The World
idea · 5 works · 6 mentions · 13 anchored passages
also in the atlas: The World the place
the world · the cosmos · the universe · This our world · adornment · al-dunyā · kosmos · sky and earth · the Sum · the present life
in the texts
On the Nature of the Gods
The cosmos as a whole, argued by the Stoics to be a living, rational, wise being and therefore divine.
likewise that what is best in the whole world must reside in something perfect and complete;
Wherefore the world must of necessity be wise, and that nature which embraces and holds all things must excel in perfection of reason;
There is yet a fourth and highest grade, of those who are born by nature good and wise, in whom from the beginning is implanted a right and steadfast reason, which must be reckoned above man and assigned to god, that is, to the world, in which that perfect and absolute reason must of necessity reside.
Adab al-wazīr
Al-dunyā, the present world, treated as inconstant, enchanting and to be renounced in favour of the hereafter.
you have of your world only that with which you set right your abode hereafter.
The world is but a mote of dust — and a loan to be taken back Hardship after ease — and ease after hardship
the world advances as a seeker advances and turns away as a fugitive turns away;
Barlaam and Josaphat
Present worldly life, personified as a deceitful friend who betrays those who trust it.
small and brief is their charm, and not even a charm, but a kind of wandering and deceit of the world's wickedness, which we have been taught not to love at all, but rather to hate from the heart.
For it is an enemy of its friends, and a plotter against all who do its will, and it dashes down terribly those who lean upon it, and unnerves those who trust in it.
Those, then, who serve such a cruel and wicked master, who have in their madness removed themselves from the good and loving God, and stand gaping after present things and cling fast to them, taking no thought at all for the things to come,
De Rerum Natura
The totality of earth, sky, and sea, argued throughout the passage to be a mortal, born, and perishable body like any other compound thing.
Thus the whole nature of the world itself
So all have birth and perishable frame,
That massive form and fabric of the world
Adversus Hermogenem
The ordered universe, whose Greek name 'adornment' is used to argue it cannot mirror unadorned Matter, and whose making is the subject of the creation dispute.
Since among the Greeks the world bears the name of "adornment," how does it present the image of unadorned Matter, so that you may say its whole is recognized from its parts?
But these are his invisible things, which, according to the apostle, from the foundation of the world are perceived through the things he made — not some Matter or other, but his own sensible attributes.
Certainly, if by appearing and approaching Matter God made the world out of it, then he made it from the time he appeared, and from the time he approached.