John Colet, dean of St Paul's Cathedral from 1505 to 1519, believed Dionysius, author of the Ecclesiastical hierarchy, the Celestial hierarchy, On the divine names and Mystical theology, to be the Areopagite mentioned in Acts xvii.34. However, Pseudo-Dionysius, as he is sometimes known, was probably active around the early sixth century in Syria. His Ecclesiastical hierarchy links sacramental theology with a high form of clericalism to posit a divinely appointed system of church hierarchy and order. Colet's commentary is a mix of theology, ecclesiology and Neoplatonic philosophy. It is now 147 years since Colet's commentary on the Ecclesiastical hierarchy was published in an English translation by the Victorian antiquarian and Surmaster of St Paul's School, Joseph Lupton. Lupton's translation was praised by one of the foremost Colet scholars of the twentieth century, J. B. Trapp. But, as Daniel Lochman and Daniel Nodes point out, Lupton's transcription and translation, based upon a manuscript held at the school itself, contains several inaccuracies and is sometimes difficult to follow.

It is a delight, therefore, to find such fine scholarship coming to bear in this new edition of a work which provides real insights into early Tudor humanist thought. Using BL, ms Add. 63853 (formerly Loan ms 55/2) as their copy text (an earlier source than that used by Lupton and one with Colet's own corrections inserted into the copy, penned by the one-eyed Brabantine scribe, Pieter Meghen), Lochman and Nodes provide a literal, clear and readable translation, making deft negotiations around Colet's sometimes complex neo-Latin. The dean's Dionysian vision, that human existence, at best, involves the Neoplatonic process of purification, illumination, leading towards the perfection of the celestial and supernal hierarchy, is elegantly translated, with the Latin and English texts on facing pages for easy reference.

However, what make this new edition so valuable are the extensive footnotes, commenting on Colet's notions regarding religion within its early sixteenth-century intellectual and political context, as well as the two essays that preface the translation. Lochman's introduction not only justifies the need for the new edition, and provides a biography of Colet, but also sets the commentary into the context of Colet's thought as a whole, examines the scholarship regarding the work and its date, and summarises some of the main themes, including theology, ecclesiology and the Neoplatonic ideas relating to hierarchy, spirituality and the Mystical Body, bringing together philosophical, and even medical (Galen), approaches that shaped the dean's idealist vision for the Church. Nodes's essay on the demarcation of ‘Blotterature’ and ‘Literature’ in Colet's Latin prose makes a wider assessment of Colet's output, making a case for a marked Dionysian influence upon all his works.

This new translation, with introduction and notes, therefore deserves to become the standard edition for many years to come. Perhaps we can expect a new edition of Colet's commentary on the Celestial hierarchy in due course.