By Sarah Klitenic Wear, John Dillon
'Dionysius the Areopagite' is arguably essentially the most mysterious and interesting figures to emerge from the overdue old international. Writing most likely round 500 C.E., and doubtless attached with the circle of Severus of Antioch, Dionysius manipulates a Platonic metaphysics to explain a hierarchical universe: as with the Hellenic Platonists, he arranges the celestial and fabric cosmos right into a sequence of triadic strata. those strata emanate from one unified being and include beings that variety from more advantageous to inferior, looking on their proximity to God. not just do all issues within the hierarchy perform God, but additionally all issues are inter-connected, in order that the reduce hierarchies totally perform the better ones. This metaphysics lends itself to a sacramental method just like that of the Hellenic ritual, theurgy. Theurgy permits people to arrive the divine via interpreting the divine because it exists in production. even supposing Dionysius' metaphysics and faith are just like that of Iamblichus and Proclus in lots of methods, Pseudo-Dionysius differs essentially in his use of an ecclesiastical cosmos, instead of that of the Platonic Timaean cosmos of the Hellenes. This e-book discusses the Christian Platonist's variation of Hellenic metaphysics, language, and spiritual ritual. whereas Dionysius sincerely works in the Hellenic culture, he innovates to combine Hellenic and Christian notion.
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Extra info for Dionysius the Areopagite and the Neoplatonist Tradition (Ashgate Studies in Philosophy & Theology in Late Antiquity)
Sample text
71, 7–10; II, 27, p. 95, 14–16. See Steel (1992), 61. 13 See also DN 936D where the Dionysian God is said to hold everything in advance as the cause of creation. 14 DN 593D and Proclus, ET 150 and 121. 15 In Parm. 1104, 6–16: And so when he says that the One is not Many, he is not saying that the others besides the One are not the One, as though he were denying those of the One, but he is merely saying that it does not possess multiplicity in itself, and that the One is not, together with being One, also Many, but that it is solely One and essentially One, pure of all multiplicity.
Plotinus, Enn. V, 9,8, trans. MacKenna) 36 See ET, prop. 103 and PT IV, i–iii. 37 Opsomer (2000). 26 Dionysius the Areopagite and the Neoplatonist Tradition levels through contemplation, Syrianus and Proclus, following Iamblichus, connect levels through a hierarchical structure, whereby the lowest item in one level is the highest of the one which follows. The point of this structure for the Platonists was to reserve unity and transcendence for the One, positing multiplicity and creation to its immediate follower, known collectively as the second hypostasis.
Similarity and dissimilarity, although close in meaning to Same and Other, point to God’s ability to return his creation to himself, as beings return to those which they resemble. Dionysius restricts the definition of similarity and dissimilarity to creation’s similarity to the divine, specifying that God is not similar to anything (913C). In DN 9, 6, Dionysius uses the definition of Parm. 50 While Dionysius is not explicit in this treatise about God encompassing the traits of his creation as a totality, it may be reasonable to assume, based on other descriptions, that the One can be called Same and Other, or similar and dissimilar, because he imparts such qualities to his creation: From it derives the existence of everything as beings, what they have in common and what differentiates them, their identicalness and differences, their similarities and dissimilarities.