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I v] DIONY8IU8 THE AREOPAQITE 85 the time. And a schematic principle drawn from the most all-embracing syncretistic pagan system would not narrowly exclude matters lying beyond the sacred writings or the decrees of councils. Finally, was not the prevailing allegorism there, to alter whatever in literal sense was stubborn, and to adorn the structure ? There was thus abundance of material and a tool of marvellous constructive potency. There was also a man, whoever he was, who could use the tool. " Dionysius," our great pseudonymous imknown, was a transcendental mystic pantheist. These terms, if contradictory, are at least inclusive. He had a grand conception, sprung from Neo-platonic and Christian metaphysics, of the sublime transcendence of the ulti- mate divine Source. This Source, however, was not severed, remote, inert; but a veritable Source from which abundant life should stream to all lower orders; in part directly into all beings, in part indirectly, as power and guidance, through the higher orders to the lower. With Plotinus, the One overflows into the Nous, the perfected universal Mind, and that into the World-Soul and the souls of men. With Diony- sius, life, creation, every good gift, is from God directly; but His flaming ministers also intervene, and guide and aid the life of man, which comes not from them ; and the life, which, through love, floods forth from God, thereby creating the beings in which it manifests itself, has its mighty counterflow whereby it draws its own creations to itself. God is at once absolutely transcendent and universally immanent. To live is to be united with God; evil la the non- existent, that is, severance from God. All that is, is