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Archive for Medieval Philosophy and Culture / Archiv für mittelalterliche Philosophie
und Kultur
Location: Bulgaria IssueNr: 06 IssueYear: 2000
Author(s): Oleg Georgiev
Title: Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Thomas Aquinas on the Nature of the
Individually Subsistent. The Meaning of ipsum esse and ipsum esse commune
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Thomas Aquinas on the Nature of the
Individually Subsistent. The Meaning of ipsum esse and ipsum esse commune
Citation style: Oleg Georgiev. "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Thomas Aquinas on the
Nature of the Individually Subsistent. The Meaning of ipsum esse and ipsum esse
commune". Архив за средновековна философия и култура 06:55-68.
http://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=257009
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PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

AND THOMAS AQUINAS ON THE NATURE
OF THE INDIVIDUALLY SUBSISTENT. THE
MEANINGS OF IPSUM ESSE AND IPSUM
ESSE COMMUNE

OLEG GEORGIEV (Sofia)

This paper is dedicated to the problem of the individual determination

of final being, whose projection shall be sought in Pseudo-Dionysius's
Divine Names as well as in Thomas Aquinas's commentaries on that
text. Without neglecting the scope and seriousness of the Thomistic
interpretation or the recently voiced opinions that Aquinas was not
as adverse to Platonism as he was thought to be, I shall try to present
Dionysius's view against the backdrop ofthe Thomistic commentary since
there are both many common points and essential differences in their views
and understanding on this central doctrine.

PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS AND THOMAS AQUINAS: TWO

POINTS OF VIEW ON THE PLACE OF THE NAMES
"GOOD" AND "SUBSISTENT"

One of Dionysius's principal tasks in outlining the teaching of God

is to explain the names (9EroV'\lLiat) by which He is denominated in the
Scripture itself. There is ~irect evidence about these in the latter, and
the Fathers of the Church used them when speaking of Him. And, since
these names not only pertain to His inner life but also reflect His attitude
to the external world, i.e. the world of the created things, in either case
symbolic designations are used quite frequently. In this case, however, one
should be aware that "the unarticulated status of the providential ideas",
their "abiding in themselves", is the reason why the divine Providence
is unrevealed. In their articulation or "procession out" of themselves
Providence is "revealed" and is "benevolently acting". It is the starting
point of His oeconomical action l . The mode of being which the ideas of the

I l. CHRISTOV, ""Y1tEpOXl.1CTt eUio1tOt.l.(l and 11" QV in DN IV 3, 697A and in

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56 OLEG GEORGIEV

divine Providence obtain in order to act in this way, is the second moment
in its emanation. This mode of being, which distinguishes them from the
nature of the creatures, is expressed by the adjective "pre-eminent" in its
second meaning. Thus, the initial unarticulated completeness of divine
Providence is expressed by the name of Good, but it can also express
the further development of the being of these ideas, which provides the
ontological ground for the analogical being, both of the forms and of the
matter in creation2 • Insofar as, however, the names used to express the
inner trinitarian relations permit only partial elucidation - for example,
by mystical contemplation - Dionysius strictly requires a distinction
between them and those predicates which express the divine attitude to
the outer world'. All this shows why the doctrine of the divine names was
so important for medieval theological tradition, both in the East and in
the West, one that can be presented in detail in the way it is developed
in the Divine Names.
According to Dionysius, the names he comments upon designate the
divine manifestations in final being (npoo&n, 8tc(1(pion~, ElCqxivon~) as
the unattainable reasons for the creation and functioning of the world.
They proceed from their own unattainability and unity and are revealed by
the creation of the many, of the final beings, as well as in their relations
to it, while they continue to be unattainable and uniform4 • It is exactly
because God shares Himself in these processions out into final beings
that He allows the human mind to name Him. This was probably the
occasion whereby, in his works (which have survived to this day), Pseudo-
Dionysius tried to suggest the different ways to discover a likeness of
Divinity in final being.
As we know, unlike Aquinas, Pseudo-Dionysius placed "Good"
above all other divine names 5 • Good is applied to God because it must
be recognised as a reason, both for the creation of the world and for
all subsequent relations between the world and God. This "pre-eminent
production of forms", the emanation of the Good, which articulates in

the Commentaries by John of Scythopolis and Thomas Aquinas", in: Archiv fur
mittelalterliche Philosophie und Kultur, Heft III (edd. T. BOlADJ1E'I G. APRIE'I
A. SPEER), Sofia 1996, p. 4l.
2 Ibid.

, De divinis nominibus (= DN) 11,2, 640Aij n, 3, 640BC, in, Migne PG, 3.

4 DN 11, 11, 649BD.

5 DNIIl, 1, 680ij XIII, 3, 981B.

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itself all the providential ideas without giving the start of the creation.
God is Good just as the sun shines6, and God is the spiritual light for
the spiritual worJd1.
According to Pseudo-Dionysius, Good is the universal and transcen-
dental name which expresses the nature of God and Being, expressing
that which is universally and originally like the first gift for creation. It is
interesting to note here the importance Dionysius attaches to the value of
being in itself as that which essentially determines the perfection of final
being. This is what we discover in his explanation of the subsistent as first
divine effect and first participation.
Should we follow along the line of the subsequent definition of the
Absolute, we shall see that, after the first and most general name of "Good" ,
the next name reflects God's attitude to the various aspects and ranges of
final being. In the first place, Pseudo-Dionysius has listed in hierarchical
order the differences between the rational creatures: those who stand on the
highest level of being and who incorporate in themselves all the predicates
of the creatures of lower order. Dionysius apprehends as the next "divine
names" the essence or being (oixria), natural power or ability (ouval-.w;), and
action (evEpycl.a) as their (i.e. of the celestial powers) manifestations. The
fact that, before being in any way predicated, everything that subsists must
have being in one way or another, is essential for him. From everything
subsistent he extracts the narrower range of that which has not only being
but life as well. Then we have the even more narrow range of creatures
who lead a rational life: beginning with the lowest manifestations of reason
accompanied by sensory perception, then the conscious discursive thinking
of man and, finally, the pure contemplation of incorporeal natures9 • In
relation to this scheme God, as the reason for all being, is also the reason
for the being of every particular being, the reason for life - of those
endowed with life in general and with rational life in particular - and He
is consequently called Being, Life, Wisdom, Mind, Word and Truth lo • It
is obvious that, in determining the relation of the Absolute to the finite
as the reason for its being, Dionysius has achieved the ultimate level of
conclusiveness. God is the reason for all being, not just as a particular

6 DN IV, I, 693B.
7 Ibid. IV, 5-6, 700C-70IB.
S De caelesti hierarchia (= CH) XI, 2, 284D-285A.
9 DNV, I, 816ij VII, 2, 868BC.
10 Ibid. V, 2, 816C.

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58 OLEG GEORGIEV

form of subsistence but above all a reason - considered as the very being
of that which exists - taken separately from the other definitions. In other
words, not only that which subsist ('m ovro) simply as subsisting, before
all other definitions came into being, participates in the idea of being, but
these definitions themselves have to participate in this idea. Consequently,
being in itself emanates from God and exists in God. Everything, however,
exists in Him as in indelible unity, exists ideally, as ideal prototypes of
everything that subsists ll .

How THOMAS AQUINAS CONCEIVED PSEUDO-

DIONYSIUS'S IDEA OF THE SUBSISTENT. THE IDEA
OF THE UNIVERSALLY SUBSISTENT AS THE FIRST
CREATED PERFECTION

Pseudo-Dionysius proclaimed his concept of nature and the status of

the subsistent in Chapter V of the Divine Names where he interpreted the
name "being", applying it to God l2 • To Pseudo-Dionysius, who follows the
Neo-Platonic tradition, Good is a name innate to God and being is the first
among the created perfections. That is why Being is nobler than the names
given to the created which can be said in the glory of God. To Aquinas, on
the other hand, Being is not only the first perfection for ultimate reality but
also the most essential and innate to God's name 13 • And, inasmuch as for
man concepts like "being in itself' and "life in itself' are pure abstraction,
Dionysius warns the reader of the danger that these concepts might be
hypostasised and - like the pagan philosophers - turned into creatures,
i.e. the most terrible gods or demiurges l4 • The divine names are used to
designate God Himself as one cause above everything else as well as of
the actions or powers that proceed from Him. These names are intended
to show that God really is above all concepts borrowed from finite being,
so that the finite being itself depends on Him and is in Him l5 • What is
more, the Absolute is not only the cause of finite being and its particular
constitution according to its beginning, but it is also an all-acting force

11 Ibid. V, 8, 824AB.
12 Ibid. V, 8, 816B.
13 F. O'ROUR E, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (STGMA
32), Leiden - New York - Koln 1992, p.133.
14 DN Xl, 6. 953BC.

15 ef. ibid. V, 5, 820AC.

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(8i:rV<l\..ltC;) which constantly sustains that being and whose influence spreads
over all its spheres.
The commentary of Thomas Aquinas, however, is directed elsewhere
on principle: to him it is essentially important to say that Dionysius has
pointed out with the help of two arguments why the name of Being or
"Quo est" can be predicated as quite appropriate for God. At the basis of
his commentary one can discern a tradition which has its beginnings in
Boethius and, more particularly, his third theological treatise l6 , where the
difference between "quo est" and "id quod est" is questioned. In fact,
this assumption gives him reason to assert that these two arguments are
simply two aspects of one relation of causality. As the beginning, God
can be named according to the first created effect, i.e. according to the
sublime perfection that He has produced - Being (Exod. 3: 14) is the
supraessential and substantial cause of all possible being. According to
Aquinas, Dionysius had first to prove that sublime superiority of being in
relation to the creature in order to attribute Being to God before all other
names 17 • This should make us apprehend that, according to the scholastic
authority, good can be regarded from the horizon of causality which, in turn,
leads to the assumption that good is in God as a cause. It is obvious that the
"causal reconsideration" of the divine energies in the spirit of a certain type
of causality leads to a limitation and simplification of their contents: they
are the result of some cause rather than the cause itself.
Thus one can take the next step which turns over the metaphysical
horizon of Pseudo-Dionysius: every thing is perfect and can strive after
perfection inasmuch as it actually exists, i.e. the thing is good because
of the very fact of existence in the hierarchy of being. One should not
forget, however, that everything that exists has being from the horizon
of Neo-Platonic speculation, inasmuch as it participates in the one or
constitutes in itself the realisation of the idea of unity l8. Unity exists
before plurality, and if the single can exist without the many, the many
is unthinkable without the one l9 . Therefore, insofar as the name "good"
does not merely express the essence of the unpronounceable divine Nature,

16 Quomodo substantiae in eo quod sint bonae sin! cum non sint substantialia

bona, in: BOETHIUS, Die Theologischen Traktate, ed. M. ELS SSER, Hamburg
1988, pp. 34 sqq.
17 DN V, 4, 5, in Migne PG, 3, 817C - 820e.
18/bid. Xlii, 2, 977B.
19 XlII, 2, 980A.

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60 OLEG GEORGIEV

the energies are God's being and presence out of Himself, and they
originally proceed from the divine essence, regardless of whether the
creature has being or not.
In the second place, the argument is referred to the level of participation
by hierarchical ordering of the value of being, revealed in the first part
of the contention "He says that God is preceding and superior being in a
preceding and superior way"20, i.e. in the unity and superabundance of his
Being he holds the immeasurable measure of any perfection. The Thomistic
"metaphysics of participation", however, differs on principle from the
Dionysian understanding on the matter: the essence or nature of God is
not a form to which the creatures can participate. Here Aquinas follows
Aristotle, to whom participation is a "poetic form" or "empty metaphor".
And inasmuch as creatures have their being and good not from their own
essence, but they are caused by and through that which is being and good
according to its essence, Aquinas established his own - philosophical in
principle! - idea of creation by the concept of participation. It is then that
the difference between being per essentiam and being per participationem
shall express the difference between God and the creatures21 .
The conclusion one could make from the Thomistic commentary is
that the giving divine causality, that could even more appropriately be
named by its principality and supremely dignified effects22, is the essence
of understanding that which is its principal dignified effect and original
participation. All this, however, does not lead the reader to the meaning
implied by Dionysius, according to whom it is by the fact of being that
essence has natural power and action, i.e. its own energy, without which
only non-being is possible.
It is obvious on the other hand that this commentary is indicative of
Aquinas's efforts to structure the Dionysian text and then to undertake
its interpretation. The problem lay in the fact that Aquinas made that
interpretation "in harmony" with his own metaphysical scheme, which

20 In librum beati Dionysii De divinis nominibus expositio, ed. C. PERA, Taurini

- Romae 1950, c. V., lect. 1, n. 63; "Hoc ergo est quod dicit quod ipse Deus praeesse
et superesse praehabet et superhabet", in De divinis nominibus, c. V, lect. 1, n. 63;
S. Thomae Opera, Stuttgart - Bad Cannstatt 1980, t. 4.
21 J.A. AERTSEN, "Thomas von Aquin und das Corpus Dionysiacum (das
Prooemium seines Kommentars zu De Divinis Nominibus)", in: Archiv fur
mittelalterliche Philosophie und Kultur (cf. nt. 1), p.18
22 In De divinis nominibus, c. V, lect. 636, n. 400

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inverted some principal points in the text of Dionysius and became a quest
for different meanings. Methodically, as it was characteristic of the views
of the Aristotelians at the University in Paris in the 13th century, Aquina6
explained the conceptual abundance in the text of Pseudo-Dionysius. The
assumption that he employed the Aristotelian logical tools to explain the
Dionysian conceptual vision becomes most obvious in the interpretation
of the concepts of "being" and "one", which to him are indelible 23 because
it is through them that the conceptual contents of a thing are revealed,
a thing which is mutually complementary (by concept)24. That is why,
when he claims that "the divine Essence itself is the good itself', we
see he did not understand Dionysius's view, according to which good
is not connected directly with God's essence, but with His presence.
In other words, the interpretation here should be directed towards the
"indistinguishable difference" between "essence" and "energy", i.e.
between God in His essence and God in His energy, particularly as in
the tradition of Byzantine theonomy, all names which are predicated
to God serve to designate the indelible action of the Trinity and not
His essence.

THE ARISTOTELIAN ELEMENT IN THE WAY THO-

MAS AQUINAS APPREHENDED THE NATURE OF THE
INDIVIDUALLY SUBSISTENT

The problem of explaining the diads of concepts of Dionysius and the

Aristotelian connotation which Thomas Aquinas gave them leads to another
one, discussed even by Aquinas's teacher, Albert the Great. Developing
conceptual diads after the Aristotelian example made it necessary - in
explaining the nature of that which subsists - to introduce the concept of
"attribute", particularly as, for the Aristotelians, Aristotle's idea of attribute
was a way to reveal the mechanism of existence of individual things. In
the natural philosophy of Aristotle, the physical picture of the world is
presented as consisting of two layers: he considers the universe as a whole
and as a sum of individual things which, in turn, allows him to educe two
meanings of the concept of attribute.
When discussing the universe as a whole Aristotle mentions some
diads of attributes which have some role in the continuous reproduction
23 In Iibros Metaphysicorum, leet. IV, leet. I.
24 Ibid.

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62 OLEG GEORGIEV

.and substantiality of the universum: hot-cold, dry-moist and so on, i.e.

they have a structuring role.
The concept of attribute has quite a different role in considering
the universe as consisting of individual things. Every object determines
itself by a set of attributes which, taken as a whole, cause its attributive
determination. We shall then understand attribute as a token ofthe object,
as a feature that allows us to isolate the thing which has these particular
attributes2s • Taken in this sense, the attribute leads us not to something
else, in correlation with its attribute, but to itself and to its carrier, i.e. it
is an attribute of some essence. Second, it affixes the common in objects
establishing a similarity between them26 •
We are aware that, to Aristotle, attributes have a dual role: the token
attributes, determine the form of the object, on the one hand and, on the
other, those that are attributes according to the type of expression. The first
can be related to essence, although they are in themselves attributes of a
special type because it is thanks to them that we can identify some objects as
identical according to their species27 • The intransient and transient attributes,
the abilities and state ofthe object, belong to the second type.
It is obvious that attribute is similar to form in its logical function. All
the functions ofthe attribute described above are predicates ascribed to the
subject. On an ontological plane, the attributes of the object correspond to
the predicates, and only the predicate of form sets the essential attributes;
the accidental attributes correspond to the predicate of attribute and the
indefinite substratum - to the subject. Thus, regarded through the prism of
the categories of subject and predicate, the universe shall consist of particular
units - objects - which differ according to their attributes.
In saying all this I am perfectly aware that, within such theoretical
ontology, it is essentially important to see how Aristotle managed to
prevent the mixing of one type of attributes with another, as well adducing
arguments regarding the unequivocality of the inferences on whether a
particular attribute belongs or does not belong to an object. Obviously, he
applied a procedure for moving between the individual and the universal,
subsequently adopted by both Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, i.e.
the process of abstraction. It is sufficient to educe the desired attribute apart
2S Cat., 8b 25.
26 Met., 1003a 8-9; Cat., Ila 16-19.
27 Cat., 3b 12-17.

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from all the rest, for example, the form of the object which determines
"this" particular object, to see in it that essential which makes it different
from all the rest and which is an unequivocal and easily distinguishable
characteristic of this object. That is so because Aristotle apprehends it as
something self-sufficient and closed within itself, which does not require
justification by anything but itself in its self-determination. To understand,
for example, the concept of "man" no other predicates are necessary:
man himself must reveal the significance and meaning of "humaneness".
Isolating the meaning of the "most essential" predicate ofthe object allowed
Aristotle to speak of its form, however, without the apprehension that some
problems might arise with the distinction from the other objects.
Considered on the level of Aristotle's theoretical ontology, the problem
has yet another aspect: if the particular things can be distinguished by their
individual aspect (forma), then one possible theoretical equivalence of
"individual" and "person" - as presenting the aspect form of the individual
- obviously sets the substance or nature as the starting point of the quest.
Particularly as, in philosophical tradition from the patristic period onwards,
the categories of "form" and "essence" were apprehended as synonyms.
That was why the new point discussed in the period of scholasticism,
required a reconsideration of some fundamental Aristotelian tenets
regarding nature and the existence of individual rational substances,
i.e. to presume the possibility of change of attributes (accidentia) at the
absence of material substance which could bear the respective accidentia.
In other words, the presumption that change was possible at the absence
of a substratum. Such an idea is related directly with the establishment
of the Christian theological doctrine, and it covers the doctrine of God's
grace and the Eucharistic sacrament. We know that Aristotle's scheme of
physical phenomena does not allow a consideration of the change of the
attributes of individual objects in itself. Movement should be understood
not as a transition between contradictory states, but as the acquisition
of an attribute, i.e. as a transition from the lack of an attribute to its
existence. Therefore, the scheme demands that change be considered
only in relation to the attribute in the substratum, i.e. the change of the
material object.
Conversely, Christian dogmatics allow the possibility that man, as
an individual rational substance, can not only achieve different levels
of perfection in his spiritual life but also thereby obtain new life for his
material body. Such a metamorphosis has, of course, the most miraculous

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64 OLEG GEORGIEV

character because it depends on the proportion to which the individual is

blessed with divine mercy or grace. Obviously, in this case grace cannot be
treated as an "attribute" and, in this sense, covered by Aristotelian logic;
it does not refer to human nature and is not part of the definition of man's
essence, it descends. And if one should speak here of the intermediary
which makes this process of descension possible, i.e. the soul as a non-
material substance, then the possibility to receive grace in a different degree
and to achieve different degrees of perfection cannot be referred to the
Aristotelian concept of the substratum as a principle of divisibility because
the soul, as an immaterial substance, is indivisible.
In other words, such changes cannot be explained with reference to the
substratum when, as it happens with the other objects, the gradual transition
from the beginning of the change to the final result is valid. The attempts to
apprehend grace in the terms of the Aristotelian categorial scheme and from
the point of view of his theory of the attribute should lead to its consideration
as an attributive continuous string, without any relation to the substratum.
Therefore, without reconsidering the concept of attribute, medieval theology
could not theorize on the Eucharistic sacrament. Generally speaking,
however, such a theoretical stand questions one of the fundamental concepts
of Aristotelian ontology, i.e. the concept ofform.
The above reflects directly on the understanding of the concept of
"common being" in Pseudo-Dionysius and Thomas Aquinas, expressed
in the way the scholastic author apprehended the concept of 1:0 El vat auw
(John the Saracen translated it as ipsum esse) to which Aquinas added
commune. This addition was essential to Aquinas because it reflected the
metaphysical systematics he applied to the subsistent whereby, as Fran
O'Rourke has pointed out 28 , it gave rise to numerous questions among the
translators and commentators of the scholastic authority.
The cause of all things, i.e. the good God, is also the final goal of all
that exists as absolute good and absolute perfection. It is for this reason
exactly that the meaning of the subsistence of finite creatures consists in a
desire to communicate or become one with Him, a desire to emulate him,
a desire for "theosys" (8£OJ<JtC;)29. Those who stand on the highest possible
levels of perfection and are closest to God in the common hierarchy of

28 F. O'ROURKE, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (ef.

nt. 13),p.140
29 De ecclesiastica hierarchia (= EH) I, 3, in Migne PG, 3,371 C-376A

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life should be the ones that guide those on the lower levels. Naturally,
as absolute goodness and perfection, God Himself is not just a passive
object or conceivable ideal of perfection in relation to this desire of the
finite creatures to reach Him. It is to Him, as one can see from the Divine
Names, that the ultimate activity belongs, both in relation to the universal
process in general and to the living rational creatures in particular. He is
the all-pervading force which attracts everything to itself. God Himself
acts through His powers and energies in the world, and the world in its
being seems to emulate the actions of the Absolute, reflecting His activity.
Applied to rational creatures who, to a greater or lesser degree, have that
which is necessary for the objectives of religious life, we come to the
meaning Dionysius implied in the concept of "hierarchy". In its concrete
meaning, this concept expresses the order of creatures who, above all in
relation to themselves, carry out the requirements of religious life and
who, for this reason exactly, are primary in reference to the being of the
rest30 . This should tell us that the concept of "hierarchy" established in the
Dionysian texts is mostly applied in relation to the spiritual world.
The principal meaning of being in Dionysius cannot be understood
correctly only by the act of reflection on the finite being if one does not
always bear in mind its origin and its directness as creative mediator
through which God is presented in and to all creatures. Aquinas insists,
however, that a thing first has being before we perceive it as "one", "living"
or "rational". To create the hierarchy of being he, unlike Dionysius, has to
prove that God "participates in being itself (ipsum esse) before any other
perfection; thus, being per se is more ancient, i.e. it is higher and more
dignified than life itself'31. Life and reason are certain modes of being,
and being is therefore before life and reason and is simpler than either.
According to Aquinas, it is connected to them both sicut participatum ad
participans and ut actus eorum. Obviously, being to him is the principle
of all principles of participation of the being32 .
In fact, this is one ofthe principal motifs of all Thomistic interpretation:
according to him, Dionysius wants us to understand that "communal being
itself is from God" (quod etiam ipsum esse commune est a Deo)33, i.e.

30 CHIII, I, 164D.
31 In De divinis nominibus, c. V, lect. 1,633.
32 F. O'ROURKE, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (cf.
nt. 13), p.13S.
33 In De divinis nominibus, c. V, lect. 2,653.

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66 OLEG GEORGIEV

God is the cause of common being itself (quod Deus est causa ipsus esse
commune) and that being in itself is common to all things (et... quod
ipsum esse est omnibus commune)34.
It seems to me that such a conclusion is predetermined by the specifics
of the Thomistic interpretation and the metaphysical Thomistic horizon
in general. The addition of commune is essentially important to Aquinas,
inasmuch as it is the element of abstraction that has to keep the relation
of one-many, extremely important on a metaphysical plane. It is true that
everything has its being from the Being, but it has it as the being of the
individually existing thing. What should unite the individually existing
things should predicate to them some universal, unifying characteristic
which, along with the one, also retains its meaning as "one-of-many".
Without such a universal characteristic Aquinas would have found
it impossible to understand the hierarchy of the created world and
philosophical cognition would be pointless. For it is within Aristotelian
ontology that, by common nature, everything that has being is an object
or essence where the unity of matter and form constitutes the object, and
that is reflected in the concept of "essence". In turn, as essence, it is a sum
of attributes, along with the substratum to which they are ascribed. Such
a structure of the Universe, as a sum of objects which can be reduced to a
sum of attributes and can be arranged in generic and special order, i.e. to
a categorial structure of being, is in accordance with the subject-predicate
structure of the language 35 . Particularly as, if our knowledge of being
proceeds from the existential presence of individually existing things, we
should bear in mind not only the fact of their essential and actual being, but
their presence in the intellect of the one cognizant.
In the long run, this explains why Thomas placed self-sufficient being
(ens) as the starting principle of his philosophising and why the rejection of
Good as such a principle gave life to Thomistic causal metaphysics. There,
as the object of philosophical interest, we have a rational reconstruction of
being affixed as an immediately existing fact.
Conversely, Pseudo-Dionysius has no need of such an accessory,
inasmuch as the Dionysian metaphysical frame is hierarchised according
to other principles. What unites his scheme are the divine energies, through

34 F. O'ROURKE, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (ef.

nt. 13), pp. 139-140.
35 Cat., 2. 1b 1-24

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which and to which things participate in the Good insofar as Good is a

name indicating God's gracious energies, i.e. His essential actions. Here,
however, we should not forget that neither God nor His actions are Good
in itself: they are Good in relation to the creatures, and the creatures have
it in themselves only as effect, not as an Essence in which they really
participate in the divine energy.
All this should indicate that we can consider the explanation of
objective relations of the final creatures, both with the Absolute and
between themselves, as one ofthe principal objectives ofthe Divine Names.
The laws of spiritual and religious life, according to Dionysius, should be
identical, both for the pure spiritual natures and for the spiritually-sensorial
ones. All rational creatures have one and the same goal: God and the Good
emanating from Him; they seek communion, union with Him.

IN LIEU OF EPILOGUE

Finally, I would like to say a few words about the as of recently

increasingly popular objection to the assertion that, in his commentary on the
Divine Names, Thomas Aquinas placed an Aristotelian accent on the general
Neo-Platonic construction. In his commentary on the well-known sentence in
Liber de causis 36 , where it is said that "the first of creatures is being", he adds
"the word 'being' does not refer to the subject of creation, but to the proper
concept of the object of creation" (propria ratio obiecti creationis - S.
th. I, q. 45, a 4, 1, et ad. 1). Further on, he says, "For a created thing is called
created because it is a being, not because it is 'this' being, since creation is
the emanation of all being from the Universal Being". It is logical then, to
assume that if being always includes the created it is obvious that God, in
whom there is nothing created, is not being. God ofthe Christians, however, is
not non-being either. On the contrary, He is absolutely personal being which
gives us knowledge about itself though the divine Providence. Therefore
non-being cannot supplant the being in Him.
"In his third "lecture" from the commentary on the Divine Names
Thomas specifies", wrote Tzotcho Boiadjiev, "that if Dionysius was right
to place God beyond being this does not mean that God is not being"3? In
36 "Prima rerum creatarum est esse" - Liber de causis, c. 4, pr. 37, in: La

demeure de I 'etre, ed. P. MAGNARD ET ALII, Paris 1990, p. 44.

)7 T. BO.lADJIEY "Meister Eckhart or the Bravery of Reason", in: ID., Circles of

Spirit, Sofia 1998, p. 181 (in Bulgarian).

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68 OLEG GEORGIEV

calling God "not-being" we deny him not any but only the concrete being
of "this thing here". God transcends any created being, but on a causal
plane He is the only cause for the existence of the creatures. This means
that God is the essential being (esse) of created things38.
This observation implies that, even if we can discover in Thomas
Aquinas some sort of agreement "on principle" with the Neo-Platonic
orientation of Pseudo-Dionysius, in purely technical terms, within the
construction of the hierarchy of being, Aquinas was forced to approach
the problem as a disciple of Aristotle. This is exactly why in his case we
find rationalistic causal metaphysics, not mystical dialectics. It is in this
direction that my observations on the addition of commune to ipsum
esse should be understood.

38 Ibid.

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