The Graeco-Roman name Dionysius, deriving from the name of the Thracian god Dionysus, was exceedingly common, and many ancient people, famous and otherwise, bore it. It remains a common name today in the form Dennis (Denys, Denis, Denise). The modern Greek form of the name is Dionysios or Dionysis. The Spanish form of the name is Dionisio. The Italian form of the name is Dionigi.

People named Dionysius[link]

Among the persons known by the name Dionysius, or using the French version Denis, some of the more famous were:

Ancient Greece and Rome[link]

• Dionysius the Elder (or Dionysius I), ruler of Syracuse in Sicily
• Dionysius the Younger (or Dionysius II), son of the preceding
• Dionysius of Phocaea, commander of the Ionian fleet at the Battle of Lade, 494 BC
• Dionysius Chalcus, Athenian elegiac poet, 5th century BC
• Dionysius of Heraclea, tyrant of Heraclea Pontica, 4th century BC
• Dionysius (Athenian Commander), an Athenian naval commander during the Corinthian War
• Dionysius the Renegade, Stoic philosopher from Heraclea who became a Cyrenaic, c. 300 BC.
• Dionysius (ambassador), 3rd century BC, ambassador to the court of the Indian ruler Ashoka.
• Dionysius Thrax, Greek grammarian, 2nd century BC
• Dionysius of Cyrene, Stoic philosopher and mathematician, c. 150 BC.
• Aelius Dionysius, a Greek rhetorician from Halicarnassus
• Dionysius Periegetes, Greek geographer, 2nd or 3rd century
• Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Greek historian of the Roman period

Christian saints, monks and bishops[link]

• Dionysius the Areopagite, Athenian judge who was converted by Paul of Tarsus and became Bishop of Athens
  • Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (5th century), name claimed by a pseudonymous writer, identified by some with Georgian theologian Peter the Iberian (411–491), author of Corpus Areopagiticum
• Dionysius, a lector and martyr of Alexandria - see Faustus, Abibus and Dionysius of Alexandria
• Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, 2nd century bishop
• Saint Dionysius of Alexandria, 3rd century Egyptian bishop
• Dionysius, 3rd century Christian martyr and saint
• Saint Denis, Bishop of Paris, martyr (died ca. 250)
• Pope Dionysius, 259–268
• Dionysius of Milan, bishop of Milan 349-355, saint
• Dionysius Exiguus, (c. 470–c. 540) monk from Scythia Minor who invented the Anno Domini era
• Dionysius Telmaharensis, (d. 848) former head of the Syrian Jacobite Church
• Jacob Bar-Salibi also known as Dionysius Bar-salibi, member of Syrian Jacobite Church in the 12th century, best known for his commentary on biblical texts
• Dionysius I, Metropolitan of Moscow (c. 1300–1385), 14th century orthodox prelate
• Saint Dionysios of Zakynthos, 15th century Orthodox Christian Archbishop of Aegina
• Dionysius the Wise, (late 15th century–early 16th century), Russian medieval icon-painter
• Denis the Carthusian (1402–1471)
• Patriarch Dionysius I of Constantinople, Saint, reigned from 1466 to 1471 and from 1488 to 1490
• Patriarch Dionysius II of Constantinople, reigned from 1546 to 1556
• Dionysius the Philosopher, (1560 AD–1611 AD), Epirotian Greek monk who led two farmer revolts against the Ottoman Turks.
• Mar Dionysius I (died 1808), Metropolitan of the Malankara Church

Other[link]

• Benjamin Musaphia (1606–1675), Jewish doctor, scholar, and kabbalist, who sometimes called himself Dionysius
• Dionysius Lardner (1793–1859), Irish scientific writer
• Dionysios Demetis, Greek composer
• Dionyssis Diakos, Greek revolutionary leader in the Greek War of Independence
• Dionysios Iliadis, Greek judoka
• Dionysios Kasdaglis, Greek-Egyptian tennis player
• Dionysis Makris, Greek singer
• Dionysis Papagiannopoulos, Greek actor
• Dionysis Savvopoulos, Greek songwriter, lyricist and singer
• Dionysios Solomos, Greek poet

See also[link]

• Dionysius (journal)
• Dionysos (disambiguation)
• Dionisius

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Saint Dionysius the Areopagite
Greek icon of St. Dionysius
Hieromartyr
Born	around 6th century A.C.
Died	around 6th century A.C.
Honored in	Roman Catholicism Eastern Orthodoxy
Feast	9 October (Roman Catholicism), 3 October (Eastern Orthodox)
Attributes	Vested as a bishop, holding a Gospel Book
Patronage	Lawyers

Dionysius the Areopagite (Greek Διονύσιος ὁ Ἀρεοπαγίτης) was a judge of the Areopagus who, as related in the Acts of the Apostles, (Acts 17:34), was converted to Christianity by the preaching of the Apostle Paul during the Areopagus sermon. According to Dionysius of Corinth, quoted by Eusebius, this Dionysius then became the second Bishop of Athens.^[1]

Historic confusions[link]

In the early 6th century, a series of famous writings of a mystical nature, employing Neoplatonic language to elucidate Christian theological and mystical ideas, was ascribed to the Areopagite.^[2] They have long been recognized as pseudepigrapha and are now attributed to "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite".

Dionysius was also popularly mis-identified with the martyr of Gaul, Dionysius, the first Bishop of Paris, Saint Denis.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Dionysius the Areopagite and Saint Denis of Paris are celebrated as one commemoration on 3 October.

See also[link]

• Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
• St. Dionysus Institute in Paris
• Early centers of Christianity#Greece

References[link]

1. ^ Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiae III: iv
2. ^ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the confusion between Dionysius and Pseudo-Dionysius

Sources[link]

• Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite entry by Kevin Corrigan and Michael Harrington in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Owen Gingerich, The Book Nobody Read, Penguin Books, 2004, pp. 190–191

External links[link]

• Hieromartyr Dionysius the Areopagite the Bishop of Athens Orthodox icon and synaxarion
• The Holy Hieromartyr Dionysius the Areopagite entry from the Prologue from Ochrid by Nikolaj Velimirović
• A Translation of Grimm's Saga No. 439 about Saint Dionysius and King Dagobert

Dionysius
Papacy began	22 July 259
Papacy ended	26 December 268
Predecessor	Sixtus II
Successor	Felix I
Personal details
Birth name	Dionysius
Born	??? Greece ?
Died	26 December 268(268-12-26) Rome, Roman Empire

Pope Saint Dionysius was pope from 22 July 259 to 26 December 268.

He may have been born in Magna Græcia, but this has not been verified. Dionysius was elected pope in 259, after the martyrdom of Sixtus II in 258. The Holy See had been vacant for nearly a year due to difficulty in electing a new pope during the violent persecution which Christians faced. When the persecution had begun to subside, Dionysius was raised to the office of Bishop of Rome. Emperor Valerian I, who had led the persecution, was captured and killed by the King of Persia in 260. The new emperor, Gallienus, issued an edict of toleration, bringing the persecution of Christians to an end and giving the Church legal status. To the new pope fell the task of reorganizing the Roman church, which had fallen into great disorder. On the protest of some of the faithful at Alexandria, he demanded from the bishop of Alexandria, also called Dionysius, explanations concerning his doctrine regarding the relation of God to the Logos, which was satisfied.

Pope Dionysius sent large sums of money to the churches of Cappadocia, which had been devastated by the marauding Goths, to rebuild and to ransom those held captive. He brought order to the Church and procured a peace after Emperor Gallienus issued an edict of toleration which was to last until 303. Dionysius is the first pope who is not listed as a martyr. He died on 26 December 268.

In art, he is portrayed in papal vestments, along with a book.

External links[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Dionysius

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pope Dionysius

• "Pope St. Dionysius" in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia.
• Opera Omnia

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Sho Sasaki
Personal information
Born	(1982-06-30) June 30, 1982 (age 29)
Height	1.70 m (5 ft 7 in)
Country	Japan
Handedness	Left
Men's singles
Highest Ranking	6 (November 3, 2011)
Current Ranking	6 (January 12, 2012[1])
BWF Profile

Sho Sasaki (born June 30, 1982) is a male badminton player from Japan.

Career[link]

In 2007 he won the Japanese National Championships in men's singles, and 7 international tournaments: the Bahrain Satellite Badminton Tournament, the Banuinvest International Championships, the Osaka International Challenge, the Israel International, the Mauritius International, the Victorian International and the Italian International.

Achievements[link]

International Tournament wins[link]

• 2011—Australian Open, U.S. Open
• 2010—Yonex Dutch Open, Osaka International Challenge
• 2007—Japanese National Championships

References[link]

This biographical article relating to Japanese badminton is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Small, Dennis the Little or Dennis the Short, meaning humble) (c. 470 – c. 544) was a 6th-century monk born in Scythia Minor, modern Dobruja shared by Romania and Bulgaria. He was a member of the Scythian monks community concentrated in Tomis, the major city of Scythia Minor. Dionysius is best known as the inventor of the Anno Domini (AD) era, which is used to number the years of both the Gregorian calendar and the (Christianized) Julian calendar.

From about 500 he lived in Rome, where, as a learned member of the Roman Curia, he translated from Greek into Latin 401 ecclesiastical canons, including the apostolical canons and the decrees of the councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Chalcedon and Sardis, and also a collection of the decretals of the popes from Siricius to Anastasius II. These collections had great authority in the West and still guide church administrations. Dionysius also wrote a treatise on elementary mathematics.

The author of a continuation of Dionysius's Computus, writing in 616, described Dionysius as a "most learned abbot of the city of Rome", and the Venerable Bede accorded him the honorific abbas, which could be applied to any monk, especially a senior and respected monk, and does not necessarily imply that Dionysius ever headed a monastery; indeed, Dionysius's friend Cassiodorus stated in Institutiones that he was still only a monk late in life.

Origins[link]

According to his friend and fellow-student, Cassiodorus,^[3][4] although by birth a "Scythian", Dionysius was in character a true Roman and a thorough Catholic, most learned in both tongues (by which he meant Greek and Latin), and an accomplished Scripturist. The use of such an ambiguous dated term as "Scythian" raises the suspicion that his contemporaries had difficulties classifying him, either from lack of knowledge about him personally or about his native land, Scythia Minor.^[5]:127 By the 6th century, the term "Scythian" could mean an inhabitant of Scythia Minor, or simply someone from the north-east of Greco-Roman world, centered on the Mediterranean; the term had a wide-encompassing meaning, devoid of clear ethnic attributes.^[5]:127 Even for the "Scythian monk" Joannes Maxentius, friend and companion of Dionysius, the two monks are "Scythian" by virtue of their geographical origin relative to Rome, just like Faustus of Riez is a "Gaul".^[5]:127

The dubious assertion, based on a single Syriac source, that the Eastern-Roman rebel general Vitalian, to whom Dionysius seems to have been related, was of Gothic extraction was the base for the labelling, without any further evidence, of all of the Scythian monks, Dionysius included, as "Goths".^[5]:128 In Greek and Latin sources, Vitalian is sometimes labelled with the same ambiguous term "Scytha"; he is presented as commanding "Hunnic", "Gothic", "Scythian", "Bessian" soldiers, but this information says more about the general's military endeavours, and bears little relevance to elucidating his origins. Furthermore, since none of the Scythian monks expressed any kinship, by blood or spiritual, with the Arian Goths who at that time ruled Italy, a Gothic origin for Dionysius is questionable.^[5]:130 Vitalian seems to have been of local latinised Dacian-Getic (Thracian) stock, born in Scythia Minor or in Moesia; his father bore a Latin name, Patriciolus, while two of his sons had Thracian names and one a Gothic name.^[5]:129 By the moment the Scythian Monks made their presence, the provinces from the Lower Danube, long since latinised, were already a centre for the production of Latin-speaking theologians. Most likely Dionysius was also of local Thraco-Roman origin, like Vitalian's family to whom he was related, and to the rest of the Scythian Monks and other Thraco-Roman personalities of the era (Justin I, Justinian, Flavius Aetius, etc.).^{[5]:130–131}

Works and translations[link]

Dionysius translated standard works from Greek into Latin, principally the "Life of St. Pachomius", the "Instruction of St. Proclus of Constantinople" for the Armenians, the "De opificio hominis" of St. Gregory of Nyssa, and the history of the discovery of the head of St. John the Baptist. The translation of St. Cyril of Alexandria's synodical letter against Nestorius, and some other works long attributed to Dionysius are now acknowledged to be earlier and are assigned to Marius Mercator.

Of great importance were the contributions of Dionysius to the science of canon law, the first beginnings of which in Western Christendom were due to him. His Collectio Dionysiana embraces (1) a collection of synodal decrees, of which he has left two editions: (a) Codex canonum Ecclesiæ Universæ. This contains canons of Oriental synods and councils only in Greek and Latin, including those of the four œcumenical councils from Nicæa (325) to Chalcedon (451). (b) Codex canonum ecclesiasticarum. This is in Latin only; its contents agree generally with the other, but the Council of Ephesus (431) is omitted, while the so-called "Canons of the Apostles" and those of Sardica are included, as well as 138 canons of the African Council of Carthage (419). (c) Of another bilingual version of Greek canons, undertaken at the instance of Pope Hormisdas, only the preface has been preserved. (2) A collection of papal Constitutions (Collectio decretorum Pontificum Romanorum) from Siricius to Anastasius II (384-498).

Anno Domini[link]

Dionysius is best known as the inventor of the Anno Domini era, which is used to number the years of both the Gregorian calendar and the Julian calendar. He used it to identify the several Easters in his Easter table, but did not use it to date any historical event. When he devised his table, Julian calendar years were identified by naming the consuls who held office that year — he himself stated that the "present year" was "the consulship of Probus Junior", which he also stated was 525 years "since the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ". How he arrived at that number is unknown. He invented a new system of numbering years to replace the Diocletian years that had been used in an old Easter table because he did not wish to continue the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians.^[6] The Anno Domini era became dominant in Western Europe only after it was used by the Venerable Bede to date the events in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731.

Easter tables[link]

A monk in a scriptorium. Medieval manuscript of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.

In 525, Dionysius prepared a table of the future dates of Easter and a set of "arguments" explaining their calculation (computus) on his own initiative, at the request of Pope John I.^[7] Note well that only the first nine arguments are by Dionysius — arguments 10 to 16 as well as the second paragraphs of 3 and 4 and the third paragraph of 9 are later interpolations. Arguments 11 and 12 imply that these were interpolated in the year 675, shortly before Bede. He introduced his tables and arguments via a letter to a bishop Petronius (also written in 525) and added another explanatory letter (written in 526). These works in volume 67 of the 217 volume Patrologia Latina also include a letter from Bishop Proterius of Alexandria to Pope Leo (written before 457). Though not named by Dionysius, this collection was recently called his Liber de Paschate (Book on Easter) by Audette.

He ignored the existing tables used by the Church of Rome, which were prepared in 457 by Victorius of Aquitaine, complaining that they did not obey Alexandrian principles, without actually acknowledging their existence. To be sure that his own tables were correct, he simply extended a set of tables prepared in Alexandria that had circulated in the West in Latin, but were never used in the West to determine the date of Easter (however, they were used in the Byzantine Empire, in Greek). The Latin tables were prepared by a subordinate of Bishop Cyril of Alexandria shortly before Cyril's death in 444. They covered a period of 95 years or five decennovenal (19-year) cycles with years dated in the Diocletian Era, whose first year was 285 (the modern historical year in progress at Easter). Diocletian years were advantageous because their division by 19 yielded a remainder equal to the year of the decennovenal cycle (1–19).

Dionysius' tables were quickly adopted at Rome, and from this time the arguments between Rome and Alexandria regarding the correct date for the celebration of Easter came to an end - both used identical tables and hence observed the feast on the same day.

The epact (the age of the moon on 22 March) of all first decennovenal years was zero, making Dionysius the first known medieval Latin writer to use a precursor of the number zero. The Latin word nulla meaning no/none was used because no Roman numeral for zero existed. To determine the decennovenal year, the Dionysian year plus one was divided by 19. If the result was zero (to be replaced by 19), it was represented by the Latin word nihil, also meaning nothing. Both "zeros" continued to be used by (among others) Bede, by whose extension of Dionysius Exiguus’ Easter table to a great Easter cycle all future Julian calendar dates of Easter Sunday were fixed unambiguously at last. However, in medieval Europe one had to wait as late as the second millennium to see the number zero itself come into use, although it had come into being around the year 600 in India.

Dionysius copied the last decennovenal cycle of the Cyrillian table ending with Diocletian 247, and then added a new 95-year table with numbered Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi (Years of our Lord Jesus Christ) because, as he explained to Petronius, he did not wish to continue the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians. The only reason he gave for beginning his new 95-year table with the year 532 was that six years were still left in the Cyrillian table after the year during which he wrote. For the latter year he only stated that it was 525 years after the Incarnation of Christ, without stating when the latter event occurred in any other calendar. He did not realize that the dates of the Alexandrian Easter repeated after 532 years, despite his apparent knowledge of the Victorian 532-year 'cycle', indicating only that Easter did not repeat after 95 years. He knew that Victorian Easters did not agree with Alexandrian Easters, thus he no doubt assumed that they had no bearing on any Alexandrian cycle. Furthermore, he obviously did not realize that simply multiplying 19 by 4 by 7 (decennovenal cycle × cycle of leap years × days in a week) fixed the Alexandrian cycle at 532 years, otherwise he would have stated such a simple fact.

Most of the British Church accepted the Dionysian tables after the Synod of Whitby in 664, which agreed that the old British method (the insular latercus) should be dropped in favour of the Roman one. Quite a few individual churches and monasteries refused to accept them, the last holdout finally accepting them during the early 10th century. The Church of the Franks (France) accepted them during the late 8th century under the tutelage of Alcuin, after he arrived from Britain.

Ever since the 2nd century, some bishoprics in the Eastern Roman Empire had counted years from the birth of Christ, but there was no agreement on the correct epoch — Clement of Alexandria (c. 190) and Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 320) wrote about these attempts. Because Dionysius did not place the Incarnation in an explicit year, competent scholars have deduced both AD 1 and 1 BC. Most have selected 1 BC (historians do not use a year zero). Because the anniversary of the Incarnation was 25 March, which was near Easter, a year that was 525 years "since the Incarnation" implied that 525 whole years were completed near that Easter. Consequently one year since the Incarnation would have meant 25 March 1, meaning that Dionysius placed the Incarnation on 25 March 1 BC. Because the birth of Jesus was nine calendar months later, Dionysius implied, but never stated, that Jesus was born 25 December 1 BC. Only one scholar, Georges Declerq (Declerq, 2002), thinks that Dionysius placed the Incarnation and Nativity in AD 1, basing his conclusion on the structure of Dionysius's Easter tables. In either case, Dionysius ignored his predecessors, who usually placed the Nativity in the year we now label 2 BC. In his 1605 thesis, the Polish historian Laurentius Suslyga was the first to suggest that Christ was actually born around 4 BC,^[8] deriving this from the chronology of Herod the Great, his son Philip the Tetrarch, and the daughter of Augustus, Julia.^[9] Having read Suslyga's work,^[10] Kepler noted that Christ was born during the reign of King Herod the Great (2:1–18), whose death he placed in 4 BC. Kepler chose this year because Josephus stated that a lunar eclipse occurred shortly before Herod's death.^[11] John Pratt of the International Planetarium Society proposed the 29 December 1 BC eclipse as another eclipse.^[12] According to Josephus, Herod died in the year 4 or 3 BC.^[12][13]

Although Dionysius stated that the First Council of Nicaea in 325 sanctioned his method of dating Easter, the surviving documents are ambiguous. A canon of the council implied that the Roman and Alexandrian methods were the same even though they were not, whereas a delegate from Alexandria stated in a letter to his brethren that their method was supported by the council. In either case, Dionysius' method had actually been used by the Church of Alexandria (but not by the Church of Rome) at least as early as 311, and probably began during the first decade of the 4th century, its dates naturally being given in the Alexandrian calendar. Thus Dionysius did not develop a new method of dating Easter. The most that he may have done was convert its arguments from the Alexandrian calendar into the Julian calendar. The resulting Julian date for Easter was the Sunday following the first Luna XIV (the 14th day of the moon) that occurred on or after the XII Kalendas Aprilis (21 March) (12 days before the first of April, inclusive). The 14th day of the moon, Nisan 14, was the date that Paschal lambs were slain (in late afternoon) until the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 prevented their continuing sacrifice, as well as the day when all leavened bread crumbs had to be collected and burned, hence Nisan 14 was the day of preparation for Passover (Lev 23:5). Alexandria may have chosen it because it was the day that Christ was crucified according to the Gospel of John (18:28, 19:14), in direct contradiction to the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 26:17, Mark 14:12, and Luke 22:7), who state that he was crucified after he ate the Seder, his Last Supper. Then and now, the Seder was eaten after sundown at the beginning of Nisan 15. Because Dionysius's method of computing Easter used dates in the Julian calendar, it is also called the Julian Easter. This Easter is still used by almost all Orthodox churches. The Gregorian Easter still uses the same definition, but relative to its own solar and lunar dates.

See also[link]

• Lunisolar calendar
• Ab urbe condita

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Bonnie Blackburn, Leofranc Holford-Strevens, "Calendars and chronology", The Oxford companion to the year (Oxford, 1999), 659-937.
• Bonnie Blackburn, Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The Oxford companion to the year (Oxford, 2003, a corrected reprinting of the 1999 original edition).
• Georges Declercq, Anno Domini: The origins of the Christian era (Turnhout, 2000); idem, "Dionysius Exiguus and the introduction of the Christian era", Sacris Erudiri 41 (2002): 165-246.
• Dionysius Exiguus, Patrologia Latina 67 (works).
  • Cyclus Decemnovennalis Dionysii - Nineteen year cycle of Dionysius (original Easter table)
  • On Easter - with preface
  • Liber de Paschate (Latin text)
• Duta, Florian, "Des précisions sur la biographie de Denys le Petit", Revue de droit canonique, 49: 279-96 (1999)
• Charles W. Jones, "Development of the Latin ecclesiastical calendar", in Bedae opera de temporibus (Cambridge, Mass., 1943), 1-122.
• Otto Neugebauer, Ethiopic astronomy and computus, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische klasse, sitzungsberichte, 347 (Vienna, 1979).
• Gustav Teres, "Time computations and Dionysius Exiguus", Journal for the history of astronomy, 15 (1984): 177-188.

External links[link]

• Modern version of Dionysius Exiguus' Easter table (original version is linked in References)