PHILOSOPHY OF DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE PHILOSOPHIA ANTIQUA A SERIES OF STUDIES ON ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY PREVIOUS EDITORS J.H. WASZINK†, W.J. VERDENIUS†, J.C.M. VAN WINDEN EDITED BY K.A. ALGRA, F.A.J. DE HAAS J. MANSFELD, D.T. RUNIA VOLUME XCIX CHRISTIAN SCHÄFER PHILOSOPHY OF DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE PHILOSOPHY OF DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE an introduction to the structure and the content of the treatise on the divine names BY CHRISTIAN SCHÄFER BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2006 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is also available. ISSN 0079-1687 ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15094-2 ISBN-10: 90-04-15094-3 © Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands tÕn me\n oân poihthn; kaˆ pate/ ra toàde toà pantÕj eØre‹n te œrgon kaˆ eØrÒnta e„j p£ntaj ¢dÚnaton le/ gein (Timaeus 28c) CONTENTS Acknowledgements ........................................................................ ix Glossary .......................................................................................... xi Foreword (by Paul Rorem) .......................................................... xiii PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM §1. The ‘Churching’ of Platonism as a Philosophical Challenge .............................................................................. 3 §2. The Phantom Author .......................................................... 11 a. The Man and the Myth .................................................. 11 b. A Saint turned Forger (and What to do about It) .... 14 §3. The Status Quaestionis .......................................................... 23 a. Naming the Names ........................................................ 24 b. Von Ivánka’s Analysis ...................................................... 26 c. Aquinas’ Layout of DN .................................................. 28 d. Defence of the Interpretive Pattern ............................ 31 e. Von Ivánka’s Interpretation — Merits and Problems 31 f. Von Balthasar’s Interpretation. What It Tries to Accomplish and Where It is Found Wanting .............. 35 g. Abolishing Monopolies .................................................. 42 h. The Way of the Mystic .................................................. 44 i. Associative Composing .................................................. 50 PART II THE PHILOSOPHY OF DN §4. A Summary on the Philosophical Concern of DN .......... 55 §5. Structural Analysis of DN .................................................... 75 1. Chapters 1-3: The Theo-Methodological Basics ........... 76 2. Chapters 4-7: Levelled Extroversion ............................ 80 viii CONTENTS a. Being, Life, Wisdom (chs. 5, 6, 7) .......................... 84 b. A Summary on Procession and Differentiation ...... 88 3. Chapters 8-11: Dynamic Steadying ................................ 89 a. A Question of Justice ................................................ 94 b. Opus iustitiae pax ...................................................... 100 4. Chapters 12 and 13: e pluribus unum ............................ 111 a. Subsumption .............................................................. 116 b. Some Conclusions to Be Drawn from the Analysis ...................................................................... 120 §6. The Philosophical Perspective ............................................ 123 PART III THE TOUCH-STONE OF DIONYSIAN ONTOLOGY §7. The Problem of Evil ............................................................ 133 §8. What Evils are, and Whence .............................................. 137 §9. After ‘Evil’: The Structure of DN Reassessed .................. 155 Conclusion .................................................................................... 163 Appendix 1: Diagrams .................................................................. 175 Appendix 2: Concordance ............................................................. 181 Bibliography .................................................................................. 187 Indices ............................................................................................ 205 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The present book owes much to the help and support of many per- sons and institutions. My first serious interest in Dionysius and the plan for this book ripened some eight years ago in Quito, Ecuador where I was teaching philosophy at the Universidad Católica at the time. I finally began writing the book some years later at the Universität Regensburg, and the half-finished draft accompanied me through a lectureship in Bogotá, Colombia sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in 2001 and a subsequent sabbatical replace- ment at the Justus Liebig-Universität Gießen, before I could take it with me to my present position at the Ludwig-Maximilinas-Universität München. A research fellowship at Princeton University’s Program in Hellenic Studies in 2003-2004 and a generous scholarship of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation enabled me to finish my work on the yellowing manuscript. My thanks go to all the aforementioned institutions, their staff and faculties for their support, financial and other. During all these years, I benefited greatly from the good advice and encouragement from many scholars, whom I met at different stages of this academic odyssey and many of whom I am proud to call my friends now. But it is above all to Paul Rorem of the Princeton Theological Seminary that I wish to express my debt. I learned much about Dionysius from his publications and our long conversations about theological and philosophical matters. Like Dionysius, I therefore would like to consider myself ‘Paul’s disciple’ in these matters. I feel honoured that Paul consented to write a foreword to this book. I have profited from the observations and suggestions of Philosophia Antiqua’s knowledgeable anonymous reader, whose advice to rearrange the order of chapters I followed (pages 28-51 of §3 having originally been conceived as succeeding §5), and from the kind assistance of Brill’s Assistant Editor of Classical Studies, the gracious Regine Reincke, who took interest in publishing the book from the moment we met at a crowded Classics conference in Boston. Finally, I must not forget to thank Joseph Hampel of the Catholic University of America at Washington D.C. and Angela Lehner, who corrected the penultimate and ultimate drafts respectively, gave good counsel and helped me with the English, and Eleni Gaitanu for her x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS work on the bibliography and the indices. As to any remaining mis- takes or faults, I can but repeat the Poet’s words: aÙtÕj ™gë tÒde g'”hmbroton — oÙde/ tij ¥lloj a‡tioj. My odyssey has come to an end in yet another sense, and I owe this to my lovely wife Jana, whom I met during the unsettled years of writ- ing and re-writing the manuscript and to whom I dedicate this book. Thanks to her love and care I learned to be at home where my heart is. It is with her. GLOSSARY Greek words or expressions are explained and translated when first mentioned in the text. Yet, it might be helpful to have a compilation of them at hand. The following Greek words are used terminologically: ¢g£ph, agape love ¤plwsij, haplosis ‘simplification’(as the way to the final ‘divinisation,’ qe/wsij) ¢rc», arkhe principle, origin, or beginning ¢sqe/neia, astheneia deficiency or weakness dÚnamij, dunamis power dÚnasqai, dunasthai ‘potential’, ‘disposition’ e„r»nh, eirene peace œlleiyij, elleipsis deficiency ›n, hen the One ™ne/rgeia, energeia ‘energy’, being continuously at work intrinsically (which ™n ™rgù e„^nai, and hence ‘energy’ originally mean) ›nwsij, henosis (final) union with the One ™pistrof», epistrophe (re)turning, reversal zw», zoe life qe/wsij, theosis the ‘divinisation’ at the end of the epistrophic ascent kaq' aØtÒ(n), kath’ hauto(n) in itself, nothing else considered, per se kaq' h` m©j, kath’ hemas as to us, quoad nos (aÙto)kakÒn, (auto)kakon evil (in itself) me/son (plural me/sa), midst or centre meson (mesa) me/tron, metron measure mon», mone ‘halt’, ‘abiding’, or ‘staying in itself’ noàj, nous mind, intelligence o„ke…a fÚsij, oikeia phusis a thing’s ‘proper natural definition’ o„ke…wsij, oikeiosis the act ‘to take housing’ (o„k…a mean- ing ‘house’), or ‘to make oneself at home’ xii GLOSSARY Ôn and mh; Ôn, on and me on being and non-being (hence the adjec- tive ‘meontic’) (Ôntwj) Ôn, ontos on (real) being oÙs…a, ousia substance para; thn; ØpÒstasin, ‘contrary to substance’ para ten hupostasin prÒodoj, prohodos procession sof…a, sophia wisdom st£sij (synonym of mon»), the ‘stand-still’ stasis t£xij, taxis (ontological) order tele…wsij, teleiosis fulfilment teleut», teleute perfection or fulfilment te/loj, telos the ultimate destination, goal, or purpose tÕ e„^nai kata; sumbebhkÒj, accidental being to einai kata sumbebekos FOREWORD by Paul Rorem