Rev. José Mario O. Mandía
jmom.honlam.org
The Acts of the Apostles narrates the journeys of Saint Paul. In one of his trips, he finds himself preaching in the Areopagus in Athens (cf. Acts 17:22) where “some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them” (Acts 17:34).
Hundreds of years later, in the late 5th or early 6th century, there arose a Greek theologian and Neoplatonic philosopher who identified himself as Dionysius the Areopagite and wrote a set of works entitled Corpus Areopagiticum or Corpus Dionysiacum. Obviously, this author was not the same as the man that Saint Paul converted. This is why he is known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite or Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite.
Indeed, we can only know a little about Pseudo-Dionysius through his writings. “The clues furnished by the first appearance and by the character of the writings enable us to conclude that the author belongs at the very earliest to the latter half of the fifth century, and that, in all probability, he was a native of Syria. His thoughts, phrases, and expressions show a great familiarity with the works of the neo-Platonists, especially with Plotinus and Proclus. He is also thoroughly versed in the sacred books of the Old and New Testament, and in the works of the Fathers as far as Cyril of Alexandria” (Joseph Stiglmayr. “Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05013a.htm).
Pope Benedict XVI says that choosing this pseudonym “means that his intention was to put Greek wisdom at the service of the Gospel, to foster the encounter of Greek culture and intelligence with the proclamation of Christ; he wanted to do what this Dionysius had intended, that is, to make Greek thought converge with St Paul’s proclamation; being a Greek, he wanted to become a disciple of St Paul, hence a disciple of Christ” (General Audience, 4 May 2008). Pope Benedict also points out the humility of the author, in not letting his real identity be known.
His works include The Divine Names (Περὶ θείων ὀνομάτων) and Mystical Theology (Περὶ μυστικῆς θεολογίας). The two books form a continuity. They talk about God’s transcendence – His Being cannot be completely grasped by the human mind and hence, cannot be fully expressed. God is ineffable, he is inexpressible. In The Divine Names, Pseudo-Dionysius asks “How then can we speak of the divine names? How can we do this if the Transcendent surpasses all discourse and all knowledge, if it abides beyond the reach of mind and of being, if it encompasses and circumscribes, embraces and anticipates all things while itself eluding their grasp and escaping from any perception, imagination, opinion, name, discourse, apprehension, or understanding?
How can we enter upon this undertaking if the Godhead is superior to being and is unspeakable and unnameable?” (Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, 593A-B.”
Sacred Scripture, however, does talk about God and his attributes. So we can affirm certain things of God – He is Good, He is True, He is Beautiful… This is called affirmative or cataphatic theology. However, God’s goodness is beyond the goodness we see in creatures. The same goes for his Truth, his Beauty, and so on. That is why we have to say that he is not good with the goodness we find in creatures. And he is not true, or beautiful…. This is called negative or apophatic theology.
Hence, when we talk about God, there is something that is hidden, something mysterious. Pseudo-Dionysius is thus a pioneer of mystical theology. Pope Benedict XVI says: “Dionysius the Areopagite exerted a strong influence on all medieval theology and on all mystical theology, both in the East and in the West. He was virtually rediscovered in the 13th century, especially by St Bonaventure, the great Franciscan theologian who in this mystical theology found the conceptual instrument for reinterpreting the heritage – so simple and profound – of St Francis” (General Audience, 4 May 2008).
In the 13th century, Saint Thomas took up the Pseudo-Areopagite’s teaching and added a third way – the way of eminence. “Now from the divine effects we cannot know the divine nature in itself, so as to know what it is; but only by way of eminence, and by way of causality [affirmation], and of negation as stated above” (STh I q13 a8, reply to 2nd objection).
In the way of eminence, we affirm that God is good, but not in the same way that creatures are good: God is Goodness itself. And He is Truth itself, Beauty itself, Being itself – Ipsum Esse Subsistens.
Finally, Pope Benedict points out the relevance of Pseudo-Dionysius for our times. The Holy Father considers him “as a great mediator in the modern dialogue between Christianity and the mystical theologies of Asia, whose characteristic feature is the conviction that it is impossible to say who God is, that only indirect things can be said about him; that God can only be spoken of with the ‘not’, and that it is only possible to reach him by entering into this indirect experience of ‘not’. And here a similarity can be seen between the thought of the Areopagite and that of Asian religions; he can be a mediator today as he was between the Greek spirit and the Gospel” (General Audience, 4 May 2008).
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