ongs to the first Christian centuries. In older
times the truth was handed on in the form of oral tradition; the most
important things were not entrusted to writing. The Christianity
described in the writings of Dionysius is set forth in the mirror of
the Neo-Platonic conception of the world. Sense-perception troubles
man's spiritual vision. He must reach out beyond the senses. But all
human ideas are primarily derived from observation by the senses. What
man perceives with his senses, he calls existence; what he does not so
perceive, he calls non-existence. Therefore if he wishes to open up an
actual view of the Divine, he must rise above existence and
non-existence, for these also, as he conceives them, have their
origin in the sphere of the senses. In this sense God is neither
existent nor non-existent; he is super-existent. Consequently he
cannot be attained by means of ordinary cognition, which has to do
with existing things. We have to be raised above ourselves, above our
sense-observation, above our reasoning logic, if we are to find the
way to spiritual vision. Thence we are able to get a glimpse into the
perspectives of the Divine.

But this super-existent Divinity has brought forth the Logos, the
basis of the universe, filled with wisdom. To him man's lower powers
are able to attain. He is present in the cosmos as the spiritual Son
of God, he is the Mediator between God and man. He may be present in
man in various degrees. He may for instance be realised in an external
institution, in which those diversely imbued with his spirit are
grouped into a hierarchy. A "church" of this kind is the outer reality
of the Logos, and the power which lives in it lived in a personal way
in the Christ become flesh, in Jesus. Thus the Church is through Jesus
united to God: Jesus is its meaning and crowning-point.

One thing was clear to all Gnosis, that one must come to an
understanding about the personality of Jesus. Christ and Jesus must be
brought into connection with one another. Divinity was taken away from
human personality and must, in one way or another, be recovered. It
must be possible to find it again in Jesus. The Mystic had to do with
a degree of divinity within himself, and with his earthly personality.
The Christian had to do with the latter, and also with a perfect God,
far above all that is attainable by humanity. If we hold firmly to
this point of view, a fundamental mystic attitude of the soul is only
possi