John D . Jones

This article is the latest in a series of papers in which the author has explored how the Divine Names and Mystical Theology of Dionysius the Areopagite have been read in terms of three 'frameworks': Neoplatonic, Greek patristic/ Orthodox Christian, and Medieval Latin scholastic. In this article, the author focuses on Dionsyius's reference to the Transfiguration of the Lord (DN 1.4, 592B-C) and the sort of embodied knowledge we can have of God in theophanic experiences. This text provides a very good example for contrasting the Latin scholastic and Orthodox/Greek patristic interpretations of Dionysius. It also provides an excellent example of a text that cannot be accommodated within a strictly Neoplatonic interpretation of the Divine Names. The author spends most of the article examining the quite different frameworks in which St. Gregory Palamas, on the one hand, and Sts. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, interpret this text. In the end the author shows that these different frameworks for interpreting Dionysius's reference to the Transfiguration rest on quite different epistemologies.

For the Life of the World ( FLW), part IV, offers a thought-provoking discussion about the problems of poverty, wealth and civil justice. Poverty, basic needs and a living wage are central to the concerns and proposed goals for action in this part. While understandably referred to in a general sense since FLW is ‘a preliminary step for further discussion’, in the contemporary world, these issues are highly ambiguous, controversial and difficult to measure. Hence, to promote further dialogue, I explore and highlight critical issues that must be addressed. I also offer a brief discussion of the stigmatization of poverty that cruelly affects many who are poor. I argue that to develop a more expansive theological and normative discourse about poverty and wealth, we should first aim to clearly understand key terms such as poverty in a fully multidimensional, holistic manner that explicitly considers the dynamics of the stigmatization of poverty.

Pseudo-Denys pose Dieu comme cause de tous les êtres, mais ne lui reconnaît pas le caractère d'être. Dans sa théologie(mystique) négative, il refuse toute tentative pour rendre la divinité compréhensible. Ainsi celle-ci se différencie-t-elle de la métaphysique, puisqu'elle finit ...

The contents of this paper are worked out in more complete detail in chapters 5 and 6  of my new book: "Moved by Compassion:  Exploring the Core of Orthodox Christian Spiritual Life." (St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2022).

Is compassion at all connected with justice? Yes and no. I’ll give a nod to the ‘no.’ But I want to present an understanding of compassion as a holistic disposition of radical non-judgmental openness to others oriented to acting with and for their sake. I’ll briefly contrast compassion with empathy, sympathy, and especially with pity.  I hope to show two things:

1) Compassion provides a powerful ‘existential’ counter to the many individual and collective passions, attitudes and thoughts by which people are often marginalized, oppressed or seen as defective. Compassion, thereby, provides a ‘lived’ reinforcement and validation of a fundamental claim of justice: that all people are to be afforded equal dignity, respect and honor (homotimos).

2) Compassion provides a powerful support and impetus for meeting a fundamental claim of social justice, namely, that social institutions and structures should serve to promote and protect human flourishing in light of the fundamental equality of dignity or honor of humans. Compassion plays a central role in the search for social justice since it serves to challenge and undermine the many invidious distinctions which can illegitimately marginalize people and groups in a social world.

The book provides an articulation of the profoundly robust sense of compassion in the Orthodox Christian tradition, rooted in the Greek Patristic tradition, and to deal with a very practical question: “Why should we care about being compassionate?”  This is the first major study of compassion in the Orthodox Christian tradition. 
Here is a very brief description of the work:
Why should we care about being compassionate? To provide a response to this very practical question, I explore the meaning, nature, and role of compassion in our spiritual life: everyday life animated by the grace of the Holy Spirit and our love for Christ. I examine the expression of compassion in Orthodox Christian worship, Holy Scripture, and Patristic and other Orthodox Christian writings; I also draw on a number of works outside this tradition to supplement my investigation.

I develop the Orthodox Christian framework in which compassion is situated to show that:
• The compassion of God—the Trinity—and Christ fundamentally shapes their presence to creation. In his Incarnation, Christ radically unites divine and human compassion.

• Rooted in our nature, the capacity for compassion belongs to all people and is developed and perfected, with God’s grace, in our lifelong journey of becoming living icons of Christ. 

• Human compassion is not simply an emotion but a fundamental virtuous disposition. Grounded in the heart, the center of our lives, being moved by compassion arises from an alert sensitivity to suffering that bears with and cares for others for their sake. Animated by a thoroughgoing neighborliness, hospitality, and spirit of fellowship towards others, it holistically affirms others in their humanity as unique persons in community with others and never supports denigrating or marginalizing judgments and actions. It is perfected through humility, dispassion, and a radical acceptance of our human condition: its intrinsic honor and its vulnerability.

• Compassion is vital in overcoming many toxic passions and attitudes that poison our hearts and undermine our relationships with others and with God. It is fundamentally different from pity in the modern sense of that term.

• Compassion is vital to our responsibility to face the world and live for others as an integral part of our liturgy after the liturgy.

• Compassion is not simply a matter of “charity” or mercy but is also fundamentally linked with individual and collective efforts to promote justice: personal, social, and institutional. At its core, compassion directs us to an irenic, or peaceful, non-violent resistance to evil.