In our present state- part of our being weighed down by the body, as one might have the feet under water with all the rest untouched- we bear- ourselves aloft by that- intact part and, in that, hold through our own centre to the centre of all the centres, just as the centres of the great circles of a sphere coincide with that of the sphere to which all belong. Thus we are secure.

If these circles were material and not spiritual, the link with the centres would be local; they would lie round it where it lay at some distant point: since the souls are of the Intellectual, and the Supreme still loftier, we understand that contact is otherwise procured, that is by those powers which connect Intellectual agent with Intellectual Object; this all the more, since the Intellect grasps the Intellectual object by the way of similarity, identity, in the sure link of kindred. Material mass cannot blend into other material mass: unbodied beings are not under this bodily limitation; their separation is solely that of otherness, of differentiation; in the absence of otherness, it is similars mutually present.

Νῦν δέ͵ ἐπεὶ μέρος ἡμῶν κατέχεται ὑπὸ τοῦ σώματος͵ οἷον εἴ τις τοὺς πόδας ἔχοι ἐν ὕδατι͵ τῷ δ΄ ἄλλῳ σώματι ὑπερέχοι͵ τῷ δὴ μὴ βαπτισθέντι τῷ σώματι ὑπεράραντες͵ τούτῳ συνάπτομεν κατὰ τὸ ἑαυτῶν κέντρον τῷ οἷον πάντων κέντρῳ͵ καθάπερ τῶν μεγίστων κύκλων τὰ κέντρα τῷ τῆς σφαίρας τῆς περιεχούσης κέντρῳ͵ ἀναπαυόμενοι.

Εἰ μὲν οὖν σωματικοὶ ἦσαν͵ οὐ ψυχικοὶ κύκλοι͵ τοπικῶς ἂν τῷ κέντρῳ συνῆπτον καί που κειμένου τοῦ κέντρου περὶ αὐτὸ ἂν ἦσαν· ἐπεὶ δὲ αὐταί τε αἱ ψυχαὶ νοηταί͵ ὑπὲρ νοῦν τε ἐκεῖνο͵ δυνάμεσιν ἄλλαις͵ ᾗ πέφυκε τὸ νοοῦν πρὸς τὸ κατανοούμενον συνάπτειν͵ οἰητέον τὴν συναφὴν γίνεσθαι καὶ πλεόνως τὸ νοοῦν παρεῖναι ὁμοιότητι καὶ ταὐτότητι καὶ συνάπτειν τῷ συγγενεῖ οὐδενὸς διείργοντος. Σώμασι μὲν γὰρ σώματα κωλύεται κοινωνεῖν ἀλλήλοις͵ τὰ δὲ ἀσώματα σώμασιν οὐ διείργεται· οὐδ΄ ἀφέστηκε τοίνυν ἀλλήλων τόπῳ͵ ἑτερότητι δὲ καὶ διαφορᾷ· ὅταν οὖν ἡ ἑτερότης μὴ παρῇ͵ ἀλλήλοις τὰ μὴ ἕτερα πάρεστιν.