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The eternally and uniquely beautiful: Dionysius the Areopagite’s understanding of the divine beauty

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 75; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/21692327.2014.971046

2169-2335

Filip Ivanović,

Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies

AbstractThe famous and mysterious fifth century author, who wrote his works known as the Corpus Dionysiacum under the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite, is one of the most controversial characters in the history of philosophy. His thought is well known for the concepts of apophatic and cataphatic theologies and hierarchy (he actually coined the word), as well as for his understanding of eros, beauty, and deification, which all greatly influenced the Areopagite's posterity. His system is a successful amalgam of ancient (chiefly Neoplatonic) philosophy and Christian doctrines. The aim of this article is to examine one of these concepts, namely beauty, which will help in understanding Dionysius' aesthetics in its original terms, as well as in its connections to Neoplatonism. Concretely, the article focuses on the conception of the divine beauty, and is therefore articulated through two sections, which deal with beauty as an attribute (name) of God, and the famous pair of good and beautiful.Keywords: Dionysius the AreopagitebeautyaestheticsphilosophytheologyNeoplatonismChristianity Notes1. Hausherr, "Doutes au sujet du 'Divin Denys'"; Hathaway, Hierarchy and the Definition of Order, 31–35; Mazzucchi, "Damascio, autore del Corpus Dionysiacum".2. Koch, "Proklus als Quelle des Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita"; Stiglmayr, "Der Neuplatoniker Proklos als Vorlage des sog. Dionysius Areopagita".3. Müller, Dionysios, Proklos, Plotinos, 36; Hornus, "Quelques réflexions"; Kocijancic, "The Identity of Dionysius"; Stang, Apophasis and Pseudonymity.4. This influence is reflected not just in theoretical and doctrinal aspects of Christian aesthetics, but it is also manifested in terms of artistic and architectural production. This, however, ought to be subject of more specialized studies (for the Dionysian influence on art and architecture see for example, James, "Pseudo-Dionysius' Metaphysics of Darkness"; Bogdanovic, "Rethinking the Dionysian Legacy".5. For example, a thorough, however heavily Thomistic, study by Putnam, Beauty. One should also mention Balthasar's section on Dionysius in the second volume of The Glory of the Lord, as well as Bychkov's study on Byzantine aesthetics published in Russian in 1977, and translated into Italian in 1983 (L'estetica bizantina).6. A third aspect of Dionysius' theory of beauty is the created beauty, i.e. the beauty of the cosmos, which will be discussed in another venue.7. DN I.4, 592A. Dionysius uses here the word εὐπρέπεια, which means comeliness, or attractiveness, but also beauty. He uses this term always when he thinks of beauty as applied to God in his relation to cosmos, world, and angelic and human hierarchies. LSJ, 728 gives indications to several ancient authors using the term, among others Thucydides and Plato, in Euthydemus, but none of them use the word as Dionysius does. Lampe, 574, points to the early Christian work The Shepherd of Hermas I.3.4, where the same term appears: "Lo, the God of powers, who by His invisible strong power and great wisdom has created the world, and by His glorious counsel has surrounded His creation with beauty (εὐπρέπειαν)…" Obviously εὐπρέπεια is given here the same meaning that Dionysius applies to it, so it would not be wrong to think that this writing could be one of his sources for such use of the term.8. DN I.6, 596B. Throughout this paper I use Colm Luibheid's translation of the Corpus Dionysiacum, since, despite its many flaws, it is the most recent and readily available translation.9. DN II.1, 637B.10. DN II.3, 640B.11. Rorem, Pseudo Dionysius, 135.12. The relation of the different groups of names to the very structure of the treatise is yet another issue, which cannot be fully discussed here. For more details, see Ivánka, Plato christianus, 230–241; Schäfer, The Philosophy of Dionysius, 23–42, 55ff.13. DN II.3, 640BC.14. Cfr. Perl, "Hierarchy and Participation", 18. The Thomistic reception of Dionysius' ideas on participation has been widely studied, see f. ex. Velde, Participation and Substantiality, ch. 6; Doolan, Aquinas on the Divine Ideas, 108ff.15. Bychkov writes that "the level of participation in absolute beauty is inversely proportional to the level of materialization of hierarchical degrees" (Bychkov, L'estetica bizantina, 96).16. DN IV.7, 701C.17. Ibid.18. LSJ, 2036; See also ὡραῖος in Lampe, 1557, meaning "seasonable, beautiful, fair", and appearing in Clement of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, and others.19. See the Septuagint version of Ps 50:2: "ἐκ Σιὼν ἡ εὐπρέπεια τῆς ὡραιότητος αὐτοῦ".20. Bender, The Dawn of the Invisible, 119.21. Putnam, Beauty, 15.22. DN IV.7, 701CD.23. DN IV.7, 701D–704A.24. For Example, Putnam, Beauty, 15–16.25. Pl., Symp., 210E–211B.26. Ibid., 211A.27. Hyland, Plato and the Question of Beauty, 57.28. DN II.1, 637B.29. MT I.1, 997AB. Cfr. MT II, 1025B: 'We would be like sculptors who set out to carve a statue. They remove every obstacle to the pure view of the hidden image, and simply by this act of clearing aside (ἀφαιρέσεις) they show up the beauty which is hidden'; Procl., In Alc., I.64: '…among the intelligible and hidden gods it [Love] makes the intelligible Intellect one with the primary and hidden beauty according to a certain mode of life'. Similar imagery is found in Plotinus' Enneads, I.6.9: 'And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.' Klitenic-Wear and Dillon have noticed that the difference between Dionysius and Plotinus stands in that Dionysius 'urges the catechumen to find God by sloughing away the material of creation, whereas Plotinus urges one to find the divine beauty of the Soul by attending to its imperfections' (Despoiling the Hellenes, 125). While this is true for Plotinus, I am not sure that Klitenic-Wear and Dillon have correctly grasped the meaning of Dionysius' 'sculpting away' in order to find the hidden beauty – it does not concern (only) the matter of creation, but it refers rather to vision and knowledge, so that when they are 'cleared aside' one is led to the point beyond every vision and knowledge. It is a denial of everything, not just matter, but also of vision, knowledge, and all beings, briefly, it is the denial of both sensible and intelligible.30. DN IV.7, 704A.31. A parallel can be found in Proclus who writes: 'Because, therefore, beauty converts and moves all things to itself, causes them to energize enthusiastically, and recalls them through love, it is the object of love, being the leader of the whole amatory series, walking on the extremities of its feet, and exciting all things to itself through desire and astonishment.' (Theol. Pl., I.24). See also Riggs, 'Eros, the Son, and the Gods.'32. DN IV.7, 704A.33. To the standard four Aristotelian causes, the Neoplatonists add two more – the paradigmatic cause and the instrumental cause. Cfr. Pl., Parm., 132D: 'but Parmenides, I think the most likely view is, that these ideas exist in nature as patterns, and the other things resemble them and are imitations of them; their participation in ideas is assimilation to them, that and nothing else.'; Procl., In Parm., 908–909: 'Each Form is not only a pattern (παθ δειχλα) to sensible objects, but is also the cause of their being […] It would be absurd, after all, if the reason-principles in nature were to possess a certain creative power, while the intelligible Forms should be devoid of any causal role in creation. So, then, every divine Form has not only a paradigmatic aspect, but a paternal one as well, and by virtue of its very being is a generative cause of the many particulars…' Of course, in Dionysius' case, these are not attributed to Forms, but to God himself. Similar is Plotinus' idea in the Enneads, V.8.9: 'the intention is to make us feel the lovable beauty of the autotype of the Divine Idea; to admire a representation is to admire the original upon which it was made'.34. DN V.10, 825B.35. Ibid.36. DN V.8, 824C.37. DN V.8, 821D. Cfr. Tollefsen, Activity and Participation, 115–116.38. Cfr. Putnam, Beauty, 64–65; Bender, The Dawn, 130; Lossky, "La notion des 'analogies' chez Denys le pseudo-Aréopagite", 285; Spearritt, A Philosophical Enquiry, 77–84.39. Cfr. Perl, Theophany, 44, and 125, n. 26.40. Although the only common term that both Dionysius and Proclus use is φιλία, it could be of interest to mention Proclus' words: 'Such therefore, in short, is divine beauty, the supplier of divine hilarity, familiarity and friendship' (Theol. Pl., I.24).41. DN IV.22, 724B.42. DN IV.27, 728D.43. Cfr. Putnam, Beauty, 56.44. DN XIII.3, 980B.45. Plot., Enn., I.6.2.46. Plot., Enn., V.8.8. The translation used is by Stephen MacKenna, Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1952.47. Plot., Enn., I.6.8.48. Plot., Enn., I.6.2.49. Plot., Enn., I.8.50. See Opsomer, 'Proclus vs Plotinus'.51. Stiglmayr, 'Der Neuplatoniker Proklus'.52. Plot., Enn., I.6.1. Plotinus will later on identify the essence of beauty not in Form, but in Life, so that even the disproportionate living beings have more beauty than the symmetrical lifeless objects (Enn., VI.7.22). By arguing that it is with the radiance (of life) of the Intelligible world, rather than with Form, that beauty should be identified, Plotinus declares that beauty is formless, thus 'breaking completely with traditional Platonism' (Wallis, Neoplatonism, 87). See also Armstrong, 'Beauty and the Discovery of Divinity', 161–162.53. PG 44, 1197B, cit. in Putnam, Beauty, 61.54. Paedagogus, I.2.55. See n. 42.56. DN IV.7, 704A.57. DN VII.3, 872B.58. DN VIII.6, 893D–896A.59. DN XI.6, 956B.60. DN XII.3, 972A.61. This claim is valid for Dionysius, although it has more an ontological than ethical or anthropological connotation (Bychkov, L'estetica bizantina, 96; Bender, The Dawn, 131).62. For example Plato says that 'all that is good is beautiful (πᾶν δὴ τὸ ἀγαθὸν καλόν)' (Tim., 87C).63. DN IV.7, 704B.64. DN IV.1, 693B.65. Ibid.66. DN IV.2, 696BD. For example: 'And, if we must speak of the matter, all this applies to the irrational souls, to the living creatures which fly through the air or walk the earth, those that live in the waters, the amphibians as well as those which are burrowed into the ground, in short, every sentient and living being. They all have soul and life because of the existence of the Good. And the plants too have nourishment and life and motion from this same Good. So also with soulless and lifeless matter. It is there because of the Good; through it they receive their state of existence.'67. DN IV3, 697A.68. Perl, Theophany, 41.69. Tollefsen, Activity and Participation, 116.70. While Dionysius identifies the Good with the Beautiful, for Plotinus the Good is primary to the Beautiful: 'This love of Beauty is later than the love of Good and comes with a more sophisticated understanding; hence we know that Beauty is secondary: the more primal appetition, not patent to sense, our movement towards our good, gives witness that The Good is the earlier, the prior' (Plot., Enn., V.5.12). However, Plotinus also says: 'Shape and idea and measure will always be beautiful, but the Authentic Beauty and the Beyond-Beauty cannot be under measure and therefore cannot have admitted shape or be Idea: the primal existent, The First, must be without Form; the beauty in it must be, simply the Nature of the Intellectual Good' (Enn., VI.7.33). On Plotinus's abandoning of the identification of Good and Beauty see Bazán, "Plotino y la fenomenología de la belleza", 14–20.71. DN IV.3, 697C.72. DN IV.3, 700B.73. DN IV.1, 588B.74. Pl., Resp., 509B. Plato here also mentions the sun as not just giving visibility, but also genesis and nurture, although it is not genesis, and so the Good gives essence and existence, although the Good itself is not essence and existence.75. DN IV.7, 704B.76. DN IV.10, 708A.77. DN IV.7, 704C.78. Arist., Phys., III.2, 201B.79. See Kosman, "Aristotle's Definition of Motion", 56–57.80. DN IV.10, 705C.81. On this and the Neoplatonic use of circle-line-spiral scheme, see Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena, 72–76, and Spearritt, A Philosophical Enquiry, 93–105.82. DN IV.8, 704D–705A.83. Cfr. De Andia, Henosis, 137, esp. n. 36. for the Neoplatonic sources of the triple movement.84. DN IV.9, 705AB.85. Cfr. Bernard, "Les formes de la théologie". Andia, Henosis, 138–140.86. Iamb., In Tim., 49. See Shaw, "Neoplatonic Theurgy", 584.87. Procl., In Parm., 1130.7.88. Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena, 74–75.89. Pl., Lg., 898AB.90. Arist., Phys., VIII.8, 261B.91. See an elaborate discussion on movement in Perl, Theophany, 35–52.92. In the Homilies on the Song of Songs Gregory of Nyssa also claimed that the soul has an inner movement toward the invisible beauty (769D).93. DN IV.10, 705C.94. DN IV.10, 705CD.95. DN IV.10, 705D–708A.96. Rom 11:36. Cfr. Col 1:16.97. DN IV.7, 704B.98. DN IV.20, 720C.99. DN IV.23, 725C.100. DN IV.20, 720C.101. Putnam, Beauty, 71.102. Cfr. Bender, The Dawn, 134, n. 126.103. DN V.2, 816C–817A.104. Schäfer, The Philosophy of Dionysius, 80.105. EH VII.3.11, 568D–569A.106. To limit oneself only to beautiful object without the search for the absolute beauty means to fall away from truth, as Clement of Alexandria warns: 'Those, therefore, who are devoted to the image of the beautiful, that is, love of finery, not the beautiful itself, and who under a fair name again practice idolatry, are to be banished far from the truth, as those who by opinion, not knowledge, dream of the nature of the beautiful; and so life here is to them only a deep sleep of ignorance; from which it becomes us to rouse ourselves and haste to that which is truly beautiful and comely, and desire to grasp this alone, leaving the ornaments of earth to the world, and bidding them farewell before we fall quite asleep.' (Peadagogus, II.11). Similarly, in his Commentary on the Prophet Isiah Basil the Great states that 'the proper beauty is known only in the divine nature' (412D).107. Note the parallel with Proclus' idea that symmetry is necessary for union, truth for purity, and beauty for order (Theol. Pl., III.11). Cfr. Anton, "Plotinus's Refutation of Beauty as Symmetry".108. Such an understanding of beauty as an uplifting tool reminds of Clement who writes in his Paedagogus, I.1: 'Eagerly desiring, then, to perfect us by a gradation conducive to salvation, suited for efficacious discipline, a beautiful arrangement is observed by the all-benignant Word, who first exhorts, then trains, and finally teaches.'109. Thus Andrew Louth writes: 'Denys the Areopagite, the Athenian convert, stands at the point where Christ and Plato meet. The pseudonym expressed the author's belief that the truths that Plato grasped belong to Christ, and are not abandoned by embracing faith in Christ.' (Louth, Denys, 10–11.)110. Florovsky, Vostochnie Otsi, 104.Additional informationNotes on contributorsFilip IvanovicFilip Ivanovic is a research fellow at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He is the editor of Dionysius the Areopagite between Orthodoxy and Heresy (2011), and the author of Symbol and Icon: Dionysius the Areopagite and the Iconoclastic Crisis (2010), as well as of many articles and papers on Greek and Byzantine philosophy, patristics, and Church history.