Podcast episode

December 18, 2024

Episode 197: Naming Divine Nothingness: Introducing the Pseudo-Dionysios

The author known in Orthodox circles as St Dionysios the Areopagite and in scholarly circles as the Pseudo-Dionysios is one of the great esoteric writers of the western tradition. He presents himself as the first-century Athenian convert to Christianity whom the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament describes as having been converted by Paul of Tarsus, but his works show an undeniable debt to Proclus, such that Dionysios cannot have lived earlier than the end of the fifth century. Taking Proclean metaphysics seriously, however, does not prevent our pseudonymous author from taking trinitarian Christianity utterly seriously as well. This is nothing like the philosophic Christianity of John Philoponos; this is a deeply-paradoxical, fundamentally apophatic Platonistic universe wherein the earthly church directly imitates the noetic realm of triadic angels, which in turn revert to their source, an utterly-ineffable god. The scriptures and liturgy are esoteric texts. Christianity is an initiatory cursus of mysteries. No one is who they say they are.

This is not the Christianity of Augustine; this is the Christianity of the holy mysteries, the ineffable darkness, the journey of the soul toward a god of nonexistence, shining in radiant darkness beyond the horizon of the knowable.

Works Cited in this Episode:

Abbreviations: DN = Divine Names. MT = Mystical Theology. CH = Celestial Hierarchy. EH = Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.

Primary:

Pseudo-Dionysios:

• Refers to his own work as secret knowledge for the initiated only, or commands Timothy to keep his writings from the eyes of the hoi polloi (literally the term used in many cases): DN 589B, 592B, 597C, 684A-B; MT 1000A; CH 140A-B, 140D-141A, 154A, 145C, 340B; EH 372A, 377A, 501B-C.
• His teacher Hierotheos, who wrote an Elements of Theology: DN 648A ff. ‘He surpassed all the divinely rapt hierarchs, all the other sacred initiators.’: DN 681C-684A.
• ‘Hyper’-language: e.g.’hyperineffable’ (ὑπεραρρήτου), hyperunknowable’ (ύπεραγνώστου): DN 640D; cf. 593B et passim in DN and MT.
• God’s ‘ray’ or ‘glory’ (aktis): e.g. MT 1000A, et passim.
• His ‘lost works’ which he refers to: Theological Outlines (Θεολογικαὶ ὑποτυπώσεις), Symbolic Theology (Συμβολικὴ θεολογία), On Angelic Properties and Orders (Περὶ ἀγγελικῶν ἰδιοτήτων καὶ τάξεων), On the Just and Divine Judgement (Περὶ δικαίου καὶ θείου δικαστηρίου), On the Soul (Περὶ ψυχῆς).
• The ‘scriptures’ refer to god as a monad or henad: DN 589D Ὅθεν ἐν πάσῃ σχεδὸν τῇ θεολογικῇ πραγματείᾳ τὴν θεαρχίαν ὁρώμεν ἱερῶς ὑμνουμένην ὡς μονάδα μὲν καὶ ἑνάδα διά τήν ἀπλότητα καί ἑνότητα της ὑπερφυοῦς ἀμερείας ….
• The ‘heavenly hierarchy of noës’: CH 121A.
• The noetic world arranged into three triadic ‘hierarchies’, as taught by Hierotheos: CH 200D The Iamblichean middle-terms of these triadic hierachies of noetic angels: CH 257C; cf. De myst. V.8.225.5-8.
• ‘… we need to rise from this outpouring of illumination so as to come to the simple ray of light itself’: CH 121B.
• The human ecclesiastical hierarchy modelled on the angelic/noetic hierarchy: CH 121C-124A; EH passim.
• ‘Hierarchy’ defined: CH 164D. Cf. CH 165BC, EH 373C, 500D-504A.
• The demon-possessed are actually higher in rank than the catachumens, who haven’t been reborn through baptism: EH 433B-C; 432C-433A.
• Synthēmata: CH 13,18; Ep 9,196,8; 197,1; 200,12; 203,8.
• ‘The prime purpose of each sacrament is to impart the mysteries of the Deity to the one being initiated’: EH 425A.

Eusebius: Dionysios the first Bishop of Athens: HE III.4.10: … ἐπὶ τούτοις καὶ τὸν Ἀρεοπαγίτην ἐκεῖνον, Διονύσιος 11 ὄνομα αὐτῷ, ὃν ἐν ταῖς Πράξεσι μετὰ τὴν ἐν Ἀρείῳ πάγῳ πρὸς Ἀθηναίους Παύλου δημηγορίαν πρῶτον πιστεῦσαι ἀνέγραψεν ὁ Λουκᾶς, τῆς ἐν Ἀθήναις ἐκκλησίας πρῶτον ἐπίσκοπον …. [text Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, Vol 1-2. Eusebius of Caesarea. Kirsopp Lake, J.E.L. Oulton, H.J. Lawlor eds. William Heinemann; G.P. Putnam’s Press; Harvard University Press. London; New York, NY; Cambridge, MA. 1926-1932].

Gregory of Nyssa On Moses: see Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson, trans. Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses. Paulist Press, New York, NY, 1978.

Secondary:

Kevin Corrigan and L. Michael Harrington. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. In Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman, editors, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, Summer 2023 edition, 2023.

Paul Rorem, editor, Colm Luibheid, trans. Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works. The Classics of Western Spirituality. Paulist Press, New York, NY/Mahwah, NJ, 1987.

Recommended Reading:

SHWEP Episode 197 Recommended Reading

Themes

Angelology, Apophatic Writing, Ascent, Christian Mysticism, Clement of Alexandria, Esoteric Christianity, Esoteric Hermeneutics, Gregory of Nyssa, Henads, Hierotheos, Late Platonism, Mysticism, Nous, Origen of Alexandria, Paul of Tarsus, Philosophic Silence, Plotinus, Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysios, symbola