Ps-Denys the Areopagite Unmasked at Oxford!

Freshly released last week from the world's oldest and most prestigious academic press is The Oxford Handbook of Dionysius the Areopagite, eds. Mark Edwards, Dimitrios Pallis, and Georgios Steiris (Oxford UP, 2022), 752pp. It concerns the life and work of one of the oldest and most mysterious figures in antique Christianity. The publisher further tells us this:

This Handbook contains forty essays by an international team of experts on the antecedents, the content, and the reception of the Dionysian corpus, a body of writings falsely ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, a convert of St Paul, but actually written about 500 AD. The first section contains discussions of the genesis of the corpus, its Christian antecedents, and its Neoplatonic influences. In the second section, studies on the Syriac reception, the relation of the Syriac to the original Greek, and the editing of the Greek by John of Scythopolis are followed by contributions on the use of the corpus in such Byzantine authors as Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, Theodore the Studite, Niketas Stethatos, Gregory Palamas, and Gemistus Pletho. In the third section attention turns to the Western tradition, represented first by the translators John Scotus Eriugena, John Sarracenus, and Robert Grosseteste and then by such readers as the Victorines, the early Franciscans, Albert the Great, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Dante, the English mystics, Nicholas of Cusa, and Marsilio Ficino. The contributors to the final section survey the effect on Western readers of Lorenzo Valla's proof of the inauthenticity of the corpus and the subsequent exposure of its dependence on Proclus by Koch and Stiglmayr. The authors studied in this section include Erasmus, Luther and his followers, Vladimir Lossky, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Jacques Derrida, as well as modern thinkers of the Greek Church. Essays on Dionysius as a mystic and a political theologian conclude the volume.

Dionysian Mystical Theology

The identity of the author has haunted many from the beginning, and his thought--whoever he was--has haunted Christian ideas both East and West for just as long. I refer, of course, to the so-called Pseudo-Dionysius, about whom a new book has just been published: Paul Rorem, The Dionysian Mystical Theology (Fortress, 2015), 157pp.

About this book we are told:

The Dionysian Mystical Theology introduces the Pseudo-Dionysian "mystical theology," with glimpses at key stages in its interpretation and critical reception through the centuries. In part one, the elusive Areopagite's own miniature essay, The Mystical Theology, is quoted in its entirety, sentence by sentence, with commentary. Its cryptic contents would be almost impenetrable without judicious reference to the rest of the Dionysian corpus: The Divine Names, The Celestial Hierarchy, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and the ten Letters. Of special importance is the Dionysian use of negations in an "apophatic" theology that recognizes the transcendence of God beyond human words and concepts.

Stages in the reception and critique of this Greek corpus and theme are sketched in part two: first, the initial sixth-century introduction and marginal comments (Scholia) by John of Scythopolis; second, the early Latin translation and commentary by the ninth-century Carolingian Eriugena and the twelfth-century commentary by the Parisian Hugh of St. Victor; and third, the critical reaction and opposition by Martin Luther in the Reformation. In conclusion, the Dionysian apophatic is presented alongside other forms of negative theology in light of modern and postmodern interests in the subject.

The God Who Is Beauty

It is of course a topos of Eastern Christianity that "beauty is God's middle name" as I've heard one priest put it--that beauty, in the almost hackneyed phrasing of Dostoevsky, will save the world. A recent book by Brenda Thomas Sammon explores the role of beauty in depth in two pivotal philosopher-theologians of East and West: The God Who Is Beauty: Beauty as a Divine Name in Thomas Aquinas and Dionysius the Areopagite (Princeton, 2013), 402pp.

About this book we are told:

When in the sixth century Dionysius the Areopagite declared beauty to be a name for God, he gave birth to something that had long been gestating in the womb of philosophical and theological thought. In doing so, Dionysius makes one of his most pivotal contributions to Christian theological discourse. It is a contribution that is enthusiastically received by the schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and it comes to permeate the thought of scholasticism in a multitude of ways. But perhaps nowhere is the Dionysian influence more pronounced than in the thought of Thomas Aquinas.

This book examines both the historical development of beauty's appropriation as a name for God in Dionysius and Thomas, and the various contours of what it means. The argument that emerges from this study is that given the impact that the divine name theological tradition has within the development of Christian theological discourse, beauty as a divine name indicates the way in which beauty is most fundamentally conceived in the Christian theological tradition as a theological theme. As a phenomenon of inquiry, beauty proves itself to be enigmatic and elusive to even the sharpest intellects in the Greek philosophical tradition. When it is absorbed within the Christian theological synthesis, however, its enigmatic content proves to be a powerful resource for theological reasoning.

The Bulgarian and Romanian Scholars in the OCA

I attended a splendid ordination at the OCA parish of St. Nicholas yesterday, and there saw a considerable number of her theologians gathered, including my friend Fr. Radu Bordeianu, whom I interviewed here, and whose magnificent book, as I noted before, remains the most important work published in ecclesiology so far this century: Dumitru Staniloae: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology. 

The ordinand, Fr. Silviu Bunta, is a scholar teaching at the University of Dayton, specializing in Jewish-Eastern Christian mysticism and biblical and apocalyptic literature. This was the focus of his doctoral dissertation at Marquette, under his Doktorvater and the bishop who just ordained him, Alexander Golitzin. As a scholar who taught at Marquette until being elevated to the episcopate last year, Golitzin has published several books: The Living Witness of the Holy Mountain: Contemporary Voices from Mount Athos (St. Tikhon's Seminary Press, 1995), 311pp.  (Another recent book on Mt. Athos was noted here, where I also interviewed the author.)

Bishop Alexander is also the translator of On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, Vol. 1: The Church and the Last Things and the second volume: On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, Vol. 2: On Virtue and Christian Life. 
Both of these books were published in the Popular Patristics series of St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, some of whose other offerings were noted here, here, and here.

Golitzin has also published on that most mysterious of characters, Dionysius: Et Introibo Ad Altare Dei: The Mystagogy of Dionysius Areopagita, with Special Reference to Its Predecessors in the Eastern Christian Tradition (1994). Other works on Dionysius have been noted here.

Finally, Bishop Alexander was one of the editors of The A to Z of the Orthodox Church,which was republished in 2010.

When it came time for communion, there was a Romanian triumvirate distributing the holy mysteries: Frs. Radu and Silviu, along with their friend and compatriot, Fr. Bogdan Bucur, author of Angelomorphic Pneumatology (Brill, 2009), 238pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

This book discusses the occurrence of angelic imagery in early Christian discourse about the Holy Spirit. Taking as its entry-point Clement of Alexandria’s less explored writings, Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, and Adumbrationes, it shows that Clement’s angelomorphic pneumatology occurs in tandem with spirit christology, within a theological framework still characterized by a binitarian orientation. This complex theological articulation, supported by the exegesis of specific biblical passages (Zech 4: 10; Isa 11 : 2-3; Matt 18:10), reworks Jewish and Christian traditions about the seven first-created angels, and constitutes a relatively widespread phenomenon in early Christianity. Evidence to support this claim is presented in the course of separate studies of Revelation, the Shepherd of Hermas, Justin Martyr, and Aphrahat.

Bucur is also author of the article "From Jewish Apocalypticism to Orthodox Mysticism" in that wonderful new collection edited by Augustine Casiday, The Orthodox Christian World, which I started reviewing in detail here.

Apophasis and Dionysius

Studies on Dionysius the Areopagite, as I have noted before, continue to emerge regularly today. He remains an enormously influential figure on all theology, Eastern and Western. Along comes another study of his thought from Harvard University's Charles Stang: Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite: "No Longer I" (Oxford Early Christian Studies, 2012), 272pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

This book examines the writings of an early sixth-century Christian mystical theologian who wrote under the name of a convert of the apostle Paul, Dionysius the Areopagite. This 'Pseudo'-Dionysius is famous for articulating a mystical theology in two parts: a sacramental and liturgical mysticism embedded in the context of celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchies, and an austere, contemplative regimen in which one progressively negates the divine names in hopes of soliciting union with the 'unknown God' or 'God beyond being.'
Charles M. Stang argues that the pseudonym and the influence of Paul together constitute the best interpretive lens for understanding the Corpus Dionysiacum [CD]. Stang demonstrates how Paul animates the entire corpus, and shows that the influence of Paul illuminates such central themes of the CD as hierarchy, theurgy, deification, Christology, affirmation (kataphasis) and negation (apophasis), dissimilar similarities, and unknowing. Most importantly, Paul serves as a fulcrum for the expression of a new theological anthropology, an 'apophatic anthropology.' Dionysius figures Paul as the premier apostolic witness to this apophatic anthropology, as the ecstatic lover of the divine who confesses to the rupture of his self and the indwelling of the divine in Gal 2:20: 'it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.'

Building on this notion of apophatic anthropology, the book forwards an explanation for why this sixth-century author chose to write under an apostolic pseudonym. Stang argues that the very practice of pseudonymous writing itself serves as an ecstatic devotional exercise whereby the writer becomes split in two and thereby open to the indwelling of the divine. Pseudonymity is on this interpretation integral and internal to the aims of the wider mystical enterprise. Thus this book aims to question the distinction between 'theory' and 'practice' by demonstrating that negative theology-often figured as a speculative and rarefied theory regarding the transcendence of God-is in fact best understood as a kind of asceticism, a devotional practice aiming for the total transformation of the Christian subject.

Active Participation

Oxford University Press continues to impress with the books it publishes in its series on Early Christian Studies. One of its latest offerings is that of Torstein Theodor Tollefsen, Activity and Participation in Late Antique and Early Christian Thought (Oxford, 2012), 240pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Activity and Participation in Late Antique and Early Christian Thought is an investigation into two basic concepts of ancient pagan and Christian thought. The study examines how activity in Christian thought is connected with the topic of participation: for the lower levels of being to participate in the higher means to receive the divine activity into their own ontological constitution. Torstein Theodor Tollefsen sets a detailed discussion of the work of church fathers Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, and Gregory Palamas in the context of earlier trends in Aristotelian and Neoplatonist philosophy. His concern is to highlight how the Church Fathers thought energeia (i.e. activity or energy) is manifested as divine activity in the eternal constitution of the Trinity, the creation of the cosmos, the Incarnation of Christ, and in salvation understood as deification.      

• Focuses on the ancient background of an important topic in modern Orthodox spirituality, the concept of divine energies and how created beings may participate in these
• Provides a detailed survey of these theological concepts in the thought of Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, and Gregory Palamas
• Clearly shows both the continuities and the discontinuities between pagan and Christian thought
• Explains the relevance of late antique and Byzantine thinking for modern Orthodox theology

Dionysius Between Orthodoxy and Heresy

2012 will see at least two new studies that I am aware of on the person, work, and legacy of that mysterious character known to history as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Another was released in November of last year: Filip Ivanovich, Dionysius the Areopagite Between Orthodoxy and Heresy (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), 187pp.

The publisher provides the following overview of this book:

Dionysius the Areopagite between Orthodoxy and Heresy aims to explore the thought of one of the most controversial characters of Christian history, Dionysius the Areopagite, and put it in a correct context, between pagan (namely Neoplatonic) philosophy on the one side, and Christian theology, on the other. In significant part, the book examines Dionysius Neoplatonic sources, but it also offers insights into the original points of his philosophy and theology, thus showing how he managed to achieve a masterful integration of pagan thought and newly revealed faith. The chapters of the book, taken together, try to offer a broad insight into the Areopagite s thought, through examining not just his intellectual background and milieu, but also some of the crucial features of his work, such as notions of hierarchy, deification, apophatic and cataphatic theologies, icon, and others. This work is of a multidisciplinary character, since Dionysius thought has been studied from different points of view, so the contributions range from philosophy and theology to history and art history. Dionysius the Areopagite between Orthodoxy and Heresy is intended for both specialists and non-specialists. Apart from being a collection of specific studies, it can also serve as an introduction to the Areopagite s thought, and will be useful to all those interested in late antique and early Christian philosophy and theology, patristics, and cultural studies in general.