12. We have just said that a man can see, either in differing from what
he sees, or in identifying himself with the object seen. Now, when he
has seen, either as being different, or as being identical, what does
he report? He tells us that he has seen the Divinity beget an offspring
of an incomparable beauty, producing everything in Himself, and without
pain preserving within Himself what He has begotten. In fact, charmed
with the things He has begotten, and full of love for his works,
the Divinity retained them within Himself, congratulating Himself
upon their splendor, as much as upon his own. In the midst of these
beauties, nevertheless inferior to those which have remained within the
nature of the Divinity, alone of all these beings, his Son (Jupiter,
the son of Saturn, here representing the universal Soul born of divine
Intelligence) has manifested himself externally. By him, as by an
image, you may judge of the greatness of his Father, and that of his
brothers still unissued from within their Father's nature. Besides, it
is not in vain that Jupiter tells us that he proceeds from his Father;
for he constitutes another world that has become beautiful, because he
is the image of beauty, and because it is impossible that the image of
beauty and being should not itself be beautiful. Jupiter, therefore,
everywhere imitates his archetype. That is why, because he is an image,
he possesses life and constitutes being; and that is why, because he
proceeds from his Father, he also possesses beauty. He likewise enjoys
the privilege of being the image of his eternity. Otherwise he would
at one time reveal the image of his Father, and at other times he
would not; which is impossible, because he is not an artificial image.
Every natural image remains what it was, so long as its archetype
subsists.[239] It is therefore an error to believe that, while the
intelligible world subsists, the visible world could perish, and that
it was begotten in such a manner as that he who had created it, had
done so with deliberation. Whatever indeed might have been the manner
of operation, these men[240] do not wish to conceive and believe that,
so long as the intelligible world shines, other things that proceed
therefrom could not perish; and that they exist ever since (their
model) existed. But the (intelligible world) has ever existed, and will
ever exist; for (in spite of their impropriety), we are obliged to make
use of such terms to express our thought.