Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​His accepted doctrines were the following. He used to say that the soul is immortal and clothes itself in many bodies, and that it has an arithmetical principle, whereas the body has a geometrical one; and he defined it as the idea of the spirit that is extended everywhere. He also held that it is self-moving and tripartite: for its rational part is settled around the head, the spirited part around the heart, and the appetitive part is situated around the navel and the liver.

​He held that the soul encompasses the body circularly from the center through the whole, and that it is composed of the elements. Having been divided according to harmonic intervals, it forms two joined circles, of which the interior circle, having been cut in six places, forms in all seven circles. And this inner circle moves obliquely to the left on the inside, while the outer one moves along the side to the right. Wherefore also the outer circle, being one, dominates; for the other is divided on the inside. And the one is the circle of the Same, while the others are those of the Different, Plato saying that the motion of the soul is the motion of the universe and the orbits of the planets.

​Since the division from the center is disposed in this way, being fitted to itself at the extremities, the soul both knows existing things and harmonizes them because of its having within itself the elements according to harmony. And opinion comes to be according to the circle of the Different when rightly directed, but knowledge according to that of the Same. He posited two principles of all things, God and matter, God being also called by him intellect and cause. And matter is formless and indefinite, from which compound bodies come to be. Once moving disorderedly, it was gathered into one place by God, who judged order to be better than disorder.

​This substance was turned into the four elements: fire, water, air, and earth; from which both the cosmos itself and the things within it are generated. He says that earth alone is immutable, considering the difference in the shapes of which it is composed to be the cause. For he says that the shapes of the others are homogeneous—since all are composed of a single scalene triangle—whereas the shape of earth is peculiar: for the element of fire is the pyramid, of air the octahedron, of water the icosahedron, and of earth the cube. Whence earth neither transforms into these, nor these into earth.

​The elements are not separated into their own distinct regions, because the circular revolution, by compressing and drawing them together toward the center, combines the small parts and separates the large ones. Therefore, changing their forms, they also change their locations. The cosmos is one and generated, since it is also sensible and constructed by God; and it is ensouled because the ensouled is superior to the soulless, and this work is subject to the best cause. It was constructed as one and not indefinite, because the paradigm after which he fashioned it was also one; and it is spherical because the one that generated it also has such a form.

​For the latter contains the other living beings, while the former contains the shapes of all things. It is smooth and has no organs around it because there is no use for them. Moreover, the cosmos remains imperishable because it is not dissolved back into God. And God is the cause of all generation, because the good is by nature beneficent. And he is the cause of the generation of the heaven; for of the fairest among generated things, the best among intelligible things is the cause. So that, since God is of such a nature, and the heaven, being the fairest, is like the best, it would be like none of the generated things, but only like God.