9. Abundance, being the reason of the things that exist in Intelligence
and in the intelligible world--I mean the reason which pours itself
out and develops--trends towards the soul, and exists therein. Indeed,
the (Being) which remains united in Intelligence does not emanate
from a foreign principle, while the intoxication of Abundance is only
a factitious fulness. But what is that which is intoxicated with
nectar? It is Reason that descends from the superior principle to the
inferior; the Soul receives it from Intelligence at the moment of
the birth of Venus; that is why it is said that the nectar flows in
the garden of Jupiter. This whole garden is the glory and splendor
of the wealth (of Intelligence);[149] this glory originates in the
reason of Jupiter; this splendor is the light which the intelligence
of this Deity sheds on the soul. What else but the beauties and
splendors of this deity could the "gardens of Jupiter" signify? On
the other hand, what else can the beauties and splendors of Jupiter
be, if not the reasons[150] that emanate from him? At the same time,
these reasons are called Abundance (Poros, or "euporia"), the wealth
of the beauties which manifest; that is the nectar which intoxicates
Abundance.[151] For indeed what else is the nectar among the deities,
but that which each of them receives? Now Reason is that which is
received from Intelligence by its next inferior principle. Intelligence
possesses itself fully; yet this self-possession does not intoxicate
it, as it possesses nothing foreign thereto. On the contrary, Reason
is engendered by Intelligence. As it exists beneath Intelligence, and
does not, as Intelligence does, belong to itself, it exists in another
principle; consequently, we say that Abundance is lying down in the
garden of Jupiter, and that at the very moment when Venus, being born,
takes her place among living beings.