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psychic, the carnal is worldly. Otherwise, he is super-cosmic who has achieved theology, peri-cosmic who has achieved natural contemplation, and worldly who has achieved practical virtue.

Gathering all things: Making all things together, and warming, and increasing, and transforming.

Divisive: For ignorance divides from God, whereas light rather gathers and makes whole, as he said above.

Of opinions: Of the idols and their polytheism. Of imagination: He calls imaginations the fictitious notions concerning sensible things, or as sensible things. § 7. And as beautiful: God is indeed called beautiful also in the Song of Songs, just as he is also called beauty; and David: "beautiful in form beyond the sons of men." But that which partakes of beauty is also called beautiful. And note how the beautiful and beauty are distinguished in the case of beings, into participants and participated, but in the case of God, not so; for he is called beauty 14S_118 because of the loveliness distributed from him to all, and because he calls all things to himself; but beautiful, as ever being and never diminishing or increasing.

With himself of a single form: God is of a single form of beauty, since he is neither dispersed into beautifying states and differences, nor does he possess beauty in relation to some but not to others, but unchangeably he is beauty itself without beginning and absolutely, without artifice and in the same way always; and for this reason he is said to pre-contain in himself the loveliness, as being also before the created things a fountain, and beginning, and cause of the beautiful; whence he also has beauty pre-eminently; for though there are many beautiful things, they are beautiful from him, and not even beautiful according to him; whence he is indeed uncausedly beautiful, but they causally and by participation; for God is beautiful in a single form, since from him are the things after him beautiful, and as possessing beauty in quality.

From this beauty: The phrase, "behold, all things are very beautiful," and that according to Zechariah, "whatever good is his" came from there, from the uncaused beauty; for because of the beautiful the successions of the elements have come to be, which he calls harmonies; and the well-ordered connections of beings endure, called friendships and communions of all virtuous rational beings, the thoughts towards God, as the Church of the firstborn in heaven and on earth; and in the case of irrational beings the gregarious associations, and in the case of inanimate things the habitual sympathies towards one another. All things therefore are united to the beautiful by participation, having been turned towards the cause.

And limit of all things: God is called the limit of all things, both as holding all things together, and as having grasped all things for security, and as for whose sake all things were brought into being and need nothing else to be perfected; whence as he is called the beginning of all things, being the cause, so also he is the middle, as giving the extension for subsisting 14S_120, and the end, as, in his will the beings are limited, to which he has also turned, for which reason he also calls him the final cause, as being the beginning and the end, according to the divine John in the Apocalypse, and the exemplary cause, as having pre-conceived in himself the predestinations of all things that will be, and before bringing them forth, as the Apostle says, "whom he also predestined," and what follows; for the holy Dionysius understood these as paradigms, the fact that things to come are predestined in himself prognostically, and before they are produced, that is, before they are defined and distinguished by the single foreknowledge of God that contains all things. You will find these things also in the following fifth chapter. Note, however, that he says the beautiful is the same as the good.

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ψυχικός, ἐγκόσμιος ὁ σαρκικός. Ἄλλως ὑπερκόσμιός ἐστιν ὁ καί τήν θεολογίαν κατορθώσας, περικόσμιος ὁ τήν φυσικήν θεωρίαν, ἐγκόσμιος ὁ τήν πρακτικήν ἀρετήν.

Πάντα συνάγουσα: Ὁμοῦ πάντα ποιοῦσα, καί θάλπουσα, καί αὔξουσα, καί μεταποιοῦσα.

∆ιαιρετική: ∆ιαιρεῖ γάρ ἀπό τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ ἄγνοια, ὡς μᾶλλον τό φῶς συνάγει, καί ἀολλῆ ποιεῖ, ὡς ἔφη ἄνω.

∆οξασμάτων: Τῶν εἰδώλων καί τῆς αὐτῶν πολυθεΐας. Φαντασίας: Φαντασίας φησί τάς πλασματώδεις ἐννοίας περί αἰσθητά, ἤ ὡς

αἰσθητά. § 7. Καί ὡς καλόν: Καλός μέν εἴρηται ὁ Θεός καί ἐν τῷ Ἄσματι τῶν ἀσμάτων,

ὥσπερ οὖν καί κάλλος λέγεται· καί ὁ ∆αυίδ· «ὡραῖος κάλλει παρά τούς υἱούς τῶν ἀνθρώπων». Λέγεται δέ καλόν καί τό κάλλους μετέχον. Καί σημείωσαι, πῶς διαιρεῖται τό καλόν καί τό κάλλος ἐπί τῶν ὄντων, εἰς μετέχοντα καί μετεχόμενα, ἐπί δέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, οὐχ οὕτω· κάλλος μέν γάρ λέγεται 14S_118 διά τήν ἐξ αὐτοῦ διαδεδομένην πᾶσι καλλονήν, καί ὅτι πάντα πρός ἑαυτοῦ καλεῖ· καλόν δέ, ὡς ἀεί ὄν καί μηδέποτε μειούμενον ἤ αὖξον.

Μεθ' ἑαυτοῦ μονοειδές: Μονοειδές καλόν ἐστιν ὁ Θεός, ἐπεί μήτε σκεδάννυται εἰς ἕξεις καί διαφοράς καλλοποιούς, μήτε πρός ἐνίους μέν τό καλόν κέκτηται, πρός ἐνίους δέ οὔ, ἀλλ' ἀτρέπτως αὐτό τό καλόν ἀνάρχως καί ἀπολύτως, ἀνεπιτηδεύτως καί ὥσαύτως ἀεί ἐστι· καί διά τοῦτο προέχειν ἐν ἑαυτῷ λέγεται τήν καλλονήν, ὡς καί πρό τῶν δημιουργημάτων πηγή, καί ἀρχή, καί αἴτιον ὤν τοῦ καλοῦ· ὅθεν καί ὑπεροχικῶς ἔχει τό καλόν· κἄν γάρ πολλά καλά, ἀλλ' ἐξ αὐτοῦ εἰσι καλά, καί οὐδέ κατ' αὐτόν καλά· πόθεν ὅ γε ἀναιτίως καλόν, αὐτά δέ αἰτιατῶς καί κατά μετοχήν· ἑνοειδῶς γάρ ἐστι καλόν ὁ Θεός, ἐπεί ἐξ αὐτοῦ τά μετ' αὐτόν καλά, καί ὡς ἐν ποιότητι κεκτημένα τό καλόν.

Ἐκ τοῦ καλοῦ τούτου: Τό, «ἰδού πάντα καλά λίαν», καί τό κατά τόν Ζαχαρίαν, «πᾶν εἴ τι καλόν αὐτοῦ» ἐκεῖθεν ἐκ τοῦ ἀναιτίου καλοῦ γέγονε· διά γάρ τό καλόν αἱ τῶν στοιχείων γεγόνασιν ἀλληλουχίαι, ἅς ἐφαρμογάς φησι· καί αἱ τῶν ὄντων εὔτακτοι συνδέσεις διαρκοῦσι, λεγόμεναι φιλίαι καί κοινωνίαι πάντων ἐναρέτων λογικῶν, αἱ πρός Θεόν που διανοήσεις, ὡς ἡ τῶν πρωτοτόκων Ἐκκλησία ἐν οὐρανῷ καί ἐπί γῆς· ἐπί δέ τῶν ἀλόγων αἱ ἀγελαῖαι συνδιαγωγαί, ἐπί δέ τῶν ἀψύχων αἱ πρός ἄλληλα ἑκτικαί συμπάθειαι. Πάντα οὖν ἥνωται τῷ καλῷ τῇ μεθέξει πρός τόν αἴτιον ἐπεστραμμένα.

Καί πέρας πάντων: Πέρας πάντων λέγεται ὁ Θεός, καί ὡς συνέχων πάντα, καί ὡς πάντων εἰς ἀσφάλειαν περιδεδραγμένος, καί ὡς αὐτοῦ γε ἕνεκα πάντων εἰς τό εἶναι παραχθέντων καί ἑτέρου τινός εἰς τό τετελέσθαι οὐ δεομένων· ὅθεν ὡς ἀρχή πάντων, ἅτε αἴτιος, λέγεται, οὕτω καί μέσον, ὡς τήν εἰς τό συνεστάναι 14S_120 παράτασιν διδούς, καί τελευτή, ὡς, ἐν τῷ θελήματι αὐτοῦ περατουμένων τῶν ὄντων, ἐφ' ὄν καί ἐπέστραπται, καθό καί τελικόν αὐτόν φησιν, ὡς ἀρχήν ὄντα καί τέλος, κατά τόν θεῖον Ἰωάννην ἐν Ἀποκαλύψει, καί παραδειγματικόν, ὡς πάντων τῶν ἐσομένων τούς προορισμούς ἐν ἑαυτῷ προειληφότα, καί πρίν ἤ προαγαγεῖν, ὥς φησιν ὁ Ἀπόστολος, «οὕς καί προώρισε», καί τά ἑξῆς· ταῦτα γάρ ὁ ἅγιος ∆ιονύσιος παραδείγματα ἐνόησε, τό προωρίσθαι ἐν ἑαυτῷ προγνωστικῶς τά ἐσόμενα, καί πρίν παραχθῆ, τουτέστι πρίν ἀφορισθῇ καί διακριθῇ διά τῆς περιεχούσης τά πάντα ἑνιαίας προγνώσεως τοῦ Θεοῦ. Ταῦτα εὑρήσεις καί ἐν τῷ ἑξῆς πέμπτῳ κεφαλαίῳ. Σημείωσαι δέ, ὅτι ταὐτόν εἶναί φησιν τῷ ἀγαθῷ τό καλόν.