(49) For the human flesh is and resembleth nature in the body of God, which is generated from the other six qualifying or fountain spirits, wherein the qualifying or fountain spirits generate themselves again, and shew forth themselves infinitely, wherein forms and images rise up, and wherein the heart of God, or the holy clear Deity in the middle or central seat, generateth itself above nature, in that centre wherein the light of life riseth up.

(9) Further also, the most conspicuous fact of all theology--the God-formation of Jesus amongst us--is both unutterable by every expression and unknown to every mind, even to the very foremost of the most reverend angels. The fact indeed that. He took substance as man, we have received as a mystery, but we do not know in what manner, from virginal bloods, by a different law, beyond nature, He was formed, and how, with dry feet, having a bodily bulk and weight of matter, He marched upon the liquid and unstable substance; and so, with regard to all the other features of the super-physical physiology of Jesus. Now, we have elsewhere sufficiently spoken of these things, and they have been celebrated by our illustrious leader, in his Theological Elements, in a manner far beyond natural ability--things which that illustrious man acquired, either from the sacred theologians, or comprehended from the scientific, search of the Oracles, from manifold struggles and investigations respecting the same, or was instructed from a sort of more Divine Inspiration, not only having learnt, but having felt the pangs of things Divine, and from his sympathy with them, if I may so speak, having been perfected to their untaught and mystic union and acceptance. And that we may display, in fewest words, the many and blessed visions of his most excellent intelligence, the following are the things he says, concerning the Lord Jesus, in the Theological Elements compiled by him.

(6) And yet some one might say the seal is not whole and the same in the images throughout. But of this the seal is not the cause, for it imparts itself all and the same to each; but the difference of the recipients makes the figures dissimilar, since the archetype is one and complete and the same. For instance, if the wax were soft and impressionable, and smooth and unstamped, and neither unimpressionable and hard, nor running and dissolving, it will have the figure clear and sharp and fixed. But if it should lack any of the aforesaid aptitudes, this will be the cause of the non-participative and un-figured and indistinct, and whatever else arises from inaptitude for reception. Further, there is a distinction from the goodly work of God towards us, in that the superessential Word was invested with being amongst us--from us--wholly and truly, and did and suffered whatever things are choice and pre-eminent in His human work of God. For in these, the Father and the Spirit in no respect communicated, except perhaps, one might say, as regards the benign and philanthropic purpose, and as regards all the pre-eminent and unutterable work of God which the unchangeable, qua God and Word of God, did when He had been born amongst us. Thus we, too, strive to unite and distinguish in the Word the things Divine, as the things Divine themselves, are united and distinguished.

(11) If, then, abstracting all that belongs to bodies and things called incorporeal, we cast ourselves into the greatness of Christ, and thence advance into immensity by holiness, we may reach somehow to the conception of the Almighty, knowing not what He is, but what He is not. And form and motion, or standing, or a throne, or place, or right hand or left, are not at all to be conceived as belonging to the Father of the universe, although it is so written.

(50) But now in man's body, in the government or dominion of the birth or geniture, there are three several things, each of them being distinct, and yet they are not divided asunder one from another; but all three together are one only man, after the kind and manner of the Ternary or Trinity in the divine being [or essence].

(25) And though those imagings were transitory, seeing they were not pure before God, yet God would, at the end of this time, extract and draw forth the heart and the kernel out of the new birth or geniture, and separate it from death and wrath; and the new birth should eternally spring up in God, without, distinct from this place, and bear heavenly fruits again.

(29) Now as man in his outward being is corrupted, and as to his fleshly birth or geniture is in the wrath of God, and is moreover also an enemy of God, and yet is but one man, and not two; and on the other hand, in his spiritual birth or geniture he is a child and heir of God, who ruleth and liveth with God, and qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth with the innermost birth or geniture of God; thus also is the place of this world come to be.

(5) But the different, since Almighty God is present to all providentially, and becomes all in all, for the sake of the preservation of all, resting upon Himself, and His own identity within Himself, standing, as beseems an energy, one and ceaseless, and imparting Himself with an unbending power, for deification of those turned to Him. And we must suppose that the difference of the manifold shapes of Almighty God, during the multiform visions, signifies that certain things are different from the phenomena under which they appear. For, as when language depicts the soul itself, under a bodily form, and fashions bodily members around the memberless, we think differently of the members attributed to it, as befits the soul's memberless condition; and we call the mind head, and opinion neck,--as intermediate between rational and irrational--and anger, breast; and lust, belly; and the constitution, legs and feet; using the names of the members as symbols of the powers. Much more then, as respects Him, Who is beyond all, is it necessary to make clear the difference of forms and shapes by reverent and God-becoming, and mystic explanations. And if you wish to apply the threefold shapes of bodies to the impalpable and shapeless God, you must say, that the Progression of Almighty God, which spreads out to all things, is a Divine extension; and length, the power extending itself over the whole; and depth, the hiddenness and imperception incomprehensible to all creatures. But, that we may not forget ourselves, in our explanation, of the different shapes and forms, by confounding the incorporeal Divine Names with those given through symbols of objects of sense, we have for this reason spoken concerning these things in the Symbolic Theology. But now, let us suppose the Divine difference, as really not a sort of change from the super-immovable identity, but as the single multiplication of itself, and the uniform progressions of its fecundity to all.

(45) But that there are so many formings, figurings or framings in him, is caused by his eternal birth or geniture, which first is threefold, and out of or from that Trinity or Ternary it generateth itself infinitely, immeasurably or inconceiveably.

(139) For the outermost birth is nature, and that ought not to reach back into the heart of God, neither can it, but it is the body, in which the qualifying or fountain spirits generate themselves, and shew forth and manifest their birth or geniture by their fruits.

(11) Now all that is engendered is imperfect, it is divisible, to increase subject and to decrease; but with the Perfect [One] none of these things doth hold. Now that which is increasable increases from the Oneness, but succumbs through its own feebleness when it no longer can contain the One. And now, O Tat, God's Image hath been sketched for thee, as far as it can be; and if thou wilt attentively dwell on it and observe it with thine heart's eyes, believe me, son, thou'lt find the Path that leads above; nay, that Image shall become thy Guide itself, because the Sight [Divine] hath this peculiar [charm], it holdeth fast and draweth unto it those who succeed in opening their eyes, just as, they say, the magnet [draweth] iron.

(2) Ensample hereof may be seen by the ascension of our Lord: for when the time appointed was come, that Him liked to wend to His Father bodily in His manhood, the which was never nor never may be absent in His Godhead, then mightily by the virtue of the Spirit God, the manhood with the body followed in onehead of person. The visibility of this was most seemly, and most according, to be upward.

(91) If this be rightly considered, which, indeed, cannot be done without a special illumination of the holy God, then, before he finds anything else, a man findeth the astringent, cold and austere birth or geniture, which is the cause of the corporeal nature, or of the imaging, fashioning or framing of a thing.

(2) For the idea which is divine, is bodiless, and is whatever is grasped by the mind. So that although these two, from which the general form and body are derived, are bodiless, it is impossible that any single form should be produced exactly like another,—because the moments of the hours and points of inclination [when they’re born] are different. But they are changed as many times as there are moments in the hour of that revolving Circle in which abides that God whom we have called All-formed.

(56) But now, from the austere and earnest birth or geniture of the qualifying or fountain spirits of the Father, wherein the zeal or jealousy and the wrath stands, the body of nature always cometh to be, wherein the light of the Son, viz. of the Father's heart stands, incomprehensibly as to nature.

(58) Now those powers of the Father which stand in the kindling of the light are the holy Father, and the meek Father, and the pure birth or geniture of God; and the spirit which riseth therein is the Holy Spirit. But the sharp birth or geniture is the body, wherein this holy life is continually generated.

(532) even with their weak eyes the images 6 in the water (which are divine), and are the shadows of true existence (not shadows of images cast by a light of fire, which compared with the sun is only an image)—this power of elevating the highest principle in the soul to the contemplation of that which is best in existence, with which we may compare the raising of that faculty which is the very light of the body to the sight of that which is brightest in the material and visible world—this power is given, as I was saying, by all that study and pursuit of the arts which has been described. I agree in what you are saying, he replied, which may be hard to believe, yet, from another point of view, is harder still to deny. This, however, is not a theme to be treated of in passing only, but will have to be discussed again and again. And so, whether our conclusion be true or false, let us assume all this, and proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the chief strain 7 , and describe that in like manner. Say, then, what is the nature and what are the divisions of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither; for these paths will also lead to our final rest.

(4) These things we have learned from the Divine Oracles, and you will find all the sacred Hymnology, so to speak, of the Theologians arranging the Names, of God with a view to make known and praise the beneficent progressions of the Godhead. Hence, we see in almost every theological treatise the Godhead religiously celebrated, both as Monad and unity, on account of the simplicity and oneness of Its supernatural indivisibility from which, as an unifying power, we are unified, and when our divided diversities have been folded together, in a manner supermundane, we are collected into a godlike unit and divinely-imitated union; but, also as Triad, on account of the tri-personal manifestation of the superessential productiveness, from which all paternity in heaven and on earth is, and is named; also, as cause of things existing, since all things were brought into being on account of Its creative goodness, both wise and good, because all things, whilst preserving the properties of their own nature unimpaired, are filled with every inspired harmony and holy comeliness, but pre-eminently, as loving towards man, because It truly and wholly shared, in one of Its Persons (subsistencies), in things belonging to us, recalling to Itself and replacing the human extremity, out of which, in a manner unutterable, the simplex Jesus was composed, and the Everlasting took a temporal duration, and He, Who is superessentially exalted above every rank throughout all nature, became within our nature, whilst retaining the unchangeable and unconfused steadfastness of His own properties. And whatever other divinely-wrought illuminations, conformable to the Oracles, the secret tradition of our inspired leaders bequeathed to us for our enlightenment, in these also we have been initiated; now indeed, according to our capacity, through the sacred veils of the loving-kindness towards man, made known in the Oracles and hierarchical traditions, which envelop things intellectual in things sensible, and things superessential in things that are; and place forms and shapes around the formless and shapeless, and multiply and fashion the supernatural and formless simplicity in the variedness of the divided symbols; but, then, when we have become incorruptible and immortal, and have reached the Christlike and most blessed repose, according to the Divine saying, we shall be "ever with the Lord," fulfilled, through all-pure contemplations, with the visible manifestation of God covering us with glory, in most brilliant splendours, as the disciples in the most Divine Transfiguration, and participating in His gift of spiritual light, with unimpassioned and immaterial mind; and, even in the union beyond conception, through the agnostic and most blessed efforts after rays of surpassing brilliancy, in a more Divine imitation of the supercelestial minds. For we shall be equal to the angels, as the truth of the Oracles affirms, and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But now, to the best of our ability, we use symbols appropriate to things Divine, and from these again we elevate ourselves, according to our degree, to the simple and unified truth of the spiritual visions; and after our every conception of things godlike, laying aside our mental energies, we cast ourselves, to the best of our ability, towards the superessential ray, in which all the terms of every kind of knowledge pre-existed in a manner beyond expression, which it is neither possible to conceive nor express, nor entirely in any way to contemplate, on account of Its being pre-eminently above all things, and super-unknown, and Its having previously contained within Itself, superessentially, the whole perfections of all kinds of essential knowledge and power, and Its being firmly fixed by Its absolute power, above all, even the supercelestial minds. For, if all kinds of knowledge are of things existing, and are limited to things existing, that, beyond all essence, is also elevated above all knowledge.

(6) Thus do these organs of the world proceed, As thou perceivest now, from grade to grade; Since from above they take, and act beneath. Observe me well, how through this place I come Unto the truth thou wishest, that hereafter Thou mayst alone know how to keep the ford The power and motion of the holy spheres, As from the artisan the hammer's craft, Forth from the blessed motors must proceed. The heaven, which lights so manifold make fair, From the Intelligence profound, which turns it, The image takes, and makes of it a seal. And even as the soul within your dust Through members different and accommodated To faculties diverse expands itself,

(7) But all the proportions of nature individually are comprehended in the whole nature of the whole, within one unconfused union; and in the soul, the powers of each several part are provident of the whole body in a uniform fashion. There is nothing out of place then, that, by ascending from obscure images to the Cause of all, we should contemplate, with supermundane eyes, all things in the Cause of all, even those contrary to each other, after a single fashion and unitedly. For It is Source of things existing, from which are both being itself, and all things however being; every source, every term, every life, every immortality, every wisdom, every order, every harmony, every power, every protection, every stability, every endurance, every conception, every word, every sensible perception, every habit, every standing, every movement, every union, every mingling, every friendship, every agreement, every difference, every limit, and whatever other things existing by being, characterize all things being.