Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names · 2 of 5 · tr. C.E. Rolt
Chapter 8, Section 1b
From this Source come the Godlike Powers of the Angelic Orders; from this Source they immutably possess their being and all the ceaseless and immortal motions of their spiritual life; and their very stability and unfailing desire for the Good they have received from that infinitely good Power which Itself infuses into them this power and this existence, and makes them ceaselessly to desire existence, and gives them the very power to desire that ceaseless power which they possess.
5.
The effects of this Inexhaustible Power enter into men and animals and plants and the entire Nature of the Universe, and fill all the unified organizations with a force attracting them to mutual harmony and concord, and drawing separate individuals into being, according to the natural laws and qualities of each, without confusion or merging of their properties.
And the laws by which this Universe is ordered It preserves to fulfil their proper functions, .and keeps the immortal lives of the individual angels inviolate; and the luminous stars of 157 heaven It keeps in all their ranks unchanged, and gives unto Eternity the power to be; and the temporal orbits It differentiates when they begin their circuits and brings together again when they return once more; and It makes the power of fire unquenchable, and the liquid nature of water It makes perpetual; and gives the atmosphere its fluidity, and founds the earth upon the Void and keeps its pregnant travail without ceasing.
And It preserves the mutual harmony of the interpenetrating elements distinct and yet inseparable, and knits together the bond uniting soul and body, and stirs the powers by which the plants have nourishment and growth, and governs the faculties whereby each kind of creature maintains its being and makes firm the indissoluble permanence of the world, and bestows Deification 426 426 See Intr., p.
43.
itself by giving a faculty for it unto those that are deified.
And, in short, there is nothing in the world which is without the Almighty Power of God to support and to surround it.
For that which hath no power at all hath no existence, no individuality, and no place whatever in the world.
6.
But Elymas 427 427 The name is introduced to support the fiction of authorship, and an objection, current no doubt in the writer’s day (as in every age), is put into the mouth of one who belonged to the same time as St.
Paul’s Athenian convert.
the sorcerer raises this objection: “If God is Omnipotent” (quoth he) “what meaneth your Sacred Writer by saying that there are some things He cannot do?” And so he blames Paul the Divine for saying that God cannot deny Himself.
428 428 2 Tim.
ii.
13 .
Now, having stated his objection, I greatly fear that I shall be laughed at for my folly, in gong about to pull down tottering houses built upon the sand by idle children, and in striving to aim my arrow at an inaccessible target when I endeavour to deal with this 158 question of Divinity.
429 429 He seems to mean two distinct things: (1) The objection is childish and needs no answering; (2) The whole question is beyond the reach of our understanding.
But thus I answer him: The denial of the true Self is a declension from Truth.
And Truth hath Being; and therefore a declension from the Truth is a declension from Being.
Now whereas Truth hath Being and denial of Truth is a declension from Being, God cannot fall from Being.
We might say that He is not lacking in Being, that He cannot lack Power, that He knows not how to lack Knowledge.
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 states that effects of the divine power enter into all levels of nature, from men to plants to stars.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The passage states that the Inexhaustible Power 'fill[s] all the unified organizations with a force attracting them to mutual harmony and concord, and drawing separate individuals into being,' which is the Stoic-Plotinian doctrine of hidden affinities binding all parts of the cosmos.
The doctrine that the divine is present within all things and the universe itself, pervading creation rather than remaining solely transcendent above it. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about whether that substance indwells its parts) and from kingdom_within (the divine present specifically IN THE INDIVIDUAL human, accessible without mediation) — divine_immanence is the general pervading-presence claim applied to all of creation, not a human-specific indwelling.
The passage asserts that 'there is nothing in the world which is without the Almighty Power of God to support and to surround it,' presenting the divine as pervading all of creation rather than remaining solely transcendent.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The passage centrally describes God preserving laws, maintaining harmony, and ordering the universe to fulfill proper functions.
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 text describes a flow of divine power from a Source to Godlike Powers of Angelic Orders and into all nature.
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.
The passage contrasts the 'inexhaustible good Power' with the 'denial of the true Self,' implying evil is a lack of truth.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The passage traces a directional descent from the unconditioned Source through angels, stars, elements, and down to the material world, describing the structured unfolding of spirit into matter as an ongoing process.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The text explicitly states that God 'bestows Deification itself by giving a faculty for it unto those that are deified'.