Pseudo-Dionysius
(5th century A.D.
Editor's Note: Pseudo-Dionysius is
one who sought out God by stating what He was not, rather than by trying to
state what He is. This negative approach to to theology is called apophatic,
while the positive approach is called cataphatic.
This is fairly difficult reading. It may help to read chapters V and III
before the others.
Additional information on Pseudo-Dionysius is
available at:
The Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. "Dionysius
the preudo-Areopagite"
The Wikipedia, s..v. "Pseudo-Dionysius"
The Mystical Theology
Source: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/rolt/dionysius.txt
CHAPTER I
What is the Divine Gloom?
Trinty, which exceedeth all Being, Deity, and
Goodness! Thou that instructeth Christians in Thy heavenly wisdom! Guide
us to that topmost height of mystic lore which exceedeth light and more than
exceedeth knowledge, where the simple, absolute, and unchangeable mysteries of
heavenly Truth lie hidden in the dazzling obscurity of the secret Silence,
outshining all brilliance with the intensity of their darkness, and surcharging
our blinded intellects with the utterly impalpable and invisible fairness of
glories which exceed all beauty! Such be my prayer; and thee, dear Timothy, I
counsel that, in the earnest exercise of mystic contemplation, thou leave the
senses and the activities of the intellect and all things that the senses or the
intellect can perceive, and all things in this world of nothingness, or in that
world of being, and that, thine understanding being laid to rest, thou strain
(so far as thou mayest) towards an union with Him whom neither being nor
understanding can contain. For, by the unceasing and absolute renunciation of
thyself and all things, thou shalt in pureness cast all things aside, and be
released from all, and so shalt be led upwards to the Ray of that divine
Darkness which exceedeth all existence. These things thou must not
disclose to any of the uninitiated, by whom I mean those who cling to the
objects of human thought, and imagine there is no super-essential reality
beyond; and fancy that they know by human understanding Him that has made
Darkness His secret place. And, if the Divine Initiation is beyond such men as
these, what can be said of others yet more incapable thereof, who describe the
Transcendent Cause of all things by qualities drawn from the lowest order of
being, while they deny that it is in any way superior to the various ungodly
delusions which they fondly invent in ignorance of this truth? That while it
possesses all the positive attributes of the universe (being the universal
Cause), yet in a stricter sense It does not possess them, since It transcends
them all, wherefore there is no contradiction between affirming and denying that
It has them inasmuch as It precedes and surpasses all deprivation, being beyond
all positive and negative distinctions? Such at least is the teaching of
the blessed Bartholomew. For he says that the subject-matter of the Divine
Science is vast and yet minute, and that the Gospel combines in itself both
width and straitness. Methinks he has shown by these his words how marvellously
he has understood that the Good Cause of all things is eloquent yet speaks few
words, or rather none; possessing neither speech nor understanding because it
exceedeth all things in a super-essential manner, and is revealed in Its naked
truth to those alone who pass right through the opposition of fair and
foul, and pass beyond the topmost altitudes of the holy ascent and leave
behind them all divine enlightenment and voices and heavenly utterances and
plunge into the Darkness where truly dwells, as saith the Scripture, that One
Which is beyond all things. For not without reason is the blessed Moses
bidden first to undergo purification himself and then to separate himself from
those who have not undergone it; and after all purification hears the
many-voiced trumpets and sees many lights flash forth with pure and
diverse-streaming rays, and then stands separate from the multitudes and with
the chosen priests presses forward to the topmost pinnacle of the Divine Ascent.
Nevertheless he meets not with God Himself, yet he beholds "not Him indeed
(for He is invisible)" but the place wherein He dwells. And this I take to
signify that the divinest and the highest of the things perceived by the eyes of
the body or the mind are but the symbolic language of things subordinate to Him
who Himself transcendeth them all. Through these things His incomprehensible
presence is shown walking upon those heights of His holy places which are
perceived by the mind; and then It breaks forth, even from the things that are
beheld and from those that behold them, and plunges the true initiate unto the
Darkness of Unknowing wherein he renounces all the apprehensions of his
understanding and is enwrapped in that which is wholly intangible and invisible,
belonging wholly to Him that is beyond all things and to none else (whether
himself or another), and being through the passive stillness of all his
reasoning powers united by his highest faculty to Him that is wholly Unknowable,
of whom thus by a rejection of all knowledge he possesses a knowledge that
exceeds his understanding.
CHAPTER II
How it is necessary to be united with and render praise to Him Who is the cause
of all and above all.
Unto this Darkness which is beyond Light we pray that we
may come, and may attain unto vision through the loss of sight and knowledge,
and that in ceasing thus to see or to know we may learn to know that which is
beyond all perception and understanding (for this emptying of our faculties is
true sight and knowledge), and that we may offer Him that transcends all things
the praises of a transcendent hymnody, which we shall do by denying or removing
all things that are alike as men who, carving a statue out of marble, remove all
the impediments that hinder the clear perceptive of the latent image and by this
mere removal display the hidden statue itself in its hidden beauty. Now we
must wholly distinguish this negative method from that of positive statements.
For when we were making positive statements we began with the most
universal statements, and then through intermediate terms we came at last to
particular titles, but now ascending upwards from particular to universal
conceptions we strip off all qualities in order that we may attain a naked
knowledge of that Unknowing which in all existent things is enwrapped by all
objects of knowledge, [529] and that we may begin to see that super-essential
Darkness which is hidden by all the light that is in existent things.
CHAPTER III
What are the affirmative expressions respecting God, and what are the negative?
Now I have in my Outlines of Divinity set forth those
conceptions which are most proper to the affirmative method, and have shown in
what sense God's holy nature is called single and in what sense trinal, what is
the nature of the Fatherhood and Sonship which we attribute unto It; what is
meant by the articles of faith concerning the Spirit; how from the immaterial
and indivisible Good the interior rays of Its goodness have their being and
remain immovably in that state of rest which both within their Origin and within
themselves is co-eternal with the act by which they spring from It; in
what manner Jesus being above all essence has stooped to an essential
state in which all the truths of human nature meet; and all the other
revelations of Scripture whereof my Outlines of Divinity treat. And in the book
of the Divine Names I have considered the meaning as concerning God of the
titles Good, Existent, Life, Wisdom, Power and of the other titles which the
understanding frames, and in my Symbolic Divinity I have considered what are the
metaphorical titles drawn from the world of sense and applied to the nature of
God; what are the mental or material images we form of God or the functions and
instruments of activity we attribute to Him; what are the places where He dwells
and the robes He is adorned with; what is meant by God's anger, grief, and
indignation, or the divine inebriation and wrath; what is meant by God's oath
and His malediction, by His slumber and awaking, and all the other inspired
imagery of allegoric symbolism. And I doubt not that you have also observed how
far more copious are the last terms than the first for the doctrines of God's
Nature and the exposition of His Names could not but be briefer than the
Symbolic Divinity. For the more that we soar upwards the more our language
becomes restricted to the compass of purely intellectual conceptions, even as in
the present instance plunging into the Darkness which is above the intellect we
shall find ourselves reduced not merely to brevity of speech but even to
absolute dumbness both of speech and thought. Now in the former treatises the
course of the argument, as it came down from the highest to the lowest
categories, embraced an ever-widening number of conceptions which increased at
each stage of the descent, but in the present treatise it mounts upwards from
below towards the category of transcendence, and in proportion to its ascent it
contracts its terminology, and when the whole ascent is passed it will be
totally dumb, being at last wholly united with Him Whom words cannot
describe. But why is it, you will ask, that after beginning from the
highest category when one method was affirmative we begin from the lowest
category where it is negative? Because, when affirming, the existence of
that which transcends all affirmation, we were obliged to start from that which
is most akin to It, and then to make the affirmation on which the rest depended;
but when pursuing the negative method, to reach that which is beyond all
negation, we must start by applying our negations to those qualities which
differ most from the ultimate goal. Surely it is truer to affirm that God is
life and goodness than that He is air or stone, and truer to deny that
drunkenness or fury can be attributed to Him than to deny that the may apply to
Him the categories of human thought.
CHAPTER IV
That He Who is the Pre-eminent Cause of everything sensibly perceived is not
Himself any one of the things sensibly perceived.
We therefore maintain that the universal Cause
transcending all things is neither impersonal nor lifeless, nor irrational nor
without understanding: in short, that It is not a material body, and therefore
does not possess outward shape or intelligible form, or quality, or quantity, or
solid weight; nor has It any local existence which can be perceived by sight or
touch; nor has It the power of perceiving or being perceived; nor does It suffer
any vexation or disorder through the disturbance of earthly passions, or any
feebleness through the tyranny of material chances, or any want of light; nor
any change, or decay, or division, or deprivation, or ebb and flow, or anything
else which the senses can perceive. None of these things can be either
identified with it or attributed unto It.
CHAPTER V
That He Who is the Pre-eminent Cause of everything intelligibly perceived is not
Himself any one of the things intelligibly perceived.
Once more, ascending yet higher we maintain that It is not soul, or mind, or
endowed with the faculty of imagination, conjecture, reason, or understanding;
nor is It any act of reason or understanding; nor can It be described by the
reason or perceived by the understanding, since It is not number, or order, or
greatness, or littleness, or equality, or inequality, and since It is not
immovable nor in motion, or at rest, and has no power, and is not power or
light, and does not live, and is not life; nor is It personal essence, or
eternity, or time; nor can It be grasped by the understanding since It is not
knowledge or truth; nor is It kingship or wisdom; nor is It one, nor is It
unity, nor is It Godhead or Goodness; nor is It a Spirit, as we understand the
term, since It is not Sonship or Fatherhood; nor is It any other thing such as
we or any other being can have knowledge of; nor does It belong to the category
of non-existence or to that of existence; nor do existent beings know It as it
actually is, nor does It know them as they actually are; nor can the
reason attain to It to name It or to know It; nor is it darkness, nor is It
light, or error, or truth; nor can any affirmation or negation apply to
it; for while applying affirmations or negations to those orders of being that
come next to It, we apply not unto It either affirmation or negation, inasmuch
as It transcends all affirmation by being the perfect and unique Cause of all
things, and transcends all negation by the pre-eminence of Its simple and
absolute nature-free from every limitation and beyond them all.
