that for most early Chinese, even for the most
advanced authorities, astronomy was indistinguishable from astrology. As understanding of
stellar motions was refined, and more and more aspects of the starry firmament were removed
from the realm of conjecture, doubt and fear into the realm of the known and predictable, this
identification remained. Comets, meteors and supernovae remained terrible signals from the
powers in space, and it would be wrong to suppose that the inclusion of quite reliable
ephemerides in a medieval Chinese almanac means that movements of celestial objects had
become accepted as merely physical transits of the sky. Schafer says: "There were certainly
skeptics, but it appears that most men, even well-educated men, continued to believe that a
predictable Jupiter remained an awful Jupiter." Moreover, the Chinese devoted little energy to
making geometrical models of the physical universe which would account for their observations
and arithmetical calculations. "Indeed," says Schafer, "cosmology languished close to the
borderlands of mythology, and for many, perhaps most people, the two were identical." The
obliquity of the ecliptic, the precession of the equinoxes, and the true length of the tropical year
were discovered quite early, but this didn't put the diviners out of work. 254

253 Lucian, Lucian, v. 4, “Menippus”, translated by A. M. Harmon, 1925, p. 83- 87.

254 Edward Schafer, Pacing the Void, T'ang Approaches to the Stars, 1977, p. 9 -10.
 100

21. According to Schafer, a remarkable feature of T'ang astronomy/astrology was the

extent of Indian influences on it. A similar condition prevailed centuries later, Schafer remarks,
during the Mongol domination of China, when Islamic science prevailed in the office of the
Astronomer Royal at Peking. Schafer says: "The extent of western influences on Chinese
astronomical and cosmological thought in early antiquity is uncertain. Speculation on the matter
has in the past tended to resemble the lush growth of the hot-house or the tropical forest: jungly
tangles of colorful lianes and rattans whose stems are confused and whose roots are doubtful. A
sober hypothesis by a professional Assyriologist of our own century [E. Bezold] seems as fair as
any other: native Chinese astronomy/astrology was probably modified by the Babylonian by at
least the sixth century B.C." 255

22. When did astronomy proper begin to develop, as we understand the term? It depends
on what you count as astronomy. People must have known a fair bit about the repeating
movements and appearances of sun, moon, planets and stars long before they were able to leave
written records. Very likely they made use of observations of the skies to predict -- or try to
predict -- when the seasons would change, when was a good time to plant or harvest, when
floods and other natural catastrophes were liable to occur, where they would land when they set
out to sea, and so on.

23. On the antiquity of astronomy, Mircea Eliade says: "Alexander Marshak [sic] has
recently been able to demonstrate the existence, in the Upper Paleolithic, of a symbolic system of
temporal notations, based on observations of the moon's phases. These notations, which the author
terms 'time-factored', that is, accumulated over a long period, permit the supposition that certain
seasonal or periodic ceremonies were fixed long in advance, as is the case in our day among
Siberians and North American Indians. This systems of notations remained in force for more than
25,000 years, from the early Aurignacians to the late Magdalenian. According to Marshak,
writing, arithmetic, and the calendar properly speaking, which make their appearance in the first
civilizations, are probably connected with the symbolism with which the system of notations used
during the Paleolithic is impregnated. Whatever may be thought of Marshak's general theory
concerning the development of civilization, the fact remains that the lunar cycle was analyzed,
memorized, and used for practical purposes some 15,000 years before the discovery of agriculture.
This makes more comprehensible the considerable role of the moon in archaic mythology, and
especially the fact that lunar symbolism was integrated into a single system comprising such
different realities as woman, the waters, vegetation, the serpent, fertility, death, "rebirth," etc." 256

24. No one knows when gods first appeared among men. Nobody knows when people began
to try to find out their wills. Who knows which ideas about gods were derived from ideas about
the sun, moon and stars? Sextus Empiricus says: "And Aristotle said that the conception of Gods
arose amongst mankind from two originating causes, namely from events which concern the soul
and from celestial phenomena. It arose from events which concern the soul because of the inspired
states of the soul which occur in sleep and because of prophecies. For, says he, when the soul is
by itself in sleep, then it takes on its true nature and prophecies and predicts the

255 Schafer, ibid.

256
Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, 1978, French 1976, v. 1, p. 22- 23; cf. Alexander Marshack, 1972,
The Roots of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man's First Art, Symbol, and Notation, p. 81 ff.
 101

future. And it is in this state also when it is being separated from bodies at death........Moreover
(they derived this conception) from celestial phenomena also; for when they beheld the sun
circling around in the day-time, and by night the orderly motion of the other stars, they supposed
some God to be the cause of such motion and orderliness."257

25. Cicero reports that the Stoic Cleanthes (c. 300-220 B.C.E.) gave four reasons to account
for the formation in men's minds of their ideas of gods: "He put first the argument ... arising from
our foreknowledge of future events; second, the one drawn from the magnitude of the benefits we
derive from our temperate climate, from the earth's fertility, and from a vast abundance of other
blessings; third, the awe inspired by lightning, storms, rain, snow, hail, floods, pestilences,
earthquakes, and occasionally subterranean rumblings, showers of stones and raindrops the colour
of blood, also landslips and chasms suddenly opening in the ground, also unnatural monstrosities
human and animal, and also the appearance of meteoric lights and what are called by the Greeks
'comets,' and in our language 'long-haired stars,' all of which alarming portents have
suggested to mankind the idea of the existence of some celestial and divine power. And the fourth
and most potent cause of the belief he said was the uniform motion and revolution of the heavens,
and the varied groupings and ordered beauty of the sun, moon and stars, the very sight of which
was in itself enough to prove that these things are not the mere effect of chance. When a man goes
into a house, a wrestling-school or a public assembly and observes in all that goes on
arrangement, regularity and system, he cannot possibly suppose that these things come about
without a cause: he realizes that there is someone who presides and controls. Far more therefore
with the vast movements and phases of the heavenly bodies, and these ordered processes of a
multitude of enormous masses of matter, which throughout the countless ages of the infinite past
have never in the smallest degree played false, is he compelled to infer that these mighty world -
motions are regulated by some Mind."258

26. It is, then, small wonder that celestial objects came to be regarded as having power over
our affairs. In omen or porten t astrology, attempts are made to use such objects to predict events
of importance to a country and its rulers. Omen astrology seems to have been indigenous to
Babylonia, although the Chinese may have developed their own version independently. Bartel van
der Waerden assigns the beginning of omen astrology to before the reign of Hammurabi in
Babylonia (about 1800 B.C.), and perhaps much earlier. 2 5 9

27. Here's a sample: "When Scorpio approaches the front of the Moon and stands, the reign
of the king will be long; the enemy will come, but his defeat will be accomplished." 260 Another
example: "The month of Elul, 15th day, eclipse [of the moon]: the son of the king kills his father
and seizes the throne, and the enemy advances and destroys the country. The 16th day, eclipse of
the moon: the king of a foreign country the same [i.e., is killed by his son], the king of the country
of Hâti advances and seizes the throne. Rains in the sky, abundance of water in the

257 Sextus Empiricus, c. 200 A.D., Against the Physicists, i.20-22, also known as Adversus Dogmaticos,
iii, and Adversus Mathematicos, ix.; translation by R. G. Bury, 1936, p. 11, 13
258 Cicero, De natura deorum, translated by H. Rackham, 1933, p. 137-139.
259
Bartel van der Waerden, Science Awakening I, The Birth of Astronomy, 1974, p. 49.
260
R. Campbell Thompson, T he Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers ofNineveh and Babylon in the British
Museum, the original texts, printed in cuneiform characters, edited with translations, notes, vocabulary, index and an
introduction, 1900, v. 2, p. lxxi.
 102

canals. "261 Another: "If Mars is visible in the month of Tammuz (June-July), the beds of the
soldiers will be empty." That is, there will be a military expedition. 2 6 2

28. Although there may have been secular attitudes among Chaldean diviners, we may
suppose they were to some degree influenced by the prevailing religion. In ancient Babylonia, the
sun deity Marduk, the greatest of the Babylonian gods and successor to the moon deity of the
Sumerians, set the celestial beings to moving and determined their courses. Marduk articulated
time into units, and the regularity of celestial motions became a model for the life of men in
society, and a powerful force on the development of their government, work and cities. The
highest duty of the highest officials of Babylon, the priests, was to observe and interpret the
movements of the sun, moon and other celestial objects.263

29. At the head of the Babylonian and Assyrian panoply of gods is Anu. "Anu," we are told,
"was the son of Anshar and Kishar. His name signified 'sky' and he reigned over the heavens...
Aided by his companion, the goddess Antu, he presided from above over the fates of the universe
and hardly occupied himself with human affairs. Thus, although he never ceased to be universally
venerated, other gods finally supplanted him and took over certain of his prerogatives. But the
great god's prestige remained such that the power of these usurper gods was never firmly
established until they, too, assumed the name Anu The entire course of human life was ...
regulated by the sovereign will of the gods, whose chief attribute was deciding the fates of men.
We have already seen how highly the gods valued this privilege which fell successively to Anu,
Enlil, Ea and Marduk. Although it was the supreme god who made the final decision, all could
discuss it. At the beginning of every year, while on earth the festival of Zagmuk was being
celebrated, the gods assembled in the Upshukina, the Sanctuary of Fates.

The king of the gods in the later Babylonian period, B«l-Marduk, took his place on the throne.
The other gods knelt with fear and respect before him. Removing from his bosom the Tablet of
Fates, B «l-Marduk confided it to his son Nabu, who wrote down on it what the gods had decided.
Thus the fate of the country was fixed for the coming year."264

30. If Anu is the chief god, what was the status of his parents Anshar and Kishar? The
Larousse has it that Apsu (sweet water) and Tiamat (salt water) were the fount of all things. The
first offspring of these were Lakhmu and Lakhamu, "rather vague gods" who "seem to be a pair of
monstrous serpents. They gave birth to Anshar, the male principle, and to Kishar, the female
principle, who represented respectively, so some think, the celestial and terrestrial worlds. In the
same way the Greek gods were born of the union of Uranus, the sky, and Gaea, the earth. But
while in Greek mythology Gaea played an important role, Kishar does not appear again in the
story. " 2 6 5

261 A. Laurent, La Magie et la Divination chez les Chaldªo-Assyriens, 1894, p. 60.

262
Marguerite Rutten, La Science des Chaldªens, 1970, p. 95.
263 Babylon, in the time of Nebuchadnezzar (died 562 B.C.E.), was probably the greatest and most well organized city
in the world, estimated to support between 250,000 and 300,000 inhabitants. It was Nebuchadnezzar who is reputed
to have built the "tower of Babel", and to have destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. In Greece, this was about
the time of Anaximander, one of the pre- Socratic philosophers, perhaps the first person to ever make a geometric
model of the universe, or at any rate this appears to be the earliest we know about.
264
Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology , 1959, p. 52-5 3, 63.
265 ibid, p. 49- 50.
 103

31. Thorkild Jacobsen tells the same story like this, based on Old Babylonian copies of
Sumerian texts from the third millenium B.C. "An ranked highest among the gods. His name,
borrowed by the Akkadians as Anum, is the Sumerian word for "sky" and inherently An is the
numinous power in the sky, the source of rain and the basis for the calendar since it heralds
through its changing constellations the times of the year with their different works and
celebrations An's spouse was the earth, Ki, on whom he engendered trees, reeds, and all other
vegetation .......There also seems to have been a tradition that saw the power in the sky as both
male and female and distinguished the god An (Akkadian Anum) from the goddess An (Akkadian
Antum) to whom he was married. According to that view the rains flowed from the sky goddess'
breasts, or (since she was usually envisaged in cow shape) her udder -- that is from
the clouds ....... An had not only engendered vegetation, he was the father and ancestor of all of
the gods, and he likewise fathered innumerable demons and evil spirits. Frequently he was
envisaged as a huge bull ....... The view of An as a major source of fertility, the "father who makes
the seed sprout," engenderer of vegetation, demons, and all the gods, led naturally to the
attribution of paternal authority to him..... With the developing of social differentiation and the
attitudes of growing respect and awe before the ruler, a new sensitivity to the potential in the vast
sky for inducing feelings of numinous awe seems to have come into being. The sky can, at
moments when man is in a religiously receptive mood, act as vehicle for a profound experience of
numinous awe, as may be instanced in our own culture."

32. Jacobsen quotes a passage from William James's The Varieties of Religious
Experience: "I remember the night, and almost the very spot on the hilltop, where my soul
opened out, as it were, into the Infinite, and there was a rushing together of the two worlds, the
inner and the outer. It was deep calling unto deep,-- the deep that my own struggle had opened
up within being answered by the unfathomable deep without, reaching beyond the stars. I stood
alone with Him who had made me, and all the beauty of the world, and love, and sorrow, and
even temptation."

33. Jacobsen continues: "To the ancient Mesopotamians what the sky might reveal was An,
its own inner essence of absolute authority and majesty -- might reveal, but would not necessarily
reveal, for in everyday moods the sky would be experienced apart from the numinous power in it
and would recede into the category of mere things Since human society is not the only
structure based on authority and command (the natural world is as well), all things and forces in
the polity that is the universe conform to An's will. He is the power that lifts existence out of
chaos and anarchy and makes it an organized whole. As a building is supported by and reveals in
its structure the lines of its foundation, so the ancient Mesopotamian universe was upheld by and
reflected An's ordering will. His command is "the foundation of heaven and earth." As the
ultimate source of all authority An was closely associated with the highest authority on earth, that
of kingship. The royal insignia lie before An in heaven for him to bestow, and with them he
conveys not only the general powers of kingship but duties linked to his own cosmic functions:
responsibility for the calendar and for carrying out his calendric rites. For example, his new moon
festivals ... were celebrated in all temples, and the New Year festival at which the year seems to
have been named from one of the king's accomplishments. Through
 104

this mandate, accordingly, the king becomes An's instrument for seeing to it that the times do not
get out ofjoint." 266 Thus the source and model of authority and order was the heavens.

34. Since the seasons and other important events are to some degree related to movements
of the moon, sun and stars, it's reasonable to try to correlate as many events as we can with these
movements. For example, the approximate time for the flooding of the Nile in ancient Egypt was
correlated with movements of the sun and stars. Certain kinds of weather are correlated with the
appearances of constellations, including not only their positions but also atmospheric effects.
Martin Nilsson says that the most widely read of all Hellenistic poems was the Phainomena of
Aratus, which was a book containing rules for predicting the weather in this way. (Martin Nilsson,
Geschichte der griechischen Religion, 1950, v. 2, p. 56.)

35. The process goes on today. Here is an excerpt, entitled "Weather Prognosticator, from
the Hagers -town Town and Country Almanackfor the year of our Lord 1989, p. 9: "This table and
the accompanying remarks are the result of many years' actual observation; the whole being
constructed on a due consideration of the Sun and Moon, in their several positions respecting the
earth; and will, by simple inspection, show the observer what kind of weather will most probably
follow the entrance of the Moon into any of her quarters, and that so near the truth as to be
seldom or never found to fail."

36. Beliefs that our father is in heaven, and that it is on earth as it is in the heavens, are
widespread. Claude Lévi-Strauss argues that among Indians of central Brazil, certain myths which
on the surface may seem to have no connection with astronomy, are in fact concerned with the
alternation of seasons, and therefore a kind of year. In particular, he considers the story of Asare,
told among the Sherente people, concerning the rape of a mother by her own sons (the youngest of
whom is Asare), thrashing of the sons by their father, the sons setting fire to their parents who
escape by turning into falcons, a journey by the sons which includes the digging of a well which
gushes so much water that it forms the sea, and three or so escapes from an alligator with th e help
of woodpeckers, partridges, fruit rinds and a skunk. The myth concludes: "When the sea was
formed, Asare's brothers had at once tried to bathe. Even today, toward the close of the rainy
season, one hears in the west the sound of their splashing in t he water. Then they appear in the
heavens, new and clean, as Sururu, the Seven Stars (the Pleiades)." 267 Lévi-Strauss quotes J. F.
Oliveira to the effect that among the Sherente, the year begins with the appearance of the Pleiades,
which coincides roughly with the beginning of the dry season. 268

37. According to Lévi-Strauss: "Classical antiquity associated Orion with rain and storms.
Now we have seen that in central Brazil, Orion is also associated with water -- but terrestrial, not
celestial water. In Greek and Roman mythology Orion caused rain to fall. As Asare, the thirsty
hero, Orion makes water rise up from the depths of the earth. It is easy to understand, since it is
an obvious cosmographical fact, that the same constellation that casues rain to fall in the northern
hemisphere should be a harbinger of drought in the southern hemisphere: in the inland areas
between the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, the rainy season corresponds approximately to

266 Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness, A History ofMesopotamian Religion, 1976, p. 95-97.
267 Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked, 1969, translation by P. and D. Weightman of Le cru et
le cuit, 1964, p. 199- 200, v. 1 of Mythologiques (Introduction to a Science of Mythology).
268 ibid., p. 217.
 105

our autumn and winter, the dry season to our spring and summer. The Asare myth faithfully
presents the "southern" version of this factual truth, since the Pleiades and Orion which follows
closely in their wake, are said to herald the beginning of the dry season."269

38. There is a problem here, since in "in one hemisphere Orion is associated with celestial
water in accordance with meteorological experience, while in the other hemisphere, without
there being any possibility of establishing a connection with experience, symmetry is preserved by
means of an apparently incomprehensible link between Orion and water which is chthonic in
origin --that is, celestial water conceived of, as it were, upside down." (p. 227) Lévi-Strauss
traces this opposition by way of a transformation of a key myth of the Bororo people. He says:
"It is therefore clear that the two myths, the one belonging to the Ancient World [of European
classical antiquity] and the other to the New [Bororo of central Brazil], are, as I postulated,
reflections of each other. The apparent inversions arise simply from the fact that while both are
concerned with the dry season, one myth refers to the beginning (after the rains) and the other to
the end (before the rains)." (ibid., p. 239).

39. The point is that myths which superficially are about incest, rape, arduous and
dangerous journeys, people turning into birds or other creatures, and the like, may turn out to be
descriptions of astronomical and associated seasonal phenomena. However, in the view of Lévi -
Strauss: "In granting that myths have an astronomical significance, I do not propose to revert in
any way to the mistaken ideas characteristic of the solar mythography of the nineteenth century. In
my view, the astronomical context does not provide any absolute point of reference; we cannot
claim to have interpreted the myths simply by relating them to this context. The truth of the myth
does not lie in any special content. It consists in logical relations which are devoid of content or,
more precisely, whose invariant properties exhaust their operative value, since comparable
relations can be established among the elements of a large number of different contents."

40. "For instance, I have shown that one particular theme, such as the origin of man's
mortality, occurs in myths that appear quite different from each other in subject matter, but that in
the last analysis these differences can be reduced to a variety of codes, evolved on the basis of the
different sense categories -- taste, hearing, smell, feel, and sight In the preceding pages, I
have been solely concerned [in interpeting the myths astronomically] to establish the existence of a
different code, also a visual one, but whose lexical material consists of contrasted pairs drawn
from a stable periodicity of the year and, on the other, of the synchronic arrangement of the stars in
the sky. This cosmographic code is no truer than any other; and it is no better, except from the
methodological point of view, as far as its operations can be checked from without. But it is not
impossible that advances in biochemistry may one day provide objective references of the same
degree of accuracy as a check on the precision and coherence of the codes formulated in the
language of the senses. Myths are constructed on the basis of a certain logicality of tangible
qualities which makes no clear-cut distinction between subjective states and the properties of the
cosmos." 270 Thus different "codes" are different realizations of structures of human physiology,
and Lévi- Strauss weights the different codes equally.

269 Lévi -S raus s, ibid. , p. 226 - 227.

270 ibid ., p . 240.
 106

41. We can wonder, however, whether or not an astronomical code has a kind of priority.
According to many cosmologies, the stars and their ways precede the living and their ways. To
what extent have we developed in consonance with celestial objects and movements? To what
extent are our physiology and thoughts tied to the stars? As described by Lévi-Strauss, among
Indians of Brazil, fire for cooking food is related to the sun: "The mediatory function of cooking
fire therefore operates between the sun and humanity in two ways. By its presence, cooking fire
averts total disjunction, since it unites the sun and the earth and saves man from the world of
rottenness in which he would find himself if the sun really disappeared; but its presence is also
interposed; that is to say, it obviates the risk of a total conjunction, which would would result in a
burned world. Incest and cannibalism in the myths are linked with eclipses, and the origin of
diseases.271

42. "Starting from the problem of the mythic origin of cooking," says Lévi-Strauss, "I have
been led to verify my interpretation of domestic fire as a mediatory agent between sky and earth
by reference to the myth describing incest between blood relatives as the origin of the eclipse
A myth about the origin of storms and rain [the one Lévi-Strauss started with] led me
to myths about the origin of fire and the cooking of foodstuffs... I was able to establish that all
these myths belong to one and the same set " 272 Which explains which? Do analogous
actions of sun, moon and other stars explain or describe the origin of cooking fires? Or does the
analogy of the origin of cooking fires explain or describe actions of the sun, moon and stars? Are
these interchangeable? If not, which takes precedence? Recall Seneca on the Etruscans: "Since
they attribute everything to divine agency, they are of the opinion that things do not reveal the
future because they have occurred, but that they occur because they are meant to reveal the
future."

43. Besides some roughly correct season and even (at times) weather forecasting, there
were no doubt successes in predicting such events as attacks by enemies, since, for example,
rulers probably tended to attack after harvests, when their troops were well-supplied with food,
and harvests are correlated with the seasons. However, prediction by consulting objects in the
sky of such things as who would be victorious in a war was likely to have been more chancy,
unless, of course, the objects were arrows and spears. Isaiah, it seems, spoke sarcastically when he
said:

Come down and sit in the dust, O

virgin daughter of Babylon............................
You are wearied with your many counsels;
let them stand forth and save you,
those who divide the heavens, who
gaze at the stars,
who at the new moons predict
what shall befall you ......................................
they cannot deliver themselves
from the power of the flame. 2 7 3

271 Lévi-Strauss, ibid., p. 293, 297.

272 ibid., p. 298, 300.
273 Isa iah 47, Rev is ed Standa rd Ve rs ion.
 107

44. The mathematical astronomy of the Babylonians underwent a considerable

development between about 539 and 331 B.C.E., during the reign of the Persians in Babylonia. It
is during this period, perhaps about 450 B.C.E., that personal astrology, the casting of horoscopes
according to birth dates, developed. There is an old tradition that horoscopy was introduced to the
Greeks by Berossos, a Babylonian priest who founded the first Greek school of astrology on the
island of Kos about 300 B.C.E. However, it appears that we have Greek horo scopes from about
150 years earlier. On the task of personal astrology, Auguste Bouché-Leclercq, says: "The
calculation of the length of life, with an indication of the kind of death pre - assigned by the stars, is
the great work of astrology, the operation judged the most difficult by its adepts, the most
dangerous and damnable by its enemies." 274

45. Van der Waerden summarizes the development of astrology in this part of the world in
the 6th century B.C.E. as follows: "We have seen that, after the fall of the Assyrian empire (-611)
the old polytheism was being pushed aside by a new religious movement which flooded in two
mighty waves from Iran to the West. The first wave was that of Zervanism, which reached Greece
about - 550. The second was the worship of Ahura Mazda, which was proclaimed around - 500
B.C.E. as the official religion of the Persian empire. Connected with this was the doctrine of the
celestial origin and immortality of the soul. We have also seen that the old Omen astrology was
replaced, about the same time or somewhat later, by a new zodiacal astrology, within which we
have to distinguish two further stages: primitive zodiacal astrology and horoscopy. The first is
connected in the sources with Orphism, which in its turn is most closely tied up with Zervanism.
On the other hand, horoscopy is closely connected with the doctrine of the celestial origin of the
soul; its existence can be demonstrated in Babylon about - 450 and in Greece about - 440."275 The
name of the god Zervan Akarana means "boundless time." The Zervanists, whose sect appears to
have been formed about the 4th century B.C.E., were astral fatalists who believed that "all
fortune, good and ill, that befalls man, comes from the twelve [zodiacal signs] and the seven
[planets]".276

46. By about 300 B.C.E., the Babylonians had constructed tables, based on centuries of
observations, with which they could successfully predict lunar eclipses, and with which they
could at times rule out solar eclipses. A basic underlying problem they were trying to solve is a
form of one which haunts mathematical astronomy to this day. From one point of view, this is the
problem of predicting the day on which a new moon will occur. The days are determined by the
movement of Earth with respect to the sun (or vice versa), while new moons are determined by
the movement of the moon with respect to Earth. Thus the combined motions of sun, moon, and
Earth are involved. The problem of predicting the movements of the sun, moon and Earth with
respect to one another, starting from Newton's laws of mechanics and gravitation, is known today
as the 3-body problem. In some important respects, the 3-body problem is still unsolved, although
a great deal is known about some basic special cases, and there are elaborate techniques for
approximating solutions. The Babylonian methods were a kind of approximation technique,

274
Auguste Bouché-Leclerq, L'Astrologie grecque, 1899, p. 404.
275
Bartel van der Waerden, Science Awakening I, The Birth of Astronomy, 1974, p. 183.
This quotation is given by van der Waerden (p. 162) from a Persian book called Mainog-i Khirad or Menok i
276
Khrat, written sometime between 220 and 650 C.E.
 108

based on interpolation, inserting calculated values between observed values in systematic ways. As
far as seems to be known at present, the first attempts to use geometry to model the movements
of celestial objects and relations between them were made by the ancient Greeks in the 6th
century B.C.E. The Babylonians seem not to have made geometrical models for this purpose, or
at least none have been found.

47. We have fragments of a geometric cosmology put forward by the philosopher

Anaximander in the 6th century B.C.E. Anaximander may have been the first to undertake a
project of this kind. He appears to have pictured the sky as a complete sphere rather than an
inverted bowl or hemisphere. Spheres were to become the basis of geometric cosmology for
many centuries. However, for some unknown reason, if we can trust the fragment we have from so
long ago, Anaximander seems to have proposed that the earth is a right circular cylinder with the
greatest curvature in the north-south direction.277

48. The arithmetical predictions of the Babylonians and the geometric construction of the
heavens by the classical Greek philosophers contrast in a startling way with other cosmologies of
that era in the Near East, and with other ancient Greek cosmologies, in which the heavens are
peopled with gods who often act unpredictably and capriciously. Geometric cosmologies were
developed extensively by astronomers and philosophers of nature during the next several centuries
after the time of Anaximander. Plato and Aristotle, in the 4th century B.C.E., made use of the work
of these pre-Socratic thinkers in developing their own cosmologies. We find in the works of Plato
and Aristotle the first extended and detailed reports, which we still have today, of cosmologies
based on geometry, as developed by Eudoxus of Cnidus and other mathematical astronomers of
the time. They had enormous influence on the development of Western cosmologies from the time
they were composed. The special kind of certainty which geometric models seem to reveal about
the movements of the heavens, blended with an older personification and deification of heavenly
objects, were, it appears, instrumental in the development of astrology.

49. Geometric models in astronomy developed hand in hand with geometry itself. Eudoxus
of Cnidus (4th century B.C.E.) is said to have been a student of Plato. He was one of the great
astronomers, and also one of the great geometers, of his time. Besides being the source of the
mathematical astronomy of Aristotle, he was, as we mentioned earlier, a possible supporter of
astrology. In astronomy, he developed an elaborate cosmology based on spheres moving on
spheres. In geometry, he developed a theoretical and logically satisfying theory of magnitudes
corresponding to our real numbers. This theory, which has been preserved in Euclid's geometry
book, the Elements (c. 300 B.C.E.) is much like one developed by the German mathematician
Richard Dedekind about the middle of the 19th century (as Dedekind himself stated). This system
is in use today. Eudoxus seems also to have invented the method of exhaustion for finding areas
and volumes, a method which is much like an application of the definite integrals of calculus we
use today for this purpose, although not formulated as generally. With this method, he found an
equivalent of our formulas for the area of a circle, and the volumes of a right circular cylinder,
sphere and cone.

"It was Henry Ibsen who said that the value of a truth lasted about fifteen years, then it rotted into error." James
277
Huneker, Ol d F o g y , 1913, quoted in A N e w Di c t i o n a r y o f Qu o t a t i o n s , 1942, edited by H. L. Mencken, p. 1226.
 109

50. The Elements of Euclid was (or were) the principal introduction to geometry for over
2000 years, and the geometry it contained has had, and continues to have, many terrestrial as well
as celestial applications. More than that, the Elements has served as a model of a kind of
attainment of certainty -–given the initial assumptions, the axioms and postulates -- which people
have often tried to extend to other domains besides geometry. Euclid's method, commonly known
today as the axiomatic method, was described, in one form, by Aristotle in his works on logic,
especially in the Posterior Analytics. It appears that Eudoxus originated the self-conscious and
explicit use of this method, and so was one of the founders of a philosophical tradition of thinking
about thinking, and reasoning about reasoning. The science of deductive logic founded by Plato,
and even more Aristotle, was based in important respects on extrapolation from this method of the
mathematicians.

51. It is curious, and rather sobering, to notice that versions of Euclid's Elements quite
faithful to the original, or at least to parts of it, were used in elementary instruction for over 2000
years, but that this practice has been discontinued in the course of the past two centuries. The
change began after the French Revolution of 1789, and appear to have been motivated (or
condoned) as part of a general rejection of learning of the past. Some distance into the 20th
century, textbooks in the United States still bore considerable resemblance to Euclid's Elements,
despite the alleged reforms of the previous century, but today this is no longer so. It appears that
Euclid's Elements, in forms faithful to the originals, have gone the way of Newton's Principia in
forms faithful to the originals. They are structures of the past, antiques, no longer functional
except indirectly, by way of their influences. And yet, it's not a bad idea, at any rate in the case of
Euclid if not Newton, to study a translation of Euclid into a modern language as part of one’s
mathematical education, especially if one is training to be a mathematician or natural scientist.

52. There are modern versions of Euclid's Elements in which certain logical deficiencies of
Euclid's _Elements have been removed. A central one has been the Grundlagen der Geometrie
(Foundations of Geometry) of David Hilbert.278 However, the spirit of Euclid maintained by
Hilbert has given way to a large extent to the use of numerical coordinates, based on the analytic (or
algebraic) geometry associated with the name of Descartes. We no longer make children associate
how they see with how they reason in the direct way Euclid did, but rather with how they count,
and this is usually presented in books in colorful language and with colorful pictures. Stephen
Leacock may have had an explanation for the way elementary geometry books in schools look
today, when he said: "To make education attractive! There it is! To call in the help of poetry, of
music, of grand opera, if need be, to aid in the teaching of the dry subjects of the college class
room Here, for example, you have Euclid writing in a perfectly prosaic way all in small type
such an item as the following: "A perpendicular is let fall on a line BC so as to bisect it at the
point C, etc., etc.," just as if it were the most ordinary occurrence in the world. Every newspaper
man will see at once that it ought to be set up thus:

278 1st edition, 1899; last edition during Hilbert's lifetime, 1930; there have been two translations into English.
 110

"AWFUL CATASTROPHE
PERPENDICULAR FALLS HEADLONG
ON A GIVEN POINT
The Line at C said to be completely bisected
President of the Line makes Statement
etc., etc., etc." 2 7 9

The best translation into English of Euclid's Elements is by Thomas Heath. Heath provides
copious notes to guide one in studying the work. 280

53. To apply the axiomatic method found in Euclid's geometry, one starts from basic
statements usually called axioms or postulates (although hypotheses or assumptions would
amount to about the same), taken as true for purposes of reasoning (though in some applications,
they may not be true, or true enough), and using some rules of logic, derives chains of statements
linking the axioms to other statements, called theorems, which are then also taken to be true, and
then may be regarded, if one chooses, as axioms themselves. These chains of statements make up
proofs of the theorems. Sometimes the term propositions is used instead of theorems, but often
propositions are taken to be statements to be proved, if possible, rather than statements already
proved. Thus a proposition may turn out to be true or false or undecided or even undecidable in a
certain sense, depending on whether or not a proof or counterexample or neither has been found,
and on whether or not a proof or counterexample can be found within the given axiomatic system.
Since axioms are not proved, but taken as a basis for application of the method, problems arise of
deciding on the validity of the axioms and their theorems when making applications. If the axioms
or theorems are meant to be applied to the movements of physical objects, on Earth or in the
heavens, one way to test their validity is by using them to make predictions about the places and
shapes of physical objects, and seeing whether or not the predictions come true, at least to within
some margin of error taken to be allowable. From this point of view, geometry is an empirical
science, perhaps the earliest such science. However, some philosophers have held that the axioms
of geometry are statements about the way people, or their minds or brains, are constituted, and
especially about the way we are constrained to see the world with our eyes. It is from this, one
may maintain, that many of the axioms of geometry get the peculiar certainty they have.

54. From another point of view, the Elements of Euclid is a treatise on the five regular
solids: the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron. The last "book" or
chapter of the Elements treats these solids, and a good deal of what went before in the Elements is
used in this last chapter. The regular solids are solids in which all of the faces of any one of them
are congruent plane figures with equal sides and angles. The 4 faces of the tetrahedron, the 8 faces
of the octahedron and the 20 faces of the icosahedron are equilateral triangles, the 6 faces of a cube
are squares, and the 12 faces of a dodecahedron are regular pentagons. In the _Elements_, Euclid
shows how to construct these solids, establishing along the way theorems which have many other
applications. He also shows that these five are the only regular solids which can be theoretically
constructed in a way consistent with his axioms and postulates. These regular solids were
discovered before the time of Euclid, and even before the time of Plato.

279 Stephen Leacock, "Education Made Agreeable", from M o o n b e a m s f r o m t h e L a r g e r L u n a c y _ 1915, p.

155, 159.
280 1925, reprinted by Dover, 1956 and later.
 111

Plato used them as an important component of his cosmology in his dialogue Timaeus. Kepler
used them in a vital way later, near the end of the 16th century A.D., in his cosmology of our
solar system.

55. Another famous astronomer and geometer of ancient Greece was Apollonius, who
worked in the early part of the 3rd century B.C. Apollonius had a major influence on the
development of astronomy by virtue of his mathematical model of the solar system based on
eccentric and epicyclic motions. An eccentric motion is one which takes place with a constant
speed on a circle, but is referred to a point inside the circle other than the center of the circle. An
epicyclic motion is one which takes place on a circle rotating at a constant speed about its center,
with this center on another circle also rotating at a constant speed. Among other things,
Apollonius seems to have shown that any eccentric motion can be interpreted as an epicyclic
motion, and conversely. The major mathematical work of Apollonius concerned the mathematical
figures known as conic sections, which had been discovered by earlier mathematicians. The conic
sections are cut out when a plane is passed through a complete right circular cone. Aside from
certain special cases, known as degenerate conics, the conic sections comprise the ellipses
(including the circles), the para bolas, and the hyperbolas. One of the songs of Gilbert and
Sullivan is about the practicality of conic sections:

"I am the very model of a modern Major-General; ....

I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical, I

understand equations, both the simple and quadratical, About
the binomial theorem, I'm teeming with a lot of news, With many
cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse ........................

I quote, in Elegiacs, all the crimes of Heliogabalus! In

conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous. 2 8 1

An easy way to generate ellipses is to shine a flashlight on a flat surface like a desk or table, and tilt
the flashlight back and forth. The cone in this case is the light generated by the flashlight, and the
plane being passed through the cone is the desk top. The lighted spot is then in the form of an
ellipse (to a good approximation), though sometimes just the boundary of the lighted spot is
called an ellipse. You can also generate the beginnings of an hyperbola by holding a flashlight
lengthways on a wall.

73. In considering the changes in astronomy brought about by Copernicus (1473-1543), it is

well to keep in mind the evaluation of his work made by N. M. Smerdlow and Otto Neugebauer
in their detailed study of the major work of Copernicus, the De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
(1543). They say: "Copernicus made one fundamental innovation in planetary theory [making the
sun as center of coordinates], the consequences of which only became evident in the work of
Kepler and Newton. In the remainder of his astronomy, he was one of the last representatives of a
tradition extending from Hipparchus, or better Ptolemy, to his most direct predecessor,
Regiomontanus [1436-1476], whose Epitome of the Almagest was his

281 W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance, 1880, Act 1.
 112

guide to the astronomy of Ptolemy, and may have provided the crucial step to the heliocentric
theory."

74. "The tradition of Ptolemaic astronomy received, in the course of nearly fourteen
centuries, many additions and modifications, of non-Ptolemaic Greek, Indian, Arabic, and last of
all, European origin. Copernicus was heir to some fraction of these, but fundamentally his
astronomy, in common with the most sophisticated astronomy of the intervening period, rests
upon the work of Ptolemy. And even the principal ways in which he differs from Ptolemy --except
for the heliocentric theory -- are part of an Arabic tradition concerned more with internal
problems in Ptolemy's work than with new descriptions of the motions of the planets, something
that did not occur until the observational and theoretical innovations of Tycho and Kepler. The
background to Copernicus's astronomy is of course the entire accumulation of observations,
procedures, models, and parameters since the time of Ptolemy, in so far as they were transmitted to
Copernicus. But out of this large and diverse body of material, what is the most important to
consider here are the general principles of Ptolemy's mathematical and physical astronomy, the
interesting modifications in the latter made by the astronomers of Maragha in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, and the rebirth of a true understanding of Ptolemaic astronomy in Europe
through the work of Regiomontanus."282

75. "Copernicus," said Kepler, "ignorant of his own riches, took it upon himself for the
most part to represent Ptolemy, not nature, to which he had nevertheless come the closest of all."
This is cited by Smerdlow and Neugebauer as a famous and just assessment of Copernicus.283

76. It has often been said that the Copernican heliocentric theory was superior to the
Ptolemaic theory because it was simpler. However, Smerdlow and Neugebauer observe: "Anyone
who thinks that Copernican theory is "simpler" than Ptolemaic theory has never looked at Book III
of De revolutionibus. In a geocentric system the earth is at rest -- as indeed it appears to be -- and
any apparent motions in the heavens that we know to result from its motions are distributed among
a number of objects, i.e. the sun, the individual planets, the sphere of the fixed stars, everything in
its proper place as it actually appears. But when Copernicus worked through the consequences of
his own theory, he had to attribute to the earth no less than three fundamental motions and a
number of secondary motions. That all these compounded motions forced upon a single and, to all
appearances, quiescent body seemed implausible to his contemporaries is not to be wondered at,
especially because the end result was nothing other than reproducing the same apparent motions in
the heavens that had been accounted for all along (and without making assumptions that
contradicted contemporary natural philosophy, common sense, and the most casual or most
meticulous observations then possible of the behavior of the earth and of objects on or near its
surface)." 284

77. Copernicus's belief in the superiority of his own theory was based on such facts as
these: In his system, the order and distances of the planets could be unambiguously determined,
and shown to form a single harmonious whole. In the geocentric theory, only relative radii of

282
N. M. Smerdlow and Otto Neugebauer, Mathematical Astronomy in Copernicus 's De Revolutionibus, 1984, v. 1, p.
33.
283 ibid., p. 483.
284 ibid., p. 127.
 113

eccentrics and epicycles were known, and for one planet at a time -- there were no relations
between radii for different planets. Using the heliocentric theory, it was possible to explain a
number of other puzzling features of the Ptolemaic theory, such as why the centers of the
epicycles of the inferior planets (Mercury and Venus) lie in the direction of the sun, why the radii of
the epicycles of the superior planets (the other known planets) stay parallel to the direction from
the earth to the sun, and so on.

78. In connection with why Copernicus chose to adopt a heliocentric system for the planets,
Smerdlow and Neugebauer remark: "Some rather far-fetched answers have been given, with a lot
of hand-waving in the direction of Neoplatonism, Hermes Trismegistus, and ... sun-worshipping.
Although one could perhaps say that anyone in 1510 who was capable of believing that the earth
moved was capable of believing anything -- and there is no telling what strange things Copernicus
believed -- it seems to us that there is no foundation for these claims. Among other reasons, they
are based on the highly anachronistic belief that the heliocentric theory and the motion of the
earth were entirely obvious and there for the taking if only one had the correct metaphysical or
mystical faith. But this is simply untrue. Copernicus arrived at the heliocentric theory by a careful
analysis of planetary models -- and as far as is known, he was the only person of his age to do so --
and if he chose to adopt it, he did so one the basis of an equally careful analysis." 285

79. As to why Copernicus was so reluctant to publish his results, Smerdlow and Neugebauer
observe that Copernicus undoubtedly realized "that he had not been able to prove the motion of the
earth, but only argue with greater or lesser persuasiveness for its plausibility, a distinction that is
crucial to understanding his difficulty. Copernicus was no fool. He knew what he could and could
not do, and little service has been done to his reputation by the common biographical tradition that
he had thoroughly proved his case and merely feared that the rest of the rold would be too stupid
to understand. He was in the situation -- not infrequent in the sciences, in scholarship, in law -- of
being certain that he was right, but lacking conclusive proof. And to make matters worse, he
believed he was right about something so unusual that others would find it, not merely uncertain
or doubtful, but impossible and even absurd, This was the difficulty for his reluctance to publish,
and for the controversial solution that accompanied the published book. " 2 8 6

80. The "controversial solution" is a reference to a preface by a Lutheran minister, Andreas

Osiander (1498-1552) to the first edition of the De revolutionibus, in which Osiander "pretty
much said that astronomy is filled with absurdities, that it is essentially impossible for
astronomical hypotheses to reach true causes -- unless they are divinely revealed -- and that
anyone who takes them as true will depart from astronomy a greater fool than when he entered."
(ibid., p. 29.) It is of some interest to note that Georg Rheticus (1514-1574), who seems to have
been Copernicus's only disciple and the person who finally convinced Copernicus to publish his
principal work, was an ardent astrologer.287

285 Smerdlow and Neugebauer, ibid., p. 59.

286 ibid., p. 20.
287 cf. Smerdlow and Neugebauer, ibid., p. 23.
 114

81. Many conclusions about the reception and effects of Copernican's heliocentric theory
have been made by people comfortably ignorant of the vast mathematical and observational
difficulties involved in it, and its close connection, as far as astronomers were concerned, with the
geocentric theories of Ptolemy and later astronomers. It may be argued that it is not necessary to
understand or even be aware of these complexities in order to gauge the effect of the theory on non-
astronomers of the time, who themselves were unaware of these complexities. Still, it is easy to
misevaluate the influence of a theory if one doesn't understand very much of the theory.

82. For example, it is often said that one effect of the placing of the sun at the center of the
solar system by Copernicus in the 16th century caused men to stop thinking of themselves as
being the most important of creatures since they no longer could think of themselves as the center
of the universe. However, while Ptolemy placed Earth at the center of the universe, he made
Earth a mere point at the center, in comparison with the immensity of the heavens. This, together
with widespread beliefs about the corruptibility of Earth, as compared with the incorruptibility of
the heavens, didn't leave Earth in a very enviable position.

83. An example from as late as Renaissance England of how the place of Earth was viewed
before heliocentrism is given by Francis Johnson: "In preparing English minds for the rejection of
Aristotle's scientific doctrines, the _ Zodiacus vitae_ of Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus played a
very significant part this extremely popular little book [was] first printed at Venice about 1531.
In England no other Latin poem of the Renaissance, except perhaps the eclogues of Mantuan, was
so well known or so universally admired As early as 1560 an English translation, by Barnaby
Googe, of the first three books was published ... and in 1565 Googe's translation of the entire
poem was published ... under the title of The Zodiake of life The many references to Palingenius
in Elizabethan literature, together with the fact that most schoolboys had been required to study it
and that many unlearned Englishmen had read it in Googe's popular translation, prove that his
influence on contemporary thought must have been very great. Like most long poems of the
Renaissance, the Zodiacus vitae was intended by its author as a summary of all learning, and a
wide variety of philosophic and scientific ideas of the past were introduced and discussed ....
Palingenius, although conceiving the stars to be attached to the eighth sphere, maintains that they
are innumerable, that they are not of the same size (many of them being too small to be seen), and
that the stars are many times the size of the earth. He also mentions, in passing, the idea of certain
early Greek philosophers, especially Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Leucippus, that every star was
a world, and our earth merely one of the stars, and states:

... some have thoughtyt euery starre a worlde we well may call, The earth they count a darkened
starre, whereas the least of all. 2 8 8

Along these lines, S. K. Heninger, Jr., remarks that in the Somnium Scipionis (Dream of
Scipio), Cicero (105-43 B.C.)) reports how Scipio, looking down from heaven, is struck by the
triviality of the earth compared to the vastness of the panorama spread beneath him. When
Macrobius (c. 400 A.D.) came to this passage in his commentary on the Somnium, he confirmed
this sentiment that denigrated man and his habitation. This is the same image presented by
Ptolemy in a more scientific context. J. D. North refers to the remarks of Cicero and Macrobius
288 Fra nc is J ohn s on, As trono mical Thought in Renai s sance England , 1968, p. 145 -147.
 115

as being possibly the source of a similar comment by Boethius (c. 475-524) in his De
consolationephilosophiae (On the Consolations of Philosophy), which in turn has an echo in
some lines from the poem The Parliament of Fowls [Fools] of Chaucer (c. 1345-1400):

Thanne shewede he hym the lytel Erthe, that here is, /At regard of the hevenes quantite ...

And there are these lines from Chaucers's Troilus and Criseyde:

And down from thennesfaste he gan avyse

This litel spot of erthe, that with the see
Embraced us, and fully gan despise This
wretched world, and held al vanite To
respect ofthepleynfelicite
That is in hevene above ... 2 8 9

85. The view of Earth as infinitesimal and wretched (so different from the view from the moon
relayed by astronauts) continued to be a commonplace in the Renaissance. It was solemnly cited
by the English educator Robert Recorde, in his address in 1556 to students encouraging them to
be diligent. For Recorde, Henninger says, the study of cosmography --which Recorde took to
include astronomy, astrology and geography -- is a kind of moral choice. "We may grovel as
groundlings among the brutes, or we may turn our attention up the scale of being and aspire after
angels in the empyrean." 290

86. Montaigne (1533-1592) wrote his essays (published 1580-1595) in the years in which
the impact of Copernicanism was just beginning to be felt, and Montaigne appears to have had
little interest in it, except to implicitly resist its implications. In his Apology For Raimond
Sebond, he quotes Manilius: "And, what is more, God himself does not begrudge the world the
shape of the heavens; he shows his face and body always revolving; and he impresses and
presents himself so he can be better known, and teach us by seeing what he is, and teach us to
attend to his laws." 291

87. Montaigne goes on: "Now, our human reasonings and arguments are [like] lumpish
and sterile matter; the grace of God is [what fashions them]; it is that which gives them shape
and value Let us, then, consider now man by himself, without external aid, armed only with
his own weapons, and deprived of divine favour and recognition .......Let us see how much
support he has in that fine equipment ........What has made him believe that the wonderful motions
of the celestial vault, the eternal light of those luminaries revolving so proudly above his head,
and the terrifying motions of the infinite sea were established and continued for many ages for
his pleasure and for his service? Is it possible to imagine any thing so ridiculous as this wretched,
paltry creature, who, being not even his own master, exposed to the offences of all

289 J. D. North, Chaucer's Universe (1988), p. 11- 12.

290 S. K. Henninger, Jr., The Cosmographical Glass, Renaissance Diagrams of the Universe, 1977, p. 11-12.
291 Manilius, Astronomica (1st century A.D.), IV, 907; text on p. 1806 of A Handbook to the Essays
ofMichel de Montaigne containing notes by George Ives to his translation of the essays, and comments by Grace
Norton on the essays; the quotation by Montaigne is on p. 591-592 of v. 1 of Ives's translation (1925) as republished in
1946; the handbook is v. 3 of this edition; this is my translation of the passage by Manilius, not Ives's.
 116

things, declares himself master and ruler of the universe of which it is not in his power to
understand the smallest fragment, far less to govern it? And this prerogative that he attributes to
himself, of being the only creature in this great structure who has the ability to recognize beauty
and its part, the only one who can render thanks to the architect, and keep account of the income
and outlay of the world -- who has set the seal of this prerogative upon him?." 292

88. "But, poor wretch, what has he in himself worthy of such a privilege? When we consider
the incorruptible life of the heavenly bodies, their beauty, their grandeur, their continual motion by
so exact a rule; 'when we gaze up at the celestial expanse of the great heaven, at the aether above
us set with twinkling stars, and when we remember the courses of the sun and moon', 293 when we
consider the domination and power that those bodies have, not only over our lives and the
conditions of our fortunes, -- 'For the actions and the lives of men depend on the stars' 294 but even
over our inclinations, our judgments, our wills, which they govern, impel, and stir, at the mercy of
their influences, as our reason teaches us and discovers, -- 'and perceives that the stars, beheld from
afar, govern us by their silent commanding laws, and the whole universe to be moved by changing
relations, and successive destinies run through fixed signs'; 295 when we see that only a man, not
only a king, but monarchies, empires, and this lower world move with the changes of the slightest
celestial motion; 'And what great changes are made by small movements ... so great is this power
that rules even kings'296 .... if we hold from the disposition of heaven such share of reason as we
have, how can reason make us equal to that? Presumption is our natural and original malady. The
most unfortunate and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most vain-glorious, this
creature feels and sees that it is lodged here amid the mire and filth of the world, fast bound and
riveted to the worst, the most lifeless and debased part of the universe, on the lowest story of the
lodging and the farthest removed from the celestial vault, with these other living beings of the
worst condition of the three [among those who crawl, rather than swim or fly]; and it establishes
itself in imagination above the circle of the moon, and brings heaven under its feet." 297

89. So we see the post-Copernican Montaigne securely imbedded in a pre-Copernican

universe, and complaining of the vain-glorious pride of men who presume to understand the ways
of the heavens. "Ho w limited a re o u r min ds," he says (his emphasis). "Are not these fancies of
human vanity, to make of the moon a celestial earth, to dream, like Anaxagoras, of mountains and
valleys there, and to plant colonies there for our convenience, as Plato does, and Plutarch?" 298
What is more -- and quite remarkably -- he asks us to mitigate our pride on the grounds of a
rigorous astrological interpretation of the influence of the heavens. We are at the mercy of the
motions of the stars, he says, and this should make us humble. Men, it appears, are not over-proud
when they attribute such powers to celestial objects -- this is an act of pious acquiescence. Of the
heavenly bodies, he says: "Why do we deprive them of soul and of life and

292
Montaigne, Ives's translation, ibid., p. 592, 595 -6.
293 Lucretius, d e r e r u m n a t u r a , V, 1204; translated by Russel Geer (1965).
294 Manilius, ibid, III, 58.
295 ibid. I, 60.
296 ibid., I, 55 and IV, 93.
297 Montaigne, ibid., p. 596-599.
298 ibid, p. 598.
 117

of reason? Have we perceived in them some settled and senseless stupidity, we who have no
commerce with them except that of obedience?"299

90. In the face of views like those reflected in the works of Palingenius and Montaigne, it
appears that the more likely effect of Copernicanism on some was not to make men humble
because they had been displaced from the center of the universe, but to make them proud that
Copernicus and his adherents -- Kepler, Galileo, and the rest -- had revealed a part of God's
handiwork, and proud of the handiwork itself. To o p ro u d says Montaigne. But why not a little
pride? Speaking of his system, Copernicus himself said: "So we find in this admirable
arrangement a harmony of the Universe, as well as a certain relationship between the motion and
the size of the spheres, such as can be discovered in no other way Verily, so perfect is this
divine work of the Great and Supreme Architect." 300

91. Koyré comments that the great advantage of the system from the point of view of
Copernicus lies in its revelation of the systematic structure of the Universe, and not in its
providing the best agreement with observational data and ease of computation. "History has
proved him to be right", says Koyré.301

92. Whatever its effect on human pride, the work of Copernicus inaugurated a new era in
astronomy, to be worked out by people like Kepler and Newton, which was to bring Ptolemy's
supremacy to an end. For some, the Copernican system remains upsetting. The poet Rainer Maria
Rilke describes in a fanciful way one such person: "Later, Nikolai Kuzmitch always used to give
his word of honor that, although he was understandably in a very depressed mood that Sunday
evening, he hadn't had a thing to drink. He was therefore perfectly sober when the following
incident occurred, as far as one can tell what actually happened I have been meddling with
numbers, he said to himself. All right, I don't understand the first thing about numbers. But it's
obvious they shouldn't be granted too much importance; they are, after all, just a kind of
arrangement created by the government for the sake of public order. No one had every seen them
anywhere but on paper. It was impossible, for example, to meet a Seven or a Twenty-five at a
party. There simply weren't any there "

93. "'Let it nevertheless...,' he was just about to think, when something bizarre happened.
He suddenly felt a breath on his face; it moved past his ears; it was on his hands now. And as he sat
there in the dark, with eyes wide open, he began to realize that what he was feeling now was rea l
time, as it passed by. He recognized, with absolute clarity, all these tiny seconds, all equally
tepid, each one exactly like the others, but fast, but fast He jumped up, but the surprises
were not yet over. Beneath his feet too there was something moving; not just one emotion, but
several, which strangely shook in and against one another. He stiffened with terror: could that be
the earth? Of course it was. The earth did, after all, move. He had heard about that in school; but
it was passed over rather quickly, and later on was completely hushed up; it

2 99 Montaigne, ibid., p. 598. 300 Quoted from the _De revolutionibus orbium coelestium_ (1543) of Copernicus
by Alexandre Koyré in The Astronomical Revolution, Copernicus - Kepler – Borelli, 1973, p. 53- 54; translation of La
révolution astronomique 1961.
301 Koyré. ibid., p. 108.
 118

was considered not a proper subject for discussion. But now that he had become more sensitive, he
was able to feel this too .......... "

94. "Unfortunately he then remembered something else, about the oblique position of the
earth's axis. No, he couldn't endure all these motions. He felt sick. Lying down and keeping quiet
were the best remedy, he had once read somewhere. And since that day Nikolai Kuzmitsch had
been lying in bed. He lay there and kept his eyes closed. And there were times, during the less
shaken days, so to speak, when it was quite bearable. And then he had devised this routine with
the poems. It was unbelievable how much that helped. When you recited a poem slowly, with a
regular emphasis on the rhyme words, then something more or less stable existed, which you
could keep a steady gaze on, inwardly of course. It was lucky he knew all these poems by heart
He didn't complain about his situation... But in the course of time an exaggerated
admiration had developed in him for those who, like the student, managed to walk around and
endured the motion of the earth."302

95. In the novel Ratner's Star by Don DeLillo (1976), there is a astronomer and speculative
scientist named Endor who lives in a hole. Endor has become exasperated. "Science requires us to
deny the evidence of the senses," he says. "We see the sun moving across the sky, and we say no,
no, no, the sun is not moving, it's we who move, we move, we. Science teaches us this. The earth
moves around the sun, we say. Nevertheless every morning we open our eyes and there's the sun
moving across the sky, east to west, every single day. It moves. We see it. I'm tired of denying
such evidence. The earth doesn't move. It's the sun that moves around the earth It's the wind
that causes tides. If the earth moved we'd get dizzy and fall off. If the moon and sun cause tides
in oceans, why don't they cause tides in swimming pools and glasses of water? There's no
variation in the microwave backgrounds. Why is this? Because we're at the center of the universe,
that's why this is."303

96. In their humorous ways, the characters created by Rilke and DeLillo illustrate the
reluctance of people to give up their belief, based solidly on the evidence of their senses, that the
earth is at rest. The matter was not so humorous to some of the natural philosophers of the early
17th century who were concerned that the Copernican theory be accepted. The most notorious
ecclesiastical condemnation of a promoter of the Copernican theory was that of Galileo in 1633,
when Galileo was 70 and one of the most accomplished and renowned scientists in the world. The
sentence followed the publication in 1632 of his dialogue on the "two chief world systems", that is,
the Ptolemaic and Copernican.

97. The story has been exhaustively studied on all sides ever since, but the essence of it has
remained the same. Galileo was forced by the Inquisition to publicly renounce, on his knees, hi s
opinions on the validity and superiority of the Copernican system. The official sentence reads:
"We say, pronounce, sentence, declare that you, the said Galileo, by reason of the matters adduced
in trial, and by you confessed as above, have rendered yourself in the judgment of this Holy
Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having believed and held the doctrine --which
is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures -- that the Sun is the center of the

302 from Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge, 1910, translation from German to English, The
Notebooks of MalteLaurids Brigge, 1982, by Stephen Mitchell, p. 172-175.
303 Don DeLillo, Ratner's Star, 1976, p. 87-88.
 119

world and does not move from east to west, and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the
world; and that an opinion may be held and defended as probable after it has been declared and
defined to be contrary to Holy Scripture; and that consequently you have incurred all the
censures and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions,
general and particular, against such delinquents. From which we are content that you be
absolved, provided that first, with a sincere heart, and unfeigned faith, you abjure, curse, and
detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic
and Apostolic Roman Church in the form to be prescribed by us." 304 Galileo duly recanted, and
was placed under a kind of benign house arrest for the rest of his life. The Index of the Church
was subsequently made to forbid "all writings which affirm the motion of the earth." 305

98. White says: "Doubtless many will exclaim against the Roman Catholic Church for this:
but the simple truth is that Protestantism was no less zealous against the new scientific doctrine.
All branches of the Protestant Church -- Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican --vied with each other in
denouncing the Copernican doctrine as contrary to Scripture; and, at a later period, the Puritans
showed the same tendency. Said Martin Luther [for example]: "People gave ear to an upstart
astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun
and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all
systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but
sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." White
concludes that such consequences are to be expected when "the Church alone is empowered to
promulgate scientific truth or direct university instruction." 306

99. Andrew White assisted Ezra Cornell in founding Cornell University, and White
explains: "We had especially determined that the institution should be under the control of no
political party and of no single religious sect, and with Mr. Cornell's approval I embodied
stringent provisions to this effect in the charter."307 In this day of widespread non-sectarian
colleges and universities, it is largely forgotten now many of our institutions of higher learning
formerly were denominational, and how closely others were tied to their state legislatures. The
plan of Cornell and White led to a bitter struggle with numerous ecclesiastical authorities and
members of the State Legislature of New York, some of whom accused White and Cornell of
atheism, then of infidelity, then (backing off) of "indifferentism". It was this struggle which
impelled White to compose his work on the warfare of science with theology. White was himself
a Christian, and attributed the conflict between science and theology to the ineptitude of
theologians in scientific matters, rather than to some deficiency in the Christian religion. We
have seen and are still seeing in our own day in some places in the U.S.A. similar conflicts over the
teaching of Darwinian evolutionary theory in public schools and in some denominational
colleges.

100. Ptolemy, who believed that the earth stands still at the center of the universe on
physical rather than theological grounds, wrote on geography as well as astronomy. His

304 Quoted by Giorgio de Santillana on p. xlvii-xlviii of the preface to his version, Dialogue on the Great
World Systems, 1953, of the Thomas Salusbury translation (1661) of Galileo's Dialogo dei Massimi Sistemi,
1632.
305 Andrew White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, 1896, p. 144.
306 ibid., p. 126, 133.
307 ibid., p. vi.
 120

Geographia was very influential in antiquity. Ptolemy also wrote on astrology. In the European
Middle Ages, Ptolemy was perhaps most widely known for his work on astrology called Mat
hematikes tetrabiblou syntaxeos, or simply the Tetrabiblos or Quadripartitum; that is, The four-
book mathematical treatise, or The Four Books. In Book II, Ptolemy says that astronomical
prediction (meaning what we would call astrological prediction) is divided into two great parts,
and: "... since the first and more universal is that which relates to whole races, countries, and
cities, which is called general, and the second is that which relates to individual men, which is
called genethlialogical, we believe it fitting to treat first of the general division, because such
matters are naturally swayed by greater and more powerful causes than are particular events. And
since weaker natures always yield to the stronger, and the particular always falls under the
general, it would by all means be necessary for those who purpose an inquiry about a single
individual long before to have comprehended the more general considerations."308 Thus Ptolemy
held what we have called omen astrology, and what he calls general astrology, to be primary. This
kind of astrology was old in his own time. On the other hand, he may be regarded as the first great
systematizer of individual or personal astrology. He was, as it were, the Newton of horoscopic
astrology.

101. It is hard for many modern astronomers to understand how Ptolemy could write a work
on astronomy which even by modern standards is a tremendous scientific achievement, and also,
later, a book on personal astrology which elaborates on the influence of the positions of the
planets, moon and sun at the birth of a person on the person's character and fate, as well as the
astrologically based Harmonica, which had a great influence on Kepler's work. Here, chosen not
quite at random (based on horoscopes of myself), is a sample from Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos: "Jupiter
allied with Mercury in honourable positions makes his subjects learned, fond of discussion,
geometricians, mathematicians, poets, orators, gifted, sober, of good intellect, good in counsel,
statesmen, benefactors, managers, good-natured, generous, lovers of the mob, shrewd, successful,
leaders, reverent, religious, skillful in business, affectionate, lovers of their own kin, well brought
up, philosophical, dignified. In the opposite positions he makes them simple, garrulous, prone to
make mistakes, contemptible, fanatical, religious enthusiasts, speakers of folly, inclined to
bitterness, pretenders to wisdom, fools, boasters, students, magicians, somewhat deranged, but
well informed, of good memory, teachers, and pure in their desires."309

102. On the question of free will, Ptolemy says: "... we should not believe that separate
events attend mankind as the result of the heavenly cause as if they had been originally ordained
for each person by some irrevocable divine command and destined to take place by necessity
without the possibility of any other cause whatever interfering. Rather is it true that the movement
of the heavenly bodies, to be sure, is eternally performed in accordance with divine, unchangeable
destiny, while the change of earthly things is subject to a natural and mutable fate, and in drawing
its first causes from above it is governed by chance and natural sequence." (ibid.,
p. 23.) Lynn Thorndike, evidently commenting on this passage, observes that for Ptolemy, "not
all predictions are inevitable and immutable; this is true only of the motion of the sky itself and
events in which it is exclusively concerned."31 0 Ptolemy is quite precise about it: what is strictly

308 Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos (c. 150 A.D.), translated by F. H. Robbins, 1940, p. 117, 119.
309 ibid., p. 351, 353. I leave you, the reader, to decide which of these is applicable.
310 Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 1923 -1958, v. 1, 1923, p. 112.
 121

deterministic in astrology is the motions of celestial objects. Predictions about anything else are
not infallibly correct, but nevertheless may be very useful. He says: "I think, just as with
prognostication, even if it be not entirely infallible, at least its possibilities have appeared worthy of
the highest regard, so too in the case of defensive practice [acts meant to contravene predictions],
even though it does not furnish a remedy for everything, its authority in some instances at least,
however few or unimportant, should be welcomed and prized and regarded as profitable in no
ordinary sense." 311

103. Neugebauer notes that Ptolemy used the older Babylonian methods of interpolation
for computing positions of the planets, sun and moon in the Tetrabiblos_, rather than the better
trigonometric methods which he had already given in the Almagest. About judicial astrology in
general, Neugebauer observes that after the time of Ptolemy: "While the scientific astronomical
literature became increasingly sterile the astrological interest remained as active as ever. For
astronomy proper this had no beneficial effect. Astrology is a dogmatic discipline, following a
strict ritual in combining certain data without worrying how reliable these data were. This attitude
is reflected in the fact that astrologers for centuries used arithmetical methods, e.g. for planetary
positions or for determining the length of daylight, which were long superseded by more accurate
procedures. No astrologer cared about the reliability of the basic parameters of his planetary tables.
... Hence one may well say that at no stage in the development of astronomy did astrology have any
direct influence, beneficial or otherwise, on astronomy beyond the fact that it provided a secure
market for treatises and tables and this contributed to the survival of works which otherwise would
hardly have reached us." 312 This may be true of astrology in the narrow sense, horoscopic
astrology, but it has been one of our principal contentions that in the larger sense of astrology, as
we have more or less defined it earlier, astrology d id influence astronomy, and indeed one must
exert caution in speaking of the two as separate before the 17th century. For example, it would be
difficult, I think, to support contentions that Ptolemy did astrology just for the money, or that he
wasn't very bright in dealing with planets and stars, or that he was merely superstitious, or for
some other such summary reasons.

311 Ptolemy, ibid., p.31.

312 Otto Neugebauer, A History of Ancient Astronomy, 1975, Part Two, p. 942-943.
 122

Appendix to Chapter 4

Diodorus Siculus (of Sicily), Bibliotheca Historica, Book II, 28:29-31

Translated by C. H. Oldfather, 1985 (Loeb Classics)

Diodorus lived c.100- 30 B.C.E.

But to us it seems not inappropriate to speak briefly of the Chaldeans of Babylon and
of their antiquity, that we may omit nothing which is worthy of record. Now the Chaldeans,
belonging as they do to the most ancient inhabitants of Babylonia, have about the same
position among the divisions of the state as that occupied by the priests of Egypt; for being
assigned to the service of the gods they spend their entire life in study, their greatest renown
being in the field of astrology. But they occupy themselves largely with soothsaying as well,
making predictions about future events, and in some cases by purifications, in others by
sacrifices, and in others by some other charms they attempt to effect the averting of evil
things and the fulfillment of the good. They are also skilled in the soothsaying by the flight of
birds, and they give out interpretations of both dreams and portents. They also show marked
ability in making divinations from the observations of the entrails of animals, deeming that in
this branch they are eminently successful.

The training which they receive in all these matters is not the same as that of the
Greeks who follow such practices. For among the Chaldeans the scientific study of these
subjects is passed down in the family, and son takes it over from father, being relieved of all
other services in the state. Since, therefore, they have their parents for teachers, they not
only are taught everything ungrudgingly but also at the same time they give heed to the
precepts of their teachers with a more unwavering trust. Furthermore, since they are bred in
these teachings from childhood up, they attain a great skill in them, both because of the
ease with which youth is taught and because of the great amount of time which is devoted to
this study.

Among the Greeks, on the contrary, the student who takes up a large number of
subjects without preparation turns to the higher studies only quite late, and then, after
labouring upon them to some extent, gives them up, being distract ed by the necessity of
earning a livelihood; and but a few here and there really strip for the higher studies and
continue in the pursuit of them as a profit-making business, and these are always trying to
make innovations in connection with the most important doctrines instead of following the in
the path of their predecessors. The result of this is that the barbarians, by sticking to the
same things always, keep a firm hold on every detail, while the Greeks, on the other hand,
aiming at the profit to be m ade out of the business, keep founding new schools and
wrangling with each other over the most important matters of speculation, bring it about that
their pupils hold conflicting views, and that their minds, vacillating throughout their lives and
unable to believe anything at all with firm conviction, simply wander in confusion. It is at any
rate true that, if a man were to examine carefully the most famous schools of the
philosophers, he would find them differing from one another to the uttermost degree and
maintaining opposite opinions regarding the most fundamental tenets.
30. Now, as the Chaldeans say, the word is by its nature eternal, and neither had a first
beginning nor will at a later term suffer destruction; furthermore, both the disposition and the
orderly arrangement of the universe have come about by virtue of a divine providence, and
today whatever takes place in the heavens is in every instance brought to pass, not a
haphazard nor by virtue of any spontaneous action, but by some fixed and firmly determined
divine decision. And since they have observed the stars over a long period of time and have
noted both the movements and the influences of each of them with greater precision than
any other men, they foretell to mankind many things that will take place in the future. But
above all in importance, they say, is the study of the influence of the five stars known as
planets, which they call "Interpreters" when speaking of them as a group, but if referring to
them singly, the one named Cronus by the Greeks, which is the most conspicuous and
presages more events an d such as are greater in importance than the others, they call the
star Helios [Sun], whereas the other four they designate as the star of Ares [Mars], Aphrodite
[Venus], Hermes [Mercury], and Zeus [Jupiter], as do our astrologers. The reason why they
call them "Interpreters" is that whereas all other stars are fixed and follow a single circuit in
a regular course, these alone, by virtue of following each its own course, point out future
events, thus interpreting to mankind the design of the gods. For sometimes by their risings,
sometimes by their settings, and again by their colour, the Chaldeans say, they give signs of
coming events to such a are willing to observe them closely; for at one time they show forth
mighty storms of winds, at another excessive rains or heat, at times the appearance of
comets, also eclipses of both sun and moon, and earthquakes, and in a word all the
condition which owe their origin to the atmosphere and work both benefits and harm, not
only to whole peoples or regions, but also to kings and to persons of private station.

Under the course in which these planets move are situated, according to them, thirty
stars, which they designate as "counseling gods"; of these one half oversee the regions
above the earth and the other half those beneath the earth, having under their purview the
affairs of mankind and likewise those of the heavens; and every ten days one of the stars
above is sent as a messenger, so to speak, to the stars below, and again in like manner of
the stars below the earth to those above, and this movement of their is fixed and
determined by means of an orbit which is unchanging for ever. Twelve of these gods, they
say, hold chief authority, and to each of these the Chaldeans assign a month and one of the
signs of the zodiac, as they are called. And through the midst of these signs, they say, both
the sun and moon and the five planets make their course, the sun completing his cycle in a
year and the moon traversing her circuit in a month.

31. Each of the planets, according to them, has its own particular course, and its velocities
and periods of time are subject to change and variation. These stars it is which exert the
greatest influence for both good and evil upon the nativity of men; and it is chiefly from the
nature of these planets and the study of them that they known what is in store for mankind.
And they have made predictions, they say, not only to numerous other kings, but also to
Alexander, who defeated Darius, and to Antigonus and Sel eucus Nicator who afterwards
became kings, and in all their prophecies they are thought to have hit the truth. But of these
things we shall write in detail on a more appropriate occasion. Moreover, they also foretell to
men in private station what will befall them, and with such accuracy that those who have
made trial of them marvel at the feat and believe that it transcends the power of man.
 124

Beyond the circle of the zodiac they designate twenty-for other stars, of which one
half, they say, are situated in the northern parts and one half in the southern, and of these
those which are visible they assign to the world of the living, while those which are invisible
they regard as being adjacent to the dead, and so they call them "Judges of the Universe."
And under all the stars hitherto mentioned the moon, according to them, takes her way,
being nearest the earth because of her weight and completing her course in a very brief
period of time, not by reason of her great velocity, but because her orbit is so short. They
also agree with the Greeks in saying that her light is reflected and that her eclipses are due
to the shadow of the earth. Regarding the eclipse of the sun, however, they offer the
weakest kind of explanation, and do not presume to predict it or to define the times of its
occurrence with any precision. Again, in connection with the earth they make assertions
entirely peculiar to themselves, saying that it is shaped like a boat and hollow, and they offer
many plausible arguments about both the earth and al other bodies in the firmament, a full
discussion of which we feel would be alien to our history. This point, however, a man may
fittingly maintain, that the Chaldeans have of all men the greatest grasp of astrology, and
that they have bestowed the greatest diligence upon the study of it. But as to the number of
years which, according to their statements, the order of the Chaldeans has spent on the
study of the bodies of the universe, a man can scarcely believe them; for they reckon that,
down Alexander’s crossing over into Asia, it has been four hundred and seventy-three
thousand years, since they began in early times to make their observations of the stars.

Philo of Alexandria (20 B.C.E. – 50 C.E.), De Abrahamo, 68-71

Translated by F. H. Colson, 1984 (Loeb Classics)

The Chaldeans appear beyond all other men to have devoted themselves to the study of
astronomy and of genealogies; adapting things on earth to things sublime, an d also
adapting things of heaven to things on earth, and like people who, availing themselves of
the principles of music, exhibit a most perfect symphony as existing in the universe by the
common union and sympathy of the parts for another, which through s eparated as to place,
are not disunited in regard of kindred. These men, then, imagined that this world which we
behold was the only world in the existing universe, and was either God himself, or else that it
contained within itself God, that is, the soul of the universe. Then, having erected fate and
necessity into gods, they filled human life with excessive impiety, teaching men that with the
exception of those things which are apparent there is no other cause whatever of anything,
but that it is the periodical revolutions of the sun, and moon, and other stars, which
distribute good and evil to all existing beings.

Flavius Josephus (37-98 C. E.), Antiquities of the J ews

 125

Excerpts from Book 1

Translated by William Whiston, 1737

Chapter 2, 67-71. Now Adam, who was the first man, and made out of the earth, (for
our discourse must now be about him,) after Abel was slain, and Cain fled away, on account
of his murder, was solicitous for posterity, and had a vehement desire of children , he being
two hundred and thirty years old; after which time he lived other seven hundred, and then
died. He had indeed many other children, but Seth in particular. As for the rest, it would be
tedious to name them; I will therefore only endeavor to give an account of those that
proceeded from Seth. Now this Seth, when he was brought up, and came to those years in
which he could discern what was good, became a virtuous man; and as he was himself of an
excellent character, so did he leave children behind hi m who imitated his virtues. All these
proved to be of good dispositions. They also inhabited the same country without
dissensions, and in a happy condition, without any misfortunes falling upon them, till they
died. They also were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with
the heavenly bodies, and their order. And that their inventions might not be lost before they
were sufficiently known, upon Adam's prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one
time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they
made two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone: they inscribed their discoveries on
them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone
mi ght remain, and exhibit those discoveries to mankind; and also inform them that there
was another pillar of brick erected by them. Now this remains in the land of Siriad to this
day.

Chapter 3, 104-108. Now when Noah had lived three hundred and fifty years after
the Flood, and that all that time happily, he died, having lived the number of nine hundred
and fifty years. But let no one, upon comparing the lives of the ancients with our lives, and
with the few years which we now live, think that what we have said of them is false; or make
the shortness of our lives at present an argument, that neither did they attain to so long a
duration of life, for those ancients were beloved of God, and [lately] made by G od himself;
and because their food was then fitter for the prolongation of life, might well live so great a
number of years: and besides, God afforded them a longer time of life on account of their
virtue, and the good use they made of it in astronomical and geometrical discoveries, which
would not have afforded the time of foretelling [the periods of the stars] unless they had
lived six hundred years; for the great year is completed in that interval. Now I have for
witnesses to what I have said, all those that have written Antiquities, both among the Greeks
and barbarians; for even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian History, and Berosus, who
collected the Chaldean Monuments, and Mochus, and Hestieus, and, besides these,
Hieronymus the Egyptian, and those who composed the Phoenician History, agree to what I
here say: Hesiod also, and Hecatseus, Hellanicus, and Acusilaus; and, besides these,
Ephorus and Nicolaus relate that the ancients lived a thousand years. But as to these
matters, let every one look upon them as he thinks fit.

Chapter 8, 166-168. For whereas the Egyptians were formerly addicted to different
 126

customs, and despised one another's sacred and accustomed rites, and were very angry one
with another on that account, Abram conferred with each of them, a nd, confuting the

Flavius Josephus (37-98 C. E.), Antiquities of the J ews

 127

reason ings they made use of, every one for their own practices, demonstrated that such
reasonings were vain and void of truth: whereupon he was admired by them in those
conferences as a very wise man, and one of great sagacity, when he discoursed on any
subject he undertook; and this not only in understanding it, but in persuading other men
also to assent to him. He communicated to them arithmetic, and delivered to them the
science of astronomy; for before Abram came into Egypt they were unacquainted with those
parts of learning; for that science came from the Chaldeans into Egypt, and from thence to
the Greeks also.
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Chapter 5. Stoics, Kepler, and Evaluations

1. Even Kepler, who lived from 1571 to 1630, and indisputably was one of the founders of
modern astronomy and physics, even he cast horoscopes, although he was opposed to much of
the astrology of his time. He called popular astrology "a dreadful superstition" and "a
sortilegious monkey-play". (Sortilege is prophesying by randomly casting or drawing "lots",
using pebbles, dice, etc., and interpreting the results.) Many have tried to apologize for Kepler's
astrology. For example, Arthur Koestler, the novelist and essayist, claims that Kepler "started his
career with the publication of astrological calendars and ended it as Court Astrologer to the Duke
of Wallenstein. He did it for a living, with his tongue in his cheek." "In a typical outburst,"
Koestler says, "he wrote: 'A mind accustomed to mathematical deduction, when confronted with
the faulty foundations [of astrology] resists a long, long time, like an obstinate mule, until
compelled by beating and curses to put its foot into that dirty puddle.'" Still, as Koestler
continues, while Kepler "despised these crude practices, and despised himself for having to
resort to them, he at the same time believed in the possibility of a new and true astrology as an
exact empirical science".313

2. Kepler wanted not to abolish astrology, but to reform it. He wrote several short treatises
specifically on astrology, and referred to it, sometimes extensively, in his large major works. As
Gerard Simon emphasizes, Kepler regarded astrology -- a reformed astrology -- as a legitimate
branch of his science. Simon says: "Kepler did not consider his astrological theories as less
important or less true than those which he announced in optics, astronomy or cosmology: in his
eyes, each of these are dedicated to the investigation of a perfectly homogeneous field of reality,
that of the secrets of nature." 314 Judith V. Field, in her evaluation of Kepler's astrology says:
"Astrological harmony is ... an integral part of Kepler's work as it is of Ptolemy's .... Kepler's
concern with astrology is not peripheral to his cosmological theories, and there can be no doubt
that it grossly misrepresents his attitude to astrology to suggest that he saw it primarily as a way of
making money."315 One of Kepler's treatises on astrology carries the motto "A warning to certain
Theologians, Physicians and Philosophers ... that, while justly rejecting the stargazers'
superstitions, they should not throw out the child with the bathwater". Elsewhere Kepler says:
"That the sky does something to man is obvious enough; but what it does specifically remains
hidden."

3. An outline of Kepler's reformed astrology has been given by the physicist Wolfgang
Pauli. According to Kepler, individual souls have the ability to react to certain harmonious
proportions which correspond to specific rational divisions of a circle. In music, this ability is
revealed in our perception of euphony or consonance in certain musical intervals. Our souls are
said to be able to react similarly to harmonious proportions of angles which rays of stellar light
make with each other when they strike the earth. In the case of planets, these are the aspects of
traditional astrology, considered already by Ptolemy. In Kepler's view, these are what astrology
should be based on. For Kepler, the effective angles between two rays coming from different
planets are those that are found in the regular polygons, such as equilateral triangles, squares or

313 Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, 1959, p. 243.

314 Gerard Simon, Kepler astronome astrologue, 1979, p. 33.
315 J.V.Field, "A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler", Archive for History of Exact Sciences, v. 31, no. 3, p.
189-272.
 129

hexagons, with which a plane surface can be covered without gaps ("tilings"), or in the "star"
polygons developed by him in his Harmonice mundi.

4. Kepler holds that it is the light which comes from the other planets which produce
certain effects in our souls, and therefore in our bodies.316 Furthermore, the earth itself has a
soul, and the planets act on this soul as well. The earth, for Kepler, is a living thing. Pauli
describes Kepler's analogies: "As living bodies have hair, so does the earth have grass and trees,
the cicadas being its dandruff; as living creatures secrete urine in a bladder, so do the mountains
make springs; sulphur and volcanic products correspond to excrement, metals and rainwater to
blood and sweat; the sea water is the earth's nourishment ... At the same time the anima terrae
[soul of the earth] is also a formative power (facultasformatrix) in the earth's interior and
expresses, for example, the five regular bodies in precious stones and fossils It is
important that in Kepler's view the anima terrae is responsible for the weather and also for
meteoric phenomena. Too much rain, for instance, is an illness of the earth."317

5. Judith Field reports that Kepler believed that the theory that the weather was affected by
planetary aspects was amply confirmed by observation. He himself made many observations to
this effect. Field says: "Kepler's success in obtaining observational confirmation of his belief in
the efficacy of Aspects may be partly due to the subjectivity of the data, but another explanation
also presents itself: Aspects are so numerous that for any given change one could almost certainly
find an appropriate recent Aspect. This objection in fact occurred to one of Kepler's regular
correspondents, the physician Johann Georg Brengger, who mentioned it in a letter to Kepler
dated 7 March 1608."318

6. As Pauli says, Keple r offers light as a physical cause for the effects of the planets on
human beings, and indeed on other living creatures. Furthermore, he argues that properly
speaking we should not say that the planets cause the effects they have on us, but rather that it is
the constitution of our souls, in their ability to respond to the planetary light, which causes these
effects. Pauli notes what he takes to be a serious objection to Kepler's astrological theory, that
artificial light ought to produce astrological effects. 3 1 9 But of course one can think up reasons
for distinguishing between artificial and planetary light. Or maybe Kepler would have agreed
that artificial light can produce astrological effects?

7. Gérard Simon observes that according to Kepler, it is possible to predict the future from
what takes place in the sky for three different reasons, one physical, another psychological, and a
third metaphysical. The physical reason concerns the effect of light. Simon says these are for the
most part meteorological according to Kepler, whereas Pauli emphasizes Kepler's belief in the
effect of light on living beings. The psychological reason results from emotions stirred in the souls
of living beings by the aspects and in the soul of the Earth by the planetary aspects. This also has
an effect on weather changes, but also on the actions of nations and their leaders, and on

316 The doctrine that light is a kind of force is an old idea, found, for example, among the neo-Platonists of
antiquity.
317 Wolfgang Pauli, "The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific Theories of Kepler", especially p. 176
and p. 179- 190, in The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, 1955, by Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli, translation
by Priscilla Silz of Naturerklrung und Psyche, 1952.
318 J. V. Field, Kepler's Geometrical Cosmology, 1988, p. 128- 129.
319 Pauli, ibid., p. 190.
 130

the destinies of individuals. Finally, the metaphysical reason, which Kepler allows is much more
conjectural, arises from the value of certain rare celestial phenomena as signs -- not as causes.
Appearance of a comet, or above all of a new star, are phenomena of this kind. In the case of a
new star, one may be in the presence of an indication of a mutation in universal history.

8. Kepler takes the psychological reason, based on planetary aspects, to be in the realm of
nature to the same degree as the physical reason is. The physical and psychological reasons
authorize forecasting much more than prophecy, Simon says, and although Kepler reshaped the
foundations of such prediction, he never seems to have doubted the fundamental soundness of his
technique based on aspects. On the other hand, he wondered about the possibility of interpreting
signs which, if they are sent by God, can be understood only by prophets. Kepler doesn't exclude
the possibility that there are providential signs in they heavens. Indeed, he observes that they are
attested to in the Bible and other ancient writers. But he is skeptical about men being able to
interpret these signs correctly unless they are divinely inspired prophets. Kepler wanted to
substitute, as far as he could, an astrology of causes for an astrology of signs. Astrology would
then become, he hoped, what it should never have ceased being, an applied branch of natural
science. The astrological aspects result from the normal periodic motions of the planets. From
time to time, however, events occur in the heavens which are not periodic, and which therefore
appear to be unpredictable. If they can be considered as signs addressed to mankind, then an
astrologer who undertakes to interpret them can no longer limit himself to describing their
physical and psychological effects, but is led to trying to decipher their meaning. Thus the physical
problem becomes metaphysical or theological. With the metaphysical problem, Kepler proceeds
with caution, but proceeds nevertheless. 320

9. In his work on the "new star" of 1604, De stella nova (1606), Kepler speculates on
whether or not the occurrence of a new star can be assigned to chance. Furthermore, in the same
year, there was a "fiery trigon", that is, a conjunction of the three superior planets Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn. Was it also a matter of chance that the new star appeared in the same year as this
"grand conjunction"? For those of an Epicurean turn of mind, this was so. It was like a throw of
two dice, one of which had the aggregation of the atoms of the new star on a face, and the other of
which had the grand conjunction on a face. Throw the dice enough times, and this pair of faces
will come up. The Aristotelians had a similar view. The formation of the atoms into a new star
was not a matter of chance for them, but the causes of the star and the causes of the grand
conjunction had no connection with each other. The two causal series leading to these events were
considered to be independent. But then they coincided by chance. Kepler opposed both of these
views. He argues that neither the individual events nor their coincidence were the result of
chance. This would be unworthy of God.321

10. Kepler could not abide chance events. He says: "What then is chance? It is the
most detestable idol, which is nothing else than mistrust of the supreme and omnipotent God, and
also of what he has created, the absolutely perfect World, in which in place of a soul one takes a
blind and unconsidered motion, and in place of a body an infinite chaos. It is impious to attribute
to chance what belongs to God."322 Kepler will not admit a cosmology founded on chance, in

320 Gérard Simon, ibid., p. 35, 52- 55, 79-80.

321 ibid., p. 52-80.)
322
Johannes Kepler, De s tella nova , quoted by Simon, ibid., p. 62.
 131

which the creation would have no goal or beauty, and would lose all meaning. Here is a source of
Kepler's concern for astrology. To radically separate what happens in the heavens from what
happens on earth is to forget the perfection of the work of God and his solicitude for people. It is to
make the world silent, and to prevent us from witnessing its source. 3 2 3

1 1 . Kepler never stopped believing that the Earth has a Soul. Still, Ernst Cassirer recalls

Kepler's debate with Patrizzi over the motions of the planets: "[Patrizzi] declared that any
attempt on the part of mathematical astronomy to determine the course of the planets by
interlocking orbits, cycles, and epicycles was vain because in reality the planets were nothing
other than animate beings, endowed with reason, who, just as appearance indicates, describe the
most diverse, strangely tortuous paths through the liquid ether. It is characteristic of Kepler's
manner of thinking that he countered this conception primarily by a methodological argument --an
argument he himself characterized as 'philosophical.' To resolve all seeming disorder into order,
in every irregularity to seek the hidden rule: precisely this -- he stressed in opposing Patrizzi -- is
the basic principle of 'philosophical astronomy.'" 3 2 4

12. Cassirer quotes Kepler: "Among the adherents of a sound philosophy there is none who
is not of this opinion, who would not congratulate himself and astronomy if he succeeded in
disclosing the causes of error and distinguishing the true movements of the planets from their
accidental orbits which rest only on sensory illusion, and in thus proving the simplicity and
ordered regularity of their orbits." Cassirer concludes: In these simple and profound words from
Kepler's pamphlet in defense of Tycho Brahe, and in the concrete confirmation they soon received
through Kepler's treatise on the movements of Mars, the planets were dethroned as the ancient
gods of time and fate, and the general view of time and of the temporal process was transferred
from the image-world of the mythical-religious imagination to the exact conceptual world of
scientific cognition." Nevertheless, Kepler believed that the planets, including the sun and earth,
have souls, and are alive. A dissolution of this apparent discrepancy between Cassirer's analysis
and Kepler's belief follows from the doctrine, espoused by Kepler, that the souls of planets are
guided not by caprice or will or chance, but by laws or "hidden rules".

13.
Simon admirably and enthusiastically summarizes the outlook of Kepler: "Nothing is left
to chance in this world which forms a perfectly coherent system. It is through and through crossed
by a tightly woven network of proportions which are the mark of the worker on his work; which
are thus the enchantment by which he gives to himself the spectacle of his own glory. The cosmic
harmonies make up the true hymn which the psalmist in his prescience lent to the universe, and
which one beautiful day an inspired mathematician deciphered in the course of his astronomical
contemplation Mathematical ratios are then the privileged and universal language which the stars,
people and God simultaneously speak and understand. This is not astonishing since 'geometry
before the birth of things was co-eternal with the divine spirit .... '"325

14. "An immense play of mirrors thus exists in an immemorial way between the
macrocosm and the microcosm, the creation and the creature, the creation and the Creator, the

323 Simon, ibid., p. 61-63.

324 Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, 1953- 1957, translation by Ralph Manheim of Die
Philosophie der Symbolischen Formen, 1923 -1929, v. 2 (1955, 1925), p. 139-140. 325Johannes Kepler, quoted by
Simon from Harmonice mundi , IV, 1.
 132

creature and the Creator; and it is made possible by mathematics, because this is at the same time
their common essence and their common reason. It is the only natural language, because it is the
only one in which Nature expresses itself. And it is necessary to take literally this idea of
expression: Nature is not only full of meaning, but full of a meaning which is not hidden, which
on the contrary announces itself openly in the spectacle of the heavens each hour, each day,
provided one knows the language in which it manifests itself. Far from being contingent like the
languages of man, mathematics conceals and reveals the secret necessity of things. Because of
this, it is a sacred although natural language, or rather sacred because natural; perhaps even the
only truly sacred language, because it is the only one which escapes from the cultural
arbitrariness of the sign."

15. "Thus the heavens," Simon continues, "by the equilibrium of their proportions and the
harmony of their motions, write a revelation as important and as worthy of confidence as that of
the Bible. God speaks there his own language rather than putting himself within reach of man;
and whoever knows how to understand it, has no need of any interpretation or any tradition to
penetrate their [the heavens'] secret perfection. Far from being a profane curiosity, the desire to
probe the Mystery of the World arises from religious concern and religious quest; and when little by
little its secrets reveal themselves, the meditation which they inspire led to prayer and the actions
of grace. Nothing is more foreign to the spirit of Kepler than to place, as we do today, astronomy
among the positive sciences stripped of all mystical connotation; on the contrary, it is for him a
science of the sacred."

16. One understands better by means of this, as Simon observes, Kepler's attitude with
regard to astrology. Simon says: "For its status had nothing in common with what we confer on it
today, we who have a tendency to place it rather in the sphere of magico-religious productions.
What he reproaches the popular astrology of his time for is its lending to Nature, and therefore to
God, one of the arbitrary languages with which people express their passions, their interests and
their anxieties; that is why he criticizes at length the traditional encodings, dominations of the
planets, divisions of the zodiac, and above all domifications of the themes by which one has
sought to make the world speak according to artificial and naively anthropomorphic symbols. To
this art of the charlatan, he opposes the science which results from mathematical knowledge of
the harmonies and of the effect of the celestial configurations on terrestrial faculties and human
souls, both in their immediate activities and their later developments. It is not in projecting into
the world the cares and words of people, but in grasping the causal relations which are established
between the sublunary and the supralunary that one can understand the effects of stars on earthly
things."326

17. Simon goes on to describe Kepler's aversion to applying astrology to profane activities
-- harvests expected, projects under way, ambitions thwarted -- rather than for contemplating the
work of the Creator. This was one of Kepler's objections to judicial astrology, that it was a
utilitarian and basely positivistic science, which usurped the place of a higher and purer
discipline which concerned the sacred.

18. Kepler never gave up hope that astrology could be reformed and made into a genuine
science. "No man," he says, "should hold it to be incredible that out of the astrologers'
326
Géra rd Si m on, ibid. , p. 440 - 442.
 133

foolishness and blasphemies some useful and sacred knowledge may come, that out of the unclean
slime may come a little snail or mussel or oyster or eel, all useful nourishments; that out of a big
heap of lowly worms may come a silk worm, and lastly that in the evil-smelling dung, a busy hen
may find a decent corn, nay, a pearl or a golden corn, if she but searches and scratches long
enough." 327

19. Simon says: "We can in no way compare Kepler's intellectual reactions with our own.
Unlike us, Kepler could not but take astrology seriously, because if it is the mirror image of
astronomy it consequently has the same level of plausibility. Far from being completely resolved,
the question of whether astrology was valid was then still quite a pertinent one. Again, unlike us,
who would be inclined to associate astrology with magico -religious thought, and astronomy with
positivism, for Kepler it is astrology that is the profane utilitarian activity, while astronomy is the
science of the sacred, the science of Creation the idea of a language of the World, of a book of
Nature, is, as we see, found in all the systems of thought of the time, and reveal a very archaic
type of reasoning. With a Kepler, with a Galileo, this language is transformed and becomes
mathematical: nothing seems to be changed, but nevertheless everything is about to change." 328

20. The less mystical Francis Bacon also thought that astrology was reclaimable. In the De
augmentis scientarum (The Advancement of Learning) (1623), he says: "As for Astrology, it is so
full of superstition, that scarce anything sound can be discovered in it. Notwithstanding, I would
rather have it purified than altogether rejected." He goes on to speak of a "Sane Astrology", with
which one will be able to predict with a great degree of accuracy "floods, droughts, heats, frosts,
earthquakes, irruptions of water, eruptions of fire, great winds and rains, the various seasons of
the year, plagues, epidemics, diseases, plenty and dearth of grain, wars, seditions, schisms,
transmigrations of peoples, and in short of all commotions or greater revolutions of things,
natural as well as evil." 329 Cameron goes on to observe that Bacon announces that once the
foundations of "Sane Astrology" are established, one will be able to predict such things as what
seasons will be especially dangerous for monks and courtiers, or more ominous for scholars than
soldiers. The idea of reforming astrology is not new: "So it is with all astrologers (says the
Talmud): they see something but do not understand what they
see. "3 3 0

21. The physicist Paul Davies says: "Practical science proceeds apace, on the basis that the
influence of, say, Jupiter on the motion of a motor car is less than any instrument could
conceivably measure. However, when it comes to making observations, it is precisely these
minute forces which play the vital role. If it were not for the fact that some influence from Jupiter
had a detectable effect we could never know of its existence. The inescapable conclusion is that all
observation requires interaction, of some sort. When we see Jupiter, photons of sunlight reflected
from atoms in the Jovian atmosphere traverse the Earth's atmosphere and
327 Quoted by Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, 1959, p. 245.
328 Gérard Simon, "Kepler's Astrology: The Direction of a Reform", in Kepler, Four Hundred Years, 1975,
edited by Arthur Beer and Peter Beer, p. 447-448.
329 Quoted from Bacon's De augmentis scientarum, 1623, by Don Allen Cameron in The Star- Crossed
Renaissance, 1941,p. 152.
330
Rashi, Commentaries on the Pentateuch, Numbers, quoted in Leo Rosten's Treasury of Jewish Quotations, 1971, p.
106.
 134

impinge on cells in the retina where they dislodge electrons from the atoms therein. This merest
brush of a disturbance sets up a tiny electric signal which, when amplified and propagated to the
brain, delivers the sensation 'Jupiter'. It follows that, through this chain, our brain cells are linked
by electromagnetic forces to the atmosphere of Jupiter. If the chain of interaction is extended by
incorporating telescopes, our brains can couple to the surfaces of stars billions of light years
away." Interactions are not one-way.

22. Davies continues: "An important feature of all types of interaction is that if one system
disturbs another, thereby registering its existence, then there will be an inevitable reaction back
on the first system, which in turn disturbs it in order to get any information at all [about a
physical system], some sort of influence must pass from object to observer, though its reaction
may be utterly negligible for practical purposes. In the case of Jupiter, it would be invisible if it
were not for its illumination by sunlight. This same sunlight which, when reflected, stimulates
our retinas, also reacts on Jupiter by exerting a tiny pressure on its surface. (Sunlight pressure
leads to a noticeable and spectacular effect by producing the tails of comets.) Thus, we do not,
strictly, see the 'real' Jupiter, but one disturbed by light pressure. Similar reasoning can be
applied to all our observations of the world about us. We can never, even in principle, observe
things, only the interaction between things. Nothing can be seen in isolation, for the very act of
observation must involve coupling of some sort."331 As far as I know, astrologers do not cast
horoscopes for the planets themselves.

23. But what about Kepler's belief that the planets (including the sun and moon) have souls?
This too is ancient idea, as is the idea that the universe itself has a soul. In the third section of the
second of his Enn ead s, the philosopher Plotinus (205-270 A.D.) begins by ridiculing the idea that
the stars _cause_ events to come to pass. Countless myriads of living beings continue to be born,
he says. How can one think that the stars can minister to every single one of these people -- to make
them famous or obscure, rich or poor, lascivious or chaste? "What kind of life is this for the stars,"
he says, "how could they possibly handle a task so huge?"

24. Still, Plotinus says, stars do announce the future, evidently taking this to be a fact
attested to by experience. How can this happen? Plotinus's answer is that the stars are sig ns, by
virtue of the fact that everything is related to everything else. He says: "We may think of the stars
as letters perpetually being inscribed on the heavens or inscribed once for all and yet moving as
they pursue the other tasks allotted to them: upon these main tasks will follow the quality of
signifying, just as the one principle underlying any living unit enables us to reason from member
to member, so that for example we may judge of character and even of perils and safeguards by
indications in the eyes or in some other part of the body. If these parts of us are members of a
whole, so are we: in different ways the one law applies. All teems with symbol; the wise man is
the one who in any one thing can read another, a process familiar to all of us in not a few
examples of everyday experience. But what is the comprehensive principle of co-ordination?
Establish this and we have a reasonable basis for the divination, not only by stars but also by birds
and other animals, from which we derive guidance in our varied concerns." 332

331 Paul Davies, O t h e r W o r l d s , 1980, p. 56-7.

332 Plotinus, T h e S i x E n n e a d s , translated by Stephen MacKenna, 1921-1930, reprinted 1952, p. 44.
 135

25. Plotinus describes "the comprehensive principle of coordination" as follows: "All things
must be joined to one another, not only must there be in each individual part what is well called a
single united breath of life but before them, and still more, in the All. One principle must make
the universe a single complex living creature, one from all; and just as in individual organisms
each member undertakes its own particular task, so the members of the All, each individual one of
them, have their individual work to do; this applies even more to the All than to particular
organisms, in so far as the members of it are not merely members but wholes, and more important
than the members of particular things. Each one goes forth from one single principle and does its
own work, but they also co-operate one with another; for they are not cut off from the whole.
They act on and are affected by others; one comes up to another, bringing it pain or pleasure.
Their going out has nothing random or casual about it. Something else proceeds again from these;
and something else in succession from that, according to the order of nature."333 E. R. Dodds says
of this passage: "Plotinus wrote an essay to show that while in virtue of the universal
_sympatheia_ the stars may indicate the future, they cannot determine it --and when shortly
afterwards he died of an unpleasant disease, the astrologers saw in it the vengeance of the
offended star-demons." 334

26 James Lovelock expounded a theory of Earth as a living being, regulated by the lives on
it. 335 Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan say: "Gaia, the superorganismic system of all life on Earth,
hypothetically maintains the composition of the air and the temperature of the planet's surface,
regulating conditions for the continuation of life ....................On earth the environment has been
made and monitored by life as much as life has been made and influenced by the environment."336
For Plotinus, as for others in antiquity, the whole universe is a living being, although, to be sure,
the number of scientific details of certain kinds encompassed in their theories was much smaller
than nowadays.

27. Earlier than Plotinus, Plato had said in his Timaeus: "All this, then, was the plan of the
god who is for ever [the Demiurge, the Creator] for the god who was sometime to be [the
Universe]. According to this plan he made it smooth and uniform, everywhere equidistant from
its centre, a body whole and complete, with complete bodies for its parts. And in the centre he set
a soul and caused it to extend throughout the whole and further wrapped the body round with soul
on the outseide; and so he established one world alone, round and revolving in a circle, solitary
but able by means of reason of its excellence to bear itself company, needing no other
acquaintance or friend but sufficient to itself. On all these accounts the world which he brought
into being was a blessed god."337

28. On the basis of the Timaeus, the Laws and other writings of Plato, Cornford comments:
"The visible universe is a living creature, having soul (psyche) in body and reason (nous) in soul. It
is called a god in the same sense in which the term is applied to the stars, planets, and Earth --the
'heavenly gods'. All these gods are everlasting, coeval with time itself; though theoretically
333 Plotinus, translation by A. H. Armstrong of the Enneads, 1966, v. 2, p. 71.
334
E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety, Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus
Aurelius to Constantine, 1968, p. 15.
335 James lovelock, Ages of Gaia, A Biography of Our Living Earth, 1988
336 Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Micro-cosmos, Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our
MicrobialAncestors, 1986, p. 265.
337 Plato, Timaeus, translated by Francis Cornford in Plato's Cosmology, 1937, p. 58 of reprint of 1957.
 136

dissoluble, because composite of reason, soul, and body, they will never actually be dissolved.
Man is also composed of reason, soul, and body; but his soul will be dissolved back into the
elements, and the two lower parts of his soul are also mortal. Only the divine reason in him is
imperishable. Thus there is a contrast between macrocosm and microcosm, but also an analogy,
which runs all though the discourse. The world itself, like the heavenly gods and man, is divine
because it contains the divine element, reason....... There is, then, in the soul and body of the
universe a divine Reason analogous to man's; and we shall find that the unchanging movement of its
thought is symbolised, or even visibly embodies, in the circular revolutions of the heavenly gods
and of the universe as a whole." 338

29. Thus according to Plato, not only is the whole universe alive, but so are Earth, Sun,
Moon and the other planets. However, this doctrine is also older than Plato, probably much older.
Still, according to Pliny, "Hipparchus can never be sufficiently praised for having better than
anyone else proved the kinship of the stars with man and that our souls are part of the heavens."
Hipparchus flourished about 160-1 25 B.C.E. He was one of the great astronomers of antiquity.
He is credited, among other things, with having discovered the precession of the equinoxes; with
having compiled the first catalog of stars using a system of coordinates; with having compiled a
table of chords of circles (not the musical kind), thus advancing trigonometry; and with having
established a system of latitude and longitude for locating positions on earth.

30. The Stoics too believed that the universe is a living being. They extrapolated their
biological theories to the whole cosmos. David Hahm comments: "This procedure rests on the
deep conviction that the cosmos is a living animal. This idea cannot be traced to a specific
philosophical predecessor, but was a conviction rooted in the consciousness of the Greek people, as
well as of other ancient peoples. Though philosophy, especially in the late fourth century,
shunned this idea in its literal sense, it could not, or would not, uproot this fundamental outlook
from the Greek mind."339 Plato develops the idea in the Timaeus, but treats it as an explanatory
myth rather than a scientific theory in the sense, say, of Aristotle. Aristotle himself treats such
ideas as kinds of analogy, or metaphor. Some of the Stoics, it appears, took the conception for
literal truth: the universe is alive, sensitive, intelligent, and has a material soul.

31. Samuel Angus says: "Because [for Stoics] one spirit pulsated in the whole life of the
universe there obtained a mysterious 'sympatheia of the whole,' by means of which man could
enter into fellowship with the cosmic process. The soul was a fragment of the celestial fires with
which it maintained its kinship and to which it would return. Men are not merely members of one
another, but of the whole cosmic order. The world is the image of God and man the image of the
world. Man as part of the cosmos is sympathetic with it as a whole This cosmic
harmony and universal sympathy were dear to the adherents of astral religion ...... It takes an
effort of the imagination fully to realize how this science-religion evoked such exalted feeling
and moulded to virtue and beauty the lives of its adherents .... Cosmic emotion was not a torrent

338 Francis Cornford, Plato's Cosmology, 1937, p. 3 8-39 of the reprint of 1957.
339 David Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology, 1977, p. 210.
 137

picturesquely rolling over precipices of ecstasy and exaltation: it was harnessed to moral life.
'The love of heaven makes us heavenly,' was its credo ." 340

32.The Stoics were apt to identify the soul of the universe with God. The Stoic Cornutus
says: "Just as we ourselves are controlled by a soul, so the world possesses a soul holding it
together, and the soul is designated God, primordially and ever-living and the source of all life."
According to the Stoic Marcus Aurelius: "The world is one living organism with one substance
and one soul." Cleanthes maintains "there is one soul interpenetrating the whole cosmos, by
participation in which we too become endowed with soul." Angus reports that the modern
Platonist T. Taylor says: "I confess that I am wholly at a loss to conceive what could induce the
moderns to controvert the dogma that the stars and the whole world are animated, as it is an
opinion of infinite antiquity, and is friendly to the most unperverted, spontaneous, and accurate
conceptions of the human mind. Indeed the rejection of it appears to me to be just as absurd as it
would be in a maggot, if it were capable of syllogizing, to infer that man is a machine impelled by
some external force when he walks, because it never saw any animated reptile so large." 341

33. Cicero presents arguments of the Stoics for the divinity of the universe, hence for the
universe being alive and having a rational soul. This divinity is extended to the stars. Cicero says:
"Having thus perceived the divinity of the world, we must also assign the same divinity to the
stars, which are formed from the most mobile and the purest part of the aether, and are not
compounded of any other element besides; they are of a fiery heat and translucent throughout.
Hence they too have the fullest right to be pronounced to be living beings endowed with sensation
and intelligence .... Again the consciousness and intelligence of the stars is most clearly evinced
by their order and regularity; for regular and rhythmic motion is impossible without design, which
contains no trace of causal or accidental variation; now the order and eternal regularity of the
constellations indicates neither a process of nature, for it is highly rational, nor chance, for chance
loves variation and abhors regularity; it follows therefore that the stars move of their own free-will
and because of their intelligence and divinity .... The regularity therefore in the stars, this exact
punctuality throughout all eternity notwithstanding the great variety of their courses, is to me
incomprehensible without rational intelligence and purpose. And if we observe these attributes in
the planets, we cannot fail to enroll even them among the number of gods."342

34. Earlier, Aristotle put it this way: "On all these grounds, therefore, we may infer with
confidence that there is something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, different and
separate from them; and that the superior glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from
this world of ours The reasons why the primary body is eternal and not subject to increase or
diminution, but unaging and unalterable and unmodified, will be clear from what has been said to
any one who believes in our assumptions. Our theory seems to confirm the phenomena and to be
confirmed by them. For all men have some conception of the nature of the gods, and all who
believe in the existence of gods at all, whether barbarian or Greek, agree in allotting the highest
place to the deity, surely because they suppose that immortal is linked with immortal and

340 Samuel Angus, The Religious Quests of the Graeco -Roman World, A Study in the Historical Background of
Early Christianity, 1929, p. 263-264, 270.
341 ibid., p. 264-266.
342 Cicero, De natura deorum, translated by H. Rackham, 1933, p. 161, 163, 175.
 138

regard any other supposition as impossible. If then there is, as there certainly is, anything divine,
what we have just said about the primary bodily substance was well said. The mere evidence of
the senses is enough to convince us of this, at least with human certainty. For in the whole range of
time past, so far as our inherited records reach, no change appears to have taken place either in the
whole scheme of the outermost heaven or in any of its proper parts. The name, too, of that body
seems to have been handed down right to our own day from our distant ancestors who conceived
of it in the fashion we have been expressing. The same ideas, one must believe, recur in men's
minds not once or twice but again and again. And so, implying that the primary body is something
else beyond earth, fire, air, and water, they gave the highest place the name of aet her, derived from
the fact that it 'runs always' for an eternity of time." 343

35. Richard Lemay tells us: "The notion that the whole Universe was one single body
animated with a living soul was an essential part of the Platonic tradition of early medieval times,
and still received much attention during William of Conches' lifetime." Among the 12th century
writers who accepted this theory in some form, besides William of Conches, were Adelard of
Bath, Ablard, Thierry of Chartres, Bernard Silvester amd Raymond of Marseilles. Some went so
far as to identify the World-Soul with the Holy Ghost. This was one of the opinions which Adelard
and William of Conches were forced to recant, as being sacrilegious and heretical, although
evidently Raymond of Marseilles and Bernard Silvester held the view unscathed. "Theologians
and mystics," Lemay says, are always opposed in principle to any non-theological or non-mystical
Weltan schauun g", and William of Thierry's attacks on William of Conches are said by Lemay to
have "opened an important phase of the conflict of Natural Philosophy against Theology which
34 4
raged during the entire course of Scholasticism in the next three or four centuries."

36. All of these authors were strongly influenced by a work of the Arabian astrologer Abu
Ma'shar (Albumasar) written in the 9th century C.E. in Baghdad, and translated into Latin in the
12th century by European scholars. For Abu Ma'shar, the sky and planets are alive and govern the
world below. Abu Ma'shar, in turn, based his theory of animation of the planets and the existence
on certain works of Aristotle. For William of Conches, the animation of the sky and planets is
explained as a result of an act of God's Intelligence and Will, but for Abu Ma'shar, it is a
consequence of observed fact. Raymond of Marseilles, in the spirit of Aristotle, argued that the
planets move by themselves, what moves by itself must be alive, hence the planets are alive. Even
in William of Conches' work, there is a tendency toward a more physical and astrological
interpretation of the World-Soul, even an identification of it with our Sun, although William of
Conches himself didn't accept this identification. More radical was the view of Raymond of
Marseilles. Lemay says: "To him the divine vigor infused in the World-Soul and animating the
whole Universe resided principally in the heavenly bodies. Astrology thus received a divine

343 Aristotle, De caelo (Peri ouranos, On the Heavens), translated by J. L. Stocks, 269b12-16, 270b1-23.
344 Richard Lemay, Abu Ma 'shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century, The Recovery of
Aristotle's Natural Philosophy through Arabic Astrology, 1962, p. 188, 193-194. Lemay recommends for a good
account of this conflict the work of Andrew D. White, _A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in
Christendom, 1896.
 139

sanction and an edifying character on which Raymond of Marseilles tarries with confidence and a
sense of satisfaction."345

37. Such ideas were also prevalent among certain writers during the European Renaissance,
who had been inspired by the works of Plato, the Stoics, Plotinus, the Hermeticists, the
Kabbalists, and such medieval writers as Abu Ma'shar and Raymond of Marseilles. For example,
Wayne Shumaker says that for Marsilio Ficino, "the whole world is in fact alive and filled with
soul."346 Also, the Hermeticists tell us again and again that the whole world is alive. From the
Hermetic work Asclepius: "If therefore the world is always a living animal -- was, and is, and will
be -- nothing in the world is mortal. Since every single part, such as it is, is always living and is in
a world which is always one and always a living animal, there is no place in the world for
death."347

38. Today, of course, the stars are considered by physicists and astronomers to be no more
alive than, say, hydrogen atoms or electrons (however alive they may be). Correspondingly,
while there is no lack today of astrologers and people who consult them, few astronomers now
believe there is anything worthwhile in astrology. Here are the concluding words of a book on
astrology by two astronomers (not astrologers!): "We suspect the reasons for the current return to
astrology, as well as other occult systems, range from simple curiosity to a desperate groping for
miracle solutions so the real problems of life and society may be avoided. Any such massive
rejection of rationality stemming from ignorance of the facts, however, should be a matter of
grave concern. A scan of human history reveals that when a society begins to embrace such
irrational and fatalistic views, the end is close at hand. ... [We] propose that the rise of astrology in
a culture does not cause that culture's undoing, but rather is a sign or symptom of the conditions
in a culture which betrays its inner weakness at that moment in history. So it was with classical
Greece, imperial Rome, and medieval Christianity. Ironically, it is perhaps the ultimate
astrological synchronicity of all, and, in light of the current astrological renaissance in the West,
represents a most chilling correspondence indeed. There was once a time in the younger and more
carefree days of human history when we could afford the luxury of an astrological dalliance. But
now, faced with the awesome powers and problems of our technological adulthood, we can afford
it no longer."348

39. Nancy Reagan, wife of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, says in her memoirs,
concerning her attachment to astrology: "I should say, too, that the idea of consulting an astrologer
never struck me as particularly strange. I used to look at my horoscope every morning as I read the
paper, although fifteen minutes later I usually forgot what it said. And although I'm far from a true
believer, I do think there are certain characteristics that tend to be true of individuals born under a
particular sign I was born on July 6, which makes me a Cancer. It is often said that people born
under the sign of Cancer are above all homemakers and nesters, which is exactly how I would
define myself. Cancers also tend to be intuitive, vulnerable,

345 Lemay, ibid., p. 149- 157, 188 -195.

346
Marsilio Ficino, De vita coelitus comparanda (Guiding One's Life by the Stars, or perhaps On Obtaining Life
from the Heavens), 1489.
347 Wayne Shumaker, The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance, A Study in Intellectual Patterns, 1972, p. 122
and 225.
348 Rober B. Culver and Philip A. Ianna, The Gemini Syndrome, Star Wars of the Oldest Kind, 1979.
 140

sensitive, and fearful of ridicule -- all, of which, like it or not, I am. The Cancer symbol is the
crab shell! Cancers often present a hard exterior to the world. When they're hurt, Cancers respond
by withdrawing into themselves. That's me, all right."349 Of course, all of these are common
human characteristics, not confined to people born under a particular sign of the zodiac.

40. We may compare this with the description given by E. R. Dodds: "The real vogue of
astrology appears to have begun in the second century B.C Why did it occur then and not
sooner? The idea was by then no novelty, and the intellectual ground for its reception had long
been prepared in the astral theology which was taught alike by Platonists, Aristotelians, and
Stoics, though Epicurus warned the world of its dangers. One may guess that its spread was
favoured by political conditions: in the troubled half-century that preceded the Roman conquest
of Greece it was particularly important to know what was going to happen. One may guess also
that the Babylonian Greek who at this time occupied the Chair of Zeno [the Stoic] encouraged a
sort of "trahison des clercs" (the Stoa had already used its influence to kill the heliocentric
hypothesis of Aristarchus which, if accepted, would have upset the foundations of astrology and of
Stoic religion). But behind such immediate causes we may perhaps suspect something deeper and
less conscious: for a century of more the individual had been face to face with his own
intellectual freedom, and not he turned tail and bolted from the horrid prospect -- better the rigid
determinism of the astrological Fate than that terrifying burden of daily responsibility. Rational
men like Panaetius and Cicero tried to check the retreat by argument, as Plotinus was to do later,
but without perceptible effect; certain motives are beyond the reach of argument." 350 This brings
to mind this quip: "When asked why he doesn't believe in astrology, the logician Raymond
Smullyan responds that he's a Gemini, and Geminis never believe in astrology." 351

41. Of course, we still have defenders of astrology. For example, Rupert Gleadow says:
"Usually astrology is thought by astronomers to be a delusion, but obviously it is not possible to
recount the history of a subject while affecting towards it an attitude of superior disbelief. It will be
necessary therefore to assume that the claims of both astronomy and astrology deserve to be taken
seriouslyThe study of the future is a perfectly normal human practice, and has been almost
universal on earth. Only the current fashion for materialism has decreed that predictions of the
future must be impossible It is argued that a man cannot 'know' the future because it has not
yet happened. This may appear to be good logic, yet the trend of the future is often regrettably
plain. It is sometimes quite easy to foresee the future, without needing to call on any special
faculties [A] possible explanation of how there could be a correspondence between events in the
zodiac and events on earth might be 'synchronicity'. By this word, coined by C. G. Jung, is meant
that every event -- in so far as it is produced not by one urgently over-riding force, but by various
approximately equal but not quite constant or calculable forces -- is characteristic of the moment
at which it occurs and of the interacting forces then in play." 352

42 . Underlying a rejection of astrology, there is a fundamental historical question we have

already touched on. If astrology is a farrago of mistakes and nonsense, how is that some people of
considerable intelligence (along with many not so gifted) have believed in it fo r mo re than

349 Nancy Reagan, My Turn, The Memoirs of Nancy Reagan, 1989, with William Novak, p. 50.
350
E. R. Dodds, Greeks and the Irrational, 1951, p. 245-246.
3 5 1 Reported by John Paulos in his book Innumeracy 1988, p. 49.
352
Rupert Gleadow, Origin of the Zodiac, 1969, p. 15, 21,24.
 141

2000 years (or maybe more than 4000, starting from omen astrology), or at least thought there's
something in it if we could only find out what that something is? Pico della Mirandola, writing in
1495, offered the following explanation: "How many people are immersed in a theory, are used
to reducing everything to it, and not because of a desire to explain everything by it, but because
things really seem like that to them. What happens to them is like someone who walks
immersed in snow and to whom everything ends up appearing white....... like someone who loves
in vain and sees the face of his beloved in everything ....... So he who is a theologian, and nothing
but a theologian, takes everything back to divine causes; he who is a doctor takes everything back
to corporal states, the physician [physicist?] to the natural principles of things, the mathematician
to numbers and figures, like the Pythagoreans. In the same way, as the Chaldeans were entirely
occupied with the measurement of celestial movements and the observation of the positions of the
stars ... all things were stars to them, and they willingly took everything back to the stars." 353

43. Part of the force behind astrology stems from the astral religion which developed in
antiquity, especially on the basis of works of Plato. Walter Burkert maintains that in Plato's later
work, after the Repub lic, a double change can be detected. There is a strain of logical self-
criticism which shakes the foundations of the theory of ideas. There is also a turning toward
nature and natural philosophy. From this change there developed a formative force in the history of
religion. The religion of transcendence finds a complement in the perceivable world, in visible
gods. This holds for the cosmos as a whole, and especially for the stars. The cosmos, according to
the later Plato, obeys unchangeable intelligible laws that are mathematically formulated.

44. Two bold conclusions resulted, says Burkert. First, the cosmos is eternal, since in many
centuries of observation no change has been detected. Nor do the mathematical laws admit change.
The old cosmogonic hypothesis that the cosmos arose at some time and will decay at some time in
the future must be false. Secondly, mathematically exact movements are rational, hence the
cosmos is rational. In the La ws the Athenian who speaks for Plato himself asserts that he learned
this "not as a young man nor a long time ago." Plato had earlier criticized the system of
Anaxagoras on the grounds that although Anaxagoras introduced n ou s intelligence) as an agent
which moves the cosmos, he embraced a mindless materialism in all the details. But later natural
philosophy gained an intellectual, mathematical dimension in Plato's work. Thus natural
philosophy enters into a surprising alliance with piety. The concept of the soul which had
previously been confined to the individual, as the subject of knowledge and moral decisions,
received a new, cosmic status. The movement of the cosmos became of a psychic nature. Soul is
defined in a general way as that which moves itself. The living are distinguished by their ability to
move themselves, in contrast to what is dead and without souls. Soul as that which moves itself is
primary in relation to all bodies which are moved by something else. This holds for the whole
cosmos as well as for an individual's mortal body.

45. Plato in the La ws repeatedly emphasizes this important turn in the history of
philosophy, says Burkert. Plato says: "The situation has been entirely reversed since the days
when thinkers thought of the stars as without souls. Wonder, though, was awakened even then,

353Quoted by Eugenio Garin in Astrology in the Renaissance, 1983, p. 89, translation ofLo Zodiaco della Vita,
1976.
 142

and what now really holds was suspected by those who embarked on exactness: that in no way
could the stars as soulless things keep so precisely to marvelous calculations, if they did not
possess intelligence. Some even then were bold enough to venture this very proposition and they
said that it was nous that had ordained everything in the sky. But these very men were deceived
about the nature of the soul, namely that it is older than the bodies; they imagined it as younger
and thus so to speak ruined everything, nay even more themselves. But now, as we have said, the
situation is entirely reversed. It is no longer possible that any single mortal man will be god-
fearing for long if he has not grasped these two principles mentioned, that the soul is the oldest
of everything which participates in coming-to-be (and that it is immortal, and that it rules over all
bodies), and moreover (secondly) he must grasp, as has now been said many times, the
intelligence of being which is in the stars, as mentioned, and in addition also the necessary
preliminary mathematical sciences."

46. Thus, says Burkert, astronomy became the foundation of religion (shades of Charles
Dupuis!). The Epinomis of Philippos of Opus (often attributed to Plato) expounded this even more
energetically. It takes seriously what is already hinted at in the Laws, the stars have claim to a real
cult with sacrifices, prayers, and festivals. The most powerful account of the new philosophical
world view, fundamental to all subsequent cosmos piety, had been presented earlier by Plato in
his Timaeus. This dialogue concerning the Universe, in which the spokesman is no longer
Socrates but a fictitious Pythagorean from southern Italy, develops into a hymn on the animated,
divine cosmos. Burkert says that for the later Plato: "The cosmos created after the model of the
'perfect living being' is itself a living being with soul and mind. Its soul, the 'world soul', is a
harmony of mathematical proportions which are manifested in the movements of the stars. The
stars are 'instruments of time'. Time itself, chronos, arose with the heavens in the image of
ungenerated, timeless eternity, aion. The visible cosmos is perfect insofar as something corporeal
can attain perfection. A second principle of necessity, the 'nurse of coming-to -be', also called space,
is a determining agent in all that is corporeal .... Within this comprehensive god further visible
gods are created in accordance with the perfect model, the stars in the heavens. The fixed stars are
divine living beings which move for ever in the same way in the same place .... The earth around
which they revolve is 'the first and oldest goddess within the heaven' In man himself Nous, the
power of intellectual comprehension, is planted as something divine, a daimon in man .... The
daimon's purpose is 'to direct us upward from earth to kinship with heaven': the upright posture
distinguishes man, pointing him upwards; man is rooted in heaven, a 'plant of heaven' on earth."

47. "Returning to metempsychosis," Burkert continues, "it is said that each soul has its own
star from which it has come and to which it will return." In the Timaeus, Plato says that the
Demiurge created human souls "equal in number to the stars and assigned each soul to a star." The
number of all souls remains constant. The Nous in the world stands against necessity, ananke; it
can rationally persuade necessity but not annihilate it. In the Laws, however, an evil world soul
appears which is engaged in an eternal struggle with the good world soul. "Since then," Burkert
says, "monistic and dualistic tendencies have been competing with each other in Platonism. For
all this, the Platonic project offers so much that is evident and intuitive that its enormous impact
is not surprising. Never before had gods been presented in such manifest clarity .... Man is at
home in a world which is the best possible; rigorous science and religious exaltation are the same.
Cosmic religion and star religion are henceforth, especially in the
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Hellenistic Age, the dominant form of enlightened piety ...... The Stoics in particular were
responsible for carrying this out in a detailed way; many of their equations became the common
property of all educated people down to the age of the Baroque: Zeus is the sky, Apollo the sun,
Artemis the moon, Demeter the earth. The planets, which are less obvious to the layman, failed to
attain a similar popularity; yet astrology, based on the calculation of their periods, became from
the Late Hellenistic period onwards, a dominant spiritual force as a new kind of divination with
scientific appeal. What was truly problematic about the success of cosmic religion, its connection
with a specific stage of natural science that would later be superseded, led to an explosion only
some two thousand years after Plato."354

48. Franz Strunz has written eloquently of the place of astrology and alchemy in human
culture. Their activities are grounded in a religiously mystic attitude, and in them are hidden "the
desire for a better world and the child's dream of the happiness of all mankind." In former times,
especially in the Hellenistic era, astrology was astral or cosmic religion, and it encompassed what
we now call astronomy, astrophysics, meteorology and geophysics. "It rules astronomy, it is not
its maidservant." It permeated the forerunners of anthropology, medicine and chemistry, as well
as many religious views. In those times, Strunk maintains, astrology, alchemy and mysticism
were bound together and can only be understood as an organic whole. "Empirical astrology and
alchemy are mysticism become practice and technology, although each imagines for itself world
pictures or philosophical myths..."

49. Mysticism is not a religion in itself, but a mode of religious life. It is characteristic of
mystic feeling that it flows into the measurelessness and boundlessness of the irrational and
incomprehensible, where language and concepts become unsayable and ungraspable. Mystics
consider with repugnance their earthly existence and their connections with the world and its
reality. They consider our times on earth to consist of difficult, burdensome passages to the
heights, journeys through death in order to arrive at life. Every mystic harbors a denial of the
reality of this world, which is apt to foster a disconsolate skepticism and pessimism about it. It is in
a mystic mode, says Strunk, that astrologers and alchemists customarily worked. "They do not
work dispassionately toward pure knowledge, but obtain for themselves spiritual stability and
irrationally established categories for making judgments such as thrive only in the atmosphere of the
mystic .... Astrologers and alchemists want a supernatural world which does not exist." In a
similar way, throughout the history of the natural sciences, up to our own day, we find an
alternation of mythologizing with rational criticism, and an antagonism between revelation and
experience permeating the natural sciences. "This is the key," Strunz says, "to an understanding of
the history of human error. The spiritual power of sham miracles has always been greater than the
dispassionate art of conceptual thought and proof, that leads men to a knowledge of things." 355

50. The historian Franz Cumont states beautifully how astrology came to enchant so many
people in later antiquity: "Astral divination was often a visionary's discipline. The theology on
which it rests has as a fundamental doctrine the idea of a kinship of a soul which warms and

354 Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, 1985, p. 325-329, translation by John Raffan of Griechische
Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche, 1977.
355 Franz Strunz, Astrologie, Alchemie, Mystik, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, 1928, p.
11, 12, 14, 21, 321-322, and generally, p. 287-328.
 144

vivifies our mortal bodies with the eternal fires which illuminate the heavens. This conception,
which, in all probability, was already held by the "Chaldeans", became that of their successors
and, in the 2nd century B.C., found in Hipparchus a convinced defender. Only this affinity with the
stars permits the human spirit, an ignited essence descended from the ether, to know the nature of
the radiant beings from which he has issued. The contemplation of the heavens becomes
therefore a communion. Leaving its material envelope, reason raises itself to the choir of the
sidereal gods and receives from them a revelation of their character and the causes of their
harmonious movements. It becomes the confidant of the stellar powers, who teach him the
cosmic phenomena, the course and duration of their revolutions, which rule with numbers
endowed with a suitable power .... But, above all, these mystics of the astral religion, who have
divined the secrets of the celestial spheres, acquire the power to dissipate the obscurity of the
future; they arrive at "the science of future things," they prophesy events to come, as if they were
gods. Astrology flatters itself that it can foresee the phenomena of nature and the careers of
humans with the same certainty as the recurrence of eclipses. This learned divination is for its
adepts the queen of the sciences .... " 356

51. This doesn't mean that Cumont thinks that the astrologers' theories were verified, or
verifiable. In another of his books, he says: "There is something tragic in this ceaseless attempt of
man to penetrate the mysteries of the future, in this obstinate struggle of his faculties to lay hold
on knowledge which evades his probe, and to satisfy his insatiable desire to foresee his destiny.
The birth and evolution of astrology, that desperate error on which the intellectual labors of
countless generations were spent, seems like the bitterest of disillusions. By establishing the
unchangeable character of the celestial revolutions the Chaldeans imagined that they understood
the mechanism of the universe, and had discovered the actual laws of life. The ancient beliefs in
the influence of the stars upon the earth were concentrated into dogmas of absolute rigidity. But
these dogmas were frequently contradicted by experience, which ought to have confirmed them.
Unable to bring themselves to deny the influence of the divine stars on the affairs of this world,
they invented new methods for the better determination of this influence, they complicated by
irrelevant data the problem, of which the solution had proved false, and thus there was piled up,
little by little in the course of ages a monstrous collection of complicated and often contradictory
doctrines, which perplex the reason, and whose audacious unsubstantiality will remain a perpetual
subject of astonishment. We should be confounded at the spectacle of the human mind losing itself
so long in the maze of these errors, did we not know how medicine, physics, and chemistry have
slowly groped their way before becoming experimental sciences, and what prolonged exertions
they have had to make in order to free themselves from the tenacious grasp of old
357
superstitions".

52. Cumont speaks of our souls as ignited essences which have descended from the ether,
and of this beautiful tradition (which was casually passed on to me by my mother when I was a
child, on an occasion of her sweeping the living room rug): "The Pythagoreans already believed
that the glittering particles of dust which danced ceaselessly in a sunbeam, were souls descending
from the ether, borne on the wings of light. They added that this beam, passing though the air and
through water down to its depths, gave life to all things on earth. This idea persisted under the
Empire in the theology of the mysteries. Souls descended upon the earth, and
356
Franz Cumont, L'Égypt des Astrologues, 1937, p.156- 8.
357 Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans, 1912, reprinted 1960, p. xiv.
 145

reascended after death toward the sky, thanks to the rays of the sun which served as the means of
transport." 358 And Cumont says elsewhere "... according to the popular ideas of the ancients, man
lives constantly surrounded by legions of spirits moving around him, tenuous demons or aerial
souls, whose favor he can win over and whose enmity he should dread. One finds similar beliefs
among all the Aryan people, in particular among the Hindus and Persians, and even among those
of other races, such as the Semites. In our day still, the desert Bedouins consider that a host of
djinns swarm and prowl around them, which intervene in the smallest incidents of their daily life
and whose malignity must be disarmed by means of offerings." 359 Cumont closes his book L'Égypt
des Astrologues (p. 206) by quoting an epigram often attributed to Ptolemy himself. It is said by
Neugebauer3 60 to have followed the table of contents of copies of the Almagest from at least the
3rd century A.D. on. It can also be found in the collection of ancient Greek poems, sayings, and
anecdotes known as the Greek Anthology. Neugebauer’s translation from the Greek runs:

Well do I know I am mortal, a creature of one day. But if

my mind follows the winding path of the stars, Then my
feet no longer rest on earth, but standing by Zeus
himself, I take my fill of ambrosia, the divine dish.

35 8 Cumont, ibid., p. 103.

359 Franz Cumont, Lux Perpetua, 1949, p. 79
360 Otto Neugebauer, A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy, Part Two, 1975, p. 835.
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Chapter 6. Earlier Christians and Astrology

1. Where do we go when we die? Wilhelm Gundel remarks in a chapter called "The

Firmament as the Eternal Home of Mankind" that numerous myths about the stars support the idea
that stars once were persons, and that everyone will someday go to heaven -- to an astronomical,
not a metaphorical or theological heaven. He relates, for example, a myth of an unspecified
African group. Once upon a time God forbade people to go up to heaven. Nevertheless some
people again climbed up to heaven from a high mountain. Thereupon God made the mountain sink
so they couldn't return. Now they lead eternal lives as star people. Thus the heavens are filled
with former people, or creatures like people, but for later persons the way up to heaven is forever
cut off. Gundel remarks also on the German folk belief that when a child dies, God makes a new
star, and observes that Hellenistic astrologers repeatedly said that those who believed in their
teachings wholeheartedly would become immortal after their earthly deaths, and live among the
star gods.361

2. And where did the angels come from? In the New Bible Dictionary 362 , under the entry
"Angel" we find the blunt statement that man's early thinking associated angels with stars. St.
Thomas Aquinas dealt at length with doctrines about the motions and nature of the planets, and
"throughout his many writings on these topics (Litt gives more than a hundred and thirty
passages on celestial influence alone) his angelology is there, waiting in the wings, directing his
thoughts, it seems to me." North remarks that while Aquinas's theories were rational and
systematic, they were not, to some, in the best tradition of natural philosophy. "But this," North
says, "is just another way of saying that one prefers light rays to angels."363

3. The notion of angels was for some asso ciated with the idea that all stars are of the same
kind, and for some Jews and Christians, the stars are "angels of light" (Lichtengel), or, if the stars
are not themselves angels, they are governed by angels. 364 Angels appear in the vision of Enoch,
in which Enoch sees "the sons of angels step into flames of fire", their robes white and shining
like snow. We read in the New Bible Dictionary that Enoch was the son of Jared and father of
Methuselah, and a man of outstanding sanctity who enjoyed close fellowship with God. He
became a popular figure in the period between the end of Old Testament prophecy and the coming
of Jesus. It appears that the legend of Enoch was elaborated in the Babylonian diaspora as a
counterpart to the antediluvian sages of Mesopotamian legend. "So Enoch became the initiator of
the art of writing 365, and the first wise man, who received heavenly revelations of the secrets of
the universe and transmitted them in writing to later generations. In the earlier tradition his
scientific wisdom is prominent, acquired on journeys through the heavens with angelic guides,
and including astronomical, cosmographical and meteorological lore, as well as the solar calendar
used at Qumran. He was also God's prophet against the fallen angels. Later tradition (2nd century
B.C.E.) emphasizes his ethical teaching and especially his apocalyptic revelations of the course of
world history, down to the last judgment. In the Similitudes
361 Wilhelm Gundel, Sternglaube, Sternreligion und Sternorakel, 1959, p. 25-26.
362 1982, edited by J. D. Douglas et al.
363 J. D. North, "Medieval Concepts of Celestial Influence: A Survey", in Astrology, Science and Society,
Historical Essays, 1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 13, 14; the work by T. Litt is Les Corps célestes dans l'univers de
Thomas d'Aquin, 1963.
364
Gundel, ibid., p. 48.
3 6 5 Why is writing so often associated with the stars in ancient times?
 147

(1 Enoch 37-71) he is identified with the Messianic Son of Man (71:14-17), and some later
Jewish traditions identified him with the nearly divine figure Metatron... Early Christian
apocalyptic writings frequently expect his return with Elijah before the End." 366

4. In the apocryphal scripture Ecclesiasticus, Enoch is mentioned in Chapter 44, the one
which begins "Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us." Charles M. Laymon
gives a conjectural reconstruction367 : "Few like Enoch have been created on earth, an example of
knowledge to all generations. He walked with the Lord, and also he was taken up from the
earth." In the New Testament, in Hebrews 11:5, we have: "By faith Enoch was taken up so that
he should not see death; and he was not found, because God had taken him." Genesis 5:21-24 has:
"When Enoch had lived sixty-five years he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with
God after the birth of Methuselah three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus
all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; and he
was not, for God took him." 368 365 days = 1 year, 365 years =?

5. Gundel, in describing the structure of the Paradiso of Dante's Divine Comedy remarks
that in the European Middle Ages, Dante (1265-1321) above all made use of the residence of
men's souls in the stars. Each of Dante's planets is a paradise of its own. The souls in each planet
praise God and sing songs honoring the Virgin Mary. Pure light and flawless brilliance make up
the nature of the souls dwelling in the stars. Their substance is described as being like shining
cloud, but it is much thicker than cloud, and hard and polished like diamond. The souls are clothed
in brilliant raiment, their faces shine radiantly, with the colors of the planets. Thus the souls on the
Sun are like burning suns, and on Mars like rubies in which flaming sunbeams glow. In the
Paradiso, Dante travels to the Empyrean realm through 9 spheres or heavens: the 7 planetary
heavens, the heaven of the fixed stars containing the souls of the saints, and the primum mobile,
the first moving heaven, containing the angels.

6. Gundel observes that prayers to the sun, moon and stars are found in the pyramid texts of
the 3rd millenium before Christ, and are found in coffin and temple texts through the following
millenia up to the end of antiquity. Probably prayers to heaven -- physical heaven, to start with - -
were among the earliest of prayers, and they are, of course, still to be found among Christians, as
well as the members of many other religions. Moreover, the boundary between prayers and appeals
for intercession to deities, on the one hand, and magical charms or incantations to spirits, on the
other, is sometimes indistinct. 369

7. In these and other ways Christianity shows aspects of astral religion. Still, many
Christians have been opposed to astrolatry and astrology from early on. One reason for this is
that it can be considered to be forbidden by Scripture. In Genesis 1.14-18, we find: "And God
said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let
them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the firmament
of the heavens to give light upon the earth.' And it was so. And God made the two

366 New Bible Dictionary, 1982, under "Enoch".

367 This may be displaced from Chapter 49. The reconstruction is given on p. 575 of the Interpreter's One-
Volume Commentary on the Bible, 1971, edited by Charles M. Laymon. I have slightly altered this quotation.
368 Revised Standard Version.

3 6 9 Gundel, ibid., p. 39, 55.

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great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars
also. And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth, to rule over
the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness."370

8. Bernhard Anderson, remarks on this passage: "The sun, moon, and stars are not divine
powers that control man's destiny as was believed in antiquity, but are only lights. Implicitly
worship of the heavenly host is forbidden."371 Indeed, we find explicit condemnation of this
practice in Deuteronomy 4, 2, Kings 23, Jeremiah 8, and Zephaniah 1. In Deuteronomy 4.19, we
read: "And beware lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon
and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and worship them and serve them, things
which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven." This might be
interpreted as forbidding both astrology and astronomy, in the modern senses of these words.
Strictly speaking, it appears to forbid worship of celestial objects. One might use them for
navigation, or to predict seasonal changes or individual destinies, for example, without worshiping
them, unless one considers an intense devotion to the study of heavenly bodies for any purpose
whatever a form of worship.

9. In the Bible, host of heaven may refer to celestial bodies, or to angelic beings. M. T.
Fermer writes: "This phrase ... occurs about 15 times, in most cases implying the object of heathen
worship (Dt. 4:19, etc.). The two meanings 'celestial bodies' and 'angelic beings' are inextricably
intertwined No doubt to the Hebrew mind the distinction was superficial, and the
celestial bodies were thought to be closely associated with heavenly beings ....... The Bible
certainly suggests that angels of different ranks have charge of individuals, and of nations; no
doubt in the light of modern cosmology this concept, if retained at all (as biblically it must be),
ought properly to be extended, as the dual sense of the phrase 'host of heaven' suggests, to the
oversight of the elements of the physical universe -- planets, stars and nebulae." Fermer goes on to
say that the phrase Lord of hosts is used nearly 300 times: "It is a title of might and power, used
frequently in a military or apocalyptic context .... It is thought by some to have arisen as a title of
God associated with his lordship over the 'host' of Israel; but its usage, especially in the prophets,
clearly implies a relationship to the 'host of heaven' in its angelic sense, and this could well be the
original connotation."372

10. The reason given for not worshiping the stars in Deuteronomy 4.19 is that they aren't
particular enough. One must worship the god of Israel, and not objects which belong to everyone.
The next verse in Deuteronomy (4.20) reads: "But the Lord has taken you, and brought you forth
out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own possession, as at this day."
Deuteronomy 17.2-5 prescribes strong punishment for sun, moon and star worship: "If there is
found among you, within any of your towns which the Lord your God gives you, a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, and has
gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of
heaven, which I have forbidden, and it is told you and you hear of it; then you shall inquire
diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abominable thing has been done in

370
Revised Standard Version.
371 Comment in the New OxfordAnnotated Bible (1973), p. 2.
372
M. T. Fermer, article "host, host of heaven" in New Bible Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1982, edited by J. D. Douglas, et
al.
 149

Israel, then you shall bring forth to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing,
and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones."

11. In 2 Kings 21:1-3, we are told about a phase in the struggle of the Jews to replace earlier
religions and to resist imposition of alien religions. Manasseh became king of Judah when he was
12 and reigned for 55 years: "And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the
abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. For he
rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he erected altars for Ba'al,
and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and
served them." At which the Lord said by way of his prophets: "I am bringing upon Jerusalem and
Judah such evil that the ears of every one who hears of it will tingle ... and I will wipe Jerusalem as
one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down."(2 Kings 21:12-13). 2 Chronicles 33:12-13
adds that Manasseh prayed to the Lord, "and humbled himself greatly before the God of his
fathers." God received his plea, and restored him to Jerusalem after a captivity in Babylon. "Then
Manasseh knew that the Lord was God." But Amon, the son of Manasseh, did the same as his
father, and was killed by his servants. (2 Kings 21:19-26, 22:1-22; Chronicles 33:21-25, 34:1-2).
The people of Judah killed the conspirators, and made Josiah, the son of Amon, king. Josiah "did
what was right in the eyes of the Lord", and turned back to Yahweh.

12. In 2 Kings 23.4-5, we read that Josiah burned "all the vessels made for Ba'al, for
Asherah, and for all the host of heaven" and "deposed the idolatrous priests "who burned incense to
Ba'al, to the sun, and the moon, and the constellations, and all the host of heavens." Jeremiah 8.1-
2 has: "At that time, says the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its princes, the
bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall
be brought out of their tombs; and they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host
of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and they have sought and
worshiped; and they shall not be gathered or buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the
ground." In the book of the prophet Zephaniah, doom is proclaimed for Judah, and in Zephaniah
1.2,5, we read: "I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth," says the Lord",
and among the priests to be destroyed are "those who bow down on the roofs to the host of the
heavens." These condemnations of astral religion seem to be made chiefly on behalf of
eliminating competing gods, or at any rate competing priests and kings.

13. It appears that there was a migration of Hebrews from the north, perhaps from Palestine
or the Syrian desert, to southern Arabia in the first millenium B.C. or maybe much earlier. This is
the region now called Yemen, of which there are at present two separate political entities. During
the first millenium, this region maintained a considerable trade in incense and spices. According
to one tradition, the Queen of Sheba came from a section of this region called Saba. The people of
this civilization were known as the Sabaeans, Minaeans, Qatabaneans and Hadramauteans.

14. "The evidence goes to prove," says James Montgomery, "that the ruling classes which
made the South-Arabian civilization ca me from the north. There the Semitic genius produced in a
land of unique natural possibilities an artificial civilization that compares with the civilization of
Babylonia, only far more wholly Semitic, for in Babylonia the Semites built upon the alien
 150

Sumerian civilization." The religion of this pre-Islamic culture was polytheistic. The gods, or els,
were similar to the baals of Canaan. Pre-eminent among the gods was "a definite astral triad of
highest deities", consisting of "Moon, Sun, and Morning (or Evening) Star, a family group of
Father, Mother, and Son corresponding to the Babylonian trinity, Shamash, Sin, Ishtar." 373

15. What this "pure" Semitic religion of southern Arabia has do with religions further north
is hard to say. There has been much progress in archeological research in this region since
Montgomery wrote in 1934, but this hasn't resulted in much light being shed on the religious
practices of this culture. The southern religion may have been related to that of the Canaanites of the
Bible, who preceded the Israelites in Palestine. It may be that in some ways the Canaanite religion
was a forerunner of the Hebrew religion. John Romer observes: "Just as the faith of biblical Israel
was housed inside the traditional architecture of [Bronze Age] Canaan so some of the Old
374
Testaments's oldest passages, its liturgy and Psalms are also rooted in Canaanite literature." We
may speculate that the astral component of Canaanite religion to which the Hebrews were so
opposed was similar to that of the Semites of southern Arabia. Again, the correspondence of the
the south Arabian trinity with that of the Babylonians suggests a link with ancient Mesopotamian
religions. For our purposes, we need not involve ourselves in the intricate and frustrating history
and pre-history of Palestine and Arabia. It is sufficient to know that there was a potent astral
religion throughout the "Old Testament" regions before Israel became a nation.

1 6 . Theodore Wedel characterizes early and medieval Christian attitudes toward prediction

by natural means in this way: "The Christians maintained, in general, that all divinatory arts, and,
above all, astrology, were inventions of the devil, and could be carried on only by the aid of
demons. This theory arose early, and remained throughout the Middle Ages the argument of last
resort .... It was an easy saving of argument, therefore, to admit at the outset the possibility of
astrological prediction, and, at the same time, to prohibit its use by asserting that it could only be
accomplished through diabolic aid. But danger lurked in pushing this theory too far; for how
could even demons read the future in the stars unless it was written there? 3 7 5

17. The early Christian theologian Origen was opposed to the art of casting horoscopes, and
to the theory of the magnus annus, according to which, when the celestial bodies all return to their
original positions after the lapse of some thousands of years, history will begin to repeat itself and
the same events will occur and the same persons live over again. Both of these views were
attributed to Celsus by Origen in his Contra Celsum (1st half of 3rd century C.E.). Origen rejects
them on the grounds that to admit their truth is to annihilate free will. But, as Thorndike says,
Origen is far from having freed himself from astrological attitudes toward the stars, and still
shows vestiges of the pagan tendency to worship them as divinities. He grants reasoning faculties
and a certain amount of prophetic powerr to the stars, but refuse to permit worship of them. Rather
he believes that "the sun himself and moon and stars pray to the supreme God through his only
begotten Son". Elsewhere Origen says that stars can even sin. In a fragment of a commentay on
Genesis, he holds like Philo Judaeus that men were instructed in the meaning of the stars by the
fallen angels. He argues at length that divine foreknowledge does not imply

373 James Montgomery, Arabia and the Bible, 1934, p. 15 1 -2.

374 John Romer, Testament, 1988, p. 78.
375 Theodore Otto Wedel, The Mediaeval Attitude toward Astrology, Particularly in England, 1920, p. 16- 17.
 151

necessity. Nevertheless, God instituted the stars as signs of the future, but he only intended for
angels to read them, and considered it best that people remain ignorant of their futures. Evil
spirits, however, taught men the art of astrology. However, Origen believes that the art is so
difficult and requires such superhuman accuracy that the predictions of astrologers are more
likely to be wrong than right, "for it is a much greater task," he says, "than lies within human
power to learn truly from the motion of the stars what each person will do and suffer." 376

18. Tamsyn Barton in her description of the the position of Origen says: "Origen (185/86 –
254/5 5), who remained immensely influential despite his later condemnation, illustrates the
nature of the struggle between the astrologers and the church in his Commentary on Genesis. In
his uneasy compromises he shows that astrology was a serious rival. Origen summarizes his
arguments as follows: '1) How our freedom is safeguarded when God knows in advance for all
eternity the acts that each man is judged to have accomplished. 2) How the stars are not agents,
but signs. 3) That humans cannot have accurate knowledge of these signs, but that they are
revealed for the sake of powers greater than humans. 4) The reason for which God has created
these signs is in order to obtain knowledge for the powers will be examined.' (23.6.20-30) He
elaborates a Christian version of astral fatalism with his notion of the divine writing. This moving
writing, formed of letters and characters traced by God’s hand in the sky so that the dynameis
theiae (divine powers) can read them, prefigures all cosmic events from creation to
consummation. This is done to instruct the celestial powers and make them happy, in uncovering
for them all dicine mysteries and all kind of knowledge and in some cases to intimate to them their
precise orders for the missions entrusted to them (20.29-39). Interestingly, he also allows evil
powers access to this knowledge, remarking explicitly that, if demons execute actions prefigured by
the stars, they do not do so because they read the 'writing' to discover the will of God but only
because they act maliciously of their own volition, as the good powers act freely when they follow
orders (21.1-12). He also seems to admit that stars are not inert objects manipulated by the divine
but, rather, animated, intelligent entities. Saint Pamphilus, in his work In Defense of Origen,
affirms that this doctrine was not yet heretical." 377

19. Among the ancient Greeks, Carneades (c. 213-129 B.C.E.), founder of a school of
philosophy called the New Academy, argued against fatalistic astrol ogy on a number of grounds.
Although Carneades, like Socrates, wrote nothing, his oral arguments have been preserved by
others. He used the familiar argument that twins, although born under the same signs, need not
have the same destiny. It was noted early that the stars move very quickly around the earth, and
twins are not in fact born under quite the same planetary influences. However, Carneades might
have replied to this with another of his criticisms, that it is humanly impossible to fix the exact
time of birth or conception. Carneades' argument based on the destruction of morality had an
especially forceful and lasting influence on neo-Platonists and Christian theologians. He held that
astrological fatalism must be wrong, since if it were right, it would be the ruin of morality and
piety, of responsibility as well as irresponsibility, of laws and justice and punishment, of virtue as
well as vice, of praise as well as blame, of modesty as well as shame. Since these exist, fatalism
fails. One might reply to this with the argument of Zeno the Stoic: moral as well as immoral acts
are preordained, and so are responsibility and irresponsibility, the passing and

376 Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 1923 -1958), v. 1, 1923, p. 456-458.
377 Tamsyn Barton, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Physiognomics, and Medicine under the Roman
Empire, 1994
 152

obeying and breaking of laws, justice and punishment, virtue and vice, praise and blame,
modesty and shame. Nevertheless, Carneades' arguments against astrology were repeated by a
legion of Christian theologians, as has been traced by David Amand. 378

20. In the early centuries of the Christian era, Amand says, following the blossoming of
Stoicism, the heart-breaking nightmare of the heima rmen e -- the absolutely necessary and
indissoluble succession of causes and effects in the past, present and future -- terrified masses of
people devoted to the official polytheistic cults, and led them to seek deliverance in the mystery
religions, and it terrified innumerable Christians who in the secrecy of their consciences were led to
doubt their redemption by Christ. Many philosophers and theologians of antiquity, other than
Stoics, were deeply committed to proving that our wills are free, and to refuting the demoralizing
theory of sidereal fatalism. Christian doctors, in particular, defended with great vigor human
freedom of choice as a most excellent -- but most perilous -- gift of God. "The cultural hist ory of
antiquity in its decline would be incomplete," says Amand, "without a chapter entitled: 'The bad
dream of the astrological h eima rmen e and the battle for moral freedom.'" 3 7 9 For Christians, the
problem was complicated by the doctrine that while men may not know the future, God does.

21. St. Augustine, for example, says that when ordinary men hear the word 'fate' "ordinary
usage leads them to think of nothing but the influence of the position of the stars at the moment
when a child is born, or conceived." Augustine continues: "Those, however, who believe that the
stars, apart from the will of God, determine what we do, what goods we have, or what evils we
suffer, must be thrown out of court, not only by adherents of the true religion, but also by those
who choose to worship gods of any sort, false gods though they be. For what is the effect of this
belief except to persuade men not to worship or pray to any god at all? As against these rash
assertions, blasphemous and irreligious as they are, we Christians declare both that God knows
all things before they happen, and that it is by our own free will that we act, whenever we feel
and know that a thing is done by us of our own volition. But we do not say that all things come to
pass by fate. No indeed, we say that nothing comes to pass by fate. For the word fate is commonly
used of the position of the stars at the moment of conception or birth, and we have shown that
word means nothing, but is the frivolous assertion of an unreality .... It is not true, then, that there
is no reality in our will just because God foresaw what would be in our will .... Therefore we are
in no way compelled to abolish free will when we keep the foreknowledge of God, or
blasphemously to deny that God foreknows the future because we keep free will. Instead we
embrace both truths; with faith and trust we assert both. The former is required for correct belief,
the latter for right living. And there is no right living if there is no correct belief in God. Far be it
then, from us, in order to enjoy free will, to deny the foreknowledge of him by whose assistance
alone we are free, or shall ever be free Nay, it is precisely because of foreknowledge that
there is no doubt that man himself sins when he sins. For he whose foreknowledge cannot be
mistaken foresaw that neither fate, nor fortune, nor anything else but the man himself would sin.
If he chooses not to sin, he certainly does not sin,

378 D a vi d Am a n d , Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque, Recherches sur la survivance de

l'argumentation morale antifataliste de Carnéade chez lesphilosophes grecs et les théologi ens chréti ens des
quatres premiers siêcles, 1 9 4 5 .
379 i b i d . , p . 5 8 7- 5 8 8 a n d p . 7 .
 153

and this choice not to sin was also foreseen by God."380 Thus while Augustine rejects
astrological prediction in the name of free will, he embraces a doctrine of predestination and
divine foreknowledge.

22. The limits of free will must be carefully observed, says Augustine. He writes in a letter
to Hilarius: "... our free will is able to perform good works if it is helped from above, which
happens as a result of humble petition and confession; whereas, if it is deprived of divine help, it
may excel in knowledge of the Law, but it will have no solid foundation of justice, and will be
puffed up with impious pride and deadly vanity This free will will be free in proportion as it
is sound, and sound in proportion as it is submissive to divine mercy and grace. Therefore, it
prays with faith and says: 'Direct my paths according to thy word, and let no iniquity have
dominion over me.' It prays, it does not promise; it confesses, it does not declare itself; it begs for
the fullest liberty, it does not boast of its own power." 381

23. Mircea Eliade says: "Of course, astrology, the hope that one can know the future, has
always been popular with the rich and powerful -- with kings, princes, popes, etc. -- particularly
from the Renaissance on. One may add that the belief in the determination of destiny by the
position of the planets illustrates, in the last analysis, another defeat of Christianity. Indeed, the
Christian Fathers fiercely attacked the astrological fatalism dominant during the last centuries of
the Roman Empire. 'We are above Fate,' wrote Tatian; 'the Sun and the Moon are made for us!' In
spite of this theology of human freedom, astrology has never been extirpated in the Christian
world. But never in the past did it reach the proportions and prestige it enjoys in our times." 382 It
is doubtful that astrology, and astral religion, is as great a force right nowadays as it was in the
Hellenistic era, but when Eliade was writing (mid 1970's) it was enjoying one of its recurrent
upsurges.

24. Eliade speculates on reasons for the popularity of astrology: "... the discovery that your
life is related to astral phenomena does confer a new meanng on your existence. You are no
longer merely the anonymous individual described by Heidegger and Sartre, a stranger thrown
into an absurd and meaningless world, condemned to be free, as Sartre used to say, with a
freedom confined to your situation and conditioned by your historical moment. Rather, the
horoscope reveals to you a new dignity: it shows how intimately you are related to the entire
universe. It is true that your life is determined by the movements of the stars, but at least this
determinant has an incomparable grandeur. Although, in the last analysis, a puppet pulled by
invisible ropes and strings, you are nevertheless a part of the heavenly world. Besides, this
cosmic predetermination of your existence constitutes a mystery: it means that the universe
moves on according to a preestablished plan; that human life and history itself follow a pattern
and advance progressively toward a goal. This ultimate goal is secret or beyond human
understanding; but at least it gives meaning to a cosmos regarded by most scientists as the result of
blind hazard, and it gives sense to the human existence declared by Sartre to be de trop. This
parareligious dimension of astrology is even considered superior to the existing religions, because
it does not imply any of the difficult theological problems: the existence of a personal or

380
Augustine, Civitate Dei contra paganos, City of God Against the Pagans, 413- 426 C.E., translation by William
Green, 1963, of v. i, p. 134-135; v.ix, p. 174-175; v.x, p. 184 -187.
381 Augustine, Letters, translated by Sister Wilfrid Parsons, 1953, v. 3, p. 321, 323-324.
382 Mircea Eliade, Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions, 1976, p. 59.
 154

transpersonal God, the enigma of Creation, the origin of evil, and so on. Following the
instructions of your horoscope, you feel in harmony with the universe and do not have to bother
with hard, tragic, or insoluble problems, At the same time, you admit, consciously or
unconsciously, that a grand, through incomprehensible, cosmic drama displays itself and that you
are a part of it; accordingly, you are not de trop ." 383 One may wonder to what extent resistance to
notions or the existence of free will and indeterminism, especially in human affairs, is motivated
by yearnings for security, or for being a part of an astral divine plan.

25. The Church continued to vigorously oppose astrology throughout the Middle Ages, and
since astrology and astronomy were intertwined, the opposition sometimes spilled over to
astronomy. Pierre Duhem says, speaking of medieval Italian astrologers: "To deny human
freedom, to deny the miraculous action of Providence in the world, to use superstitious divinations
and magical operations, was to contradict all Christian teaching and to contravene the most strict
prescriptions of the Church. Among the adepts of astrology, then, and the ministers of
Catholicism, a struggle was inevitable. Sometimes it was violent. The unbelieving astrologers
who enlivened the spirit of the Court of Naples harshly attacked orthodox doctrine; and the
mendicant monks, Dominicans and Franciscans, zealously defended dogma. The Church raged
against impenitent error with the toughness which was the rule of the time, and over the history of
Italian astronomy in the Middle Ages the flame of the stake sometimes threw its bloody gleam." 384

26. The prime example used by Duhem of such a Neapolitan astrologer is Guido Bonatti
(born before 1223, died 1296 or 1297), who wrote a popular book on astrology, and was
vigorously opposed by a celebrated preaching friar, John of Vincence (Jean de Vicence). One
can't help noticing that Bonatti lived to an old age, unpunished by the Church. Pico della
Mirandola later (1495) characterized Bonatti's work as puerile and only suitable for fools.
However, Duhem describes Bonatti's arguments, meant to show that the possible, which lies
between the necessary and the impossible, is not the contingent, as Aristotle and Abu Ma'shar
had said, but something like the necessary while it is still potential. This may be wrong, but
Bonatti's arguments, as quoted by Duhem, don't sound foolish.

27. Duhem himself speaks admiringly of the views of Avicenna (985-1036 C.E.) and Al
Gazali (1058-1111 C.E.) in which a more subtle version of this idea is embedded in an elaborate
philosophical and theological system, which was of paramount influence in the Muslim world,
and had considerable effect in the Christian world. A basic motive of Avicenna and Al Gazali was
to elucidate the relations between God, the celestial intelligences belonging to the heavenly
spheres, and the bodies and souls of the sublunary world. Duhem says: "For Aristotle, in any
substance of the sublunary world, there is a matter which exists potentially and a form which
exists actually. For Avicenna and Al Gazali, in all being after the First Cause, there is an essence
which is simply possible and an existence which a creative cause makes necessary." 385

28. In this last formulation, the First Cause and creative cause are allowed for, and a
mechanism for turning the possible into the necessary is furnished, but the underlying intent to

383 Eliade, ibid., p. 61.

384
Pierre Duhem, L e S y s t è me d u M o n d e , 1913, v. 4, p. 187-1 88.
385 ibid., v. 4, p. 495.
 155

show that everything has a cause (First Cause excepted) resembles that of Bonatti. Furthermore:
"Like Peripatetism [Aristotelianism], like Stoicisn, like Hellenic Neoplatonism, the Arabic
Neoplatonism makes all of its metaphysics lead to the justification of the principle which the
astrologers claim for themselves. With what rigor Avicenna develops it! With what care he
submits to it everything which happens in the world, even what seems to happen by chance, even
the decisions of our wills." The principle, in brief, is that everything for which existence has been
preceded by non-existence, including voluntary decisions, has a cause; and that terrestrial events
arise from celestial ones, which in turn proceed in a necessary manner from the necessity of the
divine will. 386

29. Despite Christian opposition to astrology, there were Christian writers who promoted it
from early on. For example, there was Firmicus, more completely Julius Firmicus Maternus, who
converted to Christianity in the time of the first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great (4th
century C.E.). He wrote a work called Math esis, on the casting of horoscopes, which was well-
known throughout medieval times and later. As we would expect of a Christian, he was not a
fatalist, and he believed in one supreme God. According to Thorndike: "Firmicus provides not
only for divine government of the universe and creation of the world and man, but also for prayer to
God and for human free will, since by the divinity of the soul we are able to resist in some
measure the decrees of the stars. He also holds that human laws and moral standards are not
rendered of no avail by the force of the stars but are very useful to the soul in its struggle by the
power of the divine mind against the vices of the body." Thorndike remarks that the astrologer
Hephaestion of Thebes, who wrote later in the fourth century, seems also to have been a Christian,
so Firmicus seems not to have been a solitary case or an anomaly.387

30. Firmicus makes specific predictions which Thorndike takes to be revealing of the state
of the society around Firmicus. For example, the evidence of the Mathesis suggests that most
people in what we see to have been declining Rome were not conscious of the the intellectual
decadence and lack of interest in science generally imputed to them.388 It seems that mathematics
and medicine were important factors in 4th century culture, along with the rhetorical studies
whose role may have been over- estimated in recent times, perhaps by scholars uninterested in the
sciences.

31. During the flowering of Arabian culture in the couple of hundred years after the rise of
Islam, there were many Arabian astrologers, and some of their writings strongly influenced
Christians during the European Middle Ages, chiefly starting from around 1100. Alkindi and
Albumasar (Abu Ma'shar) (9th century C.E.) are two especially famous names. Another,
somewhat lesser known, was Thebit ben Corat (or Thabit ibn Kurrah, Abu Al Hasan, etc., etc.),
(also 9th century C.E.). Roger Bacon (c. 12 14-1292) alludes to him as "the supreme philosopher
among all Christians [!], who has added in many respects, speculative as well as practical, to the
work of Ptolemy." However, Thorndike says he was not a Mohammedan, but a heathen or pagan,
a member of the sect of Sabians, whose chief seat was at his birth-place, Harran. These are
presumably descendants of the Sabaeans of southern Arabia we mentioned earlier.

386
Duhem, ibid., p. 493 -494.
387 Lynn Thorndike, ibid., v. 1, p. 531, 535.
388 ibid., p. 538.
 156

32. The Sabians, Thorndike says, appear to have continued the paganism and astrology of
Babylonia, but also to have accepted Hermetic traditions from Egypt, and some Gnostic and Neo -
Platonic doctrines. They laid special stress on the spirits of the planets, to whom they prayed and
made sacrifices and suffumigations. Days on which planets reached their culminating points were
celebrated as festivals. They observed houses and stations of the planets, their risings and setting,
conjunctions and oppositions, and their rule over certain hours of the day and night. Some planets
were masculine, others feminine, some lucky, others unlucky. They were related to different
metals, and different members of the human body were placed under different signs of the zodiac.
Each planet had its own appropriate figures and forms, and ruled over specified climates, regions
and things in nature. Most of this, however, is astrological commonplace, whether of pagans,
Mohammedans or Christians. It was only in worshiping the spirits of the planets and denying the
existence of one God, and in their practice of sacrificial divination, that the Sabians could be
distinguished as heathen or pagan. Thebit became one of the Caliph's astronomers in Bagdad,
where he founded his Sabian community. He was famed above all as a philosopher, but most of
his philosophical works are lost. Some geometrical treatises by him are extant, also a work on
weights, and four astronomical treatises, evidently of no great originality. He was also the author
of a work cited by numerous medieval authorities, on the construction of astronomical or
astrological images for various ends. This was said by Thebit, on the authority of Aristotle and
Ptolemy, to be the "acme of astrology". 389

33. Theodore Wedel observes that in the astrological treatises of such Arabian writers as
Albumasar, Abenragel and Alchabitius, judicial astrology as Ptolemy had described it occupied a
position of minor importance. Instead, emphasis was on interrogationes and electiones. For the
interrogationes, rules were given with which an astrologer could answer questions about such
matters as identifying a thief, the location of missing objects or persons, trustworthiness of an
associate, or the wealth of a prospective marriage partner. For the electiones, rules were given for
determining propitious moments for actions. These might be applied to even small details, such as
the proper time for boarding a ship, writing a letter, or cutting one's fingernails.390

34. Richard Lemay has argued that a work of Albumasar, whose name more accurately and
completely was Abu Ma'shar Ja'far ben Muhammad ben 'Umar al-Balkhi, was very likely the
single most important original source of Aristotle's theories of nature for European scholars,
starting a little before the middle of the 12th century.391 It was not until later in the 12th century
that the original books of Aristotle on nature began to become available in Latin. The works of
Aristotle on logic had been known earlier, and Aristotle was generally recognized as "the master of
logic". But during the course of the 12th century, Aristotle was transformed into the "master of
those who know", and in particular a master of natural philosophy, or the scientific theory of
natural things. It is especially interesting that the work of Abu Ma'shar in question is a treatise on
astrology. Its Latin title is Introductorium in Astronmiam, a translation of the Arabic Kitab al-
mudkhal al-kabir ila 'ilm ahkam an-nujum, written in Baghdad in the year 848 A.D. It was
translated into Latin first by John of Seville in 1133, and again, less literally and abridged, by
Hermann of Carinthia in 1140.

389 Thorndike, ibid., v. 1, p. 66 1-662.

390
Wedel, ibid., p. 53- 54.
391Richard Lemay, Abu Ma 'shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century, The Recovery of Aristotle's
Natural Philosophy through Arabic Astrology, 1962.
 157

35. Lemay says: "Genuine peripatetic [i.e., Aristotelian] doctrines in the Introductorium are
hopelessly mingled together with empirical notions common among psychologists, physicians and
other popular practitioners of Oriental society while, on the other hand, an Aristotelian 'scientific'
basis is very cleverly set up in support of astrology." (Lemay, ibid., p. xxix.) Thus, to begin with,
the Christian scholars of Europe associated the natural science of Aristotle with astrology. This
sheds light on the nature of the condemnations of Aristotle by Church authorities early in the 13th
century, which emphasized pernicious doctrines of astrological fatalism and pantheistic
cosmology, and on the later integration of Aristotle into Christian doctrine made by such scholars
as Robert Grosseteste, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. Lemay goes so far as to say that
"during the thirteenth century, the authority of Abu Ma'shar on astronomy-astrology, and on
cosmology, disputed the first place with Aristotle himself", and quotes a marginal note in a
medieval manuscript to the effect that Ptolemy in the Almagest is the authority for the courses of
the planets, and Alfraganus for their geometry, but on the nature of the planets and their influence
on the lower world, Abu Ma'shar is set above Aristotle. 392

36. During the course of the 12th century, most of the translations into Latin from Arabic
made by European scholars were of astrological material. As a result, says Lemay: "Astrology
became a superior branch of physics, a sort of provisional metaphysics to be modified and
displaced only in the thirteenth century at the time of the full adoption of Aristotle's Metaphysics
and Physics. The twelfth century intellectual effervescence stirred up by Arabic learning opened a
transitional period in natural philosophy based principally on the premisses of astrology." 393 The
kind of basic premise Lemay has in mind is the one derived by Abu Ma'shar from the works of
Aristotle, to the effect that every motion in the physical universe depends strictly and
deterministically on the motion of celestial objects, especially the planets (including the sun and
moon), which are alive and act as agents of God.

37. It appears, then, that the partisans of natural science in the 12th century, Christians
included, were saturated with astrology. Lemay says: "The names of Adelard of Bath, John of
Seville, Hermann of Carinthia, William of Conches, Bernard Silvester, Roger of Hereford, Daniel
of Morley, Raymond of Marseilles, Robert of Chester, Alfred of Sareshel, Alanus de Insulis and
Raoul of Longchamp. are all associated one way or another with the rising interest in the natural
Aristotle; all were firm believers as well in the validity of astrological science. Twelfth century
scholars have long been studied with the conviction that they were entirely absorbed in logical
disputes, or bent on finding in nature a preordained imitation of biblical or theological concepts.
Dispassionate examination of the rich manuscript materials remaining from this period has
resulted in nothing less than a re-discovery of some major aspects of twelfth century intellectual
life. Whether in astrology or alchemy, in medicine or mathematics, in geometry, botany or
mineralogy, etc., the intellectual pursuits of twelfth century scholars appear to have ranged well
beyond the pale of religious thought; theirs were the permanent interests which men of all times
have shown in the physical laws of their natural habitat. The dedication of astrologers to their
discipline represented a far more serious preoccupation than the mere mention of their science
would incline modern historians to imagine. It has always been a great

392
Lem a y, ib id., p. xxxv.
393 ibid., p .8 .
 158

mistake of historians of medieval thought to minimize or totally to overlook this field of inquiry
as of nor importance or having negligible bearing upon the intellectual outlook of the time." 3 9 4

38. In the 8 volumes of his A History of Magic and Experimental Science (1923 -1958),
Thorndike discusses the attitudes toward astrology of a host of medieval writers and leaders. For
example, there is Saint Hildegard (1098-1179) of Bingen. At first sight, she is a strong opponent of
astrology. She calls the mat hematici "deadly instructors", and warns that men "should not seek
signs of the future in either stars or fire or birds or any other creature". On the other hand, she
emphasizes the influence of the moon on natural phenomena, and also the passions of men via
their "humors" (fluids), which determine to some fair extent their character and even something of
their fates. There is, in her Causae et curae, a list of predictions for each day of the moon of the
type of person who will be conceived on that day. 395

39. John of Salisbury (1 120?-1 180) was thoroughly opposed to astrology, but got into some
difficulty trying to reconcile God's omniscience and foreknowledge with fatal necessity. 396 Of the
Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135-1204), Thorndike says: "That Maimonides was well
acquainted with the art of astrology may be inferred from his assertion that he has read every
book in Arabic on the subject. Maimonides not only believed the stars were living, animated
beings and that there were as many pure intelligences as there were spheres, but he states twice in
the Guide for the Perplexed that all philosophers agree that this inferior world of generation and
corruption is ruled by the virtues and influences of the celestial spheres. While their influence is
diffused through all things, each star or planet also has particular species especially under its
influence."397 For some reason, Maimonides identified the control of human destinies by the
constellations with the rule of blind chance. Maimonides also believed that God has planned all
things in advance, and that this is incompatible with things occurring fortuitously. John of
Salisbury, on the other hand, attacked both Epicureans and Stoics on the ground that the former
believe in blind chance and the latter in strict necessity, and both are wrong. It's not clear from
Thorndike's description whether he was talking about everything happening by chance for
Epicureans, and by necessity for Stoics, or just about some things for each.

40. Robert Grosseteste (1 168?-1253) was Bishop of Lincoln. A Franciscan chronicler,

Salimbene, regarded him as one of the greatest clerics in the world. Matthew Paris, a
Benedictine chronicler, even though he was in some ways not well disposed to Grosseteste,
referred to him as a saint, and Grosseteste was indeed put forward for canonization. Some say
the nomination was unsuccessful because of the way Grosseteste had fearlessly criticized the
temporal organization of the Church, especially in connection with awarding benefices to
unsuitable office seekers. Roger Bacon, sometimes acclaimed as a scientific thinker of great
originality, praised him as the most illustrious scientist and translator of the Schools, and even
ranked him with Solomon, Aristotle and Avicenna. For Grosseteste "mathematics" includes
astronomy, and astronomy includes astrology.

394
Lemay, ibid., p. xxiv -xxv.
395 Thorndike, l.c., v. 2, 1923, p. 148- 151.
396 ibid., p. 164- 167.
397 ibid., p211.
 159

41. Thorndike says of Grossesteste's De artibus liberalis: "Grosseteste accepts astronomy

or astrology as the supreme science and says in his treatise on the liberal arts that natural
philosophy needs its aid more than that of the others. There is scarcely any operation whethe r of
nature or of man, such as the planting of vegetables, or transmutation of minerals, or cure of
diseases, which can dispense with astronomical assistance. For inferior nature does not act except
as celestial virtue moves and directs it. He then goes on to detail the effects of the moon, Saturn,
and Mars on the hour of planting, and then to emphasize the importance of selecting the favorable
hours astrologically in medical practive and in alchemy where he associates the seven planets
with seven metals. He also argues that the harmony of the movements of the celestial spheres is
found also in their effects upon the inferior world. Therefore he who knows the due proportion of
the elements in the human body and the concord of the soul with the body, can rest ore any lack of
harmony in the same to its proper state. In other words, diseases and even wounds and deafness
should be curable by music based upon a knowledge of astrology and mathematics, and one
should also be able to control such emotions as joy, grief, and wrath."398

42. In another treatise, De impressionibus aeris seu deprognosticatione, on weather

prediction, Grosseteste discusses such things as the power of the zodiacal signs and planets,
including such technical matters as house, exaltation and aspect. On the question of free will, he
holds that the human body is subject to two forces: "as part of the world of cause it is changed in
many ways by the movements of the stars, but it is also subject to the control of the mind
especially in voluntary actions." (idem, p. 446.) He follows Augustine in The City of God in
denying that all our actions which seem freely willed are predictable from the stars. J. D. North
says: "In his Hexameron [commentary on the first 6 books of the Bible], Grosseteste's final
position on astrological belief is stated at some length. Superficially it is hostile -- astrology
books are written at the dictation of the devil, and should be burned --but his hostility has to do
with the issue of determinism, free will, and theological values. His belief in celestial influence
was as strong as ever. He thought that the science of the astrologers must fail because the
influences they sought are so precisely focussed in accordance with the momentary stellar
configuration, that even the most accurate astronomer would not find them. They were real
enough, in Grosseteste's view." 399

43. Grosseteste was a great supporter of the use of geometry in explaining natural
phenomena. Thorndike observes that in his treatise De lineis, angulis etfiguris, Grosseteste holds
that not only light but every natural agent sends forth its virtue to the object affected and acts on
sense or matter along geometrical straight lines. This doctrine of radiation or emanation of force
seems to date back at least to Plotinus, and Alkindi among the Arabs in his treatise on Stellar
Rays says that the stars and all objects in the world of the four elements e mit rays of this sort. 400

44. James McEvoy considers Grosseteste's masterpiece, and most original work, to be his
De luce (On Light). McEvoy says that according to Grosseteste: "The entire world -machine was
created in the beginning from first form and first matter. Light multiplied itself from a single

398 Thorndike, ibid., v. 2, p. 445.

399 J. D. North, "Medieval Concepts of Celestial Influence: A Survey", in Astrology, Science and Society,
Historical Essays, 1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 11.
400
Thorndike, ibid., v. 2, p. 443.
 160

point infinitely and equally on all sides to form a sphere, and extended matter into the dimensions
of the actual universe ........................... Though the propagation of light and the consequent
expansion of matter, beginning from the primordial point, takes place equally in every direction, of
necessity the outermost reaches of extended matter are more sparse and rarefied than are the
inner, which remain capable of further rarefaction. The farthest limit of extension is reached when
no further rarefaction of matter is possible; the ultimate capacity of matter being realized, the area
immediately bounded by the outer spherical surface is incapable of further physical change. A
perfect body had come into being, the firmament having in its composition only first matter and
form. The most simple body in essence, it is the greatest in quantity and the container of all
subsequent bodies."401 Shades of the Big Bang, and Expanding Universe!

45. McEvoy concludes from his examination of the De luce that Grosseteste "aimed
consciously at producing a synthesis of the cosmogony of Genesis and the cosmology of the De
Caelo [of Aristotle]." As to Grosseteste's place in the history of science, McEvoy says: "His
intuition led him to the conviction that mathematics, far from being an abstraction from aspects of
the physically real, is the very internal texture of the natural world, presiding over its coming to
be and controlling its functioning; that, in the words of Kepler, 'Ubi materia, ibi geometria'
['Where there's matter, there's geometry']. Of course, this faith was metaphysical; but then so too
was much of the high-level inspiration of scientists in the seventeenth century. It was abstract,
because the mathematical structure of reality is not given to the senses, but intuited or believed in
by the mind. What it afforded was not so much scientific results as delight in the pure
understanding of the essence of things, and, what Grosseteste valued most of all, a glimpse
beyond the beauty of the harmoniuous textura of things to the mind of the primus numerator
['prime calculator'], the lux prima et inaccessibilis ['primal and inaccessible light'] The novel
aspect of Grosseteste's world-system goes back entirely to this conception of God as the great
calculator. For the first time, it would appear, in the history of Christian belief, God is addressed as
a mathematician whose ideas for creation are mathematical operations realizable in matter and

form. " 4 0 2

46. Here Grosseteste employs a mathematics different in kind from the numerology found
at times among the Church Fathers. McEvoy suggests that the patristic numerology might have
been pursued with the expectation that it would reveal a coherence and harmony in creation.
However, Grosseteste's idea of God as Numerator generates expectations of a more
mathematical type, the kind of expectations which fulfil themselves in the sciences. This
happens, McEvoy says, "... when an inner need for meaning and form sharpens the eye and
encourages it to read upon the screen of ideal reality the after-image of the programme that
determined the innermost structure of things. In scientific inquiry, evidence turns up to answer
inner needs of the questioning mind, if they are insistent enough and sufficiently clear and
coherent; for in this respect nature is not parsimonious or ungenerous; she is ample enough to
suit different tastes." 403 McEvoy is making a distinction similar to the one I made earlier between
applied and appliqued mathematics.

401 James McEvoy, The Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste, 1982, p. 152, 154.
402
McEvoy, ibid., p. 167,210- 211,214.
4 0 3 ibid., p. 2 14-215.
 161

47. However, Grosseteste also indulged in numerology at times. McEvoy describes

Grosseteste's proof that the universe is a complete and harmonious thing: "In the most simple
body there are four things to be found: form, matter, composition, and the composite. Form is
totally simple and corresponds to the mathematical unity. Matter is the dyad, due to its binary
qualities of receptivity and divisibility. Composition corresponds to the number three, for in it
are informed matter, immattered form, and the property itself of composition. 'Four'
comprehends whatever the composite is beyond these three. The aggregate of these numbers is
ten, contained in the quaternity of the first body (which virtually contains all the others), and
mirrored in the number of bodies in the world -- for the four elements form together a single
terrestrial body. Manifestly, ten is the perfect number of the universe and is possessed by every
whole and perfect thing. Clearly, too, only the five proportions found in the first four numbers
are adequate for the composition and harmony that sustain every composite being; they are the
foundation of harmony in musical sound, gesture, and rhythm."404

48. With Grosseteste, we have in the same person an understanding of an intrinsic

mathematical nature of nature, and an imposition on nature of some numerology. We also have in
the same person a devotion to astrology, and a cosmogony and cosmology based on light which
bears a faint resemblance to current cosmologies of the "big bang" type. McEvoy says: "In the
rational and scientific cosmology of De luce two basic ideas are enthroned, namely, the continuity
of nature and action through the material world, and the ultimate unity of matter. Both of these
bear some resonance of the half-magical world of astrology and alchemy The influence of
astrology and alchemy made it natural for Grosseteste in the earlier stages of his philosophical
itinerary to look for continuity of nature and action between the heavens and the earth."405 It
appears that we have here an example of the confluence of influences out of which the European
scientific revolution of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries was eventually to grow.

49. Wedel argues that the most decisive factor in the development of the doctrines on
astrology of many university scholars -- scholastics -- was the works of Aristotle, whose complete
canon had been made accessible in Latin translations in the first quarter of the 13th century. In his
De generatione et corruptione (On growth and decay), Aristotle had taught that the processes of
earthly growth and change depend on the stellar spheres. These were the "crystalline" spheres in
which the stars and planets were said to be embedded, a theory proposed, it seems, by Eudoxus,
presumably to explain why these objects had such regular motions. Wedel says: "And astrological
theory had, since the days of Ptolemy, become so inseparable a part of Aristotelian cosmology
that the Christian theologians, in welcoming the one, were inevitably compelled to offer a
favorable reception to the other. A modification of such importance in the traditional doctrine of
the Church could not take place without a struggle In effecting a compromise between the
verdict of the early Church and the new astrology, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas faced a
problem of no slight difficulty."406

50. Thomas Bradwardine (1290(?)-1349) was a Christian theologian of Oxford who

published in 1344 a work called De causa Dei (God's Cause), and was archbishop of Canterbury at
the end of his life (victim of the Black Plague). Gordon Leff says that De causa Dei was a
404
McEvoy, ibid., p. 157- 158.
405 ibid., p. 182, 187; cf. also p. 165 - 166.
406 Theodore Otto Wedel in The Mediaeval Attitude toward Astrology, Particularly in England, 1920, p. 64.
 162

response of faith to scepticism, notably that of William of Ockham (d. 1349, victim of the Black
Plague). It came from a person for whom theology was the apex of the sciences (in the general
sense of the word), and was meant to cut away at outlooks which start from men rather than from
God. There are, Bradwardine says, two views of fate. One is fate as inevitable necessity, in
general due to the heavenly bodies, and more specifically due to individual celestial objects,
ruling those born under their influences. The other view of fate is as a certain disposition, and
guidance from above. The first view, according to Bradwardine, cannot be accepted by Christians
at all. If, however, the necessity is withdrawn, and fate governed by the stars is seen rather as a
disposition and inclination in man, then the fate of the stars need not be rejected -- for divine fate
must be recognized. Is it not written, Bradwardine says, "He spake and it was done?" We only call
things fortuitous when we don't know their causes. In fact, just as with fate, God is the cause of
everything. But Providence, God's active governance, has nothing in common with necessity
imposed by the stars, or with pure chance.

51. In Leff's view: "... with Bradwardine, God's will is not to be regarded in the way the
Arab philosophers saw it, as a universal and impersonal first cause acting implacably through a
hierarchy of secondary causes, such as planets and celestial spheres. Bradwardine's God is
essentially personal and immediate; the whole of his view of divine participation flows from His
direct presence ... Bradwardine's view of creation may be likened to a precise machine devoid in
itself of any direction or movement. Its workings are beyond its own knowledge and power. It
needs the constant current of God's will to infuse it with life and purpose. It cannot, therefore, be
judged in itself, for without God's impulsion it is like a propeller without an engine. Nothing can be
left to its own resources."407

52. But there were also Christians who tried to square fatalistic astralism with Christian
doctrine. Before the time of Bradwardine, Bernard Silvester, a Christian university teacher, in his
poem Cosmographia (c. 1145), said: "The heavens ... write by means of the stars and prefigure
everything which is able to arise by means of the law of fate. They presignify by what mode or
tenor the sidereal motion impels the passage of history. The order of events lies hidden in the
stars; a longer and more ordered succession of time will explain it." 408

53. Stock comments: "This view, it should be noted, is not a complete acquiescence to
determinism It is a position in which God's effective power is translated into causal terms as
Bernard understood them ........It indicates that God is placed beyond the universe which magnifies
his spirit and suggests as well, as do Firmicus and Abu Ma'shar, that history is entirely
predictable from the stars........ [It is part of Bernard's position that:] The heavens reveal in their
motions and changes the pattern of human cultural and social history. Thus the unfolding of
creation, including Noys' part in it, is to be understood as the revelation of a pre-existing
order." 409 Noys is "God's providence" (p. 14), evidently not to be confused with nous,
intelligence, although this is what Thorndike takes noys to be in another work by Bernard. 410

407 Gordon Leff, Bradwardine and the Pelagians, A study of his 'De causa Dei'and its opponents, 1957, p.
11, 53-54, 95.
408 Quoted by Brian Stock in his Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century, A Study of Bernard Silvester,
1972, p. 131.
409 ibid., p. 131-132.
410
Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, v. 2, p. 105.
 163

Bernard also wrote a narrative poem called Mathematicus, in which a Roman knight and lady
consult a mathematicus (astrologer) "who could learn from the stars ... the intentions of the gods,
the mind of the fates, and the plan of Jove, and discover the hidden causes and secrets of
nature."411

54. Such views are not unlike those of certain physicists (now, it appears, in a minority)
who contend that nothing is really left to chance, although human limitations may require us to
describe phenomena probabilistically. Abraham Pais says in his biography of Einstein: "Everyone
familiar with modern physics knows that Einstein's attitude regarding quantum mechanics was
one of skepticism. No biography of him fails to mention his saying that God does not throw dice.
He was indeed given to such utterances (as I know from experience), and stronger ones, such as
'It seems hard to look in God's cards. But I cannot for a moment believe that He plays dice and
makes use of "telepathic" means (as the current quantum theory alleges He does)' [Einstein's]
was not a life of prayer and worship. Yet he lived by a deep faith -- a faith not capable of a
rational foundation -- that there are laws of Nature to be discovered. His lifelong pursuit was to
discover them. His realism and his optimism are illuminated by his remark: 'Subtle is the Lord,
but malicious He is not' ('Rafiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist er nicht') "4 1 2

55. Einstein, in the early years of the 20th century, was the foremost creator of relativistic
mechanics. Kepler, in the early years of the 17th century, was one of the foremost creators of
classical mechanics. Kepler, it turns out, had already said much the same as Einstein about God
playing dice: Richard Westfall says: "When we turn to Kepler's natural philosophy, we find a
conception of nature that directly supported his religious position. Of foremost importance is the
fact that the universe remained for him a cosmos. It is well known that much of Kepler's
significance in the history of science stems from the impulse he gave to causal analyses of
phenomena and to the concept of mathematical laws. Kepler's laws were never impersonal laws,
however, and the universe in which they worked was not for him the chance product of their blind
operation. It was an ordered cosmos consciously contrived. Giordano Bruno's speculative system,
"that dreadful philosophy," represented to him the blind operation of impersonal causes. He feared
the very idea and fled from it. Where means are adapted to definite purposes, Kepler insisted,
"there order exists, not chance; there is pure mind and pure Reason." "The Creator," he informed
Maestlin, "does nothing by chance." 413

56. To return to the European Middle Ages, and in particular to the compromise of
scholastics with astrology: Thorndike points out that a number of passages in the works of St.
Thomas Aquinas ascribe an important place to astrological theory in natural science. Aquinas
refused to explain magic as worked by the stars, but he accounted for occult works of nature and
natural divination by astral influence. He grants nobility and incorruptibility to the heavenly
bodies, but regards them as made of material substance, even though Plato and Aristotle

411 Quoted by Thorndike, ibid., v. 2, p. 106.

412
Abraham Pais, 'Subtle is the Lord ... ', 1982, p. 440 and p. vi.
413Richard S. Westfall, "The Rise of Science and the Decline of Orthodox Christianity: A Study of Kepler,
Descartes, and Newton," in God and Nature, Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science,
1986, p. 221; the quotations from Kepler come from Kepler's Conversation with Galileo's Sidereal Messenger, The Six-
Cornered Snowflake, and a letter to Maestlin, 2 Aug 1595 in Johannes Kepler, Werke 13:27.
 164

attributed souls and intelligence to them. But he regards the stars as media between angelic
intelligences and us. He is inclined to answer affirmatively the question, do the angels move the
stars? He frequently affirms that God rules inferior creatures through superior ones, and earthly
bodies by heavenly ones. According to Aquinas, no wise man doubts that all natural motions of
inferior bodies are caused by the movement of the celestial bodies. Reason and experience, saints
and philosophers, have proved it over and over again.

57. In this connection, Aquinas cites two passages from Augustine and Dionysius which
don't seem as sweeping as his own assertion. Augustine affirms merely that "grosser and inferior
bodies are ruled by subtler and superior ones according to a certain order," and Dionysius simply
says that the rays of the sun aid in the generation of life and nourish and increase and perfect it.
Indeed, says Thorndike, throughout his arguments for astrology, Aquinas, like his teacher Albert,
seems to stretch authorities on a Procrustean bed of citation and to make church fathers who are
famous for their attacks on astrologers seem to favor a limited rule of the stars over all nature.
Aquinas further considers an art of judicial astrology possible. He asserts that besides the crude
prognostications which sailors and farmers make from the sky, it is feasible "by some other more
occult observations of the stars to employ judicial astrology concerning corporeal effects." 414

58. Nevertheless, Aquinas declares that the human will is free and that the soul -- being an
intellectual rather than a material substance, cannot be coerced by corporeal substances, and in
particular by celestial objects. He also is of the opinion that many occurences are purely
accidental, "as when a man digging a grave finds buried treasure." And he says "no natural agent
can incline one to that which happens accidentally." Aquinas is also aware, however, that the
astrologers themselves agree that the wise man rules the stars. Conversely, he recognizes that man
is not purely an intellectual being, that he often obeys sensual appetites, and that even the mind
derives its knowledge from the senses and in a condition disturbed by phantasy, and that therefore
the stars may indirectly affect the human intellect to a considerable extent.415

59. Thomas Litt gives this summary of Thomas Aquinas's views on astrology:

"(1) He affirms as absolutely certain the entirely general principle of a universal influence of
celestial bodies on all corporeal events on earth, including physiological events involving
animals and people. This is for him an absolute philosophical certainty; besides that, it is a
common sense truth and it is also a truth taught by the "authority of the saints"; he cites notably
Denis [Dionysius] and St. Augustine.

(2) He affirms with just as much certainty that the influence of the celestial bodies on
human acts is indirect and never necessitating. He very often adds that the contrary opinion is
heretical, since it excludes human free will.

(3) He never asks once if the fundamental astrological axiom or postulate is well founded
or not: the decisive importance on the whole future of a person of the configuration of the
heaven at the moment of birth (the topic of geniture). We have found only once in St. Thomas
the word nativitas in the sense of the topic of geniture: in the citation of the Centiloquium [of

414 Thorndike, ibid., v. 2, p. 609-610.

415 Thorndike, l.c.
 165

Ptolemy] which we presented [earlier]. This citation is moreover the only concrete astrological
prediction which we have encountered and it it introduced with a formula expressing much doubt.
He does mention one other time the stellar patrons of the seven days of the week, but this is in
order to observe that one can, without peril to the faith, adopt or reject this theory.

(4) He admits that in principle astrologers correctly predict the future of people .... [Litt
summarizes 10 references showing this]

(5) On the licitness of astrological divination, we have six texts, in which the teaching
remains constant throughout the career of St. Thomas, without one being able to discern an
evolution to either greater or less severity. The doctrine amounts to this: It is not superstitious or
illicit to try to predict by the stars droughts, rains, etc. It is superstitious and illicit to try to
predict by the stars free human actions and, according to the authority of St. Augustine, the devil
often involves himself in this kind of consultation, which becomes by way of this a pact with the
devil."416

60. The Albert referred to above as a teacher of Aquinas is Albertus Magnus, Albert the
Great (1193-1280), the leading figure in Latin learning and natural science in the 13th century..
The Speculum astronomiae (Mirror ofAstrology) is usually attributed to Albert, and is said by
Thorndike "to be one of the most important single treatises in the history of medieval astrology".
(ibid, p. 692.) The book is chiefly concerned with judicial astrology, which is distinguished from
astronomy proper as "the science of the judgements of the stars". Thorndike quotes the author:
"He declares that [astrology] turns man's thoughts toward God, revealing as it does the great
Source of all things. Furthermore, it is the bond between natural philosophy and mathematics. 'For
if the most high God in His Supreme wisdom so ordained this world that He, who is the living
God of a lifeless heaven, wills to work in created things which are found in these four inferior
elements through deaf and dumb stars as instruments, and if concerning these we have one
science, namely, mathematics which teaches us in things caused to consider their Creator, and
another natural science which teaches us to find by experience in created things the Creator of
creatures; what is more desirable for the investigator than to have a third science to instruct him
how this and that change of things mundane is brought to pass by the change of things

celestial? '" 417

61. Of the termjudicial astrology, Richard Lemay says: "... beginning in the twelfth century,
and stabilizing in the thirteenth, we find newly invented labels to designate various sciences to
study the heavens. There is a general 'science of the stars' (scientia stellarum) as the discipline
dealing with the knowledge of the whole heavens, and then the 'science of the movements'
(scientia motuum) for astronomy, together with a 'science of the judgments' (scientia iudiciorum /
judicial astrology) for astrology."418

62. Lemay observes that in the Speculum astronomiae of Albertus Magnus, there is a
distinction between astronomy, which is "mathematical", and astrology, which is "judicial",

416 Thomas Litt, Les corps cèleste dans l'univers de Saint Thomas d'Aquin (1963), p. 240- 241.
417 Thorndike, ibid., v. 2, p. 697.
418 Richard Lemay, "The True Place of Astrology in Medieval Science and Philosophy", in Astrology, Science
and Society, Historical Essays, 1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 64.
 166

although the two are inseparable parts of one science of the stars. This distinction can be traced
backed to Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, but according to Lemay, Albertus Magnus took it directly from the
Introductorium Maius in Astronomiam of Abu Ma'shar (786-866), which had been translated from
Arabic to Latin during the first half of the 12th century. Abu Ma'shar (or Albumasar) was a leading
authority in astrology in medieval times, and according to Lemay translations of his works were a
main source of the new interest in astronomy/astrology in the Latin world at the beginning of the
12th century. Using the term "judicial astrology" to designate the kind of astronomy/astrology
which prognosticates is traced by Lemay to the Latin translation by John of Seville in 1133 of a
word in the Arabic title of Abu Ma'shar's Introductorium Maius. An Arabic word signifying
something like "authoritative pronouncements by a learned person" was translated by a word
which could mean "authoritative pronouncements by a judge". 419

63.
Of Roger Bacon (c. 12 14-1292), Thorndike says: "Bacon believed that by means of
astrology not only could the future be in large measure foretold, but also marvelous operations
and great alterations could be effected throughout the whole world, especially by choosing
favorable hours and by employing astronomical amulets and characters -- in other words, by the
arts of elections and of images. As the babe at birth receives from the stars that fundamental
physical constitution which lasts it through life, so any new-made object is permanently affected by
the disposition of the constellations at the moment of its making." (Thorndike, ibid., v. 2, p. 673.)
Bacon also connected astrology to the power of words. Thorndike says that for Bacon: "Words
are the soul's most appropriate instrument and almost every miracle since the beginning of the
world has been performed by using them The rational soul influences the voice, which in
turn affects the atmosphere and all objects contained therein. The physical constitution of the
speaker also has some influence, and finally the position of the stars must by all means be taken
into account. All this reasoining is equivalent to accepting the power of incantations, for as
Bacon states [in the Opus Maius], 'They are words brought forth by the exertion of the rational
soul, and receive the virtue of the sky as they are pronounced Although the efficacious
employment of words is primarily the function of the rational soul,' nevertheless 'the astronomer
can form words in elect times which will possess unspeakable power' of transforming natural
onjects and even inclining human minds to obey him. Thus Bacon's 'astronomer' is really a
magician and enchanter as well ..." 420

64. Thorndike observes further that hardly any class or group of men in the later middle ages
were more given to astrology and even to some other occult arts and sciences than the friars. This is
a noteworthy point, says Thorndike, because they furnished a majority of the theologians of the
period and had a practical monopoly of the office of inquisitor, although inquisitors and
theologians have often been regarded as the bitterest and most inveterate foes of astrology and
related arts.421 Thus Thorndike's view may conflict with that of Duhem who speaks, as we saw
above, of the Dominicans and Franciscans as zealously defending Catholic dogma against attacks
by astrologers. Perhaps none of the friars Thorndike had in mind were of these orders.

65. Nicolas Oresme (1325-1382) delivered a number of extended attacks on astrology. One
of his most fascinating works (to a mathematician) is concerned with whether or not the

419 Lemay, ibid., p. 67-68.

420 Thorndike, ibid., v. 2, p. 665, 673, 674.
421 Thorndike, ibid., v. 3 (1934), p. 213.
 167

movements of the heavenly bodies are commensurable or incommensurable, in a treatise called De

commensurabilitate [or, in some manuscripts, incommensurabilitate] motuum celestium. In the
translation by Edward Grant, instead of one or the other, the title contains commensurabilitate
vel incommensurabilitate, so the title may be translated as On the commensurability or
incommensurability of celestial motions.422 In Part I of this work, Oresme gives 25 propositions
which will be true if the celestial motions are commensurable, and in Part II, 12 propositions
which will be true if they are incommensurable. He then asks which of these is the case. In more
recent terms, it appears he was investigating whether or not the “motions” were all expressible
as rational (in the sense of rational numbers, or fractions with integer numerator and
denominator) – rational multiples of some unit (i.e., some length chosen to be standard, and
corresponding to the number 1). This sounds tantalizingly to be related to some quite recent
investigations in celestial mechanics in the light of nonlinear Newtonian-type dynamics, and its
so-called “chaos” theory.

66. At this point, Oresme turns from mathematical demonstration to allegory. In a dream,
the muse Arithmetic delivers an oration in favor of commensurability, and Geometry defends
incommensurability, and the author wakes up before the debate is decided. According to
Thorndike: "Arithmetic had contended with many citations of past authors that
incommensurability and irrational proportion would detract from the perfection, beauty, and
harmony of the universe, and be unendurable to the heavenly Intelligences that move the orbs.
'For if anyone should make a mechanical clock, would he not make all the wheels move as
harmoniously as possible?' -- an interesting allusion to the then recent introduction of mechanical
clockworks. Arithmetic further pointed out that if you deny numerical proportion to the velocities
of the heaven and stars, it will be impossible to predict any aspect or conjunction of the planets, or
to foresee their effects, and that astrology would have never been discovered, all the astronomical
tables would be false, and the magnus annus of the philosophers and music of the spheres would
be impossible fictions. Under such circumstances why did God let man look at the stars and walk
with erect head?"423 Thus Arithmetic speaks for the strict periodicity and predictability of motions
of the stars.

67. Thorndike goes on: "Geometry replies that irrationality of proportion will not rob the
heavens of their beauty or be inconsistent with regularity of movement. Variety is better than
uniformity of color; the song of changing cadence is sweeter than the noblest single strain.
Geometry thinks it more pleasant, perfect, and congruent with Divinity not to have the same
positions and effects repeated but ever to produce new and dissimilar effects from the prior
constellations, Were all the celestial movements commensurable, the sun and moon would never
meet throughout eternity exept in a few points of the sky, 'and similarly with the other aspects and
remaining planets.' The music of the spheres is a matter of doubt anyway. but there might be
proportion of sound without proportional velocities. There also is no agreement as to the magnus
annus, and Geometry prefers that men should not be able to know all the future movements of the
stars exactly and to predict all future events. But this conception that astrology lacks any precise
basis in astronomy for its prediction of future events, because we cannot be sure even whether the
movements of the heavens are or are not commensurable and in proportion, while if they are
incommensurable and with disproportionate velocities, there is no basis for a system of

422 Edward Grant, Nicole Oresme and the Kinematics of Circular Motion, 1971.
423 Thorndike, ibid., v. 3, p. 405-406.
 168

forecasting from them, although one might still roughly date the coming occurrence of eclipses
and conjunctions: -- this is a point against astrology to which Oresme adverts again in his other
treatises." 424 Thus Geometry speaks against strict periodicity and predictability of the motions of
the stars, on the grounds that the ratios of their velocities may not be rational numbers (to use
present terminology).

68. Edward Grant describes two kinds of comparison of magnitudes Oresme used to
determine commensurability or incommensurability between motions. 425 To illustrate one of
them, consider two bodies A and B which are moving on concentric circles with unequal but
uniform angular velocities. Let the motion be measured from some starting points p and p' which
lie on a ray from the common center of both circles (and intersecting them to form overlapping
radii). Let T(A) and T(B) stand for the times which the bodies take to move through angles A and
B, respectively, when they start at the same instant from p and p'. If the measures of angles A and
B (say, the lengths of arc traced out on their circles by the bodies A and B) are to each other as
two whole numbers, then the velocities (or speeds, or motions) are commensurable, and otherwise
they are incommensurable. That is, the velocities are commensurable if the ratio of the measures
of A to B equals the ratio of m to n for some whole numbers m and n. Instead of the angles or
arcs traversed, Oresme also uses (this is the second kind of comparison) the number of
circulations made by two bodies C and D. A circulation is the first return of a body from a point
on its circle, back to the same point. Let C and D make the same number of circulations on their
circles, and let T(C) and T(D) be the times taken by the bodies to make this number of
circulations. The velocities of C and D are commensurable if the ratio of T(C) to T(D) is as one
integer to another, i.e. if T(C) / T(D) is a rational number; otherwise the velocities are
incommensurable.

69. The basic idea of strict periodicity (or, as Grant puts it, "cyclical regularity") being
precluded by incommensurability seems not to have been original with Oresme, although Oresme
seems to have been the first to develop the idea to any extent. Grant discusses as predecessors
Theodosius of Bythynia (or, of Tripoli; born c. 180 A.D.), Johannes de Muris (died
c. 1350), Henry Bate (in 1281) and John Duns Scotus (about 1302 or 1303). 426

70. Despite Oresme's strictures against astrology, including a treatise of his against princes
devoting themselves to astrology, his own patron, Charles V (Charles the Wise, reigned 1364-
1380), employed many astrologers at his court. Thorndike says that in this period, the later 14th
century, "wisdom and astrology were considered almost synonymous The Hundred Years
war [1339-1453] provided the astrologers with as happy a predicting ground as did the Black
Death [mid 14th century]." 427

71. About 1425, Curatus de Ziessele, presumably a curate from Ziessele near Bruges
(Belgium) wrote a Compendium of Natural Theology Taken from Astrological Truth. According
to Thorndike, the curate of Ziessele was not primarily interested in demonstrating the truth of
Christianity from the natural universe (like, for example, Raymond of Sebonde), but rather in

424 Thorndike, ibid., v. 3, p. 406.

425 Edward Grant, ibid., p. 7-8.
426 ibid., Chapter 3.
427 Thorndike, ibid., v. 3, p. 584.
 169

showing that astrology and astronomy demonstrate the unit and harmony of the spiritual and
material universe. Where previous writers (such as Jean Gerson) had tried to theologize
astrology and make it acceptable to theologians, Curatus de Ziessele, tries to astrologize
theology, and thus ma ke theologians accept astrology. 4 2 8

72. In a similar spirit, Giovanni Nanni of Viterbo (c. 1432-1502), a Dominican friar, tried to
show that astrological science was in harmony with and confirmed scriptural revelation. He
illustrates, Thorndike says, the connection of humanism with astrology as well as the association of
astrology with theology. He is said to have been dear to popes Sixtus IV and Alexander VI, and
became master of the sacred palace in 1499. The humanist Aeneas Sylvius who later became
pope Pius II felt that some knowledge of astrology was essential for a ruler. According to
Thorndike, "well certified instances of condemnations of astrologers as such by Christian
authorities are exceedingly rare, even when they taught the doctrine that religious changes were
forecast or produced by conjunctions of the planets."429

73. Paul III, who was pope from 1534 to 1549, was a believer in occult sciences, as was
Pope Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent and often praised as a patron of the Renaissance.
Except at Paris, where there was considerable theological opposition to astrology, "the practice of
that art," Thorndike says, "seldom seems to have involved a learned man in difficulties with the
law during the first half of the sixteenth century." Among Protestant leaders, Philip Melanchthon
was very interested in various profane sciences and pseudo-sciences as well as in religious creeds
and confessions, in the same way as learned men were in the circles of Pope Paul III. Thorndike
observes: "There was no more reason for a Catholic and Protestant to disagree about herbs and
gems, astrology and witchcraft, than there was for them to come to blows over Green grammar
and prosody. These were neutral or rather universal territories open to men of every creed and
country, and had been so since the day of Albertus Magnus and Albumasar. Luca Guarico, the
Italian astrologer and Catholic bishop , had admirers at Wittenberg as well as at Rome. A
favorable astrological moment, it may be noted in this connection, had been selected for the
foundation of the university of Wittenberg, while its first rector, Martin Polich of Mellerstadt,
was the author of numerous annual predictions."430

74. Of course there remained the question of free will. Among Protestant theologians, John
Calvin, when speaking of predestination, recommends that we not press matters too far: "When
we attribute foreknowledge to God, we mean that all things always were, and perpetually remain,
under his eyes, so that to his knowledge there is nothing future or past, but all things are present
.... We call predestination God's eternal decree, by which he determined with himself what he
willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is
foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others." But Calvin says of "certain men not
otherwise bad": "... let them remember that when they inquire into predestination they are
penetrating the sacred precincts of divine wisdom. If anyone with carefree assurance breaks into
this place, he will not succeed in satisfying his curiosity and he will enter a labyrinth from which he
can find no exit. For it is not right for man unrestrainedly to search out things that the Lord has
willed to be hid in himself, and to unfold from eternity itself the sublimest wisdom, where he

428 Thorndike, ibid., v. 4, 1934, p. 258.

429 ibid., p. 263, 393, 544.
430 ibid., v. 5 (1941), p. 159, 251, 307, 378-379, 419.
 170

would have us revere but not understand that through this also he should fill us with wonder. He
has set forth by his Word the secrets of his will that he has decided to reveal to us. These he
decided to reveal in so far as he foresaw that they would concern us and benefit us." 431

75. Calvin opposed some kinds of astrology. In 1561, a work by Calvin was translated into
English under the title An Admonicion against Astrology Judiciall and other curiosities that raign
now in the world. According to Calvin, astrology "hath been rejected by a common consent as
pernicious by Mankind. [Yet] at this day it hath gotte the upper hand in such sorte that many
whych thynk themselves witty men ... are at it were bewitched therewith'." However, it was not
Calvin's purpose to reject astrology as a whole. Calvin says: "Now every man of soundjudgement
well knows that Moses meant the same as what I have said above, about true astrology. If the stars
are signs to show us the season for sowing or planting, for bleeding or giving medicines, for
cutting wood, that is not to say that they are signs to show whether we should put on new clothes,
or deal in goods on a Monday rather than a Tuesday, and so on, things which have no connection
with the stars."

76. While Calvin deplored the archaisms, excesses and abuses of astrology, he could not
bring himself to condemn astrology completely, nor could he deny that eclipses and comets are
portents for the affairs of men. He said: "However, I do not deny that when God wishes to stretch
out His hand to bring about some judgement worthy of memory by the world, he sometimes warns
us by means of comets." In fact, Calvin had to proceed prudently. Since he stood for a kind of
return to the Old Testament, he could not ignore the bond between God and the heavenly bodies.
Calvin was concerned with the distinction between true and false astrology. The Arminians of this
era rejected astrology on the grounds that men have free will, but the Calvinists, on account of
their determinism, centered more on the impiety of prying into God's plans. 432

77. Keith Thomas observes that all post-Reformation theologians taught that nothing could
happen in this world without God's permission. They denied the very possibility of chance or
accident. "That which we call fortune," wrote the Elizabethan bishop, Thomas Cooper, "is nothing
but the hand of God, working by causes and for causes that we know not. Chance or fortune are
gods devised by man and made by our ignorance of the true, almighty and everlasting God."
"Fortune and adventure,' declared John Knox, 'are the words of Paynims [pagans], the
signification whereof ought in no wise to enter into the heart of the faithful .... That which ye
scoffingly call Destiny and Stoical necessity ... we call God's eternal election and purpose
immutable." 433

78. Thomas notes that Knox was echoing the words of St. Basil, for the denial of the
heathen concept of Fortune or Destiny had always been a popular Christian theme. "Yet," says
Thomas, "there is some reason for thinking that the Reformation period saw a new insistence on

431 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1559, translated by Ford Lewis Battles, 1960, xxi.3, v. 2, p.
926, 922-923.
432 Jacques Halbronn, "The Revealing Process of Translation and Criticism", in Astrology, Science and Society,
1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 205-207; also Hugh G. Dick, introduction to Albumazar: A Comedy (1615) by
Thomas Tomkis, edited by Dick, 1944, p. 22-23; the quotations from Calvin are from Halbronn's article; the original
sermon of Calvin is Admonitio adversus astrologiam, 1549.
433 Quoted by Thomas.
 171

God's sovereignty. Whereas Aquinas had stressed that the notion of Divine Providence did not
exclude the operation of chance or luck, a sixteenth-century writer like Bishop Pilkington could
declare categorically that there was no such thing as chance. Medieval Christians from Boethius to
Dante had maintained the pagan tradition of the goddess Fortuna side by side with a belief in
God's omnipotence, but for Tudor theologians the very idea of Fortune was an insult to God's
sovereignty .... Every Christian thus had the consolation of knowing that life was not a lottery,
but reflected the working-out of God's purposes. If things went wrong he did not have to blame
his luck but could be assured that God's hand was at work: the events of this world were not
random but ordered." 434

79. Thomas explains the post-Reformation emphasis on God's omnipotence as founded on

the universal reluctance to recognize that the rewards and punishments of this world don't always go
to those that (we think) deserve them. The doctrine of Providence was an attempt to impose order
on the apparent randomness of human fortunes. Thus Thomas' explanation of the turn toward
determinism after the Reformation is the same as the explanation given from antiquity on of the rise
of determinism among the Stoics. And in both cases, there was a turn toward astrology. The
strictures of St. Augustine against astrology lost force among many. In his 20's, Augustine says, he
consulted "those imposters, the astrologers, because I argued that they offered no sacrifices and said
no prayers to any spirit to aid their divination."

80. Augustine goes on: "Nevertheless, true Christian piety rightly rejects and condemns
what they do we must remember Our Lord's words to the cripple: You have recovered your
strength. Do not sin any more, for fear that worse should befall you. This is our whole salvation,
but the astrologers try to do away with it. They tell us that the cause of sin is determined in the
heavens and we cannot escape it, and that this or that is the work of Venus or Saturn or Mars.
They want us to believe that man is guiltless, flesh and blood though he is and doomed to die
despite his pride. Instead they have it that the blame is to be laid on the Creator and Ruler of the
heavens and the stars, none other than our God, himself the very source of justice, from whom its
sweetness is derived -- on you, O God, who will award to every man what his acts have deserved,
you who will never disdain a heart that is humble and contrite." 435 But one can maintain that if
God is omnipotent and omniscient, then choices to sin or not are equally predestined, and those who
will turn away from sin are elected in advance of their reform. And Christianity has devices of its
own for the abatement of guilt.

81. In place of unacceptable moral chaos, Protestant theologians of the 17th century erected
the edifice of God's omnipotent sovereignty. It was impossible for even the most optimistic
exponent of the doctrine of Providence to maintain that virtue was always rewarded. Thus it was
necessary to concede that only the justice of the next world would fully compensate for the
apparent capriciousness of this one. All one could do was argue that there are many instances in
which the link between morality and material success is too close to be ignored. By the later 17th
century even this proposition seemed unconvincing to some. It had never been clear by what
mechanism God's rewards and punishments in this world had been distributed. Miracles as such
had been relegated by most Protestants to the days of the early Church. Under the influence of the
mechanical philosophy even the Biblical miracles began to lose their

434 Keith Thomas, R e l i g i o n a n d th e De c l i n e o f M a g i c , 1971, p. 79.

435 Augustine, C o n f e s s i o n s , Book IV, Ch 3, translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin, 1961, p. 73.
 172

credibility. However, belief in God's immediate providences did not wither away altogether.
Many intelligent people of the time found it impossible to believe that catastrophic events like the
Great Plague of 1665 had only natural causes. 18th century epidemics, fires and earthquakes
continued to be hailed as acts of God. Victorian clergymen sometimes regarded venereal disease as
a punishment for fornication, and recognized in a cattle plague a retribution for the ill-treatment
of farm labourers.436

82. The theologians of the post -Reformation period were imposing a doctrine of God's
omnipotence on a populace long accustomed to other explanations. They had been able to explain
misfortune in terms of the working of good and evil spirits, or as the result of neglecting omens and
observances, or as random and capricious. The doctrine of providence was meant to override these
other theories. It also drew a more direct connection between misfortune and guilt by holding there
was an element of punishment for past offences in many of God's judgments. In the 17th century
many writers on economic affairs taught that the poor had only themselves to blame. It was their
idleness and improvidence which had landed them where they were. This was no doubt
comfortable doctrine for the well-to-do, but it can hardly have appealed to the sizable proportion
of the population which never had any hope of dragging itself above subsistence level. The clergy
therefore tried to console the poor with the doctrine of divine providence, stressing that there was
a purpose behind everything, even if an unknown one. "It was a gloomy philosophy," Thomas
says, "teaching men how to suffer, and stressing the impenetrability of God's will." It is not
surprising that many should have eventually turned to non-religious modes of thought --
scientific, perhaps, or astrological -- which offered a more direct prospect of relief and a more
convincing explanation of why it was that some men prospered while others literally perished by
the wayside. 437

83. On the relation to astrology to religion, Franz Boll says that astrology wants to be
religion and science at the same time, and that this is its very essence. In former times (Boll says
pre-Kantian), the relation between religion and science appeared to many people as an advantage,
not as objectionable or dangerous. Faith, for many, was confirmed by the scientific results of
astrology. And, no matter how often he was disappointed, an honest searcher might have his
hopes renewed by the strength of sp iritu al experience.438 In this view, astrology appears as a tool
of reason, and the action of stars on lives of men is an action of reason, imposed in a world laced
with chance and chaos.

84. But Jean de Meun, one of the two authors of the Roman de la Ro se, the secular
allegorical poem about Love, written in the 13th century, says something different: "Men say that
the fates had decreed such deaths for them and had set up such destinies from the times when they
were conceived. And since they took their births under such constellations that by strict necessity,
without any other possibility, they have no power to avoid such a death, however much it should
grieve them, they must accept it. But I know very well that it is quite true that however the
heavens work to give them those natural ways that incline them to do those things that drew them
to this end, obedient to the material that goes about to bend their hearts in this

436 Thomas, ibid., p. 107,109- 110.

437 Thomas, ibid., p. 111-112.
438
Franz Boll, Sternglaube und Sterndeutung, Die Geschichte und das Wesen der Astrologie (Star Faith and Star
Meaning, the History and Essence of Astrology, with Carl Bezold, 4th edition, 1931, p. 72 -73.
 173

way, even so, they can, through teaching, through clean, pure nourishment, by following good
company that is endowed with sense and virtues, or through certain remedies, provided that they are
good and pure, and also through goodness of understanding, they can, I say, obtain another result,
provided that, like intelligent people, they have bridled their natural ways. For when a man or
woman wants to turn his spirit away from its own nature, against his good and against right,
Reason can turn him back, provided that he believes in her alone. Then the situation will go
another way. It can indeed be in another way, whatever the heavenly bodies do, and they certainly
have very great power as long as they don't go against Reason, for every wise man knows that
they are not the masters of Reason, nor did they bring her to birth." 439 Reason, the poet says,
reason bridling the natural person, can overcome the dictates of the heavens, however reasonable
they might be.

85. The idea that reason can overcome the power of the stars was an old one, much older
than the Roman de la Rose. "Vir sapiens dominabitur astris" -- "A wise man will dominate (or
rule) the stars" -- is a saying often quoted or paraphrased in the Middle Ages. It was frequently
attributed to Ptolemy, and specifically to the Almagest, but is said by Wedel not to occur in the
works of Ptolemy. With Thomas Aquinas, the phrase acquired an ethical significance, and Jean de
Meun appears to have followed Aquinas. In any case, a whole literature grew around the idea
expressed in the adage. Yet its original meaning was that a scientific astrologer or learned
astronomer, or someone who takes the advice of such an expert, will dominate the stars, being
able to use knowledge of the heavens for his own ends. With Aquinas, the saying acquired a new
meaning. The "wise man" became a man of character who gains control over the influence of the
stars by mastering the inclinations caused or indicated by them. In John Gower's Confessio
Amantis (1390-1393), the wise man becomes not so much a man of character as a man of prayer,
who only can come to rule the stars by the grace of God. 440

86. The Roman de la Rose was only one among many medieval romances from which we
can extract attitudes toward astrology of people who were not university professors. Wedel says:
"The attitude of the romances toward astrology hardly admits of logical analysis. A narrator was as
little hampered in the Middle Ages by questions of science or of ethics as he is today. It may be
said, in general, that astrology, to the popular mediaeval mind, was a wonderful science, vaguely
defined, and seldom condemned, whose omnipotence was proverbial. It is spoken of everywhere
as the chief of the seven arts, and was hardly distinguished from necromancy and magic. The
reality of its power was never doubted. By reason of its being a learned foreign importation [from
the "Orient", i.e. the Arabs] ... astrology could acquire a fame in popular literature even
exceeding that which it held among the astronomers of the schools." 441

87. As the age of the scientific revolution (or evolution) of the 17th century approached,
astrology took an experimental turn. Thorndike says that in the second half of the 16th century,
there were noteworthy efforts to improve astrology and make it more scientific. Numerous
attempts were made to gather data, collect large numbers of particular cases, and to establish
dependable rules of prediction on the basis of them. This was done especially with natal

439 Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, T h e R o m a n c e o f t h e R o s e (de Lorris, 1230-35; de Meun, c.
1275), translated by Charles Dahlberg, 1971, lines 17059-17100, p. 286- 287.
440 Wedel, ibid., p. 135-142.
441 Wedel, ibid., p. 108.
 174

horoscopes. However, annual predictions for society as a whole continued to be made, and
conjunctions, eclipses and comets were still taken as a basis for social and political
prognostication. 4 4 2

88. Thorndike observes that quite a number of the writers on astrology in this era were
academics, or -- in the terminology of the time -- scholastics. Of course, there were many others. At
the end of vol. 6 of his A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Thorndike notes that in his
volumes 5 and 6 alone, which cover the 16th century, over 3000 people are discussed in
connection with magic and astrology, including 1200 writers and scholars, 300 printers, and
considerably over 300 "patrons, patients, princes, prelates and other lay figures and passive
participants in the play of ideas." The general index to these 2 volumes also contains about 1700
topics and names of things, in addition to the names of the more than 3000 persons. Among these
3000 persons there are, in addition to writers of the 16th century, over 30 Jewish and Biblical
authors, over 100 Greek and Byzantine, nearly 40 Latin classical writers, nearly 60 Arabic
authors, a dozen church fathers, about 25 early medieval Latin writers and about 25 from the 12th
century, about 70 each for the 13th and 14th centuries, and about 130 from the 15th, as well as
some 140 writers of the later 17th and 18th centuries, 150 of the 19th century, and 190 of the
20th. 443 This gives some idea of the both the magnitude of Thorndike's work, and the prominence
of magic and astrology during these periods.

89. Similar statements can be made about Pierre Duhem, and the 10 volumes of his
historical work, Le Système du Monde 444 . Thorndike was concerned to show how modern science
had been influenced by the practice of magic and divinatory arts such as astrology. Duhem was
concerned to show how modern science had been influenced by Christian doctrines, and especially
how from the 14th century on, the "grandiose edifice" of Aristotelian physics was doomed to be
destroyed, since "the Christian faith had undermined its essential principles", and observational
astronomy had rejected its consequences. 445

90. Still, Thorndike and Duhem to a large extent agree on the status and influence of
astrology in the later Middle Ages. Duhem says, for example: "The most authoritative theologians
one encounters in the 13th century all maintain the same attitude with respect to astrology. They
all admit that the movements of the stars exert on the bodies on earth multiple actions and
determine numerous changes. They all refuse any efficacy [of the stars] on reasoning souls whose
wills remain, with regard to celestial phenomena, exempt from all constraints. Moreover, the free
choice of our will would be a vain thing if, in the world of bodies, certain operations were not in
our power. It is therefore necessary that even the world of inferior bodies escape in part from the
necessary law imposed by the circulation of the heavenly sphere. It is necessary that there remain
here some contingency. On the other hand, if it is true that our will does not undergo on the the
part of the stars any influence which determines it directly, it is true also that the celestial
movements modify the temperament and the constitution of our bodies and, by that, can incline our
free will in one direction or another, without however reaching the point of imposing the choice
which it makes. Such are the four theses that the

442
Thorndike, ibid., v. 6, p. 99.
443 ibid., v. 6,p. 574.
444
Pierre Duhem, Le Système du Monde, Histoire des Doctrines Cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic, 1913.
4 4 5 Duhem, l. c., v. 7, p. 3.
 175

theologians agree to support. They hardly distinguish themselves from one another except by
nuances, according as astrological divination exercises on their reason a more or less strong
attraction."446

91. After discussing the adversaries of astrology, especially Nicolas Oresme (c. 1325-1382)
and Jean Gerson (1363-1429) in the 14th and early 15th centuries, Duhem says: "And now, the
reader will perhaps pose this question: The most ardent adversaries of astrology never went so far
as to deny all influence of the stars on things here below. Nicolas Oresme and Jean Gerson grant
them at least a general influence. Isn't this a last and distressing concession to astrology? God
forbid that they had repudiated all of astrology! For beneath its monstrous errors, it contained the
germ of a great and fruitful truth. We have heard the scholastic doctors, from William of
Auvergne to Themo the son of the Jew, compare the influence of the stars on things on earth to
that which a lodestone exerts on iron to attract it. In fact, don't we also admit that the stars attract
at a distance all the bodies on earth like a magnet attracts iron? The masters of the Middle Ages
would no doubt hail our doctrine of universal gravitation as the ultimate consequence of their
suppositions about the influence of the stars. This opinion, moreover, was indeed that of the first
adversaries of gravitation. When Kepler sketched the first features of this hypothesis, when
Newton made it emerge from his Mathematical Princles of Natural Philosophy, they heard
people like Galileo, Huyghens and Fatio de Duillers reproach them for their recourse to those
occult virtues, to those specific qualities which the scholastics used to explain magnetic
attractions."

92. “It is therefore indeed true that relieved of an encumbering mass of dross, astrology
was to leave at the bottom of the crucible an ingot of an infinitely precious metal, the doctrine of
universal gravity. If, moreover, most of the manifestations of this gravity remained hidden from the
eyes of the scholars of the Middle Ages. there is one they knew very well, that they studied with
the most lively interest, that they cited with eagerness as an example which catches hold of the
influence of the stars on things on earth. The astrologers found convincing proof of their
assumptions in the phenomenon of the tides."447

446
Duhem, ibid., v. 8, p. 347.
447 Duhem, ibid., v. 8, p. 500-501.
 176

Chapter 7. From Ptolemy to Newton

1. In his book Spiritus Mundi Northrup Frye speaks of the relation of the Ptolemaic and
Copernican world systems, and of astrology and astronomy, which he takes, as a literary critic, to be
"a collision between two mythologies, two pictures or visions, not of reality, but of man's sense of
the meaning of reality in relation to himself." 448 Frye contrasts the two visions: "The geocentric
view had on its side the religious feeling that the moral and natural orders had been made by the
same God, that man was the highest development of nature, that God had died and risen again for
man, and that therefore the notion of a plurality of worlds could be dismissed." Moreover, the
Ptolemaic view was also supported by the mythical analogy between the macrocosm, the
Universe, and the microcosm, Man. The macrocosm was finite in both time and space. "Just as
man lives for only seventy years, so the universe was created to last for seven thousand years, six
thousand years of history and a thousand years of millennium, corresponding to the six days of
creation and the Sabbath of rest. Creation took place four thousand years before the birth of
Christ, who was born in 4 B.C.: therefore the millennium will begin in 1996. However the
heliocentric view had some mythological trump-cards too. The sun is the source of light, and
therefore the symbol of consciousness. And the Renaissance brought with it a new and expanded
sense of consciousness, a feeling that consciousness represented something that tore man loose
from the lower part of nature and united him with a higher destiny." But, Frye says, "of course, it
happens to be true that the earth goes around the sun, and not true that the sun goes around the
earth."

2. Is it false that the sun goes around the earth? Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld say:
"Can we formulate physical laws so that they are valid for all CS [coordinate systems], not only
those moving uniformly, but also those moving quite arbitrarily, relative to each other? If this
can be done, our troubles will be over. We shall then be able to apply the laws of nature to any
CS. The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and
Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS could be used with equal justification.
The two sentences, "the sun is at rest and the earth moves," or "the sun moves and the earth is at
rest," would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS. Could we build
a real relativistic physics valid in all CS; a physics in which there would be no place for absolute,
but only for relative motion? This is indeed possible! [general relativity]." 449

3. Frye asserts that when mythologies collide, it is doubtless an advantage to have the
truth, or more of the truth, on one's side -- but not a clinching advantage. "The words 'sunrise'
and 'sunset' are as familiar to us as ever," he says. "We 'know' that what they describe is really
an illusion, but they are metaphorically efficient, and man can live indefinitely with metaphor."
Science only destroys the unscientific, and separates itself from mythology. "The autonomy of
science," says Frye, "goes along with its reliance on mathematics, which can apparently
penetrate much further into the external world than words can do." 450

4. As to mathematics and words, Galileo says: "Philosophy is written in this grand book,
the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood

448
Northrup Frye, Spi ritu s Mundi , 1976, p. 70- 89.
449 Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolu tion of Phy sic s 1938, p 212)
450 Frye, l.c.
 177

unless one first learns to comprehend the language of mathematics, and its characters are
triangles, circles and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to
understand a single word of it; without these one wanders about in a dark labyrinth."451 For
Galileo as for Kepler, and for Euclid before them, geometry is at the core of mathematics --
concepts of number, or at any rate numbers other than integers, depend on concepts of geometry.

5. It is one thing to say the heavens can be read like a book of words, and another to say
that they can be comprehended with geometry. Marsilio Ficino wrote in his Theologia platonica
(late 15th century): "The notions of divine beings are made clear by the disposition of the heavens,
as if through letters." 452 Earlier still there is the statement of Bernard Silvester in his De mundi
universitate (12th century), as reported by Thorndike: "Nous or Intelligence says to Nature, 'I
would have you behold the sky, inscribed with a multiform variety of images, which, like a book
with open pages, containing the future in cryptic letters, I have revealed to the eyes of the more
learned.'"453 Ficino and Silvester were talking about astrology.

6. Galileo inherited his views of the importance of geometry from classical Greek
antiquity, and the 16th and 17th century scientists were not the first to revive it. Robert
Grosseteste (c. 1230 C.E.): "There is an immense usefulness in the consideration of lines,
angles, and figures, because without them natural philosophy cannot be understood. They are
applicable in the universe as a whole and in its parts, without restriction, and their validity
extends to related properties, such as circular and rectilinear motion, nor does it stop at action
and passion, whether as applied to matter or sense ... For all causes of natural effects can be
discovered by lines, angles and figures, and in no other way can the reason for their action
possibly be known."454

7. There is something in mathematics besides words and language, something more than
algebra. There are the abstract pictures and visions of geometry. Beyond that, there are the
intuitions of mathematicians, instituted, it appears, by basic structures and processes of our
universe. In a narrow sense, mathematical "intuition" refers to geometric visualization. In a larger
sense it refers to any mathematical knowledge which is not based --perhaps not base-able -- on
formalized logic or language, and proofs formulated using them. There are some who appear to
have direct insight into relations of numerical, spatial and temporal abstractions, both among the
abstractions themselves and as they apply to other things. Formal proofs follow after, if they can be
found at all. If this is so, mathematics is not merely a part of logic, as Bertrand Russell and other
logicians have maintained.

8. What about Frye's view of mythology? Mythology, he holds, is not primarily an

attempt to depict reality, not a primitive form of science or philosophy, but an attempt to
articulate the greatest human concerns. However, mythology, he says, tends to project itself on
the outer world and harness science with pseudo-scientific presuppositions. Then science has to

451 Galileo Galilei, Il Saggiatore (The Assayer), translated by Stillman Drake in Discoveries and
Opinions of Galileo, 1957, p. 237-23 8.
452 Quoted by Eugenio Garin in Astrology in the Renaissance (1983, o. 69), translation of Lo Zodiaco
della Vita (1976).
453 Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 1923-1958, v. 2, p. 105.
454 Robert Grosseteste De lineis, angulis etfigures, c. 123 0;quoted by James McEvoy in The Philosophy
ofRobert Grosseteste, 1982, p. 168.
destroy such mythological thinking in its own area. This doesn't mean that the mythological
thinking should be destroyed in the areas to which it belongs. Mythology has its own spheres and
functions, and what takes place is a separation of mythology and science. Frye quotes Bernard
Shaw to the effect that if William the Conqueror had been told by a bishop that the moon was 77
miles from the earth, he would have thought that a very proper distance for the moon, inasmuch as
7 is a sacred number. As science destroyed the unscientific in its concerns, what Frye calls
"symmetrical pattern-making" went underground into occult science, into alchemy, astrology,
kabbalism and magic. But of course, theoretical physicists and cosmologists are makers of
symmetrical patterns par excellence. Perhaps Frye has in mind some kind of Baconian "inductive"
science, in which one collects pieces of information (probably dry and unexciting in themselves)
and somehow extracts from them hypotheses and theories after the fact of gather ing the
information. This is not the way of theoretical physics or mathematics.

9. As an example of the gradual separating of poetic and scientific modes of thinking,

Frye takes astrology. Astrology is, he says, like the science of astronomy, a study of the stars, but
it studies the stars from a geocentric point of view: it is interested mainly in the influences that
the movements of stars are believed to have on human concerns. Geocentricity is not a necessary
concomitant of astrology, as we have seen. Putting that aside, however, it is charming to think that
while it seems the physical influence on our characters of the planet Mars is negligible, Mars
may have a poetical influence on those who are told it occupies a special position in their
horoscopes -- no matter what its position at their births.

10. Frye states that it is conceivable that astrology will eventually validate its claim to be a
coherent subject, but in the meantime, the popularity of astrology (he was writing in the earlier
1970's) indicates a growing acceptance of a kind of thinking poets use. In this way, astrology
would not be empty, no matter what its scientific status. In the scientific view of things, Frye says,
the starry universe died during the course of the 16th century. In a metaphorical sense, this is
contrary to the popular, and even the scientific works (if you know how to read them) of modern
astronomers, cosmologists and physicists. But I suppose Frye means that current astronomers no
longer consider celestial bodies to be alive in the way that, say, Plato and Aristotle did. Astrology
preserves something of the view that the sky is the symbol of the divine order of a personal
creator. By the time we get to the prologue to Goethe's Faust, says Frye, "the conception of God as
the infinitely skillful juggler of planets is only a subject for parody." Frye cites Byron's early 19th
century “Vision of the Last Judgement”:

The angels all were singing out of tune,

And hoarse with having little else to do,
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon
Or curb a runaway young star or two ...

It was Darwin, Frye observes, who completed the revolution in perspective that Copernicus
had begun. The doctrine of evolution, he considers, made time as huge and frightening as space.
The past, after Darwin, was no more emotionally reassuring than the skies had come to be. Frye
concludes that we live in more than one world. We live in an actual world, our physical
environment in time and space, the world studied mainly by the natural or physical sciences. At the
same time we live in worlds we want to live in, and worlds we are creating out of our
 179

environment. "This world," Frye claims, "is always geocentric, always anthropocentric, always
centered on man and man's concerns." 455

11. Frye proposes the following chronology, for astrology (presumably in England):

1473. Astrology and astronomy are much the same subject, and most of those who study
the stars are interested primarily in astrology .

1573. The situation is not very diferent, despite Copernicus. There had always been
theological reservations about astrology, mainly on the score of an implied fatalism, and these
had been increased by the Reformation and Counter -Reformation. But still astrology was
generally accepted as a reasonable hypothesis, and in the next generation Kepler was an
energetic caster of horoscopes.

1673. This is the age of the Royal Society, and by now most of the star -gazers are
interested only in astronomy ....

1773. With the discovery of Uranus imminent, belief and interest in astrology is
abandoned by most educated people.

1873. Astrology is firmly consigned to the scrap-heap of exploded superstitions.

1973. Astrology is a major industry, with newspapers printing horoscopes, a large

number of books expounding the subject, and a great many practicing astrologers plying their
trade. At the same time astrology has separated from astronomy: the two studies are carried on
by diferent people and their literatures are addressed to diferent publics. There are many who
'believe in' astrology, i.e. would like to feel that there is 'something in it', but Ishould imagine
that relatively few of them are astronomers."

12. I suppose Frye doesn't mean us to take his chronology of astrology too soberly. A
perhaps more soberly seriously chronology of the fortunes of astrology in England for the years
1642-1800 has been given by Patrick Curry. Briefly, astrology flourished in England in the
middle years of the 17th century-- from about the beginning of the Puritan revolution in 1642 to the
Restoration in 1660. In many respects, a decline began in 1660. During the course of the 18th
century, omen astrology continued to decline, and "high" astrology, meant as serious
cosmological or philosophical explanation by educated people, practically died out. However,
"popular" astrology survived. Curry mentions the annual Moore's Vox Stellarum ("Voice of the
Stars"), known as Moore's Almanack. As well as simple ephemerides, these provided yearly
astrological guidance of the omen sort -- predictions about the weather, agriculture, politics,
wars, and natural disasters. By 1738, this was outselling all its rivals at 25,000 copies a year. Its
printings rose to 107,000 copies a year in 1768, 353,000 in 1800 and peaked at 560,000 in 1839.
John Clare described in 1827 a typical farmer seated in a tavern and reading
 180

Old Moore's annual prop hecies

Offlooded fields and clouded skies;
Whose Almanac's thumb'd pages swarm
With frost and snow and many a storm,
And wisdom, gossip 'dfrom the stars,
Ofpolitics and bloody wars.
He shakes his head, and still proceeds,
Nor doubts the truth of what he reads. 4 5 6

13. Bernard Capp concludes from his study of English almanacs that, like astrology
itself, they were at their peak in the Elizabethan and Stuart periods, and showed decay by the
18th century, at any rate among the educated. The decay was gradual. There was a lively debate
on the validity of astrology in the mid 16th century. A similar debate in France at that time
proved to be a decisive turning point for astrology there, leading to its devaluation. The English
episode was less decisive. In the second half of the 16th century, no major scientist seriously
devoted his efforts to astrology, and the Royal Society, the universities and the College of
Physicians often displayed hostility toward it. Yet starting from the 1640's, interest in a reformed
astrology increased dramatically. In the 17th century, belief in astrology was never extinguished,
even in the upper classes of society, but scientists increasingly turned away from it. 457

14. Morris Jastrow asserts (in 1911) that in England, Jonathan Swift can fairly claim
credit for having given the death-blow to astrology with his famous squib, the Prediction for the
Year 1708, by Isaac Bickerstaf, Esq. Swift begins by professing profound belief in the art, but
then points out the vagueness and absurdity of present practices. He then proceeds to describe a
more excellent way: "My first prediction is but a trifle, yet I mention it to show how ignorant
these sottish pretenders to astrology are in their own concerns: it refers to Partridge the almanac-
maker. I have consulted the star of his nativity by my own rules, and find he will infallibly die
upon the 29th of March next about eleven at night of raging fever. Therefore I advise him to
consider of it and settle his affairs in time." There followed a letter giving an account of the death
of Partridge on the very day and nearly at the hour mentioned. In vain, the astrologer protested
that he was still alive, and got a literary friend to write a pamphlet to prove it. He also published
his almanac for 1709. Swift, in his reply, abused him for his lack of manners in disagreeing with
a gentleman like himself, and answered his arguments one by one. In particular, he declared that
publication of another almanac was irrelevant as evidence for his continued existence, "for
Gadbury, Poor Robin, Dove and Way do yearly publish their almanacs, though several of them
have been dead since before the Revolution." Of course Swift was referring to almanacs being
issued under the names of their first and former publishers. Jastrow concludes: "Nevertheless a
field is found even to this day for almanacs of a similar type, and for popular belief in them." 458

456 Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power, Astrology in Early Modern England, 1989, p. 101-102. Curry proposes
that the survival of popular astrology was a class phenomenon.
457 Bernard Capp, English Almanacs, 1500-1800, Astrology and the Popular Press, 1979, p. 276-278.
458 cf. Morris Jastrow, Encyclopedia Britanica, 11th edition, 1910-1911, article "Astrology", v. 2, p. 799 - 800.

455 Frye, ibid.

 181

15. Jacques Halbronn comme nts that in the late 17th and early18th century attacks on
astrology often had a forbidding character which failed to undermine its appeal for large sectors of
the population. Laughter, as prescribed by Swift, was often a more effective medicine. However,
Halbronn notes that Swift had been preceded in this genre by, among others, Franois Rabelais.
The latter's Pantagruline Prognostication was a sort of prognostication "for all years", which
revealed the truisms and banalities of this kind of astrological discourse. 459

16. Among reasons long put forward for the decline in the hold of astrology over the
educated classes, there are the discoveries of astronomers, with the telescope or otherwise, that
the heavens are not perfect or unchanging (novae, sun spots, mountains on the moon), the
discovery of new "planets" (which is what Galileo called the moons of Jupiter he had discovered
with his telescope), and the realization that stellar distances are much greater than had been
believed. Perhaps also involved was the transition from a belief in an Aristotelian-Ptolemaic
universe of finite extent to a belief in a decentralized universe of infinite extent. 460 There was
also a change in attitudes of churchmen toward astrology.

17. Capp says: "Robert Boyle and others were convinced that science could strengthen
Christianity. From the harmony and splendour of the universe they felt able to prove the
existence of a divine Creator. They depicted a universe which was regular and ordered, shaped by
the hand of God but run according to the constant laws he had created In this current of
religious thought, which by 1700 represented the orthodox view [in England], there was no place
for a God repeatedly interfering in his own laws. Nor, by extension, could there be room for the
stars as the instruments of such intervention, and still less for astrologers as the self-appointed
interpreters of God's will."461 This no doubt applies to astrological predictions which could be
overturned, but it would seem to strengthen a strictly deterministic astrology. Astrologers might
discover rather than interpret God's immutable will by employing laws according to which the
stars influence people -- if only they knew the l aws. However, the scientists were more
successful at discovering laws in their domain than the astrologers were in theirs.

18. Patrick Curry says: "Often people wanted more specific and personal advice, on
urgent matters, than was available from a book or almanac. Then they had recourse to the local
'wise' or 'cunning' man, or woman. While it is impossible to estimate numbers, it seems that this
figure too had disappeared more from 'Books and Talk' than from 'the World'." 462 Such so-called
cunning persons, Curry says, remained a recognized influence well into the nineteenth century,
combining -- for the poor -- services of medicine, divination and magical protection, all with a
strong though primitive astrological component. Of course, we still have our local fortune tellers in
the United States today.

459 Jacques Halbronn, "The Revealing Process of Translation and Criticism", in Astrology, Science and
Society, 1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 212.
460 As described by Alexander Koyré, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe, 1957. Most physical
cosmologists today believe the universe to be of finite extent, but expanding -- the old finite universe was of fixed
size, once and for all.
461 Capp, ibid., p. 280.
462 Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power, Astrology in Early Modern England, 1989, p. 102.) (Curry is
referring to a remark made by Mrs. Hester Thrale in 1790: "Superstition is said to be driven out of the World -- no such
Thing, it is only driven out of Books and Talk."
 182

19. John Melton in his attack on astrology, Astrologaster or the Figure-Caster, 1620,
describes how he consulted an astrological fortune -teller of this sort about a gold chain he had
lost. He is admitted to the astrologer's house and led upstairs by a small boy. Then, Melston says:
"Before a Square Table, covered with a greene Carpet, on which lay a huge Booke in Folio, wide
open, full of strange Characters, such as the Aegyptians and Chaldaeans were never guiltie of, not
farre from that, a silver Wand, a Surplus [surplice?], a Watering Pot, with all the superstitious or
rather fayned Instruments of his cousening [cheating] Art. And to put a fairer colour on his black
and foule Science, on his head hee had a foure-cornered Cap, on his backe a faire Gowne (but
made of a strange fashion) in his right hand he held an Astrolabe, in his left a Mathematical
Glasse [telescope?]. At the first view, there was no man that came to him (if hee were of any
fashion) could offer him for his advice lesse than a Iacobus [a coin on the order of a pound or
guinea], and the meanest halfe a Peece [half of a lesser coin], although hee peradventure (rather
than have nothing) would be contented with a brace of Two-pences." 463

20. Nearly a century and a half later, Tobias Smollett, in his novel The Adventures of Sir
Launcelot Greaves, 1762, gives a similar description of such a person, an astrologer consulted by
Timothy Crab shaw, groom and squire to Sir Launcelot: "He was dragged upstairs like a bear to
the stake, not without reluctance and terror, which did not at all abate at sight of the conjurer, with
whom he was immediately shut up by his conductress, after she had told him in a whisper that he
must deposit a shilling in a little black coffin, supported by a human skull and thigh-bones
crossed, on a stoll covered with black baize, that stood in one corner of the apartment. The squire,
having made this offer with fear and trembling, ventured to survey the objects around him, which
were very well calculated to augment his confusion. He saw divers skeletons hung by the head,
the stuffed skin of a young alligator, a calf with two heads, and several snakes suspended from the
ceiling, with the jaws of a shark, and a starved weasel. On another funeral table he beheld two
spheres, between which lay a book open, exhibiting outlandish characters and mathematical
diagrams. On one side stood an ink-standish with paper, and behind this desk appeared the
conjurer himself, in sable vestments, his head so overshadowed with hair that, far from
contemplating his features, Timothy could distinguish nothing but a long white beard, which, for
aught he knew, might have belonged to a four -legged goat, as well as to a two -legged astrologer
"

21. "[The conjurer] exhorted him to sit down and compose himself till he should cast a
figure; then he scrawled the paper, and waving his wand, repeated abundance of gibberish
concerning the number, the names, the houses, and revolutions of the planets, with their
conjunctions, oppositions, signs, circles, cycles, trines, and trigons. When he perceived that this
artifice had its proper effect in dis turbing the brain of Crabshaw, he proceeded ..." The astrologer
tells Crabshaw some things that Crabshaw had already told him, although Crabshaw seems to have
forgotten this. Crab shaw is "thunderstruck to find the conjurer acquainted with all these
circumstances," and wants to know if he can ask a question or two about his fortune, "The
astrologer pointing to the little coffin, our squire understood the hint, and deposited another
shilling. The sage had recourse to his book, erected another scheme, performed once more his airy
evolutions with the wand, and having recited another mystical preamble, expounded the book of
fate in these words: "You shall neither die by war nor water, by hunger or by thirst, nor be brought
to the grave by an old age of distemper; but, let me see -- ay, the stars will have it so -
463 Q u ot ed b y D on Al l e n C a m e r on i n The Star - Crossed Renaissance, 1 9 4 1 , p . 1 3 6 .
 183

- you shall be -- exalted -- hah! -- ay, that is -- hanged, for horse-stealing." --"Oh, good my lord
conjurer!" roared the squire, “I'd as lief give forty shillings as be hanged." --"Peace, sirrah!" cried
the other; "would you contradict or reverse the immutable decrees of fate? Hanging is your
destiny, and hanged you shall be -- and comfort yourself with the rejection, that as you are not the
first, so neither will you be the last to swing on Tyburn tree." This comfortable assurance
composed the mind of Timothy, and in a great measure reconciled him to the prediction." 464

22. Jacques Halbronn gives some details about the decline of astrology in France. The
primary goal of the work of Abbé Pluche, especially the Histoire du Ciel, 1739, was to
undermine the foundations of astrology by reawakening the world of gods and heroes that had
been pushed aside. "The history of the birth of this supposed science," he wrote, "is its refutation,
for all Astrology is no more than a false interpretation of certain signs that have been
misunderstood." One of Pluche's major concerns was to distinguish sharply between astronomy
and astrology, and Halbronn observes that "in this he was followed by all the historians of the
Revolutionary period, from Bailly to La Lande and Delambre. Astronomers to some extent felt
affected by the disfavor attached to astrology, and since approximately the time of Pluche,
astronomers have been prime opponents of astrology. Historians of astronomy committed
themselves to removing the stigmata of astrology by purifying their discourse of everything that
might be a reminder of the link between the two activities. For a century and a half, roughly from
1730 to 1880, astrology was considered by many only in the past tense. Astrology came to be
considered as no longer dangerous, but merely empty.465

23. The effect on astrology of the transition from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican view of
the world has often been mis-evaluated. As many astrologers realized, Copernicanism and
astrology are as consistent as Ptolemaicism and astrology, just as navigation by the stars as
viewed from earth is consistent with navigation by the stars as viewed from the sun. Whatever
influence the earth and sun have on one another doesn't depend which body is taken as a reference
point. As far as positions of celestial objects are concerned, aside from the forces they exert on
one another, it's just a matter of one's point of view. Given the general relativity of Einstein, this
is so even taking forces into account. It's comparatively simple to transform positions with respect
to our earth into positions with respect to our sun, and vice versa. Relating forces in the two systems
is more difficult, but possible. Furthermore, while the effect of placing the sun rather than the earth
at the center of the universe no doubt made some people feel less central (!), I suggest that a
decline in belief in the power of magic, and in the power to predict personal and political matters
by means of interpreting the stars, contributed more than the advent of Copernicanism to feelings
that the universe was not made especially for us. This was perceived as a loss of power, or
potential power, rather than of position.

24. A decline in belief in astrology was especially prevalent among well educated and
scientifically oriented people. Formerly there were professors of astrology in universities, and
astrologers were openly hired and consulted by temporal and spiritual leaders. For example, at the
universities of Bologna, Padua and Milan in Italy, the list of professors of astrology is

464 Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, 1762, Hutchinson edition of 1905, bound
with Adventures of an Atom, p. 215- 217.
465 Jacques Halbronn, "The Revealing Process of Translation and Criticism", in Astrology, Science and
Society, 1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 213-215.
 184

continuous from the early 13th to the 16th century, and includes such names as Pietro d'Abano,
Giorgio Peurbach and Regiomontanus. 466 The latter two are often counted among the earliest
modern astronomers. The chair in judicial astrology at the University of Salamanca was occupied
until at least 1770.467 Professors of mathematics and medicine were often astrologers, and
numerous officials of the State and Church up to kings and popes employed or favored astrology.
Wedel speaks, for example, of Guido Bonatti, perhaps the most famous professional astrologer of
the 13th century: "As an example of the kind of services he rendered his masters, Filippo Villani
relates that while in the employ of Guido de Montefeltro, he would mount the campanile [bell
tower] to observe the stars at the outbreak of any military expedition. At the first striking of the
bell, the count and his men would put on their armor; at the second stroke, they would mount their
horses; and at the third, spur their steeds to a gallop. Experience testifies,
says Villani, that by this means the count won many a victory." 4 68 For a long time, astrology was a
chief tool of medical doctors. This is no longer so (I think). Yet many people still to some degree
believe in the efficacy of astrology, such is the deep longing many people have for the kind of
power astrology is alleged to furnish.

25. I have depicted some large patterns a nd small bits of astronomy/astrology, the study
of stars, as it was up to the transformation of science which began in the latter part of the 16th
century. It was in this era that astronomy and astrology began to split apart to the extent we see
today. Galileo was a prominent contributor to this separation. In his Dialogo sopra due massimi
sistemi del mondo, tolemaico, e copernicano of 1632, Galileo has Salviati (representing himself)
say: "Likewise it is completely idle to say (as is attributed to one of the ancient mathematicians)
that the tides are caused by the conflict between the motion of the earth and the motion of the
lunar sphere, not only because it is neither obvious nor has it been explained how this must
follow, but because its glaring falsity is revealed by the rotation of the earth being not contrary to
the motion of the moon, but in the same direction. Thus everything that has been previously
conjectured by others seems to me completely invalid. But among all the great men who have
philosophized about this remarkable effect, I am more astonished at Kepler than at any other.
Despite his open and acute mind, and though he has at his fingertips the motions attributed to the
earth, he has nevertheless lent his ear and his assent to the moon's dominion over the waters, to
occult properties, and to such puerilities."469

26. From our point of view, as influenced by Newton's treatment of gravitational

attraction, Kepler seems to have had the right idea after all. The moon does have a physical
effect on our lives, as star-gazers first maintained so long ago, inasmuch as its gravitational
attraction has an effect on our lives. This much of astronomy/astrology has been absorbed into
astronomy. Galileo wanted to do away with even this much.

27. On the other hand, Galileo has Sagredo (representing an educated layman) say to
Simplicio (representing an Aristotelian philosopher): "I have a little book, much briefer than
Aristotle or Ovid, in which is contained the whole of science, and with very little study one may
form from it the most complete ideas. It is the alphabet, and no doubt anyone who can properly

466 Theodore Otto Wedel in The Mediaeval Attitude toward Astrology, Particularly in England, 1920, p. 77.
467 Thorndike, ibid., v. 6, p. 166.
468 Wedel, ibid., p. 78- 79.
469 Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, 1632, translated by Stillman Drake, 1962, p.
462.
 185

join and order this or that vowel and these or those consonants with one another can dig out of it the
truest answers to every question, and draw from it the instruction in all the arts and sciences. Just so
does a painter, from the various simple colors placed separately upon his palette, by gathering a
little of this with a bit of that and a trifle of the other, depict men, plants, buildings, birds, fishes,
and in a word represent every visible object, without any eyes or feathers or scales or leaves or
stones being on his palette. Indeed, it is necessary that none of the things imitated nor parts of
them should actually be among the colors, if you want to be able to represent everything; if there
were feathers, for instance, these would not do to depict anything but birds or feather dusters This
manner of 'containing' everything that can be known is similar to the sense in which a block of
marble contains a beautiful statue, or rather thousands of them; but the whole point lies in being
able to reveal them. Even better we might say that it is like the prophecies of Joachim or the
answers of the heathen oracles, which are understood only after the events they have forecast have
occurred." Salviati interjects: "And why do you leave out the prophecies of the astrologers, which
are so clearly seen in horoscopes (or should we say in the configurations of the heavens) after
their fulfillment?"470 This much of astronomy/astrology, attributed by Galileo to an unsupported
use of language, is not found in our astronomy today.

28. Similarly, Thorndike relates of Descartes that in 1629: "... he wrote that he judged
from the title of Gaffarel's recent Curiositez inouyes sur la sculpture des Persans, horoscope des
patriarches et lecture des estoilles [Forgotten curiosities about the sculpture of the Persians,
horoscopes of the patriarchs and reading of the stars] that it would contain only chimeras. Thus he
already drew a sharp line between natural or mathematical magic, which could be effected or
explained mechanically, and an immaterial magic based on the power of words, pictures and
diagrams. " 4 7 1

29. It has been stated at times that a crucial blow to the validity of associating influences
of celestial objects with human affairs was dealt when Isaac Newton and Edmond Halley
discovered the regular orbits of comets. In this view, it was the unpredictability of comets that
made them seem ominous, and when the unpredictability was removed, so was the ominousness.
However, Simon Schaffer has argued that the work of Newton, Halley and some of their
contemporaries on comets was part of a natural philosophy which still dealt with prophetic
aspects of astronomical signs. In particular, Newton suggested that comets might be used by God
to replenish materials on Earth, or, more ominously, to terminate life on Earth by crashing into the
sun and defeating the stability of the solar system. At the same time, it follows from Schaffer's
work that Newton attacked a basic tenet of astral religion, the divinity of celestial objects. Newton
took this doctrine to be a form of idolatry, and also as the basis of astrology. Thus the work of
Newton on comets, and work related to it, contained an attack on astrology. Schaffer's analysis of
Newton's cometography (as Schaffer calls it, perhaps after a work Cometographia of 1668 by Seth
Ward which Schaffer cites, in which Ward asserted that comets move in circles) can be used not
only to reveal Newton's argument against astrology, but also to

470 Galileo, ibid., p. 109- 110 of Drake’s translation.

471 Lynn Thorndike, A Hi s t o r y o f M a g i c a n d E x p e r i me n t a l S c i e n c e ,1923- 1958, v. 7 (1958), p. 557.
 186

show a part of what we now call astronomy emerging from the astronomy/astrology which
preceded it. 4 7 2

30. It was a comet of 1664 -1665 which aroused Newton's interest in comets, and perhaps
in astronomy in general. In his work on comets (1619-1620), Kepler had distinguished between
permanent celestial objects which move in closed orbits, and transient ones, such as comets,
which move (he thought) in straight lines. By 1680, Newton had convinced himself that this
classification was correct. However, certain events transformed his view. Among these was a
heightened concern among astrologers and their opponents over the significance of comets in
connection with a Catholic threat (the Popish Plot), and the fall of monarchies. This was of great
concern to Newton. The comets of 1680-1681 and 1682 were to become prize specimens in a new
cometography he developed. Robert Hooke had by this time argued that comets were more like
planets than was generally thought at the time, and Edmond Halley had convinced himself that
linear paths for comets could not explain observations. The astronomer Giovanni Cassini had
identified the comet of 1680 with those of 1577 and 1665. Earlier, in 1677, the astronomer John
Flamsteed had announced that comets "make their returns as in stated times & move about ye
fixed stars at a vast distance." He pronounced this to be a powerful argument against astrological
predictions based on appearances of comets, and even against judicial astrology in general. In
1681, Flamsteed argued for a cometary path which took a sharp bend near the sun, and suggested
that it might be attracted by the sun in its approach and repelled from it afterwards. Between the
spring of 1681 and the autumn of 1684, Newton decided that comets should be treated in the same
manner as planets, and that both types of objects moved in elliptical orbits around the sun. He
developed a method for calculating the parameters of the orbits of comets and their periods which
appeared in Book 3 of the Principia in 1687. By the winter of 1695-1696, Halley and Newton had
established at least two closed and periodic cometary paths, and on 3 June 1696 Halley told the
Royal Society that the comet of 1682 and that of 1607 were the same, and that it had a period of
about 75 years. This became known as Halley's comet. 473

31. According to Schaffer, this work of Newton and Halley on comets in the 1690's was
intimately linked to their re-definition of the function of comets in the universe. There were a
number of projects connected with these functions. These included an analysis of the stability of the
solar system, the scriptural history of the Earth including the Biblical deluge and end of the world,
an analysis of changes in mass of the planets and sun, and of the maintenance of vital activity
throughout the cosmos. Newton held that comets were part of a divinely planned system. For
example, in a letter to Richard Bentley, he says: "To your second Query I answer that ye motions
wch ye Planets now have could not spring from any naturall cause alone but were imprest by an
intelligent Agent. For since Comets descend into ye region of our Planets & here move all manner
of ways going sometimes the same way wth the Planets sometimes the contrary way & sometimes
in cross ways in planes inclined to ye plane of the Ecliptick at all kinds of angles: its plaine that
there is no naturall cause wch could determin all ye Planets both primary and seconday to move
ye same way & in ye same plane wthout any considerable

472 Simon Schaffer, "Newton's Comets and the Transformation of Astrology", in A st rology , Sci enc e and
Soci ety , 1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 2 19 -243.
473 Schaffer, ibid.
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variation. This must have been the effect of Counsel."474 And he is quoted by Gregory as saying:
"that a continual miracle is needed to prevent the Sun and fixed stars from rushing together
through gravity: that the great eccentricity in Comets in directions both different from and
contrary to the planets indicates a divine hand: and implies that the Comets are destined for a use
other than that of the planets."475

32. In 1687, Newton argued as follows in Book III of the Principia: "And it is not
unlikely but that the vapor [from the tails of comets], thus continually rarefied and dilated, may be
at last dissipated and scattered through the whole heavens, and by little and little be attracted
towards the planets by its gravity, and mixed with their atmosphere; for as the seas are absolutely
necessary to the constitution of our earth, that from them, the sun, by its heat, may exhale a
sufficient quantity of vapors, which, being gathered together into clouds, may drop down in rain, for
watering of the earth, and for the production and nourishment of vegetables; or being condensed
with cold on the tops of mountains (as some philosophers with reason judge), may run down in
springs and rivers; so for the conservation of the seas, and fluids of the planets, comets seem to be
required, that, from their exhalations and vapors condensed, the wastes of the planetary fluids
spent upon vegetation and putrefaction, and converted into dry earth, may be continually supplied
and made up; for all vegetables entirely derive their growths from fluids, and afterwards, in great
measure, are turned into dry earth by putrefaction; and a sort of slime is always found to settle at
the bottom of putrefied fluids; and hence it is that the bulk of the solid earth is continually
increased; and the fluids, if they are not supplied from without, must be in continual decrease, and
quite fail at last. I suspect, moreover, that it is chiefly from the comets that spirit comes, which is
indeed the smallest but most subtle and useful part of our air, and so much required to sustain the
life of all things with us."476

33. In the early 1670's, Newton had written in a manuscript called "Of natures obvious
laws & processes in vegetation" that "this Earth resembles a great animall or rather inanimate
vegetable, draws in aethereall breath for its dayly refreshment & vitall ferment & transpires again
the grosse exhalations". 477 These ideas were made a part of his cometography after 1687, and
amplified in the final queries in his Optics of 1706. Thus comets served a divine office --the
restoration of vegetative life.

34. Newton seems not to have been much attached to the idea that celestial objects are
alive. The Earth, he says, resembles a large animal, or rather an "inanimate vegetable" (whatever
that might be). Robert Westfall calls attention to an alchemical paper of Newton's which probes
the distinction between vegetation and mechanical changes. Newton sometimes referred to a
principle of vegetable action as a spirit, or "Powerfull agent". Sometimes he referred to it with a
plural such as seeds or seminal virtues, which are nature's "only agents, her fire, her soule, her
life." Westfall concludes: "That is, what he found in the world of alchemy was the conviction that
nature cannot be reduced to the arrangement of inert particles of matter. Nature contains

474 Letter from Newton to Bentley, 10 Dec 1692, in The Correspondence of Newton, edited by H. W. Turnbull,
J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall and L. Tilling, 1959-1977, v. 3 (1961), p. 234.
475 Gregory, memoranda of 5,6,7 May 1694, ibid., p. 336.
476 Isaac Newton, Philosophiae naturalisprincipia mathematica (1687), translated by Andrew Motte (1729),
revised by Florian Cajori (1934) with the title Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and his System of the
World, p. 529- 530.
477 Quoted by Schaffer, ibid., p. 235.
 188

foci of activity, agents whose spontaneous working produces results that cannot be accounted for by
the mechanical philosophy's only category of explanation: particles of matter in motion." 478

35. Westfall makes a case for concluding that Newton's alchemical studies stimulated
Newton to introduce his concept of forces of attraction and repulsion acting between particles of
matter. But the concept of a life force animating matter is quite different from the concept of a
living planet with a soul. I have not been able to find any indication that Newton considered
planets to have souls, or to be alive as an animal or person is alive, in the way Kepler did.

36. By 1698, Newton had concluded that the comet of 1680 was periodic, and in the 2nd
and 3rd editions of the Principia (1713, 1726) said: "The comet which appeared in the year 1680
was in its perihelion less distant from th e sun than by a sixth part of the sun's diameter; and because
of its extreme velocity in that proximity to the sun, and some density of the sun's atmosphere, it
must have suffered some resistance and retardation; and therefore, being attracted somewhat nea rer
to the sun in every revolution, will at last fall down upon the body of the sun. Nay, in its
aphelion, where it moves the slowest, it may sometimes happen to be yet further retarded by the
attractions of other comets, and in consequence of this retardation descend to the sun. So fixed
stars, that have been gradually wasted by the light and vapors emitted from them for a long time,
may be recruited by comets that fall upon them; and from this fresh supply of new fuel those old
stars, acquiring new splendor, may pass for new stars. Of this kind are such fixed stars as appear
on a sudden, and shine with a wonderfull brightness at first, and afterwards vanish little by
little." 479 Thus Newton conjectures that a nova may be the result of an old star being struck by one
of its comets. Furthermore, he predicts that the comet of 1680, belonging to our own solar system,
may fall into our sun.

37. Newton never made public the fact that his own work involved correlation between
divine functions of comets and ancien t prophecy. However, he drafted arguments in his System of
the World in 1685 that a true system of the world had been known in ancient times, and later
corrupted. A version of this appeared in English in 1728: "It was the ancient opinion of not a few,
in the earliest ages of philosophy, that the fixed stars stood immovable in the highest parts of the
world; that under the fixed stars the planets were carried about the sun; that the earth, as one of
the planets, described an annual course about the sun, while by a diurnal motion it was in the
meantime revolved about its own axis; and that the sun, as the common fire which served to warm
the whole, was fixed in the centre of the universe. This was the philosophy taught of old by
Philolaus, Aristarchus of Samos, Plato in his riper years, and the whole sect of the Pythagoreans;
and this was the judgment of Anaximander, more ancient still; and of that wise king of the
Romans, Numa Pompilius, who, as a symbol of the figure of the world with the sun in the centre,
erected a round temple in honor of Vesta, and ordained perpetual fire to be kept in the middle of it."

38. "The Egyptians were early observers of the heavens; and from them, probably, this
philosophy was spread abroad among other nations; for from them it was, and the nations about
them, that the Greeks, a people more addicted to the study of philology than of Nature, derived

478 Robert S. Westfall, ”Newton and Alchemy” in Occult and scientific mentalities in the Renaissance, 1984,
edited by Brian Vickers, p. 315 -335.
479 Newton, Principia, translation of Motte and Cajori, p. 540- 541.
 189

their first, as well as soundest, notions of philosophy; and in the Vestal ceremonies we may yet
trace the ancient spirit of the Egyptians; for it was their way to deliver their mysteries, that is,
their philosophy of things above the common way of thinking, under the veil of religious rites and
hieroglyphic symbols. It is not to be denied that Anaxagoras, Democritus, and others, did now and
then start up, who would have it that the earth possessed the centre of the world, and that the stars
were revolved towards the west about the earth quiescent in the centre, some at a swifter, others at
a slower rate. However, it was agreed on both sides that the motions of the celestial bodies were
performed in spaces altogether free and void of resistance. The whim of solid orbs was of a later
date, introduced by Eudoxus, Calippus, and Aristotle, when the ancient philosophy began to
decline, and to give place to the new prevailing fictions of the Greeks. But, above all things, the
phenomena of comets can by no means tolerate the idea of solid orbits. The Chaldeans, the most
learned astronomers of their time, looked upon the comets (which of ancient times before had been
numbered among the celestial bodies) as a particular sort of planets, which, describing eccentric
orbits, presented themselves to view only by turns, once in a revolution, when they descended into
the lower parts of their orbits. And as it was the unavoidable consequence of the hypothesis of
solid orbits, while it prevailed, that the comets should be thrust into spaces below the moon; so,
when later observations of astronomers restored the comets to their ancient places in the higher
heavens, these celestial spaces were necessarily cleared of the incumbrance of solid orbits." 480

39. In the years in which Newton was forming his theory of comets, he was also
composing a fundamental study of ancient theology and natural philosophy, the Philosophical
origins of gentile theology (begun 1683-1684; reworked 1694 and after). 481 Here he linked idolatry
and false cometography. False cometography, he said, suffered from the worship of planetary
souls as real divinities identified with temporal kings and heroes. In the mid 1680's, Newton
argued that the natural philosophers of the ancients had been their priests. The Chaldeans in
Babylon were an example. In the Philosophical origins, he explained that when "the stars were
declared to move in their courses in the heavens by the force of their souls and seemed to all men
to be heavenly deities", then "gentile Astrology and Theology were introduced by cunning Priests to
promote the study of stars and the growth of the priesthood and at length spread through the
world." Newton singled out Cabbalists, Gnostics and neo-Platonists as sharing a common idolatry
and a common error which concealed the true system of the world. Thus around 1685, Newton had
composed a treatise on ancient philosophy in which he charged that false worship of elements of
what had been proper natural philosophy had destroyed a correct theory of comets, already known
to certain ancient astronomers, and which he was undertaking to restore.

40. In Schaffer's view, Newton's interpretation of his work on comets affected

astrology in two ways. First, it promoted the idea that the interpretation of comets should pass
from popular divination to a theologically oriented natural philosophy: theologically oriented,
since Newton regarded the activity of comets to be divinely directed, and believed that they could
be used by God as His agents. This still gave comets a dramatic function and prophetic
meaning. They could, for example, rejuvenate Earth and the planets, and they could terminate
life on

480 Probably translated by Andrew Motte, appended to the Motte and Cajori translation of the Princ ipia, p. 549 -
550.
481 Quoted by Schaffer, ibid,, p. 242; "gentile" is used here with the obsolete meaning of "heathen" or "pagan".
 190

Earth. Second, Newton challenged the idolatry which attributed the wrong kind of spiritual
power to the heavens. That is, he attacked the idea that planets are divine. 482

41. Here we come to a crux. Mathematical celestial mechanics, of the sort largely founded
by Newton, can be used to predict the motions of comets --they move pretty nearly in predictable
ellipses (at least, most all of them do -- a few might move in hyperbolas or parabolas).
Furthermore, mathematics of the kind introduced by Newton, and extended by many others by way
of nonlinear dynamics, can be used to predict breakdowns of the stability of the solar system. Thus
Newton's methods can be used to predict such things as the end of the world (quite aside from the
Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is another story). Therefore one might be entitled to call
Newton's celestial mechanics a kind of reformed astrology. It achieves one of the aims of
astrology by methods quite different from traditional astrology – Kepler’s announced program.
Newton himself believed that with his methods he was restoring the system of the ancient
Babylonian astronomers, which had been corrupted by priests and astrologers. "Astrologers,
augurs, auruspicers &c are," he said, "such as pretend to ye art of divining ... without being able to
do what they pretend to ... and to believe than man or woman can really divine ... is of the same
nature with believing that the Idols of the Gentiles were not vanities but had spirits really seated
in them." 483

42. Newton supplied u s with techniques for divining, for predicting what God intends (if
one believes in this manner, as it appears Newton did), with which suitably equiped people can do
what they pretend to be able to do in the way of certain kinds of predictions, or very nearly, in
certain circumstances. And it has often been claimed that Newton's theory of gravity grew out of a
theory of planetary influences, although Newton himself showed a noticeable reluctance to say so,
protesting that his quantitative results were correct no matter what you attributed them to. He
showed great reluctance to stand behind a mechanism for gravity, although at times he spoke of
God as an agency for maintaining celestial objects in their courses.

43. Eugenio Garin observes: "The stages of so-called 'scientific progress' are anything but
straightforward and unambiguous. In the middle of the eighteenth century, G. M. Bose, Professor
of Philosophy and Dean of the University of Wittenburg, wrote, with regard to Newton and the
Theory of Universal Attraction: ... 'Shall action at a distance be granted? Will you then prevent a
star from acting [on] a Talisman at a distance? Rejoice Melanchthon, the horoscope returns, Haly,
Almutec, Athacir, Alcecadenor, Hylec. Shall action at a distance be granted? Soon the Thessalian
witch, horrid with wrinkles and bristles, raging, shall return." 484

44. In Newton's Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St.
John, one of his last works, published in 1733, a few years after his death, Newton says: "For
understanding the Prophecies, we are, in the first place, to acquaint ourselves with the figurative
language of the Prophets. This language is taken from the analogy between the world natural, and
an empire or kingdom considered as a world polit ic. Accordingly, the whole world natural
consisting of heaven and earth, signifies the whole world politic, consisting of thrones and
people, or so much of it as is considered in the Prophecy: and the things in that world signify the

482 Schaffer, ibid., p. 241 -242.

483 Quoted by Shaffer.
484
Eugenio Garin, Astrology in the Renaissance, 1983), translation of La Zodiaco della Vita, 1976), p. 5-6.
 191

analogous things in this. For the heavens, and the things therein, signify thrones and dignities,
and those who enjoy them; and the earth, with things thereon, the inferior people; and the lowest
parts of the earth, called Hades or Hell, the lowest or most miserable part of them ....."

45. "In the heavens, the Sun and Moon are, by interpreters of dreams, put for the persons
of Kings and Queens; but in sacred Prophecy, which regards not single persons, the Sun is put for
the whole species and race of Kings, in the kingdom or kingdoms of the world politic, shining
with regal power and glory; the Moon for the body of the common people, considered as the King's
wife; the Stars for subordinate Princes and great men, or for Bishops and Rulers of the people of
God, when the sun is Christ; light for the glory, truth, and knowledge, wherewith great and good
men shine and illuminate others; darkness for obscurity of condition, and for error, blindness and
ignorance; darkning, smiting, or setting of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, for the ceasing of a
kingdom, or for the desolation thereof, proportional to the darkness; darkning the Sun, turning
the Moon into blood, and falling of the Stars, for the same; new Moons, for the return of a
dispersed people into a body politic or ecclesiastic." 485 After this, Newton gives interpretations of
fire in various forms, various movements of clouds, winds, thunder, lighting, water in various
forms, geological formations, animals, vegetables and plants, and so on.

46. This passage, in which Newton describes how he reads Biblical prophecies, puts light
on his reference (cited above) to Chaldeans as "the most learned astronomers of their time", and his
complaint (also cited above) that certain ancient Greeks and priests had corrupted previously
known correct astronomy by declaring that the stars "move in their courses in the heavens by the
force of their souls" and were deemed to be "heavenly deities", and that "gentile Astrology and
Theology were introduced by cunning Priests to promote the study of stars and the growth of the
priesthood and at length spread through the world." Newton speaks of the correspondences
between natural objects and processes, on the one hand, and political entities and activities, on
the other, as being a matter offigurative language, based on analogy between the two worlds. Yet
he believes in the accuracy and indeed inevitability of the predictions made by the Biblical
prophets. He says: "And the giving ear to the Prophets is a fundamental character of the true
Church The authority of the Prophets is divine, and comprehends the sum of religion... Their
writings contain the covenant between God and his people, with instructions for keeping this
covenant And no power on earth is authorized to alter this covenant." Of Daniel in particular,
he says: "The predictions of things to come relate to the state of the Church in all ages; and
amongst the old Prophets, Daniel is most distinct in order of time, and easiest to be understood:
and therefore in those things which relate to the last times, he must be made the key to the rest." 486

47. Thus according to Newton's description, Biblical prophecy can give results of the kind
the Chaldeans expected from their omen astrology and other methods of prediction they used,
before the invention of personal astrology with its horoscopes and houses. In Newton's view, as
stated in the first part of the Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of
St. John, Biblical prophecy furnishes "in figurative language" strictly determined predictions of
political matters based on the interpretation of natural processes involving celestial and terrestrial
natural objects. To be sure, he doesn't admit the divinity of such objects. The

485 Isaac Newton, Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733), p. 16-23.
486 ibid., p. 14-15.
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accuracy of the predictions is presumably guaranteed by the one God alone, who uses the natural
objects "figuratively" (whatever that might mean) in order to communicate this foreknowledge.
Newton's views on this question therefore resemble those of Calvin, but differ distinctly from
those of Thomas Aquinas (to take just two examples). A widespread judgment today (as
discussed earlier) is that the Chaldeans did attribute divinity to celestial objects. Newton seems to
imply (although I don't know of a place where he says so outright) that the Chaldeans did not do
so, and that such beliefs were introduced later by certain Greeks, to the detriment of true
astronomy. Of course, Newton knew nothing of the many Babylonian writings which have been
recovered after his time.

48. Pierre Duhem remarked that modern science was born on the day someone proclaimed
the truth that the same mechanics and the same physical laws rule celestial and sublunary
motions, the sun, the flow and ebb of the tides, the fall of bodies. This pertains to the universality
I spoke of earlier. For such a thought to become possible, Duhem says, it was necessary that the
stars fall from the divine rank in which antiquity had placed them, and for this it was necessary for
a theological revolution to occur. This revolution, Duhem believed, was the the work of Christian
theologians.487 The path to Duhem's conclusion is not clear, since denial of the divinity of celestial
objects occurred in pre-Christian antiquity, and seems then and later to have had several sources.
For example, we noted that Deuteronomy 4.19 forbids the worship of celestial objects, so it
appears Jews began or continued the theological revolution (if it can be called this) before Christ
appeared. Again, with Galileo and after, telescopes revealed irregular features of our moon, sun
and some planets, some of which had counterparts on earth (mountains on the moon), and this made
it difficult to believe any longer in the perfection and distinctiveness usually required of divine
objects. But it would be characteristic of Newton to include a theological motive among the
reasons for which he rejected the divinity of celestial objects.

49. Later in the Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, Newton deals with the
Apocalypse of St. John, the book of Revelations of the Christian New Testament. Here it is said on
the basis of Daniel 10.21 and 12.4,9 that Daniel sealed the book of Revelations "until the time of the
end". Newton takes this to mean that "these prophecies of Daniel and John should not be
understood till the time of the end: but then some should prophesy out of them in an afflicted and
mournful state for a long time, and that but darkly, so as to convert but few. But in the very end, the
Prophecy should be so far interpreted as to convince many But if the last age, the age of
opening these things, be now approaching, as by the great successes of late Interpreters it seems
to be, we have more encouragement than ever to look into these things. If the general preaching of
the Gospel is approaching, it is to us and our posterity that those words mainly belong: In the time
of the end the wise shall understand. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of
this Prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein." (Newton's italics.)

50. Newton continues: "The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretel times and things by
this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only
exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was quite
otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify men's curiosities by
enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by
the event, and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the
487
P i er r e Du h em , L e S y s t è m e d u M o n d e , 1 9 1 3 , v. 2 , p . 4 5 3 .
 193

world. For the event of things predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument
that the world is governed by providence ....... The event [of Christ's second coming] will prove the
Apocalypse; and this Prophecy, thus proved and understood, will open the old Prophets, and all
together will make known the true religion, and establish it. For he that will understand the old
Prophets, must begin with this; but the time is not yet come for understanding them perfectly,
because the main revolution in them is not yet come to pass ..... "

51. "There is already so much of the Prophecy fulfilled, that as many as will take pains in
this study, may see sufficient instances of God's providence: but then the signal revolutions
predicted by all the holy Prophets, will at once both turn mens eyes upon considering the
predictions, and plainly interpret them. Till then we must content ourselves with interpreting
what hath been already fulfilled. Amongst the Interpreters of the last age there is scarce one of
note who hath not made some discovery worth knowing; and thence I seem to gather that God is
about opening these mysteries. The success of others put me upon considering it; and if I have
done any thing which may be useful to following writers, I have my design." 488

52. Newton said in the passage I quoted earlier that the book of Daniel must be made the
key to all the other prophecies about the end of time, which express what God will bring to pass,
and from all he says in the first few pages of this work, we might expect that Biblical prophecy
will enable to predict when the world will end. But this later passage is a kind of admission of
defeat. We cannot securely extract prophecies from the Scriptures, he is saying -- we can only
understand fully what the words mean retrospectively, and then see that the prophecies have been
fulfilled.

53. So Newton's method for reading Biblical prophecy appears from his description, I
suggest, as a kind of "purified" omen astrology, of the general sort Kepler envisioned, along with
some purified divination of other kinds. Of course, Kepler influenced Newton in numerous other
ways, amd in any case, as we have seen, astrology and astral worship in various forms were still
intertwined with astronomy in the Europe of Newton’s time. We can say, I suggest, that in the
Principia, with his celestial mechanics, Newton presented what can be, and may well have been
taken in his time, to be a kind of purified astrology -- a mathematically based system with which
one can in many cases predict with great accuracy the motions of natural objects when one knows
mathematical expressions for the forces -- or influences -- acting on them. This can be described
as a kind of natural astrology, a term which was used in Newton's time, cf. Natural Magic. There
is a common objective underlying both of these works: to be able to predict the course of things.
In interpreting Biblical prophecy for this purpose, Newton found the canonical scriptures too
obscure, an obscurity which he attributed to God's design. In applying his laws of motion and
gravitation, and their mathematical development, for this purpose, he may have taken himself to
have had greater success in developing this objective.

54. In the preface to his biography of Newton, Robert Westfall observes: "It has been my
privilege at various times to know a number of brilliant men, men whom I acknowledge without
hesitation to be my intellectual superiors. I have never, however, met one against whom I was
unwillng to measure myself, so that it seemed reasonable to say that I was half as able as the
person in question, or a third or a fourth, but in every case a finite fraction. The end result of my
488 Is a a c Newt on, Ob s e r v a t i o n s u p o n t h e P r o p h e c i e s o f Da n i e l , p . 249 -253.
 194

study of Newton [over a period of some 20 years] has served to convince me that with him there is
no measure. He has become for me wholly other, one of the tiny handful of supreme geniuses who
have shaped the categories of the human intellect, a man not finally reducible to the criteria by
which we comprehend our fellow beings... "4 8 9

55. It may be that Westfall is right about the nature of Newton's genius, but I suggest that
feelings of Newton's "otherness" may be alleviated to some extent by admitting Newton's
attachment to, or obsession with, knowing the cou rse of things as broadly as possible, together
with the fact that he was a firm believer in the truth of Biblical prophecy, and was in some degree
dedicated to the a ims of omen or natural astrology, although not to the methods. This means that
a certain distortion of Newton may be introduced by making too central in one’s interpretation of
Newton’s life and works that part of Newton's work most people would nowadays characterize as
“scientific”, and separating this from his interests in what we now call alchemy, to be distinguished
from “genuine” chemistry, and astrology, to be distinguished from “genuine” astronomy. For
example, Westfall says (on the next page of his preface): "Newton holds our attention only
because he is a scientist of transcendant importance. Hence I tend to think of my work as a
scientific biography, that is, a biography in which Newton's scientific career furnishes the central
theme." (Westfall, ibid., p. x.)

56. We should allow for what Newton took to be scientific methods and subject matter, or
rather what he took to be methods and subject matter of natural philosophy, since the term
“scientific” was not used in his day in the ways we use it today (in English). He appears, for
example, to have believed that determining the chronology of the world, and interpreting Biblical
prophecy to predict the end of the world, were enterprises which could be undertaken
scientifically. Newton wanted to find out about the course of things any way he could – using
mathematics, alchemy, scriptures, whatever offered some prospect of working. This aim underlies
bo th his scientific (in our sense) and religious works. Given a tolerant enough view of the
intellectual, religious and political environment of his time, his interests and methods seem quite
understandable. His speed, depth and scope of penetration are awesome -- but alien? I think they
need not be.

57. I have dwelt more on the astrology than the astronomy in astronomy/astrology to set the
stage for an appreciation of how astronomy, as we now understand it, grew from a complex
mixture of astrolatry, astrology and astronomy. It seems likely to me that the positions of the
planets and sun and moon at our births are of little or no significance in determining our
characters and careers (unless Gauquelin and many present-day astrologers are right; see Preface).
But there are subtler senses in which the stars can affect the way we are and act. For example, it is
a familiar contention that our values and ideals aren't found, or shouldn't be found, in nature, in
time and space. "Is" doesn't imply "ought", the slogan goes. But how have our values, desires,
hopes and ideals evolved as we have interacted with the rest of the natural world -- in particular,
with the heavens? To what degree have we been led by the stars, which are, according to most
current physical cosmologies, our ultimate ancestors?

58. Gerald Hawkins comments: "Perhaps we shall never know the true significance of the
sky in the lives of ancient peoples. Did a gossamer idea spread outward, transferred by contact
489 R ob ert Wes t fa ll, N e v e r A t R e s t , A B i o g r a p h y o f I s a a c N e w t o n , 1980, p. i x.
 195

between cultures, and was this idea the critical step toward civilization, the emergence of man as
that species with transcendental consciousness? Or was the awareness a natural response of
different races, different cultures, to the unifying stimulus of the sky? We find evidence for this
influence from before the time of writing, from deep prehistory, on the continents of Asia,
Africa, the Americas, and on the Pacific Islands." 490

59. E.C. Krupp suggests that what takes place in the sky assists our brains in organizing its
perceptions of the world. The idea that order is a fundamental aspect of the universe may be taken
to be an assumption, having its ultimate origin in the interactions of humans with the skies and their
contents. Without the sky, our brains might have sought symmetry and order and cyclical
phenomena elsewhere -- crystals or flowers, perhaps. But the sky is an obvious repository of
order. Its effects on our brains is shown by the antiquity of astronomy and the presence of celestial
imagery everywhere in ancient times. "What we see in the lights overhead," Krupp says, "is the
itinerary of cosmic order ... It defines what is sacred and makes the sky the domain of the
gods." 491

60. "If we are seeking immortality," Krupp says, "the sky is a good place to start. We see
endless repetition there. Although we know that we ourselves will die, we see the sun, moon and
stars survive night after night, month after month, year after year. They may disappear, but their
absences are only temporary We see a fundamental pattern in the celestial realm and frame from
it what seems to be the cycle of cosmic order and the way of the world: creation-growthdeath-
rebirth. We seek our own past, present, and future in that cycle." Of course we also see the cycle
of birth-growth-death-rebirth in vegetation, but this is seen to follow movements in the sky, which
are more certain and superior. Contemplation and worship of celestial beings and their actions are
an antidote to chaos."

61. "Celestial order," says Krupp, "generally was transfused into human society in ancient
times through the sovereignty of the ruler. The mandate of heaven sanctified kingship. By
invoking the sky, kings and their institutions gained special authority and meaning." The sky "is
the door of perception to cosmic order." However, its cycles are not simple. This leads to
complicated calendars. Dealing with this complexity was a duty of central authorities. Ultimate
responsibility for the calendar might belong to the pharaoh, the king, the emperor. His power was
thus enhanced because he was in league with the sky. Celebrations of celestial renewal allowed
ancient peoples to participate in the rhythm of cosmic order, and also to promote terrestrial
renewal and stability. Usually, a king acquired his authority through the mandate of heaven, the
source of order. But the king and his people also had to re-energize the sky. Their temples were
made sacred as metaphors of cosmic order. Entire cities and ritual centers were astronomically
aligned and organized. Krupp says: "Beijing is the only world capital still laid out according to a
sacred cosmological plan... the cosmological motive behind the city's layout is known and
preserved. Even today, the monuments of the secular government of the People's Republic of
China adhere to the ancient sacred plan. The flagpole in Tian an men Square, the Monument to
the People's Heroes, and Mao Ze Dong's Mausoleum all occupy stations on the

490 Gerald Hawkins, Beyond Stonehenge, 1973, p. 282- 283.

491 E. C. Krupp, Echoes of the Ancient Skies, The Astronomy ofLost Civilizations, 1983.
 196

city's main axis, between the Tian an men and the Qian men, two great gates of old Imperial
Beijing."492

62. From the 1st century C.E.:

...... stetit unus in arcem

erectus cap itis victorque ad sidera mittit
sidereos oculos propiusque aspectat Olympum
inquiritque Iovem; nec solafronte deorum
contentus manet, et caelum scrutator in alvo
cognatumque sequens corpus se quaerit in astris.

...... perspice vires,

quas ratio, non pondus, habet: ratio omnia vincit.

Only man stands on a hill with his head raised up, sending his
starry eyes in triumph to the stars, looking more closely at the
heavens, and searchingfor God. He isn't content with the outward
God, but examines heaven's womb. Following bodies akin to his
own, he looks for himself in the stars ..... consider the power
which reason has and gravity doesn't: reason conquers everything. 493

63. From the late 20th century A.D.: "All of chemistry, beyond hydrogen and helium, and
therefore, all of life has been formed by stellar evolution. In other words, with the exception of
hydrogen, everything in our bodies and brains has been produced in the thermonuclear reactions
within stars which later exploded in galactic space."494

492 Krupp, ibid., p. 15, 22, 63, 74 -75, 96, 141, 183, 196,259, 315.
493 Manilius, Astronomica, a treatise on astrology and simple astronomy written about 10 C.E., text edited by G. P.
Goold, 1972, my translation.
4 9 4 Benjamin Gal- Or, Cosmology, Physics, and Philosophy, 1981, p. 352.
 197

Appendix to Chapter 7: Pierre d'Ailly, and Newton Again

1. Some 1400 years later than Origen, another Christian of rank, wrestled with
astrology in much the same way as Origen (see Chapter 8). This was Pierre d'Ailly, who lived
from 1350 or 1351 to 1420. D'Ailly rose to be a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
during the time of the Schism, and the period in which there were two (at one point three)
Popes, at Rome and Avignon, 1378 through 1414. D'Ailly's devotion to astrology has been
investigated by Laura Ackerman Smoller in her work, History, Prophecy and the Stars (1994).
In her introduction, Smoller observes that people who have studied the roles of astrology and
astronomy in medieval times have been concerned mostly with the prevailing attitudes of
people toward such practices and beliefs, and mostly the attitudes of theologians, rather than
with practice of astrology. "While their studies nicely illuminate the Catholic church's
response to astrology, they say little about the opinions of persons who actually consulted the
stars." (p. 5) Smoller observes that d'Ailly's conversion to astrology late in life, and his
extensive writings on the subject, offers an opportunity to study why and also how a person
might become involved with astrology, and how one might go about such an involvement.
"From d'Ailly's example, then," she says, "astrology emerges as an integral part of the rational
view of the world in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The belief that the heavenly
bodies had some fort of influence on the earth below was just as pervasive as the notion that
God had a plan for the world's destiny. ... D'Ailly saw astrology not as a magical art by which
he could manipulate the future course of the world but rather as a rational science by which
he could discern the broad patterns of earthly events. The great numbers of people who used
astrology in medicine, or making their business decisions, and for political advice must have
believved , also, that they were turning to science for knowledge." (p. 7) In passing, I note
Smoller's comments on the nature of d'Ailly's writing: ""Many of his works were little more
than collages, composed of bits and pieces of other writers' prose. Through all his
borrowings, however, d'Ailly generally managed to convey his own opinion, which was
sometimes quite different from that of his source. ... On the whole, d'Ailly was a compiler and
digester of others' thought. His later readership suggests that there was a vast need for this
type of writing." (p. 10) The present work may be said to have been compiled in the same
spirit, although I am not sanguine enough to believe that there is, or will be, a vast need for
the present work. I do believe, though, that while enduring originality is precious, commentary
also serves purposes of value.

2. In his later life, Pierre d'Ailly was much concerned with defending
astrology/astronomy from charges that it was inconsistent with Christianity. As a basis, he
took the attitude endorsed long before by Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636) that one can
distinguish between natural astrology and superstitious astrology, and that it is the former
which is consistent with Christianity, while the latter is not. Smoller reports that d'Ailly in his
Vigintiloquium or Concordantia astronomie cum theologia (Concordance of astrology with
theology; 1414) listed these components of superstitious or false astrology: "1. The belief
that all future events precede by fatal necessity from the stars; 2. The mingling of
superstitious magic arts with astrology; 3. The placing of free will and matters solely under
divine or supernatural control within astrology's power." (p. 37) Smoller notes that 2. is
apparently directed against the practice of engraving stones with astrological images. We
have seen that 1. and 3. were also rejected by Origen, and indeed this had been the central
 198

objection of Augustine to astrology. On the other hand, we have also seen that at least up to
the Hellenistic era, the Babylonian astrologers did not take astrological omens to be
irreversibly deterministic. One of the functions of priests was to counteract unfavorable
omens by means of suitable rituals. In his attempts to reconcile free will and God's
omnipotence with astrological influences, d'Ailly wrote a number of treatises. To take an
example, in one late treatise, the Concordantia astronomie cum hystorica narratione
(Concordance of astrology with historical narration; 1414), he asserted "God arranged 'to
work naturally with causes, except where a miraculous operation intervenes.' thus
astrological causality would apply to all earthly events save miracles." (Smoller, p. 38) In
another treatise of 1414, the Apologetica defensio astronomice veritatis (Apologetic defense
of astrological truth; contained in his Tractatus de imagine mundi), d'Ailly speculates on the
role of the astral influences on the Virgin Mary as to the development of Christ in utero.
Smoller says: "D'Ailly began with the cautious observation that the Christian faith did not
compel one to exclude any stellar influence in Mary's birth, 'just as it does not compel one to
say that the sun did not warm her.' ... By reserving for God a supernatural causality beyond
that of the stars, d'Ailly placed astrology among the undeniable laws of nature and gave it a
scope reaching as far as the human aspects of Christ." (p. 38)

3. In Chapter 4 of her book, Smoller has an analysis of how Pierre d'Ailly used astrology
to aid in establishing a chronology consistent with and explanatory of that in the Bible. An
important principle he used for trying to establish the date of the Creation of the world, the
starting point of Biblical chronology, as well as for subsequent events he took to be of
importance, was the fixing of the times of conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter. These are
described by Smoller as follows (p. 16, 20- 23) "The seven planets all traveled along the path
of the zodiac, and the twelve signs which made up that band were deemed to have their own
characteristics. In one division of the zodiac, astrologers distributed the signs among four
triplicities (triplicitates, also sometimes translated as trigons). The signs of each triplicity all
shared the characteristics of one of the four elements (fire, earth, air, and water). The signs
were assigned successively to one of the four triplicities, so that a planet in its path through
the zodiac would pass first through a fiery sign, then through an earthy sign, then through an
airy sign, and finally through a watery sign. There were three such series in any trip around
the zodiac. The fiery triplicity consisted of the signs Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius. It was under
the rule of the sun by day and Jupiter by night. The earthly triplicity contained Taurus, Virgo, and
Capricorn, under the rulership of Venus and the moon. Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius made up
the airy triplicity, under Saturn and Mercury. Finally, the watery triplicity comprised Cancer,
Scorpio, and Pisces, with Mars ruling both day and night. [Thus the progression
counterclockwise through the zodiac, taking into account the alternation of the kinds of
elements, can be represented on the circumference of a circle as Aries, Taurus, Gemini,
Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Pisces, and back to Aries again.] ...
As did his astrological sources, d'Ailly gave the greatest consideration to those conjunctions
of the two superior [outermost] planets, Saturn and Jupiter. Their exalted positions and slow
motions meant that their conjunctions were of more universal and enduring significance than
those of the other planets. Astrologers classified these conjunctions according to the signs
and triplicities in which they occurred. Saturn completes its course through the zodiac in
roughly 30 years, and Jupiter takes around twelve years to
make the same circuit. Hence, the time between any two conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter will
 199

be approximately twenty years, during which time Saturn will have traveled a little more than
two-thirds of the way through the zodiac. Thus, in the astrologers' customary example, if the
first conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter occurs in Aries, the second will be in Sagittarius, the
third in Leo, and the fourth in Aries again. But, because the two planets do not complete their
course through the zodiac in exactly thirty or twelve years, they do not return to the same
precise point in Aries for their fourth conjunction. Rather, they are joined some 2 º25' from the
point of the initial conjunction, to take Albumasar's figyre. Hence a series of conjunctions of
Saturn and Jupiter will show a gradual progression like that in figure 3. Eventually, a
conjunction will happen in Taurus,, the neighboring sign to Aries. Then the succession will
begin again in another set of three signs. [Albumasar, also transliterated Abu-Ma'shar, was an
Arabian astrologer of the 9th century A.D.] In all, d'Ailly delineated four types of Saturn-Jupiter
conjunctions: the conjunctio maxima [greatest conjunction, occurring after four changes of
triplicity, so the starting point is repeated, customarily taken to be the initial position of Saturn
in Aries] (every 960 years), the conjunctio maior [greater conjunction, occurring with each
change of triplicity] (every 240 years), the conjunctio magna [great conjunction, occurring with
each change of zodiac sign in each triplicity] (every 60 years), and the conjunctio minor [lesser
conjunction, occurring with each conjunction within a single zodiac sign] (every 20 years).
D'Ailly located such conjunctions throughout history and related them to the growth of new
kingdoms and the rise of new religions. He used astrology, then, as a coherent principle by
which to explain and observe the course of the world's fate."

4. This brings to mind work of Isaac Newton which I discussed in Chapter 7 of the
present work. I repeat here Sections 44-47 of that chapter:

44. In Newton's Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St.
John, one of his last works, published in 1733, a few years after his death, Newton says: "For
understanding the Prophecies, we are, in the first place, to acquaint ourselves with the
figurative language of the Prophets. This language is taken from the analogy between the
world natural, and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic. Accordingly, the whole
world natural consisting of heaven and earth, signifies the whole world politic, consisting of
thrones and people, or so much of it as is considered in the Prophecy: and the things in that
world signify the analogous things in this. For the heavens, and the things therein, signify
thrones and dignities, and those who enjoy them; and the earth, with things thereon, the
inferior people; and the lowest parts of the earth, called Hades or Hell, the lowest or most
miserable part of them "

45. "In the heavens, the Sun and Moon are, by interpreters of dreams, put for the
persons of Kings and Queens; but in sacred Prophecy, which regards not single persons, the
Sun is put for the whole species and race of Kings, in the kingdom or kingdoms of the world
politic, shining with regal power and glory; the Moon for the body of the common people,
considered as the King's wife; the Stars for subordinate Princes and great men, or for Bishops
and Rulers of the people of God, when the sun is Christ; light for the glory, truth, and
knowledge, wherewith great and good men shine and illuminate others; darkness for obscurity
of condition, and for error, blindness and ignorance; darkning, smiting, or setting of the Sun,
Moon, and Stars, for the ceasing of a kingdom, or for the desolation thereof, proportional to
the darkness; darkning the Sun, turning the Moon into blood, and falling of the Stars, for the
same; new Moons, for the return of a dispersed people into a body politic or ecclesiastic."
(Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733), p. 16-
23.) After this, Newton gives interpretations of fire in various forms, various
movements of clouds, winds, thunder, lighting, water in various forms, geological formations,
 200

animals, vegetables and plants, and so on.

46. This passage, in which Newton describes how he reads Biblical prophecies, puts
light on his reference (cited above) to Chaldeans as "the most learned astronomers of their
time", and his complaint (also cited above) that certain ancient Greeks and priests had
corrupted previously known correct astronomy by declaring that the stars "move in their
courses in the heavens by the force of their souls" and were deemed to be "heavenly deities",
and that "gentile Astrology and Theology were introduced by cunning Priests to promote the
study of stars and the growth of the priesthood and at length spread through the world."
Newton speaks of the correspondences between natural objects and processes, on the one
hand, and political entities and activities, on the other, as being a matter of figurative
language, based on analogy between the two worlds. Yet he believes in the accuracy and
indeed inevitability of the predictions made by the Biblical prophets. He says: "And the giving ear
to the Prophets is a fundamental character of the true Church The authority of the
Prophets is divine, and comprehends the sum of religion... Their writings contain the covenant
between God an d his people, with instructions for keeping this covenant And no power
on earth is authorized to alter this covenant." Of Daniel in particular, he says: "The predictions
of things to come relate to the state of the Church in all ages; and amongst the old Prophets,
Daniel is most distinct in order of time, and easiest to be understood: and therefore in those
things which relate to the last times, he must be made the key to the rest." (Newton, ibid., p.
14-15.)

47. Thus according to Newton's description, Biblical prophecy can give results of the
kind the Chaldeans expected from their omen astrology and other methods of prediction they
used, before the invention of personal astrology with its horoscopes and houses. In Newton's
view, as stated in the first part of the Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the
Apocalypse of St. John, Biblical prophecy furnishes "in figurative language" strictly determined
predictions of political matters based on the interpretation of natural processes involving
celestial and terrestrial natural objects. To be sure, he doesn't admit the divinity of such
objects. The accuracy of the predictions is presumably guaranteed by the one God alone, who
uses the natural objects "figuratively" (whatever that might mean) in order to communicate
this foreknowledge. Newton's views on this question therefore resemble those of Calvin, but
differ distinctly from those of Thomas Aquinas (to take just two examples). A widespread
judgment today (as discussed earlier) is that the Chaldeans did attribute divinity to celestial
objects. Newton seems to imply (although I don't know of a place where he says so outright)
that the Chaldeans did not do so, and that such beliefs were introduced later by certain
Greeks, to the detriment of true astronomy. Of course, Newton knew nothing of the many
Babylonian writings which have been recovered after his time.

5. These passages by Newton and my assessment may be compared with a statement

by Smoller, speaking of d'Ailly's use of astrology (p. 122): "Why astrology? ... The answer lies,
it seems, in d'Ailly's concordance of astrology and theology -- that is, first, in his insistence that
astrology be considered a 'natural theology' and, second, in his implication, by the use he
made of the stars, that astrology was also a valid science, useful because it lay outside of the
realm of prophecy and revelation. That is, he established astral causality to be an essential
component of the divine plan, one entirely in keeping with the central feature of his theology,
the dialectic of God's absolute and ordained power. And yet, he relied upon astrology to
interpret the apocalypse [as in the book of Revelations] precisely because it was
nontheological. It offered him evidence drawn from sources other than prophecy and
revelation, which, as he argued, could be contradictory, problematic, and even deceptive."
D'Ailly was especially concerned in trying to reconcile and combine Christian doctrines with
astrological ones to reject that idea of complete astral determinism or
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fatalism, and the accompanying idea of the non-existence of human free will, other than as a
kind of illusion. It strikes me now that what Newton may have had in mind when he spoke of
corruption of astral prediction by ancient Greeks was the attribution to them of an
introduction of the idea or principle of complete determinism to purely astral influences,
including in all human affairs. While he would have known nothing of what is said on the clay
tablets recovered in Mesopotamia since his time, he have known something about the non -
fatalistic elements of Babylonian omen astrology from classical sources, or even possibly
that he interpreted Biblical passages in this way.

6. In her Chapter 5, Smoller discusses d'Ailly's concern for the advent of the
apocalypse, as predicted in the Revelations of St. John. She says (p. 85): "With the outbreak
of the Great Schism in 1378, Pierre d'Ailly and many of his contemporaries assumed that the
apocalypse was at hand. They based this dismal conclusion both on their reading of Scripture
and on a long medieval tradition of speculation about the end of time." This may be
compared with the statement made by Newton: "The predictions of things to come relate to
the state of the Church in all ages: and amongst the old Prophets, Daniel is most distinct in
order of time, and easiest to be understood: and therefore in those things which relate to the
last times, he must be made the key to the rest." (loc. cit., p. 15). Smoller says (p. 86):
"Scripture was by far the most important source of information about the apocalypse for d'Ailly
and his contemporaries. Passage in Daniel and Revelation spelled out, albeit in enigmatic
form, God's plan for the world's end. Commentaries of these two books were key vehicles for
eschatological speculation in the Middle Ages." Of course, Newton is not considered to have
lived during the time of the European Middle Ages. Newton says in the section of this work
devoted to Revelations (p. 250-251): "'Tis therefore a part of this Prophecy, that it should not
be understood before the last age of the world; and therefore it makes for the credit of the
Prophecy, that it is not yet understood. But if the last age, the age of opening these things, be
now approaching, as by the great successes of late Interpreters it seems to be, we have more
encouragement than ever to look into these things. In the general preaching of the Gospel be
approaching, it is to use and our posterity that those words mainly belong: In the time of the
end the wise shall understand, but none of the wicked shall understand. Blessed is he that
readeth, and they that hear the words of this Prophecy, and keep those things which are
written therein. The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretel times and things by this
Prophecy, as if God designed to make them prophets. By this rashness they have not only
exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy into contempt. The design of God was much
otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify men's
curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be
interpreted by the event, and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested
thereby to the world. For the event of things predicted many ages before, will then be a
convincing argument that the world is governed by providence."

7. D'Ailly was much concerned with uses of astronomy/astrology in establishing a

chronology of the world, consonant with Scripture, and with matching astronomical
phenomena interpreted astrologically with crucial historical events. Newton spent much
effort on a revision of chronology, based on astronomical phenomena on the one hand, and
classical authors and Scripture on the other. This, too, involved matching astronomical
phenomena with crucial historical events. In the case of Newton, however, there is an
 202

absence of discussion of traditional influences of the sort considered by astrologers. On the

other hand, there is an absence, so far as I have been able to determine, of refutation of or
scorn for astrology as it was practiced in his own time, or earlier. Newton's major work on
chronology, published posthumously in 1728, was The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms
Amended. In this work, there is a chapter called "Of the Empires of the Babylonians and
Medes" in which Newton states (p. 328): "The Babylonians were extreamly addicted to
Sorcery, Inchantments, astrology and Divi nations, Isa. xlvii. 9, 12, 13. Dab. ii. 2, & v. 11. and to
the worship of Idols, Jer. l. 2, 40. and to feasting, wine and women." In the two works of
Newton being considered here, this is the only passage I have noted in which Newton uses
the word astrology. As far as I can determine, Newton never presented a refutation of
astrology as practiced in his time. He was on the whole silent about astrology, though it was
quite prominent in the England of his time.

8. Newton's work as a chronographer has been studied in detail, along with criticisms of
it made in Newton's time, by Frank E. Manuel in his book Isaac Newton, Historian (1963).
Manuel observes (p. 65, 68): "The astronomical proofs of Newton's revision of chronology
center upon the determination of three ancient dates, among which the precise timing of the
Argonautic expedition is the crucial one. It occupied Newton's interest for at least the last
thirty or forty years of his life. The other astronomical proofs concerned the year of King
Amenophis' [of Egypt] death and the period when Hesiod flourished. ... The astronomical
dating of the Argonautic expedition was founded upon the insight that an accurately
measured precession of the equinoxes could serve as the key to scientific chronology. ... to
apply the idea of the precession to chronology with Newton's daring and persistence was
revolutionary. The style of the man -- adapting scientific data that are already known to a new
field-- is the same in the chronology as in the physics. Newton had a way of staking all upon a
single idea."

9. Christian chronography goes back to early Christian times. This topic has been
treated by William Adler in his Time Immemorial: Archaic History and its Sources in Christian
Chronography from Julius African us to George Syncellus (1989). Such chronography had an
elaborate development during the European Middle Ages, and we see from Smoller's study of
d'Ailly's work that it was a lively field during the Renaissance.

Indeed, there is some life in the field up to the present-day, although the field has grown old,
and is not as active as it once was. What may be striking in placing Isaac Newton in this
tradition is that he lived in the 17th and early 18th centuries, during the height of the period
often said by historians to contain the Scientific Revolution. In Newton's work, one can see
him engaged not in a Revolution but in an Evolution as far as a transition from the
astronomy/astrology which had been prevalent up to his time to the separation of the fields
of astronomy and astrology as we see them today. An examination of the work of central and
peripheral figures who brought about the so-called Scientific Revolution in Europe might well
reveal that one could better speak of an evolution during this period -- perhaps an instance of
cultural punctuated evolution, in which a big change occurred in a relatively short time. Thus,
if one wants to talk about paradigm shifts in the manner of Thomas Kuhn, one might be
persuaded to think of them as occurring gradually rather than in some abrupt discontinuous
manner, and as not leading to what Kuhn called incommensurability, but rather to kinds of re-
interpretation in which the new retains something of the old.
 203

Updates and Addenda

U1. I spoke about Stoics in Chapter 1, Sections 39-50, and in Chapter 5, sections 30-33.
Anthony Grafton contrasts what he takes to be characteristic of Stoic views of our physical
universe with those of many astrologers.495 He says:

“Philosophers who imagined themselves as looking down to earth from the dizzying
vantage point of the heavens normally did so in order to distance themselves from trivial
concerns, to master the deeper realities of the cosmic order. Marcus Aurelius – whom, as we have
seen, Cardano tried to use as his guide into the moral life – laid special weight on this form of
mental discipline. His constant efforts to show that things of the world and the body had no
substantial worth, as Carlo Ginzburg has recently argued, represented an effort to make alienation
from all everyday concerns the mark of wisdom. And the royal road to alienation lay through a
consistent effort to contemplate the vast expanse of space and time in the universe – and thus to
remove oneself from the momentary concernings, which were revealed, when they appeared
before this immense backdrop, as worthless. Marcus Aurelius’ sometimes puzzling questions and
riddles formed organic parts of a rationally conceived program of mental and spiritual
exercises.”496

Grafton continues: “For Cardano and other astrologers, by contrast, the cosmic perspective
that lent distance had a radically different value. It concentrated their attention on the local and
ephemeral. Examining the stars that shone at a client’s birth, watching the movements of the
planets during an illness, made the contours of the client’s permanent character, even the minor
ones, and the details of his short-term case history, even its ephermeral fluctuations, stand out with
a new clarity. Distance enhanced the astrologers’ promiscuous attention to the kinds of detail
philosophers disdained. Their cosmic viewpoint focused and intensified their intimate contact
with the emotional and the corporeal side of each individual life, as if a viewpoint on the celestial
pole or at the mid-heaven actually magnified the minute details of individual life on earth. In the
world of the astrologers, opposition might not be true friendship, but distance could be true
intimacy.”497

U2. I note that what Grafton refers to as viewpoints of philosophers, presumably

especially Stoic philosophers and perhaps numerous medieval Christian and other philosophers,
fits in with what I’ve said in Chapter 4 in connection with a common view that a major influence of
Copernican theory was to displace mankind from a central place in the universe in people’s
minds, and to make people more humble if that’s taken to imply that they were overproud before.
I note also that in trying to explain the extraordinary persistence of astrology over a couple of
thousand years or more, in the face of philosophical, theological and other sorts of

495 Anthony Grafton, Cardano ’s Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer, 1999, p. 201.
496 The reference to Carlo Ginzburg is to Occhiacci di legno: Nove riflessione sulla distanza, Milan, 1998, p.
15- 39.
497 Grafton refers in this connection to R. Reisinger, Historische Horoskopie, Wiesbaden, 1997.
 204

condemnations and prohibitions of it, one might look to the way astrologers concentrate on
working out details of this-worldly affairs rather than on other -worldly affairs.

U3. With regard to ancient Mesopotamia, some of whose astral interests I discussed in
Chapter 4, a treatise on the subject was published in 1999 by Hermann Hunger and David Pingree
called Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia. A major part of this work is devoted to detailed
presentations and interpretations of astronomical data as recorded and mathematically
manipulated by ancient Babylonians, based on a large but not exhaustive quantity of the clay
tablets on which the records were inscribed, and which have been collected by various
archeologists and stored in various locations. There is a resumé of what is known about the
beginnings of Babylonian astrology and astronomy which agrees on the whole with what I
presented in Chapter 4. Interest in such matters appears to have been connected early with
interpretations of signs and omens. Hunger and Pingree say: 498 "People in Ancient Mesopotamia
believed that the gods would indicate future events to mankind. These indications were called
"signs", in Sumerian (g)iskim, in Akkadian ittu. Such signs could be of very different kinds.
There were to be found in the entrails of sacrificial animals, in the shapes of oil spreading after
being dropped into water, in phenomena observed in the sky, in strange occurrences in everyday
life. We can classify omens into two trype: those that can be produced when they are wanted
(e.g., to answer a question) and those that happen without human action provoking them. An
example of the first type are omens from the inspection of the entrails of sheep; to the second
type belong all omens observed in the sky. Omens can be classified according to their
predictions: some omens concern the king, the country, or the city; others refer to private
individuals and their fortunes."

U4. Hunger and Pingree go on to emphasize that neither of these types of omens seems to
have been interpreted fatalistically. They say: "One thing is to be kept in mind: the gods send the
signs, but what these signs announce is not unavoidable fate. A sign in a Babylonian text is not an
absolute cause of a coming event, but a warning. By appropriate actions one can prevent the
predicted event from happening. The idea of determinism is not inherent in this concept of sign.
The knowledge of signs is however based on experience: once it was observed that a certain sign
had been followed by a specific event, it is considered known that this sign, whenever it is
observed again, will indicate the same future event. So while there is an empirical basis for
assuming a connection between sign and following event, this does not imply a notion of
causality."

U5. Eclipses were among the most dangerous omens. Hunger and Pingree describe an
unusual method which was employed to avoid dangerous consequences of certain eclipses. They
say: 499 "If an eclipse implied the death of the king of Assyria, some man was chosen to be put in
his place, at least for all appearances. Usually someone whose life was not considered important,
like a condemned criminal, seems to have been used for this purpose. He was clad like a king and
made to sit on the throne, but of course he had no influence on government. In order to make it
clear to everyone who was to suffer the impending evil, the bad portents were recited to the
substitute king. The true king, in the meantime, had to behave as inconspicuously as possible,
avoid being seen outside the palace, and undergo extensive purifying rites. In letters

498 Hermann Hunger and David Pingree, A s t ral Scien ce s in Me sopota mia , 1999, p. 1
499 ibid, p. 25.
 205

written to him during such a period, the king was to be addressed as "farmer" in order to avoid
any association with kingship. It was expected that the dire fate announced by the omen would
fall on the substitute king. The assumed time of validity of such an omen was 100 days. If
additional unfavorable portents were expected (e.g., other eclipses), the substitute would remain
enthroned for most of this time. Otherwise, his "reign" could be rather short; it was neither
convenient nor necessary to extend it. In any case, the substitute king had to die. It is unknown
how his death was brought about, but it was the decision of the true king: in the letters, the
advisers ask the "farmer" on which day the substitute king "should go to his fate". He was then
buried and mourned like a king."500 They go on to say that "According to literary tradition, a
substitute king was enthroned during the reign of Erra-imitti of Isin in the early part of the 2nd
millennium [B.C.]; this case was atypical insofar as the true king died while the substite sat on
the throne, and so the reign passed to the latter.501

U6. Hunter and Pingree state that "We do not know when this belief in omens originated;
by the time when texts containing these omens are attested, it is already well established. That is
about the last third of the third millennium B.C." (p. 6) They observe that "In the first millennium
B.C., celestial omens are found organized in a series of tablets called En u ma An u En lil ("When
Anu (and) Enlil") after the opening words of its mythological introduction. ... The mythological
introduction (lines 1-8) traces the order of heaven and earth back to the gods Anu, Enlil, and Ea It
comes in a Sumerian and an Akkadian version which are slightly different from each other. The
Sumerian version mentions the Moon god, the Akkadian versian the Sun god, but in different
functions."502

U7. With regard to horoscopic astrology, Hunger and Pingree say: "At the end of the 5th
century B.C., the earliest examples (datable to -409) of what what has been called Babylonian
horo scopes are attested." It is said that so far 32 such horoscopes are known. 503 "They begin with
the date on which a child was born. Rarely is the name of the child mentioned. Then follow the
positions of the planets, in the sequence Moon, Sun, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, and Mars.
Their positions are more often given by zodiacal sign alone, less often by degree within a sign.
Apart from these positions, other astronomical data are included in the horoscope. These can be
more or less distant in time from the date of birth, but were probably considered as possibly
significant. Such are the length of the month (whether 29 or 30 days), the time interval between
sunrise and moonset just after full moon, and the time between moonrise and sunrise towards the
end of the month. Further events are eclipses, including those that were not visible in Babylonia,
equinoxes and solstices, and conjunctions of the moon with reference stars. ... Most of the
horoscopes do not give any predictions about the future life of the child. Such predictions were
probably to be found on different tablets. There exist a number of nativity omen texts which
could have served this purpose ... Occasionally, such nativity omens are quoted in horoscopes.
One could see in a horoscope a listing of the "signs" available for the date of birth, a kind of omen
protasis [statement of the sort "if such and such happens"], for which the apodosis [following
statement of the sort "then this-or-that will happen"] was to be found in the

500 Hunter and Pingree cite here S. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings
Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, part II, 1983, p. xxii-xxxii.
501 l . c . ; the reference for this is A. K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, 1975,

p. 155. 502 ibid,p. 12,14.

5 0 3 F. Rochberg-Halton, "Babylonian Horoscopes and their Sources", Orientalia 58, 1989, p. 102- 123.
 206

omen literature. Seen in this way, the horoscopes would be an expansion of the tradition omen
procedure, and not a radical departure from them." 5 0 4

U8. According to Hunger and Pingree, one category of records pertaining to Babylonian
astral concerns, in addition to the collections known as Enu ma Anu En lil, is called "Letters and
Reports". These were sent to Assyrian kings, notably Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, most of them
between 677 B.C. and 665 B.C. 5 0 5 Another category is known as the "Diaries ". These are said to
be "records of observations and computations made during each period of half a year (six or seven
months). The oldest so far was inscribed in -651, but the series probably began in the first year of
Nabu-nasir, -746 ... while the latest securely dated Diary is from -60. This means that the tradition
of keeping the Diaries persisted through seven centuries --- or even eight, if the Diaries continued
to be kept till the end of cuneiform writing in the late first century A.D. During this time-span
Babylonia was rules by native Dynasties, Achaemenid Persians, Hellenized Macedonians, and
Parthiana, so it is unlikely that the supporting institution was the state. There is some evidence,
from the late second century B.C., that the observers for the Diaries were employed by the
Temple of Marduk in Babylon ... The purpose of the compilation of the Diaries has been much
debated. Two recent studies take opposite stands: Swerdlow argues that they were intimately
connected with the Mesopotamian practice of reading celestial omens506 , while Slotsky, following
a suggestion by Pingree, interprets them as intended, as far as the celestial observations are
concerned, for astronomical purposes. 507" Six reasons supporting the latter hypothesis are given.
They are chiefly based on the notions of periodicity which are evident with regard to the data
given in the Diaries. For example, the majority of the omens given in the Enuma Anu Enlil, and
the Letters and Reports, are in no sense periodic, whereas the Diaries show a concentration on
periodic phenomena. And, it is suggested, "The Diaries treat periodic phenomena as predictable;
this deprives them of their meaning as omens. For omens, celestial or otherwise, are sent to man
as warnings by the gods. They must be seen, not computed, and they must occur randomly. The
scribes of the Diaries certainly continued to believe in omens since they report some, but they
cannot be shown to believe that the celestial and and terrestrial phenomena they primarily
revealed [in the Diaries] were ominous. The reason for the inclusion of non-periodic phenomena
such as historical events in the Diaries remains unclear to us."508 The implication is that the
Babylonian astral investigators of this period had latched onto the idea of making predictions of
future astronomical phenomena based on observable period ic celestial phenomena, especially on
the motions of celestial objects. Another factor is that the earlier omens often considered what we
knowadays interpret as weather or meteorological phenomena, for which, as we know,
predictability is uncertain at best, and perhaps impossible in the case of chaotic phenoma, i.e.
those which at best we will only be able to attempt prediction by techniques based on nonlinear
dynamics, and for which inductive reasoning (averages, probabilities) based on statistical analysis
of past instances of weather phenomena are only rough guides.

504 Hunter and Pingree, ibid., p.26-27; references to F. Rochberg- Halton, loc. cit., p. 110, and F. Rochberg,
"Babylonian Horoscopes", Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 88/1, 1998, p. 16.
5 0 5 Hunter and Pingree, ibid., p. 23-24.
506
N.M. Swerdlow, The Babylonian Theory of the Planets, 1998.
507 A.L. Slotsky,The Bourse of Babylon, 1997.
508 Hunter and Pingree, ibid., p. 13 9-140.
 207

U9. The degree to which the Slotsky-Pingree evaluation is correct would be very
significant in assigning provenance to the rise of mathematical and observational astronomy as
independent, to some degree, from astrology in the sense of reading omens and, later, horoscopes
from celestial phenomena. In fact, the dates of the earliest known personal horoscopes, reported
above, and the earliest known indications of astronomical studies based on careful observations
and mathematical techniques are roughly in the same periods. This suggests that the split of what
we nowadays think of as astrology (in a broad sense) and astronomy (in recent senses of the term)
began at roughly the same time, and that this was also perhaps when genethlialogical
interpretations of celestial phenomena (i.e., predictions of the future based on times of birth of
persons or data of origin of other entities) began to separate from the more general judicial
astrology in which predictions were made for kingdoms and their rulers based directly on
alignments of planets and stars without reference to birth dates.

U10. A work by Ann Geneva509 is centered mainly on the astrological of one man, Lilly,
described, as the author says, by Bernard Capp as "the most abused as well as the most celebrated
astrologer of the seventeenth century."510 Geneva interprets astrology as a "symbolic language
system".511 Her Chapter 6, called "'Ars Longa, Vita Brevis': The Starry Language Decoded"
discusses Lilly's use of astrological techniques and terminology to "encrypt" his prognostications,
which were generally political in nature, and especially concerned the struggles between the
Parliamentarians and Royalists of the time of Charles I of England. Lilly was much devoted to the
cause of the Parliamentarians. For example, she gives the following three methods of such
"encryptment" by Lilly::

"1. SUBSTITUTION. Predicting the King's death using the individual geniture tradition by
substituting aspects of the King's natal geniture to avoid explicit reference to either his name or
his nativity.

2. CELESTIAL OMENS. The use of an ancient tradition linking naatural phenomena such as
comets and eclipses to sublunar events, and specifically to major upheavals in government and
the death of kings.

3. CONJUNCTIONS. The historiographical use of conjunctionist astrology, stemming from the

eighth century Sasanian astrologers, to position the King's impending defeat and death within
large periodic cycles of time, enhancing the sense of cosmic order an inevitability." 512

If I understand Geneva correctly, she means by calling Lilly's version of astrology a "symbolic
language system" that he used connections between celestial phenomena as parallels to political
phenomena, and especially to predict the course of political events in England leading up to the
execution of Charles I, and took advantage of a parallel known to initiates between astrological
names or symbols, and the names of prominent political and military figures. She downplays the
role of astronomy and mathematical calculations in the work of an astrologer. She says: "While
astrology shared some common ground with astronomy and mathematics, it had developed as a

509 Ann Geneva, Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars,
1995.
510 ibid., p. 55; the reference is to Capp's English Almanacs 1500 -1800, 1979, p. 57.
511 e . g . , the title of Chapter 9 is "The Decline of Astrology as a Symbolic Language System."

512 ibid., p. 176

 208

prognostic art within its own tradition, generating unique diagnostic categories and
methodologies. Precise knowledge of geocentric astronomy was crucial in calculating the initial
figure, but the true skill of the astrological practitioner resided in interpretation. And much like
painters who hire others to paint their backgrounds, astrologers by the early modern period did
not always bother to perform their own computations. Once the celestial paradigm had been
accurately determined, the astrologer identified the meanings of literally scores of variables,
from astrology's symbolic language into the vernacular. Early modern astrology as such thus had
more in common with the art of medical diagnosis -- a comparison that also occurred to Ptolemy ---
than it did with astronomy or mathematics." 513 This view seems to make the astronomical and
mathematical bases of astrology (in present-day senses of these terms) rather inessential to the
kind of authority that astrological predictions were believed to have had by some, as compared
with other methods of prognostication, such as crystal-gazing, use of Tarot cards, reading tea
leaves, and so on.

U11. Geneva proposes (p. 6) that "One need only consult Ptolemy's second century AD
Tetrabiblos to see that astronomy and astrology constituted two quite separate, and often
incompatible pursuits. While to Ptolemy astrology is 'prediction through astronomy', he makes
the clearest possible distinction between the two by publishing his great work on astronomy, the
Almagest, in a separate volume from the Tetrabiblos. Despite this, even the flap copy of the
Loeb edition of the Tetrabiblos insists astrology from Ptolemy's day through the Renaissance
was 'fused as a respectable science with astronomy." To my mind, this is rather like saying that
psychology and biology are two quite separate pursuits, which they are in some respects. Still,
the role of biology in psychology may be likened, in my view, to the role of astronomy in
astrology, and historically psychology and biology (quite modern terms) were fused integrally
for a long time, given due allowance to the fact that psychology and biology did not become
separate, in some respects, from each other and from other kinds of study until comparatively
recently. The extent to which psychology can be "reduced" to biology (and biology to chemistry,
and chemistry to physics, and even, sometimes, physics to mathematics) is still a matter of lively
debate. There is also the matter of the scope of the terms corresponding to our "astronomy" and
"astrology" (e.g., in Latin, Greek and Akkadian) in past times, as compared to later usages, as
discussed in Chapter I of the present work.

U12. Geneva asks" ... exactly what was Lilly so good at? ... some of his admirers had
studied astrology for as long as Lilly had done. Yet despite their greater ability in subjects like
astronomy, mathematics, Latin, physics, languages, geometry, theology, and philosophy, Lilly
remained their acknowledged superior in judicial astrology. He obviously had a knack: but for
what? If merely a combination of modern intellectual skills, such as historians often claim of
astrology --- part psychology, religion, mathematics, physics, sociology, journalism, etc. --- had
been required then surely others would have triumphed. If he were alive now, Lilly would be
practicing in none of these professions. I finally decided that this was a genuinely obsolete
category. Nothing in the twentieth century is comparable. The answer then became self-evident:
Lilly was a genius in exactly the category of knowledge which he claimed as his own --- that of
judicial astrology. What skills this comprised when stripped of distorting modern contexts was
another matter, one which the remainder of this study will try to explicate." 514 If I

513Geneva, ibid., p. 9
514
ibid ., p . 71.
 209

understand this claim correctly, Geneva is attributing to Lilly possession of a lost art, and one
which evidently stands alone, independent of other kinds of arts and sciences, such as those she
listed. Does this mean that Lilly had some facility for some kind of direct revelation obtained
from arranging and contemplating what Geneva calls the symbols, or symbolic language, of
astrology, which presumably was a kind of medium for his prognostications? My reading of
Geneva's work leads me to speculate that what she has shown is rather that Lilly's genius lay
mainly in his ability to diagnose and predict major political movements of his time, based (as
Geneva quotes him as saying) on careful study and attention to political events and processes, and
communicated by him in a clever way by means of astrological concepts and terminology. I
wonder, too, whether or not he was also a kind of genius at political propaganda, communicating in
his symbolic or encrypted way in the face of strict censorship and extreme punishment for
disloyalty to the king, and perhaps also influencing the outcomes which he predicted.

U13. I don't find in Geneva's work a study of predictions of Lilly which failed, as
compared to those which succeeded. She does note, however, that "when Lilly found the
astrological tradition wanting, he did not hesitate to develop a new methodology using existing
astrological formulations. He also expressed his intention of passing it on to his astrological
inheritors, an ambition in keeping with his more respectable scientific contemporaries."515 And
finally, there is Geneva's quotation of a statement by Lilly: "my arguments are not
demonstrative, or can be made so: I acknowledge my Prognosticks to be only grounded upon
conjectural probabilitie, and are not subject to the senses, or Geometricall demonstrations; thus I
speak to avoyd carping."516

U14. It is interesting to compare the points of view of Ann Geneva described above, and
those of Ulla Koch-Westenholz.517 Koch-Westenholz distinguishes between "artificial" and
"natural" divination. Following Cicero (de divinatione 1.11, 2.26), she defines natural divination as
"direct, inspired communications from the gods that 'the mind seizes from without', e.g. dreams
and oracles." The point of view of Geneva seems to attribute to Lilly's practice of judicial
astrology something of the nature of such natural divination, not essentially based on anything
else than direct contacts with the future (whether from the "gods" or God or not). Perhaps this is
more than Geneva wants to claim, but there is a tendency toward this, I think, in her proposals
that Lilly didn't depend on astronomy, mathematics, etc., except as a mode of communicating
what he "saw" for the future. "Artificial divination" is defined by Koch-Westerholz as including
"everything where 'computation and constant observation' is necessary to ascertain the gods'
will." She goes on to say that "While inspired divination certainly is attested in Ancient
Mesopotamia, it appears to have been of minor importance, and the bulk of our sources, the omen
compendia, concerns deductive divination." She distinguishes between two kinds of deductive
divination, "provoked omens" such as found in induced examination of entrails or oil slicks in
water basins, and "unprovoked omens" such as arise from interpretations of occurrences which
"appear without being asked for, e.g. astrology." She observes that these two kinds of deductive
divination were practiced by different kinds of experts: "the baru,

515 Geneva, ibid., p. 184.

516 ibid., p. 281.
517
Ulla Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrology: An Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial
Divination, 1995.
 210

diviner, whose main field was provoked omens" and "the tupsarru, scribe/scholar, whose
expertise included unprovoked omens and exorcism." 518

U15. Geneva proposed a quite radical separation of astronomy and astrology, even in
antiquity, whereas Koch-Westerholz states: "As a rule astronomy and astrology have always been
treated separately, while in fact they were never regarded as separate before the end of the
Renaissance -- and certainly not in Ancient Mesopotamia." This view is reflected in the title of
the present work, The Marriage and Divorce ofAstronomy and Astrology. Koch-Westerholz
refers to an article by F. Rochberg-Halton 519 in which it is recommended "that historians
differentiate between the specific goals and method of ancient astronomy and astrology. ... But
she also stresses that 'the training and interests of the scribes in both these areas very likely
stemmed from one intellectual tradition.' A close link continued also during the evolution of
mathematical astronomy. ... With the rise of mathematical astronomy in the 5th century B.C., by
which it became possible to calculate the movements of the planets and predict eclipses, it is hard
to understand how such events could be seen as portentous accidents or willed communications
from the gods. In fact, the whole discipline of astrology became fundamentally changed, both as to
basic principles, and its uses ... " 5 2 0 I suggest that Koch-Westerholz, when speaking of the rise of
mathematical astronomy in the 5th century B.C., is referring to what I would call the rise of
geometric astronomy. There is abundant evidence, e.g. in the works of Otto Neugebauer and his
colleagues, that the ancient Babylonians practiced a kind of mathematical astronomy, albeit not
based on geometric models. In modern terms, they practiced, for example, interpolation of values
in tables of observations by various arithmetical schemes for purposes of making predictions of
eclipses, which was and still is use of a kind of mathematics by most definitions of the term
"mathematics". Cf. Chapter 4, section 46, of the present work. Still, it is still accurate, I expect, to
say that the rise of geometric astronomy in the 5th century B .C. (or perhaps a bit earlier)
transformed the practice of astral prediction.

U16. Koch -Westerholz observes that "The provoked omens are signs deliberately sought to
answer specific questions formally addressed to the gods. By their very nature, such signs are
always sent by gods. Unprovoked omens may likewise be regarded as willed divine
communications, or they may be seen as "signs" (ittu) without any sender, like our black cat
crossing the street or what we would call 'symptoms'. This ambivalence between a theistic and a
mechanistic world view permeates much of Babylonian thought and is duly reflected in the
astrological texts. ... the relation between ominous events and their interpretations could be
regarded as part of a purely mechanical scheme of things." Also, it was possible to avert or
mitigate a predicted bad event by means of special rituals, involving prayers and offerings. Koch-
Westerholz says: "In fact, most bad omens could be averted mechanically by performing the
appropriate namburbu [rituals]. This is a far cry from the gods ruling the universe by their
immutable will." 521 This presumably applies to all kinds of Babylonian divination practices and
theories. Thus there appears to have been no commitment, at least up to the Hellenistic period, to
strict determinism or fatalism in connection with the observation and interpretation of omens.

518 ibid., p. 9- 10.

519 F. Rochberg-Halton, A me ri can Orienta l Se rie s, 1987, 67, p
327 ff. 520 Koch- Westerholz, ibid., p. 21-22.
5 2 1 ibid,p. 11- 12.
 211

U17. On the origins of astrology as practiced by the Babylonians, Koch-Westerholz

discusses a view attributed to P. J. Huber.522 Huber is said to have suggested that omen astrology
arose by a process similar to that which has been atrributed to the rise of extispicy, predictions of
future events based on examining and interpreting the entrails of sacrificed sheep, which Koch-
Westerholz calls "the Babylonian divinatory discipline par excellence. According to this view, the
"protasis", the ominous phenomenon "read" from a liver was linked to "apodasis", the signified
event, by "circumstantial association." The procedure, presumably, was thus to link the state of the
entrails with a near-contemporaneous event for the purpose of making future predictions. It was
then a kind of causation concluded from correlation (perhaps by an inductive process in which
more than one example was involved?). Then, says Koch-Westerholz, in this view of the origins
of omen prognostication, "Closely following the empirical stage ... came the theoretical stage
when the omina were written down in long tabular compendia on tablets. At the same time, the
empirical findings were 'phrased in accordance with the code', i.e. a set of general rules or a
theoretical system, and remaining blanks in the system, for which no empitical data were
available, could be filled out by interpolation."523 Presumably Koch-Westerholz is not referring
here to interpolation as a mathematical or arithmetical technique. P. J.Huber is said by Koch-
Westerholz to have suggested an analogous origin for omen astrology, based to start with on lunar
eclipses being associated with the deaths of certain Old Akkadian kings. Koch-Westerholz finds
problems with Huber's arguments, as she discusses on p. 35-36. There seems to have been a biased
selection of available evidence by Huber, and also doubts about the chronology used by Huber. 524

U18. Koch-Westerholz argues that various suggestions about the origins of Babylonian
divinatory practices in general have overstressed the precedence in time of empirical data over
theoretical hypotheses. She says "In my opinion, the idea of an empirical background of
Babylonian divination is very difficult to uphold. ... It is generally agreed by modern
philosophers of science that knowledge about the world is rarely obtained by purely empirical
observation, without some pre-existing theory to integrate the observed data. In other words, the
'circumstantial association' assumed to be the fountainhead of the historical omens, is in itself
unlikely." She cites as "modern philosophers of science" N. R. Hanson and Karl Popper 525, who
are two of the early pioneers, along with many others (e.g. Alexander Koyré) in maintaining a
primacy of theoretical and deductive methods over inductive methods based on empirical data
gathered in advance, without any theoretical bases fixed in advance. The latter as a view of the
way science proceeds is often attributed to Francis Bacon. Caricatures of the two positions are
sometimes advanced. On one side, it is claimed that empirical data can be gathered without any
particular plan as to what conclusions can be drawn from the data, and conclusions then drawn
and hypotheses made and theories constructed afterwards by general methods which can be
applied to any kind of empirical data thus obtained. On the other side, it may be claimed that any
gathering of empirical data is guided from the start by some sort of hypotheses or theories held
by the gatherers, perhaps without the gatherers being aware or fully aware of the theories

522
P. J. Huber, "Dating by Lunar Eclipse Omens with Speculations on the Birth of Omen Astrology", FS Asger
Aaboe, Acta Historica Scientiarum Naturalium et Medicinalium, Vol. 39, 1987.
523 Koch- Westerholz, ibid., p. 14.
524 ibid. p. 35-36.
525
N. R. Hanson, Patterns of Discovery, 1965 and Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1959 (this was
the English translation -- the original German version, Logik der Forschung, was published in 1935).
they have in mind. In my view, the actual state of affairs in such procedures is a continual
interaction of gathering empirical data and theorizing on the basis of it, in which the primacy of
one over the other changes over time and among different gatherers. To argue about which comes
first seems to me unproductive, although in specific instances, it may be possible to point to one or
the other as having come first in a specific endeavor to attain knowledge or probable knowledge
of some sort.

U19. Later in her work, Koch-Westerholz also speaks in such a way that she considers the
empirical and theoretical to be in continual interaction, although she attributes a sort of primacy
to the theoretical. She is concerned to consider what sorts of assumptions guided Babylonian
astrologers in choosing what to observe and how to classify their observations. She says:
"Babylonian astrology was the result of the interaction of practical observation and theoretical
schematization well known from the other omen series. The crucial phenomena in divination:
heliacal [first appearance just before sunrise, last setting just after sunset] and acronycial [last
rising just after sunset] risings and settings, stationary points [as when a planet retrogrades],
conjunctions [two or more bodies having the same celestial longitudes, i.e. one just "above" the
other] and other positions in relation to a particular celestial body, eclipses, colours and other
optical phenomena, all derive from actual observations rather than speculations. But it is obvious
that practical experience was subordinate to theory or schematization: in order to fit the various
schemata, also phenomena which never occur in reality were listed in the series, especially in the
eclipse sections ... The schematization included binary oppositions like: left - right, above - below,
in front of - behind, sunrise - sunset, bright - faint, on time - late/early; and qualifications like:
colours: white, black, red and yellow; direction: the four quarters; time: month, day, watch,
duratiion; location: path of Anu, Enlil or Ea (Footnote: The paths of Enlil, Anu and Ea were
probably areas along the eastern horizon rather than bands in the sky parallel to the celestial
equator as previously supposed ...) Furthermore, these opposites and qualifications do not have
the same meaning in all contexts; astrology is very far from the neat generalizations striven for in
ba ru tu [artificial omens], but there are some tendencies in that direction." Koch -Westerholz gives
an interesting example of the application of the "bright - faint" distinction: "A simple rule that is
common to all kinds of Babylonian divination is of almost mathematical rigour: within the same
omen, a good sign with a good sign has a good prediction; good combined with bad means bad;
bad combined with bad means good. Expressed algebraically, the rule is also familiar to us: ++ =
+; +- = -; -- = +. An often quoted example of this rule is found in the astrological texts: if a well-
portending planet is bright: favourable (++ = +); if it is faint: unfavourable (+- = -); of it is faint:
favourable (- - = +). But the rule might also be illustrated from texts of extispicy or lecanomancy
as early as Old Babylonian."526

U20. David Pingree gives numerous details which supplement my discussions of origins of
astrology in Babylonia, Greece, and other parts of the world.527 In this work, Pingree doesn't add
much to what has already been said here about origins of astrology in Babylonia itself. There are
large gaps in what is known, and much of what is said about this remains conjectural. Of the
origins of what we nowadays often refer to as horoscopic astrology, Pingree says: "The science of
astrology was developed in, most probably the late 2nd or early 1st century B.C. as a means to
predict, from horoscopic themata drawn up for the moment of an individual's birth (or
526
Koch-Westerholz, ibid., p. 97 -98, 11.
 213

527 David Pingree, From Astral Omens to Astrology: From Babylon to Bikaner, 1997.
 214

conception), the fate of that native. This form of astrology, called genethlialogy, is rooted in
Aristotelian physics and Hellenistic astronomy, but also borrowed much from Mesopotamia and
some elements from Egypt as well as developing many theories of its own. The adaptation of this
form of astrology to determine the best time for initiating actions is known as catarchic astrology.
These are the two main forms of astrology known in the West; interrogational astrology was
developed in India in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. on the basis of Greek catarchic astrology,
and historical astrology in Sasanian Iran in perhaps the 5th or 6th century A.D. on the basis of
continuous forms of Greek genethlialogy. All of these types of astrology depend on the notion
that the planets, in their eternal rotations about the earth, transmit motion (change) to the four
elements and to the assemblages of elements, animate and inanimate, in the sublunar world. This
theory is completely different from that of celestial omens, in which the gods, whose physicl
manifestations are the constellations and planets, send messages concerning their intentions
regarding kings and countries, by means of celestial phenomena. That these divine intentions can
be altered by the use of propitiatory rituals (namburbis) in Mesopotamia, santis in India)
emphasizes the fundamental conceptual difference between omens and astrology." Pingree goes
on to say, however, that astrology does have a Mesopotamian background, and gives an example
of this "pre-astrology" from "a 13th century B.C. Hittite tablet based on a translation from an Old
Babylonian Akkadian text in which a brief prediction is made for a person depending on the month
in which he was born." Based on an example used by the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus in
analyzing the conditional "If someone is born when Canicula (Sirius) is rising, he will not die in
the ocean", which appears to be related to a record in a Babylonian principal manual of instruction
translated by Pingree (or perhaps by A. Sachs) as "The place of Cancer: death in the ocean".
Pingree says "This correlation, if correct, shows that the Babylonian science of birth omens was
known in the Greek world by the late 3rd century B.C." "But," says Pingree, "Babylonian birth
omens were probably known in Greece long before these Stoic philosophers debated about their
validity." Pingree cites Eudoxus, one of the great mathematicians of classical Greece, as one who,
according to Cicero, recommended that "one should not at all believe 'the Chaldeaeans in their
prediction and noting down of anyone's life from the day of birth." The theory in the 5th book of
Euclid's Elements [of geometry] is attributed to Eudoxus (4th century B.C.E.), in which the first
known treatment of what has become known as the real number system was presented, one which
is still as sound today as it was in the 4th century B.C., and was in use in its original form until
sometime in the 19th century A.D. In that century, several alternative versions were presented,
e.g. those of Augustin Cauchy, Richard Dedekind and Georg Cantor, whose major differences
from the development given by Eudoxus on matters of "existence" of real numbers other than
rational numbers (ratios of whole numbers). Eudoxus is also credited by Archimedes with first
rigorously proving formulas for volumes connected with spheres and cylinders, and perhaps most
famously of all for presenting a geometrically based planetary theory, i.e. a geometrical model for
the planets known in his time of what we now call our solar system On the other hand, Pingree
observes that Proclus (5th century C.E.) cites Theophrastus (around 300 B.C.) as "praising the
theory of the Chaldaeans in his day which 'predicts the lives and deaths of individuals.' " 5 2 8

U21. Pingree goes on to describe influences of what he calls Babylonian astronomy

(rather than astrology, or interpretation of celestial omens -- ) in India, which he says are

528 P i n gr e e , p . 2 1 -2 4 .
 215

"perceptible in Sanskrit texts of the first half of the last millennium B.C."529 In subsequent
chapters, he describes further transmission of astral predictive material in India, Iran (Persia) and
Byzantium. It appears that remaining records about Persian astrological practices are scarce,
presumably because most of them were destroyed after the advent of Mohammed. In India,
relevant Sanskrit records are more prevalent.

U22. The title of the book by Alan Scott, Origen and the Life of the Stars, 1991, doesn't
indicate the scope of this work. The first two-thirds of the work is devoted to setting the stage for
a presentation of Origen's views on astral influences. While Scott is primarily interested in
implications for Christian theology, in my view Scott also sets a stage for showing influences on and
influences of the marriage between astronomy and astrology as found in Europe and northern Africa
and southwestern Asia in classical, Hellenistic and early medieval times. Scott opens with a
consideration of the thought of pre-Socratic philosophers of classical Greece, and the thought of
Plato on the nature of the stars and planets. He observes: "In contrast to many other pre-industrial
societies, a formal cult of the stars was almost unknown in ancient Greece. Aristophanes, Plato,
and Aristotle regarded their worship as either an archaic or foreign practice, but the veneration of
heavenly bodies, particularly the sun and moon, was not unusual in popular piety. Common
practices always affect intellectual life, and Greece was no exception; even in the Parthenon, the
very symbol of classical Athens, the sun and moon appear as gods. ... And yet this common
supposition tht the heavens were alive was increasingly examined, questioned, and even rejected
as Greek astronomy began its scientific development on the other side of the Greek-speaking
world among the Ionians. As a reult, belief in the divinity of the stars is conspicuously rare in
Greek philosophy between Alcmaeon and Plato." Scott reviews some of the fragments we have
left of the pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Thales, Anaximander, Anaxagoras, Empedocles,
Archelaos, Democritus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, as to speculations about the physical nature of
the heavenly bodies. They were said to be "made of earth and fire", "fiery bodies", "rocks" or "red
hot stones", "full of fire", and so on. Scott says: "The precise religious beliefs of the Ionian
naturalists or of those who accepted their teachings on the heavens is not clear, but they were
perceived as denying the gods, as Aristophanes' play The Clouds makes clear. ... Plutarch indicates
the unpopularity of this naturalism with respect to the heavens, referring here to the teachings of
Anaxagoras: 'It was still not talked about and spread only among a few, who received it with some
caution rather than giving it much credence. They could not bear the natural philosophers and
what were then called the 'star-gazers', because they frittered away divinity into irrational causes,
unforeseen forces, and necessary occurrences.' "5 3 0

U23. Plato's views about the heavens and stars changed over the course of his lifetime. He
appears to have been more concerned with their roles in the cosmos in his later life. In the
Statesman, one of the later dialogues, he speaks of the planets, taken to include our sun and moon
as well as the five planets (in our present-day sense) which are visible without instruments. He
notes, as Scott puts it, that "in the first era of history God imparts his own motion to the universe,
but that there is another era in which the universe begins to move in the opposite direction under
its own power, since its Maker has made it both living and rational. Thus for the first time (if the
usual chronologies of Plato's works can be trusted) Plato suggests that an independent rational
power is at work in at least some of the heavenly bodies (i.e. the

529 ibid, p. 31; on p. 32, Pingree refers to "Babylonian astral sciences" in this connection.
 216

530 Alan Scott, Or i g e n a n d t h e L i f e o f t h e S t a r s , 1991, p. 3-4, 5-6.

528 P i n gr e e , p . 2 1 -2 4 .
 217

planets), and that this accounts for an observable phenomenon."531 The planets are thus endowed
according to Plato's story, with a power belonging to themselves.

U24. In the S tatesman, Plato is concerned about how the majority of celestial objects, the
"fixed" stars, revolve every day one way, from East to West, but that a few prominent "stars",
namely the five planets (though not the Sun and Moon), while they share in this diurnal rotation
sometimes go the opposite way with respect to the fixed stars. Plato has the Stranger say,
beginning at section 268, by way of telling a "pleasant story": "There is an era in which the god
himself assists the universe on its way and helps it in its rotation. There is also an era in which he
releases his control. He does this when its circuits have completed the due limit of the time
thereto appointed. Thereupon it begins to revolve in the contrary sense under its own impulse --
for it is a living creature and has been endowed with reason by him who framed it in the
beginning." 5 3 2 In Plato's later very influential dialogue Timaeu s, his cosmology is more
developed and detailed. In connection with how Plato's speculations about the natures of celestial
bodies influenced the development and acceptance of astrological doctrines, it is suggestive that
he assigns to stars two kinds of motion, the diurnal revolutions from East to West, and also axial
rotations. In addition, the five planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, have a different
kind of motion peculiar to them, retrograde motion from West to East with respect to the fixed
stars. The movement from East to West of the fixed stars, shared by the planets (including the Sun
and Moon) is, according to Plato's story, imparted to them and perhaps maintained by the
Demiurge, Plato's name for the deity who creates and manages the physical universe as based on
eternal models or Ideas established and managed by a superior deity. Thus celestial objects do not
maintain this motion from within themselves, although they are said to be alive and have souls.
The axial rotations of the celestial objects hypothesized by Plato are said to originate and be
maintained from within the bodies, and thus can be said to be powers they themselves possess. In
addition, the retrogradation of the five planets shows that they have an additional power, as do the
annual spiral motions of the sun and moon with respect to the fixed stars. The upshot of all this, as
applied to development of astrology, is that Plato assigns a certain power to all the stars, and
additional powers to the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Our Earth is also
said to be alive and to have a soul. Now, by way of relating the stars and their powers to people,
Plato says that with the residue of that which the Demiurge had "mixed and blended the soul of
the universe", a residue which was no longer as pure as it was before, the Demiurge "divided it
into souls equal to number with the stars, and distributed them, each soul to its several star." 533

U25. Plato goes on: "And he who should live well for his due span of time should journey
back to the habitation of his consort star and there live a happy and congenial life; but failing of
this, he should shift at his second birth into a woman' and if in this condition he still did not cease
from wickedness, then according to the character of his depravation, he should constantly be
changed into some beast of a nature resembling the formation of that character, and should have no
rest from the travail of these changes, until letting the revolution of the Same and uniform within
himself draw into its train all that turmoil of fire and water and air and earth that had later grown
about ir, he should control its irrational turbulence by discourse of reason and

531 ibid., p. 10.

532 Plato, S t a t e s ma n , translated by J. B. Skemp, 1952, p. 23 ff. of edition of 1957.
533 Plato, T i ma e u s , 41D-E, translated by F. M. Cornford in his P l a t o ' s C o s mo l o g y , 1937, p. 142 of the 1957
edition.
 218

return once more to the form of his first and best condition." Having created the souls of
humans, each human corresponding to a star, the Demiurge "sowed them, some in the Earth,
some in the Moon, some in all the other instruments of time." 534 For Plato identified the planets as
"instruments of time".

U26. Scott says: "Aside from the Epicureans, all the major philosophical schools in the
Hellenistic era believed in the divinity of the stars. Even the notorious atheist Euhemerus (fl. 300
BC) acknowledged that they (at least) were gods. And yet an identificaion was not without its
difficulties. A problem particularly vexing for Platonists was the visibility of the stars (since
divinity was thought to be perceptible to the mind only and not to the senses), and this was a
frequent topic of discussion in Platonic circles. ... One response was to say that in the case of the
stars, soul was perfectly adapted to body and the lower and visible part to a higher intelligible
part. The 'secondary' gods exist through the higher invisible gods, depending on them as the star's
radiance depends on the star. In the star the divine soul exercises a perfect supremacy. Chaeremon
does not seem particularly interested in any other gods besides the visible ones, but such a view
was unusual in philosophers of the period, for if the supreme God is altogether simple and is in no
way made of ruler and rules, it is difficult to undersstand how any visible (and therefore material)
body could be truly divine. Recognizing this, Alexandrian astronomers began to refer to the
planets by their appearance rather than using the names of gods, since the mythological
associations of the older practice were plain to them. ... Philosophers of this period devised a wide
variety of ways of referring to the astral gods which emphasized their intermediate divine nature
which was superior to the human condition but inferior to the supremely divine. Most of these
ways of talking about the heavenly bodies stemmed from Plato and from the Epinomis." 535 The
Epinomis has been and sometimes still is ascribed to Plato, but some later scholars hold that while
the Epinomis has something in common with Plato's later work, especially the Laws to which it is
a kind of sequel, it appears to have been written by a follower of Plato, perhaps Philipp of Opus.
Scott says that "Emphasis on the importance of the heavens is carried to its furthest extreme in the
Epinomis ... the Epinomis declares the wise man to be, not the philosopher, but the astronomer".
As discussed in Chapter 1 of the present work, the word translated here as "astronomer" in
previous times customarily denoted a kind of combination of what nowadays we mean by
"astronomer" and what we mean by "astrologer".536

U27. "One view which was frequent in Stoic and Platonic circles," says Scott, "was that as
the stars were intermediate and subordinate gods, so they regulated an intermediate and
subordinate providence. The idea as we have seen is implicit in Plato, Aristotle, and the Academy
and, despite the ambiguity of the stars' relation to ether or God in Stoicism, it was taken over by
Chrysippus, who believed that stars govern the world in accordance with providence. ... A
common later expression of this is that there are different grades of providence, namely primary
and secondary, and in some writers tertiary. Primary providence (that of the supreme God) sees to
the beneficial arrangement of universals, while secondary providence operating through the stars
sees to the generation and arrangement of that which is mortal and particular beneath the moon,
and a tertiary providence is sometimes assigned to the daemons." Daemons, in this usage, refers to
lesser deities, e.g. deified heroes, and not

534 ibid., 42B-42D, p. 144.

535 Scott, ibid., p. 55, 57-58.
536 Scott, ibid., p. 20- 22.
 219

necessarily evil kinds of deities. At this point Scott comments on the relationship of philosophy
and religion of the Hellenistic era to astrology. He says: "This concept of the stars' activity is in
part shaped by older ideas on the place of heaven in controlling generation and daily occurrences
such as the weather, and was strengthened by the growth in importance of astrology in the
Hellenistic period. Much of what was said in older philosophy helped pave the way for astrology,
and despite some vigorous protests, both Stoicism and Platonism were thought by many of their
later representatives to be compatible with this discipline. The combination of philosophy with
astrology reaches it height in the fourth and fifth centuries AD, but it is already present in
philosophy before Origen in the view that the stars exercise control over destiny (eimarmene).
Thus a variety of factors were at work causing the stars to be ascribed with important functions
concerning terrestrial life. This in turn increased the pressure on philosophers to give some
account of their religious importance."537

U28. Scott next, on his way to discussing works of Origen, comments on works of Philo of
Alexandria (c. 20 B.C.E. - 40 C.E.), so far as they relate to opinions on the nature of stars and
planets. His conclusion is: "He [Philo] follows the conventions of his day in honouring the stars
but he is both too good a Jew and too good a Platonist to take this to its logical consequences. For
all their glory, the stars are distinctly inferior to God, who is above heaven. The cosmological
inconsistencies which were present individually in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoa come to a
crescendo in Philo, and this happens in part because he is not able to criticize and correct his
teachers, and because he has sometimes combined his sources in a clumsy way, but it has also
happened because of his philosophical and religious integrity: he refuses to put anything (even the
stars) on the same level as God. His efforts are of great importance for students of Origen, because
Origen will follow him both in attempting to present a scriptural cosmology, and in placing strict
limitations on the usual pagan religious understanding of heaven. One idea, however, which
Origen adopts and which is not present in Philo or any of the classical philosophical schools is the
recognition of the possibility of evil in heaven. This view, which is of great importance for Origen
in understanding the place of the stars in the divine economy, gradually developed in Hellenism,
and exerted a great influence on early Christianity. That the heavenly bodies affected the lilfe
below was a philosophical commonplace, but our sources in the early imperil era are sharply
divided about the nature of this influence."538

U29. Here are some excerpts from the works of Philo to illustrate his beliefs about the
stars, taken from the elegant Victorian translation of Philo's works by C. D. Yonge, first
published in 1854-1855. First, from a work commonly known as On the Creation, although
Yonge gives its complete title as A Treatise on the Account of the Creation of the World, as
Given by Moses, we have:

" X V I . (55) But the Creator having a regard to that idea of light perceptible only by the
intellect, which has been spoken of in the mention made of the incorporeal world, created
those stars which are perceptible by the external senses, those divine and superlatively
beautiful images, which on many accounts he placed in the purest temple of corporeal
substance, namely in heaven. One of the reasons for his so doing was that they might give
light; another was that they might be signs; another had reference to their dividing the
537 S c ott, ibid. , p. 6 1 -62.
538 ibid. , p. 7 4 - 7 5.
 220

times of the seasons of the year, and above all dividing days and nights, of months and
years, which are the measures of time; and which have given rise to the nature of number.
(56) And how great is the use and how great the advantage derivable from each of the
aforesaid things, isplainfrom their efect. But with a view to a more accurate
comprehension of them, it may perhaps not be out ofplace to trace out the truth in a
regular discussion. Now the whole of time being divided into two portions day and night,
the sovereignty of the day the Father has assigned to the Sun, as a mighty monarch: and
that of the night he has given to the moon and to the multitude of the other stars. (57) And the
greatness of the power and sovereignty of the sun has its most conspicuous proof in what
has been already said: for he, being one and single has been allotted for his own share and
by himself one half portion of all time, namely day; and all the other lights in conjunction
with the moon have the other portion, which is called night. And when the sun rises all the
appearances of such numbers of stars are not only obscured but absolutely disappear from
the efusion of his beams; and when he sets then they all assembled together, begin to
display their own peculiar brilliancy and their separate qualities.

"XIX. (58) And they have been created, as Moses tells us, not only that they might send
light upon the earth, but also that they might display signs offuture events. For either by
their risings, or their settings, or their eclipses, or again by their appearances and
occultations, or by the other variations observable in their motions, men oftentimes
conjecture what is about to happen, the productiveness or unproductiveness of the crops, the
birth or loss of their cattle, fine weather or cloudy weather, calm and violent storms of
wind, floods in the rivers or droughts, a tranquil state of the sea and heavy waves, unusual
changes in the seasons of the year when either the summer is cold like winter, or the winter
warm, or when the spring assumes the temperature of autumn or the autumn that of
spring. (59) And before now some men have conjecturally predicted disturbances and
commotions of the earth from the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, and innumerable
other events which have turned out most exactly true: so that it is a most veracious saying
that "the stars were created to act as signs, and moreover to mark the seasons. "And by
the word seasons the divisions of the year are here intended. And why may not this be
reasonably afirmed? For what other idea of opportunity can there be except that it is the
time for success? And the seasons bring everything to perfection and set everything right;
giving perfection to the sowing and planting offruits, and to the birth and growth of
animals. (60) They were also created to serve as measure of time; for it is by the appointed
periodical revolutions of the sun and moon and other stars, that days and months and
years are determined. And moreover it is owing to them that the most useful of all things,
the nature of number exists, time having displayed it;for from one day comes the limit, and
from two the number two, and from three, three, and from the notion of a month is derived
the number thirty, and from a year that number which is equal to the days of the twelve
months, and from infinite time comes the notion of infinite number. (61) To such great and
indispensable advantages do the natures of the heavenly bodies and the motions of the
stars tend. And to how many other things might I also afirm that they contribute which are
as yet unknown to us?for all things are not known to the will of man; but of the things
which contribute towards the durability of the
 221

universe, those which are established by laws and ordinances which God has appointed
to be unalterable for ever, are accomplished in every instance and in every country."

Here Philo says that astral or astrological prediction is feasible, inasmuch as one reason God
created the stars and planets is to give us signs.

U30. On the other hand, Philo maintains elsewhere, in effect, that while the stars and
planets give us signs, they don't cause the events which the signs indicate will or may happen. In
this view, the stars and planets are one way God communicates to humans. In an appendix to his
translation of the works of Philo, Yonge translates a treatise not found in the now standard Loeb
edition of Philo's works, with the title A Treatise Concerning the World, we read:

"I. There is no existing thing equal in honour to God, but he is the one Ruler, and
Governor, and King, to whom alone it is lawful to govern and regulate eve rything; for
the verse- "A multitude of masters is not good,

"Let there one sovereign be, one king of all, " {1}{Homer, Iliad: 2.204.}

is not more appropriate to be said with respect to cities and men than to the world and
God, for it follows inevitably that there must be one Creator and Master of one world; and
this position having been laid down and conceded as a preliminary, it is only consistent
with sense to connect with it what follows from it of necessity. Let us now, therefore,
consider what inferences these are. God being one being, has two supreme powers of the
greatest importance. By means of these powers the incorporeal world, appreciable only by
the intellect, was put together, which is the archetypal model of this world which is visible
to us, being formed in such a manner as to be perceptible to our invisible conceptions just
as the other is to our eyes. Therefore some persons, marveling at the nature of both these
worlds, have not only worshipped them in their entirety as gods, but have also deified the
most beautiful parts of them, Imean for instance the sun, and the moon, and the whole
heaven, which, without any fear or reverence, they called gods. And Moses, perceiving the
ideas which they entertained, says, "O Lord, King of all gods, "{2} [Deuteronomy 10:17.]
in order to point out the great superiority of the Ruler to his subjects. And the original
founder of the Jewish nation was a Chaldaean [Babylonian] by birth, being the son of a
father who was much devoted to the study of astronomy, and being among people who were
great studiers of mathematical science, who think the stars, and the whole heaven, and the
whole world gods; and they say that both good and evil result from their speculations and
belief, since they do not believe in anything as a cause which is apart from those things
which are visible to the outward senses. But what can be worse than this, or more
calculated to display the want of true nobility existing in the soul, than the notion of causes
in general being secondary and created causes, combined with an ignorance of the one
first cause, the uncreated God, the Creator of the universe, who for these and innumerable
other reasons is most excellent, reasons which because of their magnitude human intellect
is unable to apprehend? but this founder of the Jewish nation having conceived an idea of
him in his mind, and looking upon him as the true God, forsook his native country and his
family, and his father’s house, knowing that if he remained, the deceits of the polytheistic
doctrine also remaining in his soul would render his intellect incapable of discovering
the nature of the one God, who is alone everlasting, and the father of everything else,
 222

whether appreciable only by the intellect or perceptible to the outward senses ; but if he
departed and emigrated, then he saw that deceit would also depart from his mind, which
would then change its erroneous opinions into truth."

U3 1. So far as astral prediction is concerned, a basic distinction has often been made, from
ancient times to the present, between celestial bodies having various kinds of powers of their own
over human affairs and destinies, and celestial bodies furnishing signs, presumably related to non-
astral powers which affect human affairs and destinies. Astrologers and astronomers have long
been concerning with predicting the future. As I have argued in this work, and as many others
have maintained, often enough in the past one and the same person who did this, or believed it
possible to do this, engaged in or made use of activities concerned with predicting the future
which in today's usual meanings of the terms astrologer and astronomer would be identified as
both an astronomer and an astrologer. One of the differences today between people who are
classified as an astrologer or as an astronomer lies in how each interprets celestial events and
processes which they both are engaged in interpreting for purposes of predicting something which
will or may happen in the future; another difference concerns which celestial events and processes
exist to be interpreted for such a purpose. A common example concerns our earth's moon.
Astronomers agree that there are techniques for predicting where the moon will be in the sky in the
future of a given time, and what phase it will be in, with great accuracy. They also agree that the
moon has at least one prominent power of affecting human affairs, namely a still quite mysterious
power known as gravity or gravitation which, for example, exerts influences on the tides of the
oceans which have to be taken into account for various human affairs. Actually, few astronomers
or physicists would use the English term power to refer to gravitation. In non-relativistic
mechanics, the termforce is commonly used, and this is closely associated with what the term
energy is used to denote. In relativistic mechanics, the situation is more complicated, one hears
about such things as curvature of space, and the like. In what is often called classical celestial
mechanics, Newton's Law of Gravity and Laws of Motion, along with an elaborate mathematical
apparatus, are taken as the basis for predicting future positions and phases of the moon, as well as
of the sun and other planets of our solar system, and many other celestial objects, from asteroids
and comets up to constellations and galaxies. Gravitation, non-relativistically and relativistically
interpreted, plays a major role in many other kinds of predictions by astronomers besides
positions and phases of celestial objects, from what will happen tomorrow in connection with the
energy output of our sun, energy which is of vital importance in human affairs, to what will
happen tomorrow if you get too near a so-called black hole, and what will happen in the future to
our solar system or to our universe as a whole which is even of some importance in connection
with human affairs of tomorrow inasmuch as it may affect religious and philosophical beliefs
which may in turn influence behavior of human and other kinds of individuals and groups,
sometimes on a quite large scale.

U32. Astrologers, on the other hand, seldom pay attention to forces of gravity or curvature of
space in making their predictions. A common complaint of present -day astronomers, physicists,
cosmologists and the like is that astrologers can demonstrate no power of celestial objects and
their processes which can account for what the astrologers claim are their influences
on terrestrial creatures and their affairs. It is maintained by most physical scientists of today that
gravitation, electromagnetic effects, nuclear forces, and the like, exerted by celestial objects
(presumably other than our earth) have never been demonstrated to have the kind of influences on
terrestrial affairs that present-day astrologers maintain they have. Astrologers often reply to this
by observing that such influences by powers whose existence is accepted by physical scientists
haven't been shown not to exist, or by observing that there may be or are powers not known to or
not accepted by physical scientists which do have influences on terrestrial affairs of the sort they
deal with. Arguments and disagreements of this sort have gone on since antiquity, and it doesn't
look like they will be settled soon, or indeed ever. A thesis of the present work has been that in past
times, what we now call astronomy and astrology were more interwoven than they customarily
are today, although they still share some basic assumptions, e.g. about predicting future positions
of celestial objects and the like. One consequence of this thesis, if it be accepted, is that what has
happened in the development of astral prediction over time is a kind of specialization in connection
with astral prediction, an effect which has been dominant in connection with all kinds of human
affairs. Another consequence is that one may expect to see a kind of punctuated evolution in
connection with astral prediction, rather than some kind of revolution in such matters. This has
bearing on a familiar theme in history and philosophy of science, that of so-called scientific
revolutions, and especially alleged "incommensurability" between theories and interpretations
accepted in different eras, to use the term made popular by Thomas Kuhn. If by
"incommensurability", one means existence of basic differences of the sort common to present-
day astronomers and astrologers, one can empirically verify that such incommensurability exists.
If by "incommensurability", one means that the nature of what is true about our universe between
what present-day astronomers and astrologers hold can't be decided, one can empirically verify
that it hasn't yet been decided. But, as I said near the beginning of this work, I won't be concerned
here with matters of truth and falsity of what astronomers and astrologers say. I have reviewed
here something about the relationship of past and present astronomy and astrology, and their
practitioners and customers, in order to make a setting for the next chapter in the book by Alan
Scott, Origen and the Life of the Stars (1991) which I have been considering, and I will now
return to it, and in particular to Chapter 6, "The Heavenly Powers".

U33. Nowadays, to maintain seriously that what philosophers sometimes call the "mind-
body" problem is closely related to problems of the nature and powers of celestial bodies would, at
least in academic settings, be considered to be a kind of crackpottery. However, Scott observes
that in the Hellenistic era, theories of "astral bodies" served to make a relationship of this kind.
Scott says: "...the existence of a substance which literally was on the boundary between the
incorporeal noetic realm of God and the corporeal world of becoming helped explain how it was
possible for the incorporeal soul to be joined to the corporeal body. The stars became a model for
how humanity's divine rationality was related to the irrationality of the sublunary world. The
belief began slowly to evolve that the soul was joined to the gody through the medium of an
'astral body'. ... Plato had written that corporeal vision occurs as a result of a fine, smooth, non-
destructive fire which is emitted from the eye and combines with light, which is akin to it,
forming a bond between the soul and that which is see, Light then is the medium between soul
and the world. ... The later Platonic astral body theory suggests that the star which in the
Phaedrus myth [presented by Plato in his dialogue of that name] acts as the soul's vehicle
(schema) is in fact a reference to the luminous body which joins the soul and the physical body.
 224

The gap between mind and matter is bridged by positing a body of pneuma or light which is
somehow related to both, just as physical vision unites the mind to the world. ... Only after
Origen, in the tradition of interpretation which begins with Porphyry and his student Iamblichus,
does Platonism begin to clarify the precise nature of the astral body both in heaven and existing as
the vehicle for the human soul. At this later point, the astral soul becomes a tenet in systematic,
neo-Platonic philosophy. But in Origen's day, the concept of the soul's astral vehicle was still an
intellectual experiment which could be developed in several different ways." 539

U34. Scott goes on to discuss the relationship of such theories of union between the divine
and the human by way of the stars to astrology as it was generally practiced and theorized about
in the Hellenistic era. He says (p. 79): "A particularly important development in this experiment is
the theory of a planetary component in the structure of the soul. The growth of interest in
astrology in the Hellenistic era led to a special emphasis on the influence of the planets on the
soul, since astrology is very much concerned with the effects of the various planetary positions on
all generation." There was considerable discussion and disagreement among philosophers and
theologians who accepted some version of an astral body theory as to whether or not, or in what
cases and to what extent, the influences of the planets (including the sun and moon) on humans
was benevolent or malevolent, good or evil. Nowadays, some of the terms for various schools of
thought on these issues are gnosticism, hermeticism (as put forth in the Corpus hermeticum), neo-
Platonism or just Platonism, and Mithraism (which Scott describes as a cross between Platonism
and astrology, p. 109).

U35. And now, finally, we come to Origen, Scott's destination. On p. xvi of his
introduction, Scott had said: "The final part [of this book] will investigate astronomy and
astrology, and the ambitious use he made of the concept of living heavenly bodies in his theology.
Specifically, attention will be given to the importance of the stars in understanding Origen's
cosmology, theodicy, doctrine of the Fall, and eschatology." At this point we pass from so-called
pagan or Jewish philosophers of the Hellenistic period to an early Christian philosopher or
theologian, one of the acknowledged Fathers of the Church. Origen lived 186-232 A.D., and is
thus one of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, i.e. before promulgation in 325 A.D. of the Nicene Creed
which affirmed that Jesus Christ is of the same substance as God, and not, as Arius had claimed,
unbegotten and an inferior deity to God. Origen is known for having attempted to integrate some
main doctrines of pagan philosophy, especially as derived from works of Plato and his developers,
with Christian doctrines based on the Holy Scriptures. In particular, in connection with astral
worship, he affirmed numerous times, in various forms, that the stars are alive and rational, based
on the fact that they move, and in an orderly manner. On the other hand, he emphasized that the
stars were created, and thus not divine in the way God is, who is uncreated. Some stars are
described as having "fallen", in a theological sense, because they had sinned. Thus they were,
unlike God, capable of sin. The stars thus were considered by Origen to be ontologically
somewhere between God and man. However, he denied that the stars were causes of good or evil
in human affairs, although he stated that they were causes of the seasons (see below). Scott says:
"Origen is familiar with the tradition which makes the heavenly bodies wrongdoers, and strongly
opposes it. ... The Gospel of Matthew itself links the moon with the demonic possession that
causes epilepsy (17:15), but Origen, citing this passage, goes to great lengths to show that this is
not in fact due to the heavenly body but to the cunning of demons

224 S c ott , p. 77, 78 , 79.

who observe the movements of the moon and also of the stars and plan their own evil deeds
accordingly ... Origen thus denies the important contemporary belief that the planets or stars were
malevolent. As part of the divine creation their nature is good." On the other hand, Origen
believed that "There is a proper use for the signs of the heavens, and that is to refer to them in
order to keep track of the change of seasons. In response to Celsus [a pagan philosopher], Origen
defended the Stoic idea that the whole universe had been made for the benefit of humanity, and he
thought that this was also true for the physical heavens. Along with earth, sea, winds, and rain, so
too heaven, sun, moon, and stars were given by God to serve mankind. Like most of his pagan
contemporaries, Origen assumed that the association of different stars in the sky with different
seasons meant that the stars caysed the seasons and the changes in the weather that they brought.
This also meant that the heavenly bodies produce all of the fruits of the earth for the human race
to enjoy. Thus the stars had a central role in daily human affairs, though only in regulating the
natural world and not in our moral and spiritual life."

U36. Origen was, however, opposed to the viewpoints of astro logers, which he took to
involve denial of free will. Scott says, in agreement with what I presented in Chapter 1 of this
work: "Astronomy and astrology are of course sharply distinguished in modern thought, but in
antiquity the two words were used interchangeably. Most experts in one tended to be experts in
the other -- Ptolemy is the classic example. Thus it is not surprising that Origen, who shows an
interest in astronomy, is also familiar with astrology, even though he was strongly opposed to it."
(p.119) On the other hand, Scott says: "The stars, however, had too strong a position both in
contemporary philosophy and in the popular imagination to play no role whatsoever in shaping
the life below. Connections between the moon and the movements of tides, or between the
positions of the stars and the seasons, had long since been made, and this lent much credibility to
astrological claims. The belief that one could foretell the future by studying the heavens was
common wisdom in Alexandria ... Among both intellectuals and the unlearned, complete disbelief
in astrological theory was scarcely credible in the third century." A middle way was, as had been
done before, to believe that the stars were created to give signs to humanity. "Origen believed,"
says Scott, that the stars could act as signs of future events without causing them. He
Christianizes this view, saying that the stars were signs of all that happens, in accordance with
Genesis 1:14, 'let them be for signs,' and Jeremiah 10:2 'be not dismayed at the signs of heaven.'
This was combined with his conviction that all things in this world were traceable, not to Fate,
but to free will or to the dictates of Providence. ... Astrology is the mistaken use of this
correlation between heaven and earth; one which (following ! En och [of the Ap ro cryph a] and
Clement [of Alexandria, another ante-Nicene Father of the Church] is abetted by fallen
angels." 540.

U37. Scott concludes (p. 167): "The ancient assumption that the stars are living beings has
now passed away, but just as the sea retains its fascination, even though Poseidon no longer
dwells in it, so too the celestial regions without their ancient gods. Kant declared his awe at the
starry heavens above and the moral law within, recognizing in each case that we are in the
presence of something great. The modern age no longer believes that the stars have souls, but
astronomical progress has not robbed them of their power. The farthest created things, our own
nearest self, these two remain mysteries to us. Observing both we are indeed on the boundary of
 226

540 S c ott, ibid. , p.143 - 146 .

226 S c ott , ibid ., 167 .

 227

another land."541 One may dispute Scott's statement, or implication, that there are no people any
longer who believe that the stars in some sense are alive and have souls, with "souls" defined
suitably, although this is not so in the standard academies of our present-day world, at least in
some regions of the world. Scott is certainly right to say that the farthest created things, or for
that matter some of the nearer ones, too, remain in many ways mysterious, and that our selves,
our conscious selves, likewise remain in many ways mysterious to all of us who are sufficiently
open to mysteries.