Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names · 32 of 39 · tr. C.E. Rolt
Chapter 4, Section 1
277 ἑνώσεις, διακρίσεις, ταὐτότητες, ἑτερότητες.
278 Hence parts are united into wholes and wholes articulated into parts, and hence each thing is identical with itself and distinct from everything else.
279 e.g.
Moisture interpenetrates the solid earth.
280 e.g.
In a piece of wet ground the water is water and the earth is earth.
281 αἱ πρόνοιαι τῶν ὑπερτέρων.
Lit.
“the providences,” etc., e.g.
the influence of the light without which, D.
holds, the material world could not exist.
Or this and the following may refer to different ranks of angels, or to angels and men.
282 αἱ ἐπιστροφαί τῶν καταδεεστέρων.
Lit.
“the conversions,” etc.
e.g.
Matter (according to his theory) responds to the influence of the light.
And men are influenced by angels, and the lower angels by the higher.
283 The point of this section is that besides the particular and partial harmonies already mentioned, there is a universal harmony uniting the whole world in one system.
284 In the two following sections the difference between angelic and human activity is that the angels confer spiritual enlightenment and men receive it.
Angels are in a state of attainment and men are passing through a process of attainment.
285 Vide supra on Introversion (p.
88, n.
1).
286 They are united to God in the centre of their being, by ceaselessly entering into themselves.
They help us by going forth, as it were, from themselves.
287 Their true self-identity is rooted in God.
See Intr., pp.
31 f.
288 ἡ εἰς ἑαυτὴν εἴσοδος.
289 In souls being unified and simplified.
See Intr., p.
25.
290 Cf.
St.
Aug.
”ascendat per se supra se.“ 291 i.
e.
To the Angels and the perfected Saints.
There is a somewhat similar thought in Wordsworth’s Prelude: “To hold fit converse with the spiritual world / and with the generations of mankind / spread over time past, present, and to come / age after age till time shall be no more.” This thought in Wordsworth and in D.
is an experience and not a speculation.
292 This spiritual unity was by later Mystical writers called the apex of the soul, or the ground, or the spark.
Another name is synteresis or synderesis.
293 There is an element of intuition in all discursive reasoning because all argument is based on certain axioms which are beyond proof (e.
g.
the law of universal causation).
In fact the validity of our laws of thought is an axiom and therefore perceived by intuition.
In the present passage D.
means something deeper.
He means that formal Dogmatic Theology advances round a central core of spiritual experience by which it must constantly be verified, Pectus facit theologum.
Whenever theology even attempts to be purely deductive it goes wrong (e.
g.
Calvinism).
If it is not rooted in intuition it will be rooted in fancies.
294 In D.‘s classification Introversion and Sensation are both unmixed movements, for each leads to a kind of perception.
Discursive reasoning is a mixed movement because it does not lead to a direct perception and yet it must contain an element of perception.
295 i.e.
Themes
◆Active Contemplationpraxis
A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness.
The text describes angels helping humans by going forth from themselves to confer enlightenment.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The passage explicitly describes moisture interpenetrating earth and matter responding to light, illustrating resonant affinities between parts of the cosmos.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage mentions influences flowing from higher angels to lower ones and the necessity of light for existence.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The text contrasts the state of angels with men who are passing through a process of attainment.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
Angels are described as in a state of attainment and helping humans pass through a process of attainment.