he rst half of Golitzin's explanation—that the author took on a sub‐apostolic pseudonym so as to “ght rewith re”—fails to explain why he took on the particular pseudonym he did

hese two scholars, then, set the terms for the subsequent study of the CD in the twentieth century. SinceDionysius was exposed as Pseudo‐Dionysius, scholars have consistently dismissed the pseudonym. They haveargued that it was a ploy on the author's part to win a wider readership in a time of anxious orthodoxies. Thepreponderance of scholars have worked in the wake of Koch, attempting to assess the nature and extent of theauthor's debt to late Neoplatonism. For most of these scholars, the debt to Plato precludes Paul. Müller nds“no trace” in the CD of the salvation by the blood of Christ, which he understands to be the essence of Paul'steaching. J.-M. Hornus insists that the CD “totally ignores...the central afrmation of Pauline faith,” againhere the atonement through the blood of Christ. For E.R. Dodds, the great scholar of later Greek philosophy,the CD is little better than a poor attempt at “dressing [Proclus'] philosophy in Christian draperies and passingit off as the work of a convert of St. Paul.” R.A. Arthur laments that while “[Dionysius'] main Christianinuence ought to be that of Paul...his much vaunted discipleship is simply not convincing.” While her overallassessment is that “his own theology owes very little indeed to Paul,” she notes one similarity: “both [Paul andDionysius] more or less ignore the human Jesus.” In short, the dominant scholarly stream has consistentlyneglected to examine the aims and purposes of the pseudonym and the inuence of Paul

some potentially troubling discrepancies (i.e. Clement and Ignatius) and goes to great lengths to explain awayothers.

I show how Dionysius' Christology,so often found wanting, derives from Paul's experience of the luminous Christ on the road to Damascus.

ancient use of the criterion of multiple attestation

Within this passage Origen gives as clear a statement as we could wish of theagonistic paradigm of interpretation: one needs to bring the scriptures aswitnesses, “For without witnesses our interpretations and exegeses are incred-ible” (1.7).

efineshermeneutics within an agonistic paradig

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