Macrobius, who wrote at the beginning of the fifth century and displayed considerable interest in physical questions for a person of those days, reinforces the evidence of Ammianus and of Synesius, although he held no very extreme views. Unless, however, we except his Philonian notion that all knowledge may be derived from a few past writings. For Macrobius affirmed that Virgil contains practically all man needs to know, and that Cicero's brief story of the dream of Scipio was a work second to none and contained the entire substance of philosophy.[1] Macrobius also believed that numbers possess occult power. He dilated at considerable length upon each of those from one to eight, emphasizing their perfection and far-reaching significance. He held the good old Pythagorean and Platonic notions that the world-soul is constructed of number, that the harmony of celestial bodies is ruled by number, and that we derive the numerical values proper to musical consonance from the music of the spheres.[2] He was of the opinion that to the careful investigator dreams and other striking occurrences will reveal an occult meaning.[3] As for astrology, he believed that the stars are signs but not causes of future events, just as birds by their flight or song reveal matters of which they themselves are ignorant.[4] The sun and planets, though in a way divine, are but material bodies, and it is not from them but from the world-soul (pure mind), whence they too come, that the human spirit takes
- ↑ "Universa philosophiae integritas." Commentary on Dream of Scipio, bk, ii, ch. 17. For Macrobius on Virgil see T. R. Glover, Life and Letters in the Fourth Century a. d. (Cambridge, Eng., 1901), p. 181, and Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. i, ch. xvi, sec. 12. Macrobius has been edited in French and Latin by Nisard. Paris, 1883.
- ↑ Commentary, bk. i, chs. 5 and 6; ii, ch. 1 and 2.
- ↑ Ibid., bk. i, ch. 7.
- ↑ Ibid., bk. i, ch. 19.
