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...deepening in its own knowledge, and dismissing the intellect into that very hearth of beings, and proceeding toward the interior and what is within itself, and [drawing forth] the immaterial being of the soul from the knowledge of the gods, and closing [the eyes] to behold the unities of beings; for since all things are as it were in our nature—the powers within us and the images of the wholes being self-engendered—and this is the excellence of piety, a discovery of the powers [of the soul] stretching toward the divine itself; and having poured [the soul] around that, it now depicts all the multitude of the soul in relation to this union. Whereby, letting go of all things that follow the One, [it is necessary] to run toward it and join our existence to it, and [to what is] beyond all beings. For it is fitting for the soul to ascend until it rises to the very principle of beings; and having arrived there, and having beheld that place, and the whole [procession] from there, and proceeding through beings, and unfolding the multitudes of forms, traversing both their monads and their numbers, and discerning how each is intellectually suspended from its proper causes, she no longer possesses the same science of the gods; but having distinguished the processions of the gods and brightly beheld the distinctions of beings around the gods. Thus, then, the theological character, as if in a beautiful manner, is such according to the judgment of Plato; and such would theology be: manifesting the very existence of the gods, and distinguishing their unknown light, even within [the soul] itself, from the property of the participants; and beholding and reporting to those worthy of this madness and of all things together that concern [the soul] piously. After this complete comprehension of the primary contemplation, we shall also discern by definitions the thoughts which Plato divinely teaches us concerning the gods. For he appears not only to have found the teaching concerning divine things everywhere in his pursuit, but [unfolding it] sometimes symbolically or playfully, and at other times dialectically unfolding the path of truths.
Theological types:
according to which
everything that one
[might teach] through intellection
[as] a teaching
concerning the gods.