(11) Thou art the Father of the world— of all that move and all that do not move. Thou art the object of its worship, its most venerable Teacher. There is no one equal to Thee; how then, in the three worlds, could there be another superior to Thee, Ο Thou of incomparable might?

(40) At the beginning of the centuries God used the mountains as nails to fix the Earth; and washed Earth's face with the water of Ocean. Then he placed Earth on the back of a bull, the bull on a fish, and the fish on the air. But on what rested the air? On nothing. But nothing is nothing - and all that is nothing. Admire then, the works of the Lord, though he himself considers them as nothing. And seeing that His Essence alone exists it is certain there is nothing but Him. His throne is on the waters and the world is in the air. But leave the waters and the air, for all is God: the throne and the world are only a talisman. God is all, and things have only a nominal value; the world visible and the world invisible are only Himself.

(4) And it, varies according to the nature and the material. In the case of arms and of fighting animals the ordering power is the soul and mind, by means animate and inanimate; and in the case of the passions of the soul, which we master by virtue, reason is the ordering power, by affixing the seal of continence and self-restraint, along with holiness, and sound knowledge with truth, making the result of the whole to terminate in piety towards God. For it is wisdom which regulates in the case of those who so practise virtue; and divine things are ordered by wisdom, and human affairs by politics - all things by the kingly faculty. He is a king, then, who governs according to the laws, and possesses the skill to sway willing subjects. Such is the Lord, who receives all who believe on Him and by Him. For the Father has delivered and subjected all to Christ our King," that at the name of Jesus every knee may bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.'

(29) Behold, God is the God of order; and as it is, and as it goeth and moveth in his government in himself, that is, in his birth or geniture, and in his rising up, so also is the order of the angels.

(1) "So that he who hath received mysteries in the first Commandment, hath the power to go into the orders which are below him, that is into all the orders of the third [?] space; but he hath not the power to go into the height to the orders which are above him.

(5) And said: "Already did I rest content From great amazement; but am now amazed In what way I transcend these bodies light." Whereupon she, after a pitying sigh, Her eyes directed tow'rds me with that look A mother casts on a delirious child; And she began: "All things whate'er they be Have order among themselves, and this is form, That makes the universe resemble God. Here do the higher creatures see the footprints Of the Eternal Power, which is the end Whereto is made the law already mentioned. In the order that I speak of are inclined All natures, by their destinies diverse, More or less near unto their origin; Hence they move onward unto ports diverse O'er the great sea of being; and each one With instinct given it which bears it on. This bears away the fire towards the moon; This is in mortal hearts the motive power This binds together and unites the earth. Nor only the created things that are Without intelligence this bow shoots forth, But those that have both intellect and love.

(6) This is the Lord of all. This is All-knowing. This is the controller within. This is the source of all and, surely, That which is the beginning and end of all living beings.

(2) "I entered into the houses of the sphere, shining most exceedingly, and there was no measure to the light that was about me. And all the rulers and all those who are in that sphere, fell into agitation one against another. And they saw the great light that was about me, and they gazed upon my vesture and saw thereon the mystery of their name. And they fell into still greater agitation, and were in great fear, saying: 'How hath the lord of the universe passed through us without our knowing?' And all their bonds were unloosed and their regions and their orders; and every one left his order, and they fell down all together, adored before me, or before my vesture, and all sang praises together to the interiors of the interiors, being in great fear and great agitation.

(32) The Father is all, and all power subsisteth in the Father: He is the beginning and the end of all things; and besides and beyond him is nothing; and whatever is, is from the Father.

(1) Looking into his Son with all the Love Which each of them eternally breathes forth, The Primal and unutterable Power Whate'er before the mind or eye revolves With so much order made, there can be none Who this beholds without enjoying Him. Lift up then, Reader, to the lofty wheels With me thy vision straight unto that part Where the one motion on the other strikes, And there begin to contemplate with joy That Master's art, who in himself so loves it That never doth his eye depart therefrom. Behold how from that point goes branching off The oblique circle, which conveys the planets, To satisfy the world that calls upon them; And if their pathway were not thus inflected, Much virtue in the heavens would be in vain, And almost every power below here dead. If from the straight line distant more or less Were the departure, much would wanting be Above and underneath of mundane order. Remain now, Reader, still upon thy bench, In thought pursuing that which is foretasted, If thou wouldst jocund be instead of weary.

(4) He who has found and has awakened to the Soul That has entered this conglomeiate abode — He is the maker of everything, for he is the creator of all, The world is his: indeed, he is the world itself.

(17) "The Lord of the Universe is not called 'Father', but 'Forefather', the beginning of those that will appear, but he (the Lord) is the beginningless Forefather. Seeing himself within himself in a mirror, he appeared resembling himself, but his likeness appeared as Divine Self-Father, and Confronter over the Confronted ones, First Existent Unbegotten Father. He is indeed of equal age the Light that is before him, but he is not equal to him in power.

(1) If both the orders, those on the right and those on the left, are brought together with one another by the thought which is set between them, which gives them their organization with each other, it happens that they both act with the same emulation of their deeds, with those of the right resembling those of the left, and those of the left resembling those of the right. And if at times the evil order begins to do evil in a foolish way, the order emulates, in the form of a man of violence, also doing what is evil, as if it were a power of a man of violence. At other times the foolish order attempts to do good, making itself like it, since the hidden order, too, is zealous to do it. Just as it is in the things which are established, so (it is) in the things which have come to be. Since they bring things unlike one another, those who were not instructed were unable to know the cause of the things which exist. Therefore, they have introduced other types (of explanation), some saying that it is according to providence that the things which exist have their being. These are the people who observe the stability and the conformity of the movement of creation. Others say that it is something alien. These are people who observe the diversity and the lawlessness and the evil of the powers. Others say that the things which exist are what is destined to happen. These are the people who were occupied with this matter. Others say that it is something in accordance with nature. Others say that it is a self-existent. The majority, however, all who have reached as far as the visible elements, do not know anything more than them.

(6) Upon this the Lord, the Great Creator, He who understands the mysterious grace by His insight , spake thus. Not in this manner is a spiritual master found for us, nor a chieftain moved by Righteousness and appointed (in its spirit); therefore Thee have I named (as such a head) to the diligent tiller of the ground !

(4) But since the Cause of all is super-full of all, as beseems the One superfluity which surpasses all, He is sung as Holy of Holies and the rest, as beseems an overflowing Cause, and a towering Pre-eminence. As one might say, so far as the things which are,--holy or divine, or lordly, or kingly,--surpass the things which are not, and the self-existent participations, their participants; to such an extent is seated above all things that be, He Who is above all things that be, and the unparticipating Cause of all the participants and the participations. But Holy and Kings and Lords and Gods, the Oracles call the higher orders in each, through whom the inferior in participating the gifts from God, multiply the simplicity of their distribution around their own diversities, the variety of which, the superior orders carefully and divinely collect to their own Oneness.

(11) For the Deity is like a wheel, which with its fellies and spokes, and with all the naves, turneth about, and is fellied together, as seven wheels, so that it can go any way, forward, backward, downward, upward and crossways, without turning back.

(1) We have concluded, then, that the most reverend Order of the Minds around God, ministered by the perfecting illumination through its immediate elevation to it, is purified, and illuminated, and perfected by a gift of light from the Godhead, more hidden and more manifest--more hidden, indeed, as being more intelligible, and more simplifying, and more unifying; more manifest, as being a first gift and a first manifestation, and more complete, and more affused to it as transparent. And from this (Order) again, in due degree, the second, and from the second, the third, and from the third, our Hierarchy, is reverently conducted to the super-original Origin and End of all good order, according to the self-same law of well-ordered regularity, in Divine harmony and proportion.

(5) Before anything is visible among those that are visible, the majesty and the authorities that are in him, he embraces the totalities of the totalities, and nothing embraces him. For he is all mind, thought and reflecting, considering, rationality and power. They all are equal powers. They are the sources of the totalities. And their whole race to last is in the foreknowledge of the Unbegotten, for they had not yet come to visibility.

(64) For the being of God is like a wheel, wherein many wheels are made one in another, upwards, downwards, crossways, and yet they continually turn, all of them together.

(54) Although here the Tongue of Man cannot utter, declare, express, nor fathom this great Depth, where there is neither Number nor End, yet we have Power to speak thereof as Children talk of their Father. But to dive into the whole Depth, that troubles us, and disturbs our Souls; for God himself knows neither Beginning nor End in himself.