(Let us therefore comprehend, out of all his functions, first his power to perfect, from the fact that he makes visible the objects of sight in the universe, for through his light he perfects them; secondly, his creative and generative power from the changes wrought by him in the universe; thirdly, his power to link together all things into one whole, from the harmony of his motions towards one and the same goal; fourthly, his middle station we can comprehend from himself, who is midmost; and fifthly, the fact that he is established as king among the intellectual gods, from his middle station among the planets. Now if we see that these powers, or powers of similar importance, belong to any one of the other visible deities, let us not assign to Helios leadership among the gods. But if he has nothing in common with those other gods except his beneficent energy, and of this too he gives them all a share, then let us call to witness the priests of Cyprus who set up common altars to Helios and Zeus; but even before them let us summon as witness Apollo, who sits in council with our god. For this god declares: “Zeus, Hades, Helios Serapis, three gods in one godhead!”(657) Let us then assume that, among the intellectual gods, Helios and Zeus have a joint or rather a single sovereignty. Hence I think that with reason Plato called Hades a wise god.(658) And we call this same god Hades Serapis also, namely the Unseen(659) and Intellectual, to whom Plato says the souls of those who have lived most righteously and justly mount upwards. For let no one conceive of him as the god whom the legends teach us to shudder at, but as the mild and placable, since he completely frees our souls from generation: and the souls that he has thus freed he does not nail to other bodies, punishing them and exacting penalties, but he carries aloft and lifts up our souls to the intelligible world. And that this doctrine is not wholly new, but that Homer and Hesiod the most venerable of the poets held it before us, whether this was their own view or, like seers, they were divinely inspired with a sacred frenzy for the truth, is evident from the following. Hesiod, in tracing his genealogy, said(660) that Helios is the son of Hyperion and Thea, intimating thereby that he is the true son of him who is above all things. For who else could Hyperion(661) be? And is not Thea herself, in another fashion, said to be most divine of beings? But as for a union or marriage, let us not conceive of such a thing, since that is the incredible and paradoxical trifling of the poetic Muse. But let us believe that his father and sire was the most divine and supreme being; and who else could have this nature save him who transcends all things, the central point and goal of all things that exist? And Homer calls him Hyperion after his father and shows his unconditioned nature, superior to all constraint. For Zeus, as Homer says, since he is lord of all constrains the other gods.