The Letters as Introduction

Abstract

Abstract This book interprets the works that for centuries were falsely attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian who was converted to Christianity by St. Paul, according to Acts 17. They were actually written some five hundred years later, although we do not know precisely when or where. If the classics of mysticism are said to have “neither birthday nor native land”1 in that they transcend such details, the phrase is literally descriptive of our ignorance about the Dionysian corpus. We do not know its birthday, its native land, or its author. The personal identity of the writer is still a mystery, and he is known only and awkwardly as Pseudo-Dionysius, or Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite. The Greek name Dionysios and the Latin Dionysius can be translated into English as Dennis; the French also call him Denis or Denys, and the Italians say Dionigi. We could, therefore, name this unknown author “the false Dennis,” but an accepted, slightly negative convention names him Pseudo-Dionysius. This book will usually refer to him as Dionysius. The contents of the Dionysian corpus are not as well known as are its titles: The Divine Names, The Mystical Theology, The Celestial Hierarchy, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and the Letters. The major task of this commentary is to present the contents of the corpus, both in their details and as a whole. These writings are also known to have exerted an important influence on a wide range of topics, although here, too, the details need exposition.