Body of bodies and dimensions

Meaning

Earth is called the body of bodies because the author assigns it the qualities required for independent corporeal subsistence: length, breadth, depth and surface. The list includes surface explicitly and should not be reduced to an unmarked modern three-dimensional formula.

This corporeality makes earth the receiver upon which celestial powers can act, since the argument says that only what has body can undergo action. Nature’s appointed target is not passive in the sense of useless: it is embodied and animated through powers of penetration, heating, purging, separation, vivification, increase, preservation and restoration. These are distinct operations in the text, not a generic modern “energy.” The sole-earth claim belongs to the author’s cosmology rather than a contemporary physical definition.