On the Divine Names

Dionysius the Areopagite

On the Divine Names

Dionysius the Areopagite

Περὶ θείων ὀνομάτων

On the Divine Names (De divinis nominibus) is the chief theological treatise of the Christian Neoplatonist writing under the name Dionysius the Areopagite, probably in the late fifth or early sixth century. Addressed to Timothy, it unfolds the names predicated of God — Good, Light, Beauty, Love, Being, Life, Wisdom, Power, Justice, and the rest — through thirteen chapters, grounding each name in Scripture and in the tradition of Hierotheus. Its account of divine procession, participation, and the beautiful-and-good became foundational for Byzantine and medieval Latin theology, and it is among the authorities Aquinas cites most. Schola presents the Greek text with the Latin translation of Balthasar Corderius and the English translation of John Parker (1897).


CAPUT I. Quis libri finis, et quae e divinis nominibus prodita tandem esse, et ex rebus sensibilibus non posse cognosci

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CAPUT II. unio et distinctio.

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CAPUT III. Quae sit vis orationis, et de beato Hierotheo, de religione et conscriptione theologica.

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CAPUT IV. De bono, luce, pulchro, amore, exstasi, zelo; et quod malum neque ens sit, neque ex entibus, neque in entibus.

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CAPUT V. De ente, in quo etiam de exemplaribus.

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CAPUT VI. De vita.

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CAPUT VII. De sapientia, mente, ratione, veritate, fide.

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CAPUT VIII. De potentia, justitia, salute, redemptione; ubi etiam de inaequalitate.

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CAPUT IX. De magno, parvo, eodem, alio, simili, dissimili, statu, motu, aequalitate.

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Almighty God, then, is named great in reference to His own peculiar greatness, which imparts itself to all things great; and overflows, and extends itself outside of all greatness; embracing every place, surpassing every number, going through every infinitude, both in reference to its super-fulness, and mighty operation, and its fontal gifts, in so far as these, being participated by all in a stream of boundless gifts, are altogether undiminished, and have the same superfulness, and are not lessened by the impartations, but are even still more bubbling over. This Greatness then is infinite, and without measure and without number. And this is the preeminence as regards the absolute and surpassing flood of the incomprehensible greatness.

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CAPUT X. De omnitenente, antiquo dierum; in quo etiam de aevo seu aeternitate et tempore.

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CAPUT XI. De pace, quidque sibi velit ipsum per se esse, quae sit per se vita, quae vis ipsa per se, et quae illa coordinat atque conciliat, et quinam sint ejus effectus.

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CAPUT XII. De Sancto sanctorum, Rege regum, Domino dominantium, Deo deorum.

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CAPUT XIII. De perfecto et uno.

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