time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, older, nor is subject at all to any of those states of generation which attach to the movements of sensible things. These are the forms of time when imitating eternity and moving in a circle measured by number."—J.
Time was thus created with the heavens, in order that if one was destroyed the other might likewise perish. Then the Deity created the moon and stars to move in their appointed orbits—some fixed, some wandering,—but all were bodies with living souls imitating the eternal nature; and he "lighted a fire which we now call the sun," that men might have light, and learn from the regular succession of day and night the use of numbers. "And the month was created when the moon had completed her orbit and overtaken the sun, and the year when the sun had completed his own orbit." Of all these stars, which are really gods, the earth, our nurse, was the first and oldest, and was made to revolve on her own axis in the centre of the spheres.[1]
Then the Creator commanded the other gods, of whose generation we know nothing except from tradition, to finish his good work by weaving together mortal and immortal elements, and forming living creatures. To these he distributed souls equal in number to the stars, assigning to each star a soul; and he showed to each the nature of the universe, and his own decrees of destiny: declaring that whosoever lived a
- ↑ The various revolutions and eclipses of the heavenly bodies, according to this Platonic myth, are much too perplexing to be dealt with here.
