Dionysius the Areopagite and the Neoplatonist Tradition

Despoiling the Hellenes

Sarah Klitenic Wear

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351159821
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire antique

'Dionysius the Areopagite' is arguably one of the most mysterious and intriguing figures to emerge from the late antique world. Writing probably around 500 CE, and possibly connected with the circle of Severus of Antioch, Dionysius manipulates a Platonic metaphysics to describe a hierarchical universe: as with the Hellenic Platonists, he arranges the celestial and material cosmos into a series of triadic strata. These strata emanate from one unified being and contain beings that range from superior to inferior, depending on their proximity to God. Not only do all things in the hierarchy participate in God, but also all things are inter-connected, so that the lower hierarchies fully participate in the higher ones. This metaphysics lends itself to a sacramental system similar to that of the Hellenic ritual, theurgy. Theurgy allows humans to reach the divine by examining the divine as it exists in creation. Although Dionysius' metaphysics and religion are similar to that of Iamblichus and Proclus in many ways, Pseudo-Dionysius differs fundamentally in his use of an ecclesiastical cosmos, rather than that of the Platonic Timaean cosmos of the Hellenes. This book discusses the Christian Platonist's adaptation of Hellenic metaphysics, language, and religious ritual. While Dionysius clearly works within the Hellenic tradition, he innovates to integrate Hellenic and Christian thought.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Identity of the Author; History of Scholarship

‘Dionysius the Areopagite’¹ is arguably one of the most mysterious and intriguing figures to emerge from the late antique world. Ever since the mid-sixth century AD, speculation has swirled around the identity of this portentous figure. Was he, as he presents himself, the first Athenian convert of St Paul, living and writing some time in the later first century AD, or was he rather a sophisticated late-fifth-century pseudepigrapher, despoiling the contemporary Athenian school of Neoplatonism in order to forge a new Christian Platonist theology? Fortunately for the purposes of the present work, we can now regard the controversy as having been definitively settled in favour of the latter alternative, but it is still worth surveying, even briefly, the course of the argument over the past centuries, as it constitutes an interesting chapter in the history of ideas.

From the earliest Christian centuries, speculation had centred on the figure of Dionysius, precisely because so little was known about him. All we hear in the NT (Acts 17:34) is that, after Paul addressed the Areopagus, ‘some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite’. Already in the first Christian centuries efforts were made to fill out some details. Eusebius reports (EH 3, 4, 11) that a certain Dionysius of Corinth identified the Areopagite as the first bishop of Athens. There is, however, no suggestion in earlier times that he was the author of any writings. Nonetheless, he plainly constituted a figure on which intellectual baggage could be laid. It was not, however, until some time in the very late fifth century or the first decade of the sixth that anything was made of this. Suddenly, however, in this period, there burst upon the intellectual world of late antiquity a remarkable series of works purporting to emanate from his pen. These works reveal a figure thoroughly acquainted with the latest doctrines and formulations of the contemporary Neoplatonic school of Athens, along with a burning concern to impose an intellectual structure on the doctrines of Christianity.

To comprehend why anyone should want to embark on such an enterprise, we have to consider briefly the intellectual environment in the Greek east of the empire in this period. The Christian Church at this time was racked by controversy, in particular as regards the nature (or natures) of Christ. Already back in 451, the Council of Chalcedon had declared it a dogma that Christ had two natures, a human and a divine, but this did not silence dissatisfaction among the more acute minds of the Christian intelligentsia. Particularly in Antioch,² various forms and modifications of ‘monophysitism’ (the doctrine that Christ had but a single nature) prevailed, including ‘monotheletism’ (maintaining that Christ had a single will) and ‘monenergism’ (declaring that he had a single source of activity).

Into this cauldron of controversy there plunged the highly-intelligent, but ceaselessly combative, figure of Severus of Antioch. Severus was a native of Sozopolis in Pisidia, born in 465 of a wealthy pagan family and sent to study in Alexandria and then Beirut, where he was destined for the law. While at Alexandria in the late 480s he would have had the opportunity to become acquainted with the doctrines of the Neoplatonism of Proclus, who had just died in 484, since connections between the two Neoplatonic schools were at this stage quite close, with much coming and going.³ Severus, however, when he went to Beirut, fell under the influence of Christian fellow-students and, as a consequence of the study of the Cappadocian Fathers, was baptized into Christianity. No sooner did he become a Christian, however, than he became involved in controversy, gravitating to the extreme wing of the Monophysite persuasion. He abandoned his career as a lawyer and went to become a monk in Jerusalem. Subsequently he moved to a monastery near the town of Maiuma, where he became acquainted with the interesting figure of Peter the Iberian, who was at this time bishop of Maiuma.

To detail the totality of Severus’ adventures, physical and intellectual, is beyond the scope of this work. Suffice it to say that, as a monophysite, he was appointed patriarch of Antioch in 512 through the favour of the Emperor Anastasius, but was deposed from this position in 519 on the succession of Justin I. Severus’ importance in this narrative stems from the fact that he is the first known figure to have made reference to works of Dionysius the Areopagite. We know this from the record of a conference held in 532 between a group of orthodox followers of the Council of Chalcedon, led by Hypatius of Ephesus, and a group of partisans of Severus,⁴ where the Severians, in support of their position, make reference to a number of authorities, including the Alexandrian patriarchs Athanasius and Cyril, Gregory Thaumaturgus, and finally, ‘Dionysius the Areopagite’, all of whom assert that there is one nature of God the Logos after the union. It is noteworthy that Hypatius himself, in this connection, expresses some scepticism as to the authenticity of the works of Dionysius the Areopagite.

It was the ingenious suggestion of Josef Stiglmayr, whose contribution to Dionysian studies will be mentioned further below, that the true author of the Dionysian corpus was none other than Severus himself. This attractive proposal, however, has been forcefully countered by the great authority on Severus, Joseph Lebon, and it seems best to yield to him in this,⁵ but the fact remains that the author of these remarkable works cannot be far removed from the circle of Severus, experienced a course of education similar to that of Severus, and Severus probably knew who he was.

Our next evidence of the existence of the Dionysian corpus comes from the annotations composed upon it no later than 532 by John of Scythopolis. John is much concerned to indicate the orthodoxy of Dionysius,⁶ and equally concerned to distance him from any affinity to Neoplatonism, indicating that he was conscious of the dangers of such a connection. He also lets slip, in a number of details, that some doubts had been raised as to the authenticity of the corpus.⁷ Specifically, he is at pains to defuse a suggestion that a reference to a formulation by Ignatius of Antioch at DN 709B constitutes a serious anachronism – as indeed it does. John makes a valiant effort to argue that Dionysius could have known Ignatius, but what is significant is that the objection had been raised.

John’s efforts were successful, and the works of Dionysius escaped the condemnation incurred by Severus in respect of all of his works which resulted from the synod called by the anti-Monophysite Patriarch Menas in Constantinople in 536, ratified reluctantly by Justinian. By the latter part of the century, when Maximus the Confessor composed a commentary on the Dionysian corpus, his authenticity and his orthodoxy were assured. His translation into Latin, first in 838 by Hilduin of the monastery of St Denys near Paris (who also ventured to make an identification between the Areopagite and the Dionysius who was first bishop of Paris), and then by John Scottus Eriugena in 862, established Dionysius likewise in the Western Church as the archetypal Christian theologian. Thereafter, the authenticity and orthodoxy of Dionysius remained substantially unchallenged until the Renaissance, when Lorenzo Valla directed the first shaft of doubt against the authenticity of the corpus in 1457. These doubts were picked up by the great Dutch scholar Erasmus in the next generation (1505), but the full force of their challenge was not widely appreciated until the early nineteenth century, when modern scholarship on the subject of Dionysius may be said to begin with the monograph of Johann G. Engelhardt in his Dissertatio de Dionysio platonizante of 1820 and a number of subsequent works. Engelhardt actually asserted that the corpus exhibited clear and numerous traces of Proclus’ philosophy, but he failed to produce detailed instances of dependence. At the end of the century, however, a decisive breakthrough was made by Josef Stiglmayr in his essay ‘Der Neuplatoniker Proclus als Vorlage des sogen. Dionysius Areopagita in der Lehre vom Uebel’,⁸ in which he demonstrated that Dionysius’ excursus on the nature of evil in Chapter 4 of the Divine Names is fairly closely dependent on the treatise of Proclus De Malorum Subsistentia on the same subject. Once this point had been agreed, there was no further need to search for suitable niches for Dionysius in previous centuries. Stiglmayr’s further proposal, alluded to above, in an article of 1928, ‘Der sogenannte Dionysius Areopagita und Severus von Antiochien’,⁹ proved less persuasive, but does serve to emphasize the close relationship between the works of Dionysius and the circle of Severus. Further important contributions to our understanding of the dependence of Dionysius on the Neoplatonic school of Athens have been made by the eminent scholars Salvatore Lilla¹⁰ and Henri-Dominique Saffrey.¹¹ Among other leading scholars of Dionysius to whom the present work is indebted on various points are Hugo Koch,¹² René Roques,¹³ Victor Lossky,¹⁴ Walther Völker,¹⁵ Jean Vanneste,¹⁶ Eugenio Corsini,¹⁷ Endre von Ivanka,¹⁸ Maurice de Gandillac,¹⁹ Bernard Brons,²⁰ Andrew louth,²¹ Paul Rorem,²² Stephen Gersh,²³ Ronald Hathaway²⁴ and Ysabel De Andia.²⁵

Dionysius and the Monophysite Controversy

The main features of Dionysius’ philosophy will be discussed in the chapters that follow. It seems appropriate here, however, to say something about his Christology, since this feature of his thought is crucial for his relationship to the circle of Severus of Antioch, and may indeed have been one of the stimuli to the creation of the corpus in the first place – the other, of course, being a desire to ‘reclaim’ the whole edifice of Neoplatonic philosophy for the Christian faith.

Whatever may have appeared the case to later Byzantine and Western commentators, it is fairly clear, particularly from a study of such a document as Dionysius’ Letter 4, that his position, although couched in high-flown and convoluted terms, calculated to confuse the dull-witted, is in accordance with the Monophysite position – or, more particularly, advances a position which may be described as Monenergism, that is to say, the doctrine that within Christ there is just one source of activity (energeia), and that is the activity of the god-man who is Jesus Christ. What may have led more orthodox pro-Chalcedonian thinkers to suppose that Dionysius was on their side is his emphasis on the unmixed and pure Christ in his mortal body. A quotation from Letter 4 may illustrate this:

You ask how it could be that Jesus, who transcends all, is placed in the same order of being with all men. He is not called a man here in the context of being the cause of man but rather as being himself quite truly a man in all essential respects. But we do not define Jesus in human terms (ouk anthropikôs). For he is not simply a man, nor would he be supra...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 God as Monad in the Divine Names
• 3 God as Trinity in the Divine Names
• 4 On Hierarchy
• 5 The Problem of Evil
• 6 Scriptural Interpretation [Theoria] as Onomastic Theurgy
• 7 Hierourgia and Theourgia in Sacramental Activity
• 8 Union and Return to God: The Mystical Theology and the First Hypothesis of the Parmenides
• 9 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index