Divine Names 1 part 6/6

Let us therefore contemplate one single and simple nature of peaceful union, uniting all things to itself, and to themselves, and to one another, and preserving all things in the unconfused conjunction of all, unmixed yet blended together.

But how, one may ask, do all things long for peace?

For many would never willingly consent to be at rest.

And if the one who says this means by otherness and distinction the individuality of each being, and that no one of the beings, being what it is, ever wishes to lose this—then neither shall we gainsay this, but shall declare even this to be a longing for peace.

For all things love to be at peace and to be united with themselves, and to be unmoved and unfalling, both in respect of themselves and of what belongs to them.

And the all-perfect Peace is the guardian even of the unmixed individuality of each thing, by its peace-bestowing providences preserving all things free from faction and confusion, both in respect of themselves and of one another, and establishing all things in steadfast and unswerving power toward their own peace and immobility.

And if all things in motion wish not to be at rest, but ever to move with their own proper motion, this too is a longing for the divine Peace of all things—the Peace that preserves all things unfalling in themselves, and keeps the individuality and life-giving motion of all moving things unmoved and unfalling, in that the things moved, being at peace with themselves and remaining in the same state, perform what is proper to them.

But if, by otherness in the sense of a falling away from peace, he insists that peace is not beloved of all, then, first of all, there is nothing among beings that has fallen utterly away from all union.

For that which is altogether unstable and infinite and unestablished and indefinite neither is a being nor is among beings.

And if he says that those who delight in strifes and angers and alterations and instabilities are at enmity with peace and with the goods of peace—even these are held fast by faint phantoms of a longing for peace, being troubled by passions of many movements, and ignorantly desiring to set these at rest, and supposing that, by the satiation of things ever flowing away, they bring themselves to peace, who are in fact thrown into turmoil by the disorder of the pleasures that have mastered them.

What might one say concerning the peace-pouring love of mankind that is in accordance with Christ?

According to which we shall no more learn to make war—neither against ourselves, nor against one another, nor against the angels—but rather shall cooperate with them too in divine things, so far as we are able, according to the providence of Jesus, who works all things in all and makes peace, unspeakable and foreordained from eternity, and reconciles us to Himself in the Spirit, and through Himself and in Himself to the Father.

Concerning these supernatural gifts enough has been said in the Theological Outlines, with the sacred inspiration of the Scriptures bearing witness to us as well.

But since on another occasion you also inquired of me by letter what in the world I mean by Being-itself, Life-itself, Wisdom-itself, and you said to yourself that you were at a loss how I sometimes call God Life-itself and sometimes the establisher of Life-itself—I thought it necessary, O holy man of God, to release you from this perplexity of ours as well.

And first—to take up once more what has been said a thousand times—it is not contradictory to call God Power-itself or Life-itself, and yet also the establisher of Life-itself or of Peace or of Power.

For the former are said of Him from beings, and especially from primary beings, as the cause of all beings; the latter, as being above all things, even primary beings, supersubstantially transcending them.

But, you say, what do we mean altogether by Being-itself, or Life-itself, or whatever we posit as existing absolutely and originatively, and as having first subsisted from God?

This, we say, is not tortuous, but has a straightforward and simple explanation.

For we do not say that Being-itself is some divine or angelic essence that is the cause of the being of all beings; for the cause of all beings' being—and of being itself—is only that supersubstantial principle and essence and cause; nor that there is some other life-giving Godhead, besides the more-than-divine, that is the cause of the life of all that live and of Life-itself; nor, to speak in brief, that there are originative and creative essences and hypostases of beings, which certain men, improvising, have proclaimed to be gods and creators of beings—men whom, to speak truly and properly, neither they themselves knew, since indeed such gods do not exist, nor did their fathers.

...and deification-itself; of which beings, partaking in a manner proper to themselves, both are and are called beings and living and divine, and so likewise the rest.

And what need is there to speak about these things?

Inasmuch as certain of our divine sacred teachers call the supremely good and more-than-divine the establisher of Goodness-itself and of Godhead, saying that Goodness-itself and Godhead are the good-making and god-making gift that has proceeded from God; and call Beauty-itself the beauty-making effusion, and the whole beauty and partial beauty, and things wholly beautiful and beautiful in part, and whatever else has been and shall be said in the same manner—all of which denote providences and goodnesses partaken of by beings, proceeding from God the Unparticipated in unstinting and overflowing effusion: that the Cause of all things may be precisely beyond all things, and that the supersubstantial and supernatural may wholly transcend the things of whatever essence and nature.

[Chapter Twelve] But since concerning these things also, as much as needed to be said has, I think, received a fitting end, we must now celebrate the Infinitely-named, both as Holy of Holies and as King of those who reign and as reigning unto the age and beyond the age and yet more, and as Lord of those who are lords and God of gods.

And first we must say what we suppose Holiness-itself to be, and what kingship, and what lordship, and what Godhead, and what the Scriptures mean to signify by the doubling of the names.

Holiness, then, is—to speak as we may—the purity that is free from all defilement and perfect and altogether undefiled.

Kingship is the distribution of all boundary and order and law and rank.

Lordship is not only the pre-eminence over things inferior, but also the complete and full possession of all things beautiful and good, and a true and unfailing steadfastness.

Godhead is the providence that beholds all things, and that, with all-perfect goodness, courses about and holds together all things and fills itself with itself, and that transcends all things that enjoy its providence.

These things, then, must be celebrated absolutely of the Cause that surpasses all things, and we must address it as transcendent Holiness and Lordship, and supreme Kingship, and most simple Godhead.

For from it there has sprung forth and been distributed, in one and all at once, all unmixed exactness of every sincere purity; all the disposition and ordering of beings, banishing discord and inequality and disproportion, and exulting in well-ordered sameness and rectitude, and leading around to itself those that have been deemed worthy to partake of it; all the all-perfect possession of all beautiful things; all good providence, beholding and holding together the things provided for, giving itself in a manner befitting goodness toward the deification of those turned toward it.

And since the Cause of all things is supremely full of all things according to the one pre-eminence that surpasses all, He is celebrated as Holy of Holies, and the rest, according to a superabundant causality and transcendent pre-eminence—as one might say.

In the measure that beings surpass non-beings, the holy or divine or lordly or kingly, and the self-participations of these very things; in that same measure is He who is above all beings, and the unparticipated Cause of all things that partake and of the participations, established above all beings.

And the Scriptures call holy and kings and lords and gods the more princely arrangements within each order, through which the secondary ranks, partaking of the gifts from God, multiply about their own diversities the simplicity of that distribution—gifts whose foremost ranks providentially and god-likely gather their variety together toward their own unity.

[Chapter Thirteen] So much, then, concerning these matters also.

But now, if it seems good, let us proceed in our discourse to that which is mightiest of all.

For theology predicates of the Cause of all things both all things and all things at once, and celebrates Him both as Perfect and as One.

He is Perfect, then, not only as self-perfect and defined of Himself by Himself in single fashion and as most perfect throughout the whole, but also as more-than-perfect, according to His surpassing of all things and His bounding of all infinity, while being unfolded beyond every limit and contained or comprehended by nothing, but extending upon all things and at once beyond all things by His unfailing bestowals and unending activities.

And again He is called Perfect as incapable of increase and ever perfect, and as incapable of diminution—as possessing all things beforehand in Himself and overflowing according to the one ceaseless and superabundant and undiminishing supply, by which He perfects all perfect things and fills them with their own proper perfection.

And He is One, in that He is all things unitarily according to the pre-eminence of a single unity, and is the cause of all things without ever departing from the One.

For there is nothing among beings that does not partake of the One; but just as every number partakes of the monad—and we speak of one pair, and of one decad, and of one half, and one third, and one tenth—so all things, and every portion of all things, partake of the One; and by the One's being, all beings are.

And the Cause of all things is not one as one among the many, but is before every one and multiplicity, and is the definer of every one and multiplicity.

For neither is there a multiplicity that does not in some way partake of the One; but the many in respect of their parts are one in the whole; and the many in respect of their accidents are one in the substrate; and the many in number or in powers are one in species; and the many in species are one in genus; and the many in their processions are one in their principle. And there is nothing among beings that does not in some way partake of the One, which, in that One which is according-to-all unitary, has anticipated in unitary fashion all things and all things wholly, even the contraries.

And without the One there will be no multiplicity, but without multiplicity the One will still exist, just as the monad exists before every multiplied number.

And if one should suppose all things to be united to all, the all will be one in the whole.

Moreover, this too must be known: that things united are said to be united according to the form of each one preconceived; and the One is that which gives elements to all things.

And if you take away the One, there will be neither whole nor part nor any other one of the beings.

For the One has anticipated and embraced all things in itself in unitary fashion.

Thus, then, theology celebrates the whole Godhead, as the cause of all things, by the appellation of the One; and there is one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, and one and the same Spirit, by reason of the surpassing indivisibility of the whole divine unity, in which all things are unitarily gathered together and supremely united and present supersubstantially.

And you would find nothing among beings that is not, and is that which it is, and is perfected and preserved, by the One according to which the whole Godhead is supersubstantially named.

And we too must, turning from the many to the One by the power of the divine unity, celebrate in unitary fashion the whole and single Godhead—the One that is the cause of all things, that which is before every one and multiplicity and part and whole and boundary and unboundedness and limit and infinity; that which defines all beings and being itself, and is the cause of all and of all things wholly, both at once and before all things and above all things, and in unitary fashion; that which is even above the One-itself and defines the very One-itself, since the one being that is numbered among beings is numerable, and number partakes of essence.

But the supersubstantial One both defines the One that is, and all number, and is itself principle and cause and number and order both of the one and of number and of every being.

And no monad nor triad, nor number, nor unity nor fecundity, nor any other thing among beings or known to any of the beings, brings forth the hiddenness—beyond all reason and mind—of the more-than-Godhead that supersubstantially is above all things; nor is there any name of it, nor any reason, but it is set apart in inaccessible places.

And not even the name of Goodness itself do we apply to it as fitting it; but, out of longing to think and say something concerning that unutterable Nature, we first consecrate to it the most venerable of names.

And in this too we would be in accord with the theologians, yet we shall fall short of the truth of the realities.

These intelligible god-names we have, having gathered them together, unfolded so far as was attainable—falling short not only of their exactness (for this truly even angels would confess), nor only of the angelic hymnody of them (for even the mightiest of the theologians among us fall short of the lowest of the angels), nor indeed of the theologians themselves, nor of their disciples or fellow-followers, but falling short even of our own equals, in the lowest and most humble degree.

So that, if what has been said is correct, and if we have indeed, after our manner, truly touched in thought upon the unfolding of the god-names, the matter must be referred back to the Cause of all good things, who grants first the very speaking, and then the speaking well.

And if any of the equally-powerful names has been omitted, that too we shall be obliged to understand according to the same methods.

But if these things are either not correct or imperfect, and we have wandered from the truth either wholly or in part, it would belong to your love of mankind to set right one who is unwillingly ignorant, and to impart reason to one who needs to learn, and to come to the aid of one who has not sufficient power of his own, and to heal one who is unwilling to be sick; and, finding some things from yourself and some from others—but receiving all from the Good—to pass them on to us.

And do not grow weary in doing good to a man who is your friend.

For you see that we too have kept back for ourselves none of the hierarchical teachings handed down to us, but have imparted them undefiled both to you and to other holy men, and shall continue to impart them—so far as we are able to speak, and those to whom they are spoken are able to hear—in no way wronging the tradition, unless perchance we should prove too weak for the understanding or the expression of them.

But let these things be, and be spoken of, in whatever way is pleasing to God; and let this be, then, our limit with regard to the intelligible god-names.

And now, with God leading the way, I shall pass on to the Symbolic Theology.