Basics (part 2 of 2): "Purity of heart" and "possession"

(Pseudo-)Dionysius and the demonic

When the word “possession” is used to describe a spiritual disorder, popular culture has set us up to picture a variety of images: Linda Blair and her “possessed” successors in the supernatural horror genre, perhaps, or the rather lurid accounts of Malachi Martin or Gabriele Amorth, or (for those of us old enough to remember the Charismatic movement of the 1970s) recollections of the “deliverance ministries” of Derek Prince and Don Basham. Without a doubt, there have been documented cases of “possession” every bit as harrowing as some of the most sensational reports have detailed, some of them straining beyond the breaking point the very best psychological and physicalist attempts to explain (or to explain away). That said, during the early centuries of the Church, both “possession” and “exorcism” were generally understood in a manner quite different from the popular examples mentioned above. “Possession” was more usually regarded as a spiritual infirmity, a psychic (“soulish”) weakness that held someone back from full commitment to following Christ with “purity of heart.” Behind it was the demonic realm, but “demons” or “unclean spirits” were not seen so much as the stuff of horror as invasive nuisances that carried with them spiritual/mental disease. They infected the thought life, darkened the nous, and brought one’s worst passions to full boil. At their worst, they “divided” the soul and “possessed” enough of one’s nous that the afflicted person could be described as having “two minds” instead of one. Understood in this light, “exorcism” was an ongoing therapeutic work of personal restoration. The roots of this understanding, as I will show below, are in abundant evidence in the apostolic writings. But it is (Pseudo-)Dionysius the Areopagite who provides some of the clearest patristic insights – brief though they are – on the subject (from this point on, I’ll drop “Pseudo” and simply refer to the writer as “Dionysius”). Regarding inner “oneness” as opposed to inner dividedness, he writes: “One cannot participate in contradictory realities at one and the same time, and whoever enters into communion with the One cannot proceed to live a divided life, especially if he hopes for a real participation in the One. He must be firmly opposed to whatever may sunder this communion.” [1] With the mention of “the One,” the link to Neoplatonic thought is obvious, but one shouldn’t exaggerate it. Dionysius’ thought differs significantly, in that union with God is realized only in a psychosomatic “oneness” with the Incarnate Christ, with whom one is bonded through the “mysteries” within the ekklesia, Christ’s extended “Body.” There is more of Paul, John, and even the Letter of James in Dionysius than there is of, say, Plotinus or Proclus, as we will see below.