Podcast episode
December 22, 2024
Episode 198: The Pseudo-Dionysios, the Esoteric, and (Christian) Mysticism
With a wise silence do we honour the inexpressible.
Works Cited in this Episode:
SHWEPisode 13 can be found here; 14 here. Our special episode on the esoteric in Paul can be found here.
Primary:
The Pseudo-Dionysios:
- The ineffable reality is a secret: DN 684A-B.
- Mystēria in Dionysios: As liturgical ceremonies: EH 429C 27; 505B 17, Ep. 8 1097B 24; Ep. 9 1108A 1. As the eucharist, specifically: EH 445A 1-3; 533C 29; 536C 33. As the incarnation of the Logos: CH 181B 13 & 21; DN 640C 34; Ep. 3 1069B 19.
- The prime purpose of the sacraments is initiation: EH 425A.
- ‘With a wise silence do we honour the inexpressible’: DN 589B.
- We must not speak of the mystika and arrēta to hoi polloi: DN 684A-B.
- Theourgia in Pseudo-D: EH 436C 41, 440B 27, 440C 29, 441 D 46, 445BC 22 & 28; as the incarnation: EH 429C 38 ff; 432B 18 & 22; 441C 34 & 39.
- Epistle 9 on esotericism: passim, really, but see especially 1104B, from which we quote.
- Ascent into the hyperineffable: DN 592C-593A.
- They consider god’s hiddennness and struggle to break free from all the workings of their minds: DN 645A-B.
- They are raised firmly and unswervingly upward … they take flight: DN 589A. Cf. MT 1033B.
- They pass beyond the summit of every holy ascent: MT 1000C.
Eunapios and John Lydos use ‘theurgy’ in a colloquial way: Eunapios VS 480; John Lydos De mens. IV.X.2-5.
On Justinian’s condemnation of Origenism, see István Perczel. Pseudo-Dionysius and Palestinian Origenism. In Joseph Patrich, editor, The Sabaite Heritage in the Orthodox Church from the Fifth Century to the Present, pages 261-82. Peeters, Leuven, 2001.
Secondary:
E. R. Dodds. The Greeks and the Irrational. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1968, p. 259.
William James. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902. Longmans, Green, & Co, New York, NY, London, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, 1917.
H. Koch. Proklus als Quelle des Dionysius Areopagita in der Lehre vom Bösen. Philologus, 54:438-54, 1895.
István Perczel. The Earliest Syriac Reception of Dionysius. In Sarah Coakley and Charles M. Stang, editors, Re-Thinking Dionysius the Areopagite, pages 65-96. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, 2009 [on the historical figures lying behind Dionysian pseudonyms].
Henri-Dominique Saffrey. Nouveaux liens objectifs entre le Pseudo-Denys et Proclus. Revues scientiques et théologiques, 63:3-16, 1979.
Gregory Shaw. Neoplatonic Theurgy and Dionysius the Areopagite. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 7:573-99, 1999.
Charles M. Stang. Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite: “No Longer I”. Oxford Early Christian Studies. The University Press, Oxford, 2012.
J. Stiglmayr. Der Neuplatoniker Proclus als Vorlage des sogen. Dionysius Areopagita in der Lehre vom Übel. Historisches Jahrbuch, 16:25373 and 72148, 1895.
Guy Stroumsa. Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism. Brill, Leiden, 1996.
Recommended Reading:
On Hierotheos as Proclus, see: Ben Schomakers. An Unknown Elements of Theology? On Proclus as the Model for the Hierotheos in the Dionysian Corpus. In David D. Butorac and Danielle A. Layne, editors, Proclus and his Legacy, pages 183-98. De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, MA, 2017.
SHWEP Episode 198 Recommended Reading
Themes
Ascent, Augustine of Hippo, Christian Mysticism, Clement of Alexandria, Esoteric Hermeneutics, Gnosticism, Hesychasm, Hierotheos, Ineffability, Initiation, Lesemysterium, Mystery-Cult, Mysticism, Origenism, Paul of Tarsus, Plato, Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysios, Theurgy
Silvius Fabricius
August 4, 2025
When you spoke of Pseudo-D. maintaining that ascent is not possible without baptism, that raised a major problem for me.
So, there are two possibilities of what the Pseudo-Dionysius was- I don’t mean the character of St. Dionysius, but the author actually writing the books. Namely, that he was a Christian, or that he was a Hellene. But either way, he would have been deeply -aware- of Proclus, and, likely far more than we are, deeply aware of the details of Proclus’ religious practice. Namely, that Proclus was not only not a Christian, but a full-blown idolater who claimed to receive visions of Athene and other gods.
And there were of course plenty of Christians open to Hellenic philosophy, but I don’t know of any who were open, at least in this period, to the Hellenic gods also.
If the Pseudo-Dionysius were a Hellene, this is no problem for him. But if the Pseudo-Dionysius were a Christian, then what could he make of the fact that so much of what he regarded as the fundamental truth had been disseminated, not merely to Plato whose actual beliefs could be construed as slippery, but to someone as fiercely demon-worshipping & contemporary as Proclus?
And what would Christians more broadly (and Philo too) make of the claims of pagan Platonists to have achieved full ascent, unification with the One? Would they think that they were lying, or deluded (but still theoretically correct)? Would they think they had reached union with God, but were still for some reason uncorrected & unsaved in religion? Or would they think, quietly, that these pagans really had reached union with God, with no disclaimer needed?
It’s hard for me to imagine the Pseudo-Dionysius as being a Christian, and being so Proclean, and yet thinking that Proclus was deeply wrong & sinful. But if a Christian were to posit that a full Hellene could reach the highest spiritual more-than-level without conscious knowledge of Christ or baptism at all, then that would be a very strange Christian- this sort of universalism is far beyond apocatastasis.
So it would appear to me that the Pseudo-Dionysius would either have to have been an extraordinary Christian who more or less regarded the Hellenic religion on a nearly equal footing, or he was simply a Hellene.
Or am I wrong, and was it perfectly possible for Christians to attribute full divine ascents to pagans who would remain damned pagans? Or would a hypothetical Christian Pseudo-Dionysius just have thought Plotinus, Porphyrius, Proclus, to be liars or confused about their ascents?
Earl Fontainelle
August 4, 2025
Silvius,
Check out the next episode. There are actually many more possibilities than you lay out. But as for the ascents to god, that is a really interesting point; however, I would point out, as a niggling side-point, that Proclus himself never as far as I know claims a complete unification with the one in his extant writings. But yes, Plotinus, Porphyry, and the late Platonist project in general has a very ambitious goal, claims to aim at that goal with spiritual practices, and so on. Were they mad, bad, or maybe right but somehow lacking the special juice that baptism brings? I don’t know who asks these questions in late antiquity, unless maybe Augustine talks about it somewhere.
Silvius Fabricius
August 4, 2025
I’d already listened to the next episode (I wanted to get to the mystery first!), and I’d say that the binary that the Pseudo-Dionysius was either a Christian or Hellene still holds (for all the candidates, there was still no suggestion that the author might be Manichæan or a Jew).
Contrary to my prior point though, I find it unlikely that a pagan of Proclus’ school would attach such meaning to Christ & the Incarnation, seeing as God Made Flesh is one of the most difficult doctrines for Platonists; if a Hellenic Proclean were to try to insert their doctrines into Christianity, I’d expect them to avoid the topic, not use & emphasize it.
But that’s just another expectation, and whoever the Pseudo-Dionysius was, he was clearly not a typical anything.
Earl Fontainelle
August 7, 2025
Right. Whoever the Pseudo-D was, he is an enigma. I am as baffled as you are! This is why the ‘crypto-pagan’ hypothesis is so tempting, as it seems to be the only way to make sense of this insane conflation of the deeply-Proclean/Damascian and the Christian, but then, what exactly were the limits of ‘possible’ Christian belief in late antiquity? Maybe they were more open to all manner of experimental, inclusive theology than we give credit for, since the temptation is always to read our sources (notably Justinian’s anathemata and so on) as representing what all Christians more or less believed.