Showing posts with label Pseudo-Dionysius. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pseudo-Dionysius. Show all posts

Monday, January 23, 2012

as we climb higher







As we climb higher, we say this.
It is not soul or mind, nor does it possess
imagination, conviction, speech or understanding.

It does not live nor is it life.  It is not a 
substance, nor is it eternity or time.

It is not wisdom.
It is neither one nor oneness, divinity nor goodness.

It falls neither within the predicate of nonbeing nor being.

It is beyond assertion and denial.  We make assertions and
denials of what is next to it, but never of it, for it is both beyond
every assertion, being the perfect and unique cause of all things,
and by virtue of its pre-eminently simple and absolute nature,
free of every limitation,
beyond every limitation;
it is also beyond every denial.





~ Pseudo-Dionysius
art from Sistine Chapel images



Sunday, March 20, 2011

the longing for beauty





For beauty is the cause of harmony, of sympathy, of community.
Beauty unites all things and is the source of all things. 
It is the great creating cause which bestirs the world 
and holds all things in existence by the longing inside them to have beauty.  
And there it is ahead of all as...the Beloved ...toward which all things move, 
since it is the longing for beauty which actually brings them into being.




~ Pseudo-Dionysius
from The Divine Names



Saturday, March 19, 2011

beautiful beyond being





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That, beautiful beyond being, is said to be Beauty - for
It gives beauty from itself in a manner appropriate to each,
It causes the consonance and splendour of all,
It flashes forth upon all, after the manner of light , the
Beauty producing gifts of its flowing ray,
It calls to itself,
When it is called beauty.

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~ Pseudo-Dionysius
from The Divine Names

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Unto this Darkness

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Unto this Darkness which is
beyond Light
we pray that we may come, and 
may attain unto vision through
the loss of sight and knowledge,
and that in ceasing thus to see or
to know
we may learn to know that which 
is beyond all perception and 
understanding
(for this emptying of
our faculties
is true sight and knowledge).

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~ Pseudo-Dionysius
Dionysius the Areopagite called Pseudo - to differentiate him from the Dionysius mentioned by Paul in Acts.  He lived in the 6th Century and has had a profound impact on Christian mystics.

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