Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
To have no being is not the same as to have no effect, and the objection runs the two together. Evil is a lack, a deficiency, a weakness, a disproportion, an error, powerless and disordered, and never in itself possessed of any existence whatever.1 Yet I do not say it is nothing in every respect. Unto evil we can attribute an accidental kind of existence: it exists for the sake of something else and is not self-originating.1
The wound hurts and the tyrant strikes; what I deny is that either has a power of its own to set against the Good. Consider why. A complete lack is utterly impotent; that which is partial has its power not in so far as it is a lack, but in so far as it is not a perfect lack.2 When the lack of the Good is partial, evil is not as yet; when it becomes perfect, evil itself utterly vanishes.2
So the harm that malice does is the harm of a good turned from itself. A disease remains and exists, but its essence is order reduced to a minimum.3 Ugliness and sickness are a deficiency in form and a want of order, and they are not wholly evil, being rather a lesser good; for were beauty, form and order completely destroyed, the very body must disappear.4
This is a graver judgment on evil than any dualism makes, for it can only gnaw at what it cannot create. The Good gives existence even to the lack of Itself through some element of Itself being present there, and if the Good were entirely removed, nothing would remain, neither good nor mixed nor absolutely bad.3 As for malice, the will, the matter that troubles you most.
No one makes evil his definite object when performing any action; even when we act amiss we do so from a longing for the Good.5 Our action appears right because it has the Good as its object, and yet it is not right, because we mistake for good that which is not good.1 Our purpose is one thing and our action another. Malice is therefore real as an act and as a man's ruin, but what makes it malice is the error, the falling short, the disordered and discordant motion, and not any nature the evil has.6
Evil in our souls is not derived from matter, but from such a motion.6 Nor is the Cause thereby made the author of evil. Evil cometh not of the Good, and if it cometh therefrom it is not evil; for even as fire cannot cool us, so the Good cannot produce the things which are not good.7 Good comes from the One universal Cause, and evil from many partial deficiencies.5
To call evil unreal in this sense is to refuse it a place beside God, and to leave the sufferer his sufferings and the sinner his guilt.
Evil is not a being and has no cause of its own. Everything that is, is good in so far as it is, for all that is comes from the Good; evil is found only in good things, as their lack, weakness, disproportion and falling short.8910 Matter is not evil, the body is not evil, the devils are good in their nature and evil in their falling from it. Nothing desires evil as evil; even the devils desire existence, which is good.11
Evil arises not through power but through weakness, and God, who knows all things in their cause, knows evil under the form of good.12
Unto evil we can attribute but an accidental kind of existence. It exists for the sake of something else, and is not self-originating.The Divine Names
For a complete lack is utterly impotent; and that which is partial hath its power, not in so far as it is a lack, but in so far as it is not a perfect lack.The Divine Names
the Good giveth existence to the lack of Itself through some element of Itself being present there. For if the Good be entirely removed, there will not remain aught at all, either good or mixed or absolutely bad.The Divine Names
For ugliness and disease are a deficiency in form and a want of order. But this is not wholly evil, being rather a lesser good.The Divine Names
For even when we act amiss we do so from a longing for the Good; for no one makes evil his definite object when performing any action.The Divine Names
Hence evil in our souls is not derived from matter but from a disordered and discordant motion.The Divine Names
Evil cometh not of the Good; and if it cometh therefrom it is not evil. For even as fire cannot cool us, so Good cannot produce the things which are not good.The Divine Names
Hence if they are always in the same condition, they are not evil; for to remain always the same is a property of the Good. But if they are not always evil, then they are not evil by their natural constitution, but only through a lack of angelic virtues.The Divine Names
Nor is the common saying true that Deprivation or Lack fights by its natural power against the Good. For a complete lack is utterly impotent; and that which is partial hath its power, not in so far as it is a lack, but in so far as it is not a perfect lack. For when the lack of the Good is partial, evil is not as yet; and when it becomes perfect, evil itself utterly vanishes. 30.The Divine Names
The Good must be the beginning and the end even of all evil things. For the Good is the final Purpose of all things, good and bad alike. For even when we act amiss we do so from a longing for the Good; for no one makes evil his definite object when performing any action.The Divine Names
Even the devils derive their existence from the Good, and their mere existence is good. Their evil is the result of a fall from their proper virtues, and is a change with regard to their individual state, a weakness of their true angelical perfections.The Divine Names
And if the Good is Existent and is the Source of will, power, and action, how can Its opposite (being destitute of existence, will, power, and activity), have any power against It? Only because evil things are not all entirely the same in all cases and in all relations.The Divine Names
The chapters most closely dependent on Proclus, and the most influential on the Latin doctrine of evil; challenged now as a theory that seems to empty suffering and malice of their weight.