Astrology -- A Demonic Craft Practiced Also by the Magi

I On Plato and Platonism.

Was Plato an astrologer at heart? It seems that he was inclined towards at least some aspects of astrology, yet did not believe that the stars exercised a capricious fate that was forced upon some embodiment of a soul irrespective of whatever that soul had done in its immediately prior embodiment. What was bound to happen to a soul not in proper harmony with its star was that it would find itself in embodiment for a life less blessed than in its former life; indeed, it might even have sunk so low in virtue that it would choose embodiment as a lower form of life. For example, as respects forms of embodiments of earthly souls, the highest was the human male, and below human males were women, followed by beasts. As to what sort of life its incarnated (earthly) existence was fated (divinely mandated) to live out, it would be by good (virtuous) choices and attention to philosophy that improvements (reincarnations/re-embodiments towards a progressively more felicitous life--if not also embodiment in a higher form of life--might be had in those future incarnations or embodiments of the soul. These fates awaiting the souls about to receive them (i.e., about to receive living-model embodiments) were ‘woven,’ so to speak, into the stars and planets. MOIRA (fate) was supreme. In Greek paganism, the goddesses of fate (Lachesis, Klotho, and Atropos) were superior to Zeus in that he could not undo what kind of life a soul about to be reincarnated or re-embodied had, by its previous life, bound itself to live.

Richard Broxton Onians, The Origins of European Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1951) 306-307, puts it this way. “[There is] Plato’s picture of ANAGKH [Necessity] in the whorls of whose spindle are set the stars and planets . . . and it is with [this spindle] that the MOIRA, the ‘portions’ or fate each soul about to be born, is made valid by the spinning (EPIKLWQEIN) of the MOIRAI [the goddesses of fate, namely,] KLWQW and ATROPOS . . . This was his interpretation of [the deeper meaning in the poetic/mythological picture given in] the phrase QEWN EN GOUNASI KEITAI [‘it lies upon the knees of the gods’] . . . A few lines later after saying that the spindle turns EN TOIS THS ANAGKHS GONASIN [‘on the knees of Necessity’] Plato refers again to knees[--which figure prominently in the ancient practice of spinning flaxen]. From [the goddess] Lachesis are taken ‘lots’ and BIWN PARADEIGMATA [living models, ‘samples of lives’]. The lots merely determine the order in which the souls choose [their destinies, which they will choose in accordance with the enlightenment of their souls, or lack of same, so that in a sense each soul is responsible for the next kind of life they will live, whether it be felicitous or not] . . . The BIWN PARADEIGMATA are actually the MOIRAI, the portions which are spun, the destinies which men must experience . . . [F]or Plato [, too, then;] the fate that lay on the knees of the gods was what was spun.”

Plato goes on to say in his myth about Er (see Republic, Book X) that the souls choose their genius or living model according to their ability to choose, which, in each soul, is an ability either to choose wisely or else it be an incapacity to choose wisely, but that such ability or incapacity is something a soul had developed according to the way he had lived in his previous life. He says, “And when [the Interpreter] had spoken, he who had the first choice[, for his lot had number one on it,] came forward and in a moment chose the greatest tyranny; his mind having been darkened by folly and sensuality, he had not thought out the whole matter before he chose, and did not at first sight perceive that he was fated, among other evils, to devour his own children. But when he had time to reflect, and saw what was in the lot, he began to beat his breast and lament over his choice, forgetting the proclamation of the prophet; for, instead of throwing the blame of his misfortune on himself, he accused chance and the gods, and everything rather than himself. Now he was one of those who came from heaven, and in a former life had dwelt in a well-ordered State, but his virtue was a matter of habit only, and he had no philosophy.”

Why, though, did Plato use this myth of the goddesses spinning souls’ fates . . . and he give this spinning a cosmological setting (i.e., he gives a soul’s fate or destiny an identification as determined by how much or how little a fate gets its character from his star)? Onians (308) makes the following observations:

[There seem to be two irreconcilable conceptions:] the spindle of Necessity and the shaft of light, which is the axis of the revolving heaven . . . [Plato’s] reason for the union of [the concept of astrally encoded destinies with the conception of destiny as something divinely spun is clever:] . . . Thus in a single image he fuses the astrological notions of the East and the early Hellenic idea of fate as spun . . . [so that we have] Plato’s spindle of the starry heaven moving on the knees of Necessity.“

Onians (322) further states: “The Orphics, Pythagoreans and others conceived of a personal power ANAGKH supreme over all . . . [And to Orphic and Pythagorean concepts of] ANAGKH [, the “Circle of Necessity” that] ‘lies around the universe’ (PERIKEISQAI Twi KOSMOi), [we] may now relate Plato’s conception of the universe with the spindle of ANAGKH as its axis and girt around by a [serpentine] ‘bond’ (XUNDESMOS, DESMOI) of light, perhaps to be identified with the Milky Way (GALAXIAS KUKLOS).”

Joscelyn Godwyn, Mystery Religions in the Ancient World (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1981), p. 37 states the following: “[The Orphics and a sectarian offshoot from them, the Pythagoreans] held that at the end of a Great Year all were restored to their primal purity in a Golden Age, as the whole of Creation joins its source. The final destiny of all humanity—indeed of all creatures—is the realization of Divinity. The Mystery initiate differs from the others simply in moving consciously towards that goal.” Godwyn might have added here that Mystery religion initiates thought that astrology gave them advantage in the sojourn (reincarnations) of their souls. As Plato put it in his Timaeus, “He who has lived right will [the more quickly] mount towards the particular star assigned him to dwell there in a condition of happiness that conforms to the state of his soul.” Astrologers—especially non-Gnostic astrologers--with a sensitivity to the philosophical doctrine that the Demiurge had exercised only a benevolent power for when he began to create souls--so that each one was initially, at least, good--would object as much as any philosopher to the idea that a soul’s assigned star might arbitrarily and capriciously (tyrannically) drag that soul along through evil experiences. The more philosophically inclined astrologers held that the stars could serve as signs to alert a man to what course of action he should pursue if he would see good and avoid evil

Philosophically inclined astrologers (or philosophers who believed in the divine and benevolent animation of the heavenly bodies) did not believe that astronomical phenomena were the capricious contrivances of malevolent superhuman beings for communicating their unjust and evil intents against men. Rather—and especially so for Platonists—philosophers could make accommodation to astrology because they could hold that the Demiurge gives power to the benevolent star gods for them to encode in their movements and positions what must befall a soul’s (re-)embodiment, this in accordance, supposedly, with how the soul had lived in its previous life, whether wisely or unwisely. The Hellenistic philosopher-astrologer’s concern was, ‘How much had a soul in its previous life wisely taken from its star so that it might come to have a good life in its next embodiment?’ However, the belief that the particular configuration of heavenly bodies at the time of an individual’s birth should reveal to what extent or measure there had come into his soul its star’s influential components was largely a Hellenistic innovation in astrology, so it seems. Immediately below we present something from a historian of astrology:

Gordon Fisher, Marriage and Divorce of Astronomy and Astrology: A History of Astral Prediction from Antiquity to Newton (see the web page gfisher.org/index.htm, revised December 2000; see also Notes, No. 1 below) states the following:

Scott goes on to discuss the relationship of such theories of union between the divine and the human by way of the stars to astrology as it was generally practiced and theorized about in the Hellenistic era. He says (p. 79): "A particularly important development in this experiment is the theory of a planetary component in the structure of the soul. The growth of interest in astrology in the Hellenistic era led to a special emphasis on the influence of the planets on the soul, since astrology is very much concerned with the effects of the various planetary positions on all generation." There was considerable discussion and disagreement among philosophers and theologians who accepted some version of an astral body theory as to whether or not, or in what cases and to what extent, the influences of the planets (including the sun and moon) on humans was benevolent or malevolent, good or evil. Nowadays, some of the terms for various schools of thought on these issues are gnosticism, hermeticism (as put forth in the Corpus hermeticum), neo-Platonism or just Platonism, and Mithraism (which Scott describes as a cross between Platonism and astrology, p. 109).


II. On Philo, particularly.

Was Philo sympathetic to the Hellenistic theory of astrology? If by astrology we have reference to a system whereby one claims sufficient knowledge from his supposed ability to decode the meaning of astral phenomena associated with a subject’s birthday, and from his ability to decode that astral phenomena (configuration of the heavenly bodies) that must be true for the subject on some future day after his birth—so that he (the astrologer) either makes explanation of the subject’s history or makes prognostications of the subject’s future left him--, then Philo was not in sympathy with such a theory. Still, Philo betrays a superstition about the nature of heavenly bodies such as we see is also true respecting ancient (and non-Gnostic) astrologers’ understanding of the nature of the stars. Robert K. McIver, ““Cosmology” as a Key to the Thought-World of Philo of Alexandria,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 26.3 (1988, Andrews University Press) p. 272ff observes:

“[Let us consider again] an important, but frequently overlooked, element of Philo’s cosmology—namely, that the heavenly bodies form an integral part of a chain of beings that extends from God, as unchangeably perfect, down through the Logos, the powers, the stars, the planets, the sun, the moon, the angels which inhabit the air, and finally to man himself . . . [Philo wrote:] Moses held that the universe [has] . . . magistrates and subjects; for magistrates, all the heavenly bodies fixed or wandering; for subjects, such beings as exist below the moon, in the air or on the earth. The said magistrates, however, in [Moses’] view have not unconditional powers, but are lieutenants of the one Father of All (Spec. I.13-14) Thus while not independent divinities, the heavenly bodies are part of the hierarchy of heavenly beings. Elsewhere Philo calls the stars “souls divine” of “mind in its purest form” (Gig. 7), and he refers to the sun and moon as “natural divinities”…. [For Philo,] philosophy is the means by which the soul can move to contemplation of the heavenly realities, to which it belongs, and to which it can return…. Thus, the goal of existence for Philo is to reunite the soul with God, to restore it to its proper place in the heavens. This is achieved by subduing the body, eliminating the passions, and by an educational program that culminates with philosophy . . . A program of this sort leads to ecstatic experiences of the kind that happened to Philo himself…. [Philo stated:] There was once a time . . . I seemed ever to be borne aloft in the heights in a rapture of soul, and to accompany sun, moon, and all heaven and the universe in their revolutions. For Philo to accompany the “sun, moon, and all heaven and the universe in their revolutions” was not just an expression of poetic excess. He considered these to be higher beings with which he was communing…. Also notable about Philo’s cosmology are many features which appear to lie behind ideas opposed in the NT [New Testament] itself, such as a concentration of mystical ideas about the heavens, heavenly powers, and angels, linked together with Jewish practices such as circumcision…. Philo is representative of a larger group of thinkers. Several lines of evidence point in this direction. For example, on occasion Josephus allegorizes the OT in a way that is similar to, though also different in detail from, Philo. There are strong similarities between the physical cosmologies of both writers . . Philo was in dialogue with a much larger group.” [End of quote from Robert McIver and his quotations from Philo.]

All the above about Philo, however, does not mean that he was sympathetic to the craft (horoscopy) of Hellenistic astrologers, for it seemed to him that a man’s destiny did not have its unique values pragmatically discoverable in a horoscopic reading of the stars; moreover, he did not believe that the stars act in a manner independent of, and hostile to, God’s sovereignty (providence), for Philo held, in effect, that God did not abandon men’s souls to any beings acting independently of God, nor does God act capriciously against men’s souls. (See Notes, No. 2 below.) (The thing that Philo does not mention is that a non-Gnostic philosopher-astrologer could make the same claims about what the Primary body had ordained as resects a soul’s involvement with its star.) What knowledge Philo would not attempt to take for himself from the divination of astrology he yet took for himself from other spiritistic involvement. How so? We do know by Philo’s own admission that he was holding to the doctrine that esoteric (mystical) knowledge can become the property of a man who has let philosophy lead him to the point where his soul may become astrally projected in order that it might be (temporarily) located among the stars, this so that his soul might commune with the stars in their revolutions. Philo claimed such experiences for himself. He let his belief in immortal-soul doctrine, his belief in the divine animation of heavenly bodies, and his fervent wish to have his soul become involved in an out-of-body experience (astral projection of his soul so that for a while it should be located among the stars) at least partly serve to lead him into corybantic frenzies pushed upon him by wicked spirits.

Let us take McIver’s reference to the dialogue Philo participated to mean reinforcement for a conclusion which has it that Philo was not very far removed from that spirit or frame of mind such as we see manifested in the Qumran sect; that sect was certainly given to astrology. (See Notes, No. 3 below.)


III. On the Magi of Matthew’s Gospel.

We have no basis for assuming that in Matthew’s Gospel the magi from eastern parts were more rationalistic so that they had a higher (non-demonic) attachment to the stars than was so either for Philo or for the Qumran sectaries. The Qumran sectaries were astrologers at heart. Even if the magi who visited Jesus were from Parthia, yet their religion would have been a practice of astral mysticism, even if it were free of sorcery. (See Notes, No. 4 below.) Plato, in Alcibiades that is ascribed to him, says that the religion of the Persian Magi was a form of spiritual mysticism.

The magi of Matthew’s Gospel said, “We have seen his star”; they had seen “his star” while they were in their country in the east. The timing of their appearance and their announcement in Jerusalem may have met with strong resonance among the Jews. Some have argued that those magi may have had knowledge that Jews living at the beginning of the first century had become especially excited by prospects that their long-awaited Messiah from the House of David was about to be born. (Is it possible that the Qumran sectaries, and other Jews given to astrology, were hoping to authenticate a claimant to the throne of David on the basis that he fit a certain horoscopic portrait?) Hardly would nationalistic Jews, however, betray to Herod the location of an infant they took to be one born king of the Jews. From a Christian perspective, there is more to recommend an exegesis of Matthew’s record to the effect that Satan was behind an effort to use Gentile magi for an unwitting role that they should play, one that should result in their betraying to murderous Herod the location in Bethlehem of the one born king of the Jews.

We need not surmise that the religious sensibilities of most first-century Jews (in Jerusalem), who practiced a popular form of Judaism, were outraged by a visit paid their city by Gentile astrologers who showed up among them. What the magi said especially troubled and excited the more superstitious people of Jerusalem, all right, but it troubled even more the superstitious, paganish Herod, too. The magi reported that they had seen in their country an “appearing star,” a novel light in the night sky, which they took to be the star of someone who had been born king of the Jews.

We, of course, know that it was not a real star that they came to associate with one born king of the Jews, for there is no astronomical body that is either a real star (a supernova) or a comet such that after it first makes novel appearance --and remains visible for a while— and then it becomes invisible in the night sky only to reappear there a mere matter of months later. Still, the magi may have taken the night light to be a certain kind of wandering “star” (i.e., they may have mistakenly assumed that the light they were seeing was an astronomical body having the nature that we moderns should identify with a comet), and would not have been so surprised when once it had disappeared at some point in time, this disappearance occurring either (1) before they had begun their months-long journey to Jerusalem, or (2) while journeying to Jerusalem. (Matthew does not say that the night light the magi saw was going ahead of them–leading them--to Jerusalem.) If they had taken it for that sort of body they called a wandering star—and which had disappeared either (1) sometime before they had started out on their way to Jerusalem or (2) sometime after they were on their way to Jerusalem--then they would have been very delighted at the reappearance of even a wandering “star” in a night sky where it had been absent for a while. They took their leave from Herod’s presence in order to get on their way to Bethlehem for fulfillment of the assignment Herod had given them. When they were on their way through the night, why, “look! the star they had seen when [they were] in the east went ahead of them until it came to a stop above where the young child was” (Mt 2:9 NWT). Not only had it reappeared sometime after they were on their way to Bethlehem, but they could also see that it was now close enough to them so that they could follow the route of its motion through the night air. It showed them the way to a house where Joseph, Mary, and Jesus resided. These astrologers were not frightened; moreover, neither were they humbled into a posture or attitude reflecting reverential fear at the wonder before them. No, but they rejoiced very much indeed at the wonder before them. Again, Matthew does not record anything that suggests that either of the two appearances of the “star” caused the magi to feel any reverential fear for the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. Matthew does not say that the magi had seen the glory of God, nor does he present them as making any such claim for themselves. No, but what he does record as the thing coming from their lips is clearly an astrological pronouncement, for he wrote that they said; “We have seen his star.” Matthew has them making reference to a very particular star—the Messiah’s star (Greek ASTHR)! Our argument here and in what follows is that the magi did not see God’s “Shekinah light” (a miraculous, supernatural manifestation of God’s glory).

We do not read that the magi reported, ‘When we were in the east, we saw a glorious light in the night sky; moreover, God told us that it is a sign that there is one alive in Judea who has just been born king of the Jews.’ We can know from what the Bible tells us about astrology that God did not look with favor upon the magi’s belief that the time for the Messiah’s birth was something that had come to be encoded in the “stars.” (After all, the magi were given to the superstition of astral mysticism. Astrologers of Antiquity held that the stars were divine intelligences of the purest sort.) If earlier, however, while the magi were in eastern regions, they had seen a supernatural (demon-made) light (such that it was an appearance that seemed to them to be one occurring in a certain zodiacal sign, this so that magi noting the time and location of its appearance would discover that it fit some astrological lore and profile that they had built up in anticipation of the one prophesied to be born king of the Jews), then they might have reasoned that its reappearance was a mystical, occult experience especially meant to favor them. They might have reasoned that the wandering star, in its reappearance, was a visible god that had descended to a point close enough to them so that it might favor them by serving as a guide for them; they were only too glad to follow its motion to a place (a house) where they should find the one born king of the Jews.

Let us emphasize our main point in these presents: it is a mistake to think that in Antiquity the magi were more interested in the mechanics of astronomy than in the divination of astrology. The Platonists of late Antiquity made some accommodation with astrology. Plutarch, who was himself a Platonist, did in fact write something (see Notes, No. 5 below) against the extravagant (pragmatically unrealizable if not all together untenable) claims of some astrologers, but he did not renounce the principles of astrology, nor did he renounce astrology’s attendant doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Moreover, although Hipparchus may have renounced astrology entirely, yet his pupil Claudius Ptolemy did not, for he authored a work on astrology, Tetrabiblos.) In it, Ptolemy states the following: “The studies preliminary to astronomical prognostication, O Syrus! Are two: the one, first alike in order and in power, leads to the knowledge of the figurations of the Sun, the moon, and the stars ; and of their relative aspects to each other, and to the earth : the other takes into consideration the changes which their aspects create” (TETRABIBLOS - Book 1- Chapter 1 - Paragraph 1; the underlined words I added for emphasis). There is no evidence that either Plutarch or Ptolemy considered themselves to be sorcerers casting spells. Even if the magi were every bit as rationalistic as were Plutarch and Ptolemy, still the magi of Parthia had a belief that was, at the very least, just as superstitious as was so for Plutarch’s and Ptolemy’s astrological beliefs, for they all failed to rise above superstitious belief in the divine animation of the stars. That does not mean, however, that even if we grant that the magi in Matthew’s Gospel were Parthian astrologers, then we make them out to be ones who were in violation of that Parthian law which condemned sorcery. Astrology and sorcery may be practiced by the same individuals, but the practices are not necessarily intertwined, fused. There were even in Antiquity several stripes of astrology, and not all of them would equally fuse with sorcery, although they all were the practice of divination, and were accordingly under God’s condemnation of spiritism.

Magi were astrologers—likely polytheistic astrologers (see Notes, No. 6 below)—, and, like all astrologers of Antiquity, they were steeped in superstitious ideas about divine animation of the stars. God could not have been the author of a violation of His own condemnation of astrology by making some magi (namely, the ones mentioned in Matthew’s Gospel) to think that they were decoding, per the interpretive principles of their astrological “science,” some “star’s” message, namely, a message to the effect that the Jews’ Messiah had just been born.


NOTES

1. Gordon Fisher describes his study as follows:
“This is a study of the union of astronomy and astrology, and relations to astral worship, from early Babylonian times, through medieval European times, up to and including the time of Isaac Newton, especially in relation to prediction, with extensions into more recent times. There is also discussion of related matters in other cultures, such as Chinese, Indian, Native American and African. This work is now (December 2000) being extended to include a study of how astrology works, if or insofar as it can be said to work or have worked. NOTE: On 16 Jan 2001, I changed the title of this work from Marriage of Astronomy and Astrology: History of Astral Prediction from Antiquity to Newton to Marriage and Divorce of Astronomy and Astrology: History of Astral Prediction from Antiquity to Newton and Beyond. FURTHER NOTE: And on 5 Feb 2001, I removed "and Beyond" with the intention of proceeding beyond Newton in another book (see above and below).”

Gordon Fisher gives an autobiographical note, part of which follows:
“I was born in St. Paul MN on 5 Oct 1925. I went to high school in Little Falls MN and Miami FL, and graduated in 1942. I served in the U S Navy Hospital Corps, 1943-1945, during World War 2, and in the U S Army Signal Corps, 1947-1949. I attended the University of Miami (FL) 1945-1947 and 1949-1951, and graduated with a B.A. in mathematics, minor in philosophy. I studied graduate mathematics at Tulane University, University of Michigan, and Louisiana State University. I graduated from LSU in 1959 with a Ph.D. in mathematics. My dissertation was on a topic in topology, "On the Group of All Homeomorphisms of a Manifold". I spent 3 years as an instructor in mathematics at Princeton, and the last year was a Junior Fellow in the Humanities, and studied history of science under Charles Gillispie of the history department. I then for 5 years was a senior lecturer in mathematics and history and philosophy of science at the Universities of Otago and Waikato in New Zealand. I spent the rest of my teaching career, from 1967 to 1990, as a professor of mathematics at James Madison University in Virginia, USA. During the years 1983-1986 I did all the work except a thesis for an M.S. in computer science at the University of Virginia, and thereupon was named a professor of mathematics and computer science at JMU. I am now a professor emeritus of mathematics and computer science at JMU. I also occasionally taught history and philosophy of science at JMU.

“I became interested in relations between astronomy and astrology as a result of my Ph.D. dissertation, which was ultimately connected to a result of the mathematician Henri Poincaré in connection with his work in celestial mechanics. This led me to a study of the origins of celestial mechanics, which took me back to the works of such people as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton, and then back to philosophers of classical Greece, and to Babylonia and other countries of that region of the world. I became aware that astronomy and astrology, now usually regarded as separated, were up until the 17th and early 18th centuries of the Christian era intimately interlinked, to the point that I like to refer to them as having been married. Hence, eventually, I produced a study of this marriage, which I have put on this web site. I am at present (October 2000) still updating and adding to it…. 18 Oct 2000”

2. Augustine Casiday (University of Durham, Durham, DH1 2RS, UK) writes:
Philo invokes providence in answer to Aristotle’s claims: God is providentially disposed toward creation, therefore creation will not suffer destruction. Here, Philo’s account is in keeping with Middle Platonist exegesis of Timaeus 41a-b (following Dillon, Frick cites ps.-Plutarch 572 and Calcidius, Tim. 176). Frick identifies Philo’s theory as a form of creatio continua, ‘temporal beginning but continuous existence’ (p. 117), which is further evidence for the importance of providence in Philo’s thought. This caps off Frick’s assessment of divine immanence and transcendence as Philo coordinates them with his account of providence.
Having considered this system, Frick then turns to other problems that Philo addressed with reference to divine providence. Thus, Frick considers the problem of ‘horoscopic astrology’ that Philo addresses in connection with Abraham, the Chaldean ‘whose father was an astrologer’ (Virt. 212). ‘Chaldean’ in Philo often means simply ‘astrologer’, so Philo makes an important claim when he asserts that Abraham ‘left the impious ways of astral religion and came to believe in God as the creator and providential administrator of the cosmos’ (p. 129). This sharp dichotomy, according to Frick, reflects Philo’s keen awareness of the threat to divine transcendence and therefore to divine providence posed by an astrological system that depicts the universe as self-sufficient and/or God as the ‘world-soul’. Thus, as Frick notes, Philo is eager at Providence 2.52 to subordinate the heavenly bodies to providence. Frick also notes Philo’s objection to astrology on the basis that it undermines or confuses questions of moral responsibility. This leads Frick to consider the interaction of providence and moral responsibility, under the classic rubric of theodicy. (See http://www.bookreviews.org/Reviews/3161471415.html, a review of a publication by Peter Frick, Divine Providence in Philo of Alexandria (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999) 240pp.

3. Francis Schmidt, Ancient Jewish Astrology: An Attempt to Interpret 4QCryptic (4Q186) École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris:
The two great disciplines of astrology -- on the one hand, the theory of "opportunities" or KATARCAI/, which teaches the opportune moment to undertake an action, and, on the other hand, genethlialogy, which predicts the destiny of individuals on the basis of their horoscopes -- are both represented in Qumran. The first, by the document known as Brontologion (4Q318), and the second, by a text of zodiacal physiognomy (4Q186), to mention only the published texts…. [In one of them, its fragments project a spiritual profile for persons per their horoscope such that] the spiritual description [is for] indicating in what proportions the spirit (ruach) of the individual partakes of light and of darkness. The extant passages present a consecutive text that envisages the case of three individual types (A, B, and C respectively). A, the first, consists of six parts of light and three of darkness (fragment 1,II,7-8); B, the second, whose physical traits are particularly coarse, has only one part of light as against eight parts of darkness (fragment 1,III,5-6); while the third, C, whose qualities approach perfection, benefits, by contrast, from eight parts of light as against only one part of darkness (fragment 2,I,7). These proportions indicate that nine parts of light or darkness are attributed to every individual, and the proportion varies depending on their horoscopes.

4. Edwin M. Yamauchi, “The Episode of the Magi,” (Chronos, Kairos, Christos, edited by Jerry Vardaman and Edwin Yamauchi [Eisenbrauns: Winona Lake, 1989] 14-39:
“According to Herodotus (1:101) the magi (Greek MAGOS, plural MAGOI) were originally one of the tribes of the Medes who functioned as priests and diviners under the Achaemenian Persians (sixth-fourth centuries BC)[--although, as Yamauchi notes, there is scholarly opposition to Herodotus’ claim that the magi originated as a Median caste of priests (q.v. p. 14, footnote 40)--] . . . Other classical writers knew that the magi served before fire altars . . . and offered libations…. [But t]he relationship of the magi to Zoroaster and his teachings is a complex and controversial issue . . . The only certain writings that can be attributed to Zoroaster himself are the Gathas. The magi are strikingly absent from these and the later Avesta. One may reasonably surmise that the Zoroastrians and the magi were probably in conflict for . . . the magi appear to have been polytheistic (Xenophon, Cyropedia 3:3:22, 8:3:11-12), whereas Zoroaster’s own teachings were either monotheistic or dualistic.”--See pages. 23-25 in the reference work named above in this footnote..

5. Plutarch, Romulus, 12: “In the times of Varro the philosopher, a man deeply read in Roman history, lived one Tarrutius, his familiar acquaintance, a good philosopher and mathematician, and one, too, that out of curiosity had studied the way of drawing schemes and tables, and was thought to be a proficient in the art; to him Varro propounded to cast Romulus's nativity, even to the first day and hour, making his deductions from the several events of the man's life which he should be informed of, exactly as in working back a geometrical problem; for it belonged, he said, to the same science both to foretell a man's life by knowing the time of his birth, and also to find out his birth by the knowledge of his life. This task Tarrutius undertook, and first looking into the actions and casualties of the man, together with the time of his life and manner of his death, and then comparing all these remarks together, he very confidently and positively pronounced that Romulus was conceived in his mother's womb the first year of the second Olympiad, the twenty-third day of the month the Aegyptians call Choeac, and the third hour after sunset, at which time there was a total eclipse of the sun; that he was born the twenty-first day of the month Thoth, about sunrising; and that the first stone of Rome was laid by him the ninth day of the month Pharmuthi, between the second and third hour. For the fortunes of cities as well as of men, they think, have their certain periods of time prefixed, which may be collected and foreknown from the position of the stars at their first foundation. But these and the like relations may perhaps not so much take and delight the reader with their novelty and curiosity, as offend him by their extravagance.” The Platonist Plutarch was not opposed to astrology per se, but was offended by the idea that an astrologer could give a man’s date of birth, provided that the astrologer know enough of his subject’s temperament and the nature of his deeds. He also objected that inanimate objects should be thought to be the subject matter of the astrologers’ craft.

6. Edwin Yamauchi (op. cit., p. 27):
“Though the Medo-Persian magi were but rarely associated with spells (except at Herodotus 7:191), by the fifth century the word in some cases seems to have become synonymous with the Greek word GOHTH ‘wizard, sorcerer’ . . . By the Roman era (e.g., Tacitus, Annals 2:27; 12:22, 59) the magi and their arts were associated with sorcery…. By the New Testament era most of the occurrences of the word MAGOS were in the pejorative sense of ‘magic’. According to J.M. Hull, “The apostolic fathers always use the word MAGOS in a bad sense. The apologists use MAGOS and its cognates about sixteen times and always in the bad sense [because it is associated with the God-condemned profession of astrology].” (End of quote.) Now, Yamauchi himself believes that Matthew’s Gospel presents a positive image of the magi, but he likely believes it on the basis that the magi end up worshiping the Christ child. Still, Yamauchi admits that these magi were astrologers, and presented themselves as such on the basis of their reference to “astral phenomena” (p. 19). We believe that Matthew never entertained a belief that he had presented a positive image of the MAGOI. Even if the magi he wrote about were envoys from a Parthian government that outlawed sorcery, yet that does not mean that astrology was also outlawed. It would have been enough for Matthew and other God-fearing Christians to suspect a Satanic work afoot in the astrologers’ visit, for they knew the magi to be self-confessed astrologers! Moreover, we can make argument that Matthew’s magi were from Mesopotamia, this so that they were likely infected not only with astrology but infected with a fusion of astrology and sorcery. That those magi may well be representative of a body of magi who fused astrology with sorcery is not a view that is critical to our argument, which has it that the magi in Matthew’s Gospel are not presented in a positive light. (It is enough for us to know that Matthew presents them at the very least in the role of their being astrologers whose own admission is that the impetus for their sojourn to seek out the location of the Jewish Messiah was something given them by a “star,” which is how they (mistakenly) referred to the aerial light they saw.) It is a view, however, that may be cogently argued. Moreover, a demonized sorcerer (and one who also practiced astrology) would not find so very surprising their witnessing a novel “star’s” appearing so very near to them that they could accordingly track its path through the night air until it had come to a stop over where the child Jesus and his mother should be found.