Chapter III

Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.

The text describes the sun as a recipient of powers and a deity who changes form according to signs.

Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.

The passage notes that the God is one but transcends commixture with other wholes.

The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.

The text describes how all parts of the heavens and time are moved by the sun's powers descending to them.

The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.

The passage mentions that the God is one but his form changes in recipients according to their motions.

The uncreated luminous quality of the divine, sometimes experienced directly in mystical states; illumination as revelation.

The sun is central as a source of powers and communication of good to the world.

Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.

The text describes the sun moving the world according to periods of time and imparting powers to recipients.

A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.

Powers descend from the sun to various parts of the heavens and wholes of the universe.

Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.

The passage explicitly discusses a 'symbolical mode of signification' that reveals deeper truths about the God's nature.

The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.

The sun is portrayed as an active agent that moves the world and communicates good powers.

The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.

The text asserts that despite multiform powers, the God remains one and the same.

The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.

The passage describes recipients receiving powers from the sun in a way that exhibits the God's one power through multiform forms.

Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.

The text references specific numbers like 'every hour' and 'signs of the zodiac' in its symbolic doctrine.

Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.

The passage presents the paradox that the God is one yet his form changes every hour according to signs.

Direct address to the divine, whether petitionary, contemplative, or liturgical; speech and silence offered upward.

The Egyptians are described as using prayers to the sun in visions and supplications.

Fire as medium of divine presence.

Fire is associated with the sun, which is a central medium of divine presence in the passage.

The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.

Recipients are described as receiving powers from the God that transform them into recipients of the impartible gift.

Iamblichean ritual practice that engages the gods directly through consecrated material symbols and actions, on the premise that divine power descends into properly prepared matter — distinct from philosophical contemplation alone.

The text discusses Egyptian prayers offered to the sun conformably to a symbolic and mystic doctrine, engaging divine power through ritual practice.