...empty of all the lights that had distanced themselves from them. This very deficiency also gives them the power to perform their intended function in this broken state. For the light is the mystery of the unity that turns all evil to good. Here, however, the intention was to produce evil as such, and what gives added power to these vessels to carry out this function is precisely the fact that the light distances itself from them so that they descend bereft of light.
This means that in this phase they are not governed by the light. On the contrary, it is precisely from the intense concealment of the light that this fragmentation derives. They then direct themselves entirely to the purpose of bringing forth evil. And in truth nothing caused such a concealment of perfection as the fact that the light disdained even to enter into the vessel. The vessel was then left ruling only in its aspect of harsh judgment.