Greco-Christian stream·Dionysius the Areopagite·Mystic Theology·Mystic Theology — Caput II
II. How one ought to be united and offer praise to the cause of all
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.
Source context
- Theme
- apophatic ascent beyond all knowing and being toward the divine darkness of unknowing
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
- GA 97, 1906-02-11Steiner references the treatise on Mystical Theology among the Pseudo-Dionysian corpus as a key document of Christian esoteric tradition, situating it alongside the hierarchical writings as an expression of initiatic knowledge within the Church.
- GA 137, 1912-06-06Steiner distinguishes the mystic who withdraws from all conceptual knowledge — including theology — from the occultist who integrates inner and outer knowing, a distinction directly relevant to Pseudo-Dionysius's insistence on transcending affirmative and negative predications alike.
- GA 87, 1902-04-26Steiner characterizes positive theology as only a preliminary stage on the path to genuine mystical knowledge, implying that the via negativa of Caput II represents a necessary advance beyond that preparation.
Cross-tradition
- Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Proclus)The Plotinian ascent beyond Nous to the ineffable One, and Proclus's systematic henology, supply the structural framework within which Pseudo-Dionysius formulates the soul's movement past all predication into divine silence.
- Advaita Vedanta — neti netiThe Upanishadic method of negating every finite attribute to approach Brahman-without-qualities shows cross-tradition congruence with the Dionysian stripping-away of all names and forms in Caput II.
- Kabbalistic Ain SophThe Kabbalistic designation of the absolute as Ain Soph — limitless, beyond all positive determination — presents cross-tradition congruence with the divine darkness beyond being that Pseudo-Dionysius articulates in this chapter.
Mystic Theology — Caput II
CAPUT II.
How we ought both to be united and render praise to the Cause of all and above all.
SECTION I.
WE pray to enter within the super-bright gloom, and through not seeing and not knowing, to see and to know that the not to see nor to know is itself the above sight and knowledge. For this is veritably to see and to know and to celebrate super-essentially the Superessential, through the abstraction of all existing things, just as those who make a lifelike statue, by extracting all the encumbrances which have been placed upon the clear view of the concealed, and by bringing to light, by the mere cutting away 60 , the genuine beauty concealed in it. And, it is necessary, as I think, to celebrate the abstractions in an opposite way to the definitions. For, we used to place these latter by beginning from the foremost and descending through the middle to the lowest, but, in this case, by making the ascents from the lowest to the highest, we abstract everything, in order that, without veil, we may know that Agnosia, which is enshrouded under all the known, in all things that be, and may see that superessential gloom, which is hidden by all the light in existing things.
Footnotes
133:60 i.e. the abstraction.
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