(44) In the theology of the Egyptians, goodness takes precedence and all things partake of its nature to a higher or lower degree. Goodness is sought by all. It is the Prime Cause of causes. Goodness is self-diffused and hence exists in all things, for nothing can produce that which it does not have in itself. The Table demonstrates that all is in God and God is in all; that all is in all and each is in each. In the intellectual world are invisible spiritual counterparts of the creatures which inhabit the elemental world. Therefore, the lowest exhibits the highest, the corporeal declares the intellectual, and the invisible i,. made manifest by its works. For this reason the Egyptians made images of substances existing in the inferior sensible world to serve as visible exemplars of superior and invisible powers. To the corruptible images they assigned the virtues of the incorruptible divinities, thus demonstrating arcanely that this world is but the shadow of God, the outward picture of the paradise within. All that is in the invisible archetypal sphere is revealed in the sensible corporeal world by the light of Nature.

(4) Well, if of good, why does it cease through amazement? And minister and preaching and baptism are [in that case] superfluous to them. And if of evil, how can what is bad be the cause of what is best? For had not ignorance preceded, the minister would not have come down, nor would have amazement seized on "the Prince," as they say; nor would he have attained to a beginning of wisdom from fear, in order to discrimination between the elect and those that are mundane. And if the fear of the pre-existent man made the angels conspire against their own handiwork, under the idea that an invisible germ of the supernal essence was lodged within that creation, or through unfounded suspicion excited envy, which is incredible, the angels became murderers of the creature which had been entrusted to them, as a child might be, they being thus convicted of the grossest ignorance. Or suppose they were influenced by being involved in foreknowledge. But they would not have conspired against what they foreknew in the assault they made; nor would they have been terror-struck at their own work, in consequence of foreknowledge, on their perceiving the supernal germ. Or, finally, suppose, trusting to their knowledge, they dared (but this also were impossible for them), on learning the excellence that is in the Pleroma, to conspire against man. Furthermore also they laid hands on that which was according to the image, in which also is the archetype, and which, along with the knowledge that remains, is indestructible.

(1) But since they will believe neither in what is good justly nor in knowledge unto salvation, we ourselves reckoning what they claim as belonging to us, because all things are God's; and especially since what is good proceeded from us to the Greeks, let us handle those things as they are capable of hearing. For intelligence or rectitude this great crowd estimates not by truth, but by what they are delighted with. And they will be pleased not more with other things than with what is like themselves. For he who is still blind and dumb, not having understanding, or the undazzled and keen vision of the contemplative soul, which the Saviour confers, like the uninitiated at the mysteries, or the unmusical at dances, not being yet pure and worthy of the pure truth, but still discordant and disordered and material, must stand outside of the divine choir.

(2) Wherefore it stands to reason, that the ideas entertained of God by wicked men must be bad, and those by good men most excellent. And therefore he who is in soul truly kingly and gnostic, being likewise pious and free from superstition, is persuaded that He who alone is God is honourable, venerable, august, beneficent, the doer of good, the author of all good things, but not the cause of evil. And respecting the Hellenic superstition we have, as I think, shown enough in the book entitled by us The Exhortation, availing ourselves abundantly of the history bearing on the point. There is no need, then, again to make a long story of what has already been clearly stated. But in as far as necessity requires to be pointed out on coming to the topic, suffice it to adduce a few out of many considerations in proof of the impiety of those who make the Divinity resemble the worst men. For either those Gods of theirs are injured by men, and are shown to be inferior to men on being injured by us; or, if not so, how is it that they are incensed at those by whom they are not injured, like a testy old wife roused to wrath?

(16) Though, then, the Good is spoken of by all, it is not understood by all, what thing it is. Not only, then, is God not understood by all, but both unto the gods and some of the men they out of ignorance do give the name of Good, though they can never either be or become Good. For they are very different from God, while Good can never be distinguished from Him, for that God is the same as Good. The rest of the immortal ones are nonetheless honored with the name of God, and spoken of as gods; but God is Good not out of courtesy but out of nature. For that God's nature and the Good is one; one os the kind of both, from which all other kinds [proceed]. The Good is he who gives all things and naught receives. God, then, doth give all things and receive naught. God, then, is Good, and Good is God.

(1) BE it so then. Let us come to the appellation "Good," already mentioned in our discourse, which the Theologians ascribe pre-eminently and exclusively to the super-Divine Deity, as I conjecture, by calling the supremely Divine Subsistence, Goodness; and because the Good, as essential Good, by Its being, extends Its Goodness to all things that be. For, even as our sun--not as calculating or choosing, but by its very being, enlightens all things able to partake of its light in their own degree--so too the Good--as superior to a sun, as the archetype par excellence, is above an obscure image--by Its very existence sends to all things that be, the rays of Its whole goodness, according to their capacity. By reason of these (rays) subsisted all the intelligible and intelligent essences and powers and energies. By reason of these they are, and have their life, continuous and undiminished, purified from all corruption and death and matter, and generation; and separated from the unstable and fluctuating and vacillating mutability, and are conceived of as incorporeal and immaterial, and as minds they think in a manner supermundane, and are illuminated as to the reasons of things, in a manner peculiar to themselves; and they again convey to their kindred spirits things appropriate to them; and they have their abiding from Goodness; and thence comes to them stability and consistence and protection, and sanctuary of good things; and whilst aspiring to It, they have both being and good being; and being conformed to It, as is attainable, they are both patterns of good, and impart to those after them, as the Divine Law directs, the gifts which have passed through to themselves from the Good.

(365) to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would be happy, to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods? or, suppose them to have no care of human things—why in either case should we mind about concealment? And even if there are gods, and they do care about us, yet we know of them only from tradition and the genealogies of the poets; and these are the very persons who say that they may be influenced and turned by ‘sacrifices and soothing entreaties and by offerings.’ Let us be consistent then, and believe both or neither. If the poets speak truly, why then we had better be unjust, and offer of the fruits of injustice; for if we are just, although we may escape the vengeance of heaven, we shall lose the gains of injustice; but, if we are unjust, we shall keep the gains, and by our sinning and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods will be propitiated, and we shall not be punished. ‘But there is a world below in which either we or our posterity will suffer for our unjust deeds.’ Yes, my friend, will be the reflection, but there are mysteries and atoning deities, and these have great power. That is

(6) Similarly, as it seems to me, the wise of Egypt- whether in precise knowledge or by a prompting of nature- indicated the truth where, in their effort towards philosophical statement, they left aside the writing-forms that take in the detail of words and sentences- those characters that represent sounds and convey the propositions of reasoning- and drew pictures instead, engraving in the temple- inscriptions a separate image for every separate item: thus they exhibited the mode in which the Supreme goes forth.

For each manifestation of knowledge and wisdom is a distinct image, an object in itself, an immediate unity, not as aggregate of discursive reasoning and detailed willing. Later from this wisdom in unity there appears, in another form of being, an image, already less compact, which announces the original in an outward stage and seeks the causes by which things are such that the wonder rises how a generated world can be so excellent.

For, one who knows must declare his wonder that this Wisdom, while not itself containing the causes by which Being exists and takes such excellence, yet imparts them to the entities produced in Being's realm. This excellence whose necessity is scarcely or not at all manifest to search, exists, if we could but find it out, before all searching and reasoning.

What I say may be considered in one chief thing, and thence applied to all the particular entities:

(2) Concerning this then, as has been said, the superessential and hidden Deity, it is not permitted to speak or even to think beyond the things divinely revealed to us in the sacred Oracles. For even as Itself has taught (as becomes Its goodness) in the Oracles, the science and contemplation of Itself in Its essential Nature is beyond the reach of all created things, as towering superessentially above all. And you will find many of the Theologians, who have celebrated It, not only as invisible and incomprehensible, but also as inscrutable and untraceable, since there is no trace of those who have penetrated to Its hidden infinitude. The Good indeed is not entirely uncommunicated to any single created being, but benignly sheds forth its superessential ray, persistently fixed in Itself, by illuminations analogous to each several being, and elevates to Its permitted contemplation and communion and likeness, those holy minds, who, as far as is lawful and reverent, strive after It, and who are neither impotently boastful towards that which is higher than the harmoniously imparted Divine manifestation, nor, in regard to a lower level, lapse downward through their inclining to the worse, but who elevate themselves determinately and unwaveringly to the ray shining upon them; and, by their proportioned love of permitted illuminations, are elevated with a holy reverence, prudently and piously, as on new wings.

(1) LET then the self-existent Goodness be sung from the Oracles as defining and manifesting the whole supremely-Divine-Subsistence in its essential nature. For, what else is there to learn from the sacred theology, when it affirms that the Godhead Itself, leading the way, says, "Why dost thou ask me concerning the Good?--None is Good except God alone." Now, this, we have thoroughly demonstrated elsewhere, that always, all the God-becoming Names of God, are celebrated by the Oracles, not partitively, but as applied to the whole and entire and complete and full Godhead, and that all of them are referred impartitively, absolutely, unreservedly, entirely, to all the Entirety of the entirely complete and every Deity. And verily as we have mentioned in the Theological Outlines, if any one should say that this is not spoken concerning the whole Deity, he blasphemes, and dares, without right, to cleave asunder the super-unified Unity. We must affirm, then, that this is to be received respecting the whole Deity. For even the essentially Good Word Himself said, "I am Good." And a certain one of the God-rapt Prophets celebrates the Spirit as "the Good." And again this, "I am He, Who is." If they shall say that this is said, not of the whole Deity, but should violently limit it to one part, how will they understand this? "These things, saith He, Who is, Who was, Who is to come, the Almighty," and "Thou art the same," and this, "Spirit of truth, which is, which proceedeth from the Father." And if they say that the supremely Divine Life is not coextensive with the whole, how is the sacred Word true which said, "As the Father raiseth the dead and maketh alive, so also the Son maketh alive whom He will," and that "the Spirit is He, Who maketh alive. But the Spirit also is Lord. And "the beautiful and the wise" are also sung respecting the whole Deity. And the light, and the deifying, and the cause, and whatever pertains to the whole Godhead, the Oracles introduce into all the supremely Divine hymnody--collectively, when they say "all things are from Almighty God; "but, specifically, as when they say, "all things were made through Him and to Him," and "all things in Him consist," and "Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be made." And, that one may speak summarily, the supremely Divine Word Himself said, "I and the Father are One," and "all that the Father hath are Mine," and, "All Mine are Thine, and Thine, Mine." And again, whatever pertains to the Father and Himself, He attributes. to the supremely Divine Spirit, collectively and in common--the works of God--the homage, the fontal and ceaseless cause and the distribution of the goodly gifts. And I think, none of those, who have been nourished in the Divine Oracles with unprejudiced conceptions, will oppose this, that all things befitting God belong to the whole Godhead, according to the divinely perfect Word. Since, then, we have demonstrated and defined these things from the Oracles,--here indeed partially, but elsewhere sufficiently--we will undertake to unfold every Divine Name whatsoever, which is to be received as referring to the whole Deity.

(1) Good, O Asclepius, is in none else save in God alone; nay, rather, Good is God Himself eternally. If it be so, [Good] must be essence, from every kind of motion and becoming free (though naught is free from It), possessed of stable energy around Itself, never too little, nor too much, an ever-full supply. [Though] one, yet [is It] source of all; for what supplieth all is Good. When I, moreover, say [supplieth] altogether [all], it is for ever Good. But this belongs to no one else save God alone. For He stands not in need of any thing, so that desiring it He should be bad; nor can a single thing of things that are be lost to him, on losing which He should be pained; for pain is part of bad. Nor is there aught superior to Him, that He should be subdued by it; nor any peer to Him to do Him wrong, or [so that] He should fall in love on its account; nor aught that gives no ear to Him, whereat He should grow angry; nor wiser aught, for Him to envy.

(508) Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to the knower is what I would have you term the idea of good, and this you will deem to be the cause of science 12 , and of truth in so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge; beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you will be right in esteeming this other nature as more beautiful than either; and, as in the previous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science and truth may be deemed to be like the good, but not the good; the good has a place of honour yet higher. What a wonder of beauty that must be, he said, which is the author of science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty; for you surely cannot mean to say that pleasure is the good? God forbid, I replied; but may I ask you to consider the image in another point of view? In what point of view? You would say, would you not, that the sun is not only the author of visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth, though he himself is not generation? Certainly. In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power.

(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.

(4) And I, for my part, give thanks to God, that He hath cast it in my mind about the Gnosis of the Good, that it can never be It should be in the world. For that the world is "fullness" of the bad, but God of Good, and Good of God. The excellencies of the Beautiful are round the very essence [of the Good]; nay, they do seem too pure, too unalloyed; perchance 'tis they that are themselves Its essences. For one may dare to say, Asclepius - if essence, sooth, He have - God's essence is the Beautiful; the Beautiful is further also Good. There is no Good that can be got from objects in the world. For all the things that fall beneath the eye are image-things and pictures as it were; while those that do not meet [the eye are the realities], especially the [essence] of the Beautiful and Good. Just as the eye cannot see God, so can it not behold the Beautiful and Good. For that they are integral parts of God, wedded to Him alone, inseparate familiars, most beloved, with whom God is Himself in love, or they with God.

(1) We shall find another testimony in confirmation, in the fact that the best of the philosophers, having appropriated their most excellent dogmas from us, boast, as it were, of certain of the tenets which pertain to each sect being culled from other Barbarians, chiefly from the Egyptians - both other tenets, and that especially of the transmigration of the soul. For the Egyptians pursue a philosophy of their own. This is principally shown by their sacred ceremonial.

(1) We can scarcely conceive that for any entity the Good can be other than the natural Act expressing its life-force, or in the case of an entity made up of parts the Act, appropriate, natural and complete, expressive of that in it which is best.

For the Soul, then, the Good is its own natural Act.

But the Soul itself is natively a "Best"; if, further, its act be directed towards the Best, the achievement is not merely the "Soul's good" but "The Good" without qualification.

Now, given an Existent which- as being itself the best of existences and even transcending the existences- directs its Act towards no other, but is the object to which the Act of all else is directed, it is clear that this must be at once the Good and the means through which all else may participate in Good.

This Absolute Good other entities may possess in two ways- by becoming like to It and by directing the Act of their being towards It.

Now, if all aspiration and Act whatsoever are directed towards the Good, it follows that the Essential-Good neither need nor can look outside itself or aspire to anything other than itself: it can but remain unmoved, as being, in the constitution of things, the wellspring and firstcause of all Act: whatsoever in other entities is of the nature of Good cannot be due to any Act of the Essential-Good upon them; it is for them on the contrary to act towards their source and cause. The Good must, then, be the Good not by any Act, not even by virtue of its Intellection, but by its very rest within Itself.

Existing beyond and above Being, it must be beyond and above the Intellectual-Principle and all Intellection.

For, again, that only can be named the Good to which all is bound and itself to none: for only thus is it veritably the object of all aspiration. It must be unmoved, while all circles around it, as a circumference around a centre from which all the radii proceed. Another example would be the sun, central to the light which streams from it and is yet linked to it, or at least is always about it, irremoveably; try all you will to separate the light from the sun, or the sun from its light, for ever the light is in the sun.

(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

(518) in other words, of the good. Very true. And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest and quickest manner; not implanting the faculty of sight, for that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is looking away from the truth? Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed. And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue—how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eye-sight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness? Very true, he said. But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which,

(2) Again, however, assuming a more elevated exordium, I am desirous to exhibit the principles of the worship of the Gods, which Pythagoras and his followers established; viz. that all such particulars as they define with respect to doing or not doing a thing, have for the mark at which they aim, a consent with divinity. This also is with them the principle, [of piety] and their whole life is arranged with a view to follow God . The language, too, of their philosophy is this, that men act ridiculously in exploring good from any other source than the Gods; and that their conduct in this respect resembles that of a man, who in a country governed by a king should reverence one of the magistrates in the city, and neglect him who is the ruler of all of them.

For they were of opinion that such was the conduct of mankind. For since God is, and is the Lord of all things, it is universally acknowledged that good is to be requested of him. For all men impart good to those whom they love, and to those with whom they are delighted; but they give the contrary to good, to those to whom they are contrarily disposed. It is evident, therefore, that those things are to be done, in which God delights. It is, however, not easy for a man to know what these are, unless he obtains this knowledge from one who has heard God, or has heard God himself, or procures it through divine art. Hence also, the Pythagoreans were studious of divination.

For this alone is an interpretation of the benevolence of the Gods. And in short, he will conceive an employment of this kind to be worthy of regard, who believes that there are Gods; but he who thinks that either of these is folly, will also be of opinion that both are foolish. Many of the mandates, however, of the Pythagoreans were introduced from the mysteries; for they did not conceive them to be the productions of arrogance, but to originate from a certain divinity. And in a similar manner, all the Pythagoreans believe such things as are mythologically related of Aristeas the Proconesian, and Abaris the Hyperborean, and other particulars of a like nature. For they consider every thing of this kind to be credible; and of many [such] things they make trial themselves.

They also frequently recollect such-like particulars as appear to be fabulous, as not disbelieving in any thing which may be referred to divinity. A certain person therefore relates, that Eurytus said, that a shepherd feeding his sheep near the tomb of Philolaus, heard some one singing. But the person to whom this was related, did not at all disbelieve the narration, but asked what kind of harmony it was? Both of them, however, were Pythagoreans, and Eurytus was the disciple of Philolaus. It is likewise said, that a certain person told Pythagoras, that he appeared to himself once to converse with his father who was dead, and that he asked Pythagoras what this indicated? Pythagoras replied, that it indicated nothing; but that he had in reality conversed with his father.

As therefore, said he, nothing is signified by my now discoursing with you, so neither is any thing signified by your conversing with your father. Hence, in all particulars of this kind, they did not think that they were stupid, but those that disbelieved in them. For they did not conceive that some things are possible to the Gods, but others impossible, as those fancy who reason sophistically; but they believed that all things are possible to the Gods. And this very assertion is the beginning of the verses, which they ascribe to Linus, and which are as follow:

(3) Whereas in man by greater or less of bad is good determined. For what is not too bad down here, is good, and good down here is the least part of bad. It cannot, therefore, be that good down here should be quite clean of bad, for down here good is fouled with bad; and being fouled, it stays no longer good, and staying not it changes into bad. In God alone, is, therefore, Good, or rather Good is God Himself. So then, Asclepius, the name alone of Good is found in men, the thing itself nowhere [in them], for this can never be. For no material body doth contain It - a thing bound on all sides by bad, by labors, pains, desires and passions, by error and by foolish thoughts. And greatest ill of all, Asclepius, is that each of these things that have been said above, is thought down here to be the greatest good. And what is still an even greater ill, is belly-lust, the error that doth lead the band of all the other ills - the thing that makes us turn down here from Good.