Aloysius episcopus Veronensis candido lectori

Aloysius, Bishop of Verona, to the Candid Reader.

Besides those things which in this Life of the great Dionysius the Areopagite will render you more eager for ardently embracing the studies of sacred letters and for enduring all the heaviest trials for the love of Christ, you will find in addition these things most worthy to be known. First, what from ancient time is wont to be told by fathers to their sons, namely that all the holy apostles were present at the repose of the most holy Mother of God, and tended her most noble funeral with their own hands—this very thing, which is said both most frequently and most truly, is most manifestly proved in this history. Second is this, that these three most illustrious volumes by which the dogmas of holy Church are chiefly defended, namely On the Celestial and also On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and On the Divine Names, were published by this most holy and most learned man, a contemporary of the holy apostles, which by certain wicked men, who now strive to move heaven and earth, is most impudently denied. But what do desperate men, alienated from God, not blurt out?

The author of the Life of this most divine Father is Michael Syngelus, presbyter of Jerusalem, a very ancient writer, as Suidas the Greek author asserts in the Life which he himself also writes of the same saint, and which you can read below, so that thus the most celebrated Prelate is described thrice (nay, now seven times) in this book, lest he anywhere be defrauded of his praises. The diction of the writer is very obscure, as not receding greatly from the style of the great Dionysius himself. But the translator, a pious and learned man, bestowed as much pains as he could that he might be rendered clearer and more polished. A Greek copy printed at Paris, where the saint died for the love of God, Nicolaus Balserisius, a presbyter of Bologna, an upright man, formerly secretary of Bishop Joannes Matthaeus of happy memory, a most celebrated and most holy man who most worthily presided over this Church a little before me, presented to me in recent months; which, when I found that it had never been translated, I forthwith took care to have published through Basilius Millanius, my most beloved brother. Farewell, and cherish these our labours with your prayers before God.