Thanks to God! I actually had to wait to release this episode because of the cliff-hanger(!) I was able to get the rest of the story during my second interview with H.E.! :-)
Well Saint Maximus certainly thought they were genuine, and I respect his opinion. There are many writings of the 1st century and 2nd century fathers which disappeared for centuries or only survived in one mamnuscript, such as Saint Athenagoras of Athens, Saint Hippolitus of Rome, and Aristides of Athens. Even recently, a lost commentary of Saint John Chrysostom on Proverbs was discovered.
We only started calling him "pseudo" in the 15th century. I still don't understand exactly why we cant place him prior to Proclus. Is it not fathomable that Proclus takes Dionysius' idea and not the other way around?
Dr. Middelton, For some unexplainable reason, I am unable to open "Who Was Saint Dionysius the Areopagite?" Therefore would you kindly let me know when Part 2 will be available for viewing? I am familiar with much of his earlier work while he was Professor of Theology at Marquette University. Again my thanks,. Also, Part 1 was of course outstanding!
In my Bible, Paul speaks with keen insight of the culture and with power on Mars Hill in Acts 17, not 19. Dionysius, a believer, appears in 17:34. When the Gospel is preached, it changes lives.
According to some Dionysius the Areopagite was a neoplatonist who realized that Christianity was soon to sweep away the intellectual achievements of the classical world and so he dressed up Platonic philosophy in Christian terms and posed as Dionysius the convert of St Paul in order to covertly insert Platonism into Christianity so as to save the Western mystery tradition... I'm not saying that I believe this but I simply don't know. I'm a Christian
That doesnt account for the already traditioned Platonism in the likes of the Church Fathers like St Augustine, St Justin Martyr, the Cappodocians, etc etc. To say he wanted to preserve Plato and Neo Platonist ideas is like saying Villenevue wanted to preserve the Dune series with his new movies. The books arent going anywhere. What these theorists who posit the idea have to say, was that Dionysius wrote a specifically 1 to 1 correspondence of the neo platonist school at the time. Not simply a genuine thinker in his own right, but rather was doing a project to combine Chrisrian and Neo Platonic thought, doing a diservice to both Neo Platonism and Christianity out of fear. This theory is based on nothing more than conjecture and comes out of the Renaissance and Christian Critics.
Not to mention Platos’ ladder of love in The Symposium. From physical expressions of love to the recognition of beauty in nature and ideas to the final Form of beauty
Autocracy, in principle, is very modern and has a parallel in democratic governance. For example, Lincoln’s imposition of martial law and his destruction of the South. Who else was voted into power? Hitler, for one. With no hierarchy to answer to, they and many other Western leaders were able to launch wars unlimited in scope, duration and death counts. This was simply impossible for the monarchs of old Europe, who were continually hemmed in by the power of their aristocrats. Those intermediary grades of the hierarchy are gone now and their place has been taken by bureaucracy, which exists to provide plausible deniability to the top leadership. Democracies generate endless new bureaucracies. It’s no remedy for sin simply to change procedures or the form of government. Astonishing to see this naive faith endure in the midst of so much contradictory experience.
With respect, the Orthodox fathers and ecumenical councils have all received the Dionysus Corpus as authentic works of St. Dionysus the Areopogite. The first ones to reject their authenticity were the Protestants, who the Archbishop seems to follow on this topic. He does not represent the historical or universal Orthodox view on these works and there are some notable defenses of the authenticity of the works, for example "The Life of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite" by Scriptorium Press.
