DE DIONYSIO AREOPAGITA original: ON DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

We proceed to the other witness, whom Arnoldus Gottfried Arnold alleges for the antiquity of the Pseudo-Dionysian writings: Isaac the Syrian. He was first brought forward in his favor by Abraham Echellensis in his Responsorial Epistle to Joannes Morinus, which is contained in the Antiquities of the Eastern Church published at London (which the illustrious Tenzelius in Exercit. Select. Part II. p. 144, conjectures to have been collected by Simonius) p. 457, et seq. et seq. = and following pages However, Arnoldus relies so much on this testimony that he believes nothing certain or solid can be brought against it by others. Thus, he argues toward the end of §. 9, in the aforementioned place: "Yes, some name Isaac the Syrian, who in his book on the angels explicitly cites and praises Dionysius in the 4th century, against which others can bring forward nothing certain." In these few lines, however, Arnoldus blunders most gravely in two ways: First, by attributing a book On the Angels to Isaac the Syrian. Whether he understands the Isaac the Elder, that Priest of Antioch, or another of the same name, the anchorite who was Bishop of the city of Nineveh, the Isaac the Syrian the Younger, he is wrong and is deceived in both cases. For neither Gennadius of Marseilles, who lived very close to the time of Isaac the Elder and mentions his works in his Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers ch. 66; nor Trithemius, who nonetheless weaves together a long index of his writings; nor finally Possevinus, Miraeus, and Lambecius—the former in his Apparatus Sacrus Vol. II, p. 288, et seq., and the latter in their Supplement to Ecclesiastical Writers ch. 162 and Commentaries on the Vienna Library Book V, p. 72, et seq., respectively—who diligently list the works of the younger Isaac, have made even a word of mention of a book On the Angels, insofar as it acknowledges a certain Isaac the Syrian as its author. It appears