I come to the Roman Pontiffs, successors of the Apostle Peter. Whoever refuses to believe them refuses to believe Peter; without their approval, not even general councils are held to be of certain faith. But if they have approved, we confess that the Holy Spirit breathed upon the sanctioned dogmas, so that Scaliger may see himself to be a fighter against the Spirit.
Saint Gregory the Great, in homily 34 on the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15, writes as follows: “It is reported that Dionysius the Areopagite, an ancient and venerable Father, says that from the ranks of the lesser angels they are sent forth, visibly or invisibly, to fulfill ministry; namely, because either Angels or Archangels come for human consolations. For those higher ranks never depart from the innermost places.”
He does not cite Dionysius’s very words, but Dionysius’s doctrine, which he explained in almost the whole book On the Celestial Hierarchy, especially chapters 7, 9, and 13. He said “it is reported” either because he himself had not read Dionysius, or because the book was not yet commonly known sufficiently among the Latins. See above, chapter 6. Certainly Hadrian I, Pope, held that Gregory attributed that work to Dionysius not hesitatingly, but affirmatively, as you will see in the following chapter.
Saint Martin I, glorious martyr, in the said Lateran Synod, session 1, citing various Fathers, also praises our author in these words, page 119:
“The distinguished Dionysius also proclaims that he had fleshly mass and bodily weight, and that with mass and bodily weight he walked upon the waters without his feet being wetted. Teaching this in his little works On the Divine Names, he says: ‘We do not know how from the Virgin he was formed by another law beyond the natural, nor how, with unwetted feet having bodily mass and material weight, he walked upon the swelling and unstable substance.’”
And again, in his Letter to Gaius, he says: “‘He also performed above man the things that belong to man. And this is shown by the Virgin bearing beyond nature, and by unstable water supporting the weight of earthly and material feet and not yielding, but by a power above nature standing without diffusion.’”
The former passage is extant in chapter 2 of On the Divine Names, page 270. The latter is in the fourth Letter to Gaius, page 434.
Finally, in session 3, page 122, he speaks thus: “Therefore the Lord has made these men manifest to you, as you see, through this testimony of blessed Dionysius which has been reread at present, showing them more clearly to be speakers of falsehood, so that concerning them also what was said by the Lord may be fulfilled, when he says: ‘When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own, because he is a liar and its father.’ For iniquity has lied to itself, surely in these unstable matters as something unstable. For since blessed Dionysius asserts, as you have heard, most beloved brothers, that a certain new God-manly operation had dwelt among us, each of them has lied most openly against the Father.
“Cyrus indeed, in his seventh chapter, by changing ‘new’ and by putting forward ‘one’ God-manly operation in place of ‘new,’ alleges as though the Doctor had said it. Sergius, however, in the letter written to Cyrus concerning this question, not only confirms with him the alteration of ‘new,’ but also wholly cuts off the Doctor’s God-manly term, and dogmatizes absolutely one operation in Christ God. They make deceit like a sharp razor, and do not at all consider what is written in the Psalm: ‘Will not God search these things out? For he knows the hidden things of the heart,’ the thoughts of such men, because they are vain. ‘For each one has spoken vain things to his neighbor; deceitful lips in the heart, and with the heart they have spoken evils. But the Lord will destroy all deceitful lips and the boastful tongue, who have said: Our lips are our own; who is our Lord?’ For if they retained these things in memory, they would by no means have rushed forth into such iniquity, that is, into the alteration and destruction of paternal traditions and dogmas.”
Thus far Saint Pope Martin. What would he now say to you and yours, Joseph? If removing one little word and substituting another from this book of blessed Dionysius is to alter and destroy paternal traditions, what is it to abolish the whole book and to make the genuine spurious; to make a holy martyr and most weighty Doctor of the Church into a phantom, an ape, a counterfeit? See whether you are not one of those whose deceitful lips and boastful tongue admit restraints neither from Pontiffs nor from Synods. See whether God may not require these things from you, whether he may not tear you apart, he who knows the hidden things of the heart and the most concealed thoughts. Your razor is sharper than that of Sergius and Cyrus: they cut away one single word; you have cut up so many little works.
Moreover, I have set out above, in chapter 15, the words of Dionysius from the Letter to Gaius about which the matter is handled. They are found at the end of the said fourth Letter to Gaius the Therapeuta. Maximus and Pachymeres rightly explain this as “monk”; whether you translate it “devotee” with Turrianus or “physician” with Zinus. For monks were occupied before others especially with divine worship and with the medicine of their own soul. Thus they advanced from the purgative way to the illuminative, and from this to the unitive way of the spiritual life, so that you may at last cease thinking of your physicians of bodies.