Undusted Texts

St. Makarios of Egypt (also known as St. Makarios the Great: not the same St. Makarios who helped compile the Philokalia ) was a Coptic monk from the 300s who has been well-revered in the East for his homilies. Though the homilies are now often called Pseudo-Makarian (they seem to have more of a Syrian background than an Egyptian one), they continue to be popular today. Some of them are even included in the Philokalia (though via an eleventh-century adaptation by St. Symeon Metaphrastis, "the Translator"). One section of these homilies (§88) cut me to the heart and prompted me to clarify something about this blog: the majority of the spiritual insights presented here are not my own. This may be obvious to some due to my extensive references, but I am confessing it for clarity's sake: in my work on this blog, I am more of a repeater and synthesizer than a spiritual forerunner. My goal is to channel the insights of past spiritual writers to my readers and only occasi...

"Behold, God is great, and we know Him not; the number of His years is unsearchable... God thunders wondrously with His voice; He does great things which we cannot comprehend... The Almighty--we cannot find Him; He is great in power and justice, and abundant righteousness He will not violate. Therefore men fear Him."--Job 36:26,37:5,23-24a As I mentioned in my first post on mystery , God Himself is mysterious. One of the authors who understood this the best is Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite . This odd name comes from the fact that the writings of this author were originally connected to an Athenian converted by St. Paul named Dionysius the Areopagite, mentioned in Acts 17:34. However, these writings are from the 5th or 6th century, and thus they could not be written by someone from the apostolic times. The true writer of these works is unknown, so he is referred to as Pseudo-Dionysius to reference the tradition. Pseudo-Dionysius combines Neo-Platonism (such as the wo...