On the Mysteries (Thomas Taylor trans.)

xii

by unity, and a number the most of all things allied to its cause; and these natures are no other than the Gods.

According to this theology, therefore, from the immense principle of principles This refers to "The One," the absolute, ultimate source of all reality in Neoplatonic philosophy., in which all things causally subsist, absorbed in superessential Existing beyond the very definition of "being" or "essence"; a state of existence higher than reality itself. light, and involved in unfathomable depths, a beauteous progeny of principles proceed, all largely partaking of the ineffable That which cannot be expressed in words due to its transcendence., all stamped with the occult Hidden or secret characters that mark an entity as divine. characters of deity, all possessing an overflowing fulness of good. From these dazzling summits, these ineffable blossoms, these divine propagations, being, life, intellect, soul, nature, and body depend; monads monads: primary, indivisible units that act as the source and ruler of a specific category of existence suspended from unities, deified natures proceeding from deities. Each of these monads, too, is the leader of a series which extends from itself to the last of things, and which, while it proceeds from, at the same time abides in, and returns to, its leader This identifies the Neoplatonic "triad" of existence: proodos (proceeding forth), mone (remaining or abiding in the cause), and epistrophe (returning back to the source).. And all these principles, and all their progeny, are finally centred and rooted by their summits in the first great all-comprehending one. Thus all beings proceed from, and are comprehended in, the first