(1) COME then, if you please, let us sing the good and eternal Life, both as wise, and as wisdom's self; yea, rather, as sustaining all wisdom, and being superior to all wisdom and understanding. For, not only is Almighty God superfull of wisdom, and of His understanding there is no number, but He is fixed above all reason and mind and wisdom. And, when the truly divine man, the common sun of us, and of our leader, had thought this out, in a sense above nature, he says, "the foolishness of God is wiser than men," (meaning) not only that all human intelligence is a sort of error, when tried by the stability and durability of the Divine and most perfect conceptions, but that it is even usual with the theologians to deny, with respect to God, things of privation, in an opposite sense. Thus, the Oracles declare, the All-luminous Light, invisible, and Him, Who is often sung, and of many names, to be unutterable and without name, and Him, Who is present to all, and is found of all, to be incomprehensible and past finding out. In this very way, even now, the Divine Apostle is said to have celebrated as "foolishness of God," that which appears unexpected and absurd in it, (but) which leads to the truth which is unutterable and before all reason. But, as I elsewhere said, by taking the things above us, in a sense familiar to ourselves, and by being entangled by what is congenial to sensible perceptions, and by comparing things Divine with our own conditions, we are led astray through following the Divine and mystical reason after a mere appearance. We ought to know that our mind has the power for thought, through which it views things intellectual, but that the union through which it is brought into contact with things beyond itself surpasses the nature of the mind. We must then contemplate things Divine, after this Union, not after ourselves, but by our whole selves, standing out of our whole selves, and becoming wholly of God. For it is better to be of God, and not of ourselves. For thus things Divine will, be given to those who become dear to God. Celebrating then, in a superlative sense, this, the irrational and mindless and foolish Wisdom, we affirm that It is Cause of all mind and reason, and all wisdom and understanding; and of It is every counsel, and from It every knowledge and understanding; and in It all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. For, agreeably to the things already spoken, the super-wise, and all-wise Cause is a mainstay even of the self-existing Wisdom, both the universal and the individual.

(26) The Love, or Word, or Heart, that is, the innate or only begotten Son of the Father, who is the Light and Meekness, and the Love and Joy of the Deity; as he himself said, when he had assumed the Humanity, I am the Light of the World; he took the Place of this World by the Heart, and sate in the Midst or Center of this Space or Room, in that Place where the mighty Prince and King Lucifer did sit before his Fall, and there he was new born to be a Creature. [John 8. 12.]

(71) Here we clearly find what Christ said to his Father concerning us Men; Behold the Men were thine, and thou hast given them to me; and I will that they be with me where I am, that they may see my Glory. When the Word (or Heart of God) went into the holy Ternary, there it was the Son of the Father, and also his Servant, as Isaiah says, and as it is in the Psalms; for he had [united or] espoused himself to the Element, and had the Form of a Servant; but the Word which went into the [pure] Element, was his Son; and thus he took our Soul upon him, not only as a Brother, for the Limbus of God (in the heavenly Tincture) was the Man, and that was our Lord; for the whole World stands in the Might thereof, and that Might shall sweep the Threshing-Floor of this World. And thus we are his Servants, and also his Brethren in respect of his Mother; but in respect of his Father we are his Servants; and before the Fall we were the Father's, also till his Humanity [or Incarnation,] though in the Word of the Promise [it was,] in which the faithful entered into God.

(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 Center, or Body of the Lustre in the Deep.

(44) The Forming of this highly worthy Person is severally [done;] first there is the Word, or the Deity, which has had its Forming from Eternity in the Father; and assumed in the becoming Man no other Forming [or Image,] but continued in the Father, as it was from Eternity, in its Seat.

(10) From the Theological Elements of the most holy Hierotheus. Deity of the Lord Jesus,-- the Cause and Completing of all, which preserves the parts concordant with the whole, and is neither part nor whole, and whole and part, as embracing in Itself everything both part and whole, and being above and before--is perfect indeed in the imperfect, as source of perfection, but imperfect in the perfect, as super-perfect, and pre-perfect--Form producing form, in things without form, as Source of form--formless in the forms, as above form,--Essence, penetrating without stain the essences throughout, and superessential, exalted above every essence--setting bounds to the whole principalities and orders, and established above every principality and order. It is measure also of things existing, and age, and above age, and before age--full, in things that need, super-full in things full, unutterable, unspeakable, above mind, above life, above essence. It has the supernatural, supernaturally,--the superessential, superessentially. Hence, since through love towards man, He has come even to nature, and really became substantial, and the Super-God lived as Man (may He be merciful with regard to the things we are celebrating, which are beyond mind and expression), and in these He has the supernatural and super-substantial, not only in so far as He communicated with us without alteration and without confusion, suffering no loss as regards His super-fulness, from His unutterable emptying of Himself--but also, because the newest of all new things, He was in our physical condition super-physical--in things substantial, super-substantial, excelling all the things--of us--from us--above us.

(70) And the Father loves this his only begotten or innate Son therefore so heartily, because he is the Light and the meek beneficent Well-doing in his Body, through whose Power the Father's Joy and Delight rises up.

(5) The whole Divine Power of the Father speaks forth from all Qualities, the WORD, that is, the Son of God.

(52) so the Son in the Father is a self-subsisting Person, and enlightens 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.

(49) so the Son of God in the Father, is the Heart in the Father, and then shines in all the Powers of the Father; his Power is the moving springing Joy in all the Powers of the Father, and shines in the whole Father, as the Sun does in the whole World.