(5) But the different, since Almighty God is present to all providentially, and becomes all in all, for the sake of the preservation of all, resting upon Himself, and His own identity within Himself, standing, as beseems an energy, one and ceaseless, and imparting Himself with an unbending power, for deification of those turned to Him. And we must suppose that the difference of the manifold shapes of Almighty God, during the multiform visions, signifies that certain things are different from the phenomena under which they appear. For, as when language depicts the soul itself, under a bodily form, and fashions bodily members around the memberless, we think differently of the members attributed to it, as befits the soul's memberless condition; and we call the mind head, and opinion neck,--as intermediate between rational and irrational--and anger, breast; and lust, belly; and the constitution, legs and feet; using the names of the members as symbols of the powers. Much more then, as respects Him, Who is beyond all, is it necessary to make clear the difference of forms and shapes by reverent and God-becoming, and mystic explanations. And if you wish to apply the threefold shapes of bodies to the impalpable and shapeless God, you must say, that the Progression of Almighty God, which spreads out to all things, is a Divine extension; and length, the power extending itself over the whole; and depth, the hiddenness and imperception incomprehensible to all creatures. But, that we may not forget ourselves, in our explanation, of the different shapes and forms, by confounding the incorporeal Divine Names with those given through symbols of objects of sense, we have for this reason spoken concerning these things in the Symbolic Theology. But now, let us suppose the Divine difference, as really not a sort of change from the super-immovable identity, but as the single multiplication of itself, and the uniform progressions of its fecundity to all.

(35) Behold, thou reasonable Soul, to thee I speak, and not to the Body, thou only apprehendest it:- When the Birth is thus continually generated, then every Form has a Center to the Regeneration; for the whole divine Essence [or Substance] stands in continual and in eternal P Generating (but unchangeably) like the Mind of Man, the Thoughts being continually generated out of the Mind, and the Will and Desiring out of the Thoughts. Out of the Will and Desirousness [is] the Work [generated] which is made a Substance, in the Will, and then the Mouth and Hands, go on to perform what was substantial in the Will.

(2) With respect to the powers, therefore, which remain in the heavens in the divine bodies themselves, there can be no doubt that all of them are similar. Hence, it remains that we should discuss those powers which are thence transmitted to us, and are mingled with generation. These, therefore, descend with invariable sameness for the salvation of the universe, and connectedly contain the whole of generation after the same manner. They are likewise impassive and immutable, though they proceed into that which is mutable and passive. For generation being multiform, and consisting of different things, receives the one of the Gods, and that in them which is without difference, with hostility and partibility, conformably to its own contrariety and division. It also receives that which is impassive, passively; and, in short, participates of them according to its own proper nature, and not according to their power. As, therefore, that which is generated [or has a subsistence in becoming to be,] participates of being generatively, and body participates of the incorporeal, corporeally; thus, also, the physical and material substances which are in generation, participate of the immaterial and etherial bodies, which are above nature and generation, in a confused and disorderly manner. Hence they are absurd who attribute colour, figure, and contact to intelligible forms, because the participants of them are things of this kind; as likewise are those who ascribe depravity to the celestial bodies, because their participants sometimes produce evils.

(43) And yet every Form has its own Height, Source, [or Quality,] and Perception; and [yet] the divine [Source] has not so mixed, that [thereby] it is the less; but what it was, that it continues to be; and that which it was not, that it is, without severing from the divine Substance; and the Word abode in the Father; and the natural Humanity, in this World, in the Bosom of the Virgin Mary. Of the three Regions of the [Incarnation, or] becoming Man; the forming [or imaging] of the Lord Jesus Christ.

(1) But neither must we admit that cause of the distinction of these genera which you subjoin, viz. “ that it is an arrangement with reference to different bodies; as, for instance, of Gods to etherial bodies, but of dæmons to aerial bodies, and of souls to such as are terrene .” For such an arrangement as this, which resembles that of Socrates to a tribe, when he is a senator, is unworthy of the divine genera, because all of them are essentially unrestrained and free. To which may be added, that it is dreadfully absurd to ascribe to bodies a principal power of giving a specific distinction to the first causes of themselves. For bodies are in servile subjection to these causes, and are ministrant to generation. And farther still, the genera of the more excellent natures are not in bodies, but the former externally rule over the latter. Hence they are not changed in conjunction with bodies. Again, they impart from themselves to bodies every such good as they are able to receive, but they themselves receive nothing from bodies; so that neither will they derive from them certain peculiarities.

(3) Now it may be observed, first of all, that we cannot hold utterly cheap either the indeterminate, or even a Kind whose very idea implies absence of form, provided only that it offer itself to its Priors and to the Highest Beings. We have the parallel of the Soul itself in its relation to the Intellectual-Principle and the Divine Reason, taking shape by these and led so to a nobler principle of form.

Further, a compound in the Intellectual order is not to be confounded with a compound in the realm of Matter; the Divine Reasons are compounds and their Act is to produce a compound, namely that Nature which works towards Idea. And there is not only a difference of function; there is a still more notable difference of source. Then, too, the Matter of the realm of process ceaselessly changes its form: in the eternal, Matter is immutably one and the same, so that the two are diametrically opposites. The Matter of this realm is all things in turn, a new entity in every separate case, so that nothing is permanent and one thing ceaselessly pushes another out of being: Matter has no identity here. In the Intellectual it is all things at once: and therefore has nothing to change into: it already and ever contains all. This means that not even in its own Sphere is the Matter there at any moment shapeless: no doubt that is true of the Matter here as well; but shape is held by a very different right in the two orders of Matter.

As to whether Matter is eternal or a thing of process, this will be clear when we are sure of its precise nature.

(49) For the human flesh is and resembleth nature in the body of God, which is generated from the other six qualifying or fountain spirits, wherein the qualifying or fountain spirits generate themselves again, and shew forth themselves infinitely, wherein forms and images rise up, and wherein the heart of God, or the holy clear Deity in the middle or central seat, generateth itself above nature, in that centre wherein the light of life riseth up.

(4) H: And of what nature? Must it not be, Asclepius, of just the contrary? And is not contrary to body bodiless? A: Agreed. H: Space, then, is bodiless. But bodiless must either be some godlike thing or God [Himself]. And by "some godlike thing" I mean no more the generable [i.e., that which is generated] but the ingenerable.

(4) If we had to ascertain the nature of body and the place it holds in the universe, surely we should take some sample of body, say stone, and examine into what constituents it may be divided. There would be what we think of as the substrate of stone, its quantity- in this case, a magnitude; its quality- for example, the colour of stone. As with stone, so with every other body: we should see that in this thing, body, there are three distinguishable characteristics- the pseudo-substance, the quantity, the quality- though they all make one and are only logically trisected, the three being found to constitute the unit thing, body. If motion were equally inherent in its constitution, we should include this as well, and the four would form a unity, the single body depending upon them all for its unity and characteristic nature.

The same method must be applied in examining the Intellectual Substance and the genera and first-principles of the Intellectual sphere.

But we must begin by subtracting what is peculiar to body, its coming-to-be, its sensible nature, its magnitude- that is to say, the characteristics which produce isolation and mutual separation. It is an Intellectual Being we have to consider, an Authentic Existent, possessed of a unity surpassing that of any sensible thing.

Now the wonder comes how a unity of this type can be many as well as one. In the case of body it was easy to concede unity-with-plurality; the one body is divisible to infinity; its colour is a different thing from its shape, since in fact they are separated. But if we take Soul, single, continuous, without extension, of the highest simplicity- as the first effort of the mind makes manifest- how can we expect to find multiplicity here too? We believed that the division of the living being into body and soul was final: body indeed was manifold, composite, diversified; but in soul we imagined we had found a simplex, and boldly made a halt, supposing that we had come to the limit of our course.

Let us examine this soul, presented to us from the Intellectual realm as body from the Sensible. How is its unity a plurality? How is its plurality a unity? Clearly its unity is not that of a composite formed from diverse elements, but that of a single nature comprising a plurality.

This problem attacked and solved, the truth about the genera comprised in Being will thereby, as we asserted, be elucidated also.

(3) We will have to examine this Nature, the Intellectual, which our reasoning identifies as the authentically existent and the veritable essential: but first we must take another path and make certain that such a principle does necessarily exist.

Perhaps it is ridiculous to set out enquiring whether an Intellectual-Principle has place in the total of being: but there may be some to hesitate even as to this and certainly there will be the question whether it is as we describe it, whether it is a separate existence, whether it actually is the real beings, whether it is the seat of the Ideas; to this we now address ourselves.

All that we see, and describe as having existence, we know to be compound; hand-wrought or compacted by nature, nothing is simplex. Now the hand-wrought, with its metal or stone or wood, is not realized out of these materials until the appropriate craft has produced statue, house or bed, by imparting the particular idea from its own content. Similarly with natural forms of being; those including several constituents, compound bodies as we call them, may be analysed into the materials and the Idea imposed upon the total; the human being, for example, into soul and body; and the human body into the four elements. Finding everything to be a compound of Matter and shaping principle- since the Matter of the elements is of itself shapeless- you will enquire whence this forming idea comes; and you will ask whether in the soul we recognise a simplex or whether this also has constituents, something representing Matter and something else- the Intellectual-Principle in it- representing Idea, the one corresponding to the shape actually on the statue, the other to the artist giving the shape.

Applying the same method to the total of things, here too we discover the Intellectual-Principle and this we set down as veritably the maker and creator of the All. The underly has adopted, we see, certain shapes by which it becomes fire, water, air, earth; and these shapes have been imposed upon it by something else. This other is Soul which, hovering over the Four , imparts the pattern of the Kosmos, the Ideas for which it has itself received from the Intellectual-Principle as the soul or mind of the craftsman draws upon his craft for the plan of his work.

The Intellectual-Principle is in one phase the Form of the soul, its shape; in another phase it is the giver of the shape- the sculptor, possessing inherently what is given- imparting to soul nearly the authentic reality while what body receives is but image and imitation.

(12) A: Thy argument (logos), Thrice-greatest one, is not to be gainsaid; air is a body. Further, it is this body which doth pervade all things, and so, pervading, fill them. What are we, then, to call that space in which the all doth move? H: The bodiless, Asclepius. A: What, then, is Bodiless? H: 'Tis Mind and Reason (logos), whole out of whole, all self-embracing, free from all body, from all error free, unsensible to body and untouchable, self stayed in self, containing all, preserving those that are, whose rays, to use a likeness, are Good, Truth, Light beyond light, the Archetype of soul. A: What, then, is God?

(1) The hostile opposition, therefore, in the things that are now proposed, may be easily dissolved by demonstrating the dignity of wholes with respect to parts, and by recalling to your recollection the exempt transcendency of the Gods above men. But what I mean is this, that the soul, which ranks as a whole, presides over all the mundane body, and that the celestial Gods ascend, as into a vehicle, into a celestial body, neither receiving any injury from thence, nor any impediment in their intellections. But to a partial soul, the communion with body is noxious in both these respects. If, therefore, some one perceiving this, should nevertheless introduce such a doubt as the following, that if the body is a bond to our soul, it will also be a bond to the soul of the universe, and that if a partial soul is converted to the body on account of generation, in a similar manner the power of the Gods is converted to generation; in answer to this every one may reply, that he who thus doubts does not know how much superior beings transcend men, and wholes parts. Since, therefore, the objections pertain to things different from each other, they do not produce any ambiguity.

(37) Thus is the Birth (and also the first Original) of all the Creatures; and it standeth yet in such a Birth in the Essence; and after such a Manner it is, out of the eternal Thoughts (viz. the Wisdom of God) by the Fiat, brought out of the Matrix; but being come forth out of the Darkness, out of the Out-Birth, out of the Center, (which yet was generated in the Time, in the Will,) therefore it is not eternal, but corruptible [or transitory,] like a Thought; and though it be indeed material, yet every again, as it was before the Beginning.

(18) Now some of the things said should bear a sense peculiar to themselves. So understand, for instance, what I'm going to say. All are in God, [but] not as lying in a place. For place is both a body and immovable, and things that lie do not have motion. Now things lie one way in the bodiless, another way in being made manifest. Think, [then,] of Him who doth contain them all; and think, that than the bodiless naught is more comprehensive, or swifter, or more potent, but it is the most comprehensive, the swiftest, and most potent of them all.

(69) Therefore we must consider, that the Noise in the Tincture of Man is [of a] higher [Nature] than [that] in the Beasts; for Man searches and distinguishes all Things which give a Sound, and knows from whence it comes, and how it exists, which the Beasts cannot do, but stare at it, and knows not what it is; whereby it may be understood, that the Original of Man, is out of the Eternal, because he can distinguish all Things that in the Out-Birth came out of the Eternal. And hence it is, that the Body (seeing all Things out of the eternal Nothing are caused to be Something which is comprehensible [or palpable,] and yet there, that Nothing is not a mere Nothing, but is a Source) after the Corrupting shall stand in the eternal Figure, and not in the Spirit, because it is not out of the eternal Spirit; for otherwise, if it were out of the [eternal] Spirit, then it should also search out the Beginning of every Thing, as [well as] Man, who in his Sound receives and distinguishes all Things.

(17) Therefore the eternal Word, or Heart of God, wrought thus in the dark and spiritual Matrix, which in itself, in the Originality without the Light, would be [as it were] dumb [or senseless,] and has generated a corporeal and palpable, [or comprehensible] Similitude of its Essence, in which all the Forms were brought forth out of the eternal Formation, and brought into Essence. For out of the spiritual Form, the corporeal [Form] is generated, and the eternal Word has created it by the Fiat, to stand thus. Or unknown.

(91) If this be rightly considered, which, indeed, cannot be done without a special illumination of the holy God, then, before he finds anything else, a man findeth the astringent, cold and austere birth or geniture, which is the cause of the corporeal nature, or of the imaging, fashioning or framing of a thing.

(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.

(3) But if any one should blame the descriptions as being incongruous, by saying that it is shameful to attribute shapes so repugnant to the Godlike and most holy Orders, it is enough to reply that the method of Divine revelation is twofold; one, indeed, as is natural, proceeding through likenesses that are similar, and of a sacred character, but the other, through dissimilar forms, fashioning them into entire unlikeness and incongruity. No doubt, the mystical traditions of the revealing Oracles sometimes extol the august Blessedness of the super-essential Godhead, as Word, and Mind, and Essence, manifesting its God-becoming expression and wisdom, both as really being Origin, and true Cause of the origin of things being, and they describe It as light, and call it life. While such sacred descriptions are more reverent, and seem in a certain way to be superior to the material images, they yet, even thus, in reality fall short of the supremely Divine similitude. For It is above every essence and life. No light, indeed, expresses its character, and every description and mind incomparably fall short of Its similitude. But at other times its praises are supermundanely sung, by the Oracles themselves, through dissimilar revelations, when they affirm that it is invisible, and infinite, and incomprehensible; and when there is signified, not what it is, but what it is not. For this, as I think, is more appropriate to It, since, as the secret and sacerdotal tradition taught, we rightly describe its non-relationship to things created, but we do not know its superessential, and inconceivable, and unutterable indefinability. If, then, the negations respecting things Divine are true, but the affirmations are inharmonious, the revelation as regards things invisible, through dissimilar representations, is more appropriate to the hiddenness of things unutterable. Thus the sacred descriptions of the Oracles honour, and do not expose to shame, the Heavenly Orders, when they make them known by dissimilar pictorial forms, and demonstrate through these their supermundane superiority over all. material things. And I do not suppose that any sensible man will gainsay that the incongruous elevate our mind more than the similitudes; for there is a likelihood, with regard to the more sublime representations of heavenly things, that we should be led astray, so as to think that the Heavenly Beings are certain creatures with the appearance of gold, and certain men with the appearance of light, and glittering like lightning, handsome, clothed in bright shining raiment, shedding forth innocuous flame, and so with regard to all the other shapes and appropriate forms, with which the Word of God has depicted the Heavenly Minds. In order that men might not suffer from this, by thinking they are nothing more exalted than their beau tiful appearance, the elevating wisdom of the pious theologians reverently conducts to the incongruous dissimilarities, not permitting our earthly part to rest fixed in the base images, but urging the upward tendency of the soul, and goading it by the unseemliness of the phrases (to see) that it belongs neither to lawful nor seeming truth, even for the most earthly conceptions, that the most heavenly and Divine visions are actually like things so base. Further also this must particularly be borne in mind, that not even one of the things existing is altogether deprived of participation in the beautiful, since, as is evident and the truth of the Oracles affirms, all things are very beautiful.

(18) The eternal Generating is an unbeginning Birth, and it has neither Number nor End, and its Depth is bottomless, and the Band of Life incorruptible: The syderial and elementary Spirit cannot discern it, much less comprehend it; it only feels it, and sees a Glimpse of it in the Mind; which [Mind] is the Chariot of the Soul, upon which it rides in the first Principle in its own Seat in the Father's eternal Generating [or Begetting;] for its own Substance is altogether crude, without a Body, and yet it has the Form of the Body in its own spiritual Form, understand according to the Image; which Soul, if it be regenerated in the Light of God, it sees in the Light of the Father, (which Light is his Glance, Luster, or Son,) in the eternal Birth, wherein it lives and remains eternally.