Андреевская энциклопедия Д.Л. Андреев: Энциклопедия с обширной библиографией Автор-составитель Михаил Белгородский Статьи по теме «Псевдо-Дионисий Ареопагит»

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Псевдо-Дионисий Ареопагит

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«Ареопагитики»

Дионисий Ареопагит

Содержание

Andreev encyclopædia An encyclopædia on Daniil Andreev with vast bibliography Mikhail Belgorodskiy, the author-compiler The articles on the topic “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite”

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Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

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Dionysian corpus of writings

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(in Russian «Ареопагитики»), a series of Greek treatises and letters by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The treatises “On the Divine Names,” “On Mystical Theology,” “On the Celestial Hierarchy,” and “On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy” comprise the bulk of tishis corpus, supplemented with 10 letters affecting a 1st-century primitive Christian atmosphere. Their doctrinal content forms a complete theology, covering the Trinity and angelic world, the incarnation and redemption, and the last things, and provides a symbolic and mystical explanation of all that is. The system is essentially dialectical, or “crisis” (from the Greek word meaning “crossroads, decision”), theology – i.e., the simultaneous affirmation and denial of paradox in any statement or concept relative to God. God’s transcendence above all rational comprehension and categorical knowledge ultimately reduces any expression of the divinity to polar pairs of contraries: grace and judgment, freedom and necessity, being and nonbeing, time and eternity. The incarnation of the Word, or Son of God, in Christ, consequently, was the expression in the universe of the inexpressible, whereby the One enters into the world of multiplicity. Still, the human intellect can apply to God positive, analogous terms or names such as The Good, Unity, Trinity, Beauty, Love, Being, Life, Wisdom, or Intelligence, assuming that these are limited forms of communicating the incommunicable.
The “Divine Names” and “Mystical Theology” treat the nature and effects of contemplative prayer–the disciplined abandonment of senses and intelligible forms to prepare for the immediate experience of “light from the divine darkness” and ecstatic union–in a manner and scope that make them indispensable to the history of Christian theology and piety. His treatises on the hierarchies, wherein he theorized that all that exists–the form of Christian society, the stages of prayer, and the angelic world–is structured as triads that are the images of the eternal Trinity, introduced a new meaning for the term hierarchy.
The 9th-century Irish philosopher-humanist John Scotus Erigena made a Latin translation of his writings, and the 12th- and 13th-century Scholastics Hugh of Saint-Victor (Paris), Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas wrote commentaries on them. The 14th- and 15th-century Rhineland and Flemish mystics, and the 16th-century Spanish mystics all were influenced by Dionysian thought. Writers of the Greek and Eastern churches, already sympathetic toward Platonic thought, simply absorbed the Dionysian corpus in their theologies as one element among others of this intellectual school. Such syntheses were effected by Gregory of Nazianzus and other 4th-century Cappadocian theologians, the 7th-century resume of Maximus the Confessor, and the works of the 14th-century mystic Gregory Palamas.

Encyclopædia Britannica.

Dionysius the Areopagite

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Falls into the section New Testament.
The reason of inclusion into the encyclopædia: is generated by the article Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

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(in Russian Дионисий Ареопагит; flourished 1st century AD), biblical figure, converted by St. Paul at Athens (Acts 17: 34), who acquired a notable posthumous reputation primarily through confusion with later Christians similarly named. In the 2nd century he was held to have been the first bishop of Athens, and in the 9th century he was identified with Saint Denis of France, allegedly first bishop of Paris, a martyr and a patron saint of France. According to St. Gregory of Tours’s 6th-century “The History of the Franks”, Denis was one of seven bishops sent to Gaul to convert the people, and he was decapitated in Paris in 258(?). In 626 his relics were moved to the abbey of St. Denis, near Paris. In about 500, probably in Syria, some writings were forged in Dionysius the Areopagite’s name by a Christian Neoplatonist with moderate Monophysite leanings. In the 9th century, Hilduin, abbot of St. Denis, translated these mystical works and identified the Parisian Denis with Dionysius the Areopagite, who was believed to have been the author. These writings, whose author most likely was a Syrian monk of the 5th or 6th century and is often referred to as Pseudo-Dionysius, became of decisive importance for the theology and spirituality of Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism. In the 12th century, Peter Abelard was forced to flee the monastery and France itself when he sought to demonstrate that the Parisian Denis and the Athenian Denis were not the same person. Feast day: Western church, October 9; Eastern church, October 3.

Encyclopædia Britannica.