Part 12 (1/2)

It is to our shame that even to-day, in spite of all our enlightenment and scientific advances, astrology still has a hold upon mult.i.tudes.

Astrological almanacs and treatises are sold by the tens of thousands, and astrological superst.i.tions are still current. ”The star of the G.o.d Chiun” is not indeed openly wors.h.i.+pped; but Saturn is still looked upon as the planet bringing such diseases as ”toothache, agues, and all that proceeds from cold, consumption, the spleen particularly, and the bones, rheumatic gouts, jaundice, dropsy, and all complaints arising from fear, apoplexies, etc.”; and charms made of Saturn's metal, lead, are still worn upon Saturn's finger, in the belief that these will ward off the threatened evil; a tradition of the time when by so doing the wearers would have proclaimed themselves votaries of the G.o.d, and therefore under his protection.

Astrology is inevitably linked with heathenism, and both shut up spirit and mind against the knowledge of G.o.d Himself, which is religion; and against the knowledge of His works, which is science. And though a man may be religious without being scientific, or scientific without being religious, religion and science alike both rest on one and the same basis--the belief in ”One G.o.d, Maker of heaven and earth.”

That belief was the reason why Israel of old, so far as it was faithful to it, was free from the superst.i.tions of astrology.

”It is no small honour for this nation to have been wise enough to see the inanity of this and all other forms of divination. . . . Of what other ancient civilized nation could as much be said?”[145:1]

FOOTNOTES:

[136:1] R. A. Proctor, _The Great Pyramid_, pp. 274-276.

[139:1] G. V. Schiaparelli, _Astronomy in the Old Testament_, p. 137.

[145:1] G. V. Schiaparelli, _Astronomy in the Old Testament_, p. 52.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _By permission of the Autotype Co._

_74, New Oxford Street, London, W.C._

ST. PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS (_by Raphael_).

”As certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring.”]

BOOK II

THE CONSTELLATIONS

CHAPTER I

THE ORIGIN OF THE CONSTELLATIONS

The age of Cla.s.sical astronomy began with the labours of Eudoxus and others, about four centuries before the Christian Era, but there was an Earlier astronomy whose chief feature was the arrangement of the stars into constellations.

The best known of all such arrangements is that sometimes called the ”Greek Sphere,” because those constellations have been preserved to us by Greek astronomers and poets. The earliest complete catalogue of the stars, as thus arranged, that has come down to us was compiled by Claudius Ptolemy, the astronomer of Alexandria, and completed 137 A.D.

In this catalogue, each star is described by its place in the supposed figure of the constellation, whilst its celestial lat.i.tude and longitude are added, so that we can see with considerable exactness how the astronomers of that time imagined the star figures. The earliest complete description of the constellations, apart from the places of the individual stars, is given in the poem of Aratus of Soli--_The Phenomena_, published about 270 B.C.

Were these constellations known to the Hebrews of old? We can answer this question without hesitation in the case of St. Paul. For in his sermon to the Athenians on Mars' Hill, he quotes from the opening verses of this constellation poem of Aratus:--

”G.o.d that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is wors.h.i.+pped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring.”

The poem of Aratus begins thus:--

”To G.o.d above we dedicate our song; To leave Him unadored, we never dare; For He is present in each busy throng, In every solemn gathering He is there.