(6) Yet Elymas, the Magician, says, "if Almighty God is All-powerful, how is He said by your theologian, not to be able to do some thing "? But he calumniates the Divine Paul, who said, "that Almighty God is not able to deny Himself." Now in advancing this, I very much fear lest I should incur ridicule for folly, as undertaking to pull down frail houses, built upon the sand by little boys at play; and as being eager to aim at the theological intelligence of this, as if it were some inaccessible mark. For, the denial of Himself, is a falling from truth, but the truth is an existent, and the falling from the truth is a falling from the existent. If, then, the truth is an existent, and the denial of the truth a falling from the existent, Almighty God cannot fall from the existent, and non-existence is not; as any one might say, the powerless is not powerful; and ignorance, by privation, does not know. The wise man, not having understood this, imitates those inexperienced wrestlers, who, very often, by assuming that their adversaries are weak, according to their own opinion, and manfully making a show of fight with them, when absent, and courageously beating the air with empty blows, think that they have overcome their antagonists, and proclaim themselves victors (though) not yet having experienced their rivals' strength. But we, conjecturing the meaning of the Theologian to the best of our ability, celebrate the Super-powerful God, as Omnipotent, as blessed, and only Lord; as reigning in the kingdom of Eternity itself; as in no respect fallen from things existing;--but rather, as both super-having and pre-having all existing things, as beseems Power superessential; and as having bequeathed to all things being, the power to be, and this their being in an ungrudging stream, as beseems abundance of surpassing power.

(41) He does not know God who does not worship him.

The man who is worthy of God is also a God among men.

(3) Everything that is higher than perfect is anterior to knowledge. Just as there is no possibility for complete comprehension, so also he is not known by me. And that's the way it is.

(9) "And he has a semblance of his own - not like what you have seen and received, but a strange semblance that surpasses all things and is better than the universe. It looks to every side and sees itself from itself. Since it is infinite, he is ever incomprehensible. He is imperishable and has no likeness (to anything). He is unchanging good. He is faultless. He is eternal. He is blessed. While he is not known, he ever knows himself. He is immeasurable. He is untraceable. He is perfect, having no defect. He is imperishability blessed. He is called 'Father of the Universe'".

(1) It is a well-known saying of the Prophet that "He who knows himself, knows God"; that is, by contemplation of his own being and attributes man arrives at some knowledge of God. But since many who contemplate themselves do not find God, it follows that there must be some special way of doing so. As a matter of fact, there are two methods of arriving at this knowledge, but one is so abstruse that it is not adapted to ordinary intelligences, and therefore is better left unexplained. The other method is as follows: When a man considers himself he knows that there was a time when he was non-existent, as it is written in the Koran: "Does it not occur to man that there was a time when he was nothing?" Further, he knows that he was made out of a drop of water in which there was neither intellect, nor hearing, sight, head, hands, feet, etc. From this it is obvious that, whatever degree of perfection he may have arrived at, he did not make himself, nor can he now make a single hair.

(43) But all Intellect understandeth the Deity, for Intellect existeth not without the Intelligible, neither apart from Intellect doth the Intelligible subsist.

(1) In the first place, therefore, you say, “ it must be granted that there are Gods .” Thus to speak, however, is not right on this subject. For an innate knowledge of the Gods is coexistent with our very essence; and this knowledge is superior to all judgment and deliberate choice, and subsists prior to reason and demonstration. It is also counited from the beginning with its proper cause, and is consubsistent with the essential tendency of the soul to the good . If, indeed, it be requisite to speak the truth, the contact with divinity is not knowledge. For knowledge is in a certain respect separated [from its object] by otherness . But prior to the knowledge, which as one thing knows another, is the uniform connexion with divinity, and which is suspended from the Gods, is spontaneous and inseparable from them. Hence, it is not proper to grant this, as if it might not be granted, nor to admit it as ambiguous (for it is always unically established in energy); nor are we worthy thus to explore it, as if we had sufficient authority to approve or reject it. For we are comprehended in it, or rather we are filled by it, and we possess that very thing which we are, [or by which our essence is characterized] in knowing the Gods.

(369) It is not possible for you to know God when you do not worship him.

(20) Behold what power, what swiftness, thou dost have! And canst thou do all of these things, and God not [do them]? Then, in this way know God; as having all things in Himself as thoughts, the whole Cosmos itself. If, then, thou dost not make thyself like unto God, thou canst not know Him. For like is knowable unto like [alone]. Make, [then,] thyself to grow to the same stature as the Greatness which transcends all measure; leap forth from every body; transcend all time; become Eternity ; and [thus] shalt thou know God. Conceiving nothing is impossible unto thyself, think thyself deathless and able to know all - all arts, all sciences, the way of every life. Become more lofty than all height, and lower than all depth. Collect into thyself all senses of [all] creatures - of fire, [and] water, dry and moist. Think that thou art at the same time in every place - in earth, in sea, in sky; not yet begotten, in the womb, young, old, [and] dead, in after-death conditions. And if thou knowest all these things at once - times, places, doings, qualities, and quantities; thou canst know God.

(6) Now if thou art of any other matter than God himself, how then canst thou be his child? Or how can the man and king Christ be God's bodily or corporeal Son, whom God has generated or begotten out of his heart?

(4) Behold! thou unapprehensive man, I will shew thee the true ground of the Deity. If this whole or universal being be not God, then thou art not God's image. If he be any other or strange God, then thou hast no part in him: For thou art created out of this God, and livest in this very God, and this very God continually giveth thee power or virtue, and blessing, also meat and drink, out of himself; also all thy knowledge stands in this God, and when thou diest, then thou art buried in this God.

(3) In addition to these things, we must examine how we know God, Who is neither an object of intellectual nor of sensible perception, nor is absolutely anything of things existing. Never, then, is it true to say, that we know God; not from His own nature (for that is unknown, and surpasses all reason and mind), but, from the ordering of all existing things, as projected from Himself, and containing a sort of images and similitudes of His Divine exemplars, we ascend, as far as we have power, to that which is beyond all, by method and order in the abstraction and pre-eminence of all, and in the Cause of all. Wherefore, Almighty God is known even in all, and apart from all. And through knowledge, Almighty God is known, and through agnosia. And there is, of Him, both conception, and expression, and science, and contact, and sensible perception, and opinion, and imagination, and name, and all the rest. And He is neither conceived, nor expressed, nor named. And He is not any of existing things, nor is He known in any one of existing things. And He is all in all, and nothing in none. And He is known to all, from all, and to none from none. For, we both say these things correctly concerning God, and He is celebrated from all existing things, according to the analogy of all things, of which He is Cause. And there is, further, the most Divine Knowledge of Almighty God, which is known, through not knowing (αγνοσια) during the union above mind; when the mind, having stood apart from all existing things, then having dismissed also itself, has been made one with the super-luminous rays, thence and there being illuminated by the unsearchable depth of wisdom. Yet, even from all things, as I said, we may know It, for It is, according to the sacred text, the Cause formative of all, and ever harmonizing all, and (Cause) of the indissoluble adaptation and order of all, and ever uniting the ends of the former to the beginnings of those that follow, and beautifying the one symphony and harmony of the whole.

(31) But you will say, this is only God, and he is a Spirit, and has created all Things out of nothing. It is very true, he is a Spirit, and in our Sight he is as nothing: And if we had not some Knowledge of him by the Creation, we should know nothing of him at all. And if he himself had not been from all Eternity, there could nothing have ever been.

(6) But, since you once asked me by letter, what in the world I consider the self-existent Being, the self-existent Life, the self-existent Wisdom, and said that you debated with yourself how, at one time, I call Almighty God, self-existent Life, and at another, Mainstay of the self-existent Life, I thought it necessary, O holy man of God, to also free you from this difficulty, so far as lay in my power. And first then, in order that we may now resume that which I have said a thousand times already, there is no contradiction in saying that Almighty God is self-existent Power, or self-existent Life, and that He is Mainstay of the self-existent Life or Peace or Power. For the latter, He is named from things existing, and specially from the first existing, as Cause of all existing things; and the former, as being above all, even the first existing of beings, being above superessentially. But you say, what in the world do we call the self-existent Being, or the self-existent Life, or whatever we lay down to be absolutely and originally and to have stood forth primarily from God? And we reply, this is not crooked but straight, and has a simple explanation. For we do not say that the self-existent Being, as Cause of the being of all things, is a sort of Divine or angelic essence (for the Superessential alone is Source and Essence and Cause of the existence of all things, and of the self-existent Being), nor that another Deity, besides the Super-divine, produces Life for all that live, and is a Life Causative of the self-existent Life; nor to speak summarily, that essences and personalities originate and make existing things, so that superficial people have named them both gods, and creators of existing things,--whom, to speak truly and properly, neither they themselves knew (for they are non-existent), nor their fathers,--but we call self-existent Being, and self-existent Life, and self-existent Deity, as regards at least Source, and Deity, and Cause, the One Superior and Superessential Source and Cause; but as regards Impartation, the providential Powers, that issue forth from God the unparticipating, (these we call) the self-existent essentiation, self-existent living, self-existent deification, by participating in which according to their own capacity, things existing, both are, and are said to be, existing, and living, and full of God--and the rest in the same way. Wherefore also, He is called the good Mainstay of the first of these, then of the whole of them, then of the portions of them, then of those who participate in them entirely, then of those who participate in them in part. And why must we speak of these things, since some of our divine instructors in holy things, affirm that the Super-good and Super-divine self-existent Goodness and Deity, is Mainstay even of the self-existent Goodness and Deity; affirming that the good-making and deifying gift issued forth from God; and that the self-existent beautifying stream, is self-existent beauty, and whole beauty, and partial beauty, and things absolutely beautiful, and things partially beautiful, and whatever other things are said and shall be said after the same fashion, which declare that providences and goodnesses issuing forth from God the unparticipating, in an ungrudging stream, are participated by existing things, and bubble over in order that distinctly the Cause of all may be beyond all, and the Superessential and Supernatural may, in every respect, be above things of any sort of essence and nature whatever. Next: Caput XII. Sacred Texts | Christianity « Previous: The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite: On Divine Names: C... Index Next: The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite: On Divine Names: C... » Sacred Texts | Christianity

(11) Not only is he the unknowable knowledge that is proper to him, he is also united with the ignorance that sees him.

(43) O my heart, if you wish to arrive at the beginning of understanding, walk carefully. To each atom there is a different door, and for each atom there is a different way which leads to the mysterious Being of whom I speak. To know oneself one must live a hundred lives. But you must know God by Himself and not by you; it is He who opens the way that leads to Him, not human wisdom. The knowledge of Him is not at the door of rhetoricians. Knowledge and ignorance are here the same, for they cannot explain nor can they describe. The opinions of men on this arise only in their imagination; and it is absurd to try to deduce anything from what they say: whether ill or well, they have said it from themselves. God is above knowledge and beyond evidence, and nothing can give an idea of his Holy Majesty.

(4) He-Who-Is is ineffable. No principle knew him, no authority, no subjection, nor any creature from the foundation of the world, except he alone. For he is immortal and eternal, having no birth; for everyone who has birth will perish. He is unbegotten, having no beginning; for everyone who has a beginning has an end. No one rules over him. He has no name; for whoever has a name is the creation of another. He is unnameable. He has no human form; for whoever has human form is the creation of another. He has his own semblance - not like the semblance we have received and seen, but a strange semblance that surpasses all things and is better than the totalities. It looks to every side and sees itself from itself. He is infinite; he is incomprehensible. He is ever imperishable (and) has no likeness (to anything). He is unchanging good. He is faultless. He is everlasting. He is blessed. He is unknowable, while he (nonetheless) knows himself. He is immeasurable. He is untraceable. He is perfect, having no defect. He is imperishably blessed. He is called 'Father of the Universe'.

(4) Then consider this god whom we cannot think to be absent at some point and present at another. All that have insight into the nature of the divine beings hold the omnipresence of this god and of all the gods, and reason assures us that so it must be.

Now all-pervasion is inconsistent with partition; that would mean no longer the god throughout but part of the god at one point and part at another; the god ceases to be one god, just as a mass cut up ceases to be a mass, the parts no longer giving the first total. Further, the god becomes corporeal.

If all this is impossible, the disputed doctrine presents itself again; holding the god to pervade the Being of man, we hold the omnipresence of an integral identity.

Again, if we think of the divine nature as infinite- and certainly it is confined by no bounds- this must mean that it nowhere fails; its presence must reach to everything; at the point to which it does not reach, there it has failed; something exists in which it is not.

Now, admitting any sequent to the absolute unity, that sequent must be bound up with the absolute; any third will be about that second and move towards it, linked to it as its offspring. In this way all participants in the Later will have share in the First. The Beings of the Intellectual are thus a plurality of firsts and seconds and thirds attached like one sphere to one centre, not separated by interval but mutually present; where, therefore, the Intellectual tertiaries are present, the secondaries and firsts are present too.

(34) Yet you are not to think that the Son is another God than the Father. Neither should you think that the Son is without or apart from the Father, and that he is a severed part or divided piece, as when two men stand the one by the other, where one comprehendeth not the other.

(11) ¶He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.