(4) 2. “Man was generated by far the wisest of all [terrestrial] animals. For he is able to contemplate the things which exist, and to obtain from all things science and wisdom. To which also it may be added, that divinity has engraved and exhibited in him the system of universal reason, in which all the forms of things in existence are distributed, and the significations of nouns and verbs. For a place is assigned for the sounds of the voice, viz. the pharynx, the mouth, and the nostrils. But as man was generated the instrument of the sounds, through which nouns and verbs are signified, so likewise of the conceptions which are beheld in the things that have an existence. And this appears to me to be the work of wisdom, for the accomplishment of which man was generated and constituted, and received organs and powers from divinity.

(1) Now then, O Blessed One, after the Theological Outlines, I will pass to the interpretation of the Divine Names, as best I can. But, let the rule of the Oracles be here also prescribed for us, viz., that we shall establish the truth of the things spoken concerning God, not in the persuasive words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit-moved power of the Theologians, by aid of which we are brought into contact with things unutterable and unknown, in a manner unutterable and unknown, in proportion to the superior union of the reasoning and intuitive faculty and operation within us. By no means then is it permitted to speak, or even to think, anything, concerning the superessential and hidden Deity, beyond those things divinely revealed to us in the sacred Oracles. For Agnosia, (supra-knowledge) of its superessentiality above reason and mind and essence--to, it must we attribute the superessential science, so far aspiring to the Highest, as the ray of the supremely Divine Oracles imparts itself, whilst we restrain ourselves in our approach to the higher glories by prudence and piety as regards things Divine. For, if we must place any confidence in the All Wise and most trustworthy Theology, things Divine are revealed and contemplated in proportion to the capacity of each of the minds, since the supremely Divine Goodness distributes Divinely its immeasurableness (as that which cannot be contained) with a justice which preserves those whose capacity is limited. For, as things intelligible cannot be comprehended and contemplated by things of sense, and things uncompounded and unformed by things compounded and formed; and the intangible and unshaped formlessness of things without body, by those formed according to the shapes of bodies; in accordance with the self-same analogy of the truth, the superessential Illimitability is placed above things essential, and the Unity above mind above the Minds; and the One above conception is inconceivable to all conceptions; and the Good above word is unutterable by word--Unit making one every unit, and superessential essence and mind inconceivable, and Word unutterable, speechlessness and inconception, and namelessness--being after the manner of no existing being, and Cause of being to all, but Itself not being, as beyond every essence, and as It may manifest Itself properly and scientifically concerning Itself.

(2) But as to Sense and all things similar, I will set forth the whole discourse when [I explain] concerning Spirit. For man is the sole animal that is twofold. One part of him is simple: the [man] “essential,” as say the Greeks, but which we call the “form of the Divine Similitude.” He also is fourfold: that which the Greeks call “hylic,” [but] which we call “cosmic”; of which is made the corporal part, in which is vestured what we just have said is the divine in man, —in which the godhead of the Mind alone, together with its kin, that is the Pure Mind’s senses, findeth home and rest, its self with its own self, as though shut in the body’s walls.

(7) Thus, then, the "Nameless "befits the cause of all, which is also above all, as do all the names of things existing, in order that there may be strictly a kingly rule over the whole; and that all things may be around It and dependent upon It, as cause, as beginning, as end. And Itself, according to the Divine saying, may be the "all in all," and truly sung as of all, producing, directing and perfecting and sustaining guard, and shrine, and turning towards Itself, and that uniformly, irresistibly and pre-eminently. For It is not only cause of sustenance, or life, or perfection,--so that from this or that forethought alone the Goodness above Name should be named, but It previously embraced in Itself all things existing, absolutely and without limit, by the complete benefactions of His one and all-creating forethought, and by all created things in joint accord It is celebrated and named.

(2) With respect to the powers, therefore, which remain in the heavens in the divine bodies themselves, there can be no doubt that all of them are similar. Hence, it remains that we should discuss those powers which are thence transmitted to us, and are mingled with generation. These, therefore, descend with invariable sameness for the salvation of the universe, and connectedly contain the whole of generation after the same manner. They are likewise impassive and immutable, though they proceed into that which is mutable and passive. For generation being multiform, and consisting of different things, receives the one of the Gods, and that in them which is without difference, with hostility and partibility, conformably to its own contrariety and division. It also receives that which is impassive, passively; and, in short, participates of them according to its own proper nature, and not according to their power. As, therefore, that which is generated [or has a subsistence in becoming to be,] participates of being generatively, and body participates of the incorporeal, corporeally; thus, also, the physical and material substances which are in generation, participate of the immaterial and etherial bodies, which are above nature and generation, in a confused and disorderly manner. Hence they are absurd who attribute colour, figure, and contact to intelligible forms, because the participants of them are things of this kind; as likewise are those who ascribe depravity to the celestial bodies, because their participants sometimes produce evils.

(69) Therefore we must consider, that the Noise in the Tincture of Man is [of a] higher [Nature] than [that] in the Beasts; for Man searches and distinguishes all Things which give a Sound, and knows from whence it comes, and how it exists, which the Beasts cannot do, but stare at it, and knows not what it is; whereby it may be understood, that the Original of Man, is out of the Eternal, because he can distinguish all Things that in the Out-Birth came out of the Eternal. And hence it is, that the Body (seeing all Things out of the eternal Nothing are caused to be Something which is comprehensible [or palpable,] and yet there, that Nothing is not a mere Nothing, but is a Source) after the Corrupting shall stand in the eternal Figure, and not in the Spirit, because it is not out of the eternal Spirit; for otherwise, if it were out of the [eternal] Spirit, then it should also search out the Beginning of every Thing, as [well as] Man, who in his Sound receives and distinguishes all Things.

(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

(12) And so now God created the Image, and Similitude, out of the eternal Element, in which the eternal Wonders are originally, and [God] breathed into him the Spirit of the Essences, out of his eternal original Will, out of the broken Gate of the Deep, through where the Wheel of the Stirring and Breaking-through stands in the eternal Mind, which reaches the clear, true, and pure Deity of the Heart of God.

(8) Further also, the Theologians do not honour alone the Names of God which are given from universal or particular Providences, or objects of His forethought; but also from certain occasional Divine Visions, in the sacred temples or elsewhere, which enlightened the initiated or the Prophets, they name the surpassing bright Goodness which is above Name, after one or other causes and powers, and clothe It in forms and shapes of man, or fire, or electron, and celebrate Its eyes and ears, and locks of hair, and countenance, and hands, and back, and wings, and arms, and hinder parts and feet. Also they assign to It crowns and seats, and drinking vessels and bowls, and certain other things mystical, concerning which, in our Symbolic Theology, we will speak as best we can. But now, collecting from the Oracles so much as serves the purpose of our present treatise, and using the things aforesaid, as a kind of Canon, and keeping our eyes upon them, let us advance to the unfolding of the Names of God, which fall within the range of our understanding, and, what the hierarchical rule always teaches us throughout every phase of theology, let us become initiated (to speak authoritatively) in the godlike contemplations with a god-enlightened conception. And let us bring religious ears to the unfoldings of the Holy Names of God, implanting the Holy in the Holy, according to the Divine tradition, and removing it from the laughter and jeers of the uninitiated; yea, rather, if certain men really are such, purifying them from their fighting against God in this matter. Be it thine, then, to guard these things, O excellent Timothy, according to the most holy leading, and to make the things Divine neither spoken nor known to the uninitiated. For myself, may Almighty God give me to celebrate, in a manner worthy of God, the numerous beneficent Names of the uncalled and unnamed Deity; and may He not take away a word of truth from my mouth.

(18) The eternal Generating is an unbeginning Birth, and it has neither Number nor End, and its Depth is bottomless, and the Band of Life incorruptible: The syderial and elementary Spirit cannot discern it, much less comprehend it; it only feels it, and sees a Glimpse of it in the Mind; which [Mind] is the Chariot of the Soul, upon which it rides in the first Principle in its own Seat in the Father's eternal Generating [or Begetting;] for its own Substance is altogether crude, without a Body, and yet it has the Form of the Body in its own spiritual Form, understand according to the Image; which Soul, if it be regenerated in the Light of God, it sees in the Light of the Father, (which Light is his Glance, Luster, or Son,) in the eternal Birth, wherein it lives and remains eternally.

(5) And yet, if It is superior to every expression and every knowledge, and is altogether placed above mind and essence,--being such as embraces and unites and comprehends and anticipates all things, but Itself is altogether incomprehensible to all, and of It, there is neither perception nor imagination, nor surmise, nor name, nor expression, nor contact, nor science;--in what way can our treatise thoroughly investigate the meaning of the Divine Names, when the superessential Deity is shewn to be without Name, and above Name? But, as we said when we put forth the Theological Outlines, it is not possible either to express or to conceive what the One, the Unknown, the Superessential self-existing Good is,--I mean the threefold Unity, the alike God, and the alike Good. But even the unions, such as befit angels, of the holy Powers, whether we must call them efforts after, or receptions from, the super-Unknown and surpassing Goodness, are both unutterable and unknown, and exist in those angels alone who, above angelic knowledge, are deemed worthy of them. The godlike minds (men) made one by these unions, through imitation of angels as far as attainable (since it is during cessation of every mental energy that such an union as this of the deified minds towards the super-divine light takes place) celebrate It most appropriately through the abstraction of all created things--enlightened in this matter, truly and super-naturally from the most blessed union towards It--that It is Cause Indeed of all things existing, but Itself none of them, as being superessentially elevated above all. To none, indeed, who are lovers of the Truth above all Truth, is it permitted to celebrate the supremely-Divine Essentiality--that which is the super-subsistence of the super-goodness,--neither as word or power, neither as mind or life or essence, but as pre-eminently separated from every condition, movement, life, imagination, surmise, name, word, thought, conception, essence, position, stability, union, boundary, infinitude, all things whatever. But since, as sustaining source of goodness, by the very fact of Its being, It is cause of all things that be, from all created things must we celebrate the benevolent Providence of the Godhead; for all things are both around It and for It, and It is before all things, and all things in It consist, and by Its being is the production and sustenance of the whole, and all things aspire to It--the intellectual and rational, by means of knowledge--things inferior to these, through the senses, and other things by living movement, or substantial and habitual aptitude.

(7) Now we have set forth in the Theological Outlines whatever Divine Causes we have found in the Oracles, of these unions, and distinctions, by treating each separately, according to our ability; by explaining some things, by the infallible Word, and unfolding them; and by conducting the religious and unpolluted mind to the bright visions of the Oracles; but others, as being full of mystery, by approaching them according to the Divine tradition, which is superior to mental energy. For all the Divine properties, even those revealed to us, are known by the participations alone; and themselves, such as they are in their own source and abode, are above mind and all essence and knowledge. For instance, if we have named the superessential Hiddenness, God, or Life, or Essence, or Light, or Word (λόγος), we have no other thought than that the powers brought to us from It are deifying, or essentiating, or life-bearing, or wisdom-imparting; but to Itself we approach during the cessation of all the intellectual energies, seeing no deification, or life, or essence whatever, such as is strictly like the Cause pre-eminently elevated above all. Again, that the Father is fontal Deity, but the Lord Jesus and the Spirit are, if one may so speak, God-planted shoots, and as it were Flowers and superessential Lights of the God-bearing Deity, we have received from the holy Oracles; but how these things are, it is neither possible to say, nor to conceive.

(5) But the different, since Almighty God is present to all providentially, and becomes all in all, for the sake of the preservation of all, resting upon Himself, and His own identity within Himself, standing, as beseems an energy, one and ceaseless, and imparting Himself with an unbending power, for deification of those turned to Him. And we must suppose that the difference of the manifold shapes of Almighty God, during the multiform visions, signifies that certain things are different from the phenomena under which they appear. For, as when language depicts the soul itself, under a bodily form, and fashions bodily members around the memberless, we think differently of the members attributed to it, as befits the soul's memberless condition; and we call the mind head, and opinion neck,--as intermediate between rational and irrational--and anger, breast; and lust, belly; and the constitution, legs and feet; using the names of the members as symbols of the powers. Much more then, as respects Him, Who is beyond all, is it necessary to make clear the difference of forms and shapes by reverent and God-becoming, and mystic explanations. And if you wish to apply the threefold shapes of bodies to the impalpable and shapeless God, you must say, that the Progression of Almighty God, which spreads out to all things, is a Divine extension; and length, the power extending itself over the whole; and depth, the hiddenness and imperception incomprehensible to all creatures. But, that we may not forget ourselves, in our explanation, of the different shapes and forms, by confounding the incorporeal Divine Names with those given through symbols of objects of sense, we have for this reason spoken concerning these things in the Symbolic Theology. But now, let us suppose the Divine difference, as really not a sort of change from the super-immovable identity, but as the single multiplication of itself, and the uniform progressions of its fecundity to all.

(1) IN the Theological Outlines, then, we celebrated the principal affirmative expressions respecting God--how the Divine and good Nature is spoken of as One--how as Threefold--what is that within it which is spoken of as Paternity and Sonship--what the Divine name of "the Spirit "is meant to signify,--how from the immaterial and indivisible Good the Lights dwelling in the heart of Goodness sprang forth, and remained, in their branching forth, without departing from the coeternal abiding in Himself and in Themselves and in each other,--how the super-essential Jesus takes substance in veritable human nature--and whatever other things, made known by the Oracles, are celebrated throughout the Theological Outlines; and in the treatise concerning Divine Names, how He is named Good--how Being--how Life and Wisdom and Power--and whatever else belongs to the nomenclature of God. Further, in the Symbolical Theology, what are the Names transferred from objects of sense to things Divine?--what are the Divine forms?--what the Divine appearances, and parts and organs?--what the Divine places and ornaments?--what the angers?--what the griefs?--and the Divine wrath?--what the carousals, and the ensuing sicknesses?--what the oaths,--and what the curses?--what the sleepings, and what the awakings?--and all the other Divinely formed representations, which belong to the description of God, through symbols. And I imagine that you have comprehended, how the lowest are expressed in somewhat more words than the first. For, it was necessary that the Theological Outlines, and the unfolding of the Divine Names should be expressed in fewer words than the Symbolic Theology; since, in proportion as we ascend to the higher, in such a degree the expressions are circumscribed by the contemplations of the things intelligible. As even now, when entering into the gloom which is above mind, we shall find, not a little speaking, but a complete absence of speech, and absence of conception. In the other case, the discourse, in descending from the above to the lowest, is widened according to the descent, to a proportionate extent; but now, in ascending from below to that which is above, in proportion to the ascent, it is contracted, and after a complete ascent, it will become wholly voiceless, and will be wholly united to the unutterable. But, for what reason in short, you say, having attributed the Divine attributes from the foremost, do we begin the Divine abstraction from things lowest? Because it is necessary that they who place attributes on that which is above every attribute, should place the attributive affirmation from that which is more cognate to it; but that they who abstract, with regard to that which is above every abstraction, should make the abstraction from things which are further removed from it. Are not life and goodness more (cognate) than air and stone? and He is not given to debauch and to wrath, more (removed) than He is not expressed nor conceived. Next: Caput IV. Sacred Texts | Christianity « Previous: The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite: Mystic Theology: C... Index Next: The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite: Mystic Theology: C... » Sacred Texts | Christianity

(12) For human speech is by nature feeble, and incapable of uttering God. I do not say His name. For to name it is common, not to philosophers only, but also to poets. Nor [do I say] His essence; for this is impossible, but the power and the works of God.

(10) And if we name it, we do not do so properly, terming it either the One, or the Good, or Mind, or Absolute Being, or Father, or God, or Creator or Lord. We speak not as supplying His name; but for want, we use good names, in order that the mind may have these as points of support, so as not to err in other respects. For each one by itself does not express God; but all together are indicative of the power of the Omnipotent. For predicates are expressed either from what belongs to things themselves, or from their mutual relation. But none of these are admissible in reference to God. Nor any more is He apprehended by the science of demonstration. For it depends on primary and better known principles. But there is nothing antecedent to the Unbegotten.

(2) But this power is never drawn down to its participants either in the production of the worlds, or in the providential inspection of the realms of generation, or in predicting concerning it. For it imparts to all things good, and renders all things similar to itself. It likewise benefits the subjects of its government most abundantly, and without envy, and by how much the more it abides in itself, by so much the more it is filled with its own proper perfection. And it does not itself, indeed, become any thing belonging to its participants, but it causes the things which receive it to partake of its peculiarities, and preserves them in an all perfect manner. It also abides at the same time perfectly in itself, and comprehends them at once in itself, but is neither vanquished nor comprehended by any one of them. In vain, therefore, are men disturbed by a suspicion of this kind. For divinity is not divided together with the above mentioned modes of divination, but produces all of them impartibly. Nor does he effect different things at a different time, in a distributed manner, but produces all of them according to one energy, collectively and at once. Nor is he detained about signs, being comprehended in, or divided about, them; but contains them in himself, and in one order, and comprehends them in unity, and produces them from himself, according to one invariable will.

(11) I think, therefore, that those ancient sages, who sought to secure the presence of divine beings by the erection of shrines and statues, showed insight into the nature of the All; they perceived that, though this Soul is everywhere tractable, its presence will be secured all the more readily when an appropriate receptacle is elaborated, a place especially capable of receiving some portion or phase of it, something reproducing it, or representing it, and serving like a mirror to catch an image of it.

It belongs to the nature of the All to make its entire content reproduce, most felicitously, the Reason-Principles in which it participates; every particular thing is the image within matter of a Reason-Principle which itself images a pre-material Reason-Principle: thus every particular entity is linked to that Divine Being in whose likeness it is made, the divine principle which the soul contemplated and contained in the act of each creation. Such mediation and representation there must have been since it was equally impossible for the created to be without share in the Supreme, and for the Supreme to descend into the created.

The Intellectual-Principle in the Supreme has ever been the sun of that sphere- let us accept that as the type of the creative Logos- and immediately upon it follows the Soul depending from it, stationary Soul from stationary Intelligence. But the Soul borders also upon the sun of this sphere, and it becomes the medium by which all is linked to the overworld; it plays the part of an interpreter between what emanates from that sphere down to this lower universe, and what rises- as far as, through soul, anything can- from the lower to the highest.

Nothing, in fact, is far away from anything; things are not remote: there is, no doubt, the aloofness of difference and of mingled natures as against the unmingled; but selfhood has nothing to do with spatial position, and in unity itself there may still be distinction.

These Beings are divine in virtue of cleaving to the Supreme, because, by the medium of the Soul thought of as descending they remain linked with the Primal Soul, and through it are veritably what they are called and possess the vision of the Intellectual Principle, the single object of contemplation to that soul in which they have their being.

(1) The Lord and Maker of all things, whom we call rightly God, when from Himself He made the second [God], the Visible and Sensible, —I call him Sensible not that He hath sensation in Himself (for as to this, whether or no He have himself sensation, we will some other time declare), but that He is the object of the senses of those who see;—when, then, He made Him first, but second to Himself, and that He seemed to Him [most] fair, as one filled to the full with goodness of all things, He fell in love with Him as being part of His Divinity.

(2) Indeed, I have no hope that the Creator of the whole of Greatness, the Father and the Lord of all the things [that are], could ever have one name, even although it should be made up of a multitude—He who cannot be named, or rather He who can be called by every name. For He, indeed, is One and All ; so that it needs must be that all things should be called by the same name as His, or He Himself called by the names of all.