  Few human beings have the ability to contemplate the intelligible names in their purity. Most of us require the names to be incarnated in visible things before we can understand them. Unable to see “being,” “life,” and “wisdom” in themselves, we need a visible being who is living and wise. Such a person can then become the means by which we contemplate the intelligible. Dionysius’ possibly fictional teacher Hierotheus is one such visible incarnation of the names. But Hierotheus may do more than incarnate the names. He can also unfold them in speech, taking the unitary name of “being” and describing it at length, as Dionysius does in the fifth chapter of On the Divine Names. As he describes it, the name unfolds itself into a form that is more multiple, because of the many words used in his description. It thus approaches the multiple character of our ordinary human way of knowing, and becomes more easily understood.