On the Mysteries (De Mysteriis)

...is not otherness, but a certain essential and simple contact original: contactus; continuing the "touch of divinity" mentioned on the previous page.. For we cannot reach unity itself, except by something most unified original: vnitissimo; referring to the "one" or the highest point of the soul which corresponds to the Divine One., and by the unity of the mind, which exists above the specific property of the soul and mind. The very unity of the gods unites souls to itself from eternity through their own unities, according to a proximity so proper and effective that it seems to be a continuity. The divine intellect gives being to the soul through its own essential understanding. Therefore, the being of the soul is a certain understanding—namely, of God, upon whom it depends.

Our being is to know God, because the principal being of the soul is its intellect, in which being is the same as understanding divine things in a perpetual act. From that principal being, however, are derived the discursive original: discurrentes; refers to "discursive reason," the step-by-step process of human logic, which is a lower form of thought than the instant intuition of the divine intellect. powers of the soul. After the gods, we place demons, heroes, and pure souls In the Neoplatonic hierarchy, these are intermediary beings: "Demons" are spiritual guides, "Heroes" are elevated souls, and "Pure Souls" are those not yet burdened by material bodies.; these three orders are the attendants original: pedissequi; literally "foot-followers" or servants who follow a master. of the gods. We cannot reach the attendants of the gods—demons, heroes, and pure souls—by the usual discourses of human reason. But it is necessary to rise up to essential and eternal intelligence. Just as the gods are always reached by an innate notion, so the powers attending the gods are first reached when the soul has laid aside its shifting mode of cognition, which belongs to the rational power, which intel- The text breaks off mid-word; it likely continues as "intellect..." on the following page.