The Limits of Ontology: The Good to Evil in Pseudo-Dionysius J. S.

Kupperman Apostolic Johannite Church Conclave 26 May, 2013 In the late fifth or early sixth century CE, the Christian mystic, or possibly a pagan writing as a Christian, 1 and Neoplatonist now known as Pseudo-Dionysius writes a number of treatises outlining creations relationship with God. In doing so, Dionysius attempts to describe the nature, mundane and metaphysical, of God, the angelic choirs, the sacraments, humanity, and the rest of creation. This chain, from God to humanity and back, constitutes not only a hierarchical but an ontological structure. A transcendent God is the source of all Being, and everything proceeds from, and reverts to, God, so far as possible. Outside of this divine cycle of abiding, proceeding and reversion is evil, which has no Being of its own. This paper explores the nature of the Dionysian chain of being in terms of its Christian and Neoplatonic heritages and its continuing relevance to modern liturgical practice. The Dionysian chain of being has some fourteen links. God is not one of them, nor is evil, both of which exist, if I may use such a word, outside of the system. What extends between these two extremes are nine choirs of angels, the sacraments, four orders of clergy, initiated humanity, profane humanity, animals, plants, and non-living things. The angles, sacraments, and humanity are described primarily in the Celestial Hierarchy and the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. God, in singular, plural, and negative modes, is discussed in the Divine Names and Mystical Theology. Evil is the topic of the second half of the fourth chapter of the Divine Names. These four texts, along with several letters, make up what survives, or what was written, of pseudoDionysius corpus.
1

Lankila, Crypto-Pagan, 14-15.

Being The Divine Names has what appears to be a rocky relationship with God. Here God is described with increasingly contradictory language. God is One, God is many, God is nothing, God is in everything. The names of God are undifferentiated but many. The names of God are differentiated but one. God has no name. The difficulty in understanding God is that God is beyond comprehension, beyond ineffability. And yet God is right here, in everything, the root of everything within everything, while not being any of those things. 2 Dionysius understanding of God relies heavily on the theology of the late pagan Neoplatonist Proclus, just as Proclus relies heavily Iamblichus earlier work. This reliance is so heavy some have speculated Dionysius may have been a member of the Athenian Platonic academy. It is not, therefore, surprising to find Dionysius God modeled directly on the Neoplatonic One, especially as found in later Neoplatonism a term describing Neoplatonism from Iamblichus to the close of the Athenian academy in 529 CE, a year after the first reference to the Dionysian corpus by Severus, a Monophysite leader. 3 The One is an utterly transcendent, utterly unknowable, non-Being, a superessential and hidden Deity, 4 that is the source of all Being. Being is an important concept in Hellenic philosophical thought. Since at least Parmenides, Greek thought has seen Being as that which can be grasped by intellection. On this Parmenides says For you could not know that which is not, for it is impossible, nor express it;

2 3

C.f. DN V.8. Lankila, Crypto-Pagan, 32. 4 DN I.2.

for the same thing is for thinking and for being. 5 The most ontologically superior beings, such as the gods in Iamblichean thought, are full of Being, and that Being is distributed to ontologically posterior beings through projected logoi or reason-principles, and the Platonic Forms. Through participating the proper reason-principles an entity, such as a rational soul, comes to be most fully itself. This is the essence of Being; it is that which distinguishes one thing from another, giving entities their ultimate nature, 6 making something this as opposed to that. With the exception of God and evil, everything that exists has Being, though not necessarily to the same extent. The seraphim, the highest of Dionysius angelic choirs, have more Being than a human, but both are very real. God and evil have no Being, but do not do so in very different ways.

An Aphophatic God Understanding God in the Dionysian corpus is complicated. The God of the Mystical Theology is utterly transcendent, and reminiscent of the first moment of Iamblichus One, the ineffable One, which exists within itself beyond all Being. The super-essential nature of God7 is one of the most explicitly Neoplatonic elements of Dionysius theology. And, as in pagan Neoplatonism, it is the foundation of that theology. Dionysius is quite explicit about Gods not this-ness. God, as the pre-eminent cause of everything perceptible is none of those perceptible things. 8 Nor is God any of the intelligible

5 6

In Perl, Theophany, 6. DM I.5. 7 MT II.1. 8 MT IV.1.

things It causes. 9 While Dionysius does not discuss the traditional Neoplatonic realm of Soul, presumably God is also not any of the souls It causes, either. Gods nothingness is absolute, so much so the language we use to describe Gods nothingness easily leads us into thinking of God as something. When we say God is beyond Being we think of God as a being beyond Being. When we say God is beyond thought, we think of God as a being we cannot think about. 10 And this is the problem. Alluding to Parmenides, Dionysius writes For, if all kinds of knowledge are of things existing, and are limited to things existing, that, beyond all being, is also elevated above all knowledge. 11 As Parmenides says, we cannot have knowledge of something that is not. God is beyond Being and therefore beyond thought. God is nothing at all. Any statement, positive or negative, we make about God does not describe God. We cannot say God exists, but neither can we say God does not exist. Even saying God is nothing is inaccurate. To quote Plotinus, This phrase beyond being does not mean that it is a particular thing-for it makes no positive statement about it, and it does not say its name, but all it implies is that it is not this. 12 We must say of God not only not this, but also not not this. Further, beyond Being, does not refer to something with infinite Being. In Neoplatonic thought something that is limited and definable, is superior that which is infinite and indefinable. Further, Being is defined by limitation because Being is what distinguishes one thing from another. Infinite Being is therefore a contradiction in terms, 13 and God is neither limited nor unlimited but outside of the concept of limitation. Instead the One is more akin to the

MT V.1. C.F. Perl, Theophany, 13. 11 DN I.4, 593A. 12 Enn V.5.6.2-11. 13 Perl, Theophany, 12.
10

Pythagorean Monad, which is neither finite nor infinite, neither even nor odd, and not even a number as number implies distinction, and the monad comes before distinction. Instead, again quoting Plotinus, the One is not anything, but before each and everything, and is not a being; for being has a kind of shape of being, but that has no shape, not even intelligible shape. For since the nature of the One is generative of all things it is none of them. 14 Dionysius apophatic theology is not merely a linguistic theory. Dionysius God, like the ineffable One of Iamblichus, is transcendent in that it is not part of reality in any way at all. We cannot think of God not because of a limitation on our ability to think. We cannot do so because there is nothing that is God to think about. Because of this, Dionysius apophatic theology is not merely negative. To make a negating statement about something is to assume there are positive qualities to negate. Contradicting Aristotle, Dionysius says we should not consider the negations to be in opposition to the affirmations, but far rather that It, which is above every abstraction and definition, is above the privations. 15 When Dionysius says we cannot say anything about God it is not because we have nothing to say, but there is nothing about which to speak. This unspeakable, unthinkable, super-essential God is the source of Being. This, again, is part of Dionysiusian Neoplatonism. In Neoplatonic thought the ontological source of some quality or thing, such as Being, Life, or Wisdom, does not itself possess that quality or thing. Although Dionysius does not explicitly use the language of Iamblichus noetic moments; unparticipated, participated, and in participation, his understanding of God as the cause of Being reflects Iamblicus One-Being, the third moment of the One.

14 15

Enn VI.9.3.38-41. MT I.2, 1000B.

The noetic moments are the equivalent of time in the noetic or intelligible realm. While the One transcends this realm, Iamblichus discussion of the One in his Platonic Commentaries suggests the One can be approached in a similar manner. The first moment, the unparticipated, amethektos, is the entity, in this case the One, as it is in and of itself. The unparticipated moment is inaccessible to ontologically posterior beings. In the case of the One this is everything that exists, placing the ineffable One outside the realms of existence. The second moment is called participated, metachomenos. This is the entity as other beings view and understand it. In the case of the One, Iamblichus calls this the simply One. This One is something we can speak of because it is not the One-in-itself, but how the One is approached by ontologically posterior beings. The final moment is called in participation, kata methexin. This is the being as it reflected in those entities participating it. 16 Iamblichus calls the final moment of the One the One-Being. However, there are not three Ones. The moments do not reflect three different beings, but the same being expressed in different ways. The unparticipated entity does not cease to be itself while projecting a quality, via the logoi, to be participated nor while being participated by another entity. 17 This means the participated quality is, in fact, identical to that which projects it but is considered separate. This is a matter of how the same being may appear to different modes of cognition. 18 The result is different modes of the same being from its single, unparticipated form, to the qualities projected for participation, to the beings participating those qualities. Each level is a different appearance of the same cause. However, in Platonic ontology appearances

16 17

Dillon, Commentaries, 33. C.f. Proclus, ET, 23. C.f. Perl, Theophany, 23. 18 Perl, Theophany, 23-4.

have Being and therefore are not illusions but are real, leading to simultaneous singularity and multiplicity. The One, in its third moment, is the source of Being beyond all Being. 19 The One itself does not produce other things. Production is movement and movement must be based on that which is motionless. 20 Late Platonic ontology depends on the idea of the unmoved mover, the stable ground upon which everything else moves, and this is the One. If the One produced, and therefore moved, it would need to rely on something superior to itself, and there is no such thing. If there is, then that is the One, which is, again, unmoved. So God does not produce but is production, the means by which other things move and produce. This is the source of Being which is beyond Being because God does not exist amongst that which It produces. To explain this, Dionysius uses the allegory of light similar to the allegory of the sun in Platos Republic. The light is not what is illuminated but is beyond what is illuminated, and without light there is no illumination. God is the source of the light, which in Neoplatonic terms represents Gods logoi. Within God there is no distinction between the logoi, but exterior to God, they are the distinguishing principles that make beings be. 21 As Gods light not only illuminates things, but makes them what they are by being within them, God is simultaneously transcendent and imminent. Transcendent in that God is not a being in any way and imminent in that God is in all beings. However, this is not a form of monism or pantheism. The multiple beings, though images of God, are still real and adding up all the things that exist does not give us God, because God is not in any way itself a thing.

19 20

CH I.4.177D Proclus, ET, 26. 21 Perl, Theophany, 29.

God, though without Being, is the source of all Being. According to Proclus, in the Elements of Theology, a major source of Dionysian ontology, Every productive cause is superior to that which it produces.22 God is the ultimate causative principle and must be superior to everything that follows. This does not necessarily mean God must be the source of Being, but it does mean God, as ultimate cause, must be prior to Being and whatever does produce Being. As weve seen, by cause Dionysius does not mean the actual creator of any particular thing. Instead God is the necessary requirement for anything to have existence. It is at least theoretically possible for something else, also without and above Being, to be the source of Being. For example, in Proclean theology the henadic gods are also above Being and in Iamblichean theology there is a pre-essential Demiurge, although that Demiurge is a vertical extension of the One-Being in the intelligible realm. Dionysius, however, does not appear to have either of these. After God are the angels, all of which have Being. Because there seems to be no other Beingless thing in Dionysian theology, God must be the Beingless source of Being.

A Kataphatic God? Although God-as-Nothing is the ultimate point of Dionysius theology, he spends much more time talking about God as though It were something. Dionysius says Gods essential nature lies in Goodness and as the source of Being, the former of which, like the latter, is derived from Platonic terminology. Dionysius first writes of God as something, in the Divine Names, because God-as-nothing is part of the theoretical theology of the usually placed later Mystical

22

7.

Theology. The Divine Names is his practical theology. Citing Matthew, Nehemiah, Exodus, Revelation, Hebrews, John, and others, 23 Dionysius describes God. God is Life. God is Wisdom. God is Beauty. God is the Father, the Word, the Spirit. Dionysius employs the divine epitaphs in two ways: as unified names and as distinct names. Names such as Super-Good, Super-God, Super-Living, and Good, Life, Wisdom, Being, Beauty, and so forth are the unified names common to all of God.24 The super terminology refers to God as abstraction and beyond all such normal good, gods, life, etc. The normative language refers to God as cause of all things, and the names actually refer to Gods gifts. 25 Together, these are the Divine Unions. 26 These names do not refer to distinct divine elements but to God as a whole because of Gods super-unified Unity. 27 Because God is one, and the One, any title applied to God must apply to all of God. Anything less is blasphemy because it denies Gods one-ness. 28 Seemingly despite Gods unity, and even proof-texts such as John 10:30, I and the Father are One, the epitaphs of Father, Son, and Spirit are called distinctions, 29 because there is no interchange or community in these. 30 This means that although the Son and the Father are One, they are not the same, and Dionysius attests to this. 31 These are the manifestations of the Godhead itself, beyond the logoi-like gifts of the Divine Unions. 32 A further distinction is the incarnation of the Word. The Father and Spirit did not share in this,

23 24

DN II.1 DN II.1, 3. 25 DN II.3. 26 DN II.4. 27 DN II.1. 28 Ibid. 29 DN II.4. 30 DN II.3. 31 DN II.5. 32 DN II.4.

except through the overall omni-benevolence of the unchangeable God and the overall divine work, theurgy, in which Jesus engaged. 33 However, despite their distinct qualities, Dionysius calls the Trinity the One-springing Persons 34 as a mark of their unity. To explain this Dionysius uses the metaphor of lamps. Even as each of three lamps is distinct, their light mingles so as to be indistinguishable. 35 Even though the divine light is one, the source of that light, in the form of the One-springing Persons, fixed in the union itself, unmingled and unconfused. 36 With all this we are presented with a problem. Dionysius God is paradoxically No-thing and some-thing, and in everything, all at once. While some metaphysical conundrum is well and good, the Neoplatonists take their ontology seriously. It is not that they do not like confusion in their system of thought but that no such confusion may exist. Part of the problem, that which is related to the unified names that exist in everything, is solved when we understand that what Dionysius describes are divine activities rather than divine essences. This idea stems from the Aristotelian trinity of essence, power, and activity, which is brought into Neoplatonism by Iamblichus and preserved by Proclus. We may therefore see the unified names as akin to the Platonic Forms and their logoi, which in later Neoplatonism exist at the noeric rather than noetic level, descended into generation. Dionysius symbolizes these as divine lights that are fully graspable by the mind. 37 The distinctive names of the Trinity present a more theologically challenging problem. Dionysius seems to negate these names, along with all other kataphatic qualities, in the Mystical
33 34

DN II.6. DN II.4. 35 Ibid. 36 DN II.5. 37 C.f. CH I.1.

Theology. This brings up the question of whether or not Dionysian theology is Trinitarian. A subject that is important if Dionysius was in fact a Christian, but not as important if he is a pagan posing as a Christian. A close reading of chapter five of the Mystical Theology, which suggests an alternative meaning to spirit other than that which is commonly used, an idea that may be applied to the rest of the Trinity, 38 does not necessarily eliminate Gods Trinitarian nature, but qualifies it. While the regular activities of the Trinity may be negated, the Trinity itself is, in its essence, beyond being and is unknowable. This sense is also suggested in the beginning of this text, where the Trinity is invoked as Triad supernal, super-God and super-good,39 which points to the Trinitys transcendent nature. But is the Trinity transcendent as the ultimately unknowable God? If a Christian reading of Dionysius is accepted then the answer is perhaps yes. However, if, as suggested by Carlo Maria Mazzucchi and Tuomo Lankila, there is a crypto-pagan background to the corpus, then the answer need not be. Instead the Trinity can reflect Proclus pre-essential henadic gods, who are simultaneously distinct entities and unities not dissimilar to Iamblichus idea of the gods as monoiedes, of a single form, or his pre-essential Demiurge as an extension of the One-Being. 40 If this is so it adds an otherwise missing, but important, element of late Neoplatonic thought to Dionysian theology. This is the idea that the lowest level of one hypostasis is also the highest level of the next. In Iamblichus we see this as the pre-essential Demiurge Aion being a vertical extension of the One-Being in the noetic realm. Proclus does not make much of Iamblichus preessential Demiurge, but does have pre-essential gods in the same position. These henadic gods
38 39

MT V.1; Jones, Status, 649. MT I.1. 40 Clark, Gods, 56-7.

are typified, much like the Trinity, by being distinct individuals while simultaneously being in union with one another. 41 What of the incarnation? The language of the Celestial Hierarchy IV.4, where the Incarnation explicitly engages in the same creative and organizing activity of the Demiurge of Platos Timaeus, suggests Dionysius saw Jesus in a similar, demiurgic role. The late Platonic Demiurge, identified as Helios in Iamblichean theology, is noeric in nature, and rules over both the noeric and celestial realms, the latter of which is encosmic in nature. As one of the visible gods, Helios has a body, the sun, but is not of that body, controlling it from without, transcendently. Certainly, there is a difference here between Iamblichean and Dionysian theology, as the Dionysian equivalent to the visible gods is an order of angels and is in no way analogous to the Incarnation. However, there are similarities as well. In Dionysius the divine element is described in the transcendent, mind-nullifying terms of the pre-essential One, a preessential reality that has somehow, through a mystery, comes to take on a human body. Although the body of Jesus is real, physical, and human, the divine element is above form. 42 Combining Platonic and Christian thought, Dionysius describes Jesus as follows: Hence, since through love towards man, He has come even to nature, and really became substantial, and the Super-God lived as Man . . ., and in these He has the supernatural and super-substantial, not only in so far as He communicated with us without alteration and without confusion, suffering no loss as regards His superfulness, from His unutterable emptying of Himself but also, because the newest of all new things, He was in our physical condition super-physical in thing substantial, super-substantial, excelling all the things of us from us above us. 43

41 42

Butler, Being, 94-95. DNII.10. 43 DNII.10.

Like the visible gods, the Son inhabits His body super-physically. All of this may reflect pagan Neoplatonic theology concerning the Demiurges, which are vertical reflections of one another. Here we may see Jesus, as noeric Demiurge, possible acting as a reflection of the element of the pre-essential Demiurge, in the form of the Trinity, relating to the Son, assuming the Trinity itself does not instead reflect Proclus henadic gods. But what of our kataphatic God? Ultimately, there is no such thing in Dionysius. The divine unions are not God but divine qualities, akin to the Platonic Forms and the logoi. They are certainly divine, and have an anagogic affect to raise us to be like God, so far as possible, but they are not, in themselves, God.

The Celestial Hierarchy The angels of the celestial hierarchy are called Heavenly Minds, 44 incorporeal Minds, 45 God-loving Minds, 46 and super-heavenly Beings, 47 of whom the demiurgic Jesus is the supercelestial Cause and arranger. 48 The language of the mind is not accidental, placing the angelic choirs in the noetic realm. Renaissance Neoplatonist, and eventual Catholic priest, Marsilio Ficino, who translates Iamblichus, Proclus, and Dionysius, refers to the noetic or intelligible realm as the Angelic Mind. As intelligible entities angels have Being and, unlike God, are graspable, in some fashion, by the mind.

44 45

CH I.2; II.2. CH II.4 46 CH III.3 47 CH IV.4. 48 Ibid.

The angels are the beginning of the divine hierarchy, with God existing, as it were, transcendently above or beyond the Angelic Mind. Dionysius defines hierarchy as: a sacred order and science and operation, assimilated, as far as attainable, to the likeness of God, and conducted to the illuminations granted to it from God, according to capacity, with a view to the Divine imitation. 49

The purpose of the heavenly hierarchy is the assimilation and union, as far as attainable, with God. Although the language of as far as attainable appears in other Christian writings, it is also thoroughly Platonic, going back at least the Theatetus, where the question as to the chief human good is asked. To this Socrates answers becoming like God, so far as possible. 50 The angelic hierarchy leads humanity upwards to this goal. In Platonic thought this means the angels are necessarily ontologically prior to rational souls, placing them above us on the Dionysian chain of being. There are nine, now common, angelic orders in Dionysius angelic hierarchy. These nine are likely modeled, by way of Proclus, after Iamblichus hierarchy of greater kinds. This includes a variety of kinds of gods, angels, heroes, and daimons that rather neatly, and not surprisingly, form a group of nine ranks. Once again Ficino seems to have put together the connection between the pagan Neoplatonic divinities and the Dionysian angelic hierarchy when he writes Certainly the gods, or as our theologians say, the angels, admire and love divine beauty. 51 The angelic hierarchy consists of the orders of Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Powers, Authorities, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. These are nine are
49 50

CH III.1. Theat, 176b. 51 DAm I.2, 37.

divided into three groups of three, with the powers or qualities of perfection, illumination, and purification descending through each triad. Each level both participates in these qualities and expresses them. The Seraphim, for instance, both perfect what is below them and participate divine perfection. The Dominions participate in Seraphic perfection 52 and likewise perfect the orders beneath them, all the way down to their effects on human souls through the sacraments and ecclesiastical hierarchy. 53 This three-fold activity its basis in the Porphyrian intelligible triad of Being, Life, Intellect but more specifically in Proclus Elements of Theology and Platonic Theology, which set out how different levels of beings affect those below them, 54 which itself has precedents in Iamblichuss De Mysteriis. 55 As the modern meaning of hierarchy implies, the angelic orders are ranked vertically. As the orders descend, their ontological distance from God increases. The first series, the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones, are established immediately around God 56 and receive their powers directly from their source. 57 The Dominions, Powers, and Authorities, however, receive their powers through participating the choirs above, and the final series receive theirs through these. 58

The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy Beneath the angelic hierarchy is the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which is divided into two ontological levels. Acting as a bridge between the divine and human realm are the sacraments, or
52 53

CH VIII.2, c.f. CH VII.2. EH V.7. 54 ET 56-7, PT III.3, c.f. Wear and Dillon, Dionysius, 61-2. 55 DM V.22, 267. 56 CH VII.1. 57 Ibid. 58 C.f. Wear and Dillon, Dionysius, 57.

sacred rites as Dionysius calls them. The rites appear ontologically prior to even the most pure human souls as found in Dionysius Hierarchs or Bishops. This is seen in how Dionysius discusses each of the rites and in the way in which the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy is ordered, beginning with the rites and then shifting to the human hierarchy. The Hierarch is fully initiated into the sacred rites. Through these rites the Hierarch communicates sacred reality to the lower ranks of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and other sacred people. 59 Although there is no discussion of this, we may be able to place the sacraments, though they may ultimately take physical form, in the noeric or intellective realm. This places the essences of the liturgy at the same level of the Platonic Forms as found in Iamblichus and grants the mysteries a Being outside of and above their physical manifestations as enacted rituals. Like the celestial and human hierarchies, the sacraments have various purifying, illuminating, and perfecting functions. In the terms of later Neoplatonism the mysteries are a form of theurgy, what Dionysius typically refers to as hierogia, the sacred rites in imitation, and participation of Christ. He reserves theourgia, divine activity, for the activities of Jesus. 60 Dionysius enumerates seven primary sacred rites: Illumination or baptism, Synaxis or the Eucharist, the consecration of anointing oil, the consecrations of the priesthood, and the consecration of monks. 61 In describing these Dionysius employs the same technical language and ideology, except as noted above, as Hellenic Neoplatonic theurgy. The Dionysian mysteries are theurgic rites, in the Hellenic sense of the word, with a divine rather than human origin. Just as the angels have an anagogic effect on each order beneath them, the sacred rites raise those initiated into them into greater participation of the heavenly hierarchy and God, with an end-goal
59 60

EH I.3. Ibid., 99. 61 He also includes rites for the dead, which include elements of the first three rites.

of divinization, so far as possible. 62 This is only possible if those rites come into being ontologically prior to rational, which is to say human, souls. It is unclear as to whether or not Dionysius ordered his description of the mysteries ontologically, or if there is an ontological difference between them. It is further unclear as to how they may be ranked as many rites are dependent upon one another. For instance baptism includes being anointed by consecrated oil, but only a Hierarch can consecrate the oil but before becoming a Hierarch a person must first be baptized. Also, unlike as with the celestial hierarchy, with its neat arrangement of purifying, illuminating, and perfecting triads, the sacred rites are not divided as such. The mystery of Illumination, is both purifying and illuminating, 63 Synaxis is illuminating and perfecting, 64 and the initiations into the priesthood are purifying, illuminating, and perfecting, and perhaps most closely resemble the angelic triads. Whether or not there are ontological differences between the mysteries, it is clear no such ontological hierarchy exists amongst the ranks of humanity. Despite the angelic nature of the Hierarch, and their deep theosis through initiation, a Hierarch, like the rest of the human ecclesiastical hierarchy, is human, possessing human or rational soul. A Hierarch is not ontologically superior to any other human and the ecclesiastical hierarchy represents a horizontal extension rather than a vertical extension. This must be the case as human souls all have the same ontological source beneath the noetic realm, and this positioning is an innovation of later pagan Neoplatonism. 65

62 63

EH I.1-I.3. EH II.3.1., II.3.3. 64 EH III.1. 65 DAm I.3. 38

Although all humanity is ontologically equal, the ecclesiastical hierarchy is still a hierarchy. The sacerdotal ranks include perfecting Hierarchs, illuminating priests, purifying deacons. Beneath these, and outside of the priesthood, are monks, baptized contemplatives, and those being purified in preparation for baptism. Finally there are the multitudes of the impure who, in imitation of the Orphic command to Depart all ye profane, and close the doors,66 are dismissed from the sanctuary before the ministration of the sacred rites. 67 This human hierarchy appears to be an extension of Iamblichus extension of Platos view of humanity. Iamblichus divides humanity into three: the great herd, the transitioning philosopher and theurgist, and the theurgic sage. The level of transitioning theurgist is also divided into three, pointing towards the theurgists spiritual orientation. 68 Dionysius appears to divide each level into three, the mass herd of humanity being the impure, including the possessed, the initiated being the transitioning theurgist, and the priesthood being associated with the theurgic sage. The difference between the various levels of humanity is a matter of participation rather than ontology. The Neoplatonic idea of participation is based on the idea that an ontological level, emanating from a level above, lacks some quality of its source, otherwise they would be identical. In order to be most fully itself the lower level must participate the higher, ultimately reverting, to use Proclus language, to its source and completing its proper circular motion of remaining, proceeding, and reverting. 69 Dionysius uses the same ideology, though not always the same language, and presents the sacred rites as the primary means through which participation and revision to theosis occurs. The consecration into the order of monks, or the ranks of the priesthood, is initiation into higher levels of contemplation and participation. This means that
66 67

In Eusebius, Evangelicae, 664b, also quoted by Porphyry in On Images, fr. 1. EH VI.1.1-3. 68 DM V.18, 257. 69 DN IV.8-9. C.f. ET 35; Shaw, Theurgy, 89-90; DM I.9, 39-41.

while a Hierarch is not ontologically superior to either a priest or one of the impure, a Hierarch does participate the divine levels more closely 70 and is therefore more like a soul in its unfallen state, or the purified souls of Iamblichean theology, which represent the lowest level of divinity. Beneath humanity Dionysius specifically mentions irrational souls, or non-human animals, plants, and non-living things as having Being. These are ontologically posterior to humanitys rational souls but not derivative of those souls. Dionysius has little to say about these.

Evil Dionysius writings on the nature of evil are contained in the second half of the fourth chapter of Divine Names, sections 18-35. The entire discussion can be seen as a highly repetitive summary of Proclus On the Existence of Evils. The primary difference, if there is a difference, is eschatological. The late Platonists believe in reincarnation and the ability of any being to remove the hylic accretions associated with hamartia through catharsis. Dionysius appears to limit this ability to the single life of any soul. Those who live a life of sin, and die that way, lose any chance of redemption. The reason for this has to do with God having given humanity the power to resist evil, but the discussion of how Dionysius justifies eternal punishment is to be found in his Concerning Just and Divine Chastisement, which is lost, never written, or a mentioned as a blind to disguise his paganism. This, however, may only be an apparent difference. The later Neoplatonists allowed for impermanent eschatological punishment to help purify the soul before

70

C.f. EH.I.1.3

reincarnation. Divine Names, while saying there is punishment, does not say for how long, nor even when that punishment occurs, during life or after. What is evil? Proclus lengthy discussion of the subject can be seen as a refutation of Plotinus idea of the existence of absolute evil. 71 While Proclus, and Dionysius, agree that evil is a privation of the Good, or God, in some given thing, they both deny the existence of an absolute or primary, extent source of evil. To speak of absolute evil as existing makes no sense. Evil is a privation, a lacking to some degree of the Good as exhibited by a being going against its proper mode of existence. Evil is not in any thing but in what it lacks, it is: A privation and failure, and want of strength, and want of proportion, and want of attainment, and want of purpose; and without beauty, and without life, and without mind, and without reason, and without completeness, and without stability, and without cause, and without limit, and without production; and inactive, and without result, and disordered, and dissimilar, and limitless, and dark, and unessential, and being itself nothing in any manner of way whatever. 72

Specifically, To a demon, evil is to be contrary to the good-like mind to a soul, to be contrary to reason to a body, to be contrary to nature. 73 For absolute evil to be, it must be a complete privation, something that does not simply have no Being, as God can be said to have no Being, but to be beneath Being. Further, where God is everything in everything, absolute evil would have to be nothing in nothing. Unlike God, where we can point to things and say this exists because of God, there is nothing we can point of and say this exists because of evil, because if it exists at all, such as in demons, it is because

71 72

Enn I.8.4-5, 59-60. DN IV.32. 73 Ibid.

of God and the Goodness that is within demons, even if that goodness is only their desire to exist. 74 So, Dionysius follows Proclus and finds that evil, if it can be said to exist at all, does so only when mixed with good, and is caused by upsetting of the proper ordering of the parts of a whole. There may be a difference between Dionysius and the Hellenic Neoplatonists on what kinds of beings can engage in evil. For Iamblichus and Proclus the gods, archangels, and angels participate the Good too closely to allow for evil. The gods, especially, are incapable of evil, even by accident. Lower beings, such as some daimons, and of course human souls, can admit the privations necessary to their genre to engage in evil. 75 Dionysius allows angels to engage in evil and become demons. However, he does not say what kinds of angels may do so. His description of the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones as being administered to directly by Godhead suggests they would not be capable of evil. In this it is probably no coincidence that these choirs roughly correspond to the hypercosmic, hyper-encosmic, and encosmic gods primarily discussed in Iamblichus De Mysteriis, 76 which are incapable of evil. This completes the Dionysian chain of Being. The chain itself consists of intelligible beings; the angels, and sensible beings and things; humans, animals, plants, and non-living things, and the sacraments which have both intellective and sensible forms linking the above and below. The Chain of Being is theoretically, but not actually, bookended with non-Being: God and evil. However, where God transcends Being evil cannot be said to not exist in the same way we might speak of Gods non or super-existence. Instead, evil exists as cracks in the system. God, on the other hand, while not connected to the Chain is nevertheless found in every link. In
74 75

DN IV.23 Chlup, Prolcus, 28-9. 76 Kupperman, Living Theurgy, unpublished MS 160-167.

this we may not say the Chain is hanging from God, but exists because of God and is suspended on the grounding of its own intelligibility. What we see is a self-suspending chain with immaculate links at the top and some rust and cracks at the bottom.

Dionysian Ontology in Practice Let us then elevate our very selves by our prayers to the higher ascent of the Divine and good rays, - as if a luminous chain being suspended from the celestial heights, and reaching down hither, we, by ever clutching this upwards, first with one hand, and then with the other, seem indeed to draw it down, but in reality we do not draw it down, it being both above and below, but ourselves are carried upwards to the higher splendors of the luminous rays. 77 Dionysius explains the purpose and function of the liturgy in this sentence. The sacred rites, whether Dionysian hierogia or Hellenic theourgia, are, above everything else, anagogic. In Iamblichean doxography Dionysius mysteries are types of material theurgy, engaging with a knowable, kataphatic God, with the Eucharist especially focusing on the mystery of the incarnation and Jesus sacrifice. The focus, as Dionysius repeatedly states, is on theosis, so far as possible. To achieve this, the theurgic ideology behind the mysteries must be seen as practical as well as theoretical. That is, from the late Neoplatonic perspective, the theurgic aspects of the sacred rites are real and, when properly approached, achieve their intended results. To achieve this end, hierogia, like theurgy, must be accompanied with proper knowledge of the rites. 78 This is evinced in their descriptions in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Each ritual is described and explained three times. First the rites and its purpose are introduced. This is

77 78

DN III.1. C.f. DM II.11.

followed by a description of the physical actions of which the rite consists. Finally there is a contemplation explaining a higher meaning to the rite that transcends its physicality. This knowledge is, however, ultimately reserved for the priesthood, especially the Hierarchs who perform the most important of rites and also act as a monad for their priests and deacons. The Hierarch, by being in an elevated spiritual state, and having the proper sacred knowledge, transmits to the priests and deacons the divine rays necessary to perform the mysteries. Without a Hierarch the rites cannot be performed effectively. From the first sacred rite an individual may experience, the mystery of Illumination, which Dionysius also calls divine birth, the sanctified begins the spiritual ascent towards divination. It is not, however, entirely through their power and knowledge this occurs. The power to resist evil comes from God and is transmitted through the angelic hierarchy to the Hierarch who, through their intellectual and gnostic knowledge transmits it to the rest of the clergy and the ranks of the initiated, those baptized into the sacred mysteries. Once again, Dionysian ideology evokes Proclus theology of remaining, proceeding, and reverting. 79 The purpose of the sacred rites is to revert those who participate them back to their divine source, where they will abide before once again proceeding and reverting. The Chain of Being is therefore not meant to be mono-directional, moving from above to below. The liturgy is established through divine eros, its manifestation the result of Gods love for humanity. The power of divine eros, as manifested in the mysteries and those consecrated to perform them, calls us back to God80 through the ecstasy of the divine rites, and the eros they inspire in us, through

79 80

ET 35 C.f. DN IV.11.

and in which, like Saint Paul, Christ lives. 81 And, while we do not change our ontological level through engaging in the sacred rites, we more fully claim our place in the heavenly chain through them, becoming like God, so far as possible.

81

Ibid. IV.13; Gal 2:20.

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