Moon, planets and stars
constituted an army in constant activity, executing military manoeuvres
which were the result of deliberation and which had in view a fixed
purpose. It was the function of the priest--the barqu, or 'inspector,'
as the astrologer as well as the 'inspector' of the liver was called--to
discover this purpose. In order to do so, a system of interpretation was
evolved, less logical and less elaborate than the system of hepatoscopy,
which was analyzed in the preceding chapter, but nevertheless meriting
attention both as an example of the pathetic yearning of men to
peer into the minds of the gods, and of the influence that
Babylonian-Assyrian astrology exerted throughout the ancient world"
(Jastrow).(17)
(16) Philostratus: Apollonius of Tyana, Bk. VIII, Chap.
VII, Phillimore's transl., Oxford, 1912, II, 233. See,
also, Justin: Apologies, edited by Louis Pautigny, Paris,
1904, p. 39.
(17) M. Jastrow: Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice
in Babylonia and Assyria, New York, 1911, p. 210.
With the rationalizing influence of the Persians the hold of astrology
weakened, and according to Jastrow it was this, in combination with
Hebrew and Greek modes of thought, that led the priests in the three
centuries following the Persian occupation, to exchange their profession
of diviners for that of astronomers; and this, he says, marks the
beginning of the conflict between religion and science.
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