(4) The seeds of God, 'tis true, are few, but vast and fair, and good - virtue and self-control, devotion. Devotion is God-gnosis; and he who knoweth God, being filled with all good things, thinks godly thoughts and not thoughts like the many [think]. For this cause they who Gnostic are, please not the many, nor the many them. They are thought mad and laughted at; they're hated and despised, and sometimes even put to death. For we did say that bad must needs dwell on earth, where 'tis in its own place. Its place is earth, and not Cosmos, as some will sometimes say with impious tongue. But he who is a devotee of God, will bear with all - once he has sensed the Gnosis. For such an one all things, e'en though they be for others bad, are for him good; deliberately he doth refer them all unto the Gnosis. And, thing most marvelous, 'tis he alone who maketh bad things good.

(11) Let us affirm, then, that the goodness of the Divine Blessedness is always in the same condition and manner, unfolding the beneficent rays of its own light upon all the intellectual visions without grudging. Should, then, the self-choosing self-sufficiency of the contemplators either turn away from the light contemplated, by closing, through love of evil, the faculties for enlightenment naturally implanted within it, it would be separated from the light present to it, not turned away, but shining upon it when shortsighted and turning its face from light generously running to it; or should it overstep the bounds of the visible given to it in due proportion, and rashly undertake to gaze upon the rays superior to its vision, the light indeed will do nothing beyond its proper functions, but it, by imperfectly approaching thing's perfect, would not attain to things unsuitable, and, by stupidly disregarding the due proportion, would fail through its own fault. But, as I said, the Divine Light is always unfolded beneficently to the intellectual visions, and it is possible for them to seize it when present, and always being most ready for the distribution of things appropriate, in a manner becoming God. To this imitation the divine Hierarch is fashioned, unfolding to all, without grudging, the luminous rays of his inspired teaching, and, after the Divine example, being most ready to enlighten the proselyte, neither using a grudging nor an unholy wrath for former back-slidings or excess, but, after the example of God, always enlightening by his conducting light those who approach him, as becomes a Hierarch, in fitness, and order, and in proportion to the aptitude of each for holy things.

(2) And if he ask thee, “What is that God?” say thou, that it is God that made thee and bought thee, and that graciously hath called thee to thy degree. “And in Him,” say, “thou hast no skill.” And therefore say, “Go thou down again,” and tread him fast down with a stirring of love, although he seem to thee right holy, and seem to thee as he would help thee to seek Him. For peradventure he will bring to thy mind diverse full fair and wonderful points of His kindness, and say that He is full sweet, and full loving, full gracious, and full merciful. And if thou wilt hear him, he coveteth no better; for at the last he will thus jangle ever more and more till he bring thee lower, to the mind of His Passion.

(1) Since it is usual with all men of sound understandings, to call on divinity, when entering on any philosophic discussion, it is certainly much more appropriate to do this in the consideration of that philosophy which justly receives its denomination from the divine Pythagoras. For as it derives its origin from the Gods, it cannot be apprehended without their inspiring aid. To which we may also add, that the beauty and magnitude of it so greatly surpasses human power, that it is impossible to survey it by a sudden view; but then alone can any one gradually collect some portion of this philosophy, when, the Gods being his leaders, he quietly approaches to it. On all these accounts, therefore, having invoked the Gods as our leaders, and converting both ourselves and our discussion to them, we shall acquiesce in whatever they may command us to do.

We shall not, however, make any apology for this sect having been neglected for a long time, nor for its being concealed by foreign disciplines, and certain arcane symbols, nor for having been obscured by false and spurious writings, nor for many other such-like difficulties by which it has been impeded. For the will of the Gods is sufficient for us, in conjunction with which it is possible to sustain things still more arduous than these. But after the Gods, we shall unite ourselves as to a leader, to the prince and father of this divine philosophy; of whose origin and country we must rise a little higher in our investigation.

(12) But, inasmuch as the Divine Being is source of sacred order, within which the holy Minds regulate themselves, he, who recurs to the proper view of Nature, will see his proper self in what he was originally, and will acquire this, as the first holy gift, from his recovery to the light. Now he, who has well looked upon his own proper condition with unbiassed eyes, will depart from the gloomy recesses of ignorance, but being imperfect he will not, of his own accord, at once desire the most perfect union and participation of God, but little by little will be carried orderly and reverently through things present to things more forward, and through these to things foremost, and when perfected, to the supremely Divine summit. An illustration of this decorous and sacred order is the modesty of the proselyte, and his prudence in his own affairs in having the sponsor as leader of the way to the Hierarch. The Divine Blessedness receives the man, thus conducted, into communion with Itself, and imparts to him the proper light as a kind of sign, making him godly and sharer of the inheritance of the godly, and sacred ordering; of which things the Hierarch's seal, given to the proselyte, and the saving enrolment of the priests are a sacred symbol, registering him amongst those who are being saved, and placing in the sacred memorials, beside himself also his sponsor,--the one indeed, as a true lover of the life-giving way to truth and a companion of a godly guide, and the other, as an unerring conductor of his follower by the Divinely-taught directions.

(493) by him—he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes; and he can give no other account of them except that the just and noble are the necessary, having never himself seen, and having no power of explaining to others the nature of either, or the difference between them, which is immense. By heaven, would not such an one be a rare educator? Indeed he would. And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the discernment of the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been describing? For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or other work of art or the service which he has done the State, making them his judges 3 when he is not obliged, the so-called necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise. And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in confirmation of their own notions about the honourable and good. Did you ever hear any of them which were not?

(37) From the world of physical pursuits the initiates of old called their disciples into the life of the mind and the spirit. Throughout the ages, the Mysteries have stood at the threshold of Reality--that hypothetical spot between noumenon and phenomenon, the Substance and the shadow. The gates of the Mysteries stand ever ajar and those who will may pass through into the spacious domicile of spirit. The world of philosophy lies neither to the right nor to the left, neither above nor below. Like a subtle essence permeating all space and all substance, it is everywhere; it penetrates the innermost and the outermost parts of all being. In every man and woman these two spheres are connected by a gate which leads from the not-self and its concerns to the Self and its realizations. In the mystic this gate is the heart, and through spiritualization of his emotions he contacts that more elevated plane which, once felt and known, becomes the sum of the worth-while. In the philosopher, reason is the gate between the outer and the inner worlds, the illumined mind bridging the chasm between the corporeal and the incorporeal. Thus godhood is born within the one who sees, and from the concerns of men he rises to the concerns of gods.

(7) 'He (the Self) of whom many are not even able to hear, whom many, even when they hear of him, do not comprehend; wonderful is a man, when found, who is able to teach him (the Self); wonderful is he who comprehends him, when taught by an able teacher.'

(1) The prudent [i. e. the wise] man will especially become so as follows: In the first place, being naturally sagacious, possessing a good memory, and being a lover of labor, he should exercise his dianoetic power immediately from his youth in reasonings and disciplines, and in accurate theories, and adhere to genuine philosophy. But after this he should acquire knowledge and experience in what pertains to the Gods, the laws, and human lives. For there are two things from which the disposition of prudence is produced; one of which consists in obtaining a mathematical and gnostic habit; but the other, in a man perceiving by himself many theorems and things, and understanding other things through a certain different mode. For neither is he sufficient to the possession of prudence, who immediately from his youth has exercised his dianoetic power in reasonings and disciplines; nor he who being destitute of these, has heard and has been conversant with a multitude of things.

But the latter will have his dianoetic power blind, through judging of particulars; and the former through always surveying universals. For as in computations the amount of the whole is obtained by the addition of the parts, thus also in things, reason is able to delineate the theory of universals; but experience has the power of forming a judgment of particulars.

(13) In the ranks of the so-called learned there is rising up a new order of thinkers, which may best be termed the School of the Worldly Wise Men. After arriving at the astounding conclusion that they are the intellectual salt of the earth, these gentlemen of letters have appointed themselves the final judges of all knowledge, both human and divine. This group affirms that all mystics must have been epileptic and most of the saints neurotic! It declares God to be a fabrication of primitive superstition; the universe to be intended for no particular purpose; immortality to be a figment of the imagination; and an outstanding individuality to be but a fortuitous combination of cells! Pythagoras is asserted to have suffered from a "bean complex"; Socrates was a notorious inebriate; St. Paul was subject to fits; Paracelsus was an infamous quack, the Comte di Cagliostro a mountebank, and the Comte de St.-Germain the outstanding crook of history!

(3) But to pass over the mystical things there, both as forbidden to the multitude and as known to thee, when it was necessary to communicate to the multitude, and to bring as many as possible to the sacred knowledge amongst ourselves, he so excelled the majority of sacred teachers, both by use of time and purity of mind, and accuracy of demonstrations, and by his other sacred discourses, that we should scarcely have dared to look so great a sun straight in the face. For we are thus far conscious in ourselves, and know, that we may neither advance to understand sufficiently the intelligible of Divine things, nor to express and declare the things spoken of the divine knowledge. For, being far removed from the skill of those divine men, as regards theological truth, we are so inferior that we should have, through excessive reverence, entirely come to this--neither to hear nor to speak anything respecting divine philosophy, unless we had grasped in our mind, that we must not neglect the knowledge of things divine received by us. And to this we were persuaded, not only by the innate aspirations of the minds which always lovingly cling to the permitted contemplation of the supernatural, but also by the most excellent order itself of the Divine institutions, which prohibits us, on the one hand, from much inquisition into things above us, as above our degree, and as unattainable; yet, on the other hand, persistently urges us to graciously impart to others also whatever is permitted and given to us to learn. Yielding then to these considerations, and neither shirking nor flinching from the attainable discovery of things Divine, but also not bearing to leave unassisted those who are unable to contemplate things too high for us, we have brought ourselves to composition, not daring indeed to introduce anything new, but by more easy and more detailed expositions to disentangle and elucidate the things spoken by the Hierotheus indeed. Next: Caput IV. 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

(31) The lesson to the student is that in every man there lie concealed the potentiality of Godhood, and stages less than Godhood though above that of ordinary Manhood; and that in every man also abide the lower phases of manifested existence, even the very lowest of all. The wise man uses the lower, but does not allow the lower to use him; he maintains a positive, masterful mental attitude toward the lower planes of being, while opening himself receptively to the influences of the higher planes of his Self.

(2) But the right performance of actions which are effected in a divine manner, is entirely to be ascribed to some one of the more excellent natures. For since it is not possible to speak rightly about the Gods without the Gods, much less can any one perform works which are of an equal dignity with divinity, and obtain the foreknowledge of every thing without [the inspiring influence of] the Gods. For the human race is imbecile, and of small estimation, sees but a little, and possesses a connascent nothingness; and the only remedy of its inherent error, perturbation, and unstable mutation, is its participation, as much as possible, of a certain portion of divine light. But he who excludes this, does the same thing as those who attempt to produce soul from things inanimate, or to generate intellect from things unintelligent. For without the cooperation of a cause, he constitutes divine works from things which are not divine.

(2) The treatise, then, seeks to celebrate these, the Names of God, which set forth His Providence. For it does not profess to express the very superessential Goodness, and Essence, and Life, and Wisdom, of the very superessential Deity, Which is seated above all Goodness, and Deity, and Essence, and Wisdom, and Life,--in secret places, as the Oracles affirm. But it celebrates the beneficial Providence, which has been set forth as preeminently Goodness and Cause of all good things, and as Being, and Life, and Wisdom,--the Cause essentiating and vivifying, and wise-making, of those who partake of essence, and life, and mind, and reason, and sense. But it does not affirm that the Good is one thing, and the Being another; and that Life is other than Wisdom; nor that the Causes are many, and that some deities produce one thing and others another, as superior and inferior; but that the whole good progressions and the Names of God, celebrated by us, are of one God; and that the one epithet makes known the complete Providence of the one God, but that the others are indicative of His more general and more particular providences.

(36) We need not carry this matter further; we turn to a question already touched but demanding still some brief consideration.

Knowledge of The Good or contact with it, is the all-important: this- we read- is the grand learning, the learning we are to understand, not of looking towards it but attaining, first, some knowledge of it. We come to this learning by analogies, by abstractions, by our understanding of its subsequents, of all that is derived from The Good, by the upward steps towards it. Purification has The Good for goal; so the virtues, all right ordering, ascent within the Intellectual, settlement therein, banqueting upon the divine- by these methods one becomes, to self and to all else, at once seen and seer; identical with Being and Intellectual-Principle and the entire living all, we no longer see the Supreme as an external; we are near now, the next is That and it is close at hand, radiant above the Intellectual.

Here, we put aside all the learning; disciplined to this pitch, established in beauty, the quester holds knowledge still of the ground he rests on but, suddenly, swept beyond it all by the very crest of the wave of Intellect surging beneath, he is lifted and sees, never knowing how; the vision floods the eyes with light, but it is not a light showing some other object, the light is itself the vision. No longer is there thing seen and light to show it, no longer Intellect and object of Intellection; this is the very radiance that brought both Intellect and Intellectual object into being for the later use and allowed them to occupy the quester's mind. With This he himself becomes identical, with that radiance whose Act is to engender Intellectual-Principle, not losing in that engendering but for ever unchanged, the engendered coming to be simply because that Supreme exists. If there were no such principle above change, no derivative could rise.

(484) A ND thus, Glaucon, after the argument has gone a weary way, the true and the false philosophers have at length appeared in view. I do not think, he said, that the way could have been shortened. I suppose not, I said; and yet I believe that we might have had a better view of both of them if the discussion could have been confined to this one subject and if there were not many other questions awaiting us, which he who desires to see in what respect the life of the just differs from that of the unjust must consider. And what is the next question? he asked. Surely, I said, the one which follows next in order. Inasmuch as philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal and unchangeable, and those who wander in the region of the many and variable are not philosophers, I must ask you which of the two classes should be the rulers of our State? And how can we rightly answer that question? Whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and institutions of our State—let them be our guardians. Very good. Neither, I said, can there be any question that the guardian who is to keep anything should have eyes rather than no eyes? There can be no question of that. And are not those who are verily and indeed wanting in the knowledge of the true being of each thing, and who have in their souls no clear pattern, and are unable as with a painter’s eye to look at the absolute truth and to that original

(4) But Almighty God is celebrated in the holy Oracles as "Logos"; not only because He is provider of reason and mind and wisdom, but because He anticipated the causes of all, solitarily in Himself, and because He passes through all, as the Oracles say, even to the end of all things; and even more than these, because the Divine Word surpasses every simplicity, and is set free from all, as the Superessential. This "Logos "is the simple and really existing truth, around which, as a pure and unerring knowledge of the whole, the Divine Faith is-- the enduring foundation of the believers--which establishes them in the truth, and the truth in them, by an unchangeable identity, they having the pure knowledge of the truth of the things believed. For, if knowledge unites the knowing and the known, but ignorance is ever a cause to the ignorant person of change, and of separation from himself, nothing will move one who has believed in the truth, according to the sacred Logos, from true Faith's Sanctuary upon which he will have the steadfastness of his unmoved, unchangeable identity. For, well does he know, who has been united to the Truth, that it is well with him although the multitude may admonish him as "wandering." For it probably escapes them, that he is wandering from error to the truth, through the veritable faith. But, he truly knows himself, not, as they say, mad, but as liberated from the unstable and variable course around the manifold variety of error, through the simple, and ever the same, and similar truth. Thus then the early leaders of our Divine Theosophy are dying every day, on behalf of truth, testifying as is natural, both by every word and deed, to the one knowledge of the truth of the Christians, that it is of all, both more simple and more Divine, yea rather, that it is the sole true and one and simple knowledge of God.

(4) We then, having collected these intelligible Divine Names, have unfolded them to the best of our ability, falling short not only of the precision which belongs to them, (for this truly, even Angels might say) nor only of their praises as sung by Angels (and the chief of our Theologians come behind the lowest of them), nor indeed of the Theologians themselves, nor of their followers or companions, but even of those who are of the same rank as ourselves, last and subordinate to them; so that, if the things spoken should be correct, and, if we, as far as in us lies, have really reached the perception of the unfolding of the Divine Names, let the fact be ascribed to the Author of all good things, Who, Himself, bestows first the power to speak, then to speak well. And if any one of the Names of the same force has been passed over, that also you must understand according to the same methods. But, if these things are either incorrect or imperfect, and we have wandered from the truth, either wholly or partially, may it be of thy brotherly kindness to correct him, who unwillingly is ignorant, and to impart a word to him, who wishes to learn, and to vouchsafe assistance to him, who has not power in himself; and to heal him, who, not willingly, is sick; and having found out some things from thyself, and others from others, and receiving all from the good to transfer them also to us. By no means grow weary in doing good to a man thy friend, for thou perceivest, that we also have kept to ourselves none of the hierarchical communications transmitted to us, but have transmitted them without flaw, both to you and to other holy men, yea, and will continue to transmit them, as we may be sufficient to speak, and those to whom we speak, to hear, doing injury in no respect to the tradition, if at least we do not fail in the conception and expression thereof. But, let these things be held and spoken in such way, as is well pleasing to Almighty God; and let this indeed be our conclusion to the intelligible Divine Names. But I will now pass to the Symbolic Theology, with God for my Guide. 27 October, 1896.

(5) But seeing through the divine grace in this high article this great mystery has been somewhat revealed to me, in my spirit, according to the inward man, (which qualifieth, mixeth and uniteth with the Deity), therefore I cannot forbear to describe it according to my gifts. And I would have the Reader faithfully admonished not to be offended at the simplicity of the author.

(81) From indisputable facts such as these it is evident that philosophy emerged from the religious Mysteries of antiquity, not being separated from religion until after the decay of the Mysteries. Hence he who would fathom the depths of philosophic thought must familiarize himself with the teachings of those initiated priests designated as the first custodians of divine revelation. The Mysteries claimed to be the guardians of a transcendental knowledge so profound as to be incomprehensible save to the most exalted intellect and so potent as to be revealed with safety only to those in whom personal ambition was dead and who had consecrated their lives to the unselfish service of humanity. Both the dignity of these sacred institutions and the validity of their claim to possession of Universal Wisdom are attested by the most illustrious philosophers of antiquity, who were themselves initiated into the profundities of the secret doctrine and who bore witness to its efficacy.