FOOTNOTES:
[35] Nature may be said to point out the way, because its forerunning energy is employed by Divinity in the formation of bodies. By the fabricator, in the above sentence, Firmicus means Jupiter, who is called the Demiurgus by Plato, in the Timæus.
[36] i. e. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury.
—— Quid mirum noscere mundum
Si possent homines, quibus est et mundus in ipsis;
Exemplumque Dei quisque est in imagine parva?
Manilius.
[38] By the companions of perpetuity, Firmicus means the stars, whose nature, and motions, and influences are perpetual. Hence, in the Orphic Hymn to the Stars, they are invoked as
—— αει γενετηρες απαντων,
“Th’ eternal fathers of whate’er exists.”
[39] Of the astrological Æsculapius, I have not been able to obtain any information; and of Anubius nothing more is to be learnt than that he was a most ancient poet, and wrote an elegy de Horoscopo. Vid. Salmas. de Annis Climactericis, pp. 87, 602, &c.
[40] The feminine signs are, Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricornus, and Pisces; but the masculine signs are, Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius.
[41] It may not be altogether foreign to the purpose to adduce in this place, what is said by Hermes in his Treatise de Revolut. Nativit. lib. i. p. 215. A Latin translation only is extant of this work, and it is uncertain whether the author of it was the celebrated Hermes Trismegistus, or a Hermes of more modern times. This author says, that “the dominion of the planets over the ages of man is as follows: The Moon governs the first age, which consists of four years. Mercury governs the second, which consists of ten years. Venus the third, and this extends to eight years. The Sun the fourth, and this age consists of nineteen years. Mars the fifth, and this consists of fifteen years. Jupiter, the sixth, consists of twelve years: and Saturn governs the seventh age, and this extends to the remaining years of human life.”
Proclus, also, in his admirable Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato, observes, that the different ages of our life on the earth, correspond to the order of the universe. “For our first age (says he) partakes in an eminent degree of the Lunar energies, as we then live according to a nutritive and physical power. But our second age participates of Mercurial prerogatives, because we then apply ourselves to letters, music, and wrestling. The third age is governed by Venus, because then we begin to produce seed, and the generative powers of nature are put in motion. The fourth age is Solar, for then our youth is in its vigour and full perfection, subsisting as a medium between generation and decay; for such is the order which vigour is allotted. But the fifth age is governed by Mars, in which we principally aspire after power and superiority over others. The sixth age is governed by Jupiter, for in this we give ourselves up to prudence, and pursue an active and political life. And the seventh age is Saturnian, in which it is natural to separate ourselves from generation, and transfer ourselves to an incorporeal life. And thus much we have discussed, in order to procure belief that letters, and the whole education of youth, are suspended from the Mercurial series.”
[42] Firmicus calls the geniture of the world a fabulous device, because it supposes the mundane periods to have had a temporal beginning, though they are in reality eternal. For in a fable, the inward is different from the outward meaning.
[43] In the greater apocatastasis of the world, which is effected by a deluge or a conflagration, the continent becomes sea, and the sea continent: “This, however,” says Olympiodorus, (in his Scholia on the first book of Aristotle’s Treatise on Meteors,) “happens in consequence of what is called the great winter, and the great summer. But the great winter is when all the planets become situated in a wintry sign, viz. either in Aquarius or in Pisces. And the great summer is when all of them are situated in a summer sign, viz. either in Leo or in Cancer. For as the Sun alone, when he is in Leo, causes summer, but when he is in Capricorn winter, and thus the year is formed, which is so denominated, because the Sun tends to one and the same point (ενιαυτος), for his restitution is from the same to the same,—in like manner there is an arrangement of all the planets effected in long periods of time, which produces the great year. For if all the planets becoming vertical, heat in the same manner as the sun, but departing from this vertical position refrigerate, it is not unreasonable to suppose, that when they become vertical, they produce a great summer, but when they have departed from this position, a great winter. In the great winter, therefore, the continent becomes sea, but in the great summer the contrary happens, in consequence of the burning heat, and there being great dryness where there was moisture.” At the end too of this first book of Aristotle on Meteors, Olympiodorus observes, “that when the great winter happens, a part of the earth being deluged, a change then takes place to a more dry condition, till the great summer succeeds, which however does not cause the corruption of all the earth. For neither was the deluge of Deucalion mundane, since this happened principally in Greece.” See the volume of my Aristotle containing this Treatise on Meteors, p. 478, &c. Firmicus, therefore, is mistaken in asserting that a deluge follows a conflagration; since the contrary is true. For it is obviously necessary that places which have been inundated should afterwards become dry, or they would no longer be habitable.
[44] In the original, “positæ humanitatis ratio deserebat;” but for positæ humanitatis, it appears to me to be requisite to read, conformably to the above translation, positâ humanitate.
[45] Is not what is here said about the last period verified in the present age?
[46] Man, says Proclus, is a microcosm, and all such things subsist in him partially, as the world contains divinely and totally. For there is an intellect in us which is in energy, and a rational soul proceeding from the same father, and the same vivific goddess, as the soul of the universe; also an ethereal vehicle analogous to the heavens, and a terrestrial body derived from the four elements, and with which likewise it is co-ordinate. See my Translation of Proclus on the Timæus, vol. i, p. 4.