Denys and Later Platonic Traditions

This chapter on later Platonic traditions focuses Denys, otherwise known as Ps-Dionysius the Areopagite. A late fifth- to early sixth-century theologian, influenced by the Platonist philosophers Plotinus, Damascius, and above all Proclus, Denys has been influential throughout Catholic theology. The chapter begins by placing Denys’s innovations against the background of Christian engagement with Neoplatonism since St Augustine. After tracing Denys’s influence from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, his role in modernity is considered, tracing a path through Pierre de Bérulle and neo-scholasticism. The chapter concludes by noting Denys’s importance for some postmodern Catholic thinkers.