the mystical theology of valentin weigel - DataSpace at Princeton ...

argues that there cannot be more than one highest good in which the other goods
participate, he does not say anything about how creation as a whole participates in God.
This is the point at which Boethius’ ideas intersect with Dionysius’ in Weigel’s
paraphrase, where the unity of the summum bonum in Boethius leads Weigel to
investigate God’s unity in Dionysius. Whereas for Boethius, God was happiness itself,
power itself and beauty itself and so on, for Dionysius, God is not lacking anything: “nec
beatitudo, nec bonitas, nec pulchritudo, nec lux, nec vita, nec perfectio, nec justitia est
distincta a DEO etc.” 610 This first list of names for God is followed by several sets of
even longer lists that are nowhere to be found in Weigel’s source: “DEUS est sufficientia,
potentia, dignitas, gloria, laetiti, bonitas, beatitudo, lux, intellectus, voluntas, amor, mens,
verbum, Spiritus omnis veritatis, fons, essentia, Unum etc. et hae omnia sunt unum in
DEO, unitate simplicissima, sine omnia mutua penetration.” 611 These flourishes of
cataphasic excess, which would have been at home in Dionysius’ Divine Names, give
God scores of names from every register of language, from the more humble names taken
from the material world (fons and lux) to the lofty and immaterial names (essentia and
Unum).
Having made all these assertions about God, Weigel demonstrates that he has
learned from Dionysius the via negativa, pairing assertions with negations and negating
the negations: “DEUS est omnia ablata omni imperfectione, nec tamen est hoc aut illud,
non enim sic esset omnia, et super omnia, nec est hic et ibi, non enim esset ubique, nec
est hodie aut cras, non enim esset aeternus.” 612 As Dionysius himself might have written,
610 Weigel, De vita beata, 52-53. This list is not in the Boethius passage, where Boethius is only discussing
whether happiness is identical with God.
611 Ibid, 55-56.
612 Ibid, 56.
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