Creator and creation. Father Dumitru Staniloae - Valuating the Areophageal Writings - Ionut Chirc...

Much has been written about the Areopagite writings (their theology and philosophy) lately. Theses have even been prepared for obtaining the title of doctor, certainly in theology, but also in philosophy. It is good that they also entered the order of interest of philosophers (historians of philosophy, even ethicists) first because, although with theological dominance, the Areopagite writings are also a repository of a great philosophy. In fact, for the Eastern branch of Christianity, according to the Apologies and Dialogue with the Jew Tryphon of St. Justin the Martyr and the Philosopher, the Areopagite writings are, perhaps, to a large extent, the foundation for Christian philosophy. Second, alternative reading is a safe and straightforward path to dialogue. The inclination on the same text, from different situations, does not separate, by this, for the simple reason that one reading takes into account the dominance, and another from the "Second Game" of the work. Because this double settlement also enters the logic of the open work. Having a dominance: theological, philosophical, poetic, scientific, any book is of secondary interest for other readings-interpretations. Only from the space of the first Christian writings can the Areopagic Corpus, for example, be read, in its entirety, in the philosophical and ethical grid, and the beauty of language, its particularities, coming from the intense apophatism and from a grammar, I would say, of superlatives, make of he is also a monument of language and style. Thus read, the Corpus is a guarantee of well-conducted dialogue through the very rule of the method, provoking and making it possible. In our culture, translated and commented by Cicerone Iordachescu and Teofil Simensky, earlier, subtly and artistically evoked by Nichifor Crainic, they found in Father Staniloae an exeget (through a new interpretation) over time. Accompanied by the comments of Saint Maximus the Confessor or John of Scythopolis (if the former or the latter is the author), the edition of Father Staniloae brings something extra. But what individualizes it is the imprint of the translator, a theologian with an unmistakable personality. Ionut Gh. Chircalan undertakes an extensive research of the Father's contribution, but not, I would say, as an end in itself. "The purpose of this thesis, warns the researcher, is to propose after the analysis a constructive model of interpretation of areophageal writings and some elements that contribute to the orthodox understanding of the reality and meaning of God's presence in creation for contemporary man." We read for something: the next target is, no doubt, the application text, but the other, the final one, is its conversion into arguments for a new construction. We read intentionally, we read to think with the text on which we lean in another referential. Introductory, with science and measure, the young researcher enters into the shackles of the identity of the author of the Corpus, in a way the "Homeric problem" in primary Christianity. He moves cautiously among many hypotheses, I do not say that they are unimportant, but not the biggest. After all, whoever was the author matters less; the main thing is that we have the work. Conversely, it would have been worse. Besides, the great work, close to the upper part of the greatness, hides the author. Who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey? Homer? There are doubts about Shakespeare, more towards us. The presence of the Corpus in the epoch matters even less. Each historical time has its own grid of interpretation, so the text itself makes history. But, even introductory, it is not a problem without interest. In cap. III of Part I, the controversies "on the Christian formation of Saint Dionysius" are investigated, taking into account his approach to philosophy, however, to tradition in Christian thought. The first Christian writers were of Greek culture (Greek and Romanian, some); bringing philosophy into the Christian space did not desecrate the Christian idea, but integrated tradition into its body. In fact, something that St. Justin, Origen, and Clement had already done was, in a way, one of showing that the new religion is like a cultural crown. Elective assimilation, no doubt, is not distorted when it is well conducted. Therefore, perhaps, indeed the excess of philosophy will be led to heresies, but only the excess and insufficiency of critical supervision. And maybe weakening or weakening faith. The Areopagite corpus was written at a time when in Athens post-ancient (surviving) Greek philosophy was dominated by Proclean Neoplatonism. If and how much the Corpus itself brings to the Neoplatonist, the discussion does not include the influence, but the problem, up to a point and in a certain direction, common. "Pagan" Neoplatonism (from Plotinus to Proclus) was not like a revival of doctrinal Platonism, but its organization around the great problem that brings metaphysics closer to theology: ...