26 Dionysius the Areopagite
the circumference into the centre of his personal
spirit. Having sucked the nourishment from the
various fruits growing severally in their different
proper zones by the margin of the stream up which
he presses, he assimilates those vitalizing elements
into his own tissues (finding each food suited in turn
to his advancing strength) and casts the rind away
as a thing no longer needed. And this rejection of
the husk in which the nourishing fruit had grown
is the process described by Dionysius as the Via
Negativa.
Let us consider this matter more in detail.
The first stage of Religion is anthropomorphic.
God is conceived of as a magnified Man with an out-
ward form. This notion contains some low degree of
truth, but it must be spiritualized. And in casting
away the materialistic details of the conception we
begin to enter on a Via Negativa. All educated
Christians enter on this path, though very few are
given the task of pursuing it to the end. So first
the notion of an outward material form is cast away
and then the notion of change. God is now regarded
as a changeless and immaterial Being, possessing all
the qualities of Personality and all the capacities of
Sensation and Perception in an eternal and spiritual
manner. This is a conception of God built up,
largely, by the Discursive Reason and appealing to
that side of our nature. But the Intuitive Reason
seeks to pierce beyond this shimmering cloud into
the hidden Light which shines through it. P^or the
mind demands an Absolute Unity beyond this variety
of Attributes. And such a Unity, being an axiom
or postulate, lies in a region behind the deductions
of the Discursive Reason. For all deduction depends
upon axioms, and axioms themselves cannot be
deduced.
Thus the human spirit has travelled far, but still
Contemplation 27
it is unsatisficcl. l^^'oni the simple unity of its own
being it ij^azes up at the Simple Unity of the Un-
created Light which still shines above it and beyond
it. The Light is One Thing and the human spirit
is another. All elements of difference in the human
spirit and in the Uncreated Light have disa[)pearcd,
but there still remains the primary distinction between
Contemplating Subject and Contemplated Object.
The human self and the Uncreated Light stand in
the mutual relationships of " Me " and " Thee." That
which says "Me" is not the Being Which is addressed
as "Thee"; and the Being addressed as "Thee" is
not that which says *'Me." The two stand over
against one another.
This relationship must now be transcended by a
process leading to ecstasy. The human spirit must
seek to go forth out of itself (i.e. out of its created
being) into the Uncreated Object of its contempla-
tion and so to be utterly merged. So it ceases to '^
desire even its own being in itself. Casting selfhood
away, it strives to gain its true being and selfhood by
losing them in the Super-Essence. Laying its intel-
lectual activity to rest it obtains, by a higher spiritual
activity, a momentary glimpse into the depths of the
Super-Essence, and perceives that There the distinc-
tion between "Me" and "Thee" is not. It sees into
the hidden recesses of an unplumbed Mystery in
which its own individual being and all things are
ultimately transcended, engulphed and transformed
into one indivisible Light. It stands just within
the borders of this Mystery and feels the process of
transformation already beginning within itself. And,
though the movements of the process are only just
commenced, yet it feels by a hidden instinct the ulti-
mate Goal whither they must lead. For, as Ruys-
broeck says : " To such men it is revealed that they
are That which they contemplate."
28 Dionysius the Areopagite
This transcendent spiritual activity is called Un-
' knowing', For when we know a thing we can trace
out the lines of difference which separate it from
other things, or which separate one part of it from
another. All knowledge, in fact, consists in, or at
least includes, the power of separating " This " from
"That." But in the Super-Essence there are no lines
of difference to trace, and there is no " This " or
*' That." Or rather, to put it differently, " This " and
" That," being now transcended, are simply one and
the same thing. While the human spirit is yet im-
perfect, it looks up and sees the Super-Essence far
beyond it. At this stage it still feels itself as " this "
and still perceives the Super-Essence as " That." But
when it begins to enter on the stage of spiritual
Reflection (to use the techical term borrowed by
Dionysius from the Mysteries) it penetrates the
Super-Essence and darkly perceives that There the
distinction ultimately vanishes. It sees a point where
"this" is transfigured into "That," and "That" is
wholly " this." And, indeed, already " That " begins
to pour Itself totally into "this " through the act
whereby " this " has plunged itself into " That."
Thus the ultimate goal of the *'ego" now seen afar
by Unknowing and attainable, perhaps, hereafter, is
to be merged. And yet it will never be lost. Even
the last dizzy leap into Absorption will be performed
in a true sense by the soul itself and within the soul
itself The statement of Dionysius that in the Super-
Essence all things are " fused and yet distinct," when
combined with the doctrine of human immortality,
means nothing else. For it means that the immortality
of the human soul is of an individual kind ; and so
the self, in one sense, persists even while, in another
sense, it is merged. This is the most astounding
paradox of all ! And Dionysius states the apparent
contradiction without seeking to explain it simply
Contemplation 29
because, here as elsewhere, lie is not nmch cuiiccnied
with theory but is merely stru^i^lini; to express in
words an overwhelming spiritual experience. The
explanation, however (if such it may be called) can
easily be deduced from his theory of existence and
of personality.
All things have two sides to their existence : one
in the Super-Essence, the other in themselves. Thus
a human personality is (in William Law's words) an
'* outbirth" from the Godhead. And having at last
made its journey Home, it must still possess these
two sides to its existence. And hence, whereas on
the one side it is merged, on the other it is not. Its
very being consists of this almost incredible paradox.
And personality is a paradox because the whole
world is a paradox, and the whole world is fulfilled
in personality.
For this principle of a twofold existence underlies
all things, and is a reflection of the Super-Essential
Nature. As the Super-Essence has an eternal ten-
dency to pass out of Itself by emanation, so the
creatures have a tendency to pass out of themselves
by spiritual activity. As the Super-Essence creates
the world and our human souls by a species of Divine
" ecstasy," so the human soul must return by an
answering "ecstasy" to the Super-Essence. On both
sides there is the same principle of Self-Transcend-
ence. The very nature of Reality is such that it must
have its being outside itself.
And this principle of self-transcendence or ecstasy
underlies not only the solitary quest of the individual
soul for God, but also the mutual relations of the
various individuals with each other. In all their
social activities of loving fellowship the creatures
seek and find themselves in one another and so
outside of themselves. It is the very essence of
Reality that it is not self-sufficing or self-contained.
30 Dionysius the Areopagite
Not only do the creatures in which the Super-Essence
overflows possess, by an answering mystery, their
true being in the Super-Essence, but, as a result of
this, they possess their true being in each other ; for
in the Super-Essence each has its place as an element
in One single and indivisible Reality. We have
here, in fact, the great antinomy of the One and the
Many, or the Universal and the Particulars, not solved
^| indeed, but pronounced to be insoluble and therefore
ultimate. It penetrates into a region beyond the in-
tellect, and that is why the intellect is finally baffled
by it.
The Dionysian theory that one side of our being is
outside ourselves in the Super-Essence will be found
incidentally to reconcile Pragmatism and Idealism
together. For Dionysius teaches that on one side of
our being we actually develop in Time. And, if this
is so, we do as the Pragmatists assert literally make
Reality. But the other side of our being is timeless
and eternally perfect outside ourselves. And if this
is so, then Reality, as Idealists tell us, is something
utterly beyond all change. Perhaps this paradox is
intended in Wordsworth's noble line : —
So build we up the being that we a7'e.^
VI. — Dionysius and Modern Philosophy
Let us now consider the bearings of the Dionysian theory on certain other currents of modern philosophy.
According to Dr. McTaggart each human soul
possesses, behind its temporal nature, a timeless self
and each one of these timeless selves is an eternal
^ Excursion, iv. , about 70 Hnes from the end. With " the being that we are," cf. Prelude^ xiv. 113-115: —
*' The highest bliss
That llcsh can know is theirs — the consciousness
Of whom they are."
Modern Philosophy 31
(Hffcrcntiation of tlic Absolute' Now if these time-
less selves are finite, then none embraces the whole
system. And, if that is so, in what docs the Spiritual
Unity of the whole consist? If, on the other hand,
they are infinite, then each one must embrace the
whole System ; and, if so, how can they remain dis-
tinct ? Having the same context, they must coalesce
even as (according to Orthodox Theology) the " Per-
sons " of the Trinity coalesce in the Unity behind
the plane of Manifestation." Dr. McTaggart's philo-
sophical scheme is noble, but it seems open to this
metaphysical attack, and psychologically it appears
to be defective as it leaves no room for worship,
which is a prime need of the human soul. The
Dionysian theory seems to meet the difficulty ; for
since our ultimate being is outside ourselves in the
Super-Essence, one side of our Being is supra-per-
sonal. Our finite selves are, on that side, merged
together in One Infinite "Self" (if It may be thus
inadequately described) ; and this Infinite Self (so to
call It) embraces, and is the Spiritual Unity of the
whole System. And this Infinite Self, seen from
afar, is and must be the Object of all worship until
at last worship shall be swallowed up in the com-
pleteness of Unknowing.
The paradox that our true existence is (in a sense)
outside ourselves is the paradox of all life. We live
by breath and food, and so our life is in these things
outside our individual bodies. Our life is in the air
and in our nourishment before we assimilate it as
our own. More astonishing still, Bergson has shown
that our perceptions are outside us in the things we
perceive.^ When I perceive an object a living cur-
rent passes from the object through my eyes by the
^ Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, especially in chaps, ii. and iii. ^ St. Thomas Aquinas, Sutnnia, Pars I. Q, XL. Art. iii. *' Matiere et Jllenioire, chap. i.
32 Dionysius the Areopagite
afferent nerves to the brain, and thence by the efferent
nerves once more to the object from which it started,
causing a mere sensation in me (/. c. in my body) but
causing me also by that sensation to have a per-
ception outside me {i.e. outside my body) in the
thing I look at. And all who gaze upon the same
object have their perceptions outside themselves in
that same object which yet is indivisibly one. Even
so are we to find at last that we all have our true
selfhoods in the One Super-Essence outside us, and
yet each shall all the time have a feeling in himself
of his own particular being without which the Super-
Essence could not be his.
The doctrine of Unknowing must not be con-
founded with Herbert Spencer's doctrine of the
Unknowable. The actual terms may be similar :
the meanings are at opposite poles. For Herbert
Spencer could conceive only of an intellectual ap-
prehension, which being gone, nothing remained :
Dionysius was familiar with a spiritual apprehen-
sion which soars beyond the intellect. Hence Her-
bert Spencer preaches ignorance concerning ultimate
things; Dionysius (like Bergson in modern times) ^
a transcendence of knowledge. The one means a
state below the understanding and the other a state
above it. The one teaches that Ultimate Reality is,
and must always be, beyond our reach ; the other
that the Ultimate Reality at last becomes so near
as utterly to sweep away (in a sense) the distinction
which separates us from It. That this is the mean-
ing of Unknowing is plain from the whole trend of
the Dionysian teaching, and is definitely stated, for
instance, in the passage about the statue or in others
which say that the Divine Darkness is dark through
excess of light. It is even possible that the word
*' Unknowing" was (with this positive meaning) a