Herodotus says of the magi being a Median tribe.’ (J. C. Muller in Herzog’s Encl.)”

Rightly, then, Justin Martyr, Origen and Tertullian, when reading Matthew 2:1, thought of maʹgoi as astrologers. Wrote Tertullian: “We know the mutual alliance of magic and astrology. The interpreters of the stars, then, were the first . . . to present Him [Jesus] ‘gifts.’” (“On Idolatry,” chap. ix) The name “Magi” became current “as a generic term for astrologers in the East.”—The New Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia, Vol. XXII, p. 8076.

So the circumstantial evidence is strong that the maʹgoi who visited the infant Jesus were astrologers. Thus The New Testament by Charles B. Williams reads “star-gazers,” with a footnote in explanation: “This is, students of stars in relation to events on earth.” Fittingly, then, modern English translations read “astrologers” at Matthew 2:1.—AT, NE, NW, Ph.

How many of these astrologers “from eastern parts” brought “gold and frankincense and myrrh” to the child Jesus is not disclosed; there is no factual basis for the traditional notion that there were three. (Matt. 2:1, 11) As astrologers they were servants of false gods, and wittingly or unwittingly led by what appeared to them as a moving “star.” They alerted Herod to the fact that the “king of the Jews” had been born and Herod, in turn, sought to have Jesus killed. The plot, however, failed. Jehovah intervened and proved superior to the demon gods of the astrologers, so instead of returning to Herod, they headed home another way after being given “divine warning in a dream.”—Matt. 2:2, 12.

LIVER DIVINATION AND ASTROLOGY

The practice of ‘looking into the liver’ appears to have been a special aspect of astrology. (Ezek. 21:21) A clay model of a liver was found in a temple school in Babylon dating back to the time of Hammurabi. One side of it was divided into areas representing “day” and “night.” The edge was divided into sixteen parts, and corresponding names of the deities of the heavens were given to each section. So, as this brand of divination divided up the heavens in a purely imaginary way, similarly they divided up the liver of their sacrificial victims. When offering these sacrifices they looked at the liver, considering it a miniature reflection of the heavens, in order to see what omens the gods were revealing to them.—See DIVINATION.

MOLECH AND THE PRACTICE OF ASTROLOGY IN ISRAEL

There is evidence to show that astrology was closely allied with the worship of Molech, a god sometimes depicted with a bull’s head. The bull was worshiped by the Babylonians, Canaanites, Egyptians and others as a symbol of their deities—Marduk, Molech, Baal, and so forth. The bull was one of the most important signs of the Zodiac, Taurus. The sun-god was often represented by bulls, the horns signifying the rays, and the bull’s strong reproductive power, the sun’s power as “giver of life.” The female, the cow, was given equal honor as a symbol of Ishtar or Astarte, as she was variously called. So when Aaron and Jeroboam introduced in Israel such worship of the bull (calf worship) it was indeed a great sin in Jehovah’s eyes.—Ex. 32:4, 8; Deut. 9:16; 1 Ki. 12:28-30; 2 Ki. 10:29.

The apostate ten-tribe kingdom of Israel was denounced for joining this astrology cult, for “they kept leaving all the commandments of Jehovah their God and proceeded to make for themselves molten statues, two calves, and to make a sacred pole, and they began to bow down to all the army of the heavens and to serve Baal; and they continued to make their sons and their daughters pass through the fire and to practice divination and to look for omens.”—2 Ki. 17:16, 17.

The two-tribe kingdom to the south was no better. Wicked King Ahaz and his grandson Manasseh both took the lead in worshiping the star gods and in fiendishly offering up their children to be burned alive as sacrifices. (2 Ki. 16:3, 4; 21:3, 6; 2 Chron. 28:3, 4; 33:3, 6) Good King Josiah, however, “put out of business the foreign-god priests” who were “making sacrificial smoke to Baal, to the sun and to the moon and to the constellations of the zodiac and to all the army of the heavens,” and he tore down the high places and made Topheth unfit for worship so “that no one might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech.” (2 Ki. 23:5, 10, 24) Jehovah, by his prophets Zephaniah and Jeremiah, denounced them for their astrological practices, as “those who are bowing down upon the roofs to the army of the heavens,” and as those “making sworn oaths by Malcham [Molech].”—Zeph. 1:5; Jer. 8:1, 2; 19:13.

Further showing the interconnection of Molech worship, calf worship and astrology is Stephen’s account of the rebellion of the Israelites in the wilderness. When they cried out to Aaron, “Make gods for us to go ahead of us,” Jehovah “handed them over to render sacred service to the army of heaven, just as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not to me that you offered victims and sacrifices . . . But it was the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan that you took up.’”—Acts 7:40-43.

Stephen apparently quoted from the Septuagint translation of Amos 5:25, 26, which in the Masoretic text reads, in part: “You will certainly carry Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan, your images, the star of your god.” Sakkuth (literally, Sik·kuthʹ) was purposely vocalized in this way in Hebrew to correspond with shiq·qutsʹ, meaning “disgusting thing.” It evidently refers to a star god. In the Septuagint Version Sakkuth is rendered “tent,” that is, tabernacle, house or constellation. “Your king” is identified and rendered by the Septuagint as “Moloch.” Kaiwan refers to the star kaimanu or kaiwanu, found in Akkadian inscriptions as the name of the star god Saturn. Hence, in the Septuagint this word Kaiwan in the Masoretic text is rendered Hrai·phanʹ (Rephan), which was the local Egyptian name for the planet Saturn.

On this point Jahn’s Biblical Archaeology says: “The Prophet Amos calls this god both a star and a king; as in fact Saturn was both a planet, and a king or idol-deity, who was otherwise called MOLEC, MOLOC, MILCOM, AND MALCOM. This double character of Saturn, as a star in heaven and a monarch on earth, may perhaps be recognized in the Hebrew words . . . Annamelech and Adrammelech, (2 Ki. 17:31.) since it appears, that both of the deities thus named were worshipped by the offering up to them of human sacrifices.”—Translated from Latin by Thomas C. Upham, 3d ed., p. 528.

DIVINE CONDEMNATION OF ASTROLOGY

A great truth is simply stated: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” including the planets of our solar system and the fixed stars in their constellations. (Gen. 1:1, 16; Job 9:7-10; Amos 5:8) In such grand creation, however, it was not Jehovah’s will that man make gods out of these things. He, therefore, strictly forbade his people to worship a “form like anything that is in the heavens above.” (Ex. 20:3, 4) Astrology in every form was outlawed.—Deut. 18:10-12.

ASYNCRITUS

(A·synʹcri·tus) [incomparable, unlike].

A Christian in Rome to whom the apostle Paul sent a greeting in his inspired letter to the Romans written from Corinth about 56 C.E. (Rom. 16:14) Further information on Asyncritus is not provided in the Scriptures; however, archaeological evidence in inscriptions and papyri indicates that the name Asyncritus was used to some extent at that time.