the first of the Synoches. For connectedly containing all things in the one summit of his hyparxis, according to the Oracle, he wholly exists beyond, and is united to the supercelestial place, and to the ineffable power of it, being enclosed on all sides by it, and shutting himself in the uniform comprehension of intelligibles. For what difference is there between saying that the first of the Synoches is shut in the intelligible place of survey, and evincing that it is proximately comprehended by the supercelestial place, which was intelligible, but expanded in intellectuals? If however, that which is beyond is the first, the summit is evidently coarranged with the rest, and is exempt from them. But if the first is a thing of this kind, being established according to the intelligible summit, and imparting by illumination to the other Gods, contact with the intelligible, and with the paternal port, it is indeed necessary that there should be a middle and an extremity, the one according to the celestial profundity, but the other according to the termination of the whole circulation. If however the circulation of the whole of the heaven is one and continued, the peculiarity of this order must be assigned as the cause of this. For being connective of the whole orders of the Gods, and prior to other things of itself, and being as it were the centre and bond of the divine genera, it in the first place binds and connects itself, and extends itself to one life. the heaven therefore is one and at the same time triple, and proceeds into three monads, being both unapparent and apparent, and that which is between these, and imitating the intelligible Gods who subside into intelligible triads.
CHAPTER XXII.
If you are willing however from what is written in the Cratylus, to see the peculiarity of this order, in the first place, let this be considered
