Asclepius

One soul, one God. Now be present to me entirely, as much as you can. Through the craft of those who wish it, the divine nature, which must be known by the intention of the divine sense, is most similar to a torrent in a river, precipitating from the height into the slope with fresh speed. From which it is brought about that our intuition not only does not hear, nor even passes over, but rushes by with the swift velocity of time. Heaven, therefore, as a sensible god, is the administrator of all bodies, whose increases and detriments the sun and moon have received. Heaven is indeed the hope of its own, and of all things that are in the world, the governor; it is the effector of all things, God. From all the aforementioned things, of which it is the governor, it instills the sex of all things through the world, and through the souls of all kinds and species, and through the natures of things. The world, however, is prepared by God as a receptacle for all forms and species. Nature, however, led the world through species and images, through the four elements, up to heaven, according to what is pleasing to the visible God; but all things hanging from above are divided into species, which is what is said in general. The kinds of all things follow their own species: so that the solidity of the kind may be the particle of the species of the kind. Therefore, the kind of gods, the kind of demons, the kind of birds, and of men. Such is the will of all things that the world has in itself: the world generates species similar to itself. There is also another kind of living creature. The kind has an animal soul; nor is it rare in sensible things, whence it rejoices in benefits, and is moved by adversities, and helps. Of all the divine things that fall on the earth, and having taken up safety, they find