Divine Names
Divine Names (Περὶ θείων ὀνομάτων) by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
Negative (apophatic) theology, as translated by Jones (1999)
Chapter 1[edit | edit source]
- The indefiniteness beyond being
- lies beyond beings.
- The unity beyond intellect
- lies beyond intellect.
- The one beyond thought is
- unintelligible to all thinking.
- The good beyond logos:
- ineffable to all logos
- unity unifying every unity
- being beyond being
- non-intelligible intellect
- ineffable logos
- non-rationality
- non-intelligibility
- non-nameability
- be-ing according to no being
- cause of being to all; but itself: non-be-ing,
- as it is beyond every being, and
- So that it would properly and knowingly
- manifest itself about itself.
- It is cause of all;
- but itself: nothing
- as beyond-beingly apart from all:
Chapter 2[edit | edit source]
- Ground beyond being,
- Divinity beyond god,
- Goodness beyond good,
- Sameness beyond all of the whole
- individualness which is beyond all,
- Unity beyond source of unity,
- Ineffable, many named,
- Unknowing, completely unintelligible,
- Position of all, denial of all,
- Beyond all position and denial.
- (If one must say:)
- The abiding and foundation
- of the ruling persons in one another,
- wholly beyond every way of unity, and
- confused in none of its parts.
From the "Theological Elements" of the most holy Hierotheus
- The cause and fullness of all is
- the divinity of Jesus:
- An ordering of consonant parts to wholeness;
- it is neither whole nor part.
- Whole and part as anticipating, beyond having, and
- before-having every whole and part in itself.
- A completion to the non-complete as
- source of completion,
- Non-complete to the complete as
- beyond completion and before completion.
- Form producing form in those without form as
- source of form,
- Non-form in those which are formed as
- beyond form.
- Being undefiledly taking a stand upon the
- totality of being;
- Beyond-being: apart from every being.
- A determining of the totality of principles and orders;
- Yet, founded beyond every principle and order.
- The measure of what is.
- Eternity, before eternity, and beyond eternity.
- Fullness in those which lack;
- Beyond fullness in those which are full.
- Ineffable and unspeakable,
- Beyond intellect, beyond life, and beyond being.
- That beyond nature: beyond-naturally,
- That beyond being: beyond-beingly.
- It is differenced in a unified way:
- being given to all beings
- overflowing the participations of the
- totality of those that are good,
- singly made many,
- non-wanderingly multiplied out of the one.
- Since God is beyond-beingly be-ing, and as
- being is given to beings and
- brings forth the totality of beings,
- That one be-ing is said to be multiplied by
- the bringing forth of all beings out of itself.
- It abides
- not less than itself,
- one in its manifoldness,
- unified in its procession,
- full in its difference,
- By its beyond-beingly apartness from beings,
- its single bringing up of the whole, and
- the undiminished flowing of its
- undiminished gifts.
- Be-ing one
- it has bestowed unity to every part and whole,
- and every unity and multitude;
- As beyond-beingly one in the same way, and
- not a part of a multitude,
- not a whole of parts;
- it is not one,
- does not partake in the one, and
- does not have the one.
- Far away from these, a one:
- beyond the one in beings,
- a partless multitude,
- unfilled and beyond full,
- completing and binding together
- every unity and multiude.
Chapter 4[edit | edit source]
- That, beautiful beyond being, is said to be
- Beauty-for
- it gives beauty from itself in a manner
- appropriate to each,
- it causes the consonance and splendor
- of all
- it flashes forth upon all, after the
- manner of light, the beauty producing
- gifts of its flowing ray,
- it calls all to itself,
- whence it is called beauty,
- it brings all together
- into the same;
- Beautiful-as
- At once all-beautiful and beyond-beautiful,
- always be-ing beautiful
- according to the same and in like manner;
- thus
- not coming to be,
- not passing out of being,
- not increasing or decreasing,
- not beautiful to some and
- ugly to others,
- not beautiful at one time and
- ugly at another,
- not beautiful in one relation and
- ugly in another.
- It is not beautiful to some and
- ugly to others, but
- itself-always be-ing uniformly beautiful
- in virtue of itself and with itself,
- preeminently before-having in itself
- the flowing beauty of what is beautiful;
- before subsisting,
- in the simple nature beyond nature of
- the whole of what is beautiful and
- in its cause:
- all beauty and all that is beautful.
- From out of the beautiful:
- being to all beings, so that each is
- beautiful according to its proper logos,
- the agreements, friendships, and
- communion of an that is,
- the unifications of all that is.
- Source of all:
- the productive cause
- which makes and conserves the whole
- by its love of the beauty
- which is proper for each being.
- Limit of all and beloved:
- the final cause-for all beings emerge
- for the sake of the beautiful.
- Paradigmatic cause:
- all are determined according to it.
- The beautiful and good are the same:
- all beings desire the beautiful and the good
- with respect to every cause,
- no being fails to partake
- of the beautiful and good.
- (Indeed, we must necessarily dare to say:)
- that which is not partakes in the beautiful
- and good; it is itself the good when
- beyond-beingly celebrated in God in the
- denial of all.
- The one beautiful and good is the single cause
- of all of the many
- which are beautiful and good.
- From out of the beautiful and good:
- the essential constitutions of all beings,
- their unities and their differences,
- their identities and their otherness,
- their similarity and their dissimilarity,
- the association of opposites,
- the distinction of their unities,
- the providences of superiors,
- the bonds of equals,
- and the reversion of inferiors,
- the protection and immutable abiding and
- foundation of all among themselves,
- the communions, agreements, and unconfused
- friendship of all beings in all
- which are proper to each,
- the commixture of all,
- the undissolved constancy of what is,
- the uneclipsed sllccessions of what comes to be,
- the rest and motion of the intellects,
- souls, and bodies.
- That beyond all rest and motion is
- the rest and motion for all, as
- founding each being in its logos, and
- moving each being according to its proper motion.
Chapter 5[edit | edit source]
- In a power beyond being
- the be-ing of the whole being is
- support, cause and creator
- of be-ing, constitution,
- being, and nature.
- source and measure
- of what is eternal,
- be-ingness of what is temporal,
- eternity of what is,
- time of what comes to be,
- the being of whatsoever is,
- genesis of whatsoever comes to be.
- From out of be-ing:
- eternity, being, be-ing,
- time, genesis, becoming,
- what is in beings,
- whatsoever is constituted and subsisting.
- God is
- not somehow be-ing,
- but simply and unlimitedly be-ing,
- comprehending and anticipating
- the whole being in itself.
- (Thus it is called)
- king of what is eternal,
- for it has subsisted
- alI being and be-ing
- in it and about it.
- Moreover, God
- neither was,
- nor will be,
- nor has come to be,
- nor is come to be
- nor will come to be,
- nor, indeed, is not;
- but is the being for beings.
- Not only beings but even
- the being itself for beings
- is from the be-ing before eternity.
- For God is
- the eternity of what is eternal,
- the one who is begun before what is eternal.
- Being itself is
- from out of the before be-ing.
- Being is of it;
- it is not of being
- Being is in it;
- it is not in being.
- Being has it;
- it does not have being.
- It is
- eternity, source, and measure of being
- be-ing before being, be-ing, and eternity,
- being-producing beginning, middle,
- and end of all.
- Thus in the writings, the really before be-ing
- is multiplied according to every
- conception of beings;
- these are properly celebrated of it:
- was, is, will be,
- has come to be, is coming to be, and
- will come to be.
- For those who think in a divinely suitable way
- all of these signify
- the beyond-beingly being itself, and
- cause of all which is everywhere,
- according to every conception.
- For it is not this
- but not that;
- it is not in some way
- but not in some other way.
- It is
- cause of all:
- co-having and before-having in itself
- all the sources and ends of all beings;
- beyond all:
- beyond be-ing-beyond-beingly-before-all.
- Hence all are at once said of it:
- it is nothing among all -
- all-structure, all-form,
- non-form, non-beauty.
- It separately and incomprehensibly
- anticipates in itself
- the beginnings, means, and ends of beings.
- It purely illuminates the being for all
- in one, more than unified causality.
- The before be-ing
- proceeds to all,
- abides in itself,
- stands and moves,
- neither stands nor moves,
- does not have beginning, middle, or end,
- is not something in beings,
- is not something away from beings, and
- neither in general does there pertain to it
- any of those which are eternal
- or subsist temporally.
- But it is the eternity of time
- and apart from all those
- in eternity and time.
- Wherefore, eternity itself and beings
- and the measures and what is measured of beings
- are through it and by it.
Chapter 7[edit | edit source]
- According to our power,
- we attain to that beyond all
- by a path and order
- in the denial and preeminellce of all, and
- in the cause of all,
- God is known
- in all, and
- apart from all.
- God is known
- through knowledge, and
- through unknowing.
- Of God there is
- intellect, reason, knowledge,
- contact, sensation, opinion, imagination, name, and
- everything else.
- God is
- not known, not spoken, not named,
- not something among beings, and
- not known in something among beings.
- God is
- all in all,
- nothing in none,
- known to all in reference to all,
- known to no one in reference to nothing.
- For we say all of this correctly about God
- who is celebrated according
- to the analogy of all,
- of which it is the cause.
- The most divine knowledge of God is
- one which knows through unknowing
- in the unity beyond intellect
- when the intellect stands away from beings
- and then stands away from itself,
- it is united to the more than resplendent rays,
- and is then and there illumined
- hy the inscrutahle depths of wisdom.
- Nevertheless, as we have said,
- it is known from all;
- (for according to the writings)
- it is
- productive of all,
- always harmonizing the all,
- cause of the indissoluable
- concordance and harmony of all,
- always joining together
- the end of those which are prior to
- the beginnings of secondaries, and
- beautifying the agreement and harmony of all.
Chapter 8[edit | edit source]
- We say that God is power as
- before-having and beyond-having
- every power in itself,
- cause of every power,
- bringing forth all
- in an unlimited and undefined power,
- be-ing cause of the being itself of power
- whether universal or particular,
- unlimited power,
- for not only does it bring forth every power;
- it is beyond every power -
- even power itself,
- and it prevails over and unlimitedly brings forth
- unlimited [powers] which are
- other than those which are
- such that these powers
- It is
- even if brought forth to infinity
- would not be able to blunt
- the more than unlimited production
- of its power-producing power.
- an unspeakable, unknown,
- and inconceivable power,
- beyond-having all,
- which, through abundance of power,
- empowers the weak and
- conserves and preserves the last beings
- which are echoes of its power.
Chapter 9[edit | edit source]
- God is called the same as
- everlasting beyond every manner of being,
- incontrovertible,
- abiding in itself,
- always the same and in the same way,
- presencing similarly to all,
- steadfastly and purely established
- in itself and by itself
- in the beautiful limits
- of the identity beyond being,
- unchanged, inflexible,
- unswerving, unalterable,
- without mixture, without matter
- most simple, without lack,
- without increase, undiminished,
- ungenerated nor
- as not yet generated, nor without completion
- nor generated by this or that,
- nor as be-ing any manner whatsoever,
- but as all-ungenerated and
- absolutely ungenerated,
- always be-ing, self complete be-ing,
- be-ing the same in itself,
- uniformly and identically determining itself,
- shining the same out of itself
- upon all those enabled to participate in it.
- coordinating others to others,
- abundance and cause of identity,
- identically before-having in itself
- those which are opposed
- in the one single cause
- beyond-having the whole identity.
Chapter 13[edit | edit source]
- The one and whole divinity:
- the one cause of all,
- that before
- every unity and multitude,
- part and whole,
- definition and indefiniteness,
- limit and non-limit,
- that which determines
- all beings and being itself,
- and is at once and singularly
- cause of all and every totality,
- before all,
- beyond all,
- beyond the one be-ing itself, and
- what determines the one be-ing itself;
- for the one be-ing
- is enumerable in beings,
- but number partakes in being.
- The one beyond being
- determines the one be-ing
- and every number, and
- is source, cause, number, and order
- of unity, number, and all be-ing.
- Thus the divinity beyond all is celebrated
- as one and trinity;
- it is neither unity or trinity,
- or what is conceived by us
- or any other being.
- That we may truly celebrate
- its beyond unity and god-genesis,
- we name that beyond names
- by trinity and a unitary divine name;
- we name the beyond being
- by beings.
- But no unity, or trinity, or number,
- or oneness, or fecundity,
- or anything among beings,
- or anything known among beings,
- brings down the hiddenness,
- beyond all
- and beyond logos and intellect,
- of the beyond-divinity beyond be-ing
- beyond-beingly beyond all.
- There is neither name nor logos of it;
- it is apart in inaccessibility.
See also[edit | edit source]
References[edit | edit source]
- Jones, John D. (trans.) (1999). The Divine Names and the Mystical Theology. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University Press. ISBN 0-87462-221-2.