Question VIII
What Means Timaeus, When He Says That Souls Are Dispensed Into the Earth, the Moon, and Into Other Instruments of Time? (Timaeus 42D)
1. Does the earth move like the sun, moon, and five planets, which
for their motions he calls organs or instruments of time? Or is the earth fixed to the
axis of the universe; yet no so built as to remain immovable, but to turn and wheel about,
as Aristarchus and Seleucus have shown since; Aristarchus only supposing It, Seleucus
positively asserting it? Theophrastus writes how that Plato, when he grew old, reprented
him that he had placed the earth in the middle of the universe, which was not its place.
2. Or is this contradictory to Plato's opinion elsewhere, and in the
Greek instead of cronou should it be written cronwn, taking the dative case instead of the genitive, so that the
stars will not be said to be instruments, but the bodies of animals? So Aristotle has
defined the soul to be 'the actual being of a natural organic body, having the power of
life' (Aristotle, De Anima II:1). The sense must be this, that souls are dispersed into
meet organical bodies in time. But this is far besides his opinion. For it is not once,
but several times, that he calls the stars the instruments of time; as when he says, the
sun was made, as well as other planets, for the distinction and conservation of the number
of time.
3. It is therefore most proper to understand the earth to be here an
instrument of time; not that the earth is moved, as the stars are; but that, they being
carried about it, it standing still makes sunset and sunrising, bu which the first
measures of time, nights and days, are circumscribed. Wherefore he called it the
infallible guard and artificer of night and day. For the gnomons of dials are instruments
and measures of time, not in being moved with the shadows, but in standing still; they
being like the earth in intercepting the light of the sun when it is down,-- as Empedocles
says that the earth makes night by intercepting light. This therefore may be Plato's
meaning.
4. And so much the rather might we consider whether the sun is not
absurdly and without probability said to be made for the distinction of time, with the
moon and the rest of the planets. For as in other respects the dignity of the sun is
great; so by Plato in his Republic (Republic VI 508-9) the sun is called the king and lord
of the whole sensible nature, as the Chief Good is of the intelligible. For it is said to
be the offspring of the Good, it giving both generation and appearance to things visible;
as it is from God that things intelligible both are and are understood. But that this God,
having such a nature and so great power, should be only an instrument of time, and a sure
measure of the difference that happens among the eight orbs, as they are slow or swift in
motion, seems neither decent nor highly rational. It must therefore be said to such as are
startled at these things, that it is their ignorance to think that time is the measure of
motion in respect of sooner or later, as Aristotle calls it; or quantity in motion, as
Speusippus; or an interval of motion and nothing more, as some of the Stoics define it, by
an accident, not comprehending its essence and power, which Pindar has not ineptly
expressed in these words: Time, who surpasses all in the seats of the blest. Pythagoras
also , when he was asked what time was, answered, it was the soul of this world. For time
is no affection or accident of motion, but the cause, power, and principle of that
symmetry and order that confines all created beings, by which animated nature of the
universe is moved. Or rather, this order and symmetry itself-- so far as it is motion-- is
called time. For this,
Walking
by still silent ways,
Mortal
affairs with justice guides (Euripedes Troad 887)
According to the ancients, the essence of the soul is a number moving itself. Therefore Plato says that time and heaven were coexistent, but that motion was before heaven had being. But time was not. For then there neither was order, nor measure, nor determination; but indefinite motion, as it were, the formless and rude matter of time. …. But when the matter was informed with figures, and motion with circuitions, from that came the world, from this time. Both are representations of God; the world of his essence; time, of his eternity in the form of motion, as the world is God in creation. Therefore they say heaven and motion, being bred together, will perish together, if ever they do perish. For nothing is generated without time, nor is any thing intelligible without eternity; if this is to endure for ever, and that never to die when once bred. Time therefore, having a necessary connection and affinity with heaven, cannot be called simple motion, but (as it were) motion in order having terms and periods; whereof since the sun is perfect, and overseer, to determine, moderate, produce, and observe changes and seasons, which (according to Heraclitus) produces all things, he is coadjutor to the governing and chief God, not in trivial things, but in the greatest and most momentous affairs.