Microcosm–macrocosm analogy

[7] However, the terms microcosm and macrocosm refer more specifically to the analogy as it was developed in ancient Greek philosophy and its medieval and early modern descendants.

In contemporary usage, the terms microcosm and macrocosm are also employed to refer to any smaller system that is representative of a larger one, and vice versa.

[14] The analogy was also employed in late antique and early medieval religious literature, such as in the Bundahishn, a Zoroastrian encyclopedic work, and the Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, a Jewish Rabbinical text.

Nevertheless, the microcosm–macrocosm analogy was adopted by a wide variety of medieval thinkers working in different linguistic traditions: the concept of microcosm was known in Arabic as ʿālam ṣaghīr, in Hebrew as olam katan, and in Latin as microcosmus or minor mundus.

Some of the most notable proponents of the concept in this period include Marsilio Ficino (1433 – 1499), Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), Francesco Patrizi (1529–1597), Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), and Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639).

Especially influential concerning the microcosm–macrocosm analogy were the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity, an encyclopedic work written in the 10th century by an anonymous group of Shi'i Muslim philosophers.

In his commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah ("Book of Creation"), Saadia Gaon (882/892–942) put forward a set of analogies between the cosmos, the Tabernacle, and the human being.

[32] Whereas the physiological application of the analogy in the rabbinical work Avot de-Rabbi Natan had still been relatively simple and crude, much more elaborate versions of this application were given by Bahya ibn Paquda and Joseph ibn Tzaddik (in his Sefer ha-Olam ha-Katan, "Book of the Microcosm"), both of whom compared human parts with the heavenly bodies and other parts of the cosmos at large.