  The active intellect in these traditions is a natural cosmic mechanism at play in human knowledge, but also in prophecy (as well as in providence and immortality). It is in this sense that such traditions—including Maimonides—are often described as holding “naturalized” theories of prophecy. Following this naturalizing tendency further, we might note the fluid back and forth between natural and supernatural descriptions of the active intellect and other cosmic processes: In this context, the angels (the divine emissaries, as it were) are identified with the separate intellects, and active intellect in particular emerges as the bearer—or even, messenger—of prophecy to the human intellect. In this spirit, we find in Maimonides and in his Islamic predecessors descriptions of the active intellect in divine terms. For example, returning to the context in which Maimonides explains the Biblical notion (Genesis 1:26-27) of man's being created in the image of God in terms of man's possession of an intellectual faculty, we find the description of the active intellect—whence man's own intellect receives its power—as a “divine intellect”: