Thus astrology entered into all religious ideas, and the doctrines of the destiny of the world and of man harmonized with its teachings. According to Berosus, who is the interpreter of ancient Chaldean theories, the existence of the universe consisted of a series of "big years," each having its summer and its winter. Their summer took place when all the planets were in {177} conjunction at the same point of Cancer, and brought with it a general conflagration. On the other hand, their winter came when all the planets were joined in Capricorn, and its result was a universal flood. Each of these cosmic cycles, the duration of which was fixed at 432,000 years according to the most probable estimate, was an exact reproduction of those that had preceded it. In fact, when the stars resumed exactly the same position, they were forced to act in identically the same manner as before. This Babylonian theory, an anticipation of that of the "eternal return of things," which Nietzsche boasts of having discovered, enjoyed lasting popularity during antiquity, and in various forms came down to the Renaissance.[39] The belief that the world would be destroyed by fire, a theory also spread abroad by the Stoics, found a new support in these cosmic speculations. Astrology, however, revealed the future not only of the universe, but also of man. According to a Chaldeo-Persian doctrine, accepted by the pagan mystics and previously pointed out by us,[40] a bitter necessity compelled the souls that dwell in great numbers on the celestial heights, to descend upon this earth and to animate certain bodies that are to hold them in captivity. In descending to the earth they travel through the spheres of the planets and receive some quality from each of these wandering stars, according to its positions. Contrariwise, when death releases them from their carnal prison, they return to their first habitation, providing they have led a pious life, and if as they pass through the doors of the superposed heavens they divest themselves of the passions and inclinations acquired during their first journey, {178} to ascend finally, as pure essence to the radiant abode of the gods. There they live forever among the eternal stars, freed from the tyranny of destiny and even from the limitations of time.