In the first Epistle to the Corinthians likewise, chap. viii. v. 5. Paul expressly asserts that there is a divine multitude. For he says, “Though there be that are called Gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be Gods many and Lords many;)” in the parenthesis of which verse, it is incontrovertibly evident that he admits the existence of a plurality of Gods, though as well as the heathens he believed that one God only was supreme and the father of _all_ things. Nor am I singular in asserting that this was admitted by Paul. For the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the second chapter of his treatise On the Divine Names observes concerning what is here said by Paul as follows: “Again, from the deific energy of God, by which every thing according to its ability becomes deiform, many Gods are generated; in consequence of which there appears and is said to be a separation and multiplication of the one [supreme] God. Nevertheless, God himself, who is the chief deity, and is superessentially the supreme, is still one God, remaining impartible in the Gods distributed from him, united to himself, unmingled with the many, and void of multitude.” And he afterwards adds, “that this was in a transcendent manner understood by Paul, who was the leader both of him and his preceptor, to divine illumination,” in the above cited verse. And, “that in divine natures, unions vanquish and precede separations, and yet nevertheless they are united, after the separation which does not in proceeding depart from _the one_, and is unical.”[23] Paul therefore, according to this Dionysius, considered the Gods, conformably to Plato and the best of his disciples, as deiform processions from _the one_, and which at the same time that they have a distinct subsistence from, are profoundly united to their great producing cause. Dionysius also employs the very same expression which Proclus continually uses when speaking of the separation of the Gods from their source; for he says that the divine multitude ανεκφοιτητος του ενος, i.e. does not depart from, but abides in _the one_. Hence Proclus in the fifth book of his MS. Commentary On the Parmenides of Plato, speaking of the divine unities says, “Whichever among these you assume, it is the same with the others, because all of them are in each other, and are rooted in _the one_. For as trees by their summits (i.e. their roots) are fixed in the earth, and through these are earthly, after the same manner also divine natures are rooted by their summits in _the one_, and each of them is unity and one, through unconfused union with _the one itself_.” Ην γαρ αν τουτων λαβῃς, την αυτην ταις αλλαις λαμβανεις, διοτι δη πασαι και εν αλληλαις εισι, και ενερριζονται τῳ ενι. Καθαπερ γαρ τα δενδρα ταις εαυτων κορυφαις ενιδρυνται τῃ γῃ, και εστι γηινα κατ’ εκεινας, τον αυτον τροπον και τα θεια ταις εαυτων ακροτησιν ενερριζωνται τῳ ενι, και εκαστον αυτων ενας εστι, και εν, δια την προς το εν ασυγχυτον ενωσιν.