ON THE UNIVERSE.

For the machinery of the heavens was not immediately twisted into this motion when it arose, but it infused its properties into the individual parts of the earth, which it would eventually bring to life. The Moon, however, in opposition in the seventh sign, was at the setting. Thus, with the Genii or Angels confirmed on earth, the property of the regions of the world was created. Hence it happens that, although the same heaven always acts with the same influx and light, it nevertheless leaves and preserves the places of the world similar to itself in their dissimilarity, so much so that even if the condition of their homeland displeases men, it is never changed. Because Aristotle did not want to admit the creation of the world with his teacher, he could not see this station of the heaven, which is otherwise necessary. For between the beginning and the first day, God slowly created matter from nothing into Heaven and Earth. By reason of the motion of the prime mover, the rising and setting of the signs and stars occurs. But by reason of the sun overshadowing all bodies with its own light, there also occurs a rising, when it leaves the stars it was covering outside the power of its rays, and a Heliacal setting occurs when it obliterates the lesser with its greater rays. Since, therefore, we have established the heaven at its beginning by marking three fixed meridians—one over Cabala, another over the eastern part of Babylonian Syria, and the third at the end of the earth (for every point of longitude differing from another has a different meridian, which can also be called by the name of Noon and Setting)—it is necessary to establish on earth also individual kingdoms or seats for each of the twelve signs, for the sake of ruling the whole world. Of these seats, the first, because of divine election and the favor of the first sign, must be placed in holy Syria at Jerusalem, and the second in Gaul at Rome, placed in its rights by Janus, the parent of the world. Thus God and human reason have decreed the heaven.