Dionysius the Areopagite and the East Syrian Mystics: The Phantom of a Greek Heritage

In the present contribution I shall tackle the question of the Dionysian influence on Isaac the Syrian and Joseph Ḥazzāyā in particular and, more briefly and tentatively, on the East Syrian mystics in general, reopening a field that has not been explored further since the pioneering studies of Robert Beulay in the Eighties. Beulay described the East Syrian attitude towards the Areopagite as follows: “One could say that Dionysius was considered a teacher to read and possibly to comment upon; they [the ascetic authors] only retained some primary or secondary elements from him, but without sticking to the properly doctrinal aspect of his teaching.” I intend to build on Beulay’s correct intuition, and to find a reason for Dionysius’ marginality, in particular by pointing out the peculiar way his text was spread in the Syriac speaking world.