1. 385L41

2. Politics of Astrology
• astronomical/astrological hierarchies and political hierarchies • imperial endorsement  widespread popularity • personal astrologers for prominent/wealthy individuals • political danger of astrological forecasts • Augustan bans on casting in private without witnesses, casting about death date • later bans on casting imperial horoscopes • expulsion of astronomers in 139 BCE, 33 BCE, 16 CE, 7x during 1st century CE…

3. Split Views of Astrology
• astrology as false science and impious divination (superstitio) • astrologers as charlatans, dishonest businessmen, power-mongers • astrology as valid but dangerous divination (divinatio) • astrologers as means/tools of political subversion

4. Aristotelian / Hellenistic Worlds
• increasing gap between mortal and divine worlds • monotheistic trend  proliferation of daimones • rise in popularity of eschatological cults • sublunary world as imperfect • loss of traditional community frameworks • inadequacy of polis religion • rise of eschatological cults • influx of foreign (religious, magical) influences • consolidation of power in bureaucracies and totalitarian systems • rise of interest in magic, self-help philosophies, astrology • sublunary world as alienated, corrupt, fallen

5. CHRISTIAN ASTROLOGY

6. Christian Astrology
• Stars as demonic. • Stars as signs, not causes. • Stars as signs only for higher powers to interpret. • Magi had accurate astrological knowledge as a special, limited dispensation. • Astrology as forbidden knowledge, a temptation that appeals to human curiositas. • Baptism frees initiate from astral influence.

7. Anti-Pagan Legislation
[year 357] The inquisitiveness of all men for divination (curiositas divinandi) shall cease forever. [year 358] If any wizard...soothsayer, diviner...augur, or even astrologer... should be apprehended in my retinue, he shall not escape punishment or torture by the protection of his high rank. If he should be convicted of his own crime and by denial should oppose those who reveal it, he shall be delivered to the torture house, iron claws shall tear his sides, and he shall suffer punish- ment worthy of his crime.
Constantius II CE

8. You are now received into the protection of Fortune, but of Fortune who is open-eyed and who lightens even the other gods with the splendors of her light. Let your face be joyous therefore. Let it be such a face as accords with that white gown you wear. Follow in the train of the Goddess your Savior with steps of triumph. Let the scoffer behold and be shamed, saying in his heart: “Look, here is Lucius who rejoices in the pro- vidence of mighty Isis. Look, he is released from the bonds of misery and victorious over his fate.” —Metamorphoseon 11.15

9. DECLINE OF SCIENCE

10. 30 BCE
end of Roman Republic; beginning of Imperial Rome
30 BCE – 14 CE
rule of Emperor Augustus
313
official adoption of Christianity
324
relocation of capital to Constantinople
476
“fall” of Western Roman Empire
642
Islamic conquest of Alexandria
1453
fall of Byzantine (= Eastern Roman) Empire

11. • decline in scientific research • rise in commentarial tradition • shift from investigation to transmission • organization of educational system around canon • codification/exclusion of fields of scientific study
trivium
logic
grammar
rhetoric
quadrivium
arithmetic
geometry
music
astronomy

12. • decreased funding for research (vs
• decreased funding for research (vs. funding for Church) • disconnect between academic and practical pursuits • failure of science to institutionalize • “anxiety of influence” • skeptical tradition • despair over observational, instrumental, cognitive limits • assumption of finitude of knowledge • contemplative ideal • institutionalized hostility to “knowledge” from empowered Church

13. • rejection of curiositas • irrelevance of scientific (worldly) knowledge • scientific pursuits distracting and potentially corrosive • “pagan” science as false and derivative • Athens vs. Jerusalem : Science vs. Scripture • anti-intellectualism of Church • knowledge vs. belief • inference vs. revelation