On Dionysius the Areopagite and the Writings Supposedly Attributed to Him Against Gottfried Arnold

it has pleased me, when some subject for an Academic Dissertation had to be chosen, to call the "fig-tree" reasons of Arnold—which he brings forward to defend this old and often exploded opinion, lest he seem to have said nothing or asserted something for nothing—to examination in a few words, and to prefix a brief history of Dionysius the Areopagite and the struggles moved among the learned regarding the writings falsely attributed to him. May GOD grant success!

Ecclesiastical annals certainly record many Dionysii Dionysiuses, and not uncelebrated ones. To ensure that we do not confuse them with ours, but rather distinguish them from him, we shall list them by name according to the sequence of the centuries. After Dionysius the Areopagite, of whom we shall speak presently, Dionysius, Bishop of the Corinthians, who was distinguished by his martyrdom around 178 A.D., comes to be mentioned in the 2nd Century. Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. Book IV, ch. 23) and after him Jerome (On Ecclesiastical Writers, ch. 27) record his several epistles to the Lacedaemonians, Athenians, Nicomedians, etc., which are lost today. Bede, Peter Comestor, and Hugo of St. Cher wrongly confused this man with Dionysius the Areopagite, as noted by the late Dorsch in the Final Sermon of the Academic Rectorship (cf. Miscell. Hist. Theol. Syllog. p. 47) and by the distinguished Möller in Homonomoscop. Ch. V, §. 20, p. 447.

The 3rd Century, however, was more prolific than the others in celebrated Dionysiuses. For there appears Dionysius, the first Bishop of the Parisians