Skyscript Astrology Forum

In her retyped and annoted Edition of William Lilly, Christian Astrology, Books I & II, Deborah Houlding gives on page 47 in footnote 374 the following statement:

"In his book on nativities Lilly offers a clearer explanation of where term rulership begins and ends. By saying that the first 6 degrees fall under the rulership of Jupiter he in fact refers to 0?01 Aries to 6?00 Aries. At 6?01 Aries a Planet has entered the seventh degree and is then under the term rulership of Venus."

This is obviously fully and detailed confirmed by Robert Hand at length. I quote this text too, because the fact Deborah refers to years ago was a shock for me and is a shock for the most of the colleagues I spoke with because this fact is very unknown and so 'beyond belief!'

Robert Hand in The Traditional Astrologer, Issue Nr. 10 (?), in 'ARHAT Answers with Robert Hand answering the question of an unknown reader':

Question: "In Christian Astrology (p.510) Lilly makes a point of the correct way of reading the terms, daying that the terms of Venus begin in the 7th degree or Aries. This implies that 6?59 Aries is still the termes of Venus. How are the face degrees counted? Are the faces of Mars in Aries up to 10?, or to 10?59?"

Answer R. Hand: "There seems to be a major misunderstanding about this issue. (Even Robert Zoller and Lee Lehman have run afoul of this one). The basic problem is that the Greeks did not have the number 0. Therefore they dealt with degrees a bit differently than we do. Strictly speaking to a Greek Astrologer there was no such thing as 0? Aries - there was only 0?00?01 Aries. The first degree is from 1?00?01?? to 2?00?00 and so forth. The seventh degree extends from 6?00?01?? to 7?00?00?? and this, as Lilly says, is the first degree of the terms of Venus. Fully spelled out the Terms of Aries as given in Lilly are as follows:
Jupiter: 0?00?01?? - 6?00?00??
Venus:6?00?01?? - 14?00?00??
Merkur: 14?00?01 - 21??00?00??
Mars: 21?00?01?? - 26?00?00
Saturn:26?00?01?? - 30?00?00??

The same is true of the faces. The first face of each sing extens from 0?00?01?? to 10?00?01??, the second from 10?00?01?? to 20?00?01??, and the third from 20?00?01 to 30?00?01??.
Of course it could be argued that the Medieval Renaissance astrologers did possess the zero, but that is not a valic argument because all of these values are derived from the Greeks."
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Hi Deb,

I know it is against the rules of your forum but may I begin a new thread asking you the following questions directly?

In the internet I find the nice picture that counting horses is not zero to 23 horses for example, but counting begins with the first (part of something or) horse and ends with the 23rd (complete(!) thing or) horse. As calculation in former times was strongly connected with this daily life counting this could be the explanation of beginning to count and calculate(!) not before the first fraction of a something and not to end before the last fraction of that something but after it. In contradiction to that our Aries begins in 00?00? and ends in 29?59?. (Horses are very rare today!) In reality it would be more correct to say that the ancients allotted 00?00? Aries to Jupiter as its sign ruler still and we allot this part of Aries to Mars as its sign ruler yet .

I understand this but I should be very interested to know first whether this understanding is right, then to learn whether you quoted Lilly CA, p.510 and finally if there is any other quotation (perhaps of another classical author than Lilly), who, even though he is my admired writer in horary, is a little obscure in CA, page 510 as to the beginning and ending of a sign.

Regards
Johannes

In another thread Olivia gives this link to an article of Beradette Brady:

http://www.bernadettebrady.com/Pdfs/Cas ... tBrady.pdf

At the end of page 9 you'll find a note of Brady touching our theme. It seems a little obscure to me as to counting in whole parts, but in total I think it is a confirmation of Deb and R.Hand.

I would be happy if perhaps some of you, who like and know the Hellenistic approach could say (and quote?) something to the Hellenistic understanding of the beginning and ending of a sign, &c.

Johannes

Hi Johannes

Sorry I didn?t comment earlier ? I haven?t been able to check all the posts lately and this is the first time that I?ve seen this thread. I thought the analogy of counting horses is a very good one, and it looks to me like you have resolved this issue for yourself now, and have also had an informed confirmation from Steven.
I?m surprised this comes as a shock, but maybe that?s because fewer astrologers are manually calculating charts nowadays, and so are not directly confronting issues such as this.

Deb

PS ? I?m not quite sure about the comments Rob Hand made about the ancient use of zero. From what I understand the Babylonians used zero, which is why they were able to make so many mathematical advances. But I haven?t noted down any references so I?ll keep this in mind as something worth checking.

Perhaps it's interesting to note that before Tycho Brahe's observations, an accuracy of 0?10' was considered the best achievable. This is found in the values of star positions Ptolemy's lists.


http://books.google.nl/books?id=berWESi ... t&resnum=1 p.50

Maybe the exact position around the boundaries of signs were considered rather as 'grey' areas?

steven wrote:Well even the best of astrologers can confuse the issue

You quote Robert Hand as saying:

"There seems to be a major misunderstanding about this issue. (Even Robert Zoller and Lee Lehman have run afoul of this one). The basic problem is that the Greeks did not have the number 0. Therefore they dealt with degrees a bit differently than we do. Strictly speaking to a Greek Astrologer there was no such thing as 0? Aries - there was only 0?00?01 Aries. The first degree is from 1?00?01?? to 2?00?00 and so forth. The seventh degree extends from 6?00?01?? to 7?00?00?? and this, as Lilly says, is the first degree of the terms of Venus. Fully spelled out the Terms of Aries as given in Lilly are as follows:
Jupiter: 0?00?01?? - 6?00?00??
Venus:6?00?01?? - 14?00?00??
Merkur: 14?00?01 - 21??00?00??
Mars: 21?00?01?? - 26?00?00
Saturn:26?00?01?? - 30?00?00??

Now even Rob Hand makes a slip of the tongue by saying, "The first degree is from 1?00?01?? to 2?00?00" That is wrong in the hellenistic sense. Jupiter has a total of 6 degrees in Aries and the first degree of Jupiters' terms would be:

0?00?01" - 1?00?00" = first degree
1?00?01" - 2?00?00" = second degree
2?00?01" - 3?00?00" = third degree
3?00?01" - 4?00?00" = fourth degree
4?00?01" - 5?00?00" = fifth degree
5?00?01" - 6?00?00" = sixth degree

Rob writes Jupiters terms as; 0?00?01" - 6?00?00" and this is correct- but he is very incorrect saying <<The>>, at least from the Helenistic viewpoint - but correct from Lilly's viewpoint where he is attributing cardinal numbers to an ordinal sequence!

Steven

Hi Steven,

very sorry for my late answering to you but having just read your text yesterday I was called away.

Thank you so much for your confirmation of Deb's and Rob's explanations in general. Of course it was not Rob's slip of the tongue, but my fault contracting two sentences to one, obviously caused by a slip of the eye: In the quotation above the wrongly copied part of his text is marked by me and is - hopefully correct now - as follows:

The first degree is measured from 0?00?01?? to 1?00?00??. The second degree is from 01?00?01 to 02?00?00?and so forth.

Do you or someone else know any Hellenistic authority who states this biginning at the first fraction of a sign? Or was it so understood at those times that it was never mentioned expressly in astrological context?

Johannes

steven wrote: Perhaps there is someone out there who has particularly studied this philosophy and historical background that can fill in my gaps. I haven't studied the matter so specifically and historically that I can answer your question. As I said, the examples are quite demonstative of this practice.

Steven

Hi Steven,

I had hoped, someone would be inspired by your text to specify some parts. Perhaps later . . .

Now I should like to thank you very much that you gave me very important hints where to go on. Where had been a little nothing there are gaps now which are to be but can be filled in at all. A ladder is nearly all gaps, but the rungs are it.

Thank you again
Johannes

Deb wrote:Hi Johannes

Sorry I didn?t comment earlier ? I haven?t been able to check all the posts lately and this is the first time that I?ve seen this thread. I thought the analogy of counting horses is a very good one, and it looks to me like you have resolved this issue for yourself now, and have also had an informed confirmation from Steven.
I?m surprised this comes as a shock, but maybe that?s because fewer astrologers are manually calculating charts nowadays, and so are not directly confronting issues such as this.Deb

Hi Deb,

I really don't think that this theme (and a certain shock ) depends of whether we calculate our charts manually or by electronic. It doesn't matter what and how it is calculated. The point is to which planet a certain place is allotted after calculation. And it is a little shock when you understand the first time that there is a break in our tradition to understand that even if we try to work in old techniques there is a difference in basic understanding.

The 'shock' is because we say 00?00 Aries is ruled by Mars. But Hellenistic astrologers would have given this position to Jupiter as ruler! This means also that here were not yet the terms of Jupiter but those of Saturn (Ptolemaian terms); and they had given the point 0?00 of Leo as her face still to the Moon and not yet to Saturn as we do. And this applies for the beginnings and endings of all special degrees (male, female, deep, light, dark, smoky &c.) too.

I wonder,when this conception changed and how it was perceived and if at all.

Johannes

johannes susato wrote: The 'shock' is because we say 00?00 Aries is ruled by Mars. But Hellenistic astrologers would have given this position to Jupiter as ruler!

Hi Johannes,

I think it situation is more like, what we would call 00?00'00" Aries, the ancients would call 00?00'01" Aries. It's not that they are different, we just have different mathematical terminology. Heck, modern math terms are only standardized during the 19th century, maybe?

I think Gabe might have the answer I agree with, but I'm not sure I understand the point you are making. We are talking only about the terms, right? If so, then I don't understand why you say

"The 'shock' is because we say 00?00 Aries is ruled by Mars."

There is no part of the beginning of Aries that is ruled by Mars by term. As soon as a planet enters Aries it enters the term of Jupiter. 00?00 Aries would actually be counted as 30?00 Pisces, the limit at which the term ruler at the end of Pisces gives rulership over to the term ruler at the beginning of Aries. So as soon as a planet enters Aries it is ruled by Jupiter by term. Most people say 00?00 01, as the smallest margin we could be expected to measure - but it's really a theoretical principle of the planet making an ingress into the sign.

Hope this helps, and that I'm not just adding confusion
Deb

GR wrote:I think it situation is more like, what we would call 00?00'00" Aries, the ancients would call 00?00'01" Aries. It's not that they are different, we just have different mathematical terminology. Heck, modern math terms are only standardized during the 19th century, maybe?

Hi Gabe,

thanks for your estimation. But as you can read in the quotation of Deb and that of Robert, and in the text of Steven too, what we call 0?00'00'' was for the Hellenistic astrologers 30?00'00'' but not 0?00'01'' as you say. Have you possibly clipped that part of the definitions given by Rob which I mark now?

Fully spelled out the Terms of Aries as given in Lilly are as follows:
Jupiter: 0?00?01?? - 6?00?00??
Venus:6?00?01?? - 14?00?00??
Merkur: 14?00?01 - 21??00?00??
Mars: 21?00?01?? - 26?00?00
Saturn:26?00?01?? - 30?00?00??

And in consequence we have today on 0?00'00' another ruler than in Hellenistic astrology. This is the only possible conclusion after the clear definitions given by Deb, Robert and Steven. Unless there is something lacking in the given definitions . . .

Johannes

Hi Johannes

I think I need to state that I feel you are you are misrepresenting me, and I can only refer you again to my post above where I hoped to make myself more clear, including an indisputable statement ?there is no part of the beginning of Aries that is ruled by Mars by term.?

Hence I can?t see the logic of your statement ?And in consequence we have today on 0?00'00' another ruler than in Hellenistic astrology.?

There is no difference in this principle between modern and Hellenistic astrology ? the only difference is that what you would be inclined to refer to as 0?00'00' Aries is what Hellenistic astrologers, (medieval astrologers, renaissance astrologers, myself and the practitioners I know) refer to as 30?00'00' Pisces.

You can change the reference system though, so that a sign starts at 0?00'00' and ends at 29?59'59', but you would still be referencing the same parts of the zodiac - it's a circle, so there is no beginning or end really, just points that mark the change of signs.

I?m only surprised to realise that anyone is so surprised about this

Best wishes
Deb

No, Johannes, I think you're still mixed up.

We would say:

Aries - 00d00m00s - 29d59m59s

The ancients would say:

Aries - 00d00m01s - 30d00m00s


So, for Lilly's terms of Jupiter we'd say:

00d00d00s - 5d59m59s

While they would say:

00d00m01s - 6d00m00s.

The signs have always been the same length, else then either we are shaving a second of arc off the signs or the ancients added one.

Aw, Deb beat me by a couple of minutes ... or did she?