Golden Epistles of the Ancient Christians

[...mention]ed books original: "ten Büchern" written for and against this matter, which have recently been discussed, are cited in Mr. Buddeus's Johann Franz Buddeus (1667–1729), a prominent Lutheran theologian and philosopher Historical Lexicon, Part II, page 840.

Notice

2. It must be remembered that, as much as one may argue over the dates of this author Dionysius the Areopagite, traditionally considered a 1st-century convert of St. Paul, though scholars by this period were increasingly aware the texts were likely written by a 5th-century author now called 'Pseudo-Dionysius', it is nevertheless admitted by all that he is very ancient and belongs at least to the 4th century original: "4. seculum", even if some refuse to acknowledge him as being any older. And because edifying material appears in these letters—which are presented here from the Greek edition of Corderius Balthasar Corderius, a Jesuit scholar who published the works of Dionysius in 1634 (printed in Antwerp, 1634)—they certainly deserve a place among such epistles of the ancients. In the year 1669, a scholar in Wittenberg The University of Wittenberg was a major center for Lutheran scholarship also confessed that the authority of such letters regarding the solar eclipse at the suffering of Christ The 'darkness at noon' during the Crucifixion; Dionysius claimed to have witnessed this eclipse in Egypt and recorded it as a supernatural event is much too great for them to be suspected of falsehood or fraud, as can be seen below in the notes to the 14th Epistle. Therefore, one cannot simply reject them entirely.

3. However, a selection original: "selectus" has been made from them, so that no one may be stumbled by the lofty speculations Dionysius is famous for 'Negative Theology,' the idea that God is so beyond human understanding that He can only be described by what He is not which few can grasp or rightly apply for their own improvement. Yet, one hopes no one will become indignant or even argumentative about this, if they consider at least that it is not in vain to observe the expression of divine things from those same ancient times, and to apply many a thoughtful discourse for edification through grace.

XVI. XVII.

1. Concerning the famous church teacher Origen A prolific and brilliant 3rd-century theologian from Alexandria, whose works remained influential despite later controversies over his more radical theories,