Denys the Areopagite

Abstract

Denys represents the end of the development of Patristic mystical theology. Denys completes all the main lines of the mystical theology of the Fathers: the Origenist tradition has achieved its classical expression in the realm of mystical theology in Evagrius; the Augustinian vision has been articulated in the West; and in Denys, the tradition of apophatic theology, which has its roots in Philo and Gregory of Nyssa, is summed up in the tiny, but immensely influential,Mystical Theology. It is shown that apophatic theology and symbolic theology — or iconic theology — are two sides of the same coin. Nowhere was that implication of the radical transcendence of the God of the Christians, a God who creates out of nothing, so clearly recognized as in Byzantium. For all his deep and diverse importance in the West, it is there that Denys finds his true home.

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