Concerning "good," "light," "beautiful," "love," "ec- stasy," and "zeal"; and that evil is neither a being, nor
from a being, nor in beings.
1. Let us move on now to the name "Good," which the sacred writers 693A 693B have preeminently set apart for the supra-divine God from all other
names. 133. They call the divine subsistence itself "goodness." This es- sential Good, by the very fact of its existence, extends goodness into all things. ____________________
132.Ps 131:1; Sir 3:21-23?
133.Despite its title, this long chapter's dominant subject is the name "good" (Mt 19:17, 20:15; Lk 18:19), as already mentioned (DN 1 596B 16) and as applied to the entire Godhead (DN 2 637A 2-6).
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Think of how it is with our sun. It exercises no rational process, no act of choice, and yet by the very fact of its existence it gives light to whatever is able to partake of its light, in its own way. So it is with the Good. Existing far above the sun, an archetype far superior to its dull image, it sends the rays of its undivided goodness to everything with the capacity, such as this may be, to receive it. These rays are responsible for all intelligible and intelligent beings, for every power and every activity. Such beings owe their presence and their un
eclipsed and undiminished lives to these rays, owe them their purifi 693C
cation from corruption and from death, from corporeality and from the process of birth. They owe them too their immunity to motion, to flux and to all that goes with change. They are understood as bodiless and immaterial, and as minds they too understand, although in a supra-mundane way. They enlighten the reasonings of beings, and
they pass on what they know to their own kind. They abide in the 696A
goodness of God and draw from it the foundation of what they are, their coherence, their vigilance, their home. Their longing for the Good makes them what they are and confers on them their well-being. Shaped by what they yearn for, they exemplify goodness and, as the Law of God requires of them, they share with those below them the good gifts which have come their way.
2. Because of all this they have their own orders beyond the cosmos, their own unities, their mutual relationships, their unconfused
distinctions. They have the capacities which lift up the lower to the 696B
higher and the providential powers which enable the superiors to come down to the level of those beneath them. They watch over whatever special powers they have and they keep unchanged their individual concentrated thoughts. They remain supremely constant in their desire for the Good. They preserve among themselves all the qualities which I described in my book The Properties and Ranks of the Angels. 134. Everything having to do with the hierarchy of heaven, namely, the angelic purifications, the illuminations which occur beyond the cos- ____________________
134.Even though the subject matter is similar, this lost or fictitious treatise should be distinguished from The Celestial Hierarchy, for several reasons. In particular, "The Symbolical Theology" ostensibly follows The Divine Names (DN 13 984A 11f.) and precedes The Celestial Hierarchy (CH 15 336A 3- 5). Thus The Celestial Hierarchy must follow The Divine Names, whereas this essay seems to precede it. See R. Roques, "Denys," Dictionnaire de Spiritualité 3 262f. The triad of purification, illumination, and perfection appears throughout the two treatises on the hierarchies (e.g., CH 7 208BCD and EH 5) but rarely elsewhere.
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mos, and the achievements which are part of the perfection of angels, all comes from the universal Cause and Source of goodness. From this Source it was given to them to exemplify the Good, to manifest that hidden goodness in themselves, to be, so to speak, the angelic messengers of the divine source, to reflect the light glowing in the inner sanctuary.
Next to these sacred and holy intelligent beings are the souls, to 696C
gether with all the good peculiar to these souls. These too derive their being from the transcendent Good. So therefore they have intelligence, immortality, existence. They can strive towards angelic life. By means of the angels as good leaders, they can be uplifted to the generous Source of all good things and, each according to his measure, they are able to have a share in the illuminations streaming out from that Source. They too, in their own fashion, possess the gift of exemplifying the Good and they have all those other qualities which I described in my book The Soul. 135.
And, if we must speak of the matter, all this applies also to the irrational souls, to the living creatures which fly through the air or walk the earth, those that live in the waters, the amphibians as well
as those which are burrowed into the ground, in short, every sentient 696D
and living being. They all have soul and life because of the existence of the Good. And the plants too have nourishment and life and motion from this same Good. So also with soulless and lifeless matter. It is there because of the Good; through it they received their state of existence.
3. Given that the Good transcends everything, as indeed it does, 697A
its nature, unconfined by form, is the creator of all form. In it is nonbeing really an excess of being. It is not a life, but is, rather, superabundant Life. It is not a mind, but is superabundant Wisdom. Whatever partakes of the Good partakes of what preeminently gives form to the formless. And one might even say that nonbeing itself longs for the Good which is above all being. Repelling being, it struggles to find rest in the Good which transcends all being, in the sense of a denial of all things.
4. In my concern for other matters I forgot to say that the Good 697B
is the Cause even for the sources and the frontiers of the heavens, ____________________
135.This treatise is otherwise unknown. The author here (696) sequentially covers minds (angels), souls (humans), creatures, plants, and objects.
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which neither shrink nor expand, and it brought into being the silent (if one must put it this way) 136. and circular movements of the vast heavens, the fixed orders of starry lights decorating the sky and those special wandering stars, particularly those two rotating sources of light described as "great" by the scriptures 137. and enabling us to reckon our days and our nights, our months, and our years. They set the framework in which time and events are numbered, measured, and held together.
And what of the sun's rays? Light comes from the Good, and
light is an image of this archetypal Good. Thus the Good is also 697C
praised by the name "Light", just as an archetype is revealed in its image. The goodness of the
transcendent God reaches from the highest and most perfect forms of being to the very lowest. And yet it remains above and beyond them all, superior to the highest and yet stretching out to the lowliest. It gives light to everything capable of receiving it, it creates them, keeps them alive, preserves and perfects them. Everything looks to it for measure, eternity, number, order. It is the power which embraces the universe. It is the Cause of the universe and its end.
The great, shining, ever-lighting sun is the apparent image of the divine goodness, a distant echo of the Good. It illuminates
whatever is capable of receiving its light and yet it never loses the 697D
utter fullness of its light. It sends its shining beams all around the visible world, and if anything fails to receive them the fault lies not in the weakness or defect of the spreading light but in the unsuitability of whatever is unable to have a share in light. For of course light passes over many such substances and illuminates others be
yond them. Actually there is nothing in the visible world to which 700A
the light does not reach in all its abundance. It is responsible for the origins and life of perceptible bodies, nourishing them and causing them to grow, perfecting them, purifying them, and renewing them.
Light too is the measure and the enumerator of the hours, of the days, and indeed of all the time we have. It was this light, then unshaped, which, according to the divine Moses, marked the first three days at the beginning of time. 138.
____________________
136.On this disclaimer, see DN 2, note 114. 137.Gn 1:16.
138.Gn 1:3-5, 19.
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The Good returns all things to itself and gathers together whatever may be scattered, for it is the divine Source and unifier of the sum total of things. Each being looks to it as a source, as the agent of cohesion, and as an objective. The Good, as scripture testifies, produced everything and it is the ultimately perfect Cause. In it "all
things hold together" 139. and are maintained and preserved as if in 700B
some almighty receptacle. All things are returned to it as their own goal. All things desire it: Everything with mind and reason seeks to know it, everything sentient yearns to perceive it, everything lacking perception has a living and instinctive longing for it, and everything lifeless and merely existent turns, in its own fashion, for a share of it.
So it is with light, with this visible image of the Good. It draws and returns all things to itself, all the things that see, that have motion, that are receptive of illumination and warmth, that are held together by the spreading rays. Thus is it the "sun" for it makes all things a "sum" and gathers together the scattered.
140.
Every perceptible thing seeks it, as they seek to see, to be moved, 700C
to receive its light and warmth, to be kept together by it. The old myth used to describe the sun as the provident god and creator of this universe. I do not say this. But I do say that "ever since the creation of the world, the invisible things of God, his eternal power and deity, have been clearly perceived in the things that have been made." 141.
5. All of this will be dealt with in The Symbolic Theology. 142. What I wish to do here is to praise the conceptual content of the term "light" as applied to the Good.
minates the mind of every supra-celestial being with the light of the mind, and because it drives from souls the ignorance and the error squatting there. It gives them all a share of sacred light. It clears away the fog of ignorance from the eyes of the mind and it stirs and unwraps those covered over by the burden of darkness. At first it deals out the
light in small amounts and then, as the wish and the longing for light 701A
begin to grow, it gives more and more of itself, shining ever more ____________________ 139.Col 1:17 (see DN 1, note 19); perhaps 1 Cor 8:6.
140.See Plato, Cratylus, 409a. 141.Rom 1:20.
142.
The Symbolic Theology concerns the perceptible symbols for God, which would include physical light. See DN 1, note 89.
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abundantly on them because they "loved much," 143. and always it keeps urging them onward and upward as their capacity permits.
6. So then, the Good which is above all light is given the name "light of the mind," "beam and spring," "overflowing radiance." It crams with its light every mind which is above and beyond the world, or around it or within it. It renews all the powers of their minds. It steps beyond everything inasmuch as it is ordered beyond everything. It precedes everything inasmuch as it transcends everything. Quite simply, it gathers together and supremely anticipates in itself the au
thority of all illuminating power, being indeed the source of light and 701B
actually transcending light. And so it assembles into a union everything possessed of reason and of mind. For just as it is ignorance which scatters those in error, so it is the presence of the light of the mind which gathers and unites together those receiving illumination. It perfects them. It returns them toward the truly real. It returns them from their numerous false notions and, filling them with the one unifying light, it gathers their clashing fancies into a single, pure, coherent, and true knowledge.
7. The sacred writers lift up a hymn of praise to this Good. They 701C
call it beautiful, beauty, love, and beloved. 144. They give it the names which convey that it is the source of loveliness and is the flowering of grace.
But do not make a distinction between "beautiful" and "beauty" as applied to the Cause which gathers all into one. For we recognize the difference in intelligible beings between qualities that are shared and the objects which share them. We call "beautiful" that which has a share in beauty, and we give the name of "beauty" to that ingredient which is the cause of beauty in everything. But the "beautiful" which is beyond individual being is called "beauty" because of that beauty bestowed by it on all things, each in accordance with what it is. It is given this name because it is the cause of the harmony and splendor in everything, because like a light it flashes onto everything the beauty-causing impartations of its own well-spring ray. Beauty "bids"
all things to itself (whence it is called "beauty") 145. and gathers every 701D
thing into itself. And they name it beautiful since it is the all-beautiful ____________________ 143.Lk 7:47?
144.Sg 1:16?; 1 Jn 4:16; Is 5:1; Ps 45:2.
145.The word play on "kallos" and "kaleo" is also found in Plato, Cratylus, 416c, and Proclus, Theo. Plat. 1.24, 108.6ff., and Alc. 53.6. See W. Beierwaltes, "Negati Affirmatio," Dionysius 1 (1977): 149. Rolt's translation (p. 95) plays on "fair" and "fare."
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and the beautiful beyond all. It is forever so, unvaryingly, unchangeably so, beautiful but not as something coming to birth and death, to growth or decay, not lovely in one respect while ugly in some other way. It is not beautiful "now" but otherwise "then," beautiful in relation to one thing but not to another. It is not beautiful in one place
and not so in another, as though it could be beautiful for some and not 704A
for others. Ah no! In itself and by itself it is the uniquely and the eternally beautiful. It is the
superabundant source in itself of the beauty of every beautiful thing. In that simple but transcendent nature of all beautiful things, beauty and the beautiful uniquely preexisted in terms of their source. From this beauty comes the existence of everything, each being exhibiting its own way of beauty. For beauty is the cause of harmony, of sympathy, of community. Beauty unites all things and is the source of all things. It is the great creating cause which bestirs the world and holds all things in existence by the longing inside them to have beauty. And there it is ahead of all as Goal, as the Beloved, as the Cause toward which all things move, since it is the longing for beauty which actually brings them into being. It is a model to which they conform.
The Beautiful is therefore the same as the Good, for everything 704B
looks to the Beautiful and the Good as the cause of being, and there is nothing in the world without a share of the Beautiful and the Good. And I would even be so bold as to claim that nonbeing also shares in the Beautiful and the Good, because nonbeing, when applied transcendently to God in the sense of a denial of all things, is itself beautiful and good.
This—the One, the Good, the Beautiful—is in its uniqueness the Cause of the multitudes of the good and the beautiful. From it derives the existence of everything as beings, what they have in common and what differentiates them, their identicalness and differences, their similarities and dissimilarities, their sharing of opposites, the way in which their ingredients maintain identity, the providence of the higher ranks of beings, the interrelationship of those of the same rank, the return upward by those of lower status, the protecting and unchanged remaining and foundations of all
things amid themselves. Hence, the interrelationship of all things 704C
in accordance with capacity. Hence, the harmony and the love which are formed between them but which do not obliterate identity. Hence, the innate togetherness of everything. Hence, too, the intermingling of everything, the persistence of things, the unceasing
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emergence of things. Hence, all rest and hence, the stirrings of mind and spirit and body.
There is rest for everything and movement for everything, and these come from that which, transcending rest and movement, establishes each being according to an appropriate principle and gives each the movement suitable to it.
8. The divine intelligences are said to move as follows. First they 704D
move in a circle while they are at one with those illuminations which, without beginning and without end, emerge from the Good and the Beautiful. Then they move in a straight line when, out of Providence, they come to offer unerring guidance to all those below them. Finally they move in a spiral, for even while they are providing for those be
neath them they continue to remain what they are and they turn un 705A
9. The soul too has movement. 146. First it moves in a circle, that is, it turns within itself and away from what is outside and there is an inner concentration of its intellectual powers. A sort of fixed revolution causes it to return from the multiplicity of externals, to gather in upon itself and then, in this undispersed condition, to join those who are themselves in a powerful union. From there the revolution brings the soul to the Beautiful and the Good, which is beyond all things, is one and the same, and has neither beginning nor end. But whenever the soul receives, in accordance with its capacities, the enlightenment
of divine knowledge and does so not by way of the mind nor in some 705B
mode arising out of its identity, but rather through discursive reasoning, in mixed and changeable
activities, then it moves in a spiral fashion. And its movement is in a straight line when, instead of circling in upon its own intelligent unity (for this is the circular), it proceeds to the things around it, and is uplifted from external things, as from certain variegated and pluralized symbols, to the simple and united
contemplations. 147.
10. The Good and the Beautiful is the cause of these three movements, as also of the movements in the realm of what is perceived, and