590 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
rious dissertations on the life and writings of Dionysius. French translations by DARBOY (1845), and DULAC (1865). German transl. by ENGELHARDT (see below). An English transl. of the Mystical Theology in Everard's Gospel Treasures, London, 1653.
II. Older treatises by LAUNOY: De Areopagiticis Hilduini (Paris, 1641);
and De duabus Dionysiis (Par., 1660). Pere SIRMOND: Dissert, in qua ostenditur Dion. Paris, et Dion. Areop. discrimen (Par., 1641). J. DAILLE: De scriptis quce sub Dionys. Areop. et Ignatii Aidioch. nominibus circumferuntur (Geneva, 1666, reproduced by Engelhardt).
III. ENGELHARDT : Die angeblichen Schriften des Areop. Dion, ubersetzt und mit Abhandl. begleitet (Sulzbach, 1823) ; De Dion. Platonizanle (Erlangen, 1820) ; and De Origine script. Dion. Areop. (Erlangen, 1823). VOGT : Neuplatonismus und Christenthum. Berlin, 1836. G. A. MEYER: Dionys. Areop. Halle, 1845. L. MONTET: Les limes du Pseudo-Dionys., 1848. NEANDER : III. 169 sqq. ; 466 sq. GIESELER : I. 468 ; II. 103 sq. BAUR : Gesch. der Lehre v. der Dreieinigkeit und Menschwerdung Gottes, II. 251-263. DORNER: Entw. Gesch. der L. v. d. Pers. Christi, II. 196-203. FR. HIPLER: Dionys. der Areopagite. Kegensb., 1861. E. BOHMER: Dion. Areop., 1864. WESTCOTT: Dion. Areop. in the "Contemp. Keview" for May, 1867 (with good trans lations of characteristic passages). JOH. NIEMEYER: Dion. Areop. doctrina philos. et theolog. Halle, 1869. Dean COLET: On the Hie rarchies of Dionysius. 18G9. J. FOWLER: On St. Dion, in relation to Christian Art, in the "Sacristy," Febr., 1872. KANAKIS: Dionys. der Areop. nach seinem Character als Philosoph. Leipz., 1881. MOL- LER in "Herzog"2 III. 617 sqq.; and LTJPTON in "Smith & Wace," I. 841 sqq. Com p. the Histories of Philosophy by BITTER, II. 514 sqq., and UEBERWEG (Am. ed.), II. 349-352.
THE REAL AND THE FICTITIOUS DIONYSIUS.
The tendency to mystic speculation was kept up and nour ished chiefly through the writings which exhibit a fusion of Neo-Platonism and Christianity, and which go under the name of DIONYSIUS AREOP AGITA, the distinguished Athenian convert of St. Paul (Acts 17: 34). He was, according to a tradition of the second century, the first bishop of Athens.1 In the ninth
1 Dionvsins of Corinth (d. 170) in Euseb., Hist. Eccl. III. 4; IV. 23. So also in Const. Apost. VII. 46. Nothing is said in these passages of his mar tyrdom, which is an uncertain tradition of later date. Quadratus, the oldest Christian writer of Athens, makes no mention of him. Suidas (eleventh cen tury), in his Lexicon, sub Aiovbaio? 6 ' ApEurra-yirw (Kuster's ed., Cambridge,
\ 137. THE PSEUDO-DIONYSIAN WRITINGS. 591
century, when the French became acquainted with his supposed writings, he was confounded with St. Denis, the first bishop of Paris and patron saint of France, who lived and died about two hundred years after the Areopagite.1 He thus became, by a glaring anachronism, the connecting link between Athens and Paris, between Greek philosophy and Christian theology, and acquired an almost apostolic authority. He furnishes one of the most remarkable examples of the posthumous influence of unknown authorship and of the power of the dead over the living. For centuries he was regarded as the prince of theolo gians. He represented to the Greek and Latin church the eso-
1705, vol. I. 598-600), says that Dionysius visited Egypt in the reign of Tibe rius, witnessed with a friend at Heliopolis the extraordinary eclipse of the sun which occurred at the time of the crucifixion (comp. the 7th Ep. of Dion.) ; that he was converted by Paul and elected bishop of the Athenians; that he excelled in all secular and sacred learning, and was so profound that his works seem to be the productions of a celestial and divine faculty rather than of a human genius. He knows nothing of the French Dionysius.
1 According to the oldest authorities (Sulpicius Severus, d. 410, and Gregory of Tours, d. 595, see his Hist. Franc. I. 28), the French Dionysius belongs to the middle of the third century, and died a martyr either under Decius (249-251) or under Aurelian (270-273). Afterwards he was put back to the first century. The confusion of the French martyr with the Areopagite of the same name is traced to Hilduin, abbot of St. Denis, A. D. 835, who at the request of the Emperor Louis the Pious compiled an uncritical collection of the traditions concerning Dionysius (Areopagitica). Gieseler (II. 103) traces it further back to the age of Charlemagne and the Ada Dionys., which were first printed in the Ada Sanct. mens. Oct. IV. 792. After that time it was currently believed that Dionysius was sent by Pope Clement of Home to Gaul with twelve com panions, or (according to another tradition) with a presbyter Rusticus, and a deacon Eleutherius, and that he suffered martyrdom with them under Domitian. His identity with the Areopagite became almost an article of faith; and when Aboard dared to call it in question, he was expelled from St. Denis as a dangerous heretic. It has been conclusively disproved by Launoy, Sirmond, Morinus, Le Nourry, Daille*; and yet it still finds defenders among French Catholics, e.g. the Archbishop Darboy of Paris, who was shot by the Commune in May, 1871. The Al>b£ Dulac thus epigrammatically expresses this ex ploded tradition (CEuvres de Saint Denis, 1865, p. 13): " Ne dans Athenes, Lutece d' Orient, il meurt d Lutece, Athenes d" Occident; succtssivement epoux de deux eglise-s, dont Vune possedera son borceau, et Vautre sa tombe. Montmartre vaudra la colline de Mars."