I decided to take a bit of a break from Evagrius’s On Prayer. I’ve been itching to read some from Ps.-Dionysius for some time now, so I thought I’d try my hand at some of his short treatise, Mystical Theology. Ps.-Dionysius is hard to render into English in a way that does justice to the beauty of his Greek. Rendering him literally results in ridiculous gobbledegook.¹

1

1.1

Trinity, beyond all being and divinity and goodness, you bestow on Christians insight into the mystery of God; direct us toward that highest peak of the mystical scriptures, which is both supremely radiant and dense with unknowing. There the simple, purified, and unchanging mysteries of theology are concealed in the luminous darkness of mystical silence, where in that place of utter tenebrity they shed light on that which is beyond revealing; where all is completely invisible and beyond grasp, they fill to repletion minds unseeing with brilliance of surpassing beauty.

Let this be my prayer; as for you, my dear Timothy, through this short treatment of mystical vision take your departure from the senses and from mental activities, from all that is perceived and from all that is thought, from all that is and from all that is not. To the degree possible, strain through unknowing toward oneness with the one who transcends being and knowing. After all, through pure “coming out of oneself”, wherein you set aside all things and are cleansed of all things, you will with purity lead yourself up to that gleam of divine darkness that transcends being.

Notes

1. If I may shamefully pick on a predecessor, you may compare here John Parker’s rendering from 1897:
   TRIAD supernal, both super-God and super-good, Guardian of the Theosophy of Christian men, direct us aright to the super-unknown and super-brilliant and highest summit of the mystic Oracles, where the simple and absolute and changeless mysteries of theology lie hidden within the super-luminous gloom of the silence, revealing hidden things, which in its deepest darkness shines above the most super-brilliant, and in the altogether impalpable and invisible, fills to overflowing the eyeless minds with glories of surpassing beauty. This then be my prayer; but thou, O dear Timothy, by thy persistent commerce with the mystic visions, leave behind both sensible perceptions and intellectual efforts, and all objects of sense and intelligence, and all things not being and being, and be raised aloft unknowingly to the union, as far as attainable, with Him Who is above every essence and knowledge. For by the resistless and absolute ecstasy in all purity, from thyself and all, thou wilt be carried on high, to the superessential ray of the Divine darkness, when thou hast cast away all, and become free from all. ↩