SECTION III

But they also depict them under the likeness of men, on account of the intellectual faculty, and their having powers of looking upwards, and their straight and erect form, and their innate faculty of ruling and guiding, and whilst being least, in physical strength as compared with the other powers of irrational creatures, yet ruling over all by their superior power of mind, and by their dominion in consequence of rational science, and their innate unslavishness and indomitableness of soul. It is possible, then, I think, to find within each of the many parts of our body harmonious images of the Heavenly Powers, by affirming that the powers of vision denote the most transparent elevation towards the Divine lights, and again, the tender, and liquid, and not repellent, but sensitive, and pure, and unfolded, reception, free from all passion, of the supremely Divine illuminations.

Now the discriminating powers of the nostrils denote the being able to receive, as far as attainable, the sweet-smelling largess beyond conception, and to distinguish accurately things which are not such, and to entirely reject.

The powers of the ears denote the participation and conscious reception of the supremely Divine inspiration.

The powers of taste denote the fulness of the intelligible nourishments, and the reception of the Divine and nourishing streams.

The powers of touch denote the skilful discrimination of that which is suitable or injurious.

The eyelids and eyebrows denote the guarding of the conceptions which see God.

The figures of manhood and youth denote the perpetual bloom and vigour of life.

The teeth denote the dividing of the nourishing perfection given to us; for each intellectual Being divides and multiplies, by a provident faculty, the unified conception given to it by the more Divine for the proportionate elevation of the inferior.

The shoulders and elbows, and further, the hands, denote the power of making, and operating, and accomplishing.

The heart again is a symbol of the Godlike life, dispersing its own life-giving power to the objects of its forethought, as beseems the good.

The chest again denotes the invincible and protective faculty of the life-giving distribution, as being placed above the heart.

The back, the holding together the whole productive powers of life.

The feet denote the moving and quickness, and skilfulness of the perpetual movement advancing towards Divine things. Wherefore also the Word of God arranged the feet of the holy Minds under their wings; for the wing displays the elevating quickness and the heavenly progress towards higher things, and the superiority to every grovelling thing by reason of the ascending, and the lightness of the wings denotes their being in no respect earthly, but undefiledly and lightly raised to the sublime; and the naked and unshod denotes the unfettered, agile, and unrestrained, and free from all external superfluity, and assimilation to the Divine simplicity, as far as attainable.