St. Dionysius the Areopagite

St. Dionysius the Areopagite is the name attached to a celebrated body of mystical and theological writings, including On the Divine Names, The Mystical Theology, and treatises on the celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchies. The works themselves claim to be by the Dionysius whom St. Paul converted at Athens, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles; but careful study since the Renaissance has shown that they were in fact composed much later, most likely in Syria around the late fifth or early sixth century, by an unknown author whom scholars therefore call Pseudo-Dionysius.

Whatever their true authorship, these writings exercised an immense influence on Christian thought. Drawing deeply on the language of Neoplatonic philosophy, they set forth a vision of God as utterly beyond all names and knowing, approached through both affirmation and negation, and of a great hierarchy of angelic and earthly orders through which the divine light descends. Translated into Latin and eagerly studied in the Middle Ages by such masters as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure, they profoundly shaped later mystical theology. The figure is venerated as a saint, his memory traditionally kept on 3 October.