Aquinas on the Spirit’s Gift of Understanding and Dionysius’s Mystical Theology

The last few decades have seen a renewed interest in Dionysius the Areopagite as mystical theologian and in Thomas Aquinas as spiritual master. Ressourcement figures such as Hans Urs von Balthasar resurrected Dionysius the mystical author, while Servais Pinckaers, Jean-Pierre Torrell, and others have deepened our vision of Aquinas’s teaching on the spiritual life.² Curiously, the few studies that have compared Dionysius and Aquinas have been done by meta-physicians interested in divine naming.³ The favorite Dionysian theme of union with God in the dark cloud of Mt. Sinai has received little attention from Aquinas scholars. Yet, the dark cloud has a clear place in Thomas’s theology of union with God. That theology rests on multiple pillars, including the doctrines of the invisible missions of the Son and the Spirit, the virtue of charity, and the Spirit’s seven gifts. Aquinas links the Areopagite’s Moses on Mt. Sinai with the Spirit’s gift of understanding and, likewise, the mystical experience of the Areopagite’s teacher Hierotheus with the gift of wisdom. Yet, no one has studied in an extensive way how Thomas’s teaching on these two gifts of the Spirit relates to the Areopagite’s classic work, The Mystical Theology.

I wish to consider Aquinas’s doctrine of the gift of understanding in relation to the Areopagite’s Moses in darkness. I will argue that Thomas’s theology of the gift of understanding includes a significant threefold transformation of the Dionysian doctrine of mystical union: first, Aquinas emphasizes the positive knowledge of God accessible to us (kataphatism); second, he reinserts concept-bound and image-bound thought within the height of cognitive union; and third, he shows how this summit of union can be attained by the saint who has not learned the technicalities of divine naming. However, I will argue that, despite these doctrinal modifications, Aquinas still owes much to the Areopagite for his own vision of hidden union with God.

This study proceeds in three steps. First, I will summarize the Areopagite’s teaching on Moses being joined to God in darkness. Here, I follow the work of patrologists such as Ysabel de Andia, René Roques, and Paul Rorem.⁴ Second, I shall mention some key aspects of Thomas’s theology of the Spirit’s seven gifts in general. Third, I will analyze Aquinas’s teaching on the gift of understanding in relation to the Dionysian Moses. I shall conclude by proposing some consequences of this teaching for Dominican spirituality.

Pseudo-Dionysius on Moses in Darkness

Dionysius employs the figure of Moses in the dark cloud on Mt. Sinai to symbolize union with God or the summit of the spiritual life. The Mystical Theology begins with a prayer: “O Trinity, beyond being, beyond divinity, beyond goodness, and guide of Christians in divine wisdom, direct us to the mystical summits [logion] more than unknown and beyond light. There the simple, absolved and unchanged mysteries of theology lie hidden in the darkness beyond light of the hidden mystical silence.”⁵

Dionysius introduces his discussion of the disposition needed to receive the Trinity’s uplifting power. God’s gifts elevate the mind to contact with the divine reality that the sacred oracles reveal. In the Dionysian corpus, the mystical summits or oracles usually refer to the revelation transmitted in Sacred Scripture. The oracles can also refer to the words of the liturgy.⁶ Dionysius the hierarch guides the disciple to the right interpretation of Scripture’s divine names and the correct understanding of liturgical symbols. He leads the disciple to a climax where all interpretation runs into a wall and the mind falls silent in the presence of God.

Dionysius then presents Moses ascending Mt. Sinai with the elders or priests. The context is liturgical, for the patriarch resembles a Syrian-rite bishop celebrating the Eucharist.⁷ In the Book of Exodus, chapter 24, the patriarch and priests go up to “God’s place.” Dionysius explains this metaphor: “The most divine and highest of what is seen and intelligible are...