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 call cold is but a deficiency of heat; or darkness, of light; so what we call evil is a deficiency of goodness. When the sky grows dark, as evening sets in, that darkness is nothing positive, superadded to what existed before: we are conscious of gloom merely from the disappearance of the light, which was the true existence (ib. iv. § 24). This subject is pursued in a very noble train of thought to some length, and is followed by a discussion of still other names and titles, adapted to the infirmity of human understanding, under which God's attributes are made intelligible to us. That the author is conscious of his theory of evil not being logically complete appears from his briefly referring to another supposed treatise, Περὶ δικαίου καὶ θείου δικαιωτηρίου (ib. iv. § 35), for a settlement of the question how far evil, being such as is described, deserves punishment at the hands of God.

Of two legends, widely known in connexion with the name of Dionysius, from their insertion in the Breviary of the Latin church, one must be noticed here, as found in the present work. When Dionysius was present with Timothy, to whom he is writing, and James, ὁ ἀδελφόθεος, and Peter, ἡ κορυφαία καὶ πρεσβυτάτη τῶν θεολόγων ἀκρότης, and other disciples, "for the spectacle of the body which was the beginning of life and the recipient of God" (ἐπὶ τὴν θέαν τοῦ ζωαρχικοῦ καὶ θεοδόχου—al. φωτοδόχου—σώματος (ib. iii. § 2)), no one but the apostles surpassed Hierotheus, his preceptor, in the inspired hymns and praises which he uttered. This is generally considered to refer to a gathering of the apostles round the deathbed of the Holy Virgin. The language is vague, and the passage comes in with singular abruptness, as a sequel to one on the power of prayer. In the paraphrase of Pachymeres, the names of the apostles are omitted. The explanation of Barradas (quoted by Hipler, ubi inf. p. 48 n.) is that the gathering round the θεοτόκος really represents the assembly of believers for the reception of the Holy Eucharist, bending (as the words of one liturgy express it) "ante splendida et theodocha signa cum timore inclinati."

The short treatise on Mystic Theology indicates the means of approaching more nearly to God, previously set forth under the Divine Names, by reversing the procedure adopted in the Hierarchies. He who would aspire to a truer and more intimate knowledge of God must rise above signs and symbols, above earthly conceptions and definitions of God, and thus advance by negation, rather than by affirmation, κατ᾿ ἀφαίρεσιν, not κατὰ θέσιν. Even in the Hierarchies (Cel. Hier. ii. § 3) Dionysius had spoken of ἀπόφασις as a surer way of penetrating the divine mystery than κατάφασις, and now enforces the same truth by an illustration which, if not taken directly from Plotinus, presents a striking parallel to one used by him—that of the sculptor, who, striving to fashion a beautiful statue, chips away the outer marble, and removes what was in fact an obstruction to his own ideal (Myst. Theol. c. ii.; cf. Plotinus, de Pulchritudine, ed. Creuzer, 1814, p. 62).

Of the Letters, the first two are little more than detached notes on points of the Mystic Theology—on our ἀγνωσία of God, and His transcendent nature. The third is a short fragment on the meaning of the word ἐξαίφνης in Mal. iii. 1, "The Lord . . . shall suddenly come to His temple," and its application to the Incarnation. The fourth, addressed, like the three previous ones, to the monk Caius, treats briefly of the Incarnation, and the nature of that human body with which Christ could walk upon the waters (cf. Div. Nom. ii. 9). The fifth, to Dorotheus, is on the meaning of the divine darkness (ὁ θεῖος γνόφος) spoken of in the Mystic Theology. The sixth, to Sosipater, teaches that labour is better spent in establishing truth than in confuting error. The seventh is a much longer letter, addressed to Polycarp, in which he bids him answer the taunts of the Sophist Apollophanes, by recalling the days when he and Dionysius were fellow-students at Hierapolis, and his own remark when they beheld the darkness of the Crucifixion: ταῦτα, ὦ καλὲ Διονύσιε, θείων ἀμοιβαὶ πραγμάτων. The exclamation attributed to Dionysius himself, as it appears in the Latin Breviary, Aut Deus naturae patitur, aut mundi machina dissolvitur, or, as it is given by Syngelus in his Life, Ὁ ἄγνωστος ἐν σαρκὶ πάσχει Θεός, κ.τ.λ., is not found in the Dionysian writings. The eighth letter, to a monk, Demophilus, is on gentleness and forbearance, and the topic is illustrated by a dream which St. Carpus had in Crete. The ninth, also a long letter, addressed to Titus, bp. of Crete, refers to matters treated in the Symbolic Theology. Many points are discussed in what to some would appear a strangely neologic spirit. The anthropomorphism of O.T., the bold metaphors of the Song of Songs (τὰς τῶν ᾀσμάτων προσύλους καὶ ἑταιρικὰς πολυπαθείας), and the like, can only be understood, he says, by true lovers of holiness, who come to the study of divine wisdom divested of every childish imagination (πᾶσαν τὴν παιδαριώδη φαντασίαν ἐπὶ τῶν ἱερῶν συμβόλων ἀποσκευαζομένοις). In this letter we seem to see before us a disciple of Philo. The tenth, and last, is a mere fragment, addressed to St. John the Divine, an exile in Patmos, foretelling his approaching release from confinement.

Authorities.—Isaac Casaubon, ''de Rebus sacris Eccl. Exercitt. xxi. (1615); Jean Launoy, Varia de duobus Dionysiis (1660); J. Dallaeus, de Scriptis quae. . . circumferunter (1666); P. F. Chifflet, Opuscula quatuor (1679); Ussher, Dissertatio de Scriptis''. . . appended to his Historia Dogmatica (1690); M. Lequien, Dissertatio Secunda, prefixed to tom. i. of Joannis Damasceni Op. (1712); Cave, ''Script. Eccl. Hist. Lit. (1740); Brucker, Hist. Crit.'' tom. iii. (1766); J. L. Mosheim, Commentatio de Turbata per Recentiores Platonicos Ecclesia (1767); J. A. Fabricius, ''Biblioth. Graeca'', tom. vii. (1801); J. G. Engelhardt, ''de Dionysio Areop. Plotinizante (1820); Milman, Lat. Christ.'' vol. vi. (1855); Dr. Franz Hipler, Dionysius der Areopagite (Regensburg, 1861); B. F. Westcott, Essay on Dionysius the Areopagite in the ''Contemp. Rev. May 1867; Dean Colet, On the Hierarchies of Dionysius (1869); J. Fowler, Essay on the works of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, in relation to Christian art, in the Sacristy'', Feb. 1872; H. Koch,