In “Astronomy (De astronomia),” found in The Etymologies, III.xxiv, Isidore of Seville wrote:
xxv. The inventors of
astronomy (De inventoribus eius) 1. The Egyptians were the first to
discover astronomy. However, the Chaldeans were the first to teach astrology
(astrologia)and observations concerning nativities. But the author Josephus
asserts that Abraham instructed the Egyptians in astrology. The Greeks say that
this art was earlier conceived by Atlas, and that is why he was said to have
held up the sky. 2. Yet whoever the inventor was, he was stirred by the
movement of the heavens and prompted by the reasoning of his mind, and through
the changing of the seasons, through the fixed and defined courses of the
stars, through the measured expanses of their distances apart, he made
observations of certain dimensions and numbers. By defining and discerning
these things, and weaving them into a system, he invented astrology. (The
Etymologies of Isidore of Seville [trans. Stephen A. Barney, W. J. Lewis,
J. A. Beach, and Oliver Berghof; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006],
99)
