God as the monad in Divine Names

God and the hypotheses of Parmenides

Speaking contradictions on God
Dionysius in Divine names speak on God in contradictory terms:
absolute unity congaing in itself plurality
cause of creation completely dissimilar with it
known as the cause absolutely unknown
Importance of Platos Parmenides
In dialogue of Plato - Parmenides we can nd
the scheme which was used by almost all
neoplatonic philosophers to describe God.
This dialogue is claimed to be the most
unclear and obscure of all dialogues.
Parmenides for Neoplatonists it become a
primal source of information on noetic realm.
The rst part of the dialogue is the discussion between
Parmenides and Socrates on the nature of ideas.
Second part is the discussion between Parmenides and
Aristoteles on the nature of the One - supreme idea of Platos
system.
The second part of the dialogue can be divided in the three
following parts - three hypotheses.
This difcult second part of the dialogue is generally agreed to
be one of the most challenging, and sometimes bizarre, pieces in
the whole of the Platonic corpus.
Content of Parmenides
Hypothesis 1: If supreme idea is one
The one cannot be made up of parts and cannot be a single
part, because a part must be section of a whole, in order to be
different from many.
So it has not a beginning, a center or an end thus it cannot be
spherical or linear. Since the one cannot be touched because
has got no parts, it is neither anywhere nor into itself, because
it would be many.
Therefore the one cannot move and cannot dematerialize in
order to reappear in another place. The one must be itself and
cannot be different from it. The one does not take part in the
owing of time so it is imperishable.
Hypothesis 2: If the one is
The one is, it must be and it is part of the being.
The one does not participate of the being, so it must be a single part.
The being is unlimited and is contained in everything, big or small it
is. So, since the one is part of the being, it is divided in as many
parts as the being, thus it is unnished.
The parts are themselves sections of a whole, the whole is delimited
conrming the presence of a beginning, a centre, and an end.
If the whole is into some of its parts, it will be the plus into the
minus, and different from itself.
The one is also elsewhere, it is stationary and in movement at the
same time.
Hypothesis 3: If the one is not
If the one is not it participates of everything different from him, so everything is partially
one.
Similarity, dissimilarity, bigness, equality and smallness belong to it since the one is
similar to itself but dissimilar to anything that is, but it can be big or small as regards
dissimilarity and equal as concerns similarity.
So the one participates of the non-being and also of the being because you can think of it.
Therefore the one becomes and perishes and, since it participates of the non-being, stays.
The one removes from itself the contraries so that it is unnameable, not disputable, not
knowable or sensible or showable.
The other things appear one and many, limited and unlimited, similar and dissimilar, the
same and completely different, in movement and stationary, and neither the rst nor the
latter thing since they are different from the one and other things. Eventually they are not.
So if the one is not, the being is not.
Neoplatonic interpretations
Neoplatonic philosophers commonly claimed
that third hypothesis is only the continuation of
the rst, so for them there were only two
hypotheses;
First - if the One is not (containing rst and third
hypotheses of second part of Parmenides)
Second - if the one is (the same with second
hypothesis)
Names of God
In his treatise Divine Names, Dionysius attributes the
following positive names to God to describe God as a
monad:
Good
Being, Life, Wisdom
Power, Peace, Greatness and Smallness, Sameness
and Difference, Similarity and Dissimilarity, Rest
and Motion, Equality
One
Origin of the names
Dionysius claims that those names are taken
from Holy Scripture but
These names are gathered from Platos Republic,
Sophist and Parmenides, the Platonist triad of
Being, Life, Intellect (on, zo, nous), being
ultimately drawn from Platos Sophist 248E,
though more immediately from later Platonist
sources extending from Porphyry to Proclus
Neoplatonists use of names
The Neoplatonists in commentaries to Platos Parmenides, used the names to
describe God and noetic realm.
Plotinus and Iamblichus, assigned the positive characteristics of the
second hypothesis to the intelligible and intellectual realms, while
applying the negations of the rst to the One
For Proclus positive attributes of the Parmenides should, be attributed
to the mediating intellectual orders, which are dependent upon the
One as its inferiors. The One itself, can be described only with the
negations formulated by the Parmenides.
Only Porphyry does not observe this distinction between the rst and
second hypotheses as referring to the One and the realm of the
Intellect.
Dionysius use of names
Dionysius, like Porphyry, can be seen as applying the rst
and second hypotheses of the Parmenides to the same
supreme principle, dividing the hypotheses according to the
appropriate functions of the divine:
the rst hypothesis expresses God in his transcendent state
the second hypothesis describes God in his creative aspect
Dionysius is original in creating new - Christian vision, or is
he only following Porphyry?
God described and beyond
description.
By using these names, Dionysius discusses the aspects of
God by which he is both the very essence of these names
and beyond them:
In this way, Dionysius attributes both the second
hypothesis of Platos Parmenides (that the One is) and
the rst hypothesis (that the One is not) to God.
The Divine Names is, then, an exposition of the supremacy
of the Godhead, both as to how it encompasses and how
it simultaneously surpasses the totality of creation.
God as the Good
In Chapter 4 of the Divine Names, Dionysius speaks on
name of good. This is averring name for the others like:
light, beautiful, love, ecstasy and zeal.
For platonic tradition Sun was always the best way to
describe God.
Sun makes all things visible and gives life to all things.
It cannot be perceived itself because it blinds the
observing eye.
God as the One
God is principally oneness in and of himself, and he exists
in a state of remaining within himself (mon). Even when
God processes outward to create the universe, he remains
within himself.
His oneness shapes the universe. This quality of unity is
shared with the rest of the universe in so far as everything
has some degree of unity which it derives from its
participation in the divine oneness.
Name of the One is connected with the name Perfect,
because to be perfect means to be One.
Beginning, middle and the end
Dionysius says that God is the creative source, middle, and end of
all things (DN 824A) he follows Proclus:
The rst principle is beginning and middle and end, but he is not
himself divided into beginning and middle and end; for he is the
beginning of all things because all things are directed towards him;
for all pangs of desire and all natural striving are directed towards
the One, as the sole Good; and he is the middle because all the
centres of existent things, whether intelligible, intellectual, psychic
or sensible, are established in the One; so that the One is the
beginning, the middle and the end of all things, but in relation to
himself he possesses none of these, seeing that he possesses no other
type of multiplicity. (Komentarz do Parmenidesa 1115, 271116, 1)
Being, life and wisdom
The Platonic triad of Being, Life and Intellect plays a central role in the
Dionysian system, (chapters 57 of the Divine Names). It was also of the
most importance in pagan systems.
In systems of Athenian Platonists (Proclus) this triad serves to describe
noetic realm, which is divided to triads and enneads which corresponds
pagan gods.
Unlike the Athenian Platonists, but like Porphyry, Dionysius places Being,
Life and Wisdom within the One as its attributes.
Dionysius uses the triad of Being, Life and Intellect (replacing Intellect
with Wisdom) to Christianize the Neoplatonic triad, so that it refers to
God himself, not to an aspect of the second hypostasis and noetic cosmos.
Status of Divine Names
For Dionysius and all ancient authors who knew neoplatonic
philosophy it was obvious that he only speaks on God in
neoplatonic manner.
Everybody understood that they were names of God and the
supreme ideas, and paradigms of all things.
However in all Christian tradition Christ himself was the Logos
containing all ideas and paradigms in himself. For Dionysius
Christ is a person of Trinity which is above all, also above names,
because Trinity is above all.
So if God is transcendent can we see Divine Names as mediative
beings existing separately between God and creatures?
What Dionysius says about the
status of Divine names
They are paradigms (paradeigmata) - forms of all creations
They are providences (pronoias), because they are
expression of Gods intentions (designs) of how the world
will be created.
They are acts of God s will (energeias) they are specic
acts of unmeasured and innite activity of God.
They are active symbols playing important role in
ascension of the soul to God.
Names as ideas (exemplars)
The exemplars (paradeigmata) of everything
preexist as a transcendent unity within It. It brings forth
being as a tide of being. We give the name of "exemplar"
to those principles which preexist as a unity in God and
which produce the essences of things. Theology calls
them predening, divine and good acts of will which
determine and create things and in accordance with
which the Transcendent One predened and brought
into being everything that is. (DN V, 8, 824 C).
Names as providences
I do not think of the Good as one thing, Being as another,
Life and Wisdom as yet other, and I do not claim that there are
numerous causes and different Godheads (theothetas), all
differently ranked, superior and inferior, and all producing
different effects. No. But I hold that there is one God for all
these good processions and that he is the possessor of the
divine names of which I speak and that the rst name tells of
the universal Providence of the one God, while the other
names reveal general or specic ways in which he acts
providentially. (DN V, 2, 816 C 817 A)