Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagiter in the Latin translation of John Scot Eriugena

His Latin translation is available online (the Patrologia Latina edition).

Yesterday in a lecture I heard something quite interesting: Pseudo-Dionysius mentioned in the 11. Chapter of his De Divinis Nominibus that Peace is a name of God:

I. Some notes

The divine and ecclesiastical (divina et archisynagoga pax) Peace is "omnium adunatrix, et omnium consensus, et connaturalitatis genitrix et operatrix". The Peace is the unifier of everything, the generator and effector of all agreement and likeness (how to translate connaturalitas adequately? ).

Everything desires the Peace because it unifies the multitity into one, and tie the concurrence (or better battle?/ bellum) into an uniform cohabitation.

The first of the with each other combining powers (primores congregatarum virtutum) participate in the divine Peace and unify themselves into one. They keep everything from running into anarchy (c.f. "non sinit separata fundi ad multum et infinitum, inordinata, et incollocata, deserta Deo facta").

Divine Peace or the Repose (silentio), which is called by the holy Justus ajfqegxivan? (the unutterable? This word must have been written in Greek, the transcription here in the electronic edition is strange, must look up in the PL itself. ), never loses its unity.

But the Divine Peace is not permitted for anyone of the existent things to speak out or to be understood, nor is possible to do this (Neque dicere, neque intelligere cuidam existentium est fas, neque possibile).


But we can make the following observations about the Divine Peace:

1) Through the Divine Peace an unloosable unity according to Divine Harmony is established (cf. Per quam una et insolubilis omnium complicatio secundum divinam ejus harmoniam constituitur, et compaginatur consonantia perfecta, et consensus, et congerminatio congregans inconfuse, inseparabiliterque confusa).

2) God: Sed per seipsum esse, et per seipsam vitam, et per seipsam deitatem dicimus principaliter quidem et deiformiter et causaliter unum omnium superprincipale et superessentiale principium et causam. Participaliter autem editas ex Deo non participante providas virtutes, per seipsam deificationem, per seipsam vivificationem, per seipsam deificationem, quas existentia proprie sibimetipsis participant, et existentia, et viventia, et divina, et sunt, et dicuntur, et alia similiter.

But under 2) no further connection is made with the Divine Peace

II. the usage of Greek words in the Latin translation

two Greek words are introduced in this chapter,
1) the "unutterable" (Greek form still to be found in PL)
2) nullum ον, quod quidem est.

A dark text. Doesn't seem philosophically significant to me. What is he trying to say here beside of the already known Platonic doctrines like the One and the Multitude?

Perhaps should read the whole text in full, not just this one chapter.