^ The Godhead, though called Eternal Life, is really supra-vital, because life implies differentiations, and the Godhead as such is un- differentiated. This Supra-Vitality passes out through the Differenti- ated Persons of the Trinity into Very Life, whence life is derived to all the creatures.
' Ps. civ. 29, 30.
The Juvink Names J45
unclian^eablc immortality and their unswerving- and
unerrini; perpetuity of motion ; and, in the abundance
of Its bounty, It overflows even into the life of the —
devils, for not even diabolic life derives its existence
from any other source, but derives from This both its
vital nature and its permanence. And, bestowing
upon men such angelic life as their composite nature
can receive, in an overflowing wealth of love It turns
and calls us from our errors to Itself, and (still
Diviner act) It hath promised to change our whole
being (I mean our souls and the bodies linked
therewith) to perfect Life and Immortality, which
seemed to the ancients unnatural, but seems to me and
thee and to the Truth a Divine and Supernatural
thing : Supernatural, I say, as being above the visible
order of nature around us, not as being above the
Nature of Divine Life. For unto this Life (since it is
the Nature of all forms of life,^and especially of those
which are more Divine) no form of life is unnatural .^
or supernatural. And therefore fond Simon's cap-
tious arguments 2 on this subject must find no entry
into the company of God's servants or into thy
blessed soul. For, in spite of his reputed wisdom, he
forgot that no one of sound mind should set the
superficial order of sense-perception against the In-
visible Cause of all things.^ We must tell him that
if there is aught " against Nature " 'tis his language.
For naught can be contrary to the Ultimate Cause.
3. From this Source ail animals and plants receive
their life and warmth. And wherever (under the
form of intelligence, reason, sensation, nutrition,
growth, or any mode w^iatsoever) you find life or the
^ i. e. The ultimate Principle.
- Simon denied the Resurrection of the Body. Vide Irenoeus, Origan, Hippolytus, Epiphanius.
3 Pliysical life has behind it Eternal Life, by which it is in the true sense natural for it to be renewed and transformed.
Principle of life or the Essence of life, there you find
that which lives and imparts life from the Life tran-
scending all life, and indivisibly^ pre-exists therein as
in its Cause. For the Supra-Vital and Primal Life is
the Cause of all Life, and produces and fulfils it and
individualizes it. And we must draw from all life the
attributes we apply to It when we consider how It
teems with all living things, and how under manifold
forms It is beheld and praised in all Life and lacketh
not Life or rather abounds therein, and indeed hath
Very Life, and how it produces life in a Supra-Vital
manner and is above all life ^ and therefore is
described by whatsoever human terms may express
that Life which is ineffable.
Chapter Vii
Concerjiing ''Wisdom^' '' Mi7id^' '' Reaso?i^' " Truth^' ''Faith:'
I. Now, if it like thee, let us consider the Good and
Eternal Life as Wise and as Very Wisdom, or rather
as the P'ount of all wisdom and as Transcending all
wisdom and understanding. Not only is God so over-
flowing with wisdom that there is no limit to His
understanding, but He even transcends all Reason,
Intelligence, and Wisdom.^ And this is supernatur-
ally perceived by the truly divine man (who hath
^ Since Eternal Life is undifferentiated, all things have in It a common or identical life, as all plants and animals have a common life in the air they breathe.
^ vSee p. 144, n. I.
^ All wisdom or knowledge implies the distinction between thinker and object of thought. The undifferentiated Godhead is beyond this distinction ; V>ut (in a sense) it exists in the Persons of the Trinity and between them and the world, and hence from Them comes Absolute Wiscjpm^ though the Godhead transcends it.
TlIK DIVINE NAMES 147
been as a luminary both to us and to our teacher)
when lie says : " The foolishness of God is wiser than
men." ^ And these worJs are true not only because
all human thoui^^ht is a kind of error when compared
with the immovable permanence of the perfect
thoui^^hts which belong to God, but also because it is
customary for writers on Divinity to apply negative
terms to God in a sense contrary to the usual one.
For instance, the Scripture calls the Light that shines
on all things '*Terrible,"and Him that hath many Titles
and many Names "Ineffable" and "Nameless," and
Him that is present to all things and to be discovered
from them all "Incomprehensible" and "Unsearch-
able." In the same manner, it is thought, the divine
Apostle, on the present occasion, when he speaks of
God's " foolishness," is using in a higher sense the ap-
parent strangeness and absurdity implied in the word,
so as to hint at the ineffable Truth which is before all
Reason. But, as I have said elsewhere, we misinter-
pret things above us by our own conceits and cling to
the familiar notions of our senses, and, measuring
Divine things by our human standards, we are led
astray by the superficial meaning of the Divine and
Ineffable Truth. Rather should we then consider
that while the human Intellect hath a faculty of
Intelligence, whereb}' it perceives intellectual truths,
yet the act whereby the Intellect communes with the
things that are beyond it transcends its intellectual
nature. 2 This transcendent sense, therefore, must be
given to our language about God, and not our human
sense. We must be transported wholly out of our-
selves and given unto God. For 'tis better to belong
unto God and not unto ourselves, since thus will the
^ I Cor. i. 25.
^ This is the Doctrine of Unknowing.
Cf. "Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are mightier than we know."
148 Dionysius the Areopagite
Divine Bounties be bestowed, if we are united to
God.^ Speaking, then, in a transcendent manner of
this "Foolish Wisdom,"- which hath neither Reason
nor Intelligence, let us say that It is the Cause of all
Intelligence and Reason, and of all Wisdom and
Understanding, and that all counsel belongs unto It,
and from It comes all Knowledge and Understanding,
and in It ''are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge."^ For it naturally follows from what
hath already been said that the All-wise (and more
than Wise) Cause is the Fount of Very Wisdom and
of created wisdom both" as a whole and in each
individual instance.*
2. From It the intelligible and intelligent powers of
the Angelic Minds derive their blessed simple percep-
tions, not collecting their knowledge of God in partial
fragments or from partial activities of Sensation or of
discursive Reason, nor yet being circumscribed by
aught that is akin to these,^ but rather, being free
from all taint of matter and multiplicity, they perceive
the spiritual truths of Divine things in a single
immaterial and spiritual intuition. And their intui-
tive faculty and activity shines in its unalloyed and
undefiled purity and possesses its Divine intuitions all
together in an indivisible and immaterial manner, being
by that Godlike unification made similar (as far as
may be) to the Supra-Sapient Mind and Reason of
^ The term "Go'l" is rightly used here because the viain/eslcd At)solute is meant.
2 I Cor. i. 25. ^ Col. ii. 3.
^ (l) Very Wisdom = Wisdom in the abstract.
(2) Wisdom as a whole = Wisdom embodied in the universe as a
whole.
(3) Wisdom in each individual instance = Wisdom as shown in
the structure of some particular plant or animal, or part of a plant or animal.
(i) Is an Emanation ; (2) and (3) are created.
^ /. e. 'I'bey are not limited by the material world, which, with its
laws, is known through sensation and discursive reason.
The Divine Names 149
God through the working of the Divine Wisdom.^
And human souls possess Reason, whereby tliey turn
with a discursive motion round about tlie Truth of
things, and, through the partial and manifold activities
of their complex nature, are inferior to the Unified
Intelligences: yet they too, through the concentration
of their many faculties, are vouchsafed (so far as their
nature allows) intuitions like unto those of the
Angels. Nay, even our sense-perceptions themselves
may be rightly described as an echo of that Wisdom ;
even diabolic intelligence, qua intelligence, belongs
thereto, though in so far as it is a distraught intelli-
gence, not knowing how to obtain its true desire, nor
wishing to obtain it, we must call it rather a declen-
sion from Wisdom. Now we have already said that
the Divine Wisdom is the Beginning, the Cause, the
Fount, the Perfecting Power, the Protector and the
Goal of Very Wisdom and all created Wisdom, and of
all Mind, Reason, and Sense-Perception. We must
now ask in what sense God,^ Who is Supra-Sapient,
can be spoken of as Wisdom, Mind, Reason, and
Knowledge? How can He have an intellectual intui-
tion of intelligible things when He possesses no
intellectual activities? Or how can He know the
things perceived by sense when His existence tran-
scends all sense-perception ? And yet the Scripture
says that He knoweth all things and that nothing
escapes the Divine Knowledge. But, as I have often
said, we must interpret Divine Things in a manner
^ This speculation is, no doubt, based on experience. A concentra- tion of the spiritual faculties in the act of contemplation produces that iiitiiy of the soul of which all mystics often speak. The angels are conceived of as being always in such a state of contemplation.
^ God is the Manifested Absolute. Hence qua Absolute He is supra-sapient, qna Manifested He is wise (cf. ch. i, § l). The Persons of the Trinity possess one common Godhead ( = tlie Absolute) which is supra-sapient, and in that Godhead. They ai-e One. Yet they are known l)y us only in their differentiation wherein Supra-Sapience is revealed as Wisdom.
150 Dionysius the Areopagite
suitable to their nature. For the lack of Mind and
Sensation must be predicated of God by excess and
not by defect.^ And in the same way we attribute
lack of Reason to Him that is above Reason, and
Imperfectibility to Him that is above and before Per-
fection ; and Intangible and Invisible Darkness we
attribute to that Light which is Unapproachable
because It so far exceeds the visible light. And thus
the Mind of God embraces all things in an utterly
transcendent knowledge and, in Its causal relation to
all things, anticipates within Itself the knowledge of
them all — knowing and creating angels before the
angels were, and knowing all other things inwardly
and (if I may so put it) from the very beginning, and
thus bringing them into existence. And methinks
this is taught by the Scripture when it saith " Who
knoweth all things before their birth." ^ For the Mind
of God gains not Its knowledge of things from those
things; but of Itself and in Itself It possesses, and
hath conceived beforehand in a causal manner, the
cognizance and the knowledge and the being of them
all. And It doth not perceive each class specifically,^
but in one embracing casuality It knows and main-
tains all things — even as Light possesses beforehand
in itself a causal knowledge of the darkness, not know-
ing the darkness in any other way than from the
Light. ^ Thus the Divine Wisdom in knowing Itself
^ Via Negativa. It is not mere negation.
^ Susannah 42.
^ "According to its idea," "according to the law of its species." We perceive that this is a rose and that is a horse because we liavc two separate notions in our minds — one the notion of a rose and the other that of a liorse. But in the Divine Knowledge there is only one Notion wherein such specific notions are elements, as the activities of several nerves are elements in one indivisible sensation of taste, or touch, or smell.
■* i. e. Suppose the light were conscious, and knew its own nature, it would know that if it withheld its brightness there would be darkness (for the very nature of light is that it dispels, or at least prevents,
The Divine Names 151
will know all thinc^s : will in that very Oneness know
and i)r(xlucc material things immaterially, divisible
things indivisibly, manifold things under the form of
Unity. For if God, in the act of causation, im^parts
Existence to all things, in the same single act of caus-
ation He will support all these His creatures the
which are derived from Him and have in Him their
forebeing, and lie will not gain His knowledge of
things from the things themselves, but He will bestow
upon each kind the knowledge of itself and the know-
ledge of the others. And hence God doth not possess
a private knowledge of Himself and as distinct there-
from a knowledge embracing all the creatures in
common ; for the Universal Cause, in knowing Itself,
can scarcely help kiiowing the things that proceed
from it and whereof It is the Cause. With this know-
ledge, then, God knoweth all things, not through a
mere understanding of the things but through an
understanding of Himself. For the angels, too, are
said by the Scripture to know the things upon earth
not through a sense-perception of them (though they
are such as may be perceived this way), but through
a faculty and nature inherent in a Godlike Intelligence.
3. Furthermore, we must ask how it is that we know
God when He cannot be perceived by the mind or
the senses and is not a particular Being. Perhaps
'tis true to say that we know not God by His Nature
(for this is unknowable and beyond the reach of all
Reason and Intuition), yet by means of that ordering
of all things which (being as it were projected out of