(9) Wherefore also it is most incumbent on such to pray, knowing as they do the Divinity rightly, and having the moral excellence suitable to him; who know what things are really good, and what are to be asked, and when and how in each individual case. It is the extremest stupidity to ask of them who are no gods, as if they were gods; or to ask those things which are not beneficial, begging evils for themselves under the appearance of good things.

(21) But if voice and expression are given us, for the sake of understanding, how can God not hear the soul itself, and the mind, since assuredly soul hears soul, and mind, mind? Whence God does not walt for loquacious tongues, as interpreters among men, but knows absolutely the thoughts of all; and what the voice intimates to us, that our thought, which even before the creation He knew would come into our mind, speaks to God. Prayer, then, may be uttered without the voice, by concentrating the whole spiritual nature within on expression by the mind, in un-distracted turning towards God.

(5) Therefore if I should speak and write that which is purely heavenly, and altogether of the clear Deity, I should be as dumb to the Reader, who has not the Knowledge and the Gift [to understand it.] Yet I will so write in a divine, and also in a creaturely Way, that I might stir up any one to desire and long after the Consideration of the high Things: And if any shall perceive that they cannot do it, that at least they might seek and knock in their Desire, and pray to God for his holy Spirit, that the Door of the second Principle might be opened up to them; for Christ bids us to pray, seek, and knock, and then it shall be opened unto us. For he says, All that you shall ask the Father in my Name, he will give it you: Ask and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

(1) AND right as the meditations of them that continually work in this grace and in this work rise suddenly without any means, right so do their prayers. I mean of their special prayers, not of those prayers that be ordained of Holy Church. For they that be true workers in this work, they worship no prayer so much: and therefore they do them, in the form and in the statute that they be ordained of holy fathers before us. But their special prayers rise evermore suddenly unto God, without any means or any premeditation in special coming before, or going therewith.

(12) Prayer is, then, to speak more boldly, converse with God. Though whispering, consequently, and not opening the lips, we speak in silence, yet we cry inwardly. For God hears continually all the inward converse. So also we raise the head and lift the hands to heaven, and set the feet in motion at the closing utterance of the prayer, following the eagerness of the spirit directed towards the intellectual essence; and endeavouring to abstract the body from the earth, along with the discourse, raising the soul aloft, winged with longing for better things, we compel it to advance to the region of holiness, magnanimously despising the chain of the flesh. For we know right well, that the Gnostic willingly passes over the whole world, as the Jews certainly did over Egypt, showing clearly, above all, that he will be as near as possible to God.

(14) Having got to this point, I recollect the doctrines about there being no necessity to pray, introduced by certain of the heterodox, that is, the followers of the heresy of Prodicus. That they may not then be inflated with conceit about this godless wisdom of theirs, as if it were strange, let them learn that it was embraced before by the philosophers called Cyrenaics.

(2) As soon as I was free from all those shades Who only prayed that some one else may pray, So as to hasten their becoming holy, Began I: "It appears that thou deniest, O light of mine, expressly in some text, That orison can bend decree of Heaven; And ne'ertheless these people pray for this. Might then their expectation bootless be? Or is to me thy saying not quite clear?" And he to me: "My writing is explicit, And not fallacious is the hope of these, If with sane intellect 'tis well regarded; For top of judgment doth not vail itself, Because the fire of love fulfils at once What he must satisfy who here installs him. And there, where I affirmed that proposition, Defect was not amended by a prayer, Because the prayer from God was separate. Verily, in so deep a questioning Do not decide, unless she tell it thee, Who light 'twixt truth and intellect shall be. I know not if thou understand; I speak Of Beatrice; her shalt thou see above, Smiling and happy, on this mountain's top."

(32) Give ear to me who pray that I may ne'er of Gnosis fail, [Gnosis] which is our common being's nature; and fill me with Thy Power, and with this Grace [of Thine], that I may give the Light to those in ignorance of the Race, my Brethren, and Thy Sons. For this cause I believe, and I bear witness; I go to Life and Light. Blessed art Thou, O Father. Thy Man would holy be as Thou art holy, e'en as Thou gave him Thy full authority [to be].

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

(9) From these remarks the greatest prayer evidently is to have peace, according to Plato. And faith is the greatest mother of the I virtues. Accordingly it is rightly said in Solomon, "Wisdom is in the mouth of the faithful." Since also Xenocrates, in his book on "Intelligence," says "that wisdom is the knowledge of first causes and of intellectual essence." He considers intelligence as twofold, practical and theoretical, which latter is human wisdom. Consequently wisdom is intelligence, but all intelligence is not wisdom. And it has been shown, that the knowledge of the first cause of the universe is of faith, but is not demonstration. For it were strange that the followers of the Samian Pythagoras, rejecting demonstrations of subjects of question, should regard the bare ipse dixit as ground of belief; and that this expression alone sufficed for the confirmation of what they heard, while those devoted to the contemplation of the truth, presuming to disbelieve the trustworthy Teacher, God the only Saviour, should demand of Him tests of His utterances. But He says, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." And who is he? Let Epicharmus say: "Mind sees, mind hears; all besides is deaf and blind." Rating some as unbelievers, Heraclitus says, "Not knowing how to hear or to speak;" aided doubtless by Solomon, who says, "If thou lovest to hear, thou shalt comprehend; and if thou incline thine ear, thou shalt be wise.

(2) Now all Angels are interpreters of those above them, the most reverend, indeed, of God, Who moves them, and the rest, in due degree, of those who have been moved by God. For, to such an extent has the superessential harmony of all things provided for the religious order and the regulated conduct of each of the rational and intellectual beings, that each rank of the Hierarchies, has been placed in sacred order, and we observe every Hierarchy distributed into first, and middle, and last Powers. But to speak accurately, He distinguished each Division itself, by the same Divine harmonies; wherefore the theologians say that the most Divine Seraphim cry one to another, indicating distinctly, as I think by this, that the first impart their knowledge of divine things to the second.

(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.

(26) Their knowledge of our prayers is due to what we may call an enlinking, a determined relation of things fitted into a system; so, too, the fulfillment of the petitions; in the art of magic all looks to this enlinkment: prayer and its answer, magic and its success, depend upon the sympathy of enchained forces.

This seems to oblige us to accord sense-perception to the earth.

But what perception?

Why not, to begin with, that of contact-feeling, the apprehension of part by part, the apprehension of fire by the rest of the entire mass in a sensation transmitted upwards to the earth's leading principle? A corporeal mass may be sluggish but is not utterly inert. Such perceptions, of course, would not be of trifles, but of the graver movement of things.

But why even of them?

Because those gravest movements could not possibly remain unknown where there is an immanent soul.

And there is nothing against the idea that sensation in the earth exists for the sake of the human interests furthered by the earth. They would be served by means of the sympathy that has been mentioned; petitioners would be heard and their prayers met, though in a way not ours. And the earth, both in its own interest and in that of beings distinct from itself, might have the experiences of the other senses also- for example, smell and taste where, perhaps, the scent of juices or sap might enter into its care for animal life, as in the constructing or restoring of their bodily part.

But we need not demand for earth the organs by which we, ourselves, act: not even all the animals have these; some, without ears perceive sound.

For sight it would not need eyes- though if light is indispensable how can it see?

That the earth contains the principle of growth must be admitted; it is difficult not to allow in consequence that, since this vegetal principle is a member of spirit, the earth is primarily of the spiritual order; and how can we doubt that in a spirit all is lucid? This becomes all the more evident when we reflect that, besides being as a spirit lightsome, it is physically illuminated moving in the light of kosmic revolution.

There is, thus, no longer any absurdity or impossibility in the notion that the soul in the earth has vision: we must, further, consider that it is the soul of no mean body; that in fact it is a god since certainly soul must be everywhere good.

(6) In general, then, an unworthy opinion of God preserves no piety, either in hymns, or discourses, or writings, or dogmas, but diverts to grovelling and unseemly ideas and notions. Whence the commendation of the multitude differs nothing from censure, in consequence of their ignorance of the truth. The objects, then, of desires and aspirations, and, in a word, of the mind's impulses, are the subjects of prayers. Wherefore, no man desires a draught, but to drink what is drinkable; and no man desires an inheritance, but to inherit.

(8) But they will by no means say that the Deity, enfeebled through the desire that springs from want, is nourished. Accordingly, they will represent Him as nourished without desire like a plant, and like beasts that burrow. They say that these grow innoxiously, nourished either by the density in the air, or from the exhalations proceeding from their own body. Though if the Deity, though needing nothing, is according to them nourished, what necessity has He for food, wanting nothing? But if, by nature needing nothing, He delights to be honoured, it is not without reason that we honour God in prayer; and thus the best and holiest sacrifice with righteousness we bring, presenting it as an offering to the most righteous Word, by whom we receive knowledge, giving glory by Him for what we have learned.

(3) But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

(5) Hence the inscrutable God is called silent by the divine ones, and is said to consent with Mind, and to be known to human souls through the power of the Mind alone.

(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

(2) Supplicate thee through grace for so much power That with his eyes he may uplift himself Higher towards the uttermost salvation. And I, who never burned for my own seeing More than I do for his, all of my prayers Proffer to thee, and pray they come not short, That thou wouldst scatter from him every cloud Of his mortality so with thy prayers, That the Chief Pleasure be to him displayed. Still farther do I pray thee, Queen, who canst Whate'er thou wilt, that sound thou mayst preserve After so great a vision his affections. Let thy protection conquer human movements; See Beatrice and all the blessed ones My prayers to second clasp their hands to thee!" The eyes beloved and revered of God, Fastened upon the speaker, showed to us How grateful unto her are prayers devout; Then unto the Eternal Light they turned, On which it is not credible could be By any creature bent an eye so clear. And I, who to the end of all desires Was now approaching, even as I ought The ardour of desire within me ended.

(22) Wherefore, my son, thou shouldst give praise to God and pray that thou mayst have thy mind Good Mind. It is, then, to a better state the soul doth pass; it cannot to a worse. Further there is an intercourse of souls; those of the gods have intercourse with those of men, and those of men with souls of creatures which possess no reason. The higher, further, have in charge the lower; the gods look after men, men after animals irrational, while God hath charge of all; for He is higher than them all and all are less than He. Cosmos is subject, then, to God, man to the Cosmos, and irrationals to man. But God is o'er them all, and God contains them all. God's rays, to use a figure, are His energies; the Cosmos's are natures, the arts and sciences are man's. The energies act through the Cosmos, thence through the nature-rays of Cosmos upon man; the nature-rays [act] through the elements, man [acteth] through the sciences and arts.