Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 7.--Concerning the Choosing of a Day for Marriage, or for Planting, or Sowing.

Now, will any one bring forward this, that in choosing certain particular days for particular actions, men bring about certain new destinies for their actions? That man, for instance, according to this doctrine, was not born to have an illustrious son, but rather a contemptible one, and therefore, being a man of learning, he choose an hour in which to lie with his wife. He made, therefore, a destiny which he did not have before, and from that destiny of his own making something began to be fatal which was not contained in the destiny of his natal hour. Oh, singular stupidity! A day is chosen on which to marry; and for this reason, I believe, that unless a day be chosen, the marriage may fall on an unlucky day, and turn out an unhappy one. What then becomes of what the stars have already decreed at the hour of birth? Can a man be said to change by an act of choice that which has already been determined for him, whilst that which he himself has determined in the choosing of a day cannot be changed by another power? Thus, if men alone, and not all things under heaven, are subject to the influence of the stars, why do they choose some days as suitable for planting vines or trees, or for sowing grain, other days as suitable for taming beasts on, or for putting the males to the females, that the cows and mares may be impregnated, and for such-like things? If it be said that certain chosen days have an influence on these things, because the constellations rule over all terrestrial bodies, animate and inanimate, according to differences in moments of time, let it be considered what innumerable multitudes of beings are born or arise, or take their origin at the very same instant of time, which come to ends so different, that they may persuade any little boy that these observations about days are ridiculous. For who is so mad as to dare affirm that all trees, all herbs, all beasts, serpents, birds, fishes, worms, have each separately their own moments of birth or commencement? Nevertheless, men are wont, in order to try the skill of the mathematicians, to bring before them the constellations of dumb animals, the constellations of whose birth they diligently observe at home with a view to this discovery; and they prefer those mathematicians to all others, who say from the inspection of the constellations that they indicate the birth of a beast and not of a man. They also dare tell what kind of beast it is, whether it is a wool-bearing beast, or a beast suited for carrying burthens, or one fit for the plough, or for watching a house; for the astrologers are also tried with respect to the fates of dogs, and their answers concerning these are followed by shouts of admiration on the part of those who consult them. They so deceive men as to make them think that during the birth of a man the births of all other beings are suspended, so that not even a fly comes to life at the same time that he is being born, under the same region of the heavens. And if this be admitted with respect to the fly, the reasoning cannot stop there, but must ascend from flies till it lead them up to camels and elephants. Nor are they willing to attend to this, that when a day has been chosen whereon to sow a field, so many grains fall into the ground simultaneously, germinate simultaneously, spring up, come to perfection, and ripen simultaneously; and yet, of all the ears which are coeval, and, so to speak, congerminal, some are destroyed by mildew, some are devoured by the birds, and some are pulled by men. How can they say that all these had their different constellations, which they see coming to so different ends? Will they confess that it is folly to choose days for such things, and to affirm that they do not come within the sphere of the celestial decree, whilst they subject men alone to the stars, on whom alone in the world God has bestowed free wills? All these things being considered, we have good reason to believe that, when the astrologers give very many wonderful answers, it is to be attributed to the occult inspiration of spirits not of the best kind, whose care it is to insinuate into the minds of men, and to confirm in them, those false and noxious opinions concerning the fatal influence of the stars, and not to their marking and inspecting of horoscopes, according to some kind of art which in reality has no existence.

Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput VII: De electione diei, quo uxor ducitur quoue in agro aliquid plantatur aut seritur.

Iam illud quis ferat, quod in eligendis diebus noua quaedam suis actibus fata moliuntur? non erat uidelicet ille ita natus, ut haberet admirabilem filium, sed ita potius, ut contemptibilem gigneret, et ideo uir doctus elegit horam qua misceretur uxori. fecit ergo fatum, quod non habebat, et ex ipsius facto coepit esse fatale, quod in eius natiuitate non fuerat. o stultitiam singularem. eligitur dies ut ducatur uxor; credo propterea, quia potest in diem non bonum, nisi eligatur, incurri et infeliciter duci. ubi est ergo quod nascenti iam sidera decreuerunt? an potest homo, quod ei iam constitutum est, diei electione mutare, et quod ipse in eligendo die constituerit, non poterit ab alia potestate mutari? deinde si soli homines, non autem omnia quae sub caelo sunt, constellationibus subiacent, cur aliter eligunt dies adcommodatos ponendis uitibus uel arboribus uel segetibus, alios dies pecoribus uel domandis uel admittendis maribus, quibus equarum uel boum fetentur armenta, et cetera huiusmodi? si autem propterea ualent ad has res dies electi, quia terrenis omnibus corporibus siue animantibus secundum diuersitates temporalium momentorum siderum positio dominatur; considerent quam innumerabilia sub uno temporis puncto uel nascantur uel oriantur uel inchoentur, et tam diuersos exitus habeant, ut istas obseruationes cuiuis puero ridendas esse persuadeant. quis enim est tam excors, ut audeat dicere omnes arbores, omnes herbas, omnes bestias serpentes aues pisces uermiculos momenta nascendi singillatim habere diuersa? solent tamen homines ad tentandam peritiam mathematicorum adferre ad eos constellationes mutorum animalium, quorum ortus propter hanc explorationem domi suae diligenter obseruant, eosque mathematicos praeferunt ceteris, qui constellationibus inspectis dicunt non esse hominem natum, sed pecus. audent etiam dicere quale pecus, utrum aptum lanitio an uectationi an aratro an custodiae domus. nam et ad canina fata tentantur et cum magnis admirantium clamoribus ista respondent. sic desipiunt homines, ut existiment, cum homo nascitur, ceteros rerum ortus ita inhiberi, ut cum illo sub eadem caeli plaga nec musca nascatur. nam si hanc admiserint, procedit ratiocinatio, quae gradatim accessibus modicis eos a muscis ad camelos elephantosque perducat. nec illud uolunt aduertere, quod electo ad seminandum agrum die tam multa grana in terram simul ueniunt, simul germinant, exorta segete simul herbescunt pubescunt flauescunt, et tamen inde spicas ceteris coaeuas atque, ut ita dixerim, congerminales alias robigo interimit, alias aues depopulantur, alias homines auellunt. quomodo istis alias constellationes fuisse dicturi sunt, quas tam diuersos exitus habere conspiciunt? an eos paenitebit his rebus dies eligere easque ad caeleste negabunt pertinere decretum, et solos sideribus subdent homines, quibus solis in terra deus dedit liberas uoluntates? his omnibus consideratis non inmerito creditur, cum astrologi mirabiliter multa uera respondent, occulto instinctu fieri spirituum non bonorum, quorum cura est has falsas et noxias opiniones de astralibus fatis inserere humanis mentibus atque firmare, non horoscopi notati et inspecti aliqua arte, quae nulla est.