(Wholly one is the intelligible world, pre‐existent from all time, and it combines all things together in the One. Again is not our whole world also one complete living organism, wholly throughout the whole of it full of soul and intelligence, “perfect, with all its parts perfect”? Midway then between this uniform two‐fold perfection—I mean that one kind of unity holds together in one all that exists in the intelligible world, while the other kind of unity unites in the visible world all things into one and the same perfect nature—between these, I say, is the uniform perfection of King Helios, established among the intellectual gods. There is, however, next in order, a sort of binding force in the intelligible world of the gods, which orders all things into one. Again is there not visible in the heavens also, travelling in its orbit, the nature of the Fifth Substance, which links and compresses(676) together all the parts, holding together things that by nature are prone to scatter and to fall away from one another? These existences, therefore, which are two causes of connection, one in the intelligible world, while the other appears in the world of sense‐perception, King Helios combines into one, imitating the synthetic power of the former among the intellectual gods, seeing that he proceeds from it, and subsisting prior to the latter which is seen in the visible world. Then must not the unconditioned also, which exists primarily in the intelligible world, and finally among the visible bodies in the heavens, possess midway between these two the unconditioned substance of King Helios, and from that primary creative substance do not the rays of his light, illumining all things, descend to the visible world? Again, to take another point of view, the creator of the whole is one, but many are the creative gods(677) who revolve in the heavens. Midmost therefore of these also we must place the creative activity which descends into the world from Helios. But also the power of generating life is abundant and overflowing in the intelligible world; and our world also appears to be full of generative life. It is therefore evident that the life‐generating power of King Helios also is midway between both the worlds: and the phenomena of our world also bear witness to this. For some forms he perfects, others he makes, or adorns, or wakes to life, and there is no single thing which, apart from the creative power derived from Helios, can come to light and to birth. And further, besides this, if we should comprehend the pure and undefiled and immaterial substance(678) among the intelligible gods—to which nothing external is added, nor has any alien thing a place therein, but it is filled with its own unstained purity—and if we should comprehend also the pure and unmixed nature of unstained and divine substance, whose elements are wholly unmixed, and which, in the visible universe, surrounds the substance that revolves,(679) here also we