With respect to the spear and shield with which this Goddess, in the statues of her, is represented as armed, Jamblichus, as we are informed by Proclus,[118] explains these in a most divinely-inspired manner as follows: Since every divine nature ought to act and not to suffer; in order that by operating it may not have the inefficacious which is similar to matter, but by not suffering, it may not have that efficacy which resembles material natures, that produce accompanied with passion,--that it may have neither of these, he asserts that shields are powers, through which a divine nature remains impassive and pure, surrounding itself with an infrangible guard. But spears are powers, according to which it proceeds without contact through all things, operates in all things, amputating a material nature, and giving assistance to every generation-producing form. These powers, however, are first seen about Minerva. Hence also in the statues of her she is armed with a spear and shield. For she vanquishes every thing, and according to theologists, remains inflexibly, and uncontaminated in her father. But these things are seen in a secondary degree in the Minerval powers, both in such as are whole, and such as are partial. For as the Jovian and demiurgic multitudes imitate their monads; and as the prophetic and Apolloniacal multitudes participate of the characteristic peculiarity of Apollo; thus also the Minerval number adumbrates the uncontaminated and unmingled nature of Minerva. And they are seen ultimately in Minerval souls. For in these also the shield is the untamed and inflexible power of reason; but the spear is that which is incisive of matter, and which liberates souls from the perturbations arising from dæmons or destiny.