[130] The letter preceding the abstract of the ‘Celestial Hierarchy,’ in the Cambridge MS. Gg. 4, 26, is evidently a copy by the same hand as the letter to the Abbot of Winchcombe. Possibly the Abbot may be the person to whom it was addressed.
[131] These treatises were:—1. ‘De Compositione Sancti Corporis Christi mistici.’—Camb. MS. Gg. 4, 26.
2. ‘On the Sacraments of the Church,’ printed with a very valuable introduction and notes, by the Rev. J. H. Lupton, M.A., from the MS. in the St. Paul’s School Library. (Bell and Daldy, 1867.)
3. A short essay in the Camb. MS. Gg. 4, 26, commencing ‘Deus immensum bonum,’ &c.
Mr. Lupton is publishing Colet’s abstracts of the ‘Celestial’ and ‘Ecclesiastical’ Hierarchy of Dionysius, from the MSS. at St. Paul’s School; and it will be seen how much use I have made in this chapter of his admirable translation. I have expressed in the preface to this edition the obligations I am under to Mr. Lupton for bringing to light these interesting MSS., and thus materially assisting in restoring some lost links in the history of Colet’s inner life and opinions.
[132] Balthasar Corderius, in his prefatory observations to his edition of the works of St. Dionysius (Paris 1644), speaks of Dionysius as being the originator of the Scholastic Theology, and proves it by giving four folio pages of references to passages in the ‘Summa’ of Aquinas, where the authority of Dionysius is quoted.
[133] Mr. Lupton’s translation, pp. 135, 136.
[134] ‘God, who is one, beautiful and good—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: the Trinity which created all things—is at once the purification of things to unity, their illumination to what is beautiful, and their perfection to what is good.’—Mr. Lupton’s translation, pp. 15, 24.
[135] ‘God created all things because He is good (p. 16); and because He is good, He also recalls to himself all things according to their capacity, that He may bountifully communicate himself to them.’
[136] All after this is Colet’s own addition to what is said in Dionysius.