of his own kind. A He says "of his own kind," that is, in relation to those who are natural kin, and acquaintances, and things proper to the creature.
*Hoc enim vere etiam angeli.* [For this is truly the case even for the angels.] That divine things cannot be comprehended even by the angels, and that even the lowest of the angels contemplates greater truths concerning God than all the theologians in the Church, and thus also than the apostles.
*Et si quid eorum quæ his æquivalent.* [And if there be any of those things which are equivalent to these.] That is, if other divine appellations of the same power are found in Scripture, one must also add these according to the same methods of interpretation.
*Et nobis et cum aliis viris religiosis.* [And to us and with other religious men.] That is, that the mysteries are not to be communicated promiscuously to all, but to those who are capable and religious men; which the divine Paul also writes to this holy man, Timothy. B
*Pro nostro dicendi captu.* [According to our capacity for speaking.] The Father says these things with a spirit of modesty, as is fitting for a saint; and likewise all the things that follow.
*Ad symbolicam theologiam.* [To the symbolic theology.] By this he means the "symbolic theology"—the book which is not yet present, as he says in another chapter. But if you wish to know the difference between the *Theological Representations* and the *Symbolic Theology*, read the third chapter of the book *On the Mystical Theology*.
SCHOLIA OF SAINT MAXIMUS ON THE BOOK ON MYSTICAL THEOLOGY
(Translated by Peter Lansselius of the Society of Jesus)ON CHAPTER I
§ 1. *Ubi simplicia.* [Where the simple...] Simple and absolute are those things which are understood and contemplated without symbols as they are, and not figuratively. Therefore, he calls those things "absolute" which are not expressed through the unfolding of names [or symbols, but are gathered together by the stripping away of all beings] and by the cessation and release of intellectual notions—a cessation of the sacred movement which he previously called...
A *non-intellect*; but here, *a most dark cloud, and invisible*, according to the Psalmist: *Clouds and darkness are round about him*; and: *He made darkness his hiding place*.
*Minds captured with eyes.* For they are not filled with sensible eyes, but their essence is, as a living mind, wholly an eye of the sharpest vision; whence they are also called "many-eyed" in Scripture.
*And leave behind the senses.* This is clarified by way of parallel; for the ancients called sensible things themselves "non-beings," as they participate in every change and do not always exist in the same way. But they call intelligible things "beings," as they exist always, are immortal by the will of the Creator, and do not change their essence. We have frequently set these things forth in the treatise *On the Divine Names*.
*Above every essence.* That is, simplicity and above every unity. B And how one is elevated to God by ignorance—this has been stated both in the fifth chapter of the book *On the Divine Names*, and here you shall find it after a few words.
*Free and absolute.* By "free ecstasy" he means the departure from every attachment, so that one is held by no attachment, neither toward oneself nor toward any of the creatures.
*The ray of darkness.* In this place he calls darkness a complete incomprehensibility.
§ II. *No one of the uninitiated.* Note that he calls "uninitiated" those who have not participated in the mysteries, but are involved in sensible things and imagine that there is nothing beyond the things that are seen. C And note that he calls some "uninitiated" and others "unmysteriagogued," that is, not instructed in the mysteries.
*But if they are above these.* In the preceding passages he spoke about those who indeed have believed in the name of Christ, but have not arrived at the more perfect knowledge, but rather measure the truth by their own opinion, and do not know the difference between things that are properly beings and those that are only equivocally so, [and the difference between them] and D Him who excels all things that are, and is therefore super-essential. Such people, therefore, as uninitiated, and not yet instructed in the higher things, suppose this veil which hides God from us, and conceals Him from the vision of all, to be in truth a dark gloom—an ignorance with which many among us also labor, insofar as they do not know that the most abundant light obscures every vision. If, therefore, there are such people among us, what shall we say about idolaters, who are entirely devoid of all mysteries and tremble before carved images?
*Properly*, therefore, intelligible things are beings; *equivocally*, however, [are] sensible things. And "above these" designates the faithful who are firmly fixed in corruptible things.
*When it is necessary in it.* As being all things in a way befitting God, and nothing in a way surpassing essence; for this is both affirmation and negation, since indeed it is properly both in...
A both are said concerning the divine majesty. But what the negations of removals and affirmations of positions are, and what privations are, is explained both in this place and, most especially, in the third chapter of the book *On the Divine Names*, where we have set them forth excellently and at length.
*Contrarias esse.* Negations are not opposed to affirmations in God; for God surpasses every removal and position. Read also in the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, a little after the beginning.
§ III. In this manner, then, the divine Bartholomew. From this also note that these divine works are without fiction those of the great Dionysius; for beyond the fact that in the prior books he makes mention of the sententiae of certain men who lived with the Apostles, now he immediately adduces the sententia of the divine Bartholomew, B as he declares, saying: for if he had taught without writing, he would have said, "he used to say." Note that he brings forward the sententia of Saint Bartholomew on how theology is both great and minimal.
*Quoniam et copiosi sermonis.* In Greek, *polylogos* with the accent on the penultimate syllable means one who says many things; *polylogos* with the accent on the antepenultimate syllable means one who requires many words; just as also *prototokos* with the accent on the antepenultimate means "first-born," but with the accent on the penultimate, "the woman who bears for the first time." As Homer says: *First-born of Cinyras, previously ignorant of birth.*
*Utpote quæ neque rationem.* Clearly, one that represents its own nature in things external. In a similar way, it must be understood regarding "intelligence."
*Divina omnia lumina et sonos.* He calls the things said about God in the Scriptures "celestial sounds and discourses," as C words not spoken and handed down according to human and earthly intelligence, but according to divine intelligence.
*Divinus Moyses.* Note how he spoke concerning Moses, namely, that when he had ascended into the mountain and entered into the darkness, he saw God, as much as is allowed to man. Observe also the order of those things which were accomplished in Moses, before he was deemed worthy to enter the divine darkness.
*Sed locum ubi stetit.* Who is the place in which God stood before Moses, and what the summits of intelligible and sensible things are, we explained in the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy* at the end of the first chapter.
*Hypotheticas.* He calls "hypothetical," that is, descriptive (or as it were, contemplative) D of beings, which he says are subject to God; for through them—or rather, through their perseverance and conservation—we are taught that He is present to all things, not by passing through, but by providing. He calls the spiritual summits "celestial and intelligent essences" that are around God, which he also named His "most holy places," to which He is superior, or from which He is liberated, in no way whatsoever dwelling within them.
[Et tunc etiam ab iis absolutus.] According to the composition of the thought and the words, interpretation must be understood thus: that Moses, having contemplated the place where God stood, and having then been released from things seen—that is to say, from all sensible things—and from those that see, by which I mean all rational, intelligible, and intellectual essences, along with which he was released even from our own souls, he afterwards entered into the cloud—that is, into the ignorance regarding God. B There, having closed his eyes to all cognitive perceptions, he came to exist in that mind which is unmanifest and invisible, beyond all cognitive perceptions of the God who is beyond all things; and, having been united by such a mode to ignorance and cessation—I do not mean the cessation of his own intellect regarding Him, nor the cessation of another, in not mentally perceiving either himself or anything else, but being united in the most perfect ignorance of all cognition to Him who transcends all—he then knew the All by ignorance. Note, however, that he understood the "cloud" to be ignorance. As to how God is known through ignorance, we have discussed this more broadly both here and in the book *On the Divine Names*, in the second chapter.
It is necessary to know that in Exodus, where it is written that Moses entered into the cloud where God was, the Hebrew text has *araphel*; but the Seventy, and Aquila, and Theodotion translated *araphel* as "cloud." Symmachus, however, translated *araphel* as "mist." The Hebrew says that *araphel* is the name of a firmament to which Moses attained; for they say that there are seven firmaments, which they also call heavens, and they list the names, which it is not necessary to mention now. I read, moreover, of these seven heavens in the *Disputation of Papiscus and Jason* written by Ariston of Pella, which Clement of Alexandria in the sixth book of his *Hypotyposes* says the holy Luke recorded. However, regarding the cloud, considered in terms of divine ignorance, he has philosophized more divinely in his epistles; and in the fifth he writes perfectly about this subject.
[With the cessation of all knowledge.] Note that by the cessation of all knowledge we are united to the Unknown.
CONCERNING CHAPTER II
[In this we.] Here also he speaks concerning the divine cloud and ignorance. And note that this is what it means to be under the divine cloud: by blindness and ignorance to see and to know Him who transcends vision and knowledge, by the very fact of not seeing and not knowing; C for this, he says, is truly to see and to know. Nowhere however does he clarify the knowledge in ignorance in this way. Read also the fifth epistle to Dorotheus.
[Through the all of those that are.] That is to say: by mentally perceiving none of the things that are as attaching to Him; for this he called "subtraction." He calls it an "innate image," which comes to be in uncut matter—as, for example, in an integral stone, in [the cloud, the mist, subtraction—these were notes on the text.]
as much as it is when someone has sculpted a certain animal, as Euripides declares in *Andromache*: A
...... And a certain image of a maiden From stony walls constant in their natural form, An image of a skillful hand.
For he calls the "natural form of the stone" that which is innate; but also when someone has sculpted a part of a standing and flowering tree, and has made a piece of a bed, which, as Homer says, Ulysses did in the *Odyssey*, or even if he has sculpted a trophy of victory in such a tree. He understands similar images of precious stone or gem, just as when an emerald, having been purged of all surrounding earthy matter, itself emerges as an image, that is to say, a splendor. Looking most keenly at this, he says what is proposed, just as Dionysius the poet in the second book of his *Lithica*: B
An image of the deeply-green jasper, or the amethyst Purple-hued, stained with blackish blood [hyacinth].
All these things show the great learning of this holy man.
But it is necessary, as I think, [to consider] the removals. The Father himself explains the present passage in what follows. Therefore, they are "positions," things which are properly said about God, such as "He is," "life," "light," and the rest; but "removals" are those things which are denied as being alien to God, such as that God is not a body, is not a soul, nor any of those things which can be known or fall into cognition. Otherwise: What are "positions" and "removals," we have learned differently in the book *On the Divine Names*. C
"In all things." The knowledges of what is, he says, do not disclose the ignorance of God and bring it into the light; but rather they cover and hide it. But the light which is in things is to be understood as the knowledge of things insofar as they are, just as we also find in what follows.
ON CHAPTER III
"How the divine and good nature." What the book of *Theological Institutions* contains. Behold the foundations and starting-points of theology, encompassing all divine and illuminated knowledge and right faith: to know how the one divine nature, which certain more recent Fathers called consubstantial; how it is threefold, which we call of three subsistences; and to know the properties of the persons, and what they signify, namely the rationale of the Father, the rationale of the Son, and what is the sanctifying power D and divine name of the divine Spirit; and how it is said, "My heart has brought forth a good word" (Ps. XLIV, 2); and how it is said concerning the adorable holy Spirit that He proceeds from the Father; and how in the Father, and in themselves, and in each other, the Son and the holy Spirit are eternally and inseparably and distinctly in a mansion
A It is to be known, indeed, that "mansion" and "status" are the same thing; but motion differs from mansion. He says, therefore, that the divine nature, existing in an immovable mansion, appears to move by mutual process.
*And in Him and in themselves.* This is the meaning of what has been said: coeternal, he says, is the existence of the holy Trinity, and it did not exist in one way, and then afterward consist in another, nor did it undergo any separation or change; but at the same time and in the same moment the Son is from the Father, and the holy Spirit, and not after Him.
*How Jesus who is above substance.* Note this against the Nestorians and the Acephali.
*How good.* What the book *On the Divine Names* comprises.
*For it was fitting.* Why do the *Theological Institutions* and the book *On the Divine Names* contain fewer verses than the *Symbolic Theology*?
*Symbolic.* The theology which is occupied with signs pertains to the first things.
*To the aspects of the intelligible.* He called the contemplations which are suitable to their immaterial simplicity, the "aspects of the intelligibles." He has placed B *peristellontai* (are contracted) for *systellontai* (are drawn together).
*But a complete ineffability.* He calls "ineffability" the inability to represent by word those things that exceed speech; and thus, too, he calls that which cannot be thought, and which no one can understand, as it exceeds the mind, "unintelligibility."
*And in those indeed from the supreme.* Since the intelligibles and the things which are above the mind of God are unities, and God is one, or rather even above the one, He is rightly contracted, as He is indivisible and non-multipliable. Those things, however, which are after God, the more they descend to sensible things, the more they are conjoined to things divisible and separable, and are multiplied along with them through the division and the many-fold dissection of sensible things. C *To the extremes,* that is, from the *Theological Institution*.
*From the most primary.* By "most primary" he means that which is more proper to the intellect of the one who first approaches: namely, that God is He who is, which is the name He imposed upon Himself.
*That which is above every.* How one must use affirmations and negations regarding God; and that we make affirmations from the most primary and that which is more akin to God; but negations from the extremes and those which are more remote from Him.
*Hypothetical affirmation.* An affirmation is an enuntiative statement of something that is either universal, or repugnant, or copulate, or compared; as, God is life, God is goodness. D A hypothetical statement is an enuntiative speech which is declarative of that which is either universal, or of something repugnant, or of something copulate. Therefore...
affirmation, as has been said, is called a "hypothetical statement" because it posits that God is life or air; but negative stripping—as when we say, "God is not drunk, He is not angry"—is called negation. In the case of affirmations, we begin with those things that are more closely related; for life and goodness are more proper to God than air and stone. B In the case of negations, however, we ascend from the extremes: for instance, that God is not declared by speech and is not known is more proper to God than that He does not get drunk and is not angry. Altogether, we begin the process of stripping from the second or lesser degree; for example, it is more true that God is not drunk than that He is not spoken of, and more true that God is not angry than that He is not known. Now *krapa-le* (crapulence) is an abundant and very powerful drunkenness, being as it were a *kara-pale*, which is to say, shaking or violently moving the *kara*—that is, the head. *Menis* (wrath) is not just any anger, but a persistent one.
Ascending, therefore, from sensible to intelligible things, we must not understand all these incorporeal strippings in a lowly fashion, but must understand in each of the things mentioned what the blessed Dionysius himself said: "For God is none of the things that are spoken of, which we know or understand, nor indeed any of those things which all the intelligible powers know." For all the things that have been spoken of are utterly from God and are His gifts; and how could He Himself, who provides for them, be properly one of them? We have explained all these things differently in the book *On the Divine Names*. For all these are accidents and reside in the substances of those things that come after God; but God transcends essence and is the author of these things; therefore, He is also superior to them. Otherwise: Life and goodness—behold, an affirmation or position; He is not crapulous, He is not wrathful—behold, a negation or stripping. C
As to air or stone: Air, according to the Scripture in the Books of Kings, is in a "gentle breeze"; the prophet saw a stone. Therefore, life and goodness are placed in God and declare Him more properly than those things. Thus also by negation, in the contrary manner, that is, being crapulous and being wrathful are remote from God and alien to Him; but "not to be spoken of" is more fitting for God and approaches Him more closely, because it transcends all mind and speech.
IN CHAPTER IV
"Neither is He in a place." Through these words the Father necessarily secures his listener, lest on account of the following negations he should think that the Divinity does not exist at all; rather, in the former cases he posited that It does exist, but in the latter he established that It is none of the things that are, but that It transcends essence.
IN CHAPTER V
"That He is neither soul nor mind." These things differ from one another, as has been declared above: imagination, opinion, reason, and intelligence, which are considered within the mind.
A It is to be further understood, according to our line of reasoning, that one must not suppose the Divine to have reason, or understanding, in the way that it exists in rational creatures; and the rest is to be taken in this same manner. Otherwise: And regarding these things as well, the expression "as we know" must be understood as follows: that is, when he speaks of life or light based on what is observed in generated beings, he says that the suppositions of these things are made regarding those which follow after it—that is, the Divine nature—from which we conceive of him who established them; we do not, however, by these means introduce any positive definition of his nature. And again, we make a negation by saying that the Divine is none of these things.
"Neither one, nor unity." One and unity differ from one another; for the one signifies the subject, whereas the other signifies such a quality, just as "white" and "whiteness," "good" and "goodness." Note, however, that the Godhead is not the essence of God, any more than one of the things mentioned, nor is it any of those things contrary to them, for it is none of these. For these things are not his essence, but opinions concerning him. Thus also did Sextus the ecclesiastical philosopher say, and Gregory the Theologian in the third of his Theological Orations: that neither the Godhead, nor the Unbegotten, nor the Paternity signify the essence of God.
"Neither Godhead, nor goodness." Note also that he is not Spirit, as we understand it, nor sonship, nor paternity. And take the phrase "as we know" as applying to every negation in the present section; it signifies "according to our understanding."
"Neither does it know the things that are." Let not this chapter disturb you, nor should you think that this divine man is blaspheming; for his aim is to show that God is none of the things that are, but is above the things that are. For if he himself brought all things into existence by creating them, how can he be found to be one of the things that are? For he said that the things that are do not know God, the cause of all; but this would be a clear destruction, not to know God. However, he quickly clarified this by saying "as he is"—that is, nothing of the things that are knows God *as he is*, meaning his incomprehensible and super-essential essence, or the existence by which he exists. For it has been said: "No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son" (i-k). And by way of the contrary, the great Dionysius adds, saying, [and that no one knows God as he is,] nor does God himself know the things that are *as they are*, which is to say, he does not know them by applying himself to sensible things in a sensible manner, or to essences as essences; for this is unfitting to God. For we humans apprehend what sensible things are through sight, or taste, or touch, and we grasp what intelligible things are through study, or instruction, or illumination. But God does not know the things that are by any of these modes; rather, he has a knowledge appropriate to himself. For this is what the Scripture hints at when it says: "Who knows all things before they come to exist," which signifies that not according to the logic of the generation of
A beings does God know them [though this is sensibly, but] according to another mode of knowledge. The angels indeed know them cognitively and in another way, not as we [know them] sensibly. Thus, then, God too knows beings incomparably and transcendently, not, however, by applying His essence to them.
Otherwise: Beings, that is to say, creatures, cannot extend themselves in their thoughts beyond their own nature. With good reason, therefore, looking into themselves, they are ignorant of the divine nature, insofar as It is. Thus, therefore, the divine nature, looking into Itself, does not know the beings within Itself according to the logic of their essence; for this is what He declared when He said, "insofar as they are," since He possesses even existence itself supra-essentially above all beings. For otherwise no one could say that God is ignorant of His own creatures.
To the same point: That no one knows the immaculate Trinity, insofar as It is, is meant to signify: there is nothing like It, such that one might know It as It truly is. For we certainly know what humanity is, because we are human; but we do not know what the existence of the immaculate Trinity is, for we do not partake of Its essence. Thus, neither does God see beings "insofar as they are" in the same way B as we do, because He is not one of the beings, nor is He in them. For even if God is Spirit—indeed, the Holy Spirit is so named—yet He is not a spirit known to us, or to the angels.
But why, when He had said earlier, "He is not light, nor truth," does He shortly after say the contrary, "He is not darkness, nor light, nor error, nor truth"? One who defends him could therefore say that he speaks first of the absolute light, nor is there error, as there is in the essences of the angels, and truth is that which is absolute and causeless truth. But as for what follows, neither of those things which are relative, such as one changing from darkness into light, as if changing from light which is only in potentiality into light which is light in actuality, and changing between relative things, light and darkness—for there is neither gloom nor abundant light; nor, in the same way, from the opposite, did He change from error which was in potentiality C into truth in actuality; for all these things are posterior to Him, having proceeded from Him providentially. Therefore, nothing of those things is from Him.