Timaeus
rectangular figure from corner to corner) to the left. And he
gave dominion to the motion of the same and like, for that he
left single and undivided; but the inner motion he divided in six
places and made seven unequal circles having their intervals in
ratios of two and three, three of each, and bade the orbits
proceed in a direction opposite to one another; and three (Sun,
Mercury, Venus) he made to move with equal swiftness, and the
remaining four (Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter) to move with unequal
swiftness to the three and to one another, but in due proportion.
Now when the Creator had framed the soul according to his will,
he formed within her the corporeal universe, and brought the two
together, and united them centre to centre. The soul, interfused
everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven, of
which also she is the external envelopment, herself turning in
herself, began a divine beginning of never-ceasing and rational
life enduring throughout all time. The body of heaven is visible,
but the soul is invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony,
and being made by the best of intellectual and everlasting
natures, is the best of things created. And because she is
composed of the same and of the other and of the essence, these
three, and is divided and united in due proportion, and in her
revolutions returns upon herself, the soul, when touching
anything which has essence, whether dispersed in parts or
undivided, is stirred through all her powers, to declare the
sameness or difference of that thing and some other; and to what
individuals are related, and by what affected, and in what way
and how and when, both in the world of generation and in the
world of immutable being. And when reason, which works with equal
truth, whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of the
same—in voiceless silence holding her onward course in the sphere
of the self-moved—when reason, I say, is hovering around the
sensible world and when the circle of the diverse also moving
truly imparts the intimations of sense to the whole soul, then
arise opinions and beliefs sure and certain. But when reason is
concerned with the rational, and the circle of the same moving
smoothly declares it, then intelligence and knowledge are
necessarily perfected. And if any one affirms that in which these
two are found to be other than the soul, he will say the very
opposite of the truth.
When the father and creator saw the creature which he had made
moving and living, the created image of the eternal gods, he
rejoiced, and in his joy determined to make the copy still more
like the original; and as this was eternal, he sought to make the
universe eternal, so far as might be. Now the nature of the ideal
being was everlasting, but to bestow this attribute in its
fulness upon a creature was impossible. Wherefore he resolved to
have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the
heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according to
number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we
call time. For there were no days and nights and months and years
before the heaven was created, but when he constructed the heaven
he created them also. They are all parts of time, and the past
and future are created species of time, which we unconsciously
but wrongly transfer to the eternal essence; for we say that he
‘was,’ he ‘is,’ he ‘will be,’ but the truth is that ‘is’ alone is
properly attributed to him, and that ‘was’ and ‘will be’ are only
to be spoken of becoming in time, for they are motions, but that
which is immovably the same cannot become older or younger by
time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, older or
younger, nor is subject at all to any of those states which
affect moving and sensible things and of which generation is the
cause. These are the forms of time, which imitates eternity and
revolves according to a law of number. Moreover, when we say that
what has become IS become and what becomes IS becoming, and that
what will become IS about to become and that the non-existent IS
non-existent—all these are inaccurate modes of expression
(compare Parmen.). But perhaps this whole subject will be more
suitably discussed on some other occasion.
Time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in
order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be
a dissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. It was
framed after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might
resemble this as far as was possible; for the pattern exists from
eternity, and the created heaven has been, and is, and will be,
in all time. Such was the mind and thought of God in the creation
of time. The sun and moon and five other stars, which are called
the planets, were created by him in order to distinguish and
preserve the numbers of time; and when he had made their several
bodies, he placed them in the orbits in which the circle of the
other was revolving,—in seven orbits seven stars. First, there
was the moon in the orbit nearest the earth, and next the sun, in
the second orbit above the earth; then came the morning star and
the star sacred to Hermes, moving in orbits which have an equal
swiftness with the sun, but in an opposite direction; and this is
the reason why the sun and Hermes and Lucifer overtake and are
overtaken by each other. To enumerate the places which he
assigned to the other stars, and to give all the reasons why he
assigned them, although a secondary matter, would give more
trouble than the primary. These things at some future time, when
we are at leisure, may have the consideration which they deserve,
but not at present.
Now, when all the stars which were necessary to the creation of
time had attained a motion suitable to them, and had become
living creatures having bodies fastened by vital chains, and
learnt their appointed task, moving in the motion of the diverse,
which is diagonal, and passes through and is governed by the
motion of the same, they revolved, some in a larger and some in a
lesser orbit—those which had the lesser orbit revolving faster,
and those which had the larger more slowly. Now by reason of the
motion of the same, those which revolved fastest appeared to be
overtaken by those which moved slower although they really
overtook them; for the motion of the same made them all turn in a
spiral, and, because some went one way and some another, that
which receded most slowly from the sphere of the same, which was
the swiftest, appeared to follow it most nearly. That there might
be some visible measure of their relative swiftness and slowness
as they proceeded in their eight courses, God lighted a fire,
which we now call the sun, in the second from the earth of these
orbits, that it might give light to the whole of heaven, and that
the animals, as many as nature intended, might participate in
number, learning arithmetic from the revolution of the same and
the like. Thus then, and for this reason the night and the day
were created, being the period of the one most intelligent
revolution. And the month is accomplished when the moon has
completed her orbit and overtaken the sun, and the year when the
sun has completed his own orbit. Mankind, with hardly an
exception, have not remarked the periods of the other stars, and
they have no name for them, and do not measure them against one
another by the help of number, and hence they can scarcely be
said to know that their wanderings, being infinite in number and
admirable for their variety, make up time. And yet there is no
difficulty in seeing that the perfect number of time fulfils the
perfect year when all the eight revolutions, having their
relative degrees of swiftness, are accomplished together and
attain their completion at the same time, measured by the
rotation of the same and equally moving. After this manner, and
for these reasons, came into being such of the stars as in their
heavenly progress received reversals of motion, to the end that
the created heaven might imitate the eternal nature, and be as
like as possible to the perfect and intelligible animal.
Thus far and until the birth of time the created universe was
made in the likeness of the original, but inasmuch as all animals
were not yet comprehended therein, it was still unlike. What
remained, the creator then proceeded to fashion after the nature
of the pattern. Now as in the ideal animal the mind perceives
ideas or species of a certain nature and number, he thought that
this created animal ought to have species of a like nature and
number. There are four such; one of them is the heavenly race of
the gods; another, the race of birds whose way is in the air; the
third, the watery species; and the fourth, the pedestrian and
land creatures. Of the heavenly and divine, he created the
greater part out of fire, that they might be the brightest of all
things and fairest to behold, and he fashioned them after the
likeness of the universe in the figure of a circle, and made them
follow the intelligent motion of the supreme, distributing them
over the whole circumference of heaven, which was to be a true
cosmos or glorious world spangled with them all over. And he gave
to each of them two movements: the first, a movement on the same
spot after the same manner, whereby they ever continue to think
consistently the same thoughts about the same things; the second,
a forward movement, in which they are controlled by the
revolution of the same and the like; but by the other five
motions they were unaffected, in order that each of them might
attain the highest perfection. And for this reason the fixed
stars were created, to be divine and eternal animals,
ever-abiding and revolving after the same manner and on the same
spot; and the other stars which reverse their motion and are
subject to deviations of this kind, were created in the manner
already described. The earth, which is our nurse, clinging (or
‘circling’) around the pole which is extended through the
universe, he framed to be the guardian and artificer of night and
day, first and eldest of gods that are in the interior of heaven.
Vain would be the attempt to tell all the figures of them
circling as in dance, and their juxtapositions, and the return of
them in their revolutions upon themselves, and their
approximations, and to say which of these deities in their
conjunctions meet, and which of them are in opposition, and in
what order they get behind and before one another, and when they
are severally eclipsed to our sight and again reappear, sending
terrors and intimations of the future to those who cannot
calculate their movements—to attempt to tell of all this without
a visible representation of the heavenly system would be labour