DISSERTATION II.

ON MACARIUS MAGNES,

WHAT ΘΕΟΛΟΓΟΎΜΕΝΑ Theological Propositions/Discourses THE AUTHOR SETS FORTH FROM HIS OWN WRITINGS.

SECTION I.

ON THE DOGMAS PROPOSED OR DEFENDED BY MACARIUS MAGNES.

§. I.

§. 1. No system is proposed, but at least the Θεολογούμενα Theological Propositions are set forth from the fragments of Macarius Magnes.

continues from previous page: they are not, however, all of those which were left by Cardinal Bessarion to the Most Serene Republic, because many of the best are found transported to Spain and deposited in the Royal Library at the Escorial, stolen by a wicked and infamous Spanish Ambassador named Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. Having obtained courteous permission from the lords to whom the care of the library was entrusted to enter and leave at his pleasure to read and study, and not being watched by ministers—for such baseness was not suspected in a man of his condition—he removed the manuscripts from the chained tables on several different occasions and replaced them with scrap paper. He carried off the good and the best ones, without anyone noticing it for that time, and for some time afterward; nor would the theft committed by him have been believed by chance, if the act itself had not revealed it, and it does not reveal it still, and for now and for always, with his eternal infamy, while one sees the manuscripts with the name and sign of Bessarion in the library of the Escorial. 1)

Since, therefore, I saw that no hope was left for me to bring the complete work of the Apokritikos The Answerer/The Apocriticus out of the darkness, I have armed myself again with those many fragments of it which I had collected from the three manuscript codices of NICEPHORUS, Patriarch of Constantinople, and from another Italian manuscript codex of Cardinal Ottoboni. I have sought to weave together in two sections the theological and polemical treatment of these fragments, whose historical and critical notice I had provided in the prior Dissertation. The first section will deal with the dogmas proposed or defended by Macarius Magnes, and the second section will distinguish the errors and blemishes imputed to him, whether truly or falsely. However, since the circumscribed limits of a disputation have not allowed for an entire system of sacred truths, I have instead followed the approach of the most ancient Fathers of the Christian Church. The Parisian Theologian JOANNES LAVNOIVS original: "IOANNES LAVNOIVS" seems to have judged the genius and character of these men quite aptly 1), observing that there is a threefold condition and occupation to be noted in those writers who sustain the burdens of the nascent Church with their works:

"Those who write at this time," he says, "labor especially in crafting three kinds of writings. Some compose apologies for Christians, by which they interpret the sincerity of the new religion, or prove the innocence of those who profess it, or lead the minds of Princes away from persecutions. Others write Epistles, by which they strengthen Christians in the faith they have received, or instruct the leaders of the Churches with salutary teachings, or teach the utility of Christian doctrine and the contempt of earthly things, or urge them to undergo torments for Christ, or explain without deception those things which they have already endured. Finally, others publish commentaries, by which they defend the Christian faith

1) In the Judgment on the Books of Dionysius the Areopagite, which is found in the latest edition of the Works of JO. LAVNOIVS, edited by Abbot Granet at Cologne, 1731, Volume II, Part I, p. 567.