On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology — trans. C. E. Rolt

“Preordinations,” or Divine and beneficent Volitions: laws which ordain things and create them, laws by which the Super-Essential preordained and brought into being the whole universe. 9. And whereas the philosopher Clement1 maintains that the title “Exemplar” may in a sense be applied to the more important types in the visible world, he does not use the terms of his discourse in their proper, perfect, and simple meaning.2 But even if we grant

1 This is apparently the Bishop of Rome (c. A.D. 95), writer of the well-known Epistle to the Corinthians, which is the earliest Christian writing outside the New Testament and is published in Lightfoot’s Apostolic Fathers. But no such passage as D. alludes to occurs in the Epistle, which is his one extant writing.

2 Cf. St. Augustine, Commentary on St. John, Tr. XXI., § 2: “Where does the Father show the Son what He does, if not in the Son Himself, through whom He does it? . . . If the Father does anything, He does it through the Son; if He does it through His Wisdom and His Power, He does not show Him from outside what He is to see . . . He shows Him in Himself what He does. . . . (3) What does the Father see, or rather what does the Son see in the Father . . . and He Himself.” (The Son beholds all things in Himself, and is Himself in the Father.)

All things ultimately and timelessly exist in the Absolute. It is their Essence (or Super-Essence). Their creation from the Absolute into actual existence is performed by the Differentiated Persons of the Trinity: the Father working by the Spirit through the Son. Thus the Differentiated Persons (to which together the Name of God is given), being the manifested Absolute, eternally contain those fused yet distinct essences of things which exist in the Absolute as a single yet manifold Essence. This Essence they pour forth by their mutual operation, so that, while it is ultimately contained in (or rather identified with) the Absolute, in this world of relationships it is distinct and separate from the Differentiated Persons Which together are God; it is in fact a created manifestation of the Absolute, as God is an Uncreated Manifestation of It.

This created Essence of the world itself becomes differentiated into the separate creatures (water, earth, plants, animals, etc.), having this tendency because it contains within itself their separate generic forms, which seek expression in the various particular things. Wherever we can trace a law or purpose, it is due to the presence of a generic form. Thus vapour condenses into water in obedience to the generic form of water, and an oak-tree grows to its full stature in obedience to the generic form of the oak. So too with works of art. A cathedral is built according to a plan or purpose, and this plan is the preexistent generic form of the building; whereas a fortuitous heap of stones does not (as such) manifest any plan, and therefore has no generic form.

the truth of his contention, we must remember the Scripture which says: “I did not show these things to you so that you might follow after them,” but so that, through such knowledge of them as is suited to our faculties, we may be led up (as far as possible) to the Universal Cause. We must then attribute all things to It in one All-Transcendent Unity, inasmuch as, starting from Being, setting in motion the creative Emanation and Goodness, penetrating all things, filling all things with Being from Itself, and rejoicing in all things, It anticipates all things in Itself, in one exceeding simplicity that rejects all reduplication; and It embraces all things alike in the Transcendent Unity of Its infinitude, and is indivisibly shared by all (just as a sound, while remaining one and the same, is shared as one by several pairs of ears).