The treatises and letters of Dionysius the Areopagite blended Neoplatonic philosophy with Christian theology and mystical experience. Their exploration of the nature and results of contemplative prayer exercised a lasting influence.
"In The Divine Names the unknown Dionysius the Areopagite expresses many profound truths concerning the Divine Nature, based upon discussions of the names which are ascribed in the Bible to Him and to His attributes. In doing so, Dionysius had the advantage of the mystical teachings of the Neoplatonic School, which developed the Platonic teachings. Since he treated these from a Christian point of view, Dionysius played a great part in developing Christian mysticism. At the same time he is a link with the older thought, and therefore illustrates how the one fundamental truth is contimued [sic] through many schools of thought."--
In 1490/92 the Florentine Platonist Marsilio Ficino made new translations of two treatises he believed were the work of Dionysius the Areopagite, the disciple of St. Paul mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. They are presented here in new critical editions accompanied by English translations, the first into any modern language.
The treatise by the Pseudo-Dionysius De Mystica Theologia was translated into Latin in the ninth century, but it had to await the first decades of the thirteenth to receive interpretation and commentary. Thomas Gallus, a member of the Victorine School at Paris, glossed the Latin version of Iohannes Sarracenus in 1233. This new, critical edition and translation are based upon all five manuscripts, two of which are recent discoveries. The commentary by Bishop Grosseteste was made at Lincoln around 1242. It was based upon his new version of the Greek text. Both are published here with a translation. These earliest Latin commentators ventured a full-scale reappropriation of the contents of The Mystical Theology. They explored the trans-conceptual ecstasy of the individual soul that passes through purification and illumination to union with God by means of an exceptional grace of divine love. Between them they provided the context which not only the later mystical theology of monastery and university but also the actual spiritual experience of countless souls was formed.
Dionysius the Areopagite is the pseudonymous author of an influential body of early (about 500 AD) Christian theological texts. Paul Rorem here explores the profound influence of these texts on medieval theolgy in the East and the West.
Christians face a conundrum when it comes to naming God, for if God is unnamable, as theologians maintain, he can also be called by every name. His proper name is thus an open-ended, all-encompassing list, a mystery the Church embraces in its rhetoric, but which many Christians have found difficult to accept. To explore this conflict, Valentina Izmirlieva examines two lists of God’s names: one from The Divine Names, the classic treatise by Pseudo-Dionysius, and the other from The 72 Names of the Lord, an amulet whose history binds together Kabbalah and Christianity, Jews and Slavs, Palestine, Provence, and the Balkans. This unexpected juxtaposition of a theological treatise and a magical amulet allows Izmirlieva to reveal lists’ rhetorical potential to create order and to function as both tools of knowledge and of power. Despite the two different visions of order represented by each list, Izmirlieva finds that their uses in Christian practice point to a complementary relationship between the existential need for God’s protection and the metaphysical desire to submit to his infinite majesty—a compelling claim sure to provoke discussion among scholars in many fields.
Here are the complete works of the enigmatic fifth- and sixth-century writer known as the Pseudo Dionysius, prepared by a team of six research scholars.
Academic theology is in need of a new genre. In "Transgressive Devotion" Natalie Wigg-Stevenson articulates a theological vision of that genre as performance art. She argues that theology done as performance art stops trying to describe who God is, and starts trying to make God appear. Recognising that the act of studying theology or practicing ministry is always a performance, where the boundaries between what we see, feel, experience and learn are not just blurred but potentially invisible, Wigg-Stevenson brings together ethnographic theological fieldwork, historical and contemporary Christian theological traditions, and performance artworks themselves. A daring vision of theology which will energise anybody feeling ‘boxed in’ by the discipline, Transgressive Devotion blurs borders between orthodoxy, heterodoxy and heresy to reveal how the very act of doing theology makes God and humanity vulnerable to each other. This is theology which is a liturgy of Divine incantation. In other words: this is theology which is also prayer.