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DOI Artikel:Dobrzeniecki, Tadeusz; Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie [Mitarb.]: St. Anne from Faras in the National Museum in Warsaw
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18903#0085
St. Anne of Faras is presented during the virginal conception of her daughter, experienced in
■ecstasy and mystical silence, expressed by the gesture of her forefinger.
The Neo-Platonists were vividly interested in the idea of mystical silence. Early Christian
authors took their views into account. Proclus and Dionysius the Areopagite freąuently insist
that absolute silence prevails in the highest regions surrounding God, and it is transformed into
«peech only in the lower regions. In the sphere of matter variety, confusion and noise dominate.
To this metaphysical silence corresponds epistemological silence: he, who strives to come to
know God (the divine), must separate himself from noise and confusion, and proceed upwards,
-where he will finally comprehend God in absolute silence, with all the bodily and spiritual forces
at rest. Silence is the perfect prayer and liturgy.
According to the mystic, language has its limits, and lacks words with which to convey the
most sublime thoughts. This is why God may only be worshipped in silence, the sole means, by
which to penetrate the most sublime and the simplest mysteries of theology.
This is the thought, that Dionysius included in the conclusion of his treatise on the Heavenly
Hierarchy: „This is how in this treatise I have tried both to keep due measure in my speech,
and in silence worship the holy depths, which we are not allowed to grasp"65.
Translated by Joanna Holzman
65. H. Koch, Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagila in seinen Beziehungen sum Neoplatonismus und Myslerienwesen, Mainz, 1900,
123—133: Mystisches Ruhen und Schweigen; W. Volker, Kontemplation und Ekstase bei Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagtta,
Wiesbaden, 1958, p. 146: On the Heavenly Hierarchy, XV, 9.
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■ecstasy and mystical silence, expressed by the gesture of her forefinger.
The Neo-Platonists were vividly interested in the idea of mystical silence. Early Christian
authors took their views into account. Proclus and Dionysius the Areopagite freąuently insist
that absolute silence prevails in the highest regions surrounding God, and it is transformed into
«peech only in the lower regions. In the sphere of matter variety, confusion and noise dominate.
To this metaphysical silence corresponds epistemological silence: he, who strives to come to
know God (the divine), must separate himself from noise and confusion, and proceed upwards,
-where he will finally comprehend God in absolute silence, with all the bodily and spiritual forces
at rest. Silence is the perfect prayer and liturgy.
According to the mystic, language has its limits, and lacks words with which to convey the
most sublime thoughts. This is why God may only be worshipped in silence, the sole means, by
which to penetrate the most sublime and the simplest mysteries of theology.
This is the thought, that Dionysius included in the conclusion of his treatise on the Heavenly
Hierarchy: „This is how in this treatise I have tried both to keep due measure in my speech,
and in silence worship the holy depths, which we are not allowed to grasp"65.
Translated by Joanna Holzman
65. H. Koch, Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagila in seinen Beziehungen sum Neoplatonismus und Myslerienwesen, Mainz, 1900,
123—133: Mystisches Ruhen und Schweigen; W. Volker, Kontemplation und Ekstase bei Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagtta,
Wiesbaden, 1958, p. 146: On the Heavenly Hierarchy, XV, 9.
75