Works of Dionysius

from all things, and meanwhile most present. ¶ Thence the One, hence the Good, is named by the Platonists. Thence, indeed, it has nothing in common or similar with effects. Hence, again, it acts on all things. It acts in all things. It preserves [them] assiduously. It is most present within all things. ¶ Since the most ample diffusion of virtues and gifts pertains to its infinite goodness, it leaves nothing devoid of its own goodness. Therefore, it rightly imparts to many that clarity by which it sees itself. Through which many contemplate God. But that cognition of God stands above essence in God. In the following, however, the cognition of God does not transcend the limits of essence: therefore, God retains a ray exceeding essence in Himself. But He communicates the essential [ray]. Indeed, when it first springs from God, it turns out essential. Through this, as Plato himself says in the Republic a dialogue on justice and the state, both the species of things are made intelligible, and minds are made intellectual. And indeed, they are harmoniously coupled with them. And at last, minds are blessedly formed by God. ¶ But God distributes His light to intellects according to the proportion of each one. Just as individual stars receive varied light from the sun according to their nature. ¶ But then, blessed minds, concordant with the divine will, live content with the measure of the gift given. Especially when its nature has been satisfied in this way. Nor do they affect further, nor do they fall into the worse. ¶ Because it is of the light to warm, therefore they are immediately kindled under this light of intelligence with a corresponding love, that is, with the light itself, so that they seek neither short of [it] nor beyond [it]. But love itself is that which, like wings, sustains the minds through the sublime so that they do not slip to lower things. Hence Orpheus sings of divine love as winged in his hymns. And Plato in the Phaedrus a dialogue on love and the soul says that sublime souls recover their wings through the love of divine beauty, by which they may finally fly back to the celestial fatherland. Finally, love, as nature, is the principle of motion and rest. Therefore, if by chance minds, while they know God not moderately, meanwhile love something else, or moderately, once God is left, they will be moved to something else.
¶ God communicates the ray of His intelligence to each one according to capacity, and blessed intellects live content with the distributed gift and firmly enjoy [it].

[it].
¶ Dionysius.

Nevertheless,

that highest Good allows nothing existing anywhere to be devoid of itself. But since it has fixed the super-essential ray stably in itself, it nevertheless shines kindly to each one according to the proportion of each existing thing. And it extends the sacred intellects to its own contemplation, union, and similarity as far as they can attain. Which, as is right and just, turn toward it reverently. Nor does the ray, induced to superior things, contend in vain or alone for them in its own mode. Nor do they slip to lower things by any inclination turning toward the worse. But they turn their gaze firmly and indeclinably toward the ray shining upon them. And, illuminated by the love of worthy illuminations, they fly through the sublime with appropriate sacred reverence, temperately and holily.
¶ We see divine things more easily and safely if we turn the gaze of the mind to the sacred utterances, as if directing it more boldly toward God Himself.
¶ Marsilius.

Because we ought

not so much to scrutinize as to venerate God, who is like the sun of the mundane sun, beyond the limits of essence and intelligence. And [we ought] not to sustain this immense light with the eyes of the mind. Hence [we turn] to the sacred letters as if to the heavens. In which names and divine arrangements are handed down divinely, like stars accommodated to our eyes, from which stars indeed the proper powers of God and divine praises shine upon us like the virtues of the sun in the stars. ¶ From these, finally, we draw according to our genius. According to what pleases God, we praise [Him] rightly. In the divine names and appellations handed down divinely, all Hebrews think there are wonderful hidden things, both for declaring divine mysteries and for performing miracles; and Zoroaster and Iamblichus confirm this.
¶ The rays of divinity shining in sacred utterances easily lead us to divine contemplation.
¶ Dionysius.