Note 43 — MUNDI THEMA, OR THE GENITURE OF THE WORLD. TRANSLATED FROM THE THIRD BOOK OF THE MATHESIS OF JULIUS FIRMICUS MATERNUS.

In the greater apocatastasis of the world, which is effected by a deluge or a conflagration, the continent becomes sea, and the sea continent: “This, however,” says Olympiodorus, (in his Scholia on the first book of Aristotle’s Treatise on Meteors,) “happens in consequence of what is called the great winter, and the great summer. But the great winter is when all the planets become situated in a wintry sign, viz. either in Aquarius or in Pisces. And the great summer is when all of them are situated in a summer sign, viz. either in Leo or in Cancer. For as the Sun alone, when he is in Leo, causes summer, but when he is in Capricorn winter, and thus the year is formed, which is so denominated, because the Sun tends to one and the same point (ενιαυτος), for his restitution is from the same to the same,—in like manner there is an arrangement of all the planets effected in long periods of time, which produces the great year. For if all the planets becoming vertical, heat in the same manner as the sun, but departing from this vertical position refrigerate, it is not unreasonable to suppose, that when they become vertical, they produce a great summer, but when they have departed from this position, a great winter. In the great winter, therefore, the continent becomes sea, but in the great summer the contrary happens, in consequence of the burning heat, and there being great dryness where there was moisture.” At the end too of this first book of Aristotle on Meteors, Olympiodorus observes, “that when the great winter happens, a part of the earth being deluged, a change then takes place to a more dry condition, till the great summer succeeds, which however does not cause the corruption of all the earth. For neither was the deluge of Deucalion mundane, since this happened principally in Greece.” See the volume of my Aristotle containing this Treatise on Meteors, p. 478, &c. Firmicus, therefore, is mistaken in asserting that a deluge follows a conflagration; since the contrary is true. For it is obviously necessary that places which have been inundated should afterwards become dry, or they would no longer be habitable.