[174] Few biblical characters have been so surrounded with a haze of fable as Dionysius the Areopagite. All that we certainly know about him is from this passage in the Acts, and from two notices by Eusebius, _H. E._, iii. 4, and iv. 23. In the _Acta Sanctorum_ the Bollandists bestow an immense quantity of space on Dionysius and the literature of the subject under the date Oct. 9th, in their Fourth Volume for October, pp. 696-987. The name of Dionysius became specially celebrated when about the year 500 it was attached to an impudent forgery called the _Heavenly Hierarchy_, from which has been largely derived the modern Roman doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and which has also exercised a great influence on the development of modern pantheism: see the article on Dionysius in vol. i. of Smith's _Dict. Christ. Biog._ Johannes Scotus Erigena, an Irish scholar of the ninth century, was the only man in France found capable of translating these Greek works when brought to Western Europe from the East: see _Vett. Epistt. Hibernic. Sylloge_, xxii., xxiii., xxiv., in Ussher's Works (Ed. Elrington), iv. 474-87. Dionysius is commemorated on Oct. 3rd in the ancient Latin Martyrologies, on Oct. 9th in the modern Roman Martyrology. The ancient Martyrologies--the ancient Roman, Ado's, Usaurd's--have a curious notice stating that Aristides the Athenian, in a work which he wrote about the Christian religion, described the martyrdom of Dionysius in the reign of Hadrian. There is no notice of this in the _Apology_ of Aristides which has lately come to light. A curious story is told in one of his alleged letters, addressed to Polycarp. Apollophanes, a pagan sophist, was attacking Polycarp about Christianity. Dionysius tells Polycarp to remind his opponent of the miraculous darkness on the day of Crucifixion which Dionysius and Apollophanes had seen at Hierapolis, where they were then both students, when Dionysius said, "Either the God of nature suffers, or the world is in process of dissolution."
[175] The visits of the Emperor Hadrian to Athens, and his delight in that city, have been confirmed by the latest antiquarian investigations in the region of coins and inscriptions. The student who wishes to make acquaintance with the evidence on this point, which has an important bearing upon the historic proof of our holy religion, should consult the learned treatise of Julius Dürr, styled, _Die Reisen der Kaisers Hadrian_, (Vienna, 1881). It minutely investigates the records of Hadrian's life, and shows us that Hadrian visited and lived at Athens in A.D. 125. This work was published ten years before the _Apology_ of the Athenian Christian Aristides was discovered, serving to illustrate its history from an independent point of view. I have endeavoured to set forth the bearing of this point at greater length than I can now bestow upon it in a series of papers on the _Apology_ of Aristides in the _Sunday at Home_ for 1891-2. Mrs. Rendal Harris, the wife of the discoverer of it, has published an interesting work on this _Apology_, to which I would refer the reader (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1892). The _Apology_ itself was published in 1891, in the series called _Cambridge Texts and Studies_.
[176] The testimony of Eusebius, _H. E._, iv. 5, is express on this point: "Down to the siege of the Jews under Hadrian there were fifteen bishops in the Church of Jerusalem, all of whom, as they say, were Hebrews from the first, and received the genuine knowledge of Christ, so that in the estimation of those able to judge they were counted worthy of the episcopal office."
[177] The whole subject of the origin and history of the primitive Church of Athens has been minutely investigated by a modern French scholar, C. Bayet, a member of the French school of antiquaries at Athens. The title of his book, to which I have already referred, is _De Titulis Atticæ Christianis Antiquissimis Commentatio_ (Thorin: Paris, 1878). He gives a large number of primitive Christian and Jewish inscriptions found at Athens. The above quotation from Aristides will be found in Rendal Harris's edition, p. 48, in the Cambridge _Texts and Studies_.