lect intellect. ¶ But who is so insane that he says the intellect is irrational, because it does not need the roundabout ways of reason? Or calls reason blind, because it sees without the present mystery of the eye? Likewise, it is not lawful to suspect God of being mindless, because, since He is the light itself and the good perceived by the mind, He does not need the use of the mind. ¶ Dionysius denies first that God is a body. Then, that He is not, nor does He have, conditions and passions of the body, whether they are in the body or around the body. We therefore, in turn, from the fact that conditions, defects, and passions happening to a body, the principle of things, do not happen [to God], we can consequently argue that He is not a body. In the Theology, furthermore, we declare more broadly that He is not a form adhering to a body, nor again a first form to this form. But Dionysius ascends by denying from an inert body to the form of a body, which is in a certain way efficacious, that is, accidental. From this to a more efficacious one, substantial, but not yet living. From this to a living one, but irrational. Which is as much the summit of sensibles as it is the last of intelligibles.
¶ That nothing of sensible things is [God], because He is eminently the author of every sensible [thing].

¶ Dionysius

Cause of all things

C

surpassing all things, He is not grasped by essence, nor life, nor reason, nor mind. Neither is He a body, nor figure, nor species: nor does He have quality, or quantity, or mass: nor is He in a place, nor is He seen. Nor does He have the touch of sensible things. Nor does He sense, nor is He sensible. Nor is He subject to the disturbance of an expert order, namely, agitated by material passions. Again, He is not an invalid sensible, namely, subject to accidents. Nor is He in need of light. Nor does He admit any alteration, or corruption, or division, or any privation. Nor is He or does He have anything of sensible things.
¶ By which degrees it is denied of God—the intelligibles, namely, first those that pertain to the soul, then those to the intellect, thirdly those to the ideas, fourthly those that relate to the appellations of God, fifthly those that relate to the Trinity.

¶ Marsilius

It is denied of God

n

all intelligibles; he makes the beginning from those things which are reduced to the intelligible genus as the last. Namely, proceeding from the vegetative soul to the sensitive. From this to the imaginative. From here to the soul, as it were, rational—namely, of the most sagacious beasts. From here to the rational, that is, the human. From the reason of this itself to its intelligence, from here to the angelic intellect.
¶ From intellect to the ideas. For there are ideas in the intellect like stars in the sky. Which in the angelic intellect are its highest. But in the divine, they are, as it were, the last. Among the ideas, he places the ideas of numbers, and soon the proportions of those accompanying the numbers. Where he commemorates order. Also the ideas of dimensions which are resolved into numbers. Where he speaks of the great, the small, and the equal. Furthermore, the ideas of qualities needing their own certain dimensions. Where he adduces similarity and dissimilarity. Then indeed the ideas of actions which follow qualities. Speaking, namely, of motion and rest. He approaches the idea of the forms of substances, namely, elemental, under the name of potentiality. Again, the ideas of celestial [bodies] under the name of light. The ideas, furthermore, of souls and bodies conjoined, by the appellation of life. Likewise, of separate ones under the name of essence, also marked by the eternity of the angels. Eternity, however, draws time with itself like an image. Finally, the idea is of divine fruition under the intelligible touch.
¶ Thus far he has denied concerning the sublimity of the divine the endowments of souls and minds and all things that they understand as ideas. And rightly, since an idea of this kind is a certain thing defined singly, as if it were a thing posited. Furthermore, God acts through all things and in all things; but ideas are so distinguished among themselves that they cannot all be from one. Indeed, they are also opposed, namely, the idea of state [to] the idea of motion. Ideal similarity to ideal dissimilarity. God, therefore, since He prefers all ideas equally, and neither is any of them what we understand, nor even all of them [together]. But who would not see: if God Himself were the idea of goodness, or motion, or diversity, He would not accomplish magnitude, state, and union? By what reasons such things [are held], every true Plato in the Parmenides would deny, and it would be a long narrative if necessary; for we dispute about these things in the Parmenides. ¶ Through these things, he denies certain absolute appellations which are commonly [applied] to God.