(CE:908b-909a)
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. According to the Acts of the Apostles (17:34), Dionysius and a woman named Damaris were converted by Saint Paul. His namesake Dionysius, bishop of Corinth (c. A.D. 170), asserts that he became first bishop of Athens. Later literature tended to confuse him with another Dionysius, otherwise Saint Denis of Paris (c. A.D. 250), whose writings in mystical theology are often described as pseudo-Areopagite or pseudo- Dionysian. This literature aimed at a combination of Christian doctrine and Neoplatonist philosophy. By such synthesis the author arrived at the creation of Christian mysticism, which found its way to the Coptic religious discussions of the later medieval works of Abu al-Barakat IBN KABAR and Abu Ishaq ibn al-‘Assal in their search for support of their monophysite beliefs in ancient documentary evidence.
AZIZ S. ATIYA
