Nous Book Of Memory Chapter 1 Summary

In Chapter 10, Nous instructs Nature, Urania and Physis on what is to be the nature of Man. This creation of man marks the culmination of the creation of the cosmos. Man, according to Nous, is to be made in the image of the divine and thus will have a variation of Nous’s wisdom. He will be a composition of both the finite and the infinite. His mind will allow him to participate in the divine; however, since his body is made up of the elements his body will be finite. Because, mind and body are of duelling natures they will need an intermediary to bind them together. This intermediary will be the soul. Nous says that man has to live according to his two natures which we are to infer are divine and human. This is a parallel to the Jesus story
The writing of the book of memory is not lettered but is written in “signs and symbols”. Additionally, its contents are concise. The contents of the Book of Memory are akin to an ekphrasis. Just as an ekphrasis points to artwork without being the artwork itself, the book points to knowledge without being the knowledge itself. The Book of Memory is reminiscent of Plato’s theory of the forms being learned and committed to memory by the souls while they are in the divine spheres. Once they are placed in bodies, they must then recall from their memory that which they once knew and memorised. It also is a reference to the things that man can learn about destiny and providence from
She is deeply unhappy because the elements she must combine are warring with each other and thus are unwilling to be combined. There were still trace elements of the unordered Silva remaining in the elements. It is important to note that while both Nous and Physis deal with Silva, Physis’s task is different from Nous’s, in that objects of her creation are finite and in a constant state of becoming while the macro cosmos was infinite. Ultimately, man will be created with lesser versions of the same elements, which constitute the divine bodies above the