Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence by Paul Rorem

by Paul Rorem

"Dionysius the Areopagite" is the biblical name chosen by the pseudonymous author of an influential body of Christian theological texts, dating from around 500 C.E. The Celestial Hierarchy, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, The Divine Names, and The Mystical Theology offer a synthesis of biblical interpretation, liturgical spirituality, and Neoplatonic philosophy. Their central motif, which has made them the charter of Christian mysticism, is the upward progress of the soul toward God through the spiritual interpretation of the Bible and the liturgy. Dionysius continually reminds his readers, however, that all human concepts fall short of the transcendence of God and must therefore be abandoned in negotiations and silence. In this book, Rorem provides a commentary on all of the Dionysian writings, chapter by chapter, and examines especially their complex inner coherence. The Dionysian influence on medieval theology is introduced in essays on specific hierarchy, biblical symbolism, angels, Gothic architecture, liturgical allegory, the scholastic doctrine of God, and the mystical theology of the western Middle Ages. Rorem's book makes these texts more accessible to both scholars and students and includes a comprehensive bibliography of secondary sources.

Genres: Theology

Hardcover

First published December 19, 1992

About the author

Paul E. Rorem, Princeton Theological Seminary’s Benjamin B. Warfield Professor of Medieval Church History, holds an MDiv from Luther Theological Seminary, an STM from The Lutheran Theological Seminary, and a PhD from Princeton Seminary. An ordained Lutheran minister, he is interested in medieval church history and Pseudo-Dionysius. His courses cover the confessions and influence of St. Augustine, the Christian mystical tradition, medieval Christianity, and the spiritual and theological legacy of the Pseudo-Dionysian writings. He is editor of Lutheran Quarterly and Lutheran Quarterly Books.

Reviews

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thomas Aquinas quotes pseudo-Dionysius 1702 times. The early Church (500 AD) used the authority of the fake writings to defend extra-biblical claims. Aquinas’ defense (1250 AD) for the substantiation and necessity of the holy sacrament clearly gets filtered through the non-sense spouted by somebody who claimed authority based on assertion and the early orthodoxy of the Church from 500 AD onward pretended to go along with the absurdities. A lie gets half way around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on, or in this case the toothpaste never can be put back in the tube after it gets out.

The foundation of the Church’s belief as proven by Aquinas relied on Church tradition and that tradition was started by a fraudster who defended his position against the other and becomes dogma while becoming heterodoxy. Pseudo-Dionysius gets relegated to a footnote by the 1800s but the orthodoxy he instigated gets ingrained as obvious certainty while his inauthentic claims are forgotten. It’s quite interesting how much of what is believed today was based on a known liar with his own agenda regarding petty disputes.

[Rex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've encountered complaints about Rorem's "Lutheran" lens for interpreting Dionysius; I'm guessing this has something to do with his insistence that the Dionysian ascent is purely cognitive/epistemic. In any case, I'm not a Dionysius scholar, but I found this a helpful supplement to the corpus.

[Rob Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

How have I missed this?