(Pseudo-)Dionysius Areopagita (Petrus Iberus), Works

Peter the Iberian (Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite), Works Concerning the Divine Names Chapter 1: What is the purpose of the discourse and what is the subject of the divine names 1. Now, O blessed one, after the divine-hierarchical introductions, you have proceeded to the translation of the divine names, as far as is permissible. Let there be, for our present words, a laying down of the law as a preliminary introduction for us to the true words spoken concerning God: "not by the persuasive power of the words of wisdom, but by the manifestation" of the power of the divine-uttering ones, stirred by the divine Spirit, through which, by the unspeakable and unknown, we are united unspeakably and unknowingly with the supreme one, by the verbal and cognitive power among us and by the unity of action. For it is wholly impossible to speak and conceive in thought anything concerning the super-essential and hidden divinity without the divinely narrated tradition to us through the divine words. But that which is beyond word, thought, and essence—the unknowability of the super-essential being—let us entrust to the knowledge itself of the super-essential being.

And we ascended the ascent only so far as the divinely princely words, crowned from that super-essential radiance of the divine lights, permitted us by their hiddenness and sanctity, which are compressed. For, as is fitting for the confirmation of the altogether wise and most true divine theology, in accordance with each intellect, God is revealed and appears, when the divinely princely goodness, with saving righteousness and divinely seemly measure, divides its own boundlessness, as far as is receivable.

For just as the perceptible and the known are inaccessible and invisible to those dwelling in compositions and forms, and the simple and unformed and the incorporeal are untouched and unformed formlessness to those formed in the shape of bodies, so also, according to the words of truth, the super-essential beings are the boundlessness of beings and the unity of super-intellection beyond intellection; and that super-intellectual One is unthinkable from all thoughts; and that super-verbal goodness is inexpressible from all speech, the unity that unifies every unity and the being beyond being, the unthinkable intellection, the inexpressible speech, the truthlessness, the unthinkability, the formlessness, for it is none of the beings that is the cause of all beings, but itself is beyond beings, as it is separate from all beings, so that it alone may appear to the knowing possessor of its own self.

2. Concerning this supra-essential and mysterious divinity, as I said before, it is not fitting to say or conceive anything whatsoever, except through the divinely narrated divine words that have been handed down to us. For as it has been well and beautifully given to us in those words concerning itself, we understand that whatever it is, its knowledge and vision are inaccessible to all beings, as it is elevated above all as supra-essential. And I have found many of the divine speakers who not only affirmed its invisibility and inaccessibility, but also its complete unsearchability and uncircumscribability, so that there is no place, nor any single path of passage within its hidden immeasurability.

But the goodness of it is in no way at all communicable to any of the things that are; rather, it, standing in its own head above being, established a radiance for each of the things that are, with its own light adapted to each, and appears through the beauty of goodness; and by that leaving behind, by vision, by participation, and by likeness to itself, it summons the holy intellects, which know that they approach it fittingly and with great beauty; and they are not turned away by the impossibility of their own God-seeing power, which is not adapted to the supra-essential, nor do they descend downward to the inferior, but with good standing and unshakenness they look up to the radiances that shine forth to them, and, with the proportionate adaptation of their own desire for the radiance that shines forth to them, they become winged by orderly purity and worthiness.

3. By this theopoetic vision, let us hold our heads within the scales and stand among those who govern the being and adornment of all the supermundane holy orders that exist.

This then is it: that we should, with a likeness of caution, inscrutably grasp the mystery of the divine government which is above mind and being, by means of those same holy intellects, and honor its ineffability with altogether wise silence; and, illuminated by the divine words that shine forth to us, let us open our eyes toward the radiance, and, enlightened by them through that divine governance, let us shine forth in the supramundane realm; and, ordered by those liturgical doxologies, let us become beholders of the light apportioned to us in measure by the divine government; and let us hymn that good-bestowing principle of every glorious manifestation of light, as it itself, concerning itself, in the divine words, gave us to understand thus, that it is the cause and principle and being and life of all, and for those fallen away from it, recall and resurrection, and for those corrupted by the dissolution of the divine form, renewal, and again, the re-imager, and for those shaken by some unseemly trembling, the strengthening into seemliness.

The steadfastness of the abiding ones, and the guidance of those who proceed toward it, is elevating; the radiance of the enlightened ones; the perfect governance of the perfected ones; the divine governance of the deified ones; the simplicity of the simple ones; and the unity of the united ones; the beginning of every beginning, which is above essence; and the separation of the hidden ones by goodness; and, to speak simply, the life of the living and the being of beings, as the cause and beginning of all life and being, by that bringing-forth from non-being into being, and by the goodness that holds all things. 4. This we have learned from the divine words, and, as one might say, in all the praises of the great theologians, one finds such a manifestation of goodness in the acts of the divine providence, which they have spread forth, by the manifestation of the mercies of the divine governance, and by the multiplication of the names of God through praise.

In every description of divine theology we see how the divine governance is sanctified by purity, as unity and consubstantiality for the sake of simplicity and the indivisible superessential unity, by which, as by a unifying power, we are drawn together from our divided diversities into a divine-like unity and a God-like consubstantiality; and again, as trinity for the sake of the three-hypostatic manifestation of that superessential procreative principle, by which all fatherhoods in heaven and on earth exist and are named; and again, as the cause of beings, since everything that comes to be is brought forth from that being-making goodness of His; and as wise and good, since all beings are held together so that they may preserve incorruptibly the property of their own natures; for they are filled with greater beauty and the harmony of divine order when each one keeps the natural order in which it was born; and, in a more extensive place, philanthropically, since by the true and complete incarnation the Word of God truly leads us to Himself by His own person.

and called to itself and united, the Divinity took our later lowliness, by which the simple Jesus ineffably folded himself and the timeless received temporal extension; and he became within our nature, he who is altogether above every order of natures, elevated in his immutable and unmixed steadfastness; and whatever else the divinely given light, deifying us from those divine leaders of ours, says secretly, is presented to us through the adornment of the words of the scriptures, fittingly bestowed. By this we are taught: now, according to the measure of our capacity, through the divine covenants of those holy words and the philanthropic bestowals of the hierarchs to us, the things beyond being are revealed to us from the perceptions of the known, and through images and forms the formless and unportrayed are set before us, and those beyond nature and incomparable simplicities are multiplied and become material through the multicolored divisions of forms.

But then, when we become incorruptible and deathless and attain to that blessed and perfect form of Christ, so that "we may always be with the Lord," as it is said, then this visible manifestation of God shall be accomplished upon us with a wholly immaculate vision, when we are illuminated by the most invisible radiance, like his own disciples at that divine Transfiguration. And we shall receive that recognizable gift of his light into the inviolable and immaterial intellect, and by the union of super-mental contemplation we shall attain, through the unknown and blessed outpouring of those super-visible diadems, to that most divine likeness of the super-celestial intellects. Then "we shall become equal to the angels," according to the true word, "and sons of God, sons of the resurrection." But now, insofar as it is attainable by us, we humble ourselves divinely before the most ineffable forms, and from them we look, according to our power, to the truth of the simple and unified recognitions of the intelligible visions.

And after all our recollection of the forms of God, we shall extinguish our own cognitive activities and, in a manner conforming to the super-essential radiance, attain to the power within which every cognition of all boundaries was already pre-eminently from the beginning, beyond every expression, of which there is neither recollection possible, nor speech, nor any contemplation at all, because it is altogether elevated and exceedingly unknowable, being both the co-fulfiller of all essential cognitions and powers and the gatherer of them all into its own super-essential head, yet established beyond them all by an inaccessible power and by super-celestial intellects. For if all cognitions are of beings and have their completion upon beings, then that which is beyond all word and all cognition and established above all intellects and beings must be.

5. For it is separate from all beings and beyond all knowledge, all-embracing, all-gathering, and all-foreseeing, yet utterly untouched by any of them; and there is neither perception of it, nor imagination, nor opinion, nor naming, nor word, nor touch, nor knowledge. And since all this is so, how can we describe by word the divine names of the unnameable, super-essential Godhead that reveals itself? But as we have said, when we write of the divine-utterance-ordained arrangements of that one most transcendent, the selfhood beyond all beings, this is what we mean: of the trinitarian unity, of the one divinity and one selfhood, there can be neither expression nor conception. And not only that, but even of those holy powers of the angelic-like unity, by which it is either to be called emanation or reception, the form of their super-unknowable and super-manifest goodness is inexpressible and unknowable, and known only to those who have been deemed worthy of that super-knowledgeable honor of angelic narration.

5. For it is separate from all beings and beyond all knowledge, all-embracing, all-gathering, and all-foreseeing, yet utterly untouched by any of them; and there is neither perception of it, nor imagination, nor opinion, nor name, nor word, nor touch, nor knowledge; it is not darkness, nor light, nor error, nor truth; there is no affirmation nor denial of it; and when we make affirmations and denials of what is below it, we do not affirm nor deny it, since the perfect and single cause of all is beyond all affirmation and denial, and beyond all that is below it. 6. For these our God-seeing, angel-like intellects are united with them, insofar as it is possible, since from the cessation of all cognitive activity something like this occurs, which is the union of deified intellects with that light which is beyond the divine. And thus they hymn it most unspeakably, by being raised above all beings, for this was revealed to them truly, by the blessed union with it that is above nature, that it is the cause of all beings, but itself is none of them, since it is elevated above all beings. For what name can be given to the super-essential Godhead, or to the first of its archetypes, neither as word nor power, neither as life nor intellect, nor as being, is it attainable by any hymn, however much those who love truth are above all truth; but as all custom, trembling, life, dream, will, deed, word, knowledge, thought, being, position, stability, unity, end, infinity, and all that are from beings, it is elevated above all in a transcendent manner.

6. For this reason, the divine theologians know that they hymn Him both without names and by all names. Without names, when they speak of the divine super-essence itself, as when the mystical vision in the secret book of the divine revelation rebukes the one who asks, saying: "What is your name?" as if to lead him away from all knowledge of the divine name, it says: "Why do you ask my name?

And that is a wonder, or is this not truly a wondrous name above all names, the nameless one, "the naming of the name that surpasses all surpassing, whether in this world or in those eternal beings?" And again, with many names, when they themselves bring Him in to speak: "I am that I am," life, light, God, truth. And again, when those divinely wise ones themselves name Him with many names and hymn Him from all these causal things to the cause of all, as beautiful, as good, as wise, as beloved, as God of gods, as Lord of lords, as holy of holies, as eternal, as being, as cause of eternal things, as giver of life, as wisdom, as mind, as word, as knowledge, as pre-possessor of all treasures of knowledge, as power, as mighty, as king of kings, as ancient of days, as indestructible and indissoluble, as life, as righteousness, as holiness, as redemption, as surpassing all greatness, and as a gentle breeze within.

among these, they speak of his being in minds, in souls, in bodies, in heavens, on earth, and together in himself, on his own head, within the world, outside the world, above the world, above the heavens, above being, as sun, as star, as fire, as water, as air, as light, as cloud, as stone and rock, as everything and as none of these. 7. To this cause of all and to the one who is above all, both namelessness and all names belong, so that his sovereignty over all may be manifested, and the being of all things in relation to him and from him and in him, as of a cause, and as of a beginning and end that gathers all created things into itself in its own head. And "he is in all things among all," according to the word of the holy scriptures. And truly he is praised as the beginning, the end, and the gathering that gives body to all, as the one who bounds, the one who is beyond, and the one who turns all toward his own head, and this in a united, undivided, and transcendent manner.

For not only is it the cause of generation, or of life, or of perfection, that from these alone, or from some other providence, that goodness of the superessential names should be established, but simply and without circumscription, within itself it has gathered all things by a preeminent gathering. And again, all beings are in that same and one cause of all providence, in its goodness. Therefore, from all beings, praise and naming of it is fittingly composed. 8. For not only are these names proclaimed by the theologians concerning God, from particular things, or from all things that are preordained, or from his providential activities, but there is also a time when, even in some of the great and most secret divine visions, or elsewhere in the most secret places, or by prophets and by those who have been illuminated, from various and different causes and powers, they name that super-radiant, many-named, and above all names goodness, and they apply to it some human forms and shapes, or fiery, or electrum-like ones.

And they sing of his eyes and ears, of his cheeks and mouth, of his hands and the soles of his feet, of his wings and arms, of his back and feet; together with this, they speak of his crowns and thrones, of his censers and trumpets, and they adopt other secret forms, concerning which we have spoken, to the best of our ability, in the figurative theology of the divine names. But now, as much as was fitting for this present chapter, we have gathered from the divine words and, as if by some rule, we have condensed this discourse, which we have advanced with a view to the explanation of the known divine names. And whatever the hierarchical order always recounts to us in all divine theology, may we become beholders, with a mind that sees God, of the proper meaning of their divinely revealed utterance. And thus we have placed the interpretation of the holy divine names within the sacred hearings, and we have confirmed the sacred of the sacred according to the divine lawgiver. But we have rejected those who mock and deride them out of folly; and even more so, if they themselves are truly such as these men, may we be delivered from the words of the God-fighters upon these matters.

But for you, O good Timothy, it is fitting to guard these things, according to this same rule of holy narrative, so that you may not make the divine mysteries either a subject of speech or a matter for the ignorant. And God has granted me to hymn fittingly the manifold names of the goodly activity of the unnameable and unutterable divinity. And may the word of truth never be lacking from my mouth!