I would like to emphasize our gratitude for being on the channel to share the results on this research. Evangelos Nikitpolous is the brains behind this and has done incredible work. My own contributions are very small, mostly organizational and reviewing some of the scholarship. He is the brains behind it!

This video is ridiculously important

Metropolitan Ierotheos Vlachos states that the books attributed to Saint Dionysius the Areopagite are truly his.

So Dionysius' supposed teacher Hierotheus who wrote an "Elements of Divinity" was a real historical person? Because I read that as an obvious nod to other late Athenian Academic Neoplatonist who were forced to convert to Christianity that the author was using Proclus system outlined in Proclus' "Elements of Theology". The parallels between Proclus and Dionysius are far greater than the speakers here let on. I would be very glad to debate this issue point by point and in detail.

This was awesome, thank you so much for this. I would love to buy the book, but just checked Amazon and it's unavailable, I'll be on the look out though.

I figured I'd share some sources in case anyone is interested. "God being manifested as a man, and man displaying power as God. But neither was the former a mere imagination, nor did the second imply a bare humanity; but the one was absolutely true..." (The Epistle of St. Ignatius To The Ephesians, Chap. XIX). This echoes St. Dionysius's words in Epistle IV. St. Aristides in his Apology also refers the Divine Essence as "Nameless", which is a reference to On The Divine Names, Chapter I, Section VI. St. Dionysius was his predecessor as Bishop of Athens. St. Dionysius was martyred around AD 115, and St. Aristides was martyred around AD 134. The Apology of St. Aristides was to the Emperor Hadrian, so he had no reason to cite St. Dionysius. Additionally, the fragment of St. Dionysius of Corinth mentions the writings, as does an Epistle of St. Polycarp to the Athenians, and both works mentioned by John of Scythopolis. Additionally, St. Dionysius of Alexandria speaks of the writings in an Epistle to Pope St. Sixtus II of Rome, calling them authentic. In another passage of an Epistle of St. Ignatius, he quotes St. Dionysius the Areopagite on the Celestial Hierarchy. Dexter, in his Chronicle, mentions the writings. St. Jerome quotes him. Origen quotes him. Clement of Alexandria and Pantaenus quote him. St. Gregory the Theologian quotes St. Dionysius the Areopagite. Even Tertullian draws from his language, using 'Trinitas' and 'nihil scire omnia scire'; St. Dionysius the Areopagite uses 'Trienótis' and 'And the all-perfect Agnosia, in its superior sense, is a knowledge of Him, Who is above all known things.' These are some brief examples.

Great video. Where can I read the whole corpus? I want to read it along with the other Apostolic fathers.

STANILOAEE

Regrettably, I have to take issue with the point about the solar eclipse being observed in Heliopolis. Quoting Wikipedia: “Because it was known in ancient and medieval times that a solar eclipse could not take place during Passover (solar eclipses require a new moon while Passover only takes place during a full moon), it was considered a miraculous sign rather than a naturally occurring event. The astronomer Johannes de Sacrobosco wrote, in his The Sphere of the World, "the eclipse was not natural, but, rather, miraculous and contrary to nature.’”

Hello friend, my name is Lucas Queiroz and I have a project to translate the entire dionysiacum corpus into Portuguese from the French edition "dionysiaca". I do, sincerely, believe that the corpus is authentic and I have been studying your research on it a lot. But trying to find out more about the testimonies of Saint Maximus about Saint Dionysius of Alexandria, I discovered in the book "The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor" that the supposed scholia of the Alexandrian bishop are in fact primarily those of John of Scythopolis, and pseudo-Maximinian. Would you have any opinion on this? God bless you sir.

Thanks for this informative video. For a long time I have argued for the authenticity of Dionysius as he was traditionally understood; mostly with Platonist friends. There is a theory among some contemporary Platonists that Dionysius was Damascius who was the last head of the Athenian Academy. Their idea is that when he was ejected from the Academy he wrote these works to implant Platonism in the Christian tradition. It doesn't hold water; even less so than the Proclus influence idea. // A tangential comment: the term 'Neoplatonism was a creation of 17th century German historians. No contemporary of Plotinus thought of Plotinus as anything but a Platonist. Ficino thought of Plotinus in the same way. 'Neoplatonist' is a modernist term that, in some scholars' opinions, distorts how we view the tradition. // Wonderful video. Very inspiring.

So how do we explain the Dormition narrative from him? He would be our earliest Dormition narrative that predates our other extant texts by 250-300 years (Book of Mary’s Repose). This is an insane period of no attestation from Father or even gnostic text, and I really hope to hear a serious response to this

How plausible is it that Dionysius, an Athenian writer, would have had access to Philo and other Alexandrian material, only for his own work later to be limited to Alexandrian circles later?

I want to be orthodox but there is not orthodox churches in my town ,I'm from Buenos Aires 😢

1:34:15 (roughly) - Ok. On Proclus saying he is just summarising what his predecessors are also saying. It needs to be understood that the later Platonists saw themselves not as innovators, but as transmitters of a glorious tradition. I don't think this really is proof that he was inspired by Dionysius.

⁠ Christianity had existed in Arabia for 580 years before Muhammad was born. For hundreds of years, Arab Christians had always called Jesus Yasu or Yasuwa. (The name is derived from the original Hebrew, Yeshua, which means “Yahweh is Salvation.”) When Muhammad lived in the 7th century, he would surely have known and heard about Yasū’ (يَسُوعَ) that the Christians believed in and spoke of. Sometime after 610 AD, Muhammad introduced a new name in Arabic that no Arab Christian had ever heard of or used for Jesus before. Isa was a character loosely based on the real Yasuwa of the Bible and other folktales and legends from unreliable gnostic sources circulating at the time and Muhammad called his name Isa. If Muhammad’s Isa is the same as the Yasuwa of the Arab Christians, why did he invent a NEW name, Isa (عيسى) instead of using the name Yasuwa (يَسُوعَ) that every Arab had known for hundreds of years? Was it because he was creating a new character that would fit his new religion? Before Muhammad, no Arab had heard of Isa. True Christians were not swayed by Muhammad’s tales. They rejected him. In fact, Arab Christians continue using the name Yasuwa today. Open an Arabic bible. You will find the name Yasuwa. You will never find the name, Isa. Now we can understand.
When Muslims say, Isa was not crucified, they are right. He was not.
It was Yasuwa who was crucified When Muslims say Isa was only a creation, they are right. He was a creation of Muhammad’s imagination. When Muslims deny Isa’s divinity, again they’re absolutely right.
It was Yasuwa who is divine. Yasuwa said, “I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Isa said no such thing. The only thing Isa ever spoke were the words put into his mouth by Muhammad hundreds of years after Yasuwa had ascended to heaven... That is why we arab/ Christian rejected him, and Christian So he wage war against The real yasuwa and Christianity ... We understand why., To differentiate themselves from Muslims, Arabic Christians refer to God by the names: Allāh al-Ab-God, the Father Allāh al-Ibn-God the Son Allāh al-Ruh al koudous-God the Holy Spirit We are not talking about the same being with Muslims at all… We are talking about our God ! Hashem- yashua.. the Hebrew word for “the name” or “the one true God! Jesus talked about! * why change and avoid the name of the “one true God” Jesus Christ talked about? * ⁠why avoid using his private name? * HaShem- and yasua? * ⁠the biblical’s God said:” There is power in his private names “ We know why Muhammad avoid it! And he waged wars against the names of the biblical God. Both father and son! Until today! His followers picked up the same fight… against father and son! They will fail!

1:45:00 (roughly) - Ok. There seems to be some serious misunderstanding of Plotinus here. The world for Plotinus is not "consubstantial" with God, if by world you mean the physical world. Plotinus is also not a pantheist and he even explicitly argues against pantheism in his Enneads from what I can remember. It wouldn't make sense anyway, since the One by nature for Plotinus is very distinct from the rest of creation. To call Plotinus a pantheist is sort of inexcusable and easy to refute for anyone who has actually read Plotinus. That and the claim that Plotinus thought that evil is a substance. That is equally inexcusable and again, easily refuted by simply reading Plotinus in full. As for the One, Intellect and Soul, it is better in my opinion to use a different analogy. The One is all but unspeakable so I will not try to describe it. However, I think I can help with Intellect and Soul (although not perfectly). Intellect would be something like seeing the whole chain at once, while Soul would kind of be like seeing the chain links one at a time. Imperfect analogy however, since Intellect can perceive absolutely simple Ideas while Soul sees only in parts.

What you believe is irrelevent. You have not provided any evidence that would PROVE this work authentic. Asking to disprove its authenticity is begging the question.

In Jerusalem, the faith became a belief; it was taken to Greece where it was turned into a philosophy; from there it made its way to Rome, where it became an empire; it next came to the Americas, where it became a business…some of these so called “church fathers” were nothing more than philosophers, who studied at secular universities where Christianity was unheard of…such “theology “ as the concept of the soul is purely Plato and nothing to do with Christianity…Christian Platoism is becoming the new heresy in the Church…stop pushing it