Pope Agatho, in the letter to the Emperor Constantine and to Heraclius and Tiberius, Augusti, read in the said third Council of Constantinople, page 252, writes thus:
“Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, Bishop of Athens, likewise teaches in the book On the Divine Names, chapter 2: ‘Distinct from the most benign operation of God toward us is this: that according to us, and from us, the Word who is above substance was wholly and truly made human, and did and suffered the chief and approved things that accord with his human and divine operation. For in these the Father and the Spirit in no way share, unless someone should say that they share according to his merciful and most benign will, and through every most exalted and ineffable operation of God which the immutable one performed, having been made according to us, because he is God and the Word of God.’”
You have the passage today on page 266, and I set it above, chapter 24.
Pope Hadrian I, in his writing to the Emperor Charlemagne On the Veneration of Images, as you have it in volume 3 of the Councils, page 616, speaks thus about our author:
“Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, who was also Bishop of Athens, was indeed greatly praised by Pope Saint Gregory, who confirms that he was an ancient Father and Doctor. He lived in the times of the Apostles, and is shown in the Acts of the Apostles. Hence also by the aforesaid most holy Pontiffs our predecessors, in their sacred Councils, his truthful testimonies were confirmed for the veneration of sacred images. Among other things they embraced these words from the letter of Saint Dionysius, Bishop of Athens, which was directed to Saint John the Evangelist.”
And below:
“What wonder is it, if Christ is true, and the unjust cast his disciples out of the cities, rightly assigning to themselves what they deserve, and if the profane withdraw and depart from holy things? In truth and manifestly, visible things are images of invisible things. For not even in the ages to come will God’s regard, according to his justice, be blameworthy.”
Likewise, from the same author, on the heavenly host:
“For the aforesaid incorporeal ranks are represented by different colors, and he handed them down in compositions varied through different colors, so that silently, through ourselves and through most sacred images, we may pass with a pious mind to the simple and incorporeal things. For it is impossible for our mind to attain that invisible and incorporeal imitation and vision of the heavenly host, unless through the elements we can attain, by the visible, to the invisible and most beautiful form, and unless by rational tradition the visible and fragrant images shine forth with invisible things.”
These Latin words from the Greek are to be corrected.
You will find these two passages in our author: the first on page 482; the other in the Celestial Hierarchy, which Hadrian, in the manner of sacred Scripture, calls a host, chapter 1, page 3. The words of the former passage, page 482, are:
“What wonder is it if, since Christ is true, the unjust drive the disciples out of the cities, assigning to themselves what is deserved, while the impious separate themselves from holy things and depart? Truly the visible things are manifest images of the invisible. For not even in the coming ages will God be the cause of the just separations that come from him.”
You will find this passage handed down more clearly by the interpreters of Dionysius than in the papal letter. I do not see what solid answer the iconomach deserter of the Dionysian faith could make to it, since he sees that this is so clearly attributed to the Areopagite, and that this same writer is affirmed to have been praised by Saint Gregory the Great, and that by other most holy Pontiffs his little books, about which we are disputing, were confirmed in Councils, over which the Holy Spirit presides, as truthful writings. This single testimony by itself ought to suffice for a Catholic man.
The words of the other passage, on the said page 3, are:
“Therefore the most perfect ordering of sacred things, judging our most holy hierarchy worthy of the supermundane imitation of the heavenly hierarchies, and variegating the said immaterial hierarchies with material figures and formative compositions, handed them down, so that, in proportion to ourselves, from most sacred formations we may ascend into simple and unfigured heights and likenesses. For it is not possible for our mind to ascend to that immaterial imitation and contemplation of the heavenly hierarchies unless it uses the material guidance which corresponds to it, judging visible forms to be images of invisible beauty.”
All these things have been rendered into Latin clearly enough by Ambrose Camaldulensis, and even more faithfully by John Scotus himself, who was almost contemporary with Charlemagne. He translates in this manner:
“For this reason also the most perfect ordering of sacred things, judging our most holy hierarchy worthy of the supermundane imitation of the heavenly hierarchies, and variegating the said immaterial hierarchies with material figures and formative compositions, handed them down, so that, proportionately to ourselves, we may ascend from the most sacred formations into simple and unfigured heights and likenesses. For it is not possible for our mind to ascend to that non-material imitation and contemplation of the heavenly hierarchies, unless it uses the material guidance that is according to it, judging visible forms to be representations of invisible beauty.”
How could this be proved to those iconoclasts of ours?
Finally, Pope Nicholas I, in a letter to the perfidious Emperor Michael, addresses him thus:
“If it still pleases you to know something delightful on this matter, order that the words of the ancient Father and venerable Doctor Dionysius the Areopagite to Demophilus be read to you. For he also decrees that, even in a case concerning piety, a priest who has offended may not lawfully be judged by lesser or inferior persons, lest anything disorderly happen in the Church of God and its state be thrown into confusion in any respect.”
Today this letter is entitled To Demophilus the Therapeuta, that is, Monk; see above, chapter 26. It is the eighth in number among the Letters of Dionysius. On page 448 it contains the words which Nicholas cites: “It is unlawful for a priest to be judged by ministers, or by Therapeutas who are of the same order as you.”
You will laugh at this mention of orders, for you have taken away every hierarchical order, so that it is clear that you are in the vestibule of that place where no order, but everlasting horror, dwells. You judge, or pretend, that the Jesuits are Zealots because they think they should obey the Supreme Pontiff rather than the secular magistrate, that is, God in his vicar rather than lay men. And for this reason you formerly drove them out of almost all Belgium. At the very time when I was writing these things, they were the first, according to the pontifical decree of our most blessed lord Pope Paul V, to leave behind temporal goods and depart from the whole dominion of the Venetians, lest they be forced to communicate with the excommunicated.
You judge the same men to be Zealots because they prefer to endure any punishment whatever rather than betray to anyone the things they have received under the sacramental seal of secret confession. For there was no other reason why, in this very summer of the year 1606, Father Henry Garnet was most cruelly dragged on a hurdle in London, strangled on the gibbet, disemboweled, cut apart, and boiled, except that he had refused to report to the magistrate what one of the conspirators had confessed to him in private confession, although he had dissuaded him from the crime as much as he could. Happy was he in this silence, and happy the silence itself, which now also makes martyrs by a new but illustrious example!
Nor should it seem foreign to my undertaking, Reader, if in the vindication of one martyr I weave in the praises of another martyr. God is honored in his martyrs, and each of them, lest he betray faith, exchanged this earthly life for the heavenly, in an unlike cause, but with no unlike blessedness. Scaliger, you would wish this lot for your Delrio, whom elsewhere you send to the executioner to be healed. But he knows himself unworthy of martyrdom, and grieves.