(2) For time always proceeding the divine mode of knowledge becomes evanescent, through being frequently mingled and contaminated with much of what is mortal. This divine mode is indeed [in astrology also], and a certain clear indication of truth, though it is but small, is at the same time preserved in it. For it places before our eyes manifest signs of the mensuration of the divine periods, when it predicts the eclipses of the sun and moon, and the concursions of the moon with the fixed stars, and when the experience of the sight is seen to accord with the prediction. Moreover, the observations of the celestial bodies through the whole of time, both by the Chaldeans and by us, testify that this science is true. Indications, also, more known than these might be adduced, if the present discussion was precedaneously about these particulars. But as they are superfluous, and do not pertain to the knowledge of the peculiar dæmon, I shall, as it is fit so to do, omit them, and pass on to things more appropriate than these.

(1) And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished saying these words, that Mary continued again and said: "My Lord, will not then the horoscope-casters and consulters from now on declare unto men what will come to pass for them?" And Jesus answered and said unto Mary: "If the horoscope-casters find the Fate and the sphere turned towards the left, according to their first extension, their words will come to pass, and they will say what is to take place. But if they chance on the Fate or the sphere turned to the right, they are bound to say nothing true, for I have changed their influences and their squares and their triangles and their octagons; seeing that their influences from the beginning onwards were continuously turned to the left and their squares and their triangles and their octagons. But now I have made them spend six months turned to the left and six months turned to the right. He who then shall find their reckoning from the time when I changed them, setting them so as to spend six months facing towards their left and six months facing their right paths,--he who then shall observe them in this wise, will know their influences surely and will declare all things which they will do. In like manner also the consulters, if they invoke the names of the rulers and chance on them facing the left, will tell [men] with accuracy all things concerning which they shall ask their decans. On the contrary, if the consulters invoke their names when they face to the right, they will not give ear unto them, because they are facing in another form compared with their former position in which Yew had established them; seeing that other are their names when they are turned to the left and other their names when they are turned to the right. And if they invoke them when they are turned to the right, they will not tell them the truth, but they will con-found them with confusion and threaten them with threatening. Those then who do not know their path, when they are turned to the right, and their triangles and their squares and all their figures, will find nothing true, but will be confounded in great confusion and will find themselves in great delusion, because I have now changed the works which they effected aforetime in their squares, when turned to the left, and in their triangles and in their octagons, in which they were busied continuously turned to the left; and I have made them spend six months forming all their configurations turned to the right, in order that they may be confounded in confusion in their whole range. And moreover [paragraph continues] I have made them spend six months turned to the left and accomplishing the works of their influences and all their configurations, in order that the rulers who are in the æons and in their spheres and in their heavens and in all their regions, may be confounded in confusion and deluded in delusion, so that they may not understand their own paths."

(91) Let not your spirit be troubled on account of the times; For the Holy and Great One has appointed days for all things.

(1) It is necessary, however, to think that the soul which uses divination of this kind, not only becomes an auditor of the prediction, but also contributes in no small degree from itself to the consummation of it, and of what pertains to its operations. For this soul is coexcited and cooperates, and at the same time foreknows, through a certain necessary sympathy. Such a mode, therefore, of divination as this is entirely different from the divine and true mode, being alone able to predict respecting small and diurnal concerns, viz. respecting such as being placed in a divided nature, are borne along about generation, and which impart motions from themselves to those things that are able to receive them, and produce multiform passions in things which are naturally adapted to be copassive. Perfect foreknowledge, however, can never be effected through passion. For that which is itself especially immutable, immaterial, and entirely pure, is accustomed to apprehend the future; but that which is mingled with the most irrational and dark nature of a corporeal-formed and material essence is filled with abundant ignorance. An artificial apparatus, therefore, of this kind does not deserve to be called divination; nor is it proper to bestow much attention upon it, nor to believe in any other person who uses it, as if it possessed in itself a certain clear and known indication of truth. And thus much concerning divination of this kind.

(20) ¶But immediately, in those days after that tribulation, there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars: the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall; and the powers that are in the heavens shall be shaken: and upon the earth [shall be] distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and waves roaring: men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

(1) Divine divination, therefore, which is conjoined with the Gods, alone truly imparts to us a divine life; since it participates of [divine] foreknowledge, and divine intellections, and renders us in reality divine. It likewise causes us to be genuine participants of the good , because the most blessed intellectual perception of the Gods is filled with all good. Hence those who possess this divination “ do not ,” as you conjecture, “ foresee future events, and are nevertheless unhappy .” For all divine foreknowledge is boniform. Nor “ do they foresee, indeed, what is future, but do not know how to use this knowledge properly .” For, together with the foreknowledge, they receive the beautiful itself, and true and appropriate order: and utility is also present with it. For the Gods, in conjunction with it, deliver a transcendent power of defence against the inconveniences which accede from nature. And when it is necessary to exercise virtue, and the ignorance of future events contributes to this, then the Gods conceal what will be for the sake of rendering the soul better. But when the ignorance of what is future does not at all contribute to this, and foreknowledge is advantageous to souls, for the sake of their salvation and reascent [to divinity], then the Gods insert the foreknowledge which pertains to divination in the penetralia of the essences of souls.

(1) I wish, in the next place, to reply to such assertions as calumniate divine prediction. For you compare with it “ certain other methods which are conversant with the prediction of future events .” To me, however, it does not appear to be any thing honourable if a certain natural aptitude is ingenerated in us to the indication of the future, just as in animals there is a foreknowledge of earthquakes, or winds, or tempests. For an innate presage of this kind is the consequence of acuteness of sensation, or sympathy, or some other conjoint motion of the physical powers, and is not attended with any thing venerable and supernatural. Nor if some one, by human reasoning, or artificial observation, conjectures from signs those things of which the signs are indicative (as physicians foreknow that a fever will take place from the systole and torpor of the pulse), neither does he appear to me to possess any thing honourable and good. For he conjectures after a human manner, and concludes from our reasoning power about things which are acknowledged to be effected naturally, and forms a judgment not very remote from the corporeal-formed order. Hence, if there is in us a certain natural presentiment of the future, in the same manner as in all other animals, this power is clearly seen to energize; this presentiment does not in reality possess any thing which is most blessed. For what is there among the things which are implanted in us by nature in the realms of generation that is a genuine, perfect, and eternal good?

(1) In what follows, while you endeavour to unfold divination, you entirely subvert it. For if a passion of the soul is admitted to be the cause of it, what wise man will attribute to an unstable and stupid thing orderly and stable foreknowledge? Or how is it possible that the soul, which is in a sane and stable condition according to its better powers, viz. those that are intellectual and dianoetic, should be ignorant of futurity; but that the soul which suffers according to disorderly and tumultuous motions, should have a knowledge of what is future? For what has passion in itself adapted to the theory of beings? And is it not rather an impediment to the more true intellection of things? Farther still, therefore, if the things contained in the world were constituted through passions, in this case passions, through their similitude, would have a certain alliance to them. But if they are produced through reasons and through forms, there will be another foreknowledge of them, which is liberated from all passion. Again, passion alone perceives that which is present, and which now has a subsistence; but foreknowledge apprehends things which do not yet exist. Hence, to foreknow is different from being passively affected.

(14) O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.

(41) For the sun changes oft for a blessing or a curse, And the course of the path of the moon is light to the righteous And darkness to the sinners in the name of the Lord, Who made a separation between the light and the darkness, And divided the spirits of men, And strengthened the spirits of the righteous, In the name of His righteousness.

(2) Nor, if there are certain other false and deceitful resemblances, which are still more remote from reality, is it fit to adduce these in forming a judgment of it. But the divine form or species of divination is to be apprehended according to one intelligible and immutable truth; and the mutation which subsists differently at different times is to be rejected as unstable and unadapted to the Gods. If, therefore, that which is truly divination is a thing of this kind, i. e. is a divine work, who would not blush to ascribe it to nature, which produces its effects without reason and intellect, as if nature elaborated in us a certain prophetic apparatus, and inserted this aptitude in some things in a greater but in others in a less degree? For in those things in which men receive auxiliaries from nature in the attainment of their proper perfection, in these, also, certain aptitudes of nature precede; but in things in which no human work is proposed [to be effected], in these neither does the end pertain to us.

(4) Through them, also, he inserts in us wisdom, and through every thing which is in the world excites our intellect to the truth of real beings, of things which are in generation, and of future events. From these things, therefore, I think it is manifest, that the mode of divination is perfectly contrary to what you suspected it to be. For it is of a ruling and primordial nature, of an unrestrained power, and transcendent nature, comprehending in itself all things, but not being comprehended by any thing, nor enclosed by its participants. For it ascends into, and rules over, all things simultaneously, and without circumscription, and collectively signifies future events. Hence, from what has been said, you may easily dissolve these vulgar doubts, which disturb most men, and may in a becoming manner elevate yourself to the intellectual, divine, and irreprehensible presignification of the Gods from all things. Through this, therefore, we have evinced, that divinity is not drawn down to the signs employed by divination.

(1) You say then, in your epistle, “ that the discovery of the lord or lords of the geniture, if there are more than one in a nativity, can scarcely be obtained, and by astrologers themselves is confessed to be unattainable; and yet they say that the peculiar dæmon is from thence to be known .” But how can astrologers confess that the knowledge of the lord of the geniture is not to be obtained by them, when they deliver clear methods for the discovery of it, and teach us rules by which we may discover the doubts; some, indeed, giving us five, others more and others less than five rules? Omitting this, however, let us direct our attention to a thing of greater consequence, viz. the accidents pertaining to both these. For if it is possible to discover the lord of the geniture, the dæmon imparted by him will be known; but if this knowledge is unattainable, we shall be ignorant of the lord of the geniture according to this hypothesis, and yet, nevertheless, he will have an existence, and also the dæmon imparted by him. What therefore hinders, but that the discovery of him may be difficult through prediction from the nativity, and yet through sacred divination, or theurgy, there may be a great abundance of scientific knowledge on this subject? In short, the dæmon is not alone imparted by the lord of the geniture, but there are many other principles of it more universal than this. And farther still, a method of this kind introduces a certain artificial and human disquisition concerning the peculiar dæmon. Hence, in these doubts of yours there is nothing sane.

(11) Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation.

(28) The period of 2,160 years required for the regression of the sun through one of the zodiacal constellations is often termed an age. According to this system, the age secured its name from the sign through which the sun passes year after year as it crosses the equator at the vernal equinox. From this arrangement are derived the terms The Taurian Age, The Aryan Age, The Piscean Age, and The Aquarian Age. During these periods, or ages, religious worship takes the form of the appropriate celestial sign--that which the sun is said to assume as a personality in the same manner that a spirit assumes a body. These twelve signs are the jewels of his breastplate and his light shines forth from them, one after the other.

(3) If some one, however, dismissing primordial causes, should refer divination to secondary offices, such as the motions of bodies, or the mutations of passions, or certain other motions, or the energies of human life, or animal or physical reasons, and should think that in so doing he asserts something manifest; or if, considering the symmetries of these with reference to each other, as causes, he should apprehend that he can assign something accurate concerning divination, he wholly deviates from the truth. But the one right boundary, and the one principle of all these particulars, is by no means to produce without a cause the foreknowledge of futurity, from things which have no prescience in themselves, but to survey from the Gods who contain in themselves the terminations of all the knowledge of beings, divination distributed about the whole world, and about all the natures that are separately contained in it. For such a cause as this is primordial, and is especially most common, containing in itself primarily those things which it gives to its participants, and particularly imparting truth, of which divination is in want; and antecedently comprehending the essence and cause of future events, from which foreknowledge necessarily and incessantly proceeds. Let such a principle as this, therefore, be the origin in common of all divination, from which it is possible to discover scientifically all the species of it; which we shall now unfold, conformably to the questions proposed by you.

(1) These things, therefore, having been accurately discussed, the solution of the doubts which you have met with in certain books will be manifest. For the books which are circulated under the name of Hermes contain Hermaic opinions, though they frequently employ the language of the philosophers: for they were translated from the Egyptian tongue by men who were not unskilled in philosophy. But Chæremon, and any others who have at all discussed the first causes of mundane natures, have unfolded the last rulers of these. And such as have written concerning the planets, the zodiac, the decans, horoscopes, and what are called powerful and leading planets, these have unfolded the partible distributions of the rulers. The particulars, also, contained in the Calendars comprehend a certain very small part of the Hermaic arrangements. And the causes of such things as pertain to the phases or occultations of the stars, or to the increments and decrements of the moon, are assigned by the Egyptians the last of all.

(3) If, therefore, these assertions are true, though we derive from nature impressions by which we obtain a knowledge of things, or come into contact with futurity, it is not proper to consider an impression of this kind as prophetic foreknowledge; but it is, indeed, similar to this knowledge, yet falls short of it in stability and truth, is conversant with that which frequently, but not always, happens, and apprehends the truth in certain, but not in all things. Hence, if there is a discipline which foresees the future in the arts, as, for instance, in the piloting or medical art, this does not all pertain to divine foreknowledge. For it conjectures the future by certain signs, and these such as are not always credible, nor such as have that of which they are the signs, connected with them with invariable sameness. But with divine providence, a stable knowledge of the future precedes; [and this is attended with] an immutable faith suspended from causes; an indissoluble comprehension of all things in all; and a perpetually abiding and invariable knowledge of all things as present and definite.

(21) And thereupon it comes, that Man many Times in the Dwelling of the Brains, and of the Heart, as also in all the five Senses, in the Region [or Dominion] of the Stars, is in his Or according to the Complexions. Mind P often like a Wolf, a churlish Dog, crafty, fierce, and greedy; and P often like a Lion, stern, cruel, sturdy and active in devouring of his Prey; P often like a Dog, snappish, envious, malicious; often like an Adder and Serpent, subtle, venomous, stinging, poisonous, slanderous in his Words, and mischievous in his Deeds, ill-conditioned and lying, like the Quality of the Devil in the Shape of a Serpent at the Tree of Temptation; P often like a Hare, timorous, or fearful, starting and running away; P often like a Toad, whose Mind is so very venomous, that it poisons a tender [or weak] Mind to the temporal Death by its Imagination, which many Times makes Witches and Sorcerers, for the first Ground serves enough to it; P often like a tame Beast; and P often like a merry Beast, &c. all according as the Constellation stood, in its Incarnation in the wrestling Wheel, with its Virtue of the Quinta Essentia, so is the Starry Mind on rit region figured; although the Hour of Man's Birth alters much, and does hold in the first, whereof I will write hereafter in its Place, concerning Man's Birth [or Nativity.]