Plotino - Tratado 52,6 (II, 3, 6) — É absurdo que os astros obedeçam a configurações

6. Dícese de Marte y de Venus que, colocados en determinada situación, producen adulterios. Se les convierte así, en imitadores del desenfreno humano, que sacian recíprocamente sus necesidades. ¡Incalificable absurdo! Se piensa, por ejemplo, en el placer que sienten los planetas por contemplarse en determinada posición, sin que nada ponga, límite a su poder. Pero, ¿cómo podría admitirse esto? ¿Cuál sería entonces la vida de los planetas si tuvieran que dar su opinión sobre los innumerables animales que nacen y existen, asignando a cada uno los bienes que le convienen, proporcionando riqueza, pobreza, o haciendo a otros inmoderados, y a todos, desde luego, cumplidores de sus actos? ¿Les sería posible realizar tales cosas? Se habla de que esperan, para cumplir esto, a las ascensiones de los signos del zodíaco, teniendo en cuenta a tal fin que el número de alias resulta en ellos equivalente a los grados que verifican en su curso. Y así, como si calculasen con sus dedos el momento en que habrán de actuar, nada deberán hacer antes del tiempo marcado. Con lo cual, si se niega totalmente a un ser único el poder de dominación, se le otorga en cambio y sin reservas a los planetas. ¡Como si no lo gobernase todo ese ser único del que todas las cosas dependen! Es él quien concede a cada uno, a tenor de su misma naturaleza, concluir su propia tarea y actuar ordenadamente con sus fines. Cualquier otra suposición destruye y desconoce la naturaleza del mundo, que tiene un principio y una causa primera que se extienden sobre todo.

[VI] N’est-il pas déraisonnable d’admettre que Mars ou Vénus, dans une certaine position, produisent les adultères? C’est leur attribuer l’incontinence qu’on voit chez les hommes et la même ardeur à satisfaire d’indignes passions. Comment croire que l’aspect des planètes est favorable quand elles se regardent d’une certaine manière? Comment croire qu’elles n’ont pas une nature déterminée? Puisqu’il y a une foule innombrable d’êtres qui naissent et existent en tout temps, si les planètes s’occupaient de chacun d’eux, leur donnaient de la gloire, des richesses, les rendaient pauvres ou incontinents, leur faisaient accomplir tous leurs actes, quelle vie mèneraient-elles? Comment pourraient-elles exécuter tant de choses? Il n’est pas plus raisonnable d’avancer qu’elles attendent pour agir les ascensions des signes (ἀναφοραί), ni de dire qu’autant un signe parcourt de degrés à son lever, autant son ascension comprend d’années;[22] que les planètes calculent en quelque sorte sur leurs doigts l’époque à laquelle elles doivent faire chaque chose, sans qu’il leur soit permis de la faire auparavant. Enfin, c’est un tort également de ne pas rapporter à un principe unique le gouvernement de l’univers, d’attribuer tout aux astres, comme s’il n’y avait pas un chef unique dont l’univers dépend et qui distribue à chaque être un rôle et des fonctions conformes à sa nature, Le méconnaître, c’est détruire l’ordre dont on fait partie, c’est ignorer la nature du monde, qui suppose une cause première, un principe dont l’action pénètre tout.[23]

ABSURDITY OF VARIOUS ASTROLOGICAL THEORIES.

6. Is it not unreasonable to assert that Mars, or Venus, in a certain position, should produce adulteries? Such a statement attributes to them incontinence such as occurs only among man, and human passion to satisfy unworthy impulses. Or again, how could we believe that the aspects of planets is favorable when they regard each other in a certain manner? How can we avoid believing that their nature is determinate? What sort of an existence would be led by the planets if they occupied themselves with each single one of the innumerable ever-arising and passing beings, giving them each glory, wealth, poverty, or incontinence, and impelling all their actions? How could the single planets effect so many simultaneous results? Nor is it any more rational to suppose that the planets’ actions await the ascensions of the signs, nor to say that the ascension of a sign contains as many years as there are degrees of ascension in it. Absurd also is the theory that the planets calculate, as it were on their fingers, the period of time when they are to accomplish something, which before was forbidden. Besides, it is an error not to trace to a single principle the government of the universe, attributing everything to the stars, as if there were not a single Chief from which depends the universe, and who distributes to every being a part and functions suitable to its nature. To fail to recognize Him, is to destroy the order of which we form a part, it is to ignore the nature of the world, which presupposes a primary cause, a principle by whose activity everything is interpenetrated.

6. But that this same Mars, or Aphrodite, in certain aspects should cause adulteries - as if they could thus, through the agency of human incontinence, satisfy their own mutual desires - is not such a notion the height of unreason? And who could accept the fancy that their happiness comes from their seeing each other in this or that relative position and not from their own settled nature?

Again: countless myriads of living beings are born and continue to be: to minister continuously to every separate one of these; to make them famous, rich, poor, lascivious; to shape the active tendencies of every single one - what kind of life is this for the stars, how could they possibly handle a task so huge?

They are to watch, we must suppose, the rising of each several constellation and upon that signal to act; such a one, they see, has risen by so many degrees, representing so many of the periods of its upward path; they reckon on their fingers at what moment they must take the action which, executed prematurely, would be out of order: and in the sum, there is no One Being controlling the entire scheme; all is made over to the stars singly, as if there were no Sovereign Unity, standing as source of all the forms of Being in subordinate association with it, and delegating to the separate members, in their appropriate Kinds, the task of accomplishing its purposes and bringing its latent potentiality into act.

This is a separatist theory, tenable only by minds ignorant of the nature of a Universe which has a ruling principle and a first cause operative downwards through every member.