On the distribution of propitious and impropitious times

As mentioned in the two previous posts, recently I came across the word “hebdómada” in a Spanish-language blog about predictive astrology. Not knowing what it meant, I googled the word and found the following definition:

Definition of hebdomad
1 : a group of seven.
2 : a period of seven days : week.

And regarding its etymology:
1540s, “the number seven;” c. 1600, “a week;” from Latin hebdomad-, stem of hebdomas “seven, the seventh day; a week,” from Greek hebdomas “the number seven; a period of seven (days),” from hepta “seven” (from PIE *septm; see seven) + -mos, suffix used to form ordinal numbers, cognate with Latin -mus.

Over the centuries, astrologers have proposed various ways to distribute the days of the year among the seven traditional planets.

Google also led me to a reference by astrologer Fernando Ruiz Guarin, which explained that hebdomadas were a methods of distributing the solar return year among the traditional seven visible planets to identify periods when each planet would be most active during the year. It was also possible to define sub-hebdomadas to further pinpoint likely dates of manifestation of the significations of each planet, for good or evil. Each planet was assigned a certain number of days during the year, and the sequence apparently began with the ruler of the solar return ascendant and proceeded in the well-known Chaldean order from the slowest planet (Saturn) to the fastest (the Moon).

Curious about the origin of this technique, I contacted Fernando who told me that the method came from a 16th century book about solar revolutions by Italian astrologer Junctinus of Florence. Never having read that book, I searched for it online and was able to download a digital copy of the original text, written in Latin. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a translation of this text into English, so I browsed the Latin text until I found the chapter entitled “De nativitatum. Annorum per dies distributio” and did my best to translate it into English. Not having read other parts of the book, I did not have a feel for the context or a sense of the author’s style of writing and use of vocabulary in Latin. Nonetheless, I persisted and came up with the following understanding:

Junctinus begins the chapter by stating that the days of a year can be divided among the seven individual planets, from which will arise all the good and bad things that will happen during the year, depending on the condition and nature of the planet in charge of that certain period of days. Then, Junctinus wrote a sentence whose meaning initially puzzled me: “Hospitator ergo siue dominus signi ad quod devoluta fuerit progressio ab horoscopo primos sibi vendicat dies.” I understood this to mean that the host planet (hospitator), that is, the lord of the sign (dominus signi), to which (ad quod) the progression from the Ascendant (progressio ab horoscopo) had rolled down, claimed for itself the first days. I wasn’t sure if Junctinus was referring to the Asc of the solar return or the Asc of the annually profected chart. Junctinus continues, “poft ipsum caeteri prout sunt singuli in natalis themate constitute, inquit Firmicus cap.19.1ib.2..”, that is,  “and after him, the other planets, as they are individually placed in the natal chart (in natalis themate), states Firmicus in ch.19. lib.2.” 

In other words, Junctinus is attributing this method to the 4th century author Firmicus Maternus, so the answer to whether “hospitator” was referring the the solar return ascendant or the profected ascendant could be found in Maternus. What was clear was that the distribution of the days of the year among the seven planets was done in the order in which they appeared in the birth chart, and not in classic Chaldean order.

My next step was to read the relevant 4th century chapter in Maternus, which Junctinus was referencing in his 16th century text. Fortunately, this time I had a copy of Maternus in Latin and looked up the chapter which Junctinus was quoting from. It is reproduced here:

I then proceeded to translate Maternus’ text into English, paying special attention to whether he was discussing the profected chart or the solar return chart. Here is my translation, probably not very polished because it was my first time through the Latin text. This passage occurs in the part of Book II in which Maternus is discussing the potential lifespan of the native. My comments about Maternus’ text are in brackets [ ]:

XXVII ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF TIME [during the lifespan of the native]

We shall briefly demonstrate the distribution of time. The Sun gets 19 months; the Moon, 25 months; Saturn, 30 months; Jupiter, 12 months; Mars, 15 months; Venus, 8 months; and Mercury, 20 months. [These are the standard “minor years” of the planets, as found in Vettius Valens and other sources.]

We will show what this distribution of time means in the books about forecasting by the stars, also what a star [planet] ordains when it takes over the time from another; for everything that befalls us, good or evil, we obtain by reason of the times. Even the end of life will be found in this way and also the nature of the entire nativity, and everything that the order of the planets decrees. [Here Maternus clearly appears to be discussing time lords and profections in which one planet takes over a period of time from another planet.]

Moreover, we find the year with the easiest of reasoning; for it [the year] always takes its beginning from the horoscope [rising sign], and the first year will be the one in which the ascendant is located, the second [year] in the second sign, the third [year] in the third [sign], and so on for the others in order. Some do the same in a diurnal chart, [starting ]from the Sun, and at night [starting] from the Moon; and this makes sense. [Again, Maternus is discussing profections, not solar returns.]

 XXVIII ON THE DIVISION OF THE YEAR

 The days of the entire year are also divided among the individual planets; and the extent to which they are divided, and from whence they begin, I shall take care to show … when illness, debility, profit or loss,  joy, or sorrow may occur. For when benefic planets receive the days, we are freed from all evil; when malefic [planets receive the days], then we are struck by sudden misfortune.

Therefore, in whichever sign the beginning of the year is located, the ruler of that sign receives the first days [of the year], and after him come the others, as they are individually situated. [Two paragraphs previously, Maternus had told us that the beginning of the year is related to the annual profection; now he is saying that the lord or the profected ascendant is the time lord for the first division of the year into seven parts.]

And so, I shall also indicate the number of days allotted to each planet: the Sun, 53 days; the Moon, 71; Saturn, 85; Jupiter, 30; Mars, 42; Venus, 23; Mercury, 57. [There is clearly an error in these figures given because their total adds up to 361 days, but there are 365 days in a civil year. Checking Valens, we find that the error lies in the number of days given to Jupiter, which should be 34. This mistake in Maternus is probably the result of a copyist error between the 2nd (Valens) and 4th (Maternus) centuries. By the time these figures got to Junctinus in the 16th century, two more copyist errors had occurred. The correct figures for the number of days of a 365-day year allotted to each planet are given by Valens in detail with their theoretical justification and are as follows: the Sun, 53 days; the Moon, 71; Saturn, 85; Jupiter, 34; Mars, 42; Venus, 23; Mercury, 57. The total of these seven periods adds up to the 365 days of the year. Astrologers who have been using the values given by Junctinus have been working in error with the method. Junctinus erroneously gives 30 days to Jupiter, which he copied from Maternus, 33 days to Venus (instead of 23), and 36 days to Mars (instead of 42).]

In this span of days, we can find everything that happens to us, after carefully having examined the nature of the sign and the place [house]; for [if a planet is] well located, the allotted time, months or days, is favorable, and it denotes all good things. But if a malefic planet receives the time, months or days, and [the planet] is badly situated, it denotes misfortune, according to the quality of its location [in the chart].

Thus, by studying everything with prudent inquiry, one can explain most accurately the entire substance of the geniture.

END of my translation of Maternus

Returning to Junctinus, he writes that he disagrees with Maternus about the division of the year among the seven planets. Instead, Junctinus says that he would start the sequence with the Lord of the Year (domino anni, the ruler of the profected ascendant) but he would distribute the remaining six periods of day among the planets in the order in which they appear in the annual rotation chart (in annuae conversionis schemate, annual revolution). His disagreement with Maternus appears to be about how to order the planets that follow the Lord of the Year in distributing the days of the year among the seven planets.

The following slide shows what appear to be copyist errors in the number of days assigned to each planet as Valens’ original text traveled from the 2nd to the 4th to the 16th century. Valens’ method was to project the minor years of the planets proportionately onto the 365 days of the civil year. This would involve multiplying the minor years of each planet by 2.83, or alternatively doing the addition in Valens’ formula, that is, adding twice the value of the minor years, plus half the value of the minor years, plus one-third the value of the minor years, to obtain a total number of days allotted to the planet in a one-year period:

It turns out that Abu Ma’shar had his own method of distributing the days of the solar year among the seven planets. He simply divided the year into seven equal parts of 52.18 days, and he assigned the first set of 52.18 days to the ruler of the solar return ascendant. The remaining planets were assigned their sets of 52.18 days in Chaldean order from Saturn to the Moon, slowest to fastest. Abu Ma’shar further subdivided the seven divisions of the year, also in Chaldean order starting with the planet that ruled the sub-period, and each sub-period was one-seventh of 52.18 days in duration. This system is most properly called the hebdomad system because it treats the entire years as if it were a great week consisting of seven great weekdays, each 52.18 days long.

In summary, the astrological literature contains several variations of the idea of distributing the year among the seven visible planets. The variables include:

1) the length of the year: solar year, civil year, sidereal year, etc.
2) whether to use the minor years of the planets to proportionately assign a number of days to each planet, as Valens proposed.
3) whether to divide the year into equal segments of 52.18 days, as Abu Ma’shar proposed.
4) whether to begin the sequence of planets form the Lord of the Year (profected ascendant), or from the ruler of the solar return.
5) whether to use values for the number of days distributed to each planet based on the copyist errors found in Maternus and Junctincus, or to use the original correct values, as explained by Vettius Valens.

My own bias is the following: to distribute the year according to the number of days calculated by the method of Valens, based on the minor years of the planets, because these minor years have played such an important role in predictive astrology for more than two millennia; to calculate the number of days by multiplying the minor years of each planet by 365.2422 and dividing by 129 (the total number of minor years of the 7 planets); in other words, the number of minor years times 2.8312 will give the number of days belonging to that planet in a solar year, from one solar return to the next; to begin the sequence from the Lord of the Year, which has traditionally been the starting point for assessing the revolutions of the years of nativities; but to then follow the sequence of planets after the Lord of the Year, according to how they appear in the solar revolution, because the solar return is specific to the year in question.