SCRIPTISQUE EIDEM SUPPOSITIS.

For who is there who is ignorant that he has garnered from the learned that unanimous eulogy of being the most fabulous, most vain, most futile, and most judiciously bankrupt writer in all of literature? Whence Bellarmine on Eccl. Writers at the year 1305, when it is certain he flourished, p. 383, says: "He seems to teem with not only dogmatic but also historical errors." Labbeus in Concil. Vol. II on Eccl. Writers, p. 102: "He warns that his history is to be read not without selection and sharp judgment, as it contains many fables and trifles gathered from uncertain writers of doubtful faith." See more judgments of this kind concerning Nicephorus by scholars in Labbeus in the aforementioned place; Conringius on the Augusta Library, p. 88; and Degor. Whear, Relect. Hyemal. p. 238. And also cited by the most famous polymath of our century, Dr. Jo. Alb. Fabricius, Centur. Plagiar. No. XVII.

XIV.

But there is no reason why we should fear the authority of Nicephorus in this matter, since little or nothing of value returns to the patrons of the Pseudo-Dionysius from his testimony. Let us hear the actual words of Nicephorus and their context, and all difficulty will vanish. For after he had, as a historian, reported in a long series the reply of Juvenalis, which he had given to Pulcheria from ancient tradition original: ἀρχαίᾳ παραδόσει, and had arrived at that head of tradition where the Holy Apostles are believed to have gathered at the tomb of the Holy Virgin, accompanied by Timothy, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Hierotheus, he adds the following words, in which the patrons of the Pseudo-Dionysius seek their chief support: "as Dionysius himself says in his works composed to Timothy concerning the blessed Hierotheus, speaking thus:"