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

<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 good, and with him the causes of evils are good-producing powers. If evil is eternal and creates and is powerful and exists and acts, whence has it these things? Either from the good or for the good from the evil or both from another cause? Everything according to nature is born from a definite cause. If evil is without cause and indefinite, it is not according to nature, for that which is contrary to nature is not in nature, nor is there a principle of artlessness in art. Is the soul then the cause of evils, just as fire is of heating, and does it fill all things it approaches with wickedness? Or is the nature of the soul good, but in its activities is it sometimes this way, and sometimes that? If by nature its very being is evil, from where does it have its being? From the good creative cause of all beings? But if from this, how is it evil in substance? For all its offspring are good. But if in its activities, this is not unchangeable. But if not, whence the virtues, if it does not also become good-like? It remains, therefore, that evil is a weakness and a deficiency of the good. <31> The cause of good things is one. If evil is contrary to the good, the causes of evil are many. The producers of evils are not principles and powers, but powerlessness and weakness and an incommensurate mixture of dissimilar things. Nor are evils unmoved and always the same, but infinite and indefinite and borne in other things, and these infinite. The beginning and end of all things, even of evils, will be the good, for all things are for the sake of the good, both as many as are good and as many as are contrary, for we do these things also, desiring the good, for no one does what he does looking toward evil. Therefore evil has no subsistence, but a parasubsistence, coming to be for the sake of the good and not for its own sake. <32> Being must be attributed to evil accidentally and through another and not from its own principle. So that what comes to be seems to be right, because it comes to be for the sake of the good, but in reality it is not right, because we think what is not good is good. It has been shown that the object of desire is one thing, and what comes to be is another. Therefore evil is contrary to the way and contrary to the goal and contrary to nature and contrary to the cause and contrary to the beginning and contrary to the end and contrary to the definition and contrary to the will and contrary to subsistence. Evil, therefore, is privation and deficiency and weakness and incommensurability and error and aimlessness and ugliness and lifelessness and mindlessness and irrationality and imperfection and instability and causelessness and indefiniteness and barrenness and idleness and inactivity and disorder and unlikeness and infinity and darkness and insubstantiality, and in itself is in no way, in no place, nothing. How can evil do anything at all through its mixture with the good? For that which is entirely without share in the good neither is anything nor has any power. For if the good is both being and desirable and powerful and active, how will that which is contrary to the good, which is deprived of substance and will and power and activity, be able to do anything? The same things are not in all ways for all and in every way evil in the same respect. For a demon, it is evil to be contrary to the good-like mind; for a soul, contrary to reason; for a body, contrary to nature. <33> How can there be evils at all if providence exists? Evil, as evil, is neither a being nor in beings. And none of the beings is without providence, for evil is not a being existing unmixed with the good. And if none of the beings is without a share in the good, and evil is the deficiency of the good, and none of the beings is completely deprived of the good, the divine providence is in all beings, and none of the beings is without providence. But providence also makes good use of the evils that occur for their own or others' benefit, either private or common, and provides for each of the beings in a way proper to it. For which reason we shall not accept the rash argument of the many, who say that providence ought to lead us to virtue even against our will, for to destroy nature is not the work of providence. Whence as providence, the savior of each one's nature, it provides for self-moved beings as self-moved, and for wholes and for particulars in a way proper to the whole and to each, insofar as the nature of the things provided for receives the providential gifts distributed from the whole and all-various providence in proportion to each.

<30> Συνελόντι δὲ φάναι· Τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἐκ μιᾶς καὶ τῆς ὅλης αἰτίας, τὸ δὲ κακὸν ἐκ πολλῶν καὶ μερικῶν ἐλλείψεων. Oἶδεν ὁ θεὸς τὸ κακόν, ᾗ ἀγαθόν, καὶ παρ' αὐτῷ αἱ αἰτίαι τῶν κακῶν δυνάμεις εἰσὶν ἀγαθοποιοί. Eἰ τὸ κακὸν ἀΐδιον καὶ δημιουργεῖ καὶ δύναται καὶ ἔστι καὶ δρᾷ, πόθεν αὐτῷ ταῦτα; Ἠ ἐκ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἢ τῷ ἀγαθῷ ἐκ τοῦ κακοῦ ἢ ἀμφοῖν ἐξ ἄλλης αἰτίας; Πᾶν τὸ κατὰ φύσιν ἐξ αἰτίας ὡρισμένης γεννᾶται. Eἰ τὸ κακὸν ἀναίτιον καὶ ἀόριστον, οὐ κατὰ φύσιν, οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐν τῇ φύσει τὸ παρὰ φύσιν, οὐδὲ ἀτεχνίας ἐν τῇ τέχνῃ λόγος. Ἀρα ἡ ψυχὴ τῶν κακῶν αἰτία καθάπερ τὸ πῦρ τοῦ θερμαίνειν καὶ πάντα, οἷς ἂν γειτνιάσῃ, κακίας ἀναπίμπλησιν; Ἢ ἀγαθὴ μὲν ἡ ψυχῆς φύσις, ταῖς δὲ ἐνεργείαις ποτὲ μὲν οὕτως ἔχει, ποτὲ δὲ οὕτως; Eἰ μὲν φύσει καὶ τὸ εἶναι αὐτῆς κακόν, καὶ πόθεν αὐτῇ τὸ εἶναι; Ἠ ἐκ τῆς δημιουργικῆς τῶν ὅλων ὄντων ἀγαθῆς αἰτίας; Ἀλλ' εἰ ἐκ ταύτης, πῶς κατ' οὐσίαν κακόν; Ἀγαθὰ γὰρ πάντα ταύτης ἔκγονα. Eἰ δὲ ταῖς ἐνεργείαις, οὐδὲ τοῦτο ἀμετάβλητον. Eἰ δὲ μή, πόθεν αἱ ἀρεταὶ μὴ καὶ ἀγαθοειδοῦς αὐτῆς γινομένης; Λείπεται ἄρα τὸ κακὸν ἀσθένεια καὶ ἔλλειψις τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ εἶναι. <31> Τῶν ἀγαθῶν τὸ αἴτιον ἕν. Eἰ τῷ ἀγαθῷ τὸ κακὸν ἐναντίον, τοῦ κακοῦ τὰ αἴτια πολλά. Oὐ μὴν τὰ ποιητικὰ τῶν κακῶν λόγοι καὶ δυνάμεις, ἀλλ' ἀδυναμία καὶ ἀσθένεια καὶ μίξις τῶν ἀνομοίων ἀσύμμετρος. Oὔτε ἀκίνητα καὶ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχοντα τὰ κακά, ἀλλ' ἄπειρα καὶ ἀόριστα καὶ ἐν ἄλλοις φερόμενα καὶ τούτοις ἀπείροις. Πάντων καὶ τῶν κακῶν ἀρχὴ καὶ τέλος ἔσται τὸ ἀγαθόν, τοῦ γὰρ ἀγαθοῦ ἕνεκα πάντα, καὶ ὅσα ἀγαθὰ καὶ ὅσα ἐναντία, καὶ γὰρ καὶ ταῦτα πράττομεν τὸ ἀγαθὸν ποθοῦντες, οὐδεὶς γὰρ εἰς τὸ κακὸν ἀποβλέπων ποιεῖ, ἃ ποιεῖ. ∆ιὸ οὔτε ὑπόστασιν ἔχει τὸ κακόν, ἀλλὰ παρυπόστασιν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἕνεκα καὶ οὐχ ἑαυτοῦ γινόμενον. <32> Τῷ κακῷ τὸ εἶναι θετέον κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς καὶ δι' ἄλλο καὶ οὐκ ἐξ ἀρχῆς οἰκείας. Ὥστε τὸ γιγνόμενον ὀρθὸν μὲν εἶναι δοκεῖν, ὅτι τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἕνεκα γίνεται, τῷ ὄντι δὲ οὐκ ὀρθὸν εἶναι, διότι τὸ μὴ ἀγαθὸν ἀγαθὸν οἰόμεθα. ∆έδεικται ἄλλο τὸ ἐφετὸν καὶ ἄλλο τὸ γινόμενον. Oὐκοῦν τὸ κακὸν παρὰ τὴν ὁδὸν καὶ παρὰ τὸν σκοπὸν καὶ παρὰ τὴν φύσιν καὶ παρὰ τὴν αἰτίαν καὶ παρὰ τὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ παρὰ τὸ τέλος καὶ παρὰ τὸν ὅρον καὶ παρὰ τὴν βούλησιν καὶ παρὰ τὴν ὑπόστασιν. Στέρησις ἄρα ἐστὶ τὸ κακὸν καὶ ἔλλειψις καὶ ἀσθένεια καὶ ἀσυμμετρία καὶ ἁμαρτία καὶ ἄσκοπον καὶ ἀκαλλὲς καὶ ἄζωον καὶ ἄνουν καὶ ἄλογον καὶ ἀτελὲς καὶ ἀνίδρυτον καὶ ἀναίτιον καὶ ἀόριστον καὶ ἄγονον καὶ ἀργὸν καὶ ἀδρανὲς καὶ ἄτακτον καὶ ἀνόμοιον καὶ ἄπειρον καὶ σκοτεινὸν καὶ ἀνούσιον καὶ αὐτὸ μηδαμῶς μηδαμῆ μηδὲν ὄν. Πῶς ὅλως δύναταί τι τὸ κακὸν τῇ πρὸς τὸ ἀγαθὸν μίξει; Τὸ γὰρ πάντη τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἄμοιρον οὔτε ἔστι τι οὔτε δύναται. Καὶ γὰρ εἰ τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ ὄν ἐστι καὶ βουλητὸν καὶ ἐνδύναμον καὶ δραστήριον, πῶς δυνήσεταί τι τὸ ἐναντίον τἀγαθῷ τὸ οὐσίας καὶ βουλήσεως καὶ δυνάμεως καὶ ἐνεργείας ἐστερημένον; Oὐ πάντα πᾶσι καὶ πάντη τὰ αὐτὰ κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ κακά. ∆αίμονι κακὸν τὸ παρὰ τὸν ἀγαθοειδῆ νοῦν εἶναι, ψυχῇ τὸ παρὰ λόγον, σώματι τὸ παρὰ φύσιν. <33> Πῶς ὅλως τὰ κακὰ προνοίας οὔσης; Oὐκ ἔστι τὸ κακόν, ᾗ κακόν, οὔτε ὂν οὔτε ἐν τοῖς οὖσιν. Καὶ οὐδὲν τῶν ὄντων ἀπρονόητον, οὐδὲ γάρ ἐστι τὸ κακὸν ὂν ἀμιγὲς ὑπάρχον τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ. Καὶ εἰ μηδὲν τῶν ὄντων ἀμέτοχον τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, κακὸν δὲ ἡ ἔλλειψις τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, οὐδὲν δὲ τῶν ὄντων ἐστέρηται καθόλου τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς οὖσιν ἡ θεία πρόνοια, καὶ οὐδὲν τῶν ὄντων ἀπρονόητον. Ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς γινομένοις κακοῖς ἀγαθοπρεπῶς ἡ πρόνοια κέχρηται πρὸς τὴν αὐτῶν ἢ ἄλλων ἢ ἰδικὴν ἢ κοινὴν ὠφέλειαν καὶ οἰκείως ἑκάστου τῶν ὄντων προνοεῖ. ∆ιὸ καὶ τὸν εἰκαῖον τῶν πολλῶν οὐκ ἀποδεξόμεθα λόγον, οἳ χρῆναί φασι τὴν πρόνοιαν καὶ ἄκοντας ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ τὴν ἀρετὴν ἄγειν, τὸ γὰρ φθεῖραι φύσιν οὐκ ἔστι προνοίας. Ὅθεν ὡς πρόνοια τῆς ἑκάστου φύσεως σωστικὴ τῶν αὐτοκινήτων ὡς αὐτοκινήτων προνοεῖ καὶ τῶν ὅλων καὶ τῶν καθ' ἕκαστον οἰκείως ὅλῳ καὶ ἑκάστῳ, καθ' ὅσον ἡ τῶν προνοουμένων φύσις ἐπιδέχεται τὰς τῆς ὅλης καὶ παντοδαπῆς προνοίας ἐκδιδομένας ἀναλόγως ἑκάστῳ προνοητικὰς