Previously Unpublished Works, Fascicle 1

‘First 1 original: "Primum" of all . . . God built all creatures, and most greatly established a single mass, and those things which He made from nothing, He expanded in many ways.’ And Hermes Trismegistus A legendary Hellenistic figure often cited as a source of ancient wisdom on divinity and alchemy. says in the book On Divinity, to Asclepius: ‘In the Creator all things existed before He had created all things.’ Therefore, these philosophers clearly established the fact of creation. This is true despite many people who, neither reading nor understanding the ways of the philosophers, have denied that these thinkers established creation. Among created things, angels are more noble than others and more hidden from the human intellect. However, the philosophers express the creation of angels in a marvelous way. First, through the movements of the celestial bodies—of which they found about sixty—they claimed there are that many angels. They reasoned this because those movements are voluntary, and therefore they must be performed by angels. This is evident from the Metaphysics of Aristotle and of Avicenna 2 Ibn Sina, a Persian polymath whose works on Aristotelian philosophy were foundational in the Middle Ages.. Then they extended their consideration further, finding a number that is almost infinite to us, just as individual beings multiply in this lower world under a single species. These angels are distinguished from one another by number, just like physical individuals we can perceive. They differ, however, in that angels are separated from each other in such a way that they do not decay, but remain in a stable state of being. These physical individuals we know are separated from each other in a way that they eventually decay. This opinion is expressly written in the Book of Causes 3 original: "De Causis"; a widely studied Neoplatonic text often attributed to Aristotle in the Middle Ages.. And if we wish to wonder further at the words of Ethicus the astronomer A semi-legendary 4th or 5th century author of a "Cosmography" often cited by medieval scholars., we can say, as he himself says in his book, that there are nine orders of angels who stood in celestial glory. Furthermore, he even presumed to identify a tenth order which committed a ruinous act and fell into 25 a 1. infernal punishment. | For this reason, the blessed Jerome, when he read these and many other things about the angelic creature, said 4 of this philosopher: ‘When I began to learn 5 from him, and found he had discovered so many and said such great things, the very breath of my body suffered the anxiety of life with much weariness 6.’

But Apuleius of Madaura A Roman philosopher and prose writer best known for "The Golden Ass." is even more to be admired in his book On the God of Socrates 7, in which he teaches many wonderful things.

1 ‘First of all, God established the beginning of wonders and placed that foundation principally by His own dispensation, wonderfully and powerfully, when He established all creatures—undivided and uncomposed in His wisdom—as a building of the highest sort in a single work-structure. And those things which He made from nothing, he expanded after they were brought forth in many ways,’ p. 2.
2 See Metaphysics of Avicenna 9. 2.
3 Likely chapter 17.
4 p. 6, work cited.
5 Manuscript says "to say."
6 Manuscript says "middle."
7 p. 67, 1594 edition.