Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite , also known as Pseudo-Denys, was a Christian theologian and philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century (writing before 532), probably Syrian, the author of the set of works commonly referred to as the Corpus Areopagiticum or Corpus Dionysiacum. The author pseudonymously identifies himself in the corpus as "Dionysios", portraying himself as the figure of Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian convert of St. Paul mentioned in . This false attribution to the earliest decades of Christianity resulted in the work being given great authority in subsequent theological writing in both East and West, with its influence only decreasing in the West with the fifteenth century demonstration of its later dating.