Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names · 2 of 39 · tr. C.E. Rolt
Chapter 4, Section 1b
Hence have they their celestial orders, their self-unities, their mutual indwellings, their distinct Differences, the faculties which raise the lower unto the higher ranks, the providences of the higher for those beneath them; their preservation of the properties belonging to each faculty, their unchanging introversions, 247 247 Lit.
“Revolutions.” (αἱ .
.
.
περὶ ἑαυτὰς ἀμετάπτωτοι συνελίξεις.) In Dante’s Paradiso the souls of the Redeemed all move with a circular motion.
This symbolizes an activity of spiritual concentration.
Cf.
iv.
8, 9.
their constancy and elevation in their search for the Good, and all the other qualities which we have described in our book concerning the Properties and Orders of the Angels.
248 248 The Celestial Hierarchy is among D’s extant works.
It is referred to by Dante and was the chief source of medieval angelology.
Moreover all things appertaining to the Celestial Hierarchy, the angelic Purifications, the Illuminations and the attainments which perfect them in all angelic perfection and come from the all-creative and originating Goodness, from whence it was given to them to possess their created goodness, and to manifest the Secret Goodness in themselves, and so to be (as it were) the angelic Evangelists of the Divine Silence and to stand forth as shining lights revealing Him that is within the shrine.
And next those sacred and holy Minds, men’s souls and all the excellences that belong to souls derive their being from the Super-Excellent Goodness.
So do they possess intelligence; so do they preserve their living being 249 249 τὴν οὐσιώδη ζωήν—i.
e.
life as such, mere life, the life which they share with animals and plants.
immortal; so is it they exist at all, and can, by straining towards the living angelic powers, through 89 their good guidance mount towards the Bounteous Origin of all things; so can they (according to their measure) participate in the illuminations which stream from above and share the bounteous gift (as far as their power extends) and attain all the other privileges which we leave recounted in our book, Concerning the Soul.
Yea, and the same is true, if it must needs be said, concerning even the irrational souls, or living creatures, which cleave the air, or tread the earth, or crawl upon the ground, and those which live among the waters or possess an amphibious life, and all that live buried and covered in the earth—in a word all that possess a sensitive soul or life.
All these are endowed with soul and life because the Good exists.
And all plants derive from the Good that life which gives them nourishment and motion, and even whatsoever has no life or soul exists through the Good, and thus came into the estate of being.
250 250 The existence of the whole creation—angels, men, animals, and vegetables, dead matter—is in the Good.
It has not, in the ordinary sense, made them, but they are grounded in It and draw their existence from it and would not exist but for it.
They exist not through any particular activity It exerts but solely because It Is.
3.
Now if the Good is above all things (as indeed It is) Its Formless Nature produces all-form; and in It alone Not-Being is an excess of Being, 251 251 “Being” implies finite relations; for one thing must be distinguished from another.
If a thing is itself, it is not something else; this thing is not that.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The text links celestial orders to angelic faculties and human souls deriving being from the Good.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage explicitly describes celestial orders, angelic faculties, and the hierarchy of beings flowing from the Good.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Not-Being is described as an excess of Being, implying a lack or distortion rather than positive evil.