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Angelic Hierarchies - Mark A. Foster, Ph.D. Medieval Representation of the Cherub and the Diagram in Beinecke MS 416 By: Brian Noell. 3 Image in Grover Zinn, “Hugh of St. Victor, Isaiah’s ision, and De Archa Noe,” in Church and the Arts, Studies in Church History 28 (Oxford, 1992), 108. Dionysius’ De coelesti hierarchia. The Pseudo-Dionysius set out a well-defined celestial. De coelesti hierarchia celestial hierarchy Download de coelesti hierarchia celestial hierarchy or read online here in PDF or EPUB. Please click button to get de coelesti hierarchia celestial hierarchy book now. All books are in clear copy here, and all files are secure so don't worry about it. Celestial hierarchy by paul rorem pdf free boundary layer. The advertisement, for example, keeps the guiana shield, in the past there was a Free The Celestial Hierarchy De Coelesti Hierarchia Pdf the celestial hierarchy de coelesti hierarchia download pdf, free pdf the celestial hierarchy de.
De Coelesti Hierarchia (Greek: Περὶ τῆς Οὐρανίας Ἱεραρχίας https://ohgenerous872.weebly.com/download-android-studio-mac-os.html. , 'On the Celestial Hierarchy') is a Pseudo-Dionysian work on angelology, written in Greek and dated to ca. the 5th century CE; it exerted great influence on scholasticism and treats at great length the hierarchies of angels.
The work has also been very influential in the development of Eastern Orthodox Church theology.
Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica, I.108) follows the Hierarchia (6.7) in dividing the angels into three hierarchies each of which contains three orders, based on their proximity to God, corresponding to the nine orders of angels recognized by Pope Gregory I.
- Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones;
- Dominations, Virtues, and Powers;
- Principalities, Archangels, and Angels.
Editions[edit]
- Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, De Coelesti Hierarchia, Surrey, 1935. Shrine of Wisdom ISBN978-0-90066-403-8.
- G. Heil, A. M. Ritter, Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita. De Coelesti Hierarchia, De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, De Mystica Theologia, Epistulae (1991) ISBN978-3-11-012041-7.
See also[edit]
External links[edit]
![De Coelesti Hierarchia Pdf De Coelesti Hierarchia Pdf](/uploads/1/3/3/9/133903330/445226986.jpg)
- The Celestial Hierarchy – full text translated into English (1899)
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=De_Coelesti_Hierarchia&oldid=911977093'
First published Mon Sep 6, 2004; substantive revision Tue Apr 30, 2019
Dionysius, or Pseudo-Dionysius, as he has come to be known in thecontemporary world, was a Christian Neoplatonist who wrote in the latefifth or early sixth century CE and who transposed in a thoroughlyoriginal way the whole of Pagan Neoplatonism from Plotinus to Proclus,but especially that of Proclus and the Platonic Academy in Athens, intoa distinctively new Christian context.
- 3. Outline and Content of the Works
- 4. Sources, Ideas, Character of Writing, Terms: Christianity and Neoplatonism
- 6. Outline of the Works
- Bibliography
1. Dionysius: Persona
Though Pseudo-Dionysius lived in the late fifth and early sixthcentury C.E., his works were written as if they were composed bySt. Dionysius the Areopagite, who was a member of the Athenianjudicial council (known as ‘the Areopagus’) in the 1stcentury C.E. and who was converted by St. Paul. Thus, these worksmight be regarded as a successful ‘forgery’, providingPseudo-Dionysius with impeccable Christian credentials thatconveniently antedated Plotinus by close to two hundred years. Sosuccessful was this stratagem that Dionysius acquired almost apostolicauthority, giving his writings enormous influence in the Middle Agesand the Renaissance, though his views on the Trinity and Christ (e.g.,his emphasis upon the single theandric activity of Christ(see Letter 4) as opposed to the later orthodox view of twoactivities) were not always accepted as orthodox since they requiredrepeated defenses, for example, by John of Scythopolis and by MaximusConfessor. Dionysius’ fictitious identity, doubted already in thesixth century by Hypatius of Ephesus and later by Nicholas of Cusa,was first seriously called into question by Lorenzo Valla in 1457 andJohn Grocyn in 1501, a critical viewpoint later accepted andpublicized by Erasmus from 1504 onward. But it has only becomegenerally accepted in modern times that instead of being the discipleof St. Paul, Dionysius must have lived in the time of Proclus, mostprobably being a pupil of Proclus, perhaps of Syrian origin, who knewenough of Platonism and the Christian tradition to transform themboth. Since Proclus died in 485 CE, and since the first clear citationof Dionysius’ works is by Severus of Antioch between 518 and 528, thenwe can place Dionysius’ authorship between 485 and 518–28CE. These dates are confirmed by what we find in the Dionysian corpus:a knowledge of Athenian Neoplatonism of the time, an appeal todoctrinal formulas and parts of the Christian liturgy (e.g., theCreed) current in the late fifth century, and an adaptation of latefifth-century Neoplatonic religious rites, particularly theurgy, as weshall see below.
It must also be recognized that “forgery” is a modernnotion. Like Plotinus and the Cappadocians before him, Dionysius doesnot claim to be an innovator, but rather a communicator of atradition. Adopting the persona of an ancient figure was a longestablished rhetorical device (known as declamatio), andothers in Dionysius’ circle also adopted pseudonymous names fromthe New Testament. Dionysius’ works, therefore, are much less aforgery in the modern sense than an acknowledgement of reception andtransmission, namely, a kind of coded recognition that the resonancesof any sacred undertaking are intertextual, bringing the diachronicstructures of time and space together in a synchronic way, and thatthis theological teaching, at least, is dialectically received fromanother. Dionysius represents his own teaching as coming from acertain Hierotheus and as being addressed to a certain Timotheus. Heseems to conceive of himself, therefore, as an in-between figure, verylike a Dionysius the Areopagite, in fact. Finally, if Iamblichus andProclus can point to a primordial, pre-Platonic wisdom, namely, thatof Pythagoras, and if Plotinus himself can claim not to be anoriginator of a tradition (after all, the term Neoplatonism is just aconvenient modern tag), then why cannot Dionysius point to adistinctly Christian theological and philosophical resonance in anearlier pre-Plotinian wisdom that instantaneously bridged the gapbetween Judaeo-Christianity (St. Paul) and Athenian paganism (theAreopagite)? [For a different view of Dionysius as crypto-pagan, seeLankila, 2011, 14–40.]
2. Reading Dionysius’ Works
Reading Dionysius can be a difficult business for many reasons:partly because his frequent hyperbolic theological language is foreignto our own English-speaking practices; partly because almostevery word he employs resonates with the whole history of ancientthought, from the Christian Platonism of the Fathers, particularly,Gregory of Nyssa and the Cappadocians, to the Neoplatonism of Plotinus,Iamblichus, and Proclus, while his theology focuses predominantly uponthe Jewish and Christian scriptures (which Dionysius calls“divine oracles”); partly, again, because the order inwhich we are to read his works is unclear and because Dionysiusmentions at least seven works that have been lost. So we are unsure howto read him since so much seems doubtful or potentially fictitious.This picture is further complicated by the titles subdividing portionsof his works, which appear, because of terminology peculiar to them, tohave been inserted by a later hand or hands.
The surviving writings are four treatises and ten letters. The fourtreatises are: 1) On the divine names (DN) (Peritheion onomaton, in Greek; De Divinis Nominibus, inLatin), the longest work of thirteen chapters that deals withaffirmative or kataphatic theology, namely, the names attributed to Godthe creator in scripture and also in pagan texts, but also exploringthe limits of language and therefore also involving negative orapophatic theology. 2) On the celestial hierarchy(CH) (Peri tes ouranias hierarchias, in Greek; Decoelesti hierarchia, in Latin), a work that examines how the ninechoirs of angels (in scripture) are to be understood in lifting us upto God. 3) On the ecclesiastical hierarchy (EH)(Peri tes ekklestiastikes hierarchias, in Greek; Deecclesiastica hierarchia, in Latin) that examines the variousorders and liturgy of the church as relating us to God through adivinely appointed but human hierarchy. And 4) On Mysticaltheology (MT) (Peri mustikes theologias, inGreek; De mystica theologia, in Latin), a brief but powerfulwork that deals with negative or apophatic theology and in whichtheology becomes explicitly “mystical” for the first timein history (By mystical here we do not mean an extraordinary or privateexperience of transcending one’s self in the modern sense of the term,but simply “hidden”. On this see Bouyer, 1949; Vanneste,1959; McGinn 1994). There follow ten letters that provide helpfulcomments upon topics in the above four treatises, especially letter 9on what Dionysius calls symbolic theology of which works 2) and 3)above (CH; EH) form a substantial part. The tenletters appear to be arranged in a roughly hierarchical order, letters1–4 being addressed to a monk (a certain Gaius, also the name ofone or more of St. Paul’s companions), letter 5 to a deacon, letter 6to a priest, and letters 7 and 9 to hierarchs or bishops. Letter 8disrupts this order since it is addressed to a monk charged withdisrupting the hierarchical order itself!
What order of the works are we to adopt? In the French translationof M. de Gandillac and the English translation of C. Luibheid and P.Rorem (see bibliography), the order is DN, MT,CH and EH. In the manuscripts of the Areopagiticcorpus, the order is CH, EH, DN,MT, followed by the Letters. Dionysius himself provides anexplanatory outline that favors the order of Luibheid and Rorem, andthat gives a systematic organization to his body of work, includingboth the treatises we presently possess and also the treatises whicheither no longer exist or, more likely, were never written. His outlineis especially valuable for two of these latter treatises—theTheological Representations and the SymbolicTheology—since the order in which he claims to have writtenthem reveals both the relative worth of their contents and thesequence in which the reader should proceed. It thus helps the readerto divine the nature of their content, and to put them in their properplace with the remaining two works written by Dionysius on the formsof theology. The first three—the TheologicalRepresentations, On the Divine Names, andthe Symbolic Theology—discuss ever more divided andsensuous forms of theology. The fourth theological work,the Mystical Theology, reverses the sequence and restores thereader to the divine unity:
In the earlier books my argument traveled downward from themost exalted to the humblest categories, taking in on this downwardpath an ever-increasing number of ideas which multiplied withevery stage of the descent. But my argument now rises from what isbelow up to the transcendent, and the more it climbs, the more languagefalters, and when it has passed up and beyond the ascent, it will turnsilent completely, since it will finally be at one with him who isundescribable (MT 1033 C).
In this article we shall adopt a variant of this last order bothbecause Dionysius himself seems to have favored it and because itclarifies the systematic structure of the theological works.
3. Outline and Content of the Works
3.1 Theological Representations
Although the Theological Representations is not extant, weare able to glean its content from Dionysius’ ample descriptions of itin his other works. It seems to have devoted itself to names for thethree persons within the godhead and their attributes. These names arethe representations mentioned in the work’s title. They describe twoforms of differentiation within the godhead: the distinction intopersons, and into attributes of the persons. Names for the personsinclude “Father,” “Son,” and “HolySpirit.” Names for the attributes include “source,”“offshoot,” “flower,” and “light.”Dionysius does not explain why he uses the term“representation” (hypotuposis) for these names,but his fondness for puns may have led him to adopt it because of itssimilarity to “person” (hypostasis).
Some of these names describe more than a person within the godhead.The name “father,” for instance, may also be used ofanimals, in which case it means the male parent. We seem to apply suchnames literally to animals and only metaphorically to persons withinthe godhead. But Dionysius uncovers a passage from Paul’s letter to theEphesians which leads him to claim otherwise. Paul says that God theFather is the one “from whom all fatherhood in the heavens and onearth is named.” On the basis of this scriptural authority,Dionysius explains that we are able to use the terms“father” and “son” of animals only because thegodhead has already undergone the same relation. In other words, theinternal causality exercised within the godhead is the source of allother causality. This includes not only the causation of one animal byanother, but of one angel by another, since angels, too, receive thenames of “father” and “son.”
3.2 On the Divine Names
Strictly speaking, all of the theological works except for theTheological Representations devote themselves to divine namesor names for the godhead. But Dionysius devotes his second theologicaltreatise, entitled On the Divine Names only to a particularkind of divine name. This kind of name describes a third distinctionwithin the godhead (in addition to the distinction of persons and ofpersonal attributes): the distinction into the multiple attributes ofthe godhead as a whole. Though the names apply to the godhead as awhole, and so refer to it as a unity, each name is different and so,taken together, they differentiate the godhead. The implicitdistinction between the unity of the godhead and the multiplicity ofthe names is reflected in the very structure of the namesthemselves. Each name includes the same prefix: “over-”,orhyper- in Greek, which indicates the unity of thegodhead to whom the names are applied. But each name is different,indicating the self-multiplication of the godhead. The result isa set of names like “over-good,”“over-being,” and “over-life.”Occasionally, Dionysius also makes use of a second, equivalent prefix:“pre-” or pro- in Greek. God is“pre-good,” and “pre-being,”meaning that he has the attributes of creatures in a way thattranscends both creature and attribute. The “over-”and “pre-” prefixes must be applied strictly to thenames when they are used of God in himself. On the other hand, when thenames are used only of God as cause, the prefixes may be left off,since the causality of God is already a procession into thedifferentiation properly signified by each of the different names.
Some of Dionysius’ later medieval interpreters suggest that Godpossesses the attributes of creatures in their most proper and idealform, but Dionysius himself does not suggest this. Instead, the mostproper object of the names is the highest creature. The exemplaryinstances of “goodness,” “being,” and“life,” for example, are the highest of the angels orintelligible minds, as Dionysius also calls them. For this reason,Dionysius frequently refers to this type of name as an“intelligible name.” He incorporates into the number ofintelligible names the traditional Neoplatonic intelligible categories:being, identity, difference, rest, and motion, as well as theNeoplatonic triad of being, life, and intellect. The fact that Godtranscends the proper meaning of these names does not mean that heought to be called “non-being,”“non-life,” or “non-intellect.”Dionysius prefers simply to say that God is “over being,”“over life,” and “over intellect.”
The intelligible names could form the ground of a theologyindependent of any specific religious tradition or sacred text. Many ofthem are central to Platonic sources outside the context ofChristianity, and appear only incidentally and obscurely in the Hebrewand Christian scriptures. They also describe the intelligible structureof the cosmos, a structure that is accessible to all human inquiry,whether assisted by scriptural texts or not. But Dionysius explicitlydenies that the names may be acquired from any source other than theHebrew and Christian scriptures. Even if the names could be derivedfrom contemplation of the world’s intelligible structure, we apply themin theology to the cause of that structure and not to the structureitself. Since the cause of that structure is beyond the grasp of humaninquiry, we cannot rely on our own powers for our description. Wedepend instead on the revelation of the scriptures as our source forthe intelligible names.
Few human beings have the ability to contemplate the intelligiblenames in their purity. Most of us require the names to be incarnated invisible things before we can understand them. Unable to see“being,” “life,” and “wisdom” inthemselves, we need a visible being who is living and wise. Such aperson can then become the means by which we contemplate theintelligible. Dionysius’ possibly fictional teacher Hierotheus is onesuch visible incarnation of the names. But Hierotheus may do more thanincarnate the names. He can also unfold them in speech, taking theunitary name of “being” and describing it at length, asDionysius does in the fifth chapter of On the Divine Names. Ashe describes it, the name unfolds itself into a form that is moremultiple, because of the many words used in his description. It thusapproaches the multiple character of our ordinary human way of knowing,and becomes more easily understood.
3.3 Symbolic Theology
Other names directly refer to visible things, whose multiplicity andaccessibility to sensation make them easy for us to understand. Thedifficulty with these names, referred to by Dionysius and theNeoplatonic tradition generally as “symbols,” is that theyhave no inherent relation to the godhead at all. Their literalsignification is restricted to the realm of the sensuous, and so theymust be turned into metaphors if they are to become useful fortheology. This is the task of Dionysius’ Symbolic Theology.Though the work itself is not extant, we find him undertaking the sameproject in each of his extant works.
One of Dionysius’ favorite sources of symbols is a verse from the78th psalm: “the Lord awoke, like a strong man,powerful but reeling with wine.” Taken literally, the verseindicates that God sleeps and gets drunk on wine, two activities thatproperly apply only to embodied, visible beings. Only an embodied beingcan manifest the activities to which the names “sleep” and“drunkenness” literally refer. If we are to apply suchterms to God, they must be attached to a foreign, intelligible contentthat will be able to lead the interpreter of the symbolic name to thecontemplation of an intelligible name. In “sleep,” forexample, Dionysius finds a meaning common to both intelligible andvisible things: withdrawal from the world. Brother p-touch ql-500 software windows 8. He concludes that God’ssleep is his “removal from and lack of communication with theobjects of his providence.” In drunkenness, Dionysius sees a kindof over-filling, and so he explains that God’s drunkenness is“the overloaded measurelessness of all goods in the one who istheir cause.” From the easily comprehended literal meaning of theterm, the reader rises to the more difficult intelligible terrain ofimparticipability and measurelessness.
Drunkenness and sleep are what Dionysius calls “dissimilarsimilarities.” They strike us as exceptionally unworthy of God,and so are “dissimilar,” yet they reveal an intelligibletruth capable of leading us to him, and so are “similar.”Dionysius privileges such names over more appropriate names like“golden” and “luminous.” The more that the nameseems appropriate, the more we are likely to be lulled into thinkingthat we have adequately comprehended the godhead in our use of thename. The very materiality and ignobility of the dissimilarsimilarities cry out that the names do not literally describe thegodhead, and compel the reader to seek the intelligible truth behindthe name.
We may wonder whether the symbolic names are a necessary part oftheology at all, since their content belongs to the intelligibletheology and not to a “symbolic” theology. Dionysiusrepeatedly affirms their necessity, not because of the character oftheir content, but because of the nature of the human soul. The soulmay be divided into two parts: one passionate and the otherpassionless. Passionate here means set in motion by things exterior tothe soul. The senses, for example, are passionate because they canonly function when an outside object gives them something tosense. Dionysius follows a longstanding Neoplatonic tradition when hesays that most of us are unable to engage our passionless partdirectly. Instead, our passionless part comes into play onlyindirectly, through the activity of the passionate part. By sensingthe world around us, we are led to contemplate its intelligiblestructures through the sensations we receive. Even those few humanbeings who can engage their passionless part directly find it helpfulto shore up their contemplation with examples drawn from the senses.Dionysius may understand the causality of God directly, and yet stillfind it helpful to compare God’s causality to the emanation of lightfrom the sun.
Such examples do not require the presence of a revealed scripture.Skilled teachers in any subject are characterized by their ability tocome up with helpful examples drawn from ordinary experience whenexplaining a difficult intelligible truth. Dionysius himself frequentlyresorts to examples “at our level” in order to explainsomething intelligible. The scriptural symbol goes further, attemptingto reveal the God who is before and beyond even the intelligible truth.The highest human intellect has little ability to attain this truthdirectly, and so we cannot rely on intellectual teachers as guides tothat truth. We require the gift of symbols, which tie our ordinarycomprehension to the godhead beyond being. And so Dionysius does notdescribe the symbolic names as pedagogical tools developed bytheologians. The names appear instead in the ecstatic visions of theprophets. Though Dionysius explicitly asserts our dependence on theHebrew and Christian scriptures as the source of these symbols, he hasno qualms about embellishing the list of names with symbols drawn fromother traditions. For instance, he discusses at length the name of“mixing bowl,” which has no real source in the Christian orHebrew scriptures, but occurs centrally in the Platonic philosophyderiving from Plato’s Timaeus.
3.4 Mystical Theology
When Dionysius praises “dissimilar similarities” overseemingly more appropriate symbolic names for God, he explains that atleast some dissimilar names are negations, and negations are moreproper to God than affirmations. The Mystical Theology hasthis last, most arcane form of theology as its subject. Negations areproperly applied not only to the names of the symbolic theology. Anyand all of the divine names must be negated, beginning with those ofthe symbolic theology, continuing with the intelligible names andconcluding with the theological representations. The godhead is nomore “spirit,” “sonship,” and“fatherhood” than it is “intellect” or“asleep.” These negations must be distinguished fromprivations. A privation is simply the absence of a given predicatethat could just as easily be present. The absence of the predicate isopposed to its presence: “lifeless” is opposed to“living.” But when we say that the godhead is not“living,” we do not mean that it is“lifeless.” The godhead is beyond the lifeless as well asbeyond the living. For this reason, Dionysius says that ouraffirmations of the godhead are not opposed to our negations, but thatboth must be transcended: even the negations must be negated.
The most controversial and arcane passages of the MysticalTheology revolve around the mystical as taken in itself and not asthe act of negating the other forms of theology. Dionysius says thatafter all speaking, reading, and comprehending of the names ceases,there follows a divine silence, darkness, and unknowing. All three ofthese characteristics seem privative, as though they were simply beingthe absence of speech, sight, and knowledge respectively. But Dionysiusdoes not treat them as privative. Instead, he uses temporal and spatiallanguage to mark off a special place and time for them. Using as hisexample the account of Moses’ ascent up Mount Sinai in the Hebrewscriptures, Dionysius says that after Moses ascends through thesensible and intelligible contemplation of God, he then enters thedarkness above the mountain’s peak. The darkness is located above themountain, and Moses enters it after his contemplation of God in thevarious forms of theology. Dionysius leaves the relation between Mosesand the darkness highly obscure. Some commentators reduce it to a formof knowing, albeit an extraordinary form of knowing. Others reduce itto a form of affective experience, in which Moses feels something thathe can never know or explain in words. Dionysius himself does not givedecisive evidence in favor of either interpretive move. He speaks onlyof Moses’ “union” with the ineffable, invisible, unknowablegodhead.
3.5 On the Celestial and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies
Perhaps even more vexing than the nature of union in Dionysius isthe question of how the theological treatises relate to Dionysius’ twotreatises on hierarchy. The Mystical Theology suggests anascent from the lower sensuous realm of reality through theintelligible intermediate realm to the darkness of the godhead itself,all accomplished by a single person. The hierarchic treatises, on theother hand, suggest that the sensible and intelligible realms are notplaces reached by a single being, but different kinds of beings, andthat the vision of God is handed from being to being downward throughthe levels of the hierarchy. On the Celestial Hierarchydescribes the intelligible realm as divided into nine ranks of beings:the seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, powers, authorities,principalities, archangels, and angels. On the EcclesiasticalHierarchy Windows 8.1 iso bittorrent. describes the human beings within the church as dividedinto eight ranks: the hierarchs or bishops, priests, deacons, monks,laity, catechumens, penitents, and the demon-possessed. Dionysiusdoes not address human life outside the church, except for a fewscattered references to the angels presiding over other religioustraditions and the earlier “legal hierarchy” of the Jewishrite, which precedes the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Christianrite.
The hierarchs, highest within the human hierarchy, contemplate theintelligible realm directly, though presumably they contemplate onlyits lowest level: the angels. The visible result of the hierarchs’contemplation of the angels is the series of rites belonging to theChristian church. Since the hierarchs are able to contemplate theintelligible directly, they do not perform the rites for their ownsake, but for the sake of the monks and laity, who have no capacity fordirect intelligible contemplation. The monks and laity are able toengage the passionless part of their souls only through the passionatepart, and so they require a visible trigger—the symbol—to stimulate their intelligible contemplation. The ranks of hierarch,priest, and deacon are in charge of administering the rites, with aspecific set of initiates in their care and a specific action toperform. The deacons purify the catechumens, penitents, and possessed,primarily by giving them ethical instruction. The priests illuminatethe laity, who are able to receive the intelligible truth. Thehierarchs perfect, a task whose initiate seems ideally to be the monk,since Dionysius identifies the monks as leading the more perfect lifeof those who are not explicitly consecrated as clergy.
The very structure of the church reflects the different roles of theclergy and the laity. The hierarch stands still at the altar, facingaway from the multiplicity of the church’s interior. He enters the naveof the church only to bring sacred objects like incense, bread andwine, and holy oil into the realm of multiplicity, the spatiallyextended nave. When he brings the censer into the nave, for example,its fragrance is distributed to the laity there, just as the bread andwine are later distributed in the eucharistic rite. The hierarch thenreturns to the altar, and takes up again his own proper object ofcontemplation, the intelligible source of the rites. The laity, on theother hand, remain within the spatially extended nave, but orientthemselves toward the altar, where the sacred objects are raised fortheir contemplation. Before this contemplation can occur, thecatechumens, penitents, and the demon-possessed must be removedfrom the church. Their orientation toward the material prevents themfrom adequately contemplating the intelligible truth through itsvisible manifestation in the sacred objects.
Although the rites have intelligible contemplation as their goal, itdoes not appear that non-ritual forms of contemplation, likereading, can substitute for participation in the rites. Dionysiancontemplation is public, so that it may unite us to each other; itinvolves prayer, so that it may unite us explicitly with the godhead;it also requires bodies, since only the interaction of bodies allowsthe contemplative act to include both components of our nature: bodyand soul. The names used in Dionysius’ theological treatises acquiretheir salvific power in this liturgical context. Although the ritesinvolve the performance of bodily actions, they clothe themselves inwords: the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and the oral tradition ofthe liturgical prayers. Only the silence and unknowing of theMystical Theology finds no clear place within the liturgicalrites of the hierarchy, since it transcends both the visible rites ofthe laity and the intelligible contemplation of the clergy. It may bethat, just as some points of the liturgy call for a literal silence,the intelligible contemplation of the hierarch at the altar must engagein its own form of silence, so as to allow the appearance of thegodhead beyond naming. On this question, however, Dionysius is assilent as the mystical theology which crowns his vision of the humanascent to God.
4. Sources, Ideas, Character of Writing, Terms: Christianity and Neoplatonism
Having examined the plan and content of these works let us now takea brief look at some of the sources of Dionysius’ ideas (and associatedproblems), and at the character of Dionysius’ writing in order todetermine what in practice he is actually doing and to see if there isanything genuinely philosophical in his writing. https://ameblo.jp/reicoiwardsur1987/entry-12640069810.html.
4.1 Sources, Ideas, and Terms
There is a major tension between Platonism and Christianity inDionysius’ writing. Luther expressed the negative side of this tension:“Dionysius is most pernicious; he platonizes more than heChristianizes” (Babylonian Captivity of the Church(Weimarer Ausgabe 6, 562)). Von Balthasar has been morepositive, seeing Dionysius’ Christianization of Neoplatonism “asa side-effect of his own properly theological endeavor”,namely, “the clear realized synthesis of truth and beauty, oftheology and aesthetics” (The Glory of the Lord, vol. 2,148–9). Perhaps one may suggest that neither Christianity norPlatonism are side shows in Dionysius’ thought; They are rathermutually important whole perspectives that do not get lost in the mix,no matter how subordinate Neoplatonism nonetheless may be toChristianity for Dionysius himself. Dionysius’ central concern is how atriune God, that he calls—among other things—thethearchy (god-rule; god-beginning), who is utterlyunknowable, unrestricted being, beyond individual substances, beyondeven goodness, can become manifest to, in, and through the whole ofcreation in order to bring back all things to the hidden darkness oftheir source. To this end Dionysius employs some major Neoplatonicinsights: (1) The abiding—procession—return orconversion of all things as the creative and receptive expression ofwhat it means for anything created to be. In Proclus’ terms in theElements of Theology, prop. 35: “Every effect remains inits cause, proceeds from it, and converts to it”. This is a wayof expressing the vertical connectedness of everything by identity,difference, and the overcoming of difference by a return to identitythat constitutes the nature of anything that is caused. (2) Thehierarchical ordering of beings as an expression of both their naturalplacements and their freedoms as well as the simultaneous immediacy,without intermediary, of the unknown God’s presence (on hierarchy seeCH 3). Each thing and order bears relation to the whole ormanifests the whole, but “according to its own capacity”,as the famous Neoplatonic saying puts it. A rock or a worm, forinstance, is a window upon the entire universe if you only know how tolook.
In the case of (1), the contrast between Dionysius and Neoplatonismshould not be taken to be a contrast between free divine creation, onthe one hand, and supposed emanation or illumination by necessity, onthe other, for divine/ human freedom and creation out of“nothing” are conspicuous facets of Neoplatonic thought aswell. What we see in Dionysius is rather a new way of understanding theabiding, outpouring, and return, not only concretely in relation to thevarious hierarchies, and structurally in relation to the various works(DN is more concerned with procession, for instance, whileEH, CH, and MT deal with different levels ofreturn), but also in relation to God’s providential love that, whileremaining supereminently identical to itself, and precontainingeverything within itself, nonetheless is the creative power overflowinginto its effects (procession) in order to bring them back into identity(return): “[The Cause of All] is ‘all in all‘, asscripture affirms, and certainly he is to be praised as being for allthings the creator and originator, the One who brings them tocompletion, their preserver, their protector, and their home, the powerwhich returns them to itself, and all this in the one single,irrepressible, and supreme act” (DN 1, 7,596c–597a).
In the case of (2) (hierarchy and divine presence), Dionysiusemphasizes, much more so than the impression often suggested byNeoplatonism, the directness of creation. Every being, nomatter where it is placed in the scale of beings and no matter howdependent it might be on beings ontologically higher than it (e.g., forhuman beings, angels) is directly and immediately dependent upon God inand for its existence. Again, the contrasts often drawn betweenNeoplatonism’s “flight of the alone to the alone” andDionysius’ community of hierarchy or between the supposed Neoplatonicview that the One causes the existence of lower beings only through themediation of the higher, while Christianity sees creation as immediateare simply false or too simplistic. Plotinus’ mysticism is not“solitary” in the sense often supposed and, for Plotinus,Porphyry, and Proclus, the One causes existence immediately and mostprofoundly, whatever other influences enter into the complexity ofexistence. What we see in Dionysius, by contrast, is a retention ofone’s place in hierarchy and a very concrete return to identity—in the case of human beings, for instance, through scripture, ritual,and practical performance to a deeper union with God rather than asimple, spatially conceived movement “up” the hierarchy.More broadly still, we see in Dionysius’ thought new possibilities forthinking about divine love, a love that combines beyond beingness andunrestricted being, transcendence and yet even a kind of hyperessentialvulnerability in rather startling ways, new ways consequently ofthinking about both divine and human eros, about affectivity(cf. Dionysius’ famous dictum about learning from sacred writers, ordiscovering the truth oneself, or not only learning but“experiencing the divine things” (pathein tatheia) (DN 2, 9); and compare Aristotle, fr. 15 (Rose)and Hebrews 5:8), about the nature of signification and thelimits of language (see section 4 below), about the theory of evil asprivation and non-being, however dependent this is upon one ofProclus’ opuscula (cf. DN 4, 18–35), about theaesthetic richness of this world in the light of theology and the lifeof the Church, and even about the soul–body relation, thoughanthropology is not a part of Dionysius’ primary concern (but see hiscomments at EH https://forenew846.weebly.com/the-pc-gamesnet-cod-mw2-zone-file-download.html. 404B, 433c, 437a–440a, 441b, 553a ff,565b–c).
Two examples will have to suffice here: (a) Dionysius’ remarkabledescription of the ecstatic love of God and (b) his radicaltransformation of the Neoplatonic intelligible and sensible worlds.
(a) First, Dionysius evidently cannot accept in any singlestraightforward sense the Neoplatonic notion of a One that excludes thepossibility of expressing trinity. He therefore links in a new way Godas unrestricted being with God as utterly beyond being or anydeterminate predications. At the same time in the DN he arguesthat the ecstasy of love, which moves as a unifying force throughcreation without departing from itself, is the divine nature. Dionysiusadmits, in a note from Plato’s Phaedrus, that it ischaracteristic of yearning not to allow “lovers to belong tothemselves but only to their loved ones” (DN 4, 13).This is shown, he goes on to argue, by the providential care of thegreater for the lesser (a reference to Proclus’ divine providentiallove (eros pronoetikos) from the Commentary on the FirstAlcibiades, #56), by the love of equals, and by that of the lesserfor those better than them (a reference both to Aristotle’s seminaltreatment of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics and toProclus’ returning or converting love (eros epistreptikos) in the sameCommentary above), as also in the case of St. Paul’s famousdictum “I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me”(Gal 2:20). Might then such a belonging to one’s beloved becharacteristic of God, if perhaps in a different sense?
Dionysius continues as follows:
We must dare to say even this on behalf of the truth thatthe cause of all things himself, by his beautiful and good love for allthings, through an overflowing of loving goodness, becomes outside ofhimself (exo heautou ginetai) by his providential care for allbeings and is as it were, charmed (thelgetai) bygoodness, affection (agapesis), and love (eros), andis led down (katagetai) from his place above all andtranscendent of all to dwell in all things in accordance with hisecstatic superessential power which does not depart from itself(DN 4, 13).
The very notion is, of course, remarkable, the notion, that is, of akind of conjunction of opposites that strives to express theinexpressible magnitude of divine love and even to suggest power andvulnerability (or “almost” vulnerability: “as itwere, charmed (beguiled, enchanted)”), as well as the possibilityof a genuine two-way relation between Creator and creatures morein tune with Biblical thought. Yet the expression remains Greek, forthe word thelgetai that Dionysius chooses is one that echoesthe conclusion of Agathon’s speech in the Symposium whereAgathon praises a Love that everyone “should hymn fairly, sharingin the song he sings that enchants/charms/beguiles (thelgon)the thought (phronema) of all gods and human beings”(197c). Dionysius changes the context but does not really reverse thepolarity: it is God who still—like human beings—isbeguiled by love and affection for beings and “led down” todwell in them. Is this small detail and transposition merelyaccidental? It may well be, but in this context, the use of such a verband thought is not accidental. Dionysius does not write as a Christianwalled off from pagan thought or as if he were a Neoplatonic thinker inChristian disguise. Instead he provokes and delights in intertextualityat every point.
(b) A second example is the precise nature of Dionysius’transposition of Neoplatonic structure. Dionysius makes concrete andaccessible the whole world of Neoplatonism in the human, butsacramental life of the Church, a world of ordinary people and thingswhose significance can only be fully realized and perfected in thecelestial and supercelestial world.
For Classical Neoplatonism, especially in its Plotinian form, thereal truths that undergird or form the origins, beginnings(archai) of the world of ordinary experience are the threehypostases or realities of soul, intellect, and the One. The hypostasesare necessary, above all, to account for our experience of degrees ofunity and organization. The life-world accessible to our sensesis an organized, animated world, and this needs a more intensive degreeof unity to account for it, namely, the principle of life, that is,soul and all souls. But even the world of soul is a “one andmany”, organized from within yet also requiring a principle ofunity and organization beyond itself. And the same is true even to ahigher degree of intellect. Intellect is a “one-many”, anorganized world of intellects, in each of which the whole of intellectis present. Each is a sort of holographic reality. And becauseintellect is still a world despite its more intensive unity than soul,it requires a unity beyond intellect and beyond being to organize itand to form the groundless ground of its own being from which it hasemerged.
So (1) in Neoplatonism, there are 3 hypostases, on the one hand,namely, soul, intellect, and the One, and four cosmic or hypercosmicdimensions, on the other: (i) the sensible world as a world of things;(ii) the sensible world linked by the soul to the intelligible world;(iii) the intelligible world itself composed of all intellects; andfinally (iv) the One or the Good, from which everything has come. And(2) while everything has its appropriate “place” in thishypostatic hierarchy, the presence of the Good is so immediate and soaccessible, that the presence is closer to each thing even thanintellect or soul. This is equally true in both Plotinus and Proclus.Furthermore, (3) in order to explicate the derivation of each entityfrom what comes before it, it is not sufficient as some scholars havesupposed that Neoplatonism should just have multiplied intermediariesand indulged in an absurd proclivity for triads, such as Life, Wisdom,Mind; Neoplatonism should rather be seen as a form of thought thatattempts to meditate upon, read the signs in, and represent how, asprecisely as possible, all beings are derived from and relate to theOne, to examine and explicate their dependence, open-endedness,and radical interconnectedness without losing sight of themultidimensional ordering of the universe (sensible/intelligible) andof the fact that even the simplicity of things that have no intellector life, but only bare existence, springs from the power of theOne.
https://coalxjj.weebly.com/ti-private-show-free-download.html. What Dionysius manages to do is both to capture this spiritprofoundly, and, therefore, transform it, as well as to make itconcrete and accessible in the scriptural, sacramental, and ordinaryexperiences of Christian practitioners. Instead of the 4 dimensions ofthe Neoplatonic universe, Dionysius has the following: (1) the sensibleworld or Legal hierarchy, i.e., the world considered under the aspecteither of objective “thinginess” or of law, namely, in thecase of law, a world in which we are dependent upon prescriptionsrather than upon any deeper understanding, a world in which the“mysteries” or hidden things (such as Baptism and theEucharist) are mere mechanical ceremonies and the Scriptures are givenonly a literal meaning. For Dionysius (as for Plato), law is necessary,but still deficient. The law of Moses, for instance, “gave only aveiled contemplation as to enlighten without harm weak capacities forsight” (EH 501c). Then (2) there follows theecclesiastical hierarchy, namely, the sensible world as the limbs ofthe mystical body of Christ led by soul into the significance of theintelligible or celestial hierarchy, where the symbols can begin to beread. Its mysteries, both sensible and intelligible, are the Scripturesand the Sacraments, its initiators the priests, and its initiated theones who receive them. From this perspective, Dionysius transformsNeoplatonism radically but at the same time provokes entirely newpossibilities in the structures he transforms.
4.2 Character of Writing
What is the general character of Dionysius’ writing and is thereanything philosophical in it? Dionysius presents us with complexaffirmative (kataphatic) and negative (apophatic)forms of theology, exploring what we can say about God, what we mean byour statements, discovering the necessity for us to talk too much aboutGod and to push language forms to their breaking points, and then tosee what we cannot say about God. Negation is important here at bothlevels, in kataphatic theology as well as inapophatic theology. This complex theory of signification andits subversion is often referred to as negative theology: affirming ouraffirmations, then negating them, and then negating the negations toensure that we do not make an idol out of a God about whom we knownothing. But it is also much more than this.
Dionysius is practising forms of theological meditation inthe sense that the earlier Church Fathers had understood this, not as atype of objectified, academic knowledge, but rather as a more complex,intersubjective form of address, communion and contemplation. Dionysiusadopts the word theurgy, “god-work”, together withtheology, “god-word”, to describe the inmost realityof this practice, adopting it from the later Neoplatonist understandingof a hidden sympathy or interconnectedness between material things andthe sacred, divine significances resident in them by virtue of divinepower. Iamblichus, for instance, had denied that pure thought orcontemplation could bring about union with the divine. What was crucialwas the performance of certain ritual actions or theurgy,“god-work”, in the belief that one could attain tothe divine by the incarnation of divine forces in material objects,statues, or human beings through the divine power mirrored everywherein the universe and in the natural sympathy of all parts, and not justby talking about the gods (theo-logy) or by looking atthem (theoria). For some modern critics, Dionysius’ adaptationof pagan theurgy is analogous to calling the Christian sacraments“magical”, which also results in the subsumption ofeverything (morality as well as contemplation) to a form of magicalcorrespondence. But Dionysius does not understand theurgy in this way.For him, “theurgy is the consummation (sygkephalaiosis)of theology” (EH 432B), which is to say that God’s activitywithin all the orders of nature does not abolish nature, morality,contemplation, or science but rather completes them and makes possiblethe divinization of human nature.
God’s work in all things, therefore, turns the world into areservoir of possibilities: at its lowest and most fragmented, it isapparently a world of only individual, discrete things withoutsignificance, but in reality it is a world vested with signs, symbols,and hidden meanings as the multidimensional creation of a Triadic God.Even the lowest things cannot simply be despised, for even in theirdissimilarity from the divine, they bear the capacity to signify thedivine more appropriately than supposedly worthier images. If we sayGod is good, we run the risk of thinking we know entirely what we meanand consequently of closing off a thought that has to be radicallyopen-ended, if not altogether subverted. If we liken God to a“worm”, we subvert our own comfortable tendencies by beingshocked into filling the image with enquiry. So the Psalmist who usesthe worm image hides the sacred from those who would defile itwith a lack of understanding and yet points to the sacred in anew way. This constant tension or dialectic between hiddenness andopenness pervades the whole of Dionysius’ meditative practice oftheology; and from this perspective Dionysius’ practice of writing is acomplex and necessarily deceptive or subversive process of reading theencoded insight (or contemplation) in created things in such a way thatneither the perceptual beauty of the material thing nor the deeperhidden beauty of the sign becomes a trap, an idol, or a vanishing pointbut, instead, an activity that opens up an irresistibly beautiful worldin and to God.
There are several consequences of this. First, Dionysius’ writing isa response, a preparing of the organs of reception for the love of Godin praise and worship. In theology, we are learning how to praise, tohymn—not to catalogue—God. Second, suchwriting is dialogic and intersubjective to its core in three ways: a)As “in between” teacher and pupil, dialogical receptivityand transmission, open-ended in both directions, characterize itsessential form; b) Even in the content of Dionysius’various works, replete as they are with triads (which can so easily berelegated to a Neoplatonic obscure penchant for providing intermediatelinks), this open-ended in-betweenness, characteristic ofconversation and cooperation, is fundamental to the ranks of thevarious hierarchies. In the EH, for instance, in the triadcatechumen (the one undergoing purification), sponsor or confirmedChristian (the one being illumined), and hierarch (the one beingperfected and enlightening) (according to the traditional triadic form:purification—illumination—perfection), the sponsorfirst introduces the catechumen and both sponsor and catechumen arethen mediated by the work of the hierarch. For Dionysius at least (ifnot in the actual operation of a “church”), hierarchy ishere not a question of domination, but rather of a genuineopen-endedness, testability through interlocutor and mediator,community and responsibility. c) Finally, what completes both the formand the content above all is prayer, since, for Dionysius (asfor Anselm much later), prayer is the primary form of reverentialphilosophical thought and receptivity, “stretching ourselvesout”, as in Gregory of Nyssa, so as to be “lifted up”(cf. DN 3). The most famous example of such prayer is the verybeginning of the MT, where in the address/request“Triad, above substance, above god, above good” to“make our way straight to the topmost peak, beyond knowing andlight, of the mystical scriptures—there where the simple,absolute and unchangeable, mysteries of God’s speaking lie wrapped inthe darkness beyond light of secret—hidden silence”,Timotheus, the disciple is also included, together with us thereaders.
4.3 Philosophy?
All of this looks so alien to the spirit of modern philosophy thatwe may well ask if there is anything really philosophical in Dionysius’practice? The answer has to be affirmative, for there is a perfectlyreasonable pattern to the whole of Dionysius’ works. Aadhar cards in apa. Wp robot serial key numbers download. In addition,Dionysius regards his own task as a kind of demonstration(apodeixis) or showing (deixai). In the DivineNames, such demonstration is given a Pauline resonance whenDionysius states that we should hold to the scriptural revelation ofdivine names “not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but indemonstration of the power granted by the Spirit” (DN585b; cf. Paul 1 Cor 2–4). In other words, Dionysius here seesscripture as providing the basis for a deeper understanding ofattribution or predication that will lead us beyond our own merelyhuman capacities. That such a demonstration involves the unpacking ofthe symbolic, contemplative, and mystical significances of ordinarythings by the aid of scriptural testimony is clear in theEcclesiastical Hierarchy, which again starts from Dionysius’purpose of demonstrating what the hierarchy comprises; and that thisincludes arguments, reasons, the possibility of debate and evenimprovement upon Dionysius’ demonstrations by his interlocutor becomesclear too at the end of the work, when the literary humility that ischaracteristic of his writing (cf. EH 568a ff.; DN981c–984a; CH 340b) shows itself to be philosophicallyjustified by Dionysius’ ability to set out both sides of the case forand against infant baptism in the understanding that he may not fullybe in possession of the most complete view of the situation and thathis interlocutor should “use” what he has said “assteps (epanabathmois) to a higher ray of light”(EH 568d–569a). This is a thought couched in terms veryreminiscent of Socrates’ wish in the Republic to subvert ordestroy hypotheses and use them as stepping stones to something better,and it is also a thought not unworthy of Wittgenstein’s similar view atthe end of the Tractatus. The words immediately following makeclear the connection between charity of interpretation,open-endedness and demonstration: “Be generous with methen, my dear friend,… and show (deixon) to my eyesthat more beautiful and unified beauty which you may be able tosee”. Demonstration in this sense, then, includes much of what wemight consider to be properly philosophical, but at root it is also aform of “divine reading” (lectio divina, ormeditative, prayerful reading) of nature and word, a receptiverecognition as a kind of method or making one’s way “to hear thesacred words as receptively as possible, to be open to the divineworkings of God, to clear an uplifting path (hodopoiesis)toward that inheritance that awaits us in heaven, and to accept ourmost divine and sacred regeneration” (EH 392a).
5. Afterlife: Significance and Influence
In sum, Dionysius represents the instantaneous resonances, possiblein unusual circumstances, between forms of thought and practice thatmay at first sight appear entirely divergent. He is therefore in somerespects a dangerous thinker, yet at the same time a forger of newpossibilities:
- Partly because as a Christian he cannot accept at face value theNeoplatonic view of the One as excluding trinity, Dionysius forges anew way of thinking about God by linking beyond-beingness withunrestricted being and by combining in God’s transcendent love bothpower and a kind of hyperessential, erotic vulnerability. In the firstinstance, he provides a fruitful link between philosophies based upon atranscendent principle beyond being (for example, the Good) andphilosophies of being, and in the second instance he suggests a lovingGod whom, in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, it makes sense to addressin prayer. At the same time, however, this standpoint leaves room, froma modern viewpoint particularly, for interreligious dialogue since,while it is certainly a Christian view, it also remains radicallyopen-ended.
- He also succeeds in transposing Pagan Neoplatonism into a completeChristian theology, from the Trinity and the angelic world through theincarnation and redemption to the sacramental life and orders of theChurch, and extending to the old Law, and provides not only a symbolicand mystical explanation, but a profound reconsideration of theimportance of liturgical practice as a response to both the hidden andthe more manifest divine workings of grace in scripture, ritual,morality, law and even material things.
- Together with scripture, the Fathers, and the entire ancienttradition, he provides a framework and a vocabulary for ordinaryspirituality as well as mystical practice, especially for describingthe approach of the soul through inactivity of all knowledge to a stateof unification with God “in the brilliant darkness of a hiddensilence” (MT 1); and his complex negative theologytransmits a theory of signification that in many ways is soself-subversive and necessarily deceptive at each level (bothkataphatic and apophatic) that for future generationsafter his own time it will hardly be possible to translate his workswithout also writing commentaries upon them.
- In addition, Dionysius’ view of the visible created universe was tohave a marked influence for two reasons, first, because his vivid senseof the aesthetic and imaginative beauty of the sensible universe,pervaded from the perspective of divine beauty by interrelatedness andharmony (see esp. DN 7), came to inspire Abbot Suger’s programfor a new architecture, the Gothic cathedral, and, second, becauseDionysius also took account of ugliness, defect, resistance, and evilby his theory of evil as privation and non-being, a theoryadopted from Plotinus (with significant changes) and Proclus anddestined to have further influence upon Aquinas in medieval times andFicino in the Renaissance.
For the long commentary tradition, from John of Scythopolis to Aquinasand Ficino, see bibliography 2 below. St. Gregory the Great refers toDionysius in his own commentary on the angels and probably had thecomplete works at Rome. But the study of Dionysius did not take off inthe Latin West until the Byzantine emperor Michael the Stammerer senta copy of the Dionysian corpus as a gift to the Frankish king Louisthe Pious in 827. This copy served as the source of the firsttranslations of Dionysius into Latin. The first translation, madearound 838 by Hilduin, abbot of a monastery near Paris (who identifiedDionysius not only as St. Dionysius the Areopagite but also as thefirst bishop of Paris), was so unintelligible that Charles II askedthe great Irish philosopher, John Scottus Eriugena, to make a newtranslation that he completed in 862 and that was subsequently revisedwith clarifications in 875. The influence of Dionysius is profound inEriugena’s own thought as it would be later in the Franciscantradition (especially Grosseteste and Bonaventure) and also to alesser extent in the Dominican (both Albert and Aquinas wrotecommentaries). In fact, the abiding-procession-return triad may besaid to form the essential structure of Aquinas’ unfinishedmasterpiece, the Summa Theologica. The influence ofDionysius’ ideas pervades not only the Italian and EnglishRenaissance, but also the Rhineland mystical writers, such as MeisterEckhart (d. 1327), Tauler (d. 1361), Ruysbroeck (d. 1381), Gerson(d. 1429), and later Denis the Carthusian (d. 1471) and Nicholas ofCusa (d. 1464) (whose work On Learned Ignorance owes a debtto Dionysius’ agnosia or unknowingness, as does also theanonymous author of the Cloud of Unknowing) and the greatSpanish mystics, for example, St. John of the Cross (d. 1591). In theGreek East, Dionysius’ On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchyinspired a series of liturgical commentaries, beginning withthe Mystagogy of Maximus the Confessor (d. 662) andcontinuing with works by Germanus of Constantinople (d. 733) andNicholas Cabasilas (d. 1390). Dionysius played a major role in thePalamite controversy of the 14th century, cited both by GregoryPalamas (d. 1359) and by his opponents. In the modern world, Dionysiushas received less attention, though he is of some importance for 19thcentury German Idealist thought and also to a lesser extent forEnglish and American Romanticism. In the so-called“postmodern” world, however, two thinkers who have writtenabout Dionysius with great insight are Jean-Luc Marion and JacquesDerrida. Derrida, in particular, has been one of the few contemporaryphilosophical thinkers, if not the only one, to realize the importanceof Dionysius in relation to deconstruction (a term he does not usehimself) and to explore the complex nature of prayer, address, anddenial in the context of the necessarily deceptive and open-endedpossibilities of negative theology.
6. Outline of the Works
On the Divine Names
Chs. 1–3: | methodological introduction: how the divine names do and do notknow God (ch. 1); how they are a result of differentiation and unity inGod (ch. 2); the necessity of prayer, and the degree of differentiationin Dionysius’ own treatise, compared with the scriptures and thework of his predecessors (ch. 3) |
Ch. 4: | the name of “good,” with its allied names of“light,” “beauty,” “love,” and“jealousy;” the nature of evil |
Chs. 5–7: | the names of the Neoplatonic triad: “being” (ch. 5),“life” (ch. 6), and “intellect” (ch. 7) withits allied name of “word” |
Ch. 8: | the name of “power” with its allied names of“righteousness” and “salvation” |
Ch. 9: | names derived from Neoplatonic categories of being:“same” and “different,” “rest” and“motion,” “similarity” and“dissimilarity,” and others |
Ch. 10: | names referring to time, such as “ancient of days” and“eternity” |
Ch. 11: | the name of “peace;” whether the names exist inthemselves, and how they exist in God |
Ch. 12: | names of governance, such as “king of kings” and“lord of lords” |
Ch. 13: | the names “perfect” and “one” |
Mystical Theology
Ch. 1: | introduction, and allegory of Moses’ ascent up Mt. Sinai |
Ch. 2: | mystical theology compared to carving a statue |
Ch. 3: | explanatory outline of Dionysius’ theological works;comparison of affirmative and negative theology |
Chs. 4–5: | negative theology in action, negating first sensible things andtheir characteristics (ch. 4), then divine names and theologicalrepresentations (ch. 5) |
On the Celestial Hierarchy
Chs.1–2: | methodological introduction: how we receive divine illumination(ch. 1) and how we use names to describe God and the angels (ch.2) |
Ch. 3: | general definition of hierarchy |
Ch. 4: | description of the celestial hierarchy |
Ch. 5: | the meaning of “angel” |
Ch. 6–10: | the nine ranks of angels identified (ch. 6), then explained one byone (chs. 7–9), then summed up in terms of their common mission (ch.10) |
Chs. 11–13: | apparent violations of the hierarchic principle: all the angels arereferred to as “heavenly powers” (ch. 11), human hierarchsare sometimes called “angels” (ch. 12), and the prophetIsaiah seems to have been purified directly by a seraphim, one of thehigher ranks (ch. 13) |
On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
Ch. 1: | definition and explanation of hierarchy; how our hierarchy differsfrom the celestial hierarchy; origin of the ecclesiastical rites |
Ch. 2: | contemplation of baptism |
Ch. 3: | contemplation of communion; systematic description of catechumens,penitents, and possessed |
Ch. 4: | contemplation of the rite of the ointment |
Ch. 5: | contemplation of the consecration of bishops, priests, and deacons;description of legal hierarchy; triad of purification, illumination,and perfection |
Ch. 6: | contemplation of the consecration of a monk |
Ch. 7: | contemplation of funeral rites; brief comments on intercessoryprayer, excommunication, and infant baptism |
Letters
1–2: | to Gaius, on negative theology: how God is beyond knowledge (letter1) and beyond “God” and “goodness” (letter2) |
3–4: | to Gaius, on the incarnation of Christ: its“suddenness” (letter 3) and how it manifests a single“theandric” activity of the divine and human natures(letter 4) |
5: | to Dorotheus, on negative theology, with scriptural references |
6: | to Sosipater, against polemics |
7: | to Polycarp, against polemics, and on miracles |
8: | to Demophilus, on obeying superiors in the hierarchy |
9: | to Titus, on symbolic theology |
10: | to John, on evil and suffering |
Bibliography
Text and Translations
- Patrologia Graeca, v. 3–4, ed. J. P. Migne, Paris1857–66.
- Corpus Dionysiacum I (DN), ed. B. R. Suchla,Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990.
- Corpus Dionysiacum II (CH, EH, MT, Letters), eds.G. Heil and A. M. Ritter, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991.
- Dionysius the Areopagite: The Divine Names and MysticalTheology, trans. C. E. Rolt, London: Society for the Propagationof Christian Knowledge, 1920.
- Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. C.Luibheid and P. Rorem, London: Society for the Promotion of ChristianKnowledge, 1987.
- Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite. Oeuvrescomplètes. Traduction, préface et note, Paris:Aubier, 1980.
- Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names and MysticalTheology, trans. J. Jones, Milwaukee, WI: Marquette UniversityPress, 1980.
- Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita. Die Namen Gottes,trans. B. R. Suchla, Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1988.
- Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita. Uber die himmlischeHierarchie. Uber die Kirchliche Hierarchie, trans. G. Heil,Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1986.
- Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita. Uber die mystischeTheologie und Briefe, Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1994.
- The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, trans. J. Parker,London: Parker, 1897.
Patristic and medieval commentaries
- John of Scythopolis et al., c. 530, Scholia, ed. P.Corderius, Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Graeca 4, Paris: Migne1857–91. (Annotations from the Patristic period)
- Johannes Scottus Eriugena, c. 860–70, Expositiones inIerarchiam coelestem (Commentaries on CH), ed. J. Barbet,Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis 31, Turnhout: Brepols,1975.
- Hugh of St. Victor, c.1220–30, Commentariorum in Hierarchiamcoelestem Sancti Dionysii Areopagitae (Commentary on CH),Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Latinus 175, Paris: Migne,1844–80.
- Gallus, Thomas, 1242, Thomas Gallus: Grand commentaire sur laThéologie Mystique (Commentary on MT), ed. G.Thery, Paris: Haloua, 1934.
- Grosseteste, Robert, c. 1240–3, Mystical Theology: The Glossesby Thomas Gallus and the Commentary of Robert Grosseteste on “DeMystica Theologia”, ed. J. McEvoy, Leuven: Peeters,2003.
- Albert the Great, c. 1250–60, Super Dionysium de divinisnominibus (Commentary on DN), ed. P. Simon in Operaomnia, vol. 37, part 1, Munster: Aschendorff, 1972.
- Aquinas, Thomas, c. 1265–8, In librum beati Dionysii De divinisnominibus expositio (Commentary on DN), ed. C. Pera,Turin: Marietti, 1950.
- Chevallier, P. (ed.), 1937–50, Dionysiaca: Receuil donnantl’ensemble des traditions latines des ouvrages attribuésau Denys de l’Aréopagrite, Bruges: Desclée deBrouwer, 2 vols: repr. Stuttgart, 1989 (with translations by Hilduin,Eriugena, John Sarracenus, Grosseteste, Ficino and others.)
Secondary sources
- de Andia, Y., 1996, L’union à Dieu chez Denysl’Aréopagite, Leiden: E. J. Brill.
- Beggiani, S. J., 1996, “Theology at the Service of Mysticism: Methodin Pseudo-Dionysius,” Theological Studies, 57:201–223
- Brons, B., 1976, Gott und die Seienden. Untersuchungen zumVerhaltnis von neuplatonischer Metaphysik and christlicher Traditionbei Dionysius Areopagita (God and Beings: An Examination of theRelationship between Neoplatonist Metaphysics and Christian Traditionin Dionysius the Areopagite), Gottingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht.
- Corrigan, K., 1996, “‘Solitary’ mysticism inPlotinus, Proclus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Pseudo-Dionysius,”The Journal of Religion, 75(1): 28–42.
- –––, 2004, Reading Plotinus: A PracticalIntroduction to Neoplatonism, Indiana: Purdue UniversityPress
- Finan, T. and Twomey, V. (eds.), 1992, The Relationship BetweenNeoplatonism and Christianity, Dublin: Four Courts Press.
- Gersh, S., 1978, From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Investigationof the Prehistory and Evolution of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition,Leiden: Brill.
- Golitzin, A., 1999 [2003], “Dionysius Areopagita: A ChristianMysticism,” Pro Ecclesia, XII/2 (2003): 161–212.
- Harrington, L. M., 2004, A Thirteenth-Century Textbook ofMystical Theology at the University of Paris, Leuven:Peeters.
- –––., 2004, Sacred Place in Early MedievalNeoplatonism, New York: Palgrave.
- Hathaway, R., 1969, Hierarchy and the Definition of Order inthe Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius, The Hague.
- Koch, J., 1956–7, “Augustinischer und DionysischerNeuplatonismus und das Mittelalter” (Augustinian and DionysianNeoplatonism in the Middle Ages), Kantstudien 48: 117–33; repr. in W.Beierwaltes, Platonismus in der Philosophie des Mittelalters,Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1969, 317–42.
- Lankila, T., 2011, “The Corpus Areopagiticum as a Crypto-PaganProject,” Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture, 5:14–40.
- Louth, A., 1989, Denys, the Areopagite, Wilton, CT:Morehouse-Barlow
- McGinn, B., 1994, The Foundations of Mysticism. Origins to theFifth Century, New York: Crossroads, 157–82. (and also seeappendixes)
- O’Daly, G., 1981, “Dionysius Areopagita”,Theologische Realenzyklopadie, 8: 772–80
- Perl, E. D., 2008, Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy ofDionysius the Areopagite, Albany: SUNY.
- O’Rourke, F., 1992, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysicsof Aquinas, Leiden: Brill.
- Roques, R., 1954, L’univers Dionysien. Stucturehierarchique du monde selon le Pseudo-Denys (The DionysianUniverse: The Hierarchical Structure of the World According toPseudo-Dionysius), Paris: Aubier; repr. Paris: Editions du Cerf,1983.
- Roques, R. et al., 1954, “Denys l’Areopagite (lePseudo-)”, Dictionnaire de spiritualite ascetique et mystiquedoctrine et histoire (Volume 3), 244–429.
- Rorem, P., 1993, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Textsand an Introduction to their Influence, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
- Sheldon-Williams, I. P., 1970, “The Pseudo-Dionysius”,in A. H. Armstong (ed.) The Cambridge History of Later Greek andEarly Medieval Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.
- Stang, C., 2012, Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius theAreopagite: ‘No Longer I’, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
- Turner, Denys, 1995, The Darkness of God. Negativity inChristian Mysticism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,19–49.
- Vanneste, J., 1959, Le mystère de Dieu, Brussels:Desclée de Brouwer.
- Völker, W., 1958, Kontemplation und Ekstase beiPseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, Wiesbaden: F. Steiner.
- Wallis, R. T., 1972, Neoplatonism, 2nd edition with aforeward and bibliography by Lloyd P. Gerson (1995) London, UK; Indianapolis: Duckworth, Hackett.
- Wear, S. K. and Dillon, J., 2007, Dionysius the Areopagite andthe Neoplatonist Tradition: Despoiling the Hellenes, Aldershot:Ashgate.
Suggestions for further reading
On the Celestial Hierarchy
- Battisti, G. S., 1983, “Strutture e figure retoriche nel‘de Caelesti Hierarchia’ dello Pseudo-Dionigi: Un mezzo diespressione dell’ ontologia Neoplatonica,” Archivio diFilosofia, 51: 293–319.
- Duclow, D. F., 1994, “Isaiah meets the seraph: Breaking ranksin Dionysius and Eriugena?” Eriugena: East and West,Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 233–52.
- Lilla, S., 1986, “Note sulla Gerarchia Celeste dello Ps.Dionigi l’Areopagita,” Augustinianum, 26:519–73.
- Sheldon-Williams, I. P., 1972, “Henads and Angels: Proclusand the Pseudo-Dionysius,” Studia Patristica, 11:65–71.
Dionysian Sources: Neoplatonic or Christian?
- Golitzin, A., 1993, “The Mysticism of Dionysius Areopagita:Platonist or Christian?” Mystics Quarterly, 19:98–114.
- Louth, A., 1986, “Pagan Theurgy and Christian Sacramentalismin Denys the Areopagite,” Journal of Theological Studies37: 432–8.
- Rist, J., 1992, “Pseudo-Dionysius, Neoplatonism and theWeakness of the Soul,” in H. J. Van Westra (ed.) From Athensto Chartres: Neoplatonism and Medieval Thought, Leiden: E. J.Brill.
- Saffrey H. D., 1982, ‘New Objective Links between thePseudo-Dionysius and Proclus’, in D. J. O’Meara (ed.)Neoplatonism and Christian Thought, Norfolk, VA: InternationalSociety for Neoplatonic Studies, 65–74.
- Shaw, G., 1999, “Neoplatonic Theurgy and Dionysius theAreopagite,” Journal of Early Christian Studies, 7:573–99.
On the Divine Names
- Corsini, E., 1962, Il trattato ‘De divinisnominibus’ dello Pseudo-Dionigi e i commenti neoplatonici alParmenide, Torino.
- Janowitz, N., 1991, “Theories of Divine Names in Origen andPseudo-Dionysius,” History of Religions, 30 May:359–372.
- Suchla, B. R., 1996, “Wahrheit über jeder Wahrheit: Zurphilosophischen Absicht der Schrift ‘De Divinis Nominibus’des Dionysius Areopagita,” Theologische Quartalschrift176: 205–17.
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
- Golitzin, A., 1994, Et Introibo ad Altare Dei,Thessalonica: Patriarchikon Idruma Paterikon Meleton; GeorgeDedousis.
- Harrington, L. M., 2004, Sacred Place in Early MedievalNeoplatonism, New York: Palgrave.
- Perl, E., 1994, “Hierarchy and Participation in Dionysius theAreopagite and Greek Neoplatonism,” American CatholicPhilosophical Quarterly, 68: 15–30.
- Wesche, P., 1989, “Christological Doctrine and LiturgicalInterpretation in Pseudo-Dionysius,” St. Vladimir’sTheological Quarterly, 33: 53–73.
Influence on Medieval Philosophy
- de Andia, Y., 1997, Denys l’aréopagite et sapostérité en Orient et en Occident, Paris: Institutd’Études Augustiniennes.
- Boiadjiev, T.; Kapriev, G.; and Speer, A. (eds.), 2000, DieDionysius-Rezeption im Mittelalter, Turnhout: Brepols.
- Coakley, S. and Stang, C. M. (eds.), 2009, Re-thinkingDionysius the Areopagite, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
- Dondaine, H. F., 1953, Le corpus dionysien del’université de Paris au XIIIe siècle,Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.
- Harrington, L. M., 2004, A Thirteenth-Century Textbook ofMystical Theology at the University of Paris, Leuven:Peeters.
- Rorem, P. and Lamoreaux, J., 1998, John of Scythopolis and theDionysian Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite, Oxford: ClarendonPress.
Language
- Bader, G., 1989, “Gott nennen: Von Götternamen zugöttlichen Namen: Zur Vorgeschichte der Lehre von dengöttlichen Eigenschaften,” Zeitschrift fürTheologie und Kirche, 86: 306–54.
- Breton, S., 1994, “Superlatif et négation: Commentdire la Transcendance?” Revue des sciences philosophiques etthéologiques, 78: 193–202.
- Gersh, S., 1978, From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Investigationof the Prehistory and Evolution of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition,Leiden: Brill.
- Scazzoso, P., 1967, Ricerche sulla Struttura del Linguaggiodello Pseudo-Dionigi Areopagita, Milan: Società EditriceVita e Pensiero.
- Turner, Denys, 1995, The Darkness of God. Negativity inChristian Mysticism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,19–49.
Love
- Osborne, C., 1994, Eros Unveiled, Oxford: Clarendon.
- Rist, J., 1966, “A Note on Eros and Agape in thePseudo-Dionysius,” Vigiliae christianae, 20: 235–43.
- de Vogel, C. J., 1981, “Greek Cosmic Love and the ChristianLove of God,” Vigiliae christianae, 35: 57–84.
Mystical Theology
- Carabine, D., 1995, The Unknown God: Negative Theology in thePlatonic Tradition: Plato to Eriugena, Louvain: Peeters.
- Lossky, V., 1939, “La théologie négative dansla doctrine de Denys l’Aréopagite,” Revue dessciences philosophiques et théologiques, 28: 204–21.
- Rist, J., 1964, “Mysticism and Transcendence in LaterNeoplatonism,” Hermes, 92: 213–25.
- Williams, J., 1999, “The Apophatic Theology of Dionysius thePseudo-Areopagite,” Downside Review, 117: 157–172.
Postmodern Dionysians
- Derrida, J., 1987, “Comment ne pas parler:Dénégations,” Psyché: Inventions del’autre, Galilée: 584–95.
- Marion, J.-L., 1977, L’idole et la distance, Paris:Editions Bernard Grasset.
- Marion, J.-L., 1982, Dieu sans l’être:Hors-texte, Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard.
Symbolic Theology
- Roques, R., 1957, “Symbolisme et theologie negative chez lePseudo-Denys,” Bulletin de l’association GuillaumeBudé.
- Rorem, P., 1984, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols within thePseudo-Dionysian Synthesis, Toronto.
- Schmemann, A., 1981, “Symbols and Symbolism in the OrthodoxLiturgy,” Orthodox Theology and Diakonia, Brookline,Massachusetts: Hellenic College Press.
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