1 Cf. Plotinus.
^ sc. In contradistinction to the Godhead, which (being beyond essence) does not literally exist.
The Divine Names 139
the lowest, possessing;" from It their lowest existence
(/. €. lowest compared with the other angels, though
compared with us it is above our world). And human
souls and all other creatures possess by the same
tenure their existence, and their blessedness, and exist
and are blessed only because they possess their
existence and their blessedness from the Pre-existent,
and exist and are blessed in Him, and begin from
Him and are maintained in Him and attain in Him
their Final Goal. And the highest measure of
existence He bestows upon the more exalted l^eings,
which the Scripture calls eternal ; ^ but also the mere
existence of the world as a whole is perpetual ; and
its very existence comes from the Pre-existent. He
is not an Attribute of Being, but Being is an Attribute
of Him ; He is not contained in Being, but Being is ^
contained in Him ; He doth not possess Being, but
Being possesses Him ; He is the Eternity, the Begin-
ning, and the Measure of Existence, being anterior to
Essence and essential Existence and Eternity, because
He is the Creative Beginning, Middle, and End of all
things. And hence the truly Pre-existent receives
from the Holy Scripture manifold attributions drawn
from every kind of existence ; and states of being
and processes (whether past, present, or future) are
properly attributed to Him ; for all these attributions,
if their divine meaning be perceived, signify that He
hath a Super-Essential Existence fulfilling all our
categories, and is the Cause producing every mode of
existence. For He is not This without being That ;
nor doth He possess this mode of being without
that. On the contrary He is all things as being the ^
Cause of them all, and as holding together and
anticipating in Himself all the beginnings and all the
fulfilments of all things ; and He is above them all
in that He, anterior to their existence, super-essentially
^ 2 Cor. iv. 18,
I40 Dionysius the Areopagite
transcends them all. Hence all attributes may be
affirmed at once of Him, and yet He is No Thing. ^
He possesses all shape and form, and yet is formless
and shapeless, containing beforehand incompre-
hensibly and transcendently the beginning, middle,
and end of all things, and shedding upon them a
pure radiance of that one and undifferenced causality
whence all their fairness comes. ^ For if our sun,
while still remaining one luminary and shedding one
unbroken light, acts on the essences and qualities of
the things which we perceive, many and various
though they be, renewing, nourishing, guarding, and
perfecting them; differencing them, unifying them,
warming them and making them fruitful, causing
them to grow, to change, to take root and to burst
forth ; quickening them and giving them life, so that
each one possesses in its own way a share in the
same single sun — if the single sun contains beforehand
in itself under the form of an unity the causes of all
the things that participate in it ; much more doth
this truth hold good with the Cause which produced
the sun and all things ; and all the Exemplars ^ of
existent things must pre-exist in It under the form of
one Super-Essential Unity.'* For It produces Essences
only by an outgoing from Essence. And we give
the name of "Exemplars" to those laws which, prc-
existent in God ^ as an Unity, produce the essences
of things : laws which are called in Divine Science
^ Cf. Theol. Ge7-m. passim. Hence the soul possessing God is in a stale of "having nothing and yet possessing all things." Cf. Dante, cio che per I'uiiiversa si squaderna^ etc.
^ Cf. Section 5.
^ /. e. Tiie Platonic ideas of things^lheir ultimate essences. But see below.
4 Cf. Blake. "Jerusalem," ad fin.
* i. e. If It produces the essences of things, It must first contain Essence. I^. here uses the term "God " because he is thinking of the Alrsolute in Its emanating activity (wherein llie Differentiations ol the Trinity ai)pear).
The Divine Names 141
" Prconliiiations " or Divine niul beneficent Volitions,
laws which ordain things and create them, hiws
whereby the Super-Essential preordained and brought
into being the whole universe.
9. And whereas the philosopher Clement^ maintains
that the title " Exemplar " may, in a sense, be applied
to the more important types in the visible world, he
emploN's not the terms of his discourse in their proper,
perfect and simple meaning. ^ But even if we grant
^ 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. fSt. Augustine, CoDimentary on St. John, Tr. XXL, § 2 : " Ubi demonstrat Filio Pater quod facit nisi in ipso Filio per quern facit ? .... Si quid facit Pater per Filium facit ; si per sapientiam suam et virtutem suam facit ; non extra illi ostendit quod videat ... in ipso illi ostendit quod facit. . . • (3) Quid videt Pater, vol potius quid videt Filiiis in Patre . . . et ipse." (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 is given the Name of God) being the 7na7iifested Absolute, contain eternally those fused yet distinct essences of things which exist in the Absolute as a single yet manifold Essence. This Essence they, by their mutual operation, pour forth, so that while ultimately contained in (or, rather identified with) the Absolute; it is in this world of relationships distinct and separate from the Differentiated Persons Which together are God, being in fact, a created manifestation of the Absolute, as God is an Uncreated Manifestation Thereof.
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 in accordance with a plan or purpose, and this plan is the pre- existent 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 saith : " I did not show these things
unto thee that thou mightest follow after them," but
that through such knowledge of these as is suited to
our faculties we may be led up (so far as is possible)
to the Universal Cause. We must then attribute unto
It all things in one All-Transcendent Unity, inasmuch
as, starting from Being, and setting in motion the
creative Emanation and Goodness, and penetrating
all things, and filling all things with Being from Itself,
and rejoicing in all things. It anticipates all things
in Itself, in one exceeding simplicity rejecting all
reduplication ; and It embraces all things alike in
the Transcendent Unity of Its infinitude, and is
indivisibly shared by all (even as a sound, while
remaining one and the same, is shared as one by
several pairs of ears).
10. Thus the Pre-existent is the Beginning and
the End of all things : the Beginning as their Cause,
the End as their Final Purpose. He bounds all
things and yet is their boundless Infinitude, in a
manner that transcends all the opposition between
the Finite and the Infinite.^ For, as hath been often
D. attributing to Clement (perhaps fictitiously) the view that generic forms can in themselves — i. e. in their created essence — be properly called Exemplars, maintains that this is not strictly accurate. Properly speaking, he says, they are Exemplars only as existent in God, and not as projected out from Him. If, by a licence, we call them Exemplars, yet we must not let our minds rest in them, but must pass on at once to find their true being in (jod.
This apparent hair-splitting is really of the utmost practical impor- tance. 1). is attacking the irreligious attitude in science, philosophy, and life. We must seek for all thmgs (including our own personalities) not in themselves but in God. The great defect of Natural Science in the nineteenth century was its failure to do this. It was, perhaps, the defect of Gnosticism in earlier days, and is the pitfall of Occultism to-day,
^ i.e. He gives each thing its distinctness while yet containing infinite possibilities of development for it.
The Divine Names 143
said, He contains beforehand and did create all
things in One Act, being present unto all and every-
where, both in the particular individual and in the
Universal Whole, and going out unto all things while
yet remaining in Himself. He is both at rest and in
motion,^ and yet is in neither state, nor hath He
beginning, middle, or end ; He neither inheres in any
individual thing, nor is He any individual thing. ^ We
cannot apply to Him any attribute of eternal things
nor of temporal things. He transcends both Time
and Eternity, and all things that are in either of
them ; inasmuch as Very Eternity ^ and the world
with its standard of measurement and the things
which are measured by those standards have their
being through Him and from Him. But concerning
these matters let that sufifice which hath been spoken
more properly elsewhere.
^ He is always yearning yet always satisfied. Cf. St. Augustine, Confessions, ad in. A reproduction of this state has been experienced by some of the Saints. Cf. Julian of Norwich: "I had Him and I wanted Him."
^ He is the ultimate Reality of all beings, and is not one Being among others.
^ Very Eternity perhaps corresponds to the ae(eniitas of St. Thomas and Eternity to his aevuin (wiih which cf. Bcrgson's dur^e). Eternity is a totuni si7nid without beginning or end, aeviun is a iotum sivnil with beginning but no end. It is eternity reached through Time, or Time accelerated to the stillness of infinite motion and so changed into Eternity, as in human souls when finally clothed with perfected immortahty.
The Absolute, or Godhead, is beyond Very Eternity, because this latter is a medium of differentiated existence (for the differentiated Persons of the Trinity exist in it), whereas the Godhead is undifferenti- ated and beyond relationships. This world of Time springs out of Very Eternity and is rooted therein, being made by the differentiated Persons.
144 Dionysius the Areopagite
Chapter Vi
Concerning " Life.^'*
1. Now must we celebrate Eternal Life as that whence cometh very Life and all life,^ which also endues every kind of living- creature with its appropriate meed of Life. Now the Life of the immortal Angels and their immortality, and the very indestructibility of their perpetual motion, exists and is derived from It and for Its sake. Hence they are called Ever-living and Immortal, and yet again are denied to be immortal, because they are not the source of their own immor- tality and eternal life, but derive it from the creative Cause which produces and maintains all life. And, as, in thinking of the title " Existent," we said that It is an Eternity of very Being, so do we now say that the Supra-Vital or Divine Life is the Vitalizer and Creator of Life. And all life and vital movement comes from the Life which is beyond all Life and beyond every Principle of all Life. Thence have souls their indestructible quality, and all animals and plants possess their life as a far-off reflection of that Life. When this is taken away, as saith the Scripture, all life fades ; ^ and those which have faded, through being unable to participate therein, when they turn to It again revive once more.
2. In the first place It gives to Very Life its vital
quality, and to all life and every form thereof It gives
the Existence appropriate to each. To the celestial
forms of life it gives their immaterial, godlike, and