On the Divine Names and The Mystical Theology

by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Aeterna Press (Producer)

On the Divine Names is about a kind of divine name which describes multiple attributes of godhead as a whole. Tho the names refer to it as a unity, each name is different & so, taken together, they differentiate it. The implicit distinction between the godhead's unity & the multiplicity of the names is reflected in the names' structures themselves. Each includes a Greek prefix: hyper-, which indicates the unity of the godhead to whom names are applied. But each name is different, indicating the self-multiplication of the godhead. The result is a set of names like “over-good,” “over-being” & “over-life.” Dionysius also makes use of a 2nd, equivalent prefix: pro-. God is “pre-good” & “pre-being,” meaning it has the attributes of creatures in a way that transcends both creature & attribute. The prefixes must be applied strictly to the names when they're used of God itself. On the other hand, when the names are used only of God as cause, the prefixes may be left off, since the causality of God is already a procession into the differentiation properly signified by each of the different names. The most proper object of the names is the highest creature. The exemplary instances of goodness, being & life are the highest of the angels or intelligible minds. For this reason, he frequently refers to this type as an “intelligible name.” He incorporates into the number of intelligible names the traditional Neoplatonic intelligible categories: being, identity, difference, rest & motion, as well as the being, life & intellect triad. The fact God transcends the proper meaning of these names doesn't mean it ought be called “non-being,” “non-life” or “non-intellect.” He prefers to say God is “over being,” “over life” & “over intellect.” Few can contemplate the intelligible names in their purity. We require the names to be incarnated in visible things. Unable to see being, life & wisdom in themselves, we need a visible being who is living & wise. Such a person can then become the means by which we contemplate the intelligible. The teacher Hierotheus is one such visible incarnation of the names. But Hierotheus may do more than incarnate the names. He can also unfold them in speech, taking the unitary name of “being” & describing it at length, as is done in chapter 5. As he describes it, the name unfolds itself into a form that is more multiple, because of the many words used in his description. It thus approaches the multiple character of the human way of knowing & becomes more easily understood.
When Dionysius praises “dissimilar similarities” over seemingly more appropriate symbolic names for God, he explains that negations are true to God & such dissimilar names serve as such negations. The Mystical Theology has this last, most arcane form of theology as its subject. Negations are properly applied not only to the names of the symbolic theology. Any & all of the divine names must be negated, beginning with those of the symbolic theology, continuing with the intelligible names & concluding with the theological representations. The godhead is no more “spirit,” “sonship” & “fatherhood” than it's “intellect” or “asleep.” These negations must be distinguished from privations. A privation is simply the absence of a given predicate, which could just as easily be present. The absence of the predicate is opposed to its presence: “lifeless” is opposed to “living.” But when we say that the godhead isn't “living” we don't mean it's “lifeless.” The godhead is beyond lifeless as well as beyond living. For this reason, he says our affirmations of the godhead aren't opposed to our negations, but that both must be transcended: even the negations must be negated. The most arcane passages of Mystical Theology revolve around the mystical as taken in itself & not as the act of negating the other forms of theology. Dionysius says that after all speaking, reading & comprehending of the names ceases, there follows a divine silence, darkness & unknowing. All three of these characteristics seem privative, as tho they were simply being the absence of speech, sight & knowledge respectively. But Dionysius doesn't treat them as privative. Instead, he uses spatio-temporal language to mark off a special place & time for them. Using as example Moses' ascent up Mt Sinai, Dionysius says that after Moses ascends thru the sensible & intelligible contemplation of God, he then enters the darkness above the mountain's peak. The darkness is located above the mountain. Moses enters it after his contemplation of God in the various forms of theology. Dionysius leaves the relation between Moses & the darkness obscure. Some commentators reduce it to a form of knowing, albeit an extraordinary form of knowing. Others reduce it to a form of affective experience, in which Moses feels something he can never know or explain in words. Dionysius himself does not give decisive evidence in favor of either interpretation. He speaks only of Moses' “union” with the ineffable, i...

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Religion, Christianity, Mysticism, Nonfiction, Spirituality

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 500

About the author

Also known as Pseudo-Denys, was a Christian theologian and philosopher of the Neoplatonist school during the late 5th to early 6th century.

Reviews

[Davis Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 5th century writer definitely toes that ever-fragile line where mysticism can tend to devolve into nonsense, but for the most part he lays out a powerful and compelling vision of the Trinity and its qualities. He gets you to think of common metaphysical terms like "existence," "life," and "good" in very different ways; and the result will increase your understanding of God's nature in rich and unexpected fashion. The Divine Names really is too long and repetitive, but thankfully you can read the 8-page Mystical Theology first to see if you like PD's style before you dive into the longer work. Also there is a disconcerting lack of focus on redemption and the cross in favor of Eastern ideas about deification, which is one of the major problems I have with mysticism. Also, I would choose a different translation than this antiquated one by C.E. Rolt, although there are lots of really nice scholarly footnotes and commentary. Overall, my first real encounter with Eastern theology makes me want to keep exploring it, albeit with a healthy dose of discretion.

[Shulamith Farhi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes I read mysticism about the One and I think "oh, this is why Badiou thought we need to try metaphysics again, but this time properly." This is one of those times. It's not that the One in general is bad. What a mistake to say "the" One! There's more than one One. Let's quickly review, since this is actually going to be important later.

There's an intolerable One; Badiou calls it the count-as-One. How does it work? It's an institutional operation that masquerades as an eternal ontology. The operation seals up every gap in the fragmentary multiplicity that we only glimpse when our world collapses. The reason for this suturing is that it's easier to work with unitary simplifications than with messy reality. The ineffable One transcends every attempt to characterize it and can only be worshipped. Badiou's critique, to cut a long story short, is that the history of this ineffable One is the history of a mistake. He goes too far, and rejects oneness as such, but the critique is exactly right as a description of what's wrong with Pseudo-D. A review of negative theological texts isn't the right place to develop a systematic presentation of the effable One; for that we should read kataphatic mystics, Spinoza and Hegel.

Anyway, that's my spiel. The texts themselves are fine, albeit mostly trivial and unremarkable, if you're turned on by the phrase 'godhead.' It's basically wholesome edification, if you're into that sort of thing. I kind of am, I suppose. The argument about the non-existence of evil is cool, it's definitely better to think evil is just the shadow of good than to think the Devil is hiding in every corner. It's even better to remember that the moral law is a function of class struggle, but nevermind that.

***

Take Two. Adding a star. Pseudo-D grew on me. The texts aren't just about ineffability, it's a fairly deep insight that we dignify our objects by approaching them with some distance.

[Ted · Rating 2 out of 5]

The intro to the book says Dionysius shows that contemplation and philosophy are proper paths for Christians to follow, even though they are not paths for everyone. I certainly am one of those who does not this kind of thinking attractive. I never really studied philosophy, but I can see in early Christian history that for Christianity to gain traction in the Roman Empire it had to show it could run with philosophers and even best them. As Rolt notes in his intro, if Christianity had denied that contemplation and philosophy were compatible with Christianity, many who embraced Christianity would have sought them outside the Church. "Dionysius" does a pretty phenomenal job of locating the many names ascribed to God (such as "God is my helper and defender" My helpmate, etc) and attempts to form them into a philosophically consistent understanding of God. The whole enterprise makes me yawn and shrug. The enterprise is based in philosophical ideas about perfection and oneness - there are numbers or shapes which are "perfect". But none of that speaks to me, so "Dionysius" pursues ideas for which I have little interest. Those folk have to struggle with the existence of a year which is not a perfect number of days, and orbits which are not perfect circles and other imperfections in the universe which just mess up their ideas of the perfect God. Trying to show God is as perfect as philosophers imagined perfection is of no interest to me, because there is a living God whom we experience who so often defies our ideas of perfection and logic.

[Mesoscope · Rating 2 out of 5]

I believe the author's approach to commentary and translation is inappropriate to Pseudo-Dionysius, and I do not find it useful or particularly readable. Jones versifies Pseudo-Dionysius' prose, which is both pointless and distracting, and opts to render it in a latter-day Heideggerian jargon, which is rather tedious.

I have little patience and no appetite for locutions like "imagine nothing to be beyond-beingly beyond beings." It's hard enough to swallow from a thinker as original and profound as Heidegger. From an undistinguished academic aping his style, it borders on insufferable. Jones criticizes most English translations of Pseudo-Dionysius as being too much under the spell of Eriugena's interpretation - how much less appropriate is it to cast his writing through the lens of a twentieth-century phenomenologist?

I would much sooner recommend Colm Luibheid's translation in the "Classics of Western Spirituality" series.

[Andrew McNeely]

Dionysius concludes his study on the divine names:

“But of course I have fallen well short of what [the divine names] actually mean. Even the angels would have to admit such failure and I could scarcely speak praises as they do.”

[س · Rating 5 out of 5]

“… leave behind you everything perceived and understood, everything perceptible and understandable, all that is not and all that is, and, with your understanding laid aside, strive upward as much as you can toward union with Him who is beyond all being and knowledge. By an undivided and absolute abandonment of yourself and everything, shedding all and freed from all, you will be uplifted to the ray of the divine shadow which is above everything that is.”

[Promethea · Rating 5 out of 5]

HELL YEAH
The mystical theology was the best 5 pages of my life.

LONG LIVE TO THE NEGATIVE THEOLOGY

[Adam Carnehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

"But no Unity or Trinity or Number or Oneness or Fecundity or any other thing that either is a creature or can be known to any creature, is able to utter the mystery, beyond all mind and reason, of that Transcendent Godhead which super-essentially surpasses all things." - Pseudo-Dionysius

The works of the so-called Dionysius the Areopagite are of inestimable value in the history of Christian thought. The author, an anonymous Christian monk probably writing during the turn of the 6th century, is the mystic par excellence of the Ancient Church. "Dionysius," a figure from the Book of Acts, was a pseudonym, perhaps of an influential teacher now known as Peter the Iberian. This edition by Dover is a reprint of an English translation originally from 1920 and comprises two treatises: "On the Divine Names," which comprises most of the volume, and "The Mystical Theology," which is just a few scant pages. It is the work of a translator named C. E. Rolt who also provides ample footnotes and commentary throughout the texts. As a warm admirer (even disciple) of the Areopagite, Rolt is far from hindering the reader in leaving footnotes on almost every page; I found his words to be the clear and genuinely appreciative "hints" to the reader to assist him or her in tracing the argument in all its nuanced subtlety. Indeed, I found myself at times furiously underlying and bracketing Rolt's own comments because they were frequently helpful and occasionally brilliant. (Note: Rolt is the author of an original work, "The Spiritual Body" (1920) which was published posthumously.)

"The Divine Names" influenced Maximus the Confessor, John Scotus Eriugena, Thomas Aquinas, and virtually all medieval mystics. Its neo-platonic "Via Negativa" exerted a tremendous influence in the Christian past, and as this Dover edition testifies, it still does (in some way) today. I read it slowly and carefully over the course of several weeks and found that it altered my own thinking, praying, and talking about the Almighty. But one has to be careful, as the other editors (who finished Rolt's work after his untimely death) warn at the beginning and end of this edition. One must be careful because such mystical theology, such subtle penetration of the undifferentiated Godhead, is not for the "uninitiated." It will befuddle those who are not familiar with neo-platonic ideas; it will anger those who have no appreciation of the mystical; it will challenge those who are too comfortable in their private conceptions of God.

For God is, as the Areopagite argues throughout, above our knowledge, language, perception, and reason. Even the term "God" is insufficient; it is a symbol for It - the Ground and Fountain of all things who is named with a plethora of names in the Scriptures and yet is named "above all names" (Philippians 2:9). Christians are frequently (then as now) guilty of treating the Godhead as if He were simply more perfect and more powerful than us, rather than the Ultimate and incomprehensible Source of all perfection and power. Despite His incomprehensibility, He reveals Himself as Triune - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - in the Scriptures, Nature, the Church, and the Person of Jesus Christ. Whereas systematic theology delineates the energies of these Persons of the Trinity, mystical theology "unknows" what has been said concerning God, with the recognition that in Him all sense perceptions and human efforts are utterly worthless at drawing closer to this Unity. He must draw close to you, apart from your knowledge and apart from your learning; this is the process of Deification.

Yet, after finishing this incredible book, I am not so sure where Christ fits into the system. Though the Areopagite claims to have dealt with the Son of God at length in another work (now lost or, perhaps, never written), there is very little of Him in this work. The Areopagite claims that God in His differentiated revelation as a Triadic Being is stooping down to humanity's level. For, as One God - the "One" of Plotinus - He is undifferentiated, whole, and simple. To discuss the Christ as the God-Man who is both Lord and Leader, Advocate and Friend, is, for the neo-platonist, perhaps too earthy. Flesh is not a means of sacred encounter for Pseudo-Dionysius. In this is the glaring weakness of his work.

Brilliantly thought-provoking, subtly profound, and even beautifully worshipful, "The Divine Names" and "The Mystical Theology" are the most important works from the most important mystic of the ancient Church. They will reward any reader who is interested in Christian mysticism or Trinitarian Theology. I will return to them again and again. After reading much 20th century mysticism (Underhill, Teilhard, Berdyaev, etc.), the ideas of Dionysius seemed remarkably familiar, as if I've always known him, and perhaps, in some way, I always have.

[Nick Zehner · Rating 3 out of 5]

PD's use of seeming contradictions and puzzling, cryptic language is a close articulation of the ineffable nature of PD's God. The only kind of knowing for PD is the existential kind received in the mystical religious encounter. Good, highly influential, but of little practical value both in life and modern academic theology.

[M.R. Graham]

An extremely convoluted translation, further complicating extremely complex material. I am satisfied that I am not cut out to be a mystic - not at present, at any rate.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Among the most important writings in Neo Platonic thought . Essential readings for the mystic .

[Lucas Sipe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Western philosophy and theology is indebted to the names of Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine. No matter the history of philosophy one reads, those three names are going to be, more or less, the bedrock of western thought. Often overlooked by survey courses/ books and the general public is the work of the Neo-Platonists. For philosophy, that is Proclus and Plotinus. For western (and this includes the developments in the Byzantine and Greek world - western here is broader than west Europe) is the work of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Here we find the mature expression of Neo-Platonic ideas about being, simplicity, unity, goodness, evil, truth, and more in the idea of the divinity that is beyond being, beyond good, beyond be-ing, beyond all, and so on.

A surprisingly short read, just north of 200 pages, this is one of the richest theological/ philosophical texts I have had the pleasure to pick up. Every section could have countless pages of commentary given to it. Fundamentally, Pseudo-Dionysius wants to express that the supreme divinity can by means be understood as a being that is good as an example. Rather, this divinity is the source of being and goodness but is beyond both. The divine names, such as being, are applied to this divinity in one sense but not in another. Most of the text is devoted to the divine names and deserves multiple reads. St. Thomas Aquinas has a six hundred page commentary on just the divine names, it is fundamental to the classical theism of the medieval period.

But it also has relevancy for modern philosophy. Part of this might be due to the translator, who stated that his major understandings of the text and translation are due to readings of Plato and Heidegger, but there are huge swaths of the text that are directly tied to the thinking and dwelling of Heidegger. The idea that western philosophy has misunderstood (a) being for Being is key to Heidegger's thought and Pseudo-Dionysius doesn't fall into that common trap. Heidegger might still say it's not enough but Pseudo-Dionysisus offers a way to understand metaphysics beyond the route, sterile Aristolianism so common in certain circles.

There is so much here that I feel like I'm giving Pseudo-Dionysius a poor presence. It's a phenomenal collection of texts. We can learn about the distinction between positive and negative theology, an explanation of evil, and more. It's brilliant and world class from start to finish. John D. Jones has done an excellent job and his introduction is worthy of reading just on it's own.

[Logan Strait · Rating 5 out of 5]

The translation, introduction, preface, and post-word are all fantastic. I read the 1972 print from S.P.C.K.
The apophatic approach reveals an entirely new dimension of the Tradition to those who are not yet familiar with it. One senses a complete hermeneutic forthe Christian revelation as an inherently initiatory - that is to say mystical - that is to say experiential - Rite which, properly undergone, prepares one to known the Unknowable and see the Invisible. What is truly remarkable is that the more one tries or thinks to indite the Areopagite on anything heretical - aside from his usage in quotation by certain monophysites - one comes to the inevitable realisation of his actual orthodoxy and the paradoxical nature of the Church's authentic teaching regarding these deep mysteries. It is the foreword which really makes this abundantly clear with its fair treatment of later criticism levied against the Pseudo-Areopagite :: for instance there is the allegation that such apophaticism reduces the most core doctrines of the Church enshrined in the Nicaeo-Constantinopolitan Creed to mere nominals -- but, one remembers, that it is not contrary to the statement, "I believe in..." to say that the things which one believes in are 'beyond Being' rather than that they 'are' in a physical sense, nor that the specific formulation of such Creeds has more to do with anthropology than with the Over-Truth of the Over-Kind's Over-Personal Over-Being. Merely by mentally appending this prefix "Over-" (or "Supra-" or "Hyper-" as one sees fit to gloss) to each ascribed quality of the Godhead, which in fact St. Dionysius does, at times profusely, reveals the apophatic core of mystical theology, that all language used to speak of God is like a crude figural imitation of the ineffable and transcendent-imminent Deity.

[Garrett Mikulka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I really enjoyed these works. They have provided some much needed background to the mystical writings I’m more familiar with. To put it in a sentence, the biggest difference between PD’s work and the later English mystics that I’ve spent time with (with the general exception of the Cloud author) is that the later authors are more interested in how a formal Christology participates in mystical thought and experience. The Divine Names mentions Christ only a couple of times and never in any substantive way, and to be honest, it makes the theology of it all quite a bit smoother. It is also, however, why I’m far more interested in Walter Hilton as a theologian than I am PD, though there is no mistaking the debts owed him. Some of PD’s treatises were lost (or made up), and I would have been interested to see how Christ might have come into them. If it existed at all, his Symbolic Theology may have been the one to deal with Christology in a serious way.

Only one real surprise here for me. His definition of evil was different than what I’ve traditionally heard in Neo-Platonist contexts, at least as far as I’ve understood them. For PD, nonbeing is also “good”, but being that doesn’t fully participate in its share of goodness is what is evil. The latter part of this argument is more familiar than the former. So evil doesn’t really have to do with being or nonbeing, but with the discrepancy between potential participation in the Good and actual participation in the Good. By the end, I think he clarified his point about evil enough to avoid some self-contradiction, but he wasn’t exactly playing it safe, in my opinion.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the higher we soar in contemplation the more limited become our expressions of that which is purely intelligible; even as now, when plunging into the Darkness which is above the intellect, we pass not merely into brevity of speech, but even into absolute silence, of thoughts as well as of words. Thus, in the former discourse, our contemplation descended from the highest to the lowest, embracing an ever-widening number of conceptions, which increased at each stage of the descent; but in the present discourse we mount upwards from below to that which is the highest, and, according to the degree of transcendence, so our speech is restrained until, the entire ascent being accomplished, we become wholly voiceless, inasmuch as we are absorbed in Him who is totally ineffable.12 'But why', you will ask, 'does the affirmative method begin from the highest attributions, and the negative method with the lowest abstractions?' The reason is because, when affirming the subsistence of That which transcends all affirmation, we necessarily start from the attributes most closely related to It and upon which the remaining affirmations depend; but when pursuing the negative method to reach That which is beyond all abstraction, we must begin by applying our negations to things which are most remote from It.

For is it not more true to affirm that God is Life and Goodness than that He is air or stone; and must we not deny to Him more emphatically the attributes of inebriation and wrath than the applications of human speech and thought?

[Aung Sett Kyaw Min]

The One beyond unity and trinity is also beyond pre-eminence and being-ness, and so is as furthest away as possible from being a mere 'being' (not even as the highest of all beings). Phrased differently, this means the Triune godhead is neither a predicate (i.e. the One is not oneness) nor a substance. In the commentary, the translator renders the divinity beyond being as 'non-being' or 'nothing'. He goes on argue that for Pseudo-Dionysius the path of affirmation (the descent from causal pre-eminence down to beings) and the more esoteric path of denial (ascent from causal pre-eminence to what I would call absolute indifference or divine darkness) not only do not clash but in fact complement each other, which I find a difficult to digest. Ultimately, perhaps the lesson is that non-being is not a negation of being, but beyond affirmation and negation altogether? Despite the heavy-handed Heideggerese translation, I was able to enjoy this foundational text of Christian mysticism for the philosophical insights its proffers on the nature of evil and the limits of knowledge.

[Raf Nieves · Rating 4 out of 5]

[The Divine Names] Psuedo-Dionysius method is to establish God as the Cause of all things. The move is quite similar irrespective of the name being applied (i.e., Good, Beauty, Power, Life, Wisdom, etc.): X is the cause of x and therefore x participates in X, but actually, God is beyond even X because this “absolute” X still exists within the limits of being. Thus, Pseudo-Dionisius can say that God exists not temporally, but eternally, and even “precedes eternally.”

[The Mystical Theology] God is so transcendent that speech about God becomes futile. Pseudo-Dionysius favors a complete apophaticism shrouded in “the darkness of unknowing.” Above light, there is darkness – and God is neither.

[x]

na verdade, li a tradução da "Paulist Press -New York • Mahwah", porque me pareceu mais honesta, porém nem cheguei a terminar os textos subsequentes (i. e., para além de The Divine Names e The Mystical Theology, ambos bons), pois eram extremamente chatos, e eu não tenho tempo a perder! ... A edição do outro cara aí (João D. Jones) é uma esculhambação total, já que, por algum motivo (sei bem qual), ele decidiu transformar prosa em verso, com isso adulterando a estrutura original...

[James Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this, but honestly felt like Hume's point was made:

If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.


Had Hume read this? It would have made him cross!

[Sarah M. Wells · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing in this is so dense a swamp you could nearly walk across it. What I was able to discern I appreciated, but I really struggled to wade through all of the convoluted arguments. I gave up about 2/3 of the way through.

The book description’s assessment “at wearisome length” is the exact right summary of this text.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book makes the writings of St. John of Damascus seem easy. I found this to be a VERY DIFFICULT book. This is for someone who has working knowledge of the ancient Greek philosophers as well as early Christian writers. I felt like a fraud trying to work my way through it.

[Phil Aud · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely stunning work of apophatic theology (The Mystical Theology is where Pseudo-D lays out his method and both magnifies and undoes all that has gone before). This is dripping with mystical wonder and theological wisdom for the ages.

[Isaiah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the chapters of the Divine Names & the Mystical Theology from Medieval Philosophy, A Multicultural Reader (Edited by Bruce V. Foltz).

Absolutely wonderful. Pseudo-Dionysius is a philosophical genius. You can definitely see the seedlings of Aquinas' thought within P.D.'s works.

[Ethan Shearer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful display of Christian Metaphysics. The Areopagite crafts a fascinating ontology that is rooted in Christian thought and Neoplatonic thought.

[Matthew Rogers]

Didn't finish. I tried but I'm too dumb. Maybe I'll try again in five-ten years.

[Giib Glib · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beyond good and evil. An enlightening corpus on the unknowable God. A celebration of that that is all and an inspection beyond infinity.

[Anonymous Writer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great!

[Esioan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dionysius' eclectic mix of pantheistic and neoplatonic language in a strict Orthodox Christian context is a deep reminder of the complexity of the middle ages. People too often describe the era between the end of the Roman empire to the end of the crusades as the dark ages but they're so far off. At least intellectually, philosophy was in a far more interesting place than it was in centuries previous. The Roman Empire only really produced excellent orators and rhetoricians (Aurelius, Cicero, etc), not many complex thinkers.

But certainly, Dionysius is a compelling philosopher-come theologian. The two works here are made to read together I think. While the Divine Names provides an astute elucidation of his theologia negativa, the Mystical Theology demonstrates the nature of things which we can positively know.

Its an important point that Dionysius is not some kind of extreme sceptic towards theology. He's not the ecclesiastical Hume, he's far closer to the German Idealism of a Kant or Schopenhauer. Dionysius doesn't want to prevent any discussion of God, he simply wants to carve a clear vision of the Godhead through an ancient version of the Falsification principle.

As in the famous Plotinian analogy which (controversially) Dionysius refers to, in talking of God we are sculptors. We must tediously cut away at the block of marble for an age before we can see the imprint of the Platonic eidos which previously lay dormant in the potential of the ousia. To know what God is one must know what God is not.

And what he is not is equally as important for understanding as what he is. As Dionysius notes, God is not the self. God is not material possessions. He is not mere substance, nor eidos. He is beyond matter, substance, ideals. In a sense he is a above and beyond existence. He's akin to the Kyoto School's Nothingness taken from Buddhism.

Śūnyatā is a closer description of the mystical phantom that is Dionysius' Godhead. Thankfully, what we can know is the metaphysical forces which emanate from God. As we are a part of it, we can attain a fundamental unity with the rays of God if we understand our role in the graded ecclesiastical hierarchy.

We are but one location of mind within the Neoplatonic world-soul. Once you recognize that, and that the rays of providence can reach you through the humanities (as Vico notes), then you can find Him.

"Let this be my prayer; but do, dear Timothy, in the diligent exercise of mystical contemplation, leave behind the senses and the operations of the intellect, and all things sensible and intellectual, and all things in the world of being and nonbeing, that you may arise by unknowing towards the union, as far as is attainable, with it that transcends all being and all knowledge. For by the unceasing and absolute renunciation of yourself and of all things you may be borne on high, through pure and entire self-abnegation, into the superessential Radiance of the Divine Darkness."

-Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, the Divine Names.

[Amos Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a classic of Christian Mysticism--a must read for those interested in Mystic Christianity. This work was often cited by the early fathers of the Church, especially the Alexandrian Fathers. It is the Christian equivalent to "The Heart Sutra" of Buddhism. Dionysius is the genius of Christianity's apophatic tradition. This work concludes that God in the ultimate sense is beyond all names and forms. It should be added that the Christian balances this experience in the depths of silent prayer with return to the Word Jesus, when the silence is broken. The Christian mystic moves between the ultimate Mystery, which no word can penetrate (the Mystery expounded best by this work of Dionysius) to the Word made known in Jesus and revealed in the Gospels.
-Amos Smith (author of Healing The Divide: Recovering Christianity's Mystic Roots)

[Amos Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would place this book in the top 10 of Western Spiritual Classics. It is the foremost text of Apophatic Christian Mysticism. I was reading this book to a Buddhist friend of mine and she was amazed that such a book exists in Christian tradition. She went on to say it sounds a lot like the Heart Sutra. These two texts, especially The Divine Names, had a profound influence on Early Church Fathers, including Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria. The text discounts all names and forms we associate with God. So that finally we accept Mystery and unknowing as the highest wisdom. It is true that these texts need to be balanced and tempered with a mystical theological knowledge of Jesus (what I refer to as The Jesus Paradox in my book). An exquisite classic!
-Amos Smith (author of Healing The Divide: Recovering Christianity's Mystic Roots)