(1) There are, therefore, many species of divine possession, and divine inspiration is multifariously excited; whence, also, the signs of it are many and different. For either the Gods are different, by whom we are inspired, and thus produce a different inspiration; or the mode of enthusiasms being various, produces a different afflatus. For either divinity possesses us, or we give up ourselves wholly to divinity, or we have a common energy with him. And sometimes, indeed, we participate of the last power of divinity, sometimes of his middle, and sometimes of his first power. Sometimes, also, there is a participation only, at other times communion likewise, and sometimes a union of these divine inspirations. Again, either the soul alone enjoys the inspiration, or the soul receives it in conjunction with the body, or it is also participated by the common animal.

(26) O! is not that a cheerful Welfare, when the Soul dares to look into the Holy Trinity, wherewith it is filled, so that its always the Hallelujahs or Songs of Praise break forth in God's Deeds of Wonder, where the perpetual growing Fruit springs up [in infinitum] endlessly, according to thy Will, where thou enjoyest all, where there is no Fear, Envy, nor Sorrow, where there is mere Love of one another, where one rejoices at the Form and Beauty of another, where the Fruit grows to every one according to their Essences [and Taste or Relish,] as there was tasted to every one according to their Essences [or Desire?] Of the Way [or Manner] of the Entrance.

(1) Dissolving, however, the doubts in a way still more true, we think it requisite, in invoking superior natures, to take away the evocations which appear to be directed to them as to men, and also the mandates in the performance of works, which are given with great earnestness. For if the communion of concordant friendship, and a certain indissoluble connexion of union, are the bonds of sacerdotal operations, in order that these operations may be truly divine, and may transcend every common action known to men, no human work will be adapted to them; nor will the invocations of the priest resemble the manner in which we draw to ourselves things that are distant; nor are his mandates directed as to things separated from him, in the way in which we transfer one thing from others. But the energy of divine fire shines forth voluntarily, and in common, and being self-invoked and self-energetic, energizes through all things with invariable sameness, both through the natures which impart, and those that are able to receive, its light.

(2) This, then, is truer than all truth, and plainer than what the mind [’s eye] perceives;—that from that Universal God of Universal Nature all other things for evermore have found, and had bestowed on them, the mystery of bringing forth; in which there is innate the sweetest Charity, [and] Joy, [and] Merriment, Longing, and Love Divine. We might have had to tell the mighty power and the compulsion of this mystery, if it had not been able to be known by every one from personal experience, by observation of himself.

(3) It likewise unfolds into energy the invisible good of the Gods, being itself assimilated to it, and gives completion to its fabrications conformably to it. For it renders that which is ineffable in the good of the Gods effable, illuminates that which is formless in forms, and produces into visible reasons [or productive forms] that which in divine good is above all reason. Receiving also a connascent participation of things beautiful, it imparts and transfers it, in unenvying abundance, to the genera posterior to itself. These middle genera, therefore, give completion to the common bond of the Gods and souls, and cause the connexion of them to be indissoluble. They also bind together the one continuity of things from on high as far as to the end; make the communion of wholes to be inseparable; cause all things to have the best, and a commensurate mixture; in a certain respect, equally transmit the progression from more excellent to inferior natures, and the elevation from things posterior to such as are prior; insert in more imperfect beings order and measures of the communication which descends from more excellent natures, and of that by which it is received; and make all things to be familiar and coadapted to all, supernally receiving the causes of all these from the Gods.

(7) Now we have set forth in the Theological Outlines whatever Divine Causes we have found in the Oracles, of these unions, and distinctions, by treating each separately, according to our ability; by explaining some things, by the infallible Word, and unfolding them; and by conducting the religious and unpolluted mind to the bright visions of the Oracles; but others, as being full of mystery, by approaching them according to the Divine tradition, which is superior to mental energy. For all the Divine properties, even those revealed to us, are known by the participations alone; and themselves, such as they are in their own source and abode, are above mind and all essence and knowledge. For instance, if we have named the superessential Hiddenness, God, or Life, or Essence, or Light, or Word (λόγος), we have no other thought than that the powers brought to us from It are deifying, or essentiating, or life-bearing, or wisdom-imparting; but to Itself we approach during the cessation of all the intellectual energies, seeing no deification, or life, or essence whatever, such as is strictly like the Cause pre-eminently elevated above all. Again, that the Father is fontal Deity, but the Lord Jesus and the Spirit are, if one may so speak, God-planted shoots, and as it were Flowers and superessential Lights of the God-bearing Deity, we have received from the holy Oracles; but how these things are, it is neither possible to say, nor to conceive.

(4) These things we have learned from the Divine Oracles, and you will find all the sacred Hymnology, so to speak, of the Theologians arranging the Names, of God with a view to make known and praise the beneficent progressions of the Godhead. Hence, we see in almost every theological treatise the Godhead religiously celebrated, both as Monad and unity, on account of the simplicity and oneness of Its supernatural indivisibility from which, as an unifying power, we are unified, and when our divided diversities have been folded together, in a manner supermundane, we are collected into a godlike unit and divinely-imitated union; but, also as Triad, on account of the tri-personal manifestation of the superessential productiveness, from which all paternity in heaven and on earth is, and is named; also, as cause of things existing, since all things were brought into being on account of Its creative goodness, both wise and good, because all things, whilst preserving the properties of their own nature unimpaired, are filled with every inspired harmony and holy comeliness, but pre-eminently, as loving towards man, because It truly and wholly shared, in one of Its Persons (subsistencies), in things belonging to us, recalling to Itself and replacing the human extremity, out of which, in a manner unutterable, the simplex Jesus was composed, and the Everlasting took a temporal duration, and He, Who is superessentially exalted above every rank throughout all nature, became within our nature, whilst retaining the unchangeable and unconfused steadfastness of His own properties. And whatever other divinely-wrought illuminations, conformable to the Oracles, the secret tradition of our inspired leaders bequeathed to us for our enlightenment, in these also we have been initiated; now indeed, according to our capacity, through the sacred veils of the loving-kindness towards man, made known in the Oracles and hierarchical traditions, which envelop things intellectual in things sensible, and things superessential in things that are; and place forms and shapes around the formless and shapeless, and multiply and fashion the supernatural and formless simplicity in the variedness of the divided symbols; but, then, when we have become incorruptible and immortal, and have reached the Christlike and most blessed repose, according to the Divine saying, we shall be "ever with the Lord," fulfilled, through all-pure contemplations, with the visible manifestation of God covering us with glory, in most brilliant splendours, as the disciples in the most Divine Transfiguration, and participating in His gift of spiritual light, with unimpassioned and immaterial mind; and, even in the union beyond conception, through the agnostic and most blessed efforts after rays of surpassing brilliancy, in a more Divine imitation of the supercelestial minds. For we shall be equal to the angels, as the truth of the Oracles affirms, and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But now, to the best of our ability, we use symbols appropriate to things Divine, and from these again we elevate ourselves, according to our degree, to the simple and unified truth of the spiritual visions; and after our every conception of things godlike, laying aside our mental energies, we cast ourselves, to the best of our ability, towards the superessential ray, in which all the terms of every kind of knowledge pre-existed in a manner beyond expression, which it is neither possible to conceive nor express, nor entirely in any way to contemplate, on account of Its being pre-eminently above all things, and super-unknown, and Its having previously contained within Itself, superessentially, the whole perfections of all kinds of essential knowledge and power, and Its being firmly fixed by Its absolute power, above all, even the supercelestial minds. For, if all kinds of knowledge are of things existing, and are limited to things existing, that, beyond all essence, is also elevated above all knowledge.

(16) Of the same, from the same Erotic Hymns. Since we have arranged the many loves from the one, by telling, in due order, what are the kinds of knowledge and powers of the mundane and supermundane loves; over which, according to the defined purpose of the discourse, the orders and ranks of the mental and intelligible loves preside; next after which are placed the self-existent intelligible and divine, over the really beautiful loves there which have been appropriately celebrated by us; now, on the other hand, by restoring all back to the One and enfolded Love, and Father of them all, let us collect and gather them together from the many, by contracting It into two Powers entirely lovable, over which rules and precedes altogether the Cause, resistless from Its universal Love beyond all, and to which is elevated, according to the nature of each severally, the whole love from all existing things.

(22) Wherefore, my son, thou shouldst give praise to God and pray that thou mayst have thy mind Good Mind. It is, then, to a better state the soul doth pass; it cannot to a worse. Further there is an intercourse of souls; those of the gods have intercourse with those of men, and those of men with souls of creatures which possess no reason. The higher, further, have in charge the lower; the gods look after men, men after animals irrational, while God hath charge of all; for He is higher than them all and all are less than He. Cosmos is subject, then, to God, man to the Cosmos, and irrationals to man. But God is o'er them all, and God contains them all. God's rays, to use a figure, are His energies; the Cosmos's are natures, the arts and sciences are man's. The energies act through the Cosmos, thence through the nature-rays of Cosmos upon man; the nature-rays [act] through the elements, man [acteth] through the sciences and arts.

(8) When the supremely Divine love towards Man has thus been religiously celebrated, the Divine Bread is presented, veiled, and likewise the Cup of Blessing, and the most Divine greeting is devoutly performed, and the mystic and supermundane recital of the holy-written tablets. For it is not possible to be collected to the One, and to partake of the peaceful union with the One, when people are divided amongst themselves. For if, being illuminated by the contemplation and knowledge of the One, we would be united to an uniform and Divine agreement, we must not permit ourselves to descend to divided lusts, from which are formed earthly enmities, envious and passionate, against that which is according to nature. This unified and undivided life is, in my opinion, established by the holy service of the "peace," which establishes like in like, and separates the Divine and unified visions from things divided. The recital of the holy tablets after the "peace" proclaims those who have passed through life holily, and have reached the term of a virtuous life without faltering, urging and conducting us to their blessed condition and Divine repose, through similarity to them, and, announcing them as living, and, as the Word of God says, "not dead, but as having passed from death to a most divine life."

(5) But there is a distinction in the superessential nomenclature of God, not only that which I have mentioned, namely, that each of the One-springing Persons is fixed in the union itself, unmingled and unconfused; but also that the properties of the superessential Divine Production are not convertible in regard to one another. The Father is sole Fountain of the superessential Deity, since the Father is not Son, nor the Son, Father; since the hymns reverently guard their own characteristics for each of the supremely Divine Persons. These then are the unions and distinctions within the unutterable Union and sustaining Source. But, if the goodly progression of the Divine Union, multiplying itself super-uniquely through Goodness, and taking to itself many forms, is also a Divine distinction, yet, common within the Divine distinction, are the resistless distributions, the substance-giving, the life-giving, the wise-making, and the other gifts of the Goodness, Cause of all, after which from the participations and those participating are celebrated the things imparticipatively participated. And this is kindred and common, and one, to the whole Divinity, that it is all entire, participated by each of the Participants, and by none partially. Just as a point in a circle's centre participates in all the circumjacent straight lines in the circle, and as many impressions of a seal participate in the archetypal seal, and in each of the impressions the seal is whole and the same, and in none partial in any respect. But superior to these is the impartibility of the Deity--Cause of all--from the fact that there is no contact with it. Nor has it any commingled communion with the things participating.

(17) Of the same, from the same Hymns of Love. Come then, whilst collecting these again into one, let us say, that it is a certain simplex power, which of itself moves to a sort of unifying combination from the Good, to the lowest of things existing, and from that again in due order, circling round again, through all to the Good from Itself, and through Itself and by Itself, and rolling back to Itself always in the same way.

(39) Yet you must know, that the Corporeity of the Element of this Creature is inferior to the Deity; for the Deity is Spirit, and the Element is generated out of the Word from Eternity; and the Lord entered into the Servant, at which all the Angels in Heaven wonder. And it is the greatest Wonder that is done from Eternity, for it is against Nature; and that may [indeed rightly] be [called] Love.

(5) But we have spoken of these things in our Symbolical Theology. Let us now then celebrate the spiritual Name of Light, under Which we contemplate the Good, and declare that He, the Good, is called spiritual Light, on the ground that He fills every supercelestial mind with spiritual light, and expels all ignorance and error from all souls in which they may be, and imparts to them all sacred light, and cleanses their mental vision from the mist which envelops them, from ignorance, and stirs up and unfolds those enclosed by the great weight of darkness, and imparts, at first, a measured radiance; then, whilst they taste, as it were, the light, and desire it more, more fully gives Itself, and more abundantly enlightens them, because "they have loved much," and ever elevates them to things in advance, as befits the analogy of each for aspiration.

(17) The Propagation of the Love is most especially to be observed, for it is the loveliest, pleasantest, and sweetest Fountain of all. When the Love generates again a whole Birth, with all the Fountains of the original Essences out of itself, so that the Love in all the a springing Veins in that new Birth is predominant and chief, so that a Center arises therein, then the first Essence, vis. the Tartness, is wholly desirous or longing, wholly sweet, wholly light, and gives itself forth to be Food to all the Qualities, with a hearty Affection towards them all, as a loving Mother has towards her Children, and here the Bitterness may be rightly called Joy, for it is the Rising or Moving [thereof.] What Joy there is here, there is no other Similitude of it, than when a Man is suddenly and unexpectedly delivered out of the Pain and Torment of Hell, and put into the Light of the Divine Joy.

(2) And the third and most perfect species of prayer is the seal of ineffable union with the divinities , in whom it establishes all the power and authority of prayer; and thus causes the soul to repose in the Gods, as in a never failing port. But from these three terms, in which all the divine measures are contained, suppliant adoration not only conciliates to us the friendship of the Gods, but supernally extends to us three fruits, being as it were three Hesperian apples of gold. The first of these pertains to illumination ; the second , to a communion of operation ; but through the energy of the third , we receive a perfect plenitude of divine fire . And sometimes, indeed, supplication precedes ; like a precursor preparing the way before the sacrifice appears. But some times it intercedes as a mediator ; and sometimes accomplishes the end of sacrificing . No operation, however, in sacred concerns, can succeed without the intervention of prayer.

(3) There is, therefore, one common indivisible bond of them according to intellectual energies; and there is also this bond according to the common participations of forms, since there is nothing which intercepts these, nor any thing which comes between them. For indeed, an immaterial and incorporeal essence itself, being neither separated by places, nor by subjects, nor defined by the divisible circumscriptions of parts, immediately concurs, and is connascent with sameness. The progression also, from, and the regression of all things to, the one , and the entire domination of the one , congregates the communion of the mundane Gods with the Gods that preexist in the intelligible world.

(1) AND hereby mayest thou see that we should direct all our beholding unto this meek stirring of love in our will. And in all other sweetness and comforts, bodily or ghostly, be they never so liking nor so holy, if it be courteous and seemly to say, we should have a manner of recklessness. If they come, welcome them: but lean not too much on them for fear of feebleness, for it will take full much of thy powers to bide any long time in such sweet feelings and weepings. And peradventure thou mayest be stirred for to love God for them, and that shalt thou feel by this: if thou grumble overmuch when they be away. And if it be thus, thy love is not yet neither chaste nor perfect. For a love that is chaste and perfect, though it suffer that the body be fed and comforted in the presence of such sweet feelings and weepings, nevertheless yet it is not grumbling, but full well pleased for to lack them at God’s will. And yet it is not commonly without such comforts in some creatures, and in some other creatures such sweetness and comforts be but seldom.

(9) In this choiring, the soul looks upon the wellspring of Life, wellspring also of Intellect, beginning of Being, fount of Good, root of Soul. It is not that these are poured out from the Supreme lessening it as if it were a thing of mass. At that the emanants would be perishable; but they are eternal; they spring from an eternal principle, which produces them not by its fragmentation but in virtue of its intact identity: therefore they too hold firm; so long as the sun shines, so long there will be light.

We have not been cut away; we are not separate, what though the body-nature has closed about us to press us to itself; we breathe and hold our ground because the Supreme does not give and pass but gives on for ever, so long as it remains what it is.

Our being is the fuller for our turning Thither; this is our prosperity; to hold aloof is loneliness and lessening. Here is the soul's peace, outside of evil, refuge taken in the place clean of wrong; here it has its Act, its true knowing; here it is immune. Here is living, the true; that of to-day, all living apart from Him, is but a shadow, a mimicry. Life in the Supreme is the native activity of Intellect; in virtue of that converse it brings forth gods, brings forth beauty, brings forth righteousness, brings forth all moral good; for of all these the soul is pregnant when it has been filled with God. This state is its first and its final, because from God it comes, its good lies There, and, once turned to God again, it is what it was. Life here, with the things of earth, is a sinking, a defeat, a failing of the wing.

That our good is There is shown by the very love inborn with the soul; hence the constant linking of the Love-God with the Psyches in story and picture; the soul, other than God but sprung of Him, must needs love. So long as it is There, it holds the heavenly love; here its love is the baser; There the soul is Aphrodite of the heavens; here, turned harlot, Aphrodite of the public ways: yet the soul is always an Aphrodite. This is the intention of the myth which tells of Aphrodite's birth and Eros born with her.

The soul in its nature loves God and longs to be at one with Him in the noble love of a daughter for a noble father; but coming to human birth and lured by the courtships of this sphere, she takes up with another love, a mortal, leaves her father and falls.

But one day coming to hate her shame, she puts away the evil of earth, once more seeks the father, and finds her peace.

Those to whom all this experience is strange may understand by way of our earthly longings and the joy we have in winning to what we most desire- remembering always that here what we love is perishable, hurtful, that our loving is of mimicries and turns awry because all was a mistake, our good was not here, this was not what we sought; There only is our veritable love and There we may hold it and be with it, possess it in its verity no longer submerged in alien flesh. Any that have seen know what I have in mind: the soul takes another life as it approaches God; thus restored it feels that the dispenser of true life is There to see, that now we have nothing to look for but, far otherwise, that we must put aside all else and rest in This alone, This become, This alone, all the earthly environment done away, in haste to be free, impatient of any bond holding us to the baser, so that with our being entire we may cling about This, no part in us remaining but through it we have touch with God.

Thus we have all the vision that may be of Him and of ourselves; but it is of a self-wrought to splendour, brimmed with the Intellectual light, become that very light, pure, buoyant, unburdened, raised to Godhood or, better, knowing its Godhood, all aflame then- but crushed out once more if it should take up the discarded burden.

(19) And here we give the Reader (that loves God) to understand clearly in the great Deep, what the pure Element is, wherein our Body (before the Fall of Adam) stood, and in the new Regeneration now at present stands also therein. It is the heavenly Corporeity, which is not barely and merely a Spirit, wherein the clear Deity dwells; it is not the pure Deity itself, but [it is] generated out of the Essences of the holy Father (as he continually and eternally goes in through the eternal Gate, in the eternal Mind in himself through the recomprehended Will) into the eternal Habitation, where he generates his eternal Word.