Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names · 5 of 5 · tr. C.E. Rolt
Chapter 9, Section 1e
power bestowed upon all according to their worth; and because all Equality (perceived or exercised by the intellect, or possessed in the sphere of 169 reason, sensation, essence, nature, or will) is transcendently contained beforehand as an Unity in Him through that Power, exceeding all things, which brings all Equality into existence.
438 Boundless space cannot contain God, yet He is wholly contained in a single point of that apparent nothingness which we call air.
Cf.
Section 3.
439 Cf.
St.
Augustine, Confessions, 1, Section 1.
The great paradox is that God combines perfect Rest and perfect Motion.
Idealism has seized the first aspect, Pragmatism and Vitalism the second.
A sense of both is present in the highest Mystical experience and in the restful activity or strenuous repose of Love.
440 Cf.
155, n.
3.
441 It is a Quality, not a quantity.
Vulgarity consists in mistaking quantity for quality.
This has been the mistake of the modern world.
442 Heb.
iv.
12.
We can conceive of the mind’s search for God in two ways: as a journey, (1) outwards, to seek Him beyond the sky, (2) inwards, to seek Him in the heart.
Psalm xix.
combines both ways.
So does the Paradiso.
Dante passes outwards through the concentric spheres of space to the Empyrean which is beyond space and encloses it.
There he sees the Empyrean as a point and his whole journey from sphere to sphere as a journey inwards instead of outwards.
(Canto xxviii.
16.) The Mystics often speak of “seeing God in a Point.” God is in all things as the source of their existence and natural life; and in us as the Source of our existence and spiritual life.
443 The Potentiality of all quality is without particular quality.
Cf.
p.
155, n.
2.
444 It causes each thing (1) to be a thing, (2) to co-exist harmoniously with other things.
445 It contains the potential existence of all things, however different from each other, as the air contains the potential life of all the various plants and animals.
446 Since He is the Super-Essence of all things, their life is ultimately His Life—i.
e.
He is, in every case, the underlying Reality of their individual existence.
447 Because He is the underlying Reality of our separate personalities, which have their true being outside themselves in Him, therefore in finding our true selves we find and possess His Being.
Cf.
St.
Bernard: Ubi se mihi dedit me mihi reddidit.
448 i.
e.
We must not take metaphorical titles literally (much bad philosophy and much sentimentality and also brutality in Religion, has come from taking anthropomorphic titles of God literally).
449 If anything derived this quality from some other source than God, that thing, instead of standing towards God in the relation of effect to Cause, would be co-ordinate with Him.
But as it is, all things stand towards God in the relation of effect to Cause.
450 Vide supra on Very Existence, Very Life, Very Wisdom, etc.
451 Cf.
e.
g.
Ps.
lxxxvi.
8 .
452 i.
e.
This stability is due to Undifferentiation.
453 St.
Augustine frequently explains God’s activity to consist in His causing His creatures to act, while Himself resting.
454 i.
e.
“Due,” “right,” cf.
p.
161, n.
3.
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 references the 'sphere of reason, sensation, essence, nature, or will' as levels where Equality is perceived.