The words “I am _thy_ God” are used not in a proper but in a secondary sense. For Being, _quâ_ Being, is out of relation: itself is full of itself and sufficient for itself, both before the birth of the world and equally so after it.[464] He transcends all quality, being better than virtue, better than knowledge, and better even than the good itself and the beautiful itself.[465] He is not in space, but beyond it; for He contains it. He is not in time, for He is the Father of the universe, which is itself the father of time, since from its movement time proceeds.[466] He is “without body, parts or passions”: without feet, for whither should He walk who fills all things: without hands, for from whom should He receive anything who possesses all things: without eyes, for how should He need eyes who made the light.[467] He is invisible, for how can eyes that are too weak to gaze upon the sun be strong enough to gaze upon its Maker.[468] He is incomprehensible: not even the whole universe, much less the human mind, can contain the conception of Him:[469] we know _that_ He is, we cannot know _what_ He is:[470] we may see the manifestations of Him in His works, but it were monstrous folly to go behind His works and inquire into His essence.[471] He is hence unnamed: for names are the symbols of created things, whereas His only attribute is to _be_.[472] (2) _The Revelation of the Transcendent._—Side by side with this conception of the transcendence of God, and intimately connected with it, was the idea of beings or forces coming between God and men. A transcendent God was in Himself incommunicable: the more the conception of His transcendence was developed, the stronger was the necessity for conceiving of the existence of intermediate links.[473] i. A basis for such a conception was afforded in the popular mythology by the belief in demons—spirits inferior to the gods, but superior to men. The belief was probably “a survival of the primitive psychism which peopled the whole universe with life and animation.”[474] There was an enormous contemporary development of the idea of demons or genii. They are found in Epictetus, Dio Chrysostom, Maximus, and Celsus. In the latter some are good, some bad, most of them of mixed nature; to them is due the creation of all things except the human soul; they are the rulers of day and night, of the sunlight and the cold.[475]