As'tath (Acrrc'tS, Vulg. Ezead), one of the heads of Israelitish families, whose members (to the number of 120) returned (with Johannes, the son of Acatan) in the party of Ezra from Babylon (1 Esdr. viii, 38) ; evi- dently the Azgad (q. v.) of the true text (Ezra viii, 12).
Asterius. There were several ancient writers of this name.
1. A Cappadocian, converted from paganism to Christianity, who became an Arian. He nourished after the Nicene Council, about the year 330, when he published his celebrated Syntagma, or Syntagmateon, which is repeatedly mentioned by Athanasius, in which he openly declares that there is in God another wisdom than Christ, which was the creator of Christ himself and of the world. Nor would he allow that Christ was the virtue of God in any other sense than that in which Moses called the locusts "a virtue of God." Athanasius quotes from this work in his Ep. de Synod. Arimin. et Selene, p. 084, and elsewhere. — Baronius, Annates, 370; Lardner, Works, iii, 587 sq.
2. Bishop of Petra, in Arabia. He was originally an Arian, and accompanied the Arian bishops to the Council of Sardica in 347 ; but when there he renounced Arianism. Hence he suffered, and was banished into Upper Libya. In 3G2 he attended the council held by Athanasius at Alexandria, and was deputed to endeav- or to restore union to the Church of Antioch.
3. Archbishop of Amasea ; flourished about 401. Eleven sermons and homilies of his are given in Com- befis. Bibl. Pair. Appendix, 1G48.
Astorga, a town and diocese of Spain. In 446 a council was held in the town of Astorga on account of the Priscillianists.
Astric. See Anastasius.
Astrologer (Ileb. and Chald. r'JXN:, ashshaph' , an enchanter, Dan. i, 20; ii, 2, 10, 27; iv, 7; v, 7, 11, 15; once Heb. D"1"?'^? "I^"1'""1! hober' shama'yim, sky-dividi r, i. e. former of horoscopes ; Sept. AoTpokoyog rot* ovpa- vov ; Vulg. augur call, Isa. xlvii, 13), a person who pro- fesses to divine future events by the appearance of the stars. See Astrology. The Babylonians were anciently famous for this kind of lore (Rawlinson's Herodotus, i, Essay x; Simplicius ad Aristot. De Ccelo, ii, 123 ; Pliny, Hist. Nat. vi!, 56 ; Vitruv. ix, 9). See Astronomy.
Astrology (aarpoXoyia, science of the stars), a pretended science, which was said to discover future events by means of the stars. Astrology (according to the old distinction) was of two kinds, natural and judicial. The former predicted certain natural effects which appear to depend upon the influence of the stars, such as winds, rain, storms, etc. By the latter, it was pretended, could be predicted events which were de- pendent upon the human will, as particular actions, peace, war, etc. Astrology accords well with the predestinarian doctrines of Mohammedanism, and was accordingly cultivated with great ardor by the Arabs from the seventh to the thirteenth century. Some of the early Christian fathers argued against the doctrines of astrology ; others received them in a modified form. In its public capacity the Roman Church several times condemned the system, but many zealous church- men cultivated it. Cardinal D'Ailly, " the eagle of the doctors of France" (died 1420), is said to have cal- culated the horoscope of Jesus Christ, and maintained that the Deluge might have been predicted by astrol- ogy. Regiomontanus, the famous mathematician Car- dan, even Tycho Brahe and Kepler could not shake off the fascination. Kepler saw the weakness of as- trology as a science, but could not bring himself to deny a certain connection between the positions ("con- stellations") of the planets and the qualities of those born under them. The Copernican system gave the death-blow to astrology. Belief in astrology is not now ostensibly professed in any Christian country, though a few solitary advocates have from time to time appeared, as J. M. Pfaff in Germany, Astrologie (Niirnb. 1816). But it still holds sway in the East, and anions Mohammedans wherever situated. Even in Europe the craving of the ignorant of all countries for divination is still gratified by the publication of multitudes of almanacs containing astrological predic- tions, though the writers no longer believe in them.
Many passages of our old writers are unintelligible without some knowledge of astrological terms. In the technical rules by which human destiny was foreseen, the heavenly houses played an important part. As- trologers were by no means at one as to the way of laying out those houses. A very general way was to draw great circles through the north and south points of the horizon as meridians pass through the poles, di- viding the heavens, visible and invisible, into twelve equal parts — six above the horizon, and six below. These were the twelve houses, and were numbered on- ward, beginning with that which lay in the east im- mediately below the horizon. The first was called the house of life ; the second, of fortune, or riches ; the third, of brethren ; the fourth, of relations ; the fifth, of children ; the sixth, of health ; the seventh, of marriage; the eighth, of death, or the upper portal; the ninth, of religion ; the tenth, of dignities ; the elev- enth, of friends and benefactors ; the twelfth, of ene- mies, or of captivity. The position of the twelve houses for a given time and place — the instant of an individual's birth, for instance, was a theme. To con- struct such a plan was to cast the person's nativity. The houses had.different powers, the strongest being the first ; as it contained the part of the heavens about to rise, it was called the ascendant, and the point of the ecliptic cut by its upper boundary was the horoscope. Each house bad one of the heavenly bodies as its lord, who was strongest in his own house. See Ptolcmaei Opus quadripartitum de astrorum judiciis ; Schoner, I)e nativitatibus CNurnh.lb32); Kepler, Harmonia mun- <fc'(Linz. 1619); Prodromus, Diss, xosmograph. (Tub 1596) ; Pfaff, Astrnlogische Taschenbiicher for 1822 and 1823; Meyer's Blatter fur hdhere Wahrheit, ii, 141; Quarterly Review, xxvi, 180 ; Westminster Review, Jan. 1864. See Astronomy.