Works of Dionysius

more perfect [things] than imperfect things, and in turn, it is more probable to deny of Him the most imperfect things than the more perfect things. If, therefore, you affirm the most perfect first, you have not yet affirmed the subsequent things. Therefore, a discourse bringing the rest gradually cannot be judged superfluous. But if you have denied the most perfect first, you have denied everything at once, and it is in vain to deny the rest. Therefore, if you wish to run through all the intermediate things in order, you will affirm the superior to the inferior. And in turn, before other things, you will rightly deny the inferior.

The affirmation of things concerning God proceeds by a way contrary to negation.

¶ Dionysius

Perhaps you will ask

why, when we are accustomed to starting divine positions from the first, we in turn begin to remove from the extremes? Because, clearly, when we posit concerning Him that which surpasses every position, one ought to begin the affirmative supposition from that which is most akin to Him. On the contrary, however, when we remove concerning Him that which exceeds every removal, we rightly begin the removal from those things that are furthest from Him. Is God not more life and goodness than air and stone? And in turn, is He not rather not gluttonous and not angered, than [the fact] that He is not said or understood [to be]?

¶ There is one principle of all things. It is not anything sensible or intelligible, but surpasses both by a certain infinite interval.

¶ Marsilius

In which follow

chapters affirming God to be the cause of all things, both sensible and intelligible, can be adduced against the Manichaeans, whom Plotinus also refutes, who introduce two principles: namely, the supreme good and the supreme evil. And that the former is the principle of intelligibles, but this latter [is the principle] of sensibles. These also we refute in the Theology and along with Plotinus. Because that which is imagined as supreme evil has neither action nor essence. It has [its existence] from the Good. These things, however, desire [to exist] as goods. ¶ Furthermore, since sensible things are also good, beautiful, ordered, and useful, they are not

from an evil principle, but from the Good. Which Moses is compelled to confess. ¶ Finally, unless both depended from the same principle, they could have no communion between them. ¶ True reason dictates that, just as the order of each thing is reduced to its own head, so the universal order of all things must finally be referred to one universal head of all things. For if the higher a cause is, the more widely and far it extends its empire, the highest cause certainly extends its power and action through all things. And since it is the first cause of causes, it is undoubtedly the greatest cause. Therefore, it is the cause of all things, both preserving each thing everywhere and causing them. The rest we adduce in the Theology following Plotinus for the same reasons. For this reason, our Dionysius calls God the author of all things, both sensible and intelligible. He adds that He is the cause eminently, for other causes have some proportion with their effects. Because causes and effects are contained under the same universal principle of things. Thus, the sphere of fire has a proportion with hot effects. Indeed, also Mars and the sun, as the Platonists confirm. The first cause, however—which Plato also demonstrates—does not act with any proportion to any work, but through absolute infinity. Otherwise, it would not be supremely simple and primary. Therefore, since the first cause acts through simple eminence upon all things, both sensible and intelligible, it is rightly nothing of those things, since it has not even any proportion to them. ¶ Dionysius, however, denies all things to God, not so that he might seem to take God away completely from the middle, but he posits at the beginning that he will deny those things—only on the condition that he always understands that better things are to be given above the mode. When we deny that the soul is a bodily essence, we do not deny that it is a better essence, namely, an incorporeal one. Similarly, we deny that God is in the order of essence that also transcends, which can be divided into bodily and incorporeal essence, and existing in itself, and adhering to another, and being derived similarly to all things, and being finished singly. We concede, however, that God is an essence transcending the simple absolute. ¶ Denying again that God is life, which is the act of essence, we do not prohibit that He is the cause of such life. Again, when we deny that God is reason or an intellect searching for light and the good, we do not deny that He is the intellect and the cause of light and the good.