(38) For of these all that was, is, shall be, comes."

(77) And after a little he adds: "And when the whole world fades, And vanished all the abyss of ocean's waves, And earth of trees is bare; and wrapt in flames, The air no more begets the winged tribes; Then He who all destroyed, shall all restore."

(3) But little, i.e. fine, is affirmed respecting Him,--that which leaves behind every mass and distance, and penetrates through all, without hindrance. Yet the little is Elemental Cause of all, for nowhere will you find the idea of the little unparticipated. Thus then the little must be received as regards God as penetrating to all, and through all, without impediment; and operating, and piercing through, to "a dividing of soul and spirit, and joints and marrow"; and "discerning thoughts and intents of heart," yea rather--all things that be. For there is not a creature unmanifest in His sight. This littleness is without quality and without quantity, without restraint, without limit, without bound, comprehending all things, but itself incomprehensible.

(1) I have grown from yesterday, a Great one among the Great. I have raised myself above all things that come into being

(2) Almighty God, then, is named great in reference to His own peculiar greatness, which imparts itself to all things great; and overflows, and extends itself outside of all greatness; embracing every place, surpassing every number, going through every infinitude, both in reference to its super-fulness, and mighty operation, and its fontal gifts, in so far as these, being participated by all in a stream of boundless gifts, are altogether undiminished, and have the same super-fulness, and are not lessened by the impartations, but are even still more bubbling over. This Greatness then is infinite, and without measure and without number. And this is the preeminence as regards the absolute and surpassing flood of the incomprehensible greatness.

(5) In regard to all He will judge, the great according to his greatness, and the small according to his small- ness, and each according .to his way.

(3) "Very well," replied the Spirit of the River, "am I then to regard the universe as great and the tip of a hair as small?" "Not at all," said the Spirit of the Ocean. "Dimensions are limitless; time is endless. Conditions are not invariable; terms are not final. Thus, the wise man looks into space, and does not regard the small as too little, nor the great as too much; for he knows that there is no limit to dimension. He looks back into the past, and does not grieve over what is far off, nor rejoice over what is near; for he knows that time is without end. He investigates fulness and decay, and does not rejoice if he succeeds, nor lament if he fails; for he knows that conditions are not invariable. He who clearly apprehends the scheme of existence, does not rejoice over life, nor repine at death; for he knows that terms are not final. "What man knows is not to be compared with what he does not know. The span of his existence is not to be compared with the span of his non-existence. With the small to strive to exhaust the great, necessarily lands him in confusion, and he does not attain his object. How then should one be able to say that the tip of a hair is the ne plus ultra of smallness, or that the universe is the ne plus ultra of greatness?"

(38) I am the Gladsome one, and no time hath been found, but served to create for me the Heaven and the increase of Earth, and the increase of their offspring

(4) "Dialecticians of the day," replied the Spirit of the River, "all say that the infinitesimally small has no form, and that the infinitesimally great is beyond all measurement. Is that so?" "If we regard greatness as compared with that which is small," said the Spirit of the Ocean, "there is no limit to it; and if we regard smallness as compared with that which is great, it eludes our sight. The infinitesimal is a subdivision of the small; the colossal is an extension of the great. In this sense the two fall into different categories. "Both small and great things must equally possess form. The mind cannot picture to itself a thing without form, nor conceive a form of unlimited dimensions. The greatness of anything may be a topic of discussion, or the smallness of anything may be mentally realized. But that which can be neither a topic of discussion nor be realized mentally, can be neither great nor small.

(1) BUT since even the great and the small are attributed to the Cause of all, arid the same, and the different, and the similar, and the dissimilar, and the standing, and the movement. Come! and let us gaze upon these images of the Divine Names, such as have been manifested to us. Almighty God, then, is celebrated in the Oracles as great, both in greatness and in a gentle breeze, which manifests the Divine littleness; and as the same, when the Oracles declare "thou art the same"; and as different, when He is depicted, by the same Oracles, as of many shapes and many forms; and as similar, as mainstay of things similar and similitude; and as dissimilar to all, as the like of whom there is not; and as standing, and unmoved, and seated for ever; and as moving, as going forth to all; and whatever other Divine Names, of the same force with these, are celebrated by the Oracles.

(87) Dread, invincible, great, deathless One, Whom Ether crowns."... By the expression "Sire of our Mother" mhtro patwr he not only intimates creation out of nothing, but gives occasion to those who introduce emissions of imagining a consort of the Deity. And he paraphrases those prophetic Scriptures - that in Isaiah, "I am He that fixes the thunder, and creates the wind; whose hands have rounded the host of heaven;" and that in Moses, "Behold, behold that I am He, and there is no god beside me: I will kill, and I will make to live; I will smite, and I will heal: and there is none that shall deliver out of my hands."

(31) And out of other earth madest the father of mankind, Thy business is changing things and bestowing favors, Change my mistakes and forgetfulness to knowledge; I am altogether vile, make me temperate and meek. O Thou that convertest salt earth into bread, And bread again into the life of men; Thou who madest the erring soul a guide to men, And him that erred from the way a prophet; Thou makest some earth-born men as heaven, And muitipliest heaven-born saints on earth!

(16) "I shall offer up the praise in my heart as I invoke the end of the universe and the beginning of the beginning, the god of the human quest, the immortal discovery, the producer of light and truth, the sower of reason, the love of immortal life. No hidden word can speak of you, lord. My mind wants to sing a song to you every day. I am the instrument of your spirit, mind is your plectrum, and your guidance makes music with us. I see myself. I have been strengthened by you, for your love has reached us."

(5) Herein lies its greatness, not in mass; mass is limited and may be whittled down to nothingness; in that order no such paring off is possible- nor, if it were, could there be any falling short. Where limitation is unthinkable, what fear can there be of absence at any point? Nowhere can that principle fail which is the unfailing, the everlasting, the undwindling; suppose it in flux and it must at some time flow to its end; since it is not in flux- and, besides , it has nowhere to flow to- it lies spread over the universe; in fact it is the universe, too great to be held by body, giving, therefore, to the material universe but little of itself, the little which that participant can take.

We may not make this principle the lesser, or if in the sense of mass we do, we must not begin to mistrust the power of that less to stretch to the greater. Of course, we have in fact no right to affirm it less or to measure the thing of magnitude against that which has none; as well talk of a doctor's skill being smaller than his body. This greatness is not to be thought of in terms of quantity; the greater and less of body have nothing to do with soul.

The nature of the greatness of soul is indicated by the fact that as the body grows, the larger mass is held by the same soul that sufficed to the smaller; it would be in many ways absurd to suppose a corresponding enlargement in the soul.

(40) Thus he masters all, from the atom to the Infinite.

(62) And the kings and the mighty and all who possess the earth shall bless and glorify and extol him who rules over all, who was hidden.

(55) "Lo He all sure and all unerring is." says the Sibyl.

(1) "Our Father, thou who dwellest in the heavens, Not circumscribed, but from the greater love Thou bearest to the first effects on high, Praised be thy name and thine omnipotence By every creature, as befitting is To render thanks to thy sweet effluence. Come unto us the peace of thy dominion, For unto it we cannot of ourselves, If it come not, with all our intellect. Even as thine own Angels of their will Make sacrifice to thee, Hosanna singing, So may all men make sacrifice of theirs. Give unto us this day our daily manna, Withouten which in this rough wilderness Backward goes he who toils most to advance. And even as we the trespass we have suffered Pardon in one another, pardon thou Benignly, and regard not our desert. Our virtue, which is easily o'ercome, Put not to proof with the old Adversary, But thou from him who spurs it so, deliver. This last petition verily, dear Lord, Not for ourselves is made, who need it not, But for their sake who have remained behind us."

(17) Let every nature of the World receive the utterance of my hymn! Open thou Earth! Let every bolt of the Abyss be drawn for me. Stir not, ye Trees! I am about to hymn creation's Lord, both All and One. Ye Heavens open and ye Winds stay still; [and] let God's deathless Sphere receive my word (logos)! For I will sing the praise of Him who founded all; who fixed the Earth, and hung up Heaven, and gave command that Ocean should afford sweet water [to the Earth], to both those parts that are inhabited and those that are not, for the support and use of every man; who made the Fire to shine for gods and men for every act. Let us together all give praise to Him, sublime above the Heavens, of every nature Lord! 'Tis He who is the Eye of Mind; may He accept the praise of these my Powers!

(22) Again, power in all things is by the most intellectual among the Greeks ascribed to God; Epicharmus - he was a Pythagorean - saying: "Nothing escapes the divine. This it behoves thee to know. He is our observer. To God nought is impossible." And the lyric poet: "And God from gloomy night Can raise unstained light, And can in darksome gloom obscure The day's refulgence pure." He alone who is able to make night during the period of day is God. In the Phoenomena Aratus writes thus: "With Zeus let us begin; whom let us ne'er, Being men, leave unexpressed. All full of Zeus, The streets, and throngs of men, and full the sea, And shores, and everywhere we Zeus enjoy." He adds: "For we also are His offspring;.... " that is, by creation. "Who, bland to men, Propitious signs displays, and to their tasks Arouses. For these signs in heaven He fixed, The constellations spread, and crowned the year With stars; to show to men the seasons' tasks, That all things may proceed in order sure.