Note 34 — Chapter II
Reading edition
For the passages authenticating this account, see Dion. Areop. Opp. as follows:—
(1.) De Div. Nom. c. iv. § 1; v. 3, 6, 8; vi. 2, 3; i. 1. De Eccl. Hier. i. 3.
(2.) De Cœl. Hier. i. 2, 3; v. 3, 4; vii. De Eccl. Hier. i. 1; x. 3. The resemblance of this whole process to the Pröodos and Epistrophe of Plotinus is sufficiently obvious.
(3.) De Div. Nom. iv. 20, p. 488. The chase after evil runs through sections 24-34. He sums up in one place thus:—‘In a word, good springs from the sole and complete cause, but evil from many and partial defects. God knows the evil as good, and with him the causes of things evil are beneficent powers.’ Proclus seeks escape from the hopeless difficulty in precisely the same way.
Concerning the Via negativa and affirmativa, see De Div. Nom. i. 1, 5, 4; De Cœl. Hier. xv.; and De Myst. Theol. i. 2, 3.
(4.) Ibid. Also, Ep. ad. Dorotheum, De Myst. Theol. iii. pp. 714, 721.