PREFACE TO MYSTIC THEOLOGY.

IGNATIUS.
" MY love is crucified."

Upon this passage I differ from all the commentators that I know. I believe the passage to have been written and inserted in the text by Dionysius when writing this letter, which must have been before A.D.
98. I do not think it a quotation from the letter of Ignatius written just previous to his martyrdom. I think Dionysius quoted some previous writing of Ignatius, in which he spoke of our Saviour as "My Love, Which is mine." That is the sense in this passage, to shew the exalted use of Love. In the letter of Ignatius to the Romans, he seems to use "love" in the sense of human passion or fire, and says that that is crucified in him. In any case, there is no chronological difficulty. Ignatius was martyred A.D. 107, Dionysius, A.D. 119.

[2] C. V. § 2.
[3] Adelphotheos.
[4] Theopator.
[5] As beyond knowledge.

[6] Conversion of India, p. 12. Pressensé, The Earlier Years of Christianity, Vol. II. p. 271. The History of Mathurâ (Muttra), by F.
S. Growse, on the glorification of the Divine Name.

[7] Vidieu, p. 73.

[8] Sankara's doctrine, Sir Monier Williams, "Brahmanism," p. 55. Râmânuja's explained, "Brahmanism," p. 119, &c. J. Murray.

[9] At Council of Nicea in 325, Johannes, the Metropolitan of Persia, signed also as "of the great India." Merv was an Episcopal See, A.D.
334. Con. of India, pp. 15--31.

[10] Burton, Ecc. Hist., Vol. I. p. 367.

[11] Mansi I. 698, Jaffi. Regesta Rom. Pon. 2nd Ed., p. 10, by Ewald.

MYSTIC THEOLOGY is like that ladder set up on the earth whose top reached to Heaven on which the angels of God were ascending and descending, and above which stood Almighty God. The Angel ascending is the "negative" which distinguishes Almighty God from all created things. God is not matter--soul, mind, spirit, any being, nor even being itself, but above and beyond all these. The Angel descending is the "Affirmative." God is good, wise, powerful, the Being, until we come to Symbolic Theology, which denotes Him under material forms and conditions: Theology prefers the negative because Almighty God is more appropriately presented by distinction than by comparison.