Firmicus Maternus: Mathesis, with Benjamin Dykes
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ค. 2024
- An interview with Benjamin Dykes about his new translation of the astrological work of the 4th century astrologer Firmicus Maternus.
Firmicus was a lawyer and astrologer from the 4th century who wrote one of the longest surviving texts on astrology that has survived from antiquity, which is titled Mathesis.
Firmicus' work is unique because it was written in Latin, and it preserves a lot of material from earlier Greek sources that did not survive into modern times, such as the works of Asclepius or Nechepso and Petosiris.
The text also contains huge amounts of delineation material, where Firmicus explains how to interpret different placements in a person's birth chart.
During the course of the interview we discuss Firmicus' life and work, Ben's motivation for translating this book, and some of the interesting features of the Mathesis.
You can get a copy of Ben's new translation of Firmicus here:
amzn.to/45djDdF
This is episode 401 of The Astrology Podcast:
theastrologypodcast.com/2023/...
Patreon for early access to new episodes:
/ astrologypodcast
Please be sure to like and subscribe!
#TheAstrologyPodcast
Timestamps
00:00:00 A new translation of the Mathesis
00:09:52 The life and dating of Firmicus Maternus
00:19:50 Firmicus' philosophy and religious views
00:30:40 Later conversion to Christianity
00:37:00 Mathesis as the first comprehensive astrological text in Latin
00:57:00 Mitigating conditions
01:10:00 Firmicus views on fate
01:31:28 The Thema Mundi
01:38:33 Firmicus using whole sign and equal houses together
01:49:29 Firmicus' emphasis on the Moon
01:55:47 Apotelesmata and chart synthesis
01:59:35 Lots as houses/places
02:08:08 Fixed stars
02:13:32 Popularity of Firmicus in later tradition
02:17:53 Ben's upcoming projects
02:19:14 Patrons and sponsors - บันเทิง
I'm working on the medieval Hermetic Book of Six Principles of Things and Firmicus is a really important source, so thank you as always for all this.
Modern Hermeticist in the house!!🎉 🤘🏽
Every time Ben Dykes is on, it’s a freaking delight!
💯
Thank you Chris. And also many thanks to Benjamin. I love Benjamin translation book of Abu Mashar. This book reminded me a lot of an astrologer, teacher guru in the very "far past" of mine. We are all relive our past lives to repeat the cycle of reincarnation. The missions of our soul and karmic cycle need to be fulfilled to fruition. Especially with humans who bring knowledge to the masses collective humanity. Enlighten the human consciousness. Through writings, books and transferring knowledges. In my very humble opinion, Firmicus might have read the whole context of configuration charts and made his predictions for the whole life of the natives by his INTUITION. I have been doing this quite a lot for some times through out my astrology practices. This might be why he did not explain much in his books the techniques. Astrology have to be mainstream. Because it is more than an amazing tool to help humans improve their life.
These last two are exceptional and erudite. Great work all around. Much appreciated!
Everything you record is so educational ✨❤️ thank you for being awesome!!! ✨😽😽
Completely the AWESOME! Noone else comes close!
I have been waiting for this episode and it's so good. Thank you both!
We're using the James Herschel Holden translation in my Year III Fundamentals of Astrology class with Austin Coppock, and this video still managed to add layers upon layers of illuminating insight and understanding of the Mathesis and the potentials of Astrology it illustrates. Book VII is very interesting!
I'm glad Firmicus is finally getting the deserved recognition. And btw, I like his bombastic style 😉
I had Holden’s version on my list, but as soon as I saw Ben’s, I bought it. So excited to get it (and glad I held out!)
Exciting episode and translation! Thank you Ben! Looking sharp too 😁😉. Thanks Chris! Very fun to have these episodes accompany these books and translations! Motivating to dive into them.
How wonderful to see you two together again. This is an excellent dialogue, a classic!
Great conversation, thank you, I look forward to Ben's future translations.
Fabulous podcast as usual...and thank you Ben for all that you do, you are amazing and I've ordered the book...much love from the UK.
This was another outstanding episode. I watched on Patreon and literally took notes (and bought the book!) I'm excited and looking forward to your episode about Heliadora!
Namaste, and Thank you, with DEEP regards!
Yet again I am here, ready to enjoy a fresh upload from yall 😎
So fascinating; thanks for teasing out the finer points!
this sure adds a considerable amount of complexity to what we knew about the hellenistic tradition
made my week !
🎯
I suppose I can read this plus the newer addition of Valens in the near future. I liked listening to this and hearing about moralism, then seeing a description that says I’d be a bad slave since I’d die in transport. 🥰
Systems! At some point I want to adapt a chart system where it’s immediately broken down into mitigations and read from there. I started it, then quickly learned I’ll have to memorize the system. So far, everything I thought would or started out as a headache is quite easy. The only part of the “I don’t want to ever get into this..” astrology systems I don’t use is the 12 signs of the sign houses; I’ve seen it used as a mitigation technique though. I, personally, like the terms/bounds where I don’t want to clutter it up anymore.
One thing I like about modern astrology and you MAY be able to credit Christianity for it (a little) is how “bad” placements are not that bad in modern times. I’d make a bet that if modern US citizens could time travel to these periods; they’d be executed. I like to always remember when people discuss philosophers like Plato that plato was well aware of how Socrates died. It also brings up a topic where a professor was critiquing liberalism (we’re not getting into politics): as we know, conservative attitudes can get attached to tradition where they’re closed to anything that challenges it. The argument is a long history of liberalism to get attached to ideas where even empirical data is ignored when implemented, then respond by either manipulating data OR blaming. Absurd example: the titanic was unsinkable so it never happened. Once accepted, it’s not the fault of design of sinking but the way it was built or an error by the captain. Obviously, an unsinkable ship is wishful thinking as ideas only exist in an alternate reality. The point would be that they both share the exact same flaws despite being polar opposites.
I’d assume that many astrologers don’t get asked questions where heavier delineations are needed, but doing things more makes complex things easier. I did some of what Benjamin mentioned in a more psychological context recently; it’s actually a fun game.
Some like to refer to the 12th as “shadow”, which is fine but there’s a lot to unpack. A chart dynamic shows up and it’s part of why people pushed Jung on me so much. The shadow is formed, in part, by the child archetype and the more dangerous parts is the infantile nature of it. So my own is a domicile Leo sun (with Mercury). This implies good contents exist within it, people who know me extremely well are surprised by the positive traits. The negative can be recognizing negative Leo traits in others all “I can fix that…” Romantic relationships are more likely to get libra, so relationships are probably confusing to the other person. Sun/merc are in mars terms, mars is in libra with Venus in mercury terms. Pluto in libra (applying) is in Jupiter terms so it’s a little different. The ascendant is in mars terms, Saturn in 1st in mercury terms, uranus in 3rd also in mercury terms. MC in Saturn terms. Moon is in Aquarius 6th, but it’s in Venus terms in a trine. (Maybe not all types of bondage are bad.. 🥸, kidding) I do use sign mitigations since I’ve experienced them, they’re tricky. I actually suspect that’s why quadrant houses work very often.
Shadow, a characteristic is like an adult with an arrested development where a psychological aspect is trapped in the terrible 2’s or 3’s.. it’s a part of the psyche that is hostile towards having to live in a civilized society and/or not quite wanting to grow up. It’s often easy to see with attitudes that are contradictory, but my natal placements in the 12th enjoys the contradictions of activists. The irony is, aspects of the self will always be pushed into the shadow which is why you see children who never learned adult boundaries or healthy coping mechanisms throwing temper tantrums on college campuses. It’s also why you’re seeing children grow up into their late 20’s and 30’s realizing that children are impressionable and do whatever they feel gets them accepted by adults who regret their behavior and may have life long consequences it. There was an interview with a social engineer who learned from therapy that they learned as a child that wetting the bed got him attention from his mother which reinforced his behaviors up to going to prison for credit card/crypto fraud/tax frauds (etc) to get attention from women.
I’m surprised he liked mercury in the 12th, and then takes a sun/Mercury combo as a useless slave.
I’ll pick up both this AND Valens sometime soon. My favorite mitigation that shows up culturally is the virgo/libra sympathy where there are so many movies about giving the awkward virgo a libra makeover.
My dive into Joseph Campbell again actually brought up the “function” topic. The pedagogical function is the one that I’m probably leaning more towards which isn’t as developed as it could be. Partially since it’s extremely complicated. It’s probably why the bhavacakra is part of what pulled me into astrology to begin with. That would be a much more house focused system.
This episode was better than the likes make it seem.
Thanks Chris this was great!
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you had access to the Vatican secret archives and found all these missing source texts 😉
eyes wide open!
I never read Firmicus but also know of those mitigations from Project Hindsight. I guess from Paulus, too, but there must be others.
Entirely awesome! Is that book about his Christianity available in English?
Polymath now means someone well educated in many disciplines.
Ty
1:07:00 My son got attacked by a pit bull a couple weeks ago. It’s definitely no joke. Thank you
Dude this si dope❤ i dant like thsnk yall
51:45 isn't that like yogas in vedic astrology? Basically a pattern that is so evident that became recognized. Sometimes yogas can even teach you how to read certain basics (like the 5 great yogas of the 5 planets teach you what each planet is about and bestows you). By knowing the shades of gray you can also extrapolate the yoga to other situations
conviction education
too badly that Amazon shipping isn't available in my country :/ just wanted to buy both Anthology by Valens (from Brennan and Riley) and this one, but it's only Mathesis that isn't available :/ Btw, great episode really, as always with Ben! I enjoyed his work on Abu Mashar's "About the Revolution of Nativities", especially the Introduction which is really insightful and provides good preparation for Abu Mashar. I was hoping for a similar experience with "Mathesis" but it is what it is. If anyone can change that in Amazon, or maybe someone who could help me get it? I would appreciate it very much!
Fascinating look at an unknown historical figure outside of astrology circles.
Seems pretty simple, Firmicus was naturally inclined to religiosity.
Maybe he's being clever, not sophistic, applying partile and platic to his description techniques.