"Areopagite" or pseudo-Dionysian areopagite. Jesus Christ in Eastern Orthodox tradition Pseudo Dionysius

In his church policy, Emperor Justinian used the “carrot and stick” method. In 533, when the next wave of persecution of Monophysites subsided, an “ecumenical” conference was held in Chalcedon, where Orthodox and Monophysites were given the opportunity to calmly discuss Christological issues. At this conference, opponents of the Council of Chalcedon began to refer to an author named Dionysius the Areopagite. And to this day no one knows who was hiding under the name of the disciple of the Apostle Paul (Acts 17:34), who in the 4th century was considered the first bishop of Athens. At the Chalcedonian Conference in 533, the Monophysites referred to the expression “single godly energy” used by Dionysius, who became known as the author of the following writings: “On the Heavenly Hierarchy”, “On the Church Hierarchy”, “On the Names of God”, “Mystical Theology”, letters (number 10).

In his writings, the author himself proclaimed himself a disciple of the Apostle Paul, an eyewitness of the eclipse on the day of the Savior’s death and a witness of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. Among its recipients we find Gaius, Timothy, Polycarp of Smyrna (who, as we know, lived in the 2nd century) and St. John the Theologian. No one doubted the authenticity of the “Areopagitik” (as the works of Dionysius began to be called), and a tradition began to form around pseudo-Dionysius. Thus, in the 9th century, a legend arose that he was the first bishop of Paris and died a martyr’s death in Paris in 110. North of Paris, the Basilica of Saint-Denis was built in his honor, where the relics of early Christian martyrs, and later the bodies of French kings, were placed. It is also known that in 827, Byzantine? Emperor Michael II sent as a gift to the French king Louis the Pious an organ (invented] by the way, in Byzantium) and the manuscript of Dionysius Are-(opagite. Gradually, a legend was formed about the holy martyr Dionysius, the patron saint of France, and folk tradition connected this Dionysius with the author of the above-mentioned writings, posing as a disciple of the Apostle Paul.This manuscript is still kept in the Paris National Library.

The first doubts about the authenticity of the writings of Dionysius arose in the 15th century with Erasmus of Rotterdam. The reason for doubt was obvious anachronisms, especially in the book “On the Church Hierarchy,” which describes liturgical customs characteristic only of the 5th-6th centuries, such as the rite of tonsure as a monk and the reading of the Creed at the Liturgy. Apparently the author of Areopagitik did not intend to mislead people. His writings were an intentional pseudepigrapha, but he underestimated the gullibility of his contemporaries, who overlooked the most obvious contradictions (for example, in a letter to John the Theologian, Dionysius quotes his own writings, John, and refers to him as a major authority). Apparently, the author used the name of Dionysius the Areopagite to give more weight to his apologetics, the purpose of which was to unite the Christian system with the hierarchical world of the Neoplatonists. These latter, especially Proclus, are quoted and retold by Dionysius in entire paragraphs. There are the following hypotheses regarding the identity of the author. Firstly, it was suggested, based on the identity of the names, that Dionysius of Alexandria (III century) was hiding under the name Dionysius. But most scholars believe that the writings of pseudo-Dionysius come from moderate Monophysite circles in Syria. Some even suggest that their author was Sevier himself, others - that Peter Mong. In recent times, the most serious (though far from proven) hypothesis has been put forward that the Corpus Areopagiticum belongs to the pen of Peter of Iberia, who, as his nickname indicates, was from Georgia, where there has always been an extraordinary interest in pseudo-Dionysius and even in our time there is society named after him. This assumption is confirmed by the similarity of some details of Peter’s biography with the known facts of the life of pseudo-Dionysius.

The writings of pseudo-Dionysius soon gained great authority. In the East, a commentary on his works was written by St. Maximus the Confessor. All later Byzantine theologians referred to it. Many liturgical customs arose under the influence of his teachings. In the West, the Areo-Pagitica were translated into Latin by Gilduin (9th century), who knew Greek very poorly, which greatly affected the quality of the translation, which was completely unintelligible in places. In the 10th century, Scotus Erigen made new translation, but his work was also replete with errors and opened up the possibility of such different interpretations that Thomas Aquinas, who used this translation, diametrically differed in conclusions from Eastern theologians.

The main theological ideas of pseudo-Dionysius are set out in his book “On the Names of God” and in the treatise “Mystical Theology”, devoted to issues of knowledge of God. In his doctrine of the knowledge of God, he faithfully follows the Cappadocians and, being at the same time an adherent of Platonism, very successfully - much more successfully than Origen - combines Christian and Greek intuition. On the one hand, he follows the path of apophatic theology: like the Neoplatonists, God is unknowable, incomprehensible and does not lend itself to any positive definitions. On the other hand, in two important points Dionysius deviates from Neoplatonic teaching and goes beyond its limits. Firstly, the God of the Neoplatonists (and V. Lossky managed to show this very well) is incomprehensible not in himself, but only because of our fallen nature. His transcendence is relative. Origen also held the same view. According to Platonic teaching, a person has the possibility of purification, that is, deliverance from “fallenness,” and a vision of the very essence of God. Among Christians, even redeemed, purified, deified humanity is incapable of cognizing the essence of God. Knowledge of God is possible only to the extent that God Himself is revealed to man.

According to Plotinus, the transcendence of God is overcome by emanation, which is nothing more than a kind of “diminution” of God. God appears to be something like a full, overflowing cup. It is these drops that a person gets. Pseudo-Dionysius uses the terminology of Plotinus, but in his understanding the emanations of God communicate to us in its entirety His Divinity, for God is not subject to “diminution” - this is the second discrepancy between Dionysius and Neoplatonism:

And this general, united and united property of the whole Divinity is manifested in the fact that it is given to those who partake of Him wholly, and not partially, just as the middle of a circle is common to all the radii emanating from it, or as numerous seal impressions participate in the primitive seal, which at the same time in each imprint it is present in its entirety, but in none of them does it appear partially... But the non-participation (of the Divine) - as a universal cause - surpasses all these comparisons; it itself remains intangible and does not enter into any relationship with what is part of it.

(“On Divine Names”, 2, 5)

According to pseudo-Dionysius, the “descent” (or “condescension”) of God presupposes an “exit” from His own essence, just as the “ascent” of man to God is impossible without “ecstasy,” that is, going beyond the limits of the mind and all bodily sensations. This understanding reflects the Christian mystery personal meetings with God.

Theological teaching of pseudo-Dionysius

Pursuing mainly apologetic goals, pseudo-Dionysius sought consonance between his theological views and the Neoplatonic ideology of the philosophers of his time. This is the reason for his extraordinary popularity: Pseudo-Dionysius performed the main task of theology, which is to explain the Holy Scriptures in categories and terms that are accessible and familiar modern world. Like any theologian, Dionysius faced two dangers on this path: to distort the essence of his teaching to suit the tastes and demands of his contemporaries, or to completely forget about his audience and “begin to repeat favorite quotes.”

The doctrine of knowledge of God

In his teaching on the knowledge of God, pseudo-Dionysius avoids both of these extremes. Preaching the Neoplatonic doctrine of divine transcendence, he at the same time faithfully follows the Cappadocians, preserving the essence of the Christian Revelation. According to his teaching, God is unknowable and incomprehensible, but not only due to the “fallenness” of the universe, but for the simple reason that creation is creation, and God is God - incomprehensible in His being “by His own principle or property.” Between God and creation there is an insurmountable gulf for the creature. If the transcendence of God were a consequence of the fall of creation, then the immediate result of the Redemption would be the possibility of knowing God in His essence: This approach is incompatible with the Christian view of the knowledge of God, and it was precisely this point that represented the greatest difficulty in overcoming Neoplatonism with Christianity. In Neoplatonism there was no place for understanding God as the Creator who created a free world, which even in a fallen state retains freedom in relation to its Creator. The peculiarity of divine Revelation lies precisely in the statement that, in the words of G. Florovsky, “God, being everything and everyone, creates something that is not He.” This is also the secret of freedom - a concept unfamiliar to Platonists, for whom time is locked in repeating circuits that take into account any meaning of human freedom and history.

The merit of the author of the Areopagitik lies in the fact that he once and for all went beyond Platonic views. In his system of knowledge of God, the path to God consists of two steps - purification, or catharsis, and "losing one's temper", or ecstasy. After the purification sufficient for Neoplatonists, the second stage follows: it consists in the paradox of “going out of oneself” to meet God, whose knowledge “exceeds the mind.” The idea of ​​ecstasy is connected with the already familiar idea of ​​love, eros, which we encountered in the teachings of Origen and St. Gregory of Nyssa, who saw in the biblical images of erotic love allegories of the soul’s desire for God. Eros cannot be kept to oneself; it always breaks out and is directed at someone else. In the same way, the soul, inspired by the love of God, “loses itself” and rushes towards the unattainable object of its desire - a movement presented by Dionysius as a constant and endless approach to God, whose existence is inexhaustible.

Cosmology

The cosmological system of pseudo-Dionysius, set out in the book On the Heavenly Hierarchy, is far from being as convincing and philosophically strong, but it nevertheless had a great influence on the development of Christian thought. Dionysius's teaching on world order is directly related to his liturgical mysticism, reflected in the church hierarchy, the views on which are set out in the book “On the Church Hierarchy.” Both of these books about “hierarchies” reflect the so-called Alexandrian worldview, according to which the whole world is organized according to the principle of a hierarchical ladder. The author appears to have been driven by a desire to somehow bridge the gap between absolute God and relative creation, thereby making his cosmology acceptable to Neoplatonists, while at the same time preserving intact the Christian idea of ​​the transcendence of God. The disadvantage of this worldview was the obvious illusory nature of all intermediate stages: in essence, it was the same Hellenistic cosmology dressed up in Christian dress.

The purpose of the heavenly hierarchy, according to Dionysius, is the possibility of assimilating creation to God, a kind of “imitation of God.” The Greek word he uses hierarchy presupposes movement, a certain dynamic striving of creation towards God. Classifying the ranks of the hierarchy, he uses the trinitarian principle, fashionable among Neoplatonists: Greek thought, which did not distinguish between ontology and aesthetics, loved to see triads everywhere. The Dionysian angelic orders were organized into three triads. At the top of the stairs, as if on the threshold of the Divinity, there are cherubim, seraphim and thrones - this is the first triad. On the second stage there are dominions, powers and authorities, on the third - the principles, archangels and angels. The ranks of each hierarchical level have access to God only through the ranks of a higher level, and thus the heavenly and earthly worlds seem to merge. Each triad transmits down some aspect of the Divine without diminishing the Source.

Mentions of the angelic ranks are found in the book of the prophet Daniel and in other Old Testament books, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus also speaks about them, but only pseudo-Dionysius classified them with the accuracy characteristic of him alone. For the Christian tradition, this classification is a great inconvenience, because the Old Testament angelology is complex and does not fit into the hierarchy of Dionysius. For example, the seraphim in the book of the prophet Isaiah is the direct messenger of God. The Church honors Archangel Michael as the head of the heavenly army (in the Epistle of Jude he fights Satan), and in some apocryphal works he is almost equal to God, but in the system of Dionysius the archangel rank is one of the lowest in the heavenly hierarchy. In general, we can say that Dionysius’ classification of heavenly powers does not correspond to the biblical revelation about them, and his triads must be recognized as a fictitious construction.

As a side note, it is worth noting that there is reason to believe that protoctists(“created in the beginning”), heretics, about whom Saint Sava went to complain to Constantinople, were somehow connected with pseudo-Dionysius. In his view, indeed, the hierarchy of powers of the created world was “created from the beginning”, and is not a consequence of the Fall, as those who were at enmity with them claimed Orngenists-isochrists.

It is amazing that in the structure of the pseudo-Dionysian system there is no place for faith in the Incarnation, even the name of Christ is almost not mentioned. In this regard, the fact that his teachings were assimilated by the Church can be attributed to the realm of rather amazing historical phenomena. Of course, it was accepted into the general conciliar channel of Tradition with the necessary amendments. Thus, Saint Gregory Palamas accepts the classification of Dionysius, but with the only caveat that the Incarnation violated the original order: in violation of all hierarchical ranks, God sent the Archangel Gabriel, that is, one of the lower angels, to announce the good news of the Incarnation to the Virgin Mary. Reflecting the same idea, the hymns of the feasts of the Ascension and Dormition of the Virgin Mary proclaim the surprise of the angels (“angels marveling”) that human nature in the person of Christ and the Mother of God “ascends from earth to heaven,” completely independent of the angelic hierarchy.

Doctrine of the Church

The heavenly hierarchy, according to Dionysius, corresponds to the church hierarchy - a continuation and reflection of the heavenly one. In this case, the thought of pseudo-Dionysius clearly follows Plato's parallelism between the spiritual and material worlds. The church hierarchy was preceded by the Old Testament "hierarchy from the law", in which the realities of the church hierarchy were presented in tangible types and symbols. The structure of the Church is a "more perfect consecration" called "our hierarchy", which is

at the same time, both heavenly and legal and, being between them, participates in both, sharing with the heavenly hierarchy mental contemplation, and with the legal - the use of various kinds of sensory symbols, through which it ... rises in a sacred way in the direction of the divine .

("Heavenly Hierarchy", 5, 2)

And here Dionysius discovers triads. Three hierarchies at three different levels lead to the contemplation of God: the Old Testament hierarchy at the level of symbols, the intermediate, New Testament hierarchy partly at the level of contemplation, but not completely abandoning symbols, and, finally, “our hierarchy”, the church hierarchy - the highest level of contemplation, adjacent to the world heavenly powers, involved in “angelic splendor.”

Obviously, in in this case Dionysius's thought is arbitrary and unclear. Moreover, his theory completely ignores the Incarnation. Unfortunately, despite its artificiality, his system had a huge influence on the ecclesiology not only of that time, but also of subsequent centuries, redefining the entire relationship between God and man. These relationships were squeezed by Dionysius into a hierarchical structure and completely determined by a system of intermediaries:

If someone pronounces the word “hierarch,” he speaks of a deified and divine man who has mastered all sacred knowledge, in which the entire hierarchy subordinate to him has the best way improvement and self-expression.

("On the Heavenly Hierarchy", 1, 3)

The God-like hierarch, who fully participates in hierarchical power, is not only not content with receiving through divine enlightenment the true meaning of all ritual words and hierarchical sacraments, but, moreover, it is he who transmits them to others in in accordance with their hierarchical status and it is he, being endowed with the pinnacle of divine knowledge and the highest power of spiritual ascension, who makes the holiest initiations into the hierarchical ranks.

("On the Church Hierarchy", 5, 7)

Episcopacy is thus portrayed not as an element of internal structure in the church community, but as a state of the individual. In general, it is not entirely clear who this “god-like hierarch” is, who and what he initiates. The hierarch of pseudo-Dionysius (and he uses this word not only to designate a bishop, but also great personalities of antiquity: Melchizedek, Moses, Zechariah and even the seraphim from the vision of the prophet Isaiah), unlike the bishop of Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer (Antioch), not presides over the church community as its head, and is busy transmitting mysterious knowledge and enlightenment down the hierarchical ladder. The very word "initiation" as used by Dionysius carries with it a strong flavor of Gnosticism.

For him, the Eucharist has only a symbolic and moral meaning:

The very fact of the divine distribution of one bread and one cup, received peacefully and together, teaches them, eating the same food, to unite morally and live perfectly in God.

("On the Church Hierarchy", 3, 3)

The Eucharist in this understanding is not a means of communion with God - it is only a shadow of that important, real thing, what the Areopagite calls hierarchy and which, in his opinion, first of all expresses the universal inclination of the creature to strive for its Creator:

Hierarchy represents a sacred order, a science leading to the greatest possible likeness to the divine and, as enlightenment is bestowed by God, in accordance with its powers, elevating in the direction of imitation of God.

("On the Heavenly Hierarchy", 3, 1)

It is interesting that in the actual description of the church hierarchy, Dionysius distinguishes only two triads, and not three, as would be natural to expect based on the principle of the relationship between the heavenly and earthly order. The first triad - the sacred ranks - includes bishops, priests and deacons. It should be noted that Dionysius never uses the word “bishop”, but instead introduces the term “hierarch” - a reinterpretation of the biblical term “bishop”, that is, high priest. In the second triad, the triad of worldly ranks, Are-opagite distinguishes between monks, ordinary people and those in need of purification - catechumens, penitents and possessed people. Obviously, the church hierarchy of pseudo-Dionysius, as well as his classification of heavenly ranks, is extremely arbitrary. He nowhere explains why the three angelic ranks correspond to only two earthly ones, and in general his entire classification is nothing more than a game of the mind. In a similar way, you can build any system, which is what generations of theologians did after Dionysius: the interpretation of his teachings became, as it were, a special discipline of theology. In the 11th century, the monk of the Studite monastery Nikita Stifat, having decided that one triad was missing in the church hierarchy, added another highest rank to the system - patriarchs, metropolitans and archbishops - another proof of the nominality of the entire system.

Pseudo-Dionysius had a huge influence on liturgical theology and the theology of the sacraments, and this influence can be seen in the smallest details of worship and the structure of the Church. Thus, in his explanation of the Eucharist, grace and the divine presence are described as a kind of divine energies flowing through individual people. This interpretation eventually led to the Byzantines beginning to see in some church rituals like a barrier! protection from excessive grace, which without mediation nikov would be all-consuming and unbearable for mere mortals. To protect the laity from an overly powerful flow of grace, the Royal Doors are closed. that during anaphora. The iconostasis with opening and closing doors controls the “dosage) of grace, which in no case can be received all at once, “in one go.” Undoubtedly, this understanding, which we find in the same Nicetas Stiphatus and in many other Byzantine theologians, is associated with borrowed from the Neoplatonists by the idea of ​​esoteric initiation, on the one hand, and with court ceremonial, on the other.

Fortunately, despite the fact that the influence of Dionysius was deeply rooted in the church consciousness, the Church never completely succumbed to him, keeping intact the Eucharistic prayers and the concept of the sacramental role of the clergy.

The history of interpretation of the teachings of pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite developed in two directions, associated with the presence in it of two different ways communication with God: the first way is theology - communication at the level of the individual, direct and mystical; the second is theurgy - the activity of the hierarchy and numerous intermediaries. Accordingly, the teachings of the Areopagite were interpreted, firstly, in the direction of charismatic leadership, and secondly, in the legalistic categories of Western ecclesiology, which led to extreme forms of clericalism in the scholastic and post-scholastic periods.

Teaching about Christ

The Christology of pseudo-Dionysius is also extremely vague. He avoids talking about the Incarnation, about the events of the Savior’s life. Christ of Dionysius is not a Savior, but the highest revelation of the divine nature, an Initiator, a Teacher, like Origen, instructing fallen intellects on the path of return to the Creator. Jesus for him is “the most divine spirit, the beginning, the essence and the most divine power of the entire hierarchy, all holiness and all divine actions” (“On the Heavenly Hierarchy”, 1, 1). The description of the Incarnation is replete with superlatives:

Jesus Himself, the super-existent cause of super-heavenly beings, who descended to our level without losing His immortality, does not deviate from the beautiful order established and chosen by Him for the sake of human convenience, but obediently submits to the plans of God His Father, communicated to Him by the angels.

("On the Heavenly Hierarchy", 4, 4)

In other words, the Incarnation for the Areopagite represents only a function of a hierarchical structure: the coming of Christ made it possible to project a fixed, once and for all established heavenly order onto our created world.

Despite the obvious vagueness of Dionysius's Christological views, he - as we said earlier - was able to express a truly Christian approach to the knowledge of God, transforming Neoplatonic terminology from within. This is his main merit as a theologian and apologist. However, his teaching on hierarchies, often taken too literally by his contemporaries and commentators, confused rather than clarified Byzantine ideas about the Church and the sacraments.

In 532, at the Church Council of Constantinople, they were presented

works that turned out to be signed with the name of Dionysius the Areopagite -

who lived in Athens in the 1st century, converted to Christianity by the Apostle Paul and

who became the first bishop of Athens. These events are mentioned in Acts

Apostles". The corpus of writings attributed to Dionysius includes four

large religious and philosophical works - "On the names of God", "On the mysterious

theology" ("On Mystical Theology"), "On the Heavenly Hierarchy" and "On

church hierarchy" - as well as ten letters. All these writings were

written in Greek and translated into Latin only in the 9th century.

It was later established that the works attributed to Dionysius

were actually written in the 5th century. in Syria, which was then part of

this account in modern science There are several different opinions. That's why

works by the Areopagitists.

Already in the Renaissance it was revealed that the author of the Areopagitik

The teachings of Neoplatonism had a huge influence. Moreover, if the majority

Christian philosophers of the 4th-5th centuries. relied on rational elements

Neoplatonism, then in the "Areopagitics" it is used to a greater extent

mystical features. The possibility of mystical knowledge of God - that's what

preached in the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius.

Pseudo-Dionysius believes that Christian theology has two methods

comprehension of God. The first is the positive path (in Greek -

"kata-phatic" theology), when from the very first, lowest concepts (stone,

air, etc.) man, in his quest to understand the essence of God, comes to

higher concepts - Light, Good, Wisdom, Love, Omnipotence, etc. Due to

absoluteness of God, all his names mentioned in the Holy

Scripture. However, this path does not lead to the discovery of Divine truth, for

It is impossible to express the essence of God in human concepts.

Therefore, Pseudo-Dionysius himself formulates the so-called negative

the path of knowledge, or negative (in Greek - “apophatic”) theology.

Its essence lies in the fact that in relation to the one and only God

You can only use such names as Supergood, Superwisdom,

Superbeing, etc. Using them, it is necessary to consistently deny everything

possible names and concepts accessible to human understanding, for God is completely

is not like any of them.

God is not accessible to human feelings and thoughts at all, is not comprehended

neither sensually nor mentally, since it is beyond the limits of the human

understanding, “Towards the hidden,” writes Pseudo-Dionysius, “we rush,

renouncing all mental activity." And in this sense he comes to

recognizing the correctness of only the mystical understanding of God, which is very close in

his character to Neoplatonic ecstasy.

If in positive theology God becomes “all-named,” then in

negative theology of Pseudo-Dionysius affirms the absolute

"namelessness" of God. And in general, the ineffability and unknowability of God is

the pinnacle of human understanding. This is the main idea

"Areopagitik".

Knowledge about God that is close to the truth can only be achieved as

mystical epiphanies: "If anyone says that some saints

God himself appeared directly, let him understand from the Holy Scriptures and

other; that no one has seen or will see the hidden things of God, but the manifestation of God

the righteous were accomplished through divine and commensurate visions and

explanations."

The Lord pours invisible supernatural light onto everything He created,

which is described in the Areopagitica with extraordinary artistry:

"Divine darkness is that inaccessible light in which, as it is said in

Scripture, God dwells. This light is invisible due to excessive clarity and

inaccessible due to the excess of super-essential light, and in this darkness

everyone enters who has been honored to know and see God precisely through

non-seeing and non-cognition, but truly rises above seeing and

knowledge, knowing that God is in everything sensible and in everything

intelligible."

God in general is “the Beginning and the End of all beings”: “their Beginning, since He

is their Cause, their End, since He is their highest goal."

God gives birth to goodness and love through outpourings of light, and through goodness and

love creates the entire universe. At the same time, love moves everyone every second.

beings and leads them to God again. Therefore, in the understanding of Pseudo-Dionysius, on

the path of love is accessible to man, but that which is inaccessible on the path of reason -

approaching the knowledge of God.

The earthly, corporeal world is created by God in the very last place, after

how he creates the heavenly world - the heavenly hierarchy. In human

society Divine light finds its full reflection only in the church,

therefore, it is the church hierarchy that reflects the heavenly hierarchy,

therefore, the church itself is the embodiment of Divine light on Earth. AND

only the church is capable of opening people's eyes to Divine truth.

The teachings of Pseudo-Dionysius became extremely popular both in the East and in

Western churches. IN Western Europe"Areopagitiki" became widely known in

9th century, when they were translated into Latin, because most Catholic

theologians did not know Greek. Western and later Roman Catholic

The Areopagitiki Church was attracted by its teaching on the primacy of the church

in human life.

In the East, the works of Pseudo-Dionysius became known earlier.

Orthodox thinkers paid more attention to justification

Pseudo-Dionysius the possibility of mystical knowledge of God, for it is precisely in

In mysticism, many of them saw the path to comprehension of Divine truth.

Byzantine thought has always faced a significant problem - the relationship between Greek philosophy and Christian Revelation. The condemnation of Origenism under Justinian, of course, was an important stage in the history of Byzantine Hellenism, which was constantly in conflict with itself. A serious blow was dealt to the so-called “Alexandrian worldview,” which is a combination of the teachings of Aristotle and Plato and constitutes the essence of the Neoplatonist system. Neoplatonism gained acceptance in Christian circles from the time of Clement and Origen, after it had already been widely accepted by the Gnostics. According to this teaching, the world is a hierarchical structure, all elements of which come from God and strive towards Him, with those higher in the hierarchy serving as intermediaries for the lower. Trying to resolve the problem of the relationship between the absolute and the relative, the philosophical “method” of Neoplatonism deliberately multiplies the number of intermediaries, endowing them with prophetic and theurgic functions. This method satisfies the typically Hellenistic need to perceive the world as a harmonious whole (kosmos), subject to an eternal and metaphysically necessary order (eimarmenh). But since the idea of ​​creation ex nihilo is completely excluded, the method of Neoplatonism does not allow us to avoid a monistic and essentially pantheistic view of the universe.

Following Philo, Origen tried to reconcile this system with biblical Revelation. To do this, he had to explain the existence of hierarchy as the result of an initial fall. The differentiation of minds into angelic, human and demonic is the result of their self-determination in relation to evil, and not a consequence of divine necessity. Thus, at this point, Origen makes significant adjustments to the system of Neoplatonism, professing the doctrine of free will. Lacking a clear concept of creation, he was unable to avoid the monism inherent in Neoplatonic philosophy, which resulted in the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls and universal restoration, condemned in 553.

However, at the very moment of its condemnation, this “Alexandrian worldview” appears in a new form, using for its own purposes the authority of Dionysius the Areopagite, an Athenian student of St. Pavel. Since the identity of the author is unknown, it is very difficult to determine the historical connection with Origenism. The issue deserves careful study. Today it is generally accepted that the unknown author of the Corpus Areopagiticuin belonged to the Sevirian circles of Syria, that is, to moderate Monophysites. In addition, it is known that in these circles the Neoplatonic way of thinking, common to Origen, Evagrius and Pseudo-Dionysius, was widespread with its desire to include the hierarchical world of Neoplatonism in the Christian system. This essentially apologetic attitude best explains such an exceptional phenomenon in the history of Christian thought as the Corpus Areopagiticum. Being directly influenced by Proclus, the last of the great Neoplatonists, the author of Areopagiticuin does not, like Origen, resort to the biblical idea of ​​the Fall to explain the hierarchy of the world, but considers it as blessed by God and assigns it a positive role in his teaching about the relationship between God and creation (which he strives to communicate Christian content). He believed that he would be able to preserve the essence of the Christian Revelation intact by introducing changes into the Neoplatonic system he adopted related to the doctrine of the absolute transcendence of God.

We do not aim to give full analysis Dionysian system. We will only determine its place in the context of the Byzantine teaching on salvation, on which Dionysius had a certain influence. The main focus will be on Dionysius' teaching about God, "theology" in the proper sense of the word, and the hierarchical concept.

Before Dionysius, the question of knowledge of God in Greek patristics was considered mainly in the 4th century and was associated with polemics against the extreme Arians, Eunomius and Anomeans. The great Cappadocians and St. took part in this most important dispute. John Chrysostom. According to Eunomius, the divine essence, which he identified with the essence of the Father, the Unbegotten, is accessible to the human mind; man is capable of knowing God to the same extent that God knows Himself. This teaching of St. The Fathers opposed apophatic, or negative, theology: the divine essence is unknowable, therefore it is impossible to say what God is, you can only know what He is not. Any positive definition of God implies His identification with something. But St. The Fathers argued that God exceeds everything, and that is why nothing can limit His being. A knowable God would inevitably be limited, since our created mind is limited by nature.

Having identified the divine being with the essence of the Father, Eunomius confronted Christian thought with the following alternative: either recognize the divine essence as knowable, or fall into agnosticism. The Origenist direction, which Eunomius himself adhered to in its simplified rationalist version, leaned towards the first. Of course, Origen, following Philo, spoke of “divine darkness,” but he thereby sought to exclude any material or sensory images from the knowledge of God. His negative theology was associated with “Platonic” anthropology, where the dematerialization of the mind was declared a condition for true knowledge. The mind, once freed from bodily fetters and emerging from a fallen state, is restored, according to Origen, to its original divinity and becomes capable of contemplating God in His essence. Thus, the unknowability of God is caused by the imperfection of fallen minds, and not by the Divine essence itself. The Cappadocian Fathers, on the contrary, insisted on the absolute transcendence of the Divine essence. Negative definitions of apophatic theology are not limited to simply pointing out that it is impossible for fallen man to know God - they postulate the fundamental unknowability of God Himself, Who is absolutely transcendent, for He is the Creator and Almighty. But doesn't this lead to agnosticism? Not at all. St. Gregory of Nyssa, drawing attention to the obvious contradiction between the promise to “see” God, given with a pure heart (Matthew 5:8), and the words of the apostle. Paul (God “no man has seen” (1 Tim. 6:16), writes: “He, being invisible by nature, becomes visible through His energies, manifested in what surrounds Him.” St. Basil the Great also states , that “[God’s] energies descend to us, while His essence remains unapproachable." His opponent objects: “If you do not know the Divine essence, then you do not know God Himself.” To which St. Basil replies: “ How am I saved? By faith. But by faith you can know that God exists, not that He is.”

In a dispute with Eunomius, St. The Fathers firmly defended the biblical concept of a living, active God as opposed to the rationalistic philosophical concept of God as an Essence. On this point their theological thought was particularly clear, although the terminology they used to express their teaching was still far from being established.

At the level of theology (qeologia) in the strict sense of the word, Pseudo-Dionysius continues and develops this thought of St. Fathers. Borrowing the language and conceptual system of the Neoplatonists, he nevertheless definitely dissociates himself from the latter and speaks of transcendence as a quality inherent specifically in the divine essence. For Dionysius, God is “Super-essential” (uperousios) and, therefore, cannot be identified with any knowable object - He is beyond all knowledge. In the first chapter of his treatise “On the Divine Names” Dionysius writes:

Just as the mental is elusive and invisible to the sensible, and simple and imageless to those endowed with shape and image, and to those formed in the form of bodies the insensible and formless formlessness of the incorporeal, so, according to the same word of truth, above essences there is a super-essential uncertainty...

According to the Platonic and Origenist tradition, the mind, in order to know God, must free itself from its fallen state and from the beings around it; in other words, he must become himself again. According to Dionysius, this “casting off of fetters” is not enough; the mind must come out of itself, since the knowledge of God “exceeds the mind” uper noun. The mind is given a special way of knowledge - “through ignorance” (di agnwsias). The angelic ranks themselves, who by definition and nature are purely spiritual creatures, constantly enjoy this mysterious contemplation, but they cannot reach its highest level. Dionysius presents angelic knowledge as permanent, for even for angels God remains unknowable in His essence, revealing Himself through theurgic actions. These actions “unite”, but do not lead directly to That which for Plato was One in essence, opposed to the plurality of beings; for God is “unknowable either to us or to any other beings, neither as One nor as Trinity,” although He is at once One and Three, the transcendental cause that for us there is both unity and plurality.

Pseudo-Dionysius thus completely denies two Neoplatonic postulates: the natural divinity of the mind (nous) and the knowability of the divine essence. His God is the transcendental biblical God the Creator, and not the One Dam, which, of course, does not exclude communication between God and creation; on the contrary, this communication constitutes the goal and the highest meaning of the creature’s existence. God descends, leaves Himself in order to become accessible and knowable; created beings ascend: first they acquire godlikeness, that is, the ability to participate in divine virtues, then, leaving themselves, they partake of the existence of God (but not His essence) and thus “return” (epistrojh) to God.

The descent of God to creatures is described by Dionysius in terms reminiscent of Plotinus’ “processions.” God is not only “One” and “Silence”: He multiplies Himself, He expresses Himself and He appears. He is not only a transcendental entity, but also the cause of all existence, revealed in actions. In order to be understood by his contemporary Neoplatonists, Dionysius speaks of the duality of the Divine nature in a completely specific language. So, he writes:

As I have already said, the holy founders of our theological tradition call divine unity (enwseis tas qeias) a secret and incommunicable reality, which is deeper than any foundation, a reality that constitutes this unity, which cannot be said to be inexpressible and unknowable. And they call differences (diakriseis) origins and manifestations worthy of a decent thearchy (tas agaqoprepeis ths Qearcias proodous te kai ekjanseis).

According to Dionysius, since the divine essence is not identified with the “One” of Plotinus, it is possible to talk about the differences in God, which are the basis of His omnipresence and all-causality. This is exactly what it is main theme treatise “On Divine Names”:

The Deity is Supergood (uperagaqon), Superdivine (uperqeos), Superessential (uperousion), Superliving (uperzwon), Superwise (upersojon), because It does not fit into our concepts of the good, the divine, the essential, the living and the wise, and we are forced to apply to Him all these expressions of negation, implying superiority; since He is also the true cause of everything that exists; one can apply to Him the names Good, Beautiful, Existing, Source of Life, Wise, since all this refers to the grace-filled gifts of the Divine, who is therefore called the Cause of all Good.

Thus, we can say that God “permeates” the universe, that the ideas of beauty, goodness, and wisdom that reveal themselves to us in the knowledge of the world truly bring us into communication with God. But God cannot be identified with these ideas: He remains transcendent, being their cause.

Like any Platonist who develops ideas about unity and difference in God, Dionysius faced two dangers in his theology. The first is pantheism, and the second is the Platonic doctrine of emanation. The idea of ​​a transcendent and "super-essential" God eliminated the danger of pantheism from the very beginning. Dionysius firmly adhered to the concept of causality, which asserted the participation of things in their cause. Such participation was allowed by the doctrine of Divine “powers” ​​and “processions”, thanks to which the Divinity becomes on the same level with its creatures and becomes accessible to them. According to Plotinus, these findings represent a diminishment of the Divinity; emanations, by the very fact that they emanate from the One, lose the fullness of divine existence. Dionysius consciously avoided this trap, which could lead him to the concept of the fragmentation of God. He's writing:

And this is inherent in the whole, united and united Divinity: each of those who partake of it partakes of the whole, and no one partakes of only some part of it. Likewise, all the radii located in a circle are involved in its center, and the prints of the seal have much in common with its original: the original is present in each of the prints in its entirety, and in none of them - only some of its parts. The non-participation of the all-causal Divinity exceeds even this, since it is impossible to touch It, nor do there exist any other means for communion with It.

In the description of the descent of God, implying His “exit” from His essence, just as in the description of man’s ascent to God, based on the concept of “ecstasy,” that is, going beyond all manifestations of human activity, bodily, visual and intellectual, Dionysius , undoubtedly, comes very close to the mystery of a personal meeting with the Divine. Who is God, wholly present in processes and actions ad extra, and at the same time remaining unapproachable, if not the personal God of the Bible? In the same way, a person who renounces all created things, including his own mind, for the sake of knowing God, in which he retains his true humanity, if not in the first and fundamental principle existence, which Christian theology calls hypostasis? Dionysius' profound insight becomes apparent where the Neoplatonic jargon usually prevalent in the Areopagitica gives way to more traditional expressions associated with Christological and eschatological themes:

Then, when we become incorruptible and immortal, and achieve a state similar to Christ and completely blessed, we will always be with the Lord, as Scripture says (1 Thess. 4:17), fully enjoying the purest contemplation of His visible theophany, which will enlighten us with their dazzling rays, as disciples during the Divine Transfiguration itself, and, participating with our dispassionate and immaterial mind in His accessible radiance, through the unknown and blissful manifestation of these bright rays we will achieve a super-incomprehensible unity, in Divine likeness to super-heavenly minds. For as the Word of Truth, so we will be equal to the angels and will be sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

The purely Christian spirit of this passage, which summarizes those aspects in which Dionysius is clearly distinguished from Neoplatonism and in which the Christian understanding of the knowledge of God is expressed in a language accessible to Neoplatonists, explains why the teaching of Dionysius as a whole was able to exert such an influence on later Christian theology. However, it should be noted that Dionysius skillfully avoids any explicit reference to the personal understanding of hypostasis, which the Cappadocian Fathers applied in the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity and which was used in the famous Christological definition of the Council of Chalcedon. In a well-known passage from the treatise “On the Divine Names,” Dionysius speaks of God, who is both Unity and Trinity, and asserts that for our knowledge it is impossible to really reach God either as Unity or as Trinity, since God is the Cause, nameless and transcendental to any number and any unity. So, here there is nothing left from the meeting with the personal and triune God. Such restraint in the reasoning of Dionysius at a time when there was no well-founded doctrine of hypostasis, on the one hand, may be a consequence of his belonging to Monophysite circles that were sharply negative towards Chalcedon, in which they refused to distinguish between nature and hypostasis, and on the other hand - may be due to apologetic interests that forced Dionysius to adopt a Neoplatonic point of view in his works. Limited by this attitude, he only sometimes comes to conclusions in which the biblical concept of the living God becomes obvious.

Dionysius himself complains that he is accused of “using the achievements of the Greeks against the Greeks themselves.” In fact, he always tried to do this, and his great merit lies in the fact that he succeeded in at least two fundamental issues. First, in the field of mystical theology, Dionysius successfully showed that the knowledge of God cannot be identified with any natural process, sensory or intellectual, but surpasses them, being knowledge sui generis, suprarational or mystical. Secondly, in the doctrine of God’s relationship to the created world, he went beyond the limits of pantheism and Plotinus’ doctrine of emanation, showing that Divine manifestations, or “names,” speaking of the real and necessary presence of God in the world, do not contradict the transcendence of His essence.

Nevertheless, as J. Lebreton noted, “all these considerations do not take us beyond the boundaries of natural theology.” Dionysius always remained a philosopher, and not a mystic in the modern sense of the word. His goal was to create a theory of knowledge that would meet the requirements of both Neoplatonic philosophy and Christianity. And if in the sphere of theology itself he successfully achieved his goals, then in cosmology and ecclesiology his achievements seem much more controversial. The lack of general Christological premises makes his attempts to completely bridge the gap between the Gospel and Neoplatonism illusory.

The essential features of the Greek worldview were the hierarchy of the cosmos and the inviolability of the cosmic order, which were the condition for universal beauty and harmony, as well as an expression of the divine origin of the world. Having mastered the principles of Hellenistic cosmology, Origen and Evagrius tried to explain the hierarchical structure of the cosmos by the free self-determination of creatures and the fall that was a consequence of their freedom. Unlike Origen, Dionysius holds an opinion about the divine origin of the hierarchy, gives it a significant place in his concept of the relationship between God and the world, “replenishing” it with biblical, liturgical and sacramental ideas borrowed from church tradition. There is no doubt that here too he pursues the goal of defending the Christian tradition and making it acceptable to Neoplatonist intellectuals. At times this attitude even takes on the appearance of direct polemics. For example, after a brief description of the sacrament of baptism, he seems to directly address his pagan interlocutor:

This dedication in some measure symbolizes the sacred birth of God in us and does not contain anything inappropriate or blasphemous, it does not even contain any sensual images, but rather reflects the mystery of divine contemplation in natural mirrors adapted to human nature. In what way may this rite seem imperfect,... imprinting the initiate with its holy instructions and prescribing for him a holy life...?

Such an apologetic orientation in the 6th century author is explained by the very nature of Neoplatonism of that time. Following Proclus and Iamblichus, and also influenced by Eastern cults, the Neoplatonic movement attached more and more importance to theurgy and mysteries. It inspired its followers to seek not so much philosophical satisfaction for the mind as direct communication with the Divine and sought to combine philosophy and religion in an integral system. As Emil Breuer believes, this trend represented a search for a method that would make it possible to logically re-think thousands of religious images, called gods, demons, heroes, etc. in paganism, and to understand their special place in the spiritual world. This detailed classification is alien to the spiritual life that filled the Enneads [Damus] - it reduces it to the level of the diligent work of a theologian, on the one hand, or the practice of a theurgist, on the other.

Dionysius did a similar thing, with the only difference that the religious images that he inscribes into the philosophical structures of late Neoplatonism are Christian. Here lies the explanation of the Dionysian doctrine of two “hierarchies”, heavenly and ecclesiastical.

The debate over the real name of Pseudo-Dionysius, although it did not lead to satisfactory results in itself, at least made it possible to accurately determine that the author was strongly influenced by the Neoplatonists of the 5th century, especially Iamblichus and Proclus. Everything that exists comes from the transcendent, incommunicable One and is enclosed in a rigid system of gradations, where the position of everything that exists is determined by the degree of its distance from the beginning. Moreover, each higher rank (taxis), on the one hand, serves as an intermediary in relation to the lower one, and on the other hand, it is itself divided into three elements: an element that is impossible to join (ameqektos), an element accessible to joining (meqektos), and the element communing (metecwn), forming a triad. According to Proclus, the divine procession (proodos) is communicated through a system of intermediaries, the consequence of which is the return (epistrojh) of each thing to the One. As we have seen, Dionysius remains a convinced Christian, asserting that God is higher than the One, of which He is the cause, that the concepts of being, life, wisdom and reason are Divine names - they do not belong to lower hierarchical levels; procession is not a diminution of the Divine being, but the presence of the entire fullness of the Divinity in every thing. However, the parallelism with Proclus remains in the very principle of constructing a system of intermediaries divided into triads, intended to transmit Divine knowledge to lower levels. Their purpose is to “bring God out of silence,” to initiate lower levels into the knowledge of higher ones and thus serve as channels for the descending manifestations of God, as well as for the ascent of created beings to the transcendental Good.

Dionysius is the founder of what later became the classical classification of angelic forces, including nine “ranks”, divided into three triads. The first triad, “seated directly around God, in greater proximity than all the others” and “in contact with the eternal radiance of the thearchy,” are the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones; the second heavenly triad is Dominions, Powers and Powers; the latter consists of the Principalities, Archangels and Angels. Although individually all these names can be found in the Bible, it is obvious that the structure proposed by Dionysius itself has no basis in Scripture. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. John Chrysostom and the author of the collection called “Apostolic Constitutions” mention the entire series of nine Dionysian titles, but in a different order. That is, some desire to classify angelic powers undoubtedly existed, but Dionysius systematized it and gave it a metaphysical justification.

According to Dionysius, the heavenly hierarchy corresponds to the church hierarchy, which is a continuation and reflection of the heavenly one. Nowhere in Dionysius’s reasoning does the Platonic opposition of the sensible to the intelligible predominate so clearly as in his teaching about the Church. It seems that the starting point for him was the allegorical and symbolic interpretations of the Old Testament of the Alexandrian exegesis 33. Without dwelling on it in too much detail and without studying it as such, Dionysius often speaks of a “legal” hierarchy (h kata nomon ierarcia), the purpose of which was to reveal in sensory images and symbols the intelligible realities of the celestial hierarchy. Since the time of Philo, this has been the method in common use to enable the Hellenistic world to understand the Old Testament. As for Dionysius, he considers this method as an intellectual-propaedeutic step for creating his ecclesiological concept. The legal hierarchy leads to the thought of a “more perfect initiation,” that is, “our hierarchy” (h kaq hmas ierarcia). The latter is

at once heavenly and legal, participating, thanks to its middle position, in both hierarchies, sharing, on the one hand, intellectual contemplation, and on the other, various sensual symbols, through which it rises in a sacred manner in the direction of the Divine.

This strange definition of the ecclesiastical hierarchy shows that Dionysius remains essentially captive in the dichotomy of the sensible and the intelligible, and that he lacks the philosophical means to express the realities associated with the Incarnation. He shares, however, the theory of the unity of the structure of the cosmos, introducing the church hierarchy into the same system that includes the heavenly ranks. “Our hierarchy,” he writes, “is assimilated as much as possible [to the heavenly hierarchy], so that it can possess angelic splendor, receive its imprint and rise to the super-essential First Cause that governs every hierarchy.”

This establishes the parallelism of the ecclesiastical and heavenly hierarchies and the dependence of the former on the latter, but we are surprised to find only two triads or six “ranks” of the church hierarchy: the triad of initiates, corresponding to the clergy, and the triad of initiates, or laity.

The triad of consecrators includes bishops, whom Dionysius calls “hierarchs” in order to emphasize that they are in the full sense “chiefs of the hierarchy”; priests (iereis); and deacons, called ministers (leitourgoi). The triad of initiates includes monks, laypeople and the rank of purifiers (catechumens and penitents). We see that Dionysius introduces some traditional elements into his system, for example, he recognizes in the bishop the center of the entire mysterious life of the local Church. But the shortcomings of this system are obvious. Is it possible strictly, in the manner prescribed by Dionysius, to maintain the connection between the dedicator and the initiate between different levels of the church hierarchy? Is it possible to construct an accurate theology of church orders, saying with Dionysius that the bishop “sanctifies and completes,” the priest “enlightens,” and the deacon “purifies”? It is quite obvious that Dionysius, who knew well the church ministries practiced in his time (the secretive role of the bishop, the function of the priest, mainly educational and educational, the catechetical and liturgical role of the deacon associated with baptism), is building a system in which these ministries, divorced from their context, are artificial illustrations.

Apart from its arbitrary nature, a significant drawback of the Dionysian system is that it distorts the main direction followed by ecclesiology during the first five centuries. Framed within hierarchical structures, the relationship between God and man is interpreted in a purely individualistic sense. The episcopate, for example, is not defined as an element internal structure church community, a member of the Body of Christ, and as a personal condition of a person. Dionysius writes:

If someone pronounces the word “hierarch,” then he is talking about a deified and divine person who has mastered all sacred knowledge, in which the entire hierarchy subordinate to him has the best means of improvement and self-expression.

The God-like hierarch (qeoeidhs hierarchs), wholly and entirely participating in hierarchical power, is not only not content with receiving through Divine enlightenment the true meaning of all ritual words and hierarchical sacraments, but moreover, it is he who transmits them to others in accordance with their hierarchical status, and it is he , being endowed with the pinnacle of divine knowledge and the highest power of spiritual ascension, makes the most holy initiations into hierarchical ranks.

Dionysian hierarch (and it should be noted that this word means not only a bishop, but also great personalities of Scripture, such as Melchizedek, Moses, Zechariah, Seraphim from the 6th chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah) is essentially a Gnostic concept, it means a person dedicated into the secret, transmitting knowledge and light to individuals. The concept of church-community, which Dionysius must have known about, is absent from his teaching. The concept of sacrament is thus reduced to the transmission of personal insight. True, Dionysius used the traditional term “synaxis” to designate the Eucharist, implying a meeting of the faithful and public service, but this concept was not reflected in his concept of the sacrament; the rite has only a symbolic and moral meaning: “The very divine distribution of the same Bread and the same Cup, done together and peacefully, enjoins them, in so far as they have partaken of the same food, to unite morally and live perfectly in God.” And Dionysius immediately limits the meaning of the sacrament:

But let us leave these signs for the imperfect, which, as I have already said, are beautifully depicted in the vestibules and sanctuaries; they are good only to nourish their vision. And with regard to the holy synaxis, we will return from external manifestations to their causes, and thanks to the light that Jesus will send us, we will be able to contemplate in harmony intelligible things, in which the blessed virtues of the archetypes are clearly reflected.

The writings of the Areopagite provide important historical evidence for liturgical practice Eastern Church in the fifth and sixth centuries. For example, the inclusion of monastic tonsure and funeral rites among the sacraments of the Church reminds modern liturgists and theologians that the doctrine of the sevenfold number of sacraments is relatively recent, it was accepted quite late by some Byzantine authors and until today has not formally received universal recognition in the East. However, Dionysius' interest in the history of the liturgy and sacraments is not limited to the realm of facts. The doctrine of hierarchies, with its dichotomy of the sensory and the intelligible, dictated to Dionysius such an idea of ​​the sacraments that would correspond to his entire system - for those who saw in him a disciple of St. Paul and perceived his works as an integral part of the tradition, this created problems of interpretation and selection.

Thus, the sacrament of communion, the rite of which is interpreted as a lesson in morality, necessary only for the “imperfect,” appears to be essentially an “image” of immaterial communion. After describing how the bishop distributes the Eucharist to the faithful, Dionysius comments: “By offering Jesus Christ to our eyes, he shows us materially and figuratively our intelligible life.”

Bread and wine are for the Areopagite nothing more than “sacred symbols by which Christ designates and communicates himself.” It would be possible to multiply quotes of this kind, but it is enough to cite the conclusion of R. Rock: “The highest meaning of the Eucharistic action and Holy Communion itself is that it symbolizes the union of our mind with God and Christ... Dionysius never formally presents Eucharistic communion as a communion of the Body and the Blood of Christ." Consequently, every tangible, ritual or material reality has, according to Dionysius, only a symbolic connection with the intelligible world.

How did Dionysius himself and later generations incorporate various elements of this teaching into the Christian tradition? This is an important question, since the Corpus Areopagiticum has had great influence in both the East and the West.

We have already seen that at the level of theology itself, Pseudo-Dionysius followed exactly the tradition of the great Cappadocians; he managed to overcome the basic contradiction between the transcendence of God and the fact of his presence in the world. Therefore, the treatise “On the Divine Names” became an integral part of the Eastern patristic tradition, while in the West this work became, due to a different interpretation, the cause of a serious misunderstanding of the true meaning of Dionysian thought. This misunderstanding lay at the heart of the 14th century dispute between Barlaam of Calabria and Gregory Palamas. In any case, it is well known what influence the treatises of Dionysius had on the theologians and ascetics of subsequent centuries; and we will return to this issue when studying the further development of Byzantine theology.

Here it is important for us to note one aspect that is usually paid less attention, namely, the influence exerted by the ideas of Dionysius on church-liturgical piety, an essential element of Christian spirituality. It is obvious that in his teaching on hierarchy Dionysius sought to express a simple thought: everything that exists was created for union with God - this idea, starting with St. Irenaeus, was central to patristic anthropology and subsequently received excellent development from St. Maxima. In the works of Dionysius, the word “hierarchy” primarily means the universal movement of creation towards God:

Hierarchy, in my opinion, is a sacred order, a science, an activity leading to the greatest possible likeness to the divine, and, as God bestows enlightenment in accordance with his powers, rising in the direction of imitation of God.

But along with this dynamic definition of the hierarchy, Dionysius also offers his own specific image of the “ladder of intermediaries,” which he needs primarily in order to integrate the Neoplatonic triads into his system. The consequence of this is the peculiar teaching of Dionysius about salvation through the Church and the sacraments, which in fact completely ignores the main mystery of Christianity - the Incarnation.

Of course, Dionysius, who apparently belonged to the circles of the Monophysites-Sevirians (hence the monoenergetic formula that he once uses), mentions the name of Jesus Christ and professes his belief in the Incarnation, but the structure of his system is completely independent of his professed faith. For him, Jesus is "the most thearchical and super-existent mind (qearcikwtatos nous), the principle, the essence and the most thearchical power of all hierarchy, all holiness and all divine actions." The embodiment is that

Jesus Himself, the super-existent cause of super-heavenly beings, who came to us without losing His immortality, does not deviate from the excellent order established and chosen by Him for the sake of human good, but humbly submits to the will of God the Father, announced to Him by the angels.

In other words, He, already being the head of the heavenly hierarchy, descends to head the earthly hierarchy, to become its “Enlightener”, “Sanctifier”, “Initiator” and First Hierarch. But the Light of Jesus always descends to us through an unshakable hierarchy.

Is this immobility of the hierarchy compatible with the direct and incomprehensible union of man with God, which is the goal of “mystical theology”? It seems not. On the contrary, it seems that for Dionysius there are two different ways of union with God: on the one hand, theology, mystical, individual and immediate; and on the other - theurgy, that is, the “activity of the hierarchy” and numerous intermediaries. The two methods of knowledge of God coincide only in their final stage, insofar as their common goal is unity with God. The theology of Dionysius clearly belongs to the sphere of personal holiness, which modern theology calls the word “co-being”; however, theurgy cannot be defined simply as an “institution,” since in Dionysius it, like theology, is based on the same ontology of Neoplatonism: the purpose of theurgy is the transmission of gnosis, while the sacraments themselves are assigned the role of symbols through which initiation is accomplished.

At the ecclesiological level, very important consequences follow from this teaching. For example, if ecclesiastical hierarchy is seen as an objective value, then Dionysius's system would lead to a kind of magical clericalism, and it would be interesting to find out whether Dionysius's teaching had a conscious or unconscious influence on the development of Western ecclesiology in the scholastic period and later times. If, on the contrary, we ascribe to the hierarchy only the functions of initiation, and reduce the meaning of the sacraments to simple symbols, then there can be no difference between the objective presence of grace and the personal perfection of the “Initiator.” This confusion turned out to be a serious temptation for some circles of Byzantine monasticism, especially for representatives of that direction of spiritual life that is associated with the name of Evagrius; Niketas Stiphatus, an 11th-century commentator on Dionysius, formally concluded that the true “bishop” is the one who has “knowledge” and is able to initiate people into it, and not the one who is “ordained by men.” This extreme tendency, which undoubtedly took place throughout the spiritual path from Origen to Evagrius and Dionysius, was only overcome by theologians such as Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas, returning to a Christocentric understanding of the grace of the sacraments and to the doctrine of human synergy. This turn eliminated the Dionysian system of hierarchies, limiting it to the framework of natural theology. The latest research confirms the opinion of J. Vannest about the influence of Dionysius:

Although it cannot be denied that Dionysius left his mark on the theology and doctrine of the West, we are forced to admit that in the East, from where his works came to us, the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius remained insignificant. Being involved from the very beginning in the theological controversies that divided the East in the 6th century, the teachings of Dionysius found few disciples to spread them. There is no doubt that the Cappadocians already formed the spiritual teachings of the East, which left a deep mark on Byzantine theology and spirituality.

Of course, both Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus turned to the works of Dionysius, but they integrated his teaching into a system of thought completely independent of Dionysius.

In the Byzantine world, Dionysian terminology retained its originality and significance, probably only in the field of liturgics. From the 4th century onwards, Christian worship, no longer the cult of a persecuted minority, had to satisfy the needs of the broad masses - it underwent major changes, if not in essence, then at least in its forms, and especially in the type of piety it expressed . This phenomenon, well known to historians of worship, led to the Church adopting concepts and terms borrowed from the Greek mysteries. The sermons emphasized the holiness of sacred rites, which could easily be profaned by the multitude of nominal Christians who filled the churches. The idea of ​​esoteric initiation, borrowed from the Neoplatonists and the Corpus Hermeticum, came to be widely used to instill in believers a sense of sacredness and to remind them of how difficult it is to approach it. This tendency, the basis of which can be partly found in the concept of mystery in St. Paul, receives its most complete expression from Pseudo-Dionysius. Only by climbing the steps of the hierarchy through initiation can one reach the secret, the essence of which always remains hidden. Without initiation, a person has only indirect knowledge obtained through a hierarchical system of intermediaries and symbols. For Dionysius, this is actually the purpose of liturgy and sacraments, the conciliar, Christological and eschatological meaning of which remains unclear. The necessary adjustments were quickly made to the theology of Dionysius, but his symbolic and hierarchical interpretation of worship forever left its mark on the Byzantine type of piety: hence the idea of ​​worship as a symbolic drama, which those gathered perceive as spectators: as a mystery, the essence of which can be penetrated only dedicated ones.

Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite (from the Greek member of the Areopagus, a judicial panel in ancient times Athens) - Christian Neoplatonist of the 5th or early 6th century, representative of late patristics. The most famous thinkers associated with Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite were: Peter Iver (412-488), North Antioch and etc.

The main work of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite - "Sophius Areopagiticum" - includes four treatises ("On the Divine Names", "On the Heavenly Hierarchy", "On the Church Hierarchy", "On Mystical Theology") and ten epistles. Works of P.-D.A. (translated into Latin by John Scotus Eriugena) became known in the West from the 9th century. and became the subject of comments Thomas Aquinas, M. Ficino and others. Works by P.-D.A. written on behalf of the character of the New Testament "Acts of the Apostles" (17, 34) - an educated citizen of Athens who converted to Christianity in the 1st century. the sermon of the Apostle Paul, the first Christian bishop of his city. (This point of view existed until the 16th century.)

The first controversy regarding the works of P.-D.A. dates back to 533 (discussion between Orthodox theologians who denied their authenticity and adherents Monophysitism). Subsequently, doubts about the authenticity of the “Corpus Areopagiticum” were expressed by L. Valla, Erasmus of Rotterdam and others: a number of features of the treatises and messages of P.-D.A. (stylistics, cult realities, textual borrowings from Proclus) require dating them to a period no later than the second half of the 5th century. At the basis of the worldview of P.-D.A. lies the Neoplatonic idea of ​​the fundamental indescribability and indefinability of God, along with the idea of ​​the conditional feasibility of knowledge of God through the construction of a hierarchy of analogies. (So, according to the thoughts of P.-D.A., God is ineffable, “Divine darkness” is mysterious, “Divine light” is inaccessible “due to the excess of super-essential luminosity” and invisible “due to excessive clarity.”) The hierarchical ontology inherent in Neoplatonism, applied P.-D.A. on related social issues: the “church hierarchy” is a direct continuation of the “heavenly hierarchy.” So, according to P.-D.A., the world ladder looks like this: “bright darkness”, one God - seraphim, cherubim, thrones; domination, strength, power; beginnings, archangels, angels (this is the structure of the “heavenly hierarchy”). Next - bishops, priests, deacons; monks, members of the Christian community, catechumens. Below the church hierarchy is the rest of the world: rational beings, living non-rational beings, lifeless bodies.

The image of the church in P.-D.A. is emphatically static: the hierarchy of people - a direct continuation of the hierarchy of angels - is a chain of reflections of pure light in unclouded mirrors. This sequence, according to P.-D.A., sets the orderly order of the sacraments of the Holy Church. (P.-D.A.’s aesthetic interpretation of the picture of the world as a hierarchy of light had a significant impact on medieval aesthetics.) The teachings of P.-D.A. as a system of philosophical theology included three types of theology: cataphatic (God, “being All in everything and Nothing in anything, is known by everyone from everything and by no one from anything”), symbolic and mystical (within its framework: apophatic theology and the theology of super-mental ecstasy as the highest form of knowledge of God). To reveal the divine nature of P.-D.A. two ways of theology were proposed: apophatic (in relation to the divine singularity) and cataphatic (in relation to the divine trinity). Thanks to these two methods, the infinite degree of absolutely all conceivable predications of the “divine darkness” of the One is revealed, so that He can be called, for example, the distinguished identity of mobile rest. The superconceivable God, according to P.-D.A., contains the features of Plotinus’s good unit and formless “smart matter.” Christ acts like a Neoplatonic number, “affirming the agreement between the parts and the whole.” With the Neoplatonic category of the simple mathematical singularity of God, words are meaningless and are not needed at all in the noetic cosmos. Therefore, according to P.-D.A., Plotinus’s intellectual ecstasy is a wordless “simplification” to a numerical unit. Only in the Trinity, notes P.-D.A., which at the same time in its divine figure is geometrically equal to one, does any literature that reveals essences acquire active (energetic) meaning. Hence, cataphatic theology, contemplating the Trinity, is called upon to explore any names that capture the essence of objects; hence the divine Names are its main subject. Based on this, P.-D.A. asserted that thanks to the Holy Trinity, “everything born in heaven and on earth receives existence and name.”

God includes all mental potencies and energies, therefore evil does not participate in the actual flow of existence. It is only impoverishment and lack of good: “evil is given existence by chance, and it can only manifest itself in something else, since it does not have its own existence.” Absolute evil cannot be at all, because it is the complete absence of divine Good. In the tradition laid down by P.-D.A., the concepts of “transcendent” and “immanent” received a specific interpretation. The ascent from the earthly world to the heavenly world is considered transcendental to human thinking, which is the subject of the apophatic method of theology, while immanent is the descent from the heavenly world to the earthly world, which is the subject of the apophatic method of theology. Teachings of P.-D.A. acquired official status in Orthodoxy of the Byzantine canon thanks to its interpretation by Maximus the Confessor.

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Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Διονύσιος ’Αρεοπαγίτης, i.e. member of the Areopagus, the ancient judicial panel in Athens) - Christian thinker 5 or early. 6th century, representative of late patristics. His treatises and epistles on behalf of an educated Athenian of the 1st century, converted to Christianity by the preaching of the Apostle Paul and mentioned in the New Testament “Acts of the Apostles” (17, 34). The first news of the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is associated with a religious conversation between the Orthodox and the Monophysites in Constantinople in 533. Phraseology and stylistics of the writings, everyday realities mentioned in the context of symbolic interpretations, and finally, traces of the direct use of Proclus’s texts, identified at the end of the 19th century. G. Koch and I. Stieglmayr - all this together does not allow us to date the “Corpus Areopagiticum” (“Areopagiticum”), as it is commonly called in science, earlier than the 2nd half. 5th century; some additional evidence points to the Syrian environment. The Georgian researcher S.I. Nutsubidze and (independently from him) the Belgian specialist E. Honigman proposed to identify the author of the treatises with the Monophysite church leader and thinker Peter Iver, a native of Iveria (eastern Georgia), bishop of Mayuma (near Gaza); Other hypotheses were also expressed (the authorship of Severus of Antioch, the circle of John of Scythopolis, etc.), none of which, however, gained general recognition.

The “Areopagitic Corpus” includes 4 treatises (“On the Heavenly Hierarchy”, “On the Church Hierarchy”, “On the Divine Names”, “Sacramental Theology”) and 10 epistles; the doctrine developed in them is the highest point of Christian Neoplatonism. Having assimilated and developed Neoplatonic ideas about the unconditional indefinability and indescribability of God (apophatic theology - the topic of “Mysterious Theology”) and the conditional possibility of ascending to the knowledge of God along the hierarchical ladder of analogies (cataphatic theology - the topic “On Divine Names”), the author connected the ontology of Neoplatonism (and the doctrine of symbol generated by it) with social issues; the doctrine of the “church hierarchy” is directly adapted to the doctrine of the “heavenly hierarchy.” Moreover, in contrast to the mystical historicism of Augustine (the Church as the “city of God”), the image of the Church as an ideal human community in accordance with the laws of universal existence is extremely static: it is a hierarchy of people, directly continuing the hierarchy of angels, a reflection of pure light in pure mirrors, transmitting the ray to each other, the harmonious order of church “sacraments” (described as “initiations” using the vocabulary of ancient pagan mysteries); any drama and contradictions are completely absent. Symbolism in the interpretation of all things, the aesthetically experienced picture of the world as a hierarchy of light had a comprehensive influence on all medieval aesthetics (including Suger’s theory of light and symbol, embodied in the artistic practice of Gothic art, Dante’s poetry - “Paradise”, etc. ).

The teachings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite received official recognition in Byzantine Orthodoxy initially through its interpretation by Maximus the Confessor. His influence was experienced by John of Damascus, Gregory of Panama and the opponent of Palamas, Barlaam of Calabria, and later by Maxim the Greek and other ancient Russian thinkers. In the West, the “Areopagitic Corpus” became known in the 9th century; Many thinkers of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance wrote comments on it, incl. Thomas Aquinas and M. Ficino, John Scotus Eriugena and Nicholas of Cusa were strongly influenced by his ideas.

S.S. Averintsev

New philosophical encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Guseinov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Mysl, 2010, vol. III, N – S, p. 382-383.

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Διονύσιος "Αρεοπαγίτης, i.e., member of the Areopagus, an ancient judicial panel in Athens), Christian thinker of the 5th or early 6th century, representative of late patristics. Treatises and epistles of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite were written on behalf of the character novo cherished "Acts of the Apostles" "(17, 34) - an educated Athenian of the 1st century, converted to Christianity by the preaching of the Apostle Paul; but the first news of the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is associated with a religious conversation between Orthodox and Monophysites in Constantinople in 533. Phraseology and stylistics of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, everyday realities mentioned by him in the context of symbolic interpretations, and finally, traces of the direct use of Proclus’s texts, identified at the end of the 19th century by G. Koch and J. Stieglmayr - all this together does not allow us to date the “Corpus Areopagiticum”, as it is commonly called in science , earlier than the 2nd half of the 5th century; some additional data indicate a Syrian environment. The Soviet researcher Sh. I. Nutsubidze and (independently) the Belgian specialist E. Honigman proposed to identify Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite with the Monophysite church leader and thinker Peter Iver, a native of Iveria (eastern Georgia), bishop of Mayuma (near Gaza); Other hypotheses were also expressed (the authorship of Severus of Antioch, the circle of John of Scythopolis, etc.), none of which, however, gained general recognition. The “Areopagitic Corpus” includes 4 treatises (“On the Heavenly Hierarchy”, “On the Church Hierarchy”, “On the Divine Names”, “Sacramental Theology”) and 10 epistles; the doctrine developed in them is the highest point of Christian Neoplatonism. Having mastered and developed Neoplatonic ideas about the unconditional indefinability and indescribability of God (apophatic theology - the theme of “Sacramental Theology”) and the conditional possibility of ascending to the knowledge of God through the hierarchy, the ladder of analogies (cataphatic theology - the theme “On Divine Names”), Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite connected the ontology of Neoplatonism (and the doctrine of symbol generated by this ontology) with social issues; The doctrine of the “church hierarchy” is directly adapted by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite to the doctrine of the “heavenly hierarchy.” Moreover, in contrast to the mystical historicism of Augustine (the church as the “city of God”), the image of the church in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite as an ideal human community in accordance with the laws of universal existence is extremely static: it is a hierarchy of people, directly continuing the hierarchy of angels, a reflection of pure light in clean mirrors, transmitting the beam to each other, the harmonious order of church “sacraments” (described as “initiations”, using the vocabulary of ancient pagan mysteries); any drama and contradictions are completely absent. Symbolism in the interpretation of all things, the aesthetically experienced picture of the world as a hierarchy of light had a comprehensive influence on all medieval aesthetics (including Suger’s theory of light and symbol, embodied in the artistic practice of Gothic art, Dante’s poetry - “Paradise”, etc.) .

The teachings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite received official recognition in Byzantine Orthodoxy initially through its interpretation by Maximus the Confessor. His influence was experienced by John of Damascus, Gregory Palamas and Palamas’ opponent Barlaam of Calabria, and later by Maximus the Greek and other ancient Russian thinkers. In the West, the "Areopagic Corpus" became known from the 9th century; Many thinkers of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance wrote comments on it, including Thomas Aquinas and M. Ficino, and John Scotus Eriugena and Nicholas of Cusa were strongly influenced by his ideas.

Philosophical encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Soviet encyclopedia. Ch. editor: L. F. Ilyichev, P. N. Fedoseev, S. M. Kovalev, V. G. Panov. 1983.

Works: Migne PG, t. 3; La hierarchie celeste, P., 19702; in Russian transl.-On Divine Names, Buenos Aires, 1957; in the book: Anthology of world philosophy, vol. 1, part 2, M., 1969, p. 606-20.

Literature: Skvortsov K.I., Study of the question of the author of the works known with the name of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, K., 1871; Nutsubidze Sh., The Mystery of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Tb., 1942; him, Peter Iver and the problems of Areopagitics, Tb., 1957; Honigman E., Peter Iver and the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Tb., 1955; Danelia S, I., On the question of the personality of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, in the collection: Byzantine. Vremennik, vol. 8, M.-L., 1956; Rogues R., L "univers dlonysien, P., 1954; Repin 3., Univers dionyaien et univers augustinien. Aspects de la dialectique, P., 1956; Vanneste J., Le Mystere de Dieu. Essai sur la structure rationelle de la doctrine mystique du Pseudo-Denys L"AreOpagite, Bruges, 1959; Goltz H., HIERA MESITEIA. Zur Theorie der hierarchischen Sozietät im Corpus Areopagiticura, Erlangen, 1974 (“Oikonoinia”, Bd 4).

Message 1. Guy Monk. Epistle 5. Dorotheus the deacon. – In the book: Historical and Philosophical Yearbook-90. M., 1991, p. 226.

Literature:

Nutsubidze Sh. The Mystery of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Tbilisi, 1942;

It's him. Peter Iver and the problems of Areopagitics. Tbilisi, 1957;

Honigman E. Peter Iver and the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Tbilisi, 1955;

Danelia S.I. On the question of the personality of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. – In the collection: Byzantine temporary book, vol. 8. M.–L., 1956;

Roques R. L "univers dionysien. P., 1954,

Pépin J. Univers dionysien et univers augustinien. Aspects de la dialectique. P., 1956;

Vanneste S. Le Mystère de Dieu. Essai sur la structure rationelle de la doctrine mystique du Pseudo-Denys L "Aréopagite. Bruges, 1959;

Goltz H. HIERA MESITEIA. Zur Theorie der hierarchischen Sozietät im Corpus Areopagiticum. Erlangen, 1974 (“Oikonomia”, Bd 4).

Chapter 4. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

In his church policy, Emperor Justinian used the “carrot and stick” method. In 533, when the next wave of persecution of Monophysites subsided, an “ecumenical” conference was held in Chalcedon, where Orthodox and Monophysites were given the opportunity to calmly discuss Christological issues. At this conference, opponents of the Council of Chalcedon began to refer to an author named Dionysius the Areopagite. And to this day no one knows who was hiding under the name of the disciple of the Apostle Paul (Acts 17:34), who in the 4th century was considered the first bishop of Athens. At the Chalcedonian Conference in 533, the Monophysites referred to the expression “single godly energy” used by Dionysius, who became known as the author of the following writings: “On the Heavenly Hierarchy”, “On the Church Hierarchy”, “On the Names of God”, “Mystical Theology”, letters (number 10).

In his writings, the author himself proclaimed himself a disciple of the Apostle Paul, an eyewitness of the eclipse on the day of the Savior’s death and a witness of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. Among its recipients we find Gaius, Timothy, Polycarp of Smyrna (who, as we know, lived in the 2nd century) and St. John the Theologian. No one doubted the authenticity of the “Areopagitik” (as the works of Dionysius began to be called), and a tradition began to form around pseudo-Dionysius. Thus, in the 9th century, a legend arose that he was the first bishop of Paris and died a martyr’s death in Paris in 110. North of Paris, the Basilica of Saint-Denis was built in his honor, where the relics of early Christian martyrs were placed, and later? bodies of French kings. It is also known that in 827, the Byzantine Emperor Michael II sent an organ (invented, by the way, in Byzantium) and a manuscript of Dionysius the Areopagite as a gift to the French King Louis the Pious. Gradually, a legend was formed about the holy martyr Dionysius, the patron saint of France, and popular tradition connected this Dionysius with the author of the above-mentioned writings, who posed as a disciple of the Apostle Paul. This manuscript is still kept in the Paris National Library.

The first doubts about the authenticity of the writings of Dionysius arose in the 15th century with Erasmus of Rotterdam. Reasons for doubt were obvious anachronisms, especially in the book “On the Church Hierarchy,” which describes liturgical customs characteristic only of the 5th-6th centuries, such as the rite of monastic vows and the reading of the Creed at the Liturgy. Apparently the author of Areopagitik did not intend to mislead people. His writings were an intentional pseudepigrapha, but he underestimated the gullibility of his contemporaries, who overlooked the most obvious contradictions (for example, in a letter to John the Theologian, Dionysius quotes his own writings, John, and refers to him as a major authority). Apparently, the author used the name of Dionysius the Areopagite to give more weight to his apologetics, the purpose of which was to unite the Christian system with the hierarchical world of the Neoplatonists. These latter, especially Proclus, are quoted and retold by Dionysius in entire paragraphs. There are the following hypotheses regarding the identity of the author. Firstly, it was suggested, based on the identity of the names, that Dionysius of Alexandria (III century) was hiding under the name Dionysius. But most scholars believe that the writings of pseudo-Dionysius come from moderate Monophysite circles in Syria. Some even suggest that their author was Sevier himself, others? that Peter Mong. In recent times, the most serious (though far from proven) hypothesis has been put forward that the Corpus Areopagiticum belongs to the pen of Peter of Iberia, who, as his nickname indicates, was from Georgia, where there has always been an extraordinary interest in pseudo-Dionysius and even in our time there is society named after him. This assumption is confirmed by the similarity of some details of Peter’s biography with the known facts of the life of pseudo-Dionysius.

The writings of pseudo-Dionysius soon gained great authority. In the East, a commentary on his works was written by St. Maximus the Confessor. All later Byzantine theologians referred to it. Many liturgical customs arose under the influence of his teachings. In the West, the Areopagitica were translated into Latin by Gilduin (9th century), who knew Greek very poorly, which greatly affected the quality of the translation; in some places completely incomprehensible. In the 10th century, Scotus Erigena made a new translation, but his work was replete with errors and opened up the possibility of such different interpretations that Thomas Aquinas, who used this translation, diametrically differed in conclusions from Eastern theologians.

The main theological ideas of pseudo-Dionysius are set out in his book “On the Names of God” and in the treatise “Mystical Theology”, devoted to issues of knowledge of God. In his doctrine of the knowledge of God, he faithfully follows the Cappadocians and, being at the same time an adherent of Platonism, is very successful? much more successful than Origen? combines Christian and Greek intuition. On the one hand, he follows the path of apophatic theology: like the Neoplatonists, God is unknowable, incomprehensible and does not lend itself to any positive definitions. On the other hand, in two important points Dionysius deviates from Neoplatonic teaching and goes beyond its limits. Firstly, the God of the Neoplatonists (and V. Lossky managed to show this very well) is incomprehensible not in himself, but only because of our fallen nature. His transcendence is relative. Origen also held the same view. According to Platonic teaching, a person has the possibility of purification, that is, deliverance from “fallenness,” and a vision of the very essence of God. Among Christians, even redeemed, purified, deified humanity is incapable of cognizing the essence of God. Knowledge of God is possible only to the extent that God Himself reveals itself to man.

According to Plotinus, the transcendence of God is overcome by emanation, which is nothing more than a kind of “diminution” of God. God appears to be something like a full, overflowing cup. It is these drops that a person gets. Pseudo-Dionysius uses the terminology of Plotinus, but in his understanding the emanations of God communicate to us in its entirety His Divinity, for God is not subject to “diminution”, ? This is the second discrepancy between Dionysius and Neoplatonism:

And this general, united and united property of the whole Divinity is manifested in the fact that it is given to those who partake of Him wholly, and not partially, just as the middle of a circle is common to all the radii emanating from it, or as numerous seal impressions participate in the primitive seal, which at the same time in each imprint it is present in its entirety, but in none of them does it appear partially... But non-participation (of the Divine)? as a universal cause? surpasses all these comparisons; it itself remains intangible and does not enter into any relationship with what is part of it.

(“On Divine Names”, 2, 5)

According to pseudo-Dionysius, the “descent” (or “condescension”) of God presupposes an “exit” from His own essence, just as the “ascent” of man to God is impossible without “ecstasy,” that is, going beyond the limits of the mind and all bodily sensations. This understanding reflects the Christian mystery personal meetings with God.

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