Proclus: On the Sphere; Cleomedes: On the World; Aratus: Phenomena

to these, other small books on the same subject. And rightly so. I call them authors of mundana sapientia worldly wisdom—not by that term hateful to pious ears, by which the children of this age are noted, whom CHRIST our Lord calls wiser than the children of light, whose wisdom (the Apostle being witness) is mere foolishness before GOD—but rather as those who, having examined with mature observation the nature, parts, motion, and other qualities of this admirable workmanship, which consists of heaven and earth (which Pliny says the Greeks call kosmos order/world because of its adornment and beauty, and the Latins call mundus world), have transmitted knowledge of it to posterity. Regarding this, PLATO, wishing to commend it to us, says: "For it seems clear to me that it forces the soul to look upwards, and leads it from these things here to those things there." original: "παντὶ γὰρ, inquit, μοὶ δοκεῖ δῆλον, ὅτι αὐτή γε ἀναγκάζει ψυχὴν εἰς τὸ ἄνω ὁρᾶν, ϗ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε ἄγει."