BOOK ONE

...they are held. Hence, if someone who has heard, believed, and approved something from a most wise Mathematician original: "Mathematico"; in this period, the term referred primarily to astrologers because the study was seen as a branch of applied mathematics. then attacks it out of a malicious instinct of mind and a pugnacious zeal, he has conceived a notable desire for contradiction. If, however, an unskilled professor gave false answers to his questions, let the deceptive and reckless ignorance of the man be noted, not the Mathematical Science original: "Mathesis"; the art of astrology. itself. He who neither wished to listen nor to judge claims the role of pronouncing judgment in vain; for of that thing which he refused to experience, he is not a fit judge to note its substance.

As for the fact that some deter us from this study by citing the difficulty of its science, we willingly embrace this. For true
The soul polluted by vices.

matters are arduous and difficult, and a soul hindered by the earthly snares of filth—even though it was formed by the fiery immortality of divinity—cannot easily perceive them by a simple method of inquiry. Its divinity, which is sustained by eternal movement, suffers a kind of temporary loss of its godhood if it is enclosed in an earthly body, since its force and substance are dulled by the union and fellowship of the earthly body and the constant dissolution of its immortality.

From this, it happens that all things pertaining to the investigation of the divine arts always present a difficult knowledge to you. Therefore, because we willingly and easily agree on this part, showing why divine things are perceived through difficult inquiry, you must also confess that the soul—which is immortal—if it is separated from the vices and lusts of the earthly body and retains the constancy of its origin and seed, acknowledging the power of its own majesty, may easily attain all things thought to be difficult and arduous through the investigation of the divine mind.

Tell me, who sees the paths of the sea in the heavens? Who, by the rubbing of stones, strikes out the spark of hidden fire? Who has known the powers of herbs? To whom has the whole nature of divinity revealed and betrayed itself, if not to the soul, which, proceeding from celestial fire, was sent in to rule and
Power of the soul.

govern earthly fragility? It was the soul itself that handed down the logic of this science, it was the soul that delivered the calculations, it was the soul that showed the courses, regressions, stations, associations, increases, risings, and settings of the Sun, the Moon, and the other stars which we call "wanderers" original: "errantes" but are called "planets" original: "planetae" by the Greeks. And though situated in the fragility of an earthly body, the soul, by a brief recollection of its own majesty, did not "learn" these things in order to pass them on, but "recognized" them.

Behold, it is recognized, and the soul finds in which sign the star of
The star Saturn.

Saturn original: ♄ rejoices, and when its coldness grows warm by the fuel of another's heat. Behold, we gather its motions and courses through individual days and hours. We also predict when it will return to its former station in retrograde, when the neighboring divinity of the Sun may drive its sluggish courses with the royal authority of majesty, when the heat of the Sun departing from it gives quiet power to its slow agitation, and after how much time it returns with sluggish exertion to that same part of the sign from which it had once departed.

These things are also seen in the star of Jupiter original: ♃
Jupiter

by the same and equal logic; for although it moves through the twelve signs in a shorter space of time, it strikes with a similar
Mars

agitation. Mars original: ♂ also, whom you see blood-red with the fiery heat of lightnings and terrible with the menacing flash of light—behold, when he comes to the moist house of Saturn, he tempers his fires by the nature of the other's cold; and though the
Venus, Mercury

courses of this star are more rapid, they are nonetheless seen by the same logic.

The daily services of Venus original: ♀ and Mercury original: ☿ have also been shown to us. For these stars, within a short intervening space, run around the Sun's orb together; they either follow it, or one star following allows the other the service of going before it. We know when they appear to us in the evening rising or the morning rising; when they lie hidden, obscured by the Sun's orb; and when, freed from the brilliance of its rays, they shine forth with their own clear luster.

What do you think of the course of the Moon original: ☽? By which we
Moon

have learned when she announces the losses of her worn orb with solemn supplements, and when, impoverished of her lights, she acknowledges the loss of her own majesty. For she, whether waxing or waning, when near the Sun, lowers the rays of her light as if venerating the Sun, so that, adorned again by her brother's fires when she makes her course more distant, she may carry around the ornaments of her shining brilliance, reborn and renewed.

Behold, we learn another even greater thing, which, whenever it occurs,
Eclipse.

always disturbs unskilled men with monstrous fear: when the Sun original: ☉ in the middle of the day...