Fusing the doctrines of Plotinus and Proclus with the creeds and beliefs of Christianity, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite combined the Neo-Platonic conviction of the fundamental oneness and luminous aliveness of the world with the Christian dogmas of the triune God, original sin and redemption. The universe is created, animated and unified by the perpetual self-realization of what Plotinus had called "the One, " what the Bible had called "the Lord, " and what he calls "the superessential Light. Erwin Panofsky
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Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, a 6th-century Christian mystic, was a scholar and religious thinker who combined the doctrines of Plotinus and Proclus with the creeds and beliefs of Christianity. Dionysius's work, The Divine Names, combines the Neo-Platonic conviction of the fundamental oneness and luminous aliveness of the world with the Christian dogmas of the triune God, original sin and redemption. This text provides an extensive catalog of divine names, or ineffable realities in which each and every thing in nature and humanity participates. The text in its entirety is considered an important contribution in mysticism, ecumenism, theology, metaphysics, anthropology, moral philosophy, ethics, Christian patristics and patristic theology.

Source: Meaning In The Visual Arts

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