Chapter VII

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

The passage explicitly mentions worshipping Gods in temples and statues.

The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.

The text contrasts the soul's contact with real being against the 'generation of the world and with body'.

Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality.

A clear distinction is drawn between generated natures and real being, as well as mundane order versus supercelestial Gods.

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

The Gods are described as residing in temples and statues, implying their concealment from direct sight.

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

The text refers to the soul's contact with 'real being' and the 'energy of the supercelestial Gods'.

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.

The passage describes a chain of divine principles flowing from Gods to last natures that proceed from them and generate the world.

Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.

Salvation is linked to the soul's proper principle of circumduction to the intelligible and contact with real being rather than ritual alone.

The divine spark or luminous quality residing within the human person, potentially recognisable through introspection.

The soul possesses a principle that enables contact with real being and divine energy.

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

The Gods are described as active rulers who dissolve fate through intellectual persuasion.

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

The passage emphasizes the soul's capacity to be united to the Gods and participate in eternal life.

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

The text presents a paradoxical statement that Gods dissolve fate while last natures give completion to it.

A spiritual elite who possess the divine spark and are predestined for salvation, contrasted with psychic (faithful) and hylic (material) persons.

A distinction is made between the soul and last natures that are compounded with body.

The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.

The soul is described as having a principle that allows it to transcend the mundane order and return to divine natures.

The maintenance of a state of cleanliness—physical, moral, or spiritual—required for encounter with the divine.

The passage advocates for the observance of religious rites as a means to liberate oneself from fate's evils.

The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.

The text describes the soul's current state of being detained in generation and subordinate natures.

A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.

The passage details the soul's elevation to better natures and departure from subordinate ones toward a higher order.

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.

The text describes the soul's participation in eternal life and the energy of supercelestial Gods through a superior principle.