things, after they have been held worthy of holy baptism, to the punishment appropriate to the crimes of which they have been convicted; but for the future we decree to all by this present law that they who have been made Christians and at any time have been deemed worthy of the holy and saving baptism, if it appear that they have remained still in the error of the pagans, shall suffer capital punishment.

(1) Those who have not yet been worthy of the venerable rite of baptism shall report themselves, if they dwell in this royal city or in the provinces, and go to the holy churches with their wives and children and all the household subject to them, and be taught the true faith of Christians, so that having been taught their former error henceforth to be rejected, they may receive saving baptism, or know, if they regard these things of small value, that they are to have no part in all those things which belong to our commonwealth, neither is it permitted them to become owners of anything movable or immovable, but, deprived of everything, they are to be left in poverty, and besides are subject to appropriate penalties.

(2) We forbid also that any branch of learning be taught by those who labor under the insanity of the impious pagans, so that they may not for this reason pretend that they instruct those who unfortunately resort to them, but in reality corrupt the minds of their pupils; and let them not receive any support from the public treasury, since they are not permitted by the Holy Scriptures or by pragmatic forms [public decrees] to claim anything of the sort for themselves.

(3) For if any one here or in the provinces shall have been convicted of not having hastened to the holy churches with his wife and children, as said, he shall suffer the aforesaid penalties, and the fisc shall claim his property, and they shall be sent into exile.

(4) If any one in our commonwealth, hiding himself, shall be discovered to have celebrated sacrifices or the worship of idols, let him suffer the same capital punishment as the Mani

chæans and, what is the same, the Borborani [certain Ophitic Gnostics; cf. DCB], for we judge them to be similar to these.

(5) Also we decree that their children of tender years shall at once and without delay receive saving baptism; but they who have passed beyond their earliest age shall attend the holy churches and be instructed in the Holy Scriptures, and so give themselves to sincere penitence that, having rejected their early error, they may receive the venerable rite of baptism, for in this way let them steadfastly receive the true faith of the orthodox and not again fall back into their former error. (6) But those who, for the sake of retaining their military rank or their dignity or their goods, shall in pretence accept saving baptism, but have left their wives and children and others who are in their households in the error of pagans, we command that they be deprived of their goods and have no part in our commonwealth, since it is manifest that they have not received holy baptism in good faith.

(7) These things, therefore, we decree against the abominable pagans and the Manichæans, of which Manichæans the Borborani are a part.

$95. THE DEFINITIVE TYPE OF RELIGION IN THE EAST: DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

The works of Dionysius the Areopagite first appear in the controversies in the reign of Justinian, when they are quoted in the Conference with the Severians, 531 or 533. There are citations from the works of the Areopagite fifteen or twenty years earlier in the works of Severus, the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch. In this is given the latest date to which they may be assigned. They cannot be earlier than 476, because the author is acquainted with the works of Proclus (411-485) and uses them; also he refers to the practice of singing the Credo in divine service, which was first introduced by the Monophysites at Antioch in 476. No closer determination of the date is possible. The author is wholly unknown.

That he was Dionysius the Areopagite (Acts 17:34) is maintained by no scholar to-day. His standpoint is that of the later Eastern religious feeling and practice, with its strong desire for mysteries and sacramental system. But he brings to it Neo-Platonic thought to such a degree as to color completely his presentation of Christian truth. The effect of the book was only gradual, but eventually very great. In the East it gave authority, which seemed to be that of the apostolic age, for its highly developed system of mysteries, which had grown up in the Church. In the West it served as a philosophical basis for scholastic mysticism. On account of the connection between Dionysius and the later Greek philosophy and the mediæval philosophy, Dionysius the Areopagite occupies a place in the histories of philosophy quite out of proportion to the intrinsic merit of the writer.

Additional source material: English translations of Dionysius the Areopagite, Dean Colet, ed. by J. H. Lupton, London, 1869, and J. Parker, Oxford, 1897 (not complete); a new translation into German appeared in the new edition of the Kempten Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, 1912.

(a) Dionysius Areopagita, De Calesti Hierarchia, III, 2. (MSG, 3: 165.)

Dionysius thus defines "Hierarchy":

He who speaks of a hierarchy indicates thereby a holy order . . . which in a holy manner works the mysteries of illumination which is appropriate to each one. The order of the hierarchy consists in this, that some are purified and others purify; some are illuminated and others illuminate; some are completed and others complete.

(b) De Calesti Hierarchia, VI, 2. (MSG, 3:200.) The heavenly hierarchy.

Theology has given to all heavenly existences new explanatory titles. Our divine initiator divides these into three threefold ranks. The first is that, as he says, which is ever

about God, and which, as it is related (Ezek. 1), is permanently and before all others immediately united to Him; for the explanation of the Holy Scripture tells us that the most holy throne and the many-eyed and many-winged ranks, which in Hebrew are called cherubim and seraphim, stand before God in the closest proximity. This threefold order, or rank, our great leader names the one, like, and only truly first hierarchy, which is more godlike and stands more immediately near the first effects of the illuminations of divinity than all others. As the second hierarchy, he names that which is composed of authorities, dominions, and powers, and as the third and last of the heavenly hierarchies he names the order of angels, archangels, and principalities. (MSG, 3:372.)

(c) De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, I, 1.

The nature of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

That our hierarchy

which is given by God, is Godinspired and divine, a divinely acting knowledge, activity, and completion, we must show from the supernal and most Holy Scriptures to those who through hierarchical secrets and traditions have been initiated into the holy consecration. . . Jesus, the most divine and most transcendent spirit, the principle and the being and the most divine power of every hierarchy, holiness, and divine operation, brings to the blessed beings superior to us a more bright and at the same time more spiritual light and makes them as far as possible like to His own light. And through our love which tends upward toward Him, by the love of the beautiful which draws us up to Him, He brings together into one our many heterogeneities; that He might perfect them so as to become a uniform and divine life, condition, and activity, He gives us the power of the divine priesthood. In consequence of this honor we arrive at the holy activity of the priesthood, and so we ourselves come near to the beings over us, that we, so far as we are able, approximate to their abiding and unchangeable holy state and so look up to the blessed and divine brilliancy of

Jesus, gaze religiously on what is attainable by us to see, and are illuminated by the knowledge of what is seen; and thus we are initiated into the mystic science, and, initiating, we can become light-like and divinely working, complete and completing.

(d) De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, V, 3. (MSG, 3: 504.)

The most holy consecration of initiation has as the godlike power or activity the expiatory purification of the imperfect, as the second the illuminating consecration of the purified, and as the last, which also includes the other two, the perfecting of the consecrated in the knowledge of the consecrations that belong to them. . . .

5. The divine order of the hierarch1 is the first under the God-beholding orders; it is the highest and also the last, for in it every other order of our hierarchy ends and is completed. For we see that every hierarchy ends in Jesus, and so each one ends in the God-filled hierarchs.

6. The hierarchical order, which is filled full of the perfecting power, performs especially the consecrations of the hierarchy, imparts by revelation the knowledge of the sacred things, and teaches the conditions and powers appropriate to them. The order of priests which leads to light leads to the divine beholding of the sacred mysteries all those who have been initiated by the divine order of the hierarchs and with that order performs its proper sacred functions. In what it does it displays the divine working through the most holy symbols [i. e., sacraments] and makes those who approach beholders and participants in the most holy mysteries, sending on to the hierarch those who desire the knowledge of those sacred rites which are seen. The order of the liturges [or deacons] is that which cleanses and separates the unlike 1 By hierarch is to be understood in this connection the episcopal order, or the bishop.

2 Cf. Epistula, VIII, 2. (MSG, 3: 1092.) "Every order of the ecclesiastical hierarchy has relation to God and is more godlike than that which is further removed from God, and lighter and more illuminating in all that is nearer to the true light. Do not understand this nearness in a local sense; it has reference rather to the ability to receive God."