CHAPTER I
[PORPHYRY] 'The gods, if they speak with a knowledge of things determined by fate, declare that their utterances are derived from the course of the stars, and almost all the truthful gods acknowledge this.'
Then a little farther down he says:
'Apollo was asked of what sex a woman's child would be, and by the stars he said it would be female, having learned this from the time of conception: and thus he speaks:
"The shoot springs forth from earth, whose thirsty meads
All freshening moisture from their mother drain,
While life still stirs within her its due time.
No boy she bears, 'tis but a feeble girl;
The Moon with Venus watched the chaste embrace
That brings thee soon, O friend, a female child."
'See how from the time of conception, because the Moon was then approaching Venus, he said that a girl would be born. Moreover from those signs they foretell diseases; for listen:
"A baneful poison ravages his breast
And pours its cruel pangs o'er all the lung,"----
'and so on: to which he adds:
"So wrought the purpose of the Fates, which urged
Their deadly strife, to slay thee by disease,
Since Saturn treads on high his baneful path."
'And after some other verses:
"But the Destroyer, hastening on to meet
The star of Saturn, forced thee to conclude
Life's fated day, and robbed thy soul of hope.
For this thy godlike father's sacred heart
Warned thee to shun the baneful god of war."'
These things show that their divination is not from any divine power in them, but from observation of the stars according to mathematical principles; so that in this they differ nothing from other men, nor show any work of a higher or more divine nature. But see how they also destroy our free-will, by referring not only external events and things independent of us, but also our own purposes, to the course of the stars.