Totality::Singularity by Casiana Vasiliu
Totality: A Return to the Self
By Adina Bezerita
What would it be like to correlate an astronomical and natural phenomenon, such as a solar eclipse, with an experience of personal transfiguration? Dionysius the Areopagite (late fifth century C.E.) claimed to have witnessed such a constellated occasion in his 7th Letter to Polycarp, a Bishop (c.69 – 155 C.E.), in which he wrote about accompanying Paul the Apostle (c.5 – 64/65 C.E.) at the time of the crucifixion: “…For we both were present and standing together at Heliopolis at the time we saw the Moon paradoxically going over the Sun (it not being the right time for a conjunction), and then from the ninth hour until evening the moon miraculously stood in place of the sun’s diameter.”
First, you may have noticed the irreconcilable dates in separate timelines for each of these figures. Second, it is curious to observe how an astronomical alignment was employed to frame a theological or spiritual meaning.
The supernatural fiction of Dionysius was long misunderstood yet deemed prophetic by many thinkers up to the fifteenth century. As the reader may already recognize, it is important to discern when supernatural occurrences can be transposed onto supernatural beliefs in the human mind. Proclus’ Theology of Plato insists that intellectual clarity is key and makes a case for not mistaking belief (pistis) for knowledge. This historical error was finally, yet only partly, corrected by the textual and philological analysis of Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla (c.1407 - 1457).
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First, you may have noticed the irreconcilable dates in separate timelines for each of these figures. Second, it is curious to observe how an astronomical alignment was employed to frame a theological or spiritual meaning.
The supernatural fiction of Dionysius was long misunderstood yet deemed prophetic by many thinkers up to the fifteenth century. As the reader may already recognize, it is important to discern when supernatural occurrences can be transposed onto supernatural beliefs in the human mind. Proclus’ Theology of Plato insists that intellectual clarity is key and makes a case for not mistaking belief (pistis) for knowledge. This historical error was finally, yet only partly, corrected by the textual and philological analysis of Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla (c.1407 - 1457).
...
Subscribe to the New PRS Journal to read on...
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