year A. D. 523, during the Monothelite controversy cerrain writ- ings were quoted as of authority as being the productions of Dionys- ius the Areopagite. The total silence respecting them during the preceding centuries ; the philosophical views wliich they express ; the allusions to the state of the Church with which they abound, have produced the conviction, universally entertained, that they were the work of some author who lived in the latter part of the fifth century. The most learned investigators, however, confess their inability to fix with certainty or even with probability on any writer to whom they can be referred. Though their authorship is unknown, their influence has been confessedly great. The works which bear the pseudonym of Dionysius are, " The Celestial Hierarchy," " The Terrestrial Hierarchy," " Mystical Theology," and "Twelve Epistles." Their contents show that their author belonged to the school of the New Platonists, and that his object was to propagate the peculiar views of that school in the Christian Church. The writer attempts to show that the real, esoteric doc- trines of Christianity are identical with those of his own school of philosophy. In other words, he taught New Platonism, in the terminology of the Church. Christian ideas were en#rely ex- cluded, W'hile the language of the Bible was retained. Thus in our day we have had the philosophy of Schelling and Hegel set forth in the formulas of Christian theology.
New Platonism. The New Platonists taught that the original ground and source of all things was simple being, without life or consciousness ; of which absolutely nothing could be known, beyond that it is. They assumed an unknown quantity, of which nothing can be predicated. The pseudo-Dionysius called this original ground of all things God, and taught that God was mere being without attributes of any kind, not only unknowable by man, but of whom there was nothing to be known, as absolute being is in the language of the modern philosophy, — Nothing ; notliing in itself, yet nevertheless
the Svi'tt/Ais Twi/ Travrcov.
The universe proceeds from primal being, not by any exercise of conscious power or will^ but by a process or emanation. The familiar illustration is derived from the flow of light from the sun. With this difference, however. That the sun emits light, is a proof \hat it is itself luminous ; but the fact tliat intelligent beings ema- nate from the "ground-being," is nrt admitted as proof that it is Intelligent. The fact that the air produces cheerfulness, say these
72 INTKODUCTION. [Ch. IV. - Mysticism.
philosophers, does not prove that the atmosphere experiences joy. We can infer nothing as to the nature of the cause from the nature ■ of the effects.
These emanations are of different orders ; decreasing in dignity and excellence as they are distant from the primal source. The first of these emanations is mind, vov<:, inteUigence individualized in different ranks of spiritual beings. The next, proceeding from the first, is soul, which becomes individualized by organic or vital con- nection with matter. There is, therefore, an intelligence of intelli- gences, and also a soul of souls ; hence their generic unity. Evil arises from the connection of the spiritual with the corporeal, and yet this connection so far as souls are concerned, is necessary to their individuality. Every soul, therefore, is an emanation from the soul of the world, as that is from God, through the Intelligence.
As there is no individual soul without a body, and as evil is the necessary consequence of union with a body, evil is not only neces- sary or unavoidable, it is a good.
The end of philosophy is the immediate vision of God, which gives the soul supreme blessedness and rest. This union with God is a^ained by sinking into ourselves ; by passivity. As we are a form, or mode of God's existence, we find God in ourselves, and are consciously one with him, when this is really apprehended ; or, when we suffer God, as it were, to absorb our individuality.
The primary emanations from the ground of all being, which the heathen called gods (as they had gods many and lords many) ; the New Platonists, spirits or intelligences ; and the Gnostics, aeons ; the pseudo-Dionysius called angels. These he divided into three triads; (1.) thrones, cherubim, and seraphim ; (2.) pow- ers, lordships, authorities ; (3.) angels, archangels, principalities. He classified the ordinances and officers and members of the Church into corresponding triads : (1.) The sacraments, — bap- tism, communion, anointing, — these were the means of initiation or consecration; (2.) The initiators, — bishops, priests, deacons; (3.) The initiated, — monks, the baptized, catechumens.
The terms God, sin, redemption, are retained in this system, but the meaning attached to them was entirely inconsistent with the sense they bear "in the Bible and in the Christian Church. The pseudo-Dionysius was a heathen philosopher in the vestments of a Christian minister. The philosophy which he taught he claimed to be the true sense of the doctrines of the Church, as that sense had been handed down by a secret tradition. Notwithstanding its heathen origin and character, its influence in the Church was great