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In her writings she is an eloquent and subtle theologian, an ardent and rapturous mystic, dealing in metaphors and hyperbole, in tangible parallels, passionate questionings, and apostrophes; she resembles both Saint Denys the Areopagite and Saint Maddalena dei Pazzi; Saint Denys in matter, Saint Maddalena in manner.
Thereupon in a great rage they began to cry out that at last I had openly proved the hatred I had always felt for our monastery, and that I was seeking to disgrace it in the eyes of the whole kingdom, robbing it of the honour in which it had particularly gloried, by thus denying that the Areopagite was their patron saint.
It happened that one day, in the course of my reading, I came upon a certain passage of Bede, in his commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, wherein he asserts that Dionysius the Areopagite was the bishop, not of Athens, but of Corinth.
But when they heard of the resurrection from the dead, Some scoffed: and others said, We will hear thee again on this subject. And so Paul departed from the midst of them. But certain persons cleaving to him, believed: among whom was even Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
In a small and very beautiful picture by Angelico, we have distinctly this representation. She lies, like one asleep, on a white pall, held reverently by the mourners. They prepare to lay her in a marble sarcophagus. St. John, bearing the starry palm, appears to address a man in a doctor's cap and gown, evidently intended for Dionysius the Areopagite.
At the time of the great plague, the wife of Architeles the Areopagite had a vision: the Scythian Toxaris stood over her and commanded her to tell the Athenians that the plague would cease if they would sprinkle their back-streets with wine.
It was his aim to substitute for the heathen writings others which he thought less dangerous to orthodoxy; and so well did he succeed in rooting out of Italy her illustrious pagan authors, that when one of his successors, Paul I., sent to Pepin of France "what books he could find," they were "an antiphonal, a grammar, and the works of Dionysius the Areopagite."
Saint Denys the Areopagite was a Greek; Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, Sister Emmerich, were Germans; Ruysbröck came from Flanders; Saint Teresa, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Marie d'Agreda, were Spaniards; Father Faber was English; Saint Bonaventure, Angela of Foligno, Magdalen of Pazzi, Catherine of Genoa, Jacopo de Voragine, were Italians....
'Of these mystical divines, he says, 'I thank God I have been a diligent reader, through all ages of the Church, from the Apostolical Dionysius the Areopagite down to the great Fénelon, the illuminated Guyon, and M. Bertot. Tauler made a great impression on his mind, but Jacob Behmen most of all.
Behind the extended form of the Virgin is the figure of Christ; a glorious red seraph with expanded wings hovers above his head. He holds in his arms the soul of the Virgin in likeness of a new-born child. On each side stand St. Dionysius the Areopagite, and St. Timothy, Bishop of Ephesas, in episcopal robes.
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