Scholia of St. Maximus on the Treatise on the Divine Names

SCHOLIA OF THE SAME SAINT MAXIMUS ON THE BOOK OF THE DIVINE NAMES

SCHOLIA OF THE SAME SAINT MAXIMUS ON THE BOOK OF THE DIVINE NAMES

^A § I. Areopagite. Those titles which the saints held whilst they were still Gentiles, they rightly ascribed to themselves even after their conversion to Christ, without any shame; for behold, he named himself "Areopagite," just as the divine Justin also inscribed his book against the Greeks as that of "Justin the Philosopher."

Compresbyter. The name of presbyter also denotes a bishop; and a bishop is also a presbyter. This is declared in the Acts of the Holy Apostles, where Paul in Asia prescribes certain things for its churches.

ON CHAPTER I

Theological. Note that another book was elaborated by the Father [Dionysius] as a kind of preliminary introduction and elementary meditation on those things which were spoken of God in the Scriptures in a scattered manner; which ^B was, in fact, a reminder, after which this present book was composed by him in order.

Not in persuasible words. Human wisdom borrows the probabilities of its demonstrations from sensible things; for the great compulsion of syllogisms takes the strengths of geometry to persuade. But in the case of incorporeal—nay, even in the case of those things which are supracorporeal and surpass every essence—how could someone apply the mind through reasoning? It cannot be explained, unless one might be able, by the highest flower of the mind, to meditate ineffably through pure religion upon the ignorance of what God is.

To think something about the superessential. God is above essence, as He who is viewed as being above every essence, whether it be perceivable, or intelligent, and much more so, sensible.

^C Superessentiality. If "essence" is said from the [Greek word for] being,

it denotes a notion of a certain derivative; therefore, it could not be said of God properly. ^A For God stands above every essence; nothing of all existing things is God, but He is above existing things, and He is that from which existing things are; for the divinity of the only God, which is hidden to all, is a thearchic power, ruling those who are called gods, whether they be angels or holy men, just as He is also the creator of those who become gods through participation, since He is self-subsistent and without cause, the Divinity itself. ^B

To Him the superessential. For by Him alone, that is, by the Divinity Itself, can those things which concern Him, according to the manner of His nature, be known.

Ray of the oracles. He rightly said "ray," and not "sun"; for just as we cannot look directly at the sun, but perhaps at the rays around it, so we cannot conceive God Himself.

With reverence regarding divine matters. For we must not rashly dare to discourse about God; but we should pursue religion with moderate reasoning, as we owe it to the divine majesty, pronouncing and bringing forward for interpretation only those things that are defined about God in Scripture as if in an oracle, as he said a little before.

Most true theology. See how he calls the Scripture of the divine Paul the most true theology; for he himself is the one who says that the illumination is clearly granted by God according to the measure of each person's capacity; ^C just as the Lord also declares, saying to the more perfect disciples: "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom," as they pay attention to divine revelations with greater perfection of mind. And the great Dionysius says that this is discussed not only regarding men, but also regarding the angels, whom he is accustomed to name, according to some of the pagan philosophers, "minds"; these are called minds of the higher orders, as being essentially all mind, understanding all things, which flow unitedly from God continuously into them; whence they are said to be totally and wholly in-eyed in the most holy cherubim.

Divine things are revealed. Note that angels also are deemed worthy of the knowledge of God according to their own capacity.

In saving justice. Therefore, he says, God reveals to each one according to his strength, not because He denies more, ^D but because He preserves justice in the measure of divine knowledge; for it is the property of justice to allot to each person a measure according to merit. And so, while the knowledge of God is immense, we stand in need of measures; for if it were revealed to us without measure, we could not be saved, just as a bodily eye could not endure receiving the entire sun.

^A *His immensity with divine decorum.* He now calls "immensity" the Divinity itself, and its illumination according to our capacity. *For just as things that are ungraspable.* The incomprehensibility of the knowledge concerning God is represented from this point; for if even those things which are simple and without figure, even if they are certain substances, do not fall under the senses—as angels and souls do not fall under the senses of corporeal beings—how much more does God exceed [everything], who is not a substance, but above substance; not simple, but above simplicity; not a mind, but even above mind; not a unity, but even above unity; and is circumscribed by no boundary, but is set apart from things by the denial of boundaries? Therefore, hearing in Scripture of the form of God, and the species, and the countenance, contemplate Him according to the worthiness of God through elevation of mind and over and above corporeal things; but when you hear of unity, do not conceive of a concurrence of certain distinct things toward union; for the discourse is not now concerning such things, but concerning God, who is not ^B the beginning of numbers, and is without composition, but is rather united above things that consist of a single substance.

*Effectrix of unity.* From this point, where he has removed God from all the kinds of things that exist, he henceforth follows the measure of our language (for we cannot transcend it); he lauds God from the very things from which he had removed Him. And he speaks of a "unity," but an "effectrix of unity," that is, the creator of simple essences, such as angels and souls; and "mind without mind" (in place of 'not understood by any mind'); for if the like is known by the like, it would behoove, if He were a mind, that He be understood by minds. But who has known the mind of the Lord? Therefore, He is a mind above mind, and a name above every name; "and for My name," He says, "I have not told them." Hence He is nameless to all. But He is not even among those things that exist; for if He Himself creates the things that exist out of those that do not exist, He is not, therefore, one of the things that exist, but is above the things that exist. But if He says, "I am who I am," contemplate Him worthily as without beginning and without end, but also as unsearchable.

§ II. *Whatever it is that is knowledge.* For God alone Himself knows the things concerning Himself, knowing Himself knowingly and properly as He is; but to all others who follow, He is unknown in regard to what He is and as He is. For no one knows the Father, except the Son; and the Son, except the Father (i); for the Father, knowing His own adorable image, that is, the Son, knows also Himself. The same also [applies] concerning the Holy Spirit; for no one knows the things of God, except the Spirit who is from God. Therefore, all things that this blessed man ^C contemplates concerning God, he understands concerning the venerable Trinity.

*Infinitude.* That which is finite is reasonably also comprehended by that by which it has been bounded; but if God be the place of all things, not corporeally, but as ^D creator…

and exists outside these things, it is evident that it is an infinitude, that is to say, a power having no end ^A.

*Not, however, incommunicable.* That is, all things partake of His communion and salutary providence.

*Supersubstantial.* How he sometimes calls the Divine a substance, and sometimes supersubstantial, just as he speaks of a mind that is unintelligible, and a name that is above every name, so also a substance that is supersubstantial ^B.

*To those applying themselves.* For it is fitting to apply our mind to those things the comprehension whereof God has granted to us, and not to seek anything beyond our infirmity; such as [to know] that He is good, that He is creator, that He is benign, and what follows; but as to what the essence of God is, do not inquire with over-anxiety.

*They insolently presume something beyond their powers.* Rightly [does he say] "impotently"; for even if one should attempt it, he does not attain it, but only darkens his intelligent eyes, and also falls away from the true light; just as one who strives to receive the whole sun with a corporeal eye—which the divine and intelligible powers, indicating, the cherubim and seraphim cover their faces, declaring that they do not cleave to a contemplation that exceeds their grasp; nor is it granted even to them. And this is that which is said: *No man hath seen God at any time* (k). Therefore the wise concerning God say that they have seen the glory of God, but not God Himself.

§ III. *That which indeed surpasses the mind.* It is possible, from this place, to perceive clearly the insanity of Arius and Eunomius, who dared to discourse with all manner of technical argument concerning the ^C substance of the Only-Begotten and that substance which is higher [than all]. [For the incomprehensible loftiness of the principality of the Godhead, and of the Queen of all, the Trinity, and of His unnameable essence, clearly exceeds the human mind.]

*Of the Godhead (thearchy).* He calls the all-ruling Trinity the "Godhead" everywhere, because it rules also over those who are called gods—I mean the angels and the saints—as we have said before. And the "hidden" thing is the incomprehensibility of that unnameable essence; which, a little later, he says is [to be honored] with sober silence, and higher up, as is permitted to him, and in a way befitting sacred things ^D.

*And the beginning of benefits.* According to what God is the beginning of every manifestation of light, and what the manifestations of light are, and the reformations.

*Resurrection.* This is the very thing Simeon said when he saw Christ: *This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel* (l); a fall, indeed, of that which is worse in us; but a resurrection of that which is more excellent.

^A *The illumination of the illuminated.* Proceeding gradually to higher things, he says, first to those being illuminated, then to those being perfected. To be perfected, however, is to be led toward perfection through the progress in a good life after baptism, so that one may be able to say: *I have finished my course, I have kept the faith*. The adorable Trinity, therefore, as the one commencing and directing such a perfection, and as the maker and principal cause of all perfection, is rightly understood as such. Those who are perfected by this progress become, in every way, gods, having become partakers of the divine nature, of whom God Himself—as He is the source of those who have become gods—is in a certain way the principle according to their proportion.

After this ascent, they progress into simplicity, becoming equal to the angels through the resurrection, and no longer having—according to the Apostle—an animal body, that is, one consisting of and moved by the soul, but a spiritual one, because they have been freed from the manifold complexity of thoughts and from the senses, which had been poured out in great measure upon them by the most holy Spirit; whence they are also drawn into the unity of simplicity, as we said before; for he speaks also in another place: *There was, says he, of them that believed, one heart and one soul* (o).

*The life of the living.* God is not understood in Himself; but since He is the cause and principle of all beings, He is the simplicity of the simple, the life of the living, superior in essence to essences, and, to sum it up in a word, the communicant of all good things.

*Explanatorily.* *Exphantores* (interpreters) were properly called those who set forth ineffable mysteries symbolically.

*As a monad, indeed.* In this place he clarifies what he specially wishes to signify when "henas" (unity) and "monas" (monad) are used regarding God, and he says that this is used by the theologians in order to represent the partlessness of God; for that which is divided by bulk and quantity (namely, thickness, length, and breadth), this is divided into parts like a body; but He is lacking in parts, nor can He represent a body; rather, He surpasses all privation of a body; especially since God, cogitating, brought all things into existence by His will, not as some mind divided into thoughts and multiplied; but remaining and abiding in Himself, he says, in unity without partition and division, He made and ^C makes the creatures to subsist; for *God worketh even until now*, as it is said in the Gospels (p): He is therefore supremely spread out, surpassing all simplicity in a partless manner.

*And of the divisible.* In the worlds that are above the heavens and in this visible one, the lower things are turned toward the things that are above them, and that which is corporeal is founded in the living One; *for in His hand are all the ends of the earth* (q), and indeed also the heavens; *for in Him, he says, are all things* (r). But in our mortal state, the opposite of those things mentioned occurs; for the soul is turned toward the spirit, in which our sense...

^A and our thoughts, by which we reason within the mind—which spirit knows what is in man, according to the Apostle—are grounded. The soul, therefore, being turned toward this spirit, is also turned toward the senses that exist in it, and through them toward the body. And in the mind, thoughts are, as it were, divided, and proceed by distinctions, separating from the first thought to second ones, either better or worse. He says, therefore, that by stretching ourselves toward God, we are made by that divine Monad into something indivisible, as our manifold differences, gathered from their dispersion, are brought into a compaction and unified in a way transcending the world—that is, not in a sensory way, but intellectually—so that we are no longer at odds with ourselves, but become of one form, as He Himself is one, even as He says in the Gospels.

As a Trinity.

From Whom all paternity.

That all things that are.

Truly and integrally.

And He took on extensions.

And inconfusedly.

^A "And whatever other deific things." He calls the teachings of the saints deific lights, as they produce the light of knowledge and make those who are persuaded by them gods.

"Secrets of the leaders." Note that the divine apostles secretly handed down those things that concerned exalted matters and were above the hearing of the many, whether concerning theology or concerning the dispensation or incarnation of the life-giving God, revealing them mystically to the perfect; and that the statement, "inconfusedly and immutably," and that of the whole human [nature], originates from the apostles. For this reason, the Apostle, writing to the Thessalonians, says that they ought to preserve what they heard, whether by word or by epistle; and again to Timothy, he speaks of having delivered a deposit in a mystery, which is expressed here in a manifest way.

^B "By means of sacred veils." Note that one must place in the same order Holy Scripture and the traditions of the bishops (whom he is accustomed to call hierarchs, as leaders of the priests—that is, of the presbyters and deacons and doorkeepers, as he says in our *Hierarchy*—whence we also obey their judgments regarding doctrines). From these, he says, the crassest veils of the scriptures are cast around those things that transcend essence for the sake of our understanding and initiation, as in the case of God, when He appears as fire, or as the Ancient of Days in Daniel, and as the man wrestling with Jacob, and whatever else is of this kind; and in the case of angels, such as the cherubim, inasmuch as they bear animal form, and others in the order of men and youths.

^C "Of divided symbols." That Scripture speaks of the Divine in human terms, naming it from human things, attributing to it feet, and hands, and faces.

"When incorruptible." That in the resurrection the saints will attain to a state of incorruption and immortality resembling that of Christ, shining brighter than the sun, even as the Lord did when He was transfigured on the mountain, just as the Apostle says concerning the saints, that then they shall be as He is, and they shall always be with the Lord.

"Of His visible theophany." Note that he calls His divine body a visible theophany, so that this statement might be suitable both against the Nestorians and the Acephali, and those who suppose that the Lord neither is now nor will be with flesh. And that one is His visible theophany, which is the ensouled flesh; the other is the intelligible one, which will be participated in by our minds then more perfectly. Whence, having been converted to God, and being therefrom perfectly illumined, we shall become one in an intelligible way, having been liberated from our differences which arise according to composition—by which he means worldly sensations and desires.

^D "In a diviner imitation." He calls it a "diviner imitation," signifying something more accurate and perfect; even as the life of the saints is now angelic.

^A

Of Intelligible Spectacles

"Sedating." He speaks of the "sedating" of the intellectual operation, signifying the incomprehensibility of the divine nature; for nothing of those things which are of it is comprehended by the motion of the mind, nor does thought move toward any received and manifest persuasion regarding the incomprehensible—which is apprehended by its own cessation of operation.

^B "In an ineffable way they pre-existed." This "pre-existed" must be diligently understood; for he clearly sets forth all subsequent works. From this, indeed, it is understood how the Apostle said that we are in God "before the foundation of the world." [a] We must know, therefore, that the production of all things depends upon Him as its cause and principle, since all things exist through Him; and it is probable that, even before they existed, because of His incomprehensible will, they existed in Him beforehand, He knowing both what He will produce and when He will produce it. Before the ages, therefore, they were foreknown and pre-existed in Him; for before the intelligible things, which are the ages, were produced, and before every other creature, the things that were to be were known to Him, as it is written: "He who knows all things before their generation" [b]; and again: "Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee." [c]

^C "Which cannot even be thought." For thus also speaks Gregory the Theologian, explaining that common [Greek] saying: "To understand God is impossible; to speak of Him, however, is more impossible."

"And of all things." When he had said: "The ends of the cognitions which are of essences and virtues," he repeats the same argument which he had also stated a little before: "All the limits of all cognitions." Therefore, he posits through both phrases what was also placed before, that in God every cognition is at rest and has an end to all motion, on account of the incomprehensibility of the divine nature, which is always and not in time contemplated concerning Him; or rather, the end and termination, or the perfection, of each essential cognition. These are the essences and virtues concerning which the cognitions are occupied; all of which ^D essences and virtues he says pre-existed in God, not singly but together, according to the ineffable reason of His foreknowledge, He knowing every one of those things that are produced—what nature it would have, and what virtue—whose essence surpasses essence. We must know, moreover, that essence is one thing, and power is another.

^A

*For knowledge.* An explanation of what has been said. He rightly said: for if knowledges are concerned with essences and things that exist, and God is neither in an essence nor is He any of the things that exist, with reason He also surpasses all knowledge.

§ V. *Nor imagination.* Imagination is one thing, and intellection, or a thought, is another; for they arise from different powers, and by the property of their motion. For intellection is an activity and an operation; but imagination is a passion and a figurative representation declaring something sensible, or as something sensible. And sense indeed apprehends things according to a formation gathered into one; but the mind attains, that is to say, it apprehends things in another way, and not as sense does. ^B Regarding the corporeal and the spiritual, or that in which we have already said that the senses are, the motion is passive and formative; but that which has the power of judging and receiving is to be attributed to the soul and the mind. This, therefore, and the imaginative faculty, must be drawn back to the power of the soul, for the imaginative faculty is divided into three parts: first, into that which forms the images of the perceptions in those things which effect the sensible perception; second, that which is able to form again from the remnants remaining from these, which does not have images firmly fixed upon anything, which they also properly call imaginative; third, in which all pleasure of that which is thought to be good according to imagination, or that which is deemed evil according to pain, consists. No imagination, therefore, as has been said, has a place in God; for He is altogether and absolutely above thought and supereminent. And opinion is a certain conjecture of this sort, arising from the apparent according to what is thought. ^C

*Nor touch.* He calls intellectual comprehension "touch" here; for when we apply ourselves knowingly with the mind to intelligible and immaterial things, we seem in some way to touch them and to feel through the mind what kind of things they are, as if through the contact of sensible things; but in God we do not touch even mentally.

*Without name and above name.* "Without name," he says, instead of: God is called by no notion: *For He calls things which are not as things which are* (Rom. iv, 17), just as Cyrus so long before his time, and Josiah.

*But as for that which.* The book *On Theological Hypotyposes* is missing.

*Together God.* How he calls the most holy Trinity the one God. ^D

*Conjunctions which befit angels.* Having spoken about God, that He is inconceivable and ineffable to us, he thereafter establishes that which concerns God from the lesser; for if...

the things pertaining to angels are unknown to us, what must be reasoned concerning God? He says, therefore, that the angelic creations are, as it were, certain outpourings of the divine goodness. By "outpouring" one must understand movement indivisibly divided into the unity of produced things, that is, into the production of each of the intelligibles. ^A It is possible also to understand this as the modes of union with God, insofar as it befits angels to be united to God, according to which union with God they either apply themselves according to their own dignity to the goodness of God, or receive from Him the revelation of His goodness; and thus they are incomprehensible not only to us, but also to the lower angels; but they are known only to the supreme angels, as being deemed worthy of the aforementioned mode of unions. In the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy* he also recounts the angelic orders.

Hisce deiformes.

Cessationem.

On the removal of things.

Ipse vero nihil.

^A "Or what is the place of my rest?" For if He were only everywhere, He Himself would be all things, and in all things locally; thus, therefore, He would be nothing, as He is beyond all that exists.

"As if from every habit." Habit is an immanent quality; movement is that which is opposed to rest, which opposition exists in many things; life signifies that these things are active; imagination is that which forms images in the intellect; opinion is a convinced conjecture. Intellection differs from intellect, because the latter is in the cognitive faculty of the soul, while the former declares the movement of said cognitive faculty. All these things, and whatever others are enumerated along with them, are not essence, but are seen around the essence; therefore He distinguished the essence from these. ^B

"The providence of the Godhead." From these points, the foolish opinions of those who dare to say that the creative faculty is in God by some nature, just as weaving is to spiders, are refuted; for it says that God brought forth all things through goodness alone. Therefore, all theologians do not dare to praise Him from things that are of God Himself—that is, from His essence—for those things are unknowable; but from His procession toward those things outside, which is providence, they hymn the providence of God concerning all things, namely, the effects, which consist by Him as their author. For all things desire the divine providence, through which they exist and consist: the intellectual and rational things, through knowledge. Now, those are called intellectual, which, because they are minds, understand the intelligible things placed above them; for that which is understood is an intelligible thing, which is also the food of the intellectual [mind] that understands it. All those things, therefore, that as mind understand according to the intellectual nature, being rational, by knowledge set themselves upon the providence of God, and proportionately desire God. But those things that are lower than the intellectual—and these are the sentient soul, I mean of beasts and of all bodies that are animate but lack reason, whose soul consists of the elements and of material fire, and has its being in a material spirit—these, being driven only by sensation toward hunger and thirst, naturally desire in a sentient way Him who provides, as it is written: "All look to You to give them their food in due season." And many such things you will find in Job and David. Furthermore, regarding other things which have only the vegetative or living ^C motion, without sensation and soullessly, as all plants and all herbs, which possess only a vital spirit constituting their own essence without sensation, as in the case of all trees, as has been said, and those things which, when they dry up, are deprived of the vegetative spirit through which they are moved toward growth and flourishing; for this reason, these also appear to desire the divine providence, for which they consist and bloom. Whence also these are taken up in the 148th Psalm to praise God through their own constitution. Therefore, these also partake of the ^D intellect of the mind that understands.

inexhaustible providence, but only in living, even if without soul and sense, and according to the habitual aptitude which is the property of virtue. For a "habit" is called an immanent quality, according to which affection and virtue an object is called "such as it is." According to this habit, then, those things which partake of vegetable life only for accretion and motion—substantially and habitually, but ^A without soul or sense—are said to yearn for the goodness of God.

Intelligentia quidem. He speaks of the angelic nature as "intellectual," and the human as "rational." He says that those things subject to these are "irrational," in which only the sensible is present. Therefore he said "sensibly," that is, in a sensible manner. But as for the others, namely plants and all things inanimate and immobile, he says these partake according to vital motion, that is to say, nutritional and accrescent ^B motion; for these are present in plants. But inanimate things partake in that they have in themselves an absolute existence; for this he called their essential and habitual aptitude.

Ut æternum. See how clearly they praise the Supreme of all from his effects and creatures. They call him "eternal" who created the ages, and in reality he is eternity, since he himself is the One who always exists, whence he is also named "Eternity." But "eternal" is not eternity itself, but that which partakes of eternity. And thus Isaiah says: *The eternal God who created the ends of the earth*. But God is not posterior to eternity, so as to partake of it, but he is the creator of the ages. ^C

Ut non senescentem. According to that text: *But thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail*.

Ut in aura tenui. This is what is said in the books of Kings, that the Lord did not appear to talk to Elijah in a commotion, nor in a cloud, but the Lord called in a whistling of a thin breeze. This further shows that he says God is also in a body, who is in all things incomprehensible; for the Spirit is shared by all and is in all, and is not comprehended by any, just as the Lord also says in the Gospels: *God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth*.

Et nomine carere. The privation of a name exists because he is all things and is none of the things that are, but all things are from him, as he himself explains. ^D

Ut principio. He is called "Beginning" as the one who provides existence; but "End," as the one who preserves us in existence.

Omnia in omnibus. "All things in all," because all things that are, are from him.

And habitation. He called Him the habitation of all, as being the dwelling-place ^A of all the saints, as the Lord Himself says: Abide in me. For just as we are His temple, according to that word: I will dwell in them and walk among them; so also He Himself is our house. He rightly adds immediately "in a unified manner": for since He said that He is all things and that all things are in Him, lest anyone, bringing his mind into composition, should fall away from the truth, supposing that all things are heaped together into God, or that God, according to that composition, is all things, He quickly healed the impropriety by saying "unified," that is, in His own unity, or rather, remaining above unity, extended indivisibly and unmixedly so as to be all things and in all. But He is also in all things without being grasped, meaning, by being held by nothing, nor circumscribed corporally, but rather being exempt: for He is outside of all things, being nowhere, [yet] all things are from Him, and He Himself is in all; for from Him all things consist. And all things simply. That is, without composition; for He was not composed with any of the things that exist, nor united corporally, except in the time of the economy. Of divine visions. Note that he calls the revelations of God in symbols "visions," and observe how he speaks of it. ^B In sacred temples. The Greeks used to call the sanctuaries of their gods "ana-ktora" (lordly dwellings); the saint therefore indicates in these words that which is in Isaiah; for it seems he interprets him as having seen in the temple that divine glory and the vision of the seraphim. And the things which follow are said on account of the vision of Ezekiel, that in Babylon, and certain other visions. And seats. Thrones. Symbolic theology. He promises to write another work, which he calls "Symbolic Theology." The hierarchic. Note that it is most appropriate for priests to contemplate the divine Scripture. Deiform. Instead of "appearing as gods." And sacred ears. He mandates that sacred ears be presented to the saints, that is, a pious hearing worthy of the saints. Of the uninitiated. That is, of the uninitiated; for he who hears the divine oracles and the interpretations concerning them with laughter and mockery is judged as an enemy of God. And the Apostle also writes to Timothy that one ought not to speak of such things to those who do not receive the word in truth. ^D

IN CAP. II

^A holy and only adorable Trinity, known in three subsistences; for it is his custom to call the entire Godhead the most august Trinity. For this is what the whole Godhead is, revealing itself with the definition of the persons, that is, with the division, [and] it manifested [this] to the saints, showing forth the properties of the three subsistences: that there is Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. For the three are one and the entire and only Godhead. But it must be known that "existence" is not, strictly speaking, said of God; for it is "pre-existence," that is, even before existence itself. But since all existence is from Him, it is named from those things that appear through Him, so that it may be understood as being even above these things.

*Defining.* That is, declaring and showing.

*Summa deitate (Supreme Godhead)*, Gr. *Thearchian*. Note: that [by] accepting the word in a human manner, he attributes it to the Godhead herself, because of the unity of the person.

*Not partially.* Rightly [is it said] "not partially." For the operations and all the praises of theology are not ^B assigned exclusively to one and the only person of the divine Trinity, but these are common to the Trinity, except only for the incarnation; for that alone belongs to the Son, as he says hereafter. But the characteristic properties of the three subsistences alone belong partially and properly to each subsistence, such as "to be Father" [belongs] to the Father, and to no one else; so also for the Son and the Holy Spirit.

*And of the whole.* Note that by "the whole Godhead" the Trinity is signified.

*Unless concerning the whole.* Note: that he who says that the divine appellations are not common, impiously breaks asunder the unity of the adorable Trinity.

*These things says He who is.* It must be noted that Saint Dionysius accepts the Apocalypse of Saint John the Evangelist; for that saying is found there. Moreover, that Saint Dionysius knew the divine evangelist while he was staying on Patmos, where he also saw the ^C Apocalypse, you will learn also below from the tenth letter, which he wrote to this same holy evangelist and theologian, John.

*Of the prophets.* David says this.

*He who is, who [is] from the Father.* Consider how he refers to this sentence, for it is not usually had in this way.

*Supreme Godhead*, Gr. *Thearchian*. In other codices [it] is had as *Thearchic life*.

*Of God who begot God.* Note, he calls the Father the Godhead that begot God, and the Only-begotten the filial Godhead.

*More extensively*, Gr. *Diexodikos*. Instead of "more broadly."

*All things through him.* Note that, when he says that all things are from God, he comprehensively signifies the entire [Godhead]. ^D

And *of his*. Clearly, of the Word.

*Communicatively and unitedly.* Note that the things of the holy Trinity are united communicatively.

*The divine operations.* For example: "I cast out demons in the Spirit of God;" [concerning] veneration, as in: "He who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven;" [concerning] that of gifts, that is, charisms, when he says: "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you."

*The fountain-like.* It is said in the Psalms: "For with you is the fountain of life," and in Jeremiah: "They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water." God ^B is thus called a fountain, as a kind of matrix, principle, and cause of all things that appear and proceed into existence. For whatever some are wont to call universals, that is, genera, or wholes, or containers, insofar as they are comprehensive of the partial processions emanating from them, the divine Scriptures call these a fountain-like cause. Therefore, due to the creative and unfailing character of those who subsist through the Spirit, and because the Holy Spirit Himself is the cause of all things, as it is also said in Wisdom, he rightly speaks of Him theologically as a fountain-like cause. Understand the "unfailing" nature of his creating from that which is said: "My Father is working until now, and I am working." Similarly, the Holy Spirit also works always and unfailingly with the Father and the Son; for it is said: "You will send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created."

§ II. *With unperverted understandings.* He rightly said "unperverted," since heretics also read the Scriptures and are nourished by them, and yet they pervert themselves.

*Of a distinction worthy of God.* He called a division worthy of God regarding the holy Trinity that knowledge concerning the subsistences which is unconfused; and [he notes] that one should not be concerned with persuading those who do not accept the divine Scripture. For to speak customarily about the holy Trinity as God is in no way to introduce a confusion of the subsistences.

*To the theological.* Discussing theological science earlier regarding God, he did not call it "science"; but here he calls things concerning theology "science." Science is right opinion bound by reasoning, or a true, immutable, and accurate intellectual grasp and demonstration of a thing, for which it is also called science, setting forth the rationale of truth and right opinion, not needing the addition of confirmation from the like.

*The divine manifestations.* He calls "manifestations" those teachings which explain the mysteries.

*In themselves without addition.* That one must not pass over the divine Scripture when speaking of God.

^A § III. And those things which are by pre-eminence. He proclaims the praises of God that are above the mind by way of ablation; for He is worshipped in a way that transcends common understanding through those things which are seen in Him least of all, such as that He is immortal, interminable, and invisible, and in need of nothing, and other things similar to these; for these things are also common to the Trinity. But those things which have the rationale of a Cause are those which have emanated from Him into creation, as the Author of all good, as it is written, that every good thing is from Him.

Of the Father. One must understand the name which transcends essence, as in the Father, so also in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. But in the distinct things of the holy Trinity, namely the names, he says there is no [at all] reciprocation or communion; for the Father could not piously be called the Son, nor the Son, the Father; and the same must be thought regarding the Holy Spirit.

Jesus according to us. Note that the incarnation belongs to the Word of God alone. He says it is "complete" against Apollinaris, as consisting of an intelligent soul and our body; for this is what he declares when he says "according to us," which is also what stands against Eutyches; but against Nestorius is what he says: the immutable existence of Jesus as like unto God "according to us," and that he says the mysteries in His humanity are "essential"—hunger, weariness, walking upon the waters, entering unto the disciples when the doors were shut, raising the dead, and the passion itself, and other such things.

Essential mysteries. Note that "essential" is used regarding the incarnation; for this he said, rejecting that opinion which asserted that it had been only imaginary.

Authors of the sacred tradition. Gr. Those who have been initiated into the sacred things are called sacred mystagogues.

Occult and never emerging. He calls "occult unitions" the incomprehensible cognitions concerning the divine essence; for no one will ever know what the essence of the holy Trinity is.

Distinctions. He calls the self-subsistent and adorable existences "distinctions": that is, the inexplicable radiance of the Son from the Father; and the inconceivable procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father.

^B Supra-princely unity. The unity above the princely unity signifies the absence of division, and the simplicity of the divine nature surpassing the unity and simplicity of all things.

Ineffable. Gr. "That which cannot be spoken." He said this because of the essence which is devoid of a name. Furthermore, that which is expressed in many words, he said this because He is affected by many names through the variety of those benefited.

^C From all intelligible. How God is unknown and yet altogether known, and how we acquire knowledge of Him through ignorance, must be stated. For God is known through ignorance: but do not take ignorance—

^D

^A as that which arises from lack of knowledge; this is itself a species of cognition. Rather, He is known through that ignorance by which, being expanded beyond the concepts which, as they multiply, are scattered and then again folded together, not being a unity, we become simple. ^B Therefore, having transcended every concept concerning God, we become simple, remaining thereafter ignorant and undiscerned because of our station toward unity, and standing firmly in that union, we are ignorant that we are ignorant—that is, knowing nothing else, we are ignorant as the untrained are, who are able to learn what they are currently ignorant of. But we are ignorant of those things which are piously acknowledged as unknown by every rational creature. Standing in this ignorance, we become an image of Him who exists before all things. Abandoning all forms and concepts, and established in a silence superior to every utterance, we do not even know this—that we are ignorant. Then, returning again from that silence in which we were established, and descending from that silence into speech, we understand that we were ignorant, and we refrain thereafter from inquiring about the Unknown.

Again, God is all-intelligible, being known through His generous providences and His creations; from the former, that He is Savior, and from the latter, that He is Creator. He calls existence "position" or affirmation, as if from it the existence of all things proceeds. Now philosophers also speak of "position" as the forms that are imposed on matter, and "ablation" (or negation) as when qualities are removed from forms, such as heaviness from earth or moisture from water. God, therefore, who even transforms these things, is the position and the ablation of all. He is the position of all, as He who has posited and made all things, and arranges them to be established; for in Him do all things consist. ^C He is also the ablation of all, as He who likewise fashions and rearranges that very position and creation of beings, stripping away from what has been posited those things that are according to nature. For if it is admitted that things in generation are entirely subject to corruption, yet He, by the abundance of His goodness, has removed corruption from some things, such as from angels and souls, while for others He transfers that which is corruptible into incorruption and that which is mortal into immortality, as our bodies in the resurrection—it is manifest that, existing as He does for us, He is also above position and ablation, being the foundation and root of all, not in terms of location, but as cause. Nor is He Himself an ablation of the things He possesses; for He Himself possesses immortality. For He possesses that which is immortal, incomprehensible, and unknown, and all such things, not as if He were not the contrary, but according to a property that is ineffable and inconceivable to all. For He is removed from all things, as being abstracted from existing beings, and is known or grasped by none of those things in creation, as He has caught Himself up through infinity; for there is no limit to Him. Note also the being in one another, ^D according to a certain dwelling and establishment of the divine hypostases, as in the passage: "I am in the Father, and the Father in me."

So also does the Apostle speak concerning the Holy Spirit.

[As the lights of lamps. The whole mind of the holy Father is after this manner. He sets forth an example concerning the holy Trinity: Just as, he says, if three lamps or candles should be in a temple or a house, they are indeed separated or distinguished from one another according to their hypostases—for each lamp is individually one and another—yet as regards the light, they possess a united and indivisible communication of nature and operation; so that no one is able, within the house and in its air, to distinguish and say which is the light of this lamp, and which of the other. Having said these things, he thereafter transitions from the Trinitarian [account] to the account of the Economy, and he clarifies the glorious coming forth of the divine Word from the Father, according to His own voice, which said: "I came out from my Father, and I go to my Father," adding: "But even if one should lead one of the lamps out of the house, all its own light will go out with it, drawing nothing into itself of the remaining lights' brilliance, nor leaving any of its own behind for the others. For the Son, coming from the Father into the world, did not bring the Father and the Spirit with Himself, nor did He leave anything of His own behind for them upon departing; but He made His coming forth an indivisible [act] of His own dwelling."]

Wherefore regarding that super-substantial [unity]

And supercelestial luminaries

Of that superessential God-fecundity

^A Unitions and distinctions. He speaks now of the procession of the ineffable Trinity into three persons; that although God the Father, timelessly and lovingly moved, proceeded into a distinction of persons, He remained without division or diminution in His own totality, being super-unified and super-simple, with His own radiance coming forth into existence as a living image, and with the all-holy Spirit proceeding from the Father in an adorable and super-eternal manner, as the Lord teaches. By His goodness, the Cause and Fountain of all things was multiplied into the tri-personal Godhead. This is what Gregory the Theologian says also in his books *Against Eunomius*.

There is, however, also another kind of divine distinction: the procession of God through the abundance of His goodness into the manifold nature of the invisible and visible creation. The creative providences and goodnesses are common to the tri-personal and distinct Monad; for the all-sovereign Trinity, in the participation of those capable of participating, exists without being held or participated in—for both mean the same thing. For God is participated in without being held or contained in the place that participates, nor is He participated in sensibly, but is present wholly in the participation of each, while remaining exempt from all things. Just as when a loud voice is raised, all who are present participate in it according to their own capacity—both man, and infant, and even irrational creatures—yet some do so more strongly and ^B others more weakly, according to the efficacy of the faculty of hearing. Thus, the voice is communicable, while remaining in itself incommunicable.

From the participations and the participants. The Godhead according to essence is neither participated in nor understood; it is communicable, however, in that all things are from it and are held by it unto existence.

In each of the impressions. By way of example, he says how God is participated in without participation.

§ VI. It is not the seal. An opposition and solution from the example of the seal.

Effigies: here he calls the impressions "effigies."

And no reluctance. Like stones and wood, or on the contrary those things that are of a fluid substance, none of which admits the seal of a ring.

But it has been distinguished. Note that the incarnation of the Word is distinguished from the holy Trinity, completely and truly.

Of us. Here, discussing the dispensation again, he attributes it to God the Word alone, without the Father and the holy Spirit participating, except only by will. Note the precise account of the dispensation, [that] the superessential God the Word was embodied without change, since He remained God, and was embodied according to us and from us entirely—that is, He truly possessed body and rational soul; and that God the Word is [in truth] the

^A one who suffered, clearly in the flesh; and that everything in the dispensation is His human work; and that neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit participated in these things, except by the good pleasure and will for the incarnation, and in co-operating with God the Son in performing divine signs. Note these points especially against the Nestorians, the Acephali, and the Phantasiasts.

It is distinguished. This means that that which concerns us—namely, that He should be entirely and truly incarnate from us—is separated from the account of the Trinity and the Godhead; that is, the account of the incarnation and becoming-man of Christ, as also that He should do and suffer those things which are most proper to the consideration of His humanity. He calls these "proper and singular," that is, pure and blameless [affections] of His human nature: of such a kind are birth, infancy, growth, thirst, labor, sadness, tears, saliva, blood, piercing, corruption, flow, voluntary death, loss of voice, inability to move oneself, and the like. For the Father and the Holy Spirit in no way participate in these, unless one should speak in terms of approval and consent.

He who was immutable. We have explained how He speaks of the Word suffering, as in that passage: "Our hands have handled concerning the Word of life."

§ VII. To these, as if to mysteries. According to the power subsisting in the bread and the cup.

Beyond intellectual operation. The holy mind explains, or interprets, the understanding of those things spoken about God—that is, the mind that is entirely devoted to divine things, and remains unclouded by earthly and passionate things; yet it does not engage with divine things themselves otherwise than through the cessation of all motion that brings about the understanding of things; for this is what it means to speak of "above intellectual efficacy," that is, when one is surrounded on all sides by the incomprehensibility of God, then one attains what was sought.

By participation alone. We must understand the word "names." He calls "participations" the provision of those things which we receive from God Himself.

Secret. That the name "God" does not signify essence, nor what God is, but rather a certain benefit toward us; and that we form the appellations of God from the participations granted to us by God. But as to what God is, no one can conceive; for divine existence is then praised as worthily as possible, when it is entirely released by us from every most powerful and intellectual efficacy, and it receives us in holy silence, while we apply our mind to the gifts that proceed from thence; for He produces things by His will, while we stand firmly in the confusion of our mind, which he called a little earlier "knowledge in ignorance."

Again, that He is an origin or fountain. Note the...

^A venerable and dreadful names of the immaculate Trinity: that the Father is the fount of divinity; and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the sprouts of the God-generating Divinity, that is, of the Father, God-grown, and flowers, and superessential lights. But rather, he says that "sprouts" is used in Scripture from the vision of the olive trees of Zechariah, of the eleventh of the prophets; for the Seventy say "two branches of the olive," but other interpreters say "ears and sprouts"; and as for lights, in which it is said, "the Father of lights" and "light from light." By "paternity" (πατριάν) he means, as it were, fatherhood. He adds, therefore, "sonship," and indeed the Apostle says: "From whom every paternity in heaven and on earth is named." For the very being of fathers and being named sons flowed down from above, from the Father, the Son indeed being from the Father by nature; but He is Father of all by way of creation and instruction; whence also incorporeal and intelligible powers are called fathers and sons of gods after the manner of instruction and in an excelling way, in angels and the just, as the Apostle also declares, since He who is properly Father—in that He grants such participation—is the source of all fathers, and the Son, in that He is also the One partaken of in this, is the source of all sons, as He Himself says: "I manifested Thy name to men," because He who says these things is called Father, having Him as Son.

To the caused. The "caused" are all things brought forth into creation, whether in heaven or on earth; but "causes" are those things which exist ^B transcendently, that is, the three Hypostases of the holy Trinity. It is clear, therefore, that there is no likeness of these among themselves, of causes, he says, and the caused. And rightly he added "such as they permit"; for not all [things].

"And to live, if one says." That the things of the caused exist in the causes abundantly and essentially. Wherefore we do not rightly say that the Divine lives and is enlightened; for this is the cause to us of living and being enlightened; therefore, they exist essentially in the Divine, which belong to us by grace; for this is what he signifies by "participation," for the Apostle says: "By grace you have been saved," and we are called "the saved"; but He is our Savior. And again: "For of His fullness we all received."

§ IX. "But also that of all theology." That he calls "theology" that which pertains to the incarnation; and that he calls the incarnation of the Lord Jesus "the deification according to us." These things are especially against the Nestorians, saying that He was given substance in the manner of a man; but observe that he says the body of the Lord Jesus was fashioned from the virgin blood. Note, moreover, how he says that there are certain most venerable angels, and that there is one first among them. The divine John speaks of ^C elder angels in the Apocalypse; and that there are seven first

^A in Tobias, and also with Clement in the fifth book of the *Hypotyposes*. He is accustomed to call the most venerable angels the three highest orders: thrones, seraphs, and cherubs, as he frequently declares in the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*. But he says here that even the first among the angels cannot attain to the mode of the Incarnation.

And by the "renowned," Gr. "Glorious."

^B *Preceptor*. He insinuates his own preceptor, the holy Hierotheus, as he immediately declares; for after Saint Paul, he was assisted by him. He says that perhaps, having "suffered" the divine, he was thus inspired. What it means to have not only learned but also "suffered" is spoken of in the Epistle to the Hebrews: *He learned obedience from the things which he suffered* (d). For he who suffers grasps by experience what he is taught, like one who is beaten, better than he who has only heard. Moreover, he who has at any time been beaten knows what such a trial is, and would represent more effectively what the pain is like. So too, he who is initiated through revelation will interpret the divine more divinely. But to "suffer" the divine is such a thing: the Apostle said, *Let us be buried with Christ, that we may also rise and reign with him* (e); and he who crucifies himself and his own flesh carries about the stigmata of Christ in his own body. He therefore rightly reigns with Christ, and dares to contemplate his divine mysteries, since the holy Hierotheus is also said not only to have learned but also to have "suffered" the divine; and he who is initiated into the divine through revelation is beside himself, and is rightly said to suffer this profitable suffering, so that he may become a dwelling-place of God. Otherwise: He said he "suffered" the divine, as if to say he did not attain the doctrine of these things through discipline by word, but was impressed by divine illumination, and as it were stamped upon his intellect with the knowledge of things above nature; and he called such an initiation into higher things a "sympathy," namely, a consensus.

^C § X. *The Cause of all*. These divine words represent how the Son is all things in all, and the head of all according to the Apostle (f), and he says that he is the fullness and compagination of all, holding together the series of creatures — that is, the parts with the whole, as the one who is all things; therefore, as the agent of cohesion for the universe, he is justly a part, since every part is a part of the whole, yet he is neither whole nor part, as one who is none of these, but is above all essence. The parts of the whole world are those things which are seen according to species: air, earth, plants, and the rest; and his divinity is said to be as it were something perfect in respect to us, who are imperfect. As in Matthew (g): *Be perfect, as I am perfect*; but to the angels who are perfect, he is not perfect ^D but is super-perfect; and the Son is the Prince of perfection, as the author of all perfection, because…

he is also pre-perfect. Thus he is also called "form" among those things which are formless and incorporeal, as the creator of all formal constitution and the principle of every form; yet in relation to these forms, he is formless and above form, since even the forms and ideas are secondary to him. ^A

*Defining.* Instead of, "distinguishing," and preserving [that which is] without confusion.

*And it is measure.* It is the measure of beings, because in him all things are bounded; and justly indeed would he be called "aeon" (eternity). For if "aeon" is spoken of as "always existing," he is himself the "Always Existing." For it has been said: "But you are the same, and your years shall not fail" (Ps. CI, 28); and again: "He who numbers the multitudes of the stars, and measures the heaven with a span, and the earth with his fist" (Isa. XL, 12). He is the Creator of aeons, in that he is the Creator of the angels (for they are immortal), and [immortality,] extension, unending life, [and] aeon—but not time—are predicated of him as being unending and always to be. Therefore, aeon is not spoken of in this sense as time which has an end, but in the sense of "always existing," into ages which have no end. ^B

*Full in those that are in need.* What he said above—"imperfect in the perfect"—he says here as "overflowing in those that are full." Thus, you must understand "imperfect" in this way: as eminently perfect in the perfect.

*And even to nature.* You see how he speaks, since he has even arrived at nature. Understand "nature" as our nature, and that we do not correctly speak of "nature" regarding God. For behold how he says, "he descended even to nature," that is, he reached down to that point of degradation, to that which he himself did not possess. Note the force of the expressions. ^C

*Without change.* Note that he communed with us without change, without confusion, and without passion; and that he remained transcendent in our natural properties, and super-essential in those things which are according to essence, and he possessed our [attributes] in a way above us: such as being born of a virgin, being sinless, speaking with the authority of God, doing all things, walking upon the water, and such like things. Note, therefore, that no one discourses on the Divine Incarnation in this way against the Nestorians, the Acephali, and the Phantasiasts.

§ XI. *The common and.* The names of the holy Trinity are common and united, as many as are named from those of its gifts that are bestowed upon things after it; which gifts he calls "distinctions," and as it were "multiplications." ^D

*It is multiplied, however, in a singular way.* This is against the Phantasiasts. That which is one is said to be multiplied; for since all things are from him, and through him, and to him they have been created, and he himself is the head of all beings, and he

^A has produced all substances, he is deservedly said to be multiplied by means of those things which exist through him, since even when all things are subjected to the Father, he himself is said, through the things produced by him, to be subjected to the Father, as the Apostle says: "Then the Son also himself will be subjected" (1 Cor. xv, 28); yet though he be such, he remained one in the multiplication of the production of the universe, and the same in the undiminished pouring forth of his own gifts, while being a part in the whole, and nothing of the whole; for he is above essence, and we are unable to attain to him; but this is interpreted below.

And of singulars.

Understanding our common teacher.

For although there are those who are called.

the contrary; for there is no unity of them, but rather the distinctions of the elements, pre-existing, and becoming concurrent and united, ^A produce secondary unions from composition; but in divine things it is not so; for in them the unity pre-existing produces the distinctions as secondary by its will.

*And after that of the One.* He calls "unions" in divine things those things which are viewed in the Godhead singularly and unitarily, to wit, those without which there would previously have been a contraction—that is to say, of [the] properties, namely, fatherhood, sonship, and the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father; but "distinctions" [are] the fact that many things partake of the divine gifts. Therefore, the unions have precedence and prevail; for the one Godhead and sovereignty was not assembled from many things, but it is from the singularity of this [Godhead] that the multitude which is found in those [things] is considered. ^B

IN CHAPTER III

§ I. *Which is the beginning of good.* The fountain, surely, of all goodness and [its] beginning.

*Not yet all things.* How it is that all things are not present to God—he himself says [it], and you may easily understand this very thing also from the divine oracle: *Draw near to me, and I will draw near to you*, saith the Lord (Jas. IV, 8).

*Us then themselves.* Note that prayer lifts us up to God, not Him down to us; note also that the examples are beautiful.

*Of a many-lighted chain.* Well has he likened our prayer to a heavenly chain. For just as one wishing to ascend to the height of heaven grasps the rope firmly with his hands. ^C

*Ropes.* He understands "cables."

*The all-pervading.* How God is everywhere present and nowhere, has been said by us above in the explanation whose beginning is, "The philosophers call it a position." Just as, therefore, he who slightly lifts himself from the earth with his hands appears indeed to be pulling the chain, but he himself is rather [lifted and] by the ascent is gradually raised on high: so he who prays intensely and vehemently through the praiseworthy actions, which this discourse calls "hands," gradually by the very work and prayer lifts his own mind to God on high. But if we let go of the ^D hands from the chain, and take no thought for that upward motion, we fall headlong from the height. The same is true regarding the ship, so that we may understand the ship to be our mind and thought tossed by the gales of this life; the sea, the life abounding in many storms; and the rock, Christ, whom holding fast we remain unmoved and tranquil, clinging to Him and drawing our life into the harbor.

*Of the renowned.* Illustrious, surely, in fame and glory.

APPENDIX TO THE WORKS OF ST. DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

^A *To speak in vain.* Gr. *To speak fruitlessly* and to trifle. *We have been instructed*, he says for this: that we have received fruit and benefit. It is to be known, however, that after St. Paul, he was instructed by the holy Hierotheus. ^A *Stealing away*, he says, for those who secretly claim for themselves and are plagiarists. *Gravely.* He perhaps took it for "expertly" and "intelligently"; he calls ^B *brief decrees* those that have a compendious treatment: this he also signified when he said *singular*; he calls *expositions* those which are done briefly and in few words. *According to our capacity.* This is: as much as was in me, and as you exhorted me to explain, and as many of our teachers as have interpreted thus: the composition itself points to a hyperbaton. ^B *Other scriptures.* Note that the Commentaries of holy Hierotheus are to be thought of as a kind of second holy Scripture. *Intuition.* He understands [this as] a knowledge [that is] not at all veiled, but rather clear and manifest. *Senile.* Because senile dignity is more perfect and more accommodating for teaching, [more so] than that of all priests. But what *senile* may be, you shall understand from Isaiah ^C saying: *Not a senior, not an angel, but the Lord Himself shall come and save us*; and from the Apocalypse of blessed John, who says he saw twenty-four elders around the inexplicable throne of God. *Principle of life.* He perhaps understands the body that was the fountain of life and the tabernacle of the Divinity to be that of the most holy Theotokos, who had then fallen asleep. Note, however, that phrase, *the brother of the Lord, James*: for this divine man was present together with the apostles Peter and James. *Of the theologians.* He speaks of the holy apostles. *Of divine imbecility.* By divine imbecility he here means the voluntary condescension ^D of the Son of God even unto a body without sin. For, being entirely ignorant of sin by reason, He deigned for our sake, without forsaking His own [divine nature], to become sin without sin, so that He might restore us, who were enslaved to sin, through the adoption that has been made through Him for all of us, unto our ancient liberty. For when He was opulent in divinity, He became poor with that poverty which enriches all, assuming our flesh in a certain excellent way, so that by His divinity we might be enriched; and existing as God in the form of God and according to essence, because of poured-forth charity, He put on the servile form, the Word being most simple, having subsistence, and becoming immutably flesh. Add to these His entire course of incarnate life marked by the greatest poverty: the manger, the flight into Egypt, the prompt familiarity with harlots and publicans, the choice of the poor...

the very life of the simplest fishermen, which was lacking in cover, ^A which was lived as a common and plebeian life in the flesh, without any assistance, which suffered the infamous death on the cross (for "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"), which was numbered with the wicked thieves; add the piercing of the nails, the wound of the lance in the side, the blows, the spittle, the vinegar, the gall, the crown of thorns, the mockings and derisions, the genuflections, the most simple funeral and meager burial. This, as the apparent foolishness and weakness of God, was shown clearly by the standard of the plan of salvation—wiser and far stronger than men beyond comparison—to be most powerful and excellent in wisdom, having won the victory over the enemy and being celebrated unceasingly through works in the whole universe in unfathomable silence; for if even he was crucified out of weakness, yet he lives by power, according to the divine Paul. ^B Concerning the same words, it is well said what belongs to the divine weakness; for because of his voluntary condescension toward us, he endured all things even unto death, and death on the cross, and he himself takes away our infirmities and suffers pain for our sake, and by his stripe we all have been healed, and his passion is called his own according to the voice of Peter, saying: "Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh." And: "If they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory"; whence the Jews are also called killers of the Lord.

Divine laudator. Because those who were with the holy Hierotheus sang modulated psalms and odes at that time, as the terms "to sing hymns" and "to sing odes" indicate; and because those things which are high and mystical and ineffable must be kept from the many; but one must converse with and teach the many only those things which are possible and easily demonstrated.

Of divine things. To wit, of the Scriptures and of contemplations.

Through excessive piety. For it pertains to religious modesty not to inquire into diviner things.

We had understood. Note that one must not neglect the cognition of divine things once received, but must transmit it to others; and that minds are naturally carried by a desire toward the wonderful contemplation which is granted to them.

Things above us. One must not curiously inquire into things that are above us, nor neglect divine knowledge, but communicate to others those things which we have received. For it has been said: "Do not seek what is higher than you, and do not search what is deeper than you"; think on those things which you have been commanded.

Commanding. According to the Apostle [saying]: "Commit these to faithful men."

By these things, then, also we. Note from where he came to the composition.

To Hierotheus. In the things which are to be said later, he explains what belongs to Hierotheus.

IN CHAP. IV. ^C § I. Well then. Come then. They attribute. The word "they attribute" as instead of...

taking it as a receiving ^A, but ^B by "manifested from all" it signifies the divine goodness, and signifies that all things have been produced from it into existence.

*As substantial.* That the Divinity is the essential good, and that all beings participate in the good, as creatures do in the sun.

*As that sun of ours.* Let no one suspect that the great Dionysius judges concerning divine things entirely from the example of the sun; but let him think thus: just as the sun, being nothing other than light, does not have light as an accident and as something existing differently, or as an animate being that receives light from within or from itself by a will to benefit and distributes it to all; for the contrary is the case: since it is neither animate, nor acts to benefit by will—for it lacks reason—nor does it receive light from another; for it is this very light itself, and it illuminates; so it is necessary to think this alone regarding God, namely that God does not possess the good accidentally as some quality, as we possess virtues; but that God Himself is the essence of the good, just as light is the essence of the sun, and as God, who is the good itself, extends the splendor of goodness around all, benefiting those who are illuminated. Whence he says the example of the sun has a dim and scarcely apparent image of the altogether uncommunicable archetype; for if images had the truth, they would no longer be copies, but archetypes.

*Intellective and Intelligent.* Speaking properly, validly ^C there is one thing that is intelligible (noēton) and another that is intelligent (noeron). For the intelligible is as it were the food of the intelligent, since that which is understood, which is the intelligible, is greater than and prior in thought to that which understands, which is the intelligent. Therefore, the orders that are transcendent and near to God are properly to be called intelligible; but those that are lower are intelligent, inasmuch as they understand the transcendent. Yet it should not be thought that because things are called intelligible, they themselves do not understand; for they do understand, ^D since they are minds and substances of life and of the highest mind, having been created. But there, operations and substances are also subsistent; for all movement and rest are subsistent there, and they are living powers, and superior to flowing and corporeal changes. Whence they are understood as immaterial; but they understand things as incorporeal minds and as above the world, being illuminated from above regarding the reasons of things, and mystically transmitting them to the lower angels through intellection and revelation. You may, however, also understand "powers and effective operations" in another way: powers, because, when creatures had not yet appeared, all things subsisted beforehand in God potentially, to be produced by Him into existence; and effective operations, because the creature was indeed led to operation. Note, however, how I explained that phrase "flowing changes," since even angels are mutable, namely in will, clearly, and not in essence, as the devil witnesses, together with his order, having fallen from heaven, as we also have in Job.

From corruption and death. For these things are proper to bodies. ^A They are illuminated by proper reasons. Incorporeal and heavenly things are understood and understand. And guard and residence. "Residence" and "hearth" signify the same thing in parallel. Philo the Jew, in the book *On the Flaming Sword and the Cherubim*, speaks thus: "The residence, standing firmly on parts of the world, has been aptly named 'hearth' by the ancients." He says this also above, near the end of the first chapter, in the sixth paragraph. § II. From thence to them. Note what he says about the angels, and that the immaterial things penetrate and leave one another without confusion, and as it were there are first and second degrees and orders. And that the divine minds turn there about themselves, not with a bodily turning, but one that is supersubstantial and intellectual, and such as a mind is naturally inclined to turn, proceeding from itself into conceptions, and turning back into itself, yet not wandering outside itself in a scattered and divided way; this is also hinted at by the many-eyed wheels of the divinely-spoken Ezekiel. And that they are concerning the divine love in identity and extremity; by identity must be understood their inseparable attention toward God; by extremity, understand the progress of their cognition and essence by which they have already in some way reached deification. By the mutual unions of the intelligibles, understand the love worthy of God by which they pursue one another, which, being divine and unification-working, joins them, not gathering them in a heap, but binding them lovingly. Of beings and intelligibles, as also of things said univocally of intelligibles and sensibles, some are united and interconnected, while others are divided and placed side by side, as for instance in a heap. Of intelligibles, the united are such as "animal," "light," and the "intelligible world," and things of this kind; but those divided and in juxtaposition are such as "army," "order," "tribe," "chorus." In sensibles, union is "animal," "tree," "world"; but division ^C is by way of heap: "flock," "people," "pile," "chorus." In the book *On the Angelic*. Behold another work of Dionysius is sought, *On the Angelic Properties and Orders*. Angel-befitting. He says "angel-befitting expiations," such as that of Isaiah and that of Ezekiel devouring the scroll in an ecstasy. He calls the "perfection-working" ^D of the angels that which occurred in the case of Daniel, and of the angel who interpreted it for him, and concerning the one perfecting Hermas in the *Shepherd*, as we read there in the *Shepherd*. But how the angels themselves are purified and perfected, he says in the treatise *On the Celestial Hierarchy*. And that they are angels. Why they are called angels, and that they are also lights.

^A *Souls.* Note that some souls are inferior to the angels themselves: and that they are immortal, as being essential created lives: and that souls are guided by the angels, when they practice the angelic life: thus also we read in the *Shepherd*.

*The Supreme Good.* Observe that the souls of the just are raised up to the supreme good of all goods, that is, to God; and having become participants in his illuminations, they intercede with boldness.

*In the treatise On the Soul.* The book *On the Soul* is missing.

*On souls lacking reason.* By souls lacking reason and sentient ones, he means irrational animals; observe also that soul is one thing, and life is another.

^B *On those which are amphibious.* He calls those animals which creep amphibious, such as frogs and crabs; but those that burrow are moles and the like. Note, however, that some souls are inferior to the angels themselves: and that they are immortal as being essential created lives: and that souls are guided by the angels, when they practice the angelic life, just as was said above.

*Substantial habit from Him.* We have also said before that a habit is an inherent quality; therefore, as many things as lack life and soul have been produced by the goodness of God and affected by inherent qualities, such as various stones, [but also herbs and roots,] and earth, and minerals endowed with useful qualities, and all things that serve for medicine and for our use. These, therefore, do not have a habit from the outside, but have received from God in their essence the quality of the habit.

^C § III. *But if indeed above all things.* See how privations in God are the producers of the excellence of positions or affirmations, such as "without form," "without essence," "without life," "without mind": for these, while appearing to signify something that does not exist, nevertheless, in God, who exists superessentially by the negation of all things (for He is nothing of those things which exist), are understood in an eminent way. And he explains this more perfectly in what follows.

*And that very thing, which is not.* How does that which is not desire the good? For if it does not exist, how does it desire? We say that by "that which is not" he understands evil, as he demonstrates below, because even that which is called evil comes to be for the sake of the good.

§ IV. *And of celestial things.* He says the cause of the celestial principles and extremes is the goodness of God; for God created all these by an abundance of goodness. And the celestial principles and the extremes must be understood

^A as from a point or center of the will of God, subsisting in a circular creation of the heavens; for the circular figure, beginning from itself, is terminated in itself. He says that the celestial essence neither increases nor decreases, as having become perfectly and sufficiently its own end; wherefore he also calls it immutable, as not having been perverted from that out of which it was made. That is perfect which neither grows nor diminishes. He has called them "sub-terminations" [ὑποπερατώσεις], and not "terminations" [ἀποπερατώσεις], because the motion is circular; and it does not properly have an end, but as it were an end, the motion which is carried towards the same point as from a principle to something like an end, for instance the east. Observe that he also says the heaven is moved without sound and imperceptibly; but the shift of some stars' manifold motion he ascribes to the planets. Observe also this, that only these did he admit to be moved. Observe, too, from where the temporal numerations come.

[Concerning the two luminaries, which the Oracles call "great." He speaks of the sun and moon as two luminaries; he called them "great" following David; and he terms the Psalms of the latter "Oracles." By "periodic restitution" he means the progression from the same to the same, which the sun performs annually, traversing the zodiacal circle; but the moon does so within a few days, from its conjunction until its total waning. Observe, then, that temporal measures are derived from these, and furthermore from the months.]

They distinguish. They define perfectly.

Beyond divinity. This I also noted above ^C, that God is in all things, and yet is nothing of all things. But here he says something more, namely that He transcends even all essences, which he says below: that He is able to fill even those things that are not. Observe also how he speaks: that neither those above reach His preeminence, nor do those below pass beyond it; that is, the Divine has neither beginning nor end, since celestial and superior powers do not comprehend it—not that it exists and yet is not comprehended; do not understand it so, but that it is not [an essence]. For this is knowledge in ignorance. For having become superior, and being united through love of God to the powers above, we know that, along with all things, we are ignorant of the divine nature.

And He illuminates. That is, those who receive His totality according to their own measure; wherefore He is also said to be the measure of beings; or because He knows the beginning and the end of all things, as the sole creator; for He expounds Himself lower down.

And order. God is called Order for this reason: either because He created all things with good order; or because He is grasped by faith by those who approach Him, neither submerging the weaker by His multitude, nor being grasped by the saints ^D by condescension out of poverty; but according to the vessels of my

capacity, thus by welling up in me, He produces goodness. ^A

According to the thousandth degree of resonance.

But also regarding generation.

It is a measure.

For this is that light.

^A

Tanquam principium unitatis, i.e., the principle and cause of the union or likeness which in reality is such.

Quodque appetunt omnia. See how he divides all things and concerning the King of all, whom all things desire. He says, therefore, first the intellectual, then the rational. The intellectual, therefore, are things not mingled with bodies, such as all the supramundane powers; but the rational are human souls, which have a relation to the body, as is the sensible man. For if the interior man, according to the Apostle, only acts—that is, the soul, not having every affection toward the body—then the man is intellectual ^B, but he would not be called rational, according to the whole animal that consists of body and rational soul. He says, however, that the intellectual and rational desire God intellectually, as if this appetite were naturally present in them, to know the King of all and to partake of His goodness; because the soul is cognizant and rational, it is rightly said that it also has an appetite for the Good. But irrational animals desire by that very sensible power of life; and therefore [they desire] the Good. As for things without sense, such as plants and things inanimate and lifeless, they indeed desire the Good naturally, yet not so that they might know it, but so that they might remain, which is only that they are held together by the Good through a natural appetite for being. ^C

Omnia ἀολλῆ facit. ἀολλῆ, gathered together. He says that the sun is so called because it makes things ἀολλῆ and gathers the scattered; and he denies that the sun is God, even if we have said many things which seem contrary to that, [things] which are easily distorted.

Juxta antiquitatis. Juxta the sermon of antiquity, either because the divine Dionysius and the divine Timotheus were Gentiles, as is declared in the Acts of the Holy Apostles, or he speaks of the foolish discourse of the Gentiles; for they called the sun ancient and original, as is said in the comedy.

Repurgare. For it is said: "Come unto him, and be enlightened: and your faces shall not be ashamed" (Ps. XXXIII, 6).

Quia amaverunt multum. For to the one who loves much, much shall also be given; but to him who loves less, according to the measure of love, which he says above, that God is our ^D order and measure.

§ VI. Et supermundanam. To call the mind supramundane, as some interpret it, means there are certain supreme holy minds, angelic orders, being above all worlds.

appointed for their administration, and by some called governors of the worlds. Other minds, however, might dwell within the world of men and angels, being prefects of nations and guardians of cities, and in the churches and the saints, as the divine John says in the Apocalypse, and in other structural arrangements of the world; and the singer of the psalms says: "The angel of the Lord shall encamp" (Ps. XXXIII, 8). The spiritual is above the world; that which is concerned about the world is psychic; that which is in the world is carnal. Otherwise: He is above the world who directs theology; he is about the world who is concerned with natural contemplation; he is in the world who is concerned with virtue consisting in action. ^A

Omnia congregans. Doing all things together, and cherishing, and increasing, and transforming.

Dirimit. For ignorance separates from God, just as light rather gathers and converts, as it said above.

Opinationibus. Of idols, and of the multitude of gods which they have.

Visa, Gr. (phantasias). He calls by this term imaginations—fabulous thoughts concerning sensible things, or things as if they were sensible.

§ VII. Et ut pulchrum. God is indeed called beautiful in the Song of Songs; therefore beauty is also attributed to Him. David: "Thou art fairer in beauty than the children of men" (Ps. XLIV, 3). But that which participates in beauty is also called beautiful. Observe how, among things, the beautiful and beauty are divided into those which participate and those which are participated in; but not so in God. For He ^C is called beauty, because of the beauty communicated by Him to all things, and because He calls all things to Himself; and He is called beautiful, as always existing and never decreasing or increasing.

Secundum se uniforme. God is a uniform beauty, since He is not divided into habits and diversities that produce beauty, nor does He possess beauty for some and not for others; but unchangeably He is the beautiful itself, without beginning and without dissolution, without any affection, and always in the same way. And therefore He is said to possess beauty beforehand within Himself, existing even before the creatures as the fountain and principle and cause of the beautiful; hence He also possesses the beautiful in a preeminent way. For although many things are beautiful, they are beautiful from Him, and not beautiful in the same way as He Himself is; because He Himself is the beautiful without cause, while those things are beautiful by cause and participation. For God is the beautiful in a singular mode, since from Him are the things beautiful after Him, and they possess the beautiful ^D as if in a quality.

Ex hoc ipso pulchro. That is: "Behold all things beautiful."

^A And that saying of Zechariah, "Everything, if there be any beautiful thing," came from thence, from the Uncaused Beautiful. For on account of the Beautiful, the connections of the elements—which he calls "coaptations"—come to be, and the well-ordered bondings of beings persist, which are called friendships and communions of all rational creatures endowed with virtue, the up-raisings of the soul toward God, as the Church of the firstborn in heaven and on earth; and among the irrational, the gregarious associations; and among the inanimate, the mutual habitual affinity of natures: all things, therefore, are united with the Beautiful, turned by participation toward the Author.

And "the End of all." God is called the end of all things, both as containing all things, and as holding them all together for their security, and as though all things were produced for His sake, and were not in need of anything else for their perfection. Whence, as He is called the beginning of all things, as Author, so is He also called the middle, as granting the extension of consistency, and the end, as that in whose will existing things are terminated, toward which they are also turned. Consequently he calls Him also "final," as being both beginning and end, according to the divine John in the Apocalypse, and "exemplary," as having taken the predeterminations of all future things into Himself even before He produced them, as the Apostle says, "whom He also predestined," and what follows. For these the holy Dionysius thought of as "exemplars"—namely, that the things to come were foreknown in Himself and before they were brought forth, that is, before they were defined and distinguished by the single foreknowledge of God which contains all things. These you will find also in the following fifth chapter. Note, however, that he says the beautiful is the same as the good. ^B

"And that which is not." How can that which is not participate in the Good? For if it does not subsist, it has neither desire nor communion with any of the things that exist. We must say, therefore, that this divine man thinks of "that which is not" in different ways. For sometimes he calls the Divine itself thus, as being none of the things that exist, and sometimes [he calls] matter [thus]; and there are times when he also calls evil thus, according to different notions. It is possible, therefore, to say that matter participates in the Good insofar as it is changed into form and is delivered from its former shapelessness; or that evil participates in the Good, insofar as it desires that which is seen to be evil by a good volition, and because it always desires that evil should exist—and everything that desires to exist desires the Good. ^C But above, two pages ago, he says that God is even "beyond things that exist." Therefore, one might well say that God is beyond things that exist, and that "that which is not" participates in the Good, since He is above things that exist and is none of the things that exist. It is necessary to note how he says that "that which is not" is found to be beautiful and good when it is spoken of regarding God; for God is called both "existing" and "not existing," ^D

^A since He is nothing of those things that are, but is uplifted beyond all things in an unknown manner; for there is nothing that knows according to what God is.

Substantial existences. "Substantial" is well applied; for existences, according to the Scriptures, are superior to essences; but now, since he is speaking of created things, he has justly added "substantial" to "existences." Unitions are spoken of, not because they were heaped together to effect some one thing, but because God was their fount and principle, and from Him all beings were produced, shining forth and subsisting by delegation, ^B so as to appear even in the distinctions of subsistences. Identities are the powers of intelligibles, which are able to lead upwards and unite with God, as are also likenesses; since they are also from Him and cling to Him. Diversities, however, insofar as diversity leads downwards and is divisive, is multiplied in the subjects and the final progressions of the divine will into visible things. Dissimilarities, again, because that which is created would be something other than the Creator in all things, and not similar. Further, communions are the temperings of contrary elements; for all bodies are from the four elements. Coherences are the arrangements—in the same order of worlds, both visible and intelligible—in the descent, multiplied from one matter and essence into stable bodies, and holding onto one another like a chain; from these come thoughts, and what follows. But unmixings of united things are as in the community of the human race, and the property of each individual human; for by the common reason of essence we are all united, but by the property of each one, ^C we have that which is unmixed.

All stations. He says that there are three stations and motions, which he also enumerates—of minds, and souls, and bodies; it is necessary, therefore, to understand them fittingly. Minds, therefore, stand and are moved, as Esaias says, and Ezechiel regarding the Seraphim and Cherubim, since they are the ones ascending and descending, as Moses says; for to be turned unceasingly toward God, and to cling to Him in intention, even if they are sent away and descend to inferior things, so that they may provide for those needing help, this itself is to stand firmly in the vicinity of God, and to be moved toward generous offices. ^D They are moved also when thinking of superior things, and they stand while they are understood by those of lesser degree as intelligibles, remaining in their own identity; for they are their own protections and mansions, and they dwell in themselves, and are indeed turned toward themselves, and cannot be divided into things that are alien from the worship of God. And so all the more imperfect things are turned toward the more excellent. But the motions of minds and souls are borne in a circle and orbit, just as Ezechiel also says; since they go forth from themselves and return into themselves, even if they have not departed from themselves. And these

^A things are understood in regard to incorporeal beings; but rest and motion shall be understood in regard to bodies, with the matter remaining in the subject, but having been moved into the modes and changes of bodies, both animate and inanimate.

*Circularly.* Note how the celestial bodies are moved circularly, and in a straight line, and in an oblique fashion; and how the soul’s oblique motion is understood.

*Divine minds are moved* ^B *either circularly, or in a straight line, or in an oblique fashion.*

*The soul’s motion.* Since, as we wrote above, those things that understand are intellectual, and the things understood are intelligible, and the food of those that understand is the intelligible, it is reasonable then, regarding the intellectual soul, that he speaks of its faculties, as it alone understands those things that have preceded it; for this is understood by no one, and it is the lowest of all intelligible things. Faculties, moreover, of the soul are the aptitudes suited for the functions of the senses.

*In an oblique fashion.* ^C You see from this how great is the difference of the soul from intelligible things; for these understand the superior divine illuminations, which are revealed according to their capacity, intellectually and unitively, that is to say, by a swift or simple apprehension of the mind: but the soul understands by reasoning and discourse, that is, being divided into particulars, and learning from participation; for the mind, descending into reasonings, is in a way divided, and needs the reasoning that proceeds through many examples to present the thing being understood, which has gone beyond it. Therefore, ^D the soul acts in a mixed and transitory way, even when it understands intellectually: for this is proper to the soul, when it is led from without to higher things; for it ascends from things alien to it.

*Rational souls are moved either circularly, or in an oblique fashion, or in a straight line.*

*Of these, therefore, and of the sensible things.* Observe that he also says there are three motions of sensible things: the circular, and the oblique, and the straight; and we are induced to understand these from what has been said concerning the soul; the circular, indeed, when sensible things themselves act according to their own powers and qualities; as fire warming, and water cooling, and the rest [of the elements] likewise; but in an oblique fashion, when it acts in a transitory way, as fish from the waters, and birds, and the rod of Moses into a serpent, and such like; but in a straight line, when it returns again to its own principles, as when things that are corrupted, after the dissolution of their nature, are again resolved into the elements.

*And motion.* One might be led to understand motion in sensible things as alteration and corruption: for from what constitutes the state, it signifies the generation of these, it is manifest.

^A *Propter quod status omnis. Propter quod est bonum et pulchrum.*

*Omne unum, et multitudo.* How shall the "all-one" and "multitude" be understood? Suppose the whole universe to be a great tree, which in its living parts, as it were in trunks and stems, and in the parts of parts, as in branches, twigs, and leaves, lives in some fashion (for if you consider each of these as an animal perfect in itself, which preserves in the whole the unity and order according to which the tree itself lives in itself and with its parts; so live those things which understand intelligently and rationally, or with ratiocination, while brute creatures live sensitively, and inanimate and spiritless things naturally and habitually), and living in itself, as I have said, that each thing lives, and the parts with the whole universe, you will recognize the structure and intimacy of the whole in the one, and likewise in the multitude, with each living its own proper and fitting life, as we have said. And again, if all things are from the one and only God, they are rightly called one on account of the connection and structure, and many on account of the varied species of individuals.

*Definitionem.* ^B Definitions are discourses which explain the nature of individual things, and declare the genus, the difference, and the species.

*Principium exemplare.* The exemplary cause or principle is that with a view to which something (similar to it) is made. And this is either the idea, which is the perfect and eternal intellection of the eternal God, or an eternal exemplar existing in nature, with respect to which things exist; for ideas and exemplars are incorporeal. The final cause or principle is that for the sake of which something is perfected; or the final cause is that which cannot be separated from the effect, or that from which, existing, something is made, as the matter of the universe. But God has produced even this. The efficient cause is that which is separated from the effect, as God, and everything from which something is made. ^C

*Et omnia quæ non sunt.* How things that are not are in the Good, understand it thus: namely, because privations are in Him superessentially; for I would not call privation a substance, such as unoriginate, incorruptible, immortal, and the like; for God is not identical with these, since He exists before them; for from Him it is known what these are; indeed, we do not know what God is not—or how He is ineffable and incomprehensible—for these are not His principle, but are from Him. He Himself, therefore, is the author even of nothing, since all things are posterior to Him, according to the cause of existing and not existing: for ^D

^A His being is nothing, as a privation; for it has existence, but nothing of those things that are by existing, and it is nothing, yet while it is, it is by existing and supra-existing, existing as all things as Creator, and as nothing existing as transcending; or rather, it is super-transcending and super-essential. Read also in the previous folio my observation regarding "non-being."

And the inferior [converge] toward the superior. I noted also above in the first chapter something similar, namely, that inferior things are always turned toward those that are above them, as things contained and provided for by them; and those on the same level commonly love those on the same level, and absolutely all things love one another and themselves; and God Himself loves all things, so that He may make all things good.

For He Himself is the benefactor. He speaks wonderfully, that good love, pre-existing in the Good, did not remain barren, but the Good brought forth love, through which we desire the beautiful and the good; for the divine nature is active and generative, according to that which is said: "My Father is working until now, and I am working" (a). Note from this the divine motion; for love of the good moved the Divinity to providence, to our creation, ^B so that He who was moved might also act, and not remain barren; from this you will also understand that which is said, "the monad having been moved," and the things that follow which are said by the theologian Gregory in the first [oration] on the Son.

Generative excellence. That is, He brought forth creation, so that around it He might exhibit the offices of lovely motion.

§ XI. And let no one think of us. Note that one must not use discordant names [concerning God], unless they are also found in divine Scripture, as he now says regarding "love"; and that one must not attend to the words, but to the power of the intent; for He sets them forth divinely.

By other equivalents. That we are not prohibited from uttering words through other words signifying the same thing. [Note that he says "motherland" and "fatherland" are the same.]

One must know. Why we use syllables and words; consider the reading. For what he wishes to say is this: when we set in motion outward speech, [doing so] about one of the sensible things, then we have need of words, and syllables, and elements, and writing, for the declaration of what is spoken; but if the soul of itself is moved toward the intelligible things by right operations, the senses along with the sensible things are superfluous; for it imagines ^C lofty things: when, however, it has become godlike, progressing by way of small elevations, and has its perceptions in accessing the unapproachable light through an unknown union, then even the intelligible operations are superfluous, as also the senses, since the soul thinks of things higher than these, having thereafter been united to God; but when it imagines things creeping on the ground or earthly things, and strives to be moved about some one of the sensible things, then it is necessary to seek clearer words and those things that are more transparent than what is visible.

^A Just as the intellectual powers. Note that the mind and the soul are different things. By intellectual powers he means the perceptions, which are lower and a fragmentation of the mind. When, therefore, the soul wishes to look up to God and, as far as possible, be united with Him, it must turn its eye—that is, the mind itself—away from particular things and leap up toward more universal things. Particular things are the perceptions, as we have said. For then, when the mind has become a whole and has turned inward, having finally become a unity and a simplicity, it will be able to attend to the divine rays through a praiseworthy state of unknowing, not the kind of ignorance that arises from a lack of skill, but that which knows that it is ignorant of the things concerning God which are incomprehensible. It will know, enjoying the divine radiances, not through sensible eyes—for He is not apprehended by these—but by those visionary-less states of the mind.

^B Clearer than the senses. He explains what are the clearest of the sense-based modes of transport, and says that they are the most plain words and the most manifest of visible things.

They will be able. The senses, obviously.

§ XII. Although it seemed to some. That charity signifies love, and that the name of love is more divine.

Let them hear. Note that even then there were some who criticized names, whom he silences from Holy Scripture.

Divine Ignatius. And from this point, some think they can opportunely attack the present book as not being by the divine Dionysius, because they say Ignatius is later than he; yet how can someone remember those who are later? This, too, is a fiction that seems valid to them; for the holy Paul, who enlightened Dionysius, was later in time than the holy Peter, ^C after whom Ignatius becomes bishop of Antioch, once Peter had departed for Rome. But the holy Paul survived for a long time, having enlightened Dionysius, and Dionysius lived after him. Furthermore, John the Evangelist is exiled under Domitian to Patmos, to whom Dionysius writes in return; but Ignatius suffers martyrdom before Domitian, so that he is older than Dionysius.

My love. It must be investigated how, when Ignatius is discoursing with Onesimus, who was after Timothy, and writing to the Romans, "My love has been crucified," Dionysius, now writing to Timothy, makes mention of this, as if Ignatius had already written it. And perhaps it was added from the outside by some scholar, for the greater confirmation of the things said by the holy Dionysius concerning divine love, and later was inserted into the text through ignorance—a thing we know to have happened frequently in many cases; for indeed, without this part, the body of the discourse is constituted whole, and is complete. Or perhaps it was a maxim familiar to him, as ^D the term "God-bearer" was also frequently spoken and written by him. A proof of this is its absence; for he writes to some, that is to say, [alt-version omitted]

to the Romans, but simply, *But the divine Ignatius writes.*

And in the introductions

[α] That love (agape) signifies desire (eros), and that the name of desire is more divine.

[β] *To divine things rather.* Why do the theologians attribute true desire more to divine things?

[γ] *The multitude.* Note that one must also use terms according to the capacity of the multitude; he says, moreover, what desire does, and speaks of two desires: the divine and the divisible, or that which is proper to the body.

[δ] *As harder.* Meaning, as being censured.

[ε] *He fell, someone says.* David speaks of Jonathan in the first book of Kings.

[ς] *It is set down by the sacred writers.* That love and desire are one and the same, and what the efficacy of desire is.

[ζ] *Of one tempering/mixing.* That is to say, of one that mixes together those things that love one another.

[η] *On account of the beautiful.* Which he said above, that divine desire, pre-existing in the Good, brought forth the desire in us, through which we desire the Good.

§ XIII. [θ] *Ecstatic.* Concerning the ecstatic nature of desire, David also says: *I said in my ecstasy* ^B.

*He who has gone out of himself.* Note how this is to be understood: *He who has gone out of himself to God.*

*We must be bold.* That even God desires all things.

*Hence also a zealot.* In what sense God is called a zealot, as the lover of the salvation of all.

§ XIV. *What then in general.* He calls God himself the producer and generator of love (agape) and desire (eros); for he himself led forth these things, which were within him, to the outside—that is, the creatures—and according to this it is said: *God is love* (1 John 4:16), and in the Canticle it is likewise called love; and again, sweetness and longing, which is desire. ^C But he himself is that which is truly desirable and truly lovable. Inasmuch, then, as amatory desire flows from him, he who is its generator is said to be moved; but inasmuch as he himself is that which is truly lovable and desirable, he moves those things which look toward this, and to whom the power of desiring is appropriate.

*Lovable and beloved.* Understand that God has the power of leading [us] toward an amatory communion in the Spirit—that is, he is the mediator of this, and through himself the reconciler, so that he himself may be loved and cherished by his own creatures; but he says ^D he possesses the power of causing to move, or as the one moving each thing according to its own rationale.

^A Furthermore, the name "promotion" (proagōgē), even if it signifies among the profane an impure thing, here denotes the intercession which conciliates union with God.

And by it he is moved. Note the divine motion, in which he is moved, and God himself is both the promoter and the one who causes movement.

And of the set-apart one. The loving union toward God is set apart from and transcends every union; therefore he calls it "set-apart" meaning the more transcendent one; and he calls the divine love beginningless and endless, as proceeding from the Good and returning to the Good in a circular figure. For the line of the circle also has no known point where it began and where it ended; for the desire of the Good comes from Him, and looks back to Him again; and the act of loving the connatural goodness, and of those things straining toward the Good, both exists and remains within Him.

Loving motion. That the loving motion, pre-existing in the Good, being simple and self-moving within the Good, and proceeding from the Good, returns again to the same, being endless and beginningless, which explains our desire toward the Divine. Note, however, that he says it is an eternal circle within the Good, proceeding indeed to the intelligible and sensible things, but returning again to itself, never standing still, nor ceasing.

From the holy Hierotheus

^B § XV. On Love. Observe how the great Hierotheus philosophizes most excellently concerning the praiseworthy love; first, indeed, calling it divine, since God is pre-eminently and without cause the first author of celestial love; for if love is charity, as has been said before, and it is written that God is charity, it is manifest that God is the love, or charity, that makes all things one. From there, therefore, it proceeds transitionally to the angels, whence he also calls it angelic, where one might especially find the divine love of unity; for there is nothing discordant or seditious among them. ^C Then after the angels, he speaks of the intellectual love, that is, in men wise in divine things, who are of the Church: of whom Paul says: "That the same may be said," and the rest; and the Lord: "That they may be one, even as we are one." And these things indeed relate to true Christians; but afterwards he speaks of all men, in whom is the law of friendship; he termed rational souls "intellectual" because he called them such from the divine mind; but he called "animal" love the sensible friendship of ^D brutes, devoid of mind, of course: for by this power of love, both birds fly in flocks, such as swans, and geese, and cranes, and ravens, and such like; and terrestrial ones are likewise such, deer, oxen, and those things akin to them; and swimming ones too are such, like tunnies, and mullets, and those things that are of this kind.

^A And those which are not gregarious are also moved from this source toward a union of their peers. He calls "natural" the love of those things which are inanimate and without sensation, love which is by a habitual aptitude or quality for the Creator, for the reason that they were produced by Him; according, therefore, to the vital or natural motion, these too are turned toward God.

§ XVI. *Since from the One.* We said also above that intellectual beings are those which understand, while intelligible beings are those which are understood, and that without seeking, intellectual beings are surpassed by intelligible ones; whence it follows that what is understood is nourishment for those which understand; therefore, intellectual things love intelligible things as being turned toward them and as if having ascended; and intelligible things also love intellectual ones, providing for them by sharing an equal benefit. It is admitted, therefore, that the loves of such things surpass the loves of sensible things. But these, I think, are called intelligible and intellectual because they have become such by participation in the true Good. But the self-intelligible loves are divine, that is to say, they are of God; for just as there is a good to someone, and another thing is good simply and is the Good itself, so too there is that which is intelligible—either that which is intelligible to someone, in so far as it is understood by him, or that which is intelligible simply—not like time or place; for these also are intelligible, since they are not sensible, but as an intellect of intelligible things, being operation, and living, and life; for the intelligible things that follow thereafter, they find through inquiry and the sequence of propositions, or possess them through revelation. ^C

*Incomprehensible cause.* Regarding "incomprehensible," he says it is the absolute, which has no connection, or natural affinity, with the whole.

§ XVII. *Total love of all.* By speaking of total love, he also declares the particular ones, saying that God is the total and the particular, as an agent and as one providing to all, according to the capacity of each, an amatory grace, as it were. How then can God be the whole and the part, remaining within Himself without departure? This will be clear from the seminal principle: for when the seed is cast into the womb all at once and without interruption, one embryo is brought to completion; but if the seed is divided into various cells of the womb, each part brings a complete embryo to perfection; and there will be in the seed one part for the nose, another for the eyes, and so on, and all are perfect. The same thing, therefore, must also be considered by analogy ^D regarding the all-perfect Mind; for the whole operation includes also the parts; and the parts are each perfected individually; and one is justice itself, another fortitude itself, and so on; thus they are neither confused with one another, but each is distinguished, nor do they have their conjunction with a disturbance of order, as each of them participates as it can: for each of the species participates according to its own aptitude; thus also God is both the whole and parts of love.

^A § XVIII. *It desires Him indeed.* Since he said that non-being also desires the good in some way, and wishes to be in it—which you will find him saying also a few pages above, although it is clarified by the dogmas of the Gentiles—for he fights especially against the Gentiles and the Manichaeans who are heads of the evil dogma; it is necessary to explain at greater length what is called *non-being*, and why it is pious and necessary to assert one principle of things. For it is sound to think thus; for this is God Himself; since if there were diverse principles, they would appear to be of an infinitely infinite multitude. If, therefore, God is the one principle, so also is that which is truly being, and the good itself. But reason will necessarily find the opposites of what has been said; for where there is a principle, there will necessarily also be an extreme; and if there is *being*, there will also be *non-being*; and if there is good, there will also be evil. But since beings are essences and forms, non-being would be formless and lack essence, conceivable by reason alone. This *non-being* and *formless* the ancients called matter, which they also termed extreme deformity. Matter truly is called *non-being*, not because it is absolutely nothing, but because it is *not*, for the truly *being* is God, and the good itself: for matter also was produced by God from non-beings, but not as some opined, without form and figure; and therefore matter is not the principle of sensible things, but is rather to be called the capability to complete them, and a certain extreme and foundation of beings. Wherefore it is neither an image of God, as rational things are, nor a likeness of that which is truly being: but the sensible is a likeness of that world which is truly intelligible, which sensible thing is not without matter, but is more excellent than matter, participating somewhat in form; therefore, matter will never be shown without form and the qualities which are habits; for when was fire without heat, or light, or white color, or water without cold or moisture, or a sky-blue color? Earth and air likewise. For this reason I also said that matter is conceived by the intellect as formless, and without quality and figure: for from the time when visible and invisible things existed, they were produced by God from non-beings, clearly, not with formless matter underlying them, and then being adorned, as the divine Moses teaches. Therefore matter is in God, inasmuch as it was produced by Him; but as the Good, enveloping all things, it is understood as superessential in Him; you will find these things inserted here and there in what is to be said. ^B

How the multitude of demons.

*The form of the good is lacking.* He rightly and accurately placed *good-like* in the angels. For God, existing essentially as the Good itself, but things after Him, as if from participation and from an external appetition for Him, are made good, and are deservedly described as referring to the form of the good, ^C although they are not in reality good.

*And how the good.* See how he brings forward propositions by way of disquisition; for they contain indeed the oppositions of adversaries, such as the Manichaeans, while at [the same time] revealing

the right scope of this divine man. For he says, from what principle was the evil produced? And if from another cause, and all such things as adversaries are accustomed to allege: then subsequently, how the Good willed to produce it; and how evil is yet under providence; showing from these things that, if the evil had any production at all, it had it from the Good; and that Providence alone governs the whole, so that from this it follows that there is one good principle for things that exist. These things this divine man also examined in the Problems; for as he proceeds, he clearly resolves the problems, showing that evil is neither substantial, nor in nature; but comes to be by a privation of the good, and is neither being, nor conceived as non-being. And he suggests this by what is said in the thirty-sixth Psalm: I saw the wicked exalting himself like the cedars of Lebanon, and I passed by, and ^B behold he was not, and I sought him, that is, his place, and he was not found; for this declares that evil, even if it be greatly exalted, yet it is not, nor will it leave its own place, that is to say, its trace; for as soon as it appears it is dissolved, having no subsistence; therefore, do not assume that he calls it something contrary.

§ XIX. Evil is not from the Good. Note how admirably he weaves the solution from various arguments.

The scope of beings.

And if all things. We said above, if God is called superessentially being, as being without principle and the cause of all, [must we not also consider] the opposite, as the extreme of beings, and as lacking substance, being ^C that which is opposite to the superessential God—that is, matter, which is called non-being, and yet is said to be in God, having come into existence through His goodness, even if, on account of its commixture with sensible things, it is not entirely evil, nor entirely good, as is shown by its instability? For indeed evil has in the unstable a portion of the good, since it was produced by God and is in God. But pure evil (I do not mean malice, which as form and quality is present to and absent from the rational nature, but the evil that is simply so) is neither among things that are, which in any way desire the good, nor among those that are not, in the sense of being understood in the superessential [God] like those in material things; but even of that which is not, which is matter, the evil is further removed ^D from the good, and is therefore reasonably more devoid of essence than matter, being as it were absolutely non-being. Therefore, evil simply as such is in no way whatever; but that which belongs to matter is [evil] by the deficiency of goodness, insofar as it is also perceived as being without sense and without form; whence you will also understand the saying of the prophet Obadiah: And they shall be as though they were not, referring clearly to the sinners.

^A Whence, therefore, is evil? Here, proposing an opposition, he carries out a defense at length, as if relying on a plausible argument; for if we do not concede that there is something contrary to the beautiful—that is, evil—virtue will not be seen as good, but all things will be inextricably mixed together, neither praised by virtue nor reproached by its contrary, just as, if there were no law, there would be no sin. But now the opponent says: If we do not grant that evil is contrary to the good, the good itself will be contrary to itself in those who sin through a deficiency of the good. Moreover, even before the operation of virtue in a man gifted with virtue, we observe the vices in his soul to be distinguished from virtue; for when the rational part of the soul is operating in its own proper way, it is hindered from no good thing; but when the irrational part of the soul, which is mixed with matter and body, prevails, then the rational part is hindered from operating properly. ^B Therefore, the irrational part is corrupted by the commingling with matter; but the rational part is corrupted not by being mixed with matter, but by inclining toward matter—that is, by yielding to the irrational and not mastering it—just as an eye, when there is darkness, is prevented from seeing. Therefore, this does not show whether that which is evil subsists by itself. For that which is evil to someone is not thereby evil in itself, but malice is also a species and an accident arising from evil; for it is by additions that this or that is constituted. For example, iniquity is a vice of the soul, and again, the species of iniquity are defined by the matter of the appetite; for one occurs regarding money, another regarding honors. Through this addition, there arise species of evils also from the parts of the soul; for instance, fear and boldness arise from the irascible part, while intemperance and stolidness from the concupiscible. ^C Species of evils arise also from operations; for fear is, as it were, a deficiency of spirit in attacking, while boldness is an excess of spirit in attacking, and intemperance is in suffering. It is clear, therefore, how even in the soul, before operations, sins are distinguished from virtues within the rational and irrational parts of the soul. These things—those of the irrational part—show us another law warring against the mind, as the Apostle says, and, if it is not checked, taking captive the rational, as we have shown. *By reason.* That is, with the rational part of the soul. *And if there is a corruption of things.* That is, if in things themselves a being corrupted is discerned, or if some of the things that exist are subject to corruption, from this it is shown that evil exists; for the phrase "that does not cast out" signifies this. *Is it not frequently.* These things also pertain to the opposition, namely, that evil exists and persists even more in things. ^D For even if evil is the corruption of things, yet this corruption itself is something else that leads to generation; just as an egg is indeed corrupted, but is transubstantiated into a bird; and the bean, when consumed, and in the

earth is hidden, it is transfigured into the form of an embryo; and our bodies into worms; and other animals, and ten thousand other similar things, such as the generation of wasps from horses, and bees from bulls.

^A And there shall be evil. Solution of the proposed arguments: if corruption is evil, and corruption also corrupts evil, how will evil itself be [evil], while it corrupts itself? For if evil is in matter, it is manifest that it is most corruptible; but it is matter, and this corrupts itself; wherefore matter is also called lacking in essence in opposition to the super-essential essence of God, as it is itself corruptible, and does not always exist, and is called formless in opposition to the form of God, as Moses called the creator the Word. And matter is also called "not being" in opposition to the divine existence according to essence.

§ XX. ^B Or evil. That is, "insofar as evil."

Rather, note that even in divine discourses the tradition derived from the reasoning of the more precise [arguments] is not forbidden; for behold, as you see, after the exposition of the former opinion, he delivers more precise [teachings] by way of reasoning.

And simple and complete. Simple goods, and entirely perfect, indeed originate from the Good for the super-cosmic intelligible beings, inasmuch as they are incorporeal; but mixed goods are observed in rational bodies, that is, in us, [in] the irrational part of the soul, as has been said, participating in matter through the body which participates in form; but the rational part, inclining toward the irrational, and sometimes yielding to it, and on that account leaning toward matter; for one must contemplate what is evil-in-itself [as] self-infinite, self-unmeasured, self-formless, evil-essentially-in-itself, and not evil to another; ^C for this is a form and accident of malice. Therefore, it is necessary for evil to be something of such a kind, as I said, just as God is the self-limit, the self-measure, the self-form-maker, and the self-good essentially of all things; for I am not speaking now of "good-to-another"; for this is accidental; how then will evil be essentially [evil], and [also] to others, when all things that have existence are mixed and have their being in the Good, with nothing being entirely devoid of the Good, but all things participating in the Good according to their own fitness? Evil, therefore, is not in existence, but appears in an incursion, in the privation of the Good.

It extends even to the extreme. ^D By "the extreme" one must understand material and earthy bodies; for just as God is the beginning of all, as we have said, so the extreme of all things is this dreg-like, thick, and earthy part of matter; whence it is also called the footstool of God, as being the extreme, and yet participating in his goodness, as it also bears him as the final point; for Wisdom also says: "For this earthy tabernacle weighs down [the mind."

that muses on many things," because the irrational part of the soul is mixed with material body, and sometimes dominates the rational part of the soul.

^B Adest bonum. For as much as creatures descend into the thicker and more material, by so much do they participate less in the good, according to privation and defect, as from an obscure and extreme emission of the voice; for, as we have already said, suppose someone calling out loudly, and those who are near and have the capacity of hearing receive the whole voice and know also that which is announced; but those who are at a distance, in proportion to the distance, hear the sound less; and those who are very far away perceive it most obscurely, as if they grasp but little of the sense of a sound that is uttered at the very end.

Et ipsam sui privationem. That which is not altogether deprived of the beautiful, but partially, even that itself which is deprived of the good, is made to subsist, by participating in the good in some way at all; for it is not a partial, but a complete and total defect of the good, that is evil.

Illa etiam, quæ illi contraria sunt. Observe how he says that those things which resist the force of the good, subsist and are conserved through it. Is God, therefore, the author of evils? God forbid! For God, as the principle and creator of all things, because of the excess of his goodness and his ineffable charity, sustains even sinners, that he may show his own kindness and the free will of his creature; for it is said: "Charity covers all things" (g); and again: "Who makes his sun to rise upon the just and the unjust" (h).

Quod autem omnimode. His proposition is to demonstrate that there is no essence which is simply evil in itself; and he says that nothing of existing things and of created things fails altogether to participate in the good; for those things which are entirely empty of the good, since they would not have been produced by the good, do not exist at all: for who else is the artisan? But neither can anything subsist which does not participate by accident in some habit or quality of the good. Many things, indeed, deprived of a congenital habit or quality, subsist: such as iron made fiery, and having participated in extreme heat, when the fire is extinguished, it remains what it was; and water by itself is indeed said to be an element without quality, but while it penetrates earth, it is endowed with quality from thence, and yet when derived elsewhere, it is deprived of that quality, and still it subsists; so also snowy things and cold things, upon the ceasing of the cold, still subsist. But ^D even those things which lack (sensitive) life, such as trees and stones and stars, and those which lack mind, such as cattle, nevertheless subsist. God also, since he is superessential, is removed from essence, and yet he is and exists; but it is not permitted to speak thus concerning the good; for unless it participates in the quality of the good, in which it is necessary for it to consist, it cannot subsist: "For in him we live and move and have our being," as the Apostle says (i). What then? Is the intemperate man, while he is intemperate,

^A deprived of the good? And yet he subsists. He says, however, that while he is intemperate, because he is deprived of the good, he is not properly in the good, nor does he desire anything real; for what is intemperance in itself, without the form of intemperance? Yet, because in his false opinion he thinks that he possesses some good, and is united in an affection with that which is corrupted along with him—even if the affection seems to be a corrupted one—it is nonetheless a dim echo of divine love, and through the good, he possesses a fantasy of it. For one must not be ignorant that, when the rational part of the soul is mastered by the irrational part, it is indeed prevented from performing its proper functions, and henceforth it so agrees with the irrational that it neither restrains its impulses nor approves its actions. For false opinions are not the opinions of the rational part, nor are false understandings the understandings of the rational part; for false things are not properly understandings. ^B Hence also the irascible man sometimes attacks erroneously; yet he is not devoid of the good, since he judges that wrath should be used for the correction of the one being punished, and thus the obscene man suspects pleasure to be the good end. From this, therefore, even those who oppose God are permitted to exist by the good; for that which is not deprived of the beautiful, but is only deprived of the good in part, causes it to participate in some good absolutely. For it is not a partial, but a total lack of the good that is evil; and that which is not partially, but totally deprived of the good, this neither was, nor is, nor will be, nor can be.

^C *Neither does it desire real things.* That the intemperate man, even if, insofar as he is intemperate, he neither is, nor desires anything real, yet by the very form of union and affection, faintly participates in the good.

*Toward that which appears to be good.* Note that he who makes bad use of wrath is also said to participate in the good, in that he is moved toward the correction of things that seem evil; so too does the most wretched man, that is, he who desires the most wicked life, participate in the good in that he desires a life which appears to him to be the best. And he who pursues evil, in that he seems to be doing what is good, participates in the good.

*Inasmuch as also disease.* Disease, clearly, is a deficiency of health and an excess of material bodies, having neither measure nor order, but is caused by the intemperance of one of the matters stirring up a rebellion above the well-ordered temperament, thus creating the disease. ^D To that extent, therefore, is disease in the body, insofar as order is in any way lacking and the body [still] consists; for if there were total lack of measure, it would dissolve the body, that is to say, the order of the matters, and the disease would disappear as the body in which it had consisted was dissolved. So too, regarding the good, insofar as it is preserved in us, we have the power of doing even evil; for if the good departs, neither is it possible to find evil in us.

*For that which is altogether devoid.* The intention of the divine Dionysius is clear from many things: fighting against the opinions of certain Greeks concerning evil, he says that it does not exist.

^A For evil itself, in its essence 92, could not exist in its absolute integrity, unless it were, by a total deficiency of the good, entirely deprived of it. But this is nowhere to be found, nor even in formless matter itself, although this might seem so to some of the Greeks; for whatever has been produced by God at all, even if obscurely and in the last degree, yet shares in the good. This he demonstrates perfectly in the tenth chapter of this treatise as he proceeds; for if evil were mixed with the good—that is to say, if it were non-being in some places through a slight deficiency of the good, and non-being in others because the One who creates exists—this would not be evil; for evil does not consist in just any deficiency, but in the total deficiency of the good. Therefore, that which falls short of the good by only a little is not evil; for it can also be perfect according to its own nature; for it is indeed something that is deficient with respect to the good, but perfect with respect to its own nature, which is indeed good, but by no means evil, even though it shares in a deficiency with respect to the primary good. But that which is not entirely devoid of the good, but approaches more to evil, is not entirely evil; just as that which approaches less to the good has something of the good and derives its substance from it; and ^B it bestows being upon its own privation, while it struggles 94 for the good. For if it were purely and entirely an absence of the good, it is certain that it would then not be good at all, nor mixed good, nor evil in itself; for where the good is not, neither is there anything in nature; how therefore will there be evil, which is endowed with essence by nothing? For remove bodies and light, and shadow will then not exist. Therefore, that which is simply evil does not exist in itself, but as in a subject; but the good, even without a subject, has a nature and is preserved, and is that good in itself; but evil cannot exist without a subject which is kept by the good; for all things outside of this neither are, nor appear, nor suffer corruption; for how could they, when no subject exists? But it lacks existence entirely, and is nowhere. ^C And it bestows substance. That is, it causes evil to be a substance. For if evil is a privation of the good, and the good causes the privation of itself, it surely causes evil to exist, which is a privation of the good. By the communication of itself entirely. By a particular participation of the good, even its privation is made to exist. When to others indeed it is evil. These are the species of evil, as we have said before; for the essential, absolute evil, which does not exist. For that something should be "evil"—that is, to cling to base pleasure as to some good—is not evil in itself, but a species of evil; for that which is entirely evil does not exist, since by existing it would share, even if in the extreme trace, in the good; for see what he says further on: for if all things share in the good, and in all those things that are ^D there is the good, then evil, clearly, either does not exist, or

it exists in the good; for it is not the nature of fire to cool; but if it were to begin to cool, it would not be fire. Therefore, evil too, if indeed it subsists, participates obscurely in the good; for all existing things are in the good and remain there; but if it has nothing of the good, it does not even subsist; for the very desire to subsist belongs to the participation of the good, as has been said many times before.

§ XXI. *Absurd and impossible*. Note that it is rightly said even of God, in some respects, that He cannot, as the Apostle also says: If we believe not, He abideth faithful: He cannot deny Himself.

*For all duality*. That all duality is not a principle; but unity is the principle of all duality. Note this against the Manichaeans.

*Altogether opposite*. Observe these things; for he contends very strongly against the Manichaeans, who foolishly teach that duality is the principle of opposites; for the art of numbers refers that which has in numbers a division of multitude to an end, placing the monad as the principle of all number, and the dyad as the principle of even numbers. Therefore, the principle in each class declares that which is most simple. How then shall the dyad be the principle of all things? For the dyad is not a simple principle, but a composite one. Therefore, that which comes from composition is not a simple principle; and how could it be called a principle? For before this composite principle, there will be that which is strictly the principle, namely the One, from which, the units being composed, the dyad was perfected. It is clear from all sides, then, that the dogma of two principles is unsustainable.

*And indeed not two*. That it is not possible for two opposite principles to be the causes of opposite things.

*Nor without distress*. Not unharmed.

*Wherefore also good things are friendly*. Since all things share in the good, and by their very being are moved toward the good, the good and the beautiful are not the first beauty of all things—that of which all things partaking become beautiful, being made like to the beautiful by some manner of participation, although they are made like to the one good and beautiful most obscurely, as though it were expanding and appearing in the nature of beautiful things; whence also all things are very beautiful. But the nature of beautiful things, progressing through a multitude, is shown now also in composite things—which men are indeed most accustomed to call beautiful—with the beautiful being composed in many ways and spoken of in many modes; but the beauty that is in existing things is neither an essence nor a genus, but an accident possessing a certain likeness, which is connected little by little; for beautiful things are not called so according to one form, but in many ways; and they resemble one another only as being similar, even if they multiformly [pertain to the same beautiful in accordance with their own forms].

^A If, however, in God is the Good. That the good in God is essence. Not altogether. Instead of, eternally. In time. Instead of, by communication. § XXII. But not even in angels. Concerning the angels, that evil is not in them either, and why they are called angels. The divine goodness. He calls "divine" those things which are in the nature of those angels who have remained godlike. We said above why he calls the angels "good-formed" and not "good of themselves"; therefore, for these reasons, evil is not in the angels. Moreover, he gives the reason for the name by which they are called angels. Image of God is. Note that he calls the angels images of the Good; and note how he says it. But in that they punish. As if by repelling, he anticipates the opposition of certain heretics, who consider the angels—who are punishers by the command of God—and the very punishment itself to be evil; and immediately he dissolves these things most wisely and ingeniously, even by [the example of] the priests who restrain and expel the wicked and the profane from the Church on account of profane and wicked acts, declaring that neither are those who punish the wicked from evil—far from it! For it has been said: "For he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Note, therefore, the many solutions, since he dissolves the questions of those who say: "Are the executioners and the princes from God?" Who restrain the profane from divine mysteries. Note that the profane must be restrained from divine mysteries by the priests. Nor to be punished. That to be punished is not an evil, but to be worthy of punishment is. [Note concerning the priests and princes who punish the profane.] Indeed not even demons. That not even demons are by nature evil. Then not even this in all things. Note that corruption is not in every instance and always an evil, as in the case of wild beasts, and reptiles, and noxious herbs. But neither does anything perish. That not anything of things that exist is corrupted, in so far as it is essence. But by a defect. Observe that he calls corruption a vicious and inept motion contrary to the order of nature; this, moreover, you have also in Ezekiel concerning the devil, saying: "Thy wisdom hath perished with thy beauty." ^D He mentions the opinion of the Gentiles and those who say that the demons are not by nature evil; then...

VARIOUS READINGS AND CORRECTIONS

^A dissolving that which is said by the Greeks and Manichaeans, [he shows] that demons are not by nature evil; then he sets forth and dissolves the things which are set against him by hypothesis, saying: First, demons do not corrupt essences; for essences, insofar as they are essences, do not pass into non-existence; then, even if this were so, the corruption is not evil for all things nor for all people, as in wild beasts, and crawling things, and poisonous herbs, and other things similar to these. It must be asked, therefore, whether demons corrupt power or efficacy. And meanwhile, it must be said briefly what power is and what efficacy is. It must be known, therefore, that the corruption of power with respect to efficacy is such as is habit with respect to the action according to habit; for habit is an immanent quality. It will be clear thus: fire has a heating power, and its heating property is its habit or quality. ^B It is, therefore, efficacy that is according to the habit or quality, when also some body is heated; for behold, the efficacy of the power of the fire is accomplished. The power, therefore, has the efficacy from itself; for the efficacy is of the power itself, [namely] that which is accomplished from it; for power is taken according to action. Corruption, therefore, is the efficacy of power. Just as, therefore, power is of essence, so also regarding efficacy: that which is a weak movement contrary to order, symmetry, and harmony, according to which, as it proceeds vitiated, they cannot remain as they were—the power, and the efficacy, and the essence; for if it be total, as we have said, it will be weakness, not indeed [only] the partial [weakness] of the things mentioned; and it corrupts the subject in which it is, both the power and the efficacy, and neither the power, nor the efficacy, nor the essence, nor even the corruption itself will escape, those things being destroyed concerning which the corruption is. Therefore, the efficacy of intelligible things, ^C or [beings] which are perceived only by the intellect, and of intelligent minds, is to act according to nature, that is, to be stretched upward to God; but the power of the mind is to descend to thoughts, in which those things which have been said, being moved vitiatedly, fall short of the good. By nature, therefore, there is nothing evil. But it is a deficient good. So as not to introduce the perfect corruption of corruption. ^D Finally, how those from God. Against those who say: If demons were created by God, how are they evil? The solution to the interrogation whether demons are evil is this: and he says that they are not [evil] insofar as they are good according to the production of their essence; for they were brought forth as good by the Good; but insofar as they have become weak in their natural efficacy or operation. And they obtained a good essence. That the essence of demons is good. As the Oracles say. Note how he understands that [passage], "the angels who did not keep their own principle"; for he calls their principle the production whereby they existed; for they too were brought forth for every good work, just as we were. From these, therefore, are the demons, having become evil in this alone, in the cessation of the habit of good things, and in the not performing of the good; so that [their] suffering.

APPENDIX TO THE WORKS OF ST. DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

^A They are evil by choice, but not by nature; for the good is present in existing things by nature; there is, therefore, a great difference. *Habit of divine goods.* Note the terms "habit" and "efficacy": for behold, what he previously called virtue, he now calls habit, as we explained above in the great paragraph. *If, therefore, always.* The demons are not entirely devoid of the good. *For that which is always the same.* To be always the same is peculiar to the good. *But to be evil.* Why are the demons called evil? *Desertion to them.* He calls "desertion" the withdrawal from that which is fitting; and "imperfection" the lack of the perfect, or the deficiency of perfection. ^B *Rash imagination.* What imagination is, we said in the first chapter. *But these things.* Behold also another solution, that evil is not something evil by nature, but by a falling away from the good; for that which is in nature always holds itself the same way and is not cast down, just as the good itself is; but evil is not stable, since it corrupts and alters that which it encounters, as we said; therefore, evil is by no means in nature, just as this divine man affirms it is not in the demons; for if the demons are not always evil, they are not evil by nature, for that which is in nature always holds itself the same way. He demonstrated, therefore, that the demons, insofar as they exist and understand and live and have a desire for the good, are not evil by nature, but by an aversion from the good, in which they also once were. ^C *Nor are they evil in themselves.* Irrational anger in itself, and mindless desire in itself, and rash imagination are not altogether and in all respects evil, when considered in themselves; indeed, sometimes even their destruction harms the animal that possessed them, as he correctly says in the seventh chapter of this book. But he rightly placed the calumnies of the adversaries regarding these habits, because anger is also joined with reason, such as that which is against sin and against the enemies of God; and prudent desire, such as to desire that which is better; and: "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you." So also there is non-rash imagination, by which we apprehend intelligible things, doing this with our mind. *Not affection.* The Greek calls the possession itself "habit" in any manner; but what was said before, I mean anger and the things that were conjoined, have the power of constituting the property of certain animals, and in this respect such things are not evil. ^D *But insofar as it is not.* One must understand "according to nature." *Never themselves.* Behold, in this place he clearly says, the demons...

do not cast away the angelic gifts given to them; that is to say, they do not overturn the good which they possess by nature, although they themselves do not wish to see the light that is in them, having closed their eyes, which have the power to see, as was said concerning the Israelites: ^A *Their eyes they have closed, and with their ears they have heard heavily, lest they should turn, and I should heal them.* Note, however, that the demons are likewise light-like by nature, or rather, they are lights in their essence, just like the other angels; thus also in the Gospels: *I saw Satan as lightning.*

[δ] They are called evil. One ought not to seek what is meant by the word "evil" simply, but rather what it is according to its nature. But that [expression] "insofar as they are not" must be understood thus: they were not created in a depravation of the goods, habits, and actions divinely given to them, for when they set these aside, they became evil—in such a way that, insofar as they are not, they have failed to obtain [true] being.

[α] And concerning "non-being." How those who yearn for what is not, yearn for evil, must be spoken of [thus]: God is Being above all beings, and therefore Truth is Being, since God is Truth. Reasonably, then, that which is opposed to Truth is falsehood, which is non-being; for it is entirely outside of God, nor is it an image of Truth, for it possesses no good from God. But since it persuades some that it exists at all, it will be a dark and feeble image of things that in any way exist. ^B Therefore it is a mere shadow in its action, and a falsehood in its action, that is to say, truly and really a falsehood; whence it is also in its action a non-being, and really a non-being, for while it exists in a way, it is nevertheless not. Therefore, just as in the case of things that are falsely, and in the case of this whole substance of things existing as falsehood, once the falsehood is removed, it takes away the entire essence of the thing; so also the one who loves falsehood, just as the demons do, loves that which is not, and does not stand in that which is—that is, in the truth—as Truth Herself says. Therefore the demons, as Jesus says, being liars and the fathers of lies, neither truly exist, nor do they yearn for that which is, ^C when they yearn for the evil of falsehood.

[β] § XXIV. But if to be corrupted... Note that to associate with the wicked for the sake of providence, that they themselves might also be made good, is not evil, according to what is said: *I became to those who were without law as one without law, that I might gain those who were without law.* I said also above, in the fifth chapter, that there is no absolute privation of good in the things that exist, since there would be an absolute corruption even of corruption itself, but [there exists only] a partial deficiency of good. Therefore, according to this, the soul does not possess evil absolutely, ^D but it will possess one thing and not possess another; and the good is essential, while the evil occurs extrinsically. But even with these things established, someone will say that it is an evil for the soul to be hindered from its own activity which is according to nature. Therefore, even if the hindrance were from without, nevertheless, as

^A a soul prevented from seeing in the darkness will commit evil acts. To which it must be said that, according to what has been said, the hindrance is revealed to be the efficient cause of evil, but not evil itself; for evil is not prime evil, but a species of evil, just as virtue is something that assists toward the good, and not the prime good.

As though evil were some thing.

But as a defect. How evil is to be understood.

^B § XXV. But neither in animals. There is no evil in animals lacking reason, since they are not evil by nature, nor are their dispositions evil, such as anger, desire, or rash imagination.

If indeed you remove them. The dispositions of irrational creatures are natural, just as anger is to the lion and reptiles, and the faculty of barking is to dogs; whence, as they are natural, they are not evil.

§ XXVI. But neither in the whole. Nature is a habitual divine art proceeding toward generation, ^C the effects of which divine art are plants and animals and fruits, and the mutations of elements among themselves, and in general, the essence of the things produced according to itself, which is the principle of motion and rest. Therefore, just as in those who fashion wax in various ways and exercise the arts of fashioning, something must inhere—that is, the reason and mind which expresses its works through the hands—so also in the nature of the universe, something remains in them, that is, the power or faculty, operating not with hands, but [being] the will and counsel of God, proceeding as an art toward the generation of things that arise. For nature does not need some things that remain and others that are moved; for it is matter that is moved in generation. But that which moves it is the Word or the immovable reason which is in the whole, which is the divine art—which we have called nature—existing as a form, but not as from matter and form. For what need has it of hot or cold matter? Matter [once] created carries this in itself; for it is not necessary for fire to approach in order for matter to become fire, but [it needs] the Word or reason. And this is no small sign that there are in animals and plants reasons that cause reason to inhere in nature; but the reasons which are with the forms of the things that are seen are, as it were, the seeds of nature or of the immovable Word or reason inhering in it. How, therefore, [is there] evil in universal nature, when the reasons in creatures are natural, ^D and do not in any way contradict the whole of nature, which is from the Good? If, therefore, it has been demonstrated that universal nature is from the Good, and that the reasons of individual creatures do not contradict the whole of nature, it is evident that neither is there evil in nature; and this is contrary to what is good.

Things which are contrary in the species of creation, whether in temperaments, or in animals, or in other things, are not contrary to nature in themselves, but to others; and that they are moved toward these contrary to nature in a faulty manner is a natural weakness, but this is not evil; rather, it is a defect of order.

Of universal nature.

^A [§] If all. All, he says, the reasons of nature, that is, the causes according to which they have been and are, exist from the divine nature, which, as has been said, he calls universal, since all things have sprung from it; and he called all things created by God universal nature. ^B There is, therefore, nothing in nature which is entirely opposed to the whole of what is; for what is contrary to the nature of one of the beings is the nature of another; and this is good. Therefore, for every nature, not to remain in those things for which it was created is evil; for this he called a deprivation of what pertains to nature, that is, not to fulfill, for whatever cause it may happen, the purposes for which they were produced in generation.

[§] XXVII.

But not even in a body.

[§]

Cause for the soul.

For malice to adhere.

And in bodies evil. What is evil.

[§] XXVIII.

Or that it does not even have that which it can suffer.

Being, but Non-being; for they say that the underlying subject must reach even to the furthest extremes, and therefore they call matter something different from Being and from the Beautiful, inasmuch as it is not even beautiful. Therefore, they say that it has nothing by way of efficacy or operation; but that it is deprived of all those things which occur in it, such as form and quality; for it neither molds itself into a form—such as of heaven, earth, air, water, animals, stars—nor does it produce such, but it is adorned into these things by something else. As, therefore, it is nothing of the things that are in it, namely form and quality, but is only these things in potentiality—that is, it is able to be brought into form and quality, but is not in actuality any of these things—it is rightly called "not-being," since it is not in itself in actuality; and thus, as being formless and qualityless, and not being, and as wanting in all things, it is called by them "evil." ^A

The divine Dionysius, refuting these things, says: How shall matter produce evil, if it is completely lacking in efficacy? For to produce belongs to efficacy; nor is it even able to suffer anything, existing only by itself; for by us it is adorned into form and quality by another; it does not, therefore, suffer when it is solitary. If, however, you say that it is not, since it is absolutely nothing, then it will be neither evil nor good; but if it is some being, it is either from God, or from itself, or from some other principle, and both it and God exist. But if matter is necessary as something that completes the world, how is matter evil? For the definition of the "necessary" is: eternal, true, and as it were useful, just as virtue is useful. Therefore, evil is one thing and the necessary is another. ^B

For evil, in the respect that it is evil. Overturning the opinions of those who say that matter is evil, he says: How, then, from matter is that which is born from the earth—plants and animals—generated and nourished? For these too are from form and matter. How, therefore, does that which is evil in itself generate and nourish, and not immediately corrupt and be corrupted? For this is the habit of evil. Indeed, nor—as we said above that some think—does matter attract souls into wickedness through the irrational part of the soul, because it is mixed in the body with the part of the soul void of reason; for many have mastered this part, as the saints of God have done. Since, however, some of the Greeks say that for this reason heaven and the stars are not corrupted, because they were produced from purer matter, while those things which adhere to corruptible bodies are said to be produced from base and coarser matter, as it is necessarily the lowest of created things—it turns out to be such. ^C For this reason, the lower things are corrupted and are unstable, not being able to be founded and to hold firmly together in themselves, like the heaven and the stars. If, therefore, it has come to be so by necessity, how is matter evil, when, according to us, it has the "necessary" within itself? Therefore, matter is not evil. ^D

Supplementary note

^A § XXIX. Privation by its own power. Privation is not any substantial existence, but occurs in that which is deprived of a form—a form which is capable of being present and strives towards being, as is the case here also; for if the privation of form in matter is partial, there will be something of good in it, insofar as it receives both form and order; and it accepts these as good. But that which is evil in itself admits of no participation in the good, and therefore it does not exist; for total privation so destroys even the underlying body that it can no longer sustain even a disease; whence they have said that it is also devoid of power; but partial privation, as having something of the good, is said to have power.

§ XXX. But insofar as it is not total. A brief definition of evil, that it does not exist in nature, but in a partial defect of the good.

[α] And of the whole cause. He calls the cause of all things the "whole cause." And he said "partial" so that he might take away the "universal"; for a total defect constitutes the privation of existence.

God knows evil. God knows those things which are called evil, sometimes as if they were good. And he calls those things evil now, such as wars, corrective diseases, deaths, and the like; for they are thought to be evil by us, but they are powers of a cause that bestows good; for indeed, through the aforementioned, repentance and the knowledge of God occur, and it became an occasion of piety for many, and in the prophets, evil is called discipline. Read the 22nd chapter.

[β] With him are the causes. The cause of evil in lasciviousness is concupiscence moved contrary to reason. Yet this very concupiscence is a faculty that chooses the good for those who use reason, so that through it they may strive upward toward the true good; but for those deprived of reason, it is for the sake of desiring those things which make for their own preservation.

[γ] But if evil is eternal. This is an argument against the Manichaeans, and an overthrow of their opinion. For even if the heresy had not yet arisen, yet by way of precaution he received by inspiration those things that would overthrow their error. Perhaps these things are also against certain opinions of the pagans.

[δ] Everything that is according to nature. That is to say, the reasons [logoi] of natures are not without order; but that which is defined follows that which is natural; for a definition is a reason explaining the essence of things, and declaring what a thing is—the "what it was to be" being equal in power to the "what it is." Everything, therefore, which is according to nature is from a defined cause, by which cause that which comes to be is produced. If, therefore, evil is without a cause—for it has not come to be through anything—it is deservedly also in a state of indeterminacy; for there is no reason for it that explains what its essence is, for it is not by necessity, nor according to nature. If, therefore, it is contrary to nature, it will not have a reason within nature, just as the lack of art is not in art.

[ε] If indeed by nature. If not by partial privation.

^A If the soul is corrupted by something outside its own essence, specifically by the arrival of something foreign, then it would be the privation of the good within its own essence, and evil would be essential to it. But how then would it be a soul? For it would not be living; it would not possess life; and life is a good. If it is a soul, it participates in the good—that is, in life. Therefore, it will possess the good as essential, and not evil; for this reason it is also called "good-like." Through weakness, however, regarding its own proper nature, it is corrupted in its operation, because it is weak and easily moved toward passions. The weakness of the soul is not, as in bodies, a matter of fatness or thinness in its essence, but rather an inclination toward material and temporal things; hence it is thereafter moved in a disorderly way. ^B Here he calls its "offspring" its deeds. Note that the operation of the soul does not possess immutability, as it is something that comes and goes.

"If by actions." To conclude briefly, this is his meaning: the nature of the soul is good, since it was produced by the Good, and its actions are good; for we see upright men doing what is appropriate for them; evil creeps in from a subversion and defect of the good. Therefore, evil is not in nature, nor does it subsist.

§ XXXII. "If to the good, evil." Many things are contrary to one; therefore, if many things are contrary to the one and good cause, there will be many causes for evil. And if, as we said above, the reasons and faculties are the producers of things natural and appropriate, then the vicious motions of natural things, arising from weakness and a deficiency of faculty, produce things contrary to nature, by which evil also seems to subsist in a certain way. Furthermore, sometimes a disproportionate mixture of dissimilar things produces evil, when either the hot, the cold, the dry, or the moist dominates over the others; hence diseases are often the result. ^C But how can evil consist, while all created things remain as they were made? For these were produced by the motion of the will of God, and they remain motionless in their own proper bounds, standing fast and being terminated in God. But the contrary of these—that is, evil in itself—is not stable, nor does it have a limit, nor is it defined; of all of which we see nothing in the creation. How, therefore, can evil subsist?

"Reasons and faculties." That is, these are not to be understood as being according to any necessary reason of nature, or any essential property. I think he understands by the "mixture of dissimilar things" the movement of natural faculties toward things that are not appropriate—which intemperance produces, when the motions are not compelled by reason to remain within the boundaries in which they were first produced.

"Of all evils also." That the beginning and end of all goods and evils is the Good, since whatever we do, we think we are doing something good; and that evil does not have a subsistence, but rather a near-subsistence, ^D

^A for the sake of the Good, and not occurring for its own sake. We have stated this even earlier, that it is not toward evil that we look when we do this, but rather thinking that we are doing something good, even if the result shows the contrary.

*For the sake of the Good.* This is what he said also in the preceding chapter: because of the Good, since we deem what we do to be good.

*But in reality it is not right.* For desiring according to nature and the habitual power of the Good, we perform ^B sometimes in ignorance of evil, which to us appears good, but in truth is evil. For why? Because, in taking vengeance for someone who has been wronged, we sometimes kill the one who committed the injury, though he is not worthy of death. Understand it in this way, and you will not err.

*It is, therefore, a privation.* He showed in a wonderful way that evil has no subsistence, having demonstrated it to be a privation of things in order and in nature. Privation, however, is not a self-subsistence, as we have said before, but is the absence of that which is fit and tending to be present. Hence he also calls sin—that is to say, missing the mark and a certain falling away from that which is due—the very thing of privation, and "aimless" (askopon), by which he means "casting beside the mark" (para ton skopon), taken from a metaphor of archers; for just as they, hitting the mark (skopos)—that is, the target at which they shoot, ^C which is also called the aim (skopos)—proceed well, so do those who shoot outside the aim miss the mark of what is fitting.

*And sin.* By "sin," do not understand that which is done in us, such as adultery, or injustice, or anything else of that kind; but this is what he wants to say: failing to attain the Good and the movement—or rather, the order—according to nature, we are carried away into that which is contrary to nature, irrational, and absolute, and a privation of existence—hence he says that evil is nowhere in any way.

*Not all things to all.* Divinely he preserved the sub-species of those in the creation; for the intellect, according to which the divine minds are and are entirely immaterial, is superior to the soul. Therefore, the angel who has moved contrary to the Good-bearing intellect has become a demon; but the soul, in so much as it is intelligent and rational, ^D not operating according to reason, which is the mental intellect that has been set beneath it, does not operate its own proper functions; and bodies, which have been set beneath the intelligent reason and are found to be contrary to nature, are not strong in themselves.

*How are evils, then, at all?* If there is providence in all things, evil is nowhere by nature.

§ XXXIII. *But also for those things that are happening.* That God also uses those things that are happening and are considered evil in a good-befitting manner for the correction or benefit of us or others.

*Or of others, or one's own.* Against those who say that we ought to be good even against our will.

*Those who say that providence.* Note how he rebukes those who say: "Why did God not create us in such a way that, even if we wished, we would not sin?" For this is nothing other than to say, "Why [did he not make] us devoid of mind and reason?"

not created us senseless and irrational? For if ^A we had to be led to virtue by necessity, neither would He have shown us to be masters of those things within us, nor would He have allowed our nature to be intelligent—that is, the intelligent soul. For take away our free will, and we shall be neither the image of God nor a soul endowed with reason and intellect, and our nature would be utterly corrupted, not being what it was required to be. The term *autokineton* (self-moving) must be understood as said for those who are in control of their own power and authority—not for those who move themselves, as animals do, in distinction to immovable things like houses and mountains, or those moved by others, like stones and wood. For in discussing virtue, he took up those who move of their own volition, whose providence he calls fitting, such as that through the law and the prophets, and that through benefactions, as the Apostle also declares when preaching to the Athenians.

*Invitos nos* (Against our will). He rightly overturns the reasoning of those who say that it behoved us to be good even against our will and by necessity; for this would be the corruption of our essence, since free will would be taken away.

*Per se mobilium* (Of self-moving ones). Greek: for those who live by their own arbitrium, as the adjacent paragraph declares.

§ XXXIV. *Et mutatio* (And change). Note that even incorporeal and immaterial things change while they do not remain entirely in the identity of the Good; for the Good, as always standing and firm, remains the same; but that which changes does not remain the same. ^B

*In scientia vero peccantes* (Sinning in knowledge). See how he interprets this: "Woe to you who sin with knowledge." And: "The servant who knows the will of his master and does not do it shall be beaten with many stripes."

*Sive scientiae* (Or of knowledge). Perhaps he calls knowledge that which is acquired by instruction, which forgetfulness can frequently obscure, which he also said above arises from hearing; but knowledge that is free from forgetfulness should be considered that which adheres through natural meditation or illumination without a teacher.

*Verum haec quidem nobis* (But these things for us). Note that there is also another work of his concerning just and divine judgment; and note that this chapter contains twenty-three syllogisms ^C demonstrating that evil is not an entity.

IN CAP. V.

§ I. *Non supersubstantialem* (Not the supersubstantial). The ancients called God one, not as the beginning of numbers, but because He is set apart from all things, and has nothing among those things which have been after Him with which He may be numbered, but also because He is devoid of composition and simple; yet this does not represent what the essence of God is, for "essence" is spoken of improperly regarding God, since He is super-essential.

*Substantia deificae principium* (Principle of deifying substance), Gr. *thearchikes ousiarchias*. He calls *ousiarchia* the principle and cause of all essence; for the Godhead Itself ^D is...

supra-essential. And by "Procession," he means the divine efficacy which brought forth all essence.

^A Siquidem nomen boni de Deo. How God is called good. Observe how he says that the Good, that is, His very divine name, extends to all things that are, and to things that are not; but that it is also above the things that are, and extends beyond them; and that Life is above things that live; and that Wisdom extends above things that have intelligence, reason, and sensation—so that it is manifest that the Good, that is, God, is the cause of being itself, and of life, and of wisdom; and conceive that Being is the cause of life and wisdom, in accordance with [the remaining things].

Atque ad ea quæ non sunt extenditur. The Good extends also to things that are not, as if calling them to be; or else according to what else the Father said, that even that which does not exist is good when it is contemplated in God on account of the excess of His essence. He calls things that are not "material," as we have often declared above; or, in this way, since God is not circumscribed by place, he rightly says that He is even above things that are not, so as to show that He is in no way circumscribed. ^B

Et supra viventia. We must note how, when he speaks of angels and men, he calls the angels *noëta* (intelligible), and our own souls *noera* (intelligent), as we have frequently set forth above when expounding the interpretations of "intelligible" and "intelligent." But now, since he is speaking primarily and principally of God, he rightly calls the angels, even as us, *noeroi* (intelligent), inasmuch as they too, by understanding God insofar as is possible, are nourished by this intelligence, for they are turned toward the divine wisdom, even as are human souls; and as for the sensible—that is, the irrational. Yet all living creatures participate in divine wisdom in their natural impulses, as the divine Basil shows in the *Hexaemeron*, and as for that very thing, that all things were made in wisdom, according to the Scripture: "Thou hast made all things in wisdom" (Ps. CIII, 24). Wisdom is the Son, who is; all things, therefore, he says, were made in the Son, who is. ^C

§ II. Manifestatorias. He calls them "manifestatories," that is, manifesting or representing.

Quæ supra omnem bonitatem. Note that we rightly say that it is above all goodness and deity; therefore, by "subordinate deities," understand the deities of angels and just men.

In absconditis. As it is written: "He made darkness His secret place" (Ps. XVII, 12); and again: "In the hidden place of the storm" (Ps. LXXVII, 18). ^D

^A *And they have participated in sensation.* Since a little while before he seemed to speak of a subaltern (derivation), when he said the Good is the cause of that which is, and so on in order, in order that those who read without understanding might not find an occasion for blame, he says: *But the Good is not one thing, and that which is another; and again, it is not one thing for life, and another for wisdom*, for there is one cause of all, and not many, and rightly one Deity that brought forth all things, the holy and blessed Trinity, and not many demiurgic divinities; and he did not say this to no purpose, but rebuking those who are wise among the Greeks, and the heretical followers of Simon, who say that the gods who are fabricators of the world, in proportion as they are lower, are also weaker in producing creatures, even down to the foundation of all things, as they say, that is, matter. ^B *And this indeed is.* He says the appellation of the Good is declarative of perfect providence; but the rest are particular, as life and wisdom and reason; for all things indeed were brought forth to existence through the goodness of God, and they are good, or very good; but not all participate in life or wisdom or reason; wherefore he has set such appellations by way of distinction from the perfect. But he calls those [*Olikoteras*] or more general which are observed in more things, as life; for it reaches even to plants and animals, both rational and irrational; but wisdom and reason are more particular; for these are seen only in the participants of reason.

^C § III. *And wisdom of life.* Since the discourse is somewhat obscure, I think it suggests such a meaning, as if someone were doubting and saying: Why, when the name of Being itself excels the appellation of life, and again the name of life excels wisdom, and the order itself requires this, just as he himself declared a little before by saying, *both Being, and Life, and Wisdom, the cause that makes essence, and makes life, and gives wisdom to the participants of essence, and life, and mind, and reason, and sense*, do we no longer see this order in beings? For according to the degrees stated by you, those that exist ought to approach closer to God than those that live and sense and understand and reason, that is, those that participate in mind and reason; but it is no longer so, but the contrary is the case; as, for example, the heaven, and the stars, and the earth, and the water, and the air, and those things which arise from them are more proximate regarding the providence of God than those that live, even if they live by a vegetative life, such as plants and the like; and those that have senses, that is, those devoid of reason, are closer than those that live; for those devoid of reason are more precious in life than plants and herbs, ^D in that they at least sense while the plants do not sense; but those that use reason are closer to God than those that have senses, and to those that are rational, the minds, that is, the supra-mundane powers, as they are superior to us who use reason, because they approach closer to God in immateriality and understanding.

^A Yet it was fitting that the contrary should be the case, namely, that things which enjoy greater gifts from God should be superior to others, such as heaven, the stars, and the like. And this is the objection; but then the divine Dionysius answers, arranging them by descent and according to preferences, starting from the intellect, and reason, and sense; thus you will find it after one page.

Yet it ought to have been, as regards the greater. ^B He calls those gifts greater which are observed in more things, such as being and life; but those which only participate in these are not seen among the first and more excellent things, but among the more common ones; since those that excel possess also the properties of those below them—namely, to have being and to live—and in this they are superior, even if they are signified by more particular appellations; whereas the latter, the more general ones, do not participate in the properties of the superior ones, that is, wisdom, and reason, and intellection; and in this they are inferior, as participating in lesser, that is, fewer gifts, just as others are more excellent and closer to God because they participate in more.

More excellently do they live than others. Because the things that are superior and closer to God are said to live more than those that have descended below, just as the divine minds live more excellently than us, as being closer to God. Conversely, we, as endowed with reason, are said to live more than irrational animals; again, irrational animals, as endowed with sense, live more than plants, as being destitute of sense and instructed only in vegetative life.

§ IV. Who is of the whole of being. ^C The "being" spoken of concerning God excels the whole of being taken collectively; for this, he says, is "supersubstantial," for "above being produced"—for "being" is essence: for from "to be" the name of essence is derived. Therefore God, as even superior to being itself (for "being" signifies that it was produced from some cause to exist), is understood as being above essence; and therefore He is also called the eternity of the aeons produced by Him; for that which neither was, nor will be, but only is, having this being consistence, not to change in the future, nor on the other hand to have passed from "was" to "is," this is eternity. For not only must all things that are be present to the whole and to all, but also nothing of it that is not elsewhere; for neither did anything accrue to it which had not been before. ^D This, therefore, is the disposition and nature which could be called and would be eternity; for "aeon" is said from "always being." If, therefore, anyone should speak of eternity in this way as an infinite life, in that it is already entirely present, and consumes nothing of itself by having passed away, nor on the other hand by remaining, it would not be "entire"; but it would be close to being defined as to what eternity is. That, therefore, is infinite, which does not fail; and this is properly so, because it consumes nothing of itself: thus, therefore, God is both Aeon, and the maker of aeons. Eternity, therefore, is not the subject, but that which radiates from the subject itself; therefore the intelligible and invisible things are "eternal" according to the Apostle; but the eternal is not the aeon itself, but that which participates in the aeon, that is, in the undistanced and infinite life. As, therefore, the maker of those things which participate in the aeon, that is, in that which always exists, God is called by the likeness of the aeons, having produced...

^A the aeons in place of the intelligible things, being their aeon and container; so also He is called the timeless Time, inasmuch as He is the cause of times. For what the aeon is in the intelligible realm, that is time in the sensible realm. As, therefore, the things seen are images of the invisible and intelligible, and we call "aeon" that stable and total life, infinite and everywhere unwavering, and in one and standing through one; so we speak of time, which rests in that which always is, but appears in a subject when it was necessary for a visible nature to proceed thereafter. We call "time," therefore, the procession of the divine goodness toward the sensible realm to produce these things. For the movement of the intervals into parts, storms, nights, and days is not time itself, but is of the same name as time; just as we are accustomed to call the measure and the measured by the same name: so also here, as if we should call one cubit whatever we have measured by a cubit, whether it be a floor, a wall, or something else. The movements of the stars, therefore, according to that saying of Scripture, "Let them be for signs and for seasons and for years" (Gen. 1, 14), were made by God for a definition and a manifestation evident to us; He, therefore, who ordained these things would be pre-aeonian and timeless, as their cause.

And neither was. "Neither was, nor is, nor will be" is not properly said of God, for God surpasses these; but these are said because He exists superessentially beyond all thought.

Neque erat. He rightly said, "Neither was." For "was" is declarative of time. But God is even above "was," that is, above time. You will say, then: "And how is it held concerning the Word of God: 'In the beginning was the Word'?" (Joan. 1, 1). Behold, for "was" is held here. We often say that the Father is the beginning and cause of all things; therefore, he says, "In the beginning was the Word," because the Son is in the Father. Therefore he well said: "In the beginning was the Word." As for "will be," it is clear; for this signifies that it is not now, but will be at some time, which is impious and unsuitable to say of God. ^C

Or *rather* "it is not." One must also supply these things to which "was" is properly conjoined, and those things which are adjacent to it; or it must be understood otherwise, as existing above every thought and imagination of His being. By saying "the things that are," he declares that they have been brought altogether into existence; but by adding "the being" itself of those things that are, he signified their perseverance. ^D

§ V. And it is itself by itself. One must not think that these things are said of the cause of all, but of those things which subsist from Him by creation—both the intelligible and intellectual, and the sensible, and the rest. For as we have said before, God is before being; for He is

^A *proōn*, or pre-existing; and "to be" has a certain manifestation of the Cause which exists before. Therefore, God is called *proōn*, and subsequently is also called *ōn* (Being), as the Author of all things, and then that all things are from Him. "To be," therefore, by mental conception, subsists by participation in His "pre-being," not that God is divided into "to be" and "pre-being," but His will, which brought beings into existence, is said to have pre-subsisted in God; and because this divine will was predetermined for the existence of the creature, He is rightly conceived, before other things in which beings participate in God, as a certain more ancient principle of His being, namely God Himself; for first something *is*, and then there is life and wisdom.

Invisibles, therefore, and the highest minds first participated in being, and thus in life and wisdom. For just as in our case a certain first matter subsists, from which we are, so also in the case of the ^B immaterial minds, that very "being" is understood as matter—the form of each in life—and that by which it is substantially formed into life, wisdom, and likeness. We have also explained above

Concerning likeness and identity

And by the "principles" of things, understand those essences which first subsisted in creation—called principles, not because things are from them as from elements, but because, as it has been said, they were created before those which follow them; as in the case of the intelligibles, the principle of creation is the Thrones, and so on; and in the case of the sensibles, the principle of creation is heaven and earth: "For in the beginning God created heaven and earth" (Gen. I, 1). For these are the first-created of sensible things. Then, also, in another way, the Ideas and the Exemplars, which are self-perfect, eternal intellections of the eternal God, as we have said before, are conceived as it were as elements, and principles, and matter devoid of matter and ^C incorporeal, of those things which participate in them and of the Ideas themselves, as of incorporeal produced orders. For Life Itself, and Wisdom Itself, and Order Itself, and the rest, are in God as exemplars, of which creatures are participants, as lines drawn from a point or center to a circle.

Therefore, deservedly to all

^A of what they are primarily predicated to be.

*And if you wish regarding living beings.* Just as by some logic, in the case of qualities, the auto-qualities (those qualities in themselves) are as it were pre-existent, and then, supervening, they produce effects—so, too, understand these things: for example, the self-existent whiteness of a body, when it supervenes upon a body, makes it white. Understand the things stated here in a similar way: that God, who is pre-existent—that is to say, Life—gives life to all things that participate in Him.

*Self-existent participations.* He speaks of participations through which things participate, such as being itself, or life, or wisdom, or order, and the rest; which participations are divine gifts, which he has also called the principles of things.

^B § VI. *And it is from itself and in itself.* It must be understood in this way: The Mind, being excellence in itself, and being the totality of efficacy, turned toward itself, is activity by act [energoument], not by potentiality—[it is not the case that it was] previously lacking intelligence and afterwards became Mind by act; hence it is pure Mind alone, not having wisdom superinduced upon it, but it understands entirely from itself. For if its essence were other [than itself], and the things it understands were different from it, it itself, or its essence, could not be understood. But if it has anything, it has it from itself, not from another; and if it is from itself, and it understands from itself, it itself is what it understands. Therefore, since it is Mind, it truly understands things as one who is. If, then, in understanding itself, it understands things, it itself *is* those things; for it will understand them as being either elsewhere or in itself as its own. Now it is impossible to understand things as existing elsewhere; for where do they exist among sensible things? For sensible things are not [truly] beings, inasmuch as they are subject to change, come to be, and are destroyed. It understands itself, therefore, and in itself. Since, however, God is also the creator of things, He will know them even in that which is not yet; but He Himself is the archetype of this whole universe, and He does not understand by receiving a type from others, since He is the exemplar of things that are; so that neither is He Himself in a place, nor are those things in Him as in a place; but He contains them as He contains Himself, and ^C is present to them—all things being together and in an indivisible manner in Him, yet being distinct, in an indivisible manner indivisibly. Therefore, His thoughts are things, and things are species [or forms].

But it is not to be understood that His thoughts are such that, after He has thought of something, that thing itself came to be or exists; for such a thought requires that some object of understanding precede it, so that after having thought of that object, He might make it. Rather, He understands things as understanding Himself, and as being conjoined with those things that are within Him; for His very act of thought is generation to the things that are. That, therefore, which is within them is the species, and this is the idea. He Himself, however, being wholly Mind, is wholly knowledge; but the minds [emanating] from Him and in Him are like the contemplations of that knowledge. They are also at once distinct in Him, just as in the soul many ^D knowableness are, yet they remain unconfused, and they operate outwardly one by one whenever it is necessary; and the soul has all its powers together within itself, by which it exercises providence over the body, and yet they remain within it unconfusedly.

^A and they operate externally one by one, when it is necessary; and the soul has all its faculties in itself at once, by which it provides for the body, yet it exerts them without confusion while time allows, exercising indeed the natural faculty concerning the body, by which it nourishes, increases, and renders it apt for generation; but it exerts the sensory faculty concerning the veins, arteries, flesh, and nerves, by which faculty we perceive sensible things; the opinative faculty, by which it judges sensible things; and the imaginative, by which it imagines sensible things; the depictive faculty, by which it fashions; indeed the reminiscent, by which it remembers; the appetitive, by which it desires and moves the animal from place to place; and the representative, and the irascible, and the concupiscible; for it has these faculties when it uses the body in its irrational part; but after death the intellect alone will be operating, these having ceased.

^B Et quae quomodocunque exsistendo. From the most eminent goodness of God, he says, which is the very being of God Himself, comes the existence and perseverance of beings. He says "unitingly," that is, according to a certain simple and all-comprehensive and invincible cause; for the divine Numen has no relation or communion with things by any reason, or thought, or action; but It is all things and transcends all things, adhering to them only by conservation and providence, as one might say. The following examples make credible the discourse asserting that all things are from God, as the cause of their existence, existing as other than them and subsisting in Himself, and as something other than them.

Habet omnem numerum. For number, composed of many monads, grows into magnitude: the monad, therefore, as the cause of numbers, has embraced all numbers in a ^C unitary way: so also the center, or point, contains the straight lines in a circle.

Atque in centro. These examples confirm the reasoning; note how he also declares things concerning God from lines, comparing Him to a center.

Uniformiter copulatas. He has placed "in a unitary way" here instead of "simply and similarly"; for it is not otherwise.

Imo et in tota natura universi. It is manifest that the parts are in the whole: therefore the reasons which are naturally considered in individual things, of the faculties or motions subsisting within them, are considered, he says, in nature taken generally; just as profane philosophers have brought all things which consist by themselves and are considered in others, which we call animate and inanimate, under one category, saying "essence"; in such a term they embrace both the properties of the essences of individuals, and the reasons remaining unconfused; for the reason of animate things is one, and that of inanimate things is another; likewise also of sensory things, that is, rational and irrational, even if they are united by the reason of their essence, or simply of existence: but he said "in a soul in a unitary way," ^D signifying that there is one vital [force] given by the soul to the whole

^A body, operating manifoldly in the limbs.

§ VII. Indeed, there is a principle of things. If that is a principle by which a thing exists, then rightfully all things have pre-existed in the Principle of all, as in an idea and exemplar, as we said before, simultaneously and in a unitary way; and the contraries are understood as being in God, as has been said. Yet how they are united and contrary, you will understand in this way: that which is ordered possesses a divided form, as in the world, where the stars are in one place and man in another; and again, fire is in one place and water in another. For since they are contraries, if they should exist together, they would corrupt one another. But in the thoughts of God, all things were together and without confusion, and not in a place; for they are not bodies, nor in a body, but in eternal thoughts which are the exemplars; hence also God is the principle of all things; for a principle is whatever existed before its effect. And furthermore, there is an order of those things which are, as it were, ordered; and order is the effectiveness of the similarity of all things among themselves, and the commensuration ^B which is the cause of the communion of the things of the universe among themselves; nay, God is even the status and the motion of all things.

But these must be understood diversely: for in intelligible and intelligent things, nature, since it is the principle of motion and of status, or rather of rest—for it is the same—declares an efficacy; for that motion which is vital in divine ministries and in the instruction of lower things is an efficacy, and rest and status, since it is eternal and in no way mutable, declares the minds to be operating what is proper to them, and to be filled with divine things. But in sensible things, nature, being the principle of motion and of status or rest, declares motion to be [the cause] of production: while [it declares] status or rest to be [the cessation] of the corruption of being, or a suspension, or a change. And God is said to be these things, because He Himself is the author superessentially. Now, motion in God is the ^C benevolent procession of providence into those things which are from Him and through Him; but status is to be always in the same manner, and without departure to possess the unsearchable rest of Himself and freedom from all disturbance.

It must be noted, moreover, that he called the intelligible faculties eternal, as participating in eternity; for the Scripture asserts this: "For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. IV, 18). But in others, there are existences such as holiness, immortality, the blessedness of life: for these things are such in intelligible and intelligent essences. But they are said to be such in thought, both in intelligible things and in ourselves—as gods, and lords, and powerful ones by virtue, the angels; and by participation, men.

§ Omnis definitio, et cetera quæcunque. Those things which are [only] because they exist, he says exist as considered in others ^D and not in themselves; for the essences (for these he called "beings") are of those things which exist through themselves, which they designate: immortality, wisdom, order, harmony, and the things with[it].

^A And there are also those things which are seen by sense around bodies, such as color, form, quantity, and the like, which cannot subsist outside of a body. But the Father distinguished these from those which are by conception; and we say that these are those things which are comprehended by the intellect, such as cognition, word, sense, and the like; which we recognize alone by conception, as if by a reflection; or he also calls the intelligible things [those things which exist] by conception, and which in no way fall under the senses.

§ VIII. *Intelligent and intelligible.* Note, however, that the intelligible is understood as it relates to us; but the intelligent, as it relates to God.

*And to be. And to have divine being.*

*And all other things.* He is the author of the reason why all things exist, and [that he exists] before they were, as being the idea or exemplar of existence itself, as is declared from this: for existence itself is not God himself, because God exists, but by God even existence exists and is spoken of; therefore existence is in God as an idea, but God is not in existence itself; for he was before existence itself; yet because he is the author of all things, he is declared to be the producer, and is called by the names of all things, as one who produced all things. ^B

*And its is the existence.* Its own, indeed, because existence is from him: but in that which is preserved by him, he himself is not existence, nor is he contained in existence; for he is above existence, because he is superessential.

*And not himself in existence.* It is to be understood in both cases that there is a principle; that is, existence has him as its author, nor does he himself have existence as if from a primary cause. ^C

*According to every conception of the things that are.* The contemplation of things, which he here called "conception," being much and varied, finds in every movement of the mind the conception of the cause or creator preceding [it]; that multiplication, therefore, signifies that the same cause is considered in many things.

*And it is, and it will be.* Those things which he denied before, now, speaking of God, he necessarily explaining himself, submits that he understands these things insofar as God is understood as the cause; ^D therefore, "it was, and it is, and it will be" are properly spoken of creatures; for some things were once and for all, such as heaven, the angels, the sun, and the like, in which the "is" and "will be" have no place; but what is said by David: *Who makes his angels spirits*, must either be understood insofar as he preserves [them], as it is said: *My Father works until now*; or according to the custom of Scripture, which often brings forth the meaning of time in an inverted order, and uses the future for the past, and conversely; in these, therefore, "it was" is indeed used properly. But all things which are generated and corrupted, and which [are] to one another...

^A by mutual rotation—such as night, day, summer, and spring, and such like—will be generated, those things which have not yet happened at all, but are awaited, such as the transmutation of the universe and the things that will accompany it. As the cause of all these, therefore, God is praised; for he did not say, "These are predicated of him," but "are properly praised." But the word "was," and those that go with it, could not, according to any conception, befit anyone but God, because "was" is contemplated in him as being above every source. "Is" and "will be" are also [used of him] as one having everywhere the privation of alteration and change; wherefore he is also called superessential. ^B [Wherefore all things are also predicated of him at the same time. According to the notion of the cause, he says that all things are said of God, or are understood concerning him. For "to be predicated," according to the philosophers, signifies this. But he himself is none of all the things of which he is the cause, because he is and is altogether above being; wherefore also the negations declare this, such as "formless," "not beautiful," and the like; while "all-formed" and "all-shaped" signify him to be the cause of every form and shape. According to which the following must also be understood.] On the same. How, when previously saying, "Neither was he, nor is he, nor was he generated, nor is he generated, nor will he be generated," does he here say that concerning him "is," "will be," "was generated," "is being generated," and "will be generated" are properly praised? Does St. Dionysius contradict himself? Far from it! For above he said he is the creator of all existence, subsistence, essence, nature, ^C and time; it was reasonable, therefore, that he placed "was" in him, and the others, so that you might understand that God did not begin from time, nor in time, nor after time, but that he is superior even to existence itself. For he said, "In him is existence"; but here, since he said he is multiplied according to every conception, he rightly said that in him are "was," "will be," and the rest, so that if you conceive of an occasion or time, you will find God there, both above and before the things that are, and as the author and founder of existing things, and yet that he is nothing of them, just as we say that he is nothing of the things that are, *and* that he is in all things.

"And he is nothing of all things." He refers "formless" to "endowed with all form," because he is above bodily privation and above the vacuity of matter, lacking form having respect to any one thing. He refers "lacking beauty" ^D to "endowed with all form." Furthermore, he says he is lacking beauty because beauty proceeds from him, and he himself is above beauty. For the Scripture says: "And we saw him, and he had no form nor comeliness," and so on.

"For if our sun..." Below, at the end of the following discourse, or the sixth chapter, where the sign shows that the sun does nothing of itself, but from the cause and principle of all, which is God; he demonstrates beautifully...

what is to be thought concerning God. ^A For just as the sun itself, being one, gives life to all sensible things, and feeds, and increases, and changes them—that is, makes great things from small, and from a seed makes the sprout or tree that grows from it—and is in all visible things, while being none of them; so also God, the author of the sun itself and of all sensible and intelligible and intellectual things, is nothing of existing things, and is in all things; for all things participate in Him. Therefore, the Scripture calls Him the Sun of justice (h).

^B Exemplars. We have already indicated above what these exemplars, which they also call ideas, are, and how they are defined—that by "idea" or "exemplar" he means the work of the eternal God, perfect in and of itself and eternal. Indeed, here the great Dionysius clarifies the Scripture, calling the ideas "predestinations," hinting at the divine Paul, who says in the Epistle to the Romans: "Whom he predestined, those he also called" (i); and elsewhere: "Having predestined us in his will" (k); for he calls the exemplars and the ideas "will" and "predestination." He also brings forward the blessed Clement [the Bishop of Rome], of whom the Apostle makes mention, saying that there are more principal exemplars in existing things, such as those of relative things. What is being said will be clearer in this way: there is a certain opinion that likens all things to a line, attributing the upper part of the line to intelligible things, and the lower to sensible things. And of these, to the more principal ones, which are specifically intelligible things, it gives the first and higher part. To those [things] from the intelligible ones, it gives the part after that; and then so on, by degrees down the line, it places the others. For this opinion wishes to show that not all things are of the same dignity, but that some things depend upon others as subordinate species from universals in creation and in principles, which he says are more principal as universal principles. ^C He says, therefore, that according to the holy Clement, there are in created things more general exemplars, that is, ideas of relative things, instead of the exemplar of subordinate species substituting itself for some superior one, just as material fire [relates] to ethereal fire; but the great Dionysius judges that these are not properly ideas, but the thoughts of God; for even if they are called exemplars in creation, they are not to be worshipped, as Moses says; but he did not declare where the holy Clement said these things.

^D We say there are exemplars. Plato held the ideas and exemplars in a lowly and unworthy manner for God; but the Father used the term, yet explained the meaning piously. He said that the divine wills were definitive and creative: the former, because He establishes and makes all things by willing alone; the latter, because [it is] also due to the diverse form and different nature of the things that come to be.

^A Mark, therefore, that he calls "exemplars" the reasons in God which make the essences of things, and which existed beforehand unitarily, or [as] predestinations.

*Progression indeed not by proper [means].* The blessed Clement has followed rather an opinion which stated that even in the generation of sensible things there are certain primary causes, namely the operations or productions into essence of intelligible or incorporeal angels, [and that these] have as primary causes the ideas, or thoughts of God; circa which ideas—being exemplary—the intelligibles are as primary [and blessed] and chief operations; but in sensible things, the primary and blessed and creative cause is the form in matter, as the stated opinion says; for by reason of nature in the generation by which sensible things come to be, such a form, he says, ought to be the primary one. Perhaps, then, the blessed Clement may seem to have said this; but these are not properly called exemplars, or primary ideas, or primary causes. For these are not from themselves, but from the thoughts of God, who alone is to be adored.

*Of emanation and goodness.* He calls "progression" the contemplation which is not only occupied about itself, but is diffused and proceeds, and causes things to subsist.

*All things indeed in Himself.* That God exults in all things, according to that [word] of the psalm: *The Lord shall rejoice in His works* (Ps. ciii, 31); and in Proverbs: *I was that in which He delighted*. The word "was" (*ante*) in this place is put for "predestinated and purposed."

^C *Every duality.* Since some have said that ideas and exemplars subsist by themselves, he now refutes these—who were Greeks—and says: for if the ideas were not simply and unitarily—being the most simple cognitions of the most simple and most unitary God—God would certainly be composite of an exemplar and Himself, which he called "duality." But that "was delighted" harmonizes with David: *The Lord shall rejoice*, etc.

^D *Just as also one voice.* Note the property of a voice, that since it is incorporeal and one, it is heard by many equally, and is not consumed by the multitude: so also God is participated in equally by all; for that is [what is meant by] "in one way." And [he adds] according to the reason of faith, that [it is] also not consumed by being divided.

*As [that] for whose cause.* Above in the preceding chapter, perfectly defining the final cause, we said that it is that for the sake of which something is done.

*And the limit of all.* Infinity is conceived in the mind as the opposite to the limit of all. But God is also the limit of all; for nothing escapes His providence and power.

^A And infinity also, since according to the divine Scripture: *And of His understanding there is no number* (Ps. CXLVI, 5), and again: *And of His kingdom there shall be no end* (Luc. I, 33). Therefore, as He is incomprehensible and infinite—for God possesses these things in an excellent manner and transcends all things, and He is the limit of every limit, for in Him all things are limited, and He is the infinity of all infinity. Even if matter is also called infinite, as being perpetually transformed and changed into different forms, yet it is limited in God, even if it is unstable and undefined and is led into the formation of species. And justly, God is the limit of such infinity, and is infinite to the limits of existing things, as He produced even matter from nothing; for the Scripture says: *From Him and through Him and in Him are all things* (Rom. XI, 36).

In one, indeed, as often ^B. The limit is opposed to infinity according to negation and affirmation, as mortal and immortal. But that was rightly said, as things opposed; for these things are not properly opposed to each other as habit and privation, but, as has been said, as negation and affirmation.

*Present to all.* For He is present everywhere, and is present to each one individually and to all things together and alike. And God is said to be *standing*, because there is observed in Him no change at all; and He is said to be *moving*, because He contains and preserves existing things; and these things are above every thought; therefore He added, *neither standing, nor moving*.

*And standing and moving.* ^C It seems in a way contrary to what was said, that He stands and moves, and *neither stands, nor moves*. For how can the same thing stand and move, or neither stand nor move? First, one must not understand divine things from sensible things, nor take images from thence. But, in order that we may not seem to lack a response, we said above that *standing* is generation, but *motion* is alteration, that is, change. Therefore, God is the generation of all things; for He always brings them into being; and thus God stands. But conversely, He is moved, because He transforms and alters all things for the better; for through Him we become more beautiful; whence also the divine Dionysius says of Him a little earlier, the beginning and end of all things. For that which says, *neither standing, nor moving*, explains that which ^D precedes it, remaining in Himself and proceeding to all things; for He communicates to all existing things His own integrity, and He Himself is unchanged and unalterable, according to the Scripture: *But You are the same* (Ps. CI, 28). Therefore, God both proceeds and remains in Himself.

*Nor is He in any of the things that are.* He said, *not in any*, for He is in all things, and can be contained by nothing; for those things which are eternal, He says are the supermundane essences, because before

understand essences, because they existed before the nature of time; for time is reckoned from the creation of heaven and earth. ^A

And from those things which are in time. It was also said above that "eternal" is properly spoken of not as eternity itself, but as that which participates in eternity. But that which is agreeable, understand it according to essence. Note, however, that certain things are eternal, such as angels, and that it does not immediately follow that what is eternal is devoid of a beginning; in the following chapter, indeed, at the very beginning, he uses the term "eternal" even in reference to God.

And measures of things. The measures of existing things are the eternities of intelligible things, and time for sensible things; for intelligible things are measured as if by a measure of eternity, even if those things which are measured and that which measures are affected by the same name; for angels are even called "eternities." So it is also with sensible things; for things measured by time are called by the same name as time, such as the motions of the stars and the sun, and the ages of life; for things measured by time are called times. ^B

ON CHAPTER VI

§ 1. Because of the preservative cause. He called it "preservative" because it has not only produced the life of those things which exist, but also preserves them so that they may continue.

From itself also [come] souls. After the life of the angels, he places in order that of our souls, inasmuch as they are endowed with rational immortality; but after rational souls, he introduces next the life of those things which consist of the sensitive and nutritive, or vegetative, soul, or of brutes and plants, which he says enjoy life at the "extreme trace" (which we have often explained before). Moreover, the lives of brutes and plants are not divine, but [those] of material fire and spirit; ^C concerning these lowest things alone, therefore, as has been said, he says that the saying of David is to be understood: *Thou shalt take away their spirit, and they shall fail, and they shall return into their dust. Thou shalt send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth* (Ps. CIV, 29, 30). For the divine Dionysius accepts these divine utterances concerning only the sensitive soul and the vegetative life. For he does not at all understand these things concerning the life of intelligible beings or our own; since, when God created this life essentially immortal, He will not at any time take away life from intelligible beings or from our souls, since they would not even be essences; but David is speaking of renovated terrestrial living creatures, and not of these [higher ones]. Regarding the life of the demons who willfully fell away, he adds that it too will remain without destruction, as their Creator God so wills, even though they themselves have departed from God: *For the gifts of God are without repentance*, who from the beginning made them immortal; but he calls the "extreme resonance" or "trace" a more obscure participation in life, and, if I may so speak, one partaking only slightly of vital faculty. ^D

^A Having been withdrawn. The psalm passage speaks of men and of the final and common resurrection, which the Father sets forth more clearly a little earlier; but here he has brought forward the passage while discoursing on all things that have life in any way, showing that this life is seen in them in no other way than from God. He uses "to be withdrawn" in the sense of "to be separated," just as he uses "being turned" in the sense of "partaking." He says that these are "weak" in their participation [of this life], because they do not have life from themselves and of their own, but as something brought in from God; for as far as they themselves are concerned, they are not seen as existing in life, but by being referred to God they possess this, and in a certain way they live again, and, just as he himself says, they become living again.

§ II. As with mixed things. In a wonderful way he teaches all dogmas with correctness. For as he now hands down the manner of the resurrection, he shows us to be mortal, as beings mortal because we consist of an immortal soul and [a mortal] body; and he says the essential life of the soul is inferior to the angelic essences, insofar as he calls it "angel-like" and not "angelic"—not as being inherently angelic, but as resembling it. And he says that we are, in part, rational souls, but as a whole we consist of soul and body. He says that our bodies are made immortal in the resurrection, asserting that the dogma of the resurrection seemed unbelievable to "antiquity"—that is, to the foolish opinion of the Greeks—because it is against the nature of matter to enjoy immortality. Now, "antiquity" is spoken of as folly; and even if the business of the resurrection surpasses nature—in terms of the present life, which is led through nourishment, excretion, and diseases—yet in God nothing is against nature nor above nature, since He Himself is the cause of all life.

I speak also of linked bodies. That the divine Word wills that our bodies also should partake of immortality, according to the Apostle: "For this mortal must put on immortality" (1 Cor. xv, 53).

Above nature. He says this because to God alone life is natural.

The contradictory discourses of Simon. He says that the books of Simon are contradictory to our dogma, which asserts that our body rises again and becomes immortal, as if the thing were against nature. But those who have spoken against Simon and refute him on these matters are Irenaeus, Origen, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius. The great Dionysius divinely dissolves the statement made by Simon that the resurrection of bodies is against nature; for since there is nothing contrary to God, how will anything be against nature? And that some should think they can provide proofs from these manifest and sensible things ^D against the incomprehensible and for all hidden Cause of all things, that is, against God,

this is truly against nature; for how can things that are imagined and understood overturn that which is above all sense and understanding? ^A

*Evidentia sensus* (The evidence of sense). He says that one ought not, because of things that can be perceived by the senses, to deny faith in the words concerning God, who is the hidden cause of all things. For to say that this is against nature is properly to speak of deposing or denying, on account of the clarity of sensible things, those things which surpass the senses. ^B

§ III. *Sive rationalem, sive sensitivam, sive nutritivam* (Whether rational, or sensitive, or nutritive). Note how he divides the life that is had by participation; for he calls the soul our principle of life, and then the sensitive faculty; for these are principles of life for the bodies which are directed by them, so that they may be moved in life; but the essences of life are the intelligible faculties and our souls; for they have an essence which is life, as a kind of matter and subject of life, and the form itself which supervenes; wherefore, as I have said, souls vivify bodies. God, therefore, as author and complement of our life, as containing and dividing, as disposing the differences of universal life, of intelligible, rational, sensitive, and vegetative things, is the principle of all; and since he said above that the sun also gives life and nourishes all things, do not understand that it has this from itself, but from the principle and cause of all. ^C

IN CAP. VII.

§ I. *Supra omnem sapientiam* (Above all wisdom). There are some of the untimely philosophers who say that if you wish to say that God surpasses all wisdom and intelligence, you make him unwise and devoid of intellect. To whom it must be said: Our God is above all things which are understood and exist; whether, therefore, wisdom, or intelligence, or life, or subsistence, or existence, or essence is understood by us, he is above all these things; not that he does not participate in any of them (for this is absurd; for how would he who is the author of things not be a participant of his own?), but because all things proceed from him, and participate in his wholeness; for everything that is participated in is more ancient than the things that are from it. Wherefore he is properly named "He who is," and Eternity, and Time, as one who has created ages and times; so therefore it must be said also concerning wisdom and life, that he is their creator as well; for if we say that these things are otherwise, God is found to have become wise or intelligent later, which is something of their temerity, not ours; God forbid! ^D

*Nostrique præceptoris sol* (And the sun of our preceptor). Note that he calls the apostle Paul his own sun and that of the holy Hierotheus. Observe moreover how the Father interpreted the sentence of the Apostle; for Chrysostom and the rest of the Fathers understood it concerning the Cross.

*Etiam solemne est theologis* (It is also customary for theologians). What is stated to be the custom for theologians, [namely, to use] privations contrary to...

we should understand it in this way: for since those men wished to represent the divine light as much as possible—because it is inaccessible and invisible, to which nothing can draw near, neither that which is immaterial nor that which is sensible—they named it darkness, as in the passage of Scripture: *He made darkness His hiding place* (Ps. XVII, 12), which the divine Apostle speaks of as: *dwelling in light which no man can approach unto* (1 Tim. VI, 16). For that to which nothing can approach is, to speak in terms of signifying excellence, similar to a darkness that cannot be seen. Again it is said: *Thy knowledge is become wonderful from me; it is exceedingly strengthened, I cannot attain to it.* Thus, therefore, the incomprehensible and inconceivable knowledge of God, which is unmixed, is likened to an ignorance that surpasses all knowledge found in created beings; for the ignorance regarding God, among those who are wise in divine matters, is not a lack of learning, but a knowledge, knowing in silence that God is unknowable.

In this way, then, they also call the Incarnation of the Word of God an "emptying," even though it is full, or rather, more than full of wisdom, power, and salvation; and they even call the trophy of the Cross the "weakness of God," insofar as by death the evil and invisible powers of the devil were destroyed, and in place of the death of the dead, there was introduced a resurrection and the kingdom of heaven. In this same way, then, the "foolishness of God," which surpasses all the wisdom and knowledge of men, is the understanding of God. One might understand what is being said by considering those from the heresies, along with the Gentiles, who imagine that they can prove by sensible syllogisms that it is impossible for the Incarnation of God to have been ordained even unto death. Regarding whom the most divine Paul, having felt the dizziness of such thinking, cried out: *O the depth of the riches and wisdom of God! how unsearchable are His judgments* (Rom. XI, 33). Therefore, how could that which surpasses the power of all created wisdom be equal to words of foolishness that are not taught by God? For the mystery cannot be explained by words or sensible demonstration, unless faith leads the way.

In a contrary sense, in God.

That which in it seems contrary to reason.

Involved.

^A *Vim quidem habere.* We have also said above that the mind, desiring to understand, descends into itself as it descends into intellection; for intellections are inferior to the understanding, inasmuch as they are understood and grasped, and by merit of the union of the mind itself, [there is] separation and division; for the intellect is simple and devoid of parts; but intellections are in the greatest abundance and can be separated, being as it were the forms and species of the intellect; thus the things that understand are inferior to the things that are understood. Furthermore, he calls it the union of the mind, as he says more clearly afterwards, through which one is elevated to things superior to oneself, or applies oneself to divine contemplation, by withdrawing oneself from sensible and intelligible things, and indeed even from one’s own motion, and thus receiving the ray of divine knowledge.

^B *Hanc ergo rationis expertem.* Here he explains most clearly how the foolishness of God is most wise in the magnitude of the incomprehensibility of God. For he says that we, being enclosed by a sensible body, err when we examine the immateriality and superessentiality of God, while we weigh those things by sensible objects; as those who, traversing the preaching concerning the alone-adorable Trinity, and hearing the discourse about God which asserts it to be undivided and indistinct in three subsistences, are at once stupefied, adhering to the nature of bodies, which require place and interval, saying: "How can it be that there are three subsistences in themselves, and that they are indistinct?" They do not know how to become foolish in sensible things, so that they may be instructed in divine things; and there are other infinite things like this, to whom the Lord extends this word: *If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?* And the divine Paul says: *The natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit; for they are foolishness to him.* Thus, therefore, the spiritual things which are to be pursued are the foolishness of God among men; for he called it foolish wisdom because no wisdom can reach it: thus, therefore, he called it devoid of reason and mind, because it lacks reason or mind that might explain or comprehend it.

^C § II. *Ex ea intellectiles.* Note also that in other beings there are intelligible and intelligent faculties, and they are deservedly both intelligible and intelligent in themselves, just like the higher orders; intelligible inasmuch as they are understood by those below; but intelligent inasmuch as they are supreme, and strive to understand God, who is above all things, as much as is permitted, being nourished from above by intellection, and nourishing those who understand in a lower degree. ^D For our souls are only intelligent; for while they understandingly grasp what is above them as much as they can, they do not have anything after them that understands them, so that they also might be understood; for the soul that is devoid of reason and mind is after us; but the intellections of divine minds are not in thoughts like ours, [into]

which our mind descends from divisible things—that is, from sensible things and discursive reasonings—collecting, in place of species and multitude (which is to say, material things), intellections without matter, contemplating all things in the simple.

*Intelligibles.* Understand "intelligible" [Gr. νοηταί] as relative to us; but "intellective" [Gr. νοεραί] as relative to God.

*Or from the divisible.* We use the divisible instruments of the senses; for hearing is one thing, and sight is another, and similarly with the rest. And from these senses—which are divisible—we receive the knowledge of things; or [we receive it] in thoughts which are themselves divisible, [derived] from the divisible disciplines or objects of the intellect; sometimes, however, by means of discursive and broad reasonings—that is, by making a clear and explicit explanation. ^B But the intellective natures, having no communication with such things in all this, are illuminated with the knowledge of truth by a single and simple intellection.

*And there is in them.* He says there is in the angels an intelligent faculty and efficacy arising from the supernatural wisdom of God; for from Him the divine angels possess, by participation, the faculty of intelligent efficacy, by which they understand themselves and the things that are, and understand the ideas intuitively, which he has named the "cognitions of God." Therefore, they have this intelligent efficacy introduced by God the author, and it is far more transcendent than [that of] souls; for if souls understand the things that are from the objects themselves, and attend to the species—which is to understand in a more discursive manner, and to circle round all things—the angels, however, by the God-likeness innate in them, understand the many creatures uniquely, or in the manner of one, ^C and are not divided into the distinction of the variety of things, or into sensible things, as are rational souls. Yet souls are, in some degree, made worthy of that [angelic] state by imitating the angels, when, folding the intellection of many objects into one within themselves, they have all things simultaneously distinct without confusion. Nevertheless, souls have an intellection introduced from without, but the angels understand from themselves and in themselves, inasmuch as they are godlike. And these things are sufficient concerning the intelligibles. But how He understands concerning God, you have here, and also above, near the end of the fifth chapter. And what we said concerning souls, that they understand by folding the many into one in an angelic manner, they will possess perfectly, especially in the resurrection, ^D when, existing again in their own bodies, they will receive a perfect knowledge of all things. The resurrection of the just will have this perfectly, according to what is said: "And so shall we always be with the Lord" [v]; and again: "Now we see as in a mirror and in an enigma, but then face to face" [x]; that is, we shall be taught the knowledge of the things that are.

[v] I Thess. iv, 16. [x] I Cor. xiii, 12.

^A *Diffuse, and by way of circuit.* It has been said what this implies. It is called "diffuse" and "by way of circuit"—that is, the human soul does not comprehend the divine knowledge with a single, unified intellectual act, but receives the true understanding of things that are by taking it piecemeal and in parts. In this, it falls short of the angelic vision of God; for it gathers its thoughts regarding the one Cause from the things that are variously observed, and is thus deemed worthy of thoughts equal to those of the angels.

*To attain what it desires.* The mind of the demons, through the privation of reason, does indeed desire equality with God; yet it does not know how it is possible to attain this—not because it is ignorant by nature, but because it voluntarily chooses what is contrary to nature. Note, however, that the demons, in so far as they possess a mind, have obtained it from the Good; but having become irrational and unwilling to remain what they were, they have suffered a falling away from wisdom.

^B *189 By way of pre-eminence.* Concerning the fact that things said of God by way of privation, and their opposites, are understood by way of pre-eminence.

*And all other things in itself.* Let no one be led by these words into absurd notions, such as to say that God possesses within Himself the "cause" of evils, or that it is to be concluded from this that He is their author. For the Father is not speaking of these things here; he has already shown that evil is not a being, nor does it exist among beings, but rather it exists around those things that do exist—namely, the angels and the rest of creation—just as he said before. He does not possess the knowledge of these by learning from outside what they are; for he explained this when he said: "[Not] learning the things that are from the things that are," and the statement that he does not apply himself to individuals by way of species. ^C But as the Creator of his own works, he possesses the knowledge of them beforehand, knowing how he will produce them, and from what causes, to generation—the perversion, defect, end, privation, and weakness of which introduce evil, by causing that which is contrary to nature through the privation of that which is according to nature. For this reason, he brought forward the example of light; for darkness seems to subsist through the privation of light, and has as its cause the absence of the nature of light, just as habits are more foundational than privations, and, as one might say, are their causes. Thus, the Father in this passage speaks of things brought into generation by God, and of the nature of each of these, which he has said previously existed in God by way of foreknowledge and pre-definition.

*And possesses the essence beforehand.* That knowledge possesses the essence in advance and has comprehended it beforehand.

*As also light.* A confirmation by example; for just as if someone were to posit that this visible light is endowed with mind and reason, and we were then to ask it whether the light knows darkness, and it were to say that it does, even before the darkness existed—knowing it, however, not by any experience (for how could light perceive darkness? If it is light, ^D there will be no darkness)—but rather saying that it knows...

it not through experience, for thus God would be found to be posterior to knowledge, or at some time not knowing. Note that darkness is an effect which appears to subsist from the deficiency of light, which is against the Manichaeans.

^A Of darkness. That darkness is known from nothing else than from light.

And not from things that are. See how he says that God knows the things that are, not from the knowledge of all things, but from His own knowledge, just as light knows darkness, while having nothing of darkness in itself. These things have been said many times in the fifth chapter: how God, in knowing or understanding Himself, also understands and knows the things that are, according to their paradigms.

Not therefore is God. For in the Divine there is no duality, being altogether simple and above all simplicity.

^B And even the angels. That the angels know things on earth, not by sense-perception, as we do, by laying hold of sensible objects, but by a power that has transcended being perceived—to be understood, that is—is evident from various oracles, such as that in Tobias, where it is said that the divine angel Raphael told the son of Tobias to take the gall of the fish that had come up, as it removes the whiteness of the eyes caused by the dung of sparrows; for no one would suppose that he learned the medicine through experience. But also, the angel in the book of Judges, in the case of Gideon, casting fire from the rock for the sacrifice, did not know by sense-perception, as we do, that fire is burning, but in a more sublime way suitable to himself; and so with the rest. But if someone says: "And how shall the devil and his angels perceive the eternal fire?" it will be said in the appropriate place. But also in Daniel, in the chapter about Balthasar, he knows the letters written without having learned them. Note, however, that the knowledge of sensible things is not in the angels through sense-perception; for they do not use our sense organs, but the power and nature of the mind.

^D § III. Furthermore, it must be asked. He inquires how we know God; and he rightly says that the nature of God, what it essentially is, has never been known to any creature, neither by science nor by intuition; for we address these to incorporeal things. But God is known from the arrangement of created things; for if, according to the divine Apostle, the beauty of the things created indicates the author of generation, that is, the maker of those things which exist in generation, then rightly the arrangement of beings

^A is the knowledge of Him who disposed them; for the things, that is to say the forms, and the individual creatures, such as the angelic orders and all sensible things, are images and likenesses of the divine ideas, or rather, exemplars of those things in God, which exemplars are the eternal thoughts of God, through which and according to which all things were in Him, not being other than Him, and brought forth they were made, just as in the Apocalypse the most divine John says that one of the most noble angels said to him that all things were and have been, by "ideas" meaning that they "were"; and [he calls] the images and likenesses of the ideas, or of the exemplars, all the things that have been made. For the intellectual things are the images of the intelligibles, and the lower are images of the higher. By the removal, therefore, of all these (for God is abstracted from beings, being none of the things which He created, but ineffably excelling all things by excellence) God is known by preeminence. ^B

*From His own nature*. Note the necessary facility for the defense of piety.

[α] *And certain images*. In this place, the divine exemplars are to be understood as the predeterminations, of which the works of creation are images. These predeterminations the Apostle called "purposes," as he said in the Epistle to the Ephesians (y): *According to the purpose of the ages*. And in all "creatures," that is to say, God is known, as the craftsman is known in the things he has fashioned by art. But He is separated in essence from all things; and because of this, while He is unknown to the things fashioned, He is known by [such] ignorance, just as He is also known through the scientific understanding ^C and knowledge of creatures. Resuming these things, therefore, he connected the following to the same point. [β] *Since the ideas of animals and of all things that are in nature are in God entirely*, but not as if the things here are images and likenesses of those there in the way of individual species; for all things that are here are images of those there; for even our soul itself is an image and likeness of the idea.

[γ] *And through knowledge, God*. He declares here how God is known through opposites, and through affirmations and negations, going through them in detail. For although even above in the first chapter he said that there is nothing that can represent the essence of God—neither intellection, nor contact, nor imagination, nor opinion, nor generally all those things he said there and [repeats] here, which we also explained in those places—now he says that God is known also through the things that were denied there; not, however, His essence, and conversely, that He possesses nothing of those things so as to be comprehended. ^D Therefore, as the author of all things, He is known from those things which He brought forth; but as He is none of the things which He brought forth, He remains unknown by all; but as to how He is known by ignorance, he says it here, and it was said above in the second chapter.

*And He is neither understood*. For through the things that have been created we understand, we attain to knowledge, we hold that God is.

But who, or of what kind, or how great God Himself is, we neither understand, nor name, nor grasp by mind or sense. For that ^A which follows is similar to this: "God is in all things, and in none of all things."

*According to that union which is above understanding*. Note that he has accepted it, as in the preceding sections, as the conjunction of the vision of God which surpasses the mind.

*For it is so according to the Scriptures*. This is also from the Wisdom of Solomon, where wisdom is called the artificer of all things; ^B and from the Proverbs, where it is said by Wisdom: "I was with Him, arranging all things"; and David: "In wisdom You have made them all."

*And the Word is God*. Concerning the Word of God, and why He is called "Word," and what such an appellation signifies, he states here one reason for which He is named "Word": namely, because He has in Himself the causes of all existing things; for the reasons of every nature are in Him, as in the author ^C of all creation; for through Him are all things. For the ideas and the exemplars are in Him, not one thing in another, but they are eternal intellectiones and reasons which make all things, that is, nature; for nature is a reason which possesses cause and nature, because the natures of things are not rashly and in vain. He calls Him "Word" also because He passes through all things without impediment, and goes round all things even to the ^D furthest limits, as it is in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "For the word of God is living and effectual," etc.

*This Word is*. That God the Word, since He is Himself and is in reality truth, is deservedly also a simple knowledge of things; but what knowledge is, he presently adds, instructing us.

*For if knowledge has the power of uniting*. He explains those things which concern true knowledge, [showing that] God the Word Himself, Jesus Christ, about whom the discourse is, [explicates this], and he says that knowledge is truly unitary of those knowing and those known: "And I know My sheep, and I am known by Mine; as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father." For just as knowledge, having known that which it desired to know, is united to the thing known, no longer doubting concerning it, nor being divided by doubt into diverse thoughts, and being unstable, and ignorance is thereby caused, because it does not believe that it has known; so the faithful, united by knowledge to that known Christ, who is God the Word, and establishing their faith in Him, having a most solid and unshaken faith of the things known, in that they have known God and have been known by God, stand firmly outside of ignorance, which we have said divides and separates and shakes [the mind] from one into other doubts, as one that does not know what it is fitting to believe; likewise they persist in firmness, persuaded by faith that they have known, and therefore they are joined with the known. But he who is engaged in the darkness of ignorance, according to the Apostle, fluctuating in error itself, circurm-

is carried about by every wind of the wickedness of men, as those ^A who are tossed by the storm at sea (for this the Apostle says), and he thinks that the Gnostics are insane, just as Festus said to Paul when he was preaching divine knowledge: "You are mad, Paul." But the Gnostic, and the Christian in very truth, inasmuch as he truly knows Christ, and through Him has acquired the knowledge of God—I mean the one knowledge of the truth (for the one is a simple and uncompounded knowledge)—stands outside the world, for he is not at all involved in the worldly knowledge and error of the unbelievers. He knows himself to be sober and freed from manifold infidelity; and therefore they die daily for the truth, not only being in danger for the sake of the truth even unto death, but also dying always to ignorance, while living to knowledge and being proven Christians.

*Divisionis*, Gr. *cause*. He calls "division" in this place the instability of opinion and the being divided into many things. *Domicilio*, Gr. *of residence*, *of habitation*. *Singularem*, Gr. *of the Christians*. He calls our faith "singular," as being simple and devoid of error, possessing the knowledge of Him who truly is. ^B

ON CHAPTER VIII.

§ I. *Ut potentiam quoque*. According to what is God called power? *Et dominationem*. As that saying: "The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory" (Ps. xxiii, 10). [Again: "The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our defender."] *A potentiis separans*, Gr. That is, distinguishing and separating.

§ II. *Secundum potentiam inflexibilem*, Gr. He says *inexorable* [inflexible], that is, not descending from its own pinnacle; for He does not work by bending into force, but, being immovable and unbending, He produces beings by His own strength. Perhaps it should be said that *inexorable* also signifies that which is, as it were, not shut up; therefore he also adds *uncircumscribed*: for it is not shut up, as though it failed in strength in any respect; but the power of God is always open in the power of doing all things.

*Et potentem reddit infirmitatem*. He calls these material and earthly bodies "infirmity," which he also calls the extreme traces, as we have often warned above, because they participate in the power of God obscurely and according to their own capacity. And it has been said concerning our own bodies: ^C"I can do all things in Him who strengthens me," namely Christ; but this is also to be considered in the rest of the animals, as in gnats and flies and the like, how much animals so infirm and of no account can do within their own narrow spheres,

^A supported by God the creator. Whence also in Joel the divine prophet God speaks concerning the locust, and the bruchus, and the caterpillar: "My great power," and how the infinite power of God extends even to these things, he proves by admirable and most true examples. Nay, you shall find the same even in inanimate things, in grasses and herbs, and in metals, if you consider the harmful and useful powers; and most things are brittle, while others are strong and hard, like the adamant. Otherwise: by "infirmity made powerful" in these things, he refers to the most infirm of animals, which possess this power of truly existing; or it must be thought that by infirmity he means nature that is inanimate and entirely unmoved, which has received from God the essential power, that is, the power to exist at all.

§ III. *And the thing itself, if it be lawful.* That is, it was impossible for anything to exist at all, unless the divine power brought it into being.

*It has the power to exist.* By "power" he signifies not only the force for subsisting, but also the aptitude to be in such a way. And he calls the procession of the providence and goodness of God to things outside, so that they may exist and be produced, a "distribution of power." And he says that the first power is that of the beings; these are the intelligible and incorporeal ones, which are called such as immortal; but with the intelligible ones, there must also be joined those that understand, as souls which are now said to be rational: for the reason is the mind by which the soul, according to subjection after the angels, or in a rank inferior to the angels, is said to be intelligent. ^B Afterward, there is subject to this the sensitive power of irrational animals, then the vital and vegetative [power] of all plants and herbs, by which vegetative life they bloom; and after all these is the essential power, that is, of inanimate things, such as the metallic and the more earthy ones; this power, which establishes and causes them to persist in being, gives also the power of qualities, of hot or cold, or of the subsequent temperaments; and [causes them] to be useful, or useful in such a way. And the appetitive powers, of always willing and desiring [rationals] to be able, God is the one who grants and strengthens, and he leads those things that are united toward friendship and communion, that is, the seeds of all things, or the elements, proceeding with proportion toward a union, and being mixed with one another, and gently approaching, he leads into the power of generating sensible things like themselves. Therefore, from this union, and from the mixture of those things united into friendship, as we have said, the elements are turned into difference and separation, and the parts being divided are separated into the generations of animals and plants and the rest; ^C and this distinction, or separation, receives from God the power to exist ^D and [the power] for the production of the things that come to be according to their species. Therefore, he called the gatherings and separations "unions" and "friendships," and he named "distinction" the species [that are] unconfused and unmixed. [Note, that even this desire the angelic powers have from God.]

*And these things are.* The nature of beings seeks [its] existence, not eli-

^A by choice, but by the necessity and usefulness of existence. And this, therefore, he says, is what it is to be thus, and [he speaks of] the power of being sought after, as it is necessary that being should come from the divine and infinite substance.

*And directions.* He calls the well-disposed positions and orders decent operations. By "angelic units" he means the simplicities, or he calls their own essential simplicities, and their lack of body, and their immateriality, "units." Note, however, that he says the stars are everlasting.

*And immutable orders.* Understand "immutable" not in the sense that the heavenly substances are eternal—for according to the Scripture they are ministering spirits—but understand the immutability ^B as concerning the keeping of the boundaries originally established for them by God. By "progressions," he refers to the length of this time and its further motion. By "distinction," he means the indication of times or seasons which, through vicissitude, is established again at the same point. Hence he also called the motion of time "convolutions." Or, he calls the "progressions of time" the motions of the wandering stars, which creep along through a certain number of times across the spaces of the twelve so-called houses. And by "returns," he refers to the movements from a certain point back to the same point; just as the sun in a year goes around the twelve houses, passing from Aries back to Aries, and the moon in a month, and the other five likewise; for from these the times are measured.

*And the powers of fire.* Of the ethereal [fire], clearly. He speaks of the four elements, and that the earth is founded on nothing; but the Scripture says: "Thou hast founded it upon the waters."

*Essential.* Perhaps "essential" things are also called all those things that are void of soul and sense, clearly because they are thus named from "being."

*And deification itself.* The righteous and the angels are made gods, according to that: "I said, Ye are gods."

*Wholly production.* He calls "production" the bringing forth into existence, as if to say: That which does not participate in power is not even among the creatures.

§ VI. *But Elymas the magician says.* Hence is shown the antiquity ^C of this holy man; for he knows what Elymas the magician said, who also withstood the holy Paul in Cyprus, whom the Acts of the holy apostles mention. Yet Arabia has many like unto Elymas, who say against us when we affirm that Jesus Christ, the Word of God, suffered in the flesh for us, but not in His divinity: "If you do not admit that He suffered in His divinity as He willed, you make God powerless, saying that He could not if He had willed." To whom it must be said that God did not will this, since He had that in which He could suffer; for it is contrary to nature for Divinity to suffer, which by its own nature is impassible.

^A Observe how he interprets the apostolic saying, "God cannot deny himself."

For the denial of himself. As I was saying, Elymas the magician, mocking the divine Paul who said that God cannot deny himself, and showing that it is impossible for God to be able [to do] whatever he wills, that is, to deny himself, the great Dionysius solves this most philosophically. For he says that God is truth, and truth is what is; but falsehood, as unsubstantial, is not even that which is. If, therefore, God were to deny himself, truth, having lied, would not exist; and how is it possible for this to happen? The inability, therefore, when applied to God, is a sign of ineffable power. For it is similar to saying that God is able to make himself not be God, but to pass over into non-existence, which, along with the impossible, also contains blasphemy; how then could it be said that He Who Is shall not be? God, therefore, cannot—that is, it is impossible—not to be, which is to say it is inadmissible for him not to be. ^B Consequently, this inability of God, that is, the impossibility for God to be unable to be, cannot come to pass. For just as light, in so far as it is light, cannot become darkness, so also these things are impossible for God on account of his surpassing truth.

Thus, therefore, God does not know "not knowing" by way of deprivation, in the way that God is tempted; that is to say, he does not know what it is not to know, or to be ignorant of something. But he does not know ignorance by way of deprivation; for ignorance is a deprivation, not a subsistence, but is outside the essence around which the deprivation occurs; for it is a deficiency of that which ought to be present. Therefore, God is deprived of ignorance, and he never knew non-knowing. For if we should say that God does not know ignorance not by way of deprivation, the "not knowing" would be found to be of his essence, ^C and ignorance would be essential to him, and God would be found to be darkness—for ignorance is darkness. Thus, in a sublime manner you will understand also that it is impossible for God to lie, and [the saying], "The Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing it," which is the same as saying: "It is impossible for the Son to will one thing when the Father wills another." For there is one will of the only adorable Trinity according to the divinity. For we are not ignorant that the Son of God, who is God, the one of the all-praised and all-pure Trinity who became human, assumed a human will that is natural and without sin.

"And not to be, is not." A negation placed against a negation constitutes an affirmation. ^D He, therefore, who says that "not to be" is not in God, concludes that he is. In this way, then, he says that he cannot "not be able," and likewise that he does not "not know," from which it is gathered that he entirely knows and is able. And he rightly added here "by way of deprivation"; for these things are not said by way of transcendence, but by way of deprivation—that is, "he cannot" and "he does not know."

§ VIII. Justice is also praised. Why [does] God

VIII. Justice is praised.

justice. The definition of justice is: a virtue distributing according to worth; or the proper functioning of the parts of the soul; or a mean between excess and deficiency; a habit distributive of equality; a habit striving to contribute to the common good; or the knowledge of what is to be distributed, what is not, and what is neither.

Cavilling. Regarding those who speak iniquity against God, as says the Psalmist. He speaks opportunely at this point, showing the absurdity of their words; for since they move themselves—that is, make use of free will and are masters of their own impulses—they ask, "Why have we been made masters of ourselves? And why are we not rather prevented from sinning, even against our will?"—ignorant that they wish to be stones, set in motion by another. And, possessing earthly bodies, they ask, "Why do we not remain in the same state—that is, immutable—since we are immortal and make use of material and temporal things?" This is the mark of those who are ignorant of the nature of sensible and intelligible things and who suffer from a great deprivation of reason; for since our body is material and temporal and mutable, it naturally required things similar to it—I mean, temporal and material things. But the soul, having been created immaterial and immortal, ^B naturally possesses free will, on account of its likeness to the Creator. Those who cavil, not understanding these things, accuse divine providence in both cases, seeing such order; for this signifies that, and entirely that they assign the things of some to others.

Those which move themselves, Gr. self-moving. Of one’s own right and power.

§ IX. *At dixerit aliquis* ("But someone will say"). Against those who say: How is God not unjust when He permits the just to be harmed by the unjust?

Otherwise. Here he seeks the proposition put before us by another; for he says: "Someone will say," and so forth, resolving it religiously and piously. For he speaks of the cause for which God, being just, permits holy men to be harmed by unjust and grasping people (for we see many just people suffering loss—whether in wealth or in affairs—at the hands of the unjust and the avaricious). And he responds ingeniously and skillfully; for he says that the holy ought not to suffer anything regarding earthly and temporal things; otherwise they are not holy; for they ought to prefer those things which are truly worthy of love and divine. For those who are greedy for riches are no longer holy. And thus the question is resolved; for the divine Paul says this: "Why do you not rather suffer wrong?"—saying that they ought not to be terrified by worldly things. And again, describing divine love, in which neither injustice nor avarice can exist, he says: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress?" and what follows. He calls those who are in affection... ^{C D}

^A touching them, and adhering only to earthly things: "to be less approved" it is, to appear less worthy of praise.

*To the angelic virtues.* That virtue is rightly spoken of even in regard to angels, just as it is in regard to God, according to that word: "His virtue covered the heavens." And that for those concerned with material things to suffer injustice is a sign of divine providence accustoming them to desire more divine things.

*Of the affection for material things.* See how he says that not to be affected by material things signifies masculinity, that is to say, fortitude; for those who are enslaved to worldly and bodily passions are deservedly called womanish. And that divine justice does not desire to charm or destroy us through these things, but accustoms us to their contempt, according to what has been said: "For whom the Lord loves, He disciplines; and He scourges every son whom He receives." What then? Are those who possess wealth not loved by God? You will say that, first, wealth is not evil in itself, but the affection towards it and the bad use of it; furthermore, God knows those who are weak among us, and wishing to preserve them for exhortation, perhaps He gives them money and the splendor of life, not being ignorant of what they are—for how could He, who knows all things before they come into being? But He does so that we may have no excuse, according to the Apostle: "Therefore you are inexcusable, O man," and again: "We have a Great High Priest, able to sympathize ^B with our weaknesses."

*Not to charm.* To charm is to deceive through pleasure; but it is also said to simply delight.

*Of the best.* Of those things which are desirable.

*With an unyielding motion.* He calls an unyielding motion that which is an unrelenting stance against the tickling of earthly things, and not being bent toward material things through temptations.

*§ X. Of the operation of each in all things.* He called *idiopragia* (operation of each according to its own) the movement of each of the beings that is characteristic according to nature; for neither is it possible for men to do the things of angels, nor for fire to do what belongs to water, and vice versa.

*And as from the worse.* ^C Do not understand the "worse" here as relating to the created things; for there is nothing evil in them, but rather in relation to sin, which, out of our own choice, arose through the privation of good. For God snatches us away from it if we are willing, if we should run to Him.

*And unswerving toward the worse.* Consider him to be speaking these things concerning sensible and created things, that He preserves all things in their own proper order; for none of them has turned aside, but they have remained just as they were created; this is what "immutable" declares. And "unswerving toward the worse," either because He made them capable of choice, or because none of them has departed ^D from its own state, or been moved toward lower things. For heaven and

the earth, and what is in them, have remained the same. Furthermore, as to "exterminating alien action, and not allowing the properties of each to fall away," ^A understand it thus: the elements remain contrary to one another, namely, hot and cold, moist and dry, and each of them remains in its own integrity, and does not change into its opposite; for fire never becomes water, nor water fire. Yet if they should come together by the command of the Creator, each of them remains, preserving its own property.

And proportions. He calls proportions the fitnesses and symmetries of each nature.

Not beside the purpose. That is, not outside the scope of Scripture.

Granting remission, Gr. *hyperidousa* (supporting).

From harmful things, Gr. *tōn lelōbēmenōn*. To those causing injury and damage.

And every inequality. He does not say that He exterminates inequality simply, but in individuals; that is, that individual creatures do not remain equally and similarly in their natural identity. Therefore he added "from privation," since it is not because things are indifferent and unequal that inequality is removed.

Of the equality of individuals. Since he knew there are two ways according to which inequality is spoken of, he explains both, and says that God is called justice to the extent that He increases every equality by measure and exterminates every inequality. But now he understands by inequality that which happens by privation, that is, ^C excess. For to distribute equally to each according to desert, this contains and preserves all things. Having said these things, he adduces also the other mode according to which inequality is spoken of. For he knows that some have called the intelligible and incorporeal forms, and the first principles of things—I mean the immortal creation, the units, that is, the simple essences—equality and identity; but have called the sensible things, which are also divisible and mutable and different, and at times have other states, inequality and diversity. He says, therefore, that even if someone has understood this inequality as the difference of sensible things in forms, by which the generations of animals, and of plants, and of the rest subsist, nevertheless God is the guardian and protector of this inequality also, not allowing the contraries to be mixed into one, and by ^D the mixing to come into corruption. For as He produced all things, so He also preserves them, and they are as they were from the beginning.

For inequality. Note that he calls inequality the diversity of all things in the whole among themselves, and that the justice of God preserves such inequality. Note also that there is a natural inequality.

IN CAP. IX.

§ I. Of these divine names. Most wisely he says of the divine...

images, ^A translating them from the Gentiles to the truth; for they used to make certain statues, having neither hands nor feet, which they called Herms; they made them hollow, having doors, like turreted wall-towers. Inside them, therefore, they placed the statues of the gods whom they worshipped, and shut them in by the Herms on the outside; and so the Herms appeared cheap, but inside they had the ornaments of the gods themselves. Thus, therefore, you will understand here that the names in Holy Scripture, which are spoken of Him who is and the only true God, are unworthy to be said of God, such as "small," and "sitting," and the like; but when these names are unfolded and interpreted in a manner worthy of God, they contain within themselves the signs and divine figures of the glory of God.

Magnus indeed God is praised in the Oracles. It is not by comparison with another, he says, that God is called great, as an ox is greater than a sheep, or a bean than millet; but because of the incomparable and truly incomprehensible nature of the divine majesty; for this is what he signaled by saying *idiōs*, that is to say, propriety.

§ II. Now God is called great. And although he interprets the appellations of those things which are predicated of God, yet it is necessary to clarify these things with testimonies of Scripture. That he is called great is written: ^B "Great is our Lord, and great is his power," and whatever similar things are in Scripture. But that he is also "small" is shown in the third book of Kings, where he says to the prophet Elijah: "Behold a voice of a thin aura, and there is the Lord." For it indicates that he is surrounded by the aura, which is [that of thinness and] smallness. That he is always the same, you have in this place: "I am and I am not changed." Another thing, when he was seen by Ezekiel as a man from fire and electrum, and elsewhere: "His eyes as lamps," and the rest; as the appearance of copper and a furnace, which John says in the Apocalypse; and "like," when he says he created man according to his likeness. But "unlike," in Isaiah, when he says: "To whom have you likened me, says the Lord," as having nothing like to him. And "standing" and "immovable," in what he says to Moses concerning the rock: "Here I stood before you were there," and the like. And "sitting," where Baruch says: "You sit forever, and we are perishing forever," and again: "He who sits upon the cherubim." And "moving," as when he says: "And he mounted upon the cherubim, and flew"; and again: "Come, let us go down and let us confuse their tongues"; and, "He bowed the heavens and came down." And these things for now; but in the particular expositions, what is necessary shall be clarified.

This magnitude is also infinite. ^C Since God has a completely perfect end, and being super-perfect, he is also super-infinite, as that: "And of his kingdom there shall be no end"; but he is also beyond all number; for even if God were to be called one and being, nevertheless...

^A he is super-One. For in a proper sense the "one" signifies a relation to the many numbers that proceed from it, and it seems to be as it were the beginning of a multitude of numbers; nevertheless, God has deigned to appropriate the "one" from among the things which he has produced, since the one is simple and indivisible in itself, and in no way composite; but even so he is "supra-one," that is, he is above the one; wherefore it has been said: "And of his understanding there is no number."

§ III. Thus, therefore, is the "small" in regard to God. For all things, both those which are very large and those which are very small, participate in the communion of the small; for no thing among existing things escapes the small, which is revealed in all things; ^B or it is because things in growth proceed from the small toward the greater—this is what the Father says—or it is because in the greater the small is contemplated, and not the greater in the small, insofar as it is greater.

And "reaching." Hence is demonstrated the velocity of the progress of God to incorporeal things. For that reaching as far as the division of soul and spirit—for the matter is thus; this declares that even the incorporeal and uniform soul itself can be divided by God. Therefore God understands also the thoughts which the mind, moved and acting, thinks, which nevertheless are most incorporeal and indivisible; (for what is there between intellect and intellection?) God penetrates into the midst, as it is said: "You have understood my thoughts from afar"; but also between the soul and the spirit, that is, in that in which we have our senses fixed, through which the soul also tends toward sensible things, and we have the power of understanding speculations, ^C God passes without impediment. This spirit, however, the wise men of the Greeks call a faculty, and as it were a second, sensitive soul of the soul: therefore this sensitive soul penetrates as far as the marrow, and veins, and arteries, and bones, and the whole body.

§ IV. That which cannot be diminished, "ungenerated." Note how many ways the meaning of "ungenerated" is taken; either as that which is not yet generated, but is to be generated, as Sara said: "It has not yet happened to me"; or as imperfect, like the tower in Chalane; or as coming from someone, as Paul the Apostle: "not from men"; or as this, as Justus, one of the twelve; or as that which in no way exists, as the prodigies spoken of by the Greeks, Scylla and Chimera, ^D and the like, "ungenerated" exists in God. In the same place. When he has said that God is ungenerated, he cleanses away unpropitious interpretations of the name, and says: "See that you do not use this term as meaning that he is generated, as if God had someone greater than himself, so that he might have been generated by one who had been before him, neither as Creator, nor as good, nor as spirit, nor as fire, nor anything of that sort; but do not even [think] that he is not yet generated, but to be generated."

^A If you think of him as ingenit [unbegotten], do not suppose him to be at all, neither in generation nor anything else. How, therefore, the ingenit ought to be understood, he says hereafter. These things he does against the Arians and Eunomians, who bring blasphemy upon God from the generated and the ingenit.

"But as if altogether ingenit." Since, as he says, he causes God, who is above all that is ingenit, to be thought of [in this way], and to say that because of this he is something in the holy Trinity that is ingenit through creation; come, let us make clear what is signified. And for now, the divine Dionysius is manifest from the beginning: since at that time the philosophers were particularly flourishing in Ephesus, where the Ionian philosophy had also been established, with holy Timothy as bishop, [Dionysius] was intent on bringing all the things that were erroneously spoken by them to the truth. ^B He knew, therefore, that it was the dogma of some of them to say that all things intelligible and immortal, and all things gifted with intellect, are generated and ingenit: generated, indeed, as subsisting by God as their cause according to the progress of illumination; ingenit, however, in the sense that they proceeded not in time, but eternally—that is, in the ages. For we said above that sensible things have time, but intelligible things have eternity, whence they are also called eternal. Therefore, as they spoke of those things as shining forth from procession and being ingenit; on the other hand, he knew others who said that this visible world was both generated and ingenit: generated, indeed, in that everything in it proceeds either from one into many, which is in the generation of particular animals, plants, and other things; ^C or from many into one—that is, when it proceeds toward corruption, into the dissolution into the elements. Ingenit, however, they spoke of the world itself subsequently—that is, as eternal—in that, according to them, it never ceases from the motions that occur in generations and the restorations that are found in corruption. Therefore the great Dionysius says: however the "ingenit" might be spoken of, whether as I have said or as the Greeks have it, do not receive this in reference to God. For other things are called ingenit in the way of an effect, but God [is so] causelessly and absolutely; for what cause could there be to God, who surpasses all things absolutely?

Uniformly and identically in species

And the same

According to one and unique

^A he is separated from all things and transcending them in a unitary and identical way—that is, according to the state of being a unit, which is unmixed with all things and simple, and according to being "the same," in place of being understood as "in the same state." For it makes no difference to say a unit or unitary, or "the same" or "identical"; for it signifies the same thing. God communicates identity also to the creatures that are from him, whence all things remain in the same way and unalterably, just as they were generated, in conspiring together and in preservation and in sympathy, as far as they are able to participate in this. Thus also he preserves in himself and conjoins the diversities, that is, the various progressions of the creatures from him, while at the same time maintaining his own identity, and being neither changed into diversity nor into contrariety, ^B although he even holds together contraries in the sensible realm.

§ V. *Because he is provident to all.* The construction of this phrase is to be referred by trajection to the word "to be thought," that the conclusion should be "to be thought," since God is present to all things providentially, and what follows.

*For as if the soul.* See how it is possible to understand the soul in a corporeal manner, and how it understands there to be certain parts of the soul in a corporeal manner; for he portrays it beautifully in his discourse.

*Devoid of parts.* The soul is not simply indivisible, but indivisible with respect to the body; for he speaks of its parts and faculties, in the image of which the parts of the body are sometimes taken.

*By explanations.* He calls *explanations* the unfolding or manifestation of the meaning hidden in the word; and *to be purified* is for that which is being contemplated to be wholly freed ^C from corporeal things.

*The threefold figures of bodies.* He calls the *threefold figures of bodies* that which is extended in three ways, as he immediately clarifies; and correctly from this place you will understand the opinion of the Apostle, "That you may know what is the depth, and what is the height," and the rest, which some have taken to refer to the saving cross. But note what length, and depth, and breadth mean in God.

*But now, the divine [unity] itself.* The ancients called unity, and identity, and equality, and likeness, the cause of the concord of all things and of providence and salvation, which they also called "the one"; but they called diversity, and dissimilarity, and inequality, the providential care of the Creator toward things divisible, and mutable, and sensible, ^D and also toward those things which are intelligible—understanding the names as the things they signify demand, just as we have variously said above. Others, indeed, spoke of identity and diversity, or the same and different as form and privation; others, limit and the infinite. [Note that here he declares that he is composing a manual on *Symbolic Theology*.]

^A he says of His multiplication from unity, that God, remaining in His own simplicity, has produced the various and all-generous species of creation; for he calls "procession" that movement and propensity, as it were, which is directed toward the creation of existing things.

§ VI. *But to call God "similar."* It cannot be said of us ^B that we are "similar," for our body consists of similar and dissimilar parts, as Aristotle also shows in the beginning of his *Treatise on the Generation of Animals*. But God, in that which He is, is entirely "similar," since Divine Scripture declares Him to be, as the One who is always the same and unchangeably, dissimilar to all, as for instance: "Who among the gods is like unto Thee, O Lord?" And again: "To whom have you likened Me, saith the Lord?" And further: "I have multiplied visions, and by the hands of the prophets I have been assimilated," that is, I am the same as Myself, as Irenaeus says in his books *Against Heresies*.

*By imitation, which they are able to apply.* One may indeed accept "imitation" in this context as referring to the intellectual and rational nature that is turned toward God, according to the word: "Be perfect, and be merciful as your heavenly Father is," which things in God exist properly and above every limit and discursive reasoning; but in creatures, they exist in proportion to the nature of each, according to its capacity. And it is also possible to understand in this place by "imitation" the participation in those things which are viewed in God superessentially, which produced things have received in their generation for their existence and for the other things that I explained in what preceded this. And as for his statement that things are "similar to God according to the divine image," it is not the case that it denies this was said of man; rather, he has used the expression also for the rest by reason of participation.

*And to the divine image.* He says here how "according to the image and likeness" is to be understood: namely, not according to form, but insofar as they are turned, and have their mind elevated toward God, the Author of being and of well-being; which others have understood as free will, since God is not similar to rational beings ^C according to essence; for neither are we similar to our images made of wax, perhaps, or bronze, which are of a different essence from us and only in some measure similar. For those which are of the same rank, that is, of the same order and essence, such as the Cherubim and Seraphim and the rest of the ranks, are assimilated to one another in their primary form; which form, among the intelligible beings, is as it were a certain subject, a living immaterial matter, and is the very form which each of the intelligible beings is. But God is not compared in this way to the things from Himself; for the cause is not similar to the effects. And what I said regarding the intelligible beings, understand also regarding our intellectual souls.

*For in those things which are of the same rank.* He calls "of the same rank" those of the same nature, from which the similarity is reciprocal, as ^D

^A Peter is similar to Paul according to nature, and conversely Paul is similar to Peter. But in the case of a man and his image, the reason is not the same; for the account of the essence is not the same in both, which he called the primary species of the similar. Man is also said in another way to be dissimilar to his own image, because the image was made in the likeness of the man, and not the man in the likeness of this. Thus, therefore, in the case of the cause and those things from it, one must not admit that it is reciprocal; and to be reciprocal is that which one can also say equally to those who handle the contrary argument, as, for example, if that which is in the womb is an animal, and the contrary, if that which is in the womb is not an animal. Thus speaks Clement in the beginning of the fifth book of the Stromata, and so, therefore, here too. Therefore, if they are similar, they are of the same rank, and conversely, if they are not similar, they are not of the same rank. ^B

*Of Self-Similarity.* It is the custom of the great Dionysius to call God, in the case of effects, that which is in itself, and the founder of that which is in itself; and for Him to be existence in itself, and the founder of existence in itself; as also now for Him to be similarity itself, and the founder of similarity itself. He says these things, not as asserting God to be a life distinct from the essential life produced by Him, and as if one were to say there is some subsistence outside God, which those things that participate in life participate in; but as He explains Himself in the eleventh chapter, God is called life itself, and power itself, and similarity itself, and such like, as being this primordially, and divinely, and causatively; for He is truly the fount and origin of these; but as for life itself, and similarity itself, and such things, He is the founder, in that He bestows this gift upon those things which participate in them primarily among things: for all things participate in such things according to their capacity: the first and highest of the intelligible creatures ^C indeed after the manner of a principle; those that follow, according to descent or a lower degree. Furthermore, we have also said above that similarity is the unity of the wholes, by which they all participate in that which is in the same state and according to the same things in conspiration, by communion with the first cause. He said "can be," for the imitation is not perfect, nor in the whole.

§ VII. Deficient. § VIII. *But what about the divine standing?* He receives standing and sitting as the same thing: for he does not suspect by "standing" the notion of becoming upright after having been bent in sitting, but he called the unshakable and unchangeable firmness of God a standing: just as also sitting signifies being continuously and incomprehensibly in the kingdom, and in rest that is without a name. Indeed, in Scripture, He is said to rise as if from a seat, as in the passage: *Arise, O Lord, prevent them*; and again, as from a standing to a sitting ^D

transitioning as it is written: *For thou shalt mount upon thy horses*, and: *Thy riding is salvation*; and further: *He mounted upon cherubim and flew*; but above all this: *Thou hast sat upon the throne, who judgest righteousness*; and: *God sits upon His holy throne*. But these things are to be understood not carnally, but in a manner worthy of God. ^A

§ IX. *And to all things proceeding.* God is said to proceed and to move toward all things, as in Jeremiah: *I am a God nearing, and not from afar*; and again: *Who is over all and through all*; and especially: *If I go up to heaven, thou art there*, and the rest. And in the divine apparitions: *Incline thy heavens and come down*; and: *God has gone up in jubilation*.

*Not by displacement or change.* Teaching us to understand piously those things which are said concerning God, he says: When you hear that God is moved, never understand the motion which is understood among creatures, and especially among sensible things. For material things are moved by way of local motion—and local motion is the change of the whole from place to place, especially that which is not able to stand by itself when it wishes—or motion occurs by way of alteration. ^B Alteration is when, while the sensible subject remains, it changes in its affections which are contrary, or even between opposites and non-opposites. For example, a body is healthy, and conversely falls ill. In the same way, bronze is sometimes round, and sometimes cornered, that is, reshaped into angles. But when the whole is changed, with nothing sensible remaining as its subject—but rather, as though blood were to come from all earth, or air from water, or water from all air, or as the rod of Moses into a serpent, or water into blood—this is conversion, and generation, and corruption, with the former things having been moved away. Furthermore, there is motion by alteration into the dissimilar, such as from color to color. Again, there is local motion, which is a transition from place to place; which motion occurs either in a straight path, or by circular motion, as a wheel is moved, or according to some, even the heaven; ^C or by one mixed of straight and circular, such as the tortuous progress of the kind that belongs to serpents. There is also intelligible motion, by which the mind operates, or divine minds understand things. There is also animal motion, by which one is moved to intellection and to activating the senses. Finally, there is another natural motion which moves things suited to it toward accretion and nutrition. God, therefore, is moved by none of these; but the motion of Him who is immovable and always holds Himself in the same way is called His will for things to come into existence, and the progression of His providence toward all things. ^D

*Not from both.* He refers to the transitive motion, which he also calls tortuous; but *without connection* signifies absolute and joined.

^A *Moreover, the motions of God.* Having denied bodily motions in God, he explains how motion must be understood in God in a manner fitting to Him, interpreting sensible motions in the universe anagogically.

*And indeed the straight.* As to how circular, straight, and tortuous or oblique motion is understood in God, read the fourth chapter, a few leaves after the beginning of the chapter, and you will learn how such motions are understood in angels, souls, and bodies.

*The middle and the extremes.* The higher always contain the lower; he calls the supreme powers, which are near to God, the extremes; but the middle ones are those which indeed follow them, but excel all sensible things. Therefore, the supreme ones embrace the middle ones, and the middle ones the sensible ones: for this reason, ^B Scripture has also spoken of the orders of angels in the heavens. God indeed embraces all things, as a circle embraces all things within itself, and turns them to Himself as to their cause. Note, however, what identity, justice, and equality are in God.

§ X. *Similar movement.* Similar progression amongst themselves and in the elements: for the equal tempering of these also causes the generations of the world not to be overbalanced in their commixtures: for if any element abounds, that which is generated is corrupted.

^C *And since every intelligible equality.* It should be known that *noēton* (νοητόν), or intelligible, is that which is not subject to the senses, nor possesses in itself the faculty of understanding, such as the faculties of the soul and of the senses; but *noeron* (νοερόν), or intelligent, is that which possesses simple and free understandings, such as angels; but *logikon* (λογικόν), or rational, is that which receives knowledge of things through reason, or arguments and speculation, such as the human mind; but the sensitive is that which is subject to the senses, such as the parts of creation which are divided into essential and natural, that is, into things which are immobile and altogether devoid of sense, and those which can be moved in some way: for they define nature as a principle of motion and rest. And *voluntary* equality is that which has power to choose: I am not, however, ignorant that the soul of man is also said to be intelligent and rational in a catachrestic sense.

^D *The power producing every equality.* There is an equality which is attributed to natures by God, the creator of all, and there is a voluntary equality, which they who exercise justice and equity of law direct voluntarily and by choice. This equality, therefore, is established by God. Every equality of law and justice, therefore, God possesses beforehand in Himself simply and indivisibly, as in ideas and exemplars, in His eternal thoughts, or, to speak properly, embraces them.

IN CAP. X.

§ I. *Ut omnipotentem et ut antiquum.* ^A God was seen by Daniel with grey hair, having a head white as wool, for which reason He was also named the Ancient of Days; but He is [seen as] junior to the grey-haired old man when He was seen as a man by Abraham with the angels, and as a youth. Explaining these things here, he resolves it: as an old man, because all things are from God and are posterior to Him, and therefore junior to Him; but as a youth, because He is always in vigor and remains in firm blessedness without the wear of age. If, however, one were to say both together—that is, old man and youth at once—to declare that He reaches out to all things from the beginning and proceeds until the end, ^B which end is junior to the beginning: he says that this also will have its reason. Afterward, he also brings in the opinion of the divine Hierotheos; for I conjecture that he is speaking of him as his own initiatory guide in sacred things, inasmuch as he calls him his teacher.

§ II. *And grey-haired, and youth.* How is the Lord sometimes described as ancient, and sometimes as new, as in: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and for the ages"? ^C Certainly, today is junior to yesterday. *When, indeed, truth.* Since arithmetic has brought the multitude—which has division in numbers—to a limit, placing the monad or unit as the beginning of every number, and the dyad or duality for even numbers and the rest that proceed in magnitude by the addition of units: since the multitude (that is, creation) is from God, and number is in the multitude, it is appropriately called junior in relation to number. For the multitude, which is that which is numbered, was produced after God in an ineffable manner and from God; but the monad is also more primordial than this junior number of creation, which, as I said, is the cause of numbers and has a certain connection with the many that proceed from it. Therefore, God, as the author of these things and also possessing the quality of the monad, is called junior according to the stated contemplation to those things which were produced by Him. There are some who have called bodies "number."

§ III. *And absolutely unbegotten.* ^D Above, in the fifth chapter, we discussed eternity and time at length; but now the requested points must be clarified. For not only does Scripture, he says, call God eternal, in saying: "God is eternal, who fashioned the ends of the earth"—for indeed it says God is absolutely unbegotten, as One who is this without cause—but it also calls things "eternal" that participate in incorruption and are not changed in their very essence, whether they be angels or the supreme heaven, as: "He established them for the aeon, and for the aeon of the aeon"; and: "The things that are not seen are eternal." He says they are "unchanging," remaining as they were made; and he calls them "eternal gates," whether he means the heavens or the angels who are set over them as gatekeepers.

^A He also calls ancient things "eternal," as in: "I have called to mind the eternal years" (Ps. LXXVI, 6). He also calls the time of our age "an aeon," as in: "to the end of the aeon" (Matth. XXVIII, 20); and: "That he might deliver us from the present evil aeon" (Galat. I, 4). Conversely, he calls an aeon "time," as in: "I will raise him up in the last day" (John VI, 55); for it is an aeon, not a day, that is in the resurrection. And again: "In whom the god of this aeon blinded the minds of the unbelievers" (II Cor. IV, 4). He also calls time "an aeon," as in: "The days of the aeon," and: "A Moabite and an Ammonite shall not enter into the church of the Lord until the tenth generation, into the aeon" (Deut. XXIII, 3); for he calls the ten generations an "aeon."

Otherwise: He says that where the Scripture calls something "eternal," one must not necessarily understand it to mean the Divinity; for this is what is "in every way and absolutely"—that is, in every sense, unbegotten and everlasting—but rather that angels also are signified by such a word, as those who have the property of remaining in identity.

"To participate in eternity." That this Father also receives eternity, according to Gregory the Theologian, as a declaration of the perpetual, or of that which is said to "always be."

^B Furthermore, a temporal aeon is celebrated. "Eternity in time," as in the psalms: "He labored into the aeon and shall live to the end" (Ps. XLVIII, 9). Time is called "eternal," as in the Apostle, for example: "Before eternal times" (Tit. I, 2), and: "Kept secret in eternal times" (Rom. XVI, 25). And in Moses: "It shall be possessed by you into the aeon" (Lev. XXV, 46). Note, however, that the future aeon is incorruptible and always exists in the same way.

^C "Although we know from them." From the saints themselves, clearly. Note, however, that he calls the intelligible things "beings," to which he also counts eternity; but he calls the sensible things "generation," for which he signifies that time also exists. You have these things perfectly in the fifth chapter.

"Not simply coeternal to God." Most wisely, he secures the listener in religion, saying that it must not be thought that things which are called "eternal" are therefore coeternal to God, who is before the aeons. And indeed, we have already said above that "eternal" is properly said not of eternity itself, but of that which participates in eternity. Therefore, the intelligible things—properly so called as "beings," as things that were made immortal and eternal, in that they remain without end by the will of God—must be spoken of as things also produced by God, when they did not exist before.

Truly making the greatest use of precise terminology, he safely transfers what is venerated as arcane among the Greek philosophers into religion: he says, therefore, that the incorporeal powers created by God are indeed "beings" and "eternal," yet not coeternal to God, as the Greeks babble, saying: "At the same time as God, at the same time as all things."

^D And these things that are generated, he says, are the earthly bodies, which they also call "generation and corruption," as being of the sediment of matter, and all things after the moon are thicker. There are [original-script column: see facsimile]

as those things which exist in the subject matter and all the crasser sublunary things. There are, however, middle things between those that are, whether of the eternal or of those that come into being, or the crasser and earthly bodies which are born and die frequently in generation and corruption: these middle things are indeed bodies, yet they also participate in eternity and in time little. The middle things are the heaven and all the stars; for these also are bodies, even if they consist of finer parts and are the most refined of matter, as the Apostle says: ^A *Celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies* (r); then clarifying what they are, he adds: *Another glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars* (s). The supreme heaven and the earth, therefore, were in eternities; for they were created before the light, which was even called day, was created, as Moses says; but in the intervals of time, the firmament and the stars, although they are bodies and temporal: for they are tangible and visible, yet they will be eternal, and they themselves also will participate in eternity, just as our bodies will be transformed into immortality; as the Apostle also makes clear, ^B saying that the figure of this world is passing away, but not the world itself. Therefore, concerning these intermediate bodies, it is said in the Psalms: *He set them for ever and for the age of the age; He gave a command, and it will not pass away* (u). Note, therefore, that the stars and the sun and the moon and the heaven are indeed bodies consisting of finer parts, but they became immortal by the will of God, just as our bodies will become after the resurrection. Otherwise: He called the middle of things that are and things that come to be, angels and souls, which in one way seem to participate in eternity because they cannot be corrupted or perish; but in another way, they participate in time because ^C they are created: therefore he calls them temporal and eternal; for he previously said that those things which remain are manifested by the term “eternal,” that is, all things that are said about God; but things that come to be, by the term “in time,” even if those hearing “eternal” and “temporal” should not receive these things simply, but according to the modes known to them, as he says, or in a way that is clearly believed.

IN CAP. XI.

§ 1. *Peace as the prince of reconciliation.* Note that he calls God the prince of reconciliation: by the “divided multitude” understand that which is sensible.

*To the whole unity.* Some indeed understood by the “whole unity” the simple and indivisible cause of things, ^D toward which all things have been turned, as subsisting within it; others, however, the structure of the universe mingled from elements of different nature: therefore he also named the contrariety of the qualities in them “intestine war,” of hot toward cold, and of moist toward dry, and of others likewise, which are united for the completion of one world.

Do not conceive, as the godless Manichaeans do, that matter, being at variance with itself, brought forth these demons; but rather that, by nature, the moist is hostile to the dry, and the cold to the hot; for God joins even those things that are such into friendship and the establishment of the whole. Understand, therefore, the “intestine” as the inherent.

^A *“And hence the elder.”* He does not speak of the hierarchal rank of the Seraphim simply as “elder powers,” but insofar as it holds the first place in joining or turning the inferiors toward divine illuminations; for they themselves receive the first vision of God: and “individually,” that is, not in some part, but collectively with their whole selves.

*“To be diffused into the infinite.”* He now refutes the great errors of the Greek philosophers and leads them toward piety. For while many among them were at variance, some saying that all things are generated through contrariety and war, by contention and strife; others, that all things are produced solely from friendship and harmony, but not thinking worthily of God—he, transferring their fictions of names to uprightness, establishes God as the creator and cohesive bond of the universe. He understands the “intestine war” of the universe as the natural discord between the incorporeal, immaterial, and intelligible [beings] and the corporeal, material, and sensible; for these are dissimilar and discordant in their essences. *“For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh”* (v). ^B And not only this, but also all sensible things, that is, bodies—some saying that they are infinite and are corrupted into infinity, and that the mixture of all things (which he calls infinity), being turned into distinction and separation and parts, is discerned and separated in generations, and from this the rupture growing greater, and not only purging the mixed [elements] from those that do not coalesce and are alien, but also carrying [them] already into the cutting and fracturing of those that do coalesce, and leading the concrete [objects] into all dissimilarity and difference, so that all things are dissolved and corrupted, except for the simple things, that is, the elements, and calling this war, which does not allow the whole to be united—the great Dionysius, as a lover of the truth, says that God dissolves such a natural war (for he calls this natural, the “intestine,” just as it is also “innate” and of the same kind), ^C bestowing on the universe, in place of intestinal war, peace and cohesion and concord, and holding and reconciling all things in Himself, as the Apostle says; *“and he shall reconcile the celestial with the terrestrial”* (x), through which he unites the powers committed to individuals, and those instituted as ministers, by the love of those subject to them: and he turns all things toward himself, holding the rudder and containing all things.

^D

VARIOUS READINGS AND CORRECTIONS. *etc.* For this participation in divine peace also reduces to concord, and at the same time joins together. Or by “war” here, understand that which naturally resides in incorporeal things towards material things. *“For the flesh,”* he says, *“lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh”*: inasmuch as divine peace brings even this kind of war to union and peace.

^A *“Which the holy Justus calls insonance.”* [Note] concerning Justus, and that he names the peace of the Divinity insonance and immobility. The Acts of the Holy Apostles make mention of this holy Justus, asserting that he was also called Joses. It is likely, therefore, that he wrote something, or made use of unwritten instructions. This, then, also confirms the antiquity of Saint Dionysius, and that he flourished at the same time as the apostles themselves and the apostolic men; note, however, that those divine men used the language of philosophers, calling the peace of God insonance and immobility.

*“Forsakes its own union.”* By “union” here he means that which is simple and singular, that is to say, indivisible.

*“Remaining entirely within.”* That is, passing over and forsaking its own interiority.

*“Its intelligible and expressible.”* By intelligible and expressible participations he means all that we are permitted to understand through those things which are spoken of in Scripture.

§ II. *“By their unconfused union.”* For he calls even those things that enter into composition a union, even if they are dissimilar; and he calls that which he spoke of before an intestine war.

*“Nevertheless pure.”* Even if the elements, he says, have a union and connection with one another that is indivisible, yet their qualities do not badly lose their own extremity, such as the hot, the dry, and the rest in the tempering of those things that are of diverse forms, as considered in the universe.

^B *“By the tempering of contraries.”* Tempering must be understood here not as the mixture that occurs in liquids and corrupts the underlying substances, but as the conspiracy and interconnection which preserves in a structure those things that are higher and those that are lower; I mean intelligible and sensible things—that is, those things which are generated—even the opposites themselves, as if being at peace with one another, such as water and the earth, by which the earth is hemmed in and not dissolved; and the heaven ^C which exists from water, and the ether which does not dissolve the heaven. And this is the intestine war, which the Creator not only wisely devised, but leads even more wisely into friendship and harmony through these very simple elements, according to Scripture: *“Summer and spring You fashioned”* (Ps. LXXIII, 17).

*“And unmixed.”* He said unmixed and tempered according to the proposed reception.

^D *“Through which the divine minds are united.”* We have said also above that the divine minds both understand themselves, and those that have ascended, and the inferior things; and that they remain in themselves when they exercise their own unity in their own cogitations; but that they seem to proceed to things outside, when they contemplate both the things that have descended and the things that are above; and thus, as is possible, they return to the understanding of the Cause of all. And thus thinking, the divine minds are without doubt united

to the objects of thought; for the thinking power is united to the known and intelligible object by knowledge, just as the one who is ignorant is scattered, not having grasped that which he was ignorant of. Such a mind, therefore, while thinking, reflects upon itself, not being divided outside itself but united to itself by the means through which it has returned into itself. There is another union, distinct from that of the holy minds, which is the intellectual union of the soul; for the former are intelligibles, but the latter is intellectual, and is inferior to all the angels. It is only intellectual, because of the reasons we have mentioned above, where we also spoke at length concerning what is said here, in the first chapter. ^B

Per immaterial and indivisible. That it is possible for an indivisible and immaterial intellection to be found in our souls when they gather their various kinds of reasonings into one intellectual purity; for then they advance appropriately to themselves, by way and order, even toward the union superior to intellection.

With perfect concert and concord. He speaks of perfect peace, the perfection of all goods, that is, God.

And connecting the extremes. He calls the higher and lower powers, as well as the middle ones, the "extremes," as we said before—those [middle ones] from the purest matter, such as the heavens and the stars, and the other extremes adjacent to the earth, and the earthly things themselves. For the extremes from the higher to the lower are the intelligibles; but conversely, the extremes from the lower to the higher are these earthly things, which are joined with the middle ones. And "of the same kind" (ὁμόγνια) are those which are akin and have proceeded from the Author of all. ^C

And to the extremes. He calls the last ends of the universe the "extremes"—the soulless essences, that is, in which no motion of growth, or nutrition, or any of the others is observed. But "of the same kind" (ὁμόγνια) are those which are siblings and of the same rank. But "unity" (ἑνότης) differs from "union" (ἕνωσις); for the former shows the peculiar and unmixed nature of each thing, while "union" signifies the mixture with others, or simply communion.

Whole to the whole. Even now he maintains his familiar diligence; for when he had spoken of "things of the same kind," that is, akin and of the same genus, and having proceeded from the same Prince of the genus, God, just as the Apostle uses that expression: "For we are also His offspring" (Acts xvii. 28); he now states the cause by which all things are of the same kind; and he says that God makes the intelligibles—which are akin and of the same order—by means of the unities, that is, according to the simple and uncompounded nature of the essences, and according to the immortality, which those who have discoursed on these matters call "identity." As, therefore, with the sensible things, He brings [them] into generation by the unions or co-mixtures of the different elements, and by the gatherings of such mixtures, through these sequences—He brings about, as it were, certain relationships. ^D

^A § III. But how, someone might say. An opposition against those who deny that all things desire peace; and what is ^C *heterotes* (otherness) or diversity. *Rerum proprietatem* (The property of things). Note what he calls property; namely, that each thing is as it has from nature, and remains the same as it was. This is against the Acephali, and those who are ignorant of what a property is. He examines at length the literal meaning of "property," elucidating it. *Sed desiderium pacis idipsum quoque* (But the desire for peace itself also). Here is the solution; he said "of themselves" (*heauton*) for "of their properties." *Immobilitatem* (Immobility), in Greek *akinēsian*. He calls immobility the not falling away from one’s own nature and motion.

§ IV. *Si cuncta porro quae moventur* (But if all things that are moved). He rightly said that all things are moved, not by one motion, but by a certain proper and suitable motion; for intelligible and intellectual beings move in one way, while sensible things move into generation or some similar motion, concerning which we have discoursed more perfectly in the ninth chapter. *Atque eorum omnium quae moventur proprietatem* (And the property of all things that are moved). That property is also the motive life of each individual thing.

^B § V. *Cæterum si quis prolapsionem* (But if anyone says "a falling away"). Against those who say that change is a falling away from peace, and from this confirm that peace is not to be desired by all. Note two kinds of change: one, a falling away from peace; the other, the property of each individual thing. *Id enim quod penitus instabile est* (For that which is utterly unstable). He admirably abrogates the opinions of the Greeks and similar heretics, such as the Valentinians and Manichaeans, who posit matter as a principle, carrying within itself things contrary to those of God; for they called instability, ^C and circumference, and infinitude, and the privation of limit, and all these things, perpetual matter; which is shown to be truly and utterly false; for there is nothing, nor has there ever been anything, which, from that out of which it was produced and adorned by God, was not produced into a form, and did not obtain divine providence so as to be as it had been produced.

*Obscuris simulacris* (By dark images). Instead of "by dim likenesses": for they desired enjoyment and union with the fleeting and corruptible pleasures, and choosing to see these without perturbation, or to participate in them, because this, he says, does not succeed for them according to their mind, they are disturbed.

*Et haec sedare* (And to settle these things). Thus one must compose this statement, namely: that even the contentious and seditious are held by a desire for peace through dark images; for, agitated by passions, and desiring to settle these passions as if they were good because of their ignorance, they seem to seek peace, ^D desiring to enjoy the fleeting and evil passions without fear, disturbed if they are frustrated in what they deem to be good, though they are in reality evil. By ellipsis, it is to be construed thus, so that it is: "seeking themselves, as..."

being disturbed if they are frustrated in their passions, [they are deemed] to be at peace, in order to enjoy their passions." Understand in this way also that "all seek peace"—that is, the Good.

What, furthermore, should one say concerning that which is according to Christ? How is Jesus Christ our peace, and that of the angels, having stilled the war, and broken down the middle wall of partition(a), and dispensed peace between us, and made both one, as the divine Apostle says in the Epistle to the Ephesians? ^B

By which we are taught to wage war no more. He does not war with himself who has subject his anger and desire to reason. He, however, has peace with men who has obtained a single mind toward all; but he who offers his own mind to be obedient to the movements through the angels, he has obtained peace even with the angels.

And [that we perform] with them also the divine [worship]. That is, let us perform the same worship and adoration towards the divine majesty as they do.

In the *Theological Outlines*. Note that there is a work of his also entitled *Theological Outlines*; he mentions this also at the beginning of the first chapter.

§ VI. *By the epistle thou didst inquire.* How he understands God to be Life itself, and the founder of Life itself, and similar things. He rightly says this also according to what is in the epistles, especially in the second. [Note that God is also named from created things and things produced by Him, inasmuch as He is the author and maker of them all.]

*From those which are first.* I think that by "those which are in the first place" he means the supermundane natures, as participating in the divine gifts—life and the rest—in the first place and purely. Therefore, "from those which are in things that are"—that is, from those things which are considered in beings—God is said to be the founder and producer of Life itself, or rather of the very thing and of its form; for from the one, that of life, we must similarly think about related things. But when God Himself is said to be Life itself and similar things, ^C He is said to be so as existing above every nature, that is, above the angels and every intellectual essence.

*From those which are first.* He calls the intelligible and incorporeal creations "first things," that is, the angels. Note "principally"—because it subsists in the first place—he means "God," for He alone is the creator of intelligible and sensible things. For one must not believe those who say that the creative virtues of God are gods, which is false; for God alone is the creator. Note that God alone is the creator of intelligible and sensible things.

*Contortum* (Gr. *ἀγκύλον*), crooked or bent.

^D

VARIÆ LECTIONES ET CORRECTIONES.

14 Note what "principally to be" means: namely, God is principally this, as the cause of all goods; but "participated," as the providential powers dispensed by Him.

^A And gods of things that are. That angels are not ^B gods or creators, nor anything else besides God.

Truly and properly. Note, that this divine man also recognizes no difference between "strictly" and "truly."

Regarding *Self-existence*. In these points, he has more clearly solved the proposed problem: how one should take the statements that God is sometimes called Life Itself, and the things that are with Him, and sometimes the creator of these, or that He has created these. It is because He, as the cause of these and the super-essential principle, is so named; but the things that participate in these are called, from them, living, existing, and divine. Therefore, God produced for the things themselves, or their effects, the action of living, and the action which is the bestower of essence. In the first place, then, we understand the effect itself. Afterward, we understand its universal conception—namely, life or essence considered in all ways; and then3 we take the particular, that is, the conception of each species, such as angelic life, human life, and of the rest, to which memory simultaneously pertains, along with the things that participate. But when he added "then of those which participate in all," he signified that not everything participates in everything. For some participate in essence alone, others in life, others also in intellection or intelligence, and others, besides these, even in deification.

^C *As to what belongs to each thing appropriately.* What seems more obscure must be clarified as follows: God, possessing all things for salvation in Himself in a most unified and uncompounded way, and as a fountain-like principle by reason of the excellence of His goodness, even to those things which were created by Him by the power of creation, as if emitting certain rays, while remaining entirely in Himself, He shares His great excellences with each according to its capacity, through a mode of participation. Therefore, the illuminations from the goods that are in Him are called in the first place "communicable in their primary form," and "Self-Being," and "Self-Life," and "Self-Deification," and all such things according to the imitation of the principles—that is, those things which are of God Himself, I mean of Self-Divinity, and Self-Goodness, and Self-Life. Secondly, He is also said to have created all these things, because of the essences that subsist outside by His procession, which are living essentially, and are given to those worthy by way of participation. Thirdly, [he speaks] of the causes of these partial participations; for some participate in the bestowing of life alone, some also in the bestowing of deification, and some finally in all these things together, just as the supreme intelligible powers participate.

^D *Of particular things.* He says "particular" refers to the successions of the genera.

*And of Self-Goodness.* That He is also the Creator of Self-Goodness and of Divinity, who is above goodness and above divinity. Note, therefore, that such things are not the essence of God. Read the second epistle to Gaius.

*Of providence and goodness.* Of providence and goodness. [index: entries preserved]

as the largition of essence, the largition of life, goodness, divinity, beauty, and the like.

^A From God, who is beyond participation in Himself. Having said a little before that God can be communicated, he now says that He cannot be communicated. Therefore, God can be communicated through His liberal communications; but He cannot be communicated in so far as He is the Author, and because He possesses that properly above all things, by which all things participate according to their capacity; for this is similar to that which was said above in the fifth chapter, namely, that He is, and is in all things, and is none of the things that are; for because He contains, vivifies, and preserves, He is said to be in all things; but He is none of the things that are, in so far as He is the cause of the production of all things, and the cause cannot be derived from the things caused. ^B Indeed, a cause can never be derived from its effects: thus also in this place, God can indeed be communicated, in so far as all things that are participate in Him, and consist through Him; for that which does not participate in Him neither exists, nor shall exist, nor did exist. But, on the other hand, He cannot be communicated, since none of those things which are participate in His essence; for God, according to His own nature, is above the things that are.

UPON CHAPTER XII

§ I. By the gemination of names. He speaks of the gemination of names as the superlative with the positive, such as Holy of holies, Lord of lords, God of gods, [King of kings], and the like.

§ II. Wherefore domination. The two Gregorys, the Theologian and [the Bishop] of Nyssa, say these things.

§ III. To be praised absolutely. Absolutely, that is, not to praise according to something, and not to praise according to something else, or as it is compared with another, but according to a simple thought, that is, properly. And inequality. ^C This is the unity—the principle of equality and identity, I mean; for this is the cause of conspiracy, and concord, and the salvation of all things. For the principle of unity, which remains in the same way and is simply disposed, may justly be called "one." For that which is in particular things is a unified substance in its parts, and concurs in the participation of the first cause. For this reason also the Lord prays for His disciples: "That they themselves also may be one, as We are one, that they may be perfected into one," [which signifies holiness and royalty]. He is "rejoiced," or rather God is gladdened in His own works, according to that which is in the Psalms: "The Lord shall rejoice in His works" [which signifies dominion].

^D § IV. The Author is imparticipable. God cannot be communicated according to the principle of nature.

Holy of holies is praised. He has wondrously explained how God is praised as Holy of holies and the like, and says, as far as a pure nature and cause differs from quality and effect; for this is [the difference] between that which is and that which is not properly, and as much as that which is participated differs from that which participates, by so much does God, when He is called these things, differ from those which correspond to participation.

those who possess that by participation; for all things are from God, and are said so to be, and possess this; but God is from nothing. ^A [Wherefore He is called Holy of Holies, King of kings, Lord of lords, and God of gods.]

*But as for "holy" and "kings."* This blessed man, having been deemed worthy of divine inspiration, religiously and piously instructs those matters which, among certain people, had lapsed into a multitude of gods, and he asserts that the powers set over the inferior ranks are, by way of excellence, called holy, and kings, and lords, and gods, just as among us, the most distinguished are addressed in this way, and just as among us those who excel in virtue are teachers who possess virtue gathered into the soul in a unified manner. But by teaching, they communicate the virtues to others, and the virtue communicated by them is multiplied according to the diversity of the multitude of those being taught: in this way, by a stronger and more divine reason, it is to be contemplated in the incorporeal orders; and the inferior orders, through the superior ones and those closer to God, participate in the gifts of God, just as from a vessel overflowing and gushing, the vessels that are near are filled first, receiving what falls into them; afterward, as those also overflow, it spreads into other subject vessels, and according to the multitude of those receiving, and the difference of whether they are small or large, that which gushed from the vessel is, as it were, sprinkled onto the first vessels ^B which contain in themselves, by the unity of the fullness, that which was first brought down from the vessel: thus, in a cruder way of speaking, one must understand the abundance of the communication of the divine gifts, divided to all through the first orders. And the Apostle was named a vessel of election. Note, that he says here that God cannot be communicated according to the principle of nature. ^C

*They multiply the differences.* That is, they show them to be more numerous; for as diverse as are those which participate, so are the gifts also seen to be manifold.

IN CHAPTER XIII

§ I. *Defined uniformly by Himself.* God is both His own end and place, and nothing extends above God; but Himself defines the infinite; for the ages which are infinite, for they do not have a limit, He encompasses with His own manifold infinity, and every life which is without a limit—as in the intelligible beings they have an end—He Himself defines as infinite; or rather, the angels, for their life is not terminated as it is in humans, but they were created immortal. But God is terminated in His own super-eternal eternity. ^D

§ II. *Unum autem, quia est omnia.* Many in number, but one in species, are the coins, and the silver pieces, and the obols; for the species is one, either copper, or gold, or silver; but they are many in powers, as the herbs, yet one in species; for they are all hay: but many in species, as the horse, the ox, the man, and the intelligible beings, or angels; but one in genus, because these are animals; but they are many in their progressions.

^A In the progressions, the creations, but in the principle, God, for God is the cause of all things.

*But as every number.* He excellently demonstrates his intention; for the scope of this divine man is to establish his own opinion even from the science of numbering. He says, therefore, that no thing exists that is destitute of the one, that is, of God; because every number participates in unity. For if anyone begins from two, he counts one primary duality, and similarly from ten. Furthermore, he says that even if anyone should begin first from the so-called minute fractions, he counts one half, one third, one tenth, and so on; so that there is no number that does not participate in the one, or the monad. For even if you make mention of a part, you will say one half, one third, one tenth, and so on; and that one duality and one decade are spoken of, as also these are completed from it.

*That one which is the cause of all things.* The scope is manifest, namely, to prove that God is called one, not in the same manner as other things that are numbered. For God is one, inasmuch as He is simple and indivisible, and devoid of specific difference, and alien to all passions and accidents; He is also called one while He is understood as a certain principle and element of future things. ^B But the same, or different, or greater, or less, or moreover even entire or redundant, or equal or unequal, which is considered in numbers, no one, with reason, would attribute to the Principle, making these the principle; for such are necessarily passions and accidents. Therefore, in numbers, the end of divisions into a multitude is reduced to unity; but the principle in each genus is the simplest. And therefore in existing things, whether the one be many, or the many be one, the principle and element is that which is most simple, and the one destitute of all things, from which, as from an exemplar and idea, that one which is in existing things [is derived]; thus, even if sensible light is many in its parts, due to all the stars, yet it is gathered together into one, and it is one light, but many in accidents, just like a peacock; for it has golden, and blue, and white [colors], yet it is one in the subject body: thus and so must it be thought of concerning the rest.

*For neither is it a multitude.* In this place, from the science of numbering, he proves what he was saying. Note that he rightly says God is before the one, since He is of all things, ^C wherefore He is also the author, or inventor, of number.

*But that which is indeed many.* It must be understood as existing in each of these, so that the meaning is such: that which is many in parts, is one in the whole, as a body; thus also the rest are one in subject, or essence; but many in accidents, as man. But accidents are partly separable, as sitting, walking, and the like; and partly inseparable, as blue, or hooked, and the like. ^D

And again, one is the species, [as] horse or ox, but this is many in number; for there are many horses and many oxen. But it is also many in natural faculties, and again, the many species, such as man, horse, dog, and the others, are one in genus, for each of these is an animal. Thus, therefore, that which is many in its cycles, that is, in its counsels, or even in its works, is one in its principle.

^A § II. All, and the whole, and all things. All things are so called when there are species, and parts, and differences in the divisions. But "the whole" [is used] when the parts, being collected together, form one complete entity, or the species [form] one genus, or even when contraries and opposites rest in conspiracy and concord, as water, and earth, and air, and the fiery stars, and the heaven all together; for the world is called all these things [as a] whole.

And without the one. Since the one seems to have a certain relation to number, without one there would be no multitude; for numbers are a composition of the monad into multitude, which he said above, that God is multiplied, as if understood through arithmetic. But the one subsists and exists by itself.

And if to all, all things. The "one might suppose" and the "is taken by supposition" are used in the case of things that do not really exist, but are fashioned by way of reason; here, however, it is not to be taken in this way, but this must be posited according to the conception of reason, on account of the identity of [the things] created, and because the whole is considered in the parts, and the parts in the whole.

^B That according to the pre-conceived idea of each one. If, he says, the species of man, or rather the nature, were not pre-conceived, no one would say that men are joined to one another; and it is clear that this is according to the principle of nature itself.

And if you remove the one. Thus the statement must be composed: that those things which are joined are said to be joined according to the species of each one pre-conceived; for we said before that the species and the many, by being brought back to one genus, are inscribed with the one as a certain element and principle, of which genus they are species. For these things, being joined by the species itself—such as horses, oxen, and the rest—are brought back to one genus, which is called "animal."

The whole Thearchy. The whole Thearchy is the all-holy and adorable Trinity; but on account of the ineffable unity of nature, it is called one and one [thing].

^C By which and from which. Connect "is" with "by which," and "are disposed" with "from which," and "remain" with "through which," and "are contained," that is, kept, with "in which," and "are turned [back]" with "to which," even if the Father arranged the words distinctly and at the same time; and [these qualify] everything in common. And well did he say that if you remove the one, there will be neither totality, nor the smallest part, nor anything else; for he hinted at this by saying above, "and half is one." ^D

and a third part, and a tenth; manifestly also the parts participate in the one." ^A The one that is the cause of all things. Not by an absolute one have all things been constituted, but by that one alone, according to which God is named both one and the one; for it is by this one alone that existing things have their being. For whoever utters the very name "one" signifies this by the negation of multiplicity; it is, of course, the one itself that is the beginning and the first for something, as to how it exists, for it introduces the notion of the many that proceed from it. But these things are not suitable for God. For the one which is such alone is utterly devoid of affection or passion, and is indivisible and most self-sufficient; for by its very nature it is not formed to be conjoined with another, as the one in numbers is; for that which is strictly the one, and before every one, repels multiplicity and all composition and division—inasmuch as this is called neither small nor mediocre; nay, if one must be bold, neither beautiful nor good: for these are in some way affections, just as they are habits and accidents. But the one itself is understood as being also above all things; ^B affections, however, such as small and mediocre, are considered also with another, and therefore are neither simple nor elemental. Therefore, the one, as has been said, which is simple and without affection, not having those things which were mentioned, is not to be posited as a genus of existing things—for genera are entirely divided into species—nor yet does it have a point or a monad properly; for these have a connection with the things which follow. But this is most simple and has no difference; nor does it have any motion, or station and rest: but neither is the one to be posited as that which is, but rather as the beginning and seed of that which is; for multiplicity necessarily follows the one, and "that which is" adheres to multiplicity, which certainly does not occur in God: for "that which is" is essence, from the word *to be*. But God is both supersubstantial, and above that which is, and uniquely—instead of "preeminently and inimitably"—above that which is; for God is all things and above all things. ^C Having discoursed in a marvelous manner concerning the nature of numbers, he adds: Even if Trinity, even if Unity is praised as the godhead which is above all things, it is not Trinity, nor is it Unity as recognized by us through numbers or by another; but God is both and is named above all mind; for by saying what He is not, we understand what God is.

And the one itself which defines. That God is also above that which is, since He is all things, and He Himself is the creator and inventor of number.

It looks to number. Note that "numbered" signifies a manifestation of number; therefore the one, when placed in things, that is, in creatures, is posited according to a concept or reason of number.

It is not unity. Do not hear "it is not unity nor trinity" simply or in isolation, ^D but construe the "is not" with "that which is recognized"; for the discourse does not wish to condemn things that are held as acknowledged, but wishes to teach that God is inscrutable.

^A And “truly the God-bearing.” He says the “God-bearing” is signified by the naming of the Trinity; for in order that the worshipful manifestation of the ineffable subsistences might be represented, number was devised, as Basil says and the divine Gregories. He called the Father “fruitful” improperly, as the Begetter of the worshipful Son and the Font of the Holy Spirit Who is worshipped together with them. Fruitfulness, therefore, or any other name known to men or even to the intelligible powers themselves, would not be able to represent clearly the things of God that are hidden from all; for how is it possible to name God from any of the things that exist, when He is not one of the things that exist, but is even above all things that exist?

^B “Nor is there a name of Him.” This divine man says well that there is neither a name of Him, nor a definition, but He is excepted in unapproachable—no, let it not be!—but in reasonings and thoughts; for the discourse about God is unapproachable to every mind and thought. And understand well and clearly the statement that there is “neither a name of Him”; for all things that exist are signified both by names and by cognitive things. What name, therefore, or thing is it possible to impose upon God, Who is excepted from all things that exist, and has made all things, and is the cause of all things? Wherefore this divine Dionysius also says that goodness itself or the beautiful does not fittingly apply to God Himself, since these are also found in existing things. And above you will find it stated that these are considered as affections and accidents in existing things, which is not the case with God who transcends all.

^C “But by desire of understanding.” Note, he says beautifully, that because they were at all thinking something and speaking about God, being overcome by the desire for Him, the theologians imposed the name of “goodness” upon God, although God is properly above goodness and above essence. Goodness, as he says here, is the most august name of all. But the negations, that is, the denials and privations, are not stated by the theologians regarding God simply; for they are not understood in the way they are spoken, but are considered in a transcendent manner; for “immortal,” and “invisible,” and “incorruptible,” and “needless,” and “sinless,” no one sharing in wisdom should conceive of in a common way; nor all such things that are said of God, but, shrinking from the things that are intended, he should look up to the suppressed and more divine concepts; wherefore he also rightly calls them more divine names of God hereafter. For when the soul has renounced all bodily and worldly sensations—for these it made kin to itself—it is thus united to the pure knowledge of God, as far as is possible for human nature, as the Apostle also hints, saying: “And so we shall always be with the Lord”; and again: “Now we see as in a riddle and in a mirror; but then face to face we shall see.”

^D “The most venerable of names.” Note that of all names, “goodness” is the most venerable; wherefore it is primarily dedicated to God.