Denys

Dennis, the area Applegate or

Dionysius or pseudo Dionysius.

We'll find him written with all those names with using all those names.

Give a year of death somewhere around 500 late fifth, early sixth century.

Now already,

you get the idea that we don't know a lot about this guy. We don't know his real name

on those dates.

And

Sudo

is what we call him, because he's not really who he says he is.

He begins every

treatise.

This is the polish press version of his complete works

begins every treat us

with

Dionysius the Elder to timothy the fellow elder.

And then he'll give you a,

you know, the little description of what he's gonna right there he is. Um

pretending to be Dionysius from the writings of paul.

Forget where you find him showing up.

Um,

but he definitely is is using um what now looks like plagiarism,

but in the classical world,

um,

it was really just a way of sort of speaking in another's name and sort of,

you know, different ethics were different. So when modernist got really

upset and said, this is this man is not who he said he was,

which is why we started putting Sudo in front of him

false Dionysius.

This is sort of um

a

anachronism

because at the time it was this is sort of a different, as I said, a different ethic.

Um he is. Uh

well let's let's um say what we do know about him writing in greek.

Obviously we know we can we can date him roughly to this period.

As you'll you'll see in the introduction that we're reading because

of the things that he's philosophical text that he's working with,

especially practice

the

practicing

the Neo plate in Ists. Um,

and he's using their language. So we know that he's sort of dating after them.

He's also we know when he's first sighted, which is in right around,

you know, 5 25 25 somewhere around there for the first time he's, his name shows up.

Um, so when people start citing him and he says, I'm Dionysius,

the friend of paul the Apostle,

there's a sort of confusion like why did no

one else know about why didn't Augustine cite him.

Um, well, eventually we sorted out, Oh, because that's,

he's a he's a he's a Greek writing around the year 500.

So after all of this,

so that's really kind of all we know about him.

We don't know, we don't, we just sort of know what he read.

And when we started citing him.

Um, and then we just had the texts,

uh, and there is a real sort of bazaar, there's nothing like this,

there's nothing like pseudo Dionysius Dionysius in um,

all of christian literature, he's a whole other thing and he has a huge impact.

Um, which we'll look at here in a second

on what comes after.

So first of all, what did he write?

Um we have four existing treatises, He name checks often other things he's written,

which is probably means that he wrote them and we don't have them anymore,

but could also mean, um he was sort of

kind of fictionalizing

something like maybe Kierkegaard later did what he would do.

He would um maybe he was sort of putting his name,

he was sort of referring to treatises that were never written.

We don't really know

the ones we have are the divine names,

the mystical theology,

then the two hierarchies, the celestial hierarchy and ecclesiastical hierarchy,

and then a collection of short letters.

I'll say more about the divine names and mystical theology,

because that's what we're reading from for for this week, the hierarchies,

you will sometimes encounter these

with Professor Jennings, I believe.

Um

these are also very influential texts in in the Middle Ages,

both in the eastern and Western churches, the celestial hierarchies um,

consistent of a description of the, of the angels,

the orders of angels who were created.

Now, hierarchy is,

I believe this is right. I've seen this to be true and I have not

dug deeply to back it up, but I believe the word hierarchy was an invention

of Dennis's,

it functions very importantly in his system

as a, as a way of ranking the orders of things in a way of noting the patterns of things.

Uh, and this is something that it gets from from, from practice, especially

the philosopher that I just mentioned.

Um all of the

All being is ordered towards the one

for him, it's God

and then everything under it is a image of that in a in a

in an image of that divine simplicity in a in a more complex way.

And so not only do you have God

as the as the transcendent top of the hierarchy of being and then angels below it,

but you have actually choirs of angels or order structures of angels,

A hierarchy of angels of which there are nine

and he gives this classic numbering system of angels.

So even when we sing the hymns and we or there's a him where we

um

where we sing Thrones, powers, Dominion's archangels,

angels archangels um this is Dennis order order of of angels.

So he's got he's got them listed in three triads, he loves the triads,

triads run throughout his system

and so the nine choirs of angels are three our a triad of triads of

angels and again sort of all the way down you get you get everything,

you get

you get um

uh huh

the the Cherubim,

Seraphim Cherubim I forget which is which is above but anyway one level down you

get you get what you just saw above but at a slightly more complex level

so this is the way the patterns run all the way through

and then when it moves to these to the ecclesiastical hierarchy,

he wants to tell us about the way that the rituals,

the sacramental rituals of the church and the

offices of the church also follow these patterns.

So

the church then becomes a material manifestation of the heavens.

Super magical. You can see why Professor Jennings is all about this,

what we, and the point of all of this as we'll see just in just a bit more in a minute.

The point of all of this is, is identification.

Uh, all things issue from the one transcendent god who is above all

and all things are gathered back in and it's by

means of this patterning that were gathered back in.

Um, and especially those of us, those creatures who are conscious

who can name things

and let the naming of things draw us into the things that we name.

This is, this becomes these patterns sort of filter into the way that we name God.

So are naming of God through these hierarchical orders.

We,

through reception of the sacrament and the offices of the church

and the way this is patterned up in the celestial hierarchies takes

us up into heavens and ultimately takes us into the one

the unity of God who is the triad above all triads.

The doctrine of the trinity.

Um, so these are his, these are the writings that we have,

this is all we've got to work with with, with, with Dennis.

I'm gonna talk to us a little bit about the ones reading for today.

Uh, the divine names.

Um,

divine names is the text that is most used aren't the only one,

but the one most used by thomas.

Aquinas

thomas loves his order of angels as well. He loves his theological method as well.

We'll come to that second. But most of the citations you'll see in thomas um

are Dennis and I are from divine names and

Dennis in fact is beyond the guy behind Augustine.

He is the church father most cited.

And what's significant about that is you have this real,

you have an east west cross over here.

Um

yeah,

sort of like if you know

if if if if Biggie had joined N. W. A.

For for a track or something

East west crossover, sorry just there it was and I took it. Um

you know the the greek writing

Dionysius showing up

in in the latin, you know,

the and the sort of the height of all that scholastic latin theology

um

themes the basic idea of of divine names is that God has

God that transcendent one who is beyond everything unnameable has is also this.

Fount of generosity.

And so God creates a world that is just filled with God's beauty

and God's beauty is out there as

an invitation

to us

to enjoy the thing that is beautiful as a way of enjoying God

scripture functions very importantly in here in this because he says

the scripture is the primary gift

that God has given us.

So

we don't know what to call god, which is why we need God to reveal

names to us. And so this is what God does in scripture.

So the whole treatise, it takes these words inscriptions,

This this is this is these are this is our ladder

up into the divine being, This is all we have.

So let's sit with these words and let's contemplate them and let's

see what we can learn about God when we say creator,

when we say beauty, when we say light, when we say

mm hmm.

This is a long chapter. Good beautiful love, ecstasy, zeal,

you know, find places in scripture where to you,

these are used to describe the divine being and then we'll contemplate them

as a way of

letting us ascend up into the being that they're bringing witness to.

Um and ultimately this is about God's love.

So there's a line right up front that you'll notice

um

in the divine names we said, we we now grasp these things.

This is from the from a paragraph number four, section number four.

We now grasp these things in the best way we can as they come to us,

wrapped in the sacred veils of that love towards humanity

with which scripture and hierarchical traditions, there's his term

cover the truths of the mind with things derived from the realms of the senses.

So when God puts God's transcendent being into words that we

can hear understand and imagine from sensory images around us.

This is an act of love is beyond what we could, what could be expected of God,

but this is God's generosity that God does that.

Alright, let's move on mystical theology, very short treatise,

but loaded this is where he takes us through how you do theology.

Um

and if most of what we get in divine names are our names affirmed in scripture.

The thing we work with what he's going to say here

is affirming uh name naming God through affirming God is love.

God is good. God is like God is beauty, that's the beginning.

But then the next thing that we have to do is we have to negate what

we have said because God is not like any God is not a thing among things.

God has done a beautiful thing among beautiful things.

Uh and in that sense, we negate that name that we have just affirmed like this is,

it's not that one or the other is the better way of naming god.

It's this is the rhythm. God is good.

God is light,

but God is not good. God is not like

you constantly see him negating this.

And then now I'm using thomas, I just know these are latin terms,

I'm using thomas's terms here.

So, patriotic scholars will be throwing rotten things at me right now,

but

I actually think thomas has a pretty good diagnostician scholar.

Uh and what he does is he takes us and when when towards the end of

the treatise on mystical theology when Dennis starts

to say God is beyond all affirmation.

So we have to negate but also God is beyond all negation,

beautiful trippy language that he's using here.

And this is what thomas is going to call the via eminent ei or the way of eminence.

And this is where we say

God is out of comparison of all good things, but God is also

different than the lack of good things. God is goodness in itself.

And so thomas will quote Dennis here as saying um when we say that

God is goodness itself were actually speaking a language we don't even understand,

we don't even know how it's true to say that of God, but we are we are sort of

naming god beyond all affirmation and negation at this point in the way of eminence.

And not just a few lines here that get at our big themes, I'm gonna fly through this,

I promise.

Um notice the line where we get into some trinity.

Uh some reflections on the trinity here at the end of 14,

I won't bother reading this to you. Um

but

brilliant time here people, hmm hmm hmm hmm.

They also describe it as a trinity.

Um

he's got this way,

notice what he does just above this as he's sort of deriving what he means by trinity.

And it's about the unity,

it's about the most the monitor hinted the the isolated oneness,

that's the cause of all and then he's got the indivisible unity,

and then he's got the unifying power.

And he says, this is what I'm talking about with trinity.

This is why they call this a trinity.

Um

Dennis isn't often loved for his crist ology.

I think there's a there's something beautiful that he does in letter four,

when he says every affirmation, when talks about every affirmation

regarding jesus love for humanity is actually

speaking, it's it's actually speaking this language beyond what we can speak.

So it also needs negation.

Um then he's got a reference to holiness that right up

front that I think you will catch a reference to.

It's a it's a theo sis reference about how we are gathered up this,

this generous gift of naming that God gives us is for gathering us back up,

because it's the flight of holiness.

Last thing I want to say. Um we're gonna see him again in maximus,

we're going to see him in his in thomas.

He's in the we're not going to, but the cloud of unknowing.

And finally, even in Jacques Derrida

Denys

Chapters

Audio TranscriptAuto-generated