The principal
authors on climacterics are--Plato, Cicero, Macrobius, Aulus Gellius.
Among the ancients--Argal, Magirus, and Solmatheus. Among the
moderns--St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, Beda and Boethius, all countenance
the opinion.
There is a work extant, though rather scarce, by Hevelius, under the
title of _Annus Climactericus_, wherein he describes the loss he
sustained by his observatory, &c. being burnt; which it would appear
happened in his grand climacteric, of which he was extremely
apprehensive.
Astrologers have also brought under their inspection and controul the
days of the year, which they have presumed to divide into _lucky_ and
_unlucky_ days; calling even the sacred scriptures, and the common
belief of christians, in former ages, to their assistance for this
purpose. They pretend that the fourteenth day of the first month was a
blessed day among the Israelites, authorised, as they pretend, by the
several passages out of Exodus, v. 18:--
"In the first _month_, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye
shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day at even," v.
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