Letter D

D.

DANIEL the Prophet’s Dream-book [Somnialia], that is, Writings, in which is handed down a superstitious interpretation of dreams, such as that which Artemidorus, a Greek author, wrote. It is interdicted to Christians in the pontifical decrees, cause 26, question 7, chapter NE OBSERVETIS [Observe ye not] ¹. Saint Athanasius, in the Synopsis, reproves an Apocryphal book of the prophet Daniel, without a name; which some think to be this very art of interpreting dreams; but others [think it] a supplement of Daniel — that is, the Hymn of the three children, the history of Susanna, and the narration of Bel the dragon — Athanasius himself, however, gainsaying [this], who places that appendix among the canonical scriptures, and reviews [it] by name.

DARIUS, son of Hystaspes, king of the Persians and Medes, wrote to Tatanai and Strabuzanes, concerning the restoring of the temple of the Jews, one epistle, which is had in 1 Esdras, chapter six; to Tangar and Sambabas, masters of the horse at Samaria, one epistle of the same argument — [so] Josephus, book eleven.

DARIUS — or, as Josephus reads, Arius — king of the Lacedaemonians, wrote to Onias, son of Simon the Great, high priest of Jerusalem, epistles for the entering-into of a fellowship with the Jews; concerning which, in the epistle of Jonathan to the SPARTANS, which is had in 1 Maccabees, chapter twelve ², it is thus read: ALREADY BEFORE, epistles had been sent to Onias, the high priest, from Arius, who reigned among you, [signifying] that ye are our brethren, as the writing which is subjoined contains, &c. But of what kind this writing was, or the copy of the epistle, is not had out of the history of the Maccabees; yet it is extant in Josephus, book eleven of the Antiquities, chapter 5, in these words:

Arius, king of the Lacedaemonians, to Onias, greeting.

WE HAVE LIGHTED upon a certain ancient writing, in which we find that a kinship has intervened between our origins, and that our race also is not alien from the posterity of Abraham. It is fair, therefore, that, since ye are our brethren, ye ask of us whatsoever ye please. The same we also will do; and we shall esteem your affairs as our own, being about to hold our own likewise in common with you. Demoteles it is who renders these letters to you, written on a four-cornered page, and sealed with the seal of an eagle holding a dragon in its talons. Farewell. In the 144th Olympiad.

DAVID, son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, king of Jerusalem, author of the psalms, put forth also other writings, concerning which the [things] written below are had among the divine letters.

THE DESCRIPTION OF THE TEMPLE, ³ in Hebrew תבנית ההיכל Thaunith hecal [tabnith hekal], but in Greek, according to the edition of the LXX interpreters, Τὸ παράδειγμα τοῦ ναοῦ — that is, The Exemplar ⁴ temple. In this work David, instructed by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, described the whole structure of the temple of Jerusalem — which he had vowed to God Most High — for Solomon his son, in a marvelous order and a wholly divine artifice. Witness of this is the author of the volume of sacred annals, writing thus in the 28th chapter of the former book: AND DAVID GAVE to Solomon his son the description of the porch, and of the temple, and of the storehouses, and of the upper room, and of the inner chambers in the sanctuaries, and of the house of propitiation, and also of all the courts which he had thought upon, &c. ⁵ And a little after: ALL these things came to me written by the hand of the Lord, that I might understand all the works of the exemplar. ⁶ The sum of this description is reported in 3 Kings, chapter six, and in 2 Paralipomenon, chapters three and four. ⁷

DAVID’S LAMENTATION, or Mournful song, was over Saul, the first king of the Hebrews, and Jonathan his son; who, fighting fiercely in the war against the Philistines, most unhappily fell. The beginning of the song is, CONSIDER, O ISRAEL, FOR THESE, WHO ARE DEAD, &c. It is had also in 2 Samuel, chapter one. ⁸

THE EPISTLE OF KING DAVID TO JOAB, concerning the slaying of Uriah the Hittite, a most valiant man, and renowned in war. ⁹ When the king had, by furtive coition, made his wife Bathsheba with child, fearing lest the husband should learn of the crime, he sent him with a diligently sealed letter to Joab, prefect of the whole army, who had then led out the royal forces against the Philistines. The sum of the epistle was that, an army being drawn up as soon as might be against the enemy, he should place Uriah in that part of the battle-line where he knew the sharper fight to press, and where each bravest of the enemy would contend from the opposite side; and that there, the [other] soldiers being recalled and at once withdrawn, they should abandon him to be cut down by the Philistine ranks. ¹⁰ Which Joab too, the letter being read through, forthwith executed — not without blood and slaughter of his own, who, valiantly fighting together with Uriah, fell. And thus David, a man otherwise most upright, by the guile of a single letter added treason and the slaying of a most innocent man — one who had deserved excellently, above all, of himself — upon a base adultery; ¹¹ brought slaughter upon his own most faithful soldiers, who had never merited any such thing; lost his own firstborn by Bathsheba; and defiled all the glory of a well-lived life with the stain of treason, slaughter, and adultery.

THE DESCRIPTION OF THE WHOLE PEOPLE OF THE HEBREWS, held by the command of David through Joab the leader. ¹² This is that memorable description of the Israelite people, ennobled by a slaughter. For when God willed to avenge himself on the rebellious Israelites (who, having rejected David, the best of kings, had revolted to Seba, son of Bochri — a most abandoned man, who had stirred up sedition and arms against the king), ¹³ he permitted Satan to incite David’s mind, by the goads of pride, to number the multitude of the people subject to him. David therefore sent, to discharge this office, Joab, the prince of the army; who, returning after nearly the tenth month, brought a book of the description of all the tribes, from Dan even to Beersheba; in which were described a thousand thousand and five hundred and seventy thousand heads of valiant men, most apt for war — ¹⁴ that is, out of the tribes of Israel a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand, and of the tribe of Judah four hundred and seventy thousand — although the second book of Samuel noted a far lesser sum than this which is gathered in the first volume of the annals, reporting the reckoning of this census to have been a thousand thousand and three hundred thousand heads of fighting men — namely eight hundred thousand out of Israel, and five hundred thousand out of Judah. The Rabbins of the Hebrews reckon that Joab the leader — because, unwilling, he was sent to this census by the King (as the second book of Kings testifies) ¹⁵ — most truly collected the greater sum, namely that which is written in the books of the annals; and that he offered to the king of set purpose the other, lesser sum which the book of Samuel commemorates, so as to afford to him — already lifted up into pride — a lesser occasion of swelling. After this description, therefore, God, moved with grave anger, took away by a sudden pestilence seventy thousand men out of those who had been described — all in one day, from the rising Sun even unto the evening; ^{16 17} and by this kind of vengeance he avenged both the unjust defection of so seditious a people, and the proud arrogance of the king; who, for the ostentation of the amplitude of his kingdom and of the multitude of nations which by his counsel and by warlike valor he had subdued to himself, led by a certain foolish vanity commanded the heads of all who obeyed his empire to be numbered. In this place I know not what came into the mind of Lyra, a man most exercised in the sacred letters, ¹⁸ that he should assert God to have been angered at David not so much for the elation of his mind as because he commanded the census to be held by a rite and order plainly diverse from that which the divine law had sanctioned — [the law] bidding this review to be made not by an enumeration of heads and names, and a description of individual men (as Joab did), but by a public offering of money appointed for the use of the tabernacle; in which offering each — as well the rich as the poor — should offer to God a single half-shekel; which, when the Levites had reduced into one [heap] and numbered, they perceived the number of the men to be double the number of the shekels which had been offered. Lyra seems to gather this his opinion out of the law of Moses concerning the reviewing of the people, written in the thirtieth chapter of Exodus; ¹⁹ whose words, as I judge, hold a sense diametrically fighting against the opinion of Lyra. For these are they: WHEN thou shalt take the sum of the sons of Israel according to [their] number, each shall give a price for their souls to the Lord; and there shall be no plague among them. And this shall everyone give who passeth to the giving of his name. By which words it is clear that Moses does not command the number of the sons of Israel to be gathered from the collected offering, their names and particular descriptions being omitted — which are wont to be made by heads, man by man, and by name. Nay rather he commands that, before the shekels be exacted, the censors gather the names of individuals, as well their own as of the family and of the country, and note these particularly — even as, at the beginning of Numbers, the same Moses commands in these words: ²⁰ TAKE the sum of the whole congregation of the sons of Israel by their kindreds and their houses, and the names of the individual valiant men, from twenty years old and upward. And a little after: THEY REVIEWED them by their kindreds, and houses, and fami lies, and heads, and the names of individuals, as Moses had commanded.

TO THESE [things] Athanasius, in the Synopsis, affirms that David wrote three thousand psalms; of which the friends of king Hezekiah collected only a hundred and fifty, the rest being hidden away, lest they should come to the knowledge of the common people. ²¹

DEMETRIUS Soter, son of Seleucus, eleventh king of Syria and Asia, wrote five epistles inserted in the sacred volumes, to wit:

• TO NICANOR, prefect of his army in Palestine, one epistle. 2 Macc. 14.
• TO JONATHAN, high priest of the Jews, one epistle. 1 Macc. 10.
• TO THE WHOLE commonwealth of the Jews, one epistle. 1 Macc. 10.
• TO JONATHAN, high priest of the Jews, and to the senate of the Jews, one epistle. 1 Macc. 11.
• TO LASTHENES, his kinsman, one epistle. 1 Macc. 11.

He flourished in the hundred-and-forty-fourth year before the birth of Christ.

THE DEVOURED BOOK, or Τὸ βιβλαρίδιον ἠνεῳγμένον, that is, The opened little book — which certain Greek expositors [call] Τὸν βίβλον Κατεφαγόμενον, that is, they call the Devoured book — John, in the tenth chapter of the Apocalypse, describes in these words: ²² AND I SAW another strong angel, coming down from heaven, clothed with a cloud; and a rainbow upon his head, and his face as the Sun; and he had in his hand a book, and cried with a great voice, and the seven thunders spoke. And the voice which I heard from heaven said to me, GO, and take the opened little book from the hand of the angel. And I went to the angel, and said to him that he should give me the little book. And he said to me, TAKE, and devour it, and it shall make thy belly bitter; but in thy mouth it shall be sweet, as honey. And I took the little book from the hand of the angel, and devoured it: and it was in my mouth sweet as honey; and when I had devoured it, my belly was made bitter, &c. Which [words] indeed, according to the opinion of Arethas, are thus expounded. ²³ The strong angel is Christ, the angel of great counsel, clothed with the cloud of our flesh; having a rainbow upon his head, a perpetual testimony of the divine appeasement; and a face like the Sun, because by the splendor of grace and the flashing of the evangelical light he has dispelled the darkness of the whole world, and illumined the minds of all mortals with the light of his glory. The book is the infallible and most exact knowledge, in the mind of God, of all the impious — beholding the several names, actions, crimes, punishments of the wicked, and the times appointed for [their] punishments. This John is bidden to seek and to receive from the hand of the angel, that he too may receive the knowledge of the miseries and griefs impending over the impious persecutors of the Church of Christ. Nor is he bidden simply to receive, but to devour — that is, to take a full knowledge of the matter, and to inscribe it in the bowels of the heart. And it is sweet in his mouth because of the attainment of the knowledge of future things: which, as it is affected and sought by all with great zeal, so, when first it is acquired, it brings in the beginning a great delight, but afterward grows bitter, when it is digested in the belly. For while he turns over in his mind the retribution of the crimes which is reserved for wicked men — especially of his own nation — he is affected with mercy toward those who are to perish by their own fault. Thus Paul the Apostle, revolving in his mind the lamentable fall of the Jews, said: SADNESS is great to me, and continual sorrow to my heart. For I myself wished to be made anathema for my brethren, only that they should not perish, and fall away from the divine grace. ²⁴ Otherwise, according to Bede, the opened Book signifies the revelation of prophecy which John received. ²⁵ * This was sweet in his mouth, because while he perceived it he tasted the sweetness of the divine colloquy; but it was turned into bitterness while he began to preach the things which he had heard, and, for the preaching, to suffer tribulations. For although the preaching was to him sweet out of love, it was nevertheless bitter out of the endurance of persecution.* Otherwise, according to Ambrose, ²⁶ the opened Book is the volume of the divine scripture; which, when before it was sealed with seven seals, now, through the grace of Christ, is opened to the doctors of the church. This book, therefore, while it is devoured, is described as sweet as honey; because the divine scripture, while it is heard, read, and handled with attentive meditation, becomes in the thought sweeter than honey; but then first is its bitterness felt, when we begin to fulfill in work what we have learned. For the more we are given to the meditation of the divine scripture, and the sweeter its meditation is to our mind, the greater bitterness must we exhibit to our flesh, afflicting it with fastings, watchings, and abstinence from vices.

GOD MOST HIGH, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the founder of the universe, after he had led the people of the Hebrews out of Egypt into the solitude of Arabia, summoned Moses to himself on the summit of Mount Sinai; in which place he gave him, by [the ministry of] Angels, a compendium and summary of all the laws, ²⁷ pertaining as well to the divine worship as to human conversation — distinguished into ten heads [chapters], and inscribed, on two stone tablets fabricated by his own hand, with his own living finger, on each side, here and there, on the front and on the back. When Moses had received these, he descended from Mount Sinai; and when, now drawing near to the camp of the Hebrews, he had seen the people sacrificing to a golden calf, execrating the indignity of the thing, he dashed the tablets which he had in his hand upon the ground, out of exceeding indignation, and broke them. ²⁸ Then, at the command of God, he fitted two other stone tablets, very like the former; which, when he had again ascended Mount Sinai and brought them to God, God wrote back upon them the same heads of the law ²⁹ which had been in the former tablets, commanding Moses to lay them up in the ark of the covenant. ³⁰ Which Moses also did, placing — as Paul says ³¹ — together with them, in the same ark, a golden urn filled with manna, and the rod of Aaron, which had once put forth leaves; that by these three he might preserve the chief monuments of Jewish ingratitude — namely, that by the manna he might transmit to posterity the insatiable gluttony of the Jews (who, when once they were fed with Manna in the desert, murmured against God and exasperated him); ³² but by the Rod of Aaron it might be made known to future ages with what insolence and contumacy of mind they had withstood the high priest divinely elected; ³³ but by the Tablets of the law he might perpetually convict the Jews of infidelity and inconstancy ³⁴ — for whose execrable adoration of the calf the former tablets, very like these latter ones, had been ground to pieces by Moses in his anger. But after the death of Moses, the rod of Aaron and the urn of manna being removed from the ark, and [these] together with the same [being placed] in the tabernacle along with the volume of the Mosaic law being laid up, the tablets alone remained in it [the ark]. ³⁵ For when the ark was brought in by Solomon into the temple, the third book of Kings testifies that these alone were in it, in these words: ³⁶ BUT IN THE ARK there were nothing but the two stone tablets, which Moses put in it at Horeb, when he struck the covenant with the sons of Israel. These tablets — nearly one thousand and four hundred years after they had been made — the prophet Jeremiah (as is reported in the second volume of the Maccabees) ³⁷, divinely admonished at the devastation of the city of Jerusalem, took from the temple; and commanded them to be carried away, together with the ark itself, to Mount Nebo, over against the city of Jericho — on which Moses, about to die, had ascended — and there hid it in a deep cavern, known to no man; ³⁸ foretelling that those tablets should again be brought into the light toward the end of the age, when the whole people of the Jews shall be converted to Christ. Some hand down that these tablets, at the time of the last destruction of Jerusalem under the Roman emperors, were in the temple of God, and thence were carried by Titus Augustus, among the other spoils of the captured city, into [his] triumph. With which agrees the image of the Jewish triumph, sculpted at Rome on the marble arch of the emperor Titus; where, among the other litters of those bearing [the spoils], the two tablets of the law are seen, together with the ark of the covenant and the golden candlestick. ³⁹ Yet Josephus, who described the pomp of that triumph brilliantly, mentions only the golden candlestick, the golden table, and the volume of the Mosaic law; but of the tablets nothing at all. Philo and Josephus hand down that on each of these tablets five heads of the laws were inscribed.

ON THE FIRST were five weightier and nobler precepts: ⁴⁰

• WHEREOF THE FIRST was: Of the monarchy of one God, or of worshipping one God only — which begins, I AM THE LORD THY GOD.
• THE SECOND: Of utterly rejecting statues, images, and manufactured works of that kind.
• THE THIRD: Of not taking the name of God in vain.
• THE FOURTH: Of the religious observance of the seventh day.
• THE FIFTH: Of honoring parents.

But the SECOND tablet contained the other five, of things interdicted:

• WHEREOF THE FIRST, according to Philo, was, THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY; but according to Josephus and the Hebrew verity, the first was, THOU SHALT NOT KILL.
• THE SECOND, according to the Hebrew verity, was, THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY; according to Philo, THOU SHALT NOT KILL.
• THE THIRD restrains thieves.
• THE FOURTH forbids false witnesses.
• THE FIFTH represses concupiscence, the fountain of all evils.

But CHRISTIANS divide the precepts of these tablets in another order. For Origen, in the eighth homily on Exodus, and Athanasius, in the Synopsis, think that in the first tablet there were only four precepts, ⁴¹ pertaining to the divine worship — that is: the first, Of the adoration of one God; the second, Of not having images; the third, Of not misusing the name of God; the fourth, Of the Sabbath. But in the second tablet [they place] the remaining six precepts, necessary to the love of one’s neighbor. Again, Augustine and some of the Latin fathers divide the precepts of each tablet into a triad and a septenary; and they affirm that in the first tablet there was, before all the precepts, prefixed a brief proem of the whole law — namely that, I AM THE LORD THY GOD ⁴² — which the Hebrews think to be the first precept of the law. To which proem they subjoin these three precepts, pertaining to the worship of God:

• WHEREOF THE FIRST is: Thou shalt not have strange gods.
• THE SECOND: Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain.
• THE THIRD: Of the Sabbath.

But in the SECOND tablet they set in order these seven precepts:

• WHEREOF THE FIRST is: Of the honor of parents.
• THE SECOND: Of avoiding homicide.
• THE THIRD forbids adultery.
• THE FOURTH prohibits theft.
• THE FIFTH, false witnesses.
• THE SIXTH, which forbids all concupiscence — and which among the Hebrews is one only, and holds the tenth place in the decalogue — Augustine distinguishes into two: ⁴³ that is, into an Interdict forbidding the concupiscence of riches (which is the sixth precept), and into an Interdict of the concupiscence of the flesh (which is numbered in the seventh and last place).

Now Moses called these tablets לחת העדת Luchoth ha-edut, that is, the tablets of the testimony; ^{44 45} and Paul likewise, Τὰς πλάκας τῆς διαθήκης, that is, The tablets of the testament or covenant ⁴⁶ — because God had written them for an everlasting testimony of that most celebrated covenant which the nation of the Hebrews had entered into with him on Mount Sinai, when, before the whole multitude of the Jews, [in answer] to God promising that out of all the nations of the earth he would have the people of Israel for his own peculiar [treasure], and for a priestly kingdom, and for a holy nation most highly commended to himself alone, if they would hear his voice and keep the covenants of the proposed law — all the people answered with unanimous cry: ALL THINGS WHICH THE LORD HATH SPOKEN, WE WILL DO. ⁴⁷ Then, the consent of each part being given, and the covenants confirmed on both sides, God Most High engraved the conditions of the covenant entered into upon stone tablets, for a perpetual memorial of the deed, with his own living finger — in the year from the founding of the world two thousand four hundred and fifty-four, but before the advent of Christ 1507. ⁴⁸

DEUTERONOMY inscribed on the Altar, of which mention is in the eighth chapter of the book of Joshua, ⁴⁹ was written on this occasion. When the people of the Jews were yet in the plains of Moab beyond the Jordan, Moses first commanded them that, when they had entered into the promised land, they should build on Mount Ebal an altar of great stones — whole, unformed, and unpolished, which iron had not touched — joined to one another with mortar; then that they should sculpt upon them, fairly and diligently, all the words of the decalogue, with the eleven maledictions added which are read in the twenty-seventh chapter of Deuteronomy. When these were written, he commanded likewise that the Levites should intone those maledictions with a loud voice, and the whole people, answering to each, should acclaim, AMEN. When therefore Joshua, having crossed the Jordan, had occupied the land of the Canaanites in the fifth year after the death of Moses, ⁵⁰ he built an altar to the Lord on Mount Ebal, and wrote upon the stones of the altar משנה תורה Miscne Thora, that is, that Summary of the law which the LXX interpreters rendered Δευτερονόμιον — that is, the Second law, or repetition of the law; and together with this summary he left those maledictions written, as Josephus testifies, in the year from the founding of the world two thousand four hundred and ninety-seven.

THE DIARY OF THE KINGS OF MEDIA AND PERSIA, or ספר דברי הימים למלכי מדי ופרס ⁵¹ Sepher diver-haiamim lemalche Medai u-Phares, that is, The Book of the words of the days of the kings of the Medes and Persians, signifies the annals in which the daily acts of the kings, the reckoning of times being kept, were briefly noted; and among the Babylonians they were preserved in the public library of the city of Ecbatana. In these Esdras testifies that, by the diligence of Darius, king of the Persians, was found a certain decree of Cyrus, king of the Persians, concerning the leading-back of the Jewish people into Judaea and the rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem, at the cost and expenses furnished from the royal [treasury] of the kings of the Persians. In these also the author of the book of Esther reports that the deeds of Ahasuerus (or Artaxerxes), king of the Persians, were described — but especially his immortal benefit toward the Jewish nation; whereby he magnificently delivered the whole race of the Hebrews, [appointed] to be slaughtered in one day throughout all the cities of his kingdom, vengeance being taken upon their enemies.

DIONYSIUS, surnamed the Areopagite (whom Luke, in the 17th chapter of the Acts, writes to have believed, together with a woman [named] Damaris and very many others, when Paul preached in the Areopagus of Athens), ⁵² obtained the chief priesthood of the church of Athens, as Eusebius writes in the third book of the History; but, as Bede reports in the commentaries on the apostolic Acts, he was bishop of Corinth. He most learnedly composed, in Greek and sublime eloquence, admirable volumes of a divine wisdom, hidden in mysteries. Of which, those that are extant in Greek and Latin are these: ⁵³

• OF THE Celestial, or angelic hierarchy, to his fellow-presbyter Timothy, one book.
• OF THE Ecclesiastical, or sacerdotal hierarchy, to his fellow-presbyter Timothy, one book.
• OF THE Divine names, to his fellow-presbyter Timothy, one book.
• OF Mystical theology, to Timothy his fellow-presbyter, one book.
• TO Caius the Monk, four epistles.
• TO Dorotheus the minister, one epistle.
• TO Sosipater the priest, one epistle.
• TO Polycarp the high priest, one epistle.
• TO Demophilus the Monk, one epistle.
• TO Titus the high priest, one epistle; which Trithemius reviews under the title of the book OF SYMBOLIC THEOLOGY.
• TO John the apostle and evangelist, one epistle.
• TO Apollophanes the philosopher, one epistle.

But those which are now wanting — commemorated by Dionysius himself in the aforesaid lucubrations — are these works:

• THE BOOK of Divine hymns, alleged in chapter 7 of the Celestial hierarchy.
• THE BOOK of Symbolic theology, cited in chapter 15 of the Celestial hierarchy, and chapters 1 and 13 of the Divine names, and chapter 3 of the Mystical theology, and epistle 9, to Titus.
• THE BOOK of intelligible and sensible [things], cited in the first and second chapters of the Ecclesiastical hierarchy.
• THE BOOK of the legal, or sacerdotal hierarchy, cited in chapter 3 of the Ecclesiastical hierarchy.
• THE BOOK of Theological hypotyposes, cited in chapters 1 and 2 of the Divine names, and chapter 3 of the Mystical Theology.
• THE BOOK of angelic properties, cited in chapter 4 of the Divine names.
• THE BOOK of the soul, cited in the fourth chapter of the Divine names.
• THE BOOK of the divine and just judgment, cited in chapter 4 of the Divine names.

To these Trithemius adds one epistle Of the death of Paul, to Timothy; whose copy is recited by Jacobus, Archbishop of Genoa, in the life of Paul.

THOMAS, presbyter cardinal of St. Xystus [San Sisto], in the commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles and on the third book of Kings, is of the opinion that Dionysius the Areopagite left nothing at all of the above-mentioned writings, being led (as he himself judges) by certain not-light conjectures; ⁵⁴ to which — since Anastasius the Librarian, John Scotus, John the Saracen, Dionysius the Carthusian, Ambrose the Camaldolese, Marsilius Ficinus, and very many other most erudite men, long before him, most fully satisfied [the objections] alleged by others — it would be superfluous to weave over again the same web. The third Council of Constantinople, more than nine hundred years ago, acknowledged and venerated the aforesaid works as the true and proper offspring of Dionysius; ⁵⁵ in whose acts the testimonies of these are several times brought in, under the name of the most holy Dionysius the Areopagite, for the confuting of heretics.

THE BOOK OF THE LORD, in Hebrew ספר יהוה Sepher Iehova, is cited by Isaiah, chapter 34, in these words: ⁵⁶ SEEK diligently in the Book of the Lord, and read: not one of them was wanting, one did not seek the other; for that which proceeds out of his mouth, he hath commanded; and his spirit itself shall gather them. By this book some understand the book of Moses, some the book of nature; but the sounder sense is that Isaiah, by the Book of the Lord, understands the book of his own prophecies ⁵⁷ — as if he said: Let this book be commended to you; and when those things shall come to pass upon you which I foretell as future, seek, and all things shall meet you in this book, [written] by the command of the Lord, taken down from the spirit of [his] mouth. Some gather out of those words the mystery of the Trinity. For the Son is signified by [his] mouth; but the Father, when his [own] is added — which in Hebrew is written הוא, and is reputed among the Rabbins a most excellent name of God; while the Holy Spirit is expressed by the very word spirit.

THE WRITING OF THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL designates the catalog and canon of the holy scriptures, ⁵⁸ in which the vaticinations and writings of false prophets have no place — as God openly testifies through Ezekiel, chapter thirteen, saying: ⁵⁹ AND MY HAND SHALL BE upon the prophets who see vain things, and divine a lie: they shall not be in the council of my people, and in the writing of the house of Israel they shall not be written. — Or in another manner: The writing of the house of Israel is the catalog of the elect with God, digested in the book of eternal predestination, in which no impious one, nor reprobate, is written.