Dionysius from Niketas Stethatos to Gregory the Sinaite (and Gregory Palamas)

Abstract

Abstract In demonstrating that the influence of Dionysius did not expire with the early Byzantine period, this essay will examine the correlation of divine and ecclesiastical hierarchies in Niketas Stethatos, the correlation of different hierarchies with the elements of the Eucharist in Gregory the Sinaite, the efforts of eleventh-century monks to reconcile the ecclesiology of the Dionysian corpus with their own belief in the superiority of monks to priests, and the influence in the later Byzantine world of the Areopagite’s image of the circular movement of the soul. In other words, the Corpus Dionysiacum did not influence Byzantine mysticism in all of its historical phases. On the contrary, prior to Niketas Stethatos (eleventh century) and Gregory the Sinaite (fourteenth century) the presence of Dionysius in the spiritual authors was either indirect (through Maximus the Confessor) or absent (as in the case of John Climacus).