The Via Affirmativa in the Letters of Denys

THE VIA AFFIRMATIVA IN THE LETTERS OF DENYS by Jordan Gerald Thomas Draper Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia August 2017 © Copyright by Jordan Gerald Thomas Draper, 2017 For my family ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABRSTRACT ..................................................................................................... v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED ............................................................. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................... 1 1.1 Recent Considerations of Denys’ Letters ............................................ 1 1.2 The Author and the Text ...................................................................... 8 1.3 Eros, Philia and Union with God ....................................................... 10 1.4 Outline of Chapters to Follow ............................................................ 12 CHAPTER 2: LETTER I ............................................................................... 20 2.1 Introduction to Letter I ...................................................................... 20 2.2 Letter I and the Mystical Theology .................................................... 21 2.3 Agnosia and Union with God ............................................................. 25 2.4 The Ecstasy of Unknowing ................................................................. 28 CHAPTER 3: LETTERS II-IV ..................................................................... 33 3.1 God as Thearchy .................................................................................. 33 3.2 Letter II: Super-source of Every Source .......................................... 33 3.3 Letter III: Divinity Hidden in the Manifestation of Christ ............ 37 3.4 Letter IV: Human and Divine Activity ............................................. 44 3.5 Imitation of the Inimitable ................................................................. 56 CHAPTER 4: LETTERS V-VII .................................................................... 60 4.1 The Church as Hierarchy ................................................................... 60 iii 4.2 Letter V: Entering into God ............................................................... 63 4.3 Letter VI: One Hidden Truth and Many False Appearances ....... 74 4.4 Letter VII: The Truth above Wisdom .............................................. 83 4.5 Liturgy and Theophany ...................................................................... 92 CHAPTER 5: LETTERS VIII-X .................................................................. 94 5.1 Hierarchy as Symbol ........................................................................... 94 5.2 Letter VIII: A Symbol of Divine Friendship .................................... 96 5.3 Letter IX: The Exterior and Interior of Sacred Symbols............. 103 5.4 Letter X: The Disciple whom Jesus Loved ..................................... 113 5.5 Divine and Human Suffering ........................................................... 117 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ..................................................................... 125 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 133 iv ABSTRACT Denys’ four treatises (CH, EH, DN, MT) describe the logic of conversion of how the soul achieves a contemplative union with the One beyond-being and beyond-knowing through an informed and deliberate unknowing, by means of an ascending liturgical prayer. A tightly structured reversal of the logic of the four major treatises, Letters I-X demonstrate how the person who has ascended to the contemplative state described in the MT never “leaves behind” that union with the “One beyond-knowing” but by way of the Incarnation through participation in the sacrament of Communion, that contemplative union of the soul is maintained through its descent and she continues to experience union with the One beyond-knowing in every circumstance of daily life. The ascent (CH, EH, DN, MT) and the descent (Letters I-X) do not describe a temporal succession, but both movements are simultaneous in the soul that participates in the Incarnation through the sacraments. v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED LXX Septuagint Ambigua On the Difficulties of the Church Fathers AV Authorized Version CD Corpus Dionysiacum CH Celestial Hierarchy DN Divine Names EH Ecclesiastical Hierachy Lampe Lampe: A Patristic Greek Lexicon MT Mystical Theology NT New Testament OT Old Testament vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes to thank the Reverend Dr. G.W.A. Thorne for his continued patience, kindness, guidance and encouragement. vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Recent consideration of Denys’ Letters In the only substantial modern monograph devoted to the ten Letters of Pseudo- Dionysius the Areopagite (hereafter “Denys”),1 Ronald Hathaway’s concern with the larger question of the absence of a political philosophy in Christian Platonism generally leads him to pay particular attention to the possible ethical and political philosophy implicit in the Letters.2 Hathaway concludes that the absence of these practical sciences in the Letters issues from the strained relation of Neoplatonic philosophy and Christian theology in Denys’ thinking: “The Letters of Ps.-Dionysius are an example of the fatal weakness of any alliance of Neoplatonism with Christian faith. Neither Neoplatonism nor Christian faith seems capable of producing a political philosophy.”3 Hathaway submits that Denys’ all-consuming interest in the union between God and the soul leaves 1 Citations in Greek are from the critical edition by Heil, Ritter and Suchla: Pseudo-Dionysius, Corpus Dionysiacum, edited by Beate Regina Suchla, Gunter Heil, and Adolf Martin Ritter (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990-91). English translations are by John Parker: Dionysius the Areopagite, The Complete Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, trans. John Parker (London: James Parker & Co., 1897-9). The identity of the author remains a mystery in many ways. All that is known to scholarship is derived from the CD itself. Denys borrows the name of the first century convert of St Paul, known as “Dionysius the Areopagite” (“Διονύσιος [ὁ] Ἀρεοπαγίτης”) in Acts 17:34. However, in the 1890’s the research of Hugo Koch and Joseph Stiglmayr gave persuasive evidence to show that Denys could not have pre-dated the Neoplatonic philosopher and Diadochos of the Plato’s Academy, Proclus, from whom Denys takes substantial quotations without citing him. The earliest recorded quotation from Denys was by Severus in 528, which provides us with a date by which the CD had been written. For more on the dating and identity of the author of the CD see the following section, 1.2. 2 Hathaway, Hierarchy and the Definition of Order in the Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius. Medieval commentators like Maximus Confessor (580-662) considered the structure, logic and inter-relationships of the Letters within the overall Corpus Dionysiacum (hereafter ‘CD’), but Hathaway is the first in the modern period to offer a sustained treatment of the Letters as possibly significant in understanding the overall CD. Most recently István Perczel in a series of articles has engaged in a source analysis of some of the main Christological texts of the CD, including Letters III and IV, arguing for their direct dependence upon the radical dyophysite texts of Theodoret, of Cyrrhus and Nestorius. 3 Hathaway, Hierarchy and the Definition of Order in the Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius, 144. 1 no place in his system for a philosophy of God’s self-manifestations in the varied relationships of social intercourse and political community. In the following analysis of the Letters I come to a very different understanding of Denys’ thinking. It will become clear that Hathaway misrepresents Denys in his suggestion that Neoplatonism and Christianity are opposing or competing world-views. Rather, for Denys the Neoplatonism of Proclus provides the indispensable intellectual and logical categories adequate to thinking and understanding the Christian faith. Further, although Hathaway says that Denys does not present a political philosophy in the Letters, I will show that the intent of the Letters is precisely to demonstrate that the Dionysian Hierarchy extends downward to include every particularity of the created order including the establishing of Christian community. I will describe the logic of the Letters in which Denys reverses the ascending logic of spiritual uplifting to the contemplative union of the soul with God (this is generally the movement of the argument in the four major treatises of the CD: the Celestial Hierarchy, the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, the Divine Names, and the Mystical Theology)4 and in a logic that begins with the unknowable God of the MT guides the reader through a careful descent to a consideration of friendship and the practicalities of social intercourse based on the sacramental life of the Christian community. My argument has developed in the light of the recent conversation among scholars initiated by Hathaway’s treatment of the Letters in which he raised, however obliquely, the question of the significance of created things generally and of human 4 Hereafter CH, EH, DN, MT. 2 relations specifically in the Dionysian hierarchy. I shall suggest that a close reading of the Letters systematically discloses how

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