Divine Names 1 part 3/6

For from it and through it are both being and all life: of mind, and of soul, and of every nature—the smallnesses, the equalities, the greatnesses; all the measures, and the proportions of beings, and the harmonies, and the blendings; the wholes, the parts, every one and multitude; the bindings-together of the parts, the unions of every multitude, the perfections of the wholes; the quality, the quantity, the magnitude, the infinite; the comparings, the distinguishings, all infinitude, every limit, all the bounds, the orders, the preeminences, the elements, the forms, every being, every power, every activity, every habit, every sense-perception, every word, every act of understanding, every contact, every knowledge, every union.

And, simply, every being is from the Beautiful and Good, and is in the Beautiful and Good, and is turned back toward the Beautiful and Good.

And all things, as many as are and come to be, are and come to be on account of the Beautiful and Good.

And toward it all things look, and by it they are moved and held together.

And for its sake, and on account of it, and in it, is every principle—paradigmatic, final, efficient, formal, elemental—and, simply, every principle, every cohesion, every limit.

All beings are from the Beautiful and Good, and all not-beings are superessentially in the Beautiful and Good, and it is the origin and limit of all things, beyond-origin and beyond-limit, because From it and through it and in it and unto it are all things, as the sacred word says (Rom 11:36).

To all things, then, the Beautiful and Good is an object of longing and of love and of desire; and on account of it and for its sake, the lesser long for the greater in a manner of turning-back, and those of the same rank for one another in a manner of communion, and the greater for the lesser in a manner of providence, and each for its own self in a manner of holding-together; and all things, longing for the Beautiful and Good, do and will all things, as many as they do and will.

And the true word will boldly say even this: that the cause of all things himself, by an overflow of goodness, loves all things, makes all things, perfects all things, holds all things together, turns all things back; and the divine love is good, of the Good, for the sake of the Good.

For the good-working love of beings, pre-existing superabundantly in the Good, did not allow itself to remain unfruitful in itself, but moved itself toward the doing of things, according to the all-generating overflow.

And let no one think that we, contrary to the Scriptures, set store by the appellation of love (eros).

For it is, as I think, irrational and foolish not to attend to the power of the aim, but to the words.

And this is not the way of those who wish to understand divine things, but of those who receive mere sounds, and confine these outside, impassable as far as the ears, and are unwilling to know what such a word signifies, and how one ought to clarify it through other words of the same force and more revelatory; clinging rather to senseless letters and lines and syllables and words that are unknown, which do not pass over into the intellectual part of their soul, but buzz about outside, around their lips and ears.

As though it were not allowed to signify the number four by twice two, or rectilinear figures by right-angled ones, or the motherland by the fatherland, or any other of the many things that signify the same by various parts of speech.

As, when our soul is moved toward the intelligible things by its intellectual activities, the senses, together with the sensible things, are superfluous, just as are the intellectual powers also, when the soul, having become godlike, casts itself by an unknowing union upon the rays of the unapproachable light, with eyeless castings.

But when the mind strives to be stirred up through the sensible things toward contemplative acts of understanding, then by all means the more evident conveyings of the senses are more honorable, the clearer words, the more distinct of the visible things.

Since, when the things lying before the senses are unclear, the senses themselves will not be able well to present the sensible things to the mind either.

But, lest we should seem to say these things as though setting the divine Scriptures in motion against themselves, let those who reproach the appellation of love (eros) hear them:

Be enamored of her, he says, and she will keep you (Prov 4:6, LXX);

encompass her, and she will exalt you (cf. Prov 4:8);

honor her, that she may embrace you (cf. Prov 4:8); and whatever other things are hymned according to the erotic theologies.

And yet it seemed to some of our sacred speakers that the name of love (eros) is even more divine than that of charity (agape).

And the divine Ignatius also writes:

And in the introductory portions of the Scriptures you will find one saying concerning the divine wisdom:

I became a lover (erastes) of her beauty (Wis 8:2).

So that we should not fear this name of love (eros), nor should any argument disturb us by terrifying us concerning it.

For it seems to me that the theologians hold the name of charity (agape) and of love (eros) to be common, but on this account assigned to divine things rather the true love (eros), because of the absurd preconception of such men.

For while the true love (eros) is hymned in a manner befitting God, not by us only, but also by the Scriptures themselves, the multitudes, not having grasped the unitary character of the erotic theonymy, slipped down, in a manner proper to themselves, toward the divided and body-befitting and partitioned—which is not true love, but an idol, or rather a fall from the true love.

For the unitary character of the divine and one love is uncontainable by the multitude.

And so, among ourselves again, where it was often even absurd for the earth-bound to imagine, in the seemingly more decorous term.

Your love (agapesis) came upon me, says one, as the love of women (2 Sam 1:26).

For those who hear divine things rightly, the name of charity (agape) and of love (eros) is ranked by the sacred theologians as of the same power, according to the divine revelations.

And this is the power of a unifying and binding and preeminently combining force, pre-existing in the Beautiful and Good on account of the Beautiful and Good, and given forth from the Beautiful and Good on account of the Beautiful and Good, and holding together things of the same rank by their communing mutual-holding, and moving the first toward the providence of the subordinate, and establishing the inferior by their turning-back toward the superior.

And the divine love (eros) is also ecstatic, not allowing the lovers to belong to themselves, but to the beloved.

And this is shown by the superior coming to be of the providence of the inferior, and the things of the same rank by the mutual holding of one another, and the subordinate by their more divine turning-back toward the first.

I live, says one, no longer I, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20).

As a true lover, and one standing out of himself, as he himself says, in God, and not living his own life, but the life of the Beloved, as exceedingly to be longed for.

And we must dare to say even this, for the sake of truth: that the cause of all things himself, by the love (eros) of all things, through the overflow of his erotic goodness, comes to be outside himself, in his providences toward all the things that are, and is, as it were, beguiled by goodness and affection and love (eros), and from being above all and set apart from all, he is led down to being in all, by an ecstatic and superessential power that does not depart from himself.

And, in sum, both the beloved and love (eros) belong to the Beautiful and Good, and pre-exist in the Beautiful and Good, and on account of the Beautiful and Good they are and come to be.

But what at all do the theologians intend, when at one time they call him love and charity, and at another the beloved and the cherished?

For of the one he is the cause and as it were the producer and begetter, but the other he himself is.

And by the one he is moved, by the other he moves; or rather, because he is, of himself and to himself, both that which brings forward and that which moves.

And so they call him beloved and cherished, as beautiful and good; but love and charity, again, as being a power at once moving and leading-up toward himself—he who alone is, for his own sake, beautiful and good, and is as it were a manifestation of himself through himself, and the good procession of the transcendent union, and an erotic motion that is simple, self-moved, self-acting, pre-existing in the Good and gushing out from the Good upon the things that are, and again turning back unto the Good.

...an eternal circle, on account of the Good, from the Good and in the Good and unto the Good, revolving in an unwandering in-folding, and ever, in the same and according to the same, both proceeding and abiding and being restored.

These things our renowned hierophant also expounded inspiredly in his Erotic Hymns, of which it is not out of place to make mention, and as it were to set them as a kind of sacred head upon our discourse concerning love.

Love (eros)—whether we should call it divine, or angelic, or intellectual, or psychic, or natural—let us understand as a certain unifying and combining power, moving the superior toward the providence of the inferior, and the things of the same rank again toward a communing mutual-holding, and, at the last, the subordinate toward the turning-back upon the better and the things set above them.

Since we have set in order the many loves (erotes) that come from the One, having spoken of them in succession—what kinds of knowledges and powers belong to the loves of things within the world and beyond the world, over which the orders and arrangements of the intellectual and intelligible loves take precedence, according to the assigned aim of the discourse; and after which the self-intelligible and divine loves of the truly beautiful things there preside—and these too have been duly hymned by us;

Now let us again take up all of them into the one and folded-together love, the father of them all, and let us at once fold and gather them together from the many, first contracting them into two universal erotic powers, over which utterly prevails and takes precedence the unrelated cause of every love, which is from the One that is beyond all things, and toward which is stretched up, in a manner connatural to each of the beings, the total love that comes from all beings together.

Come now, again gathering these into one, let us say that there is one certain simple power, the self-moving, toward a certain unifying blending, from the Good as far as the lowest of the things that are, and from that one again, in succession through all, unto the Good, from itself and through itself and upon itself revolving itself, and ever in the same manner in-folding itself unto itself.

If the Beautiful and Good is to all things an object of love and longing and desire—for even not-being longs for it, as has been said, and strives somehow to be in it, and it is itself the form-giving even of the formless, and even not-being is superessentially said and is, in regard to it—how is it that the demonic multitude does not long for the Beautiful and Good, but, being earth-bound, and having fallen away from the angelic identity in the longing for the Good, is the cause of all evils both to itself and to all the others, as many as are said to be made evil?

And how, at all, is the demonic race, having been brought forth from the Good, not good-formed? Or how, having come to be good from the Good, was it altered?

And what was it that made it evil, and altogether what is evil, and from what origin did it subsist, and in which of the things that are does it exist?

And how did the Good will to bring it forth, and how, having willed, was he able?

And if evil is from another cause, what other cause is there for beings besides the Good?

And how, when there is providence, does evil exist—either coming to be at all, or not being abolished—and how does anything of the things that are long for it instead of the Good?

These things, then, perhaps such a perplexed argument will say; but we, for our part, shall deem it worthy to look toward the truth of things, and shall first boldly say this:

Evil is not from the Good; and if it is from the Good, it is not evil—for neither does the cold belong to fire, nor does the bringing-forth of things not-good belong to the Good.

And if all the things that are are from the Good—for it is the nature of the Good to bring forth and to save, but of evil to corrupt and to destroy—then none of the things that are is from evil.

Nor will evil itself even be, if indeed it should be evil to itself as well.

And if this is not so, then evil is not wholly evil, but has some portion of the Good, according to which it exists at all.

And if the things that are long for the Beautiful and Good, and all things, as many as they do, do them for the sake of the seeming good, and the whole aim of beings has the Good as origin and end—for nothing does the things it does while looking toward the nature of evil—how shall evil be among the things that are, or be at all, deprived of such a good striving?

And if all the things that are are from the Good, and the Good is beyond the things that are, then there is in the Good even not-being as a being; but evil is neither a being—for if it were, it would not be wholly evil—nor a not-being, for nothing will be the absolutely not-being, unless it be said to be in the Good according to the superessential.

The Good, then, will be far prior to, and super-established above, both the simply-being and the not-being.

But evil is neither among the things that are, nor among the things that are not; but, being even more alien than not-being itself, it is further removed from the Good, and is more without being.

For if evil is not, then virtue and vice will be the same, both as a whole toward the whole, and in part proportionately; or that which fights against virtue will not even be evil.

And yet temperance and licentiousness are contrary, and righteousness and unrighteousness.

And I by no means say this according to the righteous man and the unrighteous, and the temperate and the licentious; but, even before the outwardly-apparent separation of the virtuous man from his opposite, in the soul itself, far prior, the vices stand wholly apart from the virtues, and the passions rise up in faction against reason; and from these it is necessary to grant that there is something evil contrary to the Good.

For the Good is not contrary to itself; but, as offspring from one origin and one cause, it rejoices in communion and unity and friendship.

Nor is the lesser good contrary to the greater; for neither is the less-hot or cold contrary to the more-hot.

Evil, then, is among the things that are, and is a being, and is set over against and made contrary to the Good.

And if there is corruption of the things that are, this does not cast evil out of being, but it too will be a being, and generative of beings.

Or is not the corruption of this thing often the generation of that?

And evil will be something contributing to the filling-out of the universe, and providing to the whole the not-being-incomplete on its own account.

But the true word will say in answer to these things: that evil, in so far as it is evil, makes no being or generation, but only makes evil and corrupts—so far as in it lies—the subsistence of the things that are.

But if one should say that it is generative, and that by its corruption it gives generation to another thing, one must answer truly:

Not in so far as it corrupts does it give generation; but, in so far as it is corruption and evil, it only corrupts and makes evil, while generation and being come to be on account of the Good; and evil will be a corruption on its own account, but generative on account of the Good; and, in so far as it is evil, it is neither a being nor productive of beings, but on account of the Good it is both a being, and a good being, and productive of good things.

Or rather, the same thing will not be, in the same respect, both good and evil, nor will the corruption and generation of the same thing be the same power in the same respect, nor self-power nor self-corruption.

Evil-itself, then, is neither a being, nor good, nor generative, nor productive of beings and good things; but the Good, in those things in which it comes to be perfectly, makes them perfect and unmingled and entire goods, while those that partake of it less are both imperfect goods and mingled, on account of the deficiency of the Good.

And in general, evil is neither good nor good-making; but that which more or less approaches the Good will be proportionately good, since the all-perfect goodness that goes through all things does not reach only as far as the all-good substances about it, but extends even to the lowest, being present to some wholly, to others in a subordinate manner, and to others in the lowest degree, according as each of the things that are is able to partake of it.

And some partake of the Good wholly, others are more or less deprived of it, others have a dimmer participation of the Good, and to yet others the Good is present according to a most distant echo.

For if the Good were not present to each in proportion, then the most divine and most elder things would hold the rank of the lowest.

And how would it be possible for all things to partake of the Good in a uniform manner, when not all things are alike fit for the whole participation of it?

But this now is the surpassing greatness of the power of the Good: that it empowers even the things deprived of it, and its very deprivation, in regard to their partaking of it at all.

And if one must speak the truth boldly:

Even the things that fight against it both exist and are able to fight, by its own power.

Or rather, to sum it up and say: all the things that are, in so far as they are, are both good and from the Good; but in so far as they are deprived of the Good, they are neither good nor beings.

For in the case of other habits—such as heat or cold—there exist the things that have been heated or cooled, even when heat and cold have left them; and many of the things that are are without share of life and mind.

And God is set apart even from being, and exists superessentially.

And, in sum, in the case of all the other things, even when the habit has departed, or has not at all come to be present, the things that are both exist and are able to subsist; but that which is in every way deprived of the Good neither was nor is nor will be, nor in any way at all.

It neither was, nor is, nor will be, nor is able to be.

...irrational desire: in this it neither exists nor desires beings, yet it nonetheless partakes of the Good according to that very dim echo of union and friendship.

And anger partakes of the Good, according to that very movement and longing to set upright and to turn back the things that seem evil toward that which seems beautiful.

And he himself who longs for the basest life, in so far as he longs for life at all, and for what seems to him to be the best, by that very longing, and by longing for life, and by looking toward the best life, partakes of the Good.

And if you should take away the Good altogether, there will be neither being, nor life, nor longing, nor motion, nor any other thing.

So that even the coming-to-be of generation from corruption is not a power of evil, but the presence of a lesser good—just as sickness too is a defect of order, not of all order.

For if this should come about, then the sickness itself would not even subsist.

But the sickness abides and exists, having for its being the least order, and subsisting parasitically within it.

For that which is wholly without share of the Good is neither a being nor among the things that are; but that which is mixed is, on account of the Good, among the things that are, and in this respect is both among the things that are and is a being, in so far as it partakes of the Good.

Or rather, all the things that are will be more and less, in so far as they partake of the Good; for even in the case of being-itself, that which in no way at all is, will not even be.

But that which in one respect is, and in another respect is not—in so far as it has fallen away from the ever-being, it is not; but in so far as it has partaken of being, in that measure it is, and its whole being and its not-being are upheld and preserved by the Good.

And as for evil: that which has wholly fallen away from the Good will be neither among the more nor among the less good things.

But that which is in one respect good and in another respect not good fights against some particular good, yet not against the Good as a whole.

And it too is held fast by participation in the Good; even its own privation the Good gives being to, through its complete participation in the Good.

For if the Good departed altogether, there would be nothing good at all, nor anything mixed, nor any absolute evil.

For if evil is an imperfect good, then with the total absence of the Good, both the imperfect and the perfect good would be gone.

And evil will then only be and appear when, while it is evil to those things to which it is opposed, it nevertheless depends on certain things as goods.

For it is impossible for the same things, in the same respect, to fight against one another in all things.

But neither does evil exist among the things that are.

For if all beings are from the Good, and the Good is in all beings and embraces all, then either evil will not be among beings, or it will be in the Good.

And surely it will not be in the Good; for neither is cold in fire, nor evil-making in that which makes even evil good.

But if it should be, how would evil be in the Good?

If it be from the Good, that is absurd and impossible.

For it is not possible, as the truth of the Scriptures declares, for a good tree to bring forth evil fruit, nor indeed the reverse.

But if it be not from the Good, it is clearly from some other origin and cause.

For either evil will be from the Good, or the Good from evil; or, if this be not possible, both the good and the evil will be from some other origin and cause.

For no dyad is a first principle, but a monad will be the principle of every dyad.

Yet it is absurd that from one and the same thing two utterly contrary things should proceed and exist, and that the very principle should not be simple and unitary, but divided, twofold, contrary to itself, and altered.

Nor again is it possible for there to be two contrary principles of beings, these being in one another and in the universe and at war.

For if this be granted, then God too will not be free from suffering nor exempt from trouble,

if indeed there were something to vex even Him; and then all things will be disordered and ever at war.

And yet the Good imparts friendship to all beings, and is hymned by the holy theologians as Peace itself and the Giver of peace.

Therefore evil is not in God, and evil is not divine.

But neither is evil from God.

For either He is not good, or He does good and brings forth good things—and not at one time and to some, but not at another and not to all; for in that case He would undergo change and alteration, and that in the very cause which is most divine of all.

But if in God the Good is His very existence, then a God who changes from the Good would at one time be and at another not be.

And if He has the Good by participation, then He would have it from another, and at one time have it, at another not.

But neither is evil in the angels.

For if the good-formed angel announces the divine Goodness, being by participation in a secondary way that which the thing announced is primarily by way of cause, then the angel is an image of God, a manifestation of the unseen light, a pure mirror—most translucent, unblemished, undefiled, unstained—receiving wholly, if it be lawful to say so, the beauty of the good-stamped Godlikeness, and shining forth purely in itself, so far as it is able, the goodness of the silence within the inner sanctuaries.

Therefore evil is not in the angels either.

But they are evil, one might say, in that they punish sinners.

By this reasoning, then, the correctors of wrongdoers would also be evil, and those priests who debar the profane from the divine mysteries.

Yet to be punished is not evil, but to become worthy of punishment; nor is being justly debarred from sacred things evil, but to become defiled and unholy and unfit for the undefiled things.

But neither are the demons evil by nature.

For if they were evil by nature, they would not be from the Good, nor among beings, nor indeed would they have changed from being good, being by nature and forever evil.

Then, are they evil to themselves or to others?

If to themselves, then they also destroy themselves; but if to others, how do they destroy, or what do they destroy?

Substance, or power, or activity?

If substance: first, it is not contrary to nature, for they do not destroy things by nature incorruptible, but things receptive of corruption.

Then, neither is this evil for everything and in every way.

But nothing among beings is destroyed in so far as it is substance and nature; rather, by the failure of the natural order the principle of harmony and proportion grows too weak to remain in the same state.

But this weakness is not total; for if it were total, it would do away with both the corruption and its substrate, and such corruption would be the corruption even of itself.

So such a thing is not evil, but a deficient good.

For that which is wholly without share in the Good will not be among beings; and the same argument applies to the corruption of power and of activity.

Then how are the demons, who came from God, evil?

For the Good brings forth and sustains good things.

And yet they are called evil, one might say. But not in so far as they exist—for they are from the Good and received a good substance—but in so far as they are not, having lacked the strength, as the Scriptures say, to keep their own first estate.

For tell me, in what do we say the demons are made evil, if not in the cessation of their habit and activity of the divine goods?

Otherwise, if the demons are evil by nature, they are always evil.

Yet evil is unstable.

Therefore, if they remain always in the same state, they are not evil, for to be always the same is proper to the Good.

But if they are not always evil, then they are not evil by nature, but through lack of the angelic goods.

And they are not wholly without share in the Good, in so far as they exist and live and think, and in so far as there is in them at all some movement of desire.

But they are said to be evil because of their weakness in regard to their natural activity.

Evil, then, for them is a deviation, a departure from what befits them, failure, imperfection, impotence, a weakness and flight and falling-away of the power that preserves the perfection within them.

Besides, what is the evil in the demons?

Irrational anger, mindless desire, headlong imagination.

But these, even if they exist in the demons, are not wholly, nor in all cases, nor in themselves, evil.

For in the case of other living creatures, it is not the possession of these, but their removal, that is the destruction and ruin and evil of the creature.

But the possession of them preserves and gives being to the nature of the creature that has them.

Therefore the demonic race is not evil in so far as it is according to nature, but in so far as it is not.

And the whole good given to them was not altered; rather, they themselves fell away from the whole good that was given.

And the angelic gifts given to them—we never say that these were altered; rather, they are whole and all-radiant, even though the demons themselves do not see them, having shut their eyes to the good-beholding powers within them.

So that, in so far as they exist, they are both from the Good and good, and they desire the Beautiful and the Good in desiring to be and to live and to think, which belong to beings.

And by the privation, flight, and falling-away from the goods that befit them, they are called evil.

And they are evil in so far as they are not.

And in desiring that which is not, they desire evil.

But someone might say that souls are evil.

If it be because they consort with evil things providentially and for their preservation, this is not evil, but good, and from the Good who makes even evil good.

But if we say that souls are made evil, in what are they made evil, if not in the lack of the good habits and activities, and through their own weakness in failure and slipping-away?

For we also say that the air around us is darkened by the lack and absence of light.

But the light itself is always light, the very light that illumines even the darkness.

Therefore evil is neither in the demons nor in us as something existing as evil, but as a deficiency and lack of the perfection of our proper goods.

But neither is evil in the irrational animals.

For if you take away anger and desire and the rest of those things that are spoken of as evil but are not so simply by their own nature, then the lion, having lost its boldness and fierceness, will no longer be a lion; and the dog, becoming gentle to all, will no longer be a dog—since it belongs to a dog to be a guardian, to welcome what is its own and to drive off what is foreign.

So that for nature not to be corrupted is not evil; but the corruption of nature is the weakness and lack of natural habits, activities, and powers.

And if all things that come to be through generation attain their perfection in time, then the imperfect is not in every case contrary to all nature.

But neither is evil in nature as a whole.

For if all natural principles are from universal nature, there is nothing contrary to it.

But in the particular, one thing will be according to nature, another not according to nature.

For one thing is contrary to nature for one being and another for another; and what is according to nature for this is contrary to nature for that.

And the vice of nature is what is contrary to nature, the privation of what belongs to nature.

So that there is no evil nature; rather, this is the evil for nature: the inability to accomplish the things of its own nature.

But neither is evil in bodies.

For ugliness and disease are a deficiency of form and a privation of order.

But this is not wholly evil; rather, it is something less beautiful.

For if there came about a total dissolution of beauty and form and order, the body itself would also perish.

And that the body is not even the cause of vice for the soul is clear from the fact that vice can subsist even without a body, as in the demons.

For this is the evil for intellects and souls and bodies: the weakness and falling-away of the habit of their proper goods.

But neither is that much-talked-of thing evil.

Evil is in matter, they say, in so far as it is matter.