Premium
THE RECEPTION OF DIONYSIUS IN THE BYZANTINE WORLD: MAXIMUS TO PALAMAS
Author(s) -
LOUTH ANDREW
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
modern theology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.144
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1468-0025
pISSN - 0266-7177
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0025.2008.00487.x
Subject(s) - embarrassment , liturgy , byzantine architecture , mediation , philosophy , hierarchy , literature , theology , epistemology , classics , history , art , sociology , law , psychology , political science , social science , social psychology
The first major theologian to engage the CD in the Byzantine world is Maximus the Confessor. His is a highly individual engagement, but without any of the embarrassment alleged by many modern scholars. Dionysian influence in Byzantium seems to have been mostly confined to the monastic tradition, and is traced here, in outline, from Symeon the New Theologian to Gregory Palamas. Various issues recur: the distinction between apophatic and kataphatic theology, the notion of hierarchy (often understood in a much cruder way than in Dionysius himself), the nature and importance of angelic mediation, and the central place of the sacramental liturgy.