C. 4 - On the Good, Light, the Beautiful, Love, Ecstasy, and Zeal; And that Evil Is Not Existing, Nor of an Existing Thing, Nor in Existing Things

On the Good, Light, the Beautiful, Love, Ecstasy, and Zeal; And that Evil Is Not Existing, Nor of an Existing Thing, Nor in Existing Things

Lectio 1

How the Good Is in God and How It Is Communicated to Angels and to Rational Souls

C. IV, § 1. 95. If therefore it is necessary, now by speech let us go to this naming of the good, which the theologians excellently attribute to the super-god deity and from all things determine it, as I suppose, the thearchic essence, calling it goodness; and because that which is good as substantial good, extends goodness to all existing things.

96. For just as our sun, not reasoning or preferring, but through being itself, illuminates all things prevailing to participate its light according to proper ratio, so indeed also the good, above the sun, as an archetype segregatedly above an obscure image, through this essence proportionally sends out rays of the whole of goodness to all existing things.

97. On account of those there subsisted all intelligible and intellectual substances and virtues and operations;

98. on account of those they are and live and have life unfailing and undiminishable by the whole of corruption, existing cleansed of death and matter and generation, and elevated from variation unstable and fluid and sometimes bearing otherwise.

99. And they are understood as incorporeal and immaterial, and they understand super-mundanely as minds, and they are illuminated properly by the rationes of existing things, and again they bring proper things to their kindred.

100. And they have a dwelling from goodness, and thence a gathering for them, and containing, and guarding, and the food of good things.

101. And desiring it they have both being and wellbeing and, as is possible, they are figured to it and boniformed, and they communicate to those following, as the divine law introduces, gifts coming to them from the good.

§ 2. 102. Thence super-mundane orders for these, unitions to one another, in graspings of one another, unconfused discretions, the virtues of subjects driving upwards to betters, providences of the more advanced about the seconds, the guardings of the proper things of the virtue of each and unchangeable convolutions about themselves, about the desire of the good, identities and summits and whatever other things have been said by us in the treatise On the Angelic Proprieties and Orders.

103. But also whatever things of the celestial hierarchy are fitting for the angels— cleansings, super-mundane illuminations, and things perfective of the whole angelic perfection—are from the cause of all things and fontal goodness.

104. From which also boniformly it is given to this also to manifest in them the hidden goodness, and to be angels as enunciative of the divine silence and as clear lights interpretative of that which is in the foremost and aforementioned secret places.

105. But also after those clear and admirable minds, souls and whatever things are of souls are good on account of the good super-goodness: to be intellectual themselves, to have substantial life, to be and to be able to be unconsumable,

106. extended to angelic lives, to be driven upwards through those as good leaders to the principate of all goods, and thence to be made in participation of emanating illuminations, according to their proportion;

107. and to participate the deiform gift according to virtue, and whatever other things have been numbered by us in our speech On the Soul.

261. The prooemium having been set out above, now he comes to pursuing his principal intention. And in order that the intention, number, and order of the following chapters might be clear, it must be considered that, as has been said in chapters 1 and 2, in this book he intends to expound the divine names by which there are manifested the processions of God into creatures.

Yet the common principle of all these processions is the good, as has been said in chapter 3, because whatever proceeds from God into creatures, he communicates this to his creature on account of his goodness. And for this reason, first, he treats in this chapter 4 concerning the good, and also concerning those things that pertain to the consideration of the good.

262. Yet if the singular processions were to be considered, which the divine names manifest, we shall see that three things from the divine goodness are attributed to things:

first of all, as they are and are perfected in themselves;

second, as they are compared to one another;

third, as they are ordered to an end.

263. Yet if these things were to be considered in themselves: first and more commonly, what is found in them is to be; second, to live; third, to know; fourth, to be just or virtuous. And according to this order, he pursues concerning the divine names:

first of all after the good, concerning being in chapter 5;

second, concerning life in chapter 6;

third, concerning wisdom in chapter 7;

fourth, concerning virtue and justice in chapter 8.

264. Yet the comparison of things to one another is considered according to two things:

first, according to something intrinsic, as one thing is said to be like or equal to another, the same or diverse, on account of agreement in substance, quantity, or quality, and concerning these he treats in chapter 9;

whereas second, according to something extrinsic, whether according as they are contained under one part or according as they are contained under one measure, and concerning these he treats in chapter 10, where it is treated concerning omnipotent and Ancient of Days;

yet peace and tranquility of order follows this ordering, whence in chapter 11 it is treated concerning peace.

265. But about the order of things to an end, two things must be considered,

namely the providence of the one governing and ordering to the end, and concerning this it is treated in chapter 12, where it is treated concerning King of Kings and Lord of Lords,

and the end itself to which things come through providence and governance, and this pertains to chapter 13, in which it is treated concerning perfect and one.

266. Whereas for knowing the content of this fourth chapter, it must be considered that opposites are of the same consideration; yet evil is opposed to good, whence in the chapter concerning good he determines also concerning evil.

Again, because an act is known through its object, act and object are reduced to the same consideration; yet the good is the proper object of love, whence in this chapter of the good, he treats also concerning love and concerning ecstasy, which is an effect of love, as will be clear, and concerning zeal, which signifies a certain intensity of love.

Likewise, since the good is what all things desire, whatever things of themselves import the ratio of the appetible, seem to pertain to the ratio of the good; yet light and the beautiful are things of this sort, concerning which he also treats in this chapter.

And the title of the chapter expresses this intention, which title is thus: On the Good, Light, the Beautiful, Love, Ecstasy, and Zeal.

267. First, therefore, in this chapter he determines concerning the good;

and first, he shows how the good is in God;

second, how it is communicated to creatures, at on account of those there subsisted.

268. About the first, he does two things:

first he shows how it is attributed to God;

second he introduces an example, at for just as our sun.

269. Therefore he says, first, that after the things said above, now it is necessary to direct a speech concerning this name good that is attributed excellently in Sacred Scripture to the supreme deity, which is distinguished in goodness from all other things, as is clear through Luke 18:19: no one is good but God alone. And this on account of two things:

first of all, because the divine essence itself is goodness itself, which does not happen in other things: for God is good through his essence, whereas all other things through participation; for each thing is good, according as it is a thing in act; yet it is proper to God that he should be his own being, whence he alone is his goodness.

Likewise, other things, although inasmuch as they are, they are good, nevertheless attain perfect goodness through something super-added above their being; but God in his own being itself has the fulfillment of his goodness. Likewise, other things are good through an order to something else, which is the ultimate end; yet God is not ordered to any end outside of himself. And therefore, the first thing that is proper to the divine goodness is that goodness itself is the divine essence; the second thing proper to it is that it extends goodness to all things, which through participation are said to be derived from that which is said through its essence.

270. Then when he says, for just as our sun, he manifests through an example what he had said about the diffusion of goodness, and he says that just as our material sun illuminates all things that can participate its light through their proportion, through their natural being, not by reasoning or by preferring one to another, so also the good that God is, which is the archetype, that is, the principal exemplar or figure, separated through excellence above the sun, as above a certain obscure and deficient image, through its essence proportionally sends out rays of its goodness to all existing things as regards all things that pertain to goodness.

271. Yet it must be considered that he did not replicate in God: not reasoning or preferring, which he had said of the sun; but just as he had said of the sun that through its very being it illuminates, so concerning God he adds that through his essence he hands on goodness to all things. For the being of the sun is not its understanding or willing, even if it were to have intellect and will, and for this reason what it makes through its being, it does not make through intellect and will. But the divine being is its understanding and willing, and for this reason what it makes through its being, it makes through intellect and will. And for this reason significantly he says that God is segregated from the sun, as an archetype above an obscure image.

272. Then when he says, on account of those they are and live, he shows how goodness diffused by God is found in creatures:

and first, how it is found in the angels;

second, how it is found in rational souls, at but also after those clear and admirable minds;

third, how it is found in other corruptible creatures, at but also concerning those irrational souls;

fourth, how it is found in prime matter, at yet if also it is above all existing things;

fifth, how it is found in the celestial bodies, at but, what fled us in the middle running past.

273. About the first, he does two things:

first he shows how the good is found in angels according to themselves;

second, as considered under proper rule and order, at thence super-mundane orders.

274. About the first, he does three things:

first, he shows how the good is found in angels, as regards their nature;

second, as regards their behavior, at and they have a dwelling from goodness;

third, as regards their order to the end, at and desiring it they have both being and wellbeing.

275. About the first, he does three things:

first, he shows how they have being from the divine goodness;

second, how they have living, at on account of those they are and live;

third, how they have understanding, at and they are understood as incorporeal.

276. Therefore he says, first, that on account of the rays, that is, the diffusion of the divine goodness, there are produced in subsistent being the heavenly creatures in which there is found substance, virtue, and operation, as is said in the eleventh chapter of the Celestial Hierarchy. (Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, c. 11, n. 2 [MG III, 284 D].) And they are called intelligible, inasmuch as they are actually according to their natures, and intellectual, inasmuch as they understand actually; although the Platonists distinguished in separated substances the intelligible from the intellectual. For the intellect through participation of the intelligible is made intelligent, and for this reason the intelligible is more abstract and higher. And according to this, it can be said that he calls the supreme angels intelligible substances, yet the inferior angels intellectual substances. Although it is better that intelligible should be understood inasmuch as they are understood, and intellectual inasmuch as they understand.

277. Then when he says, on account of those they are and live, he pursues concerning the life of the angels, and he says that on account of the diffusion of the divine goodness, the angels not only have being, but also living, by a more eminent life than us; for it does not fail through death as does our life, when it is prolonged. For this occurs in inferior living things because they are subject to generation and corruption and variety which is according to quality and quantity, through which unstable things are rendered both ceasing and having themselves in diverse ways; and this befalls inferior things, which have matter; but the angels are elevated and purified above all these things.

278. Then when he says, and they are understood as incorporeal, he pursues concerning their intellect:

and first, how they are intelligible, and he says that they are understood as incorporeal and immaterial. For bodies are sensible and imaginable, nevertheless not intelligible actually; likewise, no form existing in matter is intelligible actually, but only potentially. For this reason angels are intelligible actually, inasmuch as they are incorporeal and immaterial.

Second, he shows how they understand, and he says that they understand super-mundanely, that is, above the mode in which we understand, as certain separated minds and intellects. For immaterial form is understood from the fact that it is in a mind, but it understands through the fact that it is subsisting mind.

Third, he says what they understand and whence; and he says that they are illuminated by God concerning intelligible rationes through the intelligible rationes of existing things, because through intelligible rationes put into them by God they have knowledge of things, not by gathering intelligible rationes from things, as we do.

Fourth, he says that they bring proper understandings to those that are proximate to their genus, inasmuch as superiors manifest their understandings to inferiors.

279. Then when he says, and they have a dwelling from goodness, he posits those things that pertain to their behavior, and he posits five things through a likeness of bodily things:

for bodily things have their dwelling in a place, according as they are substances; yet angels have their dwelling or habitation through the operation of intellect and will in these things that they understand and love, according to that saying of the Apostle in Philippians 3:20: our dwelling is in the heavens.

Yet bodily habitation needs a foundation on which it may be founded, and likewise the dwelling that is according to intellect is founded on the first intelligible truth, and the dwelling that is according to will on the ultimate end; and for this reason he says that from the divine goodness not only is there a dwelling for them, but also a gathering or foundation, according to another translation. (The translation of Duns Scotus.)

Again, inferior bodily things are contained under the order of superiors, so also angels are contained under the order of divine providence; yet God alone is he who contains and is contained, and for this reason he adds, and containing.

Likewise, bodily things, inasmuch as they are corruptible, need guarding lest they should be corrupted; yet angels are not mutable according to substance, but according to will, and for this reason they need to be guarded by God lest their will should be averted from the divine order, and this is what he adds: and guarding.

Likewise, living bodies need refreshment through which they are sustained, and likewise angels are conserved in being through the fact that their intellect and affection is satisfied by the divine enjoyment and the consideration of intelligible things; for this reason, fifth, he adds, and the food of good things.

280. Then when he says, and desiring it they have both being and wellbeing, he pursues concerning the order to the end. For the divine goodness converts all things to itself, as has been said above, and for this reason it follows that on account of the divine goodness the angels desire it, not as though lacking what they desire, as imperfect, but as having being and wellbeing, as regards their being made both configured to the divine goodness and deiform, inasmuch as they communicate to their inferiors divine gifts, which come to them from the highest good, and this as the divine law introduces. For it is sanctioned by the divine law that the good things that we receive from God we should communicate to inferiors, and thus we are conformed to his goodness, from which all good things flow forth.

281. Having posited these things pertaining to their nature that the angels attain from the divine goodness,

here first, he posits those things that pertain to them according as they are contained in an order;

second, those things that pertain to them according as they are in a hierarchy, at but also whatever things of the celestial hierarchy;

third, those things that befit them according as they are named angels commonly, at from which also boniformly.

282. Therefore he says, first, that from the divine goodness there are super-mundane orders for the aforementioned substances, as indeed certain ones are said to be in the order of seraphim, certain ones in the order of cherubim, and similarly concerning the others.

283. Yet it must be considered that three things come together in an order:

first of all distinction with fittingness;

second, cooperation;

third, the end.

Yet I say distinction with fittingness, because where there is no distinction, order has no place; yet if the things that are distinguished were to come together in nothing, they would not be of one order. Therefore it is necessary that the angels, who are of one order, should be united to one another, inasmuch as they are contained under one order, and this is what he says: unitions to one another. Nevertheless certain things are united in an order as such without continuity or contact, as houses in a city and cities in a kingdom, but the unitions of the angels in an order are with a certain contact or even continuity, and for this reason he adds, in graspings of one another, namely because one angel grasps another in itself through intellect and affection. Nevertheless such a union does not remove the distinction that is according to the propriety of the substance of each, and for this reason he adds, unconfused discretions.

284. Yet just as of each substance there is a proper operation, so of whatever order there is to be received some cooperation of those that are contained under the order, for which cooperation three things are required:

first of all, that inferiors should elevate themselves toward superiors so that they might be placed under them and aided by them, and this is what he says: that from the divine goodness, there are for them the virtues of subjects, that is, of inferior substances, driving upwards, that is, elevating them, to betters, that is, superiors.

Second, that superiors should provide for inferiors, and this is what he adds: providences of the more advanced, that is, of superiors, about the seconds, that is, about inferiors.

And lest any should so extend itself to superiors or to inferiors that it should be forgetful of itself, he adds a third: that each one should be solicitous for the guarding of its proper virtue, and this is what he says: the guardings of the proper things of the virtue of each, that is, of those things that properly pertain to the virtue of each, namely that each should guard itself in its grade.

285. For just as of every order there is some operation, so also an end. Yet of those things that are in an order there is to be received a twofold end: namely one that is in the things ordered themselves, inasmuch as they are ordered to one another, which consists in the habitude of one to another; and this end he touches on when he says, and unchangeable convolutions, that is, revolutions, about themselves.

About which it must be considered that since circular motion is uniform through the whole, in whatever part of it, it has its principle and end in potency, not in act; yet right motion is diversified according to principle and end and the distance to each. And therefore the intelligible operations of angels, by the ratio of uniformity, are called convolutions: for the intelligible operations of angels have what pertains to perfection in circularity, namely uniformity, without what pertains to imperfection, namely change; and for this reason he names unchangeable convolutions about them, according as one angel understands and loves another.

The second end is the good that is above the order, and according to this, just as a leader is the end of an army, so God is the end of the angels contained under the order; and he touches on this end when he says, about the desire of the good, that is, God, identities, because all come together in this, or because they always in the same mode have themselves around this, and summits, according to another letter, because they desire God more sublimely than the rest. ("another letter:" Duns Scotus.) And not only are there for them from the divine goodness those things pertaining to the ratio of order, but also whatever other things have been said in the book The Hierarchies of Angels, in which he treats on the angelic proprieties and orders.

286. Then when he say, but also whatever things of the celestial hierarchy, he enumerates those things that pertain to the ratio of hierarchy, and he says that also from the cause of all things and the divine goodness, which is the font of all goodness, there come to the angels whatever actions of the celestial hierarchy are fitting for them. Yet it must be considered that, since a hierarchy is a sacred principate, yet it pertains to a prince to direct, the action of the hierarchy will be to direct to sacred things; and according to this there are threefold hierarchical actions, namely: cleansings, that is, purgations; super-mundane illuminations; and those things that are perfective of the whole angelic perfection. Yet one angel cleanses or purges another, not indeed from the stain of fault, because there is none in them, but from ignorance, as he says in the seventh chapter of The Celestial Hierarchy. (Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, c. 7, n. 3 [MG III, 209 C]. See also nn. 47, 327 of this work.) For superior angels see God more clearly than inferiors, and are filled with a greater light from him for knowing more mysteries. Therefore purgation pertains to the removal of ignorance; illumination to the communication of light; perfection to the knowledge of those things that are known through light.

287. Whereas because, although superior substances are distinguished according to orders and hierarchies, nevertheless they come together in this: that they are called angels, consequently he expounds the ratio of this name, when he says, from which also boniformly.

About which it must be considered that just as the light of the sun in the sun itself cannot be seen by us on account of excellence of light, yet it is seen either in clouds or on mountains irradiated by the sun, and thus clouds or mountains manifest to us the clarity of the sun, so this goodness, as it is in the highest peak of things, cannot be perceived by us on account of excellence of clarity, but inasmuch as its likeness in angels is found to be nearer to us, there is manifested to us in them in a certain way the clarity of the divine goodness; and this is what he says: that from the divine goodness there is given to the supreme substances boniformly, that is, conformity to the divine goodness, and on account of this, there is manifest in them the hidden goodness of God. And therefore, in one mode, they manifest the divine goodness, according as the likeness of the divine goodness shines forth in them, and according to this they can be called manifestors of God.

288. But above this, they are called angels, that is, messengers, inasmuch as they manifest God through their proper action; and this in two ways:

first of all, through the mode of speaking; and this is what he says: as enunciative of the divine silence. For it is manifest that the conception of the heart or of the intellect without voice is with silence, but through sensible voices, that silence of the heart is enunciated. Yet just as exterior voices are more manifest to us and less simple than interior concepts of the heart, so whatever modes of manifestations are more known to us and less simple than the conception of the divine word. And therefore, while the angels manifest to us something of the divine wisdom, whether sensibly by speaking with us or according to a fitting apparition or according to an intelligible locution, because also they speak to one another, they are enunciators of the divine silence.

Whereas second, through the mode of illuminations; and this is what he adds: that the angelic substances are proposed to us as clear lights interpretative of that, namely of the divine light, which is in secret places, that is, hidden from us. Yet this is according to necessity: that after something is enunciated to someone, he should understand the enunciation. Therefore, in order that we should be able to grasp with our intellect those things that are enunciated though the angels, they help our intellect with the clarity of their light to grasp the hidden things of God.

289. Then when he says, but also after those clear and admirable minds, he posits how the divine goodness shines forth in rational souls, and he says that on account of the goodness of God which is above every goodness, souls and whatever things pertain to the soul have goodness, nevertheless by a second grade, after those holy and admirable minds of the angels; and he posits, first, three things that pertain to their natures, namely: that they are intellectual, and that they have substantial life, that is, so that they can subsist through themselves, and that their to be and to be able to be is unconsumable, inasmuch as they are immortal and incorruptible.

290. Second, he posits the order of these souls to the angels; and he posits three things, namely: that they are extended to angelic lives, namely inasmuch as they participate something from their likeness; and again, through those angels, as through certain good leaders, they are elevated to the highest prince of all goods: for thus subjects in human things are subordinated to imitating leaders and serving them, that through them they might be ordered to the highest prince; and thence, that is, from the angels, souls are made participators, according to their proportion, of illuminations emanating from God, just as also in human things, directions and precepts arrive from the king to the people through leaders.

291. Third, he touches on the order of souls to God; and he says that souls participate the deiform gift of grace, according to their proper virtue, and not only do souls have this from the divine goodness, but also whatever other things have been enumerated by us in our speech on the soul. For he made a book on the soul that we do not have.

Lectio 2

How the Good Is Found in Other Corruptible Creatures

108. But also concerning those irrational souls or animals, if it were proper to say, whatever ones cut the air and whatever advance on the earth and whatever are extended on the earth and those having spent life in the water or ambiguously; and whatever live covered under the earth and those affected by dust and whatever have simply a sensible soul or life, and all of these are animated and vivified on account of the good;

109. and all plants have nutritive and motive life from the good;

110. and whatever inanimate and non-living substance is on account of the good and has obtained substantial habit on account of it.

§ 3. 111. Yet also if it is above all existing things, as indeed it is, good and lacking form it forms and in itself alone non-existing, an excess of substance, and non-living, exceeding life, and existing without mind, excelling wisdom, and whatever are in the good of things not formed of exceeding formation; and, if it is permissible to say, even the non-existing itself desires the good that is above all existing things and struggles in some way in the good and being itself, which is truly substantial, according to removal from all things.

§ 4. 112. But, what fled us in the middle running past, also the good is the cause of celestial principles and terminations, of the not augmentable and not diminishable and nevertheless invariable of this substance and without sound, if it is proper so to say, of the greatest convolution of motions of heaven, and of the ordinations and beauties and lights and gatherings of the stars and of the many transitive motions of certain stars and of the two luminaries, which the eloquences call great (Gen 1:16, Ps 136:7–9), of circular restitution from the same to the same, according to which days and nights are defined by us and months and years measured, they determine and number and order and contain the circular motions of time and of those things that are in time.

292. Having determined those things that rational creatures participate from the divine goodness, here he proceeds to irrational creatures; and first, he pursues those things that pertain to irrational animals, and he says, if it were proper to speak not only of noble creatures, but also of ignoble, as for example concerning irrational souls or animals, it must be known that certain of them cut the air by flying, as birds; whereas certain have motion on the earth, and this in two ways: for certain advance, that is, walk, as quadruped animals; whereas certain are extended on the earth, that is, are moved through the extension of their body, as reptiles; certain spend life in the water, as fish; or ambiguously, as certain animals that live now in the water, now on the land; whereas certain live under the earth, as moles; and those affected by dust, as certain worms that are found under the dust. Both those and whatever others universally have substance and sensible life, that they are and that they live thus, they have from the divine goodness.

293. Then when he says, and all plants have nutritive and motive life, he pursues concerning plants; and he says that all plants have life from the divine goodness, not indeed sensible life, but that which is considered to be increased and decreased according to nutrition and motion.

294. Then when he says, and whatever inanimate and non-living substance, he pursues concerning inanimate things; and he says that every substance inanimate and non-living has from the divine goodness that it should be and that it should obtain substantial habit, that is, that it should have itself as subsisting, through which it exceeds an accident.

295. Then when he says, yet if also it is above all existing things, he pursues concerning prime matter. About which it must be considered that Plato corrected the error of the ancient natural philosophers, who did not distinguish between matter and form in things generable and corruptible, positing that prime matter was some body in act, as fire or air or something of this sort. For Plato understood that there was matter under bodily form, which matter did not have any species in its essence; but nevertheless he did not distinguish matter from privation, as Aristotle says in the first book of the Physics. (Aristotle, Physics, 1.9, 191b35–192a2; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Physics, lect. 15, n. 2.) Whence both he and his followers called matter non-being, on account of privation joined to it. And this mode of speaking Denys also uses, although according to Aristotle it is necessary to distinguish matter from privation, because matter sometimes is found under form, sometimes under privation; whence privation is joined to it accidentally.

296. Likewise it must be considered, according to the Platonists, that as much as some cause is higher, so much does its causality extend itself to more things. Whence it is necessary that what is the first subject in effects, that is, prime matter, should be the effect of only the first cause, which is the good, with the causality of second causes not reaching all the way to it. Yet everything caused is converted to its cause through desire, whence prime matter desires the good, according as desire seems to be nothing else than privation, and its order to act.

297. Again, it must be considered that just as prime matter is called unformed through a defect of form, so unformedness is attributed to the first good itself, not through defect, but through excess; and thus, according to a certain remote assimilation, the likeness of the first cause is found in prime matter.

298. According to this therefore Denys says that God, since he is above all existing things, forms things, inasmuch as he is good and lacking form through excess; and he manifests this through singulars: for in God himself alone is there found that he is excess of substance; because, I say, he subsists excellently; and this is called non-existing as other things; likewise, since he is exceeding life, he is called non-living; and, since he is excelling wisdom, he is called without mind, and likewise concerning all other things whatever are in the good, namely God, from the number of things not formed, said through negation, and thence they are of exceeding formation, because those forms in him are through excess; and, if it is permissible to say, that good that is above all existing things and non-existing, as has been said, the non-existing itself, that is, prime matter, desires, inasmuch as it desires form which is a likeness of the divine being and struggles in some way in the good, that is, so that it might be assimilated to the first good, which communication indeed is nothing else than its inclination to form; and it communicates so that it might be that, namely being and good, which truly, that is, essentially, is predicated of the substantial good, which is named according to removal from all things through negative names, not on account of defect, as prime matter, but on account of excess.

299. Then when he says, but, what fled us in the middle running past, he pursues concerning the celestial bodies, which he had avoided treating at first in the middle. For the sequence of order required that between incorruptible incorporeal substances and corruptible corporeal substances, there would be treated incorruptible corporeal substances, but on account of the union of souls to corruptible bodies, he passed over the aforementioned order.

300. Yet about the celestial bodies, first he posits the things that pertain to the celestial spheres themselves; and he posits three things:

first, their habitude to inferior things, for the celestial bodies are active principles with respect to the bodies of generable and corruptible things, and the distinguishing term of each of those is pre-fixed according to the celestial bodies; and this is what he says: that the divine good is the cause of celestial principles and terminations.

Second, he posits what pertains to the mode of their substance; about which it must be known that certain ancients, believing the celestial bodies to be of a fiery nature, posited that they were fed and nourished by vapors resolved from earth and water, and through this mode the celestial bodies were conserved, just as fire is conserved through the addition of wood; and to remove this, he says that the divine good is the cause of this, namely of a celestial body, not augmentable, namely through any addition, and not diminishable, through any consumption, and nevertheless invariable, because they cannot be altered according to their substance.

Third, he posits what pertains to their motion, out of which the Pythagoreans said that there come forth certain harmonic sounds. But excluding this, he says that the good is the cause of the greatest revolution of the motions of heaven, which is without sound, if it is proper so to say; for some men said the contrary.

301. Then he posits those things that pertain to the fixed stars, in which four things must be considered:

first, their ordinations to one another, according to distance and proximity and position, as diverse figures are constituted from them;

second, their beauty, which is through clarity, figure, and quantity;

third, their lights, according as through their rays they have an effect on those inferior things;

fourth, their gatherings, according as, in their sphere, they are fixed immobily.

302. Then he posits what pertains to the five planets, namely Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and Venus, and he says that the divine good is the cause of the many transitive motions of these stars. Yet he calls the motion of these stars transitive, because they do not observe the same figure according to position either to one another or to the other fixed stars, but they cross over from figure into figure, since sometimes they are found in Aries, sometimes in Taurus or in some other sign. Yet he attributes to them a multitude of motions, because it is necessary that what appears sensibly from the motion of each of them should result from many motions; since sometimes they are seen sensibly to be moved more slowly; which the invariability of the celestial bodies does not endure.

303. Finally, he pursues concerning the luminaries, that is, concerning the sun and the moon; and he says that the divine good is the cause of the circular motion of the two luminaries, that is, of the sun and the moon, which Sacred Scripture calls great (Gen. 1:16), according as circular motions are restored from the same signs to the same. And according to these luminaries, days and nights are distinguished by us and years and months are measured; they determine, that is, distinguish, and number, that is, measure, and order according to before and after, and contain according to fixed illumination, the circular motions of time and of all things that are moved in time.

Yet he says circles of time, according as they return from morning to morning and from spring to spring. Yet it is manifest that, through the distinction of years and months and days and motions, we distinguish those things that are done in one time from these that are done in another, and through the same things we also know the quantity of time and of action, according as it lasts many or few days, months, and years. It is also known what is done before or after, from the fact that it was done on that day, month, or year. Also the principle and termination of each duration are distinguished, according to a set day and month and year, and through this they are said to contain all the things that are done in time.

Lectio 3

On Sensible Light

113. What indeed should someone say of the solar ray itself, according to itself? For that light is from the good and is an image of goodness; on account of which also the good is praised by the naming of light, just as an archetype manifested in an image.

114. For just as the goodness of divinity existing above all things crosses over from the supreme and most advanced substances all the way to the last, and still it is above all things neither with superior things reaching to its excess nor with inferior things crossing over its periphery;

115. but it also illuminates all things prevailing to be illuminated and creates and vivifies and contains and perfects,

116. and it is the measure of existing things and the aevum and number and order and surrounding and cause and end;

117. thus indeed also the manifest image of the divine goodness, that great and wholly resplendent and always shining sun, according to great resonance of the good, both illuminates all of whatever things can participate it, and has super-extended light, extending to every visible world both upwards and downwards the splendors of its proper rays, and if something does not participate it, this is not of the infirmity or smallness of its distribution, but of the things not extended to the participation of light on account of the importunity of receiving light. If indeed many having themselves thus, the ray crossing over illuminates the things following, and there is nothing of visible things to which it does not reach, according to the exceeding magnitude of its proper splendor.

118. But it contributes to the generation of visible bodies and moves them to life and nourishes and grows and perfects and cleanses and renews;

119. and the light is the measure and number of these days and of all our time. For this is that light, although then it was unformedly, which the divine Moses said and which determined that first trinity of our days (Gen 1:3).

120. And thus goodness converts all things to itself and is the foremost congregatrix of dispersed things, just as a principal and vivifying deity;

121. and all things desire it as principle as containing as end: and the good is, as the eloquences say, that from which all things subsist and are, led out as from a perfect cause; and in which all things consist, guarded and contented as in an omnipotent planation; and to which all things are converted, just as singulars to their proper end (Rom 11:36, 1 Cor 8:6, Col 1:16).

122. And which all things desire, intellectual things indeed and rational things cognitively; yet sensible things sensibly; whereas things without sense, by the natural motion of vivifying desire; yet things lacking life and only existing, by aptitude to the sole participation of substance;

123. according to the same ratio of the manifest image the light both gathers and converts to itself all things seeing, that are moved, that are illuminated, that are heated, that totally are contained by its radiances; on account of which it is also called ilios, because it makes all things indestructible and gathers dispersed things and all sensible things desire it either as by desire to see or as by desire to move or as by desire to be illuminated and to be heated and to be contained totally by the light. (Plato, Cratylus, 24, 409a.)

124. And I do not say, according to the ratio of antiquity, that the sun existing as a god and the creator of this universe properly procures the manifest world, but that the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are made conspicuous, understood through those things that are made, and its sempiternal virtue and divinity (Rom 1:20).

304. After he has pursued those things that pertain to the name of good, here he pursues those things that pertain to the name of light;

and first, he shows how the name of solar light is attributed metaphorically to God;

second, how intelligible light is attributed to him, at but this indeed in the Symbolic Theology.

305. About the first, he does three things:

first, he shows that the name of solar light is attributed to God;

second, he manifests the likeness, at for just as the goodness of divinity;

third, he excludes an error, at and I do not say.

306. Therefore he says, first, that just as the aforementioned things have being and wellbeing from the divine goodness, so also the solar ray, considered through itself, is from the goodness of God and is a certain image, that is, an expressed likeness, of the divine goodness. Thence it is that the good itself, which is God, is praised by the naming of solar light, because the divine goodness is manifested in such light, as an archetype, that is, a principal figure or principal exemplar, in the impressed image. For it is said in Malachi 4:2: for you fearing my name, the sun of justice shall rise.

307. Then when he says, for just as the goodness of divinity, he manifests the aforementioned likeness;

and first, as regards the procession of things into being from the divine goodness;

second, as regards the order of things to the end, at and thus goodness converts all things.

308. First, therefore, he posits those things that pertain to the divine goodness, according as things proceed from it; and about this, he posits three things:

first of all, its universal causality, and he says that the goodness of divinity existing above all things crosses over, by causing, from supreme and most perfect substances all the way to the last. Yet someone could believe that it crossed over through all things as mixed with them and enclosed in them, and to exclude this, he adds that, although it crosses over through all things by handing on its likeness to things, nevertheless still it is above all things, through the singularity of its substance. Someone also could believe that, although it exceeds all substances, nevertheless the supreme substances reach all the way to it through the mode in which an inferior body reaches its superior; and to exclude this, he adds that superior substances do not reach to the excess of the divine goodness. Again someone could believe that certain things, which are lowest in things, are not created by God on account of their imperfection, as the Manicheans posited that corruptible bodies were not created by God, and to exclude this, he adds that inferior things do not cross over the periphery of its causality.

309. Second, at but it also illuminates all things, after he had posited that its causality extends itself to all substances, he shows how substances follow from the divine goodness; and he says that the divine goodness illuminates all things that can be illuminated, namely rational substances; yet universally it creates all substances, giving them being; and vivifies all things that live, and contains, that is, conserves; and perfects, giving them their perfections.

310. Third, at and it is the measure of existing things, he shows what habitude the divine goodness has to things already produced; and he says, first, that it has the habitude of measure. For it is the measure of existing things, because from this it can be known how much each of existing things has of the nobility of being: that it draws near to it or stands distant from it, just as if we should say that whiteness is the measure of all colors, because each color is so much more noble, as much nearer as it is to whiteness. Yet he descends specifically to certain special measures: yet the measure of the duration of motion and of mutable things is time; whereas the being of immobile things is not measured by time unless accidentally, by reason of motion joined to it, but the proper measure of being is the aevum; yet the duration of each being is pre-fixed and measured by God, and according to this God is called the aevum of all existing things. There is found also, among the species of quantity, a certain measure that is number, and this measure also is attributed to God who is the number of all things; and the determination of the multitude of these, which pertains to the ratio of number, proceeds from the divine wisdom. Yet order follows the ratio both of time and of number, because one species of number naturally is prior to another, and time is also the number of motions according to before and after. Whence consequently he says that God is the order of all things, inasmuch as all things that are from him are ordered. There is also among the species of quantity a certain measure that is place: place indeed measures a body locally by surrounding, and this also he attributes to God, who immediately surrounds all things. Yet not only does he have the habitude of measure to things produced, but also the habitude of agent cause and of end, and for this reason he adds, and cause and end.

311. Then when he says, thus indeed also the manifest image, he shows how the likeness of God is found as regards the aforementioned things;

and first as regards the universality of causing: and he says that, as the aforementioned things come together in the divine goodness, so that sensible sun, which is the greatest, transcending all celestial bodies according to quantity and wholly resplendent, not having any clouds as the moon, and always shining, in distinction to the moon whose light is increased and diminished and sometimes fails; and that sometimes it seems to be eclipsed is not on account of any defect of light in it, but when its light does not arrive at us on account of the interposition of the moon; that sun, I say, as the manifest image of the divine goodness, according to great resonance to the divine goodness, illuminates whatever things can participate its light, and nevertheless its light is super-extended, because nothing can arrive at the equality of its light, and it extends the splendors of its rays to that whole bodily and visible world, both upwards and downwards, because not only those inferior things but also superior celestial bodies are illuminated by it; and if there is something that does not participate its light, this is not on account of a debility or smallness of the illuminating power in it, just as in a candle that on account of the smallness or debility of its light illuminates only yet a tiny space, but that some things are not illuminated by the sun is on account of a defect of those things that cannot extend themselves to participating the light of the sun, on account of the fact that they are not opportune or apt to receive light. But nevertheless the solar ray, passing over the many such bodies not prevailing to be illuminated, illuminates the things following, just as passing over some cloud it illuminates the things that are under the cloud, and briefly there is nothing of visible things to which the causality of the sun** does not reach**, according to the exceeding magnitude of its proper splendor.

312. Second, when he says, but it contributes to the generation, he shows the likeness as regards the effects that God makes in all things. For it has been said that the divine goodness gives being to all things through creation, but in this the sun has some likeness of it, which sun gives being through generation. For it contributes to the generation of sensible bodies, just as a certain universal agent and non-univocal cause. It also has been said that God vivifies things, and in this the sun is assimilated to him, which moves inferior bodies to life. For it is manifest that from the rays of the sun living things are generated, not only those that are generated without seed, but the virtue of the sun also operates in those that are generated by seed. It also increases certain things that pertain to the act of life, namely nourishment and growth, which are caused from the power of the solar light, just as also other bodily motions. The solar ray also perfects sensible bodies, inasmuch as by its virtue they are led to the perfect state, and also if any things incur some corruption and aging through the withdrawal of the sun, by the sun’s nearness they are purged and renewed, just as trees and all plants sprout and thrive in the spring.

313. Third, at and the light is the measure and number, he shows a likeness as regards the ratio of measure, and he says that the sun is the measure and number of these and of the whole of the days of our time, which especially are measured and numbered through the motion of the sun. And lest anyone should cite the instance from the first three days that are read in Genesis 1, before the fourth day on which the sun is said to have been made, he adds that, since Moses said that on the first day God said, let there be light, and there was light (Gen. 1:3), and he divided the light from the darkness and called the darkness night and the light day (Gen 1:4–5), that light was the light of the sun, which light nevertheless was created first, but afterwards was formed and perfected on the fourth day, when the sun is read to have been made; and thus the solar ray determined and distinguished both the first three days and the days of our time.

314. Then when he says, and thus goodness converts all things, he expounds the aforementioned likeness as regards the order of things to the divine goodness;

and first, he posits what pertains to the divine goodness;

second, he shows the likeness of this in the sun, at according to the same* ratio *of the manifest image.

315. About the first, he does three things:

first, he shows from what cause it happens that all things are ordered to God as to an end;

second, what is the ratio of the order, at and all things desire it as principle;

third, the mode of the order, at and which all things desire.

316. Yet he assigns the cause of this order, saying that the divine goodness converts all things to itself: for from it they have this very fact that they are ordered to God. For things are as though dispersed and segregated, according as they are ordered to diverse proper ends, but inasmuch as they communicate in the order to the ultimate end, thus they are gathered. Therefore the divine goodness, inasmuch as it converts all things to itself, is principally congregative of all dispersed things, just as a certain principally vivifying deity.

317. Then when he says, and all things desire it as principle, he assigns the ratio of the order: for all things are converted to it, inasmuch as all things desire it by a threefold ratio, namely: as active principle; and as containing, that is, conserving of things; and as end; this is the threefold ratio of desire. For we desire God as principle because the good comes forth to us from him; as containing because the good is conserved for us from him; as end which we intend to obtain.

And he manifests these three: for that he is a principle, is clear from the fact that, as Scripture says, all things subsist and are from him, led out from him as from a certain perfect cause. And that he is containing all things and conserving them, is clear through the fact that all things consist in him guarded from exterior harms and contented through the conservation of their proper virtue, as in a certain omnipotent plantation. For just as trees are conserved through the fact that they are planted in the earth, so all things are conserved in the fact that they are made firm in the omnipotent virtue of God. That all things also desire the divine goodness as the end, he shows consequently when he says that all things are converted to it, as singulars to their proper ends.

318. Then when he says, and which all things desire, he shows the mode of the order; and he says that intellectual things indeed desire the divine good, as angels and rational things, as men, cognitively; for these alone can know the good itself which is God. But sensible things desire it, inasmuch as they desire some sensible good that is a likeness of the highest good. But plants that are without sense desire the divine good by the natural motion of vital desire, because the good itself is also that to which they tend by natural inclination through the works of life unto some likeness of the highest good. Whereas those things that lack life, as inanimate bodies, which are only existing, desire the divine good through aptitude to participate subsistent being from God, so that this aptitude of theirs might be understood to be desire.

319. Then when he says, according to the same* ratio *of the manifest image, he shows how the likeness of the aforementioned things is found in the sun; and he says that, just as the aforementioned things befit the divine goodness, so not principally, but according to the* ratio *of image, the solar light gathers and converts all things to itself. For those things that see desire the light of the sun for seeing, and those things **that are moved **and that are illuminated and that are heated desire the light of the sun, as necessary for this; and likewise, wherever some things are contained, that is, depend upon or are caused by* the *radiances of the sun, and for this reason in Greek it is named helios, namely because it makes all bodies to be indestructible and gathers dispersed things, inasmuch as those things that are separated in themselves, desire it commonly: either so that they should see or so that they should be moved or so that they should be illuminated or so that they should be heated or so that they should be contained in whatever way by the virtue of light, they desire it.

320. Then when he says, and I do not say, he removes an error; and he says that he did not say the aforementioned things according to the opinion of the ancients who said that the sun was a god, that the sun was the creator of the whole sensible universe, and that it governs the whole sensible world, but according as the invisible things are manifested through those that are made, as the Apostle says in Romans 1:20.

Lectio 4

On Intelligible Light

§ 5. 125. But this indeed in the Symbolic Theology, yet now it befits us to praise the good’s intelligible naming of light.

126. And it must be said that the good is called intelligible light (Matt 19:17), (Plato, Timaeus, 6, 29e.) because indeed it fills every supercelestial mind with intelligible light,

127. yet it expels all ignorance and error from all the souls in which it is implanted, and it hands on holy light to all of them,

128. and it cleanses the intellectual eyes of these from the dregs placed around them out of ignorance and moves and opens those closed up by much heaviness of darkness;

129. and it hands on beforehand indeed a measured clarity, afterwards to those as tasting light and desiring more, it sends itself more and shines over them abundantly, because they have loved much, and it always extends them to earlier things, according to their proportion to looking.

§ 6. 130. Therefore the good is called intelligible light which is above every light, as fontal ray and super-emanating effusion of light, illuminating every super-mundane and circa-mundane and mundane mind from its fullness and renewing the whole of their intellectual virtues and exceeding all, because it is super-extended; and comprehending all, because it super-lies over them; and as principally shining and super-shining and co-assuming in itself and super-possessing and prepossessing simply every domination of illuminative virtue,

131. and gathering all intellectual and rational things and making them indestructible: for just as ignorance is divisive of those who have been led into error, so the presence of intelligible light is congregative and unitive of those who are illuminated, and perfective and still conversive to the truly existing, converting from many opinions and various visions, or, so that it might be said more properly, phantasms, to one, gathering true and mundane and uniform knowledge and filling with one and unitive light.

321. After he has shown how the name of sensible light is transferred into divine predication through a certain likeness, now he shows how intelligible light is attributed to him;

and first he connects himself to the preceding things;

second, he pursues his intention, at and it must be said that the good.

322. Therefore he says, first, that these things that have been said of God through the predication of sensible light and that have been said of its likeness to him, have been said in the book on Symbolic Theology, but now it is necessary to consider how the divine good is praised by the name of intelligible light. For it is not the intention of this book to treat concerning the names of sensible things translated onto God, but of intelligible names.

323. Then when he says, and it must be said that the good, he pursues his intention, namely concerning intelligible light, which signifies in God the causality of intelligible light; whence about this, he does three things:

first he touches on the causality of light;

second, he shows how God has himself to those things in which light is caused, at therefore the good is called intelligible light;

third, he shows what is the end of the diffusion of this light, at and gathering all intellectual and rational things.

324. About the first, he does two things:

first, he touches on the causality of intelligible light in the angels;

second, in rational souls, at yet it expels all ignorance.

325. Therefore he says, first, that God, who is good through his essence, is named intelligible light: I am the light of the world (John 8:12), because, indeed, he fills every supercelestial mind, that is, the angelic, with intelligible light, which is nothing else than the knowledge of truth. Yet in what he says: fills, he designates the perfect knowledge of truth, given to the angels by God.

326. Then when he says, yet it expels all ignorance, he shows the causality of light in souls;

and first, he posits two things that the divine light makes in souls;

second, he assigns the mode of each, at and it cleanses the intellectual eyes.

327. Yet of the two things that the divine light makes in souls,

the first is: that from all the souls in which it is born, it expels all ignorance and error. Ignorance pertains to the removal of truth, but error to the adhesion of falsity; yet he says, implanted, in order to allude to what is said in 2 Peter 1:19: until the day begins to dawn and the morning star arises in your hearts. Whence it is clear that he does not say this of the angels, in whom ignorance and error have no place, although in them there is unawareness of some things, from which they are purged, as Denys says in the seventh chapter of the Celestial Hierarchy. (Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, c. 7 n. 3 [MG III, 209 C]. See also nn. 47, 286 of this work.) For not every unawareness can be called ignorance, but only the unawareness of those things unto which someone is born and which he ought to know.

The second is: that it hands on holy light; and note that he says, holy light, both because it is sent forth by God, and because it orders us to know God. And it must be noted that he did not use a word of filling, but of simple handing on, to show that the knowledge of truth is imperfect in souls in comparison to that fullness that the angels possess from God.

328. Then when he says, and it cleanses the intellectual eyes, he expounds the mode of each;

and first, of the first;

second, of the second, at and it hands on beforehand indeed.

329. About the first, it must be considered that bodily darkness does three things in bodies:

for first it renders them squalid and sordid from the fact that things that are in darkness are not zealously purged;

second, darkness renders animals immobile, whence for most animals it is natural that they should rest at night and be moved in the day, because through light they are directed in motion, seeing where they go;

third, bodily darkness closes up, as in darkness someone cannot prepare himself to do something, and it naturally inflicts some sloth.

And these three things spiritual darkness, that is, ignorance of truth, also does:

for first, things are made sordid from it not only of errors in the intellect, but also of depraved affections in affect and inordination of actions in act, while the evil things of which man is ignorant he neither shuns nor purges;

second, darkness renders men idle, who, while they have ignorance of the good that is the end and of the way by which it is arrived at, do not move themselves to pursuing the end;

third, it renders them closed up, because while they do not know the good, their affection is not opened through desire to grasping it within themselves.

But these three things intelligible light, that is, the knowledge of truth, removes:

and as regards the first, he says that intelligible light cleanses the intellectual eyes of these, namely souls, from the dregs, that is, the uncleanness, placed around them, that is, supervening on them, out of ignorance;

as regards the second, he says, and moves, namely to acting well;

and as regards the third, he says, and opens, that is, it renders open to receiving through desire, the closed up, that is, those who were closed up with darkness oppressing them, that is, inflicting a certain slowness to the good. Therefore because they were closed up, they needed an opening; because they were oppressed, they needed motion.

330. Then when he says, and it hands on beforehand indeed, he shows the mode and order in which intellectual light is handed on to holy souls; and he says, first, that intelligible light indeed is handed on to each according to a determinate measure, according to Ephesians 4:7: grace is given to each, according to the measure of the donation of Christ; and because spiritual tastes excite desire, which before when unknown were spurned, after the first reception of light, once the knowledge of the light of truth already has been tasted, it is desired more, and to those desiring more it is sent more: for the effects of divine grace are multiplied according to the multiplication of desire and of love, according to Luke 7:47: many sins have been dismissed for her, because she has loved much; for thus a certain circularity is considered, while from light there grows a desire of light and from desire increased there grows light. Yet circularity according to its nature is perpetual, and thus the divine light always extends souls to earlier things through progress, nevertheless not equally in all, but according to their proportion to looking at the light: for certain ones look more diligently at the light sent, who desire more and advance more.

331. Then when he says, therefore the good is called intelligible light, he shows how God has himself toward those things in which he causes intelligible light; and he posits three habitudes, namely: of diffusion and of excess and of comprehension.

As regards the first, therefore, he says that the supersubstantial good, although it is above every light both sensible and intelligible, nevertheless is named intelligible light, inasmuch as it is a certain ray and font of every intellectual light: and lest font should be understood as consisting in itself alone, he adds that it is effusion of light flowing from above; and in order that it might be known to whom it flows, he adds that from its fullness it illuminates every super-mundane mind, as regards the assisting angels, and circa-mundane, as regards the ministering angels, by whose ministry that world is governed, and mundane, as regards souls; and not only from the beginning does it illuminate minds, by granting to them natural knowledge, but also it renews all their intellectual virtues, by super-pouring the new light of grace and glory and new revelations.

Second, he posits what pertains to excess, and he says that the divine light exceeds all minds, although it is diffused into them, because it is always a super-excess through its substance.

Third, he posits what pertains to comprehension, and he says that God comprehends all things that are in the aforementioned minds, inasmuch as he super-lies over them, as a superior cause prepossesses in itself what is found in inferior effects; whence, to expound this, he adds that God himself, universally, has every domination, or power, of illuminative virtue, that is, whatever pertains to the knowledge of whatever thing or to whatever virtue of teaching, just as we know colors by sight and sounds by hearing, but according to one virtue he knows all things; and he super-possesses, because he knows each thing more excellently than it is known by anyone; and he prepossesses, because he does not acquire the knowledge of virtue or the virtue of teaching from another, but all from him; and this applies to him, inasmuch as he is the principal shining, as the principle of light and inasmuch as he is shining over all things.

332. Then when he says, and gathering all intellectual and rational things, he shows the end and fruit of the causality of light; and he says that through illumination it gathers all intellectual things, that is, angels, and rational things, that is, men, and it makes them indestructible, because while they are united in truth, they are conserved in it. And this, consequently, he expounds from the opposite: for just as ignorance is divisive of those who are led into error, so the presence of intellectual light, through which the truth is known, gathers those who are illuminated to one another and unites them in one known truth; for it is manifest that to speak the truth about one thing does not happen unless by one mode, but to err from the truth happens in many modes. And for this reason those who know the truth come together in one judgment, but those who are ignorant of it are divided through diverse errors. The presence of light is also perfective, inasmuch as it constitutes in the end of the thing known, which is the truth, and it is also conversive, that is, calling back to truth, converting men from many opinions that do not have the firmness of truth; and not only does it transfer them from opinion to fixed science, but also from truth to uniformity; and this is what he adds: that it gathers various visions, or, so that it might be said more properly, phantasms, to one true knowledge, through the opposition of falsity. And not only does it convert to the light of truth, but it also fills by this very light of truth, which in itself is one and unitive of other things.

Lectio 5

On the Beautiful and How It Is Attributed to God

§ 7. 132. This good is praised by the holy theologians as beautiful and as beauty and as love and as lovable and whatever others are befitting namings of the beautifying and graciously had beauty.

133. Yet beautiful and beauty must not be divided in the cause that comprehends the whole of things in one.

134. For these in existing things, dividing in participations and participatings: we say that beautiful indeed is that which participates beauty, yet we say that beauty is the participation of the beautiful cause making the whole of things beautiful.

135. Whereas the supersubstantial beautiful is called beauty indeed on account of the beauty handed on by it to all existing things, according to the propriety of each, and as the cause of the consonance and clarity of the whole of things, unto the likeness of light, with radiance sending into all things the beautifying handings on of its fontal ray, and as calling all things to itself, whence also it is called kalos, and as gathering the whole of things in the whole of things. (Plato, Cratylus, 29, 416c.)

136. Yet beautiful as most beautiful and simultaneously super-beautiful;

137. and always existing according to the same things and likewise beautiful, and neither made nor destroyed nor increased nor diminished; nor beautiful in some part indeed, yet ugly in another; nor at some time, yet at some time not; nor indeed beautiful unto this, yet ugly unto that; nor here, yet not there, as indeed to certain ones existing as beautiful, yet to certain ones as not beautiful; but as it according to itself with itself uniformly and always existing as beautiful, (Plato, Symposium, 29, 211a–b.)

138. and as prepossessing in itself the font and beauty of every beautiful thing; for by the simple and supernatural nature of the whole of beautiful things, every beauty and every beautiful thing uniformly preexists according to cause.

139. From that beautiful, for all existing things according to proper ratio singulars are beautiful and on account of the beautiful the concords of all and the friendships and communions and all things are united by the beautiful;

140. and it is the principle of all beautiful things, as effective cause and moving the whole of things and containing by love of its proper beauty; and the end of all as final cause, for for the sake of the beautiful all things are made; and exemplar, because according to it all things are determined;

141. on account of which also the beautiful is the same as the good, because all things desire the good and the beautiful according to every cause and there is not anything of existing things that does not participate the beautiful and the good; yet the speech shall dare also to say this: that even non-existing participates the beautiful and the good; for then also this beautiful and good, when in God according to the removal of all things, is supersubstantially praised.

333. After Denys has treated of light, now he treats of the beautiful, for the understanding of which light is prerequisite; and about this, he does two things:

first, he sets out that the beautiful is attributed to God;

second, he shows the mode in which it is attributed to him, at yet beautiful as most beautiful.

334. Therefore he says, first, that this supersubstantial good which is God is praised by the holy theologians in Sacred Scripture as beautiful: lo you are beautiful, my beloved (Song 1:14); and as beauty: confession and beauty in your countenance (Ps. 95:6); and as love: God is charity (1 John 4:8); and as lovable, as introduced in the authority of the canticles; and whatever others are befitting namings of God, pertaining to beauty: whether through the causality of beauty, which he says on account of the beautiful and beauty; or according as beauty is had graciously, which he says on account of love and the lovable.

335. Then when he says, yet beautiful as most beautiful, he shows how it is attributed to God; and about this, he does three things:

first, he sets out that beautiful and beauty are attributed differently to God and to creatures;

second, how it is attributed to creatures, at for these in existing things;

third, how it is attributed to God, at whereas the supersubstantial beautiful.

336. Therefore he says, first, that in the first cause, namely God, beautiful and beauty must not be divided, as though beautiful and beauty were other in it; and this because the first cause alone on account of its simplicity and perfection comprehends the whole of things, that is, all things, in one, whence although in creatures beautiful and beauty differ, nevertheless in God he comprehends both in himself according to one and the same thing.

337. Then when he says, for these in existing things, he shows how they are attributed to creatures; and he says that in existing things, beautiful and beauty are distinguished according to participating and participated, such that beautiful is said for that which participates beauty; yet beauty for the participation of the first cause that makes all things beautiful: for the beauty of a creature is nothing other than a likeness of the divine beauty participated in things.

338. Then when he says, whereas the supersubstantial beautiful, he shows how the aforementioned are attributed to God:

and first, how beauty is attributed to him;

second, how beautiful is attributed to him, at yet beautiful as most beautiful.

339. Therefore he says, first, that God who is the supersubstantial beautiful, is called beauty because he gives beauty to all created beings, according to the propriety of each: for beauty of spirit is one thing and beauty of the body another, and the beauty of this body is one thing and of that body another. And he shows in what the ratio of beauty consists, adding that God so hands on beauty, inasmuch as he is the cause of the consonance and clarity in all things: for thus we call a man beautiful, on account of seemly proportion in quantity and position and on account of the fact that he has clear and shining color. Whence it must be received proportionally in the rest of things, that each is called beautiful according as it has clarity of its kind, whether spiritual or bodily, and according as it is constituted in due proportion.

340. Yet he shows how God is the cause of clarity, adding that God sends into all creatures, with a certain radiance, the handing on of his own luminous ray, which is the font of all light; which radiant handings on indeed of the divine ray, must be understood according to the participation of likeness, and those handings on are beautifying, that is, making beauty in things. Again he expounds another member, namely that God is the cause of consonance in things; yet there is a twofold consonance in things: first of all, according to the order of creatures to God, and he touches on this when he says that God is the cause of consonance, as calling all things to itself, inasmuch as he converts all things to himself as to an end, as has been said above, and on account of this beauty in Greek is called kalos, which is taken from calling; yet there is a second consonance in things, according to their ordering to one another; and he touches on this when he adds that he gathers all things in all things, unto the same. And this can be understood, according to the opinion of the Platonists, such that superior things are in inferiors according to participation, whereas inferiors are in superiors through a certain excellence, and thus all things are in all things; and from the fact that all things are found in all things by a certain order, it follows that all things are ordered to the same ultimate thing.

341. Then when he says, yet beautiful as most beautiful, he shows how beautiful is said of God;

and first he shows that it is said according to excess;

second, that it is said through cause, at from that beautiful, for all existing things.

342. About the first, he does two things:

first, he proposes excess;

second, he expounds it, at and always existing according to the same things.

343. Yet excess is twofold: one in the genus, which is signified through the comparative or the superlative; the other outside the genus, which is signified through the addition of this preposition: super; for example, if we should say that fire exceeds in heat by excess in the genus, whence it is called hottest; yet the sun exceeds by excess outside the genus, whence it is not called hottest but super-hot, because heat is not in it, in the same mode, but more excellently. And although this twofold excess does not come together simultaneously in things caused, nevertheless in God is it said simultaneously that he is both most beautiful and super-beautiful; not that he is in the genus, but that all things that are of whatever genus are attributed to him.

344. Then when he says, and always existing according to the same things, he expounds what he had said;

and first, he expounds why God is called most beautiful;

second, why he is called super-beautiful, at and as prepossessing in itself the font.

345. For just as something is called whiter because it is less mixed with black, so something is called more beautiful through the removal of a defect of beauty. Yet there is a twofold defect of beauty in creatures:

one, that there are certain things that have variable beauty, as is apparent from corruptible things, and this defect he excludes first from God, saying that God always is beautiful according to the same thing and in the same mode, and thus alteration of beauty is excluded; and again, in him there is not generation or corruption of beauty, nor again increase or diminishment of it, as is apparent in bodily things.

Yet the second defect of beauty is that all creatures have in some mode a particulated beauty just as also a particulated nature; he excludes this defect from God, as regards every mode of particulation: and he says that God is not beautiful in some part and ugly in another, as sometimes happens in particulated things; nor also is he in some time and not in another, as happens in these things whose beauty falls under time; nor again is he beautiful as regards one thing and not as regards another, as happens in all things that are determined to one determinate use or end: for if they should be applied to another, consonance shall not be conserved, whence neither beauty; nor again is he beautiful in some place and not beautiful in another place, which indeed happens in some things on account of the fact that **to certain ones **they seem beautiful and to certain ones they do not seem beautiful, but God is beautiful to all and simply.

346. And he assigns the reason for all the aforementioned things, when he adds that he is beautiful according to itself; through which it is excluded that he is beautiful not according to one part only, nor in some time only, nor in some place only; for what befits something according to itself and first, befits it whole and always and everywhere. Again, God is beautiful in himself, not through respect to something determinate, and for this reason it cannot be said that he is beautiful unto something and not beautiful unto something, and neither beautiful to certain men and not beautiful to certain men. Again, he is always and uniformly beautiful, through which there is excluded the first defect of beauty, namely variability.

347. Then when he says, and as prepossessing in itself the font, he shows by what ratio God is called super-beautiful, inasmuch as he has in himself excellently and before all other things the font of the whole of beauty. For in this simple and supernatural nature of all beautiful things derived from it there preexist every beauty and every beautiful thing, not indeed divided, but uniformly, through the mode in which manifold effects preexist in a cause.

348. Then when he says, from that beautiful, for all existing things, he shows how beautiful is said of God according to cause;

and first he posits the causality of the beautiful;

second, he expounds it, at and it is the principle of all beautiful things.

349. Therefore he says, first, that from that beautiful there comes forth being for all existing things: for clarity is of the consideration of beauty, as has been said; yet every form, through which a thing has being, is a certain participation of divine clarity; and this is what he adds: that singulars are beautiful according to their proper ratio, that is, according to their proper form; whence it is clear that from the divine beauty the being of all things is derived. Likewise also it has been said that consonance is of the ratio of beauty, whence all things that pertain in whatever way to consonance proceed from the divine beauty; and this is what he adds: that on account of the divine beauty are the concords of all rational creatures, as regards the intellect; for those concord who come together in the same judgment; and the friendships, as regards affection; and communions, as regards act or whatever extrinsic thing; and universally all creatures, whatever union they have, have it from the virtue of the beautiful.

350. Then when he says, and it is the principle of all beautiful things, he expounds what he had said first concerning the causality of the beautiful;

and first, as regards the ratio of causing;

second, as regards the diversity of things caused, at this one, the good and the beautiful singularly.

351. About the first, he does two things:

first, he assigns according to what ratio the beautiful is called a cause;

second, he infers a certain corollary from the things said, at on account of which also the beautiful.

352. Therefore he says, first, that the beautiful indeed is the principle of all things as effective cause giving being; and as moving cause and as containing cause, that is, conserving all things; for these three seem to pertain to the ratio of an efficient cause: to give being, to move, and to conserve. But an agent cause does certain things from the desire of the end, which belongs to an imperfect agent, not yet having what it desires; but it belongs to a perfect agent that it should act through love of that which it has, and on account of this he adds that the beautiful, which is God, is an effective and motive and containing cause, by love of its proper beauty. For because he has his proper beauty, he wills to multiply it, as is possible, namely through communication of its likeness.

353. Second, he says that the beautiful which is God is the end of all as final cause of all things. For all things are made in order that they might imitate the divine beauty in whatever way.

354. Third, he is the exemplar cause, because all things are distinguished according to the divine beauty, and a sign of this is that no one cares to portray or represent, except unto the beautiful.

355. Then when he says, on account of which also the beautiful, he infers a certain corollary from the things said; and he says that, because the beautiful is the cause of all things in so many modes, thence it is that the good and the beautiful are the same, because all things desire the beautiful and the good, as cause in all modes; and because there is nothing that does not participate the beautiful and the good, since each thing is beautiful and good according to its proper form; and further also boldly we will be able to say this: that non-existing, that is, prime matter, participates the beautiful and the good, since the first being non-being has a certain likeness with the divine beautiful and good: because the beautiful and the good is praised in God through the removal of all things; but in prime matter, removal is considered through defect, yet in God through excess, inasmuch as he exists supersubstantially.

356. Yet although the beautiful and the good are the same in subject, because both clarity and consonance are contained under the ratio of the good, nevertheless they differ by ratio: for the beautiful adds over and above the good that it should be an order to a cognitive power of this sort.

Lectio 6

On the Causality of the Beautiful, As Regards the Diversity of Things Caused

142. This one, the good and the beautiful singularly, is the cause of all the many beautiful and good things.

143. From this, all the substantial essences of existing things;

144. unitions, discretions; identities, alterities; likenesses, unlikenesses; communions of contraries; unmixings of things united;

145. providences of superiors, alternate habitudes of coordinates, conversions of those having less; conservative and unchangeable dwellings and gatherings of all the same things; and again communions of all things according to the propriety of each and adaptations and unconfused friendships; and harmonies of each thing, in everything concretions; indissoluble containings of existing things, unfailing successions of those that are made;

146. all stations and motions that are of minds, that are of souls, that are of bodies: for that is station and motion for all things which is above every station and every motion, gathering each in its ratio and moving to the divine motion.

357. After Denys has expounded according to what ratio the beautiful is a cause, here he shows of what it is the cause; and about this he does two things:

first, he proposes in general;

second, he pursues by distinguishing through singulars, at from this, all the substantial essences.

358. Therefore he says, first, that the good and the beautiful, although it is one being, nevertheless is the cause of all good and beautiful things, which are many.

359. Then when he says, from this, all the substantial essences, he pursues through singulars, about those things of which the beautiful is the cause;

and first, as regards being itself;

second, as regards the one, at unitions, discretions; identities, alterities;

third, as regards order, at providences of superiors;

fourth, as regards motion and rest, at all stations and motions.

360. Therefore he says that from the beautiful are caused all substantial essences of beings. For every essence either is a simple form or has a complement through form; yet form is a certain irradiation coming forth from the first clarity; yet clarity is of the ratio of beauty, as has been said.

361. Then when he adds, unitions, discretions; identities, alterities, he posits those things that pertain to the consideration of the one. Where it must be considered that over and above the ratio of being, one adds indivision: for one is undivided being; whence distinction or discretion is opposed to unity; and for this reason, first, he posits that unitions and discretions of things are caused by the divine beauty. Yet one in substance makes the same, yet distinction in substance makes diversity, and for this reason he adds, identities and alterities, that is, diversities. Yet from one in quality there is caused the like, yet from discretion the unlike, and for this reason he adds, likenesses, unlikenesses. Yet likewise, one in quantity causes equality and discretion inequality, but of these he does not make mention, because they pertain to the commensuration of things, about which he will treat afterwards. Yet this is observed in things: that even unlike things come together in something: as contraries, in genus and matter; and things that are united according to something remain distinct: as parts in a whole; and for this reason he adds, communions of contraries, as regards the first; and unmixings of things united, as regards the second. Yet these things are reduced to the causality of the beautiful, because they pertain to consonance, which is of the ratio of beauty, as has been said above.

362. Then when he says, providences of superiors, he enumerates those things that pertain to the order of things;

and first, as regards action, as superior things provide for inferiors, which he touches on when he says, alternate habitudes of coordinates, that is, of equals; and as inferiors are converted to receiving perfection and rule from superiors; and this is what he says: conversions of those having less.

363. Second, he touches on those things that pertain to the existence of things in themselves; and this is what he adds: that from the beautiful are conservative dwellings of the same things, that is, of any things in themselves. For something is conserved from the fact that it remains within the limits of its nature; for if it were to flow totally outside itself, it would perish; but he adds, and unchangeable gatherings, that is, foundations; for just as from the fact that something remains in itself, it is conserved, so from the fact that something has a firmness in itself upon which it is founded, it is unchangeable.

364. Third, he posits those things that pertain to the dwelling of one thing in another. Whence it must be known that, when it is necessary that something is constituted from any things,

first of all there is required that parts should come together: just as many stones come together with one another from which a house is constituted, and likewise all the parts of the universe come together in the ratio of existing; and he says this because not only from the beautiful are there dwellings of things in themselves, but also communions of all things in all according to the propriety of each; for all things are not in all in one mode, but superior things indeed in inferiors by participation, whereas inferiors in superiors excellently, and nevertheless all things have something common with all.

Second, there is required in the parts that even in that they are diverse, they should be able to be fit together; for a house would not be made from cement and stone, unless they were to be fit together, and likewise the parts of the universe are fit together, inasmuch as they can fall under one order; and this is what he says: and adaptations.

Third, there is required that one part should be helped by the others: as a wall and a roof are supported by the foundation, and the roof covers the wall and the foundation, and likewise in the universe superior things give perfection to inferiors and in inferiors a superior virtue is manifested; and this is what he says: and unconfused friendships, because mutual aid is without prejudice to the distinction of things.

Fourth, there is required due proportion in the parts, namely so that the foundation might be such that it accords with the other parts; and this is what he says: and harmonies of each thing, that is, of all the parts of the universe. For harmony is caused in sounds from the due proportion of numbers. Therefore with parts so disposed, there follows their composition in a whole, according as from all the parts of the universe there is constituted one whole universe of things; and this is what he adds: in everything, that is, in the universe, concretions.

365. Yet this concretion of parts in the universe is considered in two ways:

first of all, through the mode of local containing, according as superior things are in beings, in some mode, the place of inferior things either spiritual or bodily; and this is what he adds: indissoluble containings of existing things, namely according as superior things contain inferiors, by an indissoluble order.

Second, as regards the succession of time, but nevertheless in generable and corruptible things, in which posterior things succeed prior ones; and this is what he adds: unfailing successions of those that are made. Yet the successions of things are called unfailing, not because genera endure in perpetuity, but because without interpolation certain things succeed other things, as long as this course of the world endures. Yet he says that all these things are caused from beauty, inasmuch as they pertain to the ratio of consonance, which is of the ratio of beauty.

366. Then when he says, all stations and motions, he pursues concerning rest and motion, which also, inasmuch as they import some habitude of one to another, pertain to the ratio of consonance and beauty; and about this, he does three things:

first, he proposes the causality of the beautiful, with respect to rest and motion;

second, he expounds certain motions that seemed not to be motions, at and the divine minds are said to be moved;

third, he concludes the proposition, at therefore, of those and of the three sensible motions.

367. Therefore he says, first, that from the divine beauty are caused all stations, that is, rests, and motions, whether they be of minds or of souls or of bodies. And he says this because that generally which is above every rest and motion is the cause for all rests and motions, inasmuch as it gathers each in its proper ratio in which a thing has its station, and inasmuch as it moves all things to the divine motion, because the motions of all things are ordered to the motion by which they are moved to God, just as motions that are to second ends are ordered to the motion that is to the final end. Yet form, upon which the proper ratio of a thing depends, pertains to clarity; yet order to the end, to consonance; and thus motion and rest are reduced to the causality of the beautiful.

Lectio 7

How Are the Motions of Divine Minds and Souls

§8. 147. And the divine minds are said to be moved circularly, indeed, unitedly without beginnings and interminable illuminations of the beautiful and the good; yet in a direct line, when they proceed unto the providence of their subjects, crossing over all things rightly; yet obliquely, when also providing for those having less they remain inegressibly in identity around the cause of identity, the beautiful and the good, acting unceasingly around the choir.

§ 9. 148. Yet the circular motion of a soul indeed is an entrance into itself from exterior things and a uniform convolution of its intellectual virtues, just as in a certain circle, lavishing upon it not to err and converting it from many exterior things and gathering it: first, into itself; then, thus made uniform, uniting unitively by united virtues, and thus leading by the hand unto the beautiful and the good which is above all existing things and one and the same and without beginning and interminable.

149. Yet the soul is moved obliquely, inasmuch as, according to its propriety, it is illuminated by divine cognitions, not intellectually and singularly, but reasonably and diffusely and as commixed and transitive operations.

150. Yet in a direct line when not having entered into itself and moved by a singular intellectuality: for this is, as I have said, according to the circular, but it goes forth unto those things that are around it and from exterior things as from certain varied and manifold signs it is driven upwards unto simple and united contemplations.

368. Because Denys had made mention of the motions of minds and of souls, which seem immobile, here he expounds how are their motions;

and first, how are the motions of the angelic minds;

second, how are the motions of rational minds, at yet the circular motion of a soul.

369. Yet it must be considered that, as the Philosopher says in the third book of the De Anima, motion is twofold: (Aristotle, On the Soul, 3.7, 431a6–7; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle's On the Soul, lect. 6, n. 766.) one that is the act of the imperfect, that is, of an existing thing in potency, and such is the motion of bodily things that are said to be moved according to this: either according to substance or according to quantity or according to quality or according to place, inasmuch as they go out of potency into act; yet the other is the motion of the perfect, according as the very operation of a thing existing in act, remaining in the one operating himself, is called motion, as to sense, to understand, and to will.

370. Therefore receiving motion thus, he distinguishes the motion of angelic minds into three unto the likeness of local motion, which is the most perfect among bodily motions, namely into the circular, the right, and the oblique.

371. Yet there are two things to consider in circular motion: one, namely, that it is uniform; whereas the other, that circular motion is without beginning and end. Therefore the intellectual operation by which angelic minds contemplate God is compared to circular motion, because they have themselves uniformly in the contemplation of God, and God himself is without beginning and end; and for this reason he says that angelic minds, which are uniform by divine participation, are said to be moved circularly by understanding God, inasmuch as they are moved unitedly, that is, uniformly, through illuminations proceeding from the beautiful and the good, which are without beginning and without term.

372. Yet concerning the propriety of right motion there is the fact that there is found in it beginning and end and that there is in it order and difformity according to proximity to the beginning and the end; whence right motion is said in them, according as they intend toward providing for inferior things: of which providence indeed the beginning is made by the angel itself providing, yet the term is in that to which the providence reaches last. And in this motion there is not found uniformity, because they first provide perfective things for those nearer; and this is what he says: that they are moved in a direct line through the fact that they proceed to providing for inferiors: for their providence crosses over through all inferior things, in the mode of a certain straight line.

373. Yet concerning the propriety of oblique motion there is that it is a middle between the circular and the right, having something of each; and this motion befits the angels, inasmuch as they regularly are moved to providing for inferiors (which pertains to right motion) from the contemplation of God itself (which pertains to circular motion); and this is what he says: that angelic minds are moved obliquely through the fact that, while they provide for inferiors, they do not depart from the uniformity of their motion; which uniformity or identity indeed befits them from the fact that they go around unceasingly, as though whirling dancers, through uniform contemplation, around the cause of the whole of identity, which is the divine beautiful and good.

374. Then when he says, yet the circular motion of a soul, he expounds the motion of a soul:

and first, of its circular motion;

second, oblique motion, at yet the soul is moved obliquely;

third, right motion, at yet in a direct line.

375. Yet it must be considered that it is necessary to expound the circular motion of a soul otherwise than that of an angel; for since the motion of an angel and of a soul is its operation, yet circularity of motion expresses the ratio of uniformity, it is necessary to attribute circular motion to an angel and to a soul in that mode, inasmuch as uniformity of intellectual operation applies to them. Yet an angel understands, not indeed by receiving from things, but by receiving light from the first simple one, namely God; whence most of all in the intellectual operation of an angel it must be considered according as it is illuminated by God himself, and for this reason he said above that the divine minds are moved circularly, by illuminations of the beautiful and the good. Yet it is connatural to the soul that it should understand by receiving from exterior things that are multiform and divided, whence in this reception the circularity of its motion cannot be considered, but rather in the fact that it is called back from exterior things: first of all, converted into itself; second, elevated unto the consideration of the angelic virtues; yet third, even unto God himself.

376. Therefore this is what he says: that the circular motion of a soul is according as from exterior things it enters into itself and there uniformly is rolled around, as in a certain circle, according to its intellectual virtues; which convolution indeed directs the virtue of the soul so that it might not err: for it is manifest that the soul, by running off from one thing to another as from effect to cause or from one like thing to another or from contrary to contrary, reasons manifoldly; but every such ratiocination is decided through resolution into first principles, in which erring does not happen, from which the soul is defended against error, because the first principles themselves are known by simple understanding without discursus, and for this reason the consideration of them, on account of its uniformity, is named circular convolution.

Through this convolution, therefore, first it is gathered into itself, considering what it has in its nature to know; then, thus made uniform, it is united through a convolution of this sort, by united virtues, namely angelic, inasmuch as through the likeness of this uniform apprehension, it considers the uniformity of the angels in some mode; and further through that convolution, it is led by the hand unto the beautiful and the good, that is, God, which is above all existing things and is most of all one and the same and is without beginning and interminable, which pertain to the ratio of a circle, as has been said; and for this reason the circularity of the motion of the soul is completed in this: that it leads unto God.

377. Then when he says, yet the soul is moved obliquely, he describes the oblique motion of souls, which also is received otherwise in a soul and in the angels. For in the operation of an angel, there is no difformity according as it understands; but according as it provides for inferiors, its provision is varied through diverse things; and for this reason oblique motion, which is composed from the right and the circular, having in itself something of uniformity and of difformity, is considered as one in the angels, according as they so provide for inferiors that nevertheless they remain in the uniform consideration of God; but the soul in its natural knowledge has difformity, inasmuch as it is born not to know unless by running around through diverse things; yet uniformity is in it according as it is subject to a uniform principle from which it receives.

And therefore oblique motion, composed from uniformity and difformity, is considered in the soul according as it receives the uniform illuminations of God not uniformly, but differently according to its mode. Therefore this is what he says: that the soul is moved obliquely inasmuch as it is illuminated by divine cognitions according to its propriety not indeed intellectually and singularly, that is, simply as the angels, but reasonably and diffusely, that is, discursively and by diffusing itself through diverse things; and he expounds this, adding, as by commixed operations, for in a certain mode it commixes itself with things, inasmuch as it diffuses itself to knowing diverse things; and transitive, which is referred to the fact that he said reasonably: for it is proper to reason to cross over or to run around from one thing to another.

378. Then when he says yet in a direct line, he expounds the right motion of a soul, which of its ratio has difformity. Yet difformity in the operation of an angel was considered according to the provision of inferiors, but in the soul according to the various and multiform apprehension of diverse things, from which it grasps the cognitions of simple and uniform things. Therefore he says that the soul is moved in a direct line, when it does not enter into itself such that it operates by a certain singular, that is, simple, intellectuality, because this pertains to its circular motion as has been said, but when it goes forth unto exterior things, which are around it, by which as by certain various and manifold signs it is elevated unto contemplating things simple and united.

379. Yet this sufficiency and the distinction of these motions of the soul is clear, because the soul either goes forth from its own uniformity into superior things more uniform, and thus there is its whole uniform circular motion; or from the influence of a uniform illumination it receives various and multiform knowledge, and thus there is its oblique motion; or conversely from multiform and various things it advances into simple knowledge, and thus there is its right motion.

Lectio 8

On the Causality of the Beautiful and the Good with Respect to the Motions and Rests Both of These and of All Other Things

§10. 151. Therefore, of those and of the three sensible motions in this everything, and of the dwellings and stations and gatherings of each, the beautiful and the good is the much prior cause both contentive and final, which is above every station and motion, on account of which every station and motion and from which and in which and unto which and for the sake of which.

152. For from it and through it substance and every life both of mind and of soul; and of every nature smallnesses and equalities, magnitudes, all measures, proportions of existing things and harmonies and concretions, parts of the totality; every one and multitude, conjunctions of parts, unitions of every multitude, perfections of totalities; how, how much, how many, infinite, comparisons, discretions; every infinity, every end, all definitions, orders, excesses, elements, forms; every substance, every virtue, every operation, every habit, every sense, every word, every deed, every touch, every science, every unition;

153. and simply every existing thing is from the beautiful and the good and in the beautiful and the good and is converted to the beautiful and the good; and all things whatever are and are made, are and are made on account of the beautiful and the good; and all things look to it and are moved by it and are contained both for its sake and on account of it;

154. and in it every exemplar principle, final, efficient, formal, elemental,

155. and simply, every principle, every containing, every end or, so that I might say it comprehensively, all existing things from the beautiful and the good and all non-existing things supersubstantially in the beautiful and the good; and it is the principle and end of all things, super-principal and super-perfect; because from it and through it and in it and unto it all things, as the holy word says (Rom 11:36, Col 1:16–17).

380. Having expounded the motions of an angel and a soul, here he concludes the causality of the beautiful and the good with respect to the motions and rests both of these and of all other things;

and first, he manifests the causality of the beautiful and the good about the differences of motions and rests;

second, about the differences of all things, at For from it and through it substance.

381. Therefore he says, first, that the beautiful and the good is the cause of these motions of minds and souls, concerning which it already has been said, and also of the three sensible motions that are in this universe: because also in sensible things there is found circular motion, as in the celestial bodies; and right motion, as in heavy things and light things; and oblique motion, as in animals; and since immobile and restful things are prior according to nature to those that are moved, since the first of whatever motion is from something immobile, the beautiful and the good is the much prior cause of the dwellings of each, which indeed is considered according as one thing is said to be in another, and of stations, according as one thing rests in another, and of gatherings, according as one through is conserved and confirmed through another.

382. Yet of these, the divine beautiful and good which is over every station and motion of creatures, is not only the productive cause, but also the contentive, that is, conservative, and the final cause and unto which and for the sake of which, as to a final cause: for we are moved to attaining the end and we operate for the sake of it; whence what he says: unto which, pertains to that naming of end; yet what he says: for the sake of which, respects the intention according as, willing one thing, we tend to it as to an end.

383. Then when he says, For from it and through it substance, he gathers the whole causality of the beautiful and the good, about all the differences of things:

and first, he posits the differences of things that are caused from the beautiful and the good;

second, the diverse modes of causing that are attributed to the beautiful and the good, at and simply every existing thing.

384. About the first: first, he posits substantial differences, saying; for this reason it is necessary that every station and motion be caused from the beautiful and the good: because from it are caused all the differences of things: for from it, as from an active cause, and through it, as through an exemplar cause, secondarily is every substance of whatever is of a species, and every life whether it be of an angelic mind that so lives that it does not vivify a body or of a soul that vivifies a body.

385. Then he descends to bodily things: in which, first, there are considered the differences pertaining to continuous quantity; and he says that by it are caused all smallnesses, equalities, magnitudes of the things of every bodily nature. Yet the differences of quantity are the great and the small, of which the middle is the equal, as is said in the tenth book of the Metaphysics. (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 10.3, 1054a29–31; cf. Aquinas, lect. 4, n. 1999.) Yet these signify indeterminate quantity; but there are certain other things that signify determinate quantity, as two cubits, three cubits; and to express things of this sort, he adds, all measures. Yet from the determination of quantity there arises proportion, which is the habitude of one quantity to another; and for this reason he adds, proportions of existing things. Yet there are certain proportions befitting according to the nature and condition of things and certain ones not befitting; yet proportions in sounds are called harmonies and, through a certain likeness, the befitting proportions of whatever things are called harmonies; whence he adds, and harmonies. Yet in continuous quantity the very ratio of continuity is to be considered; to which there pertains what he adds: and concretions. Yet it is of the ratio of the continuous that it is divided; yet division constitutes the ratio of whole and of part, because a part is that into which a whole is divided; and for this reason he adds, parts of the totality.

386. Then he comes to discrete quantity, which is number, of which the principle is one; whence he adds, every one and multitude. Yet in this multitude a certain unity is considered, according as from many one is constituted according to either continuation or contact of parts, to which there pertains what he adds: and conjunctions of parts, or in whatever mode; to which there pertains: unitions of every multitude. Yet from the unition of parts there results form, which is the perfection of the whole; whence he adds, perfections of totalities.

387. Then he comes to the differences of diverse genera; whence he adds, how, as regards the genus of quality; how much, according to the genus of quantity; how many, as he calls an order according to genus position, or how many, as regards discrete quantity according as it imports number; and he adds, infinite, which befits continuous quantity indeed according to division; whereas discrete according to apposition; and he adds, comparisons, as regards the genus of relation, and discretions, that is, differences. As regards the same therefore comparison pertains to a relation of fittingness: as same, equal, like; whereas discretion, to a relation of difference: as diverse, unequal, dissimilar. And because he posited infinite and relation, as though following upon quantity and quality, about each he considers certain differences: and first of all, about the infinite he considers infinity itself, when he says, every infinity, every end; and what is effective of the end, when he says, all definitions: for he calls something infinite according as it is indeterminate. Then he posits the diversities of comparisons: yet something is compared to something else according to before and after, and as regards this he says, orders; and according to more and less, and as regards this he says, excesses; and as regards cause and caused, and thus he says, elements, on account of material causes; and forms, on account of formal causes.

388. Further, he proceeds to actions: and first he posits division according to substance and virtue and operation; then he speaks of the process of operation in man: in which, first, there is a habit of the soul; second, sense, that is, cognition or apprehension; third, word; fourth, exterior deed; again, he distinguishes making thus: for in bodies it is action through contact, and as regards this he says, every touch; yet in the intellect through science, which is a certain contact of the intellect; whereas in the will through unition, which is also a certain touch of the will, whence he adds, every science, every unition.

389. Then when he says, and simply every existing thing, he shows the diverse modes of causing that befit the beautiful and the good; and about this, he does three things:

first, he shows how the beautiful and the good is the cause of things in diverse modes;

second, that every causality of things preexists in it, at and in it every exemplar principle;

third, he shows how every causality is derived from it, at and simply, every principle.

390. Therefore he says, first, by speaking universally: everything that is, is from the beautiful and the good which is God, as from an effective principle; and is in the beautiful and the good, as in a contentive or conservative principle; and is converted to the beautiful and the good, desiring it, as to an end, and not only is it the end as desired, but also inasmuch as all substances and actions are ordered to it, as to an end; and this is what he adds: and all things whatever are and are made, are and are made on account of the beautiful and the good, and all things look to it, as to an exemplar cause, which they have as the rule of their operation; and are moved by it, as by a moving cause; and are contained and conserved in its motion and action. Yet it does not move things on account of some extraneous end, but for its own sake, as regards its intention, and on account of it being attained by things.

391. Then when he says, and in it every exemplar principle, he shows that every causality of other causes preexists in it; and he says that in it is every principle both exemplar and final, efficient, formal, and elemental, that is, material, as effects are in the virtue of their cause.

392. Then when he says, and simply, every principle, he shows how they are derived from it; and he says that universally every principle productive of things and every conservative principle and every containing and every end and, so that I might say it briefly, all existing things, are from the beautiful and the good, and all non-existing things supersubstantially, namely because the negations of all things befit God through his excess. Yet what he says: that God is the principle and end of all things, is above the mode of other principles, and the perfection of this is above the perfection of others.

393. Yet this universal causality of the beautiful and the good, he confirms through the authority of Scripture, adding, because from it, as from an effective principle; and through it, as through an exemplar principle; and in it, as in a contentive principle; and unto it, as unto an end, are all things, as the holy word of the Apostle says in Romans 11:36. Yet how every causality is attributed to the beautiful and the good can be had from the things said above.

Lectio 9

On Love

156. Therefore for all things the beautiful and the good is desirable and lovable and cherishable;

157. and on account of it and for its sake lessers love betters by converting themselves to them, and ordered things coordinated things communicatively, and betters lessers providingly, and these singulars themselves contentively;

158. and all things desiring the beautiful and the good do and will all things whatever they do and will.

159. Yet the true man is confident also to say by this word that it the cause of all things, on account of excess of goodness, loves all things, makes all things, perfects all things, contains all things, converts all things, and is the divine love good of the good on account of the good. For this love working the good of existing things, preexisting in the good according to excess, does not dismiss itself to remain in itself without sprout. Yet it moves itself to operating, according to the excess generative of all things.

§11. 160. And let not anyone opine that we commend the naming of love beyond the eloquences. For it is irrational indeed and depraved, as I reckon, not to intend to the virtue of intention, but to sayings; and this is not proper to those wishing to understand divine things, but to those receiving light sounds and those as far as the ears, to those containing them intransible outside and not wishing to see what indeed such a saying as this signifies; yet how it is necessary to explain this both through other equivalent and more manifest sayings; but also to those sympathetic with the elements and not intelligible lines and syllables and unknown sayings not crossing over to their intellectual soul, but resounding outside around their lips and hearing; as though it should not be possible to signify the number four through twice two, and rectilinear through having right lines, or maternal only through paternal, or anything else of those signifying the same thing, by many parts of speech.

161. Yet it is necessary to see according to right reason, that we use elements and sayings and syllables and lines and speeches on account of sense; as when our soul is moved by intellectual operations to intelligible things, the senses of sensible things are indeed superfluous; as also the intellectual virtues, when the soul made deiform, through unition of the unknown, sends itself to the rays of inaccessible light, not by the sendings of eyes.

162. Yet when the mind strives to be moved through sensible things to contemplative understandings, the more manifest partitions of the senses are altogether more precious, as plainer speeches the plainer of visible things; as when not plain things are set before the senses neither could those present well the sensible things to the mind.

163. But so that we might not seem to say those things; as perverting the divine eloquences, let those that accuse the naming of love hear: love her, it says, and she shall serve you; embrace her and she shall exalt you, honor her so that she may comprehend you (Prov 4:6–8); and whatever others are praised in the amative theologies.

§12. 164. Although it seemed to certain of our men saying holy speeches, that the name of love is more divine than the name of charity. Yet also the divine Ignatius writes, my love is crucified. And in the introductions of the eloquences you shall find a certain man saying of the divine wisdom: I was made a lover of her beauty (Wis 8:2). Wherefore indeed let us not fear this name of love nor let any doubting speech disturb us concerning this;

165. for the theologians seem to me indeed to regard the name of charity and of love commonly;

166. yet that true love rather is applied to divine things on account of this: on account of the unfitting receiving of such men. For, as befits God, with true love praised not only by us, but by the eloquences themselves, the multitudes not grasping the uniform of the amative naming of God, according to their familiarity, lapsed to the divisible and what befits a body and the divided; which is not true love, but an idol or rather a fall from true love. For the unitive of the divine and one love does not prevail to be grasped by the multitude; on account of which also just as the name appearing more troublesome to many in the divine wisdom is ordered to their action upwards and the rousing to the knowledge of true love and so that they might be absolved from the trouble that is in it. Yet among us again it would be unfitting that this and anything would be opined to be earthy zeals, according as it seems more famous. Your charity, a certain man said, fell upon me, as the charity of women (2 Sam 1:26).

167. Yet by those hearing divine things rightly in the same virtue, rightly is the name of charity and of love ordered by the holy theologians, according to the divine manifestations; and this is of unitive and conjunctive and differently concretive virtue in the beautiful and the good, preexisting on account of the beautiful and the good, and out of the beautiful and the good on account of the beautiful and the good divided and containing coordinates, according to another communicative habitude, yet moving the first to the providence of the subjects and gathering those having less in the superiors through conversion.

394. After Denys has determined about the beautiful and the good that incite to loving, here he determines about love itself;

and first, through his own proper words;

second, through the words of Hierotheus, at these also our noble perfector of sanctity.

395. About the first, he does two things:

first, he determines about divine love;

second, he shows how God is called both love and lovable, at yet why did the theologians.

396. About the first, he does three things:

first, he determines about love itself;

second, about ecstasy, which is an effect of love, at yet the divine love is also making ecstasy;

third, about zeal, which is a certain species of love, at on account of which those who are mighty.

397. About the first, he does two things:

first, he determines about love;

second, he excludes a certain objection, at and let not anyone opine.

398. About the first, he does two things:

first, he shows how God is an object of love;

second, how God loves, at yet the true man is confident.

399. About the first, he does three things:

first, he shows what is the object of love;

second, how singulars have love with respect to singulars, at and on account of it and for its sake;

third, what love does in lovers, at and all things desiring the beautiful and the good.

400. Therefore he says, first, that, from the fact that the beautiful and the good is the end of all things, the consequence is that the beautiful and the good is lovable by all, desirable and cherishable, because the beautiful and the good is an object of desire and love.

401. Yet for the evidence of those things that are said here, it must be considered that love pertains to the appetite. Yet there is a first love and common root of all appetitive operations; which is clear to one inspecting through singulars: for nothing is desired except what is loved; nor does anyone rejoice concerning a thing had, except because he loves it; nor is anyone saddened from something, except because it is contrary to what is loved. And for this reason it is necessary that the ratio of love should be received from the fact that it is the common object of appetite. Yet this is the good. Therefore something is said to be loved from the fact that the appetite of a lover has itself to it as to its good. Therefore the very habitude or fitness of the appetite to something as to its good is called love. Yet everything that is ordered to something as to its good, has that thing in some mode present to it and united according to a certain likeness, at least of proportion, as form in a certain mode is in matter inasmuch as it has an aptitude and order to it. But nevertheless it happens that the good loved is totally absent from the lover, and thus there is caused in the lover the desire of the thing loved; yet sometimes it is totally present to him, and thus there is caused in him delight or joy concerning the thing loved; and contrarily, from its absence there is caused fear or sadness concerning it, and consequently the other affections that are derived from these.

402. And therefore it is clear in what regard what he said: desirable and lovable, differ; for desire is a certain effect of love. Yet what he says: cherishable, determines a certain mode of love: for since love pertains to the appetite, the order of loves is according to the order of appetites. Yet there is the most imperfect of the appetites, the natural appetite without knowledge, which imports nothing else than natural inclination. Yet above this is the sensible appetite, which follows knowledge, but is without free choice. Yet the supreme appetite is that which is with knowledge and free choice: for this appetite in a certain way moves itself, whence also the love pertaining to this is the most perfect and is called charity, inasmuch as by free choice there is discerned what is to be loved.

403. Then when he says, and on account of it and for its sake, he shows how love befits singulars, with respect to singulars.

404. Whence it must be considered that, since love imports the habitude of the appetite to the good of the lover, that something should be loved happens in so many ways, as the ways in which it happens that something should be the good of another. Which indeed, first, happens in two ways; for good is said in two ways, as also being: for being is said in one way properly and truly of what subsists, as a stone and as a man; in another way of what does not subsist, but by it something is, as whiteness does not subsist, but by it something is white. And therefore good is said in two ways: in one way, as something subsisting in goodness; in another way, as the goodness of another, namely by which it is well for that thing. And therefore something is loved in two ways: in one way, under the ratio of a subsisting good, and this truly and properly is loved, namely since we will that good should be to it; and this love is called by many the love of benevolence or of friendship; in another way, through the mode of goodness inhering, according as something is said to be loved, not inasmuch as we will that good should be to it, but inasmuch as we will that which is good to someone else, as we say that we love science or health.

405. Nor is it unfitting if also in this way we should love some things that subsist per se, not indeed by reason of their substance, but by reason of some perfection that we attain from them; as we say that we love wine, not on account of the substance of wine so that it might be well for it, but so that through wine it might be well for us, either inasmuch as we are delighted by its taste or inasmuch as we are sustained by its humor. Yet everything that is accidental is reduced to what is per se. And therefore this very fact that we love something so that it might be well for something else, is included in the love of that which we love so that it might be well for it. For something must not be loved for something else through what is accidental, but through what is per se; and for this reason indeed it is necessary to receive the diversity of loves according to those things that we love such that we will good to them.

406. And because we love each thing inasmuch as it is our good, it is necessary that love should be varied in so many ways, as the ways that it happens that something is the good of another. Which indeed happens in four ways: in one way, according as something is good of itself, and thus something loves itself; in another way, according as through a certain likeness something is as though one with another, and thus something loves what is equally coordinated with it in some order, as a man loves another man of his same species and as a citizen loves a fellow citizen and as a relative a relative; in another way, something is the good of another because it is something of his, as a hand is something of a man and universally a part is something of a whole; whereas in another way, according as, conversely, the whole is the good of the part: for a part is not perfect unless in a whole, whence naturally a part loves the whole and a part is exposed spontaneously for the health of the whole. For what is superior in beings is compared to the inferior as part to whole, inasmuch as the superior perfectly and totally has what is had imperfectly and particularly by the inferior, and inasmuch as the supreme contains in itself many inferiors.

407. Whence also Denys here posits four modes of love: and the first is according as an inferior loves its superior; and this is what he says: that on account of the good and the beautiful and for its sake, lessers, that is, inferiors, love betters, that is, superiors, by converting themselves to them, because in them they have their perfection; second, he posits the mode in which equals love equals; and he says that ordered things, that is, those that are of one order, love coordinated things, that is, equals, communicatively, that is, inasmuch as they share with them either in species or in whatever order; third, he posits the mode in which superiors love inferiors; and he says that betters, that is, superiors, love lessers, that is, inferiors, providingly, that is, inasmuch as they provide for them as contained under themselves; fourth, he posits the mode in which any things love themselves, and he says that these singulars love themselves contentively, that is, inasmuch as each is contained in itself.

408. Then when he says, and all things desiring the beautiful and the good, he shows what love does in the lover. For because love is the common root of appetite, it is necessary that every operation of the appetite should be caused from love, as has been said. And because every operation of each thing is caused from appetite, it follows that every action of whatever thing is caused from love; and this is what he says: that all things from the desire of the beautiful and the good do and will whatever they do and will. And here he receives desire for love, because it is its effect, as has been said.

409. Then when he says, yet the true man is confident, he shows how God loves; and he says that we can say confidently that God who is the cause of all things, on account of the excess of his goodness, loves all things; and out of love he makes all things, giving them being; and he perfects all things, by filling each thing with its proper perfections; and he contains all things, by conserving them in being; and he converts all things, that is, orders to himself as to an end; and thus we say: the divine love is good and is of the good, that is, of God as lover, and is on account of the good as on account of the object; for God loves nothing except on account of his goodness.

And to expound what he had said, he adds that the love by which God loves existing things is operative of goodness in them; and on account of this he says that the good itself, because it causally preexists in the good, that is, in God, according to excess, as all things pertaining to perfection that are in creatures are more excellently in God, and for this reason he had said that the divine love is of the good; this divine love, I say, does not permit it to remain in itself without sprout, that is, without the production of creatures, but love moves it to operating, according to the most excellent mode of operation inasmuch as it produced all things into being. For from the love of its goodness there proceeded that it willed to diffuse its goodness and to communicate it to others, according as was possible, namely through the mode of likeness, and that its goodness would remain not only in itself, but would flow out to others.

410. And let not anyone opine. Here he excludes a certain objection: for it could seem to someone that the name of love always signifies a natural passion, and that for this reason it must not be used in divine things.

Yet first of all he excludes this objection through reason;

second, through authority, at but so that we might not seem to say those things.

411. About the first, he does two things:

first, he says that the objection is irrational;

second, he applies reason, at yet it is necessary to see according to right reason.

412. Therefore he says, first, that no one ought to opine that we commend in God the name of love beyond the custom and fittingness of the Sacred Scriptures. For it is irrational and depraved, as I reckon, that a man should not attend to the virtue of the intention, that is, to what someone intends to signify through a name, but to the sayings themselves; and this does not pertain to those who wish to understand divine things, but to those who look to the sayings themselves or to the sounds themselves lightly by not pondering their signification, and who also contain the sounds outside only, namely as far as the ears, such that they do not cross beyond as far as the intellect; who do not wish to see what such a saying signifies and how it happens to expound one saying through other more manifest sayings, signifying the same thing.

But such men suffer something from these elements, that is, letters, syllables, and lines, that is, sensible and not intelligible written figures, because the sounds themselves of the sayings do not cross over to the intelligible part of the soul, but are delayed around the lips of the speakers and around the hearing of the hearers, as though it should not be possible that the number four should be signified through twice two, or what I say: rectilinear, should be signified through having right lines, or maternal only should be signified through paternal. And it is similar concerning whatever other things in which it happens that one intention is signified by diverse parts of speech. Yet those men are said to be sympathetic with the letters and the vocal and not intellectual sayings, who receive any sayings because they are affected to the voices themselves and do not attend to their sense.

413. Then when he says, yet it is necessary to see according to right reason, he assigns the reason for the aforementioned things;

and first, that it is not necessary to attend to voices, when it is evident from the senses;

second, that plainer voices must be used, at yet when the mind strives to be moved.

414. Therefore he says, first, that it is necessary to see, according to right reason, that we use elements, namely voices, and syllables and lines and speeches, written or spoken, on account of the senses themselves, namely on account of hearing and vision. But when our soul is moved by intelligible operation to participating intelligible things, then the senses of exterior sensible things are superfluous, because sensible things are preambles to intelligible things; yet when we arrive at the end, we recede from the way, and so when it already is agreed about the intention understood through voices, the office of voices by which they are signified ceases. And for this reason this must not be disputed. And he posits an example from the fact that the intellectual virtues of our natural reason also are superfluous when our soul conformed to God sends itself to divine things, not by the sending of the bodily eyes, but by the sending of faith, namely through the fact that the unknown and inaccessible divine light unites and communicates itself to us. For while we consider those things that are of faith, we do not adjudicate them through natural reason; and likewise, when we wish to understand something, it is not necessary to adjudicate through voices.

415. Then when he says, yet when the mind strives to be moved, he shows that more manifest voices must rather be used; and he says that when our mind strives to be moved to intellective contemplation through sensible things, then those sensible species are more precious, that is, more useful, which more manifestly carry or convey intellectual intentions, as plainer speeches convey more manifest visible things. But when those things that are not manifest in sensible things are represented by the senses, then neither can those senses represent well the sensible things to the mind, namely such that from these sensible things intelligible things might be grasped. And for this reason, because the name of love is plainer and more common than the name of charity, it ought rather to be used to signify the intellectual intention.

416. Then when he says, but so that we might not seem to say those things, he manifests the same through authorities of Scripture; and about this, he does three things:

first, he shows how Sacred Scripture uses the name of love in divine things;

second, how certain men reckon it more fitting to use the name of love than the name of charity, at although it seemed to certain of our men;

third, he shows that both must be used indifferently, at yet by those hearing divine things rightly.

417. Therefore he says, first, that, so that he might not seem to introduce the aforementioned arguments as though wishing to pervert the Sacred Scriptures, against those who accuse the name of love in divine things, he introduces these authorities: love her and she shall serve you (Prov. 4:6), according to another translation; yet our translation has: cherish her, that is, wisdom, and she shall serve you . . . snatch her and she shall exalt you, and you shall be glorified by her, when you shall have embraced her (Prov. 4:6–8). And many other things are said to the praise of love in the Scriptures, as is clear in the amatorious theologies, that is, in the Canticle of Canticles.

418. Then when he says, although it seemed to certain of our men, he shows that certain men thought that this name of love must rather be used in divine things; and about this, he does three things:

first, he posits the opinion of others;

second, he shows how it seems to him, at for the theologians seem to me;

third, he assigns the reason for the opinion of the others, at yet that true love rather is applied.

419. Therefore he says, first, that to certain of the doctors who have treated the holy speeches, although they did not fashion the canonical Scriptures, it seemed that the name of love was more fitting for divine things than the name of charity. Whence Ignatius Martyr writes of Christ, saying, my love, that is, Christ in whom is my whole love, is crucified. Philo says in the book that he made introducing to the sacred eloquences, On Divine Wisdom: I was made a lover of her beauty (Wis. 8:2). From which it is clear that the book of Wisdom was not yet had among the canonical Scriptures. Whence it is concluded that we ought not fear to use the name of love, nor from this ought any objection call us back, intending to inflict doubt upon this.

420. Then when he says, for the theologians seem to me, he shows how it seems to him; and he says that it seems to him that the fashioners of Sacred Scripture used the name of charity and of love commonly and indifferently.

421. Then when he says, yet that true love rather is applied, he assigns the reason why certain men say that the name of love must rather be used in divine things; and he says that on account of this it seems that the name of love is applied to divine things: so that there might be excluded the receiving of those who unfittingly use the name of love; because since in God, as befits him, true love is praised not only by us who expound the Sacred Scriptures, but also by the Scriptures themselves, multitudes of foolish men who cannot grasp the uniformity that the name of divine love signifies, have lapsed according to their custom to the love that is found in bodily things, which is dissimilar and divided: because such love does not find in one thing the whole that suffices for it, and for this reason it is divided through diverse things; and if through some time it should satisfy itself in one thing, nevertheless it does not endure in this, but is born to seek what is pleasing to it in diverse things. And this happens for bodily things because they are dissimilar and divided.

Yet this love is not true love, as neither is the good divided with the divisible the true and perfect good, but the indivisible good, which is most of all one; for good and one come together in the same, as Boethius proves in the book The Consolation of Philosophy. (Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, III, pr. XI.)

422. Yet this bodily love is a certain idol, that is, a likeness of true love or rather a certain defect or a fall from true love. Yet for this reason the multitudes shall lapse to this love: because they are not able to grasp the uniformity of the divine love; and for this reason this name is disposed in the divine wisdom, as appearing more troublesome to many, that is, more unfitting, unto this: so that they might be elevated and excited upwards, as though reclining in inferior places, to the knowledge of true love, and so that they might also be freed from the difficulty that they suffer about this name; just as also in the other namings of God, frequently the lowest bodily things are attributed more, so that the mind might be forced not to remain in them, but to understand God above all things, as is said in the second chapter of the Angelic Hierarchy. (Dionysius, The Angelic Hierarchy, c. 2, n. 3 [MG III, 141 AB].) And for this reason Scripture uses the name of love in divine things, because we use this name more for the lowest and carnal love.

423. Again, I say, it would be unfitting that it should be opined by us that earthly zeals, that is, loves, should be in divine things, which zeals seem to be expressed through the name of charity, according as appears from the plain mode of Scripture. For a certain man, namely David, says in 2 Kings 1:26, according to another translation: your charity fell upon me, as the charity of women; whereas our translation has: I grieve over you, my brother Jonathan, exceedingly beautiful, and lovable above the love of women.

424. Then when he says, yet by those hearing divine things rightly, he shows how the name of charity and of love is received according to the Scriptures; and he says that by those who rightly hear the divine things this is sanctioned: that in the same virtue and signification the name of charity and of love is received from the holy theologians who produced the canonical Scriptures, according to those things that have been manifested to them by God or that they have manifested concerning God. For both names are significative of a certain unitive virtue, inasmuch as it unites the lover to the beloved, as both desire the same; and conjunctive, as both are joined to the fittingness of the other according to inclination, according to which the two lovers have themselves to one another; and differently concretive, according as in such a joining there is preserved the difference of each of the lovers, of whom sometimes one is superior and the other inferior; and this virtue indeed preexists in the beautiful and the good, namely in God, who loves both himself and other things on account of his beauty and goodness.

425. And again this virtue is attributed to created things by God, who is the beautiful and the good, on account of the beautiful and the good, which is the proper object of love. For nothing is loved, except according as it has the ratio of the beautiful and the good. And this virtue indeed contains coordinates, that is, equals, according as they have themselves to one another such that alternately they communicate what is theirs to one another. The virtue of love also moves superiors to provide for inferiors, and it gathers those having less, that is, inferiors, in superiors, inasmuch as it converts these to those as to the proper good that they have in them. And these things have been expounded above.

Lectio 10

On Ecstasy and On Zeal

§13. 168. Yet the divine love is also making ecstasy, not dismissing that the lovers should be of themselves, but of the beloved.

169. And indeed they show superiors made of the providence of those having less and coordinates of the containing of one another and subjects of the more divine conversion to first things.

170. On account of which also Paul the great, made in the containing of divine love, and participating its virtue making ecstasy, with a divine mouth: I live, he says, no longer I, yet Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20); as a true lover and suffering ecstasy, as he says, living for God and not by his own life (2 Cor 5:13, 15), but by that of the beloved, as exceedingly lovable.

171. Yet one must dare to say even this for truth: that even he the cause of all things, by the beautiful and the good, by the love of all things, through an abundance of amative goodness is made outside himself, providing for all existing things, and as he is drawn by goodness and charity and love, and is pulled down from that which is over all things and segregated from all things, to this which is in all things, according to supersubstantial virtue making ecstasy, inegressible from his own self.

172. On account of which those who are mighty in divine things call him a zealot (Ex 20:5), as much in good love for existing things and as exciting to the zeal of his amative desire and as demonstrating himself a zealot, through which also the things desired are zealable and as these provided-for zealable existing things, and the lovable and love totally of the beautiful and the good and in the beautiful and in the good is pre-gathered and on account of the beautiful and the good is and is begotten.

426. After Denys has determined about love, here he determines about ecstasy which is an effect of love, and about this, he does three things:

first, he proposes that ecstasy is an effect of love;

second, he manifests this in creatures, at and indeed they show superiors;

third, he manifests this in God, at yet one must dare to say even this.

427. About the first, it must be considered that this is the difference between the cognitive and the appetitive power: that the act of the cognitive power is according as things known are in the knower, yet the act of the appetitive power is according to the inclination that the one desiring has to the thing that is desired. Yet the first operation of the appetite is love, as was said above, whence love imports the first inclination of the appetite to the thing according as it has the ratio of the good, which is the object of the appetite.

428. Yet just as being is said in two ways, namely of what subsists per se and of what is in another, so also good: in one way, it is said of a subsisting thing that has goodness, as a man is called good; in another way, of what is in something, making it good, as virtue is called a good of man, because by it a man is good; for likewise whiteness is called being, not because it is subsisting in its own being, but because by it something is white. Therefore love tends to something in two ways: in one way, as to a substantial good, which indeed is done while we love something such that we will good to it, as we love a man when willing his good; in another way, love tends to something as to an accidental good, as we love virtue, not indeed by the ratio that we will it to be good, but by the ratio that through it we should be good. Yet the first mode of love certain men name love of friendship; yet the second, love of concupiscence.

429. Yet it happens, sometimes, that we love even some subsisting goods by this second mode of love, because we do not love them according to themselves, but according to some accident of theirs; as we love wine, willing to acquire its sweetness; and likewise, when a man is loved on account of delight or utility, he is not loved according to himself, but accidentally.

430. Therefore in both modes of love, the affection of the lover is drawn through a certain inclination to the thing loved, but in different ways: for in the second mode of love, the affection of the lover is drawn to the thing loved through an act of the will, but through intention, the affection recurs on itself; for while I desire justice or wine, my affection indeed is inclined to another of these, but nevertheless it recurs on itself, because it is so borne unto the aforementioned things that through them the good should be to it; whence such love does not place the lover outside himself, as regards the end of the intention. But when something is loved in the first mode of love, the affection so is borne unto the thing loved that it does not recur on itself, because it wills the good to the thing loved itself, not by the ratio that thence something should befall it. And therefore such a love makes ecstasy, because it places the lover outside himself.

431. But this happens in three ways; for that substantial good, unto which the affection is borne, can have itself in three ways:

in one way, such that that good is more perfect than the lover himself, and through this the lover is compared to it as part to whole, because things that are totally in the perfect are partially in the imperfect; whence according to this, the lover is something of the thing loved.

In another way, such that the good loved is of the same order with the lover.

In a third way, that the lover is more perfect than the thing loved, and thus the love of the lover is borne unto the thing loved as unto something of its own.

432. And therefore, when the affection of a lover is borne unto a superior thing loved, of which the lover himself is something, the lover orders his own good to the thing loved; as if a hand were to love a man, it would order this very what-it-is-itself to the whole, whence it would be placed totally outside itself, because in no way would anything of it be left for itself, but it would order the whole to the thing loved. Yet it is not such when something loves what is equal to itself or what is below it: for one hand, if it were to love the other, would not order its whole self to the other, nor does a man loving his hand order his whole good to the good of his hand. Therefore someone ought to love God, such that nothing of him is left for himself, but is ordered to God. Yet when he loves equals or inferiors, it suffices that he should be going outside himself to them only to such an extent that he does not intend to himself alone, but to others; nor is it necessary that he should totally order himself to them.

433. And therefore divine love can be received here in two ways: in one way, the love by which God is loved, and thus this letter must be expounded: that divine love makes ecstasy, that is, places the lover outside himself, that is, orders him to God such that it does not permit those lovers to be of themselves, but of the divine things that are loved, because they leave nothing of themselves for themselves, but order it to God. In another way, there can be understood the divine love that is derived from God, not only to God, but also to other things, namely equals or inferiors, and thus there must be understood: not dismissing that the lovers should be of themselves only, but of the beloved, that is, of the things that are loved, because loves makes it that they should not only intend to themselves, but also to others.

434. Then when he says, and indeed they show superiors, he manifests what he had said, in creatures;

and first, through induction;

second, through authority, at on account of which also Paul.

435. Therefore he says, first, that superiors demonstrate the aforementioned effect of love through the providence that they enact concerning inferiors; for in a certain way they are placed outside themselves, in the fact that they intend to others; and likewise, they show coordinates, that is, equals, through the containing by which they contain one another, namely as one is helped and cherished by another; and they show also inferiors through the fact that divinely they are converted to their superiors, as those in which their good exists. For in all these things it is apparent that something goes outside itself, while it is converted to another. Yet here he uses genitives for ablatives, because the Greeks lack ablatives.

436. Then when he says, on account of which also Paul, he shows the same through authority; he says that on account of the fact that love does not permit the lover to be of himself, but of the thing loved, Paul the great, constituted in divine love as in a certain container and with the virtue of divine love making him to go totally outside himself, as though speaking with a divine mouth, says, I live, no longer I, yet Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20), namely because going out from himself he threw the whole of himself into God, not seeking what is his own, but what is God’s, as a true lover and suffering ecstasy, living for God and not living by his own life, but by the life of Christ as the beloved, which life was exceedingly lovable for him.

437. Then when he says, yet one must dare to say even this, he says that the aforementioned operation of love even is found in God, saying that this boldly must be said for truth, that is, for the one boldly making this truth; or for truth, that is, for asserting this true thing: that he who is the cause of all things, through his beautiful and good love by which he loves all things, according to the abundance of his goodness by which he loves things, is made outside himself, inasmuch as he provides for all existing things through his goodness and love or charity and in a certain way is drawn and pulled down in a certain way from his excellence, according as he exists above all things and is segregated from all things, to this: that he should be in all things, through the effect of his goodness, according to a certain ecstasy, which nevertheless so makes him to be in inferior things, that his supersubstantial virtue does not go out from him. For he so fills all things that in none is he emptied of his virtue. Which indeed he adds, so that through what he had said: is pulled down, there might not be understood any diminishing, but only this: that he betakes himself to inferiors on account of the participation of his goodness.

438. Then when he says, on account of which those who are mighty, he determines about zeal, which imports a certain intensity of love; and he says that, because the operation of love is found most excellently in God, on account of this those who are excellent in the knowledge of divine things name God a zealot, as is clear in Exodus 20:5: I the Lord your God a zealot, because he has much of good love for the existence of creatures. Yet zeal imports intensity of love; which intensity indeed happens sometimes in men, because man wishing to possess what he loves singularly, does not suffer that it should be loved by another, and according to this certain men define zeal, saying, zeal is an intense love not suffering company in the beloved. But he excludes this from divine zeal, when he adds that he excites all things to the zeal of his amative desire; for he makes it that that indeed which he loves, also should be loved by others.

439. There also is found another condition in human zeal and love through which it differs from the divine: for love in us and likewise zeal is caused from beauty and goodness; for something is beautiful not for the reason that we love it, but for the reason that it is beautiful and good it is loved by us; for our will is not the cause of things, but is moved by things; yet the will of God is the cause of things, and for this reason his love makes the things that he loves good, and not conversely; because his goodness moves itself in itself, which ours does not do; and this is what he says: that God is called a zealot, as that through which there are made zealable, that is, intensely lovable, those things that are willed or desired by him or by whatever others.

440. Yet it happens sometimes that even we make certain things lovable that are from our work, but nevertheless not all the things that we work are lovable; for sometimes we make evil and defective works; yet all the things that God makes from this very fact are good and lovable; and this is what he adds: that God is called a zealot, as for all the things that come forth through his providence, for zealable, that is, intensely lovable, existing things.

441. And therefore, having finished what he intended to say about the good and the beautiful and love, he adds, as though gathering from the things set forth, that the lovable and love is totally of the beautiful and the good. Thus love also preexists in the beautiful and the good as in a subject, although the first beautiful and good, namely God, cannot properly be called the subject of anything; and again, on account of the beautiful and the good, love and the lovable are made and preexist in things, as on account of a cause.

Lectio 11

How God Is Called Both Love and Lovable

§14. 173. Yet why did the theologians willing totally sometimes indeed call him love and charity, yet sometimes lovable and cherishable?

174. For he is the cause of this indeed both as sender and as progenitor; yet this he is. And this indeed is moved, yet that moves, or because he is leading and moving of his own self and to his own self.

175. Thus indeed they call him cherishable and lovable, as the beautiful and the good;

176. yet love again and charity, as moving simultaneously, as what is virtue acting upwards to itself, which alone is the beautiful and the good itself and as what is a manifestation of itself through itself;

177. and good procession of segregated unition and amative motion, simple per se mobile and per se operating;

178. preexisting in the good and from the good emanating to existing things and again converted unto the good; in which both interminable of its own self and not having a principle, divine love shows differently, as a certain eternal circle, on account of the good from the good in the good and unto the good, circumambulating in convolution not erring and in the same and according to the same and proceeding and remaining always and restored.

442. After Denys has determined about love and about these things that follow upon love, here he solves a certain doubt;

and first, a question is posed;

second, the solution, at for he is the cause of this indeed;

third, the manifestation of the solution is posed, at thus indeed they call him cherishable.

443. Therefore he asks, first, what the editors of Sacred Scripture, whom he calls theologians, wished to signify, when sometimes indeed they named God charity and love, as is clear in 1 John 4:16: God is charity; whereas sometimes they name him lovable and cherishable: young women have cherished you exceedingly (Song 1:2).

444. Then when he says, for he is the cause of this indeed, he poses two solutions to the aforementioned question:

the first of which is that God is called love and charity causally, namely because he is the cause of love, inasmuch as he sends love to others and in a certain way generates love in them according to a certain likeness; yet he is called lovable and cherishable essentially, because he is that which is lovable and cherishable. And he assigns the ratio of this solution, because love signifies some motion by which some lover is moved, but cherishable is that which moves by such a motion; yet it pertains to God that he should move and cause motion in others, and for this reason it seems to pertain to him that he is lovable, creating love in other things.

The second solution is that God is called love and lovable because he loves by the motion of his own self and leads himself to himself; for to will is a certain motion. For God wills his good, and according to this, as he is his own goodness that in a certain way moves his will, he is also said to be cherishable and lovable by himself. Whereas inasmuch as his willing, by which he wills his own good, is his being and his substance, God is his own love. And therefore the first solution was received according to the love by which all things love God; yet this one according to the love by which God loves himself.

445. Then when he says, thus indeed they call him cherishable, he manifests the solution posed;

and first, as regards the fact that God is called lovable;

second, inasmuch as God is called love, at yet love again and charity.

446. Therefore he says, first, that God is cherishable and lovable, inasmuch as he is the beautiful and the good itself; for in this there is imported the object of love.

447. Then when he says, yet love again and charity, he manifests how God is called love; and about this, he does three things:

first, he posits the effects of love that are attributed to God;

second, the properties of love, at and good procession of segregated unition;

third, the procession of love, at preexisting in the good and from the good.

448. Yet there is a threefold effect of love: first of all that it moves the lover to some operation; the second effect is that it converts the works of the lover through intention to the thing loved; the third effect is that every love is manifestive of itself through the signs and effects of love, and through this the lover seeks not only to love, but also to be loved. And these three things he attributes to God; whence he says that God is called love and charity inasmuch as he moves both himself and others through love to working something, as regards the first; and simultaneously with this God is called love elevating other things to itself who also according to itself is the beautiful and the good as though a certain essence of beauty and of goodness, and this as regards the second; and God is called love also according as it is manifestive of itself through itself, that is, by his proper virtue.

449. Then when he says, and good procession of segregated unition, he posits five properties of love:

the first of which is grasped according to its cause which indeed is some unition of the lover and the beloved inasmuch as it is a being which naturally loves itself, inasmuch as each thing naturally desires its good, and from the fact that something is one with it, it follows that it loves it, and for this reason those things that are more joined to us we love more; and this is what he says: that love is attributed to God as a certain good procession of a certain segregated, that is, excellent, unition, because as much as love is more perfect, so much also is the union from which it proceeds greater.

The second property is taken on the part of the object: for the proper object of love is that it should make the lover to tend to the beloved, through which love is distinguished from knowledge, which does not draw the knower to the thing known, but conversely; and this is what he says: and amative motion.

The third property is what he says: simple; for it is necessary that the first in whatever genus should be simple, whence since the first motion of the appetite is love, it is necessary that it should be simple; and through this love differs from anger which is a motion composed of sadness provoking and desire of vengeance.

Its fourth condition is that it is per se mobile, which applies to it inasmuch as it is the first motion of the appetite, because in whatever genus what is per se is prior to what is through another; and through this love and sadness differ, for sadness is as a violent motion coming forth from outside, yet love is as a natural motion simultaneously proceeding from the inmost.

The fifth property is that it is per se operating, which also applies to it by reason of its priority; and in this it differs from hope, for he who works on account of the hope of another, works on account of the other; yet he who works something from love, works it through himself, as pleasing to himself.

450. Then when he says, preexisting in the good and from the good, he shows the procession of love; and he says that this love, first, is in the good itself which is God, and from that good it emanated into existing things and, again, as participated in existing things it converts itself to its principle which is the good; and as regards this which is the divine love he demonstrates differently beyond others its interminability and its lack of a principle that pertain to the ratio of a circle: for a certain circularity appears in love according as it is from the good and unto the good, and this circularity befits the eternity of divine love, because only a circular motion can be perpetual; and this is what he says: that love is as a certain eternal circle, inasmuch as it is on account of the good as an object; and from the good, as from a cause; and in the good persevering; and tending unto attaining the good, and thus the good circles around by a certain convolution not erring, on account of uniformity. For tortuous and difform ways are the cause of error; uniformity of way preserves from error; and he calls this uniformity in the way of love when he adds that love is in the same and according to the same, that is, in the good and proceeds according to the good, as in a cause; and it remains always, inasmuch as it retains the form of the good, as of its proper object; and it is restored unto the same, as unto an end.

Lectio 12

The Words of Hierotheus on Love

179. These also our noble perfector of sanctity, moved by God, recited in amative hymns, which it is not unfitting to remember and to set upon this speech concerning love as a certain holy chapter.

§15. 180. Love, whether we should call it divine or angelic or intellectual or animal or natural, we understand a certain unitive and concretive virtue, moving superiors indeed unto the providence of those having less, yet coordinates again to an alternating communicative habitude for those in need, subjects to a conversion of those better and super-posited.

§16. 181. Because from one we order many loves, consequently we shall say that such indeed are knowledge and virtues of mundane and super-mundane loves, from which there exceed according to the assigned intention of intellectual and intelligible loves both orders and adornments. After which per se intelligible and divine loves truly are preeminent there over existing beautiful loves, and they are properly praised by us.

182. Now again resuming all to one and concluded love, we both enfold the father of all these simultaneously and gather from many, first collecting it to two amative virtues universally, from which the incomprehensible cause of all overcomes and it is ruled altogether, from that which is over all things and to which total love is extended according to the nature of each for all existing things.

§17. 183. Come, gathering those also to one again, we say there is one certain simple virtue per se motive to a certain unitive concretion from the good, even to the extreme of existing things, and from it again consequently through all things unto the good, from the same and through the same and in the same reflecting itself and always revolved unto the same in the same mode.

451. After Denys has treated love, here to the confirmation of the things said above he introduces the words of Hierotheus on love;

and first he says what he intends;

second he posits those words, at love, whether we should call it divine or angelic.

452. Therefore he says, first, that these which are posited below and are fitting to the things said above, our Hierotheus recited, who was a perfector, that is, a master in these things that pertain to sanctity, in certain divine praises that he made about love, inspired by God; which hymns indeed it is not unfitting to commemorate here, so that it might be set upon our treatise concerning love, as a certain holy chapter, that is, as a certain rule and a certain principle for confirming what has been said above about love.

453. Then when he says, love, whether we should call it divine or angelic, he posits the words of Hierotheus on love, and about this he does three things:

first, there are posited the words containing the division and definition of love;

second, the words demonstrating the order of loves proceeding from one love, at because from one we order many loves;

third, the words demonstrating the reducing of all loves to one love, at now again resuming all to one.

454. He distinguishes, first, five loves: the first of which is divine love; second angelic love; third intellectual love, namely by which men love according to the intellective part; the fourth is animal love which pertains to the sensitive part whether in men or in animals; the fifth is natural which pertains to natural appetite, whether in animals as regards the nutritive part or in plants or even in inanimate things. For since it has been said that love imports the first motion of will and of appetite, in whatever things it happens that there is will and appetite, it happens that there is love.

455. Yet a certain common notification of love is fitting for all the aforementioned loves; whence he adds that, whichever of the aforementioned loves we name, we understand through the name of love a certain unitive and concretive virtue. But virtue here is not received either for passion or for habit, since love is not a passion or an act, but is received commonly, as everything that has efficacy to produce something can be called virtue or virtuous, whence it would be plainer if he had said virtuous unition and concretion, but he preferred to say virtue, speaking emphatically, to show the efficacy of love. Yet unition differs from concretion; for love is unition according as lover and beloved come together in some one thing, whether that is the substance of both, as when someone loves himself; or is the species, as animals that are of the same species love one another; or is the fatherland, as compatriots love one another; or is whatever else. Yet concretion pertains to love, according as those things that are united thus as regards something remain distinct, namely as regards the division of lover and beloved.

456. Yet this unition or concretion is found in diverse ways in diverse loves. For in knowers this unition or concretion is from the apprehension of the lover who reckons the beloved in some way to be one with him, and from this he is moved to it through affection by loving, as also to himself; and on account of this, according to the diverse rationes of apprehensible things, diverse loves are distinguished: for the ratio of divine knowledge is different from that of angelic knowledge and of human knowledge, according to intellect; and of all animals, according to sense. But unition and concretion in natural love is from a certain natural fittingness, from which there arises that something is inclined to another, as fitting to itself, and such an inclination is called natural love. Yet he shows to what the virtue of love extends itself, adding that it moves superiors to providing for inferiors; equals to communicating fitting things to one another alternatively; and inferiors that they should be converted to their superiors, by subjecting themselves to them and by attending to them, as to their causes, and by desiring them, as those upon whom their goods depend.

457. Then when he says, because from one we order many loves, he posits the words of Hierotheus showing the order of the many loves derived from divine love; and they seem to be words as though recapitulating some things said above. Therefore Hierotheus says, because we order many loves from one, that is, we show that from the one divine love many loves come forth ordered, also consequently we shall say that such are knowledge and virtues of mundane and super-mundane loves, that is, somehow mundane and super-mundane loves can be known, as well as what is the efficacy of each of those loves. From which it is given to be understood that he divided all loves into mundane and super-mundane: naming mundane loves those by which goods of the sensible world are loved by whatever love, yet especially by animal love; yet super-mundane loves those by which intelligible and true goods are loved.

And among those loves he assigns the order that he consequently touches on: from which, namely from mundane and super-mundane loves, there exceed, according to the assigned ratio, super-mundane loves that are divided into two orders: the inferior of which and nearer to mundane love is the order and adornment of intellectual, that is, human, and intelligible, that is, super-mundane, loves. For above he called the intellectual human. Yet he says, intellectual, on the part of the lovers; yet intelligible on the part of those things that are loved. Yet that over orders he adds adornments, he shows in intellectual loves that there is not only order, but also the fittingness of the order, which adorns the order and makes it beautiful. But, ascending from mundane loves, after intellectual human loves, there surpass and there were praised by Hierotheus angelic loves, which he calls per se intelligible, because they love intelligible things without the communion of earthly affection. And he calls them divine, because they are especially assimilated to the divine love; because in the angels truly there exist beautiful loves, without the admixture of any ugliness.

458. Then when he says, now again resuming all to one, having set forth the order of many loves, now he reduces them all to one love;

and first he reduces them all to two;

second, he further reduces those two to one love, at come, gathering those also.

459. Yet it must be considered that superior construction depends even upon this, as though he should say, because we have said the aforementioned things, now again resuming all loves, we enfold and gather them, that is, we unite them by a certain revolution and we reduce them to the divine love which is one and concluded in itself, because all the rationes of love are concluded in it and it is as the father, that is, the principle pouring forth, through a certain likeness, all loves. And in this is the reduction: that first we should gather all love to two universal amative virtues, because everything that is loved either is loved on account of a created good or on account of the uncreated good; for the ratio of love is the good that is either the ultimate end or a proximate end. Yet between these amative virtues, the incomprehensible cause of all love exceeds, which is the uncreated good; and this is what he adds: which cause of love indeed is from him who is over all things and to which cause every love extends itself from all beings, nevertheless in different ways according to the nature of each, because all things are converted to God himself, as has been said. Nor only does he say that the love having God for its cause exceeds, but also that it is ruled, because the love that depends on a created good, is regulated by the love that depends on the uncreated good.

460. Then when he says, come, gathering those also, he further reduces the aforementioned two modes of love to one first; and he says that again he gathers the aforementioned two virtues of love into one first love, namely the divine by which God indeed, one certain simple virtue, loves; which moves per se all things that love to a certain unitive concretion, proceeding from the first good that is God; and it comes through the mode of a certain derivation even to the lowest of the number of existing things, and through a certain conversion to the end, again going back from it, namely from the last of existing things, consequently ascending through all things, it returns to the first good through the mode of a certain circling, reflecting itself and always revolved in the same mode, proceeding from that first virtue and through the same; because all second virtues are derived from the first through a certain likeness, and return into the same, by the same cause: because not only through causes, but also through effects, the likeness of the first virtue is found, and thus love always remains in that virtue and further always is revolved unto the same as unto an end.

Lectio 13

Doubts

§18. 184. And indeed someone should say: if for all things the good and the beautiful is and lovable and desirable and cherishable, for even that which is not desires it, as has been said, and struggles in some way to be in it; and it is what forms unformed things; and in it also non-existing supersubstantially is said and is;

185. how does the multitude of demons not desire the beautiful and the good; yet inclined to matter and lapsed from angelic identity about the desire of the good, there is effected the cause of all evils both for themselves and for others, whatever evils are said to be made? Yet how, totally led out from the good, is the tribe of demons not boniform? Or how can good, made from the good, be varied? And what is that which made evil?

186. And totally what is evil and from what principle does it consist and in what of existing things is it? And how did the good will it to proceed; yet, willing, how could it? And if evil is from another cause, what other cause is there for existing things besides the good? Yet how also with providence existing is evil either totally made or not destroyed? And how does anything of existing things desire it beyond the good?

461. After Denys has determined about the good and about those things that pertain to the good, here he determines about evil;

and first, he raises a doubt;

second, he determines the truth, at therefore perhaps such a doubting speech.

462. About the first, he does two things:

first, he repeats the things that have been said about the good, on the occasion of the doubt;

second, he raises the doubt, at how does the multitude of demons.

463. Yet about those things that have been said above, he resumes that the beautiful and the good is lovable and desirable and cherishable for all things, and that not only those things that are desire the good, but even that which is not, namely prime matter, as has been said above, desires the good and in its way struggles unto this: that it should be in the good, namely inasmuch as it has an inclination to it, according as it is in potency to it; and the good which forms those things that are formed and that is called non-existing is said of the highest good and is also in it, not indeed through defect, as it is said of prime matter and of pure negation or privation, but supersubstantially. For God is called non-existing, not because he fails of existing, but because he is above all existing things.

464. Then when he says, how does the multitude of demons, he raises doubts concerning evil;

and first, as regards the demons;

second, commonly for all things, at and totally what is evil.

465. Yet about the evil of demons, he poses four questions:

the first of which is: since all things desire the good, as has been said, how does the multitude of demons not desire the beautiful and the good? But they are inclined to desiring material things, as honors exhibited by men and fumes of sacrifices and other material things of this sort; and through the fact that they have lapsed from the uniformity of desire which the angels have about the highest good, there is effected the cause of all evils, not only for themselves, but for others, whatever evils are said to be made, as regards men, because by the envy of the devil death entered into the whole world, as is said in Wisdom 2:24.

466. The second question is: how is the multitude of demons, since it was produced by the good God, not conformed to him in goodness, since each thing is born to make like things?

And because someone could say that the demons were made good, but they turned to malice, he formulates a third question: how could that which was naturally good, as caused from the good, be varied? For those things that are natural remain always.

And because everything that is made, is made by another, he poses a fourth question: what was that which made the demon evil?

467. Then when he says, and totally what is evil, he raises doubts about evil in common, and he poses four questions,

the first of which is: what is evil universally?

The second question is: from what principle does evil proceed? And there the order of the questions is apparent: for first it must be asked what evil is and afterwards whence evil has arisen, as Augustine says. (Augustine, On the Nature of Good Against the Manichees, c. 4.)

The third question is: in what of existing things is evil found?

468. Yet having proposed these three questions, he multiplies the second in a twofold way:

first: what is it; because, either the cause of evil is God or something else. If it should be given that it is God, two doubts arise together,

the first of which is: how did God, since he is good, will to produce evil? For it is not of the good that it should will to make evil.

The second question is: if he willed to make evil, how could it? For heat cannot chill and likewise neither can good make evil.

Whereas if evil should be from another cause than from God, this seems impossible; because there is no other cause of being except the highest good which is God.

The second deduction is that, since it belongs to providence to impede or exclude evil, it seems doubtful, since God has providence concerning all things, how evil could be made in the world or once made not destroyed at once.

The fourth question is: how could anything desire evil, passing over the desire of the good?

Lectio 14

The First Question Is Solved: Whether Evil Is Something

§19. 187. Therefore perhaps such a doubting speech might indeed say these things. Yet we shall ask it to look to the truth of things.

188. And first of all we are confident to say this: evil is not from the good, and if it is from the good, it is not evil; for neither is it of fire to chill nor of the good to produce not good things. And if all existing things are from the good—for nature for the good is: to produce and to conserve; yet for evil: to corrupt and to destroy—nothing of existing things is from evil; and neither shall there be a thing that evil is, if evil also should be through itself. And if not this, that which is evil is not altogether evil, but has a certain part of good, according to which it totally is.

189. And if existing things desire the beautiful and the good and do all whatever they do on account of the fact that it seems good and the intention of all existing things has the good as its principle and end—for nothing does what it does looking to the nature of evil—how shall there be evil in existing things or totally existing segregated from such a good appetite?

190. And if all existing things are from the good and the good is above existing things, it is indeed in the good and non-existing; yet evil is not existing, otherwise it would not be altogether evil, nor non-existing: for nothing is universally non-existing, unless it should be said in the good, according to the supersubstantial. Therefore the good indeed shall be both above the simply existing and non-existing, gathered much before. Yet evil sits neither in existing things nor in non-existing things, withdrawing and alien more from this non-existing thing than from the good and more not a substance.

469. Having set forth questions about evil, here he begins to solve them;

and first, questions that pertain to evil simply;

second, questions that pertain to evil, according as it is found in demons, at therefore evil is not existing.

470. Yet the first part is divided into two:

in the first, he solves three principal questions that he had formulated about evil in common;

in the second, he proceeds to solve other secondary questions, which are posed to explicate more the question of the cause of evil, at yet there is gathered to say.

471. The first part yet is divided into three:

in the first, he solves the first question by which it was asked what evil is;

in the second, he solves the second by which it was asked from what principle evil consists, at whence therefore is evil?;

in the third, he solves the third question by which it was asked in what of existing things was evil, at but neither is evil in existing things.

472. About the first, he does two things:

first, he connects himself to the preceding;

second, he shows the proposition, at and first of all we are confident.

473. Therefore he says, first, that those things that have been said, perhaps someone could say by doubting. But we ask him to look to the truth of things and thus he could find the solution of the questions; in which he renders the listener both attentive and benevolent.

474. Then when he says, and first of all we are confident, he shows the proposition, namely that evil is not anything subsisting that is evil through its nature; and about this, he does two things:

first, he shows that evil is not anything existing according to its nature;

second, that evil through itself is not anything existing, at and if all existing things are from the good.

475. He shows the first by two arguments; the first of which is thus: every existing thing either has a cause or is itself the cause of another; but evil does not have a cause nor is it the cause of another; therefore evil is not anything existing. Yet the truth of the first proposition is manifest per se, because every existing thing according to its existence is in act; yet each thing acts according as it is in act. If therefore the essence of anything should be pure act, it shall be a cause only; yet if it should have something of potency mixed in, it could be both a cause and caused.

Yet that evil does not have a cause he proves thus: evil cannot be from the good and if it were from the good it would not be evil; for one of two contraries is not the cause of the other, for it does not pertain to fire to chill, nor does it pertain to the good to produce things that are not good, but each thing produces something like itself. Likewise also it cannot be said that evil is a cause productive of anything; for what is of the ratio of the good, cannot befit evil. But to produce and to conserve is natural for the good and of its ratio, because generation and conservation are good; likewise to corrupt and to destroy pertain to the ratio of evil. From which it follows that only the good is a cause of existing things and that evil is the cause of no existing thing. Whence it follows, if evil is not from the good as from a cause, that it does not have a cause and that it is not caused.

476. But it must be considered that the argument by which he has proven that the good is not the cause of evil, proves that the good is not the cause of evil per se, yet not that it is not the cause of evil accidentally; because thus also heat accidentally can be the cause of cold, as a greater flame by consuming the matter of a lesser thing accidentally introduces cold. But this is not against the intention of Denys; for it is necessary that everything that has an essence, should be born to have a cause per se and not accidentally. Whence if evil does not have a cause per se, but only accidentally, it only follows that evil does not have an essence; and this is what, as though concluding, he adds: that neither is evil itself anything, if evil should be received according to itself, as something subsisting in the nature of evil. Yet everything that is totally some way is essentially that way, as if something is totally good it is the essence of goodness; for if it participates the good, it is necessary that there should be divided into participating and participated. Therefore if nothing is evil essentially, that which is evil is not totally evil, but has some part of good, and according to that part is the whole being of that which is called evil. And therefore through this he manifested what evil is. For evil cannot be any subsisting essence, as the good is the very essence of goodness, but whatever evil thing, through its essence, is good; yet a thing is evil, according as it fails of some good that it ought to have and does not have.

477. He posits a second argument, at and if existing things desire the beautiful, which is thus: all existing things desire the beautiful and the good, as is likewise clear from the things said above, and do all whatever they do on account of that which is good or at least on account of that which seems good; and thus every intention of whatever existing things has good for its principle and end, because the desire of the good moves, as a certain principle, to willing those things that are on account of the end; and again the will itself of those things that are unto the end, we refer to the good as to an end. And he manifests this through the fact that no one does those things that he does, looking to the ratio of evil, although sometimes that to which one looks is evil, just as someone does something in order that he might fornicate, not by looking to fornication inasmuch as it is evil, but inasmuch as it is delightful. From which it is clear that no existing thing desires evil unless accidentally, and that every existing thing desires the good. But if something were evil through its essence it could not desire the good, since a contrary does not desire its contrary, because it is destructive of it, but it would desire per se evil as like and conformed to itself. Whence it remains that evil received essentially neither is any part of an existing thing nor is it universally existing.

478. Then when he says, and if all existing things are from the good, he shows that there cannot be anything evil through itself such that it is non-existing, and to prove this he introduces that if all existing things are from the highest good, and that highest good is above all existing things, it remains that in this highest good there is found that which is non-existing. For it is necessary that what is above all existing things should be non-existing, as what is above all bodily things is non-bodily. But this cannot be said of evil: that the very thing that is called evil is non-existing. For it is not existing, because it would not be totally evil, since the fact that it is existing is a certain good; nor again is it non-existing totally, because nothing is totally non-existing except according as non-existing is said of the highest good, according to its supersubstantiality. But it cannot be said thus of evil, because exceeding every substance is the best.

Whence it remains that the good is gathered much higher both over the substantially existing and over the non-existing according as it is found in things. But evil neither is in existing things as though it should be of the number of existing things or some part or property of any existing things; nor again is it of the number of non-existing things, but it is withdrawing, that is, receding or distancing, more from non-existing than from the good and is more alien from it, because evil is in the good at least as in a subject, but non-being simply is not evil. And again evil is rather without subject than non-being, because non-being can be understood to be not in anything, but it is necessary that evil should be understood as in the good.

479. But against what is said here, it is objected in two ways:

first of all, because evil is a privation of the good, yet privation is non-being;

second, because since existing and non-existing are opposed contradictorily, there cannot be some middle between them, whence if evil is not existing, it follows that it is non-existing.

480. But it must be said that he is speaking here of evil according as evil is said as an evil thing. Yet evil is not a certain existing thing namely which is evil through its essence, nor again is evil totally a non-existing thing, but evil is a thing that partly is good and from that part exists and is called evil because it fails of some being.

Lectio 15

The Second Question Is Posed: Whence Is Evil

191. Whence therefore is evil? Someone might say; for if there is not evil, virtue and malice are the same and all to the whole and particular to the proportional or neither shall evil be repugnant to virtue. And indeed contraries are chastity and impurity and justice and injustice; and I do not say according to the just and the unjust man and him who is pure and him who is impure. But even before the apparent outer distance of one having virtue to his opposite, in the soul itself prior universally malices stand away from virtues,

192. and the passions are repugnant to reason and from these it is necessary to grant a certain evil contrary to the good; for the good is not contrary to itself, but as from one principle and begotten from one cause, by communion and unity and friendship it rejoices; and neither is the less good contrary to the greater nor is the less hot or cold contrary to what is more so. Therefore evil is in existing things and is existing and is opposed to the good.

193. And if it is the corruption of existing things, that does not exclude evil from an essence, but it shall be both itself existing and generative of existing things. Or does not the corruption of a certain thing many times become generative of another? And evil through itself shall be contributing to the completion of everything and lavishing upon the whole that it should not be imperfect.

481. After Denys has shown that evil does not have an essence and that it is neither a cause nor caused, now he inquires whence evil arises in things;

and first, he raises a doubt;

second, he solves it, at yet true speech says to these things.

482. Yet he raises a twofold doubt;

and first of all, from the repugnance or contrariety that is found in things;

second, from the concomitance of generation and corruption, at and if it is the corruption of existing things.

483. About he first he does two things:

first, he raises a doubt from those things in which the contrariety of good and evil is manifestly apparent;

second, from those things in which it is not so manifestly apparent, at and the passions are repugnant to reason.

484. Therefore he says, first, that if evil does not have existence nor is it a cause nor caused, as has been shown above, someone by objecting might say: whence therefore is evil found in things? For if you should respond that there is no evil in things, two unfitting things follow:

the first of which is that virtue and malice are the same and all to the whole, that is, virtue in general, malice in general; and particular to the proportional, that is, special virtue to special malice by proportionality to itself responding to contraries, as justice to injustice, because both malice in general is contrary to virtue and special malice to special virtue. The virtue of this deduction consists in this: that, with the differences by which any things differ from one another removed, it follows that they are the same. Yet the differences by which virtue and malice differ are good and evil; for virtue is a good quality of mind, yet malice an evil quality of mind. Therefore with the difference of good and evil removed, if evil should not be in things, it follows that virtue and malice are the same in the universal and in the special.

485. The second unfitting thing is that even if virtue and malice should differ, it follows that evil is not contrary nor repugnant to virtue, because what is not cannot be contrary or repugnant. For it is necessary that both of two contraries should be something and a manifest nature. Yet the contrariety of virtue to evil is through the fact that chastity and impurity are contrary and justice and injustice. And because someone could say that that contrariety is only according as men are contrary to one another, one of whom has virtue and the other of whom does not, he excludes this: and I do not say, he says, that chastity and impurity and justice and injustice are contraries only according as a just man and an unjust man and a pure man and an impure man are contrary to one another, but through a prior order of nature before the distance and contrariety that are exteriorly apparent between him who has a virtue and him who has the opposed vice, those vices or malices universally differ from virtues in the soul itself. For chastity and impurity are not contrary on account of the contrariety of the chaste and the unchaste man, but rather conversely.

486. Therefore first he poses a doubt concerning the contrariety of virtue and justice, because evil is of the ratio of that which is contrary to virtue, nor is there found in any genus that any species are distinguished through the difference of good and evil, unless in the vicious and virtuous habits of the soul. The ratio of this is that the virtues and vices pertain to the will, the object of which is good and evil.

487. Then when he says, and the passions are repugnant to reason, he poses a doubt concerning those things that do not have of their ratio that they should be contrary to the good, as the passions that are repugnant to reason. Yet passions are said to be motions of the sensitive appetite which is divided into the irascible and the concupiscible power. Yet it is not of the ratio of these powers that they should be contrary to virtue, because to desire and to rejoice and to be angry and to have other passions of this sort happens also according to virtue, but they are contrary to virtue according as they are inordinate. Yet everything inordinate is not of the ratio of things. Therefore passions of this sort are repugnant to reason, because just as sensitive apprehension is of that which is here and now, so the sensitive appetite following apprehension of this sort is of that which is good here and now, and according to this the good simply is not what the ratio considers. Therefore when it happens that what is good here and now is not good simply, it follows that the passion is repugnant to reason, and from these passions repugnant to reason, it is necessary to grant that something evil is contrary to the good, although evil is not of the ratio of the passions, as it was of the principle of malices. And for this reason it was necessary for him to prove that from repugnant things of this sort, there follows the contrariety of evil to good. For it is manifest that the good is not contrary to its own self, but every good as proceeding from one principle, and as begotten from one cause, rejoices by mutual communion and friendship and unity.

488. Nor also can it be said that the less good should be contrary to the greater good, as neither the less hot or cold is contrary to the more hot or cold. Which indeed must be understood on that part by which both are hot or cold; but inasmuch as something less hot has something of the cold mixed in or more approaches to it, thus what is less hot is contrary to the more hot, as the Philosopher says in the fifth book of the Physics, but this is secundum quid, not simply. (Aristotle, Physics, 5.2, 226b1–8; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Physics, lect. 4, n. 5.) Yet Denys here is speaking of contraries also simply.

489. Therefore, it being established that good is in no way contrary to good, there remains that what is contrary to the good and repugnant to it is evil. And therefore, not only from the passions that are repugnant to reason, but from whatever other contraries and repugnant things, it seems to follow that evil should be in the number of existing things and that it should be something existing and that it should be contrary to the good.

490. Then when he says, and if it is the corruption of existing things, he proceeds to show the same by another way, namely from the concomitance of generation and corruption; and he says that if evil is the corruption of existing things, that does not exclude it from having an essence, but rather it is proven through this that it is existing and that it is generative of existing things. For the corruption of one is the generation of another, whence what is corruptive of existing things is also generative of existing things. Yet everything that is generative of existing things contributes to the perfection of the universe; therefore it follows that evil is contributing to the completion of everything, that is, of the universe, and that it is lavished upon the whole, that is, the universe, that it should not be imperfect; and this through itself, which is unfitting; because that evil contributes accidentally to the beauty and perfection of the universe is not unfitting, inasmuch as from evils goods follow accidentally, as Augustine says in the Enchiridion. (Augustine, Enchiridion, n. 3. [Ad Laurentium sive de Fide Spe et Caritate cap. XI: ML 40, 236.])

Lectio 16

The Solution of the Second Principal Question

§ 20. 194. Yet true speech says to these things that evil, according as it is evil, makes no substance or generation; yet evil only makes and corrupts the substance of existing things, as much as is in it. Yet if someone should say that it is operative of generation and that by the corruption of this it gives the generation of another, it must be responded truly that corruption does not give generation, but both corruption indeed and evil corrupts and makes only evil; yet generation and substance are made on account of the good, and it shall be corruption on account of itself, yet generative on account of the good; and indeed according as it is evil, it is neither existing nor effective of existing things; yet on account of the good, existing and effective of good things.

195. Yet more: for neither shall both good and evil be the same according to the same nor shall the corruption and generation of the same according to the same be the same virtue, neither virtue per se nor corruption per se.

196. Therefore, evil itself indeed is neither existing nor good nor operative of generation nor effective of existing things nor of good things;

197. yet the good makes perfect and unmixed and integral the good things in which indeed it is generated perfectly; yet those that participate it less and are imperfect goods and mixed on account of a defect of the good. And universally evil is not nor good nor making good, but what approaches more and less to the good proportionally shall be good.

198. Because perfect goodness, going through all things, does not proceed only as far as the most holy substances which are around it, but it is extended as far as the lowest; totally present to these indeed, yet to those subjectly, yet to others extremely, as each of existing things can participate it. And these altogether participate the good, yet those are deprived more and less; yet others have a more obscure participation of the good and to others the good is present according to the last resonance.

199. For if the good were not present proportionally to each, there would be the most divine and the most stretched of the extremes having order; yet how would it be possible to participate the good uniformly, since not all existing things are opportune in the same way to the perfect participation of this?

200. Yet now this is the excellent magnitude of the virtue of the good which makes firm both the thing deprived and its privation of this according to the total participation of this. And, if it is necessary confidently to say true things, those opposed to this, by virtue of this both are and can be opposed.

201. Yet more: so that comprehending I might speak, inasmuch as they are they are both good and from the good; yet inasmuch as they are deprived of the good, they are neither good nor existing. For in other habits indeed, as heat or cold, the things heated are, even with heat itself leaving, and many of existing things are lacking life and mind, and God is segregated from substance and is supersubstantial. And simply indeed in all other things, with a habit both departing and altogether not being begotten, they are existing and can subsist. Yet what, according to every mode, is deprived of the good, neither was nor is nor shall be nor can be, in any way at any time.

202. As the impure man, although he is deprived of the good, according to irrational concupiscence, in this indeed neither is nor desires existing things; yet he participates the good, according to this obscure resonance of unition and friendship. And fury indeed participates the good according to this: to be moved and desirously to reduce and to convert apparent evils into apparent beauty. And he desiring the worst life and that appearing best to him, according to this: to desire and to look to the best life, participates the good. And if you should remove the good altogether, there shall be neither substance nor life nor desire nor motion nor anything else.

203. Why also that generation should be made from corruption is not the virtue of evil, but by the presence of a lesser good, inasmuch as sickness too is a defect of order, not every; for if this should be made, neither does sickness itself subsist. Yet sickness remains and is having as substance a minimal order and subsisting in it. For that which is altogether lacking of the good neither is existing nor in existing things; yet that which is mixed, on account of the good is in existing things, and according to this existing in existing things, according as it participates this.

204. Yet more: all existing things shall be more and less so much: inasmuch as they participate the good. For in being itself, this which in no way ever exists, cannot be nor shall it be. Yet what according to some part indeed is, yet according to some is not, inasmuch indeed as it falls from what is always existing is not, yet inasmuch as it participates being, so much is it; and, totally, the non-existing of this is held to be and is conserved. And evil, which indeed altogether has fallen from the good, shall be neither in more nor in less good things; yet that which according to some part indeed is good, yet according to another not good, is opposed indeed to a certain good, yet not to the whole good; yet this too is held by the participation of the good, and the good substantifies the privation of this totally by the participation of it. For with the good altogether departing, neither shall anything be universally good nor mixed nor evil itself. For if evil is imperfect good, with the perfect absence of the good both the imperfect and the perfect good shall be absent, and then only shall there be and seem to be evil, when there is evil indeed for those things to which it is opposed, yet it is segregated from them as good. For that the same things should be opposed to one another according to the same things in all things is impossible. Therefore evil is not existing.

491. Having set forth the doubts about the existence and cause of evil, here he begins to solve them;

and first, he solves particularly what was objected concerning the concomitance of generation and corruption;

second, universally, all things that were opposed above, investigating the root of truth.

492. Therefore he says, first, that to the aforementioned things true speech responds that evil, according as it is evil, makes no substance nor generation, but, speaking per se, it causes only evil and the corruption of existing things. And if someone should object that evil is operative of generation through the fact that from the corruption of one there is given the generation of another, it must be responded according to the truth that corruption does not give generation, but corruption only corrupts and evil only does evilly, speaking per se; but generation and substance are made on account of the good. Which indeed is clear both in natural things and in moral matters. For it is manifest that fire generates fire and corrupts air; for in fire there is joined the form of fire, which pertains to the good, and the privation of the form of air, which pertains to evil. Yet that fire generates fire is not from the fact that it lacks the form of air, but from the fact that it has the form of fire. Otherwise that which lacked the form of air would make fire, which is false, but it corrupts air inasmuch as from necessity to the form of fire there is joined the privation of the form of air.

Likewise in moral matters, adultery corrupts virtue inasmuch as it lacks due order, which pertains to the ratio of evil; but according as it is delightful, which pertains to the ratio of the good, it delights and makes many other good things. And therefore it is apparent that evil according to itself is corruptive, but generative only accidentally, namely on account of the good. And further it follows that according as it is evil it is neither existing nor effective of existing things, but accidentally, namely on account of the good joined, it is existing and effective of good things.

493. Then when he says, yet more: for neither shall both good and evil, here Denys manifests the aforementioned solution and investigates the virtue of the whole doubt more profoundly; and about this, he does three things:

for first, he shows the difference of evil and good;

second, the universal virtue of the good in being, at yet more: so that comprehending I might speak;

third, the universal virtue of the good in the fact that it can make more or less good things and more or less existing things, at yet more: all existing things shall be more and less.

494. About the first, he does three things:

first, he distinguishes evil from good;

second, he shows what befits evil, at therefore, evil itself indeed;

third, what befits the good, at yet the good makes perfect.

495. Yet he had said above that evil does not generate, inasmuch as it is evil, but inasmuch as it is good. Yet lest anyone were to believe that good and evil were the same according to the same, he adds that the same according to the same is not both good and evil. Whence when it is said that evil does not generate inasmuch as it is evil, but inasmuch as it is good, this is not only a distinction according to reason, namely as though the same thing according to one ratio should be good and according to another evil; but somehow according to the thing, namely according as one and the same thing, inasmuch as it has being, is good; whereas as regards the fact that it is deprived of due perfection, is evil.

And likewise, generation and corruption is not the same virtue of the same and according to the same. For the same evil according to the same is not generated and corrupted. And because he had said that good and evil are not the same nor generation and corruption, and someone could believe that evil is found existing per se separately from the good and corruption separately from generation, consequently he removes this, saying that there is no virtue existing per se, but it is in the good as in a subject, such that the same subject is good and evil, according to different things. And likewise neither is corruption existing per se without generation, but generation and corruption are in a subject simultaneously, but not according to the same, because the generation of one is with the corruption of another.

496. Yet what he says: yet more, is the same that is transferred in the books of Aristotle: yet greater, and it signifies the addition of reason upon reason.

497. Then when he says, therefore, evil itself indeed, he concludes from the things set forth what pertains to evil. For if evil is not a virtue per se, it follows that evil itself, such that this itself is posited in place of the article and evil is received for the essence of evil, evil I say thus received is neither existing nor good nor does it work generation nor is it effective of existing things and of good things; but a thing that is evil, inasmuch as it has something of good, is existing and operative of generation and effective of existing and good things.

498. Then when he says, yet the good makes perfect, he shows what pertains to the good; and about this, he does two things:

for first, he shows that the good is the universal cause of all good things;

second, he shows how the causality of the good extends itself even to evil things, at yet now this is the excellent magnitude.

499. About the first, he does three things:

first, he proposes that through the good there are made certain good perfect things and certain imperfect things;

second, he assigns the mode through which this is done, at because perfect goodness, going through all things;

third, he proves it, by assigning the ratio of the aforementioned things, at for if the good were not present.

500. Therefore he says, first, that since evil is not operative of good things, the good is that indeed which makes those things formally speaking good, in which interiorly the good is generated perfectly concerning what is through its essence: perfect, indeed according to the participation of goodness; unmixed, according to the removal of evil; and integral, according to the removal of corruption. But those things that participate the good less are imperfect goods and have some mixture of evil on account of a defect of the good that is not perfectly participated in them. And thus universally evil is not existing nor is it good nor does it make good; but also what approaches more and less to what is good through its essence, namely to God, is good according to that proportion of the good; yet on account of the distance from the first good, this is called evil, not as though it is universally deprived of good, but inasmuch as there is some defect of the good in it.

501. Then when he says, because perfect goodness, going through all things, he assigns the mode of the aforementioned things, namely how the good is found in things more and less; and he says that this is because perfect goodness, namely the divine, going through all things, namely inasmuch as it communicates itself to all things through the likeness of its goodness, does not proceed only as far as the most holy substances of the angels which are near to God, but it extends itself by diffusing through goodness as far as the lowest substances. For to those most holy substances of the angels the divine goodness is totally present, as perfectly participated by them according to the mode possible to a creature; yet to others it is present subjectly, that is, in a lower mode, namely by whom it is participated, but not so perfectly as by the angels, which can be referred to human souls; whereas to others it is present extremely, that is, in the lowest mode, as to irrational creatures; and this indeed happens according to the possibility of each to participate the divine goodness.

For certain things participate the divine goodness altogether perfectly according to the mode possible to a creature, on account of which he says that to them the divine goodness is totally present. Whereas other things are deprived of that perfect participation, by receding from it according to more and less, as is clear in the diverse grades of beings and especially in living creatures. Whereas others have a more obscure participation of the good, as bodily creatures and especially non-living ones, in which in a certain way the clarity of the divine goodness is obscured, on account of their materiality and corruption; whence their obscurity is considered in the fact that they are not intelligible actually, but according to potency only. Whereas to certain things the good is present according to the last resonance, namely to those that hold the last grade in goodness, as are corrupted things and those that are called evil. And he speaks unto the likeness of what happens in sounds. For those who are near hear the whole sound, and according as they are more distant, they hear less of the sound, such that at the end they do not hear this sound, but only a certain resonance or reverberation.

502. Then when he says, for if the good were not present, he assigns two reasons for the aforementioned diversity. For the evidence of which is must be considered that the reason for diversity is assigned otherwise in effects of a cause through the necessity of the nature of the agent than in effects of an agent cause through will. For in those that act through necessity of nature, the whole reason for diversity is from the diverse proportion of matter. For a reason cannot be assigned why fire liquifies wax and hardens clay, except on account of the diverse disposition of the receiving matter, because a natural agent, as far as is of itself, always is born to do one thing. But in those that act through will, a twofold reason for the diversity of effects is assigned: first of all on the part of the end; second, from the diverse disposition of the matter. As a builder in one way makes foundations and in another way walls and in another way a roof on account of a certain end, namely on account of the completion of the house that receives this diversity; second, so that there can be this diversity in parts, he seeks matter disposed in different ways or he even disposes it in diverse ways for fashioning the diversity of parts.

503. And likewise he assigns a twofold reason for the diversity of divine effects:

first of all, as much as is on the part of the end which is the completion of the whole, which would not be if there were only one grade of goodness in all equal beings; and this is what he says: if the good were not present to each according to its proportion in different ways, but all things were equal, it would follow that those that are nearest to God in things and most perfect would be in the grade and order of the extremes, that is, of the lower, and thus the whole would not be complete.

He assigns a second reason from the diverse capacity of things, which diversity nevertheless is foreseen by God on account of the end, whence he says, yet how would it be possible that all things uniformly would participate the good, since not all existing things are disposed in the same way to the perfect participation of this?

504. Yet having assigned these reasons, he further stretches the virtue of the good even unto evil; and he says that the excellent virtue of the good is apparent in this: that not only does it produce good things, but it even makes firm and establishes those things that are deprived of the good and even its privation of this, and this is done according to the total participation of this, that is, according to the ratio of its universal participation, because it is necessary, in whatever mode something is, that it should participate the good, and thus it is necessary that the subject of privation participates the good, since it is a certain being, and consequently this privation is made firm through the good, inasmuch as it cannot be except in a subject. And not only through the virtue of the good are both the thing deprived and the privation made firm, but also, if it is necessary confidently to say the truth, those things that are opposed to the good, by virtue of this good both are and can be opposed, because this very fact that they act by opposing is from the virtue of the good.

505. Then when he says, yet more: so that comprehending I might speak, he shows the universality of the good in being, which prevails for the manifestation of what he had said: that the thing deprived and the privation are made firm through the good; and about this he does three things:

first, he proposes a proposition;

second, he manifests the proposition through examples, at as the impure man, although he is deprived;

third, he adapts it to a solution, by way of distinction, at why also that generation should be made.

506. Therefore he says, first, that not only is the good found in each grade of existing things, but, so that I might speak by comprehending universally, all beings, inasmuch as they are, are both good and from the good; but inasmuch as they are deprived of the good, not only are they not good, but nor existing; for it is not such concerning the good, as concerning other particular habits and privations. For it is clear in heat and cold that the substance that is heated remains existing after it is totally deserted by heat, and many things are in beings that lack life and mind, that is, intellect; and even God is without substance, as though existing above every substance; and universally in all other forms and perfections it is found that some things both are and also can subsist, with perfection receding and by not having such perfection. But what is altogether deprived of the good, in no place, in no way, in no time either is or can be.

507. Then when he says, as the impure man, although he is deprived, he manifests how those things that are called evil in morals have something of the good;

and first, he manifests this in the evil of impurity which is according to concupiscible corruption. For the impure man is deprived of the good, inasmuch as his concupiscence is deprived of the order of reason, and as regards this he is not; for to be deprived of the order of reason does not posit that something is, but that something is not; and thus also as regards this he does not desire existing things, but he desires inordinate things that, inasmuch as they are inordinate, are not existing; but nevertheless the impure man participates the good according to a certain obscure and defective resonance of unition and friendship, which above we said befits the good.

Second, he shows the same in the evil of anger, which is according to irascible inordinance; and he says that inordinate fury, that is, anger, participates the good, according to this fact that it is moved to a certain thing that appears good and just to it, namely to vindicate an offense, and inasmuch as it desires those things that seem evil according to themselves, as to reduce and convert injuries of a neighbor into some apparent good, and beautiful; for it is proper to anger always to struggle for this: that it should seem to inflict vengeance justly. Whence also the Philosopher says, in the eighth book of the Ethics, that the angry man is likened to him who hears certain laws, as regards the fact that sins are to be vindicated, but he is moved at once before he hears the whole, namely by whom and how and how much the inflicted offense ought to be vindicated. (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 8.7, 1149a25–32; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, lect. 6, n. 1387.)

Third, he shows the same in him who sins from malice, not through passion, but acting through evil choice; and he says that he who desires the worst life that nevertheless seems best to him, as is said, participates the good, as regards this motion of desire and as regards the fact that he looks to the best life, because he chooses an evil life inasmuch as it appears good to him. And universally he comprehends that, if the good should be altogether removed, there shall be neither substance nor life nor any desire nor motion nor anything else.

508. Then when he says, why also that generation should be made, he applies the aforementioned truth to the solution of the provoked doubt; and he says, while it is such that, since nothing, whatever should seem evil, is totally deprived of the good, this very fact that through the corruption of one, which is appropriated to evil, there is made the generation of another, is not on the part of evil, but from the presence of an imperfect good: just as a sickness that corrupts nature is indeed a defect of some order, namely of the proportion of the humors in which health consists, nevertheless it is not a defect of whatever order; because, if every order should be removed, neither shall sickness itself remain, with the humors totally receding from one another; but order remains and this illness has for substance or essence that there should be a certain minimal, that is, imperfect, order. And as regards this order some illness is and can corrupt, as through excessive heat or something of this sort. For that which is altogether lacking of the good neither is existing nor is in existing things; but that which is mixed, that is, having part from the good and part from evil, according to what it has from the good, is numbered among existing things and is in some way existing.

509. Then when he says, yet more: all existing things shall be more and less, he shows that the diversity of grades in beings is from the good, and he applies this to the solution. He says, therefore, that all existing things participate more and less from being so much: inasmuch as they more and less participate the good; because being inasmuch as it is being is good. It is likewise concerning the good as also concerning being; because if something in no way exists participating in being itself, it follows that in no way shall it be. Yet that which according to some part is and according to some part is not, as a blind man who is a certain man, but is not seeing, inasmuch indeed as he fails of what is always and perfectly existing, is not; yet inasmuch as it participates being, so much is it; and, so that we might speak universally, the non-existing itself is held to be and is conserved through itself; for so long does blindness remain: as long as the man remains.

So also it is likewise concerning evil: because if there should be some evil that totally recedes from the good, in no way can that be, neither among those things that are more nor less good. But that which is according to some part good, whereas according to some part not good, is contrary indeed not to the universal good, because it does not fail universally of the good, but to some good of which it fails, as the evil of blindness is opposed to the good of sight. But this evil which is opposed to a particular good is retained through participation of the good, namely inasmuch as a subject of privation participates some good and that good gives the subject of some good, inasmuch as the good universally is participated in all beings. Nor is it unfitting that the good, universally speaking, should be the subject of the privation of some particular good, as what is the subject of some particular being is contained under common being.

Yet with the good altogether receding***, neither shall anything be*** totally good, nor shall there be some good mixed with evil, nor shall there be evil itself, because with the subject subtracted the privation also is subtracted. For if evil is in some imperfect good, it is manifest that if the good should be totally subtracted, there will be totally removed also the imperfect good and the perfect good, and consequently evil will be removed. Then therefore evil only can be when there is evil with respect to certain goods to which it is opposed, but it is distinguished from other goods as good from good. For it is not possible that any things should be opposed to one another according to everything, because it is at least necessary that they should accord in being. And therefore since evil is not totally deprived of the good, but of some particular good, it remains that this very thing that evil is, is not some thing existing per se.

Lectio 17

The Third Question Is Solved: In What Evil Is Situated, Both in General and in Specific and First That It Cannot Be in God

§21. 205. But neither is evil in existing things. For if all existing things are from the good and the good is in all existing things and contains all things, either there shall not be evil in existing things, or it shall be in the good. And indeed it shall not be in the good: for neither is cold in fire nor is evil made in that which makes even evil good. Yet if evil shall be in the good, it seems to fail here how it shall be. If indeed from it, unfitting and impossible: for, as the truth of the eloquences says, a good tree cannot make evil fruits nor indeed conversely (Matt 7:18). Yet if not from it, it is manifest that it is from another principle and cause: for either evil shall be from the good or good from evil; or if this is not possible, good and evil shall be from another principle and cause. For every binary is not a principle; yet unity shall be the principle of every binary. For it is unfitting that two perfectly contrary things should proceed and be from one and the same and that this principle should not be simple and singular, but divisible and biform and contrary to its own self and varied.

206. And indeed, neither is it possible that there are two contrary principles of existing things, and those opposed to one another and in all things. For if this should be granted, even God shall not be without injury nor beyond trouble, if there should be something opposed to him: afterwards all things shall be inordinate and always fighting.

207. And indeed, the good grants from friendship to all existing things and is praised by the holy theologians as peace per se and the giver of peace (Ps 29:11, 1 Thess 5:23, 2 Cor 13:11, Rom 15:33, Phil 4:9, Heb 13:20). On account of which all good things are friendly and fitting and sprouts of one life and ordered to one good and mild and alike and helping one another. Wherefore there is not evil in God and evil is not a thing moved by God.

208. But neither is evil from God; for either he is not good or he makes good things and produces good things.

209. And not sometimes indeed and certain things, yet sometimes not and not all. For in this he would suffer change and variation about himself which is the most divine of all according to cause. Yet if in God the good is essence, God shall be changing from the good, sometimes indeed existing sometimes not existing. Yet if he has the good by participation, he both shall have it from another and sometimes indeed he shall have it yet sometimes not have it. Therefore evil is not from God nor in God, neither simply nor according to time.

510. After Denys has shown that evil is not something existing through itself, here he begins to show that evil is not something in existing things, as a part or an accident, as color in a body;

and first, he shows this in general;

second, in specific, at and indeed, neither is it possible.

511. Yet that evil is not in existing things, as something inhering, thus he proves by a common ratio: all existing things are caused from the good, as is clear from what has been set forth, but an effect is likened to its cause; therefore the good is found in whatever existing thing. Yet everything that is found in something as good is contained under it, as everything in which animal is found is contained under animal. Therefore everything subsisting is contained under the good, as a good existing thing. Either therefore it is necessary that evil should not be something in some existing thing or it is necessary that it should be in the good; but this is impossible; therefore it is impossible that evil should be in an existing thing.

512. Yet that evil should not be in the good, he proves in two ways:

first, thus: none of contraries is in its contrary, as cold is not in fire; but if evil is something that is contrary to good, evil cannot come together with the good, since the good even makes good from evil.

Second, he proves it thus: if evil is something in the good, as in a subject, since every accident is caused either from its subject or from some other extrinsic thing, it will be necessary that evil should be caused from this good or from some other cause. But it is unfitting and impossible that evil should be caused from the good by a natural outflow, as natural accidents are caused by their subjects, because, as the Lord says in Matthew 7:18, a good tree cannot make evil fruits nor conversely. If it should be said that evil which is posited as an accident of the good is not caused from this good, it is manifest that it is necessary that it should be caused from some other principle and cause: for every accident, since it is not from the being of the subject, is caused from some cause in the subject.

Yet likewise it is necessary that the good, which is posited as the subject of evil, should be caused, since it is good through participation yet not through essence. Therefore it is necessary to posit one of two things: one of which is that evil is from the good; the second is that the good is from evil; or, if those two are impossible, as is clear through the authority introduced, it is necessary to posit a third, namely that both good and evil are caused from a certain principle and cause of the good. For a fourth cannot be posited, namely that neither good nor evil is caused, because the binary cannot be a principle, but the principle of every binary is unity, and thus it is necessary that two contraries either have themselves such that one is the cause of the other or they are caused by one cause. Yet just as the first two are impossible, so also the third: for it is unfitting that from one and the same principle there should proceed and be any things that totally are contrary things, as good and evil.

513. And because someone could say that the same thing according to diverse things makes contraries, to exclude this he adds that it is impossible to say that this first principle should not be simple and singular, that is, uniform, but divisible, biform, and contrary to its own self and varied from itself. For it is necessary, if the same thing should cause contraries according to one thing and another, that it should be composed from contraries, and thus it shall not be the first principle, which it is necessary should be simple. Therefore it is clear that evil is not in an existing thing.

514. Then when he says, and indeed, neither is it possible, he shows through singulars that evil is not anything in existing things; and first, that it cannot be in God; and about this, he does three things:

first, he shows that evil is not some first principle contrary to God;

second, that evil is not in God, at and indeed, the good grants from friendship;

third, that evil is not from God, at but neither is evil from God.

515. He shows the first by two arguments, the first of which is thus: if evil were some first principle contrary to God, which is to posit two principles of existing things contrary and totally opposed to one another, since everything to which its contrary can be opposed can be injured and troubled by it, it would follow that God, who is the good itself, would not be without injury and trouble. But this is impossible: for he would not be the highest good nor the most blessed, if he were to be injured and troubled. Therefore there are not two contrary first principles: good and evil.

The second argument is thus: effects follow the condition of causes and principles. Therefore, if the first principles are contrary and opposed to one another, it would follow that all things in effects would fight against each other and one would not be ordered to another, which is impossible and contrary to what is apparent concerning the order of the universe. Therefore there are not two contrary first principles.

516. Then when he says, and indeed, the good grants from friendship, he shows that evil is not in God; and indeed this is evidently apparent from the fact that God is the good itself and evil cannot be in the good itself, as neither cold in fire. But because this argument was touched on above, he shows by another argument taken from the effect: for the good itself, which is God, is praised as peace: he is our peace (Eph. 2:14); and as giver of peace, according to 1 Corinthians 14:33: for he is not God of dissension, but of peace, inasmuch as he gives from friendship to all beings; and from this it follows that all good things are friendly to one another and come together, as generated from one uniting first principle.

And again, just as things proceeding are from one first principle, so they are ordered to one ultimate good. And although as regards some proper things they disagree, nevertheless all things mildly and without impediment have themselves to one another in order to that one good, and in this all things are made alike and help one another. Yet that peace and fittingness would not be in things from God and through comparison with God, if there were in God any contrariety of good and evil. Whence it is manifest that in God there is not anything evil; and further also, that evil is not some thing that is subjected to divine motion, because all things that are moved by God accord in one end, at least the ultimate end, as has been said.

517. Then when he says, but neither is evil from God, he shows that evil is not from God;

and first, that it is not from him simply;

second, that it is not from him at any time, at and not sometimes indeed and certain things.

518. He shows the first in this way: the good is not productive of evil, as is clear from what has been said; therefore either it is necessary to say that God is not good or that he makes and produces good things and not evil ones.

519. Then when he says, and not sometimes indeed and certain things, he shows that God does not produce evil at any time; and he says that it cannot be said that God sometimes produces certain evils, yet sometimes not and not all: because, since evil cannot be produced by the good, if God were sometimes to produce evil, it would follow that he would be changed from his goodness and varied, according to himself, which it is clear is doubly impossible:

first of all, because that which is most divine, that is, best and the cause of every goodness, cannot be changed from goodness, as neither fire from heat.

Second, because God either is good through his essence or through participation. If through essence, it will be the same for God to recede from goodness and to recede from essence and to become totally not existing; yet if he is good participatively it is necessary that he should have a cause of his goodness, and in this way he could sometimes be good and sometimes not good. But this is against the fact that we understand through this name God some first good and cause of every goodness. And therefore it is clear that evil is neither simply in God or from God nor according to any time.

Lectio 18

Evil Is Not in the Good Angels

§22. 210. But neither in angels is there evil. For if a boniform angel should enunciate the divine goodness, that existing according to participation secondarily, which has been enunciated first according to cause, the angel is the image of God, the manifestation of hidden light;

211. a pure mirror, most clear, uncontaminated, unpolluted, immaculate, receiving the whole, if it is fitting to say, beauty of the boniform deiformity;

212. and making cleanly to be resplendent in itself, as is possible, the goodness of silence which is in secret places. No, therefore, neither in angels is there evil.

213. But by the fact that they punish sinners, are they evil? Therefore by this ratio also castigators of sinners are evil, and priests who expel the unclean from the divine mysteries. And indeed neither is it evil to be punished, but to become worthy of punishment; nor according to dignity to be expelled from holy things, but to become stained and not holy and not suitable for uncontaminated things.

520. After Denys has shown that evil is not in God, he begins to show that evil is not something in creatures; and first, he shows concerning the good angels that in them in no way is there evil; and about this, he does two things:

first, he shows the truth;

second, he excludes an objection, at but by the fact that they punish sinners.

521. About he first, he does two things:

first, he posits an exposition of the angelic name;

second, from that exposition he receives the definition of angel, at a pure mirror, most clear.

522. About the first, it must be known that angel is interpreted as messenger. Therefore one conformed to the divine goodness is said to announce the divine goodness, inasmuch as in the angels secondarily through participation there exists that which first is enunciated from God, not according to participation, but according to cause; as if I were to say that the illuminated air announces the clarity of the sun, inasmuch as secondarily and participatively it is in the air and first and causally it is in the sun. And because what has something participatively and secondarily is the image of what has it first and causally, and the act of an image is to manifest that of which it is the image, consequently he concludes a certain notification of a good angel, the manifestation of the divine light which is hidden for us on account of its excellence and simplicity.

523. Yet consequently he manifests this notification;

and first, he manifests how an angel is the image of God;

second, how it is the manifestation of hidden light, at and making cleanly to be resplendent.

524. Yet that an angel is the image of God, he manifests through a certain sensible example. For we see sensibly that in a mirror there is represented the image of the seer. Yet in a mirror there are two things to be considered: first of all the substance of the mirror itself, whence through a certain likeness, he calls an angel according to its nature a mirror. Yet there is required in a mirror a certain opportuneness for receiving the image of some thing; which opportuneness indeed is found in an angel: which indeed is called a pure mirror, on account of the simplicity and immateriality of its nature; yet most clear on account of the most perfect participation of intellectual light; yet uncontaminated inasmuch as nothing in an angel is repugnant to its rectitude, which pertains to sanctity, for holy things properly are said to be contaminated; yet it is called unpolluted, inasmuch as nothing in the angel is repugnant to purity of nature; and immaculate, inasmuch as nothing in it is repugnant to clarity of intellect.

525. Yet having described the opportuneness of this mirror, he expounds the reception of likeness, according to which it is called an image; and he says that it receives the whole beauty of boniform deiformity, that is, of the likeness compared to the goodness of God, because if the nature of an angel has been optimally disposed, it is necessary that it should receive perfectly the aforementioned likeness.

But it must be considered that he does not say that it receives the whole beauty of the deity, but of deiformity, because it is impossible that in any created mirror there should be received the whole beauty of God; but in some created mirror, on account of its purity and clarity, there is received perfectly the whole beauty that is possible to be in a creature through assimilation to God. And because the deiformity of a creature always is of the part and not the whole, on account of this he tempered it, adding, if it is fitting to say.

526. Therefore having shown how an angel is an image, consequently he shows how it manifests the divine good; and he says that from this very fact that it perfectly receives the likeness of divine beauty, consequently there is made this which is in a certain way resplendent in it, as is possible for a creature: the goodness of silence which is in secret places, that is, in the hidden things of God, who cannot be expressed on account of the fact that he is hidden to the created intellect. Yet he says making not actively, but dispositively, as if he were to say that a mirror makes an image of some body to be resplendent in it from the fact that it is disposed to receiving its likeness. Therefore because an angel is such a perfect image of divine goodness, yet the divine goodness suffers no evil with another, it follows that neither in angels is there evil.

527. Then when he says, but by the fact that they punish sinners, he excludes an objection;

and first, he posits it: for someone could say that in the fact itself that angels punish sinners, they are evil. And that they should punish sinners expressly is had in Matthew 13:41, that they drive out all scandals from the kingdom. Therefore there is a question: whether because they punish they are evil.

Second, he shows that they cannot be called evil on account of this, because according to the same argument those also who castigate evil men by punishing them would be evil, as judges and masters; and likewise it would follow that any priests who exclude the unclean, that is, the sinner, from the divine mysteries by excommunicating him would be evil, which is against the Apostle who commands this in 1 Corinthians 5:3–5.

But because to multiply the unfitting is not to solve, for this reason, third, he solves all the things set forth; and he says that to be punished is not evil simply and according to itself, but according to itself it is good, since it is just; but it is evil secundum quid, inasmuch as it deprives some good of something. But to become a sinner, this is simply evil; and for this reason he who punishes a sinner is not evil, but he who sins is evil. By the same ratio, it is not evil according to itself to be excluded from holy things according to justice, but according to itself it is evil that someone should be stained through sin and should depart from sanctity and through this should become not suitable for divine things, which are uncontaminated according to themselves. And he who excommunicates does not sin, but he sins who does something whence he is made worthy of excommunication.

Lectio 19

Demons Are Not Naturally Evil, and How Evil Is Found in Them

§23. 214. But neither are demons evil by nature; for if evil by nature, neither would they be from the good nor in existing things nor indeed changed from good, existing by nature and always as evil. Therefore afterwards: are they evil to their own selves or to others? If to their own selves indeed they also corrupt themselves; yet if to others, corrupting how or corrupting what? Substance or virtue or operation? If substance indeed, first of all not beyond nature; for by nature they do not corrupt incorruptible things, but things susceptible of corruption. Afterwards: neither this to all things and altogether evil. But neither is anything of existing things corrupted, according as it is substance and nature; but by defect of the ordination that is according to nature, the ratio of harmony and commensuration is made infirm, having to remain similarly. Yet the infirmity is not perfect; for perfect it would destroy both the corruption and the subject and there shall be such corruption and corruption of itself. Such as which is not evil, but failing good; for what is altogether lacking in good neither is in existing things. And there is the same argument concerning the corruption of virtue and operation.

215. Then: how are the demons made by God evil? For the good produces and makes good things to subsist.

216. And indeed they are called evil, someone should say, but not according as they are, for they are from the good and by the good have obtained substance, but according as they are not, existing as infirm, as the eloquences say, to preserve their own principate (Jude 1:6). For in what, tell me, do we say that the demons are made evil, except in the lack of the habit and operation of divine goods?

217. And otherwise: if the demons are evil by nature, they are always evil; and indeed evil is unstable; therefore if they have themselves always in the same way, they are not evil. For that it is always the same is proper to the good. Yet if they are not always evil, they are not evil by nature, but by defect of angelic goods.

218. And not altogether lacking in the good, according as they are and live and understand and totally there is a certain motion of desire in them.

219. Yet they are called evil on account of the fact that they are made infirm about the operation according to nature. Therefore aversion is evil for them and excess of things befitting them and not attainment and imperfection and impotence and infirmity and flight and falling of the virtue conserving their perfection.

220. And otherwise: what is evil in the demons? Irrational fury, demented concupiscence, shameless fantasy. But these, if they are also in the demons, not altogether nor in all nor evil according to themselves. For in other animals not the having of these but their removal is the corruption of the animal and evil. Yet having them preserves and makes to be the nature of the animal having them. Therefore the tribe of demons is not evil according to what is according to nature, but according to what is not.

221. And the whole good given to them was not varied, but they fell from the whole good given; and in no way do we say that the angelic gifts given to them were changed, but they are both integral and most splendid; although they do not see, closing their virtues inspective of the good. Wherefore that they are and are from the good and of the good and desire the beautiful and the good, desiring to be and to live and to understand, which are existing things; and by privation and recession and falling from the good things befitting them, they are called evil and are evil according as they are not and, desiring the non-existing, they desire evil.

528. After Denys has shown that evil is not in the angels, here he shows that it is not in the demons; and about this, he does two things:

first, he shows that demons are not naturally evil;

second, how they are evil, at then: how are the demons made.

529. About the first, he posits four arguments:

the first of which is thus: from the good there is not caused anything naturally evil. But all things that are in the world are caused by God who is the first good itself; among which are demons. Therefore demons are not naturally evil.

The second argument is thus: it has been shown that evil neither is existing, nor is in existing things. If therefore demons were naturally evil, they would not be of the number of existing things.

The third argument is thus: that which naturally befits something always comes together with it. If therefore demons were naturally evil, they would always have been evil and would not have been changed from good to evil, as the Catholic faith confesses.

The fourth argument is thus: that if the demons are naturally evil either they are naturally evil to their own selves or to others. If to their own selves, since it is of the ratio of evil that it should harm and corrupt, it follows that they should corrupt themselves, which is impossible, for nothing is corruptive of its own self according to nature. Yet if they are naturally evil to others, therefore they naturally corrupt others.

530. Therefore it is asked what they naturally corrupt or how they corrupt, whether substance or virtue or operation, which three are found in all things. If it should be granted that they are naturally evil because they corrupt the substance of something, against this he objects with three arguments,

the first of which is thus: nothing that is corruptive of another according to the order of nature is evil naturally, because this very thing which is to conserve the order of nature is the good of nature. But if evil should corrupt substance it does not do this beyond the order of nature: for it does not corrupt incorruptible things, but those that are susceptible to corruption. Therefore it shall not be evil according to nature.

The second argument is thus: that which is naturally such, is such simply and with respect to whatever; just as that which is naturally hot, is hot simply and with respect to whatever, as fire. If therefore something naturally is evil, it shall be simply evil and with respect to whatever and with respect to its own self; which is impossible, as has been said.

The third argument is thus: none of existing things is corrupted through evil as regards the substance itself or nature of the thing that is called evil; just as in an evil man the substance and nature of man remain; but something is called evil through the fact that the ratio, that is, the proportion, of harmony and commensuration that is according to nature, is made infirm through some defect of order, nevertheless such that it is not totally removed, but to some degree remains. Yet this infirmity, by which such a proportion is made infirm, is not perfect, because if it were perfect it would destroy the subject itself and consequently the corruption that is in the subject, and thus such corruption corrupts itself. Therefore that which is infirm, not simply, but secundum quid, is not naturally evil, but good with a defect; because that which altogether is lacking the good cannot be found among existing things.

There is the same argument concerning the corruption of natural virtue; because if it were always to remain in a thing that is called evil or corrupted through evil, it would be corrupted through evil. Therefore it remains that nothing is evil according to nature.

531. Then when he says, then: how are the demons made, he shows how evil is in the demons;

and first, he poses a question;

second, he solves it, at and indeed they are called evil.

Therefore first it is asked how the demons, since they were made by God, are evil. For it belongs to the good to produce and conserve good things.

532. Then when he says, and indeed they are called evil, he solves the proposed question, and about this he does two things:

first, he shows that the demons are called evil, not according to any nature, but according to a defect of the good;

second, he shows that this defect in them is not from a variation of the good itself, but from their will, at and the whole good given to them.

533. Yet that the demons are not evil naturally, but according as they lack some good, he shows in three ways:

first of all through the authority of Sacred Scripture; and he says that thus someone ought to say that the demons are called evil, not inasmuch as they are because from the good, namely because their being is caused by God, and by the same they have obtained good essence, but they are called evil inasmuch as they are not, namely as they are infirm to preserve their own principate, as the eloquences of Sacred Scripture say. And this is received from the canonical letter of Jude, where it is said, whereas the angels who do not preserve their principate . . . he has held back by eternal chains (1:6). Yet they are said not to preserve their principate either because they do not preserve their innocence, in which from the beginning they were established, or because they have turned away from God, who is their principle. And to this exposition there accords what he adds: for we do not say that the demons are made evil except in the fact that they lack the habit and operation through which they ought to have been ordered to divine goods.

534. Second, when he adds, and otherwise: if the demons are evil, he adds the same through argument; and about this, he does three things:

first, he shows that the demons are not naturally evil, but through a defect of some good;

second, that they do not totally lack the good, at and not altogether lacking in the good;

third, he shows of what good a defect is in them, at yet they are called evil.

535. About the first, he posits such an argument: if the demons were naturally evil, they would always be evil, because what naturally is in something always is in it. But if they are always evil, they are not naturally evil, which he proves thus: because everything unstable is a certain evil and to be always the same is proper to the good; whence we see that all desire sempiternity, as much as is possible. And thus it is apparent that if they have themselves always in the same way, they are not naturally evil; therefore from first to last, if they are naturally evil, they are not naturally evil, which is impossible. And therefore it is clear that if they are not always evil, because this is proper to the good, they will not be naturally evil, but through a defect of some goods that are due to the angels.

536. Then when he says, and not altogether lacking in the good, he shows that they are not totally deprived of the good; and he says that they are not altogether lacking in the good, for they participate the good, inasmuch as they are and live and understand and inasmuch as there is in them some motion of desire, which does not tend except to the true or apparent good.

537. Then when he says, yet they are called evil, he shows according to the defect of what good they are called evil; and he says that they are called evil on account of the fact that they have themselves defectively in the operation that applies to their nature. And consequently he shows by what order this happens, saying, therefore aversion is evil for them.

Where it must be considered that everything that is naturally subject to another has its good in that to which it is subjected, as a good appetite of sensible things in man is that which is regulated by reason. Yet every will both of an angel and of man is naturally subjected to God. Therefore aversion from the rule of the divine will is evil in demons. Yet every appetite failing of its rule tends to its object beyond what is right, as the concupiscible tends to the delightful according to sense more than is due, when it is not regulated by reason. And therefore the will of the demons, averse from the rule of the divine will, tends more than is due to the appetite of its good; and this is what he adds: and excess of things befitting them; namely because they desire something for themselves that exceeds their condition.

Yet everything that is born to attain some end through a determinate mode, if it should recede from that mode, cannot attain the end. Yet the mode in which the angels are born to attain the ultimate end of their will is through a will moderated according to the divine rule. If therefore they exceed that mode, they do not attain the end; and this is what he adds: and not attainment. Yet everything that does not attain its perfection remains imperfect, whence there is added: and imperfection. Yet an imperfect thing inasmuch as it is of this sort is impotent, whence there is added: and impotence.

And because virtue is the perfection of a power, there follows around virtue, which could have conserved their perfection, infirmity and flight and falling. And he posits these three according to those things that befall men: for if someone should be infirm for resisting something or for attaining something, he flees from it, and fleeing on account of infirmity he falls. And likewise the demons, infirm about the attaining of the divine end, flee from it and fall headlong into sin.

538. Then when he says, and otherwise: what is evil, he shows, in a third way, that the demons are not called evil according to nature, but according to a defect of some good; and this according to the opinion of others. For certain men posited that the demons are animals with an airy body, a rational mind, a passive intellect, eternal time, as Apuleius says and Augustine introduces in the ninth book of the City of God. (Augustine, City of God, bk. 9, c. 8.) Therefore according to the opinion of these men, in the demons there is a sensible power and a passive appetite, which is the sensitive and is divided into irascible and concupiscible.

Yet this was not the opinion of Denys, which is clear from the fact that above he called the angels immaterial and incorruptible. Yet here he says that the demons are evil through a defect of angelic goods. Whence it is manifest that he did not think that the demons are bodily and consequently sensitive or passive in mind. But because he intends to show that the demons are not naturally evil, after he had shown this according to his own proper opinion, namely if the demons are of the angelic nature, consequently he shows that the same thing follows if it be posited that they have a sensitive nature; for then there will be the same judgment about the evil of the demons and about the evil of man.

539. Yet in us evil is through the fact that the sensitive part is not regulated by reason; and this as regards three things, namely: as regards the irascible which, while it is not regulated by reason, irrationally rages or gets angry; and as regards the concupiscible which, while it is not regulated by reason, desires stupidly; and as regards the fantastic or the imaginative which, while it is not regulated by reason, is shameless against the truth. Therefore according to the aforementioned opinion, evil in the demons is not other than irrational fury and demented concupiscence and shameless fantasy. Yet he says, demented concupiscence, irrational fury, because concupiscence pays no attention to reason; yet fury attends to it, but imperfectly, as has been said above.

540. If therefore these three are in the demons according to the opinion of others, nevertheless not altogether, because they are not shameless against whatever truth, nor is every concupiscence of theirs demented. For naturally they desire the good and the best; nor is it also in all the demons in the same way; nor also are those three, namely fury and concupiscence and fantasy, evil according to themselves, but according as they lack the order of reason and their due object. Whence we see that in irrational animals to have these is not evil, but to have these conserves them and makes it that animal nature should be had. Whereas if Denys is speaking here according to his own proper opinion, it must be said that he is speaking metaphorically: for thus passions of the soul of this sort are attributed to the angels in the Scriptures, as Augustine says in the City of God. (Augustine, City of God, bk. 9, c. 5.) And therefore he concludes that the genus of demons is not evil according to what is in its nature, but according to what is not; that is, according as it is deprived of some good.

541. Then when he says, and the whole good given to them, he shows whence a defect of the good arises in the demons. For someone could believe that, just as a defect of the infirmity of a natural operation arises in men from the variation of nature itself, which growing old deteriorates and thus natural operations are debilitated, so also from the change of some good, a defect of a good operation arises in the demons. But he excludes this both as regards the universal good that is God from whom they have turned away, and as regards the participated goods which are natural goods given to the angels.

Therefore he says that the universal good, namely the divine, which is given to them inasmuch as somehow they are made participators of it, is not varied in any way. Whence they were not made evil on account of the variation of the good, but because they fell from the universal good given to them; and likewise in no way do we say that the angelic gifts pertaining to the angelic nature, which were given to them in the beginning, were changed, so that from their change evil should be effected, but they endure still integral, that is, without the corruption of nature, and most splendid, that is, without the diminishing of natural intellectual light.

But that they do not see, this arises from the fact that through free choice they closed their virtues inspective of the good, that is, they voluntarily turned their intellect away not from the consideration of the true, but from the inspection of the good, inasmuch as it is good, namely because they refuse to follow it. Whence it is clear that inasmuch as they are and have a good cause, they both are good according to their nature and desire the good, namely to be, to live, and to understand; but inasmuch as they are deprived of this through voluntary recession, by which recession indeed made infirm they fall from the good things that befitted them according to the order of their nature, they are called and are evil inasmuch as they are not; that is, inasmuch as some good is lacking for them; and likewise when they desire evil, they desire the non-existing. For they are said to desire evil, inasmuch as they desire some good with a defect of due mode and order.

Lectio 20

How Evil Is in Souls

§24. 222. But someone should say that souls are evil. If for this reason indeed: that they stand together with evil men providingly and savingly; yet this is not evil, but good and from the good which even makes evil good.

223. Yet if we say that souls are made evil, in what are they made evil, except in a defect of good habits and operations, and on account of their proper infirmity not attainment and lapse? For also air which is above us we say is darkened by a defect and absence of light; yet light itself is what also illuminates the darkness.

224. Therefore neither in demons nor in us is there evil as existing, but it is as a defect and desert of the perfection of proper goods.

§25. 225. But neither is evil in irrational animals; for if you should remove fury and concupiscence and whatever other things are called and are not simply evil of their nature: for a lion, when it loses the animus and the proud, neither shall it be a lion; yet made meek to all a dog shall not be a dog: if indeed it is of a dog to guard and to draw near indeed to the familiar, yet to drive out the alien. Wherefore that which does not corrupt nature is not evil. Yet the corruption of nature is a defect and infirmity of natural habitudes and virtues and operations; and if all things through generation in time have the perfect, neither the imperfect altogether beyond all nature.

542. After Denys has shown how evil is in the demons, here he shows how it is in souls;

and first, he excludes a false mode;

second, he posits the true mode, at yet if we say that souls are made evil;

third, he concludes the proposition, at therefore neither in demons nor in us.

543. Therefore he says, first, that perhaps someone says that human souls are evil, which indeed is true of some; but it must be inquired how they are called evil. Yet if someone should say that they are called evil for this reason: because they stand with evil men for whom they provide and whom they intend to save, as some good man lives together with evil men in order to save them, or even as the soul itself communicates and shares in the corruption of the body and the inordinate passions of the soul and intending to reduce things of this sort to order, this is not evil, but is good and is derived from the first good, by whose virtue also evils are made good, either inasmuch as evils are changed and become goods, or inasmuch goods are elicited as from evils by divine ordination.

544. Then when he says, yet if we say that souls are made evil, he posits the true mode; and he says that if we say that souls are made evil, this cannot be except inasmuch as they fail of the good, both as regards habit and as regards act, and thus made infirm from a defect of the good they cannot attain the due end, but lapse into some contrary of the end; as also air which is above us we say is darkened through a defect and absence of light. But light is what also illuminates the darkness; that is, makes luminous what was previously dark, and thus does the good make good from evil.

545. Then when he says, therefore neither in demons nor in us, he concludes the proposition, namely that neither in demons nor in men is there evil, as something positively existing, but as a defect and as though a certain desert of the perfection of proper goods. And therefore he intends to show that in existing things there is not evil; because in certain ones indeed in no way is there evil, as in God or in the angels; whereas in certain ones there is evil, but as privation and defect, not as something existing.

546. Then when he says, but neither is evil in irrational animals, he shows that it is not naturally in irrational souls; and he excludes two things according to which it could seem that evil was naturally in them, namely the passions and a defect of passion. For someone seeing fury and concupiscence that are called evil in men naturally in brute animals, could reckon that animals of this sort naturally are evil. But he excludes this, saying that if you should remove from animals of this sort fury and concupiscence and other passions of this sort, which are called evil by some and nevertheless are not evil simply of their nature, if, I say, these should be removed, their nature is then destroyed.

For when a lion loses animosity and pride, then it shall not be a lion; and likewise a dog, when it loses fury, made meek to all, shall not be a dog. And this is apparent in the utility that it has in human affairs, in which the office of a dog is to guard a house or other things of this sort; and it does this by drawing near to the familiar and by driving out the alien. Yet it is manifest that those things through which nature is preserved lest it should be corrupted are not evil, but the corruption of this nature is infirmity and whatever other defect of natural habits and virtues and operations, and this is evil, as has been said above. Whence it is clear that the aforementioned passions, which when they are destroyed the nature of brute animals is destroyed, are not evil in them, but good.

547. Yet someone could say that from the fact that they are imperfect by reason of lacking according to their nature, animals of this sort are naturally evil; but he excludes this, saying, for whatever things are generated do not arrive at their perfection except after a determinate time; from which it is clear that to be imperfect before that time is natural and according to nature; from which it is clear that not every imperfection is beyond nature, but only that imperfection through which due perfection according to that time is removed, is evil.

Lectio 21

How Evil Is in Natural Things

§26. 226. But neither in the whole nature is there evil. For if all natural rationes are from universal nature, nothing is contrary to it.

227. Yet for particular this indeed shall be according to nature, yet that not according to nature: for of one thing something is beyond nature and for another thing this is according to nature, yet that is beyond nature. Yet for nature malice is this which is beyond nature, namely the privation of the order of natural things. Wherefore nature is not evil, but this is evil for nature: to be impotent to perfect those things that are of proper nature.

§27. 228. But neither in a body is there evil: for ugliness and infirmity is a defect of form and a privation of order; yet this is not altogether evil, but less good. For if there should be made the perfect dissolution of beauty and form and order, the body itself shall also perish.

229. Yet that neither is the body the cause of the malice of the soul, is manifest from the fact that there can also be malice without the body, as in the demons.

230. For this is evil for minds and souls and bodies: the infirmity and falling of the having of proper goods.

§28. 231. But neither—very vulgar—in matter is there evil, as they say, according as it is matter:

232. for it has the participation of adornment and of beauty and of form. Yet if outside this there is matter existing according to itself without quality and without form, how does matter make anything, which neither has that it can suffer according to itself?

233. And otherwise: how is there evil for matter? For if indeed it in no way is ever, it is neither good nor evil: yet if existing, yet all existing things are from the good and it is made from the good. And either the good is effective of evil or evil, as existing from the good, is good; or evil is effective of the good or the good, as existing from evil, is evil; or again two principles, and these segregated from another one vertex.

234. Yet if they should call matter necessary for the completion of all the world, how is matter evil? For evil is one thing and the necessary another. Yet how does the good lead out certain things from evil to generation? Or how is there evil which is necessary for the good? For evil flees the nature of the good. Yet how does matter existing as evil beget and nourish nature? For evil, according as it is evil, is generative or nutritive or totally effective or conservative of nothing.

235. Yet if they should say that this indeed does not make malice in souls, yet that it attracts them, how shall this be true? For many of them gaze to the good. And indeed, how has this been done, with matter altogether attracting them to evil? Wherefore, evil is not in souls from matter, but from the inordinate and sinning motion. Yet if they also call this being of matter altogether consequent, and unstable matter is necessary for these things that cannot be gathered in themselves, how is evil necessary or the necessary evil?

§29. 236. But neither is that which we call privation, according to its proper virtue, opposed to the good. For perfect privation is universally impotent; yet particular privation has virtue not according to the fact that it is privation, but according to the fact that it is not perfect privation. For with there existing the privation of a particular good, it is not yet evil; and with it receding, the nature of evil also goes away.

548. After Denys has shown that, in these things that act through knowledge, evil is not anything existing, he shows the same in natural things;

and first, in nature itself;

second, in a natural body, at but neither in a body is there evil;

third, that neither in matter, at but neither—very vulgar—in matter;

fourth, he shows how privation has itself to evil, at but neither is that which we call privation.

549. About the first, he does two things:

first, he shows that evil is not in universal nature;

second, how evil is in particular nature, at yet for particular this indeed.

550. About the first, it must be known that universal nature means the universal cause of all things that naturally are made. Yet God is the universal cause of all things that naturally are made; whence also certain men name him naturing nature. But it is better that universal nature should be understood as the universal cause of those things that naturally are made in the genus of natural things. Therefore certain men posited that universal nature is something separated, having itself commonly to all natural things, as separated man, according to the Platonists, commonly has itself to singular men. But because the species of things are not separated, but the very forms existing in matter are the principles of actions, as is proven in the seventh book of the Metaphysics, it must better be said that universal nature means the active power of the first body, which is first in the genus of natural causes. (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 7.7, 1032a17–19; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Metaphysics, lect. 6, n.1386.)

551. In this universal nature, therefore, there cannot be evil: for evil in whatever nature is a recession from the order of that nature, as an eye is sick when it is not in its natural disposition. Yet granted that something can be beyond the order of some particular nature, nevertheless nothing can be contrary to universal nature: for it is not departed from the order of some nature, unless by something acting to the contrary, for example from the order of health, which is the natural good of the human body, it is departed through the action of heat or of cold. Yet all natural actions, which are active virtues, depend upon universal nature, and thus nothing can act to the contrary of the whole of universal nature. Whence it is clear that in universal nature, there cannot be evil.

552. Then when he says, yet for particular this indeed, he shows how evil is in particular nature; and particular nature means the principle of the motion of some determinate thing. Therefore he says that for any particular nature there is something according to nature and something not according to nature: as for fire it is according to nature to be moved upwards; yet to be moved downwards is not according to nature. Nor is the same thing beyond nature for all things; but one and the same thing can be according to nature for one thing and beyond nature for another: as to be moved downwards is beyond nature for fire, and according to nature for earth. Yet nothing is an evil for nature except to be beyond nature, which is to be deprived of something natural. From which it is clear that this nature is not evil, but this is evil for nature: not to be able to attain to those things that pertain to the perfection of proper nature.

553. Then when he says, but neither in a body is there evil, he shows how evil is in a body; and about this, he does three things:

first, he shows what is called the evil of a body;

second, he excludes a certain objection, at yet that neither is the body;

third, he universally gathers what is evil in all things that are called evil, at for this is evil for minds.

554. Therefore he says, first, that, as it has been said that in the demons and in souls there is not evil as something existing, so also neither in a body is there evil as though something existing. For the evil of a body is said to be either ugliness or infirmity, and each of these is a defect of some form or a privation of some order. For there is required for beauty and clarity form and the commensuration that pertains to order. Yet with whichever of these deprived, ugliness follows. Nor nevertheless is evil in a body such that it is altogether deprived of form and order, because if there were to be totally removed every form and every order and consequently the whole thing that is in beauty, neither could the body itself remain and consequently neither the ugliness of the body. Whence it is clear that what is called ugly is not totally evil, retaining nothing of the good, but is a good diminished from due perfection.

555. Then when he says, yet that neither is the body, he excludes a certain objection: for someone could say: this body is evil from the very fact that it is the cause of the malice of the soul. But he excludes this, saying that the cause of the malice of the soul is not the body. For with a per se cause removed, the effect is removed; yet with the body removed, malice in spiritual nature is not removed, as is clear in the demons who are incorporeal and nevertheless evil. Therefore there remains that the cause of the malice of the soul is not the body. But in actual sin, it is manifest that the malice of the soul is from free will, in the fact that it uses bodily things badly; yet in original sin, the very infection of the body has attracted this stain, according to which it infects the soul united to it and first from the soul of the first parent.

556. Then when he says, for this is evil for minds, he gathers universally what evil is in all things that are called evil; and he says that both in the minds of demons, and in souls, and even in bodies, evil is not something existing; but weakly and feebly to have the proper goods that befit them or totally to fall from having them, this is called evil in singulars.

557. Then when he says, but neither—very vulgar—in matter, he shows how evil is attributed to matter;

and first, he shows the truth;

second, he excludes an objection, at yet if they should call matter necessary.

558. About the first, he does two things:

first, he proposes the truth;

second, he proves it, at for it has the participation of adornment.

559. About the first, it must be known that among many of the ancients it was said vulgarly that matter is evil according to itself, and this because they did not distinguish between privation and matter; yet privation is non-being and evil. Whence, as Plato, they said that matter is non-being and thus indeed that matter is evil according to itself. But Aristotle in the first book of the Physics says that matter is not non-being or evil, except accidentally, that is, by reason of the privation that befalls it; (Aristotle, Physics, 1.9, 191b35–192a2; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Physics, lect. 15, n. 2.) and this is also what Denys says here: that there is not evil in matter, according as it is matter; and he proves this by three arguments.

560. The first of which is taken through comparison to form, which is thus: matter can be considered in two ways: in one way, as existing under form, and thus it has the participation of form as regards substantial being and of beauty as regards commensuration and loveliness, unto which intrinsic accidents also work, and also of adornment as regards the exterior things that stand around it.

In another way matter can be received as it is understood according to itself, beyond the aforementioned, as though lacking quality and every form. And if someone should say that matter thus received is the first evil, this cannot be: because they call the first evil what makes all evils. Yet matter existing according to itself without quality and form cannot make anything, because the principle of acting is the form through which something is actual; yet each thing acts according as it is actual. Likewise also neither can it suffer per se, according as to suffer is in casting off something from substance, as one contrary is said to suffer by the other contrary; but according as to suffer means to receive only, thus it befits matter to suffer according to itself; therefore it is manifest that matter according to itself is not evil as the first evil.

561. He poses the second argument at, and otherwise: how is there evil, which is taken from comparison to cause; which is thus: either matter in no way is or it is. If it is not, neither in any place nor through any mode; yet what is not is neither good nor evil. Therefore it follows that matter neither is good nor is it evil. Whereas if matter is, since all existing things are from the good, it follows that matter is from the good. Yet what is from the good is not evil according to itself; therefore matter is not evil according to itself.

562. Yet to show this, he introduces the division of five members; for about the causality of things it is necessary to say one of these five things:

the first of which is that the good is the cause of evil, of permanent evil;

the second member is that evil, from the fact that it proceeds from the good, is good;

the third member is that conversely evil is effective of good, of permanent good;

the fourth member is that the good, by the very fact that it proceeds from evil, is evil.

And these four are impossible: because to say that the good is effective of evil or evil of the good, is to posit that one of two opposites is the cause of the other; whereas to say that evil is good, or conversely, is to say that opposites are simultaneous.

The fifth member is that if there are two principles, good and evil, thus it is necessary to say that these two, which in themselves are distinct, proceed from one first principle, because before every multitude there is unity. Yet it is necessary that that first principle should be good or evil, and thus there shall return again the first four unfitting members. If it should be said that the good is something and evil is something, it is necessary therefore to say that the good is first; and everything that is something existing is good as caused from the good principle; and thus prime matter, if it is existing, is good according to itself as caused from the good.

563. He poses the third argument at, yet if they should call matter necessary, which is taken from the utility of matter, and this argument has as it were three middle terms, according to the three utilities of matter:

the first of which is that matter is completive of the universe; for the universe of beings would not be complete, if being in potency were removed. And he touches on this middle term, saying that if any men should concede that matter is necessary for the completion of the whole world, how can it be that matter should be evil according to itself? For the necessary is different from the evil: for something is called necessary from the fact that it has an order to the good and from it has the ratio of the good.

564. The second utility of matter is with respect to the particular beings that are generated from matter. And he touches on this middle term, saying, how does the good, namely God, lead out certain beings to generation from evil? Which seems unfitting: for just as heat does not make anything from coldness itself, so neither does the good make anything from evil itself, and nevertheless this would follow if matter were evil according to itself. Or again, how can there be evil which is necessary for the generation of the good? For this pertains to the ratio of evil: that it should flee the nature of the good and not lead to it. Yet he says that certain things are led out to generation from matter, on account of immaterial substances that do not have matter.

565. The third utility of matter is that it nourishes by sustaining form, whence Plato compared matter to a nurse. And he touches on this when he says, how can matter, since it is evil according to itself, beget and nourish the nature of the thing generated by receiving and retaining its form? For evil, inasmuch as it is of this sort, is not generative or nutritive of another or, so that we might speak more universally, it is not effective or conservative of another. For the effective contains under itself the generative as the less common, and likewise the conservative contains under itself the nutritive. Yet to effect and to conserve pertain to the ratio of the good, whence they cannot come together with evil, inasmuch as they are of this sort.

566. Then when he says, yet if they should say that this indeed, he removes a certain objection: for he had said above that a body cannot be called evil as though it should be the cause of the very malice of the soul. Yet someone could say that although a body does not make malice in souls, nevertheless bodily matter attracts souls to malice, by alluring them. But he says that this is not true. For if matter were the cause attracting souls to malice, it would follow that it does this of necessity: for with the cause posited, the effect follows of necessity, unless someone should impede it. But we see that this is false: for many of the souls look to the good, which could not be if matter were to draw them totally to evil. Whence it is manifest that evil is not in souls from matter, but from the inordinate motion of free will; which is sin itself.

567. Yet if someone should impute this very thing to bodily matter, inasmuch as existing exteriorly it in some way allures and conjoined to the soul it inclines, granted not of necessity, not on account of this is there removed that matter is good according to itself; because something can be an occasion of some evil, which nevertheless according to itself is good.

568. Therefore this is what he says: that if some men say that this very thing is from matter: that the soul is moved to evil, nonetheless it is necessary to say that matter, granted it is unstable, nevertheless is altogether consequent, that is, having consequence and order in the universe, and is necessary for forms, which could not be made firm in themselves. Yet how can evil be necessary or how can what is necessary be evil according to itself? And it must be noted that significantly matter is called unstable, because to be inclined to matter seems to be evil so much: inasmuch as, having forsaken the immutable good, it adheres to the mutable good. Yet the principle of mutability is matter, inasmuch as it is in potency to diverse things. Nor nevertheless does the fact that it is in potency to diverse things show it to be evil; nay rather, through this very thing it has an order to diverse goods, that is, to diverse forms, which are made firm in it.

569. Then when he says, but neither is that which we call privation, he shows how privation has itself to the ratio of evil; and he says that neither is privation itself opposed to the good by acting against it according to its proper virtue, but according to the virtue of the good; because, if it should be perfect privation, that is, that which removes the whole altogether, it excludes every potency, and thus it shall not be capable for acting against the good. Yet if it should be particular privation, excluding one form and not another, it has the virtue of acting not from the fact that it is privation, but from the fact that it is not perfect privation, that is, from the conjoined form, of which it is not deprived. But if the good should be deprived particularly, it is not yet totally evil, and if particular privation should recede either because something is not deprived or because it is totally removed, it follows that the nature of evil should perish.

Lectio 22

Certain Secondary Questions Are Solved, and First Whether Evil Is Caused from the Good or from Some Other Cause

§30. 237. Yet there is gathered to say: the good is from one and a whole cause; yet evil from many and particular defects.

238. God sees evil as good and before him the causes of evils are virtues making good.

239. Yet if evil is eternal and creates and can be and is and makes, whence is this for it? Either from the good or the good from evil or both from another cause.

240. Everything that is according to nature is generated from a determinate cause. But evil is without cause and the indefinite is not according to nature: for neither is that in nature, which is against nature; nor is the ratio of the inartificial in art.

241. Whether the soul is the cause of evils in the way in which fire is of heating, and all things to which it approaches, it fills with malice? The nature of the soul is indeed good; yet sometimes by operations it has thus, yet sometimes not thus. If indeed its nature and being is evil and whence does it have being except from the good creative cause of all things? But if from this, how according to substance is it evil? For all good things are begotten from this. Yet if by operations, neither is this unchangeable. Otherwise whence are the virtues and those things made boniformly? Therefore it remains that evil is an infirmity and defect of the good.

§31. 242. The cause of good things is one. If evil is contrary to the good, evil causes are many. Not indeed that rationes and virtues are what effects evils, but impotence and infirmity and an unlike mix, not commensurable. Nor are evils immobile and always having in the same mode, but infinite and unbounded and borne in others and those infinite.

243. The principle and end of all things, even evils, shall be the good: for all things are for the sake of the good, whatever good and whatever contraries. For we make those, desiring the good; for no one looking to evil makes that which he makes; on account of which neither does evil have subsistence, but the privation of substance, made for the sake of the good and not of its own self.

§32. 244. For evil, being must be posited according to an accident and on account of another and not from a proper principle. Wherefore because what is done appears indeed to be right, because it is done for the sake of the good; yet in fact is not right, therefore we think what is not good is good. It must be demonstrated that one thing is desired and another is done. Therefore evil is beyond way and beyond intention and beyond nature and beyond cause and beyond principle and beyond end and beyond definition and beyond will, and beyond substance.

245. Therefore evil is a privation and defect and infirmity and incommensuration and sin and without intention and without beauty and without life and without mind and without reason and imperfect and not gathered and without cause and indefinite and without sprout and empty and not operating inordinate and unlike and infinite and obscure and without substance and itself nothing in any way ever existing.

246. As evil totally can do something by mixture to the good: for what is altogether lacking in the good neither is anything nor can do anything. For if the good is existing and desired by the will and powerful and active; how could that which is contrary to the good, which is deprived of substance and will and operation, do anything?

247. Not all things evil to all and the same altogether evil according to the same. The evil of a demon is to be beyond boniform intellect; of a soul beyond reason; of a body beyond nature.

570. Having treated the principal questions that he had posed above concerning evil, namely whether evil is something; and whence is evil; and in what is evil, here he pursues other connected questions;

and first, that by which it is asked: whether evil is caused from the good or from some other cause;

second, by which it is asked: how providence suffers evil, at yet how totally are evil things;

third, the question where it is asked: how anything of existing things desires evil, at therefore evil is not existing.

571. About the first, he does two things:

first, he sets forth certain considerations about the cause of evil through which the aforementioned question is solved;

second, he manifests them, at everything that is according to nature.

572. Therefore he posits three considerations: the first of which is that from all things it can be gathered that the good proceeds from one and a perfect cause, yet evil proceeds from many particular defects. And this is apparent both in natural things, and in moral things. For health and beauty are caused through the fact that the body, as regards all its parts, is well proportioned, but in order for there to be ugliness or sickness, it suffices that due proportion should be lacking in whatever part. And for this reason to be sick or ugly happens in many ways, but to be healthy and beautiful in one way. Likewise, for an act it is required that it should be commensurate according to all its due circumstances, with whatever of which removed, the act is made vicious. And for this reason the Philosopher says in the second book of the Ethics that the good happens in one way, whereas evil in many ways. (Aristotle, Ethics, 2.5, 1106b35; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, lect. 7, n. 320.)

573. Then when he says, God sees evil as good, he posits a second consideration which is thus: whatever is in the world, whether good or evil, is seen thus by God; yet everything seen, inasmuch as it is seen, is in the seer; and because the noblest mode of seeing befits God, which is to see something through its cause, it is manifest that in God, who sees good and evil things, there are causes both of good things and of evil. But the causes of evils, which are before God, are the very virtues that make good: for it is the same virtue that makes good, inasmuch as it is perfect, and that makes evil, inasmuch as it is deficient: as is clear concerning free will, which is a cause of good and of evil, and, universally, everything that is a cause of evil is also a cause of some good.

574. Then when he says, yet if evil is eternal, he posits a third consideration, which is against this: that evil is not a first principle: because if evil should be from eternity not caused, but rather causing other things, if it should have the power of making other things and have existence and have causality, while it makes any things, there remains to be asked whence it has this: for whenever some one thing befits many, it is necessary that of that one there should be some one cause: for a cause is not more multiple than its effect, namely so that the effect should be one and the causes be many. If therefore eternity and creation and being and making commonly befit good and evil, it is necessary that this should proceed from one cause. Either therefore evil has this from the good or good from evil or both from some prior cause; and which of these is truer afterwards will be shown.

575. Then when he says, everything that is according to nature, he manifests the three considerations set forth;

and first, the first;

second, the second, at the principle and end of all things;

third, the third, at as evil totally can do something.

576. The first consideration, namely that evil is not from any determinate cause, he proves by three arguments,

the first of which is thus: for we see that everything that has a determinate cause either is from nature or is from art: for everything that is according to nature is generated from some determinate cause; and likewise what is according to art. But evil is not according to nature nor according to art: because everything that is according to nature is in some way in nature, just as effects are in their causes; nor is it according to art: because everything that is according to art has some ratio in art. Yet evil in natural things is to be against nature and in artificial things evil is also to be inartificial. Yet it cannot be said that what is against nature is in nature nor that the ratio of what is inartificial is in art. And thus evil is not from nature, nor from art. From which it follows that evil is without cause and indeterminate, as not coming forth from any determinate cause.

577. Yet he posits the second argument at whether the soul is the cause of evils, for it especially seems that the soul through free will is a cause of evil. Whence if the soul should not be a per se cause of evil, it seems that nothing else is a per se cause of evil. Therefore he asks whether the soul is a per se cause of evils such that it fills all things to which it is joined with malice, as fire heats all things to which it approaches, because it is a per se cause of heating.

578. And for the solution of this question, he proposes two things:

the first of which is that the nature of the soul is good;

the second is that the soul according to its operations sometimes is good, sometimes evil.

He proves the first of these thus: for if it should be given that the nature of the soul is evil, and its being is evil, this seems impossible, because the soul does not have its being except from the creative cause of all things which it is necessary should be good; because to produce the good pertains to the ratio of the good. Yet whatever things are created from a good cause are good. In no way, therefore, can it be that the soul, according to its substance and nature, should be evil.

Yet if it should be given according to member, namely that the soul is evil on account of its operation, this is not as though an operation evil necessarily and unchangeably by the soul should be the per se cause of an evil operation: for there could not be in the soul virtues and virtuous acts, unless it were conformed to the good.

And therefore the soul is not a determinate per se cause of evil. Whence it remains that evil is rather from a certain debility of cause and defect of the good.

579. He posits the third argument at, the cause of good things is one, which is thus: the cause of good things is one; but just as evil is opposed to the good, so also multitude to one: therefore the causes of evil are many and indeterminate. Not indeed that evils are effected through some rationes and virtues (and he says rationes as regards those things that are made through art, and virtues as regards those that are made through nature), but the cause of evils is a defect of the whole, by reason of which it is called an impotence or a debility of a power which is called infirmity, or also this: that something unlike is joined to another without due commensuration; just as if heat is added to cold without due commensuration, there would follow sickness. Yet that some things persevere immovably and in the same mode happens from the strength of the cause impressing and conserving. Therefore because evils come forth from the subtraction of a power or its debility, it follows that they are not immobile nor always having themselves in the same mode, but that they have infinite varieties and that they are indeterminate; because what comes forth from debility of cause, sometimes happens one way, sometimes another, on account of the fact that a debilitated cause cannot conserve the same order in causing. And because there are certain debilities, it is necessary that they should be borne in others, that is, sustained as privations in subjects, and that they should have determinate subjects just as they have determinate causes.

580. Then when he says, the principle and end of all things, he manifests the second consideration, namely that the causes of evils are virtues making good; and about this, he does two things:

first, he shows that the good is the principle of evil;

second, he shows through what mode, at for evil, being must be posited.

581. Yet that the good is the principle of evil he shows thus: the end always corresponds to the active principle; for each thing operates unto what is befitting to its nature, as fire acts unto the generation of fire. But the end of all evils is the good. Therefore also the principle of all evils is the good. Yet that the end of evils is the good, he proves thus: for the end of anything is that on account of which it is made; but whatever makes something whether good or evil, makes it on account of the good, and he manifests this in those things that make evils, concerning which it seems less; for we do not make evils, except from the desire of some good; for no one makes those things which he makes, looking through intention to evil: as he who commits adultery is not allured by the inordinateness on account of which adultery is evil, but by delight which is a good. Therefore the end of evils is the good; and thus it follows that the good is also the principle of evils. Yet everything that has some substance has a principle and an end befitting its substance: which cannot be said of evil, as has been shown. Therefore it remains that evil does not have substance, but that it is a privation of substance, since it is made for the sake of the good and not for the sake of its own self, as has been shown.

582. But if he who makes evil intends unto the good, as he says here, it seems that he does not sin, because sin depends especially upon intention. But it must be said that if the other evil joined to the good were unknown, as joined to it, rarely and in fewer cases would the intention that is borne to the good be evil. But when the joined evil is not hidden, as always joined to this good to which the intention is borne, in some mode it is also borne to evil, although not principally. For from the fact that he does not refuse that good on account of the joined evil, it follows that he more wills that evil than to lack the good and that he wills less the greater good, of which he is deprived through that evil, than the lesser good to which the evil is joined.

583. Then when he says, for evil, being must be posited, he shows how the good is a principle of evil; and about this, he does two things:

first, he shows the proposition;

second, he infers a conclusion from the things said, at therefore evil is a privation.

584. Therefore because he had shown above that the good is a principle of evil, lest anyone should believe that the good is a per se principle of it, to exclude this he says that being must be assigned to evil accidentally and on account of another and not as though from a proper and per se principle; which he proves thus: whenever there is one thing done and another desired, that which is done has a cause accidentally: as if someone digging a grave should find gold, we say that the finding of gold came about accidentally. But when someone does evil, what is done is one thing and what is desired or intended is something else: because it appears that what is done is good; which is altogether necessary, because everything that is done is done for the sake of the good, as has been shown; but according to the truth of the thing it is not good, because it happens that someone thinks that what is not good is good. Therefore it remains that evil does not have a principle except accidentally.

585. And thence he concludes further that evil is beyond way because the motion that is the way to non-being is not per se terminated at evil; and again it is beyond the intention of the mover, because every intention of an agent is borne unto the good; and again it is beyond nature, because it does not progress from the agent according to the fittingness of its nature, since every agent acts in virtue of the good; and further it is also beyond cause, because it does not have a cause per se, but only accidentally, whether there is understood through cause an effective principle or a final cause; and just as it is beyond nature, so also is it beyond art. It is also beyond definition of reason which directs in operations of art and beyond will which remains in them; and likewise it is beyond substance subsisting, because it does not have form through which it subsists, but is a privation of form.

586. If anyone should object that what some sinner does appears good to him, and thus every sinner seems to sin from ignorance and so to be excused from sin, it must be said that an error of this sort, on account of which it is thought that what is not good is good, is according to the ignorance of choice by which that is ignored in the particular which is known in the universal. For he who knows that adultery is evil in the universal, in the particular judges it to be good to commit adultery now, inasmuch as in his will the delightful good outweighs the bonum honestum, to which the evil joined to the delight is opposed. Whence ignorance of this more is from the inordinateness of the will than it is the cause of an inordinate will. And on account of this the Philosopher says in the third book of the Ethics that the ignorant man sins indeed, but not from ignorance. (Aristotle, Ethics, 3.2, 1110b; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, lect. 3, nn. 409–410.) Whence he is not excused, either in whole or in part.

587. Then when he says, therefore evil is a privation, he infers a conclusion from the things said, in which he multiplies the rationes of evil. Since therefore evil is a privation of the good, it can be varied in two ways: either on the part of the privation, because it happens that something is deprived in many ways; or on the part of the good, because the good happens to be deprived in many ways.

588. Therefore he concludes that because evil does not have subsistence, that it is a privation totally depriving some particular good, as blindness is evil because it totally deprives sight; and again evil is a defect, namely when something is not totally removed, but is had deficiently, as is clear in him who sees obscurely; and it is also infirmity, namely when the good is not had firmly, even if it is had intensely: as if anyone should see acutely and nevertheless should not have firm sight, but his sight is easily destroyed. These three therefore are received on the part of privation.

589. But on the part of what is deprived through evil, first there must be received the ratio of the good in common, to which three things pertain: namely, the commensuration of any things from which something is compounded, as health is the commensuration of humors and beauty the commensuration of members and, through the opposite, evil is incommensuration, as sickness and ugliness.

The second thing that pertains to the ratio of the good is that an act should arrive at its due end, and, through the opposite, he says that evil is sin: for sin is said in nature and in art and in the will, when an act does not arrive at its due end: as when nature produces a monstrous part and when a writer does not make a good writing and when the will does not make a virtuous act.

And it is also of the ratio of the good that it should be intent, because the good is what all things desire and, through the opposite, he says that evil is without intention.

And these three can be reduced to mode, species, and order, which Augustine posits: for incommensuration is through privation of mode; sin, through privation of species; yet what he says: without intention, through privation of order.

590. Then he posits those things that follow the common ratio of the good; and first he says, without beauty, because the beautiful is converted with the good, as has been said above. And afterwards he posits certain particular goods that are deprived through evil; and he says that it is without life and without mind, that is, intellect, and without reason; and it is imperfect, for perfection pertains to the ratio of the good; and it is not gathered, that is, not firm in anything, for to be firm in something is of the ratio of the good; and it is without cause, for order to a cause is a certain good; and it is indefinite, as it is not proceeding by a proper cause; and it is without sprout, as though not having a proper and per se effect; and it is empty, that is, without fullness; and it is not operating, because operation itself is also a certain good and perfection of the operator; and it is inordinate, because order also pertains to the ratio of the good; and it is unlike, because likeness also is a certain order pertaining to the ratio of the good; and it is infinite, because the end is the good and perfection of each thing; and it is obscure, that is, without clarity; and briefly without every substance and it is not existing in any way nor in any time nor is evil anything inasmuch as it is evil.

591. Then when he says, as evil totally can do something, he proceeds to manifest the third consideration posited above, namely that evil is not a certain eternal and causative first principle; and he proves this in two ways;

first thus: for evil, in the way in which anything can make something, can do this through the good joined to it, because that which is altogether lacking in the good neither is anything nor can do anything. And he proves this thus: for if it is such that to exist and to be desired through the will and to be powerful and to be effective pertain to the ratio of the good, how could that which is contrary to the good, namely evil, which is without substance and operation and will, as has been said above, do anything by its own proper virtue? As though he were to say: in no way. If therefore evil can do nothing through itself, but only in virtue of the good, it is manifest that evil is not a causative first principle.

592. Second, at not all things evil to all, he proves the same thus: we see that not all things are evil to all, nor are the same altogether evil to all according to the same; for the evil of each thing is opposed to its proper good: for the evil of a demon is to be an intellect not conformed to the divine goodness and the evil of a soul is to be beyond reason and the evil of a body is to be beyond its natural disposition. Therefore there is not something evil that is the same evil for all things. Yet this would be necessary, if there were some first evil something causative of all evils, as the first thing causative of all goods is good for all things. Therefore it is clear that evil is not a causative first principle.

Lectio 23

Second, How There Can Be Evil Things, with Divine Providence Existing; Third, On the Desire of Evil

§33. 248. Yet how totally are evil things with providence also existing? Evil is not, according as it is evil, neither existing nor in existing things, and nothing of existing things is unprovided for: for nor is evil conspicacious subsisting by the good. And if nothing of existing things, evil is not a participator of the good, yet a defect of the good, yet nothing of existing things is deprived universally of the good, in all existing things there is divine providence, and nothing of existing things is not provided for.

249. But also providence kindly uses evil deeds either to either the proper or the common utility of those or others:

250. and properly it provides for each of existing things. On account of which also we shall not receive the vain argument of the many who say that it is necessary that divine providence should drive us to virtue even when unwilling: for to corrupt nature is not of providence. Whence, as providence is preservative of the nature of each thing, it provides for per se mobile things as per se mobile, and for wholes and particulars according to the propriety of the whole and of each, inasmuch as the nature of the things provided for receives the providing goodnesses of the whole of most lavish providence attributed proportionally to each.

§34. 251. Therefore evil is not existing, nor is evil in existing things. For evil never is, according as it is evil, and to be made evil is not according to virtue, but on account of infirmity.

252. And for the demons, that indeed which they are is both from the good and good; yet they have evil, from the fall from their proper goods, and variation which is about identity and habitude; infirmity of what befits them, of the perfection befitting angels.

253. And they desire the good, inasmuch as they desire being and living and understanding; they desire non-existing as good and this is not the desired, but the sin of what exists as desired.

§35. 254. Yet the eloquences call sinners in knowledge (Rom 14:23, Luke 12:47) those existing as infirm about the knowledge of the good not forgettable or action and knowing the will and not doing it; who indeed have heard, yet are made infirm about faith or the operation of the good; and that they refuse indeed to understand in order to act well, according to aversion or infirmity of will. And what is totally evil, as we have said many times, is infirmity and impotence and defect either of knowledge or of faith or of desire or of the operation of the good.

255. And indeed someone should say: infirmity must not be punished, but on the contrary condoned. If indeed there were not ability, the speech has itself well; yet if ability from the good, which gives, according to the eloquences, to all simply the things befitting them (Jas 1:5), sin of the having of proper goods from the good and aversion and fight and fall is not laudable. But these indeed have been said by us sufficiently according to virtue in these works that are On Justice and the Observance of Divine Justice. In which holy business the truth of the eloquences has crushed those speaking sophistic things and injustice and lies against God, as foolish arguments.

256. Yet now sufficiently as according to us the good has been praised, as truly lovable, as the principle and end of all things, as the circuit of existing things, as informing things not existing, as the cause of all good things, as not the cause of evils, as providence, as the perfect giver of the good, and surpassing things existing and not existing, and driving evils according to their privation back to the good, for all desirable and lovable and cherishable, and whatever other things true speech has demonstrated in the preceding.

593. Having solved the first question concerning the cause of evil, here he solves the second concerning providence, namely how evil can be, with divine providence existing; and about this, he does three things:

first, he shows that it does not fall under providence, as though caused from providence;

second, he shows that it falls under providence, because ordered by providence, at but also providence kindly uses evil deeds;

third, that evil ought not be totally impeded through providence, at and properly it provides for each.

594. Therefore he says, first, that evil, inasmuch as it is evil, is not existing nor in existing things, as has been proven above; and since nothing of existing things is unprovided for, that is, not caused from divine providence, evil is not intended or caused from divine providence. Yet that all existing things are caused from divine providence and no evil is, he proves thus: for none of existing things is unless in some way it participates the good; but it is of the ratio of evil that it should be a defect of the good. Yet none of existing things universally is deprived or fails of the good; yet the proper effect of providence seems to be the good: for whoever providing intends this: that his providence should establish in a good state those things for which he provides. Therefore it remains that divine providence extends itself to all existing things and nothing of existing things is not provided for by God; but evil is not caused through divine providence so much: inasmuch as it is not existing.

595. Then when he says, but also providence kindly uses evil deeds, he shows how evils fall under providence, as ordered by providence; and he says that divine providence uses evils well, sometimes indeed to the utility of those in which the evils are; as bodily and even spiritual infirmities, with God doing this, yield to the utility of those who suffer them; whereas sometimes to the utility of others, and this in two ways: sometimes indeed to the proper utility of something, as it is when from the punishment of one, another is emended; whereas sometimes to the common utility, as when the punishment of evildoers is ordered to the peace of the city.

596. Then when he says, and properly it provides for each, he shows that evil ought not be totally impeded through divine providence; and he says that divine providence provides for each of existing things properly, that is, according to the propriety and condition of its nature. And for this reason there must not be received the vain objections of the many, who say that divine providence ought to induce us to virtue even when unwilling. For it does not pertain to providence that it should corrupt the nature of things, but that it should preserve them; whence, in that way, providence is conservative of the nature of each thing; but it provides for those things that are mobile through their nature, as though mobile per se, that is, not removing from them that they should be able to be moved per se; and likewise, for those things that are whole and universal and perfect and those things that are particular it provides according to the natural propriety of the whole and of each particular: and this inasmuch as the nature of those things for which God provides, receives proportionally to itself the goodnesses given by the most lavish and universal providence of God. And because the rational creature is defectable according to its nature and can defect through free will, it does not pertain to divine providence to impede its mobility; and likewise, it does not pertain to the providence of God to attribute such great goodness to one particular being as to the universal whole, or to a thing that is in an inferior grade as to a thing that is in a superior.

597. Therefore evil is not existing. Here he solves the third question concerning the desire of evil; and about this he does two things:

first, he shows how evil happens to be in desire;

second, how sinning happens in knowledge, at yet the eloquences call sinners in knowledge.

598. About the first, first he resumes certain things that are in evil in common, concluding from the things said that evil neither is existing per se nor in existing things. For it is shown that evil, according as it is evil, never is, that is, is not anything existing in anything; and again it has been shown that the fact that something is said to be made evil does not happen from any active virtue, but on account of the infirmity and defect of virtue.

599. Second, at and for the demons, he resumes what has been said specifically concerning the evil of demons, and he says that in the demons this very what-they-are is good and they have it from the good, namely God; but evil is found in them from the fact that they fell from their proper goods, that is, to which they had been ordered according to the order of their nature; and again variation, by which they withdrew from that identity in which the good angels are and from having those things that they have; which is nothing other than a certain infirmity of the perfection befitting them naturally, as befits the angels.

600. Third, at and they desire the good, he shows how desire has itself to good and evil; and he says that the demons desire the good inasmuch as they desire the natural good which is being, living, and understanding; but inasmuch as they do not desire the good, but evil, they desire non-existing: because evil, inasmuch as it is evil, is non-existing; and to desire this very thing, as non-existing, is not of the perfection of desire, but is a certain infirmity and sin about desire: for just as to think the false is from an infirmity of the intellect, so to desire evil is from a defect of desiderative virtue.

601. Then when he says, yet the eloquences call sinners in knowledge, he shows how sin happens to be in knowledge; and about this, he does three things:

first, he shows a proposition;

second, he excludes an objection, at and indeed someone should say: infirmity must not be punished;

third, he offers an epilogue for the things that have been said in this chapter, at yet now sufficiently as according to us.

602. Therefore he says, first, that just as to sin in desire is a certain infirmity of desire, so to sin in knowledge, according to the sacred eloquences, is said to be infirm about two things: first of all, about the knowledge of the good which one is held to know and which is forgotten; for if someone were made infirm in the knowledge of what he is not held to know, it is not sin.

Second, about the action of the good which someone knows; and as regards this second mode, there are reproached those knowing the will of their Lord and not doing it, as is had in Luke 12:47. And these who hear indeed also cannot excuse themselves from ignorance; but they are infirm for believing or for working the good.

Whereas as regards the first, there are reproached in Psalm 34 those who refuse to understand in order to act well: which indeed is done according as the will is turned away or has itself infirmly to the knowledge of the good.

And, so that we might speak universally, evil, as has been said many times, is a certain infirmity, that is, debility of power or totally impotence and whatever defect of power either about knowledge or about faith or about desire or about the operation of the good. And he is speaking here concerning the evil of fault, which it is necessary should be about one of these four.

603. Then when he says, and indeed someone should say: infirmity must not be punished, he poses a certain objection: for someone by objecting can say that infirmity must not be imputed, but condoned. For infirmity, as it seems, must be pardoned. If therefore sin is infirmity about any of the aforementioned, it seems that sin must not be punished.

604. But someone responds to this that such an objection would proceed well, if ability for the good were altogether lacking to the sinner. But because each has the ability to act well from the good, that is, from the help of God, who gives affluently to all the things befitting them, as is said in James 1:5, sin is not laudable, that is, excusable, which is aversion and flight and fall from the having of proper goods, which arise from the good, namely God. For man turns himself away from the help of God prepared for him, and it is imputed to him indeed unto the fault of sin; just as if someone infirm were to fall while he was refusing to use the help of one extending his hand.

But he says that he has said these things sufficiently according to his virtue in a certain book that he made On Justice, which has not come down to us: in which indeed according to the truth of Sacred Scripture he reproved the sophistic arguments of those who speak unjustly and dishonestly against divine justice.

605. Then when he says, yet now sufficiently as according to us, he offers an epilogue for those things that have been said in this chapter; and he says that now in this chapter he has praised sufficiently, according to his ability, the good as truly lovable, where he has treated about love; and as the principle and end of all things, in the beginning, where he spoke of the effect of the good: in which there is manifested as though a certain circle in existing things, while they have the same principle and end, namely the good; and he has shown also there that God informs things not existing in act but in potency; and that God is the cause of all good things; and that he is not the cause of evils; and that his providence is the perfect giver of every good; and that he surpasses both things existing and not existing; and that evils that are said according to privation, he orders to the good which is desirable for all and cherishable; and whatever other things have been demonstrated, according to the truth in the preceding things, are true.