I have already praised in the Guide the testimony of Anastasius of Sinai. He lived under Emperor Justinian I, most famous for sanctity and reputation for learning, and an unconquered column of the Church against the heretics of his time, as Theophanes, Evagrius, and others teach. Let another testimony of his also be added from book 7 on the Hexaemeron, rendered into Latin by Hervetus in these words:
“The most celebrated Dionysius, apostolic initiate of divine things, says in his most wise Theology that God in Greek is called Θεός, Theos, because he beholds and looks upon (θεωρεῖ), and Lord is called Κύριος, Kyrios, because he rules.”
This is taken, with no small change, from chapter 12 of On the Divine Names, page 409. In the translation of Ambrosius Camaldulensis: “Hence from the free power of exercising lordship come lordship, lord, and ruling. But Deity, Greek θεότης, theotes, is so called because it looks upon all things, and by wonderful providence and goodness runs around all things, contains all things, fills all things with itself, and transcends all things which enjoy its providence.”
Anastasius of Nyssa composed certain rather lengthy Questions on Sacred Scripture, different by far from those briefer questions which are usually ascribed to blessed Athanasius of Alexandria. In them he cited many passages of the ancients, and among these certain testimonies of our blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, one lengthy passage in question 23, which Gentianus Hervetus translated thus:
“From Dionysius, On Those Who Have Fallen Asleep Holily: I myself, following the divine sayings, know rightly that each one will have the lot assigned to him. For God has shut him up against himself, says the Lord, and each one will receive through the body according to the things he has done, whether good or evil. But that the prayers of the just, even in this life, and not only after death, are effective only for those who are worthy of sacred prayers, the sacred traditions of the divine sayings teach us. For what did Samuel profit Saul? What did the prayers of the prophets profit the Hebrew people?
“Therefore the divine Pontiff is, as the sacred sayings say, the announcer of God’s justifications. For he is the angel, or messenger, of the Lord God Almighty. He has certainly learned from the sayings given by God that to those who have lived holily, a most luminous and divine life is rendered according to their merits by the most just and divine scales; the clemency and kindness of God, in his goodness, overlooking the stains which have been impressed upon them by human weakness, since, as the divine sayings declare, no one is clean from stain.
“The Pontiff knows that these things are promised by the true sayings. He asks that these things may be done, and that sacred recompenses be rendered to those who have lived holily. For the Pontiff, interpreter and announcer of divine justification, will not be able to ask that things not most pleasing, most dear, and divine to God be promised by him. For this reason these things are not promised for the profane who have fallen asleep. Not only because he would depart from the order of seer or interpreter, and would insolently and arrogantly dare something belonging to the ruler, not moved by the ruler of the sacred empire, but also because he will not obtain his holy vow from the just saying, himself also hearing, as is fitting: ‘You ask, and do not receive, because you ask badly.’”
Behold one of the passages on account of which these new Aerians are carried against these writings of Dionysius with such hostile minds, because they see that prayer for faithful departed persons, just recompense, the merits of good works, and the pontifical dignity and office are prescribed to them. You have it in chapter 7 of On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, from page 224.
Our innovators are struck by another flint from the Dionysian stream, which the same Anastasius casts in question 52, not adding the place of the book, but simply praising the Areopagite, concerning these words:
“It is foreign to reason and absurd not to attend to the force of the intention and aim, but to the words. This is proper not to those who wish to understand divine things, but to those who admit bare sounds and receive them only outwardly as far as the ears, sounds which do not pass within. They do not wish to know what that expression signifies and how it ought to be explained by other expressions which have equal force and are more significant. They are attached to elements and lines which cannot be understood, to unknown syllables and words which do not pass over into the intelligent faculty of their soul, but resound outside upon their lips and in their ears.”
Who, Apelles, could have painted you, Joseph, and your wisdom with a more breathing brush? Who condemned more sharply your interpreters who reject every mystical meaning? You will find all these things in our Dionysius, On the Divine Names, chapter 4, page 303.
The same Anastasius, in question 6 of the later exemplar, copied these things from Dionysius the Areopagite, On Those Who Have Fallen Asleep Holily:
“I say, therefore, following the sacred Scriptures, that in this life the prayers of the saints are altogether useful in this way. If someone, desiring a gift and religiously disposed toward participation in it, recognizing his own smallness, approaches one of the saints and asks him to become his helper and intercessor, he will altogether gain from this a usefulness surpassing all usefulness. For he will obtain the most divine gifts which he asks, since divine goodness receives him, because of the pious and religious acknowledgment of himself, because of reverence toward the saints, because of the praiseworthy desire for the sacred petitions asked, and because of a fitting and divine disposition.
“For this too has been established by the divine judgments: that divine gifts are granted to those who are worthy to become participants, in a most fitting order, through those who are worthy to impart them. But if anyone despises this beautifully instituted order, and, lifted up by a miserable persuasion concerning himself, thinks himself fit to have intercourse with God, and despises the saints; indeed, if he asks petitions unworthy of God and not holy, and does not have an intense and fitting desire for divine things, he will by his own fault fail in his foolish petition.”
Here is a third weapon on behalf of the suffrages of the saints, that through them we may approach God. Here too the pride of the Calvinists is clearly painted: swollen with a wretched persuasion about themselves, they despise and spit upon this order of transacting with God through God’s familiars. You have the words in our author, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 7, page 225.
Among the works of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, Patriarch, in volume 2 of the Greek-Latin edition of Commelin, there is printed a little book of Shorter Questions to Antiochus. That it is not by that great Athanasius is gathered from the fact that Saints Epiphanius and Gregory of Nyssa are cited in it, men later than that great Athanasius. Nor yet does the author seem the same as that Anastasius of Nyssa, although perhaps each wrote questions to the same Antiochus.
This Athanasius, in question 8, asks how many essences and orders of angels there are, and answers from Saint Nyssenus that there is one and the same essence, just as there is also one essence of all human beings. Concerning the orders, however, he says there are nine: angels, archangels, principalities, powers, virtues, dominions, six-winged Seraphim, many-eyed Cherubim, and thrones, “as Dionysius, mighty in theology, says.”
He is clearly looking to the books On the Celestial Hierarchy; for there they are distinguished in this way in chapter 6, although in a slightly different order. It is possible that this Athanasius is some more recent Bishop of Alexandria, to whom also belongs the book of Definitions, in which Nyssenus is cited, and the book of Sayings and Interpretations of the Gospel Parables, where Gregory Nazianzen is cited. But these things are uncertain. It is clear enough that he is an ancient writer, since he has been received as the great Athanasius and cites no one later than Epiphanius.