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(4) Hence, through these things such a corporeal-formed division as you introduce, is demonstrated to be false. It is, indeed, especially necessary not to propose any thing of this kind; but if this should appear to you to be requisite, yet you must not think, that what is false deserves to be discussed. For such a discussion does not exhibit a copiousness of arguments; but he wearies himself in vain, who, proposing things that are false, endeavours afterwards to subvert them, as things that are not true. For how is it possible that an essence, which is of itself incorporeal, and which has nothing in common with the bodies that participate of it, should be distinguished from other things by corporeal qualities? How can that which is not locally present with bodies, be separated by corporeal places? And how can that which is not inclosed by the partible circumscriptions of subjects, be partibly detained by the parts of the world? What, also, is that which can prevent the Gods from being every where? And what can restrain their power from extending as far as to the celestial arch? For to effect this, must be the work of a more powerful cause, which is able to inclose and circumscribe them in certain parts.

(5) For it cannot be said that Fire, Bitterness, or Harshness, is in God, much less that Air, Water, and Earth are in him; only it is plain that all Things have proceeded out of that [Original.] Neither can it be said, that Death, Hell-fire, or Sorrowfulness is in God, but it is known that these Things have come out of that [Original.] For God has made no Devil out of himself, but Angels to live in Joy, to their Comfort and Rejoicing; yet it is seen that Devils came to be, and that they became God's Enemies. Therefore the Source or Fountain of the Cause must be sought, vis. what is the Prima Materia, or first Matter of Evil, and that in the Originality of God as well as in the Creatures; for it is all but one only Thing in the Origin: All is out of God, made out of his Essence, according to the Trinity, as he is one in Essence and threefold in Persons.

(1) As, then, God is not circumscribed by place, neither is ever represented by the form of a living creature; so neither has He similar passions, nor has He wants like the creatures, so as to desire sacrifice, from hunger, by way of food. Those creatures which are affected by passion are all mortal. And it is useless to bring food to one who is not nourished.

(7) Your monstrous Form or Shape indeed is not God, nor of his Essence, or Substance, but the hidden Man, which is the Soul, is the proper Essence of God, for as much as the Love in the Light of God is sprung up in your own Center, out of which the Holy Ghost proceeds, wherein the second Principle of God consists: How then should you not have Power and Authority to speak of God, who is your Father, of whose Essence you are? Behold, is not the World God's, and the Light of God being in you, it must needs be also yours, as it is written, the Father has given all Things to the Son, and the Son has given all to you. The Father is the eternal Power, or Virtue, and the Son is the Heart and Light continuing eternally in the Father, and you continue in the Father and the Son. And now seeing the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, and that the eternal Power or Virtue of the Father is in you, and that the eternal Light of the Son shines in you, why will you be fooled? Know you not what Paul said? that our Conversation is in Heaven, from whence we expect our Saviour Jesus Christ, who will bring us out of this monstrous Image, or Birth, (in the Corruption of the third Principle of this World,) in the paradisical Birth to eat the Word of the Lord.

(36) Therefore it cannot be said, that the total God in all the three Principles is in one only Will and Essence; there is a Distinction [or Difference to be observed:] Though indeed the first and the third Principle be not called God, neither are they God, and yet are his Essence [or Substance,] out of which from Eternity the Light and Heart of God is always generated, and it is one Essence [or Being,] as Body and Soul in Man are.

(5) But truly existing being, and which is essentially incorporeal, is every where, wherever it may wish to be. And that which is divine, and which transcends all things, would [if what you say were admitted] be transcended by the perfection of the whole world, and, as a certain part, would be comprehended by it. Hence, it would be inferior to corporeal magnitude. I do not, however, see after what manner these sensible natures could be produced and specifically distinguished, if there was no divine fabrication, and if no participation of divine forms, extended through the whole world. In short, this opinion wholly subverts sacred institutions, and the theurgic communion of the Gods with men; since it exterminates from the earth the presence of the more excellent genera. For it says nothing else than that divine dwell remote from earthly natures, and that this our place of abode is deserted by them. According to this assertion, therefore, neither can we, that are priests, learn any thing from the Gods, nor do you rightly inquire of us, as knowing more than others, since we shall differ in no respect from other men.

(37) Now you can here produce nothing, more, that God should ever use any Matter out of which to create the Devil, for then the Devil might justify himself, that he made him evil, or of evil Matter. For God created him out of nothing, but merely out of his own Essence or Substance, as well as the other Angels. As it is written, Through him, and in him, are all Things: And His only is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory; and all in him, as the holy Scripture witnesses. And if it was not thus, no Sin would be imputed to the Devil, nor Men, if they were not eternal, and both in God, and out of God himself.

(21) Could He then have made Himself otherwise than as He did?

If He could we must deny Him the power to produce goodness for He certainly cannot produce evil. Power, There, is no producer of the inapt; it is that steadfast constant which is most decidedly power by inability to depart from unity: ability to produce the inapt inability to hold by the fitting; that self-making must be definite once for all since it is the right; besides, who could upset what is made by the will of God and is itself that will?

But whence does He draw that will seeing that essence, source of will, is inactive in Him?

The will was included in the essence; they were identical: or was there something, this will for instance, not existing in Him? All was will, nothing unwilled in Him. There is then nothing before that will: God and will were primally identical.

God, therefore, is what He willed, is such as He willed; and all that ensued upon that willing was what that definite willing engendered: but it engendered nothing new; all existed from the first.

As for his "self-containing," this rightly understood can mean only that all the rest is maintained in virtue of Him by means of a certain participation; all traces back to the Supreme; God Himself, self-existing always, needs no containing, no participating; all in Him belongs to Him or rather He needs nothing from them in order to being Himself.

When therefore you seek to state or to conceive Him, put all else aside; abstracting all, keep solely to Him; see that you add nothing; be sure that your theory of God does not lessen Him. Even you are able to take contact with Something in which there is no more than That Thing itself to affirm and know, Something which lies away above all and is- it alone- veritably free, subject not even to its own law, solely and essentially That One Thing, while all else is thing and something added.

(106) All Divine Natures are incorporeal, but bodies are bound to them for your sakes. Bodies not being able to contain incorporeals, by reason of the Corporeal Nature, in which ye are concentrated.

(58) For he shows that the Divinity cannot be captured by a mortal, or apprehended either with feet, or hands, or eyes, or by the body at all. "To whom have ye likened the Lord? or to what likeness have ye likened Him?" says the Scripture.