The Mystical Theology
E440528
The Mystical Theology is a foundational Christian Neoplatonic treatise that explores the via negativa, teaching that God is best approached through unknowing and the negation of all finite concepts.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Mystical Theology canonical | 1 |
| apophatic theology | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4432230 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Mystical Theology Context triple: [Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, authorOf, The Mystical Theology]
-
A.
The New Theologian
The New Theologian is the honorific title of Symeon, a 10th–11th century Byzantine monk and mystic renowned for his influential writings on personal experience of divine light and inner spiritual transformation.
-
B.
Philokalia
Philokalia is a renowned anthology of spiritual writings by Eastern Orthodox mystics and Church Fathers that guides readers in the practice of inner prayer and ascetic life.
-
C.
The Marrow of Theology
The Marrow of Theology is a seminal 17th-century Reformed theological textbook that systematically presents Puritan Calvinist doctrine in a concise, scholastic format.
-
D.
Theologia Platonica
Theologia Platonica is Marsilio Ficino’s major philosophical treatise that systematically presents a Christianized interpretation of Plato’s metaphysics and the immortality of the soul, foundational to Renaissance Platonism.
-
E.
Orations on the Trinity
Orations on the Trinity is a collection of theological discourses, traditionally attributed to early Christian thinkers, that explore and defend the doctrine of the Trinity.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Mystical Theology Target entity description: The Mystical Theology is a foundational Christian Neoplatonic treatise that explores the via negativa, teaching that God is best approached through unknowing and the negation of all finite concepts.
-
A.
The New Theologian
The New Theologian is the honorific title of Symeon, a 10th–11th century Byzantine monk and mystic renowned for his influential writings on personal experience of divine light and inner spiritual transformation.
-
B.
Philokalia
Philokalia is a renowned anthology of spiritual writings by Eastern Orthodox mystics and Church Fathers that guides readers in the practice of inner prayer and ascetic life.
-
C.
The Marrow of Theology
The Marrow of Theology is a seminal 17th-century Reformed theological textbook that systematically presents Puritan Calvinist doctrine in a concise, scholastic format.
-
D.
Theologia Platonica
Theologia Platonica is Marsilio Ficino’s major philosophical treatise that systematically presents a Christianized interpretation of Plato’s metaphysics and the immortality of the soul, foundational to Renaissance Platonism.
-
E.
Orations on the Trinity
Orations on the Trinity is a collection of theological discourses, traditionally attributed to early Christian thinkers, that explore and defend the doctrine of the Trinity.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Christian Neoplatonic work
ⓘ
apophatic theology text ⓘ mystical text ⓘ theological treatise ⓘ |
| attributedTo | Dionysius the Areopagite NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| audience | advanced contemplatives ⓘ |
| centralTheme |
negation of all finite concepts of God
ⓘ
transcendence of God beyond being and knowledge ⓘ unknowing of God ⓘ |
| circulatedIn |
Greek manuscripts
ⓘ
Latin translations ⓘ |
| dateOfComposition |
early 6th century
ⓘ
late 5th century ⓘ |
| genre | mystical theology ⓘ |
| hasAuthor | Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| influenced |
Eastern Christian mysticism
ⓘ
Gregory Palamas NERFINISHED ⓘ John of the Cross NERFINISHED ⓘ Meister Eckhart NERFINISHED ⓘ Renaissance Christian Platonism ⓘ Thomas Aquinas NERFINISHED ⓘ Western Christian mysticism ⓘ medieval scholastic theology ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Christian patristic theology
ⓘ
Neoplatonism NERFINISHED ⓘ Plotinus NERFINISHED ⓘ Proclus NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| keyConcept |
ascent to God
ⓘ
beyond being ⓘ darkness of unknowing ⓘ mystical union ⓘ negation of all affirmations ⓘ |
| language | Greek ⓘ |
| partOf | Dionysian corpus NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| placeInCorpus | part of the Corpus Dionysiacum ⓘ |
| relatedWork |
The Celestial Hierarchy
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
The Divine Names NERFINISHED ⓘ The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| religiousTradition | Christianity ⓘ |
| structure | short treatise ⓘ |
| teaches |
God is best approached through unknowing
ⓘ
all positive names of God must ultimately be negated ⓘ union with God beyond intellect and sense ⓘ |
| theologicalApproach |
apophatic theology
ⓘ
via negativa NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| theologicalCurrent | Christian Neoplatonism NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| tradition |
Byzantine theology
ⓘ
Latin medieval theology ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Mystical Theology Description of subject: The Mystical Theology is a foundational Christian Neoplatonic treatise that explores the via negativa, teaching that God is best approached through unknowing and the negation of all finite concepts.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
apophatic theology