STRUCTURE AND MEANING OF ST. DENYS' FUNDAMENTAL THEOLOGY IN DE DIVINIS NOMINIBUS

Abstract

While Denys' personal identity, his Christo logy and the sources of the Corpus Dionysiacum have been investigated extensively in recent years, it seems that the structure and meaning of his fundamental theology, especially in De divinis nominibus, have been less incisively analysed than they deserve. 1 It is, however, in the region of the deep structure of fundamental theology that there is hope to see whether the merger Denys carries out between Christian and NeoPlatonic theology is successful and harmonious. The structure or articulation of his concept of God must be analysed evidently with respect to his most relevant Neo-Platonic sources, especially, in the view of many including myself, to Proclus. It is the objective of the present analysis to shed some light on the deeper philosophical pattern of the concept of God in De divinis nominibus and to compare it with that of Denys' apparently most immediate NeoPlatonic source for fundamental theology, Proclus' lnstitutio theologica. Further, towards the end of this paper we shall try to systematically analyse what seems perhaps the most fundamental of all Proclean and Dionysian theological premises, the identification of the One with the Good. Finally, we are going