István Perczel - The Pseudo-Didymian De trinitate, Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

1. L. Mingarelli found an anonymous Trinitarian treatise, which he, on the basis of many parallels with the De spiritu sancto of Didymus of Alexandria, extant in Jerome’s translation, attributed to Didymus. This attribution went unchallenged for a while, but at present a number of scholars are rejecting it. However, even those who reject Mingarelli’s attribution, date the De trinitate to the end of the fourth century.

2. A number of observations contradict this early dating, namely the following. Many texts in De trinitate constitute close literary parallels with Theodoret, Cyril of Alexandria, the Definition of Chalcedon, Ambrose, Augustine, Plotinus, and Proclus.  Some among these are fifth-century authors and texts. One might argue, as it has been argued, that Theodoret or Cyril might have read and used our author and it is not easy to prove that the truth is the other way round. However, it would be difficult to argue that Augustine was influenced either directly or indirectly by the very text of the De trinitate. Finally, in the case of the Proclian parallels it would be as difficult to try to prove that Proclus used the De trinitate as it is to argue that he used Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Thus, on the basis of these data, the De trinitate should be considered a late fifth-century, if not later, text.

3. An analysis of the Proclian paraphrases in the De trinitate shows that the author of the De trinitate has used some of the Proclian texts (namely the Platonic Theology and the Elements of Theology, eventually the De malorum subsistentia) that the author of the Dionysian Corpus also used. Moreover, the way these Proclian texts were adapted to express tenets of Christian theology is also analogous in the two writings. 

4. The De trinitate and the Dionysian Corpus have a shared vocabulary and also a similar idiosyncratic way of citing verses of the Holy Scripture.

5. References in the Dionysian Corpus to another treatise by the same author, entitled Theological Outlines (theologikai hypotypōseis) seem to refer to passages in the De trinitate.

5. On this basis it will be argued the that the De trinitate is to be identified with the Theological Outlines referred to in the Dionysian Corpus.