Introduction to This Volume

How this book is arranged

This is the seventy-seventh volume of a series that gathers the writings of the early Church in order of date, from the generation after the apostles down to the eighth century. This volume holds Pseudo-Dionysius, Boethius, Gildas and Gregory of Tours, from the period about AD 500 – 594.

Within each work the text is divided into chapters and numbered sections, so that any passage can be found again and cited. The small bold figures in the text are the section numbers.

The translations

The text is in English only. Wherever a modern English version has been prepared for SermonIndex it is used here; otherwise the book prints an older public-domain translation. In both cases the wording is the translator’s own: older translations have not been altered beyond dividing them into sections. The sources for every work are listed at the back of the book, together with the licence under which each text is released. All the works in this volume are printed in older public-domain translations.

In this volume

The writer of these treatises took the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian who believed when Paul preached on the Areopagus. The works appear in the record for the first time in AD 532 and were probably written in Syria about AD 500. They join Christian teaching to the thought of the Neoplatonists, especially Proclus, and they shaped the mystical theology of the Greek East and the Latin West for a thousand years.

Boethius was born about AD 477 into a great Roman family, was consul in AD 510, and served the Ostrogothic king Theodoric as master of the offices. He translated and explained the logic of Aristotle for Latin readers and wrote short treatises on the Trinity and the person of Christ. Accused of treason, he was imprisoned at Pavia and put to death in AD 524. The Consolation of Philosophy, written in prison, was among the most widely read books of the Middle Ages.

Gildas was a British monk who wrote about the middle of the sixth century, a few generations after the Roman legions had left Britain. His book On the Ruin of Britain is a sermon against the kings and clergy of his day, and it holds the only near-contemporary account of the Saxon settlement and of the British victory at Mount Badon. Later tradition also gave him a prayer for protection, the Lorica, and a short penitential.

Gregory was born about AD 538 at Clermont in Gaul into a family of senators and bishops, and was bishop of Tours from AD 573 until his death in AD 594. His Ten Books of Histories, often called the History of the Franks, tell the story from the creation to his own day, and are the chief source for the Frankish kingdoms under the sons and grandsons of Clovis. He also wrote several books on the miracles of the saints.

This volume gathers four very different writers of the late fifth and sixth centuries: the Greek mystical theologian who wrote under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, the Roman statesman Boethius, the British monk Gildas, and the Frankish bishop Gregory of Tours. The writings of Pseudo-Dionysius come first, followed by Boethius, Gildas and Gregory.

Dates and authorship

Dates are approximate and are debated by scholars. Each work begins with a short introduction that states what is known about its author and its date, and what is uncertain.