(5) And Aeon doth preserve this [Cosmos], or by Necessity, or by Foreknowledge, or by Nature, or by whatever else a man supposes or shall suppose. And all is this - God energizing. The Energy of God is Power that naught can e'er surpass, a Power with which no one can make comparison of any human thing at all, or any thing divine. Wherefore, O Hermes, never think that aught of things above or things below is like to God, for thou wilt fall from truth. For naught is like to That which hath no like, and is Alone and One. And do not ever think that any other can possibly possess His power; for what apart from Him is there of life, and deathlessness and change of quality? For what else should He make? God's not inactive, since all things [then] would lack activity; for all are full of God. But neither in the Cosmos anywhere, nor in aught else, is there inaction. For that "inaction" is a name that cannot be applied to either what doth make or what is made.

(21) Could He then have made Himself otherwise than as He did?

If He could we must deny Him the power to produce goodness for He certainly cannot produce evil. Power, There, is no producer of the inapt; it is that steadfast constant which is most decidedly power by inability to depart from unity: ability to produce the inapt inability to hold by the fitting; that self-making must be definite once for all since it is the right; besides, who could upset what is made by the will of God and is itself that will?

But whence does He draw that will seeing that essence, source of will, is inactive in Him?

The will was included in the essence; they were identical: or was there something, this will for instance, not existing in Him? All was will, nothing unwilled in Him. There is then nothing before that will: God and will were primally identical.

God, therefore, is what He willed, is such as He willed; and all that ensued upon that willing was what that definite willing engendered: but it engendered nothing new; all existed from the first.

As for his "self-containing," this rightly understood can mean only that all the rest is maintained in virtue of Him by means of a certain participation; all traces back to the Supreme; God Himself, self-existing always, needs no containing, no participating; all in Him belongs to Him or rather He needs nothing from them in order to being Himself.

When therefore you seek to state or to conceive Him, put all else aside; abstracting all, keep solely to Him; see that you add nothing; be sure that your theory of God does not lessen Him. Even you are able to take contact with Something in which there is no more than That Thing itself to affirm and know, Something which lies away above all and is- it alone- veritably free, subject not even to its own law, solely and essentially That One Thing, while all else is thing and something added.

(108) The Father, then, and Maker of all things is apprehended by all things, agreeably to all, by innate power and without teaching, - things inanimate, sympathizing with the animate creation; and of living beings some are. already immoral, working in the light of day. But of those that are still mortal, some are in fear, and carried still in their mother's womb; and others regulate themselves by their own independent reason. And of men all are Greeks and Barbarians. But no race anywhere of tillers of the soil, or nomads, and not even of dwellers in cities, can live, without being imbued with the faith of a superior being. Wherefore every eastern nation, and every nation touching the western shore; or the north, and each one towards the south, - all have one and the same preconception respecting Him who hath appointed government; since the most universal of His operations equally pervade all. Much more did the philosophers among the Greeks, devoted to investigation, starting from the Barbarian philosophy, attribute providence to the "Invisible, and sole, and most powerful, and most skilful and supreme cause of all things most beautiful; " -not knowing the inferences from these truths, unless instructed by us, and not even how God is to be known naturally; but only, as we have already often said, by a true periphrasis." Rightly therefore the apostle says, "Is He the God of the Jews only, and not also of the Greeks? " - not only saying prophetically that of the Greeks believing Greeks would know God; but also intimating that in power the Lord is the God of all, and truly Universal King. For they know neither what He is, nor how He is Lord, and Father, and Maker, nor the rest of the system of the truth, without being taught by it. Thus also the prophetic utterances have the same force as the apostolic word. For Isaiah says, "If ye say, We trust in the Lord our God: now make an alliance with my Lord the king of the Assyrians." And he adds: "And now, was it without the Lord that we came up to this land to make war against it?" And Jonah, himself a prophet, intimates the same thing in what he says: "And the shipmaster came to him, and said to him, Why dost thou snore? Rise, call on thy God, that He may save us, and that we may not perish."' For the expression "thy God" he makes as if to one who knew Him by way of knowledge; and the expression, "that God may save us," revealed the consciousness in the minds of heathens who had applied their mind to the Ruler of all, but had not yet believed. And again the same: "And he said to them, I am the servant of the Lord; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven." And again the same: "And he said, Let us by no means perish for the life of this man." And Malachi the prophet plainly exhibits God saying, "I will not accept sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun to its going down, My name is glorified among the Gentiles; and in every place sacrifice is offered to Me." And again: "Because I am a great King, saith the Lord omnipotent; and My name is manifest among the nations." What name? The Son declaring the Father among the Greeks who have believed.

(22) Again, power in all things is by the most intellectual among the Greeks ascribed to God; Epicharmus - he was a Pythagorean - saying: "Nothing escapes the divine. This it behoves thee to know. He is our observer. To God nought is impossible." And the lyric poet: "And God from gloomy night Can raise unstained light, And can in darksome gloom obscure The day's refulgence pure." He alone who is able to make night during the period of day is God. In the Phoenomena Aratus writes thus: "With Zeus let us begin; whom let us ne'er, Being men, leave unexpressed. All full of Zeus, The streets, and throngs of men, and full the sea, And shores, and everywhere we Zeus enjoy." He adds: "For we also are His offspring;.... " that is, by creation. "Who, bland to men, Propitious signs displays, and to their tasks Arouses. For these signs in heaven He fixed, The constellations spread, and crowned the year With stars; to show to men the seasons' tasks, That all things may proceed in order sure.

(10) He, then, who is persuaded that God is omnipotent, and has learned the divine mysteries from His only-begotten Son, how can he be an atheist (apeos)?

(9) For the Word of the Father of the universe is not the uttered word (logou proForikou), but the wisdom and most manifest kindness of God, and His power too, which is almighty and truly divine, and not incapable of being conceived by those who do not confess - the all-potent will. But since some are unbelieving, and some are disputations, all do not attain to the perfection of the good. For neither is it possible to attain it without the exercise of free choice; nor does the whole depend on our own purpose; as, for example, what is defined to happen. "For by grace we are saved:" not, indeed, without good works; but we must, by being formed for what is good, acquire an inclination for it. And we must possess the healthy mind which is fixed on the pursuit of the good; in order to which we have the greatest need of divine grace, and of right teaching, and of holy susceptibility, and of the drawing of the Father to Him. For, bound in this earthly body, we apprehend the objects of sense by means of the body; but we grasp intellectual objects by means of the logical faculty itself. But if one expect to apprehend all things by the senses, he has fallen far from the truth. Spiritually, therefore, the apostle writes respecting the knowledge of God, "For now we see as through a glass, but then face to face." For the vision of the truth is given but to few. Accordingly, Plato says in the Epinomis, "I do not say that it is possible for all to be blessed and happy; only a few. Whilst we live, I pronounce this to be the case. But there is a good hope that after death I shall attain all." To the same effect is what we find in Moses: "No man shall see My face, and live." For it is evident that no one during the period of life has been able to apprehend God clearly. But" the pure in heart shall see God," when they arrive at the final perfection. For since the soul became too enfeebled for the apprehension of realities, we needed a divine teacher. The Saviour is sent down - a teacher and leader in the acquisition of the good -the secret and sacred token of the great Providence. "Where, then, is the scribe? where is the searcher of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" it is said. And again, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent," plainly of those wise in their own eyes, and disputatious. Excellently therefore Jeremiah says, "Thus saith the Lord, Stand in the ways, and ask for the eternal paths,"what is the good way, and walk in it, and ye shall find expiation for your souls." Ask, he says, and inquire of those who know, without contention and dispute. And on learning the way of truth, let us walk on the right way, without turning till we attain to what we desire: It was therefore with reason that the king of the Romans (his name was Numa), being a Pythagorean, first of all men, erected a temple to Faith and Peace. "And to Abraham, on believing, righteousness was reckoned." He, prosecuting the lofty philosophy of aerial phenomena, and the sublime philosophy of the movements in the heavens, was called Abram, which is interpreted "sublime father." But afterwards, on looking up to heaven, whether it was that he saw the Son in the spirit, as some explain, or a glorious angel, or in any other way recognised God to be superior to the creation, and all the order in it, he receives in addition the Alpha, the knowledge of the one and only God, and is called Abraam, having, instead of a natural philosopher, become wise, and a lover of God. For it is interpreted, "elect father of sound." For by sound is the uttered word: the mind is its father; and the mind of the good man is elect. I cannot forbear praising exceedingly the poet of Agrigentum, who celebrates faith as follows: "Friends, I know, then, that there is truth in the myths Which I will relate. But very difficult to men, And irksome to the mind, is the attempt of faith."

(1) But neither does the cause [of the energies] of more excellent natures subsist as a certain middle instrument, nor does he who invokes operate through him who prophesies; for to assert these things is impious. And it is much more true to say, that God is all things, is able to effect all things, and that he fills all things with himself, and is alone worthy of sedulous attention, esteem, the energy of reason, and felicitous honour; that which is human being vile, of no account, and ludicrous, when compared with that which is divine. Hence I laugh, when I hear it said, that divinity is spontaneously present with certain persons or things, either through the period of generation, or through other causes. For thus that which is unbegotten will no longer be more excellent, if it is led by the period of generation; nor will it be primarily the cause of all things, if it is coarranged with certain things, according to other causes.

(1) This, then, "the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God," and of those who are "the wise the Lord knoweth their thoughts that they are vain." Let no man therefore glory on account of pre-eminence in human thought. For it is written well in Jeremiah, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man glory in his might, and let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth that I am the Lord, that executeth mercy and judgment and righteousness upon the earth: for in these things is my delight, saith the Lord." "That we should trust not in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead," says the apostle, "who delivered us from so great a death, that our faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." "For the spiritual man judgeth all things, but he himself is judged of no man." I hear also those words of his, "And these things I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words, or one should enter in to spoil you." And again, "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ;" branding not all philosophy, but the Epicurean, which Paul mentions in the Acts of the Apostles, which abolishes providence and deifies pleasure, and whatever other philosophy honours the elements, but places not over them the efficient cause, nor apprehends the Creator.

(6) "For he speaks some truths. For the devil fills him with his own spirit, if perchance he may be able to cast down any one from what is right." All things, therefore, are dispensed from heaven for good, "that by the Church may be made known the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal foreknowledge, which He purposed in Christ." Nothing withstands God: nothing opposes Him: seeing He is Lord and omnipotent.

(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.

(2) Wherefore it stands to reason, that the ideas entertained of God by wicked men must be bad, and those by good men most excellent. And therefore he who is in soul truly kingly and gnostic, being likewise pious and free from superstition, is persuaded that He who alone is God is honourable, venerable, august, beneficent, the doer of good, the author of all good things, but not the cause of evil. And respecting the Hellenic superstition we have, as I think, shown enough in the book entitled by us The Exhortation, availing ourselves abundantly of the history bearing on the point. There is no need, then, again to make a long story of what has already been clearly stated. But in as far as necessity requires to be pointed out on coming to the topic, suffice it to adduce a few out of many considerations in proof of the impiety of those who make the Divinity resemble the worst men. For either those Gods of theirs are injured by men, and are shown to be inferior to men on being injured by us; or, if not so, how is it that they are incensed at those by whom they are not injured, like a testy old wife roused to wrath?

(5) And if he was elect, their hypothesis is done away with, inasmuch as even previous to the coming of the Lord an election was found, and that saved: "For it was reckoned to him for righteousness." For if any one, following Marcion, should dare to say that the Creator (Dhmiourgon) saved the man that believed on him, even before the advent of the Lord, (the' election being saved with their own proper salvation); the power of the good Being will be eclipsed; inasmuch as late only, and subsequent to the Creator spoken of by them in words of be good men, it made the attempt to save, and by instruction, and in imitation of him. But if, being such, the good Being save, according to them; neither is it his own that he saves, nor is it with the consent of him who formed the creation that he essays salvation, but by force or fraud. And how can he any more be good, acting thus, and being posterior? But if the locality is different, and the dwelling-place of the Omnipotent is remote from the dwelling-place of the good God; yet the will of him who saves, having been the first to begin, is not inferior to that of the good God. From what has been previously proved, those who believe not are proved senseless: "For their paths are perverted, and they know not peace," saith the prophet. "But foolish and unlearned questions" the divine Paul exhorted to "avoid, because they gender strifes." And Aeschylus exclaims: "In what profits not, labour not in vain."

(5) But truly existing being, and which is essentially incorporeal, is every where, wherever it may wish to be. And that which is divine, and which transcends all things, would [if what you say were admitted] be transcended by the perfection of the whole world, and, as a certain part, would be comprehended by it. Hence, it would be inferior to corporeal magnitude. I do not, however, see after what manner these sensible natures could be produced and specifically distinguished, if there was no divine fabrication, and if no participation of divine forms, extended through the whole world. In short, this opinion wholly subverts sacred institutions, and the theurgic communion of the Gods with men; since it exterminates from the earth the presence of the more excellent genera. For it says nothing else than that divine dwell remote from earthly natures, and that this our place of abode is deserted by them. According to this assertion, therefore, neither can we, that are priests, learn any thing from the Gods, nor do you rightly inquire of us, as knowing more than others, since we shall differ in no respect from other men.

(10) Wherefore also the apostle exhorts, "that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men," who profess to persuade, "but in the power of God," which alone without proofs, by mere faith, is able to save. "For the most approved of those that are reputable knows how to keep watch. And justice will apprehend the forger and witnesses of lies," says the Ephesian. For he, having derived his knowledge from the barbarian philosophy, is acquainted with the purification by fire of those who have led bad lives, which the Stoics afterwards called the Conflagration (ekpurwsiu), in which also they teach that each will arise exactly as he was, so treating of the resurrection; while Plato says as follows, that the earth at certain periods is purified by fire and water: "There have been many destructions of men in many ways; and there shall be very great ones by fire and water; and others briefer by innumerable causes." And after a little he adds: "And, in truth, there is a change of the objects which revolve about earth and heaven; and in the course of long periods there is the destruction of the objects on earth by a great conflagration." Then he subjoins respecting the deluge: "But when, again, the gods deluge the earth to purify it with water, those on the mountains herdsmen and shepherds, are saved; those in your cities are carried down by the rivers into the sea." And we showed in the first Miscellany that the philosophers of the Greeks are called thieves, inasmuch as they have taken without acknowledgment their principal dogmas from Moses and the prophets. To which also we shall add, that the angels who had obtained the superior rank, having sunk into pleasures, told to the women the secrets which had come to their knowledge; while the rest of the angels concealed them, or rather, kept them against the coming of the Lord. Thence emanated the doctrine of providence, and the revelation of high things; and prophecy having already been imparted to the philosophers of the Greeks, the treatment of dogma arose among the philosophers, sometimes true when they hit the mark, and sometimes erroneous, when they comprehended not the secret of the prophetic allegory. And this it is proposed briefly to indicate in running over the points requiring mention. Faith, then, we say, we are to show must not be inert and alone, but accompanied with investigation. For I do not say that we are not to inquire at all. For "Search, and thou shalt find," it is said.

(2) For, let “ ignorance and deception be error and impiety ,” yet it does not follow that, on this account, things which are offered to the Gods, and divine works, are false. For a conception of the mind does not conjoin theurgists with the Gods; since, if this were the case, what would hinder those who philosophize theoretically, from having a theurgic union with the Gods? Now, however, in reality, this is not the case. For the perfect efficacy of ineffable works, which are divinely performed in a way surpassing all intelligence, and the power of inexplicable symbols, which are known only to the Gods, impart theurgic union. Hence, we do not perform these things through intellectual perception; since, if this were the case, the intellectual energy of them would be imparted by us; neither of which is true. For when we do not energize intellectually, the synthemata themselves perform by themselves their proper work, and the ineffable power of the Gods itself knows, by itself, its own images. It does not, however, know them, as if excited by our intelligence; for neither is it natural that things which comprehend should be excited by those that are comprehended, nor perfect by imperfect natures, nor wholes by parts. Hence, neither are divine causes precedaneously called into energy by our intellections; but it is requisite to consider these, and all the best dispositions of the soul, and also the purity pertaining to us, as certain concauses; the things which properly excite the divine will being divine synthemata themselves. And thus, things pertaining to the Gods, are moved by themselves, and do not receive from any inferior nature a certain principle in themselves of their own proper energy.

(1) Let us then, in the next place, consider the opposing arguments, what they are, and what reason they possess. And if we should discuss some things a little more abundantly, in consequence of speaking freely and at leisure, it is requisite that you should promptly attend to, and endure what, we say. For it is necessary that great labour should be bestowed on the greatest disciplines, and that they should be accurately explored for a long time, if you intend to know them perfectly. Do you, therefore, conformably to the present hypothesis, propose the arguments which occasion the doubt, and I will answer you. Say then, “ it very much perplexes me to understand how superior beings, when invoked, are commanded by those that invoke them, as if they were their inferiors .” But I will unfold to you the whole division, which is worthy of regard, concerning the powers that are invoked; from which you will be able clearly to define what is possible and what is impossible, in the subjects of your investigation. For the Gods, indeed, and the natures that are more excellent than we, through the wish of what is beautiful, and from an unenvying and exuberant fulness of good, benevolently impart to those that are worthy, such things as are fit for them, commiserating the labours of sacerdotal men, but being delighted with those that they have begotten, nourished, and instructed. But the middle genera are the inspective guardians of judgment.

(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?

(6) Such are they of whom Micah the prophet says, "Hear the word of the Lord, ye peoples who dwell with pangs." And Abraham said, "By no means. The Lord is He who judgeth the earth; " "since he that believeth not, is," according to the utterance of the Saviour, "condemned already." And there is written in the Kings the judgment and sentence of the Lord, which stands thus: "The Lord hears the righteous, but the wicked He saveth not, because they do not desire to know God." For the Almighty will not accomplish what is absurd. What do the heresies say to this utterance, seeing Scripture proclaims the Almighty God to be good, and not the author of evil and wrong, if indeed ignorance arises from one not knowing? But God does nothing absurd. "For this God," it is said, "is our God, and there is none to save besides Him." "For there is no unrighteous ness with God," according to the apostle. And clearly yet the prophet teaches the will of God, and the gnostic proficiency, in these words: "And now, Israel, what doth the Lord God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, and walk in all His ways, and love Him, and serve Him alone?" He asks of thee, who hast the power of choosing salvation. What is it, then, that the Pythagoreans mean when they bid us "pray with the voice"? As seems to me, not that they thought the Divinity could not hear those who speak silently, but because they wished prayers tO be right, which no one would be ashamed to make in the knowledge of many. We shall, however, treat of prayer in due course by and by. But we ought to have works that cry aloud, as becoming "those who walk in the day." "Let thy works shine," and behold a man and his works before his face. "For behold God and His works."

(10) "For this is habitual to the wicked," says Empedocles, "to wish to overbear what is true by disbelieving it." And that our tenets are probable and worthy of belief, the Greeks shall know, the point being more thoroughly investigated in what follows. For we are taught what is like by what is like. For says Solomon, "Answer a fool according to his folly." Wherefore also, to those that ask the wisdom that is with us, we are to hold out things suitable, that with the greatest possible ease they may, through their own ideas, be likely to arrive at faith in the truth. For "I became all things to all men, that I might gain all men." Since also "the rain" of the divine grace is sent down "on the just and the unjust." "Is He the God of the Jews only, and not also of the Gentiles? Yes, also of the Gentiles: if indeed He is one God," exclaims the noble apostle.