the mystical theology of valentin weigel - DataSpace at Princeton ...

CHAPTER 3
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DIONYSIUS, WHOEVER HE WAS:
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE IN EARLY
MODERN EUROPE
A central concern for readers of Dionysius is what he has to say about the role of
the earthly church, specifically whether some members ought to have more power than
others when it comes to administering salvation—that is, whether the church ought to be
organized hierarchically. Dionysius’ work deals extensively with the idea of hierarchy
(two of his works are entitled Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and Celestial Hierarchy) and, as
we will see in this chapter (and in more detail in Chapter 4) he makes some statements
that seem strongly to favour the idea that access to salvation is only via ordained clerics,
and that the church is organized in a rigid hierarchy within which absolute obedience is
necessary. Indeed, as the first part of this chapter shows, many people read Dionysius as a
proponent of hierarchy, from the Middle Ages onward, using his authority to protect
ecclesiastical authority, to limit the power of the laity, and to make membership in a
hierarchical church the condition of salvation. On the other hand, Dionysius’ work is
dialectical, and many of these statements in favour of hierarchy are relativized by his
strong statements about God’s unity, which is absolute, and which therefore requires that
hierarchies exist in a dynamic process of unfolding and enfolding. 386 The tension between
386 Scholars who have a more nuanced reading of Dionysius when it comes to hierarchy includ Eric D. Perl,
Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite (Albany: State University of New
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