DIONYSIUS
16
DIONYSIUS
jected as spurious all these citations, and showed that
Cyril never made the slightest use of them, though on
various occasions they would have served his purpose
admirably. He suspects that these falsifiers are Apol-
linarists. When the Severians rejoined that they could
point out in the polemical \\Titings of Cyril against Dio-
dorus and Theodore the use made of such evidence, Hy-
patius persisted in the stand he had taken: "sed nunc
videtur quoniara et in illis libris [Cyrilli] h^retici fal-
santcs atldiderimt ea". The references to the archives
at Alexandria had just as little weight with him, since
Alexandria, with its libraries, had long been in the
hands of the heretics. How coidd an interested party
of the opposition be introduced as a witness? Hj^a-
tius refers again especially to Dionysius and success-
fully puts doT\^l the opposition: "Ilia enim testimonia
quae vos Dionysii Areopagitse dicitis, unde potestis
ostendere vera esse, sicut suspicamini? Si enim eius
crant, non potuissent latere beatum Cyrillum. Quid
autera de beato Cyrillo dico, quando et beatus Athana-
sius, si pro certo scisset eius fuisse, ante omnia in Ni-
cieno concilio de consubstantiali Trinitate eadem tes-
timonia protulisset adversus Arii diversae substantiae
blasphemias ". Indeed, as to the consubstantiality
of the Father and the Son the Areopagite has state-
ments that leave no room for misinterpretation; and
had these come from a disciple of the'Apostles, they
would have been all the more \-aluable. Hereupon the
Severians dropped this objection and turned to an-
other.
The fact must, indeed, appear remarkable that these very writings, though rejected outright by such an authority as Hypatius, were within little more than a centurj' looked upon as genuine by Catholics, so that they could be used against the heretics during the Lateran Council in 649 (Hardouin, III, 699 sqq.). How had this revereion been brought about? As the fol- lowing grouping will show, it was chiefly heterodox writers, Monophysites, Nestorians, and Jlonothelites, who during several tlecades appealed to the Areopa- gite. But among Catholics also there were not a few who assumed the genuineness, and as some of these were persons of consequence, the way was gradually paved for the authorization of his writings in the above-mentioned council. To the group of Mono- physites belonged: Themistius, deacon in Alexandria about 537 (Hardouin, III, 784, 893 sq., 1240 sq.); CoUuthus of Alexandria, about 540 (Hardouin, III, 786, 895, 898); John Philoponus, an Alexandrian grammarian, about 546-549 (W. Reichardt, "Philo- ponus, de opificio mundi"); Petrus Callinicus, Mono- physite Patriarch of Antioch, in the latter half of the sixth century, cited Dionysius in his polemic against the Patriarch Damianus of Alexandria (II, xli and xlvii; cf. Frothingham, op. cit., after Cod. Syr. Vat., 108, f. 282 sqq.). As examples of the Nestorian group may be mentioned Joseph Huzaja, a Syrian monk, teacher about 580 at the school of Nisibis (Assemani, Bibl. orient., vol. Ill, pt. I, p. 103); also Ischojeb, catholicos, from 580 or 581 to 594 or 595 (Braun, "Buch der Synhados", p. 229 sq.); and John of Apa- mea, a monk in one of the cloisters situated on the Orontes, belonging most probably to the sixth century (Cod. Syr. Vat., 93). The heads of the Monothelites, Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople (610-638), Cyrus, Patriarch of Alexandria (630-643), Pyrrhus, the suc- cessor of Sergius in Constantinople (639-641), took as the starting point in their heresy the fourth letter of Dionysius to Caius, wherein they altered the oft- quoted formula, deavSpiKJ) Ivipyeia into iila. ffcavSpiKii (vipfua..
To glance briefly at the Catholic group we find in the "Historia Euthymiaca", written about the middle of the sixth century, a passage taken, according to a citation of John Damascene (P. G., XCVI, 748), from D. D. N., iii, 2, P. G., Ill, 682 D: wapfiaav Si—iircLKoi- <ros. Another witness, who at the same time leads
over to the Latin literature, is Liberatus of Carthage
(Breviarium causae Nestor, et Eutych., ch. v). Jo-
annes Malalas, of Antioch, who died about 565, nar-
rates, in his "Universal Chronicle", the conversion of
the judge of the Areopagus through St. Paul (Acts,
xvii, 34). and praises our author as a powerful philos-
opher and antagonist of the Greeks (P. G., XCVII,
384; cf. Ivrumbacher, Gesch. d. byz. Lit.", 3rd ed.,
p. 112 sq.). Another champion was Theodore, pres-
bj-ter. Though it is difficult to locate him chrono-
logically he was, according to Le Nourrj' (P. G., Ill,
16), an "auctor antiquissimus" who flourished, at all
events, before the Lateran Council in 649 and, as we
learn from Photius (P. G., CHI, 44 sq.), undertook to
defend the genuineness of the Areopagitic writings.
The repute, moreover, of these writings was enhanced
in a marked degree by the following eminent church-
men: Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria (580-607),
knew and quoted, among others, the D. D. N., xiii, 2,
verbatim (P. G., CIII, 1061 ; cf. Der Katholik, 1897, II,
p. 95 sq.). From Eulogius we naturally pass to Pope
Gregorj' the Great, with whom he enjoyed a close and
honourable friendship. Gregory the Great (590-604),
in his thirty-fourth Homily on Luke, xv, 1-10 (P. L.,
LXXVI, 1254). distinctly refers to the Areopagite's
teaching regarding the Angels: "Fertur vero Diony-
sius Areopagita, antiquus videlicet et venerabilis
Pater, dicere" etc. (cf. C, H., vii, ix, xiii). As Gregory
admits that he is not versed in Greek (Ewald, Reg.,
I, 28; III, 63; X, 10, 21), he uses fertur not to express
his doubt of the genuineness, but to imply that he had
to rely on the testimony of others, since at the time
no Latin version existed. It is, indeed, most probable
that Eulogius directed his attention to the work.
About the year 620, Antiochus Monachus, a mem- ber of the Sabas monasterj' near Jerusalem, compiled a collection of moral "sentences" designed for the members of his order (P. G., LXXXIX, 1415 sqq.). In the "Homilia (capitulum) LII" we discover a number of similar expressions and Biblical examples which are borrowed from the eighth letter of Diony- sius "ad Demophilum" (P. G., Ill, 1085 sq.). In other passages frequent reference is made to the D. D. N. In the following years, two Patriarchs of Jerusa- lem, both from monasteries, defend Dionysius as a time-honoured witness of the true doctrines. The first is the Patriarch Modestus (631-634), formerly abbot of the Theodosius monaster}' in the desert of Juda. In a panegyric on the Assumptio Mari'ce (P. G., LXXXVI, 3277 sq.) he quotes sentences from the D. D. N., i, 4; ii, 10; from the "Theologia Mystica", i, 1; and from Ep. ii. The second, a still brighter luminarj' in the Church, is the Patriarch Sophronius (634-638), formerly a monk of the Theodosius monas- terj'near Jerusalem. Immediately after his installation he published an epistula si/noilica, "perhaps the most important document in the Monothelitic dispute". It gives, among other dogmas, a lengthy exposition of the doctrine of two energies in Christ ( Hefele, Concilien- gesch., 2nd ed., Ill, 140 sqq.). Citing from "Ep. iv ad Caium" (ffeavSpiKi) ivipycia), he refers to our author as a man through whom God speaks and who was won over by the Di^ane Paul in a DiWne manner (P. G., LXXXVII, 3177). Maximus Confes.sor evidently rests upon Sophronius, whose friendship he had gained while abbot of the monastery of Chrj'sopolis in Alex- andria (633). In accordance with Sophronius he ex- plains the Dionysian term deavipmri Ivtpyua in an or- thodox sense, and praises it as indicating both essences and natures in their distinct properties and yet in clos- est union (P. G., XCI, 345). Following the example of Sophronius, Maximus also distinguishes in Christ three kinds of actions (ffeoirpeirfU, dySpuiiroTrpeTrcU and AUKToi) (P.G., IV, 536). Thus the Monothelites lost their strongest weapon, and the Lateran Coimcil found ihe saving word (Hefele, op. cit., 2nd ed.. Ill, 129). In other regards also Maximus plays an important part in the
