Did St. Dionysius copy Proclus? A 🧵 The main proof-text that was used by Stiglmayr and Koch in the 1890s to argue for Saint Dionysius the Areopagite's dependence on Proclus was Proclus' short treatise entitled De malorum subsistentia, which contains many verbatim passages shared with Divine Names 4.

A further corroborative element has also come to my attention recently. Proclus' De malorum survives only in a 13th-century Latin translation by William Moerbeke. What a lot of people don't know is that the 11th-century Byzantine prince Isaac Komnenos produced a Greek paraphrase of it entitled Περὶ τῆς τῶν κακῶν ὑποστάσεως. This was first edited and published in the early 1970s, long after Stiglmayr and Koch's thesis. Isaac essentially created a 'metaphrasis' (in the medieval sense) of Proclus' work, abridging and Christianizing it and adding some further arguments of his own, but his Greek is still very valuable to scholars for reconstructing the original wording of Proclus' work. Here are the respective openings of Proclus' De malorum and Isaac's version: Proclus: What the nature of evil is, and where it originates [are questions that] have already been examined by some before us, who have pursued the theory of evil neither incidentally nor for the sake of other things, but have considered evil in itself, whether it exists or not, and if it exists, how it exists and from where it has come into being and existence. It is, however, not a bad thing that we too, especially because we have the time for it, summarize the observations rightly made by each of them and, before them, the speculations of the divine Plato on the essence of evil things. For we shall understand more easily the words of those predecessors and we shall always be closer to an understanding of the problems once we have discovered the thought of Plato and, as it were, kindled a light for our subsequent inquiries. (Opsomer & Steel, p. 57, translation modified). Isaac: Of the nature of evil, what it is and where it originates, has been examined before us by the great Dionysius the Areopagite (ὁ μέγας Διονύσιος ὁ Ἀρεοπαγίτης), who considered evil in itself, whether it exists or not, and if it exists, how it exists and from where it has come into being and existence, and he presented in turn the difficulties regarding this question and provided their solutions. For our part, we shall by all means be closer to an understanding of the problem once we have reproduced the observations of the aforementioned saint on the nature of evil and endeavoured to discover his thought, kindling from that source, as it were, a light for our inquiries. (Trois études sur la Providence vol. iii, ed. Daniel Isaac, Belle Lettres: 1982).