Astrology and religion among the Greeks and Romans

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THE AMERICAN LECTURES
ON THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS.

I. Buddhism. — The History and Literature of Bud-
dhism. By T. W. Rhys-Davids, LL.D., Ph.D.

II. Primitive Religions. — The Religions of Primitive
Peoples. By D. G. Brinton, A.M., M.D., LL.D,, Sc.D.

III. Israel. — Jewish Religions. Life after the Exile.
By Rev. T. K. Chbynk, M.A., D.D.

IV. Israel.— Religion of Israel to the Exile. By Karl
BUDDE. D.D.

V. Ancient Egyptians. — The Religion of the Ancient
Egyptians. By G. Steindorff, Ph.D.

VI. Religion in Japan. — The Development of Re-
ligion in Japan. By George W. Knox, D.D.

VII. The Veda.— The Religion of the Veda. By
Maurice Bloomfield, Ph.D., LL.D.

VIII. Astrology and Religion among the Greeks
and Romans. By Franz Cumont, Ph.D., LL.D.

IX. Babylonia and Assyria. Aspects of Religious
Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria. By Morris
J astro w, Jr., Ph.D.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

#

AMERICAN LECTURES ON THE
HISTORY OF RELIGIONS

SERIES OF 1911-1912

ASTROLOGY AND RELIGION

AMONG THE GREEKS

AND ROMANS

BY
FRANZ CUMONT, Ph.D., LL.D.

Member of the Acad6mie Royale de Belgique

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

C^be ftnfcfterbocfter presa
1912

ComacHT, xQxa

BY

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

TTbe «nlcIrcrlK>cIiCT ptcM. tuw S?«et

MAURITIO JASTROW

Babyloniorum

astrologiab

INTERFRETI SAGACISSIMO

PREFACE

TT is the purpose of these lectures delivered under
^ the auspices of the American Committee for
Lectures on the History of Religions, to sum up
the results of researches carried on by me for
many years in the field of ancient astrology and
astral religion. For some facts set forth here in
a stmmiary fashion, I can refer the reader in-
terested in the details to a number of special
articles published in various periodicals; the
proof of other assertions will be given in a
larger work that I hope at some future date to
publish on this same general theme.

My sincere thanks are due to Mr. J. B. Baker
of Oxford who has carried out the task of trans-
lating these lectures in so satisfactory a manner;
and I am also largely indebted to my friend, Mr.
J. G. C. Anderson of Christ Church, who was kind
enough to undertake the revision of the manu-
script. I also owe some valuable corrections to
Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., of the University of

vi Preface

Pennsylvania, who, as Secretary of the American
Committee, may be said to have called this book
into existence, and to whom I take pleasure in
dedicating the voliime, as a mark of recognition
of his own researches in the cognate field of
Babylonian-Assyrian astrology.

Franz Cumont.
Brussels, January, 191 2.

ANNOUNCEMENT.

T^HE American Lectures on the History of Re-
■■^ ligions axe delivered under the auspices of
the American Committee for Lectures on the His-
tory of Religions. This Committee was organised
in 1892, for the purpose of instituting "popular
courses in the History of Religions, somewhat after
the style of the Hibbert Lectures in England, to
be delivered by the best scholars of Europe and
this country, in various cities, such as Baltimore,
Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, New York, Philadel-
phia, and others."

The terms of association tmder which the Com-
mittee exists are as follows:

I. — The object of this Association shall be to
provide courses of lectures on the history of re-
ligions, to be delivered in various cities.

2 — The Association shall be composed of dele-
gates from the institutions agreeing to co-operate,
with such additional members as may be chosen
by these delegates.

3. — ^These delegates — one from each institution.

viii Announcement

with the additional members selected — shall consti-
tute themselves a Council under the name of the
" American Committee for Lectures on the History
of Religions."

4. — The Council shall elect out of its number a
Chairman, a Secretary, and a Treasurer.

5. — All matters of local detail shall be left to the
co-operating institution under whose auspices the
lectures are to be delivered.

6. — A course of lectures on some religion, or
phase of religion, from an historical point of view,
or on a subject germane to the study of religions,
shall be delivered annually, or at such intervals as
may be found practicable, in the different cities
represented by this Association.

7. — ^The Council (a) shall be charged with the
selection of the lecturers, (b) shall have charge of the
funds, (c) shall assign the time for the lectures in
each city, and perform such other functions as may
be necessary.

8. — Polemical subjects, as well as polemics in the
treatment of subjects, shall be positively excluded.

9. — ^The lectures shall be delivered in the various
cities between the months of September and June.

10. — The copyright of the lectures shall be the
property of the Association.

Announcement ix

II. — ^The compensation of the lecturer shall be
fixed in each case by the Council.

12. — The lecturer shall be paid in instalments
after each course, until he shall have received half
of the entire compensation. Of the remaining half,
one half shall be paid to him upon delivery of the
manuscript, properly prepared for the press., and
the second half on the publication of the volume,
less a deduction for corrections made by the author
in the proofs.

The Committee as now constituted is as follows :

Prof. Crawford H. Toy, Chairman, 7 Lowell St.,
Cambridge, Mass.; Rev. Dr. John P. Peters,
Treasurer, 227 W. 99th St., New York City; Prof.
Morris Jastrow, Jr., Secretary, 248 S. 23rd St.,
Philadelphia, Pa. ; President Francis Brown, Union
Theological Seminary, New York City ; Prof. Rich-
ard Gottheil, Columbia University, New York
City; Prof. Robert F. Harper, University of Chi-
cago, Chicago, 111. ; Prof. Paul Haupt, Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore, Md.; Prof. F. W. Hooper,
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; Prof. E.
W. Hopkins, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. ;
Prof. Edward Knox Mitchell, Hartford Theologi-
cal Seminary, Hartford, Conn.; President F. K.
Sanders, Washburn College, Topeka, Kan. ; Prof.

X Announcement

H. P. Smith, Meadville Theological Seminary,
Meadville, Pa.

The lecturers in the course of American Lectures
on the History of Religions and the titles of their
volumes are as follows:

1894-1895— Prof. T. W. Rhys-Davids, Ph.D.
— Buddhism.

1896-1897— Prof. Daniel G. Brinton, M.D., LL.D.
— ^Religions of Primitive Peoples.

1897-1898— Rev. Prof. T. K. Cheyne, D.D.— Jew-
ish Religious Life after the Exile.

1898-1899— Prof. Karl Budde, D.D.— Religion of
Israel to the Exile.

1904-1905 — Prof. George Steindorff, Ph.D. — The
Religion of the Ancient Egyptians.

1905-1906 — Prof. George W. Knox, D.D., LL.D. —
The Development of Religion in
Japan.

1906-1907 — Prof. Maurice Bloomfield, Ph.D.,
LL.D.— The Religion of the Veda.

1907-1908— Prof. A. V. W. Jackson, Ph.D., LL.D.
— The Religion of Persia.*

• This course was not published by the Committee, but will
form part of Prof. Jackson's volume on the Religion of Persia

Announcement xi

1909-1910 — Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., Ph.D. —
Aspects of Religious Belief and
Practice in Babylonia and Assyria.

1910-191 1 — Prof. J. J. M. DeGroot. — The Develop-
ment of Religion in China.

The lecturer for 1911-1912 was Prof. Franz
Cumont of Brussels, recognised as the leading
authority on Greek Astrology and Mithraism.
From 1892 until his resignation in 19 10, Prof.
Cumont held the Chair of Roman Institutions at
the University of Ghent. Since 1899, he has been
Curator of the Royal Museums of Antiquities at
Brussels. Prof. Cumont's great work on the
Mithra Cult was pubHshed in 1 894-1900, and is
the standard work on that subject. This was fol-
lowed by a smaller summary, Les Mysthres de
Mithra, of which an English translation, imder the
title " Mysteries of Mithra," was published in
1903. A series of lectures delivered at the College
de France on Les Religions Orientates dans te Pagan-
isme Romain (Paris, 1907; 2nd ed. 1910) has also

in the series of " Handbooks on the History of Religions, " edited
by Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., and published by Messrs. Ginn &
Company of Boston. Prof. Jastrow's volume is, therefore, the
eighth in the series. Prof. De Groot's lectures have not yet been
published, but will appear in 1912. Prof. Cumont's volume is,
therefore, the ninth in the series.

xii Announcement

appeared in an English garb (Oriental Religions
in Roman Paganism. Chicago, 191 1).

In 1900 and again in 1907, Prof. Cumont conduc-
ted archiEological explorations in Asia Minor and in
Northern Syria, the results of which were embodied
in his Studia Pontica (Brussels, 1906) and in a
volume of Greek and Latin inscriptions published
in 191 I.

In 1898, in collaboration with several scholars,
M. Cumont undertook a catalogue, with detailed
descriptions and copious extracts, of all Greek as-
trological codices (Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum
Graecorum) , of which monumental work, up to the
present, ten volumes have appeared. A Bibliog-
raphy of Prof. Cumont's writings, including numer-
ous articles contributed by him to archaeological,
historical, and philosophical journals of various
countries, was published in 1908 by the Royal
Academy of Belgium, of which body M. Cumont
has been a member since 1902. He is also a corres-
ponding member of the Institute de France and
of the Academies of Berlin, Gottingen, and Munich.

The lecttu-es contained in this volume are a
summary in a popiilar form of extensive researches
carried on by Prof. Cumont for many years. They
were delivered before the following institutions;

Announcement " xiii

The Lowell Institute, Hartford Theological Semi-
nary, Johns Hopkins University, University of
Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, Brooklyn
Institute of Arts and Sciences, Meadville Theo-
logical Seminary, and Columbia University.

John P. Peters,
C. H. Toy,
Committee on Publication,
December, 191 1.

INTRODUCTION

lix tQv oipavlav ri, hrtyeia Ifprrirai
mrd rtva <pvaiK^v av/ivideiay.

Philo, De Opificio Mundi, c 40.

A FTER a long period of discredit and neglect,
''• astrology is beginning to force itself once
more on the attention of the learned world. In
the course of the last few years scholars have
devoted to it profound researches and elaborate
publications. Greek manuscripts, which had re-
mained a sealed book at a time when the quest
for unpublished documents is all the rage, have
now been laboriously examined, and the wealth
of this literature has exceeded all expectation.
On the other hand, the deciphering of the cunei-
form tablets has given access to the well-springs
of a learned superstition, which up to modem
times has exercised over Asia and Eiu*ope a wider
dominion than any religion has ever achieved. I
trust, therefore, that I am not guilty of undue

XV

xvi Introduction

presumption in venturing to claim yoiu- interest
for this erroneous belief, so long universally ac-
cepted, which exercised an endless influence on
the creeds and the ideas of the most diverse
peoples, and which for that very reason neces-
sarily demands the attention of historians.

After a diuation of a thousand years, the power
of astrology broke down when, with Copernicus,
Kepler, and Galileo, the progress of astronomy
overthrew the false hypothesis upon which its
entire structtue rested, namely, the geocentric
system of the imiverse. The fact that the earth
revolves in space intervened to upset the compli-
cated play of planetary influences, and the silent
stars, relegated to the imfathomable depths of
the sky, no longer made their prophetic voices
audible to mankind. Celestial mechanics and
spectrum analysis finally robbed them of their
mysterious prestige. Thenceforth in that learned
system of divination, which professed to discover
from the stars the secret of our destiny, men saw
nothing but the most monstrous of all the chimeras
begotten of superstition. Under the sway of
reason the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
condemned this heresy in the name of scientific

Introduction xvii

orthodoxy. In 1824, Letronne thought it neces-
sary to apologise for discoursing to the Academy
of Inscriptions on "absurd dreams" in which he
saw "nothing but one of those failings which
have done most dishonour to the human mind,"*
— as though man's failings were not often more
instructive than his triumphs.

But at the end of the nineteenth century the
development of history, from various sides, re-
called the attention of investigators to ancient
astrology. It is an exact science which was super-
imposed on primitive beliefs, and when classical
philology, enlarging its horizon, brought fully
within its range of observation the development
of the sciences in antiquity, if could not set aside
a branch of knowledge, illegitimate, I allow, but
indissolubly linked not only with astronomy and
meteorology, but also with medicine, botany,
ethnography and physics. If we go back to the
earliest stages of every kind of learning, as
far as the Alexandrine and even the Babylonian
period, we shall find almost everywhere the dis-
turbing influence of these astral "mathematics."

' " Riveries ahsurdes . . . une des faiblesses qui ont le plus
deshonore r esprit humain."

xviii Introduction

This sapling, which shot up among the rank weeds
by the side of the tree of knowledge, sprang from
the same stock and mingled its branches with it.

But not only is astrology indispensable to the
savant who desires to trace the toilsome progress
of reason in the pursuit of truth along its doublings
and turnings, — which is perhaps the highest
mission of history; it also benefited by the interest
which was roused in all manifestations of the
irrational. This pseudo-science is in reality a
creed. Beneath the icy crust of a cold and rigid
dogma run the troubled waters of a jumble of
worships, derived from an immense antiquity;
and as soon as enquiry was directed to the religions
of the past, it was attracted to this doctrinal
superstition, perhaps the most astonishing that
has ever existed. Research ascertained how, after
having reigned supreme in Babylonia, it subdued
the cults of Syria and of Egypt, and under the Em-
pire,— to mention only the West, — transformed
even the ancient paganism of Greece and Rome.

It is not only, however, because it is combined
with scientific theories, nor because it enters into
the teaching of pagan mysteries, that astrology
forces itself on the meditations of the historian

Introduction xix

of religions, but for its own sake (and here we
touch the heart of the problem), because he is
obliged to enquire how and why this alliance,
which at first sight seems monstrous, came to be
formed between mathematics and superstition.
It is no explanation to consider it merely a mental
disease. Even then, to speak the truth, this
hallucination, the most persistent which has ever
haunted the human brain, would still deserve to
be studie'd. If psychology to-day conscientiously
applies itself to disorders of the memory and of
the will, it cannot fail to interest itself in the
ailments of the faculty of belief, and specialists
in lunacy will do useful work in dealing with this
species of morbid manifestation with the view of
settling its etiology and tracing its course. How
could this absurd doctrine arise, develop, spread,
and force itself on superior intellects for century
after century? There, in all its simplicity, is
the historical problem which confronts us.

In reality the growth of this body of dogma
followed a course not identical with, but parallel,
I think, to that of certain other theologies. Its
starting-point was faith, faith in certain stellar
divinities who exerted an influence on the world.

XX Introduction

Next, people sought to comprehend the natiire
of this influence: they believed it to be subject
to certain invariable laws, because observation
revealed the fact that the heavens were animated
by regular movements, and they conceived them-
selves able to determine its effects in the future
with the same certainty as the coming revolutions
and conjimctions of the stars. Finally, when a
series of theories had been evolved out of that
twofold conviction, their original source was for-
gotten or disregarded. The old belief became
a science; its postulates were erected into princi-
ples, which were justified by physical and moral
reasons, and it was pretended that they rested on
experimental data amassed by a long series of
observations. By a common process, after be-
lieving, people invented reasons for believing, —
*' fides quaerens intellectum,^' — and the intelligence
working on the faith reduced it to formulae, the logi-
cal sequence of which concealed the radical fallacy.
There is something tragic in this ceaseless
attempt of man to penetrate the mysteries of the
future, in this obstinate struggle of his factdties
to lay hold on knowledge which evades his probe,
and to satisfy his insatiable desire to foresee his

Introduction xxi

destiny. The birth and evolution of astrology,
that desperate error on which the intellectual
powers of countless generations were spent, seems
like the bitterest of disillusions. By establishing
the unchangeable character of the celestial re-
volutions 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 fre-
quently contradicted by experience, which ought
to have confirmed them. Then not daring to
doubt the principles on which depended their
whole conception of the world, these soothsayer-
logicians strove to correct their theories. Unable
to bring themselves to deny the influence of the
divine stars on the affairs of this world, they in-
vented 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 com-
plicated and often contradictory doctrines, which
perplex the reason, and whose audacious unsub-

xxii Introduction

stantiality 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 superstitions.

Thus various reasons commended to the attention
of scholars these old writings of the Greek astro-
logers so long neglected. They set to work to re-
read and to re-publish these repulsive-looking books
which had not been reprinted since the sixteenth
century. The last edition — and a shockingly bad
one — of the TetrahiUos of Ptolemy is dated 1581.
Further, a niunber of unknown authors emerged
from obscurity, a crowd of manuscripts mouldering
in the tombs of libraries were restored to light. '

The profit which can be gained from them is
not confined to the science of which they treat
and to the adjacent domains, which astrology has
more or less penetrated. Their utility is much

' See Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum (ten volumes
published), Brussels, 1893-1911.

Introduction xxiii

more varied and general, and it would be difficult
to set out in full their manifold applications. '

I shall not dwell on the interest afforded to the
scholar by a series of texts spread over more than
fifteen centuries, from the Alexandrine period to
the Renaissance. Nor, again, will I attempt to
estimate the importance which might be claimed
in the political sphere by a doctrine which has
often guided the will of kings, and decided their
enterprises. Nor can I prove here by examples
how the propagation of astrological doctrines
reveals unsuspected relations between the oldest
civilisations, and leads him who traces it from
Alexandria and from Babylon as far as India,
China, and Japan, bringing him back again from
the Far East to the Far West.

So many questions of such varied interest can-
not be considered all at once. We must exercise
restraint and confine ourselves to one view of
the subject. Oiu* object in this course of lectures
shall be limited to showing how oriental astrology
and star-worship transformed the beliefs of the
Graeco-Latin world, what at different periods was

' See Franz Boll, Zur Erforschung der antiken Astrologie (Neue
Jahrbucher f. d. Klass. Altertum), xxi. (1903).

xxiv Introduction

the ever-increasing strength of their influence,
and by what means they established in the West
a sidereal cult, which was the highest phase of
ancient paganism. In Greek anthropomorphism
the Olympians were merely an idealised reflection
of various hiunan personalities. Roman formal-
ism made the worship of the national gods an
expression of patriotism, strictly regulated by
pontifical and civil law. Babylon was the first
to erect the edifice of a cosmic religion, based
upon science, which brought human activity and
human relations with the astral divinities into
the general harmony of organised nature. This
learned theology, by including in its speculations
the entire world, was to eliminate the narrower
forms of belief, and, by changing the character of
ancient idolatry, it was to prepare in many re-
spects the coming of Christianity.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Preface v

Announcement . . . . . . vii

Introduction ...... xv

Recent researches concerning astrology, xv — ^Their
interest and importance, xvi.

Lecture I. — The Chaldeans . . . i

The "Pan-Babylonists," 2 — Fundamental error of
their theories, 3 — Astral religion implies scientific ideas
developed at the end and not at the beginning of
Babylonian civilisation, 4 — Sketch of the history of
Chaldean astronomy, 6 — Its discoveries in the second
century b. c, 12 — Its influence upon the religion, 15
— Development of astral theology, 21 — The Chaldean
creed in the Alexandrine period, 28.

Lecture IL — Babylonia and Greece . 36

Sidereal religion originally foreign to the Greeks, 36
— Anthropomorphism opposed to the cult of celestial
bodies, 38 — Greek philosophers as defenders of star-
worship, 39 — Practical motives and theoretical reasons,
40 — Influence of Oriental religions proved, 41 — The
Platonic Epinomis, 48 — Greeks at first rejected astrol-
ogy ,.52 — Changesets in after the days of Alexander the
Great, 54 — Interpenetration of Greek and Chaldean
science, 55 — Berosus, 56 — Kidenas intermediary be-
tween Hipparchus and Chaldeans, 62 — Seleucus of
Seleucia and scientific rationalism, 67 — Stoicism as the
conciliator of star-worship and philosophy, 68 — End
of the Babylonian schools, 71.

XXV

xxvi Contents

Lecture III. — The Dissemination in the
West ....... 73

Power of astrology, 73 — Babylonia and Egypt, 74
— Astrology unknown in Egypt before the sixth cen-
tury B. c, 75 — Petosiris and Nechepso (circa 150
B. c.) 76 — Hermetic books, 77 — Syria, 77 — Israel and
astrology, 78 — Transformation of Semitic paganism,
79 — Chaldaism and Hellenism in the empire of the
Seleucids, 81 — Oriental Stoicism and Posidonius of
Apamea, 82 — His influence on Roman thought, 85 —
Manilius' Astronomica, 86 — Neo-Pythagoreans, 87 —
Literary and popular propagandism, 88— The Oriental
mysteries, 89 — The devotion of the emperors to the
Sim-ctilt, 94 — The house of the Severi, 96 — Official
cult of Sol Invictus founded by Aurelian (274 A. D.),
97 — The solar dynasty of the fourth century, 98—
Conclusion, 99.

Lecture IV. — Theology .101

The contemplation of the heavens, loi — Divinity
of the heavenly bodies, 102 — Qualities of the astral
gods: (o) Eternity, 104 — Worship of Time and its
subdivisions, 107 — Sacred ntunbers, 1 1 1 — (&) Univer-
sality and omnipotence, 112 — Worship of Heaven
and constellations, 115 — Worship of plants and ele-
ments, 1 19— The leading power of the cosmic organism,
123 — The Sun as the highest god, 124 — Development
of solar theology, 126 — ^Transformation of paganism,
135-

Lecture V. — ^Astral Mysticism. Ethics
and Cult 139

Mystic element in astral religion, 139 — Impression
of heaven on the ancients and modems : Cosmic emo-
tion, 140 — Commvmion of man's soul with the
heavenly bodies, 144 — Mysticism as the access to the

Contents xxvii

knowledge of the celestial gods, 145 — Contrast to
the Dionysiac ecstasy, 147 — ^Ethical consequences of
mysticism, 149 — Opposition between heaven and
earth, and between soul and body, 150 — Intensity of
intellectual joys, 151 — ^Asceticism, 152 — Fatalism as
destructive of morality and the cult, 153 — ^Astrology
remains religious: Submission to fate as source of
morality, 155 — Necessity of positive worship justified,
157 — Sun-worship, 161 — Natalis Invicti, 162 — Worship
of planets, 163 — ^The Week, 164 — Influence of astrol-
ogy on language, 166.

Lecture VI. — ^Eschatology . . .167

Astral mysticism as a preparation for the future
life, 167 — Principal doctrines, 168 — ^Astral eschatology
in Greece, 173 — Development in the Roman world,
178 — (a) Who obtains immortality? Kings and states-
men, 180 — Soldiers and priests, 181 — ^All pious and
pure men, 183 — (jb) How did soids rise to the stars?
Ancient means, 185 — Magic processes, 187 — Theory
of solar attraction, 188 — ^The nature of the soul, 189 —
Ascension through the elements, 192 — ^Mythological
beliefs, 193 — ^A god as a leader of pious souls, 194 —
(c) Where is the abode of the blest? Vagueness of
popular views, 195 — Solar immortality, 196 — ^Ascen-
sion through the planetary spheres, 197 — Opposition
to a subterranean hell, 198 — (d) Which is the bliss
reserved for the elect ? The celestial banquet, 199 —
Contemplation of the stars, 200 — Souls acquire full
knowledge of God and the world, 301.

Astrology and Religion

Among the Greeks and Romans

LECTURE I

THE CHALDEANS

r^URING the period of the French Revolution
^^^ citizen Dupuis, in three bulky volumes
"On the Origin of all Forms of Worship" (1794),
developed the idea that the primary source of
religion was the spectacle of celestial phenomena
and the ascertainment of their correspondence with
earthly events, and he imdertook to show that the
myths of all peoples and all times were nothing
but a set of astronomical combinations. Accord-
ing to him, the Egyptians, to whom he assigned
the foremost place among "the inventors of
religions, " had conceived, some twelve or fifteen

2 Astrology and Religion

thousand years before our era, the division of the
ecliptic into twelve constellations corresponding
to the twelve months; and when the expedition
of Bonaparte discovered in the temples of the Nile
valley, notably at Denderah, some zodiacs to
which a fabulous antiquity was attributed, these
extraordinary theories appeared to receive an
unexpected confirmation. But the bold mytho-
logical fabric reared in the heavens by the savant
of the Revolution fell to pieces when Letronne
proved that the zodiac of Denderah dated, not
from an epoch anterior to the most ancient of
the known Pharaohs, but from that of the Roman
emperors.

Science in her cycles of hypotheses is liable to
repeat herself. An attempt has recently been
made to restore to favoiir the fancies of Dupuis,
by renovating them with greater erudition. Only,
the mother coimtry of "astral mythology" is
to be sought, not on the banks of the Nile, but on
those of the Euphrates. The " Pan-Babylonists, ''
as they have been called, maintain that

Behind the literature and cults 6f Babylon and Assy-
ria, behind the legends and myths, behind the
Pantheon and religious beliefs, behind even the writ-

The Chaldeans 3

ings which appear to be purely historical, lies an
astral conception of the universe and of its phenom-
ena, affecting all thoughts, all beliefs, all practices, and
penetrating even into the domain of purely secular
intellectual activity, including all branches of science
cultivated in antiquity. According to this astral
conception, the greater gods were identified with the
planets, and the minor ones with the fixed stars. A
scheme of correspondences between phenomena in the
heavens and occurrences on earth was worked out.
The constantly changing appearance of the heavens
indicates the ceaseless activity of the gods, and since
whatever happened on earth was due to divine
powers, this activity represented the preparation for
terrestrial phenomena, and more particularly those
affecting the fortunes of mankind. . . . Proceeding
further, it is claimed that the astral-mythological cult
of ancient Babylonia became the prevailing Weltan-
schauung of the ancient Orient, and that whether we
turn to Egypt or to Palestine, to Hittite districts or
to Arabia, we shall find these various cultures imder
the spell of this conception.

It furnishes the key to the interpretation of
Homer as well as of the Bible. ^ In particular, all
the Old Testament should be explained by a series
of sidereal myths. The patriarchs are "personi-
fications of the sun or moon," and the traditions

* See e.g. Fries, Studien zur Odyssee (Mitt. Vorderasiat. Gesell-
schaft), 1910.

4 Astrology and Religion

of the Sacxed Books are "variations of certain
'motifs,' whose real significance is to be found
only when they are transferred to phenomena in
the heavens."

Such is a wholly impartial summary of the
theories professed by the advocates of the Alt-
orientalische Weltanschauung. I borrow it, with
sUght abbreviation, from an address delivered by
Morris Jastrow, Jr., at the Oxford Congress in
1908.* Now of this system it may be said that
what is true in it is not new, and what is new is
not true. That Babylon was the mother of as-
tronomy, star-worship, and astrology, that thence
these sciences and these beliefs spread over the
world, is a fact already told us by the ancients,
and the course of these lectures will prove it
clearly. But the mistake of the Pan-Babylonists,
whose wide generalisations rest on the narrowest
and flimsiest of bases, lies in the fact that they
have transferred to the nebulous origins of history
conceptions which were not developed at the
beginning but quite at the end of Babylonian
dviHsation. This vast theology, foimded upon

» Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History
of Religions. Oxford, 1908, i., p. 234; cf. Jastrow, Die Religion
Babyloniens und Assyriens, ii. (1910), p. 432.

The Chaldeans 5

the observation of the stars, which is assumed to
have been built up thousands of years before our
era, — nay, before the Trojan War, — and to have
imposed itself on all still barbarous peoples as the
expression of a mysterious wisdom, cannot have
been in existence at this remote period, for the
simple reason that the data on which it would
have been foimded, were as yet unknown.

How often, for instance, has the theory of the
precession of the equinoxes been brought into the
religious cosmology of the East! But what be-
comes of all these symbolical explanations, if the
fact be established that the Orientals never had a
suspicion of this famous precession before the
genius of Hipparchus discovered it?^ Just as the
dreams of Dupuis vanished when the date of the
Egyptian zodiacs was settled, so the Babylonian
mirage was dispelled when scholars advanced
methodically through the desert of cuneiform in-
scriptions and determined the date when astronomy
began to take shape, as an exact science, in the ob-
servatories of Mesopotamia. This new delusion
will depart to the realm of dreams to join the
idea, so dear to poets of old, of Chaldean shep-

'See below, Lecture II., p. 58.

6 Astrology and Religion

herds discovering the causes of eclipses while
watching their flocks.

When we have to ascertain at what date oriental
star-worship effected the transformation of Syrian
and Greek paganism, we shall not find it necessary
to plunge into the obscurity of the earliest times;
we shall be able to study the facts in the full
light of history. "An astral theory of the uni-
verse is not an outcome of popular thought, but
the result of a long process of speculative reason-
ing carried on in restricted learned circles. Even
astrology, which the theory presupposes as a
foimdation, is not a product of primitive popular
fancies but is rather an advanced scientific hypo-
thesis."^ In this first lecture, then, we shall have
to begin by asking ourselves at what date a scien-
tific astronomy and astrology were developed at
Babylon, and then proceed to examine how they
led to the formation of a learned theology and
gave to Babylonian religion its ultimate character.

Let us consult, the historians of astronomy.

» Jastrow, /. c, p. 236. — Since this lecture was written, an ex-
cellent paper on this subject has been published by Carl Bezold,
Astronomie, Himmelschau und Astrallehre bei den Babyloniern
(Sitzungsb. Akad. Heidelberg, 1911, Abh. No. 2).

The Chaldeans 7

The original dociiments of Chaldean erudition
have been deciphered and published during these
last twenty years mainly by the industry of
Strassmaier and Kugler,' and we are able to-day
to realise to some extent what knowledge the
Babylonians possessed at different periods.

Now here is one first discovery pregnant with
consequences: before the eighth century no scien-
tific astronomy was possible owing to the absence
of one indispensable condition, namely, the pos-
session of an exact system of chronology. The
old calendar already in use about the year 2500,
and perhaps earlier, was composed of twelve lunar
months. But as twelve lunar periods make only
354 days, a thirteenth month was from time to
time inserted to bring the date at which the
festivals reciirred each year, into harmony with
the seasons. It was only little by little that
greater precision was attained by observing at
what date the heliac rising of certain fixed stars
took place. So inaccurate a computation of
time allowed of no precise calculations and conse-

* F. X. Kugler, S. J., Die Babylonische Mondrechnung, 1900, and
Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, 1907-1909 (in progress). A
clear and able r6sum6 of Kugler's researches has been given by
Schiaparelli; see below, p. 21.

8 Astrology and Religion

quently of no astronomy worthy of the name.
In fact, during the first twenty or thirty centuries
of Mesopotamian history nothing is foimd but
empirical observations, intended chiefly to indicate
omens, and the rudimentary knowledge which
these observations display, is hardly in advance
of that of the Egyptians, the Chinese, or the
Aztecs. These early observers could employ only
such methods as do not necessitate the record of
periodic phenomena. For instance, the deter-
mination of the four cardinal points by means of
the rising and setting of the sim, for use in the
orientation of temples, was known from the very
earliest antiquity.

But by degrees, direct observation of celestial
phenomena, intended either to enable soothsayers
to make predictions or to fix the calendar, led to
the establishment of the fact that certain of these
phenomena recurred at regular intervals, and the
attempt was then made to base predictions on
the calculation of this recurrence or periodicity.
This necessitated a strict chronology, at which
the Babylonians did not arrive till the middle of
the eighth century B.C.: in 747 they adopted the
so-called "era of Nabonassar. " This was not a

The Chaldeans 9

political or religious era, or one signalised by any
important event. It merely indicated the moment
when, doubtless owing to the establishment of a
lunisolar cycle, they kept properly constructed
chronological tables. Farther back there was no
certainty in regard to the calculation of time. It is
from that moment that the records of eclipses
begin which Ptolemy used, and which are still
sometimes employed by men of science for the pur-
pose of testing their lunar theories. The oldest
is dated March 21, 721 B.C.*

For the period of the Sargonides, who reigned
over Nineveh from the year 722, the documents
of the famous library of Ashurbanapal, and espe-
cially the reports made to these Assyrian kings
by the official astrologers, allow us to form a suffi-
ciently clear idea of the state of their astronomical
knowledge. They had approximately traced the
ecliptic, that is, the line which the sun seems to
follow in the sky during its annual course, and they
had divided it into four parts corresponding to
the four seasons. Without having succeeded in
establishing the real zodiac, they attempted at

' One of these eclipses is noted both in Ptolemy's Almagest
and in a cuneiform tablet, see Boll, in Pauly-Wissowa's Realen-
cyclopddie, s. v. " Finsternisse, " col. 2354.

10 Astrology and Religion

any rate, with the object of testing the calendar,
to draw up the list of constellations whose heliac
rising corresponded to the various months. From
the fixed stars they already distinguished the
planets to the number of five; they had traced
their course, now forwards now backwards, and
determined, at least approximately, the duration
of their synodic revolutions, — for instance, one
tablet calculates that this duration in the case of
Venus is 577.5 days, instead of the actual 584.
But as yet they had no idea of their respective
distances from the earth, for the order in which
the seven principal stars are enumerated in the
inscriptions of Nineveh, — the Moon, the Sun,
Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mercury, Mars, — has no
relation to any astronomical fact. Jupiter, or
Marduk, is put at the head of the five planets,
because Marduk is the principal god of Babylon.
Finally, those priests had not only fixed with
remarkable accuracy the duration of the lunar
period at a little more than twenty-nine and one
half days, but, having ascertained that eclipses
occurred with a certain periodicity^ they had gone
so far as frequently — but not regularly — to predict
their recurrence. In their reports to the kings of

The Chaldeans ii

Nineveh astrologers often prided themselves on
the fact that an eclipse which they had foreseen,
had occurred. This was their great achievement.
The destruction of Nineveh in the year 606
B.C. did not interrupt the conquests of astronomy.
Under Nebuchadnezzar (604-561) Babylon re-
turned to the days of her past glory, and in this
ancient sanctuary of science, amid the general
prosperity, astronomy received a new impetus,
which was not checked by the almost voluntary
submission of the old Semitic capital to the kings
of Persia in 539. A valuable tablet, dated 523,
shows the astonishing advance made since the
fall of Assyria. Here for the first time we find the
relative positions of the sun and the moon cal-
culated in advance; we find, noted with their
precise dates, the conjunctions of the moon with
the planets and of the planets with each other,
and their situation in the signs of the zodiac,
which here appears definitely established, — or,
to put it more briefly, the monthly ephemerides
of the sun and the moon, the principal phenomena
of the planets, and eclipses. All this indicates
an intensity of thought and a perseverance in
observation of which we have as yet no other

12 Astrology and Religion

example, and F. X. Kugler has therefore very
properly regarded this tablet as the oldest known
document of the scientific astronomy of the Chal-
deans. True science is at length disencumbered of
the empirical determinations which had acctunu-
lated in the course of many centimes. From that
time some fifty documents, now deciphered, —
the most recent of which belongs to the year 8
B.C., — enable us to follow its development under
the dominion of the Persians, the Macedonians,
and the Parthians until about the commencement
of our era. There is noticeable a continual ad-
vance and an increasing improvement in the
methods employed, at least up to the end of the
second century B.C., to which belong the most
perfect examples which we possess. Chronologi-
cal reckonings are rendered more accurate by the
adoption of a lunisolar cycle of nineteen years;
the zodiac is definitely established by the substitu-
tion for the ancient constellations of variable sizes
of a geometrical division of the circle in which the
planets move, into twelve equal parts, each subdi-
vided into three portions or decans, equivalent to
ten of our degrees. If the Babylonians were not
aware of the precession of the equinoxes before the

The Chaldeans 13

Greeks, at least they discovered the inequality
of the seasons, resulting from a variation in the
apparent speed of the sun. Above all, they cal-
culated with astonishing accuracy the duration of
the various lunar months, and, if they did not fully
grasp the data of the problem of solar eclipses,
they determined the conditions under which those
of the moon took place. Finally, — and this was
a still more arduous and complicated problem, —
having determined the periods of the sidereal and
s3modic revolutions of the planets, they constructed
perpetual ephemerides giving year by year the
variations in the position of these five stars; then
in the second century before our era they became
so bold as to attempt an a priori calculation of
planetary phenomena, such as they had previously
worked out for the moon and the sun.

We have been obliged to introduce into this
description certain technical details in order to
fix exactly the period at which Chaldean science
became established. It was not, as we have been
asked to believe, in the remote obscurity of the
fourth or even the fifth millennium that the mighty
fabric of their astronomy was reared. It was
during the first millennium that it was laboriously

14 Astrology and Religion

and gradually constructed. From this it follows
that in Babylonia and in Greece, the two nations
among whom the methodical study of the heavens
led to the construction of systems which imposed
themselves on the world, the development of these
theories was partly contemporaneous. In the
sixth century, when Thales is said to have pre-
dicted an eclipse, the Greeks began by being
disciples of the Orientals, from whom they bor-
rowed the rudiments of their knowledge. But
towards the middle of the fifth century they soared
aloft on their own wings and soon reached greater
heights than their former teachers.

The Babylonians after all had studied astron-
omy only empirically. By applying to it trigono-
metry, of which their predecessors were ignorant,
the Greeks attained a certainty hitherto imknown,
and obtained results previously impossible. But
for several centuries the development of the two
sciences went on side by side in East and West,
and to a large extent independently. It would now
be impossible to say to whom amongst the Greeks
or the Babylonians belongs the credit of certain
discoveries.* But it is the peculiar distinction of

* See below, Lecture II., p. 44, on the cycle of Meton.

The Chaldeans 15

the Chaldeans that they made religion profit by
these new conceptions and based upon them a
learned theology. In Greece science always re-
mained laic, in Chaldea it was sacerdotal.

There is every reason for believing that religious
origins were much the same among the Babylon-
ians as among other Semitic peoples. Here as
elsewhere differentiation comes only with progress.
Numerous traces are found of a primitive
"animism" which regarded as divinities animals,
plants, and stones, as well as wind, rain, and storm,
and believed them to have mysterious relations
with mankind. Being experts in divination, the
Chaldeans devoted themselves from the first to
the practice of deriving omens from phenomena
and occurrences in which they saw manifestations
of the will of that motley host of spirits which
filled the universe : movements of the clouds, direc-
tion of the wind, thunder and lightning, earth-
quakes and floods, as well as the birth of monstrous
animals, the inspection of the liver, or even the ap-
pearance of locusts seemed to be portents favour-
able or unfavourable to human undertakings. All
this was set down in writing and codified by the

1 6 Astrology and Religion

priests — for, every kind of superstition was codi-
fied by these Semites as well as the laws of Ham-
murabi. But among the coimtless multitude of
gods who peopled the realm of nature, the Baby-
lonians attributed a particularly powerful influence
to the stars. These brilliant objects, which they saw
moving unceasingly over the vault of heaven, —
conceived as a solid dome quite close to the earth,
— ^inspired them with superstitious fear. Any
one who has experienced the impression produced
by the splendour of an Eastern night will under-
stand this sense of awe. They believed that in
the complicated patterns of the stars, which
gleamed in the night, they could recognise fan-
tastic shapes of polymorphous monsters, of strange
objects, of sacred animals, of imaginary personages,
— some of which still figure on our celestial maps.
These formidable powers might be favourable or
inimical. In the clearness of their transparent at-
mosphere the Chaldean priests continually watched
their puzzling courses: they saw them appearand
disappear, hide themselves under the earth to
return at the other extremity of the horizon,
rising again to a new life after a transitory death,
always victorious over the darkness; they observed

The Chaldeans 17

them losing themselves in the brilliance of the
sun to emerge from it presently, like a young
bridegroom entering the bridal chamber to issue
forth again in the morning; they followed also the
windings of the planets, whose complicated path
seemed to aim at throwing off the track an enemy
who threatened their course; they were astonished
that in eclipses the moon and even the sun himself
could grow dim, and they beHeved that a huge
black dragon devoured them or concealed them
from view. The sky was thus unceasingly the scene
of combats, alliances, and amours, and this mar-
vellous spectacle gave birth to a luxuriant mytho-
logy in which there appeared, subject to no law
but their own passions, all the heroes of fable,
all the animals of creation, all the phantoms of
imagination.

Between beings and objects, all alike conceived
as living, primitive animism everywhere establishes
hidden and unexpected relations, which it is the
object of magic to discover and utilise. In par-
ticular, the influence which the stars exerted upon
our world seemed undeniable. Did not the rising
and setting of the sun every day bring heat and cold,
as well as light and darkness? Did not the changes

1 8 Astrology and Religion

of the seasons correspond to a certain state of the
sky? What wonder, therefore, that by induction
men arrived at the conclusion that even the lesser
stars and their conjunctions had a certain con-
nection with the phenomena of nature and the
events of human life. At an early time — and here
the Pan-Babylonists are right — arose the idea
that the configuration of the sky corresponds to
the phenomena of the earth. Everything in sky
and earth alike is incessantly changing, and it
was thought that there existed a correspondence
between the movements of the gods above and
the alterations which occurred here below. This
is the fundamental idea of astrology. Perhaps
in this scheme of coincidences the Babylonians
even went so far as to divide the firmament into
countries, moimtains, and rivers, corresponding
to the geography known to them. ^

Here, as everywhere, the himian mind long
sought the way of truth in the maze of conjectures
and chimeras. But the very delusion which
peopled the heavenly abodes with kindly or hostile
powers, whose incessant evolutions were a menace
or a promise to mankind, urged the Chaldeans to
study assiduously their appearances, evolutions,

I

r

The Chaldeans 19

and disappearances. With indefatigable patience
they observed them, and noted the most important
social or political events which had accompanied
or followed such and such an aspect of the heavens,
in order to assure themselves that a given coin-
cidence would be regularly repeated. Thus they
engraved on their tablets with scrupulous care all
the astronomical or meteorological phenomena from
which they derived their prognostications : phases
of the moon, situation and conjunctions of the
planets, eclipses, comets, falls of aerolites, and halos.
The purely empirical and very simple deter-
minations, accompanied by predictions, which
have been preserved to us, are naive and almost
puerile: even in the time of the Sargonides
there is nothing in them which recalls the learned
precision of a Greek horoscope. But from this
mass of documents, laboriously collected in the
archives of the temples, the laws of the movements
of the heavenly bodies were disengaged with in-
creasing precision. Primitive man commonly
believes that new stars are produced each time
they disappear, that the sun dies and is bom
each day or at least each winter, that the moon is
swallowed up during eclipses, and that another

20 Astrology and Religion

takes its place." To these early ideas, all vestiges
of which did not disappear, nay, have not dis-
appeared— we speak still of a "new moon" — there
succeeded the discovery that the same stars always
traversed the upper spheres with a brightness which
increased and diminished by turns. With the
irregularity of atmospheric disturbances was neces-
sarily contrasted the regularity of sidereal revo-
lutions and occultations. Little by Httle the
priestly astronomers, as we have seen, succeeded
in constructing an astronomical calendar and fore-
telling the return, at a fixed date, of phenomena
previously described, and they were able to
predict to the astonished crowds the arrival of
,the eclipses which terrified them. There is
nothing surprising in the fact that, as they ascribed
to the heaven itself the revelation of this marvel-
lous knowledge, they should have seen in astron-
omy a divine science.

It is impossible to exaggerate the religious
importance which an eminently superstitious
people attached to these discoveries. Schiaparelli,
a most competent historian of the exact sciences
in antiquity, has remarked that "the tendency
which dominates the whole Babylonian astronomy

The Chaldeans 21

is to discover all that is periodic in celestial phe-
nomena, and to reduce it to a numerical expression
in such a manner as to be able to predict its repeti-
tion in the future."' The scientific discoveries
which were made from the Assyrian period on-
wards enabled astrologers, as we have seen, to
foresee certain events with an absolute certainty
which no other kind of prognostication attained.
An endless perspective reaching far into the future
was opened to minds astonished at their own
audacity. Divination by means of the stars was
thus elevated above all other methods which
were in contemporary use. It is beyond doubt
that the pre-eminence henceforth assigned to
astrology was bound to lead to a transformation
of the whole of theology. "The science of the
observation of the heavens, which had been per-
fected little by little by the priests, became in their
hands a body of astral doctrine, which never lost
the flavour of the school, but which nevertheless
permeated the entire Babylonian religion, and at
least in part transformed it."'

' Schiaparelli, I Primordi ed i Progressi dell' Astronomia presso
i Babilonesi (Extr. of " Scientia," Rivista di Scienza, iii.), Bologna,
1908, p. 22.

' Jastrow, Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, ii., p. 432.

22 Astrology and Religion

■ The development of the old Babylonian religion
bears no relation to astronomical theories. It
was rather political circumstances which gave
to certain gods in turn the primacy among the
multitude of divinities worshipped in the land of
Sumer and Accad, and, in accordance with a
process which is repeated everywhere, caused the
ftmctions of other local powers to be attributed
to their all-usurping and all-absorbing personality.
When Babylon is the capital of the kings, it is
the patron of this city, Marduk, identified with
Bel, that occupies the foremost place in the Pan-
theon; when Nineveh is the seat of empire, it is
Ashur. Even the groupings and hierarchies, which
most plainly betray the intervention of priestly
combination, do not appear to be prompted by as-
tronomical speculations. In the system of triads,
which theologians conceived, the primacy was
given to Anu, Enlil, and Ea, spirits of Heaven,
Earth, and Water; below these they placed Sin,
Shamash, or Ramman, and Ishtar, the genii of
the Sim and the Moon or the atmosphere and the
goddess of the fertility of the earth, identified
with the planet Venus. In spite of the presence
in this symmetrical arrangement of the two lu-

The Chaldeans 23

minaries at all times worshipped in that coun-
try, and sometimes of the most brilliant of the
stars, it is impossible to see an astral principle
in this grouping. Prof. Jastrow, the best judge
in these matters, does not hesitate to regard the
truly sidereal cult, which grew up at Babylon under
the influence of the learned theories developed by
the priestly caste, as a new religion. I quote
his words :^

The Star- worship which developed in Babylon and
Assyria in connection with the science of the obser-
vation of the heavens was at bottom a new religion,
the victory of which brought about the decadence
of the old popular belief. In point of fact, in the ritual
of worship, in ceremonies of incantation and purifica-
tion, in hymns and prayers, in the chants of ceremonial
lamentation, in old festivals in honour of the gods of
nature, just as in hepatoscopy (or examination of the
livers of victims) and in the other kinds of divination,
which were maintained up to the end of the Baby-
lonian empire, popular ideas always survived. The
priests would have been careful not to destroy or
imperil the dominion which they exercised over the
multitude by changing the forms of worship in the
direction of the new religion. But astral doctrines
could not, for all that, fail to make their influence
felt little by little as a dissolvent force.

» Jastrow, op. cit., ii., p. 455.

24 Astrology and Religion

The new doctrines were reconciled or combined
after a fashion with the old creeds by placing the
abode of the gods in the stars, or by identifying
them with the latter. By a logical and fully
justified development of primitive belief, which
attributed to the sim and moon a powerful effect
upon the earth, a preponderating influence over
the determination of destiny had also been assigned
to the five planets, which like the former traversed
the constellations of the zodiac. These were
therefore identified with the principal figures of
the Assyrio-Babylonian pantheon. In accordance
with the rank which was assigned to them and in
accordance also with the brightness, colour, or
duration of the revolution of the stars, relations
were established between stars and gods. To
Marduk, the foremost of the latter, was assigned
Jupiter, whose golden light bums most steadily in
the sky, Venus fell to Ishtar, Saturn to Ninib, Mer-
cury to Nebo, Mars, by reason of its blood-red
colour, to Nergal, patron of war. As for the fixed
stars, singly or grouped in constellations, they were
correlated with the less important lords, heroes,
or genii. This was no impediment to regarding
Ishtar, for instance, always as the goddess of the

The Chaldeans 25

fertility of the earth, and worshipping her as
such. Thus, as in the paganism of the Roman per-
iod, divinities assumed a double character, the one
traditional and based on ancient beliefs, the other
adventitious and inspired by learned theories.

The origin of this religious evolution goes back
far into the past, but we are not able at the
present day to mark the stages of its develop-
ment and to assign dates to them. Perhaps it
will be possible some day to follow the progress
of Babylonian astronomy in the cuneiform tab-
lets, and to show how an ever-widening concep-
tion of the heavens little by little transformed
the modes of belief. Doubtless the theories of
astronomers never completely eliminated the
naive tales which tradition related about the
divine stars; here, as elsewhere, the enquiry into
physical causes failed to get rid of mythical sur-
vivals, and the doctrines of oriental cosmographers
continued to be encumbered with absurd notions.
In order to be convinced on this point it is suffi-
cient to glance "at the astronomic curiosities of
the Book of Enoch, which as late as the first
century before our era echoes the old Chaldean
doctrines.

26 Astrology and Religion

It may be regarded as proved that this astral
religion succeeded in establishing itself in the
sixth century B.C., during the period of the short-
lived glory of the second Babylonian empire, and
after its fall, when new ideas derived from East
and West were introduced, first by the Persians
and afterwards by the Greeks, into the valley of
the Euphrates.* If, as we shall show,' the Pla-
tonic dialogue, the Epinomis, is inspired by this
religion, it had already formulated some of its
chief dogmas before the fourth century. The
essential characteristics of its theology are known
to us, not from native texts, but from the informa-
tion supplied by Western writers on "Chaldean"
beliefs. The word XaXSaio^, Chaldaeus, bore
amongst the ancients very different meanings
from time to time. These terms designated first
of all the inhabitants of Chaldea, that is, lower
Mesopotamia, and next the members of the Baby-
lonian priesthood. Thus at the period of the Achae-
menid kings, in the official procession.^ of Babylon,
there walked first the magi, as Quintus Curtius
states, 3 that is to say the Persian priests estab-

' Jastrow, /. c. * See below, Lecture II., p. 48.

» Quint. Curtius, v., I, 22.

The Chaldeans 27

lished in the conquered capital, then the Chaldaei,
that is the native sacerdotal body. Later the
epithet XaXSaios was applied as a title of honour
to the Greeks who had studied in the Babylonian
schools and proclaimed themselves disciples of the
Babylonians; finally it served to denote all those
charlatans who professed to foretell the future
according to the stars. The variations in meaning
of this ethnical term, which ultimately became,
like the term magi, a professional designation,
have produced in turn an immense exaggeration
of the antiquity, or an undue depreciation of the
worth, of the data furnished us by Diodorus
Siculus,* Philo of Alexandria, and other writers
on the religious and cosmic system of the "Chal-
deans." These pieces of information, as might
be expected, are of value only for the period
immediately preceding these authors. They apply
to those conceptions which were current among the
priests of Mesopotamia imder the Seleucids at
the moment when the Greeks entered into con-
tinuous relations with them. Some of these
conceptions are certainly very much older, and go

'Diodor. Sic, ii., 29-31 ; Philo, De Migr. Abrah., 32; Quis Rerum
div. Heres sit, 20, etc.

28 Astrology and Religion

back to ancient sacerdotal traditions. Diodorus
contrasts the unity of the doctrines of the heredi-
tary caste of the Chaldeans with the divergent
views of the Greek philosophers on the most
essential principles; but it is possible that the
speculative mind of the Greeks had contributed
to the clear formulation of these ancient beliefs and
to the co-ordination of the dogmas of this religion,
as it had done also in the case of astrology, which
is a part of that religion.

The following are the broad lines of this theology.

From the leading fact established by them,
namely, the invariability of the sidereal revolu-
tions, the Chaldeans had naturally been led to
the idea of a Necessity, superior to the gods
themselves, since it commanded their movements;
and this Necessity, which ruled the gods, was
bound, a fortiori, to hold sway over mankind. The
conception of a fatality linked with the regular
movements of the heavens originated at Babylon,
but this universal determinism was not there
carried to its ultimate logical consequences. A
sovereign providence had, it is true, by an irre-
vocable decree regulated the harmony of the world.

The Chaldeans 29

But certain disturbances in the heavens, irregular
occurrences such as appearances of comets or
showers of falling stars, sufficed to maintain the
belief in the exceptional operation of a divine
will interfering arbitrarily in the order of nature.
Priests foretold the future according to the stars,
but by purifications, sacrifices, and incantations
they professed to drive away evils, and to secure
more certainly the promised blessings. This was
a necessary concession to popular beliefs which
the very maintenance of the cult demanded. But
under normal conditions, as experience proved,
the divine stars were subject to an inflexible law,
which made it possible to calculate beforehand all
that they would bring to pass.

In oriental civilisations, which are priestly
civilisations, the intimate union of learning and
belief everywhere characterises the development
of religious thought. But nowhere does this
alliance appear more extraordinary than at Baby-
lon, where we see a practical polytheism of a
rather gross character combined with the appli-
cation of the exact sciences, and the gods of heaven
subjected to the laws of mathematics. This
strange association is to us almost incomprehen-

30 Astrology and Religion

sible, but it must be remembered that at Babylon
a number was a very different thing from a figure.
Just as in ancient times and, above all, in Egypt,
the name had a magic power, and ceremonial
words formed an irresistible incantation, so here
the nimiber possesses an active force, the nimiber
is a sjmibol, and its properties are sacred at-
tributes. Astrology is only a branch of mathe-
matics, which the heavens have revealed to
mankind by their periodic movements.

From their main discovery, that of the in-
variability of astronomical laws, the Chaldeans had
deduced another important conclusion, namely,
the eternity of the world. The world was not bom
in the beginning, it will not be subject to destruc-
tion in the future; a divine providence has from
the outset ordered it as it shall be for ever. The
stars, in fact, perform their revolutions according
to ever invariable cycles of years, which, as exper-
ience proves, succeed each other to infinity. Each
of these cosmic cycles will be the exact reproduc-
tion of those which have preceded it, for when the
stars resimie the same position, they are bound to
act in precisely the same manner as before. The
life of the imiverse, then, was conceived as forming

The Chaldeans 31

a series of vast periods, which the most probable
estimate fixed at 432,000 years. As eariy as the
beginning of the third century before our era,
Berosus, a priest of Bel, expounded to the Greeks
the theory of the eternal return of things, which
Nietzsche prided himself on having discovered.

In the same way as it regarded numbers as
sacred, this religion of astronomers defied Time,
the course of which was bound up with the revolu-
tions of the heavens. At regular intervals it
brought back the moon, the sun, the stars to their
starting-point, and as it seemed to govern their
movements, it was naturally regarded as a divine
power. It was the heavenly bodies that by their
regular movements taught man to divide into
successive sections the unbroken chain of moments.
Each of the periods marked in the unending
flight of time shared the divinity of the stars,
particularly the Seasons. In their worship old
festivals of nature were combined with ideas
derived from astrology.

Babylonian theology had never entirely broken
with the primitive veneration with which Semitic
tribes regarded all the mysterious forces sur-
rounding man. In the time of Hammurabi the

32 Astrology and Religion

supreme triad was composed, as we have said, of
the gods of Heaven, Earth, and Water. Sidereal
theology had systematised this very ancient cult
of the powers of nature by connecting them with
astronomical theories. A vast pantheism had
inherited and codified the ideas of ancient animism.
The eternal world is wholly divine, either because
it is itself God, or because it is conceived as con-
taining within it a divine soul which pervades all
things. The great reproach which Philo the Jew
casts upon the Chaldeans is precisely this, that
they worship the creation instead of the Creator.
This world is worshipped in its entirety, and
worship is paid also to its various parts: first of
all, to Heaven, not only in virtue of a reminis-
cence of the old Babylonian religion, which gave
the foremost place in the pantheon to Anu, but
also because it is the abode of the higher powers.
Among the stars the most important were con-
ceived to be the moon and the sim, — ^for it is in
this order that they were placed, — then the five
planets, which were, as we have seen, dedicated to,
or identified with, the principal divinities of mytho-
logy. To them was given the name of Interpreters^
because, being endowed with a particular move-

The Chaldeans 33

ment, not possessed by the fixed stars, which are
subject to a motion of their own, they above all
others make manifest to man the purposes of
the gods. But worship was also bestowed on all
the constellations of the firmament, as the re-
vealers of the will of Heaven, and in particular
on the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the thirty-
six decans, which were called the Counsellor
Gods; then, outside the zodiac, on twenty-four
stars, twelve in the northern, and twelve in the
southern hemisphere, which, being sometimes
visible, sometimes invisible, became the Judges
of the living and the dead. All these heavenly
bodies, whose variable movements and activities
had been observed from the remotest times, an-
noimced not only hurricanes, rains, and scorching
heats, but the good or evil fortune of countries,
nations, kings, and even of mere individuals.

The domain of the divine god did not end at
the zone of the moon, which is the nearest to us.
The Chaldeans also worshipped, as beneficent or
formidable powers, the Earth, whether fruitful or
barren, the Ocean and the Waters that fertilise
or devastate, the Winds which blow from the four
points of the horizon. Fire which warms and

\ I

34 Astrology and Religion

devours. They confounded with the stars under
the generic name of Elements {ffToixe^ot) these
primordial forces, which give rise to the phenomena
of nature. The system which recognises only
four elements, prime sources of all things, is a
creation of the Greeks.

If all the movements of the heavens inevitably
have their reactions upon the earth, it is, above all,
the destiny of man that depends upon them. The
Chaldeans admitted, it appears, that the principle
of life, which warms and animates the human
body, was of the same essence as the fires of
heaven. From these the soul received its qualities
at birth, and at that moment the stars determined
its fate here below.' Intelligence was divine,
and allowed the soul to enter into relations with
the gods above. By contemplating the stars the
faithful received from them the revelation of all
knowledge as well as all prescience. The priestly
astrologers were always to some extent vision-
aries, who regarded as inspirations from on high
all the ideas which sprang up in their own minds.
Doubtless they had already conceived the idea
that after death pious souls re-ascend to the divine

» See below, Lecture II., p. 52.

The Chaldeans 35

stars, whence they came, and in this celestial
abode obtain a glorious immortality.^

To stim up, at the moment when the Greeks con-
quered Mesopotamia under Alexander, they found
above a deep substratum of mythology a learned
theology, founded on patient astronomical obser-
vations, which professed to reveal the nature of the
world regarded as divine, the secrets of the future,
and the destinies of man. In our next lecture we
shall attempt to show what influence the Baby-
lonian religion in contact with Hellenism exerted
and imderwent in turn, and how it was combined
with the Stoic philosophy.

' See below, Lecture VI.

LECTURE II

BABYLON AND GREECE

nPHE relations of Greek philosophy with oriental
•■■ theologies form a subject of vast extent,
which has long been discussed. In this lecture
we do not pretend to solve these problems or
even to cover the whole groimd which they em-
brace. Our interest is confined to one particular
point, namely, when and how Semitic star-worship
came to modify the ancient beliefs of the Hellenes.
Every sidereal cult, properly so called, was
originally foreign to the Greeks as to the Romans —
a fact which undoubtedly proves that the common
ancestors of the Italians and the Hellenes dwelt
in a northern land, where the stars were frequently
concealed by fogs or obscured by clouds. For
them nearly all the constellations remained a
nameless and chaotic mass, and the planets were
not distinguished from the other stars. Even the
sun and the moon, although they were regarded as

36

Babylon and Greece 37

divinities, like all the powers of nature, occupied but
a very secondary place in the Greek religion. Selene
does not appear to have obtained anywhere an or-
ganised cult, and in the few places where Helios had
temples, as for instance in the island of Rhodes,
a foreign origin may reasonably be suspected.

Aristophanes characterises the difference be-
tween the reUgion of the Greeks and that of the
barbarians by observing that the latter sacrifice
to the Sun and the Moon, the former to personal
divinities like Hermes. The pre-Hellenic popula-
tions very probably shared the worship of "the
barbarians" of whom Aristophanes speaks, and
survivals are found in popular customs and beliefs.
Perhaps, also, certain distant reminiscences of the
original naturalism of the Aryan tribes led the
common people to regard the stars as living beings.
It was a shock to popular belief when Anaxagoras
maintained that they were merely bodies in a
state of incandescence. But although the piety
of the multitude was full of reverence for the great
celestial luminaries, rulers of the day and of the
night, the cities did not build temples to them.
The cult of these cosmic powers had been elimi-
nated by anthropomorphism.

38 Astrology and Religion

From the days of Homer the gods are no longer
physical agents, but moral — or, if you like,
immoral — ^beings. Resembling men in their pas-
sions, they are their superiors in power alone; the
close resemblance of their feelings to those of their
devotees leads them to mingle intimately in the
earthly life of the latter; inspired by a like patriot-
ism they take part with the opposing hosts in the
strifes of the cities, of which they are the official
protectors; they are the protagonists in all the
causes which are espoused by their worshippers.
These immortal beings, whose image has been
impressed upon the world by an aristocratic epic,
are but faintly distinguished from the warrior
heroes who worship them, save by the radiance of
eternal youth. And sciilptors, by investing them
with a sovereign grace and a serene majesty,
enabled them to elevate and ravish the souls of
men by the mere sight of their imperishable beauty.
The whole spirit of the Hellenic religion, profoundly
human, ideally aesthetic, as poets and artists had
fashioned it, was opposed to the deification of
celestial bodies, far-off powers, devoid of feeling
and of plastic form.

But though the prevalent worship and the city

Babylon and Greece 39

cults turned from the stars to venerate the august
company of Olympians, though Apollo in the guise
of a radiant youth eclipses the material brilliance
of Helios, yet we find that the philosophers assign
a place of honour to these same luminaries in their
pantheon. Their systems, from the days of the
Ionian physicists, revive and justify the old natu-
ralistic beliefs, which were never entirely eradi-
cated from the popular creed. Already in the eyes
of Pythagoras the heavenly bodies are divine,
moved by the ethereal soul which informs the
universe and is akin to man's own soul. Plato
accuses Anaxagoras of favouring atheism by his
daring assertion that the sun is merely an incan-
descent mass and the moon an earth. Below the
supreme eternal Being, who imites in himself
every perfection, Plato would have us recognise
the stars as "visible gods," which He animates
with his own life, and which manifest his power.
To the reformer's mind these celestial gods are
infinitely superior to those of the popular re-
ligion. This conception of the great idealist, to
whom the theology of the ancient and even that
of the modem world owes more than to any other
thinker, was to be developed by his successors,

40 Astrology and Religion

and in their hands astronomy became almost a
sacred science. With no less pious zeal, Plato's
rival, Aristotle, defends the dogma of the divin-
ity of the stars: in them, as in the First Cause
itself, he sees eternal substances, principles of
movement, and therefore divine; and this doc-
trine, which thus forms an integral part of his
metaphysic, was to disseminate itself throughout
the ages and throughout the world, wherever the
authority of the Master was recognised.

In deifying the celestial bodies, these philoso-
phers may have been influenced by the desire of
recommending to the veneration of their disciples
beings more pure than those whom mythology
represented as the sorry heroes of ridiculous or
indecent legends, and to whom fable attributed
all sorts of mischievous and shameful deeds. The
polemics of the early rationaHsts had discredited
these absurd or odious myths, and the deification
of the stars, while saving polytheism, which was
practically indestructible, suppressed anthropo-
morphism, which Xenophanes had already
attacked so resolutely. The new sidereal theology
has all the appearance of a compromise between
popular beliefs and pure monotheism.

I

Babylon and Greece 41

The philosophers may also have been led to this
view, I readily grant, by the logical development
of their own thought : the imceasing movement of
these enormous masses showed that they were liv-
ing beings, and the eternal immutability of their
orbits proved that a superior reason directed their
everlasting course. The admirable harmony of
their relations, the inevitable, as well as the peren-
nial, regularity of their revolutions implied the
presence of a divine essence in them.

All this is quite true : practical motives and theo-
retical reasons may have simultaneously influenced
these thinkers. But nevertheless it is impossible
to doubt that in their attempts at the reformation
of religion they were also inspired by the example
which was set by the nations of the Orient. The
Greeks, who owed the fundamental axioms of
their uranography to the Babylonians, would not
fail to be struck also by the lofty character of a
star-worship which had become scientific. The
elements of their sidereal theology were, in all
probabiUty, derived from external sources together
with the rudiments of their astronomy.

Here we touch a question which is very extensive
and still very obscure, in spite of the interminable

43 Astrology and Religion

discussions which it has provoked, — or perhaps
by reason of these impassioned discussions. The
history of the intellectual development of the
ancient world offers perhaps no more fundamental
problem than that of the influence which Baby-
lonian science exercised on Greece.

Recently, as we have observed, a certain school
of Assyriologists has curiously exaggerated the
extent of this influence, and the excesses of the
" Pan-Baby lonists " have provoked a well-fotmded
distrust of those fanciful views which see in Chal-
dea the mother of all wisdom. But the reality of
Hellenic borrowings from Semitic sources remains
none the less indisputable. At a distant date
Hellas received from the far East a duodecimal or
sexagesimal system of measurement, both of time
and of objects. The habit of reckoning in terms
of twelve hours which we still use to-day, is due to
the fact that the lonians borrowed from the Ori-
entals this method of dividing the day. Besides
the acquaintance with early instruments, such as
the sun-dial,^ they owed to the observatories of
Mesopotamia the fundamental data of their celes-
tial topography: the ecliptic, the signs of the

' Tpdftuw, Herod., ii., 109.

Babylon and Greece 43

zodiac, and the majority of the planets. To this
first influx of positive knowledge corresponds a
first introduction into the Greek systems of the
mystic ideas which Orientals attached to them.
I will not lay stress on the doubtful traditions
which make Pythagoras a disciple of the Chal-
deans, but it has proved possible to demonstrate
that his system of numbers and geometrical fig-
ures, designed to represent certain gods, is in
accordance with astrological theories. The dode-
cagon bears the name of Jupiter because this
planet traverses the circle of the zodiac in twelve
years, that is to say, each year it traverses an arc
terminated by the angles of the polygon which is
inscribed in that circle.

But these first scientific and religious importa-
tions are assigned to a period when, as we know,
the commercial cities of Ionia threw open their
gates to Asiatic influences. It is more important
to collect the traces of these Chaldean infiltrations
after the Persian wars when Greek thought had
achieved its autonomy. Certain facts recently
brought to light indicate that the relations, direct
or indirect, between the centres of Babylonian

44 Astrology and Religion

learning and of Greek culture, were never at any
time entirely broken off. *

It is known that Meton passes as the inventor
of a cycle of nineteen years (enneakaidekaeteris)
which would establish a periodic agreement
between the old lunar year and the solar revolu-
tions, and which replaced the ancient octaeteris,
or cycle of eight years, up to that time in use.
The Golden Number' of our calendars still
reminds us how, according to the tradition, this
discovery, communicated to the Athenians in the
year 432, excited their admiration to such a degree
that they caused the calculations of Meton to be
engraved in golden characters in the Agora. All
this is, however, a fable. Since an octaeteris is
proved to have been in use at Babylonia, by
documents of the sixth century, and an ennea-
kaidekaeteris by inscriptions of the fourth cen-
tury, and this latter may well be much older,

* Kugler, Im Bannkreis Babels, 1910, p. 116 ss. See for other
proofs my paper, Babylon und die Criechische Astrologie (Neue
Jahrb. f. das klass. Altertum, xxvii.), (1911)1 i ss.

• The " Golden Number " of the ecclesiastical calendar indicates
the number of any year in the cycle of nineteen years which
brings round the phases of the moon at the same dates. The dates
of these phases in any year are thus the same as in other years
which have the same "Golden Number."

Babylon and Greece 45

it seems difficult to believe that Meton was not
prompted by the example which the Orientals set
him. This is the more probable because he would
appear to have had some superficial acquaintance
with astrology, if we may believe that, at the
moment of the departure of the fleet for Sicily, his
science revealed to him the disaster which awaited
that expedition. It is true that it is always pos-
sible to maintain that the Babylonians and the
Greeks arrived independently at the same con-
clusions, or even to go so far as to assert that the
former were the imitators of the latter.

But here is a more convincing argimient. When
the Greeks learned to recognise the five planets
known in antiquity, they gave them names de-
rived from their character. Venus, whose bright-
ness Homer had already celebrated, was called
"Herald of the Dawn" CEoDff<p6pos) or "Herald
of Light" {0coffq)6pos) or on the other hand
"Vespertine" i^'Eanspo?), according as she was
considered as the star of the morning or that
of the evening (the identity of these two being
not yet recognised). Mercury was named the
"Twinkling Star" (2ti\/3gov), Mars, because of
his red colour, the "Fiery Star" (IIvpUis),

46 Astrology and Religion

Jupiter the "Luminous Star" {^ardoov), Saturn
the "Brilliant Star" {^alvoov), or perhaps, taking
the word in another sense, the " Indicator." Now,
after the fourth century other titles are found to
supersede these ancient names, which are grad-
ually ousted from use. The planets become the
stars of Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Zeus, Kronos,
(^Epjxov, 'A<ppo6iTTig xtX. affr^p). Now this
seems due to the fact that in Babylonia these
same planets were dedicated respectively to Nebo^
Ishtar, Nergal, Marduk, and Ninib. In accordance
with the usual procediu*e of the ancients, the
Greeks substituted for these barbarous divinities
those of their own deities who bore some resem-
blance to them. Clearly exotic ideas, the ideas
of Semitic star-worship, have come in here, for the
ancient mythology of Hellas did not put the stars
under the patronage of the Olympians nor es-
tablish any connection between them. Thus the
names of the planets which we employ to-day, are
an English translation of a Latin translation of a
Greek translation of a Babylonian nomenclature.
Perhaps some doubt might still remain, if we
did not see at the same time some very peculiar
beliefs of the sidereal religion of Babylon creeping

Babylon and Greece 47

into the doctrines of the philosophers. It is a well-
known fact that this religion formed a triad, Sin,
Shamash, and Ishtar. To the god of the Moon,
regarded as the most powerful of the three, and to
the Sun had been added Venus, the most brilliant
of the planets. These are the three great rulers
of the zodiac, and their symbols, — crescents, discs,
containing a star of four or six points — appear on
the top of the boundary pillars (kudurru) from
the fourteenth century B.C. Now the same asso-
ciation is found in an extract from Democritus,
where the Sun, the Moon, and Venus are distin-
guished from the other planets. ' The echo of the
same theory extended even to the Romans. Pliny,
in a passage which owes its erudition to some Chal-
dean author of the Hellenistic period,^ remarks
that Venus is "the rival of the Sun and the Moon,"
and he adds that "alone among the stars she shines
with such brilliance that her rays cast a shadow,"
— a statement which would be absurd in the cli-
mate of Rome, but which is strictly correct imder
the clear sky of Syria.

Another instance of borrowing is still more

* Diels, Doxographi Graeci, p. 344, 16 — Fragm. der Vorsokra-
tiker, p. 366, 22.

» Plin., Nat. Hist., ii., 36.

48 Astrology and Religion

obvious. To Babylonian astrologers Saturn is
the "planet of the Sun," he is the "Sun of the
night,"* that is to say, according to a system of
substitutions, of which there are many examples,
Saturn could take in astrological combinations
the place of the star of day when the latter had
disappeared. Diodorus was well aware of this
fact. When explaining (ii, 30) that the Chaldeans
designate the planets as "the Interpreters" {ippirj-
yeU), because by their course they reveal to men
the will of the gods, he adds: "the star which the
Greeks name Kronos they call the 'star of the
Sun,' because it is the most prominent, and gives the
most nimierous and most important predictions."
Now in the Epinomis of Plato, — it matters little
in this connection whether this be a work of the
Master himself in his old age, or whether it was
composed by his pupil, Philip of Opus, who after
cop5mig the Laws may have added this appendix,
— there is an allusion to this peculiar doctrine.
In the enumeration of the planets which is there
made it is stated that the slowest of them all bears
according to some people the name of HeUos."

* Jastrow, Revue d'Assyriologie, via.., 19 lo, p. 163 ss.

* As a matter of fact, certain copyists, not understanding
the meaning of this identification, have inserted as a correction

Babylon and Greece 49

Moreover, the fact that the writer was acquainted
with oriental theories comes out no less clearly
from certain expressions of which he makes use
in this passage, than from the very object which
he has in view. He dreamed of a reconciliation
between the cult of Apollo of Delphi, and that of
the sidereal gods which the piety of Syria and
Egypt had taught to the Greeks. According to
him it behoved the Greeks to perfect this worship
of the stars, recently introduced into their country,
as they had perfected everything which they had
received from the barbarians. These phrases, in
which Hellenic pride is clearly revealed, while at
the same time there slips in a confession of de-
pendence on the foreigner, are highly characteristic.
Their whole significance is apparent now that a
typical detail has revealed to us what the author's
astronomical learning owes to the Chaldeans.
Hereafter perhaps it will be proper to attach some
importance to a note preserved in a papyrus of
Herculaneum, * and due, it seems, to this very
Philip of Opus to whom the composition of the

"of Kronos," but the reading of the best manuscripts is 'HX/ou
not Kp6vov, as has been observed by Bidez, Rev. de Philol., xxix.
(1905), p. 319-

' Academicorum Phil. Ind. HercuL, ed. Mekler, p. 13, col. iii., 36.
4

50 Astrology and Religion

Epinomis is attributed. It would appear that
Plato in his old age received a "Chaldean" guest,
who was able to instruct him in the discoveries
made by his compatriots.

It seems to me to be beyond doubt that the
influence of oriental star-worship upon the Epino-
mis was much more extensive than has hitherto
been admitted. It is not from the Pythagoreans
that the author borrows, but, as he himself says,
from the Syrians. We find set forth or indicated
in this brief dialogue the fundamental doctrines,
of which we have already seen some expressly
attributed to the Chaldeans, while others we shall
find developed in the stellar theology of the Roman
period.

These doctrines are the idea that science in gen-
eral is a gift of the gods, and that mathematics in
particular were revealed to men by Uranus, con-
sidered as a deity, who caused them to be understood
by his periodical phenomena; the demonstration
that, whatever may be the opinion of the vulgar,
the stars are animated and divine, and that between
these celestial divinities and the earth a hierarchi-
cally organised army of airy spirits acts as inter-
mediary; the declaration that the most perfect of

Babylon and Greece 51

the sciences is astronomy, which has become a theol-
ogy. Man, the author says, attracted by the beauty
of the visible world, does not merely conceive the
desire of knowing all that his nature allows him to
apprehend, he rises to a fervent contemplation of
the wondrous spectacle of harmonious movements,
which surpass all choruses in majesty and magnifi-
cence. This study, in short, is inseparable from
virtue; this wisdom secures supreme happiness,
and it has as its reward in the next world a life of
bliss like that which the pious astronomer has led
on earth, but more perfect, a life in which he will
be entirely absorbed in the contemplation of celes-
tial splendours, and will attain to supreme felicity.
Truly the Epinomis is that which it professes to
be: the first gospel preached to Hellenes of the.
stellar religion of Asia. The ideas which are here
set forth wiU not cease to influence the Platonic
school. Thus Xenocrates, to whom astronomy is a
sacred science, will develop demonology, and we
shall see how an eclectic, Posidonius, will expand
and exalt these same conceptions.

But, it will be said, if the Greeks thus bowed to
the supremacy of the sidereal theology of the

52 Astrology and Religion

Chaldeans, how was it that astrology was not
introduced among them? For from the sixth to
the fourth century the whole marvellous develop-
ment of their philosophy shows that it knows no-
thing of Xiosmic fatalism and stellar divination.
Speaking generally, this assertion is correct,
although certain traces of these speculations are
foimd, as we have seen, in works of the early
Pythagoreans, and recently a Chaldean doctrine
has been successfully employed to explain a passage
of Pindar.' Now, about the period when Philip
of Opus published or wrote the Epinomis, another
pupil of Plato, the astronomer Eudoxus of Cnidos,
declared: "No credence should be given to the
Chaldeans, who predict and mark out the life of
every man according to the day of his nativity."*
Certain modem philologists — who doubtless look
upon Greek history as a kind of experiment in a
closed vessel, which a providence anxious to
exclude every disturbing element conducted for
the fullest instruction of the savants of the future —
certain philologists, I say, have doubted whether

'» Franz Boll, Neue Jahrb.ftir das klass. AUertum, xxi. (1908),
p. 119.

» Cic, De Div., ii., 42. 87.

Babylon and Greece 53

Eudoxus in the fourth century could really have
known and condemned oriental genethlialogy. But
like Eudoxus, Theophrastus, a little later, spoke
of it in his treatise on "Celestial Signs": he re-
garded with surprise the claim of the Chaldeans to
be able to predict from these signs the life and death
of individuals, and not merely general phenomena,
such as good or bad weather. ^

The insatiable curiosity of the Greeks, then,'
did not ignore astrology, but their sober genius
rejected its hazardous doctrines, and their keen
critical sense was able to distinguish the scientific
data observed by the Babylonians from the erro-
neous conclusions which they derived from them.
It is to their everlasting honour that, amid the
tangle of precise observations and superstitious
fancies which made up the priestly lore of the
East, they discovered and utilised the serious''
elements, while neglecting the rubbish.

As long as Greece remained Greece, stellar
divination gained no hold on the Greek mind, and
all attempts to substitute an astronomic theology
for their immoral but charming idolatry were

» Procl., In Tim., iii., 151, i (Diehl). On Theophrastus' trans-
lation of the tale of Akichar, see below, p. 66.

54 Astrology and Religion

destined to certain failure. The efforts of philo-
sophers to impose on their countrymen the worship
of "the great visible gods," as Plato terms them,
recoiled before the might of a tradition supported
by the prestige of art and literature. It was a
purely intellectual movement which remained, as
it would seem, without serious practical result.
' It changed neither popular nor official worship.
The populace continued to pray " xara ra naxpia^^
after the fashion of their ancestors, to old pro-
tectors of family and city, and the formulary of the
old-fashioned liturgies remained unchanged in
spite of aU the objections which the science of the
reformers could raise against it.

But after the conquests of Alexander a great
change took place. The ancient ideal of the Greek
republic gave way to the conception of universal
monarchy. Thenceforth municipal cults disap-
^ peared before an international religion. The wor-'
ship of the stars, common to all the peoples, was
strengthened by everything that weakened the
particularism of cities. In proportion as the idea ^
of "humanity" spread, men were the more ready
to reserve their homage for those celestial powers

Babylon and Greece 55

which extended their blessings to all mankind, and
princes who proclaimed themselves the rulers of
the world, could not be protected save by cosmo-
politan gods.

Thus it was that thinkers agreed more and more
in reserving the foremost place for the sidereal
deities. Zeno and his disciples proclaimed their
might still more clearly than the schools of Plato
and Aristotle. Since stoic pantheism represented
Reason, which governs all things, as residing in
ethereal Fire, the stars in which the supreme Fire
manifested itself with the greatest force and bril-
liance, would necessarily be invested with the
loftiest divine qualities. In the same way the
prodigious success attained by the doctrine of
Euhemerus contributed to the exaltation of their
power. This doctrine, we know, regarded the
divinities of fable as superior mortals, to whom
after death the gratitude or admiration of the
multitude had accorded worship. In thus attri-
buting to the Olympians of old no longer merely
human form but also human nature, it left to the
eternal and incorruptible stars alone the dignity
of original gods, and exalted them in proportion
as it lowered their rivals of bygone days.

56 Astrology and Religion

Thus the political condition of the world, just
as the tendencies of theology, drew Hellenism
towards star-worship. But the interpenetration
of the Orient and Greece which took place in
this period, hastened this religious evolution in a
remarkable manner. The Stoa, as we shall see,
was freely accessible to barbaric influences, and
Euhemerus, we are told, drew his inspiration from
Egyptian theologotunena. But the decisive agency
was the contact which was established in the Se-
leucid Empire between Hellenic culture and Baby-
lonian civilisation.

The Chaldeans, whom the policy of the kings of
Antioch strove to conciliate, entered into close
relations with the learned men who came to Asia
in the train of their conquerors, and they even
proceeded to carry their precepts throughout the
land of Greece. A priest of Bel, Berosus, estab-
lished himself about the year 280 in the island of
Cos, and there revealed to his sceptical hearers
the contents of the cuneiform writings accumu-
lated in the archives of his coimtry, annals
of the ancient kings and astrological treatises.
Another Chaldean, Soudines, invited to the court
of Attains I., king of Pergamus, practised there,

Babylon and Greece 57

about the year 238, the methods of divination in
vogue in his native land, such as inspection of
the liver {rjnaroffHOTtia), and he continued to be
an authority frequently quoted by the later
' ' mathematici. ' ' On the other hand, Greek savants
of repute, Epigenes of Byzantium, ApoUonius of
Myndus, Artemidorus of Parium, declared them-
selves the disciples of these same Chaldeans, and
boasted of being instructed in their priestly schools.
At the same time centres of Greek science were
established in the heart of Mesopotamia, and in the
ancient observatories of Bel learners were initiated
into the methods and discoveries of the astronomers
of Alexandria or Athens. Under the Seleucids and
the early Arsacids Babylon was a hellenised city, as
is proved by the epigraphical discoveries which have
been made there. Of this interpenetration of orien-
tal and occidental learning we can to-day quote
some striking proofs. So it has quite recently been
shown that a series of prognostications derived
from earthquakes, thunderstrokes, or the course
of the moon were literally translated from Assyrian
texts into the Greek Brontologia and Selenodromia. ^

' Bezold and Boll, Reflexe astrol. Keilinschriften bet Griechischen
SchriftsUllern (Abhandl. Akad. Heidelberg), 191 1.

58 Astrology and Religion

But though the reality of the relation between the
two sciences and pseudo-sciences is uncontested and
incontestable, there remainsthe difficulty of deciding
in each case which of the two influenced the other.

Thus it has been maintained that the ancient
Babylonians were already acquainted with the
precession of the equinoxes,* but an examination
of cuneiform tablets reveals the very important
fact that they were ignorant of it at least up to
about the end of the second century B.C. The
credit of this discovery clearly belongs, therefore,
to Hipparchus of Nicaea (about 1 61-126) as tradi-
tion asserts, and it is to him that the observatories
of Mesopotamia owed the knowledge of it. But
conversely, thanks to the recent publication of
astrological treatises, it is possible to show that
certain discoveries hitherto attributed to Hippar-
chus owe their origin in reality to some genuine
Chaldeans. In one exceptional case we can detect
a borrowing in the very act and indicate the inter-
mediary who effected the transfer. Perhaps, then,
some details will not be deemed superfluous here. '

» See above, Lecture I., p. 5.

' See my paper Babylon und die Griech. Astron., p. 6 ss., where
the texts are fully given.

Babylon and Greece 59

The part of astronomy in which Babylonians
pushed their investigations furthest was probably
the determination of the course of the moon,
which enabled them to predict the periodic return
of eclipses. Undoubtedly this was one of the most
ancient studies to which the people of that country
directed their energies. Sin, the Moon-god, was
in their eyes a more considerable divinity than the
Sun, Shamash, himself. Before the duration of the
year was known, the phases of the moon served
to measure time, and to fix the dates of sacred
calendars ; moreover, the star of night allowed her-
self to be observed by the naked eye better than
any other, and it was possible to follow almost con-
tinuously her winding course in the heavens. The
experience, extending over thousands of years, of
this priesthood of astrologers, had led them little
by little to construct tables, which had attained
a high degree of precision at the moment when,
under Alexander, the Greeks entered into direct
relations with them. The remains of these tables
have been deciphered and interpreted by F. X.
Kugler, and, astonishing to relate, they have
revealed to him a mistake which was introduced
into, and, perpetuated in, the calculations of

6o Astrology and Religion

modem astronomers. The old notations of the
Chaldeans have allowed a correction of the
canons of Oppolzer! About the year 200 before
our era these learned priests had succeeded in
determining in advance not only the dates of the
phases and eclipses of the moon, but also the prin-
cipal phenomena of the five planets. ^ Although in
general inclined to depreciate the value of Baby-
lonian science, in opposition to those who have
imduly exaggerated it, this most authoritative
modem interpreter of it marvels at the aspect of
these great tables with their numerous columns
regularly arranged, of which the figures dovetail
into each other like the cogwheels of a machine,
and the arrangement of which is expounded in
explanatory notes. ' ' One does not know, ' ' he cries,
"which to admire the more: the extraordinary
accuracy of the periods which is implied by the
drawing up of each of the coliunns of figures, or the
ingenuity with which these old masters contrived
to combine all the factors to be considered." Even
before the cuneiform inscriptions had been deci-
phered, historians admitted that the Chaldeans
had deduced from their empirical observations,
* See above, Lecture I., p. 13.

Babylon and Greece 6l

amassed from generation to generation, a theory
of the motions of the moon which influenced the
development of Greek doctrines. Further, an
evident proof of this is supplied by the fact that
in the Almagest Ptolemy^ quotes, after Hippar-
chus, the eclipses of the years 621, 523, 502, 491,
'383 B.C., observed at Babylon, and the first of
these has been foimd noted in an Assyrian text.
How absolutely the astronomer of Nicaea relied
on his oriental predecessors can be ascertained
to-day from some figures. Ptolemy attributed to
Hipparchus an extremely exact calculation of the
lunar periods; but it has been possible to demon-
strate that the duration which he assigns to the
various months is precisely that which is laid down
in the cimeiform tablets, namely:

Mean synodic month 29 days 12 hours 44' 31.3*'
•' sidereal " 27 " 7 " 43' 14 "

" anomalistic " 27 " 13 " 18' 34.9"
" dracontic " 27 " 5 " 5' 35-8"^

* Ptol., Syntax., v., 14; iv. 8, 11.

' The durations calculated by modem astronomers are:

(i) 29 days 12 hours 44' 2.9"

(2)27 " 7 " 43' 11-5"

(3)27 " 13 " 18' 39-3"

(4)27 " 5 " 5' 36"

62 Astrology and Religion

Clearly the priority of discovery belongs to the
Orientals, as well as that of the inequality of the
length of the seasons, of which they were perfectly
aware.

But how did these data and these doctrines pass
from the banks of the Euphrates to the Greek
cities? Who was the intermediary between Hip-
parchus and the priests of Babylon? Doctunents
recently published have revealed his name. Strabo,
speaking of the schools of astronomers called
"Chaldean," which existed in various towns of
Mesopotamia, adds : ' " Mathematicians frequently
mention several of them, as Kidenas, Nabou-
rianos, and Soudines." According to Pliny* the
same Kidenas had recognised that Mercury is
never more than 23° from the sun. This ICidenas
was probably contemporary with Soudines, who
lived in the second half of the third century
before Christ.

Now the astrologer, Vettius Valens, ' who wrote
under the Antonines, tells us that he attempted
to make for himself a canon of the sun and the

' Strab., xvi., i, 6, p. 639 C.

' Plin., Nat. Hist., ii., 39,

»Vett. Val., Anthol., ix., 11, p. 353, 22, ed. KroU.

Babylon and Greece 63

moon for the purpose of determining eclipses, but,
as time failed him, "he resolved to make use of
Hipparchus for the sun, and Soudines, Kidenas
and ApoUonius for the moon . . . putting in their
proper places the equinoxes and solstices at the
eighth degree of the signs of the zodiac." Further,
a passage in an anonymous commentary on Pto-
lemy^ represents Kidenas as the inventor of an
ecliptic period of 251 lunations (synodic months)
and 269 anomalistic revolutions, the authorship
of which was usually attributed to Hipparchus. It
appears from this treatise that Hipparchus did not
adopt simultaneously, as was believed, two ecliptic
periods, one large, of 4267 lunations and 4573
anomalistic revolutions, and one small, one seven-
teenth of the former, consisting of 251 lunations
and 269 anomalistic revolutions, but that he bor-
rowed this latter from Kidenas and appears merely
to have multiplied it by 1 7 in order to make it cor-
respond to a nearly exact number of years, say
4612 sidereal revolutions (345 years) minus 73^°.
Now on a lunar table engraved in the second
century in ctmeiform characters on 18 columns,
a masterpiece of accuracy, can be read the signa-

» Published, Cat. Codd. Astr. VIII., part, ii., p. 125,

64 Astrology and Religion

ture Ki-din-nu, and though ordinary scribes add
their father's name, Ki-din-nu is without any
addition: he is the astronomer whom every one
knew.

Schiaparelli had already suspected the identity
of this personage with the Kidenas of the Greeks.
Kugler has definitely proved it/ for the equiva-
lence of 251 synodic and 269 anomalistic months,
which Ptolemy's commentator attributes to him,
is foimd precisely stated in this table of Kidinnu,
and further the same table places the equinoxes
and the solstices at the 8th degree of the signs
of the zodiac, as did Valens, who quotes the canons
of ICidenas. To Hipparchus, on the contrary, the
commencement of spring is the 0° of the Ram,
but the Roman calendars usually adopted the
8th degree in conformity with the ancient usage of
Babylon.

Kidenas or Kidinnu, then, belongs to that group
of hellenised Chaldeans of whom Berosus is the
most illustrious representative, and who in the
third century before our era devoted themselves
to the task of rendering accessible to the Greeks
the treasures of knowledge which were contained

» Kugler, Im Bannkreis Babels, 1910, p. 122.

Babylon and Greece 65

in the cuneiform documents amassed in the Ubra-
ries of their native land. On these traditional
data he based the hypothesis of a new ecliptic
period more correct than that of his Chaldean
predecessors, which was employed by Hipparchus
and afterwards by Ptolemy. The very quotations
which are made from his works by Western writers
prove that he had them translated into Greek and
that he thus enriched Hellenic astronomy with
these lunar canons, to which the observations
taken at Babylon, extending over a long period of
centuries, had given an admirable precision.

• ••••••

Thus we see critical researches gradually deter-
mining the extent of the debt which Greece owes
to Babylon, and substituting palpable realities
for the huge and shadowy phantoms which wan-
dered in the pre-historic twilight. The influence
of the old oriental civilisation was not exercised
solely on the domain of science, but also of liter-
ature. Prof. Diels of Berlin has recently pointed
out'' how the often satirical tales, in which trees
and plants appear, belong to a class of fables

^ Diels, Orientalische Faheln im Griechischen Gewande (Inter-
Oation. Wochenschrift f. Wiss., 6 Aug., 1910).
5

66 Astrology and Religion

popularised in Assyria before they were repeated
by Callimachus in his Iambics and by the suc-
cessors of iEsop. Further, the recent discovery
of an Aramaic manuscript of the fifth century at
Elephantine has enabled us to show how the
romance of Akichar passed from the banks of the
Euphrates to the Jewish communities of Palestine
and Egypt (to which it furnished the motive of
the book of Tobit) and reached Greece, where
Theophrastus adopted it and immortalised the wise
Akicharos. But above all, Babylon was to the
men of old the mother of astronomy, as of star-
worship. It is in this department more than all
others that it is possible to show how the Greeks
profited from the learned theories which had been
formulated, and from the positive data which had
been slowly accumulated by these ancient priests
of Mesopotamia
Longa per assiduam complexi saecula curam.^
The constructive logic of the Greeks, combining
with the patient labours of the indigenous race,
produced in those days on the banks of the Euphra-
tes an intellectual movement, too Httle known,
which would perhaps have attained to the glory
* Manil., i., 54.

Babylon and Greece 67

of Alexandrine science, if it had not been lament-
ably arrested in the latter half of the second
century by the ravages of the Parthian invasion
and the sack of Babylon. The Chaldeans them-
selves, emancipated from tradition, discussed
freely the principles of the universe, and of the
rival sects, which then sprang up at Borsippa,
Orchoe, and elsewhere, some went so far as to
reject as mendacious the very astrology which had
been elaborated by their ancestors.^ The most
remarkable representative of this rationalistic
movement is Seleucus of Seleucia, who may be
either a Greek emigrant or a hellenised native.
Giving up the firmament of primitive cosmogonies,
he opened the infinite spaces of a limitless universe
to the courses of the stars. Recurring to a bold
hypothesis of Aristarchus of Samos, and advan-
cing new arguments in its support, he showed that
the Sim is the centre of the world, and that the
earth has a double motion, revolving round the
sun and spinning on its own axis ; at the same time
he offered a better explanation than any one had
previously propounded of the movement of the
tides, which no doubt he had observed in the

» Strab., xvi., i, 6.

68 Astrology and Religion

f

Persian Gulf, by referring them to the phases of
the moon. Copernicus, who by the formulation of
his heliocentric theory produced " the greatest revo-
lution in the history of knowledge," seems to have
been ignorant even of the name of his distant
forenmner.

But the scientific rationalism of this Galileo of
antiquity was destined to be condemned. It was
opposed by the force of a thousand-year-old
tradition, the anxious superstition of the mob, the
haughty convictions and temporal interests of a
powerful sacerdotal caste. The future belonged to
a compromise, which, while respecting those
ancients beliefs to which the majority of mankind
was invincibly attached, would satisfy the
demands of a more comprehensive intelligence.
This conciliatory formula was discovered by
Stoicism. Everywhere it devoted itself to the
task of justifying popular worships, sacred narra-
tives, and ritual observances. In Greece, it was
able without much difficulty to come to terms with
cults more formalistic than doctrinal, more civic
than moral, in which no authority demanded
assent to definite dogmas. A system of accommo-
dating allegories could readily put on gods or

Babylon and Greece 69

m3rths a physical, ethical, or psychological inter-
pretation, which reconciled them with the cos-
mology or ethics of the Porch. In the East, where
more theological religions always implied a more
definite conception of the world, the task appeared
much less easy. Yet certain profound affinities
reconciled stoicism with Chaldean doctrines.
Whether these did or did not contribute to the
development of the ideas of Zeno, they offer a
singular analogy to his pantheism, which repre-
sented ethereal Fire as the primordial principle
and regarded the stars as the purest manifestation
of its power. Stoicism conceived the world as a
great organism, the "sympathetic" forces of
which acted and re-acted necessarily upon one
another, and was bound in consequence to attri-
bute a predominating influence to the celestial
bodies, the greatest and the most powerful of all
in nature, and its Eifxapfxivri or Destiny, con-
nected with the infinite succession of causes, readily
agreed also with the determinism of the Chaldeans,
founded, as it was, upon the regularity of the
sidereal movements. Thus it was that this philo-
sophy made remarkable conquests not only in
Syria but as far as Mesopotamia. I recall only

70 Astrology and Religion

the fact that one of the masters of the Porch,
the successor of Zeno of Tarsus at Athens, was
Diogenes of Babylon {circa 240-150) and that,
later on, another distinguished Stoic, Archidemus,
founded a famous school at Babylon itself (sec-
ond century B.C.). We know too little of their
theories to determine what place was held in them
by the beliefs of the country of their origin or of
their adoption. We only perceive the result of this
movement of ideas which was to lead to the entry
of astrology and star-worship into the philosophy
of Zeno. For us the person who almost alone
represents this fusion of East and West is Posido-
nius of Apamea, of whom we shall speak in our
next lecture,^ but the preparations for this fusion
were undoubtedly made by his predecessors. It
is remarkable that the great astronomer, Hippar-
chus, whose scientific theories, as we have just
seen, are directly influenced by Chaldean learning,
was also a convinced supporter of one of the leading
doctrines of stellar religion. "Hipparchus," says
Pliny,* "will never receive all the praise he de-
serves, since no one has better established the rela-

' See below, Lecture III., p. 83.
' Plin., Nat. Hist., ii., 26, 95.

Babylon and Greece 71

tionship between man and the stars, or shown more
clearly that our soids are particles of heavenly
fire." In this passage we see affirmed as early as
the second century before our era a conception,
the development of which we follow in the sidereal
mysticism of the Roman period. *

Hipparchus saw the ruin of the country where
was bom that science which he illumined. In-
vaded by the Parthians about the year 140
B.C., recaptured by Antiochus VII. of Syria in 130,
reconquered soon afterwards by King Phraates,
Mesopotamia was terribly ravaged for more than a
quarter of a century. Babylon, sacked and burned
in 125, never recovered her former splendour: a
progressive decay brought on her a death by slow
consumption. The new Iranian princes evinced
no solicitude for the culture of Semitic priests.
The vast brick-built temples, when the hand of the
restorer was withdrawn, crumbled into dust, one
by one were extinguished the lights of a civili-
sation which extended backwards for forty cen-
turies, and of the famous cities of Sumer and Accad
there survived little but the name. The last astro-
nomical tablet in cuneiform characters with which

* See below, Lecture V.

72 Astrology and Religion

we are acquainted, is dated 8' B.C., and Strabo,^
speaking of Babylon about the same period,
applies to it a verse from a comic poet: "a mighty
desert — such is the mighty town."

Henceforth it is far from their native land, in
S3rria, in Egypt, and in the West, that we must
follow the development of the religious ideas
derived from the Chaldea of antiquity.

•Strab., xvi., I, 5: ^'EpTifda fuyiXri Vrti' ^ Me7(lXi; x6Xtf.

LECTURE m

THE DISSEMINATION IN THE WEST

"\ X 7E have seen the "Pan-Babylonist" mist,
^ ' which obscured the historical horizon,
vanish before the breath of criticism. It is not
the fact that thousands of years before our era the
Chaldeans constructed a learned and profound
cosmology, which established its authority over all
surrounding peoples. But their share in the intel-
lectual and religious development of antiquity re-
mains none the less most considerable. They are
the creators of chronology and astronomy. They
contrived to enlarge their theology progressively
in order to keep it in harmony with their new
conception of the world, and their astrology was
regarded as the method of divination par excellence.
Their conquests in the realm of science won such
prestige for their beliefs that they spread from
the Far East to the Far West, and even now their
sway has not been wholly overthrown. In

73

74 Astrology and Religion

mysterious ways they penetrated as far as
India, China, and Indo-China, where divination
by means of the stars is still practised at the
present day, and reached perhaps even the primi-
tive centres of American civiHsation. In the
opposite direction they spread to Syria, to Egypt,
and over the whole Roman world, where their
influence was to prevail up to the fall of pagan-
ism and lasted through the Middle Ages up to
the dawn of modem times. It is this dissemina-
tion throughout the West that we shall rapidly
describe in this lecture.

• ••••••

The exchange of religious ideas between the two
rival empires of the valleys of the Euphrates and
the Nile undoubtedly goes back, like their political
relations, to a very remote antiquity. In the
fifteenth century before our era, at the moment
when — as the Tell-el-Amama tablets show —
Babylonian was the diplomatic language of the
whole East, and Egypt extended its empire or its
suzerainty over the principalities of Canaan and
Syria, we find Amenophis IV ordaining the exclu-
sive worship of the Sun as lord of heaven and
earth, protector of his person and of his subjects

The Dissemination in the West 75

of every nationality. It is possible that this theo-
logical Pharaoh was led by the influence of Semitic
star-worship to impose his attempt at reform upon
the Egyptian clergy. Many other proofs might
be advanced to show that the beliefs and even
the ciilts of the Syrians found their way into the
state of the Pharaohs. But the religious ideas
with which we are particularly concerned here
were late in being introduced. Astrology was
unknown in ancient Egypt: it was not until the
Persian period, about the sixth century, that it
began to be cultivated there. The ascendancy
which it then acquired, succeeded in breaking down
the haughty reserve of the proudest and most
exclusive people in the world, and a conservative
clergy was compelled to admit to its ranks cal-
culators of hours and makers of horoscopes
{copoXoyoi^ copoGKOTtoi) devoted to the study of
Chaldean science. The history of this dissemina-
tion confirms what we said both about the late
date of this religious development in Babylonia and
about the irresistible prestige which the brilliant
discoveries of astronomy conferred upon it from
the Assyrian period onwards. This foreign reli-
gion was gradually naturalised in Egypt : the huge

76 Astrology and Religion

zodiacs, which decorated the walls of the temples,
show how sacerdotal teaching succeeded in grafting
the learned doctrines of the Chaldeans on native
beliefs and in giving them an original development.
National pride even ended by convincing itself
that all this religious erudition was purely indi-
genous. About the year 150 B.C. there were com-
posed in Greek — ^imdoubtedly at Alexandria — the
mystic treatises attributed to the fabulous king
Nechepso and his' confidant, the priest Petosiris,
which became as it were the sacred books of the
growing faith in the power of the stars. These
apocryphal works of a mythical antiquity were to
acquire incredible authority in the Roman world.

The god T6t (Thoth), the Hermes Trismegistus
of the Greeks, became in Egypt the revealer of
the wisdom of horoscopers, as of all other kinds
of wisdom. But it was a difificult task to reconcile
astrology with national beliefs, as Hermetism
sought to do. For, astrology was not only a method
of divination: it implied, as we have said, a re-
ligious conception of the world, and it was insepa-
rably combined with Greek philosophy. Thus the
Hermetic books comprise not merely treatises on
learned superstition: it is a complete theology

The Dissemination in the West "]"]

that the gods teach to the faithful in a series of
what may be called apocalypses. This recondite
literature, often contradictory, was apparently
developed between 50 B.C. and 150 a.d. It has
a considerable importance in relation to the dif-
fusion throughout the Roman Empire of certain
doctrines of sidereal religion moulded to suit Egyp-
tian ideas. But it had only a secondary influence.
It is not at Alexandria that this form of paganism
was either produced or chiefly developed, but
among the neighbouring Semitic peoples.

Syria, lying as it does nearer than Egypt to
Babylon and Nineveh, was more vividly illumined
by the radiance of those great centres of culture.
The ascendancy of an erudite clergy who ruled
there, was extended at an early date over all sur-
rounding countries, eastwards over Persia, north-
wards over Cappadocia. But nowhere was it so
readily accepted as among the Syrians, who were
imited with the Oriental Semites by community of
language and blood.

The very names "Sijptoi, "Syrian, " and ^AaGxipioi^
"Ass5n'ian," are originally identical, and for a long
time the Greeks made no distinction between them.
The plains of Mesopotamia and Coele-Syria, in-

78 Astrology and Religion

habited by kindred races, extended across frontiers
which are not marked out by nature, and, despite
all political vicissitudes, relations between the
great temples situated east and west of the Euphra-
tes continued without interruption.

It is diffictdt to fix the date at which the in-
fluence of the "Chaldeans" began to be felt in
Syria, but it is certainly not later than the period
when the dominion of the Sargonides was ex-
tended as far as the Mediterranean, that is to say,
the eighth century B.C.; and without admitting,
with the Pan-Babylonists, that the stories of
Genesis are merely astral myths, we may regard
it as indisputable that before the Exile (597
B.C.) Israel received from Babylon, along with
some astronomical knowledge, certain beliefs
connected with star-worship and astrology.
We know that idolatry was repeatedly intro-
duced into Zion. Thus king Manasseh caused
the chariot of Shamash, the Sun-god, to be ac-
cepted there; he dared to set the "Queen
of the Heavens" by the side of lahweh. After
the Exile, spiritual relations were continuous
between Judaism and the great religious metro-
polis which had subjugated it. As late as the first

The Dissemination in the West 79

century B.C., the author of the Book of Enoch,
in his pretended revelations, is obviously inspired
by Babylonian cosmology and legends.

If Israel, which repulsed all forms of polytheism
with such inflexible determination, nevertheless
yielded temporarily to the prestige of star-worship,
how much more effectively must this cult have
established its sway over Semitic tribes which had
remained pagan? Under its influence they are
seen to adopt new divinities : Bel of Babylon was
worshipped all over northern Syria. The ancient
divinities also were grouped anew: At Hierapolis,
as at Heliopolis and Emesa, a new member was
added to the original pair, Baal and Baalat, hus-
band and wife, in order to form one of those triads
of which Chaldean theology was fond. But this
theology profoundly modified, above all, the con-
ception of the higher powers reverenced by these
pastoral or agriciiltural tribes. Side by side with
their proper nature, it gave to these gods a second
personality, which became none the less prominent
because it was borrowed, and sidereal myths came
to be interlined, as it were, with agrarian myths
and soon obliterated them. From being lords of
a clan and a narrow district, the Baals were pro-

8o Astrology and Religion

moted to the dignity of universal gods. The old
spirit of storm and thunder, Baal Shammin, who
dwelt in the sky, becomes the Most High {"Tipiffros) ,
the eternal regulator of cosmic movements. * The
naturalistic and primitive worship which these
peoples paid to the Sim, the Moon, and certain
stars such as Venus, was systematised by a doc-
trine which constituted the Sun — identified with
the Baals, conceived as supreme gods — the
almighty Lord of the world, thus paving the way
in the East for the future transformation of
Roman paganism.'

There can be no doubt that Babylonian doc-
trines exercised decisive influence on this gradual
metamorphosis and this latest phase of Semitic
religion. The Seleucid princes of Antioch showed
as great deference to the science of the Ba-
bylonian clergy as the Persian Achaemenids had
done before them. We find Seleucus Nicator
consulting these official soothsayers about the pro-
pitious hour for founding Seleucia on the Tigris;
and, if we may believe Diodorus,^ these diviners
made to Alexander, Antigonus, and numerous

* See my Oriental Religions, p. 127 ss.
» See below, Lecture IV., p. 124 sqq.
» Diodorus Sic, ii., 31.

The Dissemination in the West 8i

other monarchs predictions which were fulfilled to
the letter. Antiochus, king of Commagene, who
died in 34 B.C., built on a spur of Mount Taurus,
commanding a distant view of the Euphrates val-
ley, a sepulchral monument on which, side by side
with the images of his ancestral gods, he set the
scheme of his nativity figured on a large bas-relief, ^
because his life had realised all the promises of
this horoscope. The cities of Syria often stamp
on their coins certain signs of the zodiac to mark
the fact that they stood under their patronage. If
princes and cities thus acknowledged the authority
of astrology, we may imagine what was the power
of this scientific theology in the temples. We may
say that in the Alexandrine age it permeated the
whole of Semitic paganism.

But in the empire of the Seleucids alongside of
this "Chaldaism," if I may venture to use the
term, Hellenism had established itself in a com-
manding position. Above the old native beliefs
the doctrines of Stoicism in particular exercised
dominion over men's minds. It has often been
observed that the masters of the Stoic school are

' Humann and Puchstein, Reise in Nord Syrien und Klein
Asien, Berlin, 1890, pi. XL.
6

82 Astrology and Religion

for the most part Orientals. Zeno himself was
bom at Kition in the island of Cyprus. Among his
successors Chrysippus and others belonged to
Tarsus in Cilicia. Diogenes of Babylon, Posi-
donius of Apamea, Antipater of Tyre — to mention
only the leading representatives of these doctrines
— were all Syrians. In a certain sense it may be
said that Stoicism was a Semitic philosophy.
Given the fact that it was always the first care of
this school to reconcile itself with established cults,
it is a priori certain that Oriental star- worship
did not remain foreign to its system. Had we a
more precise knowledge of Asiatic civiHsation
during the Hellenistic period, we should be able
to estimate more exactly what Zeno and, above
all, his disciples owed to Chaldean theology and
what it owed to them. We have already touched
upon this point,* As it is, we cannot follow the
development of this movement of ideas, which was
definitively to introduce astrology together with
star-worship into the philosophy of the Stoa. The
thinker who is almost the sole representative we
have of these syncretic tendencies, despite the
fact that they must certainly have shown them-
* See above. Lecture II., p. 70.

The Dissemination in the West 83

selves long before him and abundantly around
him, is Posidonius of Apamea.

Of the man himself we know almost nothing.
Born at Apamea in the valley of the Orontes about
135 B.C., after long travels in pursuit of his studies,
which took him as far as Gades (Cadiz), he set-
tled in the island of Rhodes, whither his teaching
attracted large numbers of Greeks and Romans,
and he died at the age of eighty-four after an
active career which filled the whole of the first
half of the first century. Was he a pure Syrian,
like Porphyry and lamblichus in later times, or a
descendant of the Macedonian conquerors? Was
his mother- tongue Greek or Aramaic? We should
like to know, but we are in total ignorance about
the surroundings amid which this great man grew
up; we know nothing of his society, nothing even
of his education, except that he was the pupil of
the Stoic Panaetius.

But it is clear that this master, who in his time
exercised a real intellectual sovereignty, owed it
above all to the extent of his knowledge and the
largeness of his comprehension. A native of the
very heart of Syria, but naturalised as a Rhodian,
Posidonius represented in all its fulness the alliance

84 Astrology and Religion

of Semitic tradition with Greek thought. He was
the great intermediary and mediator not only
between Romans and Hellenes, but between East
and West. Brought up on Plato and Aristotle,
he was equally versed in Asiatic astrology and
demonology. If he is Greek in the constructive
power of his speculative genius, in the harmonious
flow of his copious and highly-coloured style, his
genius remained Oriental in the singular combina-
tion of the most exact science with a fervent mysti-
cism. More of a theologian than a philosopher, in
mind more learned than critical, he made all
human knowledge conspire to the building up of
a great system, the coping of which was enthusi-
astic adoration of the God who permeates the
universal organism. In this vast syncretism all
superstitions, popular or sacerdotal, soothsaying,
divination, magic, find their place and their justi-
fication; but above all it was due to him that
astrology entered into a coherent explanation of
the world, acceptable to the most enlightened
intellects, and that it was solidly based on a general
theory of nature, from which it was to remain
henceforth inseparable.

The Dissemination in the West 85

The almost total loss of the works of Posidonius
prevents us from appreciating, save in an imper-
fect manner, the persuasive force of his teaching.
But the echo of his words resounded far through the
Roman dominion, where his authority balanced
that of Epicurus. In his school at Rhodes he had
long been the master of the masters of the world, —
Pompey listened to him, Cicero attended his lec-
tures,— and his influence on the development of
later theology was immense in several directions.
His pupil, Cicero, has frequent reminiscences of his
teaching and translates his ideas into Latin. The
symbolism of Philo the Jew is often inspired by his
picturesque eloquence. Still later his ideas pass
into and spread throughout the Stoic school — we
see them, for instance, in the works of Seneca, —
and they are echoed in the treatises of the astro-
logers of the imperial age.

The most striking of the literary productions
which he inspired is the Astronomies of the so-called
Manilius, a writer of whom we know absolutely
nothing, not even his name, which is corrupt in
the manuscripts, but who was in his own way a
genuine poet: A work of remarkable inspiration,
where the brilliance of the descriptions blooms in

86 Astrology and Religion

the wilderness of a dry "mathematic," where a
passionate enthusiasm for the marvels of science
makes us forget that this science is false, where
lofty intellectual ambitions and an unbounded con-
fidence in the power of reason are combined with
a blind and puerile credulity which accepts all
predictions derived from the stars, — this work
reveals to us better than any other the grandeur
of such a system of the world as that con-
ceived by Posidonius and the attraction which
was exercised by this learned cosmology, sustained
by a mystic faith in astrology, the revealer of the
future.

The poem is dedicated to Tiberius, who perhaps
suggested its composition, and some have proposed
to see in it " the expression of the official religion of
the age."' Obviously the first Caesars, even more
than the old republican aristocracy, among whom
Posidonius counted so many disciples, would be
inclined to adopt the ideas of one who broke with
the old national particidarism, in order to include
the worships of all races in one vast synthesis, and
appeared to give to the united Empire the formula
of the theology of the future. Characteristically

* Gardthausen, Augustus und seine Zeii, p. 1 131.

The Dissemination in the West 87

enough, Augustus as well as Tiberius had already-
been converted to astrology, and we shall see how
the later princes granted an official protection to
sidereal religion.

With the same movement of ideas, which was
initiated or represented by Posidonius, was con-
nected the revival of a strange sect, that of the
Neo-Pythagoreans, which re-appeared in the East
during the first half of the first century before our
era. Although by its ideal of religious life it pro-
fessed to connect itself with the old Pythagorean
mysticism, its doctrine owes more to the
theories developed by Posidonius, especially in
his commentary on the Timaeus, and it borrowed
much, either through the medium of the great
Syrian or even directly, from Oriental religions. A
marked dualism, which contrasts the soul with the
body, and, as a consequence, a moral asceticism, a
doctrine of the eternity of the universe and of the
influence of the stars on the constant changes of the
sublunary world, a belief in airy demons who de-
file and torment mankind, but above all — and this
is the central point and the core of its dogmatic
system — a symbolism of numbers, to which is
attributed an active force and a mystic power, all

88 Astrology and Religion

these essential features indicate a singularly close
connection between Neo-Pythagorism and "Chal-
dean" theology. It is characteristic that the man
who first revived at Rome the old South-Italian
philosophy, Nigidius Figulus, the friend of Cicero,
displays a curious interest in magic and in occult
lore, and an ardent devotion to astrology, and
that he was the first to expound in Latin the
significance of the "barbaric sphere," that is
to say, a series of constellations not recognised
by the Greek astronomers but adopted in Oriental
uranography. ^

But these groups of cidtured theosophists
addressed themselves only to limited circles of
"intellectuals." In a general way the new sidereal
religion was from the first welcomed by the upper
classes: it was ciiltivated by the aristocracy both
of blood and of intellect. If it had continued to be
preached only by polytheistic theorists, it would
have remained, as in Greece, the exclusive preserve
of a few speculative minds. Even the inspiration
of a semiHDfiicial poet like Manilius would hardly
have won for it the favour of the imperial court.
And yet it achieved a widespread popularity. Its

' See F. Boll, Sphqera, Leipsic, 1903.

The Dissemination in the West 89

{

L

influence over the masses it did not owe to a
literary diffusion, whatever may have been the
success of certain romances which were inspired
by it, such as the Hfe of ApoUonius by Philostratus
and, still more, the Ethiopics of Heliodorus. It
had in its service other missionaries, whose active
propagandism spread it through the mixed popu-
lace of the towns as well as among the hosts of
slaves who tilled the country estates. These popu-
lar propagandists were the clergy and the devotees
of Oriental cults.

• ' • • • • • •

Towards the commencement of our era, when
the peace and unity of the ancient world was
assured by the foundation of the Empire, began
the development of this great religious movement
which little by little was to orientalise Roman
paganism. The gods of the nations of the Levant
imposed themselves, one after another, on the
West. Cybele and Attis were transported from
Phrygia, Isis and Serapis travelled thither from
Alexandria. Merchants, soldiers, and slaves
brought the Baals of Syria and Mithra, an immi-
grant from the heart of Persia. We have attemp-
ted in another volume to show in what respects

90 Astrology and Religion

r

each of these foreign cults enriched the creeds of
Rome.* The point which I desire to emphasise
here, is that all of them, no matter what their
origin, were influenced in different degrees by
astrology and star- worship. These doctrines, as
we have seen, grew up among the temples of Syria
and Egypt, and transformed the theology of these
countries more and more. Originally the mysteries
of Isis and Serapis, established under the first
Ptolemy, allowed them only a limited place, but in
the time of Nero his teacher Chaeremon, a priest of
Alexandria and a Stoic philosopher, re-discovered
in the religion of Egypt the worship of the powers
of nature and, in particular, of the stars, and found
again in prayer a means of rescuing men from
the fatality which the influence of the heavenly
bodies imposed upon them. Even in Asia Minor,
where the sidereal cult is adventitious and recent,
a member of a considerable family of Phrygian
prelates is foimd celebrating in verse the sidereal
divination which enabled him to pubHsh far and
wide infallible predictions. Attis, the Anatolian
deity of vegetation, ended by becoming a solar god,

* Tht Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, Chicago (Open
Court Publishing Company), 191 1.

The Dissemination in the West 91

just like Serapis, the Baals, and Mithra. In very
early times, even in Mesopotamia, star-worship
was imposed upon Persian Mazdaism, which was
still a collection of traditions and rites rather than
a body of doctrines, and a set of abstruse dogmas
came to be superimposed on the naturalistic myths
of the Iranians. The mysteries of Mithra imported
into Europe this composite theology, offspring
of the intercourse between Magi and Chaldeans;
and the signs of the zodiac, the symbols of the plan-
ets, the emblems of the elements, appear time after
time on the bas-reliefs, mosaics, and paintings of
their subterranean temples. We find one of the
members of their clergy proclaimed in his epitaph
at Milan studiosus astrologiae. ^ The priests of the
Persian god and those of the so-called " Jupiters"
of Syria contributed largely to the triumph of this
pseudo-science, which towards the age of the
Severi acquired an almost undisputed supremacy
even in the Latin world.

Here it no longer presents itself as a learned
theory taught by mathematicians, but as a sacred
doctrine revealed to the adepts of exotic cults,
which have all assumed the form of mysteries.

*Corp. Inscr. LaL, v., 5893.

V

92 Astrology and Religion

The doctrine which is thus communicated to the
initiated in the dim light of temples, undoubtedly
remained more sacerdotal than, for instance, the
Tetrahiblos of Ptolemy, a dry didactic treatise
which could never have fostered any devotion.
Here more room was left for mythology, mysticism,
ethics, and superstition. This theology, however,
had not escaped the prevailing ascendancy of
Greek philosophy, any more than had the ideas
of the most learned casters of nativities, — this is
a fact which research has succeeded in proving.
In reality these mysteries, which professed to be
the depositaries of an ancient tradition imported
from the Far East, constantly modified their
teaching, in order to adapt it to altered times
and environments; and if the wisdom which they
revealed was always regarded as divine, it never-
theless varied remarkably in the course "of ages
and admitted ideas entirely foreign to its original
content. This was a necessary consequence of the
close union of learning and belief which, as we have
said, characterises Oriental religions. They were
always the expression of a given conception of the
world, which determined the relations of heaven
and earth and the duties of the faithful towards

The Dissemination in the West 93

the gods. Hence they were bound to change in
conformity with the evolution of physical or meta-
physical ideas. If Greek thought could receive
certain impulses or suggestions from the temples
of Syria and Egypt, it invaded them in turn as a
conqueror: and Stoicism in particular certainly
gave to them more than it received from them.
The great intellectual movement of which Posi-
donius was not so much the initiator as the most
illustrious representative, undoubtedly combined
devotion and philosophy, but it also introduced
philosophy into devotion. The learned and mystic
system of doctrine, which Manilius and others
preached under Tiberius, imposed itself on all
Western paganism in the course of the following
centiuies; and we may say, making allowance for
certain modifications, that this half-scientific,
half -religious system, which was established in
the Alexandrine period, continued to be the
theology of the mysteries up to the time of their
disappearance, even after the advent of Neo-
Platonism.

As a characteristic production of this medley of
ideas may be quoted those Chaldean Oracles,^

* Adryia XaKdouKd,

94 Astrology and Religion

whose origin is still a mystery, but which appear
to have been compiled in the second century of our
era. In these works of fantastic mysticism, in
which the whole Neo- Platonic school saw the re-
velation of supreme wisdom, ancient beliefs of
Semitic star-worship are combined with Hellenic
theories. They are to Babylon what the Hermetic
literature is to Egypt.

Thus the triumph of Oriental religions was
simultaneously the triumph of astral religion, but
to secure recognition by all pagan peoples, it
needed an official sanction. The influence which
it had acquired among the populace, was finally
assured when the emperors lent it an interested
support. That apotheosis by which from the
beginning of the principate deceased princes were
raised to the stars, is inspired both in form and
spirit by Asiatic doctrines. We have seen that
already Augustus and especially Tiberius allowed
themselves to be converted to the ideas of the
disciples of Posidonius. But they remained hostile
to the popular forms of foreign worships, at least
in their capital. Their ideal, which was entirely
political, is the restoration of the old Roman faith

The Dissemination in the West 95

and respect for the purely practical cult of the
city. But in proportion as Caesarism became
more and more transformed into absolute mon-
archy, it tended more and more to lean for
support on the Oriental clergy. These priests,
loyal to the traditions of the Achsemenids and
the Pharaohs, preached doctrines which tended
to elevate sovereigns above mankind, and they
supplied the emperors with a dogmatic justi-
fication of their despotism. For the old prin-
ciple of the sovereignty of the people, the original
form of Caesarism, was substituted a reasoned
belief in supernatural influences. The emperor is
the image of the Sun on earth, like him invincible
and eternal {inmctus, aeternus), as his official title
declares. Already in the eyes of the Babylonians
the Sun was the royal planet, and it is he that in
Rome continues to give to his chosen ones the
virtues of sovereignty, and destines them for the
throne from the time of their appearance on earth.
He remains in close communion with them, he is
their companion (comes) and their congener, for
they are united by community of nature. It may
be said that they are consubstantial ; and in the
third century the monarch was worshipped as

96 Astrology and Religion

"god and master by right of birth" {deus et
dominus natus), who had descended from heaven
by grace of the Sun, and by his grace will reascend
thither again after death. The idea that the
monarch's soul, at the moment when destiny
caused it to descend to this world, received from
the Star of the day its sovereign power, led to the
inference that he participated in the might of this
divinity, and was its representative on earth.
Thus it is noticeable that the princes who pro-
claimed most loudly their autocratic pretensions,
a Domitian or a Conmiodus, were also those who
most openly favoured Oriental cvlts.

These cults attained the zenith of their power
when the advent of the Severi brought them the
support of a half -Syrian Court. For nearly half
a century, from A.D. 193 to 235, the Empire was
governed by a family of Emesa, an ancient sacer-
dotal state, where on the edge of the Syrian desert
rose the splendid temple of Elagabalus. Intelligent
and ambitious princesses, Julia Domna, Sohag-
mias, Maesa, and Mammaea, whose intellectual
ascendancy was so considerable, became mission-
aries of their national religion. Officials of all
ranks, senators and officers, rivalled each other in

The Dissemination in the West 97

devotion to the gods who protected their sover-
eigns and were protected by them. You all know
the bold proclamation of a.d. 218 which set upon
the throne a boy of fourteen years, priest of Ela-
gabalus, whose name he bore. The Greeks named
him Heliogabalus in order to recall the solar
character of this god. To this barbarous divinity,
hitnerto rather obscure, he sought to give the pri-
macy over all the others. Ancient authors relate
with indignation how this crowned priest desired
to elevate the black stone of his god, a rude idol
brought from Emesa, to the rank of sovereign
divinity of the Empire, subordinating the entire
pantheon of antiquity to Sol Invictus Elagabal,
as he is termed in inscriptions. The attempt of
Heliogabalus to establish in heaven a kind of solar
monotheism corresponding to the monarchy that
ruled on earth, was doubtless too violent, tactless,
and premature: it miscarried and provoked the
assassination of its author.

But it corresponded to the aspirations of the day
and it was renewed half a century later, this time
with complete success. In 274, Aurelian was
inspired with the same idea, when he created a
new cult of the "Invincible Sun." Worshipped in

98 Astrology and Religion

a splendid temple, served by pontiffs who were
raised to the level of the ancient pontiffs of Rome,
celebrated every fourth year by magnificent games,
Sol Invictus was definitively promoted to the
highest rank in the divine hierarchy and became
the official protector of the Sovereigns and of the
Empire. The country in which Aurelian discov-
ered the model which he sought to reproduce was
Syria, where he had won a decisive victory over
the famous queen Zenobia: he placed in his new
sanctuary the images of Bel and Helios, which he
captured at Palmyra. In establishing this new
State cult, Aurelian in reality proclaimed the
dethronement of the old Roman idolatry and the
accession of Semitic Sun-worship.

With Constantius Chlorus (305 A.D.) there
ascended the throne a solar dynasty which, con-
necting itself with Claudius II. Gothicus, a votary
of the worship of Apollo, professed to have Sol
Invictus as its special protector and ancestor.
Even the Christian emperors, Constantine and
Constantius, did not altogether forget the pre-
tensions which they could derive from so illus-
trious a descent, and the last pagan who occupied
the throne of the Caesars, Julian the Apostate,

The Dissemination in the West 99

has left us a discourse in which, in the style of a
subtle theologian and a fervent devotee, he jus-
tifies the adoration of the King Star, of whom
he considered himself the spiritual son and
heaven-sent champion.

If in conclusion we survey at a glance the whole
course of the expansion which we have tried to
describe, we shall be struck with the power of this
sidereal theology, founded on ancient beliefs of
Chaldean astrologers, transformed in the Hellen-
istic age under the twofold influence of astronomic
discoveries and Stoic thought, and promoted, after
becoming a pantheistic Sun-worship, to the rank
of official religion of the Roman Empire. Preached
on the one hand by men of letters and by men of
science in centres of culture, diffused on the other
hand among the bulk of the people by the servi-
tors of Semitic, Persian or Egyptian gods, it is
finally patronised by the emperors, who find in it
at once a form of worship suitable for all their sub-
jects and a justification of their autocratic pre-
tensions.

In this way the astrological conception of life
and of the world permeated the whole of society,

100 Astrology and Religion

/

and in particular produced a revolution in the
beliefs of the Latin world. Despite all the specula-
tions of metaphysicians, the masses had remained
on the whole true to the old idolatry of the Re-
publican period. Oriental theology led to the
prevalence of a more lofty idea of God. In the
declining days of antiquity the common creed of
all pagans came to be a scientific pantheism, in
which the infinite power of the divinity that per-
vaded the imiverse was revealed by all the elements
of nature. In the following lectures we shall have
to examine more closely this conception of the
world, the theology which was boimd up with it,
and the moral and eschatological ideas which were
derived from it.

LECTURE IV

THEOLOGY

pOSIDONIUS defined man as "the beholder
and expounder of heaven."^ Nature itself —
the ancients vied with each other in insisting on
this point — destined him to contemplate the sky
and to observe its perpetual motions. Other
animals bend towards the earth, but man proudly
raises his eyes to the stars, — this is an idea which
we find repeated time after time. His eye, the
marvel of the human body, tiny mirror in which
immensity is reflected, gateway of the soul open
towards the infinite, follows from here below the
distant evolutions of the celestial armies. The old
astronomers, who did not use the telescope, mar-
velled at the power of the eye, and the ancients
expressed their astonishment at the range of vision
which reached the remotest constellations. They

' Capelle, Die Schrift von der Welt, Leipzig, 1895, p. 6 [534], n. 4.
" Contemplatorem caeli. " "Oi yJtvov Oear^p d\X4 /cai i^7]yr)T-^v."

lOI

102 Astrology and Religion

give it the pre-eminence over all the other senses,
for the eyes are to them the intermediaries between
the sidereal gods and human reason. Struck by
the light from on high, the power of sight devotes
itself to following the motions of these radiant
bodies, which move above us. It ascertains that
the course of the sun, which occasions the changes
of the seasons, the phases of the moon, the rising
and the setting of the fixed stars, even the march
of the planets which appear to be wandering stars,
are all regulated by immutable laws, and are repro-
duced in accordance with invariable periods of
time. In heaven there are never derangements or
errors, there nothing moves without design. Rea-
son, reflecting on the marvellous phenomena
which are perceived by the eye, realises that they
cannot be due to chance or to the action of a blind
force, but recognises that they are ruled by a
divine intelligence. The ceaseless harmony of
movements so diverse is inconceivable without the
intervention of a guiding Providence. The stars
themselves prove to us their divinity so clearly
that to fail to see it is to be incapable of seeing
anything. Nobody could deny to the heavenly
bodies the possession of reason without being him-

Theology

103

nX

self destitute of it: that at least is the opinion of
Cicero.^ The view of the starry heaven thus led
to astronomy and to philosophy, which are the
queens of the sciences, the one in the domain of
the visible, the other in the domain of ideas; and
the study of these is the noblest employment to
which man can put his faculties.

We have seen that since the days of Plato and
Aristotle, and even earlier, ^ Greek thinkers proved
the divinity of the stars by the character of their
movements, and in a general way all metaphysi-
cians point to the order of nature as proving the
existence of God. Voltaire himself in the Philo-
sophical Dictionary uses expressions on this sub-
ject which would not have been disowned by the
ancients. But what characterises ancient ideas is
the fact that they closely connect belief in the
gods with observation of the sky. [ Astronomy!
here serves as an introduction to theology^ This
sidereal religion, developed by an erudite clergy,
has always retained the stamp of its learned
origin.

» Cic, Nat. Deorum, ii., 21, § 56.
* See above, Lecture II., p. 38.

104 Astrology and Religion

The essential quality of these sidereal gods, the
one most frequently insisted upon, is that they
\ are everlasting. We have seen that astronomy had

led the old Chaldeans to this notion. * The invaria-
j bility of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies
/ led to the conclusion that they were eternal. The

stars unceasingly pursue their never-ending course ;
arrived at the limit of their path, they resume
without pause the race already nm, and the cycles
of years, in accordance with which their move-
ments take place, are prolonged to infinity in the
past, and continue to infinity in the future. Thus
a clergy of astronomers necessarily conceived the
gods of heaven, as being "the masters of eternity,"
or "those whose name is praised to all eternity," —
these titles are constantly bestowed in inscriptions
on the Syrian Baals. The stars which the Syrians
worshipped did not die, like Osiris in Egypt, or
Attis in Asia Minor: each time they seemed to
sink, they were bom again to a new life, always
imconquerable. This theological notion pene-
trated with astrology into Roman paganism. As
often as a dedication is found to a deus Aeternus,
it refers to a sidereal, most frequently a Syrian,

' See above, Lecture I., p. 30.

L

Theology 105

god. The epithet aeternus completes and explains
that of invictus, which, like the former, is applied
to the stars in general, and specially to the Sim.
These celestial powers always issue triumphantly
from their strife with darkness; unceasingly men-
aced, they have been, are, and shall be ever vic-
torious.

It is a remarkable fact that it is not imtil the sec-
ond century of our era that this qualifying epithet
aeternus comes into use in ritual at the same time
as the cult of the god Heaven (Caelus) spreads.
In vain had philosophers long set the First Cause
beyond the limitations of time: their theories had
not made impression on the popidar mind, nor had
they succeeded in modifying the traditional formu-
lary of liturgies. For the multitude, divinities re-
mained beings more beautiful, more vigorous,
more powerful than men, but bom like them and
preserved only from decay and death. Semitic
priests popularised throughout the Roman world
the idea that God is without beginning and with-
out end, and so contributed, side by side with
Jewish proselytism, to invest with the authority
of a religious dogma what had hitherto been but a
metaphysical theory.

io6 Astrology and Religion

The importance attached to this idea enables us
to understand that it was applied even to gods
living upon the earth, in whom an image or mani-
festation of the sun was seen. The emperors,
whose soul has descended to earth from heaven
above, and is to re-ascend thither after death, are
called, from the second century onwards, not only
invicti but aeterni, like the stars to which they are
united by identity of nature. This expression was
introduced into the official vocabulary, and ulti-
mately a sovereign was addressed as "Your
Eternity," almost as naturally as we say "Your
Majesty," although that epithet, applied to the
short-lived princes who, in the third century, flit
across the throne like shadows across a screen,
seems almost cruelly ironical.

This, however, is but a political caricature of a
great religious idea, — an idea which appealed to
the imagination, and which poetry also adopted.
Manilius* contrasts the permanence of the heavens
with the frailty of earthly things :

Thrones have perished, peoples passed from do-
minion to slavery, from captivity to empire, but the
same months of the year have always brought up on

' Manil., Astron., i, 495 sqq.

Theology 107

the horizon the same stars. All things that are sub-
ject to death are also subject to change, the years glide
away, and lands become unrecognisable, each century
transforms the features of nations, but Heaven re-
mains invariable, and preserves all its parts; the
flight of time adds nothing to them, nor does age take
aught from them. It will remain the same for ever,
because for ever it has been the same. Thus it ap-
peared to the eyes of our forefathers, thus wiU our
descendants behold it. It is God, for it is imchange-
able throughout the ages.

Men did not stop there, but separating eternity
from the stars and from heaven, whose loftiest
quality it was, they adored that eternity itself as
a divinity. Here is not a mere abstraction, like
Equity or Clemency or one of the many other
abstractions which the Romans had conceived and
fervently worshipped, notwithstanding the fact
that they figured Aeternitas on their coins. The
path which led to this worship is more intricate,
and its beginnings go back to a very early stage
of thought. Time, when this notion, which is
lacking among many savages, appeared, was not
defined as a conception of the reason, or in Kant's
phrase, "a priori form of conception." This is a
being who has an existence per se, who is even
regarded sometimes as a material body, and who is

io8 Astrology and Religion

endowed with an activity of his own. "Zeno,"
says Cicero,' "attributed a divine power {vis
divina) to the stars, but also to the years, the
months, and the seasons." We have here a very
ancient belief, which is found for instance in Egypt.
The magic idea of a power superior to man is con-
nected, from the very begiiming, with the notation
of time. Calendars had a religious before acquiring
a secular significance : their original object was not
to secure the measurement of the gliding moments,
but to indicate the recurrence of propitious or
unpropitious dates separated by periodic intervals.
It is an empirical fact that the return of fixed
moments is associated with the appearance of
certain phenomena: it is easy to believe that the
one is the cause of the other. They have therefore
a peculiar efiicacy, a sacred character.' Astro-
nomy fixed the duration of these periods with an
ever increasing accuracy : it not only distinguished
the sequence of days and nights, but also that of
the months, corresponding to the revolutions of
the moon, and that of the years, corresponding
to those of the stm. Its progress led to a division

» Cic, Nat. Dear., ii., 63 (=Zenon. £r. 165 von Arnim).
•See above, Lecture I., p. 31.

Theology 109

of the day into two periods of twelve hours each.
All these durations continued to be regarded as
having a definite influence, as being endowed with
a magic potency, and astrology sought to codify
these activities, by placing each division of time
under the protection of a star in its system of
' ' chronocratories. ' '

When the idea of an Eternity arose, more vast
than the sum-total of years and centuries, it was
regarded likewise as a divinity. "General opin-
ion," says Proclus, ^ "makes the Hours goddesses
and the Month a god, and their worship has been
handed on to us: we say also that the Day and the
Night are deities, and the gods themselves have
taught us how to call upon them. Does it not
necessarily follow that Time also should be a god,
seeing that it includes at once months and hours,
days and nights.'^"

In fact infinity of Time was elevated to the
dignity of Supreme Cause not only by individual
thinkers, but by Oriental cults. You all know by
name Zervan Akarana, "Time Unlimited," which
a sect of Persian Magi regarded as the First Prin-
ciple. This doctrine, which was developed in

' Proclus, In Timaum, 248 D.

no Astrology and Religion

Mesopotamia, was adopted by the mysteries of
Mithra and passed with them into the West, where
this god was represented in the form of a monster
with the head of a lion, to indicate that he devours
all things. As might have been expected, the wor-
ship of Time was there closely combined with that
of "the eternal Heaven" {Caelus aeternus), whose
revolutions marked its everlasting course, and, as
the master of all things, it was sometimes identi-
fied with Destiny, whose irresistible activity was
exerted to produce the endless motion of the stars.

Each portion of Infinity brings on some propi-
tious or unpropitious movement of the heavens,
which is anxiously watched, and these motions
incessantly modify the earthly world. The Cen-
turies and the Years, each subject to the influence
of a star or a constellation, the Seasons which are
related to the four winds and to the four cardinal
points, the twelve Months over which the signs
of the zodiac preside, the Day and the Night,
the twelve Hours, are all personified and deified, as
being the authors of all the changes of the imi-
verse.

The allegorical figures invented by astrological
cults to represent these abstractions came into

Theology ill

common use under the Empire. This symboHsm
did not even die out with idolatry: it was adopted
by Christianity, in spite of the fact that it was in
reality contrary to its spirit, and up to the Middle
Ages these symbols of the fallen gods were repro-
duced ad infinitum in sculpture, mosaics, and
miniatures, and it may be said that the old super-
stitions of the Chaldeans are still perpetuated by
modem art.

Like the divisions of Time, numbers were divine
for a similar reason. The ancients said that they
had been revealed to mankind by the motions of
the stars. ^ In fact the progress of mathematics
must often have been a result of the progress of
astronomy, and the former participated in the
sacred character of the latter. Certain numerals
were thus considered for astronomical reasons as
endowed with an especial potency: seven and nine,
which are the fourth and the third part of the
month, seven again and twelve, because they cor-
respond to the planets and to the signs of the zodiac,
three hundred and sixty, because that was the — ap-
proximate— ^nimiber of days in the year. To these
figures was attributed a peculiar efficacy; thus it

'See above, Lecture I., p. 30; II., p. 50.

112 Astrology and Religion

was necessary in magical incantations to repeat the
operative formula for a given number of times in
order that it might produce the desired effect.
Mathematics also entered largely into astrological
divination, — mathematici is in Latin a synonym of
Chaldaei, — and they served as a foimdation or a
pretext for a subtle and extravagant s5anboUsm.
Thus very often a name is replaced by a numerical
equivalent, that is, by the sum-total of its letters
considered as figures and added together. But
despite these uses and abuses, connected with
sidereal religion or, at least, superstition, there
is a great difference between numbers and the
divisions of Time: the former might be sacred,
they could never be deified, they were not wor-
shipped, nor were artistic representations of them
imagined.

• ••••• •

What has been said brings out the importance
attached by the adepts of star-worship to the
idea of divine eternity, — an importance shown
by the fact that some had actually made it the
supreme principle of their religion. But there was
another divine attribute correlative to the former.
The stars are not only eternal gods, but also imi-

Theology 113

versal, their power is unlimited in space as in time.
Already in Syria the Baals, who had become solar
deities, bore the title of Mar'olam, which may be
translated "Lord of the Universe " as well as "Lord
of Eternity," and men undoubtedly liked to claim
for them this double quality. ' With earthly genii
or demons, who protected definite spots, were
contrasted the celestial gods, who are "catholic."
This word, which was to have such a great destiny,
was at first merely an astrological term : it denoted
activities which are not limited to individuals, nor
to particular events, but apply to the whole
human race and to the entire earth.

Everything is, in fact, subject to the changes
brought about by the revolutions of the stars.
All the events of this world are determined by
sidereal influences. The transformations of nature,
like the dispositions and actions of man, are due to
the fatal energies which reside in the sky. Hence
necessarily follows not only the idea of the univer-
sality, but also that of the omnipotence, of the
sidereal deities. The Semitic cults spread through-
out the Latin world the conception of the absolute,

' Religions orientales, 2d edition, Paris, 1909, p. 375, n. 80 (Engl,
translation, p. 258, n. 80).
8

114 Astrology and Religion

unlimited sovereignty of God over the earth.
Apuleius of Madaura calls the Syrian goddess
*' omnipotens et omniparens," all-powerful and
all-producing.

But here we must make a distinction: if all the
gods are equally everlasting, all cannot be imiversal
and omnipotent in the same degree. Undoubtedly
Destiny holds sovereign sway over the whole
world, and the celestial orbs by their combined
movements are the authors of all that was, and is,
and is to come. But this unlimited power only
belongs properly to the ensemble of the cosmic
harmony. It resides in the Whole regarded as
divine, it manifests itself to a greater or less degree
in its different parts. Perhaps you remember the
opening of Dante's // Paradiso :

La gloria di colui che tutto muove
Per r uni verso penetra e risplende
In una parte piii e meno altrove.
Nel ciel che piti della sua luce prende,
Fu'io . . .

The poet of the Middle Ages is only expressing
here an astrological notion. The starry heaven is
the principal seat of the divine energy and light

Theology 115

which are spread throughout the world. But all the
stars have not an equal share of its power: only
some among them, or even one among them, can
properly be called "catholic" and omnipotent
{TtavroHpdroop). We proceed to pass in review
these various divinities.

The highest of these gods is Heaven {Ovpavos^
Caelus), "Summus ipse deus," says Cicero, ^ "arcens
et continens ceteros'' that is to say, the heaven of
the fixed stars, which embraces all the other
spheres. The divine Power which there resides,
and which causes it to move, was sometimes
in the West identified with Bel, — that is to say,
with Zeus, — and in Latin lands was invoked
under the title of '^Optimus Maximus Caelus
Aeternus lupiter." The movement of this heaven
was a continuous revolution, not a motion for-
wards and backwards like that of the planets,
and, assigning a moral sense to the word anXavrji^
men said that since it did not wander or err^
therefore it was not subject to error, and that this
infallibility was a proof of its divinity. Certain
theologians, associating this with infinite Time,

* Cicer., Somn. Scipionis, c. 4.

Ii6 Astrology and Religion

represented Heaven as the supreme power of the
world.

The vast orb of the sky was deified in its whole,
and in its parts. Its two portions, alternately
dark and luminous, were worshipped under the
form of the Dioscuri. The sons of Tyndareus,
according to the Greek legend, shared in turn life
and death, and they became in the eyes of theo-
logians the personification of the two hemispheres.

But each of the constellations, each star which
glittered in the eternal vault, was equally divine.
Each had its myth. As we have already said, * the
traditional figures which we reproduce on our
celestial charts, are the fossil remains of a luxuriant
mythological vegetation. The sidereal monsters,
to which potent virtues were attributed, were the
residuum of a nimiber of forgotten beliefs. Wor-
ship of animals had been abandoned in temples,
but the Lion, the Bull, the Eagle, the Fishes, which
Oriental imagination had recognised in the capri-
cious grouping of the stars, continued to be con-
sidered sacred. Old totems of Semitic tribes or of
Eg3rptian nomes sm^ived in the form of constel-
lations. Heterogeneous elements, borrowed from

' See above, Lecture I., p. i6.

Theology 1 17

all the religions of the East, were combined in
ancient uranography, and in the power attributed
to the phantoms which it conjured up was repeated
the echo of old-fashioned worships, which fre-
quently remain unknown to us.

Then came the Greeks, who professed to piece
these celestial beings on to their national religion.
They succeeded in adorning the sky without trou-
bling themselves very much to distinguish their
own inventions from those which they received
from a foreign tradition. "Catasterism," that is
"translation to the stars," was a convenient
method of giving an astronomical termination to
ancient fables. Thus poetical tales, which were
only half believed, represented fabulous heroes
and even members of human society as living on
high in the form of glittering constellations. There
Perseus found Andromeda again, and the" centaur
Chiron, who is none other than the Archer, frater-
nised with Orion, the gigantic hunter. "The Ram
was the famous ram with the Golden Fleece which
had carried off Phrixus and Helle over the sea and
had let the maiden fall into the waves of the Helles-
pont. It might also be that which was the subject
of the dispute between Atreus and Thyestes, or

Ii8 Astrology and Religion

again it might be the ram which guided the thirsty
company of Bacchus to the wells of the oasis of
Ammon."*

But this patch-work assemblage of heroes, ani-
mals, and sacred objects was scarcely worshipped
save en bloc. Particular veneration was bestowed
on twelve constellations to which the most potent
influence over destiny was attributed, namely,
the twelve signs of the zodiac. Astrological
treatises are full of details concerning their quali-
ties; and their influence, which results sometimes
from their astronomic nature, sometimes from the
mythical character which was bestowed upon
them, was exerted especially during the month
over which each presided, and their images figure
in large numbers on the monuments of pagan
worship, particularly on those of the mysteries
of Mithra. Further even than this, since each
sign of the zodiac was divided into three decans,
a god was imagined for each of these thirty-six
compartments of the heaven.

Not only were the stars of heaven an object of
worship, but also the subtle substance which lit
their fires, the Ether which filled the lofty spaces of

• Bouch6-Leclercq, Astrologie grecgue, p. 131,

Theology 119

the heavens. Sacrifices were offered to it, or it
was celebrated in hymns as the source of all
brightness, and the worshippers even dedicated
inscriptions to this pure and serene air that it
might chase away the devastating hail.

Into the sphere of the fixed stars, which marks
the bounds of the world, are fitted seven other
spheres, those of the planets, which are, in order,
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury,
and the Moon. The qualities and influences which
are attributed to them are due sometimes to astro-
nomical motives. They are deduced from their
apparent movements as discovered by observation.
Saturn makes people apathetic and vacillating,
because, being farthest from the earth, it appears
to move most deliberately. But most frequently
the reasons assigned are purely mythological.
The planets, being identified with the divinities
of Olympus, have borrowed their natiu^e. Mars,
Venus, Mercury, have a history known to all:
the mere mention of their names is enough to
explain their action: Venus needs must favour
lovers, and Mercury assure success in business
and swindling. This double conception of planet-
ary divinities, of whom now one, now the other,

120 Astrology and Religion

displays the activities, favourable or destructive,
which are attributed to them, corresponds to the
hybrid origin of astrology, which pretends to be a
science but always remained a creed, and is found
again also, to a lesser degree, in the doctrines con-
cerning fixed stars.

But, like the Olympians who were identified
with them, the planetary gods are much the most
powerful of all. Their positions in the sky, their
reciprocal relations or, to use the technical term,
aspects, have a decisive influence on all physical
and moral phenomena of this world. They exer-
cise a manifold patronage, more diverse and more
extensive than that of the gods of Ol5nnpus and
the saints of Paradise. They are the tutelary
deities not only of the series of days, ^ but of that
of the hoiu^, and even of centuries and millen-
aries. To each was attached a plant, a metal, a
stone, which derived miraculous powers from this
special protection. Each presided over a period
of life, a portion of the body, and a faculty of the
soul, possessed a colour and a taste, corresponded
to one of the vowels. These various relations in
which they were supposed to stand to the whole

' See below, Lecture V., p. 165.

Theology 12 1

of nature, afforded numerous opportunities for
paying them worship. As we shall see in another
lecture/ their worship was much more popular
than that of the other sidereal gods, and their
images are reproduced on monuments with much
greater frequency.

Beneath the lowest sphere, that of the moon,
the zones of the elements, are placed in tiers: the
zones of fire, air, water, and earth. To these four
principles, as well as to the constellations, the
Greeks gave the name of aroixBia, and the Chal-
deans already worshipped the one as well as the
other. The influence of Oriental religions, like that
of Stoic cosmology, spread throughout the West the
worship of these four bodies, believed to be ele-
ments, whose infinite variety of combinations gave
rise to all perceptible phenomena. In the mys-
teries of Mithra, a group, frequently reproduced,
in which a lion represented fire, a bowl water, and
a serpent the earth, figured emblematically the strife
of these gods, at the same time kindly and hostile,
which constantly devoured each other, and whose
perpetual opposition and transmutation brought
about all the changes of nature. By the end of the

' See Lecture V., p. 163.

122 Astrology and Religion

pagan period, the divinity of these physical agents
was a religious principle accepted by all heathen-
dom. Consequently, by a piquant contrast, the
conventional representations of these polymor-
phous substances, which antique sculpture had
rarely chiselled, were multiplied at the very mo-
ment when Christianity was robbing them of their
sacred character.

These elements were not only deified: they
were themselves haunted by formidable powers;
especially the zone of air, which envelops the
earth, was the chosen home of demons, kindly
or malignant beings, who occupied the middle
space and served as intermediaries between
gods and men, superior to the latter, inferior to
the former.

There is, however, an essential difference between
the powers of this sublunary world — elements and
demons — ^and the stars. The former are subject
to the activity of the latter, their various mani-
festations are caused by the combined influence
of the heavenly bodies; to the latter alone belong
constancy and regularity; they alone serve for
the purposes of scientific divination.

Theology 123

To sum up, then, this long catalogue, astrologi-
cal paganism deified the active principles which
move all celestial and terrestrial bodies. Water,
fire, earth, the sea, and the blast of the winds, but
above all the limiinous heavens of the fixed stars
and planets revealed the boundless power of the
God who filled all nature. But this pantheism no
longer naively regarded this nature as peopled by
capricious spirits and imregulated powers. Hav-
ing become scientific, it conceived the gods as
cosmic energies, the providential action of which
is ordered in a harmonious system.

Oriental theologians developed the idea that the
world forms a trinity; it is three in one and one in
three ; it is made up of the sphere of the fixed stars,
regarded as not resolvable into parts, of the seven
spheres of the planets and of the earth, starting
from the moon. According to some of these theo-
logians, each of the inferior worlds received a
portion of its power from the superior worlds and
shared in their energy, and the source of all force
and all virtue resided in the highest sphere, one
and indivisible, which regulated the movements
of all the other parts of the universe.

But this is not the theory which triumphed in

124 Astrology and Religion

the Roman empire. Rather it was supposed that
the motive power, which set in motion all the cos-
mic organism, came from the Sun, and thus the
Sun was raised to the rank of a Supreme God.*
This Sun-worship was the logical result of a pagan-
ism steeped in erudition, which had become a re-
ligious form of cosmology. Renan' once observed :
"The life of our planet has its real source in the
sun. All force is a transformation of the sim.
Before religion had gone so far as to proclaim that
God must be placed in the absolute and the ideal,
that is to say, outside of the world, one cult only
was reasonable and scientific, and that was the
cult of the Sun." The worship of Sun and Moon
preceded that of the other planets, and even when
the system of "the Seven" was constructed by
astronomy, a distinction was made between the
great luminaries which preside over day and night
and the five other wandering stars. But it is a
remarkable fact that at first the primacy was
assigned to the Moon. It was only by slow degrees
that the ancients discovered the imequalled im-
portance in the cosmic system as a whole of the

* See my paper, La TheologU solaire du Paganisme romain
(M6m. Acad. Inscr., xii.). Paris, 1909.

*Renan, Dialogues et Fragments philosophiques, 1876, p. 168.

Theology 125

heavenly body which gives us light and, to say the
truth, they never attained to the fulness of the
idea. Thus it is that, if we go back to the earliest
historical times, we see that in Babylonia the prin-
cipal god — for he was endowed with the male sex,
— was the Moon, Sin, which regulariy precedes
Shamash, the Sun. This god preserved the chief
place at Carrhae in Osroene and throughout a large
part of Anatolia up to the time of the Roman
Empire. The predominance of the worship of
Men, as he was called in Asia Minor, is due to the
persistence in this remote country of ancient ideas,
elsewhere out of date.

In hot countries the sim is, above all, an enemy,
against which men protect themselves, and the
dwellers in the scorching plains of Mesopotamia
preferred to the star "Whose burning heat inflamed
the air, parched the land, and exhausted the body,
that star whose gentle light illumined, without
menacing, them. In the freshness of the night the
Moon shed the wholesome dews, and her bright-
ness, then as now, guided caravans across the
desert. Everywhere her phases, obvious to all
eyes, served to measure time before the duration
of the year was known, and sacred calendars regu-

126 Astrology and Religion

lated religious ceremonies and civil life according
to her course. When her face was hidden, a fear-
ful portent was seen in this eclipse, and there was
attributed to this powerful divinity a multitude
of mysterious influences, the recollection of which
survived in astrology and was indefinitely per-
petuated in popular superstitions. To it also were
attributed strange effects on the growth of plants
and on the health of women. As is often the case,
the goddess retained in common belief the power
of which theology had robbed her. However,
she was never entirely deprived of her authority.
In Egypt in spite of very early attempts to estab-
lish the undivided sovereignty of the Sun Ra, in
the end, in heaven as on earth, preference was
given over single sovereignty to the joint power
of sister and brother, of wife and husband, of Isis
and Osiris. This dualism still inspires the Alexan-
drine mysteries of the epoch of the Ptolemies, and
is reaffirmed in the theories of Egyptian astrologers
who divided the supremacy over the other five
planets between the "two eyes of heaven."

But among the Semitic peoples an erudite
clergy, hereditarily devoted to the study of the
starry sky, drew more boldly the religious con-

Theology 127

elusions of their scientific discoveries. Little by
little they established the primary importance of
the sun in the celestial mechanism, and they asser-
ted its pre-eminence more confidently in proportion
as they imderstood it better.

Continually placing it farther and farther off in
space, these priests acquired a more and more cor-
rect idea of its formidable dimensions. When they
had studied its revolutions, they realised what
relations connected it with physical phenomena
and with the succession of the seasons. The final
blow was struck at the ancient prestige of the
moon when it was discovered that she shines with
a borrowed or, as they said, a bastard light. Sun-
worship is essentially a learned cult: it grew with
science itself, and was definitely established at the
period when the latter attained its zenith in an-
tiquity. At no other point does one perceive more
clearly the ties which, in the religions of the East,
united intellectual research with the evolution of
belief.

According to the so-called "Chaldean" system,
the sun, as we have seen, ^ occupies the fourth rank
in the series of planets. Three are above it, Mars,

' See above, this Lecture, p. 1 19.

128 Astrology and Religion

Jupiter, and Saturn, and three below it, Venus,
Mercury, and the Moon. In other words, the Sun
moves in the midst of the Iieavenly spheres. It
occupies the central position among the seven
circles of the universe.

The other planets appeared to revolve rotmd it,
or rather to escort it, and astrologers dehghted to
point to the Royal Sun (BaffiXevs "HXios) advan-
cing in the midst of his sateUites, as earthly princes,
whose tutelar star he is, march encircled by their
guards.

Further, the "Chaldeans" had thought out an
original solution of a problem which caused much
perplexity to ancient astronomers, namely, that
presented by the irregular courses of the planets.
They had observed that the apparent advances,
stoppages, and regressions of these latter were
connected with the revolutions of the sxm, — in
reality of the earth, — ^and they had come to the
conclusion that the sun governed their movements :
the Sim was as it were the chorus-leader who di-
rected the rhythmic evolutions of the wandering
stars. It not only drew in its course Mercury and
Venus which, as had been ascertained, were never
more than a short distance from it, but it also

Theology 129

regulated the movements of the three superior
planets, and acted upon them by the force of its
heat in much the same way as upon terrestrial
vapours, which it caused to ascend or descend.
According to the position which it occupies rela-
tively to them, it impels them forwards, arrests
them, or drives them backwards; and this it does
mechanically, exerting its power, like every astro-
logical influence, according to certain angles or
"aspects."

Berosus made a particular application of this
same theory to the phases of the moon, and other
Chaldeans extended this explanation to the move-
ments of comets. They even went so far as to
make the revolutions of the fixed stars depend
upon the sun. The essential idea on which all
these doctrines were based is that the sun in virtue
of its intense heat possesses a power of alternate
repulsion and attraction, which according to its
distance, or the direction of its rays, now drives
the heavenly bodies away from it, and now draws
them towards it, — ^unique focus of energy which
causes them all to move. This mechanical theory,
which contains a sort of anticipation of the doctrine
of imiversal gravitation and of the heliocentric sys-

130 Astrology and Religion

tern, was bound to serve as the basis of a whole
learned theology.

For, as we have said, in the eyes of Chaldean
astronomers the fixed stars, and above all the
planets, are the authors of all the phenomena of
the tmiverse, and nothing here below is produced
save in virtue of their combined activities. That,
then, which rules the complicated play of their
revolutions and their aspects, will be the arbiter
of destiny, the master of all nature. Placed at
the centre of the great cosmic organism, it ani-
mates the whole of it, as the heart supports
human life, and both in scientific treatises and in
mystic hymns men delighted to term it "the heart
of the world "(Karptfj'a tov xoapiov).

Thus the bright star of day, set in the midst of
the celestial spheres, by the power of its heat vivi-
fies the immense macrocosm through which its
fires radiate. Henceforth it will no longer be cele-
brated, in verse and in prose, merely as the power
which, besides light, brings to the world below
warmth, fertility, and joy ; the ancient conception
is amplified and rendered more precise by the touch
of science: the sim will become the conductor of
the cosmic harmony, the master of the four ele-

Theology 131

ments and the four seasons, the heavenly power
which, by the invariable changes of its annual
course, produces, nourishes, and destroys animals
and plants, and by the alternation of day and
night warms and cools, dries or moistens the earth
and the atmosphere. But, above all, in sidereal
religion it will be that supreme regulator of the
movements of the stars which at every moment
inspires their ever-changing motions, that to which
they owe all their qualities and perhaps even (as
some believed) their light. Pliny already recog-
nised it as the sovereign divinity which governed
nature, principale naturae regimen ac numen. ^

But this universe, so well ordered, cannot be
driven by a blind force. The sun, which directs the
harmonious movements of the cosmic organism,
will, then, be a fire endowed with reason, an intel-
ligent light {(p(a? voapdv). It will be regarded
by heathen theologians as the reason which controls
the world, mens mundi et temperatio.' The most
important corollaries will be drawn from this, for
the sun, the reason of the world, will become the
creator of the particular reason which directs the

» PHn., Nat. Hist., n., 5, § 13.
* Cic, Somn. Scip., 4.

132 Astrology and Religion

human microcosm. To it is attributed the forma-
tion of souls. Its glowing disk, darting its rays
upon the earth, constantly sent particles of fire
into the bodies which it called to life, and after
death, as we shall see,* it caused them to re-
ascend to it. Such, in its broad outlines, is the
scientific theology which provided both a foun-
dation and a justification for Roman Sim-worship.
From astronomical speculations the Chaldeans
had deduced a whole system of religious dogmas.
The sun, set in the midst of the superimposed
planets, regulates their harmonious movements.
As its heat impels them forward, then draws them
back, it is constantly influencing, according to its
various aspects, the direction of their course and
their action upon the earth. Fiery heart of the
world, it vivifies the whole of this great organism,
and as the stars obey its commands, it reigns su-
preme over the universe. The radiance of its splen-
dour illumines the divine immensity of the heavens,
but at the same time in its brilliance there is intel-
ligence ; it is the origin of all reason, and, as a tire-
less sower, it scatters unceasingly on the world
below the seeds of a harvest of souls. Our brief
See below, Lecture VI., p. 189.

Theology 133

life is but a particular form of the universal life.
Physical theories, applied to the movements of the
planets to and fro, will be extended to the relations
of the King of the stars with the psychic essences
which are subject to him. By a succession of
emissions and absorptions he will alternately cause
these fiery emanations to descend into the bodies
which they animate, and after death will gather
them up and make them reascend into his bosom.
This coherent and magnificent theology, founded
upon the discoveries of ancient astronomy in its
zenith, gradually imposed on mankind the cult of
the "Invincible Sun" as the master of all nature,
creator and preserver of men.

This Sun-worship was the final form which
Roman paganism assumed. In 274 the emperor
Aurelian, as we have seen, ^ conferred on it official
recognition when, on his return from Syria,
inspired by what he had seen at Palmyra, he
founded a gorgeous temple in honour of Sol invictus,
served by priests who had precedence even over
the members of the ancient Collegium pontificum;
and in the following century, the Claudian emperors
worshipped the almighty star not only as the patron

' See above, Lecture IV., p. 97.

134 Astrology and Religion

but also as the author of its race. The invincible
Sun, raised to the supreme position in the divine
hierarchy, peculiar protector of sovereigns and of
the Empire, tends to absorb or subordinate to
himself all the other divinities of ancient Olympus.
These Emperors thus recognised the superiority
over Roman idolatry of this cosmic religion of the
East, which the speculations of theologians had ele-
vated to a kind of monotheism. A still closer ap-
proach to the Christian conception was obtained.
This astronomic pantheism, which deified the
worid, having the Sun for its centre, readily agreed
with Stoic hylozoism. Without much difficulty it
was harmonised with the ancient theory which
placed the seat of divinity in the highest sphere,
that of the fixed stars; but from the time of its
expansion it was engaged in a struggle against
those who, following Plato and Aristotle, set God
outside the limits of all the universe, representing
him as a Being no longer immanent, but transcend-
ent, distinct from all matter. Philo the Jew was
not the only man to reproach the Chaldeans with
worshipping the creation instead of the creator.
Oriental cults were bound to make early conces-
sions to this idealism, and from the second cen-

Theology 135

tury, even among the Syrian priests, the doctrine
is found to prevail that a Jupiter "Most High"
sits in the ether which spreads above the vault
of the highest heaven {Jupiter summus exsuperan-
tissimus) . The Sun henceforth becomes a subor-
dinate power, a reflexion or sensible expression
of a superior divinity. But in order to avoid
breaking with tradition, from the luminary which
gives us light was detached that universal
"Reason," of which the Sun had hitherto been
the focus, and the existence of another purely
spiritual sun was postulated, which shone and
reigned in the world of intelligence {vospos
xoffjuos), and to this were transferred the qualities
which henceforth appeared incompatible with
matter. We can follow this doctrinal evolution
in the works of the Neo-Platonists, and discern
its termination in the speculations of Julian the
Apostate. The ' * intelligent "Sun {voepos) becomes
the intermediary between the "intelligible" God
{votftog) and the visible imiverse.

We have rapidly sketched the system of theo-
logy which was imposed on the Empire. Let us in
conclusion attempt to set before ourselves what a

136 Astrology and Religion

revolution these ideas produced in paganism. At
the moment when they expanded over the Latin
world, the mass of the people still remained al-
most entirely in the ancient state of idolatry which
was contemporary with the Punic wars, and the
rustic superstitions of the peasants of Latium still
fotmd expression in the pontifical ritual of the Ro-
man people. The learned theology which spread
from the East, elevated and enlarged religious
thought by holding out an infinitely more lofty
conception of divinity. This pantheism stoutly
asserted the unity of the world, governed by a su-
preme intelligence, but in this vast organism, all the
parts of which acted and reacted upon each other,
man, a privileged creature, was connected with the
sidereal gods by a close relationship. His eye per-
ceived their distant light. His divine reason in
virtue of its nature could grasp divine truths. In
place of the inhabitants of Olympus a kind of sup-
ermen, bom in time and exempted only from old
age and death, it conceived everlasting beings,
unwearied and invincible, who ceaselessly ran their
changeless course throughout an endless series of
ages; in place of gods bound to a city or to a coun-
try and, so to speak, adscripti glebae, differing with

Theology 137

the diversity of peoples, it reverenced universal —
or, as they were already called, ' ' catholic ' * — powers,
whose activity, regulated by the revolutions of the
celestial spheres, extended over all the earth and
embraced the whole human race. An almost an-
archical society of Immortals, whose feeble and
capricious will raised doubts as to their power,
was replaced by the idea of a harmonious ensemble
of sidereal gods, who, irresistibly guided by the Sun,
the heart of the world, the source of all movement
and all intelligence, imposed everywhere the inevit-
able laws of omnipotent Destiny, — last but not
least in place of the old methods of divination, now
fallen into discredit, of deceitful portents and
ambiguous oracles, astrology promised to substi-
tute a scientific method, founded on an experience
of almost infinite duration i astrology claimed the
power of deciphering with certainty the hitherto
inscrutable book of the sky, and of determining
the destiny of individuals with the same precision
as the date of an eclipse. ■

We can understand how the amplitude of this
masterly conception would raise men's enthusiasm
and inspire poets, how it would appear like a com-
plete revelation of the world, and how, in combina-

H-i>.

138 Astrology and Religion

tion at first with Stoic philosophy, then modified by
Platonic idealism, the ancient "Chaldean" creed
should have been able so long to resist Chris-
tianity, the triumph of which it had nevertheless
prepared.

The same Semitic race which brought about the
fall of paganism is also that which put forth the
most powerful effort to save it.

LECTURE V

ASTRAL MYSTICISM ' — ETHICS AND CULT

A THEOLOGY which was based on theories of
^^ celestial mechanism, which deified mere ab-
stractions such as Time and its subdivisions, which
attributed a sacred character to numbers them-
selves, must, it would seem, have been repellent
by reason of its dry metaphysical character, t A
creation of astronomers,: it would appear to have
been incapable of appealing to any but an intel-
lectual elite, and of winning over any but specula-
tive minds. We might well be astonished, at first
sight, that a religion so arid and abstruse should
have been able to conquer the ancient world, and
we ask ourselves how it obtained a hold over
men's souls and was able to attract a multitude
of believers.

The answer is that this potent system, which
set itself to satisfy the intelligence, made a yet

' See my paper, Le mysticisme astral dans I'antiguiU (Bulle-
tins de I'Acad. royale de Belgique), Mai, 1909.

139

140 Astrology and Religion

more effective appeal to emotion. If the cults of
the East pretended to answer all the questions
which man asks concerning the world and himself,
they also aimed at stirring his emotions, at arous-
ing in him the raptiu*e of ecstasy.

The leaning towards mysticism, which is one
of the characteristic traits of the Syrian Posidonius,
was shared by all the adepts of "Chaldean " creeds.
We must attempt to analyse here the character
of this sidereal mysticism, an original fonn of
devotion, if there ever was one, a curious and
little known expression of religious feeling in
the days of antiquity, and to show what system
of ethics sprang from it, what form of wor-
ship corresponded to it, and how it was recon-
ciled with fataUsm. After the theory, we pass
on to the practice.

• • • • • ' • •

The magnificent appearance of the glittering
sky has always vividly impressed mankind, and
whoever has enjoyed the soft brilliance of an
Eastern night, will understand how in that coun-
try adoration was naturally excited for the inex-
tinguishable centres of light on high. But this
"cosmic emotion," as it has been termed, varies

Astral Mysticism 141

constantly according to the idea which has been
formed of the universe. There is assuredly an en-
ormous distance between the views of primitive
man, who, when he raised his eyes to the firmament,
sometimes dreaded lest this solid vault should fall
and crush him, and the veneration of a Kant, who,
when considering the stellar systems piled up to
infinity above him, felt himself seized with the same
respectful wonder that he bestowed on the moral
law which he apprehended within him by reason.
The feeling has been developed with the progress
of knowledge, and in proportion to the precision to
which ideas of immensity and eternity attained.
In the Greeks the cosmos did not arouse, as in
ourselves, the troublesome thought of an extension
prolonged to infinity beyond the most distant
nebulae which the telescope can reach. The world
then had limits. Above the sphere of the fixed
stars, which surrounded it on all sides, the ancients
supposed that there was nothing but a void or
ether. Heaven in their astronomy was like the
earth in their geography, a much more limited
expression than it is nowadays. The vastness of
the visible constellations was not so overwhelm-
ing to them as it is to our scientific knowledge,

142 Astrology and Religion

and the distances at which they fixed these bodies,
did not suggest to them as to us a distance so great
that its extent transcends the limits of our imagi-
nation and even figures cannot enable us to realise
it. When they gazed into the depths of space, they
were not seized to the same degree as we with gid-
diness at the abysses, nor crushed by the feeling
of their own littleness. They would not have cried
like Pascal, when meditating on the disproportion
between man and nature, incommensurable and
speechless: "The eternal silence of these boundless
spaces frightens me."' The feeling which struck
the ancients was mainly one of admiration. Seneca '
develops this thought, that the stars, even if we
do not bear in mind the benefits which they diffuse
over our earthly abode, provoke our wonder by
their beauty and demand our veneration by their
majesty.

From the passages which are devoted to cele-
brating their splendour, I will quote only one, the
final touch of which will make clear the entire
difference which separates the ancient from the
modem conception. Manilius ends his fifth book

* "Le silence 6ternel de ces espaces infinis m' effraie." (Pascal,
Pensies.)

' Seneca, De Beneficiis, iv., 23.

Astral Mysticism 143

by a grandiose description of the brilliance of those
moonless nights when even stars of the sixth mag-
nitude kindle their crowded and gleaming fires,
seeds of light amid the darkness. The glittering
temples of the sky then shine with torches more
numerous than the sands of the seashore, than the
flowers of the meadow, than the waves of the
ocean, than the leaves of the forest. "If nature,"
adds the poet, "had given to this miiltitude powers
in proportion to its numbers, the ether itself would
not have been able to support its own flames, and
the conflagration of Olympus would have con-
sumed the entire world."*

We have seen^ how admiration for the beauty
of the cosmos, the discovery of the celestial har-
mony, had led to the declaration of the existence
of a guiding Providence. But this is not the most
characteristic side of the doctrine: all systems of
theology invoke the order of nature as a proof
of the existence of God. What is more original
is that they took this "cosmic emotion" which

' Manil., v., 742:

Cut si pro numero vires natura dedisset,
Ipse suas aether flammas sufferre nequiret,
Totus et accenso mundus flagraret Olympo.

* See above, Lecture IV., p. 102.

144 Astrology and Religion

every man feels and transformed it into a religious
sentiment.

The resplendent stars, which eternally pursue
their silent course above us, are divinities en-
dowed with personality and animated by feel-
ings. On the other hand, the soul is a particle
detached from the cosmic fires. The warmth
which animates the htunan microcosm, is part of
the same substance which vivifies the imi verse,
the reason which guides us partakes of the nature
of those luminaries which enlighten it.* Itself a
fiery essence, it is kin to the gods which glitter
in the firmament. Thus contemplation of the
heaven becomes a communion. The desire which
man feels to fix his eyes long upon the star-
spangled vault, is a divine passion which transports
him. A call from heaven draws him towards the
radiant spaces. In the splendour of the night his
spirit is intoxicated with the glow which the fires
above shed upon him. As men possessed, or as
the corybantes in the delirium of their orgies, he
gives himself up to ecstasy, which frees him from
the trammels of his flesh and lifts him, far above
the mists of our atmosphere, into the serene regions

» See above, Lectures I., p. 34; II., p. 70; IV., p. 131.

Astral Mysticism 145

where move the everlasting stars. Borne on the
wings of enthusiasm, he projects himself into the
midst of this sacred choir and follows its harmoni-
ous movements. Then he partakes in the life of
these luminous gods, which from below he sees
twinkling in the radiance of the ether; before
the appointed hour of death he participates in
their divinity, and receives their revelations in a
stream of light, which by its brilliance dazzles
even the eye of reason.

wSuch are the sublime effusions in which the
mystic eloquence of a Posidonius delights. Never-
theless in this learned theology, whose first authors
were astronomers, erudition never loses its rights.
Man, attracted by the brightness of the sky, does
not only take an unspeakable delight in consider-
ing the rhythmic dance of the stars, regulated by
the harmonies of a divine music produced by the
movements of the celestial spheres. Never weary
of this ever-repeated spectacle, he does not con-
fine himself to enjoying it. The thirst for know-
ledge, which is innate in him, impels him to enquire
what is the nature of these glowing bodies whose
radiance reaches him, to discover the causes and
the laws of their unceasing movements. He aspires

146 Astrology and Religion

to comprehend the course of the constellations
and the sinuous path of the planets, which should
reveal to him the rules of life and the secrets of
destiny. As soon as he approaches the limits of the
heavens, his desire to understand them is inflamed
by the actual facility which he experiences in satis-
fying it. The transports which draw him towards
the higher regions, do not dull but enlighten his
mind. Are not all discoveries of astronomy
revelations of their nature made by the sidereal
gods to their earnest disciples? This mystic con-
templation of heaven, source of all intelligence, will
be the religious ideal of lofty spirits. The astrono-
mer Ptolemy, who of all the savants of antiquity
had perhaps the most influence on succeeding gene-
rations, will forget his complicated calculations
and his arduous researches to sing of this intoxi-
cation. We have preserved the following lines of
his^: "Mortal as I am, I know that I am bom for
a day, but when I follow the serried multitude of
the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer
touch the earth ; I ascend to Zeus himself to feast
me on ambrosia, the food of the gods."

Let us compare this serene ecstasy with the trans-

' Anthol. Palat., ix., 577.

Astral Mysticism 147

ports of Dionysiac intoxication, such as Euripides
for example depicts for us so strikingly in the Bac-
chae, and we shall at once realise the distance
which separates this astral religion from the earlier
paganism. In the one, under the stimulus of wine,
the soul commimicates with the exuberant forces
of nature, and the overflowing energy of physical
life expresses itself in tumultuous exaltation of the
senses and impetuous disorder of the spirit. In
the other, it is with pure light that reason quenches
her thirst for truth; and "the abstemious intoxi-
cation," ' which exalts her to the stars, kindles in
her no ardour save a passionate yearning for divine
knowledge. The source of mysticism is transferred
from earth to heaven.

We, who in our northern towns scarcely perceive
the light of the stars, continually veiled in fogs and
dimmed by smoke, we to whom they are merely
bodies in a state of incandescence moved by me-
chanical forces, we can hardly comprehend the
strength of the religious feeling which they inspired
in the men of old. The indefinable impression
which is produced by the great spectacles of
nature, the desire which possesses us of probing

» Nij^Xtos lUe-ri (Philo).

148 Astrology and Religion

the causes of her phenomena, were in their case
combined with the aspirations of faith towards
these "visible gods," who were ever present to
be worshipped. The passion for knowledge, the
ardour of devotion, were blended in the deep
emotion which was stirred by the idea of a com-
munion between man and the harmony of the
skies.

Think of the prestige which such a theory gave
to the astrologer who is in constant relation with
the divine stars. It is nowhere more clearly
expressed than in a passage of a rhetorician belong-
ing to the Augustan age, Arellius Fuscus.* "He
to whom the gods themselves reveal the future,
who imposes their will even on kings and peoples,
cannot be fashioned," he says, "by the same womb
which bore us ignorant men. His is a superhimian
rank. Confident of the gods, he is himself divine."
Then he adds:

If the pretensions of astrology are genuine, why
do not men of every age devote themselves to this
study? Why from our infancy do we not fix our
eyes on nature and on the gods, seeing that the stars
unveil themselves for us, and that we can live in the
midst of the gods? Why exhaust ourselves in efforts

' Seneca., Suasor., 4.

Ethics and Cult 149

to acquire eloquence, or devote ourselves to the pro-
fession of arms? Rather let us lift up our minds by-
means of the science which reveals to us the future,
and before the appointed hour of death let us taste
the pleasures of the Blest.

This lofty conception, which was formed of
astrology, queen of sciences, this mysticism which
gave it a sacred character, entailed ethical con-
sequences of extreme importance. The mathe-
matici of the Roman empire were the successors
of the ancient Chaldean priests, and they never
forgot it. They love to assume the holy guise of
incorruptible prophets, and to consider the exercise
of their profession as a priesthood. They are fond
of laying stress on the purity of their morals, and
they complacently enumerate all the qualities
which bring them near to the divine nature, —
chastity, sobriety, integrity, self-renunciation. If
others seek fortune at the price of a thousand
efforts, the astrologer, dedicated to arduous
research, is bound to surrender himself entirely
to be penetrated by the intelligence of God.

" Impendendus homo est, deus esse ut possit in ipso.*'*
' Manilius, iv., 407.

150 Astrology and Religion

Thus astrologers, who profess to discover the
mysteries of fate, lead an austere life, or at any
rate they affect it. This is the very condition of
their power. Mortals do not share in the heavenly
ecstasy, unless they have merited it by the mor-
ality of their conduct. Science is a revelation
promised to virtue. Man must be purified from
all defilement in order to render himself worthy
of the society of the gods, and of the knowledge
of heavenly things. This idea, that a man's
vices weigh him down and detain him here below,
is frequently found developed. The doctrine con-
trasts the body formed of earth with the sacred
fire of the spirit. All carnal desires in some meas-
ure materialise this sacred fire at the same time
that they pollute it, and hinder it from ascending
to the ether. On the other hand, if the soul eman-
cipates itself from the passions of the body, it will
be able to fly lightly and easily to the stars. In
the vehement polemic which Posidonius launches
against Epicurus, he reproaches him,* in regard
to his astronomical doctrines, with having been
"bUnder than a mole," and he adds: "No wonder,
for to discover the real nature of things is not the

' Cleomedes, De Motu Circul., ii., i, 5 87.

Ethics and Cult 151

part of men devoted to pleasure, but of those
whose virtuous character makes the good their
ideal, and who do not prefer to it the comfort of
their beloved flesh." The absiu-dity of the cosmo-
graphy professed by the Epicureans is, in his
eyes, a consequence of their dissolute life. Here
we see set forth the idea, so dangerously developed
later, that true knowledge is the reward of piety.

The marvels of nature produce on us a mysteri-
ous impression. The view of immensity elevates
us above the vulgarities of life. This feeling, innate
in man, astral religion has seized upon and devel-
oped splendidly in order to make it a source of
morality. Theologians celebrate the spiritual joys
which this religion has in store for its adepts, the
intensity of which renders all material delights
insipid and contemptible; in a hundred ways they
contrast the meanness of earthly with the splen-
dour of heavenly things. How should the wor-
shippers of the sky take delight in chariot-races,
or be seduced by the songs and dances of the
theatre, they who have the privilege of contem-
plating the gods and of listening to their prophe-
tic voices? How utterly do their thoughts, which
move among the stars, scorn from the heights of

152 Astrology and Religion

this resplendent abode the gilded palaces and the
pompous luxury of wealth! They heap not up
silver and gold, treasures worthy of the dark places
of the earth from which avarice draws them, but
they fill their souls with spiritual riches and make
them masters of all nature, in such wise that their
possessions extend to the confines of the East and
of the West. Even the privations of exile cannot
touch them, since imder all climes they find the
same stars at the same distance from their watch-
ful eyes. Can they but mingle with them, and
their souls moimt to the bright regions to which
they are drawn by their kinship with the heavenly
fires, it matters but little to them what earth they
tread with their feet. Absorbed in her sublime
researches, our reason will disdain the perishable
goods of this life and the gross pleasures of the
multitude. She will free herself from all the carnal
desires aroused in her by the body, fashioned of
earth. Thus devotion to science is surrounded in
sidereal worship with a halo of religion. The
exaltation of intellectual life, which alone is divine,
leads here to asceticism.

Astral mysticism, we see, conceived a blissful

Ethics and Cult 153

state of mind where man, even on earth, freed
himself of all that was earthly, emancipated him-
self from the needs of the body, as from bonds,
and from the impulses bom of it, to devote him-
self to the contemplation of nature and of the
starry sky, which imparted to him direct know-
ledge of divine activity. This ideal, sternly
ascetic, in that it set the satisfaction of bodily
instincts in sharp opposition to the aspirations
of sovereign reason, led to a life of self-renuncia-
tion, illimiined only by the sacred joys of study.
But has man's will the power to choose this happy
lot? Does not astrology formulate a principle
destructive of all morality and all religion, the
principle of fatalism?

Fatalism indeed is the capital principle which
astrology imposed on the world. The Chaldeans
were the first to conceive the idea of Necessity domi-
nating the universe. * This is also one of the ruling
ideas of the Stoics. " An absolute determinism is
implied in all the postulates of the science of
stellar influence on human life, and ManiHus has
expressed it in a striking line:

*See above, Lecture I., p. 28.
» See above, Lecture IL, p. 69.

154 Astrology and Religion

" Fata regunt orbem, certa stant omnia lege."'

The power of this fatalistic conception in ancient
times may be estimated by its long-continued sur-
vival, at least in the East, where it originated.
From the Alexandrine period, it spread over the
whole Hellenic worid, and at the close of paganism
it is still against this doctrine that the efforts of
Christian apologetics are mainly directed, but it
was destined to outlast all attacks and even to
impose itself on Islam. For, Mahommedanism is,
in this respect, the heir of paganism.

The capital objection which its adversaries,
whether heathen or Christian, never ceased to
advance against it, — the dialectic of Carneades
made already brilliant use of this weapon, — is the
same that the defenders of the doctrine of free
will have never ceased to repeat — namely, that
the absence of free will destroys responsibility:
rewards and punishments are meaningless if men
act imder a dominating necessity ; if they are bom
heroes or criminals, moraHty entails no merit and
immorality no reproach. We cannot set forth
here the metaphysical discussions provoked by

» Manil., iv., 14.

Ethics and Cult 155

this controversy, which always has been, and
always will be, carried on. But, from a practical
point of view, Stoicism proved by facts — an irre-
futable argument in ethics — that fatalism is not
incompatible with a manly and active virtue. Nay
more, it was possible to regard it as giving a re-
ligious basis to virtue, if virtue resulted from the
accord of microcosm and macrocosm which found
its highest expression in ecstasy. Some modem
thinkers, like Schleiermacher, have made true reli-
gion consist in the feeling, on the part of the crea-
ture, of absolute dependence on the infinite Cause
of the universe. Astrology, by strengthening this
feeling of dependence, has been a source of real
piety. Its professors elevate to a duty complete
resignation to omnipotent fate, cheerful acceptance
of the inevitable. They declare themselves sub-
missive to destiny even the most capricious, like
an intelligent slave who guesses his master's wishes
in order to satisfy them, and can make the harsh-
est servitude tolerable. This passionate surrender,
this eagerness to submit to divine Fate inspired
certain souls in days of old with feelings so fervent
as to recall the rapture of Christian devotion,
which bums to subject itself to the will of God.

156 Astrology and Religion

It has been observed that the renunciation of
Demetrius, quoted by Seneca,' affords a singular
parallel to one of the most famous Christian
prayers, the "Suscipe" of St. Ignatius, which ends
the book of Spiritual Exercises:

I have but one complaint to address to you, immor-
tal gods, that you did not make me sooner know your
will. I would myself have anticipated what, at your
call, I offer to submit to now. Would you take my
children? It is for you that I have reared them. Do
you desire some part of my body? Take it from me;
it is but a slight sacrifice I make, since I must soon
leave it altogether. Do you desire my life? Why
should I hesitate to restore to you that which you
gave me? ... I am not constrained to aught, I suffer
nought against my will, I am not obedient to God, I
am in accord with him, and the more so, becaiise I
know that everything takes place in virtue of an im-
mutable law proclaimed from all eternity.

It is the ideal of pure Stoicism that is ex-
pressed in this effusion, but, if it cannot be called
anti-religious, it was at least in contradiction to
all established religions. If an irrevocable Destiny
is imposed on us, no sacred ceremony can change
its decrees. Worship is tmavailing, it is idle to
demand from divination the secrets of a future

' Seneca, De Provid., v., 5.

Ethics and Cult 157

which nothing can alter, and prayers — to use an
expression of Seneca^ — are nothing but the con-
solations of sickly souls.

And without doubt certain spirits, as Suetonius
states of the Emperor Tiberius,^ "fully convinced
that everything is ruled by Fate, neglected the
practice of religion." The astrologer Vettius
Valens^ declares it useless. "It is impossible to
defeat by sacrifice that which has been established
from the beginning of time." We must therefore
reverence the superior power which rules the uni-
verse, without demanding aught of it, and we must
content ourselves with the joy which is caused by
a feeling of intimate union of creature with creator.

But ordinary people did not rise to this haughty
ideal of piety. A Peripatetic of the third century,
Alexander of Aphrodisias, has forcibly charac-
terised the want of logic which led the majority
of mankind to act in contradiction to their
theories. ''

Those [he sa)^] who maintain energetically in their
discourses that Fate is inevitable and who attribute

* Seneca, Quast. Nat., ii., 35, " Aegrae mentis solacia."
' Suetonius, Vita Tib., 69.

J Vettius Valens, v., 9 (p. 220, 28 ed. Kroll).

* Alex. Aphrod., De Anima Mantissa, p. 182, 18 ed. Bruns.

158 Astrology and Religion

all events to it, seem to place no reliance on it in the
actions of their own lives. For they call upon For-
tune, thus recognising that it has an action independ-
ent of Fate ; and moreover they never cease to pray
to the gods, as though these could grant their prayers
even in opposition to Fate ; and they do not hesitate
to have recourse to omens, as though it were possible
for them, by learning any fated event in advance, to
guard themselves against it. The reasons which they
invent to establish a harmony between their theories
and their conduct, are but pitifiil sophisms.

And in fact, as a christian writer of the fourth

century observes, if the pagans of Rome were about

to marry, if they intended to make a purchase, or

aspired to some dignity, they hastened to ask the

soothsayer for prognostications, while at the same

time praying the Fates to grant them years of

prosperity.

A fimdamental inconsistency which we noted

I from the beginning* is obvious in all this develop-

I ment of astrology, which professed to become

I an exact science, but which always remained a

I sacerdotal theology. The stars were regarded as

divine at Babylon before the doctrine of imiversal

determinism had been constructed, and this char-

» See above, Lecture I., p. 29.

Ethics and Cult 159

acter was preserved — in defiance of logic. In the
temples of Oriental gods astrology assumed, or
rather maintained, a very different character from
that under which it presented itself in the schools
or the observatories. A didactic treatise like the
Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy, where the effects of the
planets are traced to physical causes, could never
have become the gospel of any sect. In the si-
dereal cults Fortune will no longer be represented
as a goddess blind and deaf, who with unreasoning
favour or implacable malignity makes sport of
deserving and undeserving alike. Less stress will
be laid on the all-powerfulness of Necessity than
upon the divinity of the stars. These were no
longer merely cosmic forces, whose propitious or
unpropitious operation was weakened or strength-
ened according to the windings of a course fixed
from all eternity. The old mythology had not
here been reduced to mathematical formulas. The
celestial bodies had remained gods and goddesses,
endowed with senses and qualities, sometimes
wroth but always placable, who could be pro-
pitiated by prayers and offerings. Occult cere-
monies, magical incantations, had, it was
thought, the power of rescuing even here below

i6o Astrology and Religion

the faithfvil from the enslavement which Destiny
caused to lie heavy on the rest of mankind, nay
more, of bending the celestial spirits to the will of
the believer. Even the theorist Firmicus Mater-
nus, though vigorously asserting the omnipotence
of Fate, invokes the aid of the gods to enable him
to resist the influence of the stars.

Sidereal determinism, pushed to its extreme
consequences, was a theory of despair, the weight
of which crushed the man. He felt himself mas-
tered, overpowered by bHnd forces which impelled
him as irresistibly as they caused the celestial
spheres to move. His mind sought to escape
from the oppression of this cosmic mechanism,
to free itself from the slavery in which *Avayxi^
held it. No longer was reliance placed upon the
ceremonies of ancient cults to rescue him from
the rigour of her dominion, but Oriental religions
provided the remedy for the evil which they had
spread. The new master who has possessed him-
self of the sky will be propitiated by new means.
Not only magic but also mysteries profess to teach
methods for exorcising Fate. They will be able to
appease the wrath of sidereal powers, and to win
their favour by rites and offerings; they will teach

Ethics and Cult i6i

above all how to prolong man's life beyond the
term appointed by Destiny, and to assure him an
immortality of bliss. ^

Thus belief in Fate not only (i) became a source
of moral inspiration to noble minds, but also (2)
, provided a justification of the necessity of positive
[worship.

« • • • • • •

Concerning the worship which was paid to the
stars in the West we possess very few data, even
for the most important of all, that of the Sim. I
will not lay stress on certain details which have
come down to us about the rites of the Moon, the
stars, the signs of the zodiac, etc. We shall only
mention some liturgical practices which have had
permanent results.

It was customary to worship the rising Sun
{Oriens) at dawn, at the moment when its first
rays struck the demons who invaded the earth in
the darkness. Tacitus describes to us how, at
the battle of Bedriacum in 69 A.D., the soldiers of
Vespasian saluted the rising sun with loud shouts
after the Syrian custom.^ In temples thrice a

' See below Lecture VI., p. 182 ss.
» Tacit., Hist., iii., 24.
sz

1 62 Astrology and Religion

day — at dawn, at midday, and at dusk — a prayer
was addressed to the heavenly source of light, the
worshipper tximing towards the East in the morn-
ing, towards the South at midday, and towards the
West in the evening. Perhaps this custom sur-
vived in the three daily services of the early
Church.

A very general observance required that on the
25th of December the birth of the "new Sun"
should be celebrated, when after the winter solstice
the days began to lengthen and the "invincible"
star triumphed again over darkness. It is certain
that the date of this Natalis Invicti was selected by
the Church as the cormnemoration of the Nativity
of Jesus, which was previously confused with the
Epiphany. In appointing this day, universally
marked by pious rejoicings, which were as far as
possible retained, — for instance the old chariot-
races were preserved, — the ecclesiastical authori-
ties purified in some degree the customs which
they coiild not abolish. This substitution, which
took place at Rome probably between 354 and
360, was adopted throughout the Empire, and
that is why we still celebrate Christmas on the
25th of December.

Ethics and Ctilt 163

The pre-eminence assigned to the dies Solis
also certainly contributed to the general recog-
nition of Sunday as a holiday. This is connected
with a more important fact, namely, the adoption
of the week by all European nations. We have
seen that in the astrological system each day was
sacred to a planet. It is probable that the wor-
shipper prayed to the presiding star of each day
in turn. We still possess the text of these prayers
addressed to the planets in the East as in the West.
We have some in Greek, but of a late date, and the
most curious are those of the pagans of Harran
near Edessa, which an Arabic writer has trans-
mitted to us in great detail. Thus, for instance,
to call upon Saturn it was necessary to await the
favourable moment, to don black vestments, to
approach the sacred place humbly, like a man sunk
in sorrow, to bum a perfume composed of incense
and opium mixed with grease and the urine of a
goat, then, at the moment when the smoke arose,
to raise the eyes to the star and say:

" Lord, whose name is august, whose power is wide-
spread, whose spirit sublime, O Lord Saturn the cold,
the dry, the dark, the harmful, . . . crafty sire who
knowest all wiles, who art deceitful, sage, understand-

164 Astrology and Religion

ing, who causest prosperity or ruin, happy or unhappy
is he whom thou makest such. I adjure thee, 0 pri-
meval Father, by thy great mercies, and thy noble
qualities, to do for me this and that!"

"This having been said," continues the text,
which I am abridging, "thou shalt bow thyself
down with humility and contrition, and while
bending thou shalt repeat the prayer several
times."

We do not suppose that in the Roman Empire
devotees would have gone through such compli-
cated ceremonies every day in honour of the
planets, — the great prayer to Jupiter fills not less
than foiu" pages, — but certainly the use of an ana-
logous liturgy in certain cults, notably in the
mysteries of Mithra, contributed largely to the
adoption of the week throughout the Roman
Empire.

This diffusion of the week and even its inven-
tion are much more recent than is usually sup-
posed. It is known that the Jews already divided
time into consecutive groups of seven days ending
with the Sabbath, but these days were not each
imder the patronage of a planet: they were
merely counted. This system of the measurement

Ethics and Ciilt 165

of time originates in the division of the lunar
month into four equal parts. This hebdomadal
period is also foimd elsewhere, but the astrological
week has a much later origin. It is connected with
the general theory of "chronocratories," which
assigned to each planet the dominion over an hour,
a day, a year, and even over a period of a thousand
years ^; and the assignment of each of these to one
of the gods is the result of an ingenious calculation,
which is based on the so-called "Chaldean" ar-
rangement of the planets. Now this arrangement
appears nowhere before the second century B.C.,
and it may be considered certain that our week
is a creation of the Hellenistic period. It was
probably first introduced into the sidereal cults of
Mesopotamia and of Syria, thence passed to Alex-
andria, and it is about the age of Augustus that it
began to supplant in Latin coimtries the old
Roman nundinum of eight days, and it ended by
replacing all local calendars. Adopted by the
Church, in spite of its suspicious origin, it was
imposed on all Christian peoples. When to-day
we name the days Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
we are heathen and astrologers without knowing

' See above, Lecture IV., p. 120.

1 66 Astrology and Religion

it, since we recognise implicitly that the first
belongs to Saturn, the second to the Sun, and the
third to the Moon,

If I may be allowed to conclude with an obser-
vation, which takes us a little away from our sub-
ject, there can perhaps be no more striking proof
of the power and popularity of astrological beliefs
than the influence which they have exercised
over popular language. All modem idioms pre-
serve traces of it, which we can no longer discern
save with difficulty, survivals of vanished super-
stitions. Do we still remember, when we speak of a
martial, jovial, or lunatic character, that it must
have been formed by Mars, Jupiter, or the Moon,
that an influence is the effect of a fluid emitted
by the celestial bodies, that it is one of these " astra''
which, if hostile, will cause me a disaster, and that,
finally, if I have the good fortune to find myself
among you, I certainly owe it to my lucky star?

LECTURE VI

ESCHATOLOGY

TN the previous lecture we showed how, to the
^ astronomer theologians, contemplation of the
sky had become the source of a mystic union with
the divine stars. The sublime joys of ecstasy,
which brings man into communion with the si-
dereal gods, give him but a foretaste of the bliss
which is in store for him when after death his soul,
ascending to the celestial spheres, shall penetrate
all their mysteries. The transient exaltation,
which illumines his intelligence here below, is a
dim foreshadowing of the intoxication which will
be wrought in him by the immediate prospect of
the stars and the full comprehension of truth.
The most ideal pursuits of the sage in this world
are but a faint adumbration of a blessedness which
will be perfected in the life to come.

Thus astral mysticism based upon a psycho-
logical experience the construction of a complete

167

1 68 Astrology and Religion

doctrine of immortality. It glorified its ideal of
earthly life and projected it into the life beyond.
These ideas, as they spread throughout the Roman
world, could not fail to modify profoundly the
whole conception of man's destiny. In to-day's
lecture we shall devote ourselves to exhibiting
this transformation.

• ••••• •

At the beginning of the Empire the ancient
beliefs concerning existence beyond the grave, the
idea that the dead man Uved a gloomy life in the
tomb, sustained by the fimeral offerings of his
descendants, retained hardly any influence, and
the mythological tales about the Styx, Charon's
barque, and the punishments inflicted in the nether
world no longer obtained any credence. Philo-
sophical criticism had shown the absurdity of these
lugubrious chimeras. Greek philosophy in general
aimed at realising the summum bonum in this
world. Of the two great systems which were pre-
dominant at Rome, one flatly denied a future life.
It is well known that Epicurus taught that the
soul is composed of atoms and is dissolved with
the body, and there is no doctrine of the Master on
which his disciples insist with more complacent

Eschatology 169

assurance. Lucretius^ praises him for having
driven from men's minds "this dread of Acheron
which troubles the Hfe of man to its inmost
depths." The other great philosophical school,
Stoicism, showed considerable hesitation concern-
ing the fate in store for our souls. Its various
representatives held different views on this point.
Panagtius, the friend of the Scipios, one of the
writers who contributed most to win Rome over
to the tenets of the Porch, resolutely declined to
believe in a survival of the individual. In reality
it is in this world that true Stoicism places the
realisation of its ideal. For it the aim of existence
is not the preparation for death but the attain-
ment of perfect virtue. By giving freedom from
the passions, virtue confers independence and
felicity. The sage, a happy being, is a god on
earth, and heaven can offer nothing more to him.
In this system eschatological theories had only a
secondary importance, and that explains their
variations.
The negative point of view adopted by Pansetius

'Lucret., III., 37:

Et metus, ille foras praeoeps Acheruntis agendus
Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab into.

170 Astrology and Religion

is that of the majority, perhaps, of the theorists of
astrology. Among those who prided themselves
on philosophy, many denied immortality or at least
doubted it, as for instance Ptolemy, who was in-
fluenced by the ideas of the Peripatetics, or Vettius
Valens, who represents purer Stoicism. Accord-
ing to them the divine spark which animated
bodies, became merged after death in the cosmic
fires, from which it had issued, without preserving
any individuality. From death, then, they ex-
pected nothing but liberation from Destiny, of
which they were the bondsmen here below; hence-
forth they were freed from those cruel necessities
and pitiless vicissitudes to which those beings are
subject who live under the planetary vaults. Their
conception of existence and their highest aspira-
tions were those to which the most antique of
modem poets has given forcible expression ; I mean
Leconte de Lisle, who, adopting a definition of
Alfred de Vigny, declared that life is " a sombre in-
cident between two endless periods of sleep." His
musical and despondent apostrophe is well known ' :

"Et toi, divine Mort, oiX tout rentre et s'efface,
Accueille tes enfants dans ton sein 6toil6,
• Pohnes antiques, " Dies Irae."

Eschatology 171

Affranchis nous du temps, du nombre, et de I'espace,
Et rends nous le repose que la vie a trouble." ^

This pessimism, which regarded amiihilation as
a blessing, might be accepted by certain spirits
and sometimes preached with a kind of passion,
as by Pliny in a famous confession of faith.*
But the majority, without venturing to admit
the certainty of a futiire life, clung to it as
a comfortable hypothesis entertained by certain
thinkers.

We find it hard to resign ourselves to complete
annihilation; even when reason acquiesces in the
destruction of our transitory being, subconsciously
we protest against it. The deep instinct of self-
preservation drives man to desire a continuance of
life, and feeling revolts against the anguish of an
irrevocable separation, against the final loss of all
one loves. Moreover in imperial Rome there were
so many unpunished crimes, so much undeserved
suffering, that men naturally took refuge in the

' O Death divine, at whose recall
Retumeth all
To fade in thy embrace,
Gather thy children to thy bosom starred,
Free us from time, from number, and from space,
And give us back the rest that life hath marred.
» Pliny, Nat. Hist., vii., 55, § 188.

172 Astrology and Religion

hope of a happier future which would repair all the
injustices of a sorrowful present. This is the expla-
nation of the ever-increasing triumph of new the-
ories concerning a life to come. To the scepticism
and the negative views which were prevalent at
the end of the Republic, at least in intellectual
circles, were opposed doctrines taught by the pro-
fessors of the theology which found in Posidonius
its most illustrious exponent. A Stoic, he com-
bines the teaching of the Porch with the idealism
of Plato, who held that the soul, being an imma-
terial essence, must rise to a fairer world. But he
welcomes also, and above all, the religious tradi-
tions of the Syrians, of which he is to be the elo-
quent propagandist.

All Oriental mysteries profess to reveal to their
adepts the secret of attaining to a blessed immor-
tality. In place of the shifting and contradictory
opinions of philosophers concerning the fate of
man after death, these religions offered a cer-
tainty based on a divine revelation and cor-
roborated by the belief of cotmtless generations
which had climg to it. The despairing world
eagerly welcomed these promises, and philosophy,
undergoing a transformation, joined with the

Eschatology 173

ancient beliefs of the East to give to the Empire
a new eschatology.

In point of fact, the different cults conceived
blessedness under very different forms, some of
them gross enough. To the followers of Bacchus
or of the Phrygian Sabazius dnmkenness is divine
possession. The devotee was to be admitted to
the feast of the gods, there to rejoice with them for
ever in a state of pleasant intoxication. The
Alexandrine mysteries of Isis and Serapis diffused
a less material conception of future happiness.
The dead will descend to the nether world in full
possession of his body as well as of his soul, and
will enjoy an eternal rapture in contemplating
face to face the ineffable beauty of the gods, whose
equal he has become. But of the various beliefs
which secured adepts in the Roman world, none was
to become so influential as that of sidereal escha-
tology. This is the purest and most elevated doc-
trine which can be put to the credit of ancient
paganism, and it was to establish a firm hold on
the Western mind.

We shall attempt to show how it developed, by
whom and when it was disseminated, and what dif-
ferent forms it assumed in the Graeco-Roman world.

174 Astrology and Religion

Certain beliefs which are found, side by side
with many others, among primitive peoples, regard
the spirits of the dead as departing to inhabit the
moon or the sun, or even fancy that their ever-
growing host forms the multitude of stars or
crowds the long track of the Milky Way. This
very ancient idea received a new significance when
philosophers, as far back as Heraclitus, taught that
the soul is of the same nature as the ether, which
is, as it were, the soul of the universe. Just as
the one causes our bodies to move, the other, they
said, caused the stars to fly across the spaces of the
heavens. At death the body fell to dust and was
reunited with the earth, but the glowing breath
which had animated it, ascended to the luminous
fluid that extended above the clouds, and coalesced
with this subtle air, which was the source of all
life. The official epitaph on the Athenians who
fell at Potidaea in 432 B.C., expresses the convic-
tion that the ether has received into its bosom the
souls of these heroes as the earth has received their
bodies. '

' Corp. Inscr. Att., i., 442: AW^p ixiv }//vxiti inreSi^a'ro, (rdfiara 8i

Eschatology 175

There we have an opinion wide-spread in the
fifth century from one end of the Hellenic world to
the other. In opposition, then, to the views of the
Homeric age and of popular belief, these doctrines
taught that the abode of souls was neither the
tomb nor the nether realm of Pluto, but the upper
zone of the universe. Some, with greater exacti-
tude, made them the companions of the stars,
whose divinity philosophers devoted themselves
to proving. ' The two ideas are closely related, for
the affinity of gods and men is an eminently Greek
idea. Some sects of mystics — Orphic or Pytha-
gorean— taught that the spirits of the dead de-
parted to dwell in the moon, or to shine among the
constellations. Thus Aristophanes* transforms
the Pythagorean poet. Ion of Chios, the friend of
Sophocles, into the morning star. In Plato's view
souls which have made a good use of their lives
retiuTi to inhabit the heavenly bodies, which
served as their dwelling-place before birth, and
there partake of the bliss of a divine existence.

Moreover, the Greeks, as we have seen,^ had
long before told how certain heroes of fable had

' See above, Lecture II., p. 39 sqq.

' Aristoph., Pax, 831.

» See above, Lfecture IV., p. 1 17.

176 Astrology and Religion

been transported to heaven in reward for their
exploits. Hercules, Perseus and Andromeda, the
Dioscuri Castor and Pollux, and many others had
thus been metamorphosed into constellations.
" Catasterism " forms the dinoHment of a number
of mythological stories. Hence it did not appear
bold to assign to eminent men of the day the same
destiny as to the heroes of the past, and no one
saw anything offensive in the supposition that
their divine spirits took a place in the sky.
The astronomer Conon did not hesitate even to
recognise there the lock of hair which queen
Berenice had dedicated to Aphrodite, and which
became thenceforth a new cluster of stars. All
persons, animals, and objects whose image men
professed to find in the celestial vault, thus had
their legends which connected them with some
mythological episode or some historical event.

These doctrines, which in this way gradually
spread over classical Greece, were to be taken up
and transformed by the Stoics. To the disciples
of Zeno the soul of man is a portion of that divine
fire in which their pantheistic naturalism saw at
once the productive force and the intelligence of
the world. Htmian reason, a particle of this imi-

Eschatology 177

versal reason, was conceived as a breath, a fiery-
emanation. Now the stars are the most brilliant
manifestation of the cosmic fire. The philosophy
of the Porch, then, favoured the belief that the ;
soul was united with the heavenly bodies by a spe- i
cial relation, and thus Stoicism was readily recon- '
ciled with astrology. It is a remarkable fact that
this doctrine was defended, in the second century
before our era, notably by Hipparchus, who was
not only one of the great astronomers but a con-
vinced adept of astrological theories, and, as we
have seen, ^ Pliny applauds him warmly for having
proved better than any one else that man is related
to the stars and that our souls are "a part of the
heaven."

Yet the pure Stoics, as we said above, while fully
admitting the continued existence of this divine
essence which warms and governs the body, in-
clined to the belief that after death it was reab-
sorbed into the tmiversal fire without retaining
any individuality. But very early this philosophy
was led to make concessions to popular beliefs.
Certain of its professors sought to bring the new
principles which were formtilated in the sphere of

» See above, Lecture II., p. 70. .

178 Astrology and Religion

physics and psychology into agreement with the
mystic ideas propagated by the religious sects
which began to spread from Asia over the Graeco-
Latin world. Posidonius, let us recall the fact,
was the most active agent in bringing about this
syncretism between East and West, and his pupil
Cicero gives us in the Dream of Scipio the earliest
statement of this eschatology at Rome: The
souls of those who have deserved immortality
will not descend to the depths of the earth, they
will rise again to the starry spheres. We shall
return several times to this remarkable Dream.

A number of inscriptions attest the extent to
which this belief had spread by the first century be-
fore our era. There is an unlimited choice of exam-
ples to quote. Thus an epitaph on a girl thirteen
years old discovered in the island of Thasos^ says:
** In this tomb lies the body of a young maiden,
anthophoros (flower-bearer) of Ceres, carried off by
the merciless Fates. But her soul by the good-will
of the Immortals dwells among the stars and takes
its place in the sacred choir of the blest." Here is a
Latin epitaph, ' one among many of the same kind:

» Kaibel, Epigr. Gr., 324.

' Buecheler, Carmina Epigr., 61 1.

Escliatology 179

"My divine soul shall not descend to the shades;
heaven and the stars have borne me away; earth
holds my body, and this stone an empty name."
Epigraphy proves that these ideas of a future life
became gradually prevalent. They were more and
more generally accepted under the Roman Empire
in proportion as Oriental religions acquired more
authority, and in the last days of paganism they
exerted a preponderating influence.

After this rapid sketch of the historical develop-
ment of sidereal eschatology, we shall attempt to
trace the outlines of the doctrine and to show its
varieties.

We shall have to examine four points:

1. Who obtains astral immortality?

2. How does the soul ascend to heaven?

3. Where is the abode of the blest to be found?

4. How is the blessedness that is vouchsafed to
them conceived?

I. Who is it that wins the boon of this sidereal
immortality?

It appears certain that in the East it was at first
reserved for those monarchs who, while still on

i8o Astrology and Religion

earth, were raised by the reverence of their sub-
jects above their fellow-men and put almost, or
altogether, on a level with the heavenly powers.
Traces of this primitive conception survived even
at Rome. According to a tradition which is echoed
by Manilius, * Nature first revealed her mysteries
to the minds of kings, whose lofty thoughts reach
the simimit of the heavens. Another doctrine was
also taught, that the divine souls of sovereigns
come from a higher place than those of other men,
that the greater a man's dignity, the greater is the
dower he gets from heaven. But, in a general way,
the rites employed to ensure immortality to kings
by putting them on a level with the gods, were by
degrees extended to important members of their
entourage. This was a sort of privilege, of post-
humous nobility, which was conferred on great
ministers of state, or which they usurped, long
before the common crowd of the dead attained it.
Such is the idea to which Cicero gives expression in
the Dream of Scipio': "To all those who have
saved, succoiired, or exalted their fatherland, there
is assigned a fixed place in heaven, where they

* Manil., i., 41.

• Cic, Somn. Scip., c. 3.

Eschatology i8i

will enjoy everlasting bliss, for it is from heaven
that they who guide and preserve states have de-
scended, thither to reascend." This is the repub-
lican paraphrase of the doctrine of the divinity of
kings. But if an ex-consul is thus willing to accord
apotheosis to statesmen, philosophers claim it for
sages, men of letters for great poets, and artists
for creative geniuses. Here the old Greek worship
of heroes, combined with belief in "catasterism,"
comes in to enlarge the narrow conception of mon-
archy. Hermes Trismegistus^ taught that there
were different kinds of royal souls, for there is a
royalty of spirit, a royalty of art, a royalty of
science, even a royalty of bodily strength. All
exceptional men resemble the gods, and the people
were loath to believe that they perished for ever.
Some modem writers have shared this sentiment.
"That a Shah of Persia or a critic of Milan," said
Carducci, who had suffered at the hands of the
latter class, " dies irrevocably, I believe, and I con-
gratulate myself on the belief. But that Mazzini
or that Dante Alighieri is utterly dead, I am
entirely unconvinced . ' '

Among those heroes whose merits had opened
' Herm, Trisra, ap. Stobaeum, EcL, p. 466, Wachsmuth.

1 82 Astrology and Religion

to them the gates of heaven, — "virtus recludens
immeritis mori caelum," as Horace puts it,* — the
military monarchies of the East placed in the fore-
front the warriors who had died sword in hand in
defence of their coimtry, or rather of their king.
This doctrine, which was deep-rooted particularly
in Syria, has been preserved, as is well known, in
Islam. But, side by side with these valiant soldiers,
pious priests also were judged to merit immor-
tality, or rather they adjudged it to themselves.
Who could be more worthy to mount to the stars
than those who, while yet on earth, lived in their
society and in contemplation of them? Then,
when Oriental mysteries spread, they all professed
to prolong the existence of the initiated beyond the
hour of death appointed by Destiny and to ex-
empt them from the fatal law imposed on man-
kind. Participation in the occult ceremonies of
worship becomes an infallible means of securing
salvation. The gods welcomed amongst them
the faithful who had served them fervently and
had purified themselves by the scrupulous per-
formance of rites.

But the demands of a less exclusive morality

* Horace, Odes, iii., 2, ai.

Eschatology 183

did not allow happiness beyond the grave to be
secured as the reward of sectarian piety. Side by
side with devotional observances the practice of
more essentially human virtues was demanded.
The purity necessary to salvation, which was |
originally ritual purity, now became spiritual.
Though priests doubtless insisted strongly on the
fulfilment of religious duties, the more philo-
sophical theologians looked, above all, to the
psychological conditions necessary for translation
to heaven. We have indicated in dealing with
the subject of ecstasy,^ — and we shall return to
it shortly, — how souls made gross by carnal pas- ■
sions were unable to ascend to the abode of the
gods of light. For those who have not kept
themselves pure throughout their lives, a post-
humous purification is indispensable.

2. This brings us to the second question which
we have set before oiu-selves : How did souls rise
to the stars ?

It may be said that originally they made use of
every method of locomotion: they ascended to

» See above, Lecture V., p. 150.

184 Astrology and Religion

heaven on foot, on horseback, in carriages, and
they even had recourse to aviation. Among the
ancient Egyptians the firmament was conceived
as being so close to the mountains of the earth that
it was possible to climb up to it with the aid of a
ladder. Although the stars had been relegated
to an infinite distance in space, the ladder still
survived in Roman paganism as an amulet and
as a symbol. Many people continued to place in
tombs a small bronze ladder which recalled the
naive beliefs of distant ages ; and in the mysteries of
Mithra a ladder of seven steps, made of seven
different metals, still symbolised the passage of the
soul across the planetary spheres.

Though it had become difficult to reach heaven
on foot, it was still possible to get there on horse-
back,— on the back of a winged horse. Thus the
large cameo of Paris called "The Apotheosis of
Augustus," represents a prince of his house, Ger-
manicus or Marcellus, borne by a "Pegasus,"
which doubtless has no connection with Bellero-
phon's moimt. Sometimes a griffin is preferred to
Pegasus: the monster flies heavenwards carrying
on its sturdy back the deceased raised to the level
of the gods. The dead, however, more frequently

Eschatology 185

travelled in a car, — the car of the Sun. The
idea that the divine charioteer drives a team
across the heavenly fields existed in very eariy .
times in Syria as well as in Babylon, Persia, and
Greece. The horses of fire and the chariot of fire, 1
which carried up the prophet Elijah in a whirl-
wind, are very probably the horses and chariot of
the Sun. In the same way, when Mithra's mission
on earth was fulfilled, he had been conveyed in the
chariot of Helios to the celestial spheres over the
ocean, and the happy lot which the hero had won
for himself he granted also to his followers. The
Emperors in particular were commonly reputed to
become companions of the Sun-god after death,
as they had been his protegSs in life, and to be con-
ducted by him in his chariot up to the summit of
the eternal vaults.

Finally, there is a very wide-spread belief of
Syrian origin that souls fly to heaven on the back
of an eagle.' According to the story, Etana in
Babylon, like Ganymede in Greece, had been
carried off in this way. The pious shared this

* For further details see my paper "L'aigle fun^raire des Sy-
riens et I'apoth^ose des empereurs" {Revue de Vhistoire des relig-
ions), 1910.

1 86 Astrology and Religion

happy lot. This is why the eagle is used as the
ordinary decorative motif on sepulchral stelae at
Hierapolis, the holy city of the great Syrian god-
dess, and it appears with the same meaning in the
West. At the funeral rites of Emperors at Rome
there was always fastened to the top of the pyre on
which the corpse was to be consumed, an eagle,
which was supposed to bear aloft the monarch's
soul, and art frequently represents the busts of the
Caesars resting on an eagle in the act of taking
flight, by way of suggesting their apotheosis. The
reason is that in the East the eagle is the bird of
the Baals, solar gods, and it carries to its master
those who have been his servants in the world
below.

All these supposed methods of reaching heaven
are very primitive : they start from the supposition
that a load has to be carried; they hardly imply
a separation of body and soul, and they are an-
terior to the distinctions which philosophers es-
tablished between different parts of man's being.
They are religious survivals of very ancient con-
ceptions, which only vulgar minds still interpreted
literally.

The same idea is involved when magicians by

Eschatology 187

secret processes professed to assure the credulous
of the possibility of raising themselves upwards.
If we are to believe Amobius, * they asserted that
they could cause wings to grow from the backs of
their dupes, so as to enable them to fly up to the
stars. One of the wonders which miracle-mongers
most frequently boasted of working was that of
soaring up into the air. The phenomena of levita-
tion are produced at all periods. The power which
magic professed to bestow on its adepts, is merely
one particular application of this art to eschatology
or rather to deification {anaOavatiffpio?). Of this
the papyrus erroneously called a "Mithraic lit-
urgy " is the most typical example.'

These mechanical means of raising oneself, body
and soul, to the starry vault could still be recog-
nised by superstition, which picks up all the ideas
that have dropped out in the evolution of beliefs.
They carry us back to an extremely low stage of
religion, as we said. Hence theologians no longer
accepted them save as symbols. Other doctrines
of a more advanced character were developed,

» Amob., Adv. Nat., n., 33, 62 (p. 65, 5; 97, 27, Reifferscheid).
' Dieterich, Eine MithrasUturgie, 1910, compare my Oriental
Religions (19 11), p. 260,

1 88 Astrology and Religion

and these constituted the true teaching of the great
Oriental mysteries, just as they had secured the
adhesion of thinking men. They connected the
ascent of the soul after death with physical and
ethical theories, and thus caused sidereal immor-
tality to enter into the order of the imiverse.
They either appealed to solar attraction, or based
their doctrine on the actual nature of the soul.

The Pythagoreans already believed that the
glittering particles of dust which danced ceaselessly
in a sunbeam {^vofxara), were souls descend-
ing from the ether, borne on the wings of light.
They added that this beam, passing through the
air and through water down to its depths, gave
life to all things here below. This idea persisted
under the Empire in the theology of the mysteries.
Souls descended upon the earth, and reascended
after death toward the sky, thanks to the rays of
the sun, which served as the means of transport.
On Mithraic bas-reliefs, one of the seven rays which
surroimd the head of Sol Invictus, is seen dispro-
portionately prolonged towards the dying Bull
in order to awake the new life that is to spring
from the death of the cosmogonic animal. But this
ancient belief was brought into connection with

Eschatology 189

a general theory held by the Chaldeans. * We saw
that in the eyes of astrologers the human soul was
an igneous essence, of the same nature as the celes-
tial fires. The radiant sun continually caused
particles of his resplendent orb to descend into
the bodies which he called to life. Conversely,
when death has dissolved the elements of which
the human being is composed, and the soul has
quitted the fleshly envelope in which it was impris-
oned, the sun elates it again to himself. Just as
his ardent heat causes all material substances to
rise from the earth, so it draws to him again the
invisible essence that dwells in us. He is the
*AvayGoy€vs, "he who brings up from below," who
attracts the spirit out of the flesh that defiles it. By
a series of emissions and absorptions he in turn sends
his burning emanations into bodies at birth and
after death causes them to reascend into his bosom.

In this theory it is to the power of the sun, the!
great cosmic divinity, that the ascension of the!
soul is due. According to another doctrine men-
tioned above, which we are now going to consider
more closely, the cause of this ascension is the
physical nature of the soul. i

« See above, Lecture IV., p. 131 ss.

190 Astrology and Religion

This doctrine is set forth with great precision
by Cicero in the Tusculan Disputations,^ doubt-
less after Posidonius. The soul is a fiery breath
{anima inflammata) — that is to say, its substance
is the lightest in this universe composed of four
elements. It necessarily, therefore, has a tend-
ency to rise, for it is warmer and more subtle
than the gross and dense air which encircles the
earth. It will the more easily cleave this heavy
atmosphere, since nothing moves more rapidly
than a spirit. It must, therefore, in its con-
tinuous ascent, pass through that zone of the
sky where gather the clouds and the rain, and
where rule the winds, which, by reason of ex-
halations from the earth, is damp and foggy.
When finally it reaches the spaces filled by an
air that is rarefied and warmed by the sim, it finds
elements similar to its own substance, and, ceas-
ing to ascend, it is maintained in equilibrium.
Henceforth it dwells in these regions, which are its
natural home, continually vivified by the same
principles that feed the everlasting fires of the
stars.

This theory made it easier than the previous

» Tusc. Disp., i., 43, § i8.

Eschatology 191

theory had done to establish a firm connexion
between ethical beliefs concerning future destiny
and physical theories about the constitution of
the universe and the nature of man. We have
seen'' that virtue was conceived as liberation from
the dominion of the flesh; the soul is never purely
spiritual or immaterial, but when it abandons
itself to the passions, it becomes gross, its sub-
stance grows more corporeal, if I may use the
expression, and then it is too heavy to rise to the
stars and gain the spheres of light. Its mere
density will compel it to float in our mephitic
atmosphere until it has been purified and conse-
quently lightened. Thus the door is opened to
all doctrines concerning punishment beyond the
grave. How did pagans conceive this Purgatory
situated in the air?

There is a very old opinion that the soul is a
breath and that, at the moment when it escapes
through the mouth of the dying man, it is carried
away by the winds. Thus the atmosphere was
filled with wandering souls, which became demons
with power to succour or harm mortals. The
origin of these beliefs goes back to the most primi-

* See above, p. 183, and Lecture V., p. 150.

192 Astrology and Religion

tive animism. But the mysteries introduced into
them the idea of purification. Souls tossed by
whiriwinds are freed from defilements contracted
during life, just as linen hung in the air is bleached
and loses all odour. When, after being thus buf-
feted and blown about by the winds, souls are puri-
fied from part of their sins, they rise to the zone
of the clouds, where they are drenched by rain and
plunged into the gulf of the upper waters. Thus
cleansed from the stains that polluted them, they
reach at last the fires of heaven, whose heat
scorches them. Not till they have undergone this
threefold trial, during which they have passed
through countless years of cruel expiation, do
they find at length everlasting peace in the
serenity of the ether.

Virgil alludes to this doctrine in the famous line
of the sixth book of the ^neid, * where, speaking
of souls, he says:

Aliae panduntur inanes
Suspensae ad ventos, aliis sub gurgite vasto
Infectum eluitur scelus aut exuritur igni.

Again, the passage of souls through the elements
is represented symbohcally on a fimeral monument

» Virgil, JEn., vi., 740.

Eschatology 193

almost contemporary with the poet. Above
the portrait of the deceased there appear first
in the spandrels of this cippus, two busts of the
Winds facing each other. Higher up, on the
architrave are two Tritons and two dolphins, which
evidently represent the idea of the aqueous ele-
ment. Finally, at the top of the stone, in the
pediment, we see two lions which, as on the Mith-
raic monuments, are symbols of fire, the igneous
principle. *

Side by side with physical ideas, mj^hological
beliefs always retained their sway. Various sects
professed to assure to the deceased a passage
through these regions peopled by malevolent
demons: they taught their members prayers which
would propitiate hostile powers; they instructed
them in formulae, consisting of veritable "pass-
words," which would compel the commandants
{apxovrss)^ posted to guard the gates of
heaven, to allow them to enter the upper sphere.
Here is a legacy from the ancient religions of the
East. The Egyptian Book of the Dead is a verit-
able guide to the other world, and the Orphic
tablets of Petilia are of the same character. The

» Jahresb. Inst. Wien, xii. (1910), p. 213.
13

194 Astrology and Religion

papyrus of Paris, called a Mithraic liturgy, affords
us the most characteristic example of the use of
these magical processes.

But more often the priests professed to give the
soul a god to lead it on its perilous journey
through the whirlwinds of air, water, and fire to
the starry heavens. "Among the dead," says a
funeral inscription,* "there are two companies:
one moves upon the earth, the other in the ether
among the choirs of stars; I belong to the latter,
for I have obtained a god as my guide." This
divine escort of souls frequently retains the name
of Hermes in conformity with ancient Greek
mythology. An epigram belonging to the first
century of our era apostrophises the deceased in
these words: "Hermes of the wingM feet, taking
thee by the hand, has conducted thee to Olympus
and made thee to shine among the stars."' But
more often the r61e of escort now devolves upon
the Sun himself: We have seen^ that at the end
of paganism the royal star is figured as carrying
mortals in his flying chariot. Those who had not

»Kaibel, Epigratntn. Grceca, 650.

* Haussoullier, Revue de phUologie, 1909, p. 6.

» See above, p. 185.

Eschatology 195

by their piety merited the protection of the god
whose duty it was to escort and introduce them,
and who nevertheless ventured up to heaven, were
cast headlong into the perpetually raging gulf of
the warring elements which fought imceasingly
around the earth.

3. The lowest of the seven planetary spheres, that
of the moon, separates the domain of the violent
and restless elements and of beings subject to fate,
from that of the eternal gods, where all is order and
regularity. What becomes of the souls that enter
this celestial zone, and where are they stationed?
In other words, where is the abode of the blest? —
the third question which we have to examine.

The masses did not attain to very precise ideas
on this subject: they hesitated, they contented
themselves with the general assertion that the soul
is "among the stars." At the beginning of their
poems, Lucan addressing Nero and Statius address-
ing Domitian both asked what part of heaven
these Emperors will inhabit after their apotheosis^ :
Will they mount on the flaming chariot of the Sun?
will they take their place as new stars among the

' Lucan, i., 45 ss. Stat., Thebaid., i., 22.

196 Astrology and Religion

constellations? Or even will Jupiter himself in
the height of the heavens yield to them his
sceptre? In the same way theologians doubted
where to place the Elysian Fields. The Stoics had
already emphatically declared that they were not
situated in the depths of the earth, as the ancient
Greeks beheved. In conformity with their system
of physical interpretations of m5rthological names,
Acheron became in their eyes the air, Tartarus
and Pyriphlegethon the zones of fire and hail.
As for the Elysian Fields, they are foimd to be
located sometimes in the moon, sometimes
between the moon and the sun, sometimes in the
sphere of the fixed stars and particidarly in the
Milky Way, sometimes beyond this extreme sphere
of the heavens, outside the limits of the world.
Among the various doctrines there are two of which
we have more precise information from ancient
authors. One is set forth by Plutarch after De-
metrius of Tarsus*: it is a combination of the
ideas of Posidonius with the religious beliefs of the
mysteries. According to this doctrine, man is
composed of body {<J<^h^), nutritive soul {^^XV),

' Plut., De Facie in Orbe Lunae, c. 26; cf. my Thiologie solaire,
pp. 464, 475.

Eschatology 197

and reason (yovs). The body is made of earth;
the vital principle, which nourishes it and causes
it to grow, is lunar; reason comes to us from the
sun. Death severs from the body the nutritive
soul and the rational soul ; the former is dissolved in
the moon, the latter ultimately, after complete
purification, reascends to its original source, the
fount of all light.

This doctrine was adopted by those who re-
garded the Sun as the principal god. But when, as
we have explained, ' paganism renounced the view
that the Sun is the lord of the world, the Prime
Cause, and set the Supreme Being beyond the
limits of the sensible world, enthroning him above
the planetary spheres in the highest of the heavens,
the abode of the blest was naturally transferred
to the seat of divinity ; and a theory, more com-
plicated than that of solar immortality, but doubt-
less only a development of it, prevailed towards
the end of the Roman empire.

This psychology, which owed its triumph to the
astrological cults of Asia, professed to establish
a seven-fold division in the soul, to which cor-
responded seven creations. It taught that our

» See above, Lecture IV., p. 134.

198 Astrology and Religion

soul descends from the height of heaven to this
sublunary world, passing through the gates of
the planetary spheres, and thus at its birth the
soul acquires the dispositions and the qualities
peculiar to each of these stars. After death it
regains its celestial home by the same path. Then,
as it traverses the zones of the sky, which are
placed one above another, it divests itself of the
passions and faculties which it has acquired during
its descent to earth, as it were of garments. To
the moon it siurenders its vital and alimentary
energy, to Mercury its cupidity, to Venus its
amorous desires, to the sun its intellectual capaci-
ties, to Mars its warlike ardour, to Jupiter its
ambitious dreams, to Satiun its slothful tenden-
cies. It is naked, disencumbered of all sensibility,
when it reaches the eighth heaven, there to enjoy,
as a sublime essence, in the eternal light where live
the gods, bliss without end.

All these doctrines, then, in spite of differences
in detail, taught that souls, descended from the
light above, were raised to the region of the stars,
where they dwelt forever with these radiant divini-
ties. This eschatology of * * Chaldean ' ' origin grad-
ually displaced all others under the Empire. The

Eschatology 199

Elysian Fields, which not only the ancient Greeks,
but also the followers of Isis and Serapis still lo-
cated in the depths of the earth, were transferred
to the ether which laves the stars, and the sub-
terranean world became henceforth the gloomy
abode of malevolent spirits. This conception, a
novelty in Europe, had long been that of Persian
dualism, which the mysteries of Mithra imported
into the West. Their theology systematically con-
trasts the infernal darkness, into which are plunged
demons and reprobates, with the bright abodes of
the gods and the elect.

• • • • • • •

4. Before concluding this lecture, we have still
a fourth question to examine: What conception
was formed of the bliss reserved for the elect who
were raised to the stars?

We have seen (p. 173) that the mysteries of
Bacchus and Thracian Orphism represented
immortality as a sort of holy intoxication: the
faithful, sharing the banquet of the gods, rejoiced
with them for ever at a feast liberally supplied with
wine. These beliefs were combined with sidereal
eschatology, only the locality of the repast was
transferred to the new Olympus, and the idea of

200 Astrology and Religion

a celestial banquet was to survive up to the end
of paganism and to impose itself, at any rate as
a symbol, even on Christianity.

But Plato had already ridiculed those who
looked upon ceaseless wine-bibbing as the highest
reward of virtue, and the author of the Epinomis
already conceived eternal life as the contem-
plation of the most beautiful things which eye
can perceive — that is, the constellations. This
idea was developed in the sidereal cults, and Posi-
donius was to set forth in stately language how the
contemplation of the sky and the study of the stars
is the preparation for another existence, in which
human reason will know the fulness of the sublime
joy which a transient ecstasy causes it here below.
As soon as it is delivered from the trammels of the
flesh, the soul will soar to these lofty regions,
whither it has hitherto been unable to escape
except at intervals. Flying across the immensity
of space, it will reascend to the stars from which it
descended. Embracing in its view the entire cir-
cuit of the world, it will perceive our globe as a
scarcely visible point, or as an ant-heap for the
dominion of which a host of minute insects con-
tend. This earth, frozen in the north, scorched in

Eschatology 201

the south, submerged all round by the ocean,
intersected by deserts, devastated and defiled, is
uninhabitable except here and there. How con-
temptible will appear to the soul the narrowness of
its former dwelling, how empty the ambition of
those who dream of no other immortality than
glory in this finite realm ! As soon as it reaches
the starry spheres, reason is nourished and expands ;
in its former home it regains its original qualities;
it rejoices among the divine stars; it contemplates
all the glory of the bright heaven, and at the same
time it is ravished by the accordant sounds of en-
chanting music, the glorious world-concert made
by the harmonious movement of the spheres.
Freed from the passions of the body, it will be able
to abandon itself entirely to its insatiable desire for
knowledge. Marvelling at the sidereal revolu-
tions, it will set itself to comprehend them; its
keener vision will enable it to discover the causes
of all phenomena, and it will receive a full revela-
tion of all the secrets of Nature — that is, of God.

The doctrine of sidereal immortality is certainly
the most elevated that antiquity conceived. It
was at this definitive formula that paganism
stopped. This belief was not to perish utterly

202 Astrology and Religion

with it; and even after the stars had been despoiled
of their divinity, it survived to some extent the
theology which had created it. If I had not
already abused your patience, it would be an inter-
esting study to join you in searching for survivals
of these pagan tenets through the Middle Ages,
and in showing the forms which they assumed
in the popular creed and amongst the divines.
In general, souls continued to be represented as
passing through the spheres of heaven in order to
reach the abode of the Most High. May I remind
you that Dante was still inspired by these most
ancient astrological conceptions? His Paradise
shows us the blest, who have practised the
virtues proper to each of the planets, inhabiting
the spheres of these seven wandering stars. To
destroy these old eschatological ideas it was neces-
sary for Copernicus and Galileo to overthrow the
system of Ptolemy and bring down those heavens
peopled by bright beings, and so to open to the
imagination the infinite spaces of a boundless
universe.

INDEX

Acheron, 169, 196.

Achikar, 66.

Air (worshipped), 121 — filled
with demons, 122, 191; see
"Winds."

Alexander, 59, 80 — (change
after), 54; see "Seleucids."

Alexander of Aphrodisias, 157.

Amenophis IV, 74.

Andromeda, 117.

Animism, 15, 32, 192.

Anthropomorphism, 37.

Antigonus, 80.

Antiochus of Commagene, 81.

Anu, 22, 32; see "Heaven."

Aphrodite. See "Venus."

ApoUonius of Myndus, 57.

Apotheosis, 94, 182, 186 ss

Archidemus, 70.

Arellius Fuscus, 148.

Ares. 5ee"Mars."

Aristarchus, of Samos, 67.

Aristophanes, 37, 175.

Aristotle, 40; see "Peripatet-
ics."

Artemidorus of Parium, 57.

Asceticism, 152 ss.

Astrologers (Assyrian), 9 ss. —
(in Rome), 148 s. — and im-
mortality, 170, 182; see
"Chaldeans."

Astrology (importance of), i ss.
— Babylonian, 4, 17 ss. — dis-
semination, 73 ss. — in Greece,
52 — in Egypt, 74 — in Syria,
77 — in Roman empire, 86

ss. — in Oriental cults, 89 ss. ;
see "Stars," Planets," "Zo-
diac," etc.
Astronomy (Babylonian), 6 ss.,

56 s. — (Greek), 14, 44 ss.,

57 s. — and theology, 102 s.
Attis, 89 ss., 104.
Augustus, 86, 94, 165.
Aurelian, 97, 133.

B.

Baals (Syrian), 79 s., 89, 104.

Babylon (astronomy), 6 ss. —
(religion), 15 ss. — and
Greece, 42 ss. — hellenised
city, 57 — (Stoics in), 70 —
destroyed, 71.

Babylonians. 5ec " Chaldeans."

Bacchus mysteries (ecstasy) ,
147 — (immortality), 173,199.

Banquet (celestial), no.

Bednacum, i6i.

Bel, 22 s. — in Syria, 79; see
"Baals."

Berenice (lock of), 176.

Berosus, 31, 56, 129.

Bliss of heaven, 199 s.

Boll (quoted), xiii, 9, 52, 57.

Brontologia, 57.

C.

Caelus, 105, no, 114, 123; see

"Heaven," "Uranus."
Calendar, 108 — (Babylonian),
7, 10 — (Greek), 44.

203

204

Index

Callimachus (Iambics), 66.

Carducci (quoted), i8i.

Cameades, 154.

Catasterism, 117, 176, 181.

Catholic (meaning), 113.

Century (god), no.

Chaeremon, 90.

Chaldaeus, XaXdouos (meanings
of), 26 s.

' ' Chaldean ' ' oracles , 1 93 —
planetary system, 127, 165.

Chaldeans, their astronomy,
6 ss. — their religion, 15 ss. —
theology, 98 ss. — science, 42
ss., 73 — and Stoicism, 69,
81 — and Greeks, 57 ss. —
and immortality, 35, 198 ss.;
see ' ' Babylon, " " Astrol-
ogers."

Chariot of Sun, 184.

Chiron, 117.

Christmas, 162.

Chronocratories, 109, 165.

Chronology. See "Calendar."

Cicero, 85, 103, 190 — {Dream
ofScipio), 178, 180.

Commodus, 96.

Conon, 176.

Constantine, 98.

Constantius Chlorus, 98.

Constellations (gods) , ii6ss.

Contemplation of heaven, loi,
139 — (a communion), 144 —
(source of knowledge), 145
— of gods, 173,201.

Copernicus, xvi, 68, 202.

Cosmic emotion, 140, 143.

D.

Dante (Paradiso), 174, 202.
Day (god), 108 ss.
Decans (gods of), 33, 118.
Demetrius (prayer of), 156.
Demetrius of Tarsus, 196.
Democritus, 47.

Demons, 123 — and souls, 191,
199.

Denderah (zodiac of), 2.

Diels, 65.

Diodorus, 27 s., 80.

Diogenes of Babylonia, 70, 82.

Dionysiac ecstasy. See Bac-
chus.

Dioscuri, 1 16.

Domitian, 96.

Dupuis, I.

E.

Eagle (funeral), 185.

Earth (worship of), 22, 32; see
"Elements."

Eclipses, 9 s., 20, 61 ss.

Ecliptic, 9, 42.

Ecstasy. 5ee " Mysticism."

Egypt, 49, 56, 74 s., 108, 126,
193; 5ce"Isis," "Ra."

Elagabalus, 96.

Elements (gods), 34, 121 —
purify souls, 191 s.

Elijah, 185.

Elysian Fields (in heaven), 196,
198.

Emesa, 79, 96.

Emperors and star-worship,
94 ss. — eternal, 106 — im-
mortal, 180, 184 ss.

Enoch (Book of), 25, 79.

Epicurus, 150 s., 168 s.

Epigenes of Byzantium, 57.

Epinomis (dialogue), 26, 48,
200.

Eschatology, 168 ss.; see "Im-
mortality."

Eternity (God), 107 — of the
world, 30 — of stars, 104 ss.
— of emperors, 106.

Ether (god), 118.

Eudoxus of Cnidus, 52.

Euhemerus, 55 s.

Eye (power of), loi &

Index

205

Fatalism (Babylonian), 28 —

and morals, 153 ss. — (Stoic),

69.
Fire (worship of), 32 s., 121 —

purifies souls, 192 ss.; see

"Elements."
Firmicus Matemus, 160.
Fortune (Tych^), 158, 159.
Free will, 154.

G.

Galileo, vi, 202,
Tviifuay (sun-dial), 42.
Golden Number, 44.
Greeks (religion of), 36 ss. —
and Chaldeans, 41 ss., 81 ss.
Guide of souls, 193 ss.

H.

Harmony of world, 102 ss., 123.
Heaven (god), 22, 32, 114 s.,

123 — (beauty of), 143; see

"Uranus."
Heliodorus' Ethicpics, 89.
Heliogabalus. See "Elaga-

balus."
Heliopolis, 79.
Helios, 37;5ec "Sun."
Hepatoscopy, 22, 57.
Heraclitus, 174.
Hermes Psychopompos, 194;

see "Mercury."
Hermes Trismegistus, 76, 181.
Heroes (immortal), 117, 181.
Hierapolis (Syria), 79, 186.
Hipparchus, 5, 58, 61 ss., 70,

177-

Homer, 3, 38.

Horace, 182.

Hours (twelve), 42 — (god-
desses), lios.

Hypsistos, 80, 135.

lamblichus, 83.

Immortality in the tomb, 168
s. — ^in the nether world, 169,
1 73 1 199 — aiid mysteries, 172
ss. — astral, 173 ss. — solar,
189 s., 196 — in heaven,
196, 198.

Invincible stars, 16, 105 — Sun,
96 s. — emperors, 95, 106.

lonians, 42, 174.

Ishtar, 22, 24, 47, 79; see
"Venus."

Isis and Serapis (mysteries),
89 s., 126, 173, 199.

Islam, 154, 182.

Israel (star-worship), 78; see
"Jews."

J.

Jastrow (quoted), 2 s., 6, 21, 23.
Jews, 105, 164; see "Israel,"

"PhUo."
Julian (emperor), 98, 135.
Jupiter, 10, 24, 43, 45; see

' ' Marduk, " " Planets, "

"Baals."

K.

Kant, 141.

Kidenas (Kidinnu), 62 ss.
Kings immortal, 199 s.
Kronos. See ' ' Saturn. ' '
Kugler, 7 ss., 12, 44, 64.

L.

Ladder (leads to heaven), 183.
Language and astrology, 166.
Leconte de Lisle, 170.
Letronne, xv, 2.
Lucan, 195.
Lucretius, 169,

206

Index

M.

Magi, 27, i09;5e«"Mithra."
Magic, 112, 159 s., 186 s.
Manasseh, 78.
Manilius, 85 ss., 106, 142, 149,

154. 180.
Marduk, 10, 22, 24, 46; see

"Jupiter,"
Mars, 24, 45; 5ce "Planets."
Mathematics, and astrology,

14,21,29 s., 112.
Mercury, 45, 62, 119, 128; see

"Planets."
Mesopotamia. 5c« "Babylon."
Me ton (cycle of), 44.
Mithra, 89 ss., no, 121, 184,

185, 187, 188, 194.
Month (duration of), 61 —

(god), 108 ss.
Moon-god, 36 ss., 59 s., 1 19, 124

ss. — and astronomy, 59 ss. —

abode of souls, 174 s., 196;

see "Sin."
Morals of astrologers, 149 ss.
Mysteries (Oriental), 89 ss., 182

ss.; see "Bacchus," "Isis,"

"Mithra."
Mysticism (astral), 140, 144 s.,

167 s.; see " Dionysiac ecs-
tasy."

N.

Nabonassar (era of), 8.

Nabourianos, 62.

Natalis Invicti, 162.

Nebo, 24, 46.

Necessity (in Babylon), 28;

j«e "Fatalism."
Nechepso, 76.
Neo-Platonists, 93, 94, 135.
Nergal, 24, 46.
Night (god), 109 s.
Nigidius Figulus, 88.
Ninib, 24, 46.

Nineveh (astronomy in), 9.
Numbers sacred, 29 s., in.

O.

Omnipotence of gods, 113 s.

Oppolzer, 60.

Oriental religions, 89 ss.; see

"Mysteries,"
Orphism, 175, 193.
Osiris, 104; 5«e" Isis."

P.

Palmyra, 98, 133.
Panaetius, 83, 169.
Pan-Baby lonists, 2 ss., 18.
Parthians, 12 — (invasion), 67,

71.

Pascal, 142.

Pegasus, bearer of souls, 184.

Peripatetics, 134 s., 158, 170;
see "Aristotle."

Perseus, 117.

Persian religion, 26, 90 ss.;
ice "Magi," "Mithra."

Petilia (tablets of), 193.

Petosiris, 76,

Philip of Opus, 48, 49.

Philo the Jew, 27, 32, 85, 134.

Philosophers and star-worship,
39. 55; see "Plato," "Sto-
icians."

Philostratus, 89,

Phrygian mysteries, 89, 173.

Pindar, 52.

Planets known by Chaldeans,
10, II, 13, 60 — by Greeks,
43 — (names), 24, 46 — moved
by Sun, 128 s. — (worship of),
24 ss., 32, 119 s., 163 ss. —
and days, 164 s. — and souls,
198 s.

Plato, 39, 48, 55, 172, 200; see
"Neo-Platonists,"

Index

207

Pliny, 62, 70 — on inamortality,

171.177-

Plutarch, 196.

Porphyry, 83.

Posidonius of Apamea, 70, 82,
83 ss., 102 s., 150 — mysti-
cism, 145 — eschatology, 167,
172, 178, 190, 200; see
"Stoicism."

Prayers, I5SS., I57 s.

Precession of equinoxes, 5, 12,
58.

Proclus, 109.
•><.K Ptolemy, xx,9, 61, 65, 92, 146,
159, 176,202.

Purgatory, 191.

Purification of souls, 183, 191
ss.

Pythagoras, 39, 43, 52, 188.

Pythagoreans (Neo-) , 87 s. , 1 88.

R.

Ra (Sun god), 74, 126.
Reason, celestial fire, 132, 177,

196; see "Sovil."
Renan, 124.
Rome, 117; see "Zodiac."

Sargonides, 9ss., 78.

Saturn, 24, 45, 119 — planet of

the Sun, 48 — (prayer to),

163; see "Planets."
Schiaparelli (quoted), 7, 20, 64.
Schleiermacher, 155.
Seasons (worship of), 31, 108 ss.
Selene. See "Moon."
Selenodromia, 57.
Seleucid princes, 56, 80.
Seleucus of Seleucia, 67.
Seneca, 85, 142, 156, 157.
Serapis. See"Isis."
Severi, 96 s.
Shamash, 22, 47, 59, 78, 125;

see "Sun."

Sin, 22, 47, 59 s., 125; see

"Moon."

Sky. .See " Heaven."

Soldiers immortal, 182.

Soudines, 56, 62,

Soul (nature of), 34, 70, 132,
192, 196, 198; see "Immor-
tality," "Purification."

Stars (divinity of).. 116 ss.; see
"Planets, "Zodiac," "Sun,"
"Moon."

Statins, 195.

Stoicism (star- worship) ,55, 108,
134 — and Chaldeans, 56, 69
ss. — (Syrian) , 82 s. — and
mysteries, 93 — (determin-
ism), 29, 153 ss. — and im-
mortality, 168 s., 177, 196;
see "Posidonius," "Seneca."

Srotxeta, 34, 12 1.

Strabo (quoted), 62, 72.

Strassmaier, 7.

Sun-worship (Chaldean), 32,
125— (Egyptian), 74 s.—
(Greek), 36 s., 39 s. — (Ro-
man), I25ss.,i33ss.,i6iss. —
Sun invincible, 97, 105, 133 —
eternal, 104 — guide of souls,
185, 194 — moves the planets,
128 ss. — heart and reason of
world, 130 ss. — creator of
soul, 131 s. — solar immortal-
ityi 133. 188, 196 — Sun, su-
preme god, 97 ss., 124 ss. —
spiritual sun, 135; see "Ra,"
"Mithra," "Shamash."

Sunday, 163.

Syria (astral religion), 49, 77
ss. — (Stoicism in), 69, 81 s. —
influence on Rome, 80, 89
ss., 96.

Theophrastus, 53, 66.
Tiberius, 86, 94, 157.
Time (god), 31, 107 ss.

208

Index

Tobit (book of), 66.
T6t. 5«e "Hermes."
Triads, 22, 47, 79.
Trinity of the world, 123.

U.

Uranus (god), 50, 115; see

" Caelus."
Universality of gods, 113.

Venus, 22, 45, 47, 80, 119, 128;

see "Planets."
Vettius Valens, 62, 157, 170.
Virgil, 192.
Voltaire, 103.

W.

Water (worship of), 22, 32 s.,

121; see" Elements. ' '
Week, 164 ss.
Winds (gods), 33. — drag souls,

192 ss.; see"AiT."

World divine, 32, 69, 115 ss.,
123, 136.

Worship and fatalism, 157 ss.;
see ^'Sun," "Moon," "Pla-
nets," "Stars."

X.

Xenocrates, 39.
Xenophanes, 40.

Year (Chaldean), 7 s. — (god),
108 ss.

Z.

Zeno. See ' ' Stoicism . ' '
Zervan Akarana, 109.
Zeus. 5ec "Jupiter."
Zodiac (Chaldean), 9, 12, —

(Greek), 42 — (worship of),

33. "8.

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