Treatise of Treatises, Book 3

Pragmateia of Three. On the Natural Things. That which First Philosophy is called, and Theology. Chapters First Chapter: On the Division of That Which Is. First, on the Division of That Which Is into Substance and Accident. Second Chapter: On These Things Which Necessarily Accompany Being and the Mode of Its Activity. Third Chapter: A Discourse on the Creation of Matter, and on Forms, and Privation, and Genus, and the Kingdom of Heaven, that is, the Pleasures. Fourth Chapter: A Discourse on Qualities, and Signs, and Visions, and Dreams. First Chapter On the Division of That Which Is First, on the Division of That Which Is into Substance and Accident. Now, That Which Is either exists in a subject, or it does not exist in a subject. And "in a subject" we say of that which is in something, not as a part of it, in the way that a plank is in a ship, or a part in a whole. And this either is not able to subsist in its own existence without that in which it is, and is called an accident; or it is not able to subsist without that which is set, and is called a substance. And an accident is not changed in the change of the nature of that which it is in; but a substance is changed, like a cloak, that is to say, the whiteness of blackness, and water which becomes air, for that which is in it is not changed with its nature. These things, however, are many. And that which is not in that which is set is called substance, whether it exists in a subject or not. There are, then, four divisions of substance: body, and its nature, matter, and substance, and that which is last, which is with these three, of That Which Is, being distinguished, that is, essence. But outside of these four, there is not one substance, because every substance is either a body or its two natures, or not a body, nor its natures.

and of the properties of the substance. That which has no opposite to it. For according to the perfection of the wise, the opposites of that which is are delineated. Natures are something twofold, concerning that one which is placed so as to be changed, while through the distance of other limits there is between them. And when substance is not in that which is placed, it is opposite to it. Therefore, the placed changes and is formed in the domain of opposites to something of substance. As it is shown that privation is not an opposite. And again, of the properties of something of substances, that which is manifested in this way, like the properties of bodies. And these are concerning those which are not in that which is placed. But these are in that which is placed, which are accidents. Either it is possible to think of their persistence, or it is not possible. And that which is like this is motion. Whether this is in quality or in quantity, or in place, as was shown before. And everything whose persistence is thought, either without matter its quiddity is perceived, or with matter in relation to another. And thus, like those in relation to something of paternity and filiation to say, not father and son, in that each of these is a substance, that which is proper to it is attached to it. And that which is perceived without matter, or the recipient is that of division between them, and is called quantity. And through its mediation, division and non-division, continuity and non-continuity, equality and non-equality, are attached to the natural body. And it is divided into continuous and discrete. And continuous is that which has some internal limit, with respect to which its parts are contiguous. And it is divided into that which has no position, like the magnitude of motion, whose parts are contiguous in time. And it is time.

and to that which has a limit to its properties and is divided along length, a simple thing which in substance alone is individually formed and called a line. And to the length with breadth, that which is called extension. And to that which is with depth again and is called a body, it is measured. And it is understood that place is from dimensions, that of quantity and not of quality. In that when nothing else is set aside from extension, how is it equated to another dimension? It is, moreover, a distinction. That in which no internal boundary can be taken with it, the properties of the substance are delineated as of the measured. And the word is not a dimension of quantity but a disposition to which quantity is attached. And from the properties of quantity, that which has no opposite. In that the simple ones are delineated together. And again there is no time that sets the changes of its properties, in that it is set in motion. And thus all distinctions, every dimension that is less is found in that which is more. And thus from opposites they are understood in quantity, as of hardness and straightness. And excess and deficiency, or greatness and smallness, are not quantities. But they are properties that belong to quantity, attached to it. Or they are not receptive of division within themselves. And they are called properties. And it is indicated that it is a certain thing that is set apart, which is perceived apart from sensation. Nor is it receptive of division within itself. For whiteness is divided from faces but not within itself. In that by the division of that in which it is, it is divided, that of body and properties from their completions. Their completions are from accidents. And completions are either perceptible or imperceptible. And perceptible are either from substances, some properties are called sensible qualities, like the redness of a rose and the whiteness of snow.

And again, those which are not extended are called affections, like the redness of a blush. And again, those which are not sensible, if they are something extended, are called axes. Or the tenuity of a spirit which is not corporeal. And again, those which are not extended in their nature are called dispositions, like the anger of the wrathful. And again, that which is of the nature of a quality is called a natural power, like the hardness which is its impassibility to division. Or again, that which is of the nature of a habit is not called a natural power, like the softness which has no capacity to feel. For there are other substances which belong to the quantity which is proper to them, like the straightness of lines or their curvature. And forms, like those which are called by the multitude of species. And schemata without forms. And according to this division, in the fourth treatise, these genera have been established: the genus of genera, the higher genera, in substance, to speak of quantity and substance and relation to something. And these others, likewise, where it is shown that the demonstration which is the knowledge of the being of substance in some place, and as when the being of substance in some time is known, and as it has it, that the being of substance in some thought, that which in its equality is known as a mean, like that which is to be bent or to be commanded. And as the limit which is the proportion of the contacts of bodies to one another in the surfaces which are different is known, like that which is seated. And as that which makes the making of substance in another is known not extensively. And as that which suffers the being-made of substance in another is known not extensively. For without proportion or relation it is not possible to be perceived. For when a body is in some place, it does not have existence, but the existence of some relation.

And these other categories are the affections of the relatives, which are the simple affections that are the category of something being said in relation to something. For they are not bodies, but the body of bodies. For that is their body. And it should not be thought that the philosopher is opposed in this. For these categories are not from him, but from another man, to whom he gave the name "Archytas," as is related. And therefore, there is not even one demonstration concerning their definition, whether in ten or in the definition of all of them. Demonstration: And from that which shows that those which are relatives admit of more and less, because of the accidents of the affections. For it is said that quantity does not admit of more and less. For it is not said that a line is something more a line than another line. And it is said that it is long. For a line is not something else, but simply length. In like manner, and in measures, it is said that this measure is greater. That which is less, for it is not something else, measure apart from magnitude. And it is again said that substance is not receptive of more and less. And all the ancients agreed that all substances of this lower world are images of those of the upper world. And equally, in that substance, these participate with those, being created with them. And these cannot be established except in those. And genera, as it is said, admit of more and less. The boundary of whiteness together holds all whites. Demonstration: And accident, from these nine known ones, from that which changes, changes. And when change, not one in essence, produces. As for example, heat. That which changes into that, genera and species and magnitudes.

And it is the same when it is the same in substance. And the body, from the fact that it is the subject of the accidents that are the accidents of quantity, is that which is the subject of the affections. These, which are in the natural body, are a fixed subsistence of existence. And accidents, from the fact that they are not able to be separated from bodies, are transferred from bodies to bodies. In that which now is that which is in it from this one is different from that which is in it from that other one. And between the two of them, time is something that is necessary, which is that in which it stands, and its non-existence ought to be that accident. And when this is the case, the natural accidents are hindered from those which are not able to have their equality without their corruption. And accidents, from the fact that they are not subsistent in themselves, because if they were able to stand without bodies, they would not have begun in bodies. Because of that which is established in them is dissolved. And the demonstration is concerning that division which is of the universal and the particular, which is either something universal or something particular. And both of them are known in logic. And the difference from the universal is not an intrinsic concept in the action of one another when it is found in particulars. Because this one is from the first side from that other one. Nor is there a particular from each one of them from it. But it was necessary that by the abolition of one of the two, the difference would be abolished. And behold, it is not so. But in every subsistence there is a difference that is perfect, which is that which is not able to be abolished by the abolition of that other one. The remainder, then, of every universal existence is only able to be in thought and not in action. And the form is something, which is that which thought takes from particulars and together all of them are equal in it, like many surfaces which are imprinted in the form of something of a particular nature. When indeed that form is never able to stand from it and to it in action, when it is abstracted from the surface.

Thus the opinion that there is a distinction concerning universal actions, which are from them and to them, is dissolved; these are called affections. And in universals, with multiplicity and not one, it is possible that it be without the addition of something external to the concept of that universality. For behold, four from birds and four from stones: each one of them of the two fours, if the simple quaternity were in its concept, it would be the same as the other, and they would not differ in anything. And it is evident that each one of them differs from the other, not in that of quaternity, but in the matters. And by these it is known that natures are equal in matters and differ in times together, or in time alone, like the two blacknesses that are found in that which is placed. But each one of them after the cessation of the other. And when the time from these is that in which waters are distinguished from kidneys, it is the same as that which turned, that which was corrupted, in that which in the second time becomes another from that which was in the first time. For each one of them is other from the other, not the same as itself. And for changes, there is not even one cause in the substantiality of bodies. And if not, for all individuals, they would be when they were. They enter, however, in their possibility, in that without change in action no body can be found. And demonstration concerning the division of that which is to the finite and the infinite. Every motion that is according to its particular order has something, whether artificial or natural, and likewise is found in operations. From the definition of the finite something becomes, and for infinity from the definitions of the artificial order, as of bodies. The first word established by demonstrations, and of the order from the natural, as of causes and causalities. Behold now it is sufficient to establish.

in that when a continuum is something that is not finite, it is found that these things are. There is, then, no raising from its middle a finite thing, and it stands in opposition to the limits. And it takes the continuum at one time, when it raises from it that finite thing, and at another time when it does not raise, and it is evident that they are together and it is not possible that the definitions of the finite should be. And otherwise it is found to be deficient, which is not deficient, that which is drunk. It is fitting, then, that in a finite thing a finite thing should be added one upon its fellow. And that deficient thing should be finite and not with it to infinity be extended. And everything that is finite from that which is more finite, it is necessary that also that finite should be not infinite. And actions from those that are in operation together are found. But there is no order among them. Like spiritual substances. Or also there is a natural order among them. But not all of them together are found in operation. Like motive powers. Finitude and not one of them is fitting that it should be, nor for this demonstration is there a way to them. And in questions from these two many errors are dissolved. The division of that which is one and to many and to that which is properly one. There are four orders: The first is that which is more proper to singularity. That which is not divided in quantity together and in boundary, nor in power, nor in operation, like the first essence of truth. The second, then, is that which is not divided in quantity. And also its division is fixed to the measures of boundary in substance, like substances and essences. The third, then, is that which is one in subject alone, like each one of the species (or waters) of the receptive matters or of the division quantitative in power. And the measures of each of them are equal in boundary. The fourth, then.

that which is one in composition, like the one that is from body and from soul composed, and from skin and bones and the rest. And that which is one by participation, something with something else. That which is one over which a predicate is made. And this is either on the side of that which is predicated or when that which is subject. And participation in quality is called similarity. And that in quantity is equality. And that in substance is identity. And that in relation is proportion. And that in action is possession. And that in passion is affection, like that which is said of the affection of a king towards his city. There is for the soul towards the body. And that on the side of that which is subject, like that which is said of white and sweet being one thing. Those, then, which are together predicated of one and the same thing, as if they are in subject, and to one of them the category of substance adheres, that which is predicated of nature is something that is known through different species, like that which is said: this physician is a geometer. And to the many from different categories and opposites. And opposites are those which are not mixed with it when it is in something. When it is in time and place. And these are fourfold. Clarification: For the first quality of opposition is opposition itself. … The Protasis propositions are these words or the Protasis matters. Bar Ṣlībī, however, strikes when this subtlety emerges. The demonstration of the proof predicates of the philosopher. Substance and not substance. He takes in demonstration the categories. And on this he sharpens his understanding. And the first quality of opposition is the opposition of kataphasis and apophasis. Not only in Protasis, but also when substance is said, you are and not substance.

the second is opposition of those which are with something, like fatherhood and sonship. The third is opposition of contraries which have been recognized. The fourth is opposition of privation and possession. And possession with disposition is the capacity of something for that which it is naturally suited to become, when it wills, like the capacity for sight. And privation of disposition is the impossibility of this capacity for that which is naturally suited to have it, like blindness for dogs, not for moles, in that they are not naturally suited to see. And some have also spread out in a fourth way the species of opposition, saying that this is either in words or in actions, or that actions are known by habit, or not by habit, and those not by habit, or both of the contraries are natural, or not so. No division of them has been found to be a composition, in that not every opposition is one of the four. And this is like the opposition of one and many, which are not contraries, in that the many are established by the one. Nor are they privation and possession, in that both are natural. Nor again are they among those which are with something, in that there is when the one is with the other and it alone without the other is considered. And the fifth species, which is like this from them, has come out from the end of that which is not properly in their division, when it was necessary for them to divide also that one of the two natural contraries which are known without habit, and to say that these are either completions of each other or privations. And the first species of property, which is that with which one of them truly is, while the other is false.

And conversely, regarding the opposition of the remaining [kinds]: concerning that which is not together, it is clear. And the second species is the opposition of possession and privation, and the third is the opposition of contraries which are between themselves and their opposites to one another. And the fourth: the impossibility of one of the two sides. And the cause of brevity is like that of rest. Brevity which is the cause of motion is like that of being moved. And light upon the division of that which is prior and posterior. For it is said that the prior is said of the posterior from the posterior in time, like Adam to Seth; and in honor, like Moses to Aaron; and in nature, like matter to form. One to say from two, and generally to say everything that is raised in its being raised, that is the posterior. And it is not found in its own existence alone, prior to that posterior. And in order. And this is also secondarily: in that either order is the signified order, as the prior is served by that which serves, when from two things one is established. And this is also prior to that which serves, when from two things one is established. Or order is natural, like the ordering of substance, when from substance one begins to descend to the individual, to that which is substantial, which is found prior. When, however, from the individual one begins to ascend to that which is generic, which is found prior. For there is also another priority in nature apart from that in order, like the prior cause which is perfective of its effect. For you say that the finger moved and the ring moved, and you do not say that the ring moved and the finger moved, or that one moved and the other did not. And when from the divisions which are like these, the prior ones are, likewise the divisions of the posterior ought to be, in the same manner, and these together.

And one of the actions cannot be together with one of these first and last kinds, and it becomes from another in another, and another kind is not possible. The opposition of that which is a cause and of that which is caused: and a cause is said of that from whose existence the existence of another comes, and from whose privation the privation of another comes. And a caused thing is said of that which necessarily exists through the existence of another and is deprived through its privation. Moreover, a cause is also said of that which enters into the existence of another. And because of this, it is not possible that that other exists without it, nor does it exist in its existence alone. And there are four causes. One is from making, and it is that by which something becomes, like a carpenter to a bed. And this is either in power, if it is taken before the being of the caused thing, or in actuality, if it is considered together with its being. In the same way, it is either essential, like the art to the bed, or accidental, like the carpenter to it when he is not. Likewise, it is either simple, like a carpenter simply to a bed simply, or composite, like this to that. In the same way again, it is either proximate, like the saw to the wood, or remote, like the hope of a cause which is proximate to the fullness, and through its mediation to the saw, and by means of this to the wood. The second is material, and it is that from which something is, like wood to a bed. The third is formal, and it is that to whose existence the caused thing necessarily adheres, like the form to the throne. The fourth is final, and it is that for the sake of which something is, like the need for a seat upon it. And this, through its relation to the cause, is the cause of the causality of the efficient cause, since the first end is from it in nature. In its existence, however, it is the final cause of itself. And because of this, the last is from it.

In one way, however, one and another. And this is what is said, that the first is the end before being actualized. And again, it is the cause or nature, like a physician for health, or an accident. And this is in a second way, in that it is an accidental property, or in the aspect that the cause is like a writing for health. And it is known that the writing is not in that which is written, but in that which the physician heals. And it also happened to him that the writing is a testimony. Or in the aspect that the cause is like a cooling for coldness. And it is known that coldness is not that the cooling is the causative nature, but for the sake of the subject, that which is hot in everything. And the cause is near in body. These are its species and differences. And the agent is simple. That one is properly that which is the cause of all the causative matters. And also that one is that which is the cause of one of the matters. The cause is also said of the whole, in that the whole cannot be established completely without that matter, but not properly. And properly, it is not possible that two causes be for one effect, in that when without one of them it is possible for the effect to occur, this is not the proper cause. So it is with this and the other. If, however, one of them enters into the existence of the effect, it is not the proper or complete cause, but a part of the complete cause. The division of that which is in potential and that which is in actuality. And in actuality it is said of that which exists and is present. In potential, however, of that which is not, but is able to be. It is said, moreover, and potential for the power by which it is able to do that which it does, or to suffer that which it suffers, in that when not from the limit of their essence or their corporeality do actions do or suffer, but rather all agents or patients would have to be together.

The remainder of the genus is something that belongs to the second according to this manner. For to it also the word "power" is called. And the two of them are distinguished as two concepts of power: in that the second power is with actuality, while the first is not. The division of that which is necessary and possible: and "possible" is said of that which is not necessarily that which is, nor that which is not. And possibility is not privation or non-existence, something that is; in that it is engaged with substances and with accidents, and how would their privation or their elevation be? Nor again is privation that of necessity, but rather also cessation is its privation in the truth of necessity. And they tend toward one, two privations together, that of the genus. The remainder, then, of the concept is something substantial and essential. And cessation is its privation, and that of necessity. And "possible," when its complete cause is found, is found necessarily; and when it is privated, it is privated necessarily. And within it, apart from the conjunction with the cause, it is free from all necessity and privation. "Possible," however, simply: "possible" is not able to become in that which, if its existence were extended beyond its privation within it, it would be necessary, not possible. Nor again is it able to be privated; otherwise it would be impossible. The remainder, then, of its existence is in the existence of its cause necessarily; and its privation in its privation; and necessity within it is not able to be necessity in another, in that if necessity were extended into the privation of that other, it would not be necessity in it. If, however, it is not extended, then it is possible, and not necessary.

Chapter 3 of the Second Treatise On the fact that the essential substance and the mode of its activity are distinct. A demonstration concerning this: that its being is not its essence, nor is its possibility its essence. And when each of the possible things is in relation to a cause, that which is necessary is directed toward that in which all of them are, in the manner in which they ought to be. In that, the universal cause is the cause of its parts. For in that the necessary is directed toward the cause, that which is not possible is not from it, but rather from that which is the whole. And from these it is shown that necessarily within it is its cause. Another demonstration: The universal cause of parts is the perfect cause. If each one of its parts, or all of them, is found to be the cause of its being, then one of them is specifically the cause. And this, again, when it is causal, is directed toward the cause which is external to it, from the series of possibles. For it, the essential substance is known by the word. And another: Every series is composed of causes and effects, and must be finite, as was shown previously. And its end must be toward that which is not possible, which is essential. For there is no that which is infinite. Demonstration and illustration: The essential substance ought not to have its possibility posterior to its quiddity, or its essence posterior to its nature and being. For that quiddity or nature cannot be the cause of its being. Rather, it is found that it is prior to that which is possible. For when it was not, it was the cause of its being more properly. For that which is not cannot be a cause. It is clear, therefore, that for the essential substance, quiddity cannot be posterior to possibility or essence. And again, if its quiddity were other than its possibility.

And this, while not entering into the categories of all accidents, must be an accident. And every accident is possible in itself. And it is demonstrated that the necessary substance is possible in itself. That which, even from all that is possible, is possible. Distinction and dissolution: it is not said that the necessary substance participates in activities in substance. For in another genus, apart from it, it must be distinguished from them. And thus it has composition and, through it, also possibility. In that which is said, that this distinction would be necessary if substance were predicated as a genus upon it and upon these others. And since it is not so, but rather more and less, lordly and servile, it is the completeness of substance and its lordship that suffice to distinguish it from these others. And it is not necessary that through another distinction apart from its complete and lordly substance it be distinguished from them. And a demonstration concerning this: that necessity of substance cannot go out towards plurality. Necessity of substance, if it were predicated upon many, either as a genus it were predicated upon species, or as a species upon individuals. And then it would be necessary that they be distinguished either by differences or by individual properties of each. And I have already shown that distinctions such as these do not enter into the categories of things, but are rather causes of their possibility, that is, of their substance. And it is demonstrated that these necessary substances, if they are possible substances, they are. That which is possible. In that every cause is possible. Nor again can it be predicated as a species upon individuals, in that individuals are distinguished by accidental differences, and every necessary substance is not individual, but composite, and not possible but necessary.

that which is not necessary being, and not one is substance or genus or change or opposition. Necessary being cannot be substance at all. Otherwise it would be composite. And every composite has a cause for its parts. And things that have causes are possible and not necessary, as their being is evident. And because of this, neither can genus be for it. And by this again, neither does change arise, for it is necessary to the distinction of that which is with its material parts, when they are not. Nor again does it pertain to the individual property of each one. Rather, a cause is found for the existence of the property itself. And when it has no genus, nor change, neither should it have a boundary. And when not one necessary being is apart from it, and not one category can be for it. And when it is separate from all that is posited, neither should it have opposition. And when it is not a body, since it has no parts, neither does it fall under indication by finger. For it is shown from existence to existence. And it is simple existence, in which there is no other notion apart from that which it is. And when every being is identical with its essence, it is evident that it is not simply, but it is and all that is with it and like it. And when it is absolutely all that is with it, every division is simply. And truth again is properly, in that the truth of everything is the property of its existence, which is for it existence. For no truth is true apart from that which is with the property of its existence. It is called again truth. And to the knowledge of that which is as it is. For no truth is with that which is not as it is known. And perpetually it is not. And it is being simply. And it is again goodness properly, in that to it everything returns. And with it is everything that is.

And again, that which is necessary is. Evil, however, is privation, as there is to show. And possibility is evil, in that in its nature it is more that which is than that which is not. And because of this, it is elevated from it, that which is from all. Solution and beginning: and it is not said that when it is not in that which is established, its genus ought to be the category of substance. In that it is said that it is not the limit of substance. Nor is it a relative form, since there is no genus in it. And with these, again, it is said that substance is said not only of that which is in the subject, but of that which is established. Just as that wisdom which is the genus of substance is. It ought also that wisdom is truly in the subject. But for every accident, when it is found not in that which is established, it cannot be. Since it is not that which is being, the simple, apart from another accident. Just as it ought that in this limit it is understood, and substance is predicated of it. And when it does not fall under substance, how much more ought it not fall under one of the nine other categories, by its accidents. And when every accident is possible, it was necessary that it also fall under possibility. As if by means of its genus it were made, that which is drunk. All the categories, when they are possible, are said of it, that which is necessary, being established in their possibility, not in their actuality. And light upon words, something of the essential in the limits of its own. Every known thing is also in that its perfection. Or it is another for it, all that of that which is from its own. And it is clear that that first is more perfect than the limit of privation of necessity in its perfection over another. From the limit, again, of all the perfections of those which are around it, the eternal.

He, however, is not all of his own. Question: Every thing that is of action, together and receiving, in one genus and another, it is fitting that it should act and receive. For in passivity something is received, and in possibility it receives, and in necessity it acts. And both of them are changeable. And again, activity is that which abolishes the power by which the one who receives stands to receive that which receives. And if both were existent for it, when no nature existed for it, that which abolishes is that which is of the one who is drunk. Question: Necessity is being, and not one necessary genus can be for it. For it was shown before that there is no one necessary being except Him. And again, from the necessary genera, in that house they are established. And if it is established, then that one is in it. It is revealed that there is not one from the necessary sides in its house. And for each of the genera, it is not possible that a thing should be from the substance, but it is found when it is a thing of action and it is that which receives, which is of the one who is drunk. Nor from another necessary one is it possible that it should act. For there is only it. Nor from its cause, which is good, the one who is drunk. For it is revealed that it acts. And passion is from action. For it is from the high and accidental mothers. Nothing adheres to it. It is separate from the substances. As the principal and causal, and of the substances from change, and not one of the times to act in the nature of the activities. Nor is the multitude manifest from that which changes, those which are upon your right. In that likeness, and those which are from your left, nor does it increase much when it does not cease, by their hand it changes, whether it comes or increases. These, however, are other adhering ones from their adhesion to that of the one who is drunk, not a few accidents. For they do not adhere, but they adhere to that which is worshipped, elevated in all. The genera of substances are a multitude. He does not say that the genera have an adhesion of substance that does not enter into the nature of the multitude.

It has, however, other hypostatic concepts, such as those of sanctity and solitude, and the rest of those that are similar. That which is of plurality and not one in it is fit to act. The demonstration concerning action and passivity: “made” is said of that which in time previously was not and came to be, like a solid concept; “maker,” however, of that which is not in time. For time and all generated natures are generated; makers, however, are not made. The corporeal world, however, and all sentient natures are made and not makers, as the concept of the category holds. “Made” is said of that which in time previously was not and came to be, as of that which after not being came to be, and again like a solid concept. “Made” is also said of that which is, being dependent on a maker, and not of that which previously was not, as the concept of the category conversely holds: as of that which previously was not, and not of that which is. And concerning this, some unbridled and foolish persons say: “If the world is a creature of the Creator, and creation in no way concurs in its own coming-to-be, in that once it has been made, it is no longer dependent on being made.” And the likeness of this is in the case of a building that remains after the building. And with them it is said that that which comes to be after not being, before it came to be was nothing; nothing, however, is such that it is either dependent or not dependent. It remains, therefore, that in that it is, it is dependent on a maker. And again, everything that together pertains to substance and to accident pertains primarily and properly to substance; it brings accident in its train. And that which is something from something: substance is that which is something from something after not being. The world, then, is that which is, being properly dependent on a maker.

And not in that which was not before. In its nature, then, as in its possibility, the agent is dependent on the act. And if after it exists, it is not dependent on the act. It follows from the nature of possibility that which is common. It indicates, moreover, that that which acts upon actuality only voluntarily begins, and not naturally. And it is concealed in that which, as in plurality, it is said to act voluntarily and to act naturally. And it is not evident that that which acts, whether it acts voluntarily, is known. Thus they do not add the word "voluntarily" to that which is known to act not naturally, just as the anti-dialecticians do not mix their terms together in the same way, and their example is hidden. In that the cause is only the movement of the matter of the seeker. And upon this, with its cessation, it ceases. The cause, however, preserved the form of the seeker; it is not the seeker itself, but the dryness of matter. And because of this, with its cessation, it ceases. In simplicity, one says "father" or another beginning that begins. And the cause is with the effect, sometimes it also is a preserver like the effect of this whole to its effects. And there is sometimes another and another, like the seeker and the dryness of matter in the examples that were said. Clarification: When that which acts is the intellect, that which acts voluntarily is near to the substance. That which says "acts voluntarily" surrounds that which is voluntary. And to that which says "Socrates is a rational living being of water" is that which is common. And that again which says "acts naturally" is like that which says "acts voluntarily" and not voluntarily. In that the natural agent and not the voluntary agent is like the opinion of the substance says "one" and not like the opinion of the philosopher.

The demonstration concerning the composition of causes and the cause and the manner of its limitation. For the existence of every cause depends on the cause in the modes by which it is the cause. The cause, as a means, is to be said to be either time, or matter, or a condition of that which ceases, or some will, or a cause of the type of hunger in relation to food. All such modes, then, enter into the causality of every cause that is a cause in some mode. And when all of them are removed, it is not possible that the cause should exist. And when it does not exist, either that cause is limited in all its modes, or in one of its modes. For if the cause is limited, it follows that the effect also is limited. It remains that it is either eternal, and in that case in the mode, also on the side of possibility and existence, as was said, it is. The possibility of something from something, apart from the dependence on something, is only matter to be said, or time, or a mode from among those that were mentioned. And it is much higher than the domestic activity in relation to matter, and the domestic beings in relation to other times and others. And everything that is prior to it is not existent in a limited manner, because it depends on the participation of some of these modes in the causality of something. Section: For the potentiality of the other from the complete cause in nature is its necessity in the other, the other from its potentiality in itself, because if it were necessary in its nature, it would not be possible for it not to be at all for the other. For the potentiality is not equal in itself to existence. It is equal, however, in its cause, and this is its natural essence, because its equality to existence in itself is prior to its existence in its cause. And this essence is firmly based on the firm foundations of existence in the other, as also on all the eternal potentialities that begin.

Everything, then, that was not and came to be. From the beginning, that the cause also is caused in the possibility of its existence after it was not, so that it may be. For, in a beginningless manner, the possibility of being caused is attached to the possibility of causing. Likewise, that caused cause which was not and came to be is from a beginning for it from another cause like itself. And thus, in an infinite chain, causes of this kind fall, so that either all of them exist together, or one after another in order. And when the first link from the beginning is abolished by apodeixis, the second link remains. And nothing else would be except for local motions which have no limit, nor indeed a beginning or an end for their individualities. And because in contingent actions there are possibilities and actualities, and the weakness of contingents is a possible actuality. For this reason, the cause has that which compels it to be. Passage: That which, with motion, works a bodily thing cannot become something that is distinguished, because for it to be agitated, boundaries and limited places are required. For motion from place to place is one thing, and that from house to door is another. And absolute or simple comprehension cannot be separated from it by a limited will, because the poverty of its being-willed in a limited thing is not more for it than another limited thing. And it becomes distinguished when it comprehends all points absolutely with equality of link from non-contingents, which is for it that from this it moves to that and arrives. It remains, then, that the mover of this kind is a bodily power which is able to be agitated by many points, each one individually with substantial differences, and to that power which is agitated, or that comprehension, the heavenly soul is called the Word.

Everything, then, that is a possible being is such from before its being. And it is not its finitude that is its possibility. For finitude pertains also to things that are not possible, beyond the mediate. Nor is the possibility of the power of its being its possibility. For it is said concerning something that a power cannot bring it into being, because it is not found, as it were, as a hindrance to the word, since the concept of the two προθέσεις is not one. But that concept which was being employed between them would be found. Therefore, it is not the possibility of the power of being that is the possibility of the being. Nor is it a nature that stands without it. But it was not found in another and was brought as an accusation against it. From this, then, that which is placed for it, that it is a beginningless word, properly for all beings, the first with it of possibility, the first says: natural and substantial, and not temporal. And a light upon the manner of the possibility of one properly in all times for causes. And upon that which, from necessity, essence cannot be found something after that which was not. For from one, it cannot be found without a medium apart from one. For if two are found together with it, it is finished to say: and between. A time in which it is finished with it is found, another is the time in which between with it is found. And these are two times or measures or places, or a limit and a bounded are not. And the first brings it from singularity to duality. And the second to the inflection of the word, in that it is said that a time in which it is bounded to it is the boundedness of the finish of another from the time of the boundedness of between. In falsehood, these are times or measures or places, or a limit and a bounded to it. And thus, without end, a division falls, and it is not restrained unless to the duality of life to singularity.

And again, if the whole and the part are found, and the part is not the whole, it is evident that in one genus, while it is found as the whole, that which is very fitting is called 'immediate.' Section: And the possible is from the superior. This, then, is here. And of the superior, it is fitting that it be revealed from before its existence, in that it is by reason alone that a genus, if it were to be here and to extend to the superior, that superior genus which is very superior to that genus alone which found the here, follows in its being. And when it is not possible for the genera to be found as a genus superior to the genus in which the essence of the cause is necessary, or nothing at all is found as a possible of the superior, which is fitting. Or it is found from the beginning and is hidden, that here is the fitting. Section: For if the essence is necessary, nothing can be found after that which is not, just as there is no limit before the finitude of its cause, in that by the privation of the existence of that which is not, whether it itself is or the genera that are intermediate to it, the necessity that is with it, also its cause would be eternal. If, then, the privation is other than it, apart from it and its genera, it is found that in another its causality is completed, which is fitting, in that to its deficiency it leads. Solution and beginning: It is not said that being is a complete cause. However, it does not act from before and acts later, in that it is said that this leads to the renewal of will, and renewal to change, and change cannot be without denial. And again, from before the being of all this, and there is no one to think of a time in which it is possible to say that it fell into being. For it would be fitting that the eternal finitude should remain all this. It is, then, the being and the existence of all this necessarily, just as its goodness is unceasing, naturally overflowing.

And concerning the possible natures, it was spread out, and for that which they were, there is a finding, and that which they were preserved, it is possible to find in an immediate manner. Solution and beginning: It is not said that each one of the substances of each one of the first signs is for its being a brevity. Therefore, also for the totality of the first signs, there is no completeness. In that which it is said that this is a section concerning the whole, in that which there is in each one of its parts, and not outside, it is from the error of thought. And how not. And behold, each one of the opposites is able to be found in that which is placed something, and both of them together, and it does not escape. Solution and beginning: It is not said that your thought, therefore, leads to equality of the creator and the creature. In that which it is said that it is not in everything equality. How not, and there is priority and posteriority in their natural kinds, he says, and not temporal. Demonstration concerning causes and completions and the ordering of beings. A rich man is he who does not need in his completion another. And a needy one is the opposite. And a wise king is he from whom nothing is cut off, and from whose cutting off everything is. Section: Generosity is the giving of that which is fitting without expectation of recompense. And he who gives not that which is fitting is not generous. He thus, and he who gives that which is fitting as it is possible to be found and as it is manifest, authority of standing or advantage, or to be distinguished from proclamation and compulsion. In that which all of them are as from recompenses. And the giving in exchange for them is a purchase and not generous. Section: Everything that is hidden to be found from it some action, when this is not found from it manifestly, its completion is simple brevity. In that which it is upon another it needs for its completion. And everything that not necessarily but when it wills, it acts. I say that for one of the sides of the hypothesis, the side.

In that if both of them were joined to the necessary, that either both together act or neither of them. And both of them are the halves of the divided middle. The remainder then is that not to both but to that one of them which chooses. And the necessary being, when not even one completion exists outside of it, is very fitting for the essential actions in its judgment of the hypotheses. The first and rich truth, then, is not in need of a middle. And that which is high and elevated never changes for that which eats and is low, acting in that which is brought to its deficiency. Solution and beginning: It is not said that it acts not to be completed, but to be completed. In that it is said that the completion of that which is deficient is equal to its incompletion. Behold, both sides of the hypothesis have become equal to it. And it is not necessary that one of them be or not. But that one more excellent is the cause of the fitting need. And the light upon the celestial motions of the voluntary or the movements which are like these from the beginning were shown. In the investigation of their essence, whether it was possible or not, it was not sought. Or if it was sought, it was delayed when it arrived. Or it did not cease its seeking, it was moved either from those which are not attained. The remainder then is that their essence is a hindering essence. That which is born from a universal will is that which adheres to universal comprehension, which is the knowledge that makes known concerning the rational soul. And again, the essence of the celestial movements is either animal or essential. And the animal is either of life which is sensible. And the celestial, when they are cast from generation and corruption and composition, and not one sensible thing exists for them to be handled. Or the benefit of utility. And for that which never deviates from its nature, what utility is there to acknowledge or arrangement of something.

and to that one belongs a single impulse or anger, by which the remaining middle is known, that something of their division is the same thing that with the soul can be rational. Nor again is it possible that something can be their division. And they were not the causes of the question for its end. Section: For their possibility is well superior to the possibility of the world of generation and corruption. For they are not moved for the sake of change. And every human action, and not compulsion, testifies to the word apart from the necessity of the hypostasis. The remaining middle, then, that for the sake of love something is moved, either to meet it, or to be likened to it, in some way something brings, or to be likened to it in some way a hindrance. And when these first two are piously abolished, that third remains as the truth. And that is the hindrance, not one and the same, when it is to be the object of desire of all. And they are not changed in their movements. And from these it is concealed that their objects of desire are separate substances and hypostases of all that are their own, as also the perfections that are hidden in activity for them are found. And they are weary of being likened to souls that are moved to go out from power to activity. Section: A body that is moved, all its completions are found in activity for it. Apart from the signs. In that if every cause from it arose upon the sign of its own, all causes would remain in the swiftness of other signs. And they would be in a power that cannot go out to activity. And when it is not possible that each one of them together be in all signs, at different times each one is in all in activity.

And these are the diverse beginnings of diverse causes of the natures, which are new and which press upon them from the good and beloved desire of each one of them. And through their mediation, even upon the lower world, from the scattered and opposing elements, grace extends and is diffused. Theophomestius, one of the ancients, affirms that the diversity of motions and affections in their aspects are motions of the celestial bodies for the sake of the benefit of the lower world. For he says that it is fitting that from the celestial bodies, likewise, the renewal of natures occurs, which through a beginning that is placed in all of them, is present. Also, through the participation of the motion of water and the form of affection, it was fitting that it should be. But when, through diversity, apart from that which through participation, he is able to connect the lower things to himself, each one of the celestial bodies, to which it is said that from the time of the epodeixis arose. Concerning that which is superior and does nothing because of that which is like. Section: It is not fitting that there should be for all desires one singularity, which is the first truth. And concerning this, the motions participated in circularity. And they were changed in the species and affections of motions from the end of the diversity of the particular desires of each one, which were the beings. For every being is a desire towards every soul, a desirous, generative, and fitting cause, which is an efficient cause towards souls. And from the first cause, it is not possible that goodness should overflow onto another cause, except through the mediation of its cause. And the number of beings according to the great head of the spheres is more than fifty. Others, however, in their species, only ten acknowledge according to the number of the celestial wheels alone. Section: And not according to the pleasure of the celestial bodies from their causes and their being illuminated by lights are they not similar.

Sometimes the perceptions become complete. And even that great beginning and its divine limit, which it attained through its own floating causes. Section: For every bodily power that is finite ought to be. And if some bodily power were to be extended to an endless activity, its extension over this would also be extended. Therefore, the extension is common to all in corporeality, and it is contended that each one of the extensions is equal to all in that activity which is continuous. But the bodily substances of the spheres are extended by the power of endless activity, not as it comes and in its being, but through the aids and powers of the diverse beings of their natures. And the light upon the beauty of the order of beings. For a body is composed and impressed from these. And each one of them is not that other. Therefore, from the depth of the cause of the house, its duality will be its possibility. And when the essence is constrained, it is high from it, and it cannot be its cause. Its first cause, then, is the substance, the essential cause, elevated above every substance that is possible, which is the being of every time that may also be called wisdom, the creation of the beginning of creations, as the first cause of all causes. And a body cannot be the cause of the existence of another body, because the holder is also the binder or the cause that is held together with the existence of the holder. And the possibility of existence that is held together is possible, for it is equal to the possibility of non-existence that is held together. And this, with the possibility of existence, leads to the emptiness which was shown above to be its continuity. Nor again can a cause that is bound be the binder that is better and higher than it. Nor again can a substance be a cause of a body, because if without the mediation of its body it were found, it would not be a substance but a creating being.

Section: For the hypostases of a genus cannot have one of them be the cause of the other, on account of the natural equality of the limit. And they are not from one genus alone. But rather, the movements of their causes also ought to be from one genus. And these did not change their places and their motions, but only their genera, that is, their natures. And all of them are in the measure of the world of generation and corruption, the element of fire and the fifth nature. And again, if the movements are from one genus and nature, and the section and division in their genericity ought to be limited, then also in the hypostasis of that genus and the non-circumscribed ones, it is evident. Section: And when from the first truth only one is found, that same hypostasis either adheres to the whole chain of causes and causalities. It is never borne toward a body. And when it is necessary that from the limit of the multitude that adheres to causality, something. And it is not possible that all the movements from one thing alone be found in that which is shown, that for each one there is a lover. The remainder, then, of the first causality is limited in its house. And necessity of essence in the first truth is its cause. And it apprehends, indeed, the duality of these rays, even though it is not. In order to be the necessity of its essence in its cause, which is the adherence of another thing. And to be the limitedness of its essence in its house, which is the adherence of a bodily movement. In that necessity is much better than limitedness. And to be itself, which is the adherence of the bodily soul of the movement. Thus it is with the second causality, which is the movement of the degrees and its soul. And with the third, another thing and the movement of Saturn. And they are hand in hand until the nine movements are completed.

and it is difficult for the actualization of its potentiality to exist. The existence of the common elements of the elements is difficult. And for the actualization of its essence, the existence of forms, that is, the specific differences of the elements, is difficult. And for the actualization of its necessity in its entirety, the existence of rational souls is difficult. When the movements in their variations are present, the different substances can be directed toward the reception of the perfect acts that are without end. And the simple agent, uniquely, accomplishes different operations according to different dispositions that are manifest. For indeed, the solar ray and the different seeds of different bodies manifest different colors. And the simple and creative agent is not subject to variations, in that its variations are toward the variation that leads to the necessity of essence, whether through a medium or without a medium. Section: For these cannot be after that which was not, because every being from the principle of the substance of its being has its priority in that which is shown to be the agent that is not changeable. And that substance is the same potentiality that the philosopher calls it, as it is said that it is prior to every being. And when these are prior, there is no one that receives the substance of its being, because toward the series that is without end, the word leads to being. As it is said, for all these, another is that which is drunk. Therefore, it cannot be known that when it was not, it was. Section: For from another agent, all generated things are established. Forms, he says, are the elementary and earthly souls and rational souls. And toward it, the stream of actualizations ceases and begins from being from the higher to the higher. It is to say, the moving soul and the heavenly bodies, these are the types.

And here the stream turns from the demons and stops in the heights, from the mixture to speak of the compound and the self of the essential nature: the animal nature, the rational nature. And from that, the material existence extends to the existence of the boundary and the self of the holy nature is brought. And to this, there are two lives: one from the world of the holy ones by reason of its necessity, and the other from the world of the material and the active from the limit of its possibility. Section: For if every plurality is necessary that it be from plurality, it is not necessary that it be from every plurality. Plurality will be, as without end the powers and the pleasures of goodness are extended, as the category is the universal, the first substance, and in nature it is unchangeable, as itself. The third chapter: The word concerning the creation from matter and the middle state and the state of being idle and the portion and the kingdom of heaven, likewise the pleasures. And some from the philosophers said that the middle state is that which becomes the middle, the substance being mediated. And others said that the middle state of the self is its joy in the agent being. And it was known from these that from above, the two cannot become one, except by mixture or by composition or by combination. And all those that are like these are of the bodies. For when it is said that the camel became a house, it is not joy. If the camel, as it is, became a house, it is not joy. And if the camel ceased, or did not become a house, thus it is not joy. Section: For the self, when it attained the camel, if as it is, it is not joy. And if it ceased and became another, behold again it is not joy. And if it changed in its time, thus it is not joy. And the results of its actions are that the division alone is true.

Section: The unity that is in the essence is not a true agent. For it is compelled by the perception of something proper. The perception of all the perceptibles of Aristotle is that they are agents. But this is not so. And this is not the drunkenness of a unity such as this, whose last thread is drawn against Porphyry the Tyrian. And it is not in a material manner, since he too, in his treatise On the Generation of the Intellect, and in some of his writings, gives wings to the unity of the soul in substantial forms, and it does not seem to me that he does not intend the same concept that he intends under the name of unity. He also intends Hermes. But another says that when they are, they are perceptibles that are distinguished, and of the soul when it is perfected. And it is clear that unity is something, and a concept such as this. Section: For every created substance is perceptible in its essence and its knowledge. For in its essence, existence is for it as it is. And knowledge is not something else, but the existence of the being of that which is known in the knower. Similarly, every created knower is both knower and known. And knowledge is either another accident, or it is to say that it is the being and the being-acted-upon. Section: For in the beginning, it knows itself not by that which acts upon it, for that which acts is either simple and not multiplied in it, or it is proper to it. And the first does not produce knowledge of the proper essence. And the second, again, does not produce knowledge of the essence. For knowledge must be essence first, otherwise how is it known whether that action is proper to it or not? Therefore, in the beginning, the rational soul is known in itself, and not by the action of its essence. Section: For the knowledge of the first truth is not subject to changes. For it is high above the times.

Here, then, one thing, when it knows that it will go out tomorrow, goes out. When it goes out, if that knowledge remains, it is not knowledge. For it is not that it has changed. Every thing that is knowledge does not receive increase or diminution, nor change, like those simple and all the general things that are found substantially in it as a height. But if those substances that are under the accident, not substantially or accidentally, but by a universal genus that does not admit of change, know them. And thus not even one prosopon among those in heaven and on earth is disturbed with its knowledge that has restrained all. Section: The first truth is life. In that it is the intellect that is the maker of the whole existence. Inasmuch as its knowledge is not other than itself. It is thus, and its life is not other than itself. And when it does not need organic movements, it is able to do everything authoritatively. And its knowledge alone is in those that are in that which is sufficient for their existence. For those, through intermediaries. For that one, not at all. And vanity has seized all this knowledge. That one, then, is the mystery of creation. And every path to it. It does not receive a great one towards its multitude of the worshiper. Section: That which is simple existence is that which has conquered all the perfections of the perfect, deficient in its thought, not being comprehended as it is. But to it. For it is equal to itself. And to it alone belongs glory from all. It is not comprehended by all. And it comprehends all by a universal genus. Section: For it was not fitting for the goodness of the first truth that its theory should be moved and stand at the limit of the measure of the infinite possibilities. Therefore its eternity necessarily found the non-temporal nature of the power of infinite weakness. Inasmuch as it also found the nature of the power of infinite activity.

And when, apart from the accidents, not even one complete substance can be found, the substances are found to be transitory. For because of the higher things, something of the accidents revolves around that same thing, giving it to receive forms and substances without end. And thus the gates of the upper Jerusalem are opened, and blessings are showered down. And the accident is precisely the hunter of substances, just as also the sense, in its simplicity, if it had been a mixture in the house of unction, as also the human, would not have been restrained, but would have been restrained with the rational soul itself in that one clod of earth with the giver. Section: For from the mysteries of nullity are the foundations of the temples of rational souls in the midst of all this. In that, if they approach, they are not more than stitai; and if they depart from the fire, it would have been the neighbor of the transit. Also that one would have changed into burning, and the heat would have been fanned outside of unction. And when the dry animals ascend, all the organs upon the dry element to support themselves upon it, to that which is found. And the watery element was restrained from the authority over it from the end of the dry pressing upon the remainder. And it was arranged with that fire, when it is in the house of heat, and with the earth, when it is in the house of cold. And the middle ones were established in moisture, so that the being and transit of truth would not cease. Again, if by their total shining they were kindling fires for the lower ones by the multitude of their rays; and if by all their supplies from the shining, in darkness not to be filled, the lower ones would remain; and their lights again, if they were still and not moved, they would have moved and set in motion their sparks for those near them; and the benefit of them would not have reached the distant ones.

Praise, then, is due to the giver of the advantages, the source of possibility and the seeker of goodness. Section: Or if you exist in the brotherhood of the one who stands, your body is with the world of elements. And the element is with the transient body. And that one is with the transient soul. And this one is with the beings. And these beings are with the first causative being, the ruler of the high chariot from all. And that one is with God, the last of all and the first, to whom everything is subjected and who holds everything, and from whom everything is filled. Section: Evil is not something from nature. Rather, it is a deficiency of being, or a deficiency of some completion. And the perfect ones from them free the free ones from evil entirely. And they are complete in everything and not lacking. And from them, however, evil is mixed with their goodness. But goodness is the victor. Evil, however, is simple, which is separated from good. Or evil is mixed with good. But evilness is the victor. Also, from what occurs, causes enter into division. In actuality, however, they cannot be found at all, since they do not correspond to the good for their being found. The first seed, however, is necessarily found with the desired good, as you have learned concerning the superior perfect ones and the first cause and the beings with it. Thus also the second seed. In that the trustworthiness from great goodness causes small evil; evil is great. And that seed is like the existence of the mountain of advantages from many standing ones. Or not. And it is from the four elements of the elemental world. Also, according to the burning coals, some fiery events happen from it. In that likeness and lives, something according to their finding. They do not go outside of goodness. And also nothing else appears in them from goodness apart from possibility. But according to the gymnasium coals, something from them happens.

Thus also the first man, who was to receive many advantages, happened to him to give false thanks and to perform actions foreign to sin. But evils such as these are found in deficient natures of limited capacity. And the victor is good from the guilty many, and evil from the cause in lot, not in nature but in accident. And its cause is this: possibility and limitation. Solution and resolution: It is not said, and to what extent even this small thing was not found bound up with evil. In that which is said, that if it were found thus, it would not be that small thing, but that first one. And that solution is nothing other, but that to what extent a fire is not a fire, or water not water, was not created. Solution and resolution: Nor again is it said, to what extent you said that deficient natures are lacking compared to perfect ones. And behold, evils and tepid ones are dim in the world. In that which is said, that among the evil ones, some are from those perfect in every respect, some are lacking in every respect, and some are intermediate. And when a third small thing is compared to that first one, it is known that goodness prevails. And it is also clear that natures of good character and from the degree of goodness of thanksgiving are fallen, not much, but they are of the night. Solution and resolution: It is not said that when everything is by lot, to what extent desire. In that which is said, that desire does not cleave to itself on account of its sins. Nothing is arranged, but it is with it, small errors, its desires, which are lusts in the membranes that are with it, when it is separated by the end and the oppression of its enmity towards it. And it is not possible for it to change. It desires and is desired, and the fire that is with it burns in spirit. And pain suffers the pain of the short ones that with the end of the oppression that precedes them cleaves. Section: For the soul remains after the body.

by that its cause is found to be the possibility of existence. And if it is posited that its non-existence is vain, or that it is not, or from the end of existence. For that when its limitation enters into the causality of its existence. Or from the end of the limitation of that which its existence enters into the causality of its existence. And the first is not true, because if it were not, its non-existence would not have been found. Nor again does the opposite, the cause of nullification, stand. Because it is not in that which is posited. In that same manner, the second and the third: because that thing, whether it is a substance, does not give existence to another from its limitation, the limitation of the self. And if it is an accident, in that same manner it does not compel. Because its existence is other than its existence. Solution and resolution: It is not said that the solution of the bond suffices for its non-existence. Because it is said that the bond is from the category of that which is with something. For this is a liability in accidental natures. And of accidents from powers, and not one change in natures is compelled to become manifest. How then is their liability? Solution and resolution: It is not said that as mixture is the cause of its existence in the beginning, so likewise its non-existence is also the confusion of the cause of its non-existence. Because it is said that mixture is the cause that found for itself completion of something which is a substance, a created thing that has no subsistence. For nothing else adheres to its confusion more than that which will not again be a substance having such completion for itself. And not that it will not be in its place. Section: For the soul is not compelled to pass from the body to another. Because the body, when it is a mixture of something, is equal, then, against the soul from the giving of completions. And if another soul from another body has for itself a passage and adherence, two souls are found for one body, which is absurd.

in that every individual soul does not know its non-existence except as one essence. Remainder and beginning: it is not said that not every soul is found with a giver except the souls of natures when they are completed for the bodies of passing animals. And these, when again they are completed for the bodies of passing beasts. And in that they are completed, they are separated and in beings they are united. In that it is said that if a nature by a mixture of soul is equal to receive from the giver of powers. How much more then the human body, whose mixture is perfect, is equal to receive. Remainder and beginning: nor again is it said that something is more fitting for magnetism than that which is found in the first body of completion, that in it iron is capable of being attracted. When it is much more deficient than it. In that it is said that the human body by the excellence of its mixture, the completion of which is more perfect and excellent than the composition of iron, is equal to receive. Section: For the substances perceptible by the senses, which are perceived by external senses, as in the majority the substances perceived by internal senses overcome. But not so. And behold that which in the cups is drunk is perceived. From many desires, eatable and drinkable, it changes color and face. And that is not perceived well by choice and first again from the end of that which is not despised, many pleasures pass away and not first alone but also animals without reason. As the pregnant woman craves it and prepares for her child rich foods. Even the habits of dogs, to say hunting which is upon the fullness of desire of their master, is better than that which is upon their hunger, it is annulled. And to that his folly for hunting is beloved and he inclines. And when these are thus, it is that without distinction. How much more so the substances that become of the sun when they are heated and warmed for them in the bodies. It is not to say eating or drinking or coupling.

And the sons of the world err in that they do not know the essence. And because of this, they are not even able to be illuminated by the imperceptible flashes of the neighborhood of divinity. Section: Essence is the perfective perception of the perceiver to the perceiver, in that the perceiver is when it is not that which is all or the opposite. For every power of the sensible is perfectively before and deficiency, and in their cessation are essence and sensation. And it is evident that not every perfection is also essence, just as health, when it is perfection, is not essence. And the manifest opinion is not true, in that it is thought that perfection ought to be perceived. Then it is essence. Health, however, and the multitude of other essences, when they are accidentally, are perceived by sense and do not again cause sensation. And because of this, they are not perceptible to it. Just as a sick person, when health ceases, is not without a small sensation of essence. Section: And essence is when it is perfected apart from essence, just as the power of the senses to the senses. It is thus also sensation apart from sensation, like cutting and burning to the subjects of division and repentance. And these are not separated from that which is or is sensed, but from the limit of the brevity of the perception of the perceiver. For when that which is all is absent, then both essence and sensation are troubled. It is thus also that which does not taste essence at all no longer expects to receive it, like a child who has not perceived the stature of marriage. For it is not because it does not have a fitting action from it, but because it does not experience it. It is thus also that which does not experience sensation at all does not guard against the causes of sensations, like a stone that has never become ill. Section: The perfection of the appetitive power is like that which comes to the tasteful power in the essence of sweetness. From these, sweetness will be.

or not from the appearance of dreams and revelations. It is likewise touch, taste, and the rest of the senses, and the perfection of the natural power is the sentient activity of the animate soul in something by way of victory or arrangement. And when every power has its perfection in its own nature, the perfection of essence—being and creation—is that which becomes a distinct being. And the form of all these that exist in that which exists in that one are formed from it of the first truth. And up to all beings and souls and bodies and that which is and their lower parts, fittingly ordered. And from power to perfect action it goes out appropriately. And this is the likeness in God and the divine. And this perfection is called, by the appropriate holy name, the kingdom of heaven and spiritual delight. Section: For being, when it is better than all apprehending powers, is that which does not apprehend by the extensions and creations of actions like the senses, but by their essential and substantial realities, so that even its own hypostasis is higher than all hypostases. How not? And behold, its higher apprehensions are the apprehensions of things. For there is another kind of perfection for the soul according to its bond with the body. For the victorious one is not to be for the powers of the body, nor does it become pure from them. And thus sadness rules in its partnership with them. And sadness is a third kind. And according to each kind, in its own power it is shown, like humility and courage and wisdom, which are dispositions of the changing powers of desire, anger, and rational speech, which are the lives of speech. Section: For that which is not able to be perfected, the soul perfects itself to its perfection, or it does not become in that from the end of all bodily limits, an accident happens to it.

And these evil passions of the flesh, even after the resurrection, are also, as it were, a kind of disturbance that clings to it greatly. Its desires are hindered. For that which ceases from their perception is set and fixed. And how is it not greatly disturbed? And its mind is directed toward the lower realm, toward the world of appetites, in a fleshly manner, and is agitated. And it is not able to stand firm for it. And thus, in the case of the sense that is called the sense of touch, which is very acute and is the lowest, and the imaginative faculty from this corporeal one that is perceived is agitated. And the mystery of that which every sense perceives is from it. And concerning this, the wise ones among the philosophers of the world, rejoicing in this world, said that it is similar to those things that are greater in that which is to come, the inheritance. Permanently, however, and forever, souls that are sick with foolishness, with a composite ignorance, which is the narrowness of true knowledge together with the presence of knowledge that is opposite to the truth, are disturbed. But souls that are sick with the passions of the senses of appetites, together with it, the delight of the senses and pleasures such as these, even their desires pass away and cease. Solution and interpretation: It is not said that the soul, after the resurrection, is stripped of the senses and pleasures, and how then do evil and sensual passions exist with it, as its desire has ceased? For it is said that the world of new life is not entirely empty of pleasures. And that which is not again, but only the disturbances of souls that, in their faith, are stripped of their bonds. For every beautiful and pure soul, when it is mixed with the joys of its members, rejoices with a joy that is not interrupted. And as this is the entire mystery, the other, which is sinful to say and to think, feels pain and is disturbed, and like a stranger, is driven away from its surroundings.

For what is said, that the organ of the body is something composed of air and fire, because of the thoughts of simple and righteous souls. And other sinful souls, as it were, take possession of that body as an organ. And as much as in the body it is agitated, so also the hypostases are a word that is not stable. In that, when it is in the air, it does not cease to be solidified from the extremity of cold. And again, either it is in the upper region of the air, and is moved with fire, or in the lower region of the air, and is congealed with deadly cold and is dissolved like wax. If that which one of the wise said: that the body which is like this sensible thing ought to be not far from truth. And in it, souls, both righteous and sinful, act, but the simple ones, who are separated from the world of generation, and are still in the narrowness of the bond, are drawn to that form of the body as an organ, and fill its desires and appetites, while foods and drinks or the rest of the sensual passions are agitated in it. And as it were, the place of common sensation fills them, and that which is more watery, it is not right that the organ of simple righteous and that of the wicked should be the same, but different. For righteous souls in the organ have forms of pure habits and schemes of excellent beauty of the good perfect ones, which are agitated here. But sinful ones have horrors and serpents and scorpions according to their evil thoughts, agitated in the organ that suits them. While the thought of each soul is according to the vision of its standing. Thus also the difficulty of its bond and its ease. And very near is that this organ of sinners is something intermediate, which is pleasant in the mixture of fire and that of the moon.

The body of the organ of the righteous is higher than the sublunary elemental substances, and as is said in the heaven of the third, like the apostolic testimony that that heaven of Aphrodite, full of the beauties of the third, is from the moon. And that paradise is corporeal and that gehenna is corporeal. Section: Delight is what it is, the pleasure of the formative nature of being something perfect. And beauty is the movement towards a formative nature like this. Everything beautiful is not perfect. The first truth, then, is higher than every beauty. It is delight alone of itself and is delighted from itself. And its delight is higher than every delight. It is fitting that it be so. And its pleasure is higher than every pleasure, in that the perfection of its recollection is better than every perfect perfection. And as it was in the end, when it is the perceiver and the perceived, from every perceiver of the perceived it is perfect and high and glorious and exalted. After it, then, the holy essences were for saying the distinct ones, that they also are high from the degree of beauty. And they are delights alone of the first and of themselves, in that in actuality they are in all their movements. After them, then, the rational souls, beautiful and delights. After them, then, the animal souls, those perfect for saying of the perfect. After them, then, the righteous souls, which are simple in their orders, changeable. And when not every nature is by perception and life of time to be. What is there to say about these essences, that their natures are life and knowledge and perception. After, then, these souls, those that are bound to the lower degrees of the corporeal powers. And in distress and sorrow of this world, they are providentially disciplined. And from worms not mortal they are tormented.

And from its scorpions are scattered and firmly they proceed from the extremity of the concealment of the light of the first victory. And in that darkness which cannot be described, hours are distant. When the daughter hears the voice which she does not know, she knows not from where the first one. But the word is not known from where. It is high, for it is from all comprehension and from the mediate perception of bodies and corporeal powers. Section: For from these and from those like them it is to be understood that not only are they complete in their degrees nor deficient in their hypostases, but very many are the essences and they change both the pleasures and the desires according to the various virtues and watches. The fourth turn. A word concerning visions, signs, apparitions, and dreams. For visions have causes which are fulfilled in their completion. The first is from that which is from heaven, which was the vision that was sent. The second, of the multitude of knowledges apart from human teaching, was that of the wise man. The third, that subjugation may be to him the material elements, and in them as he wills he acts. The fourth, concerning future things, he examines even those which are beyond the boundary of certainty. And that first is the property of the lordship of visions. These others, however, can be found also in perfect and ascetic holy men and not in fools. Section: For in the beginning, when his mind was not bound to his substance in a natural way, the waters were changed and the foundations were disturbed. And the habitation was divided into villages and hamlets. And the natural substance was not sufficient to fill its small needs. Because of this, it was compelled towards taking, borrowing, helping, and being helped. And when these were, they were not able to be a fitting order as they came. But with causes and boundaries, the elements.

And these are not accepted, for they are prevented from being with a foundation equal to the arrow in its parts. For divine vanity ought to have gathered to assist from its own foundation with the foundation of foundations. And to this one, by means of signs that are in the laws of nature, it begins to be cast upon the sons of its sign and the sign. And to it is given the authority of the completion of the laws, and to beware and to be restrained from the evils that afflict the sign, and to strive for the goods that benefit by means of promises and decrees of pleasures and desires in the world of new life that are. To the evil ones it persuades and compels them toward practices, something that is done for the sake of reward and recompense. From these are the substantial ones, and from these are the spiritual ones. And these substantial ones are from their foundation, which is only from the material ones, such as prayers that are toward enmity, the first truth moves. From these, however, are for them and for others, such as alms and offerings and tithes. And the spiritual ones again are from the material ones, such as fasts that are prayers. From these, moreover, are for them and for others, such as that which they trust and are warned from oppressions and bloodshed and thefts and adulteries. And again it compels them to guide paths and to be blessed from divine temples and dwellings of perfect ones who in this covenant have a path from which there is no turning aside, and how they are to be prepared toward that which they encounter with their Lord. And a warning about practices, foreign to custom, with beneficial warnings. For the sons and the multitude of those who were created from body and bodily things are clothed, moreover, in God and divinity, slowly, servants perform upon them diligent and foreign works to custom.

The soul is not able to say to the powers and faculties of the body that is badly made, and to the foundation that does not delay its movement, that they are bowed down and enslaved to the animal life of the wild and the weakness of the foundations and their foolishness and the multitude of these things. Symbolic demonstrations: For first it was revealed that the soul is bound in the body, but its resurrection does not exist. And it is enslaved, enslaved to these things of the body. And again, it is known that it is acted upon by thoughts, as the body is acted upon. Until that which walks on a base of great height and small width, the thought of a fall quickly falls. Thus also the rational thought of the senses is a harsh maker of hours. Especially if from sight it begins the mind. And when these things are thus, it is not fitting that either to the soul something of divine power be given, by which these things of the world might be enslaved to it, as also these things of every body are enslaved to its own soul. And as the soul from the bodily powers of the body flies a sound, and eternally beings are sustained, all this is able to be enslaved to the elements of the world, which are of becoming and corruption, and as it wishes it is used among them. Section: There is, however, when bodies something of good weighty, their movement is such that not even all of them together in the members of the sense are able to move it. And this is not possible. For if something of the things that are done by joy happens, the deeds are done. These things are in another time. Not even a small portion of them is able to be done. From where then does the soul hope that by the power of spiritual virtue it is adorned and by the light of its appearance it is revealed that great deeds are done? How not. And that which is like this is a habit of beings that are fixed. Section: And there is again a time when the time of good is stronger than the foundation and it is violent. And not even the one who hears is kept from the deniers.

For he who is short, while in the body, his life is ordered by evil habits. These animal powers, by which his existence is sustained, are hindered from their functions. And thus he lives a burdensome life without discipline. How much more ought one to expect the guardianship of the animal powers of the body and the holy soul, when in the world of sanctities it abides, and with the saints it is mingled and embodied, and with the angels it is nourished and even made to serve? And thus, by its order, even the rebellious powers of the body are ordered and cease from their activities, and the hindrance is diminished. And along with the soul, they are turned. Even the powers of the remainder, as they are turned, cease. Every one who, by the mercy of will, swallows something, as it were, from all the wills of the remainder, is silent. And he who piously cuts off all his perceptions, is silent, and by that he is cut off to a single thought. Section: And when the activities of the holy souls were established in the matter of the world of becoming and corruption, from them the activities were known. Also for the attainment of the evil eye, that which is to be spoken of, and it is something wondrous, that the soul is that which corruption works in that by which it is wondered at. And it is also that which, as it were, properly is found to be something from the rational souls, as property. In that same manner, also sorcery from the properties of the soul, something evil of corruptions, only seeks to work through the medium of thoughts. They are accomplished, however, again by wonders. Also through the properties of bodies, something like the attraction of a magnet to iron. So also talismans, which are accomplished through the affinities that are found between certain earthly things that are proper to them, by means of colors and forms, or some psychic powers of affinities that are found between them and between celestial powers. And to these are also akin some crowns, weak things of the soul and its passions.

For everything that is deficient in something from these reaches not the perfect, but many things reach it gradually. In like manner also the soul, when it is deficient from that which is like these, is seen in its operations. The causes of possibility are not hidden from you, nor the many preparations that are like that and the orders from that. And the light upon the priority of the examinations from above, for it is briefly made clear that for the rational soul and the souls there are rational wills, fixed causes, and materials, as also for our own souls. They have, moreover, a universal theory from their principles, which are the beings that are for them. In like manner, the motions of matter and all the beings, the fixed causes are known and preserved, and are not accidentally changed. And the priority of the examination upon the perception of matter is made known. And it is the intellectual soul, not by nature is it their perception, but it is not without freedom from the knowledge of those that are renewed. It remains, then, that through the power of something intelligible it perceives those souls. That is what is not without being agitated by the material actions that are with the beings created, with which the universal causes are limited, which are known to all, and it is fitting to know them. And that very power is the rational soul, which, when it is agitated, the approach to every beginning first perceives that which, for it, adheres to the approach. And this perception, like this fixed example of the hypostatic protasis, is the substantial basis of the saying that everything that is thus is. That which is like that is from me. And the perception stands, that it is not the intellectual soul. If not for its concealment in the material cloud, which is not all, the forms that are in the intelligible souls would be formed in it. For it is evident how that thickness is from its faces, and that cloud is extended and rules over the material.

This entire hidden treasury is for the soul to attain, just as also for the soul itself. For each one acts at the time that is the compression of the composite spirits of powers from without into the body. And for the souls of infants or of the perfect at all times. Section: For the internal sense is that by which, when something is impressed as if in actuality, it is perceived. From without, that which is impression becomes that. Or from a cause from within, as many as are seen in the visions of the multitude, when they appear from without and are not. Not far indeed, even in the attainments of power, it is agitated. And the example is the internal sense: it is impressed and perceptions are found in actuality, these attainments. Solution and beginning: It is not said that for death indeed, not in the same perceptions, they become in actuality agitations like these. When the power is well agitated, it does not cease from that which might cause it to stumble in its agitations. In that which is said, many times it is said that the bodily powers are companions of one another and are joined with one another. In the same way as something is joined to the soul, with it also other powers are joined. And from their attainments they cease, like the beloved path which from toil was sparingly found to be lacking. Not to mix, to stir, to be established, or to make theories, even from the beautiful ones. No one dares to say. In that same manner, then, the internal sense is restrained from being impressed uniformly in perceptions that are not found from without, from two causes. I say either essence or matter, which nullifies the agitated power from its simple motions, or the sensory faculty from without.

that the compression and elevation of the inner sense-tablet is such that it cannot be imprinted by the movements that enter within. For when one of these two totalities is dominant, the power that is moved prevails over the inner sense-tablet, whether it be the phantasia or the limit, limit by limit, from its perceptions the movements fill it. That is from the nature or the disposition. As at the time of illness, when the soul is inclined toward the sensation of pain. And from the theoriai, the abolishing and the additions that are moved in vain. That is the sensory. As at the time of the hour, when the external senses fill the interior of the inner sense, they are abolished. And thus in both cases, the visions and even dreams appear when the inner sense is moved and with the two totalities of the two cases that were mentioned from something at times. And not in their confirmation. Section: For the soul is firm in all and complete, even with the bodily bond, it is able to be united with those above from the world, while its wings are not moved from the material nest, as also many persons are seen that at one and the same time they both read and write and listen to what is said and arrange responses. Section: For the rational soul is prepared for union with beings, either by its natural power as with infants, or by study and labor as with the perfect, or by the strength of total causes as at the time of the hour for many, or by wakefulness for the vigilant and for those who are superior. And those who are able to make their senses cease. And for the angel, every corporeal form from their movements. And thus the rational soul is prepared for union with the being that is, while from the senses it measures. And by the concepts of the beings that are and were and exist, it is formed.

that these concepts, when the imaginative power is embodied and the inner sense-tablet, as it were, is flattened, the perceptions that occur are known as being like these. Just as some priests are able to grasp future things and to bring back past things that have passed, and new things that are happening in distant regions, by means of subtle movements of the body and violent rotations of their heads. And this is also the case that some people perform incantations by means of a lineage, and practices are established by the external powers of the forces that also affect their external senses and are confirmed by the sight of visible black things that flash, and they weaken the vision. And in bodies that rotate violently, they quickly cause the one who is seized to fall. And all such kinds of things are not very pleasing to the wise, except for that which is perfect. Section: The imaginative power, as has often been said, is the maker of images that are apprehended intellectually. And these are mixed and dimly with every image, whether it shares in the action or in the name, or whether it is opposed to it. Knowledge is something that is hidden from the world of holy beings, both in time and in wakefulness. At times, like a flash of lightning and a mist, it passes with the substance to the word. Just as for the perfect and for the martyrs on its behalf, it is cast upon demons. Or apart from the substance, as for many in dreams, these are true. And that heavenly lightning is like that. If the imaginative power does not have authority over its embodiment, it cannot be that which sees its examination. The word that the eye did not see and the ear did not hear is false. But if it is embodied, it is embodied for it, and the sense-tablet is formed in it. Then the glorious form appears beautifully to all, and it examines future things.

or future things are imprinted in it, or signs are examined in it as if a scale and a curtain were set, or a voice like that which is heard in the desert. And these future things remain as they are. The vision or dream does not require interpretations; rather, the images and their patterns remain and are preserved on the interpretations. And from these it is clearly shown that not every visible or audible thing, or any other perceptible thing, ought to be considered as existing externally. And all demons and the rest of the moving forms and voices of the elemental powers are the works of the imaginative power, which pass through the inner sense-tablet and are imprinted there. And it is generally said that as many external senses are weakened, so many more terrifying forms are there to be perceived. The helper, however, is especially with them: the density of the humid vapor of the body and the closing of its pores. And that mystery of the ascension is the one whose patterns the holy scriptures sparingly depict, and to which the rational intellects aspire. There are sealed lights and profitable warnings. For the initiates of your generation and the partners of your rank, if you have passed through the cleft of the final limit, do not stand, or do not lean on the bed of your desires within your filthy ruin and say, "Now I have been perfected in rational knowledge." Awake, O wretch, and remove from your boundaries the enemies of God, and go to his helpers. For you were not created to be nourished with those who, from your humanity, make you a wonder, and with beasts and cattle make you equal. Be ashamed, then, for your honor, that you may not be delivered and become like them. Section: He who reads in your desert is pleasant, and you are deaf; still, from your hour, make fruits that are equal. And when you begin to sow, hope; and when it grows, you bear; and when you harvest, give thanks.

Section: Through the pillars. And from that which is fitting for the beginning of the wedding, it is given to you. And when it approaches the gate of the gates, it calls out, saying, "Give the life of every body. Do not let your image change your covenant. Do not turn your face from your creation, as he turned his face from the clay. But love, help, strengthen, and save." Section: For the people who, from among the peoples, seek to know the pillar, and in his face they hold the gates of the senses, and all the natural desires, their destroyers are from life. And for his enemies, by the remembrance of his Lord, he decrees that the holy ones do not cease in the world, or like that which is above from sacrifices, offerings, and signs. Then first the sign flashes, the sign is cast, the sign is destroyed. Or when he died to these things, and in all he was not visible and not tangible. Section: Do not waste your days, for that which is not found is the end of the lost, from which you will not be cast down, lest you be driven step by step by hidden things. And from that which they dug, you will be, so that your day, which is future, may be better than that which stands before you. And if you are, by a small measure, no longer with evil deeds, you will be pushed away. Shame, when you pray, that your last evenings are better than your first. For prayer turns the request, as also thought turns to knowledge. Especially when at night you are hidden from those who are examined. In that which, from secret petitions, prepares to seek hidden gifts. Purify your senses when you fast. And if you are, at the last end of the night, you will be loosed. It helps more with the clarity of the air. For your inner powers are freed from the dark mists that are removed. Strive in the reading of the spiritual words of the lords. And desire to be equal to the perfect persons. For the hireling is to the man who can strike the angelic life.

And he who is zealous for spiritual life, remember your death at all times, and your encounter with your Lord, and keep the law of your Creator, and do not put off the work of your day until tomorrow, for it is not far off that you may reach it. Cut off from yourself every distracting theory that leads to the lower house, lest it disturb you and cut you off. Accustom your soul to true words, and do not plunge it into falsehood, lest your dreams be corrupted. Be occupied with silence, and give victory to thoughts over words, for if you are known through words among acquaintances, silence in its degree places you among the perfect. You shall have with your Lord that commerce which is a hand that the beginning does not know at all, from among the things that test you. Be more patient with yourself than with your anger, and know that your Lord is a living one, not a price. Beware of the curse of everyone who is, lest you be cursed with the primal soul of your own self, which is the answer to questions at times, some things known from you and from many, hidden and concealed. Beware of foolish mixtures, and do not give holy things to the profane, for even from you they do not increase, and from that which is with them you will lack, not from what you are. Section: Hope shall be a good thing for you concerning the great ancients of wisdom, and do not err in their words, for their abundance is over signs in houses, and the later ones who are near to generations. Even concisely, that they stood, and clearly they argued and debated and made an apodeixis. Not over all the hidden things of these did they examine, and all the fathers of the fathers, the blessed Hermes, completed, who ascended in himself to a non-material world, by night, that which the sun's course celebrates, while in the temple of light he was praying, and when he opened his eyes he saw the land of Egypt and swallowed up the disturbers of their Lord, and he heard a voice from the height saying, "Take the destructive flame and ascend." And when he ascended, he saw the firmament of his feet becoming known, both earth and heaven.

For also the divine Plato, the philosopher, says: When I was in stillness with myself, I was occupied. And as if I were without a body, when I had set my mind there, and from all the activities of this matter I was distracted, then I was within with myself. And I was occupied with the beauty, the seemliness, and the splendor of the good that is stored up. And I understood that this is a similitude with the world above. Thus also the glory of the Peripatetics who resemble these, they mentioned. And all of them affirmed that no one among the wise can be such unless he has stripped off the body and deadened his senses. And not even those physical philosophers who, by the power of wisdom, were sharpened in a questioning manner, can attain to these. For the good fortune of the former is higher than that which they attained, and better than that which they said. And complete paths were not revealed from them, for they fell into the abyss of error while contending with their contradictors. Section: And lest you wonder about the Jews, or that one who wishes to travel the narrow path of the world which is not material, since all these things that have been said give signs of the journey. Especially, however, concerning stillness, it is fitting to trust in silence and the cessation of the senses, and the setting aside of those dark corners, and the uprooting of those carnal desires from their roots, and nightly prayers while lying in the dust, and the emptiness of the stomach while the external senses begin to cease, so that also those internal ones may be stilled and calmed. And the readings of words that remind of the spiritual world, and the meditations on its intelligible essence. I do not say these sensible things which, like a dog, turn back upon repentance, and ordered risings at set times. But these are better than all sensible desires, for they lead to those which are higher than the senses.

For like that one who, while traveling the royal road, desires to advance, his existence is snatched away, and flashes of lightnings without substance appear to him as illuminations. And again, when he delves into disputations and labors, many of those intangible illuminations are manifested to him, until, whether he wills or not, he is stirred to action. Then, ecstatically, they come to him without discourse, and without difficulty he is raised to the heights, and while on earth he dwells with the heavens, and gleams of an ineffable light are revealed to him. And as much as the soul delights in its beauties, it has not yet attained to the likeness of its Lord, who is the very essence that is perceived. But when, through the apprehension of its essence and its delights, it ceases, then it is perfected in its Lord, and in him, as far as it can, it is formed, and by his permanence it abides. And here, the comprehensive outline of philosophy is divinely delineated: mystical symbols, or perhaps concerning the awakening of the good of the solitary, he has compressed it. To that which will make you known, and you will know the greatness of your kind, and that you are a beginning like the tablet of a hand. Be left, then, and examine the boundary of your own existence, whether you have a beginning or an outline. And when you examine well, you will not say that you can find anything more than that in which you are placed, or that you are the completion of something natural and organic of the body. That, rather, than that you are simply of substance. That, then, in which you participate in brotherhood, you are for your temple. And it is clear that these states never enter into the composition of anything from substances, because that first is something of my compression, and that second is from the smallness of the debt of accidents, from that which is towards something. And if I had been something else of a different kind or change, it would be fitting that you should be wise to all of it.

in that you are more than all that is near to you. And if you think that you have something more than that which you are, your opinion is not true. For everything that is more than that which you are is outside of that which you are. It is by chance that it occurs in your thought, not in your essence. The remainder, then, of the simple is something of you. And your essence is your existence, and your existence is your essence. For apart from simple existence, nothing at all is naturally attributable to you. In that likeness, and for all simple things, distinction and beginning: you cannot say that something of necessary being is something of me. But rather, by what means is it distinguished from it? For it is said that the necessity of being concerning necessary being is not in that it is simple existence that is predicated, but in that it is the cause that is the principle of all that is possible. To it, then, there is not even one cause. You are distinguished from it, then, by deficiency and perfection, as also the light of a firefly from the light of the sun. As for those that are in all perfections, they are distinguished from one another by degrees of existence, in priority, secondness, thirdness, and so on. And from here the great Pythagoras came to know that the numbers of the elements of beings are the forms of the existents. And as the clear and the dark in the substances of something of a deposit are distinguished from one another and produce different operations, in that likeness, the existents in the substances of something of a nature are distinguished from one another and produce different operations. So that there is no division, then, it is evident in your honor and it is established that a drop is known from the sea that holds all, and an imperceptible gleam from the perfect of perfections, and the earthly Jerusalem from the city above the heavens. And do not let your image be confused by these similes, for in the image of that which images all, you are imaged.

And that mystery of the image of the cross. He preserves the mystery from that which does not enter or enter you. And do not be a mediator of evil that divides the hidden things. Completed is the book of the Treatise of Treatises at the end of the month of Ḥzīrān in the year one thousand six hundred and forty-nine of Alexander son of Philip the Greek (1637 AD). This book was written in the blessed and priestly city of Amid, in the orthodox faith, in the church of the victorious martyr Mār Petyōn. Within the cell of the bishop’s residence dwells Mār Amīd. It was written in the days of the father of fathers and chief of pastors, the anointer of priests and distributor of talents, Mār Shimʿōn, Catholicos Patriarch of the East. His throne was established in all victories for the strengthening and exaltation of the holy churches of Amid. And in the days of the shepherd, the loving one, the expansive and the perfect, rich in sins and follies, and excelling in deeds of virtue—he who sleeps in the bed of faith and left the eloquent Arabs in the hands of the fathers of destruction. And it is not at all fitting that his name be mentioned in books because of the abundance of his worthlessness and the evil of his conduct. The name of the weakness of Shimʿōn of Ṭaybū, metropolitan of the city of Amid the faithful, is made known. While in love, he offers peace and supplications to all whom he may encounter in my foolish scribblings, that if a mistake or error is found, it be corrected with love and prayer, and he says: Merciful God, lover of the righteous, spare and pardon with your grace and mercy the sinful writer and his parents of body and spirit, and also his teachers. This book was written, however, as by the hands and rewards of the righteous elder Yōsep, the priest Barāhīm, and the deacon Yōḥannān of Ardwōn.