Mystical Theology and the Celestial Hierarchies

CHAPTER I

What is the Divine Darkness?

O Supernal Triad, Deity above all essence, knowledge and goodness; Guide of Christians to Divine Wisdom; direct our path to the ultimate summit of Thy mystical lore, most incomprehensible, most luminous and most exalted, where the pure, absolute and immutable mysteries of theology are veiled in the dazzling obscurity of the secret Silence, outshining all brilliance with the intensity of their Darkness, and surcharging our blinded intellects with the utterly impalpable and invisible fairness of glories surpassing all beauty.

Let this be my prayer. But do thou, dear Timothy¹, in the diligent exercise of mystical contemplation, leave behind the senses and the operations of the intellect, and all things sensible and intellectual, and all things in the world of being and non-being, that thou mayest arise by unknowing towards the union, as far as is attainable, with Him Who transcends all being and all knowledge.² For by the unceasing and absolute renunciation of thyself and of all things thou mayest be borne on high, through pure and entire self-abnegation, into the superessential Radiance of the Divine Darkness.³

But these things are not to be disclosed to the uninitiated, by whom I mean those attached to the objects of human thought, and who believe there is no superessential Reality beyond, and who imagine that by their own understanding they know Him Who has made Darkness His secret place. And if the principles of the divine mysteries are beyond the understanding of these people, what is to be said of others still more incapable thereof, who describe the transcendental First Cause of all in terms derived from the lowest order of beings, while they deny that He is in any way above the images which they fashion after various designs? What they should affirm is that, while He possesses all the positive attributes of the universe (being the Universal Cause) yet, in a more strict sense, He does not possess them, since He transcends them all; wherefore there is no contradiction between the affirmations and the negations, inasmuch as He infinitely precedes all conceptions of deprivation being beyond all positive and negative distinctions.⁴

Thus the blessed Bartholomew asserts that the Word of God is vast and yet minute, and that the Gospel is great and broad, yet concise and short, signifying by this, that the beneficent Cause of all is most eloquent, yet utters few words, or rather is altogether silent, as having neither (human) speech nor (human) understanding, because He is super-essentially exalted above created things, and reveals Himself in His naked Truth to those alone who pass beyond all that is pure or impure, and ascend above the summit of holy things, and who, leaving behind them all divine light and sound and heavenly utterances, plunge into the Darkness where truly dwells, as the Scriptures declare, that ONE Who is beyond all.⁵

It was not without reason that the blessed Moses was commanded first to undergo purification himself and then to separate himself from those who had not undergone it. After the entire purification, he heard many voiced-trumpets and saw many lights streaming forth with pure and manifold rays. Thereafter he was separated from the multitude, and with the elect priests, pressed forward to the summit of the divine ascent.⁶ Nevertheless, he did not attain to the Presence of God Himself; he saw not Him (for He cannot be looked upon) but the Place where He dwells. And this I take to signify that the divinest and highest things seen by the eyes or contemplated by the mind are but the symbolical expressions of those that are immediately beneath Him Who is above all. Through these, His incomprehensible Presence is manifested upon those heights of His Holy Places; that then It breaks forth, even from that which is seen and that which sees, and plunges the mystic into the Darkness of Unknowing, whence all perfection of understanding is excluded, and he is enwrapped in that which is altogether intangible, and noumenal, being wholly absorbed in Him Who is beyond all, and in none else (whether himself or another); and through the inactivity of all his reasoning powers is united by his highest faculty to Him Who is wholly unknowable; thus by knowing nothing he knows That Which is beyond his knowledge.⁷

1. The Mystical Theology is addressed to St Paul ’s companion, Timothy, whom he met on his second missionary journey. Similarly, The Celestial Hierarchies, The Divine Names, and The Ecclesiastical Hierarchies all open with the greeting: ‘To my Fellow-Presbyter Timothy from Dionysius the Presbyter’.

2. Unknowing, or agnosia, is not ignorance or nescience as ordinarily understood, but rather the realization that no finite knowledge can fully know the Infinite One, and that therefore He is only truly to be approached by agnosia, or by that which is beyond and above knowledge. There are two main kinds of darkness: the sub-darkness and the super-darkness, between which lies, as it were, an octave of light. But the nether-darkness and the Divine Darkness are not the same darkness, for the former is absence of light, while the latter is excess of light. The one symbolizes mere ignorance, and the other a transcendent unknowing - a super-knowledge not obtained by means of the discursive reason.

3. Concerning the First Principle, Damascius recommended that if indeed it is right to name it, it should be ‘celebrated by us with the name Ineffable (“not to be spoken”). Thus the Egyptians called this principle an unknowable Darkness, while uttering the name thrice. Moreover they called it a Darkness beyond all intellectual or spiritual perception.’ (Damascius, Doubts and Solutions Concerning the First Principle). It has, therefore, also been called the Thrice-unknown Darkness. This is for ever about the Pavilions of that great Light Unapproachable. It is caused by the superabundance of Light and not by the absence of lumination: it is 'a deep but dazzling Darkness' (Henry Vaughan). 'The light shineth in the darkness' (John, i, 5). 'In Thy light we shall see light' (Psalm xxxvi, 9).

4. In one sense the Infinite is most truly described by what He is, whereas all finite existences are most properly described by what they are not in relation to Him Who is; yet, inasmuch as all affirmations are necessarily drawn from that which is finite, it follows that God must transcend them all, and, therefore, without contradiction, it is true paradoxically to affirm that He possesses and does not possess both positive and negative attributes.

5. The mystics speak of other kinds of darkness; for example, the darkness of the night of purgation, and the dark night of the soul, but the Divine Darkness is in a different category from these.

6. Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai , given in the Book of Exodus, symbolises the contemplative’s progress, and was a familiar subject for those writing on the stages of the mystic path, such as Gregory of Nyssa (The Life of Moses). The Triple Mystic Path is outlined here: the Purgative (separation from the crowd), the Illuminative (the ascent, in the company of the initiated, to the dwelling place of God) and the Unitive (perfective union with God). These have a parallel in the Karma Marga, Jnana Marga and Raja Marga of oriental mysticism.

7. Since it is absolutely impossible for the finite reason to receive a pure knowledge of God save through processes which divide and limit His Infinite Nature, the mystic at last with absolute faith must plunge into the Darkness of Unknowing, which he can only do when he has reached the loftiest point to which the highest human faculty will raise him.
The ascending stages of degrees of prayer and contemplation delineated by the mystics constitute a ladder by which the aspiring soul mounts from finitude into infinitude. Thus:-

i) The Prayer of Simplicity (vocal) ii) The Prayer of the Mind (voiceless)

iii) The Prayer of Recollection (the Perfume or Answer of Prayer) iv) The Prayer of Quiet (beyond thoughts)

v) The Prayer of Union ; of various degrees of Rapture, Ecstasy and 'Glorious Nothingness'.

CHAPTER II

The necessity of being united with and of rendering praise to Him Who is the Cause of all and above all.

We pray that we may come unto this Darkness which is beyond light, and, without seeing and without knowing, to see and to know that which is above vision and knowledge, through the realization that by not-seeing and by unknowing we attain to true vision and knowledge; and thus praise, superessentially, Him Who is superessential, by the abstraction of the essence of all things; even as those who, carving a statue out of marble, abstract or remove all the surrounding material that hinders the vision which the marble conceals and, by that abstraction, bring to light the hidden beauty.⁸

It is necessary to distinguish this negative method of abstraction from the positive method of affirmation, by which we dealt with the Divine Attributes.⁹ For with these positive assertions, we began with the universal and primary, and passed through the intermediate and secondary to the particular and ultimate attributes. But now, however, we ascend from the particular to the universal conceptions, abstracting all attributes in order that, without veil, we may know that Unknowing which is enshrouded under all that is known and all that can be known, and that we may begin to contemplate the superessential Darkness which is hidden by all the light that is in existing things.¹⁰

But in the latter case, there is an up-drawing and in-drawing of the consciousness, passing from particulars to universals, which sees that God is not any of the things contemplated, and therefore, by abstraction, it arrives at the superessential Darkness, which outshines and obliterates the light of all sensible things. Or, in other words, an approach is made to the unapproachable Light.

8. Compare the well-known analogy of Plotinus: -

'Withdraw into yourself and look; and if you do not find yourself beautiful as yet, do as does the sculptor of a statue ... cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is shadowed ... do not cease until there shall shine out on you the Godlike Splendour of Beauty; until you see temperance surely established in the stainless shrine” Ennead I, 6, 9.

9. Dionysius may be referring to the approach he takes in The Divine Names.

10. These are the two modes of Divine Contemplation - Via Affirmativa and Via Negativa - which mark the equilibrating pulse of true mystical life. In the former case, beginning from on high, there is an out-flowing and a down-flowing of the consciousness, which passes from universals to particulars and sees God in all things, in the lowest as well as the highest.

CHAPTER III

What are the affirmations and the negations concerning God?

In Theological Outlines¹¹ we have set forth with praise the principal affirmative expressions concerning God, and have shown in what sense God's Holy Nature is One, and in what sense Three; what is within It which is called Fatherhood, what Sonship, and what is signified by the name Spirit; how from the uncreated and indivisible Good, the blessed and perfect Rays of its Goodness proceed, and yet abide immutably one, both within their Origin and within themselves and each other, co-eternal with the act by which they spring from it¹²; how also the superessential Jesus enters an essential state in which the truths of human nature meet; and other matters made known by the Scriptures are expounded with praise in the same work.

Again, in the treatise on The Divine Names, we have considered the meaning, as concerning God, of the titles of Good, of Being, of Life, of Wisdom, of Power, and of such other names as are applied to Him.¹³ Further, in The Symbolic Theology, we have considered what are the metaphorical titles drawn from the world of sense and applied to the nature of God; what is meant by the material and intellectual images we form of Him, or the functions and instruments of activity attributed to Him; what are the places where He dwells and the raiment in which He is adorned; what is meant by God’s anger, grief and indignation, or the divine inebriation; what is meant by God’s oaths and threats, by His slumber and waking; and all sacred and symbolical representations.¹⁴ And it will be observed how far more copious and diffused are these latter terms than those given earlier, for Theological Outlines and the exposition of the names of God are necessarily more brief than what can be said in The Symbolic Theology.

For the higher we soar in contemplation the more limited become our expressions of that which is purely intelligible; even as now, when plunging into the Darkness which is above the intellect, we pass not merely into brevity of speech, but even into absolute silence, of thoughts as well as of words. Thus, in the former discourse, our contemplations descended from the highest to the lowest, embracing an ever-widening number of conceptions, which increased at each stage of the descent; but in the present discourse we mount upwards from below to that which is the highest, and, according to the degree of transcendence, so our speech is restrained until, the entire ascent being accomplished, we become wholly voiceless, inasmuch as we are absorbed in Him Who is totally ineffable.¹⁵

But why, you will ask, does the affirmative method begin from the highest attributions, and the negative method with the lowest abstractions? The reason is because, when affirming the subsistence of That Which transcends all affirmation, we must start from the attributes most closely related to It and upon which the remaining affirmations depend; but when pursuing the negative method to reach That Which is beyond all abstraction, we must begin by applying our negations to things which are most remote from It.

For is it not more true to affirm that God is Life and Goodness than that He is air or stone; and must we not deny to Him more emphatically the attributes of inebriation and wrath than that He may be expressed or conceived?¹⁶

11. This work and The Symbolic Theology mentioned below are among Dionysius’ unknown works.

12. These correspond to the Abiding, Proceeding and Returning Principles of Proclus. By Divine Fatherhood all things abide in God, and God abides in all things; by Divine Sonship all things proceed, and God proceeds into all things; by Divine Spiration God returns, and all things return into God. The Three Divine Principles or Persons abide each in Its origin, in Itself, and in each other. (See Proclus, Elements of Theology, Propositions XXX-XL).

13. These are the five chief names of God discussed in The Divine Names, Ch. 4 - 8.

14. Although anthropomorphic and other figurative expressions applied to God are not true in the absolute sense, nevertheless they have a proper and almost indispensable place in the worship and reverence which man endeavours to pay to the Supreme through the media of finite faculties and symbols.

15. God is in a more real and positive sense than any finite reason can ever understand; hence the most prolonged and elaborate process of positing His supernal Attributes inevitably fails to describe Him, because of the utter inadequacy of finite terms truly to speak of the Infinite Ineffability.

16. That the Via Negativa is not really negative in essence is demonstrated by the fact that the negation of a negation is equivalent to an affirmation; and so the negation of non-being is consequently the positing of being. To repeat Plotinus’ metaphor, we strip away the marble to reveal the statue enshrined therein.

CHAPTER IV

That He Who is the pre-eminent Cause of all things sensibly perceived is not Himself any of those things.

We therefore maintain that the universal and transcendent Cause of all things is neither without being nor without life, nor without reason or intelligence; nor is He a body, nor has He form or shape, quality, quantity or weight, nor has He any localized, visible or tangible existence. He is not sensible or perceptible, nor is He subject to any disorder or inordination nor influenced by any earthly passion, neither is He rendered impotent through the effects of material causes and events. He needs no light. He suffers no change, corruption, division, privation or flux, or anything else which the senses can perceive. None of these things can either be identified with or attributed unto Him.¹⁷

17. Although by negation we deny all sensible attributes to God and thus, so to speak, place Him outside of time and space, yet, paradoxically, He must be in time and space, for it is certain that sempiternally He is more present at any particular moment in time than is temporality itself, and likewise He is more present in any particular place than any finite spatial principle can ever be. He is not sensible, yet He comprehends all the sensations which the senses of His creatures can ever experience throughout all duration.

CHAPTER V

That He Who is the pre-eminent Cause of all things intelligibly perceived is not Himself any of those things.

Again, ascending yet higher, we maintain that He is neither soul nor intellect; nor has He imagination, opinion, reason, or understanding, nor is He any act of reason or understanding. Nor can He be expressed or conceived, since He is neither number nor order; nor greatness nor smallness; nor equality nor inequality; nor similarity nor dissimilarity. Neither is He standing, nor moving, nor at rest. Neither has He power nor is power, nor is light. Neither does He live nor is He life. Neither is He essence, nor eternity nor time. Nor is He subject to intelligible contact. Nor is He science nor truth, nor kingship nor wisdom; neither one nor oneness, nor godhead nor goodness. Nor is He spirit, in the sense that we understand it, nor sonship, nor fatherhood; nor anything else known to us or to any other beings of the things that are or the things that are not. Neither does anything that is know Him as He is; nor does He know existing things as they are. Neither can the reason attain to Him, nor name Him, nor know Him. Neither is He darkness nor light, nor the false nor the true. Nor can any affirmation or negation be applied to Him, for although we may affirm or deny the things below Him, we can neither affirm nor deny Him, inasmuch as the all-perfect and unique Cause of all things transcends all affirmation, and the simple pre-eminence of His absolute nature is outside of every negation - free from every limitation and beyond them all.

* * * * * * *