Introduction

Until the Renaissance the Areopagitica was accepted as an orthodox and authentic collection of works authored by Dionysius the Areopagite mentioned in Acts 17:34. Peter Abelard was one of few lonely voices who attempted to stir some controversy around the corpus, but even such a sharp mind as his did not in principle question the orthodoxy of the Corpus Dionysiacum’s (CD) content. Johann Engelhardt pointed out in 1820 the dependence of the CD on Proclus’s Neoplatonic philosophy. While Engelhardt failed to provide detailed linkage between Proclus and the CD, by the close of the nineteenth century Hugo Koch and Josef Stiglmayr independently confirmed and documented this link and firmly established the pseudonymous character of the Areopagitica. Dependence of the CD on Proclus sets the terminus a quo for the date of this corpus. Venance Grumel, drawing on the Pseudo-Dionysian use of Proclus’s Commentary on the First Alcibiades, proposes the date for the corpus to be after 462.