Eusebius {Eist. Eodes, iii, 40, and tr, S3) tisi Dionysius of Corinth names **Dion7BiBStk gite" (whom Luke has recorded in tbe Acti) tf first bishop of the Chur<ih in Atheoi. Snk i a fuller account, according to which Diooju bom in Athena, studied there and m Egypt, &il came eminent for learning; and whik it Beiq in Egypt, seeing an eclipse of the son, be enU to a friend, '* Either the Deity is suffering, or fji thizing with some sufferer ;*' and diis e&^ I place at the time of the death of ChrisL to Athens, he became an Areopagite, xss cw under Paul's discourse, and was msde biskpafi ens by Paul. So for Suidas. On the Aristides the Apologist he is said to hare nfieni» tyrdom at Athens.
The name of Dionysius has become iapoctir : Church history from certain writings fanaa^ *\ lieved to be his, but now known to be sfmrntc^ designated as the Pseudo-Dionysian writings. Hr are : I. The Celestial Hierarchy (rtpi lic ^-l upapx<ac) ; 2. The Ecdesiaetical Hierardi§ (» ^ licKKriotafmKiig iipapx^^c) » 8- Coneermaf tfc A* of God (iripi e«W 6potmrwy)i 4. 0/M^> ology {xtpl fWOTUCtK Biokoyiac); 5. ^jW».te' number; 6. A Utvrgy having the name of DioT*^ given by Renaudot, UL OrienL CoHu^fHt T^** 'appearance of these writings was in the usA tssn In 533 a conference was held at Coostutioofk ti- tween the Severians (Monophyslte heretic*) i^* orthodox Catholics, when the Severians sddweltitf writings in support of their opinioas (tee Hefetf* ciliengeschichte, u, § 245). Hypcriiw, who pf«a«« the conference, and the Catholics with him, •«* that these writings were either interpolate! « ^ ous. Nevertheless, fh>m this tnne on, they gnW grew into repute in the East, where they wot ^^ commentators (e. g. St.Maxiinns, 7th ceotary,G«? Pachymeres, etc.;^ ^^o, with the Greek ttogi^ of Dionysius, find place in the second vohnse dv works of Dionysius, in Migne, PatnL Gnfu, i^. the Western Church, Gregory the Great (+ e^)^ them as nominally the writings of Dkayaos (** 34). They attracted more attention in the eigfttfc*
tury, when Stephen II sent a copy as a pnstii to W Pepin (A.D. 758), and the emperor Michael **» to Louis the Pious (A.D. 827). Hilduin, abW^ Denis, near Paris, compled an apoayphtl cofl«» of accounts concerning the history of Pi*'"^?]^^ identified the author of these writings »J**»^'? [see Dbkis], the patron samt of Psns. rin» » time, for centuries, their authenticity was w*^ tioned ; and they were the sul^ects of ^""^ scholia, lectures, etc. from such men as J<**"^?^ tus, Hugo de St, Victor, Albertus Maf^M, **!?!* Aquinas. The critical spirit of the Refonniw*^ ever, was early directed towards the 1^7"^°^ ings. Eiasmu8(t 1586) questioned their sDtiaus^
DIONTSITJS
809
DIONYSnJS
nm, on Acts xvii) ; and in 1629, Sinnond (the Jes- denied the identity of Dionysiiu the Areopagite L St. Denis, and questioned also the aathentidty he writkigs attribated to him. The question of itity was long controverted among the Galilean >lot^nB, bat by the end of the centory the Paris viary contained two saints Dionysius instead of The question of authenticity was discussed and led by the great Protestant writer Daill6, in hb 8cripH» Dionym ArtopagiUB (Geneva, 1666), who I followed on the same side by the Roman Catholic olas le Nourry (^Appar. ad. Bib. Max. Patr. 1708, L70 sq. ; given also in lilgne, PatroL GnBca^ iii, 1 \. Other Bomanist writers (e. g. Halloix and Del- whose apologies are given in Mlgne, Patr. Gnec. . W) sought to maintain the authenticity of the tings ; but the greater scholars of that Church (e. rUlemont, Pagi, etc.) admit that they are spurious, few modem writers (e. g. Kestner, (He Agape, od, d. eime WeHlmml d. Chrittm, Jen. 1819, 8vo ; Darboys, rodttctian to a French translation of Dionysius) have ight again to restore the credit of the books, but the estion is settled, in both Roman and Protestant cir- 8, against their authenticity. As to the real date the books, DailU (op. di. p. 184) fixes it as probably rard the end of the fifth and beginning of the sixth itury; Pearson, who discusses the subject pretty ly in his Vmdieia JgnatkauB, cap. x, thinks the date ould be before that of Jerome, in the fourth century ; t Basnage, and even Tillemont, refute Pearson; isnage giving the date as the end of the fifth, or be- ining of the sixth century {Hid. de VEglise, viii, 10, ed in Lardner, Worht, v, 78). Cave, Hist. LUt. reneva, 1720) i, 142, gives A.D. 862 for the date, and dines to think Apollinaris (either father or son) the thor. Others (e. g. La Croze) make Synesius, bish- t of Ptolemais (fifth century), the author. Connected with the question of the origin of the leudo-Dlonysian writings is that of their object and m. Le Nourry (pp. cit.) supposes them to have been rected against the Eutychian and Nestorian here- 3S ; but there is not enough matter of this sort in lem to justify this opinion. Baumgarten-Crusius }puacula Theol. Jena, 1836, p. 265) maintains that the >Ject of the books was to incorporate the Grecian ysteries with Christianity, and to set up mystical leology over against Gnosticism ; and he assigns an lexandrian origin to them (third century). But the nostidsm combated in these books is not the early nosticism. Engelhardt, in his Die angebl, Schriftm . Diontfa. Artop. Hbertetzt^ etc. (Sulzbach, 1823) as- gns their origin to the Neoplatonic school of Proclus 1-485). Ijfeaxkder (History of Christian Dogmas^Bohn^s 1. i, 268) finds in them a mystical theology t* result- ig from a mixture of the Platonic and Christian lind, which turned the whole constitution of the liurch, its external rites, and its dogmas, into a sym- ol of its ideas." According to Niedner (Kirdm- esch. cited by Keander, 1. c), there is in the Pseudo- Konysian writings the exhibition of a pretended Athenian Gnosis, but rather Antiochian, which recon- iles the pure Hellenic Neoplatonism and the Church octrine more fkithfully than the older Gnosis. We aay learn fh>m these writings, adds Neander (ii, 402), *how strongly the mystic liturgic element of the rreek Church tended to the mult^lication of the si aments. The liturgic elements of worship, and those ■f the hierarchy, receive in them a mystic, symbolic neanmg. These writings conveyed the existing spir- toal tendencies to the following period. The sacrar nents which they enumerate are the following : bap- Ism ((^wriaiAa\ the Lord's Supper (leoiviftvia awa^t- *q\ priestly ordination (r«Xf tfcxnc «*parac^), monastic nrdination (i-tXiiuKfic fiovax"^}, tk« ri*«« «««d »t t*>e )Qrial of believers (rd iiri tSjv itpAv Kticoiftfifuvtavy*. rhe doctrine of God taught is that intuition of him can only be obtained by mystical contemplation. Man