Medieval scholastics like Thomas Aquinas-who charted the division between celestial and sublunary spheres in his work " Summa Theologica "-also drew on Cicero and Lucan for an awareness of the great frontier between Nature and Sky, sublunary and aetheric spheres.
22.
The two-sphere model is a geocentric model that divides the cosmos into two regions, a spherical Earth, central and motionless ( the sublunary sphere ) and a spherical heavenly realm centered on the Earth, which may contain multiple rotating spheres made of aether.
23.
For the cosmos'sublunary part ( the region below the moon ), the natural tendency is to move in a straight line : downward for earthen things ( such as rocks ) and water; upward for air and fiery things ( such as sparks ).
24.
As air remained on Earth, however, and did not escape Earth while eventually achieving infinite speed an absurdity Aristotle inferred that the universe is finite in size and contains an invisible substance that held planet Earth and its atmosphere, the sublunary sphere, centered in the universe.
25.
The world-view asserted in the work is essentially Prime Mover : But as Maimonides recognizes the authority of Aristotle in all matters concerning the sublunary world, he proceeds to show that the Biblical account of the creation of the nether world is in perfect accord with Aristotelian views.
26.
In the history of Iskender, or Alexander, we watch the noble human soul in its struggles against the powers of this world, and, when aided by God and guided by the heavenly wisdom of righteous teachers, its ultimate victory over every earthly passion, and its attainment of that point of divine serenity whence it can look calmly down on all sublunary things.
27.
It was in September, A . D . 1811, that tired of the vain, thoughtless life I had led, sick of the world, disappointed in all my hopes of sublunary bliss, I drew up a resolution in my mind to commence a religious life-to become a religious person . . . . Neither fears of hell, nor desires for Heaven influenced the motion.
28.
Not quite radical, Copernicus merely sought to simplify astronomy and achieve orbits of more perfect circles, stated by Aristotelian physics to be the intrinsic motion of Aristotle's fifth element the quintessence or universal essence known in Greek as " aither " for the English " pure air " that was the pure substance beyond the sublunary sphere, and thus was celestial entities'pure composition.
29.
In view of the fact that such a complete segregation of the elemental masses is avoided through the constant excitation caused by the celestial motions, producing heat in the sublunary domain, especially around the regions of the Sun, Aristotle will be entitled to assert that the cause of the human being is in the first instance his or her father, but is at the same time the Sun as it moves along its annual ecliptic path.
30.
The panel above the coffin is inscribed : " This plain sarcophagus, ( once dignified as having contained the remains of Joan, daughter of King John, and consort of Llewelyn ap Iowerth, Prince of North Wales, who died in the year 1237 ), having been conveyed from the Friary of Llanfaes, and alas, used for many years as a horsewatering trough, was rescued from such an indignity and placed here for preservation as well as to excite serious meditation on the transitory nature of all sublunary distinctions.
