(1) Likewise it carried the Eye across. When that was freed from death, it became the sun. That sun, when it has crossed beyond death, glows.

(39) But as soon as the light kindled itself in the heat, so instantly was that hot place caught in the light, and then the body of the sun could grow no bigger. For the light mitigated the heat, and so the body of the sun remained there in the midst or centre as a heart; for the light is the heart of nature, not the heat. But here thou must observe exactly,

(36) But when the light of the sun kindled itself, then the next circle or orb above the sun stood in the fire-crack, (for the sun or the light was shining in the water), and the bitterness ascended also in the fire-crack out of the water. But the light made very great haste after it, and laid hold on the fire-crack; and there it remained as a captive, and became corporeal.

(65) The sun stands in the centre or midst of the deep, and is the light or heart which proceeded out of all stars: For when, in the kingdom of Lucifer, before the creation of the world, the Salitter and Mercurius was thin or dim, and had qualified the one with the other, then God extracted the heart out of all the powers, and made the sun thereof.

(38) Where then the King (viz. the Light of the Sun) is so very joyful in the Spirit, and does so highly triumph, exult, and rejoice, that he moves all the Essences of the Stars, and brings them into their highest Degree, to generate her; where then all Centers of the Stars fly open, and the loving Virgin beholds herself in them. Where then the Essences of the Soul (in the Light of the Virgin) can see in the Centers of the Stars, what is in its Original and Source.

(72) For it is the only and sole natural light of this world, and besides it there is no more any true light in the house of death; and though it seemeth as if the other stars did shine bright and give light also, yet it is not so, but they take all their lustre and shining light from the sun; as hereafter presently followeth. The true Birth or Geniture and Descent of the Sun and Planets is just thus, as followeth.

(135) The light went forth from the innermost birth or geniture, and kindled itself in the outermost. It gave again to the outermost a natural peculiar light of its own.

(8) Now: given a light of this degree, remaining in the upper sphere at its appointed station, pure light in purest place, what mode of outflow from it can be conceived possible?

Such a Kind is not so constituted as to flow downwards of its own accord; and there exists in those regions no power to force it down. Again, body in contact with soul must always be very different from body left to itself; the bodily substance of the heavens has that contact and will show that difference.

Besides, the corporeal substance nearest to the heavens would be air or fire: air has no destructive quality; fire would be powerless there since it could not enter into effective contact: in its very rush it would change before its attack could be felt; and, apart from that, it is of the lesser order, no match for what it would be opposing in those higher regions.

Again, fire acts by imparting heat: now it cannot be the source of heat to what is already hot by nature; and anything it is to destroy must as a first condition be heated by it, must be brought to a pitch of heat fatal to the nature concerned.

In sum, then, no outside body is necessary to the heavens to ensure their permanence- or to produce their circular movement, for it has never been shown that their natural path would be the straight line; on the contrary the heavens, by their nature, will either be motionless or move by circle; all other movement indicates outside compulsion. We cannot think, therefore, that the heavenly bodies stand in need of replenishment; we must not argue from earthly frames to those of the celestial system whose sustaining soul is not the same, whose space is not the same, whose conditions are not those which make restoration necessary in this realm of composite bodies always in flux: we must recognise that the changes that take place in bodies here represent a slipping-away from the being and take place at the dictate of a Principle not dwelling in the higher regions, one not powerful enough to ensure the permanence of the existences in which it is exhibited, one which in its coming into being and in its generative act is but an imitation of an antecedent Kind, and, as we have shown, cannot at every point possess the unchangeable identity of the Intellectual Realm.

(1) Aûharmazd produced illumination between the sky and the earth, the constellation stars and those also not of the constellations, then the moon, and afterwards the sun, as I shall relate.

(22) The Sun is the Goddess in the third Principle; in the created World (understand, in the material Virtue) it went forth out of the Darkness in the Anguish of the Will, in the Way and Manner of the eternal Birth. For when God set the Fiat in the Darkness, then the Darkness received the Will of God, and was impregnated P for the Birth. The Will causes the [sour] Harshness, the Harshness causes the Attracting, and the Stirring of the Attracting to Mobility causes the Bitterness, which is the Woe, and the Woe causes the Anguish, and the Anguish causes the Moving, Breaking, and Rising up. Now the sour Harshness cannot endure the Stirring, and therefore attracts the harder to itself; and the Bitterness or the Attracting will not endure to be stayed, but breaks and stings so very hard in the Attracting, that it stirs up the Heat, wherein the Flash springs up, and the dark [Sourness or] Harshness is affrighted by the Flash, and in the Shriek the Fire kindles, and in the Fire the Light. Now there would be no Light if the Shriek in the Hardness had not been, but there would have remained nothing but Fire; yet the Shriek in the Harshness of the Fire kills the hard Harshness, so that it sinks down as it were to the Ground, and becomes as it were dead and soft; and when the Flash perceives itself in the Harshness, then it is affrighted much more, because it finds the Mother so very mild, and half dead in Weakness; and so in this Shriek its fiery Property becomes white, soft, and mild, and it is the Kindling of the Light, wherein the Fire is changed into a white Clarity, [Glance, Luster, or Brightness.]

(24) And thence a Fiery Whirlwind drawing down the brilliance of the flashing flame, penetrating the abysses of the Universe; for from thence downwards do extend their wondrous rays.

(89) Then the water began to run down into these, till the earth became visible; but that vessel settled on the earth, and the darkness retired and light appeared.

(72) And first there goes forth the great luminary, named the Sun, and his circumference is like the circumference of the heaven, and he is quite filled with illuminating and heating fire.

(39) And it is in the stars, as well as in all ends, corners and places, but not in any place comprehensible or palpable, and it at once filleth or replenisheth all alike. It is also in the body of man, and he that thirsteth after this water, and drinketh thereof, in him the light of life kindleth itself, which is the heart of God; and there [in that place] presently springeth forth the Holy Ghost. Now thou askest, How then do the stars subsist in love and wrath? Answer.

(16) For when the shining light, by reason of the hard, dry and rough matter, became extinguished, then it was together dried up and incorporated in the heat, which is the father of the light. Yet you must understand it thus:

(32) But since the place of the sun (that is, the sun) had in itself (as also had all other places) all qualities according to the right of the Deity, thereupon instantly, in the first kindling, all the qualities went upwards and downwards, and generated themselves according to the eternal, beginningless, infinite law and right.

(4) But what slipped from our view in the midst of our discourse, the Good is Cause of the celestial movements in their commencements and terminations, of their not increasing, not diminishing, and completely changeless, course, and of the noiseless movements, if one may so speak, of the vast celestial transit, and of the astral orders, and the beauties and lights, and stabilities, and the progressive swift motion of certain stars, and of the periodical return of the two luminaries, which the Oracles call "great," from the same to the same quarter, after which our days and nights being marked, and months and years being measured, mark and number and arrange and comprehend the circular movements of time and things temporal. But, what would any one say of the very ray of the sun? For the light is from the Good, and an image of the Goodness, wherefore also the Good is celebrated under the name of Light; as in a portrait the original is manifested. For, as the goodness of the Deity, beyond all, permeates from the highest and most honoured substances even to the lowest, and yet is above all, neither the foremost outstripping its superiority, nor the things below eluding its grasp, but it both enlightens all that are capable, and forms and enlivens, and grasps, and perfects, and is measure of things existing, and age, and number, and order, and grasp, and cause, and end; so, too, the brilliant likeness of the Divine Goodness, this our great sun, wholly bright and ever luminous, as a most distant echo of the Good, both enlightens whatever is capable of participating in it, and possesses the light in the highest degree of purity, unfolding to the visible universe, above and beneath, the splendours of its own rays, and if anything does not participate in them, this is not owing to the inertness or deficiency of its distribution of light, but is owing to the inaptitude for light-reception of the things which do not unfold themselves for the participation of light. No doubt the ray passing over many things in such condition, enlightens the things after them, and there is no visible thing which it does not reach, with the surpassing greatness of its own splendour. Further also, it contributes to the generation of sensible bodies, and moves them to life, and nourishes, and increases, and perfects, and purifies and renews; and the light is both measure and number of hours, days, and all our time. For it is the light itself, even though it was then without form, which the divine Moses declared to have fixed that first Triad of our days. And, just as Goodness turns all things to Itself, and is chief collector of things scattered, as One-springing and One-making Deity, and all things aspire to It, as Source and Bond and End, and it is the Good, as the Oracles say, from Which all things subsisted, and are being brought into being by an all-perfect Cause; and in Which all things consisted, as guarded and governed in an all-controlling route; and to Which all things are turned, as to their own proper end; and to Which all aspire --the intellectual and rational indeed, through knowledge, and the sensible through the senses, and those bereft of sensible perception by the innate movement of the aspiration after life, and those without life, and merely being, by their aptitude for mere substantial participation; after the same method of its illustrious original, the light also collects and turns to itself all things existing--things with sight -- things with motion--things enlightened--things heated--things wholly held together by its brilliant splendours--whence also, Helios, because it makes all things altogether (ἀολλῆ), and collects things scattered. And all creatures, endowed with sensible perceptions, aspire to it, as aspiring either to see, or to be moved and enlightened, and heated, and to be wholly held together by the light. By no means do I affirm, after the statement of antiquity, that as being God and Creator of the universe, the sun, by itself, governs the luminous world, but that the invisible things of God are clearly seen from the foundation of the world, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Deity.

(4) Before the sun rose, damp and muddy was the surface of the earth, before the sun came up; but then the sun rose, and came up like a man. And its heat was unbearable. It showed itself when it was born and remained fixed [in the sky] like a mirror. Certainly it was not the same sun which we see, it is said in their old tales.

(81) When this was done the light in nature was extinguished in the outermost birth or geniture also, and all became very dark, perished and spoiled; the water became very cold and thick, and stayed here and there in the clefts. This is the original of the elementary water on earth.

(4) When the royal body of Lucifer was incorporated or compacted together, in that very hour the light kindled itself also in Lucifer.