Greco-Christian stream·Dionysius the Areopagite·Mystic Theology·Mystic Theology — Caput IV
IV. God is not any sensible thing — the negation of all material attributes
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.
Source context
- Theme
- apophatic ascent beyond all predication and conceptual form toward the divine darkness
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
- GA 97/1906-02-11Steiner explicitly names the treatise on Mystical Theology among the Pseudo-Dionysian writings, situating its apophatic method within the tradition of Christian esoteric initiation.
- GA 87/1902-04-26Steiner distinguishes positive theology as a preliminary stage and identifies the path into superconceptual mystical knowledge as the proper culmination of spiritual inquiry.
- GA 137/1912-06-06Steiner observes that mystical knowledge of the kind represented by the Dionysian tradition involves a deliberate withdrawal from ordinary cognition and theological formulation, approaching a mode of knowing that transcends discursive thought.
Cross-tradition
- Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Proclus)The Plotinian henosis and Proclus's account of the soul's return to the ineffable One exhibit cross-tradition congruence with the Dionysian Caput IV removal of all affirmations and negations in the final ascent.
- Vedanta (nirguna Brahman)The Advaitic insistence that Brahman in its highest aspect is beyond all qualification (neti neti) shows cross-tradition congruence with the Dionysian stripping away of every predicate in the approach to the divine darkness.
- Kabbalistic Ain SophThe Kabbalistic designation of the absolute as Ain Soph, that which is without limit or definable attribute, exhibits cross-tradition congruence with the Dionysian super-essential darkness that transcends both affirmation and negation.
Mystic Theology — Caput IV
CAPUT IV.
That the pre-eminent Cause of every object of sensible perception is none of the objects of sensible perception.
SECTION I.
WE say then- that the Cause of all, which is above all, is neither without being, nor without life--nor with- out reason, nor without mind, nor is a body--nor has shape--nor form--nor quality, or quantity, or bulk--nor is in a place--nor is seen--nor has sensible contact--nor perceives, nor is perceived, by the senses--nor has disorder and confusion, as being vexed by earthly passions,--nor is powerless, as being subject to casualties of sense,--nor is in need of light;--neither is It, nor has It, change, or decay, or division, or deprivation, or flux,--or any other of the objects of sense.
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