[209]The reference is to such passages as 2 Cor. xii. 1 ff., Gal. i. 12, ii. 2, etc.
[210]This is the third argument.
[211]A rather forced and fanciful statement. Dionysius appears loosely to refer to 1 Cor. xii. 8, somewhat boldly substituting “of speech” (τῆς φράσεως) for St. Paul’s “of wisdom.”
[212]Cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 6 and 8.
[213]i. e. the results not of design but of the fortuitous intersection of lines of causation.
[214]Gen. i. 31.
[215]The argument appears to be that, as on a small scale design is “evident in the construction or repairing of a thing but is absent in its decay,” so the orderly creation and maintenance of the Universe on the large scale implies intelligent direction.
[216]Hesiod (Works and Days, 554) is meant, but of course 100 stands here, as elsewhere, for an indefinitely large number.
[217]The point is that movement which is useful suggests design: but as the movement of the atoms is without design, it cannot be useful.
[218]Ps. cxxxviii. (cxxxix.) 16. Dionysius quotes the best text here of LXX, but his application is rather obscure. Apparently he means that the Epicureans claimed to know without either revelation or research what the Psalmist knew only by revelation from God.