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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, honors, 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?
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