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The concept of seven heavens as developed in ancient Mesopotamia where it took on a symbolic or magical meaning as opposed to a literal one. [4] The concept of a seven-tiered was likely In the Sumerian language, the words for heavens (or sky) and Earth are An and Ki. [5]
It is an allegory telling of Dante's journey through Heaven, guided by Beatrice, who symbolises theology. In the poem, Paradise is depicted as a series of concentric spheres surrounding the Earth, consisting of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile and finally, the Empyrean. It was written ...
The ancient astronomy taught that above the seven planetary spheres was an eighth, the sphere of the fixed stars (Clem. Alex. Strom. iv. 25 , xxv. p. 636: see also his quotation, v. 11 , p. 692, of a mention of the fifth heaven in apocryphal writings ascribed to Zephaniah ).
After an initial ascension, Beatrice guides Dante through the nine celestial spheres of Heaven. These are concentric and spherical, as in Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology. While the structures of the Inferno and Purgatorio were based on different classifications of sin, the structure of the Paradiso is based on the four cardinal virtues and ...
Plato and Aristotle taught that the stars were composed of a type of matter different from the four earthly (classical) elements – a fifth, ethereal element or quintessence. In the "astral mysticism" of the classical world the human psyche was composed of the same material, thus accounting for the influence of the stars upon human affairs.
In esoteric cosmology, a plane is conceived as a subtle state, level, or region of reality, each plane corresponding to some type, kind, or category of being.. The concept may be found in religious and esoteric teachings which propound the idea of a whole series of subtle planes or worlds or dimensions which, from a center, interpenetrate themselves and the physical planet in which we live ...
Probably originally referring to the Greek daimons of the planets, in Gnosticism they became the demonic rulers of the material world, each associated with a different celestial sphere. [6] As rulers over the material world, they are called ἄρχοντες ( archontes , "principalities", or "rulers").
The seven heavens and the sublunar spheres, from an engraving of Albertus Magnus' Philosophia naturalis. Plato and Aristotle helped to formulate the original theory of a sublunary sphere in antiquity, [4] [missing long citation] the idea usually going hand in hand with geocentrism and the concept of a spherical Earth.