the mystical theology of valentin weigel - DataSpace at Princeton ...

demonstrated for Eckhart, I will demonstrate that Dionysius was indeed still productively
read in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the case of Dionysius, his authority
suffered somewhat in the early modern era, when it was suggested that Dionysius was not
in fact the student of the Apostle Paul, as his writings claimed—the point at which
Dionysius the Areopagite was demoted to Pseudo-Dionysius. Luther, for instance,
referred to him as “Dionysius, whoever he was,” and Melanchthon declared him to be a
“new and counterfeit author”—and with these dismissals from high-profile theologians, it
might seem that Dionysius had ceased to matter for early modern Protestants. 388
Looking beyond prominent figures such as Luther and Melanchthon, however,
reveals that Dionysius was indeed read in Weigel’s time, by Protestants as well as
Catholics. In this chapter, I focus on two groups of readers and show how these readers
are also divided about whether Dionysius is pro- or anti-church. 389 The first group of
superficial (a mere verbal continuity) not because his authenticity was disputed but rather because there
was a “radical break between the mediaeval traditions and today’s” around that time, due to the abandoning
of “the hierarchical ontology Neoplatonism.” Denys Turner, Darkness, 266-267. There are two articles that
begin to write the history of Dionysius after 1500, and this dissertation makes a contribution to their efforts:
Karlfried Froehlich, "Pseudo-Dionysius and the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century," in Pseudo-
Dionysius: The Complete Works (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1987); Adolf Martin Ritter, "Dionysius
Areopagtia im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert," in Auctoritas Patrum: Zur Rezeption der Kirchenväter im 15. und
16. Jahrhundert, 143-158 (Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1993).
388 For Luther, see WA5, 503: 9-10. The Melanchthon reference is from his “De potestate et primatu papae
tractatus,” (1537) which was subscribed in 1537 at a meeting of Protestant Princes and theologians in
Schmalkalden. The work was included in the Book of Concord and as such, Melanchthon’s treatise
containing this dismissal of Dionysius would have been widely circulated alongside confessional
documents, even though Melanchthon’s name was no longer attached to the Treatise. Die
Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979), 492.
389 The beginning of this chapter should be the place for a clarification of what is meant by the terms
“radical” and “conservative,” but fixing a definition of these two key terms is not possible because of the
wide range of contexts in which Dionysius’ varied commentators have put the terms to work, as the
introduction to this chapter will demonstrate. Briefly, however, for some, the conservative/radical pair is
meant to comment on social and political arrangements, as a defence or critique of this-worldly
ecclesiastical arrangements. Should laymen and laywomen share in spiritual authority, or should they be
excluded, leaving priests, bishops and popes alone to wield ecclesiastical power? For others, the terms are
addressed to internal debates in Christian theology, where the radical/conservative distinction is mapped
onto heterodox/orthodox—a usage rendered ever more complicated by the fact that one denomination’s
orthodoxy is another’s heterodoxy. Is Dionysius even a real Christian or is he actually a (pagan) neo-
Platonist? Does he really believe in the Trinity and does he speak often enough of Jesus Christ, or does he
secretly deny Christ’s humanity? Different again is the equation of radical/conservative with
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