XXXII. Again I thought of the sun and a ray and
light. But here again there was a fear lest people should get an
idea of composition in the Uncompounded Nature, such as there is in the
Sun and the things that are in the Sun. And in the second place
lest we should give Essence to the Father but deny Personality to the
Others, and make Them only Powers of God, existing in Him and not
Personal. For neither the ray nor the light is another sun, but
they are only effulgences from the Sun, and qualities of His
essence. And lest we should thus, as far as the illustration
goes, attribute both Being and Not-being to God, which is even more
monstrous. I have also heard that some one has suggested an
illustration of the following kind. A ray of the Sun flashing
upon a wall and trembling with the movement of the moisture which the
beam has taken up in mid air, and then, being checked by the hard body,
has set up a strange quivering. For it quivers with many rapid
movements, and is not one rather than it is many, nor yet many rather
than one; because by the swiftness of its union and separating it
escapes before the eye can see it.