Elements of Theology

 as one subsisting, but according to participation not one, the one will be multiplied, just as the multiplicity is unified through the one. Therefore

 activity is better than that which is not self-sufficient but has the cause of its perfection dependent on another substance. For if all beings by nat

 it desires that also, how most of all the good? or if it does not desire, how does it not desire the cause of all things, having proceeded from it? Bu

 is itself, and the mover and the moved are one and the same. For either it moves in one part and is moved in another part, or as a whole it moves and

 beginning from a monad, it proceeds into a multitude coordinate with the monad, and the multitude of every order is led back to one monad. For the mon

 the one being divided. But if it is in one of all things, it will no longer be of all things, but of one. If, therefore, it is both common to those ab

 the thing produced is other than it. Therefore, that which begets is established as unchangeable and undiminished, multiplying itself through a genera

 from something and reverting has a cyclical activity. For if it reverts to that from which it proceeds, it joins the end to the beginning, and the mot

 procession. For since each occurs through likeness, that which has proceeded immediately from something has also reverted immediately to it (for the l

 has reverted to itself according to nature and is perfect in its reversion to itself, and would have its being from itself for that to which the reve

 the self-subsistent is set apart from things measured by time in respect to its substance. For if the self-subsistent is ungenerated, it would not be

 having received the power to produce from the cause which is superior to it, it has from that cause its being the cause of those things of which it is

 Thus the producer in relation to the produced, taken in relation to each other, but that which is able to do more has a greater and more universal pow

 a cause has pre-contained in itself the effect, being primarily what that is secondarily or in the thing produced the producer (for this too, partici

 suffers from the former) and when the second in turn acts, that also co-acts, because whatever the second does, the more causal also co-begets with i

 being, or needing it somehow in order to be, would be in this respect more imperfect than the effect. But that which is in the result is a co-cause ra

 passible, being in every way divisible, and in every way to infinity. But the incorporeal, being simple, is impassible for the indivisible can neithe

 undiminished it contains in itself. But surely infinity in respect to magnitude and in respect to multitude is a complete privation and a falling away

 set apart and if all things enter into it, yet it has something hidden and incomprehensible to secondary things and if it unfolds the powers within

 but nowhere for thus it would be divided and separate from itself, if indeed one part of it is everywhere and in all things, but the other part nowhe

 all things. For since each thing exists either according to cause or according to existence or according to participation, in the first the rest exist

 a turning back as if through similars, dissimilar <being>. For the one is similar as a particular to a particular, the other is kindred as being of th

 a hypostasis but no longer a henad, it would be assigned to another order on account of the alteration of its property. 115 Every god is supra-essenti

 supra-essential, being nothing other than the one for each is not one thing, and then good, but only good, just as it is not one thing, and then one,

 is and in beings has the power of apprehending truth (for it both grasps thoughts and has its subsistence in acts of intellection) but the gods are b

 having set the same before itself, is most self-sufficient and such is all that is divine. Therefore it needs neither other things, being goodness-it

 is more unified than beings. All divine genera, therefore, are bound together by their proper intermediaries, and the first do not proceed immediately

 of a henad working, with which it is connate. This, then, is that which in itself defines the being that partakes of it and shows essentially the supr

 to the gods so that, while they are present to all things in the same way, all things are not present to them in the same way, but as each is able, i

 For the one, having a most unitive power, sends itself through the entire union and unifies all from above, while remaining in itself. But the mean, s

 proceeds from the infinity of the divine power, multiplying itself and passing through all things, and pre-eminently demonstrating the unfailing in th

 presides over composites and of their order and of their division according to number, and is of the same series as the paternal in more partial produ

 they have intelligible [qualities]. In the same way, therefore, that those, by illuminating Being, are intelligible, so also these, by illuminating th

 and sees itself. But seeing that it is thinking and seeing, it knows that it is Intellect in actuality and knowing this, it knows that it thinks, and

 Therefore it has the causes of all things intellectually. So that every intellect is all things intellectually, both the things before it and the thin

 more akin, contracted in quantity, in power surpasses the things after it and conversely the things further from the one. Therefore, those that are h

 on the one hand, but being only intellectual, is participated by souls that are neither divine nor come to be in a state of change from intellect to u

 by its very being, if the participant is suitable, it immediately becomes ensouled and living, not by the soul reasoning and choosing, nor giving life

 and to the soul that substantiates the essential principles of all things in it for everything that produces by its being, which it is primarily, thi

 of the motions it will also have restorations for every period of the eternal things is restorative. 200 Every period of a soul is measured by time

 the relation to the secondary ones, which the divine has to the intellectual, and this to the psychical and the quantities of the lower ones are grea

 it admits of every kind of change, being moved together with their own ruling causes. But indeed that it is also indivisible, is clear. For everything

they have intelligible [qualities]. In the same way, therefore, that those, by illuminating Being, are intelligible, so also these, by illuminating the divine and unparticipated Intellect, are intellectual, but not intellectual in the sense of subsisting in intellect, but as pre-existing causally to intellect and generating the intellect. 164 The whole multitude of henads which is participated by the entire unparticipated Soul is supercosmic. For because the unparticipated Soul is primarily above the cosmos, the gods participated by it are also supercosmic, being in the same relation to the intellectual and the intelligible [gods] as soul has to intellect and intellect to that which truly is. As, therefore, all soul is suspended from intellect and intellect is reverted to the intelligible, so too the supercosmic gods are dependent on the intellectual, just as these in turn are on the intelligible. 165 The whole multitude of henads which is participated by some sensible body is encosmic. For it illuminates one of the parts of the cosmos through the mediation of intellect and soul. For neither is intellect present to any of the encosmic bodies without soul, nor is divinity immediately conjoined with soul (for participations are through likes); and intellect itself participates the henad in respect of its own intelligible principle and highest part. The henads, therefore, are encosmic as completing the whole cosmos and as deifying the visible bodies. For each of these is divine, not because of the soul (for this is not primarily a god), nor because of the intellect (for this is not identical with the One), but it is ensouled and self-moved because of soul, and is always in the same state and borne in the best order because of intellect, and divine because of the unification; and if it has a providential power, it is of such a kind for this reason. 166 Every intellect is either unparticipated or participated; and if participated, it is participated either by the supercosmic souls or by the encosmic. For of the whole multitude of intellects the unparticipated is the leader, having the first existence; and of the participated, some illuminate the supercosmic and unparticipated soul, others the encosmic. For the encosmic multitude does not proceed immediately from the unparticipated, since processions are through likes, and that which is separate from the cosmos is more like the unparticipated than that which is divided about it; nor did only the supercosmic multitude subsist, but there are also encosmic [intellects], since there is also a multitude of encosmic gods, and the cosmos itself is at once ensouled and intelligent, and the participation by the encosmic souls of the supercosmic intellects is through the mediation of the encosmic intellects. 167 Every intellect intellects itself; but the first intellect intellects itself alone, and in this intellect and intelligible are numerically one; and each of the subsequent intellects intellects itself and also the things prior to it, and for it the intelligible is both what it is and that from which it is. For every intellect intellects either itself or what is above it or what is after it. But if it intellects what is after it, being an intellect it will revert to the worse. And not even so will it know that thing itself, to which it reverted, since it is not in it but outside it, but only the impression from it, which has come to be in it from that thing; for what it has, it knows, and what it has been affected by, not what it does not have and by which it has [not] been affected. If it intellects what is above it, if it is through knowledge of itself, it will know itself and that thing at the same time; but if it intellects that thing alone, it will be ignorant of itself, though it is an intellect. In general, knowing what is prior to it, it knows then that that thing is a cause, and of what it is a cause; for if it is ignorant of these, it will also be ignorant of that which produces by its being, not knowing what it produces. But knowing what it substantiates and of what the thing prior to it is the cause, it will also know itself as having been substantiated from there. Therefore, in knowing what is prior to it, it will in every case know itself also. If, therefore, there is some intelligible intellect, that one, knowing itself, also knows the intelligible, being itself intelligible, which it is; and each of those after it intellects the intelligible in itself and at the same time what is prior to it. There is, therefore, both intelligible in the intellect and intellect in the intelligible; but the one is identical with the intelligible, while the other is identical with the intelligible in itself, but not with that prior to it; for the simply intelligible is one thing and the intelligible in the intellecting subject is another. 168 Every intellect in activity knows that it intellects; and it is not the property of one to intellect, and of another to intellect that it intellects. For if it is an intellect in activity and intellects itself, not being other than what is intellected, it knows itself

νοητὰς ἔχουσιν. ᾗπερ οὖν καὶ ἐκεῖναι, καταλάμπουσαι τὸ ὄν, νοηταί εἰσι, ταύτῃ καὶ αὗται, καταλάμ πουσαι τὸν θεῖον καὶ ἀμέθεκτον νοῦν, νοεραί εἰσιν, ἀλλ' οὐχ οὕτω νοεραὶ ὡς ἐν νῷ ὑφεστηκυῖαι, ἀλλ' ὡς κατ' αἰτίαν τοῦ νοῦ προϋπάρχουσαι καὶ ἀπογεννῶσαι τὸν νοῦν. 164 Πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος τῶν ἑνάδων τὸ μετεχόμενον ὑπὸ τῆς ἀμεθέκτου πάσης ψυχῆς ὑπερκόσμιόν ἐστι. διότι γὰρ ἡ ἀμέθεκτος ψυχὴ πρώτως ὑπὲρ τὸν κόσμον ἐστί, καὶ οἱ μετεχόμενοι ὑπ' αὐτῆς θεοὶ ὑπερκόσμιοί εἰσιν, ἀνὰ λόγον ὄντες πρὸς τοὺς νοεροὺς καὶ νοητούς, ὃν ἔχει ψυχὴ πρὸς νοῦν καὶ νοῦς πρὸς τὸ ὄντως ὄν. ὡς οὖν ψυχὴ πᾶσα εἰς νοῦς ἀνήρ τηται καὶ νοῦς εἰς τὸ νοητὸν ἐπέστραπται, οὕτω δὴ καὶ οἱ ὑπερ κόσμιοι θεοὶ τῶν νοερῶν ἐξέχονται, καθάπερ δὴ καὶ οὗτοι τῶν νοητῶν. 165 Πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος τῶν ἑνάδων τῶν μετεχομένων ὑπό τινος αἰσθητοῦ σώματος ἐγκόσμιόν ἐστιν. ἐλλάμπει γὰρ εἴς τι τῶν τοῦ κόσμου μερῶν διὰ μέσων τοῦ νοῦ καὶ τῆς ψυχῆς. οὔτε γὰρ νοῦς ἄνευ ψυχῆς πάρεστί τινι τῶν ἐγκοσμίων σωμάτων οὔτε θεότης ἀμέσως συνάπτεται ψυχῇ (διὰ γὰρ τῶν ὁμοίων αἱ μεθέξεις)· καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ νοῦς κατὰ τὸ νοητὸν τὸ ἑαυτοῦ καὶ τὸ ἀκρότατον μετέχει τῆς ἑνάδος. ἐγκόσ μιοι οὖν αἱ ἑνάδες ὡς συμπληροῦσαι τὸν ὅλον κόσμον καὶ ὡς ἐκθεωτικαὶ τῶν ἐμφανῶν σωμάτων. θεῖον γὰρ καὶ τούτων ἕκαστόν ἐστιν, οὐ διὰ τὴν ψυχήν (οὐ γὰρ πρώτως αὕτη θεός), οὐδὲ διὰ τὸν νοῦν (οὐδὲ γὰρ οὗτος τῷ ἑνὶ ὁ αὐτός), ἀλλ' ἔμψυχον μὲν καὶ ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ κινούμενον διὰ ψυχήν, ἀεὶ δὲ ὡσαύτως ἔχον καὶ τάξει τῇ ἀρίστῃ φερόμενον διὰ τὸν νοῦν, θεῖον δὲ διὰ τὴν ἕνωσιν· καὶ εἰ δύναμιν ἔχει προνοητικήν, διὰ ταύτην ἐστὶ τὴν αἰτίαν τοιοῦτον. 166 Πᾶς νοῦς ἢ ἀμέθεκτός ἐστιν ἢ μεθεκτός· καὶ εἰ μεθε κτός, ἢ ὑπὸ τῶν ὑπερκοσμίων ψυχῶν μετεχόμενος ἢ ὑπὸ τῶν ἐγκοσμίων. παντὸς μὲν γὰρ τοῦ πλήθους τῶν νόων ὁ ἀμέθεκτος ἡγεῖται, πρωτίστην ἔχων ὕπαρξιν· τῶν δὲ μετεχομένων οἱ μὲν τὴν ὑπερ κόσμιον καὶ ἀμέθεκτον ἐλλάμπουσι ψυχήν, οἱ δὲ τὴν ἐγκόσμιον. οὔτε γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀμεθέκτου τὸ πλῆθος εὐθὺς τὸ ἐγκόσμιον, εἴπερ αἱ πρόοδοι διὰ τῶν ὁμοίων, ὁμοιότερον δὲ τῷ ἀμεθέκτῳ τὸ χωριστὸν τοῦ κόσμου μᾶλλον ἢ τὸ διῃρημένον περὶ αὐτόν· οὔτε μόνον τὸ ὑπερκόσμιον ὑπέστη πλῆθος, ἀλλ' εἰσὶ καὶ ἐγκόσμιοι, εἴπερ καὶ θεῶν ἐγκοσμίων πλῆθος, καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ κόσμος ἔμψυχος ἅμα καὶ ἔννους ἐστί, καὶ ἡ μέθεξις ταῖς ἐγκοσμίοις ψυχαῖς τῶν ὑπερκοσμίων νόων διὰ μέσων ἐστὶ τῶν ἐγκοσμίων νόων. 167 Πᾶς νοῦς ἑαυτὸν νοεῖ· ἀλλ' ὁ μὲν πρώτιστος ἑαυτὸν μόνον, καὶ ἓν κατ' ἀριθμὸν ἐν τούτῳ νοῦς καὶ νοητόν· ἕκαστος δὲ τῶν ἐφεξῆς ἑαυτὸν ἅμα καὶ τὰ πρὸ αὐτοῦ, καὶ νοητόν ἐστι τούτῳ τὸ μὲν ὅ ἐστι, τὸ δὲ ἀφ' οὗ ἐστιν. ἢ γὰρ ἑαυτὸν νοεῖ πᾶς νοῦς ἢ τὸ ὑπὲρ ἑαυτὸν ἢ τὸ μεθ' ἑαυτόν. ἀλλ' εἰ μὲν τὸ μεθ' ἑαυτόν, πρὸς τὸ χεῖρον ἐπιστρέψει νοῦς ὤν. καὶ οὐδὲ οὕτως ἐκεῖνο αὐτὸ γνώσεται, πρὸς ὃ ἐπέστρεψεν, ἅτε οὐκ ὢν ἐν αὐτῷ, ἀλλ' ἔξω αὐτοῦ, τὸν δὲ ἀπ' αὐτοῦ τύπον μόνον, ὃς ἐν αὐτῷ γέγονεν ἀπ' ἐκείνου· ὃ γὰρ ἔχει, οἶδε, καὶ ὃ πέπονθεν, οὐχ ὃ μὴ ἔχει καὶ ἀφ' οὗ [οὐ] πέπονθεν. εἰ δὲ τὸ ὑπὲρ αὐτόν, εἰ μὲν διὰ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ γνώσεως, ἑαυτὸν ἅμα κἀκεῖνο γνώσεται· εἰ δὲ ἐκεῖνο μόνον, ἑαυτὸν ἀγνοήσει νοῦς ὤν. ὅλως δέ, τὸ πρὸ αὐτοῦ γινώσκων, οἶδεν ἄρα ὅτι καὶ αἴτιόν ἐστιν ἐκεῖνο, καὶ ὧν αἴτιον· εἰ γὰρ ταῦτα ἀγνοήσει, κἀκεῖνο ἀγνοήσει τὸ τῷ εἶναι παράγον, [ἃ παράγει, καὶ] ἃ παράγει μὴ γινώσκων. ὃ δὲ ὑφίστησι καὶ ὧν αἴτιον τὸ πρὸ αὐτοῦ γινώσκων, καὶ ἑαυτὸν ἐκεῖθεν ὑποστάντα γνώσεται. πάντως ἄρα τὸ πρὸ αὐτοῦ γινώσκων γνώσεται καὶ ἑαυτόν. εἰ οὖν τις ἔστι νοῦς νοητός, ἐκεῖνος ἑαυτὸν εἰδὼς καὶ τὸ νοητὸν οἶδε, νοητὸς ὤν, ὅ ἐστιν αὐτός· ἕκαστος δὲ τῶν μετ' ἐκεῖνον τὸ ἐν αὐτῷ νοητὸν νοεῖ ἅμα καὶ τὸ πρὸ αὐτοῦ. ἔστιν ἄρα καὶ ἐν τῷ νῷ νοητὸν καὶ ἐν τῷ νοητῷ νοῦς· ἀλλ' ὁ μὲν τῷ νοητῷ ὁ αὐτός, ὁ δὲ [τῷ νοοῦντι] τῷ μὲν ἐν αὐτῷ ὁ αὐτός, τῷ πρὸ αὐτοῦ δὲ οὐχ ὁ αὐτός· ἄλλο γὰρ τὸ ἁπλῶς νοητὸν καὶ ἄλλο τὸ ἐν τῷ νοοῦντι νοητόν. 168 Πᾶς νοῦς κατ' ἐνέργειαν οἶδεν ὅτι νοεῖ· καὶ οὐκ ἄλλου μὲν ἴδιον τὸ νοεῖν, ἄλλου δὲ τὸ νοεῖν ὅτι νοεῖ. εἰ γάρ ἐστι κατ' ἐνέργειαν νοῦς καὶ νοεῖ ἑαυτὸν οὐκ ἄλλον ὄντα παρὰ τὸ νοούμενον, οἶδεν ἑαυτὸν