(18) Now that Word had no Matter out of which it made any Thing, but it created all Things out of the Darkness, and brought them to Light, that it might shine forth, appear, and present itself. For in it was the Life, and it gave the Life to the Creature, and the Creature is out of its Virtue, and the Virtue became material, and the Light shines therein, and the material Virtue cannot comprehend it, for that is in Darkness. But seeing the material Virtue cannot comprehend the Light, which from Eternity shines in the Darkness; therefore God has given that [material Virtue] another Light, which proceeds out of the Virtue, (viz. the Sun,) which shines in the Creature, that so the Creature is manifested in the Light.

(26) And thirdly, you find in all Things a glorious Power and Virtue, which is the Life, Growing and Springing of every Thing, and you find that therein lies its Beauty and pleasant Welfare, from whence it stirs. Now look upon an Herb or Plant, and consider it, what is its Life which makes it grow? And you shall find in the Original, Harshness, Bitterness, Fire, and Water, and if you should separate these four Things one from another, and put them together again, yet you shall neither see nor find any Growing; but if it were severed from its own Mother that generated it at the Beginning, then it remains dead; much less can you bring the pleasant Smell, or Colours into it.

(3) From It, both all living creatures and plants draw their life and nourishment; and whether you speak of intellectual, or rational, or sensible, or nourishing, or growing, or whatever, life, or source of life, or essence of life, from It, which is above every life, it both lives and thrives; and in It, as Cause, uniformly pre-existed. For the super-living, and life-springing Life is Cause both of all life, and is generative, and completive, and dividing of life, and is to be celebrated from every life, in consequence of its numerous generation of all lives, as Manifold, and contemplated, and sung by every life; and as without need, yea, rather, superfull of life, the Self-living, and above every life, causing to live and super-living, or in whatever way one might extol the life which is unutterable by human speech.

(4) But what slipped from our view in the midst of our discourse, the Good is Cause of the celestial movements in their commencements and terminations, of their not increasing, not diminishing, and completely changeless, course, and of the noiseless movements, if one may so speak, of the vast celestial transit, and of the astral orders, and the beauties and lights, and stabilities, and the progressive swift motion of certain stars, and of the periodical return of the two luminaries, which the Oracles call "great," from the same to the same quarter, after which our days and nights being marked, and months and years being measured, mark and number and arrange and comprehend the circular movements of time and things temporal. But, what would any one say of the very ray of the sun? For the light is from the Good, and an image of the Goodness, wherefore also the Good is celebrated under the name of Light; as in a portrait the original is manifested. For, as the goodness of the Deity, beyond all, permeates from the highest and most honoured substances even to the lowest, and yet is above all, neither the foremost outstripping its superiority, nor the things below eluding its grasp, but it both enlightens all that are capable, and forms and enlivens, and grasps, and perfects, and is measure of things existing, and age, and number, and order, and grasp, and cause, and end; so, too, the brilliant likeness of the Divine Goodness, this our great sun, wholly bright and ever luminous, as a most distant echo of the Good, both enlightens whatever is capable of participating in it, and possesses the light in the highest degree of purity, unfolding to the visible universe, above and beneath, the splendours of its own rays, and if anything does not participate in them, this is not owing to the inertness or deficiency of its distribution of light, but is owing to the inaptitude for light-reception of the things which do not unfold themselves for the participation of light. No doubt the ray passing over many things in such condition, enlightens the things after them, and there is no visible thing which it does not reach, with the surpassing greatness of its own splendour. Further also, it contributes to the generation of sensible bodies, and moves them to life, and nourishes, and increases, and perfects, and purifies and renews; and the light is both measure and number of hours, days, and all our time. For it is the light itself, even though it was then without form, which the divine Moses declared to have fixed that first Triad of our days. And, just as Goodness turns all things to Itself, and is chief collector of things scattered, as One-springing and One-making Deity, and all things aspire to It, as Source and Bond and End, and it is the Good, as the Oracles say, from Which all things subsisted, and are being brought into being by an all-perfect Cause; and in Which all things consisted, as guarded and governed in an all-controlling route; and to Which all things are turned, as to their own proper end; and to Which all aspire --the intellectual and rational indeed, through knowledge, and the sensible through the senses, and those bereft of sensible perception by the innate movement of the aspiration after life, and those without life, and merely being, by their aptitude for mere substantial participation; after the same method of its illustrious original, the light also collects and turns to itself all things existing--things with sight -- things with motion--things enlightened--things heated--things wholly held together by its brilliant splendours--whence also, Helios, because it makes all things altogether (ἀολλῆ), and collects things scattered. And all creatures, endowed with sensible perceptions, aspire to it, as aspiring either to see, or to be moved and enlightened, and heated, and to be wholly held together by the light. By no means do I affirm, after the statement of antiquity, that as being God and Creator of the universe, the sun, by itself, governs the luminous world, but that the invisible things of God are clearly seen from the foundation of the world, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Deity.

(6) The Good then above every light is called spiritual Light, as fontal ray, and stream of light welling over, shining upon every mind, above, around, and in the world, from its fulness, and renewing their whole mental powers, and embracing them all by its over-shadowing; and being above all by its exaltation; and in one word, by embracing and having previously and pre-eminently the whole sovereignty of the light-dispensing faculty, as being source of light and above all light, and by comprehending in itself all things intellectual, and all things rational, and making them one altogether. For as ignorance puts asunder those who have gone astray, so the presence of the spiritual light is collective and unifying of those being enlightened, both perfecting and further turning them towards the true Being, by turning them from the many notions and collecting the various views, or, to speak more correctly, fancies, into one true, pure and uniform knowledge, and by filling them with light, one and unifying.

(5) But the gifts of the unfailing Power pass on, both to men and living creatures, and plants, and the entire nature of the universe; and It empowers things united for their mutual friendship and communion, and things divided for their being each within their own sphere and limit, without confusion, and without mingling; and preserves the order and good relations of the whole, for their own proper good, and guards the undying lives of the individual angels inviolate; and the heavenly and the life-giving and astral bodies and orders without change: and makes the period of time possible to be; and disperses the revolutions of time by their progressions, and collects them together by their returns; and makes the powers of fire unquenchable, and the rills of water unfailing; and sets bounds to the aerial current, and establishes the earth upon nothing; and guards its life-giving throes from perishing; and preserves the mutual harmony and mingling of the elements without confusion, and without division; and holds together the bond of soul and body; and arouses the nourishing and growing powers of plants; and sustains the essential powers of the whole; and secures the continuance of the universe without dissolution, and bequeaths the deification Itself, by furnishing a power for this to those who are being deified. And in a word, there is absolutely no single thing which is deprived of the overruling surety and embrace of the Divine Power. For that which absolutely has no power, neither is, nor is anything, nor is there any sort of position of it whatever.

(28) Now the Similitude also has received such a Will out of the Fiat, as the eternal Will is; and it has generated the Virtue [or Power;] and the Virtue is the Heaven; and the Light which is become shining in the Virtue, is the Sun, and that works in the Virtue, so that there is Understanding and Knowledge: Or else all in this World would be an immovable Substance, and all would lie still, and so neither Herb nor Grass would grow.

(33) For by the great Longing of the Darkness after the Light and Virtue of God, this World has been generated out of the Darkness, where the holy Virtue of God [shone, or] beheld itself in the Darkness, and therefore this great Desiring and Longing after the divine Virtue, continues in the Spirit of the Sun, Stars, and Elements, and in all Things. All groan and pant after the divine Virtue, and would fain be delivered from the Vanity of the Devil: But seeing that cannot be, therefore all Creatures must wait till their Dissolution, when they [shall] go into their Ether, and get a Place in Paradise, yet only in the Figure and Shadow, and the Spirit [must] be dissolved, which here has had such Lust [or Longing.]

(2) And it divideth the light from the darkness [and] for prosperity, that all things may prosper which shoot and grow on the earth. These three kinds He made on the fourth day.

(32) "Light," writes Edwin D. Babbitt, "reveals the glories of the external world and yet is the most glorious of them all. It gives beauty, reveals beauty and is itself most beautiful. It is the analyzer, the truth-teller and the exposer of shams, for it shows things as they are. Its infinite streams measure off the universe and flow into our telescopes from stars which are quintillions of miles distant. On the other hand it descends to objects inconceivably small, and reveals through the microscope objects fifty millions of times less than can be seen by the naked eye. Like all other fine forces, its movement is wonderfully soft, yet penetrating and powerful. Without its vivifying influence, vegetable, animal, and human life must immediately perish from the earth, and general ruin take place. We shall do well, then, to consider this potential and beautiful principle of light and its component colors, for the more deeply we penetrate into its inner laws, the more will it present itself as a marvelous storehouse of power to vitalize, heal, refine, and delight mankind." (See The Principles of Light and Color.)

(21) As we see that here out of the Earth there springs Plants, Herbs, and Fruits, which receive their Virtue from the Sun, and from the Constellation: So the Heaven or the heavenly Limbus is instead of the Earth; and the Light of God instead of the Sun; and the eternal Father instead of the Virtue of the Stars. The Depth of this Substance is without Beginning and End, its Breadth cannot be reached, there are neither Years nor Time, no Cold nor Heat; no moving of the Air; no Sun nor Stars; no Water nor Fire; no Sight of evil Spirits; no Knowledge nor Apprehension of the Affliction of this World; no stony Rock nor Earth; and yet a figured Substance of all the Creatures of this World. For all the Creatures of this World have appeared to this End, that they might be an eternal figured Similitude; not that they continue in this Spirit in their Substance, no not so: All the Creatures return into their a Ether, and the Spirit corrupts [or fades,] but the Figure and the Shadow continue eternally.

(19) And the Light of the Sun is as it were a God in the Nature of this World, and by its Virtue [and Influence] it continually kindles the Stars [or Constellations] whereby the Stars [or Constellations] (which are of a very terrible and anguishing Essence) continually exult in Triumph very joyfully. For it [the Sun] is an Essence like the Light of God, which kindles and enlightens the dark Mind of the Father, from whence, by the Light, there arises the divine Joy in the Father.

(19) For as the Deity is the Virtue [or Power] and Light of Paradise in the second Principle, so the Sun is the Virtue [or Power] and Light of this material World in the third Principle. And as the Deity shines in the Darkness in the first Principle, so the Sun shines in the Darkness in the third Principle. And as the Deity is the eternal Virtue and the Spirit of the eternal Life, so the Sun is the Spirit and the Virtue in the corruptible Life.

(2) As it is mentioned above, so the Life in the Anguish, with the Kindling of the Light, takes its Beginning from the Glance of the Sunshine, from the Spirit of the Stars and Elements in the great Anguish, where Death and Life wrestle one with the other. For when Man departed from Paradise into another Birth (viz. into the Spirit of this World, into the Quality of the Sun, Stars, and Elements) then the paradisical [Vision or] Seeing ceased, [or was extinguished,] where Man sees from the divine Virtue, without [Need of] the Sun and Stars; where the Springing up of the Life is in the Holy Ghost, and the Light of God is the Glance of the Spirit, from whence he sees; which went out; for the Spirit of the Soul went into the Principle of this World.