13. Being the Good Himself, and not simply something good, the Divinity cannot possess anything, not even the quality of being good. If He possessed anything, this thing would either be good, or not good; now in the principle which is good in Himself and in the highest degree, there cannot be anything which is not good. On the other hand, the statement that the Good possesses the quality of being good is impossible. Since therefore (the Good) can possess neither the quality of being good, or of not being good, the result is that He cannot possess anything; that He is unique, and isolated from everything else. As all other things either are good without being the Good, or are not good, and as the Good has neither the quality of being good, or of not being good, He has nothing, and this is the very thing that constitutes His goodness. To attribute to Him anything, such as being, intelligence, or beauty, would be to deprive Him of the privilege of being the Good. Therefore when we deprive Him of all attributes, when we affirm nothing about Him, when one does not commit the error of supposing anything within Him, He is left as simple essence, without attribution of things He does not possess. Let us not imitate those ignorant panegyrists who lower the glory of those they praise by attributing to them qualities inferior to their dignity, because they do not know how to speak properly of the persons they are trying to praise. Likewise, we should not attribute to the Divinity any of the things beneath and after Him; we should recognize Him as their eminent cause, but without being any of them. The nature of the Good consists not in being all things in general, nor in being any of them in particular. In this case, indeed, the Good would form no more than one with all beings; consequently, He would differ from them only by His own character; that is, by some difference, or by the addition of some quality. Instead of being one, He would be two things, of which the one—namely, what in Him was common with the other beings—would not be the Good, while the other would be the Good (and would leave all beings evil). Under this hypothesis, He would be a mixture of good and of not good; he would no longer be the pure and primary Good. The primary Good would be that in which the other thing would particularly participate, a participation by virtue of which it would become the good. This thing would be the good only by participation, whilst that in which it would participate would be nothing in particular; which would demonstrate that the good was nothing in particular. But if, in the principle under discussion, the good be such—that is, if there be a difference whose presence gives the character of goodness to the composite—this good must derive from some other principle which must be the Good uniquely and simply. Such a composite, therefore, depends on the pure and simple Good. Thus the First, the absolute Good, dominates all beings, is uniquely the Good, possesses nothing within Himself, is mingled with nothing, is superior to all things, and is the cause of all things. The beautiful and that which is "being" could not derive from evil, or from indifferent principles; for the cause being more perfect, is always better than its effects.
[SECOND ENNEAD, BOOK NINE.]
Against the Gnostics; or, That the Creator and the World are Not Evil.[275]
THE SUPREME PRINCIPLES MUST BE SIMPLE AND NOT COMPOUND.
1. We have already seen[276] that the nature of the Good is simple and primary, for nothing that is not primary could be simple. We have also demonstrated that the nature of the Good contains nothing in itself, but is something unitary, the very nature of the One; for in itself the One is not some thing to which unity could be added, any more than the Good in itself is some thing to which goodness could be added. Consequently, as both the One and the Good are simplicity itself, when we speak of the One and the Good, these two words express but one and the same nature; they affirm nothing, and only represent it to us so far as possible. This nature is called the First, because it is very simple, and not composite; it is the absolute as self-sufficient, because it is not composite; otherwise it would depend on the things of which it was composed. Neither is it predicable of anything (as an attribute in a subject) for all that is in another thing comes from something else. If then this nature be not in anything else, nor is derived from anything else, if it contain nothing composite, it must not have anything above it.
THE ONLY SUPREME PRINCIPLES MUST THEN BE UNITY, INTELLIGENCE AND SOUL.
Consequently there are no principles other (than the three divine hypostatic substances); and the first rank will have to be assigned to Unity, the second to Intelligence, as the first thinking principle,[277] and the third to the Soul. Such indeed is the natural order, which admits of no further principles, in the intelligible world. If less be claimed, it is because of a confusion between the Soul and Intelligence, or Intelligence with the First; but we have often pointed out their mutual differences.[278] The only thing left is to examine if there might not be more than these three hypostatic substances; and in this case, what their nature might be.