Hence there is one common indivisible bond of them according to intellectual energies. There is also the same bond between them according to the common participations of forms, since there is nothing to intercept them, nor any intervening medium. Indeed, an immaterial and incorporeal essence, being neither separated by places nor subjects, nor defined by any divisible circumscriptions of parts, immediately coalesces in sameness; and the elevation of wholes to _the one_, and the universal dominion of _the one_, collects the communion of the mundane Gods with the divinities that presubsist in the intelligible world. Farther still, the intellectual conversion of secondary to first natures, and the gift of the same essence and power from the primary to the secondary Gods connects their congress into an indissoluble one. In things of different essences indeed, such as soul and body, and in things of different species, such as material forms, and those natures which in any other way are separated from each other, the connascent union is adventitious, being derived from supernal causes, and lost in certain definite periods of time. But the higher we ascend, to the sameness of first causes, both according to form and according to essence, and the more we raise ourselves from parts to wholes, by so much the more shall we discover and survey that union which is eternal, precedaneous and more principal, and which contains about and in itself difference and multitude. Since, however, the order of all the Gods consists in union, and the first and second genera of them, and the multitude which germinates about them coexist in unity; since also every thing in them is characterized by _the one_; hence the beginning, middle, and end of their essence consubsists according to _the one_. It is not proper, therefore, to enquire whence unity extends to all things in them; for their very being, whatever it may be, consists in _the one_. And secondary genera indeed remain with invariable sameness in _the one_ of the first genera. But the latter impart from themselves union to the former; while all of them possess in each other the communion of an indissoluble connexion. From this cause, therefore, the perfectly incorporeal Gods, are united to the sensible Gods who are connected with bodies. For the visible Gods themselves are external to bodies, and on this account are in the intelligible world. And the intelligible Gods on account of their infinite union comprehend in themselves the apparent divinities; while in the mean time both these are established according to a common union and one energy. In a similar manner, this likewise is the illustrious prerogative of a deific cause and orderly distribution, that the same union of all things pervades from on high as far as to the end of the divine order. And thus much concerning the contact of the sensible with the intelligible Gods.[70] CHAPTER V.