"ON THE OTHER HAND"

" O N THE OTHER HAND" [A Response to Fr Paxil Wesche's Recent Article on Dionysius in St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 1] Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin) From its first recorded appearance the body of writings ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, listed by St Luke as one of the few prizes won by St Paul in the latter's unsuccessful missionary venture to Mars Hill in Athens (Acts 17:34), has attracted controversy. Speaking for the Chalcedonian side of the colloquium organized by Justinian and Theodora between adherents and opponents of the IVth Ecumenical Council's Christological definition, Bishop Hypatius of Ephesus, when confronted with a quotation by the non-Chalcedonian side from the works of "Dionysius the Areopagite," questioned his interlocutors' sources.1 He, said Hypatius, had never heard of this personage outside of the Book of Acts, and could not recall him as cited in any of the earlier Church fathers. His testimony was therefore not acceptable, nor should his works figure as authoritative in any reckoning of Christian doctrine. Such is very much the scholarly consensus today. With few exceptions,2 the late Vth-early Vlth century theologian writing lr niey were quoting Ep. IV, PG 3, 1072C. For Hypatius at the colloquium, cf. Joseph Stiglmayr, "Das Aufkommen der Pseudo-Dionysischen Schriften und ihr Eindringen in die christliche Literatur bis zum Lateranconcil 649," in IV Jahresbericht des oeffentliche Privatgymnasiums an der Stelle matutina zu Feldkirch, Feldkirch (1895), pp. 59-62. 2 Notably the writings of Vladimir Lossky; cf. esp. the following articles: "Apophasis and Trinitarian Theology," in In the Image and Likeness of God (ed. and trans. J. H. Erickson and T. E. Bird) N.Y. (1974), pp. 13-19; 305 306 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY under the name of St Paul's convert is reckoned as, at best, one who failed in the task of adjusting Neoplatonist philosophy to Christian doctrine,3 or worse, as a deliberate subverter of the tradition, a sort of Neoplatonist wolf in Christian sheep's clothing.4 His subsequent influence on, especially, the piety and worship of Eastern Christianity is therefore usually considered to have been unfortunate, if not downright pernicious.5 Father Paul Wesche's recent article in St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly* stands foursquare within the mainstream of contemporary opinion regarding the "Pseudo-Dionysius."7 Fr "Darkness and Light in the Knowledge of God," Ibid., pp. 31-43; "La Notion des Analogies chez Denys le Pseudo-Areopagite," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littérature du moyen âge V (1931), pp. 270-309; and "La théologie négative dans la doctrine de Denys ΓAreopagite," Recherches des sciences philoso­ phiques et théologiques 28 (1939), pp. 204-221. Note should also be taken of Endre von Ivanka, Plato Christianus, Einsiedeln (1964), pp. 228-289; and H. von Balthasar, Herrlichhkeit: eine Theologische Aesthetik vol. II, Einsiedeln (1962), pp. 147-214; and, with some qualifications, René Roques, L'Univers Dionysien, Paris (1954). SThus the remarks by J. M. Hornus; "Denys n'a pas trahi, mais il a été submergé dans une lutte inégale," in "Les recherches récentes sur le PseudoDenys FAréopagite," Revue de l'histoire et de philosophie religieuses, 35 (1955), pp. 447-448. Hornus, indeed, expresses the fundamental modem argument against Dionysius' Christian inspiration with remarkable economy and elegance in his article, "Quelques reflections à propos du Pseudo-Denys l'Aréopagite et de la mystique chrétienne en général," RHPR 27 (1947), pp. 47-63. His argument, although not acknowledged as such, is taken up at considerable length by Bernhard Brons, Gott und die Seienden: Untersuchungen zum Verhaeltnis von Neuplatonischer Metaphysik und Christliche Tradition bei Dionysius Areopagita, Goettingen (1976); and we, at least, think it to be assumed or implied in the recent monograph by Paul Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols within the Pseudo-Dionysian Synthesis, Toronto (1984). 4 Perhaps most trenchantly expressed in Roland Hathway's monograph, Hierarchy and the Definition of Order in the Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius, The Hague (1969); and certainly suggested by Jean Vanneste, Le Mystère de Dieu, Brussels (1959), and the latter's article in English. "Is the Mysticism of Pseudo-Dionysius Genuine?," International Philosophical Quarterly (1963), pp. 286-306. The answer to the question, incidentally, was "no." 5 See John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, Washington (1969), pp. 81-82. René Bornert, Les Commentaires Byzantines de la Divine Liturgie, Paris (1966), pp. 66-71 and, echoing Bornert, Paul Meyendorff in the "Introduction" to his translation, St Germanus of Constantinople, Crestwood (1982). 6 "Christological Doctrine and Liturgical Interpretation in Pseudo-Dionysius," SVTQ, vol. 33, no. 1 (1989), pp. 53-73. 7 This is the first—and last!—time I shall use the prefix "Pseudo—" "On the Other Hand! 307 Wesche sees the writer of the Corpus Areopagiticum as finding his fundamental inspiration not in "the Christological confession of the Church, but 'gnosis,' " 8 a knowledge, moreover, strictly of Neoplatonist provenance. When applying himself to the faith and worship of the Church, Dionysius thus leads inevitably to the reduction of "the liturgy as well as the Incarnation . . . to symbols . . . so that in the final analysis the corporeal aspect of the human composite is excluded from the blessing of deification."9 This analysis is fully representative of a tradition of scholarship dating back to the turn of the century.10 Indeed, we can trace it back still further, to the Reformation and to no less a figure than Dr Martin Luther himself. The latter's warning is clear: "Dionysius is most pernicious; he platonizes more than he christianizes"; and "I advise you to shun like the plague that 'Mystical Theology' of Dionysius and similar books. . . ." n Luther's strictures, albeit in less trenchant a tone, are precisely those of Fr Wesche and most contemporary scholars: Dionysius is less a Christian than a Platonist, and as such he is to be avoided by those wishing to remain faithful to the Gospel—or, when referring to Dionysius. It has always seemed to me one of those charming acts of quiet pre-judgment which so often belie so many scholars' claims to "objectivity." The latter is, in a post-Heisenberg world, really a myth, and we would perhaps all be better off, scholars and students, by trying to put into effect our own de-mythologization of our inheritance from the last century and its now too often quaint conceits. No one, but no one, writes or studies anything, especially not an ancient figure whose very name and place we cannot know for sure, without bringing some presuppositions to the text before him. This is particularly clear in Dionysian studies. Cf. our remarks at the end of this article and, for pleasure, our citation of von Balthasar in note 61 below. 8 Wesche, op. cit., p. 54. nbid. 10 Cf. Stiglmayr, op. cit., and most notably, the following: Hugo Koch, Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita in seinen Beziehungen zum Neuplatonismus und Mysterienwesen, Mainz (1900); and H. F. Mueller, Dionysios, Proklos, Plotinos. Ein Historischer Beitrag zur neuplatonischen Philosophie, Muenster/ Westfalen, 2nd. ed. (1926). 11 From, respectively, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church and "Disputation of Dec. 18. 1537," quoted by Karlfried Froelich in his article, "Pseudo-Dionysius and the Reformation," in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works (ed. Paul Rorem, trans. Colm Liubheid) N.Y. (1987), p. 44, notes 45 and 46. ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY 308 as Fr Wesche puts it, to "the Church's rule of faith as it is informed by her rule of prayer."12 This is a formidable chorus, indeed. We are reminded of Tevye the milkman in the musical comedy, Fiddler on the Roof. Confronted by a series of three prospective—and dubious—sonsin-law, he weighs the alternatives: the obvious insurability of each young man for one of his precious daughters and, "on the other hand," the boy's perhaps not so obvious—but real—virtues, and the fact that the daughter in question loves him. For two out of the three suitors he finds that "the other hand" must prevail. For the third, though, because his suit involves the conversion of the girl to an alien faith, "there is no other hand!" Is there an "other hand" for Dionysius? We think so.13 Let us go back first of all to the Church whose rule of faith and prayer Fr Wesche rightly holds up as our standard, and ask: why and how did this mysterious "Dionysius," given his fundamental departure from Christian norms as just described, acquire so great a reputation within that same Church and her tradition —and that, be it noted, in so short a time? A good example is the very Hypatius whom we noted just above as objecting to citations from the Dionysian corpus. Within a very short time, weeks or months, we find him quoting Dionysius (although not by name) to one of his suffragans in defense of the use of images in Church worship.14 Apparently he had looked up the works of this new writer and had liked what he found! There are other examples. The term, "hierarchy," our Dionysius' invention, spreads like lightening throughout the Greek East.15 The "Cherubic Hymn," reflecting very Dionysian sentiments, is composed and appears in the Liturgy of Constantinople within a generation 12 Wesche, op. cit., p. 73. Indeed, I am obligated to respond! Fr Wesche, Ibid., p. 54 note 5, has taken specific objection to the reading I give of Dionysius as a Christian writer in my dissertation, Mystagogy: Dionysius Areopagita and His Christian Predecessors, MS.D.Phil. Oxford (1980). 14 Cf. F. Diecamp (ed.), "Letter to Julius of Atramytion," in Analecta Patristica, v.117 of Orientalia Christiana Analecta, Rome (1938), pp. 127-129. For an English translation, cf. P. J. Alexander, "Hypatius of Ephesus: a note on Image Worship in the Sixth Century," Harvard Theological Review 45 (1952), pp. 177-184. 15 Cf. Stiglmayr, "Ueber die Termini Hierarch und Hierarchie," Zeitschrift fuer katholische Theologie 22 (1898), pp. 180-187. 13 "On the Other Hand" 309 or so of the Areopagiticäs first appearance.16 John of Scythopolis,17 a contemporary, and Maximus the Confessor a century later18—both men of no little theological acumen—devote scholia and commentaries to Dionysius. The list can easily be extended. The question is, why? The answers provided by our critical chorus have centered around the pseudonym, hence an aura of apostolic authority, and the hierarchical structure of society itself at the time of Dionysius' appearance.19 We do not think these explanations adequate. Works invoking authoritative names from antiquity were not uncommon in the late Roman world, and it seems to us fairly safe to assume that the Church of the period counted among her leaders men of sufficient awareness and discernment to distinguish the real from the fool's gold, i.e., a pseudonymous work in essential harmony with the Christian faith from another which, like Dionysius according to Fr Wesche and many others, fundamentally subverts that faith. The formation of the canon of Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, is precisely a case in point. No one, not even the sternest of modern critics, refers to the writer of Isaiah 40-55 as the "Pseudo-Isaiah," or to the author of Hebrews as "Pseudo-Paul." While not written by either Isaiah or St Paul themselves, these works were still accepted as authoritative in as much as they reflected the faith of "the Israel of God" (Gal 6:16). Yet, there were books claiming the very same names, e.g. The Ascension of Isaiah or The Apocalypse of Paul, together with still others ascribed to Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles, which were not so recognized, and which ended their days as so many additions to the enormous (and ever-growing, see The Aquarian Gospell) 16 Cf. Egon Wellecz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography 2nd ed. Oxford (1961), p. 166, and on Dionysian influence generally, pp. 57-60. 17 Cf. von Balthasar, "Das Scholienwerk des Johannes von Scythopolis," Scholastik 15 (1940), pp. 16-33. 18 Maximus Confessor, Mystagogia PG 91, 660D ff., and his Ambiguorum Liber, 1045D-1060D. 19 Positions admirably summarized by Jaroslav Pelikan, "The Odyssey of Dionysian Spirituality," in Pseudo-Dionysius (Rorem and Liubheid), pp. 11-24, esp. p. 23. For an investigation of Dionysius, after the manner of Max Weber, as articulating an essentially societal program, cf. H. Goltz, HIERA MESITEIA: Zur Theorie der hierarchischen Sozietaet im Corpus Areopagiticum, Erlangen (1974). 310 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY library of apocrypha.20 That the Dionysian corpus did not land in the same dustbin must, we think, say something about its intrinsic worth as the work of a Christian writer. The alternative would be to assume that somewhere along the way the Church lost her faculty of discernment and fell in love, like Tevye's third daughter, with a man of alien faith. We need hardly add that in the context of the Orthodox Church such an admission would be very difficult to make. Too much in our piety, our liturgy, our understanding of the icon, takes from Dionysius, too many have relied on him, for us to dismiss him as not a Christian without suffering serious consequences. We therefore begin by assuming that the Church had a reason for taking this mysterious writer to her heart, that she read in him an expression of her own faith and Ufe, in however novel an idiom. But how? Where? What can we offer in response to the arguments which Fr Wesche has so impressively and (it seems) unanswerably marshalled against Dionysius as a Christian writer? What can we offer from Dionysius himself which would argue for "the other hand?" In replying, our allotment of space (this is to be a short article) compels us to concentrate on just one of the texts cited by Fr Wesche in support of his case. Happily, this is the very one which he has used to provide the core of his argument. The passage is from Divine Names 1,4 and is cited no less than three times. It is referred to first as proving that, for Dionysius, "the flesh disappears altogether [at the eschaton],"21 and, secondly, in support of the assertion that "at the core of Dionysius' thought we find that the Incarnation of the Divine Logos is 'merely' a symbol which saves only by providing the mind with the supreme perceptible token for its contemplation of God."22 It is quoted at last in full as the conclusive demonstration that, for the Areopagite, Christ's "Incarnation finally excludes the flesh in the 'economy,' for His corporeal aspect ultimately is of symbolic 20 Qne has only to thumb through Vol. VIII of The Ante-Nicene Fathers (ed. Coxe), Grand Rapids; to see the truth here, or the more recent documents from Nag Hammadi, edited and published by James Robinson in The Nag Hammadi Library, N.Y. (1977). 21 Wesche, op. cit., p. 62 and note 30. wibid., p. 66 and note 46. "On the Other Hand" 311 value only."23 The quotation is taken from Colin Liubheid's translation which reads as follows: We now grasp these things in the best way we can, and as they come to us, wrapped in the sacred veils of that love toward humanity with which Scripture and hierarchical traditions [i.e., the liturgy] cover the truths with things derived from the realm of the senses. And so it is that the transcendent is clothed in the terms of being, with shape and form on things which have neither, and numerous symbols are employed to convey the varied attributes of what is an imageless and suprarational simplicity. But in time to come, when we are incorruptible and immortal [allusion to I Cor 15:53], when we have come at last to the blessed inheritance of being like Christ, then, as Scripture says, "we shall always be with the Lord" [I Thess 4:17]. In most holy contemplations we shall be ever filled with the sight of God shining gloriously around us as once it shone for the disciples at the divine transfiguration. And there we shall be, our minds away from passion and from earth, and we shall have a conceptual gift of light from him and, somehow, in a way we cannot know, we shall be united with him and, our understanding carried away, blessedly happy, we shall be struck by his blazing light. Marvelously, our minds will be like those in the heavens above. We shall be "equal to the angels and sons of God, being sons of the Resurrection [Lk 20:36]. This is what the truth of Scripture affirms.24 As it stands, the translation both reads quite smoothly and appears to support Fr Wesche's contentions. There is no reference to the body or to anything physical in the world to come, "Then." Everything appears to be on the plane of the mind. However, appearances are often deceptive. In what was perhaps an attempt at greater euphony, the translator has ignored certain **lbid., pp. 67-68 and note 48. ^PG 3, 592BC; Luibheid and Rorem, pp. 52-53. 312 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY key distinctions in the original text. Further, he has added to, or paraphrased, the original in ways which render it at once more readable, and closer to Fr Wesche's argument. For the sake of our case in defense of Dionysius, and asking the reader's indulgence, we feel it necessary here to reproduce the Greek original together with a less literary—though we feel more accu­ rate—rendering of the text into English. The Greek is: . . . ταύτα και ήµεΐς µεµυήµεθα* νυν µεν αναλόγως ήµΐν, δια των Ιερέων παραπετασµάτων της των λογίων καΐ των ιεραρχικών παραδόσεων φιλανθρω­ πίας, αίσθητοίς τα νοητά καΐ τοις οδσι τα ύπερούσια περικαλυπτούσης καΐ µορφάς καΐ τύπους τοις άµορφώτοις τε καΐ άτυπώτοις περιτιθείσης καΐ τήν οπερφυή καΐ άσχηµάτιστον απλότητα τη ποικιλία των µεριστών συµβόλων πληθυνούσης τε καΐ διαπλαττοόσης' τότε δέ, δταν άφθαρτοι καΐ αθάνατοι γενώµεθα καΐ της χριστοειδους καΐ µακαριωτάτης έφικώµεθα λήξεως, «πάντοτε σύν κυρίω» κατά το λόγιον «έσόµεθα», της µέν ορατής αύτου θεοφανείας έν πανάγνοις θεωρίαις άποπληρουµενοι, φανοτάταις µαρµαρυγαΐς ήµας περιαυγαζούσης, ώς τους µαθητάς έν εκείνη τη θεοτάτη µεταµορφώ­ σει, της δέ νοητής αύτου φωτοδοσίας έν άπαθει καΐ άΰλω τω νω µετέχοντες καΐ της υπέρ νουν ενώ­ σεως έν ταΐς των οπερφανων άκτίνων dr/νώστο ις και µακαρίαις έπιδολαις, έν θειοτέρα µιµήσει των όπερουρανίων νόων* «Ισάγγελοι» γάρ, ώς ή των λογίων αλήθεια φησιν, «έσόµεθα, καΐ υίοΐ θεού, υιοί της αναστάσεως δντες». The underlinings, especially the sequences νυν µέν . . . τότε δέ, and, of particular importance for us, the two which read της µέν όρατης... της δέ νοητής, emphasize the deployment of a pair of particles, µέν—δέ, used in Greek within a sentence to signal an opposition or distinction of some kind such as, in English, "on the one hand . . . on the other hand," or simply, "the one . . . the other."25 That this is of importance for our ^See Liddell and Scott, Lexicon (Abridged), Oxford (1966), p. 434; "On the Other Hand" 313 argument, and for Fr Wesche as dependent on the translation, may be seen in our following, crudely literal rendering of the same text into English (and we ask the reader to note our emphases) : . . . And we are initiated into these things now, on the one hand, according to our measure through the sacred curtains of that love for mankind of Scripture and the hierarchical traditions which veils the intelligible and the super-essential round about with perceptible and existent things, and which puts forms and types around those things which are without form or impression, and which both multiplies and lends shape to the transcendent and most formless simplicity by the variety of its partial symbols; but then, when we have become immortal and incorruptible, and have attained to the most blessed inheritance which is in the form of Christ, "We shall," as Scripture says, "be ever with the Lord," being filled, ON THE ONE HAND, with allpure contemplation of His most visible Theophany, shining round about us in most manifest brilliancy—as it [shone around] His disciples at that most divine Transfiguration—and ON THE OTHER HAND, participating in His intelligible gift of light with minds grown passionless and immaterial, and ¡finally] in the union which transcends the mind through the unknowable and blessed impulsions of [His] super-luminary rays in a more divine imitation of the heavenly minds [i.e., the angels] because, as the truth of Scripture says, "we shall be equal to the angels and sons of God, being sons of the Resurrection." The rendering is very rough,26 but the passage should now appear in rather a different light. Dionysius is not, as in Liubheid's translation, making just one primary distinction between and William Goodwin, Greek Grammar, London (1959), p. 212, paragraph 981. 26 This writer is irresistibly reminded of Mark Twain's literal "re-translation*' of his own "Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" back from the French —"clawed back into a reasonable language." ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY 314 the perception of divine things in this Ufe and the vision of God in the world to come (νυν µέν . . . τότε δέ), but he adds a second set of distinctions, not at all evident in the first transla­ tion, in order to indicate differences or levels of appropriation within the beatific vision itself (της µέν ορατής . . . της δέ νοητής . . . καΐ της ύιτέρ νουν ενώσεως). At the first level we find that there is indeed a visible, bodily, vision of Christ in glory, precisely a "sight." Its corporeal nature is affirmed, first of all, by Dionysius' choice of the qualifying adjective, ορατός, "seeable," i.e., with the eyes of the body, the same word as is used in the first clause of the Nicene Creed: all things visible and invisible." He then further underlines the body's involvement by referring to the Transfiguration account in the Synoptic Gospels (e.g., Mt 17:2-8) where the disciples look with their eyes on the unveiled glory of Christ's divinity. The importance of that text from Scripture for Orthodox spirituality generally, let alone 27 for our Dionysius, need hardly be emphasized here. It is with the second level of the eschatological vision of God that we arrive at the place of the intellect (νους) which appeared in the first translation, and in Fr Wesche's article, as the unique locus of encounter. True, the mind according to Dionysius is "freed" at the eschaton from the domination of material existence and the passions (άπαθεί και άυλω τω νω), but this is not because matter has been abolished or the body done away. Rather, it seems a better reading of the text in light of the paragraph above to say that matter and body have become instead "transparent" to the creative energy of God which in­ forms and sustains them. This is the "more divine imitation" of the angels, themselves "most transparent mirrors" of the divine light.28 Here, too, we note the first translation's obscuring of the text. The former renders "imitation" as simply "like" the angels, a change which lends added weight to the supposition that Dionysius looks forward to a bodiless heaven.29 Liubheid rein­ forces this impression by adding the phrase "our minds," "Mar27 Cf., for example, Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, Crestwood (1986), pp. 170ff; or V. Lossky, "The Theology of Light in the Thought of Gregory Palamas," Image and Likeness, pp. 60-61 and note 39. ^Celestial Hierarchy ΠΙ, 2; PG 3, 165A. 29 To be fair, at least in a footnote, Liubheid may have been looking to bring Dionysius' scriptural allusion into closer proximity with the N.T. text. "On the Other Hand" 315 velously our minds will be like . . .," which is not in the Greek and which decidedly affirms the thought that only our minds will partake of God's glory. His breaking-up into several sen­ tences of what Dionysius has given us as the final clause of one single sentence muddies the water still further. The whole pass­ age is one thought, including the final clause where the second set of distinctions appears. We see in this a confirmation that Dionysius understands the process of transfiguration, of seeing God, as involving the whole man both in this world and in the one to come. To paraphrase the Areopagite's thought here in brief: NOW we see in part, our eyes the "symbols" of the Church's worship and our ears the words of Scripture while our minds perceive the meanings, discern the presence which the symbols carry; but THEN we shall see directly, shall know God immediately, with both our eyes and our minds. To be sure, from this world to the next there will have to be a "change" occurring in the body (and the mind!), but this appears to us as no more nor less than the doctrine of the New Testament (e.g., I Cor 15:52-54). One thing at least is clear from this text of Dionysius: no dissolution or evaporation of the body is con­ templated at the eschaton. Man will be transformed as a whole. But we are not yet finished. According to Dionysius there is still a third level of appropriation of the visio Dei. Body and mind receive the gift of light in a manner appropriate to each (της µ έ ν . . . τ η ς δ έ ) , but, at the last, there is the union with God which transcends both (και της υπέρ νουν ενώσεως), which exceeds the frontiers of created existence altogether, whether corporeal or intellective. Beyond created being man the creature is led to share in the splendor of his transcendent Creator. Dion­ ysius is of course doing no more here than referring to deifica­ tion, theosis, a tradition of understanding the salvation offered in Christ which goes back to the New Testament,30 and forward within the Orthodox Church to the present day.31 This is exactly our point, i.e., the Aregopagite is fully within the Christian— especially the Greek Christian—tradition. He is saying nothing 80 Cf., for example, II Pet 1:4 and John 17:5,22-24. The ascent to God as threefold is exceedingly common in patristic (back to Clement) and modern Orthodox writers. Examples are innumerable. Again, Ware, op. cit., pp. 162-177, is closest to hand. 31 316 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY new or strange in this text. Certainly there is nothing here which excited the interest, controversial or otherwise, of his contemporary commentator, John of Scythopolis. The latter's rather humdrum remarks on the passage show no sign of any awareness of possible difficulties.**2 Neither should we find anything here which is alien to the Orthodox faith. Dionysius' chief inspiration is clearly and unquestionably the Christian faith, and not Neoplatonist metaphysics33 or "Evagrian spirituality."34 If we have responded successfully to the position that Divine Names 1,4 represents a heterodox theology, we are still left with the other points which Fr Wesche has raised regarding the Corpus Dionysiacum's fundamental inspiration, to say nothing of the critical chorus which his views represent. Since we have removed from suspicion the text central to his argument,35 given our constraints of space, we trust it will be sufficient simply to make a few observations concerning his article's other assertions, and to conclude with some general remarks touching on the critical consensus. Beginning his investigation of Dionysius, Fr Wesche claims a rather puzzling distinction between soteriology and ontology, that is, Dionysius' salvation is one which "saves" while leaving S2PG 4, 197C-200A. ^Wesche, op. cit., p. 54. **Ibid., p. 72. There is an Evagrian connection, to be sure, but more by way of a correction of Evagrius on Dionysius' part. The correction centers around, exactly, the body and the world to come. He is anxious, in my view, to christianize those elements of Evagrius which he finds useful. His "dynamism," which Fr Wesche rightly notes (Ibid., p. 71 and note 55) and which is almost certainly taken from Gregory of Nyssa—compare Dionysius on human souls being "stretched" by God "ever to that which is before" (DN IV,5 701A) with Gregory's epektasis—provides one element of the corrective. The other lies in his use of symbol in connection with the Incarnation and with man as body and soul. The result is a vision of redemption which sees us ever as moving into God, but never beyond the Incarnate One. Jesus Christ remains always the center and locus of our encounter with the Transcendent; cf. esp., Epistles III and IV, 1069B-1072BC. 35 And, to be fair, Fr Wesche has chosen well! Divine Names 1,4 is indeed central, cf. V. Lossky, The Vision of God (trans. Ashleigh Moorhouse) London (1963), pp. 103-104. To be yet more fair, if a little autobiographical, it was the case that this writer's own views of Dionysius some fifteen years ago were almost exactly those of Fr Wesche. Lossky's remarks on this text, together with prolonged exposure to the "Dionysian" flavor of worship at an Athonite monastery, forced me to re-evaluate and look for an understanding of the Areopagite from within the patristic tradition. Lossky is, by and large, 318 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY "plot." 42 We have already seen that such is clearly not the case with Dionysius. On the other hand, the New Testament is itself full of references to a saving knowledge, for example II Cor 4:6 and John 17:3, among many others. As for symbol, Fr Wesche has caught Dionysius' mind very well in defining this term as, in its classical sense ". . . the coming together of different realities,"43 but we think him as decidedly wrong when he sees this defintion as hav­ ing, in the heretical second century sense, "a decidedly gnostic flavor."44 Once more, Dionysius is quite within the patristic Greek mainstream. A casual glance at Lampe's Patristic Greek Lexicon will reward the reader with a long chain of patristic sources, among whom Dionysius is but one, who make happy use of the word, σύµβολον, when referring to the Church's sacraments, up to and including the Eucharist itself both before and after the consecration of the elements.45 "Symbol," as the meeting of two realities, thus strikes us on the contrary as an altogether satisfac­ tory way of referring to the Christian Mysteries, particularly when we bear in mind that this word ceased to apply to the Eucharist only following the Vllth Council, three hundred years after Dionysius lived.46 We are reminded of the late Fr Alexander Schmemann's lectures on liturgical theology in the early 1970's. and his insistence on reviving the meaning of symbol in all its original power, as the indication—not of an absence, its modern sense, but rather—of a presence, as signifying a true conjoining and interpénétration of different realities. Nothing, surely, could be more "incarnational," nor more indicative of what we take to be Dionysius' own mind. We arrive at the real issue regarding the Areopagitica. The substance of Fr Wesche's remarks, and of the critics whom he represents, lies in the much-vexed question of Dionysius' relation to Neoplatonist philosophy, his "thralldom,"47 and generally of that philosophy's possible—or impossible—relationship to the faith 42 Cf. Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, Boston (2nd ed. rev. 1963), and, for a taste of the literature, "The Gospel of Truth," Nag Hammadi, pp. 38ff. ^Wesche, op. cit., p. 62. **Ibid. ^G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, Oxford (1972), p. 1282, col. 2. 46 Cf. Meyendorff, Christ, p. 140 and note 28. 47 Wesche, op. cit., p. 68. On the Other Hand" 317 the being of creatures untouched.*6 We are told that the Areopagite's salvation means simply gnosis, but one which effects no change or alteration of created existence. The work of salvation involves merely the transmittal of this knowledge via the symbols of the hierarchy (liturgy and scripture), but effects nothing really new: "For even apart from the Incarnation of Christ, the same unifying vision of God is possible in the hierarchy of the Old Testament."37 The last is supported by an appeal to the treatise, The Mystical Theology,38 which illustrates the ascent to God with the figure of Moses ascending Sinai. We are indeed puzzled. First of all, Moses as a type of the ascent to the knowledge of God is scarcely an unusual choice. No less a luminary than St Paul felt free to use him in this way.39 Gregory of Nyssa devoted an entire book, The Life of Moses, to this image of divine encounter. One scholar has in fact gone so far as to characterize Dionysius' use of Moses in this context as purely a patristic cliché.40 While we are not willing to dismiss it so easily, arguing elsewhere that Moses and Sinai are chosen with clear purpose as images of the Church at worship,41 we certainly can agree that the employment of this Old Testament example in no way suffices to carry the weight which Fr Wesche would place on it as demonstrating the effective equivalence of the Old and New Dispensations. Then there is the question of gnosis and symbol. It is inarguable that historical Christianity knows an heretical gnosis, specifically the second century gnostic movement, but theirs was a "system" which saw no value whatsoever in incarnate existence. Life in thefleshwas, for such as Basileides and Valentinus, all darkness and error, a terrible mistake, a kind of cosmic far too easily overlooked by contemporary Dionysian scholarship. Either overlooked, or else—and more commonly—summarily dismissed, as in the case, for example, of Stephen Gersh's otherwise admirable study, From Iamblichus to Erieugena. An Investigation of the Prehistory and Evolution of the Dionysian Tradition, Leiden (1973), esp. pp. 166-167 and note 184. ^Wesche, op. cit., pp. 55-57. **lbid., p. 66. ^Mystical Theology 1,3; 1000C-1001B. 39HCor3:7ff. 04 Vanneste, "Genuine?;' pp. 301-302. 41 Cf. my thesis, op. cit., pp. 193ff., and Rorem, Symbols, pp. 140-142. "On the Other Hand' 319 of the New Testament and the Church. Let it suffice us here to recall with Vladimir Lossky48 that there is, after all, a certain "convergence" between this greatest of ancient Greek philoso­ phies and Christianity, at least in so far as each lends credence, in fact priority, to the unseen world. As St Paul himself writes: ". . . we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." 49 The language of Hebrews 9-12, especially its contrast between the "shadow" and the image (εΐκών), 5 0 is particularly redolent of Platonism and, moreover, provides a singularly apt entré to Dionysius' own thought.51 With regard to the Areopagite's "reduction" of the liturgy to a 'divine drama,' mere "symbol,"52 we reply first, as above, that symbol is more powerful and incarnational a term than Fr Wesche allows; and second, that even in the New Testament canon itself we can see evidence of the Church's worship serving a certain iconic function, the mirroring here-below of heavenly realities as in, for example, Rev 4-553 and Heb 12:22-24.54 We can hear the objection immediately: "Dionysius does more than accord priority to the unseen. He does nothing more nor less than import into a Christian liturgical setting the entire apparatus of the Neoplatonist understanding of the world as the essentially static and fundamentally secondary reflection of eternal realities, the whole purpose of which is to point beyond itself—for the few intellectually capable of reading it properly55 —to the intelligible world (κόοµος νοητός)." This is the sum of the critics' argument. It seems to do little good to point out ^Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction (trans. Ian and Ihita Kesarcodi-Watson), Crestwood (1978), pp. 56-58. It seems to me there was an even more appropriate reference from somewhere in Lossky's corpus, but this one will do. 4 9HCor4:18. 5 °Heb 10:1. 51 For Dionysius' extensive use of Hebrews, cf. the "Biblical Index" which Rorem has supplied in Pseudo-Dionysius, p. 303. 52 Wesche, op. cit., p. 72. 53 Cf. Erik Petersen, The Angels and the Liturgy (trans. Walls), London (1964) esp. pp. ix-x and 1-12. 54 In this text as well one might see the context for Dionysius' use of Moses and Sinai in M.T. 1,3. 55 Wesche, op. cit., p. 73. 320 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY that Dionysius, deliberately and on at least two occasion,56 knocks the philosophical stuffings out of the Platonist ίδέαι . . . κόσµος νοητός. Aside from the created intelligences, the angels, he allows the realm of Platonic ideas no self-subsistent reality whatever. Whenever he writes thus of the intelligible "Names" 57 of God, he is specifically referring to the divine energies. The significance of the νοητά is thus entirely altered, shifted, to follow the path already blazed by the Cappadocians in their debates against Eunomius, a path which continues past Dionysius to St Maximus the Confessor and ultimately to Gregory Palamas. Yet his modern critics stoutly persist in denying his fundamental allegiance to the Greek Christian tradition, and as consistently they overlook the possibility of reading him as within that same tradition wherein alone his work makes sense. When their refusal to acknowledge hisfidelityhere is combined with the recognition that he has consciously destroyed Neoplatonist metaphysics, as even his most trenchant critics do admit,58 the result is a figure whose work makes little or no sense, whose thought dissolves into an incoherent farrago of residual Christian elements tacked on to a Neoplatonist frame whose foundation he himself has already carefully removed! This is just the impression we are left with after reading Fr Wesche's article. It is the same feeling we had on reading the most careful scholarly monograph to appear in English on Dionysius in recent years, Paul Rorem's Biblical and Liturgical Symbolism within the Pseudo-Dionysian Synthesis. The latter, although written according to the most exacting standards, very typically left this reader with an abiding sense of frustration, wondering what on earth—or heaven—Dionysius is finally talking about, and why he bothered to say it in the first place. The only conclusion we could come to, if we were to follow Rorem's logic to its conclusion (which he does not), would be to read the S6Cf. Divine Names V,2 816C-817A (p. 97 Rorem-Liubheid) and XI,8 953C-956B (Rorem-Liubheid pp. 124-125). For this as an echo of the Cappa­ docians, cf. Basil, Adv. Eunom 1,8 PG 39 528B, and Gregory of Nyssa, Con. Eunom 111,6,17. vibid. 58 Eg. Brons, op. cit., pp. 130-147, 165, and 303ff, speaks of Dionysius' Zerstoerung of Proclus' metaphysical artistry, and the consequent Ortslosigkeit of the intelligible world. "On the Other Hand" 321 Areopagite as finally either an incompetent, or else as someone considerably more sinister—that Platonist "wolf in Christian sheep's clothing" we referred to above, a sort of fifth century fifth columnist. We would therefore like to enter a plea, that Dionysius the Areopagite be read against the background of the Eastern Christian tradition, especially the Cappadocians, whence he came and within which he was subsequently interpreted by such as John of Scythopolis and St Maximus. We submit that doing so will vastly reduce the incoherence and difficulty entailed in reading him as a kind of rogue comet, a core of crumbling Platonism trailing a veil of sublimating Christianity across the firmament of patristic thought. Problems will certainly remain. The apparent rigidity of the hierarchies, which may be more apparent than real,59 and the lack of emphasis accorded the Cross are two which Fr Wesche notes.60 Yet, as we have seen in analyzing the text from Divine Names, the fact of Dionysius' fundamental Christian inspiration is not so easily dismissed as it might first appear, especially within a flawed translation. We think it no accident that the analyses offered of the Areopagite's writing which see the latter as ultimately alien to the Christian Gospel are in great part of German origin,61 from Koch and Stiglmayr in the nineteenth century to Brons and (by tradition, at least) Rorem in the twentieth, and derive, we believe, their basic understanding of Christianity from Martin Luther and the Protestant tradition.62 We have noted the hostility 59 Cf. Chapter IV of our thesis, op. cit., pp. 262-264. eowesche, op. cit., pp. 63-66. ei Cf. von Balthasare amusing remarks on the "PSEUDO" alluded to in note 7 above, Herrlichkeit, pp. 147-148, which conclude with the following: "Not only is he [Dionysius] branded as a forger, but with a reference to his dependence on Plotinus and Proklos any originality of thought is stripped from him . . . in the end he stands forth as a wretched mongrel, a corpse beneath the triumphal chariot of modern philology . . ." Just prior, the troops of German scholarship are accorded the yet more endearing likeness of tank divisions crushing the delicately fragrant garden of the Areopagite. e2 One might except Stiglmayr, a Catholic. Vanneste, Belgian and a Jesuit, might have been expected to react differently. Honras, however and Mueller are clearly in the Protestant tradition. Brons, op. cit., p. 9, even begins his monograph with the very quotations from Martin Luther we cited above, and then goes on to affirm the necessity of objectivity! Cf. my remarks on this shibboleth in note 7 above. 322 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY with which Luther, speaking from his theologia crucis, regarded Dionysius. The same can be said, in good part, of the tradition which bears his name with regard to the main currents of Greek patristic thought, as, for example, in the famous distinction insisted on by that "great darkener of counsel" Anders Nygren in his book, Agap and Eros. For the Orthodox, on the other hand, suspicion regarding the Areopagitica need not and should not apply. With respect to the text we have analyzed above, Dionysius is very much in concert with the Eastern tradition: essence-energies, the Transfiguration as model of the world to come, the icon as window on to eternity, the liturgy as the vision of the Kingdom, of the world transfigured, the mystery of the Incarnate One as at once present among us in the "veil" of His flesh63 and forever escaping our comprehension in the unsearchable depths of His divinity. None of this is new to us. All is familiar. Dionysius' approach to the Incarnation and the Liturgy as, yes, "symbols"—now only partially grasped and intuited, but in the world to come fully transparent to the divine mystery informing, and in Christ forever united to, the material cosmosshould sound for us no foreign note. St Paul writes; "Now we see as in a mirror darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall understand".64 We cannot but feel that this text spoke to Dionysius as much as it should to us now. Certainly, it recalls very much the text we analyzed above. Then, too, he takes the name of Paul's convert, and we believe that decision to have been inspired by something more than simply a desire to hoodwink his readers. Rather, we take him to have been, in his own mind at least (and, it seems, in the subsequent mind of the Church), carrying on the saint's mission to the Greeks, striving to present the Gospel of the Word made flesh, and so of the very uncreated glory of God even now abiding and perceptible beneath and through the veils of word and gesture, water, bread, wine, and oil, in an idiom taken from the last great effort of ancient philosophy. Was he successful? In the main, it is our feeling that he was. Our opinion, too, is in agreement with that of the Orthodox and Catholic Church. Let us therefore admit the "other hand." This Dionysius esHeb 11:20. <*I Cor 13:12. "On the Other Hand3 323 is no stranger, no secret admirer of foreign gods, nor a failed Christian, but our own, and the marriage between him and the Tradition over fourteen centuries ago was no mistake. ^ s Copyright and Use: As an ATLAS user, you may print, download, or send articles for individual use according to fair use as defined by U.S. and international copyright law and as otherwise authorized under your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. No content may be copied or emailed to multiple sites or publicly posted without the copyright holder(s)' express written permission. Any use, decompiling, reproduction, or distribution of this journal in excess of fair use provisions may be a violation of copyright law. This journal is made available to you through the ATLAS collection with permission from the copyright holder(s). 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