The Oxford Handbook of Dionysius the Areopagite (Oxford Handbooks)

Description

This Handbook contains forty essays by an international team of experts on the antecedents, the content, and the reception of the Dionysian corpus, a body of writings falsely ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, a convert of St Paul, but actually written about 500 AD. The first section contains discussions of the genesis of the corpus, its Christian antecedents, and its Neoplatonic influences. In the second section, studies on the Syriac reception, the relation of the Syriac to the original Greek, and the editing of the Greek by John of Scythopolis are followed by contributions on the use of the corpus in such Byzantine authors as Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, Theodore the Studite, Niketas Stethatos, Gregory Palamas, and Gemistus Pletho. In the third section attention turns to the Western tradition, represented first by the translators John Scotus Eriugena, John Sarracenus, and Robert Grosseteste and then by such readers as the Victorines, the early Franciscans, Albert the Great, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Dante, the English mystics, Nicholas of Cusa, and Marsilio Ficino. The contributors to the final section survey the effect on Western readers of Lorenzo Valla's proof of the inauthenticity of the corpus and the subsequent exposure of its dependence on Proclus by Koch and Stiglmayr. The authors studied in this section include Erasmus, Luther and his followers, Vladimir Lossky, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Jacques Derrida, as well as modern thinkers of the Greek Church. Essays on Dionysius as a mystic and a political theologian conclude the volume. Cover The Oxford Handbook of Dionysius the Areopagite Copyright Contents Contributors 1. Introduction Section I: The Corpus in its Historical Setting 2. The Dionysian Corpus 3. Content of the Dionysian Corpus 4. Dionysius the Areopagite and the New Testament 5. Christian Apophaticism before Dionysius 6. Philo and Clement of Alexandria 7. Origen, Evagrius, and Dionysius 8. Dionysius and Gregory of Nyssa 9. Dionysius, Iamblichus, and Proclus 10. God in Dionysius and the Later Neoplatonists Section II: Dionysius in the East 11. Dionysius the Areopagite in Syriac: The Translation of Sergius of Resh‘ayna (Sixth Century) 12. Notes on the Earliest Greco-​Syriac Reception of the Dionysian Corpus 13. John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus 14. Maximus the Confessor and the Reception of Dionysius the Areopagite 15. Dionysius and John of Damascus 16. Theodore the Studite and Dionysius 17. Dionysius from Niketas Stethatos to Gregory the Sinaite (and Gregory Palamas) 18. Gregory Palamas and Dionysius 19. Pletho and Dionysius Section III: Dionysius in the West 20. Occulti Manifestatio: the Journey to God in Dionysius and Eriugena 21. John Sarracenus and his Influence 22. Robert Grosseteste, Translator of Dionysius 23. Bonaventure and Dionysius 24. Hugh of St Victor and Dionysius 25. Thomas Gallus: Affective Dionysianism 26. Dionysius in Albertus Magnus and his Student Thomas Aquinas 27. Dionysius in Dante 28. The Carthusians and the Cloud of Unknowing 29. Dionysius the Areopagite and Nicholas of Cusa 30. Marsilio Ficino and the Dionysian Corpus Section IV: Dionysius after the Western European Reformation 31. Valla and Erasmus on the Dionysian Question 32. Luther on Dionysius 33. Dionysius and the Lutheran Tradition 34. Dionysius’ Reception in the English-​Speaking World 35. Hugo Koch and Josef Stiglmayr on Dionysius and Proclus 36. Three Theologians: Dean Inge, Vladimir Lossky, and Von Balthasar 37. The Reception of Dionysius in Modern Greek Theology and Scholarship 38. Jacques Derrida and Jean-​Luc Marion 39. Dionysius as a Mystic 40. On the Theology of Dionysius Bibliography of Ancient Texts Index