Problems Concerning First Principles

all things, but at least in three ways: unitarily, unifiedly, and multipliedly; therefore, from one and toward one, as we are accustomed to say. If, then, we speak of "all things" more habitually, we will posit as the principles of those things that exist in multiplicity and distinction the unified, and even more significantly, the One. But if we conceive of these, too, as "all things," and gather them together with all other things original: "πᾶσι" according to their relationship and synthesis toward them—as has been said before—our discourse will seek out another principle before "all things," which it is no longer worthy to think of as "all things," nor to connect with the things that come from it. For if someone were to say that the One, even if it is "all things" in some way, is also One before these "all things," and is more One than it is "all things"—for it is One in itself, but it is "all things" as the cause of all things, and according to the synthesis toward all things, and to speak simply, it is "all things" secondarily, while it is One primarily. If someone were to say this, first of all, they would posit a duality within the One itself. But it is we who divide, and who are doubled—and even multiplied—around its simplicity. For that One, by being One, is "all things" in the simplest way. But if someone were to say even this, nonetheless the principle of "all things" must be transcendent, apart from "all things" themselves and the simplest totality and the simplicity that swallows up all things, such as that of the One.

Chapter 2. Therefore, our soul divines that there is a principle of all things, however conceived, which is beyond all things and not synthesized with any of them. Therefore, that principle should not be called a principle, nor a cause, nor the first,