Blessed Michael Syncellus, a presbyter of Jerusalem, of great praise for sanctity and learning, wrote some things not in the time of Emperor Maurice, but in the age of Louis the Pious and Hilduin, when he suffered many things from Theophilus, iconoclast Emperor of the Greeks, on account of the Catholic faith, as Curopalata hands down in the History. He is also praised by Theodore the Studite in book 2, letter 213.
This Syncellus, therefore, at the same time at which blessed Methodius wrote the life and martyrdom of the Areopagite, himself also burning with love of martyrdom, composed a most eloquent encomium of the same Dionysius, which was printed in Greek at Paris, beginning with the words “Truly heavenly.” In this he praises many things from both Hierarchies, from the book On the Divine Names, from the Letter to Gaius, and other things which are at everyone’s hand.
A little older than Michael, and no less distinguished by the praise of confession, lived John Mansur Damascene, a clear light and star of the eighth century, a diligent reader and fair-minded praiser of these books of Dionysius. You have in book 1 of On the Orthodox Faith, chapter 12: “And these things indeed we have been taught from the sacred oracles, as the divine Dionysius the Areopagite says: that God is the cause and principle of all things, the essence of things that are, the life of living things, and the reason of beings that use reason,” and so forth. Although in another order, you will find all these things in On the Divine Names, chapter 1, page 243 and following.
The same John, in book 2, chapter 18 of the same work, calls him “most holy and most skilled in theology”: “As the most holy and most skilled in theology Dionysius the Areopagite says: the whole of theology, that is, sacred Scripture, has said that the celestial essences are nine.” These things are drawn from the book On the Celestial Hierarchy, chapter 5, near the end, page 34.
He brings forward a third passage in the book On Those Who Have Died in the Faith: “Dionysius, the great and deep searcher of divine things, says in the mystical contemplation concerning those who sleep, speaking thus: ‘That I may take a taste from his divine and venerable discourses: The prayers of the saints,’” and so forth. The passage of Dionysius is found in the last chapter of On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, page 224. I have already set it out above in full from blessed Anastasius of Nyssa, who praises the same passage, in chapter 14.
For that reason I do not repeat it, nor do I add a fourth testimony of Damascene from the oration On the Dormition of blessed Mary the Virgin, where he confirms the narrative of our Dionysius which was discussed in chapter 18. This history also blessed Michael Syncellus elegantly expanded in the aforementioned encomium of Saint Dionysius.