St. Dionysius the Areopagite: The Divine Names, Chapter 11
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Come, then, let us extol the Peace Divine, and Source of conciliation, by hymns of peace!
Eastern Orthodox Saints in English
Eastern Orthodox Saints in English
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Come, then, let us extol the Peace Divine, and Source of conciliation, by hymns of peace!
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The time, then, is come for our discourse, to sing the God of many Names, as “Sovereign Lord,” and as “Ancient of days.”
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But since even the great and the small are attributed to the Cause of all, and the same, and the different, and the similar, and the dissimilar, and the standing, and the movement.
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But since the theologians sing the Divine truth fulness and super-wise wisdom, both as power and as justice, and designate It preservation and redemption, come then, let us unfold these Divine Names also, as best we can.
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Come then, if you please, let us sing the good and eternal Life, both as wise, and as wisdom’s self; yea, rather, as sustaining all wisdom, and being superior to all wisdom and understanding.
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Now let us sing the Eternal Life, from which comes the self-existing Life, and every life; and from which, to all things however partaking of life, is distributed the power to live appropriately to each.
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Let us now then pass to the name “Being”—given in the Oracles as veritably that of Him, Who veritably is.
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Let us come to the appellation “Good,” already mentioned in our discourse, which the Theologians ascribe pre-eminently and exclusively to the super-Divine Deity, as I conjecture, by calling the supremely Divine Subsistence, Goodness; and because the Good, as essential Good, by Its being, extends Its Goodness to all things that be.
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First, with your permission, let us examine the all-perfect Name of Goodness, which is indicative of the whole progressions of Almighty God, having invoked the supremely good, and super-good Triad—the Name which indicates Its whole best Providences.
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Let then the self-existent Goodness be sung from the Oracle as defining and manifesting the whole supremely-Divine-Subsistence in its essential nature.