Here followeth the Life of S. Denis, and first of his name.

Denis is as much to say as hastily fleeing, or Denis is said of dia, which is as much to say as two, and nysus, which is to say lift up, for he was lifted up after two things, that is, after the body and after the soul. Or Denis may be said of Diana, that is Venus, the goddess of beauty, and of sios, that is to say God, as who saith, he is fair to God; or as some say he is said of Dionisia, that is, after Isidore, a precious stone black, which is good against drunkenness. He was hasty in fleeing the world by perfect renunciation. He was lift up by contemplation of things within forth, he was fair to God by beauty of virtues. He profited to sinners against drunkenness of vices, and he had many names tofore his conversion, for he was called Areopagita, for the street that he dwelled in. He was called Theosophus, that is to say wise to God. Also of the wise men of Greece, he is said unto this day Pterigiontuvrani, that is to say, the wing of heaven, for he flew marvellously with the wing of spiritual understanding into heaven. Also he was said Macarius, that is, blessed. Also he was said of his country lonicus. Ionica, as saith Papias, is one of the languages of Greeks. Or Ionices be said a manner of round pillars. Or Ionicum is said a foot of versifying which hath two syllables short and twain long. By which he is showed that he was wise and knowing God by inquisition of things privy and hid, wing of heaven by love of things celestial, and blessed by possession of everlasting goods. By other things it is showed that he was a marvellous rhetorician by eloquence, a sustainer and a bearer up of the church by doctrine, short to himself by humility, and long to others by charity. S. Austin saith in the eighth book of the City of God that Ionique is a kind of philosophers, Italian, which be towards Italy, and lonian which be of the parts of Greece, and because that Denis was a sovereign philosopher he was named Ionicus. And Methodius of ConstantinopIe indited his life and his passion in Greekish tongue, and Anastasius in Latin, which was a writer of the Bible of the church of Rome, as Hincmar, bishop of Rheims, saith.