Neoplatonic Theurgy

and Dionysius the Areopagite*

Gregory Shaw

Abstract: Until recently, Neoplatonic theurgy has been defined by

scholars as an attempt to manipulate the gods through ritual, and its

influence in late antique Platonic circles has been interpreted as

evidence for the decline of Greek rationality caused in large part by the

teachings of the fourth-century Syrian Platonist, Iamblichus. Although

scholarly research on theurgy and Iamblichus has now corrected these

misunderstandings, they have left their mark on related areas of

research: a notable example is the role of theurgy in the Christian

liturgy of Dionysius the Areopagite.

This essay argues that the distinction between Iamblichean and

Dionsyian theurgyasserted by leading theologians and scholarsis based on a caricature of Iamblichean theurgy. When Iamblichean

theurgy is properly understood, the Christian theurgy of Dionysius may

be seen as an example of the same kind of theurgy that Iamblichus

defined in the De mysteriis. This essay aims to refute the false

distinction between "pagan" and Christian theurgy and to suggest that

such distinctions reflect more the apologetic interests of scholars than

an accurate reading of the evidence.

". . . enlightened with the knowledge of visions, being both consecrated

and consecrators of mystical understanding, we shall become luminous

and theurgic, perfected and able to bestow perfection."

Dionysius (EH 372B)

Introduction

Why are Christian theologians reluctant to admit that Dionysius was a

theurgist? Why do they resist seeing the liturgy as a theurgical rite? And

why is it that the term theourgia and its cognates which appear forty-

* I would like to thank Stonehill College for a President's Summer Grant to

support the preparation of this essay.

seven times in the Dionysian corpus never appear in the Luibheid and Rorem translation, but are explained away in the footnotes?

1 To suggest

that Dionysius was a theurgist places one in a volatile arena, for the

status of the Areopagite and the value of this work continue to be

matters of heated debate. Recently, Fr. Kenneth Wesche reaffirmed

Luther's well-known censure that the Areopagite "platonizes more than

he Christianizes"2 and declares that "we cannot share the view that his

chief inspiration was the Christian faith. . . . [for] the center of

Dionysius' 'theoria' is not the christological confession of the Church,

but 'gnosis.'"3 Wesche maintains that Dionysius was so enthralled by

Neoplatonic gnosis that it "undercut his understanding of the Christian

faith,"4 diverted him from the saving work of Christ, and caused him to

embrace a dualistic Christianity that promoted clericalism.5 Wesche

concludes:

. . . because his [Dionysius'] thought is centered on gnosis, rather than

on the Incarnation, his thought leads on a subtly divergent path that

radically shifts the focus and distorts the real meaning of Christ.6

In the eyes of Orthodox Christians like Wesche, Dionysius' spirituality

was not truly orthodox because of the influence of Neoplatonism,

specifically that of the fifth-century Neoplatonist Proclus; only when the

Dionysian writings have been corrected by the commentaries of

1 Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, translation by Colm Luibheid;

foreword, notes, and translation collaboration by Paul Rorem (New York:

Paulist Press, 1987). It should be noted that, while the translation includes

helpful footnotes by Rorem and an exhaustive index to biblical "allusions and

quotations," it includes no index of important Neoplatonic terms. All

translations and citations in this essay have been checked with the critical text

of Dionysius, the Corpus Dionysiacum I (the Divine Names edited by B. M.

Suchla) and II (other writings, including the letters, edited by H. Ritter and G.

Heil; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990, 1991). Citations will be given the column and

number of the Migne text (as appear in the Luibheid and Rorem translation)

and, when appropriate, the page and line numbers of the critical text in

parentheses. 2 Kenneth Paul Wesche, "Christological Doctrine and Liturgical Interpretation

in Pseudo-Dionysius," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 33 (1989): 44. 3 Ibid., 54.

4 Ibid., 68.

5 Ibid., 59.

6 Ibid., 73, my emphasis.

Maximus the Confessor and John of Scythopolis do they reflect genuine

principles of Christian faith. In response to Wesche, Dionysius has been

defended by Hieromonk Alexander Golitzin along with counter charges

that his accusers are ignorant of "Greek Christianity" and that our

understanding of Dionysius generally has been hampered by a Protestant

bias.7 Golitzin, in his passionate and learned defense of the Areopagite,

forthrightly admits that scholarship on Dionysius including his own reflects the "confessional presuppositions" and even the temperament of

individual scholars.8 With a figure as theologically seminal as the

Areopagite long believed to be Paul's convert (Acts 17.34) this is not surprising. Scholarship on Dionysius often seems to have the unspoken

agenda of trying to determine whether or not his teachings are in accord

with one's preferred theology.9 One theme, however, seems to persist

throughout the polemics: the more Neoplatonic Dionysius appears, the

less acceptable. This, clearly, is the position of Wesche.10

The critique

of Neoplatonism as a merely cerebral spirituality incapable of

penetrating the mystery of the Incarnation has long been a topos among

Christian apologists. In a Christian apologetic context, too much

Neoplatonism is believed to alienate one from the central mystery of

Christ, and this has had significant consequences on Dionysian

scholarship. Those who want to preserve the Christian authority of the

Areopagite must argue, with Vladimir Lossky, that Dionysius'

dependence on the writings of the Neoplatonists "is limited to outward

resemblances which do not go to the root of their teaching, and relate

7 Alexander Golitzin, "On the Other Hand," St. Vladimir's Theological

Quarterly 34 (1990): 321-22. The Protestant bias has also come to influence

Orthodox and Roman Catholic scholars (see below, n. 10). 8 Alexander Golitzin, "The Mysticism of Dionysius Areopagita: Platonist or

Christian," Mystics Quarterly 3 (1993): 98. 9 Golitzin, "On the Other Hand," 306, n. 7.

10 See n. 3. In a further response to Wesche, Golitzin maintains a far more

nuanced position, arguing that the well-known distinction between a

"biblical" and a "platonizing" Christianity is questionable. This distinction,

Golitzin says, "echoes altogether too clearly the reaction of Roman Catholic

and Orthodox scholars earlier this century to the late nineteenth and early

twentieth century thesis of a 'Hellenized' and therefore corrupted Christianity associated in particular with Adolf von Harnack." See Golitzin,

"Hierarchy Versus Anarchy? Dionyius Areopagita, Symeon the New

Theologian, Nicetas Stethatos, and Their Common Roots in Ascetical

Tradition," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 38 (1994): 152-53 n. 95.

only to a vocabulary which was common to the age."11

Andrew Louth,

more recently, follows Lossky, noting that all educated men of the fifth

and sixth centuries Christian or pagan "shared a culture," which accounts for Dionysius sharing many terms with Neoplatonists. Yet, like

Lossky, Louth argues that the Areopagite's spirituality was distinctively

Christian, not Neoplatonic.12

If being too Neoplatonic diminishes Dionysius, then his practice of

theurgy presents a far more serious problem. Since the time of

Augustine, theurgy has been condemned by Christians as a diabolical

attempt to converse with demons and manipulate the gods.13

Today

theurgy is not only considered anathema to the Church but to most who

value rational thought. In an article that continues to shape scholarly

thinking, E. R. Dodds maintained that theurgy was promoted by the

fourth-century Neoplatonist Iamblichus, a "superficial" thinker whose

divine work (theion ergon) was simply an Oriental superstition that

appealed to human weakness. According to Dodds: "As vulgar magic is

commonly the last resort of the personally desperate, of those whom

man and god have alike failed, so theurgy became the refuge of a

despairing intelligentsia which already felt 'la fascination de l'abme.'"14

For Dodds and an entire generation of scholars, theurgy exemplified the

"failure of nerve" and decline of the rationality that we admire in the

classical Greeks and in ourselves.

Among Christians specifically, the question of a Dionysian (and

therefore Christian) theurgy touches a nerve that still separates

Protestant from Orthodox and Roman Catholic scholars. Orthodox

scholars like Golitzin, who accept the Areopagite as representative of

their tradition, see a Protestant bias in the scholarship of those, like Paul

Rorem, who say the elements of the Eucharist for Dionysius were

merely symbols of something to be apprehended intellectually.15

Protestant scholars like Rorem, on the other hand, are reluctant to admit

11

Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St.

Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976), 32. 12

Louth, Denys the Areopagite (Wilton: Morehouse-Barlow, 1989), 23-24. 13

Augustine, City of God, Book 10. 14

E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1973), 288. 15

Golitzin, "Mysticism" 106. Louth's statement that the historical divine acts

are "recalled" in the Eucharist is subject to the same critique.

that Dionysius attributed to the sacraments any kind of "magical"

efficacy, for that would taint him with the superstition of imbuing

material objects with divine or "theurgical" power.16

In sum, the charge

of guilt by association with Neoplatonism, in either its philosophical or

its theurgical aspects, continues to shape our scholarship on Dionysius.

If Dionysius practiced theurgy, it would present a serious challenge to

his "orthodoxy," for to have been a theurgist in the Neoplatonic sense

would condemn the Areopagite in the eyes of all scholar-apologists. It is

not surprising, therefore, that his theurgy has been described by two

leading Dionysian scholars, Andrew Louth and Paul Rorem, as

fundamentally different from Neoplatonic, i.e. "pagan," theurgy.17

Before we can evaluate this assessment, however, we must know more

about Neoplatonic theurgy and how it was practiced. In this essay I hope

to show that Rorem and Louth's distinction is based on a

misunderstanding of Iamblichean theurgy. Further, I hope to

demonstrate that Dionysius' understanding and practice of theurgy,

while distinctively Christian, was derived from the principles of

Iamblichus' theurgy as well as from his teachings on the soul. Finally,

although I agree that Dionysian (Christian) theurgy should be

distinguished from Iamblichean theurgy, I will argue that the distinction

ought to be based on grounds other than those proposed by Rorem and

Louth.

I. Iamblichean Theurgy

As noted, Dodds' characterization of theurgy as a corrupt and

superstitious form of Platonism still carries a great deal of influence

among scholars. Iamblichus' defense of theurgy in the De mysteriis was

dismissed by Dodds as "a manifesto of irrationalism, an assertion that

the road to salvation is found not in reason but in ritual."18

For a

Victorian rationalist like Dodds, Iamblichean theurgy was nothing more

than a superstitious attempt to contact spirits and manipulate gods,

16

Paul Rorem, "The Uplifting Spirituality of Pseudo-Dionysius," in Christian

Spirituality, ed. Bernard McGinn and John Meyendorff (New York:

Crossroad, 1986), 134. 17

Andrew Louth, "Pagan Theurgy and Christian Sacramentalism," JTS n.s. 37

(1986): 432-38; Paul Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols Within the

Pseudo-Dionysian Synthesis (Toronto: The Pontifical Institute, 1984), 104-11. 18

Dodds, Greeks and the Irrational, 287.

practices not unlike those seen by Dodds in the spiritualist salons of

early twentieth-century Europe.19

It is understandable, therefore, that

those who accept Dodds' assessment would want to separate Dionysius'

theurgy from the misguided and possibly nefarious practices of

Iamblichus. Curiously, however, Dodds' definition of theurgy cannot be

found in the writings of Iamblichus. Perhaps the brilliance of Dodds as a

classicist and historian of ideas led many scholars to accept his

assessment of theurgy without reading the De mysteriis or, if they read

it, to replace the philosophical context in which it was written with the

twentieth-century issues that concerned Dodds.20

Research into

Iamblichus and theurgy in the last thirty years has yielded much greater

insight into later Neoplatonism and has now determined that Dodds'

evaluation of theurgy was wrong.21

Iamblichus clearly states throughout

19

Ibid., 288, 296-97; cf. E. R. Dodds, Missing Persons (Oxford: The

Clarendon Press, 1977), 55. 20

Those who have adopted Dodds' characterization of theurgy as an attempt to

manipulate, influence, or coerce the gods are as impressive as they are

diverse. They include the Jungian/archetypal psychologist James Hillman,

Healing Fiction (Dallas: Spring Publications, 1983), 78-79; scholar of Jewish

mysticism Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1988), 157 ff. Idel's work in particular has stimulated an

entire generation of scholarship on kabbalistic "theurgical" practices despite

the fact that Idel uses Dodds' twentieth-century definition of theurgy, not

Iamblichus'!; Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western

Mysticism, vol. 1 (New York: Crossroad,1994), 57, 172. 21

Jean Trouillard, "La thurgie," in L'un et l'me selon Proclos (Paris: Les

Belles Lettres, 1972), 171-89; Iamblichi in Platonis Dialogos

Commentariorum Fragmenta, tr., edited, with commentary by John Dillon

(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973); B. D. Larsen, Jamblique de Chalcis: Exgte et

philosophe (Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget, 1972); A. C. Lloyd, "The Later

Neoplatonists," in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval

Philosophy, ed. A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1967), 269-325; Carlos Steel, The Changing Self: A Study on the Soul in Later

Neoplatonism: Iamblichus, Damascius and Priscianus, tr. S. Haasl (Brussels:

Paleis der Academien, 1978); Andrew Smith, Porphyry's Place in the

Neoplatonic Tradition (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), 81-99; Anne

Sheppard, "Proclus' Attitude to Theurgy," CQ 32 (1982): 212-24; A.

Sheppard, "Theurgy," Oxford Classical Dictionary (1995); Gregory Shaw,

"Rituals of Unification in the Neoplatonism of Iamblichus," Traditio 41

(1985): 1-28; idem, Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus

(University Park: Penn State Press, 1995); Garth Fowden, The Egyptian

the De mysteriis that theurgy was not an attempt to influence the gods,

not only because it would have been impious but impossible. Iamblichus

is unambiguous on this issue precisely because the De mysteriis was

written to address it. In response to the charge from his former teacher

Porphyry that theurgic invocations attempt to coerce the gods,

Iamblichus replies:

This sort of invocation does not draw the impassible and pure [Gods]

down towards what is subject to passions and impure; on the contrary

it makes us, who through generation are born subject to passions, pure

and unchangeable.22

Despite its apparent meaning, an invocation does not call the gods to us,

it calls us to the gods. An invocation, Iamblichus says,

does not, as the name (prosklesis; 42.6) seems to indicate, incline the

intellect of the Gods to men, but according to the truth . . . the

invocation makes the intelligence of men fit to participate in the Gods,

elevates it to the Gods, and harmonizes it with them through orderly

persuasion. (DM 42.9-15)

If Dodds was wrong, and his spiritualist context has been inappro-

priately applied to theurgy, then what was the hieratic Neoplatonism of

Iamblichus, and what issues did it address?

The scion of a family of Syrian priest-kings, Iamblichus had been a

student of the Pythagorean Anatolius and later studied with Porphyry in

Rome where he was initiated into Plotinian Platonism.23

Iamblichus,

however, felt that Porphyry and his teacher Plotinus had diverged from

traditional Platonic and Pythagorean teachings by inflating the powers

of the human soul and suggesting that a "higher" part of the soul never

Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (London: Cambridge

University Press, 1986), 131-41; Polymnia Athanassiadi, "Dreams, Theurgy

and Freelance Divination: The Testimony of Iamblichus," JRS 83 (1993):

115-30. 22

The standard edition is Jamblique: Les mystres d'Egypte, trans. and ed. E.

des Places (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1966). References to the De mysteriis

will use the Parthey pagination of des Places' text and will be noted as DM.

DM 42.2-5 (modified from Fowden's translation, Egyptian Hermes, 133). 23

For a biographical outline, see John Dillon, "Iamblichus of Chalicis," ANRW

II.16.2 (1987): 863-78.

descends into this world or the body. The Plotinian soul, therefore,

could withdraw in contemplation to reach its higher, undescended

essence without the outside support of religious ritual. The conse-

quences of such a belief are significant both cosmologically and

socially,24

and, in response, Iamblichus developed a psychological

theory and a soteriological praxis in sharp contrast to the positions taken

by his predecessors. Iamblichus argued that even the highest part of the

soul descends into a body and is therefore far more subject to corporeal

experience than Plotinus and Porphyry had allowed.25

For Iamblichus,

the human soul, as defined in Plato's Timaeus, unknowingly projects its

divine logoi outside itself during embodiment and is thereby sewn into

the fabric of the material world. Although divine and immortal, the

embodied soul experiences a fundamental change unique among

immortal entities: human souls must become mortal and subject to

death. According to Iamblichus,

the soul is a mean, not only between the divided and undivided, the

remaining and proceeding, the noetic and irrational, but also between

the ungenerated and generated. . . . Wherefore, that which is immortal

in the soul is filled completely with mortality and no longer remains

only immortal. The ungenerated part of the soul somehow becomes

generated just as the undivided part of the soul becomes divided.26

24

Cosmologically, it negates the role of the cosmos in the soul's paideia;

socially, it condemns the common man to this "lower" cosmos, leaving

salvation in the hands of the philosophical elite. It should be noted, however,

that despite Plotinus' condemnation of matter as "evil itself" (Ennead I.8.3.39-

40) or his description of the soul as essentially undescended (I.1.12.25-29;

IV.3.12.5-6), he was not as anticosmic as Iamblichus' polemical writings on

the soul might suggest. In fact, Iamblichus' theurgy might best be understood

as an attempt to secure the vision of Plotinus by grounding it in the

experiences of the embodied soul. See G. Shaw, "Eros and Arithmos:

Pythagorean Theurgy in Iamblichus and Plotinus," Ancient Philosophy 19

(1999): 124-25. 25

This crucial difference between Iamblichean and Plotinian Platonism was

pointed out by A. C. Lloyd, "The Later Neoplatonists," in Armstrong,

Cambridge History. See also Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 1-15, 61-69. For

the soteriological consequences of accepting the soul as embodied see Shaw,

"Theurgy as Demiurgy: Iamblichus' Solution to the Problem of Embodiment,"

Dionysius 12 (1988): 37-59. 26

Simplicius (Priscianus?) In libros Aristotelis de anima commentaria [DA]

89.35-37; 90.21-24 in CAG 9 ed. M. Hayduck (Berlin: G. Reimeri, 1882).

The embodied soul, Iamblichus says, "becomes a stranger to itself"27

and once exiled from its own immortality, the soul must receive

assistance from the gods to recover its lost divinity.28

Iamblichus' complex and paradoxical psychology reflected the mystery

and paradox of One itself as it unfolds into its "other": the multiplicity

of Beings. While this self-inversion causes no rupture among Higher

Beings, whose essences are immediately reflected and returned by their

images, human souls become immersed in a medium that does not allow

for their immediate reflection and return.29

Their divinity may be

recovered only through the medium of mortal bodies and as integral

parts of the natural world. Therefore, in theurgy the divine and

mathematical proportions (logoi) of the soul are recovered only when

the soul ritually appropriates their correspondences (analogoi) in

Nature. For Iamblichus the cosmos was a living temple, a vast

theophany, where the soul progressively recovered its divinity in the

process of unifying itself with the divine powers revealed in the material

world. An essential element in every theurgic ritual, therefore, was the

correspondence between the objects used in the rite and their analogues

in the soul: the outer objects, imbued with divine power, awakened

correspondences within the soul, provided that the soul was able to

receive them and had the capacity to contain their power. In effect, the

disorienting flood of sensation described in the Timaeus (44) was

appropriated and redirected in rituals that effected the soul's return. The

material cosmos and sensate experiences were thereby transformed from

disorienting obstacles into theurgic icons capable of uniting the soul

with the gods.

The soul's journey to the One, therefore, incorporated the daimonic

urges and images which bound the soul to the body, yet, Iamblichus

27

DA 223.31: heterousthai pros heauten. 28

The paradox of embodiment for the Iamblichean soul has been brilliantly

examined by Carlos Steel, Changing Self. 29

That all "real beings" descended by producing images of themselves in other

things was a principle articulated by Plotinus (Enn. III 6.17.12). For a

discussion of this see Pierre Hadot, Porphyre et Victorinus II (Paris: tudes

Augustiniennes, 1968), 330-43; for its expression in Iamblichus see

Simplicius, In cat. 374.6-376.19; Steel, Changing Self, 62; John Finamore,

Iamblichus and the Theory of the Vehicle of the Soul (Chico: Scholars Press,

1985), 11-27.

argued, since the rulers of these daimons were gods, the proper ritual

use of their material images allowed the soul to enter directly into their

power. Iamblichus maintained that the release of this power was a

divine activity, not human; in a word, it was theurgy, the activity of the

gods. As souls were progressively freed from their embodied confusion

they employed ritual objects that were less densely material until, very

rarely, a soul performed entirely immaterial forms of ritual worship (DM

226.9-13; 230.15-19). Again, the inner/outer correspondence determined

the efficacy of the theurgic rite. As Iamblichus put it: "Each attends to

his sacrifice according to what he is, not according to what he is not;

therefore the sacrifice should not surpass the proper measure of the one

who performs the worship" (DM 220.6-9). The kind of theurgic rite one

performed had to be coordinated with one's spiritual capacity. Intensely

alienated souls required a denser and more material rite, while more

unified souls performed a less material form of worship.

The most distinguishing characteristic of Iamblichus' Platonism was his

doctrine of the incarnate soul and its correlate, that the soul was unable

to effect or to comprehend its own deification; this was accomplished

only by the gods in theurgic rites. Iamblichus explains:

Intellectual understanding does not connect theurgists with divine

beings, for what would prevent those who philosophize theoretically

from having theurgic union with the Gods? But this is not true, rather it

is the perfect accomplishment of ineffable acts, religiously performed

and beyond all understanding, and it is the power of ineffable symbols

comprehended by the Gods alone, that establishes theurgical union. . . .

In fact, these very symbols, by themselves, perform their own work,

without our thinking. . . . (DM 96.17-97.6)

Although Iamblichus sometimes describes theurgical union as noesis or

gnosis, he was careful to distinguish theurgical gnosis and noesis from

its human correlates. Theurgy was always the work of the gods, not of

man.30

30

For example, Iamblichus refers to the soul's "innate knowledge" (emphutos

gnosis) of the gods (DM 7.14) and then says that "in truth, our contact with

the gods is not knowledge because knowledge is always separated from its

object," and theurgical union transcends the duality of knowing (DM 8.3-5).

II. Dionysian and Iamblichean Theurgy

In his groundbreaking study of the Dionysian liturgy, Paul Rorem

presents persuasive evidence that Iamblichus' theory of theurgy

influenced the Areopagite. There is no patristic precedent, Rorem

argues, for Dionysius dividing worshipers into three classes: 1) those

who worship with the aid of obscure (material) images; 2) those who

need no material aids at all; and 3) "our hierarchy," which stands as a

"mean between extremes" and thus uses both material and immaterial

forms of worship.31

Rorem says that Dionysius borrowed this threefold

division from Iamblichus, who had distinguished three classes of souls

and three forms of worship in the De mysteriis.32

Iamblichus' divisions

reflect his understanding of the different levels of theurgic capacity in

human souls. Accordingly his divisions are: 1) the great "herd" who

follow fate and employ a material form of worship; 2) the rare souls

who have risen to the level of the divine Nous and who practice an

immaterial form of worship; and 3) those souls between the extremes

who practice both material and immaterial forms of worship (DM 224.6-

225.10). Rorem also credits Iamblichus for influencing Dionysius'

unique interpretation of the liturgy. Rather than typologically correlating

the actions of the liturgy to events in Jesus' life and death as was standard patristic practice Dionysius relates liturgical actions to timeless and intelligible realities. This, Rorem notes, is precisely how

Iamblichus interpreted Egyptian theurgic rites, encouraging his readers as Dionysius did later to elevate themselves to the "intelligible truth" and to abandon the merely visible or aural impressions.

33

Rorem explains that, although Dionysius adopted Iamblichus' triadic

division of worship, he made significant changes. The Areopagite

distinguished the material order from the intermediate according to the

mythic chronology of the Church where chronological priority is

equated with spiritual immaturity. Prior to Christ we lived under the Old

Law, and the divine was veiled under obscure images which

nevertheless foreshadowed the divine work, or theurgy, of Christ (EH

432B). To worship through the "sacred pictures of the scriptures" (EH

31

Rorem, Symbols, 106-7; cf. Ecclesiastical Hierarchy [EH] 501C, see

Luibheid and Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysis, 234 n. 146; Celestial Hierarchy [CH]

121D-124D, Luibheid and Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysis, 146-47. 32

Rorem, Symbols, 108-9. 33

Ibid.

432B), Dionysius says, is appropriate for those bound by greater

materiality and multiplicity. After the advent of Christ, the less material

choreography of the Christian liturgy represents a kind of worship

which Dionysius says "is both celestial and of the Law for it occupies a

place half way between the two opposites [of spiritual and material

worship]" (EH 501D). Celestial worship corresponding to the purely immaterial theurgy of Iamblichus was practiced by angels, Dionysius says, not by mortals.

34 For the Christian community at the intermediate

level, which Dionysius refers to as "our hierarchy," the theurgies of

Christ are revealed in the liturgy of the Church.

While I agree with Rorem's analysis, I believe it can be pressed further.

I would suggest that the differences between Iamblichus and Dionysius

on the orders of worship reflect the differences in their respective world-

views. Iamblichus situated himself within the Pythagorean/Platonic

myth where, as described in the Timaeus, the cosmos is rooted in a

divine beneficence that continually reveals itself in mathematical

proportions. These divine ratios unfold into the heavenly cycles, the

seasonal rhythms, and are eventually crystalized into the four geometric

elements that sustain all material bodies.35

Dionysius, by contrast, was

situated within the biblical myth and chronology celebrated by the

Church.36

This included a divinely given world rejected by souls who

fall prey to the devil, followed by the descent of a redeemer who enters

the world to offer salvation from demons through the rites of the

Church. The Iamblichean soul was also "fallen," but this was caused by

the disorienting experience of embodiment that was necessary to the

soul's mediating function. Significantly, while the status of the material

34

Dionysius' divergence from Iamblichus as regards "celestial worship"

(immaterial theurgy) may be nuanced by the fact that Iamblichus says souls

who perform the noetic/immaterial theurgy "the rarest of all things" are, themselves, "most rare" (DM 219.14-15; 228.2-3), and this immaterial

worship comes only at the culmination of one's life (228.5-11). Further,

Iamblichus explains that these rare and most blessed theurgists are elevated to

the rank of angels (69.12-14). Significantly, Dionysius designates the bishop

(hierarch) an "angel" because of his likeness to angels and his ability to

transmit divine power (CH 293A). Thus, immaterial theurgy for both

Iamblichus and Dionysius is performed by angels or angelic souls. 35

Timaeus 53c-55c. 36

Dionysius refers to this sacred history as a record of "theurgies," i.e., the

actions of the divine "for us" (EH 440BC).

cosmos for Christians was ambiguous or demonic, for Iamblichus the

cosmos was esteemed as a living theophany, a "liturgy" choreographed

by the Demiurge and built into the substance and patterns of nature.37

Material theurgy for Iamblichus, therefore, included the use of natural

objects such as stones, plants, herbs, seeds, animals, and other tokens

(sunthemata) capable of awakening the soul to its participation in the

divine.38

The background for Iamblichean theurgy was the creative

activity of the gods in nature; for Dionysius it was the activity of Christ

as recorded by the Church. The consequences of this difference will be

discussed later.

Iamblichus' psychology of the divided soul may well have influenced

Dionysius' understanding of material symbols. According to Iamblichus,

while heavenly beings possess immediate access to the divine demonstrated by their circular (noetic) movement embodied souls move rectilinearly and must proceed "outside" themselves to reach the

unity of Nous.39

Dionysius similarly contrasts the circular movement of

divine intelligences, who have immediate access to the divine, with the

rectilinear movement of human souls who must proceed outside

themselves to be "uplifted by external things."40

Both Iamblichus and

Dionysius maintain that the dividedness of human souls requires

multiple and material forms of worship corresponding to the soul's divisions "until we are brought as far as we can into the unity of deification."

41 The hieratic use of sensate imagery, essential to

Neoplatonic theurgy, was thus also essential to Dionysian theurgy, but

Dionysius draws his symbols from the scriptures and the liturgy, not

from nature. Iamblichean theurgy is thus narrowed by Dionysius into an

ecclesiastical context, but in both cases material symbols reveal the

immaterial presence of the divine. Iamblichus declares that "the gods

produce signs through nature which serve them in the work of

generation. . . ."42

Through the work of attendant daimones, the gods

37

Dionysius also participated in the Platonic-Pythagorean myth but, unlike

Iamblichus, he viewed it through the fall/apocalypse/redeemer mythology of

the Church. 38

DM 233.7-16. 39

In Tim., frag. 49, Dillon, Iamblichi Chalcidensis; on the importance of

noetic circularity for Iamblichus see Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 89-91. 40

Divine Names [DN] 705B; (Suchla: 154.4). 41

EH 373B; (Heil/Ritter: 65.12-13), tr. by Luibheid and Rorem, modified. 42

DM 135.14.

manifest their intentions and communicate their ineffable presence

symbolically through "particular bodies, animals, and everything in the

world. . . ."43

For Dionysius, however, this presence is revealed

specifically through the material symbols of the liturgy. He says:

It is not possible for the human intellect to be lifted up to the

immaterial mimesis and contemplation of the heavenly hierarchies

unless it makes use of the material guide proper to it. The visible

beauties [of the liturgy] are signs of the invisible beauty, the beautiful

odors of incense represent the diffusion of the intelligible, and the

material lights are icons of the immaterial gift of light. . . . Order and

rank [of the clergy] here below are a sign of the harmonious ordering

[of the soul] toward divine things, and the reception of the most divine

Eucharist [an icon] of participation in Jesus. And as many things as are

given to heavenly beings transcendentally (huperkosmio\s), are given

to us symbolically.44

Another Iamblichean influence may be detected in Dionysius'

imperative to complete one's material worship through biblical imagery

prior to participation in the liturgy. Dionysius cautions catechumens not

to proceed to the intermediate rites of "our hierarchy" before completing

their "incubation in the paternal scriptures." Should they fail to complete

their material worship, catechumens would emerge from baptism into

"our hierarchy" like "still-born fetuses" and receive no benefit from the

liturgy.45

In the De mysteriis Iamblichus similarly insists that immaterial

theurgies should not be engaged before one has completed all rites to the

material gods. He explains:

According to the art of the priests, it is necessary to begin sacred rites

from the material Gods. For the ascent to the immaterial Gods will not

otherwise take place. (DM 217.8-11)

Failure to perform the material rites puts the soul at odds both with

material daimones and with the bodily instincts and passions that

43

DM 136.2-3. Iamblichus explains that the function of daimones is to give

concrete expression to the "good will" of the gods, including the binding of

souls to particular bodies (DM 67.15-68.1); cf. Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul,

130-33. 44

CH 121D-124A, translation modified from Lubheid and Rorem and from

Golitzin, "Hierarchy Versus Anarchy?" 149-50; (Heil/Ritter: 8.19-9.7). 45

EH 432D-433A.

correspond to them. Theurgists ascended to the noetic gods only by

assimilating themselves first to "everything in the world." As

Iamblichus put it, "the ascent to the One is not possible unless the soul

coordinates itself to the All and, with the All, moves toward the

universal principle of all things."46

Souls who have not yet coordinated

their passions with the powers of the natural world must complete the

material theurgies or "they will utterly fail to attain immaterial or

material blessings. . . ."47

On the other hand, Iamblichus says that

he who celebrates all these powers and offers to each gifts that are

pleasing and honors that are as similar to them as possible, will always

remain secure and infallible since he has properly completed, perfect

and whole, the receptacle of the divine choir.48

The Iamblichean theurgist who becomes the receptacle of the divine

choir by bringing his or her soul into correspondence with the theurgic

powers of nature seems to have been the model for the Dionysian

hierarch. "If you talk of hierarchy," Dionysius says, "you are referring in

effect to the arrangement of all the sacred realities. Thus, whoever says

'hierarch' indicates an inspired and divine man learned in all sacred

knowledge, and in whom his own hierarchy is completely perfected and

made known."49

If one accepts Golitzin's argument that the bishop must

bring the "interior" hierarchy within his soul into correspondence with the outer hierarchy revealed in the liturgy, then we see a Christian

transposition of the principles of Iamblichean theurgy. For both

Dionysius and Iamblichus the human soul is transformed and deified in

theurgic rites and in the same way: the powers of the soul are brought

into correspondence with divine archetypes by means of their symbolic

icons.

Is Dionysian theurgy, then, a specifically Christian expression of

Iamblichean theurgy? As Rorem has demonstrated, Dionysius borrowed

his triadic division for worship from Iamblichus. Indeed, the triads and

mean terms that can be found throughout the Dionysian corpus are also

46

Quoted by Damascius, Dubitationes et solutiones I.79.12-14, ed. by Ruelle

(Paris: 1889). 47

DM 220.5. 48

DM 229.3-7. 49

EH 373C; (Heil/Ritter: 66.2-5). See Golitzin's translation and comments on

this passage in "Hierarchy Versus Anarchy?" 148.

borrowed at least indirectly from the Syrian Neoplatonist.50 Iamblichus' rationale for the theurgic use of material symbols is adopted

by Dionysius, as is Iamblichus' imperative that one must complete

material rites before proceeding to less material theurgies. It would seem

that Dionysius simply adapted the principles and some of the

terminology of Iamblichus' psychology and theurgy to complete his

hieratic vision of the Church.51

In light of the evidence it is hard not to

see Dionysius as kind of "Christian Iamblichus" who succeeded where Iamblichus himself had failed in building a theurgic society.52

III. Who is the Subject of the Ergon Theou?

Despite the wealth of evidence pointing to an Iamblichean influence on

Dionysius, Paul Rorem who is largely responsible for uncovering this evidence maintains that Dionysian theurgy was fundamentally different from the theurgy of Iamblichus. Rorem acknowledges that

Dionysius' use of the term theurgy derived from Iamblichus but claims

that the Areopagite transformed its meaning. He writes:

Our author used the term "theurgy" to mean "work of God," not as an

objective genitive indicating a work addressed to God (as in

50

That Iamblichus was responsible for introducing the mean term and triadic

structures into Neoplatonic vocabulary see E. R. Dodds, Proclus: The

Elements of Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, [1933] 1992), xxi-xxii. 51

Consider, for example, Dionysius' use of the term sunthema to describe the

"solid food" and the "table" used in the celebration of the Eucharist (Letter 9

[1109A, 1112A]; Heil/Ritter: 200.12; 203.7). Sunthema was a technical term

in the Chaldean Oracles to denote the hidden names of the gods that allow

theurgists to ascend to the divine; see The Chaldean Oracles, text, translation

and commentary by Ruth Majercik (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 141. The term

appears throughout the De mysteriis; see Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 48-50,

267. For other theurgical terms in the Dionysian corpus see H. D. Saffrey,

"New Objective Links Between the Pseudo-Dionysius and Proclus,"

Neoplatonism and Christian Thought, ed. Dominic O'Meara (Norfolk, VA:

International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, 1982), 64-75, 246-48. 52

On this suggestion, see the very interesting essay by John Rist, "Pseudo-

Dionysius, Neoplatonism and the Weakness of the Soul," From Athens to

Chartres: Neoplatonism and Medieval Thought, ed. H. J. Westra (Leiden:

Brill, 1992), 144-45.

Iamblichus, e.g. de Mysteriis I, 2, 7:2-6) but as a subjective genitive

meaning God's own work . . . especially in the incarnation.53

Another important difference, Rorem says, is that while Iamblichus

believed that the theurgical symbols themselves elevated the soul, for

Dionysius "the uplifting does not occur by virtue of the rites or symbols

by themselves but rather in their interpretation. . . ."54

Andrew Louth accepts Rorem's distinctions, but with some quail-

fications. Like Rorem, Louth characterizes Neoplatonic theurgy as if it

were an objective genitive so that the ergon theou is "a work concerned

with the gods: human beings accomplished a work which affected the

divine realm,"55

yet Louth then seems to nuance (or contradict) his

point, saying that Iamblichus did not believe the gods were affected by

human actions but that "theurgic action made humans responsive to the

divine."56

With Rorem, Louth agrees that the ergon theou for Dionysius

is a subjective genitive, the work of god, specifically the divine works of

the incarnate Christ.57

He maintains that for Dionysius the term

theourgia "seems never to be used of religious rituals"58

but refers only

to the "historical divine acts recalled in liturgical celebration."59

Concerning the anagogic power of theurgical symbols, Louth argues

that, although for Dionysius generally it is our interpretation of symbols

and not the symbols themselves that elevates the soul, there are

significant exceptions as, for example, when Dionysius says that many

of the mysteries of the sacraments are beyond our understanding (EH 568A).

60

53

Lubheid and Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, 52 n. 11. Cf. Rorem, Symbols, 14-

15, and Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an

Introduction to Their Influence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993),

120. 54

Rorem, Symbols, 116. 55

Louth, Denys, 73. 56

Ibid., 74. Rorem also explains that "theurgic invocations do not actually call

down the gods but rather elevate the human soul toward the divine. . . ."

Symbols, 108. 57

Ibid., 74; Andrew Louth, "Pagan Theurgy," 434. 58

Ibid., 434. 59

Ibid., 435. 60

Ibid., 437-38.

Rorem refers to the De mysteriis (I.2; 7.2-6) to support his claim that

Iamblichean theurgy was an objective genitive, a "work addressed to

God" and not "God's own work," yet the passage cited by Rorem merely

describes Iamblichus' methodology in responding to Porphyry's

questions about theology, theurgy, and philosophy. Iamblichus says:

We will explain to you appropriately what is germane to all questions:

we will answer theological topics theologically, theurgical topics

theurgically, and together with you we will examine philosophical

issues. (DM 7.2-6)

One must assume that Rorem erred in citing this passage, for there is

nothing in it that supports his contention that the ergon theou for

Iamblichus was an objective genitive, that is, a human activity

concerning and directed to the gods.61

Annick Charles-Saget has recently analyzed the components of the term

"theurgy" (theos/ergon) in the De mysteriis, focusing precisely on the

"question of the subject of the ergon."62

Charles-Saget argues that, for

Iamblichus, the subject of the ergon cannot be a human being because of

the profound change suffered by the soul in its embodiment, or as John

Rist recently put it, because of the "weakness of the soul."63

To be

effective, theurgic rituals must be empowered by the gods and convey

their good will by ritually recapitulating the gods' work of creation.64

Iamblichus says:

61

Andrew Smith has discussed the passage cited by Rorem, "Iamblichus'

Views on the Relationship of Philosophy to Religion in De Mysteriis," The

Divine Iamblichus: Philosopher and Man of Gods, ed. H. J. Blumenthal and

G. Clark (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1993), 74-86, and explains that

Iamblichus makes "constant use of discursive argument" on theurgical issues

(78). This should not be taken to mean that Iamblichus understood his

discursive argument to be theurgy! 62

Annick Charles-Saget, "La thurgie, nouvelle figure de l'ergon dans la vie

philosophique," Divine Iamblichus, 107. 63

Rist, Pseudo-Dionysius, 141-44. Iamblichus often emphasizes the weakness

of the soul, e.g.: "The human race is weak and small, it sees but little and is

possessed by a congenital nothingness" (DM 144.12-14). 64

See DM 44.11-14 where the good will of the gods is mingled with their

necessity; 141.6-13 where all forms of divination manifest one beneficent

Is not every sacred rite legislated noetically from first principles

according to the laws of the Gods? For each rite imitates the order of

the Gods, both the intelligible and the celestial Gods, and each

possesses the eternal measures of the universe and wondrous signs

which have been sent down here by the Demiurge and Father of all

things, and through which the unspeakable is expressed through

ineffable symbols. . . . (DM 65.6-9)

It is frustrating that Iamblichus does not provide concrete details to

exemplify what he means, but his explanation of theurgic prayer comes

closer and again addresses the question of the subject of the ergon. He says:

If anyone would consider the hieratic prayers, how they are sent down

to men from the Gods and are symbols of the Gods, how they are

known only to the Gods and possess in a certain way the same power

as the Gods, how could anyone rightly believe that this sort of prayer is

derived from our empirical sense and is not divine and spiritual? (DM

48.5-11)

Strictly speaking, a theurgical prayer was not an address to the gods but

a way of entering the power of their voice and awakening a

corresponding voice in one's soul.65

Unless one is constrained by

"confessional pre-suppositions" to overlook what Iamblichus himself

says, it would be difficult to read the De mysteriis and conclude that

Iamblichus believed a theurgic rite was man addressing (or affecting)

the gods rather than what Iamblichus says it is: the gods addressing man,

calling us back to divinity through rituals designed by the Demiurge

himself in the act of creation.66

The question of the subject of the ergon, however, is exceedingly

complex for, after all, it is a human being who performs the ritual. How

then can he or she not be the "subject" of the ergon? Charles-Saget

will; 209.14-17 where all forms of life are said to preserve the will of their

creator. 65

Iamblichus refers to this divine aspect in the soul as the "one in us." See

Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, Chapter 11: "Eros and the One of the Soul,"

118-26. 66

For a critique of Rorem's objective/subjective genitive distinction

concerning theurgy, see Thomas Tomasic's review in Speculum 62 (1987):

178-82; Tomasic characterizes Rorem's Biblical and Liturgical Symbols as an

exercise in "belief justification" rather than an "objective, historical analysis."

acknowledges that a theurgic ritual appears to be a human activity, one

that includes gestures and symbols, but she explains that the visible

activity serves only to make the soul receptive to the invisible activity of

the gods. If the soul has been properly purified and is sufficiently

receptive, the ineffable symbols in the rite are awakened and act through

the soul, even if they are not conceptually understood.67

In this

awakening, Iamblichus says, "the soul is then entirely separated from

those things which bind it to the generated world, and it flies from the

inferior and exchanges one life for another. It gives itself to another

order, having entirely abandoned its former existence" (DM 270.15-

19).68

Thus, in theurgy human activity becomes the vehicle for a divine

activity measured by the receptive capacity (epitedeiotes)69

of a soul that

experiences a "secret sumpatheia" with divine powers.70

Charles-Saget

concludes:

Thus, there are not two incompatible meanings of theourgia: the actor

of the human rite, in his ritual effacement, imitates in his order the

communication of the indivisible and the divisible that the divine

demiurgy accomplishes at every moment.71

To receive, to enact, and to be elevated by theurgic symbols was to enter

the hidden activity of the Demiurge and become a cocreator. Rather than

escaping from the cosmos, as Porphyry had encouraged, the theurgist

embraced it by entering a demiurgic dimension where even his own

body was transformed into an icon of the divine. In theurgy, Iamblichus

designed a praxis that not only saved the soul but also solved the

Platonic problem of embodiment that had so vexed Plotinus.72

In the act

of theurgy the soul was simultaneously human and divine, mortal and

immortal, united in the One and divided in the body, all within an

activity that embraced and transcended the oppositions. Iamblichus

explains:

67

Charles-Saget, "Thurgie," 111-12. 68

The particular soul, however, never ceases to remain soul even as it

becomes the participant in a divine and universal action (DM 69.5-19). 69

On the importance of epitedeiotes in theurgy see Shaw, Theurgy and the

Soul, 86-87. 70

Charles-Saget, "Thurgie," 113. 71

Ibid., 113, my emphasis. 72

Shaw, "Theurgy as Demiurgy."

All of theurgy has two aspects. One is that it is a rite conducted by men

which preserves our natural order in the universe; the other is that it is

empowered by divine symbols, is raised up through them to be joined

on high with the Gods, and is led harmoniously round to their order.

This latter aspect rightly assumes the shape of the Gods. (DM 184.1-8)

If the ergon theou of Iamblichean theurgy is more accurately described

as a subjective genitive, "god's own work,"73

then what would

distinguish the theurgy of Dionysius from that of Iamblichus? Rorem

contends that Iamblichus connected the soul's ascent in theurgy "to the

force of the rituals per se" while Dionysius linked the ascent of the soul

to a "spiritual process of understanding the ritual and never to the rites

themselves."74

Clearly, Iamblichus was more concerned than the

Areopagite not to reduce the transcendent power of ritual to a

conceptual schema, for it was precisely the purpose of the De mysteriis

to respond to the overly rationalized Platonism that Iamblichus saw in

Porphyry's school. Yet, despite the polemical tone of the De mysteriis in

this regard, Iamblichus maintains that without "our thinking" the ritual

henosis of theurgy cannot occur (DM 98.8-10). In short, the mind played

a necessary auxiliary role to prepare the soul for theurgy.75

However,

because of the soul's embodied condition, "our thinking" can never

effect the soul's henosis.

Dionysius would certainly have agreed with Iamblichus' insistence on

approaching the divine through symbols.76

And, although the Areopagite

says that the contemplation of symbols elevates the soul, this

contemplation was not merely a human theoria, "certainly no detached

knowledge of specific facts,"77

but a theoria shaped, inspired, and

prepared by the divine through the images of scripture and sacramental

rites. Rorem says that for Dionysius, theoria can indicate a "spiritual

73

Smyth #1330-1331 clearly distinguishes the objective genitive from the

subjective, which makes it all the more surprising that Rorem and Louth give

to Iamblichean theurgy the sense of an objective genitive, as if the gods were

the passive objects of man's activity, a point that Iamblichus denies

throughout the De mysteriis. See Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar,

revised by Gordon M. Messing (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976). 74

Rorem, Symbols, 109. 75

On this point see Andrew Smith, "Iamblichus' Views," 74-86. 76

See Rorem, Symbols, 105-6; CH 121CD. 77

Ibid., 110.

perception of the highest order,"78

so to characterize it as an

"interpretation" may be misleading.79

For if the material elements of the

liturgy do not convey the divine presence but need, rather, to be

interpreted to grasp their "conceptual" meanings, then Dionysius would

rightly be subject to the kind of critique offered by Wesche.80

Dionysian

theoria was not, however, a conceptual interpretation, it was more a

direct and performative experience.81

Although Dionysius clearly is

freer in his use of the term theoria than Iamblichus, I believe that this

was probably due more to the difference in their intellectual milieux

than to an essential difference in their conceptions of theurgy. When the

Areopagite wants to emphasize the transcendence of the divine beyond

human understanding he sounds very much like Iamblichus. Describing

his ineffable union with god, Dionysius says that the "theurgic lights" he

received from both the scriptures and divinely inspired masters (DN 592B) initiated him into experiences beyond thought. He explains:

We call a halt to the activities of our minds and, to the extent that is

proper, we approach the ray which transcends being. Here, in a manner

no words can describe, preexist all the goals of all knowledge and it is

of a kind that neither intelligence nor speech can lay hold of nor can it

78

Ibid., 114. As Rorem notes, angels themselves engage in the theoria of God

in an immediate (and circular) way, CH 205C. 79

The problem here may simply be one of translation, by no means an easy

task! However, when Luibheid translates the Greek noetos as "conceptual"

throughout the corpus it tends to obscure rather than illuminate the meaning

of the text. Most readers would not characterize nondiscursive intuition as

"conceptual." Golitzin seems to have the same concern with Rorem's

language, but in a liturgical context. He says: "It is difficult, for me at least, to

avoid the impression that Christ's presence here is meant to be more than

merely 'conceptual'" (Golitzin, "Mysticism," 106-7). 80

Wesche, "Christological Doctrine," 68. 81

The apophatic exercises in Dionysius might be better characterized as

"performative" than "conceptual," for only the former allows the "utterly

transcendent to be revealed as utterly immanent. . . ." See Michael Sells,

Mystical Languages of Unsaying (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1994), 1-10. To engage the transcendent ritually through immanent objects

was neither opposed to, nor a prerequisite for, the exercise of negative

theology; it was, rather, the direct result of and correlate to apophasis. This

point is explained, with references to Dionysius, by A. H. Armstrong,

"Negative Theology," Downside Review 95 (1977): 176-89.

at all be contemplated since it surpasses everything and is wholly

beyond our capacity to know it.82

If the role of theoria in Dionysius is not, perhaps, as foreign to

Iamblichean theurgy as the term might suggest, and if the

subjective/objective genitive distinction is incorrect, then what would

distinguish Dionysian from Iamblichean theurgy? Louth contends that

Dionysian theurgy differs from the Iamblichean in that divine acts for

Dionysius refer only to the acts of Christ and never to ritual acts.83

Here,

I believe, Louth draws too firm a line between the historical acts of

Jesus and their expression in the liturgy. For, if the purpose of the

liturgy is to deify its members, this would require direct participation in

the theurgies, and this could hardly be effected by simply recalling (or

interpreting) the acts of the historical Jesus.84

While Dionysian theurgy

is distinctively Christian with Christ as the "principle and essence of every theurgy" (EH 372A) Dionysius understood that Jesus' transmission of "theurgic mysteries" (ta theourga musteria)

85 in the

Eucharist required the hierarch, in performing these rites, to be

assimilated to these theurgies and communicate their deifying power to

others. Louth's insistence that theurgies be confined to the activities of

Jesus "recalled" in the liturgy,86

simply cannot account for this deifying

activity nor for the diversity of other evidence.87

The kinds of theurgic

experience that Louth does not discuss include the "theurgic lights"

visited upon angels and holy men (CH 208C, 340B), the "theurgic

82

DN 592D; (Suchla: 115.9-13), translation by Lubheid and Rorem, modified

slightly. 83

Louth, "Pagan Theurgy," 434. 84

In any case, the theurgy of Jesus' incarnation is more often described by

Dionysius in terms of a metaphysical unfolding than as a concrete record of

historical events. The incarnation is a movement from wholeness to

fragmentation, from simplicity to complexity, from eternity to temporality

(DN 592A), and from indivisible unity to divided plurality (EH 429A). These

are the same definitions that Iamblichus used to characterize the effects of

embodiment on the soul! 85

Letter 9 (1108A); (Heil/Ritter: 198.4). 86

Louth, "Pagan Theurgy," 435. 87

Louth is responding, he says, to "the common view that Denys' Christianity

has been swamped by his enthusiasm for Neoplatonism. . . ." ("Pagan

Theurgy," 434). In an effort to insure Dionysius' "orthodoxy," despite his

theurgical language, it seems that Louth interprets the evidence to avoid

Neoplatonic, or worse, theurgical contamination.

gnosis" desired and received by angels (CH 309A-C, EH 501 B), the

"theurgic measures" by which we receive God's presence (EH 477D),

the perfecting power of "every theurgic holiness in us" (EH 484D), and

the "theurgic lights" (theourgika phota) that Dionysius says he received

from holy men (DN 592B). These exemplify more than our recalling or

celebrating the divine works of the historical Jesus; they describe a

direct transmission and experience of deifying activity: theurgy. John of

Scythopolis explained Dionysius' use of theourgikos phos as follows:

"He calls theurgic lights the teachings of the saints, in so far as they

produce a light of knowledge and make gods of those who believe."88

When Dionysius states that the purpose for members of "our hierarchy"

is to become "luminous and theurgic, perfected and able to bestow

perfection" (EH 372B), he is describing the deifying power that priests experience and transmit in the liturgy and initiations.

It may be more correct to see Dionysian theurgy as a specific expression

of the theurgy that Iamblichus described in general terms. The De

mysteriis tells us almost nothing about the actual performance of rituals,

while Dionysius outlines specific rites in detail. The principal outlines of

Iamblichus' theory of theurgy might, in fact, be applied to any religious

community that receives and enacts divine power through religious

ritual. In Dionysius' Christian theurgy, Hierotheus provides a model for

"experiencing communion with the things praised" (i.e., the theurgies of

Christ), an experience that Dionysius describes as a kind of ecstasy.89

He says of Hierotheus:

He was so caught up, so taken out of himself (existamenos heautou)

experiencing communion with the things praised, that everyone who

heard him, everyone who saw him . . . considered him to be inspired,

to be speaking divine praises.90

88

Translation by H. D. Saffrey, who says that John of Scythopolis "offers us

an explanation altogether pagan and without any basis in the Christian

tradition" ("New Objective Links," 71-72). 89

See Rist, "Pseudo-Dionysius," 148, who notes liturgical comparisons to

Hierotheus's experience in EH 425D, 440B, 444A. For the role of ecstasy in

Iamblichean theurgy see Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 234-36. 90

DN 681D-684A; (Suchla: 141.11-14), tr. by Lubheid and Rorem.

This was possible to Hierotheus because he, like the Egyptian theurgists

of Iamblichus,91

"not only learned but also experienced divine things,

for he had a sumpatheia with these things" (DN 648B). Sumpatheia or

homoiosis with divine theurgies was the Dionysian norm, not the

exception. Consider his description of the eucharistic mystery:

After the hierarch sings the holy theurgies, he performs the most sacred

actions and lifts up into view the celebrated objects through the

sacredly displayed symbols. And having revealed the gifts of the

theurgies he himself enters into communion (koinonia) with them and

exhorts the others to follow. (EH 425D)

As in Iamblichean theurgy, the hierarch united with divine theurgies no longer acts only as a man but as a god, or, in this case, the god-man

Christ, and he exhorts others to share in this deification. Indeed, if a

priest does not enter into koinonia with these theurgies, if he remains

unilluminated and untheurgic, he has no light to pass on to others and

should be expelled from the priestly orders.92

For Dionysius, the liturgy

is more than a human ritual, it is "god's own work," an invitation to

enter theurgies that "make gods of those who believe." As Iamblichus

put it:

If these things were only human customs and received their authority

from our legal institutions one might say that the worship of the Gods

was the invention of our ideas. But in fact God is the leader of these

things . . . and each nation on earth is alloted a certain common

guardian by him, and every temple is similarly alloted its particular

overseer. (DM 236.1-8)

IV. Conclusion: Theurgy Cosmocentric or Anthropocentric?

Like Iamblichus, Dionysius believed that god was present in the liturgy

and leading the rites, which explained their deifying power. Did

Dionysius, then, simply transpose the principles of Iamblichean theurgy

into his ekklesia? Did he create a theurgic society, as Rist suggests, in a

91

Speaking of the veneration of star gods, Iambichus says: "The Egyptians do

not simply contemplate these things theoretically, but by means of sacred

theurgy they report that they ascend to higher and more universal realms. . . ."

(DM 267.6-9). 92

Letter 8 (1092B); Dionysius' idealistic views of the Church are in sharp

contrast to those of Augustine; see Rist, "Pseudo-Dionysius," 158.

manner that was more politically successful than anything Iamblichus or

other Neoplatonists were able to achieve?93

The effort of theologians to

deny this by making a caricature of Iambichean theurgy and then finding

substantial differences to distinguish the theurgy of the Church from the

"pagan" theurgy of Iamblichus is, quite simply, contradicted by the

evidence. To suggest that Dionysian theurgy was not different in kind,

but only in specific expression, from Iamblichean theurgy should not be

reason to condemn the Areopagite. It simply recognizes that in the

fourth to the sixth centuries, particularly among Syrian theologians both Christian and non-Christian there was a pronounced interest in experiencing the divine rather than merely thinking and talking about it,

and Iamblichus was the first to provide a comprehensive rationale for

doing so.94

Unless we choose to dismiss the role of experience in the

rites of the Church, we must follow Dionysius in seeing the liturgy as

theurgy, a rite that effects a cognitive, perceptual, and ontological shift

so profound in receptive participants that it culminates in theosis, the

deification of the soul. For both Iamblichus and Dionysius this

deification was effected in rites that united the "fallen" soul with divine

activities (ta theia energeia), and scholars of Neoplatonic theurgy could

learn a great deal from Dionysius about the specifics of theurgic ritual

that Iamblichus does not discuss.

Despite the profound similarity between the theurgies of Iamblichus and

Dionysius, there is at least one very significant, perhaps crucial

difference: the role of nature and the material cosmos in their respective

systems. As R. T. Wallis explained: "Neoplatonic 'sacramentalism'

differs from its Christian counterpart in that it depends solely on the

world's basic god-given laws, not on a supernatural intervention over

and above those laws."95

A simple point with far-reaching conse-

quences.

Iamblichus maintained that Egyptian theurgy "imitated the nature of the

universe and the creative activity of the Gods" (DM 249.14-250.1). To

perform a theurgic ritual, therefore, was to participate in this "creative

activity" according to the soul's receptive capacity (epitedeiotes).

93

Rist, "Pseudo-Dionysius," 144, 156. 94

See Golitzin's reference to the "current of thought" among fourth-century

thinkers in Syria-Palestine as regards the soul's liturgical experience

("Hierarchy Versus Anarchy?" 172-73 n. 164). 95

R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism (New York: Scribner, 1972), 121.

Following traditional Platonic and Pythagorean teachings, the cosmos

was seen as the supreme icon of divinity, and Iamblichus honored those

"sacred races" who preserved rituals that mimetically reflected the

unchanging demiurgy of the gods (DM VII.5; 259.1-260.1).

Theoretically, any society could be theurgic as long as its rituals and

prayers preserved the "eternal measures" of creation (DM 65.6), which

is perhaps why the emperor Julian could see Judaism as a "theurgic"

religion.96

It is important to note that, for Iamblichus, theurgic activity

was always in analogia cosmogonic activity, and this is precisely what distinguished theurgy from sorcery (goeteia).

97 Although sorcerers,

like theurgists, exercised a knowledge of cosmic sympathies, their spells

did not "preserve the analogy with divine creation" (DM 168.15-16) and

thus failed to be theurgic. Theurgists aligned themselves with the divine

currents of the cosmos while sorcerers, like parasites, drew these same

powers to themselves and eventually to their own destruction (DM 182.13-16).

Iamblichus' theurgy was cosmocentric and could not be adapted to the

selfish practices of sorcerers nor, rightly, to the hegemonic vision of a

single religion, for the diversity of peoples, climates, and geography

would naturally require diversified forms of theurgic worship. Each

sacred community Egyptian, Assyrian, or Chaldean practiced a different form of theurgy yet, according to Iamblichus, to be genuinely

theurgic the rites of each cult had to be in "analogia with creation." The

theurgies of each sacred race, therefore, manifested the gods, each was a

living sunthema of the divine. In Dionysius' terms, these sacred races

would have been designated "hierarchies," revealing the divine and

leading souls into deification. For the Areopagite, however, there was

but one human hierarchy as required by the Christian myth, while for

Iamblichus there would have been many, for Neoplatonic theurgy was

imagined within a polytheistic and pluralistic cosmos. The embodied

variety of the material cosmos required a corresponding variety of

theurgic societies, and this too was consistent with Iamblichean

metaphysics where the utterly ineffable One can be "known" only in the

Many: each henophany both veiling and revealing its ineffable source.

In order to create one universal and theurgic "church," the Pythagorean

myth of cosmogony-as-theurgy had to be changed, and this was initiated

96

Jay Bregman, "Judaism as Theurgy in the Religious Thought of the Emperor

Julian," The Ancient World 26 (1995): 135-49. 97

DM 168.13-16; cf. Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 169.

by the Areopagite, who shifted theurgy's center of gravity from the

cosmos to man.

James Miller has pointed out that, while Dionysius preserved the

Neoplatonic dynamics of prohodos and epistrophe that are ritually

enacted in Iamblichean theurgy, in its Dionysian form the natural

cosmos is replaced by ecclesiastic and angelic orders.98

This means that

Dionysian theurgy is no longer an extension of the act of creation (in

analogia with divine creation) but becomes something beyond or beside

nature, in what the Church calls the "new creation": the supernatural

orders of the Church and its angels.99

Theurgical symbols for Dionysius

are no longer found in the natural world but in the ecclesiastical world:

its scriptural images and cultic rites. Miller argues that, by eliminating

nature and the heavenly bodies from Christian theurgy, Dionysius

achieved far greater clarity and increased the Church's political authority

for, in Christian theurgy, the ekklesia assumes the divine status ascribed

to the physical cosmos in pagan theurgy.100

A. H. Armstrong notes this

shift from the natural to the ecclesiastical cosmos. He says:

It is only in the Church that material things become means of

revelation and salvation through being understood in the light of

Scripture and Church tradition and used by God's human ministers in

the celebration of the Church's sacraments. It is the ecclesiastical

cosmos, not the natural cosmos, which appears to be of primary

98

James Miller, Measures of Wisdom: The Cosmic Dance in Classical and

Christian Antiquity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 461. 99

Iamblichean theurgy was also supernatural. Indeed, A. H. Armstrong

suggests that Iamblichus was the first to use huperphues as a term meaning

above nature (A. H. Armstrong, "Iamblichus and Egypt," Les Etudes

philosophiques 2-3 [1987]: 186-87). Yet huperphues for Iamblichus was

never removed from nature or creation for, as a Pythagorean, Iamblichus

imagined theurgy according to arithmological principles. The transcendent

power of the gods is in matter and in nature, just as simple numbers reside in

and support their complex derivatives without being affected by them. Huper

phusis (above nature) could never be equated by Iamblichus with para phusis

(against nature) for anything opposed to nature was opposed to the

manifesting gods (DM 158.14-159.3). For Dionysius, however, huper phusis

is synonymous with para phusis (DN 648A). This, I believe, reflects the

transformation of Neoplatonic principles within the context of the Christian

myth. 100

Miller, Measures of Wisdom, 461.

religious importance for the Christian. There is here a new and radical

sort of religious anthropocentricism, which may have had far-reaching

consequences.101

It is interesting that the consequence most disturbing to Armstrong was

also feared by Iamblichus. To Porphyry's remark that the gods were too

elevated to be contacted in material rites Iamblichus replied that his

opinion "amounts to saying . . . that this lower region is a desert, without

the Gods" (DM 28.9-11). Outside of the "new creation" of the Church,

this lower region does become a desert, deprived of the presence of true

divinity. Armstrong continues:

It is easy to see how the anthropocentrism, with all its consequences,

has outlasted the dominance of the Church. In so far as the Church

became the only theophany, when it ceased to be an effective

theophany, (as it has long ceased to be for most Europeans), there was

no theophany left for the majority of men, no divine self-manifestation

here below.102

Dionysius can hardly be held responsible for our "wholly profane,

desacralized non-human world" lamented by Armstrong.103

Indeed,

Dionysius followed Origen and Gregory of Nyssa in their positive

evaluation of nature, yet while Origen recognized sacred symbols within

the natural world, Dionysius placed them solely within the Church,104

and by shifting the context of theurgy from the natural to an ecclesiastic

world he necessarily changed the very nature of the "divine work."105

101

A. H. Armstrong, "Man in the Cosmos: A Study of Some Differences

Between Pagan Neoplatonism and Christianity," in Romanitas et

Christianitas, ed. W. den Boer et al. (London: North Holland, 1973), 11. 102

Ibid., 11-12. 103

Ibid., 12. 104

Golitzin, contrasting Dionysius' system with that of Evagrius says: ". . .

Dionysius has put the Church and its organized worship in the place of

Evagrius' providential cosmos." See Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin), Et

Introibo ad Altare Dei: The Mystagogy of Dionysius Areopagita, with Special

Reference to its Predecessors in the Eastern Christian Tradition

(Thessalonika, 1994), 346. 105

The shift away from cosmocentric theurgy, however, was gradual. In

Maximus' Mystagogia, a commentary on the EH of Dionysius, he says that

the church is an "image of the sensible world" and "the world can be thought

of as a church." See The Church, the Liturgy and the Soul of Man: The

Mystagogia of St. Maximus the Confessor, tr. with historical note and

Ancient theurgists worked within the parameters of nature and sought to

unify themselves with its Creator through natural symbols; the Christian

theurgist, by contrast, worked within the parameters of the institutional

Church and sought to achieve union with Christ through the ritual

enactments of a myth that asserted an entirely "new creation" and

liberation from the "old world" that had become the domain and

instrument of Satan. This, I would argue, is the most significant

difference between the theurgy of Iamblichus and the theurgy of

Dionysius, a difference with consequences we have only begun to

explore.

Gregory Shaw is Professor of Religious Studies at Stonehill College, North

Easton, Massachusetts

commentary by Dom Julian Stead (Still River: St. Bede's Publications, 1982),

71. The world as church or temple is perfectly consistent with the principles

of Iamblichean theurgy, so long as our church is not the only church.