{
  "meta": {
    "schema_version": "1.2",
    "endpoint": "/api/sources/dionysius-areopagite/mystical-theology/index.json"
  },
  "work": {
    "slug": "mystical-theology",
    "name": "Mystic Theology",
    "stream": "greco-christian",
    "epoch_reflected": "greco-latin",
    "epoch_written": "greco-latin",
    "form": "apophatic treatise",
    "tradition": "Christian mysticism",
    "author": "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite",
    "year_approx": 500,
    "note": "Five short *caputs* setting out the negative or *apophatic* way — God known by *unknowing* (ἀγνώστως), beyond every assertion and every negation. The seed text of the entire Christian apophatic tradition: the *Cloud of Unknowing*, Eckhart, the Rhineland mystics, John of the Cross. Greek title Περὶ μυστικῆς θεολογίας.",
    "books_slug": "parker--dionysius-vol-1",
    "books_slugs": null,
    "has_project_translation": false,
    "steiner_loci": []
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "dionysius-areopagite",
      "name": "Dionysius the Areopagite",
      "url": "/sources/dionysius-areopagite/"
    }
  ],
  "translation": {
    "title": "The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, Vol. I",
    "author": "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (late 5th–early 6th c.)",
    "source": "sacred-texts.com / chr/dio (mirror of James Parker & Co., London, 1897)"
  },
  "chapters": [
    {
      "num": 1,
      "slug": "19-mt-caput-i",
      "title": "Mystic Theology — Caput I",
      "words": 704,
      "url": "/sources/dionysius-areopagite/mystical-theology/19-mt-caput-i/",
      "api": "/api/sources/dionysius-areopagite/mystical-theology/19-mt-caput-i.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "I. What is the divine darkness — Moses on Sinai",
      "blurb": "The treatise's opening — and the foundational chapter of the Western apophatic tradition. The doctrine of the *divine darkness* into which Moses entered on Sinai when he passed beyond the lights into the *cloud of unknowing*. Bonaventure, Eckhart, *The Cloud of Unknowing* all derive from this chapter."
    },
    {
      "num": 2,
      "slug": "20-mt-caput-ii",
      "title": "Mystic Theology — Caput II",
      "words": 227,
      "url": "/sources/dionysius-areopagite/mystical-theology/20-mt-caput-ii/",
      "api": "/api/sources/dionysius-areopagite/mystical-theology/20-mt-caput-ii.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "II. How one ought to be united and offer praise to the cause of all",
      "blurb": "On the *praising* of the cause of all that lies beyond all. The double movement: the kataphatic (affirming what God is) and the apophatic (denying what God is not). The proper order of negation — beginning from the lowest negations and ascending to the highest."
    },
    {
      "num": 3,
      "slug": "21-mt-caput-iii",
      "title": "Mystic Theology — Caput III",
      "words": 499,
      "url": "/sources/dionysius-areopagite/mystical-theology/21-mt-caput-iii/",
      "api": "/api/sources/dionysius-areopagite/mystical-theology/21-mt-caput-iii.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "III. What are the affirmative theologies; what are the negative",
      "blurb": "The taxonomy of theological method. The *affirmative theology* (kataphatic) — what may be said positively of God. The *negative theology* (apophatic) — what must be denied of God to reach the truth. The relation: affirmation begins from the highest, negation begins from the lowest."
    },
    {
      "num": 4,
      "slug": "22-mt-caput-iv",
      "title": "Mystic Theology — Caput IV",
      "words": 127,
      "url": "/sources/dionysius-areopagite/mystical-theology/22-mt-caput-iv/",
      "api": "/api/sources/dionysius-areopagite/mystical-theology/22-mt-caput-iv.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "IV. God is not any sensible thing — the negation of all material attributes",
      "blurb": "The first systematic negation: God is not any sensible thing. Not body, not magnitude, not shape, not number, not place, not motion, not time. The first ascent of the apophatic ladder — clearing away every sensible attribution."
    },
    {
      "num": 5,
      "slug": "23-mt-caput-v",
      "title": "Mystic Theology — Caput V",
      "words": 263,
      "url": "/sources/dionysius-areopagite/mystical-theology/23-mt-caput-v/",
      "api": "/api/sources/dionysius-areopagite/mystical-theology/23-mt-caput-v.json",
      "project_translation": false,
      "subtitle": "V. God is not any intelligible thing — the negation of all conceptual attributes",
      "blurb": "The treatise's closing chapter. God is not any intelligible thing either: not soul, not intellect, not knowledge, not truth, not goodness, not unity, not Godhead — God is beyond *every* affirmation and negation. The supreme apophatic ascent into the divine darkness."
    }
  ]
}