PREFACE TO THE "DIVINE NAMES."

The treatise on "Divine Names" was written by Dionysius at the request of Timothy and at the instigation of Hierotheus, to express, in a form more easily understood, the more abstract treatise of Hierotheus, who was his chief instructor after St. Paul. Its purpose is to explain the epithets in Holy Scripture applied alike to the whole Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It does not pretend to describe the unrevealed God, who is beyond expression and conception, and can only be known through that union with God, "by which we know, even as we are known." Holy Scripture is the sole authority, beyond which we must neither think nor speak of Almighty God. As the treatise was written by one of the most learned Greeks, the phraseology is, naturally, that of Plato and Aristotle; but Plato and Aristotle are not authorities here. When Plato treated his Hebrew instructor with such reverence, and was so well-versed in the Pentateuch, we need not be sensitive about admitting Plato's authority. However, in point of fact, on the question of Exemplars a and some other points, the opinions of Plato are expressly refuted. The phrase of Luther, "Platonizing, rather than Christianizing," proves only a very