It is of the utmost necessity to discuss how the luminous bodies – the sun, the moon, and the stars – become signs. The many nations who are strangers to the faith of Christ are not the only ones who lose their footing concerning the topic of destiny. They reckon that everything that occurs on the earth, as well as to each individual person, and indeed even to irrational animals, is due to the combination of the stars called planets with those of the zodiac. Many presumed believers also fret themselves about the possibility that human affairs are subject to necessity and must ineluctably turn out as the stars, in their various configurations, direct. It follows from those who assert these things that what lies within our power is eliminated and with it any possibility of praise and blame or any distinction between acceptable and blameworthy behavior. If things are as they hold, there is no longer any point to the announcement of God’s judgment, his warnings to sinners that they risk chastisement, and the honors and blessings addressed to those who have dedicated themselves to better things. None of these have any reasonable purpose. And if one considers the consequences for personal piety of what they assert, faith is vain as well, Christ’s coming is pointless, as are the entire divine plan of the law and the prophets and the efforts of the apostles to establish the church of Christ. Even Christ himself, according to some who dare to say so, has been subjected to the constraint of the movement of the stars on account of his birth, and accomplished and suffered what he did, not because the God and father of the universe had endowed him with extraordinary powers, but because the stars did so! From such godless and impious doctrines it also follows that believers must believe in God because they have been induced to do so by the stars.

Let us inquire of them, what was God’s intention when he made such a world? Was it that men should be impassioned with feelings appropriate to women without being the least bit answerable for their licentiousness while others act like wild beasts on the pretext that God has so ordered the universe that its movement makes them do so, abandoning themselves to the most cruel and utterly inhuman practices, even murders and piracies? Why also should we speak of what happens among men and of their sinful actions, multitudinous as they may be, when whoever holds such noble opinions has cleared them of all charges by ascribing to God responsibility for everything that is done maliciously and reprehensibly?

If some of them, in order to defend God, say that there is another, good God who is the source of none of these things, but that all such things depend on an Artisan, I respond that, first, they cannot demonstrate what they wish, that this Artisan is just. For how can they reasonably assert that he is just who is, according to them, the father of such evils? Second, one must examine what they say about themselves. Are they subject to the movement of the stars, or are they free and, while they are living, no power is exercised over them from that source? If they say that they are subject to the stars, there clearly follows a result which they do not want, namely that stars have granted them this awareness and that the Artisan is the one who has suggested, on account of the movement of the world, the doctrine of a God imagined to be superior. If they reply that they are outside of the laws of the Artisan administered by the stars, it follows, unless what they say is an unproved assertion, that they must attempt to lead us in a more compelling way, establishing the difference between a mind subjected to birth stars and destiny, and another free from the power of such things. It is clear to those who know such persons that, upon being requested to, they can by no means provide such an explanation.

In addition, prayers are superfluous, because they are pronounced in vain, for if events must necessarily occur, and the stars make them happen, nothing can happen contrary to the relations of the stars to each other, so that it is irrational to ask of God that he give us such things. But why must we draw out this discourse any longer, establishing the impiety of this doctrine of necessity, one which ordinary people reject out of hand? What has been said is sufficient for a general illustration.

Let us call to mind how, in examining “Let the luminous bodies be for signs,” we have arrived at these considerations. Those who know the truth about particular incidents are either personal witnesses who describe such incidents accurately, since they have personally observed what was either undergone or performed, or they know about these incidents by hearing about them from persons who report them without having themselves made them happen. Let us, for now, set aside the possibility that the actual passive or active participants, in describing what they had done or undergone, have brought to a non-participant knowledge of what happened.

Let us posit that a first party learns from a second party – in no way responsible for these incidents – that certain incidents had happened or were going to happen to a third party. Nonetheless, the first party does not recognize that his informant, the second party, was not actually responsible for these past or future events. That first party would assume that the second party reporting these past or future events had caused, or was going to cause, the incidents concerning which he provided information. Nonetheless, obviously, he would be mistaken in making such an assumption.

Thus someone chancing upon the prophetic book that foretells Judas’s betrayal, and learning what was to happen, might think, on seeing that very thing fulfilled, that the book was the cause of what had happened later, since he had learned from the book what Judas was to do, or – realizing that the book was not the cause – he might blame it on the author, or the one who inspired it, namely God.

Now in the prophecies concerning Judas, the texts themselves, on examination, show that God was not the author of Judas’s betrayal, but had only shown that God knew in advance the things Judas was to do out of his own wickedness, without being the cause of them. In the same way, if one delves deeply into the reason why God knows all things in advance and the texts in which he has, so to speak, imprinted his foreknowledge, one would comprehend that one who foreknows is not necessarily the cause of the things foreknown, any more than are the texts that receive the imprints of the words of foreknowledge from him who foreknows.

To anyone who knows about the power of God’s intelligence, it is obvious from the notion of God itself, even apart from Scripture, that God knows every future event long before its occurrence. But should one need to establish this from Scripture, the prophets are full of such examples. According to Susanna, God knows everything before it comes to be, as it says: “Eternal God who knows secrets, who knows everything before it comes to be, you know that these men have borne false testimony against me” (Sus. 42–3). In the Third Kingdoms [1 Kings] the name and deeds of one who was to reign as king were recorded most clearly many years before his birth in this prophecy: “And Jeroboam made a feast on the eighth month, like the feast celebrated in the land of Judah, and went up to the altar which he made at Bethel with the calves which he made” (1 Kings 12:42). A little farther on its says:

And behold a man of God from Judah has come in the word of the Lord to Bethel, and Jeroboam has stood at his altar to sacrifice, and the man of God called upon the altar in the name of the Lord and said “Altar, altar, thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, a son has been born of the house of David, Josiah is his name, and he shall sacrifice upon you the priests of the high places who sacrificed upon you, and the bones of men he shall burn upon you. And he has given you a marvelous sign in that day, saying, “This is the marvelous sign of which the Lord spoke, saying, ‘Behold, the altar breaks asunder, and the fat upon it is poured off.’ ” ’ ”

(1 Kings 13:1–3)

A little farther on it says: “And the altar broke asunder, and the fat upon the altar was poured out according to the marvelous sign which the man of God had given in the word of the Lord” (1 Kings 13:5).

And in the Book of Isaiah, a long time before the Babylonian captivity – and it was a long time after the captivity when Cyrus arose, the King of the Persians who assisted in the construction of the temple that occurred in the time of Ezra – Cyrus is specifically named in:

Thus says the Lord God to Cyrus, my anointed, whose right hand I have grasped to reduce nations to obedience before him, and I shall break the power of kings, and I shall open gates before him, and cities shall not be shut. I shall march before you and level mountains, and I shall shatter gates of bronze, and I shall crush bars of iron, and I shall give you the treasures of darkness, the hidden ones, things unseen I shall open to you, so that you may know that I, the Lord God who calls you by name, am the God of Israel. For the sake of my servant Jacob and Israel my chosen, I shall call you by name and receive you.

(Isa. 45:1–4)

It is clearly shown by these words, that because of his people, whom Cyrus benefited, God gave him authority over many nations in spite of his unfamiliarity with the Hebrew religion. It is also possible to learn these things from the Greeks, who have recorded things concerning the Cyrus who is the object of this prophecy.

In addition, in the Book of Daniel, during the time when the Babylonians were ruling, the empires that were to follow him were shown to Nebuchadnezzar. But they were shown in an image: the Babylonian Empire was named golden, the Persian silver, the Macedonian bronze, and the Roman iron (Dan. 2:37–40). Later, in the same prophet, we find prophesied the affairs of Darius and Alexander, and of the four successors of Alexander the Emperor of the Macedonians, and of Ptolemy, the ruler of Egypt, surnamed Lagus:

Behold a he-goat from the goats shall rule from the West over the face of the whole earth, and the he-goat will have a horn between his eyes. And he went to the ram that had horns, which I saw seated before Ubal, and he ran against him in the face of his strength. And I saw him coming up to the ram, and he became furious with him, and he struck the ram and broke both his horns, and the ram did not have strength to stand before him, and he threw him to the ground and trampled on him, and there was no one to deliver the ram from his hand. And the he-goat from the goats magnified himself exceedingly. And as he prevailed his great horn broke, and four other horns arose from its base in the directions of the four winds of heaven. And from one of them arose one strong horn, and it magnified itself exceedingly in the direction of the South and West.

(Dan. 8:5–9)

Why is it necessary to speak about the prophecies concerning Christ, such as Bethlehem the place of his birth, Nazareth the place of his nurture, his withdrawal to Egypt, the miracles he performed, and how he was betrayed by Judas whom he had called to be an apostle? These are all signs of God’s foreknowledge. But the Savior himself said, “When you see Jerusalem besieged by armies, then know that the time of its devastation is near” (Lk. 21:20). For he predicted the thing that later occurred, the final destruction of Jerusalem.

Now that we have demonstrated, not inappropriately, that God is prescient, it must be understood, in order to discuss how the stars have become signs, that the stars are so ordered as to move – those we call planets turn in courses opposite to the fixed – so that those who apprehend signs from the configurations of the stars may know all things in particular and in general. These are not men, for the capacity to apprehend truly from the movement of the stars whatever each individual man has done or undergone is far beyond human ability. But they are the powers which, for many reasons, necessarily know these things, as, in so far as possible, we shall demonstrate below.

But being troubled by certain observations, or by the teaching of angels who had overstepped their proper order and, to the detriment of our race, had taught certain things concerning these matters, men have supposed that those beings [the stars] from whom they think that they apprehend signs are themselves the causes of those things, of which the Word says that they are signs. It is these very matters that we shall immediately treat concisely and, in so far as possible, with the greatest care.

These, then, are the issues posed for us:

1. How what is within our power is preserved, granted that God foreknows from eternity about those things reckoned to be accomplished by each person.
2. How the stars are not the agents of everything that happens among men, but only the signs.
3. That men cannot have a precise knowledge concerning these things, but they are set forth to powers greater than men.
4. For what cause God made the signs in order to provide knowledge to the powers.

And now let us look at the first point, the very one concerning which some Greeks are wary. Supposing that events are subjected to necessity and that no domain within our power is preserved if God knows all things that are going to happen, they have recklessly accepted an impious doctrine in place of one that is, by their account, worthy of God, but, as far as they can see, takes away what is within our power and thus makes otiose praise and blame, the approval of virtues, and the censure of vices.

These Greeks also say that if God has known from eternity that a certain man would be unjust and would do such unjust things, and if God’s knowledge is infallible, the man foreseen to be such will be unjust in any case and could not possibly be other than unjust, his being unjust will happen of necessity and it is impossible for him to do anything else except the very thing that God knows. If he could not possibly do anything else, and no one can be blamed for failing to do what is impossible, it is in vain to hold the unjust person responsible for his actions. From the unjust man and unjust acts he passes to other sins and then, in contrast, to acts considered virtuous. And they say that from God’s foreknowledge of the future it follows that what is within our power cannot be preserved.

Against [these Greeks] it must be said that God, when he undertook the beginning of the creation of the world – since nothing has come to be without a cause – surveyed with his mind everything that was going to happen, because, when one thing happened, something else was the result, a result that brought on another consequence, which, in turn, caused something else to happen. Thus, having surveyed events all the way to the end, he knows the things that will come to be without being responsible for each individual occurrence about which he has knowledge.

If one person should see another person who is acting in a foolhardy way – say, walking with reckless abandon on a slippery path – the first party’s realization that the second party is going to slip and fall does not make him responsible for that person’s having slipped. Similarly, we must understand that God has seen with foreknowledge what sort of person each man would be, the causes for his being such a person, and the particular things he will either do wrong or do right.

And, if we must say that foreknowledge is not the cause of what happens, it follows that when someone does sin, God is not implicated in the action of the person whose future sinning he has foreknown. But, paradoxical as it may seem, the truth is that the future event is itself the cause of such foreknowledge. It does not happen because it was known, but it was known because it is going to happen.

A distinction is required. If someone should interpret “It will happen in any event” to mean that what is foreknown will necessarily happen, we shall not grant this. We do not say that, since God foreknew that Judas would be a traitor, it was entirely necessary that Judas should become a traitor. Indeed, prophecies concerning Judas register reproaches and accusations of Judas, confirming to everyone that his blame was merited. Blame would not be applied to him if he had to be a traitor of necessity and it was not possible for him to be like the rest of the apostles. See if this is not evident when we adduce this citation:

Let there be no one to have pity on his orphans, because he did not remember to exercise mercy, and he persecuted the poor man, the destitute, and the broken-hearted to bring about his death. He has loved cursing, and it has returned to him; he did not want blessing, and it has departed far from him.

(Ps. 108:12, 16–17 [109:12, 16–17])

If someone interprets “It will happen in any event” to mean that these things will happen but it would be possible for them to happen otherwise, we would agree with him that this is correct. For God to be mistaken is not possible; it is possible, concerning things that could happen or not happen, for him to think that they happen and that they do not happen.

To be as clear as possible, we say we explain the matter as follows. If it was possible for Judas to be an apostle like Peter, it was possible for God to know concerning Judas that he would stay as an apostle like Peter. If it was possible for Judas to become a traitor, it was possible for God to know, concerning him, that he would be a traitor. If Judas is a traitor, God, who foreknows the truth, by his foreknowledge of the two aforementioned possibilities – given that only one of these possibilities will occur – foreknew that Judas would be a traitor. But the event about which he had this knowledge could have happened otherwise, and God’s knowledge could say, “It is possible for him to do this, but the opposite is also possible; both being possible, I know that he will do this.” God would not say, “It is not possible that this man should stumble” nor would he say, for example, in delivering an oracle about someone, “It is not possible for him to be temperate.” To avoid stumbling is absolutely beyond human ability, but we do have an ability to live either temperately or licentiously.

Since both abilities exist, he who does not heed discourses intended for conversion and education gives himself over to the worse, and he who seeks the truth and wants to live according to it gives himself to the better. The former does not seek truth, because he is inclined to pleasure. The latter investigates carefully concerning the two abilities, being convinced by common notions and by a hortatory discourse. To repeat, the former chooses pleasure, not that he is incapable of spurning it, but because he makes no effort; the latter despises it, because he sees the disgrace that often accompanies it.

The following is an additional argument that the foreknowledge of God does not confer necessity on the things that it comprehends: often the God of the Scriptures calls the prophets to preach repentance, not affecting to know in advance whether those who hear will turn from their sins or remain in them. As it says in Jeremiah: “Perhaps they will hear and repent” (Jer. 33:3 [26:3]). God is not ignorant of whether they will or will not hear, when he says: “Perhaps they will hear and repent.” Nonetheless, he says this to indicate that either possibility mentioned could equally well happen. In this way his foreknowledge, announced in advance, will not prematurely discourage those who hear it, making it appear a matter of necessity that they lack the power to turn from their sins and that this foreknowledge is itself the cause of their sins. By the same token, those who are unaware that God foreknows their good behavior are enabled to live virtuously, maintaining a vigorous struggle against evil, since foreknowledge does not occasion complacency, inducing them to relax their firm resistance to sin on the pretext that what has been announced in advance will be sure to happen in any event. In this way foreknowledge could be an impediment to good behavior.

In every way, therefore, God, who plans the world’s affairs so that they may turn out beneficially is reasonable in blinding us to the future. Knowledge of his plan would release us from the struggle against evil, and it would so inure us to abandoning the struggle against sin, supposing we could take the result for granted, that we would quickly be subject to it. So there is an inherent conflict between becoming entirely good and gaining foreknowledge that this will happen in any event. For to become a truly good person, beyond the measure of virtue we already have, requires a vigorous and sustained effort. But, if it were acquired in advance, the knowledge that one was to become virtuous in any event would relax discipline. Therefore it is expedient for us not to know whether we shall be good or bad.

Since we have said that God blinds us to the future, let us see if we can clarify a passage needing investigation in Exodus: “Who is it who has made deaf and mute, clear-sighted and blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” (Ex. 4:11). Following our line of reasoning, God has made the same man clear-sighted and blind, seeing what is present, and blind as to the future. Being deaf and mute does not require our explanation in the present context.

We also agree that numerous things that are not within our power are causes of things that are within our power. If these things had not happened – I speak of things not within our power – certain things within our power would not have been accomplished. But these things within our power were accomplished as a consequence of things that had happened previously which were not within our power, even though it is possible that other actions on our part could have followed these things that had happened previously.

If someone should speculate that what is within our power depends on nothing else, so that our choice would not depend on things that happen to us, he forgets that he is a part of the world, surrounded by human society and by the environment.

I think that I have sufficiently demonstrated, in this summary of the arguments, that the foreknowledge of God does not entirely subject things foreknown to necessity.

Well, we must maintain that the stars are not at all the agents of human affairs, but only signs. It is clear that in the former case, namely that a certain configuration of stars is considered to cause events that happen to man – for let our discourse investigate this now – we cannot, to begin with, understand today’s configuration concerning one particular person to have produced past occurrences to one or more other persons; anything that produces an effect must be earlier than the effect produced. But according to the discipline of those who vouch for such arts, events touching human affairs that happened prior to the configuration are supposed to be predicted.

They vouch that, after having somehow established the birth hour of a particular person, they can establish how each of the planets relates perpendicularly to a certain degree of a sign of the zodiac, or, in a certain minute in it, which star of the zodiac chanced to be on the horizon in the east, which was in the west, which was at the meridian and which was at the opposite meridian.

And once they posit that the stars (which according to them constitute a configuration) have a particular configuration at the time of the birth of a particular person, then, by means of the time of birth of the person they are dealing with, they examine not just the future but the past, including things that took place before the birth and conception of the person in question: what sort of person the father was, rich or poor, sound of body or deformed, of good or bad character, indigent or affluent, following this or that occupation, and the same things concerning the mother and any older brothers and sisters there may chance to be.

Let us assume for a moment that they determine the exact position of the stars – we shall later demonstrate that this is not the case. Let us then ask those who claim that human activities are submitted to necessity by the stars how a particular configuration today can have produced events in the past. For if it is impossible to discover in this way the truth concerning past events, it is evident that the stars, by being moved to certain positions in the sky, have not produced events that had happened long before they ever assumed those positions. In this case, indeed, someone, admitting that they do provide true information, after having examined what they say concerning future events, will say that the stars provide this information not as agents, but only as signs. If someone should claim that the stars do not produce past events – but that other configurations cause those events and the present configuration only signifies them, but that future events are displayed by the configuration formed at a person’s birth – let that person indicate the difference between being able to demonstrate that some things are perceived to be true on the basis of their having been produced by the stars, but that others are true only on the basis of their being signified by them. If they cannot supply this difference, they ought reasonably to assent that nothing takes place in human affairs because of the stars, but, as we have already said, they are, perhaps, signified.

It is as if someone should comprehend the past and future, not from the stars, but from the mind of God through a particular prophetic word. For as we have already demonstrated, God’s knowing what each person will do does not impair what is within our own power. In the same way the signs which God has ordered simply as indications do not restrain what is within our power.

But just like a book containing the future prophetically, the entire heaven can, by being God’s book, contain the future. We can, therefore, understand in this sense what is said by Jacob in the Prayer of Joseph: “For having read in the tablet of heaven what will happen to you and to your sons.” And indeed also “Heaven shall be rolled up like a book” (Isa. 34:4) demonstrates that the words contained, in so far as they signify future events, are to be completed and, so to speak, fulfilled, just as it is said that prophecies are fulfilled when the events take place. And thus the stars will become “for signs” according to the verse we have been discussing: “Let them be for signs” (Gen. 1:14). Jeremiah – recalling us to ourselves and banishing fear of things we may suppose to be signified, including, no doubt, things understood to be signified by the stars – says: “Do not be afraid because of the signs of heaven” (Jer. 10:2).

Let us look at a second argument, showing how the stars cannot be agents, but are perhaps indicators. From a very large number of horoscopes it is possible to grasp the affairs of one man. We say this hypothetically, conceding that it is possible for the knowledge of such things to be comprehended by men. Let us take an example: they claim that they can tell from a certain person’s horoscope that he will undergo a certain fate and die after falling among robbers and being murdered and that, if he were to have brothers and sisters, they could tell the same from each of theirs. For they suppose that the horoscope of each of these would include a brother who had died because of robbers, likewise from those of his father, mother, wife, children, servants, and friends, and likewise from those of the murderers themselves.

But how could the man whose destiny is determined by so many horoscopes, even conceding the possibility, be under the control of one particular configuration of stars rather than of the others? It is implausible to affirm that the configuration on his own birth date has produced these events in his life but the configurations on the other birth dates have not produced them but have only signified them. Moreover, it is absurd to say that the horoscopes of all the others contain in each case a cause for his having been murdered, so that in fifty horoscopes, let us say, are contained the murder of this one man.

I do not know how they can square with their account the fact that in Judaea, almost all men must have a configuration at his birth which causes them to be circumcised on the eighth day, so that the tip of the penis is cut off, then subject to ulcers, inflammations, and wounds, so that, as soon as they enter life, they already need a physician, but for the Ishmaelites in Arabia the configurations are such that all men are circumcised at the age of 13, for this is what is told about them, or again that for some in Ethiopia, the configurations are such that their kneecaps are removed, or that, for the Amazons, one of their breasts. How is it that the stars are responsible for such things among the nations? I think that if we were to reflect, we could not establish any truth to such claims.

With so many purported means of foreknowledge, I do not know how men have been so inconsistent as to admit that auguries from birds and sacrifices, even auguries from shooting stars, do not contain the efficient cause but are indications only, while making horoscopes a special case. If, therefore, it is known – conceding such knowledge for the sake of the argument – that events can occur because of the means by which they are known, why should they occur because of stars but not, say, because of birds, or because of sacrificed entrails or because of shooting stars? These arguments will suffice for the moment to refute the idea that the stars are responsible for human affairs.

It is now, indeed, time to examine the validity of the very matter which we had conceded since it did not affect our argument: namely that it is humanly possible to comprehend heavenly configurations and signs and to know what they signify.

Those who concern themselves with these things say that someone who intends to understand accurately the science of horoscopes must know, not just in which of the twelve signs of the zodiac the star in question is found, but the degree and minute of its position in the zodiac. More rigorous astrologers would specify the second as well. And they say that it is necessary to do this for each of the planets, examining its position with respect to the fixed stars. In addition, it will be necessary, they say, to see not just which sign of the zodiac is on the eastern horizon, but which part of that sign to the closest degree, minute, or even second.

How then, since an hour, broadly speaking, includes half of a sign of the zodiac, can someone grasp the minute without having an analogous division of hours, so that one could say, for example, that a man was born at the fourth hour, plus a half hour, a quarter hour, an eighth, a sixteenth, and a thirty-second?

For they say that indications may be entirely different due to ignorance, not a whole hour, but of a fraction of one. Thus, when twins are born, there is often a slight period of time between them, and the many differences between their destiny and behavior occur, according to astrologers, because of the position of the stars and the part of the sign of the zodiac at the horizon is not observed by those who, they suppose, observe the moment of birth. After all, no one can say that the thirtieth part of an hour does not pass between the birth of one twin and of the other. For argument’s sake, let the ability to observe the exact moment be conceded to them.

There is a theory demonstrating that the cycle of the zodiac, and likewise the planets, is moved from west to east by one degree in a hundred years, and that this, after a long time, changes the position of the signs of the zodiac. This means that the theoretical concept of a sign of the zodiac is one thing, but its actual form, so to speak, is another. But they say that the results for human destiny are discovered not from the form, but from the theoretical concept of the sign of the zodiac, the very thing that cannot be accurately ascertained.

Let it even be conceded that the theoretical concept of a sign of the zodiac can be ascertained, or that the truth can be ascertained from the form of a sign of the zodiac; astrologers themselves still admit that it is impossible to account adequately for what they call the “combination” of stars in such configurations. Thus a demonstrably bad star can be impaired by its aspect with another star, because that star is in an aspect that might or might not be important with yet another star that is good. By the same token, the impairment of a bad star that would have happened because it is in aspect with a good star is prevented because yet another star, with bad indications, occupies a certain position in the configuration.

I think that, if one were to pay attention to such issues, one would despair of obtaining the sort of information astrologers claim because it is entirely inaccessible to men, and, even at best, does no more than provide signs. Once someone gains experience in these matters, he becomes aware, rather, of what is fallible in the conjectures, both spoken and written, of astrologers, even if they are considered successful. Thus Isaiah, holding that these things cannot be discovered by men, said to the daughter of the Chaldaeans (who, more than anyone else, vouch for this art): “Let them arise and save you, the astrologers of heaven, let them announce to you what will take place” (Isa. 47:13). These words teach us that those most well instructed in these matters are unable to obtain knowledge of what the Lord has willed concerning each nation.

At this point we still need to examine and establish, for those who believe that the luminaries of heaven serve as signs but are disturbed by those who attempt to pry too closely into these matters, why God created these signs in the heaven.

The first thing to say is that believing in the greatness of the whole knowledge of the mind of God – which embraces every existing thing, so that nothing, no matter how ordinary and trivial it may be considered, escapes the notice of his divinity – includes the opinion that God’s mind embraces in itself, for all practical purposes, an infinite number of things. This is not, indeed, something capable of proof, but is a corollary to our belief that God’s mind is ingenerate and surpasses all nature.

So then this book of heaven is understood experientially by those with superhuman abilities and by holy souls freed from the present bondage, for God has made in heaven those who have learned or will learn to read the signs of God as if they were letters and characters composed by the movements of heaven.

It is not remarkable that God has made certain things for demonstration to the blessed, since Scripture says to Pharaoh: “For this cause I have raised you up, so as to demonstrate my power in you and so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Rom. 9:17). For if Pharaoh was preserved for the demonstration of God’s power and proclamation of his name in all the earth, conceive what sort of demonstration of the power of God the heavenly signs would constitute, all engraved from eternity to the consummation by the excellent book of God in heaven.

Second, I conjecture that the signs are accessible to the powers that manage human affairs, so that those powers may simply know certain things and accomplish other things, just as in books among us some things are written so that we may know about them, such as the matters concerning Creation and certain other mysteries, and others, such as the commandments and ordinances of God, so that, knowing about them, we may act accordingly. It is possible that the heavenly letters, which the angels and the divine powers know how to read well, contain certain things which must be read by the angels and ministers of God so that they may rejoice in knowing them and certain things which they accept like commandments, so as to do them.

And we shall not be wide of the mark in saying that heaven and the stars are analogous to matters in the law. But if bad powers different from men do certain things that have been foreknown and signified in heaven, this does not necessarily mean that they have done these things because they were recommended by the letters of God. But just as men who do harm, unaware that God has known in advance the harm that they are going to do, effect the harm they do out of their own wickedness, so the hostile powers, granted that God knows in advance the evil of men and adverse powers who have depraved intentions, accomplish what they do out of their own most shameful choice.

On the other hand, in the case of the holy angels, the ministering spirits sent out to accomplish an assigned task (see Heb. 1:14), it is probable that, like those who receive orders from things written in the law of God, they do good things in an orderly way when they should, as they should, and in so far as they should. It is absurd that they, being divine, should go out at random and with no fixed purpose, so that, for example, they should give some instruction to Abraham, do something for Isaac, deliver Jacob from danger, or be present to the spirit of a prophet. Therefore, so that they may not do these things at random or by chance, they read the book of God and so carry out their assignments.

But as we have already said, whether it is what we do or the things which the adverse powers accomplish against us, we act by means of our own choice, by one which is undisciplined, when we sin, but one that is educated, when we accomplish things well pleasing to God, not without the assistance of the angels, the divine Scriptures, or the holy servants.