NATURE OF THE OBJECT OF SPIRITUAL VISION.
12. We have just said that a man can see, either in differing from what he sees, or in identifying himself with the object seen. Now, when he has seen, either as being different, or as being identical, what does he report? He tells us that he has seen the Divinity beget an offspring of an incomparable beauty, producing everything in Himself, and without pain preserving within Himself what He has begotten. In fact, charmed with the things He has begotten, and full of love for his works, the Divinity retained them within Himself, congratulating Himself upon their splendor, as much as upon his own. In the midst of these beauties, nevertheless inferior to those which have remained within the nature of the Divinity, alone of all these beings, his Son (Jupiter, the son of Saturn, here representing the universal Soul born of divine Intelligence) has manifested himself externally. By him, as by an image, you may judge of the greatness of his Father, and that of his brothers still unissued from within their Father's nature. Besides, it is not in vain that Jupiter tells us that he proceeds from his Father; for he constitutes another world that has become beautiful, because he is the image of beauty, and because it is impossible that the image of beauty and being should not itself be beautiful. Jupiter, therefore, everywhere imitates his archetype. That is why, because he is an image, he possesses life and constitutes being; and that is why, because he proceeds from his Father, he also possesses beauty. He likewise enjoys the privilege of being the image of his eternity. Otherwise he would at one time reveal the image of his Father, and at other times he would not; which is impossible, because he is not an artificial image. Every natural image remains what it was, so long as its archetype subsists.[239] It is therefore an error to believe that, while the intelligible world subsists, the visible world could perish, and that it was begotten in such a manner as that he who had created it, had done so with deliberation. Whatever indeed might have been the manner of operation, these men[240] do not wish to conceive and believe that, so long as the intelligible world shines, other things that proceed therefrom could not perish; and that they exist ever since (their model) existed. But the (intelligible world) has ever existed, and will ever exist; for (in spite of their impropriety), we are obliged to make use of such terms to express our thought.