Publisher's Synopsis
The pseudo-Dionysius claims, along with St. Paul, "the illustrious master Hierotheos" as his teacher, and Professor Frothingham brings forward here a Syriac book entitled "The Book of the Holy Hierotheos on the Hidden Mysteries of Divinity," which exists in a unique MS. preserved in the British Museum, and the affiliation of which with the pseudo-Dionysian writings is unassailable, and points to it as the very book to which they appeal. He proves the work to be the composition of the Syrian pantheist Stephen bar Sudaili, and probably to have been written originally in Syriac, although it professes (doubtless as part of the forger's art) to be a translation from the Greek.
The passages in the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius which profess to be quoted from it are not actually found in the recovered volume; and this raises the question whether Stephen may not be more naturally supposed to have forged his book on the hints of the pseudo-Dionysius, rather than the latter to have imitated him. This question may be held in reserve until the full materials for an opinion are given to us in Professor Frothingham's promised edition of the Book of Hierotheos.
Meanwhile he warns the reader that he will prove his hypothesis that Stephen is the original writer, in the prolegomena to that book. In the present publication, besides much that is interesting as to the life, teachings, and influence of Stephen in the Syrian Church, we are given the text and a translation of two controversial letters against his heresies by Ms two greatest contemporaries, Jacob of Serugh and Philoxenus of Mabbogh, which will well repay study for themselves, and which serve to prepare us for the fuller knowledge of his teaching which the publication of his book will bring us.
-The Presbyterian Review, Volume 9
