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Dear David,
it seems to me that your question is fusing two different things into one: the idea of zodiacal world ages on the one hand, and the idea of precession on the other. Campion's negative statement as you are quoting it is denying the significance of precession for traditional astrology, but does not extend this claim to the idear of zodiacal world ages. As regards this latter idea, I can point you to the following:
In ancient Judaism, a twelvefold division of historical time can be found in II Baruch 27 (cf. 53), paralleled also by IV Ezra 14,10-12, yet in neither case ostensibly or likely associated with the zodiac.
The idea of zodiacal ages was rather a Persian development under the influence of Babylonian astronomy. According to Zoroastrian tradition, as attested first by a fragment of Theopompus reported by Plutarch, historical time is completed within a period of 3 x 3000 years. According to later Pahlavi (Middle Persion) compilations of sources of the Sassanid period they are preceded by three prehistoric creational millenia, and all twelve of them presided by the twelve zodiacal constellations and by the seven planets indicated by their zodiacal exaltations (positions of greatest powers). It seems to have been a Sassanid addition to combine the idea of the Zoroastrian Thousands with the cyclical return of planetary conjunctions namely of Jupiter and Saturn. On this apparently partly Iranian, partly Babylonian and partly Sassanid tradition and its impact on later authors see:
- Antonio Panaino, Cosmologies and Astrology, in: Michael Stuasberg / Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevanina (eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism, 2015, chap. 14, pp. 235-257, pp. 238ss.
- David Pingree, Masha'alla's Zoroastrian Historical Astrology, in: Günther Oestmann et al. (eds.), Horoscopes and Public Spheres: Essays on the History of Astrology, Berlin / New York: de Gruyter, 2005, pp. 95-100
- Carsten Colpe, Iranier - Aramäer -- Hebräer - Hellenen: Iranische Religionen und ihre Westbeziehungen, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003 (= Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 154), esp. chap. 24 (Auf der Grenze zwischen zoroastrischer und "westlicher" Weltalterlehre), chap. 25 (Die griechische, die synkretistische und die iranische Lehre von der kosmischen Mischung), chap. 29 (Sethian and Zoroastrian Ages of the World), chap. 30 (Mystische und berechnete, unendliche und astronomische Zeit in mittelpersischer Rezeption)
- Anders Hultgard, Persian Apocalypticism, in: The Encyclopedia of Apocalyticism, vol. I: The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity, ed. John J. Collins, New York: Continuum, 1998, pp. 39-83, p. 47s.
- Antonio Panaino / David Pingree, Saturn, the Lord of the Seventh Millenium, in: East and West 46,3-4 (1996), pp. 235-250
- David Pingree, Classical and Byzantine Astrology in Sassanian Persia, in: Dumbarton Oak Papers 43 (1989), pp. 227-239
- David Pingree, The Thousands of Abu Ma'shar, London: The Warburg Institute, 1968
- David N. MacKenzie, Zoroastrian Astrology in the Bundahisn, in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 27 (1964), pp. 511-529
- David Pingree, Astronomy and Astrology in India and Iran, in: Isis 54,2 (1963), pp. 229-246
- Edward S. Kennedy / Bartel L. van der Waerden, The World-Year of the Persians, in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 83,3 (1963), pp. 315-327
- Bartel L. van der Waerden, Das Große Jahr und die ewige Wiederkehr, in: Hermes 80,2 (1952), pp. 129-156, pp. 145ss.
N. Campion too gave a brief account of this tradition in his book _Astrology and Cosmology in the World's Religions_ (New York / London: New York UP, 2012, p. 182s., pointing out what he regarded as its reverberations "through the apocalyptic upheavals of the Christian world down to the 17th century" and the survival of its "concept of an astrological mechanism for religious development ... in such millenarian beliefs as the coming Age of Aquarius or Maya calendar prophecies" (p. 182). I have not read his later discussion from which you quote his negative statement regarding precession, but I suppose that this statement is not in conflict but rather in tune with his earlier view.
Kind regards, O.
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Otfried Lieberknecht
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