(2) And if he ask thee, “What is that God?” say thou, that it is God that made thee and bought thee, and that graciously hath called thee to thy degree. “And in Him,” say, “thou hast no skill.” And therefore say, “Go thou down again,” and tread him fast down with a stirring of love, although he seem to thee right holy, and seem to thee as he would help thee to seek Him. For peradventure he will bring to thy mind diverse full fair and wonderful points of His kindness, and say that He is full sweet, and full loving, full gracious, and full merciful. And if thou wilt hear him, he coveteth no better; for at the last he will thus jangle ever more and more till he bring thee lower, to the mind of His Passion.

(78) For God is nearby; he is not far off. All divine limits are those which belong to God's household. Therefore, if the divine agrees with you partially in anything, know that all of the Divine agrees with you. But this divine is not pleased with anything evil. For it is this which teaches all men what is good. This is what God has given to the human race, so that for this reason every man might be chosen before all the angels and the archangels.

(51) Whatsoever thou dost but look upon, there, is God, but in this world the comprehensibility stands in the wrath, which the devil has kindled; and in the hidden kernel, in the midst or centre of the wrath, the light or heart of God is generated, incomprehensibly as to the wrath; and so each of them remaineth in its seat.

(2) Such is the discipline of wisdom ("for whom the Lord loveth He chastens"), causing pain in order to produce understanding, and restoring to peace and immortality. Accordingly, the Barbarian philosophy, which we follow, is in reality perfect and true. And so it is said in the book of Wisdom: "For He hath given me the unerring knowledge of things that exist, to know the constitution of the word," and so forth, down to "and the virtues of roots." Among all these he comprehends natural science, which treats of all the phenomena in the world of sense. And in continuation, he alludes also to intellectual objects in what he subjoins: "And what is hidden or manifest I know; for Wisdom, the artificer of all things, taught me." You have, in brief, the professed aim of our philosophy; and the learning of these branches, when pursued with right course of conduct, leads through Wisdom, the artificer of all things, to the Ruler of all, - a Being difficult to grasp and apprehend, ever receding and withdrawing from him who pursues. But He who is far off has - oh ineffable marvel! - come very near. "I am a God: that draws near," says the Lord. He is in essence remote; "for how is it that what is begotten can have approached the Unbegotten?" But He is very near in virtue of that power which holds all things in its embrace. "Shall one do aught in secret, and I see him not?" For the power of God is always present, in contact with us, in the exercise of inspection, of beneficence, of instruction. Whence Moses, persuaded that God is not to be known by human wisdom, said, "Show me Thy glory;" and into the thick darkness where God's voice was, pressed to enter - that is, into the inaccessible and invisible ideas respecting Existence. For God is not in darkness or in place, but above both space and time, and qualities of objects. Wherefore neither is He at any time in a part, either as containing or as contained, either by limitation or by section. "For what house will ye build to Me?" saith the Lord?

(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.

(9) But God is not, as some suppose, beyond the reach of sense-and-thought. It is through superstition men thus impiously speak. For all the things that are, Asclepius, all are in God, are brought by God to be, and do depend on Him - both things that act through bodies, and things that through soul-substance make [other things] to move, and things that make things live by means of spirit, and things that take unto themselves the things that are worn out. And rightly so; nay, I would rather say, He doth not have these things; but I speak forth the truth, He is them all Himself. He doth not get them from without, but gives them out [from Him]. This is God's sense-and-thought, ever to move all things. And never time shall be when e'en a whit of things that are shall cease; and when I say "a whit of things that are", I mean a whit of God. For thigs that are, God hath; nor aught [is there] without Him, nor [is] He without aught.

(130) Thou wilt be such an eternal, almighty god therein, as a prisoner in a deep prison or dungeon, where thou wilt neither attain nor see the eternal light of God. But the kindled bitter wrath of God will be thy boundaries, out of which thou canst never get.

(68) "I am a God at hand," it is said by Jeremiah, "and not a God afar off. Shall a man do aught in secret places, and I shall not see him?"

(141) Herein stands the innermost and greatest depth of God. O man, consider thyself! I will more largely declare it in its due place.

(4) Behold! thou unapprehensive man, I will shew thee the true ground of the Deity. If this whole or universal being be not God, then thou art not God's image. If he be any other or strange God, then thou hast no part in him: For thou art created out of this God, and livest in this very God, and this very God continually giveth thee power or virtue, and blessing, also meat and drink, out of himself; also all thy knowledge stands in this God, and when thou diest, then thou art buried in this God.

(43) When thou beholdest the deep between the stars and the earth, canst thou say, That is not God, or, There God is not? O, thou miserable corrupted man! be instructed; for in the deep above the earth, where thou seest and knowest nothing, and sayest there is nothing, yet even there is the lightholy God in his Trinity, and he is generating there, as well as in the high heaven aloft above this world. 44 Or dost thou think that in or at the time of the creation of this world he departed and went away from his seat wherein he did sit from eternity? O no; that cannot be, for though he would himself do so, he cannot do it, for he himself is All: As little as a member of the body can be rent off from itself, so little also can God be divided, rent or separated from being everywhere.

(93) Thus thou seest what God is, and how his love and wrath have been from eternity, also how his birth or geniture is: And now thou canst not say that thou art not in God, or dost not live in God, or that God is any strange thing which thou canst not come at, but must confess, that where thou art, there is the gate of God.

(21) 'Though sitting still, he walks far; though lying down, he goes everywhere. Who, save myself, is able to know that God who rejoices and rejoices not?'

(134) Herein the spirit seeth into the depth of the Deity; for in God, near and afar off is all one; and that same God, of whom I write in this book, is as well in his Ternary in the body of a holy soul, as in heaven.

(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.

(2) But seeing it is his eternal Will and Purpose to do us good, and to open his Secrets to us according to his Counsel, therefore we ought not to withstand, nor to bury the bestowed Talent in the Earth, for we must give Account of it in the Appearing of his Coming. Therefore we will thus labour in our Vineyard, and commend the Fruit to him, and will set down in Writing a Memorial for ourselves, and leave it to him. For we can search or conceive no further, than only what we apprehend in the Light of Nature; where our Gate stands open; not according to the Measure of our Purpose, when and how we will, but according to his Gift, when and how he wills. We are not able to comprehend the least Sparkle of him, unless the Gates of the Deep be opened to us in our Mind; where then the zealous [earnest] and highly desirous kindled Spirit is as a Fire, to which the earthly Body ought to be subject, and will grudge no Pains to serve the desirous fiery Mind. And although it has nothing to expect for its Labour but Scorn and Contempt from the World, yet it must be obedient to its Lord, for its Lord is mighty, and itself is feeble, and its Lord leads, [drives,] and preserves it, and yet in its [Ignorance, or Want of] Understanding, it knows nothing of what it does, but it lives like all the Beasts. And yet its Will is [not] to live thus, but it must follow the worthy Mind, which searches after the Wisdom of God; and the Mind must follow the Light of Nature; for God manifests [or reveals] himself in that Light, or else we should know nothing of him.

(43) O my heart, if you wish to arrive at the beginning of understanding, walk carefully. To each atom there is a different door, and for each atom there is a different way which leads to the mysterious Being of whom I speak. To know oneself one must live a hundred lives. But you must know God by Himself and not by you; it is He who opens the way that leads to Him, not human wisdom. The knowledge of Him is not at the door of rhetoricians. Knowledge and ignorance are here the same, for they cannot explain nor can they describe. The opinions of men on this arise only in their imagination; and it is absurd to try to deduce anything from what they say: whether ill or well, they have said it from themselves. God is above knowledge and beyond evidence, and nothing can give an idea of his Holy Majesty.

(3) God is equally near in all creatures. The wise man saith, "God hath spread out His net over all creatures, so that whosoever wishes to discover Him may find and recognize Him in each one." Another saith, "He knows God rightly who recognizes Him alike in all things." To serve God with fear is good; to serve Him out of love is better; but to fear and love Him together is best of all. To have a restful or peaceful life in God is good; to bear a life of pain in patience is better; but to have peace in the midst of pain is the best of all.

(14) Again: "Abraham, when he came to the place which God told him of on the third day, looking up, saw the place afar off." For the first day is that which is constituted by the sight of good things; and the second is the soul's best desire; on the third, the mind perceives spiritual things, the eyes of the understanding being opened by the Teacher who rose on the third day. The three days may be the mystery of the seal, in which God. is really believed. It is consequently afar off that he sees the place. For the region of God is hard to attain; which Plato called the region of ideas, having learned from Moses that it was a place which contained all things universally. But it is seen by Abraham afar off, rightly, because of his being in the realms of generation, and he is forthwith initiated by the angel. Thence says the apostle: "Now we see as through a glass, but then face to face," by those sole pure and incorporeal applications of the intellect. In reasoning, it is possible to divine respecting God, if one attempt without any of the senses, by reason, to reach what is individual; and do not quit the sphere of existences, till, rising up to the things which transcend it, he apprehends by the intellect itself that which is good, moving in the very confines of the world of thought, according to Plato.

(8) This being so, O Tat, what comes from God hath been and will be ours; but that which is dependent on ourselves, let this press onward and have no delay, for 'tis not God, 'tis we who are the cause of evil things, preferring them to good. Thou see'st, son, how many are the bodies through which we have to pass, how many are the choirs of daimones, how vast the system of the star-courses [through which our Path doth lie], to hasten to the One and Only God. For to the Good there is no other shore; It hath no bounds; It is without an end; and for Itself It is without beginning, too, though unto us it seemeth to have one - the Gnosis.