Part of Father

Definition

The Part of Father is one of the Arabic Parts — calculated points, also called Lots — that classical and medieval astrologers used to look closely at the father and paternal matters. The Dorothean version, in Carmen Astrologicum I.14, builds the Lot from the Sun, Saturn, and the Ascendant: Asc + Saturn − Sun by day, with the order reversed by night, following the standard day/night convention. The topic it covers is the father's condition, vitality, and length of life; the relationship with him; and inheritance from the paternal side.

In Tradition

In medieval Arabic-Persian and Latin practice the Part of Father is a precision-significator: it sharpens the broader reading you already get from the 4th house and the Sun. Bonatti and the Sahl-Masha'allah chain of sources treat it as one of the topic-specific family Lots a practitioner turns to after the general parental reading. The day/night reversal is applied because Saturn is the day-sect significator of fathers and the Sun is the day luminary — flipping the Lot by night keeps that sect-light alignment intact.

In Practice

You compute the Lot by formula — Asc + Saturn − Sun by day, Asc + Sun − Saturn by night — then find its sign, house, and ruling planet. That ruler's essential and accidental dignity (its inborn strength and its strength of placement) is read for the father's condition; the house of the Lot shows the life-context where paternal themes surface; aspects from benefics suggest paternal support, aspects from malefics suggest hardship or early loss. In timing work the Lot is moved by primary direction, or checked at solar-return ingresses, to find the years when paternal themes come alive. As with all Arabic Parts, the sources hold competing formulas, so traditional practice usually tests several paternal-topic Lots — length of life, inheritance, paternal grandfather — side by side rather than picking one canonical version.

Historical Origin

The Part of Father is recorded in Dorotheus of Sidon's Carmen Astrologicum I.14 (1st century CE), carried through the Arabic transmission by 'Umar al-Tabari's Three Books on Nativities and Abu Ma'shar's Great Introduction to Astrology, set out formally in Bonatti's Liber Astronomiae (c. 1277, Tractate II Pars II Nativities), and entered the medieval Latin tradition through the per-Part formula catalogues William Lilly preserved in Christian Astrology (1647).

Further Reading