"Leonis capite monstratur praesens tempus—quia conditio ejus valida fervensque est."[1]
Philo of Alexandria has a better understanding:
"Tempus ab hominibus pessimis putatur deus volentibus Ens essentiale
abscondere—pravis hominibus tempus putatur causa rerum
mundi, sapientibus vero et optimis non tempus sed Deus."[2][18]
In Firdusi[19] time is often the symbol of fate, the
libido nature of which we have already learned to recognize.
The Hindoo text mentioned above includes still
more—its symbol of the horse contains the whole world;
his kinsman and his cradle is the sea, the mother, similar
to the world soul, the maternal significance of which we
have seen above. Just as Aion represents the libido in
an embrace, that is to say, in the state of death and of
rebirth, so here the cradle of the horse is the sea, i. e.
the libido is in the mother, dying and rising again, like
the symbol of the dying and resurrected Christ, who
hangs like ripe fruit upon the tree of life.
We have already seen that the horse is connected through Ygdrasil with the symbolism of the tree. The horse is also a "tree of death"; thus in the Middle Ages the funeral pyre was called St. Michael's horse, and the neo-Persian word for coffin means "wooden horse."[20] The horse has also the rôle of psycho-pompos; he is the steed to conduct the souls to the other world—horse-*
- ↑ The present time is indicated by the head of the lion—because his condition is strong and impetuous.
- ↑ Time is thought by the wickedest people to be a divinity who deprives willing people of essential being; by good men it is considered to be the Cause of the things of the world, but to the wisest and best it does not seem time, but God.
