Astronomica

(though he was ignorant of his true birth date) he confidently pronounced him born under the horoscope of Capricorn. Yet, that most diligent writer, Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, a Roman historian known for 'The Twelve Caesars', records that he was born near sunrise in the ancient month of September—which then corresponded to the Julian month of July—while the Sun was occupying Cancer. What could be more ridiculous? How could Capricorn be his horoscope if he was born around the rising of Cancer? And yet, that vain little soothsayer did not fear to announce that because he was born under the horoscope of Capricorn (as he himself had dreamed), he would become master of the world. But in those ancients, because of the rudiments of an art that had not yet been brought to modern perfection—or rather, to exactness original Greek: ακρίβειαν (akribeian)—not everything should be cut to the quick, and certain things should furthermore be forgiven.

Hear now the "subtlety" of our own age. Forty-four years ago, there emerged a "Cymbal of Astrologers" A mocking reference to Girolamo Cardano, who published a controversial horoscope of Christ who published a Birth Chart original: Thema of our Lord Jesus Christ, and reasoned that everything which happened to Him necessarily befell Him due to the position of the stars. Shall I call this an impious audacity, or a ridiculous one? It subjects the Lord of the stars to the stars themselves, and assumes a birth at a time that is still a matter of dispute, so that vanity might compete with impiety. This same Astrologer, in his famous Book of Nativities, predicted many wonderful things for a certain man of the highest rank and great learning, regarding both his own fortune and that of his children; yet, in all of human memory, no man has been more unhappy than he.