Why, then, are you surprised to learn the like about God (Whose work is the sun, and the whole heaven, and the Cosmos)? That it is impossible for any that exist to have fellowship in His unspeakable and inexplicable Power and Essence save for One alone, Whom the Father Himself in His Foreknowledge of the Universe established before all things, so that the nature of begotten things might not altogether through their own lack of energy and strength fall away, being severed from the Father's (b) unbegotten and incomprehensible Essence, but might endure and increase and be nourished, enjoying that mediated supply, which the Only-begotten Word of God ceases not to provide to all, and passing everywhere and through all provides for the salvation of all equally, whether they have reason or not, whether they be mortal or immortal, of heaven or of earth, both divine and invisible powers, and, in a word, of all things whatsoever that shared in being through His agency, and far more peculiarly still of those who possess reason and thought, for which things' sake (c) He does not at all despise the human race, but rather honours and cares for it, for the sake of the kinship and connection of their reason with Himself, inasmuch as it was said in the holy oracles that they were formed after His likeness. Yea, He, as being the Word of God, made His own image, all that is of thought and reason, the foundation of His own creation from the beginning, and set man, therefore, in a kingly and ruling relation to all living things on earth, and sent him forth free and with the power of undetermined choice between his good and evil inclinations. But man using his free-will badly, turning (d) from the right road, went wrong, caring neither for God nor Lord, nor distinguished between holy and unholy, with all manner of rude and dissolute actions, living the life of the irrational beasts. Then surely the All-Good, the King of kings, the Supreme, God Almighty, that the men on earth might not be like brute beasts without rulers and guardians, set over them the holy angels to be their leaders and governors like herdsmen and shepherds, and set over all, and made the head of all His Only-begotten and Firstborn Word. He gave Him for His own portion the angels (156) and archangels, and the divine powers, and the immaterial and transcendent spirits, yea, verily, of things on earth as well the souls among men beloved by God, called by the names of the Hebrews, Jacob and Israel.