If, however, the mundane as well as the supermundane Gods are
incorporeal, it may be asked how the visible celestial orbs can be
Gods? To this we reply, that the celestial Gods are not comprehended
by bodies, but that they contain bodies in their divine lives and
energies; that they are not converted to body, but that the body
which is suspended from their essence is converted to a divine cause;
and that body is no impediment to their intellectual and incorporeal
perfection, and is not the cause of any molestation to them by its
intervention. Hence it does not require an abundant care and attention,
but spontaneously and after a certain manner self-motively follows
the divinities with which it is connected, not being in want of any
manuduction, but by its elevation to the one of the Gods, is also
itself uniformly raised by itself.
Indeed, a celestial body is allied in the most eminent degree to the
incorporeal essence of the Gods. For as the latter is characterized
by unity, so the former is simple. As that is impartible, this is
indivisible. And as that is immutable, this after a similar manner is
unchanged in quality. If also it is admitted that the energies of the
Gods are uniform, this body likewise has one circulation. Besides this,
it imitates the sameness of the Gods, by its perpetual and invariable
motion according to, and towards the same things, conformably to one
reason and order. It likewise imitates the divine life of the Gods by
the life which is connascent with the ethereal bodies. Hence, neither
is a celestial body so constituted as if composed of contrary and
different natures, as is the case with our bodies; nor does the soul
of the celestial Gods so coalesce with the body suspended from it, as
to form one animal from the two; but the animals of these divinities
are perfectly similar and united to the Gods from whom they depend;
and are throughout whole, uniform, and free from all composition. For
more excellent natures always subsisting with invariable sameness in
themselves, but inferior being suspended from the dominion of superior
beings, yet so as never to draw down this dominion to themselves,
wholes likewise being collected into one order and one perfection,
and after a certain manner all things in the celestial Gods being
incorporeal and throughout divine, because the divine form universally
predominates in them,--this being the case, one total essence in the
nature of these divinities every where prevails. And thus the visible
celestial orbs are all of them Gods, and are after a certain manner
incorporeal.[69]
If, therefore, these divinities as being incorporeal, intellectual,
and united, ride as it were in the celestial spheres, they have their
origin in the intelligible world, and there intellectually perceiving
the divine forms of themselves, they govern the whole of heaven
according to one infinite energy. And if being present to the heavens
in a separate manner, they lead its perpetual circulations by their
will alone, they are themselves unmingled with a sensible nature, and
are consubsistent with the intelligible Gods. Indeed, the celestial
orbs, those visible statues as it were of the Gods, are generated from,
and subsist about, the intelligible Gods, and being thus generated
are established in them, and have the image elevated to them which
from them also receives its perfection. The divine intellectual forms
also which are present to the visible bodies of the Gods, have a
subsistence prior to them in a separate manner; but the unmingled and
supercelestial intelligible paradigms of them, abide in themselves,
containing all things simultaneously in one, according to the eternal
transcendency of their nature.
Hence there is one common indivisible bond of them according to
intellectual energies. There is also the same bond between them
according to the common participations of forms, since there is
nothing to intercept them, nor any intervening medium. Indeed, an
immaterial and incorporeal essence, being neither separated by places
nor subjects, nor defined by any divisible circumscriptions of parts,
immediately coalesces in sameness; and the elevation of wholes to _the
one_, and the universal dominion of _the one_, collects the communion
of the mundane Gods with the divinities that presubsist in the
intelligible world.
Farther still, the intellectual conversion of secondary to first
natures, and the gift of the same essence and power from the primary to
the secondary Gods connects their congress into an indissoluble one.
In things of different essences indeed, such as soul and body, and in
things of different species, such as material forms, and those natures
which in any other way are separated from each other, the connascent
union is adventitious, being derived from supernal causes, and lost
in certain definite periods of time. But the higher we ascend, to the
sameness of first causes, both according to form and according to
essence, and the more we raise ourselves from parts to wholes, by so
much the more shall we discover and survey that union which is eternal,
precedaneous and more principal, and which contains about and in itself
difference and multitude.
Since, however, the order of all the Gods consists in union, and the
first and second genera of them, and the multitude which germinates
about them coexist in unity; since also every thing in them is
characterized by _the one_; hence the beginning, middle, and end
of their essence consubsists according to _the one_. It is not
proper, therefore, to enquire whence unity extends to all things in
them; for their very being, whatever it may be, consists in _the
one_. And secondary genera indeed remain with invariable sameness
in _the one_ of the first genera. But the latter impart from
themselves union to the former; while all of them possess in each other
the communion of an indissoluble connexion.
From this cause, therefore, the perfectly incorporeal Gods, are united
to the sensible Gods who are connected with bodies. For the visible
Gods themselves are external to bodies, and on this account are in
the intelligible world. And the intelligible Gods on account of their
infinite union comprehend in themselves the apparent divinities; while
in the mean time both these are established according to a common union
and one energy. In a similar manner, this likewise is the illustrious
prerogative of a deific cause and orderly distribution, that the same
union of all things pervades from on high as far as to the end of the
divine order. And thus much concerning the contact of the sensible with
the intelligible Gods.[70]