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these self-participations, being exceeded by the unparticipated cause, among which is also all good providence, being as it is cohesive and a contemplator of those for whom it provides and deifying those who are turned towards it, being named divinity, are creatures, because they are exceeded by the unparticipated cause, just as this heavenly-minded one has taught us, saying that the unparticipated cause is established not only over those who participate, that is, both the others and the deified, but also over the participations, that is, over deifying providence itself and similar things, according to an overflowing cause and transcendent supereminence? And how can things which do not have their being by participation and which transcend all participants be created?

That none of these uncreated and divine energies is substance, the same God-revealer has clearly shown in the chapter before this, saying: "We do not say that to-be-intellect-itself is some divine or angelic substance, but we call intellect-itself and life-itself and divinity-itself and the very powers of God, self-substantiation, self-vivification, self-deification." Indeed, this transcendent and surpassing supereminence of God in His substance, even in relation to the uncreated energies themselves, Dionysius, who is great and lofty in all things and no less precise than great in divine matters, extols throughout the entire treatise *On the Divine (p. 608) Names*, making this very thing, in addition to the distinctions of God according to the divine energies, the subject of his words. But also writing to the therapeut Gaius, who asked how He is beyond all things and above the Godhead and above the Good-head, he says, "if you should understand by divinity and goodness the very reality of the good-making and God-making gift of the so-called divinity, as He who is super-principial of every principle is beyond the Godhead and Good-head." And concluding the chapter on divine peace, he brings forward all our divine sacred teachers affirming this very thing.

There is, therefore, a subordinate divinity according to the God-wise theologians, as the great Dionysius also said here, deification, being a gift of the transcendent substance of God. And now Barlaam vainly proclaims a doctrine of two gods, supposedly against us; for it is clear that he makes this notorious for the slander of the unassailable theologians, he himself insisting that this divine gift is created and thus there is one uncreated divinity, the substance of God. Having therefore thus divided God into created and uncreated, he then reviles those who piously hold Him to be uncreated also in His energy. For the deifying gift of God is His energy, which the great Dionysius and all the other theologians in many places call divinity, asserting that the name of divinity belongs to the divine energy rather than to the divine substance; for indeed Isaiah is wont to call the energies of the Spirit 'spirits', according to Gregory the Theologian. Therefore, just as the prophet, by calling the energies of the Spirit seven spirits, did not harm the unity of the Spirit, so also by the name of divinity, as has been shown above, both providence is called by the saints, being an energy of God, and the contemplative power and the deifying grace of God, that is, deification, and the unity of the divinity is not abolished. But the powers (p. 610) and the energies of God, as has also been shown above, are uncreated; therefore the deifying grace of God is not only called divinity, but is also uncreated according to the God-wise theologians. For even if the great one, proceeding, called it a relation, yet it is a relation of God to the deified; for such also is the divine providence and the contemplative power. But calling this an imitation, he set forth the un-imitable and that this is the principle of those being deified

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ὑπερεχόμεναι αὐτομετοχαί αὗται παρά τοῦ ἀμεθέκτου αἰτίου, ὧν ἐστι καί πᾶσα ἀγαθή πρόνοια ὡς συνεκτική καί θεωρός οὖσα τῶν προνοουμένων καί ἐκθεωτική τῶν πρός αὐτήν ἐπεστραμμένων, θεότης ὀνομαζομένη, κτίσματά ἐστι, διότι ὑπερέχονται παρά τοῦ ἀμεθέκτου αἰτίου, καθάπερ ἡμᾶς ἐδίδαξεν ὁ οὐρανόφρων οὗτος, οὐ τῶν μετεχόντων μόνων εἰπών, δηλονότι τῶν τε ἄλλων καί τῶν τεθωμένων, ὑπεριδρῦσθαι τῶν ἀμέθεκτον αἴτιον, ἀλλά καί τῶν μετοχῶν τουτέστι καί αὐτῆς τῆς ἐκθεωτικῆς προνοίας καί τῶν παραπλησίων, κατά ὑπερβλύζουσαν αἰτίαν καί ἐξῃρημένην ὑπεροχήν; Καί πῶς ἔσται κτιστά τά μή μετοχῇ τό εἶναι ἔχοντα καί τῶν μετεχόντων πάντων ὑπερέχοντα;

Ὅτι δέ οὐδεμία τῶν ἀκτίστων καί θείων ἐνεργειῶν τούτων οὐσία ἐστίν, ὁ αὐτός θεοφάντωρ ἐν τῷ πρό τούτου κεφαλαίῳ φανερῶς ὑπέδειξεν εἰπών˙ «οὐκ οὐσίαν τινά θείαν ἤ ἀγγελικήν εἶναί φαμεν τό αὐτονοεῖναι, ἀλλ᾿ αὐτονοεῖναι καί αὐτοζωήν καί αὐτοθεότητά φαμεν καί αὐτάς τάς τοῦ Θεοῦ δυνάμεις, τήν αὐτουσίαν, αὐτοζώωσιν, αὐτοθέωσιν». Τήν γε μήν ἐξῃρημένην ταύτην καί ὑπερβάλλουσαν κατ᾿ οὐσίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ ὑπεροχήν καί πρός αὐτάς τάς ἀκτίστους ἐνεργείας, ὁ τά πάντα πολύς καί ὑψηλός ∆ιονύσιος καί μηδέν ἧττον ἠκριβωμένος ἤ πολύς τά θεῖα, διά πάσης ὑμνεῖ τῆς Περί τῶν θείων (σελ. 608) ὀνομάτων πραγματείας, πρός τῇ κατά τάς θείας ἐνεργείας διακρίσεις τοῦ Θεοῦ καί τοῦτ᾿ αὐτό τῶν λόγων ὑπόθεσιν ποιούμενος. Ἀλλά καί τῷ θεραπευτῇ Γαΐῳ γράφων, ἐρωτήσαντι πῶς ὁ πάντων ἐπέκεινα καί ὑπέρ θεαρχίαν ἐστί καί ὑπέρ ἀγαθαρχίαν, «εἰ θεότητά» φησιν «καί ἀγαθότητα νοήσαις αὐτό τό χρῆμα τοῦ ἀγαθοποιοῦ καί θεοποιοῦ δώρου τῆς οὕτω λεγομένης θεότητος, ὡς θεαρχίας καί ἀγαθαρχίας ὁ πάσης ἀρχῆς ὑπεράρχιός ἐστιν ἐπέκεινα». Κἀν τῷ περί θείας εἰρήνης κεφαλαίῳ τελευτῶν πάντας τούς θείους ἡμῶν ἱεροδιδασκάλους τοῦτ᾿ αὐτό προάγει φάσκοντας.

Ἔστιν ἄρα θεότης ὑφειμένη κατά τούς θεοσόφους θεολόγους, ὡς κἀνταῦθ᾿ εἶπεν ὁ μέγας ∆ιονύσιος, ἡ θέωσις, δῶρον οὖσα τῆς ὑπερκειμένης οὐσίας τοῦ Θεοῦ. Καί μάτην νῦν ὁ Βαρλαάμ τήν διθεΐαν περιαγγέλλει δῆθεν καθ᾿ ἡμῶν˙ εἰς γάρ διαβολήν τῶν ἀλήπτων θεολόγων δῆλός ἐστι τοῦτο διαβόητον ποιούμενος, κτιστόν αὐτός εἶναι διατεινόμενος τό θεῖον τοῦτο δῶρον καί οὕτω μίαν ἄκτιστον θεότητα, τήν οὐσίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ. Κατατεμών τοίνυν ἐντεῦθεν τόν Θεόν εἰς κτιστά καί ἄκτιστα, εἶτα τοῖς εὐσεβῶς καί κατ᾿ ἐνέργειαν ἄκτιστον αὐτόν φρονοῦσι λοιδορεῖται. Τό γάρ τοῦ Θεοῦ θεοποιόν δῶρον ἐνέργεια αὐτοῦ ἐστιν, ἥν θεότητα καί ὁ μέγας ∆ιονύσιος καί οἱ ἄλλοι πάντες θεολόγοι πολλαχοῦ φασι, τῆς θείας ἐνεργείας μᾶλλον ἤ τῆς θείας οὐσίας εἶναι τοὔνομα τῆς θεότητος ἰσχυριζόμενοι˙ καί τάς ἐνεργείας γάρ τοῦ Πνεύματος πνεύματα φίλον τῷ Ἠσαΐᾳ καλεῖν κατά τόν θεολόγον Γρηγόριον. Ὡς οὖν ὁ προφήτης τάς ἐνεργείας τοῦ Πνεύματος ἑπτά πνεύματα καλέσας τῷ ἑνιαίῳ τοῦ Πνεύματος οὐκ ἐλυμήνατο, οὕτω καί τῇ τῆς θεότητος ἐπωνυμίᾳ, καθάπερ ἀνωτέρω δέδεικται, καί ἡ πρόνοια καλεῖται παρά τῶν ἁγίων, ἐνέργεια οὖσα τοῦ Θεοῦ, καί ἡ θεατική δύναμις καί ἡ θεοποιός χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ, δηλαδή ἡ θέωσις, καί τό ἑνιαῖον τῆς θεότητος οὐκ ἀναιρεῖται. Αἱ δέ τοῦ Θεοῦ δυνάμεις (σελ. 610) καί αἱ ἐνέργειαι, ὡς καί τοῦτ᾿ ἀνωτέρω δέδεικται, ἄκτιστοί εἰσι˙ τοιγαροῦν ἡ θεοποιός χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ οὐ θεότης καλεῖται μόνον, ἀλλά καί ἄκτιστός ἐστι κατά τούς θεοσόφους θεολόγους. Εἰ γάρ καί σχέσιν αὐτήν προϊών ὁ μέγας προσηγόρευσεν, ἀλλά σχέσιν Θεοῦ πρός τούς τεθεωμένους˙ τοιαύτη γάρ καί ἡ θεία πρόνοια καί ἡ θεατική δύναμίς ἐστι. Μίμημα δέ ταύτην προσειπών, τό ἀμίμητον προέθηκε καί ἀρχήν εἶναι τῶν θεουμένων ταύτην