^ Behind Nature are certain liigher supernaiural ])ossibilities (which are manifested, ^. .^., in the Miracles of Christ and His Disciples), and beyond our personalities there is a mystery which is greater than our finite selves, and yet, in a sense, is our true selves. The Godhead possesses in Itself the supernatural possibilities of Nature and the supra-personal possibilities of our pers(jnalilies.
^ i. c. Christ did not merely keep Ilis Godhead parallel, as it were, with His Manhood, but brought It into His Manhood and so exalted the Manhood.
^ i. e. Let us explain what are the N^mes wliich belong indivisibly to all Three Persons of the Trinity.
The Divine Names 79
tiation (as was said) to the beneficent Emanations of
the Supreme Godhead.^ T'or, bestowinj^ upon all
thitii^s and sui)ernally infusinir Its Communications
unto the goodly Universe, It becomes differentiated
without loss of UndifYerence ; ^ and multiplied with-
out loss of Unity ; from Its Oneness it becomes
manifold while yet remaining within Itself. For
example, since God is super-essentially Existent and
bestows existence upon all things that are, and brings
the world into being, that single Existence of His is
said to become manifold through bringing forth the
many existences from Itself, while yet He remains
One in the act of /Self-Multiplication ; Undifferenccd
throughout the process of Emanation, and Full in the
emptying process of Differentiation ; Super-Essen-
tially transcending the Being of all things, and
guiding the whole world onwards by an indivisible
act, and pouring forth without diminution His in-
defectible bounties. Yea, being One and communi-
cating of His Unity both unto every part of the
world and also unto the whole, both unto that which
is one and unto that which is many. He is One in
an unchangeable and super-essential manner, being
neither an unit in the multiplicity of things nor yet
the sum total of such units. Indeed, He is not an
unity in this sense, and doth not participate in unity
nor possess it ; ^ but He is an Unity in a manner far
^ The word *' Emanation" is here used in its very widest sense as inckiding (i) the Persons of the Trinity, (2) Their creative activity as manifested in the Universal and the Particular stream of energy. See Intr., p. 17. The Differentiated Being of the Trinity underlies all the Differentiations of the creative process. The Trinity is differentiated on the plane of Eternity ; then It emanates or energizes on the temporal plane, and thus It is manifested in all the differentiations of the universe, (especially in deified souls).
^ God is indivisibly present in each separate deified soul (see supra, p. 71), the sentence beginning: "And if the term 'Differentiation' be also applied to the bounteous act," etc.
^ These two i»hrases well express the nieaning of the title "Beyond
8o DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE
different from this, above all unity which is in the
world ; yea, He is an Indivisible Plurality, insatiable
yet brim-full, producing, perfecting, and maintaining
all unity and plurality. Moreover, since many,
through Deification from Him, are made Gods ^ (so
far as the Godlike capacity of each allows), there thus
appears to be what is called a Differentiation ^ and a
Reduplication of the One God, yet none the less He
is the primal God, the Supra-Divine and Super-
Essentially One God, who dwells Indivisibly within
the separate and individual things, being an Un-
differenced Unity in Himself and without any com-
mixture or multiplication through His contact with
the Many.^ And supernaturally perceiving this, thus
speaketh (by inspiration, in his holy writings) that
Guide unto Divine illumination by whom both we
and our teacher are led, that mighty man in things
Divine, that Luminary of the world. For though
(saith he) there be that are called gods, whether in
heaven or in earth (as there be gods many and lords
many). But to us there is but one God, the Father,
of whom are all things, and we in Him, and one Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him.
For in divine things the undifferenced Unities are of
more might than the Differentiations * and hold the
foremost place and retain their state of Undifference
even after the One has, without departing from Its
oneness, entered into Differentiation. These Differ-
entiations or beneficent Emanations of the whole
Unity " (I'TrepTjj'w/xfVT?), which I have generally translated, like i^vw/xevr], as " Undifferenced."
^ Tp e'f avTov Oeeaaei . . . Oeccy iroWuiv yiyfo/xeucov. See Inlr., p. 43.
2 Cf, p. 71, n. I.
=* The fullness of God's Unity is manifested, (i) in all the multiplicity of the material world, (2) after a higher manner in the deified souls of men and in angels.
* F.ach deified soul is a differentiation of God (cf. p. 71, n. i); yet the Unity of God transcends them all, even a(ter Ciud has thus poured Himself into them.
Godhead — whereby Its UiuHfferenced Nature is
sliared in common ^ — we sliall (so far as in us h"es)
endeavour to describe from the Divine Names which
reveal them in the Scriptures, havin^j now made this
clear beforehand (as hath been said) : that every Name
of the Divine beneficent Activity unto whichever of
the Divine Persons it is appHed, must be taken as
belonging, without distinction, to the whole entirety
of the God head. -
Chapter Iii
What is the powef of Prayer? Also concertiini^ the Blessed Hierotheus and conce7-Tii7ig Reverence and the IVritinj^^ of Divinity.
I. And first of all, if it like thee, let us consider the
highest Name, even " Goodness," by which all the
Emanations of God are conjointly revealed.^ And
let us begin with an invocation of the Trinity, the
Which, as It surpasseth Goodness, and is the Source
of all goodness, doth reveal all conjoined together Its
own good providences.* For we must first lift up our
minds in prayer unto the Primal Goodness, and by
drawling nearer Thereunto, w^e must thus be initiated
into the mystery of those good gifts which are rooted
in Its being. For the Trinity is nigh unto all things,
and yet not all things are nigh unto It.^ And when
we call upon It with holy prayers and unspotted
^ i. e. These active Manifestations whereby God enters into each part of the universe, yet without loss of Unity.
^ See the beginning of this chapter.
^ All God's activities are good.
^ The particular activities of God exist as one Act in Him, cf. p. 79, n. 2. So St. Thomas (following Aristotle) calls Him Actus Purus.
5 Cf. p. 77, n. I.
82 Dionysius the Areopagite
mind and with our souls prepared for union with
God, then are we also nigh Thereto ; for It is not in
space, so as to be absent from any spot, or to move
from one position to another.^ Nay, to speak of It
as omnipresent doth not express Its all-transcendent
all-embracing Infinitude.^ Let us then press on in
prayer, looking upwards to the Divine benignant
Rays, even as if a resplendent cord were hanging
from the height of heaven unto this world below, and
we, by seizing it with alternate hands in one advance,
appeared to pull it down ; but in very truth
instead of drawing down the rope (the same being
already nigh us above and below), we were ourselves
being drawn upwards to the higher Refulgence of the
resplendent Rays. Or even as, having embarked on
a ship and clinging to the cables, the which being
stretched out from some rock unto us, presented
themselves (as it were) for us to lay hold upon them,
we should not be drawing the rock towards ourselves,
but should, in very truth, be drawing ourselves and
the vessel towards the rock ; as also, conversely, if
any one standing upon the vessel pushes away the
rock that is on the shore, he will not affect the rock
(which stands immovable) but will separate himself
therefrom, and the more he pushes it so much the
more will he be staving himself away. Hence, before
every endeavour, more especially if the subject be
• Divinity, must we begin with prayer : not as though
we would pull down to ourselves that Power which is
1 This is profound. Spatial metaphors are always dangerous, though unavoidable, in Theology. In space if A is touching B then B must be touching A. In the spiritual world this is not so. God is near me (or rather in me), and yet I may be far from God bccatise I may be far from my 01V71 true sef. I must seek my true self where it is, in God. It is the paradox of Personality that my true self is outside my self and I can only gain it by casting aside this counterfeit "self." Cf. p. 77, n. i, and Inir., p. 15.
2 Even the word "omnipresent" suggests that God is in space, whereas really His existence is non-spatial.
Till-: DIVINE NAMES S3
nii^li both cvcr}'\vhcrc and nowhere, but lliat, by these
remembrances and invocations of God, we may
commend and unite ourselves Thereunto.
2. Now perliaps there is need of an exj)lanation
why, when our renowned teacher Hierotlieus hath
com[)ilcd ^ his wonderful Elcincnis of Divinity, we
liave composed other Tractates of Divinity, and now
are writing this present as if his work were not
sufficient. Now if he had professed to deal in an
ordered system with all questions of Divinity, and had
gone through the whole sum of Divinity with an
exposition of every branch, we should not have gone
so far in madness or folly as to suppose that we
could touch these problems with a diviner insight
than he, nor would we have cared to waste our time
in a vain repetition of those same truths ; more
especially since it would be an injury to a teacher
whom we love were we thus to claim for ourselves
the famous speculations and expositions of a man
who, next to Paul the Divine, hath been our chief
preceptor. But since, in his lofty " Instructions on
Divinity," he gave us comprehensive and pregnant
definitions fitted to our understanding, and to that o{
such amongst us as were teachers of the newly
initiated souls, and bade us unravel and explain with
whatever powers of reason we possessed, the compre-
hensive and compact skeins of thought spun by his
mighty intellect ; and since thou hast thyself often-
times urged us so to do, and hast remitted his
treatise to us as too sublime for comprehension,
therefore we, while setting him apart (as a teacher of
advanced and perfect spirits) for those above the
commonalty, and as a kind of second Scriptures
worthy to follow the Inspired Writings, will yet
teach Divine Truths, according to our capacity, unto
those who are our peers. For if solid food is suited
^ Tas 0€oAo7tKas o'TOJXf^o'ets vTrep<pvws avyayayoi'Tos.
84 Dionysius the Areopagite
only to the perfect, what degree of perfection would
it need to give this food to others ? Wherefore we
are right in saying that the direct study of the
spiritual ^ Scriptures and the comprehensive teaching
of them need advanced capacities, while the under-
standing and the learning of the matter which
contribute thereto is suited to the inferior Initiators
and Initiates.^ We have, however, carefully observed
the principle : Whatsoev^er things our Divine Pre-
ceptor has throughly dealt with and made clearly
manifest we have never in any wise ventured thereon,
for fear of repetition, nor given the same explanation
of the passage whereof he treated. For ^ even among
our inspired Hierarchs (when, as thou knowest, we
with him and many of our holy brethren met together
to behold that mortal body, Source of Life, which
received the Incarnate God,^ and James, the brother
of God, was there, and Peter, the chief and highest
of the Sacred Writers, and then, having beheld it, all
the Hierarchs there present celebrated, according to
the power of each, the omnipotent goodness of the
Divine weakness) : on that occasion, I say, he sur-
passed all the Initiates next to the Divine Writers,
^ Or " intelligible" {vo-qrwv). Cf. p. 52, n. i. The Scri|)tures are expressed in symbolic terms which our minds can grasp. Hierotheus was inspired to penetrate to the ultimate truth enshrined in these symbols. Thus he was able not only to assimilate this solid food himself but also to give it to others. Apparently Hierotheus passed through certain extraordinary josychic ex[)eiiences, which are described in his writings. These particular experiences D. has not himself passed through. But he believes that his own teaching may clear the ground, and so be a preliminary to such flights. He is chiefly explaining principles, but these principles may lead the way to a true experience. St. Paul and other .Scriptural writers experienced such extraordinary psychic states, though they do not speak of them in the extravagant lerms apparently used by Hierotheus. Cf. 2 Cor. xii. 2-4.