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TRANSCENDING TRANSCENDENCE contribute to such an illumination of the reader’s mind. On a larger scale, this Neo-Platonic ascent and return to the Cause of Causes is due to the operation of universal providence, which leaves no unsupervised area in the entire range of existence. Hence, Being as such is a field whose function it is to display and demonstrate the goodness of its First Cause. Being is therefore essentially revelation for the Areopagite. Even the first emanation, the order of angels, has as its particular mission to reveal the hidden divine essence, the supraintelligible nucleus of God, in order to give word of the otherwise completely tacit and transcendent centre. In this particular sense, they shed light on and illuminate the Good, by which they are, in turn, intellectually illuminated. Revelation and providence, thus intertwined, alike point to divine bounty as the cause of Being. 3. GOD AS THE BEAUTIFUL From Chapter 7 of Part 4, Denys goes on to explain that God conceived as the Good is also beautiful. At this point, our author openly introduces the Platonic theory of participation (metoché), and cites word for word the most detailed description Plato ever gave of the concept of idea, from the Symposium.” The Biblical God is hereby defined as the Platonic idea of the Beautiful, to kalon. This Beautiful is, then, essentially an aspect or variation of the NeoPlatonic One in that it is characterized as a principle of unification—it is simple, so it simplifies and unifies; it exerts an attractive force, whereby it draws together and, again, unifies, especially as a final cause that is an object 3 De divinis nominibus 4, 7: ...xahov 52 ws TayKaAov &pa Kal bnépKadov Kai det Sv KaTa TA ADTA Kal WOAUTWG KAaAOV Kal ODTE yLYyVönEVvov OUTE dTOAADLEVOV obtTE avEavdLEVOV ObTE PBivov, OdÖE Tf) HÉV kaAóv, Ti 5é aioypov ODÖE TOTE EV, TOTE ÖE& OD, ODÖE TLPÖG HEV TO KaAOY, TIPOG dé 10 aioxpov odte Evda uev, Evda dE oO wg TIol uEV ÖvV KaAOy, Ttol 5é OD KaOv, GAN wg adro Ka0’ Eavtö ne’ Eavtod povoeidés dei Sv KAAOV Kai Wo TavTd
