Astronomical Myths Part 19

As soon as it was established that the rising of a certain star or planet, and its aspect with regard to other planets, announced a certain destiny to man, it was natural to believe that the rarer configurations signified extraordinary events, which concerned great empires, nations, and towns. And lastly, since errors grow faster than truth, it was natural to think that the configurations which were still more rare, such as the reunion of all the planets in conjunction with the same star, which can occur only after thousands of centuries, while nations have been renewed an infinity of times, and empires have been ruined, had reference to the earth itself, which had served as the theatre for all these events. Joined to these superst.i.tious ideas was the tradition of a deluge, and the belief that the world must one day perish by fire, and so it was announced that the former event took place when all the planets were in conjunction in the sign of the Fishes, and the latter would occur when they all met in the sign of the Lion.

The origin of astrology, like that of the celestial sphere, was in all probability in upper Asia.

There, the starry heavens, always pure and splendid, invited observation and struck the imagination. We have already seen this with respect to the more matter-of-fact portions of astronomy. The a.s.syrians looked upon the stars as divinities endued with beneficent or maleficent power. The adoration of the heavenly bodies was the earliest form of religion among the pastoral population that came down from the mountains of Kurdestan to the plains of Babylon. The Chaldaeans at last set apart a sacerdotal and learned caste devoted to the observation of the heavens; and the temples became regular observatories. Such doubtless was the tower of Babel--a monument consecrated to the seven planets, and of which the account has come down to us in the ancient book of Genesis.

A long series of observations put the Chaldaeans in possession of a theological astronomy, resting on a more or less chimerical theory of the influence of the celestial bodies on the events of nations and private individuals. Diodorus Siculus, writing towards the commencement of our era, has put us in possession of the most circ.u.mstantial details that have reached us with regard to the Chaldaean priests.

At the head of the G.o.ds, the a.s.syrians placed the sun and moon, whose courses and daily positions they had noted in the constellation of the zodiac, in which the sun remained, one month in each. The twelve signs were governed by as many G.o.ds, who had the corresponding months under their influence. Each of these months were divided into three parts, which made altogether thirty-six subdivisions, over which as many stars presided, called G.o.ds of consultation. Half of these G.o.ds had under their control the things which happen above the earth, and the other half those below. The sun and moon and the five planets occupied the most elevated rank in the divine hierarchy and bore the name of G.o.ds of interpretation. Among these planets Saturn or old Bel, which was regarded as the highest star and the most distant from us, was surrounded by the greatest veneration; he was the interpreter _par excellence_--the revealer. Each of the other planets had his own particular name. Some of them, such as _Bel_ (Jupiter), _Merodaez_ (Mars), _Nebo_ (Mercury), were regarded as male, and the others, as _Sin_ (the Moon), and _Mylitta_ or _Baulthis_ (Venus), as females; and from their position relative to the zodiacal constellations, which were also called _Lords_ or masters of the _G.o.ds_, the Chaldaeans derived the knowledge of the destiny of the men who were born under such and such a conjunction--predictions which the Greeks afterwards called horoscopes.

The Chaldaeans invented also relations between each of the planets and meteorological phenomena, an opinion partly founded on fortuitous coincidences which they had more or less frequently observed. In the time of Alexander their credit was considerable, and the king of Macedonia, either from superst.i.tion or policy, was in the habit of consulting them.

It is probable that the Babylonian priests, who referred every natural property to sidereal influences, imagined there were some mysterious relations between the planets and the metals whose colours were respectively somewhat a.n.a.logous to theirs. Gold corresponded to the sun, silver to the moon, lead to Saturn, iron to Mars, tin to Jupiter, and mercury still retains the name of the planet with which it was a.s.sociated. It is less than two centuries ago, since the metals have ceased to be designated by the signs of their respective planets.

Alchemy, the mother of chemistry, was an intimately connected sister of Astrology, the mother of Astronomy.

Egyptian civilisation dates back to a no less remote period than that of Babylon. Not less careful observers than the Babylonish astrologers of the meteors and the atmospheric revolutions, they could predict certain phenomena, and they gave it out that they had themselves been the cause of them.

Diodorus Siculus tells us that the Egyptian priests pretty generally predicted the years of barrenness or abundance, the contagions, the earthquakes, inundations, and comets. The knowledge of celestial phenomena made an essential part of the theology of the Egyptians as it did of the Chaldaeans. They had colleges of priests specially attached to the study of the stars, at which Pythagoras, Plato, and Eudoxus were instructed.

Religion was besides completely filled with the symbols relating to the sun or moon. Each month, each decade, each day was consecrated to a particular G.o.d. These G.o.ds, to the number of thirty, were called in the Alexandrine astronomy _decans_ ([Greek: dekavoi]). The festivals were marked by the periodical return of certain astronomical phenomena, and those heliacal risings to which any mythological ideas were attached, were noted with great care. We find even now proof of this old sacerdotal science in the zodiac sculptured on the ceilings of certain temples, and in the hieroglyphic inscriptions relating to celestial phenomena.

According to the Egyptians, who were no less aware than the Greeks, of the influence of atmospheric changes on our organs, the different stars had a special action on each part of the body. In the funeral rituals which were placed at the bottom of the coffins, constant allusion is made to this theory. Each limb of the dead body was placed under the protection of a particular G.o.d. The divinities divided between them, so to speak, the spoils of the dead. The head belonged to Ra, or the Sun, the nose and lips to Anubis, and so on. To establish the horoscope of anyone, this theory of specific influences was combined with the state of the heavens at the time of his birth. It seems even to have been the doctrine of the Egyptians, that a particular star indicated the coming of each man into the world, and this opinion was held also by the Medes, and is alluded to in the Gospels. In Egypt, as in Persia and Chaldaea, the science of nature was a sacred doctrine, of which magic and astrology const.i.tuted the two branches, and in which the phenomena of the universe were attached very firmly to the divinities or genii with which they believed it filled. It was the same in the primitive religions of Greece.

The Thessalian women had an especially great reputation in the art of enchantments. All the poets rival one another in declaring how they are able, by their magical hymns, to bring down the moon. Menander, in his comedy ent.i.tled _The Thessalian_, represents the mysterious ceremonies by the aid of which these sorcerers force the moon to leave the heavens, a prodigy which so completely became the type of enchantments that Nonnus tells us it is done by the Brahmins. There was, in addition, another _cultus_ in Greece, namely, that of Hecate with mysterious rays, the patron of sorcerers. Lucian of Samosate--if the work on astrology which is ascribed to him be really his--justifies his belief in the influence of the stars in the following terms:--"The stars follow their orbit in the heaven; but independently of their motion, they act upon what pa.s.ses here below. If you admit that a horse in a gallop, that birds in flying, and men in walking, make the stones jump or drive the little floating particles of dust by the wind of their course, why should you deny that the stars have any effect? The smallest fire sends us its emanations, and although it is not for us that the stars burn, and they care very little about warming us, why should we not receive any emanations from them? Astrology, it is true, cannot make that good which is evil. It can effect no change in the course of events; but it renders a service to those who cultivate it by announcing to them good things to come; it procures joy by antic.i.p.ation at the same time that it fortifies them against the evil. Misfortune, in fact, does not take them by surprise, the foreknowledge of it renders it easier and lighter. That is my way of looking at astrology."

Very different is the opinion of the satirist Juvenal, who says that women are the chief cultivators of it. "All that an astrologer predicts to them," he says, "they think to come from the temple of Jupiter. Avoid meeting with a lady who is always casting up her _ephemerides_, who is so good an astrologer that she has ceased to consult, and is already beginning to be consulted; such a one on the inspection of the stars will refuse to accompany her husband to the army or to his native land.

If she only wishes to drive a mile, the hour of departure is taken from her book of astrology. If her eye itches and wants rubbing, she will do nothing till she has run through her conjuring book. If she is ill in bed, she will take her food only at the times fixed in her _Petosiris_.

Women of second-rate condition," he adds, "go round the circus before consulting their destiny, after which they show their hands and face to the diviner."

When Octavius came into the world a senator versed in astrology, Nigidius Figulus, predicted the glorious destiny of the future emperor.

Livia, the wife of Tiberius, asked another astrologer, Scribius, what would be the destiny of her infant; his reply was, they say, like the other's.

The house of Poppea, the wife of Nero, was always full of astrologers.

It was one of the soothsayers attached to her house, Ptolemy, who predicted to Otho his elevation to the empire, at the time of the expedition into Spain, where he accompanied him.

The history of astrology under the Roman empire supplies some very curious stories, of which we may select an ill.u.s.trative few.

Octavius, in company with Agrippa, consulted one day the astrologer Theagenes. The future husband of Julia, more credulous or more curious than the nephew of Caesar, was the first to take the horoscope. Theagenes foretold astonis.h.i.+ng prosperity for him. Octavius, jealous of so happy a destiny, and fearing that the reply would be less favourable to him, instead of following the example of his companion, refused at first to state the day of his birth. But, curiosity getting the better of him, he decided to reply. No sooner had he told the day of his birth than the astrologer threw himself at his feet, and wors.h.i.+pped him as the future master of the empire. Octavius was transported with joy, and from that moment was a firm believer in astrology. To commemorate the happy influence of the zodiacal sign under which he was born, he had the picture of it struck on some of the medals that were issued in his reign.

The masters of the empire believed in astrological divination, but wished to keep the advantages to themselves. They wanted to know the future without allowing their subjects to do the same. Nero would not permit anyone to study philosophy, saying it was a vain and frivolous thing, from which one might take a pretext to divine future events. He feared lest some one should push his curiosity so far as to wish to find out when and how the emperor should die--a sort of indiscreet question, replies to which lead to conspiracies and attempts. This was what the heads of the state were most afraid of.

Tiberius had been to Rhodes, to a soothsayer of renown, to instruct himself in the rules of astrology. He had attached to his person the celebrated astrologer Thrasyllus, whose fate-revealing science he proved by one of those pleasantries which are only possible with tyrants.

Whenever Tiberius consulted an astrologer he placed him in the highest part of his palace, and employed for his purpose an ignorant and powerful freedman, who brought by difficult paths, bounded by precipices, the astrologer whose science his Majesty wished to prove. On the return journey, if the astrologer was suspected of indiscretion or treachery, the freedman threw him into the sea, to bury the secret.

Thrasyllus having been brought by the same route across these precipices, struck Tiberius with awe while he questioned him, by showing him his sovereign power, and easily disclosing the things of the future.

Caesar asked him if he had taken his own horoscope, and with what signs were marked that day and hour for himself. Thrasyllus then examined the position and the distance of the stars; he hesitated at first, then he grew pale; then he looked again, and finally, trembling with astonishment and fear, he cried out that the moment was perilous, and he was very near his last hour. Tiberius then embraced him and congratulated him on having escaped a danger by foreseeing it; and accepting henceforth all his predictions as oracles, he admitted him to the number of his intimate friends.

Tiberius had a great number of people put to death who were accused of having taken their horoscope to know what honours were in store for them, although in secret he took the horoscopes of great people, that he might ascertain that he had no rivalry to fear from them. Septimus Severus was very nearly paying with his head for one of those superst.i.tious curiosities that brought the ambitious of the time to the astrologer. In prosperous times he had gained faith in their predictions, and consulted them about important acts. Having lost his wife, and wis.h.i.+ng to contract a second marriage, he took the horoscopes of the well-connected ladies who were at the time open to marriage. None of their fortunes, taken by the rules of astrology, were encouraging. He learnt at last that there was living in Syria a young woman to whom the Chaldaeans had predicted that she should be the wife of a king. Severus was as yet but a legate. He hastened to demand her in marriage, and he obtained her; Julia was the name of the woman who was born under so happy a star; but was he the crowned husband which the stars had promised to the young Syrian? This reflection soon began to perplex Severus, and to get out of his perplexity he went to Sicily to consult an astrologer of renown. The matter came to the ears of the Emperor Commodus; and judge of his anger! The anger of Commodus was rage and frenzy; but the event soon gave the response that Severus was seeking in Sicily,--Commodus was strangled.

Divination which had the emperor for its object at last came to be a crime of high treason. The rigorous measures resorted to against the indiscreet curiosity of ambition took more terrible proportions under the Christian emperors.

Under Constantine, a number of persons who had applied to the oracles were punished with cruel tortures.

Under Valens, a certain Palladius was the agent of a terrible persecution. Everyone found himself exposed to being denounced for having relations with soothsayers. Traitors slipped secretly into houses magic formulae and charms, which then became so many proofs against the inhabitant. The fear was so great in the East, says Ammienus Marcellinus, that a great number burned their books, lest matter should be found in them for an accusation of magic or sorcery.

One day in anger, Vitellius commanded all the astrologers to leave Italy by a certain day. They responded by a poster, which impudently commanded the prince to leave the earth before that date, and at the end of the year Vitellius was put to death; on the other hand, the confidence accorded to astrologers led sometimes to the greatest extremes. For instance, after having consulted Babylus, Nero put to death all those whose prophecies promised the elevation of Heliogabalus. Another instance was that of Marcus Aurelius and his wife Faustina. The latter was struck with the beauty of a gladiator. For a long time she vainly strove in secret with the pa.s.sion that consumed her, but the pa.s.sion did nothing but increase. At last Faustina revealed the matter to her husband, and asked him for some remedy that should restore peace to her troubled soul. The philosophy of Marcus Aurelius could not suggest anything. So he decided to consult the Chaldaeans, who were adepts at the art of mixing philters and composing draughts. The means prescribed were more simple than might have been expected from their complicated science; it was that the gladiator should be cut in pieces. They added that Faustina should afterwards be anointed with the blood of the victim. The remedy was applied, the innocent athlete was immolated, and the empress afterwards only dreamed of him with great pleasure.

The first Christians were as much addicted to astrology as the other sects. The Councils of Laodicea (366, A.D.), of Arles (314), of Agdus (505), Orleans (511), Auxerre (570), and Narbonne (589), condemned the practice. According to a tradition of the commencement of our era, which appears to have been borrowed from Mazdeism, it was the rebel angels who taught men astrology and the use of charms.

Under Constantius the crime of high treason served as a pretext for persecution. A number of people were accused of it, who simply continued to practise the ancient religion. It was pretended that they had recourse to sorceries against the life of the emperor, in order to bring about his fall. Those who consulted the oracles were menaced with severe penalties and put to death by torture, under the pretence that by dealing with questions of fate they had criminal intentions. Plots without number multiplied the accusations; and the cruelty of the judges aggravated the punishments. The pagans, in their turn had to suffer the martyrdom which they had previously inflicted on the early disciples of Christ--or rather, to be truer, it was authority, always intolerable, whether pagan or Christian, that showed itself inexorable against those who dared to differ from the accepted faith. Libanius and Jamblicus were accused of having attempted to discover the name of the successor to the empire. Jamblicus, being frightened at the prosecution brought against him, poisoned himself. The name only of philosopher was sufficient to found an accusation upon. The philosopher Maximus Diogenes Alypius, and his son Hierocles, were condemned to lose their lives on the most frivolous pretence. An old man was put to death because he was in the habit of driving off the approach of fever by incantations, and a young man who was surprised in the act of putting his hands alternately to a marble and his breast, because he thought that by counting in this way seven times seven, he might cure the stomach-ache, met with the same fate.

Theodosius prohibited every kind of manifestation or usage connected with pagan belief. Whoever should dare to immolate a victim, said his law, or consult the entrails of the animals he had killed, should be regarded as guilty of the crime of high treason.

The fact of having recourse to a process of divination was sufficient for an accusation against a man.

Theodosius II. thought that the continuation of idolatrous practices had drawn down the wrath of heaven, and brought upon them the recent calamities that had afflicted his empire--the derangement of the seasons and the sterility of the soil--and he thundered out terrible threats when his faith and his anger united themselves into fanaticism.

He wrote as follows to Florentius, prefect of the praetorium in 439, the year that preceded his death:--

"Are we to suffer any longer from the seasons being upset by the effect of the divine wrath, on account of the atrocious perfidy of the pagans, which disturbs the equilibrium of nature? For what is the cause that now the spring has no longer its ordinary beauty, that the autumn no longer furnishes a harvest to the laborious workman and that the winter, by its rigour, freezes the soil and renders it sterile?"

Perhaps we are unduly amused with these ideas of Theodosius so long as we retain the custom of asking the special intervention of Providence for the presence or absence of rain!

In the middle ages, when astrology took such a hold on the world, several philosophers went so far as to consider the celestial vault as a book, in which each star, having the value of one of the letters of the alphabet, told in ineffaceable characters the destiny of every empire.

The book of _Unheard-of Curiosities_, by Gaffarel, gives us the configuration of these celestial characters, and we find them also in the writings of Cornelius Agrippa. The middle ages took their astrological ideas from the Arabians and Jews. The Jews themselves at this epoch borrowed their principles from such contaminated sources that we are not able to trace in them the transmission of the ancient ideas.

To give an example, Simeon Ben-Jochai, to whom is attributed the famous book called _Zohar_, had attained in their opinion such a prodigious acquaintance with celestial mysteries as indicated by the stars, that he could have read the divine law in the heavens before it had been promulgated on the earth. During the whole of the middle ages, whenever they wanted to clear up doubts about geography or astronomy, they always had recourse to this Oriental science, as cultivated by the Jews and Arabians. In the thirteenth century Alphonse X. was very importunate with the Jews to make them a.s.sist him with their advice in his vast astronomical and historical works.

Nicholas Oresmus, when the most enlightened monarch in Europe was supplying Du Guesclin with an astrologer to guide him in his strategical operations, was physician to Charles V. of France, who was himself devoted to astrology, and gave him the bishopric of Lisieux. He composed the _Treatise of the Sphere_, of which we have already spoken. A few years later, a learned man, the bishop Peter d'Ailly, actually dared to take the horoscope of Jesus Christ, and proved by most certain rules that the great event which inaugurated the new era was marked with very notable signs in astrology.

Mathias Corvin, King of Hungary, never undertook anything without first consulting the astrologers. The Duke of Milan and Pope Paul also governed themselves by their advice. King Louis XI., who so heartily despised the rest of mankind, and had as much malice in him as he had weakness, had a curious adventure with an astrologer.

It was told him that an astrologer had had the hardihood to predict the death of a woman of whom the king was very fond. He sent for the wretched prophet, gave him a severe reprimand, and then asked him the question, "You, who know everything, when will _you_ die?" The astrologer, suspecting a trick, replied immediately, "Sire, three days before your Majesty." Fear and superst.i.tion overcame the monarch's resentment, and the king took particular care of the adroit impostor.

It is well known how much Catherine de Medicis was under the influence of the astrologers. She had one in her Hotel de Soissons in Paris, who watched constantly at the top of a tower. This tower is still in existence, by the Wool-Market, which was built in 1763 on the site of the hotel. It is surmounted by a sphere and a solar dial, placed there by the astronomer Pingre.

One of the most celebrated of the astrologers who was under her patronage was Nostradamus. He was a physician of Provence, and was born at St. Reny in 1503. To medicine he joined astrology, and undertook to predict future events. He was called to Paris by Catherine in 1556, and attempted to write his oracles in poetry. His little book was much sought after during the whole of the remainder of the sixteenth century, and even in the beginning of the next. According to contemporary writers many imitations were made of it. It was written in verses of four lines, and was called _Quatrains Astronomiques_. As usual, the prophecies were obscure enough to suit anything, and many believers have thought they could trace in the various verses prophecies of known events, by duly twisting and manipulating the sense.

A very amusing prophecy, which happened to be too clear to leave room for mistakes as to its meaning, and which turned out to be most ludicrously wrong, was one contained in a little book published in 1572 with this t.i.tle:--_Prognostication touching the marriage of the very honourable and beloved Henry, by the Grace of G.o.d King of Navarre, and the very ill.u.s.trious Princess Marguerite of France, calculated by Master Bernard Abbatio, Doctor in Medicine, and Astrologer to the very Christian King of France._

First he asked if the marriage would be happy, and says:--"Having in my library made the figure of the heavens, I found that the lord of the ascendant is joined to the lord of the seventh house, which is for the woman of a trine aspect, from whence I have immediately concluded, according to the opinion of Ptolemy, Haly, Zael, Messahala, and many other sovereign astrologers, that they will love one another intensely all their lives." In point of fact they always detested each other.

Again, "as to length of life, I have prepared another figure, and have found that Jupiter and Venus are joined to the sun with fortification, and that they will approach a hundred years;" after all Henri IV. died before he was sixty. "Our good King of Navarre will have by his most n.o.ble and virtuous Queen many children; since, after I had prepared another figure of heaven, I found the ascendant and its lord, together with the moon, all joined to the lord of the fifth house, called that of children, which will be pretty numerous, on account of Jupiter and also of Venus;" and yet they had no children! "Jupiter and Venus are found domiciled on the aquatic signs, and since these two planets are found concordant with the lord of the ascendant, all this proves that the children will be upright and good, and that they will love their father and mother, without doing them any injury, nor being the cause of their destruction, as is seen in the fruit of the nut, which breaks, opens, and destroys the stock from which it took its birth. The children will live long, they will be good Christians, and with their father will make themselves so benign and favourable towards those of our religion, that at last they will be as beloved as any man of our period, and there will be no more wars among the French, as there would have been but for the present marriage. G.o.d grant us grace that so long as we are in this transitory life we may see no other king but Charles IX., the present King of France." And yet these words were written in the year of the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew's day! and the marriage was broken off, and Henri IV. married to Marie de Medici. So much for the astrological predictions!

The aspect in which astrology was looked upon by the better minds even when it was flouris.h.i.+ng may be ill.u.s.trated by two quotations we may make, from Shakespeare and Voltaire.

Our immortal poet puts into the mouth of Edmund in _King Lear_:--"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of a libertine to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father married my mother under the Dragon's tail; and my nativity was under _Ursa major_; so that it follows I am rough lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my birth."

Voltaire writes thus:--"This error is ancient, and that is enough. The Egyptians, the Chaldaeans, the Jews could predict, and therefore we can predict now. If no more predictions are made it is not the fault of the art. So said the alchemists of the philosopher's stone. If you do not find to-day it is because you are not clever enough; but it is certain that it is in the clavicle of Solomon, and on that certainty more than two hundred families in Germany and France have been ruined. Do you wonder either that so many men, otherwise much exalted above the vulgar, such as princes or popes, who knew their interests so well, should be so ridiculously seduced by this impertinence of astrology. They were very proud and very ignorant. There were no stars but for them; the rest of the universe was _canaille_, for whom the stars did not trouble themselves. I have not the honour of being a prince. Nevertheless, the celebrated Count of Boulainvilliers and an Italian, called Colonne, who had great reputation in Paris, both predicted to me that I should infallibly die at the age of thirty-two. I have had the malice already to deceive them by thirty years, for which I humbly beg their pardon."

The method by which these predictions were arrived at consisted in making the different stars and planets responsible for different parts of the body, different properties, and different events, and making up stories from the a.s.sociation of ideas thus obtained, which of course admitted of the greatest degree of lat.i.tude. The principles are explained by Manilius in his great poem ent.i.tled _The Astronomicals_, written two thousand years ago.