Philosophumena; or, The refutation of all heresies, Volume I
David Hume · en
13. Let us first learn, then, how they who have taken this teaching
from the astrologers insult Christ, working destruction for those
who follow them in such error. For the astrologers, having declared
the cosmos to be one, divided it[195] into the twelve fixed parts of
the Zodiacal signs, and call the cosmos of the fixed Zodiacal signs
one unwandering world. But the other, they say, is the world of the
planets alike in power and in position and in number which exists as
far as the Moon.[196] And that one world receives from the other a
certain power and communion, and that things below partake of things
above. But so that what is said shall be made plain, I will use in
part the very words of the astrologers,[197] recalling to the readers
what was said before in the place where we set forth the whole art of
astrology. Their doctrines then are these: From the emanation of the
stars the genitures of things below are influenced. For the Chaldæans,
scrutinizing [Sidenote: p. 189.] the heavens with great care, said
that (the seven stars) account for the active causes of everything
which happens to us; but that the degrees of the Zodiacal circle work
with them. (Then they divide the Zodiacal circle into) 12 parts, and
each Zodiacal sign into 30 degrees and each degree into 60 minutes;
for these they call the least and the undivided. And they call some of
the Zodiacal signs male and others female, some bicorporal and others
not, some tropical and others firm. Then there are male or female
according as they have a nature co-operating in the begetting of males
(or females). Moved by which, I think[198] the Pythagoricians[199] call
the monad male, the dyad female, and the triad again male and in like
manner the rest of the odd and even numbers. And some dividing each
sign into dodecatemories employ [Sidenote: p. 190.] nearly the same
plan. For example, in Aries they call the first dodecatemory Aries and
masculine, its second Taurus and feminine, and its third Gemini and
masculine, and so on with the other parts. And they say that Gemini
and Sagittarius which stands opposite to it and Virgo and Pisces are
bicorporal signs, but the others not. And in like manner, those signs
are tropical in which the Sun turns about and makes the turnings of
the ambient, as, for example, the sign Aries and its opposite Libra,
Capricorn and Cancer. For in Aries, the spring turning occurs, in
Capricorn the winter, in Cancer the summer and in Libra the autumn.
These things also and the system concerning them we have briefly set
forth in the book before this, whence the lover of learning can learn
how Euphrates the Peratic and Celbes the Carystian, the founders of
the heresy, altering only the names, have really set down like things,
having also paid immoderate attention to the art. [Sidenote: p. 191.]
For the astrologers also say that there are “terms” of the stars in
which they deem the ruling stars to have greater power. For example