User:Wound theology/Gnostic astrology

Gnostic astrology is the theological and mystical interpretation of cosmology communicated by the Gnostic movement of late antiquity.

Origins
Some Gnostics employed Hipparchus's discovery of the precession of the equinoxes as evidence for an extra-cosmic intervention in the world, which broke the bonds of astrologic fate for the Gnostic elect.

Cosmology
Various Gnostic traditions proposed a variation on the Platonic cosmography, organized into discrete domains: the geocentric sublunary realm, the seven planetary spheres, with an eighth sphere of the fixed stars.

Pistis Sophia
The Pistis Sophia, discovered in 1776, contains an episode in which Jesus disrupts the functioning of the spheres. When challenged to explain these actions, Mary Magdalene says You have taken their power from [the archons] and their astrologers and their soothsayers and the ones who tell men who are in the world everything that will happen so that from this hour, [so] they might not understand things about to happen so as to predict them, for you have turned their spheres.

Sethianism
The Apocryphon of John, a 2nd-century Sethian pseudepigraphical text attributed to John the Apostle, outlines various concentric spheres, occupied by twelve zodiacal constellations, seven planets, thirty-six decans, seventy-two pentads, and their numerous attendants. The Apocryphon identifies 365 angels, emanating from seven archons, as the origin of the calendrical system: And the archons created seven powers for themselves, and the powers created for themselves six angels for each one until they became 365 angels. And these are the bodies belonging with the names: the first is Athoth, a he has a sheep's face; the second is Eloaiou, he has a donkey's face; the third is Astaphaios, he has a hyena's face; the fourth is Yao, he has a serpent's face with seven heads; the fifth is Sabaoth, he has a dragon's face; the sixth is Adonin, he had a monkey's face; the seventh is Sabbede, he has a shining fire-face. This is the sevenness of the week.

Mandaeism
Passages in the Ginza note, and largely lament, the ability of the planets to control and persecute one's self.