Astrology fell upon the Hellenistic mind as a new disease falls upon
some remote island people. The tomb of Ozymandias, as described by
Diodorus (i. 49, 5), was covered with astrological symbols, and that of
Antiochus I, which has been discovered in Commagene, is of the same
character. It was natural for monarchs to believe that the stars watched
over them. But every one was ready to receive the germ. The Epicureans,
of course, held out, and so did Panaetius, the coolest head among the
Stoics. But the Stoics as a whole gave way. They formed with good reason
the leading school of philosophy, and it would have been a service to
mankind if they had resisted. But they were already committed to a
belief in the deity of the stars and to the doctrine of Heimarmenê, or
Destiny. They believed in the pervading Pronoia,[145:1] or Forethought,
of the divine mind, and in the Συμπάθεια τῶν ὅλων--the Sympathy of all
Creation,[145:2] whereby whatever happens to any one part, however
remote or insignificant, affects all the rest. It seemed only a natural
and beautiful illustration of this Sympathy that the movements of the
Stars should be bound up with the sufferings of man. They also appealed
to the general belief in prophecy and divination.[145:3] If a prophet
can foretell that such and such an event will happen, then it is
obviously fated to happen. Foreknowledge implies Predestination. This
belief in prophecy was, in reality, a sort of appeal to fact and to
common sense. People could produce then, as they can now, a large number
of striking cases of second sight, presentiment, clairvoyance, actual
prophecy and the like;[145:4] and it was more difficult then to test
them.
The argument involved Stoicism with some questionable allies.
Epicureans and sceptics of the Academy might well mock at the sight of a
great man like Chrysippus or Posidonius resting an important part of his
religion on the undetected frauds of a shady Levantine 'medium'. Still
the Stoics could not but welcome the arrival of a system of prophecy and
predestination which, however the incredulous might rail at it,
possessed at least great antiquity and great stores of learning, which
was respectable, recondite, and in a way sublime.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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