"Schneider's glasses"

The greatest swearers ever

There is an explanation for the dark spots on the moon

(Bild: Georg Wastl)

In his latest column, author Robert Schneider reflects the thoughts of the two greatest thinkers of their time. From today's perspective, however, they seem somewhat "muddled".

The spherical, motionless Earth is located at the center of the cosmos. Nine celestial spheres orbit around it at increasing speed: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the fixed stars and the crystal sky, the "primo mobile", which rotates the fastest and is the root of time from which all other celestial spheres derive their motion.

The crystal sky receives its kinetic energy from the spirit of God, the "unmoved mover". The greatest speed borders on timelessness. The greatest expansion borders on spacelessness. The nine celestial spheres find their correspondence in the nine spheres of the angelic choirs. The angelic choirs that are closest to God orbit him the fastest, while the outer celestial spheres orbit faster when viewed from the earth because they are always closer to God.

How can the dark spots on the planets, for example on the moon, be explained? The pure light (God), which pours out from sphere to sphere, mixes with matter, resulting in varying degrees of cloudiness. Similarly, the human soul illuminates the organs of the body with varying degrees of intensity. The soul is more strongly present in the eyes, because the human character can be read less clearly from the feet than from the eyes ...

You're probably thinking: Has the tailor gone completely off the rails? No, I'm just reproducing the thoughts of the two greatest thinkers of their time: Thomas Aquinas and Dante Alighieri. Aquinas was the most important Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church and Dante was Italy's most authoritative poet, whose "Divine Comedy" was regarded as the definitive cosmology for hundreds of years. Today we smile at the intellectual achievement of the time. What a bunch of swashbucklers!