Dionysius the Elder to Timothy the Fellow-Elder: What the goal of this discourse is, and the tradition regarding the
divine names. 2.
1. And so, my friend, after The Theological Representations, 3. I come now 585A 585B to an explication of the divine names, as far as possible. Here too let us hold on to the scriptural rule that when we say anything about God, we should set down the truth "not in the plausible words of human wisdom but in demonstration of the power granted by the Spirit" 4. to the scripture writers, a power by which, in a manner surpassing speech and knowledge, we reach a union superior to anything
available to us by way of our own abilities or activities in the realm of 588A
discourse or of intellect. This is why we must not dare to resort to words or conceptions concerning that hidden divinity which transcends being, apart from what the sacred scriptures have divinely revealed. Since the unknowing of what is beyond being is something above and beyond speech, mind, or being itself, one should ascribe to it an understanding beyond being. Let us therefore look as far upward as the light of sacred scripture will allow, and, in our reverent awe of what is divine, let us be drawn together toward the divine splendor. For, if we may trust the superlative wisdom and truth of scripture, the things of God are revealed to each mind in proportion to its capacities ; and the divine goodness is such that, out of concern for our salvation, it deals out the immeasurable and infinite in limited mea
sures. Just as the senses can neither grasp nor perceive the things of 588B
the mind, just as representation and shape cannot take in the simple and the shapeless, just as corporal form cannot lay hold of the intangible and incorporeal, by the same standard of truth beings are surpassed by the infinity beyond being, intelligences by that oneness which is beyond intelligence. Indeed the inscrutable One is out of the ____________________
2.The terminology of this and the other titles and subtitles may indicate an editorial process. For example, the terms "elder" (presbyter) and "fellow-elder" (cf. 1 Pt 5: 1) are found only in titles,
namely, here and at the beginnings of the hierarchical treatises (CH 1 120A 2f. and EH 1 369 2f.), and nowhere in the body of the corpus. See EH 1, note 2, for further examples. Beyond the brief comments of B. Brons, Sekundäre Textparteien, p. 18, n. 80, and Gott und die Seienden, p. 65 (see also D. Le Nourry, "Dissertatio..." ch. 22 PG 3 53BC), the terminological peculiarities of the titles and subtitles have never been systematically examined.
3.A lost or fictitious treatise summarized in MT 3 1032D to 1033A 11, and perhaps below in DN 1 589D 38 to 592B 17 (see note 10). It is mentioned again in DN 1 593B 17f., DN 2 636C 16f., 640B 20-24,
644D 42 to 645A 5, and DN 11 953B 17-20. 4.1 Cor 2:4.
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reach of every rational process. Nor can any words come up to the inexpressible Good, this One, this Source of all unity, 5. this supra-existent Being. Mind beyond mind, word beyond speech, it is gathered up by no discourse, by no intuition, by no name. It is and it is as no other being is. Cause of all existence, and therefore itself transcending existence, it alone could give an authoritative account of what it really is.
2. Now as I have already said, we must not dare to apply words 588C
or conceptions to this hidden transcendent God. We can use only what scripture has disclosed. In the scriptures the Deity has benevolently taught us that understanding and direct contemplation of itself is inaccessible to beings, since it actually surpasses being. Many scripture writers will tell you that the divinity is not only invisible 6. and incomprehensible, but also "unsearchable and inscrutable," 7. since there is not a trace for anyone who would reach through into the hidden depths of this infinity. And yet, on the other hand, the Good is not absolutely incommunicable to everything. By itself it generously
reveals a firm, transcendent beam, granting enlightenments propor 588D
tionate to each being, and thereby draws sacred minds upward to its permitted contemplation, to participation and to the state of becoming like it. What happens to those that rightly and properly make this ef
fort is this. They do not venture toward an impossibly daring sight of 589A
God, one beyond what is duly granted them. Nor do they go tumbling downward where their own natural inclinations would take them. No. Instead they are raised firmly and unswervingly upward in the direction of the ray which enlightens them. With a love matching the illuminations granted them, they take flight, reverently, wisely, in all holiness.
3. We go where we are commanded by those divine ordinances which rule all the sacred ranks of the heavenly orders. With our minds
made prudent and holy, we offer worship to that which lies hidden 589B
beyond thought and beyond being. With a wise silence we do honor to the inexpressible. We are raised up to the enlightening beams of the ____________________
5.This expression, literally, "a henad unifying every henad," is the late Neoplatonic language of Proclus and his predecessors. See Saffrey, "Nouveaux liens ... ," p. 15, and
4 4 below.
6.Col 1:15; 1 Tm 1:17; Heb 11:27; see also CH 1 140D 43, DN 7 865B 17, and Ep. 5 1073A 4. 7.Rom 11:33.
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sacred scriptures, and with these to illuminate us, with our beings shaped to songs of praise, we behold the divine light, in a manner befitting us, and our praise resounds for that generous Source of all holy
enlightenment, a Source which has told us about itself in the holy words of scripture. We learn, for instance, that it is the cause of everything, that it is origin, being, and life. To those who fall away it is the voice calling, "Come back!" and it is the power which raises them up again. It refurbishes and restores the image of God corrupted within
of unholiness is tossing them about. It is safety for those who made a stand. It is the guide bringing upward those uplifted to it and is the enlightenment of the illuminated. Source of perfection for those being made perfect, source of divinity for those being deified, principle of simplicity for those turning toward simplicity, point of unity for those made one; transcendently, beyond what is, it is the Source of every source. Generously and as far as may be, it gives out a share of what is hidden.
To sum up. It is the Life of the living, the being of beings, it is the Source and the Cause of all life and of all being, for out of its goodness it commands all things to be and it keeps them going.
4. We learn of all these mysteries from the divine scriptures and 589D
you will find that what the scripture writers have to say regarding the divine names refers, in revealing praises, to the beneficent processions of God. And so all these scriptural utterances celebrate the supreme Deity by describing it as a monad or henad, because of its supernatural simplicity and indivisible unity, by which unifying power we are led to unity. We, in the diversity of what we are, are drawn together by it and are led into a godlike oneness, into a unity reflecting God.
They also describe it as a Trinity, for with a transcendent fecun 592A
dity it is manifested as "three persons." This is why "all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is and is named after it." 8. They call it Cause of beings since in its goodness it employed its creative power to summon all things into being, 9. and it is hailed as wise and beautiful because beings which keep their nature
uncorrupted are filled with ____________________ 8.Eph 3:15; see also DN 2 645B 19-24.
9.See also CH 4 177C 13, Ep. 8 1085D 46, and The Apostolic Constitutions VIII.12.6 (Funk 496.22).
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divine harmony and sacred beauty. But they especially call it loving toward humanity, because in one of its persons it accepted a true share of what it is we are, and thereby issued a call to man's lowly state to rise up to it. In a fashion beyond words, the simplicity of Jesus became something complex, the timeless took on the duration of the temporal,
and, with neither change nor confusion of what constitutes him, he 592B
came into our human nature, he who totally transcends the natural order of the world. 10.
This is the kind of divine enlightenment 11. into which we have been initiated by the hidden tradition of
our inspired teachers, a tradition at one with scripture. We now grasp these things in the best way we can, and as they come to us, wrapped in the sacred veils of that love toward humanity with which scripture and hierarchical traditions 12. cover the truths of the mind with things derived from the realm of the senses.
And so it is that the Transcendent is clothed in the terms of being, with shape and form on things which have neither, and numerous symbols are employed to convey the varied attributes of what is an imageless and supra-natural simplicity. But in time to come, when we are incorruptible and immortal, 13. when we have come at last to the blessed inheritance of being like Christ, then, as scripture
says, "we shall always be with the Lord." 14. In most holy contempla 592C
tion we shall be ever filled with the sight of God shining gloriously around us as once it shone for the disciples at the divine transfiguration. 15. And there we shall be, our minds away from passion and from earth, and we shall have a conceptual gift of light from him and, somehow, in a way we cannot know, we shall be united with him and, our ____________________
10.This sequential description of God, moving from monad to triad to the cause of all creation to the one who became incarnate in the created realm of space and time (589D to 592B), is presented as a downward "procession" from simplicity to plurality. MT 3 1032D to 1033A 11 presents a similar
descending trajectory as a summary of The Theological Representations. Perhaps The Divine Names here begins by "summarizing" a treatise that was never written at all. See above, note 3, and below, note 18.
11.Literally, "theurgical lights"; see Saffrey, "Nouveaux liens," pp. 11-12. Our author used the term "theurgy" to mean "work of God," not as an objective genitive indicating a work addressed to God (as in lamblichus, e.g., de Mysteriis I, 2, 7:2-6) but as a subjective genitive meaning God's own work (EH 3 436C 41, 440B 27, 440C 29, 441 D 46, 445BC 22 and 28), especially in the incarnation (EH 3 429C 38f., 432B 18 and 22f., 441C 34 and 39).
12.The "hierarchical traditions" are elsewhere associated with the liturgy (CH 2 145C 32, EH 1 372A 3, EH 6 532D 43). Thus the "sacred veils," here and in CH 1 121B 25, seem to refer to biblical and liturgical symbols.
13.An allusion to 1 Cor 15:53f.? 14.1 Thes 4:17.
15.Mt 17:1-8, Mk 9:2-8.
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understanding carried away, blessedly happy, we shall be struck by his blazing light. Marvelously, our minds will be like those in the heavens above. We shall be "equal to angels and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection." 16. That is what the truth of scripture affirms.
But as for now, what happens is this. We use whatever appropriate symbols we can for the things of God. With these analogies we are raised upward toward the truth of the mind's vision, a truth which is simple and one. We leave behind us all our own notions of the di
vine. We call a halt to the activities of our minds and, to the extent 592D
that is proper, we approach the ray which transcends being. Here, in a manner no words can describe, preexisted all the goals of all knowledge and it is of a kind that neither intelligence nor speech can lay hold of it nor can it at all be contemplated since it surpasses everything and is wholly beyond our capacity to know it. Transcendently it contains within itself the boundaries of every natural knowledge and energy. At the same time it is established by an unlimited power beyond all 593A
the celestial minds. And if all knowledge is of that which is and is limited to the realm of the existent, then whatever transcends being must also transcend knowledge. 17.
5. How then can we speak of the divine names? How can we do this if the Transcendent surpasses all discourse and all knowledge, if it abides beyond the reach of mind and of being, if it encompasses and circumscribes, embraces and anticipates all things while itself eluding their grasp and escaping from any perception, imagination, opinion,
name, discourse, apprehension, or understanding? How can we enter 593B
upon this undertaking if the Godhead is superior to being and is unspeakable and unnameable? I said in my Theological Representations that one can neither discuss nor understand 18. the One, the Superunknowable, the Transcendent, Goodness itself, that is, the Triadic Unity possessing the same divinity and the same goodness. Nor can one speak about and have knowledge of the fitting way in which the holy angels can commune with
____________________ 16.Lk 20:36.
through perceptible symbols up to the conceptions symbolized (MT 4 and the entire process of interpreting biblical and liturgical symbols in CH and EH), then beyond every conception (MT 5 and the final abandonment of speech and thought). Note the interplay of epistemology and metaphysics: Since human knowledge is of beings, that which transcends being must also transcend knowledge. 18.This argument and its terminology have already appeared in DN 1 588ABC 234. See notes 3 and 10,
above.
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the comings or with the effects of the transcendently overwhelming Goodness. Such things can neither be talked about nor grasped except by the angels who in some mysterious fashion have been deemed worthy. Since the union of divinized minds with the Light beyond all de
ity occurs in the cessation of all intelligent activity, the godlike unified 593C
minds who imitate these angels as far as possible praise it most appropriately through the denial of all beings. Truly and supernaturally enlightened after this blessed union, they discover that although it is the cause of everything, it is not a thing since it transcends all things in a manner beyond being. Hence, with regard to the supra-essential being of God—transcendent Goodness transcendently there—no lover of the truth which is above all truth will seek to praise it as word or power or mind or life or being. No. It is at a total remove from every condition, movement, life, imagination, conjecture, name, discourse, thought, conception, being, rest, dwelling, unity, limit, infinity, the
totality of existence. And yet, since it is the underpinning of goodness, 593D
and by merely being there is the cause of everything, to praise this divinely beneficent Providence you must turn to all of creation. It is there at the center of everything and everything has it for a destiny. It is there "before all things and in it all things hold together." 19. Because it is there the world has come to be and exists. All things long for it. The intelligent and rational long for it by way of knowledge, the lower strata by way of perception, the remainder by way of the stirrings of being alive and in whatever fashion befits their condition. 20.
6. Realizing all this, the theologians praise it by every name—and 596A
as the Nameless One. For they call it nameless when they speak of how the supreme Deity, during a mysterious revelation of the symbolical appearance of God, rebuked the man who asked, "What is your name?" and led him away from any knowledge of the divine name by countering, "Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?" 21. This surely is the wonderful "name which is above every name" 22. and is therefore without a name. It is surely the name established "above every name that is named either in this age or in that which is to come." 23. ____________________
19.Col 1:17; this verse is also used in DN 2 637B 25-27, DN 4 700B 15f., DN 5 820A 6f., and DN 9 916B 22f.
20.See Gregory of Nyssa, On the Beatitudes, sermon 6, PG 44 1268B to 1272C. 21.Jg 13:17f.; see also Gn 32:29 and Ex 3:13f.
22.Phil 2:9.
23.Eph 1:21; cf. Gregory of Nyssa, in Cant. PG 44 893A.
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And yet on the other hand they give it many names, such as "I am being," 24. "life," 25. "light," 26. "God," 27. the "truth." 28. These same wise writers, 29. when praising the Cause of everything that is, use
names drawn from all the things caused: good, 30. beautiful, 31. wise, 32. 596B
beloved, 33. God of gods, 34. Lord of Lords, 35. Holy of Holies, 36. eternal, 37. existent, 38. Cause of the ages.
treasures of knowledge, 45. power, 46. powerful, and King of Kings, 47. ancient of days, 48. the unaging and unchanging, 49. salvation, 50. righteousness 51. and sanctification, 52. redemption, 53. greatest of all and yet the one in the still breeze. 54. They say he is in our minds, in our souls, 55. and in ____________________
24.Ex 3:14; Rv 1:4, 8; DN 5.
25.Jn 11:25, 14:6; cf. Jn 1:4, 5:26; DN 6.
26.Jn 8:12; cf. Jn 1:4-9, 9:5; 1 Jn 1:5; DN 4 697B to 701B. 27.Gn 28:13; Ex 3:6, 15; Is 40:28.
28.Jn 14:6.
29.The "theosophs" or "wise men of God" are invariably the scripture writers: CH 2 145A 4, CH 9 261A 8, CH 15 329C 36. 30.Mt 19:17; Lk 18:19; DN 4. 31.Sg 1:16; DN 4 701C to 704B. 32.Jb 9:4; Rom 16:27; DN 7. 33.Is 5:1; DN 4 701C. 34.Dt 10:17; Ps 50:1 (LXX); Ps 136:2; DN 12. 35.Dt 10:17; Ps 136:3; 1 Tm 6:15; Rv 17:14, 19:16; DN 12. 36.Dn 9:24 (LXX); DN 12. 37.Is 40:28, Bar 4:8; DN 10. 38.Ex 3:14, cf. above, note 24.
39.Heb 1:2; "king of ages" in 1 Tm 1:17.
40.God is called "source" in 2 Maccabees 1.25 and in Iamblichus, Frag. 53 (ed. Dillon). For "source of living water," see CH 2 144D 42; for "fount of life," see EH 1 373C 40 and Ep. 9 1104B 20. 41.Prv 8:22-31; 1 Cor 1:30; DN 7.
42.Is 40:13, cited in Rom 11:34 and 1 Cor 2:16; DN 7 868D to 869B. 43.Jn 1:1; Heb 4:12; DN 7 872C.
44.Susanna 42; DN 7 868D 42 (variant reading). 45.Col 2:3; DN 7 868A 8f. 46.Rv 19:1; 1 Cor 1:18; Ps 24:8; DN 8 889C to 893D. 47.1 Tm 6:15; Rv 17:14, 19:16; DN 12. 48.On 7:9, 13, 22; DN 10 937B. 49.Mal 3:6; DN 10 937B 23. 50.Ex 15:2 (?); Rv 19:1; cf. Mt 1:21; DN 8 896D-897A. 51.1 Cor 1:30; DN 8 893D-896C. 52.1 Cor 1:30. 53.1 Cor 1:30; DN 8 897AB 15-27.
54.1 Kgs 19:12 (LXX); DN 9 909B 10, see also "air" in MT 3 1033C 43. 55.Wis 7:27.
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our bodies, 56. in heaven and on earth, 57. that while remaining ever
within himself 58. he is also in 59. and around and above the world, that 596C
he is above heaven 60. and above all being, that he is sun, 61. star, 62. and fire, 63. water, 64. wind, 65. and dew, 66. cloud, 67. archetypal stone, 68. and rock, 69. that he is all, that he is no thing.
7. And so it is that as Cause of all and as transcending all, he is rightly nameless and yet has the names of everything that is. Truly he has dominion over all and all things revolve around him, for he is their cause, their source, and their destiny. He is "all in all," 70. as scripture affirms, and certainly he is to be praised as
being for all things the creator and originator, the One who brings them to completion, their preserver, their protector, and their home, 71.
the power which returns them to itself, and all this in the one sin 596D