For with this life alone doth God consort; by visions in the night, by tokens in the day, and by all things doth He foretell the future unto him,—by birds, by inward parts, by wind, by tree.
Wherefore doth man lay claim to know things past, things present and to come.
20. Observe this, too, my son; that each one of the other lives inhabiteth one portion of the Cosmos,—aquatic creatures water, terrene earth, and aery creatures air; while man doth use all these,—earth, water, air, [and] fire; he seeth heaven, too, and doth contact it with [his] sense.
But God surroundeth all, and permeateth all, for He is energy and power; and it is nothing difficult, my son, to conceive God.
21. But if thou wouldst Him also contemplate, behold the ordering of the Cosmos, and [see] the orderly behaviour of its ordering; behold thou the Necessity of things made manifest, and [see] the Providence of things become and things becoming; behold how Matter is all-full of Life; [behold] this so great God in movement, with all the good and noble [ones]—gods, daimones and men!
Tat. But these are purely energies, O father mine!
Her. If, then, they’re purely energies, my son,—by whom, then, are they energized except by God?
Or art thou ignorant, that just as Heaven, Earth, Water, Air, are parts of Cosmos, in just the selfsame way God’s parts are Life and Immortality, [and] Energy, and Spirit, and Necessity, and Providence, and Nature, Soul, and Mind, and the Duration of all these that is called Good?
And there is naught of things that have become, or are becoming, in which God is not.
22. Tat. Is He in Matter, father, then?
Her. Matter, my son, is separate from God, in order that thou may’st attribute unto it the quality of space. But what thing else than mass think’st thou it is, if it’s not energized? Whereas if it be energized, by whom is it made so? For energies, we said, are parts of God.
By whom are, then, all lives enlivened? By whom are things immortal made immortal? By whom changed things made changeable?
And whether thou dost speak of Matter, or of Body, or of Essence, know that these too are energies of God; and that materiality is Matter’s energy, that corporality is Bodies’ energy, and that essentiality doth constitute the energy of Essence; and this is God—the All.
23. And in the All is naught that is not God. Wherefore nor size, nor space, nor quality, nor form, nor time, surroundeth God; for He is All, and All surroundeth all, and permeateth all.
Unto this Reason (Logos), son, thy adoration and thy worship pay. There is one way alone to worship God; [it is] not to be bad.