The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite (Divine Names, Celestial Hierarchy, Mystical Theology)

knowledge) of its superessentiality above reason, mind, and essence—to it must we attribute the superessential science, so far aspiring to the Highest as the ray of the supremely Divine Oracles imparts itself, while we restrain ourselves in our approach to the higher glories by prudence and piety regarding things Divine. For, if we must place any confidence in the All-Wise and most trustworthy Theology, things Divine are revealed and contemplated in proportion to the capacity of each mind, since the supremely Divine Goodness distributes its immeasurableness (as that which cannot be contained) with a justice that preserves those whose capacity is limited. For, as things intelligible cannot be comprehended and contemplated by things of sense, and things uncompounded and unformed by things compounded and formed; and the intangible and unshaped formlessness of things without body, by those formed according to the shapes of bodies—in accordance with the same analogy of the truth, the superessential Illimitability is placed above things essential, and the Unity above mind is above the minds; and the One above conception is inconceivable to all conceptions; and the Good above word is unutterable by word—the Unit making every unit one, and the superessential essence and mind inconceivable, and the Word unutterable, speechlessness original: ἀλογία and inconception original: ἀνοησία, and namelessness—being after the manner of no existing being, and the Cause of being to all, but Itself not being,