Part 16 (2/2)

THEO. By what arguments then can it be proved there are ten spheres?

MYST. The ancients knew well that there were the seven spheres of the planets, and an eighth sphere of the fixed stars which, down to the time of Eudoxus and Meto, they thought had but one simple movement.

These men were the first who perceived by observation that the fixed stars were carried backward quite contrary to the movement of the Primum Mobile. After them came Timochares, Hipparchus, and Menelaus, and later Ptolemy, who confirmed these observations perceiving that the fixed stars (which people had hitherto thought were fixed in their places) had been separated from their station. For this reason they thought best to add a ninth sphere to the eight inferior ones. Much later an Arabian and a Spanish king, Mensor and Alphonse, great students of the celestial sciences, in their observations noticed that the eighth sphere with the seven following moved in turning from the north to the east, then towards the south, and so to the west, finally returning to the north, and that such a movement was completed in 7000 years. This Johannus Regiomonta.n.u.s, a Franconian, has proved, with a skill hitherto equalled only by that of those who proved the ninth sphere, which travels from west to east. From this it is necessarily concluded that there are ten spheres.

THEO. Why so?

MYST. Because every natural body[455] has but one movement which is its own by nature; all others are either voluntary or through violence, contrary to the nature of a mobile object; for just as a stone cannot of its own impulse ascend and descend, so one and the same sphere cannot of itself turn from the east to the west and from the west to the east and still less from the north to the south and south to north.

[Footnote 455: Aristotle: Metaph. II and XII and de Coelo I.]

THEO. What then?

MYST. It follows from this that the extremely rapid movement by which all the spheres are revolved in twenty-four hours, belongs to the Primum Mobile, which we call the tenth sphere, and which carries with it all the nine lesser spheres; that the second or planetary movement, that is, from west to east, is communicated to the lesser spheres and belongs to the ninth sphere; that the third movement, resembling a person staggering, belongs to the eighth sphere with which it affects the other lesser spheres and makes them stagger in a measure outside of the poles, axes and centres of the greater spheres.

_Section 10_: On the position of the universe according to its divisions.

THEO. Does it not also concern Physics to discuss those things that lie outside the universe?

MYST. If there were any natural body beyond the heavens, most a.s.suredly it would concern Physics, that is, the observer and student of nature. But in the book of Origins,[456] the Master workman is said to have separated the waters and placed the firmament in between them.

The Hebrew philosophers declare that the crystalline sphere which Ezekiel[457] called the great crystal and upon which he saw G.o.d seated, as he wrote, is as far beyond the farthermost heaven as our ocean is far from that heaven, and that this...o...b..is motionless and therefore is called G.o.d's throne. For ”seat” implies quiet and tranquility which could be proper for none other than the one immobile and immutable G.o.d. This is far more probable and likely than Aristotle's absurd idea, unworthy the name of a philosopher, by which he placed the eternal G.o.d in a moving heaven as if He were its source of motion and in such fas.h.i.+on that He was constrained of necessity to move it. We have already refuted this idea. It has also been shown that these celestial waters full of fertility and productiveness sometimes are spread abroad more widely and sometimes less so, as though obviously restrained, whence the heavens are said to be closed[458] and roofed[459] with clouds or that floods burst forth out of the heaven to inundate the earth. Finally we read in the Holy Scriptures that the eternal G.o.d is seated upon the flood.

[Footnote 456: Gen.: 1.]

[Footnote 457: Chap. 1 and 10. Exod.: 24.]

[Footnote 458: I Kings: 8. Deut.: 28.]

[Footnote 459: Psalm 146.]

THEO. Why then are not eleven spheres counted?

MYST. Because the crystalline sphere is said to have been separated from the inferior waters by the firmament, and it therefore cannot be called a heaven. Furthermore motion is proper to all the heavens, but the crystalline one is stationary. That is why Rabi Akiba called[460]

it a marble counterpart of the universe. This also is signified in the construction of the altar which was covered with a pavilion in addition to its ten curtains for, as it is stated elsewhere,[461] G.o.d covers the heavens with clouds, and the Scriptures often make mention of the waters beyond the heavens.[462] There are those, however, who teach that the Hebrew word _Scamajim_ may be applied only to a dual number, so that they take it to mean the crystalline sphere and the starry one. But I think those words in Solomon's speech[463] ”the heaven of heaven, and the heavens of the heavens” refer in the singular to the crystalline sphere, in the plural to the ten lesser spheres.

[Footnote 460: According to Maymon: Perplexorum, III.]

[Footnote 461: Psalm 147.]

[Footnote 462: Psalm 148. Gen. 1 and 7.]

[Footnote 463: Also in Psalm 67 and 123.]

THEO. It does not seem so marvelous to me that an aqueous or crystalline sphere exists beyond the ten spheres, as that it is as far beyond the furthermost sphere as the ocean is far this side of it, that is, as astrologists teach, 1040 terrestrial diameters.

MYST. It is written most plainly that the firmament holds the middle place between the two waters. Therefore G.o.d is called[464] in Hebrew _Helion_, the Sun, that is, the Most High, and under His feet the heaven is spread like a crystal,[465] although He is neither excluded nor included in any part of the universe, it is however consistent with His Majesty to be above all the spheres and to fill heaven and earth with His infinite power as Isaiah[466] indicated when he writes: ”His train filled the temple;” it is the purest and simplest act, the others are brought about by forces and powers. He alone is incorporeal, others are corporeal or joined to bodies. He alone is eternal, others according to their nature are transitory and fleeting unless they are strengthened by the Creator's might; wherefore the Chaldean interpreter is seen everywhere to have used the words, Majesty, Glory or Power in place of the presence of G.o.d.

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