UNITY IN DIVERSITY – ANTI-ORIGENISTIC EVIDENCE IN THE CORPUS AREOPAGITICUM

Abstract

Corpus Dionysiacum’s allegiance to the Origenist camp is a new research track in the unceasing effort of the scholars to discover its mysterious author. This approach has already provoked a heated debate between its supporters and appellants, each party claiming to possess indisputable evidence on its side. Unfortunately, this is nothing unusual in our times to see Corpus Dionysiacum associated with the nonChristian philosophy or with heresies, although the Fathers of the Church have reiterated constantly the Orthodoxy of these pieces of writings. For a long time ago (since the Reformation) it has been suggested that ‘Dionysius the Areopagite’ is a pseudonym used with obscure aims to deceive the uninformed readers, through an apostolic authority. The author was suspected of either covering elements from the Neoplatonic Tradition in his Corpus or of promoting a non-Chalcedonian Christology. The present article evaluates the divine name of ‘peace’ as convincing evidence for the Christian view of the Corpus, a quasi-anti-Origenist attitude, to call it so.