Asclepius

I say: if it lacks the first sight of the sphere, from which they also say εἴδη species/forms, because they are invisible forms. Therefore, because they are viewed by sight, they are called in Greek ades invisible, from the fact that they lie hidden in the bottom of the sphere, the inferiors are named. These, therefore, are the first origins and the more ancient ones, even if they are heads of the world or of all things that are in these, or through these, or from these. ASCLEPIUS You say then, O Trismegistus, that this power is the mundane gods? TRIMEGISTUS Thus I would say: the species of all things that are contained in the unique ones, from which all substance is. TRIMEGISTUS The mind, therefore, sees bodies, spirits, souls, and senses. Or by that celestial gift by which humanity alone is happy, others possess mind. Not all, indeed, but few, whose mind is such that it can become capable of such great good. For just as the sun alone original: "sole mō s-" suggests "sole mundo" (the sun in the world), so the human mind becomes clear with the light of the sun, and more than that; for the sun, which illuminates, sometimes covers and is deprived of light when night intervenes, and it departs from the light. Senses, however, once they are mixed with the soul, if they become one human soul from a well-coalescing mixture, the matter is such that minds of this kind are never hindered by the darkness of errors. Hence, in the mind, he would have said that the senses are the souls of the gods. ASCLEPIUS I do not mean all of them, but the great ones, whoever they are, and the principal ones. ASCLEPIUS Whom do you call the heads or beginnings of the origins, O Trismegistus? TRIMEGISTUS I reveal to you great and divine mysteries of the world, of which matter I make a beginning from the requested celestial favor. There are many kinds of gods, and a part of all of them is called intelligible; not for the reason that they are thought not to be subject to our senses, but we sense them more than those we call visible, as the discourse will proceed. The reasoning is not sublime, consisting beyond the limits of men and their intentions, if you receive the words of the speakers with too attentive an obedience of the ears.