Select Works, Section 392 (part 2)

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

The nature of the soul and quality is defined largely by what it is not (not body, not quantity).

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

[auto] The text argues against classifying the soul with the body, implying the body is a lower order that cannot contain true soul efficacy.

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

[auto] It establishes an ontological distinction between the material body (quantity) and the incorporeal soul/powers (quality/intellection).

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 argues that bodies possess efficiency through incorporeal powers operating within them, implying an active divine ordering principle governing material existence.

The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.

The argument that quality remains intact when a body is fragmented illustrates the principle of non-composite simplicity versus material divisibility.

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.

[auto] The passage distinguishes a 'higher order' of incorporeal powers that operate within bodies, implying a hierarchical structure of being where the soul governs the body.

The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.

The passage explicitly identifies 'Reason-Principles' (Logoi) as the entrants that provide variety and efficiency to matter, mediating between the unembodied and the bodily.

Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma).

The passage distinguishes between the soul, pneuma/blood, and body, clarifying that neither pneuma nor blood constitutes the soul which pervades the entire being.