•' Since He is the Super- Essence of all thing'^, their life is iiltiniately Ilis Life — i. e. He is, in every case, the underlying Reality of their individual existence.
The Divine Names 165
tion of those that turn to Him.^ And the difference
of God's various api)earances from each other in tlie
manifold visions of Him must be held to sii^nify
somethini^ other than that which was outwardly
shown. For just as, supposini^ we were in thought
to represent the soul itself in bodily shape, and
represent this indivisible substance as surrounded by
bodily parts, we should, in such a case, give the
surrounding parts a different meaning suited to the
indivisible nature of the soul, and should interpret
the head to mean the Intellect, the neck Opinion (as
being betwixt reason and irrationality), the breast to
mean Passion, the belly Animal Desire, and the legs
and feet to mean the Vital Nature : thus using the
names of bodily parts as symbols of immaterial
faculties ; even so (and with much greater reason)
must we, when speaking of Him that is beyond all
things, purge from false elements by sacred heavenly
and mystical explanations the Difference of the
Forms and Shapes ascribed to God. And, if thou
wilt attribute unto the intangible and unimaged God,
the imagery of our threefold bodily dimensions, the
Divine Breadth is God's exceeding wide Emanation
over all things. His Length is His Power exceeding
the Universe, His Depth the Unknown Mystery
which no creature can comprehend. Only we must
have a care lest, in expounding these different forms
and figures we unwittingly confound the incorporeal
meaning of the Divine Names with the terms of the
sensible symbols. ^ This matter I have dealt with in
my Symbolical Divinity : the point I now wish to
^ Because He is the underlying Reality of our separate personalities, which have their true being outside themselves in Him, therefore in finding our true selves we find and possess His Being. Cf. St. Bernard : Ubi se mihi dedit me niihi reddidit.
^ i. e. We must not take metaphorical titles literally (much bad philo- sophy and much sentimentality and also brutali'y in Religion has come from taking anthropomorphic titles of God literally).
i66 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE
make clear is this : we must not suppose that
Difference in God means any variation of His utterly
unchanging Sameness. It means, instead, a multi-
plicity of acts wherein His unity is undisturbed, and
His all-creative fertility while passing into Emanations
retains its uniformity in them.
6. And if God be called Similar (even as He is
called '' Same," to signify that He is wholly and
altos^ether like unto Himself in an indivisible Per-
manence) this appellation of "Similar" we must not
repudiate. But the Sacred Writers tell us that the
All-Transcendent God is in Himself unlike any
beiner, but that He nevertheless bestows a Divine
Similitude upon those that turn to Him and strive to
imitate those qualities which are beyond all definition
and understanding. And 'tis the power of the Divine
Similitude that turneth all created things towards
their Cause. These things, then, must be considered
similar to God by virtue of the Divine Image and
Process of Similitude working in them ; and yet we
must not say that God resembles them any more
than we should say a man resembles his own portrait.
For things which are co-ordinate may resemble one
another, and the term " similarity " may be applied
indifferently to either member of the pair ; they can
both be similar to one another through a superior
principle of Similarity which is common to them both.
But in the case of the Cause and Its effects we cannot
admit this interchange. For It doth not bestow the
state of similarity only on these objects and on those ;
but God is the Cause of this condition unto all that
have the quality of Similarity ,i and is the P'ount of
Very Similarity ; ^ and all the Similarity in the world
' If anything derived this quality from some other source than God, that thing, instead of standing towards God in the relation of effect to Cause, would be co-ordinate with Him. But as it is, all things stand towards God in the relation of effect to Cause.
^ Vide supra on Very Existence, Very Life, Very Wisdom, etc.
The Divine Names 167
possesses its quality through liavin<; a trace of the
Divine Similarity and thus acconipHshes tlie Unifi-
cation of the creatures.
7. But what need is there to labour this point ?
Scripture itself declares ^ that God is Dissimilar to
the world, and not to be compared therewith. It
says that He is different from all things, and (what is
yet more strange) that there is nothing even similar
to Him. And yet such language contradicts not the
Similitude of things to Him. For the same things
are both like unto God and unlike Him : like Him in
so far as they can imitate Him that is beyond
imitation, unlike Him in so far as the effects fall short
of the Cause and are infinitely and incomparably
inferior.
8. Now what say we concerning the Divine attri-
butes of " Standing " and " Sitting " ? Merely this —
that God remains What He is in Himself and is
firmly fixed in an immovable Sameness w^herein His
transcendent Being is fast rooted, and that He acts
under the same modes and around the same Centre
without changing ; and that He is wholly Self-Sub-
sistent in His Stability, possessing Very Immutability
and an entire Immobility, and that He is all this in
a Super-Essential manner.^ For He is the Cause of
the stability and rest of all things : He who is beyond
all Rest and Standing. And in Him all things have
their consistency and are preserved, so as not to be
shaken from the stability of their proper virtues.
9. And what is meant, on the other hand, when
the Sacred Writers say that the Immovable God
moves and goes forth unto all things .'' Must we not
understand this also in a manner befitting God .''
Reverence bids us regard His motion to imply no
change of place, variation, alteration, turning or
^ Cf. e.g'-. Ps. Ixxxvi. 8.
^ i. e. This stability is due to Undififerentiation.
i68 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE
locomotion, whether straightforward, circular, or com-
pounded of both ; or whether belonging to mind, soul,
or natural powers ; but to mean that God brings all
things into being and sustains them,^ and exerts all
manner of Providence over them, and is present to
them all, holding them in His incomprehensible
embrace, and exercising over them all His provi-
dential Emanations and Activities. Nevertheless our
reason must agree to attribute movements to the
Immutable God in such a sense as befits Him.
jStraightness we must understand to mean Directness
(of aim and the unswerving Emanation of His
energies, and the outbirth of all things from Him.
/His Spiral Movement must be taken to mean the
/combination of a persistent Emanation and a pro-
ductive Stillness. And His Circular Movement must
be taken to mean His Sameness, wherein He holds
together the intermediate orders and those at either
extremity, so as to embrace each other, and the act
whereby the things that have gone forth from Him
return to Him again.
lo. And if any one takes the Scriptural Title of
" Same," or that of " Righteousness," as implying
Equality, we must call God " Equal," not only because
He is without parts and doth not swerve from His
purpose, but also because He penetrates equally to
all things and through all, and is the Fount of Very
Equality, whereby He worketh equally the uniform
interpenetration of all things and the participation
thereof possessed by things which (each according to
its capacity) have an equal share therein, and the
equal ^ power bestowed upon all according to their
worth ; and because all Equality (perceived or exer-
cised by the intellect, or possessed in the sphere of
^ St. Augustine frc(iuently explains God's activity lo consist in His
causing His creatures to act, wliile llimself resting.
'^ i. e. " Due," " ri;;lit," cf. \>. i6i, n. 3.
The Divine Names 169
reason, sensation, essence, nature, or will) is trans-
cendently contained beforehand as an Unity in Ilim
through that l^ower, exceeding all things, which
brings all Equality into existence.
Chapter X
Concet'nitJg '"'' Omnipotent^'' '"' Aiicic7it of Days'' ; and also coficcrm?ii^ " Eternity " and *' Ti'mr."
1. Now 'tis time that our Discourse should
celebrate God (Whose Names are many) as " Omni-
potent " and " Ancient of Days." The former title is
given Him because He is that All-Powerful Founda-
tion of all things which maintains and embraces the
Universe, founding and establishing and compacting
it; knitting the whole together in Himself without a
rift, producing the Universe out of Himself as out of
an all-powerful Root, and attracting all things back
into Himself as unto an all-powerful Receptacle,
holding them all together as their Omnipotent
Foundation, and securing them all in this condition
with an all-transcendent bond suffering them not to
fall away from Himself, nor (by being removed from
out of that perfect Resting Place) to come utterly to
destruction. Moreover, the Supreme Godhead is
called " Omnipotent " because It is potent over all
things, and rules with unalloyed sovranty over the
world It governs ; and because It is the Object of
desire and yearning for all, and casts on all Its
voluntary yoke and sweet travail of Divine all-
powerful and indestructible Desire for Its Goodness.
2. And " Ancient of Daj's '' is a title given to God because He is the Eternity^ of all things and their
^ In the Super-Essence each thing has its ultimate and timeless being.
170 Dionysius the Areopagite
Time,^ and is anterior ^ to Days and anterior to
Eternity and Time. And the titles " Time," " Day,"
" Season," and " Eternity " must be applied to Him in
a Divine sense, to mean One Who is utterly in-
capable of all change and movement and, in His
eternal motion, remains at rest ; ^ and Who is the
Cause whence Eternity, Time, and Days are derived.
Wherefore in the Sacred Theophanies revealed in
mystic Visions He is described as Ancient and yet
as Young : the former title signifying that He is the
Primal Being, existent from the beginning, and the
latter that He grows not old. Or both titles
together teach that He goes forth from the Beginning
through the entire process of the world unto the
End. Or, as the Divine Initiator^ tells us, either
term implies the Primal Being of God : the term
"Ancient" signifying that He is First in point of
Time, and the term " Young" that He possesses the
Primacy in point of Number, since Unity and the
properties of Unity have a primacy over the more
advanced numbers.^
3. Need is there, methinks, that we understand the
sense in which Scripture speaketh of Time and
lUernity. For where Scripture speaks of things as
*' eternal " it doth not always mean things that are
absolutely Uncreated or verily Everlasting, Incor-
^ In the Super-E'^sence each thin_[T has the limits of its (hirati )n predetermined. Or else D. means that in the Super-Essence the move- ment of Time has the impulse which generates it.
^ Temporal precedence is metaphorically used to express meta- j'jhysical precedence. God cannot in the literal sense of the words, temporally precede time.
^ He transcends both Rest and Motion.
* Presumably Hierotheus.
'' lie is the Source of all extension both in Time and in Space, Unitv underlies all counting (for 2, 3, 4, etc. =twice r, three times i, four limes i, etc). Ilcncc it is the Origin, as it were, of all number. And, being at the beginning of the arithmetical series (as youth is at the beginning of life) it is symboli/.ed (according to D.) by youthfulness.
The Divine Names 171
ruptiblc, Immortal, Invariable, and Immutable
(^r.j;. "Be yc lift up, ye eternal doors," ^ and such-
like passages). Often it i^ives the name of " Eternal "
to anything; very ancient ; and sometimes, again, it
applies the term " Eternity " to the whole course
of earthly Time, inasmuch as it is the property
of Eternity to be ancient and invariable and to
measure the whole of Being. The name " Time " it
gives to that changing process which is shown in
birth, death, and variation. And hence we who are
here circumscribed by Time are, saith the Scripture,
destined to share in Eternity when we reach that
incorruptible Eternity which changes not. And
sometimes the Scripture declares the glories of a
Temporal Eternity and an Eternal Time, although
we understand that in stricter exactness it describes
and reveals Eternity as the home of things that are
in Being, and Time as the home of things that are in
Birth.- We must not, therefore, think of the things
which are called Eternal as being simply co-ordinate
with the Everlasting God Who exists before Eternity ;^