(50) Then the fourth Form in the Center of the Soul broke forth there where the Spirit of the Soul was created, [viz.] between the fourth and fifth Form in the Center, near the Heart of God; and so the fourth Form was in the Glance in the Darkness, out of which the World was created, which in its Form parts itself in its Center into the five Parts in its Rising, till [it attains] to the Light of the Sun. For the Stars also in their Center are generated betwixt the fourth and the fifth Form, and the Sun is the P Spring of the fifth Form in the Center; as in the eternal Center, the Heart and the Light of God [is,] which has no Ground; but this [Center] of the Stars and Elements has its Ground in the fourth Form in the dark Mind, in the Rising up of the awakened [or kindled] Flash of the Fire.

(16) And now as we understand, that Man (with the Similitude wherein God dwells) is not merely at Home in this World, much Hurts, or moves. less in the stinking Carcase, so it is manifest (in that we are so very blind as to Paradise) that our first Parents (with their Spirit) are gone out of the heavenly Paradise into the Spirit of this World, where then the Spirit of this World instantly captivated their Body, and made it earthly, so that Body and Soul are perished; and now we have the pure Element no more for our Body, but the Out-Birth, (viz. the four Elements, with the Dominion of the Stars) and the Sun only is the Light of the Body; also this Body does not belong to the Deity. God does not discover himself in the stinking Carcase [or Corpse,] but in the holy Man, in the pure Image which he created in the Beginning.

(25) In this [Garden] now the Image of God stood altogether free. It might embrace [and take] what it would, only the Tree of Temptation, that was forbidden. There he was forty Days in the paradisical Knowledge, Joy, and Habitation, where yet there was neither Day nor Night to him, but only the Eternity; he saw with his Eyes [from or] out of the divine Power [and Virtue.] There was in him no Shutting of his Eyes; he had no Need of the Sun at all, yet all Things must serve and be subject to him. The Out-Birth [or Production] of the four Elements did not touch him; there was no Sleep in him, nor Pain, nor Fear. A thousand Years were to him but as a Day; he was such an Image as shall rise at the last Day; there will rise no other Image than that which God created in the Beginning, therefore consider it well.

(3) And every God by his own proper power brought forth what was appointed him. Thus there arose four-footed beasts, and creeping things, and those that in the water dwell, and things with wings, and everything that beareth seed, and grass, and shoot of every flower, all having in themselves seed of again-becoming. And they selected out the births of men for gnosis of the works of God and attestation of the energy of Nature; the multitude of men for lordship over all beneath the heaven and gnosis of its blessings, that they might increase in increasing and multiply in multitude, and every soul infleshed by revolution of the Cyclic Gods, for observation of the marvels of Heaven and Heaven's Gods' revolution, and of the works of God and energy of Nature, for tokens of its blessings, for gnosis of the power of God, that they might know the fates that follow good and evil [deeds] and learn the cunning work of all good arts.

(5) So the Matter of this World, as also the Stars and Elements, must not be looked upon, as if God was not therein. His Eternal Wisdom and Virtue [or Power] has formed itself with the Fiat in all Things, and he Himself is the Master- Workman; and all Things went forth in the Fiat, every Thing in its own Essence, Virtue and Property. For as every Star in the Firmament has a Property different from the other; thus is it with the Mother also, out of which the fifth Essence of the Stars went forth. For when the fiery Form of the Stars was separated from her, she was not presently severed from the first eternal Birth-Right, but she kept her first eternal Virtue. Only the rising Power of the Fire is severed from her, so that she is become a pleasant Refreshment, and a kind Mother to her Children.

(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.

(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.

(5) We must conceive, that there was then a very pleasant Habitation upon the Earth; for all the Fruits did grow [spring and bud] out of the hidden Element, through the Fierceness of the four Elements; and although the four Elements had also their Fruits, yet Man should not (but the Beasts of the Field should) have eaten thereof. But now when the Lord cursed the Earth, then the Element withdrew from the Root of the Fruit, for God's Cursing is nothing else, but this Flying from a Thing; and thus God's Holiness is flown from the Root of the Fruit, and so the Root [of the Fruits] remains in the four Elements, in the Out-Birth; and Adam and Eve were also fallen thereinto. And thus now like came to like; his Body also was become earthly, and must turn to Earth again.

(43) Here observe; Adam was created out of the Element, out of the Attracting of the Heart of God, which is the Will of the Father, and therein is the Virgin of the divine Virtue [or Power,] and the outward Regimen (which in the Kindling parted itself into four Parts) would fain have had the same [Virgin] in itself; that is, the Fierceness of the Devil would fain have dwelt in the Heart of God, and have domineered over it, and have opened a Center there, which the Fierceness without the Light cannot do; for every Center was generated and opened with the Kindling of the Light. Thus the Fierceness would fain be over the Meekness, and therefore has God caused the Sun to come forth, so that it has thus opened four Centers, viz. the going forth out of the Element.

(18) Know, therefore, generally, my son, that all that is in Cosmos is being moved for increase or for decrease. Now that which is kept moving, also lives; but there is no necessity that that which lives, should be all same. For being simultaneous, the Cosmos, as a whole, is not subject to change, my son, but all its parts are subject unto it; yet naught [of it] is subject to corruption, or destroyed. It is the terms employed that confuse men. For 'tis not genesis that constituteth life, but 'tis sensation; it is not change that constituteth death, but 'tis forgetfulness. Since, then, these things are so, they are immortal all - Matter, [and] Life, [and] Spirit, Mind [and] Soul, of which whatever liveth, is composed.

(4) [Thus] there begins their living and their growing wise, according to the fate appointed by the revolution of the Cyclic Gods, and their deceasing for this end. And there shall be memorials mighty of their handiworks upon the earth, leaving dim trace behind when cycles are renewed. For every birth of flesh ensouled, and of the fruit of seed, and every handiwork, though it decay, shall of necessity renew itself, both by the renovation of the Gods and by the turning-round of Nature's rhythmic wheel. For that whereas the Godhead is Nature's ever-making-new-again the cosmic mixture, Nature herself is also co-established in that Godhead.

(33) Thus on the fourth Day, by the Fiat, out of the Virtue, he prepared the Similitude of his Substance [and fitted it] to be a Matrix, which should generate all whatsoever was a Similitude of his Substance, and of the Wisdom which was in him from Eternity; that so all Forms might be brought forth and become visible, which were from Eternity in the Matrix. And the Similitude of the unsearchable manifold Varieties and Virtues are the Stars, which altogether give [or send] their Virtue into the Matrix of the Heaven, and the Heaven gives that same Spirit to the Creatures. This is the course of all Creatures after the same Essence, [or Substance,] and they are formed after the same Spirit, which is their Virtue, Spirit, and Life.

(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.

(9) And God said; In the Sweat of thy gFace, thou shalt eat thy Bread till thou turn to Earth again. Here now all is clear [and manifest] in the Light; for he had lost the heavenly Fruit, which grew for him without Labour [or Toil of his;] and now he must dig and delve in the Earth, and sow and plant, and so in the four Elements must get Fruit, in Cares, Labour, Toil, and Misery. For while the Element, or the Virtue [or Power] out of the Element, sprung forth through the Earth, there was so long a continual lasting Root to the Fruit; but when the Element (by the Curse) withdrew, then the congealed Death, Frailty, and transitory Fading, was in the Root, and they must now continually be i planted again: Thus the turmoiling Life of Man took Beginning, wherein we must now bathe ourselves.

(12) Now that this is demonstratively and certainly thus, [appears] in that it is written; And God breathed into him the a living Breath, whereby Man became a living Soul. All other Creatures which were produced out of the corruptible Limbus by the Fiat, in all those the Will in the Fiat had awakened the Spirit in their Center, and every Creature's Spirit went forth out of the Essence and Property of its own self, and mixed afterwards with the Spirit of the great World, of the Stars and Elements, and that ought not to have been in Man, his Spirit ought not to have mixed itself [or been united] with the Spirit of the Stars and Elements. The two Principles (viz. the Darkness and the Spirit of the Air) ought to have stood still in such a Substance [as should be the Image of God;] and therefore he breathed into him the diving Breath; understand God's Breath, that is, the paradisical Breath or Spirit, [viz.] the Holy Spirit; that should be the Breath of the Soul, in the Center of the Soul. And the Spirit which went forth out of the Limbus, or out of the Quinta Essentia (which is of the a Condition of the Stars) that was to have Power over the fifth Essence of this World. For Man was in one only Essence [or Substance,] and there was also but one only Man that God thus created, and he could have lived for ever. And although God had brought the Stars again into their Ether, and also had withdrawn the Matrix of the Elements, and the Elements also back into nothing, yet Man would have continued still. Besides, he had the paradisical Center in him, and he could have generated again out of himself, out of his Will, and have awakened the Center; and so should have been able in Paradise to generate an angelical Host, without Misery or Anguish, also without tearing [rending or dividing in himself;] and such a Man he ought to have been, if he must continue in Paradise, and be eternal without Decay; for Paradise is holy, and in that Respect Man also ought to have been holy, for the Virtue [and Power] of God and Paradise consists in Holiness. The deep Gate of the Soul.

(6) Therefore though we speak of the Creation of the World, as if we had been by as present, and had seen it, none ought to marvel at it, nor hold it for impossible. For the Spirit that is in us, which one Man inherits from the other, that was breathed out of the Eternity into Adam, that same Spirit has seen it all, and in the Light of God it sees it still; and there is nothing that is far off, or unsearchable: For the eternal Birth, which stands hidden in the Center of Man, that does nothing [that is] new, it knows, works and does even the same that ever it did from Eternity; it labours for the Light and for the Darkness, and works in great Anguish; but when the Light shines therein, then there is mere Joy and Knowledge in its Working.

(7) Created was the matter which they have; Created was the informing influence Within these stars that round about them go. The soul of every brute and of the plants By its potential temperament attracts The ray and motion of the holy lights; But your own life immediately inspires Supreme Beneficence, and enamours it So with herself, it evermore desires her. And thou from this mayst argue furthermore Your resurrection, if thou think again How human flesh was fashioned at that time When the first parents both of them were made."

(25) Now thus the eternal Light, and the Virtue of the Light, or the heavenly Paradise, moves in the eternal Darkness; and the Darkness cannot comprehend the Light; for they are two several Principles; and the Darkness longs after the Light, because that the Spirit beholds itself therein, and because the divine Virtue is manifested in it. But though it has not comprehended the divine Virtue and Light, yet it has continually with great Lust lifted up itself towards it, till it has kindled the Root of the Fire in itself, from the Beams of the Light of God; and there arose the third Principle: And it has its Original out of the first Principle, out of the dark Matrix, by the Speculating of the Virtue for Power] of God. But when the kindled Virtue in this springing up [of the third Principle] in the Darkness became fiery, then God put the Fiat therein, and by the moving Spirit, which goes forth in the Virtue of the Light, created the fiery Source in a bodily Manner, and severed it from the Matrix, and the Spirit called the fiery created Properties Stars, for their Quality.

(45) And thus the Body of Christ (on the Soul) was the pure Element before God, out of which the Sun of this World is generated, and the same Body included the whole World, and then the Nature of this World trembled, and the stony Rocks cleft in sunder; for the fierce wrathful Death had (in the Fiat) congealed and concreted the stony Rocks together; and now the holy Life went into the fierce wrathful Death, whereupon the Stones did cleave asunder, to show that the Life stood up again in Death, and sprung forth through Death.

(2) Let every soul recall, then, at the outset the truth that soul is the author of all living things, that it has breathed the life into them all, whatever is nourished by earth and sea, all the creatures of the air, the divine stars in the sky; it is the maker of the sun; itself formed and ordered this vast heaven and conducts all that rhythmic motion; and it is a principle distinct from all these to which it gives law and movement and life, and it must of necessity be more honourable than they, for they gather or dissolve as soul brings them life or abandons them, but soul, since it never can abandon itself, is of eternal being.

How life was purveyed to the universe of things and to the separate beings in it may be thus conceived:

That great soul must stand pictured before another soul, one not mean, a soul that has become worthy to look, emancipate from the lure, from all that binds its fellows in bewitchment, holding itself in quietude. Let not merely the enveloping body be at peace, body's turmoil stilled, but all that lies around, earth at peace, and sea at peace, and air and the very heavens. Into that heaven, all at rest, let the great soul be conceived to roll inward at every point, penetrating, permeating, from all sides pouring in its light. As the rays of the sun throwing their brilliance upon a lowering cloud make it gleam all gold, so the soul entering the material expanse of the heavens has given life, has given immortality: what was abject it has lifted up; and the heavenly system, moved now in endless motion by the soul that leads it in wisdom, has become a living and a blessed thing; the soul domiciled within, it takes worth where, before the soul, it was stark body- clay and water- or, rather, the blankness of Matter, the absence of Being, and, as an author says, "the execration of the Gods."

The Soul's nature and power will be brought out more clearly, more brilliantly, if we consider next how it envelops the heavenly system and guides all to its purposes: for it has bestowed itself upon all that huge expanse so that every interval, small and great alike, all has been ensouled.

The material body is made up of parts, each holding its own place, some in mutual opposition and others variously interdependent; the soul is in no such condition; it is not whittled down so that life tells of a part of the soul and springs where some such separate portion impinges; each separate life lives by the soul entire, omnipresent in the likeness of the engendering father, entire in unity and entire in diffused variety. By the power of the soul the manifold and diverse heavenly system is a unit: through soul this universe is a God: and the sun is a God because it is ensouled; so too the stars: and whatsoever we ourselves may be, it is all in virtue of soul; for "dead is viler than dung."

This, by which the gods are divine, must be the oldest God of them all: and our own soul is of that same Ideal nature, so that to consider it, purified, freed from all accruement, is to recognise in ourselves that same value which we have found soul to be, honourable above all that is bodily. For what is body but earth, and, taking fire itself, what is its burning power? So it is with all the compounds of earth and fire, even with water and air added to them?

If, then, it is the presence of soul that brings worth, how can a man slight himself and run after other things? You honour the Soul elsewhere; honour then yourself.