Message #33861

[Bianca]

 The first evident Mesopotamian astrology strikes root in the cosmology of Sumerian civilization: it is neither fatalistic, nor causalistic, but bases itself rather on a correspondance between the "above" and the "below", i.e. the celestial and the terrestrial, or between Anu (etymologically The On High), the god of initial creation who lacks any other particular function, and Ea (etymologically Lord of the Below), the god of consciousness and the civilizer of the human race.

Their relation was watched over by Enlil (etymologically the Lord Air), the master of destiny, ruler of the space between heaven and earth. This ontological trilogy implies no divine action upon human beings, nor any causal relationship (as in Aristotelian thought), but rather a harmonization of which Enlil had charge, and which Ea, the protector of exorcists, had the ability to transform.

      In the earliest known "astrological" text, the series Enûma Anu Enlil, [16]  compiled before the 15th century B.C., an astronomical phenomenon is held to be a warning, a signal to interpret. The collection includes 70 tablets of predictions, [17]  each announcing itself in the form of a double proposition: the protasis (which indicates a condition and describes an astronomical event, situation or fact) and the apodosis (which indicates a consequence and suggests an interpretation).

As De Wynghene has noted: "Literally, the translation should include two principal propositions: This phenomenon has been observed : (therefore) such and such an event is taking or will take place." [18]