Many / One

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Compiled by JoAnn Kite

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Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works
John Farina, Editor-in-Chief
Complete works of Dionysius the Aeropagite

1 “The supra-divine transcendentally one God dwells indivisibly in every individual.”

2 "He is the Source and the measure of the ages. He is the reality beneath time and the eternity behind being. He is the time within which things happen. He is being for whatever is. He is coming-to-be amid whatever happens. From Him who Is come eternity, essence and being, come time, genesis, and becoming. He is the being immanent in and underlying the things which are, however they are."

3 “God is one and he dispenses his oneness to every part of the universe as well as to its totality, to the single as well as to the multiple. He is one in an unchanging and transcendent way.”

4 “As St. Paul said and as true reason has said, the ordered arrangement of the whole visible realm makes known the invisible things of God.”

5 "The soul has movement – First it moves in a circle, that is, it turns within itself and away from what is outside and there is an inner concentration of its intellectual powers. A sort of fixed revolution causes it to return from the multiplicity of externals, to gather in upon itself and then, in this undispersed condition, to join those who are themselves in a powerful union. From there the revolution brings the soul to the Beautiful and the Good, which is beyond all things, is one and the same, and has neither beginning nor end."

6 “Providence has neither a beginning nor an end, and is open to all and encompasses all.”

7 "The name 'One' means that God is uniquely all things through the transcendence of one unity and that He is the cause of all without ever departing from that oneness. Nothing in the world lacks its share of the One…that One which in its utterly comprehensive unity uniquely contains all and everything beforehand, even opposites."

8 "God displays neither a grudge nor profane anger over previous apostasy and transgressions. In godlike fashion he gives to all who approach his guiding light and does so in harmonious and orderly fashion and in proportion to the disposition of each one toward the sacred."

9 "We must make the holy journey to the heart of the sacred symbols."

10 "Godhead is granted as a gift to all things. It flows over in shares of goodness to all. And it becomes differentiated in a unified way. It is multiplied and yet remains singular. It is dispensed to all without ceasing to be a unity….God is indivisible multiplicity, the unified overfullness, which produces, perfects, and preserves all unity and all multiplicity….In fact, He is the one God who dwells indivisibly in every individual and who is in Himself undifferentiated unity with no commixture and no multiplication arising out of His presence among the many."

11 “Wisdom is the One who renews and makes perfect.”

12 “Every number preexists uniquely in the monad and the monad holds every number in itself singularly. Every number is united in the monad; it is differentiated and pluralized only insofar as it goes forth from this one.”

13 "For anyone, purification consists of a participation in the transparent clarity of the Godhead."

14 "To praise this divinely benificent Providence you must turn to all of creation. It is there at the center of everything and everything has it for a destiny. It is there 'before all things and in it all things hold together (Col. 1:17)."

15 “All the radii of a circle are brought together in the unity of the center which contains all the straight lines brought together within itself. These are linked one to another because of this single point of origin and they are completely unified at this center.”

16 "We must learn about Wisdom from all things. As scripture says, 'Wisdom has made and continues always to adapt everything (Ps. 104:24). It is the cause of the unbreakable accomodation and order of all things and it is forever linking the goals of one set of things with the sources of another and in this fashion it makes a thing of beauty of the unity and the harmony of the whole."

17 “The goodness of the Deity has endless love for humanity.”

18 “Nothing possessed of being lies outside the workings of Providence.”

19 "If we are enlightened by the contemplation of and knowledge of the One we are enabled to be unified, to achieve a truly divine oneness and it will never happen that we succumb to that fragmentation…which is the source of hostility between equals."

20 “Everything, and every part of everything, participates in the One.”

21 “There is nothing in the world without a share of the Beautiful and the Good.”

22 "There is a simple self-moving power directing all things to mingle as one; it starts out from the Good, reaches down to the lowliest creation, returns then in due order through all the stages back to the Good, and thus turns from itself and through itself and upon itself and toward itself in an everlasting circle."

23 “The power of the Godhead spreads out everywhere, penetrates all things irresistibly.”

24 “God is in our minds, in our souls, and in our bodies, in heaven and on earth.”

25 "Now this is unified and one and common to the whole divinity, that the entire wholeness is participated in by each of those who participate in it; none participates in only a part. It is rather like the case of a circle. The center point of the circle is shared by the surrounding radii. Or take the example of a seal. There are numerous impressions of the seal and these all have a share in the original prototype; it is the same whole seal in each of the impressions and none participates in only a part."

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite