Mystical systems
Astrolatry
Direct answer
Astrolatry is the worship of the sun, moon, planets or stars as gods, or as the visible bodies of gods, a practice recorded across the ancient Near East.
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At a glance
- Also called
- star worship, worship of heavenly bodies, worship of sun moon and stars
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Astrotheology, Zodiac, Mazzaroth, Sol Invictus
Astrolatry is the worship of the sun, moon, planets or stars as gods, or as the visible bodies of gods, a practice recorded across the ancient Near East.
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What does astrolatry mean?
The word joins the Greek for star and for worship. It covers rites addressed to the lights of the sky themselves: offerings to the rising sun, incense burned on rooftops to the planets, prayers to the new moon. In Mesopotamia the sun was the god Shamash, the moon was Sin and the planet Venus was Ishtar, and the cuneiform sign for a god was a star.
The Hebrew Bible names the practice in order to forbid it. Deuteronomy 4:19 warns against bowing to the sun, moon and stars, and 2 Kings 23 tells how King Josiah removed the priests who burned incense to them. The Quran likewise says not to bow to the sun or the moon but to the one who made them. Astrolatry is distinct from astrology, which reads the sky for meaning without necessarily worshipping it, and from astrotheology, which is a modern theory that religions began as sky worship.
On the tree of the hidden arts: The sky in the scriptures.
What sets Astrolatry apart
The line the word draws is between honouring a maker and honouring the thing made. Texts that condemn astrolatry seldom deny that the lights are splendid or even that they rule times and seasons; Genesis gives them exactly that office. What they refuse is the bow, the kiss of the hand, the incense. That is why the same tradition could forbid star worship outright and still keep calendars, festivals and imagery drawn from the sky.
- Language: Greek: astron, star, and latreia, worship
- Mesopotamian trio: Shamash the sun, Sin the moon, Ishtar the planet Venus
- Biblical prohibitions: Deuteronomy 4:19 and 17:3; 2 Kings 23:5; Job 31:26 to 28
- Quranic verse: Surah 41:37, bow to neither sun nor moon
- Medieval example: the planet temples of Harran, described by Arabic writers
Often mistaken for something else: Astrotheology is a theory about where religions came from; astrolatry is an observed practice, the actual worship of sun, moon or stars.
The story behind Astrolatry
Star worship is attested in Mesopotamian texts from the third millennium BCE onward. In the Middle Ages Arabic writers described the people of Harran, in what is now south-east Turkey, as keeping temples to the planets under the name Sabians. Maimonides, in the Guide for the Perplexed of about 1190, treated such star worship as the original form of idolatry that biblical law was framed against. The English word astrolatry has been in use since the seventeenth century.
Why Astrolatry matters
Astrolatry names the practice precisely, so that worship of the sky is not confused with reading the sky or with theories about religion's origins.
How to read Astrolatry
Scholars of religion apply it to cults of heavenly bodies, and theologians to the idolatry that scripture forbids.
Astrolatry in practice: an example
Reading that Josiah put down those who burned incense to the sun, moon and constellations, a reader has met astrolatry in the text itself.
Where readings of Astrolatry go wrong
Ancient worshippers often held that a god stood behind the star, so the word can flatten beliefs that were more layered.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- astrolatry meaning, star worship, worship of heavenly bodies, astrolatry vs astrology, worship of sun moon and stars
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
See Astrolatry in your personal almanac
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Common questions
What does astrolatry mean?
It means the worship of heavenly bodies. The word is built from the Greek astron, star, and latreia, worship, in the same way that idolatry is built from the word for image.
What is the difference between astrolatry and astrology?
Astrolatry is worship: prayer, sacrifice or reverence offered to the sun, moon or stars. Astrology is interpretation: reading the positions of those bodies for meaning. A person can practise the second without the first.
Where does the Bible mention star worship?
Deuteronomy 4:19 and 17:3 forbid it, 2 Kings 23:5 describes its removal from Judah under Josiah, and Job 31:26 to 28 counts a kiss of the hand toward the sun or moon as a denial of God.
