Is astrology heresy? What does Orthodox Christianity has to say? Can Christians take any interest or even practice astrology? As a former addict to astrology, I’ve done some digging as to how Western astrology started, evolved, and was perceived through the ages. Understanding its roots, history, and controversies from the standpoint of Orthodox Christianity will answer those questions.
Defining Astrology
One of the most ancient ideas of mankind is the belief in an intimate relationship between heavenly bodies and affairs of life.
Astrology is thus an attempt to use this “relationship” to predict the future, but also to uncover hidden aspects of the present.
Throughout the centuries, orthodox leaders have recurrently condemned, as well as embraced, astrology.
Where Astrology began
Astrology had its beginnings in ancient Mesopotamia (3100-359 B.C.), what is now the current region of Iraq. The Babylonians noted that the planets, the sun, and the moon, traveled along the same path in the sky. They then divided this path into twelve segments, the signs of the zodiac.
Originally, the Babylonians had a main interest in the links between planetary positions and major events in the life of a ruler or the history of a region.
How Astrology became popular
Later, astrology spread eastward to India and westward around the Mediterranean Sea. That’s when the idea of studying the configuration of the planets at the moment of ordinary people’s birth became popular. The new ambition was to learn about people’s characteristics and their fate.
Astrology developed further in Egypt and Greece in the 5th and 4th century. It fitted well with Organicism – the widespread idea (developed by ancient Greek philosopher Plato) that the universe was a gigantic organism (a living being), within which everything was harmoniously linked.
By the time of the Roman Empire, astrology became so popular to the point of causing a decline in the great oracles of the ancient world, such as the Oracle of Delphi (Pythia).
However, not everyone in the Roman Empire embraced astrology. Some of the great Roman writers (such as Pliny the Elder in his major work Natural History) rejected the claims that astrologers knew enough about the stars to predict the future.
The Condemnation of Astrology by Orthodox Christianity (4th-5th Century)
It took over three centuries for Orthodox Christianity to establish an official position on astrology as heresy. Many early Christians viewed it as a pagan practice, unsuitable for the followers of Christ. It is at the Council of Laodicea that the church formally condemned astrology, in A.D 364 or 367.
In the fifth century, most influential theologian Augustine of Hippo completely rejected astrologers. He called “imposters” in his later years, although astrology was one of his interests as a young man. He argues that if the stars could influence human lives, their influence must either depend on God’s will or not.
Augustine therefore rejected the idea that the stars could act independently of God, seeing this as a type of atheism. He also rejected the divine dependence of stellar effects (the idea that stars depend on God for events) because astrologers believe stars can cause evil events -but God does not will evil happenings. Therefore, he concluded that belief in astrology is heretical, i.e. false and contrary to Orthodox Christianity.
The Revival of Astrology during the Islamic Golden Age (8th-13th century)
In the Early Middle Ages (or early medieval perdiod, 5th-10th Century), astrology seemed to disappear due to severe Orthodox disapproval. It became nearly impossible to find texts from which to learn the art in Europe.
However, it is the Muslims who mainly reignited much of the ancient astrological knowledge.
During the Golden Age of Islam (8th -13th century), Muslim scholars worked on translating the world’s classical knowledge into Arabic and Persian language. The scholars translated many major scientific works from Greece, including works from Ptolemy (renowned Greek mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer). These translations opened the way to advance current astrological thinkers, giving them access to previously forgotten knowledge of the cosmos.
Through increased contacts with the Muslims during the twelfth century in Europe, Europeans rediscovered an interest in the teachings of old Greece and Rome. Some works translated into Arabic were later in turn translated into other languages, such as Hebrew and Latin.
By then, the Catholic Church didn’t show much concern about astrology as it did in the past; its main threat and the focus of its battle was now Christian heresy.
The controversy of Astrology among Christian philosophers
Through the later medieval period (or late middle ages, 1300s to 1500s), astrology became a topic of controversy once more, generating debates among Orthodox theologians.
Acceptance
Around 1260, Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus), a theologian, bishop, and student of Aristotle’s writings, wrote Speculum Astronomiae (The Mirror of Astronomy) in response to the debate concerning medieval astrology. Albert believed in the power of the stars and defended celestial divination as a Christian form of knowledge. He maintained that celestial bodies transmitted God’s divine power and that understanding these influences allows people to understand the divine plan of creation.
For a scholar study on this:
Albert the Great, the Speculum Astronomiae, and Astrology, by Scott Hendrix
Moreover, a great number of the best-known Catholic philosophers and Renaissance intellectuals, such as Thomas Aquinas and Peter Abelard, didn’t see any issue between the influence of the heavenly bodies and Christianity. From their point of view, there was no conflict as long as God and human free will were not said to be under the control of the stars. Abelard even named his son Astrolabe — a Persian astronomical instrument for measuring the position of the stars!
Rejection as heresy
But this wasn’t the view of all church officials. They feared that believing in the power of celestial bodies competed with faith in God and was therefore heretical. In 1277, Bishop Tempier of Paris issued a Condemnation of 219 philosophical and theological propositions that were forbidden to be believed or discussed. This included astrology, which was one of the most problematic areas of knowledge for Tempier.
The Condemnation didn’t cause much persecution of astrologers, except for an exceptional case involving Italian astrologer Cecco D’Ascoli. He died at the stake as the first astrological heretic in 1327 for attempting to calculate the horoscope of Christ. As a professor of astrology at the University of Bologna, Cecco D’Ascoli was the first university scholar to be burned by the Inquisition — an institution within the Catholic Church charged with eradicating heresies.
For more on astrology in medieval times:
The Medieval Attitude Toward Astrology, Particularly in England, by Theodore Otto
-> free book (with locked pages), on forgottenbooks.com
-> Classic reprint, on Amazon
The Acceptance of Astrology during the Renaissance (1400s-1600s)
During the Renaissance (1400s-1600s), astrology became an accepted attribute of the Orthodox world view. Yes, kings and even popes such as Leo X and Paul III had personal astrologers! Talk about a turn-around…
Marsilio Ficino, an Italian occultist, advanced the idea that spiritual influences from the stars should be attracted and harmonised in one’s life to be healthy. Another Italian philosopher, Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola, held the belief in astral influences but disapproved of the idea that one can foretell the future from the stars.
For Paracelsus, a sixteenth-century German-Swiss alchemist, physician, astrologer, and general occultist, astrology was a very important part of medicine. He insisted that medical practitioners should know astrology so that the appropriate celestial effects could be added to medicines. Paracelsus even believed in astrological talismans for curing disease, with talismans for various maladies and for each sign of the Zodiac.
The Renaissance was also the time of Nostradamus, a French astrologer and seer (prophet, diviner). Nostradamus became popular through his prophetic writings and by working as an astrologer for noblemen.
Science and Astrology during the Enlightenment (1600s-1700s)
With the rise of science and rationalism during the Enlightenment (1600s-1700s), the movements of the celestial bodies were explained via the physical laws of motion. Rather than viewing the universe as a living being (organicism) as in the times of ancient Greece, the world now saw the universe as a great machine (Clockwork Universe). This philosophical concept, supported and popularized by Isaac Newton, fitted well within the false belief of deism.
This new worldview did not recognize the existence of any links between the earth and the heavens except for gravity and light. Therefore, astrology was increasingly seen as a pseudoscience. Pseudoscience can be defined as “a discipline that pretends to be or has a close resemblance to science but is incompatible with science”. When Uranus and Neptune were discovered in 1781 and 1846, this was not predicted by astrology, which further reduced the credibility of the ancient art.
Up to then, astrology and astronomy used to be interwoven into the same discipline. Astronomy is the natural science that studies everything outside the Earth’s atmosphere, while astrology is the influence of the stars. The rational thinkers of the Enlightenment couldn’t keep both together any longer.
Strangely, many of the founders of modern science were themselves practicing astrologers, such as Galileo and Kepler.
In Modern times: Astrology in the New Age (since 1800s)
The decline of astrology began to reverse in the later 19th century. There was a growing sense that mainstream science couldn’t grasp all of reality or answer all questions. At the same time, faith in traditional Orthodox Christianity was losing in popularity. This resulted in the rise of a general interest in the occult with movements such as Spiritualism and Theosophy (see Helena Blavatsky, and Alice Bailey who first coined the term “New Age“).
Ritual magicians revived astrology by including it in their blend of “Western esoteric traditions”. Such include Gnosticism, Rosicrucianism, Alchemy, Kabbalah, and Hermeticism. Those belief systems are essentially part of the “New Age” – an umbrella term to cover a wide range of topics, a collection of beliefs and practices aimed at bringing enlightenment.
For more on Western esotericism :
The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction, by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
See Oxford Academic page for an absract of this book.
The return of astrology was even more boosted in the 1930s, with the popularity of daily horoscopes in mass-circulation newspapers. The trend kept on spreading in the 20th century as the publishing industry blossomed, with periodicals for housewives and teenage magazines. The same goes for the broadcasting world, with horoscopes appearing on radio and TV programs, arousing interest in the Western world.
In recent years, astrology has become a lot more accessible through the internet, stirring a new fascination in esoterism and pseudosciences. The name of Nostradamus seems to still resurface every new year, giving the world prophetic insights into what may happen.
See on Gotquestions.org : Was Nostradamus a true prophet of God?
One of the present danger in Christianity is the growing influence and infiltration of the New Age in churches. This threat will subtly trivialise occult trends such as astrology, seeing them as unharmful and thus omitting to warn and teach against it altogether.
Is Astrology heresy?
Throughout the ages in the Western world, astrology has come back and forth, either embraced by great thinkers or condemned as heresy.
Although Orthodox science refuses to acknowledge any credibility to astrology (thus treating it as heresy), the intuition of a deep connection between daily life and the heavens persists.
From the point of view of orthodox Christianity, in the tradition of one of the greatest Fathers of the Church, Augstine of Hippo, astrology remains a heresy and a pagan practice condemned by the Bible. Indeed, we have enough evidence from God’s Word that:
1) It is an art of divination forbidden by the Lord (whether it “works” or not isn’t the question; powers of darkness can make things “work”)
2) God has specifically commanded his people to not have anything to do with it (Deut 18:9-14). He is Sovereign and has given us His Word to live by, surely not occult knowledge. We are not to look to the stars, but to Christ, the only true bright and morning star (Rev 22:16).
To find out more about astrology, what it really is and why God forbade it to his people, see my further study on 7 reasons why Astrology is forbidden in Christianity. I used to be an addict of Astrology, prior to being in Christ, and fell back in it for some time as a Christian. God delivered me when I truly understood what it really was.
