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There are few figures in the history of Western Spirituality who are more enigmatic than the fifth or sixth-century writer known as the Pseudo-Dionysius. The real identity of the person who chose to write under the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite is unknown. Even the exact dates of his writings have never been determined. Moreover the texts themselves, though relatively short, are at points seemingly impenetrable and have mystified readers over the centuries. Yet the influence of this shadowy figure on broad range of mystical writers from the early middle ages on is readily discernible. His formulation of a method of negative theology that stresses the impotence of humans' attempt to penetrate the "cloud of unknowing" is famous as is his meditation on the divine names. Despite his influence, relatively few attempts have been made to translate the entire corpus of his written into English. Here in one volume are collected all of the Pseudo-Dionysius' works. Each has been translated from the Migne edition, with reference to the forthcoming Göttingen critical edition of A.M. Ritter, G. Heil, and B. Suchla. To present these works to the English-speaking public, an outstanding team of six research scholars has been assembled. The lucid translation of Colm Luibheid has been augmented by Paul Rorem's notes and textual collaboration. The reader is presented a rich and varied examination of the main themes of Dionysian spirituality by René Roques, an incisive discussion of the original questions of the authenticity and alleged heresies in the Dionysian corpus by Jaroslav Pelikan, a comprehensive tracing Dionysius' influence on medieval authors by Jean Leclercq, and a survey by Karlfried Froehlich of the reception given the corpus by Humanists and sixteenth-century Reformers.
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Lorie Thooft
reviewed Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works on December 09, 2011 Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works
Anyone interested in Christian or western mysticism should read this book without delay - Pseudo-Dionysius is surely the most significant figure in the entire tradition since the fall of Rome. Borrowing heavily from Plotinus and Proclus, he articulated a vision of the cosmos as a series of emanations from the Godhead, logically equivalent to Plotinus' "the One," but here identified with the holy Trinity.
No mystical Christian since Pseudo-Dionysius wrote 1500 years ago has been unaffected by his vision. He is largely remembered for his apophatic or "negative" theology, which held that no concept or idea could accurately represent God, who is in all ways transcendent. There has been a tendency to misread this type of theology as an argument that God is wholly other, apart from man, unknowable and infinitely remote, but nothing could be further from the truth. The argument is that human concepts are bound to the mechanisms of human perception and ideation, and neither far nor near, neither same nor distant, are proper characterizations of God's essence.
The beauty of this move when conjoined with Christian doctrine is that it accords very much with the paradoxical language of Trinitarian theology, which is itself in the mainstream strongly influenced by Neoplatonism, and which engages in a similar conceptual struggle to articulate whether the personae of the Trinity are "the same" or "different." It is an attractive hypothesis to generalize this ontological problem beyond the person of Christ, and to use it as a way to contemplate the relationship of any particular thing to God.
Pseudo-Dionysius is apparently not the first Christian to speculate along these lines, as we know from the Gospel of Thomas found at Nag Hammadi. But he is the most important to the West. Since his works were translated into Latin by Duns Scotus Eriugena, a wonderful thinker in his own right, he has captivated and intrigued Christians who have felt the divinity of God in all things, not just in his only begotten son.
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