DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN CHAPTER 4 C4 DIONYSIUS TH E A RE OPAG I T E AND THE NEW T E STA ME NT Maximos Constas C4.S1 C4.P1 C4.P2 Dionysian Studies and Scripture Modern scholarship has shown only minimal interest in Dionysius’ use of the New Testament, and in general has overlooked the integral place of Scripture in his thought and theology.1 Such neglect is difficult to justify, given that Dionysius expressly presents his treatises as expositions of Scripture, though not in the genre of traditional exegetical homilies or commentaries. Two of the major treatises in the corpus, On the Divine Names (henceforth DN) and On the Celestial Hierarchy (henceforth CH), are hermeneutical guides to the biblical names of God and the biblical depictions of angels. The opening prayer of On Mystical Theology (henceforth MT) asks for ‘guidance to the highest peak of the mystical words of Scripture’.2 The rituals described in On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (henceforth EH) are based directly on Scripture, and constitute the extension of New Testament sacramental structures (e.g. baptism, Eucharist) into the time and space of the liturgy.3 Two of the author’s seven reputedly lost but probably fictitious works, the Theological Outlines and Symbolic Theology, were likewise concerned with questions of biblical revelation and the anthropomorphic and other physical forms attributed to God in Scripture.4 When Dionysius cites from or refers to Scripture, which he does more than 1600 times, it is always with the highest veneration, often employing the same adjectives he uses to describe the divinity itself.5 In the DN he establishes his famous scriptural ‘rule’ (or ‘law’) according to which ‘one must never venture to speak or even think of anything regarding the transcendent and hidden Divinity apart from what has been divinely revealed to us in the sacred Scriptures’.6 Dionysius recognizes Scripture as the supreme and indeed sole authority for all human speech and thought about God for the simple reason that it has been given to human beings directly from God. As an unparalleled oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 48 20-Oct-21 22:51:33 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE AND THE NEW TESTAMENT C4.P3 C4.P4 C4.P5 C4.P6 49 intervention of the divine into human thought and language, the sacred Scriptures constitute an essential component of Dionysius’ thinking, and he maintains that: ‘Anyone who is at odds with Scripture will also be far removed from my philosophy’.7 The lack of scholarly attention to Dionysius’ use of Scripture, and to his use of the New Testament in particular, is all the more striking given the Areopagite’s claim to be the disciple of the Apostle Paul, to whom the majority of the writings in the New Testament are attributed. It is not by chance that the major works in the CD (i.e. the CH, EH, DN, and MT) are addressed to Timothy, who was one of Paul’s closest disciples and associates. The remaining works in the CD—a group of ten letters—are likewise addressed to New Testament personages and their disciples and successors, such as Titus (Letter 9), to whom Paul had written two letters, and Polycarp of Smyrna (Letter 7), a disciple of John the Evangelist, who is himself the addressee of Letter 10. The reason for this scholarly neglect seems fairly obvious. Having determined that the CD is a sixth-century forgery produced by an author who plagiarized passages from the fifth-century philosopher Proclus, modern scholarship has spent more than a century reducing the corpus to its Neoplatonic antecedents.8 This rather one-sided emphasis has not only obscured Dionysius’ debts to earlier patristic writers, but has also severely underestimated the foundational role that Scripture plays for him, and in particular the writings of Paul. Needless to say, it is counter-intuitive to think that a writer who went to so much trouble to pose as the disciple of Paul—and who cited Paul’s letters more than 400 times9—would produce a body of theological work that exhibits no interest in Pauline thought or theology. It can hardly be doubted that Dionysios was a master of Neoplatonic philosophy, but it is also true that he was equally a master of biblical theology, whose facility with the text of Scripture and whose range of biblical reference is truly astonishing. It is only by an act of intellectual bad faith that 1600 biblical citations have been dismissed as a mere theatre of diversion; a feeble floral overlay concealing the author’s ‘real’ interest, namely, Greek philosophy.10 But quite contrary to what many scholars have argued, Dionysius’ use of philosophy does not stand in opposition to his Christian faith, and the imposition of such a rigid dichotomy reduces the Areopagite’s extraordinary synthesis of these two traditions to only one of its constituent elements. To be sure, Dionysius’ knowledge of Scripture is just as profound as his knowledge of philosophy, and there is nothing to be gained, and much to lose, by championing one area of influence or dependence to the neglect or dismissal of the other.11 Fortunately, there are signs that this entrenched scholarly position is changing. A number of recent studies of the CD have begun to break new ground by focusing on Dionysius’ use of Scripture, and in particular his use of Paul’s letters.12 These studies have made the fundamental place of Scripture in the corpus increasingly apparent, and argue persuasively that the CD constitutes an intentional and methodical development of theological themes rooted in the language and thought of Paul. Though more work remains to be done, we may very well be at the beginning of a paradigm shift, for which these recent studies show the way forward. oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 49 20-Oct-21 22:51:33 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN 50 C4.S2 C4.P7 C4.P8 C4.P9 C4.P10 Maximos Constas Scripture in the Dionysian Corpus It would be possible, but not entirely advisable, to isolate Dionysius’ use of the New Testament from his use of Scripture as a whole, since for him the Old and New Testaments do not signify or generate meaning independently of each other. This can be seen clearly in the figure of Moses. Following a tradition reaching back to Origen and the Cappadocians, Dionysius adopts Moses’s ascent to the mountaintop as a model for the mind’s mystical journey to God, which is one of the key themes of the CD.13 And if Moses is the model for spiritual ascent in the MT, whereas Paul provides that model in the DN, this distinction should not be overdrawn, since Dionysius did not intend these two works to be read in separation from or in contradiction to one another, just as he himself does not separate the Old Testament from the New. Not unlike his unification of philosophy and theology, he brings the two Testaments together in an integral and interactive synthesis. Thus to focus narrowly on the New Testament runs the risk of misrepresenting Dionysius’ entire project. Scripture is a continuous whole for him, and a cohesive, if complex, mode of divine manifestation. For the purposes of analysis, this chapter considers the place of the New Testament in the CD, but with the understanding that the division of Scripture into discrete books or sections, each exerting a fundamentally different influence on the CD, is artificial and does not accurately represent the nature and function of Scripture in the theology of Dionysius. Before turning to the New Testament in detail, it will be important to outline Dionysius’ general understanding of the nature of Scripture and the univocal (if multiform) character of the Old and New Testaments. For Dionysius, Scripture as a whole has a central place within the overarching metaphysical structure that informs the entire CD, namely, the cycle of procession and return. In a moment of self-manifestation, described as a movement of descending or outward procession, the deity brings into existence the hierarchies of the celestial and ecclesial worlds, the latter culminating in the Eucharistic synaxis, where Scripture is proclaimed to the faithful. Through the proper interpretation of Scripture’s words and narrative content, the faithful are able to grasp their intelligible meanings, and, by moving beyond their outward forms, return in an ascending movement to their primal cause and source in God. This movement of return, which is a hermeneutical process, unfolds both through the ritual forms of liturgy and the verbal forms of Scripture.14 Though Scripture is a form or mode of divine self-manifestation, and thus a true theophany, Dionysios does not argue for a literal procession of the deity into the physical writings themselves, as if they were paper-and-ink materializations of the divine in any crudely physical sense. Neither does he believe that the deity has been ‘transubstantiated’ into the physical furniture and ceremonial objects used in the liturgy. Instead, the symbols contained in Scripture represent intelligible truths that the biblical authors, inspired by God, have ‘clothed’ or ‘veiled’ in verbal forms.15 Dionysius is not the oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 50 20-Oct-21 22:51:33 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 51 emanationist that later critics often made him out to be, and to the contrary argues that while God indeed is ‘all things in all’ (citing 1 Cor. 15:28), he is nonetheless ‘nothing in anything’.16 Biblical symbols, like those of the liturgy, participate in the divine; they are not physical extensions of the deity—as if God were literally incarnated in a chalice or a book—but are rather the material forms and expressions of God’s providential care for his creatures. C4.S3 C4.P11 C4.P12 C4.P13 Dionysius and the New Testament Modern scholarship has established that there are just over 1600 citations and allusions to Scripture found in the CD. This is more than double the number provided by the indices compiled in the seventeenth century by Balthasar Corderius, which were reproduced by Jacques-Paul Migne in volume 3 of his Patrologia Graeca (Paris, 1857), and which could not be properly updated until the modern critical edition of the CD published in 1990–1991 by the Patristische Kommision der Akademien der Wissenschaften.17 The 1600 citations and allusions are about equally divided between Old Testament (730) and New Testament references (880), of which latter nearly half (410) are references to the letters of Paul. When we recall the relative brevity of the CD (about 58,000 words), then Dionysius’ references to the New Testament are considerable, though this alone tells us little about their use and function. The relation of the Dionysian writings to the New Testament presents special problems, partly due to the author’s handling and treatment of Scripture in general, and partly due to the literary and theological conceit that he himself is contemporary with the New Testament, in which he even makes a brief appearance (Acts 17:34). However, beyond merely citing passages from the New Testament, Dionysius, by virtue of his celebrated pseudonym, has, in a sense, written himself into the New Testament, which is the world in which he claims to ‘live and move and have his being’, to borrow a phrase from Paul’s sermon on the Areopagus, which prompted his conversion to Christianity (cf. Acts 17:28). Moreover, it is clear that the author of the CD adopts the persona of Dionysius the Areopagite and inserts himself into the New Testament in order to identify his theological project with Paul’s correlation of Greek philosophy and Christian faith, namely, the revelation of the ‘unknown God’ to the pagan Greek world (Acts 17:23). It is from within this same context that he addresses his major treatises to Timothy, who ‘suffered at the hands of Ionian philosophers’, and who had written to Dionysius seeking to ‘become learned in non-Christian philosophy’, following the example of ‘Paul, who also employed the sayings of the Greeks’.18 In the words of von Balthasar: ‘One does not see who Dionysios is, if one cannot see this identification as a context for his veracity’.19 We can therefore see the corpus as something like an extended theological ekphrasis of ‘Dionysius the Areopagite’, a literary genre bodying forth the person and thought of its subject, recreating the texture and tonality of his ideas, and summoning up the time, oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 51 20-Oct-21 22:51:33 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN 52 C4.P14 Maximos Constas place, and world of St Paul and his immediate disciples. We have, in other words, the construction of an elaborate New Testament pseudepigraphon,20 and it is not surprising that a letter ascribed to Dionysius, in which the pseudonymous author claims to have been present at the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, is ranked among the New Testament Apocrypha.21 From this point of view, the Dionysian writings are united by their imagined context, a dramatic framework which is in part a retelling of the New Testament, creating major roles for canonically minor characters, who are thereby moved to the front of the stage. In a kind of metatheatre of the New Testament—reminiscent of Tom Stoppard’s 1966 play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet— figures who were marginal in the canonical text receive expanded roles, while the major characters are off in the wings, relegated to the background or backstory. From this point of view, Dionysius constructs a complex, intertextual correspondence between his ideas, writings, and the New Testament—especially the letters of Paul—absorbing the world of his theological project into the world of the sacred text. One also sees an analogue to the dialogues of Plato, which cast philosophical teaching in a dramatic and literary form, so that the actors obey the laws of an imagined world, inhabiting a canon within a canon. Finally, one may also see the CD’s massive reinscription of the historical world of the New Testament as a grand cataphatic retrieval of history, and thus a hermeneutical commitment to the literal reality and abiding meaning of the historical New Testament, over and against the erasures of allegory and the negations of apophatic theology. The New Testament and the Eucharistic Synaxis C4.S4 C4.P15 C4.P16 In the EH, Dionysius presents the entire liturgical and sacramental life of the Christian— from the beginning of the catechumenate until death and burial—as taking place under the direction and guidance of the Scriptures. The New Testament receives particular attention in his discussion of the Eucharistic liturgy or synaxis. Moreover, this is the only place where Dionysius provides a list of all the canonical books of the Bible, which points to the integral relationship of Scripture to its liturgical and ecclesial context.22 What Dionysius proposes is a complete synthesis of Scripture, in which all the books of the Bible taken together are a function of the fundamental mystery of the Christian faith. Dionysius explains that the word synaxis, which means ‘gathering’, points to the moment of reintegration and return, that is, the ‘consecrating function that gathers together our fragmented lives into a uniform divinization, and grants us communion and union with the One, through the deiform enfolding of our divisions,.23 As such, the Eucharistic synaxis is the culmination of the other sacraments and their perfection, and it is in this liturgical framework that Scripture as a whole is proclaimed to the faithful.24 As Dionysius does throughout the EH, he first provides a summary of the sacrament or rite in question, followed by an extended reflection on its inner meaning. He calls this oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 52 20-Oct-21 22:51:33 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE AND THE NEW TESTAMENT C4.P17 C4.P18 C4.P19 C4.P20 53 reflection a ‘contemplation’, a term derived from the hermeneutics of Scripture, and thus he approaches the rite as a biblical ‘text’ to be examined with the tools of typological and anagogical exegesis.25 The synaxis begins with the hierarch censing the entire church: sanctuary, nave, and narthex.26 This is immediately followed by the chanting of psalms, an activity which is led by the hierarch in a manner suggestive of antiphonal singing.27 After this, the deacons ‘read from the holy scriptural tablets’, a phrase which virtually all commentators, ancient and modern, have understood as a reference to the Old and New Testaments.28 After the scriptural readings, the lower orders of the liturgical assembly— the catechumens, the possessed, and penitents—are dismissed.29 In his contemplation of these ritual activities, Dionysius proposes to explain the ‘archetypes of which these events are images’.30 He notes that, in censing the church, the hierarch’s circumambulation mirrors three distinct but interrelated movements: the cyclical movement of the divinity’s outward procession and return; the structure of the Sacrament (which is indivisible in itself and yet outwardly multiform); and the overall activity of the hierarch (who works with a multitude of symbols expressive of divine unity).31 In this way, the liturgical action which frames the reading of Scripture manifests the larger framework of procession and return. Dionysius then devotes considerable time to explaining the deeper meaning and function of the ‘sacred chanting and reading of the Scriptures’.32 He claims that the ‘chanting of the psalms’ is an activity that is ‘coessential’ to all the sacraments, and thus cannot be absent from the celebration of the Eucharist, which is the most sacred and hierarchical of all sacraments.33 Once again, the integration of Scripture and Sacrament, and the intertwining of the Old Testament with the New, is central to the Dionysian vision of the Eucharistic synaxis. Throughout these remarks, Dionysius shows comparatively little interest in the content of the biblical books themselves, and focuses instead on the spiritual benefits they confer on the congregation. His emphasis on the therapeutic and unifying power of sacred chant, and in particular the singing of psalms, closely follows the ‘theology of music’ outlined by Athanasius and Basil.34 Consistent with these earlier writers, Dionysius states that the singing of psalms is pedagogical and transformative, teaching the purification of vices, the cultivation of the virtues, and advances the assimilation of the faithful to their divine archetype.35 Sacred chant has the power to unify the faithful and thus prepares them for the greater unification that will be given to them in the Eucharist. Dionysius argues that the words of Scripture ‘have a lesson for those capable of being divinized’, after which he enumerates the biblical books of the canon beginning with Genesis.36 These books are introduced not as individual works with titles, but simply as sources of Scripture’s particular teachings.37 For example, Genesis is referred to as that aspect of Scripture which ‘teaches us that it is God himself who gives substance and arrangement to everything which exists’, while the Scripture’s teaching concerning ‘legal hierarchy and society’ is perhaps a combined reference to Leviticus and Deuteronomy.38 When Dionysius refers to Scripture’s teaching about the ‘divine works (θεουργίας) of Jesus the man’, he is alluding to the Synoptic Gospels, while the ‘divinely established communities and sacred teachings of Jesus’ disciples’ refer to the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of Paul. After this he speaks of the ‘hidden and mystical vision of (the oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 53 20-Oct-21 22:51:33 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN 54 C4.P21 C4.P22 C4.P23 C4.P24 C4.S5 C4.P25 Maximos Constas Christ’s) beloved disciple,’ and of this same disciple’s ‘transcendent word concerning Jesus’, which most likely refer to the book of Revelation and the Gospel of John.39 Dionysius then returns to the singing of psalms, mentioned a moment ago, and emphasizes their role in preparing the faithful for the readings from the Old and New Testaments. Consistent with Athanasius and Basil, he suggests that the psalms encapsulate the whole of Scripture, and, as ‘summaries’ of biblical teaching, they prepare one to hear the other books of the Bible, including the New Testament, which in turn prepare the faithful to receive the Sacrament.40 Dionysius describes this process of preparation with the striking image of ‘incubation’ or ‘midwifing,’ which refers to those being readied for the ‘birth’ of baptism.41 At the same time, the ‘summaries’ of Scripture outlined in the psalms are amplified and expanded by the readings from the Old and New Testaments, whose ‘images and proclamations are more numerous and more understandable’.42 It is here that Dionysius touches on the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament. The Old ‘announces’ the New, while the New ‘accomplishes’ what was promised in the Old; the former uses ‘images,’ while the latter ‘renders the truth present’: It was only natural that, after the more ancient tradition, the New Testament was proclaimed. With this, the inspired and hierarchical order teaches us that the one (i.e. the Old Testament) spoke of the divine works (θεουργίας) of Jesus as to come, but the other (i.e. the New Testament) presented them as accomplished; and as the former described the truth in images, the latter rendered it present, because the latter’s completion (τελεσιουργία) of the predictions of the former established the truth, and thus the work of God is a consummation of the word of God.43 Here, the ‘work’ of God is the saving work of Christ recorded in the New Testament, which fulfils the ‘word’ of God, that is, the prophetic sayings of the Old Testament. While an assessment like this might seem to reinscribe a supersessionist model, Dionysius does not describe a ‘division’ as much as an ‘inspired sequence’ or ‘order’ (ἔνθεος τάξις), suggesting that the distinction is more historical than ontological. That the Old Testament points to future events in ‘images’ does not mean that its signs and symbols do not yield noetic truths to the enlightened reader, since both the New Testament and the Sacraments of the Church are likewise said to be ‘images’. Scripture and the Sacraments have a true iconic and anagogical value, pointing to the same truth that requires the respect and assent of all the faithful. As the hermeneutics of the CD demonstrate time and again, the Dionysian vision embraces the Bible as a whole.44 Dionysius and the Theology of Paul Fifty years ago, Piero Scazzoso published a pioneering study on Dionysius’ use of Paul, providing a list of sixty linguistic and conceptual parallels between the Apostle and the Areopagite.45 Several decades passed before Scazzoso’s work found a sympathetic oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 54 20-Oct-21 22:51:33 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE AND THE NEW TESTAMENT C4.P26 C4.P27 C4.P28 C4.S6 C4.P29 55 audience, and, as noted earlier, scholars have only now begun to read the CD in light of Paul’s letters and theology. And not only in light of the letters, but also the book of Acts, and in particular Paul’s speech to the Areopagus (Acts 17:22–31), where his appropriation of Greek philosophy aimed to show the Greeks that their incipient faith in an unknown God required only the corrective of Christian revelation. Against this background, Dionysius emerges as a writer committed to continuing Paul’s apologetic project, elaborating on ideas that Paul had only adumbrated in Athens.46 In addition to Paul’s work as an apologist, Dionysius also saw him as a teacher of apophatic theology and mystical ascent. Like Moses, Paul had reached the world of knowledge beyond human nature: ‘It is in this sense that one says of Paul that he knew God, for he knew that God is beyond every act of mind and every form of knowing . . . for he found Him who is beyond all things, and he knew, in a manner beyond all knowledge, that the cause of all surpasses all’.47 This was already the view of earlier writers, such as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, who likewise considered Paul a master of the contemplative life, for whom the interpretation of Scripture, spiritual transformation, and mystical ascent, were closely interlaced.48 For John of Scythopolis, the connections between Paul and the CD were obvious: ‘The letters of Paul show the authenticity of these writings, and most especially the faultlessness of all these teachings’.49 For John, the theology of the CD is an extension of, and thus corroborated by, the theology of Paul. John’s recognition is borne out in his scholia, which systematically draw parallels between the CD and Paul’s letters. For example, John avers that the knowledge of the angelic hierarchies was obtained during Paul’s rapture to the ‘third heaven’ (2 Cor. 12:2): ‘Here I think Dionysios is speaking of none other than St Paul, for he alone was taken up into the ‘third heaven’ and initiated into these things’.50 Dionysius’ references to the ‘most divine Paul’ are so numerous and so central to the theological arguments of the CD that they can be said to constitute an organic system.51 Dionysius directly names his presumed teacher about twenty times, and cites from his letters more than 400 times, either to subject his theological ideas to an elaborate development, to confirm a point of Dionysian doctrine, or to serve as the starting point or conclusion to such doctrine. A close reading of key passages from Dionysius’ major work, On the Divine Names, will help to make some of these connections clear. On the Divine Names: A Pauline Reading At the very outset of the DN, a telling point immediately presents itself in Dionysius’ signature designation of the Scriptures as logia.52 This word occurs nearly 200 times in the corpus, and is typically translated as ‘oracles’ and understood as a ‘pagan influence’.53 However, this is a fairly common biblical designation for Scripture, which Paul himself uses in Rom. 3:2 and Heb. 5:12,54 and which occurs elsewhere in the New Testament and in the Septuagint more generally.55 To be sure, Dionysius probably intends both the oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 55 20-Oct-21 22:51:33 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN 56 C4.P30 C4.P31 C4.P32 C4.P33 Maximos Constas Christian and the pagan meaning, employing the same equivocation Paul used so effectively on the day of Dionysius’ conversion (Acts 17:22).56 To reduce this ambiguity to only one of its constituent terms is to eliminate the subtle, multilayered linguistic device whereby Dionysius signals his continuity with the rhetorical practice of Paul’s apologetic programme. Moving a few lines further into the treatise, Dionysius proposes to explore the biblical names of God against the epistemological background of knowledge and ignorance, correlated to an understanding of the divinity as both revealed and concealed. He begins by citing a passage from 1 Corinthians, in which he finds a universal ‘rule’ or ‘law’, namely, that truth should never be established ‘by plausible words of human wisdom but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power’ (1 Cor. 2:4).57 Paul’s distinction between plausible human words and the demonstration of divine power expresses the apostle’s sense of a fundamental discontinuity between the ‘wisdom of the world’ and the ‘wisdom of God’ (1 Cor. 1:20–21), which Dionysius has transformed into a systematic principle delineating the limits of human cognition. For Dionysius, that the divinity cannot be grasped by human knowledge follows logically from the teaching of the apostle, who— with a string of apophatic adjectives—describes the divinity as ‘invisible’, ‘unsearchable’, and ‘inscrutable’ (ἀόρατος, ἀνεξερεύνητος, ἀνεξιχνίαστος), an allusive intertwining of language from Rom. 1:20, 11:33; 1 Cor. 2:11; Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17; Heb. 11:27; and Eph. 3:8.58 The same divinity, however, which Dionysius—following Paul—declares to be beyond all being and knowledge, is nonetheless revealed in the ‘divine names’ given to it by sacred Scripture, which figures the divine under a myriad of titles, attributes, and symbolic forms. Dionysius is uncompromising in his insistence that one must ‘never think or say anthing about the divine that has not been revealed in Scripture,’ for it is in Scripture that the mind beholds the invisible God emptying himself into the forms of perceptible symbols.59 God himself, however, is not a symbolic object of perception, being essentially ‘dissimilar’ to all forms and symbols, from which it follows that, for the mind to ascend to God, all such symbols must be negated.60 In elaborating his celebrated theology of negation, Dionysius may appear to have cast off his Pauline moorings and drifted away into a sea of philosophical abstractions. Yet even this most seemingly Byzantine of theologies is securely anchored in a passage from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Dionysius explains that, even if the divine is called ‘Wisdom’ (1 Cor. 1:24, 30; Eph. 3:10; Col. 2:3), it nevertheless transcends all wisdom, in consequence of which the unqualified use of the word ‘wisdom’ fundamentally misrepresents the reality of God. And this, Dionysius tells us: Was something that was grasped by that truly divine man (i.e. Paul), who, having understood it in a manner beyond nature, said: ‘The foolishness of God is wiser than men’ (1 Cor. 1:25), not only because all discursive thinking (διάνοια) is a sort of error when compared to the stability and permanence of the divine and most perfect conceptions (νοήσεις), but also because it is customary for the theologians (i.e. the biblical writers) to apply negative terms to God in a manner contrary to the usual sense of privation . . . And here the divine apostle is said to have praised the oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 56 20-Oct-21 22:51:33 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 57 ‘foolishness of God’, which in itself seems absurd and strange, but which raises us up to the ineffable truth which is before all reason.61 C4.P34 C4.P35 C4.P36 C4.P37 C4.P38 C4.P39 Dionysius states clearly that the source of his theology is Paul, a claim he substantiates by his reading of 1 Corinthians 1:25. This is to say that the signature ‘Dionysian’ doctrine of apophatic theology is an elaborate elucidation of Paul’s insight into the dialectic of divine transcendence and immanence, along with the consequences of that dialectic for human thought and language.62 Among these consequences is the simultaneous character of the divine as both anonymous and polyonymous, so that the biblical writers alternately ‘praise the divinity both without a name and by means of all names’. And this, too, is clear from the writings of Paul. In his letters to the Philippians and Ephesians, Paul spoke ‘of the “wondrous name” (cf. Gen. 32:30; Judg. 13:18) which is “above every name” (Phil. 2:9)—the “Nameless”—which “transcends every name that is named either in this age or in that which is to come” (Eph. 1:21)’.63 The reality of the divine names, understood as the self-multiplication of God in creation, means that the one God is present in all things without being self-divided or confused with them. To illustrate this phenomenon, Dionysius turns to the experience of divinization, which is surely the main point of the entire discussion. He notes that the one God becomes many Gods in divinized human beings, although God himself is never replicated: the one God remains one. And this is yet another doctrine derived from Paul: When Paul, the ‘light of the world’, our teacher and guide to the divine gift of light, had understood this in a manner beyond nature, he said: ‘For although there are many gods . . . yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist’ (1 Cor. 8:5–6). For what Paul means to say is that, in the divine realm, unities hold a higher place than their differentiations.64 Apophatic theology is not simply the intellectual negation of a word or concept, but calls for the radical ‘negation’ (or ‘cessation’) of the sensory and intellective powers of the knower. ‘Negation’ by itself is not union with God, which latter requires that the knower be passively drawn out of himself in an experience of ecstasy. The most famous description of this phenomenon occurs in DN 3.2, where Dionysius describes the ecstasy of his fellow Areopagite, the bishop Hierotheos.65 That this mystical experience occurs while Hierotheos is ‘chanting a hymn’ may perhaps be inspired by Acts 16:25, where Paul and Silas are ‘chanting hymns’ to God when a ‘great earthquake shook the prison opening the doors and unfastening their fetters’ (v. 26). But even more telling is the discussion that follows in the next chapter, where the archetype for such experiences is not Hierotheos but Paul. Here Dionysius states that: The divine yearning is ecstatic, so that the lover belongs not to himself but to the beloved. . . . This is why the great Paul, when possessed by divine love (ἔρως), and oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 57 20-Oct-21 22:51:33 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN 58 Maximos Constas participating in its ecstatic power, says with an inspired mouth: ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’ (Gal. 2:20). As a true lover, Paul was, as he says, ‘beside himself for God’ (cf. 2 Cor. 5:13: ἐξέστημεν Θεῷ), living not his own life, but the life of the Beloved.66 C4.P40 C4.P41 Having grounded the doctrine of ecstasy in the mystical experience of Paul, Dionysius immediately goes on to make a ‘daring’ suggestion, which is at the heart of his vision of the universe, namely, that the divine itself is subject to the ecstasy of love, being drawn ‘outside itself ’ (ἔξω ἑαυτοῦ) in its loving care for creation. Accordingly, the ecstasy of Paul serves as a microcosmic frame for the larger narrative of the ecstasy of God in creation.67 As even this cursory survey indicates, Dionysius sees Paul as a foundational source for his apophatic and mystical theology. These are among Dionysius’ signature theological themes, and indicate the extent to which the thought of Paul animates the entire corpus. Dionysius’ often verbatim use of Paul’s language and ideas creates a compelling stylistic and conceptual relationship between the two writers, presenting an affinity of thought that cannot reasonably be dismissed as mere proof-texting or literary ornamentation. Conclusion C4.S7 C4.P42 Scripture as a whole and especially the letters of Paul are central to the theology of Dionysius the Areopagite. Dionysius is inadequately understood without Paul, and subsequent generations received the Areopagitical writings as organically linked to the theology of the great apostle. If Dionysius was Paul’s disciple, it was logical to assume that he had received and handed down the deeper meaning of Paul’s theology.68 Throughout the CD, Scripture is not only present by means of extensive citations and allusions, but also constitutes the very form of divine revelation, which Dionysius insists is the basis of his doctrine. For Dionysius, Scripture is theology itself.69 The gradual initiation into the mystery of Scripture, which is the goal of what we might call Dionysian existential hermeneutics, is identical with the progressive union with God, which is also the goal of the liturgy. Scholars are increasingly recognizing the fundamental place of Scripture in the CD, and are redressing a major imbalance in the traditional presentation of Dionysius’ thought, which encompasses equally the Hellenization of Christian theology and the Christianization of Greek philosophy. Notes 1. The only monograph on the subject remains that by Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols (1984) ; cf. Rorem, ‘Biblical Allusions’ (1989). See also the valuable remarks of Roques, L’Univers Dionysien (1954), 210–225; and the important article by Scazzoso, ‘I rapporti dello pseudo-Dionigi” (1968). oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 58 20-Oct-21 22:51:33 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 59 2. MT 1.1 (997A; 141,2–3). 3. EH 1.1 (372A; 63,4–7). 4. Dionysius refers to the Theological Outlines at DN 1.1 (585B; 107,3); DN 1.5 (593B; 116,7); DN 2.1 (637A; 122,11); DN 2.3 (640B; 125,14); DN 2.7 (645A; 130,15); DN 11.5 (953B; 221,11); and MT 3 (1033A; 146,1-9; cf. 147,5); and to the Symbolic Theology at CH 15.6 (336A; 56,1); DN 1.8 (597B; 121,3); DN 4.5 (700D; 149,9); DN 9.5 (913B; 211,9); DN 13.4 (984A; 231,8); MT 3 (1033A; 146,11 and 1033B; 147,7); Ep. 9.1 (1104B; 193,5); and ibid., 9.6 (1113C; 207,4-11). Theological Outlines could equally be rendered as Scriptural or Biblical Outlines, since Dionysius almost always uses the word ‘theology’ as a designation for ‘Scripture,’ and ‘theologian’ as an epithet for a biblical author; cf. Roques, ‘Note sur la notion de THEOLOGIA’ (1949); and Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols (1984), 22, n. 64. 5. Scripture is πάνσοφος (CH 4.3 [180C; 22,6]); ἱερός (CH 2.5 [145B; 16,15]; ibid., 4.2 [201A; 26,18]; DN 1.1-3 [588A-589B; 108-11]; ibid., 2.4 [640D; 126,11]; Ep. 8.1 [1089D; 179,11]; ibid., 8.4 [1096A; 185,8]); πανίερος (EH 3.6 [432C; 85,1]); ἱερώτατος (CH 1.2 [121A; 7,12]; EH 1.2 [372C; 64,22]; ibid., 4.7 [481A; 100,20]); νοητός (CH 12.1 [292C; 42,13]; DN 3.2 [681C; 140,17]; Ep. 9.2 [1108C; 199,13]; ibid., 9.4 [1112A; 203,15]); θεῖος (EH 7.3 [556C; 123,4]; DN 1.4 [589D; 112,7]; ibid., 4.11 [709A; 157,4]; ibid., 8.1 [889C; 200,8]; Ep. 9.4 [1112A; 203,15); θεαρχικός (DN 1.1 [588A; 109,1]); θεοπαράδοτος (EH 1.4 [376B; 67,5,7]; ibid., 4.7 [509B; 110,12]; ibid., 5.7 [513C, 516B; 113,21, 114,20]; ibid., 6.3 [533BC; 117,5]; ibid., 7.7 [561C; 127,18]); σεπτότατος (EH 1.4 [376B; 67,7]; DN 10.3 [940A; 216,17]); cf. ἡ τῶν λογίων ἱερωτάτη σοφία (EH 4.7 [481A; 100,20]); ἡ τῶν λογίων θεία θεσμοθεσία (EH 7.3 [556A; 122,7]); ἱερώταται τῶν λογίων ἀναγνώσεις (EH 3.1 [428B; 81,19]), etc. 6. DN 1.1 (588A; 108,5-8; repeated at DN 1.2 [588C; 110,3-4]), which Dionysius introduces as the ‘law (θεσμός) of the divine scriptures’ (585B; 107,5); cf. DN 10.3: ‘One must follow the words of Scripture undeviatingly (ἀπαρατρέπτως)’ (940A; 216,17-18); and Scazzoso, ‘I rapporti dello pseudo-Dionigi’ (1968) 3, n. 4. 7. DN 2.2 (640A; 124-25). 8. On this problem, see the trenchant remarks of Von Balthasar, ‘Denys’ (1984). 9. This number, derived from the biblical index of the 1991 Berlin edition, includes both direct citations and allusions from all the letters traditionally attributed to Paul, including Hebrews; it does not include references to or about Paul from Acts. 10. Von Balthasar, ‘Denys’ (1984), 146, describes this as a condition of intellectual ‘colour blindness.’ The problem is at least as old as Luther, who opined that: ‘Ps.-Dionysius nowhere has . . . any useful instruction from the Holy Scriptures,’ cited in Luther’s Works, vol. 1, Lectures on Genesis 1-5, ed. Pelikan (1956), 235; cf. Arthur, Pseudo-Dionysius as Polemicist (2008), 4: ‘Even though Dionysius professed admiration of Paul, there is a remoteness which suggests that he was unwilling to engage with the person behind the words of the Pauline epistles.’ 11. Dionysius’s fluency in both Greek philosophy and Christian theology would tend to support the notion that he was a pupil of Proclus who converted to Christianity; cf. Mainoldi, ‘Why Dionysius the Areopagite?’ (2017); argued at length in id., Dietro ‘Dionigi L’Areopagita’ (2018), 496-51. 12. See, for example, Golitzin, Et Introibo ad Altare Dei (1994), 234–242; especially p. 241: ‘The main lines of the corpus Dionysiacum . . . are already present in embryo in the New Testament, especially in those writings traditionally ascribed to the Apostle Paul.’ Two monographs in particular have developed these suggestions with exemplary results: Schäfer, The Philosophy of Dionysius (2006); and Stang, Apophasis and Pseudonymity oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 59 20-Oct-21 22:51:34 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN 60 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. Maximos Constas (2012). See also Constas, ‘The Reception of Paul’ (2016), 153–156; and Mainoldi, Dietro ‘Dionigi L’Areopagita’ (2018), 394–409. Rorem, ‘Moses as Paradigm’ (1989), which demonstrates that Moses is also the model for the Christian bishop in the context of the Eucharistic synaxis; cf. Sterk, ‘On Basil, Moses, and the Model Bishop’ (1998); and ead., Renouncing the World, Serving the Church (2004), 95–118. The unity of biblical and liturgical exegesis is argued by Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols (1984); cf. Bornert, Les commentaires byzantins de la Divine Liturgie (1966), 62–71. Compare his rich vocabulary of ‘veiling’ and ‘clothing,’ along with the language of μορφωποιΐα (CH 2.3 [141A; 13,5]); σωματοποιΐα (CH 2.5 [137C; 10,17]), and ἱεροπλαστία (CH 2.1 [137B; 10,9]). DN 7.3 (872A; 198,7-9). Suchla, Heil, and Ritter, eds., Corpus Dionysiacum (1990-1991); cf. Rorem, ‘Biblical Allusions’ (1989). The translation by Colm Luibheid, which is the one most widely used in the English speaking world, appeared in 1987, and could not take advantage of the new critical edition, though it catalogs 966 citations and allusions, and marked an important advance on the work of Corderius/PG. According to John of Scythopolis, Prologue to the Scholia on Dionysius the Areopagite (PG 4:20D), cited in Rorem and Lamoreaux, John of Scythopolis (1998), 147–148. Von Balthasar, ‘Denys,’ 149 (emphasis in the original). Argued by Golitzin, ‘Dionysius Areopagita’ (2003): 178. This letter is not part of the CD; cf. Eastman, ‘The Epistle of Pseudo-Dionysius’ (2016).. The placement of the Scriptures on the head of the bishop at his consecration is a further indication of the importance of Scripture in the Eucharistic liturgy; cf. EH 5.7 (509B; 110,15). EH 3 (424CD; 79,9-12). EH 3 (424D; 79,12-14); cf. John of Skythopolis, scholion on EH: ‘It is impossible to be perfected without communion (μετάληψις)’ (PG 4:156A). See above, n. 14. EH 3 (425B; 80,8-10). While the hierarch ‘begins the sacred melody of the Psalms’ (ἀπάρχεται τῆς ἱερᾶς τῶν ψαλμῶν μελῳδίας), the congregation ‘sings together with him’ the ‘sacred language of the Psalter’ (συνᾳδούσης αὐτῷ τὴν ψαλμικὴν ἱερογλογίαν) (EH 3 [425C; 80,10-11]). EH 3: ἀνάγνωσις τῶν ἁγιογράφων δέλτων (425C; 80,12-13); cf. John of Scythopolis, scholion on EH: ‘Here he calls the Old and New Testaments ‘holy scriptural tablets’’ (PG 4:156:B); and Nikephoros of Constantinople, Refutation of the Definition of the Synod of 815: αἰ τῶν εὐαγγελίων ἁγιόγραφοι δέλτοι (CCSG 33:272,29). Note that this ‘reading’ should not be confused with the subsequent ‘proclamation of the sacred diptychs’ (ἀνάρρησις τῶν ἱερῶν πτυχῶν) mentioned in EH 3 (425D; 81,2); cf. EH 3.8 (437A; 88,12-13). EH 3 (425C; 80,14-15). EH 3.1 (428A; 81,15-17). EH 3.2 (429AB; 82-83). Note that the congregation will later also sing the Creed; cf. EH 3 (425D; 80,20-21). EH 3.4 (429C; 83,11-13); John of Scythopolis, scholion on EH, maintains that the word ‘coessential’ designates, not an ontological condition, but that liturgy and the chanting of psalms are united in their soteriological goal (PG 4:140B). oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 60 20-Oct-21 22:51:34 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 61 34. Athanasius of Alexandria, Letter to Marcellinus on the Psalms (PG 27:12-45); Basil, Homily 1 on the Psalter (PG 29:209A-215C); cf. Kolbet, ‘Athanasius and the Psalms’ (2006). 35. EH 3.1 (428B; 81,19-21). 36. EH 3.4 (429C; 83,11). 37. Only once in the CD is a biblical book mentioned by name, i.e., Genesis in Letter 9 (1105B; 196,2). 38. EH 3.4 (429C; 83,13-14). 39. EH 3.4 (429D; 83,20-21). 40. EH 3.5 (432A; 84,7). 41. EH 3.6: μαϊεύονται (432D; 85,9-10). 42. EH 3.5 (432B; 84,11-13). 43. EH 3.5 (432B; 84,15-21). 44. Similarly, neither Scripture nor the sacraments present their truths in a manner that is consistently straightforward or clear. The word of Scripture is a ‘hidden’ and ‘secret’ word,’ which is ‘transmitted to the world in a mysterious and concealed manner.’ To those outside the church, the words of Scripture are impenetrable and appear scandalous; cf. EH 4.10 (484B; 102,14); CH 2.2 (140B; 11,16); cf. EH (404BC; 78,10); and EH 3.11 (441B; 91,17). 45. Scazzoso, ‘I rapporti dello pseudo-Dionigi’ (1968), 15-21. 46. Space does not allow for a consideration of the extent to which Dionysius combines Paul’s theology with John’s, in particular the high Christology of the Fourth Gospel; cf. Golitzin, ‘Dionysius Areopagita’ (2003), 172-73. 47. Letter 5 (1073A; 162-63). 48. Cf. Constas, ‘Reception of Paul’ (2016), 149-51. 49. Prologue to the Scholia on Dionysius (PG 4:21A); cited in Rorem and Lamoreaux, John of Scythopolis (1998), 148. 50. Scholion on CH (PG 4:200D), cited in Rorem and Lamoreaux, John of Scythopolis, 158. That Paul’s mystical knowledge was derived from his ascent into the third heaven was a commonplace among patristic writers, but Dionysius never directly cites 2 Cor 12:2, perhaps because such an ascent would violate the proper boundaries of the hierarchies. 51. The quotation is from Letter 9 (1112 A; 203,10-11). 52. DN 1.1 (585B; 107,5). 53. See, for example, Louth, Denys the Areopagite (1989), 22: ‘Even his (i.e., Dionysius) attitude to the Scriptures is given a ‘pagan’ colouring. He hardly ever uses the Christian word (graphe), but prefers to refer to them as ‘oracles’ (logia), using the words the pagans used.’ 54. The letter to the Hebrews is unique in the New Testament for never using the word ‘Scripture’ (graphe), but instead introduces biblical citations with verbs of speaking, such as God ‘said’ or ‘says’ (e.g., Heb 1:5, 6; 2:12; 8:8, etc.). This oral, rather than textual, delivery of Scripture may have also influenced Dionysios’s preference for describing Scripture not as a written text (graphe) but as the living words (logia) of God. 55. E.g., 1 Pet 4:11; Acts 7:38; Dt 33:9; Num 24:4, 16; Pss 11:76; 17:32; 106:11; 118:11, 103, 148, 158; Wis 16:11. 56. Cf. Rowe, ‘Grammar of Life’ (2010): 39-40, who comments on Paul’s ambiguous use of δεισιδαιμονέστερος (Acts 17:22), which means both ‘religious’ and ‘superstitious,’ with the Greek auditors in the story hearing the former, and Christian readers hearing the latter (or both). 57. DN 1.1 (585B; 107-108). 58. DN 1.2 (588C; 110,7-10); cf. DN 1.5, citing Rom 11:36 and Col 1:17 (593C; 116-17). oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 61 20-Oct-21 22:51:34 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN 62 Maximos Constas 59. DN 1.1 (588A; 108,6-8); DN 1.4 (589D-593A; 112-15). 60. Dionysius discusses the question of ‘dissimilar images’ in CH 2 (136D-145C; 9-17). 61. DN 7.1 (865B; 193-94). Dionysius’s interpretation of 1 Cor 1:25 is further developed by Maximos the Confessor, Amb. 71.2-3 (DOML 2:312-17). 62. In MT 1.3 (1000B; 143,8-10), Dionysius sees the basic principles of apophatic theology in the texture of the Gospel: ‘The word of God is vast and miniscule, and the Gospel wideranging yet restricted . . . because the good Cause of all is both eloquent and taciturn, even wordless.’ Dionysius explains that the word of God is ‘vast, wide-ranging, and eloquent’ refers to the affirmations; that it is ‘miniscule, restricted, and taciturn, and wordless,’ refers to the negations. 63. DN 1.6 (596A; 118,8-10). The preposition hyper with the accusative or in compound words occurs hundreds of times in CD, and is rightly understood as peculiar to Dionysian diction, yet hyper with the accusative occurs ten times in the letters of Paul, as well as in compound words (e.g., ὑπεράνω, ὑπερβάλλειν, ὑπερέκεινα, ὑπερεκτείνειν, ὑπερέχειν, etc.) nearly fifty times. 64. DN 2.11 (649D; 136-37). 65. DN 1.3 (681D-84A; 141,4-14). Like Dionysius, Hierotheos was a member of the Areopagus, and, with him, one of the few who were converted by Paul’s preaching. Upon Paul’s departure from Athens, Hierotheos became the city’s first bishop and continued to initiate Dionysios into divine mysteries. Dionysios thus counts both Paul and Hierotheos as his teachers. 66. DN 4.12; (712A; 159,4-8). 67. DN 4.13 (712B; 159,9-14). 68. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 5.10, speaks of an esoteric tradition, handed down from the apostles through oral teaching, which Paul everywhere hints at, but which he did not commit to writing (SC 278:124-34). 69. See above, n. 4. C4.S8 C4.P43 C4.P44 C4.P45 C4.P46 C4.P47 C4.P48 Bibliography Arthur, Rosemary A. (2008), Pseudo-Dionysius as Polemicist: The Development and Purpose of the Angelic Hierarchy in Sixth Century Syria (Aldershot: Ashgate). Bornert, René (1966), Les commentaires byzantins de la Divine Liturgie du VIIe au XV siècle (Paris: Institut Français d’Études byzantines). Constas, Maximos (2016), ‘The Reception of Paul and Pauline Theology in the Late Byzantine Period,’ in The New Testament in Byzantium, ed. Derek Kreuger and Robert S. Nelson (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks). Eastman, David L. (2016), ‘The Epistle of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite to Timothy concerning the Deaths of the Apostles Peter and Paul,’ in, eds., New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, vol. 1, ed. Tony Burke and Brent Landau (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 464–480. Golitzin, Alexander (1994), Et Introibo ad Altare Dei. The Mystagogy of Dionysius Areopagita with Special Reference to its Predecessors in the Eastern Christian Tradition (Thessaloniki: Patriarchal Institute of Patristic Studies). Golitzin, Alexander (2003), ‘Dionysius Areopagita: A Christian Mysticism?’ Pro Ecclesia 12: 161–212. oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 62 20-Oct-21 22:51:34 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Oct 20 2021, NEWGEN DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE AND THE NEW TESTAMENT C4.P49 C4.P50 C4.P51 C4.P52 C4.P53 C4.P54 C4.P55 C4.P56 C4.P57 C4.P58 C4.P59 C4.P60 C4.P61 C4.P62 C4.P63 C4.P64 C4.P65 C4.P66 C4.P67 63 Kolbet, Paul (2006), ‘Athanasius, the Psalms, and the Reformation of the Self,’ Harvard Theological Review 99: 85–102. Louth, Louth (1989), Denys the Areopagite (London and New York: Continuum). Luther’s Works, vol. 1, Lectures on Genesis 1-5, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1956). Mainoldi, Ernesto Sergio (2017), ‘Why Dionysius the Areopagite? The Invention of the First Father,’ Studia Patristica 86: 439–450. Mainoldi, Ernesto Sergio (2018), Dietro ‘Dionigi L’Areopagita’. La genesi e gli scopi del Corpus Dionysiacum (Rome: Città Nuova Editrice), 394–409. Roques, René (1949), ‘Note sur la notion de THEOLOGIA selon le Pseudo-Denys l’Areopagite,’ Revue d’ascétique et de mystique 25: 200–212. Roques, René (1954), L’Univers Dionysien: Structure hiérarchique du monde selon le pseudoDenys (Paris: Aubier), 210–225. Rorem, Paul (1984), Biblical and Liturgical Symbols within the Pseudo-Dionysian Synthesis (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies). Rorem, Paul (1989), ‘The Biblical Allusions and Overlooked Quotations in the PseudoDionysian Corpus’, Studia Patristica 23: 61–65. Rorem, Paul (1989), ‘Moses as the Paradigm for the Liturgical Spirituality of Pseudo-Dionysios,’ Studia Patristica 18: 275–279. Rorem, Paul, and John C. Lamoreaux (1998), John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). Rowe, C. Kavin (2010), ‘The Grammar of Life: The Areopagus Speech and Pagan Tradition,’ New Testament Studies 57: 31–50 Scazzoso, Piero (1968), ‘I rapporti dello pseudo-Dionigi con la Sacra Scrittura e con S. Paolo,’ Aevum 42: 1–28. Schäfer, Christian (2006), The Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite (Leiden: Brill). Stang, Charles (2012), Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Sterk, Andrea (1998), ‘On Basil, Moses, and the Model Bishop: The Cappadocian Legacy of Leadership,’ Church History 67: 227–253. Sterk, Andrea (2004), Renouncing the World, Serving the Church: The Monk Bishop in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 95–118. Suchla, Beate Regina, and Günter Heil, and Adolf Martin Ritter, eds., Corpus Dionysiacum, Patristische Texte und Studien, 2 vols (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1990-1991). Von Balthasar, Hans Urs (1984), ‘Denys,’ in id., The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. 2 (San Francisco: Ignatius), 144–146. oxfordhb-9780198810797_P1.indd 63 20-Oct-21 22:51:34