Late Antique Astrology and Uranography: Common and Antagonst Patterns in the Mazdaean and Manichaean Approaches

In the present article I will attempt to examine some main topics that sharply oppose Zoroastrian and Manichaean images of the heavens and their cosmological models within the framework of the different ways by which the two theological schools, the Zoroastrian and the Manichaean, tried to explain the opposition against the evil forces of darkness. However, before entering into a discussion of these central subjects, it is necessary to remind ourselves that, at the beginning of the 3rd century, Classical astrology was a kind of knowledge that had already entered, since long ago, the Near East and Iranian lands, at least in its primitive version. In previous works,2 and particularly in a series of lectures entitled L’uranographie iranienne, I have offered a systematic description of the Mazdean and Manichaean uranographies (i.e., “descriptions of the heavens”). For this reason, I will make frequent reference to these studies, avoiding repetition of the details of what is there discussed.