The Early Church Fathers Position on Astrology
Because the premise of astrology is that your Fate in life is determined by the sign in the zodiac under which you were born, the Early Fathers vehemently repudiated astrology. They believed, and their Old and New Testament Scriptures taught, that a human being is born a free-will soul and has the choice(s) of what will govern his/her life. The wise Fathers said the one true God is the Author of each life. He sent His Only Begotten Son to save man from the Original Sin stamped into his DNA. A person can choose to accept Jesus the Christ’s death on the cross for his/her sins or choose not to accept that salvation. It was the clash between Fate and Faith, between Determinism and Free Will, between Godly teaching and “demonic teaching” that called forth the following words on astrology by the early Christian apologists and theologians:
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Tatian the Syrian Tatian the Syrian (120 – c. 180 AD) in his Address to the Greeks 8.9 in 170 wrote: “(Under the influence of demons) men form the material of their apostasy. For, having shown them a plan of the position of the stars, like dice-players, they introduce Fate, a flagrant injustice….For the delineation of the zodiacal circle is the work of their so-called gods….But we are superior to Fate, and instead of wandering demons, we have learned to know one Lord Who wanders not.”
Recognitions of Clement 10:12 (c. 220 AD): “(astrologer’s) error does not proceed from their unskillfulness in their art, but from the inconsistency of the whole system….But we who have learned the reason of this mystery know the cause since, having freedom of will, we sometimes oppose our desires and sometimes yield to them. And therefore the issue of human goings is uncertain because it depends on freedom of will….And this is why ignorant astrologers have invented to themselves the talk about ‘climacterics’ as the refuge for their uncertainties (when they wrongly predict).”
Lactantius (c. 240 – 320), advisor to Constantine, wrote in Divine Institutes 2:16,17: “…demons…were the inventors of astrology, and of soothsaying and divination and those productions which are called oracles and necromancy and the art of magic and whatever other evil practices these men exercise, either openly or in secret.”
Augustine (354 – 430), theologian. After his conversion to Christ at age 32, he wrote in his autobiography Confessions 7:6 and 8-10: “Now I had also repudiated (before his conversion) the lying divination and impious absurdities of the astrologer…I turned my thoughts to those that are born twins, who generally come out of the womb so near one to another that the small distance of time between them, however much, force astrologers to contend that (they have the same nature) but this cannot be noted by human observation or be expressed in those (planetary) figures which the astrologer is to examine that he may pronounce the truth. Nor can it be true; for looking into the same figures, he must have foretold the same of Esau and Jacob, whereas the same did not happen to them. (The astrologer) must therefore speak falsely of it truly, then, looking into the same figures he must not speak the same things. Not then by art but by chance would he speak truly.”—Article By Sandra Sweeny Silver