The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (668 page)

(Heb., ‘ruling of the law’). A Jewish legal judgement.

 
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Dionysiac
(religion)
:

see
APOLLONIAN AND DIONYSIAC RELIGION
.

 
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the pseudo-Areopagite (
c.
500). The name given to the author of a corpus of theological writings; until the end of the 19th cent., their authorship was generally ascribed to the Dionysius whom Paul had converted (Acts 17. 34).
Four of his works (
The Celestial Hierarchy
,
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
,
The Divine Names
, and
The Mystical Theology
) and ten letters are extant. The central characteristic of these works is the synthesis of Christian and
Neoplatonic
thought. The leading theme is that of the intimate union (
hen
sis
) of God and the soul, and the progressive deification of the human
(thei
sis
), by a process of unknowing in an ascent to God through the three ways of the spiritual life:
purgative
,
illuminative
, and
unitive
.
Dionysius exerted a profound influence on Christianity. See also
NEOPLATONISM
.

 
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(Skt., P
li, D
pankara). ‘Kindler of lights’, best-known and first of the twenty-four
Buddhas
who preceded Buddha
kyamuni. With him and
Maitreya
, D
pa
kara is one of the Buddhas of the three ages, past, present, and future. See also
FORMER BUDDHAS
.