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

of being.” 580 As we will see later in this chapter, Weigel embraces the idea of a
hierarchically ordered universe. Whereas Dionysius concludes that a hierarchically
ordered universe necessitates a corresponding hierarchical Church, Weigel concludes that
the former hierarchy alone is sufficient to connect humans to God.
Just as God is both transcendent and immanent, God’s pro-cessions are paired
with a re-cession to God. As Dionysius describes the unfolding and enfolding of the One
into multiplicity and back into unity: “Inspired by the father, each procession of the Light
spreads itself generously toward us, and, in the power to unify, it stirs us by lifting us up.
It returns us back to the oneness and deifying simplicity of the Father who gathers us
in.” 581 Using the Divine name Light to discuss return is fitting, because of the (false)
etymology Dionysius uses, in which helios derives from “to gather up,” where
paradoxically the “spreading rays” of the sun “gather together the scattered.” 582 In short,
for Dionysius, procession and return always occur together. While the ranks do indeed
recede from the Source as they proceed outwards, they are simultaneously gathered back
up and enfolded within God’s unity—with God, of course, remaining all the while
580 Perl, 73. See also Dionysius, CH, 165A: “The goal of a hierarchy, then, is to enable beings to be as like
as possible to God and to be at one with him. A hierarchy has God as its leader of all understanding and
action. It is forever looking directly at the comeliness of God. A hierarchy bears in itself the mark of God.
Hierarchy causes its members to be images of God in all respects, to be clear and spotless mirrors reflecting
the glow of primordial light and indeed of God himself. It ensures that when its members have received this
full and divine splendour they can then pass on this light generously and in accordance with God’s will to
beings further down the scale.” The key thing to note is that each rank both receives the divine splendour
directly and passes this splendour down the scale, meaning that each rank is connected both to the ones
below it and to the ones above it. See also Turner, Darkness, 30-31.
581 Dionysius is careful to Christianize the pattern of procession and return taken from Neoplatonic
philosophy by sandwiching that last statement between two Bible passages. Scripture speaks of procession
when it says that “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coing down from the Father
of lights.” (James 1:17), and of return when it says “from him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36).
582 DN, 700B. The editors note that Dionysius takes this etymology from Plato’s Cratylus: “If we use the
Doric form of the name, I think matters will become clearer, for the Dorians call the sun ‘halios.’ So ‘halios’
might accord with the fact that the sun collects (halizein) people together when it rises, or with the fact that
it is always rolling (aei heilein ion) in its course around the earth.” Plato, "Cratylus," in Complete Works, ed.
John M. Cooper, trans. C. D. C. Reeve (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Co, 1997), 409a.
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