Dionysius was indebted to Hierotheus — Ammonius
and the Alexandrine School. xiii
drew from Dionysius. This we shall shew, not as
we might, by his works as described by Photius, but
from Plotinus, his disciple, in order that we may
have the prevailing proof, to some minds, of testi-
mony not necessarily Christian.
Plotinus was born in Lycopolis, a.d. 205, and died
in Campagna, a.d. 270. At the age of 29, he began
to search for truth, in the schools of Alexandria.
He wandered from teacher to teacher, but could
fmd no rest until he was persuaded to go and hear
Ammonius-Saccus. After listening to him, he ex-
claimed, *' This is what I sought."
Plotinus remained under him eleven years, until
the death of Ammonius, a.d. 242. In a.d. 244,
Plotinus began to teach in Rome. Plotinus was not
a refined scholar. Porphyry, therefore, committed
his teaching to writing. Porphyry was regarded as
the greatest enemy to the Christian Faith in the
early centuries. Persecutors burned the bodies of
Christians, but Porphyry sought to undermine their
faith in the Holy Scriptures, by quibbles of unbelief,
which have been revived to-day as "New Criticism."
Porphyry wrote against the Holy Scriptures with
a bitterness engendered by a conviction of their
truth. Now, it is a startling fact, that though the
teaching of Plotinus comes to us through Porphyry,
there is not a word in the Enneades, in which the
teaching of Plotinus is given, against the Christian
Faith. It is true that Eutochius published another
version of the teaching of Plotinus, on the ground
that his teaching was coloured by Porphyry, but we
xiv Dionysius the Areopagite
prefer to rest our proof on Porphyry, as not being prejudiced in favour of the truth.
Let us then first see what Plotinus teaches re-
specting the Holy Trinity. He says, " We need
not go beyond the three Hypostaseis " (Persons). It
is true that Plotinus presents that Trinity as "One,"
"Mind," and "Soul," whereas Dionysius gives the
formula " Father, Son, and Spirit." Occasionally
Plotinus uses "Logos" instead of "Mind." But
even this substitution of "One" for "Father" may
be traced to Dionysius, who speaks of the Triad,
^vapxiKT) and even ivapx'-<oov vnoaTaaecop, " 0/ie spring-
ing." The " One " represents the Father. Plotinus
says, " We may represent the first principle, ' One,'
as source, which has no other origin than Itself, and
which pours Itself in a multitude of streams without
being diminished by what it gives." Dionysius speaks
of the " Father " as sole source of Godhead, and
says that "the Godhead is undiminished by the gifts
imparted." In Chap. XII. of Divine Names, Dio-
nysius treats of " One " and " Perfect " as applied
to Almighty God.
Let us now hear Plotinus on the " Beautiful "
Enneades (I. 6-7). Plotinus says, " The soul ad-
vances in its ascent towards God, until being raised
above everything alien, it sees face to face, in His
simplicity, and in all His purity, Him upon Whom
all hangs, to Whom all aspire, from Whom all hold
existence, life and thought. What transport of love
must not he feel who sees Him ! with what ardour
ought he not to desire to be united to Him ! He,
and the Alexandrine ScJiooI. xv
who has not seen Him, desires Him as the Good ;
he who has seen Him, admires Him as the sovereign
Beauty; and struck at once with astonishment and
pleasure, disdains the things which heretofore he
called by the name of Beauty, This is what
happens to those to whom have appeared the
forms of gods and demons ; — they no longer care
for the beauty of other bodies. What think you,
then, sliould he experience who has seen the
Beautiful Himself, — the Beautiful surpassing earth
and heaven ! The miserable is not he, who has
neither fresh colour nor comely form, nor power,
nor royalty ; it is alone he, who sees himself ex-
cluded from the possession of Beauty — a possession
in comparison with which he ought to disdain
royalty, rule of the whole earth, of the sea, and
heaven itself, if he should be able, by abandoning,
by despising all these, to rise to the contemplation
of the Beautiful, face to face." Plotinus also re-
cognised, " that the eye soiled with impurity could
never bear the sight, or attain to the vision of that
Beauty. We must render the organs of vision
analogous and like to the object that they would
contemplate. Every man ought to begin by ren-
dering himself beautiful and divine to obtain a vision
of the Beautiful and the Deity." ^ Well might St.
Augustine say, that "with the change of a few
words, Plotinus became concordant with Christ's
religion." No wonder that Gregory and Basil quoted
so largely from Plotinus. Let us now hear what
Dionysius says of the " Good and Beautiful " : — •
xvi Doinysius the Areopagite
''Goodness turns all things to Itself; all things
aspire to It, as source and bond and end. From
this Beautiful comes being to all existing things.
All things aspire to the Beautiful and Good, — and
there is no existing thing which does not partici-
pate in the Beautiful and Good." Read the Fourth
Chapter of the Divine Names.
Porphyry records that Plotinus attained to that
vision of the Beautiful three times during his life.
How that vision of the Beautiful is to be attained,
Dionysius describes in the " Mystic Theology : " —
" But thou, O dear Timothy, by thy persistent com-
merce with the mystic visions, leave behind both
sensible perceptions and intellectual efforts, and all
objects of sense and intelligence, and all things not
being and being, and be raised aloft agnostically to
the union, as attainable, with Him Who is above
every essence and knowledge. For by unchecked
and absolute extasy, in all purity, from thyself, and
all, thou wilt be carried on high to the superessential
Ray of the Divine Darkness, when thou hast cast
away all and become free from all." Ammonius had
such extasy during his lectures, in which he seemed
to have Divine visions.
Plotinus differs from Dionysius in regarding crea-
tion as an act of necessity, whereas Dionysius regards
it as an act of love. Plotinus treats evil as " an
elongation from God." Dionysius speaks of Al-
mighty God as immanent in matter the most
elongated from spirit. Plotinus traces evil to matter;
Dionysius to the fallacious choice of a free agent.
and the Alexandrifie School. xvii
May it not be that the pagan colouring of Porphyry
in these respects led Eutochius to give a more
faithful and consistent account of the teaching of
Plotinus.
But the crowning proof that Dionysius was the
source from which the Alexandrine School drew
much of its wisdom, is Proclus (450 — 485). Suidas
affirmed long ago that Proclus cribbed whole pas-
sages from Dionysius. Professor Stiglmayr fills seven
pages with parallel passages.
Vacherot describes certain chapters of the "Divine
Names " as extracts from Proclus, word for word,
and says the whole doctrine of Dionysius seems to
be a commentary upon the Theology of Alexandria.
Barthelemy St. Hilaire says that Dionysius and
Scotus Erigena, almost entirely implanted, in the
middle age, the doctrine of Neo-PIatonism. Matter
is more profound; Professor Langen finds in Diony-
sius the "characteristics of Neo-Platonic speculation."
The similarity of doctrine is denied by none. Which
writings appeared first? that is the question.
Dexter commemorates the " Divine Names " A.D. 98 ^
Polycarp quotes Dionysius verbatim as " a certain
one." Jerome quotes him as " quidam Graeco-
rum." Dionysius of Alexandria (a."'d. 250), writing
to Sixtus II., declares that no one can intelligently
doubt that the writings are those of Dionysius, the
convert of St. Paul, Bishop of Athens.
<^ From Tabularia of Toledo, A.D. 98.
xviii Dionysius the Areopagite
Tertiillian expresses the Agnosia "nihil scire
omnia scire." Origen quotes him by name. Theo-
dore (a.d. 420) answers objections, — whom Photius
approved. Gregory calls Dionysius "an ancient and
venerable Father." The Second Council of Nicea
quotes the very words contained in the " Eccle-
siastical Hierarchy," c. I. s. 4, as those of the great
Dionysius. Bishop Pearson proves that the best
judges in the sixth, fifth, fourth and third centuries
regarded the writings as written by Dionysius the
Areopagite. German scholars to-day admit that the
external testimony is in favour of their genuineness.
Yet eccentric critics, on account of the precise
theology, cannot believe that the works were written
by a learned Greek, — Chief of the Areopagus — who
forsook all to follow Christ, — the convert and dis-
ciple of St. Paul, — the familiar friend of St. John
and other Apostles, to whom our Saviour revealed
the mysteries of the Father ; but those critics can
believe that an unknown man, whose century no one
can fix, and possibly a Syrian, may have gleaned
from writers of the first four centuries these theo-
logical pearls expressed in Greek in a style unique
and always like itself. They can believe that the
Author of these Divine writings would incorporate
fictitious allusions to persons and events of the
apostolic age, to add lustre to incomparable works,
and to impute them to another. They can believe
that writings, so composed, were foisted upon a
credulous Christendom, so that Dionysius of Alex-
andria, Maximus, St. John Damascene, and the
and the Alexaiidrine School. xix
Council of Nicea, accepted them as the genuine
works of Dionysius. I do not belong to that school.
Only unbelief could believe anything so incredible.
Rational men will not hazard the surmise that works
known in the first century were gleaned from writings
composed four hundred years afterwards.
The tone of the Alexandrine School may be
further illustrated from Amelius and Dionysius the
Sublime. Amelius attended Plotinus twenty-four
years as companion and pupil. Eusebius gives an
extract from his writings, in which Amelius says,
""This plainly was the Word, by Whom, being Eter-
nal, things becoming became, as Heraclitus would
say." It was probably he who said, "the Prologue
of St. John's Gospel ought to be written in gold,
and placed in the most conspicuous place in every
church." De Civ. Dei, LX. c. 29. Dionysius, the
famous secretary of Zenobia, attended the lectures
of Ammonius-Saccus. He was the "arbiter" of all
literary questions. He expresses his admiration,
De sub. L. 9, of the diction of Moses in the de-
scription of the six days' creation, and numbers
St. Paul amongst the most brilliant Greek orators,
as a man who propounded a "dogma beyond demon-
stration."
We claim that the testimony of these illustrious
men, and the extracts from Pantaenus, Ammonius,
and their disciples, justify the conclusion that the
Alexandrine School was Biblical, Christian, and
Philosophical, that its Philosophy was a Divine
XX Dionysius the Ai'eopagite^ d^c.
Philosophy of the Faith, not a pagan philosophy
agaifist the Faith, and that the main sources of its
Divine Philosophy were the writings of Hierotheus
and Dionysius, Bishops of Athens.
JOHN PARKER.
Cannes, Epiphany, 1899.
For sketch of Life, Internal Evidence of date, and External Testimony to genuineness during first nine centuries, see " Celestial and Ecclesiastical Hierarchy." (Skeffington,
Dionysius the Areopagite
On the
HEAVENLY HIERARCHY.
CAPUT I.
To MY Fellow Presbyter Timothy ^
DiONYSius the Presbyter.
That every divine illumiiiation, whilst going forth
lovi7igly to the objects of its forethought under
various forms^ remains si?nplex. Nor is this ail.
It also unifies the things illuminated.
Section I.
"Every good gift^ and every perfect gift is from above, and coraeth down from the Father of Lights."
Further also, every processiofi of illuminating light,
proceeding from the Father, whilst visiting us as a
gift of goodness, restores us again gradually as an
unifying power, and turns us to the oneness of our
conducting Father, and to a deifying simplicity. For<=
all things are from Him, and to Him, as said the
Sacred Word.
Section H.
Invoking then Jesus, the Paternal Light, the Real, the True, " which lighteth ^ every man coming into
■ I Pet. V. I. ^ James i, 17. c Rom. xi. 36.
^ John i. 9
2 Dionysius the Areopagite
the world," "through^ Whom we have access to the
Father," Source of Light, let us aspire, as far as is
attainable, to the illuminations handed down by our
fathers in the most sacred Oracles, and let us gaze,
as we may, upon the Hierarchies of the Heavenly
Minds manifested by them symbolically for our in-
struction. And when we have received, with im-
material and unflinching mental * eyes, the gift of
Light, primal and super-primal, of the supremely Di-
vine Father, which manifests to us the most blessed
Hierarchies of the Angels in types and symbols, let
us then, from it, be elevated to its simple splendour?.
For it never loses its own unique inwardness, but
'multiplied and going forth, as becomes its goodness,
for an elevating and unifying blending of ihe objects
of its care, remains firmly and solitarily centred within
itself in its unmoved sameness ; and raises, accord-
ing to their capacity, those who lawfully aspire to it,
and makes them one, after the example of its own
unifying Oneness. For it is not possible that the
supremely Divine Ray should otherwise illuminate
us, except so far as it is enveloped, for the purpose of
instruction, in variegated sacred veils, and arranged
naturally and appropriately, for such as we are, by
paternal forethought.