Such a life as this is the true way to heaven, and to the company of those, who, after having lived on earth and escaped from the body, inhabit the place which you now behold.
XVI.

This was the shining circle, or zone, whose remarkable brightness distinguishes it among the constellations, and which, after the Greeks, you call the Milky Way.
From thence, as I took a view of the universe, everything appeared beautiful and admirable; for there those stars are to be seen that are never visible from our globe, and everything appears of such magnitude as we could not have imagined.

The least of all the stars was that removed farthest from heaven, and situated next to the earth; I mean our moon, which shines with a borrowed light.

Now, the globes of the stars far surpass the magnitude of our earth, which at that distance appeared so exceedingly small that I could not but be sensibly affected on seeing our whole empire no larger than if we touched the earth, as it were, at a single point.
XVII.

And as I continued to observe the earth with great attention, How long, I pray you, said Africanus, will your mind be fixed on that object?
why don't you rather take a view of the magnificent temples among which you have arrived?
The universe is composed of nine circles, or rather spheres, one of which is the heavenly one, and is exterior to all the rest, which it embraces; being itself the Supreme God, and bounding and containing the whole.