Denys the Carthusian

After having studied philosophy at the University of Cologne “in the way of Thomas” (in via Thomae), Denys de Leeuwis (b. 1402; d. 1471) entered the Charterhouse at Roermond, where he spent, almost uninterruptedly, the rest of his life. To him we owe a massive literary output, which he organized according to a three-tiered hierarchical scheme of wisdom: philosophy is the lowest level of a hierarchy which, through scholastic theology, culminates in mystical theology. The three orders of wisdom are analogical and isomorphic; that is, philosophy prepares for and somehow foreshadows the superior modes of supernatural knowledge. This explains Denys’ keen interest in philosophical matters. Unlike the majority of fifteenth-century Carthusians, Denys conceived of mystical theology not as an affective act only, but as a cognitive act complemented by love. Influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Albert the Great, Henry of Ghent, and fifteenth-century Albertists, Denys came to challenge, during his life, some major doctrines of his early “patronus” Thomas Aquinas.