(61) The Son seeth, tasteth, heareth, feeleth, smelleth and comprehendeth all, as the Father does; in his power all liveth and is, whatsoever is good, as in the Father; but that which is bad or evil is not in him. Of GOD the HOLY GHOST.

(5) Now as the body generateth the soul, so the seven spirits of God generate the Son; and as the soul is a peculiar distinct thing when it is generated, and yet is united with the body, and cannot subsist without the body, so also is the Son of God, when he is generated, a peculiar, several, distinct thing also, and yet cannot subsist without the Father. Now observe,

(47) I must write thus by way of distinction, that the Reader may understand it; for I cannot write mere heavenly words, but must write human words. Indeed all is rightly, truly and faithfully described: But the being of God consisteth only in power, and only the spirit comprehendeth it, and not the dead or mortal flesh.

(52) So the Son in the Father is a self-subsisting Person, and enlighteneth all the powers in the Father, and is the Father's joy or Heart in his centre, or in the midst of him. Observe here the great Mystery of God.

(56) Thus the Father is the self-subsisting being of all powers, and the Son is the Heart in the Father, which is generated continually out of all the powers of the Father, who again enlighteneth the powers of the Father.

(84) The Son is also another Person than the Father, but not externally, without or severed from the Father, nor is he any other God than the Father is; his power, splendour, and omnipotence, are no less than the whole Father.

(34) Yet you are not to think that the Son is another God than the Father. Neither should you think that the Son is without or apart from the Father, and that he is a severed part or divided piece, as when two men stand the one by the other, where one comprehendeth not the other.

(37) And the Son is the Heart in the Father; all the powers which are in the Father are the propriety of the Father; and the Son is the Heart, or the kernel or pith in all the powers in the whole Father, and he is the cause of the springing joy in all powers in the whole Father.

(16) And now as we understand, that Man (with the Similitude wherein God dwells) is not merely at Home in this World, much Hurts, or moves. less in the stinking Carcase, so it is manifest (in that we are so very blind as to Paradise) that our first Parents (with their Spirit) are gone out of the heavenly Paradise into the Spirit of this World, where then the Spirit of this World instantly captivated their Body, and made it earthly, so that Body and Soul are perished; and now we have the pure Element no more for our Body, but the Out-Birth, (viz. the four Elements, with the Dominion of the Stars) and the Sun only is the Light of the Body; also this Body does not belong to the Deity. God does not discover himself in the stinking Carcase [or Corpse,] but in the holy Man, in the pure Image which he created in the Beginning.

(78) And the unsearchable power and light of the Son is, in the deep of the Father, a living, all- powerful, all-knowing, all-hearing, all-seeing, all-smelling, all-tasting, all-feeling spirit, wherein is all power, splendour and wisdom, as in the Father and the Son.

(8) The Father, in accordance with his exalted position over the Totalities, being an unknown and incomprehensible one, has such greatness and magnitude, that, if he had revealed himself suddenly, quickly, to all the exalted ones among the aeons who had come forth from him, they would have perished. Therefore, he withheld his power and his inexhaustibility within that in which he is. He is ineffable and unnameable and exalted above every mind and every word. This one, however, stretched himself out and it was that which he stretched out which gave a foundation and a space and a dwelling place for the universe, a name of his being "the one through whom," since he is Father of the All, out of his laboring for those who exist, having sown into their thought that they might seek after him. The abundance of their [...] consists in the fact that they understand that he exists and in the fact that they ask what it is that was existing. This one was given to them for enjoyment and nourishment and joy and an abundance of illumination, which consists in his fellow laboring, his knowledge and his mingling with them, that is, the one who is called and is, in fact, the Son, since he is the Totalities and the one of whom they know both who he is and that it is he who clothes. This is the one who is called "Son" and the one of whom they understand that he exists and they were seeking after him. This is the one who exists as Father and (as) the one about whom they cannot speak, and the one of whom they do not conceive. This is the one who first came into being.

(1) Just as the Father exists in the proper sense, the one before whom there was no one else, and the one apart from whom there is no other unbegotten one, so too the Son exists in the proper sense, the one before whom there was no other, and after whom no other son exists. Therefore, he is a firstborn and an only Son, "firstborn" because no one exists before him and "only Son" because no one is after him. Furthermore, he has his fruit, that which is unknowable because of its surpassing greatness. Yet he wanted it to be known, because of the riches of his sweetness. And he revealed the unexplainable power, and he combined with it the great abundance of his generosity.

(46) Now if a man should say the Son of God were an image, circumscriptive or measurable like the sun, then the three Persons would be only in that place where the Son is, and his splendour or shining would be without or beyond him, and as gone forth from the Son; and the Father would be one, only externally, without or beside the Son, and then the power of the Father, which would be afar off and wide distant from the Son, would not generate the Son and Holy Ghost, externally, without and beyond the angelical gates; and so there would be an unalmighty being, externally, without or beside this place of the Son; and, moreover, the Father would be a circumscribed or measurable being.

(54) So the Son of God is continually generated from all the powers of his Father from eternity, and is not made, but is the heart and lustre shining forth from the powers of his heavenly Father; a self-subsisting Person, the centre or body of the lustre in the deep.

(6) The one whom he raised up as a light for those who came from himself, the one from whom they take their name, he is the Son, who is full, complete and faultless. He brought him forth mingled with what came forth from him [...] partaking of the [...] the Totality, in accordance with [...] by which each one can receive him for himself, though such was not his greatness before he was received by it. Rather, he exists by himself. As for the parts in which he exists in his own manner and form and greatness, it is possible for to see him and speak about that which they know of him, since they wear him while he wears them, because it is possible for them to comprehend him. He, however, is as he is, incomparable. In order that the Father might receive honor from each one and reveal himself, even in his ineffability, hidden, and invisible, they marvel at him mentally. Therefore, the greatness of his loftiness consists in the fact that they speak about him and see him. He becomes manifest, so that he may be hymned because of the abundance of his sweetness, with the grace of . And just as the admirations of the silences are eternal generations and they are mental offspring, so too the dispositions of the word are spiritual emanations. Both of them admirations and dispositions, since they belong to a word, are seeds and thoughts of his offspring, and roots which live forever, appearing to be offspring which have come forth from themselves, being minds and spiritual offspring to the glory of the Father.

(7) The Father and the Son have one Will, and that Will is the Holy Ghost, Who gives Himself to the soul so that the Divine Nature permeates the powers of the soul so that it can only do God-like works. Just as a spring, which perpetually flows and waters the roots of the flowers, so that the flowers bloom and receive their colours from the water of the spring, so the Godhead imparts Itself to the capacities of the soul that it may grow in the likeness of God. The more that the soul receives of the Divine Nature, the more it grows like It, and the closer becomes its union with God. It may arrive at such an intimate union that God at last draws it to Himself altogether, so that there is no distinction left, in the soul's consciousness, between itself and God, though God still regards it as a creature. Wherefore let yourselves not be misled by the light of nature. The higher the degree of knowledge which the soul attains to in the light of grace, the darker seems to it the light of nature.

If the soul would know the real truth it must examine itself, whether it has withdrawn from all things, whether it has lost itself, whether it loves God purely with His love and nothing of its own at the same time, so that it may not be separated from Him by anything, and whether God alone dwells in it. If it has lost itself, it is as when the Virgin Mary lost Christ. She sought Him for three days, and yet was sure that she would find Him. All the while Christ was in the highest class in the school of His Father, unconscious of His mother's seeking Him. Thus happens it to the noble soul which goes to God to school, and learns there what God is in His essence, and what He is in the Trinity, and what He is in man, and what is most acceptable to Him. St Augustine saith that the righteousness of God in the Godhead and in the Trinity and in all creatures is the source of the chief joy which is in heaven. God in human nature is a lamp of living light, and "the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not." The darkness must ever more flee the light, as the night flees day.

Thus the soul learns to know God's will. St Paul saith, "This is God's will, our sanctification." And this is our sanctification, to know what we were before time; what we are in time, and what we shall be after time. Thus the soul loses itself in these three, and recketh naught of the body, till it comes to it in the temple, and obeys it without murmuring. The Father is a revelation of the Godhead, the Son is an image and countenance of the Father, and the Holy Ghost is an effulgence of that countenance, and a mutual love between Them, and these properties They have always possessed in Themselves. The Three Persons have stooped out of pity down to human nature, and the Son became man, and was the most despised man on the earth, and suffered pain at the hands of the creatures whom He Himself created with the Father, through Whose will He became man. Thus was Christ till His death, and when He rose from the dead then was seen the most despised of all men united with the Godhead in the Person of Christ.

(28) If a man will see God the Son, he must once more look upon natural things, otherwise I cannot write of the Son: The spirit indeed beholdeth him, but that can neither be spoken nor written; for the divine being consisteth in power, which can neither be written nor spoken.

(83) The Son is in the Father, being the Father's Heart or light, and the Father generateth the Son continually, from eternity to eternity; and the Son's power and splendour shine back again in the whole Father, as the sun does in the whole world.

(10) All of them exist in the single one, as he clothes himself completely and by his single name he is never called. And in this unique way they are equally the single one and the Totalities. He is neither divided as a body, nor is he separated into the names which he has received, (so that) he is one thing in this way and another in another way. Also, neither does he change in [...], nor does he turn into the names which he thinks of, and become now this, now something else, this thing now being one thing and, at another time, something else, but rather he is wholly himself to the uttermost. He is each and every one of the Totalities forever at the same time. He is what all of them are. He brought the Father to the Totalities. He also is the Totalities, for he is the one who is knowledge for himself and he is each one of the properties. He has the powers and he is beyond all that which he knows, while seeing himself in himself completely and having a Son and form. Therefore, his powers and properties are innumerable and inaudible, because of the begetting by which he begets them. Innumerable and indivisible are the begettings of his words, and his commands and his Totalities. He knows them, which things he himself is, since they are in the single name, and are all speaking in it. And he brings (them) forth, in order that it might be discovered that they exist according to their individual properties in a unified way. And he did not reveal the multitude to the Totalities at once nor did he reveal his equality to those who had come forth from him.

(2) Not only did the Son exist from the beginning, but the Church, too, existed from the beginning. Now, he who thinks that the discovery that the Son is an only son opposes the statement (about the Church) because of the mysterious quality of the matter, it is not so. For just as the Father is a unity, and has revealed himself as Father for him alone, so too the Son was found to be a brother to himself alone, in virtue of the fact that he is unbegotten and without beginning. He wonders at himself, along with the Father, and he gives him(self) glory and honor and love. Furthermore, he too is the one whom he conceives of as Son, in accordance with the dispositions: "without beginning" and "without end." Thus is the matter something which is fixed. Being innumerable and illimitable, his offspring are indivisible. Those which exist have come forth from the Son and the Father like kisses, because of the multitude of some who kiss one another with a good, insatiable thought, the kiss being a unity, although it involves many kisses. This is to say, it is the Church consisting of many men that existed before the aeons, which is called, in the proper sense, "the aeons of the aeons." This is the nature of the holy imperishable spirits, upon which the Son rests, since it is his essence, just as the Father rests upon the Son.