§ 1.
But all gifts, and oblations, and sacrifices, the People received by way of type, as it was shewn to Moses in the Mount, from one and the same God, Whose name is now also glorified in the Church in all nations. And as for the earthly things, which are ordered with a view to us, it suits well that they should be types of the things which are heavenly, made however by the same God. For in no other way could He represent1 the image of things spiritual. But for those which are higher than the Heaven, and spiritual, and as far as we are concerned, invisible and unspeakable:—to call them again types of other heavenly things, and of another Pleroma, and God the image of another Father:—is the part of persons who both err from the Truth, and are altogether foolish and dull. For these, doing so, will be forced, as we have often shewn above, to be continually inventing types of types, and images of images, and never to fix their mind upon the One True God. Because their thoughts have come to be higher than God, they in their hearts transcending their Master Himself, and while in their fancy they are greatly lifted up, and over-passing, in deed they are sinking away from the True God.
§ 2.
And to them one might justly say,2 as the Word itself suggests, How long lift ye up your imaginations above God, O ye thoughtlessly elate? Ye have heard that the Heavens are measured out with the hand; tell me the measure and declare that countless number of cubits: expound to me the fulness,—breadth, length, and height, the beginning and end of that measured circumference, things which the heart of man understands not, nor doth he comprehend them. For truly great are the repositories of the heavenly treasure: God is immeasurable in heart, and incomprehensible in mind, holding the earth in His grasp. Who tells over the measure of His Right Hand? Who knoweth His Finger, or who understands His Hand, that Hand which measures the unmeasured, that which by its own measure stretches out the span of the Heavens, and presses the earth with its deep places in its hold; which contains in itself the breadth, and length, and depth beneath, and height above, of that whole Creation which is seen and heard and understood; and which is itself invisible?3 And therefore God, being above all beginning, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, of all things made and created;—He it is Who fills the Heavens and searches out the deeps; Who is also with every one of us.4 For I, saith He, am a God drawing near, and not a God afar off. Shall a man hide himself in hidden places, and I not see him? For His Hand holds all things; and it is that which while it enlightens the heavens, enlightens also the things under the Heavens, and searches out the reins and the hearts, and is in our hidden and secret things, while it openly nourishes and preserves us.
§ 3.
But if man comprehend not the fulness and greatness of His Hand, how shall any one have power to understand or know in his heart so great a God? Yet as if they had now measured and seen through Him, and had traced Him out entirely, they feign that there is above Him another Pleroma of Æons, and another Father:—not looking up to heavenly things, but in reality descending into the deep Abyss of madness; in that they say of Him whom they call Father, that He is limited by the things which are without the Pleroma, but that the Creator5 on the contrary, attains not to the Pleroma: and so they lay it down, that neither of the two is perfect and all-comprehending. For the one will want the whole fabric of the world outside the Pleroma; the other the fabric6 which is within the Pleroma; and neither of these two will be God of all.
But that no one can express the greatness of God by the things which are made, this is evident unto all: and that His greatness fails not, but contains all, and reaches even to us, and is with us,—every one will allow who is minded worthily of God.