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It is only when Grabe refers to the Simonian Antirrhêtikoi Logoi, mentioned by the Pseudo-Dionysius, which he calls "vesani Simonis Refutatorii Sermones," that we get any new information.
Eckhart is followed, in the fourteenth century, by John Tauler, and Nicolas of Basel, "the Friend of God in the Oberland." From these sprang up the Society of the Friends of God, true mystics and followers of the old tradition. Mead remarks that Thomas Aquinas, Tauler, and Eckhart followed the Pseudo-Dionysius, who followed Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus, who in turn followed Plato and Pythagoras. So linked together are the followers of the Wisdom in all ages. It was probably a "Friend" who was the author of Die Deutsche Theologie, a book of mystical devotion, which had the curious fortune of being approved by Staupitz, the Vicar-General of the Augustinian Order, who recommended it to Luther, and by Luther himself, who published it A.D. 1516, as a book which should rank immediately after the Bible and the writings of S. Augustine of Hippo. Another "Friend" was Ruysbroeck, to whose influence with Groot was due the founding of the Brethren of the Common Lot or Common Life a Society that must remain ever memorable, as it numbered among its members that prince of mystics, Thomas
Thomas Aquinas dominates the Europe of the Middle Ages, by his force of character no less than by his learning and piety. He asserts "Revelation" as one source of knowledge, Scripture and tradition being the two channels in which it runs, and the influence, seen in his writings, of the Pseudo-Dionysius links him to the Neo-Platonists.
It is conjectured that they were a sect of the Pharisees who agreed with the Sadducees in denying the resurrection. VI. Synodi ad Imp. The author is the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and I shall quote later on some of these sentences, though from a very uncertain source. Cotelerius also refers to the Arabic Preface to the Nicaean Council. Phil. Labbaeus et Gabr. "Simon Magus," Vol.
Glancing down the centuries we find no time in which Christendom was left wholly devoid of mysteries. "It was probably about the end of the 5th century, just as ancient philosophy was dying out in the Schools of Athens, that the speculative philosophy of neo-Platonism made a definite lodgment in Christian thought through the literary forgeries of the Pseudo-Dionysius.
That there was a body of Simonian scriptures is undoubtedly true, as may be seen from the passages we have quoted from the Recognitions, Jerome, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Arabic Preface to the Nicaean Council, and for some time I was in hopes of being able to collect at least some scattered fragments of these works, but they have all unfortunately shared the fate of much else of value that the ignorance and fear of orthodoxy has committed to the flames. We know at any rate that there was a book called The Four Quarters of the World, just as the four orthodox gospels are dedicated to the signs of the four quarters in the old MSS., and that a collection of sentences or controversial replies of Simon were also held in repute by Simonians and were highly distasteful to their opponents. Matter and Amélineau speak of a book by the disciples of Simon called De la Prédication de S. Paul, but neither from their references nor elsewhere can I find out any further information. In Migne's Encyclopédie Théologique, also, a reference is given to M. Miller (Catalogue des Manuscripts Grecs de l'Escurial, p. 112), who is said to mention a Greek MS. on the subject of Simon ("un écrit en grec relatif
Or in the words of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, in his fifth Epistle, "The divine darkness is the inaccessible light in which God is said to dwell." The anthropomorphic God, the God who is felt, in being purified of human, and as such finite, relative and temporal, attributes, evaporates into the God of deism or of pantheism.
It was customary to make the sign of the cross, as we learn from the testimony of Chrysostom, Augustine, and Pseudo-Dionysius". Palmer vol. 2, p. 195. Martene observes that the rite of pouring chrism into the water is mentioned in all the ancient Gallican, Ambrosian, and Mozarabic liturgies. The blessing of baptismal water is reckoned by S. Basil, in the 4th century, among apostolical traditions.
And to this, as we shall hereafter show, he hardly does justice; but we wish now to point out in detail the extended range of subjects, of each of which the book gives some general notion. From the Hindoos he passes to Philo and the neo-Platonists; from them to the pseudo-Dionysius, and the Mysticism of the early Eastern Church.
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