[[The Difference Between Pre-eternity and Temporal Origination]]

And as for our saying: "the attribute of manifestation is other than the attribute of hiddenness"; it is because when He manifests to His creation—to humans and to angels—they do not see Him except by a form, a name, and an attribute that resembles and mimics them, and when He is hidden, no attribute applies to Him.

So this is the meaning of our saying: "His pre-eternity is other than the attribute of His temporal origination"; meaning before His earthly and heavenly creation, so when He brought about the temporally originated beings, and created the people of the heavens and the earths; He manifested to them like the form of the temporally originated beings, so He was named by the temporally originated form; because He was witnessed by it, and He resembled them by the temporally originated form; because if He had manifested to them by the pre-eternal mode, the impenetrable hiddenness, and the perfection of Lordship, they would not have been able to look at Him, and neither the heavenly lights nor the earthly human inhabitants would have remained firm before Him.