I would like to emphasize our gratitude for being on the channel to share the results on this research. Evangelos Nikitpolous is the brains behind this and has done incredible work. My own contributions are very small, mostly organizational and reviewing some of the scholarship. He is the brains behind it!
@UC7aZ4YtSWXGFIJpcoQpF6IA the fact that you have never heard of him, doesn’t make his point less credible. And if your comment were to be relevant, then you should have.
So Dionysius' supposed teacher Hierotheus who wrote an "Elements of Divinity" was a real historical person? Because I read that as an obvious nod to other late Athenian Academic Neoplatonist who were forced to convert to Christianity that the author was using Proclus system outlined in Proclus' "Elements of Theology". The parallels between Proclus and Dionysius are far greater than the speakers here let on. I would be very glad to debate this issue point by point and in detail.
@@colmcille9669 If Proclus authored the ideas that I see in Dionysius then there's a whole tradition that developed organically to produce the system, if they come from Dionysius then they appear without a traceable period of development. Neoplatonism gradually builds to Proclus, Dionysius would be out of the blue by comparison.
@@ericorwoll Can you give us an example of an idea that appears fully formed in Dionysius versus a series of development of ideas culminating in Proclus?
I see where you are coming from. Before any debate, i think we need to know if you have any philological, text critical, or chronological objections to the thesis here. If your objection is chiefly conceptual and thematic according to a philosophical paradigm, then this is not really a debate, as your objections would be all circular, requiring the debater to buy into your specific paradigm, which already presumes upon itself being true.
Regrettably, I have to take issue with the point about the solar eclipse being observed in Heliopolis. Quoting Wikipedia: “Because it was known in ancient and medieval times that a solar eclipse could not take place during Passover (solar eclipses require a new moon while Passover only takes place during a full moon), it was considered a miraculous sign rather than a naturally occurring event. The astronomer Johannes de Sacrobosco wrote, in his The Sphere of the World, "the eclipse was not natural, but, rather, miraculous and contrary to nature.’”
Yes, someone pointed this out before. This may speak of a potential conflation of events, a real eclipse that occurred two weeks afterwards or who knows what. Matthew, Mark, and Luke only call it "darkness." It does not explain what caused it, Luke only commenting "the sun was osbscured" but he does not say by what (clouds? miraculous placement of the moon?). But, I withdraw the point in the video, though it is a curious detail and may speak to some related reason to be conducting solar measurements.
This was awesome, thank you so much for this. I would love to buy the book, but just checked Amazon and it's unavailable, I'll be on the look out though.
Hello friend, my name is Lucas Queiroz and I have a project to translate the entire dionysiacum corpus into Portuguese from the French edition "dionysiaca". I do, sincerely, believe that the corpus is authentic and I have been studying your research on it a lot. But trying to find out more about the testimonies of Saint Maximus about Saint Dionysius of Alexandria, I discovered in the book "The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor" that the supposed scholia of the Alexandrian bishop are in fact primarily those of John of Scythopolis, and pseudo-Maximinian. Would you have any opinion on this? God bless you sir.
Hands down, the best explanation why St. Dionysios is sparsely cited early, is the writings themselves. I mean, have you read 'em? Me neither! St. Paul is dense enough for me, thank you very much 😅
I figured I'd share some sources in case anyone is interested. "God being manifested as a man, and man displaying power as God. But neither was the former a mere imagination, nor did the second imply a bare humanity; but the one was absolutely true..." (The Epistle of St. Ignatius To The Ephesians, Chap. XIX). This echoes St. Dionysius's words in Epistle IV. St. Aristides in his Apology also refers the Divine Essence as "Nameless", which is a reference to On The Divine Names, Chapter I, Section VI. St. Dionysius was his predecessor as Bishop of Athens. St. Dionysius was martyred around AD 115, and St. Aristides was martyred around AD 134. The Apology of St. Aristides was to the Emperor Hadrian, so he had no reason to cite St. Dionysius. Additionally, the fragment of St. Dionysius of Corinth mentions the writings, as does an Epistle of St. Polycarp to the Athenians, and both works mentioned by John of Scythopolis. Additionally, St. Dionysius of Alexandria speaks of the writings in an Epistle to Pope St. Sixtus II of Rome, calling them authentic. In another passage of an Epistle of St. Ignatius, he quotes St. Dionysius the Areopagite on the Celestial Hierarchy. Dexter, in his Chronicle, mentions the writings. St. Jerome quotes him. Origen quotes him. Clement of Alexandria and Pantaenus quote him. St. Gregory the Theologian quotes St. Dionysius the Areopagite. Even Tertullian draws from his language, using 'Trinitas' and 'nihil scire omnia scire'; St. Dionysius the Areopagite uses 'Trienótis' and 'And the all-perfect Agnosia, in its superior sense, is a knowledge of Him, Who is above all known things.' These are some brief examples.
Thank you, but the version of Ignatius you're citing is the later "long recension." Also, there are valid questions about the authenticity of the fragments attributed to Dionysius of Alexandria, as I allude to in the video. But the parallels to Aristides are well noted and is something we get into in the book. I'm not sure where the Tertullian quote is from.
@@evangelosnikitopoulos Thanks for the response. In regard to the quote from St. Ignatius, I was unaware. Forgive me. However, the content of the Epistle to the Trallians has content in it that is quite similar to that in St. Dionysius's Celestial Hierarchy. In regard to St. Dionysius of Alexandria, Sts. Maximus Martyr and Anastasius of Antioch say that St. Dionysius of Alexandria quote a Scholia on the works of St. Dionysius the Areopagite. The fragment of the Epistle to Pope St. Sixtus II of Rome was discovered in the British Museum discovered in the British Museum (See Auguste Vidieu, Saint Denys l'Areopagite, p. 73). My references to Tertullian can be found in De Praescriptionibus Adversus Haereticos (Caput XIV) and Adversus Praxeam (Caput II-III). Also, I have you're book and I'm fond of it. Great work!
Thanks for this informative video. For a long time I have argued for the authenticity of Dionysius as he was traditionally understood; mostly with Platonist friends. There is a theory among some contemporary Platonists that Dionysius was Damascius who was the last head of the Athenian Academy. Their idea is that when he was ejected from the Academy he wrote these works to implant Platonism in the Christian tradition. It doesn't hold water; even less so than the Proclus influence idea. // A tangential comment: the term 'Neoplatonism was a creation of 17th century German historians. No contemporary of Plotinus thought of Plotinus as anything but a Platonist. Ficino thought of Plotinus in the same way. 'Neoplatonist' is a modernist term that, in some scholars' opinions, distorts how we view the tradition. // Wonderful video. Very inspiring.
Thanks for watching! Damascius as Dionysius, that's Carlo Mazzucchi's thesis. Frankly ridiculous :) I suppose if one really wanted to cling on to the pseudonymity thesis, someone like Synesius of Cyrene would be a much better option. But even there, his style is really different and there are chronological problems with that.
So how do we explain the Dormition narrative from him? He would be our earliest Dormition narrative that predates our other extant texts by 250-300 years (Book of Mary’s Repose). This is an insane period of no attestation from Father or even gnostic text, and I really hope to hear a serious response to this
The Book of Mary's repose is possibly 2nd century (theres a linguistic parallel between it and the Apocryphon of John, and numerous Gnostic elements that fit that period). At the very latest it's from the 3rd century, because the Apocalypse of Paul (dated to AD 380 by its most recent editor) draws from it. So we're talking 50 to 150 years. It's not an "insane amount of time."
@@evangelosnikitopoulos I’m using Shoemaker’s scholarship here. I believe he puts the Book of Mary’s Repose at mid-late third. I am unaware of the parallel you mention in the Johannine text
@@evangelosnikitopoulos I think 150-200 years is still a drastic amount of time. Assuming Origen knew Dionysius, wouldn’t we expect Origen to pick up on the Dormition narrative (I grant, as do many, that he used the term Theotokos à la the historian Socrates) but a Dormition narrative cannot be found in any of the texts we have today. The same could be said with Clement, heck, even Eusebius. I could go on.
"The Greek original that underlies these translations, the Greek original of the book of Mary's Repose dates, most likely, to the third century. Although it's possible that it is even earlier. "-Dr. Shoemaker@@dissatisfiedphilosophy My own published scholarship, on the Dormition genre as a whole, dates Pseudo-John before Book of Mary's repose, which places a second book perhaps into the second century, though I think the safst bet is both sources are from the fourth century. Nontheless, second century is not out of the question for either. In any event, saying that Mary died really is not a stretch and is not a concept that requires centuries to develop. We will all die. Dionysius, further, does not record the assumption.
@@dissatisfiedphilosophyThe reference to the Dormition in the Divine Names is very quick and not obvious, so wouldn't surprise me that Origen missed it (also, he did not really seemed focused on Mariology a whole lot, his main focus was on systematic theology, which is where the Dionysian influences are found). The particular parallel is in Shoemaker, (Liber Reliquiei, sec. 15): "the beast with the body of a lion and the tail of a snake." The Apocryphon of John (dated at the latest to AD 180 because Irenaeus summarizes it in Against Heresies 1.29-30), calls the Demiurge Ialdabaoth "a lion-faced serpent." The Apocryphon of John is also preserved in numerous copies together with the Gospel of Mary, showing the two were connected.
1:34:15 (roughly) - Ok. On Proclus saying he is just summarising what his predecessors are also saying. It needs to be understood that the later Platonists saw themselves not as innovators, but as transmitters of a glorious tradition. I don't think this really is proof that he was inspired by Dionysius.
It is proof when that same text contains precise lexical passages that are abbreviated from the Divine Names and openly breaks with tradition (Chaldean Oracles, Porphyry, Iamblichus) in denying that demons are evil by nature.
@@evangelosnikitopoulos Plotinus never thought of evil as something that is substantial so I'm not even sure where you're getting the idea that evil is seen by Neo-Platonists as having a nature. I distinctly remember Plotinus arguing that evil has no substance.
To be fair, published scholarship acknowledges particularly "subsersubstantial flowers and other things" as proof of a citation, speculating it is an unknown or lost oracle...so we know it is a citation and the only extant source that matches is Dionysius. Elsewhere, when proclus says "subsersubstantial flowers" he even says "as someone as said." If that is not a citation, what is? I am speaking from memory so feel free to correct me.
@@dunadan7136 Plotinus calls matter the "primary evil" (πρῶτον κακόν) in Enneads 1.8.11. He also explicitly denies that evil is a privation: "What falls in some degree short of the Good is not Evil; considered in its own kind it might even be perfect, but where there is utter dearth, there we have Essential Evil, void of all share in Good; *this is the case with Matter."* (1.8.5) This is in line with earlier Platonists like Atticus and Numenius who thought that matter was possessed of an "evil soul." Jan Opsomer agrees: "According to Plotinus, matter is produced by a soul...the product, matter, is evil as such, the principle of evil...Plotinus desparately wants to be a monist yet by making all evils dependent on one principle...he cannot escape sounding like a dualist...Proclus is fundamentally opposed to Plotinus' solution of the problem of evil...Proclus goes to great lengths to refute the idea that matter could be the source of all evils...This brings us to the concept of parhypostasis." _Proclus vs Plotinus on Matter (‘De mal. subs.’ 30-7)_ Phronesis 46.2 (2001), pp. 154-188
@@dunadan7136 Plotinus calls matter the "primary evil" (πρῶτον κακόν) in Enneads 1.8.11. At Enneads 1.8.4, he explicitly denies that evil is a deprivation of good: "What falls in some degree short of the Good is not Evil; considered in its own kind it might even be perfect, but where there is utter dearth, there we have Essential Evil, void of all share in Good; *this is the case with Matter."* This is in line with earlier Platonists like Numenius and Atticus who believed matter possessed an "evil soul." Jan Opsomer agrees with this: "According to Plotinus, matter is produced by a soul...The product, matter, is evil as such, the principle of evil...Plotinus desparately wants to be a monist, yet by making all evils dependent one one principle...he cannot escape sounding like a dualist...Proclus is fundamentally opposed to Plotinus' solution to the problem of evil...This brings us to the concept of parhypostasis." Proclus vs Plotinus on Matter ("De mal. subs." 30-7), Phronesis 46.2 (2001), pp. 154-188
1:45:00 (roughly) - Ok. There seems to be some serious misunderstanding of Plotinus here. The world for Plotinus is not "consubstantial" with God, if by world you mean the physical world. Plotinus is also not a pantheist and he even explicitly argues against pantheism in his Enneads from what I can remember. It wouldn't make sense anyway, since the One by nature for Plotinus is very distinct from the rest of creation. To call Plotinus a pantheist is sort of inexcusable and easy to refute for anyone who has actually read Plotinus. That and the claim that Plotinus thought that evil is a substance. That is equally inexcusable and again, easily refuted by simply reading Plotinus in full. As for the One, Intellect and Soul, it is better in my opinion to use a different analogy. The One is all but unspeakable so I will not try to describe it. However, I think I can help with Intellect and Soul (although not perfectly). Intellect would be something like seeing the whole chain at once, while Soul would kind of be like seeing the chain links one at a time. Imperfect analogy however, since Intellect can perceive absolutely simple Ideas while Soul sees only in parts.
Plotinus is a pantheist, albeit a particular variety of pantheist that views emanation as a hierarchical process: "From this Principle, which remains internally unmoved, particular things push forth as from a single root which never itself emerges. They are a branching into part, into multiplicity, *each single outgrowth bearing its trace of the common source.* Thus, phase by phase, there in finally the production into this world; some things close still to the root, others widely separate in the continuous progression until we have, in our metaphor, bough and crest, foliage and fruit." (Ennead 3.3.7) Proclus teaches the same thing in De subsistentia malorum: "Beings, then, proceed from the gods, some beings remaining in the gods, other beings *falling away from the unity of the gods into a secondary or yet lower nature,* according to the principle of degradation.” (On the Existence of Evils, col. 209, Cousin edition/p. 66, Opsomer and Steel trans.) The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says: "Plotinus is not a strict pantheist, yet his system does not permit the notion of creatio ex nihilo." Everything I said is factual.
@@evangelosnikitopoulos You're not taking this as part of a greater whole. Plotinus' point isn't that God is entirely immanent. God for Plotinus is both transcendent and immanent. The One is quite unlike us, yet we come from it and are images of the One.
@@dunadan7136 No Christian would say that creation is a "single outgrowth" of the divine nature. Despite positing levels, Plotinus still clearly teaches that all of creation is consubstantial to God, just like a flower on a tree is of the same nature of the root, just differentiated.
@@evangelosnikitopoulos If you're referring to ex nihilo vs ex deo, ex nihilo logically reduces to ex deo. What else is there besides God before creation? Nothing. But how can nothing produce anything at all?
@@dunadan7136 The world is of a completely separate substance than God. As Dionysius says, the divine nature "has no communion in the things participating." Plotinus does use transcendent language that's very beautiful at times but he ultimately falls back into pantheism.
How plausible is it that Dionysius, an Athenian writer, would have had access to Philo and other Alexandrian material, only for his own work later to be limited to Alexandrian circles later?
There is a real potential of the corpus being an early Alexandrian forgery, which we weigh in our article pending peer review. The textual critical difficulties inveigh against it. A Proclean forgery, by way of comparison, it almost totally impossible.
He wouldn't have had access to Alexandrian material. The parallels with Philo bespeak a shared 1st-century context. My theory is that the Corpus was brought over to Alexandria by Athenagoras of Athens and was mainly known there, before gaining more circulation in the late 4th and 5th centuries.
@@evangelosnikitopoulos As part of our classes on the NT, on our discussion on the book of Hebrews, there was a reference to a manuscript with an inscription that it was written "from Athens". It's a single manuscript, with no explanation to it whatsoever, but if that would be true, it could be possible that the scribe writing down Hebrews would have been Dionysius. So my point is, could you do a comparative research of the vocabulary between Hebrews and the Dionysian corpus? Cause if the manuscript is correct and the analysis shows both texts are probably written from the same author, well we know roughly when hebrews was written, so it's dating would drag the dionysian corpus to the early 2nd century at least.
@@kostpap3554 Interesting...but if it's a manuscript it probably dates to several hundred years after Hebrews was written. Theres an article by Constas about Pauline language in the Corpus, but I agree more work should be done!
@@evangelosnikitopoulos I agree that most probably the manuscript is several hundred years younger than Hebrews. I am just wondering, out of all the internal clues that the epistle may have something to do with Italy or Palestine or Corinth, why pick Athens? The style of Hebrews has been critiqued to resemble more of a treatise than a normal epistle, and it has some elements that to me seem like it was based on a homily or something. So I was wandering if what we have here is a homily of st Paul's that was put into paper by Dionysius, maybe under the instructions of st Paul. It may not be the case, but if it is, well we found both the author of Hebrews and of the corpus. Με ένα σμπάρο δύο τρυγόνια.
Christianity had existed in Arabia for 580 years before Muhammad was born. For hundreds of years, Arab Christians had always called Jesus Yasu or Yasuwa. (The name is derived from the original Hebrew, Yeshua, which means “Yahweh is Salvation.”) When Muhammad lived in the 7th century, he would surely have known and heard about Yasū’ (يَسُوعَ) that the Christians believed in and spoke of. Sometime after 610 AD, Muhammad introduced a new name in Arabic that no Arab Christian had ever heard of or used for Jesus before. Isa was a character loosely based on the real Yasuwa of the Bible and other folktales and legends from unreliable gnostic sources circulating at the time and Muhammad called his name Isa. If Muhammad’s Isa is the same as the Yasuwa of the Arab Christians, why did he invent a NEW name, Isa (عيسى) instead of using the name Yasuwa (يَسُوعَ) that every Arab had known for hundreds of years? Was it because he was creating a new character that would fit his new religion? Before Muhammad, no Arab had heard of Isa. True Christians were not swayed by Muhammad’s tales. They rejected him. In fact, Arab Christians continue using the name Yasuwa today. Open an Arabic bible. You will find the name Yasuwa. You will never find the name, Isa. Now we can understand. When Muslims say, Isa was not crucified, they are right. He was not. It was Yasuwa who was crucified When Muslims say Isa was only a creation, they are right. He was a creation of Muhammad’s imagination. When Muslims deny Isa’s divinity, again they’re absolutely right. It was Yasuwa who is divine. Yasuwa said, “I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Isa said no such thing. The only thing Isa ever spoke were the words put into his mouth by Muhammad hundreds of years after Yasuwa had ascended to heaven... That is why we arab/ Christian rejected him, and Christian So he wage war against The real yasuwa and Christianity ... We understand why., To differentiate themselves from Muslims, Arabic Christians refer to God by the names: Allāh al-Ab-God, the Father Allāh al-Ibn-God the Son Allāh al-Ruh al koudous-God the Holy Spirit We are not talking about the same being with Muslims at all… We are talking about our God ! Hashem- yashua.. the Hebrew word for “the name” or “the one true God! Jesus talked about! * why change and avoid the name of the “one true God” Jesus Christ talked about? * why avoid using his private name? * HaShem- and yasua? * the biblical’s God said:” There is power in his private names “ We know why Muhammad avoid it! And he waged wars against the names of the biblical God. Both father and son! Until today! His followers picked up the same fight… against father and son! They will fail!
Obviously they can't focus on jesus simplicity of his teaching. They just prefer these complicated words that simple folk would be more confused. Wonder why jesus spoke to fisherman and shepherds . Yet his authority overshadows any church father's east or west.
I would like to emphasize our gratitude for being on the channel to share the results on this research. Evangelos Nikitpolous is the brains behind this and has done incredible work. My own contributions are very small, mostly organizational and reviewing some of the scholarship. He is the brains behind it!
I do appreciate your tone, Craig. You speak emphatically in a way that reminds me to care about what you're saying 🙏
This video is ridiculously important
Indeed. If only the world were listening.
Metropolitan Ierotheos Vlachos states that the books attributed to Saint Dionysius the Areopagite are truly his.
@UC7aZ4YtSWXGFIJpcoQpF6IA the fact that you have never heard of him, doesn’t make his point less credible. And if your comment were to be relevant, then you should have.
So Dionysius' supposed teacher Hierotheus who wrote an "Elements of Divinity" was a real historical person? Because I read that as an obvious nod to other late Athenian Academic Neoplatonist who were forced to convert to Christianity that the author was using Proclus system outlined in Proclus' "Elements of Theology". The parallels between Proclus and Dionysius are far greater than the speakers here let on. I would be very glad to debate this issue point by point and in detail.
Yeah. They certainly downplay the rips that St Dionysius does to Plotinus. Copying entire paragraphs was not uncommon.
And have you evidence that Proclus didn't copy Dionysius?
@@colmcille9669 If Proclus authored the ideas that I see in Dionysius then there's a whole tradition that developed organically to produce the system, if they come from Dionysius then they appear without a traceable period of development. Neoplatonism gradually builds to Proclus, Dionysius would be out of the blue by comparison.
@@ericorwoll Can you give us an example of an idea that appears fully formed in Dionysius versus a series of development of ideas culminating in Proclus?
I see where you are coming from. Before any debate, i think we need to know if you have any philological, text critical, or chronological objections to the thesis here. If your objection is chiefly conceptual and thematic according to a philosophical paradigm, then this is not really a debate, as your objections would be all circular, requiring the debater to buy into your specific paradigm, which already presumes upon itself being true.
At Orthodox seminary OCA it was believed the record of an authentic apostolic tradition essentially Pauline first conveyed via the Areopogite.
Regrettably, I have to take issue with the point about the solar eclipse being observed in Heliopolis. Quoting Wikipedia:
“Because it was known in ancient and medieval times that a solar eclipse could not take place during Passover (solar eclipses require a new moon while Passover only takes place during a full moon), it was considered a miraculous sign rather than a naturally occurring event. The astronomer Johannes de Sacrobosco wrote, in his The Sphere of the World, "the eclipse was not natural, but, rather, miraculous and contrary to nature.’”
Yes, someone pointed this out before. This may speak of a potential conflation of events, a real eclipse that occurred two weeks afterwards or who knows what. Matthew, Mark, and Luke only call it "darkness." It does not explain what caused it, Luke only commenting "the sun was osbscured" but he does not say by what (clouds? miraculous placement of the moon?). But, I withdraw the point in the video, though it is a curious detail and may speak to some related reason to be conducting solar measurements.
This was awesome, thank you so much for this. I would love to buy the book, but just checked Amazon and it's unavailable, I'll be on the look out though.
Try the link in the description :)
When did the 2nd edition w/ the angelology chapter drop?@@evangelosnikitopoulos
@@ALLHEART_ Came out late January 2024 and we released an ebook form too.
Hello friend, my name is Lucas Queiroz and I have a project to translate the entire dionysiacum corpus into Portuguese from the French edition "dionysiaca". I do, sincerely, believe that the corpus is authentic and I have been studying your research on it a lot. But trying to find out more about the testimonies of Saint Maximus about Saint Dionysius of Alexandria, I discovered in the book "The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor" that the supposed scholia of the Alexandrian bishop are in fact primarily those of John of Scythopolis, and pseudo-Maximinian. Would you have any opinion on this? God bless you sir.
Please write us at the address on our site. Blessed Resurrection.
The Menaion says he wrote it. Good enough for me.
Hands down, the best explanation why St. Dionysios is sparsely cited early, is the writings themselves. I mean, have you read 'em? Me neither! St. Paul is dense enough for me, thank you very much 😅
Great video. Where can I read the whole corpus? I want to read it along with the other Apostolic fathers.
There's a translation by John Parker you can find online.
I figured I'd share some sources in case anyone is interested.
"God being manifested as a man, and man displaying power as God. But neither was the former a mere imagination, nor did the second imply a bare humanity; but the one was absolutely true..." (The Epistle of St. Ignatius To The Ephesians, Chap. XIX). This echoes St. Dionysius's words in Epistle IV.
St. Aristides in his Apology also refers the Divine Essence as "Nameless", which is a reference to On The Divine Names, Chapter I, Section VI. St. Dionysius was his predecessor as Bishop of Athens. St. Dionysius was martyred around AD 115, and St. Aristides was martyred around AD 134. The Apology of St. Aristides was to the Emperor Hadrian, so he had no reason to cite St. Dionysius. Additionally, the fragment of St. Dionysius of Corinth mentions the writings, as does an Epistle of St. Polycarp to the Athenians, and both works mentioned by John of Scythopolis. Additionally, St. Dionysius of Alexandria speaks of the writings in an Epistle to Pope St. Sixtus II of Rome, calling them authentic. In another passage of an Epistle of St. Ignatius, he quotes St. Dionysius the Areopagite on the Celestial Hierarchy. Dexter, in his Chronicle, mentions the writings. St. Jerome quotes him. Origen quotes him. Clement of Alexandria and Pantaenus quote him. St. Gregory the Theologian quotes St. Dionysius the Areopagite. Even Tertullian draws from his language, using 'Trinitas' and 'nihil scire omnia scire'; St. Dionysius the Areopagite uses 'Trienótis' and 'And the all-perfect Agnosia, in its superior sense, is a knowledge of Him, Who is above all known things.' These are some brief examples.
Thank you, but the version of Ignatius you're citing is the later "long recension." Also, there are valid questions about the authenticity of the fragments attributed to Dionysius of Alexandria, as I allude to in the video. But the parallels to Aristides are well noted and is something we get into in the book. I'm not sure where the Tertullian quote is from.
@@evangelosnikitopoulos
Thanks for the response. In regard to the quote from St. Ignatius, I was unaware. Forgive me. However, the content of the Epistle to the Trallians has content in it that is quite similar to that in St. Dionysius's Celestial Hierarchy. In regard to St. Dionysius of Alexandria, Sts. Maximus Martyr and Anastasius of Antioch say that St. Dionysius of Alexandria quote a Scholia on the works of St. Dionysius the Areopagite. The fragment of the Epistle to Pope St. Sixtus II of Rome was discovered in the British Museum discovered in the British Museum (See Auguste Vidieu, Saint Denys l'Areopagite, p. 73). My references to Tertullian can be found in De Praescriptionibus Adversus Haereticos (Caput XIV) and Adversus Praxeam (Caput II-III). Also, I have you're book and I'm fond of it. Great work!
@@pavbtw Thanks for your support!
@@evangelosnikitopoulos I'm honoured.
STANILOAEE
Thanks for this informative video. For a long time I have argued for the authenticity of Dionysius as he was traditionally understood; mostly with Platonist friends. There is a theory among some contemporary Platonists that Dionysius was Damascius who was the last head of the Athenian Academy. Their idea is that when he was ejected from the Academy he wrote these works to implant Platonism in the Christian tradition. It doesn't hold water; even less so than the Proclus influence idea. // A tangential comment: the term 'Neoplatonism was a creation of 17th century German historians. No contemporary of Plotinus thought of Plotinus as anything but a Platonist. Ficino thought of Plotinus in the same way. 'Neoplatonist' is a modernist term that, in some scholars' opinions, distorts how we view the tradition. // Wonderful video. Very inspiring.
Thanks for watching! Damascius as Dionysius, that's Carlo Mazzucchi's thesis. Frankly ridiculous :) I suppose if one really wanted to cling on to the pseudonymity thesis, someone like Synesius of Cyrene would be a much better option. But even there, his style is really different and there are chronological problems with that.
So how do we explain the Dormition narrative from him? He would be our earliest Dormition narrative that predates our other extant texts by 250-300 years (Book of Mary’s Repose). This is an insane period of no attestation from Father or even gnostic text, and I really hope to hear a serious response to this
The Book of Mary's repose is possibly 2nd century (theres a linguistic parallel between it and the Apocryphon of John, and numerous Gnostic elements that fit that period). At the very latest it's from the 3rd century, because the Apocalypse of Paul (dated to AD 380 by its most recent editor) draws from it. So we're talking 50 to 150 years. It's not an "insane amount of time."
@@evangelosnikitopoulos I’m using Shoemaker’s scholarship here. I believe he puts the Book of Mary’s Repose at mid-late third. I am unaware of the parallel you mention in the Johannine text
@@evangelosnikitopoulos I think 150-200 years is still a drastic amount of time. Assuming Origen knew Dionysius, wouldn’t we expect Origen to pick up on the Dormition narrative (I grant, as do many, that he used the term Theotokos à la the historian Socrates) but a Dormition narrative cannot be found in any of the texts we have today. The same could be said with Clement, heck, even Eusebius. I could go on.
"The Greek original that underlies these translations, the Greek original of the book of Mary's Repose dates, most likely, to the third century. Although it's possible that it is even earlier. "-Dr. Shoemaker@@dissatisfiedphilosophy My own published scholarship, on the Dormition genre as a whole, dates Pseudo-John before Book of Mary's repose, which places a second book perhaps into the second century, though I think the safst bet is both sources are from the fourth century. Nontheless, second century is not out of the question for either.
In any event, saying that Mary died really is not a stretch and is not a concept that requires centuries to develop. We will all die. Dionysius, further, does not record the assumption.
@@dissatisfiedphilosophyThe reference to the Dormition in the Divine Names is very quick and not obvious, so wouldn't surprise me that Origen missed it (also, he did not really seemed focused on Mariology a whole lot, his main focus was on systematic theology, which is where the Dionysian influences are found). The particular parallel is in Shoemaker, (Liber Reliquiei, sec. 15): "the beast with the body of a lion and the tail of a snake." The Apocryphon of John (dated at the latest to AD 180 because Irenaeus summarizes it in Against Heresies 1.29-30), calls the Demiurge Ialdabaoth "a lion-faced serpent." The Apocryphon of John is also preserved in numerous copies together with the Gospel of Mary, showing the two were connected.
1:34:15 (roughly) - Ok. On Proclus saying he is just summarising what his predecessors are also saying. It needs to be understood that the later Platonists saw themselves not as innovators, but as transmitters of a glorious tradition. I don't think this really is proof that he was inspired by Dionysius.
It is proof when that same text contains precise lexical passages that are abbreviated from the Divine Names and openly breaks with tradition (Chaldean Oracles, Porphyry, Iamblichus) in denying that demons are evil by nature.
@@evangelosnikitopoulos
Plotinus never thought of evil as something that is substantial so I'm not even sure where you're getting the idea that evil is seen by Neo-Platonists as having a nature. I distinctly remember Plotinus arguing that evil has no substance.
To be fair, published scholarship acknowledges particularly "subsersubstantial flowers and other things" as proof of a citation, speculating it is an unknown or lost oracle...so we know it is a citation and the only extant source that matches is Dionysius. Elsewhere, when proclus says "subsersubstantial flowers" he even says "as someone as said." If that is not a citation, what is?
I am speaking from memory so feel free to correct me.
@@dunadan7136 Plotinus calls matter the "primary evil" (πρῶτον κακόν) in Enneads 1.8.11. He also explicitly denies that evil is a privation: "What falls in some degree short of the Good is not Evil; considered in its own kind it might even be perfect, but where there is utter dearth, there we have Essential Evil, void of all share in Good; *this is the case with Matter."* (1.8.5)
This is in line with earlier Platonists like Atticus and Numenius who thought that matter was possessed of an "evil soul."
Jan Opsomer agrees: "According to Plotinus, matter is produced by a soul...the product, matter, is evil as such, the principle of evil...Plotinus desparately wants to be a monist yet by making all evils dependent on one principle...he cannot escape sounding like a dualist...Proclus is fundamentally opposed to Plotinus' solution of the problem of evil...Proclus goes to great lengths to refute the idea that matter could be the source of all evils...This brings us to the concept of parhypostasis." _Proclus vs Plotinus on Matter (‘De mal. subs.’
30-7)_ Phronesis 46.2 (2001), pp. 154-188
@@dunadan7136 Plotinus calls matter the "primary evil" (πρῶτον κακόν) in Enneads 1.8.11. At Enneads 1.8.4, he explicitly denies that evil is a deprivation of good: "What falls in some degree short of the Good is not Evil; considered in its own kind it might even be perfect, but where there is utter dearth, there we have Essential Evil, void of all share in Good; *this is the case with Matter."*
This is in line with earlier Platonists like Numenius and Atticus who believed matter possessed an "evil soul." Jan Opsomer agrees with this:
"According to Plotinus, matter is produced by a soul...The product, matter, is evil as such, the principle of evil...Plotinus desparately wants to be a monist, yet by making all evils dependent one one principle...he cannot escape sounding like a dualist...Proclus is fundamentally opposed to Plotinus' solution to the problem of evil...This brings us to the concept of parhypostasis." Proclus vs Plotinus on Matter ("De mal. subs." 30-7), Phronesis 46.2 (2001), pp. 154-188
1:45:00 (roughly) - Ok. There seems to be some serious misunderstanding of Plotinus here.
The world for Plotinus is not "consubstantial" with God, if by world you mean the physical world. Plotinus is also not a pantheist and he even explicitly argues against pantheism in his Enneads from what I can remember. It wouldn't make sense anyway, since the One by nature for Plotinus is very distinct from the rest of creation. To call Plotinus a pantheist is sort of inexcusable and easy to refute for anyone who has actually read Plotinus. That and the claim that Plotinus thought that evil is a substance. That is equally inexcusable and again, easily refuted by simply reading Plotinus in full.
As for the One, Intellect and Soul, it is better in my opinion to use a different analogy. The One is all but unspeakable so I will not try to describe it. However, I think I can help with Intellect and Soul (although not perfectly). Intellect would be something like seeing the whole chain at once, while Soul would kind of be like seeing the chain links one at a time. Imperfect analogy however, since Intellect can perceive absolutely simple Ideas while Soul sees only in parts.
Plotinus is a pantheist, albeit a particular variety of pantheist that views emanation as a hierarchical process:
"From this Principle, which remains internally unmoved, particular things push forth as from a single root which never itself emerges. They are a branching into part, into multiplicity, *each single outgrowth bearing its trace of the common source.* Thus, phase by phase, there in finally the production into this world; some things close still to the root, others widely separate in the continuous progression until we have, in our metaphor, bough and crest, foliage and fruit." (Ennead 3.3.7)
Proclus teaches the same thing in De subsistentia malorum: "Beings, then, proceed from the gods, some beings remaining in the gods, other beings *falling away from the unity of the gods into a secondary or yet lower nature,* according to the principle of degradation.” (On the Existence of Evils, col. 209, Cousin edition/p. 66, Opsomer and Steel trans.)
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says: "Plotinus is not a strict pantheist, yet his system does not permit the notion of creatio ex nihilo." Everything I said is factual.
@@evangelosnikitopoulos
You're not taking this as part of a greater whole. Plotinus' point isn't that God is entirely immanent. God for Plotinus is both transcendent and immanent. The One is quite unlike us, yet we come from it and are images of the One.
@@dunadan7136 No Christian would say that creation is a "single outgrowth" of the divine nature. Despite positing levels, Plotinus still clearly teaches that all of creation is consubstantial to God, just like a flower on a tree is of the same nature of the root, just differentiated.
@@evangelosnikitopoulos
If you're referring to ex nihilo vs ex deo, ex nihilo logically reduces to ex deo. What else is there besides God before creation? Nothing. But how can nothing produce anything at all?
@@dunadan7136 The world is of a completely separate substance than God. As Dionysius says, the divine nature "has no communion in the things participating." Plotinus does use transcendent language that's very beautiful at times but he ultimately falls back into pantheism.
How plausible is it that Dionysius, an Athenian writer, would have had access to Philo and other Alexandrian material, only for his own work later to be limited to Alexandrian circles later?
There is a real potential of the corpus being an early Alexandrian forgery, which we weigh in our article pending peer review. The textual critical difficulties inveigh against it. A Proclean forgery, by way of comparison, it almost totally impossible.
He wouldn't have had access to Alexandrian material. The parallels with Philo bespeak a shared 1st-century context. My theory is that the Corpus was brought over to Alexandria by Athenagoras of Athens and was mainly known there, before gaining more circulation in the late 4th and 5th centuries.
@@evangelosnikitopoulos As part of our classes on the NT, on our discussion on the book of Hebrews, there was a reference to a manuscript with an inscription that it was written "from Athens". It's a single manuscript, with no explanation to it whatsoever, but if that would be true, it could be possible that the scribe writing down Hebrews would have been Dionysius. So my point is, could you do a comparative research of the vocabulary between Hebrews and the Dionysian corpus? Cause if the manuscript is correct and the analysis shows both texts are probably written from the same author, well we know roughly when hebrews was written, so it's dating would drag the dionysian corpus to the early 2nd century at least.
@@kostpap3554 Interesting...but if it's a manuscript it probably dates to several hundred years after Hebrews was written. Theres an article by Constas about Pauline language in the Corpus, but I agree more work should be done!
@@evangelosnikitopoulos I agree that most probably the manuscript is several hundred years younger than Hebrews. I am just wondering, out of all the internal clues that the epistle may have something to do with Italy or Palestine or Corinth, why pick Athens? The style of Hebrews has been critiqued to resemble more of a treatise than a normal epistle, and it has some elements that to me seem like it was based on a homily or something. So I was wandering if what we have here is a homily of st Paul's that was put into paper by Dionysius, maybe under the instructions of st Paul. It may not be the case, but if it is, well we found both the author of Hebrews and of the corpus. Με ένα σμπάρο δύο τρυγόνια.
Christianity had existed in Arabia for 580 years before Muhammad was born.
For hundreds of years, Arab Christians had always called Jesus Yasu or Yasuwa. (The name is derived from the original Hebrew, Yeshua, which means “Yahweh is Salvation.”)
When Muhammad lived in the 7th century, he would surely have known and heard about Yasū’ (يَسُوعَ) that the Christians believed in and spoke of.
Sometime after 610 AD, Muhammad introduced a new name in Arabic that no Arab Christian had ever heard of or used for Jesus before.
Isa was a character loosely based on the real Yasuwa of the Bible and other folktales and legends from unreliable gnostic sources circulating at the time and Muhammad called his name Isa.
If Muhammad’s Isa is the same as the Yasuwa of the Arab Christians, why did he invent a NEW name, Isa (عيسى) instead of using the name Yasuwa (يَسُوعَ) that every Arab had known for hundreds of years?
Was it because he was creating a new character that would fit his new religion?
Before Muhammad, no Arab had heard of Isa. True Christians were not swayed by Muhammad’s tales. They rejected him.
In fact, Arab Christians continue using the name Yasuwa today.
Open an Arabic bible. You will find the name Yasuwa. You will never find the name, Isa.
Now we can understand. When Muslims say, Isa was not crucified, they are right. He was not. It was Yasuwa who was crucified
When Muslims say Isa was only a creation, they are right. He was a creation of Muhammad’s imagination.
When Muslims deny Isa’s divinity, again they’re absolutely right. It was Yasuwa who is divine.
Yasuwa said, “I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Isa said no such thing. The only thing Isa ever spoke were the words put into his mouth by Muhammad hundreds of years after Yasuwa had ascended to heaven...
That is why we arab/ Christian rejected him, and Christian
So he wage war against
The real yasuwa and Christianity ...
We understand why.,
To differentiate themselves from Muslims, Arabic Christians refer to God by the names:
Allāh al-Ab-God, the Father
Allāh al-Ibn-God the Son
Allāh al-Ruh al koudous-God the Holy Spirit
We are not talking about the same being with Muslims at all…
We are talking about our God ! Hashem- yashua..
the Hebrew word for “the name” or “the one true God! Jesus talked about!
* why change and avoid the name of the “one true God” Jesus Christ talked about?
* why avoid using his private name?
* HaShem- and yasua?
* the biblical’s God said:” There is power in his private names “
We know why Muhammad avoid it!
And he waged wars against the names of the biblical God. Both father and son! Until today! His followers picked up the same fight… against father and son!
They will fail!
I want to be orthodox but there is not orthodox churches in my town ,I'm from Buenos Aires 😢
There are quite a few in Buenos Aires.
@@OrthodoxChristianTheology not my town
C'mon Dude, Buenos Aires is full of Orthodox Churches.
Then, become Catholic. Both have a valid eucharist, which is the most important thing.
@@waterwarrior242 that's disputable!
Obviously they can't focus on jesus simplicity of his teaching. They just prefer these complicated words that simple folk would be more confused. Wonder why jesus spoke to fisherman and shepherds . Yet his authority overshadows any church father's east or west.
By that logic you should reject the Pauline, Johanine, Petrine, and Jacobean Epistles. Or excise every passage of Scripture that is too "complicated".
@@evangelosnikitopoulos jesus parables are not philosophical or theological abstracts.