Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 6.djvu/126

120 spring of Jove, and Cetos the plotting monster. Not to any of these, but to Andromeda only does he repair, who slays the Beast; from whom, likewise taking unto himself Andromeda, who had been delivered [and] chained to the Beast, the Logos—that is, Perseus—achieves, he says, her liberation. Perseus, however, is the winged axle that pierces both poles through the centre of the earth, and turns the world round. The spirit also, that which is in the world, is [symbolized by] Cycnus, a bird—a musical animal near "The Bears"—type of the Divine Spirit, because that when it approaches the end itself of life, it alone is fitted by nature to sing, on departing with good hope from the wicked creation, [and] offering up hymns unto God. But crabs, and bulls, and lions, and rams, and goats, and kids, and as many other beasts as have their names used for denominating the stars in the firmament, are, he says, images, and exemplars from which the creation, subject to change, obtaining [the different] species, becomes replete with animals of this description.

Employing these accounts, [the heretics] think to deceive as many of these as devote themselves over-sedulously to the astrologers, from thence striving to construct a system of religion that is widely divergent from the thoughts of these [speculators.] Wherefore, beloved, let us avoid the habit of admiring trifles, secured by which the bird [styled] the owl [is captured]. For these and other such speculations are, [as it were], dancing, and not Truth. For neither do the stars yield these points of information; but men of their own accord, for the designation of certain stars, thus called them by names, in order that they might become to them easily distinguishable. For what similarity with a bear, or lion, or