Divine Light: The Theology of Denys The Areopagite

By William Riordan

In his missionary journeys, St. Paul spoke in a number of cities in the Greek peninsula including Athens, renowned for its philosophical heritage. He addressed to them the message of the One, Unknown God (Acts 17:22ff). Among those present in the Areopagus (the open city center of Athens) on that day was a certain Denys (Dionysios) who eventually became a disciple of Paul.

Centuries later, a corpus of writings appeared bearing the name of the Denys the Areopagite. These texts were considered to be the writings of the first century disciple of the Apostle Paul and thus achieved almost immediate prominence, strongly influencing the lives of St. Maximus the Confessor (d. 662) and St. John Damascene (d.749) in the East and Eriugena (d. 877), St. Bede (d. 735), St. Bernard (d.1153) St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1272) Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464), St. John of the Cross (d. 1591), and many other great minds in the West.

Later historical studies of Denysಙ texts, especially during the 19th century, showed conclusively that the writings are of a later date (5th century) than had generally been thought. Hence, the appending of ಜPseudo-ಝ before the name of Denys (Pseudo-Denys, Pseudo-Dionysius) became common place.

The extraordinary brilliance of the texts themselves, however, has been in no way dimmed. The late Holy Father John Paul II in his monumental encyclical Fides et Ratio warns insistently against an approach to Revelation that shuns metaphysics. The texts of Denys provide a majestic and profound metaphysical perspective. Deeply formed by the Divine Liturgy and the Sacred Scriptures, this mysterious author uses the great insights of Plato and his later disciples, expressing the deepest profundities of the faith in stunningly beautiful writings. In Denys, readers past, present, and future find a penetrating contemplative vision into the Mystery of the Trinity and its creation.

This book is a focused exposition of Denysಙ theological understanding with particular attention to the illuminating metaphysical depth of his insight. Care has been taken to prepare a text that is readable for the serious laymen accompanied with footnotes to provide a more detailed background for the scholar.

To befriend the saints is to learn how to be the friend of God. In this beautifully written book, William Riordan offers a model of scholarly theology that strives not merely to get the concepts right, but to get the friendship right. Inspired by Denys, Riordan teaches us how to re-think our reductionist understanding of the world, so as to discover afresh the cosmic, liturgical, and Christological path by which God makes us his friends (what the Greek Fathers called "divinization"). By exploring Denys's contemplative wisdom in an manner that restores Denys to us as a great friend in Christ, this much-needed book exemplifies Newman's motto, "Heart speaks to heart."
- Matthew Levering, Associate Professor of Theology, Ave Maria University

ಜThe figure of Dionysius (Denys) the Areopagite continues to be surrounded in controversy and misunderstanding. In Divine Light William Riordan offers us a reasoned and passionate defense of Denyಙs Christian orthodoxy, and shows how important Denyಙs theology of beauty and divinization is for us today.
This study persuasively demonstrates that Denyಙs theology is not Neo-Platonism dressed up in Christian clothing, but rather that Denys makes use of categories drawn from Neo-Platonism to express a truly biblical and liturgical Christian theology.
Divine Light is more than just a scholarly study of a noted theologian. It is a work of spiritual theology itself,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Apr 14, 2010
• ISBN: 9781681491400

Book preview

DIVINE LIGHT:

THE THEOLOGY OF

DENYS THE AREOPAGITE

WILLIAM K. RIORDAN

DIVINE LIGHT

The Theology of

Denys the Areopagite

IGNATIUS PRESS    SAN FRANCISCO

Unless otherwise noted Scripture quotations (except those within citations) have been taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible, Catholic Edition. The Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible: the Old Testament, © 1952; the Apocrypha, © 1957; the New Testament, © 1946; Catholic Edition of the Old Testament, incorporating the Apocrypha, ©1966; The Catholic Edition of the New Testament, © 1965, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by John Herreid

Cover art: Christ Descending into Limbo Taking Adam by the Hand

Byzantine mosaic from the Arch of the Passion

Location: S. Marco, Venice, Italy

Photo Credit: Cameraphoto/Art Resource, NY

© 2008 Ignatius Press, San Francisco

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-58617-120-9

Library of Congress Control Number 2005938821

Printed in the United States of America

Because of him his messenger finds the way,

and by his word all things hold together.

Though we speak much we cannot reach the end,

and the sum of all our words is: "He is the all."

Where shall we find strength to praise him?

For he is greater than all his works.

Terrible is the Lord and very great,

and marvelous is his power.

When you praise the Lord, exalt him

as much as you can;

for he will surpass even that.

When you exalt him, put forth all your strength,

and do not grow weary, for you cannot praise

him enough.

Sirach 43: 26-30

     His divine power has granted to us all things that

     pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge

     of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,

     by which he has granted to us his precious and very great

     promises, that through these you may escape from

     the corruption that is in the world because of passion,

     and become partakers of the divine nature.

2 Peter 1:3-4

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Prologue

     I    Denys the Areopagite: An Introduction

1. Historical Background

2. His Method

3. His Doctrine in General

4. His Influence

               a. The East

               b. The West

     II    Denys and Neo-Platonic Philosophy

1. Denys’ Use of Neo-Platonic Philosophy

2. Major Points of Divergence

               a. The Unity of God

               b. The Goodness of God’s Cosmos

               c. God’s Love for His Cosmos

               d. The Ascent of the Mystic

     III    God and His Cosmos: Sacred Theater of Divinization

1.  The Thearchy

               a. One Super-Essential

               b. Three Hypostases

2. Christ: The Savior

               a. Introductory Remarks

               b. Origin of Evil: Sin (ἁμαρτία: hamartia)

               c. Christos Philanthropos

3.  Christ: The Head of the Hierarchies

               a. Christ—The Light

               b. Christ Resplendent in His Hierarchies

     IV    The Divinization of Human Souls: God and the Intellect and Will

1.  God and the Intellect

2. The Four Ways of Knowing God

               a. Symbolic Theology

               b. Affirmative Theology and Negative Theology

               c. Mystical Theology; God’s Presence with the Mystic

3.  The Transformation of the Intellect

4. God and the Will

               a. The Divine Goodness, Eros, and Ecstasy

               b. The Anagogy of Knowing and Loving

Summary and Final Remarks

Appendix

Select Bibliography

Notes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to extend my gratitude to:

Dr. Nella Filippi and Fr. Joseph Henchey, C. S. S., for their careful direction of my doctoral thesis which has formed the foundation of this book.

Dr. Daniel Keating, Kristin Towle, Kristen Harr, and the staff at Ignatius Press, who reviewed the work in progress and offered helpful suggestions for its improvement.

Fr. Joseph Fessio who also read the manuscript and was willing to bring it to publication.

Dr. Daniel Nodes, a fellow faculty member at Ave Maria University, who brought his excellent acuity in ancient Greek to the aid of the text by reviewing quoted passages from Denys.

Michael Horton who contributed enormously by his typing of the rough draft.

Kevin Schemenauer who painstakingly reviewed the text and prepared the indices.

The Theology department and library staff of Ave Maria University who in numerous ways assisted the work.

My parents, Joseph and La Verne Riordan, my first teachers in the faith.

Our friends the Callagys and the Ryans for their generous help.

My wife, Claudia, my beloved in Christ, who has so lovingly and consistently nurtured this work. Our dear daughter, Annamaria.

Our spiritual father in Christ, Fr. Owen Carroll, who is taught not only by learning but by suffering divine things.

ABBREVIATIONS

CCC     Catechism of the Catholic Church

*CD      Corpus Dionysiacum

*CH      The Celestial Hierarchy

*DN      The Divine Names

DS      Dictionnaire de Spiritualite

DTC     Dictionnaire de la Theologie Catholique

*EH      The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy

*Ep.      Epistle

HC      Histoire du Christianisme: des origines de nos jours

*MT      The Mystical Theology

PG      Patrologiae Series Graeca

PGL     A Patristic Greek Lexicon

PL      Patrologiae Series Latina

RSPT    Revue des Sciences philosophiques et theologiques

SC      Sources Chretiennes

ST      Summa Theologiae

I have used the standard text numbering as found in Corpus Dionysiacum (CD) shown above. Unless otherwise indicated, the quotes from Denys in English were taken from Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York, 1987).

*These starred sources indicate works by Denys himself. They have been used throughout the book, not only in quoting, but also in discussing and comparing them. When coming across an abbreviation in the latter context, read it as the title. In Chapter 1, section 2, for example, "How-ever, MT [The Mystical Theology] summarizes DN [The Divine Names]. . . Another example being: By the time one comes to read his MT [Mystical Theology], one should already have read his DN [Divine Names]."

Scriptural quotes have been taken from the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.

It is to be understood that this important theologian has no fixed appellation in English. He is known most commonly as Denys or Dionysius the Areopagite, but also as

• Denis,

• Pseudo-Denys,

• Pseudo-Dionysius, and

• The Areopagite.

All names are explained in Chapter 1.

PROLOGUE

In his masterpiece, Herrlichkeit, the late Father Hans Urs von Balthasar says of Denys that he is perhaps the strongest ‘aesthetic’ theologian in the history of theology.¹ Our intent in this work will be to study Denys’ rich theological vision in all of its beauty. There one finds God, the Blessed Trinity, in all Its splendor, and issuing from It the vast cascade of myriads of angels and men and all further orders of creation in hierarchical array. And as beauty is always the well-proportioned manifestation of being, we can expect to find in Denys a sure metaphysical guide into the deepest reaches, which are also the supreme heights, of being. Many very qualified theological authorities such as our present Holy Father, Benedict XVI, von Balthasar, Avery Cardinal Dulles, and Father Jean-Herve Nicolas have all decried the desiccated metaphysics found in much of modern philosophy and theology. The late Holy Father, John Paul II, has also noted this problem tellingly in his encyclical letter, Fides et Ratio. He writes:

Wherever [man] discovers a call to the absolute and transcendent, the metaphysical dimension of reality opens up before [him]: in truth, in beauty, in moral values, in other persons, in being itself, in God. We face a great challenge at the end of this millennium to move from phenomenon to foundation, a step as necessary as it is urgent. We cannot stop short at experience alone; even if experience does reveal [man’s] interiority and spirituality, speculative thinking must penetrate to the spiritual core and the ground from which it rises. Therefore a philosophy which shuns metaphysics would be radically unsuited to the task of mediation in the understanding of revelation.²

The metaphysical profundity of Denys’ work has long been admired by master theologians of the East and the West. In our present-day situation, characterized as it is by a fracturing of theology into specializations that tend to exclude one another, Denys’ panoramic presentation of God and His world is a deeply integrated and refulgent unity. The main text of this book aspires to serve as an introduction to Denys’ thought, while it is hoped that the footnotes might provide the more advanced reader with a deeper and more nuanced reflection. Our major emphasis will be on the deep synergy³ of all creatures from, through, and unto God as seen from Denys’ perspective. Within this synergy, we will give particular attention to his very fertile understanding of the metamorphosis of the soul in the process of divinization. Our work is divided into four chapters, and also includes a summary and an appendix.

The first chapter introduces Denys within the context of his place and time in history. In the annals of theology, a more mystifying figure would be difficult to find. The search for his identity continues. We will attempt to summarize some of the major research on this point and state our own position and its rationale. Also, within the purview of this chapter, we will give a short summary of Denys’ remarkable approach in theologizing. Thoroughly formed on liturgy and suffused with elements of the Platonism of late antiquity, his vision of God and His works is majestic and compelling. That vision has continued to inspire great minds throughout the ages not only in theology, but also in literature and even in architecture, despite the disputes regarding his identity. We will give a brief account of this inspiring influence of the Areopagite through the centuries and up to the present.

Following upon this, in Chapter 2, we will explore the formative role that Neo-Platonism, especially that of the late Academy at Athens, plays in the structure of the Areopagite’s vision. Throughout antiquity, the enormous impact of Plato’s work is seen not only in the pagan philosophers but also in major Jewish and Christian writers, many of whom were convinced that Plato must have had access to the sacred texts of Moses. Later, Muslim luminaries adopted highly developed forms of Plato. Such esteem in these worshippers of the God of Abraham is testimony to the profundity both of Plato’s original towering insights and of some of the subsequent formulations deriving from him. It has been argued by some that Denys’ Christian perspective has been deeply distorted by his Platonism. We will try to address these arguments and, in the process, present the reader with certain aspects of Denys’ work that show a distinctive Christian character.

Chapter 3 is entitled, God and His Cosmos: Sacred Theater of Divinization. We will consider Denys’ view of God, the Three-One, and His cosmos which, as His creation-from-nothing, radiates out from Him in a hierarchical pattern. We will attempt to expose Denys’ view of the Superabundant God who infinitely exceeds His world and yet is so lovingly, intimately present within it. It is through Christ, the Eternal Word, in whom inhere all of the divine ideas of creatures, that God creates His cosmos. Christ, therefore, heads up the celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchies of the intelligent beings: angels and men. These are the beings capable of sinning, i.e., separating themselves from God who is their proper end. Christ becomes man so that men might rise out of their sins, be returned to the Father, and, thus, be restored to their proper place in the hierarchy. For Denys, redemption includes God’s forgiveness of human sins but is not simply limited to that. The redeemed are divinized, deified.⁴ They become, in a new and unspeakable way, the sons of God, God’s children, heirs and sharers of His nature (Jn 1:12, 17:22;Rom 8:14-17; Gal 3:26, 4:4-7; Eph 1:5, 3:6; 2 Pet 1:4; 1 Jn 3:1-2). Throughout, it will be our intention to show the all-embracing, vibrant, and expansive presentation that Denys provides. In our view, this is much needed in the current theological discussion, which is often fractured into theological disciplines that have lost their contact with the living center.

In Chapter 4, then, we will close in upon the human component of the cosmos to see this transformative deification as it is worked in us. This change is accomplished in the human soul through and in her knowing and loving powers, the intellect and will. Always within the synergistic assistance of God and His hierarchies, the soul is purified, illuminated, and perfected. We will first seek to describe Denys’ view of how divinization is accomplished in the human intellect and then to examine how it is accomplished in the will. Here our purpose will be to illustrate the intimacies of God with the human soul-body at the primal level of creation-with-redemption in which (for Denys, at least) redemption offers a super-natural extension of what has already been given by God in His act of creating.

A brief summary will review the foregoing and offer some comments on the importance of Denys’ theological vision for our own age. An appendix will follow. In it, we will attempt to show certain correspondences between initiation rites in primitive societies and Denys’ understanding of mystical initiation. Our intention here is to offer insights on Denys through the perspective of the history of religions. This field of study, especially through the enormously beneficial work of the late Dr. Mircea Eliade, has much to offer for the growth of theology in our own day and for the future.

We ask the reader to bear in mind that divinization is an initiation, and often an arduous one, into Divine Being. So, too, the methodology of our presentation will at times involve an arduous initiation.⁵ We will use an approach to the corpus of Denys’ writings that requires a certain stripping away (purification) of preconceptions we might bring to the texts. Philosophical views of a modern persuasion, especially those issuing out of Descartes and Kant, would obscure our ability to let the texts speak for themselves.⁶

These idealist approaches introduce an a priori gap between the mind and being. Such a gap is foreign to the mind of the Areopagite, trained as he was at the Academy in Athens.⁷ It seems to us crucial that we enter as far as possible into Denys’ contemplation of God and His world and of His operation in that world.⁸ We wish to see what Denys sees as he sees it and to expose and discuss precisely that. To do this we must maintain our points of attention with Denys’ points of attention: beings and their acts. Through the above-mentioned purification (which we must first impose upon ourselves), we may then follow Denys as he leads us through many other purifications. Thus, we will be properly disposed for illumination, seeing along with him that dark ray (σκότους ἀκτῖνα: skotous aktina)⁹ of God and all beings in Him. Then, together with Denys, we too will be able to move upward into greater union with the One who pre-possesses (cf. The Divine Names 816D) all beings in the inexhaustible super-essential Light that He is.

I

DENYS THE AREOPAGITE: AN

INTRODUCTION

I.  Historical Background

In his Summa Theologiae (ST), Saint Thomas says that we cannot know what God is.¹ Nearly the same, analogically speaking, could be said of even the best attempts of modern historical science to identify Denys. It is widely known and accepted, especially through the historical studies of two German scholars, Koch and Stiglmayr, that the Dionysius of Mars Hill in Athens, a convert of Saint Paul, could not have authored the works that bear his name.² Since the time of their research, in the late nineteenth century, many have sought to establish who the renamed Pseudo-Dionysius (or Pseudo-Denys) might be.³ There are several ways to refer to him in English; for the purpose of this work, we will refer to him as Denys, the Areopagite, or his full title, Denys the Areopagite. To our knowledge, the best available summary of the current research in this area can be found in Enzo Bellini’s introduction to Piero Scazzoso’s translation of the whole of Denys’ writings in the Corpus Dionysiacum (CD).⁴ We will be relying especially on his synopsis in our relatively brief introduction to the mystifying man behind these writings.

The CD makes its first public appearance during the reign of Justinian (532-533), in a controversy between Orthodox bishops and a group opposed to them who had gathered themselves around Severus of Antioch. De Gandillac describes the latter party as moderate monophysites.⁵ This disagreement over the character of the unity in the Person of Christ had persisted since the time of the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Justinian, in an effort to solve the problem, convoked five bishops from each of the disputing parties to meet. Each side presented texts from the Fathers in support of its position. The Severians included among their selections writings from a certain Dionysius the Areopagite. The Chalcedonians, in surprise, asked why such writings were not known by previous Fathers of the Church.⁶ Despite these initial hesitations about their authenticity, Denys’ works, fortunately for us, were subsequently accepted with warmth. Gregory the Great is familiar with his writings, calling him the Divine Denys,⁷ and even more importantly, he is studied and commented upon by the great champion and further developer of Chalcedonian Christology, Maximus the Confessor.⁸ We will give a brief narrative of the reception of Denys works in both the West and the East in the following section of this chapter.

First, however, we wish to examine our writer, insofar as possible, in terms of his own person. One of the best compact descriptions available sketches him thus:

He claims to be the Areopagite mentioned in Acts 17:22ff, who became a disciple of St. Paul after listening to his discourse on the Unknown God. He wrote in Greek, was probably a Syrian, and his works were certainly known by the early sixth century. Scholars are generally agreed that, on internal evidence, these works could not be of the first century. In antiquity he was identified with both the first Bishop of Athens and with the Denys, Bishop of Paris, who suffered martyrdom in the third century. There can be no doubt that the belief that he was indeed the disciple of St. Paul added greatly to his prestige in the past; in the Middle Ages his authority surpassed that of any other Father of the Church, and he is one of the authors most frequently quoted by St. Thomas. His true identity is unknown.⁹

Reputed as the first Bishop of Athens, he was conflated with Denys, the Bishop of Paris, who would actually have lived centuries later. His martyrdom was described by the Abbot Hilduin (ninth century) in his Passio sanctissimi Dionysii (PL 106, 23-50).¹⁰ It is not until the time of the Renaissance and afterward that more critical literary and historical approaches to the CD again began to raise doubts about Denys’ true identity.¹¹ Koch and Stiglmayr, each researching independently, finally convincingly established the much later dating for Denys that is now widely accepted.¹² Given this much later dating, we can add several other points regarding Denys’ identity, and especially details about the most important influences on him.

Stephen Gersh, a foremost scholar of the Middle and Neo-Platonic tradition, is certain of the Christian faith of Denys and also of his attendance at the Academy in Athens.¹³ It seems likely to him that Denys would have frequented the lectures of Proclus (c. 410-485), whom we know to have been made scholarch (i.e., director) of the Academy in 476.¹⁴ Men from throughout the known world came to Athens for study at the Academy. They were of widely varying backgrounds—Christians, Jews, pagans. They would have had two years of Aristotle previous to their attending Proclus’ lectures on Plato.¹⁵ Whether he came to the Academy as an already-baptized Christian or was later, after these studies, to embrace the faith, we do not know. In either case it is, in the light of the best of our research, necessary to insist that Denys is not a Proclus baptized.¹⁶ Rather, he uses, as he calls them, the things of the Greeks to express the truth of the faith.¹⁷

What other writers as well as religious and intellectual currents may have been available to Denys? Andrew Louth points to a current of interest at that time in theurgy (divine work), again, coming down especially through the Neo-Platonic writings.¹⁸ We mentioned above the studies required in Aristotle. Could these have affected Denys’ views?¹⁹ We will have occasion to take these points up in more detail in Chapter 2. Other scholars have discovered in Denys the influence of the Alexandrian²⁰ and Cappadocian Fathers.²¹ Ronald Hathaway, writing in 1969, sees deliberate attempts on Denys’ part to avoid any obvious use of these later theologians on the grounds that this would have thrown his assumed identity into question.²² It suffices for our purposes to conclude that he probably was at least familiar with the most prominent of these Fathers. Abundantly clear, however, is his great familiarity with the living Tradition of the Church in her Scriptures and her liturgical practices at his time.²³ Finally, we may add that it seems very likely that he was a native of Syria or Egypt and that he may well have been a monk.²⁴

It is significant that the CD closes with a letter to Saint John, one with whom Denys shares a very similar theological vision and style.²⁵ In Ep. (Epistle) X, Denys writes: "Beloved and blessed soul—and this is something which I, more than many, can say—I salute you. Truly the beloved disciple, beloved of him who is really to be yearned for, sought after and very greatly loved, greetings to you!

Is it any cause for wonder if Christ speaks the truth, if unjust men drive the disciples out of the cities? After a fervent praise of the holy lives of the lovers of truth, such as the evershining ray of John himself, he concludes his letter: At present I am remembering and renewing the truth of your theological teaching. But—and I say this, however bold it may seem—I will soon join you. I am completely worthy of being believed when I teach and speak the things made known about you by God, namely, that you will be released from your prison on Patmos, that you will return to the land of Asia where you will continue to act in imitation of God and will hand on your legacy to those who come after you.²⁶

We see here Denys addressing, as the title of the letter indicates, John the theologian, apostle and evangelist, with most ardent affection. He does so with utterly no sense of hesitation and declares the truth of his personal knowledge of John. He even claims a certain foreknowledge of events forthcoming in his own life (I will soon join you) and in John’s (you will be released from your prison on Patmos).

In his humility and mysticism, Denys realizes that God’s eternal mode of being implies His total Presence to all beings of all times and places at once. Hence, there is a certain permeability of past, present, and future to one another. Certainly, throughout the whole corpus of his writings, Denys shows himself to be a man who has the highest respect for the truth. He affirms truth as one of God’s names, and, therefore, identical with His Being.²⁷ Further, in one of his other letters, Ep. VII, he discourses on the satisfaction of good men in their being able to know and to proclaim as well as they can the truth itself as it really is. He adds to this: It is enough for me first to know about the truth and then to speak appropriately of what I know. And may God grant me this!²⁸

It is significant that in this same letter, Denys goes on to state that he was in Heliopolis during the crucifixion, when Christ, the cause of all, brought about the eclipse of the sun, as narrated in the Gospels. He speaks of his having been personally present, along with James, the brother of God, and Peter, that summit, that chief of all those who speak of God, at the Dormition of Mary. He also writes to the Fellow-Elder, Timothy, To Titus, the hierarch, and to Polycarp, the hierarch. He speaks of the divine Paul, [who] has been my elementary instructor, of Bartholomew, and Ignatius.²⁹

Denys insists, then, both on truth and on the truth of his presence in the apostolic milieu. How can we, who now fully know that he is writing nearly four hundred years later, accept what he says about his identity? It seems to us that von Balthasar, who, as we have already indicated, has such great respect for Denys, provides a key for us to answer this question. He sees Denys as having received a particular charism that has plunged him into illo tempore (literally, that time) when the Spirit burned so vigorously in the minds of the eyewitnesses of Christ. Von Balthasar urges us to move to a new vantage point in order to view this fascinating man properly:

Is one telling this Syrian monk in 500 A.D. anything new, if one proves to him that he was not converted by the speech on the Areopagus in 50 A.D.? Or does not the whole phenomenon exist on an utterly different level? On the level, that is, of the specifically Dionysian humility and mysticism which must and will utterly vanish as a person so that it lives purely as a divine task and lets the person be absorbed (as in the Dionysian hierarchies) in taxis and function, so that in this way the divine light, though ecclesially transmitted, is received and passed on as immediately (amesos) and transparently as possible? The identification of his task with a situation in space and time immediately next to John and Paul clearly corresponds for him to a necessity which, had he not heeded it, would have meant a rank insincerity and failure to respond to truth. One does not see who Denys is, if one cannot see this identification as a context for his veracity. And one can only rejoice over the fact that he succeeded for a millennium, and that now afterwards, in the age of the opening of graves, he has been brought out, he stubbornly hides his face, I suppose, forever. Could he ever have said more than the work has said?³⁰

It is that Spirit, eternally blowing where He wills, who alone can move certain individuals, in ways that He alone knows, for His own purposes. Those who believe in a Spirit who can and does distribute such gifts (1 Cor 12:1-11) need not be so surprised at this. It is this One Spirit that animates the whole Body of Christ. As Saint Paul says, I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20). Because their common identity is with and in the whole Body of Christ (He who lives in them and they in Him), these co-members of the Church co-inhabit one another. They, in a very real way, tread the earth in each other. Von Balthasar argues for this trans-temporality: So a monk, dying to the world, assumes the name of a saint, and lives in his encompassing reality; so too the disciples of the great prophets, living centuries later in the tradition of this particular calling and continuing it, unconsciously attribute their own sayings to the founder: and one speaks rightly of a Deutero- and a Trito-Isaiah, but not of a Pseudo-Isaiah.³¹ Von Balthasar strongly suggests that, long before Valla (1405-1457) and Erasmus (1466-1536) began raising doubts about the authenticity