City of God (Penguin Classics) (38 page)
Read City of God (Penguin Classics) Online
Authors: Saint Augustine
Another question: There is, we are told, such a difference between the times of birth of twins that the constellations are bound to be different for them, because their horoscopes do not match, nor do the ‘cardinal points’ to which such predominant influence is attached as to alter the whole destiny of the subject. But how can this be. when the moment of conception must be identical?
Or if two beings
conceived
at the same instant could have different
destinies at their birth, why should it be impossible for two who were born at the same instant to have different destinies for their life and their death? If the fact that both were conceived at the same moment did not prevent one from being born before the other, why should a simultaneous birth in any way prevent one from dying before the other? If simultaneous conception allows twins to have different fortunes in the womb, why should simultaneous birth prevent any creatures on earth from having diverse fortunes? Then we could sweep away all the inventions of this art – or rather of this futility. Why on earth should those
conceived
at one and the same time, at one and the same instant, under one and the same disposition of the heavenly bothes – why should they have divergent destinies, bringing them to different times of birth, while two beings born of two mothers in precisely similar circumstances, at the same moment, under the same celestial disposition, could not have different destinies which would impose on them, inevitably, a different course of life and a different manner of death? Is it that beings when conceived do not yet have a destiny and cannot have a destiny unless they reach birth? If so, what is the meaning of saying that if the exact time of conception could be established, the astrologers would be able to make many more inspired predictions? Hence the oft-told story of the savant who carefully chose the moment for marital intercourse, so as to beget a prodigy of a son.
The same notion is reflected in the solution given by Posidonius
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to the problem of the two men with the simultaneous illness. The great astrologer, who was also a philosopher, suggested that the explanation was that they had been born simultaneously and been conceived at the same moment. He added ‘conceived’ to guard against the objection that they obviously could not have been born at exactly the same instant. No one could deny their simultaneous conception. Pos-idonius would not immediately attribute the parallel course of the same illness in the two men to their identical constitutions; he connected their medical history with the influence of the stars. Well, if conception has the power to ensure coincidence of destiny, then birth should not be able to alter it. Or if the destinies of twins are altered because they are born at different moments, why should we not rather infer that they were already altered to enable them to be born at different moments? Are we to suppose that the will of the living does not modify the destiny assigned by their birth, although the order of birth modifies the destiny given by conception?
6.
Twins of different sex
Again, seeing that twins are undoubtedly conceived at the same instant, how is it that, under the same fateful constellation, one of them may be conceived a male, the other a female? I know a pair of twins of different sex; both of them are still alive and full of vigour for their age. They resemble one another physically, as far as difference of sex allows; but they are quite dissimilar in respect of their calling and their manner of life. And I am not referring to the activities which must differ in men and women. The male twin is a staff officer; he is almost always away from home, serving abroad. His sister scarcely ever leaves her native soil, or even her own part of the country. Furthermore – and this is still more incredible if you believe in destiny fixed by stars, but in no way remarkable, if account is taken of man’s free will and the gifts of God – the brother married, while the sister is a consecrated virgin. He has a large family, while she is unmarried.
‘How all-powerful,’ they say, ‘is the influence of the horoscope!’ I have already sufficiently shown that it is nothing of the kind. But whatever force this influence may be thought to have, it is at the moment of birth that it is supposed to exercise its power. Does it operate at all at the moment of conception? Conception clearly results from one act of intercourse, and the force of nature is so great that, once a woman has conceived, it is quite impossible for her to conceive again; therefore it follows inevitably that twins must be conceived at precisely the same moment. Are we to suppose either that one was changed into a male child or the other into a female while they were being born, because at birth they were under different horoscopes?
Now it could be maintained, without utter absurdity, that some influences from the stars have an effect on variations confined to the physical realm. We observe that the variation of the seasons depends on the approach and withdrawal of the sun, and the waxing and waning of the moon produces growth and diminution in certain species, such as sea-urchins and shell-fish, and also the marvellous variations of the tides. It is not conceivable that the decisions of man’s will are subjected to the dispositions of the stars. Those astrologers try to bind our actions to those astral phenomena, and they challenge us to produce an instance where their system lacks coherence, merely on the physical level. Well, what could be more physical than difference of sex? Yet twins of different sexes could be conceived under the same astral disposition. So what statement or belief could be more silly than the assertion that the position of the stars, which was identical for
both twins at the moment of conception, could not have prevented the sister from being of a different sex from her brother when she had the same conjunction, and that the position of the stars, at the moment of their birth, could have produced between them the vast difference between the married state and holy virginity?
7.
The choice of a day for marriage, or for planting and sowing
Who could believe the notion that by selecting certain days one can in a sense create new destinies for one’s own acts? It would mean that the savant in the anecdote was not born so as to be destined to beget a remarkable son, but, on the contrary, destined to beget a contemptible offspring. That is why that learned man carefully chose the time for marital intercourse. That is, he created a destiny which was not his before and as a result of his act something was fated to happen which was not destined at his birth. What an extraordinary piece of nonsense! You carefully choose the day for marriage, for fear, I imagine, of hitting on an inauspicious day, and making an unhappy match! So what has happened to what the stars decided at your birth? Can a man then alter what has been fixed for him by the choice of a day? If so, cannot what he has fixed by that choice be altered by some other power?
Then again, if it is only men who are subject to the celestial conjunctions, and not everything else under the heavens, why are days selected as specially appropriate for the planting of vines or other trees, or for sowing crops, other days for training cattle, or for their mating, so as to build up herds of oxen or mares, and so on? Suppose that the choice of days is of such importance because every body and every living being on earth is dominated by the position of the stars which varies at different moments. Then let those who believe this consider the innumerable beings which are born, or come to be, or start at any given instant of time, and have such diverse destinies, so diverse as to convince any schoolboy that those astrological observations are utterly ridiculous. Who is so bereft of his senses as to allow himself to assert that all trees, vegetables, animals, snakes, birds, fishes, worms have their individual and different ‘moments of nativity’? And yet it is common for people to put the competence of astrologers to proof by bringing them the ‘conjunctions’ of dumb animals, whose moment of birth they note carefully at home with a view to this astrological examination. And they put into the top class those
astrologers who, on inspection of the ‘conjunctions’, declare that they signify the birth of an animal, not a man. They even have the audacity to name the kind of animal, and whether it will be good for wool-production, or as a draught-animal, or fit for the plough, or a useful watchdog. For astrologers are consulted even about canine destinies and their replies are greeted with loud shouts of admiration. Men are such fools as to imagine that when a man is born all other births are stopped, so that not even a mouse is born at the same time and under the same tract of the heavens. For if they allowed a mouse, they would be led step by step by a process of logical reasoning to camels and elephants! They will not observe that even when they have selected a day for sowing a field, a vast number of seeds fall on the soil at the same time and germinate at the same time; then when the crop springs up, they put out shoots, come to maturity and turn golden, all at the same time; and yet, though the resultant ears are all contemporary and, to coin a word, ‘congerminal’, some are wiped out by blight, some are plundered by birds and some plucked off by men. They notice that these ears have very different ends; are they going to maintain that they had different ‘conjunctions’? How can they? Or are they going to change their minds about selecting days for those operations, and to say that such things have no connection with the celestial decisions? Will they subject only mankind to the stars, men being the only creatures on earth on whom God has bestowed free will?
When one ponders all this, one has some justification for supposing that when astrologers give replies that are often surprisingly true, they are inspired, in some mysterious way, by spirits, but spirits of evil, whose concern is to instil and confirm in men’s minds those false and baneful notions about ‘astral destiny’. These true predictions do not come from any skill in the notation and inspection of horoscopes; that is a spurious art.
8.
‘Fate’; a name given by some people not to the position of the stars but to a chain of causes dependent on God’s will
There are those who use the name ‘destiny’ to refer not to the conjunction of stars at the moment of conception, or birth, or beginning, but to the connected series of causes which is responsible for anything that happens. We need not engage in a laborious controversy with them about the use of a word. For in fact they ascribe this orderly series, this chain of causes, to the will and power of the supreme God,
who is believed, most rightly and truly, to know all things before they happen and who leaves nothing unordered. From him come all powers, but not all wills. What they mean by ‘destiny’ is principally the will of the supreme God, whose power extends invincibly through all things. This is demonstrated by the following lines, written, if I am not mistaken, by Seneca,
8
Father supreme, thou sovereign of the heavens,
Lead where thou wilt. I hasten to obey,
Eager to do thy will. If mine be crossed,
I’ll follow, though in tears. If I be wicked
I will endure to have that done to me
Which, virtuous, I could choose to do myself.
Fate leads the willing, drags the reluctant feet.
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It is quite evident that in the last line the poet uses ‘fate’, or destiny, to refer to what he had earlier called the will of the ‘supreme Father’. He says that he is ready to obey, so as to be led willingly, not dragged against his will; for
Fate leads the willing, drags the reluctant feet.
The same sentiment is expressed in the lines of Homer, turned into Latin by Cicero,
The mind of man is governed by the light
Which Jove dispenses on the fruitful earth.
10
The opinions of poets should not carry weight in the present discussion. But since Cicero tells us that the Stoics generally appropriate those lines of Homer in support of their assertion of the power of destiny, we are not dealing with the ideas of the poet, but the notions of philosophers. In those lines, which they introduce into their arguments about fate, their idea of the nature of destiny is made abundantly clear. They refer to destiny under the name of Jupiter, whom they suppose to be the supreme god, and they assert that it is on him that the causal chain of every destiny depends.
9.
God’s foreknowledge and man’s free will; a criticism of Cicero
Cicero
11
tries hard to refute those philosophers, while realizing that he cannot make head against them without abolishing divination. He tries to get rid of it by denying the existence of knowledge of the future. He uses his best efforts to establish the utter impossibility of such knowledge and of any prediction of events, whether in man or in God. Thus he denies the foreknowledge of God, as well as trying to demolish every prophecy, even though it is clearer than daylight. He does this by spurious arguments, and by setting up as targets certain easily refutable oracles,
12
which, however, he fails to invalidate, although in his exposure of the conjectures of astrologers, his eloquence carries all before it. The fact is that such guesswork is self-destructive and self-refuting. Yet the theory that the stars decide destiny is much more tolerable than the attempt to get rid of all knowledge of the future. To acknowledge the existence of God, while denying him any prescience of events, is the most obvious madness. Cicero himself realized this, and almost ventured on the denial referred to in Scripture, ‘The fool has said in his heart: God does not exist.’
13
But he did not say it in his own person; he knew that such an assertion would disturb people, and incur odium. And so he represents Cotta
14
as arguing this point against the Stoics, in the book On
the Nature of the Gods.
15
Cicero preferred to give his vote to Lucius Balbus,
16
to whom he entrusted the defence of the Stoic position, rather than to Cotta, who denied the existence of any divine nature. However, in his book
On Divination
he comes out openly in his own name in an attack on the notion of foreknowledge. His whole purpose in this is to preserve free will by refusing to admit the existence of fate. He assumes that the admission of foreknowledge entails the acceptance of fate as a logical necessity. For our part, whatever may be the twists and turns of philosophical dispute and debate, we recognize a God who is supreme and true and therefore we confess his supreme power and foreknowledge. We are not afraid that what we do by an act of will may not be a voluntary act, because God, with his infallible prescience, knew that we should do it. This was the fear that led Cicero to oppose foreknowledge and the Stoics to deny that everything happens by necessity, although they maintained that everything happens according to fate.