Before following Christianity, Saint Augustine (354 - 430 AD) followed Astrology

The astrological signs

Augustine dislikes astrology because it is not true: it presents man as guiltless and sin as predetermined in the heavens

'An Astrologer Casting a Horoscope' from Robert Fludd's Utriusque Cosmi Historia, 1617

The same reasoning did not prevent me from consulting those impostors, the astrologers, because I argued that they offered no sacrifices and said no prayers to any spirit to aid their divination. Nevertheless, true Christian piety rightly rejects and condemns what they do. For sweet it is to praise the Lord and say Have mercy on me; bring healing to a soul that has sinned against you. And it is wrong to impose upon your readiness to forgive, taking it as licence to commit sin. Instead we must remember Our Lord's words to the cripple: You have recovered your strength. Do not sin any more, for fear that worse should befall you? This truth is our whole salvation, but the astrologers try to do away with it. They tell us that the cause of sin is determined in the heavens and we cannot escape it, and that this or that is the work of Venus or Saturn or Mars. They want us to believe that man is guiltless, flesh and blood though he is and doomed to die despite his pride. Instead they have it that the blame is to be laid on the Creator and Ruler of the heavens and the stars, none other than our God, himself the very source of justice, from whom its sweetness is derived - on you, O God, who will award to every man what his acts have deserved you who will never disdain a heart that is humbled and contrite

A wise old man warns Augustine that astrology is deception

Page from an Indian astrological treatise, c. 1750

There was at that time a man of deep understanding, who had an excellent reputation for his great skill as a doctor. As he was proconsul at the time, his was the hand that laid upon my head the wreath I won in the poetry competition, but it was not a doctor's hand that could cure my disordered state of mind. This is a disease that only you can cure, you who thwart the proud and keep your grace for the humble. But you did not fail to use even that old man to help me, nor did you cease to give my soul through him the medicine which it needed. He and I became better acquainted and I listened intently and without fail to what he had to say, for though he was not a gifted speaker, his lively mind gave weight and charm to his words. In the course of our conversation he learned that I was an enthusiast for books of astrology, and in a kind and fatherly way he advised me to throw them away and waste no further pains upon such rubbish, because there were other more valuable things to be done. He said that as a young man he had studied astrology himself, intending to make a living by it, and that if he could understand Hippocrates I need not doubt that he had been able to master these textbooks as well. All the same, after a time he had given them up and taken to medicine instead, for the very good reason that he had found out that they were entirely wrong, and, being an honest man, he had no wish to earn his living by deception. 'But you can support yourself by your rhetoric', he went on. 'Your interest in this trickery is mere curiosity and you do not have to depend upon it for a living. All the more reason, then, why you should believe what I say, because, as it was to be my only means of support, I tried to learn as much about it as I could.'

The wise old man advises Augustine that the future foretold by astrology is by chance and not by skill

Two Women with the Signs of Libra and Scorpio. Marcantonio Raimondi engraving, 15th century 

I asked him why it was then that the future was often correctly foretold by means of astrology. He gave me the only possible answer, that it was all due to the power of chance, a force that must always be reckoned with in the natural order. He said that people sometimes opened a book of poetry at random, and although the poet had been thinking, as he wrote, of some quite different matter, it often happened that the reader placed his finger on a verse which had a remarkable bearing on his problem. It was not surprising, then, that the mind of man, quite unconsciously, through some instinct not within its own control, should hit upon some thing that answered to the circumstances and the facts of a particular question. If so, it would be due to chance not to skill.

Augustine persists in believing that astrologers are skilled in reading the stars

Chart showing the 24 Chinese cardinal directions and the symbols of the sign associated with them.

This answer which he gave me, or rather which I heard from his lips, must surely have come from you, my God. By means of it you imprinted on my mind doubts which I was to remember later, when I came to argue these matters out for myself. But at that time neither he nor my great friend, Nebridius - a young man of high principles and unexceptionable character, who ridiculed the whole business of soothsaying - could persuade me to give it up. I thought that the authors of the books made out a better case, and I had as yet found no evidence as positive as I required to prove beyond doubt that when the astrologers were found to be right, it was due to luck or pure chance and not to their skill in reading the stars.

Augustine turns his back on the astrologers

The zodiac signs in a 16th-century woodcut

By this time I had also turned my back upon the astrologers with their illusory claims to predict the future and their insane and impious ritual. In this too, my God, let me acknowledge your mercy from the deepest depths of my soul! For you, and you alone, are the life that recalls us from the death we die each time we err. You alone are the life which never dies and the wisdom that needs no light besides itself, but illumines all who need to be enlightened, the wisdom that governs the world, down to the leaves that flutter on the trees.

You provided me with a friend who cured my stubborn resistance both to that wise old man Vindicianus and to Nebridius who, for all his youth, was gifted with spiritual qualities that I greatly admired. Vindicianus was quite outspoken on the subject of astrology. Nebridius was not so ready to declare himself, although he too repeated often enough that there was no art by which the future could be foretold. They said that guesswork was often borne out by mere chance. If a man made a great many predictions, several of them would later prove to be true, but he could not know it at the time and would only hit upon them by chance, simply by opening his mouth to speak.

Augustine's friend Firminus loves astrology and asks Augustine for a reading

Wheel of the zodiac: This 6th century mosaic pavement in a synagogue incorporates Greek-Byzantine elements, Beit Alpha, Israel.

So to cure my obstinacy you found me a friend who was usually ready enough to consult the astrologers. He had made no real study of their lore but, as I have said, he used to make inquiries of them out of curiosity. He did this although he was perfectly well aware of certain facts about them which he said he had heard from his father. If only he had realized it, these facts would have been quite enough to destroy his belief in astrology.

Augustine is almost convinced that astrology is absurd and meaningless

17th-century fresco, Cathedral of Living Pillar, Georgia of Christ in the Zodiac circle

This man, whose name was Firminus, had been educated in the liberal arts and had received a thorough training in rhetoric. He came to consult me, as his closest friend, about some business matters of which he had high hopes, and asked me what prospects I could see in his horoscope, as they call it. I was already beginning to change my mind in favour of Nebridius's opinions on astrology, but I did not refuse outright to read the stars for him and tell him what I saw, though I had little faith in it myself. Nevertheless I added that I was almost convinced that it was all absurd and quite meaningless. He then told me that his father had studied books of astrology with the greatest interest and had had a friend who shared his enthusiasm for the subject. Each was as intent upon this nonsense as the other, and by pooling their experiences they whetted their enthusiasm to the point that, even when their domestic animals had litters, they would note the exact moment of birth and record the position of the stars, intending to use these observations for their experiments in this so-called art.

A rich baby and a slave baby are born at the same moment

Angers Cathedral South Rose Window of Christ (centre) with elders (bottom half) and Zodiac (top half). Mediaeval stained glass by Andre Robin after the fire of 1451

Firminus went on to tell me a story about his own birth. His father had told him that when his mother was pregnant, a female slave in the household of this friend was also expecting a child. Her master was of course aware of her condition, because he used to take very great care to find out even when his dogs were due to have puppies. The two men made the most minute calculations to determine the time of labour of both the women, counting the days, the hours, and even the minutes, and it so happened that both gave birth at exactly the same moment. This meant that the horoscopes which they cast for the two babies had to be exactly the same, down to the smallest particular, though one was the son of the master of the house and the other a slave. For as soon as labour began, each man informed the other of the situation in his house, and each had a messenger waiting, ready to be sent to the other as soon as the birth was announced. As the confinements took place in their own houses, they could easily arrange to be told without delay. The messengers, so Firminus told me, crossed paths at a point which was exactly halfway between the two houses, so that each of the two friends inevitably made an identical observation of the stars and could not find the least difference in the time of birth. Yet Firminus, who was born of a rich family, strode along the smoother paths of life. His wealth increased and high honours came his way. But the slave continued to serve his masters. Firminus, who knew him, said that his lot had been in no way bettered.

The rich baby and the slave baby born at the same moment have different outcomes -- astrology is a matter of luck, not of skill

Sculpture showing Castor and Pollux the legend behind the third astrological sign in the Zodiac and the constellation of Gemini

I believed this story when I heard it, because Firminus was a man whom I could trust. It marked the final end of all my doubts, and my first reaction was to try to redeem Firminus from his interest in astrology. I told him that if I had cast his horoscope and my reading of the stars was correct, I could only have seen in them that his parents were important people, that he belonged to one of the noble families of his town, that he was a freeman by birth, that his upbringing suited his rank, and that his education was liberal. But the slave was born under the very same constellations, and if he had asked me to tell him their meaning, my interpretation of them could not have been true unless I saw in them a family of the meanest sort, the status of a slave, and various other details entirely different from and inconsistent with those which applied to Firminus. This proved that if I were to say what was actually the truth, I should give a different answer to each, though the stars I read were the same; whereas, if I gave the same answer to each, I should be wrong in fact. It was therefore perfectly clear to me that when predictions based on observations of the stars turn out to be true, it is a matter of luck, not of skill. When they turn out to be wrong, it is not due to lack of skill, but to the perversity of chance.

Augustine believes that the birth of twins with different outcomes disproves astrology and cites the Bible's example of Jacob, whom God loved, and Esau, whom God hated

Hendrick ter Brugghen, Esau Selling His Birthright, c. 1627

Taking this as my starting point I began to think the matter over in my mind, so that I should have an answer ready if the eccentrics who made their living at this trade should raise the objection that the story, as Firminus told it, was untrue, or that he had been misinformed by his father. By now I was eager to move to the attack and reduce these people to silence by ridicule. So I turned my attention to the case of twins, who are generally born within a short time of each other. Whatever significance in the natural order the astrologers may attribute to this interval of time, it is too short to be appreciated by human observation and no allowance can be made for it in the charts which an astrologer has to consult in order to cast a true horoscope. His predictions, then, will not be true, because he would have consulted the same charts for both Esau and Jacob and would have made the same predictions for each of them, whereas it is a fact that the same things did not happen to them both. Therefore, either he would have been wrong in his predictions or, if his forecast was correct, he would not have predicted the same future for each. And yet he would have consulted the same chart in each case. This proves that if he had foretold the truth, it would have been by luck, not by skill. For, O Lord, though neither the astrologers nor those who consult them know it, by your secret prompting each man, when he seeks their advice, hears what it is right for him to hear. For you rule the universe with the utmost justice, and in the inscrutable depths of your just judgement you know what is right for him, because you can see the hidden merits of our souls. And let no man question the why or the wherefore of your judgement. This he must not do, for he is only a man.

Source: Saint Augustine. Confessions. Translated by R.S. Pine-Coffin. London: Penguin Group, 1961, Books IV.3 and VII.6, pages 73-74 and 139-142.