Various Writers on the Life of St. Dionysius the Areopagite

VARIOUS WRITERS: THE LIVES OF SAINT DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

LIFE AND ENCOMIUM OF SAINT DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

LIFE AND ENCOMIUM OF SAINT DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

^A Divinely seized by the Spirit, Paul, having spoken to the people, wisely cast the hook of grace to entrap the interpreter of sacred things and made him a contemplator of ineffable mysteries, having seen you as a vessel of election; with whom, O God-spoken Dionysius, entreat God on behalf of those who hymn you with longing.

Making your mind equal in honor to the angels, Father Dionysius, by the power of virtue, you have most wisely investigated the good order of the hierarchy that is above the world, according to which you arranged the assemblies of the Church, imitating the orders of the heavens.

With supreme wisdom, blessed Dionysius, who are as like to God as is permitted, you have religiously unfolded the divinely-inspired explanation of the divine names with mystical sense—you who are wise in things divine—instructed by supreme union in things that surpass understanding, and teaching the ends of the world.

By Andrew of Jerusalem, or of Byzantium.

We shall call you, most brilliant martyr of Christ, the unsearchable depth of heavenly knowledge, as well as a soldier in heavy armor and a strong defender of the Church. We hymn you, O wise one; for, illuminated by the purest fire and resplendent in mind with the brilliance of the Spirit, ^B Dionysius, you were deemed worthy, together with the hosts above, to put on Christ as a shining garment, and having been brightened by the radiance of the Spirit, your mind, Dionysius. Wherefore we celebrate your universal memorial

^A faithfully, glorifying the Lord who glorifies you.

Canon of the holy man, whose acrostich is: "I honor the mind of wise teachings," by Theophanes.

Having been instructed by the divine Paul in that which is heavenly, Dionysius, you became at once a seer, a heavenly initiate, and a preacher of God.

Illumined by divine grace, O blessed one, illumine the souls of those who praise you, so that they may understand your God-inspired teachings, Dionysius.

By the purity of mind and soul, you were deemed worthy to learn the flashes of the heavenly orders, and to see their choral arrangements, Dionysius.

^B

To the Blessed Virgin.

You were judged the light-bearing bridal chamber of the incarnation of the Creator of all, accomplished for our sake; for from you, Mother of God, He put on our flesh.

Raised above the heavenly vaults, O holy one, you revealed to the world the orders, the hosts, and the splendors of the transcendent realms, using elevated discourse and all-wise explanations.

Immersed in contemplation, O glorious one, you divinely brought forth the unfolding of the divine names, having become, by the grace of God, a theologian of the Trinity, most blessed in God.

Dead to present things through the love of God, and zealously exercised in philosophy, you became, Father, a God-bearing instrument of life-giving, transcendent graces.

To the Blessed Virgin.

O Virgin, agriculture of the Spirit who creates all things, you brought forth to the Lord of all, as a fruit, a body in which He condemned the sin of the world and sent forth eternal life like a fountain.

You fashioned the good order of the Churches; for in them, Father, you painted in a formative way the images likenesses of the ^C sacred molding of the formless powers, through which the entire God-minded assembly of the faithful is initiated and enlightened.

The streams of your theology, O God-rapt one, greatly irrigate the rational and ever-flourishing meadows planted in the rectitude of the faith; for you proclaimed the venerable monarchy of the unity of essence in the Trinity of persons.

You wisely taught those who cry out in faith, "Glory to your power, O Lover of mankind," the intense longing for the heavenly hierarchy, the love for God, and the unwavering inclination toward the divine and incomprehensible height.

To the Blessed Virgin.

Your Son became a priest of salvation for all who praise you, and a guide, and a bringer of light, and justice, O Virgin, and redemption; wherefore we, the faithful, unanimously glorify you as Mother of God, truly and properly.

The sound of your words, carried along like some heavenly voice, thunder-struck minds lacking God with the word of grace, and illumined the hearts of the faithful with the most bright radiances of divine doctrines.

^A You became like the merchant seeking pearls, most blessed one, and having found the one pearl which is truly precious, and having marveled at its deifying emissions of light, Hierarch, you confessed God. You loved the fountain of wisdom most philosophically, Father, and being moved by its philtre and love, you became one of the many, and in-dwelling with God, you ever gush forth rivers of divine waters, O God-inspired one.

Ad B. V.

Adorned with divine-fitting prudence, O God-minded one, you inclined your ear to the divine master of mysteries, and were initiated by him into the supermundane wisdom, Dionysius. Your life is wondrous, your discourse more wondrous, your tongue bright, your mouth breathing fire, O blessed Dionysius; and your mind, Father, is most exactly like God.

Ad B. V.

As the heavenly rain upon the thirsty earth, your teachings always saturate the hearts of the faithful who desire them, and teach them to cry out insatiably: Blessed is the God of our fathers. You appeared as a harmonious vessel of the all-holy Spirit, and by His inspiration and manifestation, most prophetically you foretold, O wise Dionysius, crying out: Blessed is the God of our fathers.

Ad B. V.

Having become like a transparent mirror, Dionysius, and having made your mind capable of pure reflections through virtue, O most blessed one, receiving the sparks of the radiances that are beyond mind, you cried out: Priests, bless Him.

A more abundant grace was poured upon your lips; whence you set forth doctrines full of God, explaining and clarifying their meaning to us in a manner surpassing nature, and clearly unfolding them to those who sing in faith: Priests, bless Him.

The glorious metropolis of the Athenians became more known through you, Dionysius, while it offered such a most-holy prelate to Christ, incessantly singing to the King of all: Children, bless Him.

Towards the Blessed Virgin

You were deemed worthy to be a beholder of the holy apostles, and you became a fellow laborer and participant in their glory, and with them you hastened to the sight of the body of the truly life-originating and sole Theotokos, most august, whom we worthily magnify.

^A You were made an heir of the divine kingdom in the heavens, as a lawful bishop, Father, as an invincible champion of the priesthood who mingled martyr’s blood with the anointing oil; wherefore you have worthily received double crowns, sacred initiator, Dionysius.

As you have boldness toward God, wise hierarch Dionysius, constantly intercede that those who piously praise you may be delivered from temptations: [you who are the] initiator of ineffable contemplations, just as you are the sacred interpreter of the hidden and most divine goodness.

Towards the Blessed Virgin

Most blessed Dionysius, disciple of the famous coryphaeus Paul, you were taught the knowledge of hidden things by him; whence he sets you as a shining torch in the Church, ordaining you bishop of the religious city of the Athenians, ^B which, being endowed with right faith, guard by your prayers, most wise herald of God!

Towards the Blessed Virgin

Excelling among priests and martyrs, O holy one, you were shown to be a faithful shepherd, and you drank of Christ’s cup; wherefore, having pleased Christ Himself in both respects, intercede for all of us, dwelling in the light with the heavenly ministers.

Kontakion

Oikos

^A Hail, destroyer of the tabernacle serving many gods; hail, watchtower of the counsel known by God; hail, book inscribed by God, treasury of mysteries; hail, divinely-fashioned tablet and diopter of heaven; hail, because you looked upon the passion of the Lord; hail, drop wearing away foolishness; hail, fence against the approach of the impious; hail, luminary illuminating the faithful; hail, father of the whole world.

This man, surpassing all in wealth, and in glory, and in intelligence, and in wisdom, was one of the senators ^B of the Areopagus; and being captured by the great Paul and baptized, he is ordained a bishop, having been initiated into the ineffable mysteries by the wise Hierotheus; and he has left behind writings that are paradoxical, and admirable, and most sublime, of which it is timely to mention one for now. "When I had arrived at Crete," he says, "the holy Carpus guided me, a man if any other, most fit through great purity of mind for the contemplation of God. For he did not even set his hand to the rites of the holy mysteries ^C unless first, in accordance with the preliminary prayers, a holy and joyful vision had appeared to him." He used to say, therefore, that when he had been aggrieved by some one of the unbelievers—the cause of the grief was that that man had seduced someone from the Church to an impious cult—and when, additionally, those things were being done by him (namely, the Christian, [acting] on account of [the other's] baptism) on the feast days of Hilarion, it was necessary to offer a prayer well-pleasing to God for both, and taking God as an accomplice, to convert the one, and to conquer the other by kindness, and not to cease admonishing them throughout his whole life ^D up to this very day, and thus at last lead them to the knowledge of God, as if the things about which they had previously doubted were already adjudicated, and they were being compelled by lawful severity to repent of the things they had rashly dared.

But [he said] that, not having suffered this before, he does not know how at that time, having infused much disfavor and bitterness into his soul, he ran off feeling so ill; for it was evening. And about midnight—for he was accustomed at this time to keep vigil by himself for divine hymns—he rose up, although he had not enjoyed rest even from his sleep, as it was deep and always interrupted, without being disturbed. Standing for divine speech, he felt a godless sorrow and took it bitterly, saying that it is not just if impious men live and pervert the straight ways of the Lord. And saying these things, he asked God, with a certain fire-storm, to mercilessly break off the lives of both at once. And having said these things, he said that he seemed suddenly to see the house in which he was standing being shaken at first, and then from the roof being divided into two parts in the middle, and a certain fire-flame of many lights [appearing] before him, and this—for the place seemed henceforth to be under the open sky—coming down from the heavenly space to him; and [he saw] heaven itself opened, and Jesus upon the vault of heaven, with innumerable angels standing by him in human form. And these things, he said, were seen from above, and he was amazed at them. But having looked downward, Carpus said that he saw the ground also split open toward a vast and dark chasm, and those men whom he was cursing standing before him at the mouth of the chasm, trembling, pathetic, and about to be carried down

^A by the instability of their own feet. From below, from the chasm, snakes were crawling up and moving about their feet, sometimes hissing threateningly, and at the same time weighing them down and dragging them; at other times they would sting with their tails and tickle them, seeking by every means to cast them into the abyss. There were also certain men in the midst of the snakes who were attacking those men together with them, simultaneously shaking them, pushing them, and striking them; and those who were attacked seemed on the verge of falling—some willingly, others unwillingly, forced little by little by the evil and at the same time yielding to it. Carpus said that he used to take pleasure in looking down, while neglecting what was above; he would be troubled and annoyed that they had not yet fallen, and becoming often frustrated and unable to prevail, he would get angry and utter curses. But having with difficulty looked upward, he saw heaven again, as he had seen it before, and Jesus, moved to pity by what was happening, rose from his supercelestial throne and, having descended to them, stretched out a kind hand. The angels, helping Him, seized the men from different sides, and Jesus said to Carpus, while his hand was still stretched out: "Strike me again; for I am ready to suffer once more for the sake of the salvation of men, and this is pleasing to me, provided others do not sin. But see whether it is profitable for you to exchange this dwelling in the chasm and with snakes for a dwelling with God and the good and philanthropic angels." ^B

He, therefore, having interpreted the form of the ecclesiastical constitution, afterward arrived at the western parts during the reign of Domitian, and after performing many miracles in the city of Paris, was beheaded. And having received his own head in his own hands, he walked for two miles, causing amazement to those who saw him, and did not relinquish it until he chanced upon a woman named Catula, and being directed by a purely divine counsel, he placed it into her hands as if it were some kind of treasure. Likewise, Rusticus and Eleutherius, his disciples, were beheaded, and their bodies were cast out together with the sacred herald and martyr’s body, exposed as food for wild beasts and birds. Certain of the faithful, however, took the relics of the saints and deposited them in a hidden place because of the impending fear of the executioners; and when they had gone away, the blessed Catula placed the relics of the martyrs into a building on the third day of October. Now, if you look at his bodily appearance, he was of medium height, lean, somewhat pale, with a slightly flattened nose, contracted eyebrows, deep-set eyes, large ears, gray-haired, long-haired, with a beard that covered his lips and was of moderate length, ^D while that which grew from the chin was sparse, slightly pot-bellied, with long fingers. His feast is celebrated in the most holy great Church.

THE LIFE AND CONVERSATION OF OUR HOLY FATHER DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, BISHOP OF ATHENS, BY SYMEON METAPHRASTES

MARTYRDOM OF SAINT DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

Lord, bless. ^A Of old, faith was contained in figures and enigmas, and the light of truth was covered by a cloud as by a veil. But after the great mystery of our salvation was accomplished, and He who fashioned our hearts one by one, through the mercy of His own kindness toward us, was born without sin as we are; and underwent the other things which belong to human frailty, that I might recover my original nobility; and finally was condemned to death by the cross—and not to mention individual things (for there are many mysteries in the midst of the economy of His flesh)—His bodily conversation received an end; but that of the Spirit begins; and my Christ ascends into heaven ^B and returns to the paternal throne; and the Spirit who proceeds from Him He sends down to the disciples, that they might be leaders for the infidel nations. Through whom the blessed Paul also was led by the hand from the shadow to the truth; then indeed, caught by zeal for Christ, just as he himself had been captured for piety, so too he was eager to draw the whole world to himself and join it to Christ through faith. And that I may pass over the things done by him in Amphipolis and in Thessaly, and in those places where his word, just like a certain fishing net, was hunting many to piety, I shall remember only those things which occurred in Athens, through which the truly great Dionysius ^C was also caught by the Apostle; he who, having obtained a famous fatherland and famous parents, arrived at great glory. For they were just, if any of the Athenians were, not to say they were alone so, such that justice was their hallmark, fair to friends,

^A benign to guests, and humane to their own—their kindness was not a performance, often masking stubbornness, but a genuine birth of the soul and a mark of an inner disposition.

Now when Paul had arrived at Athens, and had encountered the Epicureans and those who clung to the dogmas of Pythagoras, he set his hand to the work of turning them away from the dogmas of impiety and translating them to piety, and to overthrowing the temples of the idols, and persuading the Athenians that they were to rise on the last day of judgment and pay the penalty for the things they had done. They, however, being more superstitious than others and divided into many opinions and beliefs, began to mock him, calling him a proclaimer of certain new and strange demons. ^B And so that he would not be met by them with mockery alone, but would also endure something troublesome, giving an account of the things proclaimed by him, they seized him and led him to the Areopagus—a place which was then a meeting-ground and was still the court of the Athenians. For although the Romans at that time held power over all, yet they left the Athenians and Lacedaemonians independent. The story goes, as they themselves say, that it received its name because Neptune sustained a case there against Mars, because he had killed his son Halirrothius. When they had led him into the presence of those who, both because of the height of their seats and the wisdom which is being emptied out, looked about themselves magnificently, and at the same time were present as listeners and judges of what was taking place—of whom one was Dionysius, whose role was chief both in speaking and as a judge—they said to Paul: ^C “What is this new doctrine spoken by you, and this wisdom and these ingenious decrees? And who is this Jesus, God and man, and the giver of life and judge on the wood, by whom everyone is called to judgment to render an account? For you bring certain new and strange things to our ears. We wish therefore to know what these things may mean and where they tend.”

But he, first extolling and praising their affairs, so that they would not be irritated by unaccustomed and strange words (for a mild answer, he says, turns away wrath), said: “Men of Athens, concerning the things of which you inquire, I will speak later if it seems good; but now I see you in all things as being more superstitious. For passing through and contemplating your objects of worship, I found also an altar on which it was written: To the Unknown God. ^D Whom therefore you worship unknowingly, Him I proclaim to you; if you might perhaps grope for Him and find Him, even though He is not far from each one of you. For in Him we live and move and are.”

Having heard these things, and seeing that the speech was full of a refined mindset, they were, as if thunderstruck by the sound of thunder, held in speechlessness. Yet eventually and with difficulty, having added, “We shall hear you on the morrow,” they dismissed him from the court. Paul therefore departs not with empty hands, as the saying goes, but having taken with him—following him—the president and head of this gang of sophists, I mean the great Dionysius; and just as some Olympic victor or general, he bore away the trophy of his own tongue.

For having compared what was said by the herald of truth regarding Jesus with the innovation of the light-bearers which he had previously observed at the time of the Passion, and having despised this human wisdom, he becomes one of the word of truth and joins himself to the Apostle; perfected by the laver of regeneration, he is made at once a disciple and a herald of Christ, the first teacher of truth. And spending the first part of his life in study, and having shared in education with the blessed Hierotheus, he is instructed by him in both life and discourse; and he is deemed worthy of the same communion of the Holy Spirit as him, and laying up ascents in his heart, he discourses philosophically upon the truth; he searches with truth concerning the soul, concerning the body, and concerning the substance of things to be done. He mortifies all his members that are upon the earth, ^B imposing upon the flesh many laws for obedience to the Spirit; he trains his hearing to listen to what is divine and what must be heard concerning God, but for those things outside these, he sets up the divine fear as an inexorable doorkeeper, and directs his whole eye toward the contemplation of the truth. For as for matters of the tongue, although they had not previously been exercised in what they ought, yet they had been educated philosophically, in the Attic style, and with much diligence. And, O the wonder! in a short time he surpasses all who went before, not by stealing the authority nor by seizing it, but by passing through the lower grades. And having learned well how to be shepherded, he quickly becomes one of the higher rank, and later he shepherds with experience; and having learned how to be ruled with moderation, he rules more moderately; and having taught with truth, and having passed through every good order, finally, being entrusted with the presidency of Athens, he sits at the helm of the Church. He shows the nobility of his mind, and fights for the flock, and drives away the beasts, and takes care of the one who is sick, and brings back the one who has wandered far; and, to express it in a word, he becomes all things to all men, just like his teacher. Having thus taught, and having spoken theologically of the Trinity, he discourses clearly ^C about the other powers. And having arrived at such a degree of grace that, when the spirit of the Mother of God, who received God in her body, departed, he was present together with the apostles who had arrived for her holy burial by means of the Spirit and a cloud, he no longer thought it right to confine such wealth of grace within one city, namely Athens; but wishing to multiply the talent and follow in the footsteps of his teacher, having left Athens, and suffered many grievous things by land and many also by sea, and not being hindered even by these, but by the contemplation of the things above being superior to all things below, he arrives at the royal city, Rome, and approaches Clement who was then holding the apostolic throne; for he had been a student of Peter the Great and had been entrusted with the throne by him. To him, therefore, Dionysius approaches, and having set forth his own Gospel and that of his ^D ministry

^A as one who shared his character and mind, he is urged by him to depart for the western regions. Having therefore distributed the other ministers who followed him to various places among the villages and cities, and having encouraged them to preach the saving Gospel of God, he himself took Rusticus and Eleutherius—the former honored with the anointing of priesthood, and the latter, namely Eleutherius, with the diaconate—as his assistants, just as the great Apostle took Silvanus and Timothy. And when he reached the western Gauls, he exercised the office of the apostolate not only with words of doctrine but also with the works of signs, appearing in the midst of those who gathered in each city, speaking unceasingly of piety, and leading his hearers to the knowledge of Him who created them.

Thus, therefore, as the word of truth was being preached, and the divine faith was being strengthened, and every demonic deceit was being trampled underfoot, some of those who were with him—I speak of the illustrious Lucian, who was also adorned with the dignity of a presbyter (for many who embraced virtue followed him; for like, as they say, delights in like)—he sent to the city of the island of the Bellovaci to preach piety. ^B He himself, together with Rusticus and Eleutherius, having left Cisalpine Gaul, as he had been instructed from above by an angel, arrived at the city which is called Paris, in order that by sowing the word of truth in it with boldness, and by being adorned with the crown of martyrdom, he might, with boldness, stand before God the Judge, which was indeed the highest of his desires—a fact which the ensuing discourse will declare.

^C When, therefore, he had come to this city of the Parisians and found the city full of unbelief, he saw that while it was far inferior to great cities in beauty, size, and the multitude of its inhabitants, it was so far superior to all of them in impiety that they could not even be compared with it, being occupied on all sides by savage inhabitants and protected, as it were, by a rampart of their cruelty, which it held up as if it were some other line of defense. Add to this that, although the city was most fertile in the yield of every fruit and abounded in the greatest plenty of all things, it incited its citizens even more to vice. Having come into this city so affected, he went about searching to see if he could find any place suitable for quiet. And having attained what he was seeking, he immediately obtained a temple according to his strength. And as one who was a guest and stranger in a foreign region and had many adversaries on account of the diversity of opinion, he built an oratory and temple, which was truly the salvation of souls. ^D For when he had gathered in it a very great multitude of pious persons and had presented pure sacrificers to God, he made the temple, so to speak, a holy flock, of which he himself was the shepherd, not a hireling; recalling everyone who was wandering in unbelief to the faith with the pipe of truth, healing those who were sick with error by the saving medicines of the Scriptures, and binding up those who were already contrite with the teaching

^A that binds, and leading them on to true health. But that our account may proceed along a certain path, I shall also narrate this marvel concerning him, as it can be learned from his epistles. There were indeed other students of Dionysius, and one among them was Demophilus. Demophilus was a citizen of the province of Athens, and in habit and life a monk; and the pure and sacred hands of Dionysius had imposed the monastic state upon him; this office and ministry had been assigned to that man by Dionysius, that he should stand at the doors of the temple.

This Demophilus, then, having seen his own presbyter receive with compassion a certain impious soul who had turned toward repentance, did not take it meekly; rather, having become incensed, and having gone inside into the inner sanctum of the altar, where it is not safe to walk nor holy to touch, he caused the Holy of Holies to be publicly mocked, and subjected that good and gentle priest to intolerable blows; he struck him on the cheek and pushed him, and him who was approaching with great reverence he audaciously repelled with his heels, calling him an impious wretch for having decided to overlook the ignorances of the people out of mercy, and he described what had happened to Dionysius the bishop and prince of pastors, acting as though he had accomplished some great thing for virtue, and boasting in that audacious epistle that he had avenged not so much himself as God. What, then, did he [Dionysius] do? ^B Was he perturbed in spirit, as is the way of the multitude? Or was he thought to have changed even in the slightest degree that goodness which had become second nature to him? This can in no way be said. For he did not avenge himself in act upon him who had sinned; but he instructed him with a saving and divine word—which simultaneously informs and composes one toward virtue and every sense of order—by writing that epistle, and by setting forth as examples of meekness Aaron, David, and others. Leaving aside the rest of his exhortation toward the good, I shall certainly remember the vision which he narrates to him, as having appeared to the holy Carpus. And it is as follows word for word:

Having once come to Crete, I was received by Carpus, a man, if ever there was one, most apt for the vision of God by reason of his great purity of mind. For he would not ^C attempt the sacred rites of the mysteries unless first, during the introductory prayers, a holy and joyful vision appeared to him. He was telling, then, that when one of the unbelievers had once grieved him—the cause of the grief was that he had led away a certain person from the Church to an impious cult—and at a time when, even during the days of hilarity, ^D while it was necessary for him to pour forth a kindly prayer to God for both, that God the savior might be an ally to him—to convert the one, and to conquer the other with kindness, and not to cease admonishing them throughout his whole life even unto this very day, and thus at last lead them to the knowledge of God, as if the things about which they previously doubted had already been judged, and they had been duly punished for the things they had inconsiderately dared—yet not having first suffered this within himself, I know not how he then infused a great deal of hostility and bitterness

^A into his mind, so that he was compelled to give himself over to rest, and indeed he slept, though in such a wretched state (for it was evening). But about midnight—for he was accustomed at that hour to keep vigil by himself for the divine hymns—he arose, not having enjoyed even that sleep, deep though it was, without disturbance, as it was repeatedly interrupted. Yet, while standing for divine converse, he grieved irreverently and took it bitterly, saying that it was not just that impious men who pervert the straight paths of the Lord should live; and while saying these things, he prayed to God that He would strike down the lives of both of them at once, mercilessly, with some fiery blast.

When he had said these things, he related that he suddenly seemed to see the house in which he was standing shaken at first, and then split in two from the roof down the middle, and a certain pyre of great light ^B before him—and it seemed as if the place were already out in the open—being carried down from the celestial region to his very self. He saw the heaven itself opened, and upon the back of heaven, Jesus, with numberless angels in human form and appearance standing by Him. And while these things were seen from above, he himself was filled with wonder. But when Carpus cast his eyes downward, he said he saw the earth itself parted in such a way that a certain dark and gloomy chasm appeared; and those men whom he had cursed were standing before him at the mouth of the chasm, trembling and miserable, and they were nearly falling due to the instability of their own feet. From the lower place, from the chasm, snakes were creeping upward, and as they moved slowly toward their feet, they would sometimes drag them while pulling and depressing them, and ^C dragging them down; sometimes stinging them with their teeth or tails, or soothing them, and using every means acting so as to cast them headlong into that immense abyss; and there were also certain men in their midst who, together with the serpents, were attacking those men with agitation, strikes, and blows; but it seemed that those men were falling, partly against their will, and partly of their own accord, because they were being slowly compelled by evil.

Carpus further related that he was accustomed to take pleasure in looking at the things below, while neglecting the things above; and that he was heavily burdened and indignant that they had not yet fallen; and although he had often dwelt upon this matter without success, and had grieved bitterly and cursed them, when he had at last looked up to heaven, ^D he had seen that same heaven again as he had seen it before; but Jesus, whom the event had moved to mercy, had stretched forth His kind hand, and the angels who were bringing aid together had held the men, one from one side and one from another, and Jesus had said to Carpus, while His hand was still extended: "Strike Me now; for I am ready again, for the sake of the salvation of men, to suffer death: and this is very pleasing to Me, provided that other men do not sin. But see whether it is advantageous for you to prefer this dwelling in the chasm and with the serpents to a dwelling with God and the kind angels who love men."

^A These are the things which I, having heard, believe to be true.

So, in all things, he was gentle, compassionate, and free from anger; the more he was exalted by his deeds, the more he humbled himself in his disposition, becoming a rule to all for virtue, and a lamp for the guidance of that which is better. Wherefore, He who alone is the Cause of all did not allow him to be hidden under a bushel, but placed him upon a height through his virtue. And fame, having immediately taken hold, was sung in the mouths of all, that Dionysius surpassed all in everything. Indeed, everyone flocked to him, not only the common and marketplace folk, but also those who were learned and illustrious. Those who previously labored under madness and tore at the Church more cruelly than wild beasts, coming to that man and hearing that admirable and divine tongue, softened the hardness of their hearts and approached the true and first light through baptism; and by how much more they had previously burned with vice, by so much the more fervent did they show their Christianity to be. And, in short, there was nothing so much in the mouths of everyone as Dionysius.

As matters stood thus, and his fame spread, and his teaching broadened, and the faith was confirmed more clearly, the affair came to the ears of Domitian—to Domitian, in all things terrible; or, more aptly, Dæmonian, who spoke iniquity against God in pride and contempt, and raised a hand hostile to God against the faith of the Christians. What, then, does this man contrive? Or rather, what is he taught by his father, Satan? He decided to despise all those who held the opinions of the Christians, but to remove Dionysius alone, knowing well that if he should overcome him alone, he would have prevailed over all; but if not, then all would be stronger than Domitian. ^B After he had pondered these things, wrath stirred him against the martyr, and seeking a remedy for his madness, he found no other than his death. Naturally, having gathered together all those under his command, and having taken those who were similar to him in senselessness, he sends them to seek the martyr. "And," he says, "if indeed you persuade him to be translated to our religion, this is what I desire, and having received him with you, return. But if he should still persist in his impious religion, condemn him to death."

They, having heard this from the emperor, and being inflamed by the madness that dwelt within them, and desiring to appear zealous to him who had sent them, ^C when they reached Gaul, they rushed in like certain wild beasts. And when they had harassed the whole surrounding region, they corrupted the simpler folk, to teach and say where the blessed Dionysius was. And when they learned that he was passing his time in the city of Paris, although they had not yet learned everything, they stood over the city. Then they made inquiries about the Christians, and found the teachings of the faith scattered everywhere. They learned about the miraculous deeds of the martyr, how he had healed all those who were afflicted with some illness. ^D And from there, the band of unbelievers flocked to him and joined themselves to the worship of God; and just as all Germania, previously enslaved to many and grievous passions and deeds, nay, also to idolatrous

^A worship, having withdrawn its neck from these things, submitted it to the yoke of Christ through the teachings of Dionysius. When therefore it reached their ears that these things, and many others, had occurred, and they saw the flock of Christ increasing and their own gods held in contempt, and their own mysteries despised, and impiety brought low, they were inflamed all the more, and they inquired where the author of these things might be dwelling. And suddenly rushing upon the blessed Dionysius, they bound him together with those who were with him, while he still had the divine doctrine upon his lips; they take their seats, breathing rage and fury for his examination. The noble man enters, therefore, along with Rusticus and Eleutherius, with a firm and stable mind and a free spirit, just as if he were being called to a feast, not to a trial. ^B And indeed, speaking arrogantly and harshly, so that they might strike terror into him immediately at the outset, they say to him: "Are you, O accursed head, the one who sets our gods at naught and contends to remove our religion from our midst? Answer, therefore, what is your lineage, what country bore you, and what is your pursuit?" But he, with his zeal for Christ giving him courage and making him more confident, said: "I, indeed, O you men—to pass over my lineage and country for the present—confess that I am the servant of Christ, and him alone do I worship, together with the Father who is without beginning and His co-eternal Spirit. I have fled from your error; for I trust in my Christ, being a most resolute destroyer of your gods and a most prepared exhorter of Christians toward virtue. To these things, do whatever you have been commanded." Seeing, however, that the wicked ^C had noted the saint’s constancy combined with prudence, they changed their wrath into flattery, and said: "Do not, Dionysius, treat your white hairs with contumely, nor surrender your dear companions to a bitter death; obey those who counsel you rightly, and be persuaded to revere the power of the emperor, which beseeches you through us, O dear and good Dionysius; be persuaded to sacrifice to our gods, and you shall be first among your own people who are under the empire." But he said: "Your error here is worse than the former, if you think that I might be seduced or any of mine. For this you should know: that neither honors, nor contumelies, nor flatteries, nor torments, nor anything else at all, shall separate us from Christ." ^D Thenceforth, since they could not persuade him, having cast aside their mask and pretense, and having boiled over with even greater wrath, they rose up from their chairs in a furious and somewhat deranged state of mind, and said to Dionysius and those with him: "By you, O senseless men, the gods are dishonored, and the emperor is mocked, and by magical arts, as if they were miracles, do you lead away and draw to your own side those who submit to his authority?" But the saints, with one voice, said to them: "May those who worship them become like them! We, however, do not achieve these things by magical arts, as you say, but by the invocation and operation of our God and His life-giving Spirit, we provide sight to the blind, speech to the mute, movement to the lame, and healing to the demon-possessed."

^A Indeed, your gods can provide nothing, being as they are wood and stone; for they have a mouth and do not speak, eyes and do not see, ears and do not hear. This one thing alone do they work for you: they kindle a fire that never ceases. Unable to gainsay these words, the tyrants looked upon them with grim and frenzied countenances, and drawing their swords, they readied themselves for the slaughter. And once they had led them out of the city as if by a signal, they brought them in chains to a certain elevation and handed them over to the executioners for beheading. In the meantime, the holy men asked for a moment of prayer and bent their knees. Then the holy martyr of Christ, Dionysius, lifting his eyes to heaven, said, "Lord God Almighty, only-begotten Son, and Holy Spirit, holy Trinity, without beginning and indivisible, receive the souls of your servants in peace, for we are being put to death for your sake." And when the saints had cried out "Amen," he turned to the executioners and said, "Perform that which has been commanded you." ^B They then beheaded the blessed Dionysius first, and then Rusticus and Eleutherius. But not even then, O Dionysius, did he who suffered for you forget Him for whose sake he was dying; rather, a miracle was manifested even in the amputation. For when the martyr had received his own head into his hands like some prize, he proceeded to a more remote place. Thus he carried his head in his hands like a trophy, borne entirely by divine grace, and did not set it down until, through a divine providence, he encountered a woman and deposited it into her hands like some sort of treasure. The venerable bodies of the holy martyrs lay neglected, exposed as food for wild beasts and birds, and they did not even obtain the customary burial. The executioners, however, did not cease their rage even at this point; rather, they raged even against the very relics, intending to cast them into the depths of the sea, so that they might not perform miracles even when they were inanimate, and thereby draw many to the knowledge of the truth. Which, as they had intended, would have happened, had God not prevented this evil plan from being brought to effect. For perceiving their design, she who had received the precious head of the martyr for God (the woman's name was Catula) communicated her intention to some of the faithful as something pleasing and acceptable to God; and having prepared a splendid and lavish table, she received the executioners for a banquet. ^C While they were feasting with the woman, some of the faithful took up the precious relics of the martyrs and hid them in a secret place. Then, when the banquet was finished and the executioners discovered the matter, they were greatly incensed; but gifts allayed the fervor of their anger, and the woman's money dissolved their violent fury. When they had departed, the blessed Catula deposited the martyrs' relics in a certain building on the third of the month of October, with miracles flowing in abundance, just as though from a fountain flowing beautifully and sweetly. Not much time passed

before the Christians, having gathered there, erected a church to these victorious saints and deposited their precious relics within it, for the glory of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is due honor and adoration, now and forever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

CONCERNING DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

FROM SUIDAS

^B Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of Athens, a man most eloquent and advanced to the peak of secular learning, was a hearer of Paul in the Christian religion and was constituted by him as bishop of Athens. Yet, in the native study of Greek disciplines, he excelled all; for he was very expert in any sect, so to speak, that is celebrated by them. He heard Paul preaching at Athens and announcing Christ and the Resurrection to the Greeks with boldness; and, giving faith to Paul's preaching, he was ordained by him as bishop of Athens. ^C Accordingly, in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when he was in the prime of his life, he departed to Egypt, desiring to converse with the wise men of that place. His companion, however, was that sophist Apollophanes, whom Polemon the Laodicean of Smyrna, the teacher of Aristides, heard assiduously. Furthermore, at the time of the saving passion of the Lord Christ, both were in Heliopolis in Egypt; and since the eclipse of the sun did not occur according to nature (for it was not the time of conjunction), it is said that the sophist Apollophanes said these things to the holy Dionysius: "These things, O good Dionysius, are the vicissitudes of divine things." Dionysius himself recalls these things to his memory in his letter to the great Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. For ^D Apollophanes was assailing Dionysius with insults on account of his Christianity. And he says: "But you say that I am assaulted by the sophist Apollophanes and called a parricide, because I impiously use the sentiments of the Greeks against the Greeks. And yet, we could more truly and justly object to him that the Greeks do not religiously use divine testimonies against divine things, they who strive to abolish the divine cult and religion of God." And a little later: "But I also say that Apollophanes himself uses divine things nefariously in divine matters; for the knowledge of things, which is rightly called philosophy by him, and was called the wisdom of God by the divine Paul, ought to have stirred up and led the true philosophers to the Author both of the things themselves and of their knowledge." And after a few

"Apollophanes, being a wise man, ought to have understood that the order and movement of the heavens could never have been changed otherwise than by Him who both preserves and created them, by whose motion and nature he was led to this—who, as it is written in the divine books, also changes all things." And again, after a little: "But ask him what he thinks about the eclipse of the sun which occurred when the Saviour was crucified. For we were both present at that time at Heliopolis, and we saw the moon unexpectedly casting itself against the sun, for it was not the time of conjunction; and again, from the ninth hour until evening, it placed itself diametrically against the sun’s disc in a manner contrary to the order of nature. Remind him also of something else: for he knows that we saw that obstruction reach from the east and come to the limit of the sun, then turn back, and again that the obstruction and clarification did not occur from the same side, but took place from the side diametrically opposite. Such were the supernatural events of that time, possible only to Christ, the Author of all things, who does great and wonderful things, of which there is no number. Tell these things to him, Polycarpe, if it is permitted to you, and if you can, Apollophanes, refute them, even against me, who was present with you at that time and saw them, and inquired into all things with the greatest wonder." Certainly, even then I know not from whence Apollophanes began to divine; and casting, as it were, at what was happening, he said to me: "These things, O good Dionysius, are vicissitudes of divine ^B affairs."

Such things as these the great Dionysius said in his letter to the deiferous Polycarp. ^C And an accurate demonstration of his wisdom and eloquence is the excellent and singular style of the books written by him; for he attained great knowledge in both that discipline which is called "learning by those without," and in our own divine one. For if anyone looks at the beauties of his words and the depths of his thoughts, he will not consider them to be the offspring of human nature, but of some incorruptible and divine power. And thus, there have been written by him the following: To Timothy, bishop of Ephesus, who was himself a disciple of Paul, *On the Divine Names*, 12 books ^D; *On the Conjunct and Distinct Theology*; *On what the power of prayer is*; and *On the blessed Hierotheus*, and *On piety*, and *On theological writing*; *On the good, light, the beautiful, love, ecstasy, zeal*; and *That evil is neither a being, nor from a being, nor in things that are*; *On that which is*, in which are also *exemplars*; *On life, on wisdom, on mind, on reason, on truth, on faith*; *On power, justice, salvation, redemption*; *On the great and the small, the same, the other, the like, the unlike, state, motion, equality*; *On the Omnipotent*, *On the Ancient of Days*, in which also *on time*,

and what it means for it to be the same. *On the Holy of Holies*, *King of Kings*, and *Lord of Lords*, and *God of gods* (51). Another book to the same Timothy, *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, containing 15 chapters. Another book to the same Timothy, *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, which also comprises 15 chapters. Another book to the same Timothy, *On Mystical Theology*, containing five chapters. There are also carried letters of his: to Gaius the therapeutist, 4; to Dorotheus the deacon, 1; to Sopater the priest, 1; to Polycarp the bishop of Smyrna, 1; to Demophilus the therapeutist, 1; to John the Theologian, the apostle and evangelist, 1.

It is to be known, however, that certain profane wise men, and especially Proclus, have frequently used the sentences and discoveries of the blessed Dionysius, and even his words themselves in naked form; ^B whence it is permitted to surmise that the older philosophers in Athens, having usurped his works, which he himself mentions when writing to Timothy, hid them, so that they might appear to be the fathers of his divine books. Therefore, the interpreter of God, Dionysius, having already reached an advanced age, and being full of the days of the Spirit, is perfected by martyrdom for Christ under the Emperor Trajan, when also the God-bearing Ignatius fought the contest of immortality. Note that Michael the Syncellus of Jerusalem wrote a eulogy of the great Dionysius, in which he says: “We have come to present to you, who are eager to hear them, things which we have received either by unwritten or written tradition.” Such, then, is the account that has reached us, handed down from father to son, that this great Dionysius, at the time of the saving ^C Passion, when the sun was hidden at midday, being vehemently astonished at the miracle, and carried beyond human cognition when he had pondered in his mind what was happening, said: “An unknown God is suffering, for whom this whole universe is shrouded in darkness and shaken”; and immediately, having most certainly noted the time at which this universal wonder was performed, kept it to himself, awaiting what was being declared by it. He mentions, however, himself also in the letter to Polycarp that most horrifying solar eclipse. For when Apollophanes, a man who was a philosopher and a Greek in religion, was indignant and hurled insults at this thrice-blessed man, because, although he had been a most intimate friend and compatriot, he turned away from the ancestral cults and preferred, embraced, and most fiercely defended the Christian faith, and used the arguments of the Greeks against the Greeks; ^D attempting to refute the insult and indignation, and rather suggesting to Polycarp—in whom that fellow-soldier was devising those taunts—the refutation, he says this: “But you say that the sophist Apollophanes reviles me and calls me a parricide,” and so forth.

LIFE OF ST. DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

From Book II of Nicephorus.

Greek and Latin first edited by Petrus Lansselius, priest of the Society of Jesus.

^A And Paul went as far as Athens. Observing that the city was given over very greatly to the worship of idols, he held discussions both with the Jews who were of the synagogue and with the philosophers who were there—those both of the school of Epicurus and of the Stoics. By whom, indeed, as a babbler and a proclaimer of foreign gods, he was greatly reviled; and, indeed, having been seized by the hands, they led him to the greatest tribunal among them, which is called the Areopagus, and having presented him to the council of judges (there were nine of these, who were considered to excel all others in wisdom, lineage, and wealth; they sat by right of merit, chosen for the judicial benches). Having come into their midst, he announced their superstition, and persuaded them that he was the apostle of the altar which among them was dedicated to the "Unknown God"; and he spoke also of the Lord and Creator of earth and heaven, by whom all things exist; and he presented Him as being without need and unlike all matter. ^B And that He is worshipped by nothing other than by good works and the knowledge of truth; and he says that He overlooks the ignorant faults committed up to this time, but that for the future one must repent, and yield to the words of faith. As one who has also received from Him the power of judging. This is Jesus Christ, who, by works worthy of God, appeared as perfect God and perfect man, sin excepted, and was crucified for all, and rose from the dead, and while all were watching, was taken up to His own Father, the God of all things. And to some who heard of the resurrection, the matter seemed a mockery; but some, believing his words, followed him, among whom was also Dionysius the Areopagite, being one of those wise and excellent men.

^C And so great was his faith in Christ that he was not only deemed worthy of the divine bath, ^D but was also appointed bishop of Athens by the hands of Paul, and was deemed worthy of supernatural gifts, and to be intimately associated with the divine man Hierotheus, to both of whom Paul entrusted all the things he had learned when he was caught up into the third heaven and into paradise, both concerning theology and the celestial hierarchy and their ordering, which things he later also handed down in writing. Dionysius, however, having proclaimed the word of piety and true worship with great boldness, and having glorified Christ for many years in the West, having reached a deep old age, was also adorned with martyrdom for His sake. They say that, having taken his own head in his hands after it was severed by the sword, he walked for two miles; and there, having met a woman, he handed it to her. As for what he wrote down in theory and insights,

with an expression absolutely peerless and unmixed with those that have appeared among men, the state of his writings is as follows: ^A First, he composed the treatise *On the Divine Names*, in which other chapters are subordinated, extending up to a hundred, and full of divine wisdom. Second, there is composed by him the treatise with the title *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, presenting fifteen chapters. Third, in addition to these, is *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy* in seven chapters. Fourth, the work *On Mystical Theology* in five chapters. Also, he left ten epistles, the last of which was sent to the disciple who rested on the Lord's breast, the evangelist John. ^B These are the works of his that have come down to us so far. But the same author also mentions other treatises of his, such as those named by him *Theological Sketches*, as well as *Symbolic Theology*; another, *On the Angelic Properties and Orders*; also his treatise *On the Soul*; another *On the Just and Divine Judgment*; ^C another *On the Divine Hymns*; and another *On Intelligible and Sensible Things*. These treatises are entirely unseen and have never been known either to us or to those before us.

ALOISIUS, BISHOP OF VERONA, TO THE CANDID READER

Beyond those things that will render you more eager to pursue the study of the sacred letters and to endure all the gravest trials for the love of Christ in this *Life of the great Dionysius the Areopagite*, you will find these further things most worthy of knowledge. First, that which is accustomed to be said by the fathers to their children from olden times, namely, that all the holy apostles were present at the rest of the most holy Mother of God and tended to her most noble funeral with their own hands—this very thing, which is as true as it is frequently repeated, is manifested most clearly in this history. Second, that those three most illustrious volumes by which the dogmas of the holy Church are defended above all—namely, *On the Celestial* and also *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, and *On the Divine Names*—were edited by this most holy and learned man, a contemporary of the holy apostles, a fact which is most impudently denied by certain wicked men who now attempt to move heaven and earth. But what would these lost and godless men not utter?

The author of the life of this most divine Father is Michael Syngelus, a presbyter of Jerusalem, a most ancient writer, as the Greek author Suidas asserts in the *Life* which he himself also wrote of the same saint, and which you may read below, so that this most celebrated Prelate is described in this book three times (indeed, now seven times), lest he be cheated anywhere of his rightful praises. The eloquence of the writer is very obscure, perhaps because it does not depart greatly from the style of the great Dionysius himself. However, the translator, a pious and learned man, has applied as much effort as he could so that it might be rendered clearer and more refined. The Greek exemplar, printed in Paris—where the saint died for the love of God—was given to me some months ago by Nicolaus Balserisius, a presbyter of Bologna, a man of integrity and previously secretary to the Bishop Johannes Matthaeus of blessed memory, a most famous and holy man who presided over this Church most worthily a little before my time; and since I found that it had never been translated, I immediately saw to it that it be published by my most beloved brother, Basilius Millanius. Farewell, and support these our labors with your prayers before God.

MICHAEL SYNGELLOS, PRESBYTER OF JERUSALEM: ENCOMIUM TO SAINT DIONYSIUS

^A It would have required a truly heavenly and divine tongue—one of those fire-tongued gifts sent from God, such as were distributed to those who were eyewitnesses of the Word and his ministers—and an angelic voice, for one who desires to praise Dionysius, the proclaimer of God, the hymnist of that Divinity which sees all things, which runs around and contains all things in its perfect goodness, which is worshiped and served in the superessential, supra-divine, and super-good Trinity. [He is] the wisest interpreter of the divine names and of the ineffable divine mysteries; the expounder of the heavenly hierarchy, the praiser and arranger of the heavenly intellectual hosts; and the mystic, mystagogue, and herald of all ecclesiastical ordering, of both the hierarchical and the leading office, of the sacred rituals, of the initiation, and of all Christian theosophy and beauty. ^B Through the purity of his life and the perfection of every virtue, he was entrusted by the divine Paul with the initiation into the things that had been seen and heard by him when he was snatched up into the third heaven; he was the contemporary and companion of the apostolic choir, and a fellow-competitor in the sacred struggles; he was the most holy among hierarchs, the most illustrious among martyrs, the wisest in God among theologians, and the most illuminating among teachers.

Wherefore, O divine priesthood and holy nation and god-called assembly, I fear lest, by attempting an encomium for such a great luminary, I stand accused of rashness; for not even if all the eloquence of all the rhetoricians who have ever lived were to come together, could they reach the heights of a praise worthy of this divinely-speaking man—to say nothing of the frailty of my own mind regarding such matters. Yet, urged on by the prodding of your love and faith, I shall offer what I can to God, to the saint, and to you; ^C for even if I should be overcome by the superiority of the praises that befit the one being praised, and

I should be bested by the harmony of the eulogistic expression, I shall gladly endure being overcome. For no harm isfall come to the one being praised if the one who praises him is surpassed in the adornments and equipment of the genre of praise.

^A Whence then shall I make a beginning of praise? Shall I use the precepts of rhetorical eulogies, which are wont to be sought from things that crawl upon the ground, that slip away, that keep shifting from one state to another, and that perish—I speak of lineage, and fatherland, and wealth, and worldly glory, and reputation—gathering these from things that are higher and better than all these, from fleeting fame and human boasting? Or shall I rather begin from those incorruptible and truly blessed and everlasting honors, which, from the time he ceased from the worship of idols, he gained on account of his remarkable inclination toward Christ, the truly existing God, and out of his uprightness of character, his evangelical training, and the struggles of his contest? For what will the genealogy of lowly ancestors, who are wallowing in the mud and are most superstitious, contribute to true fame for one who has been deemed worthy of the adoption of the All-King God, and is numbered among the heavenly angelic orders, and who is clothed—together with those heralds of God, Peter and Paul—with sacred authority and apostolic splendor, and who has been born of that most blessed generation, and crowned with the diadem of martyrdom? And what splendor will a fatherland teeming with horses and sheep, hemmed in by plains, mountains, glens, and valleys, thick with meadows, groves, and every kind of tree and plant, encircled by maritime ports, and flowing with rivers, springs, and pools, and endowed with the magnitude and beauty of its buildings, a city that displays to passersby the tombs of those who built it as a marvel—what splendor will such a place provide to one who has already attained the Jerusalem above, whose walls have been painted by the hand of the Lord, where the dwelling of all who rejoice is found, where there is the sound of those celebrating, and a voice of exultation? ^B Yet, even if these things have been said by us in our introduction, for those who judge this thrice-blessed man to be one of the inhabitants of heaven who have departed from this life, his parents were not, for all that, obscure, nor did he have a fatherland that was not illustrious, nor did he originate as a citizen from an ignoble city. For what part of the world has not heard of the fame of Greece? And who is ignorant of Athens, the celebrated glory of Greece, the city sung of everywhere, the seat of philosophers, the training ground and school for those who pride themselves on eloquence? ^C It is from here that this Dionysius set out—he who was a most renowned leader there, and who acted as a magistrate and chief among the judges of the Areopagus, whose presence, lineage, and illustrious glory have been recorded at length by the Athenian writers Androtion and Philochorus. ^D From these authors it is possible to infer that his parents were of the highest standing, distinguished and illustrious in virtue. For among the proud Athenians, in such

^A a sublime position he would not have been elevated, had he not conjoined to those gifts his wisdom, the ornaments of his soul, such as prudence, justice, and fortitude, and as well his illustrious lineage. For when Luke, the most truth-loving and wisest, in his holy and all-wise composition of the Acts of the Apostles, spoke concerning those at Athens who had believed through the divinely inspired instruction and public discourse of the blessed Paul, he chose to say, in a manner of excellence: "Among whom was also Dionysius the Areopagite." Thus, he clearly points out the excellence of this wise lamp, both in the prominence of his birth and in the abundance of his virtue, knowledge, wisdom, and eloquence. For he did not say, "Among whom was a man by the name of Dionysius," as if speaking of someone unknown, but, "Among whom was also Dionysius the Areopagite," implying from this that the man was celebrated in the mouths of all, and was most renowned. ^B And let no one think that this sacred brevity contributes little to the purpose of the discourse; for although the account is brief, the wealth that flows from it in praise of this admired man is very great. For just so, Moses, the beholder of God, in a certain very short phrase regarding the creation of the world, when he had made mention of Melchizedek—who bore the outward form of the spiritual priesthood according to our rite—without declaring whose son he had been or whence he had originated, left his memory to future generations to be celebrated forever, having consecrated it as if in an immortal monument. Come then, yourself, O messenger of world-wide salvation and joy, and great herald of the ineffable incarnation of the Word of God, and most truthful orator of His divine signs and great works, most blessed Luke, most thorough of the evangelists, ^C come, tell us who this Dionysius is, and what kind of man he is, and unfold for us your very concise sacred account, through which you brought this teacher of all to light.

This is he, he says, the most glorious of the chosen and well-born men of Greece, and the most outstanding of the Council of the Areopagus; not so much appearing renowned because of his position, as much as he is to be judged as having made that position himself more illustrious. This is he who is not only the most perfect in every aspect of logical science, the most philosophical among Stoics, Epicureans, and the rest of the philosophers, and the most Attic and skilled among the Atticists and scholars, and the most rhetorical among rhetoricians, ^D and among those who apply themselves to astronomy the most theoretical, and most accurate in the rest of the liberal arts, but he was also most complete in the tetrad of virtues. This is he who used the most impartial scales in judging, and was the most just of those administering justice in Athens; and this, while he was still bound to Greek religious rites, polluted by the abominations of Zeus, and sacrilegiously addicted to the idolatrous worship of Pallas Athena, and the fabled things of Orpheus, who...

drew all things to himself with musical harmonies, embracing sublime discourses about the gods, and was gladly detained and enticed by the old-womanish Theogony of Hesiod. ^A But when the saving grace that shone upon all men dispelled the darkness of the madness and drunkenness of the Gentiles, and cast down all idolatrous error from the earth, and everywhere throughout the world the disciples of our God and Savior Christ, flying and traversing like eagles with spread wings, illuminated the world with the light of the knowledge of God; and when Paul, the most supreme and most divine of theologians, the apostle of the nations, the heaven-reaching trumpet, the vessel of election, arrived at Athens, proclaiming the saving and life-bearing message, ^B and bearing the divine and sovereign Name, and seeing a city which outshone all other Greek cities, given over to the worship of idols, he was inflamed with divine zeal, and entered the city with ardor, and began to argue with those he encountered, both Jews and Greeks, the wise and the unlearned, whomever he met, and announced with joyful tidings Jesus, who delivered us from the tyranny of the impostor, the manslayer, and the dragon, and from death and decay, and the resurrection of the dead. And he struck the Epicureans and those who took their name from the Stoa decorated with paintings with his strange, ineffable, and supercelestial wisdom, and was brought to the judgment of the Areopagites, and moved them, and the judges above all others, to incline their minds sweetly to this celestial philosophy. Then Dionysius immediately departed from the muddy and insane pool of idols, as it were, and attached himself to Paul, who exhaled a divine fragrance. He was torn away from the error of interpreters and writers, and clung to the herald of truth. ^C He emerged from the abyss of destruction and flew to the height of salvation. He departed from the darkness of impiety and approached the light of divine knowledge. He hastened from true folly to true beatitude. He bade farewell to Belial, the supplier of death, and joined himself to Christ, the author and leader of life. He abhorred the impurity of the demons and embraced the purity of the angels. He shook off the muddy material of the world and desired the celestial way of life. For when he became a spectacle receiving the rays of the light of the author of divinity, through Paul, who vied in brilliance with the cherubic throne, as one possessing the ringing sound of Christ, who sits above the cherubim, he was illuminated and filled with the spreading light. And to him he himself also, with his whole mind, with his whole thought, and with his heart, was attached to his preceptor. ^D Oh, how great was the inclination of the soul of this illustrious man to receive that apostolic and light-bestowing preaching! Oh, the receptivity of that pliable and most clear soul, which most easily impressed upon itself the images of the archetypal seals of the evangelical teachings! Oh, the heart that easily and irrevokably broke away from every carnal affection, and cast off every material image, and most quickly believed in the saving message, and attached itself to the heaven-speaking man, to Paul, who was being led by the hand to the heavenly mansions, and who was heaven-coursing! Oh, the fertile and rich, intelligent soil that received the life-giving seed, and brought forth a most noble and manifold harvest!

^A Neither did the weight of principal dignity or judicial authority turn him back, nor did the desire for friendship, or for those of his own age and custom, draw him away. The violent love of parents, kinsmen, and those who shared his home did not retard him; the insane frenzy of manifold riches and possessions, which ensnare in so many ways, did not bind him. The pleasure of the body did not soften him. The desire for a delicate life and for luxuries did not effeminate him; but when he had heard the voice of the herald speaking divine things, he regarded everything that is wont to delight mortals as nothing, and, just as iron relates to a magnet, he was eager to cling to him immediately. We are accustomed to admire ^B the patriarch Abraham, and we have heard that, when God commanded him to depart from his kindred and his country and to set out for a strange and unknown land, he obeyed—and very justly so. We extol Elisha, who left behind the yokes of oxen and gladly abandoned his ancestral hearth, and followed Elijah, who was fervent with the divine spirit and had called him, without any delay—and very rightly so. We again extol with praises Philip, who, when Jesus the Author of salvation called him, ran to Him swiftly without any hesitation, and followed Him promptly—and indeed most fittingly.

With what applause, then, and with what kind of praises ^C must this man be honored, and crowned by us with encomiums—he who was not instructed in the Mosaic law, not taught the oracles of the prophets, not exercised in the historical narratives of divine prodigies, nor had he witnessed any supernatural signs performed—yet he accepted the simple preaching of Paul, a man unlearned, poor, and a stranger; one who neither excelled in the ornaments of oratorical art, nor relied upon any sophistical propositions? But, as if he had received a seed cast into the earth for the first time, he deposited it in the depths of his mind without any doubting, and immediately brought forth the life-giving fruits of the holy faith from ^D the casting of the seed, so that he may sing almost joyfully with the most provident prophet Isaiah, crying out: *“For Thy fear, O Lord, we have conceived and brought forth, and we have brought forth the spirit of Thy salvation, which we have made upon the earth.”* Certainly, Luke, that excelling herald, as he assisted us in the spirit and concurrently celebrated this holy memory of the holy martyr, acted as president and leader of the praises for the multitude of those who celebrate and extol him. Whatever we have collected from written or non-written monuments, these same things, weaving them into the fabric of praises like certain flowers of artifice, and seasoning the banquet with a kind of divine savor, we are present to set before you as guests who gladly hear of divine things. Such a history, therefore, through a long series of time, has come down to us, as if handed down from father to sons. As this great Dionysius, at the time when the Savior was afflicted with the passion, when the earth was shaken and the sun did not en-

endure to see the Creator of all things fastened in the flesh to the gibbet, and having become subject to death, He who is by divine nature impassible and incorruptible, he was struck with great amazement at the paradox, and, transcending human knowledge, he pondered what had come to pass. "The unknown God," he said, "suffers in the flesh, for whose sake the whole universe has been plunged into darkness and shaken." And immediately, at that very time when this universal prodigy had taken place, he recorded it and kept it for himself, awaiting what would be heralded from then on. Moreover, he himself mentions this most terrifying solar eclipse in his Epistle to Polycarp. ^B

Furthermore, it is better to grace the discourse with the very elegant words of him who excelled all in eloquence and a certain divine faculty of speech, just as a royal crown is adorned with the most precious and clear stones. For since Apollophanes, a man who was a philosopher and a Gentile in religion, pursued with hatred and taunted with reproaches this most blessed, magnanimous, and admirable man, with whom he was tied by necessity and kinship—as if he were supposedly a very dear companion and kinsman, yet one who loathed ancestral rites and preferred, practiced, cherished, and embraced the faith of the Christians, standing against fellow Gentiles most forcefully for it as its rampart, and using the arguments of the Greeks against the Greeks themselves—Dionysius, having determined to overturn this reproach and accusation, wrote these things to Polycarp, who flourished with many fruits of both piety and virtue, and before whom that sophist had cast his insults: "But you say that the sophist Apollophanes rails against me and calls me a parricide, as one who does not rightly use the sayings of the Greeks against the Greeks themselves. ^C And yet, it were more truthful for us to say to him that the Greeks do not rightly use divine things for divine purposes, since they attempt to cast out divine worship through the wisdom of God. And I do not speak of the opinion of the multitude, which rests sluggishly and passionately in the fables of the poets, but even Apollophanes himself does not use divine things rightly for divine purposes; for by the knowledge of existents, which is well called philosophy by him, and which the divine Paul called the wisdom of God, true philosophers ought to be led to the Author both of the things themselves and of their knowledge. And lest I refute the opinion of others or his own contrary to my purpose, it was necessary for Apollophanes, being a wise man, to understand that nothing of the celestial order and motion could ever be changed otherwise, unless this change of things were performed by Him who is the guardian and author of nature itself, and who (as the divine word holds) makes and transmutes all things. Why, then, does he not reverence Him whom we have known to be the God of all things, and why does he not admire Him for His ineffable power by which all things were created? Since the sun and the moon, together with the entire revolution of the heavens, were commanded to stand unbelievably by His power from their immovable state, and all things remain at the measure of the whole day in the same signs." ^D And a little later: "But say to him: What do you say regarding the eclipse that occurred during the saving cross? For both of us, then, at Heliopolis, being present together"

saw the moon miraculously encroaching upon the sun (for it was not the time of conjunction), and again we watched it stand ^A over against the sun’s diameter with miraculous opposition from the ninth hour until the evening. Call another thing to his memory, for he knows that we also saw the encroachment itself starting from the East, reaching as far as the edge of the solar disk, and then retracing its path. And again, the encroachment and the restoration did not happen from the same side, but occurred from the opposite side across the diameter. Such are the supernatural events of that time, possible only to Christ, the source of all, who does great and marvelous things that cannot be numbered. Tell him these things, Polycarp, if you are permitted, and if it is possible, let Apollophanes refute them—and refute me, who was there with you at that time, and saw all these things with you, and scrutinized them all, and gathered them together."

When Paul therefore had come forward into the midst of the Areopagus ^B and had spoken with complete boldness: "Men of Athens, in everything I see that you are more religious; for passing through and observing your objects of worship, I found also an altar on which was inscribed: To an Unknown God. What therefore you worship without knowing, this I announce to you." And as Paul continued through his entire divine discourse, immediately this most admirable man, as though he had received an utterance proclaimed from heaven, became his inseparable follower. He renounced entirely all Hellenic rites and customs, and loathed every kind of demonic error. He embraced the heavenly discipline, was initiated and instructed in the elements of right doctrine ^C and evangelical teaching, learned the blameless faith, and approached the regenerating fountain of life-giving baptism; he put off the old corrupt man, clothed himself with Christ Himself, the Author of life, and was recreated. Instead of a corrupted slave and a son of corruptible flesh, he became a son of the uncreated, incorruptible, all-causing and all-working consubstantial and sovereign Trinity, was made incorruptible, received the remission of his debts, was clothed in the most radiant symbols of freedom, adoption, and sovereign lordship, was judged worthy to be numbered among the perfect, was armored with the weapons of light, and was initiated into the most perfect ^D mysteries of the highest wisdom. From this point he proceeds already to the cultivation of the vineyard, begins the work of the evangelical commandments, enters upon the life that mimics the angels, and resorts to Hierotheos, the God-inspired teacher (of whom he makes mention even in his own theological writings with the highest praise), and by him is trained in walking according to God.

He advances to the contests of temperance and exercise, devotes all his care to preserving that gift, and strives to bring forth fruits worthy of the generous Bestower of gifts, befitting the goodness of the Principle of all good. He struggles against the adversary of our life and salvation.

For he is instructed how, after that immersion in the streams of the Jordan—which cleansed the ^A Adamic sin and purified that mortal nature which He dispensed to us—He Himself was cleansed, though He needed no cleansing; He, the Author and Provider of all things, the only-begotten Son of God and Word of God, who is without beginning, co-eternal, and consubstantial with the Father; who is the unchanged Image of the paternal essence, and the Splendor of His glory. He who fashioned man according to His own image and likeness did not overlook him when he—having been seduced by the snares of the enemy, the prince of evil, and by the woman’s importunity—transgressed the Lord’s command, was polluted by sin, and fell toward destruction. But, by the Father’s good pleasure and the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, out of the ^B unfathomable ocean of His love for mankind, He descended from the paternal bosom—whence, however, He did not depart, for He fills all things and is circumscribed by nothing; since the divine descent is not to be understood as a change of place. Away with that thought! For how could He who is bodiless, limitless, and incomprehensible change place? Rather, it is understood in a manner befitting God. For the divine glory is, by dispensation, emptied for a brief time, that He might fill me with His divinity, and that I might be made god by grace. He entered the virginal womb of the Davidic maiden, the all-pure and ever-virgin girl, who remained forever untouched by marriage and entirely innocent, as into a field of seed. There, he fashioned flesh from her blood, animated it with a rational and intellectual soul, united it to Himself, and, having been born of her, appeared as God made flesh: double, yet He who was single; in two perfect natural wills and operations; in all things, save sin, mortal like us; yet remaining far removed from any change or confusion. And even after the assumption of flesh, He remained one and the same Son, and one substance. He, who transcends all movement of time and is the Creator of all ages, was made under time. He accepted the growth of the body, and He who is most perfect, and superior to all perfection, reached man’s estate. ^C And as soon as He emerged baptized from the laver, He began the way against the man-killing apostate; He overturned the three-headed engine of his temptations, and overthrew the arrogant and boastfully swelling tyrant. He rendered vain his varied and manifold kind of conflict, made him easy to capture, and showed us the method by which we might resist him in the sharp struggle, imparting to us the occasions of fortitude, which we might use to overcome him.

Therefore, according to the example of a life most excellently ordered, ^D this noble athlete Dionysius composed and fashioned his own life; having sprung from the source of the Light of the Author of life, and armed with the grace sought from thence, and anointed with the divine chrism—not otherwise than as wrestlers who rise up in the gymnasia against a hostile phalanx—he immediately sets himself against the most hostile robber, the besieger of the path that leads to heaven, and the treacherous warrior. He casts away every worldly anxiety, and, wholly given over to divine intention toward God

^A he becomes a lover and a combatant. Intent in assiduous prayers day and night, he spends the whole night without sleep. He tames the flesh with fasts and subjects the worse part to the better—that is, the dust to the mind—and he crushes earthy density, which is accustomed to stand against the senses like a dark mist before the rays of the sun. Hence he is raised to the height of contemplation and dwells gladly in thoughts about God, removing the divine image of the soul from every earthly consideration, and its intellectual eye flies up completely to the brilliance which shines from thence; he delights with an immediate soul in the apostolic teachings, and makes every new and old divine scripture his own breath and food, through the advantages of practical and theoretical virtue. Having been made manifest to the most piercing eyes of the blessed Paul and judged worthy of the degree of the divine priesthood, he is chosen by him as the first bishop of Athens and is proclaimed father of his own fatherland; the first fruits of rational matters are entrusted to him, and the people who had believed there are entrusted to him. For it was fitting that the city which had brought him forth, and nourished him, and educated him should be the first of all to be illuminated by its own offspring, and foster-child, and pupil—the first of those who were born from it spiritually to Christ, the author of salvation, and who clearly holds the primacy in all things according to life and reason—and to be guided by the pastoral leadership of a son who is the best of all, as he illuminates its steps toward God, leads it to life-saving pastures, settles it in a place of green, level, and unadulterated doctrine, and fosters it by the water of repose, which is truly the blessed inheritance.

^B O the good fortune of the God-chosen metropolis of the Athenians, as it is thrice-blessed! How truly thrice-happy is the city that has borne and obtained such a shepherd, leader, and teacher, just as the Israelite people once did with Moses! For indeed, another Moses has been revealed, who, through the countless, most timely, and most fiery shafts of his sacred dogmas and teachings, has shot down Egypt—I mean the dark, polytheistic, and idolatrous error—not with ten plagues. And the intelligible Pharaoh, with his destructive powers—the heretical nonsense full of weeds which springs up from the fraud of the devil himself—he has drowned in the deepest, most elegant, and all-wise depths of his divine knowledge and eloquence. ^C But he has led the chosen people of Christ, fugitive from the tyranny of Belial and from superstitious worship, as they tread upon the sea of the raging, attacking, and varied enemies, guided by the grace which shines upon him like a pillar of light, and guarded by the shadow of the protection of the All-Holy Spirit. He has safely brought them to the calm harbor of the blameless faith, and, having completely surpassed human things, he has set his feet upon the topmost, high lookout of the mountain of virtues, those feet which are beautiful as they announce peace, having entered the divine darkness.

^A And, having held converse with God, and having received the tablets of the divine manifestation and legislation, and having defeated the God-opposing Amalek with his hands lifted up in the form of a cross, he heals those who had been bitten by the vipers, those who had been tripped by the stratagems of the demons, and those who had been nefariously captured by their arrows, by means of the flesh of the Word who hung upon the wood and suffered death in the flesh, and who destroyed the opposing powers—the Word who is rightly worshipped, adored, and proclaimed by him in the Spirit.

And as another Joshua, he cleaves the Jordan and leads over the chosen people, who walk on foot with dry steps, carrying the most venerable and most holy ark, which, like that ancient one, contains God; and he lays low the bulwarks of the detestable men of Jericho—who are understood as those who are strangers, and of the mob of conspiring heretics—by his many cycles and varied struggles for the sake of piety; and as those fortresses were to be overthrown by the sounding of the divine trumpets, so he, by the sound of his heraldic trumpets, strikes down and destroys them. Holding forth the sun-like and illuminating Word and the light-bearing, wise governance provided to him from heaven, he opposes the incursion of ravenous wolves—that is, the groups of false teachers who mangle the rational flock—and he dispenses the eternal inheritance which is in the heavenly Jerusalem to those who are to be saved.

And as that one [Joshua] caused the sun and moon to stand still to aid the preserved divine people in driving the enemies from the land of promise, and hurried to divide the possession promised to him, ^B and as another David slung a stone at the one who boasted vainly against the divine host and insulted its defender, and having struck the avenger with a stone, won a most celebrated victory over the adversaries and was celebrated with myriad acclamations of triumph—for he [our saint], having behaved manfully, leaning with faith, hope, and confidence upon Christ, has, with a fortitude harder than stone, laid low that powerful destroyer who acted in the midst of the cruel tyrants; and having borne away a crown of victory, he is ceaselessly honored with myriad-fold hymns and panegyrics.

And as another Ezekiel, a seer and interpreter of most mystical divine visions, he describes the varieties of divine manifestations and the meaning of the figures they contain, and through sensible images he leads our mind, by most subtle divine initiations, to the speculation of those things which are discerned by the mind and intellect. ^C But what need have I to compare such a sacred and admirable herald to those who only shadow forth the light? It is better to compare him rather to those whom Christ, the Light Himself, deigned to shine upon, to dwell with, and to have communion with.

He is to be compared to that great and foremost of all, Peter, to whom the unborn and beginningless Father revealed the eternal and everlasting generation of the Son, which cannot be comprehended or defined by any mind or reason (since He is eternal with the Father, and without beginning); upon whom, as upon a rock and an unshakable foundation of faith, Christ—the true Rock of life, and the creator and sustainer of all things ^D that exist,

^A has built His own Church, and whom He declared to be the key-bearer and the heir of the heavenly habitation and inheritance, granting unto him the divine authority to bind and to loose the chains of sins. And it is he who illuminated royal Rome with those miracles, which flowed most abundantly from Christ, and transformed the obscurity of the West into a most radiant splendor.

Or, one might more appropriately compare him to the Son of Thunder, who thundered into the world things divine and supernatural—inaccessible to all human ears and minds, and incomprehensible even to the celestial essences—because he had reclined upon the breast of true and subsistent Wisdom, and had drawn most clear streams of theology from the blessed and ever-flowing treasuries of His hidden, mystical, and divine knowledge.

Or, ^B it would be more fitting to compare him to Paul, his own illuminator and minister of sacrifices, who transcended the vaults of the heavens and beheld things unseen by mortals, and heard the most secret words which are not lawful to utter. Who walked in paradise, our ancient fatherland, and recorded the blessedness that is there, and the way of life from which our first parents were banished on account of their own rashness and the transgression of the divine command. He, like a bird, traversed the entire world and captured the wild Gentiles from infidelity unto faith.

For, in that he imitated the ardor of the divine zeal of these men, and the sincerity of their love, and the gentleness of their resolve, and their compassion for their neighbors, and the renown of their modesty, and the brightness of their courage and boldness of speech—and likewise in that he refashioned his own entire life to the godly image of each of them—he worthily received the apostolic grace from the Lord, ^C as well as the power of signs, prophetic illumination, and an ocean of theology.

For he set the wisdom gathered by him from Hellenic learning as a handmaid to celestial discipline; and, like a wise bee, he consecrated the choicest blossoms of profane learning to the divine and heavenly theology. And, being filled with inspiration from the supreme fountain of divine light, he spoke, composed theology, and wrote works that astonish every mind. For, rising up in his reasoning from the contemplation of visible things to the consideration of things invisible, and having surveyed the threefold assemblies of the most radiant celestial orders, ^D and having most beautifully described the three most holy angelic hierarchies in each—as if he were some super-celestial and heavenly angel, and having been co-opted into the class of those who are without bodies, and having obtained a rank among them and a holy prefecture—he religiously lifts the brightness of his soul toward the throne of the super-deific Godhead. And with lips purified by the divine and most cleansing coal, he theologizes the one, indivisible, and uncreated Godhead in the Trinity, one Lordship that created, provided for, and sustains all things, one essence, one authority, and kingdom, and power, and one will and operation, and the three in the unity of hypostases

^A of the same substance, coeternal, and all without beginning, divided in number and in unchangeable and immovable properties, though otherwise essentially united without confusion, and each considered with its own property, yet not separated by place, nor by restriction, nor by any circumscription whatsoever (for they are incorporeal and cannot be circumscribed); away with that! But he declares them divinely distinct only by relations, in so far as it is permitted to conceive of their threefold enumeration without confusion and collision, and worships them with one cult and adoration. He proposes for himself the worship of one God, one Lord, who is adored and worshiped in three hypostases, while the Son and the Holy Spirit are referred to one principle and cause. And ^B that the Son was indeed begotten before all ages from the Father alone, or rather from His substance, and alone, and singly, without body, without passion, and without time. Again, that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone, and went forth through the Son, and manifested himself to men, teaching a monarchy, not one which a single person circumscribes (for to posit one as being at variance with itself is to posit many), but one which the equal honor of nature, the same harmony of counsel, the same movement, and the concurrence toward one from himself constitute.

But I, while I attempt to display the most sublime wisdom of this great theologian with the humble turns of our own insignificance, may well seem like one who wishes to ^C drain the abyss with a small cup. For there exists a book full of divine splendor, which emits rays of heavenly words brighter than solar light, by which it dispels the darkness of the "falsely named knowledge," by which the soul is slain, and at the same time safely manifests and explains right and divine dogmas. For not only did it tear out by the root the trifles and prodigious falsehoods, which were oversown from the seed of tares in the times of the apostles, full of heresy, but it also fundamentally removed all impious blasphemies and ravings that had crept in afterwards against the holy Trinity of equal power, and against the Word of God made man, namely Christ our Savior, and those which had crept in against the fullness of the Christian name, and against the dedication and adoration of holy and venerable images in the sacred Churches and the apostolic sees throughout the whole world. For God clearly, by the double-edged ^D tongue of this man, sharper than any sword, tore out and cut away from afar any poison, and corrupted the germ of heretical seeds. Furthermore, it confirmed and stabilized the truth of the evangelical and apostolic preachings and traditions. Therefore, that his illustrious and insuperable elocution of the most brilliant divine preaching might be demonstrated, his words must be recited, which he used while speaking of the divinity which is contained in three persons, namely the one Trinity, and concerning the only-begotten Son of God through the manifestation which occurred to men on account of His birth from the Virgin. For in the explanation of the divine Names he says: «In almost every divine ser-

^Amonic discourse we see the supreme Divinity holily celebrated, as a monad and unity, on account of the simplicity and unity of His transcendent nature, which is devoid of partition, from which we are gathered into one as if by a unifying power, and our own natures, which are subject to mutation and partition, are folded together in a manner above the world (a thing which exceeds human usage) and are collected into a God-like monad and an imitation of the divine union; and as a Trinity, on account of the manifestation of the three-personed fecundity of His transcendent fruitfulness, from which every paternity in heaven and on earth is and is named; and further, as the Cause of all things, since all things were brought into being for the sake of His own essence-making goodness; and as wise and beautiful, because all existing things, while preserving the incorruptible properties of their own nature, are full of all divine harmony and sacred decorum.

«As for His being a lover of mankind, we commend it in a wondrous manner, because in one of His persons He truly and thoroughly joined our nature, calling back to Himself and attaching to Himself human weakness, from which the simple Jesus is ineffably composed, and He who is everlasting took on the increase of time and became within our own nature, He who transcends every nature of any order whatsoever (which surpasses human custom), yet with no mutation or confusion of His own nature having occurred.» And consistent with these things are the points which he further writes to Gaius concerning the incarnation of the Lord: «How, you ask, is Jesus, who transcends all things, essentially joined to all men? For He is not spoken of in this place as man in the way that He is the Creator of men, but as He who is Him^Bself, in His whole essence, truly man. We, however, do not define Jesus in a human way; for He is neither man only, nor is He only a transcendent man, but He is truly man, the One who is in an outstanding way a lover of mankind, being above men, and yet alongside men, from the substance of men, He who as the Transcendent was made essentialized. And He is nonetheless full of transcendence, He who is always transcendent; indeed, by the abundance of this, even when He truly came into essence, He was essentialized above essence, and He performed the works of man above man; and the Virgin, giving birth in a manner above nature, makes this manifest, as does the unstable water, which supported the weight of material and earthly feet, and did not yield, but stood firm by a power above nature. But who could recount the other countless things through which one who sees divinely will know what is above the mind, and that the things affirmed concerning the love of Jesus for mankind possess the power of a transcendent negation? And to speak briefly, He was not man—not as if He were not man, but as having become man from men yet beyond and above man, and henceforth performing divine acts not as God, nor human acts as man, but as God having become man, He has bestowed upon us a new and God-man-like manner of acting.»

In the treatise ^C on the sacred Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, the in-

- ^A terpreter, explaining the meditation on the divine consecration of the ointment, says: «Therefore, the most holy order of divine substances did not ignore that Jesus, being the greatest God, descended from heaven in order to be sanctified; but knowing that He, because of His divine and ineffable benevolence, holily descended to human nature, and beholding Him, in a human manner, being sanctified by the Father and by Himself and by the holy Spirit, it recognizes Him as its own principle, perceiving in those things which, by His essence, are immutable, His divine authority.» Wherefore, the tradition of the sacred signs places the seraphim around the holy and divine ointment, while it recognizes and describes Christ as being truly and utterly immutable in our own human nature. ^B O most holy lips that have uttered such things! How truly the grace of the gifts of the holy Spirit, from whom the gifts flow to those who are cleansed in both soul and body, has been poured out upon them—gifts which this most holy pontiff attained! A tongue most necessary for the explanation of divine matters and the revealing of sacred things, which has rendered these hidden and arcane mysteries most plain to us! Verily (as the divine Scripture has it) it has been called the pen of a scribe who writes swiftly. O most bright mind, which has been taught and divinely illumined with such thoughts, which surpass the sense and speech of all! For what mind, seeing most acutely and divinely, would not despise the entire hostile host of the heretics, having laid it prostrate and consumed it, as if it were a multitude among the most troublesome cries of the wounded, ^C stained with blood and dust? These things, indeed, and these very few from the most beautiful gardens of his divine doctrine, have been plucked by us like flowers, so that I might praise the excellence of his most celestial theology, and of his incomparable and most clear divine assertion concerning the true and incomprehensible faith. Furthermore, with what praises could I worthily adorn the wisdom and knowledge which he used in governing and in feeding the flock entrusted to him? For from the moment the pilot sat in the stern and took hold of the rudder, he vigilantly explored the onsets of the winds from every side, and he avoided the tempests that were attacking—at a distance indeed, and often even when they were very close—and he rendered the passengers safe, turned aside the incursions of the whirlwind, lowered the sails with the ropes, and slackened them. ^D But at the favorable winds, he hoists them; and again, as if opening them opportunely, he steers the ship with the tiller and happily completes the navigation, with the keel sounding in the waves and the wind blowing favorably onto the stern. But if a stormy tempest should arise anywhere, by a certain singular art he places the vessel above the waves and keeps it unharmed. And if at any time the winds cease to blow and a deep calm has allayed the entire storm, he does not even then give himself to rest or sleep, but commands the rowers to urge the ship on with oars, and exhorts them to be vigilant at all times, so that once the voyagers have escaped the dangers, they may, with their cargo, happily enter the port upon the completion of the voyage. Not otherwise

^A does a goatherd ward off pernicious and encroaching wild beasts with a spear, a sling, and a shepherd’s crook, and should they attempt to make incursions in the dead of the night, he terrifies them with torches and fiery darts; while he guards the sheep by wandering everywhere, moving them away from harmful pastures and leading them to useful and most pleasant ones. Whatever is strong and healthy he keeps unharmed, while that which has fallen, or is sickly, or broken, or wounded, he sets upright, binds, anoints, and heals. Often, too, he snatches away what has been seized from the claws and mouths of predatory beasts while it is still breathing and palpitating, and, reviving it, restores it as if from death to life. ^B In the same manner, this most wise captain, having undertaken to steer the newly constructed vessel of the Church amidst a sea of waves rising up from all sides, and having been entrusted with the oversight of a rational, newborn flock, at a time when idol-mania was strongly prevailing, and when the tyrant, as well as the world’s vain wise men and rhetoricians, were raging more savagely than wild beasts against those who were transitioning from the shadowy observance of the Jewish law or from Hellenic impiety to the holy faith in Christ—this most praiseworthy shepherd and noble pastor of Christ proved himself truly worthy of the apostolic presidency. He watched over the God-called people with a caring, watchful, and courageous spirit, and he turned aside the rage of those who were openly alienated from the faith and opposed to the divine preaching, through the intensity of his purest and boldest prayers, and through the stretching forth of his holy hands to God, ^C who is able to break that ferocity, and through earnest supplications.

He made transparent to all the mischief and treachery of those who pretexed friendship but were in reality no better than the worst enemies, clothed on the outside with sheep’s skin but inwardly girded with the disposition of a wolf, scheming in their hearts. As for the propositions, objections, and contradictions of the sophists and rhetoricians who philosophized against the doctrine of the Savior, and who made use of dialectical methods and sophistical and rhetorical skills, he regarded these as a spider’s web that could be easily dissolved and broken, and he most easily tore apart and dissolved every one of their cunning sophistries and problems. ^D Moreover, he remained wakeful against the enemies of the path of salvation, suppressing their roaring by the almighty power of God and our King Christ, and refuted their so-called knowledge. He considered it a matter of great importance to erase from the souls of his disciples the brands of impiety and abomination that had been falsely imprinted upon them beforehand, and to engrave in their place the teachings of piety and super-celestial wisdom. Nor did he neglect to demand the fruits of what he had handed down and taught, as some might suppose; no, indeed, but rather, without deeds, the initiations into the divine words which exist for trees

^A adorned with the fertility of leaves, but suffering from barrenness, he asserted were similar, and he held that faith without works is dead, setting it down that the faithful ought to adorn themselves with the observance of the commandments; and he said that no other sign of sincere and stable faith and love in Christ was more certain than this, warning them to fear the coming, dreadful judgment, in which everyone, according as he has lived or acted, will have to render an account. And he used to say that he who has kept the true faith and lived a life consistent with a Christian man, and who has pleased the incorruptible Judge by good deeds, will receive the everlasting delight of truly blessed goods. But he said that he who has not added the best way of life and the works of faith to his faith, but has defiled this life with wickedness, will pay the just penalties for his own folly, and will be tormented by a most severe and perpetual torture. For he instructed and disciplined all to walk according to the evangelical path, and to live according to the apostolic tradition, dispensing in judgment the portion of food in due season according to the account. For those who were still infants in habit and newly born, he nourished with milk—I mean with simpler and more elementary instructions—but those who were perfect in age and capable of partaking of solid food, inasmuch as they had been well-purified both in body and soul beforehand, he nourished with perfect and secret wisdom, teaching more by the morals which he demonstrated in himself than by speech, having become the best form of virtue for the flock. For the common body of the Church, which consists of many and different nations, and customs, and ways of life, and laws, he himself governed as one who was simple, manifold, and various. Simple, indeed, in uprightness and truth, being free from all craftiness and deceit. Various, moreover, in the art of every right administration and governance, offering to each the suitable care and way of living; and to one of the sick he would wisely and necessarily apply one wholesome medicine, and to another, another. For he urged those who were running well to forget the things that are behind and to reach forward to those that are ahead; and, on the other hand, he goaded the sluggish and slothful to the imitation of those who run well. But if any of the sheep had strayed from the fold and wandered far away, he would track it down, going about the deserts, and recall it with the pipe and pastoral melodies, and would do and suffer everything so that what had wandered might be saved. ^D He held out his hand to those who had turned aside from the right way, and raised up those who were lying on the ground. Moreover, how justly he rebuked those who were delinquent, insolent, and averse to discipline; and how he defended those who were wronged and oppressed by their neighbors; and with what great clemency he treated the delinquent, opening the gates of repentance to all, and—as an imitator of Christ—gladly and joyfully admitting those who returned, while banishing Novatus’s inhumanity and proud arrogance from the sacred walls from the moment he began to preach the word of God; [may] speech [convey] the account of those things which...

^A Demophilus audaciously did, by lightly touching upon the narrative of what he dared to do before his hearers, leaving it to those who will read the things which the most admirable shepherd has written to him to learn the matter more thoroughly. This Demophilus was one of those ministers who had been initiated into the sacred mysteries by the divine founder Dionysius; he originated from the province subject to Athens and had been appointed a minister through his holy and sacred imposition of hands. Now, those who are considered to be in this order are called monks, being designated by this name especially at that time, and they were assigned to stand at the gates of the temple. Therefore, having tyrannically oppressed his own priest, and having leapt into the inner sanctuaries where it was not permitted for him to enter, he pushed him away from the altar and from the place of those who are consecrated, expelling him with insults and outrages ^B as though, forsooth, he were indignant and vexed that the priest, the imitator of Christ, had admitted someone to repent after their sins, whom Demophilus—deeming him to be some impious and wicked man—had kicked away, even though the man, suffused with shame, confessed that he had come for the healing of his evils and was begging to obtain mercy. And having thrust him away entirely, he thought he had accomplished some great thing; wherefore, boasting grandly, he reports to the great shepherd what had been done, to whom the most divine man wrote back that most useful and most wise letter, filled with all virtue and discipline, by which he signified the ineffable compassion of our benevolent Lord Jesus Christ towards us, and especially towards those who repent, and his own God-imitating sympathy; introducing a fearful story, which I shall set before you, O most ardent lovers of hearing the glorious achievements of the most praiseworthy Father. ^C If, he says, you are willing, I shall also make mention of the divine vision of a certain holy man, and do not laugh, for I shall speak the truth. Once when I was in Crete, the holy Carpus gave me hospitality—a man, if any other, most apt for divine speculations on account of his great purity of mind; who, in fact, would not attempt the holy celebrations of the mysteries without first having a holy and favorable vision appear to him during the preliminary prayers. He used to say, then, that he had once been grieved by one of the infidels—the grief being that the man had led someone away from the Church toward impiety—and, while the festival days [of the Hilarian ^D season] were still being celebrated by him, instead of praying well for both as was fitting for a good man, and taking God the Savior as his helper in order to turn the one back and to overcome the other with goodness, and not to cease from admonishing them throughout his whole life, until he brought them to the knowledge of God, so that even those things which were in dispute among them might finally be judged, and those things which had been rashly committed through audacity might be compelled to be amended by lawful justice; he—as this had not happened to him before—I know not how, was then steeped in great hatred and bitterness in his soul, and thus, being in a bad state (for it was evening), he went to sleep; but around the middle of the night (for he was accustomed to be awake at that time by himself for the divine hymns), he arises,

nonetheless, not having taken any sleep—for it was both much, and had been frequently interrupted—without disturbance; he stood for the divine colloquy, but was indignantly saddened and took it molestingly, asserting that it was not just, if impious men, and such as perverted the straight ways of the Lord, should live. And while saying these things, he besought God that by some thunderbolt He might mercilessly and entirely cut off the lives of both. When he had said these things, he related that he immediately seemed to see the house in which he was—first, indeed, moved from the highest summit—being divided in the middle into two parts, and a pyre of great light before him, and this (for the place now seemed to be under the open sky) being brought down from the heavenly space even to him; and heaven itself opened; and on the back of the sky, Jesus, with an innumerable multitude of angels bearing human likeness standing by Him; and those things, indeed, he said he saw from above and wondered at. But having cast his eyes downwards, he said he saw the very ground rent asunder into a certain immense and dark chasm; and those men, indeed, against whom he had prayed evil, to be standing before him near the mouth of that chasm, trembling and miserable, so that there was little lacking but that they seemed, on account of the unsteadiness of their own feet, to be about to be thrown down at any moment. But he saw serpents crawling up under the chasm, and moving around their feet, sometimes indeed curling into a coil and at the same time weighing them down and dragging them; and other times stinging them with their teeth or tails and caressing them, as those who were altogether striving to hurl them into the abyss. There were also certain men in the midst, who besides the serpents were rushing together against the men, disturbing them, and at the same time making an assault and striking them. Moreover, they seemed to be about to fall at any moment, partly indeed against their will, and partly voluntarily, as they were gradually being compelled and simultaneously led on by evil. Here Carpus said that while he was looking at the lower things, he had rejoiced greatly and had neglected the higher things, but had been molested and had taken it grievously that they had not yet fallen, and that he had often busied himself with this matter, and having accomplished nothing, had been on that account affected with indignation and had cursed them. And when he had scarcely at last raised his eyes upwards, he said that he saw again the heaven as he had seen it before, and Jesus, having pitied that which was happening, having risen from the super-celestial throne, and having descended to them, extending a kind hand towards them. And the angels likewise with Him, taking hold of the men one from one side and another from another, supporting them, and Jesus saying to Carpus, his hand already extended: « Strike me now, if you will; for I am ready to suffer again on behalf of men [so that they may be] saved; and this is pleasing to me, provided others of men do not sin. But see if it is well for you to exchange the dwelling in this chasm and with serpents for the companionship of God and of the good and philanthropic angels.» These are the things which I have heard, and I believe them to be true. You have surely marveled at the compassion of the God-worthy high priest for those of his own kind, no less than at the benevolence...

of the most clement and greatest high priest, Christ. ^A Having heard this, you will marvel still more vehemently if you hear of the apostolic struggles, journeys, and celestial gifts by which he became illustrious and shone throughout the whole world. For he was not only the shepherd and teacher of the Athenians, but a teacher of teachers, a shepherd of shepherds, an arbiter of cases, and a lawgiver. Nor was his path limited to the borders of Greece, but extended even unto Illyricum, having closely followed Paul, his leader and the founder of his sacred rites. For since he had received apostolic grace and the power of signs, he traveled everywhere like a bird, acting ^B in an apostolic manner, and preached the Gospel of true life, using apostolic seines and holy nets to catch and capture living men out of the abyss of ignorance, bringing those oppressed by the darkness of error into the light of truth. That indeed he offered teaching instructions and mystical doctrines—as a teacher and another great apostle—to those who had been entrusted with the leadership and teaching of the churches throughout various regions and islands, is clearly declared by those divine and mystical precepts which are read as having been handed down by him to the most holy presiding bishops of the Ephesians, the Smyrnæans, and the Cretans—Timothy, Polycarp, and Titus—whom those very foundations of the most holy Church, I mean the apostles, had appointed as bishops. But that he also completed his apostolic journey and ^C appeared gloriously, divinely honored by wondrous miracles, the following discourse will manifest by way of survey, as it recounts the weighty struggles he most bravely fought, and many other things will provide evidence for this. But first of all [is the event where] that cloud, having snatched him away from the western region, raised him aloft and carried him off through the air, just as it did the supreme inspectors of God and theologian apostles, bringing them suddenly from all parts of the ends of the earth to the most venerable Jerusalem, the common mother of all Christians, ^D and joined them in the lofty citadel of divine mysteries, Sion, the mother of the churches, together with the other disciples of Christ, when the final rites were being performed for the irreproachable body of the Theotokos. Because of the birth of the Son of God, who was born from her and ineffably received the beginning of flesh, and lived familiarly with her, her body was honored with greater honors, being raised aloft by the celestial orders of angels with much pomp. And her shrine, miraculously constructed, was transferred from Sion to Gethsemane by the most holy and divine heads and hands of the apostles, praised and crowned with glory by tongues enlivened by the divine Spirit, fiery and most divine. Hence the most immaculate Virgin, who is more sublime than all celestial powers and reigns over all creation, after her memory was celebrated, was assumed to the more sublime rest of heaven.

One must hear the words of the divine herald himself; for there could be no witness more trustworthy concerning that angelic and most seemly arrival of that choir flying through the air

^A And yet, this ^A has been observed by us most carefully, so that we might not venture at all upon repetition of matters which the divine preceptor himself has clearly distinguished in his own teaching, nor might we re-treat the selfsame oracles he set forth. For when we ourselves—as you know, along with many of our holy brethren—gathered together to behold that body which was the source of our life and which received God, there were present also James, the brother of the Lord, and Peter, the supreme and most venerable pinnacle of the theologians. Then, after the vision, it seemed good that all the sacred hierarchs should, according to each one's ability, celebrate the all-powerful goodness of the divine weakness. Further, after the theologians, everyone (as you know) surpassed the other sacred teachers, being filled with total wonder, carried out of himself by awe, and moved by communion with those things he praised. Therefore, on account of all those things which were heard and seen by the eyes, whether understood or not understood, he was judged to be inspired by the Spirit and a divine master of praise. Why should I recount to you the things which were discoursed upon there by divine reason? For, unless I have utterly forgotten myself, I know that I have often heard from you certain parts of those inspired hymns. Let no one, therefore, dearly beloved, refuse faith to this account when he considers those who were with Cornelius; for they, no differently than those who were with Peter, John, and James, were filled with the fire-shaped grace of the most holy Spirit, spoke in tongues, and received the power to perform miracles. For how could those who were scattered in all directions, and had received a mandate to direct their lodging one here and one there, and to carry out their apostolic duty, have assembled together in so very short a time, had not each one been deemed worthy of a divine vehicle similar to a cloud? And indeed, to all those who in the beginning of the saving preaching walked in the true faith and were illuminated by that very divine light, the kinds of tongues, the gifts of healings, and the operations of various virtues were abundantly distributed by the Spirit, the bestower of heavenly gifts and the fountain of all good, and how much more so to that great Dionysius, who was contemporary with the apostles! But the holy trumpet of his own invincible martyrdom, sounding in due time, exhorts us to enter into and behold his divine struggles, and to turn our speech towards celebrating his glorious deeds.

Nevertheless, before we begin to speak of the progress of his martyrdom, it is necessary for you, ^D kind listeners, to know this: that following the God-filled writings of that divine herald and holy martyr whose praises we have proposed, we have learned that his blessed struggle took place in the last days of the reign of Trajan. For in the fourth chapter of his treatise *On the Divine Names*, where he praises the title of "love," he says: "Now indeed it has seemed to certain of our sacred commentators that the name of 'love' is more divine than that of 'charity.'" For the divine Ignatius also writes: "My love has been crucified." For this saying the God-bearing Ignatius, being about to ^D fight in Rome in his final suffering...

^A in the time of the reign of Trajan, being about to be thrown as food to the lions, wrote to the Romans according to the command of the tyrant Trajan, who around the ninth year of his tyranny had stirred up a persecution against the most pious Christians; as from this it is manifest that, near the end of the persecutor’s tyranny, as we have said before, the sacred interpreter Dionysius had been martyred.

But writing to the son of thunder, the thrice-blessed John—who thundered and theologized most highly and above all mind, both earthly and super-celestial, and who was confined on Patmos by the decree of Domitian, who had reigned after his brother Titus (for both were sons of Vespasian)—who, around the last year of his reign, had been raging against the believers, he says, prophesying (for he had also participated in the prophetic grace): "No misfortune shall deprive us of John’s ray, which illuminates all things, presently indeed obtaining the memory and renewal of your true theology, but a little later (for I will say it, even if it might seem bold) to be joined to you yourselves. I am, however, altogether more worthy of belief, if I speak those things which I have learned from God and which are already known to you: that you shall also be released from your prison on Patmos, and you shall return to the Asian land, and there you shall perform deeds worthy of imitation by the good, and you shall hand them down to those after you." Domitian having therefore died not long after, according to the prediction of the divine Father, who was distinguished by apostolic and prophetic gifts, Nerva, having taken up the kingdom, recalled those who were in exile. At that time also the greatest Evangelist returned to the metropolis of the Ephesians, and the event of the matter confirmed the oracle.

Nerva having departed this life, after having held the reins of the Roman empire for one year, the power devolved to the tyrant Trajan, who, greatly elated by his victory against the Scythians and Thracians and a great number of other nations, thought that he could rule no one unless he also subjected the all-holy system of the Christians to the worship and adoration of demons and abominable idols. He therefore stirred up a most cruel persecution, and drenched all the territory under him with the blood of martyrs, having sent out harshest inquisitors ^B everywhere to force all Christians indiscriminately to sacrifice to idols, or, if they did not obey, to kill them with all kinds of tortures.

The blessed, therefore, and (thrice and more than thrice blessed) Dionysius, having passed through a seventy-year period amid countless reproaches and wars and dangers from those of his own race, and sometimes from those joined in faith and religion, and domestic philosophers—or rather, the unwise—and having been exposed to such multitudes of barbarians and Greeks who were raving in their idol-worship, and to the most savage dispersion of the impious and hostile Hebrews, and having run a course double that which Paul, the great athlete and traveler of the heavens, had run, so far as concerns the length of time, he ^C had, through the signs and works performed by him by the energy of the All-Holy Spirit... ^D

^A reconciled to the faith which is in Christ various peoples; while he carried through the longest and most troublesome courses of the first persecution, which the first of the persecutors, and the worst and most impure of all who have ever reigned, Nero, stirred up against the Christian people, having also taken off the chiefest of Christ’s disciples. The subsequent storms, which the insanity of Domitian brought upon the faithful, he bore bravely, and having appeared approved in all things, he brought back most celebrated glory. Wherefore, swift-winged rumor, running everywhere, sounded his most famous name into the most harsh ears of Trajan, announcing like thunder the apostolic course which he had everywhere run with speed, and his much sweat, and labor, and power, both in words and in deeds, by which the preached, most divine and saving faith was confirmed and extended by signs and miracles wondrously performed by him; while the superstition and idol-worship of the Gentiles were vehemently weakened and dissolved. ^B Disturbed and enraged by these things, the maddened tyrant sent out certain men, savage in mind, who were said to surpass Phalaris and Echetus in ferocity, inhumanity, and cruelty, to the parts of the West, with the burden laid upon them of investigating and pursuing the divine herald; and if they found him yielding to royal decrees, and ready to serve the demons and to sacrifice, they were to adorn him with honors, and bring him to himself surrounded by a crowd of men; but if he did not obey, he was to be punished there by the cutting off of his head.

Therefore the ministers, fulfilling the most cruel commands of the devilish tyrant, like horses goaded by pricks, or hungry beasts excited to the hunt, ran into the Gallic region, ^C and there solicited certain common and vulgar men to search for the most celebrated divine herald. And indeed, when he was shown to the searchers at Paris, a small town which is so called, they hastened there rapidly; and they encountered him dispelling the haze and error and insanity in the worship of idols, both by the preaching of the truth, and by the splendor of divine doctrine, and by the wonders of miracles. For eyes of the blind were restored to sight, ears of the deaf were opened, tongues of the mute were loosened, and the gait ^D of the lame rendered firm, and those bound by various diseases, having implored the aid of the omnipotent Savior, were liberated by his minister of admirable holiness, who worked wonders and brought those placed in the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge and salvation. Meanwhile, the multitude of the faithful was being increased, and temples were being raised to God throughout Gaul and Germany, a most great province; but the number of the superstitious was decreasing, and the shrines of the idols were being razed, and the power and deceit of Belial the enemy were being trampled underfoot and led in triumph. For which reason the wretch, not bearing to see his own power dissolved, [sent] the subjects and ministers

against the holy man, the invader of his power and the manifestation of his dishonor; and they, in a fury, having seized him together with Rusticus and Eleutherius, his most holy disciples and in spirit his own sons (having consecrated the one a priest and the other a minister; for both struggled alongside and ran with their own leader and lamp-bearer, just as Silvanus and Timothy did with Paul, the lamp of the world), and having sat upon the tyrannical tribunal, looking at them with a dragon-like gaze and crying out with a leonine roar, they began to ask, saying: "O wretched old man, are you the one who forbids the worship of our gods, and by magic art, and by the subtlety of speech and juggling tricks, persuades the crowds not to worship them, and opposes our invincible kings, and rejects the power of their decrees? To whom do you attribute yourself, and of what religion are you, and what god do you proclaim?" But he, fearing nothing of their most insolent madness, answered with great courage: ^B "I am the destroyer of your impiety, the overthrower of the filth of idols, and the denouncer of all Hellenic error, established by the power of Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, to whom I have also dedicated myself as a servant, and whom I serve in my spirit—who, before all ages, was begotten of the Father without passion and without time, but at the end of the ages was incarnate and born of the Virgin Mary without seed and corruption, and in all ways, except for sin, became a mortal man such as we are. And through his own cross and death, he brought to naught the power of the devil, mortified death, and descended even to ^C the grim and horrible Hades, and there dissolved the darkness, and by his three-day resurrection from the dead, he shone light upon the world and poured forth life and incorruption. He taught us to worship one God in three persons divided without confusion—that is, in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit—he himself existing as one of the uncreated Trinity, co-eternal and co-beginningless with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and of the same substance. This true God we proclaim; this pure and blameless faith of the Christians we announce; for this we are ready to suffer all things, fearing neither fire, nor sword, nor the rage of wild beasts, nor any form of torture devised by you."

The tyrants, therefore, being astonished at the boldness of the most brave and learned old man, said again to him and his fellow-struggling disciples, breathing out threats and raging: "Are the decrees and commands of our kings and rulers then despised by you, and is the honor and power of our invincible gods held in contempt?" But the divine hierarch, and the leader of the martyr line by his words and deeds, answered again still more boldly: "Let every impious and God-opposing decree of kings and rulers perish, and let the gods who did not make heaven and earth ^D be brought to naught as weak, as wretched, as truly abominable, since their

^B nature is but that of demons, and they are phantasms of a wretched mind and artificial works of human hands. Therefore, may the makers of them, and all who trust in them, become like them: deaf, blind, and senseless. For we acknowledge Christ as the true God of all things, their Creator, Guardian, and the Giver of life; Him alone we worship and proclaim, in Him we repose our hopes, and for Him we are gladly prepared to die, reckoning ourselves as holy victims and sacrifices. Hastening to this slaughter, we greatly rejoice, as we surely believe that we shall rise again and attain a better, more blessed, and everlasting inheritance, and shall be adorned with incorruptible crowns. But as for you, in turn, whoever do not believe in Him, but reject His dignity and His true, eternal, and endless kingdom, and slay His servants, we shall behold you consigned to eternal fire and to incurable and never-ending torments." ^C Upon these words, the most wicked and impious persecutors were disturbed, and filled with wrath and rage, gnashing their teeth. Drawing their swords, they promptly cut off the divine and most holy head of the thrice-blessed herald of God, as he readily extended his neck. After him, they also cut off the heads of his pair of companions, fellow-travelers, and fellow-athletes—no less in their preaching than in their confession—as they, too, were hastening to advance toward the stadium of martyrdom and the crown of completion, readily offering their necks and presenting them to the stroke of the sword, so that they might not be left behind at all by their teacher and holy instructor in this mortal and thorn-producing life, but, as their leader and preceptor, might quickly depart with him to God, the rewarder, so that in the same way they labored together in the contests, they might also receive together, as participants, the same crowns and prizes of their labor. For how could those who were well-instructed from boyhood, and trained in many and various laborious contests, and who burned with the divine love of Christ Himself—for the sake of whom they had learned to spare neither body nor soul, so that they might enjoy Him alone as the true tree of life—not imitate the promptness of their teacher and preceptor in the contest of martyrdom? For just as a most brave ^D commander of an army, who exposes himself first in battle, gives spirit to his fellow soldiers while he commands the battle-cry to be sounded and is the first to encounter the armies of the enemy, so the elder, most experienced in divine contests, who had reached a deep and rich old age, leaping forward first to the most blessed slaughter for Christ, bore away the crowns of victory and prepared his most beloved sons to follow him and to gladly choose the same most blessed death. Who, therefore, that had run the apostolic course for seventy years, and had proclaimed the Savior Christ, and had sown the noble and incorruptible seed of the saving word in many rational fields...

at had run the apostolic course for seventy years, and had proclaimed the Savior Christ, and had sown the noble and incorruptible seed of the saving word in many rational fields, and had reaped a manifold ear of corn, and had stored away in sacred granaries fruits most noble and honorable, could worthily admire? Who could praise, according to his dignity, him who until this time in the course of his life had acquitted himself strenuously according to the evangelical rite, and who, set in the midst of Christ-fighting tyrants and a populace more feral than lions and wolves, had carried off the victory? What tongue would suffice to recount his virtues, his accomplishments, and his struggles—things at which ^A the races of the earth were struck with wonder, the orders of the heavens proclaimed blessed, and Christ, King of all and Distributor of the prizes, accepted; and who, with proclamations of victory and the exchanges of exceedingly bright crowns, crowned him who had accomplished his course and had finished his struggle? O holy and divine head, severed for the sake of Christ, the true Love! O most sacred head, which contained most numerous and greatest divine and ineffable things—things which the world could not contain—which endured numberless and long labors for the divine proclamation! O the man who walked with the heavenly orders, and spoke things that surpass every word and sense! O that most divine soul, which, ^B surrounded by a crown of angels, flew to the heavenly heights, which, as it ascended magnificently to the Lord of glory and Giver of crowns, Jesus, augmented by rewards for its glorious labors, each of the orders of angels praised, and recompensed its struggle with prizes and laudation, as befits angels; which their common praiser composed in a divine and most apt manner; which the heavenly Jerusalem, opening its own gates, received into its bosom; which the Church of the firstborn who are enrolled in the heavens embraced; which the spirits and souls ^C of the just, who were pious and humble in heart, and who had lived in justice and holiness, and in restrained and divine equality of soul in the world, and had boldly professed the faith even unto blood and had undergone martyrdom for it, received into their bosom! In which the chorus of apostles fittingly boasted. In which the gathering of prophets exulted, and holds celebrated conventicles, and rejoices: and the assembly of the prize-bearing martyrs, glad, surrounds and adorns her, flourishing as she is in the blood shed in her own struggles, and wearing, as it were, a royal purple. Most blessed, therefore, is the city to be proclaimed, which has reserved ^D both thy God-crowned and most venerable head and thy precious relics, and [those] of the two fellow-disciples whom thou didst offer to God as immaculate sacrifices and most sweet-smelling incense, O most excellent of divine heralds, of high priests, and of martyrs! And [it is] stained with your holy blood, from which a medicine and fountains ever flow for those who flee to the faith, and for those begging for a cure against troublesome maladies. How truly blessed is the city of Paris, which, while indeed yielding in greatness to the cities of Gaul, yet, in that it has received thee, O most excellent of teachers, as an inheritance, and has acquired as a patron and a watchman a treasure more precious than all the riches of the world, has been called more splendid and more blessed than all! For to her, as to a holy...

^A spiritual treasure, providing delight, not that which swells the bodily mass and sweetens the throat for a short time, and is quickly lost and fades—which the earth and the sea bring forth, and the sacred gulf and the fish-bearing river, deep-flowing, encircling and resounding to those sailing upon it, rivaling the streams of the Nile. You have been set up as a most fortified wall, not composed of shifting or polished chosen stones, nor braced with battlements, towers, and parapets like an iron enclosure, but founded by your own holiness and that of your fellow-combatants, and founded by your benign prayers to God, which draw down fire from heaven, which consume captains of fifty, and centurions, and commanders of a thousand, along with their barbaric armies. You are set forth as a saving harbor, ^B receiving those who are put in from the tempest of this life, and warding off every kind of situational misfortune; an intelligible meadow, like the paradise in Eden, and your most holy precinct is planted upon it, providing through the indwelling grace every consolation to the faithful, and setting forth a table abounding in all manner of spiritual foods, feasting souls, and making them flourish, and providing immortal life. As you therefore stand at the divine and heavenly and intelligible altar in Paris, in the midst of your fellow-crowned ones, propitiating the gentle Jesus for the whole world—the true God, and hierarch, and granter of crowns, and cause and provider of every goodness—whom you loved, whom you preached, through whom, having been beheaded, you have worthily received the crown; look upon, embrace, and bless those who now assemble for this your ^C holy and venerable festival, and who celebrate your most honored memory in a festive manner, and who sing the praises of and honor your most worshipful struggle; and do you, most divine prelate and most illustrious of martyrs, intercede and pray, propitiating the merciful God, that he may deign to remove the heaviness of the violence that surrounds us, and to put an end to the tyranny that grows against us, and to drive away the gloom that overwhelms us; and to grant to the churches tranquility and profound peace, and a state void of disturbance, so that, with peace prevailing, and one symphony of divine dogma and harmony ^D of counsel ruling, the true and supreme shepherd and prince of peace, Christ, may be unanimously glorified by all, to whom is due all glory, and honor, and power, with his Father who lacks beginning, of the same substance, and with his all-holy and good and life-giving Spirit, now and always, and unto the endless ages of ages. Amen.

MARTYRDOM OF THE BLESSED DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

^A After the blessed and most glorious resurrection of our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, and the dissolution of His own true and manly temple by Jewish lawlessness, as He Himself had foretold, just as He was raised from the dead on the third day by His own divine power; and further, after the exaltation and ascension from our own lowliness, which He had assumed for Himself in the flesh, to above every heavenly host and every angelic order, in which He offered Himself to God the Father by His own will; and after the outpouring of His all-holy Spirit upon His holy apostles fifty days after His holy assumption (which was bestowed upon them), by which they received the power to bind and to loose, and to appoint leaders and overseers over His holy churches, just as He had ordained before the world was made; ^B in the eight hundred and eighty-eighth year after the birth of Rome, when Nero Caesar, the fifth from Augustus, had assumed the rule, the blessed apostle Peter, along with the other apostles, having been sent to preach the Gospel to the whole world, after many years of his preaching, having occupied and chosen supreme Rome as the city, received there from God the commission to preach, so that, having become the leader and prince of the holy apostles in the order of the apostolic office, he might be the first in Rome to be a companion and participant in the struggles of those things which Christ had endured. For that city, just as it was involved in great errors, so it needed greater remedies to be set right, so that where the most grievous error was, there also the greatest grace might abound. Then, as it has been said, the tyrant and impious Nero, who hoped to subjugate land and sea to his own tyranny, being driven into a frenzy by the madness of his own cruelty and the violence of his insanity, flared up against the servants of Christ, and in the fourteenth year of his tyrannical reign, condemned the blessed Peter and Paul to an unjust death, ^C through the pouring out [of the blood] of their blessed blood, and through the victory of martyrdom as they deserved, though unwillingly, he [sent them] to the kingdom of hea-

- ^A ven. However, before the blessed Peter was deemed worthy, through the victory of martyrdom, of the communion in the kingdom of heaven, he entrusted to the blessed Clement the authority of the Church, saying: "Even as the power of binding and loosing has been granted to me by my Lord Jesus Christ, so also do I eternally grant and bestow upon you the same power, so that whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in the heavens." He left this full and perfect power as a lot or inheritance for those who would come after, who were perfect and worthy to lead in the Churches. But having said a few things about these matters from the sequence and flow of that apostolic Church of the time, we turn our discourse to the struggles of the blessed Dionysius, so that, as has been said, we may relate a few things about him from the order of the times.

^B After the most glorious ascension of our Lord and God Jesus Christ into the heavens, the blessed Paul, by the consent and gift of the Holy Spirit, returned from the error of unbelief to the way of salvation, so that the faith which he had shortly before opposed, he finally preached in its fullness with praise and glory, and by the Lord's own institution became a chosen vessel among the nations. For then, indeed, preaching the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to nations ignorant of it, he came to Athens, and there also he led this holy man, Dionysius, who had shortly before been entangled in the customs and institutions of the gentiles, to the way of salvation by his own guidance, and by holy baptism—if I may so speak—regenerated and reborn, he confirmed him anew with divine holiness. ^C Then, truly, when by the benefit and grace of the Holy Spirit he plucked out and cut away the thorns and thistles of error from the depth of his heart, he brought forth fruit and a new bud, or shoot, as if in good soil, irrigated by the divine word and fed by the contemplation arising thence. But when the soldiers of Christ, inflamed daily with divine love, were running into all parts, with divine grace supernally going before them, then this blessed Dionysius also, cleaving the sea with the plow of the cross, came from Athens to Rome by heavenly and divine will, as one beloved of God, and guided [by Him]. Having entered and found the blessed Clement, who, as was said above, held the authority of the apostolic see, he was received by him with due honor straightway, as far as strength allowed. ^D And at that time, when the blessed man Dionysius approached the footprints and feet of the blessed Clement and insinuated himself into the apostolic holiness, then he too was declared a master, and honored by Saint Clement in a manner worthy of a master, and carried away from him a dignity and most fitting honor, as one who had obtained grace from God; and meanwhile God, the almighty ruler of all things, further bestowed upon the blessed Dionysius a suitable faculty for sowing the seeds of life, which, for the sake of religion, appeared to all of us. Then also Saint Clement appointed a certain Philip as bishop of Spain, and gave him the power which he himself, the divine Clement, had received from the blessed Peter, saying:

MARTYRIUM, AUCTORE METHODIO.

these words: "Go to the parts of the West, and there preach the Gospel of the kingdom of heaven, and let the power to bind and to loose be yours, so that the Gospel of Christ may be spread abroad by you far and wide, that you may merit to hear from the Lord as a faithful servant, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your Lord.'" ^B The companions of blessed Dionysius were Saturninus, Marcellus, and Lucianus, who were with him, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses the faith of the Christians might be delivered to the regions that were ignorant of it. When these had come together and were making their journey, they arrived at the port of the city of Arles. Then holy Dionysius, having sent Marcellus into Spain to propose the word of life to the Churches of Christ, being himself enkindled with the heat of the Holy Spirit and filled with apostolic power—such as he had received from the Holy Spirit with holy Clement to sow and scatter the divine seeds of the word among the nations—distributed it to all the regions that pertain to the west. Not fearing the hardness and ferocity of the ignorant and barbarous nations that were there, nor deterred by their impious crimes, he relied on the spirit of the blessed prince of the apostles, who had been at Rome and had been given over to punishment by the perfidious, and betook himself to his proclamation. And when, gradually withdrawing from Gaul, he had discovered that the error of that region was burning more fiercely with Gentile customs, then, protected by the divine shield, he proved himself a powerful and true athlete, and cast himself into the contests, so that, being worthy by his profession and perfection, he did not hesitate to become also a martyr. ^C Sending holy Saturninus to the regions of Aquitaine, he himself came with holy Lucianus, and holy Rusticus, and holy Eleutherius to Lutetia of the Parisians. Holy Lucianus, however, adorned with the honor of the presbyterate, was sent to the city of Beauvais, that he likewise might preach the Gospel of truth to the infidel peoples. But holy Dionysius himself remained at Lutetia of the Parisians; which town, although small and exiguous, was nevertheless full of Gentile error and defilement. But it was fertile and situated well and adorned with trees. It was noble, pouring forth wine as if from fountains by means of its vines and grapes, and providing for its own; in which matters the families of the entire city and of those who dwelt around the circuit of the walls applied their study and labor. ^D Moreover, it offered an abundance of fish from the river, as if from the mouth of the sea, bringing them forth in the guise of waves. Nor was the river itself understood to offer small protection to the walls. For it encompassed the breadth of the city with its own breadth, surrounding it with water in the likeness of an island. The servant of God, having, therefore, traveled over this place and being armed with the strength of faith, for God all-powerful, who had everywhere brought him aid and help and had been the companion of his journey, built there a temple to the Lord according to his power, as a very new arrival,

and enlightened ^A with holy baptism the new people instructed in the truth of the Gospel. For a long time, the blessed man day and night instructed the multitude in the disciplines of religion and piety; and the people of Christ were rescued from the jaws of the ancient enemy, whom before the demon had drawn aside and diverted. He himself strove worthily through faith to send them into the heavens. ^B The fame of his holiness thereafter spread far and wide. Therefore, no small multitude of the people who were faithful thought him worthy to have as a bishop. Thus, therefore, after this, he was intent upon the ecclesiastical ranks and the distribution of divine services and offices, and by consecrating approved men, he promoted them as worthy and suitable to that rank. But our Lord Jesus Christ, who did not allow the fame of the most blessed Dionysius—like a lamp placed upon a lampstand—to remain hidden, even in the minds of those who abhorred our religion, applied his light in the form of rays, and willed that such great virtues be performed through him, that he instructed the hearts of hostile and rebellious nations no less than those to whom the Gospel had been announced. Therefore, by his virtues and miracles, they were daily strengthened and added, as in that time when these things were done from the beginning. Then, indeed, the fame of the name of the holy man, as the voice of one crying out, spread far and wide, and was so celebrated that even Domitian, who was the second after Nero to persecute the Christians, ordered him to come to him in his palace. ^C And he burned with such wrath and rabid atrocity that he commanded that wherever he or his own might find any Christian, they should either persuade him to sacrifice to the defiled demons, or, having consigned him to various tortures, deliver him to death by the sword. With these laws, when he had brought the subjected nations to bow to him, a great persecution arose against the servants of Christ, which reached those who were there; for absolutely no indulgence of the present life was granted to those who contended for Christ. For no defense or plea of freedom was available to the holy martyrs. Moreover, all who observed the wickedness and impiety of the edict, which had been prescribed to them by the Caesar, dared not violate it in any part. He sent, besides, a multitude of chosen men, with great shouting and cruelty, to all the regions of the West, ^D who were to seek this holy man, Dionysius, and, if they could, find him, so that he might either be induced by the emperor's edict, words, and threats to obey, or, if he would not, be torn apart by immense torments, or succumb to death by the beheading of his head. This edict of the prince being promulgated, the Gallic populace conceded to receive the tyrants, so that they could penetrate through their borders or neighborhoods. And soon the renowned name of that blessed man was made known to them. Thus, therefore, as it had been prescribed to them, they entered Lutetia of the Parisians with a very swift course, a prepared mind, and a countenance variously changed, and there found this holy man Dionysius with those alien to our religion.

^A They found Dionysius warring against the faithless, and daily calling multitudes of people to the faith of Christ by his teachings; and with him also the blessed man Rusticus the presbyter, and Eleutherius the deacon, whom the blessed man himself had consecrated in their own orders. The cruelty and impiety of the persecutors found them simultaneously, for they indeed were disciples of his doctrine and discipline, and companions in his persecutions. For these holy men could not be separated from the blessed Dionysius, whom divine piety had foreknown would be his co-heirs. The good father, therefore, rejoiced and took delight in his two children who were making progress, because they were worthy sons who could relieve the burden of the Father—which is light to the saints through the Spirit—so that, having laid aside the weight of the flesh, they might be able to fly into the pure, clear air, in whom there was also a certain light implanted. ^B I marvel, however, that an armed multitude could not withstand these unarmed men. Then, finally, the enemy, the author of all evils, observing his own power being dissolved, and that of the Lord being preserved and victorious, and the faith of the people advancing day by day, turned all his art of hostile enmity, which was armed, against them; and he strove to persuade those who believed in the one and true Lord, and who were already filled with the doctrine and discipline of these saints through holy baptism, to profess their belief in him through many torments and tortures. But the holy men, confessors and martyrs, repressing the fury of him and those impious men by their own holy teaching and great virtues, strengthened the disciples; and meeting the wicked, having no regard for any fear of the impious, they endowed the Church of Christ, which was flourishing and growing daily. And when the Church had been sufficiently founded by its own teachers in the word of God, even though it was greatly troubled and, as it were, confounded by a tempest—because the persecutors were then growing in their tyranny—at that time also Germany itself, ^C that great region which was endowed with the cruelty of wild beasts and impiety, when it had submitted its neck to the yoke of Christ with a submissive and contrite heart, and had been tamed, rejoiced, strengthened by the faith of its teachers; and afterward they cast down their idols, which had been built upon their departure, and having found the port of salvation, they rejoiced that the remaining parts of the shipwreck of the idols had perished. Therefore, that part which was taken away by the devil lamented when the victorious Church conquered with a legion of the faithful.

^D And when these things were done in the fury of impiety, the ministers, inflamed with cruelty, seeing one of them, the holy man Dionysius, acting with great heart and faith against the one who was daring to speak, approached him and said: "Art thou that unknown old man who has wiped away the worship and religion of our gods, and resists the invincible princes, and contemns their edicts? Say now, whose worshipper do you call yourself, or what profession of your own power do you declare?" Then, therefore, these thrice-blessed men, Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, filled with the spirit of the three boys walking in the furnace of fire, and with gifts, as if with one

mouth, gave this answer to those who questioned them: ^A “Our servitude is known to be subject to the law of the Christians. Therefore, we loudly proclaim to your ears the one whom we profess. For we confess and preach the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: the Father unbegotten, Jesus begotten of the Father alone, and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father.” To this, the impious persecutors and tyrants asked the blessed ones, saying: “Therefore the edict of our princes is despised and slighted by you, nor is your confession subject to the authority and power of the invincible gods.” But the saints, as stated above, answering with one mind, said: “As we foretold, we truly announce and preach to all the people Christ Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, and against those who dare [to challenge this], we believe, and we profess, and we do not cease to praise with our mouths. In this faith and apostleship of the holy men, having been strengthened, we persevere.” But the impious persecutors and tyrants, having granted a small respite, severed with the sword the heads from the blessed necks, which had been prepared on account of their faith in Christ, restoring the bodies to the earth, while the blessed souls were restored to heaven; yet the holy goodness was declared through the martyrs, whose soul was delivered ^B along with the body. For the severed head of the master was seen by those who were able to see with faith, with the tongue confessing to the Lord, appearing as if it were alive and moving forward. O truly blessed multitude, and betrothed again in grace to our Lord! O holy and laudable fraternity of them, in whom neither the first can be second, nor the third! But professing the glory of the holy Trinity, about a mile from the city, on a small hill, you were worthy of martyrdom, made holy by the holy Trinity.

^C The severed bodies then lay on the summit of the hill without honor, yet fulfilled and integrated by the martyrdom of Christ, just as the prophets foretold concerning future things: *Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.* Since, therefore, the dignity and glory of the martyrs and of the bishop were also declared on account of the salutary faith of the master, which had flourished again: the fruit began to rise, and through him, the glory of those who were together through the victory of their martyrdom was greater. But honoring the martyrdom of Dionysius, the blessed pontiff, we believe that his holy body, devoid of soul, was raised up. For with his own blessed hand he took up his head, severed from his body by the sword of wicked men, and embracing it ^D while hanging it on his arm, he carried it from the summit of the hill for two miles, walking on his feet with a stout heart. A miracle, truly new and to be proclaimed to posterity and celebrated by fame,

^A that a body should run after the fashion of the living without soul or head, and that a dead man should advance with firm footsteps. The impious men, therefore, fearful again lest the people, having gathered and being proven in faith, should place the desirable bodies of Rusticus and Eleutherius in tombs and sepulchers for the sake of their protection and aid, decided, with the counsel of all, to put them into a small boat and cast them into the depth of the river. But God, ^B all-powerful, good, just, and full of mercy, who never neglected His mercy toward the human race, who drowned the army of Pharaoh in the Red Sea and severed the neck of Ahithophel with the noose of a rope, He Himself brought to naught the unstable counsel of these men by His mercy, so that the two bright lamps might not be covered by the depth of the waves, but that the Church of Christ might always have strong defenders.

In the meantime, a noble and distinguished woman named Catula, who was still gripped by pagan fears, ^C desired to be converted to the faith of Christ because of the miracles of the martyrs. She declared the strength of her desire both by resolve and by action, and, being moved with compunction by the mercy of God and by a power from above, she took counsel and humbly invited the persecutors to a feast. When she had brought them many gifts, she prudently shook off the hatred of the wicked counsel they had formed against the martyrs. She revealed the secrets of her heart to the faithful and ordered them to secretly carry off the precious bodies of the martyrs to one of the regions of the city, and, having buried them in the earth in a field which was prepared for sowing in the coming year, on a rock situated in the small plain, to hide them. ^D They performed what was commanded, diligently carrying out what was ordered. O praiseworthy theft, which caused no loss, but rather was profitable!

Then, as is the custom for those who sow their land to look forward to the offspring to bring forth fruit, so that land of the blessed martyrs was filled with and endowed with grace, in order that the faithful farmers might reap a hundredfold fruit, being deemed worthy of salvation and leaving a great treasure of holiness to posterity. The aforementioned highly respectable woman, not forgetting the sanctification of the martyrs, since the anger of the tyrants had now subsided, sought with all diligence a suitable place that ought to guard the bones of the holy martyrs. Having found a large vault, she marked the building, which excellent woman and mother of a family we believe—not without justification, and indeed we believe without fear—became like unto these holy martyrs, because if the Redeemer of all had not also willed her to come to the faith of His own name, her heart would never have brought forth such a counsel. But from this we believe beyond all controversy that she preserved the bones of the blessed martyrs by a prudent counsel, as she was worthy of them and made progress in faith in truth through their prayers. The multitude of Christians, being very numerous, having been converted by the teaching of the blessed martyrs, with all work and study as they were able, with prayers and great desire...

built a church ^A over the blessed bodies of the holy martyrs, and in the holy glory of the holy Trinity, they worthily deposited and interred the bodies, worthy of God, who is all-powerful and who helps daily in good things and in the blessed ones, who shine forth with virtues and signs. For what speech or what tongue could suffice to recount the powers of such great men, when even they themselves cannot grasp their own works by human reasoning? For they grant salvation to the sick, the ability to walk to the lame, light to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the mute; and by driving out the unclean spirits that settle in bodies, they unceasingly bring remedies.

We also, being enriched with a salutary vow and ^B blessed obedience, although we are in the highest degree unworthy, believe that we shall obtain salvation, being helped by their prayers; or, since we are unworthy, let us act so that in their merits help and protection may be established for us. For we have acquired these things neither from our own ways nor from our own foreknowledge, but they have been brought to us from ancient narration. And whatever few things we have heard from certain and firm antiquity—and for a long time—we have committed to writing as best we could. We did not embark upon this exposition by whim, but, as we learned the deeds of great teachers, fearing God and being inflamed by the zeal of charity, we have endeavored to set down many excellent and wondrous deeds of the blessed men for the praise of Christ, ^C and for the glory and commemoration of the martyrs, in these final sacred records; lest, if we had been neglectful and contemptuous, and had kept silent about all these things—parenting them to our ancient enemy who watches for our destruction and ruin and envies us—we should be deprived of their grace and friendship, in the same way as they say that those who [crave] fire and flame consumed the writings which had been written by them. Yet, since our thoughts are watchful by their grace, and proceed from a few writings, those things which have been thought and said may be great. We believe without fear that they, along with many others, endured struggles for the sake of Christ, since even up to these present times, the divine power sees fit to manifest such great and marvelous works through them, so that all the inhabitants and those from abroad are struck with wonder. Therefore, the martyrs of Christ, Dionysius, ^D Rusticus, and Eleutherius, suffered death on the seventh day before the Kalends of October, under the Emperor Domitian, in the regions of Gaul and the city of Paris, while our Lord Jesus Christ reigns, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

On the Martyrdom of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, from the ancient version and that of Perionius, and the paraphrase found in Surius, with notes by the same Peter Lansselius

^A...the outpouring of the Spirit, by which power they [the apostles] received [power] to bind and to loose. Antiq.: To this after the outpouring of the holy Spirit among the apostles, which came to pass after some days through his holy assumption, according to which they accepted the power of binding and loosening. Per.: After his holy Spirit was poured out upon the holy apostles, some days after his holy ascension, one Spirit, they accepted the power of binding and loosening. Verto: After the outpouring of his holy Spirit upon the holy apostles (which was bestowed fifty days after his holy assumption), by which they accepted the power of binding and loosening.

^B ...eight hundred and eighth [year] from the founding of Rome. Per.: In the eight hundred and eighth year after Rome was founded. It ought therefore to have been written *octingentesimo octavo*.

Blessed Peter the apostle together with the rest of the apostles was sent to preach, etc. Per.: Blessed Peter the apostle, with the other apostles as well, was sent to preach. 4. From this it would follow that blessed Peter and the apostles were only sent while Nero was reigning; which is false; for they were sent in the 18th year of Tiberius. 2. Verto: Blessed Peter the apostle along with other apostles was sent to preach, etc. 3. Gr. *apostaleis*, unless you recognize a figurative expression, familiar even to the Latins.

^C ...condemned the unjust death, by the shedding, etc. Per.: He condemned the unjust death by the shedding of their blessed blood: and for, etc. You shall change and strike out: He condemned the unjust death, through the shedding of their blessed blood, and through, etc., premising [it].

1 ...and I give and do [bestow]. Per.: So I also give and bestow upon you the same power in perpetuity. It seems that *aiōniōs* was omitted by the Antiq. not without reason, because it was not found earlier in the previous member. However, it can be retained, because that power will endure in the supreme pontiff until the end of the world, as it becomes manifest from what follows, which were poorly understood by the *Antiq.* interpreter. ^D *This power, completed for those who would be perfect and worthy later, he left as an inheritance to go forth in the churches.* Hanc potestatem absolutam post se, eximiis ac dignis qui in ecclesiis præirent, sortem reliquit [He left this absolute power after him as a lot to those outstanding and worthy who were to preside in the churches]. Per.: He left this power, full and perfect, to his successors who should be perfect and worthy in the churches that the clergy preceded. Verto: He left this power, full and perfect, to his successors who were to preside in the churches, as a lot or inheritance, to those who should be perfect and worthy; as if to say: All bishops and priests enjoy this power as heirs of St. Peter.

(I say) with. For that is an explanation of the preceding *estereōse*, as if to say: He confirmed him in holiness when [he provided] the thorns, etc.

Per.: With divine grace accompanying them from above. Verto: With divine grace preceding them from above. For God prepares the hearts of men in which the evangelical seed might be received.

...the divine will, as one beloved by God, being guided. Antiq.: [Crossing the sea by the plow of the cross], he came from Athens to Rome by divine and heavenly will, as one beloved by God. Juntas omitted *ho dēgoumenos* [being guided] just as Perionius did, having used the same exemplar as the ancient interpreter; yet it seems [the word] should be retained and connected with *hēgapēmenos* [beloved]. I would therefore translate: Cleaving the sea with the plow of the cross, he arrived from Athens at Rome, by divine and heavenly will, as one beloved by God, led along the way. I leave it to be inquired whether St. Dionysius, as was observed in some later saints, entrusted himself to the sea without a ship, protected solely by the sign of the cross: the words intimate such a thing, but none of the authors (so far as I know) made mention of such a great miracle; or rather, whether it is signified that he fixed the cross to the stern: just as Virgil, book X of the Aeneid, asserts that Apollo was placed [there]. Our R. P. Theophilus Bernardinus corroborated that opinion from Statius' *Thebaid*: "The master stands alone at the stern, / The god keeps vigil, inscribed upon the ship that sails."

He himself submitted [himself] as a teacher, etc. Correct Perionius and expunge the Greek text. And he insinuated himself into the apostolic holiness, then was himself also declared a master, and honored by St. Clement in a manner befitting a master, and he received the dignity and honor most fitting, as having obtained grace from God.

...sent to holy Antoninus. Per.: But Saturninus having been sent to the regions of Aquitania. It is certain that the Greek text has been corrupted, because nowhere else is there any mention of a holy Antonius, and the *Antiquus* seems to have read *Antōninos*, when *Satourninos* should have been read, just as it preceded [elsewhere]. Juntas, however, has *Antōninos*.

...of the Parisians came. Antiq. seems to have read *en parrēsia* [boldly], but wrongly, just as again later, *en tē Parisia diemenen*, he was persevering in this trust; for in both instances it is a matter of Paris, and the context necessarily requires some name of a city, as will be clear to the reader, for the city’s location, the richness of the soil, and the activities of the citizens are described.

...planted, supplied a maximum yield of wines to the inhabitants. Per.: Vitibus autem et vineis ut quod fontibus al- tueretur [But with vines and vineyards, as if it were fed by fountains]. Verto: But with vines and vineyards, as if [perfused] by fountains (wine), and supplying its own, it was noble.

...circumjacent. Antiq.: Wherefore most of the men of that place and of the surrounding cities applied themselves to trade and negotiation, and furthermore practiced usury here and there, although [it was] surrounded by a circuit of walls. Per.: In these [circumstances] also it was fortified with an innumerable abundance of the city and of [its] neighbors for the business of money-changers. D. Macarius Gravelinganus read *gōnian* [corner]. But in truth, since Juntas did not read *gōnias* [corners], nor is so plausible a *sequela* woven [to fit], I keep the ancient reading, and I translate: In which [business] both all the families of the city and those who dwelt in the surrounding area practiced their study and labor. Therefore *periteteichismenēs* [having been walled around] ought to be written, and from outside, in the Attic manner, the verb *ēsan* [they were] must be understood, as if to say: They were all [occupied] in cultivating vines and in merchandise.

(66) *By the holy baptism he illuminated [them] there.* ^A Antiq.: *He illuminated [them] by holy baptism, washing [them].* Per.: *Afterward he illuminated [them] there by holy baptism.* The ecclesiastical term should be retained, because *authis* is used thus by Plato, and baptism cannot be repeated. Again, in the following *authis exechuthē*: Antiq.: *It was poured out again.* Per.: *It was immediately spread abroad*; for nowhere is it said to have been known before, and Perion seems to have read *euthus*.

(67) *As Domitianus also.* Per.: *As Domitianus also.*

(68) *Having subjugated the tribes inclined to himself.* ^B Ant.: *After he had subdued the subject [tribes].* Per.: *Since he had subdued the tribes inclined to himself.* Verto: *Since he had subdued the inclined tribes to himself.*

(69) *Or by the command of the one holding authority.* Ant.: *Or by the decree of the prince.* Per.: *By the command of the emperor.* For this word seems to be used by antonomasia, unless it be said to be taken for the power of the one granting it, as in Ecclesiastes.

(70) *If he were unwilling to be lacerated by immense torments.* ^C Antiq.: *If he were unwilling to be lacerated by torments.* Per.: *Or if he were unwilling, he would be killed by immense torments.* Verto: *Or if he were unwilling, he would be torn apart by immense torments*; it should be written entirely, *boulomenon*.

(71) *The crowd of the Gallic [people] joined itself to the tyrants, to traverse the borders of those [places].* ^D Antiq.: *An immense multitude of men was sent to the governors of the Gauls, who, having obtained the means to traverse the neighboring regions, might execute the emperor's commands.* Per.: *The Gallic multitude was led through its own borders, or [to] concede passage to the near tyrants.* Verto: *The multitude was led together to receive the tyrants, so that they might be able to traverse through their own borders; or, the Gallic mob consented to receive the tyrants, so that they might be able to penetrate through their borders.* Either version can be maintained. The former, because those sent by the emperor, being fewer, could not easily penetrate Celtic territory due to the multitude of Christians converted by Saint Dionysius, wherefore the governor of Gaul sent them troops. The latter, because the word *synēchthē* is used thus by Saint Paul, and the mob easily consents when there is no danger to its own resources.

(72) *And immediately the worthy name of that blessed man was made manifest to them.* ^A

(73) *And with a changed countenance.* Antiq.: *Change only of habit.* Per.: *With a varied countenance.* Verto: *Assuming by his countenance now joyful, now severe, now threats, now blandishments.*

(74) *They caused the Church of Christ to be more flourishing every day.* Antiq.: *They rendered the Church of Christ more wealthy.* Per.: *They rendered the Church of Christ flourishing and blessed.* Verto: *They were endowing the Church of Christ as it daily flourished and increased*; as if to say: They were joining more [people] to the Church, espousing them as if by a dowry of their own virtues.

(75) *And again they were casting down their idols, constructed from their outflowing, and finding a port of salvation, they rejoiced that the shipwrecks of the idols had perished.* Antiq.: *But the idols which they had constructed in the crossroads they broke, and rejoicing themselves received into the port of salvation, they threw away all their pagan relics and shipwrecks.* Per.: *They cast down their idols which had been built from their departure, and having found the port of salvation, they rejoiced that the ships of the idols had perished.* Verto: *And afterward they cast down their idols which had been built from their own departure, and having found the port of salvation, they rejoiced that the remaining parts of the shipwreck of the idols had perished.* 1. Antiq. omitted something, and Perion punctuated badly: for the first member treats of the Germans and the apostles. The Germans, after the departure of the apostles who had planted the faith in Germany while in transit, had fallen back into idolatry; but afterward, having been brought back by the return of the holy apostles Dionysius and his companions, as if having attained port, they rejoiced that the remains of the shipwreck of the idols had perished; whence it appears that they still retained something of the faith, but mingled with the worship of idols. 2. *Nauagion* nowhere signifies a ship, but a shipwreck, or parts snatched from a shipwreck, which Cicero calls "planks from a shipwreck." (We favor the sentiment of Lansselius, having first *edasylamen*, having denuded the latter. EDIT. PATROL.)

(76) *Having dared with great heart and faith.* Antiq.: *What man they saw with great spirit in defense of the faith.* Per.: *Not hesitating to perform a deed of great spirit and faith.* Verto: *With great spirit and faith against the one who dared.*

(77) *We dare and we believe.* Per.: *Boldly we believe.* Verto: *Against those who dare and we believe.*

(78) *We shall remain.* Antiq.: *We shall persevere.* Per.: *We shall persevere.* The distinction of Perion is best, for these words are not to be attributed to the martyrs, but to the writer of this martyrdom; for by them he exhorts himself and the readers to persevere in the faith of those men.

(79) *Giving a small respite.* Antiq.: *Giving a brief delay.* Per.: *When they had recovered their spirit a little.* Verto: *When they had granted a small remission or relaxation*; as if to say: After a sharp rebuke, when the persecutors were asking among themselves by what kind of punishment they should slaughter the holy men, the saints rested.

(80) *Sanctity and goodness having been made clearer by death.* Antiq.: *But sanctified goodness was made clearer to the holy martyrs whose victory was joined.* For with the body, etc. Verto: *By holy goodness it was made clear through the martyrs, whose soul was delivered together with the body.* 1. I write *psyche* instead of *nikē*, because the sense will hardly be elicited otherwise, unless you translate, "to whom victory was given by the body"; but then it must be written *meta tō sōmati*, and the locution is not so used; *martyrōn* is instead of *apo tōn martyrōn*. 2. Perion's punctuation is bad, as will be clear to the reader.

(81) *With the Lord joined both in grace and charity.* Verto: *And espoused again to our Lord in grace.* 1. It is from the word *mnōmai*, since it signifies to seek marriage (to court). 2. *Ana* signifies that they had been espoused to God once by baptism, but now again, namely by blood, whence they can be called spouses of blood.

(82) *As from one sign of the city.* Antiq.: *As from one milestone of the city.* Per.: *As if from one sign.* Verto: *About one mile from the city;* the ancients were accustomed to mark single miles with some sign, as here the idol of Mercury is thought to have been. The Greek locution seems to be supplied thus: *hōs sēmeiou henos (diastēmatos) apo tēs poleōs apechontes*.

(83) *Filled with the martyrdom of Christ.* Antiq.: *Honoring the martyrdom of Christ.* Perion: *Having written the complete martyrdom of Christ*; but I retain the ancient and translate, *complete or entire through the martyrdom of Christ.* 1. There seems to be an opposition between *apotmētenta*, truncated, and *peplērōmena*, integral. 2. *Peplērōmena* includes also the fullness of honor, so that it may correspond to the words *apotmētenta* or *atimēta* because afterward it is said *timios*, etc.; for to what end would it be said that the prophets had predicted the death of the saints to be precious, unless by their testimony the bodies of these martyrs were proved to be full of honor? In the words of Perion there seems to be a contradiction.

84 Of the martyrs and the priest. Antiquity has a lacuna here. Perion: The dignity of the martyrs and the bishop. I suspect it should read: of the archpriest, as you have later. Eleutherius was not a priest; therefore, they cannot all be called priests.

85 And that they should seem to have greater glory by their martyrdom, being together with the victors. Perion: And that the opinion of those who were together by the victory of their martyrdom was greater. 1. I write *kai*, although it seems to be *kan*, because if it were *kan*, it should have been written *k’an*. 2. *Ekeino* must be referred to *karpos*, because it precedes. 3. From the words of Perion, I know not what dense shadows arise. 4. [Read] *pleion*, more, or more of glory.

86 A miracle new and ancient, and famous to those who came after. Antiquity: A miracle truly new and ancient, and to be celebrated by the fame of those who came after. Perion: A miracle truly new and ancient, and to be preached to those who came after. 1. *Archaion* here cannot mean ancient, because nothing like it happened elsewhere. 2. Antiquity seems to have read *archaiois*, but the sense is more obscure because of *exakouston*.

87 Which was still held by gentile fear. Perion: Which was greatly addicted to gentile institutions. Verto: Which was greatly seized by gentile fear.

88 Turning then to the faith of Christ through the miracles of the martyrs, she gave herself to desire. Antiquity: Then, having turned to the faith of Christ through the miracles of the martyrs, she gave herself to desire. Perion: Then, having turned to the faith of Christ because of the miracles of the martyrs, she prostituted herself. Surius: Having turned, however, to the faith of Christ through the examples of the martyrs, and desiring to attain the grace of baptism, etc. Verto: Then, because of the miracles of the martyrs, she desired to be converted to the faith of Christ. From a correction of the Greek text it will be clear: read therefore *epistrepsasthai* or *epistrepsai*, so that I may omit the great criticism of Perion's version attributed to S. Catulus. Note, however, that the ancient reading can be preserved because participles are sometimes used for infinitives, and so it seemed to D. Macarius Gravelinganus.

89 Benignly, he took away their perverse counsel against the martyrs. Antiquity: In good faith they announced the wicked counsel which they had conceived against the martyrs. Surius: He dispelled from the memory of those who had undertaken them the actions to be performed. Verto: He prudently shook off the hatred of the wicked counsel which they had conceived against the martyrs. Perionius suggested in the margin that it should be read *exenenken*, and referred to the soldiers, as if they had revealed their counsel to the woman while drinking, namely to drown the holy bodies. Note that this is an allusion to the preceding *prosenege*; as if to say: just as he offered them many gifts, so he took away from them the hatred conceived against the martyrs.

90 In the rock, lying in the small field prepared for sowing, by the future... those carrying away, hiding the bodies covered with earth. Antiquity: In the rock, which was situated next to the small field, which was prepared for the following year's sowing, carrying them away, they hid the bodies covered with earth. Perion: That they might later bury them in the rock which was situated in the sown field. Verto: That they might hide the bodies, covered with earth, in the rock which was situated in the field prepared for the following year's sowing. 91 And having found a great arch. Antiquity: And having found an arch. Perion: Having found an arch. Verto: And having found a large arch.

92 Not without cause do we believe, but without fear, that they turned out not unlike these holy martyrs. Antiquity: Not undeservedly do we believe that without doubt she turned out not unlike these holy martyrs. Perion: Not without desert, nor without fear of the martyrs, do we believe. Verto: Not beyond dignity, but without fear, we believe that she turned out similar to these holy martyrs. Perion says in the margin: it is in the Greek *homoioθenai*, but it does not fit; he should, therefore, have corrected this word or suggested another that would fit. Certainly, my version will emerge clearly from what follows.

93 As being very great. Antiquity: As if it were a city. Verto: Very numerous or very frequent. It is clear from the use of the particle *hos*. Perion seems to have read *polis*. 94 Third number. Antiquity: The third number. Perion: Omitted.

95 Not being strangers to the exposition of these things. Antiquity: Since we were not strangers to the exposition of these things. Perion: Not having left out the exposition as has been said. Verto: Not having entered upon the exposition at will; as if to say: not like turncoats, taking this part or that at will, but as we have drawn it from the writings of the learned, fearing God.

96 To deliver to holy writings in the end. Antiquity: We have tried to write in holy charts. Perion: To give forth in holy letters. These seem to be the words of the abbreviator, by which he signifies that he has annexed this martyrdom after the commentaries of Maximus. Unless, with our R. P. Scondonchus, who is most experienced in these matters, you translate *tē en eschatois* enclosed by incisions on both sides: as the end, to deliver to the monuments of holy letters.

97 Likewise to those who say that their writings were consumed by caustic flame. Antiquity: Likewise, those who say that what was written about them was burned and destroyed by flame and fire. Perion: In the same way, those who say that what was written about them was destroyed by flame and fire. Verto: Just as those who say that what was written by them was destroyed by consuming flame.

The Martyrdom of Blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, Bishop of Athens, and Herald of the Christian Faith among the French-Celts, composed by Dionysius Guerinus, physician.

407 Away, depart, ye crowds of sycophants, Take away your dreams. There is nothing for me to hear, nothing further, To sow gilded songs with deceit: Whether Greek or Latin, let them be as you please, The Muse overcomes me, more sublime. The lyre, unused, shines more holily, Wandering through the hearts of melodies, Dionysius stands, shining with laurel-crowned hair, And with purple robes. As an infant from the twin fountains of breasts He had drawn the milk of wantonness. Then the sophist, cutting through with subtleties, And binding the truth with shackles: Through syllogisms he binds the wise men with snares In the portico of Mars.

^A But by the prodigal hand of God the Thunderer, Paul, the necklace of the Church, had come to Athens, a city flowing with Muses, a city faithful to profane things. With a torrent of tongue he demolished the unholy cult of idols above and below, sowing the utterances of the Word with skill, he turned Dionysius the wise; and he nourished the nobles with the milk of the Holy Spirit, whom no force of eloquence had once been able to divert, being so tenacious. The appearance is different than before. Now they have avoided viperous dogmas amidst winding paths, and have publicly renounced sophistry, having followed the path of Christ.

Light, Paul, to the Gentiles—to you, knowledge now offers grateful hands. The glory of the Athenian is dissipated while you suggest miracles. The fluid is beloved by the stars, where stains of guilt are purified by a new stream, before they have known the true Divinity and fixed it in their marrow. You, O prelate, cleave to the purity of the Apostle, reborn by celestial water; the night flees this man, it shakes off the gloom, already enslaved to the Divinity. The flame grows stronger with a serene heart, and the brow shines with joy; from the deepest root, he extracts the arts of error, torn up at the same time. He searches the high recesses of the lights and the regions of heaven, and he preaches. As a spark shines from dark sulfur, or as the torches of the stars shine through the shadow of the night in broken clouds, so the countenance of the pious prelate; power is added to his mind; and with his words he sows thousands of crowds of citizens. The offspring is born truly, little by little, and there is nothing that further delays it. He seizes the command of the Apostle; following the custom, he is sent to the Franco-Celts. He journeyed with companions to the city of Lutetia, girded by an insular river; then small in walls, but greatly addicted to altars and the mill of the gods. All is well; that which he had long desired has been accomplished. He fulfills his duties to the city. Although the cruelty of princes had been predicted to make the land of martyrs red with gore, nevertheless he brought forth life in Gallic soil, preparing a remedy. He set forth the tares, to pluck them out by the root, that he might commit them to the fires. Laden with years, he irrigates the profane nation lavishly from the fountain of eloquence. You flow into the prophets, you take captive with a divine mind.

^A You, Christ, are Apollo to their hearts. The latex and nectar of your tongue flows; you soften the heart, you nourish the mind. Thus, the prelate, conscious of the Lamb, immediately renders the gathering faithful to God. But the Christian people seek out the thickets, they lie hidden in fear. And gathered as suppliants, they sacrifice by night. In the suburb, they quickly conceal the sacred house of Stephen, first of the martyrs, they frequent its thresholds.

408 As if to a truly flowering [field], wandering bees and streams crowd to new flowers. The love of following in any way inflames Dionysius, the satellite of God.

^B Nor do they depart from the rudiments of the martyr. The field exists more fertile from the late sowing; then, what it delights the stars with, in great harvests. Here the husbandman, instant or knowing plowman, grows rich, filling the threshing floor. Therefore, the prudent farmer, who with interest produces a more fruitful soil. Enough and more than enough the city of Lutetia, cultivated by the hoe of the prelate. Turned to the light of the truth of the renowned one. The flower of God, the fountain of Good. Straightway the bird of the poles vibrated its own heart’s beam into our inner parts; renewing the situation of the high breast,

^C For darkness had closed the eyes. The offspring of the viper, stiff with cruelty, the Germanic Caesar rages; hating the faith, he pours forth poison, which he had already cherished a little more; he mandates decrees to be executed upon the nations, and terrifies the Christians, lest they please the prince-god Jove with incense, and soon they would be destined for the fires. A minister of slaughter existed, Sisinius, an immense plague and trembling. Whose bestial paganism flourished, and arrogance with threats, it vomits the cruel venom of the serpent; and it is not

^D that he may injure the nobles of the city with a savage countenance. As the waves of the sea, boiling, scrape nothing upon the depths of the rocks: the petty king labors in vain. Alas, anger rises, and fury gathers strength, it builds ruin for the martyr. The avenger, grieving, grows hot with stings for God. Nor does he temper his madness. O blindness of mortals, submerged in mud, the executioner, fed on gore, is glad to persecute the statutes of the leader with due form. Hence, boldly, he tracks and seeks the footsteps of the martyr, host by host.

^A Among the crown of citizens, at last he sees One scattering the precepts of God. He does not restrain his hands; but of his own accord he seizes The suppliant bound in chains, Dionysius, burning for God, becomes more joyful, And runs to Sisinius. And he invokes the nod of the supreme Divinity: "If with the sacred chrism You have blessed my vile breast, do now, O guardian of the sky, Let me be colored with my own blood. Dissolve my mind from its dungeons: bless it With everlasting happiness." The martyr stands unmoved before the cruel Tribunal of the barbarian judge. To whom Sisinius speaks with fervent mouth, Swelling with harmful spite: "Is he himself the blast of the hissing Gorgon, A sluggish, powerless old man? Since an illiterate crowd has believed, Rejecting the laws of the gods. I am truly old in age," this one replied, "Yet constant in the flower of my heart. I exchange the old age of a serpent, for beneath the thorns I lay aside my sordid skin. I am reborn anew from a heavenly lineage, A phoenix budding every year. I pity your sacred rites and your times. It is shameful to confess what they say, That you sacrifice men in barbarous ritual And destroy a race by slaughter. Show me, I pray, which images I should adore, Whether Juno’s or Jove’s, So that the pinnacle of the sod may smoke with a lamb, And I may walk about the doorposts with incense. Why, wicked man, do you force me to supplicate A demon, the fountain of evils? You strike the hewn timber with a boar, With which you scrape the stones of the temple. When I discern these things, I take them as the playthings Of a little child, and consider them the empty Songs of toothless, babbling old men. I will not blush if I defend the faith By confessing the greatest king of the ether. Heaven is prepared by blood." The prefect of the city, dripping with the poison of his gall, Had exhausted his heart in listening. ^B His anger boils over, he orders the man to be seized, And his companions nearby. But he, all the more joyful, when he foresees the victors' palm Won through toil, Clears the fountain of the ether with his solace; He sings in symphonic hymn. Just as if he were seeking the cave of Japes more willingly, Contemplating the Thunderer in his soul. The cavern lay hidden (98), teeming with filth, Covered in the shadows of night.

A grave old man enclosed implores with prayer The celestial fires of the Spirit. "Creator of all things, brightness of the glory of the Father, Send down your dews, I pray; And let not the harsh spite of the judge Learn to soften, but let me be oppressed." Soon the darkness of the prison flashes With the lightning of the olympic Christ. Here Dionysius recognizes a power Present, which he had hoped for: The angels, shining in sight on all sides, stand As the reward for such labor. God thus offers him the cup of life, So that the punishment might become lighter. They report that the tyrant, by flattering, Had provoked the bishop with varied gifts. And he praises the noble lineage of the man's descent, And partially his elderly grace. ^C 409 With such encomiums the martyr closes his Ears like an asp, lest the evil Creep deeper into his marrow and pollute his fibers Also with contagion. Or as a fragrant flower turns white, with perfumed smoke Sprinkling the tyrant’s palace. He narrows the orbs of his eyes with miracles: There is no one who does not admire the man. The tyrant was struck: he withered at his words three times. He knows not how to shine amid these perplexities, Uncertain whether to punish him or set him free, And restore him to a free life. What more? He overcomes his anxiety with the lethargy Of the nursling of the slaughter and the cross. Fomentations renewing the putrid wound Give birth to cruelty. What? If bile boils over in his unrestrained heart, And makes a conflagration? At once, the shameless man, with a stern eye, Rouses hot threats; He fixes arrows in his breast, nor is he able To hold back the impulse of his madness. Just as a Bacchante, possessed by God, Bore her foot with uncertain gait. The enemy, weary of contending in the praetorium, Is driven by storms in the meantime. ^D He commands the lictors to scourge him with lashes, And his body to be pricked with darts. They bind him, with arms twisted back, to a post; They are eager to bare his ribs, So that his liver may rattle through the gaps of his wounds, And his blood may palpitate a little. The martyr of God laughed at these mockeries, Rebuking the hands of the torturer: "O you pupils, arm yourselves, I pray, More fully with the cruelty of the prison. With dripping gore, make the skin of my body Multi-colored."

Thereafter, the prince's fury spent, he is consigned To burning coals. The spot is near a bend in the Seine, Beholding the tortures of the guilty. A troop of soldiers closed him in, Their helmets gleaming with armor, And the executioner spreads the hot coals quickly, So that the blessed one’s flesh might grow weak. He lies down himself, joyful, upon the bed of the pyre. He diligently encourages his companions. His face glowed with a beauty more golden than gold. Returning, the law-giver Brought down his countenance from the mount: "These are not," says he, "Torments that you behold; They pass by quickly, racing like a cloud Moving dust through the air." Fervently, he orders the man to be dragged from the pyre, He prepares another kind of cross. To the high summit of the neighboring mountain He is led toward Lutetia. Like a lamb destined for the altars of the temple, Crying out nothing as he is sacrificed, He is compelled to enter the fane of Cyllenius, And there to burn frankincense. Beholding these follies, he mocks And spits upon the images. The martyr preferred to surrender his aged neck To the glorious washing of death. This, Rusticus and his companion Preferred to suffer with a clear voice. While the executioner strikes the old man’s throat with a sword, The trembling flocks look on from afar From the high summit at the teacher. A wondrous thing to posterity, that the head Which they had seen severed from the corpse

^A is seen carried by join-ed hands Toward a little village of miracles. O thrice, nay four times, and more, the happy yoke, This one, crimson with blood! Happy the orchard of the pleasant shore, And happy the vineyard of the hill. A lady, Catulla, flourished, believing in God, Purged by the Holy Spirit: She, touched by the miraculous gifts of the martyrs, Softened the leader, so that he would bury The bodies, anointed with balsam, roses, and wine: Keeping them at home for posterity. Hence that village draws the woman’s name. (It can be called Catulliacus.) ^B Now six centuries or so having passed: The spirits of the buried martyrs Were utterly buried in oblivion, had not The son of King Clothar, Dagobertus, shunning the anger of his terrible father, Seeking the sad caves, Betaken himself to the tomb for safety. Immediately, he was lulled into a dream. And to him sleeping, in shining stoles, The martyrs appeared. And they promise the prince that the father’s threats Can be stilled from heaven, Provided that he gladly honors the ashes lying here With praises forever. The threefold Gallic height, the triple honor By which the dignity of the city excels. No summit on earth shall grow obsolete: Nor shall dust cover with neglect Your glory of praise, O patron; it is a page Inscribed to God forever. Amen.

LIFE OF ST. DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, BISHOP OF ATHENS, APOSTLE TO THE FRANKS AND MARTYR, BY THE REV. FR. PETER HALLOIX, S.J. PRIEST. Compiled and illustrated with his own notes. 410-411 PREFACE.

^A presents for inspection and for thorough understanding Saint Dionysius the Areopagite; a man supremely learned in both sacred and profane disciplines, a man who traveled from Greece into Egypt, from Egypt into Greece, and from thence with great Paul, the chosen vessel, into various regions of the world, and finally for weighty reasons journeyed into Asia, Italy, Gaul, and Spain; a man, I say, who after the highest summits of the Areopagus became a most mild disciple of the Christian law, but from a disciple, an excellent teacher of the world, a signal apostle of the Gauls, a strong and generous martyr of Christ, glorious in his life and equally so after his life for most illustrious deeds and miracles. The sequence of his life, having diligently and as accurately as possible sought out all these things which have seemed to aid in forming it more fully and roundly, and having invoked the aid of God the best and greatest—which he himself taught must be done before the beginning of all things (1)—I shall now undertake.

CHAPTER FIRST.

Lineage, country, age, studies.

Dionysius was born (2) at Athens, a city by far the most famous and noble of all Greece: and this in the year of Christ about the ninth (3-4), the fiftieth of the Emperor Augustus, of parents indeed Gentile in their way of life, but noble in lineage and virtue. As a boy, he learned the liberal arts at home, or in his own city, the parent and mistress of such arts. Well-imbued with these, he went forth as a young man, and, in the reign of Tiberius Nero (5), betook himself to Egypt as to the sole and singular mistress of more sacred and recondite learning, as much to meet the noble philosophers of that region as to draw out whatever new knowledge of hidden things he could, in order to add it to his native instruction as a sacred complement. For we have learned that there, almost all the most excellent minds, after having perceived other disciplines elsewhere, were accustomed to move, as if for the supreme and crowning achievement of their learning, to acquire knowledge of mathematics and celestial things and to learn the sacred mysteries and rituals. Which many authors have recorded of Pythagoras (6), of Thales the Milesian, of Plato, of Eudoxus, and of many other excellent philosophers.

Moreover, in the very time of this Dionysius (7), the dwellings of the priests, that is, of the wise men of Egypt, and the places where Plato, where Eudoxus, and where other illustrious men had lived, were shown at Heliopolis. These priests of Egypt, furthermore, or prophets (for so they called the most wise of their own nation, no differently than the Persians called them Magi, the Assyrians Chaldeans, the Gauls Druids, and the Indians Gymnosophists), it has been written by very learned men (8) that they had drawn the discipline of astrology originally from the patriarch Abraham himself, who had long ago lived there in Heliopolis. Thither, then, Dionysius set out at that age for the sake of such studies; but how long he remained there, no records that I know of reveal; but that he was there when Christ the Savior hung crucified at Jerusalem for the salvation of the whole human race, and that terrifying eclipse of the sun struck terror into the whole earth, is witnessed by the letters of Dionysius himself to Saint Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, ^B which exist even today and are in the hands of the learned. At which time Dionysius was about his twenty-fifth year of age, and was living at Heliopolis (which city of Egypt, as has just been hinted, was held in ancient times to be most famous for its primary habitation of priests) together with Apollophanes the sophist (9), his contemporary.

Therefore, when that eclipse (10) arose, and great wonder seized them both—what the light meant, suddenly, and at an alien time, and contrary to the law of nature hiding itself, and why, clothed in darkness, it portended things in a manner altogether new and unusual (for the sacred Oracles [p] record that it lasted for the very three hours, that is to say, from the sixth until the ninth)—it seemed good to them both to use the astronomical rule of Philip Aridaeus to examine and distinguish more exactly the conjunctions and departures of both luminaries, and to contemplate and attend to that intense and unusual encounter of the sun and moon. And when by observing they had discovered (which was also otherwise well known) that it could not happen in the ordinary course of nature that the sun should suffer a failure of its rays at that time, and they further noticed the moon itself (which would otherwise be accustomed to approach the sun from the western part) now on the contrary coming in from the eastern tract, and as a dark coat of black covering the sun, and with its own gloom obscuring even to the last line of it the author and parent of light, and finally retreating; then Dionysius, with huge wonder, turned to his kinsman and companion: "What is this, he said, O Apollophanes? What do these prodigies mean?" But he, by some divine inspiration: "These are, he said, O good Dionysius, the mutations of divine things (11)." Then indeed it is said that Dionysius himself, moved by a more celestial instinct (and this by tradition, as Michael Syngelus speaks, derived from parents to children), said: "The Unknown in the flesh suffers God (12-13), for whose sake all this universe hath been darkened and shaken." Or certainly, as others record that he brought it forth as briefly as it was elegantly: Ἢ τὸ θεῖον πάσχει, ἢ τῷ πάσχοντι συμπάσχει. "Either God suffers, or He suffers with one who suffers." Finally, the same Dionysius noted most diligently the time, year, day, and hour of this wonder-worthy eclipse and darkness, and decided to observe seriously if perhaps from anywhere the cause or occasion of an unheard-of mutation might be heard of later, whether betrayed by letters or made public by speech. Which finally at Athens, as will soon be said, he obtained from the meeting with the apostle Paul, and from a faithful relation, not without great gain of faith.

But may it be permitted to us here to marvel a little in this so admirable defect of the luminaries and in the contemplation of the beautiful plans of eternal wisdom; may it be permitted also to attend more fixedly to the power and goodness of the Creator and Moderator of all those things, and to love and embrace them: the power and goodness, I say, of that Moderator who, as the Wise Man [q] rightly observed and said: "It reacheth from end to end mightily and ordereth all things sweetly." For how mightily did He then touch the hearts of both Jews and Gentiles, and how sweetly did He dispose the common reason of salvation for both, when, to the Jews who were always asking for signs from heaven, He gave such an illustrious sign from heaven and in heaven, and by the most famous, albeit dark, prodigy, mindful of His own charity, unmindful of His own injury, He aided them in His very death? And when to the Gentiles and those who were afar off, as well as to those who were near, and by name to Dionysius and Apollophanes, He succored them by revealing Himself in a certain manner through those things in which they were most captivated and on which they spent their studies, as if through enticements most apt for attracting them and joining them to Himself, namely by exhibiting extraordinary prodigies in the stars to those devoted to astrology. For both, while they look up to the heavens, while they search the stars, while they see and examine the unusual eclipse of the sun, God moving their hearts, received the first seeds of the new law and Christian faith which would later sprout into fruits in their own times, as will be seen hereafter. Thus, once, those three Magi, intent on inspecting and observing the stars, had set before them things altogether wondrous and unusual, to seek out the new King (of which the star bore the indication) and to defer to Him fitting gifts and honors worthy of such a great birth, uncertain

whether more strongly or more gently, he had drawn them. So then, intending to lead men, as fishermen, to the fishing of souls, and to promote them from the sea and from nets to the helms of the Church, He drew them to Himself using no other word than that of fishing. Nay, he held them fast, once drawn, in no way more pleasing or more sweet, and confirmed them in the faith and knowledge of His power and divinity, than by the wondrous hauls and catches presented during their fishing. But let us return to Dionysius and his capture. ^A Now therefore, returned from Egypt to his fatherland, he began to be all the more in the mouths and eyes of his citizens, because to an innate nobility of nature and character, and to his country’s arts and disciplines, he was bringing back, as it were, a new store of sciences from other nations as well. Thus it was by no means difficult for a noble and generous youth, especially one imbued with excellent arts and morals, to open a path for himself to any honors and magistracies however great. Wherefore, since he had contracted a marriage worthy of his lineage and name (for he was stimulated to this both by an age suitable for it and by a desire for the highest dignity to which he aspired, and which, as customs were then, he hardly hoped for without marriage) and since he had united to himself a most illustrious woman by the name of Damaris (14), he endeavored to observe all the laws of matrimony most precisely, and to conduct himself in the station and rank of life he had assumed in such a way that no obstacle of base conduct would impede his course toward the things he sought. Therefore, among the archons (15) (this is the magistracy of the Nine), his integrity of life led until then having been shown beforehand according to ancestral custom, he was co-opted at Athens. From this magistracy, having been rendered back—as was the custom—by the reckoning of his office, which he had discharged well, when he had duly proven himself innocent and immune from all suspicion of avarice and iniquity in that trial which they call *dokimasia* (16)—that is, probation or censorship—he ascended with an unerring foot to the most sacred Council of the Areopagus (17), which was the highest grade of urban dignity there. And indeed, that he held no last place therein, at the time when Saint Paul, about to render an account of his doctrine, was dragged by the hand into the Areopagus, but rather that he was one of the first judges, or indeed even the prince of the judges, Greek writers clearly assert (18). And Michael the Syngelos, indeed, after the exceptional praise of Athens, which he calls (as indeed it was) the ornament of Greece, the dwelling of philosophers, the gymnasium and school of orators, thus adds concerning Dionysius: “From this city,” he says, “rose this Dionysius, and he was its most illustrious leader, and prince of the judges of the Areopagus: the splendor and magnificence of whose judges, the writers of Attic history, Androtion and Philochorus, have narrated at length. From whom indeed it is permissible to infer the primacy, honor, and glory of the ancestors of Dionysius. For among the proud Athenians, no easy path was open to anyone to such a principate, unless he were recommended by wisdom (19), and prudence, and justice, and fortitude, and temperance, and along with these, an exceptional clarity of lineage.” So much for him. Dionysius was finally of that council and senate which had long ago been established by Solon the legislator as the censor of morals, the guardian of the laws, the prefect of religion and ceremonies, and the judge and arbiter of capital and most serious cases. To this senate, not only from the rest of Greece, but from remote nations also, and indeed from the Romans themselves (20)—though they themselves claimed the preeminent praise of wisdom and gravity—most difficult litigations and more intricate judgments were continually referred. In this, how great Dionysius was—whether you look at his variety of doctrines, or the equity of his law, or finally the innocence of his morals—the same Syngelos clearly teaches, who writes that he was not only the most eloquent among orators, the most acute among philosophers, the most perspicacious among astronomers, and the most esteemed in other arts and disciplines, but also (which is much greater and more glorious) the best among the good, and by far the most just among judges. And such indeed was he, while a pagan and a worshiper of gods; but what he was afterwards, from here we shall begin.

NOTATIONS

as some have said. There, therefore, the dwellings of the priests were shown, and the schools of Plato and Eudoxus. For Eudoxus went up to this place with Plato, and they spent thirteen years there with the priests, as has been stated by some. See in the same place more things pertaining to this. Concerning Plato, St. Augustine says thus, lib. VIII *De civitate Dei*, c. 4: "He traveled as far and as wide as he could. For he was seized by the fame of learning wherever there was a reputation for nobility of knowledge. Therefore, he also learned in Egypt whatever was held and taught there as great." That the Egyptians received from Abraham the patriarch the science of the stars, and many other arts, Alexander Polyhistor testifies, a man of great intellect and much erudition (as Eusebius calls him, lib. IX *De præparat. Evangel.*, cap. 17), a very ancient writer, of whom he says there: ^A *And that Abraham lived with the Egyptian priests at Heliopolis, and imparted to them many things, and also astronomy, and other things which he suggested to them*, etc. Moreover, since Abraham frequently used the company of the priests at Heliopolis, he taught them many things, and also astrology and the rest pertaining to it, he hands down. To his opinion Josephus adds, lib. I *Antiquitatum*, cap. 9, with these words: *He also bestows on them arithmetic and delivers to them matters concerning astronomy. For prior to the coming of Abraham into Egypt, the Egyptians were ignorant of these things.* He also communicated arithmetic and astrology with them. For before the coming of Abraham into Egypt, the Egyptians were rude in these matters.

^B(5) *Concerning Tiberius.* Suidas on Dionysius thus, in the edition of Morell: *According, then, to the beginning of Tiberius Caesar, when he was also in the prime of his age, he departed for Egypt, desiring to associate with the wise men there.* Under the Emperor Tiberius Caesar, when he was already flourishing in age, he set sail for Egypt, desiring to associate with the philosophers who were there. Pachymeres in the *Paraphrasis* of the seventh letter: *For it was the custom then for the Greeks, wherever they were, to travel to Egypt for the sake of learning.*

(6) *That of Pythagoras, etc.* These are many testimonies of the ancients. Brief is that of M. Tullius in the fifth book, *De finibus bonorum et malorum*, at the end: "Why, he says, did Plato travel through Egypt, that he might receive numbers and celestial things from the barbarous priests?" And a little later: "Why did Pythagoras traverse Egypt, and visit the Magi of the Persians? Why did he walk on foot through such regions of barbarians? Why did he cross so many seas? Why did Democritus do these very same things? etc." See Diogenes Laertius in their *Lives*, and Strabo in the books of *Geography* XIV and XVII, and Valerius Maximus lib. VIII, cap. 7, and concerning others, Philostratus in the *Lives of the Sophists*, especially in Aristides, and St. Justin Martyr in the *Cohortatio I ad Græcos*, before the middle, where he says it is certain from Theodore and other historians that Orpheus, Homer, Solon, Pythagoras, Plato, and others had gone to Egypt, and aided by the books of Moses, they thought better of God. See also Clement of Alexandria lib. I *Stromatum*, before the middle, where he says thus among other things: ^C *Thales, being by race a Phoenician, is said to have associated with the prophets of the Egyptians, just as Pythagoras also did with these same ones, for which he was even circumcised, so that by descending into the adyta, he might learn the mystic philosophy of the Egyptians, and associated with the best of the Chaldeans and Magi, and hints at the church now so called as a 'homacoion.'* Thales, moreover, while being of Phoenician race, is also said to have congregated with the prophets of the Egyptians, just as Pythagoras was associated with them; for whom he was even circumcised, so that by entering the adyta he might learn the mystic philosophy of the Egyptians, and lived familiarly with the most excellent of the Chaldeans and Magi, and what is now called the Church, was termed by him *homacoion*. The word *homacoion* signifies a "co-auditorium" (if one may so speak), namely, a place where many come together to hear at once: from *homou* and *akouō*, I hear together.

(7) *For truly even in the time of Dionysius.* For Strabo, who flourished in the same time as Dionysius, that is, under the Emperor Tiberius, writes thus of himself in book XVII of his *Geography*: ^D *And in Heliopolis we saw large houses, in which the priests resided. For they say that this was especially the dwelling place of priests of ancient philosopher men and astronomers.* We saw ample houses in Heliopolis, in which the priests lived. Indeed they say this was once the habitation of priests, men given to philosophy and astronomy. And having inserted a few things: *There were shown the houses of the priests, and of Plato, and Eudoxus, and they resided there with the priests...* [And] *there were shown the dwellings of the priests, and the schools of Plato and Eudoxus.* For Eudoxus went up to this place with Plato, and there they spent thirteen years with the priests, as has been said by some. See in the same place more things pertaining to this. Concerning Plato thus St. Augustine, lib. VIII *De civitate Dei*, c. 4: "He traveled as far and as wide as he could. For he was seized by the fame of learning wherever there was a reputation for nobility of knowledge. Therefore, he also learned in Egypt whatever was held and taught there as great." That the Egyptians received from Abraham the patriarch the science of the stars, and many other arts, Alexander Polyhistor testifies, a man of great intellect and much erudition (as Eusebius calls him, lib. IX *De præparat. Evangel.*, cap. 17), a very ancient writer, of whom he says there: ^A *And that Abraham lived with the Egyptian priests at Heliopolis, and imparted to them many things, and also astronomy, and other things which he suggested to them*, etc. Moreover, since Abraham frequently used the company of the priests at Heliopolis, he taught them many things, and also astrology and the rest pertaining to it, he hands down. To his opinion Josephus adds, lib. I *Antiquitatum*, cap. 9, with these words: *He also bestows on them arithmetic and delivers to them matters concerning astronomy. For prior to the coming of Abraham into Egypt, the Egyptians were ignorant of these things.* He also communicated arithmetic and astrology with them. For before the coming of Abraham into Egypt, the Egyptians were rude in these matters.

(8) Alexander Polyhistor in *Historia Judæorum*; Josephus lib. I *Antiq.*, cap. 9; Eusebius lib. IX *De præparat. Evangel.*, cap. 17; Suidas in *Dionysio*.

(9) *One that was Apollophanes the sophist.* This Apollophanes was the tutor of Polemon of Laodicea; but Polemon of the most eloquent philosopher Aristides, who offered an *Apologeticum* for the Christians to the Emperor Hadrian: concerning which Aristides see Eusebius, lib. IV *Historia*, cap. 3, and Jerome in his *Catalogus*. Concerning Apollophanes thus Suidas in *Dionysio*: ^B *Along with him was that Apollophanes the sophist, whom Polemon of Laodicea heard in Smyrna, the teacher of Aristides.* Along with Dionysius was that Apollophanes the orator, whom Polemon the Laodicean, the master of Aristides, heard in Smyrna. This Apollophanes, therefore, St. Polycarp the bishop of Smyrna had at hand and converted to the faith of Christ. Concerning which conversion there exist two of the epistles of Dionysius; one to St. Polycarp, exhorting him to convert him to the faith; the other to Apollophanes himself, already converted, of congratulation. That Apollophanes was not only an old friend to holy Dionysius, but also a kinsman, these words of Syngelus in his *Encomium* seem to indicate: *To a friend, indeed, who was most beloved and a kinsman.* To an old friend most beloved and kinsman.

(10) *This eclipse having arisen.* The history of this whole eclipse, perceived by them, is collected partly from the two epistles of St. Dionysius, one to St. Polycarp, the other to Apollophanes, and partly from Maximus, Syngelus, and Metaphrastes. To which add Suidas, Nicephorus, Pachymeres, and others. Of the eclipse indeed, or of the darkness spread over the whole world, as far as the substance is concerned, the three evangelists Matthew, Luke, and Mark make mention; but as far as the manner pertains, besides this Dionysius, no one. And in both cases many things most wondrous existed. For as far as the former pertains, first it was made in the full moon, which at other times never happens. For when the defect of the sun happens from the conjunction of the sun with the moon (that which happens in the new moon), then it happened in its maximum disjunction, or in the full moon. Nor did the Jews celebrate the Passover at any other time than in the full moon. Then this eclipse overshadowed the whole earth; which naturally cannot happen, since the moon

is smaller than the sun, and therefore cannot totally conceal it from the whole earth, except by a very great miracle. Thirdly, it lasted for three whole hours, whereas otherwise, due to the contrary conjunction of the sun and moon, it ought to be and is customarily very brief; especially since the solar body is of immense magnitude, while the lunar, by comparison, is very small. For just as we see that if some tiny thing is placed before our eyes, even a very large mountain is hidden from us, but in such a way that if you remove that tiny thing even slightly, you immediately see the same mountain again. Thus it would have happened with the sun, if the moon, placed between our eyes and it, had moved even a little, and no miracle had intervened.

These three miracles are confirmed by the three evangelists; of whom Matthew writes thus, chap. xxvii, v. 45: *And from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land, until the ninth hour.* And Luke, chap. xxiii, v. 44: *And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened.* And Mark, chap. xv, v. 33: *And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole earth until the ninth hour.* They are speaking there of the time of the Passover, in the full moon of March. From which words, although it cannot be necessarily gathered that there was any eclipse properly so called (since God the Almighty could have brought on these darknesses while the sun and moon kept their ordinary course, as we read happened in Egypt in ancient times), yet since most grave authors, even heathens, report that it was a true eclipse, and S. Dionysius himself not only observed it, but with his equal, Apollophanes, a very great philosopher, by employing an astronomical rule, curiously noted its manner and committed it to writing, it is fitting that men who are not obstinate should think the same as they do. Among the heathen authors who mentioned that an eclipse was observed at the time of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, are cited by name Phlegon, a freedman of the Emperor Hadrian, an outstanding historian, whose Greek words from the Chronicle of Eusebius, and from the Alexandrian as well, or as others call it, the Sicilian Fasti, I here set forth. Thus therefore Phlegon, book XIII: ^A *Τῷ δὲ τετάρτῳ ἔτει τῆς σβ' Ὀλυμπιάδος ἐγένετο ἔκλειψις ἡλίου μεγίστη τῶν ἐγνωρισμένων πρότερον, καὶ νὺξ ὥρα ς' τῆς ἡμέρας ἐγένετο, ὥστε καὶ ἀστέρας ἐν οὐρανῷ φανῆναι. Σεισμός τε μέγας κατὰ Βιθυνίαν γενόμενος τὰ πολλὰ Νικαίας κατεστρέψατο*, that is, according to the interpretation of Saint Jerome: "In the fourth year, however, of the two hundred and second Olympiad, a great and excellent eclipse of the sun occurred, the greatest among those which had happened before: the day at the sixth hour was turned into such darkness that stars were seen in the sky; and an earthquake in Bithynia overthrew many houses in the city of Nicaea." Thus Phlegon in Eusebius at the year of the Lord 33. The same Eusebius also, in the same place, writes that he found these things word for word in other commentaries of the heathens: *Ὁ ἥλιος ἐξέλιπεν· Βιθυνία ἐσείσθη· Νικαίας τὰ πολλὰ ἔπεσεν.* "The sun failed: Bithynia was shaken: many buildings in Nicaea fell." Thallus also the historian, according to Julius Africanus, a writer of the second century, reported the same thing in his History. For thus he writes of him: *Τοῦτο τὸ σκότος ἔκλειψιν ἡλίου Θάλλως ἀποκαλεῖ ἐν τρίτῃ τῶν Ἱστοριῶν, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ, ἀλόγως.* "Thallus calls this darkness an eclipse of the sun in the third book of his Histories, ^B as it seems to me, unreasonably." Thallus calls these darknesses an eclipse of the sun in his book of Histories, as it seems to me, inconsiderately, by which words Africanus indicates that he is of a different opinion, namely, that the darkness came about by a certain miracle similar to the Egyptian darknesses over the whole earth. Of which opinion was ^C also Origen and Tertullian, and certain others; among whom Sedulius the priest in book V of his Paschal work sings thus:

Interea horrendæ subito venere tenebræ, Et totum tenuere polum, mœstisque nigrantem Exsequiis texere diem. Sol nube coruscos Abscondens radios, tetro velatus amictu Delituit, tristemque infecit luctibus orbem. Hunc elementa sibi meruerunt cernere vultum Auxiliis orbata patris, lætata per ortum, Mæsta per occasum. Nam lux, ut tempore fulsit Nascentis Domini, sic hac moriente recessit, Non absens mansura diu, sed mystica signans Per spatium secreta suum: quippe ut tribus horis Cæca tenebrosi latuerunt sidera cæli, Sic Dominus clausi triduo tulit antra sepulcri.

In which verses there is no mention of an eclipse, but only of the sun obscured by the gathering of clouds. Now, however, the more common opinion seems to be that it was a true eclipse, though full of prodigies, about which S. Augustine thus in Epistle 80 to Hesychius, tom. II: "When have we seen the sun so obscured as it was obscured when the light of the world hung on the wood? Unless perhaps we shall include the defect of the sun and moon, which calculators of the stars are accustomed to note and predict, among the celestial prodigies, because we have seen the moon in its fullness, and the sun more rarely, but still we have seen it fail at the end of the moon according to their calculation. Such was not that failure of the sun when Christ was crucified, and therefore it was truly wonderful and prodigious. For it was the Passover of the Jews, which is celebrated only at the full moon. According to the numbers of the astrologers, however, it is certain that the sun cannot fail when the moon is full, but when the end of the moon is reached, not indeed always, but never otherwise, when it fails according to those numbers. What then has anyone ever remembered having appeared from heaven such as that which appeared when the Lord suffered, such as what he predicted?" Thus S. Augustine.

But someone will now ask, in what manner so great a miracle was performed, namely, that the moon, being so small, should hide the sun, which is so immense, from the whole world? I answer, that among many opinions this 416 seems the most probable, which says that by the ministry of angels those rays which could not be covered by the moon were either withdrawn from the world and hidden; or certainly (which pleases our Salmeron more) were compressed and forced together so that they all might fall upon the moon. For my part, I believe rather that the manner of this prodigy remains hidden from us.

Now, concerning the same eclipse, or rather the procession of the two luminaries, these miracles, no less than the former, occurred.

First, that the moon moved against the sun from the eastern region, a thing altogether unusual and unheard of.

Second, that it proceeded thus as far as the western part of the sun, so that for three hours it was under the sun, partly moving forward, and partly moving backward.

Third, that although it had proceeded as far as the extreme western part of the sun, so that the eastern part of the same sun ought to have appeared first as discovered and cleansed; yet, with the moon springing back towards the east, the contrary happened, namely, that the part turned toward the west appeared first, and reflected the light, as before.

Behold here, for the sake of clarity, a conspicuous image described for this purpose.

Let there be, therefore, in the present figure, A the earth, B the moon, C the sun, D the east, E the west, F G the diameter from the sun itself to the point opposite the sun; H the part of the sun facing the east, I the part facing the west; and the line from H to I, the diameter of the disc or body of the sun. Now, at the time of the Passion, the moon was at G, that is, diametrically opposite the sun, and for that reason it was full and shining entirely with solar rays, as is usual at the full moon. Therefore, at the sixth hour, when Christ was hanging on the cross, the moon suddenly passed from G, that is, from the place diametrically opposite the sun, to H, that is, to the eastern part of the sun; and entering the sun there, it began the eclipse from that side, and then, moving to I, it covered the whole sun with its darkness, as if with a dusky garment: then it rebounded from I, that is, from the western part of the sun, to H, so that the part of the sun that had been darkened last became bright first, and shed its rays upon the world, contrary to what had always happened at other times or is accustomed to happen. The progression 417 therefore from H to I, and the regression from I to H, occupied those very three hours, namely from the sixth to the ninth, that is, in the eastern regions from midday to the third hour of the afternoon. Then it returned most quickly from H to G, that is, to its natural place, so that in the evening they were in their own stations, the sun in the west, and the moon opposite; and the latter was indeed full and bright, just as if it had not been moved from its place. Struck by this wondrous spectacle of such things, the philosophers Dionysius and Apollophanes asked each other what these things might mean, as we have explained in the *Life*. Finally, concerning those two philosophers, St. Dionysius, I say,

^A that she was the wife of the Areopagite, is proved by the following arguments.

First, because the very words of St. Luke in the Acts, in the last verse of chapter XVII, suggest it. They stand thus: Τινὲς δὲ ἄνδρες κολληθέντες αὐτῷ ἐπίστευσαν· ἐν οἷς καὶ Διονύσιος ὁ Ἀρεοπαγίτης, καὶ γυνὴ ὀνόματι Δάμαρις, καὶ ἕτεροι σὺν αὐτοῖς. "But certain men adhered to him, and believed; among whom were also Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them." So the customary version runs. Where the Greek word is γυνή, and the Latin *mulier* ("woman"); since these terms equally signify any woman, just as much as "wife," hence it has come about that some have doubted whether here it should be taken for "wife." But if the evangelist’s words are diligently considered, both his meaning and the significance of the words will become clear. For it is sufficiently evident to me that the evangelist wished first to reveal in general that some had adhered to Paul, and (so that the force of the Greek word κολληθέντες may be retained) had been "glued" to him, and had believed in Christ; then, to designate specifically the household of Dionysius the Areopagite—that is, himself, his wife, and his domestics—when he said: ἐν οἷς καὶ Διονύσιος, etc., which would have been translated more clearly thus: "Among whom were Dionysius the Areopagite, and his wife named Damaris, and the others with them," that is, the domestics who followed the example of the father and matron of the family. For the word ἕτεροι properly signifies "the others"; since these were formed from that [group]. Wherefore those words, "and others with them," do not signify all other people besides Dionysius and Damaris (for thus it would have been stated twice there, since it had already been said above: "But certain men adhering to him, believed"), but only signify those who believed together with Dionysius and Damaris, and, by their example and incitement, the whole family as well.

It is indeed true that the sense would be clearer if the word αὐτοῦ ("his") had been added, and it had been said καὶ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ ("and his wife"): but this is not the usual practice, or at least it is not necessary, as can be confirmed by many examples. For not even St. Chrysostom himself (whom those who hold the contrary opinion admit to be on our side) when he used γυναῖκα for "wife," added ^B the word αὐτοῦ ("his")—I say, he himself did not add it—so that he might render his meaning clearer, but simply said this in Book IV of *On the Priesthood*: Ὁ Ἀρεοπαγίτης ἐκεῖνος, ὁ τῆς δεισιδαιμονεστάτης πόλεως ἐκείνης, οὐκ ἀπὸ δημηγορίας μόνης ἠκολούθησεν αὐτῷ μετὰ τῆς γυναικός; which translators have rendered—and rightly—as: "But that Areopagite, the citizen of that most superstitious city, did he not follow him after the sermon (of Paul, that is) together with his wife?" Yet where he did not say μετὰ τῆς αὐτοῦ γυναικός, "together with his wife," but only μετὰ τῆς γυναικός, "together with the wife," for it is sufficiently understood. Thus also in the Holy Scriptures, that "his" (αὐτοῦ) is frequently omitted, as in I Corinthians, chapter VII, verse 3: "Let the husband render the debt to the wife"; in Greek it is: Τῇ γυναικὶ ὁ ἀνὴρ τὴν ὀφειλομένην εὔνοιαν ἀποδιδότων, where it is not said τῇ γυναικὶ αὐτοῦ, "to his wife." So also in that same chapter, many times. Nor does the contrary opinion gain support from the fact that in the Latin, in Luke, it is *mulier* ("woman"): for it is the same thing there as *uxor* ("wife"). Just as in that same chapter VII of Paul, verse 4: "The wife (mulier) hath not power of her own body, but the husband. And in like manner the husband also hath not power of his own body, but the wife (mulier)." Where the word *mulier* is used twice for "wife," and in the Greek it is γυνή in both instances. Nor is "wife" almost ever expressed in Scripture other than by the word γυνή. In which meaning you will find the word γυνή used by Paul in the single chapter just cited, at least sixteen times, and frequently indeed without the addition of a pronoun. Thus verse 27: "Art thou bound to a wife (γυναικί)? seek not a release. Art thou loosed from a wife (γυναικός)? seek not a wife (γυναῖκα)." "Art thou bound to a wife: do not seek a solution. Art thou loosed from a wife? do not seek a wife." Thus in verse 11 he had said: Καὶ ἄνδρα γυναῖκα μὴ ἀφιέναι, "And let not the husband put away his wife." ^C Secondly, if St. Luke had wished to signify some other woman, and not the wife of Dionysius

^A he would have added, as is customary, the particle *tis*, "a certain," and would have said: *Kai gynē tis onomati Damaris*, "And a certain woman named Damaris." But neither in the Greek is there *tis*, nor in the Latin *quædam*. Our own Joannes Lorinus, however, thought it was in the Greek, and therefore leaned toward the other opinion, when he said: "If it were the wife of Dionysius, he would not have called her *gynaika tina*, ‘a certain woman,’ but most briefly would have said: *Kai gynē autou*." So says Lorinus. But St. Luke did *not* say *gynaika tina*, "a certain woman," but most briefly said *kai gynē*, "and wife," omitting *autou*, "his": just as we have already shown from St. Paul that it is common for this to be omitted. Therefore, Lorinus is on our side, or certainly ought to be. And even if the Syriac text had "certain," it ought not to prevail over the Greek, since the Acts were originally written in Greek, not in Syriac; nor, likewise, can it be preferred to the Latin, since the Latin version is derived from a Greek source, and itself lacks that same pronoun "certain," and corresponds more to its own source.

Thirdly, since the authors of the other opinion admit that the most ancient, most learned, and most holy Fathers—Chrysostom and Ambrose, and some even say St. Augustine (though I have not yet found the place)—are on our side, while they themselves do not have a single one of the holy Fathers to support them, and rely on weak arguments (as the things we have already said demonstrate), it is certainly shown without obscurity which opinion is to be preferred. For truly, the words of Ambrose, who not only leans toward our opinion but leans into it completely and embraces it entirely, exist in his 82nd epistle to the Vercelli Church, before the middle: where, after he has brought forward the words of St. Luke concerning the philosophers debating with Paul, he adds as follows: "From this number (of philosophers, that is) the Apostle did not depart without a share of grace, seeing that even Dionysius the Areopagite, with Damaris his wife and many others, believed." Thus, they showed by the example of those most learned and eloquent men that they were defeated in simple disputation. Such is holy Ambrose.

Fourthly, the writers of the Life of St. Dionysius the Areopagite hold and write the same concerning his wife Damaris. Witnesses are Hilduin, Vincent of Beauvais, Bishop Peter Equilinus, and others. "Who, rising at once," says Hilduin, "with his whole house and his wife Damaris, whom his parents forced him to take—in the manner of worldly nobility, for the love of begetting dear offspring—he hastens to the commands of St. Paul." See also Baptista Mantuanus in Book I, *De conversione, vita et passione sancti martyris Dionysii*.

And indeed it is most likely that the most ancient writers of the Life ^B of St. Dionysius knew of St. Dionysius’s marriage either from the very archives of Athens or from the tradition of their ancestors. Likewise, that St. John Chrysostom, who spent a long time in Athens, could not have been ignorant of this concerning the first bishop of that city. Added to this is the authority of St. Maximus, whose Greek commentaries on Dionysius exist—brief, to be sure, but learned. Therefore, in his preface, he indicates not obscurely that in the Acts of the Apostles, mention is made not only of Dionysius the Areopagite, but also of his house, or family. Nor can it be said that the family was mentioned anywhere else than in the name of Damaris and those who believed with them, that is, with their heirs Dionysius and Damaris. Now the words of St. Maximus, after he has stated the dignity of Dionysius indicated by St. Luke with that term "Areopagite," are these: *Epi te mallon, hoti dia te to kata sophian peritton, kai dia to en Athēnaiois anepilēptou politeias ekkriton, mnēmoneuthēnai meta tēs oikias autou.* "I add further," he says, "that because of his eminent wisdom and the excellence of his blameless life among the Athenians, mention of him ^C was made with his house, that is, not only of him himself, but also of his household." Which, of course, is both the true and full praise and glory of any head of a family, when not only he himself, but his whole house is frugal and well-behaved, that is, his wife, children, servants, maids, and any other relative who lives with him.

(15) Therefore, among the archons. These were the magistrates of the men. The names were king, *archon*, *polemarchos*, and the six *thesmothetai*. Those who had rightly performed their magistracy ascended to the Areopagus, not those who had done otherwise. Regarding these, Maximus says in his preface to St. Dionysius: *Ek gar tōn ennea kathistamenōn archontōn Athēnēsin tous Areopagitas edei synestasthai dikastas, hōs phēsin Androtiōn en deuterā tōn Atthidōn. Hysteron de pleionōn gegonen hē ex Areiou pagou boulē, toutestin, hē ex andrōn periphanesterōn pentēkonta kai henos, plēn ex eupatridōn, hōs ephēmen, kai ploutō kai biō sōphroni diapherontōn, hōs istorei Philochoros dia tēs tritēs tōn autōn Atthidōn.* "For from the nine archons established in Athens, it was necessary for the Areopagite judges to be composed, as Androtion says in the second book of his *Atthides*. Later, however, the Council of the Areopagus came to consist of more men, that is, of fifty-one of the more illustrious men, except those from the nobility, as we said, and those distinguished both in wealth and in a sober life, as Philochorus records in the third book of the same *Atthides*." For from the nine men who had been constituted as archons at Athens, the Areopagite judges ^D (as Androtion says in the second book of his *Attics*) ought to have been composed: but later on, the Areopagite Senate came to consist of more, that is, of fifty-one of the more illustrious men, but noblemen nonetheless, as we have said, and those excelling in the abundance of their wealth and the modesty of their life, as Philochorus records in the third book of the same *Attics*. See also Plutarch in his *Solon*. Charles Sigonius treats at length of the archons and the Areopagites in the second book of *De republica Atheniensium*, toward the end. Demosthenes also mentions the archons in his *Oration against Leptines*, where toward the beginning he cites this law: *Atelē de mēdena einai triērarchias, plēn tōn ennea archontōn.* "Let no one be exempt from the trierarchy, except for the nine archons." Plutarch also mentions this in his *Pericles*, where he writes thus concerning him: *Kai takhu theōrētikois kai dikastikois lēmmasin allais te misthophorais kai chorēgiais synedekasas to plēthos, echrēto kata tēs ex Areiou pagou boulēs, hēs autos ouk meteiche dia to mēt' archōn, mēte thesmothetēs, mēte polemarchos lachein, autai gar hai archai klērōtai te ēsan ek palaiou, kai di' autōn hoi dokimasthēntes anebainon eis Areion pagon.* "And quickly, with theatrical and judicial sums, and other rewards and grants, he bribed the multitude, and used them against the Areopagite Council, in which he himself had no part, because he had not attained to be either archon, or *thesmothetes*, or *polemarchos*. For these magistracies were filled by lot from ancient times, and through them, once they had been tested, they ascended to the Areopagus." Thus Plutarch.

Pollux writes with accuracy and distinctness of the duties and offices of all the archons, both in general and in particular, in the eighth book of his *Onomasticon*. Note there that the interpreter in this place was not entirely successful in translating the Greek; as when he translated: *kai hosa koinē kai idia prattetai hekastos autōn*, he rendered it: "and whatsoever both publicly and privately each of them does," whereas it should have been translated [as]: "and whatsoever both commonly and particularly each one of them does." For "commonly" and "publicly" differ, just as "privately" and "particularly" do, as is known to all: since many things can be done "commonly," for example by three, in secret and hidden, which cannot be said to be done "publicly"; and on the other hand, what is done "publicly" by one of the magistrates cannot be said to be done "commonly." One must reason in the same way about the words "privately" and "particularly." Add that this becomes clear from Pollux himself; for he first sets forth those things which are common to all archons, then he descends to those things which are specific and particular to individuals, namely, what belongs to the *thesmothetai*, what to the *archon*, what to the king, what to the *polemarchos*. For the term *archon* is taken once in a general sense, and once in a specific sense. Just as in the names of the angels, the name "angel" is sometimes common to all the hierarchies of holy spirits, and sometimes special to the spirits of the lowest hierarchy.

16 In judicial matters, *dokimasia* etc. There exists an oration by the very ancient orator Lysias, inscribed: *Concerning the Probation of Evandrus*. In which oration (says Carolus Sigonius in *De republica Atheniensium*, lib. II) he defends Evandrus. But, saving the peace of Sigonius, Lysias does not defend Evandrus, but accuses him, as is patent to one reading the oration, and consequently from these same words of Lysias therein: *Καὶ μηδεὶς ὑμῶν ἡγείσθω με Λαοδάμαντι χαριζόμενον κατηγορεῖν Εὐάνδρου, ὅτι φίλος ὧν τυγχάνει, ἀλλ' ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν καὶ τῆς πόλεως προνοούμενον.* And let no one among you think that I am accusing Evandrus to ingratiate myself with Laodamas, because he is my friend, but rather that I am looking out for you and for the city. Sigonius is mistaken in the meanings of both the word *dokimasia* and "probation," which here do not signify approval, but a judgment so called, in which it was tested whether anyone had discharged his magistracy rightly or otherwise. Socrates uses the same word *dokimasia* in this sense in his *Areopagitica*, as will be cited a little below. ^B That it was not permitted for all archons to ascend to the order of the Areopagites is clear from the second oration of Demosthenes *Against Aristogiton*, at the beginning; where he hints that not all the thesmothetae (the judgment for other archons is the same) were admitted to the Areopagus, in these words: *Τοῦτο ὅσοις τῶν θεσμοθετῶν εἰς Ἀρειοπαγον οὐχ οἷόν τ' ἐστὶν ἀνελθεῖν, παρέντες τὸ βιάζεσθαι, στέργουσιν ἐμμένοντες ταῖς ὑμετέραις γνώσεσι.* As for those thesmothetae to whom it is not permitted to ascend to the Areopagus, they, setting aside force, are content, abiding by your determinations. By these words it is insinuated that the Athenians were accustomed to inquire into the conduct of the thesmothetae before they permitted them to ascend into the Areopagus; and that some, from time to time, who had not sufficiently approved themselves, were excluded by them, and did not use violence against the judgments. For Solon passed a law that they should not ascend into the Areopagus until they had been tried twice, once in the judgment of the people, as is the author Demosthenes *Against Leptines*, where he says they were *δὶς δοκιμασθέντας ἄρχειν, ἔν τε τῇ βουλῇ, καὶ ἐν τῷ δικαστηρίῳ* (twice tested before ruling, both in the council and in the courtroom). Regarding which passage Ulpian says: *…τὸν ἐνιαυτόν· δεύτερον δὲ ἐδοκιμάζοντο, διὰ τὸ ἐκεῖθεν εἰς τὸν Ἄρειον πάγον ἔρχεσθαι, εἰ μή τις μεταξὺ διεβέβλητο, ἕως δὲ θανάτου ἔμενον οἱ Ἀρειοπαγῖται.* The thesmothetae held office for a year; then they were tested a second time because they were to pass from there to the Areopagus, unless someone had been accused meanwhile; but the Areopagites remained until death. ^C Libanius, however, very clearly in the argument to the oration of Demosthenes *Against Androtion*: *Οἱ θεσμοθέται ἐνιαυτὸν μόνον ἦρχον, πρὸ τῆς ἀρχῆς κρινόμενοι περὶ τοῦ προλαβόντος παντὸς βίου, καὶ εἰ μὲν εὑρέθησαν ἐν πᾶσι δίκαιοι, ἦρχον τὸν ἐνιαυτόν· εἶτα πάλιν μετὰ τὸν ἐνιαυτὸν ἐκρίνοντο, εἰ καλῶς ἐν αὐτῷ ἦρξαν, καὶ εἰ δικαίως ὤφθησαν ἄρξαντες, προσετίθεντο τῇ βουλῇ τῶν Ἀρεοπαγιτῶν.* The thesmothetae held office for only a year, after being judged before their term regarding their entire past life, and if they were found righteous in all things, they governed for the year; then again after the year they were judged whether they had governed well in it, and if they were seen to have governed righteously, they were added to the council of the Areopagites. ^D 17 In the most holy council of the Areopagus. Thus Valerius Maximus calls it, lib. II, cap. 6, where, writing about the Athenians: "There is also," he says, "in that same city a most holy council, the Areopagus, where it was most diligently inquired into what each of the Athenians was doing, or by what means of livelihood he was sustained: so that men might pursue honesty (mindful that an account of their life must be rendered)." The same, lib. V, cap. 5, calls the Areopagus "the venerable domicile of divine and human contention": divine, indeed, because Mars was judged there when he had committed homicide, from which the name is also taken. For *Ἄρειος πάγος*, that is, the court of Mars, as Juvenal also calls it, Satire XIII, where ^A he gave this verse concerning the hiding of the Areopagites' secrets: *Ergo occulta teges, ut curia Martis Athenis.* (Therefore thou shalt veil secrets, as the court of Mars in Athens.) Which verse is used like a proverb when one's own counsel or the secret of a business is recommended to a friend for keeping hidden. Whence also that saying, "A Areopagite, more taciturn." Regarding which name, one may also consult Saint Isidore of Pelusium, book II, epistles 91 and 92. No council is believed to have been more just, more severe, or more constant than the Areopagus, of which, among others, Demosthenes says *Against Aristocratem*: "This, moreover," he says, "accrues to the praise of the Areopagus, that no one here, whether defendant condemned or accuser defeated, has ever been able to show that a sentence was wrongly passed." The Greek is as follows: *Πρὸς δὲ τούτοις τοιούτοις οὖσιν ἐνταυθοί μόνον οὐδεὶς πώποτε, οὔτε φεύγων ἁλούς, οὔτε διώκων ἡττηθεὶς ἐξήλεγξεν, ὡς ἀδίκως ἐδικάσθη τὰ κριθέντα.* Marcus Tullius, book I *ad Atticum*, letter 13, compares the Roman senate to the Areopagus for the testimony of greatest praise in these words: "But Roman affairs are thus: the Senate is an Areopagus, nothing more constant, nothing more severe, nothing stronger." For more on the Areopagites, see Isocrates in his *Areopagitica*, and Lucian in *Anacharsis*, or *On Gymnastics*. ^B Lest you be mistaken, however, remember that in Baronius, at the year of Christ 52, some things regarding the Areopagites are to be found, taken apparently from Budé's *Panaectae*, but some cite things badly and otherwise than did Budé, and some are also badly understood—among which number is that which he has there in these words: "There was added also this, that if anyone appeared to have crept into that order, and was not such as his appearance suggested, he was found to have no merits, but was compelled by his own mere disposition (as they say) to depart voluntarily from the number of the Areopagites." First, therefore, what is attributed there to Lucian in *Hermotimus*, there is nothing at all in Lucian of that kind. Second, since Budé had extracted these things from the *Areopagitica* of Isocrates, and had a little before cited Lucian in *Hermotimus* on another matter, the excerptor, not noticing the subsequent citation, thought all things referred to Lucian in *Hermotimus*. ^C Third, the words of Budé are badly understood. For Budé does not say (as neither does Isocrates, whose very words I shall presently produce): that someone with no merits, but only by the urging of his disposition, was compelled of his own accord to depart from the number of the Areopagites; but he says this: "It has been observed that those who otherwise seemed to have intolerable habits beforehand, if by any means they had happened to have crept into the Areopagitic council, then finally were accustomed to restrain themselves; and, as if inspired by the genius of the place (to use the words of Plautus), they would migrate from their own nature and prefer to abide by the institutions of such a great council rather than by the vices inherent in themselves, or even by their own traits." So Budé. Therefore, what Budé said, "to migrate from their own nature," Baronius seems to have interpreted as "to depart voluntarily from the number of the Areopagites." But the meaning of Budé's words is clearly different, namely this: "to abandon their former corrupt habits, and to live with the Areopagites, according to the customs of the Areopagites, or (as Carolus Sigonius, lib. II *De republica Atheniensium*, towards the end, interprets the same passage of Isocrates) to live by the institution of the senate rather than out of one's own." ^D Now the words of Isocrates, rendered into Latin both by Budé and in the places cited by Sigonius, are in Greek as follows: *Σημείοις δ᾽ ἄν τις χρήσαιτο περὶ τῶν τότε καθεστώτων, καὶ τοῖς ἐν τῷ παρόντι γιγνομένοις. Ἔτι γὰρ καὶ νῦν ἀπάντων τῶν περὶ τὴν αἵρεσιν καὶ τὴν δοκιμασίαν ταύτην καθημένων, ἴδοιμεν ἂν τοὺς ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις πράγμασιν οὐκ ἀνεκτοὺς ὄντας, ἐπειδὰν εἰς Ἄρειον πάγον ἀναβῶσιν, ὀκνοῦντας τῇ φύσει χρῆσθαι, καὶ μᾶλλον τοῖς ἐκεῖ νομίμοις ἢ ταῖς αὐτῶν κακίαις ἐμμένοντας. Τοσοῦτον ἐκεῖνοι φόβον τοῖς πονηροῖς ἐναπειργάσαντο, καὶ τοσοῦτον ἐν τῷ ἑαυτῶν ἀρετῆς καὶ σωφροσύνης ἐγκατέλιπον.*

ἐγκατέλιπον ^A μνημεῖον. Ταύτην οὖν, ὡς εἶπον, κυρίαν ἐποίησαν ἐπιμελεῖσθαι τῆς εὐταξίας. — "They rendered them free in their upbringing and accustomed them to greatness of spirit. They were concerned, therefore, since they saw that age being agitated by the most turbulent billows and overflowing with the most numerous desires, that it was most necessary to establish them in such a way that they would become accustomed to take delight in honorable studies and labors that were tempered by pleasure. For those who had been liberally educated and accustomed to greatness of spirit would, they believed, persevere in those things alone." See more in the same place.

(18) Simeon Metaphrastes in *Life*, Michael Syncellus in *Encomium*, and others.

(19) If it is not that wisdom. The Greek of Syncellus says this: "For it would not have been brought to such a position of authority among the proud Athenians, had it not been adorned with wisdom, and with the orderly arrangement of the mind, and with temperance, and with justice, and with bravery, and with the distinguished superiority of its lineage." There, without doubt, by that "orderly arrangement of the mind" [^B] he understands prudence. That which he adds—namely, temperance, justice, and fortitude—he places prudence before them and joins it with wisdom; just as wisdom looks to and understands divine things, so prudence looks to and understands human things. Why Basilius Millanius, the translator of Syncellus, does not seem to have rendered "orderly arrangement of the mind" in this place so fittingly as "ornaments of the soul" (even though it may signify that elsewhere), nor "temperance" as "prudence," when he should rather have rendered it as "temperance" here. For then all the virtues necessary for an Areopagite man would have been indicated—namely, wisdom, justice, fortitude, and temperance. And indeed, temperance is always called *sophrosyne* by Plato, Aristotle, and others. Furthermore, Syncellus appears to have looked to the passage of Isocrates in the *Areopagiticus*, where he writes thus: "So did our ancestors concern themselves with temperance, that they established the council of the Areopagus to oversee decency, which it was impossible to transmit, except to those well-born and who had demonstrated much virtue and temperance in their lives; so that it reasonably surpassed all other councils among the Greeks." Which Budaeus in his *Pandects* rendered thus: "But our ancestors were so studious of temperance that they publicly set that Areopagitic council to preside over the forming of men's characters. Into whose number it was permitted to hope to be co-opted for those only who, born of distinguished lineage, had given many proofs of virtue and modesty by the honesty of their lives. From which it finally came to pass that that assembly of all Greece is not undeservedly by far the most excellent."

(20) And so much so, that Valerius Maximus, a witness to this matter, writes in Book VIII, Chapter 1, as follows: "A Smyrnaean matron killed her husband and son, as she had discovered that a young man of excellent character, whom she had borne by a former husband, had been killed by them. This matter, having been referred to him, Dolabella relegated to the judgment of the Areopagus at Athens; because he himself could neither endure to acquit one stained by two murders, nor to punish her, driven by righteous grief. ^D The magistrates of the Roman people, acting with consideration and gentleness, having inspected the case, ordered both the accuser and the accused to be present after a hundred years, moved by the same feeling as Dolabella." Gellius relates the same in other words in Book XII of his *Attic Nights*, Chapter 7; see there.

CHAPTER II: The Conversion of Dionysius from errors to the faith.

S. Paul, traversing the world like lightning and thunder, and now illuminating all the shores of Greece with the light of a holier life and doctrine, also arrived at Athens: a city, if any other, by far the most famous for every kind of wicked superstition, and for the insane worship not only of known, but even of unknown gods; a city which all the arts and sciences, and especially the entire sects of the philosophers, besieged in dense columns as if it were the sole navel of all wisdom; a city, finally, where both the citizens and the strangers (a fact which St. Luke himself did not note without cause [(r)]) had leisure for nothing else but either to tell or to hear something new—that is, rumors to be gathered or…

^A something new, that is to say, of gathering or spreading rumors, or indeed of any new things whatsoever, to an extreme degree of curiosity; so that, consequently, the desire to sow the word—whence he was also called a "seed-picker" among them—could never lack a frequent multitude of volunteers flocking to these new and unheard-of mysteries. When he, therefore, publicly proclaimed the holy Gospel of Christ with a firm and confident spirit, just as he had done elsewhere, it happened by altogether happy fortune, and not without God, that Dionysius then, as much from the words of Paul himself as from the writings and sermons of others, came to know more certainly that which he had once so greatly desired in the Christian school.

For Paul, at that time (22), as he preached daily with great liberty and constancy, now in the forum, now in the synagogues, now wherever chance had given opportunity, both publicly and privately, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ the Lord, before Jews, Epicureans, Stoics, and any others whomsoever, certain men seized him as an author of unheard-of superstition and a proclaimer of new demons, and straightway brought him to the Areopagus (whose duty it was to judge concerning religions and ceremonies). For although all things were then subject to the Romans (23), yet the laws and magistrates of the Athenians and Lacedæmonians had been left to them intact, as of old. Hence, the case of Paul looked not to the Roman praetorium, but to that principal tribunal of Athens. Standing, therefore, in the midst of the Areopagus (24), Paul delivered a sermon that was clearly heavenly and divinely inspired, and most highly suited to the time and the listeners, having begun with an exordium from their altars and shrines; for, as he passed through the Athenian city and the places religious to them, and looked more diligently upon their ancient 422 statues and images of their gods, he had encountered one altar among the others, on which was written: To the Unknown God (25). For since the Athenians, as much from the books of their most ancient philosophers (26) and poets as from the Sibylline oracles (27), had perceived that there was some one God, invisible, nameless, and ineffable, they had erected an altar with that title, lest they might perchance defraud Him, or some other of the great gods and divinities, of the due honors. Therefore, Paul proclaimed that he was announcing to them what they worshipped in their ignorance; and using the testimonies of their own poets (28)—whom they held in very high esteem—and certain doctrines of accepted philosophy, he crept so gradually into the minds of the wiser men that others, and then Dionysius himself, the pinnacle and representative of many, determined to adhere to his faith and doctrine.

Nor, for a man learned ^B and wise (29), was there need of miracles and prodigies (which, nevertheless, some authors write were not lacking), but only of learned and wise words, which, when he heard them from the mouth of Paul, he straightway submitted himself to him. For thus Paul spoke: "Men of Athens, in everything I see that you are somewhat more superstitious. For passing through and seeing your idols, I found also an altar on which was written: To the Unknown God. What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you. God, who made the world and all things that are in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made by hand, nor is he worshipped by human hands, needing anything, since he himself gives to all life, and breath, and all things. And has made of one all mankind to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, defining appointed times and the limits of their habitation; that they should seek God, if happily they may feel after him or find him, although he is not far from every one of us. For in him we live, and move, and are; as some also of your own poets said: For we are also his offspring. Being therefore the offspring of God, we should not imagine that the divine is like to gold, or silver, or stone, to the sculpture of art and the device of man. And God indeed, having overlooked the times of this ignorance, now announces to men that all everywhere should do penance; because he has appointed a day in which he is about to judge the world in equity, in the man in whom he has appointed, providing faith to all, raising him from the dead (30)."

This is the summary of the oration which the blessed Paul delivered in the Areopagus in defense of his faith and for the honor of Christ; which to some indeed (as often happens also in the best of matters) was for laughter and mockery, to some for astonishment and admiration, but to others for honor and veneration. For in the soul of the judge Dionysius, it fell deeply like good soil, and grew into a tree of excellent piety and holiness, in which both the birds of heaven—that is, the minds of the Athenians first, and then of the Franks, and of other peoples thereafter—might nest, having turned to God. For at that very time, at the age of about forty-three years (31), by these and other effective words of Paul, when the memory of that wondrous eclipse, particularly, was still stimulating his mind, he was led to the faith of Christ (32).

Truly it was a great work of divine grace, it cannot be denied; yet, that he might less resist God who was drawing him, his very sect of philosophy (for he was a Platonist) (33) helped not a little. For the Epicureans indeed and the Stoics (34), wholly given to pleasures, wholly given to filth, and born for little else than to make trouble for noble spirits, were very far from the moderate precepts of the Christian faith. But the Platonists, especially the more learned—among whom Dionysius could rightfully boast himself to be—taught many things similar to the divine law (35). For they held the immortality of the soul, and judgment, and rewards and punishments, which are of the greatest moment among other things, among their dogmas of primary authority. These, therefore, both the apostles and other teachers used very frequently, and now Paul also, to strike in a salutary fear, which is the beginning of wisdom. Moreover, the Acts of the Apostles themselves clearly testify to the deduction of Dionysius to Christ by this same path: where, after the oration of the blessed Paul in the Areopagus was recited (whose final words had introduced mention of judgment and resurrection), it is added thus: "And when they had heard ^C of the resurrection of the dead, some indeed mocked, but others said: We will hear thee again concerning this. So Paul went out from the midst of them. But certain men adhering to him believed; among whom was also Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them"; namely, those chiefly who were of the house and family of Dionysius, and who, having invited Paul to their home, had heard him most wisely discoursing, and responding without delay or hesitation to the proposed questions, concerning the new doctrine of Christ and the worship of the one true God, and had looked up to him.

Thus, a man of such name and glory (inasmuch as he was learned in every political and liberal doctrine, and very flourishing in lineage, wealth, dignity, and in all things which the race of mortals most vehemently admires) turned himself, after so many glories of profane and pressing sciences, to an alien, a poor man, one despised, and even mocked by many, as an unpolished disciple and a novice or learner of a new and humble doctrine. Nor did it shame or repent a man of such great age to descend into the laver of atoning water, and in the manner of a new-born infant to be reborn and to become a child in Christ, and to learn the new elements of Christian discipline, so at variance with the Areopagus. Such, indeed, is the power of the divine word, such is the efficacy of the Father of all 423 drawing to himself, and finally, such is the operation of the Holy Spirit moving the human will and internal affections, that together with faith there immediately enters, having cast off vices, the entire chorus of friendly virtues; and he who a little before was seen as self-loving, proud, arrogant, litigious, intemperate, or otherwise vicious, is now, having accepted the form of the new religion and been washed in the salutary laver, recognized as another man, stripped of former vices, contemptuous of self, modest, humble, peaceful, chaste, and shining with other ornaments of virtues, and dear to all. Which is not only in Dionysius,

but it has been possible to discern in very many others in the past, and it is possible to perceive clearly now in the conversion of barbarian nations. To such an extent, of course, does the initial instruction of the faith and the baptism of the Church avail in the souls of men. And this change of morals, certainly so great and so holy, would have its place today no less in the admirable sacrament of the venerable Eucharist than in the salutary baptism (for the Eucharist is holier and more fertile in graces than the latter) if, in whatever manner one approaches the latter, one also approached the former with equally solicitous and well-prepared souls. And perhaps this would come to pass if, as it was for Dionysius and Hierotheus (by whom it was called the sacrament of sacraments), its dignity were better understood by us and sank more deeply into the heart. But these things are for another time. For there is something else more immediate that must be addressed ^A concerning the access of Dionysius to the faith. For someone might ask: in the city of Athens, or even in the Areopagus itself, was there any stir caused by the departure of so great and such a man, or was there any accusation brought against him as a deserter of the gods, or finally, in the name of impiety (as the new religion was denoted by them themselves), was any harm inflicted, or trap set, or calumny intended? For if Dionysius were attacked by these things, and he was superior to all; surely he ought not be passed over without praise, and he is to be proposed as an example. This, therefore, must be handled in this way.

NOTATIONS. (21) Multis demum post annis. In the year, namely, 52 after Christ, or thereabout; since that opinion is received by many which refers the conversion of St. Dionysius to Christ to the eleventh year after the passion of Christ. (22) Paulum id temporis. These things are apparent from chapter 17 of the Acts of the Apostles, where it speaks of him in these words: *He disputed therefore in the synagogue with the Jews, and those that served God, and in the marketplace, every day, with them that were there. And certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers disputed with him, and some said: What does this babbler want to say? But others: He seems to be a setter forth of new gods; because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And taking him, they brought him to the Areopagus, saying: May we know what this new doctrine is, which thou speakest of? For thou bringest in certain new things to our ears. We would know therefore what these things mean.* There it is. (23) Nam licet Romanis omnia tum subessent. The author is Maximus, in his Prologue to the Works of St. Dionysius, in these words: *For even if the Romans were then in power, yet they left Athens and Lacedaemon autonomous. Whence even among the Athenians, matters were still administered according to the Areopagites.* For although the Romans were ruling at that time, yet they had permitted Athens and Lacedaemon to use their own laws. Whence even then, among the Athenians, the Areopagites were exercising their office. The same is reported by Simeon Metaphrastes in the Life of the same St. Dionysius: *For even if the Romans were in power at that time, they left the Athenians and Lacedaemonians autonomous.* The sense is clearly the same as the words of Maximus. They bring forward these things by way of rhetorical objection; for, indeed, it could have been objected that St. Paul should not have been brought before the Areopagus, but before the Roman authority which was then regulating everything, just as Christians were brought before the praetor Pliny in Bithynia. (24) Stans igitur Paulus in medio Areopagi. Acts of the Apostles, ch. 17, 19. *And taking him, they brought him to the Areopagus, saying: May we know what this new doctrine is, which is spoken by thee?* Socrates had likewise been led before the Areopagus in the past, and indeed (which Saint Justin testifies) accused of the same crime as Paul. For thus he says of him in his Apology to the Senate, after the middle: *Socrates was charged with the same things as we were. For they said that he was introducing new demons, and that he did not believe that those whom the city considers gods are gods.* Socrates is accused of the same crimes as we are. For they said that he introduced new demons: and that he does not think those whom the city deems gods are gods. And a little later he says that the same Socrates exhorted the people to the knowledge of the unknown God, writing thus: *He urged them to the knowledge of God unknown to them through the investigation of reason, saying: But the Father and Creator of all, it is neither easy to find, nor, having found Him, is it safe to speak of Him to all.* Moreover, regarding the knowledge of these things unknown to them, he exhorted them through the investigation of reason, saying: *But the Father and Creator of all, it is neither easy to find, nor, having found Him, is it safe to speak of Him to all ^B known in part by Socrates, in those words: Christ, who was known even by Socrates in part.* Which he perhaps says because Socrates seems to have confessed, at least confusedly, the one God, and thus Christ, in so far as He is God. And in the Apology to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, near the beginning, he says that the death of that same Socrates was procured by demons through wicked men. *And the demons themselves worked through the malice of men, to kill him as an atheist and impious man, saying that he was introducing new demons.* And the demons themselves, rejoicing in the malice of men, brought it about that he was killed as an atheist and impious man, saying that he was introducing new demons. And the final words of Socrates as he was departing for death, which were in the Areopagus, the same Justin recites in his Paraenesis to the Greeks, near the end: *For he said thus: But it is now time to go away; for me, about to die, and for you, about to live. Which of us is going to the better thing, is uncertain to everyone, except to God.* These things, taken from Plato ^C in his Apology of Socrates, quite at the end, are translated into Latin by Cicero in Book 1 of the *Tusculan Disputations*, near the end, thus: *But it is time, he said, for me to die, and for you to live. But which is better, the immortal gods know; but I think no man knows.* Justin indeed used the very words of Plato, except for one word, *teθnηξomenō* (about to die), for which in Plato is *teθnηξomenō*, of the same meaning. But Cicero, in his Latin version, strayed much in one word, when for "God knows," as Plato has it, he rendered it "the immortal gods know." For Socrates denied the immortal gods and asserted one God only, for whom he was even dying. Therefore it was not fitting that he should say "the immortal gods know," which he did not say; but "God knows." And therefore it was rendered into Latin by Tully imprudently, "the immortal gods know." Justin added after the words of Socrates ^D already praised: *But Socrates, having uttered this final word in the Areopagus, rushed to the prison, entrusting the knowledge of things hidden from you to God alone.* Verily, Socrates, with this final word uttered in the Areopagus, hastened into prison, attributing to God alone the knowledge of things uncertain to us. Moreover, in the Cohortation to the Greeks, near the middle, he says that Plato did not dare to confess the true doctrine concerning God, lest the same thing might happen to him as happened to Socrates. *But Plato, he says, having received, as it seems, the doctrine of Moses and other prophets concerning the one and only God, which he had learned in Egypt, because of those things which had happened to Socrates, fearing lest he also might stir up some Anytus or Melitus against himself among the Athenians, accusing him and saying: Plato acts unjustly, and handles curious matters, not acknowledging the gods whom the city acknowledges; through fear of the hemlock, he instituted a certain varied and painted discourse about the gods.* And a little later in the same Apology: *When therefore Plato had learned these things in Egypt, and was much delighted with the things that had been said concerning one God, indeed the name of Moses, (because that He is one and only God...

^A) and we shall give thanks, lifting up our hands to heaven. Thus Lucian there.

(26) From the most ancient philosophers. Namely, Mercury, Philemon, Sophocles, Orpheus, Pythagoras, and others, as St. Justin the Martyr testifies, both in his *Exhortation to the Gentiles* and in his book *On the Monarchy*. For in the former, at the end, he writes thus: "If anyone thinks he has learned the doctrine concerning God from the philosophers who were named by them as the most ancient, let him hear of Acmon and Hermes. Acmon, in the words concerning him, calls God *panchryphon*, wholly hidden; and Hermes speaks clearly and manifestly, saying: 'To conceive of God is difficult, but to speak of Him is impossible, even to him to whom it is possible to conceive of Him mentally.'" But if anyone thinks that the doctrine about God should be learned from the most ancient philosophers named among them, let him listen to Acmon and Mercury. The former, in his books concerning Him, calls God *panchryphon*, that is, utterly hidden; but Mercury ^B clearly and manifestly says: "To grasp God with the intellect is difficult; but to speak of Him is not possible, not even for one to whom it is possible to grasp Him with the mind." In the book *On the Monarchy of God*, however, he cites these verses (a), among others: *Eis tais aletheiaisin, eis estin Theos.* "Truly one Numen, one is God." Athenagoras cites the same verse (b) in his *Embassy for the Christians*, at the beginning: *Theon de poion, eipe moi, nomisteon;* *Ton pant' horonta, kauton ouch horomenon.* "Tell me, I pray, what sort of God must we esteem Him? Who beholds all things, himself seen by none."

From the Sibylline oracles. See concerning these Book II of St. Theophilus, Patriarch of Antioch, at the beginning, where he says among other things: *Eis Theos, hos monos archei hypermegethes, agennetos, Pantokrator, aoratos, horon monos autos ta panta.* "One God, who alone rules, God, and supreme, Unbegotten, Almighty, invisible, He alone beholding all things, Though invisible to any."

Jerome also, in chapter XVI of Ezekiel, on that passage: "And a crown of beauty upon his head," teaches that the majesty of God, whose name is ineffable, was not completely unknown to the gentiles. "Whose majesty," he says, "even heathendom does not fail to recognize, and the altar of the Athenians testifies: *To the Unknown God*."

(28) For those things which are brought forward in Paul's oration: *In him we live, and move, and have our being*; and again these: *For we are also his offspring*, are found, partly in sense and partly in words, in Aratus, an ancient and most highly regarded poet, and also in others whom the Apostle forwent citing. Aratus indeed began his *Phenomena* thus: *Ek Dios archometha, ton oudepot' andres eoimen* *Arrheton. Mestai de Dios pasai men agyiai,* *Pasai d'anthropon agorai, meste de thalassa* *Kai limenes. Pante de Dios kechremetha pantes.* *Tou gar kai genos esmen.* "From Jove let us begin our primes, nor let us suffer Him to remain unspoken, O men. Jove's all places are full, [plena, Full are the fora of men, and full of Jove is the sea ^D And the ports. For we all enjoy Jove: and his We hear are the offspring." Where, while he says that all things are full of Jove, and all enjoy Jove, and that we are his offspring, this surely indicates that in God we live, and move, and have our being. Indeed, the last hemistich verbatim signifies what Paul said: *For we are also his offspring*. "All things are full of gods," said Thales also, one of the seven.

^A

(29) *Nor does this work of miracles and wonders point to a man.* The author is St. Chrysostom, who believed that Dionysius was converted by the words of the Apostle without the aid of miracles. His words from Book VI *On the Priesthood*, near the end, I have placed above at Chapter 1, letter K. The same is confirmed in Homily VI *On the Praises of Paul*, near the end, in these words: "They summoned him as if they were about to judge him—at one time the Jews, at another the Athenians; the judges were students, the adversaries were subjects." He had summoned him as if to judge him, at times as Jews, at times as Athenians: and the judges became students, and the adversaries became obedient. As if to say: Having heard Paul, the judges were so far from condemning him that many instead immediately clung to him and believed. Then he compares Paul's tongue to fire, because just as fire brings applied material immediately into itself, so did his tongue bring its listeners into itself. This truly signifies the power of Paul’s words, not of miracles. St. Ambrose is also the author of this in book X, epistle 82, which see cited above, as well as Chrysostom.

To the opinions of the saints Ambrose and Chrysostom is added Syngelus in his *Encomium of Dionysius*, where, concerning the ease and readiness of his conversion, he exclaims thus: ^B "O the ease of that heart, and how swiftly and unyieldingly it cast off all fleshly striving, and every kind of material impression, and how quickly it believed the saving message!" Oh, he says, the heart easily and constantly breaking off all carnal affection, and casting off every kind of bodily demonstration, and immediately believing in the saving proclamation!

(30) See Chrysostom, *Homily 10 to the People of Antioch*, near the end.

(31) That is, Dionysius was converted to the faith in the forty-third year of his age, which can be gathered thus: Dionysius was, as shown above, nine years younger than Christ. Now when he was converted, it was the fifty-second year of Christ, and the tenth of the emperor Claudius (for these concur in Eusebius’s *Chronicle*); if, therefore, you take nine years from Christ's fifty-two, there will remain forty-three for Dionysius. ^C

It remains, therefore, only to prove that Dionysius’s conversion fell in the tenth year of Claudius. For the same is the fifty-second of Christ. This is proved from the Acts of the Apostles, chapters XVII and XVIII: Paul, after Dionysius’s conversion, went straight from Athens to Corinth, and there he met Aquila the Pontian, a Jew, and Priscilla his wife, who had recently arrived in Corinth from Italy because of the edict of Claudius (who had ordered all Jews to depart from Rome). Yet that edict was published in the ninth year of this same Claudius, for Paul Orosius, a contemporary of St. Augustine, writes in book VII of his *Histories*, chapter 6, and cites the author Josephus: "In the ninth year of the same," he says, "Josephus reports that the Jews were expelled from the city by Claudius." Wherefore if Aquila the Pontian and Priscilla departed from Italy and came to Corinth in the ninth year of Claudius, and shortly thereafter Paul came to them from Athens after having recently converted Dionysius, what is more probable than that the conversion occurred one year after the edict, or at least approximately so (lest one wish to act too rigidly)? ^D For I do not assert that this is necessarily concluded from these words, since all these things—Dionysius’s conversion, the edict of Claudius, Paul’s departure from Athens, the departure of the Pontian Aquila from Rome, and the meeting of both in Corinth—could have happened in the same ninth year of Claudius; but because this is more difficult (since the edict would have had to be assigned to the beginning of the year, or certainly hardly any delay from the edict’s publication could be allowed for travelers emigrating), it is therefore better to transfer their meeting in the city of Corinth and the conversion of Dionysius to the following year. It is added that those who argue that Dionysius was converted in the nineteenth year from Christ’s passion (which is our very own year) work in our favor; which the most learned Baronius also noted for the year fifty-two of Christ.

(32) *Brought to the faith of Christ.* The Witness [is] Metaphrastes on October 4 in his *Compendium of the Life*, where he says this of St. Dionysius: "And being hunted by the great Paul and baptized, he is ordained a bishop." Captured by the great Paul, and baptized, he is created a bishop. These things are not to be understood as if he were created a bishop immediately upon baptism, but at a convenient time, after he had obviously been instructed by Hierotheus, the Athenian pontiff, and was judged by St. Paul to be suitable for the exercise of so great an office. Methodius, in the *Martyrdom of St. Dionysius*, says this of St. Paul: "He turned Dionysius, who had previously been enmeshed in Gentile customs, to the way of salvation, and having regenerated him with holy baptism, he firmly established him in divine holiness." He led Dionysius, who had recently been implicated in the ways of the Gentiles, to the way of salvation and converted him, and by sacred baptism, having regenerated him, he again confirmed him with divine holiness.

(33) *For he was a Platonist.* Learned men were accustomed, having examined various schools of philosophers, to choose one which they would follow most strongly. But the most grave of men preferred Plato to all philosophers, even Aristotle; and at one time they called him divine, at another most wise, at another most holy, at another the Homer of philosophers, at another a god. Panaetius held other views from these, and finally Cicero himself. For of Panaetius, who approved of the other opinions of Plato, except one, he speaks thus in book I of the *Tusculan Disputations*, after the middle: "For he does not approve of this one opinion of his concerning the immortality of souls, of him whom he calls divine, most wise, most holy, and the Homer of philosophers in all places." So says Cicero. And yet nothing is truer, nothing is more certain, than the immortality of souls. Wherefore, if he approved of all other things, certainly he ought to have approved of this last one most of all. The same man to Atticus, book IV, epistle 15: "That in those books which you praise, he desires the character of Scaevola, I did not remove it rashly, but I did the same as that god of ours, Plato, in his *Republic*," etc. And book II *On the Nature of the Gods*: "Let us listen to Plato, as if he were a certain god of philosophers." Elsewhere also he always prefers Plato to Aristotle, which he professes in book I of the *Tusculan Disputations*, before the middle: "Aristotle," he says, "far excelling all (I always except Plato) in talent and diligence, when he had comprehended those four known kinds of principles from which all things originated, judged there to be a certain fifth nature, from which there is mind." The same Plato was preferred above all philosophers by all the Holy Fathers. Arnobius, Book I *Adversus Gentes*: "Plato," he says, "that sublime apex and pillar of philosophers, reported in his writings that those cruel floods and conflagrations of the world are the purification of the earth." And book II: "That divine Plato, thinking many things worthy of God and not common to the multitude," etc. I have noted more in the *Life of St. Justin the Philosopher*. Finally, the Platonists were St. Hierotheus, Dionysius, Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Augustine, and almost all the other Fathers, both Greek and Latin, before...

^A they were illuminated by the light of the faith. Nor is this surprising: for Plato followed Moses to such a degree that Numenius, the Pythagorean philosopher, said of him: *τί γάρ ἐστι Πλάτων ἢ Μωϋσῆς Ἀττικίζων;* What is Plato but Moses speaking Attic Greek? Why, then, if Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, a man of profound learning, if Marsilius Ficinus, if others after them, or if we ourselves call Dionysius a Platonist, is there any reason why Jacobus Faber Stapulensis (whom I hold in the highest esteem for his learning, piety, and zeal in defending Dionysius) should be angry with us? For we stand more with Dionysius than against him, when we include him in the chorus of the greatest of philosophers, and indeed prefer him to Plato himself. For Marsilius, whom I follow, says this of him in his argument to the book *On the Divine Names*: "Although we declare Dionysius a follower of Plato as a pious philosopher, we nonetheless judge that he is to be preferred, not only to other Platonists because of the height of his Platonic doctrine, but even to Plato himself because of the new light of Christian truth." Moreover, St. Thomas also admits ^B in his commentary *On the Divine Names*, chapter 5, lesson 1, that Dionysius greatly imitates the Platonists.

But there are not wanting those who think and teach that he was a Stoic in his sect rather than an Academic. To whom I reply that Stoics were hardly suited for the judgments of the Areopagus. For what could they judge justly, who consider all sins to be equal? Regarding what M. Tullius thought of these Stoics, see his *Oration for L. Murena*: for there, arguing against Cato, he teaches that those who are of the school of Plato and Aristotle are better suited for courts and tribunals than those who belong to Zeno, the prince of the Stoics. I confess, however, that Dionysius could be called a Stoic because of the gravity of his morals, the constancy of his virtues, ^C and the severity of his judgments, in such a way, indeed, that he would spare no guilty man, condemn no innocent one; that neither favor would move him against justice, nor would anyone's misery soften him to act against the statutes and legitimate punishments.

The dissimilarity of morals regarding chastity and modesty argues that the Epicureans and Cynics were very far from the precepts of the Christian law. For the Epicureans placed the highest good in pleasure, from which the Gospel dissuades us. The Cynics, however, full of canine impudence (whence the name was given to them), made no distinction between the honest and the dishonest, the decorous and the indecorous. But Christians, by their very modesty and the practice of honesty alone, were distinguished as much from both of these as from every other diverse kind of person.

Regarding both of these, the Epicureans and the Cynics, see Diogenes Laertius, *On the Lives of Philosophers*, in the section on Epicurus and the Cynic Diogenes.

These, in fact, are the things that Plato felt the same as Jews and Christians: First, that there is a God, who always is, and has no beginning. 2. That he is ineffable. 3. That he is one, always just, so that he may establish rewards for the good and punishments for the wicked. 6. He seemed to have touched somewhat upon the mystery of the Trinity. 7. That there are good spirits, and also evil ones. 8. That the soul is immortal. 9. That the world is not from eternity, but created. 10. That the world is corruptible. 11. The resurrection of the dead. 12. A heavenly earth, which we call the land of the living. 13. The final judgment and retribution worthy of the merits of all. Concerning these and more, see Eusebius, *Preparation for the Gospel*, book XI.

CHAPTER III.

The virtue and constancy of Dionysius against the calumniators of his faith and new life.

As it happens in worldly affairs (36), the more sublimely things are placed, the more they lie open to the eyes and tongues of many; so it generally happens in human life, that while the humble and the plebeian, whether they act well or ill, live in silence and obscurity, the entire life, deeds, and words of those who are set in a higher degree of honor and dignity are exposed to all, not only to eyes and tongues, but also to opinions and judgments, varied on both sides, but most frequently to the cavils and calumnies of envious and malevolent people. Therefore Dionysius, before he gave his name to the Christian militia, was in the Areopagus, as in a lofty theater, an actor of the leading roles, and visible to the eyes of all who looked on from every side: he was observed by all, honored by all, so that his word or deed could not be obscure in such a light of dignity.

Therefore, when Paul was brought into that most august council of the Areopagus and accused of a new superstition, and had been ordered to speak for himself to those who wished to hear him, and the whole assembly turned its ears now to Paul, now its eyes to Dionysius, observing him sometimes too intent on the words of the speaker, they were at first somewhat surprised, then began to suspect something; but afterwards, when they noticed that upon finishing his speech Paul was not only dismissed freely, but also (as some who scrutinized more curiously noted) was sometimes invited to his home, kindly received and heard, and finally honored and esteemed; then the rumor of this matter spread through the city, and was heard and repeated most greedily by the people, who were most hungry for such things: that the prince of the Areopagus had been captured and deluded by a single stranger, and, having spurned the great gods and goddesses, was clinging entirely to that one Unknown God whom that guest and foreigner had brought with him.

When this rumor was not vain, and was for that reason confirmed more and more each day, and Dionysius neither would nor could dissimulate any longer, good God! what admirations, what cavils, what contentions of speech, what calumnies, were heard everywhere from acquaintances, from strangers, from relatives, from intimates, and finally from every kind of man, order, and sex? When almost no other conversation resounded in the Areopagus, in the forum, or in social circles during those days than about Dionysius (37). For with the exception of those who coveted his supreme position and honor, almost everyone mourned the miserable and pitiable fall (as they themselves thought and called it) of such a man and one so distinguished: and they lamented that defection from Jove and Mars, and Minerva and Ceres, and their other celestial beings, for the sake of one unknown god, as if it were a most certain fall from heaven.

Indeed, his kinsmen and relatives, when they saw that he had firmly resolved to return his honors to the messenger (as it were), to neglect the reputation he had acquired, and to abandon the Areopagus and the dignity attained in it, what did they not do? What did they not attempt? In what direction did they not turn themselves? What traps did they not move to conquer his mind? When they constantly harassed both him and his wife: "Alas, you miserable people! What has happened to you? What has been done in this matter? What is this monster?

Whither have your upright minds, which used to stand Heretofore, turned themselves in mad ways?"

Indeed, you, Dionysius, who perform these things, are you enough of a madman? Or do some intemperances agitate you? Since this sudden matter in a man otherwise so mature, so prudent, and so considerate—who can doubt that it has been procured by some sort of trickery and evil art from some nefarious and wicked person? Do you, the gods whom...

all antiquity previously worshipped, and whom you yourself until now so holily revered and taught others were to be revered, suddenly change your will and now teach that they are to be despised and spat upon? And for what cause, pray? Is it, forsooth, so that you may worship and honor as a God one seditious, wicked, and impious man, whom his own townspeople slaughtered for his horrible crimes with a most ignominious death? Good heavens! What insolent, hateful, and unheard-of madness! Such things they said, and many others.

When the new man of God answered these men most wisely, demonstrating on the one hand the vanity of the gods from the ancient books of the pagans themselves, and on the other hand the truth of the one true God with the most solid reasoning, he was, as the saying goes, singing to deaf ears. And as to Christ, although he showed quite clearly, by recounting Paul’s doctrine regarding His supreme innocence and voluntary death for men, the miracles performed at His death, and the memory of the eclipse of the sun (which was not yet old), yet they rashly denied these things and twisted them in another direction. As if, indeed, such innocence, had it existed, would never have been condemned by public judgment; or as if that solar eclipse, had it overshadowed the whole world, had happened not for that reason, but because of certain hidden causes. For they claimed that most things among the gods befall the world by fate, and to wish to investigate the causes of these, since the gods themselves will them to be unknown, would be the height of madness. Therefore, they begged and implored him to reflect again and again on what he was doing; that his entire reputation and fame were in peril; and that this change of religion would be a source of ruin not only to himself, but to the entire race and family of the Dionysii. As though they were pitying him and his own, lest through his own imprudence, or rashness, or folly, or even impiety, he should cause his house—just now so flourishing, so opulent, so overflowing with honor and glory, and always until now on everyone’s lips and in everyone’s praise—to lie now, for the sake of a single superstition (which was being hissed at everywhere), stripped of all these things, in squalor and filth, humble and disfigured, retaining nothing of its former beauty and adornment, but becoming exposed, instead, to the infamy and ignominy of which he had hitherto lived so insolently. Nor were there wanting some, perhaps, who threatened him with exile, torments, or death, and the end of Socrates. For if, to Socrates, such a philosopher, who introduced a God single and new, yet supreme and far removed from these miseries, death was brought, what would become of him who teaches that one—a gallows-bird (for among the savage there was no restraint on such words) and one who was crucified among thieves—is God, and peddles him as the great Divine Being? In short, he seemed to be experiencing a dream, and it was considered so stupid and thick-headed for anyone to even suspect, let alone believe, such incredible things. What of a learned man? What of an Areopagite? What of a leader of that first council?

Such, generally, were they. How wisely and how bravely the new athlete of Christ answered them is not much harder to think than to say; however, the sum of his answer was this: that men who are ignorant or too credulous go very far astray, naturally, regarding the person of Christ. For what the Master was like could not be learned more certainly than from his disciples. The life and morals of these disciples were such that nothing vicious, nothing deceitful, nothing feigned could be found in them; and his doctrine was so consistent with right reason and true philosophy that nothing could be more so. Its truth, which was certainly not doubtful, was evidently proven by the huge abundance of miracles performed on its account, and indeed, miracles through which not the empty fame or glory of men was gathered, but the health, life, and salvation of the infirm, the weak, the crippled, and even the dead were procured. As to threats of exile or death, he said that, even more willingly and readily than Socrates himself (since he would be dying for a better cause), he would die. For to die for Christ is life, not death. This death, or rather this life, is sought eagerly by Christians, and is pursued more avidly than treasure. Nor do the Epicureans pant and lust after pleasures as much as the true and genuine followers of Christ flee and spurn them. For above all pleasures and delights, they value labors, sweats, vigils, and whatever is generally reputed by the common run of men to be hard, harsh, and intolerable. In doing this, they manifest clearly that they do not perform it by the instinct of a corrupt and broken nature (which is always inclined toward soft things), but by the support of an extraordinary virtue and a higher power.

Therefore, with these and such words, such as the new initiate heard again and again from the mouth of Paul (for he had bound his soul to his divine spirit), he not only defended himself well against their importunate aggressions, but also dragged some—partly by the force of reason and partly by the weight of authority—to his side, no less than a magnet draws iron. But others, whom he could not overcome as they were entirely stubborn, he would at least so shake, by shattering their battering rams and engines, that they would begin to mistrust their own fortifications and arguments; others, finally, who defended themselves more stubbornly and obstinately than they endured the arguments of others with patience and ease, he would so absolve that they understood that, unless they preferred to close their ears to wise words rather than, having snatched curses from the gutter, to blunt them, there was no reason why they should ruin their own house or seek a meeting; for whatever they did, they would spend their labor in vain.

But while there were not a few who opposed him with, as they say, their whole heart, there was yet no one among them all who caused him more trouble than he who was once the dearest and most familiar of them all, a companion from his early years, a fellow traveler in his youth, and, in a word, his second self—Apollophanes: the very same man, I mean, whom, as he was most closely joined to him both in morals and in the study of the arts and, as a messmate in Egypt, he had observed and investigated that most famous solar eclipse when they were together at Heliopolis, though he had not let it penetrate as deeply into his heart and mind. He, therefore, left no stone unturned to dislodge his intimate friend from the new religion he had embraced. He, on the contrary, day and night, thought about drawing him to his own opinion. The one approached and listened to the other just as willingly and patiently as both were eager to overcome their companion and join him to themselves, while yet retaining their old friendship. But although their mutual visits were always full of love, they were nevertheless also most crowded with grief and sorrow. For by reason of the hopes frustrated on both sides, the greater the love that had been expressed upon arrival, the sadder the lover that succeeded upon departure.

Dionysius, however, bore whatever this hardship was more lightly and patiently, sustained as he was by the consolations of Paul and Hierotheus, and indeed, strengthened by heavenly grace within, especially from the sacrament of initiation he had received. But Apollophanes—whom these heavenly protections were lacking, and whom, moreover, his own opinion regarding his gods (a very ancient and deep-rooted prejudice, as well as a perverse and wicked one) troubled and agitated from within—could not at times contain himself from flaring up more vehemently into grave anger and injury, and sometimes proceeding so far as to load both Christ and Paul, as the authors of such a great evil, with many unworthy insults and execrations; and indeed, to devote them both to all evils, as worthy of a thousand crosses and a thousand tortures. For, as he said while seething bitterly, nothing had ever been seen or heard more execrable than that, for the sake of some new-fangled law—which was no law—and of some most vile and wicked Jew (this was the unbridled slander of his and many others), one should feign and assume a divinity (for which, however, the most worthy punishment would be to hang on a gallows), despise the best and greatest gods, worshipped from all antiquity, abandon the most holy and august temples, neglect the most ancient ceremonies and rites, and finally convert all religious worship and piety into derision and mockery. Which...

words, though they wounded the noble breast of Dionysius quite severely, penetrated only so far as to prevent him—master of himself—from returning curses for curses; but, giving place for a time to wrath, and mindful of their old friendship, he bore everything for the present. For he did not despair that this man, whom but now the envy of the devil and the malignity of superstition had inflamed with the heat of an ulcerated mind, might be calmed by time itself, which tames all things; and he even hoped (if such were the will of God, the greatest and best, and His grace aided) that, his will being changed, he would one day be worthy to stand in the very camps of Christ. Nor was he deceived in his expectation. For when, as duties called one here and another there, they had been separated by distance, and Apollophanes happened upon a meeting with Polycarp (40) (this man was truly admirable in familiarity and intercourse), whether at Smyrna or elsewhere, and in the course of their mutual conversation the talk happened by chance to turn to Dionysius, behold, that man was again moved against him, hurling curses and calling him a parricide, for this reason above all: that he had heard that Dionysius had said or written certain things against the Greeks or the Gentiles, and had assailed them by their own weapons. Polycarp, therefore, because of the accustomed gentleness and mildness of his soul, thinking it good to soothe the man with soft words rather than to exasperate him further while he was angry—and, as the common saying goes, to poke the fire—so managed the matter, so composed all the agitation, and finally in the progress of time so bound him to himself, that no small hope shone forth of winning and reconciling him both to Christ and to Dionysius. ^A He sent letters, therefore, to Dionysius, and informed him of the same Apollophanes, and in what state things now stood: namely, that he had been moved not a little against him, because he had understood him to use the books and disciplines of the Greeks iniquitously against the Greeks; and therefore he had not been able to restrain himself from hurling curses at him and calling him a parricide. That epistle of St. Polycarp is indeed missing in this age, but the response of Dionysius to it, from which these things are gathered, full of benevolence and mildness, exists to this day. The substance of it is almost as follows: that he never knew himself to have spoken against the Greeks or against any others whatever; for he had thought it sufficient for good men if they recognized the truth in itself, and proclaimed it as it is. For if this were done duly, then all things alien to the truth could be refuted by themselves, as if there were need of nothing else; wherefore it was superfluous for an interpreter of the truth to fight with this one or that. For the matter stood just so, even as the possession of a royal coin. For everyone says that he has it, and perhaps he holds a certain counterfeit image of a piece of it, but he does not have the true coin. Therefore, if one were to refute him, another would likewise approach who would say that this true coin was in his possession, and in the same way another and another, even though they each bring adulterated coins, but none the true one. But when the true and royal coin itself is brought forth, which easily reveals itself by its own nature and proves its legitimacy, so that it cannot be refuted by any, then all other things, which are not similar to it in all respects, are openly convicted of falsity by themselves and with no trouble. Thus it happens in the true and Christian religion. For this, being shown to the world and compared with others, proves itself alone to be the true and sincere religion; ^B but as for the others, it clearly demonstrates that they are not religions, but superstitions and mere images and certain adulterated shadows of religion. Therefore, he says, I was in no way hasty or rash in saying anything either against the Greeks or any others whatsoever. For it is enough for me—and may God grant this—first to recognize the truth, and then, having recognized it, to proclaim it as is fitting. Such was that. And this was the first part of his epistle, in which he prudently purged himself of the objected hostility toward the Greeks in order to win for himself the benevolence of Apollophanes. But in the second part, he turned back Apollophanes’ weapon against him, sharply indeed, but kindly and without insult. For thus he wrote to the same Polycarp concerning him: "But as for what you say," he says, "that I am branded with disgrace by Apollophanes the sophist, and called a parricide because I abuse the writings of the Greeks against the Greeks, I could, in truth, more rightly object to him that the Greeks themselves do not use divine things against divine things in a holy manner: since they, through the so-called wisdom of God, attempt to remove divine worship and religion from the midst. Nor do I speak here only of the common sort of men, who cling to the fables of the poets, following their filthiness, and adore created things against the Creator, but Apollophanes himself, he himself uses divine things against divine things unholily. For the science of existing things (which is rightly called philosophy by him, and which is called the wisdom of God by St. Paul) ought to have raised true philosophers to the author of these same things as well as to the author of science itself." Such was that. But after this, mindful that he was speaking with a lover and student of astrology, he set himself to capture him by the same arts by which he himself had been captured. ^C For he reminds him of the wonders which once occurred in the heavens and in the sun above the common order of nature, and argues that they could only have been brought to pass by Him who created both the heavens and the sun from the beginning and who now holds them in their state. "And lest I refute the sentiment of others, or even his own, against my intent," he says, "Apollophanes, being a wise man, ought to have understood that nothing could ever be changed in the order and motion of the celestial bodies unless their Creator and Preserver—who, as the Holy Scriptures teach, makes and changes all things—were the one changing them. Why, then, does he not worship Him whom we have recognized, even from this, to be truly the God of all? Why does he not admire Him whose power is both the cause of all things and above all speech? Who caused it that once the sun and moon stood firmly motionless for the whole day, and everything remained in the same points? Or, certainly, which is even more wonderful, who could bring it about that, with the heavens moving with a larger magnitude than usual, those things which are contained within them, and which are accustomed to be carried away to their own spaces with them, should then, against their custom, resist, and not be carried together in a circle? Certainly, only the divine power, with its supreme and all-dominating empire, could do this. I grant again, who was the author when one day was equal to nearly three, and for twenty whole hours all the orbs of the heavens bent their course backward in contrary motions, and with circlings exceeding the order of nature returned to whence they had come? Or, if this pleases more, who gave it to the sun alone that in its own course, its quintuple motion contracted into ten hours, it should measure itself out again whole in another ten hours, and remain, treading a new path? For this also rightly stunned the Babylonians, and brought the king Hezekiah—as one who had transgressed human bounds and was equating himself to the power of God—willingly to submit, and that without a fight. What should I say of those magnificent miracles performed in Egypt, or even elsewhere? For what I have brought forward, as common to all and done in the heavens, are celebrated everywhere throughout the world and by all nations." When Dionysius had thus reasoned in favor of astrology, in order to assert the truth of the one God from the heavens and the stars, fearing that these things might not obtain faith with Apollophanes because of his ignorance of the Holy Scriptures from which they were taken, or because of his inexperience of these very portents (even though what is said about the triple day can also be known from the sacred rites of the Persians, since the Magi themselves, in order to hand down the extension of that day to eternal memory, did make the sun, as triple Mithras, a solemn day), he nonetheless asks Polycarp that, besides and beyond these, he refresh his memory of that most admirable eclipse of the sun, which they saw together at Heliopolis, when Apollophanes himself, as though prophesying, exclaimed: "These are the mutations of divine things." And behold, this very mutation, Dionysius adds, translated

us from error to truth, from darkness to light, from death to life, from idols to the true God. Then, concluding the letter: "Do you yourself," he says, "O divine Polycarpus, add what remains, that you may bring such a man, so wise as he is, to the far wiser truth of the Christian religion." And indeed Polycarpus did add it, and brought the whole matter to a happy conclusion. For, attacking the man with other arguments, but especially with those of Dionysius himself, he finally led him to the point where, leaving behind the wisdom of the world, he willingly and eagerly transferred himself to the divine (which alone deserves the name of true wisdom). Who can say what, then, were the joys of both Dionysius and Polycarpus, what the applause, what the mutual congratulations, that so great a man had been brought, by their joined labors, to the sweet yoke of Christ? A prize acquired after much time and great labors is wont to be more joyful, and to bring much more pleasure, than one gained by quick and short toil. Indeed, this one was of such a kind that perhaps no other like it could be found, for which so long and so constantly anyone had ever labored. For very late, and many years after the subject of religion had begun to be discussed between them—nay, even after many calumnies and insults, cast indeed sharply and haughtily from that side, but borne gently and modestly from this—the fruit of this long-suffering was at last gathered as a reward worthy of the effort. So helpful is it, in procuring the salvation of brothers, and in bringing back sinners—however obstinate and stubborn—to the path, not to lose heart, neither quickly nor slowly, but to endure for months and years and multiplied lustra, and even one’s whole life; and as long as breath and blood remain in you or them, to work by warning, 431 arguing, and finally by pouring out vows and prayers to God, and if need be, by suffering labors, sorrows, annoyances, and insults and curses of every kind, until a soul dearer than heaven and earth is won. How great, then, was the force of joy for Dionysius from the winning of a single soul, how great the fervor of his exulting spirit, the letters he gave to Apollophanes after he had received the sacrament of the faith are witnesses, of which I append an example. "Dionysius to the philosopher Apollophanes. Right now I direct my discourse to you, O love of my heart," etc. We placed this letter in the preceding volume among other letters of St. Dionysius, but it must be considered entirely spurious. See the Prolegomena, vol. 1, col. 56. Edit.

432 Not only was our Areopagite strong and constant in enduring calumnies, and in struggling through all the machinations directed against our faith, but he was also fortunate and happy. As for the accusation brought forward or the penalty inflicted in the name and respect of the new religion, there was nothing of these. For the Athenians, since the death of Socrates (of which they were so ashamed and repentant that soon, as a sign of public mourning, they closed all the wrestling schools and gymnasia, having punished some of his accusers with exile and others with death, while they honored him with a bronze statue), were by no means precipitate, neither in undertaking accusations against anyone concerning the new religion, nor in passing judgment concerning the neglect or worship of the gods. Hence, although there are few among the famous cities where there did not arise many martyrdoms of Christians, yet in Athens, a city so great and celebrated, it can hardly be found that even one person was punished with either exile or death for the sake of the Christian faith (of which, indeed, it might be firmly held). For of Publius and Quadratus, bishops of Athens and successors of our Dionysius (about whom it could alone be doubted), it is most probable that, provoked by the injuries of certain private individuals, or by a sudden tumult of the people (as may to some extent be gathered from the acts of their own martyrdom), whether by being attacked with stones or harassed in other ways, they departed from the city of their own accord for the sake of the peace of the Christians, and met their end elsewhere. A more fitting place to speak of this will be in the section on Quadratus. For now, having overcome the struggles of various obstacles that usually occur in the beginning, we move forward to consider his progress both in sacred Theology and in virtue of every kind.

NOTATIONES

(36) This chapter treats of the various temptations brought against Dionysius. It is highly useful to note this in the lives of the saints, because virtue shines most brightly in them and provides incentives for imitation. The highest magistracy among his own people, and the prince of high ranks, usually either strongly holds the one who possesses it or vehemently invites the one aspiring to it. Dionysius broke these snares; nor did he care more for the blandishments of friends, the words of detractors, or the threats of those who would terrify him. See Syngelus at the very end of the encomium of Dionysius. He did not so much desert Apollophanes, his old and intimate companion, for the sake of Christ, as he overcame him by patience and long-suffering.

They had seen and wondered together at the unusual eclipse of the sun, but they had interpreted it in different ways. Dionysius had understood it in a higher and clearly divine way, as the suffering of God in the body; whereas Apollophanes had perceived it as the sun itself, which he held to be God, suffering something contrary to its nature. Dionysius seems to indicate this in the letter he addressed to him, where, speaking of that solar eclipse, he added this parenthesis by way of preoccupation (not that God, but that the work of God in the setting of his true light could not shine), as if he were to say: Not that the sun is God, as you presume, and thus God could not shine, but that the sun, as the work of God, was obscured in the setting of Christ, who is the true light. The same Dionysius used a similar preoccupation in his book *On the Divine Names*, chap. 4, where, after reporting the manifold efficiency of the sun, he added: "I do not say this according to the fable of antiquity, that the sun is God and the creator of this whole universe; but that the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and divinity." I do not say this, he says, following the myth of antiquity, that the sun is God and the fabricator of the universe, and thus properly governs this visible world; but that the invisible things of God are understood and perceived through the things that are made, as well as his eternal power and divinity. Thus, indeed, Apollophanes, who was already living in Egypt, had been imbued with the ancient error of the Egyptians, by which they deemed the sun and moon to be gods and worshipped them. Concerning whom Eusebius speaks in Book 1, *On the Evangelical Preparation*, chap. 9: "It is said that the ancient Egyptians, when they had fixed their eyes on the contemplation of this world, and were astounded with vehement admiration at the nature of all things, judged the sun and moon to be eternal gods, and the princes of all things." To which these words of Arnobius agree, in his book *Against the Gentiles*: "When you believe the sun to be a god, you do not seek his creator and maker; when the moon is a goddess among you, you do not care to know similarly who is her begetter and fabricator." It is also permitted to behold many ancient inscriptions testifying that the sun is God, of which many are found in Janus Gruterus, and this among others:

DEO. SOLI. INVICTO. ARAM. C. JULIUS. CÆSAR. D. D.

(37) Michael Syngelus in his Encomium of Dionysius. (38) Among the robbers on the crosses.

this was the objection of the Gentiles against the Christians, that they worshiped a man who had been stretched on a cross and condemned to a servile death. Thus, Arnobius in book I of his *Adversus Gentes* introduces one of them speaking: "But, he says, it is not for this reason that the gods are hostile to you, because you worship an omnipotent God, but because you believe that a man who was born, and—what is infamous to common people—was put to death by the punishment of the cross, was and still is God, and you worship him with daily supplications." Minutius Felix likewise introduces another in his *Octavius*: "And they fable that those who worship a man punished for a crime by the ultimate penalty, and the wooden beams of a cross, have rituals suitable for lost and abandoned criminals: so that they might worship that which they deserve." Nor was Lactantius Firmianus silent, who in book IV of *De vera sapientia*, ch. 16, says: "I now come to the passion, which is usually brought against us as a reproach, because we worship a man who was both affected by a signal punishment by men and tortured." And in chapter 16, same place: "But perhaps someone may say: 'If he was God, and wanted to die, why was he not at least affected by some honorable kind of death? Why the cross, above all? Why an infamous type of punishment?' which even for a free man, however guilty, seems repugnant." See the notable response there. Nor was Augustine silent, who in sermon 8, *De Verbis Apostoli*, says: "Concerning the Cross of Christ, the wise men of this world insult us, and say: 'What kind of hearts do you have, you who worship a crucified God!'" See also St. Isidore of Pelusium, book IV, epistle 31, where he egregiously and with the applause of his audience refutes a certain Gentile sophist who was mocking the cross and passion of Christ. For when the man broke into boisterous laughter concerning a crucified God, Isidore asked: "But from where can you demonstrate Christ was crucified?" While all were wondering whither such a question was tending, the Gentile, as if certain of victory, replied: "It is written in your Gospels." Then Isidore said: "Yet it is also written in the same that he rose again and returned to the heavens. If therefore you believe the Gospel on one point, believe it also on the other." After which, such laughter and applause arose among those standing by that both were blushing, Isidore for glory, the Gentile for ignominy.

(39) He proved that the power of miracles clearly verified the matter. The way of proving the divinity of Christ through prodigies was shown by Christ himself, Matthew v, where, having been sent by John to ask whether he himself was the Messiah and Savior, he replied: "Go and report to John what you have heard. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor are evangelized." This way was held by the apostles, and their followers and successors; nor has the power of miracles ever failed in the Church of God for the proving of the faith. St. Justin Martyr rightly treated this mark of faith and the Church, to whose *Life*, where we treat of it more fully, I refer the reader.

(40) In Polycarpus. He is St. Polycarp, disciple of John.

(41) *Ab Apollophane sophista*. The name is one of the ambiguous ones, and can be taken in both directions, good and bad. Here, however, it is taken in the good sense, for one skilled in many things and arts. Elsewhere Dionysius calls him the mirror of doctrine, elsewhere a wise man. Regarding the primary significations of this word σοφιστής (sophist), Plutarch is to be consulted in *Themistocles*, near the beginning.

(42) *Qui ut docent sacræ litteræ, facit mutatque omnia*. This passage is in the Septuagint translation of Amos, ch. v, 8, in these words: Ὁ ποιῶν πάντα καὶ μετασκευάζων. "Making all things and changing." Otherwise, the Latin Vulgate edition has: "Making Arcturus and Orion, and turning darkness into morning, and changing the day into night." It speaks, however, of God, whose action alone conversion and change are.

(43) *Quis enim fecit, ut olim sol et luna*, etc. ^A St. Dionysius took this from the book of Joshua, ch. x, ver. 12, and following, where he speaks thus: "Then Joshua spoke to the Lord, in the day that he delivered the Amorite in the sight of the children of Israel, and he said before them: 'Sun, against Gibeon, do not move, and moon, against the valley of Aijalon.' And the sun and moon stood still, until the people had avenged themselves of their enemies. Is not this written in the book of the just? So the sun stood in the middle of heaven, and did not hasten to set for the space of one day. There was not before or after so long a day, with the Lord obeying the voice of man, and fighting for Israel." And in Ecclesiasticus, ch. XLV, 3, thus of Joshua: "Was the sun not held back in his wrath, and was one day made as it were two?" Dionysius further assigns two ways in which it could happen that the sun and moon stood motionless. One, indeed, in which all the heavens together with them stood, and moved in no direction. The other, in which all the heavens, even those in which the sun and moon are fixed, were moved in their usual motion, and the sun and moon themselves stood quiet in the same place and did not move with their heavens. Which latter prodigy Dionysius rightly judges would have been more admirable than the former. For it would contain a multitude of huge miracles, which I leave for the astrologers to investigate.

^B Regarding this unusual and prodigious station and delay of the two luminaries, our Serrarius discusses some questions in chapter x of Joshua, which it is not useless for those free from work to look into. See also Gaspar Sancius on the XXXVIII chapter of Isaiah.

(44) *Quis auctor alias fuit, ut dies unus fere tribus æquaretur?* St. Dionysius proposes another prodigy in this place to Apollophanes, concerning the retreat of the sun in the time of Hezekiah, king of Judah. To him, asking for a sign of his future healing, Isaiah said, IV *Kings*, ch. xx, 9: "This will be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the word which he has spoken: Do you wish that the shadow go up ten lines, or that it return by as many degrees?" And Hezekiah said: "It is easy for the shadow to increase by ten lines; nor do I wish this to happen, but that it return backward by ten degrees." And so the prophet Isaiah called upon the Lord, and brought back the shadow by the lines, by which it had already descended in the sundial of Ahaz, backward by ten degrees. Thus it is there. Which miracle is recorded in Isaiah, ch. XXXVIII, 7, in these words: "But this shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this word which he has spoken: Behold I will return the shadow of the lines, and by which it had descended in the sundial of Ahaz in the sun, backward by ten lines. And the sun returned by ten lines through the degrees, which it had descended."

^C The sense of this history is as follows: Hezekiah, king of Judah, confined to his bed by a grave illness, prayed to God for the recovery of his health: God promised him through the prophet Isaiah not only that he would restore his health, but also that he would add fifteen years to his life. Hezekiah asked for a sign in testimony of this matter. God granted it, and said he would cause the sun, which had now finished ten hours of the day, to reflect backward as many, and return toward the east. Which was done. And therefore that one day, in which these things were happening, is rightly said by Dionysius to have been almost equal to three. For if four hours were added, there would be thirty-eight, and consequently three days. For since a day is of twelve hours, the sun had already finished ten, and thus had almost completed one day, except for two 434 hours before it retreated: in its retreat, however, since it spent just as many hours, namely ten, the space of the second day was, except for two hours again, in which space of ten hours the sun arrived at the place of its origin, from which place from then on until the west it finished twelve whole hours; so that the last course of the sun was a whole day of twelve hours, but the two earlier were each of ten hours. And thus that day above the horizon of Judah was of thirty-two hours. ^D

^A From these it is easy to gather the meaning of the words of St. Dionysius. Who, he says, when He gave the sun, so that in its own proper course (which is, namely, of twelve hours from east to west) it should retrace its path by returning over its fivefold motion contracted into ten hours (for why, unless the course toward the west were impeded, would that motion have to be of twelve hours?) and measure it all out again in another twelve hours (when, in fact, instead of what it should have completed for the remaining two hours of the day toward the west, leaving those, it turned back along the same way it had come, through the meridian, toward the place where it had risen) to traverse a new path. For it is a strictly new path, when the sun is near sunset, to revert back to the meridian, and to return through it to the meridian. Concerning the fivefold motion of the sun, see Maximus and Pachymeres on this epistle of Dionysius. Furthermore, the goal of the holy man in these examples was to teach Apollophanes, who was skilled in astrology, that those changes in the heavens and the stars were brought about by the one and true God alone; as also those which occurred at the time of the passion of Christ, when they themselves were in Egypt together, he saw; and consequently that one must follow and worship that unique God who created the sun and the moon and all the heavens; and that one must not suppose that any divinity resides in the sun or the moon; just as is the case with all those whom the Gentiles worship as gods, Jupiter, Mars, Minerva, Neptune, and the rest.

(45) See Maximus and Pachymeres concerning the fivefold motion.

(46) For this also justifiably astonished the Babylonians. Dionysius says that the Babylonians, stupefied by the sight of such a great miracle, surrendered themselves to Hezekiah without a battle. Which things are to be understood in this sense, namely, that the king of the Babylonians (at that time it was Berodach-Baladan, the son of Baladan) had sent legates with gifts to King Hezekiah, and sought alliance and friendship from him. Which Josephus also, in Book X of the Antiquities of the Jews, chapter 3, testifies to in these words: *Ὁ δὲ τῶν Βαβυλωνίων βασιλεὺς, Βαλάδας ὄνομα, πέμψας πρὸς τὸν Ἐζεκίαν πρέσβεις, δῶρα κομίσαντας, σύμμαχόν τε αὐτὸν εἶναι παρεκάλει καὶ φίλον — The king of the Babylonians, Baladas by name, having sent legates to Hezekiah, carrying gifts, asked him to be his ally and friend.* But the King of the Babylonians, Baladas by name, with legates sent to Hezekiah with gifts, asked him to be willing to be an ally and friend. It is not indeed found in the sacred Scriptures that legates came to seek alliance and friendship, not in the Book of IV Kings, chapter xx, nor in the Book of II Chronicles, chapter xxxii, nor in Isaiah, chapter xxxix (for in all those places, and only those, there is a memory of this history), but only that they came to congratulate him on his recovered health (as is indicated in IV Kings and in Isaiah) or to inquire about the portent which had occurred upon the earth (as in II Chronicles); nevertheless, so great is the authority of Josephus and Dionysius the Areopagite in my eyes, that I easily assent to them. Nor do I approve in any way of those who, when this one or that one brings forward something that is not in the Scriptures, boldly—not to say rashly and impudently—attack them. As if, indeed, the Jews did not have their traditions beyond Scripture (which Jerome cites more than once), just as the Christians do now: or as if other sacred histories were not in use and authority among them in those times just as much as they are for us. Wherefore those things alone which are so contrary to reason or Scripture that they cannot be reconciled with it, are to be rejected entirely. For sacred Scripture is the mistress of truth. But if anyone does not believe some things to be true, for the reason that they are lacking in it, truly his mind and sense are lacking even more. There is, however, a distinction between the faith which we attribute to Scripture and the faith which we accord to other histories or human traditions. For the former is divine, the latter human; the former is certain and cannot fail, the latter is not so certain that it cannot fail. What therefore Josephus (whom the holy Fathers praised and held in high regard) and Dionysius the Areopagite (whom the school of theologians respects ^B by bringing forward the sacred Scriptures, not as opposing, but only as having omitted them, in my judgment is to be highly valued; nor are they to be heard in any way who attack them at every slight opportunity.

(47) Regarding the triple Mithra or the portent of which he speaks, and the submission of the Babylonians, he asserts that this is contained in the very sacred and ritual books of the Persians as well, namely, while fighting against the Gentile Apollophanes with a Gentile sword. *Μάλιστα μὲν οὖν τοῦτο ταῖς Περσῶν ἱερατικαῖς ἐμφέρεται φήμαις, καὶ εἰσέτι Μάγοι τὰ μνημόσυνα τοῦ τριπλασίου Μίθρου τελοῦσιν — Most of all, therefore, this is contained in the priestly records of the Persians, and even now the Magi celebrate the memory of the triple Mithra.* Therefore, he says, these things are most held in the priestly monuments of the Persians, and the Magi even now celebrate the memory of the triple Mithra. Where of the triple Mithra, that is, of the triple sun. For Mithras is to the Persians the same as the sun, and is worshipped with the same divine honors, as being their God. Hence Artabazus the Persian, in Xenophon, Book VII of the *Cyropaedia*, swears by him: *Μὰ τὸν Μίθρην*—By Mithras. Strabo also, Book XV of *Geography*: *Τιμῶσι τὸν ἥλιον, ὃν καλοῦσι Μίθραν — They worship the sun, whom they call Mithras.* There also exist ancient inscriptions, where the sun and Mithras are placed together, as can be seen in those noted here.

At Rome (a): SOLI. INVICTO. MITHRÆ. T. ANTISTIUS. T. F. STELLATINA. SEVERIANUS. DEDICAVIT.

At Milan, in the gate of St. Ambrose, Vercelline gate (b): S. D. I. M. P. ACIL. PISONIANUS. PATER. PATRATUS. QUI. HOC. SPELEUM. VIOL. IGNIS. ABSUMPTUM. COMPARATA. AREA. A. REPUBL. MEDIOL. PECUNIA. SUA. RESTITUIT.

Where the first four characters D. S. I. M. signify: INVICTO. SOLI. DEO. MITHRÆ. See more inscriptions of this kind in Janus Gruterus. In which *SOLI MITHRÆ* is nothing other than 'to the sun, whom the Persians call Mithras.' Whence in Curtius, Book IV of his *Histories*, concerning the same Persians, it should be read precisely thus: "They invoke the sun, Mithras, and the sacred and eternal fire." Truly not, as some have wished, "the sun, Mars, etc." For Mars was not a god worshipped by them. Furthermore, the Romans erected not only statues but also temples to the Sun Mithras. Concerning the Emperor Aurelian, the founder and consecrator of the Temple of the Sun, Flavius Vopiscus testifies in his *Life*. "He built," he says, "a most magnificent Temple of the Sun." And he had said earlier: "When we had come to the temple of the Sun, consecrated by the Prince Aurelian." Concerning Mithra and his rites commonly performed in a cave, St. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Gregory Nazianzen, and many others make mention.

(48) For even the Athenians were ashamed of the death of Socrates. Diogenes Laertius relates this matter concerning Socrates, where toward the end of his life he reports these things: *Ἀθηναῖοι δ᾽ εὐθὺς μετέγνωσαν, ὥστε κλεῖσαι καὶ παλαίστρας καὶ γυμνάσια. Καὶ τοὺς μὲν ἐφυγάδευσαν, Μελίτου δὲ θάνατον κατέγνωσαν. Σωκράτη δὲ χαλκῆς εἰκόνος ἐτιμήσαντο, ἣν ἔθεσαν ἐν τῷ Πομπείῳ, Λυσίππου ταύτην ἐργασαμένου. Ἄνυτόν τε ἐπιπλαίοντα αὐθημερὸν ἐξεκήρυξαν Ἡρακλεῶται — The Athenians, however, immediately repented, to such an extent that they closed the palaestrae and gymnasia. And some they exiled, and condemned Melitus to death. But Socrates they honored with a bronze statue, which they placed in the Pompeion, Lysippus having crafted it. And Anytus, sailing in, was on the same day proclaimed an exile by the Heracleotes.* The Athenians so soon repented, that the palaestrae and gymnasia

they closed; and some they punished with exile, but Melitus they condemned to death. Finally, they honored Socrates with a statue of bronze made by Lysippus, which stood in the Pompeion (a very distinguished place in the city).

CHAPTER IV

The progress of Dionysius in theology and virtue, and his elevation to the episcopate.

From the time that this new soldier of Christ [(49)] was sprinkled with the saving waters in the Church of God, he bade farewell to all the pomps and allurements of the enemy, and immediately, as if translated from death to the life of his former custom, now forgotten amidst the clamor of the people, he began to undertake new studies and to press forward and pursue new virtues with all the striving of both soul and body. In this, in order that he might more easily and happily obtain the fruit of his work as he deserved, the very dignity and excellence of his teachers (from whom the first fervor of learning is usually born) brought the greatest moment. For he truly had those as teachers who had God Himself as their instructor. These were, indeed, the apostles and disciples of Christ, but above all, ^B and for a longer time than all, Paul [(50)]. For he who had begotten him in Christ through the word of truth, the same provided him with the first nourishment of the Spirit, the same delivered to him the first elements of faith, the same gave him milk to drink. For Paul wished to provide for Dionysius an instance and example of a good mother; teaching him, that is, no less liberally than he brought him forth nobly. Wherefore, he diligently expounded to him the principal mysteries of our religion, namely, that the world, which some philosophers wrongly argued had existed from eternity, was created by God, when before there was nothing at all but God: then also the angels, and then men originally created; and the former as inhabitants of heaven, and the latter as inhabitants of the earth and cultivators of paradise: for a fuller knowledge of which he strongly commended to him the diligent reading of the Old Testament. Then he explained the sins and punishments of our first parents, and their transfusion to their descendants, and thence the origin of all human infirmity (whence a flood of evils had flowed, just as a flood of waters). After that also, the restoration of the lost race, and the series and faith of the patriarchs, and the notable deeds performed by the instinct of the Divinity, he fixed in his eyes. But then he proceeded to the law written by the will of God and brought from heaven by the ministry of angels, and handed down into the hands of Moses; the precepts of which law, inscribed on two tablets, when he had wonderfully praised, and had shown them to be not only conformable to nature but even necessary for preserving human society, ^C he then exaggerated in word the multitude 436 of rites and ceremonies imposed on a rude and harsh people, rightly indeed at first to tame their ferocity, but now, the times having changed, he exaggerated their excessive difficulty, and from this fact the many transgressions and anxieties of mortals (as either the opinion of neglect, or excessive anxiety, might produce superstition). From all these things, and especially from the perpetual destruction and ruin of men, he strove to prove, and indeed did prove, that it was altogether necessary that, as the old law withered away and things went to ruin, a new law and a new legislator should arrive; and indeed one such that power and authority over all should be his. And so that God the Father had sent from heaven His only-begotten Son, who, having our nature joined and conglutinated to Himself, being at once God and man, could, in the best way, redeem the race of mortals, and would know how to do so by His infinite wisdom, and could do so by His inexhaustible power, and would do so by His immense goodness. Concerning these most high mysteries of our faith, since many things occurred to Dionysius, as a keen and astute philosopher, in opposition, and those neither light nor to be despised as arguments, when he had proposed these to his teacher for the sake of having light, they were at once so lucidly explained by him, and declared conjunctively with new solutions of other difficulties, that he always carried away much more than he had asked. For since it did not at all escape Paul what a great man Dionysius would one day be in the Christian Republic, he hastened to instruct this man, necessary to the Church, with opportune documents, and to store up all the treasures of his knowledge and wisdom in his soul, as in a most faithful ark of sacred deposits. And so, to one to whom neither keen wit was lacking, nor such a great teacher was present, it was easy, especially with no less diligence, to arrive in a short time at a cognition of divine things, which few might have been able to reach in the span of many years, and even then barely, and scarcely even that. Finally (to sum up in few and significant words from Scripture what Paul contributed to Dionysius: "he brought him around and taught him" [(2)]). For it is a constant faith that Dionysius adhered to Paul [(51)] for three full years while he traveled through Greece and Asia. Him, therefore, he used ^D as the greatest and first teacher of theology of all: but after him, S. Hierotheus [(52)], a man, if not entirely equal to the apostles, certainly nearly equal, and richly endowed with the wonderful gifts of the good and great God. Of whom for the present (because there will be a more opportune place for narrating this when his life is described) I will not touch upon more. But because it is by no means enough for a man to be moved to the helm of the Church, no matter how much he excels in knowledge, whether sacred or profane; but there is need besides, and especially indeed, of many and excellent virtues (for the former holds the place of an instrument, but the latter of the soul), therefore Dionysius leaned as much more heavily on the latter than on the former, as the soul is more excellent than the instrument. Nor were the proofs or examples of every kind of virtue to be sought from afar, when he both heard the former from the mouth of his teacher, as from most certain oracles; and read the latter daily in his life and morals, as in a most beautiful portrait. Wherefore, by his example, he subdued his body (which is the first way for those tending toward the perfection of life) with frequent fasts, vigils, and labors [(53)], and daily brought it into servitude. For he could not, nor did he wish, to do anything else in the company of Paul than Paul did. Just as, therefore, Paul (as he himself declares about himself) was with others in many evils, so specifically in labor and hardship, in many vigils, in hunger and thirst, in many fasts, in cold and nakedness [(a)], so also Dionysius, as a true disciple of his master, wished to be in the same: nor to have anything singular in the comforts of life and diet, or in immunity from evils. Indeed, he had learned from the reading of the Gospel that it is enough for the disciple to be as his master [(b)]; and for the servant as his lord. He did not wish, therefore, while the master was laboring, or watching, or fasting, to be either idle, or sleepy, or given to his own pleasure; but, conscious of that internal war and constant battle, in which the flesh and spirit, though dwelling together, fight hostilely against each other (for the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh [(c)]), he insisted on stripping this body of its arms, by which it might prevail and grow insolent; and he insisted on acquiring for the spirit assistance and nerves, by which it might obtain its legitimate dominion. And so, for the bed, the table, and other things of this kind, he not only cut away the luxuries, but even the less necessary comforts from his noble soul. But to the spirit, quite on the contrary, he indulged not only what comforts he could, but even all delights, although they are not always, nor in every respect, necessary. And what were these? Without doubt, continuous prayers to God

cations, than which nothing can be either more delightful or more wholesome; then the reading of the holy Gospel and other sacred Scriptures, frequented not only during the day, but also in the night hours; than which I know not whether anything stronger and more solid can be found against the deadly allurements of evil pleasures. Finally (to omit other things), the daily nourishment of that divine table and lifegiving bread, the sole delight of a devoted soul—yet in which delights (for this cannot indeed be said of all) there exists also strength and immortality. These four things, therefore, among others, he accounted of most worth (which all indeed, who desire to attain any degree of 437 perfection in life before God, ought to account of most worth and hold in highest esteem), namely, the unconquered subduing of the body, the unceasing use of prayer, the tireless study of sacred reading, and an unquenchable hunger and taste for the divine feast: firstly, for the reason that the more the body is brought low, by so much is the spirit elevated; and secondly, because he wisely understood: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights [d]," and that continence and wisdom are not acquired so much by human aid as they are conferred by the divine hand upon those who rightly ask for them; and thirdly, because he was by no means ignorant that the words of sacred Scripture are spirit and life; and fourthly, because he was certain that all the treasures of Divinity are communicated to men in that sacrament more fully and more abundantly than anywhere else. And so, through anxious maceration of the body and the constant shooting forth of prayers into the heavens, he paved for himself a way to other virtues (of which these are not only the foundations, but also the stimulants). Nay, he advanced so far in laboring and striving that nothing, or certainly almost nothing, hindered him from penetrating both the divine letters, which are inaccessible to terrestrial men, and the frivolous delights of those who love such things; and, furthermore, he rendered himself worthy of heavenly visions and angelic conversations (assisted and uplifted primarily by that grace which is received so abundantly in the sacrament of sacraments). Paul, therefore, seeing these advancements of his disciple, and the remarkable samples of virtue which he exhibited daily in abundance, while pondering them from time to time in his own mind, was transported with wondrous joy. For Dionysius had so put on all the manners of his master, and so represented all his discipline like a most clear mirror, that Paul, observing him, seemed to see another self reflected in him; so that he could not undeservedly say to him the same things which he said to another of his disciples, though in a certain sense: "But you have followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, love, patience [e]." For our Areopagite had so followed these that he not only remembered them to be in Paul, but he himself represented them in his life and conduct. Wherefore Paul, thinking that nothing more should be delayed, lest so great a light for the dispersing of the darkness of Gentile errors remain on high, created him bishop for the great good of the whole Church, but especially of the Western Church, as shall be seen hereafter, and wished him to preside over the Athenian Church, which was now rising to the light: whether as the first (as the other Dionysius 54, the prelate of the Corinthians and a very ancient writer, mentions) or as the second, as can be gathered from the Greek Menaion 55 (where the first place is assigned to the holy Hierotheus): for among the bishops of almost all the earliest Churches, a great difficulty arises in establishing the order and the blessed succession, not only on account of the characters of men, who by a certain natural vice affect antiquity, but also on account of the frequent migrations of those bishops themselves from one place to another. For it is certain that, just as the Church was in its infancy, so in its adolescence, not only the apostles, but also their disciples, kindled with an incredible ardor of faith, did not terminate their labors within the narrow confines of one place or jurisdiction, but, having sufficiently founded and instructed a Church somewhere, and having left there some one of the disciples as successor, they would eagerly pass to other lands with the desire of propagating the Gospel as widely as possible. Whence I very much praise the author of the *Ecclesiastical History* 56, who did not pass over in silence this custom of theirs (for it sheds light upon the truth), but, dealing with these very times which we have already traversed, and concerning the Apostolic men (who existed down to St. Quadratus, who was successor to our Dionysius in the same Athenian episcopate after Publius), bringing in mention of them, he speaks to this effect: "Very many," he says, "in that state, kindled by an ardent love of heavenly wisdom, and struck by the thyrsus of the divine word, first complying with salutary exhortations, distributed their wealth among the needy, then, leaving house and country, set out on the task of evangelical preaching, and made it their main endeavor to open the Scriptures of the holy Gospels and to announce Christ, especially to those who until then had heard nothing of the Christian faith. And these, having laid the foundations of the faith in a foreign land, when they had ordained others as pastors in their stead and had entrusted to them the care and cultivation of the new plantings of the Church, would then transfer themselves with the grace and help of God to other regions and peoples." For at that time also, many miracles were performed by them through the power of the Holy Spirit, by which it came to pass that, at their first preachings, a great multitude of mortals drank in, with greedy souls, true piety and worship toward God. So he. Since, therefore, it often happened that some of these pastors, having spent very little time there and with matters not yet exactly ordered, occupied the episcopal throne, it thus came about that, as they were passed over in the series of bishops, their successors, who had administered those provinces for a longer time and had labored more in stabilizing the affairs of the Church, were considered the first bishops. Thus it must be deemed that Hierotheus first received, increased, ruled, and taught the Athenian Church, which had been barely begun by Paul; but as he had departed a few years later to other places, whither the Spirit was leading him, or had even been called away and sent by the apostles (for it is acknowledged that he went into Spain 57 and held the episcopate there), Dionysius was placed over that same Church by Paul 438: and that in the year approximately fifty-five from the birth of Christ 58: at which time Dionysius himself was in his forty-sixth year of age, and was as capable of governing the Church as of suffering any labors whatsoever by reason of the office he had undertaken. How indeed he performed this, and with what virtues he flourished in founding and ordering the Athenian episcopate, it is now time to explain briefly.

NOTATIONS. In this chapter we treat of the preceptors of St. Dionysius in the doctrine of the faith, and of his excellent progress under them. That Paul the Apostle and doctor of the Gentiles was the preceptor of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, it is impious to doubt. See what we have said in our reports from the Greeks. * * * Since some heretics have dared to chatter impudently that Dionysius did not even once remember his preceptor Paul, it is useful to collect briefly, in order to restrain the audacity of these impudent liars, some instances in which he makes most honorable mention of his master.

^A

14. For thus does he write regarding the Areopagite: "He whom the Church of the Athenians record history as having been the first bishop, some other ancient one, Dionysius of the parish of the Corinthians, was. The Church of the Athenians narrates that this (Areopagite) was the first bishop, [and that] another of the ancients, Dionysius, was the bishop of the Corinthians." The same is repeated by Eusebius in *Ecclesiastical History*, Book IV, ch. 22. Nicephorus Callistus, in his *Ecclesiastical History*, Book II, writes that he was consecrated by the hands of Paul himself: "So great was his faith in Christ, that he was judged worthy not only of the divine laver, but also, through the hands of Paul, of being appointed bishop of Athens."

He says: "And having understood this in a supernatural way, my common guide and the guide of my guide toward divine illumination, the great one in divine things, and the light of the world, speaks thus in his sacred writings: 'For indeed, even if there are those called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (just as there are "gods" many and "lords" many), yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we in Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him,' etc." And when my common guide and the teacher of my own teacher had excellently understood this—the one who is great in divine things and the light of the world—he says these things in his sacred Epistles by divine instinct: Nam etsi sunt qui dicantur dii, sive in cælo, sive in terra (siquidem sunt dii multi, et domini multi) nobis tamen unus Deus Pater, ex quo omnia, et nos in illum; et unus Dominus Jesus Christus, per quem omnia et nos per ipsum. Which passage is in the same words in Paul, I Cor. ch. viii. Therefore, he remembers his master, and with honor. ^B

2. In the same book, ch. 3, he pays tribute to the master of both together, that is, of Paul and Hierotheus, with these words: "And us, who after Paul the divine, have been instructed from his [Hierotheus’] words, etc." Ac nos, qui post Paulum illum divinum ejus (Hierothei) documentis instituti sumus, etc.

3. Ibidem ch. 4: "Wherefore also Paul the great, having become the manifestation of divine love and having partaken of its ecstatic power, [as] he says with divine mouth, 'I live, no longer I,' etc." Quocirca et Paulus ille magnus divino amore correptus, atque a se ipse dimotus, divino ore, Vivo, inquit, jam non ego, vivit vero in me Christus, etc.

4. Ibidem ch. 7: "Having understood this in a supernatural way, the truly divine man, our common sun and that of my guide, says 'The foolishness of God is wiser than men,' etc." Quod cum eximie cognovisset vere divinus vir, communis meus et præceptoris sol, dixit: Quod stultum est Dei, sapientius est hominibus. Let these impudent and shameless men now go with their falsehoods and slanders, and let them say that he does not remember his teacher, he who remembers him so often, and so frequently, and with such great praise!

(51) That Dionysius adhered to Paul for three whole years is not to be doubted. The first and principal historians assert it. Eusebius, in his *Ecclesiastical History*, Book III, ch. 4, reckons him among the companions and assistants of Paul. Likewise Nicephorus Callistus, and others. See the words of Michael Syngellus in Chapter 11 above, who testifies to the same. We have received it from ancient monuments and from Hilduinus, that he adhered to him for those three years.

(52) The authority according to this is Dionysius himself, cited shortly before in no. 2, and in those places which we have excerpted from him, and which we have placed in the *Life*, ch. 23, where he not only confesses himself to be a disciple of Hierotheus, but also proclaims it.

(55) See Syngellus in the *Encomium*, where among other things: "He becomes a lover and a wrestler for the resurrection toward God, spending the days and nights in intense prayers, persevering throughout sleepless vigils, subduing the flesh with fastings, and subjecting the worse part to the better, the dust to the mind, and wearing down the earthy thickness which is accustomed to obstruct the intellect like a dark fog against the rays of the sun." Et totus ad Deum assurgere amat, contenditque continuis precibus diu noctuque insistens, atque insomnibus pervigiliis obdurans, et jejuniis corpus perdomans, ac partem deteriorem præstantiori subjiciens, nempe pulverem menti, et rationi terrestrem crassitiem, quæ intelligentiam non secus ac tenebrosa nebula solares radios, solet obstruere. See there more regarding his virtues and miracles.

(54) For the first (as does another Dionysius) we have as witness Eusebius in his *Ecclesiastical History*, Book III, ch. 14. For thus he writes concerning the Areopagite: "He whom the Church of Athens ^C... [alt-version omitted] ... ^D There are some who say that the memory of this consecration—done by the hand of Paul—still exists in the territory of Luxembourg, in the district of Aquileia. This village is about an hour's journey from the city of Trier. There is a small temple dedicated to Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, and in it the skull of the same saint, or rather the vertex of the skull, on the outer part of which a white cross is seen, while the rest of the skull is darkish. It is a common report that Paul impressed this cross upon Dionysius while he was consecrating him; yet some say it was not then, but while the life-giving water was washing him; for it is acknowledged that the sign of the cross is used in both sacraments, and blessed Dionysius himself teaches this in his book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, ch. 2 and 5. But that cross, whatever it may be—whether formed in orders or in baptism—is a passing cross and marks only externally; it does not penetrate inside as far as the bones, nor adhere to them. Whence it follows that it either happened by miracle that the cross penetrated the skin and rested on the skull, or certainly that it adhered, having been impressed in a way unknown to us. For what is called the character of a sacrament is entirely different from a cross of this kind; for that is imprinted not on the body, but on the soul; and it adheres to it indelibly, and is conferred only in three sacraments, according to canon 9, session 7 of the Council of Trent: "If any one shall say that in three sacraments, namely, baptism, confirmation, and order, a character is not imprinted in the soul, that is, a certain spiritual and indelible sign (whence they cannot be repeated), let him be anathema." But that cross which is formed externally by a bishop or priest is a corporal sign, and it is deletable, and common to all sacraments.

The third opinion regarding the time when the cross was impressed is that of John Bertelius, Abbot of Epternach, who in his *History of Luxembourg* reports that the sign of the cross imprinted on the crown of the skull was brought by the Apostle Paul, when he was already being sent away by him as bishop to the Gauls with his blessing. But this opinion cannot be maintained, unless it be said that Dionysius was sent into Gaul twice: once by Paul, and once by Clement, after the death of Paul. But no ancient letters show even the slightest trace of him being sent by Paul: from Clement, however, as will appear later, [there are] very many. Arnoldus Rayssius mentions this skull in his *Hierogazophylacium*, or *Treasury of the Sacred Relics of Belgium*, page 349. Regarding the same skull and the impressed cross, the eyewitnesses P. Joannes Roberti, Doctor of Sacred Theology and at that time professor of Sacred Letters at Douai, and P. Joannes Sebastianus, at the same time a teacher of philosophy in the Trier academy, communicated with me: the latter of whom, for this very reason, traveled to Aquileia and examined the matter most diligently, and wrote to me that, among other things, the cross now is slight and not at all porous, even though the rest of the skull is porous; then [he noted] that because of the skull, which, surrounded by silver, forms a small dish, wine is accustomed to be taken by pilgrims against headaches; whence, as much for the abundance of miracles as for the graces conceded by the pontiffs, it is held in great honor there. But that this skull, or rather the top part of the skull, is

of the Areopagite himself, the natives assert that they have from the ancient tradition of their ancestors. Whence, however, or when they received it, they have no record handed down.

The Menaion for October 4 explicitly calls Hierotheus the teacher of Dionysius and Bishop of Athens, saying thus of him: *Being previously instructed and ordained bishop of Athens by the Apostle Paul*, etc. He is established as the first bishop of Athens, having been instructed by the Apostle Paul. And if Hierotheus was bishop in Athens, he was certainly the first, and Dionysius the second. For Publius succeeded Dionysius, and Quadratus succeeded Publius.

Saint Paul was held by a great desire to set out for Spain (which he intimated in his Epistle to the Romans, chapter xv, in these words: *When I begin to journey into Spain, I hope that, passing through, I shall see you*, etc.), but since his journey was long delayed, it is credible that he then sent Hierotheus to Spain, and ^A in the place of Hierotheus, he appointed Dionysius. However, it is established by the common consent of Spanish writers that Hierotheus was bishop in Spain. More about this is in the Life of Hierotheus himself.

(58) And that was about the year 55 of Christ. This was the 46th year of the age of Dionysius, inasmuch as he was 9 years younger than Christ. But since Dionysius was converted to the faith of Christ in the 43rd year of his age, as declared before, and since only three years had intervened between this conversion and his episcopate, as it is commonly held, it is rightly gathered that in his 46th year, and in the 55th year of Christ, he took up the reins of the Athenian Church. This opinion is embraced especially by those who wish Dionysius to be the first bishop of Athens in every respect. For it cannot have any appearance of truth that that city, with many already brought to the faith, should have been without a bishop for more than three years. However, those who say he was only second, yet—since the memory of the former is so meager that he is passed over by many in the series of bishops—will at least admit this opinion as probable. ^B

CAPUT V. The Extraordinary Virtue and Industry of Dionysius in Founding and Ordering the Athenian Episcopate.

The Athenian Church, when Dionysius undertook to moderate it, was still in its infancy, small, weak, infirm, nourished somehow by the milk of Saint Hierotheus (for Paul had only in passing (59) and as it were through a screen, because he was hastening elsewhere, cast the seeds of the faith), but not yet vigorous through age or strong in its members: since against their increase and vigor, the breath of certain shallow men and philosophers mocking the new faith (60) did much harm. To refute these, however—a task indeed quite laborious—the same Hierotheus had hitherto devoted very useful work; but having been diverted by the will of God to another place, he left to Dionysius the principal glory of having founded and strengthened that Church. For he held it for many years, and immediately from the beginning he labored with such diligence for its amplification, confirmation, and ordering, that at length it ceded to no Church of Greece, neither in number, nor in strength, nor in the suitable arrangement of individual members among themselves in any part. For having returned to that city from the company of Paul, burning with that spirit which he had received from such a teacher, and which he yearned to communicate to as many of his fellow citizens as possible, he immediately went to the leading members of the Church (whom he had learned he could most trust), addressed them kindly, made them participants in his counsels, recounted what he had seen and heard concerning Paul and his deeds, and in turn inquired about the number of Athenian Christians, about their fervor, their constancy, their adversaries, their attempts, deceits, assaults, and other things necessary to be known for prudently conducting matters among the enemy: finally, he exhorted them that each according to his strength—one bringing his relatives and kin, another his neighbors and friends, another his guests and strangers—might lead them to the knowledge of the Unknown God and our Savior Jesus Christ. And it was to be seen that each one, inflamed by the ardent words of his pastor, pledged all effort and industry for his part, and showed hopes not vain of drawing these or those to the faith. Thus, the fire of charity glowed everywhere with the immense joy of all and incredible exultation of heart from their mutual sight, and with their devotion for the unique glory of God. One would have said that the golden age of the first Church, when *the multitude of believers at Jerusalem had one heart and one soul* (1), had been renewed at Athens by the counsel and leadership of Dionysius. Thus, in a short time, a number of recruits was added to the veterans, some yielding ^C to the wisdom and spirit of the more learned, to which they could not resist; others, rapt in stupor at the unusual modesty, gravity, and chastity of the weaker sex; others, finally, led sweetly yet powerfully by the singular prudence, equity, faith, constancy, and other virtues of all in word and deed. For it was very easy even by mere appearance (so did modesty shine in the others) to distinguish Christians from pagans. For nothing light, nothing fallacious, nothing feigned, nothing arrogant, nothing turbulent—in short, nothing that did not proceed from the best and most sincere discipline—was observed in them. So that even to the enemies themselves, convicted by such a force of virtues, it seemed sometimes very sweet to run with the impetus of love, through the fragrance of those ointments, to the perfume of the whole Christian religion. And because there is almost nothing that is accustomed to soothe and bind the souls of men so much as parity of soul coupled with modesty and humanity in the midst of the highest dignity and authority, it is incredible to say how much Dionysius accomplished among his fellow citizens by these virtues; for, although he was (as he had been before) the head of the Areopagus, and thus now the prince of the whole Athenian Church, nevertheless he descended so far below himself in modesty, meekness, and affability that he wished to prefer himself to no one, and to make all equal to himself, and he acted so that no private home was as open to its own dearest friend as his house was open to all. Thus, access to him was easy for all, not only for the more honest, but also for the poor and widows and orphans; indeed, for these even more; to whom, by the example of his teacher Paul, he procured not only the necessary spiritual teachings, but also opportune alms from collected money to support the body. Therefore, when the body of the Church, having been joined together by a sufficiently abundant frequency, seemed to require—for easier government and progress—that ranks and offices be constituted, as is customary in a well-behaved republic; Dionysius, as the apostles had once done in the election of deacons, commended this matter again and again to the prayers of the whole congregation: he himself, however, before all others, applied himself to this work, by sacrifices and vows as well as by nocturnal and daily prayers, with all the contention of his mind: until at last, the Spirit teaching him within what was for the use of the flock committed to him and for the greater glory of God, he clearly knew it, and brought it forth into the public good. Since, therefore, all the Christian people (61) had been divided from ancient times into two classes, namely, some addicted to sacred ministries, and others exempt from every sacred office...

^A (the former now called clerics, the latter laity), he first applied himself to the former, and took care that those who had been adapted either as priests or as deacons (62), whatever office each of them might hold, or whatever sacred duty he might discharge, should perform it with all diligence, care, and solicitude, as if in the presence of God Himself, who searches the heart, nay, even as if receiving the worship that is offered to Him, and should keep himself pure and chaste. For he knew that the eyes of the whole congregation were directed toward them, and that they learned the discipline of their institution not only from their words and mandates but also (and perhaps much more) from their lives and morals. And therefore, he took diligent care that they should not commit, in the office entrusted to them, anything whether great or small that could be an offense to the subordinates who observed them.

When these matters had been rightly and orderly arranged, he turned to the other members of the Church, that is, the laity; and he judged it ^B a good thing to distinguish them into three grades (63), of which the last is of those who are barred from the inspection and participation of the sacred mysteries; the middle, of those who are admitted to these, and are called the holy people; and the first and foremost, of the monks or worshipers: for these profess a certain greater and more sublime perfection than the middle grade, and therefore are also consecrated by certain rites, not indeed by bishops, but by priests.

441 As to the last or lowest grade of the Christian people, the holy man divided it into three parts, namely, catechumens, energumens, and penitents. Catechumens are called those who are imbued with the first rudiments of the faith, and are prepared for holy regeneration through the salutary laver. Energumens, however, are those who are agitated by evil spirits, though otherwise, through the baptism previously received, they are members of the Church. Penitents, ^C finally, are those who, by public and grave sins, have rendered themselves unworthy of the participation in the most holy mysteries. The great pontiff indeed admitted all these into the sacred edifice when gatherings took place, and permitted them to be present at the reading and exposition of the sacred Scriptures (for by these they were instructed and healed); but when, these being finished, he was preparing to celebrate the very sacred mysteries of the adorable Eucharist, then indeed, for the greater honor of such great mysteries (which demand the greatest purity and holiness of those present), he ordered them, as being less clean or less capable, to withdraw. And they did this neither unwillingly (as they had been so taught) nor altogether reluctantly.

For Dionysius, as he was a man of wisdom and possessed of a high mind, had labored intensely at this: to establish great concord and agreement of souls among the orders and grades. Without this, he held, no commonwealth, no council, no religion, no assembly could stand; that the Christian cause had hitherto begun and grown at Athens by concord, and that by the same concord it would henceforth be firm and stable. Nor indeed was there any more reason why the lower grades in the Church should envy or disparage the higher, than why, in the body, the feet should envy the hands, or the thighs the shoulders, or all the limbs the head. For the salvation of all and the best composition consist in this: that each member, content with its own lot, should persist in its proper duties, and, if it can, should also assist, not thwart, the others. Just as in the human body, individual ^D duties are attributed by their Author to individual members, and a mutual concord always endures among them by the instinct of nature; so also in the body of the Church, offices are distributed by bishops, yet divinely directed, to each order and grade; in which, if they persist willingly and gladly, it will be not only for their salvation and prosperity now, but also for perpetual honor and eternal glory hereafter.

Induced therefore by reasons of this kind, each kept the place in the sacred assemblies that the pontiff had assigned to him. There were not indeed at that time august temples for the Christians, but yet in those which existed, everyone knew his place. The sanctuary was held and entered by the bishop alone, and the priestly order subject to him: the monks occupied the seats nearest the inner parts—not such monks as are now, secret from the people, and having as father or superior someone of their own order, but those who were part of the people, and living in their ancestral homes, recognized as their sacred teacher and prelate only the bishop, or some priest appointed by the bishop. After the monks, the remaining faithful people took their stand, who had the right to inspect and enjoy the more divine mysteries. A little further away from these sat those who were considered unclean, or who were destitute of all sacraments; first, those who were lamenting the guilt of defection from the faith or of some other grave crime, and were professing repentance with public sorrow: then, those who were possessed by demons, or obsessed, or afflicted in a pitiable manner: and finally, in the last place, those who had not been initiated with any sacrament. For it is right that these, as not yet reborn in Christ, nor thus far illuminated by the sacred rays of the new life, should yield to those who, although they have succumbed to sin conquered by temptations, or have given place to the insults of the demon, have nevertheless been reborn in Christ, and inscribed in the flock of the faithful, and made partakers of the same sacraments with them.

Having arranged these things in this way, he applied his mind to the care of the sacred rites and ceremonies (64), by which no small honor and reverence is procured for the sacraments. When he had introduced these rites, full of piety and holiness, he was the first to observe them most exactly, and then ordered them to be observed with utmost diligence by other ministers of sacred things. Wherefore the Athenian Church, with such a holy pontiff presiding, appeared to Christians, indeed, wonderfully beautiful and lovable, and like another court of the new Solomon, but to enemies lying in wait, it appeared fortified and terrible like an army set in battle array: for it lacked neither the beauty of ceremonies on the outside, nor the strength of virtues on the inside; for the man was exceptionally vigilant and clear-sighted, and kept watch assiduously over both, so that the exterior form of religion might excite piety in those looking from without, and the interior holiness of a devout mind might call down divine graces from heaven.

But who can express even in speech, or even conceive in mind, what sort of person the pontiff Dionysius himself was (65), when he performed the sacred rites, or how great he was—how composed in body, mind, and spirit, how removed from earthly senses, how with all the powers of his soul intent upon heaven and God, and vibrant for the reception of divine things! It was truly enough, for the inflaming of all hearts to devotion and fervor, to consider their prelate offering sacrifice to God. And so, whenever sacred assemblies were held, there was always a great promptitude in those coming together, a great alacrity of spirits: when, that is, they were to see him sacrificing, 442 when they were to hear him speaking about divine things—him, I say, whose mere sight, or even thoughts of his presence, could instill no small spurs of virtue into their minds.

Furthermore, his words, when he addressed his crowd, were of such a kind that they would not tickle the external senses with the softness of his diction, or anoint the ears with flatteries, but would acutely rouse the minds toward virtue, and prick them to repentance by the salutary friction of their sins. And so, under his sermons, more sighs were heard than praises and acclamations, and more true tears were seen than vain applause (66). For his sermons were not about pleasant things, but about useful ones, and for the most part about the ends of man, about death, about judgment, about the horrible torments of this fleeting life hereafter, and other arguments of that kind, so that he could say with Paul his preceptor: "You know how I have kept back nothing that was profitable, that I might announce to you, and teach you publicly, and from house to house, testifying to Jews and Gentiles repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ" (g). For whatever Paul did, he almost entirely imitated.

Dionysius did not receive with deaf ears what his teacher repeatedly urged upon his own [followers]: "Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ" (h). And that word to the Philippians: "Be imitators of me, brothers, and observe those who walk in this way, as you have us for a model" (i). But who possessed that model of Paul more than Dionysius, who manifested it not only in life (as perhaps many others of the disciples did), but even in a most similar manner at [the hour of] death, which not so many did? But more of these things later; for other matters must take precedence over them. And see ^A I COR. IV, 16. [i] PHILIPP. III, 17.

NOTES.

(59) *That Paul did not tarry long in Athens, etc.* Although it may be gathered from the Acts of the Apostles, chapters XVII and XVIII. See also Cornelius a Lapide’s *Chronotaxis of the Acts of the Apostles*, page 4. The reason, however, why he remained there for so long was that he was awaiting Silas and Timothy, before whose arrival, however, because they were delayed for a longer time, he departed in the same year in which he had arrived in Athens, and made for Corinth, where he spent two years with Silas and Timothy.

(60) *Against certain frivolous philosophers who mocked him.* Saint Luke testifies to this in Acts XVII, where he writes that Epicurean and Stoic philosophers disputed with Paul, and held him in contempt. For the Epicureans were frivolous and pleasure-seeking, and therefore despised the Christian religion, which is studious of sobriety and chastity, and prefers future things to present ones. The Stoics, however, clinging tenaciously to their own decrees, and holding opinions very diverse from ours regarding God, justice, mercy, and other virtues, and deeming themselves to understand [everything] excessively better than others, scorned our [teachings] in comparison to their own.

(61) *Since, therefore, the Christian people are in classes, etc.* This division of the Christian flock—into those devoted to sacred ministries and those exempt from them, or into clergy and laity—is most ancient and general, and is the most concise and convenient division. Regarding these names, not to be detained by hurrying elsewhere, see the most learned Bellarmine in his book *De clericis*, and Baronius in the first volume of his *Annals*, [Year of] Christ 44.

(62) *That in his [books] now extant, he mentions no orders below bishops, except priests and deacons.* Of whom alone there is mention in the sacred Scriptures. From this, the antiquity of the writer, and indeed of his writings, can be gathered. For he did not write at an extreme old age, when he had lived for a very long time, or in the second century (when there were more orders distinguished in the Church), but in the first. Although, in the manner of one retracting, he added some things at the beginning of the second, as we discussed in Question 2. Nor could it be ill said that, under the name of deacons (which can be taken generically, just as the name of ministers), one might include all orders ministering to the bishop and priest.

(63) *Regarding the distinction of the people or laity into three degrees, Dionysius treats this in his book On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 6.* See [the Documents]. He calls those degrees ^B τάξεις καθαιρόμεναι, orders that are purified, that is, those who are cleansed from sin and ignorance: of such a kind are all who are not enumerated among the sacred ministers of the Church. Such a series of their distinction is arranged by Saint Maximus:

The orders being purified are divided

Orders that are purged, are divided

Furthermore, what it is to purge and be purged, to illustrate and be illustrated, to perfect and be perfected, must be sought from the Documents. I also add another series omitted by St. Maximus, so that it may be understood who those are who are let out of the temple, and for what reason:

^C

Those cast out of the sacred things are divided

Those who are sent away from the temples are divided

Catechumens are those who are instructed in the elements of the faith before baptism. 443 Penitents are those who, because of heresy or other grave sins, are subject to penalty. Energumens are those who are vexed, or troubled, or obsessed by demons.

All these needed purification: the first indeed from original sin and the ignorance of the matters of the faith; the second from sins committed after baptism; the third from the contamination of the devil. Therefore, because of their impurity, before coming to the consecration of the most holy sacrament, having heard only those things which could be of benefit to them, they were dismissed from the temple, and thus, with only those present whose purity of life and innocence were not unworthy of so great a sacrament, and of the presence and majesty of the true God and man Jesus Christ, the venerable Eucharist was celebrated for men and angels.

So it was indeed in the earliest times: for afterwards, only catechumens were ordered to withdraw from the sacred mysteries, as is to be observed in the Liturgies of SS. Basil and Chrysostom, and this by the deacon, after the Gospel and the prayer read by the bishop for the catechumens, proclaiming repeatedly that they should leave. The words of the deacon were these: "Όσοι κατηχούμενοι, προέλθετε. Οἱ κατηχούμενοι, προέλθετε. Ὅσοι κατηχούμενοι, προέλθετε. Μή τις τῶν κατηχουμένων. Whosoever are catechumens, go out. Catechumens, go out. Whosoever are catechumens, go out. Let no one of the catechumens [remain]." Then, with them departed, he continued to the holy people: "Ὅσοι πιστοί, ἔτι ἐν εἰρήνῃ τοῦ Κυρίου δεηθῶμεν. Whosoever are faithful, let us again and again pray to the Lord in peace."

(64) *Regarding the care of sacred rites and ceremonies.* In divine worship, certain ceremonies have always been ordered and observed by the authors or promoters of sacred rites, instituted clearly for this purpose, so that those things which pertain to God might be performed and treated with greater reverence and honor. Such are very many in the old Law, and indeed commended by God Himself as their author. Such are also not few in the new, partly instituted by the apostles, partly by the successors of the apostles, for the sake of more abundant piety and religion. Moreover, Saint Dionysius not only describes these, but also explains them. If, therefore, anyone, being ungrateful, should grumble against him who has served the Church so well, indeed he is a most wicked man, and for such inhumanity, scarcely a man at all. Do you wish for more about the ceremonies? You must look at Baronius and Bellarmine.

^D (65) *What kind of pontiff Dionysius himself was.* If ever there was one elsewhere, then Dionysius was entirely God’s when he performed [the rites] at the altar, and was, as it were, transformed into God. Two things especially testify to his fires of piety and incense of devotion: one, that he composed himself and conducted himself during the time of the sacrifice as if he were present before God in the very heavens; the other, that while he was celebrating the divine things in prison with divine spirit and fervor, Christ Himself appeared in a visible form and offered with His own hand the Host received from the altar. Both of these are taken from the ancient Acts of his martyrdom.

(66) Michael Syncellus in *Encomium*.

Now his discourse hastens with great desire toward the sacred assembly of the apostles, which was held at Jerusalem, and at which Dionysius, by his excellent virtue, merited to be present.

CHAPTER VI.

^A This is the way of the most excellent God toward his servants, especially those who are sincere in faith and fervent in charity, in his loving-kindness and munificence: that he not only drenches those who have departed this life with every joy in the eternal dwellings of the blessed, but also tempers the labors undertaken by those still surviving on earth, or the hardships coming upon them from without, with much consolation from time to time. That he acted thus with many of the saints, and thus with Dionysius the Areopagite, is manifest. For when, having despised the honors of the world and abandoned the renown of that most famous Areopagus, he had willingly and gladly embraced the humble modesty and submission of the Christian law, and had imbibed the doctrine and apostolic spirit under the discipline of Paul (to whom he was completely bound, both in soul and mind and heart, to use the words of Syncellus), and, what is more, had divinely ordained the Athenian Church committed to him with the best laws and institutions—not without many great labors—he himself perceived, among his other mid-day toils and hardships, this noble solace of the greatest and most liquid pleasure: that he was deemed worthy of the most welcome sight and meeting of many apostles at once (who indeed were living their life among mortals at that time, though they had been dispersed throughout the world a little before), but especially of the incomparable presence of the most blessed Virgin Mother of God in this mortal body.

Indeed, both he and Hierotheus and Timotheus, ^B and many others excelling in the extraordinary holiness of their lives, arrived with incredible zeal to visit and honor that sacred and living Ark of the Covenant, as she was shortly to migrate from this life. Moreover, the apostles themselves, previously divided to various parts of the earth, had already by divine nod—whether caught up by angels, as formerly the prophet Habakkuk or Philip the deacon, or carried through the heights by light clouds, as some have thought, or even, as many believe occurred, divinely warned some time before of her approaching departure (for it was the will of the supreme King to honor his Mother and to make her sepulcher glorious)—gathered together unanimously, as if on an appointed day, toward her virginal chamber, where she was soon to depart. The Virgin was then quite advanced in age (being, as it is said, about seventy-two years old), and there seemed to be less reason for her to remain in this life, now that faith in her Son Jesus Christ had been propagated far and wide, than for her to be released, willingly and eagerly, to enjoy that heavenly life and see her Son again.

Therefore, she had poured forth burning prayers to heaven, where her soul now vehemently panted, not once, but often, so that if it were so pleasing to God, it might be permitted to her to depart upward from this station to the dwelling prepared for her. And she had already received the divine response and ^C the time of departure according to her heart's desire, when she disclosed this to her most trusted John, as to one participant of all her secrets and as a necessary curator for all things that had to be done for her just obligations. He indeed, as he had known the will of the Virgin Mother, took care that this should be made known to the fellow apostles and other disciples of the Lord, and to those whose prayers God had heard concerning this matter, either by word or by writing. Thus from everywhere, and from those who were far away, they hastened to Jerusalem; and from all who were near, there was a great zeal to converge upon that mount Sion, where the common dwelling of the Virgin and John was.

Good God! What reunions, recognitions, and greetings were there among the friends after such long times, and how sweet and pleasant they were! What close embraces and what holy kisses! As the disciples and the apostles, and the hearers and followers of both, all converged upon each other with wonderful pleasure, and poured out their love with mouths, and eyes, and kisses, with the holy Spirit binding them together. Truly this was done on mount Sion, the holy mount, the lovable mount; the mount on which neither the honey-dropping dew nor the timely rain is ever wanting; the mount on which the feet of the most holy Jesus have so often walked; the mount on which the Holy Spirit shed the most abundant first-fruits of his gifts into the generous hearts of that beloved company; ^D on which so often both angels and the Queen of angels and men have conversed; on which now, too, the chief columns of all holiness gathered together to perform their duties to their most holy Mother.

But truly, if such things are said of mount Sion, what is to be thought of the very habitation and chamber of the Virgin, that is, of the chief glory of that mount (for that mount never had anything more holy or more august than that very thing, which was frequented and inhabited by the Son of God and the Mother of God)? What is worthy to be said or thought, I ask, of that most blessed dwelling? What exercises of most religious piety were there! What wisest practice of all kinds of virtues from the Mother of Wisdom! What fervent prayers were there! What profound meditations! What high contemplations! What raptures of mind! What excesses of soul! What teachings from those inner chambers flowed to the apostles! What counsel, what aid, what solace, and, in a word, all manner of perfect gifts and best endowments flowed to all men!

Into this reservoir of all good things, which never runs dry, our Dionysius, together with the apostles and their peers, deserved to enter. And not only this, but also to approach the very chamber of the Queen, and to behold the Queen herself living and seeing, and to contemplate the treasures of heavenly graces shining in her divine countenance, and to receive the words from that most pure mouth—sweeter than honey and the honeycomb—into ears too happy and fortunate, and to store them in the innermost marrow of his soul. O pleasure! O delight! How quickly for you, O thrice-blessed Dionysius, how quickly and how hastily, in the draught of such delights, did so many labors previously exhausted by you, and so many hardships grave to be suffered, borne with a strong heart, vanish like smoke and be proved to have been and to be nothing! Just so, to the patriarch Jacob, seven years passed laboriously in rustic and pastoral life, while watching over the flock and being burned by heat and frost, seemed (as Scripture says) but a few days for the magnitude of his love. But to Dionysius, even more years passed in the most laborious burden of the episcopate, having seen the Virgin Mother in her full majesty of modesty, did not only seem a few days for the magnitude of his love and admiration, but seemed none at all. When, however, he heard her exhorting him to finish consistently the labors undertaken in the vineyard of her Son, and when he attended to her, displaying the rewards of multi-form crowns for those who conquer by the singular grace of her heavenly mouth, he truly burned with incredible love, and could hardly be in his right mind. Finally, he received the extreme words of her farewell and blessing upon all, with his body and soul abased as much as he could, and with mixed affections of joy and sorrow, and he stood silent for a long time.

As he, so did the others. She, however, in the company of her sweetest Son, and in the magnificent procession of the angels flying beneath, quickly penetrated the heaven, and surpassed the high places of the seraphim full of incomparable glory. But who, at that moment, was of each one...

of them the mood, what the lamentation, what the groans and sighs, who can say? Therefore, regarding things which cannot be spoken of, and which can scarcely be conceived, let us finally keep silent regarding the administration of the funeral rites that came upon all, especially the apostles, and above all upon John, the beloved equally of the Lord and the Lady, as one intimate and familiar, and who was privy to every preparation from heaven: and what his most provident care was, he omitted nothing at all that needed to be done. Let others, who have deliberately undertaken to praise his passing more abundantly, pursue this in their writings; I shall insist now only upon those things which are joined to the praise of our Dionysius, whose acts we are properly treating. And so, the other funeral rites having been duly performed, it came time for funeral orations and hymns. For it pleased the holy senate of the apostles that, in praises of the Mother of their Lord, both they themselves and ^B other bishops, if there were any eloquence and piety in them, should make an effort. And here it was possible to see and hear the apostles as if they were certain demigods, changed by the Spirit rushing into them, preaching now of the Son, now of the Mother, in a way entirely new, entirely wonderful, entirely divine, with an equal and concurring style: now also others and still others, and among them the holy Hierotheus, Dionysius’s teacher, so excellently sustaining the role of the eminent panegyrist—with Dionysius himself as the witness—that, in every respect, of argument, diction, action, and affection, he clearly equaled his own reputation. But what of Dionysius himself? Indeed, he who extols others to heaven is silent about himself. But that very silence, and such great counter-praise of Hierotheus, cries out to me more expressively than any voice that he possessed those very virtues, which he so diligently observed in his master and commended so highly, in abundance within himself; and that what he himself experienced, this he expressed regarding Hierotheus. For it is characteristic of noble minds to make a kind judgment regarding one’s own heart, from one’s own spirit and fervor, about a similar, or even greater, person. For if Dionysius was as great in other matters as his own writings demonstrate, how great is he to be believed to have been when celebrating in such a gathering the praises of this Virgin and Mother (shall I say most lovable, or most admirable?)? Certainly (as he himself said of his master), he was wholly rapt outside himself, wholly transformed into those things which he touched in the most sublime manner. But regarding this holy meeting at the most blessed Mother of God, and regarding the honors lavished upon her, this is enough for the present. For as for the time when these things were done (although, when a fact is established, it is a sign of stubborn minds to inquire and argue about the time), we say it happened in about the fifty-eighth year of Christ, the second of Nero's reign. The blessed Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem (where these things were transacted), taught the event itself—handed down by continuous tradition to his own day—to the emperor Marcian about twelve hundred years ago (75). For that emperor, since he was of singular piety, and had a wife who was surpassed only by him in the zeal and pursuit of piety, ^C namely the Augusta Pulcheria, truly beautiful before God, applied his thoughts, at her own urging, to seeking out the relics of the most blessed Virgin. And so, having summoned the patriarch Juvenal himself and other bishops of Palestine who had gathered at that time for the Council of Chalcedon, he asked them whether the sacred body of the most holy Mother of God was still to be found in the tomb in which it had originally been laid; for he had in mind to transfer it to one of the temples dedicated to the same Virgin (Pulcheria Augusta had indeed built three for her in Constantinople, and those most beautiful and most august) to be the future bulwark and protection of the principal city. The patriarch answered him that, while there was indeed no mention of the passing of the Mother of God in the sacred Scriptures, it was nevertheless received by most ancient and most true tradition that the holy apostles, upon her passing, had flown to Jerusalem from all parts of the earth where they had been dispersed, being present even as she emigrated from life, and having buried the dead woman with honor and hymns; and that, moreover, for three days angelical chants were heard in that place. He added, finally, that on the third day of the funeral, when at the request of St. Thomas the tomb had been opened, they found only the linen burial cloths in their place, just as if they had been deserted by the body a little while before, but breathing with an ineffable fragrance of the sweetest odor: and that they had concluded that the virginal body had been preserved from corruption and translated into the heavens; and therefore they had sealed the tomb again and left it in that state. And indeed it was very fitting that the body which had been subject to no sin should not be subject to corruption, which arose from sin. This also the royal Prophet, looking forward from such a long interval, was chanting concerning the incorrupt body of both the Mother and the Son (76): "Arise, O Lord, into your rest, you and the ark of your sanctification"; that is: You, O ^D Lord, who are the Holy of holies, and not you alone, but also the ark of your holiness, that is, the Virgin Mary your mother, in whose womb, as in a most holy ark, you were kept chastely and modestly: arise both of you without corruption to incorrupt glory and imperturbable rest. For it is fitting that, as corruption flowed from the two first-formed bodies through disobedience, so from the two divine tabernacles of the new and more blessed age, the first-fruits of incorruption should be offered to God through the obedience of both. Thus the Virgin, having received the exuviae of her discarded body, ascending quite whole and incorrupt to the royal bridal chamber, left the tomb on earth empty; although not entirely empty: for it had obtained no ordinary holiness from some presence of the sacred deposit. The pious emperor, when nothing else could be had, had this tomb transmitted to him and placed it in the most magnificent temple of the most blessed Virgin (they call it the Blachernae) very near to the holy altar. Nor did the same blessed Juvenal remain silent that the most blessed Dionysius had been present in that assembly together with the disciples and holy Timothy and Hierotheus. Whether this Dionysius, having seen the majesty that was more than human in the person of the Virgin, said those things which are commonly reported, namely, that he would have taken her for a deity had not either faith or reason restrained him—that, I say, I do not hold as so certain that I would dare to assert it, nor so uncertain that I ought to refute it. For, just as the authority of such an opinion has been celebrated by modern men (77), so it has been by those who are very learned and pious. Therefore, leaving these things to others, we shall follow Dionysius as he returns step by step from the holy places to the pastures of his own flock.

NOTATIONES. The history concerning the passing of the Virgin is taken partly from ancient tradition, and partly from the book of St. Dionysius *On the Divine Names*. Concerning the tradition, the blessed Juvenal, patriarch of Jerusalem, testified more than eleven hundred years ago, concerning whom a little below. The words of St. Dionysius in the third chapter of the same book are these: ^A *When we, as you know, and he himself, and many of our holy brothers had gathered to look upon the body which was the principle of life and the receptacle of God*. There was present also James the brother of the Lord, and Peter, the supreme and most venerable pillar of the theologians, etc. When we, as you know, and he [Hierotheus] himself, and many of our holy brothers had gathered to look upon the body, which was the principle of life and a receptacle of God. There was present also James, the brother of the Lord, and Peter, the supreme and most venerable pillar of the theologians.

^A Since these words are interpreted in various ways by various people, the individual opinions must be set forth, so that it may be clear, from a comparison of them, which ought to be judged true.

The first, therefore—the most ancient and common opinion (which we also embrace)—is that those words of Dionysius are to be understood as referring to the most holy body of the Blessed Virgin Mary (at the sight and burial of which the apostles had gathered). For this was the understanding of Juvenalis, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who lived and wrote twelve hundred years ago. So also Andreas Cretensis, who was himself Patriarch of Jerusalem. So also Saint Maximus the Martyr, the chief scholiast of Saint Dionysius, in his Scholia. So also Saint John Damascene in his oration *On the Dormition of the Mother of God*. So also Michael the Syncellus, priest of Jerusalem, and Simeon Metaphrastes, and Nicephorus Callistus, and Georgius Pachymeras, and others among the Greeks, as well as the Menaea, and in a word, all the Greeks. Among the Latins, moreover, Saint Gregory of Tours in his book *On the Glory of the Martyrs*, ^B Saint Ildefonsus in his fourth sermon *On the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary*, Albertus Magnus in his commentary on the said book and passage of Saint Dionysius, and very many others, ancient and modern. And this opinion is proven by reason.

Firstly, because the body of the most holy Virgin is most fittingly called *ζωαρχικὸν καὶ θεοδόχον σῶμα*. For *ζωαρχικὸν* signifies that it is a principle of life. Now, if Christ is life (as He called Himself in John XIV: "I am the way, the truth, and the life"), and if the Mother of God is the principle of generation for Him, she can certainly also be called the principle of life. The body of the Blessed Virgin is also rightly called *θεοδόχον*, that is, receptive of God, or a receptacle of God, because she conceived and carried God in her womb.

Secondly, because the passing and burial of the Blessed Virgin provided a most righteous cause to draw the apostles and the chief among the apostolic men there, as much to enjoy her sight and blessing as to care for and ^C honor her burial, as that of a mother and queen.

Thirdly, because it was highly agreeable to the piety and charity of that same Virgin that, before she should leave the earth, she should wish to see the apostles and principal disciples, and to take a final farewell, and especially by comforting, teaching, and exhorting them, to share with them some spiritual grace. For she could, with much more justification than Paul, usurp those sacred words which he addressed to the Romans: "For I long to see you, that I may impart some spiritual grace to you to strengthen you, that is, to be comforted together in you by each other's faith, both yours and mine." By these reasons, therefore, I am impelled to adhere to this first opinion, having rejected the others, and I shall refute those things which are truly brought against it once I have set forth the other opinions.

The second opinion, therefore, is that of John Scotus in his letter to Charlemagne, understanding, namely, by those words: *Ἐπὶ τὴν θέαν τοῦ ζωαρχικοῦ καὶ θεοδόχου σώματος*, the bodily sight of Christ. For from this passage he proves that Dionysius, along with Hierotheus and many others, saw Christ. With whom, he says, and many other saints gathering in one place, he contemplated Christ bodily after the resurrection; and there were present, as he says, James the brother of the Lord, etc. If these are to be understood as saying that Dionysius and Hierotheus saw Christ ^D in the flesh before His ascension, they are utterly false; for then neither they themselves, nor their master Paul, were yet converted to the faith. But if the discourse refers to another bodily apparition of Christ that took place after the ascension, although the Greek words might admit this meaning also, yet even so it appears to be false. For such an apparition, having occurred to so many at once and such a long time after the ascension, is in no way mentioned, neither by the apostles nor by their disciples (although it would have served for the proof of the resurrection), nor by any other at all who might have been an eyewitness of such a notable event, and it would have been kept silent. Moreover, this opinion has been accepted by no one else heretofore.

The third opinion is that of Matthaeus Galenus Westcappelius, in his Preface to the *Areopagitica* of Hilduin, who accepts those words of Saint Dionysius as referring to the house of John the Evangelist. "Furthermore," he says, "although others perhaps may not unreasonably interpret these as referring to a gathering at the very sepulchre under the open sky, and the apostolic assembly there, yet I judge it more correct that they can be understood as referring to the house of John the Evangelist, into which the Blessed Virgin is said to have been taken immediately after the commendation of her dying Son." But this, too, does not have great probability. For those houses were not so large that for the sake of visiting them so many apostles and apostolic men had to be called away from many and distant places and from great occupations. What is more, it is a very unusual expression for a house to be called a body; indeed, one is never read to have spoken so.

The fourth, then, is that of Abbot Hilduin, who, in the *Life of Saint Dionysius*, takes the words placed above as referring to the sepulchre of Christ. For, treating of the book of Saint Dionysius *On the Divine Names*, where those controversial words exist, he writes as follows: "In which he shows that he, at the holy city, by the sepulchre of Jesus the Prince of Life, heard from James the brother of the Lord and Peter the Prince of the Apostles, and also from the theologian John together with the aforementioned Hierotheus and Saint Timothy and many other saints, the disputation and the mystery of the faith," etc. Where *the sepulchre of Jesus the Prince of Life* is put for that which in Greek is held as *τοῦ ζωαρχικοῦ καὶ θεοδόχου σώματος*. For this opinion, as if for hearth and home, Francisco Bivarius fights in his *Commentary on the Dexter Chronicle*, in the year of Christ 48, and he eagerly brings forward what can be brought forward for it; but yet, for the overthrowing of an opinion which has been accepted for so many centuries and by so many good authors, it seems to me, at least, invalid.

The first argument of Bivarius is that the authors of our opinion (as Bivarius himself asserts, p. 98) have manifestly failed (with the exception of Baronius) in explaining this same text of Dionysius, since they believe it is held therein that Timothy, the beloved disciple of Paul and Bishop of Ephesus, was also present, and that Dionysius addressed his books to him; which, however, he says he will show, God willing, at the year of our Lord 100, comment 11, to be false. Thus he. He says two things, therefore: first, that all who accept Dionysius's words as referring to the body of the Virgin, the same, with the exception of Baronius, say that Timothy, Bishop of Ephesus, was present there; and second, that they hold, and therefore infer from the words of Dionysius, that the books of Saint Dionysius were written to the same Blessed Timothy. He himself, furthermore, says that both of these are false, and that he will show that neither was that Timothy present at the funeral of the Virgin, nor were the books written to him; but we hold both to be true, and will prove them for certain.

And first, indeed, the presence of Timothy is confirmed from Greek authors, and by name from that most ancient of them, Juvenalis, Patriarch of Jerusalem, whom I mentioned before. He, therefore, before the Emperor Marcian and his wife Pulcheria, when he was speaking of the nativity and funeral of the Mother of God, adds, among other things, that Timothy and Dionysius the Areopagite and Hierotheus were also present. Concerning which, see Nicephorus Callistus, book XV of the *Ecclesiastical History*, chap. 14. The same is expressly testified by the Greek Menaea.

But what Bivarius says, that the words of Dionysius do nothing for us if they are weighed to the letter, and the interpretation of Marsilius which he brings forward to confirm this—truly, that does nothing against us, and

^A certainly that locution is far more tolerable: "Let us visit the body," 448 which received Christ, that is, let us visit the Virgin, or the body of the Virgin, as even St. Thomas approves in the passage cited above, writing thus: "It can also be understood that they gathered to see the body of the blessed Virgin Mary at her death, which also received God in the incarnation."

For as "flesh" in Holy Scripture is very frequently used for the whole man, so too "body" (which is the same as flesh) can equally be used for the whole man. Indeed, examples of "flesh" are obvious, as in Genesis vi, 12: *For all flesh had corrupted its way,* that is, every man; and Psalm lv, 5: *In God I have hoped; I will not fear what flesh can do to me*; and John i, 14: *And the Word was made flesh*; and Luke iii, 6: *And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.* Now, "body" can be taken in this way no less, since it does not differ from flesh; nay, it is actually taken so in Wisdom i, 4: *For wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins*, that is, in a depraved and perverse man: otherwise, wisdom dwells in the soul rather than in the body. Furthermore, in Matthew xxiv, 28, and Luke xvii, at the end: *Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together*, that is, wherever Christ shall be, as many holy Fathers interpret. Added to this is the fact that "body" is seen properly and proximately, and therefore it is rightly said that they gathered to see the body, just as we very frequently find it used in the Scriptures in place of what might be said: *You shall not see me*, we find used, *You shall not see my face.* So in Genesis xliii, 3, several times: *You shall not see my face without your youngest brother*, and similar things. So also in the Acts xx, 25: *You shall all... see my face no more, through whom I have passed preaching the kingdom of God.*

Add that the apostles seem to have been gathered especially because of the body, namely that they might honorably and religiously bury it (the honor of which was being intended by the Holy Spirit at that time), and also that there might be those who would both see the deceased and testify to her assumption. Otherwise, whence would that feast of her assumption into heaven have come to us? Whence would such a solemnity, as great as exists now, have originated?

But indeed, a very diligent and learned man (for I certainly recognize him as such) presses again and again, and attacks us with the words of Dionysius, namely these: *When the assembly had looked upon it, it pleased that all the bishops...* Therefore, he says, the apostles and disciples did nothing else but see and look upon it, which strongly befits the sepulcher of the Lord, but befits the body of the Virgin very little, which they surely not only saw, but also committed to burial. So he says. To which we reply that what he assumes is not true, nor is what he infers well-deduced. For that many other things were done there besides the looking upon the body, St. Dionysius himself indicates in the same passage; but he omits to set them forth specifically, because they were known to Timothy (namely as an eyewitness and earwitness) and could not be easily expressed in words, nor, if they could, should they be. The words of Dionysius are: *Ἀλλὰ ἵνα τὰ ἐκεῖ μυστικὰ καὶ ὡς τοῖς πολλοῖς ἄῤῥητα, καὶ ὡς ἐγνωσμένα σοι παραλείψωμεν*—"But that I might pass over the mystical things which were done there, as being ineffable to the many, and known to you."

Finally, ^D Bivarius complains that it is said by some that all the apostles were present at the funeral of the blessed Virgin. Regarding this complaint, I have only this to say: if it is stated by them as if it were from the words of Dionysius, they are justly reproved, for his words do not sound that way; but if it is from the ancient tradition, which Juvenal the patriarch testified to before the august princes Marcian and Pulcheria, then they are unjustly reproved; namely, by taking "all" in a distributive and accommodating sense, meaning those who were, of course, among the living and could be present. For as to why only two are mentioned, James and Peter, by these words: *Παρῆν δὲ καὶ ὁ ἀδελφόθεος Ἰάκωβος, καὶ Πέτρος ἡ κορυφαία καὶ πρεσβυτάτη τῶν θεολόγων ἀκρότης*—"There was present also James the brother of God, and Peter, the chief and most ancient apex of the theologians,"

and yet that these alone are named does not prevent others from having been present (for they are not excluded), but they are named by Dionysius because they were at that time the foremost among the apostles in reputation and authority. For Peter was the head of all, and James had been appointed by his colleagues as the prelate of the city of Jerusalem (which excelled all other cities and was the principal seat of the Jewish race), a man who was revered even by the very enemies of our faith on account of his abstinence and austere life. Now, the cause for which John the Evangelist was not mentioned is manifest: there could arise no doubt regarding his presence, as he was always in attendance upon the Virgin. Indeed, the cathedral church of St. Mary of Tournai boasts that it possesses a piece of the palm leaf which the holy Evangelist and Apostle John carried while leading the funeral procession of St. Mary the Theotokos. For so it is recorded in the ^A *Hierogazophylacium Belgicum* of Arnold de Raisse. Indeed, the people of Messina in Sicily preserve some fragment of that same palm in their principal church. See, after the Martyrology of the abbot of Messina, Francis Maurolycus, the annexed locations of the relics. As for Paul, whether he was present or absent, there is no injury done to the words of Dionysius, who makes no mention of him; nor is there to the assertion of those who say that all were present, provided they are speaking in the common manner—as when we say "all" in the majority, and for those who could conveniently be present and whom God had destined for that assembly.

^B The same people who say that all were present thereafter add that Thomas was absent and arrived only three days later; nor do they say that this happened without divine purpose, namely, that the same man who had verified the resurrection of the Son might confirm the assumption of the Mother. But Francis Bivarius, while insisting too much on proving that Paul was absent from this gathering of the apostles, and in showing that he could not have been in Jerusalem in the fifty-eighth year of Christ, errs in many things. For he writes thus: "Moreover, it still seems difficult to me; since in the fifty-seventh year (which was the second year of Nero, according to St. Jerome in his book *De viris illustribus*), Paul arrived in Rome in chains, where he remained for two whole years in his own hired lodging, as in the last chapter of Acts. Whence, in the fifty-eighth year, he could not have been present in Jerusalem." So says he. Therefore, he is clearly mistaken in thinking that the fifty-seventh year of Christ is the second year of Nero; for it is not the fifty-seventh, but the fifty-eighth that is the second year of Nero, as is evident from the Chronicle of Eusebius and the *Demonstration* of Pontac. Furthermore, in bringing forth Jerome as a witness to prove that Paul arrived in Rome in the second year of Nero, he is again mistaken. For Jerome does not say he arrived, but only that he was sent. "He is sent in chains," he says, "to Rome." Therefore, in that year he was in Jerusalem. Then, a little later, he errs not a little in interpreting the prophecy of that same Paul, for thus he writes of him: "Because after he once came to Rome, he never returned to the East, as he himself had prophesied in the twentieth chapter of Acts: 'And now, behold, I know,' he ^C says, 'that you all, among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more.'" So says he. And yet Paul was not prophesying that he would never return to the East; on the contrary, at the time he was prophesying those things, he was heading straight for the East, namely to Jerusalem, where he was captured, bound, and then taken to Rome. Paul was in Miletus when he prophesied this (Miletus being a city of Asia), and he had called there the elders of the Church from Ephesus. To these Ephesians, then, and especially to those of Miletus, but also to other Churches of Asia that were not far distant from them, he was predicting that he would not pass through their lands thereafter. For his words are not to be taken by them so restrictively, as if no one at all among those through whom he had passed preaching the word of God would see his face in the future, for that is almost impossible to happen. For he had already preached in Judea, to which he was nevertheless already hastening, and without doubt in other places situated between Judea and Asia. Then again, from Judea he was about to set out all the way to Rome: was there in that entire and very long journey no city where he had preached before? Nor is this enough. Released from Rome by Nero, he departed for several years to preach the Gospel wherever he wished, and indeed, his own defender Bivarius testifying, he even set out for Spain: which I agree with him on. Did therefore no one in the meantime, I will not say among the Jews or Greeks, but among the Asians whom he was then bidding farewell, see his face? Did no one travel to see or meet him, whether in Syria, or in Spain, or in Italy, or elsewhere where he was? Did no one, on whatever business, travel to those places where Paul was and encounter him? The matter is certainly very difficult to believe. What, therefore, you will ask, did Paul mean by those words? Certainly nothing other than that he would not return to the land of Asia, and especially to Miletus and Ephesus, any more.

Lastly, that the words cannot be understood regarding the sepulcher of Christ the Lord, the most learned Baronius also proves, in the year of Christ 48. Because, of course, the apostles had already often seen that sepulcher, nor was there any reason why so many should convene at that time to see it, or to chant hymns there. It is strange that no response to this argument has been made by Bivarius. Let it therefore remain firm (as all the Greeks have taught and very many of the Latins have approved) that the words of St. Dionysius concerning the gathering of the apostles to behold the body of the Virgin, and to adorn the honor of her burial, are to be understood as true.

But someone will ask why none of the apostles made any mention at all of the death of the most holy Virgin, or of the meeting for her funeral. This was once proposed by someone to Michael Glycas. I find it agreeable, therefore, to set down here his interrogation and the response to it. Thus, therefore, Glycas writes in the third part of his *Annales*: "I remember also, dear son," he says, "that you once proposed this sort of doubt to me among others. Why, you said, did the disciples of Christ and the apostles, having related other matters in their commentaries and histories, fall completely silent regarding the dormancy of the perpetual Virgin? ^D Concerning this matter, it is sufficient to respond that the authors of the Gospels, having commemorated the administration of Christ in the flesh, reached only as far as his assumption from earth into heaven. But that Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, exempt from stain, is said to have reached an advanced age, as that divine man, Andrew of Crete, is the author. Wherefore it could not be that the perpetual dormancy of that Virgin should be inserted into the evangelical history, as it happened at a time long thereafter, as we have said. Therefore, the disciples of Christ handed down nothing to memory about her in a separate, peculiar book, for the reason that they were occupied in explaining His administration, and were greatly solicitous of that one thing (namely, by what means they might make of the incredulous, believers, and might lead all to a pure and sincere faith in Christ) that they neglected other things, especially those that would contribute nothing to that divine preaching." So he says regarding the proposed question. Then he adds consequently that this history of the sleep of the Virgin was not entirely neglected by the disciples of the apostles, since St. Dionysius mentions it in his writings: "Yet not entirely," he says, "was this divine dormancy passed over in silence. For that interpreter of divine things, the great Dionysius, is found to have handed down something concerning this wonder in his writings to Timothy. And see for me, I beg you, what we are about to say, plucked from his narrations. 'We, for our part,' he says, 'together with you and many holy brothers, as you remember, had gathered to look upon that body, which had once contained the beginning of life and God Himself,' etc." So he says.

^A(68-69) To use the words of Syngelus. The Greek words of Michael Syngelus at the beginning of his Encomium on Saint Dionysius are these: *And he was wholly knit to the Master with his whole soul, mind, and heart.* And he remained as one whole, attached to the Master with his whole soul, mind, and heart. He speaks there, however, regarding Saint Paul, his master; for he also had another master, Saint Hierotheus, whom he mentions elsewhere. Glycas also believed that the 70 disciples were present along with the apostles, and supposed that this could be gathered from the words of Dionysius himself: "He shows, he says, in this narrative that the holy Dionysius gathered together nearly the entire assembly of the apostles and the 70 disciples themselves to witness this venerable spectacle; and that at the same time, the disciples, who had been dispersed throughout the world, had gathered; among whose number he himself was, along with Timothy and Hierotheus."

(70) Or as by angels, as Habakkuk or Philip were snatched away. Concerning the snatching away of the prophet Habakkuk to the pit of Daniel, see the book of Daniel, ch. xiv, 35, where among other things: "And the angel of the Lord took him by his top, and carried him by the hair of his head, and set him in Babylon over the pit in the force of his spirit. And Habakkuk cried, saying: Daniel, servant of God, take the dinner that God hath sent thee. And Daniel said: Thou hast remembered me, O God, and thou hast not forsaken them that love thee. And Daniel arose and did eat. And the angel of the Lord presently restored Habakkuk to his place." Therefore, Habakkuk was snatched away by an angel into the air twice. Saint Philip, however, was snatched away once, Acts viii, 39, when he had baptized the eunuch of the Queen Candace. "And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord took away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more."

(71) Or as if by light clouds, which some have supposed, etc. Among others, Syngelus uses these words: *And the cloud [snatched him] aloft from the western region, and lifted him up, and [made him] a traveler of the air, just as those highest beholders of God and theologian apostles,* etc. But above all, that cloud, which snatched him lifted up from the western parts and carried him through the air, even as it carried the highest inspectors of God and theologian apostles, transporting each one suddenly from the ends of the earth to the most celebrated mother of all, Jerusalem, etc. Simeon Metaphrastes says nearly the same thing in the Life of Saint Dionysius: *By Spirit and cloud,* he says. A third opinion is that the apostles and disciples, having been warned in time of the imminent passing of the Theotokos Virgin, strove to be present before her death. This is the one I, along with Baronius and others, embrace.

(74) That the Divine Virgin had reached about the age of seventy-two, these authors maintain:

1. Epiphanius the priest of Constantinople in the *Life of the Virgin*: "The age of the Virgin, he says, proceeded to seventy-two years."

2. Cedrenus in his *Compendium of Histories*, where he treats of the empire of Tiberius Caesar, under whom Christ the Lord suffered, writes thus regarding the passing of the Blessed Virgin Theotokos: *And she delivered her holy soul to the Lord and her Son and God, being seventy-two years of age (or as some say, fifty-eight); so that after the ascension of Christ she lived twenty-four years.* She delivered her holy soul to the Lord and her Son and God at the age of seventy-two (some say fifty-eight). She lived, therefore, twenty-four years after Christ’s ascension into heaven. So it is there.

3. The author of the pamphlet *On the form and morals of the Blessed Virgin*, attributed to Anselm, says that when she was assumed into heaven, she was seventy-two years of age.

4. The opinion is favored by Andreas Cretensis and Simeon Metaphrastes, who write that the Blessed Virgin had attained to a ripe old age.

(75) Niceph., lib. xv, c. 14.

(76) That of both the Mother and the Son the body was incorrupt, there is evidence, besides others, from Saint Germanus, patriarch of Constantinople, in his oration *On the Falling Asleep of the Virgin*. See Glycas, part iii of his *Annals*, page 326. But of the incorruption of the Son, it is wicked to doubt.

(77) As for the one whom we have found to be of the opinion that Dionysius, out of admiration for the glory and majesty of the Blessed Virgin, said he would have worshipped her as God had not faith prevented him, this is Ubertino da Casale, who in his *Arbor vitæ*, lib. v, c. 38, writes thus: "Whence Dionysius, when he had been introduced to see her, beheld such splendor, and an innumerable multitude of angels around her, and the Virgin herself shining with such light, that it is reported he said that he would have worshipped her as God because of the magnitude of the glory which he saw, had he not been restrained by evangelical faith." So says he. Note the Gallicisms: *propriam Virginem* for *ipsam Virginem*, and *coactus* for *impeditus*. This author flourished, according to Trithemius in his *De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis*, under the Emperor Albert, in the year of our Lord 1300. Hubertinus' opinion has been followed by Dionysius Rickel in his commentary on chapter 3 of *The Divine Names*, art. 16; Peter Canisius, lib. i *De Deipara*, cap. 21; Peter Ribadeneira in the *Life of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite*, and others who have followed them.

CAPUT VII. Dionysius' pastoral duties after his return from Jerusalem, and his apostolic discourses.

(78) After the obsequies for the most blessed Virgin had been performed, and each had been convinced of her departure, Dionysius, filled with divine consolation and heavenly riches, buckled himself for the journey. For he had seen the supreme and almost unique miracle of the world, which so many had desired to see and so few had seen; and he had not only seen it, but had also conceived in his mind—from both sight and hearing—certain wonderful fires of holy love and the burning of her virtues, and with them, an eagerness to disseminate the Gospel. He had also conversed familiarly with the apostles and disciples of the Lord concerning the greatest and most divine matters, and had made such progress in all of them as is difficult to encompass in a brief discourse. Wherefore, as if what he had labored thus far in the vineyard of the Lord were nothing or little, he reached out with that vast breast of his, inflamed by these fires, toward far greater things. Nor did those things he had heard from others, done in various regions throughout the world, allow him to sleep. Thus did they continually occupy his mind, and thus did they urge him night and day to similar deeds. Wherefore, he arranged his return to Athens in such a way that throughout the long stages of the journey he might strive to attach to Christ as many mortals as possible, wherever he passed, and he determined, once he had reached his own, to order matters there with the greatest possible diligence, and then to transfer himself to more uncultivated places, those more in need of his labors. Therefore, having returned to his own, when he was now regarded by all—not as he had been seen before, but as some angel descended from heaven—and was loved by all, he found an extremely expeditious way to carry out the things he intended. Thus, he both held more frequent gatherings, and in those he taught the things which, as they were in the highest degree necessary to be known, so they might be most fruitful: namely, to cling tenaciously to the precepts of the faith

and frequently to repeat them 451 from memory, and to hand them down to their children and households; and to strengthen and adorn with upright morals and honest deeds the faith, which otherwise would be empty and fruitless. To this end, he did not rarely expound the individual duties of individuals, both in relation to themselves and towards others: what parents owed to their children, and children to their parents; what masters owed to their servants, and servants to their masters; what married couples owed to one another, and what all owed among themselves. Finally, what it was that widows, virgins, and those following the celibate life ought to have particularly at heart. For he had not only read in books, but had also heard with his own eyes and ears, that the chief apostles had insisted on inculcating all these things. But because he understood that by far the greatest importance for sustaining the Church in its flower and vigor—nay, even for amplifying it and protecting it against all the insults of enemies—was placed in the accurate discipline of the sacred ministers, he therefore prescribed the form of all doctrine for them, and he himself provided (as Paul demanded of Titus, and in him of all bishops) an example of good works; and he strove by all means that, just as he was or wished to be, such he might leave successors after him in his Church. Which, indeed, he who accomplishes according to his dignity, brings no less benefit to the Church than if he were to bring an entire province to the faith of Christ. Nay, even much more; for a single such prelate is equivalent to not just one, but many provinces. Nor would I hesitate to affirm (not to go far afield) that Saint Paul, in the perfect information of Dionysius alone, did no less good than if he had added many regions to the Christian religion. For this Dionysius won the whole of Attica for Christ, so that there was no more need for the work of Paul; he, retracing the steps of his master, completed all the numbers of perfect doctrine in many other provinces that had been only cursorily sketched by Paul and tinted with first colors; he subjected a good part of the Gauls, and no small portion of the Spanish territories, to the Christian law, both through himself and through his own. Most wisely, therefore—which I had intended to say—he devoted a peculiar care to the chief member of the Church, or to the good and perfect constitution and discipline of the sacred order. And he commended that thing above all and singularly, that every order should be subject to its superior, and the latter to the highest (as is the law of God and nature); and that no one should arrogate anything to himself by rash boldness against his superiors, whom one ought to hold, revere, and hear in the place of God. If anyone sometimes, forgetful of himself, came against this mandate of his, he was wondrously troubled in spirit; and, although otherwise most mild, he would correct the person guilty of the fault with no small severity and with a just sharpness of words. The testimony of this experience can be provided by that Demophilus the cultor 79, or monk. For he was from that order of laymen who, on account of their greater cultivation of piety, were called "cultores" [worshippers], and because of their peculiar service to the one God—having rejected all the cares of the world and earthly things—were named monks; but although he was bound to remember that he was inferior not only to presbyters but even to deacons, I know not by what image of imprudent zeal, being distracted from looking at truth and justice, he began to rebel most audaciously against a certain priest and to criticize his excessive indulgence toward the wicked, as he persuaded himself; indeed, he did not even refrain from driving away with harsh words a certain penitent who was seeking a remedy for his sins from the same priest, and, having entered the inner sanctuary against the law, he did not hesitate to forbid him to whom it was the right to enter, with bitter words. After Dionysius had received word of this act from the letters of both the presbyter and Demophilus himself, he was not a little moved in his soul (as the gravity of the matter demanded), whether because of the violated due order in the members of the Church, or because of the bitter arrogance of a monk deluded by an evil spirit, joined with such blindness of soul, he rightly grew angry. Truly, he was angry at him who deemed the injury inflicted upon the priest to be zeal, and who called the order of ecclesiastical disposition, which he had disturbed, duty and piety. So much does pride, once it has insinuated itself into good minds, gradually stifle every sense of true wisdom and virtue. But what of the holy man in such a matter and at such a time? He was absent from Athens, having set out for other places for the necessity and increase of religion, and he could not so conveniently relieve such a monstrously fallen man while absent as his mind was or the matter required; yet, mindful of that good Shepherd who leaves ninety-nine in the desert, so that he may seek the hundredth, he put aside all other cares and business for a time that he might attend to this one, and might restore one wandering little sheep from the orbit of right reason. He therefore wrote an epistle to the same Demophilus, and one indeed from the abundance of charity, well-long, yet no longer than it was learned, and more worthy of both persons. Since I have a copy of this in at hand, and it is by far the most beautiful and equally most wholesome, I shall not hesitate to set it forth. For besides the excellent genius of our teacher himself, and the far most abundant doctrine of the Sacred Scriptures, it will exhibit three very precious documents, excellently depicted in their own colors, which it will be helpful to recognize in their very source: namely, how great is the beauty and esteem of meekness before God; how great is the sin and punishment of an arrogant man who intrudes himself into the offices of others; and lastly, how great is the patience, longanimity, and commiseration of divine benignity 452 toward sinners. For which virtue an example is also brought forward there, than which you could find nowhere else after the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles (unless my reason entirely fails me) anything older or more effective. I shall now set forth the epistle, therefore, containing such and so wholesome remedies.

NOTATIONES

CHAPTER VIII

To Demophilus the cultor, Dionysius, greeting. The histories of the Hebrews tell, O noble Demophilus, etc. It exists in Greek and Latin above, among the Epistles of S. Dionysius, volume I of his works, in the eighth order. 453-456 In this epistle, Dionysius as a good shepherd, as if by the sound of a pipe, [calls back] the wandering little sheep into the order.

But how well the holy man confirmed in that same epistle that saying of our Savior: *Every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven (that is, in the Church) is like to a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old* (Matt. XIII, 52)! For with how many both old and new examples and maxims, drawn from both Testaments, did that epistle abound! And with what aptitude did he use that most beautiful and most recent example of Saint Carpus—who was also a disciple of the Apostle Paul, and later bishop at Troas—which was therefore both very certain and very useful, for his final epistle (where he might leave behind the goads of love toward Jesus)! ^A If, moreover, there is anyone who feels the desire to know what kind of man, and how great, this same Areopagite was in his addresses to the people, there are certainly no other traces to be sought elsewhere for such knowledge: since it is allowed to understand this abundantly from the writings just praised. For if he brought so much labor and study to the task of reforming a single man, and produced from almost the entire Scripture the most powerful—and, for what was being done, most opportune—reasons, what are we to think he did when he had to discourse publicly in the temple to instruct, direct, and correct the multitude? But, O what a wicked and ungrateful age that was (whichever it was) which either received the immortal-worthy exhortations of so great a man too sluggishly, or preserved them too negligently! But omitting what we cannot have, let us advance our steps to the other deeds of his, of which a happy memory remains.

CAPUT IX. The evangelical excursions of Dionysius during the times of Nero.

With the affairs of the Athenian Church ordered, as has been mentioned above, Dionysius was urged by the same spirit as his apostolic masters; namely, to journey to those places which, at that time, either had not received the faith or were not yet sufficiently strengthened in it, and thus stood in greater need of present aid. ^B First, therefore, he visited the towns and cities neighboring Athens, and carried the name of Christ wherever it had hitherto been unheard; and if it had been heard and preached, he confirmed and strengthened it with new proclamation; nor did he spare any labor in extolling it and showing the hope of salvation. And indeed, a great field for the exercise of industry lay open in Greece itself. For Syria and Asia, and the regions nearest to them, where the apostles had lingered and ministered, were to some extent imbued with the precepts of our religion: but Greece (if you except Corinth, where two years were spent by Paul) was, because of the short duration of the apostles' stays, less deeply tinctured with the disciplines of the faith. Now, however, around the sixty-second year of the Lord, when the most impure Nero was in the sixth year of his reign, ^C and the prince of the apostles was ministering in Rome itself, Paul had moved to Gaul and was entirely intent upon Spain, as he had long proposed; John had departed for Asia; others were administering other provinces outside Greece; and some had even ended their course in martyrdom. Andrew, indeed, had descended from his Scythia—which had fallen to him by lot—into Achaia, certainly intending to reap an excellent harvest there, had it been permitted him to dwell longer among mortals: but the malice and folly of the proconsul Aegeas, who could not bear sane words, and the immense desire of that very athlete for the cross, upon which he was most eager to die, had recently delivered him to heaven. ^D Therefore Dionysius, who judged it his duty to keep watch while following in the footsteps of the apostles, lest after their departure *ravenous wolves* (Act. XX, 29) should come who *would not spare the flock*, and lest the seeds of the Gospel, once scattered, should quickly wither with no one to irrigate them, went to that very Achaia and to the regions bordering upon it, surveying and confirming them. Hence, he was frequent in his travels, and wherever he understood that any danger to the Church was impending, whether from Jews, or from Gentiles, or from heretics, he would arrive prompt and eager. For he placed nothing before the profit of the faith, not even his own soul. Nor was his diligence or speed any less whenever some hope of expanding religion was shown. For soon, breaking off all delay and forgetting his own inconveniences, he flew thither just as if toward the most welcome delights of his soul. Such, indeed, is the disposition of those who truly love God, such is the impetus of the spirit, that when they realize the glory of Him whom they most love is at stake, they cannot contain themselves, but cast off all other things and strain all their nerves toward one end, which they have understood to be pleasing to their beloved. That is, indeed, the testimony of love, of fervent affection. This love in Dionysius toward Christ was all the greater in proportion to how much he had previously sensed—and was perpetually feeling—His immense charity toward men. For who has either more acutely penetrated, or more deeply estimated, or more explicitly described, or, in short, more ardently brought forth in himself and poured into others the divine love toward men than this one Christian Areopagite? Burning, therefore, with such love, when he had traversed the cities nearer to Athens and set everything on fire with his own flames, he progressed to others and others still, until he reached Phrygia. Wherever he passed, he not only dispelled all the shadows of error with the light of faith diffused like a serene sky, but he also cured various illnesses and languors of the body along with the vices of the soul. Hence it happened that, as if he were not a man born on earth but some God descended from heaven, they received him with such unaccustomed miracles, and others vied to reach him, others to retain him, and were unwilling to dismiss so beneficent and salutary a man. Thus, at Troas in lesser Phrygia, having checked his journey for a time, he stayed for several years, and led the superstitious and impure worshipers of the fabulous Cybele, or mother of the gods, as they called her, to the religious and sincere veneration of the one true God. Returning thence, he was already staying among the Lacedaemonians, and was promoting the Christian cause with all his might, when the report of the apprehension of Paul in the city of Rome, and of his imminent death, having spread everywhere, reached him. For now the Neronian cruelty, agitated by greater furies, was raging without discrimination against everyone; it had even already killed his mother and his tutor, prostrated by a double impiety. Dionysius, therefore, most desirous of seeing and conversing with his father, from whom he had received life, and his pontiff, by whom he had been initiated and created a bishop, and his tutor, from whom he had learned so many and such divine things, and even, if the situation should warrant it, of dying with them, having settled the business at hand, returned in haste to Athens; he appointed Publius to take his place and preside over the flock; and accompanied by some companions, he hurried to Rome. But with whatever speed he acted, he could not arrive before his struggle was finished and the palm of martyrdom obtained. For certain necessary occasions during the journey, which it would have been a sin to neglect, detained him against his will for some time; and the importunate hater of all good men, Nero, with the most wicked demon prompting him and pushing him to precipitate the crime, had already on one and the same day taken away the two first heads of the entire religion with cross and sword combined. Who can say what sorrow then stung the pious heart of Dionysius, what grief beset his soul, what floods of tears overwhelmed his breast, when he learned of the struggles of the two princes of the Church having been performed in his absence? Nor can such a loss be worthily estimated except by one who has seen, heard, and familiarly cherished Peter and Paul. Dionysius was hoping from those pillars of the Church

to ask, to learn more, and to receive final instructions and words concerning the governance of his own people and the undertaking of journeys into other lands which they themselves might designate. But all such hopes perished through the intervention of so great a calamity. They had been summoned to their reward, and Dionysius himself, along with his sacred colleagues, was left only to deep sorrows and to struggles more immense against the most ferocious enemies. Having lost such leaders in war, and with a beast so savage dominating the earth and pressing upon the holy people of God, they had almost no one left in whom to place all their hopes but the Lord of hosts. For what is better, what is safer, what is stronger? He it is, assuredly, who rules, guards, and protects the Church with His supremacy and highest hand. He it is who is present to His pastors day and night. He it is who suggests counsels for things to be done to those who are wakeful, and who, to those asleep, manifests future events through dreams and visions (which is not infrequent among the saints). And what the Lord demonstrated to Dionysius in another persecution will be told later (for we have ^A sure and clear testimony of that matter [90]). But now, in times equally calamitous, there is no reason at all to doubt—and indeed his writings, which are higher than human comprehension (even if we are destitute of all other evidence), clearly cry out—that the Lord also showed him many things, even if these are currently missing for lack of written records. But there will shortly be a place for these; let us continue with the rest of this pilgrimage. Dionysius obtained at least this not insignificant consolation amid his anxious sorrows: that with his teachers removed from their midst, he saw their living images in the disciples of each, conferred with them concerning discourses and counsels, and learned from them—by sight and hearing—many things which he could not have heard from the masters themselves. For at Rome he found Titus and Luke, the ancient companions of Paul (who also consigned him to burial [91]), and Timothy as well, as is probable, whom the same apostle, foreseeing the swift end of his struggle, had ordered to hasten to him in Rome; but he also found Clement, whom most of the Latins, including the author Jerome, constitute as the pontiff nearest to Peter [92]. For indeed, Clement held the see as first after Peter, at least for some time; but shortly after, whether desiring to migrate elsewhere, or for any other cause, he willingly and freely gave way to Linus. Hence, Linus is numbered as first in the series of pontiffs from the apostle Peter (the administration of Clement being passed over because of the brevity of the time). Nevertheless, that same Clement profited the Church greatly in that space of his episcopate, however brief it was. For he set in order the urban affairs of the Church, which had been not a little disturbed by the bereavement of their parents, and sending away those of the many who had flocked together to Rome to see the apostles—some here, some there—he sent Dionysius into Gaul. Furthermore, he himself, having left Rome to Linus and having turned over the pontificate of the Church, went away into other regions of the world, where the necessity of the faith invited him, to sow the seed. But indeed, because this mission of Dionysius into Gaul was not of such slight glory or fruit that it should be passed over so lightly, a just and full account of it must be instituted by us at present.

NOTATIONS

(80) *Now, under the sixtieth year of our Lord*, etc. This year, according to Eusebius in his *Chronicle* and others, concurs with the sixth year of Nero, during almost the entire period of whose reign, and for some time before it, S. Peter held the Roman episcopate; for, by the same authority of Eusebius, he had gone there in the second year of Claudius.

(81) *Paul set out for Spain*, etc. That he passed through Gaul and visited and strengthened the churches as if through a lattice, for it is believed that he was in Vienne, and Arles, and Narbonne: and that at Vienne he appointed Crescens as bishop, at Arles Trophimus, and at Narbonne Paul Sergius, formerly proconsul. Concerning Crescens and Trophimus see Ado in his *Chronicle*, in the sixth age; concerning Paul Sergius, the *Roman Martyrology*, on March 22.

(81) *...was being rumored*. Concerning the purpose of that journey and its delay, the testimony of Paul himself exists in the *Epistle to the Romans*, ch. xv, 24, in these words: *When I begin to journey into Spain*, he says, *I hope that, passing through, I shall see you and be brought on my way thither by you, if first I shall have enjoyed your company in part*. As, therefore, he wanted to enjoy the company of the Romans in part as he passed through Italy, that is, to stay with them for some time, even though Peter, the coryphaeus of the apostles, was there; much more, while making his journey through Gaul into Spain, did he wish to spend some time among the Gauls, where the use and necessity was greater, especially with the new Christians (as there is no doubt) inviting him.

It is not to be doubted that S. Paul, released from the chains ^B by which he was held in Rome by Nero, set out for Spain. If anyone should doubt, however, Francisco Bivarius, a diligent and exact investigator of this question, will free him from doubt. See his *Commentary on the Chronicle of Lucius Dexter*, at the year of Christ 64, no. 4.

(83) The Acts of Saint Andrew are briefly expressed in the Roman Breviary, from which those things that we have said here are confirmed.

(84) *Lest they come after their departure*, etc. Paul had warned about this when he was at Miletus, to the elders of the Church who had come summoned to him from Ephesus. For among other things: *I know*, he says, *that after my departure ravening wolves will enter among you, not sparing the flock*, Acts xx, 29, etc. Nor did this escape Dionysius, and for that reason, he was meeting such wolves in defense of the faith ^C, who were the elders of the Church, who had been summoned to him from Ephesus. For among other things: *I know*, he says, *that after my departure ravening wolves will enter among you, not sparing the flock*, Acts xx, 29, etc. Nor did this escape Dionysius, and for that reason he was meeting such wolves in defense of the faith.

(85) *He reached through to Phrygia*. That he had stayed in Phrygia, and indeed at Troas for some time, is testified to by the ancient writers of the *Life of S. Dionysius*, Hilduin, and others.

(86) *The fables about this Cybele are wonderful*. Orpheus calls her the mother of all, as much of gods as of men, and of any things whatsoever, in these verses: *Mother of gods and mortal men,* *For from thee both the earth and the broad heaven from above,* *And the sea, and the winds, O lover of swift movement, cloud-formed.*

*Mother of gods likewise and mother of men,* *From thee the earth parent of fruits, and the deep heaven,* *And the sea with the winds moved by swift course, etc.* This Cybele has been called by many names: which see in Natale Conti, book nine of his *Mythology*, chapter five. Indeed, that she was nothing other than the earth, and that all things which have been attributed to her by the poets fit the earth, is elegantly shown by Lucretius Carus in book two of *De rerum natura* (v. 599-608), in these verses and those that follow: *Wherefore the great mother of the gods, and mother of wild beasts,* *And the progenetrix of our body, is said to be one.* *The learned poets of the Greeks sang that she,* *Sublime in a chariot, drives yoked lions:* *Teaching that the great earth hangs in the space of the air;* *And that earth cannot rest upon earth.* *They joined wild beasts: because, however savage, the offspring* *Ought to be softened, conquered by the duties of their parents.* *And they encircle her high head with a mural crown;* *Fortified with distinguished places because she sustains cities.* See more in the same place, and in Diodorus Siculus, book III of his *Bibliotheca*, and in Macrobius, book I of the *Saturnalia*, chapter 21, and a depiction of the same goddess ^D...

holding in one hand a scepter, in the other a key, etc., in Vincent Cartari of Reggio, and in Antoine du Verdier in the book entitled *Les images des dieux des anciens*, etc. Since, therefore, the Phrygians worshipped the earth under the name of Cybele as a goddess, and celebrated her festival day with wonderful superstition, with drums and flutes, Saint Dionysius labored to lead them from the idolatry of this false goddess to the true worship of the one God through the preaching of the holy Gospel.

^A Saint Dionysius was occupied in converting the Laconians when he received news about the arrest of the princes of the apostles, Peter and Paul. Therefore, with that great desire of seeing and meeting them before their final struggle, he returned most quickly to Athens, and having set the affairs of the Church there in order, he undertook the journey toward Rome. The ancient Acts of Saint Dionysius testify to this.

[He] replaced [Publius] afterward in the place of the shepherd. Regarding the succession of Publius after Dionysius in the Athenian Church, the most ancient author, Saint Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, is the witness, in Eusebius, book IV of the *Ecclesiastical History*, chapter 22. Regarding this arrival in Rome after the slaughter of the apostles, while Saint Clement was holding the helm of the Church, almost all the ancients, Latins and Greeks, agree.

[We have certain] testimony. Namely, in the Epistle of Dionysius himself to Saint John the Evangelist, where he discloses his vision concerning John’s return from exile.

[That Titus] and Luke were companions of Paul at his martyrdom, and presided over his burial, is gathered from the Acts of the martyrdom of this same Titus in Equilinus, book VII of the *Catalogus*, chapter 108, where he says, among other things: "But after two years Titus came to Paul at Rome: with whom he remained until his execution by Nero, and buried his body together with Luke the evangelist." And from the *Acts of Paul* in the same writer, book VI, chapter 23: "The body, however, was buried by Titus and Luke in that same place."

[Whom] many Latins constitute the next pontiff after Peter. Saint Jerome speaks almost thus in his book *On Illustrious Men of the Church*, chapter 15, where, after he had enumerated Clement as the fourth among the pontiffs according to the opinion of Eusebius (whose interpreter he is in this book)—that is, after Peter, Linus, and Anacletus—he added these words: "Although many Latins think that Clement was the second after the apostle Peter." The leader, therefore, of the Latins in this opinion is Tertullian, a writer of the second century (for there is no one older among the Latins), who in his book *On Prescription against Heretics*, chapter 32, where he demands of them that they show their succession from the apostles: "Let them produce, therefore," he says, "the origins of their Churches, let them unfold the order of their bishops so running down from the beginning through successions, that that first bishop should have had some one of the apostles or apostolical men (who, however, persevered with the apostles) as his author and predecessor. For in this manner the apostolic Churches bring forth their rolls. As the Church of the Smyrneans relates Polycarp to have been placed there by John: as the Church of the Romans produces Clement to have been ordained by Peter." Jerome follows him, book I *Against Jovinian*, before the middle: "To these," he says, "also Clemens, the successor of the apostle Peter, of whom the apostle Paul makes mention, writes epistles, etc." And book XIV on Isaiah, chapter 51, toward the end, citing the words of Clement himself to the Corinthians concerning the humble Christ: "Concerning whom," he says, "also Clement, an apostolic man who ruled the Roman Church after Peter, writes to the Corinthians: 'The Lord Jesus Christ, the scepter of God, did not come in the boastfulness of pride, although He can do all things, but in humility,'" etc.

^B The Venerable Bede bears witness to the same opinion, book II of the *History of the English*, chapter 4, where, treating of Augustine, Archbishop of the Britons, who while still living ordained a successor for himself: "In which," he says, "he was following the example of the first pastor of the Church, that is, of the most blessed prince of the apostles, Peter, who, having founded the Church of Christ at Rome, is reported to have consecrated Clement as his helper in evangelizing and as his successor."

See Baronius, volume I of the *Annals*, to the year of Christ 69, where, however, what he says and thinks—that Jerome speaks more exactly and from his own opinion in the book *On Ecclesiastical Writers* than elsewhere—is not to be admitted. For it is agreed that he had no other purpose in the book *On Ecclesiastical Writers* than to collect ecclesiastical writers from Eusebius, and to add those who were after him, since he often has the entire chapters word-for-word from him. Whence in that place he speaks not from his own, but from the opinion of Eusebius. Nor, likewise, does the authority of the poems attributed to Tertullian carry weight, since it is sufficiently evident from Tertullian himself, book I *Against Marcion*, that he wrote nothing in meter against him; and [book] IV, those books of poems against Marcion, which were entirely unknown to the ancients and recently discovered by Pamelius, must have been written by some ape of Tertullian, not by Tertullian, as I teach more fully elsewhere.

There also comes forward Hugh of Saint Victor, in his *Mystical Description of the Ark of Noah*, chapter 4: "After Peter," he says, "follows Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus," etc. Marianus Scotus is of the same opinion regarding the 14th year of Nero, for which he also cites the Decretal of Pope Leo II.

^C The ancient writers of the *Life of Saint Dionysius* also indicate that he came to Clement, the next successor of Peter: Saint Methodius, Simeon Metaphrastes, Hilduin, and others. The words of Methodius are: [Greek text]. Verily, before the blessed Peter had attained the life of the heavenly kingdom by the victory of martyrdom, he committed the authority of the Church to the blessed Clement with these words: "Just as the authority to bind and to loose has been given to me by my Lord Jesus Christ, so I also bestow and grant the same authority to you forever, so that whoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven."

And a little later, thus concerning Dionysius: [Greek text]. In truth, Dionysius, having entered Rome, when he had found the blessed Clement, as has been said above, holding the authority of the apostolic see, he was received by him at once with fitting honor, as the opportunity allowed, etc. ^D Here he indicates that Dionysius came to Rome when Clement was pontiff, recently after the death of Peter; in what follows, however, he pursues how he was sent into Gaul by this same Clement, and with which companions. Metaphrastes teaches the same, when he writes that, shortly after his return from the Jerusalem council, having left Athens, he followed in the footsteps of his master Paul, and finally came to Rome, and approached Clement, then pontiff, created by Peter. From which, and from many others, it is gathered that it seems less probable what Baronius imagined, that Dionysius came to Rome for the first time about thirty years after the death of Saint Peter, that is, after he had approached John the Evangelist upon his return from exile. However, John returned under Nerva, who began to reign in the year of Christ 99, as Baronius himself notes. Let it be, therefore, that Dionysius went there in that year to John, and in the same or the following, that is, the cente-

^Anary of the coming of the apostles to Rome, was appointed bishop by Peter: although, as we have said, Clemens did not remain long in Rome at that time, but, having left the pontifical see to Linus, departed elsewhere. The Martyrologies, however, which place the death of Dionysius under Hadrian, by no means state that Dionysius remained in the East until the time of Nerva or Trajan. That he did go to the East, I admit and write, but from Gaul (where he already was from the times of Domitian), not from Athens; unless perhaps through a distraction (which, however, I do not believe), but that he proceeded from Gaul by a direct route to Ephesus, that he might meet John, when Nerva was now emperor: and from there, through Athens, he sought Gaul again. This opinion of ours will be more clearly elucidated and confirmed below, as in the next chapter, in the testimony of Bishop Equilinus, and again in the words of Flavius Dexter, in the same place.

CHAPTER X.

FROM the recent snatching away of the twin apostles from the earth, there was almost no other thought or mutual conversation among their successors, the apostolic men, for many days, than of the virtues of their fathers and teachers, whether the vehemence of love was drawing each one away from all other things to this alone, or the zeal of emulation was driving them to the memory of their well-performed deeds. One recalled the admirable moderation of Peter, another the holy fervors of Paul; one recalled the unusual miracles of the one on earth, another the unheard-of raptures of the other to the heavens; one the labors and fruits of the supreme pastor among the Jews, another the works and labors of the teacher of the Gentiles among the Greeks; finally, one after another remembered the things which he had seen and heard, not without a most profound sense of love and longing. One thing, however, stood out above all, which seemed to require more attentive consideration: namely, in what place and condition the Christian cause was throughout the world; which provinces were joined to Christ; who were laboring in them; who were requesting aid; and who—and to whom—they were most especially to be sent. When the most holy Clemens, a most ancient disciple and co-operator of both apostles, had pondered this most intently, and had weighed on one side the need of the regions of Gaul and Spain, and on the other the scarcity of suitable workers, relying upon the virtue and experience of many things of Dionysius, whom he held most dear for many reasons, he decided to share the care of those regions with him, and—what he himself would have wished to do in person, if it were allowed—to entrust this to him as to another himself, with the broadest power of ruling and governing. Having therefore summoned him and received him most kindly, he spoke to him, in general, thus: "It does not escape you, my most beloved brother, how, everywhere after the abundant sowing of the apostles, the harvest is whitening; but as the harvest is great, so the workers are few. And I desire especially those who excel in learning and holiness, who are so distinguished in order and authority that they may provide not only useful services, but also, and indeed much more so, may be able to preside over the work itself. Behold, Gaul, which is near to us, and other regions of the West, have partly received the faith and are partly prepared to receive it, if someone would labor in this work of God bravely and constantly; they are expecting and requesting immediate help. I, however, if I can conceive anything in my mind, judge both that you are called to it by God, and that no one more suitable for so great a duty can be found. I know your learning, I know your piety, I know the strength of your spirit and the constancy of your mind. Here was the place where you might gloriously unfold the powers of your genius and the sinews of your industry to overturn the vain superstition of false gods; where you might express your ardent desire for promoting religion with deeds worthy of God: where, finally, you might at last crown your former labors and generous struggles for Christ with the desired laurel. For do not despair of finding there what you have sought here. But times must be awaited, not pressed forward too urgently. The longer the struggle, the more glorious the palm. But the one will of God must preordain the limit for the struggle and the palm. Come, therefore, my colleague and holy fellow-soldier, gird yourself for those things for which our Emperor has instructed you; direct your course to the shores of the West in the name of the Lord, and like a good soldier of Christ, fight the battles of the Lord your God. You will have many adversaries; but there will be more with you than against you. For you shall be defended by the strong guard of angels, and you shall be aided by our prayers and those of our brothers. And that you may not fear the barbarity of the savage race, our leader Jesus will be with you, wherever you shall be, who will put your enemies to flight before you, and will open a smooth path for the prosperous course of the Gospel. Wherefore, as the same Lord Jesus Christ handed to my master Peter, and he to me, so I also hand to you the sacred power of binding and loosing, that relying upon it, and aided by our vows and prayers and those of the holy apostles, you may go confidently where you are sent, and, by your lot an apostle, and by the legation of God, you may happily fulfill your duty throughout all Gaul, with no impediment delaying you. You, therefore, perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry: and labor in this, that the knowledge of Christ, diffused through you everywhere, you may deserve to hear from the Lord on the day of retribution: 'Well done, good and faithful servant, because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many; enter into the joy of your Lord.'" When Dionysius had received these and other words of this kind with willing ears (for he rejoiced to be sent by the supreme authority to that place to which he was already being led of his own accord by the divine spirit), with few words contracted, he replied that he would willingly and desirously obey the will of the supreme pastor: for nothing was more pleasing to him, nothing more in his vows, than to obey his commands, upon whose sacred mouth and divine nod he entirely depended. Then it was discussed regarding the associates and companions of the journey: as for whom, they were present as agreed, and those who were destined were there (for the agreement of those who are led by the Spirit of God to all the mandates of their superiors is easy), then the pontiff had those words for them which would fire the minds of all both for undertaking the journey with a high spirit and for bearing the labors which pressed upon them generously for Christ; then indeed he dismissed them all, happy and eager on the good way, with a happy benediction. There were in the number of the associates, besides Rusticus and Eleutherius, his inseparable companions, Saturninus, Marcellus, Lucianus, Regulus, Jon, who is called Jonas by some,

and who had also been in Gaul before, but had abandoned the work as having no reward worth the effort, ^A Eutropius (97). For when he had been sent into that region by the prince of the apostles, from whom he had been taught the mysteries of the faith, together with other companions, and in the land of the Santones (these are a people of Aquitaine) had brought, after no small time and not without much labor, a very few to the side of Christ—certainly, as some write, only ten men—he, weary of the difficulties (98) and of the labors which he believed had been poorly spent, returned to Rome. For thus we little men are accustomed to do: we avoid those provinces which we believe will fulfill our expectations less than we hope, and if after many labors a result equal to our toil does not immediately follow, we complain that we have wasted all our effort at great cost. But in truth we all do this perversely, because we place all (our) fruit in the will of others rather than in our own. For God, the best and greatest, does not measure things by the success of our works, but by the intent of our love; nor does He weigh how much we have accomplished, but from how much we have done it. Eutropius, with only ten men corrected over the span of twenty years, could have earned more grace and glory before God than another might with twenty thousand corrected in one year or one sermon. ^B Therefore, Clemens taught how great were the riches he had acquired for his soul by those labors of his which he had thought were fruitless, and he achieved so much by his wise speech that he not only returned willingly to the abandoned province, but even asked for it again eagerly and ardently. From this he also created (him) a bishop, and, as if prescient of the future, by mentioning his martyrdom, he animated him for the palm (of victory). Thus he gave him to Dionysius—whose name he had heard before, and whose virtue he now admired all the more—as a companion for the journey. And as once Peter, after the expenditures of a whole night, having cast his nets in the name of the Lord, obtained a most abundant catch, so too this man (that I may mention this in passing) having undertaken at the pontiff's command an expedition of the greatest difficulty, in a very short time brought to the faith a great many mortals, including the daughter of the prince of the Santones himself, and at the same time obtained the glorious laurel of an inflicted death. And let this be said as a passing remark about Eutropius because of his companionship on the journey. For it is my intention to speak more fully of his noble martyrdom and the accounts written by Dionysius in their proper place below. ^C But now let us pursue the interrupted journey and the departing saints. Having received the blessing of the most holy pontiff, they set out on their way with joyful hearts, breathing great hopes; and nothing on that journey, because of their mutual love and fraternal concord, seemed shorter (for though they were many, they were like one man, with one heart and one soul ˇ), nothing more delightful because of their most welcome conversations on divine things, and nothing, in short, because of the happy memory of the things done by the apostles and their disciples (by which they were fed daily as if by the sweetest food), could have been wished for better in the present or more happily in the future. Therefore, the sea, which marvelously complied with their wishes, they crossed from Italy into Gaul most quickly and at the same time most peacefully, on a happy voyage envied by many, which was fanned and advanced not so much by the winds or sails as by the grace of the Holy Spirit. And the city which they first sought, they say, was Arles (99), an illustrious market town in the province of Narbonne, highly convenient for the commerce of all nations. ^D Here, not long before, had been Saint Trophimus, the disciple of Paul, who, being the first bishop of that city ordained by Saint Paul, had founded and advanced the Christian cause as far as his strength allowed: but that the Apostle had written (100) shortly before his own martyrdom that he had left him infirm at Miletus ˣ, and that he had since passed from this life before the saints departed from Rome, and that for this reason they directed their course here rather than anywhere else, is believed to be very probable. From this city, therefore, may God turn this to good, we shall begin the account of the things accomplished most excellently by Dionysius throughout all Gaul, with him looking down from the heavenly throne and assisting our own labors.

ˇ Act. iv, 32. ˣ II Tim. iv, 20.

^A bears witness to the year of Christ 76, and many others, whom you may see at that place in the Commentary of Franciscus Bivarius, who professes that the genuine manuscript acts of Saturninus himself are preserved in the library of Rodericus Ximenius, bishop of Toledo, and that it is read therein: "Honestus is a good disciple of Saturninus: Saturninus is a better alumnus of Peter: for Christ, the teacher of Peter, is the best of all." There are, however, some among the more recent writers, and especially those who compile examples of morality without any examination, who have dared to correct those who would place Saturninus in the first or second century.

96 *Jonas*, who is also called Jonas by some. He too was one of the disciples and companions of Dionysius, both from Athens to Rome, and from Rome to Gaul. That he went from Athens to Rome is attested by his own acts, according to Vincent of Beauvais, *Speculum historiale*, book x, ch. 23. That he went from Rome to Gaul is testified to by the Roman Martyrology on September 22, in these words: "At the village of Castrensium, Saint Jonas, priest and martyr, who having set out with Saint Dionysius into Gaul, by order of the prefect Julian, was beaten with scourges and finished his martyrdom by the sword." Note in these words, "At the village of Castrensium," that his birthday [feast day] is understood to be celebrated (as we have noted elsewhere in similar cases), and not the day he died or suffered ^B martyrdom. Otherwise, the Martyrology would be teeming with lies. For Saint Ignatius the martyr did not die at Antioch, nor was Saint John Chrysostom at Constantinople, and so regarding others; but the former died in Rome, and the latter at Comana in Pontus; yet it is written regarding both in the Martyrology, of one indeed: "At Antioch, Saint Ignatius, etc."; of the other, however: "At Constantinople, Saint John, bishop, etc."

Now, Son or Jonas was killed near Paris, and he carried his severed head as far as the mountain which in his memory was called Mons S. Jonis, commonly, *le Mont Saint-Jon*.

What is in the Martyrology, "At the village of Castrensium," the French say is *à Chastres sous Montleheri*. Franciscus Bivarius, however, thinks that by those words is meant Castra Cæcilia in Lusitania, and thus it should be understood as what Flavius Dexter notes for the year of Christ 86: "In Castra Cæcilia in Lusitania, Saint Jonas, disciple of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, preaches, and afterwards returns to the Gauls." I admit, indeed, that Saint Jonas preached in both places, but the words of the Martyrology ^C favor the Gauls more. Note also from these words of Dexter that our opinion concerning the departure of Dionysius to Gaul long before the times of the Emperor Nerva is confirmed. For if Jonas (who with Dionysius went from Athens to Rome, and from Rome departed into Gaul) had departed from Gaul into Lusitania before the year of Christ 86, and was preaching the Gospel there; it certainly follows that Dionysius also came with him into Gaul long before the year 86; therefore, it was not under Nerva, or in the year of Christ 99 (as Baronius wished), that Dionysius finally came into Gaul.

97 But having despaired of the effort, Eutropius... The acts of this Saint Eutropius exist with the Bishop of Equilinum, book iv, ch. 105, and some things in Gregory of Tours, book i, *De gloria martyrum*, ch. 56: "Eutropius also, martyr of the city of Saintes, is said," he says, "to have been directed to the Gauls by the blessed bishop Clement." By the same he was also consecrated in the order of the pontifical office, and having fulfilled the order of this duty, and after preaching to the incredulous was finished, and the pagans ^D rising up—whom the author of envy did not permit to believe—he fell as a victor, his head shattered. See in the same place regarding his apparition and the recognition of his martyrdom, revealed by Saint Eutropius himself. And that he was a companion of Dionysius on the journey, his acts clearly declare, where among other things it is said in this way regarding him: "That he approached the apostle, having been sent to preach to the Gauls: and having entered the city of Saintes, while he was preaching Christ, he was beaten by the infidels and cast out of the city, and built a hut for himself outside the walls, where he devoted himself to prayer by night and to preaching by day. But when he had stayed there for a long time and had made but little fruit of his preaching, because he had converted only ten men, returning to Rome, 466 B. he found the apostle Peter suffering: and being ordained Bishop of Saintes by his successor, Saint Clement, and joined to the blessed Dionysius, he went with him a second time to the Gauls." There again observe that Eutropius arrived at Rome immediately after the death of Peter, and was ordained bishop by his successor Saint Clement, and went to the Gauls with Dionysius; so that not long after the passing of the apostles was Dionysius sent into the Gauls, let alone thirty years later, as some wish.

^A and cared for its improvement. He also sent [some] into Gaul and recalled Mellitus and Justus, and commanded them to return to freely establish their churches. Who returned a year after they had departed. Thus far the Venerable Bede. From these things it is also evident that Saint Peter, the coryphaeus of the apostles, still watches over his own church and that of Christ, nor does he neglect in heaven the care for which he poured out his blood and life on earth.

(99) But as to which city he first visited, it must have been Arelate. Thus Methodius: *Toútwν δὲ ὁμοῦ συνεληλυθότων καὶ πορευομένων, ἦλθον εἰς λιμένα Ἀριλαδιτῆς πόλεως.* That is: "And when they had met together and set out, they arrived at the port of the city of Arelate." Hilduinus writes the same in his Life of Saint Dionysius. I suspect that there is an error in *Ἀριλαδιτῆς*, and that it should rather be written *Ἀριλατιναῆς* Arelatensis. The city itself is called in the plural number *Ἀρελᾶται* by Strabo in book IV of his Geography. His words are: *Πρὸς δὲ τῷ Ῥοδανῷ πόλις ἐστὶ καὶ ἐμπόριον οὐ μικρὸν Ἀρελᾶται.* "Beside the Rhone is a city and not insignificant trading post, Arelate." Ptolemy in his Geography, book II, chap. 10, in his description of Narbonensian Gaul, says, *Ἀρελᾶτον Κολωνία*, "Arelatum Colonia." Pliny, book III, Hist. Nat., chap. 4, calls Arelate the colony of the Sextani, that is, one to which soldiers of the sixth legion were sent to inhabit. With this agrees Pomponius Mela, book II, De situ orbis, chap. 5, where he lists the chief cities of Gallia Narbonensis as follows: Among the cities it possesses, the most opulent are Vasio of the Vobontii, Vienna of the Allobroges, Avenio of the Cavari, Nemausus of the Arecomici, Tolosa of the Tectosages, Arausio of the Secundani, Arelate of the Sextani, and Blitera of the Septimani. But the colony of the Atacini and Decumani surpasses them all, from which there was once help for these lands, and now is a name and ornament, Martius Narbo.

^C Some call it Arelas. Therefore Arelas, or Arelate, or Arelatum, or even Arelate in the plural (as Pomponius Mela and indeed the Greeks write), is a distinguished and ancient city of Gallia Narbonensis, and a Roman colony situated on the Rhone, neighbor to Massilia and Avenio, honored by an episcopal see, in which S. Trophimus, a disciple of Paul, first sat, then S. Regulus, and others enrolled in the list of the saints; it is still called Arles in French. But it is worth noting here that Robert Gaguin, in book IX of his History of the Franks, professes to have taken it from the ancients, both regarding the name Arelate and S. Trophimus; namely, that Arelate was called "Aram latam" (Wide Altar) by the ancients, as Gervasius testifies. For two columns were once erected there, and an altar placed upon them, where every year on the Kalends of May a frequent crowd from everywhere offered human sacrifices for their safety. For which purpose they would buy three young men at public expense, and after fattening them well for a whole year, they would sacrifice them at that altar on a specific and appointed day; and immediately they would sprinkle the entire surrounding crowd with the blood of the sacrifices. ^D This savage impiety S. Trophimus, a disciple of Christ and Paul, is said to have exterminated having set out for that reason to disseminate the faith; he taught them, that for acquiring the true welfare of soul and body, they were to be sprinkled with nothing else but the blood of Christ.

He provides confirmation for these things in what Caesar himself writes in book VI of his Gallic War concerning the bloody sacrifices of the Gauls: "The whole nation of the Gauls," he says, "is greatly devoted to religious observances, and for this reason those who are afflicted with more serious diseases and who are involved in battles and dangers, either immolate men as victims, or vow that they will immolate them, and use the Druids as ministers for these sacrifices; because they think that the divinity of the immortal gods cannot be appeased unless the life of a man be given for the life of a man: and they have sacrifices established of this kind publicly. Others have images of immense size; the limbs of which, woven with wicker, they fill with living men: when these are set on fire, the men are encompassed by the flame and perish. They think that the executions of those who have been caught in theft or robbery or any other crime are more pleasing to the immortal gods. But when a supply of that kind runs out, they even descend to the executions of the innocent." Thus it is there. See also Tullius in his Oration Pro M. Fonteio toward the end, and Pomponius Mela, book III, chap. 2.

The words of Saint Paul in the second Epistle to Timothy, ch. iv, 20, are these: "Erastus remained at Corinth: but Trophimus I left at Miletus sick." Paul was writing these things a little before his martyrdom, and after he had written in that same final Epistle: "For I am even now ready to be sacrificed: and the time of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day: and not only to me, but to them also that love his coming. Make haste to come to me quickly." From which it is gathered that Saint Paul had received from God that his death was at hand in a short time, and therefore wished Timothy to be present with him, both to receive his final commands, and to be a witness to his conflicts. But Peter also, his colleague in the same city both in the Gospel and in martyrdom, had received this; since he also wrote in his own second Epistle, ch. i, 13: "But I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, being assured that the laying away of this my tabernacle is at hand: according as our Lord Jesus Christ also hath signified to me." Thus both, what they had predicted, attained together in the same year, month, and day. Therefore Trophimus, whom he wrote shortly before undergoing martyrdom that he had left sick at Miletus (Miletus is a city of Asia, bordering on Caria and Ionia), it is probable that at that time he departed from life there, especially because there is no mention of him after these times; and that S. Regulus was created bishop of Arelate by Dionysius not long after.

CHAPTER XI.

"Son," says that great Ecclesiasticus, "do thou nothing without counsel." Which divine command and oracle the apostle of the land of Gaul believed he had to follow with such greater diligence, by how much that task was greater and more difficult, which at God's nod he was about to undertake, having just been imposed upon his shoulders. For the overthrow of gods who had been worshipped so persistently and superstitiously from every age back was being acted out there. On the contrary, the eternal divinity of Jesus Christ, who was ignominiously hung on the bitter cross among thieves, and a new religion, was to be proposed, proved, and persuaded to wild and barbarous peoples. The human powers (if indeed it were considered singly and by itself) fell far short of the labor of such a task; but nevertheless, combined with the aids of God, the best and greatest, and relying not on themselves but on Him, it could overcome neither that nor anything else. Wherefore, since the matter was of such a kind that it stood in need of both greatest strength and powerful succor, and moreover required no mediocre prudence...

and industry, as soon as he had arrived at Arles, having first offered thanks to God, the leader and preserver, for his prosperous voyage and happy landing, this most wise man applied all his thoughts to a full understanding of the state of all Gaul and the customs of its several peoples which were necessary for his present purpose; and then, having taken counsel with his own, he set about disposing of the assignment of suitable workers in every direction, gently, as the glory of God might suggest. Nor could a more opportune city or more convenient place have been sought or wished for to carry out these things than where they then were. For this was a city where there was a frequent concourse from all of Gaul, not only of others but even of Christians; from whom one could learn what it concerned a good shepherd to know for the right administration of the Church. Here, therefore, he stopped for some time: here he collected the Christians, here he took a census of them; here he recognized the fruits of the labors of Paul and Trophimus: here, from the brethren, especially the priests and deacons, he learned thoroughly which bishops were still surviving in Gaul, where they had fixed their sees, what harvests of souls they had made, and which lands they had left sterile and uncultivated. Then, having summoned his colleagues and companions into council and heard their opinion on the matters under deliberation, and finally—which he was always accustomed to observe before all business—having invoked the Lord God as to what was best to be done, he assigned to each his own province in which to labor. He entrusted Aquitaine to Saturninus [1-2], Beauvais to Lucian, Meaux to Sanctinus, Arles to Regulus, Saintes to Eutropius, and other cities or tracts to others in Gallic soil. But as for Marcellus, whom some also call Eugenius 3 (for it is believed by many that they are the same person), after having first created him bishop, he sent him into Spain, at the request of the Spaniards who were seeking assistance from Gaul. Dionysius himself, however, reserved for his own cultivation the Paris region, than which there was nothing, at that time, more uncultivated and rustic as far as faith and piety were concerned. For it is fitting that, as generals in warfare, so too should the chief prelates in the Church take upon themselves those tasks which bring with them the most labor and difficulty; so that they may not appear to drive their subjects where they wish by command as much as to draw them after themselves by example to great and arduous things. For commands are considered too harsh and arrogant when labors and dangers are enjoined, but examples are wanting. Dionysius, therefore, was careful not to be among the number of those who treat others harshly while living softly themselves. For he had not learned this from his instructor Paul, nor had he seen it in any of the apostles, nor had he himself, even in a dream, so much as thought of it. For as a good huntsman of Christ, he always and in all things sagaciously searched for the footprints of the glory of God—which are mostly discovered more brightly in dangers, in labors, in hardships, in things arduous to perform, and painful to endure—and through these he hastened with tireless course toward the rich spoils of souls. The city of Arles did indeed detain him for some time, but God had shown him the vast fruit of a slightly longer stay there. Now Nero, a monster of a man rather than a man, a tyrant such as the earth had not yet borne, hated and detested by all mortals, had paid the debt of his importunate cruelty to God and the holy apostles; and indeed by no other hand (which was the worst, and yet most just) than his own, so that he, a man who had surpassed all before him in barbaric cruelty, might by his own death best the worst kind of victory and conquer himself as well. This monster, therefore, being removed from the living, while all good men began to breathe again, the Christians especially hoped for better things day by day: to which, of course, no small argument—that the faith should be promoted—was provided by the fact that the first author of its persecution, he who was entirely fashioned from the foulest and most disgusting slop of all vices, had, with the most wicked devil urging and impelling him, done nothing else hitherto. Dionysius, therefore, and all the masters of all the Churches collectively taught that Peter and Paul, the two princes of our religion—much the most gentle of all—had been put to death because they had generously opposed that most truculent tyrant and his most foul spirits and demons, upon whose judgment and nod that wicked assassin totally depended, and had preferred the honor of true chastity to his execrable lusts and impurities. Thus, having found an entrance not difficult to those ears which were marvelously horrified by such things, they proceeded all the more confidently to set forth the documents of our faith, the more they were joined with virtue and reason. To make which public, our Areopagite was well-suited, both by the authority of a great name and especially by a certain incredible grace of divinely inspired speech, in which there resided a power and a copiousness of discourse that was incomparable. Whereupon a good number of the people of Arles began by degrees to follow him, to taste his words, to admire his life, to love his virtues, and to hope for and accept the Gospel, testifying by their silence at first, and then by their voice and approval, how much the deeds of Christ were to be preferred to the mute idols of the gods. Finally, they began to distrust the power of their own gods, whom they saw being despised by Christians with impunity and being shamed for their imbecility; when, however, they also knew that miracles had often been done in the name of Jesus (who for the sake of honor is always to be named by us) and were not infrequently happening, whether in the casting out of demons or in the healing of sicknesses, then they openly gave their hands over to religion and did not unwillingly submit their fasces to divine power. Therefore the noble athlete of Christ did not depart from Arles until he had both enrolled much of the population under his leader's standard and had left behind very bright traces of his virtue deeply impressed there. There was in that place a certain temple, among the most august and celebrated for the worship and veneration of the people, in which a statue of Mars 4 was honored with public tributes: this statue Dionysius, to prove the true power of the one God, overthrew and shattered by the sole invocation of the divine name; and having duly cleansed the temple itself, which had hitherto been defiled by all the filth of execrated rites and polluted by the most unworthy vanity of a most foolish superstition, he consecrated it with the most holy names and honors of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, to the approval of the people (who were already conscious of and filled with admiration for the miracles performed by them), and he placed there a baptistery for the washing away of original stains. For he had briefly set forth to them their wondrous virtues and the benefits bestowed upon all mortals (which he indicated were to be found more fully in the code of the Gospels and in that which is inscribed as the Acts of the Apostles); just as Peter, for instance, as if he were someone who dispensed life and death, had by his word alone delivered some to death for their impious crimes, and had restored others to life for their extraordinary good deeds. For he recalled that Ananias and Sapphira, because they had lied to the Holy Spirit, had fallen down dead at the voice of Saint Peter; but that Tabitha, a prominent disciple of the Church, recommended by her piety toward widows, had been restored to life by an invocation from the same; nay, that all the sick who were touched by even his shadow were restored to perfect health [b]. Paul, on the other hand, a disciple from being a persecutor of Christ, had been snatched up into heaven [c] and had seen and heard there things for the stating of which no tongue is sufficient, no speech can be equal; but he had also shone brilliantly with the splendor of no common miracles. For he had struck Elymas the magician blind [d] in the very moment that he resisted the doctrine of Christ; and he had restored health to very many other sick people, and even gave back lost life to some who were dead; and finally, had lived in such a way that there was nothing base or vicious in his conduct; had taught in such a way that there was nothing false or pernicious in his doctrine; and finally had departed in such a way that nothing shameful or ignominious was found or could justly be detected by anyone in his death.

^A Indeed, his whole life, his teaching, and his death were full of good examples. For in these there shone forth prudence in the conduct of affairs, equity in dealing with business, temperance in moderating the senses, fortitude in restraining the passions, patience in bearing adversity and suffering death, and an unconquerable constancy of mind. And if the lives of the false gods—whether of Mars, or Mercury, or Jove himself, or Saturn, or any others whatsoever—were compared with these virtues, good God! he would exclaim, what a difference there is between them! Surely a greater difference than between day and night, than between light and darkness. For one is said to have devoured his own children, another to have driven his own father from his kingdom, this one to have committed adultery against another’s wife, that one to have stolen others’ possessions; yet another, it is recorded, committed various other crimes, indeed horrible and shameful ones, and even boasted of them. And yet, such was the blindness of men that they bestowed divine honors upon those who, it was most certainly established, were doomed to eternal punishment for their execrable deeds. Therefore, he would say, God Himself descended from heaven to dispel such great blindness with His immense light, and to dissipate the thick darkness of errors with the truth of His doctrine; and this is He whom he preached to them, whose principal disciples he extolled with true praises, to whom temples and statues were far more justly due than to Mars and Mercury, or to other gods (if indeed they were gods). With such things almost, and with many more and greater things, according as the Spirit gave him utterance, the holy man used to hold the minds of the people, instruct them, and acquire them for Christ. After these things were accomplished, having commended the Church of Arles to Regulus (upon whom he had already imposed both the laying on of hands and the office of bishop), and having set in order the ranks within it, and having urged them through diligent prayer to mutual duties toward one another, he bade them farewell. And having given the kiss of peace and bestowed his blessing, he penetrated into the interior of Gaul, having taken Rusticus and Eleutherius as his companions. As for where he settled, what he did, and what pursuits he followed, the next narrative will demonstrate.

NOTATIONES. (1-2) *On Saturninus of Aquitaine, etc.* Concerning Saturninus and others sent in different directions by Dionysius, it has been mentioned partly in the preceding chapter, and partly it will be said in a proper and separate chapter below. (3) *As for Marcellus, whom some call Eugenius.* Regarding this Marcellus, and whether he is the same as the Eugenius of Toledo, I have disputed elsewhere. (4) *In which the statue of Mars, etc.* That Mars was also worshipped by the Gauls, we noted in the preceding chapter from Caesar. Concerning the disjected and shattered statue of him by Dionysius, it is held in the Acts of St. Regulus in Vincent of Beauvais, lib. x Hist., cap. 27.

CHAPTER XII.

Paris, at this time ^B of which we speak, was already famous—not, indeed, as a city as it is now, but as the name of a people in Celtic Gaul situated between the Senones and the Bellovaci, and inhabiting the river Seine. This name, indeed, had Julius Caesar once made more illustrious in his *Commentaries*, ^C and at the same time had rendered their city, Lutetia, more famous due to the council of war held therein; yet a far different fame came later, when Dionysius the Areopagite transferred hither almost all the glory of Athens, that is, himself; nor did this happen without a happy omen of a great matter, namely, that the faculty of all the liberal arts, and especially Greek eloquence, would one day (as has long since come to pass) be transferred hither. But those things, however ample they may be, compared with the light of God which he shed, compared with the name of Christ which he brought, and compared with so many distinguished trophies of the victorious faith which he raised up throughout Gaul, can and must appear small. Therefore, under divine guidance, he approached this people and this city, and chose in the vicinity a place for his habitation, which he could find most convenient for sacred studies, pious prayers, and the contemplation of divine things, and as a timely retreat from the labors of the Gospel. They believe this to be the place where the University of Paris now resides, a rival to that of the Athenian [school], which Plato celebrated, and where Dionysius once philosophized. Here, therefore, he settled with his two companions, Rusticus the presbyter and Eleutherius the deacon, most faithful comrades; here he performed sacred rites, here he meditated on divine things, here he contemplated heavenly things, and here he commented upon those incomparable books—inaccessible ^D except to a few and rare minds—which even the present school of theologians ranks in the first place according to the Scriptures and praises for their authority; here, finally, as once John did in the desert, he taught the mortals of every kind who flocked to him, stirred by the fame of his life and miracles; he washed them, and even more than John, he freed them from the chains of their sins and claimed them for the freedom of the children of God. For since he was powerful in the virtue of miracles, healing now sight for the blind, now hearing for the deaf, now speech for the mute, now gait for the lame, and curing besides those afflicted with various other infirmities regarding cautery, surgery, and the bitterness of potions, by prayer alone and the invocation of the divine Word, he was an object of admiration to the whole nation, and indeed, because of such beneficent deeds, was held everywhere among all in no common love and honor. Preparing the way through these things for the persuasion of the faith and the worship of that God (whose name he invoked when he performed these things), he led a not insignificant number of the Parisians to the camp of Christ. But before all others, whose fame is more obscure and whose names are unknown, one singular person emerged, whose name neither time, which destroys all things, nor envy, which is always jealous of the great, has yet been able to obscure or dim. For Lisbius, of the ancient stock and root of the Montmorency family, who is believed to have been the first of the Gallic nobility to be purified by the saving waters of baptism by Dionysius and graced with the glory of the Christian name, still lives and flourishes, and will flourish forever in writings that shall never die for all posterity. For as before, so hereafter, he shall be held and called the first fruits of the Christians of the Gauls: nor shall his authority—as he was noble as well as wealthy—be hidden, either in commending and promoting the faith, or in his signal kindness and munificence in either adapting or preserving religious chapels and oratories (as the tempests of the time allowed). For it is held in ancient monuments that he was ready for these works, both by his authority and his wealth, to assist Dionysius. And this was perhaps the occasion and the seedbed of the anger and discord of his wife: for Larcia (this was the name of his wife), impatient of such expenses, by which she thought the family property was being squandered (for she remained an unbeliever for a long time after her husband had embraced the faith), denounced her husband as guilty of the highest impiety against the gods, and, though at a long time after this, during which the hatreds nevertheless remained, wittingly or unwittingly, as will be told in its place, provided him with the glorious palm of martyrdom. For when Vespasian then held the empire—a prince very mild and humane—there existed in these times no heavier persecution against the Christians, nor any for the enemies of religion to vent their hatred against the good, of such...

magnitude as opportunity might have desired. Hence, under that emperor, the Church began by degrees to be refreshed, gradually to grow, to gain strength, to build little churches, to hold sacred assemblies more freely, and to make progress in the doctrine of Christ and the exercise of virtues that was not to be regretted. Therefore, with the cooperation of Lisbius, whom we have just mentioned, Dionysius built several chapels in various places 12, as convenience allowed. It is believed that the first, or certainly one of the first, was that which he dedicated to almighty God, the author and leader of this pilgrimage of his, under the title of the Holy Trinity: which, many centuries later, was restored, enlarged, and consecrated in honor of Saint Benedict, while the grateful memory of the venerable antiquity and sanctity of the place was nonetheless preserved therein. Indeed, in the chapel which is now called Saint Nicholas’s, and which is enclosed within the temple of the divine Benedict, this most certain monument of ancient religion is read. In this chapel, Saint Dionysius began to invoke the name of the Holy Trinity. For that was, properly speaking, the site of the chapel built by Dionysius. Later, however, they also report that he dedicated another to the worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, after the idol of Mercury, which was worshipped there, had been destroyed; which the natives, in memory of the event, called Notre-Dame-des-Champs. There, he also deposited some part of the most holy veil of the same Virgin—at whose funeral he himself had been present—for the greater sanctity of that place. Likewise, one to Saint Stephen, the first martyr after the ascension of Christ; which is still commonly called the temple of Saint Stephen of the Greeks today, because, clearly, its first founders were Greeks. Finally, others to other saints, whose enumeration I here omit, as it is difficult and less necessary.

But just as he established temples and shrines, so too did he appoint priests and ministers, and sent them into various places 13. For it was necessary that, as the flocks multiplied, the pastors should also be multiplied. And when he had most diligently instructed them in every virtue, he also commended them to them with special care, so that they might most exactly know and attend to those things which were their duty regarding sacred roles and ministry. Nor without cause. For what is there in the whole world that requires similar care and solicitude as those services and duties that touch not a mortal man, but God Himself and the heavens? For if it is true that honor and veneration increase according to the dignity and high office of persons, how exquisite must the rites and ceremonies of divine adoration be, and how great the growth in honor and reverence that must be applied to the worship of that supreme and infinite Majesty? Dionysius, therefore, being most reverent of such a peak of greatness, bestowed truly excellent care upon this matter, if anyone ever did. For when the apostles (upon whose shoulders, as the first messengers of God and the principal preachers of the new law, this burden fell) had divinely instituted the sacraments and sacrifices and ordained them with set rites and ceremonies for the sake of greater veneration, and, having ordained bishops, had handed them down not so much by voice or writing as by use and example, it seemed to the apostolic men, after their departure from this life, that it would be for the common good (as the Spirit suggested to them) that the principal mysteries of the Christian religion, and the rationale and understanding of them, should be committed to writing in such a way that they might be easily communicated to new pontiffs and priests (whose number was already growing here and there throughout all lands), and at the same time, care could be taken so that what ought to remain hidden might not rashly spread to profane and unworthy men. For just as these things contributed greatly to the consensus and unity of religion and holy discipline, so, through the darkness of ignorance and the weakness of the mind, they might have caused no little harm—had they been otherwise managed. Wherefore, in this matter, first of all men, as far as is known, Saint Hierotheus, the master of Dionysius, labored; but he labored in such a way that his writings, on account of their difficulty and obscurity, served only the more sublime intellects. Whence, when Dionysius had transmitted these to Timothy, the bishop of the city of Ephesus, he approved of them in such a way that he requested some things much clearer for moderate intellects. Indeed, he urged even Dionysius himself to undertake this labor, not once but often, not as if Timothy himself, as a veteran disciple of Paul the apostle, were in great need of them, but so that he might offer them for the guidance and aid of bishops recently created or to be created thereafter by him, and that those writings of Dionysius might be as a consistent magisterium of all rites and ceremonies. And indeed, they so prevailed and endured throughout the East and all Greece—concerning the orders to be conferred, which Dionysius himself wrote of in his books—that their use persists among them to this day.

But regarding the books, in the present I shall only say this, which is sufficiently clear (for we shall bring forth later a review of all of them, the memory of which is still held), that those noble books—the one *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, the other *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*—since they were among the last works published by him, were written in Gaul, and in Gaul were expanded and revised. For here, since the glorious departure of the two apostles (from which time he was especially stimulated by their disciples to write), he held his seat and home. Although he also, following the example of his masters, traveled elsewhere on occasion to visit and strengthen more remote churches. For the Spaniards themselves affirm that he also traveled from Gaul into Spain 14. Which is made the more probable by the fact that those who set out from the head of the world toward the neighboring Gauls, in those apostolic times, were accustomed, once the Gospel was sufficiently spread there, to fly thence into Spain for the sake of extending it. For very many examples of such travels are recorded in the histories of the Spaniards. Indeed, they have handed down to memory this same thing regarding Saint Martial, bishop of the Lemovices 15, this regarding Saint Saturninus of the Tolosani 16, this regarding Saint Joanes or Jonas, presbyter of the Castrenses, this regarding Saint Mancius, prelate of the Catalaunenses 17, and regarding many other bishops in Gaul who were disciples of the apostles. For the boundaries of faith and religion were not as the boundaries of kingdoms or provinces; but the entire Church of Christ was, as it were, one province, one kingdom, one nation, nay, one house and one family of Christians dispersed throughout the whole world; and the transit and reception between province and province was then as easy as it is now from city to city, and, I would almost say, from house to house. There was then no disjunction of souls among Christians because of the distances between places, no severance of charity because of the diversity of languages, nor finally—since one brotherhood (for Italians, Gauls, Germans, Spaniards, Greeks, and whichever other peoples of the whole universe were contained and glued together by one brotherhood) held and bound them together—was there, I say, any rivalry among brothers, who embraced each other with more than brotherly love, save for a competition of virtue alone, of piety, and of divine honor. But if by chance some storm of persecution arose, it bound them more tightly together, not unlike the bitterness of extreme cold upon water.

Dionysius therefore went into Spain, and he inspected, acknowledged, and promoted the labors and fruits of the disciples he had sent there before. For it is incredible to say how much weight the mere audience of the word or the sight of the presence of holy men, especially those outstanding in doctrine and authority, brings to matters of faith. Hence there was once such great ardor in the peoples to see and hear the apostles, or, once they departed from life, to know their disciples at least as their living images. This was the reason why bishops, the successors of the apostles, did not so fix themselves in one seat, but often traveled to other and different provinces, whether by their invitation or by their own will. Thus, even Clement himself—the successor and disciple of Peter—having left Rome for a time, went into various parts no less than his master: and about these very times, up to the scepter of Domitian and his impious movements against the Church, these generous athletes of Christ moved freely and confidently, whithersoever the Spirit of God led them, not only to multiply the churches, but also to confirm them, to order them with statutes and laws, and with the bond of concord (which was most necessary at that time)

^A contended to unite them. Thus, therefore, Dionysius, content with neither Athens, nor Gaul, nor Germany, 472 penetrated also into the Spains, and by the advantage of the timing, went to water what James, what Peter, what Paul (18), and what others of the apostles had planted. Although the time of his departure is not entirely clear, the fact of the departure itself is sufficiently clear. But we shall now begin from what he did upon returning to Gaul during the hostile and ill-omened reign of Domitian.

NOTATIONS.

(5) Parisii, of which we speak, the age, etc. Paris, as the name of the region; but Lutetia, as the head of that region, was used by Caesar, lib. vi, *De bello Gallico*, at the beginning, where he writes about himself thus: "A council of Gaul having been summoned in early spring, as he had established, when the rest had arrived except for the Senones, the Carnutes, and the Treviri, he judged this to be the beginning of the war and defection, so that he seemed to postpone everything, and he transferred the council to Lutetia of the Parisii." These were adjacent to the Senones, and had joined together in the memory of the fathers of the cities: but they were thought to have been absent from this council. So it is there.

(6-7) Therefore, to this people and to this city he arrived by divine guidance. Regarding this arrival, we have evidence from the divine will or warning in Simeon Metaphrastes in the *Life of Dionysius*, who writes that an oracle was sent to him from above. Thus he had previously come from Athens to Rome by heavenly and divine will, as one beloved by God, being led, as Methodius writes, by heavenly and divine will, as if led by the hand by God.

(8) These incomparable books, etc. Regarding the books that now exist, *On the Divine Names*, *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, etc., it is most probable that they were written by Dionysius at Paris after the death of the apostles, when he himself already stood out for his exceptional knowledge among the disciples of Paul. For it is certain that they were written later (which is also proven below) than those which perished.

(9) Michael in the *Laudation of St. Dionysius*.

(10) That he excelled in the power of miracles, etc. Ancient biographers, both Greek and Latin, testify to the miraculous power of St. Dionysius. I shall provide the testimonies of the Greeks, omitting the Latins, which are more readily at hand. Therefore, Michael Syngelus writes that Dionysius banished the madness of the worship of idols by these three tools: *τῷ τῆς ἀληθείας κηρύγματι, καὶ τῷ τῆς διδασκαλίας διαυγάσματι, καὶ τοῖς τῶν θαυμάτων τερατουργήμασιν*, by the proclamation of truth, by the radiance of doctrine, and by the prodigies of miracles. Then he adds continuously some cures wrought by divine power through him: *Ὀφθαλμοὶ γὰρ τυφλῶν ἀνέβλεπον, καὶ ὦτα κωφῶν ἠνοίγοντο, καὶ γλῶσσαι μογιλάλων ἐτραγοῦντο, καὶ βάσεις χωλῶν συνεσφίγγοντο, καὶ ποικίλων νοσημάτων ἀσθενοῦντες ἐλευθεροῦντο, τῇ τοῦ παντοδυνάμου Σωτῆρος ἐπικλήσει διὰ τοῦ θαυμασιωτάτου θεράποντος αὐτοῦ παραδοξοποιοῦντος, καὶ τοὺς ἐν σκότει τῆς ἀγνοίας καθημένους προσκαλουμένου πρὸς τὸ φῶς τῆς γνώσεως καὶ σωτηρίας*. For the eyes of the blind saw, the ears of the deaf were opened, the tongues of the speechless were loosed, the footsteps of the lame were strengthened, and those suffering from various diseases were set free, ^B by the invocation of the almighty Savior through his most wonderful worker of paradoxes, and by calling those sitting in the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge and salvation. So says Syngelus. What of Methodius? This, among other things: *Καὶ τοσαύτας δι' αὐτοῦ κατηξίωσε γενέσθαι τὰς δυνάμεις, ὅτι τῶν πολεμίων ἐθνῶν τὰς καρδίας οὐκ ἔλαττον τῶν εὐαγγελιζομένων ἀνέδειξεν*. And the Lord deigned to perform such great virtues through him that he showed the hearts of the hostile nations to be no less than those who were evangelized. But Metaphrastes: *Οὐ διδαχῆς μόνον ῥήμασιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ σημείων ἔργοις ἀποστολῆς ἔργον εἰργάζετο*. He performed the work of his apostleship not only by the words of doctrine, but also by the deeds of signs.

(11) For Lisbius is an ancient stock, etc. [alt-version omitted]

(12) Some things in various places, a chapel, etc. His witnesses are Syngelus and Methodius, lauded above. The words of the former, after he deals with the miracles of the holy man, are these: *Ἐπὶ τούτοις γὰρ τῶν πιστῶν πληθὺς ηὐξάνετο· καὶ ναοὶ τῷ Θεῷ κατὰ Γαλλίαν καὶ Γερμανίαν, τὴν μεγίστην ἐπαρχίαν, ἡγείροντο*, etc. For because of these miracles the multitude of the faithful grew, and temples were raised to God throughout Gaul and Germany, the largest province. But the words of the latter are these: *Τοῦτον οὖν τὸν τόπον ὁ Θεοῦ δοῦλος περιοδεύσας, καὶ τῷ στερεῷ τῆς πίστεως ὁπλισάμενος, Θεῷ τῷ παντοδυνάμῳ πανταχοῦ βοηθοῦντι καὶ συνοδεύοντι αὐτῷ, ἐκκλησίαν ἐκεῖσε κατὰ τὴν δύναμιν αὐτοῦ, καθ' ὅτι νέος ἀκμὴν προσήλυτος ὑπῆρχε, καὶ τῷ Κυρίῳ ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ εἰς τιμὴν ἀνέστησε*. This place, therefore, having walked about the servant of God, and having armed himself with the firmness of faith, for God the Almighty who everywhere helps and accompanies him, he built a church there according to his power, as he was a newly arrived pilgrim, and for the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ. ^C To these, furthermore, the *Antiquities of Paris* agree, and the ancient Ritual books, in which these things are rhymed:

With Christ's temple built here, He teaches by Word and example, He shines with miracles, etc.

Regarding other temples and chapels, Democares should be consulted, in his book *On the Divine Sacrifice of the Mass*, chapter 18, in the *Catalogue of the Bishops of Paris*.

(13) Methodius on the Martyrdom of Dionysius.

(14) For that he traveled to Spain and Gaul, they themselves affirm. Flavius Dexter to the year of Christ 110, and of Rome 861: "Not long after, St. Dionysius the Areopagite visited the Spains, as he had been ordained legate for the whole West by the Blessed Clement." Francis Bivarius agrees, 473, in his *Commentary* to that same year, and proves it from St. Methodius, who writes that Dionysius scattered the seeds of the Gospel *πᾶσι τοῖς Ἑσπερίοις μέρεσι*, in all the Hesperian parts. The Spaniards, however, are considered to be in the Hesperian parts, as is rightly proved there. ^D But one must take care lest it be thought that Dionysius was ordained legate of the West by Clement in that year of Christ 110, or shortly after. For it is certain that Clement died many years earlier. But one must only think that Dexter brings forth the reason for which he went into Spain, namely, that he had already been ordained legate for the whole West by Clement long before. I, however, consider that he went to Spain long before Dexter wishes, namely in the times of Vespasian, when peace had been restored to the Churches after Nero. For Vespasian reigned for almost ten years: so that in his final years, with the Parisian Church already sufficiently ordered, Dionysius visited the Spains, and by the same labor, his disciple Marcellus.

^A a pontiff in Lusitania, who had previously preached in Gaul, flourishes: and after many labors he is crowned a martyr, in the year 106.” See there the learned Commentary of Bivarius. Concerning St. Jonas, it has been spoken of in the preceding pages.

The authority of the Gothic Toletan Breviary is added, in which a hymn exists containing the journey of Dionysius and Eugenius, of the former into Spain from Gaul, and of the latter into Gaul from Spain. It begins thus: *Worthy memory of Saint Eugenius*. Where, among other things concerning Dionysius, whom it calls a fosterling of Greece, and concerning Eugenius, whom it calls a teacher of Spain, it has thus: *The fosterling of Greece visits Spain.* *The teacher of Spain revisits Gaul:* *Capturing the presence of the teacher of Gaul* *With a faithful heart.*

(15) Indeed, this concerning Saint Martial, bishop of the Limousins. Flavius Dexter, at the year of Christ 52, Rome 805, says: “Martial, apostle of the Limousins, the Cadurci and the Tolosates, visited the Spains, and by preaching visited the faithful.” See the same Bivarius there.

(16) Concerning this Saint Saturninus of the Tolosani, etc. Dexter, at the year of Christ 112: “Saint Saturninus, bishop of Toulouse, visits Toledo for the second time.” Concerning his first arrival, see Bivarius in the Commentary of Dexter, at the year 76.

(17) Concerning Saint Mancius of the Catalonians. Thus Dexter concerning him, at the year of Christ 90: “Mancius, a Roman citizen, disciple of Christ, the first of the Eborenses, etc. That all these were in Spain, Dexter, and Metaphrastes, and very many others set down as a certainty. Concerning all of them, see the Commentary of Francis Bivarius on Dexter, in the year of Christ 50, and elsewhere. I omit to speak concerning James, as it is beyond doubt. Concerning Peter, at the already cited year, Dexter says thus: “Peter, as vicar of Christ, visits the Spains: he brings images brought from Antioch,” etc. Concerning the images, if you consult Bivarius there, he will satisfy you. That Paul went into Spain is clear from the above, and from the same Bivarius, who well and fully refutes those who hold other opinions. Now indeed, after the edition of Dexter, there should be no manner of doubt. Which Dexter, had the learned and diligent Baronius come upon him, would undoubtedly have felt and taught many things otherwise than he felt. Truly, if *day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge* (Ps. CXVII, 13), much more do months and years, as they diligently proceed, bring to light, as one thing after another, ancient monuments into a new light.

CHAPTER XIII.

It is indeed most true what the most expert leaders and masters of the celestial way hand down: that each of the servants of God participates more frequently and more copiously in divine benefits, the more grateful he is for those he has received, and the more lavish in his performance of duties and services towards the Giver. For whose abundance of goods, on account of His infinite kindness, can in no way be diminished, He in no wise allows Himself to be surpassed by His servant in the contest of mutual love. Therefore, when Dionysius, mindful of the gifts flowing down upon him, poured back both those gifts and himself entirely into their Author, he was weaving, as it were, a perfect circle of reciprocating benevolence with God, although unequal, yet most grateful. For when he received new benefits, he rendered new services; and while he rendered these, and was being showered with new graces from God for this very reason, he, incited anew by these, returned more the more he received; and the more he returned, the more he received, so that there was neither a number to the giving nor an end to the rewarding. For thus the great apostles grew, who neither allowed the grace of God to be empty within themselves, and urged others also, that they might not receive it in vain. Thus the disciples of the apostles (and in this number, Dionysius in the first place) thrived day by day, always adding to their course, always heaping labor upon labor, industry upon industry, and service upon service. Hence, having departed from all inferior things, and raised up sublimely to God and divine things, they were filled with wondrous brightness of all-encompassing wisdom, by which they could thoroughly know and despise both themselves and all worldly things: and could behold the Good itself, truly every good, in the ray of that same Good, and prefer it infinitely to all the things of earth, which they held as most paltry and worthy of no value. For just as those who observe from the loftiest towers and from high watchtowers, and especially those built upon some most towering mountain, men, however tall and to be viewed in their giant mass, walking below, appear to themselves to see them as wretched little worms or as ants of a very tiny body, and barely see them: so those who in mind and thought have ascended through multiple steps of deep contemplation to the high and hidden mysteries of God, behold and admire such great, such exalted, such incomprehensible things therein, that with their eyes turned away from below, they appear to see all human things—nay, absolutely all things—as if a tiny point, if indeed they see them at all. For as he who has walked for long in the brightest sun, when he first enters into the shade, sees nothing because of the darkness of his eyes; so it happens to great men who are familiarly occupied with their God, that to be totally intent and suffused with divine mysteries, they neither see nor care for earthly things. For from lowest things, as far as it is possible to do so, they withdraw themselves, and always hold those things as least which the common run of men, because they know not the greater things, values greatly. Furthermore, Dionysius, as one who, suffused with an abundant supply of supernal light, understood all those things to be altogether vain and nothing, and for that reason entirely segregating himself from them, would pursue those things that truly are, and are great, with all the contention of his soul; he would continually aspire to God, ascend, cleave to Him, and become in a manner entirely the effect of God (19)—(a thing he taught in his writings to be supremely necessary for perceiving things divine)—he would see, hear, drink in, and as far as he could, would bring forth to others with grandiloquence of words (for he did not wish to cheapen such great things with words obvious to the common people). Indeed, he considered it too profane and irreligious to express in common and vulgar terms things so remote and so diverse from this common and vulgar state; and accordingly, to the honor and estimation of God and divine things, he judged it to look towards this: if, in the most magnificent words he could, he might represent, in some measure, those things which surpass every magnitude. Hence, he formed new words, and by his own composition, designating something excellent and higher and more august than any created pinnacle, in order to explain the infinite and incomparable perfections of God. And some light and bold men (20-21), partly out of dishonor, partly out of malevolence, interpreting this in a worse sense, chose to attribute what was well and prudently said to an affectation of style and eloquence, rather than assign it to the dignity and majesty of the subject; and what is worse, they chose rather to cavil at the words of the author and slander his discourse, than to admire the genre of speaking and revere the piety of the speaker. But I, indeed, quite the contrary, know for certain and believe that those very words were suggested by the same Spirit,

from whom he also received the manifestation of hidden things, as I do not doubt. For the holy man did not dare or was not accustomed to attempt writing before he had raised himself from the ground by fervent prayer, ^A like a certain heavenly chain, and bound himself to God. In short, the words and oracles of God were so familiar to him that in sacred matters he would undertake nothing great, nothing mediocre, without a divine vision or a heavenly response. He co-opted many into the order of deacons, priests, and bishops, but no one without the judgment of God. Indeed, he clearly taught all prelates that this ought to be done, ^B and he proved it evidently by the accumulation of many examples. Also, by his own instruction, if any obscure and difficult passage of Scripture occurred, for the unraveling of which ministers struggled, they would approach the presbyters, the presbyters him, and he himself (unless the apostles were at hand) would enter the inner sanctuary of the temple, consult God himself, and learn whatever He desired, while He himself inspired him through the angels. For just as in the heavenly hierarchy, so also in the governance of the Church, there is an order of learning and an order of teaching: and what the seraphim are in heaven, such are the bishops in the Church; and as the lower spirits draw the lore of difficult things from those primary ones, so the ranks subject to them draw it from these. But they who are highest on earth receive what they do not know from heaven, just as those who are highest in heaven receive knowledge from God Himself, as from the first source, without the intervention of anyone. Therefore, the things that Dionysius learned and taught which were most arduous, he perceived partly from the sacred Scriptures, partly also from the magisterium of Paul and Hierotheus, but yet for the most part and primarily, he perceived them not from men, but from God and the angels, by praying, meditating, and contemplating. For if the kindness and benevolence of God Almighty toward men is so great that He does not disdain to contract a friendship with them (albeit with those who are unequal) and to make them participants in His counsels, and to disclose mysteries even to private individuals, how much more did He reveal to the first leaders of His militia, how much to Dionysius—most strenuous and industrious among the leaders, and by reason of his mind’s exceptional purity, by far the most beloved—whether by light during his most ardent prayers, or by night through objects seen in visions during his rest? For if God is the most brilliant sun, and Dionysius’s soul a most polished mirror, and the former is always composed to scatter rays, and the latter is always disposed to receive them, why should not the former perpetually illuminate and the latter be illuminated? Nor certainly, as in this air, so in the mind, does the frequency of obscuring clouds intervene. For the mind of the righteous man is raised higher than the earth and the air near the earth, and the clouds that sadden this air, and with one stroke and in a moment, when it wills, it penetrates to God. Moreover, Dionysius was consumed by such fires of divine love ^C that, raised by them into the heights (for that fire knows not how to be restrained in lower things), he was always with God, always inebriated by His blessed aura and the holy and divine Spirit. This happened most especially when, tempests having arisen in the world (which were most savage during the reign of Domitian), a graver necessity tormented the Church of God. For when the man of God saw the intolerable arrogance of that emperor joined with the greatest impiety (since that tyrant wished and commanded that he be called not only Lord but even God, and that divine honors be offered to him), and when, moreover, he foresaw with a sharp edge of the mind what and how great motions were about to arise against the Church from such an arrogant and tempestuous governor—or rather, arch-pirate—of the world, like the sea, then he himself, truly pious and always more vigilant for his flock than at any other time, bound himself to the one true God, clung to Him more tightly, prayed more ardently, and requested counsels and oracles more frequently and insistently in such difficult circumstances: so that, along with many other things regarding the state of his people, he also foreknew from God, He manifesting these things to him, matters regarding those far away, which not only affected him with great consolation, but also greatly mitigated the sadness of present times with the most certain hope of future goods, and even utterly wiped it away with prevailing joys. For when the tempest stirred up against the pious worshippers of God by the impious tyrant was at its height, the only one remaining on earth from the entire chorus of the apostles was that beloved disciple of Jesus, upon whose single head rested the salvation of many. Yet the monstrous tyrant, agitated by the furies of demons, desired to remove even that man from the midst, now by death, now by exile (for at one time he cast him into a vessel of boiling oil, at another, after he had come out of the oil unharmed, he relegated him to exile), Dionysius, most solicitous for the safety and preservation of such an apostle, and one so necessary in these times especially, insisted day and night with continuous prayers for him: nay, and like that great patriarch, struggling with God, he used a kind of force, if it is permitted to say so, on behalf of his acquaintance and friend, that He might take care of him and oppose a wall against the beasts rising up and attacking. What more? God, otherwise invincible, allowed Himself to be conquered, and He who had made him an apostle also made him an evangelist; but before He did so, He wished Dionysius to be a participant in His counsel. For just as once to Abraham in the very heat of the day God appeared, so to Dionysius in his heavenly ardor of charity sweltering for the Church, He was present, and signified somewhat beforehand what He was about to do regarding the apostle who was an exile on Patmos: namely, that his life and safety would be held in His heart for new labors on behalf of the Church, and that it would thus come to pass before long that, released from exile, he would return to his own, and having returned, would write the Gospel; but a Gospel by which both the sowers of new and recent errors would be confounded and Christ’s eternal divinity would be vindicated. Therefore, Dionysius, having been wonderfully refreshed by this revelation of hidden things—so friendly, so certain, so salutary—although he had always loved to conceal other oracles out of a zeal for submission, yet this one thing, which tended so much toward the honor and consolation of a friend, he neither wished nor was able to conceal. For he sent letters to him while he was staying on the island to which he had been deported, during those very times of the savage Domitian; in which letters he joyfully disclosed the things he had learned from heaven regarding him. And since I have these very letters at hand, it would not be a good thing if I were to remain silent. Therefore, I shall insert a copy of them here.

NOTATIONS

(20-21) *Which some light and rash men, etc.* I am not in the least afraid to call those light and rash who, because of the new and great words of Dionysius, by which he...

^A permitted them to be explained, and of certain weight, have not feared to reprove his style, as though it were foreign to the apostolic spirit. Now these are for the most part heretics, one of whose ringleaders I have refuted. See, if you please, below in Question II, which is entirely about the writings of St. Dionysius.

Those who, for trivial causes, are set against the holy Fathers, or who allow themselves to be set against them, are deservedly called trivial; and they are even audacious—not to use a harsher word—who rashly seize upon judgments against their betters, and bark at their sayings and deeds like ignorant dogs. Hence Francis Suarez, that great pillar of sacred theology and rare ornament of his century, rightly warned in his preface to the book *On the Angels* that the audacity of those who deny that the books of Dionysius which we possess are the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite must be avoided. These things are abundantly confirmed by the whole chapter on the piety he displays in his writings, which I placed above, where I also set down his illustrious reflections on the power of holy prayers, which lift us up to heavenly things. See Chapter 22 of his Life.

476 (23) *Inasmuch as this must be done by/for all prelates.* You will find this doctrine treated excellently by St. Dionysius in the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, Chapter 5, and explained clearly and in Latin by us elsewhere.

(24-25) *Who, during the reign of Domitian, were most savage.* I touched upon the bitterest of Domitian's persecutions when I wrote of the image of the first century. See further Eusebius, *Ecclesiastical History*, Book III, chapters 13, 14, and 15, and Tertullian in the *Apologeticus*, chapter 5. Suetonius says of his cruelty: "He was, moreover," he says, "a man not only of great but also of cunning and unexpected savagery." ^B Sextus Aurelius Victor Schottus says of the same: "Thence he began to perpetrate atrocities with the slaughter of good men; and, in the manner of Caligula, he forced himself to be called Lord and God." See also Dio, Book LXVII, where he writes that Juvenius Celsus, accused of conspiracy, prolonged his own death—and finally escaped by a ruse—through frequent adoration and by calling him Lord and God.

(26) *The Roman Martyrology for May 6th* serves as a witness, whose words are these: "At Rome, St. John before the Latin Gate, who had been brought in chains from Ephesus to Rome by the order of Domitian, and by judgment of the senate had been cast into a vat of boiling oil before that same gate, came out purer and more vigorous than he had entered."

Concerning whom Tertullian also says in his *Prescription Against Heretics*, Chapter 36: "You have Rome," he says, "whence even for us authority is readily available. O happy Church, upon whom the apostles poured forth the whole doctrine together with their blood: where Peter is made equal to the Lord's passion, where Paul is crowned with the end of John, where the apostle John, after he had been plunged into the fiery oil and suffered nothing, is banished to an island."

St. Jerome reports similar things to Tertullian in several places. See Book I *Against Jovinian* and the *Commentary on Matthew*, Chapter 20.

(28) *That the sowers of new errors might be confounded.* Namely Ebion and Cerinthus, who were sowing tares in Asia and Syria and were denying the divinity of Christ. "He wrote the Gospel last of all (says Jerome in *On Ecclesiastical Writers*), requested by the bishops of Asia, against Cerinthus and other heretics, and especially against the then-rising dogma of the Ebionites, who assert that Christ did not exist before Mary." St. Irenaeus had explained the same cause for the writing of the Gospel by St. John much earlier, in his book *Against Heresies*, Chapter 11, from whence almost all others drew their source. "Declaring this faith," he says, "John the disciple of the Lord, wishing by the proclamation of the Gospel to remove that error which had been sown in men by Cerinthus, and much earlier by those who are called Nicolaitans," etc.

...to be called... Regarding this arrogance and pride of Domitian, whereby he wished to be called god and lord, Suetonius says in chapter 13: "With equal arrogance, when he was dictating a formal letter in the name of his procurators, he began thus: 'Our Lord and God commands that this be done.' Hence it became the custom thereafter that he should not be addressed otherwise, even in writing or speech. He did not permit his statues in the Capitol to be set up unless they were of gold or silver..." ^C

Chapter XIV. Dionysius’ letters to the apostle John exiled on Patmos; and some things concerning holy revelations.

DIONYSIUS, TO THE APOSTLE JOHN. I salute your holy soul, O beloved, etc. See among the epistles of St. Dionysius which we are reprinting in Volume 1 of the Works of St. Dionysius, under Number X.

477 Whatever he predicted in these letters came to pass briefly afterwards, as he had predicted. For John, that disciple whom Jesus loved, having been expelled from his empire and life by Domitian on account of his excessive pride and inhumanity, and his acts having been rescinded by the senate, returned safe and sound to Asia with Nerva reigning. There, now about ninety years of age, he wrote his Gospel, which he induces for the sake of the imitation of Christ, and which on that account is called by Dionysius an imitation of the good God. Who here, furthermore, could sufficiently marvel at the benignity of our God (for to Him as to a fountain all good things must be referred)—who here, I say, could marvel at His benignity towards His servants? Inasmuch as He is always and everywhere present to them, speaks with them familiarly, and discloses the secrets of His counsels to them; if they ask anything, if they consult Him, if they inquire about future things, He answers promptly—and sometimes tells them more than they inquire about: nay, He often anticipates their vows and prayers, and, wishing to testify to an excess of love, He reveals and uncovers the hidden things of mysteries which it would be a religion for more modest [souls] to probe. For how much did He reveal even to Dionysius himself, not only concerning men, but also concerning angels, and even concerning Himself! For almost all his writings breathe nothing else than that Spirit who inspires and reveals divine and hidden things. And so, in this calamitous state of the Church, he foresaw through the suggestion of the divine Spirit not only that John (about whom he was more anxious than about himself) was to be recalled from exile, but also that he was to be removed from the rages of Domitian himself, and that he [Dionysius] was to enjoy the sight of that same beloved apostle. Indeed, in that century, revelations of God were familiar not only to the prelates of the Church but also to not a few private persons (who nevertheless excelled in virtue by common standards); but of either type there were certainly not many whom one would dare to compare with Dionysius. For if we except John, as an excellent apostle, whom can I name from that age, besides perhaps Titus, and Timothy, and Hierotheus, and Carpus the disciples of Paul, or besides Ignatius, Polycarp, and Papias, the auditors of Peter and John, and other disciples of the apostles...

^A, find you, I ask, any others whom you could in any way compare with Dionysius? And yet Titus and Timothy themselves (that we may make a conjecture about others from these two) appear to have brought to this same Dionysius the palm of light received from heaven. For they often consulted him regarding more difficult matters, and requested that the more complicated knots of the sacred Scriptures be solved by him. But lest anyone should imprudently, not to say impiously, think that that great sun of justice scattered the rays of his copious light and unlocked the secrets of hidden mysteries only in those first centuries and exclusively upon those high mountains, but now, as it were in his old age, has become more sparse, and emits no splendors, and keeps the gifts of revelation hidden in his bosom: let him hold it as certain and explored that God is immutable, and consequently equally benign and liberal to all ages, and has never ceased, nor will ever cease, from the profusion of his gifts, wherever indeed He finds suitable vessels (and indeed He always finds some). And would that, just as the hands of God are ready to pour forth, so might the minds of men be prepared to receive! For it is not from God, who by His nature is always the same, always rich, always good, always generous; but from man, who neither knows his own poverty, nor seeks true riches, mindless of God, ignorant of himself—from man, I say, not from God, does the scarcity of these communications of good things and the penury of the mind proceed. For it is permitted to you, and it is permitted to another, to receive things equal to Dionysius, if you should do things equal to Dionysius: so, indeed, that you may have these things which Dionysius also had: first, indeed, great knowledge and discernment of your own, so that you prefer others to yourself, and yourself to no one; then, a mind most pure and free, as far as you are able to reach with God’s help, not only from more grievous sins, but from the smallest noxious ones as well; then truly all the affections of the mind excellently tamed and subjected to the judgment of an equal and right reason; namely, that you may see that you hold all earthly things, and whatever is under your feet as though by a certain foreshadowing of deserved contempt, not making more of them than they truly are: and that you attribute so much the less to the body than to the soul, by how much you know that less is owed to a servant and handmaid than to a master or mistress: so that consequently the first and greatest care may be that of feeding the mind, the last that of the body; nor should you think of food or drink (and much less of delicacies, which ought to belong only to the soul) except very moderately, and only so that the body may be sustained, and be equal to the sustaining of labors. Furthermore, that you may not only not desire praises, honors, dignities, riches, the celebrity of fame, the glory of a great name, and other things which are great to the common herd of men (even if to those looking at God they are very small), but rather that you may reject them resolutely out of regard for internal peace and for the sake of eternal glory. After these things, however, attend to this, strive for it manfully, and, as they say, lean into it with your whole heart, so that your whole thought may be fixed in the knowledge of God and in the estimation of His infinite perfections, so that your whole memory may cling in a grateful recollection of His benefits and wonderful deeds; finally, that your will, and affection, and desire, and whatever belongs to a faithful soul, may continue, as far as it can be done, to dwell in the one and uniquely beloved God: so that (as our same Dionysius commended) you may be totally of God, and pass entirely out of yourself. But if you also, by the example of the same holy pontiff, should delight in labors undertaken for God, and desire them of your own accord, and prefer them before rest and leisure, and—which is the greatest thing of all—regard suffering for Christ and enduring any most bitter things as a substitute for all pleasures and delights; then indeed your heart will flow with and be fattened by far more excellent goods, and you will be heaped and gathered together not only with an abundance of divine revelations but also with a concurrent abundance of other excellent gifts, as a friend by a friend, as an intimate by an intimate. For whoever has put on the ways of the holy ones, and has drunk in divine loves; the same will undoubtedly obtain the gifts of the saints, and will be crowned with an equal ornament of glory with them. That Dionysius went through all these steps, and by that very way reached and attained that supreme pinnacle of sanctity which he attained, and of illumination with which he was suffused, the writings of others as well as his own, their judgment and testimony, declare to be most clear and certain. But it is not the purpose of this work to mention other famous men who, by the same paths in their own times, even up to this very one in which we run, have ascended to the same pinnacle to which Dionysius ascended (of whom we will indeed mention some in the following pages, but we will leave the majority to other writers). For we now direct our course to other beauties of Dionysius. ^{B C D} 479 CHAPTER XV. The deeds of Dionysius from the final times of Domitian until Trajan. Of his cruelty and inhumanity, which Domitian, especially in the last years of his reign (29), vented against the Christians, no part of the world was exempt. Everywhere slaughter, everywhere exiles, everywhere tortures were heard of, with him representing another Nero. The apostle was driven out by him (30), pontiffs killed, bishops vexed, a better and nobler portion of the Church was harassed in various ways, and was permitted nowhere to stand safely in its own place. Therefore also in Gaul and Germany, where Dionysius was in charge, there were enough disturbances: nor is there any doubt that he suffered many heavy things during that tempest (31) as much in himself as in his members, that is, in the sons generated by him. For as parents in the pain and torture of their most beloved children very often grieve and are tortured more than if they themselves were experiencing the same things in themselves: so bishops, being most loving of their subjects, feel the wounds of even the mediocre more heavily than they feel more atrocious torments in themselves. Moreover, the secret Providence of God did not wish its apostle of Gaul to be taken away from life in this adverse storm, but, reserved for other times, to run here and there to encourage younger athletes, and to provide necessary help to the weak. Therefore, he was present in all places: and where he perceived, with the Spirit teaching and guiding him within, that danger was more imminent, he anticipated with all diligence the enemies of Christ who were about to come there; there he labored, there he fortified the holy people with all the weapons of faith before the struggle. And indeed other bishops, his colleagues, were also performing these things diligently and indefatigably according to their own strength. One of them, already advanced in years but weightier in merits (this is the blessed Eutropius, a disciple of the apostle Peter [32], of whom mention was made briefly above), fought an excellent fight in these times. For after many labors endured for the sake of the faith in Saintes (a people of Aquitanian Gaul), and after huge fruits of his labors with the boundaries of the Church dilated, at last, with the envy of the devil pressing and a tumult of the people stirred up, first assailed with stones, then brutally beaten with clubs, and finally struck with an axe brought down upon his head, he brought a full palm to the heavens. His fortitude of mind and excellent victory in the conflict of piety not only exhilarated all Christians wonderfully but also so refreshed his associate and companion Dionysius in these turbid affairs that, both to communicate the joy with others and to divulge the glory of the martyr himself, he wrote down the acts of his martyrdom in Greek (33). Which, because he knew it would be most gratifying to the pontiff Clement (for he, while sending him into Gaul, was presaging that he would be a martyr), he sent to him, then residing and presiding at Rome (34), adding letters together with it, in which he requested that...

he transmit the example of them to Greece, and especially to Athens, to his own kindred and blood-relatives ^A and other believers. For that man, being endowed with the greatest wisdom, felt that the glorious struggle and victory of a noble champion would not only be a great joy to them, but also an effective incentive to dare similar things. Hence, from the very beginnings of the Church (35), that custom has prevailed and has lasted even until now, of writing down the illustrious acts of the martyrs and sending them everywhere to foreign provinces at the prompting of brotherly charity and an eagerness for similar progress. But would that these acts of which he speaks were still extant! For whether because of the sacred labor of Dionysius, or because of the outstanding praises of Eutropius, how much is the loss of those acts now rightly to be lamented, ^B when the reading and knowledge of them would be so helpful to assist and stimulate us in return. But leaving these things aside, which we cannot have, let us turn our minds to observe the serenity of a more gracious heaven, which the true and only Lord, the true and only God, restored to His Church when Domitian, the disturber of this tempest, had been cast out and scattered (for how falsely that tyrant usurped the names of God and Lord, his deeds have shown and the outcome has indicated [36]). For Nerva succeeded Domitian—that is, the moderate succeeded the proud, the most humane succeeded the inhuman—and came as health to sickness, as day to night, as light to darkness. ^C For only then was it seen that a clear radiance had shone upon the Church, when Nerva, the emperor, dissipated the gloom (37) that had been cast over the world with the splendor of his clemency. Then Christians began to emerge from their hiding-places, confessors returned from exile, the proscribed recovered their own property: the faithful, who had previously been scattered by fear, began to return to their accustomed assemblies and to meet together. Then even John himself, now the primary glory of the Church and truly a son of thunder, having received the Gospel (38) divinely dictated after the lightnings and thunders, like another Moses descended from the mountain into which he had ascended to commune with God. Having left the island which he had blessed with his habitation, he returned to Ephesus ^D and restored himself to his own, and at last published the Gospel so often desired and so often sought after. Nor was there delay: the joyful rumor is spread through the mouths of all the pious; but Dionysius, more than all others, now hears the accomplished fact, for which he had previously heard it foretold by oracle; nor did he hide it from his own people, but proclaimed it and stirred them up to give thanks to God. Thus, therefore, the face of the Church was already quite different from that which had been seen a little while before; it was joyful, cheerful, free, full of love and confidence in hymns and spiritual songs, devoted to God, proceeding daily and growing, whether by its own increase or by additions from outside. For the Church, like a vine by pruning, always grows more happily and flourishes more widely through persecution. In this progress, the vigilant and careful shepherd ordained new priests and new bishops for the growing churches. From these, he sent Sanctinus to the Carnutes (39) to strengthen them in the faith for a time, and a short while later appointed him over the Church of the Meldenses. He himself, however, was in his whole heart carried away to visit John; and with matters in Gaul quickly composed in that regard, and having commended the faithful people to the ministers established by him, during that brief space of his absence, for the sake of their former and constant obedience, he girded himself for the journey (which Christians then followed with pious prayers, and we, with a devout pen, will now pursue).

NOTATIONES.

(29) That Domitian was a cruel tyrant almost from the beginning of his reign is true, but with the years and exercise of cruelty he progressed to the very end; if, however, it is progress to injure the entire human race by raging more and more against men. The beginning of the persecution against the Christians is noted by Eusebius, Jerome, and others in the fourteenth year of his reign. Although there were not wanting before this time even against the Christians certain preludes of inhumanity, "which for fifteen years," says Orosius, "grew little by little through all degrees of wickedness, so that he dared to tear down the most established Church of Christ throughout the whole world, having issued edicts of the crudest persecution everywhere." And below: "And he, emboldened by the pride with which he wished himself to be worshipped as God, commanded a persecution to be conducted against the Christians, being the second after Nero. At which time also the most blessed apostle John was relegated to the island of Patmos."

Neither is Domitian's ferocity against the Christians known only from sacred writers, but also, and much more certainly, from profane ones. Thus Dio, bk. LXVII of the *Roman History*: "And in the same year he put many others to death, and Flavius Clemens the consul, although he was his cousin, and had a wife Flavia Domitilla, who was his own kinswoman. They were both accused of impiety, on account of which many others also who were drifting into the customs of the Jews were condemned. And some of them died, and others were deprived of their property: but Domitilla was merely relegated to Pandateria." Where note that *crimen impietatis* (crime of impiety) is used to mean the Christian religion, as rejecting the worship of the gods; by those slipping also into Jewish customs, no others are meant than Christians, who because they worshipped one God while abandoning idols, just like the Jews, were therefore said to have lapsed into their customs. Regarding this Flavia Domitilla and others of the same name, see Baronius in the *Martyrology* notes for the day of 7 May.

(30) Relegated by that apostle, etc. For it is indicated a little before that John was relegated by him to the island of Patmos, and this after he had been immersed in a vat of boiling oil. It is also believed that Cletus, or Anacletus, pope, underwent martyrdom while he was emperor: for all the holy Fathers make them one, not two. Among the bishops who suffered exile was St. Ignatius in Syria; death in Gaul was suffered by St. Eutropius, regarding whom it will be spoken immediately below, and regarding whom something was noted also above.

(31) That Dionysius suffered not a little in the times of Domitian, the Syncellus points out not obscurely in the *Life of Saint Dionysius*, towards the end with these words: "Having courageously endured the remaining storms which the madness of Domitian brought upon the believers, and having appeared approved in all things, he carried away a renowned glory."

(32) Is the blessed Eutropius the disciple of the apostle Peter. Concerning Eutropius sent into Gaul by Clement we have noted above in chapter 10, from Gregory of Tours himself. See, however, the fuller acts of Saint Eutropius in Vincent of Beauvais, book X of the *Speculum Historiale*, chapter 19, and in St. Antoninus, part 1 of *Hist.*, tit. 6, chapter 28, § 2, and in Petrus Equilinus in the *Catalogus Sanctorum*, book IV, chapter 105, and in Eysengrin, *Centenario* 1, part V, dist. 3. Regarding him, the *Roman Martyrology* for the day of 30 April says: "At Santones (Saintes), the blessed Eutropius, bishop and martyr, whom St. Clement, for the sake of the pontifical order, directed consecrated into Gaul, and after the preaching had been carried out for a long time, on account of his testimony for Christ, his head having been crushed..."

^A victim fell. ^A However, in the Martyrology of Peter Galesinius, some more specific details are contained: for he has noted to the same day, or the day before the Kalends of May: "At Saintes, of Saint Eutropius, bishop and martyr. This man, a Persian, son of kingly parents, disciple and companion of the blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, consecrated bishop of Saintes by the sovereign Pontiff Saint Clement, having performed that duty for twenty-seven years, upon the stirring up of the persecution of the infidels, with crushed head, is crowned a victor."

Concerning what he says there, that Eutropius performed the episcopal duty for twenty-seven years, it accords perfectly with what we demonstrated above, that he was sent into Gaul with Dionysius by Clement immediately after the martyrdom of Peter, or in the seventieth year of Christ. Whence, if twenty-seven years are counted, one arrives justly at the fourteenth year of Domitian, to which year is ascribed the second persecution, in which all agree the holy Eutropius was cut off. However, the death of Saint Peter is noted not only by Eusebius, but also by Baronius as being in the sixty-ninth year of Christ, and the fourteenth of Nero. Therefore, in the following year, or the seventieth of Christ, Eutropius arrived at his bishopric of Saintes, and persevered until the persecution of Domitian was begun in the fourteenth year of his reign, which according to Eusebius is the ninety-sixth of Christ, but according to Baronius, the ninety-seventh. Furthermore, Galesinius writes in his Annotations to the Martyrology concerning Eutropius's year of martyrdom in these words: "He is said to have been crowned by martyrdom before the ninety-sixth year of Christ, under the Emperor Domitian."

Therefore, it is gathered from these that it cannot be true, what Baronius thought, that Dionysius came from Rome into Gaul only after the death of Domitian: since Saint Eutropius, a companion of Dionysius on that journey, had undergone martyrdom while Domitian was still alive—and indeed after twenty-six or twenty-seven years passed in the bishopric of Saintes, to which he had set out with Dionysius. I could wish, however, that some who wrote the Lives of the saints after the time of Baronius had proposed to themselves rather to examine the histories diligently than, in the manner of the blind, to follow the lead of anyone else.

(33) That Saint Dionysius wrote the Acts of the martyrdom of Saint Eutropius, or, as they call it, the passion, is clear from other deeds of the same Eutropius, from which Vincent of Beauvais professes that he received these things, in Book x of the *Speculum historiale*, ch. 18: "This blessed Dionysius," he says, "companion of the blessed Eutropius and prelate of the Parisians, wrote his passion in Greek letters, and sent it to his parents in Greece, who were already believing, through the hand of the blessed Pope Clement." Note the Gallicism: *parentibus suis*, that is, kinsmen. For thus the Gauls call kinsmen *les parents*. It is said that Pope Callistus II found those Acts written in Greek at Constantinople in the school of the Greeks, in a certain codex containing the Acts of many martyrs, and translated them from Greek into Latin. ^D Attached to those Acts of Saint Eutropius was a letter of Saint Dionysius, in this approximate form: "To the Pontiff Clement, Dionysius. Saint Eutropius, whom you sent with me into these regions to preach the name of Christ, has received the crown of martyrdom at the hands of the Gentiles near the city of Saintes for the sake of the faith. Wherefore I humbly entreat you not to be troubled to send the record of his martyrdom as quickly as possible to my kinsmen, and acquaintances, and faithful friends who are in Greece, and especially in Athens. So that the others also, who with me were bathed in the bath of new regeneration by Paul, when they have received word that the glorious martyr has endured a cruel death for the faith of Christ, may rejoice over the adversities and straitened circumstances endured for the love of Christ."

(34) [He] sent... [He] the Blessed Clement had withdrawn (as was said above elsewhere) from the pontificate, which he had received next from Peter, and had held for some time, but he had received [it] into his hands after those who discharged their duty in the life of Anacletus, in the reign of Domitian already. Letters, therefore, he sent to him while he was already presiding at Rome around the year of the Lord 97, the 14th of Domitian, together with the martyrdom of Saint Eutropius.

(35) That there was a very ancient custom in the Church of writing the Acts of the martyrs, and of communicating with other Churches, becomes plain from the letters written exactly by the Church of Smyrna concerning the martyrdom of Saint Polycarp, and transmitted to other Churches (which it is permitted to view in their entirety in Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.*, bk. v, ch. 15), and from the letters of the Church of Vienne and Lyons to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia, in Eusebius, *Hist.*, bk. v, ch. 1. Those [records] are contained in other Lives, the former indeed in the Life of Saint Polycarp, the latter in that of Saint Irenaeus.

(36) The works taught, the end pointed out. For it was unworthy, not only of the names of the Lord and of God, but even of the name of human, that Domitian, his inhuman deeds, and his most miserable end, though he was most worthy of life, proved. For having plotted against him, he was cast out by the life of which he was unworthy, with groin pierced and many a wound besides.

(37) ...under Nerva the world [changed its] darkness, etc. This man brought tranquility to the empire, this man brought serenity to the Church, this man exhibited an asylum of his clemency to all the oppressed. This man, finally, by his first edict, says Paul Orosius, recalled all the exiles. Whence also the apostle John, freed by this general indulgence, returned to Ephesus.

(38) Accepting divinely and dictated after the lightning and thunder the Gospel. Thus the ancient ecclesiastical History (from which Saint Jerome and Metaphrastes have taken some things) testify. But where he received the Gospel from God and dictated it, the authors hold diverse opinions. Some judge that [it was] on Patmos, where he also wrote the Apocalypse; others [judge] at Ephesus in Asia. I subscribe to the former. For neither do those most ancient Fathers (whom those who dissent cite for their own opinion), namely Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Eusebius, indicate in their own words anything other than that he published it at Ephesus. For indeed Irenaeus, and Eusebius praising the words of Irenaeus—the former in *Adversus haereses*, bk. III, ch. 1; the latter in *Hist. eccl.*, bk. v, ch. 8—speak thus of John: "Ἔπειτα Ἰωάννης ὁ μαθητὴς τοῦ Κυρίου, ὁ καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ στῆθος αὐτοῦ ἀναπεσών, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐξέδωκε τὸ Εὐαγγέλιον ἐν Ἐφέσῳ τῆς Ἀσίας διατρίβων. - After that, also John the disciple of the Lord, who even reclined upon his breast, he himself also published the Gospel while tarrying at Ephesus in Asia." The same Irenaeus, in the same book, ch. 11, writes that John, wishing to refute the errors of Cerinthus and the Nicolaitans, commenced the Gospel thus: "In the beginning was the Word," etc. But Saint Athanasius in the *Synopsis of Holy Scripture* has these words: "Τὸ δὲ κατὰ Ἰωάννην Εὐαγγέλιον ὑπηγορεύθη τε ὑπ' αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἁγίου Ἰωάννου τοῦ ἀποστόλου καὶ ἠγαπημένου, ὄντος ἐξορίστου ἐν Πάτμῳ τῇ νήσῳ, καὶ ὑπὸ τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐξεδόθη ἐν Ἐφέσῳ διὰ Γαΐου τοῦ ἀγαπητοῦ. Περὶ οὗ καὶ Παῦλος Ῥωμαίοις γράφων φησίν· Ἀσπάζεται ὑμᾶς ὁ Γάϊος ὁ ξένος μου, καὶ ὅλης τῆς Ἐκκλησίας. - The Gospel according to John was dictated by that same holy John the apostle and beloved, while he was an exile on the island of Patmos, and was published by the same at Ephesus through Gaius the beloved. Concerning whom also Paul, writing to the Romans, says: 'Gaius, my host, and of the whole Church, greets you'." Correct it to "and of the whole Church," as the Greek [texts] have it. For to this Gaius all the Christians, as his means allowed, were hospitable guests. Furthermore, observe that the word *ἐξέδωκε*, published, of Irenaeus, and *ἐξεδόθη*, was published, of Athanasius, if they are to be taken as they are commonly and generally wont to be by authors, do not signify "composed" or "wrote," but "published," "divulged," "sent forth into the light," things already composed, of course. Hence, writings [index: entries preserved]

^A kept by one or another are wont to be called, according to received custom, *anecdotas*, or unpublished. Thus there are various terms: *biblion graphein* and *biblion ekdidonai*, to write a book, and to publish a book. Plutarch in his *Theseus* joined both together: *Grapsas ton logon exedoke*, "he edited the written discourse," that is, he divulged it, he made it public. Marcus Tullius himself displays this distinction in his Latin writings, when, sending a discourse written and composed by himself to Atticus, he writes thus in book XV, epistle 15: "I have sent you the discourse. The decision to keep it or to publish it is yours. But when is that day when you think it should be published?" And in book XI, to the same, epistle 21: "Tell me, does it please you to publish it first without my order? Not even Hermodorus used to do this, he who was accustomed to divulge the books of Plato."

To return to the matter: the narrative of the Metaphrast concerning the Gospel of John, and likewise of Prochorus, that same John's disciple (although in certain other matters he may not be accepted), here, however, seems to me highly consistent with reason, and not at all remote from the truth, as it does not seem to Baronius either.

(39) Regarding those things that are *The Saint at the Carnutes*, etc. Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, in a letter to ^B the Emperor Charles the Bald, writes thus concerning the ordination and mission of Blessed Sanctinus by Saint Dionysius to Chartres: "With companions also destined through various cities, to destroy the snares of the devil and to acquire peoples for the Lord, he ordained Sanctinus as bishop, and sent him to illuminate the Carnutes who were in darkness, the Lord inspiring him; where he appointed him to stay for some time. But afterwards, he established him as pastor and bishop of the city of the Meldenses (Meaux), and by his suffrage, he employed Antoninus, who was surnamed the younger, for the sake of distinction from the elder Antoninus."

See also Saint Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, in part 1 of his *Histories*, title 6, c. 28, § 1, and Petrus Equilinus in his *Catalogus*, lib. IV, cap. 108. Baronius says in his *Notes to the Martyrology*, September 22, that an old manuscript exists concerning the Acts of Saint Sanctinus; would that it might come forth! Concerning the same Sanctinus, the Roman Martyrology says on that day: "At the city of Meaux, of blessed Sanctinus, bishop, disciple of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, who, having been consecrated bishop of the same city by him, first preached the Gospel there."

CHAPTER XVI.

The departure of Dionysius into Asia to the holy apostle John, and his return thence into Gaul.

As it is proper for the saints, in all that they say and do, to be led by the Holy Spirit, and to undertake nothing without consulting the Lord; so in undertaking journeys, especially longer ones, their whole mind, if ever, hangs upon God, is directed toward God, and rests in God. From which usage it also follows that, with an angel accompanying them, and removing obstacles if any interpose, all things turn to the good both for them and for their brothers; and their journeys, however long, are nothing other than certain continuous traces of impressed holiness. This was firmly established in the apostles, in the disciples of the apostles, and in this, most of all, regarding Dionysius. Hence, wherever he and they went, wherever they arrived, they were received by the inhabitants of that place as angels of the Lord, as indeed they were, and were cherished with every kind of service, the charity of Christians burning with fervor. Nor is that truly a wonder. For there was more that those holy guests brought with them than what they received when they were taken into houses. What, indeed? The doctrine of life, the knowledge of the saints, examples of probity, mirrors of honesty, a rule of manners, and occasionally even (as the prophet Elijah is written to have repaid the widow his hostess) provisions for sustenance and life obtained by miracle. For just as that prophet both increased the handful of flour (40), and multiplied the little cruse of oil, and furthermore restored the widow's son to life: so the genuine disciples of Christ, and the holy prelates of the new law, according to the command of their Lord, to whatever city they approached, whatever house they entered, they gave peace to the city, peace to the house (41), but peace as the conciliator of all good things; and at the same time, when reason and the honor of God demanded it, they healed the sick, they raised the dead. For they were powerful in such prodigies. That Dionysius was not lacking in these, has been expressed elsewhere. Therefore the holy man went from Gaul into Asia (42), and fearing neither the length of the journey nor the gravity of his age (for he was not less than ninety years old [43]), he went, I say, at that age from Gaul into Asia, scattering everywhere through houses, through cities, with a devoted proclamation of the faith, the seeds of his graces; and men in those last times of the apostles rejoiced to recognize a new column of the Church, to behold a new bulwark of religion; and to taste, to a certain degree and at least through a lattice, the spirit he had drawn from his masters. For they could not restrain him as he hurried, but (which was their second wish) many hurried to accompany him as he departed. For they knew how not only pleasant, but even salutary, is the company of holy men, and especially of those who, having been deemed worthy of the friendship and familiarity of the apostles, are able to express their notable words and deeds in the hearts of those who thirst, and into the open bosoms of the soul. But when Dionysius came to the city of Ephesus, a city truly desirable from its name, and found and met that beloved disciple of Jesus, his own master whom he loved far above all others, such joy suddenly seized them both from their mutual sight, so close and familiar was the communion that arose, and such a welding of their souls to one another, that in a certain reciprocation of holy love, the one seemed to have passed entirely into the other. Here that evangelical eagle recognized his genuine chick, gazing with an unreflecting keenness of mind upon the liquid rays of the sun, and thus enduring the ardors of heaven in a human body, like an angel. He recognized, and loved, and cherished him, and instructed and guided him, no longer unaccustomed, into the rings of sublime revelations. He, truly, full of love and veneration, received him with all the devotion of his soul as an apostle of God, as the sun of the world, as the crown of the Church, as the prophet of the ages, as the assessor of the King, as the son and custodian and heir of the Queen, and he honored him, and was affected by him, never sated with seeing, never sated with hearing, never sated with admiring him. Therefore, when they had been together for several weeks, or rather months, and had conversed concerning the progress of the Gospel in these and those parts of the world, and also concerning the errors that had just arisen and their leaders who were attacking the divinity of Christ and other mysteries of the faith, then John bestowed upon him his Gospel, as yet recent and clearly "must" (which, of course, the Holy Spirit, itself full of "must," had just breathed forth), and strengthened by his own blessing, exhorted him to sail back to the regions of the West, whence he had come, and where the precious palm awaited him. He, however, although to be torn from him as if from the only miracle of the world was in itself a grave matter, nevertheless yielding to the divine will, and placing the honor of Christ before his own comforts, undertook the journey. On which journey, and on his return to his own, he was met, escorted, and detained by peoples and cities even much more than while he was headed toward the apostle. Then also the Athenians—

the fatherly love of the Pastor for his children assures us—persuaded him to revisit the Church and the cities neighboring it which he had once cultivated (seeing that his path led either through there or at least not far from it), and to stay there for some time, so that he might visit them to the incredible joy of those Churches. Good God! What a throng of mortals ^A rushed to see, to touch, to embrace, to kiss this angel of God—now as their own fellow-citizen, now as their teacher, now as their pastor, now as their father! How many times was he sought for a meeting! How many times were exhortations requested! Yet for these to be held, no house, no sacred place was sufficiently large or capable of holding the influx of the holy people. Furthermore, his own words—partly recounting the state of the Churches that had been established elsewhere, and especially in Gaul, and which illustrious men had cultivated and were still cultivating, and of how excellent the recent struggles of the martyrs had been there in the persecution; and partly recalling things he had seen himself in Asia, or heard from others, especially concerning that disciple whom Jesus loved [a], and whom the whole Christian world now uniquely and singularly cherishes, and for whose life and safety it prays daily—these words, I say, of his, announcing such things publicly, were received like heavenly oracles by eager ears, and let down into the depths of the mind so that they might redound to posterity. Dionysius, however, especially aimed at this: to stimulate in his auditors reverence, love, and imitation of those whom he preached, and whose beautiful and truly golden sentiments on faith, on piety, and on other virtues he repeatedly interjected while speaking. For he kept insisting and reiterating that those who held opinions different from those great men, who impiously and sacrilegiously sought to wrest away Christ’s divinity, or who walked along paths other than those of the apostles, were not to be listened to (he was clearly denoting Ebion and Cerinthus and those like them, ^B against whom he showed he possessed the brilliant testimony of John the Apostle and the latest evangelist, who is still alive today [b], who, at the very first onset of his Gospel, attacks them and, as if with thunder and lightning cast down from the celestial clouds, overturns them, saying: *In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God*, and other things which follow there against them, and most plainly establish the divine nature of Christ). Thus, having visited and confirmed the Churches of Greece in the faith, he directed his course toward Italy; and finally, having struggled through many entanglements of friends along the way (for wherever he turned, the bonds of charity and the laws of hospitality constrained him most tightly), he came to Pope Clement, an old friend and colleague. There, not only did charity persuade him to stay and 484 rest for a longer time, but supreme authority as well, and the necessity of managing affairs, compelled him. Meanwhile, during this delay, a certain matter presented itself which stirred the spirit of true prophecy dwelling in Dionysius. Pope Clement had, at the request of a Roman woman named Taurinus (who, though the wife of an unbeliever, was secretly a Christian), baptized ^C her son, a youth also named Taurinus, with the sacred waters; and as he was commending the boy to Dionysius to be instructed, he related the pious mother’s dream about her son (which was a dream that those who interpret such things correctly recognize as an index of future sanctity—to wit, the vision of a fragrant lily emerging from the mother’s womb). Dionysius, having cast his eyes upon the youth, suddenly erupted into this voice: "O son, many are the struggles owed to you for Christ." And the prophecy was not in vain. Having obtained permission from Clement to depart, he followed the prayers of the boy’s holy mother (who prudently feared for her son from his unbelieving father) and took him with him to Gaul, instructed him carefully, and employed him in the sacred ministries. Finally, looking ahead—or rather, being certain of it long before—how much he would suffer for the name of Christ, he honored him with the office of bishop, as will be told later. Dionysius therefore returned to Gaul, where he had long been expected and desired, and it is impossible to express with what signs of sincere love and true joys he was received everywhere; for they saw their shepherd and leader returning safely and as if vived and alert with renewed youth after a long journey—a leader whom, if they were to be orphaned of, they could hardly dare to hope for another like him. It is credible that he first applied his ship to Arles (from which the crossing from Italy is brief), and by this entry made the townspeople recall his first arrival, when, sent there by Clement along with his companions, he had landed and had given them a bishop; but now he came with the new and far most divine Gospel of blessed John, the example of which he was to leave to them as more precious than any treasure. Once this was heard, it is marvelous how much they rejoiced and triumphed with joy, as much for the memory of the most holy apostle, about whom Dionysius related many things, as for such a great gift and monument, whose origin was altogether divine and heavenly. When, however, he had stayed there for a just amount of time, partly to learn the state of the Church and partly to give them commands and to communicate the sentiments of his own soul, he then headed toward Paris, with a similar, equal profusion of congratulations, joys, and hilarity. What he did there, however, must now be set forth.

NOTATIONS. (40) As to how that prophet increased the handful of meal, etc. Elijah, having been received in hospitality during the time of famine by the widow of Sarepta, so increased the handful of flour that alone remained in the jar, and the little oil that remained in the cruse, that it did not fail for those eating daily for a long time—for as long as the famine ceased in that land. Moreover, he even recalled her dead son to life. See Book III of Kings, ch. 17. (41) *Peace to the city, peace to the house*, etc. The Lord commanded the apostles, Luke 10:3, that they should pray for peace for the city, for the house into whichsoever they might enter. *Into whatsoever house you enter, first say: Peace to this house; and if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon him: but if not, it shall return to you.* And below: *And into whatsoever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you, and heal the sick that are therein*, etc. (42) That Saint Dionysius went into Asia to blessed John returned from exile, ^D no one doubts, nor can doubt, of those, at least, who believe those writings of Dionysius which exist in his name to be true and his own authentic writings. For he himself in an epistle to John himself openly wrote that this journey was foretold to him from heaven, and this reciprocal conversation with John. But there is some controversy concerning the place from which he set out for Asia. For Baronius thought that Dionysius remained at Athens, where he had been created bishop by Paul, until Nerva, and therefore that he also went to John in Asia from Athens. But we have often shown in many places up to now, from the Acts of many saints, that he had already come to Gaul long before that, and therefore that he proceeded to John from Gaul, where he already was under Domitian (and he preceded Nerva). Indeed, many authors also hold that Dionysius either suffered death under Domitian in Gaul, or endured many grave things. Who at least are with us in this: that Dionysius was already in Gaul under Domitian. Add that Baronius accepts some Acts of the martyrdom of the companions of Saint Dionysius, which state that they came with him into Gaul and perished in Gaul while Domitian was emperor. For Baronius, however, the Acts of St. Regulus in Vincentius and Metaphrastes make...

^A much more for us, as we have shown in scattered places.

As for the statement that he went into Asia at the very end of Nero’s reign, when he was in his ninety-ninth year of life, and consequently in his ninetieth year as a Christian—he being nine years younger than Christ—it should not seem incredible to anyone that he undertook such a great journey at such a late and hurried age, since it is possible to find not a few others who, at a similar or even more advanced age, and for lesser causes, have completed such journeys. We have written of the journey of St. Polycarp from Asia to the city of Rome in his extreme old age, and his return thence to Asia, in his *Life*. Nor was St. Marcellus much younger than either of them when he betook himself from the heart of Spain into Gaul for the sake of visiting his teacher, the Areopagite. St. Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia in Cyprus, in his one hundred and fourteenth year of life, traveled from Cyprus to Constantinople to ^B examine the cause of St. John Chrysostom, at the summoning of Theophilus of Alexandria, the adversary of the same Chrysostom. Furthermore, even many centuries later (in the course of which human life is wont to be narrowed not only to shorter spans, but to grow weaker in strength as well), in the year of Christ 1276, Burchard of Sarken, when he had been promoted to the bishopric of Lübeck at the age of eighty, and in his first year, on account of debt contracted by his intercessor, was enduring very much labor, went into France for the sake of saving expenses; then, in the twenty-second year of his episcopate—that is, at the age of one hundred and three—he sought Rome to protect the right of his Church over its water-mills (which the people of Lübeck were vehemently disputing), and he remained there for four years, as Albert Krantz writes, struggling manfully for his Church; he triumphed gloriously ^C in his cause, though at great expense and labor. He was therefore one hundred and seven years old when he returned to his homeland; where he survived for another thirteen years, up to the one hundred and twentieth year of his age. See Krantz in his *Metropolis*, bk. viii, ch. 37.

And that we may summon to this society of the long-lived some other bishops as well: behold St. Simeon, a kinsman of the Savior and successor to the Apostle James in the see of Jerusalem, who bore the torture of the cross manfully at one hundred and twenty years of age. Behold St. Narcissus, prelate of the same see, who passed one hundred and sixteen years. Behold St. Dorotheus, presbyter of Tyre, who endured martyrdom for Christ in the one hundred and seventh year of his age. Behold also another Dorotheus, patriarch of Constantinople, who spent one hundred and nineteen years. Behold St. Remigius, the famous prelate of Reims, who, as S. Gregory of Tours testifies, numbered seventy years, or even more, in his episcopate; and according to the same witness, one hundred and twenty years of age.

Regarding St. Simeon, we have the authority of St. Hegesippus in Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.*, bk. iii, ch. 26. Concerning St. Narcissus, that of the Blessed Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, in the same Eusebius, bk. vi, ch. 11. Regarding St. Dorotheus of Tyre, the witnesses are the Roman Martyrology and the Menæa of the Greeks, at the date of June 5. Regarding the other Dorotheus, Socrates, *Hist. eccl.*, bk. vii, [ch. 48], on the glory of confessors, ch. 79 and ch. 87.

(44) By these he denoted Cerinthus and the like, etc. For it is the common opinion that St. John wrote his Gospel against them. I have noted elsewhere, or rather I have pointed out the place in Irenæus where he teaches this, namely, *Against Heresies*, bk. iii, ch. 11. Jerome, in his book *On Illustrious Men*, ch. 9, says this about him in the section on John: "Last of all, he wrote his Gospel, asked by the bishops of Asia against Cerinthus and other heretics, and especially ^D the rising dogma of the Ebionites, who assert that Christ did not exist before Mary." Epiphanius has the same in *Heresy 51*, ch. 12, where he writes that John in his Gospel cried out in a certain way: "Why do you wander? Whither do you turn, Cerinthus and Ebion, and the rest? Whither do you wander?" An error crept into the Petavius edition, so that Marcion was put for Ebion.

(45) A certain young Roman named Taurinus, etc. The Acts of St. Taurinus, from his very infancy, are briefly recounted by Vincent of Beauvais, bk. x, ch. 33, at the end of which chapter are these words: "For he had already ordained in the city of Cambrai his kinsman Gaugericus." These words ought to be cast far away as strictly adulterine and spurious, since they are found neither in the most ancient copies, nor in St. Antoninus, nor anywhere among others (so far as I know, having made diligent inquiry) do there exist any vestiges that Gaugericus, who lived in the second century, was the kinsman of St. Taurinus. For Gaugericus is at least four centuries later than St. Taurinus. Add that St. Taurinus was born and educated at Rome in the times of the Emperor Domitian and Pope Clement, as his Acts have it; whereas Gaugericus was born in the province of Belgica and the territory of Luxembourg, namely, in the village of Evosium, which we now call Yvois in French. And we have an ancient and clear witness to this matter, Baldericus, bishop of Noyon, in his *History of the Church of Cambrai and Arras*, bk. iii, ch. 37: "From there, however," he says, "the emperor having departed (namely, Henry from the palace of Aachen) for Evosium, that most beautiful village which the birth of the blessed Gaugericus illuminates, he attended with the foremost of his palace court." And a little further on: "For it was wisely arranged that he should come to that place where he had known the most blessed Gaugericus, to celebrate his joyous feast, which is on the 13th of August." These things happened in the year of our Lord 1023, according to Sigebert’s *Chronicle*.

Then these final words of this chapter have absolutely no connection with the preceding. For what connection, I ask, is there in these? "And as he [Dionysius] knew he had a rapid conflict with the enemy, he ordained the same Taurinus as bishop of the city of Évreux. For he had already ordained in the city of Cambrai his kinsman Gaugericus." A truly illustrious cause! A splendid argument! He had ordained Gaugericus at Cambrai, therefore he ordained Taurinus at Évreux! Let that inept assumption be removed from that final chapter. Which, indeed, those who recently published the new edition of the works of Vincent here at Douai would have done, if they had paid attention to and examined the passage.

Thus, regarding Taurinus, the Roman Martyrology on the 11th day of August: "Among the people of Évreux in Gaul, St. Taurinus, bishop, who, ordained bishop of that city by the Blessed Pope Clement, propagated the Christian faith by the preaching of the Gospel, and after having undertaken many labors for it, fell asleep in the Lord, conspicuous in the glory of miracles."

Petrus Galesinius, however, in his Martyrology, for the same day, from the registers of the Church of Évreux itself, has it thus: "Among the people of Évreux in Gaul, St. Taurinus, bishop. He, a disciple of Dionysius the Areopagite, was sent into Gaul by the Blessed Pope Clement and consecrated bishop of that city; a doctor of the true religion in Christ, after many torments which he manfully endured for the sake of disseminating the Gospel, finally, illustrious by the glory of miracles, and of his deeds piously performed, and of the faith propagated, he fell asleep in the Lord."

Furthermore, it should be noted that it cannot be said that he was consecrated bishop by Clement otherwise than by the approval of his election and consecration. For when Taurinus was sent into Gaul with Dionysius by Clement, he was quite an adolescent, and almost a boy, as [appears] from the Acts.

clear; for he was in no way fit for the sacred ministry, but after having been instructed for many years by Dionysius in Gaul, he was at length ordained by him. Demochares, in the Catalogue of the pontiffs of his Church, writes that he was sent by Pope Clement the Great in the ninety-fourth year of Christ; but he does not say that he was consecrated bishop in that year, a fact which Eysengrinius incorrectly noted from that statement, in century 1, part 1, dist. 3. Better from the Acts themselves is Vincentius, cited above: "Which blessed Dionysius," he says, "when he was being sent into the Gauls by the blessed Clement, taken by the prayers of the mother, brought with him his little son Taurinus, and nourished him with all diligence in spiritual things." He is speaking here of the second mission, which was after his return from Asia. For the first mission, as was mentioned above, was not long after the martyrdom of the apostles Peter and ^A Paul, before Clement had received the Roman see, which for the sake of peace he had yielded to Linus, as may be gathered from St. Epiphanius.

Better also is St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, part 1 of his History, tit. 6, cap. 28, § 4: "Taurinus," he says, "born of a Christian mother and a gentile father, baptized by Pope Clement, and a spiritual son of Dionysius, being led by him into Gaul, was at length made bishop of the city of Évreux. His mother was named Eutychia, his father Tarquinius: she was a Christian and a great lover of religion, but he was a gentile and a most bitter persecutor of the Christians. Who, like a most savage wolf," say the Acts, "persecuted the Christians, not knowing that his wife was a handmaid of God."

CHAPTER XVII

Just as the fear of losing Dionysius had held the Parisians more than any others for as long as he was on his journeys, so too a joy and triumph greater than any others seized them upon his return; and it was certainly the more solid for being held by those now of a very advanced age (for he had exceeded his ninetieth year [46]), with a fuller and more certain hope of retaining him among them henceforth forever. Therefore, when word was given of his near arrival, all the most upright pressed forward in dense ranks to meet him, to embrace him, to congratulate him on his return, testifying to their feeling of extraordinary pleasure with gesture, with words, and with the total hilarity of their countenances. But when he entered the holy temple for the assembly and addressed the congregation, O immortal God! how great was the silence, even in that most crowded throng! How great were the acclamations of admiration and approval of what he said! How great were the floods of tears from the overflowing joy of hearts dilated! For as he ran through the benefits of the most benign Lord toward himself during the whole journey; as he recounted also what holy men he had seen, met, and looked up to here and there: John first and foremost, the apostle left in the world to the world's astonishment, whose latest writings, the Gospel, he had brought back with him—a Gospel which, while indeed the last in time of writing (47), was yet easily the first in the altitude and nobility of its mysteries; in which he had, under the impulse of the divine Spirit, supplied things omitted by other Evangelists, and expressed more fully and distinctly things that had been written more briefly and concisely: as Dionysius recounted such things, and what that same John had done on Patmos, what he was now doing in Ephesus, how he was flourishing in divine virtues, what signs and wonders he performed daily in the healing of the sick and the raising of the dead, relating these things and inciting them to embrace his doctrine and to imitate his most holy ways—there were produced most wonderful movements of souls, and it appeared that nothing they had hitherto done in the school of Christ was anything compared to what they seemed about to do in the future (so great an ardor of virtues had set everyone on fire). For it cannot be said what power the breathing examples of the living and surviving, as it were, have to move minds when uttered by a worthy mouth in due time. *Gold apples in silver beds,* said that Wise Man, *is the man who speaks a word in its time.* [m] Dionysius was currently doing this, whose words, beyond the fact that they were spoken in their proper time, were also of such a kind that they were to be compared not so much to gold apples in silver beds as to fiery torches from heavenly conflagrations. Although, however, it frequently happened to him that his words, once uttered, could not measure up to the ardor of his inflamed breast. For even when writing in private, he often suffered this. But now to other things. We are now in the times of Trajan. For the reign of Nerva was very short, not amounting to a year and a half (48), and was entirely consumed in the pilgrimage we have depicted. From this pilgrimage, Dionysius had the ambition to perform what remained of his supreme old age, as the final act of his life, in an excellent manner. He placed this, therefore, in two things: first, that he should prepare himself as a victim, pure and immaculate and most acceptable to God; second, that he should leave to the whole Church, as much as his capacity allowed, things that would be of profit not only for the present but also for the future. For this is the goal of great souls, this is the care of vivid spirits, not to limit the fruits of their labors to the narrow confines of this fleeting age, but to propagate them to all centuries, if possible, as widely as may be. Wherefore, since he had previously written some books (as has been indicated by us elsewhere), some of which he had dedicated to Timothy in order (which it is most fitting to observe in holy matters and divine mysteries, if anywhere else) for the sake of establishing and making them most useful, it seemed good to him, now that he was old, to recall both those and others to the file and rule, and to embellish and strengthen them at the same time with passages taken from the recent Gospel of John. For he valued the author himself, and his writings likewise, at an incredible price. His heart was especially set on diligently visiting the churches recently founded, whether by himself or by the apostles, in Gaul and the neighboring Germany; to observe how great was the populace in each place that was imbued with the true religion, and how great a portion still remained to be imbued; to explore cautiously whether any false brothers or clandestine sowers of errors existed among them; to observe with a piercing eye whether divine services in festive assemblies were celebrated with a decent rite and consistent ceremonies; to deal also frequently and privately with the pastors and ministers themselves; to hand down precepts for carrying out the work well and for binding their subjects to themselves; to teach the methods of alluring those outside the faith and of bringing them over to the law of Christ; but before all things, he spared no effort to admonish them concerning mutual charity and the concord that enlarges small things and knits together what is divided. But the people, whether they looked upon the holy old man as he performed the rites at the altar, or heard him speaking words to the congregation, were wondrously affected in spirit, and were captivated not by his words alone but by his very aspect; and they did not doubt that items flowing from such holiness were to be received by them as oracles, and to be executed with all diligence. So much can the sanctity of an innocent life, witnessed in a venerable hoariness, do for drawing souls of mortals wherever it will! Thus did that man visit the provinces divinely committed to him, thus he formed, thus he strengthened, thus he animated them to virtue, thus he armed them with every kind of armor to defend themselves and their own, and to overcome strangers with love, labor, and constancy; and this was the great and primary occupation of his life toward his brethren. The second was in replies, when many from everywhere consulted him and proposed questions concerning the state of the Churches.

^A His extant letters are a few, in which we have proof of this occupation—would that we had them all! For we might observe in them more examples of his doctrine and prudence. But amid such great external occupations that pressed upon and burdened him, he was always with himself, always with God, always entirely God’s. For he sought no one in all things but Him; he hunted for the honor and love of no one but His. O if this also happened to all those who hold the same office! How well it would be with the whole Church! Where then would be a place for wolves, where for foxes? Certainly neither would they devour the sheep, nor would they devastate the vineyard. For that good shepherd and vigilant guardian would be present in every place with his pastors and his watchmen; he would both expose those lurking under sheep’s clothing, and bring to light those creeping through the burrows. For it is truly incredible to tell how much holy bishops receive of light from their Sun, Jesus Christ, and how few things that pertain to them and their flock remain hidden from them. Dionysius related many things elsewhere about himself and his own: now he is taught of the approaching final struggle (49-50), and of the victory of a glorious, imminent death. And so, the time having been recognized as short in which the goal was to be reached, he turns his keen mind through all the regions of the land of Gaul, and if anything is lacking anywhere, he examines it more studiously while the light shines from heaven; and behold, as if the Ebroic city (which is indeed an ancient city of Celtic Gaul [51]) were stretching out suppliant hands and demanding a bishop, moved by the divine spirit, he gave it Taurinus as bishop—a man certainly necessary for those times and for that region against demons and magicians (52). Nor did the evil one himself hide his divine election. For when the new prelate, having undertaken the sacred ministry through the laying on of hands, was setting out for the city entrusted to him, behold, that shifter, seeing his own business here being thwarted and resorting to his old arts, tries several times to block his journey, which he sensed would be most harmful to himself. For now he had donned the form of an unshapely bear, now he mimicked the terror of a roaring lion, now testing the charge of a ferocious buffalo, he rushed upon the man of God as if to tear him limb from limb. He hoped, of course, to forbid him access to the city by these multiform terrors; but the holy prelate, not at all ignorant of such deceptions, trusting in the word of the Lord and the help of Dionysius, eluded and mocked all his arts, and said, "O miserable one, who, having deserted the likeness of your Creator, liken yourself to mute beasts, what better thing for you is there after this? Or are you mollified by some new joy?" To which he, gnashing I know not what rancid thing, said: "What joy could there be for me, when you come here with your God to overthrow my dominion? But indeed, I shall bring it about that he who sent you here shall soon perish; and afterwards I shall contend with you alone in single combat." He had scarcely spoken, nor was he anywhere to be found. Indeed, he was forced, as often happens, to speak the truth—the father of lies—both about Dionysius and about Taurinus, his disciple. For this reason, of course, he declared the most atrocious war against him, because he perceived that he brought most ready help to all the athletes of Christ, and that he himself was gradually being expelled from all the provinces, and that idols were everywhere being overthrown along with the shrines and temples, and were being held up to mockery. ^B 488 Dionysius further desired, as he remembered Paul to have done, to have some of his disciples as witnesses of his martyrdom, who might write down his actions for the honor of God and the benefit of the brethren. For this purpose he summoned Sanctinus and Antoninus from the Carnutes (53). But because we do not at present have their writings about the life of their master, we are forced to seek from elsewhere, with no small labor, those things in which we are lacking, collecting them separately here and there from the various registers of the Churches. But the labor is not small, especially for one who will exhibit the combat of the three invincible wrestlers to be viewed in a single arena.

^A And so, the matter is to be adjusted to the better part, and that to which the writings of Saint Dionysius himself and reason itself bear witness. For if the times themselves are sometimes adverse to the events, it is equitable to reject from the two that which is more prone to error; and thence, having abandoned the times which are most slippery for errors, the deeds themselves, which adhere more firmly to the mind and memory, are to be preserved intact. Therefore, Saint Dionysius, sensing his impending death, summoned those disciples of his from the Carnutes, where they were cultivating the Lord's vineyard, and ordered them to observe his entire contest of martyrdom diligently and to take care to report it, partly to the Roman pontiff and thence into Greece to the Athenians; so that they might give thanks to God for the successfully completed course of this life, and might be of good and brave spirit regarding the worship of God and religion.

Concerning the Carnutes, of whom there is mention here, Caesar says in the sixth book of his *Gallic War*, while speaking of the Druids: "At a certain time of the year, they assemble in the territories of the Carnutes (which region is held to be the middle of all Gaul) in a consecrated place. Hither all those on all sides who have controversies come together, and obey their decrees and judgments." Regarding these same people, Raimundus Marlianus says in his *Index of Peoples*: "The Carnutes," he says, "a people among the Celts, bordering on the Andecavi and the Turones, and closest to the Ocean, were under the protection of the Remi. Their region is the middle of all Gaul; from which, nevertheless, 489 an easy journey of two days lies open outside the kingdom of the Franks." ^B But how, some might ask, is that region the middle of all Gaul, if it is closest to the Ocean? Therefore, it is the middle, not in every dimension, as if there were an equal amount of space from all boundaries of Gaul on every side to it, but the middle according to length only. The city of the Carnutes itself, or Carnotum, commonly Chartres (called *Autricum* in Ptolemy), is an episcopal city, "middle between Lutetia of the Parisii (from which it recedes to the west by 20 Gallic miles) and Vindocinum," says Philippus Ferrarius in his *Topography* to the *Roman Martyrology*; near whom you will also find who are especially venerated as saints in that place.

CHAPTER XVIII

As ecclesiastical affairs (with superstition slipping away more and more) were proceeding swiftly, that sworn enemy of men and virtues, the devil, impatient of such success, armed ^C his chief ministers and satellites of envy (such as were almost all the prefects and governors of the provinces at that time) with fury and savagery, both against Christians altogether and especially against Dionysius the Areopagite, most celebrated at that season. Therefore, by their order, the holy man was sought out for death, already ripe for heaven, in the city of Lutetia, where after many years of laborious sowing he was reaping a plentiful harvest of exuberant faith, and he was apprehended in the very preaching of the Gospel. For already the strong and tireless athlete had finished his course, had kept the faith, and the time had arrived at last for him to fly to the crown laid up for him and his labors. Otherwise, indeed, the Druids (who were the ancient priests and sacrificers of Gaul) had often sought him for death and slaughter; often, as if about to capture him, they had rushed upon him while he was in sight from afar, crowded with mobs; but the hand of God had delayed the power of capturing him, the hour being still distant. For when they were sometimes very close to him, and all but held their prey in their hands, the Lord poured such grace of mouth into his servant, injected such light into his eyes, such virtue into his voice and sermon, that he caught them more than he was caught by them; to such a degree that those who had come to drag him to death stood still, gripped by admiration and stupor, and willingly offered their hands to the one inviting them toward the faith, or at any rate, whether terrified by him or by his guardian angel, took to flight.

Which events surely ought to move all preachers of the Gospel, and those who perform the embassy of God for Christ, but especially those who travel in distant lands or among barbarian nations, and to incite and inflame them to firmly place their hope in the Lord, for whose care they know they are, with all fear dispelled. Dionysius was therefore apprehended at last; but so that he might impose a golden conclusion upon his good contests, and so that he might triumph over the enemies and over death itself at once and for all. And so that those who had adhered to him as inseparable companions of his labors and dangers up to this point might also be companions of the final contest and of the rewards prepared from eternity, he was taken together with Rusticus and Eleutherius (of whom he had consecrated the former a priest, the latter a deacon), bound together, and led together: now the significant alacrity ^D of Dionysius and his fortitude of mind as he proceeded to the tribunal and to death, as if to a banquet, joined with an extraordinary liberty and confidence in speaking and in openly confessing his religion, has been handed down in letters both Greek and Latin. Being offered to the prefect, and interrogated concerning his race, his fatherland, and his studies, he replied for all with one response (for he deemed other things as nothing, but this one thing as the greatest): that he was a servant of Christ. Upon being asked again whether he was the one who was turning populations away from the worship of the immortal gods, who was bewitching the minds of men with magic art, who was contumaciously opposing the invincible emperors, he himself, with an unbroken and constant mind, confessed himself ingenuously and intrepidly to be the overthrower of impiety, the destroyer of their sacred rites, and the supplanter of demons. Finally, to one demanding what his religion, what his worship, what his profession was, he, together with the two companions, like the three youths walking in the midst of the flames, full of spirit and grace, uttered the most clear profession of their faith with one mouth. With that heard, he said: "From you, therefore, are the orders and mandates of our emperors and princes contemned? By you is the honor and potency of the inviolate gods despised and violated? But I, as to how great that pride and contumacy is in you, shall see to it that you experience it shortly."

When he was saying these things, behold, the matron Larcia, the wife of 490 Lisbius, of whom we spoke above—to whom many disputes and altercations had long since occurred with her husband on account of religion—having seized the occasion of this time, full of the fury and anger which the demon had kindled, comes quickly to the prefect, and accuses both grievously, her husband and Dionysius; the one of magic, the other of impiety: namely, that her husband, deluded by magical arts, made of no account the greatest gods, and valued some gallows-bird or other above them; that he continually had this man in his mouth, venerated him, offered prayers and vows to him, spared no expenses that might conduce to his honor, and furthermore, that he assiduously exhorted himself to desert the immortal gods, of whom he had not left even one in his household, and to sing the same song to himself day and night, "You must become a Christian," which is, as I interpret it, she said, "a witch and a sacrilegious person." Since these things were so, she begged by all the gods again and again that they might bring as speedy a remedy to her husband as they could; but regarding that sorcerer and poisoner, let them decide as he seemed deservedly to them: for she could in no way keep her mind quiet in such a great dissension of life and religion. Upon hearing these things, they, being impiously merciful to her, on the one hand, and cruelly impious toward those most upright men on the other, order her to be of good mind; that they would shortly give her...

^A works, so that her husband might return to his senses, and that that magus might pay the penalties worthy of his arts and evil deceits. They were thinking, of course, that they would settle the matter with Lisbius with little effort. This was how it happened that, when things turned out quite the opposite of what they had hoped (for he was immediately present at the tribunal, and stood like a cliff for the faith and for Christ) and they could move him from his opinion with neither arguments, nor threats, nor flatteries—nay, they even felt themselves refuted by him regarding their estimation of the gods and their religion, and could not bear it, nor could they endure to be pricked to the quick by the stings of reasons inspired from heaven—so, I say, it happened that, powerless with their own threats, they handed down the sentence of death upon him; and while they thought they were taking away his life, they prepared for him immortal glory. For shortly after, having been subjected to capital punishment for his defense of the Christian name, he obtained the eternal crown of martyrdom, with the angels applauding from heaven.

Thus, he preceded his masters and teachers in a fate more than happy, and he preceded them in such a way that he received from the most merciful God a triple reward for his hospitality, which was most acceptable to God, and for his extraordinary charity (by which he had first received, helped, and protected them upon their entry into the Parisian territory). The first and greatest of these was the crown of most noble martyrdom, which we have mentioned; the second was the calling of his wife Larcia, for whom he had poured out so many prayers to God while alive, to the same faith and the same palm, as will be shown below; ^B the third, finally, was the perennial constancy of his entire posterity, that is, of the house of Montmorency (which is the true and genuine offspring of those martyrs) in the Christian faith, and their unshaken prosperity through so many revolutions of affairs and honors. For at home as in the military, in both sacred and popular station, and not without the clear light of letters and the attested praise of wisdom, that family still thrives and shines; and indeed, it seems destined to shine eternally with the favorable vows and prayers of Christians. For since Lisbius, by the common and inveterate consensus of the whole nation, has been until now, and is currently held to be, the head of the family, and from this it has followed that the Baron of Montmorency is commonly called the "First Christian Baron of France," this custom has prevailed: that wherever any one of the Montmorencys commands in an army, he is acclaimed by his troops with words of the most auspicious omen: "May God help the first Christian." The natives in their own language commonly say: *Dieu aide au premier Chrestien*. In which matter, the pious affection of those acclaiming for the Christian faith is recognized, and in battles the whole trust of victory is placed in the help of God alone. For the prompt obtaining of this help, while the memory of the first Christians is renewed, the first-fruits of Saint Dionysius in the Parisian field, and as it were the choice spoils taken from incredulity, are aptly commemorated.

Indeed, this is a sign of a grateful heart, and one most mindful of benefits once divinely received, no less pious than joyful. For the force and meaning of this brief and pithy acclamation is roughly this: "Lord God of hosts, who didst accept in Lisbius the first-fruits of the Gallic nobility offered by Dionysius, and didst bestow upon him the illustrious palm of martyrdom against the enemies of the faith, now bravely aid his same pious, faithful, and no-wise degenerate offspring against the impious attackers of the holy religion." This, I say, that little acclamation signifies, this it seeks, this it obtains. And because that same Lisbian or Montmorencian house, as it received the faith pure from the beginning, so it has hitherto preserved it, and continues to preserve it, whole and inviolate, and unstained by any pollution of heresy or error of any kind, therefore in its gentile insignia it has, as aptly as rightly, included that most brief eulogy of a single word, *ἀπλανῶς*, "without error," and by a Greek word, as I think, because he who first drove away the mists of error from that stock (namely, blessed Dionysius) was a Greek. Now, blessed be God, whose mercy is from generation to generation to them that fear him.a

But our three athletes, having seen this spectacle of their supporter and host, what did they do? Truly, they were so far from falling in spirit out of fear, or from being overcome by any sadness (as their enemies had perhaps persuaded themselves they would be), that they could neither contain nor hide the motions of an exultant spirit and the force of internal joy. For what greater good could they wish and desire for a friend, for a host, for a brother, nay, for themselves, than to pass to the kingdom after having fought such a battle for Christ? Nor, I think, were the satellites of iniquity so slow and dull that they could not perceive, from their foreheads and countenances, their hidden spirits and the vows of a most desired death revealing themselves extrinsically. Hence even they were more tormented, ^C and deferred the athletes to another time with threats and execrations, and sent them to a foul prison, to devise new tortures. But with what success, will now be considered.

NOTATIONS.

(54-55) *For the affairs of the Church, with superstition slipping more and more every day*, etc. Regarding the prosperous success of the Church and the envy of the devil, see Syncellus in the *Encomium of Saint Dionysius*, near the end, and Metaphrastes in the *Life*. Metaphrastes annotates it thus: *Καὶ τὸν μακάριον ἀθρόον ἐπιπεσόντες, σύναμα δεσμοῦσι τοῖς μετ' αὐτοῦ τὴν θείαν ἀνὰ στόμα διδαχὴν ἔτι φέροντα*. And suddenly rushing upon the blessed one, they bind him together with his companions, while he was still voicing divine doctrine.

*For the Druids were much more hostile to Christians than the Gentiles*, since their honor and profit would perish through the true religion. For which reason the Druids were also most hostile to Dionysius and his companions for the same causes. The passage about the Druids (so that it may be more fully understood who they were and what their authority was) is to be taken from Caesar, book vi, *De bello Gallico*. He has it thus: "In all of Gaul, there are two classes of those men who are of any account and honor." Then, after some things are inserted, he adds: "But of these two classes, one is that of the Druids, the other is that of the knights. The former are engaged in divine things: they administer public and private sacrifices, they interpret religions." To these a great number of youths run for the sake of ^D discipline, and they are in great honor among them. For they decide upon almost all public and private controversies; and if any crime has been committed, if a murder has been done, if there is a dispute regarding inheritance, if regarding boundaries, the same people decide; they appoint rewards and punishments. If anyone, either private or public, has not stood by their decree, they interdict them from sacrifices. This punishment is most severe among them. Those who have been so interdicted are held in the number of the impious and the wicked; everyone avoids them, they flee from their approach and conversation, so that they may not receive any harm from the contagion; nor is justice rendered to them when they seek it, nor is any honor shared with them. Over all these Druids, however, one presides, who holds the highest authority among them. When he is dead, if any one of the rest excels in dignity, he succeeds; or, if there are many equals, it is chosen by the vote of the Druids. Sometimes they even contend for the leadership with arms. At a certain time of year, they sit in a consecrated place in the territory of the Carnutes (which region is considered the center of all Gaul). Hither all from everywhere who have controversies come, and they obey their decrees and judgments. The discipline is thought to have been discovered in Britain, and transferred thence into Gaul. And now those who...

wish to learn this matter more diligently, for the most part travel there for the sake of learning. The Druids are accustomed to be absent from war, nor do they pay tribute together with the rest. They have immunity from military service and from all public concerns. Excited by such rewards, many come of their own accord to the discipline, and are sent by their parents and relatives. A great number of verses are said to be learned there. ^A “And so some remain in the discipline for twenty years; nor do they deem it lawful to commit these things to writing, although in almost all other public and private business they use Greek letters. This seems to me to have been instituted for two reasons: because they do not wish the discipline to be spread among the common people, nor for those who are learning, relying on papers, to study memory less, which happens to most people, that by the aid of writings, they neglect diligence in learning and memory. Especially they wish to persuade this, that souls do not perish, but pass from some to others after death; and they think that men are incited to virtue in the highest degree by this, with the fear of death being disregarded. Besides this, they dispute much about the stars and their motion, about the size of the world and of the lands, about the nature of things, about the power and authority of the immortal gods, and teach these to the youth.” Thus far Caesar regarding the Druids. From which it is permitted for us to reason, in what position and with what authority the true priests of the Church ought to be among Christians; and with what immunities they should be gifted, and at what value their excommunications, interdicts, and decrees should be estimated. For if glass is of such value, as they say, as a pearl?

Aristotle also makes mention of them in the *Magicus*, apud Diogenes Laertius, *On the Beginning of Philosophers*. Marcus Tullius also makes brief mention of them in the first book *On Divination*, after the middle, where he declares them to have been learned in physiology and the art of divining and predicting: “For there are,” he says, “Druids in Gaul, one of whom, Divitiacus the Aeduan, I knew, your host and admirer, who professed that the rationale of nature, which the Greeks call physiology, was known to him, and who used to say that future events were determined partly by auguries, partly by conjecture.” Thus Tullius.

Pomponius Mela is somewhat more elaborate in his book *On the Situation of the World*, ch. 2, where, after other things concerning the customs of the race, he says: “They have, however, their own eloquence and masters of wisdom, the Druids. These profess to know the size and shape of the earth and world, the motions of the heavens and stars, and what the gods will. They teach many things to the noblest of the people, and for a long time, twenty years, in a cave or in hidden groves. ^B One of the things they teach leaked out to the common people, namely (so that they might be better for war) that souls are eternal, and that there is another life and [a place for] the shades. And so they cremate and bury with the dead things suitable for the living. Formerly, the settlement of business and the exaction of debts was even deferred to the lower world, and there were those who would willingly throw themselves on the funeral pyres of their kin, as if about to live with them.” Thus he.

Concerning these same Druids, it is useful to add a brief memory from the fifteenth book of the histories of Ammianus Marcellinus. Describing Gaul, therefore, and its parts and borders, he says among other things: “Through these places,” he says, “studies of laudable doctrines, begun by the bards, and ^C eubages, and Druids, gradually flourished among a people now becoming civilized. And the bards indeed used to sing with the sweet melodies of the lyre the deeds of famous men composed in heroic verses. The eubages, however, investigating the heights, attempted to reveal the sublime things of nature. Among these, the Druids, more elevated in their genius, as the authority of Pythagoras decreed, joined in fraternities and fellowships, were aroused by questions of hidden and profound things, and, looking down on human affairs, pronounced the souls immortal.” Thus he. But since Ammianus seems to have touched upon these things briefly from Strabo, I judge it good that Strabo himself be heard. Therefore, in the fourth book of his *Geography*, he says of them: “Among all, for the most part, there are three tribes of those who are honored above others: bards, and eubages, and Druids. ^D Bards are indeed composers of hymns and poems; eubages, however, are sacrificers and physiologists; the Druids, besides physiology, practice moral philosophy. And these are indeed considered the most just; and therefore both private and public judgments are committed to them. Moreover, they formerly used to settle wars, and stopped those who were about to join battle; and capital cases were entrusted especially to them. Indeed, if their number is great, they also expect a great abundance of the fields. They, and others, say that souls are immortal, and the world; and that fire and water will at some time prevail.”

I judge clearly that Strabo is to be read in Greek thus there, and to be translated into Latin. For otherwise in the Basel edition of the year 1549, it was read: *Bardi, vates, et druidae*, and it was rendered into Latin: *Bardi, vates, and Druides*. But the name *vates* sounds nothing of either Greek or ancient Gallic idiom, as do the other two, but is formed from the Latin *vates*. Whence I think that in the times of Ammianus Marcellinus (in whose various editions I have always found *eubages* and never *vates*), it was read in Strabo as *eubages*, or certainly *εὐαγεῖς*, which sounds like “pious and holy.” For the same Strabo says that they were *ἱεροποιοί*, sacrificers. This, however, is most certainly and singularly the office of the pious and holy, if of anyone at all. Stephanus Forcatulus stands with me, in Book 1, *De Gallorum imperio*, where he says this of these same eubages: “Moreover, the eubages, generally brought up in moderate fortunes and not such splendid births, professed wisdom and holiness.” Whence also the name is derived from them by the subtraction of a letter. For *εὐαγής* signifies holy and pious. Thus it is there.

It is added moreover that in Lucan, lib. 1, *Pharsalia*, the same are the bards, who are the vates. For he writes thus there concerning them and the Druids in conjunction:

You also, who on the brave souls and those perished in war Bestow praise for a long age, you vates, Have poured forth many songs, you bards, without fear. And you barbarous rites, and the sinister custom Of sacred things, you Druids, having laid down weapons, have recalled. To you alone is it given to know the gods and the spirits of the sky, Or to know them not; you inhabit high groves in remote Light; at your bidding the shades do not seek The silent seats of Erebus, and the pale kingdoms Of deep Dis: the same spirit rules the limbs In another world: if you sing of what is known, death Is the middle of a long life: certainly the peoples, whom the Bears look down upon, Are happy in their error! whom that greatest Fear of death does not incite: hence the minds of men are ready to rush Upon the sword, and their souls are capable Of death, and it is cowardly to spare a life about to return.

But if in barbarians and those unrefined in faith the hope of immortality could suffice so much; what wonder if it could suffice far more in Christians, and especially in the martyrs, who, with torments placed in their midst, silently shouted that very last and truly golden sentiment of that poet, and proved it by a noble end: ...is it cowardly to spare a life about to return?

And indeed [to return] to a life much better than that which has departed. Since the miserable and perishable one has departed, the blessed and eternal one is to return. But that these ancient bards were considered by other peoples as more than simply foolish, this came about,

^A even as formerly Attila, surnamed the Scourge of God, was brought before Pope Leo. For he saw another one of priestly appearance standing by Leo, threatening him with death by a drawn sword, if he did not obey Leo. And, to omit many others to whom similar things happened in different ages, did not in these our own times, among the Oriental Indians, on the Fishery Coast, those barbarians who had conspired to slay the Jesuit priest Andrea Fernando (on the very day he was passing through their town) become so terrified at his arrival and presence that they scattered this way and that, with no one pursuing them, and hid themselves in their dens as if about to be seized at any moment? What of the fact that Julius Mancinellus, in our own memory, so struck and moved such cruel and savage Turks, thirsty for his and Christian blood, when they were close at hand, that without a single word uttered, but by his presence and aspect alone, they were stripped of their lupine ferocity and appeared before him as tame and most humane as innocent lambs? Truly Christ the Lord, our leader and the arbiter of life and death, just as he held the most free power to keep his own or to hand them over to enemies (a power which he used when he wished and how he wished), so he always knows, and when it pleases him employs, ways and means, for us unknown, both for snatching his own from the midst of death and for deterring enemies. But let it be our modesty to leave the whole judgment of this matter willingly to him, and to trust in him.

(59) Moreover, the biographers of Dionysius have recorded in their writings the alacrity of the saint as he hastened to his martyrdom. Simeon Metaphrastes indeed [writes] in these words: ^B *Είσεισιν οὖν ὁ γεννάδας ἅμα Ρουστίκῳ καὶ Ἐλευθερίῳ ἀτρόμῳ διανοίᾳ καὶ πεπαρρησιασμένη ψυχῇ, ὥσπερ εἰς ἑορτὴν οὐκ εἰς ἀγῶνα καλούμενος.* This noble man therefore advances, together with Rusticus and Eleutherius, with an intrepid mind and a confident spirit, as if called to a feast, not to a contest. Michael Syncellus, among other things he says concerning him and his associates, writes thus: *Καὶ σπεύδοντες ἐπὶ τὴν τοιαύτην σφαγὴν ἄγαν ἀγαλλόμεθα, ὡς ἀσφαλῶς πιστεύοντες αὖθις ἀναστήσεσθαι τῆς κρείττονος καὶ μακαριωτέρας καὶ διαιωνιζούσης τευξόμενοι λήξεως καὶ τοῖς ἀκηράτοις στεφθησόμενοι στέμμασι.* And, hastening to this slaughter, we greatly exult: as those who believe for certain that we shall rise again and obtain a better, and more blessed, and everlasting inheritance, and are to be crowned with immortal crowns. ^C O if that hope (which in other martyrs also has existed as the chief cause of martyrdom, sought by all vows) lived and flourished in the minds of all mortals, what iron, what beast, what flame would be feared?

(60) That he should answer that he is a servant of Christ. See Simeon Metaphrastes in the *Vita*, where he writes that, omitting his family, country, and studies, he answered: *Χριστοῦ δοῦλος εἶναι ὁμολογῶ.* I profess to be a servant of Christ. ^D (61) That he should answer that the people who serve the immortal gods [are of no account]. All the biographers of the *Vita*, both Latin and Greek, tell the same thing; whom I prefer—if anyone lacks authority—to have consulted, rather than to linger longer while citing their words.

(62) They declared with one voice precisely the same profession of his faith. You will find this profession both among others and in Methodius, in the martyrdom of Dionysius.

(63) Behold, the holy matron. Abbot Hilduin had extracted this eight hundred years ago from the most ancient manuscripts of the Acts of Saint Dionysius.

CHAPTER XIX.

^A rage, are secure. Indeed, the conscience of their own crimes goads them, and they think the punishments they have deserved are constantly being observed by eyes; but the latter, conscious of no guilt and mindful of their benefactors, are refreshed even in the midst of torments by the certain hope of rewards. This shines more brightly than light itself in these three candidates for the eternal kingdom. For while the prefects in the courts are themselves tossed about like a stormy sea, driven by various agitations of anger and fury against the innocent, the latter, as if this were an alien matter and not their own, are moved by neither the judgment, nor the threats, nor the torments set before their eyes. The prefect adjudges them ^B to dreadful scourging; they return thanks to God. The executioner drags, pulls, and vexes; they do not resist. The torturer tortures and shouts; they do not even groan. And truly this was a sight beautiful and worthy, upon which all the dwellers in heaven and God himself might cast their eyes. For here stood the old man, one hundred and ten years of age or more (65), with venerable white hair, singular modesty, gravity, and gentleness: there, with fierce and savage looks, stood the lictors; here, the rods, axes, racks, cords, and wooden horses—other instruments of cruelty. The question arises among these: what frame of mind does the old man have? Does he intend to obey the emperor's commands by denying Christ and escaping these terrible things, or by struggling against the emperor, is he prepared to undergo everything, every bitterness of torture which he sees before his eyes, and to experience all that is harsh and intolerable? The holy man makes no delay in a matter that is in no way doubtful. "I stand," he says, "ready to suffer all these things and greater ones for Christ. May I only enjoy Him, and may all torments come upon me." It was possible, therefore, to see those who had long thirsted for human blood rushing, in the manner of tigers, upon the old man, pushing him inhumanly, tearing off his garments, set- ^C ting him naked in the midst, cutting him on all sides with rods, and tearing his aged and frail body with no regard. But he, amid the dire crashing of enormous blows, did nothing but celebrate the praises of God Almighty with the greatest possible affection, unless he was exhorting his fellow soldiers to equal benefits of heaven: "My mouth," he said, "shall speak the praise of the Lord: and let all flesh bless his holy name; [*] because I have been deemed worthy to bear in my body the stigmas of the passion of Christ for the confession of Him, which is your glory, O faithful men and most beloved brethren. Wherefore, let not these my torments frighten you, but rather animate you, and inflame you to suffer the same for the name of Jesus Christ." Thus, therefore, both alone and an old man, and naked and unarmed, he generously overcame many torturers, young, strong, and armed, and the barbarian lictors, succeeding one another by threes, could not move his old age, which was almost spent by the beatings, from its purpose of mind, nor even intimidate it in the least, supported as it was by the staff of faith. And did they perhaps overcome his associates? Not in the least. They persisted with the most atrocious scourging and the carnage of limbs streaming with much blood, so that they might elicit some sign of brokenness or weakness of mind, but they elicited the same and just as much from the sons as they did from the father: namely, exhortations of faith instead of groans, and the praises of God instead of sighs; but for themselves, they elicited confusion from the expectation, and ignominy from the victory. Finally, as if things were hopeless that day, they ordered the saints to be thrust back into prison, so that, there weighed down by the heavy burden of chains, and subdued by the filth and stench of the place itself, they might be rendered weaker for the second conflict of faith. For the impious and inhumane men were ignorant that the more Christians suffer for the Lord, the greater help they obtain from Him; nor did they know that they bore hearts alert and constant with afflicted bodies, and that they were the more eager to sustain what remained, the more bitter were the things they had previously endured. For they themselves made an experiment of this when, on another day, they heard the holy bishop brought forth, and asked about the opinion he held, answering with even greater confidence than before; when they saw that, even though ordered to be stretched on the rack and dreadfully tortured, both he and his companions stood motionless like rocks. For then, as before, they testified to their joy in words and gave thanks to God. What then at last? An iron grate is brought into the midst, abundant fire is placed beneath, the couch glows with flames, and the holy man is thrown onto it—for he is not brought down. The scorched limbs hiss and smoke, but his spirit, always present to itself and beaming, pours forth that sweet-sounding melody to its Lord in the midst of the fires: "Thy word, O Lord, is passing refined: and thy servant hath loved it." ^D Then he prays also: "Lord God, who hast said: When thou shalt walk in the fire, thou shalt not burn, and the flame shall not burn in thee; as Thou hast previously given me, by Thy help, to overcome the more dangerous fire of concupiscence, grant also now that I may overcome these flames for the glory of Thy name." Why say more? God was present to him who prayed, and granted his petitions. And He caused him to overcome not only the flames but also the rage of the most ferocious beasts to which he was thrown, the immense fires of the furnace, and the nailings of his limbs on the cross: all of which he partly sustained with unconquered patience, partly repelled with the sign of salvation, and partly, through prayer and the preaching of faith, commanded to be subject to him and serve His glory. For to him praying, and holding up the sign of the cross to the beasts as they roared and rushed at him, they, however immense and savage, fell down before him as if tame and gentle. Cast also into the most flagrant heats of the glowing furnace, his prayers poured out to God brought him forth purer and more splendid than any gold. Finally, even when he was lifted up on the cross, since he acted as a preacher from it as if from a pulpit, and was drawing the surrounding crowd—by his divine exhortations—different from what the inquisitors desired, they preferred to take him down from the wood, for they would rather he were silenced than listen to the words of the doctor who sang back so wisely: and to kill him by the stench of the prison rather than exhibit him as the glorious victor of so many tortures. Yet, in that prison (it was then called Glaucinus's prison: now, however, it is the chapel of the saint himself, Dionysius, commonly called S. Denys de la Chartre), the divine glory was not wanting: and the excellent grace of Dionysius before God shone forth remarkably (66). For when not only his two companions, but also a good number of other 495 brothers were enclosed with him in the same prison, he exhorted them all to struggle generously and bravely, and he decided to perform holy works there to impart to them greater strength, and to refresh them all with that bread which divinely comforts the hearts of the saints. Behold, truly, while he was sacrificing with a rare and certain sense of love and piety (one would believe him an angel rather than a man), and was preparing himself to take and communicate to others the food of immortality, a certain immense light shines from heaven, in which Christ the Lord, surrounded by a great company of angels, presents Himself to all who have rendered themselves worthy of such a vision, and to those looking on, He mingles Himself with the altars, and offers the host taken from the holy table with His own hand to the divine pontiff (67), and says: "Receive this, My dear one (68), which I will soon fulfill for you together with My Father, who is with Me, as your great reward, and for those who have heard you, salvation in My kingdom. Now you act bravely, and your memory shall be in praise. The love and kindness which you have will obtain whatever you ask for." Furthermore, it is incredible to tell how suddenly that blind and dark prison was transformed into a most illustrious palace, nay, into a place of delights and all the pleasures of heaven for those enclosed. Soon all felt an unusual joy of mind: and all experienced in themselves the desire and ardor of death as most flagrant; they marveled at the strength and fortitude in their limbs and in their spirits; finally, they knew and confessed that where God is present, there is strength, there are forces, there are spirits, there is life, there are delights, there is glory, there is joy, there is heaven. Of all of which (alas, sorrow!) how miserable are those who, voluntarily withdrawing from Him, miserably deprive themselves! How much (good God!) happier and wiser are those who, having despised and scorned all other things, seek those alone, study those alone, and go to those alone through fire, through water, through equulei [*] Psal. CXLIV, 21. [*] Psal. CXVIII, 140. [*] Isai. XLIII, 2.

^A leos, running through all manner of torments, which bring forth a kingdom and eternal glory. Now was the time of the new judgment, of the new contest; the martyrs are led forth from custody, they are placed before the tribunal, they are interrogated again: whether vexation had at last brought them to their senses, or whether they still persisted in their damnable madness: whether they would sacrifice to the immortal gods and live, or prefer to exchange a sweet and honest life for a most bitter and shameful death. But they, with much more courage than before, execrated the gods, and declared that they did not ask for a life that brought death, but sought a death that would bring life. Behold, they said, Jesus Christ himself is Life; but the gods, whom the foolish and blind worship, are worse than death; He leads to glory and immortality, while they cast men down into misery and the intolerable torments of the underworld. Upon hearing these words, Fescenninus, provoked beyond measure, at last pronounced the final sentence of their decapitation. And so, after the most cruel scourging of each one was repeated, they were dragged from the city to the neighboring hill of Mercury, and the keepers, in the most inhuman manner, drove them along the way; yet, full of hope and giving thanks to God for the death so often desired and so often sought for Christ, having had their heads severed by a blunt axe (as the command had been given for more bitter tortures), they passed on to life. But concerning the time, the place, and certain other matters joined with the martyrdom or achieved with the glory of the martyrs, we must discourse a little further. Let us therefore give our attention to this.

NOTES

(64) *Of the martyrs.* Greek writers generally touched only upon what pertains to the punishments; but the Latins, among whom these holy martyrs suffered torments, because they held them as if they were members of their own household, have described them more fully and in detail; especially Abbot Hilduin, a most accurate investigator of ancient acts, who wrote of them more copiously and distinctly than any other. Moreover, as for what is related therein regarding various kinds of punishments, the Roman Martyrology briefly indicates this at the 9th of November with the clause: "Finally, having been brought before the prefect Fescenninus, after very grievous kinds of torments, together with his companions he was put to the sword and thus completed his martyrdom."

(65) *A man of one hundred and ten years or more.* For in the first year of Hadrian (in whose reign we have proven he was killed), it was, according to Eusebius and the ancients, the hundred-and-tenth year of Christ (according to Baronius, the hundred-and-twentieth), and consequently [the year of] Dionysius (who was about nine years younger than Christ) was the hundred-and-tenth. For I prefer, and it is better, to follow Eusebius in his Chronology, and all the holy Fathers who are his followers, than anyone else who departs from them. Yet I would not wish it to be understood, because I say Dionysius was killed in the reign of Hadrian, that he was strictly killed in his first year, since it is sufficiently probable that it happened in his third or fourth year, and that he thus died at the age of one hundred and thirteen years (which, from certain places in Syncellus, which we shall bring forward in the following chapter, seems to be able to be gathered) or even somewhat later. Which I add on account of Flavius Dexter and Franciscus Bivarius, of whom the former suggests clearly enough that Dionysius lived about one hundred and twenty years; while the latter expressly asserts it. For he, in his second commentary on the year sixty-six of Christ, upon Dexter’s Chronicle, says: "St. Dionysius the Areopagite, he says, was killed in the hundred and twentieth year of his age, as we shall show by the hundred and thirtieth year of the Lord." But he forgot to show it, or even to make mention of that matter there. But Dexter, at the hundred and thirtieth year of Christ, that is, the four hundred and ninety-sixth, and eight hundred and eighty-first from the founding of Rome, writes these things: "St. M. Marcellus Eugenius, bishop of the Toletani, legate of St. Clement, having set out for Gaul, for the sake of communicating grave matters with Dionysius, preaches at Toulouse, and is made bishop of that city after the death of St. Saturninus, bishop and martyr of that city. Having set out from there, knowing of the martyrdom of St. Dionysius, his fellow-disciple, he celebrates it in a most elegant poem, and near Lutetia is slaughtered for the defense of the faith by the satellites of Trajan Hadrian, to whom he was dear." From these annotations of the hundred and thirtieth year, Bivarius gathered what he said above, that Dionysius died in that same hundred and thirtieth year of Christ, and consequently [that the life] of Dionysius was one hundred and twenty years. For to Bivarius, Dexter seems to imply that Dionysius suffered in that year, when he says: "Having set out from there, as if, naturally, he had learned on the very journey that Dionysius had been recently killed." However, because the same Dexter not infrequently bundles together many things into one year, which happened at different times, so that it is not always easy to conjecture what he wishes to have happened specifically in that year; for this reason this place (which Bivarius nonetheless relies upon) regarding matters concerning the Blessed Dionysius is not altogether certain, because it was not added on account of Dionysius, but on account of Saint Marcellus. Thus at the two-hundredth year of Christ (as we have also noted below in the Questions) he has this: "Titus, by surname Justus, having been made bishop, having first followed St. Paul, and then Eugenius, preaches in Carpetania, where his memory and the magnitude of his miracles are celebrated, etc." Of all these things, nothing pertains to the cited year of two hundred and twenty, except the latter clause: "Where his memory and the magnitude of his miracles are celebrated." Dexter had read, naturally, that in that year the memory of the miracles of the most blessed Titus was famous in Carpetania. Which, while he notes it in his Chronicle, he also thought it good to note what sort of man Titus was, even though those things had happened one century earlier. So also regarding Marcellus Eugenius, what he says—"legate of Clement"—is not to be understood as if he were made legate by Clement in that hundred and thirtieth year, since Clement had died nearly thirty years before; but only that he wished to designate the ancient dignity of Marcellus, as also that of Titus.

(66) See the Acts of the martyrs of S. Dionysius in Hilduin, *Patrologia Latina* vol. CVI, col. 33.

(67) That Christ the Lord appeared to Dionysius in prison, and offered with his own hand the host accepted from the altar to him as he was celebrating, the old Acts contain, as do the most ancient ritual books, from which these rhythms were composed, which Antonius Demochares supplied to us:

As the elder celebrated The Mass, the crowd standing around, Christ is present, attended By a celestial throng, Consoles him, closed in the prison Of the cave, and feeds him with the vital Bread, to be crowned With immortal glory.

Which Demochares also adds: "This place of the prison, on account of this perpetual memory, was converted into a church, which today is called and seen as St. Dionysius at the Prison."

Moreover, it is a great and singular benefit indeed, that the kindness of Christ the Lord toward his servant was so great that he showed himself to him in the prison in bodily form: and not only this, but also that, with no necessity of such condescension pressing upon him, he offered the sacrament of his own most sacred body and blood (which we read he had conferred upon no one before that time, except to the apostles and disciples) with his own hand. Yet it was fitting, that he who truly needed life...

^A any longer languishing, should by that refreshment have recovered. There may be found other examples of this kind in sacred Histories or in the Lives of the saints; but as yet none so august, with such light, and with such a numerous and conspicuous retinue of angels, as that of the Blessed Dionysius.

But, lest it be forgotten, that same sacred stone upon which Blessed Dionysius performed the divine rite in prison is said to have been translated to the monastery of St. Peter of Brogne, situated in the territory of Liège. Concerning which, Ægidius of Aureavallis writes thus, in Anselm's *De gestis Stephani episcopi Leodiensis*, ch. 40: "For the relics of the Bishop and Martyr St. Leodegar, and the stone upon which Blessed Dionysius celebrated the holy mystery in prison, when the Lord Jesus appeared to him and gave him the sacraments, are said to have been translated to the said monastery." So it is there.

^B (68) Accept this, my dear one, etc. You will find these words uttered by Christ to Dionysius also in Abbot Hilduin. Nor will you find anything different in Dionysius Rickel, book IV, *De novissimis*, art. 59, in the middle: "Finally," he says, "Christ appearing in prison to the divine and great Dionysius, and handing over his body, 'Accept,' he says, 'this, my dear one, for your reward with me is very great.'"

497 CHAPTER XX.

Regarding the time and the emperor under whom Blessed Dionysius departed from the earth, there is not—or rather, there has not been—one and the same opinion for everyone. For I believe and hope that almost everyone now inclines, or certainly will incline, toward the Emperor Hadrian. Heretofore, then, there have been some, and not a few, who said—and confirmed—that he departed, having obtained the palm, while Domitian was emperor (69); there have been others who said it was under Trajan (70); and others, a third group, who said it was under Hadrian, the successor of Trajan. From this, clearly, the diversity arose, because in the times immediately following Christ, the Acts of the martyrs were preserved by memory rather than in writing; for in those tempests of persecution, Christians had time rather to carry out the deed bravely than to write down what had been done elegantly. Hence it happened that, while memory is much more tenacious of deeds than of names, the names passed into oblivion, but the deeds remained perennial to this age.

But long afterward, when acts began to be committed to writing, it fell to historians, after such a long interval, to rely on conjectures for the marks of times and the names of emperors. These, since they are various and varied due to the diversity of intellects, here some, when it came to the matters of Dionysius, considering on one hand the bitterness of the torments he suffered, and on the other his age, which no one would doubt reached to Domitian, therefore referred the time of his martyrdom to the times of Domitian. Others, casting their eyes elsewhere, and investigating more diligently the pilgrimages and writings of Dionysius himself, found that he had at least reached the times of Trajan.

Finally, a third group, having searched both the ancient records of the martyr himself and other most ancient monuments of the ancients concerning him, proceeded with faithful steps even further, and discovered that Dionysius had lived and died under the Emperor Hadrian, and they handed this down to posterity. Thus the most ancient compiler of the Martyrology (71), thus the Venerable Bede (72), thus Ado, Bishop of Vienne; thus others followed according to them, and we have done the same. For it has long been known that Aristides, that excellent writer of the century, consigned the martyrdom of Dionysius himself to the times of Hadrian.

Wherefore, to conclude the matter, in the year of Christ about 121, under the Emperor Hadrian, with Fescenninus as prefect (73), Dionysius the Areopagite—Bishop of Athens, Apostle of the Gauls, legate of the whole West, describer and excellent interpreter of both hierarchies, the celestial and the ecclesiastical, and of the divine names, the leader and standard-bearer of theologians after the apostles and evangelists—was adorned with the glorious laurel of martyrdom, having vanquished his enemies in the just contest of faith. He lived a long and holy life (as did many great men in that age), namely, more than one hundred and ten years (74). Saint Simeon, Bishop of Jerusalem and kinsman of Christ, also surpassed this age in that same century; and it is certain that he lived for a full one hundred and twenty years and brought back the glorious crown of martyrdom in so great an age: so that, consequently, what is brought forward concerning Dionysius ought not to be seen as so wonderful, when this fact, which might have seemed less probable, is held by all without doubt.

This concludes the matter of the time; now for the place, for an addition of nobility to it demands a pen. The location, therefore, where those three noble athletes attained victory and glory, was a small hill overlooking the city of Paris, formerly called after Mercury (because Mercury was worshipped there with special honor (75) by the natives so named): but in subsequent times, because it was sprinkled with the much blood of these and other martyrs also, and as it were consecrated, it was commonly called the Mount of Martyrs, and in the local tongue, *Montmartre*: and today that name persists for the perpetual memory of the renowned martyrs.

In which place (a matter truly new, and as it was once wonderful to see, so now wonderful to recount), the trunk of the martyr Dionysius (76), though bloodless and devoid of life, yet stood erect, and took his head, severed from his shoulders (such is the ancient tradition, and so have many produced in writing), into his own hands, just as if he were alive, like a trophy, and carried it for about two Gallic miles, with an angel as guide and celestial choirs accompanying him with admirable harmony, and singing now "Glory to thee, O Lord," now "Alleluia," until he arrived at the place where he is now situated, and has the city of his name and a monastery; and he rested in the estate of a noble matron (her name was Catulla [77]), as if giving himself to her. The infidels immediately fled, terrified by so great a prodigy, and fearing greatly lest such efficacy of magic art, as they called it, might prove a trap for them: but the Christians, and those whom a better spirit moved (among whom was also Larcia, the wife of Lisbius), admired and celebrated the divine virtue and power. Whence many, previously alien to the religion, gave their hands to Christ, and among the leaders of these was the aforementioned Larcia, who publicly professed herself a Christian, and was therefore arrested and put to death, having poured out her blood in place of baptism, and was added to the holy number of martyrs.

The sacred remains of Dionysius were diligently guarded by Catulla, a disciple of the same martyr. ^A Not content with this alone, she strove, whether by entreaty, by payment, or even by craft, to obtain the sacred bodies of his two companions, Rusticus and Eleutherius, whom the impious satellites had intended to cast into the Seine. She ordered that the satellites, having been invited to a meal, be given food and drink in abundance, while in the meantime she gave instructions to certain brothers that, while the former were occupied with their carousing, they should clandestinely spirit away the bodies and hide them in a safe place. This they did with dispatch. But when the table was removed, and the guards—who, having remained too sober for this specific purpose, noticed the bodies were also gone—demanded them back with great tumult, and even threatened violence if they were not returned immediately, the situation had to be calmed as much by money now as it had been by drink earlier. Thus she produced gold and kept the sacred pledges, which were more precious than any gold. Having thus become the possessors of such holy relics, the Christians held them thereafter as their chief and singular refuge in times of hardship and adversity.

For when the barbarians had departed and matters were sufficiently secure, the same holy treasures were deposited by the same Catulla in a convenient place on the third of October (as Greek writers have noted), with miracles continuously flowing there in abundance, as if from a fountain. The very field of Catulla, which was the praised burial place of the martyrs, was called "Catulliacus" in honor of the woman, ^B especially after a small chapel was constructed there for the blessed martyrs and the common people began to frequent it. It is recorded that Saint Regulus, Bishop of Arles, first dedicated this chapel on the following occasion: one day in his own city, while he was officiating at the sacred rites and had proceeded to those words of the sacred canon where the memory of the holy dead is made, it slipped out—contrary to custom and intention—that in addition to the other names recited, he added: "And to thy blessed martyrs Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius." Struck with wonder at this extemporaneous and involuntary addition, and while he hesitated for a moment in his mind, behold, a new and extraordinary vision appeared to his eyes: three doves resting upon the cross of the altar, which bore on their breasts the names of those three martyrs written in blood—Dionysius, Rusticus, Eleutherius. ^C Having contemplated them for a short time with a fixed gaze, he finally understood the mystery, the Holy Spirit suggesting to him that those three athletes had attained the palm of martyrdom (for he had not learned this from anywhere else, and the event was recent).

Then indeed his spirit was stirred to go to Paris and there to learn in more detail about the struggle and death of the martyrs. And it happened very opportunely that, while he was not far from Lutetia, he encountered Catulla herself and asked her if she had heard anything about the slaughter of the men recently put to death. For she, suspecting from his modesty, his dress, and his speech that he was a Christian, asked, "Are you a Christian?" And when he confessed what was true, she said, "Are you also one of the friends and acquaintances of Dionysius and his companions, Rusticus and Eleutherius?" Then, with tears welling up at their names, he said, "Verily, I am one of them, and I glory in it." ^D Then she too revealed herself to be their disciple. There followed mutual congratulations, friendly conversations, and most benign hospitality; finally, neither could be sated, he asking about the affairs of Dionysius—those things which he had done elsewhere in earlier times—and she recounting those things which the most recent storm of persecution had brought about. Discussing among other things the day of the martyrdom and the time of the vision, they discovered that both had fallen on one and the same day.

After the good woman had indicated and shown to Regulus everything that was in his prayers, she asked him again and again that he stay with her for a longer time. For although she had received from the blessed Dionysius some knowledge of sacred things and had touched upon the first rudiments of the faith, she was still, she said, unskilled and ignorant of the most important mysteries, a deeper knowledge of which she longed for from him as a master. The holy man, in order to repay kindness with kindness, remained there for several days for the sake of instructing her. During this time, he consecrated to the honor of those same saints—as we mentioned before—the chapel that she had built, humble and small in material and size, to be sure, but most noble and august due to the relics of such great martyrs stored within it. And this was the first of all the churches consecrated to Saint Dionysius and his companions.

In later times, other shrines were also founded in the same Parisian region to the memory of the most blessed Dionysius, namely, in the places where he was imprisoned, where he was tortured, and where he was beheaded—eternal monuments. The first of these is given the name Saint-Dionysius-de-la-Carrière, commonly Saint-Denys de la Chartre; the second, Saint-Dionysius-de-la-Passion, in the vernacular, Saint-Denys du Pas; the third, the Chapel of the Martyrs, in French, la Chapelle des Martyrs. And indeed the first two are in the city of Lutetia itself, while the last is visited within sight of the city, or on the Mount of the Martyrs (about which we spoke above). And these are truly the most ancient; of others, which are more recent and magnificent, we shall speak later, for certain other things which happened in this century of Dionysius—especially the labors and fruits of his disciples and some of the apparitions of the martyr himself after death—must be anticipated.

499 ANNOTATIONS.

(69) Who... under Domitian. Hilduin, Metaphrastes, and certain others ascribe the martyrdom of Dionysius to the Emperor Domitian. This cannot stand at all, not even by their own opinion, if they are only consistent with themselves in other matters. For if they admit, as they do admit, that the letter which was sent to the holy Apostle John, then in exile on Patmos, is the genuine work of Dionysius and written in a prophetic spirit, in which he says that he would soon return from exile and that he would commune with him at that time (which could not have taken place unless Domitian were dead and Nerva or Trajan were emperor), then it can by no means be said that Dionysius died under Domitian. Furthermore, the cause of the error was provided by the ancient writings of the saints which were once handed down to posterity without certain marks of time or emperors (as indeed most are, even today). Later writers, however, not having examined affairs sufficiently precisely, followed conjectures, as they believed, and added the names of emperors and persecutions, and sometimes hallucinated.

(70) There are some who have referred the martyrdom of Dionysius to the times of Trajan... In the Greek, Michael Syncellus, and Suidas, and among the Latins certain Martyrologies, and specifically that which was edited by the order of Gregory XIII. Which holds thus: on the 7th of the Ides of October: "At Lutetia of the Parisians, the birthday of the holy martyrs Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop, Rusticus the presbyter, and Eleutherius the deacon: of whom Dionysius, instructed by the Apostle Paul, believed in Christ and was baptized by him, and was ordained the first bishop of the Athenians; then coming to Rome, he was directed by the blessed Pope Clement of Rome into Gaul for the sake of preaching; and arriving at the aforementioned city, when he had faithfully followed the work committed to him there for some years, he finally completed his martyrdom, having been struck down by the sword along with his companions by the prefect Fescenninus, under the Emperor Trajan, after most severe kinds of torments."

Syncellus's words are as follows: "Whence a swift rumor running everywhere sounded his most praised name in the ears of Trajan’s fiercest..." The Latin rendering is: Wherefore a swift fame, running everywhere, reached the ears of the most harsh Trajan with the most clear name (that is, of Dionysius), etc.

^A Suidas’s words are these: “The God-manifesting Dionysius, having already spent a long time and being full of days, is perfected by martyrdom for Christ under Emperor Trajan, when also the God-bearing Ignatius ran the race of immortality.” Therefore, the interpreter of God, Dionysius, already of very advanced age and full of spiritual days, is consumed by martyrdom for Christ under Emperor Trajan, when also the God-bearer Ignatius ran the race of immortality. It is, however, more probable that he died under Hadrian. And besides the arguments of Baronius, brought forward in the year of Christ one hundred and nine from various martyrologies and especially those of Ado and Bede, I bring forward two new ones: one from the old Roman Martyrology, which Baronius could not find for a long time, but which our Heribert Rosweyde found and published after his death; the other from Fl. Lucius Dexter, whose Chronicle was published only two years ago, after the death of the same Baronius.

Therefore, that old Roman Martyrology for the 7th of October is thus: “At Athens, of Dionysius the Areopagite who suffered various torments under Hadrian.” Where, to the word “Athens” is subjoined: “is celebrated the memory, or natal day,” as I taught above, and I evidently show in Question 11 against those who imagined that “Athens” must be connected with “suffered.” Whence also those who previously opposed me granted the point to me on this score. Flavius Dexter, moreover, in his Chronicle at the year of Christ 130, and at Rome 884, where he pursues the times of the Emperor Hadrian, writes that Saint Marcellus, bishop of the Toletans, had set out from Spain to the Gauls to Dionysius, and before he arrived in Paris, learned of his martyrdom, and celebrated it with a most elegant poem. Whence Franciscus Bivarius concludes that Dionysius not only suffered martyrdom under the Emperor Hadrian, but also lived 120 years. We admit the former as certain, but we do not admit the latter; because Dexter in his Chronicle (as we also indicated in the chapter above) does not proceed strictly year by year, but skips now two, now more, and writes that things happened sometimes not in this year or that, but “under these times,” or “about the same time,” as is clear from his text, and as Bivarius admits. For so, from the year of Christ 76, with the intermediate years omitted, he passes to 86: and from the year of Christ 112 he passes similarly to 115; therefore, I repeat, we do not admit the other, regarding Dionysius’s 120 years, as certain. ^B Indeed, the one which is commonly called the Old Roman Martyrology, whose words were produced a little earlier.

[It] has for October 3rd thus: “Natal day of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, who being instructed by the apostle Paul, believed in Christ, and was ordained the first bishop at Athens by the same Apostle, and under Prince Hadrian, after a most famous confession of faith, and after the most grave kinds of torments, is crowned with glorious martyrdom.” After which words these are added in Ado’s Martyrology, on the same day: “As Aristides the Athenian, a man admirable in faith and wisdom, is witness in that work which he composed concerning the Christian religion. This work is held in the highest regard among the Athenians, and is held as most illustrious among the monuments of the ancients, as the more learned of the Greeks affirm.” And to these, indeed, most similar things are now read in the old Roman one. Nor does it matter that again on the ninth day of the same month, as if of another, they join his martyrdom with the SS. Rusticus and Eleutherius. For how that might have happened, I have explained below in Question 11. ^C The Martyrologies, the Roman, that of the venerable Bede, of Usuard, of Ado, and of others, agree on the ninth day of October. Of which, Bede and Ado add to Sisinius. “By the prefect,” they say, “Fescenninus Sisinius.” ^D Sisinius is listed in the Alexandrian Chronicle among the consuls, in the reign of Hadrian, in olympiad 227, indiction 15, in the 27th year of Hadrian, so that it is very probable that this Sisinius, the consul, and our Fescenninus are one and the same (especially at such a concordant time).

There is added regarding Fescenninus another item of evidence from the Roman Martyrology for the 11th of October, which asserts that the holy Nicasius and his companions suffered in the village of Vilcassinus under the president Fescenninus. But this Nicasius, of whom there is talk here, was the first bishop of the Rothomagensians, who is also proclaimed to have been sent into the Gauls by Pope Clement. See Demochares in the catalog of the bishops of Rothomagus, lib. *De divino missæ sacrificio*, cap. 20, and Baronius’s Annotations to the Roman Martyrology for the said day. Wherefore, if the times of Fescenninus coincide with the times of Saint Nicasius, the apostle of the Rothomagensians, and Nicasius lived in the age of Pope Clement and was sent by him into the Gauls, nothing appears closer to the truth than that both, Dionysius as well as Nicasius, suffered martyrdom in the same storm and under the same emperor and the same prefect; especially since the Martyrologies and sacred Histories sound nothing at all about any other prefect or president of the same name in later centuries (which we have sought out quite diligently). Add to this the authority of Franciscus Fevardentius, a man of exceedingly great learning, who, regarding the first disciples of the apostles distributed into the various parts of the Gauls, notes in his commentary on the first book of Saint Irenæus, bishop of Lyons, cap. 3, not. 3, that he mentions him briefly; where, having listed many others, at the end he adds these: “To the above, he says, the blessed Clement had also joined Nicasius, Taurinus, and Exuperius: whom the Rothomagensians, Ebroicenses, and Bajocenses received with great alacrity as apostles and pastors.”

As far as Exuperius is concerned (for of the others what could be said has been said, partly here, partly above), Robertus Cenalis, bishop of Arboric, in lib. 2 *De re Gallica*, perioche 4, while he describes the field of Beloncassinus (so he calls it, which others call Vilcassinum or Velocassinum, whose principal city is Bajoca), lists eleven bishops of that same city inscribed in the number of saints, in which list he begins thus: “Exuperius, apostle of the whole region, disciple of D. Clement.” And a little further down, regarding his age, he adds thus: “D. Exuperius discharged the apostolic office in the ninety-fourth year after the salvation brought [to us], having used as a colleague D. Reverentius.” ^D Lest anyone, however, slander the age of our Nicasius and wish to push him back to later times, because he reads that some Nicasius was struck down for the faith around the Vandal persecution, let him know that he was not the bishop of Rothomagus, but of Reims, and that he was posterior to ours by almost three hundred years. For our own [Nicasius], sent into the Gauls by Saint Clement, is also mentioned in the Chronology of the Archbishops of Rothomagus, the posthumous work of Joannes Dadraeus, where also the verses of Vitalis regarding him are cited: *Antistes Rothomæ datus a Clemente, Nicasi,* *Si non sedisti, caput at legando stetisti.* By which it is indicated that he did not reach his episcopal see, but having been killed on the way, left his head for them, and through that, as if through a principal part of his body, he came to be established at Rothomagus. This age is inferred from the fact that it was proven above that Dionysius died during the reign of Hadrian, the beginnings of whose empire fell in the year of Christ 119 according to the reckoning of Eusebius, and consequently Dionysius’s [death] in 110, or somewhat more. For Christ the Lord did not precede Dionysius by a full nine years: since in the year of Christ 33 Dionysius was twenty-five years old. Much, furthermore, do Michael Syngelus and Nicephorus Callistus favor this opinion concerning the long-lived or even longer age of Dionysius: the latter indeed lib.

^A *Historia eccles.*, cap. 20, while he writes that he had been many years in the West and had reached ‹ad profundam senectutem›, to profound old age. But that is called profound old age, to which very few attain, and which is also wont to be called extreme, because he who is in the extreme has nowhere further to reach. Michael Syngelus, indeed, speaks thus in the final *Encomium* of Dionysius, among other things: [Greek text omitted]. Thus he, a man most experienced in divine contests, and having entered into a profound and fruitful old age, leaping forward to the most blessed death for Christ, etc. But the same author speaks more clearly and expressively when he says that Dionysius spent seventy years in the apostolic course or the preaching of the Gospel. If to these you add 40 years before his conversion to Christ (for there were at least that many), you will find the total years of his life to be one hundred and ten.

Wherefore it must be observed that Baronius, in volume XI of his *Annales*, in the year of Christ 119, fell into an error in the censure of Syngelus, when he thought that he was counting only seventy years of the life of Saint Dionysius. For Syngelus does not do this at all, nor do the Gentiles. For how could he do so, when he writes that he attained to the extreme of Trajan’s persecution! Truly, omitting the years of his life, he deals only with the years which he spent in the Christian life and his apostolic course, as he himself calls it. Which, that it may be more certain, shall be proven from the words of Syngelus himself, in two places. The prior place in the *Encomium* of Dionysius is as follows: [Greek text omitted]. Therefore the blessed—and thrice and four times blessed—Dionysius, having passed his seventy years through a thousand reproaches and temptations and wars and perils, both from his own countrymen and those of the same religion at times, and at the same time educated philosophers, or rather fools, etc. Which words Baronius took to refer to the years of his life, although the words do not sound so, but rather suggest the contrary, namely the time which he spent in the service of Christ amidst many reproaches, perils, and adversities. Which is clearly confirmed by the words following shortly after, where he says that Dionysius had completed a double course of Saint Paul: ^B [Greek text omitted]. For he who runs double his course, which Paul, having experienced many contests and having been carried up even to the heavens, ran. But Saint John Chrysostom in his *Homily on the Princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul*, writes that the course and contest of Saint Paul had been of 35 years: to which if you add another 35, you will make exactly 70, that is, the double course of Dionysius, for so many years of labors does Syngelus attribute to him, as will now be seen. The other place, therefore, in the same *Encomium*, toward the end, is of this sort: [Greek text omitted]; Who, therefore, would not worthily admire him who has walked the apostolic path for seventy years, and has preached Christ the Savior? If Baronius had attended to this place, and at the same time had weighed more accurately the double course, never, I opine, would he have said that he seemed to himself to have hallucinated; Michael Syngelus, nay, he would have eagerly claimed him for his own opinion (since it makes greatly for it), just as he also claimed that by which Syngelus wrote that Dionysius had reached the extreme times of Trajan, or, as it is elsewhere in the Greek, [Greek text omitted], at the end of the persecuting tyranny. But the persecution continued even after Trajan himself, nor did his successor Hadrian, at the beginning of his reign, extinguish or repress it, but rather rekindled and relaxed it. For I agree with Baronius writing these things about him: « Far from it that he should suppress the persecution against Christians already stirred up by Trajan at Rome, so that he instituted it more sharply and bitterly. » And below: « Hadrian, therefore, upon his own entry into the empire, although he showed himself an excellent prince toward all those subject to the Roman empire, yet toward the Christians he showed himself a Phalaris. » ^C Whence two opinions concerning the time of martyrdom can be reconciled thus, so that Dionysius may be said to have fallen under Hadrian, and to have been in the persecution of Trajan, namely, begun by Trajan and promoted by Hadrian.

(75) [original-script column: see facsimile] [alt-version omitted] ^D (76) *Dionysii martyris truncus*, etc. Simeon Metaphrastes: [Greek text omitted]. He carried his head, therefore, in his hands, as if it were some trophy. The same is reported by Methodius: [Greek text omitted], etc. For indeed he received his head in his blessed hand, from his body, having been cut off by the sword by impious men. See more among them, and at length in Hilduin.

The same thing regarding the matter Hugo a S. Victore in lib. IV *De vanitate mundi*, near the end: « Dionysius the Areopagite, he says, having received the mandate, penetrated Gaul, and fighting that he might conquer, he prevailed to establish laws in the land. For he himself, that he might show the way of life, for the testimony of the truth, consecrated the word with his blood: and that death might not inherit life, in the dead he liv…

^A-ing, made a sign, and carried his head in his hands, put to death. » Thus he.

Nor should the piety and faith of Caelius Rhodiginus regarding the same miracle be passed over in silence in this place. In Book I of his *Lectiones Antiquae*, he mentions it thus: « The most renowned assertors of Christian truth write that Dionysius the Areopagite, crowned by martyrdom, after his head had been severed from him, proceeded for some time, carrying his own head. I know that philosophers will laugh at this as a statement lacking in consistent truth, but we wish to ascribe it to the infinite power of Christ the Savior, most truthfully and most sincerely. » Thus he.

Many other martyrs are also reported to have carried their heads in the same way, and among the first, under Nero himself, suffered martyrdom Saint Ursicinus, a physician: whose holy corpse, it is said in the records of many (as Jerome Rubeus writes in Book I *De gestis Ravennarum*), raised itself from the ground, and having grasped its head with both hands, brought it to the place where it was to be committed to burial. Some even add that three palm branches sprouted from his neck. Concerning Saint Jona, a disciple of Dionysius, I noted this in chapter 21 of the *Life*. Regarding Saint Lambert, a farmer who suffered martyrdom in Caesaraugusta in Spain, Flavius Lucius Dexter testifies to the year of Christ 300, and at Rome 1051, when treating of the martyrs of Caesaraugusta: « Item, » he says, « in the same place Saint Lambert, who, carrying his severed head in his hands, was associated with the number of the holy martyrs under the guidance of an angel. » Thus there. This Lambert was a farmer, a servant of a certain infidel, by whom he was accused, and for the sake of the faith, in the very field where he was driving the plowing oxen, he was beheaded; he took up that head in his hands and carried it as far as the sepulchers of the other martyrs, and there he pronounced that verse of the psalm: *The saints shall exult in glory*, to which the other martyrs answered: *They shall rejoice in their beds*. See Vasaeus in his *Chronicon*, and the *Flos Sanctorum* of Spain.

^C Concerning Saint Eliphius, who suffered martyrdom under Julian the Apostate, Rupert of Deutz writes thus in his *Life*, chapter 12: « For the body of the martyr raised itself through the power of Christ, and having embraced its head with both hands, carried it for one mile, with angels surely accompanying it and praising Christ. Then he went up onto the mountain itself, and there finding a stone of white color, flat in its position, he sat upon it; and forthwith the hardness of the stone yielded obligingly to the pious martyr. For, like wax well-softened, it opened its bosom to the one sitting upon it, and provided a concave seat, memorable to subsequent ages. Whence that mountain is still called the mountain of Saint Eliphius. » Thus Rupert.

Concerning Saint Oriculus, who suffered martyrdom in the Vandal persecution, who washed his severed head in a fountain and carried it to the sepulcher which he had prepared for himself, see Flodoard, Book I of the *History of Rheims*, chapter 8.

Concerning Severinus Boethius, the illustrious writer, Julianus Martianus says in his *Life*: « The inhabitants of Ticinum always consistently maintain, as handed down by their ancestors, that Severinus, when the king's executioner had inflicted the lethal wound, sustained his severed head with both hands, and being questioned as to by whom he thought he was struck, answered: By the impious: and thus, when he had come into a neighboring temple and, having bent his knees before the altar, had received the sacraments, he expired shortly after. Extinguished, he obtained divine honors from our people, because he endured death for the Catholics against the perfidy of Arius. » Thus he. He was put to death, however, by the Arian King Theodoric in the year of our Lord 526. His prison and sepulcher are to be seen at Ticinum in the church of Saint Augustine. Note that by "divine honors" is understood those that are sacred and religious, such as are exhibited to martyrs, but not those which are for God.

^D Regarding Saint Laurianus, Archbishop of Seville, so writes Lucius Marineus Siculus, Book V *De rebus Hispaniae*, before the middle: « But soon, being warned by the same angel that he should return to Spain, because he had to suffer martyrdom for the faith of Christ, upon returning, he was beheaded on his journey by the satellites of King Totila. Which severed head he indeed received in his own hands. Which, when the satellites had seen, terrified with fear, they were converted to the faith of Christ, and having been anointed with the oil of baptism, they carried the head of Laurianus weeping to Seville. And when they had related everything they had seen to the king, the king also assumed the name of Christ, and commanded that temples for this saint and for others be built. » Thus there. Concerning the same Saint Laurianus, Joannes Vasaeus treats in his *Chronicon* to the year of our Lord 544, in which year these things are believed to have happened.

Concerning Saint Proculus of Bologna, Sigonius, Book I of the *History of Bologna*. Concerning Saint Justinus, a nine-year-old boy, under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, the venerable Bede, Vol. I, and from him Surius, Vol. V of the *Lives of the Saints*, have handed down the same miracle. Add to these Saint Theocnistus and his fellow martyrs, Saint Justinianus the monk, Saint Decuman the hermit, Saint Offitha the virgin and martyr, and others. Regarding these martyrs indeed, and especially regarding Saint Dionysius and his companions, let it be permitted to me to usurp those golden words of Saint John Chrysostom, and to excite the piety of the Franks with a similar exhortation: « Often, I say, let us visit them: let us adorn their tombs, and with great faith let us touch their relics: so that we may obtain some blessing therefrom. For just as soldiers, showing to the king the wounds inflicted upon them in battles, speak confidently, so also they, carrying their severed heads in their hands, and offering them in the midst, can obtain whatever they wish from the King of heaven. » Thus Chrysostom in his homily *Concerning the Holy Martyrs Juventinus and Maximus*, at the end.

(77) Catulla is the name, etc. Both Greek and Latin writers of the *Life of Saint Dionysius* mention it. They call her Κατούλλα. You will also find her commemoration in the *Menaea*.

(78) For the satellites, having received the meal, etc. Saint John Chrysostom writes that a similar stratagem was used by the father of the holy martyrs Berenice and Prosdoce, *Hom. 51, Ad populum Antiochenum*. For he, in order to make the course of martyrdom easier for his daughters, set a meal before the soldiers who were guarding them and plied them with wine in abundance. So while they were feasting and becoming drunk, the two virgins, with their mother assisting, threw themselves into the nearby river, and by a brief martyrdom redeemed the injuries and violence of the satellites with safe chastity. Saint Chrysostom praises them in an entire oration, and reports that they emigrated from the city of Hierapolis in Phrygia, where these things happened, to the truly sacred city, that is, to heaven.

(79) In honor of the woman, Catulliacus. Aimoin, Book IV of the *History of the Franks*, chapter 17, where, dealing with King Dagobert: « To the village, » he says, « which has the name Catulliacus, it is carried in course. In this little village was a small temple, which covered the bodies of the martyrs Dionysius and his companions. »

(80) They are the same. This is reported in the *Acts of Saint Regulus*, Bishop of Arles, in Vincent of Beauvais, Book X, chapter 28, and in Petrus Equilinus, Book IV, chapter 15, and Book IX, chapter 41, [and] in the *Acts of the Saints Dionysius and his companions*, and in others.

(81-82) Then, therefore, she herself also revealing herself as their disciple. This is hinted at in Vincent of Beauvais in the *Acts of Saint Regulus*, Book X of the *Speculum Historiale*, c. 21, where of the same Blessed Catulla it is said: « For she had been previously marked by the sign of the cross by Blessed Dionysius. » She is also indicated to have been a believer in Saint Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, part 1, tit. 6, cap. 28: « A certain noble matron, a believer, » he says, « fearing that the bodies of the saints might be [thrown] into the neighboring river... »

^A inspired, sought the counsel of great virtue, and having come to the banquet, asked for the destroyers of the holy bodies. It is probable that Catulla was only a catechumen at the martyrdom of Saint Dionysius and his companions, or indeed imbued only with the first rudiments of the faith without baptism, yet illuminated in this matter during her stay with Saint Regulus.

CAPUT XXI. The labors and fruits of the disciples of Saint Dionysius, and some of the salutary apparitions of the same martyr after his death.

As sons are to their parents, so are disciples to their masters in honor, praise, and glory, and they exist like a beautiful and sweet-smelling crown. Such were, to Dionysius (to omit Rusticus and Eleutherius, the first roses of that crown), those distinguished leaders of the Churches, Saint Jon (whom we find called now Jonas, now Jonius), Sanctinus, Antoninus, Taurinus, Regulus, Eugenius, and many others; but it would be a long task to name them all; it is necessary not to have omitted the principal ones. These men, therefore, after the departure of their father, truly bore paternal spirits, and each one was solicitous for himself, that, having added the inheritance of paternal virtues, he might render his own vineyard, with a certain holy emulation, as cultivated as possible through the grace of God and his own labor. Jon, indeed, a priest who had first crossed from Athens to Rome with Dionysius, and then from Rome to Gaul with the same, fulfilled the duties of his priesthood with exactitude, both while his master was alive and after he had departed this life, and he dispersed the seed of the Gospel especially in the Castresian field ^B with the sweet odor of his virtues and the fragrance of a temperate spirit; for he was accustomed to sustain his life with water alone and herbs, and during the time of the forty-day fast, he would take food only twice in those weeks. Admiring the fortitude of his master, and inflamed with a great desire to imitate him, he threw himself into equal contests, and having brought the first of the Gentiles under the yoke of Christ, he triumphed by ascending the chariot of martyrdom. For, having been seized not far from Lutetia, and killed for the sake of the title of the faith, he represented the trophy and triumph of his master even in this, that he received his own head, refreshed from his neck, in his palms, and carried it to a mountain about a league distant, where he was also buried. The honor was added to the place, so that it might be called the mountain of Saint Jon. The Martyrologies ascribe his natal day to the tenth of the Kalends of October with such an eulogy: « At the village of the Castrenses, [the day of] Saint Jon, priest and martyr, who, having set out for Gaul with Saint Dionysius, was beaten with rods by order of the prefect Julian, and finished his martyrdom by the sword. »

Let us join to Saint Jon the blessed Sanctinus, bishop of Meaux, since he is found associated with the same day in the same tables of the Church, in these words: « At the city of Meaux, the blessed Sanctinus, bishop, ^C disciple of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite: who was consecrated bishop of the same city by him, and was the first to preach the Gospel there. » This is he who witnessed the contest of his master Dionysius along with Antoninus, wrote it down, and brought it to the pontiff; and finally, having returned to his own people, and being famous for his life and miracles, after leaving Antoninus as his successor, he happily migrated [to the Lord] after many gains in souls. And Antoninus himself followed him to heaven along the same path of virtues, and with equal success and outcome.

Now, truly, Taurinus, bishop of Évreux, of whom I have already spoken somewhat above, after the departure of the holy Father from the earth, applied himself all the more zealously in every direction, because the Church, bereaved of such a parent, demanded greater care from his successors. He was endowed with a power of wonders that was clearly admirable for inducing and confirming the faith. For on one and the same day, among other things, he obtained the faculty of speech for four mute men, and the power of sight for eight blind men, and restored life to one. Indeed, at another time, he exhibited the most foul demon, driven from a statue, to those who were worshiping the sacrificial deity Diana, to their great horror and detestation. Finally, having acquired a great number of people for God, both by exhortations, by healings, and by miracles, he passed over to Him as a victor.

But what of Regulus, of whom some mention was made above; what can be said that is worthy of his virtues? For he always walked in the same spirit as his leader, always labored, and always fought until the end against impiety: nor [was he] without the present help and intervention of his leader himself, although emeritus, and although triumphing in heaven. For when, after the departure of Dionysius, he had set out for Silvanectum (a city between Lutetia and Noviodunum) for the purpose of propagating the faith, and was performing many miracles both along the journey and in the city itself for the sake of asserting the worship of the one God, destroying idols, casting out demons, and winning many mortals for Christ: the priests of the temples and shrines themselves, inflamed with excessive anger, approached Quintilianus, the prefect of that city; they accused the holy man of impiety and sacrilege: they demanded his blood as punishment, nor did he refuse to die; he had already risen, and was already going (for a new grief, the release of the Christians from prison by Regulus of his own volition, had inflamed the prefect's mind more vehemently) had not his Christian wife, long before cleansed of sins by Dionysius himself, retarded her husband's impulse with her prudence: and also had not Dionysius himself not only averted the punishment intended for his disciple, but also converted it into honor and joy. For while the prefect was anxiously deliberating in his mind ^D about the death of the most holy prelate, and the most benevolent God was arranging for the salvation of His servant with His customary piety, behold, Dionysius in the dead of the night, with two companions who were sharers of the palm, presented himself in a vision to the prefect and addressed him thus: « Quintilianus, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we profess to be His servants by a faithful profession, has sent us here for the sake of your salvation, that, having left the worship of demons, you may be converted to Him, and, having put aside your tyranny, you may subsequently exist as a worshiper of the Christian religion. Therefore, at first light, inquire for our brother Regulus, from whom, seeking pardon for your sins, do whatever he shall command, without any reluctance. » He, having awakened, narrated the dream and the vision to his wife, and described exactly the images of those who had appeared, and their age, form, and features. Then she: « Know, » she said, « my beloved, that these who have spoken to you are none other than the blessed Dionysius and his companions, who were beheaded at Lutetia by the prefect Fescenninus and obtained the palm of martyrdom. Wherefore you will do well for your own salvation if, just as you have been divinely warned by the same saints, you approach the holy pontiff and do whatever he himself shall command: lest, if you do otherwise, you incur the wrath of the omnipotent God of the Christians. » But to be brief. He obeyed the admonitions of his wife and the saints, and betook himself to the man of God, to receive commands, and to embrace the law of Christ together with all his house. Then, indeed, the pontiff, beholding both the prefect himself and almost the entire city converging toward his sacred rites, began to proceed with wondrous joys, and openly [to sing] the praises of Christ with his whole heart.

^A Thus, indeed, do holy men, even when translated from here to eternal realms, care for our affairs; thus do they keep watch over the Church, thus do they study the salvation of the Gentiles, thus do they amplify the honor of God. Therefore, it is entirely necessary that this Regulus should have been an excellent, indeed genuine disciple of Dionysius, whose pious pursuits his master so held in his heart, and so inspected from on high. And how near, good God, are the aids of the saints to the good! Especially those of them who were our fathers and pontiffs on earth; provided, however, that we press on in their footsteps, and as genuine sons be obedient to their commands, and implore their friendly aid with devout prayer. I will shortly come from Regulus to Eugenius, if I may first add but one thing about him; namely, how Regulus arrived at such a degree of virtue and dignity that he became a leader of the faith, and a king of sacred rites, and truly proved to be such and so great a man. For in the first flower of his youth he heard the blessed apostle John, looked up to him, and followed him; having been steeped in whose celestial and honeyed eloquence—being noble and wealthy—he put everything after Christ's poverty and evangelical doctrine. Thereafter, having set out for Athens, he clung to Dionysius, whom he accompanied first to Rome, and then to Gaul, as I mentioned before; and, what is much more, closely imitated him in character and toils.

Now concerning Eugenius ^B, and as his name truly sounds, a noble—yet not with that nobility which a foolish world receives from the fleeting stock of man, but with that true and solid [nobility] which a wise Christian receives from the hand of the Lord. He, therefore, when he had shown in the company and discipline of Dionysius the power of an intellect capable of great things, and had brilliantly fulfilled the office of his priesthood, was finally co-opted by him into the order of bishops and sent off into Spain: where he conducted affairs and governed the reins of the Toledan Church in such a way that the accession of that most noble province to the Christian law should deservedly be attributed to him above all others, as its first and most holy pontiff. After he had imbued an innumerable multitude of the unrefined people with the holy religion, feeling a desire to revisit his master at some point and to confer with him on sermons, he crossed into Gaul: but, alas, the grief! Where he hoped for no small pleasure of spirit from the discourse of his friend, there he drank in incredible grief of soul from the swift death of that same man. For before he had reached Paris, he understood that he had been slain. And so he mourned the dead man as a father, and praised him who was slain for the faith as a victor. ^C Nor did he either stop or turn back his journey; but, either loving to visit the grave or eager to be allotted a like fate, he continued his journey toward Lutetia: and he was already no more than four miles away, when he himself was intercepted by the enemies of the faith and killed. They threw his corpse into the pond of Marcus. There, for a very long time—nay, as not a few authors have handed down, for about two hundred years—it lay submerged. ^D Yet neither God’s providence in guarding it, nor Dionysius’s care in revealing it, was ever found wanting: and the hiding-places of the body for such a length of time proved its dignity. For it was found safe and sound after two centuries by an unwonted miracle. But common faith relates how it was found: Hercoldus, a noble and wealthy man, in the times of Constantine the Great, as they say, had a house and fields near that pond: but when he was suffering severely from his eyes, behold, S. Dionysius appeared to him by night in the form of a venerable old man, and with a joyful and cheerful face addressed him thus: "Hercold, brother, rise cured of your malady, and go to the neighboring pond, seek out the body of our fellow-disciple Eugenius there, and bury it honorably. For by his grace and merits, God is about to bestow great benefits upon this people." Hearing these things, Hercoldus awoke, and seeing himself sound, and marveling, he exulted with excessive joy, as much over the divine vision as over his restored sight. Nor was there any delay in his immediately seeking the pond, bringing out the body, and bestowing burial upon it. But this, by all accounts, appeared a truly marvelous and truly divine work, that it was found so whole and so fresh, as if it had been put to death that very day and not two hundred years before. When he had buried it most honorably on his own land, and later a shrine had been built over the sepulcher for the honor of the martyr, enormous miracles were performed there, and from then on, remarkable gatherings. Therefore, the land of Gaul—as a studious guardian of such precious pledges—retained the sacred body for many centuries and with great care: yet so that very pious and powerful men might entreat for and obtain some portion of the relics. For about the tenth century from the birth of Christ, that is, eight hundred and more years after the same blessed Eugenius had been adorned with the martyr’s laurel, Saint Gerard, abbot of Brogne, obtained by request some of his relics (for whose honor he had formerly built an oratory while a monk) from the monks of Saint Dionysius, who were preserving them in their monastery in Paris. At which time also the excellent Acts of the same martyr were recognized at the Council of Liège, and were then ordered to be read publicly every year: indeed, he himself who presided over that council, Stephen, bishop of Liège, a most holy man, added these things in honor of the same Eugenius: "By pontifical decree," he says, "it is established, and this holy synod, subscribing to it, assents, that throughout the deanery in which the holy martyr rests, his solemnity should be celebrated like the Lord’s Day, and the Church of Brognes should henceforth be immune from any tribute to be paid by duty to the Bishop of Liège." The same bishop also proposed an edict, that when the relics of the same holy Eugenius were being carried into the land of Liège and Namur, a dense and frequent throng should go out to meet them, and they should be brought with great joy into the place prepared for them. For Saint Gerard, having brought them from Paris, had deposited them for a while at Cuvin, which is a town of the same diocese bordering on Lorraine, and had sent to the prelate Stephen in the meantime, asking whether it pleased him that public honor should be paid to the relics of St. Eugenius? To whom he, as he was of a pleasant and perceptive nature, having heard the name of Eugenius, said: "By all means, so it must be done; and with a great Eugenius [noble-born], one must go to meet him with a great Euge [well done]." And so it was done. But more than two hundred years after this translation, that is, about the year of Christ one thousand one hundred and fifty-six, when Louis VII, king of France, was at Toledo, and mention of St. Eugenius had arisen, some part of his relics, namely the right arm, was obtained from him, though with difficulty. When these relics were being carried to Toledo by the abbot of Saint Dionysius, the legate of King Louis, Alphonso, king of Castile, called the Emperor, himself went out to meet them in the manner of a supplication, with his kingly sons, and nobles, and sacred orders, and a great crowd of people converging, and with he himself and his two kingly sons carrying it, the casket itself was brought into the great church with remarkable pomp and solemnity, in the year of salvation, as I have said, one thousand one hundred and fifty-six, on the day before the Ides of February. Nor did the Spanish piety cease, until it had obtained the certain bones of its patron which remained in Gaul, and transferred them into the Toledan Church—which the same man had first founded and established as pastor—as if into its own possession by the grant of the Gauls. Wherefore Philip II, king of the Spains, sent an embassy to Charles IX, king of France, to obtain them, and finally in the year of salvation fifteen hundred and sixty-five, that is, four hundred and nine years after the aforementioned translation of the right arm, he obtained them. Then, therefore, as much honor was paid to the same Eugenius by Spain, and by its king most especially, as can be paid by a mortal man. For besides the other pomp and incomparable apparatus of the translation, the Catholic king himself, ignited by incredible piety, took it as a great honor and pleasure to take on the burden, to put his shoulders beneath the bier, and to bring back the most holy bishop and most glorious martyr, as if a returnee after such a long interval, to his original Toledan seat. In which

act he clearly made manifest to the whole world how deeply Christian and ancestral piety was rooted in the royal heart and in those of such powerful lords and kingdoms. Moreover, the sacred and solemn memory of this martyr is read in the Roman Martyrology on the seventeenth of the Kalends of December as follows: "The birthday of Saint Eugenius, bishop of Toledo and martyr, a disciple of the blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, who, having finished his course of martyrdom in the Parisian territory, received the crown of blessed passion from the Lord. His body was afterwards translated to Toledo." For a more comprehensive description of this final translation, and also of the triumphal arches erected at that time, see William Eysengrein, Century 1, Part 1, Distinction 4, *De Hispanis pontificibus*. Thus far concerning a few of the excellent disciples of the blessed Dionysius: now let us turn our attention to some of the virtues shining forth in his own divine writings.

506 NOTATIONS

(83) *Mode Jonam*, etc. He is called Jonas in the Roman Martyrology on Sept. 22, and in the Chronicle of Flavius Dexter for the year of Christ 86, and elsewhere; but Jonius [is used] by Vincent of Beauvais, lib. x, cap. 25, and by Saint Antoninus in Part 1, Tit. vi, cap. 18, § 2, and in certain Martyrologies on the 5th of August. Truly, among the French, both formerly and now, he is called Jon, with a mountain of the same name, in which way also [in] Peter Equilinus, lib. *Catalogi sanctorum* VII, cap. 106, and by Doctor Bucher of the Sorbonne, in his epistle concerning the genuine episcopate of Dionysius and his genuine books, dedicated to Petrus Lansselius.

(84) *In agro Castresio*. The Gauls in their own language call it Chastres sous Montlehery. Equilinus also calls it Castresium in the place cited. Some say "Castrensium," but then it is a genitive plural. Franciscus Bivarius thinks that the field of Castres, or the village of the Castrensians, is the same as Castra Cæcilia in Lusitania. See him in his Commentary on the Chronicon of Dexter for the year of Christ 86, number 12, and the year 130, num. 4. We have treated Jone or Jonas also above at cap. x.

(85) *Martyrol. Rom. 22 Sept.*

(86) *Apud civitatem Meldensem*. The name of the city is Melda, in French Meaux. It is an episcopal city, midway between Lutetia of the Parisians (from which it is distant ten miles [passuum]) and the castle of Theodoric. It had many holy bishops, the first of whom was the Blessed Sanctinus, who is discussed here; the second was Saint Antoninus, companion and successor of Sanctinus: both are honored on the 22nd of September. For others, see Philippus Ferrarius in his *Nova topographia*.

(87) *Beati Sanctini episcopi*. I treated him above in cap. xv and xvi. But that he wrote the martyrdom of Saint Dionysius his master is in the Acts of Sanctinus himself apud Vincent of Beauvais, *Speculum historiale*, cap. 22. But an error customary in time (as we have often said, and have brought forward the cause of the error elsewhere) must be corrected in him, in that he attributes to Domitian what pertains to Hadrian. For we have proven that Saint Dionysius suffered martyrdom in the reign of Hadrian.

(88) *Martyrol. Rom. 22 Sept.*

(89) *Nam una eademque die*. The Acts of Saint Taurinus apud Vincent of Beauvais, lib. x, cap. 34, [state that] he raised Eufrasia, the daughter of Lucius, and that on that very day one hundred and twenty people were baptized by him, eight blind men were illuminated, four mutes were healed, and other virtues not insignificant were performed.

(90) *Nunc de Eugenio*, etc. We have pondered some things about him in quest. 3 below, where we discussed whether Eugenius and Marcellus are the same: and, granting they are the same, whether that Eugenius is also that Timotheus to whom Dionysius the Areopagite sent his books, and to whom he dedicated them. See there.

(91) *Revisendi aliquando magistri*, etc. That Eugenius [came] into Gaul from Spain, for the sake of revisiting Dionysius and conferring with him, we have the authority of the Gothic Breviary, which see above cap. xi. See also Johannes Mariana, lib. IV *De rebus Hispaniæ*, cap. 4, where among other things: "With the zeal of visiting Dionysius, he says, he penetrated into inner Gaul, when, having been seized by the satellites of the prefect Sisinnios, he was killed on the spot. His body..." ^A in Marca's *lacum* conjecture. Gallia, finally imbued with the sacred things of Christ, Hercoldus, a leading man, at divine instruction worshipped in the village of Dioluin, near the lake, in a temple dedicated in his name. See also L. Marineus Siculus, lib. V *De rebus Hispaniæ*.

(92) *Et pro fide occisum laudavit, ut victorem*. Flavius Dexter is the witness for the year of Christ 130, that the martyrdom of Saint Dionysius was celebrated by Eugenius in a most elegant (for so he says) poem. Hilduinus the abbot also, in his Epistle to Louis the Pious, always August, testifies that Saint Eugenius of Toledo wrote a hymn about the blessed Dionysius. "Nor can anyone wonder," he says, "since we have the hymn of S. Eugenius of Toledo about Blessed Dionysius, and, excepting a few, we seem to lack the writings of neighboring sages."

We bring forward here this hymn, taken from the sacred archives of the Dionysian monastery. It is thus:

Citizens of heaven, applaud The world's joyous light, By which, from heaven, the grace Of this day is brightened. The martyr's exalted faith And the life of the holy bishop, The noble Dionysius, Have today received the palm. The Church in the Areopagus Received the celestial King's Diadem, a shining gem, Dionysius the philosopher. With Paul teaching, the faith Has a mirror for the faithful And a sting for the heathen, Whom it had known before as a wall. Shining with a wondrous dogma, He illuminated Greece: And hence, a renowned pontiff, He then approached the city of Rome. When Pope Clement of Rome Ordered it, he came to Gaul: To whom the beam of the radiant sun Shone with signs, by the Spirit. At last, with the demon repelled, With the sacred work constructed, Affected by maximum torments, With severed neck he reached heaven. Hail, Father, ascending the pole; Hail, pious one, visiting the ground: Hallowing the annual gifts Of the feast with your presence. Offer, most good priest, Our groans and prayers: Strengthen the faith, Martyr of God, And correct our ways. Govern the fragile with help, In the sea of this world, And receive graciously, pious one, Those stripped of the body. That without end we may sing Glory to God the Father with the Son, Together with the Holy Spirit, With you forever. Amen.

Moreover, Eugenius wrote that hymn upon hearing the news of the martyrdom on his journey, before he had arrived at the place of the sepulcher. For he was killed on the road itself, indeed by the prefect Sisinnios, as Mariana hints a little above, that is, by the same one by whom Saint Dionysius [was killed], for there was no great interval between the one and the other.

L. Marineus Siculus, in the place cited above: "After he had visited master Dionysius," he says, "when he had begun his journey, having been seized by the heathens, and having been recognized as to who he was by his confession of faith, with the sword opening the path by which his master had already preceded him thither, he enters heaven crowned."

Thus wrote Vaseus in his *Chronicon* to the year of the Lord 97, Thomas de Trugillo in Volume II of his *Thesaurus*, at November 15, and Franciscus Bivarius in his *Commentary on Dexter*, in the year of Christ 130, and others. The words of Thomas are: "There, therefore, he remained for two hundred years, until at length, in the time of the Emperor Constantine, a revelation occurred to a certain Christian knight; he was called Hercoldus, etc." And Bivarius: "How, tending toward the Gauls, he obtained the martyr's laurel, and was cast into the lake of Marcasium, and thence, by a revelation made to the noble man Hercoldus by St. Dionysius, with a signal miracle of healing miraculously granted to him, having been recently drawn out after two hundred years of watery hiding, he was held in worthy honor, etc." To these seems to accede the already praised Mariana, when he indicates that the body was found at last when Gaul was popularly imbued with the sacred rites of Christ. However, this does not seem to have happened before the time of Constantine. For this man was the first to cause entire peoples to run to Christ, and to be popularly imbued with the sacred rites of Christ. To this opinion also favors the Gothic Toletan Breviary in the hymn concerning Saint Eugenius, where these things are said concerning his martyrdom, and the immersion of his body in that lake, and its endurance, and revelation:

He desires the Father, pursues his vow: He had already drawn near, the enemy grows angry: The holy man is seized, whom the sword violates, Severing the head from the body. In a nearby lake the body is submerged, Fresh, as it is sent, it remains for a very long Time under the water, the body. Hercoldus suffers, whom the vision of God Thereupon addresses concerning Dionysius: At the price of salvation, the saint is redeemed To be placed with worthy honor. ^A

[(94)] Around the tenth century after the birth of Christ. There is talk here of the translation of some relics of St. Eugenius to the monastery of Brogne, situated in the diocese of Liège. Mention of this translation is found not only in the *Life of St. Gerard, Abbot of Brogne*, but also in Aegidius of Liège, a religious of Aurea-Vallis. See the *Gesta pontificum Tungrensium seu Leodiensium* in the first volume, where Anselm follows the matters of Bishop Stephen. There, therefore, Aegidius in his *Additions to Anselm* writes thus concerning Abbot Gerard: "Also through the aforementioned Gerard, the body of St. Eugenius, bishop and martyr of the city of Toledo, was translated to the bishopric of Liège. Which Blessed Eugenius was a disciple of the apostles, and was ordained bishop of the city of Toledo by Blessed Dionysius. He suffered martyrdom under the prefect Fescenninus, on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of December, under whom also Blessed Dionysius suffered." This was the first translation, which Molanus and Baronius also acknowledge in their *Annotations to the Martyrologies*, at November 15, and Joannes Mariana in book X of *De rebus Hispaniae*, chapter 20. [(95)] Who presided over that council, Stephen, Bishop of Liège. He was the thirty-ninth in the line of the bishops of Liège, and began his pontificate in the year of Christ 903, that is, at the beginning of the tenth century. To which year Sigebert thus speaks in his *Chronicon*: "With Francone, bishop of Liège, dead, Stephen is subrogated as bishop, a man famous for sanctity and learning, who edited the life and passion of St. Lambert, martyr, to Archbishop Hermann more urbanely. He also composed a night chant concerning the same martyr, and a chant concerning the Holy Trinity, and concerning the discovery of Stephen the protomartyr, with sweet and regular modulation." Concerning the miracle of St. Eugenius in the healing of the same Bishop Stephen, see Aegidius in the place cited above.

It should be noted furthermore in this translation, although the body is said by Aegidius to have been translated, it is by no means to be understood of the whole body, but only of some portion of the body. For this is a very frequent synecdoche (when one deals with the relics of saints) of the part for the whole. Whence also that error and the contention not rarely arise, by which several cities fight that they have the body of some saint, when each has only a part. ^B

[(96)] In the year 1156, it goes further. This is the second translation of the relics of St. Eugenius, which was done in the year of the Lord 1156, in the time of Louis VII, King of Gaul, when Alphonsus, King of Castile, obtained the right arm of St. Eugenius from him. This second translation Molanus and Baronius passed over in their *Annotations to the Martyrologies* either by forgetfulness or ignorance, and that which was the third, they made [to be] the second, as will soon be seen. Of this, however, which we place as second, almost all writers of the history of Spain have made mention, in [the life of] Alphonsus, or in the *Life* of Eugenius. Most briefly Joannes Mariana in book V of *De rebus Hispaniae*, chapter 4, in these words: "By Alphonsus, King of Castile, who is called emperor, his arm was first brought to Toledo, with Louis VII, King of Gaul, conceding it, for the sake of the king's father-in-law, and [for the sake of] Raymond of Toledo, the prelate. For at the time he was hastening to the convention of bishops at Reims, Eugenius III being Roman Pontiff, he had investigated the whole matter, which had been obliterated from the memory of the Spaniards, while present." But more fully in book XI, chapter 3. The same second translation has been described in Spanish in the *Life of St. Eugenius*, by Alphonsus de Villegas in *Flos sanctorum*, and Peter Ribadeneira in *Vitis extravagantibus*. See also copiously in Thomas de Trugillo in the *Thesaurus concionatorum*, Volume II. ^C

[(97)] Joannes Mariana book IV of *De rebus Hispaniae*, chapter 4. [(98)] But neither did Spanish piety cease, etc. There is described the third translation of the same holy relics of Blessed Eugenius, or of the whole remaining body, as much indeed as was at Paris at that time. It was done, however, at the request of Philip II, King of the Spains, chapter XXI. Almost all writers have mentioned this much more noble translation, both Spaniards and foreigners. Of the Spaniards, indeed, by name all those whom I have just praised, and very many others: of the others, Molanus and Baronius in the places previously cited here, having hallucinated in this alone, that they called the second, as I have said, instead of the third. ^D

CHAPTER XXII. Some virtues of St. Dionysius selected from his own writings, and first, piety.

Since the Areopagite himself, and then truly St. Paul and St. Clement, have stood as most ample witnesses of the other virtues of St. Dionysius. For neither would the Areopagite have added him to his council, nor would these princes of the Church have added him to the apostolic office, had he not been flourishing in all virtues. But some of these virtues shone more illustriously in the way of life he undertook, [and] some in his immortal writings. For, to pass over other things, that having voluntarily put aside the Athenian bishopric, which he had received from the apostles, and having traveled through many regions in sowing the seed of the Gospel, he arrived in Italy: that from Italy [he went] into Gaul, that is

^A into land at that time sufficiently uncultivated and barbarous, he went voluntarily: that, finally, he endured many and most diverse torments, not only with an unbroken spirit, but even with a joyful one, and encouraged others to endure the same with equal virtue; these, I say, truly heroic virtues, the series of his life itself contains. But there are also some others, which are plucked like sweet-smelling flowers from a green meadow out of his very writings, and spread a certain fragrance to pious souls; and these are three in number, especially, which it would be of great advantage to all who set themselves to write books to have imprinted within their souls no less than expressed in their writings. These are piety, modesty, and gentleness. Piety, indeed, in invoking God and the saints to provide aid in writing; modesty, however, in not contemning the writings of any, especially of the ancients and elders, but rather in augmenting and defending their dignity and authority, instead of despising or disparaging them; and finally, gentleness, to be shown not only in writings, but in all actions—both one's own, and in bearing or refuting those of others. These virtues shone forth in the monuments of Blessed Dionysius if in anyone else’s, surely most excellently. And let piety be examined first: "Piety is useful for all things," says Paul (s).

Piety, indeed, in all of his books that now exist, offers itself like certain votive first-fruits, at the very beginning and as it were at the first threshold. For since, besides his Epistles, which excellently breathe this virtue, there are four books: one, *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, another, *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, the third, *On the Divine Names*, and the fourth, *On the Mystical Theology*; in the beginnings of each of these, piety toward God presents itself to all readers with a most religious countenance. ^B For the first of those books begins thus, with the words of Saint James and the invocation of Jesus: "Every good datum and every perfect gift is from above, descending from the Father of lights (t)." Indeed, even the entire benign procession of illumination flowing from the Father, emanating towards us in bounty, again, as a certain binding force, dilates us, exciting us, and converts us to the unity of the Father himself who gathers all things, and to his deifying simplicity. "Since from him and in him are all things," as the sacred Oracles say (u). Wherefore, having invoked Jesus, he says, "who is the light of the Father, the existing light, the true light which illuminates every man coming into this world (v): through whom access to the Father, the author of light, was opened to us; let us, as far as it is possible, look to the illuminations of the most holy Scriptures handed down by the Fathers: and let us, according to our strength, contemplate the hierarchies of the celestial minds which they expressed by certain rather obscure signs." So it is there. Now, however, in chapter 1 of the same book, before he proceeds to say what hierarchy is: "But let," he says, "the guide and director of this discourse be Christ, if it is permissible for me to say, mine, who is the most perfect inspirer of the whole exposition of the hierarchy."

Next, the second book, which is *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, towards the beginning of the first chapter, thus professes piety: "Now, however, I shall attempt to express our hierarchy, and its principle and nature, as much as my manhood allows, if I have first invoked Jesus, who is the beginning and perfection of all hierarchies," and in chapter 3 of the same book, when he deals with the sacrament of the venerable Eucharist, he thus asks Him to be propitious to him: "But, O you," he says, "most divinely and sacrosanct sacrament, loosening the veils of enigmas cast symbolically about you, show yourself clearly to us, and flood the eyes of our mind with a singular and uncovered light." Now, in the first book which is *On the Divine Names*, chapter 1, he writes: "But let God grant to me," he says, "that I may celebrate with praises, according to its dignity, the beneficent and various appellations of the Divinity, which can neither be called upon nor named, and that He may not take the word of truth from my mouth." But in the chapter of the same book, he explains not only his piety, already sufficiently attested elsewhere, but also the power of pious prayers, by three excellent similitudes, with which it is right that the reader should be rewarded here. Thus, therefore, he has: "And first," he says, "if it seems good, let us consider the appellation of the perfect and interpretative ^C progression of all God's works, with the Trinity invoked, which is the fountain of good, and surpasses all good, and which sets forth all its own best providence. For by prayers we must first be led to Him as the principle of good: and when we have approached nearer to Him, then let us be taught the gifts that are truly best, which are situated in Him. For He himself is present to all things, yet not all things are present to Him; but when we invoke Him with pure prayers, and a mind imperturbable, and a soul fitted for divine conjunction, then at length we are present to Him. For He is not in a place in such a way that He is absent from one or moves from some things to others. Indeed, if we should say that He is in all things, we should still say less than His infinity demands, which both exceeds and comprehends all things. Therefore, let us extend ourselves through prayers to the sublimer gazes of the divine and beneficent rays. For just as if we should grasp with alternating hands a most brilliant chain hanging from the heights of heaven and reaching down hither, we shall indeed seem to pull it, but in reality, we shall not pull it, since it exists both above and below at the same time, but we shall rather lift ourselves up to the higher brightnesses of the scintillating rays. Or just as if, having entered a ship, we should hold the ropes extended from a rock to us for the sake of help, we shall not pull the rock to us, but rather ourselves and the ship to the rock. Or, finally, just as if someone standing in a boat should push off from a sea-rock, he will surely accomplish nothing against the fixed and immovable rock, but will rather sever himself from it, and will be repelled from it all the more, the more he pushes against it. Wherefore, before we do or say anything, especially that which looks towards God, we must begin with prayers, not that we might attract that power which is present everywhere at once and nowhere, but that by the memory and invocation of God we might draw and couple ourselves to Him." Thus, truly, that most wise man instructed us how the way to God and to celestial things is prepared, and how souls are raised and lifted up from the earth to heaven, like certain chains. Finally, at the beginning of the book *On the Mystical Theology*, the same piety presents itself as at the first threshold: "O Trinity," he says, "superior in essence, in divinity, in goodness, guide of the divine wisdom of the Christians, direct us to the most unknown and most luminous and most excellent summit of mystical oracles, where the simple and absolute and immutable mysteries of theology lie hidden, covered by the ^D prefulgent darkness of a secrecy that is becoming to the silence, which, indeed, where it is seen to be most obscure, there brings forth light exuberant beyond measure, and in that which cannot be touched or seen by all, it fills minds, which have no eyes, with most beautiful splendors." So he. Regarding such prayer, Marsilius Ficinus (99), a man great in philosophy, and in his own age easily the prince, says: "Dionysius the Areopagite, the summit of Platonic discipline and the column of Christian theology, seeking divine light, does not search so much by intelligence as he seeks with the ardent affection of his will and prayer. For since he had learned from Paul, the sun of the world, Plato also confirming it, that the very principle of the universe is superior to any intellect, however excellent: therefore, not by some effort of the intelligence is it to be compared, but in a soul wholly dedicated to God by love, God is to be ignited, and there to shine in that ardor." These from Marsilius. Now, because it is true that modesty is to be associated and adhered to piety toward God, let us turn our eyes to this for a while.

(s) 1 Tim. iv, 8. (t) Jac. 1, 17. (u) Rom. xi, 36. (v) Joan. 1, 9. (99) Marsilius Ficinus, Comment. in Dionysium, c. 3 De divinis nominibus.

CHAPTER XXIII. Dionysius's modesty or submissiveness of mind.

Another quality which shines forth in Dionysius's writings with a pleasant appearance and a demeanor as if bashful, and which therefore should be deservedly cherished by all writers and kept always in one's bosom, is modesty—like a faithful companion and intimate confidant of piety. This modesty, in the estimation of talent and judgment (which in men is wont to be most haughty), is no less lovingly and strictly embraced by the great Areopagite than it is in other matters. This can be gathered not only from other places, but especially from three works: one, ^A *On the Celestial Hierarchy*; another, *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*; and the third, *On the Divine Names*.

For in the first of these books, after he had set forth his opinion regarding the question of why the prophet Isaiah is said to have been purified by the seraphim, he candidly admitted that he had learned it from another, and that he would willingly change it if a better explanation were offered. For he writes thus: "And this, indeed, he taught me; but I pass it on to you. It will be for your wisdom and learning either to resolve any doubt in the reasons brought forward and to prefer the other, as being equitable, consonant with reason, and perhaps true, or to devise with yourself something that is closer to the truth, or to learn it from another, God clearly supplying the discourse and the angels mediating, and thus [making the contemplation] clearer—if possible—and more precious to us who are students of the angels." Thus he [writes] to St. Timothy. Then he concludes the final chapter of the same book with such a beautiful ending: "Let these be my words concerning the sacred symbols; they are indeed far from their exact interpretation, yet I think they help in this: that we may not cling too basely to the figurative images. But if you should object that we have not made mention of all the angelic virtues, or operations, or images, I will answer you frankly, just as the matter stands: namely, that we are ignorant of that supermundane science and have need rather of another teacher and interpreter to learn those things; and furthermore, that we have voluntarily omitted what was ^B similar to what was previously set forth and has the same force, both seeking moderation in speaking and revering in silence things recondite and beyond our capacity."

He also finished the second book, which is *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, with no less beautiful a conclusion. For he said: "These many, so brilliant, and singular spectacles of our hierarchy, my son, it has been granted me to see; but to other, more discerning minds, not only this [has been revealed], but even things far clearer and more divine have perhaps been perceived; and to you yourself, I think, even more brilliant and divine beauties will shine forth as you struggle toward the more sublime ray by the stages already mentioned. Wherefore, share with me also, O beloved, the more perfect light, and show to my eyes whatever more excellent and uniform beauties you shall be able to behold. For I trust that by these means, sparks of divine fire will be enkindled in you, as they have been for me by what I have said."

Now, he placed this truly golden conclusion upon the book *On the Divine Names*: "We have explained these divine names gathered as one, as far as it has been granted to attain, not only being unequal to their accurate exposition (which even the angels might truly say), nor even inferior to the praises which the angels offer (since our theologians also yield to the lowest of them), nor indeed to be compared to the theologians themselves and their hearers and followers, but [inferior] even to the lowest and humblest of those who are of our own order. Wherefore, if the things I have said are correct, and have attained the meaning of the interpretation of the divine names according to our place and order, may it be referred as accepted to the Author of all good, who grants the power firstly of speaking, and then of speaking well. But if any of those names which have the same force has been omitted, it ^C should be understood by the same path and reason. If these have been treated by us less correctly or less perfectly, or if we have deviated from the truth either entirely or in part, it will be for your kindness to correct one who does not ignore his error but desires to learn; and even to bring aid to one who is not quite able by himself, and to apply medicine to one who is not unwilling to be sick; and to pour into us what is good—some of it found by yourself, some by others, but all of it received from Him. And do not be hesitant to bestow a kindness upon a friend, since you see that we have not kept any of the sacred instructions delivered to us for our own sake, but have shared them uncorrupted with you and other sacred men, just as we intend to communicate them further, as far as we are able ourselves to speak and others are equal to listening; nor will we be unjust regarding tradition, unless we might be slower either to understand or to speak. But let these things, as is pleasing to God, be so held and said: and here let the end of the divine names which are perceived by the mind be: now, with God as our guide, we shall pass on to the *Symbolic Theology*."

Thus Dionysius concludes that book with a blessed ending. His modesty and submissiveness of mind can be known not only from these passages, but from many others, some of which we have touched upon elsewhere. Yet how can I pass over in silence those things which have attached to them his signal reverence and praise for his teachers? For it is a most clear sign of a truly excellent soul and most noble character, that just as [the honor of] inferiors [is directed] toward their superiors, so should the honor and reverence of disciples be toward their teachers. These shone forth in St. Dionysius with such illustrious marks as perhaps in no one else before him. For he scarcely ever, or hardly ever, mentions his masters in his writings without a most grateful preface ^D of due honor, and a great submissiveness and self-abasement before them. For he several times brings forward the words of Hierotheus—one of his masters—from the *Theological Institutions*, to strengthen the doctrine he himself has proposed, not without his highest praise and veneration. For when he had taught that the admirable formation of the Lord Jesus in the virgin womb could be expressed by no speech and conceived by no mind, not even an angelic or seraphic one, he then added these things concerning the same human generation of Christ and His miracles, with honor to his master: "These things, however," he says, "are also demonstrated elsewhere by us in many places, and celebrated most excellently by our renowned teacher in his *Theological Institutions*: whether he received them from the sacred theologians, or perceived much in them through accurate searching of the Scriptures, through much exercise and long practice, or was taught by some more divine inspiration—not only by study, but by experience—he attained the divine, and by a certain natural convenience and agreement, if it is lawful so to speak, he was perfectly advanced toward the mystical and the [knowledge] which is not taught but is received through faith."

And that I may show in a very few words the many and blessed contemplations of that excellent mind, he says this about Jesus in the institutions collected by him: "Jesus's divinity is the cause and completion of all, etc." Thus Dionysius in the second chapter of the book *On the Divine Names*. But now, in the third chapter of the same book, where he deals with that most famous gathering of the apostles and other pontiffs at the most holy Mother of God, how he extols the same master of his! How he abases himself! His words addressing St. Timothy, bishop of Ephesus, are these: "In the presence of those God-inspired pontiffs of ours," he says, "when we also, as you know, and he (namely, Hierotheus) and most of our holy brethren had gathered for the contemplation of that body which was the source of life and received God (and there were also present James the brother of the Lord, and Peter, the supreme and most venerable pillar of the theologians), and when, upon seeing it, it was decided that all the pontiffs should praise the most powerful goodness of the divine weakness each according to his own ability, then he (Hierotheus), as you know, surpassed all other sacred masters next to the apostles, wholly exceeding...

^A himself, and experiencing in himself a certain communion as it were of those things which were being preached, he was caught up by the sacred influence 511 from all who saw and heard, who knew him or did not know him, and he was judged a praiser of divine things. But why should I recall for you those things which have been said there regarding divine matters? For unless I have completely forgotten myself, I know that I too heard from you some parts of those divine hymns. So much do you have at heart not to pursue divine things lightly. But so that we may pass over those mystical things—and such as are not to be brought forth to the common crowd, and which are as understood by you ^B—how often, whenever it was necessary to share our things with many, and to lead very many to sacred doctrine, he stood out by not a small interval from most holy doctors in custom of time, and purity of mind, and certainty of demonstrations, and in other faculties of holy eloquence: so that we have never dared to fix our gaze against so great a sun. For we are so conscious to ourselves, we so feel that we cannot either sufficiently understand divine things, which are to be perceived by the mind, nor worthily express those things which are to be uttered concerning the knowledge of God: but since we are far from Him, there is also added the fact that we fall short in the knowledge regarding the theological truth of those divine men, and we arrive completely at such great fear and reverence ^C that we would not have heard anything at all about sacred philosophy, had it not sat in our mind that the knowledge of divine things, however small, is not to be neglected. This indeed, persuading us not only of the natural appetitions of minds, which always studiously affect as great a contemplation of sublime things as they are able to grasp, but also the very best institution of divine laws, which forbids investigating too curiously those things which are above us, as exceeding merit and capacity; but bids us attentively to learn all things that are permitted and granted, and to share them kindly with others. Induced by these things, therefore, and not sparing labor in the discovery of divine things, as far as it is permitted to attain, nor yielding to inertia, nay, not even sustaining to leave those who are not able to contemplate things higher than our own without aid, we have applied our mind to writing; daring indeed to introduce nothing new, but intending only ^D to distinguish and explain, by more minute and certain particular instructions, those things which were stated concisely by our true Hierotheus. Thus far the words of Dionysius, spoken of himself so tenuously and submissively, and of his preceptor Hierotheus so reverently and honorably.

Regarding whom, again, in chapter 4 of the same book he says thus: "These things also our illustrious moderator of sacred things (Hierotheus) set forth in the hymns of the divine lover. Of which it will not be alien to make mention here, and to attach them as a certain sacred chapter to my treatise On Love." He attaches then that chapter, which I defer to the Life of Hierotheus himself. So much did that holy man, not only not understand what honor and observance were owed to preceptors and masters of divine things, but also without any envy he bore them before himself with a most grateful mind, and handed them down to posterity. Nor, indeed, did he dare to treat the same subject as his teacher Hierotheus before he had made it clear that he was doing so by his good leave, nay, by his persuasion and command: not so much those which he had written as arduous and difficult, adapted to greater minds and perfect senses: as those which he, as if they were lesser matters, had omitted for others to explain, and for slower intellects to be expounded, he professed to have committed to writing at the request of another. In which, both on account of the example of youth, which will one day venerate its masters by treading in their footsteps, and because the modesty and submission of mind of the illustrious St. Dionysius—who extols the things of others as much as he belittles his own before all writers—shines forth, it will not be vexing to linger for a while in showing the beauty of such great virtue. These, therefore, are the words of the great Areopagite: "But someone will perhaps ask for what reason, after our venerable preceptor Hierotheus collected the Theological Institutions so excellently, we have now, as if those were less sufficient, written new ones, and especially this theology. But if he indeed had wished to comment in order on all things that pertain to theology, and to pursue the whole sum of all theology in very short explanations, we would never have broken out into such madness or rashness, that we would think ourselves likely to attain to theological matters more perspicaciously or divinely than he; nor likewise would we have induced our mind to waste our labor in repeating the same things in a superfluous work; what shall I say, and to harm both the preceptor and the friend, from whose words especially we have been instructed according to the divine Paul, and to steal his most excellent science and exposition of contemplating? But since he, explaining divine things weightily, has set forth compendious definitions for us, and ones that briefly embrace many things, and at the same time has commanded that we also, each according to our strength, and whoever are teachers of simpler souls like us, should explain those brief and singular sentences of that most perspicacious mind in apt speech; and thou thyself, O Timothy, hast often exhorted us to perform the same, and hast sent his book to us as if it were more sublime: hence we also separate him as a master for perfect and exercised intellects, for those who are wise above the common crowd, and consider his writings as other writings close to the divine and apostolic ones: but we shall expound divine things for those similar to us, according to our capacity and theirs. For if solid food is for the perfect, of how great perfection is it to feed others with it? Rightly, therefore, this too has been said by us, that that clear and in itself intuitive contemplation of spiritual utterances and their succinct doctrine requires an exercised faculty; but that the science and discipline of the discourses which lead to it are suitable for those who are inferior, both masters of sacred mysteries and disciples. Although this too has been most diligently observed by us, that we would in no way touch those things which that divine preceptor had distinguished in plain exposition, nor would we do the work of re-doing those things which he himself had clarified." Thus far the words of Dionysius the Areopagite, a man in the greatest and most sublime science far the most modest, words clearly golden, which ought to be an example of both Christian submission and of reverence owed to superiors, and especially to one's own teachers, for all doctors of sacred theology, but also for any others, masters of whatever arts, but especially for those who are competitors in the same study. But enough of modesty: now his genuine gentleness desires to be looked upon.

CHAPTER XXIV. Dionysius's gentleness, and the praise of gentleness. Let gentleness be joined to the modesty of St. Dionysius. To which, indeed, as to twin and sister-german virtues, both his other writings and especially his famous epistles are notable, and three above all, one to Polycarp the pontiff of Smyrna, another to Demophilus the monk, the third to Sopater the priest. Of which the first returns the grave insult of Apollophanes, directed at him, quite gently and meekly: the second indeed he consumes almost entirely in the extraordinary praise of gentleness. In the third, he teaches by the example of his own epistle how one ought to act with honest men who think differently than we do; for that is written both gravely and very humanely. It was proper to Dionysius that he would endeavor to prove his own things solidly, but would not greatly care (unless they should greatly harm religion) to refute the things of others. For truth, once shown certainly and clearly, overcomes every contrary falsehood by its own power. Which he himself also says in the Epistle to St. Polycarp. * It is the sixth in order among the epistles of St. Dionysius.

to St. Polycarp, which was placed earlier in its own proper position regarding the insults overcome by meekness, but only to recall it to memory. However, the most holy and meek man exaggerated the same meekness in the Epistle to Demophilus, mentioned above—as the reader may recall—so accurately, profusely, and fervidly, partly by examples and partly by maxims, that it is sufficient evidence how dear that same virtue was to him and how deeply it was implanted in his inmost soul. There, among other things, the example of St. Carpus, who was taught the meekness of Christ through a nocturnal vision, is of necessity to be read by all who have the care of souls, as it is by far the most beautiful, and most effective for eliciting leniency toward sinners. Wherefore it has been placed in its entirety, along with his Epistle, in the preceding pages. Thither, therefore, I send those whom this matter concerns. For since I am at present called away to the most Christian kings—to whose aid St. Dionysius was accustomed to run both now and in the past—I do not delay.

CHAPTER XXV.

The benefits of St. Dionysius toward the most Christian kings of the Franks.

The next place after the virtues is deservedly claimed by prodigies, and especially those which profited both souls and bodies. Because the most Christian kings of the Franks were especially favored with these, it seems right to begin with them. First, therefore, in this order comes Dagobert, son of Clothar, since both the sequence of time and the greatness of the benefit received from St. Dionysius assign this place to him, inasmuch as he escaped both the wrath of his father while a youth and the vengeance of God when departing from the earth, through the timely intervention of this most holy martyr. I shall briefly recount how these things came to pass.

(2-3) King Clothar, the parent of Dagobert, had a certain man named Sadragesilus, dear to him among the few and to whom he could confidently entrust matters; and he had appointed him as governor to his son and as ruler of Aquitaine. But Dagobert, considering him too severe and too little respectful of himself, pursued him with silent hatred and a desire for vengeance. Therefore, when his father Clothar was away for a long time on his hunting trips, having found a convenient opportunity for avenging himself, he invited Sadragesilus and brought him to the table: after the meal, he gave orders for hands to be laid upon him, his clothes to be torn off, for him to be scourged, and his beard to be shaven. Being subsequently conscious of such a bold deed and quickly repenting (for such is the mind of youth, that as it is blind and headlong in daring, so it is quick and easy in retracting), he dreaded his father’s wrath and presence, and not without cause. For when his father returned and saw with his own eyes the atrocity of the injury inflicted upon his friend, he bore it very heavily and with an indignant mind; indeed, he demanded the punishment of his son, the author of so great a crime, with huge threats: the latter, however, nowhere safe, sought hiding places everywhere, and repeatedly changed his location, until at last he reached the village of Catulliacum and the holy shrine there, famous for the bodies of St. Dionysius and his companions kept in that place, as if in an asylum. He remembered that a stag had once found safety there against pursuing hounds and hunters, whom a secret bond had barred from approach. Here, therefore, as he lay sad and mourning, both dejected in spirit and overcome by sleep, behold, a man with a venerable countenance appeared to him in a vision and exhorted him, having put aside his fear, to be of good heart: for he would eventually be freed from this danger, and even greater ones; indeed, that he would eventually rule the kingdom of the Franks, if only he would promise to adorn the monuments of those who rested there. He promised: and as soon as the certainty of his words and promises was established, he felt heavenly aid. For a divine power restrained those who had been sent by his father, so that when they were about one mile distant from that shrine, they could not proceed further. They, terrified by the sudden prodigy, turned back their journey and reported to the king what a monster had happened to them. He, refusing to believe, and attributing the fact to sloth and infidelity rather than to a true prodigy, sent others to the same place; but they too, forbidden from approaching at an equal distance, reported the same thing as the previous messengers. Being scolded by him, and bitterly rejected as if they were condoning his son, he went himself full of anger, as if to drag his son from the martyrs' tombs with his own hands: but when he realized that he was hindered from approaching by a certain secret force, no less than his attendants were in that very place, acknowledging at last the divine power and the virtue of the martyrs, he yielded and returned to favor with his son. Having received the opportunity to proceed, he entered the shrine, worshiped the glorious martyrs as a suppliant, and made them propitious to himself. His son Dagobert, mindful of the benefit received, henceforth honored with great reverence and awe that place and the holy guardians of the place, and especially Dionysius. However, in this cult, I would not truly approve of what has been said most wisely: "Let there be nothing in excess," for he either did not attend to it enough or cared too little. For being moved by an excessive desire to adorn the basilica of St. Dionysius, which he himself had built, he is said to have despoiled almost all the churches of Gaul of their chief ornaments, and he did not even fear to transport the doors of the church of St. Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, wrought of cast bronze, to that of St. Dionysius: not considering, indeed, in his mind how ungrateful to the saints or hateful to God such piety would be, which tries to make the ornaments of one saint the spoils of another. Nor indeed did the dwellers of heaven themselves delay in casting an unfavorable vote regarding such an impious and irreligious (if it is right so to call it) piety. For one of those doors, while it was being carried by the ocean into the Seine, and through it towards Paris, was sunk in the deep bed of the river, never to be found again since. But both this and other sins of Dagobert were washed away by the royal alms and pious works of him who seriously repented, and also by the cult and veneration of the holy martyrs, and especially of Dionysius, as is attested by certain revelation. For Aimoin relates (4), and all the writers of Gallic history subscribe to the narrative, that Ansoald, an illustrious man, and also the protector of the Church of Poitiers, returning home to Gaul after traveling the shores of Sicily, had landed on a certain small island: there he made use of the meeting and conversation of a certain most holy man living in solitude, by the name of John, and among other things inquired of him regarding the salvation of his soul; he was asked by him whether he knew King Dagobert. When he had answered that he did know him, he was again asked what kind of life and morals the man had. These having been recalled in order, the old hermit eventually added what he had received in a vision regarding the state of the same king; namely, that when he was overcome by sleep through vigils, fasts, and even the very burden of old age, a man remarkable for his venerable gray hair had stood by him, and had warned him to arise quickly and pour out prayers to God for the soul of King Dagobert, which was to leave his body at that very hour: as he was diligently executing this, suddenly there appeared on the sea itself, and not far from him, forms terrible to behold 514, namely, those most foul and truculent

demons who were tormenting king Dagobert, now in chains, through the vast expanses of the sea and tearing him with blows; they were dragging him toward fiery caverns. The king himself, stretched out under dire tortures, between lashings and vexations, was begging for the aid of certain saints; and then, with the heavens suddenly opened, certain men of admirable radiance were seen descending, amidst frequent flashes of lightning, with great fragrance. When he asked them who they were, they replied that they were those whom Dagobert had called upon for help: Dionysius and Mauritius the martyrs, and with them Saint Martin the confessor. He reported that he had seen them, leading his soul, snatched from the demons, to the heavens with this song of victory: Blessed is the man whom thou hast chosen and taken to thyself, O Lord; he shall dwell in thy courts. These things, this hermit, venerable in age and sanctity, recounted as seen by him to Ansoald, Ansoald to Saint Audoen, and Audoen and Aimoin to posterity. From which it seems two useful lessons can be drawn for living well and happily, which ought to be close to the heart of all mortals, but most especially of kings. The first is that they should redeem with prompt and solicitous largesse poured out upon the needy the sins of theirs with which it is inevitable that they be contaminated by the weight of their cares; the other is that they should adopt for themselves as patrons some from the number of the saints, whom they should follow with peculiar cult and veneration in life, and by whose assistance they might be more secure at the moment of their departure. Both of these did the noble Dagobert ^B perform nearly a thousand years ago for the great good of his soul. For beyond the temple of Saint Dionysius, which he built more magnificently than any which Gaul possessed at that time, he did this besides, most worthy of immortal memory, that having subjugated the surrounding neighboring nations and established peace throughout the entire realm, when another would have, as is the custom, given himself over to luxury and idleness, he himself, having sent word to them, seriously turned his mind to piety and his thoughts to another kingdom, a kingdom truly to be acquired through fair merits. For having gathered the nobles of Gaul into one place, he delivered an oration concerning the change in his life, which that most crowded gathering of bishops received with great applause. He surely intended, considering the mortality of bodies from one direction and the immortality of souls from the other, henceforth to aim with his whole heart at that future life, for which the main concern must be the redemption of the transgressions of his past life; and, consequently, he had decided to write a testament in which he would enrich with certain resources and estates all the more celebrated basilicas of his kingdom. This he did not say more magnificently than he performed it liberally. For even in Aimoin himself, and other writers of Gallic affairs, you may find not only the king's oration, but the testament ^C itself, also provided with pious donations.

Nor did that same apostle of the kingdom bestow his favor in both earthly and heavenly goods upon Dagobert alone, but also upon other kings of the Franks who succeeded him. For there exists an excellent letter of the emperor Louis the Pious ^D, and king of the Franks likewise, to the abbot Hilduin, in which he enumerates many from his ancestors to whom it was of incredible good to have cherished the pious memory of the Blessed Dionysius: "Who, while they honored his sacred remains (so speaks the emperor) on earth for the sake of the love and honor of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whatever wealth they could, earned through his most worthy prayers to enjoy the privilege of honor in both earthly and heavenly things: namely, one of the ancient kings of the Franks, Dagobert, who having venerated this same most precious martyr of Christ not insignificantly, was both exalted to immortal life and, as divine and celebrated manifestation bears witness, was delivered from punishments through his help, and established in the desirable life everlasting." Thus did Louis the Pious recount concerning king Dagobert, conformably to the revelation mentioned above. Who, in the same place thereafter, pursues with most grateful mind the merits and benefits of this same Dionysius, first in his ancestor Charles, then in Pepin, afterwards in his father Charlemagne, and finally in himself: "Our ancestor," he says, "Charles, the illustrious prince of the Franks, congratulated himself on having obtained the pinnacle of power through the prayers of this same most excellent martyr." Finally, to be brief, he declares the same almost of his grandfather, his father, and himself; namely, that the crown of the kingdom was given, preserved, and restored to them by the merits of Saint Dionysius. Nor did the beneficence of the same martyr reveal itself more toward these than toward future kings. Truly, equal pieties are wont to be accompanied by equal benefits.

Therefore Robert, who to the power of the kingdom added not only piety, but also learning, and that most worthy of a pious king, since he ascribed a great part of his happiness to Saint Dionysius, in honor of him and as a sign of a grateful mind, bestowed with singular liberality upon the Dionysian monks not a few fields and noble, distinguished estates, using these words: "We have proven, therefore," he says, "that it is worth the effort (that they might more diligently be free for divine services, and commend our salvation and that of the whole kingdom to God) to confer whatever aid of our largesse we can upon the brethren of the monastery of our special patron, the blessed Dionysius, by whose protection we have been raised up, and through which we have already overcome very many dangers, and trust that we have ascended to these heights of the kingdom." Then the most liberal and pious king enumerates ten villas, which he grants in their entirety, and other things besides, not a few. After which he adds: "This indulgence of our royal largesse we desire to merit the patronage of the holy martyrs Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, to whom we once committed the entire confidence of our hope, in such a way that we may bring victorious right hands to bear upon our enemies, and with the triumph of victory, with God consenting, carry back from their subjugation the standards." That is what he said. And so he was always unconquered; always master and victor of all he attempted, and always, too, pius. Hence he also built many sacred buildings in various places: at Senlis, one to Saint Regulus, a companion of Saint Dionysius: at Orléans, another to the divine Anianus: at Étampes, a third to the most blessed Virgin: at Autun, two: at Poissy, again another to the same Virgin. Finally, in the thirty-fourth year of his reign, and about the one thousand thirty-third of our salvation, he died holily, and in the church of Saint Dionysius, he acquired another kingdom in the tomb in heaven.

But concerning Henry I, his son, what shall I say? Did he deviate from the genuine piety of his father, or degenerate by even a hair's breadth from the ancestral veneration of Dionysius? For he, on account of the dissension of the Ratisbonians concerning the body of Saint Dionysius, when he had ordered it to be uncovered in the Dionysian monastery, and discovered there, having recognized it to be supernaturally filled with a wonderful fragrance of odor, immediately, moved by extraordinary piety, hastened to Paris to the church of Saint Dionysius on that very same day (which is the ninth of June, which is since then a feast annually) to see and venerate the same body, barefoot, a king so great and so powerful, and devoutly placed royal gifts upon his sacred altar. Finally, both Philip Augustus, and his son Louis, the father of Saint Louis, and Saint Louis himself, that three may stand for all, experienced the most present aid of their patron not once, but often. For in the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred ninety-one, when King Philip and his son Louis were sick at one and the same time and with one and the same disease, but in places most widely separated—the former in France, the latter in transmarine regions where he was fighting against the Turks for the Holy Land—the aid of Saint Dionysius and his companions having been invoked, and furthermore, instituted by the religious of his monastery even unto the city

of Paris with a solemn procession of suppliants, safety was restored to both from that most dangerous malady of dysentery. In this matter, indeed, the wondrous generosity of God the Best and Greatest was clearly manifested: for He who was invoked only for the son (since they had as yet heard nothing of the father’s infirmity), was gracious not only to the son but also to the father, and healed them both at the same hour. What an incredible amount of good this doubled health subsequently brought to the Christian republic! For those two kings were not only most valiant defenders of the Church, but also most bitter adversaries of heretics, and especially of the Albigensians, and were not without a great reputation for sanctity. Nor are there wanting those who assert, with sure divine manifestation, that Dionysius encountered Philip himself once he had departed this life, and offered himself to him as a guide and companion to the heavens. William the Breton did not fail to celebrate this in his own verses; in his books of the *Philippiad*, among other things, he sang of him thus:

*The palace of the Spirit* *Shines in angelic form, received by the same guide:* *And Dionysius himself revealed this in the following* *Night with like fatherly care: that no one might doubt that Philip* *Reigns with Christ, the matter being proved by such a witness.*

(11) But who could have been bereft of the favors of the blessed Dionysius, King Louis? For he, if you look to true and sincere piety, yielded to none of the kings or emperors who preceded him. Wherefore, when in the year of our Lord twelve hundred and forty-four he had fallen into a grave malady despaired of by physicians, and at the very time when the Church was especially awaiting and entreating his aid (for Pope Innocent IV had fled to him on account of the tyranny of the Emperor Frederick), then King Louis himself, and his most holy mother, Queen Blanche, deeming that sure and present help was to be hoped for—according to God and the most holy Virgin—from no other source than the blessed Dionysius, patron of the kingdom, desired that his sacred relics be brought out from their hidden recesses into the light, be worshipped openly and publicly, be carried in religious rite through the Dionysian church and cloister, and finally that prayers for his health be poured forth to him and to his companion martyrs. As soon as these things began to be done, the King immediately began to recover, and the affairs of the kingdom and of the Church began at once to proceed in a better direction.

NOTATIONES. ^A (2-3) *King Clothar.* What is mentioned here concerning Clothar is confirmed by the consensus of all the historians of France. See Aimo, book IV of the *De gestis Francorum*; and Paul Aemilius, book I; and Robert Gaguin, book III; and Belleforest, book I of his *Histories*, chap. 30, and others.

--- (4) *Or rather of the right hand of the Most High* in the transformation of Dagobert, as Stephen Forcatul truly and elegantly [says], book V, 516, *De Gallorum imperio*: “But,” he says, “it is established that Dagobert, who had at one time despoiled the houses of the saints, especially having constructed doors from the molten bronze of [the church of] St. Hilary of Poitiers under the pretext of ornamenting Dionysius, and having gathered other sacred and profane things without any discrimination, had already, as he grew old, converted his soul so toward the building and endowing of temples, and devoted himself so to the augmentation of divine ceremonies, that one might have believed there were two Dagoberts in one man: unlike Solomon, who consumed the goods of his youth in an infamous old age by offering incense and sacrificing to false gods, and worshiping Astarte, goddess of the Sidonians, who was none other than Venus.” And a little further on: “Therefore, it happened better for the Frankish king, who washed away the earlier stain of impiety with the subsequent glory of sanctity, and purged the filth of impure pleasure with glorious deeds. Just as that [King] Childeric of whom I had begun to speak, than whom the Franks never had anyone more odious as long as he immersed himself in filthy pleasures; ^B nor anyone dearer, once he had emerged from them. For then they recalled him with far greater desire than they had driven him out.” Thus Forcatul.

(6) *But as for the testament.* Regarding the donations made to churches, they were so many and so great that perhaps no king or emperor from Constantine the Great could have matched their magnificence. What he granted by name to the monastery of St. Dionysius near Paris may be known from the royal letters which James Dublet recently published. They are extant in book IV of the *Antiquities of the same monastery*, chap. 3, in one of which Dagobert himself briefly mentions the anger of his father and the help obtained from Saint Dionysius in these words, among others: “The whole world ought to revere him (Dionysius) with the highest service; much indeed do I, who in turning aside my father’s wrath, felt that his grace had not been wanting to me.”

(7-8) *For there is extant an excellent epistle of the Emperor Louis the Pious.* This letter of Louis the Pious is extant in the *Areopagitica* of Abbot Hilduin, edited by Galenus Westcappelius, and in Surius in [the volume for] October, in the *Life of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite*.

(9) *Finally, Philip Augustus, etc.* See Rigord in the book *De gestis Philippi*, as also concerning Louis his son.

(18) *And King Louis himself.* Concerning what is mentioned here of Saint Louis, and other things about the same, see William Nangis where he treats of his deeds.

CAPUT XXVI. The zeal and honors of the most Christian kings of France toward the blessed Dionysius.

Among the most Christian kings, I find Clothar II (12) to be the most ancient in praying to and honoring Dionysius, who indeed offered a great deal of gold and silver for decorating the memorials of the blessed Dionysius and his companion martyrs, nay even lands, and goods, and much else; but yet Dagobert, his son, surpassed his father both in his liberality and munificence in building and endowing the temple, and in the honor and cult of the same Dionysius, more than almost all other kings. For while it is true that the piety of the Louis kings was purer and more religious, and their sanctity greater; yet all attribute to Dagobert the praise for the foundation of the Dionysian temple and monastery. He covered with silver that part of the temple which sheltered the holy bodies; and he not only endowed the monastery most lavishly with wealth, but also honored it most amply with privileges and immunities. Yet regarding the consecration of the temple (13-14), performed by the ministry of Christ the Lord Himself, wondrous and unusual things are preached, though supported by suitable authorities and testimonies. For when the bishops were hoping that the dedication (which was to take place on the sixth day before the Kalends of March) would be celebrated...

at the invitation of King Dagobert they had gathered in one place. A certain leper, having obtained from the sacristans the permission to pass the night in that same holy building on the eve of the dedication, while he was keeping watch in prayers, behold, he sees clearly the Lord Christ, surrounded by the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and also attended by Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, the patrons of the temple, entering, and He himself, shining in a white garment, performing the entire service of dedication by His own hand. The service being completed, he hears Him approaching him also, and speaking such words as these: "You, man, tell the bishops, when at first light tomorrow they arrive at this house, that it has been consecrated by Me; and have, as a testimony of this certainty, the cleansing of your leprosy." No sooner had He spoken than the leprosy was transferred to a nearby stone, which, says Robert Gaguin, "is visited to this very day with the utmost wonder," and the leper was entirely cleansed. Astonished by this miracle, the prelates refrained from the dedication. So much for Dagobert.

^A Furthermore, other kings emulated him in a remarkable way, whether by honors or by gifts; for they believed so much protection resided in the merits of Saint Dionysius that, in the hope of more quickly obtaining a blessed life through his intercession, they desired to be buried in his temple: whence the same temple began to be used henceforth as the common mausoleum of kings. But among others, how great was the piety of Charlemagne in this regard, how great his humility and self-abasement? He, considering himself unworthy of the very house of Dionysius, said it was enough for him if he were buried before the very threshold of the temple, and therefore desired to be buried there. Yet with this modesty, the piety and singular devotion which he had toward his patron vies and conquers—in my judgment—that by which, not content with the gifts of others, however lavishly bestowed, he himself entered the temple, and having deposited his royal diadem upon the holy altar, with knees bent to the ground, openly and in the hearing of all, he offered and vowed his kingdom and the crown of the Franks to the Blessed Dionysius. "Lord Saint Dionysius," ^B he said, "with royal honor I strip myself of the crown of France, that you henceforth may have its dominion." Then he placed gold coins upon the altar as a price of redemption, testifying by this sign, and making it plain to all, that he obtained the kingdom of the Franks from no one else but God and Blessed Dionysius. This he not only did himself, but prescribed for other kings who were to come after him to do every year. Moreover, when about to depart on an expedition outside the kingdom, or to set out for any other reason, it was his custom to ask permission from this same Dionysius, and to commend the kingdom to him with almost this formula: "Lord Saint Dionysius, I ask from you now the permission to depart, and I leave France to you, that you may undertake its care and protection under God." This example of Charlemagne also passed to those who came after, who even now, when about to undertake some great journey, go to the bodies of the holy martyrs, and with gifts offered upon the altar of Blessed Dionysius, and with the care and protection of the kingdom entrusted to the saints, they receive from them the permission to depart. From this same honor and love of Dionysius, that ancient saying is believed to have emanated which in the native tongue was most frequent on the lips of those same kings of the Franks, *Mon Jove S. Denys*, that is: "My Jupiter is Saint Dionysius." ^C As if they were saying: "Let others have Jupiter for themselves; for me, Saint Dionysius shall be instead of Jupiter." They hold that this saying was derived from Clovis, who, by the persuasion and exhortation of his wife, the most pious Queen Clothilde, was moved both to embrace the vow of the Christian faith and to the cult of Saint Dionysius. For she, who stood out in exceptional physical beauty and truly royal character, had stipulated with Clovis that he would embrace the baptism of the Christians, and would promise to pass from Jupiter and other gods—or rather, not-gods—to the one God and the Christian mysteries. A promise made then, but long delayed after the wedding was celebrated, until necessity finally extorted it. For in the fifteenth year of his reign, attacked in war by the Alemanni, and almost overwhelmed by them, while he could not restrain his own from flight, then finally in his straitened circumstances he returned to the memory of the promise once given to Clothilde; and since the false gods were not helping, he vowed baptism and religion to the one true God Almighty, if He would stand by him in this battle and bring him back home a victor. With this vow made, and a new enthusiasm suddenly entering his spirit, he ordered the signal to be given again by trumpet, and turning back toward the enemy, leading with him the outstanding youth of his army whom he had kept nearest to him for the protection of his own body. No delay: the persecutors flee, the victors are defeated, the king of the Alemanni is slain, Alemannia is subjugated. Therefore, after such a memorable victory was gained, the victorious Clothilde, along with Saint Remigius, met her victorious husband; and, to be brief, King Clovis is instructed in his vow and baptized, becomes a distinguished worshipper of Christ and follower of Saint Dionysius, and from then on Jupiter lies with his gods, and Dionysius is celebrated everywhere in place of Jupiter. ^D Finally, whether in swearing an oath or in other speech, where previously Jupiter was accustomed to be used, now from the Christian kings nothing almost echoed but *Mon Jove S. Denys*: until, with the passage of years, and Jupiter gradually fading into oblivion, later kings and princes, with a pronunciation somewhat deflected, thinking that "gaudium" (joy) and not "Jove" was expressed in that second word, began commonly to use *Mon joye S. Denis*, that is, "My joy is Saint Dionysius," with the substitution of one small letter: especially because they supposed that Clovis himself, then rather crude in the Gallic idiom, as he was a Frank, had spoken in that way: and therefore they contended that more authority should be attributed to the king and antiquity than to grammatical rules; according to which, otherwise, it should have been pronounced in correct and elegant speech, *Ma ioye S. Denis*. Finally, whenever some notable victory had been gained over the enemy, this was almost the public acclamation of the exultant army and the congratulating people: *Mon joye S. Denys, Mon joye S. Denys*: inasmuch as they attributed the victories, and the triumphs, and the spoils to Dionysius alone, next to God. Hence, the standards and banners snatched from the enemy, and sometimes their own arms with which they had fought bravely and successfully, they would hang up to him as the sacred leader of the armies. But now let us return to our subject.

The son of Charlemagne, Louis, who is surnamed the Pious, emulated the singular piety of his father toward Dionysius; and Charles the Bald emulated Louis; and his descendants emulated Charles the Bald. For indeed, of Louis, a wealthy witness is his own letter to Hilduin, in which, having commemorated the benefits of Dionysius both toward himself and his ancestors, he places the care of gathering all the books and monuments of the same martyr and presenting them to him: well insinuating, of course, that he would place some refreshment of mind from the tedious business of the kingdom in reading them. Add to this that he entrusted Charles the Bald, the youngest of his sons, then still very young, to the same saint with singular care and (as Aimoinus says) a "special dedication." Thus, when he was older and powerful in the kingdom, he retained the cult of Saint Dionysius as a paternal and ancestral inheritance. Wherefore, upon the sudden irruption of the Danes into the kingdom of the Franks, when he was stuck, devoid of counsel, with others sliding away here and there and abandoning the city of Paris itself as prey to the enemy, he himself hurried with small forces to the monastery of Saint Dionysius, about to implore divine aid: where indeed he had resolved, even if the people should flee, to fight for the relics of the holy martyrs and to guard the holy place, and if any opportunity and the matter should demand, to charge into the enemy, and thus with laudable self-sacrifice, to feed on the glory of religion and faith. But the enemy avoided the unexpected boldness of his approach; he indeed, having overcome these and other perils, increased the temple of Saint Dionysius with great revenues and adorned it with most precious gifts, which are seen preserved to this very time. Among which gifts

were the nail of the Lord’s cross, the thorny crown of Christ, and the arm of the holy elder Simeon. The same Charles, when he had reigned for thirty years, attained the empire: having performed it for only two years, he perished by the poison, as they say, of Sedecias the physician, whom he held most dear, and was entombed in the city of Vercelli in Italy; but seven years later he wished to be transferred to the temple of Saint Dionysius. For Archengerus, a monk of Dionysius, and Alphonsus, the custodian of Saint Quentin of Vermandois, affirmed that they, while spending the night in their temples, were admonished by Charles himself in a dream concerning the transferring of his body to the house of the martyrs.

Nor was Louis the Fat a degenerate from the veneration of his ancestors toward Dionysius. For as Henry II, emperor, was invading France and threatening the city of Rheims with total destruction, meanwhile, while the army was being enrolled, he himself went to Saint Dionysius, invoked the protector of the kingdom, brought out his body and those of his companions from their hiding place, and exhibited them for veneration: then, having taken the little flame from the altar (this is a holy and martial banner, accustomed to be carried in war before the French kings), he flew with his army to Rheims. The emperor, terrified by his arrival and his forces, his mind being lashed by confusion at once and by grief and impatience, retreated through the accelerated necessity of death, and shortly after passed away, indeed without children; but Louis, having attained his wish, dismissed the army and returned to the monastery of Dionysius to give thanks to God and the martyrs, to whom he also suspended notable gifts. But that which showed a piety truly worthy of a king in the first place, was this: that the great king himself placed his own shoulders under the task of re-entombing the bodies of the same holy martyrs.

Let us join to so pious a king his wife, who was much more pious, whose piety, love, and benevolence toward Saint Dionysius was so great that she wished to adorn the place of his martyrdom, or Mount Martyrum, with an illustrious monastery of sacred virgins, and to honor it with a new crown of perpetual sanctity. For there Adelais, a heroine worthy of eternal memory, so that there might be an excellent monastery, and one accommodated to such a group, for the pious virgins of the Order of Saint Benedict, into which she herself might retreat again and again for her holy devotions and delights—that is, to the sanctuary and glorious monuments of the death of the holy martyrs—insisted to her husband and brought it about that the religious men who previously occupied that place (for it was a priory, as they call it, depending on the monastery of Saint Martin-des-Champs) should be assigned some other place, which they would receive willingly and gladly in exchange. This was therefore carefully seen to and accomplished: and they, indeed, not unwillingly accepted the abbey of Saint Dionysius de Carcere. But the virgins, with Adelais triumphant and having attained her wish, ascended to Mount Martyrum. Letters of this exchange exist, given by Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1133 (for that matter concerned him).

Furthermore, when other buildings for habitation and the structures of the temple for prayers and vows were finished, it happened very conveniently, as much for the greater joy and exultation of the king and queen as for the most august and holy celebration of the solemnity itself, that Eugenius III, the Pope, was sojourning in Gaul. For at the invitation of the most Christian king and the most pious Adelais, he dedicated that new temple with lawful ceremonies, and when he was performing the office at the altar, he took Saint Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, to minister as deacon, and Peter the Venerable, prelate of Cluny, as subdeacon. And Bernard, indeed, left for the same monastery that very tunic, made of silver fabric, in which he had then performed the sacred rites. What joys, what applause, what triumphs, with all things accomplished as much by vow as by heart’s desire, the holy queen had there, who could express in words? From that time, therefore, she went frequently to that blessed place, nor ever could she be sated by the sight and the cultivation of that holy earth which drank the blood of her patron Dionysius and his fellow martyrs. Finally, after the passing of her dearest husband, all palaces seemed foul to her before that one monastery: there she chose to consecrate her widowhood, there to spend all her life henceforth, there to die and be buried.

Nor did Louis the Junior allow the virtue of his parents to be missed in himself; who, while preparing an expedition to the holy land (the year of our salvation was 1147), before he exited the kingdom, approached Saint Dionysius in the second week after Pentecost, from whom he sought both help and permission to depart; where in the temple he also received the holy banner, according to royal custom, with the utmost reverence. Nay, following his father’s example, he also placed his own shoulders under the holy bier of the Blessed Dionysius while it was being re-entombed.

519 But as for Philip Augustus, the son of this Louis the Junior, who here could pass him by without disgrace? For having been attained from God after many prayers of his parents following the abundant offspring of the other sex, and having been promoted to the helm of the kingdom while his father was living and willing when he had scarcely entered his fifteenth year, he immediately began to give great proofs of piety toward God and great proofs of veneration toward Dionysius. In the year of the Lord 1190, on the very day of the feast of Saint John the Baptist (which he had long before proposed for himself, and had long desired and pondered in his mind), now instituting the expedition to the Holy Land in earnest, he betook himself to the town of Saint Dionysius, to invoke him as his patron, leader, and president of his war. There, indeed, prostrate humbly on the marble pavement before his sacred body and those of his companions Rusticus and Eleutherius, he poured forth ardent prayers to God, the Best and Greatest, and suppliantly and earnestly commended himself to Him, and to the Blessed Virgin, and to these blessed martyrs, and to all the saints: then, suffused with tears, he rose from his prayer, and with great feeling of piety received the scrip and staff of pilgrimage, offered by William, Archbishop of Rheims, his uncle, legate of the Apostolic See; then also, with his own hands, he unfastened and took up the two banners, elegantly prepared, which were fixed over the bodies of the holy martyrs: finally, after requesting the prayers of the religious brothers, and after receiving the blessing of the Nail of the Lord, the crown of thorns, and the arm of Saint Simeon (which they keep as most precious relics in that monastery), he departed and hastened his journey for the increase of the glory of the Christian religion. After breaking through all causes of delay and postponement, in the following year, on the very vigil of holy Easter, he stood like an angel of the Lord before the walls of Acre, a city of all Palestine most strongly fortified, while the Christians were besieging it, but were achieving nothing at all against the forces of Saladin and the defenses of the place, and gave his men the spirit to set out to attack it, so that they, not awaiting the onslaught of the Franks (for the way was already opened), preferring to surrender rather than perish, accepted these conditions of surrender: that they should return the true cross of the Lord, which Saladin held; that they should restore all the Christians whom they held captive in their lands; the others, indeed, were to depart with their bodies only, safe, without any arms. After this, when Philip had fallen into a serious illness, and other causes for his return intervened, upon returning to France, he held nothing more important than to hasten immediately to the temple of the most blessed Dionysius for the sake of prayer: to whom, as he approached, the religious of that monastery, together with their abbot Hugh, having (to use the words of Rigord) formed a procession, went to meet him, and brought him into the temple with hymns and praises. The king, moreover, humbly prostrate before the bodies of the saints, first gave the greatest thanks he could to God and to the blessed martyrs, by whose aid he had escaped so many and such great perils: then, indeed, he placed a silk pallium, a pledge of his love, as an offering on the altar. But as to what [his] testament...

^A should make his piety toward Dionysius, and how much hope and faith he reposed in his authority before God, he demonstrated this most brilliantly; he subsequently added thirty others to the original number of Dionysian monks, supplied with resources, who would perpetually perform the divine service for him to God. ^B When other kings of the Franks observed these and other offices toward Dionysius, Saint Louis above all [note 24], with principal modesty and piety, who, being readied for the journey to Jerusalem for the sake of propagating the faith, entered the very hall of the religious of the Dionysian monastery, shunning not only the lower seats of the prelate or senior monks, but also those of the juniors, chose a place in the lowest of their ranks by which one ascends to the abbot’s throne: from where, having completed the holy prayers of all the religious for himself and for the salvation of the whole kingdom (which he especially commended to Blessed Dionysius), and having received the blessing of the Lord’s nail and crown of thorns, he began his journey with the favorable prayers and acclamations of all. Nor did he manifest his extraordinary piety toward Dionysius any less in death than in life: for when his bodily strength was already failing, he was heard repeating again and again that clause of the customary prayer to Blessed Dionysius: Grant us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, to despise the prosperous things of the world, and to fear none of its adversities. He is buried in the temple of the same Dionysius, which he had adorned while living with many golden crowns and ornaments, and had chosen for his sepulcher. Since these things are abundantly sufficient to bear witness to the piety of the most Christian kings toward the martyr Dionysius, I forgo the rest, which could be brought forward in great number.

250 NOTATIONS

^C (13-14) *Truly concerning the consecration of the temple, etc.* Very many authors report that the temple of Saint Dionysius in the monastery of the same name was consecrated by the hand of Christ the Lord. A narrative of this matter exists, described at length in Vincent of Beauvais in *Speculum historiale*, bk. XXIII, ch. 36, and in Robert Gaguin, bk. I of *Hist. Franc.*, under Dagobert. Moreover, he confirms a matter that is not at all unlikely with a similar consecration approved by two supreme pontiffs. Concerning which Charles Sausseius [writes] thus in his book *Annales Ecclesiæ Aurelianensis*, number twelve: "The people of Avignon believe," he says, "and the bulls of Pope Sixtus IV and of another, John XXII, contain this, that their cathedral church, which is called Saint Mary of Gifts, was founded by the Blessed Martha, hostess of our Lord, and existed as consecrated by the hand of God." The same Sausseius mentions in the same place that dedication of which we have treated here. But also Albert Krantz, in the first book of *Saxonia*. Added to this, concerning such a holy dedication of the Dionysian temple, is the authority of William of Nangis, who wrote down the events of his own time. He says in the book *De gestis sancti Ludovici*: "In the year of our Lord 1221, the fifth year of the reign of Louis of France, Odo Clement, abbot of Saint Dionysius in France, began, on the advice of King Louis and of his mother the Queen Lady Blanche, and of other upright men and religious, to renovate the church of Blessed Dionysius; which he did not dare to do beforehand without counsel, because he knew that the same church had received the mystery of consecration from the Lord." And further: "In the year of our Lord 1243, the seventeenth year of the reign of King Louis, and truly in the twenty-eighth year of his age, on the 24th of February, on the day of the feast of the Blessed Apostle Matthias (on which day the feast of the Dedication of the church of Blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, performed by the Lord, is celebrated), the venerable Margaret, having been wed to him, brought forth for King Louis the son long desired by him." ^D Thus the church of Blessed Mary of Laeken near Brussels is said to have been dedicated. The solemn memorial of this dedication, performed by the Lord, is celebrated on the Sunday in white garments, or the Octave of Easter: concerning which one may see *Novale sanctorum Brabantiæ* and the *Auctarium* of Arnold de Raisse to the *Natales sanctorum Belgii* by Molanus, at April 14. Miraculous also was that dedication by which the temple built in honor of the apostles Peter and Paul by the most holy King Edward of the English was dedicated by Saint Peter, the prince of the apostles. Concerning which dedication see the Life of the same holy King and Confessor Edward, written by Aelred in the first volume of Surius. Nor was that different by which the house of the apostles (which Saint Chendechildis, daughter of Clovis, had built) is proclaimed to have been consecrated divinely, and not by human hand. Concerning which matter Bernard Odonius speaks thus in the *Gesta Hormisdæ pontificis*: "During that same time," he says, "flourished Chendechildis, daughter of Clovis, famous alike for her virginity and her piety. This woman constructed a monastery in sight of the city of Sens in honor of the apostles, enlarging it with many buildings and enriching it with estates. Whither, having set out to dedicate the basilica with Saint Eradius, then bishop of Sens, the bishops of neighboring cities were present. Where, while they were passing the night in the church, they heard angelic voices singing most sweetly: however, having looked back at the altar in the morning, they saw, in the four corners and in the middle of the marble, the marks of the cross decently impressed, and being struck with awe, they did not dare to consecrate further the place which they perceived to have been divinely consecrated." These things are those which are also praised by Robert Cenalis, bk. [1] *De re Gallica*, perioche 12.

^A ...or processions: these, however, are square. Gold, indeed, remained only in the borders, which he indicates by these words, where he writes that it was simple and of a simple material (which he calls *cendatum*) in these lines of bk. XI of the *Philippiad*:

*Ast satis est regi, tenues crispare per auras* *Vexillum simplex, cendato simplice textum,* *Splendoris rubei: Litania qualiter uti* *Ecclesia solet certis ex more diebus.*

Masson rendered the latter lines more clearly in the third book of *Annales*, reading and writing thus: *...quali celebri Litania* *Utitur in certis Ecclesia sancta diebus.*

...and purple, glistening like golden flames. Whence William the Breton calls it above "of red splendor." It is also called a *vexillum*, or a *standalium*, or a *standartum* of St. Dionysius, the last two words formed from the Gallic *estendart*.

[Concerning the acclamation, as they enter battle, "Mon ioye sainct Denys," I shall declare what that king, who first gave his name to the Christian religion among the Franks, is said to have uttered, and which later kings have used and continue to use in encouraging their men to fight bravely. They interpret it as: "My joy, Saint Dionysius"—although the French should have noticed that it is not quite so, since in their language, *joye*, that is, "joy," is not of the masculine or neuter, but of the feminine gender, and it should have been said: "Mon Joye, sainct Denys." Therefore, *joye* here does not signify "joy," but Jove, whom the Gauls called *Jove*: and for this reason 521 Clovis, with his line of battle failing, when he did not succeed by invoking Jove, turned to the God of the Christians, whom Dionysius—whether that Areopagite or someone else—had announced throughout Gaul, and cried to his men, who were for the most part Christians: "Halt your step, men, and fight bravely: Mon Jove, sainct Denys," that is, "my holy Jove will be Dionysius." That is to say: "Having abandoned Jove, I worship the God whom Dionysius preached, and whom you adore." Having heard this, the Christian Gauls returned briskly to the battle, routed the enemies, and Clovis was washed by the divine Remigius in the sacred laver of baptism. ^B Afterward, the kings, wishing to usurp this word, pronounce it *ioye* instead of *Jove*, not having well considered the matter. That it is true that the Gauls called Jove *Jovem* or *jove*, I perceive from the fact that the same people today call *Jovios* *joye*. Now *Jovii* are small stones which those traveling along the roads throw into piles, to serve as indicators of the right path, many of which we see everywhere throughout Gaul when traveling to Saint James, which the French call *Mont-joye*. There is also among the Eburones, at a fortress now subject to the Duke of Julich, in the Ardennes forest (in the part called Eifel), a mount of Jove called *Mont-joye*, let this also be noted. Thus far [concerning] that acclamation, [recorded] by Robert Cenalis with Hubert Thomas. There are others who think that in these acclamations it should be written—and was once written—*Mont joye*, and not *Mon-Jove*, nor *mon joye*: for whom *mont-joye* is nothing other than a "heap of joys." Therefore, they interpret *mont joye sainct Denys* as nothing other than that Saint Dionysius is the conciliator of great joy, whether in delivering them from enemies, or in conferring victory, or in procuring some other very great felicity. Which opinion, as it is probable, also contributes not a little to those same heaps of praises of St. Dionysius.]

(17) Concerning the piety of King and Emperor Louis the Pious, there exists his letter to Hilduin, edited at the same time as Hilduin's *Areopagitica*, printed at Cologne by M. Galenus Westcappellius in the year 1563.

(18) Aimoinus, bk. 1 of *Miracula S. Germani*, ch. 1. (19) Robert Gaguin, bk. 5 of *Hist. Francorum*, ch. 1; Rigord, *De gestis Philippi Augusti*.

(20) [Taking up the *flammula*, or *auriflamma*, which among the writers of Gallic affairs, both French and Latin, is deemed worthy of record:]

1. The *Auriflamma* (which is commonly called *Oriflamme* in French) was a sacred and military *vexillum*, square, made of red and flaming silk, accustomed to be carried before the kings of France when they proceeded to wars and pilgrimages. Concerning which, John Villani writes thus in bk. XII of his *History*: "Philip VI brought out from the temple of the divine Dionysius the *vexillum* of gold and flame, which is not accustomed to be brought out from there except for the greatest necessities of the king and the kingdom, and it is composed of gold and purple." By "gold" understand the golden borders; by "flame" or "purple," the silken cloth of a flame or purple color, as will become clear below from Gaguin, no. 7. That it was square, moreover, and had no gold except in the borders, seems to be gathered from the fact that Guy the Breton writes that it was similar to those *vexilla* which the Church is accustomed to use in public supplications ^C or litanies: these, however, are square. Gold, moreover, existed only in the borders, which he indicates by those words, where he writes that it was simple and of a simple material (which he calls *cendatum*) in these lines of bk. 11 of the *Philippiad*:

*Ast satis est regi, tenues crispare per auras* *Vexillum simplex, cendato simplice textum,* *Splendoris rubei: Litania qualiter uti* *Ecclesia solet certis ex more diebus.*

Masson rendered the latter lines more into Latin in the third book of *Annales*, by reading and writing thus: *...quali celebri Litania* *Utitur in certis Ecclesia sancta diebus.*

...and purple, glistening like golden flames. Whence William the Breton above calls it *of red splendor*. It is also called *vexillum*, or *standalium*, or *standartum* of St. Dionysius, the last two words formed from the Gallic *estendart*.

It is to be noted, however, that the pilgrim's staff is not, as some have supposed, the same thing as the *auriflamma*; which is evident from Suger and Rigord, ancient writers of Gallic affairs: the former of whom [writes] thus concerning it in the *Life of Louis*: "The king came, as is the custom, to the church of Saint Dionysius, to accept leave from the martyrs: and there, after the celebration of the masses, he very reverently accepted the pilgrim's staff and the *vexillum* of the B. Dionysius (which is called *oriflamme* in French)." But this one, in the book *On the deeds of Philip Augustus, King of the Franks*, for the year of our Lord 1190, writes thus concerning the same Philip: "Finally, rising from prayer in tears, he most devoutly accepted in the same place the scrip and pilgrim's staff from the hand of William, Archbishop of Reims, his uncle, legate of the Apostolic See; then, over the bodies of the saints, he accepted with his own hands two *standalia*, decently marked, for the memory of the holy martyrs, and [intending] to fight for protection against the enemies of the cross." Thus he. Where he clearly distinguishes the pilgrim's staff from the *standalia* or *vexilla*, one of which was the *auriflamma*; the other, the royal sign, both of which the Breton names below, no. 6.

3. Just as the *Labarum* was to Constantine the Great, so the *Auriflamma* was the sign of victory for the kings of the Franks. Hence James Meyer calls the *flammula* "victorious" in bk. XII of the *Annals of Flanders*: "Milo Noerius carried that victorious *flammula* on that day, who not long after was among the dead." Stephen Forcatulus calls the same the "*vexillum* of heaven" in bk. VI *On the empire of the Gauls*, where he writes thus: "Nothing at all inflamed the Franks, already studious of piety, more than the celestial *vexillum*, purple, varied with a golden thread. You would think it woven by the hand of the Fates for the terror of the enemies of the Christian and Frankish name, with lilies scattered, likewise gathered from celestial gardens, with a cross whitening around the middle, not only on account of the silver color familiar to military standards, before others (since, as Pliny thinks, it shines from very far away), but peculiarly received by the Gauls in sacred rites and ceremonies." But he [adds]: "There are those who contend that this heavenly benefit was bestowed upon Charles the Great." Gaguin, in his first book of the *History of the Franks*. But others refer the origin of the *auriflamma* back to Clovis the first among Christian Frankish kings: and they believe that this flowed down to posterity as a certain tradition from their ancestors. Hence are those golden lines of Ronsard, in the *Franciade*, bk. IV: 522

*Veis tu Clovis, grand honneur des Troyens?* *Qui le premier abhorrant les payens,* *Et des Gentils les menteuses escoles,* *Pour suivre Christ, laissera les idoles,* *Donnant baptesme aux François desvvyez.* *Et lors du ciel luy seront envoyez,* *En oriflamme, estendart pour la crainte*

Of his hateful ones, and the most holy ampulla. Sacred oil, unction of thy kings? His shield dishonoured by three Puffy toads, with lilies for their old painting. He shall take lilies of white tincture, A gift of heaven, which God shall choose for him, With honour, with strength, and with good he shall fill him.

Stephen Forcatel refers to Clovis in the book cited above. But regarding the toads, those ancient emblems of the pagan Franks, he is greatly mistaken, and I with him. For it is more pleasing to derive the origin of the fable from the sacrifices of the Gauls, called *bufonia*. For in Greek, *buphonia* were called the sacrifices in which bulls or oxen were slaughtered. Now, Pliny describes the rite of such sacrifices, solemn among the Gauls, in book XVI of his *Natural History*, chapter 44: “Sacrifices and feasts having been duly prepared under a tree, two bulls of white colour are brought up, whose horns are bound for the first time: a priest dressed in white vestments climbs the tree, cuts [the mistletoe] with a golden sickle, and it is caught in a white cloak: then they sacrifice the victims, praying that God might make his gift prosperous to those to whom He has given it. They believe that if it is drunk, it gives fertility to any barren animal, and that it is, conversely, a remedy against all poisons. So great is the religion of peoples in frivolous matters.” So it is there. There also exists a poem by Badius Ascensius concerning the emblems of France, that is, the lilies, the Oriflamme, and the holy chrism, which he calls heavenly gifts in these verses:

*...to us the gifts,* *And let the pious emblems of the kings of the Franks be pleasing;* *Lilies, first breathed upon with heavenly colour,* *Long since believed to be handed down to the servants of Caesar:* *Then the Oriflamme, the victory of the ancient kings:* *Then the sacred chrism brought to the shining doves.*

Stephen Forcatel feels much the same in book VI of his *On the Empire of the Gauls*: “There are three tokens,” he says, “sent from heaven for the everlasting Gallic empire: the lily-bearing shield, the fragrant phial, and the splendid banner, confessing the ethereal purple for certain. Indeed, we do not linger over skeptics and jesters who think that kingdoms are instituted by human chance, not by divine counsel.”

^A ...of the Abbey of Saint-Denis, and with great ceremony it was taken from the altar of the same saint, by the hands of the abbot, by the king when he was girding himself for dangerous warfare or a long pilgrimage, and in like manner it was restored there with great ceremony upon his return. Jacobus Meyerus, in book XI of his *Annals of Flanders*, says: “The little banner (which was not accustomed to be taken out except in extreme crisis) was brought forth from the inner sanctum of the Dionysian monastery and handed to Peter Villerius, a most valiant man.”

The principal times for using this banner are briefly indicated by Forcatel in the place cited above: “The banner,” he says, “sent from heaven to the Gauls, either ensured or graced the favourable turn of wars, especially against the Turks and Saracens. Nor is there any banner that Charlemagne is reported to have used more gladly in sacred wars, nor any more successfully. Philip Augustus also ordered that it be borne before him when he was setting out to conquer Jerusalem with Richard, King of the English, and he took it from the Dionysian church: just as later Saint Louis did when setting out for Libya. Clearly, Charles VI also thought the same banner, entrusted to Guy de la Trémoille, would be beneficial to him against the English: it was called the Oriflamme, surely from its colour.” So he says.

...to be carried by the Count of Vexin, to whom this honour was rightfully owed, and whose county was held as a fief from Saint Denis. See Suger in the *Life of Saint Louis the Fat*, King of the Franks, and François de Belleforest in his third book of *History*, chapter forty-one, where the Count of Vexin is called in French *Comte de Vexin*.

Concerning this ceremony, Papirius Massonius writes thus briefly in book I of his *Annals of France*: “The Fat, in the year of our Lord 1124, in public documents ^B (which remain) acknowledges the county of Vexin to be in the patronage and jurisdiction of the martyrs Denis, Rusticus, and Eleutherius: and that the Counts of Vexin in times past had the right of bearing the little banner in wars. The same the Fat, the county having devolved to him, in that war which was being prepared most fiercely against Emperor Henry, received the little banner from the prefect of that monastery, not as king, but as count, with alacrity.”

...banners, even the royal one; and they would not fight unless it had preceded them, except by necessity because of sudden incursions of the enemy. On which matter there exists a notable passage in Rigord for the year of our Lord 1215: “Otho,” he says, “the Emperor, having unexpectedly invaded the forces of King Philip, it is cried everywhere through the fields: ‘Arms! Arms, men!’ The trumpets sound; the cohorts return, which had already crossed the bridge; the banner of St. Denis is recalled, which was supposed to precede everyone in war, and it does not return quickly enough, wherefore it is not expected.” And a little further below: “Meanwhile the legions arrive, which had advanced almost as far as the lodgings, and the banner of the Blessed Denis, and they run as quickly as possible to the king's battle line, where they saw the royal sign, namely the banner distinguished by lily flowers, which on that day was carried by the Gaul, a soldier most valiant, but not rich, from Montigny.” Concerning the same, William the Breton in the beginning of book II of his *Philippide*:

*Which, since it has the common name of golden flame,* *Has to precede all signs in all wars:* *Which the Dionysian abbot is wont to furnish to the king:* *As often as he sets out for war, having taken up arms.* *Before the king, however, held the royal sign* *He of Montigny, a man of strong body, a Gaul.*

In the words of these authors, it is necessary to distinguish two banners: one of the Blessed Denis, or the Oriflamme; the other of the king himself, which is called the royal sign.

7. The Oriflamme having been lost (as the author of *Belloforestius* in the *Description of the town of Saint-Denis*) in the battle joined against the Flemings. Concerning the same Oriflamme and its loss, Gaguin writes thus in book I of his *History of the Franks*, under Clovis: “It is also handed down that a silk cloth, red, in the likeness of a square military sign, shining with wonderful splendour, 523 was received divinely; which the kings of the Franks would use in expeditions against the enemies of the Christian faith as a sign: and to this banner the name Oriflamme has remained until now, and for a long time it was kept by the Dionysian monks: but as kings abused the sign against Christians, it vanished: another, however, was restored in not dissimilar form, which, having been consecrated by the bishops and the abbot of the place, was kept among the sacred objects.” Finally, the Oriflamme is believed to have been lost at Mont Pévèle, which hill is, even today, illustrious between the cities of Douai and the islands of Gallo-Flanders. Jacobus Meyerus describes the battle committed there in the year of our Lord 1303 between the Franks and the Flemings, with Philip the Fair, King of the Franks, present and fighting bravely, in book X of his *Annals of Flanders*. He records that in this battle the king himself was wounded, and the little banner was torn and shredded by the Flemings, and Anselm de Chéroy, its bearer, was killed.

Dubleus, a recent writer, denies in book I of his *History*, chapter 41, that it was lost: indeed, he asserts that he saw it. But I would more readily believe that he saw a substitute than that old and original one, which it is sufficiently clear from the very Gallic writers themselves had been lost.

8. In place of this flame or Oriflamme, other very similar banners were subsequently substituted, as we learn from the same histories of the Gauls and Flemings.

9. To the Oriflamme, or the old one and the new, for its blessing, this habitual prayer is found to be used: “Incline, O Lord, thy ear to the prayers of our humility, and through the intercession of the Blessed Michael the ar-

archangel of thine, and of all thy celestial powers, but also of the blessed martyrs Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius and all thy saints, grant us the aid of thy right hand: that as thou didst bless Abraham triumphing against the five kings, and David exercising triumphant struggles in the praise of thy name; so thou mayest deign to bless and sanctify this standard, which is carried for the defense of the kingdom and of the holy Church against hostile rage; so that in thy name they may rejoice that they have acquired triumph and victory over their enemies from thy faithful ones and defenders of the people.” ^A

CHAPTER XXVII.

Beyond the piety and honors toward Saint Dionysius which we have lauded above, many others, partly by the frequency and sincerity of their worship, partly by the erection of temples, monasteries, or other buildings, have made him their patron and advocate. Among them, the most holy virgin Genevieve truly claims for herself the first place; for nearly two hundred years before King DagoberTus, she very frequently celebrated the village of Catulliacum out of love and honor for Saint Dionysius, and there she founded that very church—into which Dagobert, flying from his father’s wrath as I have mentioned before, later fled as if to an asylum—not now with her own resources, although she did so with those as well, but with prayers and miracles. For whatever was most needed to build a temple in such a place and time, she learned where it was to be found by praying, and she assisted the very needs of the workmen by performing miracles.

Let the blessed Birgitta be joined to Saint Genevieve, a Gallican virgin and German widow, although quite separated in time (for no less than nine centuries stood between them), yet in the ardor of her piety and in her zeal for honoring Dionysius, she was almost equal and akin to her. For she approached and invoked the blessed martyr so frequently and so fervently, both by vow and by prayer, that not rarely she deserved to be affected by the same saint himself visiting her, whether through celestial visions or through opportune consolations. And indeed, when that most bitter war was raging between King Philip of Valois of France and Edward of England, she saw him while praying to Dionysius, the patron of France, for the afflicted state of the kingdom, suppliant to the Queen of Heaven and imploring aid for the French. At another time as well, when she was returning from a pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostela along with her husband, and he had fallen ill at Atrebatum, from which she had participated in no small sorrow of heart, she received a most welcome consolation from her patron Dionysius. For appearing to her as she prayed, he said that he was the one who had come to France from the city of Rome for the purpose of spreading the Gospel; and because he was held in singular affection by her, he would henceforth take care of her and would always be ready to assist; and he added a pledge to his promise, that her husband’s health would soon follow. Which also did follow not long after. Finally, she deserved to have him as a visitor and consforter many other times.

To these should deservedly be added Saint Swibert, the apostle of the Frisians ^B and the blessed Notger, Bishop of Liège: the former of whom, having left his native soil and with his noble lineage subjected to Christ (for he was an Englishman and originated from an illustrious family), when he had been created a prelate by Saint Wilfrid, the bishop of the Mercians, and had been sent to imbue the Frisians and Germans with the faith, and had nothing more ancient at heart than to change their vain superstitions into the true religion of the one God and profane shrines of the gods into sacred temples of divine saints, and being not unmindful of the great Dionysius, most powerful in the whole West and most dear to him, dedicated a temple to his honor in the town of Foernaer around the year of our salvation six hundred and ninety. The latter, however, the builder of many churches in Liège, constructed one also in honor and worship of the blessed Dionysius, to which he also added a college of canons: who at first were twenty in number, but in the course of time (as Anselm says and testifies), with ten more added, they grew to the number of thirty.

The piety of Saint Edith most deservedly makes a place for itself among these saints. This woman was a virgin, the daughter of King Edgar and sister of King and martyr Edward, and, after the passing of her father and brother (had she not consistently refused it), the queen of her nation: who, having forsaken the kingdom and the world, whilst she stood entirely in the way of piety, founded a temple in honor of her patron Dionysius around the year of the Lord nine hundred and eighty-four, and by a sure presage of mind named it the place of her rest. For in that same temple, which she had frequented often while living, she was buried by Saint Dunstan, who had dedicated it at her invitation. When that Dunstan, in the very dedication, had observed the virgin—to form the sign of the cross on her forehead—repeatedly extend her right thumb, delighted by this act he grasped her right hand and said: “May this finger never rot.” Which consequently remained incorruptible. For thirteen years after her passing, the same holy virgin appeared to the blessed Dunstan and warned him of the elevation of her body, adding a sign of truth, that outside of those members which she had once abused in her girlhood (namely, her eyes, hands, and feet), the whole remaining body would be found incorrupt. She added also concerning the thumb these words: “The thumb of the right hand also, with which I assiduously impressed the sign of the cross for myself, you shall see unharmed, so that the clemency of the Lord may appear in the part preserved, and paternal chastisement in the part taken away.” Finally, just as she had once egregiously promoted the worship of Saint Dionysius while she lived, so also, after she had passed from the world, Dionysius, appearing to the bishop Dunstan and commanding that the sacred body of the virgin be brought to light and venerated, promoted her veneration by a celestial authority as a sort of repayment. So much is the worship exhibited to the saints wont to be reciprocated to those who exhibited it, not without great interest.

Furthermore, that most candid flower of English purity and piety, the most blessed Edith, causes—as does the happy memory of other Englishmen, whether kings or princes, most loving of Saint Dionysius and most devoted to his sacred honor—the memory to be refreshed and return: nor can I by any means forget you, O most blessed king and confessor Edward. For I do not know if the land of England ever produced anything either greater or holier in your name, but at the same time and jointly for the glory of Saint Dionysius to be celebrated and devotedly defended. For whereas, beyond the customary liberality and munificence toward the holy places of your kingdom and your patron saints, you were mindful also of Dionysius, though a foreigner, and bestowed upon him a very rich village abounding in many commodities, you said and wrote thus: “I, Edward, King of the English, when I was at peace, in the glory of my kingdom, for the salvation of my soul and of my fathers who reigned before me, with the counsel and decree of my primates and faithful men, have given to Saint Dionysius (who is named of famous memory among us, indeed, but among the French and”

⟩ ^A colitur et habetur) a certain villa named Teintuna, in the territory and county of the city which is called Oxford, with all its appendages—that is, lands, woods, pastures, waters, meadows, cultivated and uncultivated. Let this land be immune and free from all business, except for expeditions and the restoration of a bridge or fortress. But if any should violate this, let their portion be, by the decree of God and my own, and of all the bishops (whose names are held here), with Judas the traitor, with Dathan and Abiron, in eternal fire, where their worm does not die and the fire is not extinguished; unless they have amended their guilt before God and Saint Dionysius. In the year of our Lord’s Incarnation one thousand five hundred and nine, etc. To these letters of royal donation their names were subscribed: first the king and queen, then two archbishops, then six bishops, afterwards five dukes, and subsequently others.

But I omit these for the sake of brevity, and from the piety of the English, about which I must necessarily institute a discussion below, I return my step to France. For Saint Eligius, whom I have hitherto omitted, calls to himself, and asks that his art be displayed in honor of Saint Dionysius. To him, truly the prince of the goldsmiths of that age, and one who applied his whole heart and body, as they say, to the work concerning the ornamentation of blessed Dionysius, no mediocre praise is owed; indeed, the bishopric of Noyon, which was later divinely bestowed upon him as, perhaps, some share of reward, fell to his happy lot through the procurement of Dionysius before God. For he constructed within the city of Paris a most noble mausoleum for this same patron of his and of all Gaul, and he placed over it a roof incrusted with gold and gems in marvelous workmanship. In which work, although the liberality and munificence of King Dagobert shone forth splendidly, yet all the value of the gold and gems was below the estimation of the art and industry ^B employed (27). "For so much," to use the words of Saint Audoenus, "did he exert his industry there, with the king providing, and he so declared his genius and craftsmanship, that it is an almost singular ornament in the Gauls, and is to the great admiration of all even to this day."

525 May it be permitted to me to include in the crown of these saints who strove for the glory and honor of Saint Dionysius, or who venerated those sacred places, Saint Ignatius of the Society of Jesus, whom God led to be the author and founder. For when he was studying in Paris, and with some companions joined to himself was aspiring entirely to great and divine things, finally in the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and thirty-four, when he had conceived in his mind the establishing and forming of the beginnings of a more perfect life, and certain seeds as it were of a future society, he judged no place more convenient or holier for these blessed beginnings than the mount near Paris, the Mount of Martyrs, that is, that mount consecrated by the blood of Saint Dionysius and the other martyrs. Thither, then, on the solemn day of the Assumption of the Virgin (whom they all had adopted as their chief patroness before God), they decided to go together, there to spend in piety such celebration as they could, and there to pronounce the vows that they had conceived for the grace of God and the salvation of their brothers. And the sum of these vows was indeed this: First, that having sent away the messenger of fleeting and empty pleasures, they would embrace whole and inviolate chastity forever. Then, that as far as it could be done, they would walk in the path of poverty, and that they would diligently pursue it—except during the time of studies (which some had not yet finished) and the time of the pilgrimage destined for the sacred places of Jerusalem—and that they would not under any pretext admit anything at all that would hinder the celebration of the most august sacrifice. Furthermore, that they would sail together to Palestine at a certain time determined for the salvation of its people (if indeed access were open and permitted); but if not, that they would go to the Supreme Pontiff, and prostrate at his knees, would dedicate themselves entirely to the fruit of souls according to his nod and decision. These vows they renewed also in the two following years on the same day, and in the same place, and with the same rite. But who would doubt that that apostle of the Gauls, that instructor of the Gentiles, that pilgrim from the East to the West, when he saw that small crown meditating to walk in his own footsteps in the place of his martyrdom, and dedicating itself to the salvation of its brothers living in far-off lands—who, I say, would doubt that he, the true lover and emulator of the honor of God, obtained much warmth and much strength for that devoted crown of new athletes, and for promising and performing such great undertakings, through his own prayers before the fount of all graces?

Let us add to the number of these saints persons of illustrious royal dignity; whether Adelaide, mother of Robert, king of the Franks, a woman of outstanding sanctity; or Henry II, King of England, a man of remarkable piety—of the former of whom Helgaudius of Fleury (28), after a recital of the monasteries built by her, subjoins: "Moreover, she bestowed upon her special friend after the Lord, blessed Dionysius namely, a chasuble made likewise of marvelous workmanship, which work is called by the people of the world most unlike that of Charles the Bald." For the queen, faithful to God, hoped that she would have a share with him to whom God had promised in a word that would not be vain (29), that he would obtain whatever he asked for. For the entire family proclaimed itself the servant of such a great martyr in every work. But of the latter, Nangius (30) speaks thus: "In the year of our Lord one thousand two hundred and fifty-nine, Henry, King of England, came into France, and was received in Paris by Saint Louis; afterwards, desiring to visit blessed Dionysius, he left Paris, and came to the church of blessed Dionysius with great devotion and reverence, and having stayed there for a month and more, he bestowed on the convent a golden cope and a chalice of great weight." Nor did Philip II, King of Spain, leave Saint Dionysius unhonored or ungifted; who, having obtained from the King of France the sacred body of Saint Eugenius, the first bishop of Toledo (which he had long and greatly requested), in memory of so great a benefit, and at the same time because the same Eugenius, a disciple of Dionysius the Areopagite, had been sent by him into Spain, he sent to the same martyr Dionysius a silver lamp as a gift, remarkable in size and artistry. These things, which are the most prominent (31) of this kind, having been lightly touched upon, passing over the rest, I hasten to the more wonderful signs of Dionysian virtue.

NOTATIONES. [Translation of notes omitted]

must be made of Helgaud, a monk of Fleury and a writer (since he has provided us with some information). He, therefore, on the land of the monastery of Fleury, built a small chapel in honor of the holy martyrs Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius. When this was learned of, Robert, king of the Franks, sent him some relics of these same saints—namely, from the chasuble of St. Dionysius, from the dalmatic of St. Rusticus, from the chasuble of St. Eleutherius, and from the garments of the same saints stained with blood, and from the dust of their bodies, and also from the triple cord with which the holy martyr Dionysius had been bound. Helgaud himself in *Robert, King of the Franks*, is witness to these things. Nor indeed should the piety of the canons of Reims be passed over, who built a temple to St. Dionysius, which Hervé, Archbishop of Reims, as Flodoard testifies (book IV, chapter 13), consecrated.

CHAPTER XXVIII. Various miracles of St. Dionysius after his death, wrought in different ways for different people.

All the miracles which the blessed Dionysius wrought after his departure to the heavens are of such varied kinds that to investigate them with excessive curiosity would be too tedious, and to narrate them with too much precision too laborious; I shall therefore recount only the principal and a few of them. Among these, that which the same Dionysius accomplished in the time of Pope Stephen, the third of that name, for the great good of the Church, must hold the first rank. The truth of this miracle, for the sake of more certain trustworthiness, has been gathered from the letters of Stephen himself, which exist even to this day. ^B This Stephen, therefore, having been unjustly oppressed by Aistulf, king of the Lombards, having sought aid in vain from the Emperor of Constantinople, finally betook himself to Pippin, king of the Franks, to see if he might perchance offer any assistance. The king received him very kindly and humanely and, having ordered him to be lodged for the winter in the monastery of St. Dionysius, promised that in the coming spring he would lead an army against Aistulf and bring quiet and peace to the afflicted Italy, to the city itself, and to the Pope. Meanwhile, Stephen, suffering most gravely from the toils of his journey as well as from the injuries of the times, and having now despaired of his health, placing his hopes nowhere but in God and the saints, behold! while he was pouring out prayers in the holy temple, by a vision there appeared the princes of the apostles, Peter and Paul, and with them the presiding saint of the temple, St. Dionysius. The latter was indeed of a slender and tall body, with a pleasant countenance, white hair, a snow-white tunic joined by a purple clasp, and a shell-colored pallium interwoven with little golden stars. And they, conversing among themselves with a joyful and cheerful expression, entrusted the office of healing in this way to Dionysius. Then he, bearing a palm and a censer in his hand—while the presbyter and deacon who had stood apart till then stood by his sides—approached the sick man more closely and greeted him: "Peace be with you, brother; do not fear. You will not die until you return prosperously to your see. Arise healthy, and dedicate this altar in honor of God and his apostles Peter and Paul, whom you see, fulfilling your vows of thanksgiving." ^C There was indeed in that place (as Stephen himself, the spectator of this vision, related) an inestimable brilliance, together with a wondrous sweetness. Soon, therefore, he was restored to health. Wherefore, when he strove, now safe, to execute the command of the blessed Dionysius and to consecrate the indicated altar in honor of God and the apostles, those who were present and had been eyewitnesses of his infirmity the day before thought he was delirious, until, the series of events having been narrated to King Pippin and the nobles and chiefs, and faith having been placed in his words, he duly performed the sacred rites, consecrated that very altar, and deposited upon it the apostolic pallium and the keys of Peter, as a certain sacred votive offering, in memory of the event. The year was then the seven hundred and fifty-fourth of the Lord, and the third of Pope Stephen himself. The same pontiff is said to have carried some of the relics of the blessed Dionysius with him to Rome and to have begun to build a monastery in honor of the same martyr on his ancestral estate; this work, intercepted by the death of its author, Paul, his brother and successor in the pontificate, magnificently completed and, having gathered the bodies of many holy martyrs into it, consecrated it, and bestowed it upon Greek men to serve God there, in memory and honor of Dionysius the Areopagite, just as he had learned his brother wished, and named the place "At the Holy Martyrs" in the School of the Greeks. And so much for Stephen.

Who, however, shall we place next as one who, in a similar way, obtained and praised health bestowed by the blessed Dionysius? You, I think, most deservedly, Duke Berthold, most eminent among the dukes of England for the cult of true piety. For you, having fallen into a most grave infirmity at one time, when you could hope for nothing from physicians, sighing for celestial remedies, confidently awaited and received aid from the blessed Dionysius and his fellow martyrs. ^D For having heard that the bodies of these same saints were in Gaul, like certain pharmacies of effective remedies, as soon as you were able through the power of the Emperor Charles the Great (in whose service you were engaged), you betook yourself thither, venerated them, entreated health from them, and in the very few days that you lay at their monuments, you recovered completely sound and solid health. What then? Was this favor bestowed upon an ungrateful and forgetful man, and did no fruit of so great a benefit redound to the saints? Nay, indeed, it was very great. For you built a temple sacred to them on your estate and donated that very estate, along with fields, meadows, woods, waters, and lands—accepted as an inheritance from your ancestors—but also two maritime ports neighboring that land, together with saltworks and other things pertaining to the same, with most remarkable and profuse kindness, to the monks who were worshippers of these same saints, or the Dionysian monks. "It is fitting," you said, "that those by whom I have been freed from all infirmity of body should themselves succeed me in my very inheritance." Moreover, blessed is that century (for there are these two examples of pious liberality in one and the same eighth century) that had such clients of the saints! That produced such mindful recipients of divine benefits! And truly I could bring forward others of the same century, and from that same England, who were illustrious benefactors toward Dionysius—either Offa, king of the Mercians, or the twin brothers Agonavala and Sigrinus; and these men, indeed, of their own accord and by unanimous consent, contributed to St. Dionysius all their property that they had near the port of Lundevicum; the former indeed most kindly remitting whatever jurisdiction he had in the same place, and adding furthermore his own

There was, there was once such piety toward the saints, such generosity, that in preference to the honors of the saints all forgetfulness of near relatives seemed to have been introduced; now, conversely, such is the care for relatives, and such the heart-gnawing solicitude, that no memory of the saints seems to remain in preference to one’s own kin. But let us attend to this, and let us revisit other beneficial miracles of our martyr.

Furthermore, Flodoard [(32)] is the authority that in his own age—that is, around the nine hundredth year of Christ—a poor woman, Gillaudes by name, when she had been gravely injured in her whole hand by the striking of a mill handle, approached the sacred relics of St. Dionysius (which on account of the infestations of the pagans were at that time kept at Reims) with great fear and reverence, and having prostrated herself in prayer day and night, was finally granted his address and consolation in her sleep, and at the same time learned the way to obtain health. Rigord [(33)], a writer of his own age, touches upon other miracles of the same martyr: two of which occurred in the year one thousand one hundred and ninety-three, two in the one immediately following. The former are these: A certain little boy, having finished his life, was brought by his parents to the church of St. Dionysius on the very feast day of the same saint, and placed before the bodies of the martyrs at the altar. After the parents had more intensely implored the aid of St. Dionysius with mixed tears and sighs, he returned to the enjoyment of life, while the whole people watched. Likewise, a certain possessed man was cured in the same temple by similar aid. But the latter, in the following year, were these: A three-year-old boy from Curte Nova was drowned in the waters and recovered his life through the merits of the Blessed Dionysius. Then a certain man from Misione, upon the same Dionysius the martyr being invoked and bringing aid, was released from custody near Rouen.

Nor indeed were there great benefits only for the worshippers of Dionysius, but also grave punishments were in readiness for the violators of his tomb. For the accelerated deaths of two sacrilegious men—of one indeed in the very article of his sin, and of the other within the same year in which he had committed his crime—are suitable testimonies [(34)]. The former was among the nobles of Sigebert, king of the Franks, who, while the same king was devastating Paris with arms and flames, entered the sacred church of St. Dionysius, not by the impulse of piety but of avarice, and did not hesitate to take away a holoseric cloth, gleaming with gold and gems, from the saint’s tomb. Lo, therefore, while he thinks himself blessed in his wretched plunder, and with the necessity of sailing pressing, he continues his journey with a boy entrusted to him, to whom he had entrusted two hundred gold coins for safekeeping. Suddenly that dear and precious boy falls headlong from the ship, touched by no one and uncertain in what manner, and being overwhelmed by the waters, neither he nor the gold appears. This double loss indeed impelled him to dock at the shore immediately and return the sepulchral cloth from where he had taken it, but he could not ease the punishment of his sacrilege at all; for he died on the spot. The other, by the same instigation of greed for gold, fearing not at all to ascend the sacred tomb itself and trample it with his feet, while he attempted to strike down with a lance a golden dove hanging over it, himself fell in such a way that his feet, on which he stood upon the turreted tomb, slipped on either side; and with his testicles squeezed in the very fall, and a lance fixed in his side, he found death instead of gold. And certainly these things did not happen to them by chance, but by the just judgment of God; so that that passage of Ecclesiasticus might most aptly fit them: [*] *Many have been deceived by the beauty of gold, and many have been ruined by it* (Eccli. xxxi, 6), that is, many have fallen on account of gold, and captured by its appearance have perished.

CAPITULUM XXIX. The relics of St. Dionysius, and their virtue and estimation.

The most holy body of Dionysius has had [(35)] from the beginning, and even now still has, unconquered France; nor is it true that it was ever transferred by force or by fraud to another nation, or remained abroad, or does not exist. For while it is certain that it was once brought to Reims [(36)] (as was suggested above by Flodoard) on account of the infestation of the pagans, it was reserved there only until better times. It was also once taken by Charlemagne [(37)] into the company of his military campaign, but was brought back immediately after the victory was won. For when he was about to move against the Saxons who were rebelling against him, since he knew sufficiently with what a strong and hard people he had to deal, and with a sagacious mind already foresaw the dangers of doubtful Mars, he wished—so that beyond human aids and mortal forces he might also have the present help of the saints in his camps—that the bodies of the blessed martyrs Dionysius and his companions be brought to that expedition by religious men. Fardulf, therefore, the abbot of St. Dionysius (this man was the eighteenth in order), a faithful and provident companion to the same king in his counsels and in all his expeditions, and also quite suitable for promoting matters of faith and piety, undertook this task and provided a good number of clerics to carry the sacred relics in turn. Twice it was fought with full camps, but in the latter of those conflicts they were defeated, and victory remained with Charlemagne. Now, he, not unmindful of the heavenly benefit, took care of this first (as should always be the concern of Christian kings), that the fruits of victory should redound primarily to the honor of God and the augmentation of the holy faith. Therefore he commanded that the Saxons receive the religion of Christ and its institutions; then he deported some thousands of the same Saxons, who were distributed into various parts of his kingdom, and were gradually imbued with the rudiments and customs of the Church. Which being done (as God ever increases those who honor Him with new honors), not long afterward He added an empire to his kingdom, and he was thenceforth at once king and emperor; and he reigned indeed in a secondary course of events, and without any interrupted health, for forty-seven years, but held the imperial title for fourteen. Finally, one disease in his whole life, or one fever, snatched him from mortal life and inscribed him as happy and twice fortunate to immortal, in the year eight hundred and fifteen, on the fifth day before the Kalends of February. On which day his holy memory is piously recollected and solemnly celebrated in certain churches. Therefore, that most holy emperor then truly took the sacred body of Dionysius out of the city and church named after him, and with it brought back an illustrious victory. But at no other time (unless someone wishes to believe bold fables) are the principal relics of so great a martyr read to have been exported further from the city of St. Dionysius than Paris, the capital of the kingdom, especially in such a way that they remained there and existed properly in another place. Furthermore, the virtue of these relics brought not only health in diseases or victory in battles, but also increase and prosperity to kingdoms and empires. Which the legate of Charles the Simple, king of the Franks, indicated explicitly enough to Henry, king of Saxony. For when in Charles’s name he offered him the hand of St. Dionysius [(38)] enclosed in gold and gems, a witness of faith and friendship, he is recorded to have used these words [(39)]: "Have this pledge of a perpetual treaty and of vicarious love. France, the home of those living there (after the distinguished martyr Vitus deserted them and, to our ruin and your perpetual peace, visited Saxony), preferred to share with you this part of the peculiar consolation of the Franks." Nor indeed after.

from which his body was translated by us, civil or external wars have ceased." By which words the legate intended to prophesy that prosperity would pass from Francia along with these holy relics of Dionysius to the Saxons, just as it had once passed with the body of Blessed Vitus. As to how much King Henry valued that hand of St. Dionysius, Witichind—who also wrote the above—records: ^A "The king, he says, receiving the divine gift with every expression of gratitude, prostrated himself before the holy relics and, having kissed them, venerated them with the utmost reverence." So much for him. Nor was there any lack of reward for this piety and veneration, for from that time the affairs of the Saxons, recently much weakened by the incursions of the Hungarians, were restored to their former state and began to take great strides forward, having subdued the Slavs, Bohemians, Dalmatians, and other neighboring peoples in war (whom Henry made tributary) in continuous victories. So much good is indeed contained in holy relics and in the fitting worship of them! Would that Clodoveus II had understood this (40-41), and had restrained his irreverent hands from handling the most holy bones of Dionysius! His mind would have been firmer, and greater prosperity would have rested upon his kingdom. But when he touched and severed the arm of the martyr with little piety or religion, then he himself became deranged, and the glory of that magnanimous people was not slightly diminished. And though he later restored the part of the arm that had been removed, richer with gold and gems, and contributed various other gifts to the monastery of St. Dionysius ^B for the recovery of the soundness of his mind, he never recovered so well as to avoid showing some traces of his insanity to the very end—a great lesson indeed to kings as to how much horror and reverence should be brought to sacred things, and how cautiously, even if with piety (which perhaps even Clodoveus was not entirely lacking in), the limbs of saints should neither be broken nor separated (42). And in truth, what wonder is it that there is such virtue in the relics of the sacred body itself, when even the veils and silk cloths in which they are wrapped are quite powerful against the powers of darkness and the terrible tormentings of demons? For when, in the year of our Lord one thousand and fifty, the body was uncovered and openly exposed for veneration, one of the abbots who had come for that solemnity took a small part of the very ancient veil, in which the body had been wrapped (for Henry I, King of the Franks, had sent a new and most precious veil), away to his own monastery, and applied it to a Gentile man possessed by a demon and an alien to our faith. Soon that possessor, however cruel and persistent he had been otherwise, seriously withdrew and fled; and the man, having been vindicated from such tyranny, desired to be washed in the cleansing waters and enrolled among the Christians. Finally, such was the affection of piety and religion not only of kings or men remarkable for their virtue towards the sacred relics of St. Dionysius, but also of the whole people of Gaul indiscriminately, that they believed there could be found no man of such marked wickedness and depravity who would dare to perjure himself or lie ^C before the venerable tomb of the patron of all Gaul (43). Hence it not rarely happened that if anyone, accused of either injustice or any other great crime, seemed about to deny the charge brought against him in court, he was drawn to the tomb of St. Dionysius as to a thing most sacred and inviolable for the sake of an oath. For there, either by the goading stings of conscience or by the punishment of their crimes quickly following, sure signs of truth were given. By such honors, indeed, does God the almighty vouchsafe to honor His saints; by such present terrors does He pursue their despisers, and avenge Himself with punishments. Thus far we have seen what Saint Dionysius accomplished; let us now seek what he wrote. ^D [index: entries preserved]

CHAPTER XXX. Index of the books of Saint Dionysius (44).

The first rank in theology, after the books of Holy Scripture, is claimed for the Works of Saint Dionysius by the consensus of doctors and pious men, being approved and praised by philosophers and theologians alike. Of these books, by the grace of God, the better part survives today; a certain portion has perished through the ravages of time.

There survive today the books: *On the Celestial Hierarchy*. *On the Divine Names*. *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*. *On the Mystical Theology*. *To Dorotheus*. *To Titus*. *To Apollophanes*. *To Polycarp*.

To these survivors, the following notable verdict of praise was deservedly ascribed, whether by Ambrose Traversari, or Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, or whoever else was the first to do so: "a life-giving theology, solid food." For in all these writings of the Areopagite you will hardly find anything other than solid food and life-giving theology.

*On the Symbolic Theology*. *On the Soul*. *On the Divine Hymns*. *Theological Outlines*. *On Just and Divine Judgment*. *On those things which are perceived by the intellect and by the senses*.

Regarding these books, which have been lost to the great detriment of the Church, the same author mentioned above, whoever he may be, has rightly affixed to them an inscription of a melancholy nature: "An infinite treasure, either lost or hidden." That Dionysius wrote such books, we believe no less than he himself did; for in those which exist at present, he makes mention of those which do not exist, as having been written by him. Furthermore, God the Almighty and All-Good has adorned the books that do survive with remarkable miracles. For in the year of Christ's birth approximately eight hundred and twenty-four, when Michael Balbus, Emperor of the East, had dispatched envoys to Louis the Pious, King of the Franks and Emperor of the West, on that very day—which was the Vigil of Saint Dionysius—the books of Saint Dionysius were brought to the Dionysian monastery by Theodore the Deacon, the *oikonomos* of the Church of Constantinople, who was one of the envoys. On that day, nineteen notable cures of various diseases were attributed to the merits of such a great martyr, occurring among very prominent persons living not far from the same monastery. About two centuries later, or around the year of the Lord nine hundred and sixty-seven, under Emperor Otto the Great, another prodigy occurred, which I shall relate in the same words as Saint Odilo the priest transmitted to us in the *Life of Saint Majolus*, Abbot of Cluny: "When," he says, "Saint Majolus was one day in the monastery of the most holy martyr Dionysius, and was reading, according to custom, during the night hours the book of the same martyr and admirable philosopher *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, a heavy sleep falling upon him, a wax candle fell from his hand onto the page of the book: and behold, a wondrous thing, the fire, following the impulse of its own nature, consumed the wick and the wax, but dared not violate the page!" Thus Saint Odilo.

NOTES.

(44) Contains an index of the books of S. Dionysius, in which a twofold order is proposed: one of those which survive, the other of those which have perished. That he wrote those which we said have perished, we have the testimony from his own writings which do survive. For he mentions *On the Symbolic Theology* in ch. 15 of the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, and in ch. 1 and 13 of *On the Divine Names*, and in the third chapter of *On the Mystical Theology*, and in Epistle IX which is to Titus.

He mentions *Theological Outlines* in ch. 1 and 2 of the book *On the Divine Names*, and in ch. 3 of *On the Mystical Theology*. He mentions *On the Soul* in ch. 4 of the book *On the Divine Names*. He makes mention of *On just and divine judgment* in the same place. He mentions *On the divine hymns* in ch. 7 of the book *On the celestial hierarchy*. He mentions *On those things that are perceived by the intellect and by the senses*, or as it is commonly called, *On the intelligible and the sensible*, in ch. 1 and 2 of the book *On the ecclesiastical hierarchy*.

There are those who count among these lost works a book *On angelic properties and orders*, of which they think mention is made in the book *On the Divine Names*, ch. 4, towards the beginning, in these words: *Kai hosa alla eiretai pros hemon en to Peri ton angelikon idioteton kai taxeon*—"And whatsoever else has been said by us in the treatise *On angelic properties and orders*." Regarding these words, Saint Maximus says in his *Scholion*: *Idou allo ponema Dionysiou zeteitai*—"Behold, another work of Dionysius is sought." But others understand this better as signifying only that part of the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy* in which the properties and orders of the angels are expounded. For since that is treated there at length, to what purpose would another book be written on the same subject? Dionysius Richelius, that distinguished light of the Carthusians and fair gem of the Eburones, also holds that the book is not disjointed in his *Elucidation of the Books of Saint Dionysius*.

531 Some also add a book *On the legal hierarchy*. But they have distinguished poorly and misunderstood Dionysius; who should be read thus: *Ho men hieros louter, hos eirekamen, en te kata nomon en hierarchia*. Yet those people read it thus: *hos eirekamen en te kata nomon hierarchia*, without any punctuation after the word *eirekamen*, to mean: "As we have said in the legal hierarchy." But that the meaning is different is shown by Pachymeres in his paraphrase with these words: *Ho hieros louter, ho en to nomo eiremenos*. "The sacred laver, of which it is spoken in the Law, or the sacred washing, of which there is mention in the Old Testament." And a little later the same Pachymeres says: *Hos gar ho nomos eiche loutera, houtos entautha he aponipsis ginetai ton cheiron*. "For as the law had a laver, so here the washing of hands takes place." To explain this more clearly, it has this meaning: As in the old law there was a laver, in which the priests washed their hands and feet before they approached to offer incense: so in the new law, the priests ought to wash their extremities before the sacrifice. Therefore, *he kata nomon hierarchia* signifies nothing other than the Old Law, or the Old Testament. Dionysius himself accepted it thus in ch. 5 of the *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, at the beginning, speaking of the Jews, to whom, as to children, God gave the law: *Nepiois men ousi, kata to Logion, edoresato ten kata nomon hierarchian*. "To whom," he says, "being children, He gave the legal hierarchy," that is, the law, or the state of the law. Wherefore Pachymeres understood this passage of S. Dionysius better than S. Maximus: if indeed the same Maximus (as is read today) added to the words of Dionysius: *Semeiosai, hoti ou louter en en to nomo, kai hoti syntagma echei allo peri tes kata nomon hierarchias, hoper ou pheretai*. "Note, that there was no laver in the law, and that Dionysius has another treatise on the legal hierarchy, which does not survive." (45)

(45) Hujus ad B. Joannem Epist. meminit S. Damascenus, orat. 3 *De imaginibus*.

so forgetful as not to have known or remembered that in the Old Testament there was a laver, or basin, or bronze sea—for these terms signify the same thing—in which the priests would wash. It is not mentioned in only one place, but in several; for instance, Exodus xxx, 18: "And thou shalt make a laver of brass, with its foot, to wash in: and thou shalt set it between the tabernacle of the testimony and the altar." And: "When the water is put in, Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and feet in it when they are to go into the tabernacle of the testimony, and when they are to approach to the altar, that they may offer incense to the Lord, lest perhaps they die." And Exodus xxxviii, 8: "He made also the laver of brass, with the foot thereof, of the mirrors of the women that watched at the door of the tabernacle." And 3 Kings vii, 23: "He made also a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass." The same is repeated in almost the same words in 2 Paralipomenon iv, 2, and he adds in verse 6: "Moreover in this sea the priests were washed." Who, therefore, could believe that these things could have escaped St. Maximus, who was gifted with the greatest virtue and erudition? Wherefore, just as our Lansselius rightly removes that scholion ^A in part as adulterated, so I remove the whole of it more justly from the same author. For if the latter part is not by St. Maximus, certainly the former is much less so. For the latter was added on account of the former. Since an inept and ignorant intruder into this adulterated scholion thought there were no lavers or basins in the Law for the washing of priests before the sacrifices, he misinterpreted the words of St. Dionysius and then added that later part: "And that Dionysius has another treatise on the legal hierarchy, which does not survive."

It is further said that St. Dionysius wrote the martyrdom of St. Eutropius, his companion, and sent it to Pope Clement, asking that he then send it into Greece to be read by his kinsfolk. The letter of Dionysius to the said pontiff, sent together with the codex of the martyrdom, was written to this effect: "Eutropius, whom you sent with me into these parts to preach the name of Christ, I signify to you has received the crown of martyrdom, having been slaughtered by the gentiles at the city of Saintes for the faith of the Lord. Wherefore I humbly beseech your paternity not to delay sending this codex of his passion as quickly as you can to my kinsfolk, and acquaintances, and friends, and the faithful in the regions of Greece, and especially at Athens. So that they and the others who, together with me, received the laver of new regeneration from Blessed Paul, when they hear that this glorious martyr has undergone cruel death for the faith of Christ, may rejoice that they have endured tribulations and distresses for the love of Christ." This letter, as well as the codex of the passion (which it is said Pope Calixtus II found in Constantinople in the school of the Greeks and translated from Greek into Latin), no longer exists in Greek. See Vincent of Beauvais, *Speculum historiale*, lib. x, cap. 18. The Acts of St. Eutropius exist there, but it is uncertain whether these are what St. Dionysius wrote, or whether they are merely taken from them, at least in part.

REV. FR. PETRE HALLOIX OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS, CONCERNING THE LIFE AND WORKS OF ST. DIONYSIUS, FOUR QUESTIONS.

^A Regarding the life of St. Dionysius and his four works, there arise questions of the highest nobility, which have been drawn into various opinions by learned men.

The first is: Whether the Dionysius the Areopagite, disciple of Paul, is the same person as the Bishop of Paris, patron of the Franks.

The second: Whether the works which now exist published under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite are truly his, or rather those of someone later.

The third: Whether the Timothy to whom these books are inscribed is that Timothy who was Paul's disciple and companion, or another, proposed by Lucius Dexter, or Baronius, or someone else.

The fourth: Which party today possesses the body of St. Dionysius, the Parisians or the Ratisbonians.

These four questions, by which the structure of the *Life* and *Works* of St. Dionysius is supported like so many columns, though they have been treated by some heretofore—and indeed not very intelligently—it has seemed best to me, however, to revise them more diligently at the present time. For I have weighed the veteran armor or ancient arguments of the opposing parties, and I have brought new auxiliary forces to the better side against the recent assaults; this, with the intention that if any, imbued with foreign opinions, should perhaps despise this *Life* or value it less than is just, they might, by consulting the reasons for our opinion which they have at hand, and by weighing the importance of the arguments brought forward on both sides in an equal balance, be more easily brought back from wandering errors into the fold of reason.

QUESTION FIRST. Whether the Dionysius the Areopagite, disciple of Paul, is the same person as the Bishop of Paris, apostle of the Franks.

That the one and the same Dionysius, who was first the bishop of Athens and then of Paris, is proved by these arguments:

First, that when this question first began to be moved, and the matter to be examined more diligently among the Greeks and the Franks, it was decided by the common judgment of both that there were not two, but one: who, after having founded the church at Athens ^B according to the custom of the apostles and having been given to them as bishop, departed to another place, and at length arrived in Gaul. And indeed, regarding the judgment of the Greeks, it can be confirmed by men of the highest sanctity and erudition of that age, namely St. Methodius and St. Michael the Syncellus; whom both, as Cedrenus testifies, under the Emperor Theophilus...

^A suffered martyrdom for the sake of religion. These men, therefore, at the time when Louis the Pious was inquiring into the matters and acts of his patron, the one embraced the martyrdom of St. Dionysius, the other his entire life, in an outstanding panegyric. And the words of the former, that is, of St. Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, which pertain to this, are as follows: ‘And this blessed Dionysius, having plowed the sea with the plow of the cross, reached Rome from Athens by heavenly and divine will, as one beloved of God and guided [by Him].’ Then also this blessed Dionysius, plowing the sea with the plow of the cross, having been led by heavenly and divine will from Athens to Rome, crossed over as one beloved of God. Thus he wrote concerning the journey to Rome; but concerning the passage into France, it is stated a little further down in the same place: ‘Having sent the holy Antoninus to the parts of Aquitaine, he himself, with the holy Eleutherius, proceeded to the city of Paris.’ Having sent St. Antoninus to the parts of Aquitaine, he himself, with Saint Lucian, Saint Rusticus, and Saint Eleutherius, set out for the city of Paris. But these are the words of the Syncellus, a presbyter of Jerusalem and endowed with great erudition, where he treats of his martyrdom endured at Paris: ‘And indeed, he having been denounced to the persecutors as being in Paris, a small town so called, they rushed in and took him.’ And when it had now been announced to the persecutors that he was in the small town called Paris, they pursued him in haste and captured him there.

^B That the view of the Franks at the same time was the same is evident from the writers of that age, Hilduin the abbot and Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims: the former of whom not only proves that he is the same Dionysius the Areopagite and [Dionysius] of Paris, but also stoutly refutes those who think otherwise or ^C insinuate it in any way; while the latter, in the Epistle which he wrote to Charles the Bald, Emperor and King of the Franks, asserts that not only were the Greeks and Franks of this opinion regarding one and the same Dionysius, but also the Romans, and indeed the Pontiff himself. For he says that he is sending to the Emperor a copy of certain writers on this subject: "So that," he says, "if there be any remnants of those who denied that our lord and patron, your protector, Dionysius, was the Areopagite baptized by the blessed Apostle Paul, and ordained bishop of the Athenians, and sent into the Gauls by the blessed Clement, they may recognize from these things—which Greek attestation, and the attestation of the holy Roman See, and the Gallican testimony indicate—that what was said long before our time concerning this cause is established. For truth, when repeatedly examined, shines forth more clearly into the light." Thus Hincmar.

Baronius cites the same in Volume II of the Annals, at the year of Christ 109, but somewhat erroneously. For "Gallicana intima contestatio" does not hold; it is to be read *intimat*, a word which was very frequent in that century. Nor, likewise, does what he enclosed in parentheses ("which was said long before our time") hold, for Hincmar’s sense here is: "So that they may recognize that which was said/established long before our time (namely, regarding one and the same Dionysius) to be valid in this cause."

In accordance with these, Anastasius the Roman Librarian wrote at the same time to the same Emperor Charles; where, after other things, in which he says that he translated the Greek Life of Saint Dionysius into Latin speech, he says: "Let the opinion of some, therefore, now cease, who maintain that he who exudes both in body and in virtues near Paris is not Dionysius the Areopagite, since this is testified and proclaimed by the style of the Greeks, which also agrees with the Latin language."

^D Nor indeed is this argument to be held in low esteem, as it is derived from the consensus of the Greeks (who are otherwise sufficiently wont to love themselves and their own). For there is no doubt that such great men, such as Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Michael the Syncellus, a presbyter of Jerusalem, clear in their glory of erudition, gravity, and sanctity, must have expended some diligence in inquiring after the truth before they wrote what they wrote concerning St. Dionysius. For to say or to suspect that they wrote in favor of the Emperor that which they themselves thought otherwise is to attribute a too light, nay, even a frivolous conscience to men who were prompt and brave for martyrdom.

Secondly. The fact that, of so great a man as Dionysius was, such meager memory and mention was formerly found in the East (where he flourished with Paul), whether concerning the time of his passing, or the manner of his death, or the place of his burial, is surely a great argument that he (as almost all the disciples of the apostles were doing at that time) had migrated to other lands and had exchanged his life far from his native borders.

Thirdly. Simeon Metaphrastes, Nicephorus Callistus, and others of the Greeks, who have searched more studiously into the memories of the saints from ancient monuments, have taught the same concerning the migration of Dionysius into Italy and France. The words of the former are these: "He reaches the royal city, Rome, and approaches Clement who was then governing the Apostolic throne." He arrives at the royal city, Rome, and approaches Clement, who was then holding the apostolic seat. And a little further down: "By him he is exhorted also to depart to parts of the West." By him he is incited to cross over also to the western parts. And again not much later: "And having reached the Western Gauls, he performed the work of an apostle, not only with words of teaching, but also with works of signs." And having been sent to the Western Gauls, he discharged the office of his apostolate not only with words of doctrine but also with prodigious deeds.

The words of Nicephorus in the second book of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 20: "Dionysius, having spoken with boldness the word of piety brilliantly, and having glorified Christ in the West for many years, coming to deep old age, was adorned with martyrdom for His sake." Dionysius, furthermore, when he had preached the doctrine of piety clearly and freely, and for many years had held up the glory of Christ in the West, having progressed to a great old age, was finally decorated with the crown of martyrdom for the same.

Fourthly. The Latin historians and chroniclers and annalists have defended the same opinion regarding Dionysius: Vincent of Beauvais in *Speculum historiale*, book 1, c. 1; St. Antoninus in the 1st part of the *Historia*, tit. 6, c. 48 and 19; Petrus Equilinus, book IX, c. 41; Genebrardus, Mariana, Baronius, and almost everyone in general. And if it be said that they are more recent authors, it must be said that those who think to the contrary are even much more recent than they, and therefore born yesterday or the day before, as they say.

Fifthly. This opinion is proved from the many Lives of other saints, some of whom are narrated to have accompanied the blessed Dionysius from Athens to Rome, and others from Rome to Gaul. However, it is a grave thing, and little consistent with Christian piety and modesty, to abrogate the faith from so many Lives of saints and from narrations taken from the archives of various Churches. Therefore, they hold that St. Jonas (whom some call Jona, others Jonius, but both less correctly) came with the Blessed Dionysius from Athens to Rome, and from thence migrated together into the Gauls. Whose martyrdom indeed gave a name to the place; it is called *Mons Sancti Jonis* near the village 344 of Castres, called in French *Chastres-sous-Montlhéry*. They also have the Blessed Regulus, once a disciple of St. John the Apostle, who, upon his master’s exile to Patmos, had betaken himself to Athens to Dionysius, and had thereafter cleaved to him, and set out together to Rome, and from thence to the land of Gaul. Concerning whom Peter Galesinius in the Martyrology on the Kalends of April thus writes: "Among the Silvanectenses," he says, "St. Regulus the Bishop. He, a citizen of Nicaea, disciple of blessed John the Evangelist, the companion and comrade of Dionysius the Areopagite in his Gallican pilgrimage,

^A after having been made Bishop of Arles, famous for the praise of his sanctity, rested in the Lord within the basilica built by the Apostles." So it is there. See more about the companions of this same Dionysius in chapters 10 and 21 of his Life supra.

Sixthly. From the Menaea of the Greeks, which record on the 3rd of October that he, after the form of ecclesiastical disposition had been explained, set out for the western regions and met his martyrdom at Paris. The very words of the Menaion exist supra in chapter 31 of the Life.

Seventhly. The booklet of the passion of St. Dionysius, far older than all the Greek writers already cited, containing both the order of his mission by Clement into Gaul and the order of his torments and death: and likewise the very ancient account of Visbius regarding the same matters (for Visbius was the son of [Lisb]ius, converted by St. Dionysius), discovered about eight hundred years ago by Hilduin, a diligent searcher of such writings, teach and prove the same thing.

Eighthly and finally, it is confirmed by the most ancient martyrologies, breviaries, and missals, where that Dionysius, Bishop of Paris, is said to have been sent into the Gauls by Clement, the Roman pontiff. I saw in Paris (for I had betaken myself there for the sake of exploring these things), I saw, I say, in the library of the most illustrious man, President de Thou—and Andreas a Quercu, a distinguished writer of our age, saw it with me—two very ancient manuscripts of Martyrologies, in one of which it was that St. Dionysius was sent into the Gauls by the Roman pontiff; in the other, however (which was the older of the two), it was expressly contained that he was sent by Clement, the Roman pontiff. Furthermore, regarding the variety of breviaries and missals of almost all the Churches, and some also outside Gaul, I refer the eager reader to the History of the Abbey of St. Denis, recently published by Jacques Doublet (with whom I have also sometimes conferred in Paris). This man, if any, was the most diligent investigator of all things concerning St. Denis. Add, moreover, as a corollary, the Martyrology and Breviary which the Roman Church now uses, which most clearly protest that Dionysius the Areopagite was sent by Pope Clement into Gaul for the sake of preaching the Gospel. But no other Pope Clement can be assigned than that disciple of Peter and Paul, who lived in the first century. For Clement II, the Pope, lived only in the eleventh century. Therefore, he is one and the same bishop of Athens and of Paris, not two.

But what those who feel otherwise may oppose to these things must now be seen. They oppose three things, therefore, principally.

First, and what carries weight with others, is that in the old Latin Martyrologies they have found St. Dionysius placed twice, once on the 3rd of October, under these words: "At Athens, Dionysius the Areopagite suffered under Hadrian by various torments: as Aristides is witness in the work which he composed concerning the Christian religion." This work is held at Athens among the most famous of ancient records. Once, on the 9th of the same month, under this form: "At Paris, Dionysius the bishop with his companions was put to the sword by Fescenninus." So the ancient Roman Martyrology, with which the Martyrologies of the Venerable Bede and Ado of Vienne agree, as far as it pertains to different days; otherwise, regarding the words, they favour us, as will be declared later when we shall answer the second argument.

The second argument is from the authority of Gregory of Tours, Book 1, chapter 30, saying that Dionysius was sent into the Gauls under the Emperor Decius. From which it would follow that he could not have been the Areopagite. For Decius lived in the third century, the Areopagite in the first.

Third, from the authority of Sulpicius Severus, Book 1 of his Sacred History, writing that the first martyrdoms in the Gauls were seen under M. Aurelius, son of Antoninus Pius. From ^B which they gather that the Areopagite could not have been called a sufferer at Paris under Hadrian, who reigned before Antoninus Pius.

These arguments appear sufficiently probable at first sight; but when more closely inspected and discussed, they are convicted of manifest falsehood. Therefore, let us examine them one by one.

As for the first, therefore, the answer is such: It does not follow, from the fact that someone is placed twice in the Martyrology on different days and under different words, that they are two different persons of the same name. For it happens in various ways that the same person is placed twice in the Martyrology. Firstly, when he was a bishop in different places. For many, having performed their episcopate somewhere, and having left behind there the memory of themselves, emigrated elsewhere and established another see: as the apostle Peter first at Antioch, then at Rome: as Saint Alexander (whose life we have also written, as being his writer) first in Cappadocia, then at Jerusalem ^C (whom you will find on two days in the Menologium, namely the 16th of May and the 12th of December): as the great Eustathius first at Beroea, afterwards at Antioch, who also is placed twice in the Menologium on different days, once on the 21st of February, once on the 5th of June, but in the Roman, as well the old as the new, on July 16.

Secondly, when the day of his receiving the episcopate is celebrated at one time, and the day of his passing, whether by martyrdom or the holiness of his life, at another, as is the case with SS. Basil the Great, Ambrose of Milan, and others. For the deposition or passing of Basil is celebrated on the Kalends of January, but his ordination on the eighteenth day before the Kalends of July; as can be seen in the Roman Martyrology. The birthday of Ambrose, however, is assigned on the day before the Nones of April, but his ordination on the seventh day before the Ides of December in these words, "At Milan, the ordination of Saint Ambrose the bishop, by whose holiness and doctrine the universal Church is decorated."

Thirdly, when once the day of someone’s birth or death is celebrated, and once or more often the day of the translation of his body, or of certain relics, as we have shown in the case of Saint Ignatius the martyr; and just as in the cases of the holy apostle Andrew, Luke the Evangelist, Timothy the disciple of Paul, and as is learned from the studies of Blessed Jerome against Vigilantius: just as also in Saint Jerome himself and St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, and in very many others it can be discerned: of whom not only their birthday, but also the day of the translation of their relics are found to be noted on distinct days.

Fourthly, and more often, from the error of those who compile Martyrologies and from various sacred books collected others to be inserted into them, partly from the Greek, partly from the Latin Church. Which happened the more easily because Martyrologies were not founded or augmented by one man, nor in one century, but by many men, some after others, and in all centuries. For he who first founded a Martyrology in the first century, or at the beginning of the second, included only the saints of the first century; he being dead, as others arose in the second century who seemed worthy of the Martyrology: so they were added by others and others, as much by the Greeks in the Greek Church as by the Latins in the Latin Church; for both the former and the latter had distinct calendars. And so the Vetus Romanum (the Old Roman), for example, which was very small at the beginning, grew with a step equal to the gradually increasing number of saints; and likewise the Menaion of the Greeks, after some centuries, when many things of the Latins were missing from the Greek Menaia, and many of the Greeks were desired in the Latin Martyrologies, there were some (especially after the times of St. Jerome) who added many saints to that first Roman Martyrology (which is now called the Vetus Romanorum) and took them for the most part from the Greek Menaia. These men were, firstly, the Venerable Bede, with his supplementer, the monk Florus (for the former had left some days empty of the names of martyrs), then Usuardus ^D

who, though he rendered the work somewhat fuller with the additions of Florus, yet did not complete it in every respect; he perfected it in such a way that he not only filled in the empty days, but even adorned them with brief acts of the martyrs themselves, as is evident from the Epistle of Ado himself, which our Heribert Rosweyde prefixed to the ancient Roman Martyrology.

I say, therefore, that Saint Dionysius was from the beginning only mentioned once, both in the Menology of the Greeks and in the Martyrology of the Latins: and in the Menology, indeed, on the third day of October, most briefly in this way: "The contest of the holy Father Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of Athens." ^A Observe here that it is silent as to where that contest, or martyrdom, took place, for the Greeks evidently did not know enough about the place where he died and wandered far from his fatherland. In the Menaion, however, which is later than the Menology and much fuller, although his feast day is set forth under only this title, Τοῦ ἁγίου ἱερομάρτυρος Διονυσίου τοῦ ᾿Αρεοπαγίτου, "Of the holy hieromartyr Dionysius the Areopagite"; yet in the summary of his life and martyrdom subjoined, it is written that he suffered at Paris.

But even now they do not have, neither in the Menaion nor in the Menology of the Greeks, anything but the feast of Dionysius the Areopagite and bishop of the Parisians on one and the same day, that is, the third of October. The compiler, or rather the amplifier, of the Roman Martyrology therefore inserted into his Martyrology on the same day what he found in the Menology on the third day of October: and thus it happened that he who was on the 9th of October under the name of the bishop of the Parisians, was also on the third day under the name of the Areopagite, or bishop of Athens. For since he was bishop in both places, both at Athens and at Paris, the Athenians recorded and venerated him under the name of the Areopagite or bishop of Athens, while the Parisians did so under the name of the bishop of the Parisians.

Note here also, in passing, that in the ancient Roman Martyrology there was originally nothing on the third of October except this: "At Athens, of Dionysius the Areopagite, ^B who suffered various torments under Hadrian." But all this which follows: "As Aristides is a witness in the work which he composed concerning the Christian religion. This work is held to be most renowned among the memories of the ancients," is 536 an addition by someone later. This is evident from the whole remaining body of the same Martyrology (where only the names of the martyrs and the place and day of their passion are listed) and from the testimony of Ado in the epistle cited above. It seems, however, to have been taken from Ado himself, who in his own Martyrology has the same, and indeed in more words, in this way: "As Aristides the Athenian, a man admirable in faith and wisdom, is witness in the work which he composed concerning the Christian religion. This work is cultivated in the highest degree among the Athenians, and is held to be most renowned among the monuments of the ancients, as the more learned of the Greeks affirm." Hence, therefore, it was foolishly and indecorously intruded into the Old Roman; for in augmenting any work, the form of the first work must be retained; and the brevity or prolixity of the author himself and the source must be imitated. Those who sin in this respect confess themselves to be, if not truly depraved, at least of depraved judgment.

Thus sinned the one who added to the same Martyrology on the eighth of November: "And on the same day, of the four crowned martyrs, Severus, Severianus, Carpophorus, Victorinus; whose festival Pope Melchiades decreed should be celebrated under the names of five martyrs, because their names were not found, but in intervening years they were revealed to a certain holy man." It should have ended at "Victorinus," and cast the rest out, whose festival, etc. For by these things the form of the Martyrology is deformed. How, moreover, did Melchiades decide to have it celebrated under the names of five martyrs if there were only four? Therefore, remove "five," for it is erroneous, and put back "four."

^C So, that we may return to the proposed argument, it has come about through the error of later martyrologists that Saint Dionysius was placed twice in the Martyrology. For when they had found in the Menaion of the Greeks and the Menology on the third of October the feast or contest of Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of Athens, recorded, they deemed him to be different from Dionysius, bishop of the Parisians, whom they had in their Martyrologies on the ninth day of the same month; they themselves also recorded the feast of Dionysius the Areopagite on the third day of October, just as they found it there, and thus they made two out of one Dionysius. Whence Molanus in his Notes on Usuardus indicated that what is held concerning Saint Dionysius on the third of October should not necessarily be read. For he appended that little note *q*, which in his epistle to the Reader, number 12, he says signifies that it may be read that far in all churches: "For those things," he says, "which follow the note *q*, are either feasts of translations, usually taken from the proper [calendars] of churches, which it is not necessary to read throughout the churches; or they are in the smallest type, concerning those who are not canonized, etc." Whence Molanus, a man truly diligent and attentive in such matters, judged that this Dionysius the Areopagite, noted on the 3rd of October, is the same as Dionysius, bishop of the Parisians; for why otherwise would he judge [that] the Areopagite [should] not [be] read in all churches? Add that, neither in the Martyrology of the Venerable Bede was there originally anything on the 3rd of October, but only on the 9th, as it is now in the new and corrected Roman Martyrology. For Baronius, in volume II of his Annals, in the year of Christ 109, testifies that the most ancient manuscript Martyrology of Bede, once received from the relics of the monastery of St. Cyriacus, has only one Dionysius, namely the Parisian, on the seventh of the Ides of October. "Whence," he says, "it must have been added not by Bede, but to Bede, concerning Dionysius the Areopagite, from the Greek Menology, evidently. For on that day, the 3rd of October, they deal with Dionysius the Areopagite." Thus Baronius, and rightly. Molanus had also indicated in the place cited above, with the letter G added to the word "Areopagite," that it had been taken from the Greek Menology.

But our adversaries ask for examples of those who are similarly placed twice in the Martyrology as if they were different; and yet are one and the same. I answer indeed that what they ask for is not necessary, since other arguments suffice from elsewhere; but nevertheless, we shall satisfy them also in this, so that they themselves may more willingly give us their hand when they have received what they ask for.

First, therefore, Saint Crescens, disciple of the apostle Paul, who, just like Dionysius, was an apostle in the East and afterwards in the Gauls, is similarly placed twice in the Martyrologies, once on the 27th of June in this way: "In Galatia, of Saint Crescens, disciple of the apostle Paul, who, passing through to the Gauls, converted many to the faith of Christ by the word of preaching; but returning to the nation to which he had been specially given as bishop, he remained with the Galatians thems... ^D selves until the end of his life in the work of the Lord." Once again on the 29th of December in this way: "At Vienne in Gaul, of Saint Crescens, disciple of the blessed apostle Paul and first bishop of the same city." Thus in the Roman Martyrology. Where you see, once he is placed at Vienne, where he was bishop, with no mention made of the Gauls; in the very same way that Saint Dionysius, bishop of the Parisians, is on the 9th of October, without any mention of Athens, in the ancient Martyrologies of Bede, Usuardus, and Ado, and once also in Galatia on the 27th of July, on which day in Bede there is no mention of Vienne or the Gauls. For it only has: "In Galatia, of Saint Crescens, bishop, disciple of Saint Paul the apostle." 537 On the 29th of December, however, it is thus: "On the same day, of Saint Crescens, disciple of the apostle Paul, first teacher of the Viennese Church." Usuardus, moreover, when he had recognized that it was the same person, and had noticed that he was placed twice, removed him once. For he has nothing concerning Crescens on the 29th of December. Thus the assertors of the new Roman Martyrology.

^A Secondly, St. Philip, Bishop of Gortyna in Crete, is found twice in the ancient Roman Martyrology: once on the 11th of April in this manner: “At Gortyna, of Bishop Philip, who flourished in the times of Antoninus Verus and Lucius.” And once on the 8th of October in this form: “At Gortyna, of Bishop Philip.” Bede also lists him twice on the same days, once thus on the third day before the Ides of April: “At the city of Gortyna in Crete, of blessed Bishop Philip.” Where such a correction must be applied: “In Crete, in the city of Gortyna.” For Crete is not the city of Gortyna, but the opposite. However, “at Crete” means the same as “in Crete,” which is frequent in Martyrologies, so that “at” is used for “in.” Nor should anyone invent different persons: for no trace of another Bishop of Gortyna is found anywhere, save for one ecclesiastical writer (whose Life I have also written separately). And that the same person is denoted in both places is clear from Ado, who on the 11th of April has it thus: “In Crete, in the city of Gortyna, of blessed Bishop Philip, who was distinguished in life and doctrine in the times of the Emperors Antoninus Verus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus;” and on the 8th of October thus: “In Crete, in the city of Gortyna, of blessed Bishop Philip, a man endowed with great virtues and excellent studies.” Who, moreover, doubts that “to be distinguished in life and doctrine” and “to be endowed with great virtues and excellent studies” are the same thing? Who likewise doubts that these things are said of the same man, when the name of the man and his dignity, and the very island and the city of that island, agree? Hence the censors of the new Roman Martyrology, and before them Usuard, when they read of blessed Philip on two different days, removed him in the latter place. For Usuard ^B records his memorial on the 11th of April, and nowhere else: “In Crete, in the city of Gortyna, of St. Philip, Bishop, who was endowed with great virtues and excellent studies. He flourished, moreover, in the times of the Emperors Antoninus Verus and Lucius Aurelius.” Where you see that all the things which Ado had separated into two days are comprehended by the most learned Usuard in one and the same day. This was also done in the new Roman Martyrology on the same day, where it says: “At Gortyna in Crete, of St. Philip, Bishop, most famous for life and doctrine, who in the times of Marcus Antoninus and Aurelius Commodus, ruling the Church committed to him, protected it from the fury of the heathens and the snares of heretics.” Nothing of him elsewhere. Thirdly, St. Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem, who suffered under Decius, is read twice in the Menology, once on the 16th of May and once on the 12th of December: he is likewise found twice in the Martyrology of the Venerable Bede, once on the 30th of January and once on the 18th of March: and similarly in Ado and in the ancient Roman Martyrology; but in the new Roman he has been removed once, and is now found only once, and likewise in Usuard. For they grasped that he is the same person whom others thought to be two. But the cause for his double placement in the same Martyrology seems to be the same as that which was said about St. Dionysius. For he was also bishop twice, once in Cappadocia, once at Jerusalem. It would be tedious to search for others who are found placed more often in different Martyrologies. For even St. Euphrosyne is noted twice by Usuard on different days and in different months: once on the 1st of January, where also Bede and Ado and the new Roman Martyrology and others place her; and once again on the 11th of February. Similarly, Basil the Great, once on the 1st of January, and once on the 14th of June. So also others. But these things can and ought to suffice to declare that it does not necessarily follow that those of the same name who are placed twice in a Martyrology are different, even if the reason for it cannot be discovered in that place, since some cause for it almost always underlies them, which I have laid out above. Nor is the argumentation of those of any value who, from the fact that it is said on the third of October ^C “At Athens of Dionysius the Areopagite, etc.,” conclude that he suffered at Athens; and from the fact that it is said on the ninth of October “At Paris, of Dionysius, bishop, etc.,” they wish it to be understood that he suffered at Paris. Those names of cities do not signify this, nor do they wish this to be understood; but rather this: that his birthday is celebrated, or his memory is recalled, whether they suffered or died there, or elsewhere. For otherwise, many would be understood to have suffered there, and in particular that inexcusable case on the first of February, where it is said in the ancient Roman Martyrology: “At Antioch, of Ignatius, bishop and martyr,” although it is clearer than light that he suffered at Rome, and in Bede, where it is thus: “At Antioch, the passion of St. Ignatius, bishop and martyr,” and in Ado: “On the same day, at Antioch, of blessed Ignatius, bishop and martyr.” In all which places, as we have said, by the names of cities or places, it should be understood that his birthday is celebrated or his memory is recalled. Thus in the Roman Martyrology on the 31st of August: “At Trier, the birthday of St. Paulinus, bishop,” that is to say, it is celebrated; and yet he did not die there, but in the year 538 in Phrygia, or near Phrygia, in exile. Thus in the same Martyrology on the fourth day of September: “At Rimini, of St. Marinus the deacon,” who died not at Rimini, but at Mount Titan, as exists in his Life. And so one must understand, his birthday is celebrated. Thus in the ancient Roman Martyrology on the twenty-seventh of January when it is said: “At Constantinople, of John Chrysostom,” it ought not nor can it be understood that he died, but that his festival is celebrated. For he did not die at Constantinople, but in Pontus. Regarding the first argument, that is enough; now let us come to the second, which is of this sort. Gregory of Tours, in the first book of the History of the Franks, chapter 30, writes that in the time of the Emperor Decius, seven bishops were sent into Gaul, among whom he recounts St. Dionysius, Bishop of Paris; therefore he is different from the Areopagite who died much earlier under Hadrian. ^D The words of the same Gregory are these: “These, therefore, were sent: to the people of Tours, Bishop Gatianus; to those of Arles, Bishop Trophimus; to Narbonne, Bishop Paulus; to Toulouse, Bishop Saturninus; to the people of Paris, Bishop Dionysius; to those of Auvergne, Bishop Stremonius; to the people of Limoges, Bishop Martialis was destined.” He is dealing there with the times of Decius. I respond that this authority collapses of its own accord. For it contains openly and evidently false things. For St. Trophimus, the first bishop of Arles, of whom it is treated here (for no other is read of in that Church), was a disciple of St. Paul, and all things, both old and new Martyrologies, attest to this. For the Ancient Roman on the 29th of December has it thus: “Of Bishop Trophimus, disciple of the apostles.” But the new, or the Roman Ordinary, thus: “At Arles, the birthday of St. Trophimus, whom St. Paul mentions writing to Timothy, who, ordained bishop by the same apostle, was sent first to the aforementioned city to preach the Gospel of Christ. From the fountain of whose preaching (as Pope St. Zosimus writes) all Gaul received the streams of faith.” The Martyrology of the Ven. Bede says thus of the same: “At Arles, the birthday of St. Trophimus, bishop and confessor, disciple of the apostles Peter and Paul.” See the same things in Ado in his little book De Festivitatibus, and in others, as much in martyrologists as in sacred historians: and yet in those words of Gregory it is placed under Decius. Regarding St. Martialis, also a disciple of the apostles, the same Gregory erred in like manner, since no one besides him has sensed that St. Martialis came into Gaul under Decius, and he is the first author of this opinion. For almost all before him agreed that he had been one of the seventy-two disciples of Christ. Concerning which, see Gallia Christiana by Claude Robert, where the Martyrology of Limoges is thus

^A recorded: “In Aquitaine, a province of Gaul, from the city of Limoges, the birthday of the most holy Martial, who, chosen as one of the seventy-two disciples, fulfilled great merit in the office of preaching with Peter, the prince of the apostles, and afterwards, at the bidding of the Lord, converted Aquitaine. Who, chosen by Him as a virgin and full of the Holy Spirit, was taken up with great glory, and in a way that is beyond understanding, to heaven in the fifty-ninth year of his age, in the twenty-eighth year of his episcopate, in the year 212 of the Olympiad, in the third year of the reign of Emperor Vespasian, and in the fortieth year after the resurrection of the Lord. All the years of his life are thus calculated: he had completed fifteen years before baptism; he remained three with the Lord, and five with Peter at Jerusalem, seven in Antioch, he remained one year in Rome, and twenty-eight years in Aquitaine, where he persevered most gloriously in his episcopal ministry until the end; where he consecrated a church to St. Stephen the Levite and protomartyr in the times of Emperor Nero and Duke Stephen.” So it is there.

In regards to St. Paul of Narbonne, the first bishop, the same Gregory likewise hallucinated; concerning whom the Venerable Bede writes in his Martyrology on the 22nd of March: “In Gaul, in the city of Narbonne, St. Paul, bishop and confessor, a disciple of the apostles of Christ: whom they claim was the very same Sergius Paulus, proconsul, a prudent man, from whom Paul himself ^B took his name, etc.” Other Martyrologies agree, both the old Roman one edited by Heribert (where it reads thus: “At Narbonne, St. Paul, bishop, disciple of the apostles”) as well as the usual and ordinary one, and likewise those of Ado and others on this day; but the Martyrology of Usuard on the 12th of December. Therefore, he who manifestly erred in these three matters, by saying that they came into the Gauls under Decius—that is, a whole century after they had died—how will the same testimony avail against Dionysius the Areopagite, which availed nothing against them? Therefore, what Gregory of Tours says about Dionysius, “It is as true (as Baronius rightly writes) as what he asserts there, that in the time of the same Decius, Trophimus was sent to Arles, Paul to Narbonne, and Martial likewise to the Gauls”: who, it is certain, were disciples of the apostles and were sent in the time of the apostles to preach the Gospel in the Gauls. But these things, like many others, are to be forgiven for the simplicity of the author, who so easily admitted many things, just as Hilduin excuses him, saying thus: “Moreover, one must spare the simplicity of the religious man, Gregory, Bishop of Tours, who, estimating many things otherwise than the truth holds, committed them to writing from a vow of kindness and simplicity, not by the cunning of guile.” So much for them.

539 But I, for the sake of strengthening their opinion concerning Gregory, but especially for the sake of corroborating our own sentiment regarding St. Dionysius the Areopagite, say that it was not a great concern to the same Gregory of Tours, especially regarding the first emperors, to distinguish the times accurately, but that he had so confused them that he mingled and disordered those things which were done under Antoninus Pius with those which were done under M. Aurelius Antoninus the philosopher, and L. Verus his sons, and with those which happened under their successor Commodus, and those which happened under others up to Decius. For between Antoninus Pius and Decius, there is no mention of the many emperors who intervened. Nothing about Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who reigned for 19 years, nothing about Commodus, who reigned for 12, nothing (to omit Pertinax and Didius as having been briefly extinguished) about Severus, who reigned for seventeen years; nothing about Antoninus Caracalla, who reigned for six years; nothing about Macrinus, about Heliogabalus, about Alexander Severus, who reigned for thirteen years, nothing about Maximinus, nothing about Maximus and Balbinus, nothing about Gordian, nothing about Philip, who reigned for six years. If, therefore, anyone ignorant of history from other sources reads Gregory of Tours here, he will certainly believe that everything which happened under so many intermediate emperors was done under Antoninus Pius, and that consequently Irenæus suffered under the same, and also Justin the philosopher and Pothinus: which, however, by the confession of the adversaries themselves, is most false. For he writes in the first book, chapter 28: “For under the rule of Antoninus, the insane Marcionite and Valentinian heresy arose; and Justin the philosopher, after writing books for the Catholic Church, is crowned with martyrdom for the name of Christ. In Asia, moreover, a persecution having arisen, the most blessed Polycarp, etc. But also in the Gauls, many were crowned with celestial gems for the name of Christ through martyrdom, etc. Among whom was that first bishop of the Church of Lyons, Pothinus, etc. But the most blessed Irenæus was the successor of this martyr, etc.” Who, reading this, would not say that everything happened under Antoninus Pius, at the same time, surely, when the heresies of Marcion and Valentinus arose? But the matter stands far otherwise. For Justin, indeed, Polycarp and Pothinus were not slain under Antoninus Pius, but long after he had deceased, under his sons: but Irenæus, indeed, much later, under Emperor Severus, of whom I speak more fully in their Lives or martyrdoms. And yet Gregory of Tours, on that very same page where he hallucinates about those seven bishops sent into Gaul under Decius, falling into error again, writes that forty-eight martyrs (of whom the first was Vettius Epagathus) suffered after Irenæus; whereas it is certain from the letter of the Lyonnese themselves, as well as the account written about their martyrdoms, that they suffered long before them with Pothinus, and Irenæus, as I said, much later, under Severus.

The words of Gregory, lest it be thought that I am speaking without foundation, are these: “He dedicated the blessed Irenæus, afflicted with various torments in his presence, to Christ the Lord through martyrdom. After him, forty-eight martyrs suffered, of whom we read that the first was Vettius Epagathus.” So he says. And yet, thirty years after these martyrs, Irenæus was still surviving, as can be seen in the Life written by me. Whence I wonder if those who allege the authority of Gregory for themselves, while they notice his chronological errors—so many, so gross, and so near—are ^D not suffused with intense shame, if indeed they notice them at all. And truly, how could Dionysius have been sent into Gaul under Decius, when the most ancient Martyrologies, as I showed above, state that he was sent by the Roman Pontiff Clement, and yet no such Clement existed under Decius? And Bede himself (whom they cite for themselves, because he seems to offer two Dionysii on different days) does much in this for us, because he says that that bishop of the Parisians was sent by the Pontiff Clement. From this, therefore, it follows that he was from the first century, and in no way under Decius, who lived in the third century; for there was no Pope Clement then: or if there was, let them bring him forth. The words of the Venerable Bede on the 9th of October are these: “At Paris, the birthday of the holy martyrs, the bishop Dionysius, the priest Eleutherius, and the deacon Rusticus. Which blessed bishop, having been directed to the Gauls by the Roman Pontiff Clement in order to offer the work of preaching to peoples alien to the faith of Christ, at length arrived at the city of the Parisians, and having faithfully and ardently carried out his holy work for several years, he was seized by the prefect Fescenninus Sisinnius, and with him the holy priest Eleutherius and the deacon Rusticus, smitten by the sword, completed their martyrdom.” And because not rarely, while they boast of their Gregory in vain, they postulate an equally ancient author, who might be on our side, behold, we put forward Venantius Fortunatus, equal in age to Gregory, and perhaps even older in birth, and certainly equal or superior in learning to them, who composed a distinguished hymn about our Dionysius, in which he expressly makes mention of his mission by the Roman Pontiff Clement. Abbot Hilduin had once cited this hymn, but he had not published it; Jacobus Dubletius has now brought it to light at the end of the first book of his Antiquities, and it is as follows:

Hymn of Venantius Fortunatus on St. Dionysius

The brave, faithful soldier Who followed the Prince of Heaven, Dionysius the martyr, Let the people praise with heart and voice. Sent from Rome by the Bishop, He arrived from the City; That the seed of the Word on high Might be fruit for Gaul. He constructs a sacred work: He teaches the faith of baptism: But the blindness of those who hear Repels the gift of the seed. The sacred prelate pressing on To free the people from error; While he cuts off the hope of salvation, He brings on the torments of death. Held by the Gentiles From the pleasing altars of Christ: For love of such great glory He willingly receives his punishments. The one thing he lacked, He surrendered his neck for the King: He revealed the love of his heart When his neck was severed. The great priest, who gave The sacred gifts of the temple, By his blessed blood shed He became a victim himself. Happy in his pious wound, By which the pain offered the palm! He who conquers death by death, Now possesses the kingdoms of heaven. Glory be to God the Father: Glory to the Only-Begotten: Together with the Holy Spirit, Unto everlasting ages.

So he, in whose own writings one should certainly place much greater faith than in Gregory, who so often and so openly offends.

Finally, Hilduin asserts that the Athenians have protested that they had accepted—both from the most ancient records of certain writers and from the continuous traditions of their own ancestors—that ^B Dionysius, having delegated a bishop for himself, had gone to Rome and, as they learned, had been consumed by a glorious martyrdom among the Gallic people. This, Patriarch Tarasius of Constantinople says, he zealously inquired into through his legates; and, being certain that the matter was so, he granted that same city of the Athenians its archiepiscopal pallium (which had been subtracted from it due to a certain contention that had arisen a long time ago); and by synodal consent, he honored it with the authority of a Metropolis, which it had previously held. Tarasius lived in the eighth century, in the time of Pope Hadrian I, and admitted the patriarchs (whom he had previously refused) into communion at last under the law that a council be summoned and that it act on the restoration of the veneration of icons (which had been stirred up by the Greek emperors). He was declared patriarch in the fifth year of the reign of Irene and her son Constantine. See Cedrenus for that year.

Regarding the third argument, drawn from the authority of Sulpitius Severus, it is now to be answered, and the response to the matter is not difficult. The words of Sulpitius are: "After Hadrian, under the Emperor Antoninus Pius, there was peace for the Churches. Then, under Aurelius, the son of Antoninus, the fifth persecution was stirred up. And only then were martyrdoms first seen within Gaul, religion once having been accepted late across the Alps." Thus, therefore, they argue from this: If martyrdoms were first seen in Gaul under the reign of the philosopher M. Aurelius Antoninus, then Dionysius the Areopagite was not a martyr in Paris under Hadrian, that is, forty and more years before M. Aurelius.

It is answered that Sulpitius in that passage refers briefly to all the graver persecutions of the Church that had existed before his time, as will be obvious to anyone attending to that passage. And for that reason, he is dealing with the martyrdoms that occurred in ^D great numbers at once (as is usual in grave persecutions); he is not denying that some were affected by martyrdom at various times (even outside those general persecutions). For Sulpitius, without doubt, looked to those words of Eusebius in the Chronicle for the seventh year of M. Aurelius and L. Verus: "Very many in Gaul were gloriously killed for the name of Christ, whose struggles, recorded in books, persist even to the present day."

Just as, therefore, such a great persecution had not occurred through Gaul before, so Sulpitius calls it the first, and rightly. For just as one swallow, as they say, does not make a spring, so the martyrdoms of a few in one whole nation do not make it necessary for a historian (and especially one who professes that he is only to pursue graver matters briefly) to remember them. For Sulpitius indeed combined the whole of sacred history from the foundation of the world to his own times in two books. Which he began thus: "I have undertaken to summarize briefly things recorded in sacred letters from the beginning of the world; and with the distinction of times, I have undertaken to speak selectively up to our own memory: at the eager insistence of many, who were hastening to know divine things by a concise reading." Whence it is no wonder if he neglected the mention of certain particular martyrs. Indeed, he mentions neither Pothinus nor Irenaeus (although the former was taken away with forty most illustrious martyrs, and the latter with almost the whole city of Lyons).

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And concerning St. Ursinus, the first bishop of the Bituriges, Gregory of Tours himself confesses that he was sent into Gaul by the disciples of the apostles. For in the book *On the Glory of Confessors*, ch. 8, he writes thus: "The city of the Bituriges, however, first received the word of salvation from St. Ursinus (who was ordained a bishop by the disciples of the apostles and sent into the Gauls), and he first instituted and directed the Church of the Bituriges, who, migrating from the world, was placed for burial in a field among the other tombs of the peoples. For that people did not yet understand how to venerate the priests of the Lord and show them the reverence that was their due." All the Martyrologies for the ninth day of November agree.

"Eutropius also, martyr of the city of Saintes (the words are of the same Gregory of Tours in the first book of the *Miracles*, ch. 56), who is said to have been sent into the Gauls by Bishop Clement; he was consecrated by the same man with the grace of the pontifical order," etc. The Roman Martyrology agrees with this for the thirtieth of April.

But if anyone should say that from Dionysius the Areopagite up to the bishops of Paris who are now, when the years of each are counted, the correct number is not found, provided we assert that he was in the first century or the beginning of the second; we can answer in truth that after Dionysius, the bishopric was vacant for a long time on account of the flames of persecution. For if from the time of Decius (who finally reigned in the third century) up to the first year of the Emperor Constans, the Turenne episcopate ceased for thirty-seven years, as Gregory of Tours himself is the author in the book X of his *Histories*, chapter 31, how much more or at least at the same or even greater interval would the Parisian seat have been vacant in the second century?

^A Since indeed the store of bishops and doctors was smaller, and Gaul was more deserted in the number of Christians. Nor is this truly a new thing, or unique to the Parisian Church, that it lacked a continuous succession of bishops in that age. For this happened in many other places as well. And regarding the Church of Reims, Flodoard the priest, a sober writer (whom our own Sirmond and Georgius Colvenerius have recently published and excellently illustrated), writes expressly that after those first pontiffs of the same Church, the blessed Sixtus and Sinicius—disciples, I say, of the holy apostle Peter—until the reign of Constantine the Great, specifically for three centuries, only one prelate is recorded, Amansius. And so that the words of this author may not be wanting, I submit them. Therefore, book I of the *History of the Church of Reims*, after it has treated above of the first ones sent into that vineyard by Peter, adds in chapter 5: "The ship of our Church, tossed by the frequent storms of persecutions and oppressed by diverse waves, since it could scarcely lift its head, cannot easily be known for how long a time the see itself remained vacant of a worthy ruler: so much so that after so many fathers of our faith mentioned before, the blessed Sixtus and Sinicius, we find only one prelate, Amansius, until the reign of Constantine: under whom Betausius is found, who with his deacon Primogenitus is the first of this Belgic province read to have been present at the first synod of Arles, reported via Bishop Marinus to the most blessed Pope Silvester, in the consulship of Volusianus and Annianus. After whom Aper, then Maternianus, etc."

Then it can be replied, even setting aside the vacancy of the episcopal throne, that there is no mention of the intermediate bishops, not because they were lacking, but because they were obscure, with there being a deficiency of those who would write; or, if they were written of formerly, they have nevertheless been deleted by the injuries of time. Johannes Dadræus responds almost similarly to this matter in his *Chronology of the Archbishops of Rouen*, where he deals with the distance between St. Nicaise and St. Mellon.

Wherefore, that I may finally put an end to this discussion, ^B and that it may be held as firm and fixed, that it is one and the same who was once the bishop and prince of Athens, and afterwards of Paris: concerning which matter, how much the opinion of Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples—a man as learned as he is pious—pleases me, so it is by no means to be passed over here. "Furthermore," he says, "it has seemed to me that it was brought about not without divine ordination and supreme providence that this most holy Father, most illustrious in divine wisdom, should have first ruled the Attic Church as the prelate of the Athenians, and should have illuminated this primary city, the parent of all letters. Once it was illuminated, being sent soon to the Gauls as an apostle by the most blessed Clement, he commissioned his see in the distinguished city of the Parisians (whether they called it Paris or Lutetia). Which could have been named *Dionysia* better after Dionysius, its first prelate and apostle, its first foster-father and regenerator, than after Isis, or mud (*luto*), as some would have it. For he first raised it up in Christ, still a little one, to the fountains of life (for it is the custom for the first foster-fathers to bestow names); he first drove away death from it, and introduced life; which he finally confirmed in the Christian cult, having willingly embraced his own blood and the machinations of all torments. Whence also, victor having triumphed over the world, he ascended to God, who had sent him. Then God preordained that place, a fountain of pious studies, so that toward it, as a certain proof of the outcome of the matter, He might direct a man learned beyond all human wisdom from Athens. Let therefore the university of all good letters be called *Dionysia*, and likewise the Parisian, which one and the same Father made a companion to Athens, and a sister; applaud your apostle, your first prelate and parent, your first foster-father and illuminator unto life, and receive his sacred disciplines in honor, and study them day and night." So he.

And this is truly better than to waste time in vain with useless arguments while seeking to inquire against this opinion, which has been accepted for so long an interval. And I pray that no opportunity be given to this complaint: *The children of my mother have fought against me* (Cant. I, 5). ^C

QUESTION II. On the writings of Saint Dionysius.

This has always been, and still is, a most celebrated question among learned men: whose are those writings which have come to light under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, whether they are truly of the Areopagite himself, or of another. Many have treated this, partly Greeks, partly Latins; partly Catholics, partly heretics. And indeed those who have held the affirmative part—that these writings, specifically, are truly of Dionysius the Areopagite—have been almost all from the Catholic assembly; whereas those who have held the negative have been for the greatest part heretics, although some number of Catholics as well.

And lest it come to anyone's mind that I, after so many tractators of this question, seem to "do what has been done," those who have applied their mind to this our tractate will learn that we have held to a better way of refuting in no few instances than those who have preceded us: and likewise that we have either detected the flaws or strengthened the arguments of certain reasonings brought forward from either side.

The first opinion, and the true one, is this: The works which are inscribed under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite are truly his, and ought to be held as such. ^D

The first argument. Because if in a doubtful and uncertain matter—such as some wish this to be—the condition of the possessor is better, how much more is it so for one possessing it in good faith, having defended his right always, over such a long time, and for so many centuries? For from time immemorial these Works have been held as the property of the Areopagite, since no space can be assigned in which they were held to be of another and not of him. For from a thousand years ago and more, Dionysius the Areopagite is praised by name as the author of these works: and there has been no one hitherto so imprudent or impudent, so bold or rash, who has published these Works under another's name. There were indeed those who might apply their own flimsy and scarcely refutable conjectures to Apollinaris or to another Dionysius, whether the Corinthian or the Alexandrian: but there were none who seriously intended to defend and champion them, or dared to prefix the name of any of those to these writings.

Those, however, who cited this Areopagite a thousand years ago, I have at hand: Leontius of Byzantium, and St. Anastasius of Sinai, men of great learning and authority, both of them in the time of the Emperor Justinian (who assumed the empire in 527 of our Lord Christ), illustrious in their writings, and instructed by the reading of many Holy Fathers. Of whom the former, in book II, to produce the testimonies of the ancients against Nestorius and Eutyches, thus prefaces: "Since by the grace of Christ, we have solved as best we could the questions that had the appearance of probability, and have promised to confirm what we have said with the testimonies of the ancients; receive in faith the multitude of testimonies, producing an equal and modulated concert of truth." Then, after some other things of the same preface, when he brings forth testimonies, he first of all...

places Dionysius the Areopagite in this manner: "Dionysius the Areopagite of the age of the apostles from the book *On the Divine Names*: 'Corruption, however, is an infirmity of nature and a defect of natural habits and operations and powers, etc.'" Thus says the Latin translator of Leontius: for I could not obtain the Greek exemplar.

But the same person in the book *On the Sects* (which we have at hand both in Greek and Latin) explicitly enumerates the same Areopagite among the holy Fathers who are contained in the middle period from Christ to Constantine the Great. For in the third action, toward the middle, he writes: "There were in the times from the birth of Christ until the empire of Constantine these teachers and fathers: Ignatius the God-bearer, Irenæus, Justin the philosopher and martyr, Clement and Hippolytus bishops of Rome, Dionysius the Areopagite, Methodius bishop of Patara, Gregory the Wonderworker, Peter of Alexandria bishop and martyr." There were, however, at the times from the birth of Christ until the empire of Constantine, 543 these teachers and Fathers: Ignatius Theophorus, Irenæus, Justin the philosopher and martyr, Clement and Hippolytus bishops of Rome, Dionysius the Areopagite, Methodius bishop of Patara, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Peter of Alexandria bishop and martyr, etc. These things are from Leontius. Where it is to be noted that St. Hippolytus is called by him (as also by certain other ^A Greek writers, which I wished to be noted in his Life) bishop of Rome, because he was bishop at Portus Romanus, a city of Italy; not because he held the principal seat of the city of Rome itself.

The same St. Dionysius is praised by name by St. Anastasius Sinaita, bishop of Antioch, in book VII of the *Anagogical Contemplations on the Hexaemeron*, at the beginning: "The most celebrated, therefore, he says, and the apostle of divine things, Dionysius the teacher in his most wise theology, because God is called *theos*, from the fact that he *theorei* all things, that is, contemplates them," etc.

Before these authors, therefore, those works, concerning which there is now a controversy, were judged to be Dionysius the Areopagite's. Indeed, even the ancient Fathers, although they did not cite them by name, are nevertheless discovered to have read them and imitated them by no obscure vestiges. Nazianzen, certainly, is shown by the most learned Billius to have followed this author in not a few places by manifest proofs. For he composed an entire chapter on this matter in the first book of his *Sacred Observations*, and it is number 23, which begins thus: "There are, he says, some places in Gregory so similar to the words of Dionysius the Areopagite that he might not undeservedly appear to some to have borrowed them from him." And that no one may think that I am inventing this, it will not be troublesome to bring forth the places themselves. In the 2nd Oration on Easter, speaking of God, Gregory says: "'Olon, he says, *en heautō syllabōn echei to einai*. But Dionysius in the 5th chapter of the book *On the Divine Names*: '*Olon en heautō to einai synēthēkōs*." In the same place Gregory says that God is *pelagos ousias apeiron kai aoriston*. Which words are not far removed from these of Dionysius, in the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, ch. 9: "*Thearchikou phōtos apeiron te kai aphthonon pelagos*." So far Billius. See there many more.

And truly it is very credible that Saint Gregory Nazianzen, when he was living in Athens for the sake of his studies, and was using the familiarity of the principal philosophers and theologians there (which may be known from his Life written by me), fell upon those books as if they were full of the highest philosophy and perused them.

The same can also be said of St. John Chrysostom: who flourished in the same place with no less glory than Nazianzen: namely, that he had read through the writings of the same Dionysius, and admired the sublimity of the knowledge and spirit which spoke in him, and the wonders he related concerning God and the celestial ^B virtues, and called him *to peteinon tou ouranou*, the bird of heaven.

I have finally found that place of Chrysostom which had been sought for a long time. For there, a little after the middle, he writes thus: "*Pou Euodios, hē euōdia tēs Ekklesias, kai tōn hagiōn apostolōn diadochos? Pou Ignatios, to tou Theou oikētērion? Pou ho Dionisios to peteinon tou ouranou? Pou Hippolytos ho glykytatos kai eunoūstatos? Pou Basileios ho Megas, kai mikrou dein tōn apostolōn isorropos? Pou Athanasios ho hagios kai pleonektēs tōn aretōn? Pou Grēgorios ho Theologos, kai aēttētos stratiōtēs, kai ho deuteros toutou synōnymos? Pou Ephraim ho polys, hē paramythia tōn athymountōn?* Where is that Euodius, good odor of the Church, and successor of the holy apostles? Where is Ignatius, dwelling-place of God? Where is Dionysius the Areopagite, bird of heaven? Where is Hippolytus, most sweet and most benevolent? Where is Basil the Great, and almost equal to the apostles? Where is that Athanasius, saint and rich in virtues? Where is Gregory the Theologian, and unconquered soldier, and the other of the same name to him? Where is that famous Ephrem, exciter of the sluggish, consoler of the afflicted?" etc. And lest anyone should adjudge that oration from St. Chrysostom, it is already six hundred years since Anastasius the Librarian cited it under his name, as can be seen in his own epistle to Emperor Charles the Bald.

Moreover, Perronius, bishop of Évreux, said that he, when he was at Venice, had seen that Greek oration of Chrysostom, in which that eulogy concerning Dionysius is recited, and that the title of his Homily was *Cygnea vox Chrysostomi* (The Swan Song of Chrysostom), which he had delivered at Constantinople before he was driven into exile. But as for that title, it is clear enough that it was not added to that oration by Chrysostom, but by some copyist, who had regard for the time and material of the speaker.

Furthermore, to the authority of our Fronto Ducæus (who, on account of the difference of style, as he indeed thinks, rejects that among those which he believes not to be Chrysostom's) I oppose: First, that the difference of style is not as great as he makes it; then, that even if it be somewhat, it should appear to be nothing surprising. For the style of an old man is one thing, that of a young man another: the style of one grieving and anxious, and solicitous for his flock while leaving them, and about to depart from them, is one thing; and that of one settled and residing in the episcopal seat with all quiet and security is another. Now this was written not long before his departure from life, as the beginning declares and expressly announces. Therefore, he here inculcates those things which are accustomed to be inculcated by good pastors in such a time: first, that heretics and pseudoprophets are to be avoided; then, that one must devote oneself to the reading of the sacred Scriptures; thirdly, that the judgment of God must 544 be pondered and feared; fourthly, that one must insist upon good works, and especially upon compunction and penance, and that this must not be deferred for a long time. What then are the genuine lineaments of the orations of St. Chrysostom, if these are not?

Or that passage alone, which I shall bring forth here, would prove that the author of this oration is Chrysostom. For after various places of Scripture, and after the word of Paul, "Beware of dogs," "But to me," he says, "tears flow, while I hear some of our Church saying that these things are not said in the divine Scriptures: and this not only by the laity, but even by those who appear to be pastors, and hold the place of the apostles and prophets, but not the morals. To whom it is opportune to say: Woe to you, blind and unskilled and inconstant leaders, who delight in the adornment of garments, and not in the reading of holy books," etc. For that zeal of Chrysostom for the sacred books is known everywhere.

Moreover, it can be proven that this oration is Chrysostom's by the fact that in the place cited above Chrysostom himself, being born at Antioch, in bringing forth the names of true pastors and bishops to be imitated, puts in the first place the patrons of his own city of Antioch, after the apostle Peter. He brings in the prelates Evodius and Ignatius, then Dionysius the Areopagite as equal to them, then the rest, as above. ^{C D}

^A A third point to add is that if this oration had not been Chrysostom's, but that of someone else later than him, certainly that person, whoever he might have been, would not have failed to mention Chrysostom just as much as Basil and the two Gregories. For he was no less famous than them, whether in life, or in dignity, or in writings.

Add a fourth, if you please: just as this author mentions no Catholic writer who existed after Chrysostom, so too he makes no mention of any heresiarch who lived after him. For he lists by name Eunomius, against whom Basil and Gregory of Nyssa wrote, as the very last. For he writes thus: "Where is Simon Magus, first in heresy, disciple and precursor of Antichrist? Where is his evil offspring and successor in insanity and licentiousness, Montanus? Where is Marcion? Where is Valentinus? Where is Manes? Where is Basilides? Where is Nero now? Where is Valens? Where are the other kings and powerful men? Where is Julian the transgressor? Where, furthermore, is Arius? Where is Eunomius, and the rest of the heresiarchs?"

Thus Chrysostom, according to the interpretation of Gerard Vossius, who obtained a better and more complete Greek exemplar than that which our Fronto published in volume VI of the Greco-Latin Works of Chrysostom. For in Fronto’s exemplar there are four rather large lacunae, but none in that of Vossius. ^B It is also to be noted that in the Greek of Fronto there is an error: *Ποῦ Νεστόριος;* (Where is Nestorius?) for which one must restore *Ποῦ Εὐνόμιος;* (Where is Eunomius?). This is clear both from Vossius's own interpretation, which the same Fronto produced, and especially from the fact that in the citation of the Holy Fathers placed above, where the adversaries of heresiarchs are praised, the author of this oration would by no means have remained silent about St. Cyril of Alexandria, the principal adversary and vanquisher of Nestorius, if he had named Nestorius among the heresiarchs, just as he did not remain silent about the opponents of other heresiarchs. But as for establishing the testimony of Chrysostom and vindicating that oration of his, this is sufficient.

Now, however, not only have those whom I mentioned appeared to recognize the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, but even older ones have; in whom I seem to have detected some imitations of Dionysius. For even Clement of Alexandria, a man of great learning, since he was born and educated at Athens, and indeed in the century immediately following our Dionysius, is believed—and by no small signs—to have read and imitated him.

St. Dionysius has in the book *On the Divine Names*, chapter 3, excellent similitudes by which he shows that we do not draw God toward us by our sins, but rather draw ourselves toward Him. I noted those similitudes above in chapter 22 of the *Life*. The second of those, therefore, which is drawn from a ship fastened to rocks by ropes, Clement imitated thus at the end of book IV of his *Stromata*: "Just as those at sea, being tightened by an anchor, draw the anchor, but are not themselves drawn by it, but rather draw themselves toward the anchor: so too those who, during the Gnostic life, draw themselves toward God, find themselves brought toward God. For he who worships God, worships Him through Him." Therefore, ^C just as those who, in the sea, are secured by ropes to an anchor, do indeed pull the anchor, but draw it not toward themselves, rather they draw themselves toward the anchor: so those who, in the Gnostic life (obtaining the gift of knowledge), draw God, do not bring God toward themselves, but bring themselves toward God. For he who worships God, worships himself.

The Greek words of St. Dionysius in the said place are these: "As if we had embarked upon a ship and were gripping the cables extending to us from a certain rock, and as if they were given to us for our grasping: we do not draw the rock toward us, but rather we draw both ourselves and the ship toward the rock." The Latin can be seen above in chapter 22 of the *Life*.

What, therefore, Dionysius has here—"having embarked on a ship"—Clement said, "they who are at sea": and what the other said—"gripping the cables extending from a certain rock to us"—Clement said more briefly: "being tightened by an anchor." Thus, where Dionysius said, "toward the rock," Clement used, "toward the anchor": and what Dionysius applied to those praying to God, Clement adapted to the pious living, and those occupied with God through contemplation.

The same Dionysius has, as much in the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, chapter 11, as in the book *On the Divine Names*, the doctrine concerning the knowledge of God through negation. This, Clement seems to have imitated in book V of the *Stromata*, near the middle, where he writes thus: "If, therefore, after having removed all things that are present in bodies, and those things which are called incorporeal, we have thrown ourselves into the magnitude of Christ, and thence have proceeded into the immensity of holiness, we shall reach the understanding of the Omnipotent in some way, knowing not what He is, but what He is not. For figure, and motion, or status, or throne, or place, or the right hand, or the left, are not to be thought of concerning the Father of all. And yet these things are written. But what each of these things signifies shall be said in its own place. Wherefore, the first cause is not in a place, but above both place and time and name and understanding." I have omitted the Greek, lest I be too long in these matters.

He has also other things similar to these in the same book, further on, concerning God, whom he calls ineffable, because He is not a genus, nor a difference, nor a species, etc. See this in the Greco-Latin Clement.

A second argument for Dionysius’s works can be taken from their very content and from the time of their writing: for these are of such a nature that they show the author to be contemporary with the apostles, a great philosopher, a fervent theologian, and finally a man not unequal in subjects and words to the most sublime argument, and truly a disciple of Paul. For the matter or subject is God, the Trinity, the angels, the Church, the pontiffs, the sacraments, or the description of ecclesiastical degrees and offices necessary for bishops to know; but the sermon and diction are those of a man contemplating, and the words are exquisite in making themselves equal to contemplation as much as it is possible to do, and, as Dionysius Rickelius calls him, a man of most profound and most fervent heart. So indeed does he rise to the sublime, so does he burst forth into new and singular terms, namely for some adumbration of things otherwise inexplicable; so is he lifted on high by thoughts and senses into the immense, that not without merit did that great Hugo of St. Victor (who obtained the reputation of being a second Augustine regarding the acuity of his mind and speech) think that those things written by Blessed Dionysius concerning the Seraphim were words of an angel rather than of a man. The mind of Suidas regarding him was the same, and of the same opinion: "If anyone," he says, "considers the elegance of his oration and the profundity of his sentiments, he will judge them to be by no means the offspring of human nature, but of some immortal and divine faculty." If anyone prefers the Greek, they are thus: "If, indeed, someone looks toward the beauties of his words, the depths of his thoughts, he would not judge these to be the births of human nature; but of some incorrupt and divine power."

Such too was the feeling of our preceptor Leonard Lessius, and the same his judgment. "Regarding the elocution," he says, "you would say it is angelic rather than human; so sublime is it, that the sublimity of the oration equals the sublimity of the conceptions. Who after the apostles has ever spoken thus of divine things:

'O Triad transcendent and more than divine and more than good,'

Elijah, carried up in a chariot of fire, rises above the clouds, the rains, the winds, and everything mortal. So he, and rightly so.

Now, a most certain argument regarding the time of writing is drawn from the works themselves, that they were written in the first century, since their author mentions no writer or other illustrious man who did not live in the times of the apostles; and, what is the principal point, he calls himself a disciple of the apostle Paul, and writes to Titus, to Timothy, and to others of that age. Since, therefore, those writings have always been produced under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, and the same Dionysius was most profoundly versed in every kind of erudition and was a philosopher eminent among few (for the Areopagus admitted almost only men of such character, as has been proved elsewhere), and furthermore a disciple of the apostle Paul, from whom he could, as one most capable, learn and imbibe both extraordinary virtue and the most lofty mysteries; who could doubt that these are his true and genuine writings? ^A

“But the style of these books,” says Abraham Scultetus the Calvinist, “is not simple and sincere, but overly subtle, inflated, affected, and little apostolic.” But the wicked writer is wickedly mistaken. For whom he denies to be simple and sincere, those who pursue better things 546 say is most simple and most sincere, not indeed with a simplicity of speech that crawls upon the ground (for such a style is to be used in lowly matters that crawl upon the ground), but with a simplicity by which things are explained through great and proper terms, and terms accommodated to the subject, rather than through long circumlocutions and translated words. For when that man penetrated divine and celestial things with a wondrous and elevated sharpness of mind, and sought to explain his thoughts on the most lofty subjects, and could not find words equal to them, he used new words, yet formed in the Attic manner, in matters that were new and transcended common understanding. They also say it is most sincere, but with a sincerity by which things are represented as they are, not one that admits of disguise, and by which small and base things are made to appear great and beautiful, or the contrary.

Furthermore, regarding what he asserts is overly subtle, inflated, affected, and little apostolic; I deny all of this, and I say that Scultetus is indeed greatly hallucinating in the former points; but in the latter, where he calls it little apostolic, he himself is not little, but greatly, divining. ^B

For if Dionysius were explaining small or mediocre things with that style and the words he uses here, I certainly would not deny that it might be called inflated and affected; but if the words here are grand, and the subject matter itself is also much grander, what is there that can be criticized? Nor indeed does any other spirit and eloquence appear in the books of Dionysius than in some Epistles of his teacher Paul, where the discourse is sometimes of such a nature, and so elevated in its words, and so adorned with figures, that if the words of Scultetus had place in Dionysius, they could seem to be able to impinge upon Paul himself. For certainly the style of Paul, by the confession of all, is far different both from the Gospel and from the writings of the other apostles. Wherefore, if Paul’s style is apostolic when it is elsewhere, as in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, then that of Dionysius, when it is sublime in sublime matters, and celestial in celestial things, can and ought to be called apostolic; especially when beneath those words he uses, such an estimation of divine matters and such piety shines through. ^C

The third argument is that when long ago, that is, around the fortieth year of Christ, a question arose concerning the Works of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, and some, for certain reasons, doubted whether they were his legitimate offspring, Theodorus the presbyter wrote one book in which he taught that those Works were the genuine and legitimate writings of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, and he dissolved four arguments which were most especially brought forward against them. Photius testifies to this in the *Bibliotheca*, cod. 1, with these words: "There was read the book of Theodorus the presbyter, that the book of the holy Dionysius is genuine. Four objections were dissolved in that discourse." Theodorus the presbyter's book was read, in which he teaches that the work is S. Dionysius's genuine one. But four arguments are dissolved in that book. Then Photius adds those arguments, but without the solutions, because the book of Theodorus the presbyter in which those solutions were contained was sufficiently well known. I shall bring forward below both the arguments themselves and the solutions (which indeed could or should have been brought forward, since those of Theodorus do not exist) in the refutation of the opposing opinion. Finally, the same Photius adds these words: "Having struggled, therefore, to dissolve these four difficulties, he affirms, for his part, that the book is the genuine one of the great Dionysius." Having therefore attempted to dissolve these four difficult arguments, he confirms, as much as in him lies, that the book is the legitimate one of the great Dionysius.

And lest anyone think those words favor the contrary opinion, let him know that the same Photius (the equal authority of whom among both Catholics and heretics is agreed upon, concerning his distinct erudition and exact judgment in deciding about books), having weighed the reasons and weight of either opinion, finally adjudged those books, which are in question here, to be Saint Dionysius the Areopagite's as his own. Which is clear from the same *Bibliotheca* of his, cod. 231, where, in a review of various authors whom Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, had cited, he speaks thus of our Areopagite: "And Dionysius, great in language, but greater in contemplation, the disciple of Paul, and martyr of Christ, and bishop of the Athenians." And that Dionysius is indeed great in discourse, but greater in contemplation, the disciple of Paul, and martyr of Christ, and bishop of the Athenians. So he. Which he would certainly not say, unless the works that are inscribed with the Areopagite’s name he adjudged to the Areopagite. For whence would he know him to be great in discourse, if he had seen none of his Works? Whence would he know him to be greater in contemplation than in discourse, if he had read none of his contemplation? For under the name of this Dionysius nothing else exists besides those works which we are now discussing. Either, therefore, he saw and read and weighed them, or he certainly agreed with those who had seen and read and weighed them. And also observe the second argument placed above, where his topic was Dionysius's elocution and contemplation, being confirmed, since those words of Photius directly tend toward the adversaries, and commend both his discourse and his contemplation. ^D

The fourth argument is drawn from the authority of great 547 men, and indeed men not less illustrious in doctrine than in piety, whole crowds of whom can be seen in the *Vindiciae* of Martin Delrio; before whose multitude, those who stand on the opposite side are truly numbered as very few. For as regards scholastic theologians, if we omit heretics, they have almost solely, or certainly chiefly, Cajetan. We, however, have Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, S. Thomas Aquinas, S. Bonaventure, Durandus, Scotus, Richard, Gabriel, and the rest. Of others endowed with various erudition, they have Theodorus Gaza, Laurentius Valla, Desiderius Erasmus, Joseph Scaliger, Desiderius Heraldus, and a few others of some note. But opposed to these are Joannes Picus Mirandulanus, a man called a miracle of nature for his talent and memory, Marsilius Ficinus and Lilius Gyraldus, men as great in talent as they were varied in science, of whom the former was the translator and admirer of Dionysius's books themselves; the latter, however, preferred this same Dionysius to all others in the explanation of the divine names. Budaeus and Billius, two of the most illustrious lights of Greek literature in France, Gilbertus Genebrardus, and Arnaldus Pontacus, noble for an equal study of literature and a sincere cultivation of friendship. Also Caelius Rhodiginus, who, by the variety of his extensive reading, scarcely acknowledges an equal.

^A and countless others, whose works it is easy to know, partly from their own writings and partly from the *Vindicationes* of Delrio, which I have cited. For against so many Roman pontiffs, so many universal councils, so many patriarchs, so many bishops, and so many doctors—all of whom our aforementioned Delrio praises—what do our adversaries have to oppose? Perhaps they will seek out sounder arguments, stronger than all human authority; these we shall see and examine below, and in such a way that while we set forth their strongest arguments, having overlooked none that carries any weight, we shall add some new ones of our own, passed over by them, yet more difficult to refute than those they have brought forward.

The fifth argument: It is not the way of God, nor of His eternal providence, to adorn and honor empty works and those full of fictitious lies with true miracles. But the Works of the Areopagite, when applied to the honor of such a great man amid various infirmities, have been honored by many miracles from God, as I touched upon in chapter 30 of his Life. Therefore, it is a sufficiently evident and clear sign that those Works belong to him in whose honor they were performed.

The sixth and final argument, and one by far the most valid against our adversaries, is of this sort: If those Works are not by Dionysius the Areopagite, who was the disciple of Paul, but by some other Dionysius—whether of Corinth, or of Alexandria, or some other later person—it must be confessed that the author of those works, whoever he may have been, existed as one full of lies, deceit, and sacrilegious simulation. But this can in no way be said; not by anyone at all. For those writings taste and breathe sheer piety, modesty, gravity, and holiness, and they do not smell—not even in the least—of any vanity (which cannot be absent from those who are deceptive), nor of smoke or filth. And so, indeed, anyone who chooses to read through them with a composed and calm mind will find this; or if that is too long, at least he will not be unwilling to glance through those things for which I have provided a space above in chapters 22 and 23 of his Life. But it is clear that they would be full of lies, deceit, and simulation if the author were someone other than whom we claim and whom the writings represent, given that he says he lived with the apostles, that he was a disciple of the apostle Paul, that he was present at the funeral of the Virgin Mother of God, that he heard hymns in her honor, that he wrote that he gave ear to Timothy who mentioned the same, and finally that he asserts many other things in those books which would otherwise contain a prodigious boldness in lying and deceiving.

But indeed, who would believe that a man so learned, pious, and enlightened, such as this author shows himself to be in his writing, would have invented such impious dreams, devised such unusual lies, and all this to give fame to another’s name while stripping it from his own? ^B Certainly he was not such a man, nor was St. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, a writer of the second century (the mind shudders to think it), nor that most learned and most illustrious confessor of Christ, Dionysius of Alexandria, famous in the third age (it is too rash even to suspect it), nor finally any other good man who fears God. It would be a rather shallow turn of mind to think this of such a one.

This same argument is discussed more fully, partly in Greek by St. Maximus, the interpreter of these works of the blessed Dionysius, in his Prologue; and partly by our teacher Leonard Lessius in a censorial letter regarding the same Works, which our colleague Petrus Lansselius has brought to light. And indeed there is no other argument stronger or more impregnable than this, so that I see nothing that can be brought forward for its refutation, at least in any probable way. For, God leading, I will show from the arguments of the adversaries, ^C since they have many points to raise when judging writings, that they fail and that they ought to be sufficient for those of moderate intelligence.

The arguments of the opposing party, with their solutions.

In these arguments, whether in reporting or refuting them, I shall follow the order of time, and in the first rank I shall place the most ancient (which are also the most important). These are the ones which Theodore the Presbyter, whose deeds were mentioned earlier, proposed to himself or answered when proposed by others. And because he both proposed them and because those dissolutions no longer exist, I shall strive to present others in their place (though perhaps the same in substance), yet different in discourse and treatment.

Therefore, the first argument is: If those writings are the Areopagite’s, why did the Fathers who came after him not mention them?

Second: Eusebius Pamphili, who enumerated the books written by the holy Fathers, makes no mention of any Work written by Dionysius the Areopagite.

Third: How is it that a detailed and delicate description of the traditions that grew in the Church with a certain progression and by the passage of time is contained in those Works? For the great Dionysius, as is clear from the Acts, was a contemporary of the apostles; but the things that this book contains are a description of traditions that gradually gained strength in the Church after that time. It is therefore incredible, nay, poorly fabricated, to think that those traditions which arose long after the death of the great Dionysius were written by Dionysius.

Fourth: How is it that this book makes mention of the epistle of St. Ignatius? For Dionysius flourished in the age of the apostles; Ignatius, however, fought the battle of martyrdom under Trajan. And it was shortly before his death that he wrote that epistle, of which this book makes mention. These are the four most ancient arguments against the books of Dionysius. To which I respond thus.

To the first I say that the Fathers who were posterior to Dionysius did not mention his writings by name because they either did not wish to, or were not able to. For those to whom they were unknown were not able to (for they could not come into everyone's hands); those to whom they were known did not wish to. And what, moreover, is the cause? First, because they did not wish those books to be commonly known (just as the author himself had hoped and requested), but to be found only among the pontiffs. Second, because ancient writers rarely cited their sources by name, except for Sacred Scripture; or if they did so, they did it almost of necessity and for the sake of overcoming heretics. And thus, since the subjects Dionysius treated—such as the Celestial Hierarchy, the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, the Divine Names, etc.—did almost nothing to oppose the heresies reigning at the time, and since almost all the struggles revolved around the Sacred Scriptures, with these being hurled intensely on both sides against the adversaries, no place was left for minor authors. Indeed, even St. Athanasius, a writer of the fourth century, reproves the Arians because, beside the authority of the Scriptures, they had recourse to other authors for the sake of support. Nor is he himself found to have used them, unless perhaps the adversaries themselves had claimed some men of great authority for their own side. For that is how he rescued Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria from them, proving that they were not favoring the Arians, but the Catholics.

To the second (which is almost a corroboration of the former), it is responded that those books escaped the notice of Eusebius, or that he did not wish to publish them for the reason stated above. For as for the claim by some that he did so out of fraud, I consider that a calumny. For not even if they had possessed them would the Catholics have wanted to use them. What, after all, is so clear there concerning the eternal divinity of Christ that is not contained much more clearly in the Sacred Scriptures? Surely, in such a great abundance of Sacred Scriptures for both sides, it seemed too pedantic, even to Athanasius himself, as I have already said, to search for weaker weapons. For they did not even cite the blessed Irenaeus, who most clearly professed the eternal co-existence of the Son with the Father, in book II, chapter 55 of *Adversus haereses*, and elsewhere. But as for the answer some give, that even though Eusebius did not mention them, nonetheless Origen and Dionysius

^A of Alexandria remembered them, this answer does not please me. For the cited homily 1 of Origen on John is of no weight, since those homilies on John are not Origen's, but of an uncertain author, seeing that in them mention is made of Manichæans and Arians, who arose after Origen. Furthermore, in this same homily where Dionysius the Areopagite is cited—that is, on the first chapter of John—in one place the Arians are refuted, and in another the Manichæans. Whence it is evident, first, that this homily is not Origen’s; second, that no solid proof is derived from the authority cited therein, since it cannot be easily known who the author is, nor of what antiquity it is.

As for the claim that St. Dionysius of Alexandria, a disciple of Origen, wrote Scholia on Dionysius the Areopagite, and that this is proven by the authority of St. Maximus, the proof is vain. For St. Maximus does not say that he wrote Scholia ^B on Dionysius the Areopagite, but on the Dionysius of the same name as himself. Yet there were many such. For there was a Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, and Dionysius the Roman pope, both distinguished writers, and perhaps others besides, so that it cannot be said with certainty that St. Maximus is speaking of the Areopagite; and I, on the contrary, could prove most clearly from the same St. Maximus that he is writing there about someone other than the Areopagite.

For the words of St. Maximus in the Scholia to chapter 5 *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, where he explains the words, *Celestial substances*, are these: "Τὰς οὐρανίους οὐσίας. Τίς ποτε, μιᾶς οὐσίας εἶναι πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους ἀγγέλους λεγούσης τῆς Ἐκκλησίας, ὁ θεῖος Διονύσιος πολλὰς ὀνομάζει δυνάμεις; Ὁ γοῦν μέγας Διονύσιος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρείας ἐπίσκοπος, ὁ ἀπὸ ῥητόρων, ἐν τοῖς Σχολίοις, οἷς πεποίηκεν εἰς τὸν μακάριον Διονύσιον τὸν αὐτοῦ συνώνυμον, οὕτω λέγει, ὅτι ἀγέννητον εἴωθε καλεῖν ἡ ἔξω σοφία, πᾶσαν ἀόρατον φύσιν, ὁμοίως καὶ οὐσίας, τὰς ὑποστάσεις. Κἀκ τούτου φησίν, ὅτι κατὰ τοὺς ἔξω εἴρηνται τῷ ἁγίῳ Διονυσίῳ αἱ τοιαῦται φωναὶ κατὰ χρηστικῶς. Celestial substances." Why, then, since the Church says that all the holy angels are of the same essence, does the divine Dionysius name many virtues? Therefore, the great Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, that orator, in the Notes he made on the Blessed Dionysius of the same name as himself, says that profane wisdom is accustomed to call every invisible nature "unbegotten," and similarly "essences" [when referring to] "subsistences." And from this he says that for the holy Dionysius, these expressions were used in the manner of profane writers, improperly. ^C But the reasons why St. Maximus in these words does not appear to mean St. Dionysius the Areopagite by the "Blessed Dionysius of the same name as himself" are these:

First, if he had meant the Areopagite, he would rather have spoken as follows, as is the custom of writers: "In the Notes which he wrote on this very Dionysius"—for he was writing at that time about Dionysius the Areopagite.

Second, because St. Maximus, in his *Apology for the writings of the Areopagite*, or in the Preface to his *Scholia on Dionysius*, when answering that objection of his adversaries—"That neither Eusebius Pamphili nor Origen made any mention of the writings of Dionysius"—would undoubtedly, had he known that Dionysius of Alexandria, who was equal to Origen and senior to Eusebius, had written Scholia on the Areopagite, by no means have kept silent, but would have said: "Although Origen and Eusebius did not mention the Areopagite, yet the holy Dionysius of Alexandria, who preceded Eusebius by nearly a century and lived in the time of Origen, not only mentions him, but even wrote Scholia on him." By this answer he would have undoubtedly closed the mouths of all his adversaries. But he said nothing of the kind; rather, he admitted that neither Origen, nor Eusebius, nor any of the older Fathers had made mention of the books of the Areopagite: and he only brought forward as an excuse that Origen had barely mentioned four authors, and that Eusebius had not only passed over others ^D but even Hymenæus and Narcissus, writers of his own region, who were priests in Jerusalem. The words of St. Maximus, answering those who object that no mention of the books of the Areopagite was made by Origen or Eusebius, are these: "Πρὸς οὓς λεκτέον, ὡς πάμπολλα παρῆκεν Εὐσέβιος οὐκ ἐλθόντα περὶ χεῖρας οἰκείας. Καὶ γὰρ οὔτε φησὶν ἅπαντα καθάπαξ συναγηοχέναι, μᾶλλον γε μὴν ὁμολογεῖ καὶ ἀριθμοῦ κρείττονα βιβλία καθιστάναι μηδαμῶς εἰς αὐτὸν ἐληλυθότα. Καὶ πολλῶν ἐδυνάμην μνημονεῦσαι μὴ κτηθέντων αὐτῷ, καὶ ταῦτα τῆς αὐτοῦ χώρας, ὡς Ὑμεναίου καὶ Ναρκίσσου τῶν ἱερασαμένων ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις. Ἐγὼ γοῦν ἐνέτυχόν τίσι τῶν Ὑμεναίου. Καὶ μὴν οὔτε Πανταίνου τοὺς πόνους ἀνέγραψεν, οὔτε τοῦ Ῥωμαίου Κλήμεντος, πλὴν δύο καὶ μόνων ἐπιστολῶν, ἀλλ᾽ οὔτε πλείστων ἑτέρων. Ὁ γὰρ Ὠριγένης οὐκ οἶδα εἰ πάντων, μόλις δὲ τεττάρων ἐμνήσθη. Διάκονος δέ τις Ῥωμαῖος, Πέτρος ὄνομα, διηγήσατό μοι πάντα τὰ τοῦ θείου Διονυσίου σῴζεσθαι κατὰ τὴν ἐν Ῥώμῃ τῶν ἱερῶν βιβλιοθήκην ἀνατεθειμένα." To which one must say that Eusebius indeed omitted many things which did not come into his hands. For he says that he did not collect absolutely everything; rather, he professes that the books which did not reach him are greater in number. And indeed I could name many whom he did not have, and these even of his own region, such as Hymenæus and Narcissus, who were priests in Jerusalem. I myself have indeed come across some books of Hymenæus. But neither did he record the works of Pantaenus, nor those of Clement of Rome, except for two letters only, and none of many others. For Origen, I know not if he mentioned all, but he barely mentioned four. However, a certain Roman deacon named Peter told me that all the works of the divine Dionysius are preserved in Rome in the library of sacred writings.

From these it also appears that the authority which is brought forward as if from the writings of Origen (of which I spoke above) is useless; for St. Maximus would not have passed it by, since the occasion was present, and necessity urged it, and, as they say, *hic Rhodus, hic saltus*.

Third, if Dionysius of Alexandria, a man of such erudition and sanctity, had written commentaries on the Areopagite, St. Maximus would certainly have cited them repeatedly; unless, perhaps, one says that those commentaries reached his ears only, and not his hands.

But, you will say, if the one on whom Dionysius of Alexandria wrote the Scholia is not Dionysius the Areopagite, who then is he whom Maximus calls the blessed and holy Dionysius? I answer that it appears to be St. Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, a distinguished writer of the second century, who, as Eusebius and Jerome testify, was of such eloquence and industry that he enlightened with his letters not only the people of his own city and province, but also those of other cities and provinces. For these are the very words of St. Jerome in his *Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers*, chapter 20, where he also lists his writings.

Furthermore, this answer is confirmed by the fact that the same St. Maximus, in that same apologetic preface, writes that this Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, made mention of the Areopagite in his writings. The words of Maximus are these: "Μνημονεύει δὲ τοῦ Ἀρειοπαγίτου καὶ Διονύσιος ἀρχαῖος Κορινθίων ἐπίσκοπος, καὶ Πολύκαρπος ἐν τῇ πρὸς Ἀθηναίους ἐπιστολῇ αὐτοῦ." Dionysius, the ancient bishop of the Corinthians, indeed makes mention of the Areopagite, as does Polycarp in his epistle to the Athenians. Note, however, that it is not said here that Dionysius or Polycarp mentions the writings or books of the Areopagite, but only [mentions] the Areopagite: so that no one may be led into error by taking them as the same, since they are widely separated by time. For it is one thing to mention the Areopagite, and another to mention his writings.

What is, therefore, the mention of the Areopagite which Dionysius of Corinth made? Indeed, it is the one which Eusebius reports in book II of his *History*, chapter 4, at the end, that Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, mentioned that Dionysius the Areopagite was the first bishop of Athens.

But there was a very great reason why Dionysius of Alexandria should write Scholia on the bishop Dionysius of Corinth, who was his namesake. For the heretics had corrupted that man’s writings, and were abusing them for their own errors. ^A And lest I seem to say this without cause, see the very words of this same Dionysius of Corinth complaining of this in Eusebius, book IV of the *Ecclesiastical History*, chapter 22. Wherefore, the Alexandrian, in order partly to explain and partly to defend him (for his authority was valued highly), found it necessary to write Scholia on him. Therefore, neither Origen nor Dionysius of Alexandria—so far as can certainly be asserted—made mention of the books of the Areopagite, nor did they cite anything from them.

Nor, indeed, did Saint Gregory Nazianzen. For he is the third person whom some put forward: they even bring out this passage of his from his oration *On his Birthday*, before the middle: "Thus, then, the Holy of Holies, which is also hidden from the Seraphim and is glorified by three sanctifications meeting into one dominion and deity. Which has been philosophized upon most beautifully and most sublimely by another of those before us." Thus, indeed, the Holy of Holies (indicating the mystery of the Trinity, of course), which is covered by the seraphim, and glorified by three sanctifications meeting into one dominion and deity. Which also another of those who were before us has philosophized upon most beautifully and most sublimely.

It is thought that, by these words "Which also another of those, etc.," Dionysius the Areopagite is indicated, who writes thus about the seraphim at the end of chapter 7, *On the Heavenly Hierarchy*: "And they cry out the most divine and most venerable theology: Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory." But these (the seraphim) cry out with a loud voice that most celebrated and most august praise of God: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth; the whole earth is full of his glory."

In these words, however, it cannot be said that Dionysius has philosophized most beautifully and most sublimely, since he only refers nakedly from Isaiah vi to what the seraphim do in heaven, or how they praise God; but it is well that the same Dionysius immediately subjoins that he had explained those voices and praises of the seraphim in his book *On Divine Hymns*, and that he had said enough about them according to his own ability. Whence it is very probable that Nazianzen had stumbled upon that book *On Divine Hymns*, and had admired the most beautiful and sublime philosophy of Dionysius concerning the seraphim and their voices.

However, although this is, as I said, very probable, yet it is not entirely certain; especially since Nazianzen, in the words placed above, could appear to have looked not to Dionysius the Areopagite, but to the great Athanasius, who was even before him: and the more so, because his own words are seen to be very similar to the words of Athanasius in his oration on these words, "All things have been delivered unto me," from Matthew xi. The words of Saint Athanasius: "For the third time, these noble creatures offer the doxology, saying 'Holy, holy, holy,' showing the three perfect Persons; as also the word 'Lord' indicates the one essence." For by these excellence-filled creatures offering this glorification in the third place, saying: *Holy, holy, holy*, in this they demonstrate three perfect persons; just as in the word *Lord*, they declare one essence.

But someone may ask, in what is Athanasius said to have philosophized most beautifully and most sublimely on this matter? I respond: in that he ^B concluded from this triple sanctification, or voice, *Holy*, pronounced by the seraphim with an equal strain of power, the equality of the three Persons, Saint Athanasius. His words are: "And not one of the inspired prophets, of those who were especially deemed worthy of such a vision, announced to us that on the first occasion of saying 'Holy,' they used a great voice, but on the second a lesser one, and on the third an even lower one; and that by this, the first sanctification refers to the Lord, but that they make the second subordinate, and place the third lower." Nor did any of the holy prophets at all, especially those who were deemed worthy of such a vision, announce to us that the angels, in saying *Sanctus* once, used a great voice; but in repeating it, a lesser one; and finally, in tripling it, a subdued one. Nor likewise did anyone say that the first sanctification celebrated the Lord, then subjected a second, and placed a third lower—that is, the persons who are sanctified. That is to say: No one said that by the first word *Holy*, the Lord is signified and praised, but by the second, one subordinate to Him is celebrated, and by the third, one placed lower. Which, of course, the Arians used to say, namely, that the Father is the Lord, the Son is unequal to the Father, and the Spirit is a creature, which is placed lower.

This, therefore, was the most beautiful and sublime philosophy and dexterity of argument of Athanasius against the Arians, that from the passage of Isaiah, chap. 6, and John in the Apocalypse, chap. 4, where the seraphim are said to have cried out: *Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Hosts*, as in Isaiah; or, *Lord God Almighty*, as in John, he saw (I say) first, that that cry is nothing else than the praise and honor of God; second, that that cry being repeated three times designates the three Persons of the SS. Trinity; third, that the equality of this triple cry (for no prophet remembers any distinction, either in voice or in tone) signifies the equality of honor and praise; and finally, from this equality of honor and praise attributed to three persons, the equality of these same persons among themselves is designated; and therefore, the Son is not to be called less than the Father (which the Arians wanted), nor is the Spirit to be placed lower, or relegated among the creatures.

Furthermore, the subtle acrimony of the blessed Rupert imitated and emulated the acumen of Athanasius, who, in his book *On the Trinity*, chap. 15, reasons thus from the same place in Isaiah, whence Athanasius did: "How beautiful," he says, "how stable! No unequal tenor in the words! How certain! What are these degrees? There is no moment of increase or decrease in these words, *Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory*, Isaiah vi. Whence, therefore, did the hostile heresy receive its degrees? For as if that concert had sung: *Holy, holier, holiest*, and had added in the plural, *lords and gods*, not in the singular, *Lord and God*; thus it made degrees for itself, especially through the mouth of Arius, so as to say indeed that the Holy Spirit is great, but the Son is greater than the Holy Spirit, and less than God the Father. Whence, I say, did the impious and serpentine heresy receive these degrees, if not from the serpent himself, the father of lies, whom the hand of the Lord drew out and sent forth because of its dissonance with that concept?" These things are from Rupert, who drew for himself from the same fountain of the Holy Spirit from which Athanasius had drunk before, and handed it down to us.

On account of the praised doctrine of Athanasius, therefore, it could be said that Nazianzen had looked not to Dionysius, but rather to Athanasius. However, there are some who force the point in those words of Nazianzen: *Ab alio quopiam e majoribus sapienter dictum est*: "It was wisely said by some other of the elders." But Athanasius cannot be called "one of the elders" with respect to Nazianzen, who was a bishop while Athanasius was still alive. To whom it can be responded that that term *oi pro hemon*, although commonly and very often it means the same as "elders," nevertheless ^{C D}

(Nihil ergo mirum, si ab eo abstinuerit sanctus Athanasius quod reprehendebat in aliis. P. HALLOIX SOC. JESU QUÆSTIONES IV.) ^A ... yet, if taken strictly and rigidly, it means nothing other than what those before us have thought or written. But Athanasius lived many years before Nazianzen, and he wrote and died many years before him.

Wherefore Jacobus Billius, prince of interpreters, renders the words of Nazianzen into Latin thus: *As someone else before us has philosophized.* Nicetas, too, the Greek interpreter, understood those words to mean St. Athanasius, not St. Dionysius the Areopagite.

I do not deny, however, that it seems at times that not only Nazianzen, but Athanasius himself, used and was aided by the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, and that both drank from that same source. The aforementioned Billius collects many passages of Nazianzen, as I indicated before, which he related in ch. 23, book 1 of his *Sacred Observations*.

I will bring forward a single example from Athanasius, both to avoid being long-winded and to leave material for the industry of others. There is also—in the book *On the Common Essence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit*—at the end, where [Athanasius] represents the subordination of the angelic orders, so celebrated by the Areopagite, with these words: ^B "Just as we have known the difference in rank among the heavenly powers, so too [we know the difference] in station and knowledge; for the Thrones, the Cherubim, and the Seraphim learn directly from God, as they are higher than all and draw near to God; these then teach the lower orders, and thus in order the higher teach the lower. And the lower order is the angels, who are also the teachers of men."

Just as we have known the difference of order in the celestial virtues, so too of station and cognition; for the thrones, indeed, and the cherubim and seraphim learn from God with no intermediary, as being the highest of all and near to God: but these, 552 indeed, teach the lower orders, and so one after the other the higher communicate doctrine to the lower. The lowest order, however, consists of the angels, who are also the teachers of men.

I believe these things are taken from the book of Dionysius *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, chapter 7; that is, from the same source whence Nazianzen is also said to have taken his own.

But, why did neither [author] make even the slightest mention of the Areopagite?

I answer, first, because neither St. Ignatius the martyr, nor Clement of Rome, nor Polycarp, nor Athenagoras, nor Irenaeus, nor Theophilus, nor Justin, nor Gregory Thaumaturgus—whose works, however, existed then and exist now—made mention of [him]. This is because it was not their custom to cite other authors by name; nor did they bear the delay in writing that would necessarily be required for citing the authorities of others. Instead, if they had happened to read anything from the ancient writers, they would absorb it and express it in their own words—unless, as I said before, they were refuting the adversaries themselves; for then they had to be named, and the words of both them and those others whom they alleged for their own defense had sometimes to be produced, as Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, or Theognostus by Athanasius. For the Arians contended that Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria were on their side, and that no one among the ancients used the vocabulary that the Fathers of the Nicene council used. Wherefore Athanasius produced Theognostus for himself, and he drew Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria—whom the adversaries had produced—to his own side.

I answer, second, as I hinted before, that Athanasius disapproved in the Arians that they sought other supports from ancient writings beyond the holy Scriptures and pious human reasoning. For he writes thus in the epistle *On the Opinion of Dionysius Against the Arians*, at the beginning: "If, therefore, they trust in the things they feel and say, let them profess a naked heresy, and if they can demonstrate anything for its defense from the Scriptures or from any human reason—which is indeed pious—let them demonstrate it; if they have nothing of such a kind, let them be silent." So he.

Therefore, to the second argument placed above, it seems one must answer thus: Although the writings of Dionysius were especially celebrated and cited by name in the sixth century, it does not follow from that that they did not exist before, since it has been shown a little earlier that the chief Fathers refrained from citing earlier Fathers by name. And indeed, if Eusebius had not composed a catalogue of ecclesiastical writers by design, the memory of very many would have been completely extinguished; and yet, even with it finished, many have perished: partly because they escaped him (for he could not obtain everything), partly because he knowingly and willingly passed them over, as he himself confesses in *Hist.*, bk. IV, c. 24; partly, finally, because authors sometimes suppressed their own names, of whom the same Eusebius says in *Hist.*, bk. V, c. 26: "And the books of many others, whose names it is not possible for us to recount, have come down to us—orthodox and ecclesiastical, as the interpretation of each one signifies in holy Scripture—but yet unknown to us, because the names of those who wrote them were not inscribed." So he; for I have rendered the Greek verbatim.

Moreover, two other reasons for the hiding of the writings of Dionysius, beyond the writings of others, can be brought forward. One, that the author himself wanted them to be hidden, and that they should only pass between the hands of bishops or priests; the other, that they contained material more sublime and more obscure than could be grasped by most.

To the third argument, which was brought forth regarding traditions that seem to have been introduced into the Church gradually after the times of St. Dionysius, and not to have been in use in his age, one answers that it indeed seems so to the opposing side, but not to us. It remains, therefore, that the adverse party prove with good reasons that it deserves to be so seen, and further, show which of these traditions or ceremonies did not exist in the time of St. Dionysius. For no one, I think, will be found so shameless as to dare to say [this] of all of them. But because in the argument above by Photius no tradition or ceremony is specifically produced, we are free from a special response. For we shall respond separately to those things which certain more recent individuals have objected: now we respond collectively only to those things which were objected to Theodore the presbyter.

To the fourth, therefore, brought forward above, regarding the passage from the works of St. Ignatius cited in Dionysius, from his epistle to the Romans, which was written under Trajan, while Dionysius nevertheless flourished in the times of the apostles: it can be answered that Ignatius flourished in the times of the apostles no less than Dionysius, and indeed that Ignatius departed from life before Dionysius, since the former departed under Trajan, but the latter under Hadrian, Trajan's successor; or certainly both [left] under the same Trajan, but Ignatius in the eleventh year of the emperor Trajan. Dionysius, however, in the last [year], that is, the twentieth of his reign, and the first of Hadrian. But I will answer more concisely and clearly in another way.

553 The fourth argument therefore asked: How did this book of Dionysius make mention of the epistle of St. Ignatius? I answer, it did not make mention. But, you will say, in the book *On the Divine Names*, chap. 4, these words are found: Γράφει δὲ καὶ ὁ θεῖος Ἰγνάτιος· Ὁ ἐμὸς ἔρως ἐσταύρωται. *And the divine Ignatius writes: My Love has been crucified.* And this sentiment is found in his epistle to the Romans written a little before his death.

I answer that it is indeed found in the epistle of Ignatius, but it is not found in Dionysius. I say and contend, and not a few with me, that those words in that place of Dionysius were by no means written by Dionysius himself, but were intruded into Dionysius himself impudently and ineptly by someone ignorant and unacquainted with the facts. Which I shall indeed prove, as I think, so evidently that...

no one ^A hereafter (provided he be a fair judge and evaluator of this debate and of the things I shall set forth) can in any way dissent or remain in doubt. Others have labored indeed to resolve this knot, but I shall endeavor at present, with God’s help, to untie this knot somewhat more clearly and explicitly than anyone has done heretofore.

Therefore, that those words of the most holy Ignatius were intruded into that place of the blessed Dionysius, and were not originally placed there by the author himself, is proved thus. First, because without those words of Ignatius, the discourse of St. Dionysius coheres much better than with them. For when he intends to prove, from the Old Testament as well as the New, and even from other authorities, that the name *erōs*, or love, has a place and is used in divine matters; if you remove the citation of Ignatius's words, then you will see the testimonies of the Old Testament first, then the New, and finally those of others, flowing uniformly and conjunctively. For he proves it first from Proverbs and from the Book of Wisdom; then from the passage of Paul to the Galatians—if not expressly and by name, at least by the power and representation of the thing itself which is effected through love; and finally by the authority of Hierotheus his master.

And indeed, that he intends first and primarily to prove this by places of Holy Scripture is evident from those things which he placed before in the same place as if by way of precaution, as when he said: “And let no one think that we, contrary to the Oracles, honor the name of *erōs*.” And let no one think that we cite the name of love against the Holy Scriptures. And again, a little further down, while he prepares himself for the scripture allegations, he has it thus: “But that we may not seem to say these things while opposing the divine Oracles, let those who disparage the name of *erōs* hear them.” Rather, so that we may not seem to say these things as if perverting divine Scriptures, let those who cavil at the appellation of love hear them. ^B Therefore, he immediately and continuously adds those Scriptures which have used the name of love, with these words (for I shall place his words in the middle without the testimony of Ignatius, so that the better and wiser connection of the speech may be discerned by the eyes themselves without it)—with these words, I say, he adds the following testimonies of the Scriptures: “Love her, he says, and she will keep you. Surround her with embankments, and she will exalt you. Honor her, that she may embrace you; and as many other things as are sung according to the erotic theologies. And in the introductions to the Oracles you will find someone saying concerning divine wisdom: ‘I became a lover of her beauty,’ so that we should not fear this very name of *erōs*. Nor should any speech concerning this disturb you; for to me, the theologians seem to consider the name of charity and that of *erōs* to be common.”

Hitherto the words of Dionysius. Which, who does not see, cohere excellently among themselves? And much better than if, between the citations of two Scriptures or two divine testimonies, one citation of a human testimony, namely that snatched from Ignatius, were to be intercalated? For a wise writer, truly of some talent and judgment, wishing to prove something from the Scriptures and from the Fathers, will never so arrange his arguments that he produces the first argument from Scripture, the second from some one of the Holy Fathers, the third and fourth again ^C from Scripture, and then again from the Fathers: but he will assemble all the Scriptures together at once, and then will induce the authorities of the holy Fathers or of other writers; especially if he aims at that goal and declares it in his words (as Dionysius does in this place), that he is about to show that some term is rightly used in speech concerning divine matters. Now, however, some ignoramus, when he read these things of Dionysius and remembered that Ignatius also had used the same term in his Epistle to the Romans (though in another signification), annotated in the margin of that place the very words of Ignatius, which were later intruded into the text between two testimonies of the Scriptures and immediately before the place from the Book of Wisdom: *“And yet it seemed to some of the theologians in our midst that the name of erōs was even more divine than that of agapē. And the divine Ignatius also writes: ‘My erōs has been crucified.’”* And indeed, it seemed to some of our own sacred writers that the name of love was even more divine than that of charity. Furthermore, St. Ignatius writes: *My love has been crucified.*

Note here, moreover, ^D that in the preceding scripture citations St. Dionysius uses the edition of the Septuagint Interpreters, and therefore we also have followed the old interpretation in the Latin, and not that of Jerome or the common one, because it does not correspond to the Greek in all things. For in the place from Proverbs, the common edition has verse 8 thus: *Lay hold of her, and she will exalt you; you will be glorified by her when you have embraced her.* And Wisdom viii, 2, thus: *I became a lover of her form.* Note secondly, that by “theologians,” St. Dionysius understands the writers of the sacred Letters, when he says above: *“For the theologians seem to me to consider the name of charity and of love to be common,”* or *agapēs kai erōtos*, because the authors of the Scriptures now use one, now the other, indiscriminately, nor do they consider one more divine than the other. And therefore those words, which I have already said are intruded, cannot be those of Dionysius, since they say that the theologians or sacred writers thought the name of *erōs* (love) was more divine than that of *agapē* (charity): for this is false. For if they had thought it more divine, they would have used it more often in the sacred Letters, whether in the Old or in the New Testament. Yet they did the opposite, and very often used *agapēs*, but more rarely the word *erōs*. Whence, in the New Testament, the word *erōs* is not found even once, but the word *agapē* is found more than ninety times. In the old, however, *agapē* or *agapō* occurs very frequently, and indeed in the Song of Songs (where it is the greatest place) always, but the word *erōs* or *eraō* not even once.

And this, I think, is the reason why some have objected to Dionysius, that in divine matters he uses a word that is not divine, but profane, and that he himself defends himself very laboriously, and has collected testimonies from the Holy Scriptures in which, however, he has not found the word *erōs* itself, but only the appellative noun *erastes* and the verb *eraō* in the imperative, where indeed a holy love might be signified. For I find the name *erōs* used twice in the Old Testament for profane and carnal love: once in Proverbs vii, 18: *Come, and let us enjoy friendship until morning; come, and let us be entwined in erōs.* The Vulgate edition has: *Come, let us be inebriated with breasts, and let us enjoy anticipated embraces, until the day dawns.* And once in Proverbs xxx, 10: *Hades, and erōs of women, and the earth not satisfied with water, and water and fire, shall not say: It is enough.* All these are brought forward concerning impure and insatiable love.

It is proved secondly that the testimony of Ignatius is intruded into Dionysius, and not written by him. Because

had Dionysius wished to utilize that text, he would not have placed it in the midst of testimonies from Scripture, nor would he have preferred it to the authority of Saint Hierotheus, his master, whom he esteemed more than all others after the apostles, or at least he would have placed it after those words: ^A *Τί δὲ ὅλως οἱ θεολόγοι βουλόμενοι, ποτὲ μὲν ἔρωτα καὶ ἀγάπην αὐτόν φασι, ποτὲ δὲ ἐραστὸν καὶ ἀγαπητόν;* "What do the theologians mean in a single word, who call Him (God, that is) now Love and Charity, now the Beloved and the Dear?" Here, by "theologians," Dionysius understands the apostles and other sacred writers, and he reflects indeed upon the First Epistle of Saint John, ch. iv, 8: *Ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν, οὐκ ἔγνω τὸν Θεὸν, ὅτι ὁ Θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν.* "He who does not love does not know God, because God is love." And again in verse 16: *Ὁ Θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστί· καὶ ὁ μένων ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ, ἐν Θεῷ μένει, καὶ ὁ Θεὸς ἐν αὐτῷ.* "God is love; and he who abides in love, abides in God, and God in him." Since, therefore, the one who intruded those words of Ignatius, "My love has been crucified," into Dionysius imagined that Christ was understood there under the name of love, he ought to have placed them here, rather than where he previously placed them—namely, among the locations of Holy Scripture, and outside of their proper place. That he imagined this wrongly will be made plain by the following reason.

Thirdly. Those words of the blessed Ignatius are in no way adapted to prove what Dionysius intended. For he intended to show that the noun *ἔρως* (eros) is accepted by sacred writers in a good sense for charity or spiritual affection; but in the epistle of Ignatius, it is by no means accepted in this way, but rather for concupiscence and earthly love, which he says is crucified in him—that is, it is dead—and that he no longer loves anything other than God, with every fire of concupiscence and desire for earthly things having been totally extinguished. This will be clear from the complete sentiment of Ignatius, which stands thus: *Ὁ ἐμὸς ἔρως ἐσταύρωται, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἐμοὶ πῦρ φιλοῦλον, ὕδωρ δὲ ζῶν ἁλλόμενον ἐν ἐμοῖ ἔσωθέν μοι λέγει· Δεῦρο πρὸς τὸν Πατέρα.* "My love has been crucified, and there is not in me a fire loving any material thing, but living water springing up within me says to me: Come to the Father." Where the second member is an explanation of the first, so that the same thing is said twice in different words: once by affirmation. Full of such sentiments in Holy Scripture is the Book of Proverbs, for example, chap. iv, 13 and following: "Take hold of discipline: do not let it go. Keep it; for it is your life. Do not delight in the paths of the wicked: and let not the way of evil men please you. Flee from it, and do not pass through it. Turn away, [and] leave it." And in the same place, chap. v, 8: "Remove your way far from it: and do not approach the doors of their house."

Fourthly. The sentiment of Ignatius is similar to that sentence of Paul to the Galatians vi, 14: *Ἐμοὶ κόσμος ἐσταύρωται.* "To me the world is crucified," that is, I have nothing to do with the world. To that, therefore, Ignatius seems to have looked, and for *κόσμος* (world), he put *ἔρως* (love)—in a different word, perhaps, but with the same meaning, for they are one and the same: "I have nothing to do with the world," and "I have nothing to do with the love of the world."

Fifthly. If Saint Dionysius had read the epistle of the blessed Ignatius to the Romans, and had wished to praise his testimony, he would have done without a doubt what he did in [the case of] Hierotheus, and he would have praised the entire passage of Ignatius, and certainly would not have omitted the part which was most favorable to him, and where the word *ἔρως* is without controversy taken in a good sense and referred to God. For the whole passage stands thus: *Ζῶν γράφω ὑμῖν, ἐρῶν τοῦ διὰ Χριστὸν ἀποθανεῖν. Ὁ ἐμὸς ἔρως ἐσταύρωται, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἐμοὶ πῦρ φιλοῦλον*, etc., as I cited before. Which words Johannes Brunner, in his pious and accurate paraphrase of the letters of Ignatius, rendered in this way, and in the same sense as we do, in these words: ^D "For living and wise, I write this, that my loves, my delights, are to die for Christ. For whatever besides Him was ever lovable or pleasing, to me has been crucified and destroyed by the death of Christ: nor does any other fire remain in me that either loves or desires anything else. But the vivid water gushing up within me so urges me, and so addresses me: Come, to the Father, come." Thus Brunner, a man pious and wise in eternal things, who, after having served for many years in the camp of the heretics—where he had been illustrious in a few—turned to the Christian standards and earned better wages under Christ, and taught Greek letters and the holy language at the principal gymnasium in Freiburg im Breisgau. Therefore, "love" in that sentiment of Ignatius does not signify Christ, nor a holy love, but a love of concupiscence and of earthly things—and not the desire for eternal things, which he, being already a candidate for martyrdom and aspiring entirely to heaven, declared to be extinguished in himself. For he also uttered many things conformable to these in the same letters to the Romans, out of the fervor of his spirit, such as those: "Now at last I begin, being bound for Him, to desire nothing worldly, nothing vain." And a little later: "Forgive me, I pray: I know what is expedient for me. Now I begin to be a disciple of Christ, while I emulate nothing of those things which are seen and which are not seen, that I may gain Jesus Christ." And many other things of that same kind in the same place.

Now enough, I think, has been done with those four most ancient arguments of the theologian; now I must oppose with all my might some of the principal attacks of the more recent writers. [index: entries preserved] Abraham Scultetus attacks the writings of Saint Dionysius with twelve reasons, the vanity of which (lest he esteem himself too much, or the applause of the Calvinists mistake it for truth) I have decided to expose openly.

His first reason is: "The style of these books is not simple and sincere, but too subtle and inflated, and affected, and little apostolic."

To this I answered above in the second argument for the alternative opinion, where I showed that the style corresponds to the subject matter, and that it is sublime in a sublime subject. Let him hear here, furthermore, our—and his own—Augustine, using a similar style in a similar matter, and let him be silenced. Therefore, in the book *Soliloquies*, c. 31, he says, among other things: "To You alone, holy Trinity, Trinity super-miraculous, and super-ineffable, and super-inscrutable, and super-inaccessible, and super-incomprehensible, super-intelligible, super-essential, super-essentially surpassing every sense, every reason, every intellect, every intelligence, every essence of the super-celestial spirits: which it is impossible even for the eyes of the angels to mention, or to think, or to understand, or to know." See there many more things which you might say are either Dionysian or certainly drawn and written from the same Spirit.

Second. "Eusebius and Jerome, the most diligent investigators of books, make no mention of these books, nor [does] any other very ancient author."

And to this I answered above, when I refuted the arguments objected to by Theodore the presbyter. See there at the first.

Third. "Laurentius Valla indicates that there were most learned men of his age who judged those books to be by Apollinaris."

I answer that Scultetus took these words from Erasmus in c. XVII of the Acts of the Apostles, and suppressed the subsequent words of the same Erasmus, where he disapproves of that opinion. For Erasmus adds: "Although Jerome commemorates two of that name, one the bishop of Hierapolis, who flourished under M. Antoninus II, the other the bishop of Laodicea in Syria; yet to neither of them does he attribute any work of this kind. For I do not think, indeed, that these are to be attributed to Apollinaris the heretic." Thus he. But if they are not to be attributed to the heretic, much less to the other.

^A Hey you, show me one or the other: either that he lied, or that he erred. Enumerate, if you can, something more solid or more true.

He proves it, then, in this manner: "The Apostle says in II Cor. XII, 4, that these and the rest of this kind are altogether ἄρρητα (ineffable)." Irenæus, in Book II, chap. 55, writes that these authors of hierarchies are raving. Augustine, in his Enchiridion to Laurentius, chap. 58, affirms that he does not know the orders of the angels and their differences. Nor do Gregory the Great, Bernard, and others follow Dionysius in the distinction of angels. Francesco Patrizi also, who in the first book of his *Panarchiae* borrows much from the writings of the ancients to stabilize the Dionysian hierarchies, pronounces—willingly or unwillingly—with doubt upon the author of the hierarchies. Thus he.

Let us now examine his vanity and impudence point by point. He cited Paul, Irenæus, Augustine, and Francesco Patrizi. We shall go through each. Paul’s passage to the Corinthians XII, 4, is: "Because he was caught up into paradise, and heard secret words, which it is not granted to man to speak." What is there, I ask you, against Dionysius? "Yet these are," you say, "and others of this kind, which Dionysius wrote." How do you prove it? Who told you that these are the ones? He proves nothing, and wishes to be believed, being truly a most vain man, and composed of the most impudent lies (as I point out to him here and there in my Notes). What could be more vain than this? Add that Paul is speaking of words which he heard, and which it is not granted to speak; whereas Dionysius does not speak of words, but writes of things, and enumerates the names of the orders of angels, all of which are contained in the Sacred Scriptures. Was the mystery of knowing their order and significance truly so great that it was not inspired 557 into Dionysius, nor Paul, nor John, nor any of the apostles or disciples? Yet the Lord God gave the apostles the understanding of the Scriptures.

^C What are we to wonder at more here: the man's stupid ignorance or the shameless impudence of a harlot? For he understands neither the words he uses, nor can he decide as a censor or judge regarding things which he does not grasp. Who has ever counted the sons of a king among the furniture of the royal palace? Who has ever made an inventory of them? Who has ever included them under the name of an inventory? Yet Dionysius described only the angels and their orders and offices, none of which is contained in furniture nor written in an inventory. And how humble are these things about the most sublime! How vile about the most noble! I know not whether this man, while he was writing those things, was thinking perhaps of moving his domestic furniture or writing an inventory of his own affairs (in which he had included his wife and children of both sexes). The minister from Silesia must be taught what comes under the name of furniture and what under the name of inventory. Under the name of furniture (as Paul says) are contained tables, table-legs, Delphic stands, stools, benches, silvered beds, bolsters, wall-hangings, shaggy cloths, water vessels, basins, wash-basins, candelabra, lamps, ladles, copper pots, and common items—that is, those which are not assigned to a proper place: furthermore, chests, cabinets, glassware, dining-ware, and jars. Sipontinus lists these from the 23rd book of the Digest, under "Furniture Bequeathed." There is no mention there of persons, no mention of children. Regarding an inventory, likewise, the old Glossary says: "An inventory is a certain little book in which all the goods that are found at someone’s place are written down." Ulpian calls it a "repertory," and Latinius does so somewhat later, where he writes about the administration and risk of guardians, L. Tutor, as follows: "A guardian who has not made a repertory, which is commonly called an inventory, is considered to have acted with malice, unless perhaps some necessary and very just cause can be alleged as to why it was not done." Scultetus should therefore have been able to produce something enumerated by Dionysius that represented at least some likeness to these things that have been mentioned. ^D And not content with such ignorance and stupefaction, he adds a much greater impudence when he says: "And he not only vainly but also falsely enumerated the subsellia of the angels." Is it really so?

What, then, is so grave if Dionysius asked his master, Paul, what those names of the angels meant, of which he himself wrote in his epistles, and which other sacred writers mentioned in the divine Scriptures? If he asked and learned what order was among them, and what the offices of each were? And indeed, if this reasoning of Scultetus were worth even a trifle, it would act more against the Apocalypse of St. John than against the writings of Dionysius. For many things are recorded there—things other and greater and more difficult to grasp—than in Dionysius: had Dionysius said these things, there would perhaps have been more grounds for Scultetus to record his furniture; for when he heard: "Turning, I saw seven candelabra, and in the midst of the seven golden candelabra, etc." When, I say, he heard "seven candelabra" (Apoc. I), and "the key of David" (chap. 3), and "a throne set in heaven, and round about the throne four and twenty seats, and golden crowns" (chap. IV), and "a book and harps and golden vials" (chap. V), and "a bow, and a sword, and a crown, and stoles" (chap. VI), and "a palm, and a throne, and a temple" (chap. VII), and "trumpets, and censers, and much incense" (chap. VIII), and other things in other places. When, I say, he heard these or similar things in Dionysius, he might then with greater right blather his trifles about the furniture and inventory of heaven. But now that those things are read in the writings of the Apostle, what will he say? Was it granted to blessed John to report so many and such recondite things about heaven and heavenly matters, and to reveal them to the world, but it was not granted to holy Paul to reveal to Dionysius the Areopagite—whom he had converted and who was his disciple—a few certain things, and those pertaining to the understanding of the Scriptures? Why is this? "Because," says Scultetus, "he heard secret words which it is not granted to man to speak." Excellent indeed. Apply this, Scultetus. You neither do it, nor can you. For who could hold his laughter if you were to say that these are the very things which Dionysius recounted? For how would you prove it? But if you say they are other things, you accomplish nothing. But that Dionysius could have gathered the nine orders of angels from the Scriptures, or from the very...

^A operation of the power of His might, which He wrought in Christ, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. In this passage, since Paul acts concerning Christ’s ascension into heaven, no one, unless he be extremely stupid, can doubt that he begins from the lower ranks and ascends step by step to the superior orders. And yet Scultetus dares (such is his impudence) to blurt out with a wicked mouth that Dionysius has enumerated the seats of the angels (so he calls the orders of the angels) not only in vain, but even falsely? It is clear to Gregory the Great, who did this very thing in Homily 34 on the Gospels. “We have spoken of nine orders of angels,” he says, “because we know, as Sacred Scripture testifies, that there are angels, archangels, virtues, powers, principalities, dominions, thrones, cherubim, and seraphim.” For almost all the pages of Holy Scripture testify that there are angels and archangels. And as is known, the books of the prophets often speak of the cherubim and seraphim. The Apostle Paul also enumerates the names of four orders to the Ephesians, saying: *Above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion* (d). Writing again to the Colossians, he says: *Whether thrones, or powers, or principalities, or dominions* (e). He then gathers the number in this way: “Dominions,” he says, “and principalities, and powers, he had described while speaking to the Ephesians; but he also preceded these by mentioning thrones for the Colossians, about which he had said nothing yet to the Ephesians. Therefore, when to those four which he mentioned to the Ephesians—that is, ^B principalities, powers, virtues, and dominions—the thrones are joined, there are five orders that are specifically expressed. When angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim are added to these, without a doubt nine orders of angels are found.”

From all these things brought forward by Gregory the Great, it is clear that he wished for nothing other than to prove that there are nine orders, and not to describe and distinguish the hierarchies among them, and therefore it is no wonder if he himself, or St. Bernard who followed him, and perhaps certain others who did not distinguish the angels by hierarchies, embraced another order, the matter having been less accurately examined. For it is confessed by all that the subject is treated much more accurately by those who treat, define, and divide some matter methodically and by rules (as Dionysius the Areopagite did) than by those who exhort others to virtue in a popular and oratorical manner: just as it is certain Gregory did in Homily 34 on the Gospels, and St. Bernard in Sermon 19 on the Song of Songs. For it is one thing to write sermons and homilies, and another to write didactic books.

Wherefore those who wrote these things, like those princes of the scholastics, John Damascene among the Greeks and Thomas Aquinas among the Latins, did not posit a different order from that which they found in our Dionysius. Damascene indeed in the book *On the Orthodox Faith*, ch. 8, and Thomas, 1st part, q. 108, arts. 5 and 6, and after them all the scholastic doctors to a man. But Scultetus passed over these things, either out of ignorance or out of malice; and there is no doubt it was also out of impudence. Now I will prove the order of St. Dionysius the Areopagite—better than any other, and therefore deservedly used by Damascene, by Aquinas, and by all the scholastics—from that same doctor from whom Dionysius first received it, namely the doctor of the nations, Paul, the former gentile teacher of Dionysius. And I prove it thus: Concerning the ^C four first orders, that is, of the seraphim, of the cherubim, of the thrones, and of the dominions, it is perfectly clear among all. For Gregory, Bernard, and others also agree with Dionysius the Areopagite, namely that these are the first of all; concerning the two most recent orders, that is, of the archangels and angels, it is equally certain. There remains therefore a controversy about only three orders, that is, the virtues, powers, and principalities: whether they be in heaven in this order, as Dionysius constituted it, or whether perhaps the principalities are next above the archangels, and above these the powers, and above the powers the virtues are preeminent, then the dominions, as in the celestial hierarchy. Behold therefore the passage of Paul to the Ephesians, ch. 1, 19 et seqq., where he uses such a gradation concerning Christ raised to the greatest glory in heaven: *Which we believe accor- ^D ding to the operation of the power of His might, which He wrought in Christ, raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the world to come.* In which place, since Paul is dealing with Christ's ascension into heaven, no one, unless he be extremely stupid, can doubt that he begins from the lower and ascends gradually to the higher orders. And yet Scultetus dares (such is his impudence) to blurt out with a wicked mouth that Dionysius has enumerated the angelical seats (that is how he calls the orders of angels) not only vainly, but even falsely?

Let us see another of his impudences (for enough has been said about that one). It shines forth in these words: “Irenaeus,” he says, “lib. II, cap. 55, writes that these writers of hierarchies are raving.” What can be added to this impudence? For Scultetus lies and raves insanely. For Irenaeus does not even by a word, neither there nor elsewhere, deal with the hierarchies of the angels as if he were condemning them; in fact, he directly attacks those who, having abandoned angels, archangels, and other orders of angels, posited thirty Aeons in heaven, and as it were new gods. Nay, he even expressly admits and commemorates there several orders of angels, namely: principalities, dominions, virtues, angels, archangels. I will bring forward the very words of Irenaeus, so that the dog-like impudence of Scultetus may blush, if it can. Irenaeus, therefore, acting against Marcion and Valentinus in that same chapter already cited, and asserting that there is one true God, not two, not more, says thus among other things: “The Lord himself of all, and neither besides him, nor above him, nor the mother whom they falsely attribute to him; nor another God whom Marcion imagined; nor the Pleroma of thirty Aeons, which has been shown to be vain; nor Bythus, nor Proarche, nor heavens, nor virginal light, nor an unnamable Aeon, nor at all anything of those things which are raved about by these and by all heretics; but only one God the fabricator, who is above every principality, and dominion, and virtue.” Behold therefore those whom Irenaeus charges with vanity and says are raving, namely Marcion, who invented two gods; Valentinus, who constituted thirty Aeons; and all the other heretics, with no mention at all of Dionysius or his hierarchies, except that he named some orders, in which he understands principalities by 'principality,' not however condemning them, but as highly approving them; just as there a little lower, when he says: “This Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is revealed through his Word (who is his Son) and manifested to all to whom he is revealed; for they know him, to whom the Son will have revealed him. But the Son always coexisting with the Father, of old and from the beginning, always reveals the Father to the angels, and to the archangels, and to the powers, and to the virtues, and to all whom God wills to reveal him.” So much there. But the same Irenaeus in the previous chapter of the same book, or ch. 74, refuting the same Valentinians, insinuates the various orders of angels, and the differences between the individual orders, with these words: “Furthermore, if through them those things which are above the heavens were made, let them tell us what is the nature of the invisible ones, let them recount the number of the angels, and the order of the archangels, let them demonstrate the sacraments of the thrones, and let them teach the diversities of the dominions, principalities, powers, and virtues. But they have nothing to say. Therefore they were not made through them.” Enough of this.

Another argument of Scultetus is this: “Augustine in the *Enchiridion* to Laurentius, ch. 58, affirms that he does not know the orders of the angels and their differences.” What then? Did Augustine know everything? Or because he did not know it, did no one know it? He was of great genius, I admit, and of rare judgment, yea, and of his own holiness—

so that I believe many things were revealed to him of which he was ignorant. But did everything belong to one man? Is there not given to one, indeed, through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another, however, the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit? etc. Does not one and the same Spirit divide to each one as He wills? What wonder, then, if He gave to Dionysius, a disciple of Paul, and one so near to the fountain of living waters, what He did not give to Augustine, who arose many centuries later? Nay, even in this very place that has been cited, Augustine shows that he does not know whether the sun and the moon and all the stars do not have life capable of beatitude and of the society of the saints, and furthermore that he is ignorant of whether there are more than four orders of angels in heaven, even though nine were shown above from the Holy Scriptures. And because, perhaps, those who hear these things may desire that the very words of Augustine be placed in the midst (for they are truly wonderful, and we now have a certain faith about the stars that is otherwise), I shall set them down. Thus, therefore, 559 he has in the *Enchiridion* to Laurentius, chapter 58: “What those four terms distinguish among themselves, by which the Apostle seems to have encompassed the whole celestial society itself, saying: ‘Whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers,’ let those who can say—if, however, they can prove what they say; I confess that I am ignorant of these things. But I do not even have it as certain whether the sun and the moon and all the stars pertain to the same society, even though it may seem to some that they are lucid bodies, not endowed with sense or intelligence.” Thus Augustine.

Therefore, just as no one can be reprehended for that reason because Augustine says he does not hold as certain whether the stars live and understand and are capable of beatitude, if someone teaches that they neither live, nor understand, nor are capable of beatitude: so likewise, because he doubts about the number of the angelic orders, those who teach their number and distinction are not to be said to act imprudently; much less, however, those who taught as much long before Augustine, and who received it either from divine revelation or from the report of the Apostles. And if it were rash to write one book about the celestial hierarchy and the orders of angels as if concerning recondite matters; how much more rash would it be to compose even twelve books about the very mystery of the most holy and abstruse Trinity, as Saint Hilary did; or even fifteen, as Saint Augustine did? Scultetus adds that Franciscus Patricius in the first book of his *Panarchia* pronounced with hesitation, whether he willed to or not, concerning the author of the *Hierarchies*: but he does not explain what he pronounced; yet it is understood well enough that he pronounced in accordance with us. Hence, how great the man's stupidity, to bring into the light things that act against himself. For he did pronounce, albeit hesitantly, against Scultetus.

The sixth argument of Scultetus is this: In the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy* he writes much about temples, about altars, about sacred places, about the choir, about the consecration of monks, about the tonsure and the pattern of the heads; when in truth none of these things existed in the times of Dionysius the Areopagite: which a reader will find historically demonstrated in Rodolphus Hospinianus of Zurich. Thus he, in his own fashion, proving nothing in particular, and basely referring to others.

Against a similar kind of argument, the following will be, as I truly judge, a proper and most fitting response: All these things that Scultetus brought forth from Dionysius truly did exist in the times of Dionysius the Areopagite: which a reader will find truthfully demonstrated in Caesar Baronius of Sora, and in the cardinal Robert Bellarmine. Concerning this solution, I know well enough that he will not complain: since I am putting forward two for one, and indeed such men against such a one, and I use the same kind of argument he uses himself. Concerning temples, however, and altars, and sacred places (not that there is need for the refutation of Scultetus, but because ^A for the instruction and confirmation of the simple and the infirm, it holds no little strength and weight) it is pleasing to represent here the excellent passage of Saint Peter the Venerable of Cluny against the Petrobrusians, heretics who were raving long ago in the same way as Scultetus now, using his words (though he lived five hundred years before Scultetus). “For what?” says that holy man, “was there for twenty-five years, in which the Apostle Peter sat at Rome, no temple or church, that is, a house of prayer, or at least a small oratory? Did not, as the series of truthful records relates (if, however, you give assent to certain records beyond the divine canon), the prince of the apostles himself, Peter, build a temple to Christ in the city, the head of the world, among the innumerable temples of the Gentiles, and, just as the blessed and great Pope Leo proclaims in noble speech, did he not introduce the trophy of the cross of Christ into the Roman citadels? Have not we ourselves, when placed in Rome, frequently seen in the most ancient crypts oratories and altars, such as could be made at that time, which (as fame, consistent and very celebrated by succession, protests) are shown to the faithful as a monument of holiness, having been built and sanctified by that same apostle, and are most sweetly and devoutly kissed by the same faithful? Was there not at Arles (which your sordid error had not yet infected by the grace of God) the disciple of the apostle Paul, Trophimus (from whose source, as Pope Zosimus writes, all of Gaul received the rivulets of faith), who always preached, baptized, and prayed in the field or in the forum? Did he never have a house of prayer, or institute that others should have one? And from whence did so many of his holy successors dare to presume this, which he did not teach, from whom they received the rivulets of faith? But so that I may speak more fully about the first apostles of our Gaul, whom your impious folly, and foolish impiety, has not yet deserved to know (just as antiquity itself testifies, and the histories left to us by holy men recount) it is not only we, but all Christian peoples, old ^C with young, deriding your madness, who most certainly hold that Irenaeus at Lyons, Crescens at Vienne, Ursinus at Bourges, Paul at Narbonne, Saturninus at Toulouse, Austremonius at Clermont, Martial at Limoges, at Bordeaux, and at Poitiers; Fronto at Périgueux, Eutropius at Saintes, Gratianus at Tours, Julianus at Le Mans, Dionysius at Paris, Potentianus and Savinianus at Sens, Lucianus at Beauvais, Andochius at Autun, Benignus at Langres (and who 560 is sufficient to enumerate all the most glorious fathers and apostles of our faith?), these certainly, these, wheresoever they announced the name of the Lord, immediately—as was fitting—overturning the shrines of idols, either founded new churches, or converted the temples themselves into churches: so that even to this day in very many places (as we ourselves have seen with our own eyes) churches or basilicas built by them, and altars founded and consecrated by their hands, are shown to the faithful people in memory of their antiquity and holiness; and let them speak by a certain living voice that you are to be laughed at and detested by all men. And so that I may make a transition to the East and the other parts of the world, who [converted] Illyricum, Greece, Scythia, if not Paul and Andrew? Who [converted] the greatest parts of Asia, if not John and Philip? Who the Persian kingdoms with the neighboring gentiles, if not Simon and Judas? Who the Indian parts and the lands adjacent to the rising sun, if not Thomas and Bartholomew? Who the whole of Ethiopia, if not Matthew, the first and the last of the apostles of Christ, destroying the temples of ancient superstition, and wrapping them in the churches of the new grace? Thus do all the authors of the Old and New Law with unanimous zeal oppose you; so that it is necessary for you either to acquiesce to such great witnesses, or to remain Christians fallaciously without Christ, the prophets, and the apostles.” So far the holy man,

of whom it is not worthy to unloose the sandals, says Scultetus.

^A Seventh argument: “He calls Timothy son, who, however, if not greater than he, was certainly his equal in piety, authority, and doctrine.” It would have been necessary to add, and in age, to make the argument effective. For it is clearer than light that the elderly were accustomed to address those younger in age by the name of sons. Thus we see it in the Holy Scriptures, thus in profane authors, and thus in common usage. Moreover, that Timothy was much younger than Dionysius is evident from the fact that Paul, writing to him when he was already a bishop—in the times of Nero—insinuates that he was even then a young man, when he says: “Let no man despise thy youth” (1 Tim. IV, 12). Yet Dionysius was already of a quite advanced age, and (a point not without weight) possessed of very great authority, whether because he had been among the Areopagites and had abandoned them for Christ’s cause, or because he had been converted, baptized, and ordained by Paul himself. Thus Dionysius called Timothy son, *as being far advanced in years and exceeding in philosophy*, as if he had preceded him in years and excelled in philosophy, as St. Maximus says in the commentaries on chapter 2 of *The Celestial Hierarchy*, regarding those words, *But you, son*; and George Pachymeres feels the same way regarding that same passage. Furthermore, the word *pais* (child) signifies not only son, but also child, and in its primary and principal signification at that, just as *huios* (son) primarily signifies son. Hence Christ the Lord called his apostles and disciples, whom he desired to be like children in their ways, children (John XXI, 5): “Children, have you any meat?” Whence it came about in the primitive Church that all Christians were called children, on account of their Christian simplicity and gentleness of manners; but bishops and others destined for sacred duties were called *paides hieroi*, that is, holy children. Thus the blessed Clement of Alexandria in *Paedagogus*, book 1, chapter 2, addresses all Christians by the name of children in these words: “Our tutor is like, O you children, to his Father, God.” And yet those to whom he writes were not children in age or in judgment (since such lofty teachings would not have been appropriate for them), but in the probity and innocence of their manners. Saint Maximus also admits and proves this meaning and answer to the passage of Dionysius, in these words: ^B “Or because they called those who practiced godliness in simplicity *children*, as Papias also indicates in his book of *Dominical Expositions*, and Clement of Alexandria in the *Paedagogus*.” Or because they called those who followed a pious simplicity and innocence children, just as Papias also indicates in the first book of his *Dominical Explanations*, and Clement of Alexandria in the *Paedagogus*: this means the simple, the sincere, and the least evil, such as the ancients, as Pachymeres says, have handed down that Timothy was. For thus he says in his *Dionysian Paraphrase*: “Or they called those who practiced simplicity children, as some of the ancients relate regarding this matter, that he prided himself on his simplicity.” Or because they were practicing simplicity, they called them children, as some of the ancients have reported of him (Timothy) that he was adorned with simplicity. I have indeed read both of the epistles of the divine Paul to Timothy quite often and attentively, if perhaps I could find some traces by searching, by which I might arrive at a knowledge of his character and temperament, and by the same path come to a solution of that knot which the adversaries have tied; I found at length that Timothy had been versed in the Holy Scriptures from a child, but was quite insignificant and very timid in mind and spirit, and one who would have very willingly laid down the burden of the pontificate, had Paul permitted it. Wherefore he also had to be repeatedly encouraged and stirred up by Paul, and taught in the manner of a child how he ought to converse with each kind of men. And because he was ignorant of profane philosophy and foreign letters, ^C and because of this he would suffer much trouble and annoyance from the literati of the age (as Maximus and Pachymeres testify), for this reason he was in need of the help of Paul while he lived, and of Dionysius after he was dead. Since, therefore, Paul died under Nero, it is credible that 561 Dionysius composed his books addressed to Timothy under the succeeding emperors, and especially under Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, the first of whom reigned ten years, the second two, and the third fifteen. For Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, who preceded them, did not complete full years each. Regarding the fear and timid nature of Timothy, I have noted some things in the *Annotations to the Life of Saint Polycarp*, chapter 7, at the end.

Finally, from these things it can easily be gathered how probable it is that Timothy, after Paul’s death, converted himself, for the sake of help and solace, to Dionysius the Areopagite, whom he knew to be the greatest both in genius and in both kinds of knowledge, sacred as well as profane, and for the sake of his inborn simplicity and modesty of soul (which we still do today, when we write to our elders and more learned ones, or ask for something) he called him his son or child; which word, consequently, Dionysius also used in writing back to him; although he sometimes added to that word the title of holy or most holy, as one who knew that he was writing to a bishop and a holy man, albeit a younger and simpler one. Hence even the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy* begins to him thus: “As for our hierarchy, O most holy of holy children, etc.” Which, indeed, our hierarchy, O most holy of holy children, etc. But since (as it is in Job) the simplicity of the just is derided, as a lamp is contemned in the thoughts of the rich, or because it is easy for the just and simple to be easily derided and despised by vain men, Paul took careful heed that those things should not fall upon Timothy, partly by praising him, partly by writing letters in his and his own name, and partly by expressly forbidding his being despised. Therefore, the inscription of Paul’s epistle to Philemon has joined to it the name of Timothy, in this manner: “Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy the brother, to Philemon our fellow laborer,” etc. In the first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter XVI, 10, he praises him and at the same time commends him and makes him safe from contempt: “Now if Timothy come, see that he be with you without fear. For he worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do. Let no man therefore despise him: but conduct him on his way in peace, that he may come to me. For I look for him with the brethren.”

^D In which places I cannot but marvel at, and love, and embrace such kindness of the Apostle, and his paternal care and solicitude in preparing authority and confidence for his disciple: a fact which Saint John Chrysostom also admired of old in his Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul. But in order that it may be known how much Saint Dionysius valued Timothy (although he called him son on account of his age), despite the opinion of his erudition, let those things be read, I pray, which I have written above in the *Life of Dionysius*, chapter 25, where the modesty of the same Saint Dionysius is set in the middle. For he says there things about Timothy that are truly worthy of him who was the companion and disciple of Paul. For he makes him to be such that he deserves to be taught by God through the angels, and indeed both truer and clearer things than he himself had taught.

Eighth argument of Scultetus: “He names many greater teachers here and there, when in the time of the true Dionysius, apart from the apostles, there was scarcely one or another ecclesiastical writer.” This argument is very thin, and like a web that would hardly hold flies. “Many,” he says. I ask, whom? Or how does he name them? For unless I (as I use the words of Ennius) “bring aid or relieve his care,” the water will stick to him. Therefore, Dionysius praises two teachers by name, Paul and Hierotheus, but others in general.

^A Using similar expressions, our theologians, our fathers, etc. He understands by "theologians" (as one can see in his own writings) all those who have written about God and divine matters, that is to say, the prophets, the apostles, and other authors of Sacred Scripture; for they are truly theologians, truly our masters and teachers: just as the holy philosopher Justin calls them in his Apology to Antoninus Pius ^B toward the end, in these words: "And so that you may learn that Plato also received [what he taught] from our teachers (we mean the Word through the prophets)..." etc. "But so that you may understand that Plato also received [instruction] from our masters (we speak of the doctrine of the prophets)," etc. Justin proves there that Moses is older than Plato and that the latter borrowed some things from his books, and he says that by "our masters" he means the prophets. The same Justin, in his Apology to the Senate, toward the middle, calls Jesus our teacher. "And Jesus our teacher taught," etc. And "Jesus our master taught," etc. Thus, Dionysius in the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, chapter 2, calls Malachi, John the Evangelist, Moses, Solomon, Isaiah, Hosea, and David theologians. For, teaching how the theologians express the divinity, he adduces examples from all of them, and none from other inferior writers. And in chapter 3, after he said: "These divine visions our renowned fathers were initiated into through the mediation of the heavenly powers." Now, these divine visions those renowned fathers of ours learned from the heavenly virtues. Lest Scultetus say there were no renowned Fathers, he shows who they are whom he understands by the examples provided, namely Moses, ^C Luke, Matthew, 562 Isaiah, whom he produces for the sake of proof. See Dionysius in the same work, chapter 5 at the beginning, and chapter 7 toward the end, where he lists David, Isaiah, and Ezekiel among the number of the theologians, and likewise chapter 8. And because Scultetus is so shameless that he can deny these things unless the author expressly says "Ezekiel the theologian," "Zechariah the theologian," and so on for the others; come, let us even convict him of this. Therefore, in chapter 8 of *The Celestial Hierarchy*, Dionysius says: "You see clearly one of the theologians, Zechariah, [beholding] one, as I suppose, of the first angels around God." And a little later: "But another of the theologians, Ezekiel," etc. See more there and in the following chapters. Thus "theology" is used by Dionysius himself for Sacred Scripture, as in chapter 2 of *The Divine Names*, at the beginning: "And what else can be learned from sacred theology, when it says that the Thearchy itself, when asked, said: 'Why do you ask me about the good? No one is good except God alone?'" For what else can be learned from sacred theology, when it says that the divinity itself taught: "Why do you ask me about the good? No one is good, save God alone." Although, therefore, Dionysius had no other teachers except Hierotheus and Paul the Apostle, yet he could with perfect right say of the other sacred writers of either the Old or the New Testament: "Our teachers, our fathers, our elders, our theologians," etc. From which Scultetus's eighth objection is shown to be most vain. Let us proceed to the others. The ninth is as follows: "He cites the sentiment of Ignatius who was about to die under Trajan: 'My love has been crucified.' But Methodius writes that Dionysius was put to death when Domitian reigned." So he says, to whom this reply might suffice: That Ado, Archbishop of Vienne, writes that Dionysius suffered martyrdom in the days of Hadrian. For as he proves by one witness, so I refute [him] by one witness. We are therefore now equal. But we have already replied most fully to this objection concerning the sentiment of Ignatius in this same question above. The tenth reason, or the tenth-rank impudence of Scultetus, is of this kind: "He errs (he says of Saint Dionysius) ^D manifestly, because he teaches that the dead should be sprinkled and anointed with oil; [and] that the monastic state is more excellent than the order of all those being initiated and even than the ministry: [and] that the ointment is [ὁμοταγὲς] (of equal rank) to baptism, a human invention, forsooth, [and not] a sacrament of Christ." Thus he speaks in the Pythagorean manner, and without proof. To whom if I respond in the same manner, and reject with a mere denial those three things which he brought forward, what dishonor should I do to such an arguer? But for the sake of others we will say more, and we will go through [his] points one by one. First, therefore, for what he says about that most holy and learned man, and indeed saying that he errs most manifestly in his writings, I think it must be answered. Scultetus errs and raves most manifestly. For it is permitted for a lover of the saints to speak thus to the revilers of the saints. For Saint Dionysius wrote what he saw being done in his time concerning the dead, both by himself and by others: and indeed, why that was done, he brought forward this excellent reason, most acceptable to all good men, namely that it is signified that he who is anointed has fought lawfully and has departed by fighting. But Scultetus, in place of his bold and impudent contradiction, what does he bring? Not even that which boys shout they have found in a bean. But I would like them to read the ceremonies brought forward by Dionysius concerning the funerals of the dead in the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter 7, and they will marvel at their antiquity as well as their holiness, which is most full of wisdom. The second point of Scultetus's reprehension is that Dionysius teaches that the monastic state is more excellent than the order of all those being initiated and even than the ministry. Against which doctrine he again brings forward nothing except those two words, "He errs manifestly," although he himself in the meantime lies most manifestly. For in the first place, Dionysius does not teach that the monastic state is more excellent than any ministry, nor is there any word in it that sounds like this: nay, he places the monastic state outside the order of all ministers and all sacred orders. For he posits three sacred orders: pontiffs, priests, and deacons, who are also called initiators or those conducting sacred rites, among whom there is no mention of monks; for they have no duties in sacred matters, and therefore are inferior to all the ministers or administrators of them. Then those who are only initiated, but do not initiate—that is, all laymen pertaining to the Church—he divides into three classes: into those who are excluded from the sacrifices, into those who are participants in them and lead a common life, and into those who profess a greater perfection, that is, monks. Which partition will be found in the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter 6, where Dionysius also teaches that the first class (which is of the more simple and imperfect) pertains to the care of deacons or ministers, who are called λειτουργοί; whose duty it is to teach and purge them; but the second, which is of the intermediate, and the third, which is of the monks or worshipers, pertains to the office of the priest: for it is his, both to teach and illuminate the common people or the faithful already baptized, and those now pursuing the way of marriage, and to consecrate to God 563 those monks who profess a singular life and exact chastity. What, therefore, did Scultetus intend when he lied that Dionysius taught that the monastic state is more excellent than the ministry? Or perhaps did Calvin's minister look to his own ministry, and to bring odium upon Dionysius, feign that he prefers monks to ministers? And yet the Areopagite was entirely unaware of such ministers; and even if he had foreseen that such things would come, perhaps fourteen hundred years after him, he would not have committed a great sin if he had placed them after the monks—I do not say those who are now, but even those who were then, and who held no sacred order. But Dionysius said nothing of the sort about ministers: among whom those are called ministers who are now commonly [called] deacons, but

he subordinates monks to them: whom, as I noted before, he teaches to excel among the laity alone, as if they were a special class. And these things, I think, are sufficient to uncover the meretricious impudence of a brazen man. For I shall treat of monks more fully below, and I shall show how great a difference there is between those of whom Dionysius treated and those who existed in later centuries and exist now; and at the same time, from that difference, I shall draw a most powerful argument for the books of Dionysius: for now it is certain that I am pressing Scultetus by confounding him.

The third member, therefore, of the thirteenth reason brought forward by him was, “that Dionysius manifestly errs, because he taught that the unguent is *homotages* [of the same order] with baptism, that is to say, an invention of man for the sacrament of Christ.” What should I answer here? He himself does not say where Dionysius teaches this, he does not bring forward the words, he does not urge them, he does not attempt to deduce from them a certain or at least in some way probable consequence; so that he shamelessly abuses both the simplicity of his own followers, whom he wishes to believe him as if he were Pythagoras, and the excessive patience of learned men, who have no leisure for searching out places. I have searched to see if by chance I might find Dionysius anywhere saying, *the unguent and baptism are homotages*, [that the] unguent is of the same order or dignity as baptism, [but] I nowhere found it, nor is that word *homotages* ever used by Dionysius in a comparison of the unguent with baptism; but when he speaks well of the eucharist, and from that passes to the confection of the unguent (which he does in the fourth chapter *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, at the beginning), he writes thus: *“But there is another sacred operation of the unguent, which our guides call by the same name as the sacred synaxis.”* But to those (the most holy synaxis) it is another sacred operation of a bordering order: our leaders call it the sacrament of the unguent. He says, however, that it is of the same order, not that it is the same sacrament (for he openly distinguishes, and says he is passing from one to another), but that this confection of the unguent also pertains to the pontiff or bishop, and that those are not present at its confection except those who are also allowed to be present at the confection of the synaxis; and for this reason that catechumens, the possessed, and penitents are excluded. These two things he expressly teaches in that very same chapter 4, partly in the very description of the rite of the unguent, ^B partly in the contemplation which follows. The words of Dionysius are these: *“In the same way [as] of the synaxis, the orders of the uninitiated are sent away”* (in the confection of the unguent, that is). Then, a little lower down, concerning the office of the pontiff, he adds thus: *“Then the Hierarch, having taken the unguent, places it upon the divine altar,”* etc. Then the pontiff places the taken oil upon the holy altar. He has similar things again in the progress of the contemplation, where he again uses the word *homotages*, thus writing of the same confection of the unguent: *“Therefore also our divine guides, as of the same order and a co-worker with the holy ritual of the synaxis, ordered it with the same images, and for the most part, also mystical decorations and holy invocations.”* And our divine leaders have ordered it as if [it were] of the same order and efficacy with the holy sacrament of the synaxis, by for the most part the same images and mystical descriptions and sacred expressions, that is to say, they have ordained that it be done. Which words Scultetus, if he had not been so dull and foolish, would have seen to have much more strength against us than those which he brought forward. For just as with us the eucharist is of more account than baptism, so it was of more account to compare the unguent with the eucharist (which Dionysius does) than with baptism. But [he is] a man of perverse faith, and most alienated from the truth: he neither saw that truth, and he found the lie familiar to him without effort. Otherwise he could have shouted and vociferated: ^C “Behold those who say that Jesus Christ is most present in the eucharist, to what have they declined? They make the unguent, the work of man, *homotages* [equal] to Christ. Behold, he makes the unguent *tautourgon* [one-working] with the sacred synaxis.” But if *tautourgon*, that is, of the same efficacy, or producing the same thing, then the unguent produces Christ just as the synaxis [does]. That man, I say, could have—and according to his sect ought to have—alleged, urged, and inculcated that word *tautourgon* against the Catholics for his Calvinists, rather than his *homotages*, which he perhaps neglected to interpret for that reason, that men might think more of mystery lay hidden in it than there really is. For if he only meant this, that in the sacrament of baptism, among other ceremonies, the unguent is also used, what is so great about this? For neither does Dionysius nor do the Catholics on that account offer injury to baptism, but rather offer it honor and veneration. 564 For to [this] point the ceremonies added to things tend, that the things themselves may be of more account, and be more honored. For we do not say either that baptism is inefficacious without them, or that they have the same power as baptism (far be this thought from us! for the invention of man is not equal to the constitution of God); but we say that, on account of mystical significations, the unguent as well as certain other ceremonies are rightly and deservedly used for certain sacraments. Which significations, ^D I do not think any person of sound mind and firm and constant judgment (if he has read them in Dionysius himself) can in any way disapprove: nay, I am fully persuaded that he would rather admire them and hold them in very great esteem. But that the word *tautourgon*, not explained, may [not] be an occasion of error to anyone, it has not the force to say that everything is effected by the sacrament of the unguent which is [effected] by the eucharist (for thus it would not be a different, but the same sacrament), but that it confers similar graces, that it illuminates the mind, that it strengthens to the contemplation of celestial things, that it awakens love and desire.

The eleventh reason of Scultetus: "In the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter 1, he commanded Timothy not to reveal his writings to everyone. They are not, therefore, apostolic." So he.

But now the question is no longer whether those writings are apostolic or not, but whether those writings (whatever they may be) are Dionysius’s, or someone else’s: for you too, O man full of deceit and guile, after the listed books of Dionysius, proposed this question thus: *Whether the listed books are of Dionysius the Areopagite?* and not that [one]: *Whether his writings are apostolic?* Why then do you ask [for] one thing and [argue] another; furthermore, why do you not conclude something that is clear and devoid of ambiguity? For the word "apostolic" there is ambiguous: and if indeed you take it in the first and proper signification, that is to say, that those are called apostolic writings which were written by any of the apostles, you are talking nonsense, while you refute what no one says; for hitherto there has been no one who would attribute those writings to any of the apostles. If you call those apostolic writings which were written in the age of the apostles, you do injury to the apostles, since even in their own age some things were written by heretics (against whom John wrote his Gospel) which could and should be called apostolic in this way. What, therefore, do you finally call apostolic? Or writings in an apostolic style? He will not dare to say this, lest you seem to be dishing up the same old cabbage twice. For if you are treating here of style, you are acting completely in circles, and you are putting back as the eleventh [reason] what you proposed in the first. For your first reason was concerning the less-than-apostolic style, which we also refuted. But if by chance you wish to say this (for you are to be helped), that they were not written in an apostolic spirit, that is, [with] a yearning for faith and the salvation of souls and the perfection of the Church (for this itself is, I think, what you intend, if you intend anything new), well not even so do you utter anything other than a gross and impudent lie. For those writings certainly breathe the mere ambrosia of faith and the salvation of souls and the perfection of the Church. Which things men who are most learned and likewise most holy, and who [had] the incorrupt

^A taste of virtue, have most fully testified.

But how do you prove that there is not an apostolic spirit in these writings? "Because," he says, "he commanded Timothy not to reveal his writings to everyone." Nay, but the apostolic spirit shines forth there, while he thus admonishes Timothy not to communicate the deepest mysteries of our faith to the Gentiles and to others who have not yet been initiated with any sacrament, but only to Christians, and indeed to those who are illuminated, that is, baptized; because, as Saint Maximus rightly says: *It is not fitting to show forth the holy things to the profane, nor to throw pearls before swine*, thus it is not fitting to show holy things to the profane, nor to cast pearls before swine. What then? Is this not in conformity with the Gospel and the apostolic spirit? Yet Christ the Lord himself says in Matthew VII, 6: *Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine: lest perhaps they trample them under their feet, and turning stop and tear you.* And Dionysius verily believed that such would be the result, that if the Gentiles or those who were but little grounded in the faith were to read the hidden mysteries of our Church, they would trample them under their feet as base and contemptible things—that is, they would despise and mock them, and would rise up against the writers themselves and the teachers of such things, and would even tear them to pieces if they were able. Wherefore, content with this single warning which he had employed at the beginning of the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, he also, going forward in chapter 2 to the ceremonies of holy baptism, after bringing forward arguments and examples, keeps the profane away from the sight of them. For thus he writes: *But let us gaze upon the divine symbols of the divine birth. And let no one uninitiated come to the divine thing. For it is not safe for weak eyes to look directly at the sun's rays, nor is it harmless to attempt things that are higher than we are.* But next let us look at the divine symbols of the generation from God. And let no one uninitiated approach to look. For as it is not without ^C danger for weak eyes to gaze upon the rays of the sun from across the way, so it is not without harm for us to attempt things that are higher. Which he also proves by examples brought from holy Scripture, which may be seen there.

Moreover, the blessed Clement of Alexandria used the same caution as Dionysius in the first book of the *Stromata*, in which he also imitated Dionysius, in that he wrote his books more obscurely, of set purpose and by design, and wished to "hide the seeds of cognition," as he himself speaks, and sometimes used unusual words, so that naturally and laboriously (as in a hunt) the discovered truth might be sweeter and more welcome; and from the mockery and cavils of petulant men, who do not grasp holy things, it might be more remote and secure. Nor will it be irksome to praise a few words of Clement from the same place, and to point, as they say, with the finger to the fountain. They are as follows: *I am silent, because the Stromata, being embodied in polymathy, wish to hide with art the seeds of knowledge.* For I am silent that these books of the *Stromata*, having been constructed into one body from manifold doctrine, wish to hide the seeds of cognition with art. And a little further down: *But why is it then that it seemed good for the notes to be arranged in this way? Because there is great danger in dancing out the word of that truth which is truly of the real philosophy to those who, without restraint, are willing to contradict everything, not in justice, but [who] cast out all names and words in no way decorously, deceiving themselves, and bewitching those who follow them*, etc. For which reason, then, did it seem good to compose these commentaries in such a way? Because there is great danger in enunciating this most arcane sermon of true philosophy to those who are willing to contradict everyone without restraint, and that undeservedly; but who cast out all names and words in no way decorously, and deceive themselves, and mock their followers. See more there.

He calls "true philosophy" there (as do other holy Greek Fathers) the Christian doctrine; and he calls the "arcane" ^D mysteries what Dionysius called *τὰ Ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων*, the Holy of Holies, at the beginning of chapter 1 of the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, where he says to St. Timothy: *But see that you do not "dance out" the Holy of Holies*, etc. But see that you do not enunciate the Holy of Holies. Where it is to be noted that both used the same word *ἐξορχεῖσθαι*, that is, to enunciate carelessly, Dionysius and Clement, as can be seen here.

Furthermore, the same thing, which Scultetus censures in Dionysius, was approved by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, and others, twelve hundred years before he himself was born. For the first of them not only prefixed the same caution about his books before his catecheses, but also seriously warned that if anyone by chance were to transcribe them, they should also transcribe this caution itself. These are his words: *To those who are coming to baptism, and to those who are already faithful and have the laver, giving the catecheses of those who are being illuminated for reading, do not give them at all, neither to catechumens, nor to any other persons who are not Christians. For you shall give an account to the Lord. And if you make a copy, write this down as if before the Lord.* Showing these catecheses of those who are illuminated to be read by those who are approaching baptism and by those who are already baptized among the faithful, you shall by no means share them with catechumens, nor with any others not yet Christians. For otherwise you will render an account to the Lord. And indeed, if you transcribe them, you shall prefix these very things, as in the original.

But the passage in Basil's book *On the Holy Spirit*, chapter 27, is by far the most beautiful: which, because it also touches upon some other things concerning the ceremonies of baptism, I shall set down in its entirety, but for the sake of brevity only in Latin, even though I have the Greek at hand, which I translated thus: "But we bless the water of baptism, and the oil of anointing, and also him who is baptized. From what Scriptures? Is it not from a silent and occult tradition? Furthermore, what written sermon taught the very anointing of oil? And whence was the threefold immersion taken? And all other things which are done around baptism, such as renouncing Satan and his angels, from what Scripture are they? Are they not from that least divulged and secret doctrine which those Fathers of ours, having learned to preserve the venerable mysteries in quiet and by no means curious silence, have guarded? Or what did that great Moses mean by himself, when he stationed the profane outside the sacred rails, but permitted the first atria to the purer, judging only the Levites worthy ministers of God; but assigned the slaughterings and holocausts and the rest of the ministry to the priests; but admitted one out of all into the sanctuaries, and not even that always, but on the one day of the year, and prescribed the exact hour of that day, [at] which it would be allowed for him to enter? Surely [it was] that, on account of the novelty and the unaccustomed [nature of the experience], struck with wonder he might gaze upon the Holy of Holies. For he knew well, for the wisdom he possessed, that that which is common and easy to grasp is naturally destined to be despised: but that which is remote and rare is naturally, in a certain way, esteemed highly and investigated studiously. In the same way, therefore, the apostles and Fathers who wrote down the certain rites of the churches from the beginning, by concealment and silence, preserved their dignity for the mysteries. For a mystery is not at all that which is brought to the ears of the people and the crowd. And this is the reason for their tradition which has not been brought forth in writing, so that the practiced knowledge of the dogmas might not become despicable to the crowd on account of custom. For a dogma is one thing, preaching is another. For dogmas are kept silent, preachings are published. But there is also a certain species of silence in the very obscurity of Scripture, rendering the meaning of the dogmas difficult to understand, and this for the benefit of the readers."

Thus far that great Basil, truly in a manner far otherwise,

^A than the base Scultetus, reasoning; indeed, far better than the Calvinist minister, is he [Basil] wise. For he proves two things which Dionysius observed in his books: one, that he should not divulge the mysteries; 566 the other, that he might surround them with the obscurity of his style. There is no need, indeed, in a matter so clear and so well-attested, for more testimonies; yet, lest it should perhaps be missed, I add one here from the Latins: namely, that of Saint Ambrose, from the book *On Those Who Are Initiated into the Mysteries*, chapter 4: "Now," he says, "the time warns us to speak of the mysteries, and to provide the rationale of the sacraments themselves: which if we had thought to instruct those not yet initiated in them before baptism, we would be considered to have betrayed them rather than to have delivered them."

Concerning this, there also contributes (what I had almost passed over) the affected obscurity of the Seventy interpreters in translating the prophets from the Hebrew, as Jerome bears witness. For in epistle 117: "Whence I conjecture," he says, "that the Seventy interpreters did not wish at that time to clearly divulge the sacraments of their faith to the Gentiles, lest they should give what is holy to the dogs, and cast pearls before swine. Which, when you read this edition, you will notice were hidden by them." Thus Jerome.

And before all these, Origen most excellently in Homily 1 on Ezekiel: "I confess," he says, "freely, the sentiment spoken by a wise and faithful man, which I often suspect: It is a danger even to speak the truth about God. For things that are false when said about Him are not the only things that are dangerous, but also those that are true, if they are brought forth inopportunely, create danger for the speaker. The pearl is true, etc." And because natural reason itself teaches that, just as not all are capable of all things, so neither are all types of writings to be entrusted or permitted to all minds (for otherwise the result would be a grievance to not a few, and not a benefit), hence even the profane philosophers, and among them Plato and Porphyry, and others, did not imprudently forbid the more abstruse dogmas of truth, or the deeper mysteries, from being brought out to the common people. Wherefore, Scultetus, in that he criticizes Dionysius, is manifestly convicted of acting contrary to reason, contrary to all philosophy, and contrary to Holy Scripture. And if his argument were to hold, it would follow that certain dicta of Saint Paul—namely those which he delivered to the same Timothy to be communicated only to the learned—are not, or are certainly too little, apostolic: "What you have heard from me through many witnesses," he says, "commend to faithful men, who will be competent to teach others." ^B

The twelfth and final argument of Scultetus is this: "Finally," he says, "he reveals himself quite manifestly at the end of the *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, where he says: 'Our holy preceptors, taught by ancient tradition, handed them down to us.'" ^C

And this argument also has been brought forth by him very carelessly. For Scultetus ought to have opened up what the matter in question was, and shown how the words of Dionysius could not be explained otherwise; and finally, to have demonstrated with what certainty he could conclude what he wanted: a task which the sluggish fellow did nothing to accomplish. Dionysius, therefore, is dealing there with the baptism of infants, and teaches that by the tradition of the apostles it is permissible to baptize infants. For there is no doubt that, once circumcision was taken away and abolished, it was asked of the apostles what needed to be done for the salvation of children and infants (who, as is often the case with many in that tender and raw age, die early), whether baptism should be applied to them, and how. They [the authors] answer that the apostles responded and handed down (as Dionysius teaches) that they were to be baptized, especially in danger of death. But this tradition is called by our author ἀρχαία παράδοσις, that is, the first or primordial tradition. For since ἀρχαῖος signifies many things, its meanings are to be taken according to the subject matter. Among other things, however (which can be learned even from lexicons), just as ἀρχή is a beginning, so ^D *archaios* signifies "first," not merely "old" or "ancient." For something can be first, and yet not old or ancient; and likewise, it can be ancient and not first. The words of Dionysius, therefore, speaking of the baptism of infants, are these: Περὶ τούτου ταῦτά φαμεν, ἅπερ οἱ θεοειδεῖς ἡμῶν ἱεροτελεσταὶ πρὸς τῆς ἀρχαίας μυηθέντες παραδόσεως εἰς ἡμᾶς προήγαγον. "Of this we say those things which our God-like initiators, having been initiated into the ancient tradition, have brought forth to us."

Furthermore, these words, θεοειδεῖς ἱεροτελεσταί, "deiform" or "divine initiators," and those a little further down, θεῖοι καθηγεμόνες, "divine guides," fit none better than the apostles; and for that reason Saint Maximus has interpreted them as such in the Scholia to this place. Yet they could also be understood as referring to Saint Hierotheus (who was also Dionysius’s preceptor) and to others who were contemporaries of Hierotheus, or even to the evangelists Luke and Mark, or to some from the number of the seventy-two disciples, from whom Dionysius cites Saint Justus in chapter 11 of *The Divine Names*. Whence also Saint Maximus infers the antiquity of the blessed Dionysius.

If, therefore, by those divine guides and initiators are understood Hierotheus, Justus, Antipas, and the like, they will be most correctly said to have been taught by the "first" tradition, that is, by the tradition of the apostles; and there will be no need to run back to Christ. But if the apostles themselves are understood, then they will be said to have been taught by the "first" tradition, that is, by Christ, who, after His resurrection, fully instructed them concerning baptism, as he did concerning many other things. For tradition is not said only concerning ancient things, but also concerning new things: so that the new precepts and instructions of Christ, handed down to the apostles, were correctly called traditions even at that very time in which they were handed down. 567 Whence also Paul in II Thessalonians 2:15: "Therefore, brethren," he says, "stand fast and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle." Which traditions, indeed, could not be as ancient as those of which Dionysius was speaking.

Thus far concerning the objections of Scultetus. Now let us give some attention to other things which are opposed or can be opposed by others. Some, therefore, say it seems little probable that in the time of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, who lived with the apostles, there was such a multitude of ceremonies in the Church as is brought forward by the author of these books.

To whom I respond, that it does not appear that they have sufficiently examined or weighed either the number of those ceremonies or their quality; and even less, the duty and care of the apostles concerning them. For it certainly devolved upon them, once the old sacrifices and rites and ceremonies were abolished, to ensure that other sacrifices, rites, and ceremonies—either instituted by Christ or left to their own discretion, especially as regards rites and ceremonies—were established. For they had learned well, both from the Old Testament itself and from the unction of the Holy Spirit (who taught them all things), that sacred matters were not so well-ordered and held in such esteem without ceremonies as with them. And why are we accused in vain and undeservedly concerning their multitude? Since a number almost innumerable of them was established in the old Law by Moses alone, compared to those established in the new Law by the twelve or fourteen apostles. Yet I would not believe that he [Moses] associated with an angel as familiarly as these did with Christ; nor, likewise, that he was infused with such great grace of the Holy Spirit as they were. Add also that those ceremonies which are described by Dionysius are in number very few, and belong only to certain sacraments, not to all, and are indeed, as for those initiations, very brief and very easy: such as those of the venerable Eucharist, and of the sacred orders; which

certainly, not a few additions were later made to by various pontiffs or bishops of different places, as can be seen in the liturgies and ritual books of many holy prelates.

Finally, you could easily grasp all the rites recounted by Dionysius (for matters of contemplation, or explanations of them, must be separated from these) even in a single leaf. For the rites of baptism fill only two pages; those of the Eucharist, a single one; those of anointing, scarcely even half a page: furthermore, those of the three orders—bishop, priest, and deacon—take up only half a page; those of the consecration of a monk, no more; those of the burial rites, the same amount; so that you could conclude with no effort all the ceremonies put forward by Dionysius, about the multitude of which so many reproaches are meanwhile spread about on every side. For that book of Dionysius contains no other ceremonies or rites besides those I have mentioned.

And so that we may come to the character of the ceremonies themselves, and begin from baptism, the most ancient Fathers have indeed remembered those which might seem recent to others, namely: renunciation, exorcism, insufflation, anointing, and sponsorship even for infants; for these are practically the things which heretics despise, mock, and cavil at; and by these being proven, even if they do not wish it, they lose their case.

Let Tertullian therefore be heard, regarding what he reports about renunciation and certain other rites of baptism. In the book *On the Soldier's Crown*, chapter 3: "Finally," he says, "to begin with baptism, when we are about to enter the water, at that same time, and also somewhat before, in the Church under the hand of the presiding officer, we testify that we renounce the devil, and his pomp, and his angels. Then we are immersed three times, responding to something a little more than the Lord determined in the Gospel: from there, having been received, we taste the harmony of milk and honey," etc.

Let Origen also be heard, in his 12th Homily on Numbers: "Let each of the faithful," he says, "recall, when he first came to the waters of baptism, when he received the first seals of the faith, and approached the fountain of salvation, what words he used there at that time, and what he renounced—that he would not use the devil’s pomps nor his works," etc.

If you wish to hear more, let those go to Cyril of Jerusalem in his first *Mystagogical Catechesis*; Basil the Great in his book *On the Holy Spirit*, chapter 27; Ambrose in book 1 *On the Sacraments*, chapter 2, and book 2, chapter 7; Chrysostom, *Homily 21 to the people of Antioch*; Jerome on chapter 6 of *Amos*; Augustine in book 1 *On the Creed for the Catechumens*, chapter 1; and others.

But since the words of doctrine of the blessed Cyril are very much in conformity with the words of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, it will not be irksome to refer to them here. They stand thus: ^A Εἰσῄειτε πρῶτον εἰς τὸν προαύλιον τοῦ βαπτιστηρίου οἶκον, καὶ πρὸς τὰς δυσμὰς ἑστῶτες ἠκούσατε καὶ προτάττεσθε ἐκτείνειν τὴν χεῖρα, καὶ ὡς παρόντι ἀποτάττεσθαι τῷ Σατανᾷ. "First you entered into the vestibule of the baptistery, and standing toward the west you heard and were commanded to stretch out your hand, and to renounce Satan as if he were present." Observe there more concerning the words of renunciation, and of the turning toward the east, and the recitation of the creed, and other things, all of which confirm the teaching of Saint Dionysius as true and apostolic.

Regarding exorcism and insufflation, which proceed similarly and in conjunction, the reasoning is the same, the sense of the holy Fathers is the same, the judgment the same. See that same Cyril in the *Procatechesis*, or preface before the catecheses, and before him, Saint Cyprian, epistle 76 to Magnus, concerning the baptizing of the Novatians, toward the end; and Nazianzen in his *Oration on the Holy Lavatory*; and for many see Saint Augustine in book 6 *Against Julian*, chapter 5: "The Church," he says, "would neither exorcise ^B nor insufflate the children of the faithful, if she did not rescue them from the power of darkness and from the prince of death." Which has been placed by me in my book, to which you seem to be responding; but you were afraid to note this, fearing that you might wish to contradict the very insufflation whereby the prince of this world is cast out from the little ones. By which opinion Scultetus is also surely adjudged to be "insufflated" away.

See the same Augustine in book 11 *to Valerius*, chapter 17, but especially chapter 29, where he teaches that the ceremonies of exorcizing and insufflating are most ancient in the Church. "Neither, indeed," he says, "from the time that the pestilential doctrine of the Manichaeans began to exist, did children begin to be exorcized and insufflated in the Church of God." As if to imply: but many centuries ago, whereas the first origin cannot be shown except from apostolic tradition. And a little lower down in the same place, after citing Cyprian and Ambrose, he says thus: "Let him dare to say these are Manichaean, and let him besmirch the most ancient tradition of the Church with this wicked crime, by which little ones are exorcized, and as I have said, insufflated, so that they may be rescued into the kingdom of Christ from the power of darkness—that is, from the devil and his angels."

Now, many of the ancient Fathers have also mentioned the anointing in baptism: among the Greeks, Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in the 2nd and 3rd *Mystagogical Catecheses*; Chrysostom in *Homily 6 on the Epistle to the Colossians*, and others; and among the Latins, Tertullian in his book *On Baptism*, chapter 7; Ambrose in book 1 *On the Sacraments*, chapter 2; Augustine, *Sermon 206 On the Time*, and others.

The words of Cyril: ^C Εἶτα ἀποδυθέντες ἐλαίῳ ἠλείφεσθε ἐπορκιστῷ ἀπ᾿ ἄκρων τριχῶν κορυφῆς ἕως τῶν κάτω. "Then, having been stripped, you were anointed with exorcized oil from the top hairs of your head down to your feet."

The words of Chrysostom: 'Αλείφεται, ὥσπερ οἱ ἀθληταὶ εἰς στάδιον ἐμβησόμενοι. "He is anointed, as athletes are about to enter the stadium." And a little later he adds that the one being baptized is anointed differently than priests were of old; in that the one to be baptized is anointed over the whole body, but they only on the head, and the right ear, and the hand.

The words of Tertullian: "Then, having departed from the bath, we are anointed with a blessed unction, after the practice of the ancient discipline, by which they were wont to be anointed with oil from a horn for the priesthood." I omit other testimonies, as they are prepared for everyone.

Regarding sponsors, the same Tertullian, in the book already cited, chapter 18: "Therefore," he says, "according to the condition and disposition of each person, and also their age, the delay of baptism is more useful, especially concerning little ones. For what is the necessity, if there is not such great necessity, that sponsors also be cast into danger? Seeing that they themselves, by [the common lot of] mortality, may fail to keep their promises, or be deceived by the outcome of an evil character." That is, since there is not such great necessity for accelerating the baptism of little ones, and it can be deferred—provided there is no urgent danger of death—what is the need for their sponsors or godparents to be exposed to danger, lest when they have promised on their behalf, they might not keep the faith, nor instruct them as they promised, nor care for their salvation?

After the rites of baptism, having been placed in the midst and mystically explained, Dionysius approaches, in chapter 3, the rites of the Eucharist or sacrifice. They are, however, neither many nor alien to that age: since there is mention of them by other, most ancient Fathers as already customary before, not as most recently usurped. Saint Justin the philosopher and martyr lived in the second century of Christ, and he mentions these rites in his *Apology to the Emperor Antoninus Pius*. I have published them in Greek and Latin with his Life; wherefore I omit them here.

But I cannot omit answering Scultetus, who wickedly abuses the words of Dionysius against Dionysius himself and the Mother Church, for I shall pierce him with his own weapons. For he strives, from that same chapter 3 of the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, to deduce ^D that Christ is not truly present in the venerable Eucharist, but only figuratively and symbolically, and he uses these words: "Whoever this Dionysius might be, he must have been ancient." This is taught by the very form of the ecclesiastical ordination, in which that [point] is to be noted.

^A Dionysius, therefore, claims that he is an ancient author: and not only this, but also that what he teaches regarding the Eucharist is, beyond controversy, an apostolic tradition. I grant him both, and quite willingly. But that he wishes it to be both his own and Dionysius’ doctrine, that is not granted without a fight: nay, it is better to fall than to concede. Although there is no danger of even the slightest wound—let alone a serious injury or death—from such light and feathery (I will not say leaden, though they be without sharpness) darts and arrows ^B launched as if by a boyish hand; yet, lest he seem to have accomplished something for himself, I shall expose their vanity.

Therefore, his first dart, or argument, is this: he [Dionysius] calls the entire action of the sacred supper a ἱερουργίαν συμβολικήν, a symbolic sacred action; therefore, Christ is not present there.

I reply that Dionysius, at the very beginning of the third chapter of *The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, treats of the naming of this sacrament, and of the whole action, and says that he calls it κοινωνίαν τε καὶ σύναξιν, communion and synaxis, and indeed gives the reason for that name, and uses those words in this matter more frequently than any others; only once, and that in the final chapter, does he call it ἱερουργίαν συμβολικήν, a symbolic sacred action; by which manner every action is called that is not clear and evident, but hidden by certain signs, such that it cannot be seen and understood without faith or an explanation of the signs. Of these actions, some are purely symbolic, others are mixed. Purely symbolic ones are those that do not contain within themselves that which they signify. Mixed ones, however, are those that do contain that which they signify. ^C And so, the confection of this sacrament is a symbolic mixed [action], containing, namely, that which it signifies, or consisting of symbols and signs, but joined to the truth; to the Truth, I say, that is, to Christ. Hence, even the signs themselves, which together with Christ lurking beneath them constitute the whole of the sacrament, are called by Dionysius—by Scultetus’s own admission—τὰ ἀμφιέσματα συμβολικῶς τῷ Χριστῷ περικείμενα, the vestments symbolically placed around Christ. I yield, therefore, to Scultetus now: are these vestments present in that sacred action, or not? Present, you say. And are they placed around Christ, or not? Now, you say, I have confessed it. That is well. Therefore, Christ is also present. For, if the vestments present and placed around someone are viewed, they cannot be placed around anyone other than the one present. You must admit it, you say. Why, therefore, do you contradict this doctrine in your writings? Why, having left your little supper of only bread and wine, do you not come invited to the great supper? For a certain man made a great supper, and invited many. That is true, you say, but I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. How can you not come? You can come to dry bread, but to the Lamb you cannot? Do you not know that the filling of bread is of the worst kind, but that of the Lamb is of the best, and of that Lamb who takes away the sins of the world? And of that Lamb who says: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has everlasting life, and I will raise him up in the last day" (k).

But let us return to Dionysius, who not only indicates through the words set out above that Christ is present in that sacrament, but also, through the invocation of Him as though present there, makes it certain and established. For his words are these: "But, O you most divine and most holy sacrament," ^D unveiling the veils of the symbols surrounding you, show yourself clearly to us, and flood the eyes of our mind with singular and unveiled light. Which invocation, if only bread were there, without life, without sense, without intelligence (as Scultetus and the Calvinists wish), would certainly be most strange and inappropriate: but according to us, who recognize and teach Christ's presence in that mystery, it is most fitting and appropriate. This presence of Christ is confirmed even at the end of the same third chapter, where Dionysius, after he has dealt with the division and distribution of the sacrament, which is done by the pontiff, then adds: *Διαγράφει γὰρ ἐν τούτοις, αἰσθητῶς ὑπ’ ὄψιν ἄγων Ἰησοῦν τὸν Χριστὸν τὴν νοητὴν ἡμῶν, ὡς ἐν εἰκόσι, ζωήν.* For he describes in these [things], bringing before our gaze in a sensible way Jesus Christ, our spiritual life, as in images, etc. So, earlier, in the description of the consecration itself, he had said: *Καὶ τὰς ἱερὰς θεουργίας ὁ ἱεράρχης ὑμνήσας ἱερουργεῖ τὰ θειότατα, καὶ ὑπ’ ὄψιν ἄγει τὰ ὑμνημένα διὰ τῶν ἱερῶς προκειμένων συμβόλων.* And after the pontiff has praised the sacred actions of God, he performs the most divine things, and brings before our gaze the things already praised, through the holy proposed symbols, that is, after he has commemorated what the Lord did at the last supper, or after he has pronounced these or similar words, referring to Christ’s action: "Who the day before he suffered, took bread into his holy and venerable hands, and having lifted up his eyes to heaven to you, God his almighty Father, giving you thanks he blessed, broke, and gave it to his disciples saying, 'Take, and eat of this, all of you,'" then he performs the most divine, that is, he consecrates, or pronounces these words of consecration: "For this is my body" (l). And he brings before our gaze the things already praised, that is, he shows the consecrated host to the people, or Christ, or the body of Christ, through the holily proposed symbols, that is, through the apparent and external species of the sacrament (for Christ is seen only by the whiteness of the consecrated host) and exhibits Him for the people to behold. And that this is the meaning is clear from the fact that these things said somewhat obscurely, *ὑπ’ ὄψιν ἄγει τὰ ὑμνημένα διὰ τῶν ἱερῶς προκειμένων συμβόλων*, he later 570 in the contemplation or exposition itself explains more clearly and briefly with those words already placed above: *Αἰσθητῶς ὑπ’ ὄψιν ἄγων Ἰησοῦν τὸν Χριστόν.* Sensibly bringing Jesus Christ before our gaze. Sensibly, that is, through signs presented to the senses; under which signs, as veils or vestments, Christ subsists.

Finally, Scultetus urges that bread and wine are called by Dionysius symbols, images, and other things of that sort, and thus he beats the air. But when he wants it to be understood that there is nothing in the sacrament other than bread and wine, and for his perverse opinion cites Maximus and Pachymeras, he acts indeed improperly and perfidiously, as I have come to show clearly. He says, therefore: "And the most faithful interpreters of Dionysius agree at this place (would that he followed the faith of those whom he calls the most faithful!) Pachymeras the Paraphrast and Maximus the Scholiast, both Greek." For so says Maximus, chap. 3 *Eccles. Hierar.*: "These are symbols, and not the truth." So he. I reply that it is true that Saint Maximus has those words, but in a far different sense than Scultetus wishes. For he says that those signs, which appear only outwardly, are signs and not the truth: which is what we also say. For those things which appear outwardly are only signs and not the truth: but what is under the signs, that is the Truth, and not a sign: it is Christ's flesh, and not bread; it is Christ's blood, and not wine. And because Scultetus dared to make mention of Pachymeras with canine shamelessness, I will produce the very words of that truly Catholic man, which he has in the mystery of the synaxis immediately before the *θεωρίαν* or Contemplation. They are, therefore, these: *Καὶ πολλοὶ μὲν εἰς μόνα*

μόνα* ^A the divine symbols draw near, being unable to grasp anything higher; but the Hierarch himself is led up to those archetypes, to the very precious body and blood of the Lord, believing that those things which were set forth have been transmuted into those realities by the holy and all-working Spirit." And many indeed look only to the divine signs, as if unable to understand anything more sublime; but the Pontiff is raised up to the archetypes themselves, to the very precious body and blood of the Lord, believing that those things which were proposed have been transmuted into them by the virtue of the holy and all-creating Spirit. Behold, therefore, Pachymeres—a most diligent interpreter of Dionysius, as Scultetus himself testifies—clearly and openly says that the things proposed, that is, the bread and the wine, are transmuted into the precious body and blood of the Lord. Wherefore it must be that one of two things is true of Scultetus: either he suffered from a remarkable blindness of mind, if he did not see these things; or from intolerable impudence, if he did see them. For he cited against himself an author who so plainly makes against him. How much faith should be placed in such a man, let his disciples learn even from this.

From the same blindness and fury against the Roman Church, after those words of St. Maximus: *Σημείωσαι ὅτι οὐ μόνον ὁ ἅγιος ἄρτος κεκαλυμμένος προετίθετο, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ θεῖον ποτήριον, ὅπερ νῦν οὐ γίνεται.* Note, that not only the holy bread was set forth covered, but also the divine cup, which now does not happen; Scultetus added: "But why," he says, "did the same not happen in the time of Maximus? Doubtless because the abomination of the Antichrist had already occupied the Roman see." Thus he speaks. As if Catholic matters consisted in whether, in this or that way, the cup is set forth on the altar, covered or not covered. What does this have to do with the substance of the sacrament? For who does not know (unless he be utterly stupid and senseless) that ceremonies, which are apart from substance and necessity, can without any harm to salvation and faith not only be changed and varied, but even omitted by the disposition and prudence of pontiffs and bishops? But, of course, Scultetus had an overabundance of bad bile. Would that it had all been purged, and that he might live!

Now, as a corollary for the sake of theologians, I shall set forth in the midst in how many ways this venerable sacrament of the most holy Eucharist is expressed by St. Dionysius the Areopagite, chapter 3 of *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*.

Names of the venerable Eucharist according to Dionysius the Areopagite.

*Τελετὴ τελετῶν*, sacrament of sacraments; *ἁγιωτάτη τελετή*, most holy sacrament; *θειοτάτη καὶ ἱερὰ τελετή*, most divine and holy sacrament; *θεία τῆς συνάξεως τελετή*, divine sacrament of the synaxis; *σύναξις*, synaxis; *κοινωνία*, communion; *τῶν ἱερῶν κοινωνία*, communion of the sacred things; *θεαρχικὴ κοινωνία*, most divine communion; *θεαρχικὰ μυστήρια*, most divine mysteries; *θειοτάτη εὐχαριστία*, most divine eucharist; *τὰ θειότατα*, most divine [things], absolutely.

The sacred action itself or consecration is called therein *ἡ τῶν θείων ὑπερκόσμιος ἱερουργία*, the supermundane operation of the divine things or the celestial sacrifice of the divine thing; and *παναγιωτάτη ἱερουργία*, most holy sacrifice; and *ἱερουργία συμβολικὴ*, symbolic sacred action, as I explained above. And so much for this sacrament and its rites.

571 Next to this, there is joined in Dionysius the mystery of the rite of ointment, which is described in the middle of the page, and savors of pure antiquity. See it among our documents, and deign to be content with it. For I see nothing peculiar being objected against it, except that which was objected in the tenth point by Abraham Scultetus, and which has been directly retorted upon his own head, as can be seen above. I pass, therefore, to chapter 5 of Dionysius ^B *On the Sacred Orders*. The rites, then, which are delivered by Dionysius, are so brief, so simple, and so fitting, that they openly cry out, and even prove, that they are from the times of the apostles. There is mention there only of bishops, priests, and deacons, and the concise form of ordination for each of these orders is handed down, which is observed even to this day by the Greek Catholics, and is used even in Rome itself, in view of the first see (as eyewitnesses have told me). Hence, nothing is muttered against the rites produced there, neither by Catholics nor by heretics. So there is no delay here. We proceed further.

Two chapters now remain, the first of which is about monks, the second about funerals. And against these and against those, the heretics are armed. For both, therefore, we must fight one by one.

*Of the monks in the time of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, and what sort they were.*

Whence some have supposed that they could undermine the writings of St. Dionysius; from that source I hope to confirm them and to prove them as much as possible to belong to their own author. For they were truly carried away by error, thinking that such monks were commemorated there as were once accustomed to be seen in woods and mountains, or are now seen in cenobia and monasteries. The matter is not so. There is a great difference between the two. And Joseph Scaliger strayed very far from the truth when he imagined that Dionysius was speaking of hermits or cenobites such as were in the age of Paul and Antony. Whence he also beats the air when he writes these things in his *Elenchus*: "Before Paul, there was no hermit, no *κοινοβιοῦντες* in Christianity. Those, truly, would not have been passed over in silence by whoever wrote from Justin Martyr up to Cyprian. Nor could there have been so many examinations of monks without them having (as Tertullian speaks) some sign of communion with the Churches and bishops. Finally, many testimonies about them would exist among ecclesiastical writers. But none exist. And that most ancient writer Tertullian makes it sufficiently clear that in his age there were no hermits. 'We are not,' he says, 'dwellers in the woods and exiles of life.' Monasticism, therefore, was a way of life unknown to early Christianity." So he says. From which words it is sufficiently understood that he confuses the hermits and Antonian cenobites or the like with the monks and Therapeutae of St. Dionysius, and on that account read Dionysius very lazily, and did not weigh any difference. For Dionysius does not write a syllable ^C about hermits or cenobites. Likewise, concerning the examinations of monks who had no communion with the bishops, not a word. Nay, rather he teaches that the monks were a part of the urban population; he teaches that they were accustomed to be instructed and consecrated by priests; he teaches that they existed as emulators of the bishops of a more perfect life, in their own piety and holiness; he teaches that they were called monks, not because they lived alone, but because they led a singular life, focused on God and free from earthly cares; he teaches that they were also called *therapeutae* from the pure service and worship of God and *θεραπείας*, *therapeutae* as pure servants and worshippers of God. But such monks, who were a part of the people, and who were counted among the laity and lived as such, who were subject not only to bishops but even to priests, who lived a pure and chaste life either privately in their own houses or communally in colleges, to whom finally in the temple the first place among the laity and next to the ecclesiastical order was assigned (as is clear from the epistle to Demophilus)—such monks, I say, are not read to have existed either in the time of Antony or afterwards; therefore, it was earlier. And from this I draw a very strong argument for the books of Dionysius: namely, that he remembers those monks of whom there was no mention made in the third century and thereafter; which is to say, that this institution flourished only in the first and second centuries. But from whence was it taken? Certainly from the Gospel and from the apostles' ^D

' ^A Epistles, where the perfection of the Christian life is contained and commended; or when Christ answered the young man inquiring about eternal life: *If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me* (Matt. xix, 21). And when He said with His disciples: *There are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it* (Ibid., 12). Or when Paul, exhorting to chastity, says: *But I would have you to be without solicitude. He that is without a wife, is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please his wife, and he is divided* (I Cor. vii, 32, 33). For from that time forward, as if a trumpet of more perfect life and apostolic chastity had sounded in the ears of all, many aspired to chastity and to the purity of a life secret from the tumult of worldly affairs. 572 Those who made this certain by their external habit and profession were called monks or worshippers; others, however, were merely celibates. And of these celibates of both sexes, the writers of the second century make mention, as is noted in the Life of St. Justin the Philosopher. But they do not mention the former, or the monks (for clearly nothing of the Gentiles, against whom they were writing, depended upon knowing them or upon knowing such rites). For they had enough to do to show that Christians were not impure and incestuous, in the manner that they themselves were accused by them. The rite of consecrating a monk, as it was at that time, is this: The priest, before the altar, pours forth certain prayers to God for the one to be consecrated, who stands upright behind him; which being finished, having turned to him who is to be consecrated, he asks whether he renounces worldly things and cares; for it behooves him to institute a life more perfect than that of the rest of the people: which he signifies by signing himself with the form of the cross, and he shaves him, having invoked the most holy Trinity, and having put off the old garment, he puts on a new one, greets him, and other holy men with him, and finally grants him the sacred communion. ^B And this is the whole rite, on account of which, as if it were more recent than that century, so many tumults must be stirred up against the writings of Dionysius. But what one thing among those which have been said can be assigned that was not there from the beginning, or ought not to have been? Was it not proper for those who had a desire to excel in virtue among their fellow laymen—that they might shine before others and, as it were, kindle them like torches to their own imitation—to be distinguished by some external habit and by the demonstration of their institution? For it is for this reason that, through the succession of various times down to this age, so many and such varied religious orders of men, distinct in habit, customs, and rules, have been raised up, not only for the splendor and ornament of the Church, but also for her very great utility. And if it was good for some in the people to shine like lights and to be distinguished from others, could that distinction be formed better and more readily than in the shearing of the hair (in which, especially among the Athenians, among whom the first and most ancient nobility was arrogated through golden cicadas interwoven in the hair, futile signs stood out) and in the laying aside of the pomp of luxury and of garments, where the vain insolence of those who seek after earthly and fleeting things usually boasts itself? Now, the rites and ceremonies which Dionysius reports, having been born at Athens and made bishop at Athens, ^C in my judgment seem to have been born or corroborated there. For I would believe that he received them from Paul and Hierotheus, who preached there, and whom he calls *kathegemones*, that is, his leaders and instructors. Add the ceremony of the tonsure or shaving, seen to be derived from the Old Testament, as were certain others; but that its cause and signification is that which Dionysius reports here in his *Contemplation*, in these words: "The shearing of the hair signifies a pure and unfigured life, not adorning with fictitious figures what is by nature unseemly to the mind, ^D but leading it forward, not through human beauties, but through singular and unique ones, to that which is most divine." The tonsure of the hair, moreover, declares a pure and unfeigned life, not adorning the deformity of the mind with the addition of fictitious figures, but bringing the soul itself, in itself, not through human but through a singular and unique beauty, to that which is most divine. Note also that Dionysius speaks here of a simple tonsure, not of the clerical or monastic tonsure in the form of a crown, as they speak nowadays, albeit that is also ancient (whence the antiquity of these writings is understood), and through those words, as I have said, he appears to be looking directly at the hair of the Athenians, which they adorned, as I have said, with added golden cicadas. Concerning which cicadas I deal more fully in my annotations to the *Life of Saint Hierotheus*. As for the changing of the garment, it descends from the imitation of the ceremonies of baptism, as the holy Dionysius insinuates in the same place, when he thus writes: "The putting off of the former garment, and the taking up of the other, signifies the transition from the middle sacred life to the more perfect one. Just as in the sacred regeneration the changing of the garment demonstrated the drawing up from a life of cleansing to a contemplative and illuminating habit." The casting off of the former garment and the assumption of the other signifies the translation from a middle sacred life to perfection. Just as in holy regeneration the changing of the garment demonstrated the drawing up of the life which was being purified to the state of contemplation and illumination. Finally, regarding the tonsure of monks, or of those who professed a more perfect and holy manner of living, which I said was derived from the Old Testament, I have to support me Isidore, Bishop of Seville, in his book *De divinis officiis*, where he writes: "The custom of ecclesiastical tonsure originated, if I am not mistaken, with the Nazarenes, who, having first kept their hair, afterwards, with great restraint of life, when their devotion was completed, shaved their heads and were commanded to place their hair in the fire of the sacrifice, namely, that they might consecrate the perfection of their devotion to the Lord. The use of this example was therefore introduced by the apostles, so that those who, enslaved to divine worship, are consecrated to the Lord, might be renewed, like Nazarenes, that is, as holy men of God, with their hair cut off." See further there. Nor was that custom of cutting hair habitual only to men, but also to women, namely those who, renouncing the things of the world, vowed themselves to God, and that in the very first centuries, even before the times of the Blessed Jerome. The same Jerome mentions this custom used in Syria and Egypt in his epistle 48 to Sabinianus: "It is the custom," he says, "in the monasteries of Egypt and Syria, that as many a virgin as a widow, who have vowed themselves to God and, renouncing the world, have trampled underfoot all the delights of the world, offer their hair to be cut off by the mothers of the monasteries." And in order to show that the teachings of the master and the disciple, that is, of Paul and Dionysius, concord both among themselves and with the doctrine of Christ Himself, as the supreme master of all, it must be observed that from their words a twofold life of the just—even of laymen—is gathered: one undivided and adhering to the one God, the other divided and distracted into various things; and that a certain image of both is represented in those words of Christ: *Martha, Martha, thou art solicitous, and art troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her* (Luke x, 41); so that in Martha is designated the life that is divided and solicitous and distracted by external cares, which is also wont to be called the active life; but in Mary, the simple and the undivided, and intent upon that one thing which is necessary; and this is that which lacks solicitude, and is called contemplative. Paul exhorts to this latter, when he says: *But I would have you to be without solicitude. He that is without a wife, is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God* (I Cor. vii, 32). In which words he denounces the life

for the reason that it leads to divine unity and a perfection pleasing to God (as he declares in the same place) and makes one, as it were, one with God. But when the same Paul adds: *But he that is with a wife, is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided*, he signifies a divided and imperfect life, as one distracted into many things. Since, therefore, many men and women followed Paul's counsel, their order then began to be distinguished as more perfect than other laymen, and the colleges of both—both of monks and of virgins—began to be established little by little. Whence also at the beginning of the second century (at which time Dionysius was still surviving), the blessed martyr Ignatius salutes the college of virgins (which was at Philippi in Macedonia). For in the letter sent to them, he writes thus: *Ἀσπάζομαι τὸ σύστημα τῶν παρθένων*. "I salute the college of virgins." And in his letter to the deacon Hero, when he bids that Mary be saluted, a most modest woman, and the Church that is in her house, it is probable that he understands the ^B college of virgins, of which she was the directress. Concerning that Mary, I treat at greater length in my notations on the letter which was sent to her by Ignatius. Just as, therefore, there were groups or colleges of virgins, so it is in no way alien to the truth that there were such also for monks, but first in the cities, and depending upon the bishops and presbyters, as is evident from Dionysius.

Wherefore, what Scaliger was bringing forward against us from Tertullian, saying: "We are not wood-dwellers and exiles of life," does nothing against us, nor against Dionysius: since he is treating of monks dwelling within cities. And yet, even if Dionysius had also written of monks dwelling in the desert, that passage of Tertullian would on that account make nothing against us. For he is treating of the whole Christian nation, which he says does not avoid cities, nor the forum, nor public life, nor commerce, etc., which is true even now, although not a few dwell in the desert and in solitude. Thus Saint Basil the Great, although in his own age he knew that there were very many monks, and that he himself had ^C sometimes been of their number, nevertheless denies that man is a monastic animal, that is, solitary by his own kind and nature, but rather civil and social; just as Tertullian had said before of Christians. Basil’s words in the rule discussed at greater length, in his response to the third question, are these: *Τίς οὖν οὐκ οἶδεν, ὅτι ἤμερον καὶ κοινωνικὸν ζῶον ὁ ἄνθρωπος, καὶ οὐχὶ μοναστικὸν, οὐδ᾽ ἄγριον;* "Who therefore does not know that man is a mild and social animal, and by no means solitary, nor wild?" From which passage, if anyone wished to contend that there were no monks in the time of Saint Basil, would he not justly be considered ridiculous? So too with him who uses the passage from Tertullian. For his scope there was no other than to prove that Christian men are not useless to the republic. That this may be evident, I shall set down his words, at least because they are elegant. Thus, therefore, in his *Apologetic*, ch. 42: "But we are accused also by another title of injury, and are called unprofitable in business. In what manner are we [unprofitable] who live with you, ^D of the same food, of the same dress, of the same necessity for life? For we are not Brahmins or Indian gymnosophists, wood-dwellers and exiles of life. We remember that we owe gratitude to the Lord God the Creator. We reject no fruit of his works; we truly exercise restraint, so that we do not use them beyond measure or wrongly. Therefore, we do not dwell in this world without the forum, without the meat market, without baths, taverns, workshops, stables, your public markets, and other commerce. We sail with you, and we serve in the military with you, and we farm and trade with you: consequently, we mix our crafts, and we publish our works for your use. How do we seem unprofitable...?"

Of the ceremonies concerning the dead

I do not see, however, in all the rites that are performed concerning the dead, what can be proven either to be worthy of rebuke or not to have existed in the times of Dionysius the Areopagite. For since there are two things principally in these rites which perhaps do not please heretics—namely, the anointing which the pontiff is said to apply to the bodies of the dead, and the prayer for their souls to God—it is easy to show that both truly and deservedly derive their antiquity from the times of the apostles. For how customary and full of piety the anointing was for Jews and Christians, in the Old and New Testaments, is declared by the diligence of Saint Mary Magdalene in obtaining and bringing, first in the morning, ointments to anoint the body of Christ, which she did not know had risen. This office of piety, therefore, in order that it might be holier and more significant of a mystery (for it denotes, by the testimony of Dionysius himself, that he who is anointed has fought legitimately, and by fighting has passed on), was transferred to the bishops or priests. Now, indeed, the most ancient tradition of prayers for the dead of the old Fathers, both Latin and Greek, is clamored for and asserted by testimonies. Tertullian, in his book *De corona militis*, ch. 3, where among customs derived from tradition he also posits this: "We make oblation for the dead, for birthdays, on the annual day." Cyprian, in his 66th letter, where he says that the bishops, his predecessors, had decreed that no brother dying might name a cleric for his protection or care; and if any had done this, that no offering should be made for him, nor sacrifice celebrated for his falling asleep. Whence he also adds that no offering was to be made for Victor, who had done this. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, in his 5th mystagogic catechesis, before the middle, where he reports for whom memory is made in the holy sacrifice, and for whom it is offered, whose words among others are these: *Εἶτα καὶ ὑπὲρ τῶν προκεκοιμημένων ἁγίων Πατέρων καὶ ἐπισκόπων καὶ πάντων ἁπλῶς τῶν ἐν ἡμῖν προκεκοιμημένων (προσφέρομεν θυσίαν δηλαδή), μεγίστην ὄνησιν πιστεύοντες ἔσεσθαι ταῖς ψυχαῖς, ὑπὲρ ὧν ἡ δέησις ἀναφέρεται τῆς ἁγίας καὶ φρικωδεστάτης προκειμένης θυσίας.* "Then also for the holy Fathers and bishops who have fallen asleep before us, and for all who simply have fallen asleep among us (we offer, that is, the sacrifice), believing that it will be a very great benefit to the souls for whom the plea of this holy and most fearful sacrifice is offered." From whence, however, this custom of praying for the dead in the oblation of the sacrifice, and how ancient it is, I truly think should not be credited to the heretics of this age or the next, such as Scultetus, or Chemnitz, or any such of that flour; but rather to him who lived one thousand two hundred years before them, and more, the holy, I say, John Chrysostom, a man of such holiness and learning that they are scarcely worthy to lick his footprints. To him, I say, writing thus on Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, credit must be given: *Οὐκ εἰκῇ ταῦτα ἐνυπετέθη ὑπὸ τῶν ἀποστόλων, τὸ ἐπὶ τῶν φρικτῶν μυστηρίων μνήμην γίνεσθαι τῶν ἀπελθόντων. Ἴσασιν αὐτοῖς πολὺ κέρδος γινόμενον,*

the great utility—no doubt these things were established by the apostles not without reason, so that a memorial might be made in the fearful mysteries for those who have departed this life. For they knew that a great reward and a great benefit would accrue to them. And he provides the reason in the same place, which you may see there.

So much for the ceremonies produced by St. Dionysius the Areopagite (for he has no more), which seems sufficiently said; and it has been clearly shown that there is no argument which cannot be referred back to either the first century in which Dionysius flourished, or the second in which he ended his life under Hadrian, nor can ^B it be refuted. Furthermore, I have not seen, nor do I hope to see, anyone who can solve the arguments for our side, which we have brought forth in favor of the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, as clearly and as distinctly as we have solved those which they threw against us. For certainly the sixth argument of our side, deduced from the very writings of the author with whom we are concerned, is entirely insoluble. St. Maximus the Martyr brought it forward (it is now almost a thousand years ago) in his Prologue to the Works of Dionysius, and to this day there has not been found anyone of the opposing faction who could answer it (as far as I have been able to know). For our adversaries, like faint-hearted soldiers distrustful of their own strength, having abandoned this chief fortress—which they rightly judged to be impregnable—turned themselves toward other less valid 575 ramparts, which, however, they have been able neither to shake, let alone overthrow.

I would have finished here, and would not have added another word about the genuine writings of St. Dionysius; had not recently, when I was in the Islands of Flanders, a most distinguished man, Monsieur Desprets, while I was examining his library, pointed out to me a book published by the theologians of Wittenberg in the year of our Lord 1584, the title of which was: "Acts and writings of the Wittenberg theologians and of the Patriarch of Constantinople, D. Jeremiah, which both exchanged between themselves from the year 1576 to the year 1581 concerning the Augsburg Confession, published in Greek and Latin by the same theologians." In which book, when he had indicated that some things concerning the writings of St. Dionysius had been debated between the parties, a desire took hold of me to read through that book, which was not very thick, and to examine whether anything therein made for or against us. Therefore, I discovered that those Wittenberg masters, in the manner of other heretics, belittled the authority of the writings of St. Dionysius, but with vulgar and often-refuted arguments; but that the Patriarch of Constantinople held the same books in very high esteem, and manfully defended his own doctrine concerning the sacraments ^C from them. For he himself writes in his first response to the Augsburg Confession, chapter 7: "The mystery of the holy chrism is not indeed contained in holy Scripture, however, it has been handed down by the disciples of the Word, just as the most holy Dionysius, having been taught by the divine Paul, handed it down in his own sacred writings: a man whom the Church of God venerates as standing next after the apostles." ^A Regarding the mystery of the sacred chrism, he says, it does not exist in divine Literature, yet it is handed down by the disciples of the Word: just as the most holy Dionysius, who was instructed by the divine Paul, handed it down in his own sacred writings; a man whom indeed the Church venerates as standing in the place of God, next to the apostles. So it is there.

Furthermore, the same patriarch in many other places makes honorable mention of this same St. Dionysius and his straight doctrine; but finally, noticing that he was singing to the deaf; and wishing himself, while seeing no hope of progress, to sound a retreat, he addressed those Wittenberg theologians, or the heretics from the school of Calvin, thus: "Whence then, he says, have you become wiser than the old and new Rome, that you deemed those better and stronger things of yours, having abandoned the writings of the old theologians?" By the new Rome he understands Constantinople, of which he himself was patriarch. For so it has been called from the times of the Emperor Constantine the Great.

Finally, he asks them to cease from troubling him in the future with the same controversies about religion: but in other matters, if they wish, it is permitted for them to cultivate friendship by themselves. Thus, therefore, those who hoped that the Greeks of this age would act for them and their sect, and would favor them against the writings of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, fell so far short of their hope that they themselves were forced either to depart from their own opinion, or were subsequently ordered to keep silent. Finally, this dispute of many years, and even the publication of the dispute itself, was so adverse and ill-omened for them, that they later attempted to hide it in the shadows and, as much as was in them, to suppress all copies. But as usually happens in such matters, no care could be taken so great that something did not escape into the hands of the Catholics. For that friend and acquaintance of ours elicited one from them by the magnitude of its value, and very willingly loaned it to us. But concerning the writings of St. Dionysius (which we have approved and adjudged to him both by the ancients and by the modern Greeks), enough for the present: now let us proceed to the third question.

QUESTION III.

Concerning Timothy, to whom St. Dionysius wrote.

The third question, which pertains to this Life of St. Dionysius, is: Whether Timothy, to whom these books, about which we have treated in the previous question, are inscribed, is that most celebrated Timothy, the companion and disciple of Paul, or some other person proposed by Baronius or by anyone else.

That he is the same disciple of the Blessed Paul, all the Greeks have held, and likewise the Latins almost generally, down to Baronius. Now Baronius, by the force of one argument, the solution of which he did not easily find, thought that he had to diverge so far as to look for another Timothy with whom Dionysius might converse in these books, and to whom he might dedicate them. "For what drives us," he says, "to affirm that the author wrote these things to Timothy, the disciple of Paul, bishop of the Ephesians? For the genuine inscription proposed by the author to the work *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy* is: 'To his fellow-presbyter Timothy, Dionysius the presbyter,' etc." So he says.

The reason, however, that caused trouble for him is this: In those books which are read as being addressed to Timothy, there is found one sentiment from the Epistle of St. Ignatius to the Romans written a short time before his martyrdom. But when that epistle was being written (namely in the tenth or eleventh year of the Emperor Trajan), Timothy, the bishop of the Ephesians, was already dead, as is evident from the epistle of the same Ignatius to the Philadelphians, written 576 around the same time, where he mentions him as having departed from this life. Therefore these things cannot stand simultaneously: that these books were written by Dionysius the Areopagite after the death of the martyr Ignatius (as his cited sentiment, tending toward death, indicates), and that they were dedicated to Timothy, who had already departed before Ignatius. Baronius therefore rightly saw that it was necessary for one of two things to be the case: namely, that either another Timothy must be sought who lived after Ignatius, or certainly that that sentiment of Ignatius was not in the Works of Dionysius when they were dedicated to Timothy, but was added afterward. But in saying that it was added by the author himself, he is indeed quite mistaken: for it is clearly and plainly [the case that it was] imprudently and unskillfully injected or intruded by some other person.

Furthermore, another argument of Baronius for a different Timothy is that the author himself says in the beginning of his commentary *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*: "The function of our priesthood, most holy son Timothy," etc., and from this it seems he might be designating some other, younger Timothy. For, the argument goes, Dionysius would not call that great Timothy, the ancient companion and disciple of Paul, "son."

But the solution to this argument, so that it need not be repeated here, can be seen above in the response to the seventh point of Scultetus. Finally, it must be held for certain that the Timothy to whom Dionysius inscribed these books is the same as that disciple of Paul, and not two different men. And this can be proven as follows.

First. If a name applicable to many is put forward absolutely, it must be taken according to its principal meaning. Thus, among profane authors, "Caesar" stands for Julius Caesar, "Cicero" for M. Tullius the orator, "Virgil" for the prince of Latin poets. So, among the sacred authors, "S. Peter" stands for the coryphaeus of the apostles, "S. Paul" for the teacher of the gentiles, "S. Ignatius" for Ignatius Theophorus, bishop and martyr, and so similarly with others. Wherefore, "Timothy" stands for the principal Timothy, namely the disciple of Paul. Nor does it matter that he is called "presbyter" and not "bishop," for at that time "presbyter" and "bishop" were used for the same thing. Thus, Dionysius himself, being then bishop of Athens, ^B refers to himself in that very same inscription with which he dedicated the book to him: *Τῷ συμπρεσβυτέρω Τιμοθέῳ Διονύσιος ὁ πρεσβύτερος*, "To Timothy the fellow-presbyter, Dionysius the presbyter." And even John the Evangelist himself, writing to Electa, omits the title of bishop and apostle, and calls himself a "presbyter."

Second. That Timothy to whom Dionysius writes was present, together with the apostles and S. Hierotheus and Dionysius himself, at the funeral of the most holy Virgin Mother of God, as the author himself writes in the book *On the Divine Names*, chap. 3. But who could be more worthy of those funeral rites than the disciple and companion of the apostles, that great Timothy?

Third. Dionysius regards this Timothy, to whom he writes, with such high esteem that he entrusts his own writings to his judgment and asks him to communicate with him if anything better should occur to him; nay, he even requests that if he has in any way strayed from the truth, he should be corrected by that same Timothy. See above, ch. 23 of the *Life*, where Dionysius’s modesty or humility of spirit is openly set forth. Wherefore it is not credible that Dionysius would have attributed such honor and praise to anyone other than this S. Timothy.

Fourth. Since all Christians in the first age were called "children," and those who performed sacred duties were called not just "children," but *παῖδες ἱεροί*, "holy children," Dionysius, in addressing Timothy in chap. 1 of *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, says *παίδων ἱερῶν ἱερώτατε*, that is, "most holy of holy children." This is fitting for a bishop.

Fifth. Dionysius indicates in several places that he is not addressing some inferior priest or presbyter, but a bishop or pontiff: as in the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, chap. 9, when he addresses him thus: *Καὶ τοῦτο δὲ τὴν σὴν ἱεραρχικὴν σύνεσιν ὑπομνήσομεν, ὅτι καὶ τῷ Φαραώ*, etc. And this also, he says, "I shall call to the attention of your pontifical wisdom, which also to Pharaoh," etc. And in the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, ch. 7, near the end of the *Contemplation*: *Δεῖ δὲ τὴν σὴν ἱεραρχικὴν σύνεσιν μὴ χαλεπαίνειν ἐπὶ τοῖς πεπλανημένοις*. "It behoves your pontifical wisdom not to be angry at those who have been led into error." In which places *ἱεραρχικὴ σύνεσις*, "pontifical wisdom," means nothing other than ^C pontiff or prince of sacred things. For it is a mode of speaking discovered out of respect and veneration for great men, which the Holy Fathers, both Latin and ^D Greek, are not seen, quite often, to avoid using.

Sixth. Likewise, Dionysius sent a certain epistle of his (it is the ninth in number) to Titus the pontiff, in the beginning of which he makes mention of Timothy and indicates that he had written the book *On the Divine Names* to him. Now, since no one doubts that that Titus, who was a pontiff or bishop, is the same man who was Paul’s companion, associate, and helper, who could dare to doubt that that Timothy, of whom he makes mention in that epistle, and to whom he signifies that he has explained the divine names and symbolic theology, is that other companion and disciple of Paul? And, consequently, if those two companions and disciples of Paul are joined together in one epistle, to whom can any doubt remain that even the writer of the epistle, Dionysius, is that self-same Dionysius, the third disciple of Paul the apostle, who was converted at the Areopagus, who was created bishop of Athens, and who was subsequently reputed to be, and always considered, the apostle of the Franks? Moreover, the beginning of that epistle is of this sort: *Ὁ μὲν ἱερὸς Τιμόθεος, ὦ καλὲ Τίτε, οὐκ οἶδα, εἴ τινος τῶν διεγνωσμένων μοι θεολογικών συμβόλων ἀπελήλυθεν ἀνήκοος· ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τῇ Συμβολικῇ θεολογίᾳ διηυκρινησάμεθα πάσας αὐτῷ τὰς τῶν Λογίων περὶ Θεοῦ δοκούσας εἶναι τοῖς πολλοῖς τερατολογίας.* "Holy Timothy, O good Titus, I do not know if he has departed ignorant of any of the theological symbols known to me; but in the *Symbolic Theology* we have clarified for him all the things concerning God in the Holy Scriptures that seem to the many to be monstrous fables," etc. The style of this epistle, and its subject matter, proclaim him to be the author of the previous books just as much as of these letters.

Finally, let it remain certain that the Timothy with whom these books deal is none other than the disciple of Paul. Nor can that sentiment of Ignatius, "My Love has been crucified," which seems to be taken from his epistle to the Romans, raise any objection, since it has been clearly shown above that it was never written by S. Dionysius in his own books (for it does not fit there at all), but was imprudently written in the margin of the book by someone, and more imprudently injected into the text itself by I know not whom.

But a greater difficulty arises from elsewhere, namely from passages of the Gospel of S. John, which are found here and there in the writings of S. Dionysius: for it is said that John wrote his Gospel after he had returned from exile under Nerva or Trajan, but at that time Timothy had already died, namely under Domitian or Nerva. In what way then, writing to him, could Dionysius use words from that Gospel which had not yet been written? For the passages from the Gospel of John are, in part, in the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, ch. 15, where these words are read: "For you do not know," he says, "whence it comes and whither it goes," which words are found in John iii, 8; in part, they are in the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, ch. 2, where these things are held: "For if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him," which are found in John xiv, 23. And again in the same ch. 2 of the *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, a little further down, these words appear: "For as many as received him, he gave them power to become the children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God," John ch. 1, 12 and 13; they are seen with almost the same words, except that there it also reads: "nor of the will of man," which was omitted by Dionysius. Furthermore, in ch. 3 of the same book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, after the middle, a passage is cited from John xiii, 10: "He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet." And in the book *On the Divine Names* there are many things from the Gospel of S. John. Finally, the same Dionysius in the same ch. 3, in a review of the books of Holy Scripture, makes mention of both the Gospel and the Apocalypse of S. John in these words: *Ἢ τὴν κρυφίαν καὶ μυστικὴν ἐποψίαν τοῦ τῶν μαθητῶν ἀγαπητοῦ καὶ θεσπεσίου, ἢ τὴν ὑπερκόσμιον Ἰησοῦ θεολογίαν τοῖς πρὸς θέωσιν*

θέωσιν* ^A *εὐφυέσιν ὑφηγήσατο.* Or he expounded the hidden and mystical vision of the beloved and divine disciple (that is, the Apocalypse), or the supramundane Jesus-theology to those fitted for the attainment of divinity, that is, the Gospel, which explains the celestial divinity of Christ Jesus, and begins from it, saying: *In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.*

I reply that it is indeed true that Saint Dionysius put the finishing touches upon his books *On the Celestial Hierarchy* and also *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy* after Saint John had written his Gospel, as the passages just cited prove; but it is not equally certain (a conclusion which is nevertheless necessary for the victory of the argument) that Saint Timothy was dead before it was first written, since there are various opinions regarding his death, and none of them is certain. For some report that he died under Domitian, others under Nerva, and others under Trajan. Wherefore, that which is far more certain ought not to be refuted by something uncertain. It is, however, far more certain that the books of Dionysius were written while Timothy was still alive, since in them he addresses Timothy himself in the book *On the Divine Names*, chapter 3, and brings to memory what took place at the funeral of the most holy Mother of God, and note that Timothy himself, being present at these, remembered some portions of the hymns chanted in praise of the same Virgin.

Since, however, it is maintained by us as most probable that S. Timothy was killed under Nerva (which has been proven more fully in the *Life of S. Polycarp*, chapter 7 of the *Annotations*), and since Dionysius survived for a long time afterward, up to the times of Hadrian, it must be said that he issued his books somewhat roughly and imperfectly as they were written at the beginning while Timothy was still alive, but afterward, when he had died, he edited them as perfected and corrected, with some things added and changed. And this ought to seem neither strange nor new, just as ^B we observe that it was often done formerly by other ancient Fathers, and is not infrequently done by modern writers today. For Saint Justin the philosopher, when he had in the beginning of his conversion issued a short treatise to the Greeks (which he had called an *Elenchus*); afterward, retracting the same subject-matter, he issued a finished work under the title *Cohortatio ad gentiles* (Exhortation to the Gentiles), as we noted in his *Life*. Tertullian, likewise, had produced some short little work against Marcion as a young man; but afterward, he elaborated another one more copiously; and when some man had pirated this work and published it in a very corrupted state, Tertullian himself corrected and enlarged what he had found; for thus he writes of that work of his in the beginning of his book *Against Marcion*: "If anything," he says, "has been done by us in the past against Marcion, let that be seen to from here on. We are undertaking a new thing from the old. The first little work was, as it were, hurried; I had rescinded it with a fuller composition afterward; this, too, not yet provided with copies, I lost through the theft of a brother, then an apostate; who perhaps had transcribed certain things very sloppily, and presented them to the public; the necessity of emendation was created: the occasion for its innovation persuaded me of some things." Origen also discussed those things which he had written in his youth on the *Song of Songs* with such fullness and accuracy when he was older that there is nothing written by anyone in that genre which can come into comparison with them. Apollinaris of Laodicea likewise changed his short little commentary upon the prophet Hosea, written in his youth, for a fuller and richer commentary when he was more advanced in age. Jerome himself testifies in his own preface that he did the same thing with regard to that very prophet, namely, that what he, a youth, had written as light and jejune, he edited thirty years later as more mature and exact. What shall I speak of S. Augustine? who resumed into his hands, after a long time, several of his own books that were ruder and unfinished, and enlarged and polished them. Lest it be necessary for me to recount them all, you will find them recorded in the book which he composed in his late age, his *Retractations*. ^C

Itaque, therefore, and S. Dionysius in his final years retracted and added some things from other sources, especially from the Apocalypse and Gospel of the B. John, we are persuaded not without cause: for he esteemed that apostle and disciple, who was loved by Christ in a few things, very highly, and he greedily awaited his divine writings (which he knew, God foretelling it, were about to come to light). But among other things which I would believe he added to his first composition, partly at the request of friends, partly due to the objection of adversaries, there are two matters most especially. One, indeed, in chapter 3 of *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy* in the contemplation or exposition of the sacrament of the synaxis—namely, that review of the books of Holy Scripture, of both the Old and New Testaments, explained at length through periphrasis, which begins with those words: *Πᾶσα μὲν γὰρ ἱερὰ καὶ ἁγιόγραφος δέλτος*, *Omnis quidem sacræ Scripturæ liber*. Which review he introduced due to the occasion of the modulation of the Psalms, which is used in the holy sacrifice, but especially at the request of those who desired to distinguish the books of Holy Scripture from others. For that reason also, S. Melito, a writer of the second century, composed a catalogue of the same books, as we showed in his *Life*. The other thing, which we opine he inserted later into his writings because of the objections of certain people, is that answer concerning the baptism of children and infants, against the mockeries of the Gentiles; which is found at the end of the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, clearly out of its place, that is, in the seventh and last chapter; where it deals with the mystery of funerals, whereas its proper place was in the second chapter, where, indeed, the sacrament of illumination, or baptism, is treated ex professo. But because that book had already been entirely described before either that baptism of children was in frequent use or that objection had occurred to his mind, for that reason the treatment of that question was added to that final book. Nay, from the words of that same place, if one should wish to attend, one clearly recognizes that Dionysius did not write those things before Timothy, having received the same book, moved that question.

Having now worked through these matters regarding this third question, there came into my hands the *Chronicon* of Flavius Lucius Dexter, and along with it the *Commentary* on it by the most learned man, Franciscus Bivarius. These introduce an entirely new opinion regarding the Timothy to whom Saint Dionysius dedicated his books. For they hold that that Timothy is not the one to whom S. Paul wrote two epistles, but is instead Eugenius Marcellus, a disciple of S. Dionysius the Areopagite (or the one of whom we wrote in the *Life of S. Dionysius*, chapter xxi), who was surnamed Timothy. Before I refute this opinion, it seems that something should be very briefly premised regarding its authors.

And so, that Flavius Lucius Dexter is indeed an ancient author, and an equal of S. Jerome, who even encouraged him at one time to arrange ecclesiastic writers in order, which Jerome also did, and dedicated his book *On Illustrious Men* to Dexter himself, as the preface testifies: "You urge me, Dexter," etc. Likewise, Dexter himself wrote a *Chronicon* of universal history, which Franciscus Bivarius published a few years ago, or rather a part of it, specifically that which touches upon the Churches of Spain; for almost everything is referred to that. Since, however, both were Spaniards, both Dexter and Bivarius, they themselves searched out and illustrated ecclesiastical matters of Spain with the greatest diligence. Would that many others had done this in their annotations, and had published the matters of their own nations for public utility; then both the beautiful brightness of truth, and the distinguished sanctity of the Churches, and the true wealth of souls, would have become known to the world much more clearly. I will indeed confess that some things in that *Chronicon* were, as it happens, attributed to the land of Spain by the author himself, or later by others, which might seem possible to be attributed either equally or more equitably to other nations.

^A And yet, that the work itself is by Dexter (even if some things may have been added from elsewhere, or slightly altered), I do not see how it can be prudently denied by anyone. Wherefore, we shall have to do with Dexter what is permitted to be done with Jerome, Augustine, and other Fathers: namely, that if anything is improbable, it should be refuted; if anything is interpolated, it should be marked; otherwise, let the works remain with their authors, and not be rejected entirely on account of a few alien opinions.

Therefore, that passage in Dexter’s Chronicle, at the year of Christ 100 and Roman year 851, works against us, where it is read: "Dionysius the Areopagite dedicates the books *On the Divine Names* to Eugenius Marcellus, called Timotheus on account of his excellent intellect." These words, as they lie, I with difficulty admit to be Dexter’s, because of the absurdities contained in them; and I rather believe they were written by Dexter thus: "Dionysius the Areopagite dedicates the books *On the Divine Names* to Timotheus." For certainly those intermediate words—*to Eugenius Marcellus, called Timotheus on account of his excellent intellect*—seem to have been injected clumsily and for the sake of defending the glory of the inscription of those books for Eugenius, Bishop of Toledo. ^B And even if we were to grant that those words are Dexter’s, yet we would by no means grant that they were written skillfully. For what could be said less skillfully than that: *called Timotheus on account of his excellent intellect*? For Timotheus does not signify excellence of intellect, but the honor of God; for it is *honour* [τῑμὴ], not intellect. Furthermore, why different names for M. Marcellus? If he is first Eugenius, why is he then called Timotheus? For as to Timotheus, I have already said that it does not fit, and it will be shown more fully later. But Eugenius, when or by whom was he so called? If at Rome and by his father, as he was a prefect in Rome, he would certainly have been called *Nobilis* by a Roman name, rather than *Eugenius* by a Greek one. Nor does it seem possible to say that it was a family name of the Marcelli, as there are no traces of such a thing appearing, wherever one might look, and—what is more—it is inconsistent with Roman custom. And hence it would be more credible that that author has conflated three preachers of the Gospel in Spain into one: Marcellus, Eugenius, and Timotheus. ^C For we have evidence, partly in Dexter himself and partly in other writers, that all of them were in Spain. In Dexter, indeed, at the year of Christ 64, in these words: "S. Paul, coming to the Spains, brings with him Philemon, Timotheus, and other disciples": where who could doubt that he understands Timotheus the bishop of the Ephesians, as well as that Philemon to whom there exists one Epistle of Paul? Regarding Marcellus, likewise, it is established not only from Dexter, who writes at the year of Christ 50 that Peter, the Vicar of Christ, visited the Spains, accompanied by many, M. Marcellus, Eugenius, Apollinaris of Ravenna, etc., but also from Methodius in the martyrdom of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite. Then, he says, "S. Dionysius sent Marcellus into Spain." Finally, it is evident regarding Eugenius, both from ancient monuments of the Dionysian monastery at Paris, and from the Acts of the same martyr, revised by Stephen, Bishop of Liège, many centuries ago, as is written in the *Life*. See therein chapter XXI. ^D That this Eugenius is the same as Marcus Marcellus, however, does not appear in those Acts, nor in the Dionysian monuments, nor in Eugenius’s own tomb (though in tombs proper names are almost never omitted), nor finally anywhere else except in Dexter. For Joannes Mariana, a most diligent explorer of Spanish history, in book IV of *De rebus Hispaniæ*, chapter 4, when he reaches the times of Eugenius of Toledo, confesses that the Spaniards rely on no other argument for why they think Eugenius is the same as Marcellus, or as Philippus, a companion of Marcellus, than that in ancient writers no mention of Eugenius is found, and it is not known what Philippus and Marcellus did. "There are some who think," he says, "that a certain Philippus was sent as bishop to Spain by Clement, or at least Marcellus, whom he joined to Philippus as a companion, ^A to whom Michael Syncellus is the witness, to have been Eugenius himself, and that indeed this name came from innate nobility; the other, however, he received from his parents. When they affirm this, they rely on no better conjecture than that there is no mention of Eugenius in the writings of the ancients; and that it lies deeply hidden what Philippus and Marcellus did in Spain." Thus he says. It is therefore credible that Dexter, when he had found an enumeration of many saints who had traveled through Spain in the times of the apostles, and among others M. Marcellus, and Eugenius, and Timotheus—it is credible, I say, that on account of the omission of the distinction, he thought that the one person was three. For otherwise, if he was called Eugenius by the faithful (as Bivarius wishes, p. 30), and that on account of the splendor of his birth, because he was from the family and house of Nero, how did the Christians writing to him not call him by that name which they themselves had given? For the SS. Nereus and Achilleus, writing to him, with no mention of Eugenius, inscribed it only thus: "Nereus and Achilleus, servants of Christ Jesus, to their brother and fellow-disciple Marcellus, eternal health." To whom, in responding, he used this inscription: "Marcellus, servant of Christ, to the holy confessors Nereus and Achilleus." If anyone seeks their letters themselves, he will find them in volume III of Surius, in the Acts of the same martyrs. Others also wrote to the same Marcellus, but in this way: "Eutyches, Victorius, and Maro, servants of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Marcellus." Thus, indeed, in the Acts of Nereus and Achilleus and others, he is perpetually called Marcellus, never Eugenius, never *Nobilis*, neither in the Greek nor the Latin copies. ^C Furthermore, the very ancient Author, who described the martyrdom and burial of the Apostle S. Peter (whose words are reported in Vincent of Beauvais in the *Speculum historiale*, book IX, chapter 25), calls him nothing other than Marcellus. "Marcellus indeed, his brother," he says, "straightway took down the holy body from the cross, and washed it clean with milk and excellent wine, and, having embalmed it with spices, buried it most diligently." And on that very night, while he was keeping vigil at his sepulcher and weeping with an ardent desire for him (for he had determined in his life not to be separated from his teacher’s burial), the Blessed Peter stood before him and said: "Brother Marcellus, have you not heard the voice of the Lord saying: *Let the dead bury their dead*? Do not, therefore, seem to bury and weep for a dead man, but as one living, rejoice with him who lives and rejoices; let the dead bury their dead, but you, as you have learned from me, go and announce the kingdom of God." Thus it is there. There is no doubt that these things were said of S. Marcellus, the disciple of Peter, especially since Dexter himself notes at the year of Christ 100 that he had been an inseparable companion of S. Peter’s travels, and had been of the family and house of Nero; so that it was easy for him to see to such a burial for his master. ^D Then, that the name Eugenius is a proper name, just as Timotheus is, is evident from the fact that by everyone, with the one exception of Dexter, they are always placed solitarily: S. Eugenius, S. Timotheus; which would not happen if they were appellatives. Just as S. Ignatius the martyr is indeed surnamed Theophorus, but that he is called *Theophorus* absolutely, is scarcely found. And yet we do not read that the name *Theophorus* attached itself to anyone else, either as a name or a surname, just as Eugenius and Timotheus were for many their proper names. But be it that S. Marcellus was surnamed Eugenius (of which I dispute only for the sake of elucidating the truth), that very thing makes for us who say he was surnamed Timotheus. For it would be easier to believe that M. Marcellus was surnamed Timotheus if he had not been surnamed Eugenius beforehand. For what would it matter, after the surname Eugenius had been given to him...

to give also afterwards the surname of Timotheus? Especially since many others in those times were called by this name, or had been called Timothei. Furthermore, if St. Dionysius had wished to designate in the inscription of his book a different Timotheus than that most well-known companion and disciple of Paul, he would surely have added either his own proper name, or something else that would remove the ambiguity of the appellation; but by calling him simply Timotheus, he surely wished to designate no one else than him who was the most prominent among those called Timothei, and was in everyone's mouth.

There is also another passage in the same Flavius Dexter at the year of Christ 200, and Rome 971, in these words: "There exists a certain letter, which is circulated, to the prelate Marcus Marcellus of Toledo, whom he calls son and Timotheus, that is to say, honored by God. ^A For the other Timotheus, when this letter was written, had already ceased to be among the living."

These words I cannot persuade myself are Dexter's, but rather those of a simple and ignorant man who, wishing by all means to persuade one that the same man is M. Marcellus and that Timotheus to whom Dionysius writes, has put these things together most crudely. Note, however, that a different interpretation of the name Timotheus is given here than before. For before he said he was called Timotheus on account of the excellence of his genius, when he ought to have said on account of the excellence of his piety: now he interprets Timotheus as "honored by God," when he ought to have interpreted it as "one who honors God." ^B For *Timotheos* and *Theotimos* differ, since the former is taken actively, and the latter passively. For *Theotimos* is "honored by God," very worthy of honor, just like *peritimos*, *megalotimos*, *isotimos*, and other terms of the same sort, or whenever the part *timos* is at the end of the compound; for then such words are of passive signification. But the matter is otherwise and in the contrary direction when it is at the beginning of the compound: for then they have an active signification, as I have said. Whence *timopolis* in Euripides is he who honors the city, or who is an ornament to the city, not he who is honored by it. So *sosiptolis* in Aristophanes is "savior of the city." So *philopolis* is "lover of the city." And so with others. Therefore, one of two things must be said: either these things were added to Dexter, or Dexter did not know letters; the latter I would not dare to say, therefore the former. I pass over other absurdities that are contained in the words mentioned above. But it is clear throughout the whole book that he, as the author of the Chronicle, or a compiler from the ecclesiastical books of Spain, has drawn into his own right (if it can be called a right) and into the proposed praises of his own celebrated fatherland many foreign things, being overly addicted to his own people. So much for Dexter; now let us prepare to resolve the arguments of Francis, his commentator (whom I acknowledge as a learned man, and one who skillfully and honestly insists on his own purpose of defending Dexter).

^C The first argument was about St. Timotheus, whom he says died under the Emperor Domitian. I deny that this is true. For I have proven in the *Annotations to the Life of St. Polycarp*, chap. 7, that he died under the Emperor Nerva, namely with St. Polycrates as witness, a writer of the second century, and bishop of that same Ephesian Church of which Timotheus himself was, who undoubtedly transcribed those things which he wrote about the passing of Timotheus from the very records of that Church. For it was then the custom in the Churches (which persists with us even today) to record the successions of their bishops and their entrances and deaths, and not only to commit to the sacred records the years, but sometimes the very days themselves. I am therefore surprised that Bivarius draws Polycrates into his own camps; nay, I am even more surprised that he calls Polycrates a disciple of St. John the Apostle, when almost a century had passed between them. ^D Nor can I agree with Bivarius that the *Life of Timotheus* which exists in Metaphrastes is thought to be the one that was written by Polycrates, since they differ greatly from each other: and indeed that one contains some things which happened many centuries after Polycrates, and furthermore it does not altogether agree concerning the time and manner of his death. Therefore, I deny that St. Timotheus died at that time when St. Dionysius first composed his books; but only then when, after the return of St. John from exile, and after the writing of the Gospel and Apocalypse by him (which he himself ardently desired, as the letter sent to him declares), he reread them more accurately, and adorned them, partly as if with certain jewels, with the passages of that apostle and new evangelist, and partly corroborated them as if with very strong arguments. For we know that this happens very frequently, that if, after the publication of some work, something new is ordained or brought to light by the sovereign pontiff, or by someone else of chief authority, by which our own things can be strengthened, we very eagerly seize upon it and insert it into a second edition.

Nor is it of great concern to us whether he to whom the book was originally dedicated is still alive, or has already died. If anyone therefore wishes to argue from this, for example, that because some pontifical decree is cited in it which was published only three or four years ago, it could not have been dedicated to Baronius or to Toletus, for example, who had died some time before, it would certainly be a weak and vain argument: for the first dedication of the book, which was long before that decree, was in no way changed by its arrival. So it happened in the works of Dionysius: for some things were added to them afterwards, and perhaps even changed, but the dedication of the book remained the same, and not changed. Who, moreover, if he had lived in the age of Dionysius, and had published books before the Gospel of John was brought forth, would do anything other than what Dionysius did? Who, I ask, having the Gospel already published, could refrain from revising his own work, and not make it better, with the aid of the Gospel of so great an apostle? Otherwise he would be, and would be considered, a fool, if he neglected that. Such, therefore, St. Dionysius would have been and should have been considered, if he had done otherwise than he did. That the retraction of books was in fact customary in antiquity, let there be that testimony of M. Tullius in the epistles to Atticus. For when he had realized that a certain book of his was pleasing to that same Atticus, he sent it later to him revised, and said: "That you say you await *Erotes* without a gift, I am glad that the matter did not disappoint your expectation. But nevertheless I sent the same *syntagma* to you revised, and indeed the very archetype, underscored in certain places and corrected." Thus he in book XVI *To Atticus*, epistle 3. So entirely did our Dionysius do. He issued his little works revised and corrected in many places with the Gospel and Apocalypse of John. For before the invention of typography, that revision of books was as much more common as it was far easier.

Indeed I myself, had I not decided to commit it to the press, or rather if there had been no typography, would have permitted this *Life of St. Dionysius* and certain others to come to light many years ago, which I now publish far more revised. Finally, Flavius Lucius Dexter himself first published his own general History (as he himself is the author) and dedicated it to St. Jerome, not very full; afterwards, however, it was increased and enriched in many places, as he himself writes, and he published it again, and in it described the time of the death of Jerome himself, and certain other things which happened after his death. And thus enriched, he dedicated it to another, namely to Paulus Orosius, a presbyter of Tarragona. Let us do, therefore (what could have been done, and perhaps was due), that Dexter did not change the dedicatory epistle; but from the fact that there is mention in that work of the death of St. Jerome, and of others who were after him, would it well follow that the Jerome to whom that book was read to be dedicated was not St. Jerome the presbyter, but that some other of that name must be sought? Not in the least. Why, therefore, is the same...

^A should I not say of Dionysius what can be said of Dexter? For who is there, or has been, or will be (putting aside the authority of Dexter) who, upon hearing the inscription "To Timothy," does not immediately understand that Timothy who is called absolutely and otherwise than as Timothy? Especially since all the arguments that can be brought against this are easily diluted? And this has been done by others before us—at least in part—and by us ourselves on several occasions, and more fully. I ask, therefore, let the sincere reader judge which is more probable: that Dionysius the Areopagite wrote his book *On Divine Names* in the one hundred and first or second year of his life, or that he composed it somewhat earlier, or, as they say, traced out the body of the book with his first hand (namely, at about the seventieth year of his age, when his powers were more intact, and when Timothy himself was living and flourishing), but only brought it to completion in his hundredth year or thereabouts—this being easier—that is, having already accepted and perfected the history of both the Apocalypse and the Gospel of St. John, and having added to and enriched it with passages assumed from thence? Especially since we ourselves love our books almost no less than parents love their children, and since we provide for their progress and perfection—more frequently than them—both by day and by night. Nor is every age suitable for publishing books, just as it is for begetting children. Hence M. Varro, while thinking of rest from writing, was right to say: "My eightieth year warns me to pack up my goods. For if man is a bubble, how much more so is an old man?"

But as to what I said, that Francis Bivarius holds the opinion that Dionysius wrote his books in his one hundred and first year, this is proven by these words of his in his *Commentary on Dexter*, at the year of Christ 100, page 202: "At the end," he says, "it is necessary to warn that Dexter did not treat of the books of Dionysius in this hundredth year as if they were written in that year; for it is established that they were written after the one hundred and tenth year, at the martyrdom of St. Ignatius; but because he had once begun to speak of Dionysius and Marcellus Eugenius, it pleased him to insert this concerning them, especially since he did not say that this happened in that year, but during that time, namely at the beginning of the second century of the years of Christ the Lord." From which words it is necessarily concluded that Dionysius wrote those books in the one hundred and first or second year of his life. For Dionysius was twenty-five years old at the time of the passion of Christ (as Dionysius himself writes of himself in his epistle to Apollophanes), so that Christ preceded Dionysius in age by, at most, nine years; for about that many years, and no more, pass between the twenty-fifth year of Dionysius and the thirty-third or thirty-fourth of Christ.

If, therefore, Dionysius wrote the books *On Divine Names* after the year of Christ 110, as Bivarius wishes, he certainly wrote them in his one hundred and second year: for the one hundred and eleventh year of Christ is the one hundred and second of Dionysius. But now, can it really be seen as probable that Dionysius wrote those books in the one hundred and second year of his life? That age is indeed fertile for books. And if he wrote the book *On Divine Names* in the one hundred and second year of his life, at what age did he write the book *On Mystical Theology*? For it is absolutely clear that he wrote this after the former, since in the third chapter of the book *On Mystical Theology* he writes thus: "But in the book *On Divine Names*, how He (God, that is) is called Good, how Being, how Life, Wisdom, Power, and the other things that pertain to the understanding of the Divine Names, we have spoken." Into these straits, then, they cast themselves who take one opinion of the blessed martyr Ignatius in a sense other than what is intended, and who do not understand that it was wrongly intruded into Dionysius, and not written by Dionysius. And this is what the same Bivarius, as a second argument against us, brings forward like an impregnable engine; concerning which we shall speak soon.

^B For I wish a certain thing to be conceded to me by him, which he cannot justly refuse. For when Dexter 583 marks that Dionysius dedicated the book *On Divine Names* to Timothy at this time, Bivarius himself wishes for "at this time" not to signify that year strictly, but to be able to be extended eleven years into the future, so that it is the same as if he said "in the year of Christ 100." Therefore, I ask from him in turn that, just as he extends it eleven years into the future, so it may be permitted to me to retract it eleven years into the past: namely, that by "this time" it signifies eleven years before the one hundredth year of Christ, which would be the eighty-ninth year of Christ, and the sixth of Domitian; and thus absolutely nothing will stand in the way of that book *On Divine Names* being able to have been dedicated to Timothy, the disciple of Paul, in its first composition and dedication; since it is sufficiently established (even by the confession of Bivarius himself) that Timothy died long after. For I have already shown that the places from the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse were added after the redaction of the book: nor shall I show that the place of Ignatius stands in the way, or at least I shall point my finger, as they say, to the source.

The second argument, therefore, of Francis Bivarius is that St. Dionysius in Chapter 4 of *On Divine Names* cites Ignatius from the Epistle to the Romans written in the eleventh year of Trajan, which is, however, the one hundred and tenth or one hundred and eleventh year of Christ. To which argument I shall not respond here, because it has been responded to earlier. See above in Question 11 in the response to the fourth, and in our *Commentary on the epistle of Ignatius*, and also in the *Notations on the Life*: for in those places we clearly showed that from that place of Ignatius no argument can be taken against the books of Dionysius: since that opinion, "My Love has been crucified," was not written by Dionysius (to whom it could have meant nothing), but was intruded into Dionysius by a man ignorant of that sense; this has been demonstrated.

But as for what is brought forward by Bivarius concerning the danger that threatens the books of the saints if it be permitted to scrape anything out of them on one’s own authority without the testimony of any ancient codex, we respond that we do not scrape it out on our own authority, but convince by reason that it must be entirely scraped out. If he deigns to allow some vacant time for reading our work, just as we have willingly allowed for reading his, he will find it in the places already cited.

He brings forward again two other arguments taken from the books of Dionysius themselves. The first is that, when Dionysius, as he says himself, addresses Timothy six hundred times, and refers to sentences from each of Paul’s epistles to him, he never says "As Paul rightly wrote to you," or anything similar. I respond that the character of books that look to many is one thing, and that of epistles that touch individuals is another. In books that are directed to all, it is not the custom to speak frequently to him to whom we dedicate the book; indeed, by most, even if a good opportunity offers itself, it is done only in the preface or the dedicatory epistle; but in epistles, which are written to one person, it is done more liberally. Therefore, what Dionysius wrote to Timothy are books, not epistles. I respond secondly, with the permission of Francis Bivarius, that rarely or never does Dionysius cite sentences of Paul from the Epistles to Timothy—then, that is, when he addresses Timothy—it is far from being six hundred times. And what he says about citing the place from 1 Timothy 1:17: "Now to the King of ages, immortal, invisible, etc.," he says very audaciously, since he cannot show that in Dionysius. But since King of ages is one of the Divine Names, St. Dionysius also explains that in Chapter 5, but with neither Paul cited, nor his words brought forward. For he only says thus: "Whence also He is called King of ages, as in Him and around Him is all of being, and of that which is, and of that which subsists, and neither was, nor shall be, nor came into being, nor is coming into being, nor will come into being." Hence He is also called King of ages, he says, because

^A you contemn your youth; since Dionysius had spent about double his age.

Secondly, by the name of sons are understood disciples, and by the name of fathers, masters. Thus, Saint Dionysius of Alexandria, when dedicating the books inscribed *On Nature* to a certain Timothy, addressed him by the name of son, as may be seen in Eusebius of Caesarea, book VI of the *Ecclesiastical History*, ch. 26, in the Greek edition. Timothy, therefore, in philosophy and the discipline of the age, in which he was less skilled, as well as in more subtle theology (for this was needed against the philosophers who were attacking our faith), had Dionysius as a master; and he consulted him while absent through letters. For there was no small danger threatening the Church from philosophers and the sophists of the age. Hence Paul also, wishing the Colossians to be cautious, said: "See that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ." Thirdly, since Timothy was by nature timid and pusillanimous enough (which we proved from Paul himself in the annotations to ch. 7 of the *Life of Saint Polycarp*), he needed not only a teacher of science, but also a master of virtue and constancy. I wonder, however, that Bivarius did not learn from Paul's Epistles and from Saint John's Apocalypse what manner of saint Timothy was; that although he was versed from childhood in the sacred letters according to the capacity of his genius (being born of a Christian mother) and even endowed with remarkable piety and holiness, he was yet at times too pusillanimous in great matters of the soul, and in need of a leader and encourager. For the fact that Paul wrote so many Epistles in the names of both, and that he commended him frequently and earnestly, was not because Timothy possessed great authority over others, but that he might possess it. For Saint Chrysostom, by far the most sharp-sighted of all concerning Paul's Epistles, writes that he joined Timothy to himself in the superscriptions for this reason—that he might gain for him authority, as can be seen in the commentaries on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians.

The third argument of Bivarius against us (which, however, being validly repelled against our adversaries, will bring us an entire victory) is this: namely, that Timothy always possessed more authority among the disciples than Titus, as one whom Paul had honored more. Yet Dionysius, when writing to Titus, does not call him son, so much the less, therefore, should he have called Timothy so.

I reply that authority is most potently and commonly acquired by three things: first, by age; and in this way old men are of greater authority than the young: second, by the excellence of the things within us, such as wisdom and virtue and noble deeds: third, from honor and dignity coming from without. This honor is expended either in the commission of great things, such as the governing of cities, the administration of provinces, and other things of that kind, or in the familiarity of someone or favor among the great. I, however, consider and assert that in these three former ways Titus was of greater authority than Timothy, and that he possessed more moment for authority, especially intrinsically, than the latter. First, therefore, there was more authority in Titus from age; which can be gathered well enough from Paul's Epistles and from what is to be said below. Secondly, from science, prudence, and other virtues pertaining to the government of the Church: but he did not greatly need the recommendation of a master; Paul, however, frequently needed his assistance. "But when I had come to Troas," says Paul, "for the Gospel of Christ, and a door was opened for me in the Lord, I had no rest for my spirit, because I did not find Titus my brother; but taking leave of them, I went on into Macedonia." Behold, therefore, how great was the absence of Titus ^D

^A a hindrance to Paul, lest he should preach the Gospel at Troas; for Titus was Paul’s interpreter, so that whatever Paul said in one language, he would express in another: and if Paul uttered anything more obscure and divine, he, as one who understood such mysteries, would bring it forth clearly and evidently. And as the absence of Titus was a great sorrow to the Apostle, so his presence was a great consolation. "For when we had come," he says, "into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we suffered every tribulation: fightings without, fears within. But God, who comforts the humble, comforted us at the coming of Titus." And lower down: "In our consolation, we rejoiced more abundantly for the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you all." And chapter VIII, 6: "So that we requested Titus, that as he had begun, so he should also complete in you this grace as well." And that the Apostle held Titus in higher regard than Luke the evangelist himself, is also proved by the fact that he says in the same chapter that he was sending Luke with him. Therefore he requests Titus, but sends Luke. "But thanks be to God," he says, v. 16, "who put the same solicitude for you in the heart of Titus: for he received the exhortation; but being more solicitous, he went to you of his own will. We have also sent with him the brother, whose praise is in the Gospel through all the churches; and not only so, but he is also appointed by the churches as a companion of our travels," etc. And again, Chapter XII, 17: "Did I circumvent you by any of those whom I sent to you? I requested Titus, and I sent the brother with him. Did Titus circumvent you? Did we not walk in the same spirit? Did we not walk in the same steps?" And does it not appear from these things how much Paul esteemed Titus? He was chary of saying that he had *sent* him, but only that he had *requested* him, or, as he hints above, had *exhorted* that he should go—to Corinth, that is; but he says he did not request Luke to go, but simply sent him. Furthermore, if we value them more and trust them more to whom we entrust more and greater things, then to Timothy was entrusted Ephesus, but to Titus, Crete: that is, to the one a single city, but to the other an entire island full of many cities. And he indeed was to be at Ephesus under the shadow of John the evangelist; but he, truly, was like a shade ^B to the other bishops of the island.

Add that the Cretans were much more difficult to draw to the faith than the Ephesians. Hence Paul, an expert master, knowing the different customs of those peoples, says only this to the one [Timothy] when writing to him: "Rebuke with all patience and doctrine"; but to Titus: "Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith." Therefore, Titus was superior to all these. I admit, therefore, that Paul labored more to gain authority for Timothy, whether by writing letters in his and his own name, or by commending him otherwise at great length (for he had greater need of it); but it is a greater thing to have authority from oneself than to receive it from another. Nor does the fact that he wrote two letters to Timothy and only one to Titus mean that he valued the former more than the latter. For since these letters were written for instruction, they rather indicate (and in truth it was so) that Timothy needed more instruction than Titus; otherwise, Silvanus, who is almost unknown outside of Paul’s letters and to whom nothing was written by Paul, is nevertheless always read as being preferred by Paul himself to Timothy; as in II Cor. I, 19: "For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not 'it is and it is not,' but in him it was." And in I Thess., the superscription of Paul reads thus: "Paul and Silvanus and Timothy to the Church of the Thessalonians," etc. Thus, Bivarius’s foundation concerning the greater authority of Timothy over Titus falls.

And from what has been said, one can also gather why Dionysius called Timothy "son" rather than Titus: for Titus was not as young nor as much in need ^C of counsel and discipline as was Timothy. Finally, Dionysius wrote a single letter or booklet to Titus; but if he had written a single book also to Timothy, namely that *On the Divine Names*, we would not find Timothy called "son" in it any more than in the book to Titus. Wherefore, just as in the said book *On the Divine Names* he did not call Timothy "son," so neither did he Titus in the other. But if he had written as many to Titus as he did to Timothy, perhaps he would have called him "son" just as much as Timothy.

Now, other words of Bivarius must be heard and stoutly refuted, and let him not perhaps deter men of our opinion with his terrifying statements, while he repeats again: "But no one of sound mind will believe that Timothy, that peer of the apostles, who was nourished at the breasts of Paul and perpetually taught with the milk of doctrine while he lived, upon his removal from the midst, was handed over to the discipline of Dionysius and became his disciple, and *while the apostle was still alive* had diligently listened to Hierotheus, first in Athens, then teaching in Spain." Thus he. Come then; let us grant this freely, that no one of sound mind believes that Timothy, Paul’s companion and disciple, upon his death was handed over to the discipline of S. Dionysius the Areopagite: pray, tell me, of what mind would he be, or rather of what madness, who would believe that Titus, S. Paul’s interpreter and a bishop of a Greek island appointed by the same Apostle, upon the death of the latter, gave himself over into the following—I do not say of Dionysius (which we do not even say of Timothy, but only that he was somewhat taught by Dionysius), but of him who was Dionysius’s disciple, namely Eugenius? Did Titus, therefore, upon the death of Paul (according to the opinion of Dexter and Bivarius), follow Eugenius, the disciple of Dionysius? And could not Timothy follow the master Dionysius himself? But grant that Titus and Timothy were equals (yet they were not, as we have shown); but suppose they were; which is now less credible? That Timothy followed Dionysius? Or that Titus followed the disciple of Dionysius? Yet this latter point Dexter dares to write, and Bivarius is not afraid to defend.

Since these things are so, far be it from me, however, to say that they are not of sound mind; I will only say this, that they were not sufficiently prudent and circumspect! The words of Dexter to the year of Christ 220 are these: "Titus, by surname Justus, having been made bishop, followed first S. Paul, soon after Eugenius, preaches in Carpetania, where his memory and the magnitude of his miracles are celebrated." And yet he is Eugenius, the disciple of Dionysius, created bishop by Dionysius, and sent by him into Spain. Him, therefore, did Titus follow, forsooth. But when? Perhaps Bivarius will suggest to us from Equilinus some clue from which it can be inferred. Thus, therefore, Bivarius to the said year of Christ 220, in Commentary 3: "Petrus, Bishop of Equilinus," he says, "in whose work, as in a storehouse of all antiquity, I always find an immense treasure, in the seventh book of the *Catalogus*, chapter 118, while he writes the Life of Saint Titus, the disciple of the apostle Paul, he narrates among other things that Paul ordained the Cretan Titus as bishop, and leaving him in Crete, went away: but after two years Titus went to Paul at Rome, with whom he also was until his execution by Nero, and buried his body together with Luke the evangelist." When, therefore, I ask, did Titus follow Eugenius; or straightway upon the burial of Paul’s body? This cannot be said: because he would have followed a simple priest as bishop, and one not yet a bishop. For Eugenius was finally made bishop in the city of Arelate by S. Dionysius under Clement, while Titus had been created bishop of the island of Crete many years before by Paul himself, as has been said. Did Titus, then, already an old man in the episcopate and the moderator of all Crete, follow a new bishop then? No one will believe (I dare ^D to say this) who is of sound mind. When, therefore, T...

Timotheus or Titus followed ^A Dionysius? In a word, never. For this is clearly how one must feel, that neither did Timotheus ever follow Dionysius, nor did Titus likewise follow Eugene; for both to do so is indecent, but the latter is more indecent. What then do we say about St. Timotheus? Nothing, surely, other than that in more difficult and arduous matters he consulted Dionysius, a man endowed with the greatest intellect, prudence, wisdom, and especially philosophical and theological learning, and, on account of his age and the name of the Areopagus, with particular authority; and that he, for the sake of him and others, penned the books which we have in our hands. For it is one thing to learn something from another through letters or written books, and quite another to follow him as a disciple. We speak the former about Timotheus and Titus (for Dionysius wrote to both), but we utterly deny the latter for both. Concerning Titus having followed Eugene as a disciple, however, the words of Dexter seem necessarily to be accepted; since they are accustomed to proceed in the same manner concerning the following of both Paul and Eugene; for he says: "He followed Paul first, then Eugene." But he followed Paul as a disciple and an inferior, so therefore also Eugene. ^B But if perhaps someone might wish Eugene to have been such a great man that Titus could follow him, in that same way will follow that absurdity which Bivarius does not believe can fall upon a man of sound mind. For if Eugene had been greater than Titus, he would also without a doubt have been at least equal to Timotheus. But if Eugene had been equal to Timotheus, Dionysius certainly could not call Eugene "son" more than he would Timotheus himself. I will also add that point which just now occurs to me, an argument in favor of our opinion, that Timotheus and Titus were disciples of St. Paul, of whom Dionysius also was; but that Eugene was not a disciple and follower of the holy Paul, but of Peter, and of Dionysius himself only for a short time: wherefore, since it is certain, even with Bivarius confessing it, that Dionysius wrote to Titus, a disciple of Paul, it is also most probable to believe that the same Dionysius wrote those books which are extant to the other disciple of the same Paul, Timotheus, especially since he makes mention of Timotheus in the Epistle to Titus. Dionysius also wrote in Greek, not in Latin: from which it becomes far more probable that he wrote to Greeks than to Eugene, a Roman man, who it is uncertain even knew Greek. For he spent his whole life either in Italy (as a Roman, which Dexter and Bivarius teach) or in Gaul, or in Spain: for these things are clear; whether he ever saw Greece, however, is not clear. ^C Although I would not wish to deny that he could have known Greek, yet whether he knew it, and knew it in such a way that books written in Greek could have been dedicated to him, I truly do not know. But now, if by chance a doubt should remain for anyone in a matter so proven, and, standing with Bivarius, he should deem Timotheus even greater than Titus, and for that reason think he should not have been called "son" any more than Titus, I am his guide to enter that repository of all antiquity, of which I have spoken above, and in which Bivarius professes that he always finds an immense treasure for himself, and to see there whether he makes Titus, the Equilinus bishop, such and so great that Timotheus can scarcely be compared with him. For he indeed writes that he was adorned with most illustrious parents, and traces his lineage back even to Minos, king of Crete, and also records that he approached the knowledge of Christ by a truly admirable and divine calling; he was also present at His passion, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, and together with the disciples received the Holy Spirit descending upon them corporally. If these things are true, as Bivarius seems to believe, it certainly cannot be left in doubt that Titus is much older than Timotheus, and also some years older than Dionysius himself (for since Dionysius at the time of the passion was only twenty-five years of age, and Titus at least twenty-nine, it is gathered from the same Equilinus) that consequently he could not have been called "son" by Dionysius in the same way as Timotheus. On which matter, see Equilinus in book VII of the Catalog, chapter 108, where he says that Titus, twenty years of age and already deeply devoted to the poems of Homer and the books of the philosophers, received a voice from heaven which warned him that those profane studies should thereafter be abandoned, and that he should provide for the salvation of his soul: and nine years later, after reading the book of Isaiah, already more desirous of his own salvation as well as that of others, he was sent by his uncle, the proconsul of Crete, to Jerusalem, and there came to the knowledge of Christ. Behold, therefore, twenty-nine years for Titus before the passion of Christ; which neither Dionysius nor Timotheus equaled. From these things, as I suppose, it appears that there was sufficient reason why St. Timotheus could be called "boy" or "son" by the blessed Dionysius, and Titus not: for he was older in birth than both, than Dionysius himself and than Timotheus. Wherefore, since the arguments raised against our common opinion have now been abundantly answered, and this third question has been sufficiently, as it seems to me, explained, I will now pass to the fourth and last.

QUESTION IV

Concerning the body of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite; whether it is in the city of St. Denis near Lutetia [Paris] or at Ratisbon [Regensburg] in Bavaria.

It contributes not a little to the name and glory of any saint that a dispute once existed, and exists today, among famous and noble peoples concerning his body. For from the piety of peoples, and from the esteem for holy relics, such contentions are wont to arise among Christians. Thus, therefore, between the Franks and the Germans, or rather, between the religious men of two most famous monasteries—one in the city of St. Denis not far from Paris, the other at Ratisbon in Bavaria—there has long flourished and still flourishes a no mediocre contention concerning the sacred body of the blessed Dionysius the Areopagite. For the former contend with all their might that they have always possessed it and still possess it; the latter, however, that the former once possessed it, but that they themselves possess it now. For the Ratisbonenses ^D say that it was translated to them, and they show, or at least attempt to show, the time and manner and convenience, as far as they can. For they say that in the time of the Emperor Arnulf, that is, under the year of Christ 890, it was secretly stolen by Gisalbert, one of the emperor's nobles (who, under the guise of an admitted sacrilege, had been banished by design into the monastery of St. Denis) by having bound the monks to himself through a friendly and liberal relationship, and having once entertained them with a cheerful banquet, and having buried them in wine and sleep, and that it was transported to the emperor: which emperor deposited it at Ratisbon in the monastery of the blessed Emmeramus (which he desired to be most highly adorned). Furthermore, they even say that the square stones are preserved in the same place...

on which this epigram is inscribed in Roman capital letters: ^A

DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE RESTS HERE, UNDER EMPEROR ARNULF AND KING OTTO, UNDER EUBULUS THE ABBOT OF THE MONASTERY OF ST. DIONYSIUS. GISALBERT STOLE HIM ON THE FIFTH OF THE NONES OF JULY. STOLEN AND BROUGHT HERE, HE ARRIVED THE DAY BEFORE THE NONES OF DECEMBER, IN THE TIME OF BISHOP TUTON.

After these words, Joannes Aventinus in the fourth book of his Annals adds: "This Gisalbert was very wealthy in nobles: he was condemned for sacrilege in accordance with the agreement; he was deported to the monastery of St. Dionysius by design, and was gladly received by the monks, among whom he frequently lived well (for he also had what he could give, and no one gave more liberally) and he became much better liked. When he saw that he was held in sufficient trust, supplying provisions in abundance, he prepared a questionable supper, yet he applied the best for the monks and all the fellow-inhabitants of the monastery, with royal luxury: he extended the banquet into the night; and it is handed down in writing that then, while they were all buried in wine and sleep, Gisalbert perpetrated the sacrilege. Indeed, they even show the diploma given to the mystagogues of the divine Haimeranus by Pope Leo IX, who, in the presence of the orators of Gaul at Ratisbon, in the church of St. Haimeranus, examined the chests and monuments of the whole of the same shrine in the present matter and settled the dispute, gave his sentence, and pronounced that only the heavenly being stolen from Gaul, surrendered to Emperor Arnulf, laid situated in Ratisbon in Bavaria. He excommunicates the Gauls unless they cease to lie. And what is enough for one to whom these things are little? I do not wish to fence with the obstinate. For not to believe these testimonies is a lost and ruined impudence." So he wrote.

Therefore, the principal argument, and the one upon which they lean as the most valid, is that when that controversy flared up in the year 1052, the decision of this dispute was finally brought to Pope Leo IX, and he, indeed, judged in favor of the Ratisboners (among whom he himself was at the time). For they also bring forward the diploma of the same pontiff, in which, in express terms, the body of St. Dionysius is adjudicated to them. Since this still exists, and is cited by many (for Baronius in his eleventh volume of Annales, and Severinus Binius in the third volume of the Councils, where they discuss Pope Leo IX, have cited it), it does not seem worth the effort to introduce it here either (46). ^C

589 This diploma, or constitution, as Baronius calls it, of Pope Leo IX, Antonius Augustinus writes that he found it somewhat faulty in the ancient writings of the Roman pontiffs. This Antonius Augustinus was a Spanish writer, and bishop of Lérida, distinguished in life and doctrine, but a very recent author, who scraped together the writings and constitutions of the pontiffs from everywhere. Baronius, moreover, after adducing that papal constitution, brings forward in his turn what the French, and especially Rigordus, bring against it—an ancient writer, a Goth by nation, the historiographer of the King of the French, who flourished under Philip Augustus, King of the French, and under his son Louis, and published a book about the deeds of the same Philip. Baronius, however, does not settle nor discuss the dispute, but, as if weary from a long work and panting at the very end, he merely compares this altercation concerning the body of St. Dionysius to that which intervened for many centuries between the Cassinenses and the Floriacenses concerning the sacred relics of the blessed Benedict. I, however, who can extend my labors—as if marching on a much smaller journey—to thoroughly elucidate the Lives of the most ancient saints, have decided to clarify this controversy in such a way that whoever wishes to honor and venerate such a holy 590 and such a life-giving relic may be able to know from our writings where he ought most especially to seek it out.

And for the Ratisboners, truly, besides those things which have been set forth above in our midst, and the authority of one or perhaps another new writer, I find nothing at all that I could add. But for the cause of the French, very many things occur which I have to bring forward for the sake of the truth that must be disclosed and asserted. For since they have brought forward nothing stronger for themselves than the letters which they claim are papal; those would indeed be very strong if it were certain that they were such, and not rather considered by great men as fictitious or surreptitious; they would be strong if they had emerged from the Roman archives, and had been found there by Baronius, his most accurate examiner, and not rather taken from him, whom it is probable borrowed them from the Ratisbon workshop. For the one who first of all brought those letters to light (which is something I have been able to know after diligent inquiry) was Joannes Aventinus, a heretical writer, who wrote about a hundred years ago; after him, however (though I do not know if from him), Antonius Augustinus, about whom above; certainly from Antonius Augustinus, as Baronius himself admits: and from Baronius, as with most other things without further judgment, Severinus Binius, who also inserted them into the volumes of the Councils, as I indicated above. ^B Against those letters, furthermore, there is the fact that Rigordus narrates in his book *De gestis Philippi Augusti*, in his fifth year, and it is also cited by Baronius, volume XI of the Annales, the year of Christ 1052, namely: that it had been ordered by Henry I, King of the French, that the chest of St. Dionysius be inspected and opened, in the presence of the nobles of the realm, and that this was done in the year of the Lord 1050, and the body of the same saint was found, except for two bones from the neck, which had been given to the Church of Vergiacensis, and one from the arm, which Stephen III, the Roman pontiff, had once carried away. The words of Rigordus are these: "This King Henry, having heard the rumors that a certain body had been found in Germany, in the city of Ratisbon, in the abbey of St. Emmeramus the martyr, which they said was that of Dionysius the Areopagite, sent his messengers to Emperor Henry with his own letters, so that he might delay the day of the elevation of that [remains] until they were fully certified by certain messengers whether the body of the hieromartyr Dionysius the Areopagite, archbishop of Athens, disciple of the apostle Paul, was in France, in the church which Dagobert had founded, or not. Having heard this, the emperor sent great and wise men into France so that they might fully recognize the truth of the matter. Having seen the messengers of the emperor, King Henry convoked the archbishops, bishops, and barons of the whole kingdom, and sent [them] with Odo, his dearest brother, to the church of the most blessed martyr Dionysius. Prayer having been made, three silver urns of Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius were brought forth before all the people, most diligently sealed: and upon the opening of the urn of the blessed martyr Dionysius, his whole body with the head was found, except for two bones from the neck, which are in the church of Vergiacensis, and a certain bone from the arm, which Pope Stephen III had carried with him to the Roman Church, and placed in the church which today is called the School of the Greeks. Seeing this, all the people, with tears and sighs lifting pure hands to the Lord, commending themselves to God and the blessed Virgin Mary and the holy martyrs, departed with joy. Then the messengers, who had been sent, returning most swiftly to the emperor, most fully certified the emperor regarding those things which they had seen and heard. This was done in the time of Pope Leo IX, in the year of the Lord 1050." ^D

The Dionysian monks, therefore, knew what, and how much, and to whom had been given by them from the relics of St. Dionysius, before that papal diploma was published by the Ratisboners: namely, at the very least three bones, one to the pontiff, two to the church of Vergiacensis, and indeed before the year one thousand and fifty. How, therefore, can it be that it was intact, ex-

^Acept for a very small particle of the right hand, two years later, that is in the year of the Lord one thousand and fifty-two, as the Ratisbon letters report? Furthermore, when from those same Dionysian monks, from that year of the Lord 1050 in which the relics of the holy martyr were visited, and the sacred chest opened before all the people, the sacred coverings were found; when, I say, the solemnity of that day began to be celebrated thereafter every year, and to be called the "Detection of the Body of Blessed Dionysius" (just as it is still called and celebrated to this day), how did Pope Stephen (if indeed he made that diploma against them) not effectively forbid them from celebrating the feast of this solemnity? How is it that no later pontiff prohibited it? For to this day, on the ninth of July, they celebrate that solemnity, with no one forbidding or opposing it. Moreover, Pope Nicholas II, the successor of the already praised Stephen IX, in a bull which he issued in the third year of his pontificate, manifests clearly indicates that the body of Saint Dionysius rests in that frequently mentioned monastery of the same martyr. That bull is extant in Jacques Doublet’s book II of *Antiquities of the Abbey of Saint-Denis*, chapter 9. Furthermore, Nicholas's successor, Alexander II, in his own bull given 591 in the fourth year of his pontificate, Indiction IV, indicates exactly the same thing in these words: "Wherefore we make known to all present and future, namely kings and dukes, ^B princes and lords, or all the faithful of the Apostolic See, that the venerable Abbot Rainerius and the monks of the monastery of Blessed Dionysius the martyr, where the saint himself rests in body, approached our presence, humbly requesting that the privileges granted to that same monastery by Lord Dagobert, King of the Franks, the founder of the place, etc." See Doublet, ibid., chapter 10. If, therefore, Stephen IX had adjudged the body of Saint Dionysius away from the Dionysian monks, by what logic, pray, would his two immediate successors have adjudged it to them? Finally, at no time did the kings of France cease, not even after those, as they call them, letters of Stephen, from approaching the relics of Saint Dionysius, as if present in that Dionysian monastery, and asking for help from the patron and protector of their realm. Thus, in the year eleven hundred and ninety, Philip Augustus, King of the Franks, about to depart for the recovery of the Holy Land, first proceeded to Saint-Denis for the sake of obtaining help. About whom, he who was living at that time, Rigord, writes as follows: "Therefore, the most Christian king, prostrate in prayer upon the marble floor before the bodies of the holy martyrs Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, humbly commended himself to God and the Blessed Virgin Mary and the holy martyrs and all the saints." Finally, rising from his prayer with tears, he most devoutly received the satchel and staff of pilgrimage from the hand of William, Archbishop of Rheims, his uncle, legate of the Apostolic See. Then, in the year eleven hundred and ninety-one, the queen herself, concerned about her husband’s departure and progress, with equal piety approached the same sacred pledges to pray, together with the nobles of the realm; and while the queen was praying there, the king was then besieging Acre, a most fortified city of Palestine, and capturing it under compulsion to surrender. The same Rigord narrates the matter thus: "In the same year," he says, "on the eighth of the Kalends of September, by the counsel of the Lord G., Archbishop of Rheims, and Queen Adela, and all the bishops, the bodies of the most blessed martyrs Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, were extracted along with the most pure silver vessels in which they were contained with the greatest diligence, were sealed, and placed upon the altar, with the addition of other bodies of saints resting in the same church, so that the faithful coming to such a holy spectacle might, with groans and sighs, with Moses uplifted ^C hands toward the Lord, pour out prayers for the liberating of the Holy Land, and for the King of the Franks and his whole company, for they trust not in the power of arms but in the virtue and mercy of Christ; nor do they place their strength in themselves, but in God, overcoming the infidel peoples and bringing to nothing the enemies of the cross of Christ." On the following feast of Blessed Dionysius, the silver vessel having been opened, in which the body of the most sacred martyr Dionysius was contained, with the venerable bishops of Senlis and Meaux assisting, and Adela, Queen of the Franks, and many abbots and religious men, the whole body of him with his head, as we have said, was found, and shown most devoutly to all the faithful of God who had convened from distant lands for the sake of prayer. See more there. Furthermore, in the year of the Lord twelve hundred and forty-four, when Pope Innocent IV had fled to France to Saint Louis due to the violence of Emperor Frederick, and the same Louis had fallen into a very serious illness at that time, having laid aside his health, he and his most serene mother, Queen Blanche, asked Odo, Abbot of Saint-Denis, that they might, without delay, bring out from the crypt in which they were resting (so that by their prayers they might implore health for the king from the Lord) the most sacred bodies of Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, by whose patronage (to use the words of Nangius) the whole region rejoices and the power of the kingdom stands, and place them in public. For the king, after the Lord and the most sacred Virgin Mother (as the same Nangius speaks), hoped more confidently in them, as being the advocates and protectors of himself and his kingdom: and not undeservedly. For what could the Lord deny to Blessed Dionysius, who had said to him when he was thrust into prison for the Catholic faith: "The love and kindness which you have, you will always obtain for whatever you ask." Finally, to summarize briefly what the same author pursues at greater length, the bodies of the holy martyrs Dionysius and his companions were brought into the light in the presence of the bishops Charles of Noyon and Peter of Meaux, and exposed publicly for the veneration of the people; and when they were carried with solemn procession and supplication of the people, from that very hour the holy king began to recover, and in a short time to convalesce fully both for the safety and prosperity of the kingdom, and for the succor of the Holy Land (for which he thereafter ardently spent both all his wealth and his very life). Who, then, can now doubt that even then the sacred body of Saint Dionysius really was in France and in the said monastery, and that it was the same, and no other, that was venerated by Blessed Louis and his most holy mother? Secondly. The authority of the Ratisbon letters is greatly undermined by Otto of Freising, a good and ancient bishop ^D and a most studious writer of faith and truth, whom Bellarmine deservedly praises as being distinguished in nobility, piety, and learning, being the nephew of Emperor Henry IV, the brother-in-law of Henry V, the uterine brother of King Conrad, and the uncle of Emperor Frederick I, all of which nobility he willingly and gladly submitted to God so that he might become a Cistercian monk. But Christ willed him to be first an abbot, then a bishop. He therefore, although there were causes to which he might have been more favorable to the Ratisbonians than to the French (if indeed there were room for favor against the truth), for he was also a German, and the brother of Leopold, Duke of Bavaria, where Ratisbon is; yet he so castigated this Ratisbon myth that he seemed to mock them rather than to believe them. For thus he wrote in the sixth book of his *Chronicle*, chapter 11: "Arnulphus loved the metropolis of Bavaria, Ratisbon, above the other places of his kingdom. Whence he also enlarged its walls, adorned the monastery of Saint Emmeram with many ornaments, and enriched it with large possessions. They tell there, and show it written, that the aforementioned king transferred Saint Dionysius from the Gauls to the aforementioned monastery." "Whether that be so," he says, "may they see for themselves." Thus he speaks, as if saying: "I, however, do not believe it." For if he had believed it, in the same style as above he would...

^A have added. It is reported, moreover, that the aforementioned worms so swarmed that they could not be diminished by any care of the physicians. So it is there. And nevertheless the letters placed above (593) 593 want the king of France to rejoice together for the glory of his apostle, "who had so devout a thief of his body, better indeed than gold and topaz." The same absurdity! And indeed, after such great crimes and sacrileges, the author of that Ratisbon document was not ashamed to utter these things about him to posterity: "Who was accustomed to condemn thieves and those guilty of sacrilege." Baptista Egnatius, likewise, in his book of *Roman Princes*, summarized the crimes of this same Arnulf and the punishments for those crimes as briefly as follows: "Because he first performed great deeds against the Northmen, and soon turned to rapine and the despoiling of temples, he was punished by the just wrath of the gods. For both his former happiness deserted him, and he died quickly, consumed by a disease of lice." You will find very similar things in Jacob Wimpheling in his *Epitome of German Affairs*, chapter fifteen; for he writes thus: "Arnulf, seventh emperor after Charlemagne, at first indeed strenuously conquered the rebellious Northmen with ^B force of arms, but soon, raging against ecclesiastical matters, he was consumed in a short time by the disease of lice, sent by God—which the Greeks call *phtheiriasis*—leaving his son Louis as his successor. We do not find anyone who saw his children’s children, or who died happily, who had persecuted the clergy, the Church, and the ministers of God, and had afflicted them with damage or insults." So says he. To all these things Jacob Pino chimes in, in his *Series of Roman Emperors*, with these verses:

Arnulf descends, who performed great deeds in his own Auspice of empire, strenuous; then following Rapine, he despoils temples and the votive offerings of the gods: Whence he pays the penalties, consumed by the wrath of the Divinity With little worms, while meanwhile the ninth age is closed,

that is, he expired at the end of the ninth century of Christ, or about the year of the Lord nine hundred.

Fifth. How could the body of such a great apostle of the Franks—always guarded with such care, honored with such veneration by the peoples, and so highly esteemed by all the kings of the Franks—be dug up from its crypt, taken out of the monastery, and carried out of the ^C kingdom, without any rumor or murmur at all emanating to any of the Franks regarding their plundered apostle? Without anyone saying a single word? For to pretend that all the religious of that monastery were so drowned and buried in wine and sleep that they did not know what was being done in their own house; that they would either willingly offer the keys for the theft of such a great treasure, or not perceive it being taken from them, is too vain, too ridiculous. Add, moreover, what is the most important point, that it seems an act of extreme wickedness and villainy for anyone to dare to attempt such a great and horrific sacrilege; namely, to steal without cause, from the rightful successors of such a long period of time, that which in any kingdom is held to be so sacred, so religious, that which is celebrated with such cult and veneration, and that than which nothing is held more precious or more holy among all the relics of that nation.

Furthermore, perhaps one might judge this not at all to be lightly dismissed: that the whole story of the Ratisbonensians regarding this translation to themselves has its origin and beginning in the word and oath ^D of a wicked and sacrilegious man; to whom it was believed, when he said that the body he was bringing to Ratisbon (if indeed he brought anything at all) was the body of Saint Dionysius, rather than to all the religious of the Dionysian monastery, who together and holily denied it and openly demonstrated it to be among them, and indeed even professed it to kings and princes of foreign lands. See above, chapter 27 of the *Life*, where I quoted the words of Saint Edward, king of the English, written in the year of the Lord one thousand fifty-nine, in which he says that Saint Dionysius is named with famous memory indeed among the English, but among the Franks he is honored by...

and held. If, therefore, he was among the Franks in the year one thousand fifty-nine, how could it be determined that he had been transferred to Germany long before in the year one thousand fifty-two, and still even now be at Ratisbon? Let it therefore remain, as is far more probable, that the stated body of St. Dionysius is rather in France than anywhere else; and here let the end of the questions be.

EXCERPTS FROM THE VINDICIÆ AREOPAGITICÆ OF MARTIN DELRIO

594 Since most of the arguments of the adversaries, which they object to in order to diminish the authority of the Works of St. Dionysius, have been solved and refuted clearly and accurately by the reverend Father Peter Halloix in Question II, which is about the writings of St. Dionysius, we will not cause nausea to the reader by repeating those same things, but from the *Vindiciæ Areopagitica* of the R. P. Martin Delrio we shall set forth only those arguments and testimonies of the ancients to which Halloix refers the reader for the sake of brevity; and indeed they have so much weight for defending these Works of St. Dionysius that no prudent person would seem to be able to doubt them any further.

FROM CHAPTER VIII. How it came to pass that these Works of Dionysius lay hidden for so many years.

There remains now this ambiguity: for it has seemed incredible to some that the books of the blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, so clear and apostolic a man, could have been obscured for so many centuries; and it is suspected that they emerged so suddenly from such long-standing darkness and hidden recesses. Nor is this a new question, nor one untouched by the vindicators of St. Dionysius, who have rendered sufficient causes for it. The first is that of Suidas and Anastasius the Librarian, which John Saracenus proposed in these words in his epistle to Odo, abbot of St. Dionysius: "Because the Catholics were bound by the adjuration of St. Dionysius not to reveal his writings to the unlearned multitude, but only to the learned, as they exceeded the capacity of many; however, as the learned were gradually failing (by the fault, I believe, of those who confer ecclesiastical offices on whomsoever they please, and reject the lettered), they had no one to whom they could entrust them." Perhaps also from this cause Jerome did not include the most excellent Areopagite among the ecclesiastical writers, because he did not think his books, as being eminent, were intended for common knowledge. Thus, therefore, is this first cause: the darkness and obscurity of the writing, which few were able to dispel and penetrate through understanding. From this indeed was born the scarcity of copyists and the rarity of readers; which was followed by the sloth and neglect of those who held in contempt things not understood, as we see happening, and as the blessed Nazianzen reproached in the time of Julian the Apostate. That there were always some who had known the books will appear from what follows; wherefore they were unknown not to all, but to the majority, which is less to be wondered at, since we know it has happened with many writers. Moreover, that adjuration of St. Dionysius is contained in *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, cap. 1, in the beginning and at the end; *On the Divine Names*, cap. 1; *On Mystical Theology*, cap. 1. Where note that St. Dionysius everywhere urges Timothy to communicate these writings only to prelates similar to himself, and to preserve them as certain sacred secrets, inaccessible and undefiled to the common people. Which no one will wonder at who is not ignorant of how studiously in the primitive Church the mysteries of the sacraments and sacred ceremonies and religion were accustomed to be hidden from those not yet initiated and from profane men, lest the holy should be exposed to dogs, or spiritual pearls be thrown to swine. Wherefore, when Origen, Eusebius, and St. Jerome, in weaving their catalog of ecclesiastical writers, make no mention of the Works of St. Dionysius, it does not follow from this that these Works did not exist at that time, or were omitted by them out of ignorance; for it is rather to be thought that they kept silent about them out of a sense of religion, lest—while their catalogs were coming into the hands of everyone everywhere—if mention were made in them of these (which the Church and Dionysius himself desired to be hidden from the unrefined, just as the mysteries which are most accurately explained in them), an opportunity might be provided for the curious, as we always strive for what is forbidden, to investigate them more studiously, and consequently to reveal both them and the sacred mysteries 595 contained in them, against the command of the Lord and the mind of the Church, to profane and impure men.

But this seems to me the truest and most probable reason why the Works of St. Dionysius were not formerly recorded in the common catalog of writers. This opinion of mine is confirmed by the letter of Pope Nicholas to Charles the Bald, of which Baronius makes mention in vol. X, in the year of Christ 878. For when John Scotus Erigena had studied at Athens, and there, as he was of a curious mind, had obtained an exemplar of the Greek of St. Dionysius by his own research, he brought it with him to Gaul, secretly copied by his own hand, and dedicated and published it to Charles the Bald, having translated it into Latin. Having learned this, Pope Nicholas, the Supreme Pontiff—because clearly, under the patronage of the King of the Gauls, the Works of St. Dionysius, which had thus far been preserved among sacred prelates in the Church as a certain sacred *keimelion* (treasure), had been made public property—took it ill, as is fitting, that it had been done without his consultation and without being requested at all, and had been attempted with such rash daring; and he admonished King Charles with these words: "It has been reported to our apostolate that the Work of the blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, which he wrote in the Greek tongue concerning the divine names or the celestial orders, a certain man named John Scotus, of Irish birth, has recently translated into Latin. Which, according to custom, should have been sent to us and approved by our judgment," etc. By which words the Supreme Pontiff signifies not obscurely that these Works are those of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, and that they should not have been published without the special and express approval of the Roman Pontiff. By no means, certainly, was that written to the King of the Gauls...

^A regarding the magnificent; they clearly usurped them from them.

The same was noted down in the style of an observation by an ancient Greek in the Scholia of the manuscript of St. Maximus on the Dionysian Codex, as Lansselius remarks in these words:

*From the Scholia of a certain very industrious man.* "It must be known that some of the outside philosophers, and especially Proclus, frequently made use of the speculations of the blessed Dionysius, and indeed even of the very expressions themselves. And it is possible from this to draw the suspicion that the older philosophers among the Athenians, having arrogated to themselves his treatises—as he recalls in the present book—concealed them, that they themselves might appear as the fathers of his divine oracles; and by a divine dispensation, the present treatise has now come to light for the refutation of their vanity and craftiness. And that it is their custom to arrogate to themselves our things, the divine Basil teaches in his discourse on the passage, 'In the beginning was the Word,' speaking in this wise upon the very expression: 'I know this, that many of those outside the word of truth, who boast of worldly wisdom, have admired these things, and have dared to include them in their own compositions. For the devil is a thief, and he whispers our things to his own interpreters.' And as for this, it is thus. But with Numenius the Pythagorean openly saying, 'For what is Plato, but Moses speaking in Attic dialect?' no one can deny—since he is not our own, but one of the opposition—as Eusebius, who presided over the church of Caesarea in Palestine, also testifies, that it was the custom of the profane wise men not only now, but even before the coming of Christ, to steal our things."

*From the Scholia of a certain most diligent man.* "It must be known that some outside philosophers, and especially Proclus, often made use of the speculations of the blessed Dionysius, and indeed even of the very expressions themselves. Whence it may be suspected from this that the older philosophers of Athens, laying claim to these works of his—as he commemorates in the present book—concealed them, so that they themselves might appear as the authors and fathers of his divine books; but by a divine dispensation, the present work has now been revealed, for the sake of refuting their vanity and wickedness. That it was familiar to them to usurp our things, the divine Basil teaches in his discourse on the passage: 'In the beginning was the Word,' arguing over that expression thus: 'Many of those who are strangers to the word of truth and boast of worldly wisdom have dared to marvel at these things and to insert them into their own writings; for the devil is a thief, and he whispers our things into the ears of his interpreters through fables.' And here, indeed, he is like this. These things, however, with Numenius the Pythagorean openly saying: 'For what is Plato but Moses speaking in Attic dialect?' no one can deny, since he is not ours, but of the adversaries, just as Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, also testifies, that it was the custom of the profane wise men to steal our things not only now, but even before the coming of Christ."

FROM CHAPTER IX

Now observe whether our weapon, ^D taken from the quiver of right argumentation, polished upon the Lydian whetstone—which more prudent critics have always employed for resolving controversies of this kind—is not perhaps our piercing steel, and well-equipped; it is merely twofold, but fortified by a good [point]. There is nothing in the whole work which indicates that it is falsely ascribed to the blessed Areopagite; but all things suggest the contrary. The judgment regarding the author of the book depends upon the style, the subject matter, the method, and the testimonies of others. The testimonies will be brought forward in the following chapters; the others are to be weighed in this chapter. If you consider the style, nothing is more sublime than it, nothing breathes more equally the antiquity and the apostolic age, and the energy of sacred philosophy: nor do our adversaries deny this. The method is simple, and such as those former ecclesiastical writers were accustomed to use, mingling mystical theory with practice, hiding more art than it puts on display. If you consider the dignity of the matter,

theological treatise, its depth, and the most hidden mysteries, you will find its doctrine to be revealed, heavenly, equal to the weightiest words, and most worthy of a disciple of Paul. For Luther, Whittaker, and Scaliger, in criticizing it, understood it no more than I understand Japanese or Ethiopian characters: they resemble madmen who think that others are out of their minds, and that they alone are wise and speak the truth. With very good reason, Syngelus ^A calls our martyr "the most God-wise among theologians, the most all-holy among hierarchs, the most illustrious among martyrs," and other such things, running through each of Dionysius’s books severally.

I would wish for that most eloquent Encomium of Syngelus to be read, which alone should suffice to curb the petulance and pride of Novatius. Furthermore, the author of the book himself very clearly manifests both who he is and his own age, and professes himself a disciple of the blessed Paul and of Hierotheus in *On the Divine Names*, chapters 2 and 3; he writes that he was present at the funeral of the blessed Virgin Mary in the same book, chapter 3; he also writes, in Epistle 8 to Polycarp, that he observed alongside the sophist Apollophanes that remarkable eclipse of the sun during the Passion of Christ, an eclipse of which Phlegon, Eusebius, Maximus, Syngelus, and others also made mention. He relates that he was received into hospitality by Carpus in Crete (Epistle to Demophilus), of whom mention is made by the Apostle in 2 Timothy 4, and that he was his disciple (*On the Divine Names*, chapter 4). At his request, he composed the work *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, and another *On the Divine Names* (chapter 2, *On the Divine Names*). He writes Epistles to the blessed Apostle John, foretelling his liberation from exile and their mutual meeting (Epistle 10); to Titus, his fellow disciple of Timothy (Epistle 9), to whom the blessed Paul also wrote; likewise to Polycarp, bishop of the Smyrneans, whose age is clear because he mentions that same sophist Apollophanes (Epistle 7). The blessed Ignatius also makes mention of Polycarp, and the blessed Irenaeus teaches that he was a disciple of the blessed John. He writes four epistles to Gaius the Therapeut, whom the blessed Luke names in Acts 19:29, and to whom St. John sent his third canonical Epistle, and perhaps Paul mentions him in Romans 16:23. He also makes use of the testimonies ^B alone of the illustrious men of that century, such as St. Paul the Apostle, and Hierotheus—whom some suppose to have been a Spaniard—at the cited locations; and the blessed Bartholomew the Apostle (*Mystical Theology*, chapter 1); and Justus Joseph (chapter 2, *On the Divine Names*), mention of whom is made in Acts 1:23; St. Ignatius the martyr, as was said before; and Clement the philosopher, who, whether he was Actius Clement, to whom Pliny the Younger writes, as Baronius thinks; or Clement the Roman pope, as Pachymerius wishes in his Paraphrase, it is certain he was very devoted to philosophy, from his epistle to James, brother of the Lord; and there is nothing that forces us to have recourse to Clement of Alexandria. He cites, therefore, a certain Clement older than the *Stromata* (*On the Divine Names*, chapter 5). But he also indicates, in chapter 3 of *The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, that in his own time the faithful were accustomed, in the Church, for one to lead and all the rest to sing, without the alternation of choirs, which the blessed Ignatius first introduced at Antioch, and under the emperor Constantine this custom was derived into all the Churches, as Gilbert Genebrard has noted, following Basil the Great and Socrates the historian, in vol. II of his *Chronography*, century 1. There are other things of this kind not a few looking to the same end, but these will suffice for the student of truth.

What does the critic say to these things? The mouth of a man! He boasts with a great gape that all these things are fictitious and ^C spurious. Presumption favors him, and the burden of proof is transferred onto him, he who, with rash contention, strives to weaken such clear testimonies with mere suspicions. With great gravity and truth, Cardinal Baronius pronounced: "It is unworthy and a sacrilege to suspect that a man who was so sublime, so excellent, and one who walked the heavenly hinges, searched into the choirs of angels, approached the throne of the Divinity, and pried into its secrets, would—like a stage player, having assumed a mask—act, and, wanting to pretend to be someone other than who he was, falsely invent another, feign other persons, and compile many false things which he wished to be accepted by everyone as true and certain, and that to the great detriment of his own glory! For that immortal glory which he had acquired for himself out of his own clearly divine writings, by hiding his own name and assuming a foreign one, he would seem to scatter it pointlessly; and if we shall say he despised it, as befits a wise man, certainly to tell many lies was not that of a wise man, especially one who, dealing with heavenly and divine things, ought to recoil far from even the slightest stain of falsehood." So far he, adducing so many evident and pregnant reasons, and gathering them into one, that no one of sound mind should any longer resist.

FROM CHAPTER X et seqq.

Guillaume Budé, most diligent in the Greek learning of his time, had inscribed on the margin of his copy of the Greek Dionysius the Areopagite many testimonies of the Fathers, by which he was induced to believe these works of the holy father to be genuine; which locations Guillaume Morel, the King’s printer in Greek, exhibited to us in the Paris edition of the year M.D. LXII, at which time, as a boy, I was applying myself to those studies. I am compelled to repeat those things now, so that the obstinacy of the adversaries may appear more clearly; but I will add many other things to them. Moreover, the Budaean testimonies are some of them open, some more obscure; which last I shall include in what follows. ^D For I shall divide the battle line of proofs from testimonies into many bundles of witnesses, as it were, on account of their multitude. This proof from testimonies has always seemed to the orthodox to suffice, even in deciding questions of faith; which we always see terminated in councils by the tradition of the elders and the opinion of the catholic Fathers. On this I rely, and I value it more than any novel ingenuity. I come to the point.

Budé relied at first on a conjecture, somewhat obscure but probable, from the writings of the blessed Ignatius, as also from the writings of Nazianzen, Jerome, and Chrysostom. He wished that the blessed Ignatius the martyr had taken certain things from this work in his Epistle to the Trallians, when he writes: "For indeed, although I am in bonds and am able to understand the heavenly things, and the angelic orders, and the ranks of the archangels and hosts, the differences of powers and dominations, the variations of thrones and authorities, the grandeurs of ages, the excellences of the cherubim and seraphim, the loftiness of the Spirit, and the kingdom of the Lord, and, over all, the impassibility of the almighty God," etc.; in which words it appears he not only alluded to what was handed down by the blessed Dionysius, but had already observed the very manner of speaking itself. For he described the supercelestial things, and the angelic orders, and the differences of archangels and hosts, the distinctions of virtues and dominions, the distances of thrones and powers, the magnificence of the ages, the excellences of the seraphim and cherubim, in chapter 7 of *The Celestial Hierarchy*; he proposed the loftiness of the Spirit, the kingdom of the Lord, and the incomparability of omnipotent God beyond all things, in chapter 12 of the book *On the Divine Names*. From which I gather two things: first, that Luther was a blasphemer, who did not fear to say that Dionysius, when writing these things, was a delirious old man and a mere dreamer, when yet we see all these same things confirmed by the blessed Ignatius; and secondly truly, that this doctrine, sense, and manner of speaking were of the apostolic time; and, since Ignatius merely touched upon them, whereas Dionysius expressed them so fully...

^A one should not judge that the latter took them from the former, but rather that the former’s words should be considered to have been changed after the latter.

Testimonies from Gregory Nazianzen, Jerome, and Chrysostom.

Budé also argued from these things, thinking that Saint Jerome, in book 11 of his [i]Adversus Jovinianum[/i], had adopted the series of angelic orders from our Dionysius, in these words: “Why are there in the kingdom of heaven archangels, angels, thrones, dominions, powers, cherubim, and seraphim, and every name that is named, not only in the present age, but also in the future? There is no diversity of names without a diversity of merits. An archangel is, indeed, an archangel over other lesser angels; and powers and dominions have others through whom they exercise power, and over whom they are lords.” If you say that Jerome borrowed from Paul himself—as to the names, I would easily agree, but not as to that subordination ^B which he added, and for the sake of which he subjoins: “This is in the heavens, this is in the mystery of God, lest you mock us in your customary manner and sneer if we put emperors, and prefects, and counts, and tribunes, and centurions, and companies, and the rest of the order of the militia.” I do not judge him to have referred to anything other than what was handed down and most abundantly explained by the blessed Dionysius in his whole book [i]On the Celestial Hierarchy[/i], especially in chapter 6.

Saint Gregory the Theologian, in his book [i]On the Nativity[/i], wrote to this effect: “And so, indeed, the Holy of Holies, which are covered by the seraphim, and glorified by three sanctifications which unite into one dominion and deity: just as someone else of the elders philosophized most beautifully and most sublimely.” Who is this? Not Isaiah, for he would not call anyone else of the elders “greater.” Nicetas, in his annotations, took it as referring to Saint Athanasius; but it does not seem that he would have spoken of the latter, who had scarcely passed away, in such a manner. More likely is the opinion of Budé, who intends the blessed Dionysius the Areopagite to be signified, who is deservedly so called ^C, and who philosophized most beautifully and most sublimely on these things in the [i]Celestial Hierarchy[/i], chapter 7. Indeed, that Gregory Nazianzen was not only a constant reader, but a studious imitator of our Dionysius, was the opinion of that excellent and most learned man Billius Prumaeus, abbot of Saint Michael, in book 1 of his [i]Sacred Observations[/i], chapter 23, to whom the taste for Greek letters, I believe, anyone would concede.

Certainly, due to the sublimity of these writings, Saint Chrysostom, in the last book of his [i]Sermons[/i] (as Anastasius the Librarian cites him in his epistle to King Charles), called our Dionysius "bird of heaven," because with a wing not fearing the sun, he lifted himself up to the throne of the Divinity, raised above the cherubim and seraphim by the breeze of divine grace.

Testimonies from Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria.

Among the works of Origen Adamantius, in volume II, there exist some orations on various places of the New Testament. The first of them writes: “For in him, as the divine mouth says (Acts xvii, 28), we live, and move, and have our being; and, as the great Dionysius the Areopagite says, the being of all things is superessentiality and divinity.” You have the passage in our author, [i]On the Celestial Hierarchy[/i], chapter 4: τὸ γὰρ εἶναι πάντων ἐστὶν ἡ ὑπὲρ τὸ εἶναι θεότης. If anyone lacks the proof that this homily of Origen is by a most ancient writer, he cannot deny it, since Rufinus, or whoever else translated it from the Greek, translated it as Origen’s. A more recent interpreter could have—as we know has often happened—added something of his own to Origen; for there is a mention in it of the Arians, who are younger than Origen: at least it will be the authority of some anonymous Father. ^D At almost the same time that Origen lived, the blessed Dionysius of Alexandria flourished, according to some, a student of Origen: that he wrote commentaries on these works of Dionysius the Areopagite is testified to by Anastasius Sinaites, patriarch of Antioch, in the book which he calls [i]Odegos[/i], and by Maximus the Confessor in chapter 5 of the [i]Celestial Hierarchy[/i]: whence those who have attempted to attribute these works to Dionysius of Alexandria are refuted. But why does Eusebius make no mention of these commentaries of Dionysius of Alexandria? He followed his own purpose, lest he even thereby point out the books of the Areopagite. An evil mind revealed itself because it suppressed the writings of the Alexandrian Dionysius, in which Arius was condemned by the prejudice of his condemnation so many years before; whereas he diligently mentions those writings in which, harshly disputing against Sabellius, he seemed to some Catholics to favor Arianism, not by malice but by an incautious fervor against his adversary, as Saint Basil accuses him in epistle 41 to Maximus the philosopher, which begins: "Images of souls." Therefore, Dionysius of Alexandria, and those who followed him, Anastasius and Maximus, regarded these books as Areopagitic. For if the Alexandrian Dionysius had held them for the books of Dionysius of Corinth, Anastasius and Maximus would by no means have kept silent about it: now, they sufficiently indicate what I have said. Between Dionysius of Alexandria and Dionysius of Corinth, one hundred years did not pass, so that it is not likely that the former would have composed commentaries on the books of the latter. Let the suspicion therefore cease regarding Dionysius of Corinth as the author, who, as a holy martyr of God, it is incredible that he would have wished to deceive the Church under the mask of Christ. Although the works belonged to Dionysius of Corinth, they would be considered of an antiquity of more than one thousand four hundred years: but they are not his, as I said. Finally, Eusebius and Hilduin testify that Dionysius of Corinth, in his epistle to the Athenians, made mention of our Dionysius, whom he would have feared to ascribe [the books] to, concerning which he could then have been easily refuted.

From Saint Cyril of Alexandria, and Saint Maximus the monk and martyr.

Greece has scarcely given us a more learned man than the blessed Cyril of Alexandria; that he borrowed certain things from the books of the blessed Dionysius the Areopagite is testified by Liberatus the African, whose words I shall give below. It was not my concern to look for the passages in Saint Cyril, because I lack the Greek exemplars, and I do not trust the Latin ones enough; since I know that heretical interpreters have behaved in their customary manner in the version of blessed Cyril. A great part of Cyril’s works has also perished, in which the things that Liberatus says could have been contained.

Saint Maximus the monk, philosopher and martyr, in his 57th Theological Chapter, quoted a passage from our Areopagite: "That which is altogether deprived of good, nowhere in any way was, or is, or will be, or can be"; you have it in [i]On the Divine Names[/i], chapter 4, § 20: Τὸ δὲ κατὰ πάντα τρόπον τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἐστερημένον, οὐδαμῆ οὐδαμῶς οὔτε ἦν, οὔτε ἐστὶν, οὔτε ἔσται, οὔτε εἶναι δύναται. The same man wrote commentaries on all the books of Dionysius the Areopagite, which we have subjoined to the text. The same man, in a dispute against Pyrrhus the Monothelite, patriarch of Constantinople, in which he converted him from heresy to the Catholic faith, praised the epistle of our Dionysius to Caius. The same man, in his [i]Ecclesiastical Mystagogy[/i], adjudicates these books to the Areopagite. Now this Maximus was a most high man; whose holiness was celebrated, as it deserved, by all the writers of his time, as well as his knowledge of divine and human wisdom, and the very many books written by him testify; of which Photius reported many, and Baronius more in [i]Annals[/i] vol. VIII, in the year of Christ 657, to which I refer you, reader. Many recent works of the same Maximus against the Monothelites have been published from the version of our Francis Turrianus, which I have not yet read. See below.

961 MARTINI DELRIO VINDICIÆ AREOPAGITICÆ. 962

Testimonies of two Anastasii, and of a certain uncertain Athanasius.

I have already lauded the testimony of Anastasius Sinaita in his *Guide*; he who lived under the Emperor Justinian I, most illustrious for the praise of his holiness and doctrine, and an unconquered pillar of the Church against the heretics of his time, as Theophanes, Evagrius, and others teach. Let us add also another of his testimonies from book VI of his *Hexaemeron*, rendered into Latin in these words by Hervetus: "The most celebrated therefore, and apostolic mystic of divine things, Dionysius, says in his most wise theology, that God is called in Greek *Theos*, ^A from this: because He *theorei*, that is, contemplates and beholds; but the Lord, *Kyrios*, from this: because He *kyrieuei*, that is, rules." This is not insignificantly changed from chapter 12 of *The Divine Names*, as in § 2: "Wherefore also *Kyriotes* (Dominion) is derived from *kyros*, and that which is *kyrion* (Lordly), and that which *kyrieuei* (rules). But *Theotes* (Deity) is the providence which beholds all things, and with perfect goodness encompasses and holds together all things, and fulfills them from itself, and surpasses all those things which ^B enjoy its providence." That is: Wherefore the *dominatio* (dominion) in Greek, from the name derived from *kyros*, is the same as that which is firm and confirming or ratifying. But *Deitas* (Deity) in Greek, *theotes*, is the same as the providence which observes all things, looking around and containing all things with all-generous goodness, and fulfilling itself, and passing through all things which enjoy its providence.

Anastasius Nyssenus, however, composed certain prolix questions on sacred Scripture, others far from the briefer ones which are wont to be ascribed to blessed Anastasius of Alexandria. In them he cited many passages of the ancients, and among them certain testimonies of our blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, one of which is long, q. 32, which Gentianus Hervetus translates thus: "From Dionysius, concerning those who have fallen asleep in holiness: For I indeed know rightly, following the divine Oracles; that each one shall have the lot which is given to him. For God has concluded against himself, says the Lord, and each shall receive through the body according to what he has done, whether good or evil. But that the prayers of the just also in this life, and not only after death, operate only for those who are worthy of holy prayers, the true traditions of the divine Oracles teach us. For what did Samuel profit Saul? What did the prophets' prayers profit the Hebrew people? The divine pontiff therefore is, as the sacred Oracles say, the announcer of God's justification. For he is an angel or messenger of the Lord God Almighty. He has certainly learned from the Oracles given by God, that to those who have lived holily, a most clear and divine life is rendered according to their merits by a most just and divine balance, God's clemency and kindness overlooking through goodness the stains which were branded upon them from human infirmity; since, as the divine Oracles say, no one is clean from filth. This the pontiff knows are promised by the true Oracles; but he asks that these happen, and that the holy retributions be rendered to those who have lived holily, at the same time benignly conforming himself to the imitation of God, asking for gifts and graces for others as if for himself, knowing also the promises of God to be infallible, he also openly declares to those present that the things which are demanded by sacred right from Him, will surely come to pass for those who have finished their life according to God. Nor could the pontiff, the interpreter and announcer of divine justification, ^C ask for things which are not most pleasing to God and promised by Him to be given divinely (wherefore these are not promised to the profane who have slept), not only because he would depart from the order of prophet or interpreter, and because he would have dared insolently and arrogantly to demand anything of those things which pertain to the beginning, not moved by the prince of the sacred empire, but also because he would not obtain the holy vow from the just Oracle, himself also, as is fitting, hearing: 'You ask, and you do not receive, because you ask amiss' (c)." Behold one [way] ^D these Aerians are moved against these writings of Dionysius; because they see that concerning prayer for the faithful departed, concerning just retribution, and concerning the merits of good works, and concerning the pontifical dignity and office, it is prescribed for them. You have in chapter 7 of *The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*: "But I, that he will indeed have the reciprocal allotment, I know, following the Oracles. For the Lord said, He has concluded against himself, and each shall carry what he did through the body, whether good or evil. But that even the prayers of the just in this life—not to mention after death—operate only for those who are worthy of holy prayers, the true traditions of the Oracles teach us. Or what did Saul profit from Samuel? What did the prophetic prayer profit the Hebrew people?" And presently: "The divine hierarch is the announcer, as the Oracles say, of the thearchic justifications; for he is an angel of the Lord God Almighty. He has learned therefore from the God-delivered Oracles, that to those who have lived holily, a most bright and divine life is rendered according to merit by the most just scales, the thearchic philanthropy overlooking in its goodness the stains acquired by them from human weakness, since no one, as the Oracles say, is clean from filth. These things then the Hierarch knows are promised by the true Oracles, and he asks that they come to pass, and that the holy retributions be gifted to those who have lived holily, at once patterning himself in goodness after God, and asking for others' gifts as his own graces, and at once knowing that the unerring promises will come to pass, and declaring to those present as an announcer that the things demanded by him according to the sacred ordinance, will surely be for those who have been perfected in a divine life. For the hierarch, the expounder of the thearchic justification, would never ask for things 601 not most dear to God, and promised by Him to be given divinely. Wherefore for the uninitiated who have fallen asleep he does not pray for these things, not only because in this he would deviate from the interpreter's order, and arrogantly would dare some of the things of the hierarchs, not moved by the head of the order, but also because he would fail to obtain the effective prayer, not unreasonably hearing from the just Oracle: 'You ask, and you do not receive, because you ask amiss.'"

Our innovators are battered also by another flint from the Dionysian quarry, which the same Anastasius casts, q. 52, without adding the place of the book, but simply citing the Areopagite, concerning these words: "For it is alien from reason, and absurd, not to attend to the force of the intent and aim, but to the expressions. And this is proper not to those who wish to understand divine things, but to those who admit bare sounds, and receive them into their ears from the outside, not passing through, nor do they wish to know what that expression signifies, and in what way one ought to declare it by other expressions which have equal force and are more significant: but they are affected by elements and lines, which cannot be understood, and [by] syllables and unknown expressions not passing through to the intellectual faculty of their soul, but resounding externally in their lips and ears." Who could have painted the wisdom of the adversaries with a more breathing brush than Apelles? Who more sharply condemned those interpreters who repudiate all mystical sense? You will find all these things in our Dionysius in the book *On the Divine Names*, chapter 4: "For it is unreasonable, as I think, and foolish, not to attend to the force of the aim, but to the expressions. And this is not proper to those willing to understand divine things, but to those who admit bare sounds, and who keep these externally, not passing through as far as the ears, and [who are] unwilling to know what this expression signifies, or how it is necessary to clarify it by other expressions of equal force and more expressive ones, but who are affected by unthinking elements and letters, and syllables, and...

^A the six-winged Seraphim, the many-eyed Cherubim, and the Thrones, looking clearly to the books *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, for they are distinguished there in chapter 6, albeit in a slightly different order. It may be that this Athanasius is some later bishop of Alexandria, to whom also belongs the *Book of Definitions*, in which Nyssen is cited, and the *Book of Sayings and Interpretations of Evangelical Parables*, where Gregory of Nazianzus is cited. But these things are ambiguous: it is manifest that the writer is sufficiently ancient, who is accepted in place of the great Athanasius and cites no one later than Epiphanius.

Testimonies of Sophronius the Catholic, of the Monothelite heretics, and of the Greek schismatics.

which He, being one, is Christ, by a certain more lucid word He has handed down ^A Thus far the ancient serpent Pyrrhus acknowledges a corruption which he could not deny, being convicted; but he seeks praise from his crime. The same Pyrrhus, in a disputation with the Blessed Maximus, monk and martyr, near the end, says: "But what do we say concerning the holy Dionysius, having said in his epistle to Gaius the Therapeut regarding Christ: 'having enacted a certain new theandric operation'?" Turrianus translates: "What, furthermore, shall we say of St. Dionysius, who in his letter to Gaius the worshiper said that Christ exercised a certain new God-manlike operation?" You have here five Monothelites, and consider for me that this opinion concerning the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite was indubitable in that sixth century in all patriarchal sees, that is, in the entire Church: for at Rome Martin, Honorius, and John asserted it; at Alexandria Cyrus; at Antioch Macarius; at Constantinople Sergius; at Jerusalem Sophronius.

See also how to-day in this matter—concerning the books of the Areopagite, I say—the schismatic Greeks agree with the Roman Church. When Stephanus Gerlachius, Martinus Crusius, and other Lutheran Ubiquitarians of Wittenberg and Tübingen, wishing to find supporters of their sect against the Catholic Jesuits of Germany and others, according to that saying of Virgil [d]: *If I cannot sway the heavens above, I will stir the underworld*, sent an embassy to Jeremiah, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and afterwards asked him by letter what the opinion of the whole of Greece was concerning this Dionysius—about whom Scaliger disputes—and his works. He, through Theodorus Zygomalas his scribe, replied in these words, which our Petrus Dujarricius the Aquitanian sent to me, taken from the first book of *Turco-Graecia*, column 97: "I have written the life of the Areopagite and sent it to you, as I well remember, and if you have inquired, you will find it there. Know, however, that we hold such a man to be divine, and that the Church after the apostles of Christ honors him, and we accept his book, and we say that the things written in it are credible." He says: "I have described the life of the Areopagite and sent it to you, which I well remember, [and] you will find [it] there if you only look. Know that he is held by us to be a divine man, honored by the Church second after the apostles of Christ, and his book is approved by us, and the things written therein are deemed worthy of faith." What does Scaliger answer to these things? He will sneer at the Lutherans, because they consulted Jeremiah rather than the Genevans and himself. But I return to our own, that is, the older Fathers.

Testimonies of Theodorus the presbyter, Sergius Tempsanensis, and Antonius Melissa.

Let three others be added to Sophronius, concerning whom I have nothing else to say because they are unknown. In the *Bibliotheca* of Photius, mention is made of Theodorus the presbyter, [but] when he lived, and what else he did or wrote, I do not know. Photius says that he read a book of his in which he had solved four objections of adversaries (you have them above) and had proved these monuments of the divine and great Dionysius to be genuine, *yvησíαν εἶναι τοῦ μεγάλου Διονυσίου τὴν βίβλον*. May the Calvinists believe Photius, a heretic, as learned as he was impious, and a most bitter adversary of the Roman see.

In the Lateran council under Martin I, in the third consultation, Sergius, Bishop of Tempsa, acknowledges the said epistle to Gaius the worshiper—of which above—and confesses that these very words which Cyrus brought forward in the seventh chapter were of Dionysius the Areopagite.

A certain monk, Antonius, whose book called *Melissa* is extant, frequently cites our Dionysius. In Book 1, sermon 19, he brings forward from him these words: "It cannot be that they obtain pardon who do not repent of their sins"; and in sermon 21: "Truth is God, ^B as being one, not many, according to nature." But truly the one is Christ, but falsehood is manifold. For Christ says: *I am the way, the truth and the life* [e]. Sermon 75: "That silence is to be held for consent is taught also by the proverb." None of these places could I find in the books which we have; it is possible that they have escaped my diligence. In Book II, sermon 3, he cites these: "Those who approach the most pure sacrifice ought to be purified even from the ultimate phantasies of the soul, and to approach it through similarity as much as possible." This exists in *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter 5: *Τοὺς γὰρ ἐπὶ τὴν παναγεστάτην ἰόντας ἱερουργίαν, ἀποκεκαθάρθαι δεῖ καὶ τὰς ἐσχάτας τῆς ψυχῆς φαντασίας, καὶ δι’ ὁμοιότητος αὐτῇ κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν προσιέναι*. But that you may not doubt that these are the Areopagite’s, know that this Antonius attributes the name of Dionysius solely to ours: whereas he is wont to add the fatherland of other Dionysii, as in Book II, sermon 45, he brings forward from Dionysius the Alexandrian this: "But a strong and accurate oration says that bitter things are also the causes of sweet things, and that the fruits of labors are pleasures. For without labor nothing beautiful can come to be." And in sermon 72, from the same Dionysius the Alexandrian, he brings forward: "Anger [f] among us extends so far as long as sin sits. Be angry, he says, and do not sin." And the highest justice is to be avoided, when Ecclesiastes says [g]: *Be not just overmuch*. Finally, it is known among theologians that the Areopagite is designated *κατ’ ἐξοχὴν* by the name of Dionysius.

Testimonies from Elias of Crete and Andrew of Crete.

Elias of Crete composed learned and accurate Commentaries on many orations of the Blessed Gregory Nazianzen, in which he frequently makes mention of our Dionysius, as in the first Apologetic oration, fol. 59 and 75, he says that the Nazianzen borrowed the word *φωταγωγούς*, "illuminators," from the books of Dionysius, namely, *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter 5, § 2, and afterwards Elias, fol. 451, clearly alludes to the hierarchical books of Dionysius, writing thus: "For indeed, the holy Dionysius considers that the things which are celebrated here in the Churches are likenesses and images of the things which are celebrated in the heavens, and placing our hierarchy after the celestial hierarchy, he declares it to be a fellow-minister, and says that it receives appropriate illuminations from thence on account of benevolence, using these words, to wit: 'The cause therefore of this our congruent deification is that benign primacy of sacred ceremonies,' etc.," all of which it is permitted to read in chapter 5, from page 355, and chapter 8, from page 388, expounded more copiously. Likewise in his commentary on oration XIX he praises what Dionysius wrote concerning the rite of consecrating priests, which currently exists in chapter 5, page 364.

St. Andrew of Jerusalem, Bishop of Crete and martyr, praised by Glycas, in his oration *On the Dormition of the Virgin Mother of God*, not only followed the narrative of our Dionysius concerning the death of Mary our Lady, but also endeavored to imitate his style and words; as he will easily gather who compares the Greek words of Andrew with the Dionysian ones, vol. 1, p. 539.

Testimonies of Julian of Jerusalem, Epiphanius the presbyter, Glycas, and other Greeks.

Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, in the book *On the Divine Names*, chapter 3, at the end, writes thus: *‘Επεὶ καὶ παρ’ αὐτοῖς τοῖς θεολήπτοις ἡμῶν ἱεράρχαις, ἡνίκα καὶ ἡμεῖς, ὡς οἶσθα, καὶ αὐτὸς καὶ πολλοὶ τῶν ἱερῶν ἡμῶν ἀδελφῶν ἐπὶ τὴν θέαν τοῦ ζωαρχικοῦ καὶ θεοδόχου σώματος συνεληλύθαμεν. Παρῆν δὲ καὶ ὁ ἀδελφόθεος Ιάκωβος, καὶ Πέτρος ἡ κορυφαία καὶ πρεσβύτατη τῆς θεολόγων ἀκρότης. Εἶτα ἐδόκει μετὰ τὴν θέαν ὑμνῆσαι τοὺς ἱεράρχας ἅπαντας, etc.* "Since even among those God-inspired princes of ours, when we too, as you know, and he himself, and many of our holy brothers, came together to see the life-originating and God-receiving body. There was present also James the brother of God, and Peter, who was the preeminent and most ancient peak of the theologians."

^A And it seemed fitting that, after that spectacle, all the princes of the sacred mysteries should sing a hymn, etc. The Greek Fathers received these as the very words of the Areopagite speaking of himself, and from this, a most ancient tradition flowed into the Church, that all the apostles, and blessed Dionysius and Timothy, were present at the death of the Mother of God, the Virgin. At the time of the Council of Chalcedon, at the request of Marcian and Pulcheria, Julian, Bishop of Jerusalem, testified to this in these words: "But there were then present with the apostles the most holy Apostle Timothy, the first bishop of the Ephesians, and Dionysius the Areopagite: as this great Dionysius himself testifies in those things which he wrote concerning the blessed Hierotheus, who himself was also then present, to the divine Apostle Timothy, saying thus: 'Since,' etc.," for he adds the cited words of Dionysius. This testimony of blessed Julian is brought forward by the historian Euthymius in book III, chapter 40, cited by blessed John Damascene in his oration *On the Dormition of the Mother of God*, and Nicephorus Callistus reports the same in book XV of his *History*, chapter 14. Epiphanius the Presbyter, in his oration *On the Dormition of the Mother of God*, Simeon Metaphrastes, and Michael Syngelus in his *Praise of Dionysius*, Maximus in his *Scholia on Dionysius*, Glycas in book I of his *Annals*, and other Greeks in a certain *Canticle on the Mother of God* also embrace the same authority and words for the authenticity of the Areopagite. Read Peter Canisius, book V, *On Mary*, chapter 3, and Cardinal Baronius, volume I of his *Annals*, in the year of Christ 48, number 8, where he learnedly shows that this is the true sentiment of Dionysius.

The Sentiment of Blessed Michael Syngelus and Blessed John Damascene

Blessed Michael Syngelus, a presbyter of Jerusalem, of great praise for holiness and erudition, wrote certain things not in the time of the Emperor Maurice, but in the age of Louis the Pious and Hilduin, when, on account of the Catholic faith, he suffered much from the iconoclast Emperor of the Greeks, Theophilus, as Curopalata reports in his *History*, and he is praised by Theodore the Studite in book II, epistle 213. This Syngelus, therefore, at the same time that Methodius wrote the life and martyrdom of the Areopagite, also composed, burning with love for his martyrdom, a most eloquent *Encomium* of the same Dionysius, which was printed in Greek at Paris, beginning: "Οὐρανίαν ὄντως," ^C in which he praises many things concerning both hierarchies, the book *On the Divine Names*, the epistle *To Gaius*, and other things that are at hand for everyone.

A little older than Michael, and no less renowned for the praise of his confession, lived John Mansur Damascene, the clear light and star of the eighth century, a diligent reader and candid praiser of these books of Dionysius. You have in book I of *On the Orthodox Faith*, chapter 12: "These things then we remember from the sacred oracles, as the divine Dionysius the Areopagite said, that God is the cause and beginning of all things, the essence of those that are, the life of the living, the word of those that possess reason." These things, although in another order, you will find entirely in *On the Divine Names*, chapter one. "And these things indeed we have been taught by the sacred oracles, as the divine Dionysius the Areopagite says, that God is the cause and principle of all things that are, the essence of those that exist, the life of living beings, and the reason of those that use reason," etc. The same John, in book II, chapter 18, of the same work, calls him "the most holy and most skilled in theology." "As," he says, "the most holy and most theological Dionysius the Areopagite says, 'All theology, that is, divine Scripture, has called the celestial essences nine.'" And just as the most holy and most learned in theology, Dionysius the Areopagite, says: "Universal theology, that is, sacred Scripture, has said that the celestial essences are nine." These are taken from the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, chapter 5, near the end. He brings forward a third passage in the book *On those who have fallen asleep in faith*: "The great and profound Dionysius in divine matters did therefore speak thus, in his mystical contemplation concerning those who have fallen asleep, desiring from his divine and venerable words to attach himself to a clear demonstration, 'That the prayers of the righteous...'" ^D The great and profound investigator of divine things, Dionysius, says in his mystical contemplation of the departed, speaking thus, so that I may draw a demonstration from his divine and venerable discourses: "That the prayers of the righteous," etc. The passage of Dionysius is found in the last chapter of *The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, which I showed entirely above, citing that it is praised by blessed Anastasius Nyssenus; therefore, I neither repeat it, nor add a fourth testimony of Damascene, from the oration *On the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary*, where he confirms the narration of our Dionysius, of which I also spoke above; which history blessed Michael Syngelus also elegantly expanded in the aforementioned *Encomium* of St. Dionysius.

Testimonies from Simeon Metaphrastes and Theodore Prodromus

Blessed Simeon Metaphrastes, most celebrated among the Greeks (whose authority the ecumenical Council of Florence under Eugene IV, session 7, uses), is extensive in the commendation of these books, confirming that they are of blessed Dionysius the Areopagite. First, in the *Life of Dionysius*, which we have in Surius, volume V, October 11, where he also produces the material of the 3 books which we see in these of ours. Then, in the same volume IV of Surius, in his oration *On the Dormition of the Mother of God*, he says: "Through a cloud, however, he gathers his venerable disciples, so that they might consign her venerable body to burial. But lest that which was said concerning the gathering of the apostles, which took place at the dormition of the Virgin, appear vain, it would be better to add summarily those things which are said by Dionysius the Areopagite in the 11th book *On the Divine Names* to Timothy." He uses "book" for "chapter" or "section," and adds the words of Dionysius, which we have above.

I add Theodore Prodromus, who is much later, having lived in the times of the Emperor Andronicus the Younger; but I add him because, in reviewing some of the most weighty and most ancient and most holy Greek Fathers, by whose writings the Church has been illustrated, he gives the first place to our blessed Dionysius the Areopagite: after him he adds the great Athanasius, and Basil, and both Gregories, and Ephrem the Syrian, and John Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria, and our Maximus, and John Climacus, and Nilus; finally, to all those whom I have mentioned, he adds, as being worthy of their company, Simeon Metaphrastes; wherefore he himself is now associated with them as well.

From Suidas, and John Sycopolites, and Gregory Patricius

That Suidas, whoever he may have been whose useful collections are extant, who lived after the thousandth year of Christ, in dealing with our Dionysius, makes him a disciple of blessed Paul, and bishop of the Athenians, and from him tells the story concerning the eclipse seen at Heliopolis, when the Lord was suffering, while Apollophanes was present, and cites the epistle of our Dionysius to Polycarp, which is worn by the hands of many; in which are contained word for word all the things which Suidas reported. Afterward he subjuncts all the material of the book *On the Divine Names* to Timothy. He also acknowledges the hierarchical books, and the *Mystical Theology*, and all the epistles which we have, and among them that to Gaius, 606 and to Demophilus, both of whom he calls Theraputae. He also cites the *Encomium* of Michael Syngelus, of which we have already spoken.

Many wish the *Prologue* that is prefixed to the Greek *Scholia* of blessed Maximus not to be by Maximus, but by a certain younger John Sycopolites; nor indeed does it conform very much to the style of Maximus, which is more concise and simpler. In this *Prologue*, answer is made to certain arguments of the adversaries who attempt to strip these books from Dionysius the Areopagite, which arguments we have already solved, and we attribute the *Prologue* to Maximus, with most others, to whom I judge one should not add anything on account of the not-great discrepancy in style. In the same *Prologue*, an index of all the works of Dionysius which are now extant is added, and besides...

many which perished, of which mention is made in those which currently exist, which there is no need to recount again now.

Finally, various epigrams by Georgius Patricius—whose homeland is Mytilene—were printed in praise of the books of the blessed Dionysius: *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, *On the Divine Names*, and *On the Mystical Theology*.

From the monk Euthymius Zigabenus.

He lived in the time of Alexius Comnenus, in the eleventh century, and was among the Greeks of his age most learned and diligent, as is evident from the books that are extant, namely his *Commentaries on all the Psalms*, and on the four Gospels, and the *Panoply against Heresies*, in which work he adduces many sufficiently ample passages of our Dionysius, as of that Great Areopagite. I will give some from the version of Franciscus Zinus. He says in Part 1 of the *Orthodox Dogmatic Panoply*, Title 2: "On the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a doctrine of the Godhead at once distinct and conjoined; from the chapter of Dionysius the Areopagite *On the United and Distinct Theology*: We have received from the sacred scriptures that the Father is, so to speak, the fountain of the Godhead; the Son and the Spirit, however, are the fruit, if one must so speak, budding forth divinely, and in a way flowers and lights superior to essence from the fertile Godhead; but how these things are, we can neither declare nor understand. Are these not the things? 'That the Father is the fount-like Godhead; but Jesus and the Spirit are, if one must so speak, God-grown blossoms of the God-begetting Godhead, and, as it were, flowers and super-essential lights, we have received from the sacred Oracles; but how these things are, it is possible neither to say nor to conceive,' from *On the Divine Names*, chap. 2. You see how native these are to our Dionysius, whose grandiloquent Greek scarcely any elegance of Latin speech can fully express; which will be equally evident from the others.

"Likewise, from the first chapter of the book *On the Divine Names*: 'Therefore, in almost every theological discussion we see the supreme Godhead solemnly celebrated; then as Monad and Unity, on account of its simplicity and the unity of the nature transcending imparticipability: from which, as from a unifying power, we are built up, and our divisive differences being joined together in a way above the world, we are gathered into a God-formed monad and a union imitating God: then moreover as Trinity, on account of the manifestation of the essence transcending fruition in three persons, from which in heaven and on earth all fatherhood exists and is named.' These and all the others which he appends are extant in our [edition], page 341. 'Whence in almost every theological treatise, we see the Theoarchy solemnly hymned; as Monad and Unity, on account of the simplicity and unity of the super-natural indivisibility, from which we are built up as by a unifying power, and our divisible differences being folded together in a way above the world, we are gathered into a God-like monad and a God-imitating union; but as Trinity, on account of the three-personed manifestation of the super-essential fecundity, from which all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is and is named,' etc.

"Item, from chap. 3 of *On the Mystical Theology* this: 'In that book which we inscribed *On Theological Institutions*, we set forth what are the chief declarations of affirmative theology: how the divine and good nature is called one and three; what is the notion of the Father, what of the Son; what the theology of the Holy Spirit signifies: by what reason inner lights of goodness bud forth from the incorporeal and individual good, and by a co-eternal budding forth with it, so depart in it, and in themselves, and in each other, in such a mansion that they never depart from them.' They are contained in Greek, Vol. II: 'In the *Theological Outlines* we have hymned the chief points of affirmative theology, how the divine and good nature is called one, how trinitarian; what is the fatherhood and sonship spoken of concerning it; what the theology of the Spirit wishes to signify; how from the lightless and indivisible good, lights of goodness stream forth, and how by the co-eternal budding forth in them, and in each other, it remains unmoved [or unwithdrawn] in the mansion.'

"There follow in Euthymius two passages from chap. 2 of *On the Divine Names*. 607 The former is as follows: 'In the divine union, or that nature transcending essence, the existence transcending essence, the Godhead superior to divinity, the goodness more excellent than goodness, etc., are indeed conjoined and common to the unique and principal Trinity,' from that: 'Upon the divine union, or the super-essentiality, the super-essential existence, the God-above-God Godhead, the super-good goodness, the [Godhead] of all, etc., is conjoined with and common to the initial Trinity.' The latter, however, [is] from the beginning of the same chapter: 'No one is good, but God alone [(h) Luke xviii, 19].' This has been weighed and demonstrated by us elsewhere, that all the names worthy of God are celebrated in the holy books, not by parts, but in the total, perfect, integral, and full Godhead, and all of them are attributed indivisibly, absolutely, and beyond all perception of distinction, to the entire integrity of the whole Godhead, and the many things that follow. 'No one is good, but God alone. This, indeed, has been examined by us also in other places, and it is demonstrated that all the God-befitting theonyms are not hymned by the Oracles partially, but upon the whole and complete and entire and full Godhead, and that all of them are ascribed indivisibly, absolutely, undiscernibly, wholly, to the whole entirety of the whole-perfect and all-Godhead,' etc. Lo, five testimonies from one title. I fear I might be troublesome if I were to mention all the others from the same work; for they are many and far too great. For under Title 3 are contained twenty-seven fragments, cited paraphrastically from the book *On the Divine Names* and other works; not under Title 5, but under Title 7, two from the same book, one from Epistle 4 to Caius, one from the book *On Theological Elements*, two from the *Celestial* and *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*.

"Moreover, in Part II, Title 48, he reports Epistle 5 of Maximus to Nicandrus, in which he explained at length that passage of the blessed Dionysius on the God-human operation from the Epistle to Caius: which explanation, because it is very learned and shows the wisdom and erudition of Maximus—whose ignorance Scaliger boasts he has demonstrated—I shall transcribe in this place, for Scaliger's sake, not in Greek, because I lack the copy, but in Latin from Zinus's version. He says, therefore: 'The same can be said about the actions, and yet we do not for that reason deny (God forbid) the unique words of the divine Fathers concerning the actions themselves, which either the holy and, in explaining divine matters, most excellent Dionysius, or the wise Cyril, pronounced; by which the divine and human action is so declared that it appears to be one and conjoined. For the words devised by them on account of the conjunction and mutual union of the natural actions among themselves are pious and to be approved. Just as also are those which declare the dual actions because of the difference subsisting in essence and nature. For that word *Theandric*, composed by the doctor Dionysius, signifies the divine and the human, so that by a unique pronouncement it might indicate the double action of the nature. The wise Cyril, in turn, called the action one and conjoined, to teach the related union of the natural actions.' And after a few words: 'Wherefore one, as Cyril says, and conjoined is the action of both, which has been demonstrated, in no other way than that *Theandric* [action] of Dionysius, naturally indicating the union of the actions, properly demonstrates their diverse and dual nature.' The same Euthymius, under the same title, chap. 83, cites a clearer explanation of the same Dionysian passage, handed down by the blessed Damascene against the Monothelites, which is this: 'The blessed Dionysius calls Christ, by a new sort of Theandric..."

action'>; by which term indeed he does not ^A abolish natural actions, but constitutes one action consistent from the divine and human. For thus we might say that there is one new nature, which consists of the divine and the human. For of those whose action is one, theirs is also one essence, as our divine Fathers feel. But when he wished to show the new and mysterious mode by which the natural actions of Christ were made manifest, because of the mysterious reason by which the natures of Christ mutually interpenetrate each other, he fittingly also called His custom, as far as it pertains to humanity, new and admirable. For we do not say that the actions are divided, nor do we say that the natures act separately, but that each acts conjointly with the fellowship of the other, which is that which is proper to Him, etc., which he adds, up to: 'This, therefore, the theandric action signifies, that when God was made man, His human action also is divine, that is to say, deified, and not devoid of His divine action; and likewise that His divine action is not devoid of His human ^B action; but that each is to be viewed simultaneously with the other.' Moreover, this figure of speech is called a *periphrasis* when we encompass two things in one expression. For just as we say there is one action of the ignited sword, both the cut incision and the burned incision, when nevertheless incision is one action, and usta (burning) is another, and they are brought about from different and distinct natures, namely, burning from fire, but incision from iron; so also when we say there is one theandric action of Christ, we understand the twin actions of His two natures, the divine action from His divinity, and the human from His humanity."

He also left behind ten epistles, the last of which was written to John the Evangelist, who reclined upon the breast of the Lord. And these writings of his are circulated even today.

He also makes mention of other of his own lucubrations, such as those which have been named by him *Theological Outlines*. Also *Symbolic Theology*, furthermore *On Angelic Properties and Orders*, the *Commentary on the Soul*, *On Just and Divine Judgment*, *On Divine Hymns*; also: *On those things which are discerned either by intelligence or by sense*. However, these commentaries have not been seen at all, nor are they known to us or to those who were before us. ^C So much for Nicephorus, with whom Dionysius’s writings clearly agree.

Georgius Pachymerius, under Michael Palaeologus and Andronicus about the year 1260, a little earlier: whose Aristotelian epitomes we have, and also the Areopagite paraphrases on all the books which are extant, as well as the *Scholia* of Maximus: he puts forth the names of the remaining ones, which he says were not found: *On Angelic Properties*, *On the Soul*, *On Just and Divine Judgment*, *On Divine Hymns*, *On things intelligible and sensible*, *On Theological Outlines*, *On Symbolic Theology*. As for the surviving books, Suidas also agrees with these regarding the inscriptions; for they vary as to the chapters, which matters little. Suidas lists the books thus: *To Timothy, Bishop of Ephesus, and himself being a disciple of Paul*, *On Divine Names*, 12 books. And he subjoins the inscriptions of the chapters. *To the Same Timothy, Another Book, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, 15 chapters. *To the Same, On the Celestial Hierarchy*, 16 chapters. *To the Same, On Mystical Theology*, 5 chapters.

Then he lists these epistles: *To Gaius the Therapeut*, 4. *To Dorotheus the Minister*, 6. *To Sopater the Priest*, 1. *To Polycarp, Hierarch of Smyrna*, 1. *To Demophilus the Therapeut*, 1. *To John the Theologian, the Apostle and Evangelist*, 1. Where you see the epistle to Titus the bishop is omitted, which Maximus, Pachymerius, and Nicephorus acknowledge. For the index of Maximus, or John Sycopolitanus, is similar to the enumeration of Pachymerius; except that he adds the places of Dionysius, where he cites his own books which do not exist.

Around the year of Christ 1371, with Greece already collapsing, lived Georgius Trapezuntius, Theodorus Gaza, and the most learned Cardinal Bessarion, who dissented from Gaza, and following his elders, attributed these works to the Areopagite. For in book 1 of his *Defense of Plato*, chap. 3, he writes thus: "The most holy man, Dionysius the Areopagite, who was the first and highest author of Christian theology, had no writer of divine things before him, except the apostle Paul, and Hierotheus, the pontiff of Athens, whom he used as his own preceptors." Thus from the codex of Budaeus, Morellius. I ask, what other writings of Dionysius on divine things did Bessarion praise in this place, besides ours? Whose judgment on these matters I do not fear to prefer over ten Gazas and a hundred Scaligers.

*Testimonies from the councils of the Greeks.*

The same I can prove not only through individual Fathers, but also through synods. The first ecumenical Nicene synod, and the prince (if I may so speak) of universal councils, in the more copious canons, which Pisanus and Turrianus edited from our men, having followed the Arabic copies, canon xxxi, which is on receiving those returning from heresy, decreed thus: "And after the bishop or priest in whose hands he is has done these things, he must anoint him with the prayer of chrism, and sign him three times with the sign of the cross, anointing and praying over him the prayer of Dionysius the Areopagite." Our man certainly had established some formula of prayer. For it exists in the last chapter of *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, and there you will find it.

^A In the sixth universal synod, which was the third at Constantinople, in the time of Pope Agatho and the Emperor Constantine IV in the year 678, these works were received as the Areopagitic writings. For in act 8, page 279, it is read: "Item, another testimony was produced from the same booklet of Saint Dionysius, Bishop of Athens and martyr, from the book *On the Divine Names*, and the text of the testimony was similarly collated, containing as follows: ‘But the most benign operation of God concerning us is distinguished by the fact that the Word, which is above substance, became truly and completely humanized as we are, and acted and suffered as much as is appropriate for his human and divine operation,’ and so on, most likely and probably. For the Father and the Spirit have no communion in these things, unless one might say that it is according to the most benign mercy and will (which were excised from the same testimony by them) and through the entire most sublime and ineffable operation of God, which he performed according to us, being made unchangeable, in that he is God and the Word of God." It cites the place from the second chapter: *Διακέκριται δὲ τῆς ἀγαθοπρεποῦς εἰς ἡμᾶς θεουργίας, τῷ καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς ἐξ ἡμῶν ὁλικῶς καὶ ἀληθῶς οὐσιωθῆναι τὸν ὑπερούσιον Λόγον, καὶ ὁρᾶσαι καὶ παθεῖν ὅσα τῆς ἀνθρωπικῆς αὐτοῦ θεουργίας ἐστὶν ἔκκριτα καὶ ἐξαίρετα. Τούτοις γὰρ ὁ Πατὴρ καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα κατ' οὐδένα κεκοινώνηκε λόγον· εἰ μήπου τις φαίη κατὰ τὴν ἀγαθοπρεπῆ καὶ φιλάνθρωπον βούλησιν, καὶ κατὰ πᾶσαν τὴν ὑπερκειμένην καὶ ἄῤῥητον θεουργίαν, ἣν δέδρακε καθ' ἡμᾶς γεγονὼς ὁ ἀναλλοίωτος, ᾗ Θεὸς καὶ Θεοῦ Λόγος.* Do you also wish for something from our own, in which you take little pleasure, the Decrees of Gratian? Read chapter 6, which begins "Omnis," distinctio 38. But, that you may not feel nausea, know that the same is contained in the ecumenical Council of Nicaea, ^B which was the seventh universal; there the essence of our hierarchy is handed down, placed in the oracles handed down by God, that is, in the true science and knowledge of divine things, as that great Dionysius says. So is this canon 11 conceived: *Οὐσία γὰρ τῆς καθ' ἡμῶν ἱεραρχίας ἐστὶ τὰ θεοπαράδοτα Λόγια, ἤγουν ἡ τῶν θείων Γραφῶν ἀληθινὴ ἐπιστήμη, καθὼς ὁ μέγας ἀπεφήνατο Διονύσιος.* You have this today in chapter 1 of the *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, except that today "according to us" (*καθ' ἡμᾶς*) is read instead of "against us" (*καθ' ἡμῶν*), with the same meaning, by an easy mutation.

Testimonies from Latin Councils

In Latin councils, many Greeks have often been present, just as Latins have in Greek councils; for this is the condition of universal councils: but I call them Latin, because they were celebrated in the West; Greek, in the East.

At Rome in the Lateran in the year 660, a council was celebrated under Pope Martin I: at that time the Fathers held these works to be the genuine ones of Dionysius the Areopagite, as is evident from the third secretary, page 122. For there "Martin, most holy and most blessed bishop of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the city of Rome, said: Let those whose concern it is bring before the acts the codex of S. Dionysius, Bishop of Athens. Theophylactus, primicerius of the notaries of the holy Apostolic See, said: According to the command of your beatitude, I offer from the venerable library of your See the codex of the blessed Dionysius which I have in my hands; what do you command? Martin, most holy and most blessed bishop of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the city of Rome, said: Let the codex of the blessed Dionysius be received, and let that place, ^C mentioned in the epistle directed to Gaius which is deposited there, regarding which Cyrus made mention in his chapter for the approval of his novelty, be read before the holy council." And Paschalis, the regionary notary of the Apostolic See, receiving it, translated the testimony itself from Greek into the Latin language, and read it, containing as follows: "Saint Dionysius from the epistle directed to Gaius, at the place: ‘Even not according to God did he work divinely, nor according to man according to man; but with God having become man, showing to us a certain new God-manly, that is, *ἀνδρικήν*, operation.’" Afterwards ^D Martin and the other Fathers approve these as the words of Dionysius; which we have already frequently said exist today in the 4th Epistle to Gaius.

The eighth general synod, under Eugenius IV at Ferrara, session 7, receives the oration of Simeon Metaphrastes on the life of the divine Dionysius, in which (as they say above) these works of our Dionysius are referred to as the genuine works of the blessed Dionysius the Areopagite.

Testimonies of Gregory the Great and Martin I, Roman Pontiffs

I come to the Roman pontiffs, successors of the apostle Peter; to whom he who refuses to believe, refuses to believe in Peter; without whose approval not even general councils are held to be of certain faith, but if they have approved them, we confess that the Holy Spirit has inspired the dogmas decreed.

S. Gregory the Great, homily 34 on the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15, writes thus: "It is said that Dionysius the Areopagite, an ancient and venerable Father that is, says that from the choirs of the lesser angels they are sent out to fulfill a ministry, either visibly or invisibly; namely, because either angels or archangels come for human consolation. For those higher choirs never depart from within." He does not cite the very words of Dionysius, but the doctrine of Dionysius, which he explained in almost the entire book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, especially chapters 7, 9, and 15. He said "it is said" because perhaps he had not read Dionysius himself, or because the book was not yet sufficiently known to the Latins by common practice. Certainly, that Pope Adrian I did not hold that Gregory hesitated, but rather asserted that he attributed that work to Dionysius, you will see below.

S. Martin, glorious martyr, in the said Lateran synod, secretary 1, citing various Fathers, also praises our own with these words, page 119: "Dionysius the excellent declares that he had a carnal mass and a corporeal weight; and with the corporeal mass and weight, he walked upon the waters, not with feet submerged: and teaching this in his opuscules *On the Divine Names*, he says: 'We are ignorant how he was formed from the Virgin’s blood by a law other than the natural one, and how, with his feet not submerged while having a corporeal mass and material weight, he walked upon the fluid and unstable substance.' And again in his epistle written to Gaius he says: 'And coming truly to substance, he was substantiated above substance, and operated over man the things that are of man.' And the Virgin giving birth above nature shows this: and the water being unstable supported the weight of material and earthy feet, and not yielding, but subsisting above nature by a power without diffusion." The prior passage exists in the second chapter of *On the Divine Names*: *᾿Αγνοοῦμεν δὲ ὅπως ἐκ παρθενικῶν αἱμάτων ἑτέρῳ παρὰ τὴν φύσιν θεσμῷ διεπράττετο, καὶ ὅπως ἀβρόχοις ποσί, σωματικὸν ὄγκον ἔχουσι καὶ ὕλης βάρος, ἐπεπορεύετο τὴν ὑγρὰν καὶ ἄστατον οὐσίαν.* The latter in the same epistle to Gaius 4: *Καὶ εἰς οὐσίαν ἀληθῶς ἐλθὼν, ὑπὲρ οὐσίαν οὐσιώθη, καὶ ὑπὲρ ἄνθρωπον ἐνήργει τὰ ἀνθρώπου. Καὶ δηλοῖ Παρθένος ὑπερφυῶς κύουσα· καὶ ὕδωρ ἄστατον, ὑλικῶν καὶ γεηρῶν ποδῶν ἀνέχον βάρος, καὶ μὴ ὑπεῖκον, ἀλλ' ὑπερφυεῖ δυνάμει πρὸς τὸ ἀδιάχυτον συνιστάμενον.* Finally, secretary 3, page 122, he speaks thus: "Therefore the Lord has manifested these things to you, as you see, through this testimony of B. Dionysius, which has been read in the present, showing them more clearly to be false-speakers, so that also of them may be fulfilled what was said by the Lord, where he says: ‘When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own,’ for he is a liar, and his father is [it]."

^A For iniquity has lied to itself, being unstable in those things which are unstable; for Blessed Dionysius asserting, as you have heard, most beloved brethren, that a certain new virile operation of God had been concerned among us, each of them has lied most openly against the Father. And Cyrus, indeed, in his seventh chapter, in changing the new, and asserting one for the new virile operation of God, pretending that the doctor said as much: but Sergius, in an epistle written to Cyrus concerning a question of this kind, confirming such an alteration of the new with him, and not only this, but also cutting away the voice of the God-man doctor completely; and dogmatizing one operation absolutely in Christ God, doing deceit as if with a sharp razor, and considering not at all what is written in the Psalm: "Will not God require these things? For he himself knows the hidden things of the heart [(k)], and the thoughts of the sons of men, because they are vain; for everyone has spoken vain things to his neighbor: with deceitful lips, in heart and in heart they have spoken evil: but the ^B Lord will destroy all deceitful lips, and the tongue that speaks proud things, who have said: Our lips are from ourselves, who is our Lord [(n)]?" For if they remembered these things, they would not have rushed into such iniquity, that is, the alteration and extinction of paternal traditions and dogmas. Thus far St. Pope Martin. What would he say to you now, heretics? If to take away one little word, and to substitute another from this book of Blessed Dionysius, is to alter and to extinguish paternal traditions; what is it to abolish the whole book, and to make of a genuine [work] a spurious one; of a holy martyr and most grave doctor of the Church, a phantom, a mimic, a supposititious thing? See whether you are not of those whose lips are deceitful, and whose tongue 611 speaks proud things, admitting the reins neither from pontiffs, nor from synods? See that God does not require these things from you, lest he cut you asunder, who knows the hidden things of the heart and the most abstruse thoughts. Your razor is sharper than that of Sergius and Cyrus: they [cut] a single word for him, you have cut to pieces the whole. Furthermore, I have exhibited above the words of Dionysius from the epistle to Gaius, about which there is discussion, and they are held at the end of the said epistle 4 to Gaius, *therapeutes*, which Maximus and Pachymerius explain as "monk," rightly; or "cultivator of truth" with Turrianus, or "physician" with Zinus. For monks were engaged before others especially in divine worship and the medicine of their own soul, and thus progressed from the purgative to the illuminative, and from this to the unitive way of spiritual life; so that you may at length cease to think of your bodily physicians.

Testimonies of Pope Agatho, Adrian I, and Nicholas I. Pope Agatho in his epistle to the Emperor Constantine, Heraclius, and Tiberius Augusti, read in the said third Constantinopolitan council, p. 252, writes thus: "Holy Dionysius the Areopagite also, bishop of Athens, in the book *On the Divine Names*, chap. 2, similarly teaches: 'But that which is according to us, out of us, has been wholly and truly made human, the Word which is above substance, and to work and to suffer what things are fitting, chief and probable, to his human and divine operation, is distinguished from the most benign operation of God towards us.' For in these things the Father and the Spirit do not communicate in any reason; unless one has said, according to his merciful and most benign will, and through every most sublime and ineffable operation of God, which he has operated, having become according to us immutable, in that he is God and the Word of God." You have the passage today, and I have placed it above. Pope Adrian I in his writing to the Emperor Charlemagne *On the Veneration of Images*, as you have it in the 1st volume of the Councils, p. 616, speaks of our [author] thus: "Holy Dionysius the Areopagite, who is also bishop of Athens, is surely greatly praised by the divine Pope Gregory, ^C confirming him to be a Father and doctor. He was under the times of the apostles, and is shown in the Acts of the Apostles. Whence [these] true testimonies have been confirmed by our aforesaid most holy predecessors, the pontiffs, in their sacred councils, for the veneration of sacred images: among other things embracing these [words] from the epistle of holy Dionysius, bishop of Athens, which is directed to St. John the Evangelist." And below: "What marvel, if Christ is truthful, and the unjust drive the disciples out of the cities? Judging them worthy of such things for themselves, and they, being wicked, keep [themselves] aloof from the sacred? In truth and manifestly images are the visible [signs] of invisible things. Nor indeed in the ages that are to come will it be culpable from his justice, the respect of God." Item of the same, concerning the celestial militia: "For the aforesaid incorporeal hosts are depicted with diverse colors, and he has handed down various [compositions] through colors, inasmuch as we silently through ourselves pass through the most sacred effigies to the simple and incorporeal [realities] with a pious mind. For it is impossible for our mind to reach that invisible and incorporeal imitation and vision of the celestial militia, unless through the elements we shall be able through the visible to reach the invisible and most beautiful effigy, and [that] visible and fragrant images, by rational tradition, shine forth [as] invisible," etc. You will find these two places in our [copy]; one in epistle 10, the other of the *Celestial Hierarchy*, which Adrian calls *militia* ^D in the manner of Holy Scripture, cap. 1. The words of the former are: "Τί θαυμαστὸν, εἰ Χριστὸς ἀληθεύει, καὶ τοὺς μαθητὰς οἱ ἄδικοι τῶν πόλεων ἐξελαύνουσιν, αὐτοὶ τὰ κατ’ ἀξίαν ἑαυτοῖς ἀπονέμοντες, καὶ τῶν ἁγίων οἱ ἐναγεῖς ἀποδιαστελλόμενοι, καὶ ἀποφοιτῶντες; Ἀληθῶς ἐμφανεῖς εἰκόνες εἰσὶ τὰ ὁρατὰ τῶν ἀοράτων. Οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐν τοῖς αἰῶσι τοῖς ἐπερχομένοις, αἴτιος ἔσται τῶν ἐξ αὐτοῦ δικαίων ἀφορισμὸς ὁ θεός, etc." You will find this passage translated more clearly by the interpreters of Dionysius than in the pontifical epistle; to which I do not see what solid things the iconoclasts, those deserters of Dionysius, can respond, when they see this [work] so clearly attributed to the Areopagite, and this same writer affirmed to be praised by holy Gregory the Great; and his little books, concerning which we controvert, confirmed as truthful writings in councils, over which the Holy Spirit presides, by other most holy pontiffs. Truly this single testimony ought to suffice an orthodox man. The words of the other, stated on page 3, volume I, are: "Διὰ καὶ τὴν ὁσιωτάτην ἡμῶν ἱεραρχίαν, ἡ τελετάρχης ἱεροθεσία, τῆς τῶν οὐρανίων ἱεραρχιῶν ὑπερκοσμίου μιμήσεως ἀξιώσασα, καὶ τὰς εἰρημένας ἀΰλους ἱεραρχίας, ὑλαίοις σχήμασι καὶ μορφωτικαῖς συνθέσεσι διαποικίλασα, παραδέδωκεν· ὅπως ἀναλόγως ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς, ἀπὸ τῶν ἱερωτάτων πλάσεων, ἐπὶ τὰς ἁπλᾶς καὶ ἀτυπώτους ἀναχθῶμεν ἀναγωγὰς καὶ ἀφομοιώσεις. Ἐπεὶ μηδὲ δυνατήν ἐστι τῷ καθ’ ἡμᾶς νοΐ, πρὸς τὴν ἄϋλον ἐκείνην ἀναταθῆναι τῶν οὐρανίων ἱεραρχιῶν μίμησίν τε καὶ θεωρίαν, εἰ μὴ τῇ κατ’ αὐτὸν ὑλαίᾳ χειραγωγίᾳ χρήσοιτο, τὰ μὲν φαινόμενα 612 κάλλη, τῆς ἀφανοῦς εὐπρεπείας εἰκονίσματα λογιζόμενος, etc." Which all in Latin are quite clearly rendered by Ambrose Camaldulensis, and even more faithfully by John Scotus himself, who, being almost a contemporary of Charlemagne, translates in this manner: "On account of which also our most holy hierarchy, a most perfect arrangement of sacred things, judging worthy of the supermundane imitation of the celestial hierarchies, and verifying the said immaterial hierarchies with material figures and formal compositions, has handed down: so that proportionally to ourselves, from the most sacred formations, we may ascend to the simple and non-figured heights and similarities. Since it is not possible for our mind to ascend to that non-material imitation and contemplation of the celestial hierarchies, unless it uses the material hand-leading which is according to it, considering the visible beauties as images of invisible beauty,

^A imagining things for itself, etc. How could these things be proven to our Iconoclasts? Finally, Pope Nicholas I, in a letter to the perfidious Emperor Michael, addresses him thus: "If it still pleases you to know something of this that might delight you, command that the words of the ancient Father and venerable doctor Dionysius the Areopagite to Demophilus be read to you; who even decrees that it is unlawful for a priest who has offended in the cause of piety to be judged by those of minor or inferior rank, lest anything in the Church of God be done in disorder, and its status be in any way disturbed." Today, this epistle is inscribed to Demophilus the Therapeut (that is, the monk, see above) and is the eighth in number of the epistles of Dionysius; it contains what Nicholas cites: *Oὐ θεμιτὸν ἱερέα πρὸς τῶν ὑπὲρ σε λειτουρ- γῶν, ἢ τῶν ὁμοταγῶν σοι θεραπευτῶν εὐθύνεσθαι.* It is unlawful for a priest to be judged by ministers or by those who are of the same order of Therapeutae as you.

*Testimonies of Liberatus the African and Deusdedit, Bishop of Cagliari.* I have produced witnesses from Asia and Europe, I shall also produce one from Africa; I have produced one from the continent, I shall produce one from the island of Sardinia. For this opinion has penetrated through all parts of the world, by land and Ocean, and has prevailed. Liberatus the African, in his *Breviarium*, on the Nestorian and Eutychian cause, cap. 10, wrote thus: "Cyril wrote four books, three against Theodore and Diodorus; as if they were the authors of the Nestorian dogma, and another book on the Incarnation. In which are contained the incorrupt testimonies of the ancient Fathers, of Pope Felix the Roman, of Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of the Corinthians, and of Gregory, surnamed the Wonderworker."

Against this testimony, two things could be objected by adversaries. First, that certain Catholics have denied these books to be Cyril's; led by the reasoning that Cyril had not cited these testimonies when alive; therefore, this work does not seem to be Cyril's. It can be replied that he cited them only then because he did not remember them before, and they came to his mind later; likewise, that he composed this work after they were dead, having not yet disputed against them while they were alive, as he was younger; he did, however, dispute against their disciples, Nestorius and Theodoret. Secondly, it can be objected that the text is corrupt, and that "Areopagite" should be interpolated. I would wish for ancient exemplars to be consulted; for it is possible that the text is by no means corrupt, but that Liberatus was in the error of those who held that Dionysius the Areopagite was translated from the Athenian see to the Corinthian, before he migrated to Gaul.

^C scripts which were read in the present, Cyrus and Sergius, denying them, and for this reason adulterating the testimonies of holy Fathers, were deservedly condemned by your apostolic pious judgment, whom we also concordantly with that condemn for this reason, and also Pyrrhus, Sergius’s successor, since he is known no less to have received Cyrus along with Sergius, and strove to advocate for him in the aforementioned seventh chapter; and this, when it is testified in writing against him, that he changed 613 the diction of the blessed Dionysius, and that he was justly reproved for such a change by Sophronius of blessed memory: for thus Pyrrhus writes in his one dogmatic volume. Sophronius, however, the most reverend, reproved only one chapter, as one falsifying the testimony of the blessed Dionysius by the permutation of one word: saying in this what was consistent for the aforementioned man, and cautious, in which he asserts: "But since God was made human, offering to us a certain new God-man operation; one, surely, according to truth, instead of new, it contained—let it be named a volume; but not maliciously (far be it) according to my word, but because new cannot be understood otherwise unless as one, this sort of word was placed by the most holy Cyrus: because by the abnegation of the sublime, the blessed doctor, constructing one confession, and expressing this singularly, what else did he reveal, if not that he confessed one operation, because Christ is one, by a certain clearer word?" Behold, Pyrrhus most openly confessed by his own sermons both the diction of the blessed Dionysius falsified by Cyrus, and justly showed him reproved on that account, etc. He acts upon that place of Dionysius in the fourth epistle to Gaius, by which, corrupted by him and cited evilly, the Monothelites abused it against the truth of the dual will in Christ.

Adeodatus, or Deusdedit, venerable bishop of the Church of Cagliari on the island of Sardinia, in the Lateran synod under Martin I, consultation 3, spoke thus: "Receiving the word, finished and abridged by the Lord, your venerable blessedness succinctly and diligently has demonstrated to us—as effectively and openly as Cyrus and ^D Sergius wrought against the holy Fathers of the Catholic Church and their dogmas—by those things which have been most prudently spoken in the present, showing them caught in the confession of heretics, by the fact that they declare one God-man operation, along with the execrable Themistius and Severus, and not a wonderful and marvelous one, since in an indivisible union he shows two natural operations of one and the same Christ God, without confusion, that is to say, divine and human, in very true approbation, that the same is God and man naturally; which, as the blessed Dionysius says, is a new thing surpassing all new things. For that Father did not teach the destruction of both, but their indivisible unity, by this his composite word. For he wished to show true union, but not any diminution of the natures, which are substantially saved in the one Christ God, or nature..."

^A tends; and to those he responds who, by the authority of Bede and Gregory, had tried to make another, Dionysius the Corinthian, the author of these books. Finally, the same Hilduinus, in the passion of the blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, which he professes to have collected from the Greeks, sets forth the sum of those things that are treated in the books which we have today, and the order in which they are published.

Hincmar, Bishop of Rheims, a disciple of Hilduinus, writing to the Emperor Charles the Bald, proves those things which Hilduinus had handed down from the Greek writers by the testimony of blessed Sanctinus, who was the first bishop of the Carnutenses and later of the Meldenses, and a disciple of Dionysius the Areopagite, from whose very ancient membranes Hincmar says he copied the Acts and martyrdom and transmitted the exemplar to Charles the Bald. "So that," he says, "if there are any remnants of those who denied that our lord and father—your patron Dionysius—was the Areopagite, baptized by the blessed Apostle Paul, ordained Bishop of the Athenians, and sent into Gaul by blessed ^B Clement, they might recognize from these things what the Greek testimony and the attestation of the Holy Roman See and the Gallican contestation intimates as settled, and—in this cause, as was said long before us—true: because truth, frequently agitated, shines more brightly into the light." He proves this with three arguments, which we have also used and are using. 1. By the testimony of the Greeks, namely the legates of the Emperor Michael, to which I have added several decades of the Fathers. 2. By the attestation of the Holy Roman See, namely through Anastasius the Librarian, of whom more anon, by which so many clear testimonies of Gregory the Great, Martin I, Adrian I, Nicholas I, and Agatho were added afterwards, of the Emperor Louis. The words of blessed Sanctinus concerning the arrival of our blessed Dionysius in Gaul were these: "Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, enlightened by the excellent preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul and by the truth of the faith, etc., through revelation, with the Church committed to him, ^C came to Rome," etc., "and was received lovingly and honorably by blessed Clement, the successor of the Apostle Peter; and after some space of time, along with others, he was directed into Gaul to dispense the seeds of the divine word; and, preaching and confirming his word with signs following, he arrived in Paris, the Lord leading him: where he also suffered martyrdom; therefore (as Hilduinus noted), his memory was interrupted for some time among the Greeks."

Anastasius the Librarian of the Roman See, whose History our Johannes Busæus saw to it was printed at Mainz, wrote a letter to the same Charles the Bald against those who asserted that blessed Dionysius, the first bishop of the Parisians, was not the Areopagite: and he contends, relying on the authority of Greek and Latin codices, that he is the same, and that he composed his lofty writings in the Greek language: and what were those writings, if not these very ones which, translated into Latin by command of Louis and corrected by him, Anastasius dedicated to Charles, the son of Louis, along with the passion of blessed Dionysius translated by him from Methodius? Of which indeed, in another epistle to the same Charles, he wrote thus: "It is to be noted that, although this Saint Dionysius was of such glory and such knowledge, or antiquity, he never however published any Opuscula, if I am not mistaken, which the tradition of orthodox writings reveals, before the Roman pontiffs, Gregory, Martin, and Agatho, made mention of his sayings in their writings." And presently: "Whence I judge the opinion of the Greeks to be true, who assert that his books were hidden by earlier heretics, until, long after, a single codex was found at Rome, and, the others not yet being discovered, was carried away into Greece." Thus he; but I have taught that these Areopagitic works were known to certain Greeks even before Pope Saint Gregory, and it is true that after Gregory they were received by common consent, until these sons of the earth and ^D enemies of the state renewed that old quarrel of the anonymous ones, swollen and grave, but with ungrateful and useless croaking, in the muddy swamp.

Hugh of Saint Victor, a canon regular, a light of his own time so clear that Augustine was otherwise named, was the first of the Latins to dare an explanation of the *Celestial Hierarchy* of the great Areopagite; he used the version of John Scotus, and he dedicated it, comprised in ten books, to Louis, King of the Franks, the son of Louis the Fat; and in the fourth chapter of the *Prolegomena*, he gives the reason "why the theologian and narrator of the hierarchies and sacred powers Dionysius (sic) deemed that work of the *Celestial Hierarchy* should be composed by him." May Hugh close the line of the Fathers: for those whom I will subjoin are called Scholastics, from a manner of disputing more suited to the schools.

Testimonies of the Scholastics

Peter Lombard, who is commonly called the Master of the Sentences, in his book, and the Scholastics who followed him, held these for the undoubted works of the Areopagite; and therefore they always praised the sayings concerning the celestial hierarchies and the divine properties and other things as valid and most highly to be venerated: nor, except for Thomas de Vio, is there any of their law who has wavered even slightly concerning the author of these opuscules. Their consensus (which Dionysius the Carthusian calls common to all in his Preface to our author) is evident from the fact that Alexander of Hales in p. II, q. 36; Albert the Great in *2 Sent.*, distinct. 9 and 10; blessed Thomas in *I part.* q. 108 and passim; blessed Bonaventure in the said distinctive 9 and 10; Durandus, Scotus, Richard, Gabriel, and others in the same place, without further qualification, per antonomasiam, always called him Dionysius; and they would not have so called him, nor valued him so highly, if they had held him for uncertain, doubtful, or supposititious. With the same confidence and reverence, Saint Bonaventure, clinging to his imitation and footsteps, composed his learned book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, and Saint Thomas published Commentaries on the book *On the Divine Names*; as also Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, did for the Angelic Hierarchy. Alfonsus de Madrigal, Tostatus, Bishop of Avila, also held for the Areopagitica, in his Commentaries on Joshua, cap. X, q. 88.

Recollection of authorities, accommodated to the individual works of D. Dionysius.

Since this controversy, which I have with Joseph Scaliger, depends mostly on authority and ancient prescription; it seemed best to collect the suffrages at the end of the book by way of recapitulation, so that just judges may have at a single glance that which may move them to justly listen to or reject the *Vindiciæ*.

For Scaliger (who thinks he was the first to doubt) there were indeed long ago Greeks, but they were anonymous, and it is uncertain whether they were Catholics or heretics. In France also, some, during the reigns of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald, were also themselves anonymous. Those who dug up the error buried in the memory of our ancestors, and sold it as a novelty, were Theodore Gaza and Lorenzo Valla, grammarians; Desiderius Erasmus, of uncertain faith; Cajetan, a Catholic, but too credulous of Erasmus; Luther the heresiarch with his own; Calvin, another heresiarch with his own; and in these years Joseph Scaliger and Denis Petau. A rare handful of cernites and skirmishers.

On the other side stands a dense and clearly invincible legion, the strength of the triarii, summoned from Asia, Africa, and Europe; universal councils, Roman pontiffs, patriarchs, bishops, doctors of the Church, theologians, historians, philosophers, all once famous on earth, now many are glorious in heaven. Some of these received all the books of Dionysius that we have, others received certain ones as the genuine work of the blessed Dionysius the Areopagite. Indeed, all received the books, however many in

^A number they published commentaries, such as Maximus the Confessor and the Greeks Pachymeres; or translated them into Latin, such as Scotus, Hilduin, Anastasius the Librarian, and others; or compiled their indexes, such as John the Sycopolite, Suidas, Simeon Metaphrastes, Nicephorus, and Hilduin; or those who explicitly affirmed them to be the work of Dionysius the Areopagite, such as Theodore the Presbyter, as well as the aforementioned Anastasius and Hilduin, Guillaume Budé, Matthaeus Galenus, Alanus Corpus, Cardinal Baronius, and our own Cardinal Bellarmine, to whom may be added Jeremiah of Constantinople and very many others; or those who, drawing testimonies indiscriminately from these little works, confirmed theological axioms from them, as did, with the Master of the Sentences, the holy Bonaventure and Thomas, and all the rest of the Scholastics. Then there are those who simply mentioned the writings of the Areopagite or gathered certain fragments from uncertain places, such as the aforementioned St. Cyril, Liberatus, the holy Sanctinus and Hincmar, Anastasius of Nyssa, Antonius Melissa, Theodore Prodromus, Cardinal Bessarion, and the general Council of Ferrara. ^B

Many have produced certain and definite places from the existing books. By way of example: From *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, St. Ignatius the martyr, St. Jerome, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Chrysostom, St. Dionysius of Alexandria, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Origen the Adamantine, Michael Syngelus, St. John Damascene, George the Patrician, Euthymius Zigabenus, St. Gregory the Great, Pope Adrian, Hugh of St. Victor, and Robert, Bishop of Lincoln. From *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, Anastasius of Nyssa, Elias of Crete, St. Michael Syngelus, St. John Damascene, George the Patrician, Euthymius Zigabenus, the First Council of Nicaea, the Second Council of Nicaea, chapter *Omnes*, dist. 38, from the Decree of Gratian, and St. Bonaventure. ^C From the book *On the Divine Names*, St. Ignatius the martyr, St. Maximus the martyr, St. Anastasius of Sinai, St. Andrew of Crete, Bishop of Jerusalem, Glycas, Julian Bishop of Jerusalem, Euthymius the historiographer, St. John Damascene, St. Simeon Metaphrastes, Nicephorus Callistus, Epiphanius the Presbyter, St. Michael Syngelus, the Greeks in a certain canticle about the Mother of God, George the Patrician, Euthymius Zigabenus, the Sixth General Council, St. Pope Martin I, Pope Agatho, and the divine Thomas Aquinas. From the book *On Mystical Theology*, George the Patrician and that Euthymius the monk, Zigabenus. They mentioned all the Epistles when reviewing all the Works; some, however, are mentioned individually and specifically in the following manner. Regarding the fourth Epistle to Gaius the Therapeut, St. Sophronius, Bishop of Jerusalem, St. Maximus, St. Michael Syngelus, St. John Damascene, Euthymius Zigabenus, the Lateran Synod under Martin I, St. Pope Martin I, Sergius of Tempsanes, and Deusdedit of Cagliari. All these are Catholics; among the Monothelites, however, you have five: Sergius, Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Macarius, patriarchs, and Themistius the philosopher. Regarding the Epistle to Demophilus the Therapeut, Pope Nicholas. Regarding the Epistle to St. John the Evangelist, Pope Adrian I. Are these witnesses numerous and upright enough? Relying therefore upon these resources, I have entered the fray: shielded by this cloud of witnesses, I do not fear the lightnings of Salmoneus or the thunders of Claudius. I have brought forward witnesses who, over many centuries and throughout the whole Christian world, were most prudent, most holy, and most wise; many spoke in ecumenical councils, inspired by the Holy Spirit; many, enrolled in the number of the blessed, are illustrious for their martyrdoms and miracles, etc.

PETRI LANSSELII, SOC. JESU PRESB., APOLOGETIC DISPUTATION ON ST. DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE AND HIS WRITINGS

616 It need be no surprise to anyone if, after the many lucubrations of the most learned men, who with the highest praise and glory of intellect brought forth the *Areopagitic Vindications* into the light, we commence the same dispute. For, to say nothing of the fact that individuals have not pursued everything, and also because, as the poet of the celestial hymns says, *day unto day uttereth speech* (Ps. xviii, 3); it surely pertains to this edition of ours, which we desire to be ornate and perfected in its own measures, that every hindrance be removed, and the turbulent waves of objections be calmed, so that this fleet of Attic merchandise, having arrived in Gaul from St. Dionysius, may call forth the intelligence of all learned men. Nor shall I encompass here everything that could have been said on this subject: a great part of the objections, which those who love novelty are accustomed to raise, are already exhausted by St. Maximus and others who have described the Life of Dionysius with the highest judgment. Since their learned monuments are at hand, and are also being compiled by us in this present Work, we shall therefore keep silent in this place regarding Apollinaris, and nothing will be said about the two Dionysii, both the Corinthian and the Alexandrian, nor about those trifling little darts which men who are half-learned and curious cast into the now-received opinion of all nations, so that we may not appear to be acting the act and grinding the same cabbage twice in superfluously refuting them. The authority of Gregory of Tours has always seemed graver to me, relied upon by certain most learned theologians of this time, who were saying that it could in no way be that this was Dionysius the Areopagite, whom a Frenchman, versed in the affairs of Gaul and recording most noted matters, confirms to have come to Lutetia Parisiorum under Decius. And they thought he was the more to be heard on that very matter because, as they themselves believe, the old Roman Martyrology agrees with his narration. But the place of the holy man

where the crowds gathered annually on the Kalends of May, was once accustomed to offer human sacrifices for their own security. Therefore, they bought three young men with public money, fattened them for a whole year, and on the appointed day offered them at that very altar, sprinkling the surrounding crowd with the blood of the victims—a rite which Saint Trophimus, sent there from Judea as one of the seventy-two disciples of Christ, abolished; teaching that they ought not to be sprinkled with the blood of mortal men, but with the blood of Christ. Let us therefore suppose that *he* came into Gaul under Decius, in order to imbue their rude minds with religion.

^A Having taken this from the *History of the Franks*, since it pleases me to examine and scrutinize it a little more subtly, in order to illuminate the dark corner of the entire difficulty, I shall place the whole text here. It stands thus, therefore, in Book 1, Chapter 30: "In his time, seven men were ordained bishops and sent to Gaul to preach, just as the history of the passion of Saint Saturninus narrates; for it says: 'Under the consuls Decius and Gratus, as is retained by faithful record, the city of Toulouse first and foremost began to have Saint Saturninus as its priest.' These, then, were sent: to the Turonians, Bishop Gratian; to the Arvernians, Bishop Trophimus; to Narbonne, Bishop Paulus; to Toulouse, Bishop Saturninus; to the Parisians, Bishop Dionysius; to Arvernia, Bishop Stremonius; to the Lemovicinians, Bishop Martialis was destined."

Sequent in the third place is the Narbonensian prelate Paulus, regarding whom, if we wish to scour the same monuments of antiquity and peruse the Martyrologies, we shall discover that no mention of Decius is made, nor is any association with our Dionysius in his travels attributed to him. The old Roman [Martyrology] on the 22nd of March explicitly identifies him as a disciple of the apostles. Ado, on the festival of the apostles: "Natalis of St. Paulus, whom the blessed apostles ordained and sent as bishop to the city of Narbonne." They relate that he was the very same Sergius Paulus the proconsul, a prudent man, from whom Paul himself obtained his name because he had led him to the faith of Christ, and who, having been left by the same holy Apostle at the illustrious city of Narbonne when he was traveling to the Spains for the sake of preaching, was buried, having accomplished the office of preaching not sluggishly, and crowned with miracles. The most illustrious Baronius has arrayed and adorned this very history in the purple of eloquence, which I by no means sew onto this cloth, being content to have shown this one thing alone: that, by the judgment of so many centuries and ages, by the testimony of the Martyrology, and by the consensus of illustrious writers, the opinion of Gregory of Tours has been rejected and repudiated.

I indeed value this prelate not only as the glory of the Turonian region, but as the light of all Gaul, as much as is proper for one who has obtained the fame of a glorious name through the clearest monuments; yet his discourse has no more weight in this matter than that very passion of Saturninus which he praises, and which (in reading through the labyrinths of antiquity) he follows as his one Helice and Cynosura. And by this very entry into the dispute, I seem to be able to see to what wind he had dashed himself upon the crags of error; for since in that history of the deeds of Saturninus he had seen that the renowned warrior of Christ had come into Gaul under Decius, he thought that other famous men, whom he then names as leaders and propagators of the faith, had also illuminated the realm of Gaul in that same age with the innocence of their lives and their doctrine. Therefore, as one gleaming and uncertain in the dark, he brings forward no Roman pontiff, the governor of the whole Church, by whom those lieutenants of religion were sent to restrain impiety, which was triumphant everywhere.

There are, therefore, two points I must show briefly and in passing: first, that there were many heralds of the Christian faith in Gaul, even including those whom Gregory enumerates, before Decius governed the reins of the empire; second, that none of those writers who transmitted the memory of the nascent Church to posterity and collected the birth-days of the martyrs confirmed that, together with Gratian, Saturninus, and the rest, our Blessed Dionysius was sent into Gaul; from which, I believe, it will clearly appear how light, false, and empty is the opinion of Gregory of Tours, and how vain, finally, is the invention of ingenious men who think that his opinion is supported by, and becomes more robust due to, the old Roman Martyrology.

It is not laborious to show this for both of those writers who compiled the Martyrologies with the greatest care and labor. For, to begin with Gratian, the old Roman Martyrology, and subsequently Ado on the 18th of October, neither explain at what time he was sent into Gaul, nor contend that he was a companion of Blessed Dionysius. Both share a silence regarding Trophimus, whom they otherwise call a disciple of the apostles. Regarding him, however, I would wish these words of Ado to be noted, when he speaks of the feasts of the apostles: "Natalis," he says, "of Saint Trophimus, of whom the Apostle writes to Timothy: *But Trophimus I have left sick at Miletus* (p). He, having been ordained bishop by the apostles at Rome, was the first sent to the city of Arles in Gaul to preach the Gospel of Christ. From his source, as Blessed Pope Zosimus writes, all of Gaul received the streams of the faith; and he rested in peace at the same city." This is confirmed in the *Chronicle* in the sixth age, the 59th year of Christ. Gaguinus, writing in Book IX about King Charles V, relates this regarding Trophimus: "That Arles was the primary city and head of the kingdom of the Burgundians, and was subject to the empire, is certain; which, as Gervasius writes, the ancients called *Ara lata*; for in that place near the city, which was called Rocheta, two columns had been erected and an altar placed above them—"

^D Then he enumerates Saturninus, and let us see what the ancient memory declares about him. The old Roman Martyrology is silent, and in the *Life* which Surius placed in volume VI, it is not said that he was a disciple of our Dionysius; furthermore, no Greek writer will be found who says that Saturninus was a companion of Saint Dionysius or that he was bishop of Toulouse. Add that no one records that he suffered death under the Fescennine Sisinius, and indeed, unless my memory fails me, there does not exist among any who have committed the ancient events to the monuments of literature any mention of a certain governor Sisinius, who flourished in the time of the emperor Decius. The Latins, however, who subsequently wrote of Saturninus, since they entered upon the same tracks which Gregory had blazed before, it is not surprising if they strayed from the path with him. Rightly, therefore, is that said by Hilduin, page 69: "And because Gregory of Tours, as he had said he read in the passion of S. Saturninus, remembers that this same man was sent into these regions during the time of the persecution of Decius under Blessed Sixtus with six other bishops, whose lives or passions do not at all harmonize with his statements regarding the calculation of times, this is incorrect."

In the fifth place, he lists our Dionysius, whom, as a chosen Argive man, he joins to that very class of heroes and the Gallic expedition. We shall therefore bring forward the Martyrology, which they wish to be entirely from him. It stands thus for October 3rd: "At Athens, of Dionysius the Areopagite, who suffered various torments under Hadrian, as Aristides is witness in the work which he composed concerning the Christian religion, etc." And on the 9th of the same: "At Paris, of Dionysius the bishop, with his companions, put to death by the sword by Fescennius." From these passages, some have thought—which I have known from their private letters—that it is clearly two Dionysii being distinguished, the difference of place and day being noted. But, may it be said by their leave, that is a glassy and fragile foundation, from which nothing else can be concluded than that solemn feast days are variously consecrated to one and the same person. Nor is it true that...

^A the mention of Athens need disturb anyone's mind: for that the blessed Dionysius died at Athens, not the annals of cities and empires, not any commemoration of antiquity, nor the memoirs of excellent men signify; rather, all those who have illustrated his Life with their writings—whom we have diligently gathered and set forth for the studious reader in their place—contradict it. But if anyone seeks a reason why the ancient Roman Martyrology, Bede, and Ado treat of Dionysius the Areopagite on October 3rd, but of Dionysius of Paris on the 9th, I should be blind and straying from reason if I thought I could devise something better or more elegant in this genre than what the most illustrious Baronius, great in every respect, has achieved—of whom I would not hesitate to utter the Laconian phrase, *Theos aner outos*. Truly, he argues as follows: "As for the fact that Bede and Ado treat of Dionysius the Areopagite on the third day of October, and of Dionysius of Paris on the ninth, as if the latter were different from the former, we say that they borrowed the example from the Greeks; for on that day the Greeks celebrate the Areopagite, whereas at Rome it is certain that on this day, by the ancient monuments of the churches, it is celebrated for another reason, perhaps. For we have often seen it happen that Greeks celebrate the feast of the same saint in one way, and Latins in another; nay, you will even find the same diversity among the Latins themselves, since some celebrate the natal day, others that of the discovery or translation; others, perhaps, that of the church's dedication; for which reason you will easily find the solemnity of one and the same saint being celebrated a second time. To these points, if what Bede and Ado say on the third of October about Dionysius the Areopagite be considered more attentively, they seem to favor our cause rather than to contradict it, since they testify that Saint Dionysius consummated his martyrdom under the Emperor Hadrian; at which time, indeed, it is certain that Quadratus was bishop of the Athenian Church, and that his predecessor was Publicus, the successor of Dionysius; for Eusebius testifies to this in Book IV, chapter 22 of the *History*, as does Saint Jerome in *On Ecclesiastical Writers* concerning Quadratus, and finally the other historians who have followed those times. Indeed, if we place faith in the booklet of Hippolytus *On the Seventy-two Disciples*, it must be said that Narcissus, a disciple of the Lord, sat at Athens after the aforementioned, following Dionysius. What cause, therefore, could there have been for three, or at least two, bishops to have been substituted in his place while Dionysius was still alive, up to the times of Hadrian? It is not, indeed, to be believed that such a man, and so great a one, a pillar of the Church, would have sent a replacement in those greatest distresses of the Church, and spent his life in idleness. And so, nothing seems to be more conveniently said than (as his acts signify) that he was sent into the Gauls by Pope Saint Clement to undertake a greater province; by which example it appears that Saint Polycarp also sent most of his own disciples from Asia, when he saw that such a huge door for spreading the Gospel lay open, ^D and that the laborers in the great harvest were few."

Thus far Baronius: who, when he names Saint Clement, suggests, in my own opinion, a very strong argument to prove the same thing. For in the Lives of the Pontiffs, no one will be found to have sent Dionysius into Gaul other than Clement, who, as the same public minister of religion and sole president of the Roman Church, sent forth the companions of Blessed Dionysius with equal counsel and authority, from whom the Italians, the Germans, and also the peoples who are in Spain, received the light of faith. It is necessary that those peoples, deluded by a futile opinion, have lain until now in total ignorance, and that all the tradition of their ancestors should be thought void, and the accounts contained in church archives and registries should be considered mere old-wives' tales, if Dionysius the Areopagite and those who are reported to be his companions never reached those shores. And this very thing will be, I think, even more illustrious, if we consider what the various breviaries, which preserve the common faith of the nations regarding their patron saints, represent concerning Dionysius and his companions. Many, therefore, of the common prayer books or breviaries of various churches were granted to us by the Reverend Father Florentius Vander Hare, canon and treasurer of the collegiate church of Saint Peter in Lille, a most diligent investigator of ancient things and a most humane man, in which I see it noted clearly that they came into Gaul. The Parisian Breviary printed in the year 1492, the Burgensian in 1502, the Morinensian 1519, the Brugensian 1520, the Rhemensian 1549, the Hildesimensian 1516, assert that he was sent by Pope Clement into the Gauls, and was beheaded at Paris. ^B The Hildesimensian, however, adds to him his companions SS. Saturninus, Lucianus, and Marcellus. Whence it is evident that even very ancient Latin writers believed that Saturninus had spread the faith and religion in the Gauls long before the times of Decius. The Parisian indeed certainly asserts in the Life of Saint Eutropius that he came 619 with Saint Dionysius; but the Burgensian, published in 1502, explains the whole matter more magnificently: for thus it proposes the Life of Saint Eugenius:

"After the Apostle Paul converted the Blessed Dionysius to the faith of Christ and set him as bishop over Athens, he returned to Rome, where not long after he suffered martyrdom; longing for whom, the Blessed Dionysius, traveling there, found Blessed Peter and the same Paul crowned with martyrdom, and found Saint Clement exalted to the mantle of the Apostolic See, by whose blessing he was strengthened, and having received the apostolate of all Gaul from him, he arrived with several co-bishops, priests, and deacons as far as the city of Arles. He destined for himself the fellow-ministers handed over to him, namely Blessed Lucianus for the Beauvaisis, Marcellus for the Berruyers, and many others for their own regions, but he strove to send Eugenius to Toledo: having been sent, therefore, Dionysius, with his companions Rusticus and Eleutherius, approached the city of Paris, where Fescenninus found them contending against the unbelievers, and, afflicting them with many torments, at last ordered them to be beheaded. These holy men, confessing the Holy Trinity, completely fulfilled a threefold martyrdom. Meanwhile, while these things are being done, the Blessed Eugenius, whose illustrious life stands in the Church as a form of good works, after he converted the gentile people of the province of Toledo to the Christian faith by the example of an honest life, catholic preaching, and the confirmation of miracles."

Splendid insight from Father Johannes Mariana of our Society, from book IV *On the Affairs of Spain*, chapter 4, circa the year of Christ 97, will bring light to this history: "Of all during these times, Eugenius, the first prelate of Toledo, was killed. He had been sent into Spain by Dionysius the Areopagite (so it is handed down by constant tradition) from Gaul, where he was propagating the Gospel; and, the religion of Christ having been founded in that province, and especially at Toledo, he penetrated into inner Gaul with the study of visiting Dionysius, when he was seized by the satellites of the prefect Sisinius and was killed on the spot. His body was thrown into the lake of Marcasium; finally, Gaul being popularly imbued with the sacred rites of Christ, Herceldus, a leading man, at divine prompting was led to the village of Diolum near the lake, and cultivated the temple dedicated to his name. Thence he migrated into the Dionysiac temple, and under the King of Castile Alfonso, who is titled Emperor, his arm was first brought to Toledo, with the consent of Louis VII, King of the Gauls, for the sake of the King's father-in-law and of the prelate Raymund of Toledo. For when, at that time, he was hastening to a meeting with the Bishop of Reims under Pope Eugenius III, he had explored all this matter, which had been forgotten in the memory of the Spaniards, in the presence of his own. The rest of his body was in our age given by Charles IX, King of the Gauls, to Philip II, King of Spain, and brought into the city of Toledo, where it is cultivated with principal and truly incredible pomp, twenty years ago, with greater religion. There are those who think that a certain Philip was sent into Spain by Clement as bish—

^Ashop of the Tungrians, and the Rheims Breviary and many others treat of the same.

Saint Maternus, bishop of the Tungrians, 14 September, a disciple of Saint Peter the Apostle, of whom Demochares says: “Saint Maternus in the year of our Lord 101 dedicated an oratory on the public road to Christ the Savior; among the Trajectenses and the Tungrians he consecrated a temple to the Mother of God, and in the year 102, at Huvos, by the shadow of the mountain which the Meuse washes, he dedicated a temple to the Virgin Mother. Then, having set out for Dinant, where he found Saint Memmius, bishop of Châlons, he consecrated a temple to Saint Mary, and another, Memmius, to Saint Stephen. Therefore, also, having destroyed an idol at Namur, he inscribed a temple to the blessed Mary, besides those which he is said to have dedicated in other places randomly.”

S. Regulus, bishop of Senlis, 30 March, a disciple of Saint John the Evangelist. See Peter in the *Catalogus*, book IV, chapter 15, of whom Demochares says: “The first bishop of those of Senlis was the blessed Regulus, who celebrated Mass, having been taught by the blessed John the Evangelist, and confirmed by the blessed Clement. For we read about him in the *Catalogus* of the saints, chapter fifteen, book four, in this manner: Regulus, a bishop by nation a Greek, was a disciple of John the Evangelist at Ephesus. When he had been banished to the island of Patmos, coming to Athens, he attached himself to Dionysius, with whom he travelled to Rome, and once with him, and with the most holy Rusticus and Eleutherius, he was sent by the blessed Pope Clement to the Gauls for the sake of preaching, who arrived first at Arles: where, by Saint Dionysius calling upon the name of Christ, the idol of Mars was destroyed, and many having been converted, that temple was consecrated in honor of the apostles Peter and Paul. Therefore, his companions having been sent to various cities, Dionysius himself, Saint Regulus having been ordained bishop of the city of Arles, went to Paris, where with Rusticus and Eleutherius he received the palm of martyrdom. On that same day on which they suffered, while Regulus was celebrating Mass in Arles, and had inadvertently recited the names of those martyrs in the canon among other saints, amazed at what he had said, he saw three doves on the altar, having the names of their martyrs written on their beaks. By which vision knowing that the saints had passed on through martyrdom, having committed the people to a certain Bishop Felix, he went to Paris, and having been received into hospitality by a Christian matron formerly a disciple of Dionysius, named Catulla, he discovered that the martyrs of Christ had suffered on the same day he had seen the vision, and he built a basilica over their bodies. Thence intending to go to the city of Senlis, in the villa of Lauria, crushing the idol of Mercury with his staff, he converted the people and built a basilica of the Mother of God there. And in the city of the people of Senlis, at his arrival the idols collapsed, and he dedicated a temple in honor of the blessed Virgin, and baptized the whole people, brought to the faith by his preaching and miracles.” These things are there.

Saint Savinianus or Sabinianus, bishop of Sens, 31 December, sent with Saint Potentianus into the Gauls by Saint Peter. Petrus *De natalitiis* lib. I, cap. 25. Ado in the *Martyrology*: “Likewise among the people of Sens, the birthday of the blessed Sabinianus and Potentianus, who, having been directed to preach by the blessed apostles, made the city illustrious by the confession of their martyrdom.”

Saint Peregrinus, bishop of Auxerre, 16 May, a Roman citizen, sent by Pope Sixtus to the Gauls, under the Emperor Alexander, rests as a martyr at Saint Dionysius in Francia. Vincentius lib. X, cap. 119; Antoninus page I, titul. 7, cap. 5; Petrus in *Catalogus* lib. V, cap. 5; Ciaconius in the *Life of Saint Sixtus* in the year of our Lord 129, says: “Peregrinus, sent from Rome to Gaul, whence his faith being confirmed there, he returned to Rome, where in the same place in which Christ had appeared to Saint Peter with a cross, he was subjected to punishment.”

Saint Sanctinus, bishop of Meaux, 22 September, by Saint Dionysius the Areopagite ^D bishop

^A ordained. Peter in the *Catalogus*, book VIII, chap. 108; Antoninus 621, part 1, tit. 6, chap. 8, and, before all men, Hincmar when he treats of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite.

Saint Nigasius or Nicasius, bishop of Rouen, 11 October, sent into Gaul by blessed Clement with Blessed Dionysius and the others; to this fact, says Demochares, they still bear witness, and the place of this martyrdom is most celebrated and holy, the relics and temples under his name, famous and not far distant from Rupefort. See Baronius.

Saint Crescens or Crescentius, bishop of Vienne, 27 June, disciple of blessed Paul and martyr. See Baronius on that day.

Saint Maximus or Maximinus, bishop of Aix, 8 June, who, with the saints Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, Martha their sister, and Cedonius, after the ascension of Christ into heaven, arrived at Marseilles by ship. Peter in the *Catalogus*, book V, chaps. 101 and 102.

Saint Ursinus or Ursinianus, bishop of Bourges, 9 November: some say he is Nathanael. Peter in the *Catalogus*, chap. 9, lib. I, and chap. 41, book X. Ado: “Item on the same day at Bourges [the feast of] Saint Ursinus, who being ordained at Rome by the successors of the apostles, was the first bishop destined for that city,” these are the very words of Saint Gregory of Tours in *De gloria confessorum*, chap. 80.

Saint Eutropius, bishop of Saintes, 30 April, “by Blessed Clement the bishop,” says Ado, “directed to the Gauls,” etc. Blessed Gregory of Tours, *De gloria martyrum*, chap. 56: “Eutropius also, martyr of the city of Saintes, is reported to have been directed to the Gauls by Blessed Clement the bishop,” etc. Peter, *Catalogus*, lib. V, chap. 105. The Parisian Breviary says he was sent with Saint Dionysius by Blessed Clement.

Lest I be tiresome to you, Reader, by keeping you longer with the remains, I shall put an end [to the list], having indicated the names of the rest of the saints who illuminated Gaul with the light of the faith before the times of Decius. As for them, you will consult Baronius and others. Saint Taurinus, bishop of Évreux, 11 August. Saint Lucian of Beauvais, 8 January. Saint Valerius of Trier, 29 January. Saint Julian of Le Mans, 27 January. Saint Zacharias of Vienne, 26 May. Saint Martin of Vienne, 10 July. Saint Verus, bishop of Vienne, 1 August. Of all these, as I was saying, Gregory said absolutely nothing, whose deeds were nevertheless neither small nor obscure, as they were men who moderated the holy assemblies of the Church and public ceremonies for many years. Shall learned men then accept what he said about Blessed Dionysius like the leaf of a sibyl, and contend that it is most true? What of the fact that many things are prescribed by him which are repudiated by a choir of all learned men? In book I of the *Miracles*, chap. 28, concerning the apostolate of the great Peter, whom our Dionysius calls the coryphaeus and the sublime summit of theology, it has: “Peter the apostle, who having been ordained bishop by the other apostles, established his chair at Rome.” This is so harsh that, unless it is softened by a convenient explanation, it cannot be borne. Chap. 29: “Paul indeed,” he says, “the apostle, after the revolution of a year's cycle, on the very day on which Peter the apostle suffered.” Does he have many followers in this matter, who defend an opinion contrary to almost all historians? Concerning which matter, one should see such most learned men as Baronius and our Dekerius, who in Book I of his *History*, chap. 30, teaches that Sixtus the Roman pontiff and Lawrence the archdeacon suffered under Decius. And yet those standard-bearers of piety set up purple trophies on high and illustrious ground at Rome under Valerian, a fact which Baronius clearly demonstrates from Saint Cyprian, and our Mariana ^B in book V *De rebus Hispaniae*, chap. 8.

Let it therefore be a wonder to no one that Hilduin brings forward this origin of the error of Saint Gregory of Tours and other, later writers. For it is possible, as we have said, that they did not possess a text of the passion of this Saint Dionysius written from authentic sources, and therefore they err in this, because we also have seen many booklets from thence, which in some things seemed to agree in sense, but to differ greatly in wording, and in others could not be reconciled either in sense or in the tenor of the discourse; which is clearly traceable to the ancient distance of this venerable and most ancient Father, and to the ignorance or the devotion of the faithful, who did not study to recur to ancient histories for the knowledge of him, but—as Gregory of Tours did, not falling into it by way of deliberate error, but seeing the magnificent and innumerable signs being done through him—as each had an abundance of meaning, they took care to commit it to writing; so also do we read that it happened concerning the deeds and passions of the holy apostles, and we manifestly find [this to be the case] concerning other histories necessary to the Church. And a little later: “But one must spare the simplicity of the religious man, Gregory, bishop of Tours, who, deeming many things to be otherwise than as the truth holds them, committed them to letters not by the guile of craftiness, but by an impulse of kindness.” We can evidently see that he did not investigate certain things with much skill, since a prudent man and most scholastic, Fortunatus—existing as his contemporary 622—who had written much and frequently to the same man, composed a most beautiful rhythmic hymn about this most glorious martyr: in which he commemorates that he was sent by Blessed Clement, as he learned in the Latin pages; but of his nation and the ordination of his episcopacy he makes no mention, because he was entirely without the Greek language.

The contest with Saint Gregory of Tours was longer, as he was held to be the Achilles of the adversaries, and a tower of war; the others like light-armed and naked troops, are put to flight by a lighter struggle. They say, firstly, that Nicephorus, when he accurately listed the names of the bishops who had left their sees, was silent about Saint Dionysius; it seems certain, therefore, that he died at Athens. But the answer to this is very easy; for he clearly says himself that he omitted very many.

Secondly, Sulpitius Severus, a disciple of Blessed Martin, who flourished around the year of the Lord 400, is a witness; “finally in the fifth1 persecution were martyrdoms seen in the Gauls, religion having been received across the Alps late.” But at this time, as the most clear-sighted man Nicolas Faber used to write, Dionysius the Areopagite could not have arrived, nor could his martyrdom stand under Domitian or Trajan, to which time those who wish him to have lived for a very long time in Gaul relegate it, if the first martyrs were only seen in the fifth persecution. Truly, this weapon, which some think is very sharp, hurled as if with the armament and authority of the most learned Faber, I judge to be so light and weak that nothing seems dumber. For the statement of Sulpitius—which in my judgment Faber does not prove—cannot but appear full of unlearned vanity and temerity, unless it is seasoned with a timely explanation. What then? Can it be true that before the fifth persecution, that is, before the one hundred and seventieth year, no martyrs were seen in Gaul? What then shall we do with those most noble leaders of the first Church, whom the faith of ancient histories makes disciples of the apostles, who in various places in Gaul bore witness to magnificent triumphs over perfidy, cruelty, and superstition? Or can those by no means be called martyrs, whose constant nobility in suffering overcame the edge of the sword, hooks, the rack, and every kind of torment? When, therefore, Sulpitius writes that finally in the fifth persecution martyrdoms were seen in Gaul, he does not mean to say that no martyrs had existed before, but that then first, as

^A the prisons were suddenly opened, that immense tempest of tyrants had been poured forth, by which at Lugdunum and Vienne, Vetius, Photinus, Irenæus, and countless others in other places lived, having been crowned in the midst of their torments.

Third. They contend that this fraud originated from the Greeks who, while they were courting the alliance of the kings of France—whom they saw to be very powerful in war—and were seeking after their favor and munificence, feigned that Saint Dionysius, whom they had learned was celebrated in Gaul, was Dionysius the Areopagite. I reply that a grave and intolerable injury is being done to all of Greece, in which all are imagined to be blind with greed, and no one a student of truth, since no one has hitherto refuted that levity and emptiness of theirs. Furthermore, if the body of blessed Dionysius was placed in the bosom of Greece, why is there no memory of him in such great monuments of learned men, but rather silence? Why was nothing of his relics ever granted to any emperor, either to adorn Rome, in which city his teacher Paul is situated, or to honor Byzantium or some other city according to pious custom?

Fourth. Why did Pope Stephen, having obtained health through the benefit of S. Dionysius, carry the sacred bone taken from his arm from Paris to Rome, and grant the temple built in his honor to the Greek monks to be celebrated with august religion? Would it not have been necessary to inquire first whether the relics of Dionysius the Areopagite rested anywhere at Athens, unless that opinion were common and widespread among all regions and peoples, that such a treasure, more opulent than any wealth or gold, was found only at Paris? ^B

Fifth. Why, in the perennial passing of many centuries, with so many men having traveled through Greece, and so many Greeks having come to Rome—especially after the capture of Constantinople—and having filled all of Italy with their writings, has no one yet been found who would say that the body of S. Dionysius is venerated in Greece, and that the Parisians are long deceived by their own opinion? ^C

Sixth. Almost infinite miracles have been performed by the merits of our Dionysius and by his grace before God; this opinion cannot be pulled out or shaken from the mind, that this is the Dionysius—the Areopagite—whom men of all orders celebrate with legitimate honors. Is it likely, if there be some other Dionysius who presided at Lutetia Parisiorum, that he would be despoiled of honor, his praise transferred to another, and he lie unknown among his own for so many years? For although the most holy men who enjoy felicity with God do not need our praises and congratulations, it nevertheless pertains to the providence of the divine mind that the celestials, whose relics work many prodigies on earth, should not lack some joy and most human pleasure, which they perceive from the recognition of men and the manifestation of a grateful heart. Why, then, in the passing of so many centuries, would they have wished for this unknown Dionysius, yet allowed a supposititious one to enjoy worship and honor?

But removing the subtlety of disputation, it is pleasing to look into history, which is the messenger of antiquity and the witness of hidden things. There are in our hands writers of the middle ages who have consecrated the affairs of Gaul to the memory of men, and thus are the more eagerly taken up by the learned because they receive light under the auspices of the eminent Pithou. They would have long ago removed, if the mind of men were not refractory, every doubt and that lust for contentions which boasts so freely. For when, in the time of Pope Leo IX, in the year of the Lord 1050, at Ratisbon in Germany, a body had been found, full of silent religion and sanctity, which some said was that of Dionysius the Areopagite, messengers were sent by the Emperor into France to learn whether, at Paris, in that temple which Dagobert had built, the body of the Areopagite Dionysius, the disciple of S. Paul, was present, or whether it was not. Henry, King of France, accompanied by the messengers of the Emperor, ordered the archbishops, bishops, and ^D barons of the whole kingdom to attend, with Odo, his dearly beloved brother, at the temple of the martyr Dionysius. And when they had offered prayers most humbly to God, three silver vessels were brought, sealed with the sigils of Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, and placed in the sight of the whole people. ‹And the vessel of the blessed martyr Dionysius being opened, his whole body with the head was found (the words are of Rigord the writer) except for two bones of the neck, which are in the church of Vergy, and a certain bone from the arm, which Pope Stephen III carried with him to the Roman church, and placed in the church which is today called the Schola Graecorum. Seeing this, all the people, with tears and sighs lifting their pure hands to the Lord, and commending themselves to God and the blessed Virgin Mary and the holy martyrs, departed with joy. But why do I mention one writer? Who among all those who have written of the deeds of the Gauls and the antiquity of such an illustrious dominion has not produced some evidence for the perpetual memory of men, in which there do not exist clear and express testimonies of our Dionysius?

How often in war and in peace, publicly, privately, in every condition of fortune, has S. Dionysius, that Dionysius I say, the Areopagite, been invoked and been present, showing himself wonderful and dear to God?

^A for the illumination of ancient piety, will soon, I believe, see the light. 624 After so many and such illustrious arguments, by which, heaven and earth favoring us, we have brought the Areopagite Hierophant into Gaul, shall we wait until the very soil, until the walls and roofs send forth a voice and cry out, and refute the opinion of men (to speak most modestly) who attribute too much to themselves? Will the most ancient Greek temple built in Paris, will the prison and the deep pit of St. Dionysius, will so many places scattered far and wide, marked by the footsteps, piety, blood, and laurels of our Dionysius, avail nothing for the establishing of our faith? The speech of the illustrious D. Bocherius, a Sorbonne theologian scholar in every branch of letters, seemed to me in this regard to be entirely worthy, and I have thought it right to represent it here to you, Reader, so that if I myself should change even the least thing, something of the wisdom and elegance of such a man might be lost; and I do this the more willingly because the singular doctor Andreas Duvallius, a light of the Sorbonne, has approved this disputation with his own judgment. He, therefore, being asked by me concerning this question, replied by letter as follows: ^B "That you seek, nay, demand of me, my Lansselius, what I think concerning the two problems regarding Dionysius the Areopagite (shall I call him yours or ours? But more truly ours and yours), the one being whether this is our Dionysius, that is, the Parisian, being the same who was previously the bishop of Athens, and the other, whether the works and writings which are credited to his name are genuine (the former of which having been agitated and decided seven hundred years ago, has been renewed by the *kaketheia* of some in our century who create a knot in a bulrush, as they say, regarding matters that are sufficiently clear; the latter, long ago quieted, has been so rekindled by the impiety of innovators who fear such an author by right, that it seems to have brought forth a new offspring)—you do this indeed so kindly and familiarly, that your familiarity bids me in turn confess, if you only seek my judgment, that I take it just as if, under the open and clear sun, you were to ask if I think it to be night or day. But if it is that I might add some light, it is just as if you were to command me to bring a lamp to the sun. Since, in a matter so long investigated in the memory of centuries by such sharp judgments, believed and approved by the consensus of so many learned and holy men, and of both Greeks and Latins, supported and strengthened not only by the authority of princes and even emperors and kings, and of those who have held power in the East and in the West, but also by that of the Roman pontiffs, and finally confirmed by miracles—in a word, established and fortified by every kind of prescription—to stir up again this Pyrrhonian kind of *aporia* or *skepsis* (not to mention ^C denying absolutely, or, as they say, plucking out the eyes of crows) I consider it to be the mark of a mind as obstinate as it would be useless labor to wish to prove it further. Especially since, after the clear lights of the Church of former times which the East brought forth, and whom the West—Hilduinus and Hincmarus—had, those by whom these things were long ago so accurately debated, discussed, and decided, those who have appeared most recently in our century, Genebrardus, Galenus, Baronius, and most amply Delrius, have so illustrated this cause, nay, have so proven it, that whatever further controversy exists in either problem, or rather, whatever *philoneikia* and ambitious contention there may be, it seems to be a work not so much of dissolving it by reason or judgment, as by sentiment. Truly, if I were to join myself to those who deny or doubt, I would be just as much in error as if I were to join those who affirm, and I would do nothing more than what I might borrow from the poet: ...... I have at last avoided error, I have not deserved praise...... HOR., *De arte poet.*, v. 267. ^D Unless perhaps, as regards the former, what the holy Methodius, bishop of Constantinople, says according to Anastasius, librarian of the S. R. E., what B. Michael Syngelus says according to Lipomanus, what Simeon Metaphrastes says according to Surius, the writers of the Life of that great Areopagite, and along with them Nicephorus (48), all Greeks, who with one voice assert his arrival in Gaul: and because, according to Hilduinus, Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople, also a Greek himself, after having made a careful inquiry, holds this to be certain and finally discovered; and because, as Hincmarus, the disciple of Hilduinus, and archbishop of Rheims, writes to King Charles the Bald, the holy Sanctinus, bishop of Meaux, a disciple of St. Dionysius and writer of the history of his martyrdom, which the same Hincmarus writes that he copied from most ancient parchments and sent a copy to Charles the Bald, says in express words that this Areopagite, having been ordained by revelation and having received the commission of the Church, came to Rome and was directed into Gaul by the blessed Pope Clement, and thus came to Paris; and what is more, and squares beautifully with the above, because according to Eusebius (49), Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, testifies that Publius succeeded Dionysius the Areopagite in the bishopric of Athens, and 625 Quadratus succeeded Publius, who surely belong to the times of Emperor Hadrian: not indeed having allowed that great disciple of the apostle Paul, both in doctrine and in sanctity, to depart from his station, unless a divine vocation urged him, for the sake of reaping a richer harvest in that region, to which it was divinely ordained that the riches of the erudition, as well as the piety, of Greece and the East should be brought. These things, I say, all are of so little weight that they ought to be esteemed as nothing compared to the statement of Gregory of Tours (may I say this with the peace of such a great man), who (at times nodding, which can happen even to Homer, as sagacious and attentive as he may be) refers our Dionysius to the times of Decius. As it was right for a man, however erudite and holy, in a work not so long as it is multiple and varied, to have let sleep creep upon him, and that it had crept upon him, both as to many other things, and as to Trophimus of Arles, who was a disciple of the apostle Paul, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles and the second Epistle to Timothy, and likewise Paulus of Narbonne, who was Sergius Paulus, the proconsul baptized by St. Paul, and Martial of Limoges, who is said to have been the kinsman of Stephen the protomartyr and the boy who had five barley loaves and two fishes in the desert: the mission to these very times of Decius, as related by him himself, cries out against this, which the ratio of the time in which they lived, as well as all the Martyrologies, show occurred under the pontificate of the same Clement: so that wise men ought to believe the lights of the East and West, who were so many, so clear-sighted, and so vigilant, rather than him. "For how true it is that those divine goods had to be conveyed from the East to the West, and how from the quiver of the East were drawn the arrows which were to be sent from the hand of the Mighty into the hearts of the Gauls, that is, the preachers of the evangelical word, and that it pleased God that it should be done in this way, besides the fact that it refers to the true Sun hanging on the cross, looking toward the West, and thus toward Gaul, and directing His eyes (for preachers are eyes) from the East and, as it were, vibrating rays, and not only this, but also that Peter, who most closely represented Christ, commanded at God’s specific direction that one should come from the East to the West, as Metaphrastes relates, and demanded the mystery of one who embraced Gaul with special affection, is taught by the fact that at various times, to various places in Gaul besides the aforementioned Dionysius, ministers of Christian seed were sent from Greece and the East, such as Irenæus to Lyons from the school of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, Andochius and Thyrsus to Autun, Aegidius to Arles from Attica; and those who were sent to Hainaut, a province of Belgic Gaul, from the bishopric of Athens to Gisienus: nay, even...

^A of Athens, Gislene: indeed, even those from Armenia—and those from the archiepiscopal dignity—and those of the royal blood of the Persians, such as Eutropius, clearly Greek in speech and erudition, all illuminated us with the torch of the Gospel.

This is all the more illustrious in our Dionysius, in that they show him not merely as a bishop, but as a legate of the Apostolic See sent by St. Clement, whom he designated as bishops to various places inside and outside Gaul. Such as St. Lucian, a disciple of St. Peter, sent to Beauvais; St. Sanctinus, who also wrote his Life, sent to Meaux; and likewise Eugenius, his disciple, sent from Arles as archbishop to Toledo in Spain, who, coming to Paris some time later to visit his master, met his martyrdom there. His relics, ^B lately obtained with the consent of Charles IX, and lifted from the monastery of St. Dionysius by Philip II, King of Spain, were carried on royal shoulders into the church of Toledo in the year 1565 with great celebration and a sign of royal piety.

That I may not meanwhile omit these few matters, which no one, I believe, will deny are not without weight in this cause: First, that the Martyrologies refer to St. Caraunus (whom the Gauls call Cheron), a disciple of our Dionysius, martyred in the territory of Chartres in Gaul by robbers on the road while he was going to visit his master (whence the monastery built in his honor near Chartres bears the name St. Caraunus of the Road) under the time of Domitian, on May 28. Also the aforementioned Lucian, sent with Dionysius by Clement, on January 8. Then, that he who gave himself as a companion on the journey from Athens first to Rome, and then to Gaul with Dionysius ^C (St. Jon, a presbyter—they name him Jona in the Martyrologies, September 22), a man of Greek blood as well as name, having been made a martyr in Gaul in the territory of the Castrenses (commonly called *Chastres sous Montlhéry*), left the memory of his name there until this day on the hill which is called St. Jon, a witness of the Greek mission. Furthermore, regarding the three most ancient basilicas of Lutetia Parisiorum, which are said to have been founded by St. Dionysius, of which the first is under the invocation of the Most Holy Trinity, which is now the collegiate church of St. Benedict; the second, of the Blessed Mary, Mother of God, which is commonly called Notre Dame des Champs, now a convent of virgins of the Carmelite order; the third, of the protomartyr Stephen, which is still called the Greek church today: of these three, I say, two, the first and the last, have signs of this truth not to be repented of. The former, indeed, through an ancient window of elaborate craftsmanship, where these words are inscribed: IN THIS CHAPEL ST. DIONYSIUS BEGAN TO INVOKE THE NAME OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY. The second, because the very name of the Greeks, which survives even today, reveals the nation and race of him by whom that house was founded, no less than the fact that the monastery founded at Rome under the invocation of St. Dionysius for Greek monks—certainly the companions of St. Dionysius—was handed over by the same Pope Stephen, on account of a memory ^D received in Gaul at the body of St. Dionysius regarding the cure of a difficult disease. Furthermore, indeed, that behind the high altar there, an oratory of very ancient workmanship, which they say belonged to St. Dionysius, is still visited. To say nothing of the prison, and of the place of torments in the city, as well as the supreme execution outside the city, and the as many churches built there, the first of which is St. Dionysius of the Prison, the second St. Dionysius of the Passion, the third the Chapel of the Martyrs, on that which was once Mount Mercury, now called Mount of the Martyrs, 626, and the stupendous miracles which occurred in this martyrdom. If anyone should defer all these things to the times of Decius, that is, to the year of Christ 253, in which Decius began to reign, since it is necessary, if indeed St. Dionysius was the first bishop of Paris, it will be worth asking: How is it that, even though from the time of the apostles, from which time Savinian, Potentianus, and Altinus, who were of the 72 disciples, sent by St. Peter into the Gauls, placed the episcopal see first at Sens (whence also the primacy of Sens), then at Chartres and Troyes, and spread through the neighboring places of that whole region, at Paris, Orléans, Auxerre, Nevers, by preaching, the faith of Christ flourished thus in the Parisian territory, and in one of its villages, which is named Christolium, which is two leagues from Paris, the martyrdom of Agoardus and Aglubertus, and of countless Christians of both sexes with them, is celebrated on the very day of St. John the Baptist, June 24, in the Parisian Breviary: and this is so ancient (and even prior to the arrival of St. Dionysius himself into Gaul) that as if from this village the faith of Christ began to exist in Gaul, a place was given by the allusion of its name to Christianity by the proverb, *Cresteil premier village de Chrestienite*, that is, Christolium the first village of Christianity: how is it, I say, that for a long time, during which the people of Chartres were already counting their sixth bishop named Severus, that is, from the year 46 of Christ, or truly the second year of the Roman Church founded when Peter sent the said Savinian, Potentianus, and Altinus into Gaul, until the first year of Decius—two hundred and seven years—the Parisians were able to exist alone without a bishop and pastor, and indeed with Christians so fervent in that religion?

Add that it is not without argument that he who was the sixth bishop of Paris after St. Dionysius, named Victorinus, is recorded as having been among the Fathers of the Council of Agrippina, which was held under Pope Julius in the year 346, even though he was absent. Nor indeed is this without a sign of the infirmity contracted from old age, because of which he could not be present, in that even in his absence, but with his consent and command, the decrees of the council are said to be confirmed. For since from the 1st year of Decius, which was 253, until the said year 346 there are only 93 years, from which if you subtract the 24 during which Dionysius sat at Paris (who, as it is established from histories, died over a hundred years old), only 69 years remain, then indeed it is certain that this number of years is shorter than could suffice for the five bishops following Dionysius, who were Mello, Massus (who also wrote the history of the martyrdom of SS. Dionysius and his companions), Marcus, Adventinus, and Victorinus. And this is due to the longevity of the pastors that existed at that time while the Church was still nascent, as Baronius observes in the Martyrology and the Annals in the year 76 and [the text continues]

^A is junior by one hundred and two years, rejected Dionysius. Such are those who say that St. Piatus, or Piaton, whom it is established came to Belgium with St. Quintinus and his companions under Diocletian and Maximian, and suffered at Tournai (53), was made a presbyter by St. Dionysius and sent by him to Tournai. Among these, it is a wonder that Petrus is found in the Catalogus, a fact which also prevailed in certain Breviaries, although this is nothing other than a plain and sheer blunder, perhaps arising from elsewhere than if someone, through an error, substituted Diocletian, under whom Piatus lived, for Domitian, under whom Dionysius lived, deceived by the similarity of the name—an amazing anachronism indeed, since the one is two hundred years junior to the other; we judge that this requires no other remedy than a simple erasure. Finally, since, as the illustrious Baronius well observed, even Greece herself, so rigid an emulator and defender of her own affairs, does not protest or complain that these things were given to the Gauls—who, hearing them boasting so intensely of the Areopagite Dionysius, concedes this to them so freely that he even congratulates them on it, which he would certainly not do unless the truth compelled him; how much more contrary to reason will it be if the Gauls themselves wish or study to dispel of their own accord and for nothing so great a benefit.

“What having been said concerning the former problem, as to the second, which concerns the true author of these books, which—even here—has been long dormant among certain anonymous figures and revived through Theodorus Gaza, Laurentius Valla, Erasmus, and Erasmus’s follower Cajetan first, then through Luther, and nowadays even stirred up by innovators, especially 627 Scaliger—‘and they sang of the old

frog in the mud

falsified

genuine

idle-tongued

the eagle of heaven

With Daedalean art, He relies on waxen wings, to give names To the glassy sea.

How worthy he is, in turn, for whom, as proven by this sign, that greater eagle—or rather, the mother of eagles, Paul, who speaks wisdom among the perfect, and those mysteries of his heard in the third heaven, which it is not lawful for a man, that is, one wise in earthly things, to speak—conceded this not to a mere man, but to a

Divine one

theorist

most holy and most theological

great and angelic

noble and genuine eagle-chick

For as to the fact that someone here might perhaps object, from c. 13 of the Celestial Hierarchy, that this author (though he confesses that it is not so much his own thought as that of others) denies that the angels of the supreme order are sent to these lower realms in such a way that he wishes this matter of the seraphim sent to Isaiah (60) to have been done in no other way than by substitution through lesser angels, who act in the role of the greater ones (for it is known that the school of theologians hardly approves of this, since not only Scripture protests, which says that all ministering spirits are sent for ministry for the sake of those who receive the inheritance of salvation, and moreover reports that Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael were sent, whom it can in no way be said are lesser angels; but also reason itself, which teaches that nothing is unworthy of angels, however great they may be, which the Creator and Lord of angels Himself, designated as an angel and apostle and one who is sent, Jesus the Son of God, has admitted—except that what can be said is that this is

an obscure saying

for the most part

cistations

^A sometimes utters to the prejudice of prophecy; yet there is nothing here similar to this, nor could any injury or diminution of the Pauline spirit have happened to it, from which those mysteries were drawn. And far be it from us, even more so, that in place of these things, which are so numerous and so glorious here, the weight of the Novators should be such among us that, for their sake—because of those things which they prattle and chatter so impudently against the faith of the Catholic Church, concerning free 628 will, original sin, the hierarchy of the Church, the primacy of Peter, faith and works, the sacrament of anointing, the Eucharist and the sacrifice of the Mass, the conversion of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, His adoration in the Eucharist, the monastic life, feasts, the fasts of Lent and others, the use of sacred images in temples, the invocation of angels and blessed spirits, and finally the veneration of relics; of all of which, just as the Arian was once consistent with his own cause, they see it so beautifully defended here—it should grieve them as much as it does, and that they should so dread these Areopagitica arms, ^B and thus keep silent, as they once did by mission and silence. Eusebius, in his own judgment and chattering, like a shrew mouse betraying those who disclose the mystery, first to Luther (who did not fear to call this author a delirious old man and a mere dreamer), then to Calvin, and most recently to Scaliger; because of these (I say), should we suffer this shield, which quenches the fiery darts of such men (truly worthy of fire), this more than Phocion’s axe, which hacks down and cuts away these unhappy trees, this lightning bolt which consumes and uproots them from their foundations, this sun which scatters these shadows and sends these beasts back to their dens and compels them, and finally this more than Hercules’ club, which so potently breaks and destroys this hydra and the heads of these renascent innovations, to be cast away by our hand or snatched from us? If I were to assent to this thing, or if it were to happen by force, I would not resist, nor would I only bring forward the authority ^C of the holy Fathers and scholastic doctors—and indeed of the councils, whose index Delrius has so beautifully and diligently composed—who flourished for so many centuries and cited these books under the name of the Areopagite, and who condemn such a thing, but I would also have the censure of the most diligent and perspicacious investigator and arbiter of all Greek wisdom of our century, and my fellow citizen and kinsman (not to be silent about this domestic prejudice), G. Budé, who so recognizes that the Ignatiuses, the Jeromes, and the Chrysostoms have sipped from this fountain of wisdom that he does not obscurely confess that they drew from it their sentences concerning the most abstruse matters, which one ought by right ascribe to St. Paul.

^A They have declaimed with the same obsession, if not more furiously. A recent writer in Batavia, Scaliger, although he wishes not to be called or considered a falsifier, yet dares to call our Dionysius a pseudepigraph. In the same books, Illyricus railed, Erasmus gnawed, Laurentius Valla carped, and countless others from the flock of the new boasters, who declared necessary war against piety, repudiated these monuments of Blessed Dionysius as well. ^B But for my part, I think no one hereafter will be so deranged, so perverse, or so prone to audacity as to seek to tear these books away from Dionysius the Areopagite, if only he applies his mind, empty of malice, to a single line of reasoning. For when the writer of these Commentaries glories in Paul and Hierotheus as his teachers, and says he was a spectator of the rising Church, and of it then first flourishing toward the East, if he is not Dionysius the Areopagite—whom the doctor of the Gentiles recalled from empty superstition, whom he willed to be an interpreter of religion, and bishop at Athens—surely the man must have been a monstrosity, glued together from the most diverse natures; on one hand, a holy, ingenious, moderate man, supreme in theology, who saw the mysteries arcane to other men, and opened the fountains of wisdom, and explained the wondrousness of celestial things in a magnificent style of speech, and in a way that is plainly divine; on the other hand, a plain, malicious cheat ^C who, masked as if lurking behind a curtain, deceived the minds of spectators, walked in another’s boots, and wanted to seek a laurel from a grape-must—I know not what—through a blind and vain imitation; and who, although he well knew the lie was placed outside of the divine choir, nevertheless rigged a tablet, woven with a most unworthy variety of lies and most foul stitching.

But here I would wish that Cassian saying to be heard: "To what good?" or what indeed could a man of such talent and learning hope for from that putrid 629 fraud? And Father Leonardus Lessius, a theologian of our society—whom not by any age, but by his most clear published works, the chorus of the learned has already acknowledged—explained that reasoning, as is his habit, with most elegant judgment. When I had consulted his wisdom on this matter as if he were a Pythian Apollo, he sent me a brief letter, which I will gladly share with my reader. It was written in these words:

"Reverend Father in Christ, the peace of Christ. I received your Reverence’s letter sent from Paris on the 14th of April on the 24th of the same month. I am surprised that, after Father Martin Delrio’s ^D Areopagitic Apologetics, there are still some who doubt about this work, whether it should be attributed to that author; for since the trifles of the adversaries have been dissolved, he puts forward so many testimonies of ancient authors (among whom are many supreme pontiffs and men illustrious for holiness), by which those writings are attributed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite, that I scarce think there is any ancient writing of the Fathers which can be vindicated for its author by more witnesses. To me, however, the matter seems so clear that, even if such testimonies were not available, I do not believe that he who has carefully weighed the condition of the work should be in doubt about the author. For by this one reason he will be easily convinced, by which I, too, ever since I read that author, have been convinced. If that work were not of the great Dionysius the Areopagite, who lived in the times of the apostles, but of someone later, like Dionysius the Alexandrian or the Corinthian, or someone who lived some centuries later in the times of Justinian II around the year of the Lord 690, as Scaliger wishes; its author would be a liar, a hypocrite, and an impostor. For he says [(see facsimile for original Greek)] that he had as his teacher and instructor in divine matters, together with Timothy, St. Paul, and then St. Hierotheus, as can be seen in the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, c. 2, part 1, and *On the Divine Names*, c. 3 and c. 7. He brings forward the objection of Elymas the magus as if he were an equal and contemporary,

^A *De divinis nominibus*, ch. 8. Also in ch. 3 he says he was present at the assembly of the apostles and brethren who had gathered to behold the body of the most blessed Virgin; that Peter and James were present there, and that Timothy was well aware of this fact. He says that Hierotheus, his teacher, excelled there after the apostles in praising the Divinity. He writes an epistle to Polycarp, another to Titus, and another to St. John the Evangelist during his exile on Patmos, and in it he narrates that his liberation and return to Asia had been revealed to him. He writes to Apollophanes, exhorting him to the faith of Christ, and reminds him of the eclipse which they witnessed together in Egypt at the time of the Lord’s passion; how they observed it, and what words they exchanged with one another. This author writes these things and others, all of which would be false and mere impostures if he were not the great Dionysius, a contemporary [σύγχρονος] of the apostles, but some other, later person. But it is utterly incredible that the author of that work would have wanted to lie so foully and to deceive men; for this does not befit a man of integrity and one conspicuous for wisdom. For it is agreed that the author of that work was of such wisdom and knowledge of divine things that, from the moment he appeared in the light, he has been an object of admiration to the highest theologians, and no one after the apostles is thought to be preferred or even equal to him. No one has written more sublimely or copiously about the divine nature and its perfections and operations; no one apart from him has described for us the orders of angels, the hierarchies, the hierarchical acts, and the entire disposition; no one interprets the sacred Scriptures and their arcane meanings more sublimely. He first handed down to us symbolic and mystical theology. Yet that work, *On Symbolic Theology*, has perished, and he provides only some specimens in different places, from which we can conjecture how admirable and sublime that work must have been. Another work entitled *Theological Outlines* [θεολογικαὶ ὑποτυπώσεις], which he himself mentions in various places, has also perished. No one has laid open more deeply or copiously the mysteries that are performed in the sacraments and their hidden significations. But then, there is such sound doctrine everywhere, in such sublime theory, concerning the greatest dogmas of the Christian religion—as for instance, the three hypostases or persons in the most simple divinity, their procession and distinction, the unity of essence, the undivided operation, the admirable union of the divine and human nature in the one hypostasis of the Word, the nature of evil, the efficacy of the sacraments, and the most august sacrament of the Eucharist—which, according to the opinion of his illustrious teacher (meaning Paul or Hierotheus), he calls [τελετῶν τελετήν], as if to say the perfection of all sacraments. As regards his elocution, one might call it angelic rather than human, so sublime is it; for the sublimity of his language equals the sublimity of his conceptions. Who after the apostles has ever spoken of divine things thus: "O Super-essential and Super-divine and Super-good Trinity," etc. "Every divine paternity and filiation is given from the super-essential Patriarchate and Filiation." "The Thearchic Spirit." "Toward the super-luminous Father." "Toward the super-essential beginning." "Having received into the eyes of the mind, in an impassable and unwavering manner, the original and super-essential illumination of the Thearchic Father, he was super-essentially deified." "Theandric operations." 630 And a thousand other things, not forced, and not laboriously sought out, but flowing spontaneously from the highest contemplation. I have read St. Augustine’s *On the Trinity*, and many of the opuscula of St. Gregory, surnamed the Theologian, and the most learned treatises of other Fathers, yet no one among them has seemed to me to equal Dionysius, either in the sublimity of his doctrine or in the majesty of his speech. For which cause he is admired not only by all the scholastic doctors (some of whom have also illustrated him with commentaries), but even by the Holy Fathers who have read him, such as St. John Damascene, St. Maximus, Michael Syngelus, and many others whom Delrio lists. From which it is clear [B] that the man was of most eminent wisdom and great sanctity, as one who spent his whole life everywhere in divine and angelic contemplations, and constantly exhorted Timothy to the assiduous theory of divine things, leaving behind all things that fall under the senses. Who would believe that such a great man would have wished to lie so rotely, and by such an absurd hypocrisy to perpetrate an imposture upon the world under some false guise of antiquity and apostolic custom? Such things do not fall to a man of integrity and sound mind, much less to one most wise and most holy. Finally, to what end would he have done all this, and feigned himself to be someone other than he truly was? Was it to ruin his own labors and the glory due them through wickedness and folly? For he could have gained for himself, by revealing his name and the truth, the greatest glory, one destined to last through all the world and all ages, and to be equaled or even preferred to the greatest doctors of the Church. He could have won for himself the admiration, love, and blessing of all theologians who were ever to be, and spurred the most illustrious minds to his imitation. To what end would he have wished, through lies and wicked deeds, through most unworthy and unheard-of hypocrisies and impostures, to deprive himself of so great a good and to wrap his own name in eternal darkness? This reasoning so convinces me that I can have no doubt about the author of this work, nor do I think anyone will who has read and weighed these matters diligently. I have read them often, and have accurately weighed them all; and so it pleased me to adopt this Dionysius as my patron thirty-six years ago, and to call upon him always in the sacrifice of the Mass, praying for his wisdom and spirit for myself. I have often grieved that he was not better translated, and that the meaning of his words was not expressed in many places, but others substituted, which could mislead the reader, as I could show by many examples. For this reason, I decided one day to translate him, and toward that end I noted down many things. But through other occupations, never enough leisure has been provided. I rejoice, and congratulate you, that you have undertaken this labor, and on that account all theologians, especially those who are not sufficiently skilled in the Greek language, will owe you much if you open to them an easy access to the reading and understanding of so great an author. Farewell, my Father, and remember me. Louvain, April 25, 1615. ^C R. V. Servant in Christ, LEONARDUS LESSIUS.

Powerful indeed, as I said, is this argumentation of a most learned man, nor are there wanting other reasons which could be set down by me here in the same course of speech, if it were established that the will of certain men could be led by reason. But they stick firmly to their opinion, and as if surrounded and fenced about in the citadel of a cause with many defenses, they cannot be led from their former, original opinion unless the towers and battlements are shaken, unless the objections are dissolved and refuted; being obstinate, like gladiators who have won many palms, they do not allow themselves to be moved from their ground. Let us go, therefore, and see what they object, and if not with the same success as the former, let us refute them with, at any rate, equal success. They first argue against and lacerate the style of our Dionysius, which they say is obscure and convoluted, and also inflated with turgid bombast, which they deny is fitting for that time in which the simplicity and moderation of the Christian religion shone forth, and least of all that it fits the man who is called the Areopagite. First, I would gladly ask those doctors whom they wish him to be, and what sort of Dionysius the Areopagite they have in mind. I hear what Laurentius Valla says, what Erasmus, what other certain men from the same sooty workshop say. For they wish him to have been either an Athenian citizen, one of the flock, who took the name of Areopagite from a certain place in the city, or at least a member of the number of judges, as if one

^A were to say that he was among the hundred men of the Romans. Those Catholics who have called Dionysius a philosopher are laughed at; hence Abraham Scultetus points to the solar defect, or eclipse, which Dionysius says he saw, as a fable. Therefore, they paint the man as almost an ignoramus, [Greek: πραγματικός], just like some gowned legal shyster or vulture of the forum, who knew only a few of Solon's laws, who had thumbed through the Axones, and was for the rest like the others. I would be lying if anything more insipid could have come from the mouth of a learned man. For that Dionysius, whom we have received as noble and distinguished at home, a man of, the first rank in the city, and in that seat of letters a man of wisdom, regarding whom the holy Fathers and historical monuments have left us so much for commemoration—could he alone have seen nothing, heard nothing, never come to the Academy or the Lyceum, never approached the Platonists or Stoics and the other sects of philosophers? Was it then in that gathering of all nations, which flowed into Athens as the emporium of all disciplines, especially at that time when, as is written in the sacred history of blessed Luke, both the Athenians and the strangers of other nations busied themselves with nothing else than to hear or tell something new, where they were all "peddlers of wisdom and eloquence," to use the words of Tertullian—in such a tide and heat of daily schools and most learned disputations, was our Dionysius alone leaden, alone [Greek: ἄμουσος], and devoid of all letters and his own country's instruction? Why then did he not sit at home like a lame cobbler; why rather was he present when St. Paul was disputing with the Stoics and Epicureans? Why did he listen to that "babbler" with such enthusiasm, and why, with a mature and exquisite judgment, did he first of all recognize the power of the divine religion? Away with you, Valla, and you, Erasmus, with your insolent disparagement of both languages. To us shall Dionysius the Areopagite be—as he has always been from the times of the apostles—a worthy alumnus of the Athenian Museum, a cultivator of Attic Minerva, adorned with the chorus of all doctrines, and wise. Whoever thinks otherwise is, not in my judgment, but in the judgment of all intelligent men, [Greek: ὄνος πρὸς λύραν], an ass before a lyre.

This man of such stature (I now approach more closely the objection that has been raised: concerning his style), this splendor of the Areopagus, with such gravity and authority, perfect in every branch of letters, of whom I may rightly say that Empedoclean verse: .... [Greek: σοφίας ἐπ' ἄκροισι θαμίζων], being divinely inspired, wished to commit to writing the fresh dogmas he had conceived with a great soul, as well as things truly divine and celestial, and to entrust them to the judgment of men. I deny that it could have been written concerning those matters better or more wisely than in the way that great Dionysius wrote—that is, obscurely and magnificently above the common measure. For who does not know that it was the custom of old among the wise that when they wished to pass on abstruse and arcane matters, exceeding the sense and intelligence of the unlearned multitude, they would deliberately obscure them with language and weave a veil of wisdom, or, as they themselves said, [Greek: τὰ τῶν λόγων προκαλύμματα]? Synesius, a man of most refined genius and an illustrious bishop, says this is [Greek: ἀρχαῖον καὶ λίαν Πλατωνικόν], "ancient and very Platonic," [Greek: κρύπτειν τὰ ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ σπουδαῖα], "to hide the serious matters of philosophy." He brings forward that common reason: so that what was skillfully devised by learned men might not perish, and yet might not be contaminated by the unlearned multitude as if by the profane. Maximus Tyrius brought forward another reason, namely, for the sake of inspiring reverence and majesty: "For the human soul, being bold, values less what is at its feet, but holds in admiring awe what is absent." For such is the imprudence of the human mind, that it thinks less of what is laid out and ready at hand, but vehemently admires what is abstruse. Thus, among the philosophers and poets, all things are full of enigmas. And indeed, the parent of the Lyceum, Aristotle, the philosopher of the older nations as it were, when he ^C assigned his Commentaries, he issued his popular sermons—those which they call [Greek: θυραίους λόγους]—in a golden style of oratory, instructed by the Graces and the Loves, so that they could easily be grasped and known by everyone; but his [Greek: μυστικούς], and those in which the rites are sacred, he obscured in such a way that, as I remember the wise Themistius writing, "even those who possess them might not be uninitiated." Those who did otherwise were judged not only to be men of foolish and futile speech, but even ungrateful toward philosophy and impious toward the mysteries. Clement of Alexandria, surely, in that variegated work of his, says that the wonderful Hipparchus the Pythagorean was accused because he had written the decrees of Pythagoras openly, and was expelled from the school, and for his sake a column was set up as if he were already dead. But the learned observe this very studiously, whenever there is to be a disputation about God, about religion, about arcane and heavenly mysteries. Demetrius Phalereus said truly: Greek: τὰ μυστήρια ἐν ἀλληγορίαις λέγεται πρὸς ἔκπληξιν καὶ φρίκην ὥσπερ ἐν ἀδύτῳ καὶ νυκτί. Mysteries, he says, are expressed in allegories for terror and horror, as if in a sanctuary and in the night. Therefore, we see most holy men, the mystagogues of the Catholic religion, and interpreters of piety, when they treat of those more august things which it is not useful for everyone to know, cast darkness over their discourse, and to use the word of St. Jerome, to be "oblique in speaking." Saint John, Abbot of Raithu, in his Scholia on the Climacus, at step 27 sensibly remarks: "The saint," he says, "did not narrate the contemplation clearly, because he did not wish to reveal such things to everyone." What then was that man to do, ^D who, coming forth to write at Athens—that is, from the very bosom of philosophy itself—concerning the arcane mysteries of sacred theology, was composing his discourse in the light of that city, where there were so many curious and malevolent men, so many who laid snares for doctrines, so many hunters after novelties, who, as if desiring to quench a long thirst, would most avidly catch up what was said and what was committed to writing? Shall we doubt what the counsel of the wisest Dionysius was in this matter, what his mind and intention were, and shall we not listen to what he himself has clearly signified? For before he undertakes to set forth the ecclesiastical hierarchy, he warns Timothy not to utter these divine things to the profane and make them public, but to keep them closed, and as if wrapped in an honorable veil, to hold them in price and veneration; that he himself covers them, being taught by theology, [Greek: οὕτω γὰρ ὡς ἡ θεολογία τοῖς θιασώταις ἡμῖν παραδέδωκε]. Let the new censors therefore cease from attacking this obscurity of the most solemn Dionysius as insolent, as unworthy of so great a man, and as not befitting those heroic and apostolic times. Rather, let them weigh with me what the master of the schools, St. Thomas, thinks about it, he who is the apex of theology, who resolved the knotty questions of difficult matters more easily than Alexander solved the Gordian knot. I will set down here his words, which to me are precious, weighed against gold and Erythraean gems, and which, reader, will not be displeasing to you: "It must be considered that blessed Dionysius uses an obscure style in all his books. Which indeed he does not out of inexperience, but out of industry, in order to hide sacred and divine dogmas from the mockery of the infidels. A difficulty also arises in the aforementioned books from many things. First, because he generally uses the style and mode of speaking which the Platonists used, which is unfamiliar to the moderns. A second difficulty arises in his sayings, because he generally uses effective arguments to demonstrate his point, and often implies them in a few words, or even in one. A third, because he often uses a certain multiplication of words, which, though they may seem superfluous, are nevertheless found to contain a great depth of meaning to those who consider them diligently." I have spoken of the obscurity; it follows now that we look at the magnificence of his style. For his discourse

^A they say is turgid, swelling with a foreign tumor, insolent, or—as Illyricus objects—Asiatic and too redundant to fit that age and style of writing. To this heretic from the camp of the Novatians, I could oppose a single man, Isaac Casaubon. Though he died in an unhappy and fearful state while attacking the truth, he was nevertheless not abandoned by his genius, nor was he lacking in the reading of many authors; he saw that our Dionysius was a certain divine and most ancient man, and he often professed this same thing not without a preface of honor. Praising his manner of writing in this way, and struck with wonder at the magnitude of the excellence shining forth from all sides, he declares: "He forges new words, and forms unusual, unheard-of, and marvelous compositions: what could be said simply in one word or two, he expands into many very sonorous and magnificent words, and as Maximus truly observes, διὰ πολυπληθίας λέξεων σκοτοῖ τὸν λόγον, he obscures his discourse with a host of gathered words." And in another place he says that many of the Fathers, but especially Dionysius the Areopagite above all others, wrote on the sacraments in a certain new and unusual manner of speaking, which does not seem to differ much from the tragic buskin or dithyrambic bombast. I believe that because of this, Illyricus would not dare to open his mouth. Although the rashness and vain ostentation of Illyricus have long since been curbed by Matthaeus Galenus, a man of outstanding erudition: for he teaches that in one and the same age, there could have been a variety of style among different writers; and everyone knows that Philo the Jew—whom they call the Attic—the most elegant of all, flourished in the same times, and was sometimes so carried away in his speaking that he is not far from the great Dionysius, whom Eusebius therefore most deservedly calls τῷ λόγῳ πλατέα, ταῖς διανοίαις ὑψηλὸν καὶ μετέωρον; the very thing which certain smatterers criticize is celebrated with exquisite praise by the most holy Fathers, who were once easily considered the princes of all Greece, since Gregory Nazianzen, a man most eloquent and well-versed in the understanding of the most serious matters, says that the writings of Dionysius were κάλλιστά τε καὶ ὑψηλότατα. That learned man explained these and other things most copiously. ^C But if we wish to approach closer, what is there that should seem a matter of great wonder, if our Dionysius, with that subtlety of genius which Athens—to use a word from the poet—had polished, and with that institution and doctrine which savored of that most famous home of letters, having used those teachers who had instilled into his soul a knowledge of heavenly things brought down from the third heaven, when religion and divine love most of all excite the inflammation of his soul—if, I say, Dionysius, the first-fruits of the wise Athenians, in that ardor of piety, bathed in liquid joy and pleasure, which he enjoyed by the influx of the divine mind, forsook the earth, exalted himself above himself, and accommodated his words to the affection dominating his soul, soared higher with a new and unusual manner of speaking than we who are spread upon the ground can look up to? If we were now to see the sacred hymns of Hierotheus, which long ago, rapt by a certain heat of genius and piety, he sang so admirably that those who were present could scarcely comprehend the secret meanings of his speech with their understanding; should we, I believe, reject and scorn them because those sublime and magnificent things did not fit that time, or because he had not used a trite and customary manner of speech? ^D Saint Ignatius, neither disputing in Athens nor weaving hymns, or surrounded by blessed light in the midst of the choirs of heavenly spirits, but writing letters, yet sometimes boils over with the impetuosity of his prayer; he has compositions of words that sound with grandeur, marvelous in their novelty, and showy in their structure, such that even the beginning of his letter to the Romans provides proof. For who, indeed, is so morose in approving, so stupid and impudent in judging, ^A qui apostolical times those epistles were written?

No one wonders when he sees Plato, Socrates, and others in the symposium, when they praise the probity of one adorned with the beautiful wrappings of love, being aroused in mind, rising in style, being inspired, raging, prophesying, ^B *being bacchic*: can we not bear it if this soul, melting with the fire of divine love, full of God, lifted up on the wings of love above all visible things, singing of the force, variety, and the wonderful and inexplicable contrivances of divine goodness, raises itself with a new and singular genre of speech? Let him who wishes to do so attribute this to the genius and purpose of the most excellent Dionysius, who, being by nature equipped not only for singular constancy and gravity of mind, but also for a magnificent and illustrious genre of speech, added a certain amount of ornament and magnificence to this explanation of mysteries, lest they be easily reached by profane men.

I truly feel that these things were written by him under the command and motion of the divine Numina. God, indeed, the creator of all things, who in that age performed certain rare and unusual things, held the mind and tongue of Dionysius as the pen of a scribe who writes rapidly: under His guidance and light, he traversed not only the whole organization of the Christian religion, but also the orders of the heavenly minds. That Spirit who granted to Dionysius that he might compose things unspoken and unheard of by others, also supplied the words and the wonderful context of speech by which he might explain those very things. Wherefore, just as when Gracchus was speaking long ago, a literate boy with an ivory pipe used to moderate the contention and tone of his voice, so the divine mind, like a skilled singing master, gave it to our most holy Dionysius to inflate his voice higher, and to exceed himself in mind along with the most divine Paul. Certainly the most clear and also most religious Billius, by whose industry and most fruitful labors we have so many exceptional Fathers from Greece explained and illuminated, used to say that this work of Dionysius the Areopagite, this style, is so ^C *theopneuston* and so divine that if as many in Europe as are imbued with the keenest genius and the more serious sciences should come together in one and meditate on something similar, they would scarcely, with all the contention of mind and strength, succeed in imitating such height and excellence. This discourse I heard from the mouth of such a man, D. Richard Stephanus, a doctor of theology, a man of supreme kindness, as he was relaying it to me recently in familiar conversation. Marsilius Ficinus was of the same opinion, the light of his age, of various and abundant doctrine, whose golden pronouncement I cannot but set down here in the same words, as an honorable emblem of our disputation. Thus, therefore, he has it: "The ancients, both theologians and Platonists, think that the ecstasy and excess of the divine mind of Dionysius and of separate minds is when, partly by native love and partly by the instigation of God, having crossed the natural limits of intelligence, they are wonderfully transformed into the God who is loved, where they revel as if drunk (if I may say so) with a new draft of nectar and inestimable joy. ^D Our Dionysius exults everywhere, drunk with this Dionysian wine; he pours forth enigmas, he sings dithyrambs. Therefore, as it is difficult to penetrate into the depths of his meanings, so it is difficult to imitate his marvelous compositions of words and his, as it were, Orphic character of speaking, and to express them especially in Latin words. The divine madness is certainly absolutely necessary for us to achieve this easily, etc."

Enough about the style: let us see what else is being objected against the monuments of our Dionysius. Behold Scaliger, indeed, attacking Dionysius with a hostile mind: he tries to prove these books are supposititious from the fact that they speak of monks, who never existed; for they were not, as Tertullian used to say, for a Christian "to be a dweller in the woods or an exile from life." That type of life was first instituted by Paul the hermit; he claims the writer was deceived by Eusebius, who

^A would have traced monasticism back to the time of the nascent Church. By the *therapeutae* of our Dionysius, those exiles from life are to be understood, he boasts that he was the first to discover them from the Council in Trullo. But this glorious Thraso, ^B full of empty conceit, insulting even more audaciously and seething in the Trullo, was refuted by men skilled not only in theology but in all literature, most elegant men such as Martin Delrio, the theologian from our Society, and then John a Sancto Francisco, Prior of the Feuillants at Paris, excelling in the knowledge of languages, in whom you might not know whether to admire his encyclopedic knowledge of the sciences or his virtues more. And it seems to me, indeed, that Scaliger mimics fearful or crazed strangers, who, whatever makes a noise, whatever thing finally happens to cross their ears and eyes, consider it an enemy, a specter, a misfortune. Thus he, since he pursued the whole race of monks and religious with a certain Vatinian hatred, suddenly shudders if any slight judgment of a religious person appears, 634 and thinks a woodland dweller, an exile from the monastic life, is present in a cowl. Saint Dionysius wrote, "To Gaius the *therapeutes*": Scaliger, as if he had run into a sylvan Faun, rages in a panic, and calls out "monk." Minuanius, if possible, brings fear to the man, and let us lead him from the woods and desert place into the city. For when Dionysius names a *therapeutes*, he does not understand one who wanders in some vast solitude, or one who purely and in every way imitates that manner of life which the flocks of pious men first celebrated in Palestine and Egypt, and soon after, widely to the east of the sun and to the west. These great and wonderful things are not accustomed to appear suddenly, accumulated with every perfection: grace also, and not only nature, clothes those things which endure with lighter beginnings. What indeed they were in those times, if one only reads and applies his mind, it is not laborious to learn from Dionysius himself as teacher. For he divides the whole assembly or body of the Christian people first into two parts, namely, sacred men and laymen. ^C In the former, the hierarchs are bishops, presbyters, and ministers. In these three orders are distinguished: in the first, catechumens, the possessed, penitents; in the second, the holy people; in the third, monks. From these ranks, the ecclesiastical hierarchy is joined and composed in a certain divine manner, and miraculously consents with itself; for the functions of sacred men are occupied in purifying, or illuminating, or perfecting, wherefore he calls the order of ministers the *cathartic*, or purifying, order; that of presbyters the *photistic*, or illuminating, order; that of bishops the *teletistic*, or perfecting, order. To which the three lower ranks respond. And he names the order of catechumens, the possessed, and penitents the *purified* rank, the holy people the *contemplative* or *illuminated*, and finally the monks the *perfected*. In this concert of parts, therefore, and in this harmony like that of song and strings, ^D he locates the monks in the number of laymen, but in such a way that they can be considered as certain *boundaries*, so that they neither lie in the humility of the people, nor again are raised to the order of the hierarchs, and thus they stand at the threshold of the sanctuary, superior to the whole remaining multitude, inferior to the ministers. It was their proper function to profess a certain greater holiness of life, to devote themselves somewhat more zealously to pious prayers, to withdraw from the tumult of empty things, to live in the midst of the assembly of Christians in such a way that it was established that they had consecrated their life to God more religiously than the common people. Nor are they called monks for the reason that, fleeing the light and human society, they buried themselves in caves and shady forests, but because they withdrew their mind and will, as much as possible, from all desire for perishable things, collected all the powers and faculties of the mind, and truly placed themselves [ενιαίους] in the providence of the one Divinity. He explains this elegantly and divinely, as he does everything, in the 6th chapter of the *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*: "They are called monks from the undivided and unified life, as it unites them in the sacred embracings of the distinct into a God-like unity and God-loving perfection." They themselves did not have any secluded place in which they celebrated their meetings, but they were present with the other divine ministers: and although they preceded the other laymen in the honor of their place and the rank of their life, they were nevertheless separated from the ministers by a veil and a door, to whom they gave way in dignity, as is explained by our author in the letter to Demophilus the *therapeutes*. And these things, in my opinion, can suffice for Scaliger, and for the men of the same sect, unless they be too iniquitous, as they are said far more amply and ornately in the French *Apologia* of Father John a Sancto Francisco. Now, to briefly inform Abraham Scultetus, in the course of my speech, about modesty—he who mangled the *Medulla Patrum* as if by flaying, and infected it with poisonous venom. Disputing about the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, he says: "Of the eleven epistles which are attributed to the same, it is not worth saying much, since they contain nothing worth noting, unless perhaps the fable about the eclipse of the Lord’s passion pleases someone, which Dionysius writes in the letter to Polycarp that he saw in Heliopolis in Egypt." The ancient Greeks say the sea is by nature *cathartic*, that it removes the stains of mind and body: but I do not think even the whole German Ocean could purge the temerity of this brazen man. For if he never took those letters into his hands, why does he repudiate and spurn them with blind judgment? If he read and perused them at some time, with what countenance, with what disdain of a proud mind does he say things which can be both refuted and convicted of importunate vanity by anyone who is endowed with eyes and reason? For to omit that Saint Dionysius is always like himself, and that from that divinely illumined sun, in both the greatest and the smallest matters, the rays of shining wisdom are scattered, and that everywhere sublime knowledge of things is reached by him; certainly epistles 6 and 7 deal with the transmitting and communicating of the mysteries of the faith, the most serious matter of all; they deal with the path and method to be held in disputing, where he refutes the manner of acting of the heretic with incredible grace of speech, and about bearing injuries with an equal mind. Moreover, he weaves a learned, true, and exquisite dispute about the course and nature of the sun at 635, proved both by the authority of Sacred Scripture and by the light of reason. Are these, therefore, in the judgment of any sane person, to seem vain, futile, and to be exploded? Epistle 8 excellently commends Christian meekness, teaches private confession, brings light to nocturnal prayers, explains the majesty of the ecclesiastical court, and advises that penitents consumed with grief be received into the bosom of the Church. Should not even these be worthy of that censorious brow? Epistle 11 illuminates very many places of the divine page, placed in great obscurity, and explains the power and authority of *Traditions*. These, to be sure, are trifles to a heretical man. Epistle 10 exalts to the heavens with the highest praises the happiness of the soul, enduring harsh and bitter things for the cause of God. But now my speech, departing from the brambles and thorns of disputes, longs to fly more freely into the pleasant green fields and little gardens of the most holy Fathers, covered with the variety of all kinds of flowers, from whose sayings, as if with roses and lilies, I may weave garlands for our Dionysius, great, renowned, a victor, truly an Areopagite, truly a Gaul, most gloriously triumphing over the envy of men and over the antiquity of all centuries. Nor shall I go far: for behold, with full baskets, the Rev. Father Petrus Colonus of our Society, a most eloquent man and most thoroughly instructed in the knowledge of the great arts, who adorned and defended our Dionysius with testimonies sought out with the utmost industry from all antiquity. It would truly be a sin to omit his grave and learned dissertation here, since

^A so many symbols have been gathered by me from elsewhere for the preparation of this feast. I shall therefore set it forth like honey and sugar and the final sweetmeats, in which your mind, reader, may find rest; and I shall represent it in the same number of words, just as one of our order has done, who equaled French elegance with the sweetness of the Roman style. Thus, therefore, he writes in the first book of the Catholic Institution.

But the authority of Dionysius the Areopagite alone, who divinely wove together the book on the Celestial Hierarchy, and who was the light of mystical theology and an eminent doctor of the Christian Church, will suffice, provided it be established that that Dionysius who writes of the Celestial Hierarchy is the true and genuine Areopagite, the disciple of Paul, of whom mention is made in the Acts of the Apostles. I desire to append here the proofs of this matter, drawn from the flower of the most wise men who have flourished in every century from the birth of the Savior of the world down to this age.

In the 1st century, St. Luke describes for us his name, condition, and conversion to the Christian faith. In the 2nd, Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, says he was the prelate of Athens. In the 3rd, Dionysius of Alexandria, a pupil of Origen, wrote luminous Commentaries on his works, as the most learned Maximus has handed down. In the 4th, the divine Gregory Nazianzen mentions an ancient writer who disputed with a certain preeminent wisdom about the Seraphim who cover the tabernacle and chant the *trisagion* with great ardor of soul, although it is certain that the great Dionysius composed the book *On Divine Hymns*, of which he makes mention near the end of the seventh chapter of the *Celestial Hierarchy*. In the same century, St. John Chrysostom elegantly names him the "bird of heaven," as is read in the Epistle of Anastasius the Librarian to Charles the Bald. In the 5th, if we give credence to Liberatus the African, who flourished in the year 520, St. Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, praises him while dealing with Theodore and Diodorus, the ringleaders of the Nestorians, which he also did in his book *On the Incarnation*. ^B In the 6th century, Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch, called the Sinaite, a man of exquisite erudition and a model of sanctity (as Evagrius is witness), in a certain excellent Commentary which he entitled *Anagogical Contemplations on the Hexaemeron*, designates him as the most celebrated mystagogue of divine things, the apostolic Dionysius. St. Gregory the Great calls him an ancient and venerable Father, and uses his authority to prove that the guardian angels are of the lowest order of the last hierarchy. In the 7th century, that is, about the year of our Lord 640, flourished Maximus, truly greatest in his excellent knowledge of the arts, and of singular authority with the Emperor Heraclius; he willingly withdrew from the company and palace of the emperor because he saw in him the plague of the Monothelites spreading, and he betook himself to religious cloisters, where, enjoying peaceful rest and tranquility of soul, he published and completed many books, among which are the *Scholia* on the works of Dionysius the Areopagite: eventually, his tongue was torn out by the faction and impious malice of heretics, and the illustrious martyr flew from the filth and squalor of his imprisonment to the usufruct of eternal bliss. In the same century, Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, flourished, who, writing to Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, used the authority of Dionysius to refute the errors of the Monothelites, whose letters are inserted in the eleventh action of the Sixth Synod, and he calls that Dionysius ^C captivated by the divine Paul from the Areopagus, and dedicated to God. Macarius, Archbishop of Antioch, was of the same authority, and, steeped in the same heresy—as is evident from the end of the second Action—refused to distinguish and explain, even though the Emperor urgently pressed him, how he understood the operation of the man of God, which Dionysius in his Epistle to Gaius had called *theandric*. In the 8th, St. John Damascene, the light and glory of those theologians who have the name of Scholastics from their outstanding erudition, often praises his works, and almost never without the honor of a preface and merited praise, for he names him "the divine Areopagite, the most holy and eloquent Dionysius"; and in his treatise *On those who have fallen asleep in the faith*, he calls him "Dionysius, abundant in and profound in divine things." The Second General Council held at Nicaea, in the year 727, under Pope Hadrian, cites the same, and calls him "the great Dionysius." The same Supreme Pontiff, writing to Charlemagne, calls him the Areopagite, Bishop of Athens, and ^D says he was called by the most holy Gregory "an ancient Father and doctor," and that his works had been approved by the sacred councils and his predecessors, and that from them his ready and prompt sentiments had been praised, and especially from the epistle which he writes to St. John for the protection of the cult and religion of images.

But the books of such a man were sent to Gaul around the 9th century by the Emperor Michael of Constantinople, who gave them as a magnificent royal gift to Louis, Emperor of the West, surnamed the Pious, when he had learned with what observance and religion he followed the great Dionysius, and that he seemed to have it almost as his own and ancestral heritage, since his grandfather and forefather, the Emperors Charlemagne and Pippin, had honored him: Louis the Pious received them with the greatest joy and immediately sent them for Hilduin, the abbot of the monastery of St. Dionysius in France. Michael Syngelus, who lived then, celebrated the event with a panegyric, and Methodius composed Acts in his honor in the Greek tongue, which are found to this day. Joannes Erigena Scotus, learned in both Greek and Latin letters, was the first to translate those books into Latin shortly thereafter, by the command of Charles the Bald, who had succeeded to the empire and his father's piety, in the year 860 or thereabouts. Anastasius, who in the same age was the librarian of the holy apostolic see, wrote letters to the same emperor, of which the beginning is: "Among other studies," where it appears how much study and industry that great moderator of Gaul and the whole West put into reading and understanding the writings of the blessed Dionysius. In the 10th century, Simeon Metaphrastes, whose authority is cited in the Ecumenical Council of Florence, sess. vii, committed the Life of St. Dionysius to writing, and acknowledged the books which are in our hands as true and genuine. Suidas, who wrote in the same century, records similar things concerning his life and character, nor does he dissent in the listing of his books. In the 11th, there was Euthymius, surnamed Zigabenus, the most famous among the learned of his age in Greece, who in his *Panoply* often praises the sentiments and choice flowers culled from our Dionysius. This is also done much more frequently in the 12th century by Hugh of St. Victor, who flourished under Louis the Younger, commonly called a second Augustine.

^A His doctrine, brighter than purple, was defended as true and legitimate by these same writings. Marsilio Ficino translated the book *On the Divine Names* into Latin, as well as the work he wrote *On Mystical Theology*, and illuminated the whole matter with commentaries. At about the same time, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, whose magnitude and excellence of intellect astonished the whole world, extolled him to the heavens with his praises, especially in the book which he most learnedly brought to light, *On the One and the Being*.

Indeed, the most learned Budé left behind a manuscript, diligently amended by his own cares and vigils, and illuminated with notes, which were later published in Paris (71). Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples illustrated these same books with perpetual annotations; Joachim Périon translated them into Latin. Most excellent and illustrious men, Genebrard, Baronius, Bellarmine, and others, have learnedly refuted the objections of those who had called into question both the author and his writings.

637 DEFENSE OF THE AREOPAGITE

AGAINST THE HERETICAL CALVINIST, MINISTER OF CHARENTON

Or: The weakness of the twofold argument proposed by him against the books of St. Dionysius the Areopagite demonstrated.

Written first in French by the most illustrious and noble man, John, Lord of Chaumont, Councilor in the sacred and secret councils of the most Christian King, and Prefect of the inner royal library, and subsequently rendered into Latin by the efforts of a certain friend.

DEDICATORY EPISTLE

To the most illustrious and most reverend Lord, Philip Conspeanus, of the secret and more sacred councils of the most Christian King, and the most worthy Bishop of Lisieux, concerning the twofold argument used by the heretical minister of Charenton against the books of St. Dionysius the Areopagite.

It has long been my duty (most reverend prelate and most illustrious lord) to obey you, by committing to writing those things which, while enjoying the honor of your conversation, I was permitted to speak of and debate in your presence; and I should have feared much less that my hurried and unpolished writing—hastened by the urgency of obedience—would displease you, than I should fear the refusal of one who does not obey. You understand, furthermore, that by this preface I signify the works attributed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite, regarding which it is quite superfluous to ask which of many [men named] Dionysius ought to be vindicated as their author; since the whole weight of the question itself lies in this: whether or not they ought to be referred to that one, whether they are [the works] of Dionysius the Areopagite, or rather of some outstanding peddler and sycophant who—though Suidas pronounces them [the works] to be of such divine nature that they were issued by some incorruptible and divine power rather than by human genius—rejects the false and mendacious honors that the saints spurn, [but is instead] a man who mimics as the peer of the apostles; who invents and trifles with letters he wrote himself to apostolic men; who holds forth one, among others, delivered to the evangelist St. John, and in it indeed predicts—with a poetical delirium and fiction—things that he already knew had happened; who glories in having been a pagan long ago and entangled in the errors of the pagans, and having seen that portentous eclipse which occurred during the saving passion of the divine Redeemer of men; and who, finally, impudently chatters about many things concerning events of the apostolic age, as if they had happened in his own time. Indeed, it matters nothing to us that they are the works of the Areopagite, for us to prove them [to be his], when the very inscription of the books sufficiently reveals and proves the author; whose names are known everywhere, not from elsewhere than from such prefixed inscriptions, or are rendered certain and proved to those who read them; but [it matters] that they are those of some impudent peddler and sycophant—which surely no one will ever imagine him to be, if he has read him carefully, and has not prevailed upon himself with a superficial and cursory critical curiosity, merely for the sake of hunting for the knowledge of antiquity. It is necessary for us to prove this, [to show that] they are written [in such a way that] one will consider them not the offspring of human nature, but of some pure and divine power.

^A And, indeed, unless those objections, whatever they may be, should overthrow the certain firmness of the aforementioned inscription [to us], our saint will surely always persist in that lot of praise and glory which so many centuries in succession, so many most learned pontiffs from antiquity itself, and so many ecclesiastical councils and nations and peoples by unanimous consent have bestowed upon him. From these, even now, so many and such grave men, having repeatedly prostrated their knees before the works of this celestial man, almost worshipfully revere the depth of meaning lying hidden within them, and the majesty of expression equal to the meanings. I say, then, he will deservedly persist in that lot of praise and glory, while those, meanwhile, who have attempted with vain effort—spitting into heaven, as the saying goes—to snatch away or cast off this very badge of honor from him, justifiably suffused with the shame of such sacrilegious thievery, ought to carry away nothing but disgrace and dishonor from that daring act of theirs; if, indeed, the despoiling of the dead has always been considered a species of sacrilege, and in reality must most justly be considered such, and that much more justly in the measure that a saint, a martyr, and so sacred and divine a man is violated. But now, since so just and so opportune an occasion offers itself for refuting those [objections] which a certain minister at Charenton has recently spouted and blathered regarding this very matter, carping without a doubt at things he has not even read through himself, and by that very act pulling apart works of such incomparable excellence—works that no one who has openly inspected them would carp at, such that in them, above all else, an unfeigned sincerity, which cannot be counterfeited by any forger, is clearly seen to shine forth—the matter itself demands that this argument, which pertains to religion, be dedicated to one from among those more divine ministers of genuine, not adulterated, religion, and bishops who are leaders of souls. Among whom you have for so many years now shone forth so insignificantly, as one who, with genius and experience vying to contribute to your ultimate perfection, has combined everything that is accustomed to contribute to the absolute formation of the greatest men: unusual erudition, equal eloquence, and a judgment spectacular, as it were, with divine [wisdom], along with a remarkable sanctity of life. I feel that it can be dedicated to no one more justly than to you, under whose very auspices, command, and nod it was conceived. Receive, therefore, most illustrious prelate, and defend that which I myself profess to be yours.

DEFENSE OF THE AREOPAGITE. CHAPTER ONE

^B Hitherto, all other arguments by which the heretic, evading the ancient faith, endeavors to abrogate the books long since ascribed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite, and to proscribe them as adulterous offspring, or spurious works, and illegitimately attributed to him, have been abundantly answered. Only two remain which, not yet having been skimmed or discussed, must now be cleared up and dissolved: the one, indeed, is extraneous and sought from the outside, and consistent only with what they call a negative proof; inasmuch as the silence of authors concerning these very works, or their open profession that they are unheard of and unknown to them, can provide no other argument than that which is customarily called "negative" in the schools, and which is therefore usually considered weak for creating faith in the truth and proving what is sought. The other is, in a way, inherent, or affixed, or rooted and drawn from the very fold and bosom and vitals of the book itself. And indeed, that extraneous one which the heretic fetches and calls from the outside is concluded in these very words, written on page 48 of the book composed by him in French: "In that," he says, "collation which was once held between the Catholics and the Severian heretics, when the idea had occurred to the Severians to produce the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, Hypatius, Bishop of Ephesus, who played the role of the Catholic disputant, resisted and accused them of being a forgery." Furthermore, Liberatus testifies that when the Acephali had objected to other books bearing the name of St. Cyril (in which testimonies sought from the writings of St. Dionysius the Areopagite were contained—the heretic should have said that this was done in the same collation), the Catholics also rejected those books as forged and supposititious because of these very testimonies (he should have added: because of certain others as well). So much for him. But truly, one and the same collation—as Liberatus himself also says—speaks of the books brought into contention and controversy. Namely, of the three written against the bishop Diodorus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, and perhaps also of that other one, which the same saint is reported to have written on the Incarnation. You might say, however, as that heretic wrongly suggests, and as if the arguments were like ^C twins, that there were two such collations: the one held between the Catholics and the Severians, in which Hypatius accused the writings of Blessed Dionysius the Areopagite brought forth by the heretics of being false; the other, held against the Acephali, in which, with Hypatius the Bishop of Ephesus having been passed over, he says that certain books were rejected by the Catholics, which were attributed to St. Cyril, and were indeed rejected for this reason, that they contained certain testimonies drawn from the writings of St. Dionysius the Areopagite. But in reality, these same Severian heretics are the Acephali, and that collation which was held at Constantinople in the year of our Lord 532, by the study of Emperor Justinian—which can never be sufficiently praised—is the very same one which the heretic reports and reviews from the Breviary of Liberatus the African; namely, [the one] convened concerning the heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches, which Liberatus touches upon in the tenth chapter, as he himself testifies in chapter nine. And in that [collation], certainly, the Catholics rejected or rather held as suspect those very books written against Diodorus and Theodore, of which Liberatus speaks there, which the heretics brought forth under the name of St. Cyril. Yet it was not on account of any false inscription that this was done by those same Catholics against the work of the Blessed Dionysius the Areopagite; but for this one reason and moment only, that St. Cyril could not at that time have produced the testimonies contained therein, neither those of Blessed Dionysius himself nor of certain others, and yet afterward nevertheless omitted the same against Nestorius, who was still alive: to such an extent that this doubt of theirs recoils rather upon St. Cyril, whose omission the Catholics carp at and note, than upon that which the heretics brought forth ascribed to St. Dionysius, and which the Catholics themselves did not reject, except only by this one conjecture, that Cyril had not used such testimonies afterward; although, meanwhile, they testified that the works of St. Dionysius were unknown to him.

Here, indeed, the heretic exhibits himself as such an accurate interpreter of terms, as they say, or of words, while elsewhere he calls the three chapters of the Council of Chalcedon the three capital parts of that council; which were, however, anything but parts of the council, and much less were they capital [chapters], nor did they contain any definition of faith; but they were merely articles (for so the chapters ought to be interpreted) regarding a mere and absolute ecclesiastical

policy, namely, regarding Bishop Ibas of Edessa and the great Theodoret being restored to the dignity of their episcopacy and the possession of their sees. In this matter, the concern was not for religion and faith, but merely for the persons involved. For both were restored only after each had unanimously anathematized Nestorius. Now, as regards the third point, namely, the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, nothing at all was done there, as Facundus himself admits in books III and X, and much less was anything defined. Rather, this matter ought to be referred to the fifth council, where their doctrine was sifted and weighed; just as in that same place the writings of Theodoret against St. Cyril were also discussed, and the letter of Ibas against Maris the Persian was ventilated in the same examination; and these were the three chapters of accusation. One of them tended toward the vindication of Origen's writings—which was the primary scope and design of Theodore, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia—and subsequently, through those three chapters together, to dismantle the authority of the Council of Chalcedon, as if by oblique windings and tunnels, though such attempts were made in vain. And it was indeed in vain; for the council could have restored those two men to the possession of their sees and yet tolerated the letter which dealt with Theodore of Mopsuestia, since it only took into account the persons involved without any *discussion* of what they had written, such as occurred in the later council, so much so that it could be said that the council acted rightly in both respects from different points of view. For that first council could have cleared both those bishops of the accusation brought against them, however much they had hitherto professed the Nestorian heresy or had even signed it with their own writings, provided that subsequently, as both of them did, they condemned it with an anathema. But this does not pertain to the very foundation and state of the case, just as it does not pertain to the fact that Hypatius is claimed by that heretic, in his objection, to have alleged the writings of St. Dionysius the Areopagite to be forgeries. For no allegation of forgery, and that too one which is neither firm nor fully and completely formulated, was attempted there against anything except one letter or two testimonies which were said to be contained in the writings of St. Dionysius; not against the works themselves, which were neither at hand for them, nor perhaps had they come to the notice of those who had produced those testimonies: and then, ^B against certain writings attributed to St. Cyril, whose authority had been used at that time to establish the truth of such testimonies. And Facundus certainly did not dare to reject or deny those books, although his friendly propensity toward Bishop Theodore of Mopsuestia seemed to urge him to do so much more than he wished.

It may seem quite likely that only one letter of St. Dionysius (which I myself, because of the term *theandrikēn*, judge to be the fourth) existed among the Severians or Acephali at that time. If it had been truly corrupted at that time, as the Monothelites later agreed it had been, it would surely have caused the Catholics some difficulty and trouble because of the word *kainēn* [new], along with the expression *mian* [one]. They subsequently attached that letter to some other letters, from which the Catholics rejected some as being spurious and supposititious; being content for the moment to pronounce only this concerning that which is contained in the same collation: "Those testimonies which you declare to be Dionysius', from where can you show them to be true, as you suspect?" Indeed, the fact that they say "you suspect" would be more aptly said of the collection of certain testimonies than of the entire book or work; which the heretics, according to the ingrained heresy and its native arrogance, cited in the plural, when in fact there was only one other besides it.

^C But since the heretics had only the letters, or testimonies and fragments taken from the letters, in their hands, and these were deemed false by the Catholics for the reason that neither St. Cyril himself elsewhere, nor St. Athanasius (whom they call the ancients), had used them; since, I say, only testimonies of this kind were at hand for them, with which they were compelled to summon the authority of St. Cyril himself, who used them there, for some moment of faith; it seemed to the Catholics, with whom that which was boasted of from the books attributed to St. Cyril to win faith for those testimonies was of no moment at all, that they should reject them entirely, because St. Cyril himself is not found to have used them, neither in his letters, nor in his articles or twelve anathemas, nor in the Council of Ephesus, where those very testimonies against Nestorius, still breathing and alive, could have been so necessary and useful to him. This at least seemed to be the answer, that they had been added and stitched on by the heretics to those books which were attributed to St. Cyril. Moreover, when the heretics later promised that they would produce them as taken from the very archives and monuments of St. Cyril's patriarchate, it seemed to the Catholics, in turn, that this was to be repudiated, unless it were clear that those monuments had existed before some certain and prefixed time, or had been verified and discovered as certain in the very times of Proterius and Timothy, surnamed Salofaciolus. And when the time came to weigh the testimonies one by one, and especially those of St. Dionysius, and to inquire into the truth of that letter, those words (which had been premised earlier) are no longer used. "So false are the letters or testimonies, that not even St. Cyril wished to recall them." ^D Seeing that in them the doubt of falsity refers to the omission of St. Cyril, noted in those very places where he was so much in need of these letters and testimonies: but these things are merely connected, from which you are now able to show that they are his—I do not know: and indeed after the other things that have already been premised; namely, that St. Athanasius, if he had known them to be his, would have spoken with such firmness as is boasted? Or to deny entirely that St. Athanasius had seen those works? Or can anything else be gathered from this, than that such works did not exist in the hands of either of those who were debating this matter? And therefore, that the Catholics could not agree on one or another testimony produced against them themselves, unless a greater and more certain firmness had come to them than from the contentious and controversial writings of St. Cyril. This, indeed, in that very prolix collation, in which the narrator himself testifies that so many things and so many diverse things were acted out and such various points were examined, that he cannot report them all, they could have recognized sufficiently. Just as they themselves also signify that they had read some of the other testimonies there, and indeed had perceived them all; when they say earlier that those things would have been useful to St. Cyril against Nestorius if they had been used by him at that time. What, therefore, can finally be gathered from all these things, by which that general and very ancient persuasion, which asserts these books to be the blessed Dionysius', might be dismantled? Perhaps by that aforementioned refusal of the Catholics, by which they refuse and decline to accept them? For indeed, as...

in that conference their validity was treated, concerning which the conference could establish nothing certain, since it held no infallible and ratified authority, especially in a question of fact; but only certain texts from the books ascribed to the blessed Cyril were examined there, when 641 the whole work could not be examined and weighed; so far is it from being true that a false claim was made. And indeed, what was weighed in that very conference was nothing other than the truth of the books which were reported to have been written against Diodorus and Theodore, so that their author might be identified; whom Liberatus, speaking from his own judgment and genius, did not deny to have been the blessed Cyril, as neither did Facundus, Bishop of Hermiana, however much he might have wished that he could. Nay, he asserts this very thing to have been spread by public rumor, which is not accustomed to claim for itself the least moment and weight among the foundations of human reason. And yet, if it were bandied about merely by a thin rumor, he himself, whom it was very difficult to persuade that the authority of St. Cyril had stood against books which he held to be orthodox, would scarcely have wished to take account of it; unless it must also be said that what he says, "as rumors report," ought to be referred not at all to the writings themselves, but only to the occasion of writing, and to those words alone which he adds in the same place, when he says: "By which Cyril was moved." Budé, that most learned man, certainly left it recorded and attested in his own autograph or manuscript, that Liberatus assigns the authorship of those books to St. Cyril; and the most learned Sirmond likewise asserts this same thing of the third book of Facundus in these words: "Cyril had written, as Liberatus testifies in chapter 10, three books against Diodorus and Theodore as the authors of the Nestorian heresy." Meanwhile he reports that the Catholics believed that they had not been published or edited by St. Cyril; since, they argued, it seemed little consistent that he should have used arguments against deceased men which he had nevertheless omitted against the still-living Nestorius, even if that reasoning does not sufficiently press or convince. For Liberatus narrates that the occasion for them to be written arose after Nestorius was condemned, and the conference itself asserts that the Catholics subsequently betook themselves to saying that they had been depraved, with testimonies thrust into it concerning which there is discussion, and which especially had been culled from the works of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, unknown without doubt to all of them because of the arguments discussed by Maximus.

Those books were, of course, lurking in the shadows, even from the general use of the Church, by which mysteries were wont to be concealed here and there, and by the proper intent of the most holy author, who had not wished himself to be revealed: and by the subtle cunning of the Platonists, who claimed their thoughts for themselves, as if conceived by their own genius. And just as those rivers which, having been absorbed into the lowest caverns and channels of the earth, after a long run of more hidden efflux and a traversed tract, suddenly burst forth into the open: so this excellent and surpassing work, after having lurked for a sufficiently long interval—as far as our knowledge can reach—in the East, finally shone forth a little after that conference, as is discovered from Anastasius Sinaita in his *Guide* (or *Via-dux*) against 75 the Acephali, and it began to diffuse its splendor openly, which it did not proceed to illuminate the West until the end of the sixth century. Nay, not even the whole of it seemed to shine forth at first sight, but only some parts of it, as it were ^A flashing forth or testimonials being propagated: to such an extent that holy Pope Gregory, commemorating a certain assertion taken from there, speaks as if merely from rumor: "It is reported that Dionysius the Areopagite, an ancient and venerable Father, said." However, in the first centuries of the Church some knowledge of him had already shone forth, as can be gathered from Maximus, who considers no one other than Dionysius the Areopagite to have been illuminated by the scholia of Dionysius of Alexandria, when he says this: "The great Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, that orator, in his Commentaries which he made on the B. Dionysius of the same name as himself (74)." And indeed, because he was an orator by profession, as Anastasius Sinaita also reports in the cited place, where he also thinks St. Dionysius the Areopagite to be the one whom Dionysius of Alexandria illustrated with Commentaries, since he calls him Apostolic (75), he held for that very reason more weight and importance among Maximus and others because of these very words, by which he judged his explanation and authority to be marked. Which necessity indeed was very profitable to us, so that we should owe thanks for such a clear and excellent confirmation of truth, edited by such and so great a man, who merited the grace of martyrdom by his own extraordinary holiness. Indeed, as for that other [work] which is pretended to have preceded this one, and is discerned by some from a certain homily of Origen on diverse matters, namely the second on John, far be it that it should be brought forward and used by me: although both the beginning itself and the passage which is subsequently produced do indeed savor of that great genius, of whom it has been pronounced: "Where he is good, no one has done better." Viderique ^B merit could those who are unlearned and heretical seem to have, that the trifles which are found there were stitched together by them, while they are all indeed striving to reconcile the authority of so great a writer to their own delusions, and hence prefer to abrogate the authority of the work by which they most desire to be fortified; as he himself complained again and again in his own letters. Nevertheless, someone might perhaps think it has been defined by Maximus that, in so many of Origen's works, numbered up to six thousand volumes, no mention of these works of the Areopagite is made, and that only four of those ecclesiastical writers are commemorated there; and he might think that the opinion ^C is sufficiently probable, having regard for the writers who wrote so few things before; and he might appear to himself to glean this very thing from that place in the Prologue. Where, commemorating the ecclesiastical writers enumerated by Eusebius, and touching upon the objection conceived in these words against the books of Dionysius, "But neither did Eusebius, nor even Origen, consign his books to writings," he teaches how one must respond to this objection: that Eusebius omitted very many things which had not come into his hands. For he says that he did not collect absolutely all things, indeed he rather confesses that the books which did not come to him are superior in number. "And indeed I could mention many whom he did not have, and indeed of his own region, such as Hymenaeus and Narcissus, who were priests at Jerusalem. I indeed happened upon some books of Hymenaeus. Nor did he describe the works of Pantaenus, nor those of Clement of Rome, except for two letters only, but neither did he [describe the works] of very many others; for Origen, I do not know if he mentions everyone, but he barely mentions four; but a certain Roman deacon, by the name of Peter, informed me that all the works of the divine Dionysius are kept in Rome in the library of the sacred writers (76)." Indeed, these things may seem not to cohere sufficiently among themselves, ^D [yet] he adds the same words which Maximus was writing just before, without changing even a syllable.

"he had not come to him: and I could have mentioned many [that] he did not possess, and these [were] of his own country, as Hymenaeus and Narcissus, who performed their priestly duties in Jerusalem. I, at least, met some of the followers of Hymenaeus; and truly he neither recorded the labors of Pantaenus, nor those of the Roman Clement, except for two letters only; but neither of many others; for Origen, I do not know if of all, [at least] with difficulty remembered four. But a certain Roman deacon, Peter by name, related to me that all the works of Dionysius were preserved, laid up in the library of the holy [books] at Rome." (77) It is, however, clear from the whole context of the writers, what Maximus would wish to say: that Origen scarcely remembered four of the works or books of S. Dionysius, since he is not presumed to have remembered any at all. Nor does that [phrase] "I do not know if of all" urge [against this]; for he does not say that he does not know that others preceded him, but [he questions] whether Origen—in such many 8 books—remembered them.

^A In article nine, he subscribes to him with these words: "If anyone does not accept the writings of the holy Cyril, and especially those which are against Theodore and Theodoret, and Andrew and Nestorius, let him be anathema (77*)," as is contained in the session or act 13 of the sixth synod. Nor is it credible that the deacon Basil, who was carrying the volume of Theodore's books around various places, brought it to him, and that John, patriarch of Antioch, wrote letters to him on that matter, just as Liberatus testifies concerning both, and that he himself did not object any writing or response to such a pernicious work, from which he could see the wicked dogma of his adversary Nestorius being propagated; and in that matter of such importance he was so erudite in dealing with what occurred there to be discussed. ^B Indeed, what urges this even more strongly, in the act or collation 4 of the fifth synod, certain words of Theodore are referred to, which the holy Cyril certainly refuted. And what again is a much more valid and weighty argument than the denial of Hypatius himself, is that fragments of the first and second books written by the blessed Cyril against Theodore are inserted into that same action or fifth collation, and are approved by the consensus of the synod as his genuine works; which indeed the most learned R. P. Sirmondus, auditor of the sacred confessions of the most Christian king, recognizes and testifies in his eleventh book of the bishop Hermian in these words. Nor do we see in these even any distinction of style, or anything else observed by the Catholics, which could provide them a reason for detracting them from the blessed Cyril, except for the aforementioned conjecture, ^C that he had not used the testimonies and epistles of Dionysius the Areopagite and other writers, from which he would have used those same things, as was reported, in those books against Diodorus, bishop of Tarsus, and Theodore of Mopsuestia. And for my part, I cannot grasp for what purpose and end those books could have been attributed to the holy Cyril; since there would have been no need to persuade anyone that Nestorianism was condemned by him; or that their true author would have wished to defraud himself of the glory of that writing. But indeed, what is easily grasped is that the author from whom they were written must have been at least a Catholic, and, as is asserted in that collation, they came forth from the archives and monuments of the Alexandrian patriarchate. From the reading of which collation, truly, as also from all those things which Liberatus reveals concerning the works, it can be sufficiently clearly established that a disquisition made concerning them declines into their favor and grace; and their truth shines forth from that source from which they are thought to be convicted of falsity. Now, indeed, what [of the argument] against that homily by which holy Chrysostom bids farewell to his Church, and which Cardinal Anastasius, prefect of the Apostolic Library, sent to Charles the Bald, who valued these books very highly, and followed the examples of his ancestors in this matter, Louis the Pious, Charlemagne, and Pepin, to whom Pope Paul had sent them, in a letter replying among others ^D that he did not see the works himself. But neither does it urge that he adds: "But a certain deacon, etc." For he does not admit this in the precise words which immediately precede, but to the entire upper context, so that he may signify that, although neither Eusebius nor Origen commemorate these writings, they exist nevertheless. Finally, it does not urge that he was not to be admonished that those things which were at hand existed; nor does he say he was admonished so that he would know that they existed, but so that he would know [they were] being preserved as a monument of antiquity, and under the name of him to whom he himself felt they should be attributed, and so that he might oppose the very careful preservation in the library of the holy [books] (or perhaps the pontifical ones, for this also is what ἱερῶν means) to the omission of Eusebius and Origen, which he objects to himself.

(77*) "If anyone receives the writings of the holy Cyril, and especially those against Theodore, and Theodoret, and Andrew, and Nestorius, let him be anathema." [index: entries preserved]

^A His works have existed for eight hundred years, as they exist even now. What, I ask, can be brought forward against that homily, or what can be said against the fact that in it he calls Saint Dionysius the "heavenly" (78)? No doubt this is because of that book, *The Celestial Hierarchy*, from which the Church drew the same doctrine concerning mysteries related to the angels that the teachers who succeeded him—such as Saint Gregory, already cited, in the sixth century, and Saint Jerome in the fourth, as can be seen in the first book of his *Apology against Rufinus*—handed down. And to conclude this whole discussion about the works of Dionysius the Areopagite with a definitive point: Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, who saw Saint Cyril during the celebration of the Council of Ephesus and had an exchange with him—this Juvenal, I say, brings it forward in writings given to the Emperor Marcian and the Empress Pulcheria, according to the testimony of Nicephorus, in whose possession those writings of Juvenal existed, as is found attested in Book XV, chapter 44, and Book II, chapter 23. Furthermore, the book of *Questions to Antiochus*, also ascribed to Saint Athanasius, employs and makes use of the very same thing as Dionysius, in the eighth response (79).

CAPUT II.

^B The heretic proceeds thereafter, striving to discredit the book by the book itself, and contending to reconcile Saint Dionysius equally with the enemies of the truth and with the rivals of his own works, thus speaks on page 48: "For how can it be thought that that author, who after he discussed the ceremonies and rites of the Church and the sacraments, testifies that he himself is handing down that very thing which holy pontiffs taught as having been initiated by ancient tradition?" But indeed, I reply that he does not bring this forward concerning all the ceremonies of the Church, but only concerning those which are used in the baptism of infants; so little is he himself sincere and faithful in reporting even those things which cannot profit his design. For there holy Dionysius ^C says (80): "Concerning this (baptism), we also say that which our divine (or Deiform) pontiffs, mystically instructed from the first tradition (of Christ), have brought down to us." And indeed, besides the fact that the usage of Saint Dionysius is such, it is also known to the common people that the word *archaios* signifies something ancient only by accident; that is, when a thing is far removed from its beginning and origin. And Saint Dionysius himself, explaining this same word by paraphrase in chapter 10 of *The Divine Names*, says that it signifies that which exists from the beginning, where he notes that God is designated by it as existing from the beginning (81). And in the same place, with Hierotheos as interpreter, he discusses that God is called simultaneously "ancient and new," so that by both words he might express the divine antiquity; which divine antiquity, however, it would be sinful to render [as 'old age'], but rather one ought to render it as the divine priority, if it is permissible to use that word, or the divine reason of the beginning, so that it might be explained in that mode of speech how God is the beginning. Moreover, adding the explanation of the word "new" (*neos*), he wishes it to be understood that God obtains the *archaioteron*—which we would wrongly render as "greater antiquity," as if 'youth' expressed 'ancient'—but it must be rendered with a more apt meaning, as having the greater reason of a beginning: in which sense the other diction, *archeotera*, follows closely, so that it signifies things closer to the origin. Thus also the Latin word *antiquus*, like one derived from the adverb *antea*, signifies nothing other than what is anterior, by its own origin and derivation; and in that sense it is opposed to the modern, ^D even if usage has attached to it another, more common and vulgar, signification—according to which men or things, or persons, are always called ancient for that reason, because they precede others in origin.

Nor do the Latins, when they speak of "the ancients," understand "the aged," nor do they intend "the mentally decrepit," but only those who have preceded, just as this mode of speaking does here; a man who obtains [the label of] "ancient" does not denote a "senile man" in their usage, but a man distinguished and endowed with original customs; otherwise, the notion of antiquity would be more congruent to our own century than it would to the primordial one (which, of course, was rather the youth or infancy of the nascent world), if antiquity necessarily signified "old age" and not merely that which existed beforehand, or was declared to have been from the beginning itself. And it is so far from the case that the word *archaios* must signify "old age," that it is sometimes applied to signify inept simplicity and dullness, and therefore it cannot signify "old age" by that very fact, as it is a time further removed and more alien to dull simplicity. And indeed, when we name the ancients, whether Gauls, Romans, or Greeks, we certainly do not exclude from such an appellation those who died in their youth and flourishing age, such as Alexander or Caesar. Just as when we speak of the "ancient age" of the Golden Age, or even the "ancient age" of Saturn, we understand nothing other than "primordial" or "first"; or as the "ancient valor" of our ancestors, or "ancient virtue and piety," signifies nothing but primordial valor and primordial piety and virtue. And when the heretics of Arminius—whom they call Remonstrants—say that they appeal to their "ancients," Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, or others not far removed from their own pious century, what else does the name of "the ancients" among them imply than "the first"? So that it is understood that they are appealing to their first teachers; otherwise, they being the most recent in comparison to the Church. Or, that I may use it more aptly, did not Saint Luke, who was closer to the very cradles of the Church than this later Dionysius, nevertheless, when he set out to write the Gospel, say *ap' arches*—which ought to be rendered as "from the beginning," so that those who were from the beginning might be signified, who first handed down to the rest the mysteries of Christ's doctrine committed to them? Thus, therefore, our saint himself, to whom the interpretation of his own words most especially pertains, employed that word so that, according to the paraphrase of *archaios* [as] "existing from the beginning," handed down in chapter 10 of *The Divine Names*, he might insinuate those first presidents and prelates of the Church, from whom he professes that the doctrine of baptism was interpreted, derived, and handed down by him.

Do not others, finally, use *archaios* as "principial," so to speak, or existing already from the beginning? As you will find *archaim dynamin* used by Saint Gregory Nazianzen. And you, indeed, most excellent prelate, were saying most correctly at that time that one could scarcely persuade anyone how that writer—whom all who have read him recognize not only as primarily clear and sincere, but also as one possessing the highest judgment and endowed with a genius sublime beyond measure—could nevertheless appear to be of unsound mind, nay, to have lacked "common sense," as they call it, so as to have deliberately sought out and used that other word *archaias* instead of *palaios*, in order to uncover his own imposture; unless, by his own design and simultaneously by the usage of our saint, he was designating the first and that which exists from the beginning, or the "original," if I may so speak, or "originating." From which I certainly conclude that the text of the author ought not to be rendered in the way that it [is] fraudulently added [in the translation]: [alt-version omitted]

^A nor does the paraphrast read the text otherwise, but he restricts it to the [things] from which [it is derived], not "from some one" or any other original institution, nor does he insinuate a tradition continued for a long time by the succession of many centuries. I will not, however, fail to make a small observation from this argument; namely, that in that very place which is thought by many to be valid for abrogating these admirable works of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, a pure Attic usage is found, as Pachymeres noted in his paraphrase, expressed in these words: τοῦτο εἰς νοῦν ἐληλυθὸς, just as also in that other [phrase], εἰκόσιν ἀποτυποῦσιν, which Maximus observed in his Scholia on the seventh chapter of the Celestial Hierarchy; nay, another also exists somewhere, as one of those two men suggested to me that I note. That [usage] indeed is not sought carefully by him with a certain affected flippancy, but falls into his style spontaneously; just as his manifest sincerity shines through everywhere in his context: for example, when he cites his own works, where such a citation can clearly be seen to be not only apt for his purpose, but entirely necessary, nor can it be separated from the period itself without the fullness of sense and the integrity being violated—to which that citation is added as a kind of supplement, so that it may by itself fulfill what might otherwise justly seem to be lacking in material or order: ^B or when, even while discussing certain matters of his own time, he says now Elymas, now Bartholomew, now Justus, now Clement, and yet the series of the context proceeds in order. And he likewise relates what the excellent Crispus had told him while he was staying on the island of Crete: and in return, he writes back to Polycarp what ought to be answered to Apollophanes; and he brings forward many other things of this kind known only to his own century; which therefore could not have been feigned for him by men of later centuries, at that very time during which we have no mention of them, until these books finally began to become known openly in reality, or, according to the pleasure of those to whom it seemed enough to run through them with mere critical and censorious levity, to be shown as supposititious: finally, when he openly commemorates rites that have long since become obsolete, and their disused practice, and their ancient usage; and above all, the bread placed on the altar by the priests together with the deacons to be consecrated; and the eucharist administered to children immediately after baptism: from which, says Maximus, the antiquity of this author becomes known, who recounts things so remote from later centuries that those who reject and refuse them—yet gratuitously and without any foundation—do not even hold them to have been heard of. And yet I could retort: therefore, it would never have entered anyone’s mind to invent or feign them, if they were never even heard of: unless perhaps the author himself—from whom, as can be seen in so many places, they have fallen not certainly against his will, but knowingly and willingly, as if on purpose, wrote them of his own accord—plainly wished to divest himself of that appearance of truth which, however, anyone who feigns [a work] is usually so studious and eager to capture.

CHAPTER III.

^C To all that has been noted above, most illustrious prelate, I would add this also, as something extra and agreed upon, that the heretic wrongly interprets the word τελετή, which signifies a sacrament, or a holy and sacred ceremony and rite, as a word taken in a bare and abstract sense of perfection. And that this is contrary to the genuine signification of the word and the proper notion of that place, he ought to have been taught by the very Paraphrase of Pachymeres, who was indeed perfectly skilled in the Greek language, his native tongue—646 where he speaks thus (82): "But, O most divine and most holy sacrament (for he addresses it as if it were animate, and deservedly so)," and soon he adds, "and that holy sacrament itself is our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom he directs this discourse..." And indeed, if he were addressing Christ the Lord outside of a mystery or sacrament with those words, he would by no means say: "Unveil the veils that wrap you in symbolic coverings"; which can be said to pertain only to the τελετή, insofar as it signifies a mystery, a sacrament, a sacred ceremony, and a holy rite. ^D Nay, it could be added furthermore that this apostrophe ought to be referred to that τελετή alone, and taken in that sense, since the subject matter immediately concerns it, whether in the preceding or the following words; and those epithets added there and joined together—θεοτάτη καὶ ἱερά, by which it is called most divine and holy—fit it better, viewed as a sacred ceremony or sacred rite and mystery and sacrament, than they could be said to fit Christ himself, as he designates the appellation of perfection abstractly, in the way the heretic argues the word τελετή must be explained, contrary to the usage of the Greeks. Clearly, whatever the etymology of the word, or the reason of its etymon and origin may be, one must nevertheless yield and submit to usage, the queen, or rather the tyrant, of speech, and from it the notions of words must be sought, and they must be esteemed such as usage itself has prescribed; but this must be attributed especially to that usage which is confirmed by the authority of the holy Fathers; and thus the same must be observed here in Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, who uses τελετή in no other sense than the one set forth above, so as to signify by it a sacred rite and sacrament. Indeed, that very thing which the heretic brings forward from it is used there for nothing else but a sacrament or a sacred rite and ceremony. For such is the consecration of holy chrism in a certain general notion, insofar as it imports and includes something mystical by its very own signification. Nor does the version of Lansselius, nor that of the very learned father Goulai, hinder [this] later on, rendering it "perfection," although the former had rendered it "consecration"; for it was possible for both to fail, and in my judgment, being less observant, they rendered one signification for another; and however that may have been done by them, they cannot certainly produce more credible faith than Pachymeres, or prevail over his Paraphrase, which has it thus (83): "But the mystery of the holy chrism or ointment ceremony, just as if one were to say, the mystery of the holy ceremony of God. For since τελετή is said as much of the one who consecrates and initiates as of the one who is consecrated and initiated, we use the word in both senses." And the text of Saint Dionysius clearly bears this out, namely, in the fact that it is called thus by those who celebrate that τελετουργία—that is, the operation of the sacred rite and ceremony—in both of the senses mentioned for the same reason: and then immediately in the same text of Saint Dionysius it follows, "for it is that of the one divine light."

deth, as if to say: The sacrament of that [person] or holy ceremony [is] perfecting and the consecration of the same. All of which words refer to nothing else but to the operation of the *teletē* itself, as a sacred ceremony. For just as the altar is sanctified through some sacred ceremony, and through it sanctifies; so too does he say it is fitting that Christ be viewed as both altar and God, so that in both senses the holy ceremony of God is spoken of; whether in so far as it receives sanctification as man, or in so far as it confers it as God: nor is *teletē* used there otherwise than for a certain type of sacred ceremony by which Christ is perfected as man, and us in turn, as God, he perfects by a kind of communication of himself: namely, the perfection which Christ receives as man, and which he confers upon us and communicates as God, that is, which he operates at once in his and our humanity, our saint [Dionysius] surely views and contemplates, not as properly called [a ceremony], but by that reasoning by which he brought forward Christ as the altar and us as the victims. And therefore, the term *teletē* should by no means be said to have been used there to signify perfection, whether taken passively or actively, as the heretic contends: he who surely would not fight ^A so bitterly to abrogate this book of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, nor with such contention and pertinacity as in fact he does fight, if he felt it were in agreement with and favorable to him.

(That friend who translated into Latin in the French idiom is called the Reverend Father Joannes Nicolai of the sacred Order of Preachers, [a] doctor of theology of the Parisian faculty; whose name, as it is famous for the fame of all doctrine, so also will this work illustrate it in no mediocre way.)

R. P. BERNARD M. DE RUBEIS OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS: DISSERTATION ON THE WORKS WHICH ARE COMMONLY CALLED AREOPAGITIC: AND CONCERNING THE AUTHOR, AND HIS FAITH, WHETHER HE WAS ORTHODOX, OR A HERETIC, OR AN APOLLINARIST, OR A MONOPHYSITE, OR AN EUTYCHIAN? AGAINST MICHAEL LE QUIEN AND OTHERS.

I.

Five orthodox bishops in the Constantinopolitan conference in the year 532 appear to have rejected the works commonly called Areopagitic, as [if they were] the offspring of the Apollinarists.

647 The works which are commonly called Areopagitic, or certain testimonies drawn from them, we find were first cited openly and publicly by the Severian heretics, who held a conference with the orthodox bishops at Constantinople in the year 532. The Severians were an impious offshoot of the Eutychians or Monophysites, who fought for one nature in Christ against the catholic faith and the definition of the Synod of Chalcedon. They obtained their name from Severus, who first followed the party of Peter Mongus against Timotheus Solofaciolus, the catholic prelate of Alexandria; then he later abstained from his communion, being unwilling to subscribe to the edict of the Emperor Zeno which they call the *Henoticon*, as he judged that by it not enough detraction was made from the Council of Chalcedon: and he presented himself [as] their leader, who, seceding from the same Mongus, and obeying no bishop, were called *Acephali*. Finally, he invaded the throne of Antioch in the year 512, where he exercised tyranny for five years and some months. He was still living a foul life in the year 536, at which time the synod at Constantinople, presided over by Mennas, was celebrated. Consult Michael Le Quien of the Order of Preachers in *Oriens Christianus*, and Peter Bosch of the Society of Jesus in the *Chronological History of the Patriarchs of Antioch*, among the *Acts of the Saints*, volume IV of July.

The name of Semieutychians also adhered to the Severians. Petavius describes the difference between these and the Eutychians in book I *On the Incarnation*, chapter 17, number 9, from Facundus of Hermiane, who seems to have been the first to use the word "Semieutychian": because the pure Eutychians said that one nature only, and that simple, remained in Christ after the union, whether the divinity was converted into humanity or rather the humanity into the divinity ^B or absorbed by it, or consumed through it; which most of those of that heresy followed. But the Semieutychians thus constituted one nature composed of two, just as one integral human nature arises from soul and body; so that for that reason it was consubstantial with God the Father and with man; others declare this impious dogma, sufficiently obscure and complicated, [such] that without the mutation or confusion of either nature, there was nevertheless one [nature]; namely, one divine nature acting in the first place, to which the human was added, as an instrument through which the former might produce actions, or which might receive the passions brought from without. On this matter more needs to be done below with greater diligence.

With these heretics, the five orthodox prelates held a conference at Constantinople in the year 532, the first of whom was Hypatius, Bishop of Ephesus. The heterodox men alleged certain ancient Fathers, as if decreeing one nature of the Word of God after the union, [citing] the blessed Cyril and the blessed Athanasius, bishops of the city of Alexandria, Felix and Julius of the Roman Church, Gregory the Wonderworker, and Dionysius the Areopagite. Nothing hesitating, Hypatius replies that spurious goods are being introduced and sold: "So false," he says, "are those epistles or testimonies which you mention, that the blessed Cyril did not wish to recall even one of them." The Severians strive to remove the suspicion of falsehood and say: "Why then do you suspect that we falsified them?" Not to them, but to the ancient Apollinarists is this fraud and imposture to be attributed, says Hypatius: "We do not suspect you, but the ancient heretics, the Apollinarists." Then, contention having been moved on account of the cited books of Cyril *Against Diodorus and Theodore*, about which the Ephesian prelate proceeds to weigh the testimonies of the Fathers in the following number, which the Severians had brought forward in the first place: "For also," he says, "the famous epistle of the blessed Julius, we have manifested to have been [the work] of Apollinaris, written to Diony-

- ^A sius.... But what ought to have been said first, we say in the last place: for those testimonies, which you say are of Dionysius the Areopagite, whence can you show them to be true, as you suspect? For if they were his, they could not have escaped the notice of the blessed Cyril. But what do I say of the blessed Cyril? When even the blessed Athanasius, if he had known for certain that they were his, would have brought forward those same testimonies above all else in the Nicene Council against the blasphemies of Arius regarding a diverse substance of the Trinity. But if no one of the ancients has recorded them, whence you can now show that they are his, I do not know. As regards, therefore, the works commonly called Areopagitic, Hypatius showed them to be spurious and forged by the silence of the ancients, and especially that of Cyril and Athanasius; and he seems to have held them as the offspring of the Apollinarists, just as also the testimonies of other Fathers, which the Severians had alleged: "We do not suspect you," he says, "but the ancient heretics, the Apollinarists."

That this point was not at issue in this conference, Natalis Alexander thinks (Dissert. 22, ^B of the first century); but that the claim of falsity was brought only against the epistle, or certain testimonies, which the Severians contended were contained in the writings of the Areopagite. An assessment which I could not consider well-grounded, since it is certain and confirmed that the testimonies objected to by the heterodox are contained in the very books which are wont to be attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. From the manuscript Collections against the same heretics, which Michael Lequien reports having seen and diligently examined in his second Damascene dissertation, we learn that the patriarch Severus had brought these words forward in support of his error under the name of the Areopagite: "Of the holy man of God, the new 'theandric' operation," which are found in epistle 4, *To Gaius*. Anastasius Sinaita also brings forward, in his *Odegos*, or *Guide*, chapter 13, sentences put forth by the Acephali under the name of the same Dionysius, which are read word-for-word in the cited epistle *To Gaius* and in the book *On the Divine Names*. We shall provide more below. ^C These, however, sufficiently indicate that the Severians had the Areopagitic works in their hands; from these were extracted the testimonies which were objected to by them, so that the one nature and operation in Christ might be urged; and then [we see that] the testimonies themselves were rejected by the orthodox bishops in the Constantinopolitan conference as spurious and Areopagitic writings forged by heretics.

II. Whether Cyril of Alexandria praised the writings or testimonies of the Areopagite in his books against Diodorus and Theodore? The response of the orthodox in the Constantinopolitan conference. The passage of Liberatus the deacon weighed and amended.

When Hypatius and the orthodox bishops had rejected the testimonies of Athanasius, of the Roman pontiffs Felix and Julius, of Gregory Thaumaturgus, and of Dionysius the Areopagite, which the Severians had brought forward, as being spurious and forged by the ancient heretics the Apollinarists, the Severians themselves replied in these words, in order to wipe away the mark ^D of forgery: "We can show," they say, "that the blessed Cyril used these testimonies in the books (which were) published against Diodorus (of Tarsus) and Theodore (of Mopsuestia)." Hence the dispute broke out between the parties, with the orthodox denying that it was so, and the Severians asserting it. The matter would not be of small moment if it could indeed be known for certain that Cyril of Alexandria had alleged certain testimonies under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite before the middle of the fifth century; for the most holy Father died in the year 444.

But the words of the protesting Hypatius are: "But in particular you also make those books against Diodorus and Theodore ambiguous, as if they were forged; speaking of them as brought forward against the dead, who could not refute the falsehood. For if they were brought forward against the dead, [they would be] much more so against Nestorius (Hypatius had premised) 648 [that] those testimonies are not found to have been employed by Cyril in the books written against the blasphemies of Nestorius, and those who wrote against his chapters (namely, Cyril's), even if he had the opportunity to bring forward the same testimonies. But now it seems that heretics falsifying them have added them in those books too." To the Severians’ argument, that it could easily be proven from ancient copies, especially if they were unearthed from the archives of Alexandria, that Cyril had truly brought forward the aforesaid authorities of Dionysius and others; Hypatius retorted that only those copies would be beyond doubt which were shown to have been transcribed under Proterius or Timothy Solofaciolus; since, indeed, they had long been preserved by many who opposed the true confession of the two natures; and that the Catholics could by no means be compelled to accept the testimonies of their adversaries.

The Severians contended, therefore, that the Areopagite was praised by Cyril, and his testimonies employed in the books *Against Diodorus and Theodore*. It is to be lamented that these works are lost: as it is not permitted to consult them, it remains a doubt which can never be sufficiently resolved, whether the Severians had said that the testimonies of the Areopagite were present in them. Hypatius's responses also seem weak. He replied first that those books *Against Diodorus and Theodore* were falsely attributed to Cyril; which response certainly wavers greatly, since they were admitted as genuine and read in the fifth collation of the fifth oecumenical 649 synod: a fact which even Liberatus the deacon acknowledged in his *Breviarium*, chapter 10, Leontius of Byzantium in *De Sectis*, action 8, and Eulogius of Alexandria in his *Excerpts* in Photius. Nor is the reason which is added solid, as if Cyril could not bring forward the opinions of those ancient Fathers, which he had omitted in the books written against the living Nestorius, in other books which he wrote against Diodorus and Theodore after they had departed this life. But perhaps because the levity of both reasons was known, Hypatius finally took refuge in saying that those same books of Cyril were corrupted, having had the testimonies of which we are speaking inserted by the hand of heretics: "But now it seems," he says, "that heretics falsifying them have added them in those books too." By which response it seems that it can indeed be concluded that in those same books of Cyril there were testimonies inserted, which were brought forward by the Severians, under the names of Athanasius, Felix, and the Roman pontiffs Julius, Gregory Thaumaturgus, and Dionysius the Areopagite; but that they were nevertheless rejected by the orthodox as spurious, being forged by the ancient heretics the Apollinarists, and added to Cyril's books by an interpolating hand.

Liberatus, archdeacon of Carthage, seems to favor this in his *Breviarium of the Case of the Nestorians and Eutychians*, which he was writing shortly after the aforesaid Constantinopolitan collation. For he thus puts it in chapter 10: "A certain deacon, Basil, taking the *Tome* of Proclus (bishop of Constantinople) which he had written to the Armenians, came to Alexandria: and attaching the petitions of the Armenians to his own petitions, offered them to Cyril, the bishop of the same city. By these (as rumors have it), Cyril, being moved, wrote four books, three against Diodorus and Theodore, as the authors of the Nestorian dogma, and another book *On the Incarnation*; in which are contained the testimonies of the ancient Fathers intact, that is, of Felix, Pope of Rome, Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of the Corinthians, and Gregory surnamed the Wonderful." Those words, "as rumors have it," seem to convey the sense that it is by public rumor and common fame that the books were published by Cyril against Diodorus and Theodore; although the most learned men observe that the same words refer not to the books of Cyril themselves, but only to the occasion given for writing them.

To those words: "Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of the Corinthians," Joannes Garnerius adds a note in his edition: "The word 'Areopagite' had been added, he says, in the published codices; but it must be expunged."

^A Lequien, in the cited Dissertation no. 12, more successfully conjectures: "Garnerius, he says, did not heal this passage by removing the word 'Areopagite,' as if Dionysius the bishop of Corinth, who flourished in the second century, could be more easily believed to be praised by Cyril. For it is constant that Liberatus narrates here in few words what was done in the Constantinopolitan collation with the Severians; from whose acts, therefore, we learn that the designation 'Areopagite' must be retained. It is true that this writer, by a lapse of memory, placed 'of Corinth' instead of 'of Athens' (although perhaps it ought to be called an error of the scribes). But his text can perhaps be restored thus: 'In which are contained the incorrupt testimonies of the ancient Fathers, that is, of the Roman Pope Felix, of Julius to Dionysius the bishop of the Corinthians, of Dionysius the Areopagite, and of Gregory, called the Wonderful.' For indeed Leontius in *De sectis*, action 8, calls that Dionysius, to whom the letter of Pope Julius was addressed, bishop of Corinth. If these things are so, it would have to be said that in those books of Cyril, *Against Diodorus and Theodore*, Dionysius the Areopagite and his alleged testimonies were praised. But whether Cyril himself employed them, or a heretical hand added them, is doubtful, which in the Constantinopolitan collation does not seem to be sufficiently explained. I do not fail to note, lastly, that in the place cited from Leontius of Byzantium, the opinion is that this letter of Julius to Dionysius the bishop of Corinth, and indeed seven other letters which are said to be his, proceeded from Apollinaris as the author."

III. The works commonly called *Areopagitica* are everywhere opposed to the chief head of the Apollinarian heresy: and thus they did not proceed from those same heretics. The opinion of William Cave is examined.

The Apollinarists mutilated the humanity of the Lord Christ by its nobler part, namely the human mind. ^B For since they thought that one thing could not be composed of two perfect and complete substances, they removed from the humanity of Christ, so that he might be recognized as one, that part which is rational, transferring its functions to the Word on account of the union with the flesh. Apollinaris followed the Platonic sophists (the words are those of Nemesius in Chapter 1, *On the Nature of Man*), who maintained that the soul was one thing and the intellect another, and wished man to consist of three parts: body, soul, and intellect: having laid the foundation of his opinion on this, he constructed the rest in accordance with his dogma. Hence he inferred that there was not only one person and hypostasis of Christ, but also one nature. The Alexandrian synod under Athanasius in the year 362, the Roman under Pope Damasus in the year 373, the Antiochian in the year 378, and the Constantinopolitan, the second ecumenical, in the year 381, struck this heresy with an anathema.

The author of the prologue in the same *Areopagitic* works, who bears the name of St. Maximus in the Corderian edition, but has John of Scythopolis for his parent, as must be said below, removes this mark of Apollinarian impiety already cast upon him in his own age with these words: "For some," he says, "dare to accuse divine Dionysius of heresy, although they do not understand at all what the heretics are. For if they were to compare his dogmas with each one of the things that are condemned in the heretics, they would have recognized that he stands much further from those impious ones than true light from darkness. For what would they say about those things which are theologically expounded by him concerning the only adorable Trinity? What about Jesus Christ, the one of this most blessed Trinity, the only-begotten Word of God, who ^C willed to be clothed in a perfectly human nature? Has he not recounted an intellectual soul, and a terrestrial body similar to ours?" Someone who teaches and professes these things so clearly cannot be called an Apollinarist.

It had been the opinion of William Cave in his *Historia litteraria scriptorum ecclesiasticorum* that the author of the works of which we are speaking was Apollinaris, the bishop of Laodicea, namely Apollinaris the son, the mutilator of the mind in Jesus Christ, the champion of the millennial kingdom. Lequien shows in *Oriens Christianus* that Laodicea, which is called 'ad Mare,' held the see managed by him in the Antiochene patriarchate: "But having weighed the matter better," says Cave, "I leave it to be inquired by the learned, whether the *Areopagitica* should not be attributed to Apollinaris the father rather than to the son? Certainly the ancients rank the son, as he was a heretic in other articles of faith, among the champions of the Millennium; which error, however, as St. Maximus once noted, is clearly condemned in these books. But the father was sound in the faith; nor do the ancients speak differently of him, except that Socrates seems once to involve him in the same heresy as the son." These things would be enough, I say, to make it clear and certain that the *Areopagitica* did not proceed from the heretical Apollinarists. Indeed, the open condemnation of the millennial kingdom, which the heterodox Apollinarists championed, confirms the matter most lucidly. I adduce a remarkable passage from Chapter 7 of *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, no. 1, § 2: "But others, having slipped I know not how into earthly thoughts, have said that a most holy and most blessed lot, similar to the present life, has been promised to the blessed; and they wickedly applied the proper foods of this changeable life to those who are equal to the angels. But may it be far from any holy man that he should ever fall into errors of this kind." I refer to the most appropriate scholion which stands under the name of St. Maximus in the cited Corderian edition: "And most blessed. He says this suggesting, as I think, Papias the bishop of Hierapolis in Asia, who flourished in the times of the divine John the Evangelist. This Papias wrote in the fourth book of his Dominical expositions,"

Lucid indeed are the testimonies in the works commonly called *Areopagitic*, which utterly demolish this impious dogma. I do not deal here with the papers attributed to Gregory Thaumaturgus, Felix, and Julius, Roman pontiffs, and proceeding from the workshop of the Apollinarists, nor with Hypatius in the often-cited Constantinopolitan collation. Let it be permitted to adduce a few passages from the *Areopagitica*, the first of which is contained in the letter to the monk Gaius: "Jesus... has been substantively aggregated to other men... insofar as he is truly man, according to the whole substance of man, *kat’ ousian on*." In the Scholia, some of which John of Scythopolis published, others the martyr Maximus labored upon, one reads: "In this dispensation, however, he is called a substantial man as if according to the whole substance of man... Observe, however, the whole context of the letter, since it is against every heresy, as well the ancient as the new." Regarding *The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter ^D 3, § 7, at the end we read: "And let him make us participants of his own perfection of our things." The Scholiast says: "Perfecta. Note what he says concerning Christ, or concerning his perfect assumption of humanity, even against Apollinaris." And in chapter 4, no. 3, § 10, Christ is denoted by a divine ointment, *en te kath’ hemas holike pros aletheian enanthropesei*, in the total and complete assumption of humanity according to truth. Which words are proposed to be heeded in the Scholia: "Note, however, that he assumed the entire human nature, against those who assert that he was devoid of a mind. In *On the Divine Names*, chapter 1, § 4, the author says: 'He communicated himself to us *pros aletheian holikos*, truly and entirely in his one person.' Truly, what he says 'entirely' (as the Scholiast says) is also against Apollinaris; for it signifies that he himself assumed a perfect man." And in chapter 2, § 9: *Holikos kai alethos*, he assumed our substance entirely and truly. Very many similar things occur, which struggle diametrically with the chief head of the Apollinarist heresy.

Fore in the resurrection the pleasures which are perceived from foods: a dogma in which Apollinaris later believed, which some call the Millenarian year. How, therefore, could the writings of St. Dionysius be those of Apollinaris, as some wildly maintain, when these things refute Apollinaris? ^A Cave maintains that they are to be attributed to the father Apollinaris, "who was sound in faith." He himself, however, knew of Socrates, who stood against him. For in book II of his *Ecclesiastical History*, chapter 46, he says: "At Laodicea in Syria there were two men, called by the same name, father and son. For both were called Apollinaris. The father held the rank of presbyter in the Church, while the son performed the office of lector... Epiphanius the Sophist (a pagan philosopher) flourished along with them, and since they were joined to him by the closest bond of friendship, they fostered him with all their zeal. But Theodotus, the bishop of Laodicea, fearing that by daily association with the man they would gradually slide into pagan superstition, forbade them to keep company with him. ^B But they, disregarding the bishop, constantly retained the friendship of Epiphanius. After this, George, the successor of Theodotus, tried to detach them from the company of Epiphanius, and since he could not persuade them of this, he punished both with excommunication. This event the son Apollinaris considered as an insult, and relying on his sophisticated power of speech, he himself also founded a new heresy.... And at the beginning, they said (both father and son) that a man without a soul had been assumed by God the Word in the economy of the Incarnation. But later, led as it were by repentance, and amending their former error, they added that a soul had indeed been assumed, but one which had no mind; and that God the Word was in place of the mind in the assumed man." Socrates clearly relates this error, common to both Apollinaris the father and the son. Why would it not have been so, when both were joined by the closest bond of friendship to Epiphanius the pagan sophist, from whom they were taught the Platonic dogmas, upon which we have heard Nemesius teaching above that their heresy was superimposed?

IV. Before the Constantinopolitan conference of the year 532, the Areopagitic books were known, which John of Scythopolis illustrated with scholia and defended from the charge of heresy. Who was he? At the same time, Ephraemius, Patriarch of Antioch, praised them. Anastasius the Librarian, in his letter to King Charles the Bald concerning his Latin translation of the Scholia on the Areopagitic writings, which he adorned, says thus: "Those Scholia, however, which at their end have the sign of the life-giving cross, are reported to have been found by the blessed Maximus the Confessor and monk; and the rest are reported to be those of St. John, Bishop of Scythopolis." ^C Yet in the books of Dionysius edited up to 1562 (at the warning of Ussher of Armagh, in Cave and Lequien, in the cited places), the scholia of John and Maximus are jumbled together; which were distinguished not only in the older editions, which were current in the time of Cyparissiota, but also in both codices used by Morellius; in one of which, scholia of John of Scythopolis are placed in the margin without a name, while in the other, scholia marked with the name of Maximus are separately placed after the completed text of Dionysius; they are the briefer because they had been separated from the more extensive ones of John, with which Morellius joined them. Note in passing that it was not the Areopagite's works themselves, but the scholia, that were translated into Latin by Anastasius the Librarian, as Labbe argues against Vossius. Consult him yourself.

Lequien, in his tables of the Church in the *Oriens Christianus*, lists John, bishop of the city of Scythopolis in Palestine, who ascended that see in about the year 496. ^D In Photius, codex 251, we read excerpts of the synodical epistle which Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, sent to Honorius the Pope against the Monothelites; and in it, the blessed John, bishop of Scythopolis, is mentioned, who wrote learnedly and piously concerning the Council of Chalcedon. That synod was celebrated in the year 431. He had already departed this life in the year 518, when in the same year Theodosius was ruling the Church of Scythopolis. The same Photius, in codex 95, lists twelve books of John of Scythopolis the Scholastic against deserters of the Church, Eutyches and Dioscorus, and the adherents of the same sect, who refused to preach Christ in two natures: and he notes that John himself in his books especially pursued Basil of Cilicia, the Nestorian, who bibliographers note passed from this mortal life in about the year 517. But is it doubtful whether this was the same as John, bishop of Scythopolis? Nay, he seems to be different, and the same as the one whom Cyril of Scythopolis in the *Life of St. Sabas* represents in these words (according to Lequien, in [the entry on] Bishop Theodosius, successor of the praised John): "There was furthermore a certain Scholastic John of Scythopolis, son of Expelleuta, a good man and illuminated in soul." That he was harassed by Basil of Cilicia in many writings, Photius sufficiently indicates in codex 107: "Read," he says, "the book of Basil, presbyter of Cilicia, against John of Scythopolis, who also has the name of Advocate." Therefore, this John the Scholastic of Scythopolis was still living his life under Theodosius, bishop of the same city, whom we have noted ascended that same see in the year 518.

That this John the Scholastic, rather than the earlier bishop of Scythopolis, penned the Scholia on the Areopagitic works, is a strong conjecture suggested by several places in the scholia worthy of the most serious attention. In the scholium on chapter 7 of *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, paragraph 3, these words, 652, are found: "Into heaven. Note against the Basilians, or Nestorians, that Jesus Christ was assumed into the heavens as man, and that He himself also exists as the Lord of all spirits, and King of glory." And on chapter 7 of *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, number 5, paragraph 7: "And that holy one. He understands that holy confession: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God'; which is to be noted against the Basilians, and Nestorians, and Paulianists, and the like." But nowhere else can you find (and this is Lequien's excellent observation) Nestorians called Basilians. This appellation, however, could have been given to them by no other author than John of Scythopolis, who, having been challenged in various writings by Basil of Cilicia, a presbyter of the Church of Antioch, had denounced that same Basil, as a most crafty propagator of the Nestorian impiety, in anti-heretical dissertations; just as Photius narrates in codices 95 and 107 of his *Bibliotheca*.

But now, whether the author of the Scholia on the Areopagitic works was John of Scythopolis the bishop, or that other John of Scythopolis the scholastic and advocate (a matter on which the often-cited Lequien does not seem so consistent), it is easy to collect several things: I. That the same works were known before the Constantinopolitan conference of the year 532, both to heretical men and to the orthodox. II. That the same were used by heretics against the Catholic faith: and that some among the orthodox doubted concerning them, whether they were perhaps the offspring of the Apollinarists. III. That, however, at the beginning of the sixth century, or even towards the end of the fifth, John of Scythopolis illustrated the Areopagitic works with his scholia; that he also rescued the same from the Apollinarists, the heretics, as if they were their authors; and at the given opportunity, demonstrated how much the dogmas contained in them differed from any ancient heresy, and from the new one of the Monophysites or Eutychians. At the same time flourished Ephraemius, famous for many writings published for the Council of Chalcedon, which Photius lists in codices 228 and following. He also ruled the Antiochene see from the year 527 to the year 545, as Lequien calculates in the *Oriens Christianus*, and Boschius in *De patriarchis Antiochenis*, volume IV of July, among the *Acta sanctorum*.

^A Areopagitic works he praises, and uses as a witness the text taken from the book *On Divine Names*. His words are found in Photius, codex 229, according to the translation of Andreas Schott: "And one person, that is, the hypostasis of the incarnate Word, we proclaim. Since the divine Dionysius the Areopagite (in the book *On Divine Names*) posits a simple Jesus, and on account of the hypostatic union it is rightly called composite against piety; yet no one would dare to call it composite except Apollinarius." Correct the faulty translation: "Since also a simple Jesus was posited, *haplous Iesous synetethe*, according to the holy Areopagite Dionysius. For concerning the union according to hypostasis, it is rightly called composite by piety, *para tes eusebeias to syntheton*; but a composite substance, *syntheton de ousian*, no one has dared to say except Apollinarius."

V. Another scholiast of the Areopagite works, Dionysius of Alexandria, is investigated. Were the aforementioned scholia, which John of Scythopolis labored over, under the name of Dionysius of Alexandria? Who is this Dionysius of Alexandria? John Philipp Baraterius conjectures that these very Areopagitic works are falsely attributed to the great Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria.

^B Not a few scholiasts of the Areopagitic works are mentioned, with the name suppressed, in the scholia which are attributed to St. Maximus in the Corderian edition, which I use. To chapter 11 of *On Divine Names*, § 1, these things are held: "Unto the integrated unity. Some indeed understood the integrated unity as the simple and indivisible cause of things, toward which all things have been turned, as those things which consist in it; others, however, understood the structure of the universe, tempered from elements of diverse nature." Among them, for the sake of honor, he calls by his own proper name the great Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria and orator; to chapter 5 of *On the Celestial Hierarchy*: "Celestial essences. Why, however, when the Church teaches that all the holy angels are of one substance, does the divine Dionysius name many substances? That great Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria and orator, in the scholia compiled by himself on the blessed Dionysius of the same name, notes, etc." Petrus Halloixius, in question 2 of *On the Life and Works of St. Dionysius the Areopagite*, proposes to observe that St. Maximus does not say he wrote on Dionysius the Areopagite, but on a Dionysius of the same name as himself; and such men were many, Dionysius Bishop of the Corinthians, and Dionysius the Roman Pope; and thus it cannot be said with certainty that Maximus speaks of the Areopagite, and not rather of the Corinthian. "For if," he says, "he had understood the Areopagite, he would have spoken rather, as is the custom of writers, as he did in the *Notes* which he wrote on this very Dionysius; for he was dealing at that time with Dionysius the Areopagite." But indeed, that this Areopagite could be named in both ways, the custom of writers seems to bear out. Beyond this, there is an equal mode of speaking which Anastasius Sinaita uses, who in his *Odegos*, chapter 22, 653, deals with this same argument: "Again," he says, "when the Church teaches that there is one substance of the angels, the same divine and apostolic Dionysius names the supernal virtues as many substances." But the great Dionysius of Alexandria, made bishop from the number of rhetoricians, in the scholia which he wrote on the Dionysius of the same name as himself, has these things, etc. The words of Anastasius and Maximus are almost the same; at which place, however, that Dionysius of the same name seems without doubt to be understood as the Areopagite. John Cyparissiota, by surname the Wise, puts the matter beyond controversy. His decades *On Symbolic Theology* are held in volume XXI of the Lyons *Bibliotheca Patrum*. In the first decade, chapter 4, when he had brought forth an Areopagitic sentiment from the *Epistle to Titus*, he adds, "This dictum of holy Maximus, and Dionysius ^C of Alexandria notes." When he had brought forth another sentiment from the same epistle of the Areopagite in the second decade, chapter 2, "Another Dionysius (Alexandrian)," he says, "discussing these things says, etc."

Usserius Armachanus in his manuscript *Observations*, as Lequien cites, or as is found in the citation by Jo. Albertus Fabricius in book V of *Bibliotheca Graeca*, chapter 1, no. 6 in the *Dissertation on Dionysius*, which H. Warthon edited at the end of the book *On Vernacular Scriptures*, thinks that the scholia which had been falsely attributed to Dionysius of Alexandria ought to be rendered to John of Scythopolis. "Which is evident," he says, "from the sentiment cited by Cyparissiota from the scholia of Dionysius: which is found in these scholia in as many words, as is clear from the Latin translation of the scholia of Scythopolis, made by Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, and preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College at Oxford." But it would be wonderful, I say, or most strange, if Anastasius Sinaita, who lived in the sixth century and carried his life as far as the beginnings of the seventh century, as the Bollandist continuators note on April 20, had been ignorant of the scholia of John of Scythopolis, a writer of the same sixth century, and had attributed them to Dionysius of Alexandria! Indeed, the two places which Cyparissiota produces in chapter 1 of the first decade, and chapter 2 of the second decade under the name of Dionysius of Alexandria, are found in as many words in the scholia which appeared under the name of St. Maximus; and a greater wonder arises that the name of John of Scythopolis could have been erased by oblivion, and in his place substituted "the great Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria and orator!"

Is there perhaps room for the conjecture that the scholia on the Areopagite were adorned both by a certain Dionysius of Alexandria and by John of Scythopolis; and that this latter made his own most of the things which the former had written before; or perhaps the reverse? For a certain and indubitable fact, however, I think it must be held that that "great one," whom they call Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop and orator, is not the Dionysius, ^D surnamed the Great, who held the Alexandrian see in the third century of the Church. For when John of Scythopolis in the *Prologue* to the Areopagitic Works responded to that objection of his adversaries, "that neither Eusebius Pamphili nor Origen made mention of the writings of Dionysius (the Areopagite)," without doubt (as Halloixius says), if he had known that Dionysius of Alexandria, equal to Origen and superior to Eusebius, had written scholia on the Areopagite, he would in no way have kept silent; but by his authority, and the scholia written by him, he would have closed the mouths of his adversaries. John Pearson agrees in his *Vindiciae Ignatianae*, part 1, chapter 10: "This indeed," he says, "whom Maximus (and before him Anastasius Sinaita) designates *from the rhetoricians*, I do not believe to have been the Bishop of Alexandria of the third century, whom I acknowledge as a most excellent orator; but I do not think he wrote scholia on the Areopagitic works." He thinks, indeed, the author to have been quite old, whether prior to Scythopolis or subsequent, is unknown to me. But Maximus and Sinaita have: *Megas Dionysios, ho Alexandreias episkopos, ho apo rhetoron*, "The Great Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, from the rhetoricians." Did they therefore confuse some Dionysius of Alexandria, an orator and scholiast of the Areopagitic works, with that noble and celebrated Alexandrian bishop?

I do not wish to withdraw my hand from the slate before I have narrated and refuted in a few words the peculiar sentiment of Jo. Philippus Baraterius. He, among the *Dissertations* added to the work inscribed: *Chronological Disquisition on the Most Ancient Succession of Roman Bishops, etc.*, published in Utrecht in the year 1740, puts forward some conjectures by which he seeks to persuade us that the Areopagitic works are to be attributed to the great Dionysius, Bishop of the Church of Alexandria. "Grant me," he says, "that some Dionysius is the author of these books, since all codices, all citations, attribute these works to Dionysius." But

^A that the Areopagite described the customs of the Romans rather than those of the Greeks, as Maximus notes in the Scholia; and it is indeed highly improbable that this was done by a Greek man, in terms of both his people and his language.

This insolent opinion of Dodwell wavers on every side and opens up cracks. That the Dionysius whom the Severians cited was not the same Dionysius whose works we commonly have today as the *Areopagitica* can be proven with certainty from the testimonies which the Severians brought forth; for identical words are found in the surviving works attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. We have indicated some of these locations in note 1 at the foot; another in note 4 we have brought forth from Ephraem; more we shall provide below.

For this Dionysius (he continues) is already cited in the sixth, already in the fifth, and even in the fourth century; therefore he is earlier. But, on the other hand, in the first four centuries, and even in the sixth and beyond, there were no other Dionysii, known either for learning or by another name, besides the Areopagite, the Corinthian, and the Alexandrian. But our man, certainly erudite, is not the Areopagite; which has been demonstrated to the eye by others. Nor is he the Corinthian, both because the Corinthian is not recorded as having written anything besides certain epistles evaluated by the ancients, and because of many other reasons; therefore he is the Alexandrian. This is the opinion of Baraterius, in which, however, the very first point—which this author demands be granted to him—those who deny that the works commonly called *Areopagitica* can be attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite will not so easily concede. Hypatius of Ephesus and other catholic prelates in the Constantinopolitan conference contended that the same works had been falsely attributed to Dionysius by the heretics, and to this same Areopagite. Moreover, it is not sufficiently certain that—especially in the fourth century—these same works were known and current, and finally praised by writers of that age; thus Baraterius does not demonstrate or prove whether the author of the *Areopagitica* was earlier in time.

He adds, as I think, empty and futile conjectures with which he adjudges the praised works to the great Dionysius of Alexandria. He bids us read the fragments of his epistles to Germanus in Eusebius, *Church History* book VI, ch. 11, and in book VII, ch. 11, in which he says that mention is made of both Timotheus and Caius; as if it were the same Timotheus and the same Caius to whom the author of the *Areopagitica* dedicates and writes certain epistles and books. Who does not see that this is a slippery and spineless argument? Finally, he brings forth the consistency of style in the long fragment *De Natura*, which Eusebius cites in book XIV of *Praeparatio Evangelica*, ch. 23: "The style, indeed, as in the *Areopagitica*, is very intricate and obscure, and full of compound and high-flown words." But I see nothing of the sort, nor do more learned men see it. In that same place, Dionysius relates the speculations of the philosophers: "Some of whom thought the universe was infinite, without beginning, and not governed by any providential plan. Others introduced atoms, certain incorruptible small bodies, infinite in number, and together with them a certain empty space, uncircumscribed by any limits. Hence, while they collide with one another by chance due to the force of their agitation, and because of their manifold figure mix among themselves, this world—nay, even infinite worlds—were made." What is intricate here, what is obscure, what words are compound and high-flown? Dionysius proceeds in chapters 24, 25, 26, and 27 to weigh and refute these vain speculations in a simple, clear, and didactic style.

VI.

It is concluded that the *Areopagitic* works are falsely attributed to Gregory the Great, Roman pontiff. Nor is their author any Latin man, nor an Egyptian, but a Greek, from Achaia, as it seems.

Henry Dodwell indicated the singular opinion regarding the author of the *Areopagitica* that had taken hold of him in a letter written to William Cave, which is found in that same Cave’s *Historia litteraria*. ^B What is it, then, that causes Dodwell to suspect that the author of the *Areopagitica* was some Latin man, and perhaps Gregory himself, who had lived for a long time in Constantinople? Ordered by Pelagius II, Gregory migrated to Constantinople to perform the duty of *apocrisiarius* in the year 578, or the following one; and he returned to Rome in about the year 585. The ascetics of Saint-Maur define both epochs in chapter 5 of the *Life* of the same Pope Gregory, and we also considered and established this in *Monumenta Aquileiensia*, chapter 26, no. 4. Now, indeed, we have made it known and certain that at the beginning of the sixth century, or even at the end of the fifth, the *Areopagitic* works were known, and that they were praised in the Constantinopolitan conference, mentioned by Ephraem, patriarch of Antioch, and illustrated with Scholia by John of Scythopolis; so that that opinion is doubtless insane, whether it attributes them to Gregory as author, or asserts that they were fabricated by Latin men at the time when that same Gregory was staying in Constantinople.

Furthermore, would the integrity of the most holy Gregory himself allow him to praise, under the name of Dionysius ^C the Areopagite, works which he himself had forged, or to whose touching up he had provided the occasion and help? He does indeed praise them in *Homily 34 on Luke*: "Dionysius the Areopagite," he says, "an ancient and venerable Father, is reported to say that they are sent out from the lower ranks of the angels to perform their ministry, either visibly or invisibly." This allegation of Gregory proves that, even then, the works under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite were common and would be in everyone’s hands. But nevertheless, many reply that the most holy pontiff was in doubt about at least their author; and if this pleases, I permit it, although learned men interpret his hesitation, which he indicates by the word "reported," as not referring to the author and his works, but to the doctrine contained in the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, which Gregory perhaps did not have the leisure to examine at its source—a question which I leave untouched in this place.

Finally, there is the fact that, even in the age of the Scythopolitan, so many years before Gregory’s journey to Constantinople, works which are called *Areopagitic* existed in the Archives of the Roman Church. Regarding this matter, the Scythopolitan himself cites in his Prologue the witness of a certain Roman deacon, Peter: "A certain Roman deacon, by name Peter, told me," he says, "that all the works of the divine Dionysius are kept preserved in Rome in the Library of the sacred writers." Lequien thinks that that Roman deacon, Peter, sang a tall tale to John of Scythopolis, since the sixth century was already far advanced (he says) when Gregory the Great knew them to exist only by hearsay: and he brings forward the location of his that was already cited from *Homily 34 on Luke*. But we have noted that that location is not sufficient for the narrative of that Roman deacon, Peter, to be taken as a fable.

The author of the *Areopagitic* works, says Dodwell, "describes the customs of the Romans rather than the Greeks, as Maximus himself notes in the Scholia." It will have been sufficient to bring forward the passage of Maximus, which is found in the *Scholia on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, no. 2: "They propose. This is also according to the custom which flourishes at Rome: for there only seven deacons al- ^D

- ^A lowed to attend, whom I consider to be those chosen ones he calls by that name." If, therefore, you conclude from that passage that the author of the *Areopagitica* was a Latin, you are wandering far afield. For why should not a Greek man, who has set himself the task of explaining liturgical rites and other ecclesiastical matters, be able, or indeed even required, to set forth those rites which, as he could most easily know, were observed in the Western and Roman Church? There are frequent Latin writers, both ancient and recent, who, while treating the same subject, describe both Latin rites and Greek ones, and others besides.

Yet, up to what point does the priest perform that divine regeneration (or baptism) without that most divine ointment? That ointment, without doubt, the pontiff consecrates; but does he even always apply it himself when sealing the baptized? So indeed Pachymeres, the paraphrast of Dionysius, affirms; but not so Arcudius, who believes that the one baptized is understood to be anointed by the simple priest himself in that place.

Le Quien adduces several further arguments in the cited location to prove that this writer was an Atticist. Joannes Scythopolitanus and other Greeks have observed that his works abound in Atticisms. In the *Notes on Chapter 7 of the Celestial Hierarchy*, page 90 of the Corderius edition, these things are contained: "Let no one suspect a solecism... for it is a trait of the Attics to join masculine participles with feminine [nouns]." Michael Syngelus, in his *Encomium* of the same [author], calls him "the most Atticizing of the Atticists and the most skilled of grammarians." ^B From this, however, the aforementioned Le Quien conjectures that Roman rites are often described by him; because, since the Churches of Achaia, Thessaly, and Illyricum had been attached to the Roman primate from the very age of the apostles, they practiced certain ceremonies of the Roman Church which other Churches of Greek rite and language did not have. The praiseworthy author deduces this special care of the Roman Church for the aforementioned provinces from the *Oriens Christianus*, in the section on the Illyrian diocese, no. 4, because Paul, the founder and instructor of those Churches, when he had soon after set out for Rome and suffered martyrdom there, gave them to the Roman Church to be administered. Wherefore, for some time after his death, a contention having arisen in the Corinthian Church (under which Athens is subject) concerning those whom they deemed should be moved from the rank of bishops or presbyters, they brought the cause to the Roman see, by which it might be judged and ended. The epistle of Pope Clement the First is extant, which he writes to the Corinthians in the name of his Church concerning that business. To this also pertains what Hegesippus, in Eusebius *Ecclesiastical History*, book iv, c. 22, recorded: that he had sailed to Rome with the primate of the Corinthians... Primus sailed there on the most urgent business of his Church. Dionysius, the successor of Primus, signified in an epistle sent to Pope Soter that that epistle of Clement to his Corinthians was accustomed to be read among them at stated times; and likewise the one which Pope Soter also had written to them. Therefore, as a Greek man—and one from Achaia, or an Athenian, as it appears—having been the author of the *Areopagitica*, it should not be a cause for wonder that he explained some rites of the Roman Church in his works.

Le Quien proceeds in his second *Damascene Dissertation* to argue thus: "He concedes that the sacred anointing, which we call confirmation, is not performed by presbyters, as they lack the power of perfecting, but by the pontiff: ‘They lead them to the hierarch himself,’ i.e., he leads the baptized to the pontiff, who, sealing the man with divinely-wrought oil, etc." (Chap. 2, *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, no. 2, § 7). This place will be the argument that this masked Dionysius was not subject to the Alexandrian Church, in which the office of performing this anointing might have long since resided with the presbyters. These things, assuredly, were said against Paschasius Quesnel and John Bona, 656, of whom more below; and they confirm the conjecture about the author's province and Church being subject to the Roman Church. Although men who are theologians observe that in the cited passage the ordinary minister of confirmation is pointed out, and that the writer elsewhere acknowledged the simple presbyter as an extraordinary minister, as is the custom among the Greeks. They bring forward a place from Chapter 5, *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, no. 1, § 5, where, when he proves that the pontiff is the first in the hierarchical order, and that all sacred power emanates from him to the lower [orders], he says next: "For although some venerable sacraments are performed by priests, ne- ^C vertheless... ^D

VII.

That the *Areopagite* works did not proceed from heretical Monophysites or Eutychians, several arguments persuade: the ancient pre-notation of Dionysius the Areopagite, *vulgata*; the *Areopagite* dogmas used by orthodox fathers against the Eutychians and Monothelites; the suspicion indeed held by some regarding an Apollinarian author, but by no one regarding a Monophysite; and the many testimonies contained in the same books which oppose Eutychian errors.

Thus far we have discussed the lighter points, which nonetheless could not be passed over in any way, so that we might rise with steady foot to the more serious ones. Whether the author of the *Areopagite* works was a Eutychian is a question which the most learned man, Michael Le Quien, of the Order of Preachers, illustrious for his most learned published works, has made famous. In his second *Damascene Dissertation*, no. 14 et seqq., he strives with all his might to show that the errors of the Monophysites or Eutychians—the Dioscorians, the Acephali, and the Severians—are contained in the *Areopagite* books; and he suspects, no. 16, that their author was Peter the Fuller, the tyrant of the Antiochene Church, or any other companion of his parties and councils. Maturinus Veyssere la Croze, in a French work printed at The Hague in 1739, titled *Histoire du Christianisme d'Ethiopie et d'Arménie*, contends that the *Areopagite* [writings] can be proven by the arguments of Le Quien to have been composed in the fifth century of the Church by a writer who tempered the fiction of Apollinaris and pre-formed the heresy of the Monophysites, and that this was Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais. Let no one charge me with a fault, nor mark me for excessive audacity, if I dare to join battle with the most learned man Le Quien, whom I heard often when I was passing time in Paris in 1722, and whom I heard teaching and blessing me with learned conversations. But the opinion of La Croze himself must also be refuted by me.

Arguments are at hand in plenty by which I may vindicate the orthodoxy of the author of the *Areopagite* works; and most weighty responses are at hand for me, as I think, by which the opposing arguments can be weakened and even crushed. The *pre-notation* itself of Dionysius the Areopagite occurs first, under whose name ancient orthodox fathers praised the *Areopagite* [writings]; which is evidence that their author was, if not an apostolic man, a disciple of Saint Paul; certainly orthodox, and infamous for no mark of heresy, alleging testimonies drawn from these books under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, as we have already heard from Ephraim, Patriarch of Antioch. Moreover, Joannes Scythopolitanus in the early sixth century, or the late preceding one, vindicated the same works to Dionysius the Areopagite (about which matter I do not offer a judgment). Andreas, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, whom bibliographers note probably flourished about the same time, in his *Commentary on the Apocalypse*, chapter 10, where it deals with the six wings of the four living creatures, warns that it so seemed to the great Dionysius (the Areopagite), and he praises him not once elsewhere in the same work. Jobius the monk, a writer of the sixth century as it appears, published nine books *On the Word Incarnate*, which Photius reviews in codex ... on account of which the explainer of ineffable things (Paul the Apostle, 1 Cor. XIII, 9) cries out: "We know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away," etc.

And the genuine disciple of this man, the wise Dionysius, has left these very things attested in almost the same words, especially where he treats of the perfect and the one, namely in chapter 13 of *The Divine Names*. We have already brought forward some places from Anastasius the Sinaite; others bring forward more. Finally, I mention Leontius of Byzantium, who in his second book against the Nestorians and Eutychians proves that the body of Christ was passible and corruptible before the resurrection, by citing the words of Dionysius the Areopagite from the book *De divinis nominibus*. But for them to praise these works under the name of the Areopagite was the same as citing a man exceptional for his orthodoxy and sound faith.

657 When heretics, Eutychians, and Monothelites brought forward his testimonies, they thought they were opposing the orthodox with a writer who, on account of the suspicion of no heresy, should not be rejected. But the orthodox Fathers showed that the Eutychians and Monothelites were misusing his doctrine, and they pressed them with the authority of the same author, as a most clear witness of the Catholic faith. Are there, then, errors manifest today in his works, which it was not given to those ancient Fathers to see in those very fierce controversies that were being agitated concerning one nature and one will? We have mentioned very many Fathers who flourished in the sixth century and attacked the Monophysites with the authority of the Areopagitic writings. In the following, the seventh century, I report a few of the acts against the Monothelites. The Lateran Council, held under Pope Martin I in the year 649, was against the Monothelites, a shoot of the Eutychians. Not a few Areopagitic testimonies for the faith of two wills and operations in Christ, and against the impious dogma contrary to it, are read as having been brought forward by the orthodox Fathers and the heretics. But the heretics were indeed citing corrupted places; the orthodox refuted their fraud by bringing forth the codex of Saint Dionysius, Bishop of Athens, from the library of the Apostolic See; and by means of the genuine texts taken from that codex, they tore down the dogma by which those men strove to establish one will and operation. The same thing was also performed at the Sixth Ecumenical Synod under Pope Agatho in the year 688, as can easily be known by anyone who examines the fourth, eighth, and eleventh sessions. Saint Maximus, a monk of Constantinople, glorious for his martyrdom for the faith, lived in this same century; he illustrated the aforementioned Areopagitic works with brief scholia; and Sophronius flourished, who began to hold the Jerusalem see in about the year 633, and he attacked the Monothelites with the testimonies of Dionysius the Areopagite. These things are enough. But to what end all this? Namely, that it may clearly appear that those Fathers of the seventh and sixth centuries—and perhaps the fifth—regarded the author of the Areopagitic works as orthodox, and that they could have been most easily induced by his orthodoxy and the sublimity of his doctrine to believe without any hesitation that they were the works of the apostolic man Dionysius the Areopagite, under whose name they were being circulated.

And the matter is truly most worthy of note: that while a suspicion regarding an Apollinarist author might indeed have occurred to some Catholics who, through a lack of understanding at first glance, [misinterpreted] the testimonies drawn from the Areopagitic books by the heretics, it never occurred to them regarding a Monophysite or Eutychian author. When Hypatius, Bishop of Ephesus, had rejected as false some testimonies of Dionysius the Areopagite and other ancient Fathers brought forward by the Severians at the Constantinople conference, the Severians replied: "Why, then, do you suspect that we have falsified them?" The orthodox did not charge them or the rest of the Monophysites with the crime of forgery, but rather the ancient heretical Apollinarists: "We do not suspect you," they said, "but the ancient heretical Apollinarists." We have shown in number 3 that Hypatius and his colleagues were indeed deceived in this matter; but it is made known and confirmed that at that time no suspicion of imposture regarding the author of the Areopagitic works had settled upon the orthodox bishops, such as the Monophysites or Eutychians might have created.

John the Scythopolitan defends the author of the Areopagitic works from the mark of heresy; but we do not find him defending him from the specific impiety of the Apollinarists, since no trace appears of any Eutychian error of which he was ever accused. His words are: "For what would they say (who call the faith of the author into controversy) about those things which are expounded by him theologically concerning the only-worshipful Trinity? What about Jesus Christ, the one of this most blessed Trinity, the consubstantial Word of God, who willed to be clothed with human nature completely? Did he not recount an intellectual soul and a terrestrial body similar to ours?" He promises that he will treat the remaining many things in the *Scholia* as occasion arises. Only one error of the Apollinarists is mentioned in this place, which the author of the Areopagitic works had refuted everywhere; whether it be the one who mutilated Christ's human nature in its nobler part (namely, the soul or mind), or the one who introduced a gradation into the most holy Trinity, so that the Holy Spirit was called great, the Son greater, and the Father greatest.

But why should the matter not be thus, when there are many sentences in the Areopagitic writings that contradict Eutychian dogmas diametrically? We read that this was observed very frequently by the Scholiast. We shall provide more places below. I offer that one as an example, which is in chapter 1 *De divinis nominibus*, § 4. The author says: "He communicated with us truly and completely in His one person, recalling to Himself and joining to Himself the human humility, out of which the simple Jesus consisted in an ineffable manner." No one would say this, no one would confess this, who is a Monophysite. In the *Scholia*, a note is appended: "Note indeed that He communicated that one person with us completely, and that to say He is our Lord Jesus Christ, when He existed as simple, then as composite, He recalled the human extremity to Himself." Therefore we rightly say that one person of the most holy Trinity was crucified, which is against the Nestorians and the Acephali, a shoot of the Monophysites. We shall give other most clear testimonies against the Eutychians in the following chapter, and thenceforth.

VIII.

The most learned men, even those who deny that they are by Dionysius the Areopagite, confess that the Areopagitic dogmas are harmless and adverse to the Monophysites.

658 I do not think it a light argument for the orthodoxy of the author of the Areopagitic works that which is supplied by the authority of most learned men, who, while judging that those works are not Dionysius the Areopagite’s by a manifold kind of argument, yet hold the author's faith to be sound and immune from all censure, and especially adverse to the errors of the Monophysites. Eminent among them is John Morin, who also believes that the Areopagitic works came into the light before the Eutychians appeared. He says in Part II of *De sacris ordinationibus*, in the preface to chapter 6, number 1: "It is certain, and no one can deny it, that in the year of Christ 500, or a few years later, the works of Dionysius were brought from darkness into the light. Then it is certain that they were not composed at that time, nor in that year; but whoever their author was, the time noted preceded [that date] by some years. Furthermore, since the Eutychians opposed them to the Catholics on account of certain ambiguous sentences, it also seems certain to me that their author lived before the condemnation of Eutyches, that is, before the Council of Chalcedon. For it is known and confessed among all that Catholic doctors were accustomed to write and speak more freely, and less cautiously, before the heresy was born. Therefore he did nothing new or unusual if he brought forth certain ambiguous words, which the heresy, born later, interpreted in its own favor. Perhaps writing after Nestorius, while (with heresy tacit) he vehemently [defended] the unity of the person in Christ.

^A it was that the heresy, which the heresy, born later, interpreted in its own favor, seemed to induce a unity and confusion of natures. This appeared to the Eutychians, who thought those works were the offspring of a very ancient author, and opposed them against the Catholics. It also seemed so to those five bishops of the Constantinopolitan collation, who for this reason suspected the author was some ancient Apollinarist. But gradually the Catholics, applying themselves more diligently to the reading of these books (continues Morinus in chapter 1, no. 11, to set forth his judgment), admired their solidity in the faith and their sense, which is absolutely Catholic... For when they had more maturely and thoroughly examined the testimonies drawn from here by the heretical Eutychians for the defense of their heresy, they noticed that they could easily be dissolved, and that far more could be gathered from the same works for the overthrow of that heresy. Behold, therefore, a very clever examiner of the Areopagitic works, who finds in them terms that are at most ambiguous, which the Monophysites might abuse; he knows their sense to be absolutely Catholic, and observes that far more can be gathered from them for the overthrow of that heresy.

^B Nicolaus Nourrius, a Benedictine ascetic of Saint-Maur, defines another age for the author; but he asserts his orthodoxy and confirms it by adducing several testimonies. His words are in dissertation 10, *On the works of St. Dionysius*: "In those books, the heresy against the mystery of Christ's Incarnation is proscribed no less openly than all the errors against his divinity and the one nature of the three divine persons. For we read this concerning the incarnate Son of God in various places, in *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter 3 (no. 3, §2): 'The principal goodness of God... truly partaker of all of us, without sin, and united to our humility, with the state of its properties saved, and thus utterly unconfused and inviolate.' And in another book, *On the Divine Names*: 'The most divine Word... by the unconfused assumption of our humanity.' And in epistle 4 to Gaius: 'Insofar as he was God and man, by conversing with us in a new way, he exhibited a divine activity (θεανδρικὴν ἐνέργειαν).' What could be written more plainly, what more lucidly by any author anywhere, after the errors of Nestorius and Eutyches had been spread?" Nourrius thought these and many similar testimonies against Eutychian errors were so clear that he believed he should conclude, not without light conjecture, that the author of the Areopagitic works, seeing the great disturbances caused by the heretical Nestorians and Eutychians, applied his mind to writing at that time in order to confound both and to defend the cause of the Church with all his might; and that therefore the aforementioned works seem to have proceeded from him between the year 451, in which the ecumenical synod of Ephesus was held against the Nestorians, and the year 451, in which the synod of Chalcedon was celebrated against the Eutychians.

Paschasius Quesnellius defers the origin of these works to the sixth century of the Church. He considers the author to be highly Catholic, but acted with such zeal against the Nestorians that he sometimes seems to incline to the opposite opinion. Papebrochius recounts and extracts a manuscript letter written by the same Quesnellius on this subject in *Ephemerides Græco-Moschi*, volume 1, May, page xlv: "Nothing is to be doubted," he says, "concerning the faith of the author, even though he wrote with such zeal against the Nestorians that he declined more than was fair toward the opposite opinion of the Eutychians or Semieutychians, using phrases 659 familiar to them: which, however, anyone could—and perhaps should—interpret in a Catholic way." He adds, "The author seems to me to have been born of Jews, by nation an Egyptian, by profession a monk, by discipline a Platonist." See how this opinion partially pleased John Bona, since he teaches in *Rerum liturgicarum*, book 1, chapter 8: "Perhaps he was one of the professors of Platonic philosophy, who flourished with the praise of wisdom in the Alexandrian School around the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century." But ^D I add two very recent heterodox writers, Christian August Salig and Jakob Brucker. The former knows Lequien's opinion but does not approve of it. I cite his words, which are found in his treatise *On Eutychianism before Eutyches*, chapter 18: "To say what I think: the works of Dionysius did not proceed from Apollinarists and Eutychians... from which I seem to prove to myself that Eutychianism is noted and refuted in those writings... I believe that the whole book *On the Divine Names*, and indeed the others, were written with no other purpose than to overthrow the confusion and commixture of natures against the Eutychians... I do not think Fullon ever could have fought so candidly and strongly against the Eutychians, when he himself also refers Fullo among the supporters of Eutyches."

Brucker, perhaps, might seem less fair in his estimation of the same Areopagitic writer, who in *Historia critica philosophiæ*, volume 2, chapter 3, concerning the philosophy of the Fathers in particular, notes him as "an eclectic philosopher, or Alexandrian, who debased the simplicity of the Christian faith with Platonic trifles," roughly in the fifth century of the Church. But it is likewise his opinion in § 29 that this writer, "not so much for the sake of confirming Monophysitism as for the sake of propagating and confirming Alexandrian philosophy, attributed his trifles to a certain great name among Christians." He also notes in § 31 that the opinion of those who attribute these fruits to Apollinaris the father is not to be borne, since it was rightly observed by Pearson that they are not like the fragments of his that survive, nor consistent with his dogmas; nor should they be attributed to Apollinaris the younger, since they contain some things that are far and wide different from his teachings. "It would be strange if the writers who did not hesitate to note the same works with an overly censorious rod and to pass a severe judgment upon them had not seen the inventions of the Apollinarists and Eutychians in the Areopagitic works, or had wished to exonerate their author."

IX. Leichen's conjecture, by which he suspects that the Areopagitic works should be attributed to Peter Cnapheus or Fullo, the Monophysite, or to one of his followers; and likewise the conjecture of Croze concerning Synesius as the author of the Areopagitic works, and at the same time the pre-former of the Monophysite heresy.

That the Areopagitic doctrine is innocent, and especially opposed to the errors of the Eutychians, I must show below, by a more diligent examination, in the solution of the arguments which Lequien attempts to oppose, being stronger than what others have done thus far. I am currently weighing his conjectures, by which he was moved to suspect that the author of the Areopagitic works could be called Peter Fullo, the Monophysite. "I cannot omit," he says (in *Dissertatio Damascenica* 2, no. 14), "that this most wretched man (Cnapheus), or at least someone from his followers, seems to have been the genuine parent of the books that are called Areopagitic. My reason for this suspicion is that in chapter 3 of *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, where he first briefly refers to, and then immediately narrates the parts of the liturgy, which he wished to persuade his readers were handed down by the apostles, he also made mention of the recitation of the Symbol: 'confessed by the whole assembly of the Church of the Catholic hymnology,' whereas previously the whole Church of the assembly had confessed the Catholic praise."

^A it is, as he himself sets it forth in the *Theory of the Mystery*, the *symbol of religion*; which he says is to be recited immediately after the departure of the catechumens and the energumens; just as it afterwards became the custom in the Churches of the Greek rite, whose custom the Latins subsequently imitated. Yet the monuments of ecclesiastical history report that a few years before the supposititious volumes of Dionysius appeared, Peter the Fuller, when he had once again occupied the throne of Antioch (in the year 476, as below), ordained that the symbol of the faith be recited in all masses; *and in every assembly the symbol is to be said*, says Theodorus the Lector in his second book. This rite, a little later under the Emperor Anastasius, Timothy, the Monophysite bishop of Constantinople, hostile to the synod of Chalcedon, decreed to be observed in the royal city, the same Lector being the witness. From this chapter we have a more certain knowledge of the age in which the spurious Areopagitic writings were composed.

^B Furthermore, just as the Fuller also devised that the holy ointment, or chrism, should be consecrated publicly in the Church, with the people present—*the ointment of the Church is to be hallowed over the whole people* (Theod. Lector, book II)—whereas such consecration had previously taken place privately and outside the divine liturgy: so also in the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter 4, it is read that immediately after the order to the catechumens, and others who were accustomed to be kept away from the sacrifice, the consecration of the divine ointment was to begin within the solemnities of the Mass, and therefore in the presence of the Christian people. Moreover, another rite, which is subjoined in the same place and which the Greeks observe to this day, is that the ointment placed upon the altar is covered by two seraphic figures, by which it is signified that Christ, who is represented by the ointment, is celebrated by the perpetual song of the seraphim, which is called the trisagion or thrice-holy; does this not also smack of the mind and genius of the Fuller and the Severians, who chant the trisagion hymns, now to the whole Trinity, now to the Son and Christ alone: just as that ecclesiastical one: *Holy God, Holy Strong, Holy and Immortal*, with the phrase added from time to time, *who were crucified for us*, so that it might be signified that it refers to Christ? That the Fuller was the author of this addition, by which the Son is thrice proclaimed holy, even boys know. So much for him.

The opinion, or rather the fiction, of Mathurin Veyssier la Croze follows, whose assertions are in the first book of the cited work. I. Namely, that the Areopagitic lucubrations truly came from a writer who indeed tempered the perverse dogma of Apollinaris, but prefigured the heresy which the Eutychians and Monophysites cherished. In which matter it is enough for him to have the most learned Lequien in agreement. II. That Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, prefigured the first lineaments of the new dogma; and was the author to Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, of putting together books under the name of an apostolic man, Dionysius the Areopagite, in order to win authority for the error. III. That these works, placed under so venerable a name, lay in the archives of the Alexandrian Church, until Cyril, the successor of Theophilus, who promoted the error most of all, employed some testimonies drawn from them against Diodorus and Theodore, which the Severians later alleged in the Constantinopolitan conference held in the year 532.

Furthermore, that Theophilus of Alexandria is to be counted among the precursors of Eutyches, Croze thinks can be gathered from the fact that he was of the number of those who, in the Epistle of Nyssen to Theophilus himself against Apollinaris, accused the orthodox, who confess two natures in Christ, of error, as if they worshipped two sons in their dogma, one indeed according to nature, but the other acquired later by adoption. That Cyril, the successor of Theophilus in the Alexandrian see, applied his mind to polishing and promoting this new dogma, ^D and expounding the opinion concerning one incarnate nature of the Word, which Eutyches and his followers made their own, no one will doubt (he says), provided he weighs it. Finally, that the Areopagitic works proceeded from Synesius, three things seem to prove: the comparison of the Areopagitic works with the works of this same Synesius, his character prone to lying, and a certain peculiar facility of the pen for various genres of style. In the end of the book which is inscribed *Dion*, he himself confesses that it was very easy for him to adapt his mind and pen to various and mutually diverse forms of speech. Some of his statements occur which sufficiently indicate a proclivity to feigning. His sentiment in the *Encomium of Baldness* is: *The populace finds most things too easy and ready to mock; but monsters (impostures), need work (it needs imposture).* And in epistle 105, written when he was being sought for the episcopal dignity, which he fought with all his might to abjure, he says thus: *A mind indeed imbued with philosophy, and a spectator of truth, concedes something to the necessity of lying... I think that lying is generally useful, while truth is harmful to those who are unable to direct the edge of their mind into the clarity of things.* This mind, so affected, he preserved (are the words of Croze) even after he was made bishop. Finally, the style is equal, the sublimity of thought is equal in the Areopagitic and in the Synesian works. That man says in his third hymn, where he speaks of the eternal Father, *spring of springs, principle of principles, root of roots*; he also says in chapter 2 *On the Divine Names*, § 7: *spring-like divinity.* In the same hymn Synesius calls the divine *ineffable depth*; and it is read in chapter 5 of the cited book *On the Divine Names*: *depth... inaccessible to all.* Finally, he bids other places to be compared, and especially the first chapter of the cited Areopagitic book, page 439 of the Corderian edition, with the first and second Synesian hymn.

X

661 It is permitted to refute the aforementioned fiction of Croze with a few words before weighing the conjectures and arguments of the most learned Lequien, and I undertake to refute them to the best of my ability. The principles laid down by Croze totter and all collapse; and he props up his fable with invented stories. I have at hand the commended Brucker, in the third volume of his *Critical History of Philosophy*, chapter 3, § 29. I say that the comment is most rotten, that Theophilus of Alexandria believed in one nature in Christ, and, joined to the Apollinarists, accused the orthodox, who professed two whole natures in Christ, as if they were bringing in two sons. Of such a crime, of which the Alexandrian prelate was accused, there is no trace, not a single vestige in Gregory of Nyssa. He warns Theophilus that the Apollinarists, who make the Word carnal, and the creator of the ages the Son of man, and the divinity of the Son mortal, accuse some in the Catholic Church of daring, "as if they worshiped two sons in their dogma," inasmuch as they confess two natures in Christ, "one indeed according to nature, but the other acquired later by adoption." He himself confesses that he knows of no Catholic men whispering these things: "I know not from whom they heard such things, nor with what person they are struggling: for I have not yet known anyone who would utter such things." Hence he exhorts Theophilus that, by the authority in which he flourished, he should defend the cause of the Church and restrain the malicious Apollinarists: "But however..."

since those who propose this cause against us corroborate their own opinions from the fact that they seem to be fighting against such an abomination, it is good that your perfection in Christ, as the Holy Spirit shall cast into your mind, may cut off the occasions for those who seek occasions against us; and that it may persuade those who, through calumny, turn these things into a crime against the Church of God, that no such dogma ^A exists or is preached among Christians. Then, finally, he is entirely occupied with showing that the binary number of sons is by no means gathered from the 'conjunction of human nature with the Word,' but rather that, because of the exact union of the assumed flesh and the assuming divinity, names are communicated and mutually given to the one Son Christ, so that both the human is denominated from the divine, and the divine from the human." There is no word anywhere that indicates that the tempered dogma of the Apollinarists pleased Theophilus of Alexandria, or that he took care that the unity of nature in Christ should be vindicated in the books published; or that he accused of the binary number of sons those who maintained two natures in Christ. On the contrary, Nyssenus ^B accuses the Apollinarists before Theophilus as fabricators of imposture, and he strives to move him to restrain the audacity of men and to defend the cause of the Church to the best of his ability.

After Theophilus had completed his mortal life, Cyril took possession of the Alexandrian see in the year 412. Crozeus declares with excessive confidence that some testimonies were already drawn from the Dionysian books and used by him in his work against Diodorus and Theodore. We have already admonished in number 2 that those who say this regarding the Constantinopolitan collation do not have faith that should be so easily accorded. But as for Lequien, whom he calls one who favors him, he is expressly against him in *Dissertatio Damascenica* 2, number 17, where he has these words: "Therefore, from those varied discourses I have discussed before, and not from the books of Dionysius (the Areopagite), Cyril inferred that one nature of Christ the Lord must be spoken of, because of the most intimate union of the divinity with the humanity: likewise, one incarnate nature of the Word of God." Indeed, these latter words are read in book 11 *Against Nestorius*, and in the *Epistle to Acacius of Melitene*, and in the *Commonitorium to Eulogius*, and he purged the same of all suspicion of Apollinarism in the *Epistles to Successus*. The former words are held in the cited *Commonitorium*, where the most holy Father says thus: "Once the union is granted, those things which have been united no longer stand apart from one another; but thereafter the Son is one nature, the Word having truly been made flesh."

That he himself wrote and vindicated these things, and how far he was removed from the error of the Apollinarists and the Eutychians, is excellently proven and evinced by Lequien in the cited location, Ludovicus Thomassinus in *De Incarnatione*, book 3, chapter 13, and Dionysius Petavius in book IV, chapter 7, and book VI, where he chastises as he deserves the anonymous Calvinian man who undertakes to demonstrate that Nestorius, the most impure heresiarch, was a pious and Catholic man; but that those by whom he was condemned, Cyril and the synod of Ephesus, were heretics and impious. Consult chapter 8, in which the opinion that Crozeus also opposes is shown to be harmless and thoroughly Catholic. The cited Thomassinus, loc. cit., very clearly reveals the mind and counsel of Cyril. I relate his words, which will be of the greatest use to us below. 662 "Nestorius," he says, "insidiously boasting of two natures in Christ, and (which is a most wicked kind of fraud) stirring up envy against the truth itself under the guise of truth; lest, under the pretext of two natures, two persons also be introduced, Cyril either devised or restored this formula of expressing the Incarnation, already almost forgotten (when he said, 'One is the incarnate nature of the Word of God'). The meaning of this oracle is mostly this, this most sane ^C opinion: it is less safe (especially in that age) to say two natures in Christ unless one also says the incarnate nature of the Word. Because where two natures of Christ are spoken of, the suspicion of two persons immediately bubbles up. For there is not one thing that is nature and another that is person; but while it is one and the same thing, it is signified in one way and another (which distinction is called virtual in the schools), wherefore the greatest danger arises, lest the nature being doubled, the person also be doubled. Then, when two natures are spoken of, they are counted as if from an equal footing, and therefore each is thought of separately: but it can hardly, nor even hardly, be thought of separately, without being clothed in the property of a person. Finally, Nestorius cut apart two persons by no machine more than by the preaching of a double nature: and thus he provided safeguards for falsehood from the truth itself. But if the two natures are not placed before the eyes in such a way that they proceed as two together on an equal footing, but so that one is subordinated to the other; so that one stands out principally, and the other is an accessory to it: so that one has been and continues to be, and the other has newly accrued to it: so that one is its own, is of its own right and of its own power, for it is immutably and eternally by itself; while the other impinges on it as an accident to a subject, is built upon it as a foundation, is ascribed to its right and censual estate, is its peculiar and as it were a small portion, and is not, nor ever was, by itself separately; then indeed every suspicion of a doubled person will be washed away in the profession of a double nature. But Cyril strived and accomplished this when he said the one incarnate nature of the Word. For the divinity of the Word immediately gives itself to view principally, and holds the primacy; nor in the meantime does the flesh or humanity lie hidden, from which it is said to be incarnate. Thus, not deity and flesh occur, but deity with flesh: not God and man, but God become human; not a duplex nature, deity and humanity, but a simple nature of deity with the accession of humanity. For where two natures are spoken of, God and man, each nature is named by itself, is thought of by itself; and it can hardly be named or thought of by itself without the suspicion of a person stealing in upon each. But where only the incarnate nature of the Word is spoken of, one nature subsisting primarily and by itself is presented to the mind, with the addition of another nature."

"Wherefore the individual words of his confession are not undeservedly seen to bring the greatest moment to the stabilization of the faith against Nestorian snares. For I. the nature is said to be one of the Word: and therefore it is the same to us, whether you think that the nature is taken there more strictly for nature, or more loosely for person (for others have interpreted Cyril in different ways). It matters nothing or very little, to which you accede; for person and nature do not differ except by a concept of the mind; and whether you think of the person or hypostasis of the Word as incarnate, or of the nature of the Word as principal and supreme and whole in its entirety by itself with the adjunction of flesh, it is the same. For a person is nothing other than nature as holding the principality of itself, as subsisting by itself, as underlying all accidents and ^D additions. II. It is said to be the nature of the Word, so that the assumption of flesh might not be thought to pertain to the whole Trinity. III. It is said to be incarnate, by which flesh is designated, but obliquely; and as not by itself, nor for its own sake, nor of its own right: so that it is more fitting for the vindication of the unity of the hypostasis to say 'the incarnate nature of the Word' than 'the nature of the Word and flesh.' IV. It is said to be the one nature of the Word, for unity, just as totality, is to be attended to in the more principal nature. For Christ is one person, because he is one eternal Son of God and incorruptibly the same; formerly without flesh, now with flesh, always the same, and one always the same; and the whole is no less before without flesh, nor more a whole with flesh; increased without increment, nor made greater by the accession of flesh. Therefore the unity of the person is entirely to be sought from the nature of the Word... 'Hence the dispute (among those who in Cyril's proposition"

^A regarding the nature of the Word in place of person, or hypostasis, are thought to use it, and who judge it to be posited for the nature of the Word) is not difficult to reconcile, if Cyril’s doctrine is examined to its marrow. For to them, hypostasis or person is nothing other than nature, but entire and complete; and therefore it is not something made of another, as if it were a part or an accession. To them, the name of nature (φύσεως) and of hypostasis (ὑποστάσεως) is held indiscriminately for the same thing. To them, the fact that Christ’s humanity is not a person or hypostasis is not due to any lack, but to an abundance of a superior nature. Therefore, when one nature of the incarnate Word is proclaimed, the name of nature is used for both nature and person; because a nature, when it is entire and principal and of its own right, is indeed a person... Hence it was also most prudently said by Cyril, not 'of Christ,' but 'one incarnate nature of the Word.' For Christ has two natures, but the Word has one nature, or one incarnate divinity. But with a childish quibble the 663 Semi-Eutychians, blathering that Christ and the Word are the same, invented from this the one incarnate nature of Christ.' ^B So far the excellent Thomassin.

Indeed, there is nothing said by him that Cyril himself, in the many places which the aforementioned author cites, has not expressed most clearly. To illustrate this matter finally, let us take the example of an accidental composite in created things, such as 'white,' which the divine Thomas uses in Opusculum 11, chapter 241. For if someone says of white that it is one nature of a whitewashed wall, he speaks truly: he signifies, indeed, that the nature or substance of the wall is principal, and the accessory is an accident; the former subsists in itself, the latter subsists in the subject through inherence; and he admits the two natures of the wall and the accident are distinct, not separated or apart. The meaning of the Cyrillian proposition is equal to this, all other conditions being preserved, which accompany the substantial hypostatic union of the two natures, which are substances, in Christ.

Now it is gathered that this is a dream and a fiction of Croze, who thinks that the Areopagitic works were elaborated with the intention that in them the Monophysite dogma of one nature in Christ would be spread. But this act, even if perpetrated by Synesius, is a fiction and a most empty dream. He held the bishopric of Cyrenaic Ptolemais, at the instigation of Theophilus of Alexandria, which Petavius and Lequien think happened in the year 407. He left nothing undone to avoid being promoted to the episcopal height: and he introduces as the primary cause the fact that he himself, imbued with the precepts of Platonic philosophy, dissented from several key articles of the Christian faith; and he says that these opinions were so fixed in his mind that, although he could dissemble them for the sake of peace and concord, he was unwilling to dismiss or change them. He proposes three dogmas: first, that the soul pre-exists: the second, concerning the eternity of the world, which he could not at all be led to believe was ever to perish: the third, concerning the resurrection of the dead, which he asserts conceals some mystic and secret meaning, and is not to be accepted with the vulgar ^D crowd. Baronius, at the year 410, maintains that these were not seriously inculcated by Synesius, but were an artifice to decline the office of bishop. Many ancients and moderns think that he candidly disclosed his internal sentiments, praising only his candor of spirit. Furthermore, the words which Croze opposes do not exhibit a man prepared to lie and feign: nor one asserting that a lie properly so called is at times good and useful; but rather that the dissimulation of the truth—namely, that which is held in the heart, while a lie is never uttered—is sometimes a good cause for peace and concord. For he was saying that he could hold his Platonic dogmas in silence if he were bishop, and would teach nothing against them. Hear his words: 'As one teaching nothing at all, so he would leave one also teaching nothing, and remaining in his presumed opinion of mind.' Although Synesius testified to these things, he was nevertheless initiated as bishop with the hope that ^A he would arrive at the summit and standard of true religion: nor did that hope fail Theophilus and others who requested Synesius for the episcopal office, relates Evagrius in book 1, chapter 15: 'Rightly indeed conjecturing,' he says, 'that those things would be added to the other virtues of that man, since divine grace does not allow anything to be imperfect; nor did the hope fail them.' Photius writes similar things in codex 26. In another place, in the *Encomium on Baldness*, he deals with the priests of the Egyptians who trick the people, once they have been received into inner recesses, hiding from the eyes of the people what they themselves do: 'For if the people saw what they do, they would be angry with them: for they ridicule things that are too easy and manageable; for they have need of portents, the causes of which he himself does not know.' Do these things represent Synesius’s mind as addicted to lies, fabrications, and impostures? But he himself would have considered the fraud and supposition lawful, to lead the people by the nose: this peculiar opinion had not settled in him; nor is it given to Croze to gather anything from Synesius. Indeed, he vindicates for himself the glory in *Dio* that he arrived at such a level of study and exercise that he could imitate ancient writers with a similarity of style that was hardly distinguishable; and that he attached his own things to their writings, so that the readers would think they were stated and written by them themselves. But these things prove, says Brucker, that Synesius was excellently skilled in the art of interpolating or inventing; they do not at all fit the books known by the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. For either those writings did not exist in Synesius’s age, whose style he would imitate; or if they did exist, his expertise, in which he excelled in the imitation of the style of other writers, proves that he did not produce the same works under a false name.

What, however, is such a great similarity between Synesius’s style and thought and the author of the Areopagitica, that these should be called the offspring of the latter! Was it so sublime and recondite to think of and call God the fountain of fountains, and the ineffable depth; that if any different works have had this thought, they must be considered to have proceeded from the same ^C author? Although Synesius calls the Father the fountain of fountains, and another the fountainous divinity; this does not elicit the same force and meaning. The author of the Areopagitica says also in chapter 112 *On the Divine Names*, § 1: 'the fountainous and never-failing cause,' and § 5: 'the Father alone is the fountain of the supersubstantial deity': for which you will search in vain for parallels in Synesius.

Now indeed it is gathered that it is a dream and a fiction of Croze, who thinks that the Areopagitic works were elaborated with the intention that in them the Monophysite dogma of one nature in Christ would be spread. But this act, even if perpetrated by Synesius, is a fiction and a most empty dream. He held the bishopric of Cyrenaic Ptolemais, at the instigation of Theophilus of Alexandria, which Petavius and Lequien think happened in the year 407. He left nothing undone to avoid being promoted to the episcopal height: and he introduces as the primary cause the fact that he himself, imbued with the precepts of Platonic philosophy, dissented from several key articles of the Christian faith; and he says that these opinions were so fixed in his mind that, although he could dissemble them for the sake of peace and concord, he was unwilling to dismiss or change them. He proposes three dogmas: first, that the soul pre-exists: the second, concerning the eternity of the world, which he could not at all be led to believe was ever to perish: the third, concerning the resurrection of the dead, which he asserts conceals some mystic and secret meaning, and is not to be accepted with the vulgar ^D crowd. Baronius, at the year 410, maintains that these were not seriously inculcated by Synesius, but were an artifice to decline the office of bishop. Many ancients and moderns think that he candidly disclosed his internal sentiments, praising only his candor of spirit. Furthermore, the words which Croze opposes do not exhibit a man prepared to lie and feign: nor one asserting that a lie properly so called is at times good and useful; but rather that the dissimulation of the truth—namely, that which is held in the heart, while a lie is never uttered—is sometimes a good cause for peace and concord. For he was saying that he could hold his Platonic dogmas in silence if he were bishop, and would teach nothing against them. Hear his words: 'As one teaching nothing at all, so he would leave one also teaching nothing, and remaining in his presumed opinion of mind.' Although Synesius testified to these things, he was nevertheless initiated as bishop with the hope that, finally, Croze bids one compare the first and second hymn of Synesius with the passage in *On the Divine Names* chapter 1, § 1. We assent most willingly. In the cited passage, we have: 'The supersubstantial infinity is above substances, and the unit above mind is above minds; and the one above reasoning is inscrutable to all reasonings, and the good above word is ineffable to every word: the unit which is the maker of all unity, and the substance above substance, and the mind not falling under intelligence, the ratio ineffable in reason, the intelligence, and devoid of name: having the likeness of nothing, which indeed is the cause that all things are, etc.' But hear these things among others, which Synesius sings in the Second hymn: 'One fountain, one root: for where the depth of the Father is, there also is the illustrious Son: he brought forth the abundance of goods, and the supersubstantial progeny: the Father’s glory, and the first-begotten form: thou art Father, thou art mother: thou art male, thou art female: thou art voice, thou art silence: the unity of divine numbers.' He who says these are equals is blind. He also sings in hymn 1: 'He indeed is the first-begotten principle from himself, the governor and father of all things, unbegotten..., the holy unity of unities, and the first monad of monads, the simplicity of summits... The unity diffused in an ineffable way, has obtained a triple force. The supersubstantial fountain is crowned by the beauty of the offspring, which flowed from the center.' There are certain things to each one...

such as are obvious, which are celebrated concerning the most high God and the most holy Trinity; others are proper to Synesius, which the author of the Areopagitic [writings] never wrote. Finally, there are two things to be noted: first, with Jo. Ernestus Gabrius in his Notes on chapter 1 of St. Irenaeus, that Synesius abused poetic license in his hymns, having adopted almost the entire theology of the Valentinians into a true theology, and sang of the orthodox faith with a heretical voice; second, with Tillemont in volume XI, in article 4 of the Life of the same Synesius, namely that the dogmas of the Christian faith are insufficiently accurately set forth in the hymns, and that more is drawn from the writings of philosophers than from divine utterances. These are far removed from the Areopagitic [writings]; the most sound faith of which is yet to be revealed and vindicated below. ^A

XI. That Fullo is the author of the Areopagitic [writings] is not proved by the rite of the public consecration of the holy ointment described in the Areopagitic [writings]. Some churches used that rite in the most ancient times. The Trisagion hymn is either not mentioned in these same Areopagitic [writings], or certainly does not smack of the genius of Fullo and the Severians. ^B

Let it be permitted to set forth the words of the author of the Areopagitic [writings] by which the rite of preparing the holy ointment is described, *De ecclesiastica hierarchia*, chapter 4, number 2: "In the same way as in the synaxis, the orders of those who are less perfect are excluded: having preceded of course with a sacred procession through the whole temple with the fragrance of incense, and with the sacred modulation of the Psalms, and the promulgation of the most divine utterances." Thus far you see the solemnities of the Masses up to the reading and promulgation of the Gospel. "Then the pontiff, having taken the ointment, places it upon the divine altar, covered by twelve sacred wings, while all sing with a most holy voice that hymn of inspiration of the divinely inspired prophets." These words declare that the holy ointment is consecrated by the pontiff upon the altar, and thus within the solemnities of the Mass, while the faithful people stand by. Yet the words of Theodorus Lector in his *Historia ecclesiastica*, book II, are: "That Peter Fullo instituted that the holy chrism should be consecrated before all the people." Hence the suspicion of Lequien, that the Areopagitic books should be attributed either to Fullo himself or to his associate and follower. ^C

But if Theodorus Lector was deceived in writing these things, the conjecture of Lequien must fall and collapse. That Theodorus was mistaken if he understood that it was Fullo who first introduced into the entire Christian Church the rite of consecrating chrism upon the altar during the liturgical action, before the faithful people, is held for certain by Edmund Martene in *De antiquis Ecclesiae ritibus*, chapter 22, § 3, number 1, where: "The public solemnity of this consecration (he says) had already long before obtained in the African Church; as indeed the fact that it was performed at the altar, no less than the Eucharist, is taught by these words of St. Cyprian in letter 70: 'Furthermore, the Eucharist, and that from which the baptized are anointed, the oil, is sanetified upon the altar.'" And indeed by invoking the name of Christ, as we learn from Optatus of Milevis in book VIII *Adversus Parmenianum*: "They call 'oil' that liquor which is constituted in the name of Christ; which, after it is constituted, is named 'chrism'." ^D

Martene employs the passage of Cyprian as it was emended by Erasmus, and as it is read in his edition placed by Pamelius. Baluzius thought it should be read otherwise, according to the faith of the Corbie manuscript: "Furthermore, the Eucharist is that from which the baptized are anointed with oil sanctified upon the altar." And Rigaltius embraces another reading after Manutius: "Furthermore, the Eucharist is that from which the baptized are anointed, oil sanctified upon the altar;" as if the Eucharist itself were understood to be spiritual oil; and that in the same place it treats of the spiritual anointing, which flows from the sacrament of the Eucharist. What reading is genuine, there is no time to inquire more diligently; but it is certain and known to me that in the same place Cyprian speaks of the chrism itself, and of its consecration upon the altar. After the words cited, he immediately adds: "But he could not sanctify the creature of oil, who has neither an altar nor a church (that is, a heretic): whence neither can a spiritual unction exist among heretics, since it is established that oil cannot be sanctified, and the Eucharist cannot be made among them at all." In which place, who would understand the "creature of oil, which is sanctified" to be the Eucharist? Rather, Cyprian distinguishes between oil and the Eucharist, and teaches that neither the former can be sanctified, nor the latter made, among heretics who have neither an altar nor a church. This argument, by which Cyprian rejected the sacraments of heretics, is adduced and solved by Augustine in book V *De baptismo contra Donatistas*, chapter 20, and he receives the oil as distinct from the Eucharist: "For why, he says, to the words which proceed from the mouth of a murderer (not a heretic, but a sinner within the Catholic Church) should God nevertheless be able to sanctify oil; and yet, upon the altar which heretics have set up, should He not be able? I do not know... How does He hear a murderer praying, either over the water of baptism, or over oil, or over the Eucharist, or over the heads of those upon whom hands are laid?" By the name of material or element he enumerates and calls them sacraments: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, ordination.

Therefore, it is certain that chrism or holy ointment was consecrated upon the altar, within the solemnities of the Mass, before the faithful people, long before the age of Fullo. Nor do you reply that Peter Fullo, by the testimony of Theodorus Lector, was the first to introduce that rite of consecrating chrism among the Greeks: and that the same rite, already long obtaining in the Latin Church, could by no means have been observed by the Greek author of the Areopagitic [writings]. For the first answer is at hand, that that writer himself also proposed, as Lequien agrees and as the Scholiast notes, to bring forth and expound certain rites of the Roman and Western Church: which we confirmed in number 6 with examples. And the second answer follows, that by the testimony of Theodorus this is proven, that Fullo could have been the one to first introduce that rite into the Church of Antioch, in which he exercised tyranny; but it cannot be concluded that the same rite had not previously obtained in some churches of the Greek communion.

"But that rite, which is subjoined in the same place (Lequien's words are), that the ointment placed upon the altar should be covered by two seraphic figures, by which it is signified that Christ, who is represented by the ointment, is celebrated by the perpetual seraphic hymn, which is called the Trisagion or Tersanctus; does this not also smack of the mind and genius of the Gnapheus [Peter the Fuller] and the Severians, who sing the Trisagion hymn now to the whole Trinity, now to the Son and Christ alone?" Note two things in the rite which the author of the Areopagitic [writings] describes. I. The ointment placed upon the divine altar, to be covered by two seraphic figures, or twelve wings. [...] the hymn of inspiration of the prophets. We gave these words with the complete text above. That hymn, which those standing by sing together, the Scholiast thus declares: "The hymn, namely the *Sanctus* or *Alleluia*." But that the author of the Areopagitic [writings] understood the later, *Alleluia*, he is his own interpreter in the cited place number 3, § 12, where he explains more broadly what he had proposed concisely: "Furthermore, he says, that sacred melody of the divinely inspired prophets, as those know who know Hebrew, signifies the praise of God, or 'Praise the Lord'." Therefore that hymn, which those standing by sang at the confection of the holy ointment, was nothing other than *Alleluia*; which, as even boys know, is the same in Latin as "Praise God." There is, therefore, no mention of the Trisagion in these words. Nor let it move you (obvious...

^A that Isaiah heard the seraphim chanting it. Ecclesiastical writers relate its origin.

XII.

The author of the Areopagitica does not indicate that the symbol of faith was accustomed to be read or chanted in the liturgy which he describes; hence Lequien’s chief conjecture that the Areopagitic books are to be ascribed to Peter the Fuller falls away.

The custom of reading or chanting the symbol of faith after the Gospel, once the catechumens and the energumens had been dismissed, is held by all the more learned men who treat of sacred rites, relying on the faith and authority of Theodore the Reader, to have been introduced into the sacred liturgy by Peter the Fuller after the second invasion of his see at Antioch in the year 476. We have provided his words at number 8. Lequien contends that this rite is sufficiently indicated by the author of the Areopagitica in *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter 3, number 2, where the following is held: "The reading of the Holy Scriptures being finished, the catechumens are excluded by a sacred circuit, and with them the energumens and penitents... But those who occupy the first rank among the ministers (the deacons), together with the priests, place the bread and the sacred cup of benediction upon the divine altar; [this is done] after the common hymnology (or Catholic praise, τῆς καθολικῆς ὑμνολογίας) has been performed by the whole fullness of the Church (or by the entire assembly of the Church)." The most learned man understands this Catholic praise to be the Symbol of Faith: which he thinks is indicated even more clearly by the same author at number 3, § 7, where he explains the theory of the mystery more extensively: "But others," he says, "call this hymn a canticle of praise, and others a symbol of religion (τῆς θρησκείας τὸ σύμβολον)." Therefore, that author would be either the Fuller himself, or some other follower of his.

Hugo Menardus also believed that the symbol of faith was indicated by these Areopagitic words, in his notes and observations on the book of the Sacramentary: "There was indeed," he says, "a use of that (symbol) in the churches of the ancient Greeks, as is evident from St. Dionysius, in chapter 3 of *The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, when, bringing forward the diverse opinions concerning the hymn which is chanted in the sacred mysteries, he says thus: 'But some call this hymn a canticle of praise, others a symbol of religion, and others (in my own opinion, more divinely) the hierarchical Eucharist.'" However, when Menardus refers the use of the symbol of faith in the sacred liturgy in that place to the churches of the ancient Greeks, and proves it from St. Dionysius, might it not seem that he was looking at times prior to Peter the Fuller?

But the aforementioned Lequien contends on this point that the perverse mind of the Severians lies hidden, because that Trisagion is applied solely to the Son, Jesus Christ, who is signified by the sacred oil. And indeed, it was made an accusation against the Fuller, who reduced that song to the Son alone: "Holy God, Holy Strong, Holy Immortal; who was crucified for us." You should read Petavius, book V, *On the Incarnation*, chapter 4, § 4. I would not wish to stir up more subtle questions in this place. I hold it for certain that it was not the mind and intention of the author of the Areopagitica that the Trisagion should be understood in that rite as applied only to Christ. Nay rather, those seraphim, with Jesus standing by, are understood to chant the Trisagion to the most holy Trinity, sanctifying Jesus and anointing Him most abundantly with the oil of grace. Receive the author’s most lucid words, at the cited location, number 3, § 10: "The most divine order of celestial essences," he says, "was by no means ignorant that Jesus had descended for the sake of sanctification, but it knew... and [that He was] sanctified by the Father Himself and the Spirit in a human manner." The Scholiast agrees: "For even Jesus, who as God sanctifies all things, was also as man sanctified by the Father, and by Himself, since He is also God, and by the Holy Spirit; the celestial orders also knowing this..." The Greeks use this same rite today, as can be seen in Goar; nor do I think anyone would say that they wish to conform to the mind and intention of Peter the Fuller and the Severians.

Furthermore, as regards that Trisagion, "Holy God, Holy Strong, Holy and Immortal," with the addition of Peter the Fuller, "Who was crucified for us," neither do the words of the author of the Areopagitica indicate it, nor is it what the seraphim in heaven were heard chanting. The ecclesiastical writers relate its origin. ^B

The Scholiast, whether it be Maximus or John of Scythopolis, saw this objection and refutes it in a dual manner: "From the whole fullness..." For, he says, "even then a certain symbol of faith was put forward; or rather, this doctrine which they had received at that time; or an explanation of the faith." He has these things at number 2 and at number 3. At § 7, he says thus: "General. He called it a general canticle of praise: either because it is chanted by all, or it is offered as a universal grace." Note that he calls this hymn a symbol, a profession, and an act of thanksgiving. The Scholiast first observes that a certain explanation and profession of faith, which could be called a symbol, and was also called a hymn and canticle of praise, issued and chanted by the entire assembly of the Church, held a place in the ancient sacred liturgy; from which, however, it may be gathered that the Areopagitic words cited indicate the symbol of faith, whether the Apostolic, the Nicene, or the Constantinopolitan. According to the testimony of Theodore the Reader, Peter the Fuller introduced the use of the Nicene symbol into the Church of Antioch, and Timothy the Monophysite into the Church of Constantinople; but the confession of faith which is described by the author of the Areopagitica, and which was used in the liturgical office, was far different from these formulas, inasmuch as it had the manner of a hymnology, a canticle of praise, and a hierarchical Eucharist, or act of thanksgiving; even though it was called a symbol of religion, because the divine benefits, which we trust by faith to have been bestowed upon us by God in redemption, were being chanted. ^{C D}

To this matter pertains the observation of Joseph Bingham, who in book xv of his *Origines Ecclesiastica*, chapter 3, having explained the greater act of thanksgiving which is read in the liturgy—that is to say, the one which includes the seraphic hymn, *Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Deus Sabaoth*—notes that there follows a mention in the Apostolic Constitutions of a certain more special act of thanksgiving for the divine benefits received in redemption. This was the entire symbol, he says, which the Church used at that time in this office. For it was not yet a part of the ecclesiastical office to recite the symbol solemnly, as it was in later centuries; rather, only those doctrines were recited which were the subject of a more special act of thanksgiving for the great mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption. He brings forth a passage from the Constitutions, and likewise the testimonies of John Chrysostom, homily 24, on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and Cyprian, epistle 113, Oxford edition.

^B Now we have fallen upon the second answer of the scholiast, which is rather a clearer explanation of the one previously offered. For the author of the Areopagitic writings himself teaches that that catholic hymnology, which the whole assembly of the Church sang together after the Gospel had been chanted and the catechumens, the possessed, and the penitents had been ordered to depart, consisted in a certain commemoration of the benefits of God and of God’s greatest benevolence in the sacred mystery soon to be performed, along with the praise of the supreme Giver and with an act of thanksgiving for the gifts bestowed. Receive his words, which are found in no. 3, § 7: "Then finally," he says, "the holy ministers of the rites and the studious observers (behold, the entire assembly of the Church), looking upon the most sacred host (which was clearly being prepared for immolation upon the altar), celebrate with a catholic hymnology (or general praise) the beneficent and bountiful principle from whom the salutary sacraments have been extended to us, which completes that most holy deification of the initiates (the baptized)." Who, with these words indicated, would say it is the symbol of faith, or that formula either of the apostles, or the Nicene, or the Constantinopolitan, which we profess as the supreme chapters of our faith when we recite or read them? The author continues: "But some call this hymn a song of praise, others a symbol of religion; others finally—in my opinion, more divinely—the hierarchical eucharist, or the principal act of thanksgiving to the sacred; as it embraces the sacred gifts that flow down to us from divinity." This hymn was called a song of praise, by which the sacred ministers and the faithful sang the praises of the supreme Giver of all goods; but they also gave thanks for the sacred gifts flowing down to us, whence it was called the principal act of thanksgiving to the sacred. By some it was also called a symbol of religion; where it is worthy of note that it is called a symbol, not of faith, but of religion: for it was not a simple profession of faith; rather, by pouring forth praises to God and giving thanks to Him for the gifts conferred, the faithful commemorated the mysteries of the Christian religion. And it is called, finally, a catholic hymnology, for the reason that the entire assembly of the Church sang that hymn.

There is nothing, therefore, which indicates that formula which we call the symbol of faith. It would be strange if it had been marked by so many names, which other Fathers and ecclesiastical writers never used, nor did the author of the Areopagitic writings himself in another place, where he treats of the Apostles' Symbol of faith. Moreover, the symbol, whether of the apostles, or the Nicene, or the Constantinopolitan, we read has been called by the Greek Fathers πίστιν, or ἔκδοσιν, or ὅρος πίστεως, or κανόνα, or ἅγιον μάθημα, or γράμμα, and γραφήν: nowhere a hymn, or hymnology, or song of praise, or act of thanksgiving. The author of the Areopagitic writings himself, in chapter 2 of *De ecclesiastica hierarchia*, no. 2, § 6, ^C speaking of the symbol of faith which those who were to be initiated into baptism offered and professed, calls it θεοπαραδότους ἱερολογίας, sacred eloquence handed down by God. Which is finally an argument that there is nothing in that Areopagitic passage which indicates a symbol of faith, or which looks toward a rite introduced into the liturgical office by Peter the Fuller.

XIII.

Why so? Observe that the formula of faith, which three hundred and eighteen Fathers composed in the Council of Nicaea against Arius, was augmented subsequently by certain additions, either for the sake of greater explanation or so that new heresies might be pierced by clear words. The Nicene Symbol indeed ends with these words: "Who for our salvation was incarnate, and lived among men: who suffered, and rose again the third day, ascended to the Father, and is to come again with glory to judge the living and the dead: we believe also in the Holy Spirit." But the additions of the Constantinopolitan symbol are as follows: "Who for us men and for our salvation descended from heaven: and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, and was made man: crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried, etc."

Both symbols were confirmed in the Council of Chalcedon, which was held against Eutyches and his followers, by the public acclamation of the orthodox and by the decree of the Fathers. Both were read in the second session, and first, the Nicene was acclaimed with these words: "This is the faith of the Catholics, in this we all believe, in this we were baptized; so we baptize in this"; then likewise the Constantinopolitan: "This is the faith of all, this is the faith of the orthodox, thus we all believe." Finally, in the definition of faith, which is contained in the fifth session, the decree issued for both reads as follows: "By common judgment, expelling the dogmas of error, we have renewed the unerring faith of the Fathers, preaching to all the symbol of the three hundred and eighteen: and those who have accepted this as a badge of piety, we acknowledge as proper Fathers; those, namely, who afterward were gathered in great Constantinople, one hundred and fifty, and they themselves confirmed the same faith also. We decree therefore... that the exposition of the faith by the holy and blessed 318 Fathers who were in Nicaea in the times of Constantine of pious memory indeed shines forth; but that those things which were decreed at Constantinople by the most holy one hundred and fifty Fathers be guarded, indeed for the expelling of heresies which had sprouted at that time, and for the confirmation of our catholic and apostolic faith." From here, truly, it happened that the oriental orthodox Churches, with the peculiar formulas of faith being set aside, which they used for the sake of free...

choice, began little by little to employ the Constantinopolitan symbol in the collation of baptism, and most constantly retained it, and retain it to this day; and the same symbol was nevertheless called in ecclesiastical monuments the Nicene, although in reality it is the Nicene itself, increased by some additions.

But these additions, which are contained in the Constantinopolitan symbol, Eutyches most pertinaciously rejected, and adhered only to the simple Nicene, by which the sacrament of the divine Incarnation had not been explained so clearly as in the Constantinopolitan. The Acts of the ecumenical synod of Chalcedon reveal this most openly. In Action 1, a book of Eutyches' confession is referred to, in which the Nicene symbol was contained with these words pertaining to the mystery of the Incarnation: "Who for us men and for our salvation descended, and was incarnate, and was made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day," etc. Then Eutyches adds thus: "So from the beginning," he says, "receiving from my progenitors, I believed and believe.... And in this faith I was baptized and signed, and have lived until this day.... He who shall have added anything besides this, or diminished, or taught otherwise, let him be subject to damnations...." Diogenes, bishop of Cyzicus, immediately laid bare the perverse mind of the heretic. He replied: "Craftily," he says, "he (Eutyches) put forward the synod of the holy Fathers which was held in Nicaea. For he received the additions made by the holy Fathers (to the Nicene symbol) on account of the perverse intellect of Apollinaris, and Valentinus, and Macedonius, and those who are like them ^B (to whom Eutyches adhered in his mind). And it was added in the symbol of the holy Fathers (namely, the Constantinopolitan): 'Who descended and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary.' For Eutyches omitted this, as do the Apollinarists. For even Apollinaris accepts the holy synod which was held at Nicaea, understanding the words according to his own perversity. He evaded: 'By the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary,' so that he might not confess the union of the flesh at all. For the holy Fathers who met at Nicaea said: 'that he was incarnate.' But the holy Fathers who were after them (gathered in synod at Constantinople) explained it, saying: 'By the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary.'" Certain Egyptian bishops, having these words of the bishop of Cyzicus in addition, who adhered to the parties of Eutyches and Dioscorus of Alexandria, a patron of Eutyches, proceeded to reject the additions made to the Nicene symbol: "No one," they said, "accepts addition, no one diminution: let them hold what was established at Nicaea." And again: "No one accepts addition: let them hold what belongs to the Fathers: let them hold what was established at Nicaea."

It is already sufficiently clear that it was solemn for the Eutychians to revile and reject the Constantinopolitan symbol, and to profess only the Nicene. The same design had settled in the mind of the Monophysite Peter the Fuller, bishop of Antioch, and Timotheus, bishop of Constantinople; and, led by the same base design, they made the symbol a part of the divine liturgy, not the Constantinopolitan, which they rejected, but the Nicene, which they abused. The reader Theodorus, therefore, relates in book II that Peter the Fuller (when he had recovered the bishopric of Antioch) had contrived that the symbol should be said in every assembly, which was the Nicene, as these other words prove: "Timotheus (bishop of Constantinople) ordered the symbol of the faith of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers to be recited in every assembly, for the sake of hatred, namely, of Macedonius, as if he did not accept that symbol." That the second invasion of the See of Antioch by the Fuller pertains to the year 476 is taught by Le Quien in *Oriens Christianus*, the continuators of Bolland in the fourth volume of July, and Antonius Pagius. Having been driven into exile in the second year of this Macedonius, in the year 515, ^C Timotheus followed him into the Constantinopolitan see, and he ruled that Church for seven years. The author of the newly introduced rites in the Church of Antioch was Peter the Fuller, or the Fuller; and it pleased Timotheus to imitate him in the Church of Constantinople.

Examining those words, "for the sake of hatred, namely, of Macedonius," Natalis Alexander seems to gather for himself that it is a question in this place of the Constantinopolitan symbol, even though it is called that of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers; understanding, namely, Macedonius, the enemy of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, condemned in the ecumenical synod of Constantinople. Thus he, in the 4th century, in dissertation 37, art. 1, at the end. The learned man is mistaken. Macedonius is not the first enemy of the Holy Spirit, but the immediate predecessor of this Timotheus of this name, who was illustrious in the profession of the Catholic faith in the synod of Chalcedon. For this reason, having been driven into exile by the Emperor Anastasius in the year 511, Timotheus himself, a heretic and opponent of the synod of Chalcedon, was substituted. The most wicked man did many things, according to the testimony of the reader Theodorus, against this very Macedonius, and among other things he ordered the symbol of the faith of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers (the Nicene) to be recited in every assembly, for the sake of hatred, namely, of Macedonius (his predecessor), as if he did not accept that symbol (the Nicene, namely).

Moreover, to the rite which the Monophysite heretics had introduced with a base design, the orthodox opposed a rite by which they might openly and publicly in the sacred liturgy profess the right and Catholic faith of the Lord's Incarnation, using the Constantinopolitan symbol, which those others rejected. There is ready at hand an ecclesiastical monument which pertains to the year 518, by which it is most clearly established that it was already then in use among the orthodox that the symbol of faith should be read or chanted in the divine liturgy. Among the acts of the Constantinopolitan synod celebrated in the year 536 under Menna, a book is reviewed inscribed: "How the synods were preached (or promulgated)." It refers to another council held at Constantinople in the year 518, while the elder Justin, a Catholic, was reigning after the Emperor Anastasius, the enemy of the council of Chalcedon. Its beginning is: "An entry having been made according to custom into our holiest great church, on Sunday the 15th of the present month of July, in the 11th indiction, by the most holy lord archbishop and ecumenical patriarch John," etc. The eleventh indiction indicates the year 518: in which John II, surnamed the Cappadocian, on the 17th day of the month of April, was substituted into the Constantinopolitan see for the aforementioned Monophysite Timotheus. Near the end of the book, these words are held according to the version corrected by Henry Valesius in his notes to Evagrius, book IV, chapter 11: "And after the reading of the holy Gospel, when the Mass was celebrated according to custom, and the doors having been closed, and the sacred symbol ^D chanted according to custom, when it came to the diptychs," etc. It is clearly apparent that the symbol of faith was already in the year 518 read and recited by custom by the orthodox in the liturgy.

But that was the Constantinopolitan symbol. There exist in the cited place epistles of that same Constantinopolitan synod celebrated in the year 518 to the same John, the new patriarch, in which these things are held: "The third chapter was contained in the petition, that for the greater authority of the Scriptures the holy and great synod of the 318 Fathers gathered in Nicaea, who defined the holy symbol of faith and exclaimed: 'In which we were baptized, and we baptize,' and that which was gathered in Constantinople under Nectarius of holy memory, and confirmed the aforementioned holy symbol of the 318 Fathers, should be placed in the sacred diptychs," etc. Where that symbol of faith, which the Nicene synod defined and the Constantinopolitan synod confirmed, is none other than the Constantinopolitan, or the Nicene with additions. Similar words are read in the same place in

of the monks, and of John of Jerusalem to the same John the patriarch.

A very clear confirmation arrives from the Chronicle of the Lusitanian abbot Biclarensis, who flourished in the sixth century and learned his letters at Constantinople. This Chronicle, which is carried from the year 566 to the year 590, was published by Henricus Canisius. The passage is indeed disjointed, but it was restored to its own proper time by Henricus Valesius, who confirms the matter miraculously. For Biclarensis says: "Justin the Younger, the LIII (emperor) of the Romans, (reigned) eleven years. This Justin, in the first year of his reign (the year of Christ 566), destroyed those things which had been devised against the Chalcedonian synod; and the creed of the holy 150 Fathers gathered at Constantinople, and laudably received in the synod of Chalcedon, he introduced to be sung by the people in every Catholic Church, before the Lord's Prayer is said." Those things which indeed belong to Justin the Elder, and were done in the year 518, Biclarensis, being deceived, attributed to Justin the Younger, and reduced to the year 566. Thus Henricus Valesius in his Notes to book 5, chapter 4 of Evagrius. In this place Evagrius himself reports that an edict was transmitted by Justin the Younger in the first year of his empire, 566, "to all Christians who are everywhere: to which all indeed accommodated their consent, stating that the right faith and doctrine were promulgated in it; yet none of the members of the Church, who had been severed, returned to the former unity; because the emperor had declared in express words that a firm and unmovable status of the churches should be kept in the future, just as it had been kept before." Indeed, it was enough for Justin the Younger to have set forth the orthodox faith in his edict; and to have forbidden disputes in the future concerning the Eutychian and Nestorian dogma, so that it might be permitted for each one to think as he wished concerning these matters. Thus, from this edict it is gathered (the words are those of Valesius) that no utility was obtained, as Evagrius rightly writes. Therefore, John Biclarensis wrongly attributes in his Chronicle to Justin the Younger those things which more properly belonged to Justin the Elder. He was, therefore, the one who, in the year 518, in order to destroy those things which had been enacted against the Chalcedonian synod, ordered the Constantinopolitan creed, which the Chalcedonian synod itself had laudably accepted, and which the Eutychians rejected, to be sung in the sacred liturgy in every Catholic Church, since some had already begun to use it, after Peter the Fuller in the year 476 had, with a perverse mind, introduced the Nicene creed to be sung. He ordered it to be sung, ^A if we believe Biclarensis, "before the Lord's Prayer"; which, at any rate, we know was established afterward in the churches of Spain, and not elsewhere.

The same rite was received late in the West. In the gathering for baptism, the Latin churches proceeded to hand down the creed which is called the Apostles'; and the Spanish Fathers, in the Third Council of Toledo which was celebrated in the year 589 under King Reccared against the spreading Arian impiety, were the first to decree in the second chapter that the Constantinopolitan creed should be recited. "In order to show reverence for the most holy faith," they said, "and to strengthen the weak minds of men, by the counsel of our most pious and glorious lord King Reccared... throughout all the churches of Spain and Galicia, according to the form of the Oriental churches, let the creed of the 150 bishops of the Council of Constantinople be recited: and before the Lord's Prayer is said, let it be sung by the people with a clear voice." In the ninth century the same custom prevailed in Gaul. Walafrid Strabo in his book *On Ecclesiastical Matters*, chapter 22, says: "Among the Gauls, and the Germans, after the ejection of the heretic Felix, condemned under the most glorious Charlemagne, ruler of the Franks (in the year 792 in the synod of Ratisbon and in the year 794 at Frankfurt), the same creed began to be repeated more widely and frequently in the offices of the Mass." ^B These words indicate sufficiently, as Edmund Martène notes (book 1, *On Ancient Church Rites*, chapter 4, art. 5), that the creed had already been recited in Masses; but not so widely and frequently as it was after Felix was condemned. Finally, in the eleventh century, many think that the rite was admitted into the Roman Church during the times of the Emperor Henry; but the mentioned Martène contends that the creed was said and read, even if not sung, among the Romans throughout the whole of the ninth century, in the place cited, where he explains and reconciles the testimonies of the writers who seem to disagree.

Now, however, the Areopagitic words opposed by Lequien indicate that no such rite as the one we have diligently explained was introduced, whether with a perverse mind by Peter the Fuller and the Monophysites, or by a Catholic council by the orthodox. There is no mention of a Nicene or Constantinopolitan creed being sung in the sacred liturgy. One hymnology is proposed, which the whole assembly of the Church, after the Gospel, once the catechumens, the energumens, and the penitents were dismissed, and as the host was being prepared to be immolated on the altar, would sing together. This hymnology indeed encompassed both the praise of the Supreme Being, from whom all good things proceed, and also thanksgiving for the gifts bestowed. From this, however, it can be gathered that the author of the Areopagitica, who inserts no mention of a creed of faith among the liturgical parts, lived before the rite of this kind was introduced in the year 476.

XIV.

The first Areopagitic passage objected to by Lequien from the book *On the Divine Names*. The perverse Monophysite dogmas are explained. The aforementioned passage does not agree with these; rather, it opposes them, by which the integrity of the divine nature and the exaltation of the human in Christ is declared. The commentaries of the Scholiast and St. Thomas.

We have already approached the sum of the dispute. Lequien contends that the Areopagitic works are teeming with the perverse dogmas of the Eutychians. This must be brought to examination. He brings forward the passage which is read in chapter 2 of *On the Divine Names*, §10, under the name of St. Hierotheus: in which the Lord Jesus is called "supernatural and supersubstantial," ^C and it is said that "when He became man, He preserved, not only in so far as He participated in our nature without alteration and confusion, nothing of his inexplicable emptying in relation to his immense fullness; but (which is the most novel of all things) He was supernatural in our natural things, and supersubstantial in those things which are of substance, supereminent above all our things, and over every thing that belongs to us." To grasp the meaning and force of this passage (these are Lequien's words), it is necessary to observe that the terms "supersubstantial" and "supernatural," in this author, do not signify some certain exalted status which still would not entirely exceed the bounds of created nature; but rather the whole divine excellence, which infinitely differs from any perfection of any created substance whatsoever. But now, if the Lord Jesus preserved His own supernatural and supersubstantial status, not only in so far as He was God, and was a partaker in our affairs without diminution and confusion of Himself; but also in so far as He bore and held our human things, or those things proper to our substance and nature, in a supernatural and supersubstantial manner; what else remains, except that Christ divinely bore all our human things; and that His humanity, therefore, did not pertain to the nature of the divinity as if it were its appendage; which indeed was the pure and simple error of the Monophysites.

More things must be replied. And first, the Monophysite fabrications—the heterodox men themselves brought them forth in one way and then another, and the Fathers who were involved in that business seem to have understood this—St. Pope Leo, the Chalcedonian Fathers, Theodoret, and many others. Damascene encompasses these in a few words in book III of *On the Orthodox Faith*, chapter 2: "One," he says, "Son of God, perfect in human nature and... ^D

^A integral according to the hypostasis, without confusion, or mutation, or division: so that he neither changed the nature of his divinity into the substance of the flesh, nor the substance of his flesh into the nature of his divinity; nor did he make one nature from his divine nature and the human nature which he assumed" (whether confused, that is, coalescing from the divine and human commingled together; or composed from those two, which though remaining integral, are as it were imperfect and incomplete parts). Three or four ways of explaining this kind of insane and pestiferous error are brought up by the Fathers everywhere. But there is nothing similar in the words cited from the Areopagite, and nothing at all in the entire work: rather, it is said that the Son of God participated in our nature without alteration and confusion: having suffered nothing from his inexplicable emptying, regarding his immense plenitude. The Scholiast, weighing this, says: "Observe therefore that no one speaks so divinely against the Nestorians, and the Acephali (or Monophysites), and the Phantasiasts." We shall provide more, and those most solid, further below.

But there were some, or even many, of the Monophysites who, rejecting the impious and impossible fiction of one nature of Christ exposed in the aforementioned ways, added a new one, so as not to appear so insane; which Lequien indicates in the cited words, and as he had represented earlier from the most learned Combefis, in that they said one nature of the Eutychians, not as if flesh or humanity were lacking to Christ, either through mutation or conversion, or through absorption or loss (nor that the divinity should be understood as converted into flesh, or united into a third nature different through commixtion, or finally just as a kind of imperfect part forming a composite together with the flesh); but that the divine nature is and is called the only nature properly, which holds the primary place in the Incarnation, not the human, which holds only the secondary: that, I say, which has something else, not that which is held as if it were an appendix to it, and immersed in it. Which error, however, I say, in order that it may be better understood, it is not sufficient to say that the divine nature in Christ 672 is principal, and the human is as it were an appendix; and that the former possesses, and the latter is possessed. These seem to be innocuous locutions, unless something else is added. For Vigilius Tapsensis had said in book IV *Against Eutyches*, no. 4: "Since therefore 'to be possessed' and 'to possess' are not the same; for the Word possesses, but the flesh is possessed: it is clearly and lucidly proven that Christ is of both natures, but of one person." In which place, from that distinction between possessing and possessed, Vigilius collects a dogma against the Eutychians. Although it must also be noted, which St. Thomas teaches in the opusculum *Against the Greeks and Armenians*, chapter 6, that it is not so much the divine nature that possesses the human, as rather the person of the Word is that which truly and properly possesses the human nature; nevertheless, because of the identity of the thing, as he says in opusculum 1, chapter 4, since the divine nature is not distinguished from the person, it can be said in a right sense that the divine nature possesses the human. Recall those things which we discussed at greater length in no. 9, where we examined Cyril's opinion on the one incarnate nature of the Word.

Hence Dionysius Petavius rightly concludes in his book *On the Incarnation*, chapter 8, no. 4, that divinity holds the primary place in the Incarnation, to which humanity is like an appendix and accident to a substance. This the Angelic Doctor had most clearly taught before, in opusculum 11, chapter 211, where, having rejected composition from the divine and human nature as if from parts, he says that no other example of this composition in Christ can be found in creatures, except for the union of subject and accident which is provided: which are not united in such a way that some third thing is constituted from them; whence the subject in such a union does not act as a part, but is a certain integral thing, which is the person, the hypostasis, and suppositum; being further drawn to the personality of the subject, so that it is the same person of man and of white. ^B Nor, however, should anyone collect that the human nature adheres to the divine person in the manner of an accident, and that the union of the double nature in Christ should be called accidental; for the human nature is a true substance, and being drawn to the subsistence of the divine Word, it constitutes the person of Christ, which is not distinct from the person of the Word likewise subsisting in the divine nature. Consult the theologians, who treat all these things at large.

If Lequien wishes to refer to those locutions which he uses with Combefis, as carrying a heretical sense; he must add what he himself reports later from Timothy Aelurus, who, in the lucubration by which he attacked the epistle of Leo the Great to Flavian, did not hesitate to pronounce: "The humanity of Christ lacked every proper action; nor were any operations brought forth through it, unless divine; and thus what were considered operations of humanity should rather be called *pathē* (passions) and mere executions." Which fiction being admitted, it follows of its own accord, what the same Aelurus maintained, that the divinity alone is the nature of Christ, even if incarnate; with the flesh or humanity having the place of an attached appendix, or of an instrument through which divine operations might be exerted. Which fiction being likewise admitted, it can also be understood what they blathered, that through the Incarnation the whole humanity pertained to the nature of the deity, but without any commixtion, however, or absorption, or conversion; for the humanity was not lost, but subsisted in safety, yet spoiled of its own operation, and made an instrument of the divine nature. This Eutychian sense is confirmed by Petavius in book VIII *On the Incarnation*, chapter 6, narrating the dogma of the Monothelites, who, just as they thought there was one operation of Christ, were compelled to confess his one nature. "That Christ's humanity was acted upon," he says (no. 5), "by the divinity of the Word and impelled and governed, is agreed upon among the orthodox... But the Monothelites brought this forward for this purpose, so that there should be only one *energeia* of both, and that it should be entirely divine, which, flowing from the divinity, would be transmitted into the soul and into the flesh, from which it would only be received, but would be effected by neither on its part. Since they judged that the soul in Christ was instructed with no faculties, neither spiritual nor those congruent to the sentient and vegetative part; but that only the substance was within: whereas the *dynamis* and power, and the consequent *energeia*, were entirely of the divinity. Just as a hammer used and impelled by an artisan for a work confers no motion from itself; but returns it entirely, as foreign, received from the mover into the work." And below, no. 5: "In the very suffering of the flesh two things are to be considered: one, the motion itself and agitation of the flesh, or division or contusion and the like; the other, the perception of pain, which the schools call sensation. The former of these the flesh alone suffered, as being matter, and consistent by its nature in quantity; the latter proceeded from force and the faculty of feeling, not human or created; but divine, which, accommodating itself to the flesh, did the same thing in the flesh of Christ that the rational soul does in the flesh of all men. Therefore (as he concludes in the previous number) whatever was vital, and vegetative, and breathing in the man Christ, and all his action and impulse, by which the soul either moves itself in the rest of Adam's posterity, or moves and excites the flesh subject to it, did not flow from any created power and faculty, but from the substance of the divinity itself, which supplemented the natural faculties of the soul with a higher and extraordinary 673 virtue, and expressed the operations consonant to human substance." These are his words, which Lequien also approves in the *Notes* on this heresy of the Monothelites. Hence finally the reason is clearly apparent why the orthodox Fathers called the Monothelites and Eutychians Apollinarians; for these mutilated human nature of Christ in soul or mind.

^A They stripped it of its proper energy and of every vital faculty, referring every such function to the divinity. Did the author of the Areopagitic corpus, then, hand down so impious a dogma in the cited passage? Come, let us weigh the passage itself more diligently. I first present the words ignored by Lequien. He exalts the divinity of Jesus Christ, which is ineffable and inexplicable, above sense, above life, above substance; it possesses supernaturality in a supernatural way and transcends substance in a supersubstantial way. With this manner of speaking, the author throughout the whole work uses not so much the term "substance," when he must speak of God, but more frequently remarks "above substance"; and not nature, but "above nature." He continues: *Out of love for the human race*, he says, *he lowered himself to our nature*: καὶ ἀληθῶς οὐσιώθη, *and he was truly substantiated*; καὶ ἀνὴρ ὁ ὑπέρθεος ἐχρημάτισεν, *and the God who is above all was named man*. These words express the Catholic faith; there is not a syllable that breathes of the various Eutychian dogmas. This was even observed in his own day by the Scholiast: *“As far as nature.”* You see how he speaks, since he also came to our nature (understand here our nature): and that nature is not correctly predicated of God (for God is indeed above nature). For behold how he speaks, that he descended as far as nature, that is, he reached that point of lowliness, and of that which he himself did not possess. Where note the significance of the words.

An did he then descend so far to the nature of our kind that, in the assumption, it lost the condition of its own kind, stripped of its proper action, and became a mere instrument through which whatever of energy and action was in Christ the Lord, the one divinity would operate? It has been said that some Eutychians contended for this; and Lequien thinks that the author of the Areopagitic corpus intended this in the following words. Now I set forth and weigh the words that follow: *“Even if in those (things), namely in our nature and our substance assumed, he has that which is above nature and above substance.”* This is shown in two ways. Firstly, because the divinity, which he had taught a little earlier ought to be called above nature and above substance, remains safe in the Incarnation; ^B whence he says: *“Not only because he communicated himself to us immutably and without confusion, having suffered nothing in his exuberant fullness from the ineffable emptying.”* And then, because truly also (which is the newest of all new things) in our natural realities he was supernatural, and in substantial (realities) he was supersubstantial, possessing all our things from us and above us in an excellent manner. If these words were Monophysite, they would have to convey the sense that our nature and our substance in Christ lacked their own proper action; and that no operations, except those which were of the divinity, were manifested through his humanity. But the author overthrows this sense, who explicitly teaches that God, or the Son of God, was truly substantiated in the Incarnation: and further, that he possesses all our things from us, namely the nature itself and the properties of nature, and the actions; but that all these things are nevertheless possessed by him above us, that is, excellently, or in an excellent manner. ^C Which excellence is undoubtedly declared by many things well known in Christ the Lord. I. Because human nature subsists by the personal property of the divine Word. II. Because the principle of the operations which Christ exerted was the divine person, or the divine Word subsisting in the human nature itself. III. Because the human nature itself was so governed with God as author and moderator, that it did absolutely nothing without his will. IV. Finally, because the man Christ was endowed with a manifold and sublime gift of grace, as if risen from the Virgin, of impeccability, and of the faculty of performing miracles; all of which are very late, and befit Christ alone; and indeed, who would not recognize, who would not adore such miracles? These, then, are the things which, in a clear, plain, and Catholic sense, show that it is in our very natural and substantial realities, assumed through the Incarnation, that the supernaturality and supersubstantiality of the divinity shine forth most greatly.

^D Petavius illustrates all these things in Book VIII of *De Incarnatione*, chapters 10 and 12. The Scholiast had explained these same things before, whom you should consult. The most perspicacious mind of the angelic preceptor did not see any other sense. For he says in lesson 5: *“Although he received the properties of our nature, nevertheless in those human things he possessed the supernatural and the supersubstantial: that is, in one way, in so far as he communicated himself to us, assuming our nature without variation of the divine nature, and without confusion of it, and conversion to human nature; so that through the ineffable emptying of which the Apostle speaks (Phil. 2), he suffered nothing in his super-abundant (nature), that is, nothing was diminished from the fullness of his deity; for he is not said to be emptied by a diminution of deity, but by the assumption of our deficient nature. In another way, because (which is the most new and wonderful among all new things) he himself was in our natural (realities) supernaturally, and in our substantial (realities) supersubstantially, possessing all human things which he received from us, above us; because his flesh 674 is of greater virtue and dignity than any other, and his soul more worthy than every soul, and his acts and operations were unific (vivifying, deifying) from the virtue of the deity.”* Why so? Because clearly the flesh and soul, or the humanity of Christ, subsisted affected by the personal property of the Word of God, and its operations proceeded from the divine person as from a principle; whence it is most truly said that Christ bore and possessed our human things in a divine and excellent way.

XV. Two other Areopagitic testimonies, from the same book *On the Divine Names*, where the author explicitly distinguishes nature from person: and teaches that the union of natures was effected in the person and that this (person) is composed of two natures. Commentary of Divine Thomas. In the same cited place, which we weighed in the previous number, Lequien considers some words produced under the name of Hierotheus worthy of observation, namely: *“The cause of all, and which fills all, is the divinity of Jesus, τοῦ Ἰησοῦ θεότης; which lowered itself to our nature, and is truly substance, ἀληθῶς οὐσιώθη.”* Where, in the manner of the Severians (says Lequien), contrary to what was valid and fixed among Catholics, especially after the Council of Chalcedon, he by no means here separates the deity or divine nature from the hypostasis, so as to deem it to have been incarnate. Which Eutychian sense he says is confirmed by other words, which are had in the same book *On the Divine Names*, chapter 1, § 4: *“The deity (θεότης) showed itself most human, because it communicated itself to us according to truth entirely in one of its own hypostases, referring to itself, and claiming for itself the human lowliness, from which in an ineffable way the simple Jesus is made composite, etc.”* In this place (the words are Lequien’s), he deems that humanity was so assumed by the deity that the divine nature itself made its own what belongs to humanity, and not only the divine person of the Word: so that, I say, it attributes the gifts of humanity not only to the divine person of the Word according to the accurate rules of the mutual communication of properties, but also to the deity itself. Which being given, the deity itself will have been born of the Virgin, suffered, and crucified; and other portents will be brought forth with impunity, which were most familiar to the Eutychians and Severians, when they did not distinguish nature from hypostasis, where they disputed concerning the Incarnation of the Word of God. But the author of the Areopagitic corpus, I shall reply, if he did not distinguish nature from hypostasis in the manner of the Severians; why was it not enough for him to say that the deity had communicated itself to our things truly and entirely; why did he add that this union of the deity with our things was effected in one of his hypostases, ἐν μιᾷ τῶν αὐτῆς ὑποστάσεων? Does not he indeed, who recognizes and pronounces hypostases in the deity, confess them to be distinct from the deity, which is one? I add the word θεότης in this

^A place not to be had, but θεαρχία. The author of the Areopagitic works observes that this supreme Divinity is praised there, first as a monad and unity, ὡς μονάδα μὲν καὶ ἑνάδα: then as a Trinity, ὡς Τριάδα, on account of the manifestation of the superessential fecundity in three persons, τρισυπόστατον; and finally, that this same [Trinity] has communicated itself to us truly and integrally in one of its hypostases. But what in these words can be reprehended as not being Catholic? What sort of word has the author used to indicate that the gifts of humanity ought to be ascribed to the divine nature itself, such that not only the Son of God is said to have been born of the Virgin, to have suffered, and to have been crucified, but that the deity itself, or the divine nature, must be said to have been born of the Virgin, to have suffered, and to have been crucified? Nay, he explains here beautifully (I use the words of the Scholiast) the mystery of the Incarnation, since one person of the Trinity has suffered. Note indeed: that he has communicated that one person to us integrally.... We rightly say, therefore, that one person of the most holy Trinity was crucified: this is against the Nestorians, and the Acephali, or Eutychians.

The words objected to in the first place do not convey any other meaning that ought to be branded with the mark of heresy, where, as he teaches, the deity of Jesus has come down to our nature, and has truly become substance; and at the same time it is clearly said done, and that he has been called man, who is supreme God. Similar are the things we read handed down by him in chapter 3 of the *Mystical Theology*: that Jesus the supersubstantial (insofar as he is God) was substantiated by the truths of human nature, that is, he truly assumed human nature. In which places "God" and "Jesus" (who is said to have been made and called man, and to have been substantiated) without doubt signifies the divine person in whom we believe the union of the natures to have been made. Does not "the truths of human nature," ἀνθρωποφυϊκαῖς ἀληθείαις, signify the integral human nature which, through the Incarnation, neither crossed the bounds of its own condition, nor lost its proper faculties and operations? To which surely nothing is more adverse than the Eutychian fiction. Moreover, finally, Petavius the most learnedly noted in his *De Incarnatione*, book IV, chapter 8, no. 4, that "the Fathers for the most part attribute to the divine nature that which does not belong to it simply and in itself, but only insofar as it is a hypostasis." He brings forward more examples in the same place, and in book V, chapter 1, no. 4. Saint Thomas, discussing this same matter, brings forward an excellent reason for it in his opusculum *Contra 675 errores Græcorum*, chapter 4: "Although the mode," he says, "of signifying may be different when one says 'God' and 'deity,' nevertheless, the thing is entirely the same, and therefore, because of the identity of the thing, just as one is predicated of another, as when one says 'God is the deity,' or 'the divine person' or 'the Father is the divine essence'; so by the saints, one is sometimes placed for another, and thus it is said that the divine essence begets, because the Father, who is the divine essence, begets; and essence is from essence, because the Son, who is the essence, is from the Father, who is the same divine essence." If this could be said with impunity by other holy Fathers, why must it in the words of the Areopagitic author be rejected entirely as heretical and deeply Monophysitic?

But what is it that Lequien carps at in those words: "Simple Jesus... composite," as if they sounded in a way not at all consonant with true theology? The words themselves sufficiently admonish the theologian that Jesus is called simple insofar as he is the Son of God subsisting in the divine nature: and composite, moreover, because he subsists also in the assumed human nature. This I propose to be noted in these words, which is most adverse to the Eutychians: first, that Jesus is said to be composite, from two natures, that is to say; and then also that he is called composite from "human vileness, humidity, extremitatem, ἀνθρωπίνην ἐσχατιὰν ἐξ ἧς, etc.", which words clearly demonstrate that human nature through the Incarnation did not transcend the limits of its own genus; and finally, that in this composition were preserved ^A the properties entire and unconfused, μετὰ τῆς ἀμεταβόλου καὶ ἀσυγχύτου τῶν οἰκείων ἱδρύσεως. These are the orthodox dogmata adverse to the Eutychian fictions, as the Scholiast also noted: "Note," he says, "where he said that our Lord Jesus Christ himself, while he was simple, then [became] composite, having recalled the human extremity to himself... Which is against the Nestorians and Acephali." I subjoin the excellent commentary of Saint Thomas: "Jesus, who is ineffably simple according to his deity, is the same person who is composite according to his humanity... And lest anyone should perversely understand that God was made man according to some conversion of the deity into flesh, or into soul (in that sense, indeed, in which the Apollinarians babbled, that the divinity performed the function of the soul or mind: or in which the Eutychians and Monothelites thought that the faculties and operations of humanity had been supplied by the divinity) or even according to some commensuration, so that he was thus a third nature of God and man, as Eutyches invented; he subjoins: 'with an intransmutable and unconfused collocation,' that is, a firm salvation of proper things, that is, of the properties of each nature." He seems to have read the Areopagitic works with an overly preoccupied mind, who contends that the same [works] teem with the fictions of the Monophysites.

XVI. The fourth epistle, which is to Gaius, is set against [us]; and the same is brought to examination. The author teaches in more grandiloquent terms one exultation of human nature in Christ, and a mode of his operating that is clearly divine, miraculous, and ineffable. But the same author bids these to be understood, nevertheless, with the integrity of human nature preserved as regards substance, and as it pertains to faculties and operations.

Lequien proceeds in his undertaking. The Monophysite poison, with which he thinks the author of the Areopagitic works is sprinkled, is poured out, he contends, entirely in the fourth epistle to Gaius. "Although he grants," he says, "that Christ was truly a man; nevertheless, he teaches again, after the manner of the Monophysites, that he was man beyond what is the condition of men: 'Above men, and according to men, he assumed substance from the substance of men, while he existed above substance.' And indeed: 'Coming truly to substance, he was substantiated above substance and operated above man the things that are of man.' This he proves from his conception in the womb of the Virgin, and his walking upon the waters. Which examples are the very same that Leo the Great had employed in his epistle to Flavian, to show that the deity of Christ had exercised its own peculiar divine operations distinct from the human; just as humanity [exercised] its own, without the confusion or division of either; whereas otherwise the Monophysites, from these same miraculous works, would infer against him that there was a single kind of operation in Christ, and consequently a single nature, that is, of the deity." They recalled human ^B properties to the divine nature, so that flesh might be imbued with the gifts of the deity; and whatever seemed to be human operations, they defended as being, in reality, the actions of the deity itself. Finally, the same author subjoins in the same place that the things which are said in assertion concerning the humanity of Christ have rather the force of an eminent negation. Hence he says: "For in order to speak concisely, neither was he not a man, nor was he absolutely a man, but as one who, existing from men, stood far distant from men, [he was] truly made man above man." In which words he imitates the voice of Apollinarius, and denies that Christ is absolutely called man, just as Eutyches once babbled that his body was a human body, but not the body of a man. These words of Eutyches are recited in the synod celebrated by Flavian.

676 Apollinarius could have, and ought to have, said that Christ was absolutely a man, he who mutilated humanity by its nobler part—by the mind, that is;

and he let slip that the Word itself performed the office of the mind. Eutyches, too, sticking to the principles of his heresy, refused to acknowledge that the body of Christ was a human body, even though he called it a "human body." For how could it be called a body of man, or true humanity, if it were asserted to be so absorbed by the divinity that it was stripped of its own properties, and of the faculties and operations which follow upon them; and if it were admitted in Christ merely as a sort of inanimate instrument through which only divine actions were poured forth, which might fill in for human operations? The Areopagitic sayings are far removed from these inventions. In the preceding chapters we have brought forward many most lucid testimonies, in which the same author excellently teaches that the humanity assumed by the Son of God from the one Person of the Trinity is true, integral, perfect, total, and in all ways complete. Would he repeat these things so often and in so many places if he thought that the humanity in Christ the Lord was stripped of its own properties, faculties, and operations?

The testimonies objected to by Lequien also favor this. The author indeed describes the most wonderful mystery of the Incarnation with grander words, yet he always falls back into this, that Christ Himself was truly man. But [Lequien] says: "Nor was He man"; but as if correcting himself he adds: "Not that He was not man at all: therefore He was absolutely and entirely man." He also says: "Having truly been made man above man," so that even if Christ ought to be called "above man," as we must declare below, He was nonetheless truly made man. This is confirmed by those final words: "Coming truly to substance, He is substantiated above substance." Namely, that the Son of God, while He is not properly either nature or substance, but above nature and above substance, truly came to our nature and our substance, and was substantiated through the assumption of the same nature and substance, and with the same properties, faculties, and operations.

These dogmas, so Catholic and adverse to the Eutychian inventions, become clearer if we examine the entire context of the short epistle to Caius. He introduces Caius inquiring: "How, you ask, is Jesus, since He is superior to all, gathered substantially, οὐσιωδῶς, with other men?" Accept the plain and accessible meaning: How has the Son of God, who is superior to all things and men, become consubstantial with men? The author replies: "Not, certainly, that He is called man in this place as the author of men." That is, do not think that Jesus is called man in the way that an effect is accustomed to be attributed in an eminent manner to a cause, and that Jesus is called man because He is the author of men, just as God is called Sun and Light, who is the supreme cause of both light and sun. But [He is man] in the degree to which, according to the whole substance, He is truly man, ^C κατ᾽ οὐσίαν ὅλην ἀληθῶς ἄνθρωπος ὤν. These are words which "fight against every heresy, as much ancient as new," as the Scholiast says. They oppose the Phantasiasts, who denied a true body and true humanity to Christ; and the Apollinarians, who did not recognize the whole substance of man in Christ, as they mutilated it in the mind; and the Acephali and Monophysites, who stripped the same humanity of Christ of its properties, faculties, and the operations which flow from them: whence they also did not admit that the whole humanity truly exists in Christ.

It follows: "We do not, however, define Jesus according to humanity." For how can Christ be defined only according to humanity, He who is far distant from other men; and who is not man alone, but man and God? For He is not merely that man, because He would by no means exist as supersubstantial if He were man alone. For "man alone" consists of human nature and created substance: but Jesus is so man that [His] humanity subsists, affected by the personal property of the Son of God, which is supersubstantial; and this union, which is ^D called hypostatic, transcends the entire order of nature. Yet He is still truly man; for neither through the same union was human nature either changed, or lost, or mutilated in any part of itself, or finally stripped of the properties which follow upon the truth of human nature. Since the Son of God is above men, and according to men, from the substance of men, while existing above substance, He assumed substance. The Son of God, indeed, is incarnate, and is above men, because He is the Son of God and true God, and is according to men, because He is true man. And He Himself, while subsisting in the divine nature, is above nature and above substance, yet He assumed substance from men. None but a jaundiced eye would see monsters in these words.

But He continues to describe more ample matters. He says: "Nevertheless, He is full beyond measure in supersubstantiality." For the person of Jesus, inasmuch as it is divine, is above substance; and the union of the divine nature and the human nature in the one divine person of the Son of God is supernatural and supersubstantial. As one who is always above substance, by a certain abundance of supersubstantiality, even when coming truly to substance, He is substantiated above substance. The divine person of the Word ought to be said to be so much above substance, that also from a certain abundance of supersubstantiality He made human nature to subsist supersubstantially, affected specifically by the personal divine property of the Son: and although He truly came to our 677 substance, He remains at the same time above substance. Indeed, finally, He performed those things which are of man even above man; for the reason, namely, that human operations proceeded not from man alone, but from the God-man, who is without doubt above man. And this supernatural quality, and abundance of supersubstantiality, which the Son of God preserves entire in the humanity He assumed, appears most in the miraculous works—that the Virgin brings forth above nature: that flowing water, which supports the weight of things concreted from matter and earth, does not yield; but stands by a supernatural power without diffusion.

Hence it flows spontaneously and necessarily: those things which are affirmed concerning the humanity of Jesus also contain the force of an excellent negation. For in this way we affirm Jesus to be man, so that at the same time it must be denied that He is a simple man; since He is above man, inasmuch as He is a divine person subsisting in human nature, and was conceived by the Virgin, and born of the Virgin mother. For that we might speak summarily, He was not even man: not that He was not man, but that, born of men, He surpassed men by far, and was truly made man above man. He was not man alone, but yet He was truly made man: and at the same time He surpassed all men, and was above man; because the divine person, which is above man, and above nature, and above substance, truly subsisted in our nature, in our humanity: and thus the subsisting Son of God was truly made man.

The entire fabrication of the Monophysites, as I see it, is far exiled from this epistle: which the Scholiast also saw: "Observe," he says, "the entire context of the epistle, since it is against every heresy, as much ancient as new." Nor should the most learned Lequien counter that these are our interpretations which distort heretical locutions, proposed in a somewhat obscure manner, toward a Catholic sense. They are, rather, simple explanations of opinions written in a grander style, which reveal a Catholic sense, not sought from afar, but accessible and plain. The Monophysites indeed abused these words, covering their own errors as best they could: but the same Areopagitic dicta neither bring forth heresy, nor contain heresy hidden in a shroud of words, as the Fathers of that age showed. It would be necessary that the author of the Areopagitica be proven a heretic by arguments sought from elsewhere, as [for] what he finally brought forth in a grander and unaccustomed style,

^A that the same could have been used by the author in such a way as to signify that God had joined humanity to Himself [while it was] deprived of its faculties and operations, and like an inanimate instrument through which He exercised His divine operations, which would imitate and supplement our human ones? This Eutychian fiction can indeed be imputed to the author—who uttered and wrote the words mentioned above—by injury, but by right and merit (in my own judgment, certainly) it cannot be at all.

XVII. Lequien opposes the final words of the same letter to Gaius, as if they were worthy of special note. Yet they declare not a single, but a *new* deivirile [theandric] operation in Christ. This, however, comprises not only operations from the confluence of each nature but also extends to other kinds of operations. The final words of the same fourth letter to Gaius, which Lequien proposes for our notice, are these: "Furthermore, not divine, in the way that as God He performed it; nor human, insofar as He behaved as man; but insofar as He was God and man, He exhibited a certain new, ^B deivirile, θεανδρικήν, operation while conversing with us." Concerning this he [Lequien] says thus: "The feigned author proceeds, and immediately adds what establishes a single composite nature of deity and humanity, on account of the phrase 'a mixed single and deivirile operation,' which he himself was the first of all to introduce." Wonder arises, because Lequien asserts that a mixed single and deivirile operation was introduced by that author, who calls it not a single [operation], but a certain *new* deivirile operation. The same most learned author himself observes in the same place that Cyrus of Alexandria in his 7th anathematism, and Sergius of Constantinople in his letter to the same Cyrus—both principal patrons of the Monothelite heresy—did not hesitate to corrupt the words of Dionysius himself so that they might better infuse their own poison concerning the single will and operation of Christ: as if it were not enough for them that this author had put forward "a certain new deivirile operation," they changed that term into "a single deivirile operation." Why, then, does he [Lequien] also corrupt the same text himself, and announce a "single" and not a "new" deivirile operation?

He adds: "This final part of the epistle, although many Fathers of a later age after John of Scythopolis, ^C and other theologians subsequently, have attempted to translate it to a sound sense with various interpretations, in such a way that a certain deivirile operation is now attributed to the Lord Jesus without detriment to the faith; nevertheless, the manifest meaning of the whole period, especially when it is compared with what preceded it, represents nothing other than an assertion of a single composite nature, in which, however, the divinity is superior and involves the human." But all that preceded in the context of the letter does not represent an assertion of a single nature of Christ; nor is there a word present that signifies Christ's nature is so composed that the divine is superior and involves the human, and that this human [nature] behaves like an inanimate instrument through which the divinity operates; nor that operations flowing from the human nature do not exist, except for divine ones which imitate and supplement the human. Hence, the final part of the letter, whether it be compared with the preceding ones or its obvious meaning be weighed, certainly represents nothing less than Monophysite fictions.

I approach the aforementioned "new theandric," or "deivirile," operation. Cyrus of Alexandria and Sergius of Constantinople—both Monothelites and Monophysites—thought those terms so ill-suited for summoning the support of a unity of nature ^D and operation, that the former, by changing "new" to "single," asserted [a single operation] in place of the new; and the latter, confirming the "change" of the new [operation], excised the word "deivirile" entirely, dogmatizing one [operation] absolutely in Christ God.

^A These are the words of the Roman Pontiff Martin, in the Lateran Synod, consultation 3.

The author therefore teaches 679 that a new "deivirile" operation appeared from the Incarnation of the Son of God: and why indeed should he not have taught this, when the union of two natures in one suppositum had become a thing utterly new and miraculous? The nature and proper character of this kind of operation, which are called "deivirile" or "theandric," are recounted in such fluent language—beyond John of Scythopolis and Maximus in their *Scholia*, and other ancient orthodox Fathers who pursued the Eutychians and Monothelites—by Petavius in book VIII of *De incarnatione* from chapter 10, and by Thomasinus in book VI from chapter 8, that it is wonderful that the author of the Areopagitic [writings] should be maligned on account of those words, which express a manifold Catholic sense. I shall touch upon a few points in a few words. A triple class of Christ’s operations is distinguished: those which are of the Deity, such as creating the world; those, likewise, which are proper to humanity, such as eating, drinking, speaking, weeping, suffering; and those finally which are in a certain way mixed from the confluence of both natures, such as raising the dead by the touch of the flesh.

There were some among the ancients who understood these to be only those "mixed" theandric operations: regarding which there is no difficulty, since to touch, for example, is of man, but for God to raise the dead [is divine]. But that the term "theandric operation" extends more broadly, and stretches itself to other classes of operations, is excellently and clearly shown by the aforementioned writers and by all theologians. For why should every human operation not be called theandric, since the same proceeds from human nature just as it does from the divine person? Philosophers know, and all theologians agree, that no nature produces anything unless it is subsistent; and that it must first be defined and terminated, and be bound by a certain property of existing, before it can perform any function; and finally that the personal property, although speaking per se and precisely it is not efficacious and active, still has such power that, affecting, fulfilling, and terminating the nature, it renders it instructed and suitable for action. Since these things are so, it arises of its own accord that every action of Christ is divine, even that which is merely human; because humanity cannot exercise or undergo it unless affected and completed and determined by the personal property of the Word. Therefore, there is a deivirile operation in Christ in an entirely orthodox sense, for example, speech, for God the man was speaking; and the same operation proceeded both from humanity and from the divine person: from the latter as from the suppositum, which is speaking; from the former as from the principle by which the divine person speaks. But also there are finally other modes by which the divinity infused itself into human operations, ruling and moderating them, and communicating to them the greatest dignity and infinite value. ^{B C}

The divine operations themselves, which remain and are the operations of God the Word, that they can be called theandric in many ways and by many modes, are excellently declared by the aforementioned writers. A double reason, which the ancient Fathers expound, is presented in few words by John of Damascus in book III of *De fide orthodoxa*, chapter 19. "For indeed the flesh in turn," he says, "shared with the operating divinity of the Word: partly because through the body, as if by a certain instrument, he performed divine actions (for instance, miracles); partly because he was one and the same who operated in a divine and a human manner both." This latter reason is adopted by Anselm in his book *De sacramento altaris*, chapter 3. "The nature of the flesh," he says, "from the moment it was supremely united to that nature, was in such unity and from the very conception of the Virgin was conceived, that neither could the human be performed without the divine, nor the divine without the human; and through this unity also in the days of his flesh Christ the man could [perform] divine things." For Christ’s operations, of which some are human and others divine, are of one and the same operator; ^D just as one is said to execute the proper nature of both. I omit a broader discourse.

It must be noted that the sum of the question is reduced to this: whether the author of the Areopagitic [writings] meant the deivirile operation in a Monophysite sense, as an operation that, whatever Christ produced, was neither human nor divine, even though proceeding from God-man; but rather a certain third thing compounded from both, as some Monothelites used to speak; or rather, divine indeed, but edited through humanity, and fulfilling the proper operation of humanity. No one would find such absurd senses in the Areopagitic words, unless he is one who twists the words themselves to signify that which they signify not at all. But the author says: "But divine, not insofar as he performed as God; nor human, insofar as he acted as man; but insofar as he was God and man." Furthermore, it must be asked, when Christ was performing divine things, e.g., ruling the world, would this truly not be a divine operation, but a certain third thing, neither divine nor human? Away with such a perverse sense, far alien from Areopagitic doctrines. Therefore, by the same reasoning, he would never have taught that Christ’s human operations were not truly human, but a third something, which cannot even be conceived of by thinking. But there were, however, deivirile operations in that manifold orthodox sense which we have sufficiently declared.

XVIII.

The last passage is opposed from the book *De divinis nominibus*. The author of the Areopagitic [writings] does not introduce a certain mixed operation in Christ, which is so proper to Christ that the most holy Trinity exercises no efficiency in it. What in those same operations was proper to Christ, [and] what was common to the Trinity, is declared. St. Thomas's *Commentary*, and other excellent testimonies of the same.

680 If we believe Lequien, the author of the Areopagitic [writings] exhibits again in other words his own sentiment regarding that one operation of the Lord Jesus, which is considered unhealthy and heretical, which are found in chapter 2 of *De divinis nominibus*, § 6. They are indeed: "But it is separated from the most benevolent divine efficiency toward us, that God the Word himself, who is above substance, should have been substantially [incarnate] entirely and truly, according to us, and from us; and has acted, and suffered, the things which are the principal and singular things of his theandric operation." In these things the Father and the Holy Spirit had nothing in common, unless one says, according to the most benevolent will. Lequien notes that it is the inviolable doctrine of the Church that any external works of the Deity are equally common to the three persons; so that whatever miracles Christ produced, even with the flesh employed, the Father and Holy Spirit performed them simultaneously and equally. "But if Christ, or the incarnate Word," he subsumes, "besides his merely divine efficiency, which he has in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit; produced besides an other divine-human [efficiency], which is not common to either the Father or the Holy Spirit, in his excellent works or miracles; what else follows from this, unless that this author, who uttered these things, was involved in the error that: God the Word, having assumed humanity, had obtained a certain mixed kind of nature, or a composite nature which was, as the scholastics say, the formal principle of this efficiency; and which would exist as neither the Father's, nor the Holy Spirit's."

These things seem wonderful to us. These same Areopagitic words are all alleged in the Roman Synod in consultation, or Secretariat 5, so that a double operation is proven in Christ just as there is a double nature in him. I explain the force of the argument. Namely, some operation of Christ must necessarily be established as so proper and peculiar, that neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit is called into its communion. But this is not [in place of the new; and the latter, confirming the "change" of the new [operation], excised the word "deivirile" entirely, dogmatizing one [operation] absolutely in Christ God.]

^A Some operation other than human can be conceived, which is so proper to the Word that it is not the Father’s or the Holy Spirit’s, in the same way that it is the Word’s; just as the assumed humanity is so peculiar to the Word that by the same right it is neither the Father’s nor the Holy Spirit’s. For because God the Word alone involved Himself in the flesh, completing, defining, and terminating the humanity with His personal divine property, this same humanity is ascribed to His sole personal right and proper estate. From this it also follows that every operation of the humanity is as it were the peculiar possession of the Word, like a tree growing from His own field, or fruit produced from His own tree. Moreover, there is the divine operation of the Word—such as creating, preserving, governing the world, performing miracles, and working those things which God works—which is without doubt common with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the operation of Christ is twofold.

Lequien admits that the Areopagite author acknowledged an operation that is purely divine, which Christ holds in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The other, he says, is distinguished by the same author and called "human-divine," which is common neither to the Father nor to the Holy Spirit: which, he says, is repugnant to the inviolable doctrine of the Church, which teaches that any external works of the Deity (yet God Himself works all our works) are equally common to the three persons. A great ambiguity lies hidden here, into which the most learned man seems to have fallen. I observe that the human operations of Christ are called "human-divine" by that author in this place, in the very same sense in which he calls them elsewhere "deivirile" [God-man-like]; inasmuch as they proceed from the human nature as a formal principle, and from the divine person as the acting subject; for they are the actions and passions of subjects. Again, it must be noted that in these human-divine operations there is something which is common to the most holy Trinity, namely, that efficiency by which God is said to work all our works; but also that something must be admitted which was proper to the divine Word, by reason of which He was said in the assumed humanity to understand, will, hunger, thirst, eat, drink, suffer; but the Father not so, nor the Holy Spirit. This is a trite doctrine among theologians. Let it be permitted to hear Sylvius, p. 19, quæst. 1, art. 1: "But you will say (he thus objects), 'Actions to the outside are common to the whole Trinity; but such were the human operations of Christ; therefore, etc.' I answer: I deny the consequence; since the human operations of Christ were indeed common to the whole Trinity, insofar as they proceeded from it as the principally efficient cause; yet they proceeded from Christ in some peculiar way, ^C according to which they did not proceed from the Father, nor from the Holy Spirit. Because Christ worked them through a human nature, hypostatically united to Him (not to the Father, not to the Holy Spirit): and consequently the person of the Word (not the Father, not the Holy Spirit) was the proximate cause eliciting them through the human nature, which He terminated; and thus they were said to have an intrinsic order to the humanity as to the principle *by which* (it is acted), and to the Word joined to the humanity as to the principle *which* (acts)."

This is the one thing the Areopagite author teaches. He says: "Furthermore, it is set apart from the most benign divine efficiency towards us (which is common to the whole most holy Trinity): because God the Word Himself, who is above substance (not the Father, not the Holy Spirit), was entirely, and truly, substantiated according to us, and from us." Would anyone who contends that the humanity was assumed by God the Word, mutilated of soul or mind, and despoiled of its own faculties and operations, speak in such a way, as if He had assumed humanity from us entirely and truly, and had been made man just as we are? Hence also arises the fact that God the Word Himself acted and suffered, which are the chief and singular things of this human-divine operation itself, since in these the Father and the Holy Spirit had nothing in common: namely, for the reason ^D that God the Word in the assumed humanity exercised by peculiar right whatever belonged to human operations; and He Himself was said to understand, will, hunger, eat, thirst, drink, and suffer; not so the Father, nor the Holy Spirit. But the author furthermore calls these human operations and sufferings "human-divine," since He who acted and suffered was not man alone, but God and man.

Yet what could be said to be common to the most holy Trinity in these same operations, the praised author immediately declares: "Unless one says according to the most benign will; and furthermore according to all that eminent and ineffable divine operation which, remaining immutable, He who was among us exercised, in so far as He is God and the Word of God"; which words Lequien omits. Therefore, first, the most holy Trinity, by its counsel and good pleasure, just as it approved the assumption of humanity, so also [approved] all the other operations of the divine Word in the assumed humanity. Then, common to the same Trinity was that eminent and ineffable divine efficiency, by which both the Word, as subsisting in the divine nature, and the Father and the Holy Spirit, were simultaneously working all the human operations of Christ.

But since the author of the Areopagitica treats so clearly and so egregiously of the human-divine operations and passions of the Incarnate Word, it is truly a wonder that Lequien passed over in silence the sufferings of Christ, and did not apply his mind to the fact that those things which the Word of God suffered, the Father certainly did not suffer, nor did the Holy Spirit! It is a wonder also that Lequien reduced all the aforesaid things, in which the Father and the Holy Spirit did not share according to the author's opinion—that is, by that peculiar right by which the Word claimed the same for Himself in the flesh He assumed—to that single efficiency by which Christ performed excellent works or miracles; when the author treats without any beating around the bush of all those things which Christ did and suffered! But what is it that, in these same miracles which Christ performed, he did not distinguish what was common to the whole Trinity and what was proper and peculiar to the Word; for e.g., by anointing the eyes of the man born blind with spittle, Christ restored sight to him. To anoint the eyes with spittle, and to touch them, were the actions of a man, or even human-divine, as has often been said; to cure the blind man and to restore sight was a divine operation. Thus God the Word, subsisting in the human nature, anointed the eyes, such that the Father and the Holy Spirit are not said to have anointed and touched the eyes; but the healing of the man born blind appertains to the Word of God, and to the Father, and to the Holy Spirit in equal way; nay, even the very touch and movement of the eyes was effected by the most holy Trinity as an effect from the supreme cause. What is it, finally, to drag those words—that He worked and suffered all the excellent and outstanding works of divine-human efficiency—into a Monophysite sense; as if Christ, not only as He existed as man, but also by the deity Itself composed with the humanity, had suffered for our sake in some more sublime way?

The proper and plain Catholic sense is brought forth by these words: that Christ worked and suffered all the excellent and outstanding things which pertained to His incarnation and the economy of the incarnation in a more sublime way; because He who acted and suffered—as the dispensation of the Incarnation demanded—was not man alone, but God and man. The Scholiast understood all these things with equal reason and sense; and he noted the same things as most contrary to the Eutychian myths. I offer the Scholia: "Set apart or distinct. Note that the Incarnation of the Word is entirely and truly distinct from the holy Trinity." Item: " 'Of us,' or 'according to us.' In this place, treating of the dispensation or incarnation, he attributes it to the Word of God alone, without any communication of the Father and the Holy Spirit, except according to the will. Note, however, the accurate account of the dispensation. Since God the Word supersubstantial, substan-

- ^A tially assumed, He remained God and, as we are, He received from us the substance in its entirety, that is to say, He truly had a body and a rational soul. Likewise, God the Word is that which suffered, namely according to the flesh: and His operation was at once human and divine, as regards all things that concern the dispensation. In these, however, the Father and the Spirit did not participate, except by their good pleasure, willing the Incarnation; and in divine signs, collaborating with God the Son. Take note of these things, especially against the Nestorians, and the Acephali, and the Phantasiasts.

^B A broader and most lucid commentary of Saint Thomas may close this chapter. His words are these: "Discrete," that is, it pertains to one person only; "the supersubstantial Word," that is, the Son of God, "is made according to us," that is, a man similar to us in nature; "flesh having been taken from us," not brought down from heaven according to Valentinus; "totally," that is, without the soul or intellect being subtracted, according to both Arius and Apollinaris; "and truly," not fantastically according to Manichæus. "And we believe the Son of God is incarnate, not only in the incarnation itself, but also according to His actions and passions. Whatever things are, with a certain choice and segregation, attributed to Christ from others according to the consideration of His humanity, such as being conceived, being born, eating, drinking, sleeping, being crucified, and other things of this sort." For in these the Father and the Spirit did not participate in any way; because neither of them is incarnate, or dead. Unless perhaps someone might say that they participated in the aforementioned things according to a will convenient to the divine goodness, and benign toward us; for the Father and the Holy Spirit accepted the Incarnation of the Son, and the passion and other things of this sort. "And similarly, they participated according to every divine operation placed over creatures, and ineffable to us: which Christ brought about, having been made according to us," that is, having been made a passible man; remaining invariable, according to what He is as God and the Word of God. For He was not so made man that He lost His divinity; whence, existing as man, He had a divine operation, which is common to Himself, and to the Father, and to the Holy Spirit. And thus this error of those who posit one operation (and one nature) in Christ is destroyed, and by this, that He attributes, according to the divine operation common to the whole Trinity, and an operation proper to Himself.

^C The Latin version, which Saint Thomas uses in this place, is thus: "But it is discrete through the divine operation benign toward us, that the supersubstantial Word is made substantially according to us, out of us, totally and truly: and to do, and to suffer whatever things are chosen and set apart for His human contemplation." As if the interpreter had read, as Lequien notes, *andrikēs theorias* [human contemplation], for *andrikēs theourgias* [theandric/divine-work]; whence it is no wonder, he says, that Saint Thomas does not notice the error. But (I say) the Angelic Doctor would not have noticed an error even in the restored true reading, since we have shown there is none to lie therein. There is no need for conjectures. He saw the true text, and adopts a reading ^D that Lequien evidently did not see, or passed over the place. Against the Monothelites he moves the question: "Whether there is in Christ only one operation of divinity and humanity?" Which they themselves used to object from the author of the Areopagitica, no. 1, and it is thus: "It seems that there is in Christ only one operation of divinity and humanity." For Dionysius says in chapter 2 of *The Divine Names*: "But the most benign operation toward us is discrete; which according to us, out of us is entirely [the] Word [made], which is above substance; and to do, and to suffer whatever things are congruent with His divine operation." Where he calls the human and divine operation one, which in Greek is called "theandric," that is, deivirile [God-manly]. It seems, therefore, that there is one composite operation in Christ. Does Saint Thomas notice an error in this place, where the operation is clearly called human-divine or deivirile? Receive his answer, wherein the most saintly doctor uses both the brought-forward words and others opposed by Lequien for the confirmation of the Catholic faith, and the refutation of the Monothelites and Eutychians. "It must be said that Dionysius (in the cited place) posits in Christ a theandric operation, that is, a divine-virile or divine-human one, not through some confusion of operations, or of the virtues of either nature; but through this, that His divine operation uses the human, and His human operation participates in the virtue of the divine operation." Whence, as he himself says in a certain epistle to Gaius (ep. 4): "He operated above man, those things which are of man; which the Virgin shows, conceiving supernaturally, and the water sustaining the weight of earthly feet." For it is manifest that to be conceived is of human nature, and similarly to walk; but both were in Christ supernaturally. And similarly, the humanity operated divinely, just as when He healed the leper by touching. Whence in the same epistle (to Gaius) he adds: "Not doing divine things according to God, nor human things according to man: but, God having been made man, by a new sort of operation of God and man." That he understood, however, that there are two operations in Christ, one of the divine nature, but another of the human; it is clear from those things 683 which he says in chapter 2 of *The Divine Names*, where he says that in those things which pertain to His human operation the Father and the Holy Spirit do not participate in any way: unless someone should say [they do] according to the most benign and merciful will; in so far as the Father and the Holy Spirit in their mercy wished Christ to do and to suffer human things. He adds, however: "And every most sublime and ineffable operation of God, which, made man for us, He fulfilled, being most certainly the immutable God, and the Word of God." Thus therefore it is clear that one thing is the human operation, in which the Father and the Holy Spirit do not participate, except according to the acceptance of their mercy; and another is His operation, in as much as He is the Word of God, in which the Father and the Holy Spirit participate. In a few words the angelic genius of Saint Thomas embraces all things which we have narrated in broad speech, and I do not pass over noticing that for Thomas, in this place, these seemed to be deivirile or human-divine operations which the ancients called, in a certain way, mixed from the confluence of each nature. But there are also testimonies at hand, where, besides that kind of deivirile operation, he extends this word to other any-sort-of-operations of Christ, inasmuch as they proceed from the divine person subsisting in the human nature. For he says in *3 Sent.*, dist. 18, q. 1, art. 1, ad 2: "It must be said that Dionysius calls the action of Christ deivirile, not because it is simply one action of deity and humanity in Christ; but because the actions of the two natures are united to three things. First, as to the suppositum itself, performing the divine and human action, which is one. Second, as to one effect, which is called the work operated, or *apotelesma* according to Damascene, just as the cleansing of the leper. Third, as to this, that the human action of Christ Himself participated in something of the perfection of the divine nature; just as His intellect, more eminently than others, understood from the virtue of the divine intellect, joined to Him in person." Which doctrine finally we read, comprised in few but most lucid words, in the book *IV Contra Gentiles*, chapter 36: "Dionysius calls the human operation of Christ theandric, deivirile, also because it is of God and man." Therefore, Thomas saw in the Areopagitic writings, which he so often turns and calls to examination, multiple senses, and all of them highly orthodox; he sees no error, and refutes none.

^A Nineteenth. R. P. B. M. De Rubeis. The Areopagitic dicta are compared with the Eutychian and Monothelite; the vast distinction between them is shown. Some of the Monophysites and Monothelites rejected the deivirile operation, others explained and defended it in a perverse sense, far alien from the Areopagite.

Lequien frequently notes and warns that he has discovered Monophysite depravity in the Areopagitic dicta, having made a comparison of them with the sentiments of the Eutychians and Monothelites, which he deems entirely equal and similar. Let it be permitted to me also, at this final place, to enter into this comparison with those same testimonies of the Eutychians or Monophysites, which that most learned man brings forward; and I trust that this will turn to profit, so that the Areopagitic dicta may appear far and wide diverse, both in words and in sense.

The dicta of Eutyches, leader of the sect, occur first, which are exhibited in the fifth act of the Council of Constantinople in the year 448, celebrated under Flavian, the acts of which are read as recited in the first act of the Council of Chalcedon. Indeed, when the aforementioned Flavian, the orthodox prelate of Constantinople, urged that that archimandrite confess not only that Christ is consubstantial with the Father according to his divinity, but also consubstantial with his mother and with us according to his humanity, he replied: 1. It is not for him to discourse upon the nature of God and the Lord of heaven and earth. 2. He never said that the body of our Lord and God is consubstantial with us. 3. He likewise by no means says that the body of man is the body of God; but that the human body which was in Jesus Christ is the body of God. These final negative words can produce a Catholic sense; since the body of Christ, if it be referred to the divine Word, whose it is (as theologians note), is not the body of a man, but of God, who, in that he is God or the Word, is not man; yet it is childish for this reason to deny that the body of Christ is the body of man, in the sense, namely, that the same God and Word is without doubt man according to the flesh assumed by him.

Eutyches had another, deeper intent, which Lequien discloses; that there is one nature of Christ, namely the divine, and that humanity is joined to this like some sort of appendage; and also that it was immersed in the divinity and absorbed by the divinity, or drawn over to the operation of the divinity itself: so that whatever was vital and active in Christ, that was truly a divine operation, passed through the human nature as though through an instrument, imitating and supplying all the operations of the humanity itself. Consult what we have discussed above at greater length.

did he bring about? How did his tears arouse Lazarus? But we read neither that he slept, except once in the boat; nor is it established in the Gospel whether, as fate ordained, he drank. All these things are an argument that the flesh of Christ had shifted into the divine, and was not subject to human properties. Wherefore, Christ is of one nature only, namely divine; which through human nature, as an appendage added to itself, or an instrument joined to it, would effect by its own divine efficacy everything that Jesus Christ performed. You have a fiction devised by the Monophysites, by which they might show that there is one nature in Christ, namely the divine, and that the assumed human nature had shifted into the divine. A pugnacious diametric opposite to the author of the Areopagita. In magnificent and grandiloquent words, indeed, he everywhere extols the divinity of Christ; yet at the same time he is entirely concerned to teach, and inculcate, and exaggerate that God the Word, notwithstanding his highest divinity, supersubstantiality, supernaturality, and eminence above men, truly became man; that he came to our nature, although he himself is above nature; that he descended to our substance, although he himself is above substance; that he assumed our vileness, although he is above man. Nor were such ample and splendid things enough for him. Furthermore, he declares the assumed nature with its properties excellently: when indeed he discourses that all our things were assumed by him, that human truths persist in this same assumption of our humanity, and that one thing is to be excepted, sin, and all that in us has been struck by any contagion of sin. Recall the testimonies we have already brought forward, weigh and scrutinize them more diligently; and you yourself will discover them to be more transparently far alien from Eutychian depravity.

^C Verily, however, the author of the Areopagita taught nothing equal or akin to these things. We have brought forward and weighed very many testimonies from his works, which clearly and without ambiguity, whether they are viewed by themselves or compared with those that precede and follow, show dogmas adverse to the Eutychian sentiment; namely, that the Word of God came to our nature, and substance, and vileness, integrally, truly, totally, in every way; that all our things were assumed by him, and all human truths shine forth in him; ^D nothing of the divinity suffered loss in this same assumption, since God the Word remained above nature, above substance, above man; yet that he himself was truly made and called man, and was truly aggregated to men, and gave us kindred, ὁμογενέσι, participation: and finally that our assumption of humanity ought to be called absolute and unconfused, τῇ παντελεῖ καὶ ἀσυγχύτῳ καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς ἐνανθρωπήσει, as we read in chapter 3 of *The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, no. 3, § 2.

Lequien adduces the Severians speaking thus, according to Anastasius Sinaita in the *Odego*: "If Christ was not deity, how did his spittle provide a remedy for the blind?"

Regarding Severus, the prince of the Severians, the tyrant of the Antiochene Church, S. Maximus in his second epistle to Marinus asserts that he, using deceit and fraud, claimed that for the mystery of the Incarnation, hypostasis and nature are the same thing, so that indeed under the name of one hypostasis he might establish a confusion of natures. As pertains to the properties of the assumed humanity itself, he was not seen at any time to have denied them; but nonetheless in various places of his books and epistles, which were read in the sixth synod, he openly denies, as Lequien warns, human ἐνεργείας ἢ ἰδιότητας, operations, or properties. But did he confuse nature with hypostasis, he who teaches in most clear words that in the supreme divinity, in which there is one Deity, there are three hypostases, [and that they] truly and integrally communicated in one of their hypostases, that is, of the Son, according to our nature? But the author of the Areopagita hands this down, who again adds that the Son of God, assuming it, made the human vileness his own, from which in an ineffable way the simple Jesus was made composite: and that he who is eternal took on a temporal accession: and also that he descended to the inmost parts of our nature, εἰσω τῆς καθ' ἡμᾶς ἐγεγόνει φύσεως, [and] it transcends, while the properties are preserved altogether entire and unconfused. Can an unification of two natures, which remain unconfused in one divine person of the Son, be explained more clearly? What could be brought forward more aptly, what more clearly against one nature of Christ, and that a divine one, in words than to assert that the simple Jesus, in that he is God, is composite from human vileness, since God was made man? If you wish to deny that the human nature in Christ did not shift in any way into the divine, could words be more ready than the Areopagitic, by which we are taught that Jesus was in an ineffable way made composite from human vileness: and that he who is eternal took on a temporal accession: and descended to the inmost parts of our nature, [he] who transcends the universal order of the whole of nature? Finally weigh with an attentive mind that God the Word communicated with our own according to truth integrally, and himself descended to the inmost parts of our nature: which no one would say of the Eutychians, preoccupied by that error.

^A For the reason that every operation of Christ, whether it be the miracles He performed or the human acts that proceeded from His humanity, integrally and truly assumed, was not merely human, nor merely divine, but was human-divine, proceeding from God the Word subsisting in human nature. These things are far removed from that single Eutychian operation of Christ, which was nothing but a divine efficiency, both working miracles and also supplying human operations, with the humanity behaving as an appendage and an instrument. Nor did God the Word act in this way only in the human nature coupled to Him; but He was also said to suffer, both by receiving passions introduced from without, and by perceiving the passions themselves—for example, pains—in the very humanity assumed: for to the suppositum and the person, just as actions are attributed, so too are passions. Yet not only were the actions in Christ the Lord human-divine, but the passions themselves were also, since they pertained most truly to God the Word Himself, subsisting in human nature.

Do those words, "He performed the things that are man's in a way above the condition of men," reek of error? Or do the examples themselves, which are subjoined, remove all error? For it is the Virgin who gives birth above nature. To give birth is a most true operation of a human being, and the Virgin Mary truly gave birth; but for a virgin to give birth is said to be above the condition of men. To touch water, to move, and to change place are human operations; but for water not to diffuse when pressed by the weight of feet exceeds the condition of men. Finally, for Christ (to embrace all most true human operations) to be hungry, to eat, to thirst, to drink, and to exercise similar things is just the same as Christ performing the things that are man's; but He, since He was not merely man, but a divine person subsisting in human nature, performed them above the condition of men.

These words—"Otherwise, He did not perform divine acts insofar as He was God; nor did He perform human acts insofar as He was man; but insofar as He was God and man"—confirm this most orthodox sense and introduce no error. Clearly, neither the miracles that Christ performed nor the human operations that He exhibited were wrought by God alone or by man alone; but by the God-man or the man-God simultaneously, that is, by the divine person subsisting in human nature. ^B For if it were to be said that Christ did not perform human acts insofar as He was man, because a divine efficiency was working them, then it would have to be fabulated that Christ did not perform divine acts insofar as He was God, as if some sort of human efficiency were working those miraculous effects. Away with such trifles!

Since these things are so, no word could be devised to declare such operations of Jesus Christ better than "new theandric [divine-human] operation." For just as we believe Christ 686 is true God and true man, so His operations (I cite mere human ones as an example) proceeded from His humanity as from a formal principle, and from the divine person or hypostasis as from an acting principle; and thus they are to be called by one word, "theandric." But just as Christ’s nature is not one composed of two, but a new union of natures has been made in Him, so also Christ’s operation was not one—that is, the divine—but a new theandric one appeared in Him. The Monophysites did not recognize the theandric operation as consonant with the Eutychian error; rather, many even rejected it as contrary. Some maintained that it was one, but a new one; others, keeping it as one, rejected the "theandric" and recognized only the "divine."

In the Lateran Council held under Pope Martin in the year 649, the conflict of two Monophysite parties is set forth in secret session 3, namely that of Colluthus and Themistius: of whom the former maintained one theandric operation—which Cyrus of Alexandria, Theodore Pharanites, Sergius, and Pyrrhus of Constantinople, and others also asserted; he indeed [maintained it to be] one, to the divine...

^A only, or agreeable to God, as he called it, or, by a barbarous term, in Greek *theoprepem* (divine-becoming), he contended it must be named. But eventually, all reached an agreement that there was one divine operation in Christ, the active principle of which was one, residing in the divinity; while humanity, or the rational soul and body, acting as if after the manner of an organ and instrument, served as that through which it was transmitted. I report the words of Theodore Pharanites, which are held in the Sixth Ecumenical Synod, in the 13th session, and in the Lateran Council mentioned in the 3rd act, taken from his letter to Sergius the Arsenoite: "We must therefore know and say that all things which are said to be in the Incarnation of Christ the Savior are one operation; and that the worker and creator of this is God the Word, but the humanity consists as the instrument. Therefore, whatever things are said as if of God, or humanly of Him, all are one operation of the divinity of the Word." In this place, you have the Monothelite and Monophysite error clearly exposed. How long and widely do the Areopagitic sayings differ from this! Theodorus calls the operation of Christ one, and our own author calls it ^B new: the former calls it solely divine, the latter calls it "deivirile" (God-manly) or human-divine: the former [says it] proceeds from the divinity of the Word alone, the author of the Areopagitic [writings says] from God and man: the former [says it was] transmitted finally through the humanity, as if through an organ; a term which, or any similar or related one, the latter never used. It is evident how greatly [the author's] intention and plan was not to establish one divine efficiency in Christ, which would effect all things, whether His works appeared divine or human. Rather, it is sufficiently established that he set this before himself: to declare the new operation of Christ, springing from the new union of two natures in the one person of the Son, [and to declare] the condition and character placed in Him, so that any operation of Christ might be "deivirile" or human-divine. We have already noted that a threefold kind of His operations must be distinguished: obviously those which are of the Deity, such as creating the world; likewise those which are specially proper to humanity, such as being hungry, eating; and finally those which are called mixed, in a certain way from ^C each nature; such as, by a flow, the raising of a dead man by the touch of flesh. Among the operations of this latter class, the Fathers who followed the Monothelites and Monophysites quite frequently applied the name of "deivirile" operation; and, by using the same kind of operations, they established two operations in Christ, of which one proceeded from the divinity, and the other from the human nature. To touch the flesh, they said, whose is it if not a man's? And whose is it to raise the dead, if not God's? But when the author of the Areopagitic writings, and the Scholiast after him, and other Fathers generally affirm (I use the words of Ludovicus Thomassinus *On the Incarnation*, book v, chapter 6, 11): that Christ did not perform divine things as God, nor human things as man; but that in divine operations, there were some parts of man, and in human, some parts of God; what else remains but that all the operations of Christ were, in a certain way, mixed out of God and man, and consequently all were theandric? Otherwise, it should not have been pronounced so indiscriminately, not so inconsiderately, that He acted neither as God in divine things, nor as man in human things; but it should have been said more circumspectly: that He generally performed divine things as God, and human things as man; but rarely, namely while He worked miracles, did He perform the divine as man, and the human as God, while He raised the dead by touching, and touched by raising. But the author sets no limit for himself: "But He did not act divine [things] as God, nor human [things] as man; but insofar as He was God and man, He exhibited a certain new, together-with-us preserving, deivirile operation." Who, in another place, calls it not only *theourgia*, divine operation, but also *andrikē*, human—that is, human-divine. And furthermore, the author indicates the principle of the theandric operation: God made man, and from the God-made-man, not only a third and mixed kind of operation flowed, but also the first and the second; and this threefold rill, in its own measure, certainly preserved some of the flavor of its own fountain. He continues to teach many excellent things. These which we have handed down so far will be sufficient, so that the entire Catholic faith of the author of the Areopagitic writings—far different and most especially averse to the Eutychian inventions—may be known to have been defended and expounded as much as a man can.

NOTICES REGARDING S. DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, BISHOP AND MARTYR.

It is confessed among all that S. Dionysius was ordained by the Roman pontiff, that he announced the faith of Christ to the Parisians, that he founded the Parisian Church, that he held its first episcopate, and that he ended his life by martyrdom. But who this Dionysius was, ^D at what time he lived, and by which of the supreme pontiffs he was sent into Gaul, and under whose rule he suffered martyrdom, is a question which, having been revived in the previous century with great zeal by different parties, has agitated many men distinguished for their learning, talent, and piety. It is not our place to settle such great disputes. For our Sammarthanus has already warned in his general preface that it was not our intention to investigate the origins of Churches with prolix dissertations, which would extend the work beyond the law of such a great mass. But since most serious disputations concerning the beginnings of the Parisian Church have come to light among men most skilled in history, especially in the past century, we cannot, without a note of negligence or loss to the truth, pass them over in silence, adhering to the footsteps of the Sammarthani, but addicted to no master. Therefore, that our discourse may proceed by reason and method, a threefold opinion must be distinguished: of those who assert that the Dionysius the Areopagite and the Parisian are one and the same; another of those who distinguish the Areopagite from the Parisian, but claim that the latter was sent by S. Clement. The last is of those who distinguish the Parisian Dionysius from the Areopagite by 687 [years], and deny that he was sent by S. Clement, but think that he arrived in the Gauls from Roman parts in about the middle of the third century. And, first, S. Dionysius the Areopagite has been believed for many centuries to be the first bishop and apostle of the Parisians, instructed in the mysteries of the faith by the blessed Paul, baptized, and ordained bishop of the Athenians; when he had directed this Church for many years, for the love of Paul his master, whom he had received in Rome in chains, he left Athens and made a journey to him. But afterwards, being sent into the Gauls for the sake of preaching the Gospel by Pope Clement, with his companions Rusticus the presbyter, Eleutherius the deacon, and many others, arriving at Lutetia, when he had there faithfully pursued the work committed to him for some years, fi-

finally, after most grievous kinds of torments, he was struck down by the sword by the prefect Fescenninus and suffered martyrdom for Christ. Such are they who stand for the one Dionysius.

The first argument for their opinion they seek from the fact that, as we have demonstrated in the general preface by the authority of the ancient Fathers, the Christian religion was preached in the Gauls in the times of the apostles or apostolical men, and that certain churches were founded among us by them, contrary to the testimonies of Sulpicius Severus and Gregory of Tours, who affirm that the faith was transmitted to us later. But then, proponents of the Areopagite view rely on the ancient tradition and consensus of the Churches of Gaul, Germany, Spain, and Italy, which in their Martyrologies, Breviaries, and Missals venerate one Dionysius. This, the city and Church of Paris has preserved from ancestors down to the end of the 17th century, as if handed down from hand to hand. ^A Especially ancient is the tradition of the Dionysian monastery, which the monks, tenacious of ancient practices, still retain today, as is evident from the mass of the feast day of St. Dionysius, in which the epistle concerning the Areopagite has been read for many centuries. The Roman Church has also retained this tradition whole and undefiled, even after repeated examinations of the ecclesiastical office. What is more, the Martyrologies confirm the same, especially the Roman one, where it is read under the 6th day before the Ides of October that Dionysius the Areopagite was first indeed bishop of Athens, but afterwards sent into Gaul by Clement, and was bishop of Paris. Nor do the ancient martyrologies of Eusebius, Bede, and Rabanus recount it any less; and the more recent ones of Galesinius and Saussay, and so that nothing be lacking even on the part of the Greeks, they bring forward as witnesses Methodius, Michael Syncellus, Metaphrastes, and Nicephorus, who agree with this opinion and in clear words proclaim the Athenian Dionysius to have been sent into the Gauls and crowned with martyrdom.

Certain presumptions of this opinion are derived, first from the fact that Pope Stephen II, having brought the relics of St. Dionysius from Gaul, founded a monastery or school of Greek monks at Rome ^B for the memory of the healing received in the Dionysian basilica. Next, that Pope Adrian gave as a gift to Abbot Fulrad the much-circulated books of Dionysius written in Greek. In addition to this, that the Emperor of the East, Michael, sent the same books to Augustus Louis, who consigned them to the monastery of St. Dionysius. Thence Hilduin, abbot of St. Dionysius, ordered by the Emperor Louis the Pious, wrote the *Areopagitica*, in which, against Gregory of Tours especially and Bede, he proves the opinion—already long since established by the demands of interpolations—concerning the Areopagitism of Dionysius from the Acts of the Apostles, the most ancient Missals of the Gallic rite, the testimony of Visbius, a most ancient writer (which may be seen in Morinus), and by the authority also of Aristarchus the Greek chronicler and others. Many afterwards confirmed Hilduin's opinion by casting their vote. Aeneas, bishop of Paris, celebrated for learning, piety, and industry, in the inscription of his book *Against the Greeks*, speaks of himself thus: ^C "Aeneas, bishop of the city of Paris, over which first presided St. Dionysius, consecrated archbishop of the Athenians by the apostle Paul, but consecrated apostle of all Gaul by the holy Clement," etc. Into this opinion also descended Paschasius, abbot of Corbie, among the most learned of his age; Hincmar of Rheims in his letter to Charles the Bald, where he cites the life of St. Sanctinus, bishop of Meaux; Anastasius the Librarian; and Franco, archbishop of Rouen, as Dudo reports in book II of *On the Customs and Acts of the Normans*. In later centuries, likewise, St. Thomas in a sermon which he inscribed to St. Dionysius, Robert of Auxerre, Raphael Volaterranus in book XV of his *Anthropology*, Faber Stapulensis, Genebrard in his *Chronology*, Matthew Galen in his preface to the *Areopagitica*, Jacques Pamèle in his *Tertullian*, Molanus on Usuard, and Loaisa in his notes to the decree of King ^D Gundemar. I had almost omitted the most learned Cardinal Baronius, who, both in his *Martyrology* and in his *Annals* for the years 98 and 109, defended the same opinion with many arguments. Spondanus followed him. Natalis Alexander, Hugo Menard, and Germain Millet also aimed at the same goal; to these we could add many others, both recent and of an older stamp, if we were not concerned with brevity. But this sacred tradition, supported by so many and such great weight and testimonies, has not seemed to some learned men to be rashly rejected: "Wherefore, when the select theologians from the sacred faculty of Paris, for the amendment of the Parisian Breviary, had diligently weighed the question concerning St. Dionysius the Areopagite and the bishop of Paris, and had debated it on both sides, balanced with their own weight of arguments before the most illustrious archbishop Francis Harlay, the most sagacious archbishop, who was also endowed through outstanding gifts of genius and learning for judging rightly about matters concerning ecclesiastical antiquity, ruled that the honor of the ancient Gallican Church's tradition should be preserved in the ecclesiastical office regarding the one Dionysius, the Areopagite and Parisian bishop, and not that the pious opinion of our ancestors should be torn down, for which the rights of a probable opinion confirm not-to-be-despised arguments." Thus the Bollandists, Vol. VI of July, page 76.

But perhaps the one we worship is not the Areopagite Dionysius, and the mission by Clement may have given the Areopagitists an opportunity for error. Yet certainly this mission prevails by its antiquity and is supported by so many proofs that it cannot be called into doubt by men of sound mind. For Tillemont himself, speaking of St. Saturninus, admitted that two traditions flourished in the sixth century in certain churches, of which, according to one, the first bishops arrived in the Gauls in the times of the apostles or their disciples, but according to the other, under the reign of Decius, as Gregory of Tours himself wrote. Who does not see that this can be understood of St. Dionysius as well as St. Saturninus, seeing that they preached the Christian faith at the same time? But besides the argument derived from the faith propagated in the Gauls in the first centuries, which is common to one opinion and the other, there is yet another factor favoring this: the author of the *Life of St. Genevieve, Virgin*, who is older than Gregory of Tours, since he professes to have written it eighteen years after the blessed virgin’s passing, and therefore around the year 520. Therein, however, he expressly testifies that St. Dionysius was both sent into the Gauls by Pope Clement and consecrated bishop by the same. The same is held by Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, an equal and friend of Gregory of Tours, who, in a hymn he composed about St. Dionysius of Paris, which Dublet published in the *Antiquities of St. Denis*, sang thus:

The brave and faithful soldier Who followed Christ our Prince, The martyr Dionysius, Let the people sing with heart and voice. With Clement sitting at Rome, He was sent from the City, That he might be as the fruit of the supernal seed Of the Word for Gaul.

Do not say that this hymn was falsely attributed to Fortunatus by Dublet: for besides the fact that Hilduin asserted it without doubt, that hymn is read in the manuscripts of St. Germain-des-Prés no. 688, St. Peter of Chartres, and St. Benignus of Dijon. Moreover, if that old hymn is not by Fortunatus, it is certainly older than Hilduin, which is sufficient. The Gregorian Antiphonal of Charles the Bald, kept in the Compiègne library, the first antiphon concerning St. Dionysius for the night vigils describes his mission by...

St. Clement as its preferred reading, just as the responsory for the third nocturn does. Mabillon, in *De Re Diplomatica*, lib. VI, p. 488, records an ordinance of Theuderic of Chelles, King of the Franks, given in the year of Christ 723, in which Theuderic, confirming the privileges granted to the Saint-Denis monastery by previous kings and pontiffs, says that blessed Dionysius came into the province of the Gauls under the ordination of Blessed Clement, successor of Peter. King Pippin, in a charter from the year 768, given shortly before his death, holds the same as Theuderic. ^A However, they had drawn this opinion entirely from the *Acts of the Passion of St. Dionysius*, which Hilduin cites, where it was written that St. Dionysius was ordained bishop by the Roman pontiff Clement and sent into the Gauls. Francis Bosquet published the *Acts* of this *Life* from manuscript codices, and Peter de Marca discovered that the author was Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, in a manuscript codex of the Church of Tours. Before Hilduin, the Venerable Bede maintained that Dionysius was sent by Pope Clement, in whose *Martyrology* for the day of 9 October it is read: "Blessed bishop sent into the Gauls by the Roman pontiff Clement." Rabanus in his *Martyrology* and Usuard wrote the same.

A finishing touch is put on this opinion by the bishops of Gaul in a frequent assembly held at Paris concerning the veneration of sacred images in the year 825, ten years before Hilduin applied himself to writing about the Areopagitic works, where, toward the end of the seventh proceeding, they speak thus in James Bongars: "And let it not be a weariness to you if, in order to show the reason of truth and the truth of reason, our discourse extends itself a little further, provided that the line of truth, which has been inflexibly drawn from our ancient fathers even to us—namely regarding Blessed Dionysius, who stood forth as the first successor of Blessed Peter the Apostle in the apostolate, being sent as the first preacher into the Gauls with a group of twelve, and after some time, together with his companions dispersed here and there for the sake of preaching through the same kingdom, was crowned with martyrdom." Mabillon, in *Analecta*, vol. I, p. 63, thinks it should be read: "who stood forth as the first successor of Blessed Peter the Apostle from Blessed Clement into the Gauls, etc." And so, the popular opinion was held not only before the times of Hilduin, but also before those of Gregory of Tours, to which even the authority of Gregory himself is unable to introduce a contrary view—that St. Dionysius of Paris was sent by the Roman pontiff Clement. I do not speak of other authors later than Hilduin, although many of them assert the same; but I cannot omit the most illustrious Peter de Marca, Archbishop of Toulouse and later of Paris, who wrote a distinguished letter on this matter to Henry Valois, prefixed to his version of Eusebius' *Ecclesiastical History*, in which the most learned prelate most clearly proves the mission of the six Gregorian bishops before the third century, and solidly refutes the opinion of Jean Launoy and his followers. Among the patrons of this sentence one must count the critic of Baronius, Anthony Pagi, vol. III, p. 557. But also in the year 1727, Anthony Pagi, the great-nephew of the same, composed a brilliant historical-critical dissertation on this matter, which he prefixed to vol. IV of the *Breviary of the Roman Pontiffs*, in which he gathered various arguments both of Peter de Marca and of his uncle Anthony, and rightly concludes for the Dionysius sent into Gaul by St. Clement. We have already made sufficient reply to the principal objections constructed against this opinion in the general preface affixed to the first volume.

3. There remains now the third opinion, which rests neither on those affirming nor on those denying. For the patrons of this view, to whom the first two are not pleasing, conclude therefrom that the third must necessarily be admitted. Let us therefore listen to these, just as we have to the others. First, they bring forward the open testimonies of Sulpicius Severus and Gregory of Tours, which are most repugnant to both of the former opinions: for the former says in book II of his *Sacred History*: "Under Aurelius, son of Antoninus, the fifth persecution was stirred up, and then ^B martyrdoms were seen in Gaul for the first time, later across the Alps of God by religion received." But Gregory of Tours, in *History of the Franks*, lib. I, cap. 30, asserts that Dionysius was sent to Paris in the time of Decius, after the year of Christ 250, from which he clearly convinces that Dionysius of Paris, the apostle and martyr, cannot be the Areopagite, as he who had died earlier, nor was he sent by Clement. Now, Gregory had often come to Paris; he had been joined by a bond of friendship with Germanus, Bishop of Paris, and Ragnemodus his successor, whom it does not seem probable to have been ignorant of the tradition of this Church. 2. If the companions and associates of Dionysius, who numbered up to twelve and announced the faith for the first time in Belgica Secunda, underwent the contest of martyrdom for Christ under the principate of Diocletian, as is evident from their *Acts* and the constant tradition of the churches they founded, then they were not sent into the Gauls in the time of the apostles, nor was St. Dionysius sent. 3. Between St. Dionysius the proto-prelate and Victorinus, who was present at the synod of Cologne in the year 346, only four bishops are mentioned in all ancient catalogs, who would have had to sit for the space of nearly 260 years, which are counted from the Dionysius sent into the Gauls by St. Clement, which does not seem probable. 4. The opinion of Gregory has always had patrons and defenders. 5. Innocent III himself sent to the Dionysians the relics of St. Dionysius, which Peter the chaplain had brought to Rome from Greece, so that it could no longer be called into doubt that the relics of St. Dionysius were preserved in the Dionysian monastery. As for what pertains to the testimonies sought from the Martyrologies for the Areopagitic status of St. Dionysius, they are either of no moment or are convicted of falsity by the Parisian Martyrologies themselves, which distinguish two: one, indeed, on the fifth of the Nones of October, the other on the seventh of the Ides of the same month. Regarding the Areopagite, therefore, it stands thus: "V of the Nones of October, the birthday of Saint Dionysius, ^C bishop and martyr, who after a most famous confession of faith and after most grave types of torments, was crowned with glorious martyrdom, as Aristides the Athenian, a man wonderful in faith and wisdom, testifies in that work which he composed concerning the Christian religion." But concerning the Parisian: "V of the Ides of October at Paris, the birthday of the holy martyrs Dionysius the bishop, Rusticus the priest, and Eleutherius the deacon. Who, being a blessed bishop, sent by the pontiff into the Gauls for the sake of preaching, arrived at the aforementioned city, where he finally completed his martyrdom together with his companions." The credibility of these is increased by very many things, which Jean de Launoy, a Parisian theologian, most diligent in asserting antiquity, gathered and published in his discussion *On the Two Dionysii*: for the most ancient *Martyrology* of Bede, that of Usuard, who was writing under the reign of Charlemagne, shortly before Hilduin, in the city of Paris in the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the Roman one published by Heribert Rosweyde, that of Ado of Vienne, of Notker, of the Church of Auvergne, all prove this. Two of Reims, three of Auxerre, one of Troyes, many Parisian ones of the same time and long after, two in the Church of Paris written in the year 1448, another in 1727; furthermore, the same city's Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Auxerre, Saint-Martin-des-Champs, Saint-Victor, and in the very monastery of Blessed Dionysius it was found four hundred and a few years ago, which Guido the abbot testifies and inserted into his *Sanctilogium*. Moreover, throughout the Gauls, the basilicas of Rouen, Sens, Autun, Le Puy, Angers, Amiens, and Saint-Martin of Tours [have it so]; many also are those Calendars committed to print; finally, the lives of the saints written before and after the year of Christ 800 expressly assert that Dionysius came into the Gauls while Decius was reigning, from which those things that are opposed from the ancient and new Martyrologies are argued to be false. Sirmond adds in his dissertation *On the Two Dionysii*, published in the year 1641, that the author of the recent opinion was Hilduin, Abbot of St. Dionysius. He instructed him ^D

^A to collect the history of Dionysius of Paris from Greek and Latin codices; by the mandate of this epistle, which exists in Volume II of the *Concilia Galliæ*, he collected a book, with the title: *Areopagitica*, in which, he says, he was the first of all to teach that Dionysius the Areopagite is the same person as the Parisian one; and to prove this, he brings forward into the light the most ancient papers from the Parisian archives and Martyrologies from the hidden repositories of the new Rome, while he accuses Gregory of Tours, who thought differently, of simplicity. It is believed that Hilduin, deceived by the art of the Greeks who were seeking his favor, as they were petitioning the kings of the Franks for aid because their own affairs were in ruins, was deluded. Hilduin also cites Aristarchus and Visbius, all of which Sirmond refutes in the entire 4th chapter of his dissertation, and opposes them principally with the perpetual authority of the Gallican Martyrologies. Furthermore, the transition of a bishop from one episcopal see to another was unknown to the Greeks, such that among them this was considered adultery, since a prelate was held to be bound with the highest fidelity to his Church, as if to a spouse; which custom prevailed in the Latin Church until the ninth century. But as to what Germanus Millet objects from Socrates, Book VI, chapter 35, who recounts that several Greek bishops changed sees, Sirmond retorts the argument: and since nothing occurs in Socrates about a Dionysius so famous among the Greeks, hence it is well conjectured that there was no memory among them of this transition to the Gauls. Furthermore, the Council of Sardica, Canon 1, openly teaches that no bishop has crossed ^B from a larger city to a smaller one, which would be false if Dionysius had left Athens, a most flourishing city, to go to Lutetia, which at that time was far inferior to Athens by many titles. And how little credible is it that Dionysius, being over eighty years old, performed so many and such long and difficult pilgrimages by land and sea, and traversed Italy, Gaul, Spain, and Asia for the sake of visiting John the Evangelist! And what of the fact that Joannes Morinus, a most learned priest of the Oratory, in the preface to the sacred ordinations extracted from S. Dionysius's book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, published in the year 1655, accurately proves that almost all of Dionysius's works were composed by him in Asia, and that thence, before he arrived in the Gauls, he was over a hundred years old. We shall produce one or two arguments from the work itself. Dionysius was living in the East when he was writing the book *On the Divine Names*, as is demonstrated by the title: for he addresses it to Timothy, bishop of the Ephesians: then the words with which the book ends necessarily prove that both lived in the same or a neighboring region. But why, if he were then living in the Gauls, would he write in Greek and not in Latin? Why would he not rather devote himself to preaching and pilgrimages, so as to spread the faith, and spend the time granted to him for preaching the Gospel on writing books, which require profound leisure and the deepest ^C quiet? Thus, he composed the book *On the Divine Names* in Asia after the death of Ignatius, which occurred in the year of Christ 109; for he cites in chapter 4 the sentiment of Saint Ignatius, who wrote to the Roman faithful when he was being led to martyrdom at Rome. Dionysius, therefore, was in his 102nd year when he betook himself from Asia or central Greece to Rome, where he had found not Clement, as they claim, but Anacletus, the successor to the martyrdom of Clement. But if we compare the last words of the book *On the Divine Names* with those which he brings forward at the beginning of the epistle to Timothy the bishop, we must necessarily conclude that Dionysius, before he set out for the Gauls, was at least one hundred and five or six years old, and consequently was sent not by Clement, nor by Anacletus, but by the aged Evaritus: for finishing the book *On the Divine Names*, he says that he is then, with God as his guide, about to pass to symbolic theology; in the beginning of the letter to Titus, however, he says that he has written on symbolic theology, and had explained it to Timothy at his home: these things could not surely have happened unless some years after the ^D letters elaborated by Saint Ignatius as he was setting out for martyrdom, one of which Dionysius cites in his book *On the Divine Names*. But Ignatius, according to Baronius, died in the year 109, and from that time he finished the book, Dionysius composed the work *On Symbolic Theology*, teaches Timothy, and sets out for Rome. Morinus explains these and more things accurately. Furthermore, Sirmond demonstrates that Dionysius the Areopagite did not suffer martyrdom under Trajan or Hadrian, but under Domitian, as Metaphrastes, Methodius, Hilduin himself, and Ratbertus relate, although they differ regarding the year and the day. Against these arguments, Germanus Millet, in another dissertation published in 1642, responded to each of Sirmond's chapters. Finally, Joannes de Launoy in the same year published a discussion in which the distinction of the two Dionysii, proven by Sirmond, is defended according to the rules of discovering and asserting the truth; he also subjoined the Life of each Dionysius, collected from authors of the best faith. You have the miracles of the Parisian one in Gregory of Tours, Book I, chap. 72, *On Miracles*; in the *History*, Book V, chap. 33, and Book X, chap. 29; in Fredegar, *Chronicle*, chap. 54; in Audoenus, bishop of Rouen, in the *Life of S. Eligius*, Book I, chap. 22. The distinction of the two Dionysii is also proven in their writings by Aubertus Miraeus in his *Belgian Annals*, Heribertus Rosweidus and Dionysius Petavius, priests of the Society of Jesus, Nicolaus Faber, tutor of Louis XIII, Antonius Loisellus, Andreas Quercetanus in his notes to the *Bibliotheca Cluniacensis* and in the *Lives of the Popes*. Franciscus Bosquetus, bishop of Lodève, also discusses this question at length in *Hist.*, Book I, chap. 26; and many others, prompted by whose testimonies without doubt, Louis Antonius de Noailles thought that the judgment of his predecessor, mentioned above, should be reformed; he distinguished the two Dionysii in the *Parisian Breviary*, which was published in the year 1700 by his authority and with the consent of the venerable chapter, and prescribed a semidouble office to be recited on October 3 for Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, and a greater solemn office on the 9th of the same month for Dionysius of Paris and his companions.

690 As for whom the writings that are commonly inscribed with the name of Dionysius the Areopagite pertain to, this is also a most intricate difficulty. It is most certain that before the year 532, no mention of these is made among authors of approved faith. They are first cited by the heretic Severianus in a conference held with Catholics, which the Catholic bishops confess they are ignorant of. Gradually, however, in subsequent times, wondering at the sublime and truly orthodox doctrine of so great a writer, the popes Saint Gregory and Martin I approved them. Sophronius and Maximus the monk attribute them to the Areopagite, although there are no slight arguments available that they were written toward the end of the fourth century, or rather a little before Eutyches was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in the year 451. But these matters are not for this place: we have thought it our part to submit to the prudent reader, without prejudice to the truth, the various opinions about S. Dionysius propounded by learned men on this side and that. Thus the prudent reformers of the *Parisian Breviary* in the year 1700 (who were later followed by the editors in the year 1736) omitted everything regarding their patron that is controversial with such foundation: and when the abbess of Montmartre, a kinswoman of the king, had interposed her authority that the Areopagite should not be entirely passed over in silence, they did not consent that he be named, yet out of grace to the king, they placed the chapter for vespers and lauds: *Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus, says: Ye men of Athens*, etc., about the altar of the Unknown God, as fitting for him who preached to the Gentiles. Following the example of such great men, having put aside other questions which are wont to be agitated on this matter and are treated more fully in many places, we shall conclude with the words of the *Parisian Martyrology* for the 9th of October: At Paris, the feast of the holy martyrs Dionysius, first bishop, for the sake of spreading the faith of Christ in

the Gallic regions, sent by the Apostolic See; and of Rusticus, a presbyter, and Eleutherius, a deacon, who, after organizing the Church there, were put to the sword under the prefect Sisinnus Fescenninus. Their bodies are honorably preserved in the monastery of Saint Dionysius in France, while the upper part of the head of Saint Dionysius is held in the church at Paris.

TACHYGRAPHIC TABLE

Exhibiting a fragment from the book of Saint Dionysius, *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*.

(It stands at the beginning of volume VI of the *Scriptores Veterum*, which was published at Rome in the year 1832 by the late Cardinal Angelo Mai, who wrote the following preface:)

Since I was eager, as is my habit, to adorn the front of this book with some beautiful and useful specimen of paleography, it occurred to me to display specimens of certain Vatican codices which contain what we call Tironian shorthand. One of these, written in the shorthand art, is in my hands—it formerly belonged to the monastery of Grottaferrata—in which, after the various works of other authors, the work of Dionysius the Areopagite *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy* is inscribed in shorthand with continuous, very dense, and elegant notes, which occupy forty-one large pages. It is, by Hercules, a rare and marvelous treasure of this art, for which you will not easily find an equal, and which perhaps suffices for the thorough understanding of the shorthand of the Greeks. Now, so that the fruit of the table I have proposed may soon be apparent to readers, I shall here print the text of Dionysius in common letters, so that scholars, by comparing it with the shorthand table, may, I hope, understand the meanings of the notes. For even after the labors of Gruter and so many other scholars, after the alphabet and charts of Carpentier, and after the modern Tironian Lexicon of Kopp, we know that this type of writing is still shrouded in deep darkness.

[Tachygraphic plate represented in facsimile]

*Mystery of Hieratic Initiations.*

"O sacred leader, etc." See the Works of Saint Dionysius, vol. I, col. 509, up to the word *leitourgos* [minister], at which the fragment ends.

INDEX OF MEMORABLE MATTERS CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME

*The Reader is referred to the numerical notes in bold characters inserted into the text.*

A Abstinence, an example of singular, 303. Acephali, they denied that Christ Jesus was flesh and manifest man, 98. Action, the sacred action of the Teletai (initiations) is threefold, 77. Adamant, what it is mystically, 323. Adelaide, Queen of the Franks, her devotion toward St. Dionysius, 522. Adelphians, their excessive liberty, 88. Aediculae (small shrines), several built in honor of Saint Dionysius at Paris, 498. Egypt, praise of, from the study of the arts, 410. Equability, what it is, 220. Eternal, what is properly termed as such, 181. Affirmation, how it has the force of excellent negation in Christ, 306. Affirmation, what it is, 236. Ambition, what it is, 314. Amor (Love) of Christ toward men, from what it is shown. The efficacy of vehement love toward God, 459. Avax, what were called by the heathens, 106. Andrew (St.), the apostle’s martyrdom, 439. Angels, they pray for the Gentiles, 314. Angels are unequal to fully explaining divine names, 510. Angels do not know earthly things by sense, but by a transcendent power, 190. In angels there is an intelligent faculty and efficacy arising from the supernatural wisdom of God, 187. The offices of the angels in the salvation of men, 456. Angels, why their feet are winged, 47. Angels, there are nine orders of, 21, 29, 33. Soul, how it differs from the mind, 138. Souls, a certain method of winning them, 431. Souls, to what their powers are to be directed, 477. Soul, what is the impassible part of, 326. Souls and all minds are called lights superior to the heavens, 112. Purity of mind is necessary for receiving illuminations, 490. Antoninus (St.), Bishop of Meaux, honors, 503. Apollophanes, colleague of Saint Dionysius, 309. Apostles are called holy instructors, 54. The apostles were present at the departure from the body of the most holy Virgin, 345. On the passing and funeral rites of the Virgin Mother of God, 510. Water, those things which are unclean are cleansed by, 58. Eagle, it is of the sharpest vision, 49. Altar of the Unknown God, 422. Areopagus, what it is, 345. Commendation of the Areopagus, 413. Areopagitic works, Vindications of, 637 et seqq.; 647 et seqq. Aphesis, who was so called by the Lacedaemonians, 72. Athens, praise of, 413. Athenians, their customs, 421. Athenians, their providence concerning the condemnation of Socrates, 432. Athens, no or very few martyrdoms there, ibid.

B Baptism is the beginning and way to divine familiarity, 56. Baptism was given in the place of the Lord’s death, 62. Birgitta (St.), her devotion toward Saint Dionysius, 526. Good, who are so called in the Scriptures, 453. Brute beasts, how they differ from man, 46.

C Caius, who he was, 503. Flesh of Christ is called God-bearing (Deifera), 24. Desires of the flesh have the power of dividing us from God, 68. Catechumens, who are so called, 441. Catechumens, energumens, and penitents were separated from the rest, 63. Catulla, a matron, snatches the bodies of the martyrs from the lictors, 352. Catulla’s conversion, 401. Catulla’s zeal and industry in obtaining the bodies of the martyrs, 498. Catulla instructed partly by St. Dionysius, partly by St. Regulus, ibid. Ceremonies, care for them in sacred matters, 441. Ceremonies concerning the deceased, what they were, 517. Ceremonies prescribed by Dionysius persevere in great part, 471. Christians, their fervor in spreading the Gospel, 437. Pious Christians, their blessed lot in the present and the future, 476. Christians, their vows and studies, 428. Christians, their charity and concord, 471. Christians, the marks of their modesty and sincerity, 440. Christian kings of France, their studies and honors toward the Blessed Dionysius, 184, 185. Christian people, most useful lessons for, 449. Christ’s disciples, when they were ordained priests, 86. Christ was a legislator and subject to the law, 18. Christ is called the Angel of the great counsel, 19. Christ, according as he is man, is Lord of all intelligible things and King of glory, 27. Christ is called poured-forth ointment, 61. Christ, how he conquered the devil, 71. Christ is called Omops (raw), 307. What kind his actions are, ibid. Christ the Lord takes upon himself parts of the dedicating of the temple of St. Dionysius, 514. Food, solid, what it designates, 329. Cities, they are sanctified by the memory of the saints and their venerable sepulchers, 389. Clement, how he is called the successor of Peter, 460. Clement’s affairs from the martyrdom of Peter, ibid. Clement’s oration as pontiff to Dionysius, 463. Dionysius’s response to the words of Clement, 462. Coena (Supper), the mystical Lord’s Supper is the first of the mysteries that now exist, 64. Knowledge, any knowledge of divine things is not to be neglected, 511. Compositions, symbolic, why they are used, 324. Conflatorium (melting furnace), what it is mystically, 323. Conglutination, we have the principle of it from the earth, 74. Consecrating and performing the ointment is not for presbyters, but for the pontiff alone, 79. Contemplation. Contempt for earthly things is born from the contemplation of divine things, 473. Conversing with the evil, providing that even the good may arrive, is not evil, 163. Heart, the first to be created according to St. Basil, 47. Body, how it is to be used, 477. Whether the body of Saint Dionysius is in the city of Saint Dionysius near Lutetia (Paris), or indeed at Ratisbon (Regensburg), 587, 588. Correction. In correction there is a certain subordination, 115. Cross, the frequent impression of the sign of the cross on the forehead, approved by miracle, 524.

D Demon, he assumes various forms to terrify Taurinus and to hinder his journey and labors, 155. Demon is compelled to state the truth concerning the holy Dionysius and Taurinus, ibid. Demons are by their nature lucid (bright), 156. The mind of the demons, from the privation of reason, desires equality with God, 188. Dagobert, the king’s piety, 514. St. Dionysius appears to Dagobert and predicts he will reign, ibid. Dagobert’s liberality and munificence toward sacred and religious places, ibid. Damaris, wife of Dionysius, 412. Delights of pious minds, what they are, 436. Deliciari (to be delighted), what it is properly, 314.

^A Not to acknowledge one's own sin is a double sin, 518. Who Demophilus was, 313. Demophilus’ letters are full of arrogance and empty boasting, 453. How God is all intelligible virtues, and how He illuminates us, 53. God was called the One by the ancients, 165. How God is said to be good, ibid. God transcends every substance, 74. God knows Himself, 93. God is compared to fire, 40. God is living virtue, perfect in Himself, and in need of nothing, 41. God is said to go forth and move toward all things, 209. God is eternity and eternal, 103. What the appearance of God is like, 16. God knows the things that are, not from the knowledge of all things, but from His own, 190. He who is joined to God is not vexed by an unclean spirit, 67. How place is attributed to God, 28, 29. Refutation of false gods, 469. The descent of our salvation from heaven, ibid. God is the end of all things, 180. To know that God is unknowable is properly to know Him, 301. God is inimitable and devoid of habit, 305. How God is unknown and yet entirely known, 111. God is the position and negation of all things, ibid. God is in all things, and nothing, and all things, 128. God is called order, ibid. God is called great, 202. God takes care of soul and body, 314. The various appellations of God, 11. God's marvelous familiarity and kindness toward the saints, 477. How God may be known through opposites, and through affirmations and negations, 181. God cannot deny Himself, [so He] can be known, 309. How God is said to be nothing, 103. God is called ancient and new, 211. What the kind presence of God brings with it, 495. God's wisdom in the calling to faith, 412. What God signifies, 115. God is the end of the universe, 132. How the devil urges to sin, 321. The custody of the gates attributed to the deacons, 316. What the office of deacons is, 80. The pontifical occupations and apostolic journeys of Dionysius returning from Jerusalem, 450. Incentives for Dionysius to multiply his labors, ibid. Dionysius gravely laments the sin of Demophilus, 454. The humility of St. Dionysius and holy fear, 455. Dionysius' devotion while sacrificing. Dionysius enjoys the sight of the most blessed Virgin on earth, 443. St. Dionysius' exultation and progress toward the bridal chamber of the Virgin. Monks existed in the time of Dionysius, 346. Humility of St. Dionysius, 349. He converts many, ibid. Domitian sends his men to destroy Dionysius, 330. St. Dionysius is captured with his companions, ibid. His constant voice, 351. The persecutors flatter him, ibid. That the saints perform miracles, ibid. The martyrs are punished by beheading. St. Dionysius carries his own head, 352. How great Dionysius was in his sermons to the people, 456. A true eulogy of the Epistles of St. Dionysius to Demophilus, ibid. The apostolic spirit of Dionysius, 459. Dionysius penetrates as far as Phrygia, and there preaches the faith for some years; he desires to see Paul, ibid. St. Dionysius’ approach to Rome, 396. Dionysius is declared a master by Clement, ibid. The companions of St. Dionysius, ibid. Dionysius sends Marcellus into Spain, ibid. The approach of Dionysius with Lucian to Paris, 397. Dionysius' virtue and constancy against the calumniators of his faith and new life, 427. The contention of Dionysius and Apollophanes concerning the faith, 428. Dionysius' response to the cavils of his kinsmen, ibid. St. Dionysius ordained bishop by St. Paul, 318. Dionysius' epistle to St. Polycarp, 429. The pious vow of St. Dionysius, ibid. Dionysius meets the disciples of the apostles and his equals at Rome, 460. St. Dionysius announces Christ to the Gauls, 545. He comes to Paris, 346. He builds a temple, ibid. The conversion of St. Dionysius, 344, 595. He adheres to the apostle Paul, ibid. St. Dionysius is made bishop by Paul, 437. In what year he was made bishop of Athens, ibid. St. Dionysius' progress in theology and virtue and his elevation to the episcopate, 435, 437. The extraordinary virtue and industry of Dionysius in establishing and ordering the Athenian episcopate, 439. The conversion of Dionysius from errors, 421. Before taking up the faith, Dionysius was of the Platonic sect, 422. Dionysius' epistle to Apollophanes, 431. Dionysius was 25 years old at the time of the Lord’s passion, ibid. St. Dionysius prophesies, 332. Praises of St. Dionysius, 333, 336. St. Dionysius accepted the Apocalypse of St. John the Evangelist, 107. What were the fatherland and parents of St. Dionysius, 343. No occupations, however grave and many, distract Dionysius from God. Dionysius wished Sanctinus and Antoninus to be present at his martyrdom, and to record this in letters, 488. St. Dionysius is comprehended in the proclamation of the Gospel, 489. Dionysius' alacrity toward death and confidence in speaking, ibid. The magnanimity of St. Dionysius, at one hundred and ten years of age, against torments. ^B they suffer hardships, and by them are rendered stronger, ibid. New torments are applied to Dionysius, ibid. He conquers fire, beasts, the cross, ibid. From the cross, as from a pulpit, he preaches, ibid. Acts of the martyrdom according to Hilduinus, ibid. To Dionysius sacrificing in prison, Jesus Christ appeared and offered him the sacred host, 495. The efficacy of the prayers of St. Dionysius, ibid. How many years St. Dionysius lived, 497. Dionysius, beheaded, carries his own head in his hands, ibid. St. Dionysius' apparition after death, 504. St. Dionysius appears to Herculdus and heals him, ibid. St. Dionysius' piety, 508. Modesty, 509. How much Dionysius esteemed St. Timothy, ibid. Dionysius calls Timothy 'son' because of his age, 510. The reverence of St. Dionysius toward his teachers, ibid. St. Dionysius' meekness and the commendation of meekness, 512. St. Dionysius' benefits toward the kings of the Franks, 514. The feast day of the discovery of the relics of St. Dionysius, 515. St. Dionysius appears to St. Birgitta, 523; to St. Dunstan the bishop, 524. First vows of the pious Society of Jesus on the Mount of Martyrs, [he] heard and approved the religion of the Society of Jesus, ibid. Philip, King of Spain, sent a silver lamp to St. Dionysius, 525. The gifts of Dionysius for the conversion of the Gentiles, 462. Very ample power is granted to Dionysius over the Churches of the West, ibid. The companions of Dionysius from the City to Gaul, 463. What Dionysius did at Arles, 467. Dionysius distributed companions and disciples to various places in Gaul, ibid. Dionysius' labors and fruits in the city of Arles. A temple consecrated to SS. Peter and Paul by St. Dionysius, ibid. Dionysius approached Lutetia Parisiorum [Paris] by divine impulse, His miracles, 470. What chapels were built in Paris by Dionysius, ibid. Dionysius departed for Spain for matters of the faith, 471. His desire to see the apostles, ibid. The cause of grandiloquence in Dionysius, 474. What sort of men the critics of the Dionysian style are, ibid. Dionysius undertakes nothing without consulting God, ibid. Dionysius taught divine things by God, ibid. Dionysius is more clearly illuminated by God in the persecutions of the Church, ibid. What Dionysius foresaw concerning St. John the Evangelist, 475. Dionysius predicts that he will meet John after his exile, 476. Dionysius exceptionally apt for divine revelations, 477. Dionysius escaped Domitian's persecution by divine counsel. In what year of his age Dionysius went to Asia, 482. Dionysius is sent back by John to the West, 483. Dionysius' return to Gaul, 484. What Dionysius did in the times of the Emperor Trajan, 486. Dionysius edits his own books [in] retraction, 487. St. Dionysius' various miracles after death, 526, 527 et seq. Life of St. Dionysius from Suidas, 313, 314, 315 et seq.; from Nicephorus, 316; from Michael the Syncellus, 329, 330 et seqq. Those who say the books on the Celestial and Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and also the Divine Names, are not by Dionysius the Areopagite, in what error they wander, 373. St. Dionysius totally removed impious blasphemies against the dedication and adoration of holy and venerable images, ibid. Life of St. Dionysius from Peter Halloix, 410 et seq. In what year St. Dionysius was born, ibid. Berthaldus the duke recovered from a desperate illness by the aid of St. Dionysius and his fellow martyrs, 526. A temple in honor of St. Dionysius and his companions is built by Duke Berthaldus, 527. St. Dionysius' relics and their virtue and estimation, 527, 528. Index of the books of St. Dionysius, 529. Whether the same Dionysius the Areopagite, disciple of Paul, is [also] the bishop of Paris, apostle of the Franks, 530, 531 et seq. A hymn of Venantius Fortunatus concerning the Blessed Dionysius, 540. What are the writings of St. Dionysius, 541, 542, 543 seq. Disciples are the crown of masters, 503. What many dissimilarities are according to St. Maximus, 52. The difference between the Divinity and the flesh of the Lord Jesus, 75. Divinity is praised in two ways, 7. Divinity, in what way it is communicable, 114. The princely power of the Dominations is called implacable by certain philosophers, 29. It is called Deity by St. Dionysius, ibid. Domitian’s destruction and the end of the persecution, 479. The bitterness of Emperor Domitian’s persecution, 422. The Druid priests of Gaul often laid snares for Dionysius, 489. They themselves were restrained by divine power, ibid. E ^C The Church thrives in persecution just as the vine does in pruning, 480. The Church flourishes in peace in the times of Vespasian, 470. The Church of Arles commended to St. Regulus, 469. What the state of the Church was in the time of Nero, 459. Ecclesia[—]

Ecclesiastical custom of holding solemn assemblies at their churches on the festivals of the saints, 390. Praise of the Athenian Church, 439. Who is fit for the governance of the Church, 451. Ecclesiastical discipline is a matter of the greatest importance, 451. Phlegon and Africanus make mention of the eclipse which occurred in the time of St. Dionysius, 645. Examination of the eclipse at the time of Christ’s death, 431. Apollophanes’ judgment regarding the eclipse, ibid. St. Editha builds a temple to St. Dionysius, 523. The piety and munificence of King St. Edward toward St. Dionysius, ibid. St. Eligius, once an excellent goldsmith, devoted all the industry of his art to the honor of St. Dionysius, ibid. Who are the energumens, 366. The division of beings, 14, 15. Bishops are called [iεράρχαι] (hierarchs), 1. The parts of bishops ought to be preeminent in labors, 468. Why the series of the first bishops in the Churches is uncertain, 437. Two things are necessary for the episcopate, 451. The uses of the Epistles of Dionysius to Demophilus, 452. The erring must always be instructed, 320. Error concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, 120. From where [Hiera] is derived, 328. The Eucharist is holier than baptism, 423. The names of the venerable Eucharist in St. Dionysius, 570. The invocation of the Eucharist as living and seeing, 508. Praises of St. Eugenius, bishop of Toledo, 504. The departure of St. Eugenius to Gaul and his martyrdom, ibid. The body of St. Eugenius remained incorrupt for two hundred years after his death, ibid. The honorable burial of St. Eugenius and the miracles at his tomb, 505. St. Gerard, abbot of Brogne, obtains some relics of St. Eugenius, ibid. The Acts of St. Eugenius recognized at the Council of Liège, ibid. The decree of Bishop Stephen concerning the honoring of the relics of St. Eugenius, ibid. The relics of St. Eugenius are deposited in the town of Cuvin in the diocese of Liège, ibid. The translation of the relics of St. Eugenius, ibid. Philip II, king of Spain, obtains from Charles IX, king of France, the relics of St. Eugenius, ibid. The piety of the same Philip in the cult of relics, ibid. The attestation of the translation of the body of St. Eugenius to Toledo, ibid. St. Eutropius returns to the Gallic labors from which he had imprudently departed, 463. The noble martyrdom of St. Eutropius, 479. The prediction that the Gospel of St. John would be written, 475. Exemplars are called Ideas, 178.

F Faith is not sufficient for salvation; but good works are required, and a life consistent with a Christian man, 577. The best kind of teaching is to instruct more by works than by voice, 378. The efficacy of the Christian faith, 423. The end is set in opposition to infinity according to affirmation and negation, 512. What lightning is, 321.

G Conversion of Germany, 379.

H The devotion of Henry, king of the Franks, toward St. Dionysius, 515. What ecclesiastical hierarchy is, 53. What is the end or scope of hierarchy, ibid. Hierarchy uses signs and sensible things for men, 54. The conformity of the ecclesiastical hierarchy with the celestial, 474. The hierarchy of Christians makes gods and absolves, 51. It is instituted by Hierotheus, 344. St. Hierotheus. He becomes bishop of the Athenians, 345. The writings of St. Hierotheus are more difficult to understand than those of Dionysius, 471. Praises of St. Hierotheus, 510. St. Hierotheus is a distinguished herald of the Gospel, 511. He is compared to the sun, ibid. St. Hierotheus the second master of Dionysius in the mysteries of religion, 436. St. Hierotheus ruled the Athenian Church for some time, 437. What the days of Hilarius are, 7. Hilaria festivals of the Mother of God, 455. Of what man consists, 94. What kind of person a man ought to be when about to be occupied with God, 452. The distinction between injurious and beneficial men, both now and in the future, 455. How great are the benefits of hospitality toward saints, 150. What is the power of humility, 440. [iεραρχία] what it is, 1.

I Fire is sown in everything without admixture, 45. He who is ignorant ought not to be ashamed of the things he does not know, 50. Those who are ignorant are to be taught and not punished, 319. What ignorance is by privation and what by excellence, 303. How imagination differs from cognition or counsel, 101. ^D The faculty of imagining is divided into three parts, 102. How an image differs from its exemplar, 72. Divine weakness is called the voluntary condescension of the Son of God even to the body, without sin, 122. The Incarnation belongs to the Word of God alone, 110. In how many ways the meaning of "unbegotten" is taken, 203. The power of the initiated is threefold, 78. In what way intellection differs from intellect, 104. What the intelligible and the intelligence are, 48. The lowest order of the intelligibles is properly called angels, 16.

J What kind of man Jesus was, 506. Jesus assumed the whole substance of man, ibid. He is above man, ibid. When St. John was relegated to Patmos, 330. St. John is the sun of the Gospel, 332. Praises of John the Apostle, 476. In what year of his age St. John wrote the Gospel; he is met at Ephesus by Dionysius, 483. Praises of the same, ibid. The Gospel of John is more noble than others in the height of its mysteries, 486. The vision of John the Solitary concerning King Dagobert, 513. King Clothar recognizes the miracle and returns to grace with his son Dagobert, ibid. Praises of the priest Jona, 503. St. Jona carried his severed head in his hands, ibid. Judas was made a partaker of the mystic bread and chalice by the Lord, but not of the mysteries, 396, 397. The equity of the extreme Judge, 476. What justice is, 198.

L There is no stain in any of the celestial natures, against Origen, 84. The rank of the laity in the Athenian Church, and of the monks, 365. The matron Larcia accuses Dionysius of magic, and accuses her husband Lisbius of impiety toward the gods, 489. The conversion of the noble matron Larcia, 497. What legislation is, 16. Commendation of the Old Law, 435. The cause and institution of the law, 436. The lion, lest his tracks be known, erases them with his tail, 49. The lustful are driven by a demon, 62. Which are called the holy books, 63. The books of Dionysius On the Celestial Hierarchy and Ecclesiastical were written in Gaul, 471. The distinguished conversion to the faith of Christ of Lisbius, from whose line the Montmorency family arises, 470. The pious kindness and munificence of the same Lisbius, ibid. Larcia, the wife of Lisbius, is adverse to Christians, ibid. The ardent piety of Lisbius toward Christ, 489. The constancy of Lisbius, converted to the faith by Dionysius, ibid. The origin and prosperity of the Montmorency house from St. Lisbius, ibid. The humble style of the sacred letters does not savor of the Gentiles, 431. The distinction of places in the temples, 443. The distribution of places in the temples, 453. The place and office of those who worship, ibid. The place where Dionysius and his companions suffered death, called Mons Martyrum, and in the native tongue Montmartre, 497. Who the priest Lucian was, 316. Words of Louis the Pious, king of the Franks, 514. The piety of St. Louis and his mother Blanche toward Dionysius, 575.

M The calling of the three Magi to Christ, 412. Evil is not a being, 482. Evil is properly sin, 321. A very rich commendation of meekness, 452. Martyrdom is immovable constancy, 493. In martyrs there is another power of conscience than in criminals: the final interrogation of the companions of St. Dionysius, 495. Their noble response, ibid. Their condemnation and beheading, ibid. There are various opinions under which emperor St. Dionysius suffered martyrdom, 497. The martyrdom of St. Dionysius according to Methodius or Metrodorus, 394, 395 et seq. The martyrdom of St. Dionysius according to the physician Dionysius Guerinus, 407. Matter is not evil, 160. What the typical table is, 326. From where the magnitude of merits is estimated before God, 463. What things are forbidden to monks, 80. What kind of monks they are, and from where they were so called, 452. A sharp rebuke to a monk who dares higher things by way of comparison, 453. Who and what kind the monks were in the time of St. Dionysius, 571, 572, et seq. The origin and prosperity of the Montmorency house from St. Lisbius.

INDEX RERUM ET VERBORUM

martyr, 490. Elogy of the origin of the Montmorency family, ibid. Disease, what it is, 150. Divine death, what it is, 61.

N Natures which are possessed of mind, there are two evils, 59. Nero slew Peter and Paul on the same day, 460. The punishment of Nero after the slaughter of the apostles, 468. *Noeton* (intellectual) and *noeron* (intellective), how they differ between themselves, 124.

O The good odor of Christ, which differs from the foul odor of the devil, and what is signified by each, 62. The opinion of those who perceive that there is a resurrection and judgment, 85. Those who have slept are of two kinds, 418. The opinion of the heathens regarding what the death of sinners is, ibid. The opinion of Origen, saying that the corporeal nature passes into nothingness after death, ibid. The opinion of Papias, who thought that in the resurrection there would be pleasures, such as are perceived from food, 87. The opinion of some who say that the faculty of creating exists in God by some nature, 104. The prayers of the just benefit only those who are worthy of the mercy of God, 88, 89. The prayer of St. Paul, 90. The fruits of prayer, holy, ibid. The order of those who are being purified, 83. The order of those who perform sacred rites is threefold, 79. The ecclesiastical order is threefold, ibid. The order of things in all matters to be observed, 454. Superiors of the Order are by no means to be corrected by their inferiors, ibid. An elegant comparison to recommend reverence for those older in birth or more worthy, ibid. The concord of orders in the Church, what a grave disgrace its absence is, 451.

P Paris, who were those called by that name in ancient times, 469. The affection of the Parisians toward Dionysius, 486. The Father in the Trinity is called the fount of divinity, while the Son and the Holy Spirit are the offspring of the fecund Deity, 115. Paulus (S.) is called the establisher of rites by St. Dionysius, 18. Paul led to the Areopagus, 421. St. Paul the apostle, the first preceptor of Dionysius in matters of faith, 435. The conversion of St. Paul, 395. Paul, preceptor of Dionysius. Peccata (sins) are alien to us, 67. To be perfected, what it is, 96. What is the way to perfection, 456. The sinner is compared to the blind, 89. Sinners segregate themselves from God; God does not segregate them, 332. The coming of Peter to Rome, 395. The martyrdom of Peter and Paul, ibid. From Peter is instituted Clement as successor, ibid. The cause of the death of the SS. apostles Peter and Paul. Philosophy's diverse division, 328. Philosophers act much to the detriment of faith, 439. The tenets of the Platonists are conformable to faith, 422. Penitents, who are so called, 440. Polycarp (S.), who he was, 309. St. Polycarp’s zeal for the conversion of Apollophanes, 429. The partitioning of the Christian people into certain orders, 440. The miraculous power of prayers, 508. Excellent similitudes showing the power of prayers, 509. The name of presbyter declares an episcopate, 1. Presbyter is the same as priest, 315. Beginning (principium), what it is, 174. Two contrary principles according to the Manichaeans, 149. The beginning of the acts of the apostles, 468. The sincerity of the life and doctrine of the apostles, 469. Privation, what it is, 161. Privations are predicated of God in the contrary sense according to the theologians, 185. The ineffable procession of the Trinity to three persons, how it is formed, 113. Promise. Frustrations of promises, what they are, 323. God's providence, devoid of beginning and infinite, 328. The scope of the Psalms, what it is, 66. The singing of Psalms, what it is, ibid. The praises of the Empress Pulcheria, 445. The purgation of celestial beings and what their arrangement is, 90.

Q Quintilian, prefect of the city of Silvanectum, is taught the interpretation of a nocturnal vision by his Christian wife, and is converted to the faith of Christ, 304.

R To St. Regulus, bishop of Arles, the first shrine was dedicated by St. Dionysius, 498. The Acts of St. Regulus, 503. St. Regulus was a listener to John the apostle, 504. The movement incited against St. Regulus by the sacrificers of idols, 503. The pious duties of kings before death, 514. The excellent similitude of religion and coinage, 429. The cult of sacred relics, 498. Revelations, to whom they are usually made especially, 477. Whence the rarity of divine revelations in certain times, ibid. The rites and ceremonies of sacrifices and sacraments, instituted by the apostles and approved by apostolic men, have endured in writings, 470. Who first committed the rites of the sacraments to letters, 471. The prosperity of Robert, king of the Franks, from God and Dionysius, and his liberality, ibid. Temples built by King Robert in various places, 515. Rusticus and Eleutherius, together with Dionysius, apprehended, 489.

S Priests are Christ-formed, 114. It does not behoove a priest to be reproved by an inferior, 315. Priests, angels, and messengers of God, ibid. The sins of priests are by no means to be corrected by inferiors, 455. He is unworthy of the name of priest who lacks sacerdotal gifts, 454. Words concerning the contempt of sacerdotal dignity, ibid. The response of Dionysius to them, ibid. The saints in the resurrection are to be with incorruption and immortality, 99. To the saints, who are led by the Spirit of God, all things are turned to the good, 482. God is never absent from holy bishops, 460. Pious conversations of the saints at the recent death of the apostles, 462. Saints in aid, their invocation, 514. The delights of the saints, to whom they are especially obtained, 477. The words of the saints are like oracles, 487. By what steps one ascends to the highest holiness, 477. Sanctinus (S.) announces the faith to the Carnutes and the Meldenses, 480. Praises of St. Sanctinus, bishop of Meaux, 503. Profane wisdom calls by custom *anoeton* (thing senseless), 16. The wisdom of God is called simple and manifold, 48. Knowledge, which is indivisible and which is divisible, 329. Debauchers and those intent upon spectacles are inscribed in the number of the energumens (those possessed), 66. The Scripture of divine Paul is called true theology, 93. Holy Scripture commands just things to be treated justly, 454. The sense of Scripture is manifold, 328. How things in the Scriptures are to be taken plainly and how equally, 327. The axe in the hands, what it signifies, 31. The praises of Mount Zion, 444. The sun is said to be the measure and number of the seasons, 129. The sun does nothing of itself, but from the cause and principle of all things, which is God, 177. The annual motion of the sun makes five turnings, 311. The sun is called Mithra by the Persians, 312. The solicitude of St. Dionysius for visiting churches and confirming them in faith, 487. The solstice brought about under Jove, 310. "Lots" (*sortes*) and "mansions," what they are, 323. Sortitions which are called so by St. Dionysius, 76. Hope in God is valid for all things, 460. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, 542. Station and motion, mystically, what they are, 328. Stephen III, the pontiff, laboring most dangerously, is healed by St. Dionysius, 526. St. Dionysius appears to the pontiff Stephen, and heals him, ibid. Pope Stephen III dedicates an altar in honor of the apostles Peter and Paul, ibid. Pride blinds pious minds, 452. The intolerable pride of the emperor Domitian, 475.

T Theological tables, what they are, 54. A full-length tunic, and a girdle around the loins, is a habit befitting a priest, 31. Taurinus (S.), his initiation and education, 484. The deeds of St. Taurinus, bishop of Evreux, 503. His miracles, ibid. *Telos* (end) and *proteleia* (initiations), what they are, 319. The temple of St. Dionysius the Areopagite constructed at Liège, 523. Darknesses signify something, 61. Temptations occur through kinsmen, 427. *Theoroi* (spectators/observants) were used among the Gentile Greeks, 73. Old theology, how it differs from the new, 66. Symbolic theology, how it differs from demonstrative, 524. Open theology, what kind it is, 327. The order of the Thrones is called God-bearing, 23. Timothy, who he was, to whom St. Dionysius wrote, 575. Titus, who he was, 321.

ORDER OF SUBJECTS CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME

Legal tradition, what it is, 325. Theological tradition, twofold, ibid. Our sacred tradition is threefold divided, 77. Our sacred tradition is threefold divided, 83. The Trinity subsists in three persons, 98. The Trinity is consubstantial, 322. Invocation of the Most Holy Trinity, 509. Saint Trophimus, first bishop of Arles, 249. Types, what they are, 327. Unions, what they are, 323.

Unity and monad are said of God, 97.

The spirit of prophecy in Saint Dionysius, 484. Primeval beauties, what they are called, 68. The ineffable incarnation of the Word, 509. Truth delights in unity and simplicity, 308.

The longing of the Blessed Virgin, her rapture, and panting for heaven, 444. Her migration to heaven, ibid. Praises of the Blessed Virgin received into heaven, 445. The time of the Virgin's passing, ibid. The body of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God translated into heaven, ibid. The body of the Blessed Virgin is most aptly called the God-receiving body. Virtues: a way of growing in virtues, easy and ready, 473. Explanation of a nocturnal vision, 484. An admirable vision, 455. Human life, partly divisible, partly indivisible, 326. Examples of the living are great stimuli to virtue, 486.

Example of inconsiderate zeal, 451.

ORDER OF SUBJECTS CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME

SAINT DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

The Printer to the reader. Appendix to Saint Dionysius the Areopagite. Scholia of Saint Maximus on the extant books of the blessed Dionysius. Petrus Lansselius to the benevolent reader. Prologue of Saint Maximus on the works of Saint Dionysius. Commentaries of Saint Maximus on the works of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite. Commentary on the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, 29. Commentaries of the same on the book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, 115. Scholia of the same Saint Maximus on the book *On the Divine Names*, 185. Scholia of the same on the book *On Mystical Theology*, 415. Paraphrase of Georgius Pachymeres on the Epistles of Saint Dionysius, 435. Notes of Petrus Lansselius on the paraphrase of Pachymeres on the Epistles of Saint Dionysius, 509. Scholia of Saint Maximus on the Epistles of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, 527.

VARIOUS WRITERS ON THE LIFE OF SAINT DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

Life and encomium of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite from the Greek Menaea, 577. Life and conversation of the same, by Symeon Metaphrastes, 589. Life of the same, from Suidas, 607. Lives of the same, from Nicephorus, 613. Aloysius, Bishop of Verona, to the sincere reader, 615. Life and encomium of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, by Michael Syncellus, 617. Martyrdom of the Blessed Dionysius, by Methodius, 669. Poems of Dionysius Guerin, physician, on the martyrdom of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, 689. Life of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, by Petrus Halloix. Preface, 695. Chapter I. Origin, country, age, studies, 697. Chapter II. Conversion of Dionysius from errors to the faith, 713. Chapter III. Virtue and constancy of Dionysius against calumniators of his faith and new life, 723. Chapter IV. Progress of Dionysius in theology and virtue, and his elevation to the episcopate, 735. Chapter V. The exceptional virtue and industry of Dionysius in founding and organizing the Athenian episcopate, 741. Chapter VI. Dionysius enjoys the sight of the most blessed Virgin on earth, and is honored with her supreme departing blessing in the company of the apostles, 747. Chapter VII. The pontifical occupations of Dionysius after his return from Jerusalem and his apostolic discourses, 757. Chapter VIII. A vindicatory epistle of Dionysius to Demophilus, a cultor or monk, who had transgressed the limits of duty and humanity, 759. Chapter IX. Evangelical excursions of Dionysius during the times of Nero, 761. Chapter X. Departure of Dionysius to Gaul, by mission of Pope Clement; and the events there from the death of Nero until the Emperor Domitian, 767. Chapter XI. First counsels and auspices of Dionysius regarding matters of faith upon his entry into Gaul at Arles, 773. Chapter XII. Journey of Dionysius to Paris, and the founding of religion and the episcopate there, 777. Chapter XIII. The cares, labors, and spirit of prophecy of Dionysius during the times of Emperor Domitian, 783. Chapter XIV. Letters of Dionysius to John the Apostle, an exile on Patmos; and some things concerning holy revelations, 787. Chapter XV. Deeds of Dionysius from the final times of Domitian until Trajan, 789. Chapter XVI. Journey of Dionysius to Asia to the Apostle John, and return thence to Gaul, 795. Chapter XVII. Extreme studies of Dionysius upon his return to Paris and preparation for the struggle of faith, 801. Chapter XVIII. Arrest of Dionysius and his companions, and the martyrdom of Lisbius, a noble man and their supporter, 805. Chapter XIX. The imprisonment, scourging, laceration, and martyrdom of Dionysius and his companions, 811. Chapter XX. Time, place, and other matters joined to the martyrdom, and things wondrous to hear, 817. Chapter XXI. Labors and fruits of the disciples of Saint Dionysius, and some salutary post-mortem apparitions of the same martyr, 827. Chapter XXII. Some virtues of Saint Dionysius chosen from his own writings, and first, piety, 833. Chapter XXIII. The modesty of Dionysius, or submission of soul, 837. Chapter XXIV. The gentleness of Dionysius, and the commendation of gentleness, 839. Chapter XXV. Benefits of Saint Dionysius to the most Christian kings of the Franks, 841. Chapter XXVI. The studies and honors of the most Christian kings of France toward the Blessed Dionysius, 845. Chapter XXVII. Honors paid to the Blessed Dionysius by others, partly saints, partly illustrious by birth, 857. Chapter XXVIII. Various miracles of Saint Dionysius, in various manners and kinds, after his death, 861. Chapter XXIX. Relics of Saint Dionysius, and their virtue and estimation, 863. Chapter XXX. Index of the works of Saint Dionysius, 866. P. Halloix's FOUR questions concerning the life and works of Saint Dionysius.

ORDER OF THE MATTERS CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME

First Question. — Whether Dionysius the Areopagite, the disciple of Paul, is the same person as he who is bishop of Paris and apostle of the Franks. 869 Second Question. — On the writings of Saint Dionysius. 883 Third Question. — Regarding Timothy, to whom St. Dionysius wrote. 929 Fourth Question. — Concerning the body of St. Dionysius the Areopagite; whether it is in the city of Saint-Denis near Paris, or at Regensburg in Bavaria. 945 Vindications of the Areopagite by Martin Delrio. 953 Apologetic Disputation of P. Lansselius regarding Saint Dionysius the Areopagite and his writings. 981 Defense of the Areopagite against the heretical Calvinist minister of Charenton, by D. de Chaumont. 1011 Dedicatory Epistle. 1013 The Defense of the Areopagite begins. 1015 Vindications of the Areopagitic works by Bernardo de Rubeis. Dissertation against Michel Lequien and others. 1025 Notice regarding St. Dionysius, bishop and martyr of Paris, from the *Gallia Christiana*. 1079

THE END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.

Saint-Amand (Cher), — From the presses of DESTENAY.