Astrology Baffled by Free-Will.
3130.
For, as usually happens when men see unfavourable dreams, and can make nothing certain out of them, when any event occurs, then they adapt what they saw in the dream to what has occurred;
so also is mathematics.
3131.
For before anything happens, nothing is declared with certainty;
yet after something has happened, they gather the causes of the event.
3132.
And thus often, when they have been at fault, and the thing has fallen out otherwise,
they take the blame to themselves, saying that it was such and such a star which opposed,
and that they did not see it;
not knowing that their error does not proceed from their unskilfulness in their art,
yet from the inconsistency of the whole system.
3133.
For they do not know what those things are which we indeed desire to do,
yet in regard to which we do not indulge our desires.
3134.
Yet we who have learned the reason of this mystery know the cause,
since, having freedom of will, we sometimes oppose our desires, and sometimes yield to them.
3135.
And therefore the issue of human doings is uncertain, because it depends upon freedom of will.
3136.
For a mathematician can indeed indicate the desire which a malignant power produces;
yet whether the acting or the issue of this desire shall be fulfilled or not,
no one can know before the accomplishment of the thing, because it depends upon freedom of will.
3137.
And this is why ignorant astrologers have invented to themselves the talk about climacterics as their refuge in uncertainties, as we showed fully yesterday.
People Admitted.
3138.
If you have anything that you wish to say to this, say on.
3139.
Then my father:
Nothing can be more true, my son, than what you have stated.
3140.
And while we were thus speaking among ourselves, some one informed us that a great multitude of people were standing outside, having assembled for the purpose of hearing.
3141.
Then Peter ordered them to be admitted, for the place was large and convenient.
3142.
And when they had come in, Peter said to us:
If any one of you wishes, let him address the people, and discourse concerning idolatry.
3143.
To whom I Clement answered:
Your great benignity and gentleness and patience towards all encourages us,
so that we dare speak in your presence, and ask what we please;
and therefore, as I said, the gentleness of your disposition
invites and encourages all to undertake the precepts of saving doctrine.
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3144.
This I never saw before in any one else, yet in you only,
with whom there is neither envy nor indignation.
Or what do you think?
No Man Has Universal Knowledge.
3145.
Then Peter said:
These things come not only from envy or indignation;
yet sometimes there is a bashfulness in some persons, lest haply they may not be able to answer fully the questions that may be proposed, and so they avoid the discovery of their want of skill.
3146.
Yet no one ought to be ashamed of this, because there is no man who ought to profess that he knows all things; for there is only One who knows all things, even He who also made all things.
3147.
For if our Master declared that He knew not the day and the hour whose signs even He foretold,
and referred the whole to the Father, how shall we account it disgraceful to confess that we are ignorant of some things, since in this we have the example of our Master?
3148.
But this only we profess, that we know those things which we have learned from the true Prophet;
and that those things have been delivered to us by the true Prophet,
which He judged to be sufficient for human knowledge.
Clement's Disclosure.
3149.
Then I Clement went on to speak thus:
At Tripolis, when you were disputing against the Gentiles, my lord Peter, I greatly wondered at you, that although you were instructed by your father according to the fashion of the Hebrews and in observances of your own law, and were never polluted by the studies of Greek learning, you argued so magnificently and so incomparably; and that you even touched upon some things concerning the histories of the gods, which are usually declaimed in the theatres.
3150.
Yet as I perceived that their fables and blasphemies are not so well known to you,
I shall discourse upon these in your hearing, repeating them from the very beginning, if it please you.
The Book of Recognitions CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVEN
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Divisions 3151-3180
Book 10
RECOGNITIONS 10
3151.
Then says Peter:
Say on; you do well to assist my preaching.
3152.
Then said I:
I shall speak, therefore, because you order me, not by way of teaching you,
yet of making public what foolish opinions the Gentiles entertain of the gods.
Would that All God's People Were Prophets.
3153.
Yet when I was about to speak, Niceta, biting his lip, beckoned to me to be silent.
3154.
And when Peter saw him, he said:
Why would you repress his liberal disposition and noble nature,
that you would have him be silent for my honour, which is nothing?
3155.
Or do you not know, that if all nations, after they have heard from me the preaching of the truth,
and have believed, would betake themselves to teaching, they would gain the greater glory for me,
if indeed you think me desirous of glory?
3156.
For what so glorious as to prepare disciples for Christ, who shall not be silent, and be saved alone,
yet who shall speak what they have learned, and shall do good to others?
3157.
I wish indeed that both you, Niceta, and you, beloved Aquila, would aid me in preaching the word of God, and the rather because those things in which the Gentiles err are well known to you;
and not you only, but all who hear me, I wish, as I have said, so to hear and to learn, that they may be able also to teach: for the world needs many helpers, by whom men may be recalled from error.
3158.
When he had spoken thus, he said to me:
Go on then, Clement, with what you have begun.
Gentile Cosmology.
3159.
And I immediately rejoined:
Seeing that when you were disputing at Tripolis, as I said,
you discoursed much concerning the gods of the Gentiles profitably and convincingly,
I desire to set forth in your presence the ridiculous legends concerning their origin,
both that you may not be unacquainted with the falsehood of this vain superstition,
and that the hearers who are present may know the disgraceful character of their error.
3160.
The wise men, then, who are among the Gentiles, say that first of all things was chaos;
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that this, through a long time solidifying its outer parts, made bounds to itself and a sort of foundation,
being gathered, as it were, into the manner and form of a huge egg, Greek
within which, in the course of a long time, as within the shell of the egg,
there was cherished and vivified a certain animal;
3161.
and that afterwards, that huge globe being broken,
there came forth a certain kind of man of double sex, which they call masculo-feminine.
3162.
This they called Phanetas, from appearing, because when it appeared, they say,
then also light shone forth.
3163.
And from this, they say that there were produced substance, prudence, motion, and sexual coition,
and from these the heavens and the earth were made.
3164.
From the heaven they say that six males were produced, whom they call Titans;
and in like manner, from the earth six females, whom they called Titanides.
3165.
And these are the names of the males who sprang from the heaven:
Oceanus, Cœus, Crios, Hyperion, Iapetus, Chronos, who among us is called Saturn.
3166.
In like manner, the names of the females who sprang from the earth are these:
Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Tethys, Hebe.
Family of Saturn.
3167.
Of all these, the first-born of the heaven took to wife the first-born of earth;
the second the second, and in like manner all the rest.
3168.
The first male, therefore, who had married the first female, was on her account drawn downwards;
3169.
yet the second female rose upwards, by reason of him to whom she was married;
and so each doing in their order, remained in those places which fell to their share by the nuptial lot.
3170.
From their intercourse they assert that innumerable others sprang.
3171.
Yet of these six males, the one who is called Saturn received in marriage Rhea,
and having been warned by a certain oracle that he who should be born of her
should be more powerful than himself, and should drive him from his kingdom,
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he determined to devour all the sons that should be born to him.
3172.
First, then, there is born to him a son called Aides, who among us is called Orcus;
and him, for the reason we have just stated, he took and devoured.
3173.
After him he begot a second son, called Neptune; and him he devoured in like manner.
3174.
Last of all, he begot him whom they call Jupiter;
yet him, his mother Rhea pitying,
by stratagem withdrew from his father when he was about to devour him.
3175.
And first, indeed, that the crying of the child might not be noticed, she made certain Corybantes strike cymbals and drums, that by the deafening sound the crying of the infant might not be heard.
Their Destinies.
3176.
Yet when he understood from the lessening of her belly that her child was born,
he demanded it, that he might devour it;
then Rhea presented him with a large stone, and told him that that was what she had brought forth.
3177.
And he took it, and swallowed it; and the stone, when it was devoured,
pushed and drove forth those sons whom he had formerly swallowed.
3178.
Therefore Orcus, coming forth first, descended, and occupies the lower, that is, the infernal regions.
3179.
The second, being above him— he whom they call Neptune— is thrust forth upon the waters.
3180.
The third, who survived by the artifice of his mother Rhea, she put upon a she-goat and sent into heaven.
The Book of Recognitions CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHT
Divisions 3181-3210
Book 10
RECOGNITIONS 10
Doings of Jupiter.
3181.
Yet enough of the old wife's fables and genealogy of the Gentiles;
for it were endless if I should set forth all the generations
of those whom they call gods, and their wicked doings.
3181.
Yet by way of example, omitting the rest, I shall detail the wicked deeds of him only whom they hold to be the greatest and the chief, and whom they call Jupiter.
3182.
For they say that he possesses heaven, as being superior to the rest;
3183.
and he, as soon as he grew up, married his own sister, whom they call Juno,
in which truly he at once becomes like a beast.
3184.
Juno bears Vulcan;
yet, as they relate, Jupiter was not his father.
3185.
However, by Jupiter himself she became mother of Medea;
and Jupiter having received a response that one who should be born of her should be more powerful than he, and should expel him from his kingdom, took her and devoured her.
3186.
Again Jupiter produced Minerva from his brain, and Bacchus from his thigh.
3187.
After this, when he had fallen in love with Thetis, they say that Prometheus informed him
that, if he lay with her, he who should be born of her should be more powerful than his father;
and for fear of this, he gave her in marriage to a certain Peleus.
3188.
Subsequently he had intercourse with Persephone, who was his own daughter by Ceres and by her he begot Dionysius, who was torn in pieces by the Titans.
3189.
Yet calling to mind, it is said, that perhaps his own father Saturn might beget another son,
who might be more powerful than him, and might expel him from the kingdom,
he went to war with his father, along with his brothers the Titans;
3190.
and having beaten them, he at last threw his father into prison,
and cut off his genitals, and threw them into the sea.
3131.
Yet the blood which flowed from the wound, being mixed with the waves, and turned into foam by the constant churning, produced her whom they call Aphrodite, and whom with us they call Venus.
3192.
From his intercourse with her who was thus his own sister, they say that this same Jupiter begot Cypris, who, they say, was the mother of Cupid.
A Black Catalogue.
3193.
Thus much of his incests; I shall now speak of his adulteries.
3194.
He defiled Europa, the wife of Oceanus, of whom was born Dodonæus;
Helen, the wife of Pandion, of whom was born Musæus;
3195.
Eurynome, the wife of Asopus, of whom was born Ogygias;
Hermione, the wife of Oceanus, of whom was born the Graces, Thalia, Euphrosyne, Aglaia;
3196.
Themis, his own sister, of whom was born the Hours, Eurynomia, Dice, Irene;
Themisto, the daughter of Inachus, of whom was born Arcas;
3197.
Idæa, the daughter of Minos, of whom was born Asterion;
Phœnissa, the daughter of Alphion, of whom was born Endymion;
3198.
Io, the daughter of Inachus, of whom was born Epaphus;
Hippodamia and Isione, daughters of Danaus,
of whom was born Hippodamia was the wife of Olenus, and Isione of Orchomenus or Chryses;
3199.
Carme, the daughter of Phœnix, of whom was born Britomartis, who was an attendant of Diana;
Callisto, the daughter of Lycaon, of whom was born Orcas;
3200.
Lybee, the daughter of Munantius, of whom Belus;
Latona, of whom was born Apollo and Diana;
3201.
Leandia, the daughter of Eurymedon, of whom was born Coron;
Lysithea, the daughter of Evenus, of whom was born Helenus;
3202.
Hippodamia, the daughter of Bellerophon, of whom was born Sarpedon;
Megaclite, the daughter of Macarius, of whom was born Thebe and Locrus;
3203.
Niobe, the daughter of Phoroneus, of whom was born Argus and Pelasgus;
Olympias, the daughter of Neoptolemus, of whom was born Alexander;
3204.
Pyrrha, the daughter of Prometheus, of whom was born Helmetheus;
Protogenia and Pandora, daughters of Deucalion, of whom he begot Æthelius, and Dorus, and Melera, and Pandorus;
3205.
Thaicrucia, the daughter of Proteus, of whom was born Nympheus;
Salamis, the daughter of Asopus, of whom was born Saracon;
3206.
Taygete, Electra, Maia, Plutide, daughters of Atlas,
of whom respectively he begot Lacedæmon, Dardanus, Mercury, and Tantalus;
3207.
Phthia, the daughter of Phoroneus, of whom he begot Achæus;
Chonia, the daughter of Aramnus, of whom he begot Lacon;
3208.
Chalcea, a nymph, of whom was born Olympus;
Charidia, a nymph, of whom was born Alcanus;
3209.
Chloris, who was the wife of Ampycus, of whom Mopsus was born;
Cotonia, the daughter of Lesbus, of whom was born Polymedes;
3210.
Hippodamia, the daughter of Anicetus;
Chrysogenia, the daughter of Peneus, of whom was born Thissæus.
The Book of Recognitions CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINE
Divisions 3211-3240
Book 10
RECOGNITIONS 10
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