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Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.12:
5. The soul, descending from the place where the zodiac and the Milky Way intersect, is protracted in its downward course from a sphere, which is the only divine form, into a cone, just as a line is sprung from a point and passes from this indivisible state into length; from this point, which is a monad, it here comes into a dyad, which is its first protraction.
6. This is the condition that Plato called “at once indivisible and divisible” when he was speaking in Timaeus about the construction of the World-Soul. Souls, whether of the world or of the individual, will be found to be now unacquainted with division if they are reflecting on the singleness of their divine state, and again susceptible to it when that singleness is being dispersed through the parts of the world or of man. …
13. By the impulse of the first weight of the soul, having started on its downward course from the intersection of the zodiac and the Milky Way to the successive spheres lying beneath, as it passes through these spheres, not only takes on the aforementioned envelopment (obvolutio) in each sphere by approaching a luminous body, but also acquires each of the attributes which it will exercise later.
14. In the sphere of Saturn it obtains reason and understanding, called logistikon and theoretikon; in Jupiter’s sphere, the power to act, called praktikon; in Mars’ sphere, a bold spirit or thymikon; in the sun’s sphere, sense-perception and imagination, aisthetikon and phantastikon; in Venus’ sphere, the impulse of passion, epithymetikon; in Mercury’s sphere, the ability to speak and interpret, hermeneutikon; and in the lunar sphere, the function of molding and increasing bodies, phytikon.
15. This last function, being the farthest removed from the gods, is the first in us and all the earthly creation; inasmuch as our body represents the dregs of what is divine, it is therefore the first substance of the creature.
Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.12
Bibliography
| Stahl 1952, 134-137 | Stahl, William Harris. Macrobius Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. New York: Columbia University Press 1952. |
Links (external links will open in a new browser window)
Cf. Macrobius on the soul’s descent (1)
Amar Annus
URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000799.php
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