Miklós Vassányi on Ontological Prayer in the Divine Names by Pseudo-Dionysius + the Syriac tradition

Miklós Vassányi presented "Ontological Prayer in Part III of On the Divine Names and the Syriac tradition" for the inaugural Dionysius Circle 2022 Symposium.
Abstract:
Chapter 1 of Part III of On the Divine Names opens with a discussion of the divine outpourings and contends that the Good is to be regarded as the chief interface between the Trinity and Its less immediate processions. But early on, Denys also suggests that discussing the Good is not a matter of simple discursive reasoning but of prayer (εὐχαῖς), elevation of the mind (ἀνάγεσθαι), and initiation (μυεῖσθαι). In order to reach out to God as the Good, a spiritual journey is necessary via a specific kind of prayer, then, in the vein of both the Christian and the Platonic traditions. The formal momenta of such prayer are a real upward mobility of the mind, its initiation into the mysteries surrounding God, and a union with God. A similar scenario occurs in at least three potential Christian sources for Denys’ theory: Origen’s On Prayer (Περὶ εὐχῆς, especially VIII, 2 and IX, 2), St Gregory of Nyssa’s Homilies on the Our Father (Εἰς τὴν προσευχήν, Part 1), and Evagrius Ponticus’ On Prayer (Περὶ προσευχῆς, especially 3, 35, 61, 65 etc.); while a little more distant Neoplatonic parallels are found in Plotinus’ theory of the soul’s return into the One, developed in several treatises of the Enneads, Iamblichus’ explanation of the three stages of prayer as parts of the theurgical process (On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Περὶ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων μυστηρίων, Part V, Chapter 26), and Proclus’ analysis of the soul’s ascension to and union with the gods via prayer (Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, Εἰς τὸν Πλάτωνος Τίμαιον). Whilst all these sources have been extensively investigated, a lesser-than-deserved amount of attention has been dedicated to relevant Syriac sources on the theology of prayer. Guided by Alexander Golitzin’s (Et introibo ad altare Dei) and Andrew Louth’s (Denys the Areopagite) analyses, I would like to look into such texts as Sermon XII of the Liber graduum (Ktobo’ dmasqoto’), ’Aphrahaṭ’s Demonstration IV (Taḥwitho’ daṣlutho’), and St Ephrem’s Hymn XX on Faith, searching for Syriac antecedents or parallels to Denys’s conception of the ontological prayer.

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This is great. Glad to see the parallels (and differences) between Dionysius and Iamblichus delineated. Fascinating.