On the Mysteries of the Egyptians

...more into, or contact. Some think they will reach separated beings Separated beings or substances refer to entities that exist without physical bodies, such as gods, angels, or pure intellects. through a certain method of opposition: for instance, that material things are mobile, localized, subject to suffering, and so on; therefore, separated things are immobile and so forth. In this way, one certainly learns what they are not. But what they truly are is acquired through an "adequacy of knowledge" toward that which naturally dwells in the soul through the intellect. However, this is acquired in the rational power by a certain study—not so much through comparison and conjecture, but rather through the duty of separation and purification. There was also a method of disjunction: namely, gods and divine things are either temporal or eternal. They are not temporal, therefore they are eternal, etc. This method also, because of its own mobility, does not suit immobile things.

On the properties of each of the higher beings.

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If any composition is found in separated and separable substances, it does not consist of a genus that is indeterminate in itself and a difference that defines it. In traditional logic, a definition is made of a "genus" (a broad category) and a "difference" (the specific trait that narrows it down). Ficino argues here that divine beings are too simple and unique for this kind of categorization. For those substances are complete species in every respect, existing in a determined and complete act. If separable substances, as simple beings, do not differ among themselves through "specific differences" under the same genus, then they do not vary through "individual differences" under the same species either. Therefore, each one is, as it were, a single genus or species existing by itself. But they differ by themselves and by the order of their degrees, and because they are related to the First The "First" refers to the Neoplatonic "One" or the ultimate Godhead. in different ways. Intelligences Divine minds or angelic beings. do not agree or differ among themselves by genus or by any typical differences—for they are most simple—but rather in the way they are related to the First by the same or different reasoning. Some are arranged in higher degrees of perfection, others in subsequent ones. The differences of things among themselves in actions and passions must always be resolved into joined? differences, and these into differences of essences. Nor should one rest anywhere in the "subsequent" things, but rather proceed toward the "prior" things. Neither in the higher substances nor in our own soul is there any passive motion, but the whole is an effective act. The motion of the soul by which it moves from itself is not divided into a "mover" and a "moved," or "moving" and "being moved," but is an essential act proceeding through time. Accidents accidentia (accidents): non-essential properties, like color or size, that can change without changing what a thing is belong to composite things and forms that exist in a subject [matter], but they do not suit immaterial forms. Whatever is in separable forms is existence itself, and is essential by a certain principal and equal lot. Nor is anything found there that is an accident or a consequence. Motions and actions are different because of the differences of their natures, not the other way around. If we were to say that there is only one genus for all "separated" beings, we would confuse the study of the divine original: "theologiam". Separated substances do not come together in one certain genus in which they would be distinguished by differences; rather, they are distinguished by themselves and by the order of their degrees. Insofar as per through different degrees of perfection they are related to the First, they agree...