！∞·§§§§§§§:-§§§§ §§§ģţă-§§§ №ț¢ſ，§§§§¿- ， ță§ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff;ğģğ] ∞≡≡≡ſae§% ####################ffffffffffff;§§§ §§%ſ. ，，ģ####~#ģ0§§ •·§§§§§ ģ→ ·：::--：-į（37°， -ºrºķºº， №8ķ§§: ·…….……！ķ §§§§§§ ſae; º.º.º.º.，¿ § §№gºſaeſae §§§ ¿ ſae * §§§§）， §§§ |×|-· •·¿、。§§§ §§· ¿---- --：·---··· -~ º.·§§： --，* …--~--~§.ș §§ |× * |-- --z:: - - - - -------------~~~~--~--~~~~--~--~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~）~~~šįº : *…*¿.*…！--.*）... …*_-…--№Ē*#ā， ī， ..-…….… **~.~~~~~<-º-º-w, º...:…-3，4-…:…»******, * .*?--~~~~. :::：::：：：::::：:********~*~:::::：:…*…*?）（::::************. --№ſſº III] |||||IIIſ tºº ¿?}} ‘ſ’ſſa）） ? į №={}; | . || ſāſ ∞ √° √æ√≥ a√∞'， ĒË ،§į§¶$ğģ 2!！!！！！！ !!!!!!!!!!!!! !！！，，，。、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、、 [[!!!!!!!!!!!！!!!!!!!!!!! ■■■■■■!！！！！!！！！！！！！！!！！!！！！！ [II]]|[[[[[[[[[[[|]] Īſá ĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪ Rºſ gººººººººººººººººººººº. iſſiſſiſſiſ fiſſiſſiſ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!！ ！！！!！！！！！！！= ń iſſ *ze 2022. - - ºr 1674 , Qld Tlal 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. CHEYNE, 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 JASTRow, J.R., Ph.D. G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON AMAEA’/CAAV ZAZ C7'UA’AFS ON 7A/AE Aſ/STORP OF FEZ/G/ONS SERIES OF 1911–1912 ASTROLOGY AND RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS: BY FRANZ CUMONT, Ph.D., LL.D. Member of the Académie Royale de Belgique G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON Qºbe frnicketbocket Stegg 1912 CopyRIGHT, 1912 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS tº be knickerbocker press, new lºot; MAURITIO JASTROW BABYLONIORUM ASTROLOGIAE INTERPRETI SAGACISSIMO * * * **, *, ** # * ... "... g. （Th Tº 3.3643; 9 PREFACE T 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 summary 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 V - 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 volume, as a mark of recognition of his own researches in the cognate field of Babylonian-Assyrian astrology. FRANZ CUMONT. BRUSSELS, January, 1912. ANNOUNCEMENT. HE American Lectures on the History of Re- ligions are 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 under 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, vii 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. Io.—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, Ill.; 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. W. 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 I909–1910—Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., Ph.D.— Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria. 1910–1911–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 1910, 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 published in 1894–1900, and is the standard work on that subject. This was fol- lowed by a smaller summary, Les Mystères de Mithra, of Which an English translation, under the title “Mysteries of Mithra,” was published in 1903. A series of lectures delivered at the Collège de France on Les Religions Orientales dans le Pagan- tsme Romain (Paris, 1907; 2nd ed. I9IO) 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, I9II). In 1900 and again in 1907, Prof. Cumont conduc- ted archaeological 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 19II. 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, Göttingen, and Munich. The lectures contained in this volume are a Summary in a popular 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, IQII. INTRODUCTION 'Ex rôy oëpavlov rà én-tºyeta #prºmºral Kará ruva puorukhvorvpatrá6etav. PHILO, De Opificio Mundi, c. 40. 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 modern times has exercised over Asia and Europe 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 your 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 duration 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 structure rested, namely, the geocentric system of the universe. 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 unfathomable 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.” * “Réveries absurdes . . . une des faiblesses qui ont le plus déshonoré l'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 studied. 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 nature 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 conjunctions 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 faculties 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 Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy is dated 1581. Further, a number 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. Our 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 Jahrbücher 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 human 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 - PAGI. PREFACE © gº e gº * tº e v ANNOUNCEMENT . . . º e . vii INTRODUCTION e te gº º gº e 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 II.-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—Changesetsinafter 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 Å PAGE LECTURE III.--THE DISSEMINATION IN THE WEST tº { } 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 Sun-cult, 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 . e tº . IOI The contemplation of the heavens, IoI—Divinity of the heavenly bodies, IO2—Qualities of the astral gods: (a) Eternity, IoA—Worship of Time and its subdivisions, Ioy–Sacred numbers, III—(b) Univer- sality and omnipotence, II2—Worship of Heaven and constellations, II5–Worship of plants and ele- ments, II9-The leading power of the cosmic organism, 123—The Sun as the highest god, I24—Development of solar theology, 126–Transformation of paganism, I35. LECTURE W.-ASTRAL MYSTICISM. ETHICS AND CULT e º † gº & . I39 Mystic element in astral religion, 139–Impression of heaven on the ancients and moderns: Cosmic emo- tion, I40—Communion of man's soul with the heavenly bodies, I44—Mysticism as the access to the Contents xxvii PAGE knowledge of the celestial gods, 145–Contrast to the Dionysiac ecstasy, I47–Ethical consequences of mysticism, 149—Opposition between heaven and earth, and between soul and body, I50—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, I55—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, I66. LECTURE VI.-ESCHATOLOGY & gº . 167 Astral mysticism as a preparation for the future life, I67—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—(b) How did souls rise to the stars 2 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, 201. Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans LECTURE I THE CHALDEANS 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 undertook 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 I 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 favour the fancies of Dupuis, by renovating them with greater erudition. Only, the mother country 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 of 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 under ~ the spell of this conception. . . . . . . . . . . . . Kº" ' * : . 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), Igio. 4. Astrology and Religion of the Sacred 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 slight 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 civilisation. This vast theology, founded 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 founded, 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 foundation, is not a product of primitive popular fancies but is rather an advanced scientific hypo- ”* 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. thesis. Let us consult, the historians of astronomy. *Jastrow, l.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 documents 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 recurred 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 résumé of Kugler's researches has been given by Schiaparelli; see below, p. 21. V 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 found 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 sun, 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, 72 I 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 Realem-, cyclopädie, s. v. “Finsternisse,” col. 2354. IO 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 I2 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 accumu- lated in the course of many centuries. 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 I3 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 synodic 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 I4 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 unknown, 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 I5 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 I6 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 countless 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, L 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 appear and 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 believed 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 2 I8 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, mountains, and rivers, corresponding to the geography known to them. Here, as everywhere, the human 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, The Chaldeans I9 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 naïve 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 born each day or at least each winter, that the moon is swallowed up during eclipses, and that another 2O 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 upperspheres 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 little 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 2 I 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. which were made from the Assyrian period on- 77 I The scientific discoveries 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 f Babilonesi (Extr. of “Scientia,” Rivista di Scienza, iii.), Bologna, I908, 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 functions 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 Sun 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 sun 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 burns 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 naïve 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 XaAóaios, 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 processions of Babylon, there walked first the magi, as Quintus Curtius states, 3 that is to say the Persian priests estab- * Jastrow, l.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 XaAóaios 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 under 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 number possesses an active force, the number is a symbol, 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 born 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 resume the same position, they are bound to act in precisely the same manner as before. The life of the universe, then, was conceived as forming The Chaldeans 3I a series of vast periods, which the most probable estimate fixed at 432,000 years. As early 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 sun, -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- nounced 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 3 34 Astrology and Religion devours. They confounded with the stars under the generic name of Elements (ototyeia) 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 sum 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 underwent in turn, and how it was combined with the Stoic philosophy. * See below, Lecture VI. LECTURE II BABYLON AND GREECE HE 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 ground 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 religion 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 sculptors, 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 unites 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 modern 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 rationalists 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. Babylon and Greece 4I The philosophers may also have been led to this view, I readily grant, by the logical development of their own thought: the unceasing 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 probability, 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 42 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-Babylonists” have provoked a well-founded 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 Ionians 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 * I'vºpov, Herod., ii., Io9. 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 (enneakaidekaëteris) which would establish a periodic agreement between the old lunar year and the solar revolu- tions, and which replaced the ancient octaëteris, 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 octaëteris is proved to have been in use at Babylonia, by documents of the sixth century, and an ennea- kaidekaëteris 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 Griechische Astrologie (Neue Jahrb. f. das klass. Altertum, xxvii.), (1911), 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 argument. 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” (Eoooºoos) or “Herald of Light” (q)000 pépos) or on the other hand “Vespertine” ("Eanspos), 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” (>riàgov), Mars, because of his red colour, the “Fiery Star” (ITvøðels), 46 Astrology and Religion Jupiter the “Luminous Star” (ſpaś6aov), Saturn the “Brilliant Star” (ſpaívov), 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, (Epſtoč, 'Appoéirms tra. dorſo). 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 procedure 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- 1votot, “Syrian,” and Agavonol, “Assyrian,” 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 difficult 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 Iahweh. 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 agricultural 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 ("Thioros), the eternal regulator of cosmic movements.” The naturalistic and primitive worship which these peoples paid to the Sun, 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, 3 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, pl. XL. 6 82 Astrology and Religion for the most part Orientals. Zeno himself was born 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 civilisation 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 I35 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 Iamblichus 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 Astronomics 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 A. * \ 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 particularism, 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 Zeit, p. II31. 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 cultured 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 cultivated 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 semi-official 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, Sphaera, Leipsic, 1903. ' The Dissemination in the West 89 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 life of Apollonius 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 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 found celebrating in verse the sidereal divination which enabled him to publish far and wide infallible predictions. Attis, the Anatolian deity of vegetation, ended by becoming a solar god, * The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, Chicago (Open Court Publishing Company), 1911. 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. Lat., v., 5893. 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 Tetrabiblos 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 centuries; 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,” * A&yta. XaA6aïká. - 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 Achaemenids 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 origišāl form of Caesarism, was substituted a reascăed belief in supernatural influences. The emperor is the image of the Sun on earth, like him inºincible and eternal (invictus, 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 Commodus, were also those who most openly favoured Oriental cults. 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, Sohae- 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 7 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, dº * tº * * * o e IOO 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 universe 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 bound up with it, and the moral and eschatological ideas which were derived from it. LECTURE IV THEOLOGY OSIDONIUS 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.” "Où uðvov 6early &AAä kal éénymråv.” IOI IO2 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 IO3 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. IO4 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- 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 run, 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 born again to a new life, always unconquerable. 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. Theology IO5 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 Sun. 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 until 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 popular 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 born 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 tnvicti but aetermi, 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 IoW 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 will our descendants behold it. It is God, for it is unchange- 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 Aetermitas 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 beginning, 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 efficacy, 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 sun. Its progress led to a division * Cic., Nat. Deor., ii., 63 (=Zenon. fr. 165 von Arnim). * See above, Lecture I., p. 31. Theology IO9 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 Timaeum, 248 D. I IO 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 uni- VerSe. The allegorical figures invented by astrological cults to represent these abstractions came into Theology III common use under the Empire. This symbolism 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 modern 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—number of days in the year. To these figures was attributed a peculiar efficacy; thus it *See above, Lecture I., p. 30; II., p. 50. I [2 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 foundation or a pretext for a subtle and extravagant symbolism. 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 uni- Theology II3 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). 9. II4 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 universal 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 Il Paradiso: La gloria di coluiche tutto muove Per 1' universo penetra e risplende In una parte più e meno altrove. Nel cielche più 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 II5 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 (zravroupdroop). We proceed to pass in review these various divinities. The highest of these gods is Heaven (O5pavös, 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 Iupiter.” 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 dirãavis, 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 number 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 Egyptian nomes survived in the form of constel- lations. Heterogeneous elements, borrowed from * See above, Lecture I., p. 16. Theology 117 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 * Bouché–Leclercq, Astrologie grecque, p. 131. Theology II9 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 nature. 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, I2O 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 Olympus and the saints of Paradise. They are the tutelary deities not only of the series of days," but of that of the hours, 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 I2I 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 Grotºeia, 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. I22 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 I23 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 luminous 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 unregulated 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 I24 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 sun. 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 unequalled im- portance in the cosmic system as a whole of the * See my paper, La Théologie solaire du Paganisme romain (Mém. Acad. Inscr., xii.). Paris, 1909. * * Renan, Dialogues et Fragments philosophiques, 1876, p. 168. Theology I25 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 regularly precedes Shamash, the Sun. This god preserved the chief place at Carrhae in Osroëne 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 sun 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- I26 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 I27 clusions 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 understood 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. 119. I28 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 heavenly spheres. It occupies the central position among the Seven circles of the universe. The other planets appeared to revolve round it, or rather to escort it, and astrologers delighted to point to the Royal Sun (Baoilet's "HAzos) advan- cing in the midst of his satellites, 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 sun, in reality of the earth, and they had come to the conclusion that the sun governed their movements: the sun 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 I29 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 universal gravitation and of the heliocentric sys- I3O Astrology and Religion tem, 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 universe, 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” (wapóła rot; négaov). 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 sun will become the conductor of the cosmic harmony, the master of the four ele- Theology I31 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 (q)635 voepdv). 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 * Plin., Nat. Hist., ii., 5, § 13. *Cic., Somn. Scip., 4. I32 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 Sun-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 I33 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. I34 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 world, 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 I35 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 (Iupiter 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 (voepôs adaplog), 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 (vospág) becomes the intermediary between the “intelligible” God (vomrós) and the visible universe. We have rapidly sketched the system of theo- 1ogy which was imposed on the Empire. Let us in conclusion attempt to set before ourselves what a I36 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 found 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, born 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 I37 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; 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- I38 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 4–ETHICS AND CULT 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. A creation of astronomers, it would appear to have been incapable of appealing to any but an intel- lectual élite, 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 l'antiquité (Bulle- tins de l'Acad. royale de Belgique), Mai, 1909. I39 I40 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 rapture 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 form 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 fatalism. 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 I4I 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, I42 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 modern conception. Manilius ends his fifth book * “Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinism' effraie.” (Pascal, Pensées.) * Seneca, De Beneficiis, iv., 23. Astral Mysticism I43 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 multitude 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: Cui si pro numero vires natura dedisset, Ipse suas aether flammas sufferre nequiret, Totus et accenso mundus flagraret Olympo. * See above, Lecture IV., p. 102. I44 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 human microcosm, is part of the same substance which vivifies the universe, 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 I45 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. Such 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 IO I46 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 born 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 I47 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 communicates 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 * Nº paxios pé6m (Philo). I48 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 superhuman 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 I49 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. I50 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 “blinder 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, § 87. Ethics and Cult I5I 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 absurdity 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 I52 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 under 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 mount 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 I53 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 born 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, illumined 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 Manilius has expressed it in a striking line: *See above, Lecture I., p. 28. * See above, Lecture II., p. 69. \/ I54 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 world, 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 under a dominating necessity; if they are born heroes or criminals, morality entails no merit and immorality no reproach. We cannot set forth here the metaphysical discussions provoked by * Manil., iv., 14. Ethics and Cult I55 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 modern 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 burns 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, because 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 unavailing, it is idle to demand from divination the secrets of a future * Seneca, De Provid., v., 5. Ethics and Cult I57 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 3 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.4 Those [he says] who maintain energetically in their discourses that Fate is inevitable and who attribute *Seneca, Quaest. Nat., ii., 35, “Aegrae mentis solacia.” * Suetonius, Vita Tib., 69. 3 Vettius Valens, V., 9 (p. 220, 28 ed. Kroll). 4 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 pitiful 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 fundamental inconsistency which we noted from the beginning" is obvious in all this develop- ment of astrology, which professed to become an exact Science, but which always remained a sacerdotal theology. The stars were regarded as divine at Babylon before the doctrine of universal determinism had been constructed, and this char- * See above, Lecture I., p. 29. Ethics and Cult I59 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 formulae. 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 I60 Astrology and Religion the faithful 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 blind 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 ‘Avayur, 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 Sun. 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. II I62 Astrology and Religion day—at dawn, at midday, and at dusk—a prayer was addressed to the heavenly source of light, the worshipper turning 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 commemoration 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 could 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 Cult I63 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 burn 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- I64 Astrology and Religion ing, who causest prosperity or ruin, happy or unhappy is he whom thou makest such. I adjure thee, O 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 four 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 under the patronage of a planet: they were merely counted. This system of the measurement Ethics and Cult I65 of time originates in the division of the lunar month into four equal parts. This hebdomadal period is also found 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 countries 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. I66 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 modern 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 IN 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 I67 I68 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. - r – At the beginning of the Empire the ancient beliefs concerning existence beyond the grave, the idea that the dead man lived a gloomy life in the tomb, sustained by the funeral 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 I69 assurance. Lucretius' praises him for having driven from men's minds “this dread of Acheron which troubles the life 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. Panaetius, 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 Panaetius * Lucret., III., 37: Et metus, ille foras praeceps Acheruntis agendus Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo. I70 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 modern 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, où tout rentre et s'efface, Accueille tes enfants dans ton sein étoilé, * Poèmes antiques, “Dies Irae.” Eschatology I7I Affranchis nous du temps, du nombre, et de l'espace, Et rends nous le repose que la vie a troublé.” This pessimism, which regarded annihilation 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 future 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 Returneth 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. - I72 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 countless generations which had clung to it. The despairing world eagerly welcomed these promises, and philosophy, undergoing a transformation, joined with the Eschatology I73 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 drunkenness 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. I74. 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: Al6hp pew Wvxãs inteóéčaro, orduara öé x869. Eschatology I75 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 return 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. 3 See above, Lecture IV., p. 117. 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 dénodment 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. Human reason, a particle of this uni- 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- 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 universal 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 formulated in the sphere of * See above, Lecture II., p. 70. I 2 178 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., 6II. Eschatology I79 “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. © © º O 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: I. 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 boom 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 summit 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, succoured, 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 modern 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 Icon- gratulate myself on the belief. But that Mazzini or that Dante Alighieri is utterly dead, I am entirely unconvinced.” º Among those heroes whose merits had opened * Herm. Trism. ap. Stobaeum, Ecl., p. 466, Wachsmuth, I82 Astrology and Religion to them the gates of heaven,_"virtus recludens ’ 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 country, 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 immeritis mori caelum,' * Horace, Odes, iii., 2, 21. 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 ourselves: 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. I84 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 mount. 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 early times in Syria as well as in Babylon, Persia, and Greece. The horses of fire and the chariot of fire, 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 protégés 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 funéraire des Sy- riens et l’apothéose des empereurs” (Revue de l'histoire des relig- ions), 1910. - I86 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 Arnobius," 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 (dra.6avarionds). 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, * Arnob., Adv. Nat., ii., 33, 62 (p. 65, 5; 97, 27, Reifferscheid). * Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, 1910, compare my Oriental Religions (1911), p. 260. I88 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 universe. 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 (äwo para), 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 surround 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 'Avayaoye's, “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. * 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 sun, 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, § 18. Eschatology I9I 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. I92 Astrology and Religion tive animism. But the mysteries introduced into them the idea of purification. Souls tossed by whirlwinds 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 Æneid," where, speaking of Souls, he says: Aliae panduntur inanes Suspensae adventos, aliis sub gurgite vasto Infectum eluitur scelus aut exuritur igni. Again, the passage of souls through the elements is represented symbolically on a funeral monument * Virgil, AEm., vi., 740. Eschatology I93 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, mythological 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 (&pxovres), 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. I3 I94. 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 wingèd feet, taking thee by the hand, has conducted thee to Olympus and made thee to shine among the stars.” But more often the rôle 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, Epigramm. Graeca, 650. * Haussoullier, Revue de philologie, 1909, p. 6. 3 See above, p. 185. Eschatology I95 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 unceasingly 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. J.T. --~~ I96 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 believed. In conformity with their system of physical interpretations of mythological names, Acheron became in their eyes the air, Tartarus and Pyriphlegethon the zones of fire and hail. As for the Elysian Fields, they are found to be located sometimes in the moon, sometimes between the moon and the sun, sometimes in the sphere of the fixed stars and particularly 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 (gºla), nutritive soul (huxi), * Plut., De Facie in Orbe Lunae, c. 26; cf. my Théologie solaire, pp. 464, 475. Eschatology I97 and reason (vot's). 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 Stun 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 surrenders 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 Saturn 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 I99 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 2OO 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 ºne 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 2O2 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 A. Acheron, I69, 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, I 17. Animism, I5, 32, 192. Anthropomorphism, 37. Antigonus, 80. Antiochus of Commagene, 81. Anu, 22, 32; see “Heaven.” Aphrodite. See “Venus.” Apollonius of Myndus, 57. Apotheosis, 94, 182, 186ss Archidemus, 70. Arellius Fuscus, 148. Ares. See “Mars.” Aristarchus, of Samos, 67. Aristophanes, 37, 175. Aristotle, 40; see “Peripatet- ics.” Artemidorus of Parium, 57. Asceticism, I52 Ss. Astrologers (Assyrian), 9 Ss.- (in Rome), 148 S.—and im- mortality, I70, 182; see “Chaldeans.” Astrology (importance of), I ss. -Babylonian, 4, 17 ss.-dis- Semination,73ss.—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), I4, 44 ss., 57 S.–and theology, Ioz s. Attis, 89 ss., IO4. Augustus, 86, 94, I65. Aurelian, 97, 133. B. Baals (Syrian), 79 s., 89, IoA. Babylon (astronomy), 6 ss.- (religion), 15 SS. — and Greece, 42 ss. – hellenised city, 57—(Stoics in), 70— destroyed, 71. Babylonians. See “Chaldeans.” Bacchus mysteries (ecstasy), I47–(immortality), 173,199. Banquet (celestial), IIo. Bedriacum, 161. 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, IoS, IIo, II4, I23; see “Heaven,” “Uranus.” Calendar, Io8—(Babylonian), 7, IO-(Greek), 44. 2O3 2O4 Index Callimachus (Iambics), 66. Carducci (quoted), 181. Carneades, I54. Catasterism, 117, 176, 181. Catholic (meaning), II3. Century (god), IIo. Chaeremon, 90. Chaldaeus, XaXáaſos (meanings of), 26 s. “Chaldean” oracles, 193— planetary system, I27, 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, II7. Christmas, I62. Chronocratories, Io9, 165. Chronology. See “Calendar.” Cicero, 85, Io9, 190—(Dream of Scipio), 178, 180. Commodus, 96. Conon, I76. Constantine, 98. Constantius Chlorus, 98. Constellations (gods), II6'ss. Contemplation of heaven, IOI, I39–(a communion), 144– (source of knowledge), I45 —of gods, 173,291. Copernicus, xvi, 68, 202. Cosmic emotion, I40, I43. D. Dante (Paradiso), 174,202. Day (god), IOS ss. Decans (gods of), 33, II8. Demetrius (prayer of), 156. Demetrius of Tarsus, 196. Democritus, 47. Demons, 123—and souls, 191, I99. Denderah (zodiac of), 2. Diels, 65. Diodorus, 27 S., 80. Diogenes of Babylonia, 7o, 82. Dionysiac ecstasy. See Bac- chus. Dioscuri, 116. 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. See “Mysticism.” Egypt, 49, 56, 74 S., IoS, 126, 193; see “Isis,” “Ra.” Elagabalus, 96. Elements (gods), 34, 121– urify souls, 191 s. Elijah, 185. Bººn Fields (in heaven), 196, I98. Emesa, 79, 96. Emperors and star-worship, 94 ss. – eternal, 106—im- mortal, I80, 184 ss. Enoch (Book of), 25, 79. Epicurus, I5os., 168 s. Epigenes of Byzantium, 57. Epinomis (dialogue), 26, 48, 2OO. Eschatology, 168 ss.; see “Im- mortality.” Eternity čod), Io'7—of the world, 30—of stars, IO4 SS. —of emperors, Ioč. Ether (god), II8. Eudoxus of Cnidus, 52. Euhemerus, 55 s. Eye (power of), IoI s. Index 2O5 F. Fatalism (Babylonian), 28– and morals, I53 SS.—(Stoic), 69. Fire (worship of), 32 s., 121– purifies souls, 192 ss.; see “Elements.” Firmicus Maternus, 16o. Fortune (Tychè), 158, 159. Free will, I54. G. Galileo, vi, 202. Tviºuſov (sun-dial), 42. Golden Number, 44. Greeks (religion of), 36 ss.— and Chaldeans, 4 I ss., 81 SS. Guide of souls, 193 Ss. H. Harmony of world, IO2 ss., 123. Heaven (god), 22, 32, II4 S., I23–(beauty of), I43; see ** Uranus.” Heliodorus' Ethiopics, 89. Heliogabalus. See “Elaga- balus.” Heliopolis, 79. Helios, 37; see “Sun.” Hepatoscopy, 22, 57. Heraclitus, 174. Hermes Psychopompos, see “Mercury.” Hermes Trismegistus, 76, 181. Heroes (immortal), II?, 181. Hierapolis (Syria), 79, I86. Hipparchus, 5, 58, 61 SS., 70, I77. Homer, 3, 38. Horace, 182. Hours (twelve), desses), IIos. Hypsistos, 80, 135. I94; 42 – (god- I. Iamblichus, 83. Immortality in the tomb, 168 s.—in the nether world, 169, I73, I99—and mysteries, 172 SS. – astral, 173 SS.–Solar, 189 S., 196—in heaven, I96, I98. Invincible stars, 16, IOS—Sun, 96 S.—emperors, 95, IO6. Ionians, 42, 174. Ishtar, 22, 24, 47, 79; see “Venus. Isis and Serapis (mysteries), 89 S., I26, 173, 199. Islam, I54, 182. Israel (star-worship), 78; see & 4 Jews.” y y 9 J. Jastrow (quoted), 2 s., 6, 21, 23. Jews, IO5, 164; see “Israel,” “Philo.” Julian (emperor), 98, I35. Jupiter, Io, 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, I66. Leconte de Lisle, I70. Letronne, xv, 2. Lucan, 195. Lucretius, 169. 2O6 Index M. Magi, 27, Io9; see “Mithra.” Magic, II2, I59 s., 186s. Manasseh, 78. Manilius, 85 ss., IoS, 142, 149, I54, I80. Marduk, Io, 22, 24, 46; see “Jupiter.” Mars, 24, 45; see “Planets.” Mathematics, and astrology, I4, 2I, 29 S., II2. Mercury, 45, 62, II9, 128; see “Planets.” Mesopotamia. See “Babylon.” Meton (cycle of), 44. Mithra, 89 ss., IIo, I21, 184, I85, 187, 188, 194. Month (duration of), 61— (god), Io8'ss. Moon-god, 36ss., 59 S., II9, 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., I67 s.; see “Dionysiac ecs- tasy.” N. Nabonassar (era of), 8. Nabourianos, 62. Natalis Invicti, 162. Nebo, 24, 46. Necessity (in Babylon), 28; see “Fatalism.” Nechepso, 76. Neo-Platonists, 93, 94, 135. Nergal, 24, 46. Night (god), Io9 s. Nigidius Figulus, 88. Ninib, 24, 46. Nineveh (astronomy in), 9. Numbers sacred, 29 S., III. 0. Omnipotence of gods, II3 s. Oppolzer, 60. Oriental religions, 89 ss.; see “Mysteries.” Orphism, I75, 193. Osiris, Ioq; see “Isis.” P. Palmyra, 98, 133. Panaetius, 83, 169. Pan-Babylonists, 2 ss., 18. Parthians, I2–(invasion), 67, 7I. Pascal, I42. Pegasus, bearer of souls, 184. Peripatetics, I34 S., 158, 17o; see “Aristotle.” Perseus, 117. Persian religion, 26, 90 ss.; see “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, Io, II, I.3, 60—by Greeks, 43–(names), 24, 46—moved by Sun, 128s.-(worship of), 24 SS., 32, II9 S., I63 SS.– and days, I64 s.—and souls, I98 s. Plato, 39, 48, 55, 172, 200; see “Neo-Platonists.” Index 2O7 Pliny, 62, 70—on immortality, I7I, I'77. Plutarch, IQ6. Porphyry, 83. Posidonius of Apamea, 70, 82, 83 ss., IO2 s., 150—mysti- cism, I45—eschatology, I67, I72, I78, IQ0, 200; see “Stoicism.” Prayers, I55 S., I57 s. Precession of equinoxes, 5, 12, 58. Proclus, Io9. Ptolemy, xx, 9, 61, 65, 92, I46, I59, I70, 202. Purgatory, 191. Purification of souls, 183, 191 SS. Pythagoras, 39, 43, 52, I88. Pythagoreans (Neo-), 87s., 188. R. Ra (Sun god), 74, 126. Reason, celestial fire, 132, 177, 196; see “Soul.” Renan, I24. Rome, II/7; see “Zodiac.” S. Sargonides, 9 ss., 78. Saturn, 24, 45, II9—planet of the Sun, 48–(prayer to), 163; see “Planets.” Schiaparelli (quoted), 7, 20, 64. Schleiermacher, I55. Seasons (worship of), 31, Io&ss. Selene. See “Moon.” Selenodromia, 57. Seleucid princes, 56, 8o. Seleucus of Seleucia, 67. Seneca, 85, 142, I56, I57. 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, I92, 196, 198; see “Immor- tality,” “Purification.” Stars (divinity of), II6 ss.; see “Planets, “Zodiac,” “Sun,” “Moon.” Statius, 195. Stoicism (star-worship),55, IoS, I34—and Chaldeans, 56, 69 ss. – (Syrian), 82 s. – and mysteries, 93 — (determin- ism), 29, 153 SS.–and im- mortality, I68 s., 177, 196; see “Posidonius,” “Seneca.” 2Touxeſa, 34, I2 I. Strabo (quoted), 62, 72. Strassmaier, 7. Sun-worship (Chaldean), 32, I25–(Egyptian), 74 s.— (Greek), 36 s., 39 s.—(Ro- man), I25 SS., 133ss., 16I SS.– Sun invincible, 97, IoS, I33– eternal, IO4—guide of souls, 185, 194—moves the planets, 128 ss.-heart and reason of world, 130 ss.—creator of soul, I31 s.—solar immortal- ity, I.33, 188, 196—Sun, su- preme god, 97 ss., 124 SS.– spiritual sun, 135; see “Ra,” “Mithra,” “Shamash.” Sunday, I63. Syria (astral religion), 49, 77 ss.-(Stoicism in), 69, 81 s.— influence on Rome, 80, 89 SS., 96. T. Theophrastus, 53, 66. Tiberius, 86, 94, I57. Time (god), 31, IO7 SS. 208 Index Tobit (book of), 66. Tôt. See “Hermes.” Triads, 22, 47, 79. Trinity of the world, 123. U. Uranus (god), 50, II5; see * Caelus.” Universality of gods, II3. V. Venus, 22, 45, 47, 80, II9, I28; see “Planets. Vettius Valens, 62, 157, I70. Virgil, 192. Voltaire, Io9. W. Water (worship of), 22, 32 s., I2 I; see “Elements.” Week, 164 ss. Winds (gods), 33-drag souls, I92 ss.; see “Air.” World divine, 32, 69, 115 ss., I23, 136. Worship and fatalism, 157 ss.; see “Sun,” “Moon,” “Pla- nets,” “Stars.” X. Xenocrates, 39. Xenophanes, 40. Y. Year (Chaldean), 7 s.-(god), IO8 Ss. Z. Zeno. See “Stoicism.” Zervan Akarana, Io9. Zeus. See “Jupiter.” Zodiac (Chaldean), 9, 12,- (Greek), 42–(worship of), 33, II8. AUG 3 1920 4 Jelection from the Catalogue of G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS wº Complete Catalogue sent on application AMERICAN LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS I. Rhyg=3)aviog—JBubbbism: Its bistory ano Tliterature. By T. W. Rhys-DAviDs, LL.D., Ph.D., Professor of Pali and Buddhist Literature at * College, London. Crown octavo. AVet, I.5o. * . . . An admirable handbook of Buddhism, written from a point of view at once scholarly and unprejudiced.”—St. Pazz Pioneer Press. II. JSrinton—iBeligion3 of Drimitive Deoples. By DANIEL G. BRINTON, A.M., M.D., LL.D., Sc.D., Professor of Archaeology and Linguistics in the º of Pennsylvania. Crown octavo. AVet, I.5o. * . . . . No book has yet appeared which brings the religious thought of all races and times within closer range of the modern reader; and to the reader who revels in tracing the psychic history of man, no book can be more welcome.”— Bostone Transcript. III. Cbeyºne—3ewisb iſ eligious Life after the IEgile. By Rev. T. K. CHEYNE, M.A., D.D., Oriel Professor of Interpretation of Holy Scripture in the University of Oxford, and formerly Fellow of Balliol College; Canon of Rochester. Crown octavo. Met, $1.5o. “Few men are as well qualified as Canon Cheyne to discuss the Jewish litera- ture and life of the period covered by this course, and the treatment of the subject before us in this handsome volume is all that could be desired. . . . The whole book is exceedingly interesting and instructive.”—Unizersalist Leader. IV. Bubbe—IReligion of Israel to the Exile. By KARL BUDDE, D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Strassburg. Crown octavo. Met, $1.5o. “The chief merit of Professor Budde's book is its condensation. He gives a distinct view of the subject, undistracted by details. While the book will take its deserved place in the estimation of scholars it is also a book for the general reader.”—Z}e Ozetlook. V. §5teinoorff–Tübe iReligion of the Elncient Egyptiang. By G. STEINDORFF, Ph.D., Professor of Egyptology at the University of Leipzig. Crown octavo. Met, $1.5o. “Presents in compact form and interesting style the latest information, and should find a place in every library of comparative religions.”—The Con- gregationalist. AMERICAN LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS VI. _TRnor—CBe Đevelopment of treligion in 3apan. By GEORGE WILLIAM KNox, D.D., Pro- fessor of the History and Philosophy of Religion in Union Theological Seminary, and Sometime Pro- fessor of Philosophy and Ethics at the Imperial University, Tokyo. Crown octavo, net, $1.5o “A notable addition to this excellent series.”— Z'he Churchman. “The author is peculiarly qualified for appreciative treat- ment of his subject.”—The Outlook. VII. JBloomfielo–Ube ireligion of the Úeba. Tºbe Elmcient ireligion of lºcoa (ifrom iRig= Ueba to Ulpanisbaog). By MAURICE BLoom- FIELD, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Sanscrit and Comparative Philology in the Johns Hopkins Uni- versity. Crown octavo. £1.5o net. By mail, $1.65 “It presents interestingly, and brings out as markedly as ossible the development of the religious thought of the Veda in distinction from myth and ceremony.”—AV. Y. Times. VIII. Cumont—Eigtrology amo Treligion among (Ibe Greek:3 and iRoman 3. By FRANz CUMont, Ph.D., LL.D., Conservator of the “Musée du Cinquantenaire,” Brussels. IX. 3agtrow—Elspects of tReligious JBelief amb Dractice in JBabylonia amo Biggyria. By MoRRIs JASTRow, J.R., Ph.D., Professor of Semitic Languages in the University of Pennsylvania. With 54 Illustrations and a Map and Chronological Lists of the Rulers of Babylonia and Assyria. Crown octavo. $2.25 met. By mail, $2.45 Professor Jastrow has during many years made a special study of the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians, and has con- tributed many authoritative volumes and papers embodying the results of his researches. New York G. P. Putnam’s Sons London International Handbooks to the New Testament tºº. === Edited by Orello Cone, D.D. Four volumes. Octavo. Each, net, $2.oo By mail, $2.15 I.—The Synoptic Gospels, together with a Chapter on the Text-Criticism of the New Testament. By George Lovell Cary, A.M., L.H.D., President of the Meadville Theological School. “We need hardly say that we find ourselves differing very seriously and very often from the editor of this volume, but we jºy recognize the thoughtfulness and intelligence with which he has worked. The student may learn much from this volume.”—N. P. Observer. II.—The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, Thessalonians, Galatians, Romans, and Philippians. By James Drum- mond, M.A., LL.D., Litt.D., Principal of Man- chester College, Oxford. “If the promise given by this yolume is fulfilled, the series will prove of the highest value. It is attractive for the general reader, while it is of special value to advanced students.”— The Outlook. III.-The Epistles to the Hebrews, Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon, The Pastoral Epistles, The Epistles of James, Peter, and Jude, together with a Sketch of the History of the Canon of the New Testament. By Orello Cone, D.D., Professor of Biblical Theology in the Canton Theological School. “It is interesting to note the meaning often hitherto unexplained. The author succeeds because his explanations are reasonable and plausible. He is not bound to any rule of dogma or sect, but takes a broad and understand- ing view of his subject.”—Church. Review. IV.-The Johannine Literature and the Acts of the Apostles. By Henry P. Forbes, A.M., D.D. Professor of Biblical Literature in the Canton Theological School. * Dr. Forbes has laid the ministry under *. obligation to him. Not only does he keep up to the high standard of the three preceding volumes of the set, but he fully sustains the purpose indicated by the editor-in-chief, The full set is one that every student of the Bible will make large use of.” — 7%e Universalist Leader. Send for complete descriptive circular New York – G. P. PUTNAM's SONS – London Jºuthoritative UDorks on Egypt Egyptian Archaeology By G. Maspero Translated from the French , By Amelia B. Edwards New edition, revised by the author with the co- operation of Kate Bradbury, Secretary Egyptian Exploration Society 229 illustrations. Crown 8vo. Net, $2.25 “A rich and enjoyable book, in every way satisfactory and fascinating. . . . It is delightful to find frankness, ac- curacy, and scholarship united in the production of this work, which makes the humanity of vanished Egypt live again.” The e Story of Ancient Egypt By Prof. Geo. Rawlinson No. 14 in The Story of the Nations Series Crown 8vo. Net, $1.50. Half leather, net, $1.75 “It is the work of a firm-handed scholar, who is sure of his facts, modest in his generalizations and surmises, full of that local color that comes of personal travel and inspection, and who is withal a ready and readable writer.”—M. Y. Critic. “The book reads like a romance, so interesting is the por- trayal of that people who dwelt in Egypt in the long ago.” 7'oledo Blade. New York Ci. P. Putnam’s Sons London 95 MICHIGAN SITY UNIVER ſae ſae ¿ §§§ 、、。 §5 šķ; §§§ §§