Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

D
1313A
B
DIFFICULTY 41 159
nothing of what is universal and containing [others] and
generic can be divided into what is partial and contained and
particular. For that is no longer generic which does not
naturally unite what is separated, but which, participating in
their separation, departs from its own singular unity. For
everything generic, according to its own logos, is wholly
present, indivisibly by the mode of unity, to those subordinate
wholes, and the particular as a whole is considered as within
the genus. The species, considered according to the genus, are
released as it were from the variety caused by difference, and
find identity one with another. The individuals, considered
according to the species, finding agreement one with another,
are in every way constituted as identical one with another,
being indistinguishable from their same nature and free from
any difference. Finally the accidents, brought together one
with another by the substance in which they inhere, possess
unity, not being scattered at all by their substance. And the
unerring witness of all this is the true theologian, the great
and holy Denys the Areopagite, in the chapter on the Perfect
and the One in the Divine Names, where he speaks thus:
‘For multiplicity is not without participation in the One, but
that which is many in its parts is one as a whole, and that
which is many in its accidents is one in the subject, and that
which is many in number or potentialities is one in species,
and that which is many in species is one in genus, and that
which is many in its processions is one in its source, and there
is none of the beings that is without participation in the
One.’ 13 And simply, to speak concisely, the logoi of everything
that is divided and particular are contained, as they say, by
the logoi of what is universal and generic, and the most
universal and generic logoi are held together by wisdom, and
the logoi of the particulars, held fast in various ways by the
generic logoi are contained by sagacity, in accordance with
which they are first simplified, and releasing the symbolic
variety in the actions of their subjects, they are unified by
wisdom, receiving congruence making for identity from the
more generic. For the wisdom and sagacity of God the Father
is the Lord Jesus Christ, who holds together the universals of
beings by the power of wisdom, and embraces their
complementary parts by the sagacity of understanding, since
by nature he is the fashioner and provider of all, and through
himself draws into one what is divided, and abolishes war
between beings, and binds everything into peaceful friendship
and undivided harmony, both what is in heaven and what is on