Denys - General Flashcards
who was Denys - pre ref
- Up until the Reformation, people assumed that D was a Pauline-convert from Acts
• Acts 17:23 – Paul citesGreek poets (Greek wisdom used in a Xian context)
• D was supposedly converted from Paul’s speech
• Adoption of name ‘Dionysius’ may be an attempt to combine Neo-platonic philosophy and Christianity (D was acc a 5th-6thcent scholar who combined these things)
who was denys - post ref
- Erasmus dismantles this based on D’s use of Greek
- We now think D was 5-6thcentury
- Strong verbal similarities with Proclus – common theory is that he was a Greek scholastic after Procluswho used the Biblical name Dionysius
- He begins by addressing Timothy = St Paul’s companion
• Attempting to add credibility to his pseudonym
nature of god
- Radical immanence: God is everything but No Thing
- Immanence depends on transcendence
- Linked to the idea of cause
- God is imminent and transcendent
- It is a theology of intimacy, not of distance
- God is infinite, supra-personal as to have a personality is finite
nature of writing
- Mystical Theology starts with a poem
o Clashing metaphors
o Apophasis demands poeticism
o Language = poetic process
o Language has the power to transcend and refer to the metaphysical - Performative
- Denys = meditative and dramatic
o D is likely to be used devotionally by monks - Plurality of language – in part deconstructive
o Language = exhausted
o Look at length of DN vs. MT
o Abundance of language in Scripture = important
difference between Neo platonism and christianity
- Neo-Platonism
o Works by emanation and hierarchy. Emanation is necessary and not the result of the divine will – we are ontologically linked to the ‘one’ - Christianity
o Creatio ex nihilo is a problem as it is very different to emanation
o Creatio ex nihilo emphasises ontological distance, not emanation.
o Only God exists eternally, everything else is created from nothing
o Ex nihilo does not involve a hierarchical descent. There is no train of emanation as everything comes from God - D tries to combine Greek of Proclus and Christianity
o Could argue that if D maintains the idea of emanation, God is not wholly transcendent - Conflict between Platonism and Christianity
o But, choice of name Denys shows he wanted to combine both (name from Bible)
difference with aquinas
- Simplicity = apophatic doctrine
- Moves further towards ex nihilo
- Cannot describe Aquinas’ theology as emanationist but he does emphasise participation
- A uses D as he believes who D says he is – but less Neo-Platonist, more Aristotelian
- Ex nihilo dominates for A
scriptural basis
- Scripture = form of revelation
- Similarly seen in Augustine, who argues in his Commentary on ST John, Tr. I. I. that ‘the Prologue of St John’s Gospel reveals the mysteries of Eternity not as they actually are but as human thought can grasp them’ (41)
- D is neo-Platonic – there is a mystery in the words of Scripture. Like Plato and World of Forms
- D denies that God the Father is a personality – we are created in the image of the whole Trinity.
o Seen in Aquinas, Summa Part 1, Q 45, article 7
trinity - parallels with Augustine and Aquinas
- ‘St Augustine, for instance, teaches that the inner Differentiations of the Trinity belong solely to the realm of eternal Manifestation when he says that They exist secundum Relativum and not secundum Substantiam’ (10) - Rolt
- the parts of the Trinity are not individualities
- Aquinas – humans cannot fully understand concept of Trinity as the human soul is finite
union via contemplation in augustine
- Confessions, St Augustine, 9.25
o ‘could he entirely silence all language and all symbols and every transitory thing – inasmuch as these all say to the hearer….he were now to speak alone…not through human language…but might instead hear, without these things, the very Being Himself, Whose presence in them we love’
neo-P aspects of D work
hierarchical ordering of beings - relation to the whole
directness of creation - dependent upon God
outline of on divine names
methodological introduction: how the divine names do and do not know God (ch. 1);
Chs. 5–7: the names of the Neoplatonic triad: “being” (ch. 5), “life” (ch. 6), and “intellect” (ch. 7) with its allied name of “word”
outline of mystical theology
Ch. 1: introduction, and allegory of Moses’ ascent up Mt. Sinai
Ch. 2: mystical theology compared to carving a statue
Ch. 3: explanatory outline of Dionysius’ theological works; comparison of affirmative and negative theology
Chs. 4–5: negative theology in action, negating first sensible things and their characteristics (ch. 4), then divine names and theological representations (ch. 5)
