Mystery Man
An obscure yet highly influential writer, he is one of the most mysterious figures in the history of Christian thought. He is best known for his apophatic theology—the idea that it is often easier to say what God is not than what God is—and for his profound reflections on Christian wisdom.
Today, scholars refer to him as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (life dates unknown). Medieval thinkers admired him enormously. In his Summa theologiae, the great theologian Thomas Aquinas cites “divine Dionysius” hundreds of times, treating him almost like an authority from the apostolic age. Other influential thinkers with a mystical bent—such as Bonaventure, Hugh of St. Victor, and later Meister Eckhart—also drew deeply from his writings.
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Thomas Albert Howard holds the Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics at Valparaiso University. He is the author of many books, including, most recently, Broken Altars: Secularist Violence in Modern History (Yale University Press, 2025).
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