This abbot was probably, though not certainly, Anselm of Soissons,
who became a bishop in 1145. The chronology, however, is confusing.

DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

The confusion regarding the identity of Dionysius the Areopagite
persists to this day, at least to the extent that we do not know
the real name of the fourth or fifth century writer who, under this
pseudonym, exercised so profound an influence on medieval thought.
That he was not the bishop of either Athens or Corinth, nor yet the
Dionysius who became the patron saint of France, is clear enough.
Of the actual Dionysius the Areopagite we know practically nothing.
He is mentioned in Acts, xvii, 34, as one of those Athenians who
believed when they had heard Paul preach on Mars Hill. A century or
more later we learn from another Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, that
Dionysius the Areopagite was the first bishop of Athens, a
statement of doubtful value. In the fourth or fifth century a Greek
theological writer of extraordinary erudition assumed the name of
Dionysius the Areopagite, and as his works exerted an enormous
influence on later scholarship, it was quite natural that the
personal legend of the real Dionysius should have been extended
correspondingly.

The Hilduin referred to by Abelard, who was abbot of St. Denis from
814 to 840, was directly responsible for the extreme phase of this
extension. Accepting, as most of his contemporaries unquestioningly
did, the identity of the theological writer with the Dionysius
mentioned in Acts and spoken of as bishop of Athens, Hilduin went
one step further, and demonstrated that this Dionysius was likewise
the Dionysius (Denis) who had been sent into Gaul and martyred at
Catulliacus, the modern St. Denis. There is no evidence to support
Hilduin's contention, and the chronology of Gregory of Tours is
quite sufficient to disprove it, but none the less it was
enthusiastically accepted in France, and above all by the monks of
St. Denis.

There was, however, a persistent doubt as to the identity of the
Dionysius whose writings had become so famous. Bede, the authority
quoted by Abelard, was, of course, wrong in saying that he was the
bishop of Corinth, but anything which tended to shake the triple
identity, established by Hilduin, of the Dionysius of Athens who
listened to St. Paul, of the pseudo-Areopagite whose works were
known to every medieval scholar, and of the St. Denis who had
become the patron saint of France,