For God is not an expression, neither hath He His essence in voice or utterance. But God is of Himself what also He is believed to be, but He is named, by those who call upon Him, not what He is essentially (for the nature of Him Who alone is is unspeakable), but He receives His appellations from what are believed to be His operations in regard to our life. To take an instance ready to our hand; when we speak of Him as God, we so call Him from regarding Him as overlooking and surveying all things, and seeing through the things that are hidden. But if His essence is prior to His works, and we understand His works by our senses, and express them in words as we are best able, why should we be afraid of calling things by words of later origin than themselves? For if we stay to interpret any of the attributes of God till we understand them, and we understand them only by what His works teach us, and if His power precedes its exercise, and depends on the will of God, while His will resides in the spontaneity of the Divine nature, are we not clearly taught that the words which represent things are of later origin than the things themselves, and that the words which are framed to express the operations of things are reflections of the things themselves? And that this is so, we are clearly taught by Holy Scripture, by the mouth of great David, when, as by certain peculiar and appropriate names, derived from his contemplation of the works of God, he thus speaks of the Divine nature: “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, long-suffering, and of great goodness31    Ps. ciii. 8..” Now what do these words tell us? Do they indicate His operations, or His nature? No one will say that they indicate aught but His operations. At what time, then, after showing mercy and pity, did God acquire His name from their display? Was it before man’s life began? But who was there to be the object of pity? Was it, then, after sin entered into the world? But sin entered after man. The exercise, therefore, of pity, and the name itself, came after man. What then? will our adversary, wise as he is above the Prophets, convict David of error in applying names to God derived from his opportunities of knowing Him? or, in contending with him, will he use against him the pretence in his stately passage as out of a tragedy, saying that “he glories in the most blessed life of God with names drawn from human imagination, whereas it gloried in itself alone, long before men were born to imagine them”? The Psalmist’s advocate will readily admit that the Divine nature gloried in itself alone even before the existence of human imagination, but will contend that the human mind can speak only so much in respect of God as its capacity, instructed by His works, will allow. “For,” as saith the Wisdom of Solomon, “by the greatness and beauty of the creatures proportionably the Maker of them is seen32    Wisdom xiii. 5..”

οὐ γὰρ ῥῆμα ὁ θεὸς οὐδὲ ἐν φωνῇ καὶ φθόγγῳ ἔχει τὸ εἶναι. ἀλλ' ὁ μὲν θεός ἐστιν καθ' ἑαυτόν, ὅ τι ποτὲ καὶ εἶναι πεπίστευται, ὀνομάζεται δὲ παρὰ τῶν ἐπικαλουμένων οὐκ αὐτὸ ὅ ἐστιν (ἄφραστος γὰρ ἡ φύσις τοῦ ὄντος), ἀλλ' ἐξ ὧν ἐνεργεῖν τι περὶ τὴν ζωὴν ἡμῶν πεπίστευται τὰς ἐπωνυμίας ἔχει, οἷον καὶ αὐτὸ τοῦτο τὸ ἐκ τοῦ προχείρου λεγόμενον: θεὸν γὰρ αὐτὸν λέγοντες τὸν ἔφορον καὶ ἐπόπτην καὶ διορατικὸν τῶν κεκρυμμένων νοοῦντες ἐπικαλούμεθα. εἰ δὲ προϋφέστηκε τῶν ἐνεργειῶν ἡ οὐσία, νοοῦμεν δὲ τὰς ἐνεργείας δι' ὧν αἰσθανόμεθα, ῥήμασι δὲ ταύτας ὅπως ἂν ᾖ δυνατὸν ἐξαγγέλλομεν, τίς ἔτι καταλείπεται φόβος νεώτερα τῶν πραγμάτων τὰ ὀνόματα λέγειν; εἰ γὰρ μὴ πρότερον ἑρμηνεύομέν τι τῶν περὶ θεοῦ λεγομένων, πρὶν ἂν νοήσωμεν, νοοῦμεν δὲ δι' ὧν ἐκ τῶν ἐνεργειῶν διδασκόμεθα, προϋφέστηκε δὲ τῆς ἐνεργείας ἡ δύναμις, ἡ δὲ δύναμις ἐξήρτηται τοῦ θείου βουλήματος, τὸ δὲ βούλημα ἐν τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ τῆς θείας ἀπόκειται φύσεως, ἆρ' οὐ σαφῶς διδασκόμεθα ὅτι ἐπιγίνονται τοῖς πράγμασιν αἱ σημαντικαὶ τῶν γινομένων προσηγορίαι καὶ ὥσπερ σκιαὶ τῶν πραγμάτων εἰσὶν αἱ φωναί, πρὸς τὰς κινήσεις τῶν ὑφεστώτων σχηματιζόμεναι;
Καὶ ὅτι ταῦτα οὕτως ἔχει, πείθει σαφῶς ἡ θεία γραφὴ διὰ τοῦ μεγάλου Δαβὶδ τοῦ καθάπερ διά τινων ἰδίων καὶ προσφυῶν ὀνομάτων τῶν ἐκ τῆς ἐνεργείας αὐτῷ νοηθέντων τὴν θείαν φύσιν ἀνακαλοῦντος. Οἰκτίρμων γάρ, φησί, καὶ ἐλεήμων ὁ κύριος, μακρόθυμος καὶ πολυέλεος. ταῦτα τοίνυν τί λέγουσιν; ἐνεργείας ἔχειν τὴν σημασίαν ἢ φύσεως; οὐκ ἄν τις ἄλλο τι παρὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν εἴποι. πότε τοίνυν ἐνεργήσας τοὺς οἰκτιρμοὺς ἢ τὸν ἔλεον ὁ θεὸς ἔσχεν ἐκ τῆς ἐνεργείας τὸ ὄνομα; ἆρα πρὸ τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ζωῆς; καὶ τίς ἦν ὁ τοῦ ἐλέου δεόμενος; ἀλλὰ μετὰ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν πάντως, ἡ δὲ ἁμαρτία μετὰ τὸν ἄνθρωπον. οὐκοῦν μετὰ τὸν ἄνθρωπον καὶ ἡ τοῦ ἐλεεῖν ἐνέργεια καὶ τοῦ ἐλέου τὸ ὄνομα. τί οὖν; ἆρα μὴ καὶ τοῦ Δαβὶδ καταγνώσεται ὁ ὑπὲρ τοὺς προφήτας φρονῶν, ὅτι δι' ὧν ἐνόησε τὸν θεόν, διὰ τούτων ὠνόμασεν, ἢ καὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν ζυγομαχήσει τὴν σεμνὴν ἐκείνην ὥσπερ ἐκ τραγῳδίας προτείνων ῥῆσιν, ὅτι « τὴν μακαριωτάτην τοῦ θεοῦ ζωὴν τοῖς παρὰ τῆς ἐπινοίας ἀγάλλει ὀνόμασι, τὴν ἐφ' ἑαυτῇ μόνῃ καὶ πρὸ τῆς τῶν ἐπινοούντων γεννήσεως ἀγαλλομένην »; ἐρεῖ γὰρ πάντως ὁ ὑπὲρ τοῦ προφήτου λέγων, ὅτι ἡ μὲν θεία φύσις ἐφ' ἑαυτῇ μόνῃ ἀγάλλεται καὶ πρὸ τῆς τῶν ἐπινοούντων γεννήσεως, ὁ δὲ ἀνθρώπινος νοῦς, ὅσον χωρεῖ διὰ τῶν ἐνεργειῶν διδασκόμενος, τοσοῦτον φθέγγεται. ἐκ γὰρ μεγέθους καὶ καλλονῆς κτισμάτων ἀναλόγως ἡ σοφία φησὶ τὸν πάντων γενεσιουργὸν θεωρεῖσθαι: