DE DIONYSIO AREOPAGITA original: ON DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

fore, he is that Dionysius the Areopagite who was famous in the I century and the age of the Apostles. But it pleases us at present to go along with Dallæus and others, who restrict this Supposititious Dionysius to the end of the V century and the beginning of the VI, and who solve the doubts brought forward to the contrary with an easy effort.

As for the first resource Arnold took from Gregory of Nazianzus, it belongs to Pearson and Schelstraten (in the works cited above), who in turn gratefully acknowledge that they owe the same to those before them, Cardinal Sirlet and Perron, Budæus and Jacques Billius. For these men say that, from a comparison of the writings of both Gregory and the Pseudo-Dionysius, they have noted more than once that Gregory not only took thoughts but, when he speaks of the same matter as Dionysius, he also took the very words themselves from him. The force of this argument could be enclosed in the following terms:

Whoever Gregory of Nazianzus took not only thoughts from, but also, when speaking of the same matter, the very words themselves; he must have existed before Gregory; his writings must have been known in the Church before the V and VI centuries.
But Gregory of Nazianzus took from the so-called Dionysius the Areopagite not only thoughts; but when speaking of the same matter, the very words themselves; according to the places cited by Sirlet in his Epistle to the Cardinal of the Holy Cross, which Schelstraten, Prefect of the same Vatican Library, made public from a manuscript in his Apologetic Dissertation on the Discipline of the Secret, Chapter VII, article 2; by Perron On the Eucharist, Book III, chapter 11; by Jacques Billius, Book I, Observations 23; and by Pearson, in the place cited. Therefore, etc.

But we respond: (1) By denying the consequence of the Major Proposition