The 900 Theses

¶ Insofar as the ArchitectLatin: opifex; a term often used for the Creator or Demiurge beholds the One of a single essential form, he creates the worldly gods of that part; insofar as he beholds the Being of a single essence, he creates the angels in that same part; insofar as he sees the One of a unified being, he creates the demons there; and insofar as he sees the Existence of a unified being, he creates the animals in that same place.

¶ The Architect creates the other parts proportionally according to the patterns of his own forms, just as was said regarding the first part; it is not necessary to explain this further because anyone who knows the way of reasoning by analogyLatin: analogizandi will be able to deduce it for themselves.

¶ We ascend toward the wise, beautiful, and good Lord through intellect, love, and faith.

¶ Just as the faith which is mere belief is below knowledge, so the faith which is truly faith is beyond all substanceLatin: supersubstantialiter; referring to a state above material or even intellectual essence, standing above knowledge and intellect, joining us immediately to God.

¶ Just as not every body participates in the soul, but only the perfect body; so not every soul participates in the intellect, but only the perfect soul; yet all things participate in the One.

¶ Just as it is with the scope of causality, so it is with the sublimity of nature and rank: these things exceed one another in order: Soul, Intellect, Life, Being, and the One.

¶ Every middle order remains stable in that which precedes it, and confirms that which follows within itself.

¶ Just as the first TrinityLatin: trinitas; here used in a Neoplatonic sense to describe groupings of divine emanations after the Unity is all things in an intelligible, measured, and finite-formLatin: finiformiter way; so the second Trinity is all things in a vital, true, and infinite-form way. The third is everything according to the property of the mixture and in a beautiful-form way.

¶ The first Trinity only remains; the second remains and proceeds; the third, after its procession, returns.

¶ EternityLatin: Aeuuum; the realm of timelessness between time and absolute eternity is above the "living-thing-in-itself" in the second and middle Trinity.

¶ Just as the intelligible thingsLatin: intelligibilia; things grasped by the mind rather than the senses are the causes of all sequences, so the intellectual things are the causes of the divisions according to the common super-worldly genera of those differing by species, and of worldly things differing by the individual.

¶ By the "place above the heavens," we must understand that which concerns the second...