Ptolemy in Awe of the Universe

I have also enjoyed reading people's posts on the sky, and it seems to me that a common theme in many of these posts is a certain experience of awe that comes from looking up into the night sky.  In light of this, I felt that it was interesting that Ptolemy, despite having constructed a complex, comprehensive framework for understanding the immediate universe, seems to acknowledge that he is also in awe of the universe.  At the outset of his Almagest, he speaks of the mysterious quality of the "highest reaches of the universe" and notes their intimate relation to the divine:  "Now the first cause of the motion of the universe, if one considers it simply, can be thought of as an invisible and motionless deity; the division of theoretical philosophy concerned with investigating this can be called 'theology', since this kind of activity, somewhere up in the highest reaches of the universe, can only be imagined, and is completely separated from perceptible reality" (Crowe 50-51).  

I think it would be fair to say that despite our awareness of numerous advances with regard to knowledge of the universe, none of us would disagree with Ptolemy as he describes the universe as distinct from imaginable, "perceptible reality."