Situates Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite as a Neoplatonic philosopher in the tradition of Plotinus and Proclus.

This paper explores the influence of the fifth-century Christian Neoplatonist Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Denys) on the twentieth-century philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend. I argue that the later Feyerabend took from Denys a metaphysical claim—the ‘doctrine of ineffability’—intended to support epistemic pluralism. The paper has five parts. Part one introduces Denys and Feyerabend’s common epistemological concern to deny the possibility of human knowledge of ultimate reality. Part two examines Denys’ arguments for the ‘ineffability’ of God as presented in (...) On the Divine Names . Part three then explores how Feyerabend imported Denys’ account of divine ineffability into his own metaphysics to provide a novel argument for epistemic pluralism. Part four explains the significance of an appreciation of Dionyius’ influence for our understanding of Feyerabend. I conclude that Denys was a significant and neglected influence upon the later Feyerabend. (shrink)

This paper discusses the theoretical relationship between the views of Damascius and those of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. While Damascius’ De principiis is a bold treatise devoted to investigating the hypermetaphysics of apophatism, it anticipates various theoretical positions put forward by Dionysius the Areopagite. The present paper focuses on the following. First, Damascius is the only ancient philoso­pher who systematically demonstrates the first principle to be infinite. Second, Damascius modifies the concept and in several important passages (...) shows the infinite to be superior and prior to the finite. Third, Damascius’ theory of being is the strongest ancient articulation of the nature of the One which is a clear prefiguration of the negative theology developed by Dionysius the Areopagite. (shrink)

Should one use philosophy in service of religion? I argue that Dionysius the Areopagite gives a negative answer to this question. The relevant text is Dionysius’ Letter 7, in which he explains why he does not use philosophy to attack Greco-Roman paganism. Philosophy, according to Dionysius, is something divine. In fact, in Letter 7 he goes so far as to identify philosophy with what St. Paul calls the “wisdom of God.” As a result, philosophy should not (...) be treated as a tool to be used in service of anything, even the true religion, which Dionysius of course identifies with Christianity. In order to elucidate Dionysius’ position, I provide a detailed account of how he understands philosophy, religion (thrêskeia), and use (chraô). (shrink)

456 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY or PHILOSOPHY 34:3 JULY 1996 of reflection about rhetorical practices that I suspect Aristotle was trying to elicit in his own time and that Garver is trying to elicit in his. DAVID J. DEPEW California State University, FuUerton Fran O'Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999. Pp. xvi + 3oo. Cloth, $8o.oo. The importance of doctrines found in the Latin translations of the late fifth-century Greek works of pseudo- (...) class='Hi'>Dionysius the Areopagite for the formation of the theologi- cal and philosophical thought of Thomas Aquinas is obvious to anyone well-versed in the texts of Aquinas. However, it is by no means obvious how Aquinas read, under- stood, and transformed the Christian Neoplatonic theology of this apparent disciple of Proclus or Damascius so as to make it an integral part of his understanding of God and creation. O'Rourke rightly conceived his task as twofold: first, the texts of Dionysius must be properly understood; second, the interpretation and use of these by Aquinas can itself be assessed and appreciated in its own thirteenth-century con- text. In the first part of the book he examines the question of knowledge of God, with one chapter devoted to Dionysius and a second devoted to Aquinas's use of "Dionysian Elements" in discovering God. Part Two examines their teachings on the "Transcendence of Being and Good" in chapters 3 and 4. Part Three contains three chapters on the "Unity.. (shrink)

The volumes under review are of immense value, because they convey to the modern reader how and why one of the most important Renaissance Platonists, Marsilio Ficino, came to regard the writings of one late ancient Platonist, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, as central to the history of ancient Platonism. The philosopher nowadays known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is the author of four treatises composed in Greek in the late fifth or the sixth century CE: On (...) the Divine Names, On the Celestial Hierarchy, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, On Mystical Theology. In addition, ten of his letters have survived. The acquired prefix ‘pseudo’ derives from the circumstance that, from the sixth to the fifteenth century.. (shrink)

A growing number of scholars claim that the significance of the Corpus Areopagiticum is determined by an ecclesiastical context. When Dionysius demands the negation of every symbol in The Mystical Theology, Andrew Louth and Alexander Golitzin argue that this simply refers to the Christian liturgy. Yet although this reading has helped correct the tendency to reduce the Corpus to a manual for abstracted dogmatics, it obscures Dionysius's often radical negativity. On the one hand, Dionysius sometimes suggests that (...) union with God may be achieved through liturgical ceremonies, and the language of liturgy resonates throughout the Corpus. On the other hand, however, he states that divine transcendence requires "an undivided and absolute abandonment of yourself and everything," which implies that even ecclesial life is not ultimate. Since nothing can capture the transcendent God, Dionysius argues that all theology must fail, and yet his argument is itself theological. It is this paradoxical ambivalence which ensures that the significance of the Corpus is not exhausted by a liturgical reading: Although Dionysius advocates liturgical practice and a robustly affirmative theology, he indicates that "the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence" wherein lies union with God is an eschatological reality which remains yet to come. (shrink)

Theophany is an excellent introduction to Dionysius, and to the principles of Neoplatonic thought as developed by Plotinus and Proclus. Graduate students and even advanced undergraduates might profit from it, and those of us who have been working on Dionysius for years certainly will.

All too often, the study of ineffability only looks on the bright side of life—mystical experiences of blissful unity, primordial grounds of overflowing fecundity, noetic truths of existential profundity. To some extent, this is true too for Mélanie V. Walton’s Expressing the Inexpressible in Lyotard and Pseudo-Dionysius: Bearing Witness as Spiritual Exercise, which turns to a “desperate love letter to God” —the eros-infused naming and unnaming of God in The Divine Names, a treatise by the sixth-century Neoplatonic-Christian (...) class='Hi'>Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite—for a means by which a Holocaust survivor might confront a Holocaust denier. Still, that the Holocaust features at all in a religio-philosophical book on ineffability might help give an otherwise lofty field of inquiry a much-needed grounding.It is difficult to put Walton’s thesis succinctly: Expressing the Inexpressible in Lyotard and Pseudo-Dionysius is a multi-faceted work with several theses. To begin with, there is the pro .. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: God beyond being Creation as theophany Goodness, beauty, and love Evil Hierarchy Knowledge Symbolism Christological consummation.

Este libro de reciente aparición representa una síntesis actualizada de los orígenes, recepciones e influencia del Corpus Dionysiacum. Los tópicos que desarrolla no se limitan a la raíz neoplatónica y su fusión con el cristianismo, sino que explora asimismo las tradiciones que confluyen en el pensamiento de (Pseudo) Dionisio Areopagita y su despliegue en diversas filosofías y teologías que son profundamente afectadas por los modos de lectura del Corpus. La reconocida autoridad de los firmantes y la extensión temática que (...) abarcan constituyen este volumen en una nueva obra de referencia necesaria para los estudios dionisianos y de las recepciones del pensamiento tardo-antiguo en general. (shrink)

This is a case study of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite’s De divinis nominibus, a text about God’s names and properties in which human effort to comprehend the projections of the divine energies is described. We specifically focus our attention on the Paraphrasis of George Pachymeres, who was one of the most important representatives of the Palaeologan Renaissance and a great commentator on Pseudo-Dionysius’ works. His introduction to the De divinis nominibus provides us with the opportunity to (...) approach it in two ways: from the historical point of view, we discuss the reason why the text was composed; from the systematic point of view, we discuss some general points about what names and definitions indicate. This is important for a better understanding of the rest of the treatise. (shrink)

There is a tension in the Dionysian corpus between the resolute negativity of the Mystical Theology and Divine Names, on the one hand, and the affirmative confidence of the hierarchical treatises. Where the former works insist that God is entirely beyond created symbols, the latter speaks of "mediation" of the divine (CH XIII.4) and "a correlation between visible signs and invisible reality" (CH XV.5). Whereas the debate surrounding the Corpus tends to exaggerate one of these poles at the expense of (...) the other, I argue that the tension between them is best understood by way of a distinctively eschatological reading. Although scholars including Paul Rorem claim that the Corpus Dionysiacum contains no eschatology, I argue that the Divine Names describes a gap that is unmistakably temporal between what we "now grasp" and the plenitude of knowledge that remains for the "time to come" (DN (I.4). Because Dionysius claims that union with God remains a matter for expectation and is thus reserved for eschatological fulfillment, the present practice of the church that he describes necessarily takes the form of a tentative attempt to speak and act without certain knowledge. The church may continue to hope that its visible signs are taken up into the divine life, but Dionysius is clear that this affirmation is necessarily uncertain. Yet, far from undermining the present practice of faithful life, Dionysius suggests that the temporal play of presence and absence describes the condition of sacrament itself. (shrink)

In the earlier part of the sixth century, John of Scythopotis collected and edited the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. Elevated to the episcopacy of the important see of Palestina Secunda, sometime between 538 and 544, John not only gathered these texts of Dionysius, he also lent his own Neochalcedonian Christology to them in order to have one more apostolic authority from which to quote against the Monophysites of his day. Thanks in large part to Beate Regina (...) Suchla's recent work in John's original Syrian, scholars have been able to discern more easily his commentary on the Dionysian corpus from Maximus the Confessor's, as both were unfortunately melded together by Père Migne. This excellent study from Rorem and Lamoreaux thus introduces us to John of Scythopolis: both a compiler and commentator on the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius as well as a theologian and defensorfidei in his own tight. (shrink)

The Epistola de morte apostolorum Petri et Pauli (CPG 6631, CANT 197) is addressed to Timothy, the disciple of the apostle Paul, and attributed to Denys the Areopagite. It contains a hymn on St. Paul, the lament for the loss of Paul and Peter and an eyewitness report on St. Paul’s martyrdom in Rome. Its aim is to legitimize Denys as heir of St. Paul’s theology by linking him with Timothy to whom the main tractates of the Corpus Dionysiacum (...) were sent. There are two recensions of the letter’s text. One recension exists in Syriac and Arminian, the other in Georgian and Latin, both part of hagiographic collections and both translating (lost) Greek exemplars. The two recensions are presented here in first critical editions, provided with philological introductions and a German translation. The oldest witness is a Syriac codex of the 9th century; the Georgian version is in a legendary of the 10th century. The Latin version surfaces in the 13th century and was taken up by the Legenda aurea. An Early New High German translation is edited as well. In addition there is an edition and analysis of the homily BHL 2187, a neglected document (end of the 8th century) for the fusion of Denys, the martyr bishop of Paris, with Denys the Areopagite. (shrink)

While a considerable amount of effort has been expended in an attempt to understand Ludwig Wittgenstein’s enigmatic comments about silence and the mystical at the end of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , very little attention has been paid to the implications of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations for the study of ineffability. This paper first argues that, since Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations problematizes private language, emphasizes the description of actual language use, and recognizes the rule-governed nature of language, it contains significant implications for the study (...) of ineffability, inviting investigations of the ways in which putative ineffability actually gets expressed rather than speculation about whether there are ineffable objects or experiences. It then undertakes such an investigation in the Dionysian corpus, finding therein not only grammatical techniques that express inexpressibility at the referential, illocutionary, and semiotic levels but also rules that underlie and govern these techniques. Finally, it shows how a recovery of the ordinary uses of ineffability might help dissolve the metaphysical problem of ineffability, thereby bringing ineffability back to the everyday. (shrink)

In the scope of Medieval Metaphysics, «beauty» has been pondered as an ambiguous concept: either attributed to God, or to the World. The aim of this article is to clarify the meaning of this ambiguity within the philosophy of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. If, therefore, the concept of «beauty» is primarily withdrawn from its sensible and mundane feature in order to be appropriated to the divine nature, it is secondly apposed to creation itself so that it may (...) designate the visible manifestation of transcendent beauty and vital call to theological pursuit.No contexto da Metafísica Medieval, a «beleza» foi pensada como um conceito ambíguo: ora atribuído a Deus, ora atribuído ao Mundo. O propósito deste artigo é clarificar o sentido desta ambiguidade no âmbito da filosofia do Pseudo-Dionísio Areopagita. Se, portanto, o conceito de «beleza» é, em primeiro lugar, despojado do seu carácter sensível e mundano, para ser apropriado à natureza divina, ele é, num segundo momento, aposto à própria criação, de forma a designar a manifestação visível da beleza transcendente e o chamamento vital para a perscrutação teológica. (shrink)

This article, by analysing, annotating en interpreting the most recent research in all relevant departments, provides a fresh and updated overview of the Neoplatonic metaphysics of Pseudo-Dionysius (ca. 500). After providing an introduction to Dionysius’ metaphysics in terms of the contributions of Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism, the article explores his broader philosophical system. A number of traits that are uniquely Dionysic-metaphysical, are eventually isolated: the interpretation of transcendence as bound to immanence; the affirmation of God’s transcendence in (...) the world (that is, a metaphysics of ‘creation as teophany’; following E.D. Perl); the radical transcendence and simultaneous radical immanence of God (that is, God as ‘Beingness’); fundamental restrictions of language and the analogical ‘Naming’ of God; creation as a system of dialectical symbols about God; the analogical participation of the subject in creation; and unification (reditus, the ‘flowing of things back to God’). These traits are utilised to reappraise the metaphysics of Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) in a subsequent article. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between light, splendour and beauty in the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. From a systematic analysis of the Corpus Dionysiacum, we will see to what point he forged an aesthetic perspective from the property of “splendour” in comparison with “proportion”, to coordinate the conception of light in Christian Revelation and in Neoplatonic Philosophy.

This paper aims to examine the notion of τριάς in Proclus and in the Corpus Areopagiticum. As is well known, in Proclus’ metaphysical‑theological system the concept of «triad» plays a central role. In his philosophical perspective, triadic structures pervade the totality of reality in all its different levels and articulations, based on the fundamental triad consisting of remaining‑procession‑reversion. At the same time, the First Principle, also conceived as One‑Good and First God, due to its original simplicity, transcends all triadic structures, (...) while simultaneously constituting their original foundation. On its turn, Pseudo‑Dionysius’ theological thought shows several points of contact with Proclus’ metaphysical‑theological perspective, including the overall conception of the universe as ordered in triadic structures. However, while in Proclus the term τριάς can only refer to the triadic metaphysical structures permeating the totality of reality, in Pseudo‑Dionysius it most often designates the Trinity, that is, the three hypostases Father – Son – Holy Spirit. Moreover, whereas in Proclus the notion of «triad» cannot in any way be referred to the First Principle, which, due to its originality and absolutely transcendent simplicity, is released from all forms of relationality, in the Corpus Areopagiticum, especially in De divinis nominibus, the Trinity and God’s triune nature provide the foundation for the essential and inalienable relationship between God and the whole of creation. Nevertheless, for Pseudo‑Dionysius, just as in Proclus, God in his absolute transcendence with respect to all things appears, in a paradoxical way, placed above all forms of relatedness. Consequently, as the conclusion of this essay aims to show, an unsolvable tension emerges in the Corpus Areopagiticum between the nature of the Trinity and the absolute otherness of God. The mystical outcome of pseudo‑Dionysian theology, as shown especially in the final section of De mystica theologia, thus comes to represent the inescapable conclusion reached by theological reflection once it has realised the inability of thinking to admit the paradoxical coexistence in God of relation and absolute unrelatedness. (shrink)

Throughout the history of Christian spirituality, it has been held that it is impossible to adequately name God. The Neoplatonic readings of Plato's Parmenides, particularly by Plotinus and Proclus, decisively influenced the course of Western philosophy and theology. From a comparison of the notion of God in Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, Epistle III, and in Martin Heidegger's text "Der letzte Gott," I show that there is a common thread, based in the Pauline idea of kenösis.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:An Exposition of The Divine Names, The Book of Blessed Dionysius by Thomas AquinasMichael J. Rubin, Elizabeth C. Shaw, and Staff*AQUINAS, Thomas. An Exposition of The Divine Names, The Book of Blessed Dionysius. Translated and edited with an introduction by Michael A. Augros. Merrimack, N.H.: Thomas More College Press, 2021. xxv + 549 pp. Cloth, $65.00The profound influence that Pseudo-Dionysius had on Aquinas’s thought, (...) especially in his metaphysics of participation and his apophatic theology, has been known for some time now, thanks to the excellent work of such scholars as Fran O’Rourke. One would therefore think that Aquinas’s Exposition of the Divine Names (his only commentary on the works of Pseudo-Dionysius) would have been translated a lot sooner. This delay is assuredly due not just to the difficulty of translating this work but also to a certain embarrassment felt by Thomists over Aquinas’s sincere belief that the “Dionysius” who wrote the Divine Names was the Areopagite whose conversion at the teaching of St. Paul is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. That the author calling himself “Dionysius” was in fact a theologian writing in the fifth or sixth centuries has been well established by modern scholarship. Hence, Thomists may have felt tempted to discount or at least pass over the influence of this author on Aquinas since it is discomfiting to think that the Church’s greatest theologian accorded such authority to an imposter.Michael Augros tackles these concerns head-on in the excellent introduction to his new translation of the Divine Names commentary. First, Augros points out that in past centuries a pseudonym was usually not an act of forgery but, rather, a way of concealing the author’s identity, which an early Christian theologian might well decide to do either out of humility or out of a desire “to avoid provoking certain prejudices” in those who disagreed with him in contemporary theological disputes. Moreover, it is likely that the work was never intended for the general public (who could easily mistake the pseudonym as genuine) but, rather, was written for those “already initiated in a particular Neoplatonic school of Christian theology,” who would recognize the author as being “one of their own” but without knowing his precise identity. Finally, in taking the particular name of “Dionysius,” the author of the Divine Names was indicating his intention for the work: Just as the biblical Dionysius was a Greek philosopher who converted to Christianity, so the works of Pseudo-Dionysius [End Page 345] are an attempt to reconcile Greek philosophy with the Christian faith.It therefore seems likely, as Augros observes, that Aquinas would still have accorded a great deal of respect to the Divine Names even if he had learned the truth of the author’s identity. The work would not have had the same deuterocanonical authority for him that comes with being written by a direct disciple of St. Paul himself, but “the inherent cogency, coherence, and beauty” of Pseudo-Dionysius’s theology would have been the same. Hence, Pseudo-Dionysius would surely have earned from Aquinas the “docile attitude” appropriate “for a philosopher and theologian of the first order, such as Boethius.”That Aquinas was right to see the author of the Divine Names as a master philosopher and theologian becomes evident when one dives into the text itself, in which Aquinas sees a truly dazzling order, both externally and internally. According to Aquinas, the Divine Names discusses those truths about God of which there are intelligible likenesses in creatures, such as goodness or wisdom, whereas the truths about God of which there are sensible likenesses (for example, “when God is called a lion, or a rock”) are treated by Pseudo-Dionysius in The Symbolic Theology; meanwhile, in the lost or fictional work The Divine Characteristics, Dionysius claims to have treated those truths about God (such as the Trinity) that cannot be known through any likenesses in creatures.Aquinas finds a still more intricate order within the Divine Names itself. Since this work is dedicated to “the divine names by which the processions of God to creatures are manifested,” the plan of the work... (shrink)

Given the renewed interest in Dionysian scholarship in the last decade, one wonders what new things can be said of the enigmatic figure known as "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite." Rorem's book has much to add to the present state of scholarship. The author intends to present the treatises of the Areopagite--The Divine Names, The Mystical Theology, The Celestial Hierarchy, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and The Epistles--as a coherent whole. He rightfully maintains that medieval readers often "ripped" their favorite (...) material from the Dionysian garment resulting in a patchwork unreflective of the whole. Accordingly, traditional interpretations of the corpus areopagiticum, to switch metaphors, often lost the forest for the trees. Rorem contends that the treatises' material unity results from Dionysius' pervasive concern for the symbols of the liturgy and of the Bible, whether in its names for God or in its descriptions of the angels. These symbols, as outlined in the Mystical Theology, are painted on the backdrop of the Neoplatonic notions of "Procession" and "Return." Hence: "Christian symbolism, whether ritual acts or scriptural language in general, is a divine self-revelation which proceeds 'down' into the human categories of thought and sense perception." This procession allows for a return which uplifts the faithful: initially, to a higher conceptual realm, through the negation and interpretation of all perceptual symbols; then, to the very Godhead, through the negation of all interpretations, all language, and even all thought. (shrink)

The Liber de causis, a monotheistic reworking of Proclus' Elements of Theology, was translated from Arabic into Latin in the twelfth century, with an attribution to Aristotle. Considering this Neoplatonic text a product of Aristotle's school and even the completion of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Albert the Great concluded his series of Aristotelian paraphrases by commenting on it. To do so was to invite controversy, since accidents of translation had made many readers think that the Liber de causis taught that God made (...) only the first creature, which in turn created the diverse multitude of lesser things. Thus, Albert's contemporaries in the Christian West took the text to uphold the supposedly Aristotelian doctrine that from the One only one thing can emanate--a doctrine they rejected, believing as they did that God freely determined the number and kinds of creatures. Albert, however, defended the philosophers against the theologians of his day, denying that the thesis "from the One only one proceeds" removed God's causality from the diversity and multiplicity of our world. This Albert did by appealing to a greater theologian, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and equating the being that is the subject of metaphysics with the procession of Being from God's intellect, a procession Dionysius described in On the Divine Names. Creation as Emanation examines Albert's reading of the Liber de causis with an eye toward two questions: First, how does Albert view the relation between faith and reason, so that he can identify creation from nothing with emanation from God? And second, how does he understand Platonism and Aristotelianism, so that he can avoid the misreadings of his fellow theologians by finding in a late-fifth-century Neoplatonist the key to Aristotle's meaning? (shrink)

This paper is about the specific character of the aesthetic experience of icons. I am arguing for the idea that the aesthetic experience of icons is a necessary condition of their role and function in Christian worship, and, moreover, that this particular aesthetic experience is of an apophatic kind. My arguments will be developed on the background of the Byzantine iconoclastic debate and the apophatic theology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Also, they should present the very debate from (...) the perspective of aesthetics, often overlooked in favour of more theological or ontological issues related to it. (shrink)

Resumo No que se segue, discuto o que eu quero dizer com Misticismo Ortodoxo em Filosofia e Teologia, com referências específicas a Pseudo-Dionísio, o Areopagita; São Simeão, o Novo Teólogo e São Nicolau Cabasilas. Depois abordarei o que considero ser a meta da Mística Ortodoxa em Filosofia e Teologia, ou seja, o rapto ecstático e a união com o Deus Uno e Trino por meio da glorificação ou deificação. A minha investigação vai terminar com uma análise acerca da diferença (...) entre a abordagem de Deus Uno e Trino na Mística Ortodoxa da abordagem Católica Romana de Deus percebido como ‘Esse de ipsum subsistens’ juntamente com as duas formas diferentes de misticismo que estas percepções de Deus implicam. Palavras-chave : intelectualismo esotérico, Misticismo Ortodoxo, nuvem do não saber, ontologia, proporcionalidade doxástica, sinergiaIn what follows, I discuss what I mean by Orthodox Mysticism in Philosophy and Theology with specific reference to Ps. Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Symeon the New Theologian and St. Nicholaos Cabasilas. I then discuss what I take to be the goal of the Orthodox mystic in Philosophy and Theology, i.e., ecstatic rapture and union with the Triune God through glorification or deification. My investigation will finish with an examination of how the Orthodox mystical approach to the Triune God differs from the Roman-Catholic approach to God perceived as ‘Esse ipsum subsistens’ and the two different forms of mysticism that these two perceptions of God imply. Keywords : cloud of non-knowledge, doxastic proportionality, esoteric intellectualism, ontology, Orthodox Mysticism, synergos. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 12, Issue 1, pp 39 - 50 The paper deals with an anonymous _Hymn to God_, which is attributed to Gregory of Nazianzus by some authors, but was most probably composed by a Christian Neoplatonist such as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The paper explores the hymn’s relation to Neoplatonic theories of prayer and shows that these affinities are broader in scope than has previously been recognised. Some Pagan and Christian Neoplatonists, including the author of the (...) _Hymn to God_, seem to have shared the idea of a cosmic prayer by which all beings tend towards God, a prayer founded on the knowledge of the ‘signatures’ that God rooted in our souls. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Like many writers after the Renaissance, Hooker was influenced by a number of classical and Neo-Platonic texts, especially by Cicero, Seneca, Hermes Trimegistus, and Pseudo-Dionysius. Hooker’s regular allusions to these thinkers help illuminate his own work but also his place within the broader European context and the history of ideas. This paper addresses in turn the reception of Cicero and Seneca in the early Church through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Hooker’s use of Ciceronian and Senecan ideas, (...) and finally Hooker’s use of Neo-Platonic texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and Dionysius the Areopagite. Hooker will be shown to distinguish himself as a sophisticated and learned interpreter who balances distinctive motifs such as Scripture and tradition, faith, reason, experience, and ecclesiology with a complex appeal to pagan and Christian sources and ideas. (shrink)

This article investigates the palimpsest reception of Pseudo-Dionysius (ca. 500) in the metaphysics of Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464). The article covers Cusa’s political theory and metaphysics, which are intertwined. Reading Cusa against the backdrop of an analysis of Pseudo-Dionysius’ metaphysics in a preceding article, the author, in a synthetic conclusion, isolates seven Dionysic ‘trails’ (S1 to S7) in Cusa’s metaphysics: the interpretation of transcendence as bound to immanence; the affirmation of God’s transcendence in the world (or (...) a metaphysics of ‘creation as teophany’); the radical transcendence and simultaneous radical immanence of God (that is, God as ‘Beingness’); fundamental restrictions of language and the analogical ‘Naming’ of God; creation as a system of dialectical symbols about God; the analogical participation of the subject in creation; and unification (reditus, the ‘flowing of things back to God’). The Dionysic trails in Cusa’s metaphysics are described as a noteworthy, if not important, palimpsest in the corpus of late Medieval philosophy and is indicative of what the author puts forward as ‘discursive memory’, which is presented as a modern-critical concept. (shrink)

In this article, we deal with the intelligible world of the angels in the Areopagetic tradition and we compose references found in the De divinis nominibus to form, as far as possible, a complete definition of them. This systematic approach to the Areopagetic corpus takes into consideration Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite’s text and George Pachymeres’ Paraphrasis of this treatise. We also offer a methodological proposal on how we can structure theoretically general concepts that refer to objective realities, which (...) however cannot be proved by the tools of formal Logic. (shrink)

This book presents a synthetic view of the intellectual variants of negative theology at the dawn of modern times. It attempts to grasp the diversity of ideas in ontology, epistemology and semeiotics which evolved through readings of pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.

This study tries to identify the core elements of the teaching of Albert the Great on the possibility of a natural knowledge of God and its sources in the negative theology of Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite.

El objetivo de este artículo es examinar el papel de la imagen y de la imaginación desde la perspectiva del proceso ternario místico basado en la tradición del Pseudo Dionisio Areopagita. Destaco en este proceso la etapa primera relacionada con la teología simbólica y la experiencia exterior y sensorial; la etapa intermedia relacionada con el conocimiento racional y con la experiencia interior; la etapa tercera relacionada con la teología mística, esto es con la experiencia sobrenatural. Llego a la conclusión (...) de que en la primera etapa la imaginación sobrepasa lo exterior y lo superficial que se le atribuía tradicionalmente, porque varios autores metafísicos y místicos introducen en su contexto un momento de la comprensión intuitiva. En la segunda etapa la imaginación no sólo es un fundamento del pensamiento discursivo, sino que también constituye un ejercicio espiritual que ha de intensificar el proceso pensativo. En la tercera etapa la imagen y la imaginación son un medio que ayuda a vencer la inefabilidad de la experiencia mística. The objective of the article is to examine the role of the image and imagination from the perspective of the tripartite mystical process based on the tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. I distinguish in the first stage of this process the symbolical theology related to the external and sensuous experience; in the second stage the rational cognition and internal experience; in the last stage the mystical theology related to the supranatural experience. I arrive at a conclusion that in the first stage the imagination exceed the exterior and superficial character which was attributed traditionally to it, because various metaphysical and mystical authors introduce in the context of it a moment of a intuitive comprehension. In the second stage it is not only a basis of discursive thinking but it constitutes spiritual exercise which should intensify the process of thinking. In the third stage the image and imagination are a medium which help to overcome the ineffability of the mystical experience. (shrink)

The paper explores two avenues to the union of the believer with God in Thomas Aquinas inspired by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite; namely, the intellectual union in faith through the gift of understanding and the union in charity as the basis for the knowledge associated with the gift of wisdom. The former amounts to an intellectual grasp of revealed truths without full understanding of the terms used (without the apprehension of the essences), yet with a clear understanding of (...) what would be erroneous interpretations and meanings. The latter is an (quasi-)experimental knowledge of God based on connaturality with him due to the infused virtue of charity. Both kinds of knowledge or “mystical theology” are open to any believer in the state of sanctifying grace and are its effects. (shrink)

O problema de fundo da especulação eckhartiana é a verdade do ser uno enquanto Deus e divino ligada à questão do seu conhecimento. Operando uma síntese da tradição neoplatônico-agostiniana e do pensamento do Pseudo-Dionísio Areopagita, o mestre dominicano funda os alicerces da sua teologia unitiva na teoria do ser. The fundamental problem of Eckhartian speculation is that of the connection between the truth of the unique being as God and the question of His knowledge. By creating a synthesis of (...) the Augustinian-Platonic tradition and the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, the Dominican master founds the basis of his unitary theology in the theory of being. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Renaissance Thought on the Celestial Hierarchy:The Decline of a Tradition?Feisal G. MohamedThe Dionysian arrangement of the angels was dismantled on the one hand because its author was increasingly regarded as a "counterfait," and on the other hand because Protestants upheld the Bible's supremacy over all the "vain babblings of idle men." In consequence, those who like Spenser celebrated the "trinall triplicities," look back upon a great past that had (...) provided a vision hallowed by time and graced by an impressive array of intellects.—C. A. Patrides1It has been some forty years now since C. A. Patrides first argued in these pages that English Renaissance views on the celestial hierarchy constitute "the decline of a tradition," an argument made so convincing by his encyclopedic articles on the subject that scholars have been content to accept it. Indeed there is a good deal of evidence suggesting that the tradition of the ninefold hierarchy of angels associated with the Pseudo-Dionysius suffered serious injury at the hands of the Renaissance and Reformation. Subjected to the scrutiny of Renaissance scholarship and in light of the rediscovery of several Neoplatonists, particularly Proclus, it became quite clear that the Corpus Dionysiacum had been written centuries later than its author pretended. In the mid-fifteenth century Lorenzo Valla argued that because the Areopagus was a legal rather than a philosophical assembly, because none of the Greek or Latin fathers make mention of Dionysius, and because the claim in the letter to Polycarp to have witnessed [End Page 559] in Heliopolis the solar eclipse at the moment of Christ's death is a clear fabrication, placement of the Corpus in the first century should be doubted.2 These suggestions went largely unnoticed until Desiderius Erasmus, returning from England (where William Grocyn had begun murmurs regarding the Areopagitic origin of the Corpus), discovered in Louvain a manuscript of Valla's commentary on the book of Acts and incorporated its conclusions in his influential annotations on the New Testament.3 The discovery of Dionysius's pseudonymity and Erasmus's suggestion that Dionysian ceremonies could no longer be connected to the apostolic church would damage permanently the now Pseudo-Areopagite's influence. In a classic case of complicity between Renaissance humanism and Reformation theology—both Protestant and Catholic, it must be stressed—the sixteenth century turned away from Dionysian thought in general and from The Celestial Hierarchy in particular. The interrogation of apostolic origin begun by prominent Catholic thinkers like Erasmus and Cardinal Cajetan was most convenient to reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin, both of whom described the author of the Corpus as "Dionysius, whoever he was."4Such an open-and-shut presentation of sixteenth-century Dionysiana, however, ignores several factors. One of them is that Renaissance scholars were not the first to question the dating of the Corpus: Peter Abelard fueled general perception of his heretical tendencies by suggesting that Dionysius may not have been the Pauline convert mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles.5 Much more important, however, is the number of Renaissance scholars for whom Dionysius was a formative influence. Despite his stance on the authenticity of the Corpus, Lorenzo Valla describes Dionysius in the peroration to his Encomium Sancti Thomae Aquinatis as playing the flute in a celestial symphony before the throne of God.6 For Nicholas Cusanus, as F. Edward Cranz describes [End Page 560] it, "Dionysius is the most important Christian theologian with no runner-up who is even close."7 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola saw Dionysius's writings as following directly from the teachings of Paul.8 Marsilio Ficino employed Dionysius in his comments on angels in the Theologia Platonica, translated and commented on The Divine Names and The Mystical Theology, and consistently endorsed first-century dating of the Corpus Dionysiacum.9 Ambrogio Traversari, who described Dionysius as "Apostoli disciplus," would also produce a fresh translation acceptable to humanist tastes in 1437, which would receive wide dissemination in the 1499 edition produced by Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples.10 Lefèvre saw the Corpus as apostolic in origin and authority and went so far as to endorse the traditional conflation of Dionysius with Saint... (shrink)

Since his 1977 The Idol and Distance, Jean-Luc Marion has almost continually drawn upon the work of the 5th-6th century Christian mystic Pseudo-Denys the Areopagite, not only within his explicitly theological considerations, but throughout his Cartesian and phenomenological work as well. The present essay maps out the influence of Denys upon Marion’s thinking, organizing Marion’s career into a three-part periodization, each of which corresponds to a distinct portion of the Dionysian corpus—in Marion’s work of the seventies the Celestial (...) Hierarchy and the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy are foregrounded, in the eighties this emphasis is shifted to the The Divine Names, and in the nineties The Mystical Theology takes center stage. Insofar as these emphases directly correlate to the unique tasks that Marion has set himself in each of these various periods, Dionysius is revealed as a hermeneutical key, unlocking and clarifying crucial aspects of Marion’s theologically-inflected phenomenology. (shrink)

Within a broadly Thomistic frame, this paper shows how simple apophaticism in the theology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is the more fitting mode of knowing the triune God, beyond the use of all divine names. Specifically, we will proceed using the work of Father Bernard Lonergan, SJ on theological fittingness. After setting forth Father Lonergan's understanding of fittingness, the paper will proceed through Dionysius's cataphatic names, apophatic names, and apophatic silence. The cataphatic and apophatic names, while (...) true, useful, and fittingly said of God, will be shown to be imperfectly applied to God. As such, their fittingness pales in comparison to the simple silence of the intellect orientated towards God, despite such pure apophaticism's dissimilarity to normal human intellectual operations. (shrink)

This essay examines the doctrine of divine omnipresence. I begin by presenting three desiderata for an adequate account of omnipresence. Four accounts are analyzed in light of these desiderata, two in the tradition and two in contemporary philosophical theology. I argue that none succeed in providing an adequate account of divine omnipresence. As an alternative, I offer a paradoxical account of omnipresence, arguing that one can be rational in affirming that what appears to be a doctrine afflicted by apparent contradiction (...) is in fact merely a paradox. I explain what makes affirmations of paradoxical doctrines rational, why omnipresence should be understood as a paradox, and discuss a similar account of omnipresence in the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. (shrink)

In dialogue De natura caelestium spirituum quos angelos vocamus, published in 1499 in Florence, Juraj Dragišić mentioned different philosophical and theological authors and their works. Croatian scientists in their papers dedicated to Juraj Dragišić mention these authors and their work. This paper intends to commit the majority of its attention to Christian authors mentioned by Dragišić in his dialogue, to list most of the referred names and show who does he mention the most. Thus, in this paper in the context (...) of Dragišićʼs discussion on angels, the following authors are cited primarily: Albertus Magnus, Ambrose, Anselm of Canterbury, Augustine of Hippo, Bede, Boethius, Bonaventure, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Duns Scotus, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory the Great, Henry of Ghent, John of Damascus, John Chrysostom, Hieronymus, Origen and Thomas Aquinas. These authors can be divided into two groups: patristic writers and medieval Church writers. (shrink)