Note 31 — Quest. XVI.

This book is sufficiently proved to be spurious, and not to have been known in the four or five first ages of the church, as not being mentioned by Jerom, Gennadius, and others, who make mention of the writers of their own and former ages, and pass their censures on them, as genuine or spurious. And, from others of the Fathers, who lived in those centuries, it plainly appears, that the doctrines maintained in this book, concerning the celestial hierarchy, were not then known by the church. It is also proved to be spurious, because the author thereof makes mention of holy places, such as temples, altars, &c. for divine worship, and catechumens, and the like, and many other things, unknown to the church till the fourth century; and he uses the word Hypostases to signify the divine Persons, which was not used till then. He also speaks of the institution of monks, and various sorts of them, which were not known till long after the apostolic age; yea, he quotes a passage out of Clemens Alexandrinus, who lived in the third century. These, and many other arguments, to the same purpose, are maintained, not only by Protestants, but some impartial Popish writers, which sufficiently prove it spurious. See Dallæus De Scrip. Dionys. Areop. and Du Pin’s history of ecclesiastical writers, Cent. 1. Page 32-34.