Thesis advisor: Stephen F. Brown / Among the varied representations of mystical ascent in the Middle Ages, perhaps none was as original as that of Thomas Gallus (d.1246), an abbot of the Canons Regular at St. Andrea in Vercelli and the so-called "last of the great Victorines." Drawing on the highly-esteemed works of Dionysius the Areopagite, Thomas exegeted the Song of Songs in terms of the soul's ascent to God through both knowledge and love. His differs from earlier Song commentaries because of its Dionysius-inspired contention that the human soul reflects the nine orders of the angelic hierarchy. Through apophatic contemplation and desire for God, the soul ascends through these orders until its intellectual knowledge fails, and it is granted a union of love with through its Seraphic order. However, Thomas, following Gregory the Great and Hugh of St. Victor, argues that love itself is a kind of knowledge, indeed, the highest kind of knowledge, the very "wisdom of Christians." To bridge the gap between the grades of knowledge and of love, and between the intellect and affect, Thomas introduces the notion of the simplification of the soul, an idea that has its roots in the Neoplatonism of Dionysius. Simplification may be defined as the principle by which multiplicity and compositeness are anagogically abandoned in favor of greater unity and simplicity through mystical ascent. It forms the guiding principle of Gallus's mystical thought, and is described in three highly interrelated ways. First, the intellect leaves behind its knowledge of God through sensibilia, sensible knowledge gained through the senses and imagination, in favor of purely invisible contemplative objects or theoriae, which it contemplates first in its own reason and intellect, and then ecstatically and unitively in themselves. Each progressively higher level of contemplation is simpler and contains those below it. Secondly, the affect abandons its lesser desires for temporal and spiritual goods, and instead focuses its desire on the Good, which is the wellspring of all lower goods. Finally, and foundationally, simplification describes the movements of the powers of the soul, which unite as they ascend, increasingly reflecting the divine simplicity. This culminates with the affect's union with God, which undividedly contains within itself all lower forms of knowledge and love. When this fleeting union with God ends, the soul descends, becoming multiplex again, but it carries with it an inflow of graces, both intellectual and affectual, which are distributed to each order of its hierarchy "according to the capacity of each". This refreshment allows for future ascent. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

This study seeks to define “mysticism” historically by looking back to the concept mystical theology (μυστική θεολογία / mystica theologia) and the association of books under this category. The first Latin canon of mystical theology developed from the ninth to the middle of the thirteenth century around translation and commentary on the writings of Dionysius by John Eriugena, Thomas Gallus, Robert Grosseteste, and Albert the Great. The second Latin canon of mystical theology developed from the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth century and centered upon the more practical task of teaching an advanced form of unitive and apophatic prayer (largely by Bonaventure, Hugh of Balma, and Jean Gerson). Nonetheless, the writings of Dionysius and the method of apophaticism—whether understood as negative predication (apophatic theology) or imageless (apophatic) prayer—remained fundamental. The criterion of immediacy also played a central role in the development of the concept, especially after the thirteenth century. Martin Luther inherited this concept of mystical theology. Reading Dionysius through the comments of Gerson and Johann Eck, Luther understood mystical theology as an advanced form of imageless prayer that sought an unmediated, experiential knowledge of God in majesty (“the naked God”) through union. Luther’s mature writings rejected any attempt to know God in this direct way. However, drawing on Augustine and Johann Tauler, Luther redirected the elements of experiential knowledge and the method of negation that he learned in mystical literature. Rather than addressing the disproportion between the finite and the infinite, Luther’s version of negative theology addressed the disproportion between the word of the Law and the word of the Gospel. In turn, Luther redirected Dionysius’s original emphasis on the mediated nature of all theology towards the pastoral task of assurance. For Dionysius direct knowledge of God was metaphysically impossible. For Luther direct knowledge of God was not impossible, but disastrous. Only in the negation of the Law and “darkness of faith” in the spoken, external words of the Gospel could assurance be found.

The goal of this dissertation is to address the influence of the Greek Fathers on the metaphysics of St. Bonaventure. Specifically, it looks at John of Damascus' and Dionysius' influence on Bonaventure's doctrine of divine ideas. It is argued that the former's influence contributed decisively to shaping the Seraphicus' exemplarism by giving it a distinctively voluntaristic framing. The subject is treated both from a historical and theoretical point of view. Accordingly, attention is not paid exclusively to systematic connections between the different authors but also to the means of historical transmission and interpretation. In this respect, the heritage of the School of St. Victor and of the first Franciscan masters in Paris (Alexander of Hales and John de la Rochelle) as mediators of the Greek Fathers to Bonaventure is brought forward and explored.

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The aim of this study is twofold: to identify the theological purpose underlying the depiction of angels at certain key points in the history of their use, and to explore how far that deeper theological rationale can be re-appropriated for our own day. This study first traces the progression of the angelic motif in the Hebrew Scriptures. By examining numerous pericopes in the Pentateuch, major prophets and Daniel, I demonstrate that the metamorphosis of higher-order beings like the angel of the Lord, cherubim and seraphim, is directly related to the writers' desire to enhance God's transcendence. Next, I evaluate pseudo-Denys' hierarchical angelology, which prominent theologians like Luther and Calvin condemned as little more than a Neoplatonic scheme for accessing God through angels. I propose that not only has pseudo-Denys' Neoplatonism been overstated, but that his angelology is particularly noteworthy for the way it accentuates Christ's eucharistic immanence to the Church. Then I maintain that because assessments of Aquinas' angelology are often based upon the Summa Theologiae, his views are wrongly portrayed as overtly philosophical, rather than biblical and exegetical. In his lesser-known biblical commentaries, however, Aquinas pushes the semantic range of the word ‘angel' to include aspects of the physical world, which unveils an imaginative, Christocentric, and scriptural dimension of his angelology that is rarely acknowledged. The conclusion considers how contemporary figures and movements relate to these three angelologies. Barth emphasises the transcendent God but unlike Hebrew Scripture, weakens connections between God and angels. New Ageism affirms the immanent angel but unlike pseudo-Denys, does so at the expense of Christology and ecclesiology. Contemporary ecological discourse generally lacks Aquinas' appreciation for an imaginative, supernatural approach to the world. Finally, I ground the angels' relationship to transcendence, immanence and imagination in an experiential, eucharistic context.

L’ambition de cette thèse, qui se présente en sept chapitres regroupés en trois parties, est de reprendre l’ensemble du Corpus dionysien pour en définir un principe de cohérence : la théologie négative. Dans le sillage des recherches antérieures, souvent centrées sur une des œuvres qui lui sont attribuées ou sur une thématique particulière, on s’est interrogé sur l’histoire et la complexité de plusieurs concepts centraux de l’œuvre : théologie négative, symbole, hiérarchie. Et, en proposant de considérer la Hiérarchie ecclésiastique comme l’achèvement du Corpus – c’est au bref traité de la Théologie mystique qu’on attribuait volontiers cette place – nous montrons comment l’apophase ou la théologie négative s’enrichit, s’approfondit, d’une dimension liturgique, au-delà de l'affirmation et de la négation. / The purpose of this thesis, consisting of seven chapters grouped under three sections, is to reconsider the whole dionysian Corpus and to define the principle of its consistency, that is negative theology. Following the previous research, often focusing on one of the treatises or a main theme, we start with the history and the complexity of several key concepts within the Corpus: negative theology, symbol, hierarchy. We suggest that Ecclesiastical Hierarchy should be considered as the final step of Dionysius’ theology (rather than Mystical Theology as usually), and that leads us to study how the apophasis or the negative theology deepens into a liturgical dimension, beyond affirmation and negation.