Timaeus of Locri (ca. 400 B.C.E.)

One of the earliest known writers on the doctrines of magic. He was a Pythagorean philosopher born in Locri, Italy, and lived ca. 420-380 B.C.E. He is credited with the work On the Soul of the Universe, although some historians believe this may be an abridgement of Plato's dialogue of Timaeus.

The Timaean theory of God, the Universe, and the World-soul was thus set forth by A. F. Büsching:

"God shaped the eternal unformed matter by imparting to it His being. The inseparable united itself with the separable; the unvarying with the variable; and, moreover, in the harmonic conditions of the Pythagorean system. To comprehend all things better, infinite space was imagined as divided into three portions, which are—the centre, the circumference, and the intermediate space.

"The centre is most distant from the highest God, who inhabits the circumference; the space between the two contains the celestial spheres. When God descended to impart His being, the emanations from Him penetrated the whole of heaven, and filled the same with imperishable bodies. Its power decreased with the distance from the source, and lost itself gradually in our world in minute portions, over which matter was still dominant.

"From this proceeds the continuous change of being and decay below the moon, where the power of matter predominates; from this, also, arise the circular movements of the heaven and the earth, the various rapidities of the stars, and the peculiar motion of the planets. By the union of God with matter, a third being was created. namely, the world-soul, which vitalizes and regulates all things, and occupies the space between the centre and the circumference."

Plato's Timaeus also tells the legendary story of the lost drowned continent of Atlantis.