Works of Dionysius

insofar as affirmation seems to limit to the boundaries of our intellect that which is incomparably immense.

¶ Among us, negation is usually opposed to affirmation in such a way that both cannot be true regarding the same thing simultaneously. For where you would say that the soul or the body is a substance, it is not permitted to say, in turn, that it is not a substance. But the divine unity is so effective that it reconciles all things, even those among themselves, into one within itself. And since it is superior to any position or affirmation, it is deservedly considered separated from every privation opposed to a position in a wondrous way—especially since, because it is in need of nothing, it is never thought to be deprived of anything. In summary, we affirm the same thing about God in one sense, and we deny it in another. Indeed, when you say God is essence, you understand God to create essence and preserve it; when you say again that God is not essence, you understand that God is not this essence that is found or thought of by you, but the form of essence itself.

¶ For these reasons, our Plato, in the Parmenides, affirms and denies about the One itself all its opposites. Someone could perhaps do almost the same thing regarding prime matter. But since God and matter are as if opposed to one another—like the supreme and the lowest of the universe—we can probably affirm and deny of both, in a certain opposed way, whatever falls in between God and unformed matter. Therefore, you will say God is or has this or that thing or form, because He makes it; and again, He does not have it, because He is superior to them. But matter will be said to have or be the same thing because it suffers it, and yet it will be denied again because it is inferior.

¶ It is fitting to affirm all things about God, and again to deny them; but denial is safer and truer than affirmation. ¶ Dionysius.

We certainly must

Dare to affirm positions of things about God as the cause of all things. And in turn, by a certain more powerful reason, deny them all of God as being superior to all. Nor must it be thought that such negations are repugnant to affirmations, but that the cause of the universe itself, which is higher than every ablation and even every position of others, far surpasses all privations.

¶ How God may appear in silence, and through the passing of summits, and in darkness. ¶ Bartholomaeus.

God is regarding Being

in three (as I see it) degrees. In the first, he uses many things. In the second, few. In the third, none. With as many as possible, I say, where whatever occurs is affirmed and denied about God. With the same words, indeed, but by a different reason. But with few, where he uses relations, namely by referring things to God as to a principle, end, middle, preserver, converter, and perfecter. But there is no one who, when he does not refer things further to God, nor in turn, nor denies anything, nor does anything depend on God, renders an affirmation in a certain way to God. But he immediately breaks the inner discourse of the affirmed God, and is immediately silent, lest by affirming he insolently reports the finite instead of the infinite. Then, therefore, if the discourse is relaxed, the love of the Good is intensified; immediately (as we have said) in that very fire near the Good, the light of the Good shines forth, and the Good breathes. It is necessary, however, that the soul, in order to approach this, should have deeply transcended at least three (so to speak) summits: namely, the corporeal, the animal, and the intellectual. We think of the corporeal summit where heaven is imagined as if it were new, as much more beautiful through heaven as heaven is more beautiful than the earth. The animal, where all soul is imagined in one soul, with each one exuberating in intellect. Finally, the intellectual, if we ever conceive of the intellect. Thus, it is all-form, so that it brings forth all forms and all intellects. Beyond such summits, the Good itself stands as if beyond sounds and lights, which are usually open to the mind. He is said, however, to dwell in darkness, because when one no longer desires anything from these, as if overwhelmed, the Good now appears in darkness, to these so much more clearly as the midday light is more shining in the deep night.

¶ Discourse about God then is first, then very little, and finally none, of the Good.

And therefore by this reason

Bartholomaeus says that theology is most varied and most sparse, and that the Gospel itself is both wide and great, and concise. By which, indeed, he has marvelously understood that one who speaks about the cause of the good of all things can rightly use many words, and also few, and finally none. Since, indeed, with that, both word and intelligence cease, for the reason that it super-eminently transcends all things by a certain super-essential reason. And it shines truly with that light only to those who have crossed over not only all impure things, but also pure things, and have already transcended all the ascents of all holy summits. And they have deserted all divine lights, sounds, and celestial discourses, and have immediately entered into that darkness. Where He truly is, as the sacred scriptures hand down, who is higher than all.