9.Everything brought into being under some principle not itself is contained either within its maker or, if there is any intermediate, within that: having a prior essential to its being, it needs that prior always, otherwise it would not be contained at all.It is the order of nature: The last in the immediately preceding lasts, things of the order of the Firsts within their prior-firsts, and so thing within thing up to the very pinnacle of source.
That Source, having no prior, cannot be contained: uncontained by any of those other forms of being, each held within the series of priors, it is orbed round all, but so as not to be pointed off to hold them part for part; it possesses but is not possessed.Holding all-though itself nowhere held- it is omnipresent, for where its presence failed something would elude its hold.At the same time, in the sense that it is nowhere held, it is not present: thus it is both present and not present; not present as not being circumscribed by anything; yet, as being utterly unattached, not inhibited from presence at any point.That inhibition would mean that the First was determined by some other being; the later series, then, would be without part in the Supreme; God has His limit and is no longer self-governed but mastered by inferiors.
While the contained must be where its container is, what is uncontained by place is not debarred from any: for, imagine a place where it is not and evidently some other place retains it; at once it is contained and there is an end of its placelessness.
But if the "nowhere" is to stand and the ascription of a "where," implying station in the extern, is to fall, then nothing can be left void; and at once- nothing void, yet no point containing- God is sovereignly present through all.We cannot think of something of God here and something else there, nor of all God gathered at some one spot: there is an instantaneous presence everywhere, nothing containing and nothing left void, everything therefore fully held by the divine.
Consider our universe.There is none before it and therefore it is not, itself, in a universe or in any place- what place was there before the universe came to be?- its linked members form and occupy the whole.But Soul is not in the universe, on the contrary the universe is in the Soul; bodily substance is not a place to the Soul; Soul is contained in Intellectual-Principle and is the container of body.The Intellectual-Principle in turn is contained in something else; but that prior principle has nothing in which to be:
the First is therefore in nothing, and, therefore, nowhere.But all the rest must be somewhere; and where but in the First?
This can mean only that the First is neither remote from things nor directly within them; there is nothing containing it; it contains all.It is The Good to the universe if only in this way, that towards it all things have their being, all dependent upon it, each in its mode, so that thing rises above thing in goodness according to its fuller possession of authentic being.
10.Still, do not, I urge you, look for The Good through any of these other things; if you do, you will see not itself but its trace: you must form the idea of that which is to be grasped cleanly standing to itself not in any combination, the unheld in which all have hold: for no other is such, yet one such there must be.
Now it is clear that we cannot possess ourselves of the power of this principle in its concentrated fulness: so to do one must be identical with it: but some partial attainment is within our reach.
You who make the venture will throw forward all your being but you will never tell it entire- for that, you must yourself be the divine Intellect in Act- and at your utmost success it will still pass from you or, rather, you from it.In ordinary vision you may think to see the object entire: in this intellective act, all, less or more, that you can take to mind you may set down as The Good.
It is The Good since, being a power [being effective outwardly], it is the cause of the intelligent and intellective life as of life and intellect: for these grow from it as from the source of essence and of existence, the Source as being One, simplex and first because before it was nothing.All derives from this: it is the origin of the primal movement which it does not possess and of the repose which is but its absence of need; for neither rest nor movement can belong to that which has no place in which either could occur; centre, object, ground, all are alike unknown to it, for it is before all.Yet its Being is not limited; what is there to set bounds to it? Nor, on the other hand, is it infinite in the sense of magnitude; what place can there be to which it must extend, or why should there be movement where there is no lacking? All its infinitude resides in its power: it does not change and will not fail; and in it all that is unfailing finds duration.
11.It is infinite also by right of being a pure unity with nothing towards which to direct any partial content.Absolutely One, it has never known measure and stands outside of number, and so is under no limit either in regard to any extern or within itself; for any such determination would bring something of the dual into it.
And having no constituent parts it accepts no pattern, forms no shape.
Reason recognising it as such a nature, you may not hope to see it with mortal eyes, nor in any way that would be imagined by those who make sense the test of reality and so annul the supremely real.For what passes for the most truly existent is most truly non-existent-the thing of extension least real of all- while this unseen First is the source and principle of Being and sovereign over Reality.
You must turn appearances about or you will be left void of God.
You will be like those at the festivals who in their gluttony cram themselves with things which none going to the gods may touch; they hold these goods to be more real than the vision of the God who is to be honoured and they go away having had no share in the sanctities of the shrine.