PG_91A_5

COMMENTARY ON SAINT DIONYSIUS

ON THE DIVINE NAMES

§ 1. Of the Areopagite: That the distinctive names which the ancient saints had while they were still Greeks, they inscribed upon themselves without shame even after turning to Christ; for behold, he named himself "Areopagite," as also the divine Justin in his Discourse to the Greeks [wrote] "of Justin the Philosopher." To the fellow-presbyter: That the name of presbyter also signifies the bishop, and the bishop is also the presbyter; and this is made clear in the Acts of the holy apostles, where Paul, in Asia, is listed together with its churches.

ON CHAPTER 1

§ 1. Theological: Note that the father has labored on another treatise, as it were a certain preliminary introduction and elementary prefatory exposition of the things said about God scattered throughout the Scriptures; that is, it was a recollection of certain things, in accordance with the sequence of which the present work has been composed by him.

Not in persuasive words: Human wisdom gathers the plausibilities of its demonstrations from things perceived by the senses; for the great necessity of syllogisms takes its starting points from geometry, but in the case of incorporeal things, or rather even things beyond body and beyond all essence, how could one apply oneself rationally, since they are inexpressible, if *

Is it not perhaps with the utmost flower of the intellect that one is able, through genuine piety, to contemplate in silence the unknowability of God—what He ever is? To conceive something concerning the supersubstantial: God is supersubstantial, since He is contemplated as beyond every substance, whether intelligible or intellectual, and far more so sensible. Concerning supersubstantiality: If substance is so called from being, and being traces out the notion of some derivation, then substance would not properly be predicated of God. For God is beyond every substance. He is none of the things that exist, but beyond the things that exist and the source from which things exist; for the Godhead of the only God, hidden from all, is a God-ruling power, governing those called gods, whether angels or holy men, just as it is also the creator of those who become gods by participation, being truly from itself and without cause self-Godhead.

By the supersubstantial itself? For to that very divinity alone are the things pertaining to itself knowable, as it is by nature.

A ray of oracles: He spoke well in saying "ray" and not "sun"; for just as we cannot gaze directly at the sun, but perhaps at the rays around it, so we cannot comprehend God Himself.

By the prudence concerning divine things: For one must not boldly rush into theology, but must pursue with a prudent mind the holiness of reverence concerning the Divine, speaking and bringing to interpretation only those things that were divinely uttered concerning God according to the Scripture, as he said a little before. By the truest theology: Observe how he calls the Scripture of the divine Paul true theology; for it is he who says that, according to the measure of each one's capacity, the illumination from God is clearly supplied; just as the Lord also makes clear when He says to the more perfect disciples, "To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom," since they also attend more intelligently to the things divinely ordained. And the great Dionysius says that this is spoken not only concerning human beings, but also concerning the angels, whom he is accustomed to call, following certain of those from the outside philosophy, "minds," who are said to be minds of the higher orders, as being wholly mind in essence, and understanding all things, and receiving in a unified way the things that flow from God directly into them; whence they are also said to be wholly illumined in the most holy cherubim. The divine things are unveiled: Note that the angels too are deemed worthy of the knowledge of God according to their own proportion.

In saving righteousness: For this reason, he says, God reveals to each one according to his own capacity, not because he begrudges the greater, but in order to preserve the righteousness that lies in the measure of the knowledge of God; for it is proper to righteousness to apportion to each according to worth. Therefore the knowledge concerning God is measureless, but we have need of measures; for if it had been revealed to us without measure, we would not have been saved, just as a bodily eye does not receive the whole sun.

The measurelessness in a manner befitting God: He now calls "measurelessness" the Divinity itself and its illumination according to what is possible.

For just as things incomprehensible: The incomprehensibility of the knowledge concerning God is established from this: for if even simple and formless things, though they be certain essences, do not fall under the senses (as angels and souls do not fall under bodily senses), how much more does God surpass them, who is neither essence but beyond essence, nor simple but beyond simplicity, nor intellect but even beyond intellect, nor a unity but even beyond unity, and is neither circumscribed by any limit, but is set free by the indefiniteness of beings? Hearing, then, in the Scripture of the "form" of God, and "appearance," and "face," understand these by way of ascent and beyond bodies, in a manner worthy of God; and hearing of "unity," do not think it is a concurrence of certain different things toward union

you would understand—for the discourse is not now about such things, but about God, who is neither the beginning of numbers nor composite, but is even beyond the things that are united in a single essence. Unifying: Hence, after all the things pertaining to God have been set forth from among existing things, following the measure of our language (for it is not possible for us to go beyond it), he glorifies God from those very things from which he extracted him; and he calls him a unity, but a unifying one of unities—that is, the creator of simple essences, such as angels and souls; and "a mind not understood" instead of "not understood by any mind." For if like is known by like, then, if he were a mind, he ought to be understood by minds. But who has known the mind of the Lord? Therefore he is a mind beyond mind, and a name beyond every name; and "my name," he says, "I did not tell them"; therefore he is also nameless to all. But neither is he among existing things; for if he himself creates existing things out of non-existing things, then he is not among existing things, but beyond existing things. But if he says, "I am the one who is," understand it worthily as without beginning and without end, and also unsearchable. § 2. Whatever knowledge is: For God alone himself knows the things concerning himself, knowing himself in a knowledgeable and proper way as he is, while to all subsequent beings he is unknowable as to what he is and according to what he is. "For no one knows the Father except the Son, and the Son except the Father"; for the Father, knowing his own adorable image—that is, the Son—also knows himself. The same applies concerning the Holy Spirit; "for no one knows the things of God except the Spirit that is from God.

All things, then, that this blessed man contemplates concerning God, he understands concerning the venerable Trinity.

Infinity: That which is finite is reasonably also comprehensible, since it is bounded by that which has bounded it. But if God is the place of all things—not bodily, but creatively (for he fills heaven and earth and all things, and is outside these)—it is clear that he is infinity, that is, a power having no limit. Yet not without communion: that is, all things partake of his communion and saving providence.

The supersubstantial: How is it that he sometimes calls the Divine "essence," and sometimes "supersubstantial," just as he speaks of a mind without understanding, and a name above every name, so also an essence that is supersubstantial. Applying: For it is fitting that our mind apply itself to those things whose comprehension God has given us, and seek nothing beyond our own weakness—for example, that he is good, that he is creator, that he is loving toward humanity, and the like; but do not busy yourself with the question, what is the essence of God.

Shamelessly, in a manner without power: Well said is "without power"; for even if someone should attempt it, he does not attain it, but only dims the eyes of his intellect and falls away from the light that truly is, like the man who contended that he could receive the whole sun with his bodily eye—which the divine and intelligible powers, cherubim and seraphim, hinting at, cover their faces, signifying that they do not press toward the vision that is above them and not granted to them. And this is the saying, "No one has ever seen God." Whence those wise in divine things say that they have seen the glory of God, but not God. § 3.

That which is beyond mind: From these things it is possible clearly to grasp the madness of Arius and Eunomius, who dared even to apply technical reasoning to the ineffable and supersubstantial essence of the Only-Begotten. [For that which is beyond mind is the incomprehensibility of the Godhead, that is, of the all-sovereign and unnameable essence.] Of the Godhead: Everywhere he calls the all-sovereign Trinity "Godhead" because it rules over those called gods—I mean angels and saints—as we have said before. And "hidden" is the incomprehensibility concerning that unnameable essence, which he mentions shortly afterward with prudent silence, and above, as was lawful for him, and in a manner befitting sacred things.

And the good-giving principle: In what way God is the principle of every manifestation of light, and what the manifestations of light and reformations are. Resurrection: This is what Symeon said when he saw Christ: "This one is set for the fall and resurrection of many in Israel"—the fall of the worse in us, and the resurrection of the better.

Illumination of those being enlightened: Progressively, he says, as if advancing to greater things, first those being enlightened, then those being perfected. And to be perfected is to be brought to perfection through the progress that comes after baptism by good living, so that one may be able to say, "I have finished the course, I have kept the faith." The adorable Trinity, then, presiding over such perfection, as being the initiatory source that produces all perfection, is reasonably understood. Those, then, who are perfected by progress are certainly deified, becoming partakers of the divine nature, of whom proportionately the Godhead, God, is the principle, since they have become gods.

After this ascent, then, they advance into simplicity, becoming equal to angels through the resurrection, and no longer having a psychic body, according to the Apostle—that is, one constituted and moved through a soul—but a spiritual one, instead of through the all-holy Spirit poured out greatly upon them, and having been released from the manifold variety of reasonings and from the senses; whence they are also unified, being led into a unity of simplicity, as we said before. For he says also elsewhere: "For the heart and soul of those who believed was one."

The life of the living: God is not comprehended in Himself; but since He is the cause and beginning of all things that exist, He is the simplicity of simple things, the life of living things, supersubstantial above substances, and simply the imparting of all good things. § 4. Manifestatively: Those who manifestatively reveal the ineffable things of the mysteries symbolically were called manifestors in the proper sense.

As a unity indeed: Here he clarifies what he especially wishes to signify by "henad" and "monad" as said of God, and he says that, in order to present the indivisibility of God, this is said by the theologians. For that which is divided by bulk and quantity—this, being also a body, is divided; but the indivisible is also beyond all bodily expression, and is even above all incorporeality. Moreover, since God, having conceived by will, brought all things into subsistence, He was not multiplied like some mind divided into thoughts, but remaining and continuing, he says, in the henad indivisibly and undispersedly, He both brought into subsistence and brings into subsistence the things in creation. "For until now God works," as is said in the Gospels. He is therefore supremely simplified, indivisibly transcending all simplicity.

And of things divided: In the supracelestial worlds and in this visible one, the lower things have been turned toward the things above, and the bodily has been established in the living: "For in his hand are all the ends of the earth"; but indeed also the heavens: "in whom," he says, "are all things." But in our mortal condition the reverse of what has been said holds: for the soul has been turned toward the spirit in which the senses and the reasonings are fixed, through which we reason about things in contemplation, "which spirit knows the things in man," according to the Apostle. The soul, then, having been turned toward this spirit, has also been turned toward the senses in it, and through them toward the body; and in the mind the thoughts are, as it were, divided, and they proceed dispersedly into othernesses, from a first thought to second thoughts, either better or worse. He says, then, that, being stretched upward toward God, we become by that Unity one without parts, our many-parted othernesses being gathered from dispersion into compactness, and being unified in a supracosmic way—that is, not sensibly but intellectually—no longer being incompatible with ourselves, but becoming one, unity-formed, as he himself "is one," as he says in the Gospels.

As Trinity: Note that he calls the Trinity three-personed, and the Father's fertility an understanding-transcending procession into manifestation of the Son and the Holy Spirit; and rightly "as Trinity," since it is not a number but a glory that is spoken of: "The Lord God, the Lord is one."

From whom every family. By "families" one must understand the ranks that come from being of the same order, as it were joined to one another—cherubim, seraphim, principalities, authorities; and in our case also the spiritual kinship and successions, as Moses too makes clear the kinships. That all things that are: All God's creatures are good, and have become and are good exceedingly, insofar as they remain in the order according to nature as they came to be; but the perversion of what is according to nature, whether it occurs in angels or in souls or in bodies of any kind, destroys the beauty and by its deviation from it produces ugliness. Wholly in truth: Here he rightly speaks of the economy, that one of the Trinity suffered. And note that one of the persons wholly shared with us, and that he called our Lord Jesus Christ himself simple, then composite as he recalls to himself the human extremity; rightly then we say that one of the holy Trinity was on the cross. This is against the Nestorians and the Acephali; for behold, he says, one of the persons wholly shared with us, as the Apostle says, "in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." And this "wholly" is also against Apollinarius; for it shows that he took up a perfect man.

(≡14 _032≡ And he has taken extension: By saying "extension" of the Father, I understand it to be the temporal measure of the Lord's conduct in the flesh. And unconfused: For he remained himself, God the Word, having become what he was not, unconfusedly; and note that "unconfused" has been proclaimed since apostolic times.

And whatever other divinely-wrought things: He calls the teachings of the saints "divinely-wrought lights," as producing the light of knowledge and making those who obey gods. Secret things of the leaders: Note that the things concerning those who have been led up and are beyond the hearing of the many, whether concerning theology or also concerning the economy of the life-giving God, the divine Apostles handed down secretly, mysteriously revealing them to the perfect; and that "unconfusedly" and "unchangeably," which he said, and that of the whole man, are from the Apostles; therefore also the Apostle, writing to the Thessalonians, says, "that they ought to keep whatever they heard, whether by word or by letter"; and again to Timothy, saying that he had given "a deposit in mystery," which is here spoken declaratively.

Through the sacred veils: Note that the Holy Scripture and the traditions of the bishops must be placed in one order (whom he customarily calls hierarchs, as rulers of the priests, that is, of presbyters and deacons and gatekeepers, as he says in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy according to us; whence we also yield to their utterances concerning doctrines), from which, he says, the coarser things are attributed to the supersubstantial realities for our understanding and mystical initiation, as in the case of God, when he appears as fire, and as an old man in Daniel, and as a man wrestling with Jacob, and all such things; and in the case of angels, as the cherubim, which are also beast-shaped, and others in the order of men and youths.

Of the divided symbols: That Scripture speaks of the Divine in human terms, naming it from human things, attributing to it feet and hands and a face. When incorruptible: That in the resurrection the saints will attain to the Christ-like state with incorruption and immortality, shining brighter than the sun, as also the

The Lord, when he was transfigured on the mountain, as the Apostle says concerning the saints, that "then they shall be as he himself is, and they shall always be with the Lord." Of his visible theophany: Note that he calls his divine body also a visible theophany, so that the saying applies equally against the Nestorians and the Acephali, and against those who suppose that the Lord is not now and will not be with flesh; and that there is a certain visible theophany of his, which is the ensouled flesh, and a intelligible one, which will be partaken of by us according to the mind then more perfectly. Hence, having turned toward God, being perfectly illumined from there, let us become one in unity, freed from our differences that come by composition, which signifies the worldly senses and desires.

In a more divine imitation: He has called a more divine imitation, indicating the more exact and more perfect, as even now the life of the saints is angel-like in the praise of God and the contempt of fleshly things, though not entirely; therefore also the things of imitation are more moderate; but then the perfect will appear in these things. Of the intelligible visions: That from the symbols we contemplate the intelligible things concerning the angels; for he speaks concerning the angels, as also the saying that they are God-like makes clear. Above, he also sets forth the symbols concerning them in the On the Celestial Hierarchy, and now he joins also the things concerning God.

Ceasing: He spoke of a cessation of the noetic activity, signifying the incomprehensibility of the divine nature; for none of its attributes is grasped by the movement of the intellect, nor is the understanding carried to any acknowledged and clear assurance, except by the incomprehensibility, which is grasped by its own inactivity. Supra-ineffably pre-existed: One must diligently understand "pre-existed"; for all the works make it clear in sequence. From this, then, it will be understood how the Apostle says, "that we were in God before the foundation of the world." It must be known, then, that since the production of all things depends on its cause and its beginning, because all beings are from him—reasonably, since they were also going to exist through his unsearchable will, they pre-existed in him, in him who knows both that he will produce them and when he will produce them. Foreknown eternally in him, they pre-existed; for before the intelligible things were produced, which are the ages, and before every other creation, the things that would be were known to him, as it is said: "he who knows all things before their generation"; and again, "before I formed you in the womb I knew you.

Whom it is not even possible to conceive: for thus also says Gregory the Theologian, translating what was said to the Greeks: "To conceive God is impossible, but to express Him is more impossible."

(≡14 _038≡ And of all: Having spoken of the terminations of essential knowledges and powers, he repeated the same statement which he also made a little before: "all the limits of all knowledges"; either, then, he sets forth through both expressions what was also previously stated, that in God every knowledge is inactive and has the end of all movement, because of the incomprehensibility of the divine nature, which is contemplated in relation to it eternally and not in time, or rather the limit and termination, that is, the end of each essential knowledge. These are the essences and powers which, he says, pre-exist in God all together and not in part, but collectively, according to the ineffable principle of His foreknowledge, knowing each of the things brought forth into generation, how it will be in nature and power, whose essence is both superessential and superknowable. But one must know that essence is one thing and power another; for the one belongs to things that subsist in themselves, the other to things that have their being in another.

For if the knowledges: Explanation of what has been said. And he spoke well: for if the knowledges are about substances and beings, but God is neither in a substance nor one of the beings, reasonably He is also beyond knowledge. § 5. Neither by imagination: Imagination is one thing, and thought, that is, concept, is another; for they come from different powers and by the peculiarity of their motion. For thought is an activity and a making, but imagination is a passion and an impression that reports something sensible or something as sensible. And sense perception grasps beings by a simultaneous formation, but the intellect touches, that is, grasps beings in another way, and not in the way sense perception does. Concerning what is bodily, then, or what is spiritual, or in the case of the senses, we also said earlier that the passive and formative movement is one thing, but the critical and apprehensive movement must be assigned to the soul and the intellect. This, then, the imaginative faculty must also submit to the apprehensive faculty of the soul; for the imaginative faculty is divided into three parts: first, the part that images the apprehensions in relation to the things that make the apprehension sensible; second, the part that reproduces from the remaining traces left by these things, not having its images firmly fixed on anything, which they also properly call the imaginative faculty; third, the part in which all the pleasure of the good that seems good according to imagination, or of the evil that seems evil, consists in grief. No imagination, therefore, as has been said, has a place in the case of God; for He is simply beyond all conception and transcends it. But opinion is the supposition of such a kind as this, arising from what appears according to what seems so.

Neither touch: By “touch” he now means intellectual apprehension. For when we apply ourselves in a knowing way by the mind to intelligible and immaterial things, we seem, as it were, to touch them and through the mind to perceive what they are, just as through touch we perceive sensible things; but in the case of God we do not lay hold of Him even intellectually.

Uncalled and above every name: “Uncalled,” he says, instead of “not called by any distinguishing mark.” For He calls the things that are not as though they were, as He did Cyrus so many years beforehand, and Josiah.

But that which: The discourse On the Theological Outlines is being sought after. Co-divine: He calls the all-holy Trinity in some sense co-divine. Angelic unions: Having said concerning God that He is beyond our understanding and beyond utterance, he now establishes what concerns God from the lesser case; for if the things concerning the angels are unknown to us, what should be thought concerning God? He says, then, that the angelic creations are, as it were, certain acts of projection of the goodness of God; and “projection” must be understood as the movement, undivided, that is divided into each one of the things produced—that is, into the production of each one of the intelligible things. But it is also possible to understand it thus: that the modes of the unions with God, insofar as it is fitting for angels to be united to God—according to that union with God—either they apply themselves according to their own worth to the goodness of God, or they receive from Him the revelation of His goodness; and in this way they are incomprehensible not only to us but also to the lower angels; and they are known only to the highest angels, inasmuch as they have been deemed worthy of the aforementioned mode of unions. And in the discourse On the Heavenly Hierarchy he also speaks of the angelic orders.

To these the Godlike: By “Godlike intellects,” which he says are led in an angel-imitating way, insofar as they attain it, into union with the holy powers—which powers he earlier called angels—one must understand our own theologians, I mean the prophets and apostles; for one must certainly not suppose them to be angels, especially from his saying “in an angel-imitating way.” For an angel does not imitate an angel, but the lesser imitates the greater. Calling the theologians “intellects,” he said that they attain, as far as is possible, the angel-imitating union with God, being deified through the cessation of every worldly activity. For in the case of intellectual beings, every movement and every activity and every rest is active, and the rests and quietudes that exist in relation to eternal and incorporeal things, and the cessations of activities, make them do what is according to nature, which is the cause of freedom from disturbance and of perfection unto unity.

Cessation: For it is impossible to be united to God and to become in some way a god, unless one ceases from material activities both in sense and in thought. (≡14 _044≡) By abstraction of beings: He calls “abstraction” of all beings the comparing of the Divine to none of the beings, but he says that it is not body, not habit, not power, and all the rest, as he indicated through what follows. And “itself nothing”: That God is nothing must be understood thus, as being none of the beings; for the cause of beings is above beings. Hence God is theologized both everywhere and nowhere. Since, then, he is nowhere, all things are through him and in him, as he is nothing of all things; and again in him, as he is everywhere, and all other things are through him, because he himself is nowhere.

And he fills all things, as being everywhere present, according to the prophet, and is nowhere, as he says in another place: "Or what is the place of my rest?" For if he were only everywhere, he himself would be all things and in all things locally; thus then he is also nothing, as being above all things that exist.

But as [he is] above every habit: A habit is a permanent disposition; and motion is that which is set in contrast to rest, being placed with many things; and life is that which shows these things to be active; and imagination is that which forms images in the mind; and opinion is a fully assured supposition; and thought differs from the mind, because the one is in the thinking faculty of the soul, while the other makes clear the movement of the thinking faculty. And all these things, and whatever else is reckoned together with them, are not substance, but are seen around substance; whence he also distinguished it from these.

The providence of the Godhead: From these things the foolish opinions of those who dared to say that the creative power belongs to God by nature, as weaving does to spiders, are dissolved; for he says that God brought forth the whole by goodness alone; therefore all the theologians do not dare to hymn him from the things that are his own, that is, from his substance—for these are unknowable—but from his procession toward outward things, which is providence, they hymn the providence of God concerning all things, that is, the things caused, that is, the things that came to be from him as their cause; for all things desire divine providence, through which they both exist and subsist—but the intellectual and rational [desire it] in a knowing way; and those are called intellectual, which, because they are intellects, think the transcendent intelligibles; for the intelligible is that which is thought, which is also the food of the intellectual [faculty] in place of that which thinks.

Therefore, all things that he understands as being intellectual, insofar as he is intellect, being rational, and applying themselves to God's providence in a knowing way, desire God analogously. But all things that are below the intellectual, and are a sensitive soul—I mean beasts and all living bodies that are irrational—whose soul, composed of the elements and of material fire, has its being in a material spirit: these, driven only by sensation to hunger and thirst, reasonably desire in a sensitive way the one who provides, as it is written: "All things look to you to give them their food in due season." And you will find many such things also in Job and in David. And indeed the other things too, whatever have only the vegetative, that is, the vital, motion, without sensation and without soul, as all plants and all herbs, which have only a vital spirit constituting their own substance without sensation, as all trees, as has been said, and such things, when the vegetative spirit dries up, are deprived of that by which they are brought to growth and flourishing; for this reason these too seem to desire divine providence, by which they both subsist and flourish; whence also

These things are taken up in the 148th psalm to praise God, through his own constitution. Therefore these things also partake of the ineffable providence, but only according to living, even if without soul and without sensation, and according to the habitual fitness, which is a property of the power; for habit is said to be the abiding quality according to which disposition and power something is called qualified; according to this habit of the vegetative life, then, partaking only unto growth and motion, both essentially and habitually, but without soul and without sensation, they are said to desire the goodness of God. The intellectual: he means the angelic nature to be intellectual, and the human nature to be rational; and the things ranked below these, the irrational, to which only the sensitive faculty is present. Therefore he also spoke sensitively, that is, sensitively; but the others, namely the plants and all things wholly without soul and motionless, he says are so in one way according to the vital motion, that is, the nutritive and augmentative (for these are present in plants), and the soulless in having in themselves the very fact of being; for this he called essential and habitual fitness. § 6. As eternal: Observe how clearly from the effects and created things they hymn the highest of all; they say he is eternal, the maker of the ages and truly an age, if indeed he himself is the ever-existing one, whence he is also called an age; but the eternal is not the age itself, but that which partakes of the age; and indeed Isaiah says: "God the eternal, who made the ends of the earth"; but God is not second to the age, so as also to partake of it, but is the maker of ages.

As unaging: According to the text, "But you are the same, and your years shall not fail."

As in a gentle breeze: This is what was said in Kings, that the Lord did not come to speak to Elijah in the earthquake, nor in the cloud, but the Lord calls with a gentle breeze; and this makes clear that God, who is incomprehensible in all things, is also said to be in a body; for breath is shared by all, and is in all, and is encompassed by no one, as the Lord also says in the Gospels: "God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth."

§ 7. And the nameless: Nameless because he is all things and is none of existing things, but all things are from him, as he himself explains. As beginning: As a beginning, in that he provides being, and as an end, in that he keeps things together in being.

All things in all: All existing things, because all things are from him. And hearth. He called him the hearth of all things, as being the dwelling of all the saints, as the Lord himself says, "Remain in me"; for just as we are his temple according to the text, "I will dwell in them and walk among them," so also he is our house; and well did he immediately add "in a united manner.

For since he said that he himself is all things and all things are in him, lest anyone, bringing his mind down to composition, should fall away from the truth, supposing that all things are heaped together in a pile in God, or that God is all things according to composition, he quickly healed the incongruity, saying "united," that is, remaining in his own henad, or rather beyond henad, simply and without mixture, without division and without confusion, he is all things in all things; but he is also without relation; "in all things," instead of, being held by nothing or circumscribed bodily, but rather eminently; for he is outside all things, being nowhere, while all things are from him, and he himself is in all things; for from him all things consist. And "all things" simply: That is, without composition; for he was not composed in any of existing things nor united bodily, except in the time of the economy.

§ 8. Of divine apparitions: That he calls the revelations of God in symbols "apparitions," and note how he says this. Palaces: The Greeks called the sacred precincts of their gods "palaces"; therefore the saint indicates in these things what is in Isaiah; for he seems to suggest that in the temple he saw that divine glory and vision, that of the seraphim; and the rest is said because of Ezekiel's vision in Babylon, and certain other contemplations.

And thrones: seats.

By symbolic theology: he promises to write another treatise, which he calls Symbolic Theology.

The hierarchical: Note that it especially befits priests to contemplate the divine Scripture.

Godlike: instead of god-appearing.

And sacred ears. He distinguishes sacred ears as being assigned to the saints, that is, a pious hearing and worthy of the saints.

Of the uninitiated: that is, of the uninitiated; for he who hears the divine oracles or the interpretations concerning them with laughter and mockery is judged as a fighter against God. And the Apostle also writes to Timothy that one ought not to speak about such things to those who do not receive the word in truth.

ON CHAPTER 2 (§ 1. The archetypal): From this chapter especially are the Arians and Eunomians, who hold to the dissimilar, fought against, and also the Nestorians and the Acephali. And he calls the whole existence of the holy and only adorable Trinity "archetypal"—the divinity known in three hypostases; for it is his custom to call the whole divinity the venerable Trinity; for this, being the whole divinity, revealed itself to the saints with the separation of the persons, that is, with division, making manifest the properties of the three hypostases—that Father and Son and Holy Spirit; for the three are one and whole and only divinity. But it must be known that "existence" is not properly said of God; for there is also "pre-existence," that is, even before existence itself; but since all existence is from him, he is named from the things that appeared through him, so that he may be understood even beyond these.

Separating: that is, making known and showing. The Godhead: note that, even though the phrase is spoken in a human way, he attributes it to the divinity because of the unity of the person. Not partially: well does he say "not partially"; for the energies and all the hymns of theology are not assigned by lot to one alone of the persons of the divine Trinity, but they are common to the Trinity, apart from the incarnation alone; for this belongs to the Son alone, as he says next; but only the characteristic properties of the three hypostases belong partially and individually to each hypostasis, for example to the Father "Father," and not to any other; so too with the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And of the whole: note that the Trinity is signified of the whole divinity. If not concerning the whole: note that he who says the divine names are not common impiously divides the unity of the adorable Trinity. These things says the One who is: it should be noted that this holy Dionysius accepts the Revelation of John the Evangelist, who is among the saints; for that is where this saying is found.

That the divine Evangelist was in Patmos, where he also saw the Apocalypse, the holy Dionysius knew, and you will learn this below from the tenth letter, which he wrote to the holy Evangelist and Theologian John himself. Of the Prophets: David says this.

The one who is, who is from the Father: Consider how he uses this expression; for it is not understood thus now.

The Godhead: In other places, "Godhead-life."

Of God-begotten divinity. Note that he calls the Father "God-begotten divinity," and the Only-Begotten "filial divinity."

In detail: In place of "more broadly."

All things through him: Note that when he says that all things are from God, he signifies the whole Godhead comprehensively, that is, the Holy Trinity; but when he says, "all things have been created through him and unto him," he signifies the persons in detail; for all have received this in reference to the creative Word. And his: Clearly of the Word.

Communally and unitedly: Note that the things of the Holy Trinity are united communally.

The divine workings: for example, "I by the Spirit of God cast out demons"; the worship, as in "whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven"; and that of the gifts, that is, of the charisms, in saying "you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you." (≡14 _058≡ The fontal: It is said in the Psalms, "for with you is the fountain of life," and in Jeremiah, "they abandoned me, the fountain of living water." God, then, is called a fountain, as it were a womb and beginning and cause of all things that have appeared and come forth into being; for those things which some are accustomed to call universals, whether genera or wholes or containings, insofar as they comprehend the particular processions from them, these the divine Scriptures call a "fontal cause." Therefore, because of the creative and inexhaustible character of the things that subsist through the Spirit, and because the Holy Spirit is himself also the cause of all beings, as is also said in Wisdom, it reasonably theologizes him as a fontal cause as well; and understand the inexhaustibility of his creating from that passage: "my Father is working until now, and I am working." Likewise the Holy Spirit also, together with the Father and the Son, always works inexhaustibly; for it is said: "you will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created.

§ 2. By undistorted notions: He rightly said "undistorted"; since even the heretics read the Scriptures and are nourished in them, and yet they distort themselves.

Of a God-befitting division: He called a God-befitting division in the Holy Trinity the unconfused knowledge concerning the hypostases, and that one ought not to be concerned with persuading those who do not accept the divine Scripture. For to theologize commonly concerning the Holy Trinity is not to introduce a confusion of the hypostases.

To the theological: Earlier, when discoursing about God, he called theological science [knowledge] of God, but he did not say it is science; here, however, he calls the things concerning theology science. And science is right opinion bound by reasoning, or a true account established unchangeably in the mind, and the exact knowledge and declaration of the thing of which it is also called science, putting forth the account of truth and right opinion, not needing confirmation from the comparison of a similar case. The divine manifestations: He calls manifestations the teachings that make the mysteries manifest.

In themselves without multiplicity: That it is not right to go beyond the divine Scripture when theologizing.

§ 3. And all that belongs to the supereminence: By abstraction, beyond thought, he is glorified; for from the things not contemplated concerning him he is worshipped in a superexalted manner, such as that he is immortal, that he is endless and invisible and without need, and all such things; for these are common to the Trinity. And those things are causative which flowed from him upon creation, since he is the cause of every good, as it is written, that "every good thing is his." The Father's: But the supersubstantial is said in a common sense, as of the Father, so also of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But concerning the distinct names of the Holy Trinity, he says there is absolutely no interchange or communion; for the Father would not piously be called Son, nor the Son Father; the same also applies to the Holy Spirit.

Our Jesus: Note that the incarnation belongs to the divine Word alone. And he calls it complete, against Apollinarius, as consisting of a rational soul and our body; for this is what his saying "our" makes clear, which is also against Eutyches; and against Nestorius, because, he says, the unchangeable existence of Jesus as God is "our"; and that he says the mysteries in the humanity are substantial—the hunger, the weariness, and the walking on water, and the entering through closed doors to the disciples, and the raising of the dead, and the passion itself, and all such things.

Substantial mysteries: Note "substantial" in reference to the incarnation; for he said this, casting out the opinion according to imagination.

§ 4. Initiates into the tradition of sacred things. Those initiated into the sacred things are called initiates. "Secret and uncommunicated": He speaks of secret unions, the incomprehensible knowledges concerning the divine essence; for what the essence itself of the Holy Trinity is, no one will ever know.

"The distinctions": He speaks of distinctions as the subsistent adorable existences, that is, of the Son, the inexpressible radiance from the Father, and of the Holy Spirit, the inconceivable procession from the Father. "The unity beyond a single principle": The unity beyond a single principle signifies the indivisible and simple beyond all unity and simplicity in things that exist of the divine nature. "The ineffable." Ineffable because of the unnameable nature of the essence, but many-voiced, because through the variety of those who are benefited it has the many-voiced. "The all-intelligible": How God is unknown and all-intelligible, and how in unknowing we acquire knowledge concerning him, must be stated; for God becomes known by unknowing; but do not take unknowing to mean that which comes through ignorance; for this is darkness of the soul; nor that which knows that the unknown is unknown; for this too is a form capable of knowing; but he is known as known according to that unknowing according to which, having been stretched beyond the thoughts, which when multiplied are scattered and again folded together, not being one.

Therefore, having transcended every conception concerning God, we become simple, remaining henceforth unknowing and undiscriminating because of our stance toward unity, and standing firmly in the union, we do not know that we do not know—that is, not knowing anything else, we, as the unlearned, are ignorant, though able to learn what for the present we do not know—but we are ignorant of the things that are piously unknown to every rational creature. For standing in this ignorance, we become a form of the One who exists before all things, having left behind all forms and conceptions, and established in a silence better than all utterance, in not even knowing this, that we are ignorant. Then again, returning from the silence in speechlessness and descending from silence to utterance, understanding that we were ignorant, we henceforth cease from seeking concerning the unknown. And God is again all-intelligible, being understood from his beneficent providences, both what he is and from his creations—from the one, that he is Savior; from the other, that he is Creator. And he calls position his existence, as being from the very existence of all things. The philosophers also call "position" the forms imposed upon matter, and "abstraction" when the qualities are abstracted from the forms, for example, the heaviness of earth, the wetness of water. God, then, who also transforms these things, is the position and abstraction of all things: position of all things, as having set and made all things and preparing them to be established—for in him all things consist together; and abstraction of all things, as also reforming and reshaping the very position and making of existing things, and abstracting from the things set in place their natural properties.

For it is acknowledged that things in generation are also altogether subject to corruption; but he, by the wealth of his goodness, has for some removed even what is corruptible, as with angels and souls, and for others he transfers the corruptible into incorruption and the mortal into immortality, as with our bodies in the resurrection. It is clear that he himself, being these things for us, is himself both beyond position and beyond removal, and is the foundation and root of all things, not locally but causally. Nor is he himself a removal of the things he himself possesses; for he himself possesses the immortal itself. For the immortal and the incomprehensible and the unknown, and all such things he possesses, not as though their opposite did not exist, but according to a certain peculiarity ineffable and inconceivable to all. For he is exempt from all things, as one removed from beings, and understood by none of those in creation, nor comprehended, as he himself has snatched himself away through infinity; for there is no limit of him. Note also that the divine hypostases are in one another, according to a certain abiding and establishment, as the saying: "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me"; thus also the Apostle speaks concerning the Holy Spirit.

Just as the lights of lamps: The whole mind of the Father has this manner. He used an example concerning the Holy Trinity, as of three lamps, he says, or candles lit in some temple or house, distinguished in their hypostases, that is, separated from one another; for one and another lamp is each individually, but in their light they have a united and inseparable communion of nature and energy; and no one in the house in its air can distinguish and say which is the light of this lamp, and which of the other. Having said these things, he then passes from the trinitarian account to the account of the economy and the glorious departure of God the Word from the Father according to his own voice which says, "I came forth from my Father, and I go to my Father," he clarifies as he says: But, even if someone should remove one of the torches from the room, its own light will go out with it, drawing to itself nothing of the brightness of the other lights, or leaving its own to the others. For the Son, having come from the Father and dwelt in the world, did not gather the Father and the Spirit to himself, nor indeed, having gone out from his own, did he leave them behind, but he made his departure inseparable from his abode.

Where indeed also the supersubstantial: The unions of bodies, both those contemplated elementally and those mixed in some other way, have their difference in powers and qualities, and their union produces something other than the nature of simple things; likewise also psychic powers have their specific difference in movement; and indeed the unities of angels toward the divine illuminations have their partial and proportional character according to their own orders, but the Godhead in the Holy Trinity and all that belongs to it, being interrupted by none of the things said nor differing from itself, is reasonably believed to be above these unions.

And supercelestial lights: Note that he calls all souls and minds supercelestial lights, and says that all these living essences are united, as was said in the example of the many lamps in some house united to one another without mixture and without confusion, being Godlike and partaking proportionally to themselves of the supremely united union of God—which unions, clearly, [extend] to incorporeal things, which also pass through one another without confusion. § 5. Of supersubstantial generation of God: Note that he calls the Father a supersubstantial generation of God and a source, and that he does not reverse the names.

Unions and distinctions: He now theologizes about the ineffable Trinity, up to the procession into three hypostases—that God and Father, moved timelessly and lovingly, proceeded into distinction of hypostases, remaining indivisibly and without diminution united and supremely simple in his own wholeness, while his own radiance proceeded into existence as a living image, and the all-holy Spirit proceeds from the Father in a manner worthy of worship and beyond understanding, as the Lord initiates us into the mystery; but by goodness the cause and source of all things was multiplied upon the three-hypostatic Godhead. This also Gregory the Theologian says in his discourses Against Eunomius. There is also, in another sense, a divine distinction: the procession of God, through the abundance of his goodness, into the manifold variety of creation, both invisible and visible. And the creative providences and goodnesses are common to the three-hypostatic and distinct Unity; for the all-royal Trinity comes to be in the participation of those able to participate, without relation and without being participated; for each of these conveys the same thing. For God is participated without relation, not being contained in place by the one who participates, nor participated perceptibly, but being wholly in the participation of each and exempt from all things; just as when a great sound occurs, all present participate in it according to their own capacity—both a man and an infant and irrational creatures—but some more strongly, others more faintly, in relation to the activity of hearing; and the sound is participable, yet remains in itself imparticipable.

From participations and participants: Divinity is not participated in according to essence, nor is it conceived; but it is participable in that all things exist from it and are held together by it into being.

In each of the impressions: He says by way of paradigm how God is participated in without being participated in.

§ 6. The seal is not: An objection and its solution from the example of the seal.

(≡14 _072≡ Smudges: Here he calls the impressions "smudges." And neither counter-images: As stones and wood, or again those of liquid substance, none of which receives the seal from a ring.

But it has been distinguished: Note that the incarnation of the Word has been distinguished wholly and truly from the Holy Trinity.

What is according to us: Here, having again discussed the economy, he attributes it to God the Word, neither the Father nor the Spirit having shared in it, except by will alone. Note the precise narration of the economy, that the supersubstantial God the Word was made substance without change, since he remained God, and was made substance according to us wholly from us, that is, having truly a body and a rational soul, and that it is truly God the Word who suffered, evidently in the flesh, and that all things in the economy are his human divine-working, and that neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit shared in these, except by the good pleasure and will of the incarnation and unto the

to cooperate with the Son, God, in the signs wrought by God. Note these things especially against the Nestorians and the Acephali and the Phantasiasts. It has been distinguished: that is, the Word of the Trinity and of theology, our being wholly and truly made flesh from us, has been separated—that is, the account of the incarnation and enfleshment of Christ the Word—and that he acted and suffered all that is distinct from the contemplation of his humanity. He calls them things preserved without change and exceptional, that is, the pure and blameless things of his human nature, which are birth, infancy, growth, thirst, toil, grief, tear, spittle, blood, piercing, corruption, flux, voluntary death, speechlessness, immobility, and the like. For the Father and the Spirit have in no way or account shared in these, unless one should say by good pleasure and will.

(≡14 _074≡ Having become the unchangeable one: How he says that the Word suffered, as also, "our hands have handled" concerning the Word of life, we have set forth. § 7. But to those as mystical: According to the power that is present in the bread and the cup.

Beyond intellectual activity: The sacred mind, wholly devoted to divine things and remaining undefiled by earthly and passionate things, unfolds and interprets the meaning of what is said about God; and it applies itself to divine things in no other way than by the cessation of all intellectual movement toward beings. For this is what "beyond intellectual activity" means: that when it is encompassed on all sides by the incomprehensibility of God, then it grasps what is sought. By participations alone: Names must be supplied. He calls "participations" the provision that comes from God himself, of which we partake.

Hiddenness: That the name "God" does not reveal essence, nor what God is, but a certain beneficence toward us; and that from the participations granted to us by God we also make the names for God, but what God is remains inconceivable to all. For the divine existence will thus be hymned worthily to some degree, when, wholly released by us from every activity—even the most active, namely the intellectual—it will receive us through holy silence as we apply ourselves to the gifts that proceed from it. For by will it brings beings into existence, while we stand firmly in the indistinction of our mind, which shortly before he called "knowledge in unknowing." Again, that it is fontal: Note the venerable and awesome names applied to the undefiled Trinity: that the Father is fontal divinity, while the Son and the Holy Spirit are shoots of the God-begotten divinity—that is, of the Father—God-planted, and flowers, and supersubstantial lights.

Rather, he says that "shoots" are spoken of in Scripture from Zechariah's vision of the olive trees—Zechariah the eleventh of the prophets. For the Seventy say "two branches of the olive tree," while the other translators say "ears of grain and shoots." And "lights," in the passages where it is said, "Father of lights" and "Light from Light." And he calls "fatherhood" the, as it were, paternity. Sonship accordingly follows; and indeed the Apostle says, "from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named." For the very fact of being and of being named fathers and sons flowed down from above—from the Father, the Son being by nature, and the Father of all by creation and by teaching. Whence also, among angels and righteous men, there are incorporeal and intelligible fathers and sons of gods, by teaching and in a transcendent way, as the Apostle also makes clear—the Lord who is properly Father being the ruler of all fathers, inasmuch as he has also granted such participation, and the Son being the ruler of all sons, inasmuch as he himself becomes partaken of in this, as he himself says: "I have manifested your name to men"—because he is called Father who has him as Son, the one who said these things.

§ 8. To the caused: All things brought into creation, whether in heaven or on earth, are caused; but the causes are those that transcend, that is, the three hypostases of the Holy Trinity. It is therefore evident that there is no likeness of these to one another—he means of causes and caused. And well did he add "as far as possible"; for not all. And if one should say "to live": that the things of the caused belong to the causes superabundantly and substantially. So that we do not rightly say that the divine lives and is enlightened; for this is the cause of our living and being enlightened; substantially, then, those things which are ours by grace belong to the divine; for this is what "by participation" signifies; for the Apostle says, "by grace you are saved"; and we are said to be saved, but he is our Savior. And again: "For from his fullness we all have received." § 9. But also the phrase "of all theology": that he calls the things concerning the incarnation "theology," and that he calls the enfleshment of the Lord Jesus a deification in our manner. These things are especially against the Nestorians—to say that he was made man substantially; but observe that he says the body of the Lord Jesus was formed from the virginal bloods. And note, he says, that there are certain most senior angels, and that one of them is first. And the divine John speaks of senior angels in the Apocalypse; and we have read in Tobit that the first are seven, and in Clement in the fifth book of the Hypotyposes. And he is accustomed to call "most senior angels" the three highest orders—thrones, seraphim, cherubim—as he often makes clear in the discourse On the Celestial Hierarchy.

He says here that not even the first of the angels is able to attain the manner of the incarnation. And to the renowned: To the glorious.

To the guide: He hints at his own guide, Saint Hierotheus, as he makes clear immediately; for after Paul he was benefited by him. And he says that perhaps that man, having suffered the divine things, was thus inspired. And what is it not only to have learned but also to have suffered? It has indeed been said in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "For he learned obedience from what he suffered." For the one who has suffered grasps by experience what is taught, as, for instance, one who is struck grasps it more than one who has only heard; yet no one who has ever been struck knows what sort of pain this is, and he would better set forth what kind of grief it is. So too the one initiated through revelation will interpret the divine things more divinely. And to suffer the divine things is of this sort: it has been said to the Apostle, "Let us be buried together with Christ, that we may also rise together with him and reign together with him." And the one who crucifies himself and his own flesh, he himself carries about the marks of Christ in his own body; reasonably, therefore, he also reigns together with Christ and is emboldened to his divine mysteries, since Saint Hierotheus too is said not only to have learned but also to have suffered the divine things. And the one initiated through revelation into the divine things is beside himself, and it is well said that he has suffered this beneficial suffering, so that he may become a dwelling-place of God. Otherwise: He said that he suffered the divine things, meaning that he received the initiation concerning these things not by way of teaching through discourse, but was impressed by divine illumination, and, as it were, the knowledge of things beyond nature was stamped upon his mind; and such initiation into the more divine things he called sympathy, that is, a shared disposition. § 10.

The cause of all things: These divine words present how the Son is also "all things in all things," and "the head of all things" according to the Apostle; and he says that he is the fullness and the sustainer of all things, binding together the interconnection of created things, that is, the parts to the whole, as being the whole; as the gatherer of the whole, then, he is reasonably also a part, since every part is a part of the whole, and he is neither whole nor part, as being nothing from them, but also above every essence. The parts of the whole world are the things seen according to species: air, earth, plants, and the rest. And his divinity is, as it were, a certain perfection so called, in relation to us who are imperfect, as in Matthew: "Be perfect, for I am perfect." But in relation to the perfect angels he is not perfect, but super-perfect; and the Son is the ruler of perfection, as the ruler of all perfection, since he is also pre-perfect. Thus he is also called a form among the formless and incorporeal, as the creator of all forming and the beginning of every form; but in relation to these forms he is formless and above form, since both the forms and the ideas are secondary to him. Distinguishing: Instead of separating and preserving unto the unconfused. And he is a measure: He is a measure of beings, since in him all things have been bounded, and he would most justly be called an age; for if an age is called, as it were, ever-being, he is the ever-being; for it is said, "But you are the same, and your years shall not fail"; and again: "who numbers the multitudes of stars, and measures the heaven with a span, and the earth with a handful." And maker of ages, as being the maker of the angels.

For these are immortal, and immortality, extension, everlasting life, age, but not time, is said to be endless and ever to be; therefore it is not called age in the sense of time that has an end, but in the sense of that which always is, unto ages having no end. Full in those who are in need? What he said above, "imperfect in the perfect," here he says "superfull in the full"; and so you ought to understand "imperfect" in this way: "superperfect in the perfect."

(≡14 _084≡ And as far as nature: Do you see how he says, "since he has come even as far as nature"? Understand "of our nature"; and that we do not rightly say "of nature" concerning God; for behold how he says, "he descended as far as nature," that is, he reached as far as that which is more dishonorable, and which he himself did not possess. Note the emphases of the words.

Without change. Note that without change and without confusion and without passion he communed with us, and that in our natural things he remained supernatural, and in things according to essence superessential, and he had our things above us, such as being from a virgin, being without sin, speaking and doing all things in the authority of God, walking upon the water, and all such things. Note therefore that no one theologizes thus concerning the economy against the Nestorians and Acephali and Phantasiasts. § 11. The common and: The names of the Holy Trinity are common and united, as many as are named from its own gifts toward those after it, which gifts he calls certain distinctions and, as it were, multiplications.

He is multiplied in a unitary way: This is said against the Phantasiasts, that the One is multiplied; for since all things are created from him and through him and unto him, and he is the head of all beings, and he himself brought forth all substances, it is reasonably said that he is multiplied through the things that came to be from him, when, with all things being subjected to the Father, he himself is said to be subjected to the Father through the things that came to be from him, as the Apostle says, "then the Son himself also will be subjected"; and such a one remained one and the same in the multitude of the production of all things, in the undiminished outpouring of his communications, being a part in the whole, and being no part of the whole; for he is supersubstantial and unattainable by us; and he interprets this himself, going down further.

And in a unitary way: He called the production of all things unitary, indicating at once that by his will, and not little by little and partially, the things that came to be were created, that is, came to be. And an undiminished communication, that is, that God, in creating beings, diminishes none of his own goods.

Our common guide and leader is clearly the apostle Paul; for through him they believed, as we know from the Acts. And it should be noted that Saint Hierotheus was also a disciple of Saint Paul.

For even if there are those called: The saying, "even if there are many gods and many lords," nevertheless that there is one true God and Father, and one true Lord Jesus, shows this: that the cause of all things and creative Godhead, by an undivided and undispersed communication of the title of its own divinity and lordship, brought forth those called gods and lords, not with the Godhead fragmented into parts of godheads, as gold into many coins, nor with the many gods completing his Godhead, in the way that many forms complete the one world, but God is said to be multiplied by his will for the production of beings in each individual case, being multiplied by his providential advances, yet remaining an undivided one, just as the sun sends forth many rays and remains in its unity; for it has also been said of the Sun of righteousness that he is divided daily and is not consumed. And it has been well said also concerning divine things that the unities prevail over the distinctions; for one who listens with understanding about God must not, on hearing of a unity concerning him, suppose weakness, nor of a simplicity as though it were incapacity; for nothing said by us about God properly attains to that peculiarity of his, neither by way of privation, as "immortal" and the like.

Neither by position, as for instance life and the one, but the one must be called one as incomparable to all things, which holds likewise also in the unvarying hypostases of its own henad among the rest; for it remains the same, even if its will seems to be distinguished into the production of the rest. Of every distinction, then, that is, of the passage of all things into being. But the undivided henad of God is the pre-cause and the more prevailing. In the case of sensible things the opposite holds; for not even of them is there a henad, but the distinctions of the elements, pre-existing, running together and being united, produce second unities from their composition. In the case of divine things it is not so; for in their case the union pre-exists and by will makes the distinctions second. And after the one? He says unities in the case of divine things, that is, the things contemplated in a unified and singular manner in the Godhead, obviously without the properties he previously set forth, that is, fatherhood, sonship, and the procession of the Spirit from the Father; and distinctions, the fact that those who partake of the divine gifts are many. Therefore the things of the unities pre-exist and prevail; for the things of the one Godhead and lordship were not gathered from the many, but from its singular nature, which multitude is contemplated in those things.

ON CHAPTER 3 § 1. The good-principled: The leader of all goodness. But not all things: How is not everything present to God, he says this himself, and you will understand it also from the divine oracle: "Draw near to me, and I will draw near to you, says the Lord."

Us, therefore, ourselves: Note that our prayer leads us up toward God, it does not bring him down toward us; note also that the examples are beautiful. Of the many-lighted chain: He well compared our prayer to a heavenly chain. For just as one who wishes to ascend to the height of heaven grasps this rope firmly with his hands.

Cables: Ropes.

The everywhere: How God is present everywhere and nowhere has been said by us above in the exposition whose beginning is, "The philosophers say position." Just as, then, one who lightens himself little by little from the earth seems with his hands to pull the chain down, but is himself lightened and raised to the height by the gradual ascent, so also he who prays earnestly through the actions which the word calls hands, by the gradual working and prayer raises his mind up toward God; but if we let go of the chain with our hands and take no thought for the upward motion, we fall from the height. The same applies also to the ship, so that we may understand the ship as our mind fanned by the winds of life, the sea as life full of many storms, and the rock as Christ, whom holding fast we remain unshaken, drawing our life toward him. § 2. Of the renowned: Of the glorious.

To speak idly: To talk nonsense.

Those who have been instructed: He says "instructed" in place of "benefited." But it should be known that after Paul he was taught by Saint Hierotheus. And "carrying off" he says in place of "secretly appropriating and claiming for themselves." In a presbyteral manner: "In a presbyteral manner" he perhaps took in place of "with experience and scientifically"; and he calls "summary definitions" those having a concise contemplation; for this he indicated also by saying "single"; and "rollings-up" he calls the expressions made through few words. (≡14 _092≡ As it were for us: That is, as far as is possible for me, you yourself also urged me to interpret, and as many teachers after us have interpreted thus; this is the composition of the hyperbaton.

Second Oracles: Note that the Writings of Saint Hierotheus are to be regarded as a second Holy Scripture.

Autoptic: He speaks of the unveiled and more manifest understanding. Presbyteral: That the presbyteral dignity is more perfect and more didactic than all priests. But what "presbyteral" is, you will understand from Isaiah saying: "not an elder, not an angel, but the Lord himself will come and save us"; and from the Revelation of Saint John, who said he had seen twenty-four elders in the heavens around the ineffable throne of God. Of the life-giving: "Life-giving and God-receiving body" he perhaps means that of the holy Theotokos, who then fell asleep. Note also the brother of God James, and that this divine man was present together with Peter and James the apostles. Of the theologians: He speaks concerning the holy apostles. Of the divine-princely weakness.

Here he calls the "divine weakness" the voluntary condescension of the Son, even to the flesh, without sin. For having been wholly ignorant of sin, he deigned for our sake—not departing from his own proper attributes—to bring us back sinlessly by the adoption as sons accomplished through himself into the ancient freedom. For being rich in divinity, he becomes poor with the wealth-making poverty, having taken up our flesh in a manner beyond nature, so that we might become rich in his divinity; and being in the form of God and being God in essence, he submitted to the form of a servant through the overflowing of his goodness, being the simple Word, subsistent, and having become flesh without change. Furthermore, he also took on all his impoverished incarnate manner of life: the manger, the flight into Egypt, the indifferent association with prostitutes and tax collectors, the choosing of the poorest fishermen, his having no home, the wholly improvised and unprepared character of his entire incarnate life, the dishonorable death on the cross ("for cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"), the being numbered with the wicked robbers, the piercing of the nails, the stab of the spear in his side, the slaps, the spittings, the vinegar, the gall, the crown of thorns, the mockings and derisions, the bowings of the knee, the most contemptible funeral and burial. This, so to speak, foolish and weak thing of God was shown by the word of the economy to be incomparably wiser and stronger than men, by the mighty and all-wise conquest of the stronger.

in unutterable silence through works, being cried out by all creation in an incomprehensible manner: "For even if he was crucified from weakness, yet he lives from power," according to the divine Paul. To the same point he has well spoken of the weakness of the divine rule; for because of his voluntary condescension toward us, having endured all things even to death, and death on a cross, he himself bears our weaknesses, and grieves on our behalf, and "by his wound we all have been healed," and his passion is called his own according to the voice of Peter, which says: "Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh"; and, "if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory"; whence also the Jews are called murderers of the Lord. (≡14 _096≡ The Hymnologos Judged: That those around the holy Hierotheos also then spoke melodious psalms and songs, as the words "to hymn" and "to sing hymns" make clear, and that the lofty and mystical things must be kept unspoken by the many, but one must converse with and teach the many the things that are possible and easily demonstrated. § 3. Of the divine: namely, of the Scriptures and of the contemplations. Through excessive reverence: That it is reverent not to seek the more divine things. We have received: Note that one must not neglect the knowledge of divine things that is possible, but also impart it to others; and that by nature the intellects have an impulse toward the attainable contemplation of things beyond nature.

Things beyond us: That one must not busy oneself with things beyond us, nor neglect divine knowledge, but also impart to others what is possible; for it is said, "Seek not things higher than yourself, and search not things deeper than yourself; think upon what has been commanded you."

Commanding: According to the Apostle who said, "These things commit to faithful men."

To these then also us: Note from where he came to writing. To Hierotheus: That in what will be said he interprets the things of Hierotheus. ON CHAPTER 4 § 1. Be it so then: Come then.

They separate: The word "they separate" must be taken in place of "they dedicate"; and that the divine goodness is shown to be from all things, and that all things were brought forth by it into existence, this is what is meant.

As essential: That the Divine itself is an essential good, and that all beings partake of the good, as the things made partake of the sun.

As our sun: Let no one suppose that the great Dionysius judges the things concerning God wholly by the example of the sun, but let it be understood thus: that the sun, being nothing other than light, does not have light as something added, nor as being something other than light does it receive light from within by a psychic choice to do good and distribute it to all; for the contrary is the case: neither being psychic nor having choice does it do good, for it is irrational; and it does not receive light from elsewhere either; for it is itself this very light and it illumines.

Thus one must understand this alone also in the case of God: that God has the good not as an accident, like some quality, as we have the virtues, but being himself the substance of the good, just as light is the substance of the sun; and being himself the good, God extends the radiance of his goodness around all things by benefiting those who are illumined. Hence he cites the example of the sun, since it holds a dark and nearly invisible image of the archetype that is altogether without participation. For if images had the truth, they would no longer be examples but archetypes.

Things intelligible and intellectual: In the strict sense, one thing is intelligible and another is intellectual. For the intelligible is, as it were, a kind of food for the intellectual, since what is understood—that is, the intelligible—is greater and conceived before the one who understands, that is, the intellectual. Therefore the orders that are superior and close to God must be called intelligible in the strict sense, while those that are subordinate are called intellectual, inasmuch as they understand the superior orders. But one must not think that because the things understood are intelligible, they themselves do not understand; for they also understand, since they are intellects and substances created of life and of the highest intellect, but they are also subsistent energies and substances there; for every motion and rest there are subsistent, and living powers, and superior to the fluid and bodily alterations. Therefore they are understood as immaterial, and they understand beings as bodiless and supramundane intellects, illumined from above with the principles concerning beings and mystically transmitting them to the subordinate angels in an intelligible and revelatory manner. But you may also understand "powers" and "energies" in another way.

For powers, because even before the things that appeared in creation, all things pre-existed potentially in God, about to be brought by him into being; but energies, because creation was also brought forth to work. Note also what I explained about fluid alteration, since the angels too are mutable—in purpose, clearly, not in substance—as the devil and his order testify, having fallen from heaven, as we also have it in Job. Of corruption and death: for these are peculiar to bodies. They are illumined in a fitting manner: because incorporeal and heavenly beings are understood and understand. And guard and hearth: abode and hearth, used in parallel, signify the same thing. Philo the Jew, in his discourse On the Flaming Sword and the Cherubim, says thus: The abode, standing firmly fixed among the parts of the world, was aptly named a hearth by the ancients. This he also says above, near the end of the first chapter, in the sixth paragraph.

§ 2. Thence to them: Note the things concerning the angels, and that incorporeal things both contain one another without confusion and separate, and are, as it were, a rank and orders—first and second—and that the divine minds roll around themselves, not with some bodily spiral but a supramundane and intellectual one, such as a mind is naturally wont to roll, proceeding from itself into thoughts and returning to itself, yet not going outside itself in a scattered and divided manner; this is hinted at also by the many-eyed wheels in the divine Ezekiel; and that around the divine love they are in sameness and at the summit.

Identity must be understood as the unwavering attention toward God, and understand "consummation" as the advance of their intellect and essence, so to speak, already into deification. And understand the "unions" as the mutual, God-befitting love of the intelligible beings toward one another, which, being divine and unifying, joins them together, not gathering them in a heap, but binding them in love. Of beings—both intelligible and perceptible, since both are spoken of homonymously—some are united and linked together, while others are divided and set side by side, as it were, in a heap. Of intelligible things, the united are, for example, a living being, light, the intelligible world, and all such things; the divided and set side by side are, for example, an army, a rank, a tribe, a chorus. Among perceptible things, unity is a living being, a tree, a world; division by heaping together is a flock, a people, a heap, a chorus. In the work On the Angelic: Behold, another work of Dionysius is sought, On the Angelic Properties and Orders.

The angelic: He calls "angelic purifications," for example, that of Isaiah and that of Ezekiel, who in ecstasy ate the head of the book. And he speaks of the "perfection" of angels, as in the case of Daniel and the angel who interpreted it to him, and concerning the shepherd who perfected Hermas, as we read there in the (≡14 _104≡

In the Shepherd: but also how the angels themselves are purified and perfected, he says in the discourse On the Celestial Hierarchy.

And that there are angels: Why they are called angels, and that they too are lights. The souls: Note that the souls are other beings after the angels, having been placed below them, and that they are immortal, inasmuch as they were created as essential living beings; and that through the angels the souls are led by the hand, those who pursue an angelic life; thus we have also read in the Shepherd.

Good-principality: Note that the souls of the righteous are led up to the good-principality of all good things, that is, to God, and being in participation of his illuminations, they intercede with boldness. In the [books] On the Soul: the [book] On the Soul is sought. Of irrational souls: he says of irrational and sensitive souls; and note that soul is one thing, and life another.

Those allotted an amphibious lot: he calls reptiles those allotted an amphibious lot, like frogs, octopuses, and those buried in the earth, like moles and all such creatures; and note that the souls are after the angels, having been placed below them, and that they are immortal, inasmuch as they were created as essential living beings; and that through the angels the souls are led by the hand, those who pursue an angelic life, just as has also been said above. Therefore, of the essential habit: and we have already said above that a habit is a permanent quality; therefore, all things that are lifeless and soulless were brought forth thus through the goodness of God, being qualified habitually, such as various stones, but also plants and roots and earth and minerals qualified toward something useful, and all things pertaining to medicine and our use;

These things, then, they do not acquire their state from outside, but in their very essence they received from God also the quality of their state.

§ 3. If indeed also above all things: Observe how privations, in the case of God, are active positings beyond assertions, and how he is formless, without substance, lifeless, without mind; for these things, having the notion of non-being, are nevertheless understood in God, who is superessentially being, according to the removal of all things (for he is none of beings), in a transcendent manner; and in what follows he clarifies this more perfectly. And non-being itself: How does non-being desire the good? For if it is not, how does it desire? We say that non-being conceived evil to be, as he demonstrates below; that even what is called evil itself comes to be for the sake of the good. § 4. And of the heavenly: He says that the cause of the heavenly beginnings and terminations is the goodness of God; for God brought these things forth through an excess of goodness; and heavenly beginnings and terminations must be understood as the spherical creation of the heavens, which subsisted in a circular manner from the point, that is the center, of the will of God; for the circular shape, beginning from itself, is terminated in itself; and he says that the heavenly substance is without increase and without diminution, as having perfectly and self-sufficiently toward that for which it came to be; therefore he also calls it unchangeable, as not having been turned aside from that from which it came to be; and that is perfect which neither increases nor diminishes. And he has called them terminations, and not completions, because the motion is spherical, yet it does not properly have a limit, but as it were a limit in its return to the same, as from some beginning to something, for instance a limit, being carried, perhaps, to the east.

Note that he says the heaven moves without sound and imperceptibly; and the statement about the varying and much-moved motion of certain stars refers to the planets. Note also this, that he received that these alone move. Note also whence the chronological reckonings come. And [note] the [statement] about the two luminaries, which the Oracles call great: (≡14 _108≡) He says the two luminaries are the sun and the moon; and he called them great, following David.

And he names the Psalms of that man "Oracles." And by "periodic restoration" he means the movement from the same to the same, which the sun makes each year as it goes around the zodiacal circle, and the moon within certain days from conjunction until this complete waning. Note that the chronological reckonings come from these, and further from the months.

They demarcate: They perfectly define.

Beyond divinity: This I also noted above, that God is in all things and is none of all things. And here he says the more, that he is even beyond all essences, which he says below, that he is also the filler of things that are not. And observe how he says that neither do the things above attain to his supereminence, nor do the things below pass beyond it; that is, the Divine has neither beginning nor end, since the heavenly and higher powers do not grasp this—not in the sense that it exists but was not grasped (do not understand it so), but that it does not even exist [as graspable]; for this is "knowledge in ignorance." For having become superior and, through love of God, united with the powers above, we know that together with all things we are ignorant of the divine nature.

And it illuminates: that is, it encompasses those things that receive its wholeness according to the measure in which they receive it; therefore it is also said to be the measure of beings; or because it knows the beginning and the end of all things, as the only creator; for going further on he interprets himself. Orders: God is called Order for this reason, either because he created all things with good order, or because he is received by faith by those who come to him, neither overwhelming the weaker by his abundance, nor being received in lesser measure by the holier through condescension, but thus springing up goodness to me according to my own vessel.

According to a far-off echo: Just as the perceptible sun illuminates all visible things, and those things that do not partake of its light do not partake because of their own weakness, so also in the case of God, all are sanctified by him, as many as wish it. And the divine Dionysius rightly healed at once the incongruity of what is said about the sun; for since he called the sun, which is lifeless, a manifest image of the goodness of God, calling the creature an image of the creator, first he immediately added "according to a far-off echo," and in the following chapter he clarifies it more perfectly. But what "a far-off echo" is must be said.

For just as if someone were to shout loudly and cry out and say something, those standing nearby, if their hearing is strong, hear both the shout and what is said, while those standing a little farther away hear the utterance more faintly in proportion to their distance, and those separated by a greater interval receive only a very small and very dim portion of the echo, so as to hear some indistinct sound but not to understand what was uttered—by so much is one to suppose the light of the sun to differ from the true light, that the distance between them is incomparable. But also regarding generation: Do not think that the sun is the cause of generation or life or growth or perfection for any of the things that exist, just as neither is any other element, even if it happens to be very much among the necessities, such as water; for it is possible for us to survive even without the sun and without water, if not perfectly, yet for a sufficient time. But God, knowing that all cold is entirely barren, while heat in due measure produces generation, and that plants and seeds need warmth, as also do all bodies that have life, whether perceptive or vegetative, and that many things are purified, so as even to be brought to whiteness, as garments and other things, and that seeds that have been chilled are also renewed—for this reason He made the sun to have such a nature, in order that it might do all the things mentioned, having received the ability from the Creator, not from its own choice or power. This the holy Dionysius says perfectly, [having] himself

Just as he explains further on at the end of the fifth chapter and at the end of the sixth. Understand then safely, and do not distort. There is a measure: for this reason the sun is called a measure and a number of hours, because it rules the day; and the day, as it revolves, makes time; for this reason it was called a measure, as measuring our life; for he speaks of all the time that is ours. For it is itself the light: Note that the sun also illuminated the three days before its making, being without form; and that the first-created light was transformed on the fourth day into the sun, and that he speaks of a triad of days, as also the great Basil clearly says in the Hexaemeron. And do not pass over this, that the things said before were spoken not about the sun, but about the first-created light that was formed into the sun.

As a beginning. That is, the beginning and cause of the union or likeness before the truly existing one.

And to whom all things aspire. See how he divides all things that exist, and [speaks] of the King of all who exist, to whom all things that exist also aspire. He says then first intelligible, then rational. Intelligible therefore are those not mingled with bodies, such as all the supercosmic powers; rational, on the other hand, are human souls, which have a relation to the body, just as is the perceptible man; for if the inner man alone is active, according to the Apostle, that is, the soul, not having the whole relation to the body, then the man is intelligible, but he would not be called rational, according to the whole living being composed of body and rational soul.

He says that intellectual and rational beings are said to go forth to God in a gnostic sense, since this desire belongs to them by nature—to know the King of all things and to partake of his goodness—because the soul is gnostic and rational; and the longing for the good is rightly spoken of. Irrational animals, by the very sensitive power of life, desire life; and therefore also the good. Insensate things, such as plants and inanimate and lifeless things, desire the good by nature, not indeed that they may know it, but that they may remain, which is only by being held together by natural desire from the good unto their being.

He makes all things together: "Together" means gathered into one. For the sun is called this from making all things together and gathering what has been scattered, and because it does away with the sun being God, even if we have said many things that seem to be contrary to what is easily distorted. According to the account of antiquity: According to the account of antiquity, either because Dionysius the divine and Timothy the divine were Greeks, as is shown in the Acts of the holy apostles; or he means the foolish account of the Greeks; for they called the sun ancient and primeval, as is said in the comedy. § 5. To cleanse: For it is said, "Draw near to him, and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be put to shame.

Because they loved much: For to the one who loves much, much will also be given; but to the one who loves less, it will be given according to the measure of his love. This is what he says above, that God is our order and measure.

And supersensible: The mind is said to be supersensible, since some minds are holy and beyond all the worlds, highest of the angelic orders; others are around the world, that is, appointed to the service of the worlds, for their administration, called by some also world-guides. And some minds are within the world, both of humans and of angels, and of ethnic rulers and city guardians; and over the churches and the saints, as the divine John says in the Revelation, and over other worldly arrangements; and the psalmist also says, "The angel of the Lord will encamp"; the spiritual person is supersensible, the soulful person is around the world, the fleshly person is within the world. Otherwise, the one who has also accomplished theology is supersensible, the one who has natural contemplation is around the world, the one who has practical virtue is within the world.

Gathering all things: Doing all things together, and warming, and increasing, and transforming.

Divisive: For ignorance divides from God, as light rather gathers together and makes into one body, as he said above.

Of glories: Of the idols and their polytheism. Of fantasies: He calls fantasies the plastic-formed conceptions about perceptible things, or as perceptible things.

§ 7. And as beautiful: God is called beautiful also in the Song of Songs, just as He is also called beauty; and David: "fair in beauty beyond the sons of men." But that which partakes of beauty is also called beautiful. And note how beautiful and beauty are divided among beings, into the partaking and the partaken, but in the case of God, not so; for He is called beauty because of the comeliness spread abroad from Him to all, and because He calls all things to Himself; and beautiful, as always being and never diminished or increased.

With Himself single-formed: God is a single-formed beauty, since He is neither scattered into habits and differences that produce beauty, nor does He possess the beautiful in relation to some and not in relation to others, but He is unchangeably the beautiful itself, without beginning and absolutely, without effort and always in the same way; and for this reason He is said to have comeliness pre-eminently in Himself, as being before the created things the source and beginning and cause of the beautiful; whence He possesses the beautiful in a transcendent way; for even if there are many beautiful things, they are beautiful from Him, and are not beautiful according to Him; whence He is beautiful without cause, while they are beautiful by cause and by participation; for God is beautiful in a unified way, since the beautiful things after Him are from Him, and as possessing the beautiful in a quality.

From this good: The phrase "behold, all things were very good," and that according to Zechariah, "every good thing of his," have come from there, from the unblameable good; for because of the good, the interlinkings of the elements have come to be, which he calls adaptations; and the well-ordered connections of beings endure, called friendships and communions of all virtuous rational beings, the thoughts directed toward God, as the Church of the firstborn in heaven and on earth; and among irrational beings, the herd-like associations; and among inanimate things, the habitual sympathies toward one another. All things, then, are united to the good, having been turned by participation toward the cause.

And the end of all things: God is called the end of all things, both as containing all things, and as having grasped all things for security, and as having brought all things into being for his own sake and not needing anything else for their completion; whence, as he is called the beginning of all things, inasmuch as he is the cause, so also the middle, as giving the extension into their constitution, and the end, as, in his will, the beings are brought to their limit, toward which they have also been turned, inasmuch as he calls it the final cause, being the beginning and the end, according to the divine John in the Apocalypse, and exemplary, as having beforehand taken up in himself the predeterminations of all things that will be, and before bringing them forth, as the Apostle says, "whom he also predestined," and the rest; for the holy Dionysius understood these as paradigms, that the things that will be are foreknown in him beforehand, and before they are brought forth, that is, before they are separated and distinguished through the all-containing unitary foreknowledge of God. You will find these things also in the fifth chapter that follows.

Note that he says the beautiful is the same as the good.

That even non-being: How can non-being partake of the good? For if it does not subsist, it has neither desire nor participation in any of the things that are. It must be said, then, that this divine man understands non-being in different ways; for sometimes he calls the Deity itself this, as being nothing of the things that are, and sometimes matter, and sometimes he also calls evil this, according to different conceptions. It is possible to say, then, that matter partakes of the good insofar as it was changed into form and was released from its former shapelessness; or that evil partakes of the good insofar as by a good choice even that which seems to be evil wishes to be, and because evil always wishes to be; and everything that desires to be desires the good. Two leaves above, he says that God is also beyond the things that are; therefore one might well say that God is beyond the things that are, and that non-being partakes of the good, as being also beyond the things that are, and being nothing of the things that are. Note this necessary point, how he says that non-being is found to be beautiful and good when it is said of God; for God is called both being and non-being, as being nothing of the things that are, but transcendently and unknowably exalted above all things; for there is not anything that knows what God is in any respect. Essential subsistences: Well does he say essential. Subsistences in themselves are higher than essences, but now, since he is speaking of created things, he fittingly added essential to subsistences.

They are called unions, not because they were combined in a heap to produce some one thing, but because God was their source and principle, and from him all existing things were brought forth, illumined and subsisting by degrees, so as even to appear in distinctions of hypostases. Identities are the upward-leading and unifying powers of intelligible things toward God, as also likenesses, since they are from him and near to him. Othernesses, insofar as otherness is downward-leading and divisible, were multiplied into visible things in the lower and last processions of the divine will. Dissimilarities again, because what is generated would be other than its maker in all respects, and not similar. Communions of opposites are the blendings of the elements; for all bodies are from the four elements. Successions are the arrangements of the worlds of the same rank, both the visible and the intelligible, by degrees, multiplied from one substance of matter into the solid bodies of the firmaments, and, as it were, a chain, holding to one another; from these come understandings and the things that follow. Unmixings are of things united, as in the community of the human race and the particularity of each individual human; for by the common principle of substance we are all united, but by the particularity of each we have the unmixed. (≡14 _124≡ All the states: He speaks of three states and motions, which he also enumerates, of minds, souls, and bodies; one must therefore understand them appropriately. The minds, then, stand and are moved, as Isaiah says and Ezekiel concerning the seraphim and cherubim; since these are they who ascend and descend, as Moses says;)

For to be turned unceasingly toward God and to be established in the upward stretching toward him—even if they are sent forth and descend to the things that lie below, for the sake of providence toward those who will be benefited—this is to stand firmly in nearness to God, and to be moved into ministries on behalf of those who are benefited. And they are moved in understanding the things that surpass them, and they stand in being understood by the things that are inferior, as intelligible realities, remaining in their own identity; for they are guards and abodes of themselves, and they are appropriated to themselves, and are turned back upon themselves, and are undispersed toward the things alien to piety. And indeed all things inferior are turned toward the things that surpass them. The movements of intellects and souls are wheel-like and circular, as Ezekiel also says, since they proceed from themselves and return to themselves, never going out of themselves. And these things apply to incorporeal beings; but rest and motion will be understood of bodies, with matter remaining in the substrate, while it is moved into the turnings and changes of the bodies that come to be from it, both ensouled and soulless.

Circularly: Note how the heavenly bodies move circularly, and in a straight line, and in a spiral, and how the spiral motion of the soul is understood. The divine intellects move

either circularly, or in a straight line, or in a spiral.

The motion of the soul: Since, as we wrote above, the things that think are intellectual and the things that are thought are intelligible, and the intelligible things are food for the intellectual, reasonably then he speaks of the powers of the intellectual soul (≡14 _126≡), as though it alone thinks the things that transcend it; for this is thought by nothing, and is the last of all intelligible things. And the powers of the soul are the aptitudes toward the senses. Spiral-wise? Do you see from this how great is the difference of the soul from the intelligible things? For the former thinks the divine illuminations that lie above it intellectually and in a unified way, that is, by a single concentrated grasp, being revealed according to their own measure, while the soul does so rationally and discursively, that is, being divided into particulars and taught by participation; for the intellect, descending into reasonings, is as it were divided and needs the reason that goes through many examples for the extension of what is thought, that which transcends all. The soul therefore operates in a mixed and transitional manner, when it also thinks; for this is proper to the soul, and when it is led by the hand from outside toward higher things; for it ascends from things that are alien.

The rational souls move either circularly, or in a spiral, or in a straight line.

Of these, then, and of perceptible things: Note that he says there are three motions also of perceptible things: the circular, the spiral, and the straight; and we are led to understand these from what has been said about the soul: circular, when perceptible things themselves act according to their own powers and qualities, as fire heating and water cooling, and the rest likewise; spiral, when they act transitively, as fish from waters and birds and the rod of Moses into a serpent and the like; straight, when they run back again to their own, as when after the dissolution of things that come to be they are again resolved into the corruptible elements.

And motion: One might be led to understand the motion of perceptible things (≡14 _128≡ as alteration and corruption; for from that which is the source of rest, these signify generation, it being evident that motion indicates the opposite; note, then, that both things altered and things corrupted look to him, and through him, and into him. Through whom every rest: Through whom, clearly, good and beautiful. Every one and multitude. How will every one and multitude be understood? Suppose the whole world to be a great plant, living in all its parts that have soul in a certain manner, such as trunks and stems, and the parts of the parts, such as branches, boughs, and leaves; for if you should suppose each of these to be, as it were, a self-complete living being, yet preserving the unity and order in the whole, according to which the tree itself lives by itself, and together with its own parts;

As it is possible to live—the intelligible beings intelligibly and rationally, the irrational beings perceptibly, and the soulless and breathless things vegetatively and by habit—and each lives by itself, as I said, and the parts move together with the wholes, you will know the whole's unity of nature and coexistence into the one, and its multiplicity, as each lives suitably and peculiarly, as we said. And again, if all things are from one and only God, they are reasonably called both one, because of the connection and harmony, and a multitude, because of the multiformity of each individual.

The Definitions: Definitions are the interpretive accounts of the essence of each thing, and of the genus, and of the difference, declaring what it is. A paradigmatic principle: A paradigmatic cause, that is, a principle, is that toward which the thing that comes to be comes to be; and this is either the idea, which is a self-complete thought, eternal of the eternal God, or an eternal paradigm existing in nature, toward which the things that come to be come to be; for the ideas and paradigms are incorporeal; and a final cause, that is, a principle, is that for the sake of which the thing that comes to be is completed, or a final cause is that which is inseparable from the result, or that from which, being present within, the thing that comes to be comes to be, as the matter of all things; and God brought this too into being; and an efficient cause is that which is separated from the result, as God, and every [cause] by which the thing that comes to be comes to be. And all things that are not: Understand the things that are not in the Good thus: since privations are in him superessentially; for I would not call the privation an essence, such as unbegun, incorruptible, immortal, and all such things.

For these things are not God, since he is even before them; for from him it was known what these things are. And indeed not even what God is not do we know, or how he is ineffable and incomprehensible; for these things are not his beginning, but from him. He himself, then, is the cause even of nothing, since all things are later than he, according to the cause of being and of not being; for nothing is a privation of him. For he has being because nothing is among the things that are, and being not, he is, because he is and is beyond being—all things as maker, and being nothing, as having transcended, or rather having transcended beyond and being supersubstantial. Read also in the previous leaf my note concerning the non-being.

And the inferior things of the superior: I have written a similar note above in the first chapter, that always the things that have descended are turned toward the things that are above, as being contained and provided for by them; and in a communal way the things of like order with those of like rank, and simply all things love one another and themselves. But God also loves all things, in order that he may make all things good.

For he himself is the doer of good: He says this wondrously, that good love, pre-existing in the good, did not remain barren, but begot for us the good love, through which we strive after the beautiful and good; (≡14 _132≡ for the Divine is practical and generative, according to what was said, "My Father works until now, and I work." And note from this a divine movement; for the love that does good moved the Divine to providence, to our constitution, so that it might be practical when administered, and not remain barren; from this you will understand both the saying "when the Monad was moved," and the things said next by Gregory the Theologian in the first [discourse] on the Son.

A generative excess: That is, he brought forth creation, so that in relation to it the things of the beloved movement might be displayed.

§ 11. And let no one think: Note that one must not speak incongruous names about God, unless indeed they are also contained in the divine Scripture, as even now he speaks concerning love, and that one must not attend to the words but to the force of the aim; for he expounds these things divinely.

Through other [passages] of equal force: That even through things of equal power we are not hindered from uttering the words. Note that he says motherland and fatherland are the same. One ought to know: Why do we use syllables and words? Consider the reading; what he wishes to say is this: Whenever we set in motion the spoken word concerning something among perceptible things, then we need words and syllables and letters and writings for the manifestation of what is spoken. But if the soul is moved of itself toward intelligible things through right activities, the senses together with perceptible things are superfluous; for it imagines lofty things. And when it becomes godlike, advancing by little ascents, and by an unknown union has its impulses toward the unapproachable light, then the intelligible activities too are superfluous, as are the senses, since the soul thinks things higher than these, now united to God. But when it imagines both things lowly and hastens to be moved concerning something among perceptible things, then one must seek the clearer words and the more distinct of visible things.

Just as also the noetic powers: Note that intellect is one thing and soul another. He calls noetic activities and powers the thoughts, which are lower and a scattering of the intellect. When, then, the soul wishes to look up toward God and, as far as possible, to be united to him, it must turn its eye—that is, the intellect itself—away from particulars and leap up to the more universal; and particulars are the thoughts, as we said. For then, having become wholly intellect and turned inward, having become unity and simplicity thereafter, it will be able to lay hold of the divine rays through praiseworthy ignorance—not the ignorance that comes from lack of learning, but that which knows that it does not know the things concerning God that are incomprehensible; and it will know by enjoying the divine gleams—not through the perceptible eyes, for these things are not grasped by them, but through the eyeless states of the intellect.

More manifest than the senses: He explains what the translations more manifest than the senses are, and says that they are the clearer words and the more distinct of things seen.

§ 12. And yet it seemed good to some: That love also signifies eros, and that eros is a more divine name.

Let them hear: Note that even then there were some who took issue with words, whom he silences from the divine Scripture. The divine Ignatius: And from this some think to discredit the present treatise at an opportune moment, as not being by the divine Dionysius, since they say that Ignatius is later than he; but how can one of later date mention him? And this too seems to them a fabrication; for the holy Paul, who enlightened Dionysius, was later in time than the holy Peter, after whom Ignatius becomes bishop of Antioch, when Peter was transferred to Rome; and the holy Paul, who enlightened Dionysius, survived for a long time, and Dionysius lived after him; and the Evangelist John is exiled to Patmos under Domitian, to whom Dionysius writes in reply. But Ignatius suffered martyrdom before Domitian; so that he is earlier than Dionysius. My eros: One must inquire how, when Ignatius was conversing with Onesimus after Timothy, and writing to the Romans the words "my eros has been crucified," Dionysius now, writing to Timothy, mentions this, as though Ignatius had already written it; and perhaps it was cited outside by some lover of learning, for the greater confirmation of what was said by the holy Dionysius concerning divine eros, and later, through ignorance, was inserted within, which we know has often happened in many places; for even without this the body of the discourse stands complete without omission.

Or perhaps it is customary for him to use the expression, as also "God-bearing" is often said and written by him; and the proof is that it is not added, "He writes to certain people," that is, to the Romans, but simply, "The divine Ignatius also writes." And in the introductions: It must be noted that he calls the Proverbs of Solomon "introductions" to the divine Scripture, from which also the sayings come.

a) That love signifies eros, and that eros is a more divine name. (≡14 _138≡ b) To things divine rather: Why the theologians attribute true eros rather to things divine.

c) The multitudes: Note that one must use the words also in accordance with what the multitudes can grasp; and he says what eros does, and concerning two loves, the divine and the divided, that is, the one befitting the body.

d) As more difficult: As being obviously discredited. e) It fell, who says: David speaks concerning Jonathan in the first book of Kingdoms.

f) It is assigned by the sacred writers: That love and eros have the same meaning, and what is the operation of eros.

g) Of a unifying kind: That is, of one that mingles those who love with one another. h) Because of the beautiful: What he said above, that divine eros, pre-existing in the good, gave birth to the eros in us, through which we strive after the good. § 13. i) Ecstatic: David also speaks concerning erotic ecstasy: "I said in my ecstasy.

Having been beside himself: Note how the phrase "beside himself in God" is to be understood. One must dare to say: that God also loves all things.

Therefore also "zealous": In what sense God is called "zealous," namely as a lover of the salvation of all.

§ 14. But why at all: He says that God himself is plainly the producer and begetter of love and eros; for he brought these things, being in himself, forth into the external, that is, into the things concerning created beings, and in this respect it is said, "God is love," and in the Song love is likewise spoken of; and again sweetness and desire, which is eros; and the beloved and truly lovable one is himself. On the one hand, then, because the love that is beloved flows forth from him, he who is its begetter is said himself to be moved; on the other hand, because he is the truly lovable and beloved one, he moves the things that look toward this, and those in whom the power of desiring exists, proportionately to themselves.

Lovable and beloved: Understand that God is, for me, leading and moving toward erotic union in the spirit, that is, the mediator of this, and the one who joins to himself the being loved by him of his own creatures and being beloved; and he calls him moving, as moving each thing, according to its own principle, to turn back toward him. But the word "production," even if among the outsiders it signifies a thing that is not pure, yet here he means the mediation that is the cause of union in God.

And "by that which is moved": Note the divine motion, in which God is both the one who leads it forth and the one who moves it.

And "of the transcendent": The loving union with God is transcendent and surpasses every union; therefore he calls it "transcendent," that is, higher, and he calls the divine love "without beginning" and "without end," as proceeding from the Good and returning to the Good in a circular form; since even the line of a circle does not have a known point where it began and where it ended; for from Him is the longing for the Good, and it looks again to Him; and in itself the loving of the connatural goodness both is and remains, and of those things that are stretched upward toward the Good.

"Erotic motion": That the erotic motion, pre-existing from the Good, being simple and self-moving in the Good, and proceeding from the Good, returns again to the same, being without end and without beginning, which makes clear our longing toward the Divine. Note that he says there is an eternal circle in the Good, as it proceeds to things intelligible and sensible, and again returns to itself, neither stopping nor ceasing.

From Saint Hierotheus.

(≡14 _142≡ § 15. a. "Love": Observe how the great Hierotheus philosophizes most excellently about praiseworthy love: first, calling it divine, since God is also the first cause of heavenly love in a transcendent and uncaused manner; for if love itself is charity, as has been said before, and it is written that "God is love," it is clear that God is the love that unifies all things, that is, charity. From there he proceeds by transition to the angels, whence he also calls it angelic, where one would especially find the divine love of unity; for nothing discordant or seditious is among them. Then after the angels he also speaks of noetic love, that is, among men wise in divine things, who belong to the Church, to whom Paul says, "that you all speak the same thing," and the rest, and the Lord, "that they may be one, just as we are one." And these things concern true Christians, but thereafter also all men, among whom is the law of friendship. And he called rational souls noetic, calling them so from the divine Mind; and he called the love of irrational creatures psychic love, the sensitive friendship, evidently without mind; for from this erotic power even birds fly in flocks, as swans and geese and cranes and crows and all such creatures; and there are also such terrestrial creatures, deer, cattle, and the like; and there are also swimming creatures, as tuna and mullets and all similar kinds. And even non-gregarious creatures are moved from this toward the company of their fellows.

He calls natural love the love of inanimate and insensate things according to their habitual aptitude, that is, of their quality, for the Creator, because they have been constituted by him; accordingly, by their vital, that is, natural motion, even these things are turned toward God. § 16. Since those from the one: And we said above that the things that understand are intelligible, and the things understood are intelligible objects, and that intelligible things are surpassed by intelligible objects without seeking, whence also the things understood are food for those that understand; therefore the things that understand love the things understood, as being turned toward them and as having ascended, so to speak; and the things understood also love the things that understand providentially, by imparting equal benefit; it is agreed, then, that the loves of such things are above sensible things. But these things, I think, are called intelligible and intelligible objects because they have become such by participation in the good that is. But the self-intelligible loves are divine, that is, those of God; for just as there is a good that is good for something, and another is the simply good and the good itself, so too there is an intelligible object intelligible to something, insofar as it is understood by it, and a simply intelligible object; not time or place (for these too are intelligible, since they are not sensible), but a mind of intelligible objects, being activity and living and life; for the intelligible objects after this they discover by seeking and by the sequence of inquiries about problems, or they have them by revelation.

Unrestricted cause: he calls "unrestricted" that which is absolute, having no relation or natural kinship to the whole.

§ 17. The universal love of all things. Having said "universal love," he also indicates partial loves, saying that God is both the universal and the partial, as cause and as supplying to all according to each one's capacity, as it were an erotic outflow. How then can God be both the whole and the part, being present to himself without separation? This will be clear from the seminal principle: for when the seed is deposited continuously and together in the womb, one embryo is produced; but if the seed is divided into different sacs of the womb, each part produces a complete embryo; and of the seed one part will be a nose, another eyes, and so on, and all complete. Something similar must be contemplated by analogy concerning the all-perfect mind: for the whole activity contains the parts as well, and each of the parts is complete; and one is absolute justice, another absolute courage, and so on. Thus neither are they confused with one another, but each is also distinguished, nor do they possess the indivisible in disorder, each partaking of them as it is able. For each partakes of the forms according to its own aptitude; so too God is both the whole and the parts of love. § 18.

For it desires him. Since he said that even non-being in some way desires the good and wishes to be in it—which you will also find him saying a few leaves above, even if it is clarified from Greek doctrines (for he fights especially against the Greeks, and the Manichaeans who preside over the doctrine of evil)—it is necessary to set out more broadly what is called non-being, and why it is pious and necessary that there be one principle of beings. For this is sound to think. For this is God; for if there were different principles, they would certainly appear infinitely many. If, then, God is one principle, so too is the truly being, and the good itself. But the argument will necessarily find also the contraries of what has been said; for where there is a principle, there will certainly also be a last; and if there is being, there will also be non-being; and if there is good, there will also be evil. But since beings are substances and forms, non-being would be formless and without substance, contemplated by reason alone. This non-being, then, and formless thing the ancients called matter, which they also name the last ugliness.

Matter is called non-being, not because it is altogether nothing, but because it is not; for the truly being is God, and the good itself. For matter too was brought forth out of non-being by God, but not, as some supposed, without form and shapeless. Hence matter is not the beginning of sensible things, but rather their complement and a kind of last and sediment of beings. Therefore it is neither an image of God, as rational beings are, nor an idol of the truly being. And the sensible idol of the truly intelligible world, which is sensible, is not without matter, but is better than matter, partaking in some way of form. Matter will never be shown apart from form and qualities, which are states; for when did fire come to be without heat or light or the white of its color, or water without coldness or wetness or its bluish color? Earth and air likewise. For this reason I said that matter is formless, qualityless, and shapeless by theoretical reasoning; for that from which visible and invisible things came to be was clearly brought forth out of non-being by God, not with formless matter first lying as a substrate and then being adorned, as the divine Moses teaches. Matter, then, is in God, since it was brought forth by him; and being superessential, since he as good holds all things together, it is contemplated in him. You will find these things scattered in what will be said. How the demonic multitude: Further, he exercises problems, saying, If all things are from the good, whence are evils, and whence did angels become demons? All things against the Manichaeans.

b. It is not good-shaped: He has rightly and precisely applied the term good-shaped to the angels; for God, being substantially the good itself, whereas the things after him, being made good by participation and from without through their longing for him, are reasonably called good-shaped, not good in themselves.

c. And how is the good one: Observe how he brings forward problems as in inquiry, which contain indeed the very oppositions of the enemies, such as the Manichaeans, yet nevertheless make clear the upright purpose of this divine man. For he says, from what principle evil was brought forth; and whether from another cause, and all such things as belong to the adversaries. Then finally, how the good one wished to bring it forth, and how evil is by providence, showing from these things that, even if evil had a bringing-forth at all, it had it from the good, and that providence alone governs the whole, so that from this there is one good principle for existing things. These things this divine man also examined in his problems; for going on further he clearly resolves the problems, showing that neither

Evil is not substantial, nor in nature, but comes about through the privation of the good, neither being nor being reckoned as non-being. And this is what is hinted at in what is said in the thirty-sixth psalm: "I saw the impious exalted exceedingly like the cedars of Lebanon, and I passed by, and behold, he was not, and I sought him," that is, his place, "and he was not found." For this shows that evil, even if it is greatly exalted, nevertheless does not exist, nor will it leave a place for itself, that is, a trace; for as soon as it appears it is dissolved, having no subsistence. Do not suppose, then, that he is saying something contrary. § 19. Is evil not from the good? Note how wonderfully he weaves the solution from various arguments.

The goal of beings: For the one who is angry, that is, enraged (the account is by way of example, as it seems), when the one toward whom he is enraged does something evil, wishing to lead him to the opposite, that is, to the good, uses such a movement.

And if all beings: We said above that if God is said to be beyond being, as unoriginate and cause of all things, the opposite, as the last of beings and without substance, as being beyond substance to God, that is, matter, is also called non-being, and is said to be in God, having come to be through his goodness, even if through being mixed with sensible things it is not entirely evil, nor entirely good, as it shows through its instability; for it has evil in its instability, but a share of the good, since it was also brought forth by God, and is in God.

Evil itself—I do not mean vice, which comes to be and ceases to be in the rational creature as a kind of form and quality, but evil simply—is neither among beings, which in some way aspire to the good, nor among non-beings, understood in the sense of "material things" as conceived in the supersubstantial, but even from non-being, that is, from matter, evil stands further removed from the good, and hence it is reasonably more insubstantial than matter, the same evil being in every way nothing. Evil itself, then, is nowhere in any way, while the evil of matter is by privation of goodness, insofar as it is seen to be without quality and without form. Whence you will also understand what was said by the prophet Obadiah: "And they shall be as though they were not," clearly addressed to sinners.

Whence, then, is evil? From this point, setting forth the objection, he exercises the response at length, as from a plausible-seeming contradiction: for if we do not grant that there is something contrary to the good, that is, evil, virtue will not appear good, but all things will be mixed and indistinguishable, neither virtue being praised nor that to which it is contrary. But now, says the objector, if we do not grant evil to be contrary to the good, the good itself will be contrary to itself in those who sin by privation of the good. But even before the activity of virtue in the virtuous man, we see in his soul the vices distinguished from virtue; for whenever the rational part of the soul performs its proper activities, it is hindered by none of the good things, but whenever the irrational part of the soul, which is mixed with matter and body, prevails, then the rational part is hindered from acting properly.

The irrational is therefore made evil by its mingling with matter, but the rational is made evil not by being mingled with matter, but by inclining toward matter—that is, by yielding to the irrational and not mastering it. As an eye is hindered from seeing when darkness is present, so this does not demonstrate whether evil itself subsists. For what is evil for something is not evil itself, but vice is a form and accident of evil; for by additions it comes to be a particular thing—for instance, injustice is the wickedness of the soul, and again, the forms of injustice correspond to the matter of desire: one concerns wealth, another concerns honors. Forms of evils also arise by additions from the parts of the soul: cowardice or rashness from the spirited part, licentiousness or stupidity from the appetitive part. Forms of evils also arise from activities: cowardice is, as it were, a deficiency in impulse, rashness an excess in impulse, and licentiousness concerns passion. It has therefore become clear how, in the soul and before activity, evils are distinguished from virtues through the irrational and the rational, which are parts of the soul. These things of the irrational show us another law "warring against the mind," as the Apostle says, and taking the rational captive when it is not mastered, as we have demonstrated. To the text: instead of "to the rational part of the soul." And if it is corruption of beings: instead of, if being corrupted is observed among beings, or if any of the beings is subject to corruption, from this is shown that evil exists; for "it does not cast out" makes this clear.

Or is it not often the case? These things too belong to the objection, that evil is rather also among existing things, and is an existing thing; for even if evil is the corruption of existing things, nevertheless this corruption sometimes leads something else into generation, as the egg is corrupted but is transformed into a bird; and the bean, when crushed and hidden in the earth, is reshaped into the form of an embryo; and our bodies into worms and other living creatures, and countless other such things, as horses are the generation of wasps, and bulls of bees.

And evil will be: A solution to the objections raised, if corruption is evil, and corruption corrupts evil too, how will evil itself corrupt itself? For if evil is in matter, it is clear that the more easily corrupted thing is matter, and this corrupts itself; for this reason matter is also called non-substantial by contrast with the super-substantial substance of God, as being itself corruptible and not always existing, and formless by contrast with the form of God, as Moses called the creative Word. And matter is also called non-being by contrast with the divine existence according to substance.

§ 20. Or is it evil: “Or is it evil” instead of “in what respect it is evil.” (14.158) Rather. Note that even in the divine words the tradition of more precise things derived from reasoning is not hindered; for behold, as you see, after the exposition of the former opinion he hands down the more precise things from reasoning. And unmixed and whole: The unmixed and wholly complete goods arise from the Good in the supracosmic intelligible beings, inasmuch as they are also incorporeal; but mixed goods are contemplated in rational bodies, that is, in us, the irrational part of the soul, as has been said, participating in matter through the body which participates in form, while the rational part inclines toward the irrational and sometimes yields to it, and for this reason leans toward matter. For one must contemplate the self-evil as self-measureless, self-formless, evil to itself substantially, yet not evil to another; for this is a form and accident of evil. It is necessary, then, that evil be something of such a kind as I have stated, just as God is the self-limit and self-measure of all things, and self-form-giving, and self-good substantially; for I do not now say “good to another”; for this is accidental. How, then, will evil be substantial and also to others, when absolutely all existing things are mixedly made evil and have their being in the Good, since nothing is wholly without a share in the Good, but all things partake of the Good according to their own fitness? Evil, then, is not in existence, but in insinuation, appearing in the privation of the Good. And it extends as far as the last things: by “last” one must understand material and earthly bodies.

For just as God is the beginning of all things, as we have already said, so too the last of all things is this refuse-like, dense part of matter and earthiness; whence it is also called the footstool of God, as being last, and yet it partakes of his goodness, as also bearing him in a last measure; for Wisdom also says: "For this earthy tabernacle weighs down the mind that has many cares," since the irrational part of the soul is mingled with the material body, and sometimes prevails over the rational part of the soul.

(14.160 The good is present: For to the extent that things in creation descend to the denser and more material, to that extent, by privation and deficiency of the good, they partake less, as from a faint and last echo; for as we said, suppose someone has already shouted loudly, and those who are near and have their hearing strong receive the whole shout and know what was said, while those who are farther away hear the voice less in proportion to the distance, and those who are very far off perceive it most faintly, as a last echo, to some degree. And his own privation: That which is not wholly deprived of the good, but partially, itself makes the thing deprived of the good to consist, by partaking in some respect wholly of the good; for it is not partial but total lack of the good that is evil. And the things that fight against it: Observe how he says that even the things that fight against the power of the good subsist and are preserved through it. Is God, then, the cause of evils? By no means!)

For God, as the beginning and creator of all things, through the excess of his goodness and through ineffable love, bears with sinners too, in order to display both his own love for humanity and the free will of his creature; for it is said, "Love bears all things"; and again, "He who makes his sun rise on the just and the unjust." But this is so in every way. His purpose is to demonstrate that the simply self-evil is not a substance; and he says that nothing among existing things and in creation is entirely without a share in the good; for things wholly devoid of the good, as not even having been produced by the good, do not exist either. Who else is the creator? But neither can anything subsist without sharing incidentally in the good through its state, that is, its quality; for many things, when the state or quality that came to be present has departed, remain in existence; for example, iron that has been heated and has partaken of extreme heat, when the fire is extinguished, remains what it was; and water in itself is said to be the element without quality, but passing through earth, it takes on quality from there; and yet when it has been channeled away, it ceases from the quality, and still it continues to exist; so too things that are covered with snow and chilled, when the coldness ceases, still continue to exist. But also things without a share in life, such as trees, and stones, and stars, and things without mind, such as cattle, nevertheless subsist. And God is exempt from substance, being supersubstantial, and yet he is and presides over all; but in the case of the good it cannot be said this way; for unless it shares in the quality of the good, in which it must be constituted, it cannot subsist—"for in him we live and are," as the Apostle says. What then?

Is the dissolute person deprived of the good in his dissoluteness? And yet he exists; and while he is called according to the very act of dissoluteness, as being in deprivation of the good he strictly does not exist, nor does he desire things that exist; for what is dissoluteness itself apart from the form of the dissolute act? Nevertheless, since by false opinion he seems to himself to cling to some good and to be united in friendship with what is corrupted together with him—even if the friendship seems to be corrupted—nevertheless it is a faint echo of divine love, and through the good he has a fantasy. For it must not be overlooked that when the rational part of the soul is mastered by the irrational part, it is hindered from performing its proper activities, and thereafter it assents in opinion to the irrational part, so as neither to control its impulses nor to concur with its actions; for false opinions are not opinions of the rational part, nor are false thoughts thoughts of the rational part; for neither are false thoughts strictly thoughts. Hence the irascible person sometimes proceeds mistakenly; nevertheless he is not without a share of the good, thinking to use his anger for the correction of the one being punished, and the shameful person likewise supposing pleasure to be a good end. From this, then, even those who fight against God, because they wholly exist by the good, are tolerated; for what is not deprived of the beautiful, but has that which is deprived of the good partially constituted, makes it wholly partake of something of the good. For it is not partial but total absence of the good that is evil.

And not that which is partially, but that which is wholly deprived of the good—this neither was, nor is, nor will be, nor can be.

Neither does he desire things that exist: Because the dissolute person, even if according to the very act of dissoluteness he neither exists nor desires things that exist, nevertheless according to the very form of unity and friendship he dimly partakes of the good.

Toward what seems beautiful: Note that even the one who uses anger is said to partake of the good in being moved toward the correction of things that seem evil; so too the one who pursues the worst, that is, the most evil life, partakes of the good in that he pursues what seems to him the best life; and the one who pursues evil, in that he seems to do something beautiful, partakes of the good.

Insofar as disease also: Disease, it is clear, is a lack of health, and an excess of material bodies, having neither measure nor order, but through the intemperance of the materials, when one of them beyond well-ordered arrangement is in revolt, producing the disease. To the extent, then, that disease is in the body, to that extent order in some way fails and the body holds together; for if complete measurelessness should dissolve the body, that is, the order of the materials, then disease also is destroyed, the body being dissolved in which the disease consisted; so also in the case of the good, as long as it is preserved in us, we have the power to do evil also; for when the good departs, it is no longer possible to find evil in us.

For that which is wholly without share: The aim of the divine Dionysius is clear from many considerations. Contending against the opinions of certain Greeks concerning evil, he says that evil is not a being. For evil itself as such would not be substantial, unless it were that which is entirely without share of the good through complete privation of it. But this cannot be found anywhere, not even in formless matter itself, even if this seems so to certain of the Greeks. For whatever has been brought into being at all by God, even if dimly and at the lowest degree, has nonetheless partaken of the good. This he demonstrates perfectly as he proceeds in the tenth chapter of this problem. For if evil were mixed with the good—that is, in one respect not being, through a slight privation of the good, and in another respect not being, through the fact that the one who makes it exists wholly—this would not be evil. For evil lies not in any privation whatsoever, but in the complete privation of the good. At any rate, that which falls slightly short of the good is not evil; for it can also be perfect as regards its own nature. For it is something that is deficient as regards the good, but perfect as regards its own nature; and this is indeed good, and in no way evil, although it partakes of privation as regards the first good. And that which is not wholly without share of the good, but approaches evil to a greater degree, is not entirely evil; just as that which approaches the good to a lesser degree has something of the good and is substantiated from it, and substantiates its own privation in that it is wholly estranged from the good. For if there were an unmixed and complete absence of the good, it is clear that it would be neither wholly good, nor mixed good, nor evil itself. For where the good is not, there is nothing in nature either.

How then will evil exist if it is not given being by something? For remove bodies and light, and there will be no shadow. Therefore evil is not simply a being, but is in a subject, whereas the good has both nature and preservation even without a subject, and is good in itself; but evil is without the subject that is guarded by the good. For all things neither exist, nor appear, nor are corrupted from it; for how could they be, if there is no subject of some kind? But it is altogether without existence and in no way whatsoever is.

And gives being: That is, it gives being to evil. For if evil is the privation of the good, and the good gives being to its own privation, then it gives being to evil, which is the privation of the good.

By participation in it wholly: That is, by partial participation in the good, its privation also receives being.

Whenever for some things it is evil: These are species of evil, as we said before; for the essential evil itself is not, since it does not even exist. For for this to be evil—namely, to cling to shameful pleasure as to some good—is not essential evil, but a species of evil. For the wholly evil itself neither exists, since it participates, even if by the furthest echo, in the good. For observe what he says as he proceeds further: for if all things participate in the good and the good is in all existing things, then evil, clearly, either does not exist, or is in the good. For it is not the nature of fire to cool; but if it begins to cool, it will not be fire. Therefore evil too, if it subsists, participates faintly in the good; for all existing things are in the good and remain there. But if it has nothing of the good, it does not subsist; for the very will to subsist is a participation of the good, as has often been said above.

Absurd and impossible: Note that even in the case of God it is well said in some places, "He cannot," as the Apostle also says: "If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself."

For every dyad: Note that every dyad is not a principle; the monad is the principle of every dyad. Note this against the Manichaeans.

Completely contrary: Note these things; for he contends thoroughly against the Manichaeans, who foolishly dogmatize that a dyad is the principle of contraries. For arithmetic brings what has division of multitude in numbers to a limit, positing the monad as the principle of all number, and the dyad as the principle of even numbers. The principle, then, reveals the simplest thing in each kind. How, then, will the dyad be the principle of all things? For the dyad is not a simple principle but a composite one. Therefore the principle that comes from composition is not simple; and how could it be called a principle? For before this composite principle there will be the principle properly so called, the one, from which, when monads are composed together, the dyad was completed. It is clear, then, from every angle, that the doctrine of two principles is untenable.

Moreover, neither two: Because it is not possible for two contrary principles to belong to contraries. Nor without difficulty: It is not without harm.

Therefore goods are also dear: Since all things partake of the good, and by their very being are led up to the good, the good and the beautiful of all things would not be the first beautiful, of which all things partaking become beautiful, having been somehow made like to the beautiful by participation—except that it is assimilated very faintly to the one good and beautiful, as though it were increasing and becoming manifest into the nature of beautiful things; whence also all things are very beautiful. But the nature of beautiful things, proceeding in multitude, is already somehow shown forth even into composite things, which indeed people are especially accustomed to call beautiful, evil being compounded in many ways and spoken of in many manners. But the beautiful in existing things is neither substance nor genus, but an accident possessing a certain likeness, joined together little by little; for beautiful things are not spoken of according to one form, but in many ways; and they resemble one another only as like things, even if in many forms each is beautiful in its own kinds, and in this respect, as being made like and akin to one another.

If the good is in God: Because the good is in God as existence. Nor simply: Instead of, eternally.

According to time. Instead of, participatorily.

§ 22. But neither in angels: Concerning angels, that evil is not in them either, and why they are called angels.

The divine goodness: He calls divine the things concerning the nature of the angels who remained godlike. We said above why he calls the angels goodlike and not self-good.

According to these causes, then, evil is not in angels either. And he gives the etymology of why they were called angels.

Is an image of God: Note that he calls the angels images of the good; and note how he speaks.

(14_174 But by punishing: As if by way of anticipation he forestalls the opposition of certain heresies—of those who hold that the punishing angels act by God's command, and that punishment itself is of evil; and he immediately resolves these things most philosophically and aptly, also from the sacred rites of those who exclude and drive out the polluted and profane from the Church for profane and polluted deeds, showing that not even they, when they punish the polluted, are from evil—may it not be! For it is said: "For he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is a minister of God for wrath to the one who does evil." Note therefore the solutions; for it resolves many questions of those who say, If the executioners and the rulers are from God.

Those who keep the profane from the divine mysteries: Note that the profane must be kept from the divine mysteries by the priests. Nor is being punished: That being punished is not evil, but becoming worthy of punishment. Note concerning priests and rulers, who punish the profane. But neither are the demons: That neither are the demons evil by nature. Then neither is this [so] for everyone. Note that corruption is not evil for everyone and always, as in the case of wild beasts and reptiles and deadly plants. But neither is it corrupted: That none of existing things is corrupted insofar as it is essence. But by deficiency: Note that he calls corruption also the faulty and disharmonious movement of nature contrary to order. You have this also in Ezekiel concerning the devil: "Your knowledge was corrupted together with your beauty"; and he says this, dissolving what is said among the Greeks and Manichaeans, that neither are the demons evil by nature. Then he sets forth the objections made by them by hypothesis and resolves them, saying: First, the demons do not corrupt essences; for essences, insofar as they are essences, do not admit of non-existence; then, even if this were so, corruption is not evil for all nor of all things, as among wild beasts, and creeping things, and deadly plants, and other such things. One must inquire, then, whether the demons corrupt power or activity, and for the present one must say briefly what power is and what activity is; one must know, then, that the difference of power from activity is such as that of habit to the activity according to the habit; habit, then, is a permanent quality. And this will be clear thus: