Did Early Christians Reject Astrology and the Zodiac?

Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata (Miscellanies) Direct teaching

...shamed and come to their senses through barbarian demonstration, so that, although late, they may clearly see what kind of intellectual attainments they travel across the seas to gain. The things they have stolen must be pointed out, so that we may bring down their pride. And for the things they boast that they discovered by investigation, we must provide a refutation. As a result, we must also discuss what is called the course of study, and how far it is useful, and also astrology, mathematics, magic, and sorcery. For all the Greeks boast of these as the highest sciences. He who boldly corrects is a peacemaker. We have often said already that we have neither practiced nor do we study expressing ourselves in pure Greek, for this suits those who lead the crowd away from the truth. But true philosophical demonstration will help not the tongues of the hearers, but their minds. And in my opinion, the person who cares about truth should not shape his language with cleverness and careful polish, but should only try to express his meaning as best he can. For those who are overly concerned about words and spend their time on them miss the things themselves. It is the skill of a gardener

Origen, Against Celsus Supporting witness

...e and more intelligent than human beings. So he should have shown much more fully that this kind of divination really exists. Next, he should have strongly defended it and thoroughly answered the arguments of those who try to destroy such arts of divination. He also should have convincingly overturned the arguments of those who say that animals receive the impulses that lead them to divination either from demons or from gods. And then he should have proved that the soul of irrational animals is more divine than the soul of man. If he had done this, and had shown a philosophical spirit in dealing with such matters, then we would have answered his bold claims as best we could. First, we would have refuted the charge that irrational animals are wiser than men. We would also have shown the falsehood of the claim that they have ideas of God more sacred than ours, and that they hold certain sacred assemblies among themselves. But as things now stand, the man who accuses us because we believe in the Supreme God wants us to believe that the souls of birds have ideas of God that are more divine and clearer than those of men. Yet if this is true, then birds have clearer ideas of God than

Minucius Felix, Octavius Direct teaching

...dy lived again. It is a double evil and a twofold madness to announce destruction to heaven and the stars, which we leave just as we find them, and to promise eternity to ourselves, who are dead and extinct, who, as we are born, so also perish. No doubt this is also why they denounce our funeral pyres and condemn burial by fire, as if every body, even if it is kept from the flames, were not nevertheless reduced to the earth by the passing of years and ages, and as if it did not matter whether wild beasts tore the body to pieces, or the sea consumed it, or the ground covered it, or the flames carried it away. For every kind of burial is a penalty to dead bodies, if they feel it. If they do not feel it, then there is relief in the quickness of their destruction. Deceived by this error, they promise to themselves, as being good, a blessed and perpetual life after their death; to others, as being unrighteous, eternal punishment. Many more things come to mind for me to say, if the limits of my speech did not hurry me along. I have already shown, and I make no further effort to prove, that they themselves are unrighteous. Yet even if I were to grant that they are righteous, your own a

Origen, Against Celsus Supporting witness

...he first place, it has been disputed whether there is an art of augury, and in general, a method of divination by animals, or not. And in the second place, those who admit that there is an art of divination by birds are not agreed about the manner of the divination, since some maintain that it is from certain demons or gods of divination that the animals receive their impulses to action—the birds to flights and sounds of different kinds, and the other animals to movements of one sort or another. Others, again, believe that their souls are more divine in their nature, and fitted to operations of that kind, which is a most incredible supposition.

Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata (Miscellanies) Supporting witness

and of astrology, and mathematics, and magic, and sorcery.

Minucius Felix, Octavius Supporting witness

And let no one either take comfort from, or make excuses for, what happens by fate. Let what happens be from the disposition of fortune, yet the mind is free. Therefore a man's actions are judged, not his dignity. For what else is fate than what God has spoken concerning each one of us? Since He can foresee our character, He also determines our fates for us according to each person's deserts and qualities. So in our case, it is not the star under which we are born that is punished, but the particular nature of our disposition is blamed. Enough has been said about fate. Or if, because of the time, we have said too little, we will discuss the matter more abundantly and more fully at another time. But that many of us are called poor, this is not our disgrace, but our glory. For just as the mind is weakened by luxury, so it is strengthened by frugality. And who can be poor if he is not in want, if he does not crave the possessions of others, if he is rich toward God? Rather, he is poor who, although he has much, desires more. Yet I will speak as I feel. No one can be as poor as he is when he is born. Birds live without any inheritance, and the cattle are fed day by day. Yet these creat

Justin Martyr, The First Apology Direct teaching

...ed on the merit of each person’s actions. If this were not true, and everything occurred because of fate, then nothing would be within our control. For example, if it were destined that one person be good and another evil, the first would not be deserving of praise nor the second deserving of blame. Furthermore, if humanity did not have the power to avoid evil and choose good through free will, they would not be responsible for their actions. We demonstrate that both virtuous and flawed actions are made by free choice. We observe people switching between good and bad behaviors. If it were destined for someone to be either good or bad, they would not be capable of such changes. Moreover, not everyone would be good or bad, as this would make fate responsible for evil and contradict itself; or it would imply that neither virtue nor vice truly exists, and that things are considered good or evil merely by opinion, which the truth reveals as the greatest impiety and wickedness. However, we assert that it is inevitable fate that those who choose good receive worthy rewards, and those who choose the opposite receive due consequences. Unlike trees or animals that cannot act by choice, Go

Justin Martyr, The Second Apology Direct teaching

...t believe everything changes into one another, which we find degrading. We also do not believe that fate controls human actions or suffering, but that each person, through free will, chooses to act rightly or sin. Wicked demons cause earnest men like Socrates to suffer persecution and bondage, while people like Sardanapalus and Epicurus seem to prosper in wealth and glory. The Stoics, not noticing this, claim everything happens due to the necessity of fate. But God created angels and humans with free will from the beginning, so they rightly suffer eternal fire for their sins. Everything created has the potential for vice and virtue, for nothing is praiseworthy unless there is the ability to choose between them. This is evident from everyone who has made laws or philosophized according to right reason, by commanding some actions and prohibiting others. Even the Stoic philosophers, in their moral teachings, honor the same values, showing they are not very consistent in their principles and incorporeal matters. If they claim human actions happen by fate, they imply either that God is merely things constantly changing, and dissolving, focusing only on destructible things, and seeing

Tatian, Address to the Greeks Supporting witness

...re the material cause of their turning away. After showing people a scheme for the positions of the stars, like dice players, they introduced Fate, which is a clear injustice. For by Fate, the judge and the one being judged are made what they are. The murderers and those who are murdered, the rich and the poor, all come from the same Fate. And every birth is treated like a theatrical show by those beings of whom Homer says—

Tertullian, On Idolatry Supporting witness

...t, among the arts, some professions are open to the charge of idolatry. We should not even speak of astrologers. But since one man in these days has challenged us, defending his own persistence in that profession, I will say a few words. I do not argue that he honors idols, because he has written their names in heaven and has assigned all God's power to them. For men assume that we are disposed of by the unchangeable decision of the stars, and because of that they think that God is not to be sought. I lay down one point: those angels who deserted God, the lovers of women, were also the discoverers of this curious art, and for that reason too they were condemned by God. O divine sentence, reaching even to the earth in its vigor, to which the unwitting bear witness! Astrologers are driven out just like their angels. The city and Italy are forbidden to astrologers, just as heaven is forbidden to their angels. The same penalty of exclusion belongs to disciples and masters. But Magi and astrologers came from the east. We know the mutual alliance of magic and astrology. The interpreters of the stars, then, were the first to announce Christ's birth, and the first to offer Him gifts. By

Lactantius, The Divine Institutes Supporting witness

These were the inventors of astrology, soothsaying, divination, what are called oracles, necromancy, the art of magic, and every other evil practice that men carry on, either openly or in secret. Now all these things are false in themselves, as the Erythraean Sibyl testifies:

Lactantius, The Epitome of the Divine Institutes Direct teaching

... reward of immortality from which they had fallen. They also brought forward astrology, augury, and divination. Although these things are false in themselves, they, being the authors of evils, manage and direct them in such a way that people believe they are true. They also invented the tricks of magic to deceive the eyes. By their help, it happens that what is seems not to be, and what is not seems to be. They themselves invented necromancies, responses, and oracles, to mislead the minds of people with false divination through ambiguous outcomes. They are present in temples and at all sacrifices. By showing certain deceptive wonders, to the amazement of those who are present, they deceive people so completely that they believe a divine power is present in images and statues. They even secretly enter into bodies, since they are slight spirits. They stir up diseases in corrupted limbs, and then, when they have been appeased with sacrifices and vows, they remove them again. They send dreams filled with terror, so that they themselves may be called on, or dreams whose outcomes match the truth, so that they may increase the honor paid to themselves. Sometimes they also show some act

Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen Supporting witness

...alia is silent, and so is the other fountain of Colophon. In the same way, all the other springs of divination are dead and stripped of their empty glory, although even at a late date they are pointed out, with their legendary stories, as having run dry. Tell us also about the useless oracles of that other kind of divination, or rather madness: the Clarian, the Pythian, the Didymaean, that of Amphiaraus, of Apollo, and of Amphilochus. And if you wish, add to them the interpreters of signs and wonders, the augurs, and the interpreters of dreams. And bring and set beside the Pythian those who divine by flour, those who divine by barley, and the ventriloquists who are still honored by many. Let the secret shrines of the Egyptians and the necromancies of the Etruscans be given over to darkness. Truly, all these are insane practices of unbelieving men. Even goats have been partners in this art of soothsaying, trained for divination; and crows have been taught by men to give oracular answers to men.

Apostolic Constitutions, Apostolic Constitutions Supporting witness

...and the pomps of the heathens, their enchantments, observations of omens, soothsayings, purgations, divinations, observations of birds, their necromancies, and their invocations. For it is written, "There is no divination in Jacob, nor soothsaying in Israel," Numbers 23:23. And again, "Divination is iniquity." And elsewhere, "You shall not be soothsayers, and follow observers of omens, nor diviners, nor dealers with familiar spirits. You shall not preserve alive wizards," Leviticus 19:26; Deuteronomy 18:10. Therefore Jeremiah exhorts, saying, "Walk not according to the ways of the heathen, and be not afraid of the signs of heaven." So it is the duty of a believer to avoid the assemblies of the ungodly, of the heathen, and of the Jews, and of the rest of the heretics, lest by joining ourselves to them we bring snares on our own souls, so that by joining in their feasts, which are celebrated in honor of demons, we may not be partakers with them in their impiety. You are also to avoid their public meetings, and those sports which are celebrated in them. For a believer ought not to go to any of those public meetings, unless to purchase a slave and save a soul, and at the same time t

Tertullian, On Idolatry Supporting witness

We know the mutual alliance of magic and astrology.

Tertullian, On Idolatry Supporting witness

Of astrologers there should be no speaking even;

Deuteronomy 4:19 Direct teaching

And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.

Jeremiah 10:2 Direct teaching

Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

Isaiah 47:13 Direct teaching

You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels; Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, And the monthly prognosticators Stand up and save you From what shall come upon you.

Leviticus 19:26 Supporting witness

‘You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying.

Deuteronomy 18:14 Supporting witness

For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you.

Isaiah 8:19 Supporting witness

And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?

Genesis 1:14 Background

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

Galatians 4:10 Supporting witness

Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.

Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies Direct teaching

...nation of the active causes of all the events that happen to us, and that the sections of the fixed zodiac signs work together in this influence. They divide the zodiac circle into twelve parts, and each zodiac sign into thirty sections, and each section into sixty very small parts. This is the name they give to the smallest parts, the ones that cannot be divided. Of the zodiac signs, they call some male and others female; some double-bodied and others not; and some tropical, while others are fixed. The male signs, then, are paired with female ones, and together they have a cooperative nature for the producing of males, or else are themselves productive of females. For Aries is a male zodiac sign, but Taurus a female one; and the rest are named by the same pattern, some male and others female. I suppose that the Pythagoreans, influenced by such ideas, call the Monad male and the Duad female, and again the Triad male, and in the same way the rest of the even and odd numbers. Some, however, divide each zodiac sign into twelve parts and use almost the same method. For example, in Aries they call the first of the twelve parts both Aries and male, the second both Taurus and female, a

Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies Supporting witness

...For the astrologers, claiming that there is one world, divide it into the twelve fixed parts of the zodiac signs. They call the world of the fixed zodiac signs one unmoving world. And they say that the other is a world of wandering signs, different in power, position, and number, and that it extends as far as the moon. They also teach that one world receives a certain power from the other world, and a mutual sharing in that power, and that the lower parts receive this sharing from the higher parts. However, so that what is said here may be clear, I will use, one by one, those very expressions used by the astrologers. In doing this, I will only be reminding my readers of statements made earlier in the part of this work where we explained the whole art of the astrologers. What, then, the opinions are that those thinkers hold is as follows:

Alexander of Lycopolis, Of the Manicheans Supporting witness

...ways the same, and in the same way. No one could blame any of the planets for daring to stay in the zodiac longer than the fixed time, nor any of the fixed stars, as though it did not remain in the same place and position, and by its turning move evenly around the world, going as it were one step backward in a hundred years. But on the earth, if he blames the roughness of some places, or if sailors are troubled by storms at sea, first of all, these things, in their view, have some share of good in them. For if nothing should grow on the earth, all animals would at once perish. But this result would send much of the virtue mixed with matter on to God, and there would have to be many moons to make room for the great crowd that suddenly arrives. They speak in the same way about the sea. For it is counted an unexpected piece of good fortune to perish, so that the things which perish may take the road that leads most quickly to God. And the wars on the earth, and famines, and everything that tends to destroy life, are held by them in very great honor. For everything that causes good ought to be honored. But these things cause good, because of the destruction that comes with them, if

Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies Supporting witness

But in each zodiac sign, they use the term "limits of the stars" for the places in which each star, from one region to another, can have the greatest influence. And about these, according to their writings, there is among them no mere accidental difference of opinion. But they say that stars are attended as if by companions when they are in the midst of other stars, in connection with the signs of the Zodiac. For example, if one star occupies the first part of the same zodiac sign, and another the last part, and another the middle part, then the one in the middle is said to be guarded by those holding the parts at the ends. They also are said to look at one another and to be in conjunction with one another, as if they appeared in a triangular or square figure. Therefore, those with a distance between them that extends across three zodiac signs form the figure of a triangle and look at one another. And those with a space between them that extends across two signs form the figure of a square. But just as the lower parts are in sympathy with the head, and the head with the lower parts, so also earthly things are in sympathy with things above the moon. But among these there is a certai

Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies Supporting witness

... look on one another are arranged in the form of a triangle when the distance between them is three zodiacal signs. But when the interval is two zodiacal signs, they are arranged in the form of a square. And their teaching is that, just as in a man the lower parts sympathize with the head, and the head likewise sympathizes with the lower parts, so all earthly things sympathize with things above the moon. But the astrologers go even further than this. For according to them, there is a certain difference and incompatibility between these things, so that they do not involve one and the same union. This blending and separation of the stars, which is a Chaldean teaching, has been claimed by those of whom we have spoken before.