I do love Ps-Dionysius...
Dec. 13th, 2011 11:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leaf“Nor can any words come up to the inexpressible Good, this One, this Source of all unity, this supra-existent Being. Mind beyond mind, word beyond speech, it is gathered up by no discourse, by no intuition, by no name. It is and it is as no being is. Cause of all existence, and therefore itself transcending existence, it alone could give an authoritative account of what it really is.” (On the Divine Names, 1.1)
1.3 “We go where we are commanded by those divine ordinances which rule all the sacred ranks of the heavenly orders. With our mind made prudent and holy, we offer worship to what lies hidden beyond thought and beyond being. With a wise silence we do honour to the inexpressible. We are raised up to the enlightening beams of the sacred scriptures, and with those to illuminate us, with our beings shaped to songs of praise, we behold the divine light, in a manner befitting ups, and our praise resounds for that generous Source of all holy enlightenment, a Source which has told us about itself in the holy words of Scripture. We learn, for instance, that it is the cause of everything, that it is origin, being, and life.
1.4 When we are beatified, in the time to come, “there we shall be, our minds away from passion and from earth, and we shall have a conceptual gift of life from him and, somehow, in a way we cannot know, we shall be united with him and, our understanding carried away, blessedly happy, we shall be struck by his blazing light. Marvellously, our minds will be like those in the heavens above. We shall be ‘equal to angels and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.’ This is what the truth of scripture affirms.
But for now, what happens is this. We use whatever appropriate symbols we can for the things of God. With these analogies we are raised upward toward the truth of the mind’s vision, a truth which is simple and one. We leave behind us all our notions of the divine. We call a halt to the activities of our minds, and to the extent that is proper, we approach the ray which transcends being.”
1.5 “All things long for it (i.e. God). The intelligent and rational long for it by way of knowledge, the lower strata by way of perception, the remainder by way of the stirrings of being alive and in whatever fashion benefits their condition.”
How do we know God? 7.3 “It might be more accurate to say that we cannot know God in his nature, since this is unknowable and is beyond the reach of mind or of reason. But we know him from the arrangement of everything, because everything is, in a sense, projected out from him, and this order possesses certain images and semblances of his divine paradigms. We therefore approach that which is beyond all as far as our capacities allow us and we pass by way of the denial and transcendence of all things and by way of the cause of all things, God is therefore known in all things and as distinct from all things. He is known through knowing and unknowing. Of him there is conception, reason, understanding, touch, perception, opinion, imagination, name, and many other things. On the other hand he cannot be understood, words cannot contain him, and no name can lay hold of him. He is not one of the things that are and he cannot be known in any of them. He is all things and he is no thing among things, He is known to all from all things and he is known to no one from anything.”
And now I must go on to Maximus the Confessor - who is also wonderful.
1.3 “We go where we are commanded by those divine ordinances which rule all the sacred ranks of the heavenly orders. With our mind made prudent and holy, we offer worship to what lies hidden beyond thought and beyond being. With a wise silence we do honour to the inexpressible. We are raised up to the enlightening beams of the sacred scriptures, and with those to illuminate us, with our beings shaped to songs of praise, we behold the divine light, in a manner befitting ups, and our praise resounds for that generous Source of all holy enlightenment, a Source which has told us about itself in the holy words of Scripture. We learn, for instance, that it is the cause of everything, that it is origin, being, and life.
1.4 When we are beatified, in the time to come, “there we shall be, our minds away from passion and from earth, and we shall have a conceptual gift of life from him and, somehow, in a way we cannot know, we shall be united with him and, our understanding carried away, blessedly happy, we shall be struck by his blazing light. Marvellously, our minds will be like those in the heavens above. We shall be ‘equal to angels and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.’ This is what the truth of scripture affirms.
But for now, what happens is this. We use whatever appropriate symbols we can for the things of God. With these analogies we are raised upward toward the truth of the mind’s vision, a truth which is simple and one. We leave behind us all our notions of the divine. We call a halt to the activities of our minds, and to the extent that is proper, we approach the ray which transcends being.”
1.5 “All things long for it (i.e. God). The intelligent and rational long for it by way of knowledge, the lower strata by way of perception, the remainder by way of the stirrings of being alive and in whatever fashion benefits their condition.”
How do we know God? 7.3 “It might be more accurate to say that we cannot know God in his nature, since this is unknowable and is beyond the reach of mind or of reason. But we know him from the arrangement of everything, because everything is, in a sense, projected out from him, and this order possesses certain images and semblances of his divine paradigms. We therefore approach that which is beyond all as far as our capacities allow us and we pass by way of the denial and transcendence of all things and by way of the cause of all things, God is therefore known in all things and as distinct from all things. He is known through knowing and unknowing. Of him there is conception, reason, understanding, touch, perception, opinion, imagination, name, and many other things. On the other hand he cannot be understood, words cannot contain him, and no name can lay hold of him. He is not one of the things that are and he cannot be known in any of them. He is all things and he is no thing among things, He is known to all from all things and he is known to no one from anything.”
And now I must go on to Maximus the Confessor - who is also wonderful.