Orth. -Does the light at its rising seem to you to fill all the atmosphere except where men shut up in caverns might remain bereft of it?
Eran. -Yes.
Orth. -And does all the light seem to you to be diffused through all the atmosphere?
Eran. -I am with you so far.
Orth. -And is not the mixture diffused through all that is subject to it?
Eran. -Certainly.
Orth. -But, now, this illuminated atmosphere, do we not see it as light and call it light?
Eran. -Quite so.
Orth. -And yet when the light is present we sometimes are aware of moisture and aridity; frequently of heat and cold.
Eran. -Yes.
Orth. -And after the departure of the light the atmosphere afterwards remains alone by itself.
Eran. -True.
Orth. -Consider this example too. When iron is brought in contact with fire it is fired.
Eran. -Certainly.
Orth. -And the fire is diffused through its whole substance?
Eran. -Well?
Orth. -How, then, does not the complete union, and the mixture universally diffused, change the iron's nature?
Eran. -But it changes it altogether. It is now reckoned no longer as iron, but as fire, and indeed it has the active properties of fire.
Orth. -But does not the smith call it iron, and put it on the anvil and smite it with his hammer?
Eran. -Unquestionably.
Orth. -Then the nature of the iron was not damaged by contact with the fire. If then, in natural bodies, instances may be found of an unconfounded mixture, it is sheer folly in the case of the nature which knows neither corruption nor change to entertain the idea of confusion and destruction of the assumed nature, and all the more so when this nature was assumed to bring blessing on the race.
Eran. -What I assert is not the destruction of the assumed nature, but its change into the substance of Godhead.
Orth. -Then the human race is no longer limited as heretofore?
Eran. -No.
Orth. -When did it undergo this change?