Antoine Caron
Dionysius the Areopagite Converting the Pagan Philosophers
1570s
Oil on panel
Getty Center, Los Angeles, California
A legend preserved in the Roman Breviary held that the Dionysius whom St. Paul converted in Athens had been a pagan philosopher who upon seeing the Good Friday eclipse said it had to mean that "either the god of nature is suffering or the fabric of the world is breaking up."1 In the background the Athenians point in wonder at the obscured sun while in the foreground Dionysius makes his statement to a group of men whose expertise in "natural" philosophy is indicated by the globe under the arm of the man in the yellow tunic and the calipers being used by man in red bending over a diagram in a book.
The men to whom Dionysius speaks are indeed "philosophers," expert in natural science. The one in the yellow tunic holds a globe of the earth. The one behind Dionysius's right uses a calipers to examine a map or diagram in a book. But he is not "converting" them, the museum's title notwithstanding, because St. Paul has not yet brought the Christian faith to Athens. The statues in the painting are a sign of the still-pagan state of the city. One stands atop the pillar on the right, and two more pose on newel posts in the left foreground. All three have tiny feet and stand erect despite the earthquake that also attended Jesus' death.2
The legends held that this was the same Dionysius who went to Paris and preached there until his martyrdom. In France he is known as "St. Denis."
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Read more about images of St. Denis.
Photographed at the site by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.