On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology — trans. C. E. Rolt
The translator’s English as printed (C. E. Rolt). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
22. Neither inhereth evil in the angels$ For if the good angel declares the Divine Goodness, he is in a secondary manner and by participation that which the Subject of his message is in a primary and causal manner.* And thus the angel is an image of God, a manifestation of the invisible light, a burnished mirror, bright, untarnished, without spot or blemish, receiving (if it is reverent to say so) all the beauty of the Absolute Divine Goodness, and (so far as may be) kindling in itself, with unalloyed radiance, the Goodness of the Secret Silence. Hence evil inhereth not in the angels; they are evil only in so far as they must punish sinners. But in this respect even those who chastise wrong-doers are evil, and so are the priests who exclude the profane man from the Divine
1 This is a reductio ad absurdum. D. considers it obvious that God possesses the Good as His Substance and not by participation. The Persons of the Trinity are not products of the Absolute but Emanations or Differentiations of It.
* The argument is as follows: No evil is from God. All existence is from God. Therefore no existence is evil.
* Having shown that existence as such is not inherently evil, D. now takes various forms of existence and shows that none of them is, as such, inherently evil.
* Cf. Old Testament title, “ Sons of God,” and D. on Deification. Cf. also “I have said, Ye are Gods.”
22. Nor does evil inhere in the angels.3 For if the good angel declares the Divine Goodness, he is, in a secondary manner and by participation, what the Subject of his message is in a primary and causal manner.* And so the angel is an image of God, a manifestation of the invisible light, a burnished mirror, bright, untarnished, without spot or blemish, receiving (if it is reverent to say so) all the beauty of the Absolute Divine Goodness, and (as far as possible) kindling in itself, with unalloyed radiance, the Goodness of the Secret Silence. Hence evil does not inhere in the angels; they are evil only in so far as they must punish sinners. But in this respect even those who chastise wrong-doers are evil, and so are the priests who exclude the profane from the Divine
1 This is a reductio ad absurdum. D. considers it obvious that God possesses the Good as His Substance and not by participation. The Persons of the Trinity are not products of the Absolute but Emanations or Differentiations of It.
* The argument is as follows: No evil is from God. All existence is from God. Therefore no existence is evil.
* Having shown that existence as such is not inherently evil, D. now takes various forms of existence and shows that none of them is inherently evil as such.
* Cf. the Old Testament title “Sons of God,” and D. on Deification. Cf. also “I have said, Ye are Gods.”