The Divine Names

^4. Nay, even the foundation and the boundaries of the heavens (as we forgot to say while thinking of other matters) owe their origin to the Good. Such is this universe, which lessens not nor grows, and such the noiseless movements (if noiseless they be)^[254] of the vast heavenly revolution, and such the starry orders whose light is fixed as an ornament of heaven, and such the various wanderings of certain stars—especially the repeated and returning orbits of those two luminaries to which the Scripture giveth the name of “Great,”^[255] whereby we reckon our days and nights and months and years; which define the round of time and temporal events and give them measurement, sequence, and cohesion. And what shall I say concerning the sun’s rays considered in themselves? From the Good comes the light which is an image of Goodness; wherefore the Good is described by the name of “Light,” being the archetype thereof which is revealed in that image. For as the Goodness of the all-transcendent Godhead reaches from the highest and most perfect forms of being unto the lowest, and still is beyond them all, remaining superior to those above and retaining those below in its embrace, and so gives light to all things that can receive It, and creates and vitalizes and maintains and perfects them, and is the Measure^[256] of the Universe and its Eternity,^[257] its Numerical Principle,^[258] its Order, its Embracing Power, its Cause and its End:^[259] even so this great, all-bright and ever-shining sun, which is the visible image of the Divine Goodness, faintly reechoing the activity of the Good, illumines all things that can receive its light while retaining the utter simplicity of light, and expands above and below throughout the visible world the beams of its own radiance. And if there is aught that does not share them, this is not due to any weakness or deficiency in its distribution of the light, but is due to the unreceptiveness of those creatures which do not attain sufficient singleness to participate therein. For verily the light passeth over many such substances and enlightens those which are beyond them, and there is no visible thing unto which the light reacheth not in the exceeding greatness of its proper radiance.^[260] Yea, and it contributes to the birth of material bodies and brings them unto life, and nourishes them that they may grow, and perfects and purifies and renews them. And the light is the measure and the numerical principle of seasons and of days and of all our earthly Time; for ‘tis the selfsame light (though then without a form) which, Moses the Divine declares, marked even that first period of three days which was at the beginning of time. And like as Goodness draweth all things to Itself, and is the great Attractive Power which unite things that are sundered^[261] (being as It is: the Godhead and the Supreme Fount and Producer of Unity); and like as all things desire It as their beginning, their cohesive power and end; and like as ‘tis the Good (as saith the Scripture) from which all things were made and are (having been brought into existence thence as from a Perfect Cause); and like as in the Good all things subsist, being kept and controlled in an almighty Receptacle;^[262] and like as unto the Good all things are turned (as unto the proper End of each); and like as after the Good all things do yearn—those that have mind and reason seeking It by knowledge, those that have perception seeking It by perception, those that have no perception seeking It by the natural movement of their vital instinct, and those that are without life and have mere existence seeking It by their aptitude for that bare participation whence this mere existence is theirs ^[263]—even so doth the light (being as it were Its visible image) draw together all things and attract them unto Itself: those that can see, those that have motion, those that receive Its light and warmth, those that are merely held in being by Its rays;^[264] whence the sun is so called because it summeth^[265] all things and uniteth the scattered elements of the world. All material things desire the sun, for they desire either to see or to move and to receive light and warmth and to be maintained in existence by the light. I say not (as was feigned by the ancient myth) that the sun is the God and Creator of this Universe, and therefore takes the visible world under his special care; but I say that the “invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead.”^[266]

5. But these things are dealt with in the “Symbolic Divinity.” Here I desire to declare what is the spiritual meaning of the name “Light” as belonging to the Good.^[267] The Good God is called Spiritual Light because He fills every heavenly mind with spiritual light, and drives all ignorance and error from all souls where they have gained a lodgment, and giveth them all a share of holy light and purges their spiritual eyes from the mist of ignorance that surrounds them, and stirs and opens the eyes which are fast shut and weighed down with darkness, and gives them first a moderate illumination, then (when they taste the Light and desire It more) He giveth Himself in greater measure and shineth in more abundance on them “because they have loved much,” and ever He constraineth them according to their powers of looking upwards.

6. And so that Good which is above all light is called a Spiritual Light because It is an Originating Beam and an Overflowing Radiance, illuminating with its fullness every Mind above the world, around it, or within it,^[268] and renewing all their spiritual powers, embracing them all by Its transcendent compass and exceeding them all by Its transcendent elevation. And It contains within Itself, in a simple form, the entire ultimate principle of light;^[269] and is the Transcendent Archetype of Light; and, while bearing the light in its womb, It exceeds it in quality and precedes it in time; and so conjoineth together all spiritual and rational beings, uniting them in one.^[270] For as ignorance leadeth wanderers astray from one another, so doth the presence of Spiritual Light join and unite together those that are being illuminated, and perfects them and converts them toward that which truly Is—yea, converts them from their manifold false opinions and unites their different perceptions, or rather fancies, into one true, pure and coherent knowledge, and filleth them with one unifying light.

[254] εἰ οὕτε χρὴ φάναι. D. is alluding to the ancient belief in the Music of the Spheres.

[255] Gen. i. 16.

[256] μέτρον. All things have their pre-existent limits in the Super-Essence.

[257] αἰών—i.e. The Permanent Principle underlying its temporal process. This and the next phrase explain what is meant by the words “the Measure of the universe.” The Good sets bounds to the world (1) temporally, because Eternity is the Fount of Time, (2) spatially, because Transcendent Unity is the Fount of Number. All temporal things are permanent in God; and all diversities are one in Him.

[258] All number has its roots in the Good. Elsewhere D. says that the Good being beyond Unity, is a Multiplicity as well as an Unity. Cf. Intr., p. 5.

[260] The light permeates water but it does not permeate a stone. It passes over the stone and permeates the water beyond it.

[261] ἀρχισυνάγωγος ἐστι τῶν ἐσκεδασμένων.

[262] ὡς ἐν παντοκρατορικῷ πυθμένι.

[263] (1) Man, (2) Animal, (3) Vegetable, (4) Matter.

[264] This seems to imply that matter itself could not exist without the influence of the light. Perhaps this belief rests on Gen. i. 1, 2.

[265] ἥλιος ὅτι πάντα ἀολλῆ ποιεῖ. With the naïf etymology cf. iv. 5.

[266] Rom. i. 20. The sun is not personal or supra-personal. But its impersonal activity is an emblem, as it were, of God’s supra-personal activity.

[267] Two worlds: (1) Nature, (2) Grace. God is revealed in both; the former was apparently the subject of the Symbolic Divinity; the latter is that of the present treatise.

[268] i.e. Men and different orders of angels.

[269] Material light is diffused in space and hence is divisible. The Spiritual Light is indivisible, being totally present to each illuminated mind. Hence the Spiritual Light is simple in a way that the material light is not.

[270] All our spiritual and mental powers are due to the same Spiritual Light working in each one of us. Cf. Wordsworth: “Those mysteries of Being which have made and shall continue evermore to make of the whole human race one brotherhood.”