(17) Now if we will lift up our Minds, and seek after the Heaven wherein God dwells, we cannot say that God dwells only above the Stars, and has inclosed himself with the Firmament which is made out of the Waters, in which none can enter except it be opened (like a Window) for him; with which Thoughts Men are altogether befooled [and bewildered.] Neither can we say (as some suppose) that God the Father and the Son are only with Angels in the uppermost inclosed Heaven, and rule only here in this World by the Holy Ghost, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. All these Thoughts are void of the very Knowledge of God. For then God should be divided and circumscriptive, like the Sun that moves aloft above us, and sends its Light and Virtue to us, whereby the whole Deep becomes light and active all over.

(43) When thou beholdest the deep between the stars and the earth, canst thou say, That is not God, or, There God is not? O, thou miserable corrupted man! be instructed; for in the deep above the earth, where thou seest and knowest nothing, and sayest there is nothing, yet even there is the lightholy God in his Trinity, and he is generating there, as well as in the high heaven aloft above this world. 44 Or dost thou think that in or at the time of the creation of this world he departed and went away from his seat wherein he did sit from eternity? O no; that cannot be, for though he would himself do so, he cannot do it, for he himself is All: As little as a member of the body can be rent off from itself, so little also can God be divided, rent or separated from being everywhere.

(60) The simple saith, God made all things out of nothing. But he knoweth not that God; neither does he know what God is: for when he beholdeth the earth, together with the deep above the earth, he thinketh, verily all this is not God; or else he thinketh, God is not there. He always imagineth that God dwelleth only above the azure heaven of the stars, and ruleth, as it were, with some spirit which goeth forth from him into this world; and that his body is not present here upon the earth, nor in the earth.

(14) When we behold heaven and the stars, then we behold his eternal power and wisdom: So many stars stand in the whole heaven that they are innumerable and incomprehensible to reason, and some of them are not visible, so manifold and [so] various is the power and wisdom of God the Father.

(28) Hence, through ignorance, sloth, and folly, Though he stands hard by us, we are shut off from him. The noise of thunder makes the head of the thirsty ache; When he knows not that it unlocks the blessed showers, His eyes are fixed on the running stream, He urges the steed of his desire towards the caused, Whoso beholds the Causer face to face, How can he set his heart on things caused on earth?

(30) Beloved Reason, leave off your Thoughts, for with these Thoughts and Conceits you know not God, nor the Eternity. Then how will you with such Thoughts know the Similitude which God generated out of the eternal Mind? It has here been several Times mentioned to you, that the Mind (which yet is the greatest Essence in Man) does not stand in a Source.

(7) If the mind reels before something thus alien to all we know, we must take our stand on the things of this realm and strive thence to see. But, in the looking, beware of throwing outward; this Principle does not lie away somewhere leaving the rest void; to those of power to reach, it is present; to the inapt, absent. In our daily affairs we cannot hold an object in mind if we have given ourselves elsewhere, occupied upon some other matter; that very thing must be before us to be truly the object of observation. So here also; preoccupied by the impress of something else, we are withheld under that pressure from becoming aware of The Unity; a mind gripped and fastened by some definite thing cannot take the print of the very contrary. As Matter, it is agreed, must be void of quality in order to accept the types of the universe, so and much more must the soul be kept formless if there is to be no infixed impediment to prevent it being brimmed and lit by the Primal Principle.

In sum, we must withdraw from all the extern, pointed wholly inwards; no leaning to the outer; the total of things ignored, first in their relation to us and later in the very idea; the self put out of mind in the contemplation of the Supreme; all the commerce so closely There that, if report were possible, one might become to others reporter of that communion.

Such converse, we may suppose, was that of Minos, thence known as the Familiar of Zeus; and in that memory he established the laws which report it, enlarged to that task by his vision There. Some, on the other hand, there will be to disdain such citizen service, choosing to remain in the higher: these will be those that have seen much.

God- we read- is outside of none, present unperceived to all; we break away from Him, or rather from ourselves; what we turn from we cannot reach; astray ourselves, we cannot go in search of another; a child distraught will not recognise its father; to find ourselves is to know our source.

(3) In addition to these things, we must examine how we know God, Who is neither an object of intellectual nor of sensible perception, nor is absolutely anything of things existing. Never, then, is it true to say, that we know God; not from His own nature (for that is unknown, and surpasses all reason and mind), but, from the ordering of all existing things, as projected from Himself, and containing a sort of images and similitudes of His Divine exemplars, we ascend, as far as we have power, to that which is beyond all, by method and order in the abstraction and pre-eminence of all, and in the Cause of all. Wherefore, Almighty God is known even in all, and apart from all. And through knowledge, Almighty God is known, and through agnosia. And there is, of Him, both conception, and expression, and science, and contact, and sensible perception, and opinion, and imagination, and name, and all the rest. And He is neither conceived, nor expressed, nor named. And He is not any of existing things, nor is He known in any one of existing things. And He is all in all, and nothing in none. And He is known to all, from all, and to none from none. For, we both say these things correctly concerning God, and He is celebrated from all existing things, according to the analogy of all things, of which He is Cause. And there is, further, the most Divine Knowledge of Almighty God, which is known, through not knowing (αγνοσια) during the union above mind; when the mind, having stood apart from all existing things, then having dismissed also itself, has been made one with the super-luminous rays, thence and there being illuminated by the unsearchable depth of wisdom. Yet, even from all things, as I said, we may know It, for It is, according to the sacred text, the Cause formative of all, and ever harmonizing all, and (Cause) of the indissoluble adaptation and order of all, and ever uniting the ends of the former to the beginnings of those that follow, and beautifying the one symphony and harmony of the whole.

(5) If, then, space be some godlike thing, it is substantial; but if 'tis God [Himself], it transcends substance. But it is to be thought of otherwise [than God], and in this way. God is first "thinkable" for us, not for Himself, for that the thing that's thought doth fall beneath the thinker's sense. God then cannot be "thinkable" unto Himself, in that He's thought of by Himself as being nothing else but what He thinks. But he is "something else" for us, and so He's thought of by us.

(12) But if thou raisest thy thoughts, and considerest where God is, then thou apprehendest the astral birth or geniture, where love and wrath move one against the other. But when thou drawest up the faith in God, who ruleth in holiness in this government or dominion, then thou breakest through heaven, and apprehendest or layest hold on God at his holy heart.

(3) That, then, which so transcends, which is not subject unto sense, [which is] beyond all bounds, [and which] cannot be grasped,—That transcends all appraisement; That cannot be supported, nor borne up, nor can it be tracked out. For where, and when, and whence, and how, and what, He is,—is known to none. For He’s borne up by [His] supreme stability, and His stability is in Himself [alone],—whether [this mystery] be God, or the Eternity, or both, or one in other, or both in either.

(20) If you will meditate on God, take before you the eternal Darkness, which is without God; for God dwells in himself, and the Darkness cannot in its own Power comprehend him; which Darkness has a great [Desire of] longing after the Light, caused by the Light's beholding itself in the Darkness, and shining in it. And in this Longing or Desiring, you find the Source, and the Source takes hold of the Power or Virtue of the Light, and the Longing makes the Virtue material, and the material Virtue is the Inclosure to God, or the Heaven; for in the Virtue stands the Paradise, wherein the Spirit which proceeds from the Father and the Son works. All this is incomprehensible to the Creation, but not impossible to be found in the Mind; for Paradise stands open in the Mind of a holy Soul.

(69) Reason knows nothing at all of God; and if it be not possible to attain further from the Gift of God, do not descend down into the Deep, but in Singleness of Heart stay on the Article; it will not endanger thy Happiness. God looks only upon the Will of the Heart. Thou must not search so deep into every Thing, if it be not given thee, as it is to this Pen; this Pen writes in the Council of God (that which the Hand knows not, and scarce understands the least Spark of it) and yet very deeply, as thou seest, that the Things to come are shown in a very difficult Depth, which God alone will discover in due Time, which is unknown to us.

(2) Then presently he thinketh, God has made this thus, out of or from his predestinate purpose, out of nothing: How then can God be in this being? Or, how could that be God himself? He continually imagineth that this is only a house, wherein God dwelleth and ruleth by his spirit. God cannot be such a God, whose being consisteth in the power of this government or dominion.

(10) And if we name it, we do not do so properly, terming it either the One, or the Good, or Mind, or Absolute Being, or Father, or God, or Creator or Lord. We speak not as supplying His name; but for want, we use good names, in order that the mind may have these as points of support, so as not to err in other respects. For each one by itself does not express God; but all together are indicative of the power of the Omnipotent. For predicates are expressed either from what belongs to things themselves, or from their mutual relation. But none of these are admissible in reference to God. Nor any more is He apprehended by the science of demonstration. For it depends on primary and better known principles. But there is nothing antecedent to the Unbegotten.

(47) Thus thou hast a real description of heaven: And though perhaps thou canst not in thy reason conceive it, yet I can very well conceive it; therefore consider rationally and seriously what God is.

(12) For human speech is by nature feeble, and incapable of uttering God. I do not say His name. For to name it is common, not to philosophers only, but also to poets. Nor [do I say] His essence; for this is impossible, but the power and the works of God.

(22) Yet thou must not think that God, who is in heaven and above heaven, does there stand and hover, like a power and quality which has in it neither reason nor knowledge.

(39) Consider these things about God: he is in every place; on the other hand, he is in no place. With respect to power, to be sure, he is in every place; but with respect to divinity, he is in no place. So then, it is possible to know God a little. With respect to his power, he fills every place, but in the exaltation of his divinity, nothing contains him. Everything is in God, but God is not in anything.

(84) But Thee I dare not speak. In limbs And mind I tremble. He rules from on high." And so forth. For in these he indicates these prophetic utterances: "If Thou openest the heaven, trembling shall seize the mountains from Thy presence; and they shall melt, as wax melteth before the fire;" and in Isaiah, "Who hath measured the heaven with a span, and the whole earth with His fist? Again, when it is said: "Ruler of Ether, Hades, Sea, and Land, Who with Thy bolts Olympus' strong-built home Dost shake. Whom demons dread, and whom the throng Of gods do fear. Whom, too, the Fates obey, Relentless though they be. O deathless One, Our mother's Sire I whose wrath makes all things reel; Who mov'st the winds, and shroud'st in clouds the world, Broad Ether cleaving with Thy lightning gleams,- Thine is the order 'mongat the stars, which run As Thine unchangeable behests direct.