The Bowels of Wisdom: Part 4/4

Dionysius

Moving on from Lancelot Andrews, T.S. Eliot and St Augustine, we end this series with the promised Eastern turn to St Dionysius the Areopagite, whose influence in the East is arguably as great as that of St Augustine’s in the West – though he certainly made his mark in both hemispheres. Dionysius’ approach to the dissonant, bodily and sometimes shameful imagery in the Bible is rather different. In fact, as far as he is concerned, the more shameful the image, the better, especially when applied to God.

Dionysius’ Ninth Epistle begins, redolent of St Augustine’s complaint, with the observation that many expressions in the Bible seem τοῖς πολλοῖς τερατολογίας, “to the many to be fanciful tales.” So, he goes on in his familiar fashion, ∆εῖ δὲ καὶ ἀποδύντας αὐτὰ ἐφ' ἑαυτῶν γυμνὰ καὶ καθαρὰ γενόμενα ἰδεῖν (Ep 9.1), “we must strip them to see them by themselves made naked and pure.” For even through the basest images, we will find a «πηγὴν ζωῆς» εἰς ἑαυτὴν χεομένην καὶ ἐφ' ἑαυτῆς ἑστῶσαν, “Font of Life, flowing out of itself and staying still within itself.” 

He then conjures up some examples pertinent to his case. How offensive to the refined mind, raised on Platonic elegance, to find the Bible

…clothing Almighty God in human form, and in the varied shape of wild beasts and other living creatures, and plants, and stones; and attributing to Him ornaments of women, or weapons of savages; and assigning working in clay, and in a furnace, as it were to a sort of artisan; and placing under Him, horses and chariots and thrones; and spreading before Him certain dainty meats delicately cooked; and representing Him as drinking and drunken (and sleeping and hungover (καὶ πεπωκότα καὶ μεθύοντα καὶ ὑπνώττοντα καὶ κραιπαλῶντα)

Epistle 9.1

Note the imaginal descent here, from human (not too bad) but then to beast, plant, inanimate stone and ornament or tool; then returning to the anthropomorphic scale, descending from a craftsman (reasonable enough, demiurgy has a certain Platonic pedigree), through to a rider or sitter (fine, a warrior and king), but then to a gastronome or glutton, and last (to the scandal a Christian maiden aunt) a boozer who wakes with a hangover. To be clear, Dionysius considers these images shameful, αἰσχρα. And yet, this is all strictly “Bible-based” teaching: for example, God “drinking” is a reference to the Song of Songs (5.1), the hangover to Psalm 78:65.

Now, the way Dionysius is going to resolve this is through a practice peculiar to the lesser-known, more easterly stream of Platonism represented by the 3-4^th century Egyptian pagan priest Iamblichus and 5^thcentury head of the Academy in Athens, Proclus. The fact that he is going to use this methodology is signalled early in the 9^th Epistle by the use of a technical term peculiar to that school: it’s synthēma, and Dionysius uses it to describe these strangely corporeal images in Scripture – which is odd, because the word indicates a material host or object or talisman through which pagan priests channelled divine power in the art of theurgy, theourgia, “divine work.”

Theurgy was controversial within both pagan and Christian circles. Correspondence of a debate between Porphyry and Iamblichus still exists, and we know from the City of God that Augustine was not exactly a fan, claiming that theurgy “promises false cleansing of the soul by the invocation of demons,” falsam purgationem animis daemonum invocatione promittit (City of God X.9). Scholars even in the twentieth century thought of theurgy as a magical manipulation of the will of the gods to achieve desired ends, despite Iamblichus’ insistence in the De Mysteriis that “nothing which is human cooperates anything to the end of divine actions.”

Rather, though the synthēmata, the theurgists attempted ritually to channel the work of the gods into the material realm. In Platonic terms, theurgy is the vehicle by which the higher spiritual causes have their effect in the material realm, and so addreses the gap between the spiritual and the physical of which Platonism is often accused. Theurgic ritual practice was considered by its exponents not as a bending of those higher causes to the human will, but a surrendering of the will to the will of the gods, as it were, opening the latent channel of their grace.

In particular, synthēmata was used to describe statues – basically, idols – which were to be animated by infusion of some divine spirit. There’s an allusion to this in the Symposium (216A7-B3), in fact, when Alcibiades compares Socrates to a Silenus (2^nd century Roman copy of Greek original). It doesn't sound like much of a compliment to compare someone to the statue of a hoary old satyr until you realise that those statues had an opening at the rear which concealed a smaller statue of Aphrodite or some other depiction of divine beauty. Strip away the outward form, and you find beauty hidden within. I think this can help us make sense of Dionysius’ words:

Μὴ γὰρ οἰώμεθα τὰ φαινόμενα τῶν συνθημάτων ὑπὲρ ἑαυτῶν ἀναπεπλάσθαι, προβεβλῆσθαι δὲ τῆς ἀποῤῥήτου καὶ ἀθεάτου τοῖς πολλοῖς ἐπιστήμης…

For let us not think, that the appearances of the synthēmata have been formed for their own sake, but that they shield the knowledge unutterable and invisible to the multitude…

Epistle 9.1

For those with “simplicity of mind, and aptitude of contemplative faculty,” ἁπλότητι νοῦ καὶ θεωρητικῆς δυνάμεως ἐπιτηδειότητι, unlikely symbols become gateways to the Divine.

But how? In two ways, says Dionysius:

…τοῦτο ἐννοῆσαι χρή, τὸ διττὴν εἶναι τὴν τῶν θεολόγων παράδοσιν, τὴν μὲν ἀπόρρητον καὶ μυστικήν, τὴν δὲ ἐμφανῆ καὶ γνωριμωτέραν, καὶ τὴν μὲν συμβολικὴν καὶ τελεστικήν, τὴν δὲ φιλόσοφον καὶ ἀποδεικτικήν· καὶ συμπέπλεκται τῷ ῤητῷ τὸ ἄρρητον. Καὶ τὸ μὲν πείθει καὶ καταδεῖται τῶν λεγομένων τὴν ἀλήθειαν, τὸ δὲ δρᾷ καὶ ἐνιδρύει τῷ θεῷ ταῖς ἀδιδάκτοις μυσταγωγίαις.

…the teaching, handed down by the Theologians is two-fold—one, unspoken and mystical—the other, open and better known—one, symbolical and initiative/sacramental —the other, philosophic and demonstrative;—and the unspoken is intertwined with the spoken. The one persuades, and desiderates the truth of the things expressed, the other acts and implants in Almighty God, by instructions in mysteries not learnt by teaching.

Epistle 9.1

I’ve colour-coded these expressions to make the connection clear. In blue, we’ve got the clear, more knowable, philosophical, demonstrative, way of truth, of which words can persuade; but in red, we’ve got the unspoken, mystical, symbolic and initiative or sacramental way of mystagogically imbuing what cannot be taught by reason. The first, Dionysius calls “theology,” and relates primarily to the words of Scripture; the second, though, he explicitly calls “theurgy.” He tells us what he means by “theurgy” in his Christian sense in the next sentence, where we find

…Ἰησοῦν ἐν παραβολαῖς θεολογοῦντα καὶ τὰ θεουργὰ μυστήρια παραδιδόντα διὰ τυπικῆς τραπεζώσεως.

…Jesus Himself, theologising in parables, and passing on (“traditioning”) the theurgic mysteries, through the type of a table.

Christ “theologises,” masking his words symbolically through parables, and this is the discursive, more knowable, “philosophical” way of coming to know God. But for us to get beyond the reasonable, to access God who is beyond being and hence beyond knowing, Christ “theurgises:” that is, through συνθήματα of bread and wine, basic stuff for the nourishment of the body, He gives the faithful that which mystically leads the soul to God. He is applying pagan theurgic magical theory to the Christian Sacrament.

This is more than just a lifting of terms. For the pagan Platonic theurgists, everything in the cosmos had the potential to mediate the activity of some god or spirit. The whole cosmos is a kind of theophany. And although Dionysius shifts the focus of this into Christ and his Church, that cosmic dimension is not lost, as he makes clear in the next section of the Letter:

Καὶ αὐτὴ δὲ τοῦ φαινομένου παντὸς ἡ κοσμουργία τῶν ἀοράτων τοῦ θεοῦ προβέβληται…
But also the visible cosmic order (cosmurgy) sets forth the invisible things of God Epistle 9.2

Hence, all those apparently base images of God are in fact appropriate, because even the least and basest of things manifests God to those with eyes to see.

So how will that work with the unlikely symbol of God drunk at a feast? Well, Dionysius gets back to the Bible, to another image of drinking, feasting and wine – the image in Proverbs 8 of Lady Wisdom setting her table and mixing wine. Here’s his description:

καλῶς… ἡ ὐπέρσοφος καὶ άγαθὴ σοφία πρὸς τῶν λογιῶν ὑμνεῖται, κρατῆρα μυστικόν ἱστῶσα καὶ τὸἱερὸν αὐτοῦ πὀμα πρόναουσα … τας στερεας τροφας προτιθεισα…
Διττήν οὖν τὴν τροφὴν ἡ θεία σοφία προτίθησι, τὴν μέν στερεὰν καί μόνιμον, τὴν δὲ ύγρὰν καίπροχεομένην
Beautifully … Wisdom, good and beyond-wise, is hymned by the Oracles, setting up her mystic bowl, pouring forth her sacred drink, first setting forth the solid foods… So, Divine Wisdom sets forth twofold fare, one solid and fixed, the other liquid and flowing forth.

Epistle 9.3

The bowl Dionysius takes as a symbol of Pronoia:

Ὁ μὲν οὖν κρατὴρ περιφερὴς ὢν καὶ ἀναπεπταμένος σύμβολον ἔστω τῆς ἀνηπλωμένης ἅμα καὶ ἐπὶ πάντα περιπορευομένης ἀνάρχου καὶ ἀτελευτήτου τῶν ὅλων προνοίας.
Now the bowl, being spherical and open, let it be a symbol of the Providence over the whole, which at once expands Itself and encircles all, without beginning and without end.

He then makes Pronoia stand for God Himself, described in language borrowed from Proclus:

καὶ πρόνοια παντελής ἐστιν ὁ τοῦ εἶναι καὶ τοῦ εὖ εἶναι τὰ πάντα αἴτιος καὶ ἐπὶ πάντα πρόεισι καὶ ἐν τῷ παντὶ γίγνεται καὶ περιέχει τὰ πάντα καὶ αὖθις ὁ αὐτὸς ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ καθ' ὑπεροχὴν οὐδὲν ἐν οὐδενὶ κατ' οὐδέν ἐστιν…
The Author of the being, and of the well-being, of all things, is both an all-perfect providence, and advances to all, and comes into being in everything, and embraces them all; and on the other hand, He, the same, in the same, par excellence, is nothing in anything at all, but overtops the whole, Himself being in Himself, identically and always…

Now this Proclean motif is one you may already know: it is the motif of monē, proodos, and epistrophē: remaining, procession, and return. The bowl represents God, like the basin of the Font of Life mentioned earlier, circular and so always the same, unchanging, indivisible, one. The wine, the liquid, represents the Divine Logos, the principle of order and reason, for Dionysius revealed par excellence in Scripture, but manifest throughout the whole cosmos: as he says later, it gives life like water, growth like milk, preserves like honey, enlivens like wine. The solid food, however, is what St Paul urges the milk-fed infants to progress onto: it is God Himself, beyond reason, beyond being, unchanging.

Now this, in Section 5 of Letter 9, helps explain God’s drunkenness. Drunkenness, Dionysius says, ἀσύμμετρος ἀποπλήρωσίς ἐστι καὶ νοῦ καὶ φρενῶν ἔκστασις (Ep 9.5), “is an immoderate fullness and an ecstasy of the mind (Nous) and wits.” God is “drunk” because he simultaneously stands outside Himself, μεμεθυσμένος ἅμα καὶ ἐξεστηκώς ἐστιν ὁ θεὸς – that is, goes forth in procession – and yet remains unchanged – abiding, monē – and calls us to get drunk with Him and so return to Him – epistrophe – where He is, beyond being and beyond our wits, beyond Mind.

The procession and abiding in this motif are clear enough, I think. What is less so is the epistrophē, the return. Dionysius follows earlier Church Fathers in identifying Lady Wisdom with Christ, and so ultimately it is He who invites the faithful to the table of the Heavenly Feast. But there is a certain philosophical scaffolding behind Dionysius’ thought here that we need to expose before we can get drunk with Jesus.

To decipher Dionysius’ reading, we need to get back to Plotinus. For Plotinus, God as the One cannot think, because that would imply an inadmissible multiplicity - namely, of thoughts. No activity can properly be attributed to the One. Rather, the divine Nous, commonly translated Intellect or Mind, contemplates, according to Ennead VI.7.35, in two ways: one is ἔμφρονος, “in its wits,” and the other άφρονος, or “out of its wits.” In its wits, it contemplates what is within itself, the inward gaze; but it can contemplate the One beyond only by going out of its wits, beyond any kind of intellection. To describe the irrational gaze of the Nous towards the One, Plotinus deploys a phrase from the Symposium (203B5): the Nous is μεθυσθεὶς τοῦ νέκταρος, “drunk with nectar.” And this out-of-mind drunkenness is what keeps the Nous drawn, as by gravity, towards the One, because it is what makes it νοῦς ἐρῶν, “loving Mind.” It is this beyond-noetic, beyond-rational contemplative kind of knowing, a drunken dreaming, rather than reason per se, that inheres in all things and pulls them towards unity with the One, and so wholeness.

Now, it is well-known that in classical, pagan Platonism, Erōs only goes in one direction: upward. The best explanation for this is Diotima’s, in the story of Eros’s birth that she tells at the Symposium (203B5). The gods are throwing a feast – in fact an εὐωχία, precisely the word Dionysius uses in his metaphor – a feast to celebrate the birth of Aphrodite. Penia, “Poverty,” and Poros, “Plenty” are there. Cutting the story short, when they make love and conceive Eros, Plenty is drunk on nectar, μεθυσθεὶς τοῦ νέκταρος. Eros, then, is the unwanted child of Poverty and Plenty, always poor and so in want, and therefore always scheming to obtain whatever is beautiful and good. He is, Diotima says, between wisdom and folly: for gods and the wise do not know want, and fools do not feel it. Eros is not even a god, let alone the God and Father of all, who needs nothing, lacks nothing, and therefore has no need to love.

This leaves the problem which, I have suggested, St Augustine found it hard to resolve: the further from pure spirit one is, the less loveable one becomes. There is a hierarchy in which the more bodily a thing is, the more it needs and thus desires whatever nourishes and sustains it; but there is, really, little justification on such a model for any of the higher beings to love those beneath them, and none to join St John the Divine in proclaiming that God Himself is love.

But for all Dionysius’ reliance on Platonic tradition, this is where he explicitly turns from it. In DN IV.12, he denies any distinction between erōs and agapē. St John might just as well have said God is erōs. The terms are interchangeable. He admits, in CH 2.4, of the Platonic definition of erōs, as the hunger of the wise for the Good. But to him, the Good, or God, is not only the object of that hunger, but its source. It is two-way: it governs both pronoia and epistrophe. It moves not only the subordinate to “return” to the superior, but also the superior to “providence” for the subordinate. As such, Eros is the catalyst for unity, which Dionysius here names in a way resonant with both Platonic and Christian tradition: koinōnia, Communion.

And that brings us back to Wisdom’s table and God’s hangover. The drunkenness of God reveals that the Divine Logos takes both roles of the Nous, the Nous emphrenōn and aphrenōn, both of which are aspects of the Nous Erōn. Out of love, Logos reveals Himself intelligibly and draws His lovers through the material cosmos back to Him. One cannot participate fully in the work of Christ the Logos by application of the intellect, because it is not by reason that the Son gazes upon the Father, but by something at once deeper and higher, which is reason’s origin and source. Not even meditation on biblical images will do; the life of the whole cannot be reduced to the mind alone. So, something solid is needed. And this is where Wisdom’s table descends from the heavens and becomes, in material reality, the vehicle to Communion with the Whole. Wisdom at her table transforms before our eyes and is revealed as Christ at the altar of the Eucharist in the Church.

Theurgy is the practical outworking of the idea that the whole universe is enchanted with the divine goodness, and every aspect of it calls us into communion with the One in whom it lives and moves and has its being.Without theurgy, Iamblichus argues, we risk leaving the material realm as a “desert, without gods,” a disenchanted realm. We risk, in short, denying the goodness and therefore the reality of creation, leaving subject to redefinition by technological, commercial and military power. Dionysius takes this theurgical Platonism as the basis for an entire sacramental ontology, whereby God remains in Himself, yet ecstatically pours Himself out “theologically,” that is through the Logos which gives all things intelligibility and being, and calls them back to Himself “theurgically” through water, bread, wine and all the movements of the cosmos and the seasons which bring those material things into being.

Remaining, procession, return: a cycle which moves forward. And so we come, spiralling back to where we are now, the start of Lent and the turning of the year which Bishop Andrewes identified. The Scripture passage with which he set us off today is, he noticed, itself cyclical, a kind of turning, starting and ending with convertimini, the call to turn:

Convertimini ad Me in toto corde vestro, in jejunio, et in fletu, et in planctu.
Et scindite corda vestra, et non vestimenta vestra, et convertimini ad Deum vestrum.

For Andrewes, for Eliot, for Dante, for Ss Augustine and Dionysius, humanity’s turn or return to wholeness is not something we can achieve alone. It means turning with the spheres and seasons, with the harvest yield of wheat and grapes, and with the Amor, the Eros Crucified, che move il sole e l’altre stelle. And in that movement, not only the head, but even such an undistinguished organ as the bowel plays its part. For we are not, fundamentally, disembodies intelligences regrettably encumbered by the flesh, ghosts in machines, still less can we be defined only by that which had been contained in the hollow round of our skulls.

To be wholly human is more than just to see the signs of the Logos or Nous, the Divine Mind, ordering the cosmos in all its dispersed variety; it is to be caught back up in them, to engage with them in all our embodied being, that they may lift us up back up into the One who is beyond multiplicity, beyond reason, beyond our wits, beyond being, joining the ecstatic, drunken joy that animates the whole. To make the journey to the greatest height, one must descend into the Abyss, not away from embodied life, but through it: and the bowel is not the worst symbol for that.

Hence, ad jejunium, to fasting: not only to tame the appetite, but to dwell with it awhile, that our hunger may turn, convert, revert us to the One who offers Himself in love as solid food, unchanging and eternal.