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TRANSCENDING TRANSCENDENCE presentation emphasizes the “added value” there is in a personally conceived God, and reveals that a personal act of Love somehow ranks higher, in his eye at least, than an impersonal emanation of the One. Though even up to the end of Part 4 of On the Divine Names, the Areopagite maintains that it is undecided and undecideable what exactly God’s essence is (as He is supra-essential), still he describes God’s supra-essentiality as a condescendence into essence (or immanence) by transcending transcendence; and he also makes it clear that divine Love derives from God’s essence. So despite all his Neo-Platonic agnosticism, Denys nontheelss asserts that the divine essence creates and loves—which are essentially the same because the only motivation for creation is love. BIBLIOGRAPHY Cousin, Victor, ed., Procli philosophi Platonici opera e codd. mss. Biblioth. Reg. Parisiensis, tum primum edidit, lectionis varietate, versione Latina, commentariis illustravit Victor Cousin, Tomus primus, continens tria opuscula de libertate, providentia et malo, Parisiis, J.-M. Eberhart, 1820. Dopps, E. R. (ed.), Proclus, The Elements of Theology, A Revised Text with Translation, Introduction and Commentary, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963. ENGELHARDT, J. G. V., Dissertatio de Dionysio plotinizante, praemissis observationibvs de historia theologiae mysticae rite tractanda, Erlangae, Typis Hilpertianis, 1820. ENGELHARDT, J. G. V., Die angeblichen Schriften des Areopagiten Dionysius, uebersetzt und mit Abhandlungen begleitet von J. G. V. Engelhardt, Sulzbach, J. E. von Seidel, 1823, Bdd. I-II. GURTLER, Gary M., Plotinus Ennead IV.4.30-45 & IV.5: Problems Concerning the Soul, Las Vegas, Parmenides Publishing, 2015. IvANKA, Endre von, Plato Christianus. Übernahme und Umgestaltung des Platonismus durch die Väter, Einsiedeln, Johannes Verlag, 1964. KOETSCHAU, Paul (ed.), Origenes, Werke V. Band: De principiis, Leipzig, Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1913. Koch, Hugo, Proklus als Quelle des Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita in der Lehre vom Bösen, Philologus 54 (1895), 438-454. Macran, HenryS., ed., The Harmonics of Aristoxenus, Edited with translation, notes, introduction and index of words, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1902. MontET, Léon, Des livres du Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite, Paris, Joubert, 1848. OPSOMER, Jan - Steel, Carlos, Proclus, On the Existence of Evils, London, Duckworth -Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2003. (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle) Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 195 ® 2020. 06.15. 11:04:20
