[29]. Jules Simon, ii. 218.
[30]. All these orders gaze admiring upward, and exert an influence downward (each on that immediately beneath it), so that they all together reciprocally draw and are drawn toward God. Dionysius gave himself with such zeal to the contemplation of them that he named and distinguished them as I have done.
[31]. Athanasii Opp. Vita S. Antonii. The vision alluded to is related p. 498.
[32]. Poiret, Bibliotheca Mysticorum, p. 95. Macarius gives great prominence to the doctrine of Union—describes the streaming in of the Hypostatic Light—how the spiritual nature is all-pervaded by the glory, and even the body is not so gross as to be impenetrable by the divine radiance. Some centuries later we find the monks of Mount Athos professing to discern this supernatural effulgence illuminating their stomachs. Gass, Die Mystik des N. Cabasilas, p. 56.
[33]. In the year 533 the books of Dionysius were cited by the Severians, and their genuineness called in question by the bishop because neither Athanasius nor Cyril had made any allusion to them. Acta Concil. Hard. ii. p. 1159.
[34]. For the passages authenticating this account, see Dion. Areop. Opp. as follows:—
(1.) De Div. Nom. c. iv. § 1; v. 3, 6, 8; vi. 2, 3; i. 1. De Eccl. Hier. i. 3.
(2.) De Cœl. Hier. i. 2, 3; v. 3, 4; vii. De Eccl. Hier. i. 1; x. 3. The resemblance of this whole process to the Pröodos and Epistrophe of Plotinus is sufficiently obvious.
(3.) De Div. Nom. iv. 20, p. 488. The chase after evil runs through sections 24-34. He sums up in one place thus:—‘In a word, good springs from the sole and complete cause, but evil from many and partial defects. God knows the evil as good, and with him the causes of things evil are beneficent powers.’ Proclus seeks escape from the hopeless difficulty in precisely the same way.
Concerning the Via negativa and affirmativa, see De Div. Nom. i. 1, 5, 4; De Cœl. Hier. xv.; and De Myst. Theol. i. 2, 3.