On the Mysteries of the Egyptians

[...a certain] creative power, and a participation in forms is diffused through all things. Finally, unless these things are divine, the power of sacrifice—which consists in a certain communion of the gods with humans—is abolished everywhere. The gods contain all things most especially for this reason: because they themselves are contained nowhere. Since earthly things were created and exist by the gift of divine beings, whenever they are rendered readier for the divine, they suddenly receive the existing gods; this occurs even prior to the specific natures of these earthly things. Furthermore, since in any god there is infinite power and a nature that is indivisible and incomprehensible, they cannot rightly be confined to certain specific locations. Likewise, there would be no true union of universal providence among the gods unless all were equally present everywhere. It is also said that some gods are "aerial" and others "aqueous," Neoplatonists categorized gods based on the element they governed, but here the author clarifies that these are functional roles, not physical limitations. not because they are only in those elements, but because they reign there most especially. Priests invoked earthly and subterranean gods; they are certainly called such not because they reside only there (for all gods are everywhere), but because some operate most powerfully in one place or another. For even the soul of any star is everywhere, though it may act more specifically in its own place. A certain divine illumination is received by statues.

ON PROVIDENCE AND HOW THE GODS ARE EVERYWHERE.

q

When gods are said to specifically receive by lot various parts of the world, cities, houses, or statues, understand that their essence and power, which flourishes everywhere within itself, illuminates this or that place most especially. And just as light, remaining in itself, illuminates different things in various places without any mixture or division of itself, so do the gods. Just as the light of the sun is the same, whole, and continuous everywhere, and can neither be divided into parts, nor enclosed anywhere, nor separated from its own source, nor mixed with the air, even though it is present there. Indeed, although the sun leaves behind nothing of its light (though heat remains from the heating source), so the light of each god, whole and indivisible, is profoundly present to the entire world, even if it grants its power to a certain part that is especially adapted to it. Meanwhile, however, it fills all things in a certain way, on account of its perfect power and its entirely immense causal excess original: "excessum causalem." In Neoplatonic thought, this is the "overflowing" of a higher reality into a lower one; the cause is so "excessive" or abundant that it produces effects without losing any of its own substance.. From this, it perfects all things and unites the furthest extremes with one another, encompassing all things within itself through intermediary means and reflecting back upon itself as something entirely unified. This duty the world also imitates by its circular motion, and by a certain connection and reconciliation of its parts, which transfers elements into elements in turn and sends the virtue term: "virtue" (Latin: uirtus). In this context, it means a specific power, quality, or effective force, rather than moral goodness. of higher things to lower ones. He who perceives this manifest statue of the gods The author is likely referring to the entire visible universe as a "living statue" or image of the divine world., unified everywhere, ought to stand in total awe of the gods as the causes of the world...