Paraphrasis in Dionysium Areopagitam

the more manifest [theology] possesses a certain persuasion and a truth bound to what is being said. For in this respect, it is also demonstrative, persuading, subjugating, and—as if applying some bond and seal to the things said—providing the truth. It offers trustworthiness to the listeners, implying that great things must be understood greatly, and in a manner befitting their own majesty, not simply in a common way, as the masses desire to learn. For who, having seen the sun shining, and then hearing of its cause and producer, would not understand that [the Creator] is luminous, and indeed, by much, light itself above such a thing? For if He were such [as the sun], He would not be the maker of such a thing. And who, again, having seen living, active, and moving things, does not contemplate their Maker, who is living above these and incomparably so, and moving above these very motions—clearly by His own contemplation, according to the great and manifold Gregory Likely Gregory of Nazianzus, often referred to as "the Theologian"—and acting more perfectly, to an extent above the works themselves?

And such is the more manifest [theology], proving the Maker from the nature of the works. For this reason it is also philosophical, as it dwells within the nature of creation; and from there it theologizes about things beyond nature. But the symbolic [theology] does not possess persuasion, but rather a certain divine, hidden, and active energy, which establishes and, as it were, founds the mysterious and contemplative souls in God through mystical—that is, symbolic—enigmas, by means of mysteries not taught by word, but by silence and the revelation of divine illuminations. It enlightens the mind toward the understandings of the ineffable mysteries, for this occurs through the things being performed—these are the things done by it. Therefore, it is also called telestikē ritual-perfecting; it appropriates one to God, possessing both a practical quality and a formative character. This is what he called "unteachable mystagogies." For he who is in participation...