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" 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. 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.
