Editing Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (section)

===Authorship===
The author pseudonymously identifies himself in the corpus as "Dionysios", portraying himself as the figure of [[Dionysius the Areopagite]], the Athenian convert of [[Paul the Apostle]] mentioned in Acts 17:34.<ref>{{bibleverse||Acts|17:34|NIV}}.</ref>{{refn|group=note|name=identity|Acts 17:34: "A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others."}}

Various legends existed surrounding the figure of Dionysius, who became emblematic of the spread of the gospel to the Greek world. A tradition quickly arose that he became the first bishop of Cyprus or of Milan, or that he was the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews; according to Eusebius, he was also said to be the first bishop of Athens. It is therefore not surprising that that author of these works would have chosen to adopt the name of this otherwise briefly mentioned figure.<ref>Luibheid, Pseudo-Dionysius, (1987), p. 22.</ref>

The authorship of the Dionysian Corpus was initially disputed; Severus and his party affirmed its apostolic dating, largely because it seemed to agree with their Christology. This dating was disputed by [[Hypatius of Ephesus]], who met the monophysite party during the 532 meeting with Emperor [[Justinian I]]; Hypatius denied its authenticity on the ground that none of the Fathers or Councils ever cited or referred to it. Hypatius condemned it along with the Apollinarian texts, distributed during the Nestorian controversy under the names of Pope Julius and Athanasius, which the monophysites entered as evidence supporting their position.<ref>Hathaway, ''Hierarchy and the Definition of Order in the Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius'', p. 13</ref>

The first defense of its authenticity is undertaken by [[John of Scythopolis]], whose commentary, the ''Scholia'' ({{circa|540}}), on the Dionysian Corpus constitutes the first defense of its apostolic dating, wherein he specifically argues that the work is neither Apollinarian nor a forgery, probably in response both to monophysites and Hypatius—although even he, given his unattributed citations of Plotinus in interpreting Dionysius, might have known better.<ref>Rorem, "John of Scythopolis on Apollinarian Christology," p. 482. John of Scythopolis was also proficient identifier of Apollinarian forgeries, giving his defense that much more credibility.</ref> Dionysius' authenticity is criticized later in the century, and defended by [[Theodore of Raithu]]; and by the 7th century, it is taken as demonstrated, affirmed by both [[Maximus the Confessor]] and the [[Lateran Council of 649]]. From that point until the Renaissance, the authorship was less questioned, though [[Thomas Aquinas]],<ref>[[Jean-Yves Lacoste]], ''Encyclopedia of Christian Theology'', 3 vols., vol. 1, p. 439.</ref> [[Peter Abelard]] and [[Nicholas of Cusa]] expressed suspicions about its authenticity; their concerns were generally ignored.{{Sfn|Franke|2007|p=158}}

The Florentine humanist [[Lorenzo Valla]] (d. 1457), in his 1457 commentaries on the [[New Testament]], did much to establish that the author of the ''Corpus Areopagiticum'' could not have been St. Paul's convert, though he was unable to identify the actual historical author. [[William Grocyn]] pursued Valla's lines of textual criticism, and Valla's critical viewpoint of the authorship of the highly influential ''Corpus'' was accepted and publicized by [[Erasmus]] from 1504 onward, for which he was criticized by Catholic theologians. In the [[Leipzig Debate|Leipzig disputation]] with [[Martin Luther]], in 1519, [[Johann Eck]] used the ''Corpus'', specifically the ''Angelic Hierarchy'', as argument for the apostolic origin of [[papal]] supremacy, pressing the Platonist analogy, "as above, so below".

During the 19th century Catholic historians too came generally to accept that the author must have lived after the time of [[Proclus]]. The author became known as 'Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite' only after the philological work of J. Stiglmayr and H. Koch, whose papers, published independently in 1895, demonstrated the thoroughgoing dependence of the ''Corpus'' upon Proclus.{{Sfn|Franke|2007|p=158}} Both showed that Dionysius had used, in his treatise on evil in Chapter 4 of ''The Divine Names'', the ''De malorum subsistentia'' of Proclus.

Dionysius' identity is still disputed. Corrigan and Harrington find pseudo-Dionysius to be most probably...
{{Blockquote|... a pupil of Proclus, perhaps of [[Syria]]n origin, who knew enough of Platonism and the Christian tradition to transform them both. Since Proclus died in 485, and since the first clear citation of Dionysius' works is by [[Severus of Antioch]] between 518 and 528, then we can place Dionysius' authorship between 485 and 518-28.{{refn|group=note|name="Stanford"}}}} Ronald Hathaway provides a table listing most of the major identifications of Dionysius: e.g., [[Ammonius Saccas]], [[Pope Dionysius of Alexandria]], [[Peter the Fuller]], Dionysius the Scholastic, [[Severus of Antioch]], [[Sergius of Reshaina]], unnamed Christian followers of everyone from [[Origen]] to [[Basil of Caesarea]], [[Eutyches]] to [[Proclus]].<ref>Hathaway, ''Hierarchy and the Definition of Order in the Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius'', p. 31</ref>

In the past half-century, Alexander Golitzin, [[Georgia (country)|Georgian]] academician [[Shalva Nutsubidze]] and [[Demographics of Belgium|Belgian]] professor Ernest Honigmann have all proposed identifying pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite with [[Peter the Iberian]].<ref>Sh. Nutsubidze. "Mystery of Pseudo-Dionys Areopagit (a monograph), Tbilisi, 1942; E. Honigmann, ''Pierre l'Iberian et les ecrits du Pseudo-Denys l'Areopagita''. Bruxelles, 1952; Golitzin, Alexander. ''Et Introibo Ad Altare Dei: The Mystagogy of Dionysius Areopagita, with Special Reference to Its Predecessors in the Eastern Christian Tradition''. (Thessalonika: Patriarchikon Idruma Paterikôn Meletôn, 1994), p. 419.</ref> A more recent identification is with [[Damascius]], the last scholarch of the [[Platonic Academy#Neoplatonic Academy|Neoplatonic Academy of Athens]].<ref>Carlo Maria Mazzucchi, ''Damascio, Autore del Corpus Dionysiacum, e il dialogo Περι Πολιτικης Επιστημης'', Aevum: Rassegna di scienze storiche linguistiche e filologiche, ISSN 0001-9593, Anno 80, Nº 2, 2006, pp. 299-334. Mazzucchi's arguments have been dismissed by Emiliano Fiori in his review of the article, in ''Adamantius'' 14 (2009), pp. 670-673.</ref> There is therefore no current scholarly consensus on the question of pseudo-Dionysius' identification.

The ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'' claims:
{{blockquote|It must also be recognized that "forgery" is a modern notion. Like [[Plotinus]] and the [[Cappadocian Fathers]] before him, Dionysius does not claim to be an innovator, but rather a communicator of a tradition.{{refn|group=note|name="Stanford"|"It must also be recognized that "forgery" is a modern notion. Like Plotinus and the Cappadocians before him, Dionysius does not claim to be an innovator, but rather a communicator of a tradition. Adopting the persona of an ancient figure was a long established rhetorical device (known as ''declamatio''), and others in Dionysius' circle also adopted pseudonymous names from the New Testament. Dionysius' works, therefore, are much less a forgery in the modern sense than an acknowledgement of reception and transmission, namely, a kind of coded recognition that the resonances of any sacred undertaking are intertextual, bringing the diachronic structures of time and space together in a synchronic way, and that this theological teaching, at least, is [[dialectical]]ly received from another. Dionysius represents his own teaching as coming from a certain Hierotheus and as being addressed to a certain Timotheus. He seems to conceive of himself, therefore, as an in-between figure, very like a Dionysius the Areopagite, in fact.<ref>[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-dionysius-areopagite/ Pseudo-Dionysius] in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy</ref>}}}} Others scholars such as [[Bart D. Ehrman]] disagree, see for example [[Forged (book)|''Forged'']]. While pseudo-Dionysius can be seen as a communicator of tradition, he can also be seen as a polemicist, who tried to alter Neo-Platonic tradition in a novel way for the Christian world that would make notions of complicated Divine Hierarchies more of an emphasis than notions of direct relationship with the figure of Christ as Mediator.<ref>"One might ask why it is necessary [in the Pseudo-Dionysian Corpus] to have an ordered hierarchy of angels at all in the Christian tradition, considering that the Bible has no concept of celestial hierarchy. ... That it was found necessary to invent a system of this nature [in the Pseudo-Dionysisn Corpus]  after 500&nbsp;years is tantamount to denying the efficacy of Christ as mediator altogether." Rosemarie A. Arthur. (2011) ''The Pseudo Dionysius as Polemicist: The Development and Purpose of the Angelic Hierarchy in Sixth Century Syria'', pp.&nbsp;63&ndash;64. London: Ashgate.</ref>

A minority of scholars, including Romanian theologian [[Dumitru Staniloae]],<ref>{{Cite web|title = The Dionysian Authorship of the "Corpus Areopagiticum" According to Fr. Dumitru Staniloae|url = https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2009/10/apostolic-authorship-of-corpus.html|website = johnsanidopoulos.com|access-date = 2023-12-06}}</ref> argue in favor of the Dionysian corpus being authentic, citing internal historical details and the existence of explicit citations of Dionysius predating [[Proclus]] by writers such as [[Dionysius of Alexandria]] and [[Gregory Nazianzus]].<ref>Anthony Pavoni and Evangelos Nikitopoulos, The Life of Saint Dionysius the Areopogite. Scriptorium Press: Montreal, 2023, 14-180.</ref> Even Proclus himself appears to cite an external authority for a euphemism ("flowers and supersubstantial lights") when the said verbiage is found explicitly in the Corpus Dionysiacum.<ref>Ibid., 94-96.</ref>