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
planet, but is terminated by the return of all the planets to the same
place, under the same description of the whole heavens; from whence also
it is called mundane, because the world is properly called heaven. Hence,
as we not only denominate the progression of the sun from the kalends of
January to the same kalends, the solar year, but also its progression
from the day after the kalends to the same day, and its return from any
day of any month to the same day, a year; thus, also, the beginning of
this mundane year may be fixed by any one at any time he pleases. Thus,
for instance, Cicero now, from an eclipse of the sun, which happened at
the time of the death of Romulus, supposes the beginning of the mundane
year to commence. And though frequently afterwards an eclipse of the sun
may have happened, yet a repeated eclipse of this luminary is not said to
give completion to the mundane year; but then this completion takes place
when the sun, during its eclipse, will be in the same places and parts,
and likewise all the planets and fixed stars, in which they were at the
time of the death of Romulus. Hence, as physiologists assert, 15,000
years after the death of Romulus the sun will again be so eclipsed,
that it will be in the same sign, and in the same part of the heavens,
as it was at that time; all the stars likewise returning to the same
place.”—_Macrob. in Somn. Scip._ lib. ii.
Hence, as the greater mundane apocatastasis consists of 300,000 years,
and 15,000 years make a mundane year, the greater apocatastasis will
consist of 20,000 mundane years.
This greater apocatastasis is also alluded to by Synesius in his treatise
On Providence, and likewise in the Asclepian Dialogue ascribed to Hermes
Trismegistus. The extract from Synesius, who informs us that his treatise
is an Egyptian narration relative to Osiris and Typhos, is as follows: