Influence

Dionysius’ writings were influential in the original Greek, as well as in Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian, and Slavonic translations. There were as many as six translations of the Dionysian corpus into Latin between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries (by Hilduin, Eriugena, John the Saracen, Robert Grosseteste, Ambrogio Traversari, and Marsilio Ficino, in addition to an influential paraphrase by Thomas Gallus). Athanasius the Librarian (ninth century) translated John of Scythopolis’ scholia into Latin. The scholia were subsequently integrated into a comprehensive textbook of Dionysian philosophy, which also included Eriugena’s and John the Saracen’s translations of the corpus and three Latin commentaries on The Celestial Hierarchy: by Eriugena, John the Saracen, and Hugh of Saint-Victor. This textbook was used at the University of Paris and other universities and schools from the thirteenth century onwards (Harrington 2004).

Dionysius’ writings were widely read and commented upon in the Latin West (de Andia 1997; Boiadjiev et al. 2000; Coakley and Stang 2008). The false belief that Dionysius was identical with the Gallic martyr Saint Denis, the patron saint of France, contributed to the popularity of his works. Eriugena adopted such Dionysian ideas as the distinction between affirmative and negative theology, the understanding of God as ‘‘superessential’’ (echoing Dionysius’ hyperousios), and the understanding of the world as God’s self-manifestation. The Victorines (Hugh of St. Victor and Thomas Gallus), followed by Bonaven-ture, Hugh of Balma, and the anonymous author of the fourteenth century English treatise The Cloud of Unknowing, adopted the Dionysian theme of mystical unknowing, yet combined it with Bernard of Clairvaux’s emphasis on love that transcends knowledge. Contrary to Dionysius’ original intention, they interpreted mystical unknowing as involving affective union with God in love. This interpretation was rejected by the Dominicans Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, both of whom composed commentaries on Dionysius’ works (Albert on the entire corpus, and Aquinas on The Divine Names). Aquinas rejected the Neoplatonic understanding of God as transcending the realm of being and reinterpreted the Dionysian notion that God is hyperousios as meaning that He is not any particular being but the very act of being, expressed by the infinitive ‘‘to be’’.

The Dionysian corpus was held in highest esteem also in Rhineland mysticism, particularly by Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler. Nicholas of Cusa’s On Learned Ignorance owes a debt to the Dionysian notion of mystical unknowing. A comprehensive commentary on the Dionysian corpus, based on Eriugena’s translation and drawing on the entire scholastic tradition, was written by Denis the Carthusian. With the Renaissance and especially the Reformation, Dionysius’ credentials as a purported disciple of St. Paul and even his orthodoxy started being questioned. Luther regarded him as more of a Platonist than a Christian and warned his readers to ‘‘stay away from that Dionysius, whoever he was.’’ Lorenzo Valla, and following him Erasmus, expressed doubts about the subapostolic dating of the Dionysian writings, though the question was not settled until the end of the nineteenth century, when these writings’ dependence on Proclus (d. 485) was conclusively demonstrated by Hugo Koch and Joseph Stiglmayr.

Despite the undeniable importance of Dionysius for western Christianity, the commonly cited assessment that his writings were more influential in the West than in the East is in need of qualification. In the original Greek, Dionysius’ writings were foundational for later Greek theologians, such as Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, Simeon the New Theologian, and Gregory Palamas (de Andia 1997; Boiadjiev et al. 2000; Coakley and Stang 2008). Sergius of Resh‘ayna’s Syriac translation and a revision of that translation by Phocas (late seventh century) were used by numerous Syriac authors, including Jacob of Edessa, John of Dara, Moses bar Kepha, Simeon de-Taybutheh, John of Dalyatha, and Bar-Hebraeus (Beulay 1987; Strothmann 1977-1978). Stephen bar Sudhaili’s (?) Book of the Holy Hierotheos, a document of sixth-century Syriac Origenism, is ascribed to Dionysius’ putative teacher Hierotheos.

In the early eleventh century, Dionysius’ works were also translated into Arabic and circulated in the

Arabic-speaking Christian circles in Syria and Egypt (Treiger 2005). Even prior to that, some Dionysian influence is discernible in the ninth-century Arabic Neoplatonic treatises: the Liher de causis and the Theology of Aristotle (D’Ancona Costa 1995; Adamson 2002). Through these treatises, Dionysius may have exerted certain influence on Islamic philosophy as well.