Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
Context: The one absolutely, the Intelligible, the ever Preexisting, comprehending all the universe together within the One — nay, more, is not the whole world One living thing — all and everywhere full of life and soul, perfect and made up out of parts likewise perfect? Now of this double unity the most perfect part (I mean of the Unity in the Intelligible World that comprehends all things in One, and of the Unity encompassing the Sensible World, that brings together all things into a single and perfect nature) is the perfection of the sovereign Sun, which is central and single, and placed in the middle of the intermediate Powers. <!-- But coming after this, there exists a certain connection in the Intelligible World with the Power that orders and arranges all things in one. Does not the essence of the Fifth Body, which is turned, as it were by a lathe, in a circle, move around the heavens, and is that which holds together all the parts, and binds them to one another, uniting what is naturally united amongst them and also those parts that mutually affect each other. These two essences, which are the causes of mutual attraction and of union (whereof the one manifests itself in the Intelligible, the other in the Sensible creation) does the Sun thus concentrate into one. Of the former he imitates this power of embracing and containing all things in the Intelligible creation, inasmuch as he proceeds from that source; whilst he governs the latter, that which is perceptible in the world of Sense. Perhaps, therefore, the self-existent principle, which existed first in the Intelligible creation, and lastly in the Visible bodies of the heavens, is owner of the intermediate, self-created essence of the sovereign Sun, from which primal creative essence there descends upon the visible world the radiance which illuminates the universe.
