The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite (Divine Names, Celestial Hierarchy, Mystical Theology)

"Who passes all understanding." God "unknown" is still the God of Dionysius, and He is still to be worshipped unknowingly. There is a tradition that Dionysius erected the altar in Athens "to the unknown God," as the author of the inexplicable darkness, which he observed in Egypt and found afterwards from St. Paul to have been contemporaneous with the Crucifixion. Did St. Paul adapt his discourse at Athens to the conversion of Dionysius?

The only heresiarch whom Dionysius mentions by name is Elymas, the Sorcerer (Simon Magus), a man of great intellectual attainments and a considerable author. Flavius Clemens and Eugenius, Bishop of Toledo, were disciples of Simon before their conversion to Christ. The tenets of Elymas are described by Hippolytus. He formed an eclectic system from the Old Testament and the Christian Faith, and with Cerinthus and Carpocrates, originated many heresies to which the apostolic epistles allude, and which in later times became prominent in the Church. In refuting these heresies by the manifestation of the truth, Dionysius anticipated many errors—ancient and modern.

Conversion of India, p. 12. Pressensé, The Earlier Years of Christianity, Vol. II. p. 271. The History of Mathurâ (Muttra), by F. S. Growse, on the glorification of the Divine Name.

Jerome informs us (Scr. Ecc. 46) that Pantænus see note below, one of the most celebrated Christian philosophers of Alexandria, was sent in A.D. 193 by Demetrius, Bishop of that city, to India, at the request of a