The Divine Names

^9. And what is meant, on the other hand, when the Sacred Writers say that the Immovable God moves and goes forth unto all things? Must we not understand this also in a manner befitting God? Reverence bids us regard His motion to imply no change of place, variation, alteration, turning or locomotion, whether straightforward, circular, or compounded of both; or whether belonging to mind, soul, or natural powers; but to mean that God brings all things into being and sustains them,^[453] and exerts all manner of Providence over them, and is present to them all, holding them in His incomprehensible embrace, and exercising over them all His providential Emanations and Activities. Nevertheless our reason must agree to attribute movements to the Immutable God in such a sense as befits Him. Straightness we must understand to mean Directness of aim and the unswerving Emanation of His energies, and the outbirth of all things from Him. His Spiral Movement must be taken to mean the combination of a persistent Emanation and a productive Stillness. And His Circular Movement must be taken to mean His Sameness, wherein He holds together the intermediate orders and those at either extremity, so as to embrace each other, and the act whereby the things that have gone forth from Him return to Him again.

10. And if any one takes the Scriptural Title of “Same,” or that of “Righteousness,” as implying Equality, we must call God “Equal,” not only because He is without parts and doth not swerve from His purpose, but also because He penetrates equally to all things and through all, and is the Fount of Very Equality, whereby He worketh equally the uniform interpenetration of all things and the participation thereof possessed by things which (each according to its capacity) have an equal share therein, and the equal^[454] power bestowed upon all according to their worth; and because all Equality (perceived or exercised by the intellect, or possessed in the sphere of 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.

[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.