Hi both —
Yes ... a long time ago ... something I have to get back to, at some time.
The Cloud is founded on the Denys tradition, ans stands in the corpus of the English mystical tradition — Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich.
Thomas
Some historical trivia about "Dionysii". The "pseudo-Areopagite" treatise you cite was indeed largely composed in 6th-century Syria, but traces back in sections to the 3rd-century work of Dionysius of Corinth. The characters:
Dionysius of Athens: first-generation Christian, called the "Areopagite", converted by Paul. He was the reason the name "Dionysius" had a surge of popularity two hundred years later.
Dionysius of Rome: patriarch (the term "Pope" was not yet in popular usage) from ~259-267. Taught that Jesus and YHWH were the same in
substantia, in arguments against the Marcionites who believed the Old Testament god was an inferior being, the "demiurge" created by the Most High God as his agent for making the world, who was unable to perceive the Most High and therefore thought of himself as the highest being, falling into prideful error and leading mankind into evil (demiurge = YHWH and Satan thrown into a blender).
Dionysius of Alexandria: contemporary patriarch who taught that Jesus and YHWH were different in
hypostasis, in arguments against Sabellius who was teaching that they were identical, and that the Creator Himself was submitting to suffering on the Cross (the "Patripassian" position). This caused a serious theological rift with Rome.
Dionysius of Corinth: contemporary bishop who acted as peacemaker; hence this was called "the affair of the three Dionysii". He suggested that although Latin
substantia and Greek
hypostasis were formed from the same roots in the same way, the Latins and the Greeks just were not meaning the same thing by the words (the exact English analogue of
substantia and
hypostasis is
understanding which is a totally different meaning from either!) He proposed that Rome could accept what Alexandria was saying about a difference in
hypostasis if it was translated into Latin as "two
personae"; and that Alexandria could accept what Rome was saying about a union in
substantia if this was translated into Greek as
homoousios; this linguistic compromise is crucial to the later credological codifications at Nicaea and Chalcedon. His letters were circulated, and somebody turned them into a treatise in his name, which amused him greatly when it got back to him. Comparing this to the rash of pseudepigraphic gospels and epistles of that time, he said, "If they will do this to someone yet living, it is no wonder they do the same to the Apostles." After he was dead, of course this treatise was made even more pseudepigraphic by getting a new attribution to the original Dionysius of Athens.
Dionysius of Paris: roughly contemporaneous to the three Dionysii, he was a slave from northern Gaul who was bought, converted, baptized into the name Dionysius (his original name is not preserved), and emancipated by a Christian master. He went back to evangelize his homeland, becoming the patron "Saint Denys" of France. Capetian monarchs identified him, of course, with Dionysius of Athens: this was probably not a mistake, but a deliberate propagandistic ploy to assert that the church of France was as old as, or even older than, the church of Rome and therefore should not have to obey the Pope (the Gallican/Ultramontane controversy would continue for centuries). A side-effect is that the "pseudo-Areopagite" treatise became required reading at the University of Paris.
