Work · Medieval & Scholastic
The Divine Names
What may be said of God – and why every name falls short of the One beyond being.
Introduction
The longest treatise of the Corpus Dionysiacum, a group of Greek writings whose author presents himself as Dionysius the Areopagite, Paul’s convert in Athens (Acts 17:34). In thirteen chapters it explains the names Scripture gives to God – Good, Light, Beauty, Being, Life, Wisdom, Power, Peace, One – and shows how they apply to the cause of all things without describing it as it is. The fourth chapter on the Good also discusses evil; it follows Proclus so closely that Hugo Koch and Josef Stiglmayr used it in 1895 to prove the corpus was late. Eriugena’s Latin translation of the ninth century carried the text into Western theology.
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Connections
Builds on
- Elements of Theologyc. 470 · Proclus
Taken up in
- Periphyseon (The Division of Nature)c. 866 · John Scotus Eriugena
- The Journey of the Mind into God (Itinerarium mentis in Deum)1259 · Bonaventure
Sources: Wikidata
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