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.
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 there is vitality, for when life ceases the sickness disappears in death. The ugliness of evil lies 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”;1 so did Julian of Norwich, who “saw not sin,” 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 main, true, he does not quite grasp the true application of his theory to this world of actual facts.
2 Revelations of Divine Love, xxvii.
It follows from the ultimate non-entity of evil that, in so far as evil exists, it can do so only by being mingled with some element of good. To take an illustration Dionysius himself gives: where there is disease there is vitality, for when life ceases the sickness disappears in death. The ugliness of evil lies precisely in the fact that it always, in one way or another, consists in the corruption of something inherently good.
It is, however, this ugliness of things that Dionysius fails to emphasize, and here lies the great weakness of his teaching. Not only does he, with the misguided zeal of an apologist, deliberately gloss over certain particular cruelties of the Creation and accept them as finite forms of good; he also 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”;1 so did Julian of Norwich, who “saw not sin,” 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 type of mind to grasp the bare facts of the actual world as bare facts. He is so dazzled by 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 main true, he does not quite grasp its true application to this world of actual facts.
2 Revelations of Divine Love, xxvii.