April 6, 2014 - The eros that unites

April 6, 2014
Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt

The eros that unites

I really believe that theologians regard the words love and eros to be identical. As a matter of fact due to the improper conception people have, in their divine [teachings] they refer mostly to [what they call]  real eros. Even though real eros is lauded, not merely by us but even by the Words of Wisdom, mankind slipped into a partial and physical and divided eros, which is not true eros.  Rather it is a figurative and reduced form of real eros. This was suitably convenient for [mankind] because it was not able to grasp the form of unity of the eros that is related to God. For the unity of the one divine eros is  uncontainable in the minds of the multitude. For this reason, this name eros, even though it considered by many as being indecent, is used in divine wisdom in order to uphold and to raise [people] to come to know what eros is. In this way people are delivered from the aversion towards it ….Divine eros is…ecstatic, because it does not allow the lovers to belong to their self but to their love…. Because of this, the   dynamic interpreters of divine things call [eros], which is the reason for everything, zeal. [God] is vehement in His good eros towards the world and He stirs men up to a zealous search of a yearning desire for Him.  Thus He shows Himself zealous inasmuch as zeal is always felt concerning things that are desired, and inasmuch as He has a zeal concerning the creatures for which He cares . The lover and eros completely belong to what is good. From the beginning, they have been founded in good and they exist for the good. Eros, whether we call it divine, angelic, noetic, of the soul, or by nature, should be understood as a uniting and bonding force that actuates the higher things to  care for those below them, [motivate] those that are of the same elements to have communal sequence with one another. Finally [it moves] the lower things to return to those that are superior and lie above.

St. Dionysios Areopagita
Concerning Divine Names
Chapter 3

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