JPN: Christianity: Spirituality: PseudoDionysius

Pseudo - Dionysius

	Pseudo - Dionysius: The Complete Works Translation by Colm Luibheid Foreword, notes and translation Collaboration by Paul Rorem Preface by Rene Roques The Classics of Western Spirituality Paulist Press, 1987
	Who he was, and when he wrote, are uncertain. What is obvious to all is his profound meditation on the Trinity that is both theology and direct mystical experience.

Trinity!! Higher than any being,
any divinity, any goodness!
Guide of Christians
in the wisdom of heaven!
Leads us up beyond unknowing and light,
up to the farthest, highest peak
of mystic scripture,
where the mysteries of God's Word
lie simple, absolute and unchangeable
in the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence.
Amid the deepest shadow
they pour overwhelming light
on what is most manifest.
Amide the wholly unsensed and unseen
they completely fill our sightless minds
with treasures beyond all beauty.

-- The Mystical Theology, p. 135

This is, to my mind, his signature statement. A work both of poetry and theology. He works an ancient image - that God is beyond our terms of love and light. God is beyond our terms.

Every being and all the ages derive their existence from the Preexistent. All eternity and time are from him. The Preexistent is the source and is the cause of all eternity, of time and of every kind of being.
- The Divine Names, p. 98

We attribute absence of reason to [ God ] because he is above reason, we attribute lack of perfection to him because he is above and before perfection, and we posit intangible and invisible darkness of the Light which is unapproachable because it so far exceeds the visible light.
- The Divine Names, p. 107

Smallness or subtlety is predicated of God's nature because he is outside of the bulky and the distant, because he penetrates without hindrance through everything.
- The Divine Names, p. 115.

It is not soul or mind, nor does it possess imagination, conviction, speech, or understanding. Nor is it speech per se, understanding per se... It is not immovable, moving, or at rest. ... It is not a substance, nor is it eternity or time. It is not sonship or fatherhood and it is nothing known to us or to any other being. It falls neither within the predicate of nonbeing nor of being.
-- The Mystical Theology, p. 141

Notice how he uses terms to go beyond terms. At every point he wants to get us beyond images, words, concepts as all of those are simply ways of making God smaller.