The essays in this book provide the principal theoretical foundation for the 'henadological' approach to theology in the polytheistic philosophy of religion. Previously published articles by author, gathered into one volume "without comment or elaboration". Also includes two previously unpublished works from 2010 and 2012.

These essays lay the groundwork for a practice of philosophical inquiry adequate to polytheistic or "Pagan" religious traditions, including in particular the non-reductive hermeneutics of myth and the theory of the polycentric divine manifold. Includes the previously published articles "The Theological Interpretation of Myth", "Offering to the Gods: A Neoplatonic Perspective", "Polycentric Polytheism and the Philosophy of Religion", as well as the previously unpublished "Neoplatonism and Polytheism" and "A Theological Exegesis of the Iliad, Book One".

This volume examines the discussion of the Chaldean Oracles in the work of Proclus, as well as offering a translation and commentary of Proclus’ Treatise On Chaldean Philosophy. Spanu assesses whether Proclus’ exegesis of the Chaldean Oracles can be used by modern research to better clarify the content of Chaldean doctrine or must instead be abandoned because it represents a substantial misinterpretation of originary Chaldean teachings. The volume is augmented by Proclus’ Greek text, with English translation and commentary. Proclus and the Chaldean Oracles will be of interest to researchers working on Neoplatonism, Proclus and theurgy in the ancient world.

Analytic philosophy of religion and philosophical theology are known for being focused on issues pertaining specifically to Judeo-Christian theism. This volume answers the call for novel work on a broader range of ideas about the spiritual, engaging with key concepts and neglected recent literature from other traditions. Alternative Conceptions of the Spiritual engages with polytheism, animism, panspiritism and theophanism as propounded by recent philosophers and members of lesser-known spiritual traditions and new religious movements. Summarizing and assessing their core ideas and arguments with both clarity and sympathy, Dumsday combines respectful dialogue with logical rigour. Providing an accessible introduction to a rich and nuanced set of traditions largely overlooked in contemporary philosophical scholarship, the work will be welcomed by philosophers, theologians and students of new religious movements.

Ever since Vlastos’ “Theology and Philosophy in Early Greek Thought,” scholars have known that a consideration of ancient philosophy without attention to its theological, cosmological and soteriological dimensions remains onesided. Yet, philosophers continue to discuss thinkers such as Parmenides and Plato without knowledge of their debt to the archaic religious traditions. Perhaps our own religious prejudices allow us to see only a “polis religion” in Greek religion, while our modern philosophical openness and emphasis on reason induce us to rehabilitate ancient philosophy by what we consider the highest standard of knowledge: proper argumentation. Yet, it is possible to see ancient philosophy as operating according to a different system of meaning, a different “logic.” Such a different sense of logic operates in myth and other narratives, where the argument is neither completely illogical nor rational in the positivist sense. The articles in this volume undertake a critical engagement with this unspoken legacy of Greek religion. The aim of the volume as a whole is to show how, beyond the formalities and fallacies of arguments, something more profound is at stake in ancient philosophy: the salvation of the philosopher-initiate.

Showing the ontological importance of eros within the philosophical systems inspired by Plato, Dimitrios A. Vasilakis examines the notion of eros in key texts of the Neoplatonic philosophers, Plotinus, Proclus, and the Church Father, Dionysius the Areopagite. Outlining the divergences and convergences between the three brings forward the core idea of love as deficiency in Plotinus and charts how this is transformed into plenitude in Proclus and Dionysius. Does Proclus diverge from Plotinus in his hierarchical scheme of eros? Is the Dionysian hierarchy to be identified with Proclus' classification of love? By analysing The Enneads, III.5, the Commentary on the First Alcibiades and the Divine Names side by side, Vasilakis uses a wealth of modern scholarship, including contemporary Greek literature to explore these questions, tracing a clear historical line between the three seminal late antique thinkers.

This Handbook contains forty essays by an international team of experts on the antecedents, the content, and the reception of the Dionysian corpus, a body of writings falsely ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, a convert of St Paul, but actually written about 500 AD. The first section contains discussions of the genesis of the corpus, its Christian antecedents, and its Neoplatonic influences. In the second section, studies on the Syriac reception, the relation of the Syriac to the original Greek, and the editing of the Greek by John of Scythopolis are followed by contributions on the use of the corpus in such Byzantine authors as Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, Theodore the Studite, Niketas Stethatos, Gregory Palamas, and Gemistus Pletho. In the third section attention turns to the Western tradition, represented first by the translators John Scotus Eriugena, John Sarracenus, and Robert Grosseteste and then by such readers as the Victorines, the early Franciscans, Albert the Great, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Dante, the English mystics, Nicholas of Cusa, and Marsilio Ficino. The contributors to the final section survey the effect on Western readers of Lorenzo Valla's proof of the inauthenticity of the corpus and the subsequent exposure of its dependence on Proclus by Koch and Stiglmayr. The authors studied in this section include Erasmus, Luther and his followers, Vladimir Lossky, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Jacques Derrida, as well as modern thinkers of the Greek Church. Essays on Dionysius as a mystic and a political theologian conclude the volume.