neither fortuitous nor consists in the position of the stars._[184]
The cause, then, of the greatness of the Roman empire is neither
fortuitous nor fatal, according to the judgment or opinion of those
who call those things _fortuitous_ which either have no causes, or
such causes as do not proceed from some intelligible order, and those
things _fatal_ which happen independently of the will of God and man,
by the necessity of a certain _order_. In a word, human kingdoms are
established by divine providence. And if any one attributes their
existence to fate, because he calls the will or the power of God
itself by the name of fate, let him keep his opinion, but correct his
language. For why does he not say at first what he will say afterwards,
when some one shall put the question to him, What he means by _fate_?
For when men hear that word, according to the ordinary use of the
language, they simply understand by it the virtue of that particular
position of the stars which may exist at the time when any one is born
or conceived, which some separate altogether from the will of God,
whilst others affirm that this also is dependent on that will. But
those who are of opinion that, apart from the will of God, the stars
determine what we shall do, or what good things we shall possess, or
what evils we shall suffer, must be refused a hearing by all, not
only by those who hold the true religion, but by those who wish to
be the worshippers of any gods whatsoever, even false gods. For what
does this opinion really amount to but this, that no god whatever is
to be worshipped or prayed to? Against these, however, our present
disputation is not intended to be directed, but against those who,
in defence of those whom they think to be gods, oppose the Christian
religion. They, however, who make the position of the stars depend on
the divine will, and in a manner decree what character each man shall
have, and what good or evil shall happen to him, if they think that
these same stars have that power conferred upon them by the supreme
power of God, in order that they may determine these things according
to their will, do a great injury to the celestial sphere, in whose most
brilliant senate, and most splendid senate-house, as it were, they
suppose that wicked deeds are decreed to be done,--such deeds as that
if any terrestrial state should decree them, it would be condemned
to overthrow by the decree of the whole human race. What judgment,
then, is left to God concerning the deeds of men, who is Lord both of
the stars and of men, when to these deeds a celestial necessity is
attributed? Or, if they do not say that the stars, though they have
indeed received a certain power from God, who is supreme, determine
those things according to their own discretion, but simply that His
commands are fulfilled by them instrumentally in the application and
enforcing of such necessities, are we thus to think concerning God even
what it seemed unworthy that we should think concerning the will of
the stars? But, if the stars are said rather to signify these things
than to effect them, so that that _position of the stars_ is, as it
were, a kind of speech predicting, not causing future things,--for
this has been the opinion of men of no ordinary learning,--certainly
the mathematicians are not wont so to speak, saying, for example,
Mars in such or such a position _signifies_ a homicide, but _makes_ a
homicide. But, nevertheless, though we grant that they do not speak as
they ought, and that we ought to accept as the proper form of speech
that employed by the philosophers in predicting those things which
they think they discover in the position of the stars, how comes it
that they have never been able to assign any cause why, in the life
of twins, in their actions, in the events which befall them, in their
professions, arts, honours, and other things pertaining to human life,
also in their very death, there is often so great a difference, that,
as far as these things are concerned, many entire strangers are more
like them than they are like each other, though separated at birth by
the smallest interval of time, but at conception generated by the same
act of copulation, and at the same moment?