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Updated: May 10, 2025
Here was flesh compromising with age accepting its majesty, defying its decay a sublunar assumption of immortality. There was no longer any suggestion of femininity; the idea was dread power and unearthly grace. Of such nature might the sexless archangels partake. "Holy Amen!" one of the awed bystanders exclaimed in a whisper to his neighbor. "Who is this?"
Lady Statham was talking he had not noticed the means by which she effected the abrupt transition of familiar beliefs of old Egypt; of the Ka, or Double, by whose existence the survival of the soul was possible, even its return into manifested, physical life; of the astrology, or influence of the heavenly bodies upon all sublunar activities; of terrific forms of other life, known to the ancient worship of Atlantis, great Potencies that might be invoked by ritual and ceremonial, and of their lesser influence as recognised in certain lower forms, hence treated with veneration as the "Sacred Animal" branch of this dim religion.
The next step is to prove the existence and nature of intermediate spiritual beings between God and the corporeal objects of the superlunar and sublunar worlds, called angels in the Bible, and secondary causes by the philosophers. For this purpose we shall have to apply the principles we have proved concerning the soul and the motions of the heavenly bodies.
As the individuals of a given species have all the same definition, and hence the same essence, they are all one. For what is not in the definition is not real. Our answer is that the definition represents that unitary aspect of the sublunar individuals which is in the Active Intellect.
The Active Intellect was thus placed among the universal Intelligences whose function it is to control the motions of the sublunar world, and in particular to develop the human faculty of reason which is in the infant a mere capacity a material intellect.
The light of this pure form then emanated upon the second form, and by the word of God the latter united with the pure matter firmly and permanently, so that there is never a change as long as they are united. Then the form united with the impure matter, and this gave rise to all the bodies in the sublunar world, which change their forms.
Miracles cannot be accidental, as they are performed with a purpose; and as they involve a knowledge of the sublunar order, they must have as their author one who has this knowledge, hence either God or the Active Intellect or man, i. e., the prophet himself.
Finally the lower world contains the four elements and the product of their various mixtures, minerals, plants, animals, man. These three worlds, Ibn Ezra appears to intimate in his oracular manner, are symbolized by the three divisions of the Tabernacle, the holy of holies typifying the world of spirits, the holy pointing to the spheres, while the outer court represents the sublunar world.
We said above that there must be an intellect which knows these contingent events predicted in dreams, divination and prophecy and imparts a knowledge of them to these men. This can be no other than the Active Intellect, whose nature we discussed above. For the Active Intellect knows the order of sublunar things, and gives us a knowledge of them in the ideas of the material intellect.
So the process continues until we reach the sphere of the moon, which is the last of the celestial spheres, and the Active Intellect, the last of the Intelligences, having in charge the sublunar world. This fanciful and purely mythological scheme arouses the antagonism of Judah Halevi. It is all pure conjecture, he says, and there is not an iota of proof in it.
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