TO THE FELLOW PRESBYTER TIMOTHY, DIONYSIUS

 being illuminated super-cosmically by them for the hymns of the Godhead and being conformed to the sacred hymnologies, so as to see the divine lights

 For all knowledges are of things that are and have their limit in things that are, but It is beyond all essence and is removed from all knowledge. <5>

 <7> Thus, therefore, to the Cause of all and which is above all, both the nameless will apply and all the names of the things that are, so that it may

 the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will, and that It is the Spirit that gives life? That the ent

 to the one-principled Trinity also is common the super-essential existence, the super-divine divinity, the super-good goodness, the identity beyond al

 has partaken of the Word, unless someone might say according to the good-pleasing and man-loving common will and according to all the transcendent and

 Jesus, he says in his compiled Theological Outlines: <10> The all-causing and fulfilling Godhead of the Son, which preserves the parts in harmony with

 <III.> <1> And first, if you please, let us investigate the name Good, which reveals the whole procession of God's emanations, invoking the Good-Pri

 to the hierarchs, when we too, as you know, both yourself and many of our sacred brethren, had gathered for the sight of the life-originating and God-

 communions, the unconfused distinctions, the powers of the subordinate that lead up to the superior, the providences of the senior for the secondary,

 moves and nourishes and increases and perfects and purifies and renews. And light is the measure and number of hours, of days, and of all our time. Fo

 impartations and as calling all things to itself, whence it is also called Beauty, and as gathering all in all into one, and Beautiful as being All-Be

 the beautiful and the good is that which is beyond all rest and motion. Wherefore every rest and motion and that from which and in which and to which

 <12> And yet it has seemed to some of our sacred writers that the name 'eros' is even more divine than that of 'agape'. And the divine Ignatius also w

 an eternal circle through the Good, from the Good and in the Good and to the Good, moving about in an unerring convolution and in the same and accordi

 Whence then is evil? one might say. For if evil does not exist, virtue and vice are the same thing, and the whole is the same as the whole, and the pa

 irrational desire, in this it neither exists nor desires existing things, but it nevertheless partakes of the good by virtue of the faint echo itself

 simply nor in respect to time. <22> But neither is evil in angels. For if the good-like angel proclaims the divine goodness, being secondarily by part

 <24> But would someone say that souls are evil? If, because they associate with evil things providentially and for salvation, this is not evil, but go

 <30> To speak concisely The good is from one and the whole cause, but the evil from many and partial deficiencies. God knows evil, insofar as it is g

 goodnesses. <34> Therefore evil is not a being, nor is evil in beings. For evil, as evil, is nowhere. And the coming-to-be of evil is not according to

 manifestation of the all-perfect providence of the one God, and those of the more universal and the more particular things of the same. <3> And yet on

 <6> Therefore, the Essential Super-Goodness, putting forth the first gift, that of being itself, is praised by the first and most ancient of participa

 For if our sun, although the substances and qualities of sensible things are many and various, yet it, being one and shining a uniform light, renews a

 godlike and unchangeable immortality and the unwavering and unswerving perpetual motion, extending through an abundance of goodness even to the life o

 and is the cause of being of Wisdom itself, both of the whole and of each particular. <2> From it the intelligible and intellectual powers of the ange

 the cause of all things. Therefore God is known both in all things and apart from all things. And God is known through knowledge and through unknowing

 to be power-in-itself, both by being beyond-power and by bringing forth other powers, infinitely many times the infinite number of existing powers, an

 of the age, as having fallen away from none of the things that are, but rather both surpassing and pre-eminent over all beings according to a supra-es

 is defined and all inequality, which is a privation of the equality in each of them, is banished. For if anyone were to take inequality to mean the di

 We said the neck was opinion, as between the rational and irrational the breast, spirit the belly, desire the legs and feet, nature, using the name

 the return to him of those who have proceeded from him. <10> But if one should take the divine name 'Same' from the Oracles, or 'Justice,' in the sens

 beings, inasmuch as He is both before eternity and above eternity and His kingdom is a kingdom of all the ages. Amen. <ΧI.> <1> Come now, let us c

 and would never willingly wish to be at rest. And if he who says these things says that otherness and distinction are the particularity of each of the

 self-deification, of which beings, partaking according to their own nature, both are and live and are divine, and are and are called, and the others l

 It is therefore Perfect not only as being self-complete and defined in itself by itself in a single form and most perfect whole through whole, but als

 And not even the name of Goodness do we offer to It as being applicable, but from a yearning to conceive and speak something about that ineffable Natu

being illuminated super-cosmically by them for the hymns of the Godhead and being conformed to the sacred hymnologies, so as to see the divine lights gifted to us through them in due proportion and to praise the good-giving beginning of all sacred manifestation of light, as it has delivered concerning itself in the sacred oracles. For instance, that it is the cause and beginning and essence and life of all things; and of those who fall away from it, the recall and resurrection; of those who have slipped towards the corruption of the godlike, the renewal and reformation; of those moved by some unholy agitation, a sacred foundation; and of those who stand firm, security; and of those being led up to it, an uplifting guidance; and of those being illuminated, an enlightening; and of those being perfected, the principle of perfection; and of those being deified, the principle of deification; and of those being simplified, simplicity; and of those being unified, unity; the beginning of every beginning, super-essentially above all beginning, and the good bestower of what is hidden, according to what is right; and, simply to say, the life of the living and the essence of beings, the beginning and cause of all life and essence through its goodness which produces and sustains beings in their existence. <4> These things we have been initiated into by the divine oracles. And you will find, so to speak, the entire sacred hymnology of the theologians fashioning the divine names in a revelatory and laudatory manner with respect to the good-working processions of the Godhead. Whence in almost every theological treatise we see the Godhead sacredly praised as Monad and Henad because of the simplicity and unity of its supernatural indivisibility, from which, as from a unifying power, we are unified, and our divided particularities being super-cosmically folded together, we are gathered into a godlike monad and god-imitating union; as Trinity because of the three-hypostatic manifestation of its super-essential fecundity, from which "every family in heaven and on earth" is and "is named"; as cause of beings, since all things were brought into being through its essence-creating goodness; as wise and beautiful, because all beings, preserving incorruptibly the things of their own nature, are full of all divine harmony and sacred comeliness; and pre-eminently as loving mankind, because in truth it wholly communicated in our affairs in one of its hypostases, recalling to itself and restoring the lowest human state, from which ineffably the simple Jesus was composed, and the eternal one took on a temporal duration, and he who super-essentially transcends every order of every nature came to be within our nature, with the unchangeable and unconfused establishment of his own properties. And whatever other theurgic lights the secret tradition of our divine guides, in accordance with the oracles, has granted to us in a revelatory manner, in these things we also have been initiated; for now, in proportion to us, through the sacred veils of the loving-kindness of the oracles and the hierarchical traditions, which clothes intelligible things with sensible things and super-essential things with beings, and places forms and figures upon what is formless and figureless, and multiplies and shapes the supernatural and shapeless simplicity with the variety of divided symbols. But then, when we become incorruptible and immortal and attain to the Christlike and most blessed lot, according to the oracle, "we shall ever be with the Lord", being filled with his visible theophany in all-holy contemplations, which shines around us with most brilliant splendors, as it did the disciples in that most divine transfiguration, and participating in his intelligible light-giving with a passionless and immaterial mind, and in the union beyond mind, in the unknown and blessed outpourings of the super-luminous rays. In a more divine imitation of the super-celestial minds; "for we shall be equal to the angels," as the truth of the oracles says, "and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection." But now, as far as is possible for us, we use symbols appropriate for divine things, and from these we are in due proportion raised up to the simple and unified truth of intelligible contemplations; and after every godlike conception of ours, ceasing our intellectual activities, we press on, as is right, to the super-essential ray, in which all the limits of all knowledge pre-exist ineffably; which it is possible neither to conceive nor to speak of nor in any way at all to contemplate, because it is set apart from all things and is beyond all knowing, and has super-essentially pre-contained in itself at once all the perfections of all essential knowledges and powers, and is established above all the super-celestial minds by its incomprehensible power. If

πρὸς τοὺς θεαρχικοὺς ὕμνους ὑπ' αὐτῶν ὑπερκοσμίως φωτιζόμενοι καὶ πρὸς τὰς ἱερὰς ὑμνολογίας τυπούμενοι πρὸς τὸ καὶ ὁρᾶν τὰ συμμέτρως ἡμῖν δι' αὐτῶν δωρούμενα θεαρχικὰ φῶτα καὶ τὴν ἀγαθοδότιν ἀρχὴν ἁπάσης ἱερᾶς φωτοφανείας ὑμνεῖν, ὡς αὐτὴ περὶ ἑαυτῆς ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς λογίοις παραδέδωκεν. Oἷον, ὅτι πάντων ἐστὶν αἰτία καὶ ἀρχὴ καὶ οὐσία καὶ ζωὴ καὶ τῶν μὲν ἀποπιπτόντων αὐτῆς ἀνάκλησίς τε καὶ ἀνάστασις, τῶν δὲ πρὸς τὸ τοῦ θεοειδοῦς παραφθαρτικὸν ἀπολισθησάντων ἀνακαινισμὸς καὶ ἀναμόρφωσις, τῶν δὲ κατά τινα σάλον ἀνίερον παρακινουμένων ἵδρυσις ἱερὰ καὶ τῶν ἑστηκότων ἀσφάλεια καὶ τῶν ἐπ' αὐτὴν ἀναγομένων ἀνατατικὴ χειραγωγία καὶ τῶν φωτιζομένων ἔλλαμψις καὶ τῶν τελουμένων τελεταρχία καὶ τῶν θεουμένων θεαρχία καὶ τῶν ἁπλουμένων ἁπλότης καὶ τῶν ἑνιζομένων ἑνότης, ἀρχῆς ἁπάσης ὑπερουσίως ὑπεράρχιος ἀρχὴ καὶ τοῦ κρυφίου κατὰ τὸ θεμιτὸν ἀγαθὴ μεταδότις καί, ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν, ἡ τῶν ζώντων ζωὴ καὶ τῶν ὄντων οὐσία, πάσης ζωῆς καὶ οὐσίας ἀρχὴ καὶ αἰτία διὰ τὴν αὐτῆς εἰς τὸ εἶναι τὰ ὄντα παρακτικὴν καὶ συνοχικὴν ἀγαθότητα. <4> Ταῦτα πρὸς τῶν θείων λογίων μεμυήμεθα. Καὶ πᾶσαν, ὡς εἰπεῖν, τὴν ἱερὰν τῶν θεολόγων ὑμνολογίαν εὑρήσεις πρὸς τὰς ἀγαθουργοὺς τῆς θεαρχίας προόδους ἐκφαντορικῶς καὶ ὑμνητικῶς τὰς θεωνυμίας διασκευάζουσαν. Ὅθεν ἐν πάσῃ σχεδὸν τῇ θεολογικῇ πραγματείᾳ τὴν θεαρχίαν ὁρῶμεν ἱερῶς ὑμνουμένην ὡς μονάδα μὲν καὶ ἑνάδα διὰ τὴν ἁπλότητα καὶ ἑνότητα τῆς ὑπερφυοῦς ἀμερείας, ἐξ ἧς ὡς ἑνοποιοῦ δυνά μεως ἑνιζόμεθα καὶ τῶν μεριστῶν ἡμῶν ἑτεροτήτων ὑπερκοσμίως συμπτυσσομένων εἰς θεοειδῆ μονάδα συναγόμεθα καὶ θεομίμητον ἕνωσιν, ὡς τριάδα δὲ διὰ τὴν τρισυπόστατον τῆς ὑπερουσίου γονιμότητος ἔκφανσιν, ἐξ ἧς «πᾶσα πατριὰ ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς» ἔστι καὶ «ὀνομάζεται», ὡς αἰτίαν δὲ τῶν ὄντων, ἐπειδὴ πάντα πρὸς τὸ εἶναι παρήχθη διὰ τὴν αὐτῆς οὐσιοποιὸν ἀγαθότητα, σοφὴν δὲ καὶ καλήν, ὅτι τὰ ὄντα πάντα τὰ τῆς οἰκείας φύσεως ἀπαράφθαρτα διασώζοντα πάσης ἁρμονίας ἐνθέου καὶ ἱερᾶς εὐπρεπείας ἐστὶν ἀνάπλεα, φιλάνθρωπον δὲ διαφερόντως, ὅτι τοῖς καθ' ἡμᾶς πρὸς ἀλήθειαν ὁλικῶς ἐν μιᾷ τῶν αὐτῆς ὑποστάσεων ἐκοινώνησεν ἀνακαλουμένη πρὸς ἑαυτὴν καὶ ἀνατιθεῖσα τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ἐσχατιάν, ἐξ ἧς ἀῤῥήτως ὁ ἁπλοῦς Ἰησοῦς συνετέθη καὶ παράτασιν εἴληφε χρονικὴν ὁ ἀΐδιος καὶ εἴσω τῆς καθ' ἡμᾶς ἐγεγόνει φύσεως ὁ πάσης τῆς κατὰ πᾶσαν φύσιν τάξεως ὑπερουσίως ἐκβεβηκὼς μετὰ τῆς ἀμεταβόλου καὶ ἀσυγχύτου τῶν οἰκείων ἱδρύσεως. Καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα θεουργικὰ φῶτα τοῖς λογίοις ἀκολούθως ἡ τῶν ἐνθέων ἡμῶν καθηγεμόνων κρυφία παράδοσις ἐκφαντορικῶς ἡμῖν ἐδωρήσατο, ταῦτα καὶ ἡμεῖς μεμυήμεθα νῦν μὲν ἀναλόγως ἡμῖν διὰ τῶν ἱερῶν παραπετασμάτων τῆς τῶν λογίων καὶ τῶν ἱεραρχικῶν παραδόσεων φιλανθρωπίας αἰσθητοῖς τὰ νοητὰ καὶ τοῖς οὖσι τὰ ὑπερούσια περικαλυπτούσης καὶ μορφὰς καὶ τύπους τοῖς ἀμορφώτοις τε καὶ ἀτυπώτοις περιτιθείσης καὶ τὴν ὑπερφυῆ καὶ ἀσχημάτιστον ἁπλότητα τῇ ποικιλίᾳ τῶν μεριστῶν συμβόλων πληθυούσης τε καὶ διαπλαττούσης. Τότε δέ, ὅταν ἄφθαρτοι καὶ ἀθάνατοι γενώμεθα καὶ τῆς χριστοειδοῦς καὶ μακαριωτάτης ἐφικώμεθα λήξεως, «πάντοτε σὺν κυρίῳ» κατὰ τὸ λόγιον «ἐσόμεθα» τῆς μὲν ὁρατῆς αὐτοῦ θεοφανείας ἐν πανάγνοις θεωρίαις ἀποπληρούμενοι φανοτάταις μαρμαρυγαῖς ἡμᾶς περιαυγαζούσης ὡς τοὺς μαθητὰς ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ θειοτάτῃ μεταμορφώσει, τῆς δὲ νοητῆς αὐτοῦ φωτοδοσίας ἐν ἀπαθεῖ καὶ ἀΰλῳ τῷ νῷ μετέχοντες καὶ τῆς ὑπὲρ νοῦν ἑνώσεως ἐν ταῖς τῶν ὑπερφανῶν ἀκτίνων ἀγνώστοις καὶ μακαρίαις ἐπιβολαῖς. Ἐν θειοτέρᾳ μιμήσει τῶν ὑπερουρανίων νοῶν «ἰσάγγελοι γάρ», ὡς ἡ τῶν λογίων ἀλήθειά φησιν, ἐσόμεθα «καὶ υἱοὶ θεοῦ τῆς ἀναστάσεως υἱοὶ ὄντες». Νῦν δέ, ὡς ἡμῖν ἐφικτόν, οἰκείοις μὲν εἰς τὰ θεῖα συμβόλοις χρώμεθα κἀκ τούτων αὖθις ἐπὶ τὴν ἁπλῆν καὶ ἡνωμένην τῶν νοητῶν θεαμάτων ἀλήθειαν ἀναλόγως ἀνατεινόμεθα καὶ μετὰ πᾶσαν τὴν καθ' ἡμᾶς τῶν θεοειδῶν νόησιν ἀποπαύοντες ἡμῶν τὰς νοερὰς ἐνεργείας εἰς τὴν ὑπερούσιον ἀκτῖνα κατὰ τὸ θεμιτὸν ἐπιβάλλομεν, ἐν ᾗ πάντα τὰ πέρατα πασῶν τῶν γνώσεων ὑπεραῤῥήτως προϋφέστηκεν, ἣν οὔτε ἐννοῆσαι δυνατὸν οὔτε εἰπεῖν οὔτε ὅλως πως θεωρῆσαι διὰ τὸ πάντων αὐτὴν ἐξῃρημένην εἶναι καὶ ὑπεράγνωστον καὶ πασῶν μὲν τῶν οὐσιωδῶν γνώσεων καὶ δυνάμεων τὰς ἀποπερατώσεις ἅμα καὶ πάσας ὑπερουσίως ἐν ἑαυτῇ προειληφυῖαν, πάντων δὲ ἀπεριλήπτῳ δυνάμει καὶ τῶν ὑπερουρανίων νοῶν ὑπεριδρυμένην. Eἰ