• The Athenian convert of St. Paul. Acts 17:34:⁠— “Howbeit, certain men clave unto him, and believed; among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite.” Dante places him among the theologians in the Heaven of the Sun. See Canto X 115:⁠— “Near by behold the lustre of that taper, Which in the flesh below looked most within The angelic nature and its ministry.” To Dionysius was attributed a work, called The Celestial Hierarchy , which is the great storehouse of all that relates to the nature and operations of Angels. Venturi calls him “the false Areopagite”; and Dalbaeus, De Script. Dion. Areop. , says that this work was not known till the sixth century. The Legenda Aurea confounds St. Dionysius the Areopagite with St. Denis, Bishop of Paris in the third century, and patron saint of France. It says he was called the Areopagite from the quarter where he lived; that he was surnamed Theosoph, or the Wise in God; that he was converted, not by the preaching of St. Paul, but by a miracle the saint wrought in restoring a blind man to sight; and that “the woman named Damaris,” who was converted with him, was his wife.