and briefest moment of time that separates the birth of twins,
CHAP. XXIII.] THE FOLLY OF DIVINATION EXPOSED, 59 hini.-^ Now, assuredly, the day and hour of the birth of these two could not be marked in any way that would not give both the same constellation. But what a difi'erence there was between the characters, the actions, the labours, and the fortunes of these two, the Scriptures bear witness, which are now so widely spread as to be in the mouth of all nations.
34. Nor is it to the point to say that the very smallest and briefest moment of time that separates the birth of twins, produces great effects in nature, and in the extremely rapid motion of the heavenly bodies. For, although I may grant that it does produce the greatest effects, yet the astrologer cannot discover this in the constellations, and it is by looking into these that he professes to read the fates. If, then, he does not discover the difference when he examines the constellations, which must, of course, be the same whether he is consulted about Jacob or his brother, what does it profit him that there is a difference in the heavens, which he rashly and carelessly brings into disrepute, when there is no difference in his chart, which he looks into anxiously but in vain ? And so these notions also, which have their origin in certain signs of things being arbitrarily fixed upon by the presumption of men, are to be referred to the same class as if they were leagues and covenants with devils.
Chap, xxiii.— Why ice repudiate arts of divination.
35. Tor in this way it comes to pass that men who lust after evil things are, by a secret judgment of God, delivered over to be mocked and deceived, as the just reward of their evil desires. For they are deluded and imposed on by the false angels, to whom the lowest part of the world has been put in subjection by the law of God's providence, and in accordance with His most admirable arrangement of things. And the result of these delusions and deceptions is, that through these superstitious and baneful modes of divination, many tilings in the past and future are made known, and turn out just as they are foretold ; and in the case of those who practise superstitious observances, many things turn out agreeably to their observances, and ensnared by these successes, they become
' Gen. XXV. 24.