Corpus Areopagiticum, along with the scholia written by John of
Scythopolis and Maximus the Confessor provides a modern researcher with
an opportunity to reconstruct concepts of reason and other features of
human intellectual activity which were developed in philosophical and
theological discourse of the early Middle Ages (6th-7th
centuries CE). The paper will reveal major characteristics of reason
(nou=j) throughout the hierarchy of heavenly and earthly beings, as
they are presented in the scholia mostly. The choice of scholia is
determined by the fact that, unlike the text by Pseudo-Dionysius itself,
the commentary is less poetic but more logically organized and contains
numerous definitions of different mental phenomena (e.g., memory,
imagination, opinion, knowledge) as well as many similar passages
devoted to these phenomena, which allows to consider them from different
angles. Thus, reason has different characteristics referring to
different levels of the World. God, who is Reason in Its highest
entity, has it undifferentiated: everything is in His Mind before it
comes into existence. The heavenly beings, the members of the celestial
hierarchy, have to obtain knowledge about God's will and plans, but can
do it by a single act of revelation, which is possible only for
exceptional humans and in exceptional circumstances. As for other human
beings, they perceive the world piece by piece and have to apply
various logical instruments to restore the wholeness lost in the process
of emanation.
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