VIII, Chap.
VII, Phillimore's transl., Oxford, 1912, II, 233.

See, also, Justin: Apologies, edited by Louis Pautigny, Paris, 1904, p.

39.
(17) M.Jastrow: Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, New York, 1911, p.

210.
With the rationalizing influence of the Persians the hold of astrology weakened, and according to Jastrow it was this, in combination with Hebrew and Greek modes of thought, that led the priests in the three centuries following the Persian occupation, to exchange their profession of diviners for that of astronomers; and this, he says, marks the beginning of the conflict between religion and science.

At first an expression of primitive "science," astrology became a superstition, from which the human mind has not yet escaped.