Thus the separate individuals, according to the various laws {?.6yoi) of their genera and species, are created in this world of Time. And each thing, while it exists in the world, has two sides to its exist- ence : one, outside its created being (according to the sense of the word "outside" explained above), in the Super-Essence wherein all things are One Thing (as all points meet at infinity or as according to the neo- Platonic simile used by IJionysius, the radii of a circle meet at the centre), and the other within its own created being on this lower plane where all things are separate from each other (as all points in space are separate or as the radii of the circle are separate
Ri'm.Ation to Creation 19
at the circumference). This paradox is of the very utmost im[)ortance.
The various kinds of existences beini^ now created
in this world of time, we can rei^ard them as rani^ed
m an ascenchng scale between Nothingness and the
Super-Essence, each rank of being subsuming the
qualities of those that lie below it. Thus we get
the following system in ascending order : Existence,
Life, Sensation, Reason, Spirit. And it is to this
scale that Dionysius alludes when he speaks of the
extremities and the intermediate parts of the creation,
meaning by the extremities the highest and the lowest
orders, and by the intermediate parts the remainder.
The diminution of Being which we find in glancing
down the ladder is, Dionysius tells us, no defect in
the s)'stem of creation. It is right that a stone should
be but a stone and a tree no more than a tree. Each
thing, being itself however lowly, is fulfilling the laws
of its kind which pre-exist (after a transcendent
manner) in the undifferentiated Super-Essence. If,
however, there is a diminution of Being where such
diminution has no place, then trouble begins to arise.
This is, in fact, the origin and nature of evil. For as
we ascend the scale of Being, fresh laws at each stage
counteract the laws of the stage below, the law of life
by which the blood circulates and living things grow
upwards counteracting the mere law of inert gravita-
tion, and again, the laws of morality counteracting
the animal passions. And where this counter-action,
fails, disaster follows. A hindered circulation means
ill-health, and a hindered self-control means sin.
Whereas a stone is merely lifeless, a corpse is not
only lifeless but dead ; and whereas a brute is
un-moral, a brutal man is wicked, or immoral. What
in the one case is the absence from a thing of that
which has no proper place in it, is in the other case
the failure of the thing's proper virtues.
20 Dionysius the Areopagite
IV. — The Problem of Evil
At wearisome length Dionysius discusses the
problem of evil and shows that nothing is inherently
bad. For existence is in itself good (as coming
ultimately from the Super-Essence), and all things
are therefore good in so far as they exist. Since evil
is ultimately non-existent, a totally evil thing would
be simply non-existent, and thus the evil in the
world, wherever it becomes complete, annihilates itself
and that wherein it lodges. We may illustrate this
thought by the nature of zero in mathematics, which
is non-entity (since, added to numbers, it makes no
difference) and yet has an annihilating force (since it
reduces to zero all numbers that are multiplied by it).
Even so evil is nothing and yet manifests itself in the
annihilation of the things it qualifies. That which we
cajl evil in the world is merely a tendency of things
towards nothingness. Thus sickness is a tendency
towards death, and death is simply the cessation of
physical vitality. And sin is a tendency towards
spiritual death, which is the cessation of spiritual
vitality. But, since the ground of the soul is inde-
structible, a complete cessation of its being is
impossible ; and hence even the devils are not
inherently bad. Were they such they would cease
ipso facto to exist.
Dionysius here touches incidentally on a mystical
doctrine which, as developed by later writers, after-
wards attained the greatest importance. This doctrine
of a timeless self is the postulate, perhaps, of all
Christian mysticism. The boldest expression of it is
to be found in Eckhart and his disciple Tauler, who
both say that even the lost souls in hell retain
unaltered the ultimate nobility of their being. And
lest this doctrine should be thought to trifle with
THE ruoin.EiM oj- evil 21
^ravc matters, be it remembered tliat the sinfulness
and L^ravity of sin are simply due to this indestructible
nobility of our beini;. Man cannot become non-moral,
and hence his capacity for wickedness. The soul is
potentially divine, and therefore may be actually
Satanic. The very devils in hell cannot destroy the
imai^c of the Godhead within them, and it is this
imai^e that sin defiles.
It follows from the ultimate non-entity of evil that, in so far as it exists, it can only do so through being mingled with some element of good. To take an illustration given by Dionysius himself, where there is disease tliere is vitality, for when life ceases the sick- ness disappears in death. The ugliness of evil Ues precisely in the fact that it always, somehow or other, ^ consists in the corruption of something inherently good.
It is, however, this ugliness of things that Dionysius
fails to emphasize, and herein lies the great weakness
of his teaching. Not only does he, with the misguided
zeal of an apologist, gloze deliberately over certain
particular cruelties of the Creation and accept them
as finite forms of good, but also he tends to explain
away the very nature of evil in itself. He tends to be
misled by his own true theories. For it is true that
evil is ultimately non-existent. St. Augustine taught
this when he said : " Sin is nought " ; ^ so did Julian
of Norwich, who " saw not siril' because she believes
" it hath no manner of substance nor any part of
being." 2 The fault of Dionysius is the natural failure
of his mental type to grasp the mere facts of the
actual world as mere facts. He is so dazzled with
his vision of ultimate Reality that he does not feel
with any intensity the partial realities of this finite
universe. Hence, though his theory of evil is, in the
^ Com. on St. John i. 13. Cf. Cojtf. vii. iS ; xii. ii. 2 Revelations oj Divine Love, xxvii.
2 2 Dionysius the Areopagite
main, true, he does not quite grasp the true apphcation of his theory to this world of actual facts.
For this world is by its very nature finite. And
hence, if the evil in it is (as Dionysius rightly says)
but partial, it must also be remembered (as he for a
monient forgets) that its very existence is but partial.
And, therefore, though evil is ultimately non-existent,
yet the bad qualities of things may, so far as this
present world is concerned, have as much reality, or
at least as much actuality, as their good qualities.
And when we say that evil is ultimately non-existent
we merely mean that evil ought to have no actuality
here, not that it has none. ' Dionysius calls evil a
lapse and faihire of the creature's proper virtues.
But a lapse or failure has in it something positive, as
he in the same breath both admits by using the word
and also tries to explain away. It is as positive as
the virtues from which it lapses. The absence of
light from the centre of a wooden block is nothing,
for the light has no proper place there, but the
absence of light from the air, where light should be,
is darkness and is a visible shadow. St. Augustine
has crystallized this truth in his famous epigram,
quoted above in part, which runs in full as follows :
" Sin is naught, and men are naughtes when they
sin." The void left by the want of a good thing has
a content consisting in the want. Probably had
Dionysius seen more of the world's misery and sin he
would have had a stronger sense of this fact. And
in that case he would have given more prominence
than he gives, in his extant writings at least, to the
Cross of Christ.
Two things should, however, be borne in mind.
In the first place he is writing for intellectual
Christians in whom he can take for granted both an
understanding of metaphysics and a horror of sin.
To such readers the non-existence of evil could not
Tllli PROliLEM OF ]<:VIL 23
have the same incanini^ as it would to the worltl
outside. J'^or the same reason he (like other Cliristi.m
teachers after him) speaks of God's transcendent Non-
Kxistence without fearini^ lest his words should be
interpreted as atheism. In fact, to guard ai^ainst
nn'sinterpretation he utters the express warning that
m)'steries can onl\' be taught to the Initiated.^
In the second place throughout his whole treatment
of evil, he is no doubt writing with an eye on the
dualistic heresy of the Manichees, which was prevalent
in his day. Hence the occasional indiscretion of the
zeal with which he seeks to block every loop-hole
looking towards dualism. The result is a one-sided
emphasis in his teaching rather than positive eri'or.
He rightly denies a dualism of ultimate realities ; but
he tends to ignore, rather than to deny, the obvious
dualism of actual facts.
Before proceeding to the Method of Contemplation
which crowns and vitalizes the entire speculative
system of Dionysius, it will be well to bring together
in one paragra[)h the various meanings he gives to
Non-Existence.
(i) The Super-Essence transcends the distinction
between the Aristotelian " Matter " and " Eorm " ; but
in this world the two are distinct from each other.
And whereas, in this world, Eorm without "Matter"
has an abstract existence for thought, "Matter" with-
out Eorm has none. Thus mere "Matter" is
non-existent. And hence things both before their
creation and after their destruction are non-existent,
for their " Matter "has then no " form." (2) Similarly
Good without evil exists as the highest Manifestation
or " Eorm " of the Godhead, but evil without Good
is formless and therefore non-existent. (This does
not mean that " Matter " or the world-stuff is evil, but
that neither it nor evil is anything at all.) And since
1 Div Nom. i. 8, ad fin. : Alyst. Theol. i. 2.
24 Dionysius the Areopagite
evil is ultimately altogether non-existent, all things
are non-existent in so far as they are evil. (3) Finally,
the Super-Essence is, in a transcendent manner, Non-
Existent as being beyond Existence. And hence the
paradox that the destructive force of evil and the
higher impulse towards the Godhead both have
the same negative principle of a discontent with the
existent world — the dangerous, yet true, doctrine
(taught, among others, by St. Augustine ^ and Dante '')
that evil is a mistaken quest for Good.
The principle of this classification is quite simple.
It lies in the fact that Being is the most universal of
the Emanations or Forms, and that all things there-
fore exist only in so far as they possess Form. Hence
the want of all " form " is non-entity and makes
things which are without any form to be non-existent ;
that want of proper " form " which we call evil is a
tendency to non-entity and makes evil things to be
so far non-existent ; the want of complete substantial
or spiritual " form " makes merely existent things [i. c.
lifeless things) to be " un-existent " ; and the tran-
scendence of all "Form " makes the Super-Essence to
be in a special sense " Non-Existent."
The theory of evil, as given above, is worked out in a manner sufficiently startling.
We naturally divide existent things into good and
bad and do not think of non-existent things as being
things at all. Dionysius, with apparent perversity,
says all things are good, and then proceeds to divide
them into " Existent " and *' Non-Existcnt " ! The
reason is this : All things have two sides to their
being : the one in the Super-Essence and the other
in themselves. In the Super-Essence they arc eter-
nally good, even before their creation. But in them-
selves {i. e. in their created essence) they were wholly
non-existent before their temporal creation, and after
' Conf. ii. 6, 12-14. Parad. v. 10-12.
CONTl'.MPLATION 25
it arc partially non-cxistciit in so far as they arc tainted with evil.
V. — Contkmi'lation
So far this doctrine of a dual state belon^^in^ to all
things may seem an unprofitable speculation. V\'e
now come to the point u here its true value will be
seen. For it underlies a profound theory of l^crson-
ality and a rich method of Contemplation. This part
of the subject is difficult, and will need close attention.
The process of Creation advances from the simple
to the complex as Life is added to mere Being, and
Consciousness to Life, and Rationality to Conscious-
ness. But from this point there begins a new phase
in the process. Man, having as it were floated into
the world down the Universal stream of Emanation,
now enters into his spirit, and so plunges beneath the
stream, and there below its surface finds an under-
current which begins to sweep him in a contrary
direction towards the Source. By the downward
movement his personality has been produced, by this
upward movement it will be transformed.
So man presses on towards God, and the method
of his journey is a concentration of all his spiritual
powers. By this method he gathers himself together
away from outward things into the centre of his
being. And thus he gradually becomes unified and
simplified, like the Angels whose creation Dion\'sius
was able to place at the very commencement of the
developing temporal order precisely because their
nature is of this utterly simple and concentrated
kind. And, because the process of advance is one
of spiritual concentration, and moves more and more
from external things into the hidden depths of the
soul, therefore man must cast awa}' the separate
forms of those elements which he thus draws from