Ocellus Lucanus on the nature of the universe : $b Taurus, the Platonic philosopher, on the eternity of the world. Julius Firmicus Maternus of the thema mundi. Select theorems on the perpetuity of time, by Proclus. — Plato — John Shaqi
Ocellus Lucanus on the nature of the universe : $b Taurus, the Platonic philosopher, on the eternity of the world. Julius Firmicus Maternus of the thema mundi. Select theorems on the perpetuity of time, by Proclus.
Plato · en
If therefore the planets should again meet in the same point of
Cancer, this concurrence will be one period of the universe. If, however,
the apocatastasis takes places in Cancer about the equinoctial point,
that also which is from the summer tropic will be directed towards the
summer tropic, and the number of the one will be equal to the number
of the other, and the time of the one to the time of the other. For
each of them is one period, and is defined by quantity, on account of
the order of the bodies that are moved. In addition, however, to what
has been said, it must be observed, that this perfect number differs
from that mentioned in the Republic, which comprehends the period of
every divinely generated nature[48], since it is more partial, and is
apocatastatic of the eight periods alone. For the other perfect number
comprehends the peculiar motions of the fixed stars, and, in short, of
all the divine genera that are moved in the heavens, whether visibly or
invisibly, and also of the celestial genera posterior to the Gods, and
of the longer or shorter periods of sublunary natures, together with the
periods of fertility and sterility. Hence, likewise, it is the lord of
the period of the human race.”
“The year (says Macrobius) which is called mundane, is _truly_ revolving,
because it is effected by a full convolution of the universe, and is
evolved in the most extended periods of time, the reason of which is
as follows: All the planets and the stars which are seen fixed in the
heavens, the peculiar motion of the latter of which though the human
sight has never been able to perceive or apprehend, are yet moved, and,
besides the revolution of the heavens by which they are always drawn
along, have an advancing motion of their own. This motion, however,
is completed in such a length of time, that the life of man is not
sufficiently extended to discover, by continual observation, their
mutation to the place in which they were first seen. The end, therefore,
of the mundane year is, when all the planets and all the fixed stars have
returned from a certain place to the same place, so that no star in the
heavens may be situated in a place different from that in which it was
before, since all the other stars, when moved from that place to which
they return, give a termination to their year; so that the luminaries
[i. e. the sun and moon] also, together with the five wandering stars,
may be in the same places and parts in which they were situated when
the mundane year began. This, however, according to the decision of
physiologists, will take place at the expiration of 15,000 years; hence,
as the lunar year is a month, and the solar year consists of twelve
months, and the years of the other planets are those which we have before
mentioned, so the mundane year consists of 15,000 of such years as we
now compute. This year, therefore, is called the _truly revolving year_,
which is not measured by the retrogression of the sun, i. e. of one