Greco-Christian stream·Dionysius the Areopagite·Mystic Theology·Mystic Theology — Caput V
V. God is not any intelligible thing — the negation of all conceptual attributes
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.
Source context
- Theme
- apophatic ascent into divine silence and union beyond all knowing and being
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
- GA 97, 1906-02-11Steiner explicitly names the treatise on Mystical Theology among the Pseudo-Dionysian corpus and situates its apophatic teaching within the broader stream of esoteric Christianity feeding into anthroposophy.
- GA 87, 1902-04-26Steiner distinguishes the heights of mystical knowledge — where positive theological concepts fall away — from merely external religious formulation, a movement structurally congruent with the final chapter's negation of all predication.
- GA 137, 1912-06-06Steiner contrasts the mystic who withdraws from all theological conceptualisation with the path of occult knowledge, noting the danger of a purely inward mysticism that refuses engagement with either theology or nature.
Cross-tradition
- Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Proclus)The final Plotinian henosis — ascent beyond Nous to the One through progressive negation of attributes — displays cross-tradition congruence with Caput V's movement into speechless divine union.
- Advaita Vedanta (neti neti method)The Upanishadic via negativa, systematised as neti neti (not this, not this), parallels the Dionysian stripping away of all divine names in Caput V, constituting cross-tradition congruence in apophatic method.
- Rhineland Mysticism (Meister Eckhart)Eckhart's teaching on the Gottheit beyond all names and images, where the soul passes into the silent desert of the divine ground, displays cross-tradition congruence with the nameless union described in Caput V.
Mystic Theology — Caput V
CAPUT V.
That the pre-eminent Cause of every object of intelligible perception is none of the objects of intelligible perception.
ON the other hand, ascending, we say, that It is neither soul, nor mind, nor has imagination, or opinion, or reason, or conception; neither is p. 137 expressed, nor conceived; neither is number, nor order, nor greatness, nor littleness; nor equality, nor inequality; nor similarity, nor dissimilarity; neither is standing, nor moving; nor at rest; neither has power, nor is power, nor light; neither lives, nor is life; neither is essence nor eternity, nor time; neither is Its touch intelligible, neither is It science, nor truth; nor kingdom, nor wisdom; neither one, nor oneness; neither Deity, nor Goodness; nor is It Spirit according to our understanding; nor Sonship, nor Paternity; nor any other thing of those known to us, or to any other existing being; neither is It any of non-existing nor of existing things, nor do things existing know It, as It is; nor does It know existing things, *qua * existing; neither is there expression of It, nor name, nor knowledge; neither is It darkness, nor light; nor error, nor truth; neither is there any definition at all of It, nor any abstraction. But when making the predications and abstractions of things after It, we neither predicate, nor abstract from It; since the all-perfect and uniform Cause of all is both above every definition and the pre-eminence of Him, Who is absolutely freed from all, and beyond the whole, is also above every abstraction.
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