Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite dans le Cursus Conimbricensis SJ : summum infimi attingat infimum supremi

Nikitenko, Iuliia (2025) Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite dans le Cursus Conimbricensis SJ : summum infimi attingat infimum supremi. ACTA ANTIQUA ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARUM HUNGARICAE, 65. pp. 315-322. ISSN 0044-5975

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Abstract

This article is a case study of a quotation ascribed to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite that recurs throughout the Cursus Conimbricensis, a set of late 16th-century Jesuit commentaries on Aristotle. The study shows that the formula used by commentators actually is taken not from the Pseudo-Dionysius’ Divine names, but from St. Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on this work. The Coimbra Jesuits primarily follow Aquinas’ scholastic reception of Dionysius rather than the original Dionysian message. However, they develop creatively Aquinas’ interpretation of the passage, applying it to relations between soul and body, imagination and intellect, or between human and angelic knowledge. The article shows that while rooted more in Thomism, than in the Renaissance reception of Pseudo-Dionysius, the Jesuits’ use of the quotation is not a mere repetition of medieval interpretation, but its modification applied to epistemological, anthropological, and metaphysical issues.

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