Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite

245 Pages·2012·1.51 MB·English

OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES
General Editors
Gillian Clark Andrew Louth
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Apophasis and
Pseudonymity in
Dionysius the
Areopagite
“ ”
No Longer I
CHARLES M. STANG
1
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Acknowledgments
It was well over ten years ago that I was first introduced to Pseudo-
Dionysius in a course at the University of Chicago on negative
theology, taught by David Tracy and Jean-Luc Marion. I remember
that we were asked to buy several books for that course, but that we
really only read and reread the Corpus Dionysiacum for the entire
quarter.Whattenweeksthosewere—theysetthecourseforthenext
ten years of my life, and may do so for another ten. I returned to
Dionysius when I returned to Harvard, this time for the ThD at
HarvardDivinitySchool.IoweagreatdealbothtoNicholasConstas,
who in my first semester convened a reading group to wrestle with
the peculiar Greek prose of the Divine Names, and to the other
two participants in that reading group, Mary Anderson and John
Manoussakis.
Above all others, however, I must thank my advisor, Sarah Coak-
ley,whohadsufficientconfidenceinmeandinthisprojecttoletme
pursueitwhereveritled.Theothermembersofmycommitteewere
equallysupportiveandindispensable:AmyHollywood,KevinMadi-
gan, and Paul Rorem. Amy Hollywood deserves special thanks—
would that everyone had as close, critical, and generous a reader as
Ihavehadinher.AsdoesPaulRorem,whoovertheyearshasgiven
generously of his time, expertise, and encouragement. Two other
professors here at Harvard also deserve acknowledgement: John
Duffy, with whom I had the privilege to read Dionysius in Greek,
and Luis Girón Negrón, for whom I wrote my very first paper on
Dionysius(andAechylus’Eumenides).
SinceIjoinedthefacultyofHarvardDivinitySchoolin2008,Ihave
had the opportunity to teach Dionysius in a number of courses,
includingtwoseminarsdevotedentirelytotheCorpusDionysiacum.
Iwishtothankmystudentsinthesecoursesforpushingmetorefine
andrevisemyreadingsoftheCD.Iamespeciallygratefultomythree
researchassistants, whohave beeninvaluable to me atpoints in this
process:Elizabeth(Liza)Anderson,ZacharyGuiliano,andJ.Gregory
Given—Greg deserving special commendation for overseeing my
shift from the Luibheid/Rorem to the Parker translation of the CD.
Iamalsogratefulbothtotheeditorsofthisseries,GillianClarkand
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vi Acknowledgments
Andrew Louth, and to the external reviewer for their collective,
constructive criticism, which has made this book much better than
itotherwisewouldbe.
Alongtheway,anumberofother,dearfriendsandcolleagueshave
readordiscussedpartsorthewholeofthismanuscript,andIwishto
thanksomeofthemhere:RyanCoyne,BenDunning,BrettGrainger,
SarahHammerschlag,TamsinJones,MarkJordan,andRachelSmith.
Butmymostheartfeltthanksarereservedformywife,Sarabinh,who
also happens to be my best friend and my very best editor and
conversation partner. Her love and support, buttressed by that of
our two daughters Vivian and Saskia, have made this—and all
things—possibleandworthwhile.
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Table of Contents
Introduction 1
1. AncientandModernReadersoftheCorpusDionysiacum:
PseudonymityandPaul 11
2. PseudonymousWritingintheLateAntiqueChristianEast 41
3. “Irejoicetoseeyourorder”:PaulandtheDionysian
Hierarchies 81
4. “ToanUnknownGod”:PaulandMysticalUnion 117
5. “NoLongerI”:TheApophaticAnthropologyof
DionysiustheAreopagite 153
Conclusion:ThePseudonym,Revisited 197
Bibliography 207
IndexLocorum 229
GeneralIndex 231
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Introduction
In early sixth-century Syria there began to circulate a collection of
writings allegedly authored by Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athe-
nianjudgewho,accordingtoActs17,convertedtoChristianityafter
hearingPaul’sspeechtothecourtoftheAreopagus.Attheclimaxof
thelongestofthefourtreatises,theDivineNames,theauthorsaysof
theapostle:“PaultheGreat,whenpossessedbytheDivineLove,and
participating in its ecstatic power, says with inspired lips, ‘It is no
longerIwholive,butChristlivesinme.’Asatruelover,andbeside
himself,ashesays,toAlmightyGod,andnotlivingthelifeofhimself,
butthelifeoftheBeloved,asalifeexcessivelyesteemed.”1Forancient
readers, for whom these were the authentic words of a first-century
Christian convert, Dionysius the Areopagite reveals his teacher Paul
to be the exemplary lover of God, whose fervent erōs carries him
outside himself in ecstasy, and therefore renders him split, doubled,
and so open to the indwelling of Christ, as the apostle himself
confesses in Gal 2:20. For modern readers, who know that these are
1 DN4.13712A;CDI159.4–8.Unlessotherwisenoted,allcitationsinEnglishare
from John Parker’s translation, The Complete Works of Dionysius the Areopagite.
Ihave chosen Parker’s translation because it followsthe Greek much more closely
thanthemorerecent,andnowstandard,EnglishtranslationbyColmLuibheidand
PaulRorem.ButIhavereservedtherighttomakeslightchangesinParker’stransla-
tions,mostlyhavingtodowiththepeculiaritiesofhislatenineteenth-centuryprose
andvocabularychoices.AllcitationsinGreekarefromthestandardcriticaledition:
BeateReginaSuchla,CorpusDionysiacumI[Dedivinisnominibus];GünterHeiland
Adolf Martin Ritter, Corpus Dionysiacum II [De coelesti hierarchia, de ecclesiastica
hierarchia,demysticatheologia,epistulae].Inwhatfollows,IrefertotheentireCorpus
DionysiacumastheCDanditspartswiththefollowedabbreviations:DN=Divine
Names, CH = Celestial Hierarchy, EH = Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, MT = Mystical
Theology,andEp.=Letters.
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