Hilduin, Abbot of the monastery of Blessed Dionysius near Paris, where the body of the most blessed martyr is believed to be preserved - although the people of Regensburg contend that it was transferred to their city by gift of the kings of France and is today kept in the noble monastery of Saint Emmeram - Hilduin, I say, writing to Louis the Pious, Emperor and son of Charlemagne, testifies that the writer of these books was most noble in birth and distinguished in the mastery of philosophy, and that he flourished at Athens. He proves this from the Acts of the Apostles and from the letter of Aristarchus, a Greek chronographer, to Onesiphorus the primicerius, concerning the situation of Athens. From him he says are narrated the origin of Dionysius’s lineage and his learning, the order of his way of life, or the time of his age, as well as his ordination and preaching, the substitution also of a bishop in his own place, and his arrival at Rome.
There, among other things, he writes thus about these books:
“As for knowledge of his books, which he wrote in his native language, and for those at whose request he composed them, the reading made available to us by the grace of God and by your command satisfies us; by the dispensation of that command our archives bring them forth translated for those who seek them. Moreover, we received those same authentic books written in the Greek language as a great gift when the steward of the Church of Constantinople and the other envoys of Michael, in public legation to your glory, discharged their office at Compiegne, on the very vigil of the solemnity of Saint Dionysius. Divine grace so attended this gift to our devotion, as though it had been brought down from heaven, that on that same night Christ the Lord deigned to work nineteen very notable miracles in the healing of the sick from various infirmities, among persons very well known and situated near our neighborhood, to the praise and glory of his name, by the prayers and merits of his most excellent martyr.”
After this Hilduin shows the error of Bede and Gregory of Tours concerning this Dionysius of ours, and he answers those who, by the authority of Bede and Gregory, had tried to make another Dionysius, the Corinthian, the author of these books. Finally, the same Hilduin, in the Passion of Blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, which he professes to have gathered from Greek sources, sets down the summary of the things treated in the books which we have today, and in the order in which they are published.
Hincmar, Bishop of Reims, Hilduin’s disciple, writing to the Emperor Charles the Bald, confirms the things which Hilduin had handed down from Greek writers by the testimony of Blessed Sanctinus. Sanctinus was first Bishop of Chartres and later Bishop of Meaux, and was a disciple of Dionysius the Areopagite. Hincmar says that from him he copied Dionysius’s acts and martyrdom from very ancient parchments, and that he transmitted a copy to Charles the Bald:
“So that, if there are any remnants of those who denied that our lord and father, your patron Dionysius, was the Areopagite, baptized by the blessed Apostle Paul, ordained Bishop of the Athenians, and sent into Gaul by blessed Clement, they may recognize, from these things which Greek testimony, the attestation of the holy Roman See, and Gallican corroboration declare, that what was said long before us in this cause is established; because truth, when more often stirred, shines forth more into the light.”
He proves it by three arguments, which we also have used and still use. First, by the testimony of the Greeks, namely of the envoys of the Emperor Michael, to whom I have added several decades of Fathers. Second, by the attestation of the holy Roman See, namely through Anastasius the Librarian, of whom presently; to these I add the clear testimonies of Gregory the Great, Martin I, Hadrian I, Nicholas I, and Agatho. Third, by Gallican corroboration, namely that of Hilduin and, later, of the Emperor Louis.
The words of Blessed Sanctinus about the arrival of our Blessed Dionysius in Gaul were:
“Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, illuminated with the truth of the faith by the excellent preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul, and so forth, came to Rome by revelation, the Church entrusted to him having been arranged for him; and so forth. And after he was received lovingly and honorably by blessed Clement, successor of the Apostle Peter, after some space of time he was sent with others into Gaul to distribute the seeds of the divine word. By preaching and by confirming the word with signs following, with the Lord leading, he came to Paris, where he also suffered martyrdom.”
For that reason, as Hilduin noted, his memory among the Greeks was interrupted for some time.
Anastasius the Librarian of the Roman See, whose History our Joannes Buseus had printed at Mainz, wrote a letter to the same Charles the Bald against those who asserted that Blessed Dionysius, the first Bishop of Paris, was not the Areopagite. Relying on the authority of Greek codices and Latin ones, he contends that he was the same man and that he composed his lofty writings in the Greek language. What writings, pray, are these if not these very ones which, translated into Latin by Eriugena at the command of Louis and corrected by Anastasius himself, Anastasius dedicated to Charles, son of Louis, together with the Passion of Blessed Dionysius translated by himself from Methodius?
Concerning these writings, in another letter to the same Charles, he wrote thus:
“It must be noted that although this Saint Dionysius was of such glory, such knowledge, and such antiquity, nevertheless no written tradition of the orthodox reports, unless I am mistaken, that he published any little works before the Roman Pontiffs Gregory, Martin, and Agatho made mention of his sayings in their writings.”
And soon after:
“From this I infer that the opinion of the Greeks is true, who testify that his books were hidden by earlier heretics until, a long time afterward, from among his little works, the single codex which is now held was found at Rome. The rest, not yet found, was carried into Greece.”
Thus he. But I have shown that certain Greeks knew these Areopagitic works even before Pope Saint Gregory. This is true: after Gregory they were received by common consent, until those sons of earth and rebels against heavenly things renewed that ancient complaint of anonymous persons with swollen and weighty, but ungrateful and useless, croaking in the mud of a pond.
Hugh of Saint Victor, a canon regular and so bright a light of his age that he was called a second Augustine, was the first of the Latins who dared an explanation of the Celestial Hierarchy of the great Areopagite. He used the version of John Scotus and, comprising it in ten books, dedicated it to Louis, King of the Franks, son of Louis the Fat. In the prolegomena, chapter 4, he gives the reason why Dionysius, theologian and narrator of the hierarchies and sacred powers - for so he calls him - judged that he should compose that work of the Celestial Hierarchy.
Let Hugh close the column of the Fathers. For those whom I shall add below, from the manner of disputing more adapted to the schools, were called Scholastics.