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

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. And there is of Him intellection and reason and knowledge and touch and perception and opinion and imagination and name and all other things, and He is neither intellected nor spoken nor named. And He is not one of the things that are, nor is He known in any of the things that are. And He is “all things in all things” and nothing in nothing, and He is known to all from all things and to none from nothing. For we rightly say these things about God, and He is hymned from all existing things according to the proportion of all things, of which He is the cause. And again, the most divine knowledge of God is that which is known by unknowing, according to the union which is beyond mind, when the mind, having stood apart from all existing things, and then having left itself, is united to the super-resplendent rays, being illuminated from there and there by the unsearchable depth of wisdom. And yet, as I said, He must be known from all things; for this, according to the sacred utterance, is the creative cause of all things, always fitting all things together, and the cause of the indissoluble fitting-together and order of all things, always joining the ends of the former things to the beginnings of the secondary ones, and cultivating the one consonance and harmony of the universe. <4> But God is hymned as “Logos” by the sacred oracles not only because He is the provider of reason and mind and wisdom, but also because He has pre-conceived the causes of all things uniformly in Himself and because He “goes through all things,” penetrating, as the oracles say, to the very end of all things, and even before these things, because the divine Logos is super-extended beyond all simplicity and is, in His super-essentiality, absolved beyond all things from all things. This Logos is the simple and truly existing truth, concerning which divine faith exists as a pure and unerring knowledge of all things, the steadfast foundation of those who have been persuaded, which establishes them in the truth and the truth in them, those who have been persuaded possessing the simple knowledge of the truth with unpersuadable sameness. For if knowledge is unitive of those who know and what is known, while ignorance is always a cause of change and of division from oneself for the one who is ignorant, nothing will move the one who has believed in truth according to the sacred word from the hearth of true faith, on which he will have the permanence of immovable and unchangeable sameness. For he who is united to the truth knows well that he is well, even if the many should admonish him as one who has gone out of his mind. He is, as is likely, hidden from them, having gone out from error to the truth through true faith, but he himself truly knows himself to be not, as they say, mad, but to have been freed from the unstable and alterable course concerning the manifold variety of error, through the simple truth which is always in the same state and manner. Thus indeed the founding guides of our theosophy die for the truth every day, testifying, as is right, both in every word and deed to the unitary knowledge of the truth of Christians that it is of all things both simpler and more divine, or rather that it is itself the only true and one and simple knowledge of God. <VIII.> <1> But since the theologians hymn the divine truth and super-wise wisdom also as “power” and as “righteousness,” and call it salvation and redemption, come, let us unfold these divine names as well, as far as is possible for us. And that the Godhead is removed from and surpasses every power that in any way whatsoever exists and is conceived, I do not think anyone nourished on the divine oracles is ignorant. For in many places theology has handed down and defined for it dominion even over the super-celestial powers themselves. How then do the theologians hymn it also as power, when it is removed from all power? Or how should we take upon it the name of power? <2> Let us say, then, that God is power, as pre-containing and super-containing all power in Himself, and as cause of every power, and as producing all things by an unswerving and unlimited power, and as being the cause of the very power to be, either of the whole or of each particular, and as infinitely powerful, not only in producing all power, but also in being beyond all, and the

πάντων αἰτίᾳ. ∆ιὸ καὶ ἐν πᾶσιν ὁ θεὸς γινώσκεται καὶ χωρὶς πάντων. Καὶ διὰ γνώσεως ὁ θεὸς γινώσκεται καὶ διὰ ἀγνωσίας. Καὶ ἔστιν αὐτοῦ καὶ νόησις καὶ λόγος καὶ ἐπιστήμη καὶ ἐπαφὴ καὶ αἴσθησις καὶ δόξα καὶ φαντασία καὶ ὄνομα καὶ τὰ ἄλλα πάντα, καὶ οὔτε νοεῖται οὔτε λέγεται οὔτε ὀνομάζεται. Καὶ οὐκ ἔστι τι τῶν ὄντων, οὐδὲ ἔν τινι τῶν ὄντων γινώσκεται. Καὶ «ἐν πᾶσι πάντα» ἐστὶ καὶ ἐν οὐδενὶ οὐδὲν καὶ ἐκ πάντων πᾶσι γινώσκεται καὶ ἐξ οὐδενὸς οὐδενί. Καὶ γὰρ καὶ ταῦτα ὀρθῶς περὶ θεοῦ λέγομεν, καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὄντων ἁπάντων ὑμνεῖται κατὰ τὴν πάντων ἀναλογίαν, ὧν ἐστιν αἴτιος. Καὶ ἔστιν αὖθις ἡ θειοτάτη θεοῦ γνῶσις ἡ δι' ἀγνωσίας γινωσκομένη κατὰ τὴν ὑπὲρ νοῦν ἕνωσιν, ὅταν ὁ νοῦς τῶν ὄντων πάντων ἀποστάς, ἔπειτα καὶ ἑαυτὸν ἀφεὶς ἑνωθῇ ταῖς ὑπερφαέσιν ἀκτῖσιν ἐκεῖθεν καὶ ἐκεῖ τῷ ἀνεξερευνήτῳ βάθει τῆς σοφίας καταλαμπόμενος. Καίτοι καὶ ἐκ πάντων, ὅπερ ἔφην, αὐτὴν γνωστέον· αὕτη γάρ ἐστι κατὰ τὸ λόγιον ἡ πάντων ποιητικὴ καὶ ἀεὶ πάντα ἁρμόζουσα καὶ τῆς ἀλύτου τῶν πάντων ἐφαρμογῆς καὶ τάξεως αἰτία καὶ ἀεὶ τὰ τέλη τῶν προτέρων συνάπτουσα ταῖς ἀρχαῖς τῶν δευτέρων καὶ τὴν μίαν τοῦ παντὸς σύμπνοιαν καὶ ἁρμονίαν καλλιεργοῦσα. <4> «Λόγος» δὲ ὁ θεὸς ὑμνεῖται πρὸς τῶν ἱερῶν λογίων οὐ μόνον, ὅτι καὶ λόγου καὶ νοῦ καὶ σοφίας ἐστὶ χορηγός, ἀλλ' ὅτι καὶ τὰς πάντων αἰτίας ἐν ἑαυτῷ μονοειδῶς προείληφε καὶ ὅτι «διὰ πάντων χωρεῖ» διικνούμενος, ὡς τὰ λόγιά φησιν, ἄχρι τοῦ πάντων τέλους, καὶ πρό γε τούτων, ὅτι πάσης ἁπλότητος ὁ θεῖος ὑπερήπλωται λόγος καὶ πάντων ἐστὶν ὑπὲρ πάντα κατὰ τὸ ὑπερούσιον ἀπολελυμένος. Oὗτος ὁ λόγος ἐστὶν ἡ ἁπλῆ καὶ ὄντως οὖσα ἀλήθεια, περὶ ἣν ὡς καθαρὰν καὶ ἀπλανῆ τῶν ὅλων γνῶσιν ἡ θεία πίστις ἔστιν, ἡ μόνιμος τῶν πεπεισμένων ἵδρυσις ἡ τούτους ἐνιδρύουσα τῇ ἀληθείᾳ καὶ αὐτοῖς τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἀμεταπείστῳ ταυτότητι τὴν ἁπλῆν τῆς ἀληθείας γνῶσιν ἐχόντων τῶν πεπεισμένων. Eἰ γὰρ ἡ γνῶσις ἑνωτικὴ τῶν ἐγνωκότων καὶ ἐγνωσμένων, ἡ δὲ ἄγνοια μεταβολῆς ἀεὶ καὶ τῆς ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ τῷ ἀγνοοῦντι διαιρέσεως αἰτία, τὸν ἐν ἀληθείᾳ πιστεύσαντα κατὰ τὸν ἱερὸν λόγον οὐδὲν ἀποκινήσει τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἀληθῆ πίστιν ἑστίας, ἐφ' ᾗ τὸ μόνιμον ἕξει τῆς ἀκινήτου καὶ ἀμεταβόλου ταυτότητος. Eὖ γὰρ οἶδεν ὁ πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἑνωθείς, ὅτι εὖ ἔχει, κἂν οἱ πολλοὶ νουθετοῖεν αὐτὸν ὡς ἐξεστηκότα. Λανθάνει μὲν ὡς εἰκὸς αὐτοὺς ἐκ πλάνης τῇ ἀληθείᾳ διὰ τῆς ὄντως πίστεως ἐξεστηκώς, αὐτὸς δὲ ἀληθῶς οἶδεν ἑαυτὸν οὐχ, ὅ φασιν ἐκεῖνοι, μαινόμενον, ἀλλὰ τῆς ἀστάτου καὶ ἀλλοιωτῆς περὶ τὴν παντοδαπῆ τῆς πλάνης ποικιλίαν φορᾶς διὰ τῆς ἁπλῆς καὶ ἀεὶ κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως ἐχούσης ἀληθείας ἠλευθερωμένον. Oὕτω γοῦν οἱ τῆς καθ' ἡμᾶς θεοσοφίας ἀρχηγικοὶ καθηγεμόνες ὑπὲρ ἀληθείας ἀποθνῄσκουσι πᾶσαν ἡμέραν μαρτυροῦντες ὡς εἰκὸς καὶ λόγῳ παντὶ καὶ ἔργῳ τῇ ἑνιαίᾳ τῶν Χριστιανῶν ἀληθογνωσίᾳ τὸ πασῶν αὐτὴν εἶναι καὶ ἁπλουστέραν καὶ θειοτέραν, μᾶλλον δὲ τὸ αὐτὴν εἶναι τὴν μόνην ἀληθῆ καὶ μίαν καὶ ἁπλῆν θεογνωσίαν. <VIII.> <1> Ἀλλ' ἐπειδὴ τὴν θείαν ἀληθότητα καὶ ὑπέρσοφον σοφίαν καὶ ὡς «δύναμιν» ὑμνοῦσι καὶ ὡς «δικαιοσύνην» οἱ θεολόγοι καὶ σωτηρίαν αὐτὴν ἀποκαλοῦσι καὶ ἀπολύτρωσιν, φέρε, καὶ ταύτας, ὡς ἐφικτὸν ἡμῖν, τὰς θεωνυμίας ἀναπτύξωμεν. Καὶ ὅτι μὲν ἡ θεαρχία πάσης ἐξῄρηται καὶ ὑπερέχει τῆς ὅπως ποτὲ καὶ οὔσης καὶ ἐπινοουμένης δυνάμεως, οὐκ οἶμαί τινα τῶν ἐν τοῖς θείοις λογίοις ἐντεθραμμένων ἀγνοεῖν. Πολλαχοῦ γὰρ ἡ θεολογία καὶ τὴν κυρείαν αὐτῇ καὶ αὐτῶν τῶν ὑπερουρανίων δυνάμεων ἀφορίζουσα παραδέδωκεν. Πῶς οὖν αὐτὴν οἱ θεολόγοι καὶ ὡς δύναμιν ὑμνοῦσι τὴν πάσης ἐξῃρημένην δυνάμεως; Ἢ πῶς ἐπ' αὐτῇ τὴν δυναμωνυμίαν ἐκλάβοιμεν; <2> Λέγωμεν τοίνυν, ὅτι δύναμις ἔστιν ὁ θεὸς ὡς πᾶσαν δύναμιν ἐν ἑαυτῷ προέχων καὶ ὑπερέχων καὶ ὡς πάσης δυνάμεως αἴτιος καὶ πάντα κατὰ δύναμιν ἄκλιτον καὶ ἀπεριόριστον παράγων καὶ ὡς αὐτοῦ τοῦ εἶναι δύναμιν ἢ τὴν ὅλην ἢ τὴν καθ' ἕκαστον αἴτιος ὢν καὶ ὡς ἀπειροδύναμος οὐ μόνον τῷ πᾶσαν δύναμιν παράγειν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῷ ὑπὲρ πᾶσαν καὶ τὴν