Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite c. 475 AD – c. 525 AD

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is the conventional name given to an anonymous late-fifth or early-sixth-century Christian theologian who wrote in Greek under the persona of the Athenian convert of the Apostle Paul mentioned in Acts 17. His four surviving treatises, the Divine Names, the Mystical Theology, the Celestial Hierarchy, and the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, fuse Christian doctrine with Neoplatonic metaphysics to produce one of the most influential bodies of mystical theology in the history of the Church. Translated into Latin in the ninth century by Eriugena, his work shaped Aquinas, Eckhart, and the whole Western mystical tradition.