repeat the lament of St.
Anthony: "Kindly Jesus, where wert Thou?" The sorrow that tortured
me, the shame that overwhelmed me, the desperation that wracked my
mind, all these I could then feel, but even now I can find no words
to express them. Comparing these new sufferings of my soul with
those I had formerly endured in my body, it seemed that I was in
very truth the most miserable among men. Indeed that earlier
betrayal had become a little thing in comparison with this later
evil, and I lamented the hurt to my fair name far more than the one
to my body. The latter, indeed, I had brought upon myself through
my own wrongdoing, but this other violence had come upon me solely
by reason of the honesty of my purpose and my love of our faith,
which had compelled me to write that which I believed.

The very cruelty and heartlessness of my punishment, however, made
every one who heard the story vehement in censuring it, so that
those who had a hand therein were soon eager to disclaim all
responsibility, shouldering the blame on others. Nay, matters came
to such a pass that even my rivals denied that they had had
anything to do with the matter, and as for the legate, he publicly
denounced the malice with which the French had acted. Swayed by
repentance for his injustice, and feeling that he had yielded
enough to satisfy their rancour, he shortly freed me from the
monastery whither I had been taken, and sent me back to my own.
Here, however, I found almost as many enemies as I had in the
former days of which I have already spoken, for the vileness and
shamelessness of their way of living made them realize that they
would again have to endure my censure.

After a few months had passed, chance gave them an opportunity by
which they sought to destroy me. It happened that one day, in the
course of my reading, I came upon a certain passage of Bede, in his
commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, wherein he asserts that
Dionysius the Areopagite was the bishop, not of Athens, but of
Corinth. Now, this was directly counter to the belief of the monks,
who were wont to boast that their Dionysius, or Denis, was not only
the Areopagite but was likewise proved by his acts to have been the
Bishop of Athens. Having thus found this testimony of Bede's in
contradiction of our own tradition, I showed it somewhat jestingly
to sundry of the monks who chanced to be near. Wrathfully they
declared that Bede was no better than a liar, and that they