'Stages of a Discovery'—Guéranger & Me, Part 2

Continued from this post.

So I took home these precious photocopied pages with no small amount of excitement. I can’t remember now when I first sat down and read them, but I am certain that it was soon upon returning to the city.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed. I have mentioned this disappointment and quoted extensively from Guéranger’s chapter on St Dionysius in last year’s post on the Areopagite (here). It is indeed a beautiful chapter which, though more eloquent, is similar in structure to my own hagiographical posts here at Logismoi. But there is no argument for the identity of the various Ss Dionysius, only assertion. After a brief introduction about how St Dionysius fits into the Western liturgical year, Guéranger has a long series of quotations from the Corpus Dionysiacum:

De cœlesti hierarchia. i, iv, viii.

De ecclesiastica hierarchia. i.

De cœlest. hier. iii.

De eccl. hier. i.

De cœlesti hier. iii, vii, x.

De eccl. hier. i-vii.

De divinis Nominibus, i-xiii.

De mystica Theologia, i-v.

De divinis Nominibus, i, iv, viii, xiii.

De myst. Theol. i.

Guéranger then interrupts the Saint’s voice to ask:

Could we presume to add anything? As we have already remarked (on the Decollation of St John the Baptist), the Church herself, at this season which prepares the world for the last coming of the Spouse, moderates her voice. Especially ought we to imitate her to-day, when the divinely inspired Areopagite, oppressed with the weight of his own powerlessness, cirest out: ‘Our language is the more redundant in proportion as it is less pertinent to God. . . .’ [1]

He then resumes with De myst. Theol. iii. Immediately after comes the identification of the ‘Dionysii’:

Meanwhile, Rome will tell us how the revealer of the heavenly hierarchies, coming from Athens to the West, watered with his generous blood the seed he sowed in the future capital of France. Enriched with his sacred body, the humble borough now known as Saint-Denys long surpassed in renown its neighbour Lutetia (Paris). France repaid her Apostle’s devotedness by the glory wherewith she surrounded him; it would seem as if, by a chivalrous inspiration, she had undertaken to compensate him for having abandoned his native country for her sake. Immense was the concourse of people to his holy tomb; and still greater was the piety of the kings. The martyr’s banner, the oriflamme, was their standard, Mountjoy St Denys their battle-cry, in every clime whither victory led them. As, in life, they never quitted the kingdom without entrusting it to the protector of France in his Abbey; so at death, they bequeathed to him their mortal remains. In spite of sacrilegious profanations, what a sublime spectacle will the holy necropolis present to the world on the last day, when, before the eyes of Adrian and his prefects, he whom they executed at Montmartre and condemned to infamy, will rise from his tomb escorted by three dynasties of monarchs proud to form, at the resurrection, the court of him whom they deemed it an honour to surround in death. ‘Thy friends, O God, are made exceedingly honourable’ (Ps. cxxxviii. 17.)! [2]

Guéranger then gives the Roman Martyrology of St Dionysius in Latin and in translation (rendered in English in this edition), followed by an encomium, of which I have quoted a great part in the post on the Areopagite. There is a paragraph on the indebtedness of Gaul to the Holy Father, and then the following, in which, unfortunately, Guéranger—an outspoken supporter of papal infallibility—beseeches the Saint to subject us Orthodox to the pope:

O Dionysius, quicken again the divine seed thou didst sow. Restore to Paris and to France their traditions, now forgotten in the fever of gain and pleasure. Bring back Athens to the communion of Christ’s Vicar, the indispensable condition of union with our Lord. For every church under heaven obtain such pastors as thou didst describe in the following lines which reveal thyself: . . . [3]

And he ends with De eccl. hier. i. I was impressed with Guéranger’s writing and his veneration for the Saint (though annoyed with his papalism), and ready to believe the identity of the Parisian Martyr with the Areopagite and author of Dionysian Corpus, but did not find the reasoned defense of this that I was hoping for. Recalling Coulombe’s reference to ‘the martyred Archbishop [Georges] Darboy’, I also tracked down the latter’s translation of St Dionysius and copied the introduction. But this is in French—of which I understand very little—and I do not believe it has been translated. I can confirm that the subject is at least addressed by Darboy, for the introduction contains an ‘Article’ entitled ‘Où l’on discute l’authenticité des livres attribués à saint Denys l’Aréopagite’. [4] The nature of Darboy’s arguments, however, I cannot follow.

So that is nearly all. I have used those parts of Liturgical Year that I have found on Google Books as well as on the various particular days of the Fish Eaters ‘Seasonal Customs’ page (here). I would love to buy the edition of it which Owen White has mentioned in the comments here, though even the more affordable edition ‘Elijahmaria’ mentions there is well out of my budget except at my birthday and Christmas. I learned at some point that Guéranger was responsible for the revival of the Benedictine Order in France, the renewal of Solesmes Abbey, the revival of Gregorian chant, and the founding of the Solesmes Congregation (which now has a priory right here in Oklahoma at Clear Creek that I was able to drop by one afternoon). But that is the full story of Guéranger and me.


[1] Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year: Time After Pentecost, Vol. V, tr. Benedictines of Stanbrook (Worcester: Stanbrook Abbey, 1903), p. 380.

[2] Ibid., pp. 380-1.

[3] Ibid., p. 384.

[4] Georges Darboy, Introduction, Œuvres de Saint Denys l’Aréopagite, tr. Georges Darboy (Paris: Sagnier et Bray, 1845), p. iv.