LUTHER AND DIONYSIUS: BEYOND MERE NEGATIONS

This article argues that common ground may be found between Dionysius and Luther if one goes beyond the customary “mystical” framework for analyzing Dionysius’ work and views Luther (despite his dismissal of Dionysius as an impostor) as standing in a long line of interpreters who had sought to give Dionysian ideas a more explicitly Christological focus. Specifically, I argue, the similarities lie in Luther's conceptualization of God's hidden presence and the reformer's strongly ontological doctrine of justification. The latter has a procession‐return structure within which the status of the justified person, qua justified, is expressed in terms reminiscent of the Dionysian analogia .