Did you hear about Dennis from Mars Hill?
A reflection upon the unity and diversity of the lives of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, Pseudo-Dionysius, Saint Denis, and an Autobiographer in light of historical criticism and historical narrative
Disclaimer: This paper was written as part of an undergraduate program and therefore does not meet formal academic standards. Although great care has been taken in the writing of this paper, errors might occur. The lecturing professor has reviewed this paper and scored it 98/100, corresponding to “Distinguished. Assignment is of sufficient substance and style to be submitted to a refereed journal for publication based on the critical thinking evidenced.” Reference to this paper in academic context should be done with caution.
1 Introduction
There is no shortage of scholarship on the Corpus Dionysiacum (CD), i.e. the works of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite. In hagiographies, the author of the works has been described as being one and the same as the Dionysius we find in chapter 17 of the Book of Acts. However, it has been known for some time now that the author lived in the fifth or early sixth century, and it is assumed that he was a Syrian monk.1 His pseudonymous authorship—or, more correctly, allonymous authorship2—earned him the pejorative title ‘Pseudo-Dionysius’, and no few scholars have consequently dismissed his works due to their compromised authenticity.3 This cycle of literary and historical criticism the corpus went through is frequently looked back upon bitterly, yet for the sake of not perpetuating the cycle of criticizing those who went before me, I will not focus my attention on those who made it possible for contemporary scholars like Charles M. Stang to appreciate the exercise of pseudonymous authorship carried out by the author of the corpus—which would not have been possible had the debate on the authorship not been settled.4 Be that as it may, out of respect for the author I will from this point onward refer to him as Dionysius the Mystic, rather than Pseudo-Dionysius.5
To have respect for the author will be a central theme within this paper, which purposes to approach the person of Saint Dionysius from two seemingly irreconcilable perspectives. First, I will give an overview of the historic persons that have become associated with the Areopagite. Next, I will discuss a hypothesis concerning the Mystic’s adoption of the identity of the Areopagite. After that, I will discuss in some length the origin of what is perhaps the most characteristic autobiographical information on the Areopagite, after which I will evaluate why this information was not questioned by the Mystic. I will conclude by providing examples of the narrative or symbolic parallels in the lives of the saints, and what they imply in terms of seeing Dionysius as one man, or as many saints.
2 Dionysius the Areopagite
Dionysius makes his first appearance in Acts 17:34, where he is named as one of the people who became followers of Paul after hearing his famous Areopagus Address. Because he is described as being a member of the Areopagus—the Athenian institution devoted to matters of justice, law, and governance6—it is assumed that he was a judge, implying that he had been trained in philosophy. He next appears in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History, published ca. AD 325, wherein it is said that another Dionysius (Bishop of Corinth, ca. 170) names the Areopagite as having been the first Bishop of the Church at Athens (possibly AD 81-967).8 This claim is reiterated in the seventh book of the anonymous Apostolic Constitutions (ca. AD 375-3809).10
Other information about the life of the Areopagite appears after Dionysius the Mystic has become conflated with his identity. This includes the tradition that speaks of his time studying in Heliopolis, where he is said to have witnessed the eclipse that occurred at the crucifixion. I will further discuss this tradition in §4.2.1.
3 Saint Denis, Bishop of Paris
Surprisingly little information on the life of Saint Denis, patron saint of France, is available to us today. He is first mentioned by Gregory of Tours in his Historia Francorum (late sixth-century), wherein it is said that Denis was a bishop sent to Gaul, where he was martyred during the Decian Persecution ca. AD 250.11 A subsequent, anonymous account (ca. AD 750) relates how he, together with Rusticus and Eleutherius, was sent on a mission to evangelize the region of Gaul by Clement of Rome. There, the three men were executed, after which the bodies were saved from being dumped in the river Seine by an unnamed noblewoman.12 In the early ninth century a second anonymous account was composed, based on the first, wherein Saint Denis is identified with the Areopagite. The execution is now described as having been a decapitation, and Denis is here portrayed as having picked up his head, carrying it for two miles to his final resting place.13 Halfway through the ninth century, Bishop Hilduin of Paris was commissioned to compose a hagiography of the saint. His work is largely based on the earlier anonymous accounts, with the significant difference of identifying Saint Denis with Dionysius the Mystic as well as with the Areopagite.14 From then onwards the three saints were widely regarded as being one and the same Dionysius.
4 Dionysius the Mystic
Dionysius the Mystic, better known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, has successfully hidden his identity “not only from centuries of credulity but also from the critical acumen of the modern period.”15 As mentioned in the introduction, it is assumed he was a Monk living in Syria during the fifth or early sixth century.16 It is difficult to say any more on the life of the Mystic, apart from those things one can draw from his literary work: that he was well-trained in both philosophy and theology, for example. Yet the most identifying characteristic of the Mystic remains that he chose to assume the identity of Dionysius the Areopagite as he wrote his treatises. Why did he specifically choose him?
4.1 Baptized for the dead: taking the name of a saint
In a blog post on 1 Corinthians 15:29 Rev. Dr. Stephen De Young proposed an interesting hypothesis, which I believe will give us some insight as to why the Mystic took on the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. The hypothesis places the baptism for the dead against the background of the Roman system of patronage. In Roman society, a man freed from slavery customarily took the name of his former master, who was now his patron.17 A patron would assist his client as they began their public life or career, and the client was in turn expected to work hard to be granted the kind of status their patron enjoyed, which would bring honor to their name. Through baptism, a Christian is freed from the slavery of sin, and by taking the name of a Patron Saint a Christian may bring further honor to that Saint’s name, while that Saint helps them to achieve the kind of status in the Heavenly Court which that Saint already enjoys.18 This is why I believe that the Mystic wrote under the name of the Areopagite not as a way to forge its apostolic authority, but rather as a way to give honor to his name.
4.2 Dionysius the Autobiographer
4.2.1 The exceptional characteristics of Letter 7
Bearing in mind that writing under the name of the Areopagite was no mere matter of convenience for the Mystic, I will now turn to a particular ‘autobiographic’ account of his that uniquely found its way into short-form popular hagiography, whereas other instances in which ‘the Areopagite’ reflects upon ‘his’ life, such as his encounter with Carpos (Letter 8), or his being a student of Hierotheus (DN.2.648A-648C, DN.4.681A), did not. 19
In §2 I briefly touched upon the tradition that speaks of Dionysius’s time studying in Heliopolis, where he is said to have witnessed the eclipse that occurred at the crucifixion. Historically, this tradition may be traced back to two letters, one of which was written by the Mystic himself (Letter 7,To Polycarp, a hierarch20), the other was attributed to the Mystic by Hilduin of Paris, whose verbatim Latin translation preserves the only known textual tradition of this letter (Letter 11, Dionysius to Apollophanes, Philosopher21). The letter is assumed to have been written by someone else, as it is very similar to Letter 7, adding some additional information likely taken from the Scholia of John Scythopolis, a commentary written less than thirty years after the composition of the works of the Mystic.22
It is true that the examples of Carpos and Hierotheus may simply speak less to the imagination when compared to the account of his witnessing the eclipse, and it may also be argued that his encounter with Carpos functions as a link between an extraordinary spiritual experience and a liturgical context, which is why it would not primarily be taken as a description of a biographic event.23 However, to my knowledge no similar explanation has been given regarding the question as to why the Mystic used ‘autobiographical’ information in Letter 7. Some have even argued that Letter 7 was never part of the original corpus.24 Yet if it was added, the addition would have to have been a very early one, as the letter is commented on by John Scythopolis in his Scholia.25
Assuming the letter was original, it is not inconceivable that the Mystic had access to a manuscript tradition preserving a biographical account of the Areopagite’s life. The Mystic has a distinct and coherent narrative style, which is characterized by hyperlinks to first century people and events; speaks at the intersection of philosophy and theology; and carries out the ascending and descending motions of apophatic and cataphatic reasoning on every level. Given the literary sophistication of the Mystic, as well as his knowledge of history, the adaption of a biographical account of the Areopagite’s life would be completely in line with what one encounters throughout the corpus. In fact, there is not a single instance in which a character is named that cannot be linked to a person that is either mentioned in the New Testament or known from tradition (e.g. Polycarp), except for Apollophanes—who remains curiously elusive in this respect.26
4.2.2 The Autobiography of Dionysius the Areopagite
Even though few scholars have entertained the possibility of the existence of such a tradition—which is, to my knowledge, not referred to in any other historical sources either—such a manuscript does in fact exist. It is called The Autobiography of Dionysius the Areopagite and it dates back at least as far as the seventh century, was written in Syriac, subsequently translated into Coptic, Arabic, Georgian, and Armenian, but not Greek or Latin.27 The scholarly attention the autobiography received among anglophone academics is, to my knowledge, minimal, if not negligible, but several German and French academics have written about it in some length, though their conclusions as to the origins of the autobiography diverge somewhat.28
4.2.3 Literary dependency of the autobiography in relation to Letter 7
4.2.3.1 Four hypotheses on the literary dependency of the autobiography
The marginal interest in the autobiography may perhaps be explained by its somewhat fantastical contents.29 However, some common elements are too coincidental to have been made up by both the Mystic and the Autobiographer independently.30 Among them are the affinity with the celestial, the city of Heliopolis and the account of the eclipse. One may therefore assume that either the Autobiographer was familiar with the works of the Mystic or the 11th letter, or vice versa, or that both independently drew from a more ancient ‘proto-biography’, as represented in figure 1.31
I do not possess the skills to argue for the dependency of the works—one way or the other—in terms of linguistic development. Given the historical evidence (or lack thereof in terms the existence of a proto-biography) it seems more likely that the Autobiographer was inspired by the Mystic based on the dating of the manuscripts (figure 1: 1 and 2).32 However, I will argue that if one takes the contents of the works into consideration, as well as the trustworthiness of the Mystic, an opposite dependency seems more likely (figure 1: 3 and 4). I will call this a ‘literary dependency in terms of historical narrative’, because it focuses on “the temporal structure of events unfolding over time, the actions and intentions of those who were there, [and] the temporal connections between antecedents and their consequences.”33
4.2.3.2 Literary dependency in terms of historical narrative
Whereas Dionysius the Mystic repeatedly refers to his other writings within his own works, the Autobiographer never refers to any of the works of Dionysius the Mystic, nor does he mention there being any other writings of Dionysius at all. Indeed, although the Autobiographer borrows from a treatise on celestial and meteorological phenomena attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, this apocryphal treatise shows no kinship to the Celestial Hierarchies of the Mystic, which concerns ‘heavenly things’ in the spiritual sense, not the astrological sense.34 Furthermore, in the autobiography neither Apollophanes nor anyone else is mentioned as having accompanied Dionysius in Heliopolis. It therefore seems unlikely that the Autobiographer wrote ‘in response to’ the works of the Mystic.
Given the Mystic’s distinct and coherent narrative style, wherein he consistently makes use of historic persons to illustrate his theology, it seems unlikely that he would have made one exception to this rule by ‘inventing’ a character, especially considering that what he is describing in Letter 7 is no less than the account of ‘his own’ conversion. In terms of historical narrative, the literary dependency—if there is any—thus seems rather to be reverse; the Mystic seems to have had access to the 11th letter and the autobiography when he wrote his 7th letter (figure 1: 4). Alternatively—if there is no dependency—both the Mystic and the Autobiographer drew upon an earlier ‘proto-biography’ describing the connection to Apollophanes, the affinity with the celestial, and the account of the eclipse at the city of Heliopolis (figure 1: 3).
4.2.4 Why the Mystic did not doubt the authenticity of the manuscripts he had access to
In §4.1 I argued that writing under the name of a Saint was a way of attempting to bring further honor to their name. This is why I believe it is unlikely that the Mystic ‘made up’ a story about the life of the Areopagite, and why for the rest of this paper I will continue under the assumption that determining the literary dependency in terms of historical narrative is in this case to be preferred over determining the literary dependency by dating known manuscripts. But before I do this, I wish to establish a second reason to further support this assertion based on Charles M. Stang’s book Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite - No Longer I.
4.2.4.1 Pseudonimity as an ascetic practice
What follows is a quotation in which Stang describes two case studies that show the relationship between late antique understandings of time and writing:
“In the 31st miracle of the Life and Miracles of Thekla, Thekla appears to the anonymous author as he is trying to write down another one of her miracles. [...] The practice of writing her life and collecting her miracles becomes part of the author’s devotion to the saint […] that aims to refashion his own self by becoming a contemporary disciple of a living saint. We witness much the same with John Chrysostom: […he] comes to think that the apostle is literally present in his room, […and] others claim to have witnessed Paul leaning over John’s shoulder as he wrote […]. Chrysostom speaks of how Paul would “take possession” of him as he wrote, such that their voices would merge.
[...] The author of the CD literally assumes the identity of the disciple Dionysius. He writes letters addressed to other apostles and disciples; he transports himself into this apostolic community, [...] yet all the while the author is also in the sixth century: quoting—sometimes at great length—from Proclus’ works [...]. The author is, in his own words, “neither himself nor someone else,” neither the monk from Syria who some scholars believe him to be nor the Athenian judge under whose name he writes. Like the ecstatic God with whom he seeks to suffer union, as a writer he simultaneously remains where he is and stretches outside himself.”35
The reverent understanding of the nature of writing described above provides further reason to believe that it is highly unlikely that the Mystic would have simply ‘made up’ a story about the life of Saint Dionysius, especially concerning his conversion. Nor do I think he would have carelessly used any biographic material he came across. Whether the Mystic had access to the 11th letter and the autobiography, or to an earlier ‘proto-biography’; either way he did not doubt their authenticity in terms of providing genuine and valuable information about the life of the saint he revered. Given the contents of the works and the trustworthiness of the Mystic, I believe determining the literary dependency in terms of historical narrative is in this case to be preferred.
4.2.4.2 The symbolic parallels between the Dionysius depicted in Acts 17 and Letter 7
If one assumes that the Mystic did indeed have access to a biographical account, one may wonder how he would have evaluated this information. Placing oneself in the shoes of the Mystic, the first place to go to would be Acts 17. Here one reads that Dionysius was a member of the Areopagus, from which one may deduce he had frequently been subjected to the pleas of skilled rhetoricians during trials, including religious disputes.36 He would therefore have picked up on the ambiguity of Paul’s statement: “What you therefore worship in ignorance—this I proclaim to you,” which, as evidenced by the variety of translations in modern English Bibles, the Greek can be rendered two ways. 37 The first meaning would be that the Athenians already worshipped the God of the Bible, though unwittingly or ignorantly (NIV, NASB95, NLT); the second would be that the God Paul proclaims is unknown (ESV, NRSV). Unsurprisingly, both themes are central to the Mystic’s work. The first meaning is seen in that he, like Paul, engages with philosophical ideas.38 The second meaning may be found in his exposition of apophatic theology, flowing out of Paul’s proclamation that “the Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples built by human hands” and that “we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.”39
It is exactly this nature of apophatic theology that is reflected in the autobiographical account of Dionysius’s conversion which the Mystic has recounted in Letter 7. The Biblical theme of God as light and God as darkness runs throughout the Corpus Dionysiacum, serving to demonstrate how God is ultimately both knowable (cataphatic, light, knowledge, divine descent in Christ) and unknowable (apophatic, darkness, unknowledge, divine ascent towards God). In Heliopolis, Dionysius and his philosopher-friend Apollophanes witness how the sun was supernaturally covered during the solar eclipse that occurred at the crucifixion. Whereas Dionysius recognizes in hindsight that God had been revealed in that darkness, Apollophanes denies the event ever happened. The account thus contrast two ways of responding to divine revelation: the correct response is to accept the divine darkness and “be uplifted to him who is the Cause not only of all beings but also of the very knowledge which one can have of these beings,” the incorrect response is, to use the Mystic’s own words, to “completely refuse to accept that [these things] happened,” inevitably causing one to make “unholy use of godly things to attack God.”40 The clear parallel with Paul’s statements in Acts 17, seen first in the darkness covering the light during the eclipse as evidencing God’s unknowable nature, and second in the rejection of doing philosophy without acknowledging the true nature of God as being an example of rejecting worshipping in ignorance, evidently was enough for the Mystic to discern the truth of the account.
4.3 The symbolic parallels between the Areopagite, the Mystic and Saint Denis
Similar symbolic parallels may be observed between the hagiography of Saint Denis, the Areopagite in Acts 17 and the apophatic theology of the Mystic. Saint Denis is said to have died by decapitation on Montmartre, Paris, after which he picked up his head and carried it for over two miles to his final resting place.41 Both Areopagus and Montmartre mean ‘Mars Hill’ in Greek and French respectively.42 Dionysius the Areopagite finds life on Mars Hill by dying to himself and following Christ after his conversion. Saint Denis finds life on Mars Hill by dying and being resurrected with Christ in paradise.
The Mystic prays that “we lacked sight and knowledge so as to see, so as to know, unseeing and unknowing, that which lies beyond all vision and knowledge.” (MT.2.1025A) Saint Denis picks up his head and marches, unseeing and unknowing, towards the place God destined to be his final resting place, where he finally dies and is united to that which lies beyond all vision and knowledge. The Mystic, attempting to unknow himself so as to find union with the unknowable God, could have gone so far as to leave no trace of evidence that may identify him as living in the 6th century, but instead he quotes from authors of his time, thus being both separate from his identity and carrying it with him.43 Saint Denis could have abandoned his head—it being the body part enabling rational thought, as well as bearing his identifying characteristics—but instead he takes it with him.
5 Conclusion
What I hope to have demonstrated through pointing out these parallels is that the conflation of the three saints need not be seen as problematic. One may argue that the individual characteristics of the saints have been lost through the conflation, and there is a sense of truth in this. However, knowing the three saints are not one and the same reveals an even greater and perhaps more impressive truth of God’s spirit working God’s plan through individuals throughout time. Of course, neither Dionysius the Areopagite nor Saint Denis were aware that their identities would become conflated with that of the Mystic at the time they walked the earth. But imagine their amazement at meeting their creator and finding out how their lives unknowingly became part of the story surrounding this masterful theological treatise that would continue to inspire generations upon generations of Christians to strive after saying alongside Paul “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal. 2:20) Had any of the saints objected to this, they would certainly have intervened in the unfolding of the conflation, yet no such tale has come down to us.44 Instead, “with Dionysius we have a unique case in theology, indeed in all intellectual history. A man of foremost rank and of prodigious power hid his identity not only from centuries of credulity but also from the critical acumen of the modern period.”45
Dionysius’s thoughts may thus be parted from his body through the lens of historical criticism, thereby separating the one man into many saints. This allows one to appreciate the individual effort each saint suffered through to receive his holiness. However, the narrative or symbolic perspective—found, for example, in hagiography—reveals how Dionysius’s body is still carrying his thought, stubbornly permitting no distinction between the two. This conflation of persons need thus not be seen as problematic; rather, it sanctifies the effort each saint undertook—knowingly or unknowingly—to show how it is not they who live, but Christ in them.
Any work on Pseudo-Dionysius starts—in greater or lesser detail—with an account of the controversy surrounding the authorship of the Corpus Dionysiacum. Cf. for example Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph Fessio, and John Riches, The glory of the Lord: a theological aesthetics (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983), 144-146.
An allonym is “a name that is assumed by an author but that actually belongs to another person,” from: “Allonym,” in: Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/allonym. (Accessed 30 May. 2021)
Von Balthasar et al., The Glory of the Lord, 145.
I will reflect upon Charles M. Stang’s work on Dionysius in §4.2.4.1.
I came across this name on a French website during my research, and although it is not commonly used in scholarship on Pseudo-Dionysius (one exception is: Ceslas Péra, "Denys le Mystique et la Théomachia", in Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 1936), I find the name is accurate and respectful towards the author. Source: “Saint Denis de Paris et ses compagnons, martyrs à Paris (IIIe siècle),” https://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/1985/Saint-Denis-de-Paris.html (Accessed 30 May. 2021)
Joshua W. Jipp, “Paul at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17:15–34),” in Lexham Geographic Commentary on Acts through Revelation, ed. Barry J. Beitzel, Jessica Parks, and Doug Mangum, Lexham Geographic Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 344.
Michael Lapidge, Hilduin of Saint Denis (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2017), 503.
Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, Books 1–5, ed. and trans. Roy Joseph Deferrari, vol. 19, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1953), 23, 143–144, 256.
Wikipedia contributors, "Apostolic Constitutions," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Apostolic_Constitutions&oldid=1017197587 (Accessed 30 May. 2021).
Paul Rorem, Lamoreaux, J., John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 144.
Michael Lapidge, “The “Anonymous Passio S. Dionysii” (BHL 2178)*,” Analecta Bollandiana, 134 (2016), 20.
Ibid., 21.
Ibid.
Ibid., 23.
Von Balthasar et al., The Glory of the Lord, 144.
Ibid., 148.
Harold Whetstone Johnston, The Private Life of the Romans, revised by Mary Johnston (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1932), 2.40: http://www.forumromanum.org/life/johnston_2.html (Accessed 30 May. 2021)
Stephen De Young, “Those Who are Baptized for the Dead,” The Whole Counsel Blog (November 26. 2018): https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/wholecounsel/2018/11/26/those-who-are-baptized-for-the-dead/ (Accessed 30 May. 2021)
See, for example: “Hieromartyr Dionysius the Areopagite, Bishop of Athens”, https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2020/10/03/102843-hieromartyr-dionysius-the-areopagite-bishop-of-athens (Accessed 8 May. 2021)
Pseudo-Dionysius, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, ed. John Farina, trans. Colm Luibheid and Paul Rorem, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1987), 266.
“Dionysius the Areopagite, Works (1897) p.141-185. The Letters,” on: https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/areopagite_08_letters.htm#letter11 (Accessed 30 May. 2021)
Michael Lapidge, Hilduin of Saint Denis, 492.—cf. Paul Rorem, John of Scythopolis, 1, 254, 262.
Cf. footnote 90 in: Ibid., 278.
B. Brons, Sekundäre Textparteien im Corpus Pseudo-Dionysiacum? Literarkritische Beobachtungen zu ausgewählten Textstellen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1975), 21–42.
Cf. note 12.
I checked all names in the ‘Index of text’ in Pseudo-Dionysius, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works.
Lapidge, Hilduin of Saint-Denis, 745.
There are four major manuscript traditions: Oscar von Lemm translated a Coptic version of the autobiography dating from the 15th century (Kugener, 293.); the Syriac versions may be dated to the 10th century (Peeters, 291.); some of the Georgian versions may be dated to the 8th or 9th century (Peeters, 291.); Kugener even claims the tradition must have originated as far back as the 6th or early 7th century (Kugener, 293.); besides these, there is also an Arab tradition. It has been argued that the autobiography was either written in Greek and subsequently translated, or was passed on through a (now lost) Greek intermediary; either way, no Greek manuscript has yet been discovered (cf. especially P. Peeters, La Vision, 316.).-----Oscar von Lemm, “Eine dem Dionysius Areopagita zugeschriebene Schrift in koptischer Sprache,” Bulletin de l’Académie Impériale des Sciences vol. 12 (1900), Issue 3, 267–306.----- Marc-Antoine Kugener, "Une autobiographie syriaque de Denys l'Aréopagite," Oriens Christianus vol. 7 (1907), 294-312.----- Paul Peeters, "La Vision de Denys l'Aréopagite à Héliopolis," Analecta Bollandiana, vol. 29 (1910), 316.-----Paul Peeters, "La version ibéro-arménienne de l'autobiographie de Denys l'Aréopagite," Analecta Bollandiana vol. 39 (1921), 277-313.
Temple priests refuse to offer the baby Dionysius, son of Aristotle, up to the gods, opting instead to raise him as one of their own. Having grown rich in knowledge, he is appointed to be the leader of the judges by a ruler named Areo Pagus. As a judge, he travels to Baalbek, Syria—known in Greek as Heliopolis—to settle a dispute. Being there, Dionysius witnesses the eclipse that occurred during the crucifixion, after which he returns to Athens. Fourteen years later he encounters Paul and is immediately converted upon hearing him speak of Christ. The autobiography ends with Dionysius vowing to preserve his written account in the archives of Athens.
Paul Canart, "En marge de la question Aréopagitique : La lettre XI de Denys à Apollophane," Byzantion vol. 41 (1971), 25-26.
Two different hypotheses of dependency have been made by scholars: Paul Peeters proposes that Hilduin of Paris was inspired by the autobiography when he composed the 11th letter. Paul Canart makes a similar—though less radical—argument, proposing rather that the 11th letter gave rise to the autobiography.-----Canart, "En marge de la question," 27.------ Peeters, “La vision de Denys,” 310-313.
Cf. for example: Peeters, "La Vision de Denys," 302.
“Chronological Thinking,” on: https://phi.history.ucla.edu/nchs/historical-thinking-standards/1-chronological-thinking/ (Accessed 30 May. 2021)
Marc-Antoine Kugener, “Un traité astronomique et météorologique syriaque attribué a Denys l’areopagite,” Actes du XIVe Congrès international des orientalistes (Alger, 1905), vol. 2, 142.
Charles M. Stang, Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite - No Longer I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 200-201, 203-204.
Hans Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, ed. Eldon Jay Epp and Christopher R. Matthews, trans. James Limburg, A. Thomas Kraabel, and Donald H. Juel, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 139.
Author’s translation of Acts 17:23b.
Andrew Louth, Denys the Areopagite (London: Continuum, 2002), 84-87.
Acts 17:24,29
Pseudo-Dionysius, “Letter 7” in: Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, 267.
Lapidge, “The “Anonymous Passio S. Dionysii”,” 21.
Ethelbert W. Bullinger, “COURT of the AREOPAGITES” in: A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1908), 192.------Bailey K. Young, "Archaeology in an Urban Setting: Excavations at Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre, Paris, 1975–1977," Journal of Field Archaeology, vol. 5 (1978), issue 3: 321.
Canart, "En marge de la question Aréopagitique,” 25-26.
There are many accounts of saints preventing something that goes expressly against their will. Cf. for example: “Venerable Nilus the Myrrhgusher of Lavra of Mount Athos,” on: https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2008/05/07/101323-venerable-nilus-the-myrrhgusher-of-lavra-of-mount-athos (Accessed 30 May. 2021)------“Venerable Thomas the Fool of Syria,” on: https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2008/04/24/101198-venerable-thomas-the-fool-of-syria (Accessed 30 May. 2021)
Von Balthasar et al., The Glory of the Lord, 144.
Did you hear about Dennis from Mars Hill?
Very interesting! Great to get some more clarity into Dionysius. He's such an important figure for Dante's Divine Comedy as well - giving the structure to the Spheres of Heaven and the nine circles of Angelic Beings around the source of the Divine Light in the Empyrean. Thanks for laying this out! Best, Richard.