‘Negative and Affirmative Theologies’

29. “Beyond essence, inconceivability Beyond light, limit, the unmixed, the unfettered the unchangeable, the untrammeled Intangible, invisible, illimitable Beyond “seeing,” beyond foul and fair”

O Trinity

beyond essence and

beyond divinity

beyond goodness

guide of Christians in divine wisdom

direct us towards mysticism’s heights

beyond unknowing

beyond light

beyond limit

there where the 

unmixed and

unfettered and

unchangeable

mysteries of theology

in the dazzling dark of the welcoming silence

lie hidden, in the intensity of their darkness

all brilliance outshining

our intellects, blinded – over-whelming,

with the intangible and

with the invisible and

with the illimitable,

Such is my prayer.

. . .

beyond foul and fair,

. . .

– The Pseudo-Dionysius: ‘De Mystica Theologia’ (‘The Divine Dark’)

30. “Of what transcends all affirmation. What is beyond all negation”

The reason is this: in affirming the existence of what transcends all affirmation, we were obliged to begin from what is most akin to It and then make the affirmation upon which all the rest depended; but to attain in the theology of negation what is beyond all negation we are obliged to begin by denying what are most disparate from it.

– The Pseudo-Dionysius: ‘De Mystica Theologia’ (‘Negative and Affirmative Theologies’)