The Master goes on to explain the distinction be- tween affirmative and negative theology. Negative
Influence in Religious History 205
thcolo^^y denies that certain things can be predicated
of Deity. Affirmative theoloc^y asserts propositions
which can be predicated. This ai^ain is altogether
based on the teaching of Dionysius.
Here the Disciple desires to be informed why it
is that the Areopagite considers such predicates as
goodness, truth, justice, wisdom, which appear to be
not only Divine but the divinest of attributes, as
merely figuratively transferred from man to Deity.
The Master replies that no characteristics appli-
cable to the finite and limited can be strictly applicable
to the infinite and eternal.
Thus, according to Erigena, following closely on
the principles of the Areopagite, although goodness
is predicated of Deity, yet strictly speaking He is
not goodness, but phis quain boiiitas or super bomis.
Similarly, Deity is not Truth, hw\. phis qtiavi Veritas^
and super eternitas, and phis qiiaui Sapiens.
Hence affirmation and negation are alike permis- sible in reference to Deity.
If you affirm that Deity is super-essential, what is
it precisely that is meant by the use of "super"?
You do not in reality affirm what God is, but simply
that He is more than those things which exist. But
where the difference consists you do not define.
But die reason why Erigena asserts the strict in-
applicability of the term essential to Deity is, that
he interprets the term in a way which involves spacial
relations. Essence in all things that exist is local
and temporal. But Deity is neither.
Deity as Erigena contemplates it is simply the
Infinite and the Absolute ; and of that, nothing what-
ever can be strictly predicated beyond the fact that
it is. The Cause of all things can only be known to
exist, but by no inference from the creature can we
understand what it is.
Since, then, Erigena has postulated the philosophic
2o6 DIOXYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE
Absolute, the immutable, impassible First Cause, as
the Deit)', he is compelled to go on to den\' that
Deity can be subject to affection or capable of
love.
This conclusion the Disciple confesses to be pro-
foundly startling. It appears to contradict the whole
authority both of the Scriptures and of the Fathers.
At the same time it is all logical enough, granting
the First Cause to be incapable of action or passion,
which seems to involve the Immutable in change : a
contradiction of the very idea of Deity. It is all
logical enough. But what about the Scriptures,
which teach the contrary } And what of the simple
believers, who will be horrified if they hear such
propositions ?
The Master assures the Disciple that there is no
need to be alarmed. For he is now employing the
method of speculative reason, not the method of
authorit\\ He agrees with Dionysius, for Dionysius
had said as much, that the authority of the Scripture
is in all things to be submitted to. But Scripture
does not give us terms adequate to tr.e representation
of Deitw It furnishes us with certain s\mbols and
signs, by condescension to our infirmities. Dionysius
is again appealed to in confirmation of this.
It is curious to notice how, while professedly en-
gaged in the method of speculative inquir}-, Erigena
falls back on the authorit\' of Dionysius : a very
significant proof of the value wl.ich he ascribed to
the Areopagite.
So, then, at last the conclusion is reached that,
stricti)' speaking, nothing whatever can be predicated
concerning Deity, seeing that He surpasses all under-
standing, and is more truly known by our nescience,
ignorance concerning Him being the truest wisdom,
and our negations more correct than our affirmations.
For whatever you deny concerning Him you deny
Influence in Religious History 207
corrcctl)', whereas the same cannot be said of what }-ou may aflirm.
Nevertheless, subject to this premise of acknow-
ledc^ed inadequacy, qualities may be rif^htly ascribed
to Deity by way of symbolical representation.
Hence, it is correct to maintain that true authority
does not contradict right reason, nor right reason
true authority. Both spring from one source, and
that one source is Divine.
Thus by a metaphor God may be described as Love, although, as a matter of fact, He transcends it.
It has been a matter of frequent dispute whether
the system of Erigena is fundamentally Christian or
Pantheistic. In the careful study of Erigena by
Thcodor Christlieb it is maintained that, while sen-
tences may be quoted on either side, and the author
vacillates, now towards Theism, now in a Pantheistic
direction, his attempted reconciliation of Theology
with Philosophy ends in the supremacy of the latter,
and in the abolition of the essential characteristics of
the Christian Revelation.
That the Deity cannot be comprehended by human
intelligence is a commonplace of all the great early
theologians of the Church. It can be richly illus-
trated from the theological orations of St. Gregory
Nazianzen, or the writings of St. Augustine and St.
Hilary upon the Holy Trinity. But then these
theologians also maintained with equal conviction
that God could be apprehended by man. For this
balancing consideration Erigena finds no place. God
is for Erigena that of which no distinctive quality can
be predicated. God is in effect the Absolute.
But then what becomes of God's self-conscious-
ness? In Christlieb's opinion Erigena's conception of
the Deity precludes any firm hold on the Divine self-
consciousness. Self-consciousness involves a whole
content of ideas, a world of thought, which cqntradicts
2o8 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE
the absolute self-identity ascribed by Erigena to the Deity.
In his anxiety to explain the transcendent excel-
lence of Deity, the superlative exaltation above the
contingent and the mutable, Erigena seems in the
opinion of his critics to have over-reached the truth
and reduced the Deity to an abstraction in which
perfection and nothingness are identified.
Erigena's conclusion raises in reality the all im-
portant problem so constantly debated in modern
thought, whether the Absolute is the proper concep-
tion -of Deity, and whether the God of religion and of
fact is not rather spirit, self-consciousness, and perfect
personality. The teaching of Dionysius in the ex-
position of Erigena became scarcely distinguishable
from Pantheism.
Christlieb finds a similar unsatisfactoriness in Erigena's theory of the Trinity.
It will be remembered that, after maintaining as
his fundamental position that Deity cannot be defined
because it cannot be comprehended, and that nothing
whatever can be afifirmed concerning it beyond the
fact of its being, Erigena went on to justify the theo-
logians of the Church in affirming the Unity and
the Trinity. But the grounds on which Erigena
justified the authorities of the Church are significant.
He did not justify the doctrine on the ground that
it was a truth revealed, or because it was an inference
demanded of the fact and claim of Christ. It is
remarkable how obscure a place Christ occupies in
Erigena's conception of Deity. The ground on which
Erigena would justify the doctrine is that Unity and
Multiplicity may fairly be ascribed to the Eirst Cause
of all things, because Deity can be regarded in its
simplicity as one and then regarded as extended
into multiplicity.
But it is impossible to avoid the criticism that this
Influence in Religious History 209
ascription of Unity and Multiplicity to Deity is not
the same thing as the doctiine-of the Trinity. Nor
is it obvious why Trinity should be substituted for
Multiplicit}'. Moreover, this Multiplicity exists sub-
jectively in the human mind rather than in the beini^^
of Deity : since it is expressly forbidden by the
author's fundamental principle to say anything what-
ever concerning Deity beyond the fact that it exists.
And further still, on the author's principles neither
Unit}' nor Multiplicity can be strictly ascribed to
Deity. Both must be merged in something else
which is neither the one nor yet the other, and which
escapes all possible definition.
It is scarcely wonderful, therefore, that Christlieb
should conclude that on Erigena's principles the
doctrine of the Trinity is not really tenable. Erigena
certainly endeavours to approximate to the Church's
Tradition, and to give it an intellectual justification.
But in spite of these endeavours he is unable to
maintain any real distinctions in his Trinit\^ They
have no actual substantial existence whatever. They
are mere names and not realities. There may be
appearances. But in its essential being, according to
Erigena, Deity is neither unity nor trinity, but an
incomprehensible somewhat which transcends them
both. For Erigena both the Unitarian and the
Trinitarian representations of God are alike products
of subjective human reflection. They are neither of
them objected realities. If you rest on either of them
}'0u are according, to Erigena, mistaken. For God is
more than Unit}' and more than Trinit}\
Looking back on the w^hole course of Erigena's
exposition of Dionysian principles, we see that the
Areopagite had identified God with the Absolute.
Dean Inge says that " Dionysius the Areopagite
describes God the Father as ' superessential indeter-
mination/ 'the unity which unifies every unity,' 'the
210 Dionysius the Areopagite
absolute no-thing which is above all reality.' * No
moral or trial,' he exclaims in a queer ebullition of
jargon, 'can express the all-transcending hiddcnness
of the all-transcending superessentially superexisting
super-Deity.' " ^ And Erigena did not hesitate to
deny Being to Deity. Being, in his opinion, is a
defect. The things that are not, are far better than
the things that are. God, therefore, in virtue of His
excellence, is not undeservedly described as Nihil —
nothingness.
Two conceptions of Deity emerge in this exposition.
One is, that the Deity is identical with the Absolute.
It is beyond personality, beyond goodness, beyond
consciousness, beyond existence itself. Nothing what-
ever can be predicated concerning it. Being is
identical with nothingness. It is above the category
of relation. This is the philosophic conception.
The other conception is that Deity possesses the
attributes of self-conscious personality. This is the
religious conception.
In the exposition of Erigena the philosophic
conception is affirmed to be the true, while the religious
conception is regarded as the creation of the theo-
logians for the purpose of explanation and of faith.
From this distinction certain things seem clear. It
seems clear that the philosophic conception of Deity
as identical with the Absolute, cannot satisfy the
requirements of religion, and that Deity cannot become
an object of adoration unless it is invested with the
attributes of personality. That of which nothing
can be predicated cannot become the object of our
worship.
But at the same time if the religious conception of
Deity as self-conscious and personal is offered to our
contemplation with the express proviso that it does
not represent what God really is, the proviso paralyses
1 Cf. Inge, The Philosophy of riot inns, II. 112.
Influence in Religious Ihstory 211
the wings of our aspiration and renders Deity im- possible as an object of i)rayer.^
Erigena was by no means ^persona grata to the
Church of his age. lie was a metaj^hysician, without
the m}'stical tendencies of Dion)'sius, and while he
expounded the Areopagite's ideas roused suspicion
and resentment b}- the boldness of his conclusions.
At the same time his translations of Dionysius made
the Greek Master's principles familiar to the Latin
world.
In the Eastern Church the Areopagite's influence
is clearly present in the great Greek Theologian, St.
John of Damascus. When speaking of the inadequacy
of human expressions to represent the reality of God
John Damascene appeals to Dionysius.^ And the
whole of his teaching on the Divine incomprehensi-
bility is clearly due to the influence of the Areopagite.
\\ hen we read that an inferior nature cannot com-
prehend its superior, or when we find the distinction
drawn between negative theology and affirmative,
between that which declares what God is not and
that which declares what He is ; and that the former
presents the Divine superiority to all created things ;
when further still v/e read of the super-essential
essence, and the super-divine Deity: we see in a
moment the influei.ce of Dionysian conceptions.
Nevertheless St. John Damascene is anything rather
than a blind adherent of Areopagite teaching. On
the contrary it is profoundly, true as Vacherot^ has
said, that he follows Dionysius with discrimination :
or rather, perhaps, that he supplements the Doctrine
of the Divine incom{)rehensibility by very definite
teaching on the reality of the distinctions within the
1 Cf. Inge, The Philosophy of Plotmns, II. 115.
2 De Fide Orthodoxa. Bk. I. ch. xii.
^ Vacherot's Histoire Critique de PEcole d'Alexa?tdrie, III. 40, 1851.
212 Dionysius the Areopagite
Deity and on the reality of the personal Incarnation
of the eternal Son of God in Mary's Son. That is to
say, that while the Philosopher appears in the Areo-
pagite to eclipse the Theologian, the Theologian in
St. John Damascene controls the Philosopher. The
careful, discriminate use of Dionysius by the great
Greek Schoolman is most remarkable. He assimilated
the true elements while rejecting the questionable or
exaggerated.
Returning once more to the Church of the West,
the influence of Dionysius is seen extending, through
Erigena's translations, into the Monastic studies.
The theologian Hugh, of the Abbey of St. Victor at
Paris, wrote in ten books a Commentary on the
Heavenly Hierarchy of the Areopagite, full of enthu-
siastic appreciation of the great mystic's teaching.
Far more important than this is the influence
exerted by Dionysius over the mind of St. Thomas.
It is not only that St. Thomas wrote a Covinieniary
on the Divine Names} but in the works of Aquinas his
ideas are constantly reappearing. He is one of St.
Thomas's favourite authorities. As one becomes in-
creasingly more familiar with the greatest of all the
scholastic theologians this ascendancy of the Greek
mystic becomes more and more impressive. But it
is almost needless to say that Aquinas treats the
Areopagite critically. St. Thomas is profoundly
averse from everything which resembles a Pantheistic
tendency. His teaching alike on the Trinity and on
the Incarnation belongs to another realm of thought
from that of the neo-Platonist.
•At a later period misgivings arose in the Church
whether the theology of the Areopagite was, in fact,
altogether above suspicion. So long as his traditional
identification with the disciple of St. Paul was main-