Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Friday, December 18, 2015
TETRABIBLOS
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrabiblos
One of the most important books ever written on astrology is this one, "Tetrabiblos" by Claudius Ptolemy of 2nd Century A.D., Alexandria, Egypt. Its previously written companion text, the ALMAGEST, was the definitive book on astronomy for over 1,000 years, until its geocentric perspective, Aristotleian in descent, was overthrown by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo Galilei, definitively, in the 1600s with their heliocentric perspective. Under heliocentricism, the sun is the center of the Solar System, NOT the Earth as Ptolemy and Aristotle's plethora of disciples so dogmatically believed, Threatened by the Catholic Church, in which he was a priest, with banishment, ex-communication or worse--the torture of the Inquisition--unless he adjured (renounced) heliocentricism, Galileo's tacit renunciations of it saved his life. Fortunately, modern science has redeemed him, Galileo. Accordingly, the TETRABIBLOS, being astronomically based on the now moribund ALMAGEST, may now also be as moribund, albeit fascinating!