Œuvres de Saint Denys l'Aréopagite

Description

Mgr. Darboy argues that he was not a pseudo-Dionysius but the actual St. Dionysius that St. Paul baptized (PDF pp. 20-95).

Very interesting. Crazy the lengths the Protestants have gone to discredit him.

Some observations on intrinsic evidence:

• He was allegedly later made bishop in Corinth or Athens.
• He witnessed the solar eclipse at Christ's passion (before his baptism, allegedly when he was in his 50s):
  • III q. 44 a. 2 "Whether it was fitting that Christ should work miracles in the heavenly bodies?" ad 2:"credence is to be given rather to Dionysius, who is an eyewitness as to this having occurred by the moon eclipsing the sun. For he says (Ep. ad Polycarp): 'Without any doubt we saw the moon encroach on the sun,' he being in Egypt at the time, as he says in the same letter."
• Present at Our Lady's Assumption?
• Mgr. Darboy alludes to his alleged gnosticism (cf. Mt. 13:10ff.: "Quare in parabolis loqueris eis? ").
• How would've a pseudonymous author had credibility writing in the height of the Arian crisis? ∴, he must've lived before it.
• He used the words hypostasis (so did Heb. 1:3…) and eros (so did St. Gregory of Nyssa et al., despite it not appearing in the LXX).
• He described early monastic life (Ecclesiastical Hierarchy cap. 6). Protestants don't think that existed in his time‽

Extrinsic arguments are very convincing (though a paucity before 6th century…):

• St. Jerome cites in Against Jovinian bk. 2? I couldn't find an explicit reference to St. Dionysius there. St. Jerome does discuss terrestrial vs. celestial, though.
• Both the heretics (monophysites and later the Eastern schismatics!) and orthodox didn't dispute his authenticity!
• He wrote on Catholic rites (of course the Deformers couldn't stand that, nor do they, being paleo-Marxists, like anything hierarchical!).
• Why didn't St. Dionysius cite anyone from 2nd-6th centuries? And why didn't the Fathers directly quote him, though? Mgr. Darboy thinks it's because he was too obscure (gnostic?).

I like Mgr. Darboy's zeal in defending tradition, though.

According to Stiglmayr's Catholic Encyclopedia entry Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite: Stiglmayr & Koch (end of 19th cen.), after Mgr. Darboy (1845), allegedly discovered some Proclus verbatim in On the Divine Names! Well, how do they know Proclus (6th cen.) didn't plagiarize St. Dionysius? Mgr. Darboy has so much more data in support of his position!

Luther thought St. Dionysius "platonizes more than he Christianizes"—"plus platonisans quam Christianisans " (Deely p. 132). I've seen that argument levied against St. Gregory of Nyssa (whom I've read much more of than St. Dionysius), too, but I don't find anything heterodox in the "neoplatonician" St. Greg of Nyssa.

Have you read DTC's article DENYS L'ARÉOPAGITE (LE PSEUDO-)?

It is very appealing that, despite most Athenians mocking or brushing off St. Paul (Acts 17:32: "We will hear thee again concerning this matter." It seems their ears itching for novelty would've been more interested!), he did convert "Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them." (v. 34), and perhaps even made him a bishop!

In the end, does it really matter? Fr. G.-L., Reality ch. 22 "The Sources":

It is sometimes thought that the treatise of St. Thomas on the angels is an a priori construction, having as its sole foundation the book of Pseudo-Dionysius, called De coelesti hierarchia. This is a misconception. Scripture itself is the foundation on which St. Thomas rests.

St. Thomas's (allegedly inauthentic… what irony ☺) letter to Br. John, De modo studiendi: "Do not consider who the person is you are listening to, but whatever good he says commit to memory."