With respect, however, to each of these divinities, some of the interpreters of Plato understand by Earth, this solid bulk which is the object of sensible inspection; others as that which has an arrangement analogous to matter, and is supposed to exist prior to generated natures; others, as intelligible matter; others, as the power of intellect; others, as life; others, as an incorporeal form inseparable from earth; others conceive it to be soul; and others intellect. In a similar manner with respect to Heaven, some suppose it to be the visible heavens; others, the motion about the middle of the universe; others, power aptly proceeding in conjunction with motion; others, that which possesses intellect; others, a pure and separate intellect; others, the nature of circulation; others, soul; and others, intellect. I know, likewise, that the divine Jamblichus understands by Earth, every thing stable and firm, according to the essence of the mundane Gods, and which according to energy and a perpetual circulation, comprehends more excellent powers and total lives. But by Heaven, he understands the total and perfect energy proceeding from the demiurgus, which is full of appropriate power, and subsists about the demiurgus, as being the boundary of itself and of wholes. I know, likewise, that the admirable Theodorus establishes both these powers in the life which subsists according to habitude. In order, however, that we may avoid erroneous opinions, and may adhere to the most pure conceptions of Jamblichus, and the traditions of Syrianus, if is necessary in the first place to recollect, that Plato is now speaking of the sublunary Gods, that all of them are every where, and that they proceed according to the analogy of the intelligible and intellectual kings. And in the second place we must say, that as the first Heaven is the boundary of and connectedly contains the intellectual Gods, containing the measure which proceeds from _the good_[141] and the intelligible Gods, into the intellectual orders, after the same manner the Heaven which is now mentioned by Plato, is the boundary and container of the Gods that are the fabricators of generation, comprehending in one bound the demiurgic measure, and also that which proceeds from the celestial Gods to those divinities that are allotted the realms of generation, and connecting them with the celestial government of the Gods. For as the demiurgus is to _the good itself_, so is the one divinity of this Heaven, to the intellectual Heaven. Hence, as there, measure and bound proceeds from _the good_ through Heaven to all the intellectual Gods, so likewise here a bound arrives to the Gods the fabricators of generation and to the more excellent genera [viz. to angels, dæmons and heroes] from the demiurgus, and the summit of the mundane Gods; viz. through the connectedly-containing medium of this Heaven.[142] For the everywhere proceeding Heaven is allotted this order; in one procession of