c. 500

The appearance of the Pseudo-Dionysian corpus

Around 500, presumably in Monophysite circles in Syria, a corpus of texts appeared, signed with the name of the New Testament Dionysius the Areopagite (Acts 17:34): "On the Celestial Hierarchy," "On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy," "On the Divine Names," "Mystical Theology," and ten letters. The author was close to the Neoplatonist Proclus and combined Neoplatonic mysticism with Origen's spirituality, received via Gregory of Nyssa and Evagrius Ponticus.

Its supposed apostolic origin gave the corpus near-New-Testament authority. It was translated into Syriac in the 6th century, and c. 850 John Scotus Eriugena translated it into Latin. The corpus exerted enormous influence on Eastern (down to Hesychasm) and Western (Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas) Christian mysticism.