Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. III — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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With regard to the nature of these Spheres, Jamblichus shows very clearly that they are not the physical planets, as may be seen from the following passages of his De Mysteriis :
" With regard to partial existences, then, I mean in the case of the soul in partial manifestation,3 we must admit something of the kind we have above. For just such a life as the [human] soul emanated before it entered into a human body, and just such a type as it made ready for itself, just such a body, to use as an instrument, does it have attached to it, and just such a corresponding nature accompanies [this body] and receives the more perfect life the soul pours into it. But with regard to superior existences and those that surround the Source of All as perfect existences, the inferior are set within the superior, bodies in bodiless existences, things made in their makers; and the former are kept in position by the latter enclosing them in a sphere.
" The revolutions of the heavenly Bodies,4' therefore, being from the first set in the celestial revolutions of the sethereal Soul? for ever continue in this relationship; while the Souls of the [invisible] Worlds,6 extending to their [common] Mind, are completely surrounded by it, and from the beginning have their birth in it. And Mind in like manner, both partially and as a whole, is also contained in superior states of existence." l
1 irpbs rb ayfvvnrov. 2 Op. cit., viii. 6.
3 That is, as an individual soul and not as the world-soul.
4 Physical planets. 6 Of all of our visible system ? 6 That is to say, the seven spheres.
And again in another passage Jamblichus writes :
" We say that [the Spiritual Sun and Moon, and the rest] are so far from being contained within their Bodies, that on the contrary, it is they who contain these Bodies of theirs within the Spheres of their own vitality and energy. And so far are they from tending towards their Bodies, that the tendency of these very Bodies is towards their Divine Cause. Moreover, their Bodies do not impede the perfection of their Spiritual and Incorporeal Nature or disturb it by being situated in it." 2
To this we may add what Proclus writes in his
Commentary on the Timceus of Plato :
" Each of the [Seven] Planetary Spheres is a complete World containing a number of divine offspring, which are invisible to us, and over all of these Spheres the Star3 we see is the Kuler. Now Fixed Stars differ from those 4 in the Planetary Spheres in that the former have but one Monad, namely, their system as a whole 5 ; while the latter, namely the invisible globes in each of the Planetary Spheres, which globes have an orbit of their own determined by the revolution of their respective Spheres, have a double Monad — namely, their system as a whole,6 and that dominant characteristic which has been evolved by selection in the several spheres of the system. For since globes are secondary to Fixed Stars they require a double order of govern- 1 Op. dt., i. 8. 2 Ibjd,t i 17>
3 That is, visible planet.
4 That is, perhaps, the invisible globes.
5 Lit. their wholeness.
8 In our case the whole solar system.
p. 301