to the Father who is in heaven. As for us, though, it is not our business to inquire
212 The Literal Meaning of Genesis tion.40 It does not, after all, make likely sense that the sun should be able by the violence of its rays to overcome greater stars, or even its equals.
Or if they assert that the higher stars at least of the northern zodiac signs are greater, those that undergo no such aggression from the sun, why do they pay more reverence to those that make a wider circuit through the signs? Why do they acclaim them as mistresses of the signs? Even if anyone, you see, were to maintain that these backward movements of the constellations, or should we say their slowing down, are not produced by the sun but by other obscurer causes, these people nevertheless in their extravagant absurdities, in which wandering far from the truth they suspect the hand of fate everywhere, still attribute the chief power and influence to the sun, as is certainly evident from their books.
34. But let them say what they like about the heavens, those who are strangers to the Father who is in heaven. As for us, though, it is not our business to inquire more precisely into the size and the spacing of the constellations, spending time on such things that is needed for more important and worthy matters. We even think it more worthwhile to attend to those lights that are greater than the rest, which scripture draws to our attention as follows: And God made two great lights, which for all that are not equal. lt goes on to say, you see, after putting them ahead of the rest, that they differ from each other. It says, l mean: the greater lightfor the starting of the day, and the lesser lightfor the starting of the night (Gn 1:16). Let them at least grant this to our eyes, after all, that it is obvious that they shine more brightly than the rest upon the earth, and that it is only the light of the sun that makes the day bright, and that even with so many stars appearing, the night is never as light when there is no moon, as when it is being illuminated by its presence.
Against astrology and divination
17, 35. As for any of their clever talk whatsoever about fate, and the so-called proven results of their astrological calculations, which they call apotelesmata,41 let us reject them as utterly injurious to the health of our faith. They even try, you see, to deprive us by their arguments of any reason for praying, and by an impious perversity, instead of the human criminal they put God, the author of the
40. 1t may seem strange to us that he here begins an attack on astrologers—and on Christians who consulted them—when he has been all the time discussing matters of astronomy. But we must remember that in the ancient world the distinction between these two approaches to the study of the heavens was by no means so definite as it is with us. My impression is that while Augustine admitted the validity of astronomy as a rational science, he did so halfheartedly, suspiciously, because it was nearly always teetering on the brink of astrology. 41. Literally, "completions"; the apolelesma of the month is the full moon. The astrologers used the word to signify the fulfillment, the verification of their predictions.