Dear Friends:

My favorite early Christian writer is Dionysius the Areopagite.  Traditionally this Dionysius was understood to be the one converted by Paul in the Book of Acts in Athens.  Dionysius' works are the source texts for Christian Mysticism, including the mysticism of the Quietist tradition.  For example, Molinos references Dionysius in his manual of contemplation.  The 'Mystical Theology' of Dionysius is one of the most beautiful and succinct (about five pages) and influential works of Christian theology and mysticism.

Today, however, I am going to quote from another work of Dionysius, 'The Divine Names'.  In this work Dionysius investigates the names that are given to God in the Bible which help us to comprehend the nature of God.  This work is longer than Mystical Theology, but it is lyrcally beautiful and accessible.  I think of it, sometimes, as a kind of dance of the synonyms of God.

There is a section in 'The Divine Names' on the word 'light', as that is a common name for God in the Bible.  Here is a quote from this section:

'It (light) steps beyond everything inasmuch as it is ordered beyond everything.  It precedes everything inasmuch as it transcends everything.  Quite simply, it gathers together and supremely anticipates in itself the authority of all illuminating power, being indeed the source of light and actually transcending light.  And so it assembles into a union everything possessed of reason and of mind.  For just as it is ignorance which scatters those in error, so it is the presence of the light of the mind which gathers and unites together those receiving illumination.  It perfects them.  It returns them toward the truly real. "  (Page 76 of the Paulist Press edition)

I find this remarkably consistent with passages I have read on the inner light in the works of George Fox and other early Quakers.  It helps me in understanding why the experience of the inner light is understood to be so central, and the above quote roots this experience in a long tradition of Christian contemplation.

Your Friend,

Jim