Dionysius the Areopagite between Orthodoxy and Heresy

Dionysius the Areopagite between Orthodoxy and Heresy

Author: Filip Ivanović

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2011-09-22

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 1443834319

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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.


The Oxford Handbook of Dionysius the Areopagite

The Oxford Handbook of Dionysius the Areopagite

Author: Mark Edwards

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 753

ISBN-13: 0198810792

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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.


Neoplatonism și creștinism: negație și transcendență

Neoplatonism și creștinism: negație și transcendență

Author: Daniel Jugrin

Publisher: Globe Edit

Published: 2023-05-11

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 6200649111

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„Nu este nici cuvânt al ei, nici nume, nici cunoștință. Nu este nici întuneric, nici lumină, nici eroare, nici adevăr. Nu este defel nici postulare (thesis) a ei, nici îndepărtare (aphairesis). Ci, făcând postulările și îndepărtările a celor de după ea, nici nu o postulăm, nici nu o îndepărtăm, de vreme ce cauza deplină și una a tuturor este hyper toată postularea; și hyper toată îndepărtarea, ca cea care este preeminența (hyperoche) liberă de toate și dincolo de (epekeina) toate.” (Dionisie Areopagitul, Despre teologia mistică, V).


Desiring the Beautiful

Desiring the Beautiful

Author: Filip Ivanovic

Publisher: CUA Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0813231892

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Desiring the Beautiful studies the concept of deification, theosis, in two of the most influential early Christian philosopher-theologians, who might be considered as theoretical consolidators of the idea of theosis, and argues that the proper understanding of their central soteriological concept must take into account its dimension of love and beauty.


Spiraling Into God

Spiraling Into God

Author: Katharine Wrisley Shelby

Publisher: CUA Press

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 0813236711

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Spiraling into God: Bonaventure on Grace, Hierarchy, and Holiness offers a systematic account of the Seraphic Doctor's doctrine of grace across his speculative-academic, mystical, hagiographical, and pastoral texts. It does so by arguing that an account of this kind can only be provided by also attending to his theology of hierarchy, a methodology derived from Bonaventure's claim in the Major Legend of St. Francis that Francis of Assisi was a "vir hierarchicus," or hierarchical man. As the book explores in great depth, this appellation relies upon Bonaventure's reading of a Victorine Dionysian interpreter by the name of Thomas Gallus, whose "angelic anthropology"--or notion of the hierarchical soul--becomes a crucial component within the Seraphic Doctor's teaching on grace as he interprets the sanctity of St. Francis. Throughout the course of his career, Bonaventure will define sanctifying grace as a created "inflowing" (influential) that "hierarchizes" human beings by purifying, illuminating, and perfecting them from within, thus causing them to become a similitude of the Trinity. This book explains what this means and why it matters. Most existing scholarship on this subject in Bonaventure's thought interprets it as a subtopic with respect to other themes--for example, with respect to his Christology or his Trinitarian theology--rather than taking the time to understand his doctrine of grace in its own right. Alternatively, scholarly treatments of his doctrine of grace will treat it at length, but will only examine the topic as it appears in his more speculative-academic texts--most especially his Commentary on the Sentences or his famous Itinerarium Mentis in Deum--without bringing these into conversation with his pastoral works, sermon literature, or hagiographical texts. Spiraling Into God provides the first unified treatment of Bonaventure's doctrine of grace across all these different genres of his known corpus, and in so doing, fills a massive lacuna in both Bonaventurean scholarship and in the field of medieval historical theology.


Pseudo-Dionysius and Christian Visual Culture, c.500–900

Pseudo-Dionysius and Christian Visual Culture, c.500–900

Author: Francesca Dell’Acqua

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-11-20

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 3030247694

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This book uses Pseudo-Dionysius and his mystic theology to explore attitudes and beliefs about images in the early medieval West and Byzantium. Composed in the early sixth century, the Corpus Dionysiacum, the collection of texts transmitted under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, developed a number of themes which have a predominantly visual and spatial dimension. Pseudo-Dionysius’ contribution to the development of Christian visual culture, visual thinking and figural art-making are examined in this book to systematically investigate his long-lasting legacy and influence. The contributors embrace religious studies, philosophy, theology, art, and architectural history, to consider the depth of the interaction between the Corpus Dionysiacum and various aspects of contemporary Byzantine and western cultures, including ecclesiastical and lay power, politics, religion, and art.


Tetragrammaton: Western Christians and the Hebrew Name of God

Tetragrammaton: Western Christians and the Hebrew Name of God

Author: Robert J. Wilkinson

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2015-02-04

Total Pages: 599

ISBN-13: 9004288171

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The Christian Reception of the Hebrew name of God has not previously been described in such detail and over such an extended period. This work places that varied reception within the context of early Jewish and Christian texts; Patristic Studies; Jewish-Christian relationships; Mediaeval thought; the Renaissance and Reformation; the History of Printing; and the development of Christian Hebraism. The contribution of notions of the Tetragrammaton to orthodox doctrines and debates is exposed, as is the contribution its study made to non-orthodox imaginative constructs and theologies. Gnostic, Kabbalistic, Hermetic and magical texts are given equally detailed consideration. There emerge from this sustained and detailed examination several recurring themes concerning the difficulty of naming God, his being and his providence.


Negation and Knowledge of God: Neoplatonism and Christianity

Negation and Knowledge of God: Neoplatonism and Christianity

Author: Daniel Jugrin

Publisher: Scholars' Press

Published: 2017-10-06

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 6202302046

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It is not soul, not intellect, not imagination, opinion, reason and not understanding, not logos, not intellection, not spoken, not thought, not number, not order, not greatness, not smallness, not equality, not inequality, not likeness, not unlikeness, not having stood, not moved, not at rest, not powerful, not intepowerful, not light, not living, not life, not eternity, not time, not intellectual contact with it, not knowledge, not truth, not kingship, not wisdom, not one, not unity, not divinity, not goodness, not spirit , not sonhood, not fatherhood, ..., not something among what is not, not something among what is, not known as it is by beings, not a knower of beings as they are. There is neither logos, name, or knowledge of it. It is neither dark nor light, not error, and not truth. There is universally neither postulation nor abstraction of it. While there are produced postulations and abstractions of those after it, we neither postulate nor abstract it. Since beyond all postulation is the all-complete and single Cause of all; beyond all abstraction: the preeminence of that absolutely free of all and beyond the whole. (Dionysius the Areopagite, De mystica theologia V).


Music: Its Theologies and Spiritualities

Music: Its Theologies and Spiritualities

Author: Edward Foley

Publisher: MDPI

Published: 2020-11-25

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 3039435930

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This volume is an exploration of the varied and sometimes unrecognized ways in which music—especially in ritual contexts—can serve as both a spiritual conduit as well as a theological source. With topics ranging from a Congolese choir in Ireland to the Orthodox chant in Georgia, from postmodern reflections on new Passion compositions to reflections on the sacramentality of Black gospel music, this volume offers a rich plumbing of very diverse yet well researched musical traditions—case studies from around the globe—for their spiritual and theological contributions.