Dionysius and "Neoplatonic Angelology"

Pico clearly doesn't want to jettison angelic superiority to humans (disp. best ex.)

I will consider a dozen or so of Pico's most unusual, memorable, problematic treatments of angels, none of which concl.ev. for magic/heresy.

the rich demonology and angelology of the later Neoplatonists give their systems a decidedly medieval flavor http://bit.ly/gdaHFg

early scholastic angelology http://bit.ly/i7u5b8

180 Syrianus "The One is beyond Being, together with Being, + this side of Being, for it is present to Matter + privation. In Meta 59 17-18

Gersh 179 there is in reality only one activity derived from God which is the basis of all lower forms of process

Farmer's criticisms of talismanic theories of Pico's language magic are worth reviewing. http://bit.ly/eqY3Nl

Dougherty's book devotes no more than a few sentences to "Controversial" occultist readings of Pico+ question of whether he did magic, no th

Sara Rappe: In Late Athenian Neoplatonism we find the Orphic myth drawn into a more elaborate angelology http://bit.ly/eJzTKx

178 each one becomes,acc.to Scripture,"a fellow-worker w/God"+manifests the divine activity reflected as much as possible in himself" CH165B

177 remission+procession in Thearchic realm ~ identical w/ corresponding relationships in angelic world

http://bit.ly/dHFn0u Gersh's Diagram of Pseudo-Dionysius Thearchy and Celestial Hierarchy

PD apparently avoids pagan doctrine that each term w/in a triadic emanation mirrors structure of the whole through internal subdivisions BLW

172 angelic order not only participates in Thearchy but also in itself, as shown by the activity+passivity of different angels to each other

is there a problem reconciling Pico's "become angelic" with standard Dionysian mysticism?

Gersh 169 connection of angels specifically with the divine Wisdom is used as a definition for the Cherubim at CH 205B+292CA

There are other points of influence, such as that of Plotinus' ideas on Providence or Porphyry's angelology

conclusion - Pico's angelology better read as consistent than as wild shifts

In Oration angel is model for emulation, but in De Ente angel is what must be stripped away

Gersh 168 emphasis placed clearly on their status as being

Dionysius "an angel is an image of God, a manifestation of invisible light, a polished mirror, transparent, unblemished, pure,

...untarnished, and receiving (if it is reverent to say this) all the beauty of the goodle divine essence. Divine Names 724B

Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena p.167 angelology

assimilation of the pagan triadic structure to the First Principle itself represents only half of the Christians' overall response to the...

Corbin it was the Neoplatonic angelology of Avicenna, with the cosmology attaching to it and above all the anthropology it implies,

... which provoked alarm among the doctors of medieval Scholasticism

Henry Corbin willingly sees such points of contact through the ternary rhythms of Proclus's Neoplatonic angelology

In De caelesti hierarchia, Ps.-Dionysius Areopagita, strongly influenced by Neo- platonic angelology, presents a hierarchy of angelic beings

Stuckrad, Locations of Knowledge (2010) 103 Pico participated in the ontologization of language in his reception+interpretation of kabbalah
104 Pico is wrestling with the dilemmas and paradoxes of perfect knowledge and does not arrive at a less paradoxical argumentation.
... kabbalah provides a means to link rational demonstration with a perfect knowledge of the divine. ...
105 Falling back on the kabbalistic concept of Ein-Sof as God's transcendent nature enables Pico to study the revelatory form of the divine.
... without intermingling with the divinity itself.