DIONYSIUS, surnamed Periegetes, from his being the author of a περιήγησις τῆς γῆς, containing a description of the whole earth in hexameter verse, and written in a terse and elegant style. This work enjoyed a high degree of popularity in ancient times, and two translations or paraphrases of it were made by the Romans, one by Rufus Festus Avienus, and the other by the grammarian Priscian. The best edition of the original is that by Bernhardy, Leipzig, 1828. Great differences of opinion have been entertained as to the age and country of this Dionysius. All however are agreed in placing him in the time of the Roman emperors, and it seems highly probable that he flourished in the
latter part of the third, or the beginning of the fourth century. Eustathius says that he was by descent a Libyan.
DIONYSIUS the Areopagite, according to Suidas, was an Athenian by birth, and eminent for his literary attainments. He studied first at Athens, and afterwards at Heliopolis in Egypt. While in the latter city, he beheld that remarkable eclipse of the sun, as he terms it, which took place at the death of Christ, and exclaimed to his friend Apollonides, ἢ τὸ θεῖον πᾶσχει, ἢ τὸ πασχόντι συμπάσχει, "Either the Divinity suffers, or sympathises with some sufferer." He further details, that after Dionysius returned to Athens, he was admitted into the Areopagus; and, having embraced Christianity about A.D. 50, was constituted Bishop of Athens by the apostle Paul (Acts xvii. 34). Aristides, an Athenian philosopher, asserts that he suffered martyrdom—a fact generally admitted by historians; but the precise period of his death, whether under Domitian, Trajan, or Adrian, is not certain. A writer in later times attempted to personate the Areopagite, and contrived to pass his productions on the Christian world as of the apostolic age, thereby greatly influencing the spirit both of the Eastern and Western Churches. These writings consist of a book called The Celestial Hierarchy; another Of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; A Treatise on the Divine Names; another Of Mystical Divinity; and Ten Epistles. Different opinions have been held as to the real author of these productions. They were ascribed, at an early period, to Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, in the fourth century—an opinion to which the learned Cave inclines, though he thinks that Apollinaris the son may have been the author. There have not been wanting instances in which supposititious works were fathered upon great names by disciples of the Apollinarian school. The resemblance between the Areopagite and the writings of Proclus and Plotinus is so obvious as to afford great probability that the Pseudo-Dionysius did not write much earlier than the fifth century. The first uncontroverted occasion on which these supposititious writings are referred to, is in the conference between the Severians (a sect of Eutychians) and the Catholics, held in the Emperor Justinian's palace, A.D. 532, in which they are quoted by the heretical party. Maximus, and other writers in the following ages, refer to them frequently.