TY  - BOOK
AU  - M. Stang, Charles
AB  - This book argues that the pseudonym, Dionysius the Areopagite, and the influence of Paul together constitute the best interpretive lens for understanding the Corpus Dionysiacum [CD]. This book demonstrates how Paul in fact animates the entire corpus, that the influence of Paul illuminates such central themes of the CD as hierarchy, theurgy, deification, Christology, affirmation (kataphasis) and negation (apophasis), dissimilar similarities, and unknowing. Most importantly, Paul serves as a fulcrum for the expression of a new theological anthropology, an “apophatic anthropology.” Dionysius figures Paul as the premier apostolic witness to this apophatic anthropology, as the ecstatic lover of the divine who confesses to the rupture of his self and the indwelling of the divine in Gal 2:20: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Building on this notion of apophatic anthropology, the book forwards an explanation for why this sixth‐century author chose to write under an apostolic pseudonym. It argues that the very practice of pseudonymous writing itself serves as an ecstatic devotional exercise whereby the writer becomes split in two and thereby open to the indwelling of the divine. Pseudonymity is on this interpretation integral and internal to the aims of the wider mystical enterprise. Thus this book aims to question the distinction between “theory” and “practice” by demonstrating that negative theology—often figured as a speculative and rarefied theory regarding the transcendence of God—is in fact best understood as a kind of asceticism, a devotional practice aiming for the total transformation of the Christian subject.
DO  - 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199640423.001.0001
ID  - OAPEN ID: 453480
ID  - OAPEN ID: OCN: 1030815291
KW  - pseudo-dionysius
KW  - dionysius the areopagite
KW  - st. paul
KW  - apophasis
KW  - mysticism
KW  - corpus dionysiacum
KW  - pseudonymity
KW  - negative theology
KW  - apophatic anthropology
KW  - Creative Commons
KW  - God
KW  - Jesus
KW  - Late antiquity
KW  - Neoplatonism
KW  - Paul the Apostle
KW  - Theurgy
L1  - https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/3d28a4f7-d5c2-4c12-b16a-912ddda28661/453480.pdf
LA  - English
LK  - http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/33853
PB  - Oxford University Press
PY  - 2012
SN  - 9780199640423
TI  - Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagitenull
ER  - 
