The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite
by John Parker | 1897 | 94,603 words
These anonymous ancient texts are attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. They offer a profound exploration of Christian mysticism woven with Neoplatonic thought and have significantly influenced Christian theology, particularly the development of apophatic or negative theology. By employing complex metaphysical language, Dionysius seeks to transce...
Caput II: Render praise to the Cause of all
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.
p. 134
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