INTRODUCTION
1. None of the many influential occupants of the
see of Alexandria and of the many distinguished
heads of the Catechetical School in that city seem
to have been held in higher respect by the ancients
than Dionysius. By common consent he is styled
“the Great,” while Athanasius, one of his most
famous-successors as Bishop, calls him “Teacher of
the Church universal,” and Basil (of Cæsarea) refers
to him as “a person of canonical authority”
(κανονικός).
He took a prominent and important part in all the
leading movements and controversies of the day,
and his opinions always carried great weight, especially
in Eastern Christendom. His writings are
freely referred to and quoted, not only by Eusebius
the historian,In one of Eusebius’s works (the Præparatio Evangelica)
he is quoted side by side with great authors like Plato and
Aristotle. but also by Athanasius, Basil and John
of Damascus amongst others. And what we gather
of his personal story from his letters and various
fragments embodied in the works of others—and
very little, if anything else, for certain has come down
to us—undoubtedly leaves the impression that the
verdict of the ancient world is correct.
His Family and Earlier Life
2. The references to his family and early years are
extremely scanty and vague. In the Chronicon
Orientale, p. 94, he is stated to have been a Sabaita and
sprung from “the chiefs and nobles of that race”:
and several writers speak as if he had been a rhetorician
before his conversion (as Cyprian of Carthage
had been). The exact meaning of the term “Sabaita”
above is doubtful. Strictly used, it should mean a
member of the Sabaite convent near Jerusalem, and
the Chronicon may be claiming Dionysius as that,
though, of course, without any ground for the claim.
If it is equivalent, however, to “Sabæan” here, it
implies an Arab descent for him, which is hardly
probable, as he seems always to consider himself connected
by education and residence, if not by birth,
with the city-folk of Alexandria, whom he distinguishes
from the Coptic inhabitants of Egypt
(Αἰγύπτιοι);
so that it would be rather surprising to find that his
family came from the remoter parts of Arabia, where
the Sabæans dwelt. The other tradition of his
having been a rhetorician may be due to some
confusion between our Dionysius and a much later
Alexandrian writer of the same name, who edited
the works of the Areopagite with notes and wrote
other treatises. On the other hand, Dionysius’s
literary style is such that it might very well have
been formed by the study and practice of rhetoric,
while he has been thought himself to corroborate
the statement of the Chronicon Orientale, as to the
high position of his family, in his reply to Germanus
(p. 49),
where he refers to the “losses of dignities”
which he has suffered for the Faith.
3. He was probably a priest, and not less than
thirty, when he became head of the Catechetical School
in 231, and in 264 he excused himself from attendance
at the Council of Antioch on the ground of age and
infirmity; and so it is a safe inference that he was
born about or before 200, being thus nearly of an age
with Cyprian of Carthage, and only ten or fifteen
years younger than Origen, his master.
His Conversion
4. The Chronicon Orientale assigns the reading of
St. Paul’s letters as the cause of his conversion to
Christianity, and proceeds to state how, after their
perusal, he presented himself for baptism to Demetrius,
then Bishop of Alexandria, who admitted him
in due course. Whether this was actually the cause
of his conversion or not, we know from what he has
himself told us in his letter to Philemon
(p. 56),
that both before and after baptism he was a diligent
student of all that was written for and against
Christianity.
Was He Married or Not?
5. Whether, in accordance with the common
practice of the Eastern Church at that time, Dionysius
was married or not, is a moot point. He addressed his treatise
περὶ Φύσεως
to one Timotheus
ὁ παῖς,
and we read of
ὁι παῖδες
(of whom Timotheus was one) as accompanying him in his flight
(p. 44).
One would naturally infer from this that he was then a
widower (his wife not being mentioned), and that
these were his sons; but they may have been his
pupils, on the supposition that he was still Catechete
as well as Bishop, or, which is less likely, his
servants.Most of those who read this will be aware that
παῖς
(Lat. puer) can be used in various senses, like our
“boy” and French garçon.
He becomes Head of the Catechetical School
6. When Demetrius died in 231, Heraclas, who for
some years had been associated with Origen at the
Catechetical School and had just been left in charge
of it by him on his final retirement that year from
Alexandria, was elected Bishop, while Dionysius,
who had himself been a pupil of Origen there, was
appointed to fill the vacancy he created. It is
possible that the treatise
περὶ Φύσεως,
extracts from which are given below (on
pp. 91 ff.),
was composed while Dionysius held this important post, and
that a commentary on Ecclesiastes, some genuine
fragments of which probably remain, belongs to the
same period. The former of these is much the more
valuable work, for in it for the first time a Christian
undertook systematically to refute the atomistic
theories of Epicurus and his followers.
He becomes Bishop of Alexandria
7. Sixteen years later, in 247, upon the death of
Heraclas, Dionysius succeeded to the bishopric as
the fourteenth occupant of the see, possibly, as has
already been suggested, without at once resigning
his post at the School. Philip the Arabian (of
Bostra) had then been Emperor for three years, a
position he was destined to retain for two years
longer. Like Alexander Severus before him, he was
known to favour the Christians, and Dionysius himself
bears witness to the comparative mildness of his rule
(p. 37).
For a short time, therefore, the
new Bishop and his flock were left in peace, though
even before the death of Philip signs of the coming
storm appeared. In the last year of his reign
Dionysius tells Fabius, Bishop of Antioch
(p. 35),
that “the prophet and poet of evil to this city,
whoever he was,” stirred up the populace against the
Christians in Alexandria, and several persons were
cruelly martyred. This reign of terror lasted some
time, but was interrupted in the autumn of 249 by
the revolution which caused the deposition and
death of Philip, and which set Decius on the throne
in his stead. The respite was only too brief, for by
the beginning of the new year the edict which Decius
had issued was being actively carried into effect.
The Bishops were at first singled out for attack.
Origen, though not one of them, was included among
the earlier victims—on account, no doubt, of his
prominence as a scholar and a teacher—being
imprisoned at Tyre and cruelly tortured, though not
actually martyred.
Under the Persecution of Decius
8. Decius’s reversal of his predecessor’s policy
towards the Christians was probably due to reasons
of state and expediency rather than, as Eusebius
implies, to mere spite and hatred of Philip and all
his ways. Anyhow, the severity of the Decian persecution
is undoubted, and it fell with great force upon
the Church at Alexandria. The Prefect of Egypt,
Sabinus, lost no time in attacking Dionysius and his
followers. Many endured tortures or death, or both.
Dionysius himself, after waiting four days, fled and
was sought for by a secret service messenger (frumentarius,
see note on p. 43)
sent by Sabinus. A brief search was sufficient to recover him,
and he was carried off with four of his companions to Taposiris.
But through a strange interposition of Providence (related on
pp. 44 f.)
he was rescued by a wedding
party of rustic revellers and removed to a place of
safety in the Libyan Desert, where he appears to have
been left unmolested, with two of his four companions
(see pp. 64 ff.),
till the persecution ceased and he was able to
return to the city. In after days Dionysius’s
action in fleeing on this occasion was violently
attacked by a certain Bishop Germanus, who was
perhaps one of his suffragans. Germanus boasted
of his own much braver conduct under persecution.
Dionysius in his reply (see especially pp.
43 and
45)
maintains that it was not of his own will nor yet
without divine intimation that he had fled, and that
he had suffered far more than his critic for the Faith.
Decius’s rule was brought to a calamitous end in
251, but Gallus, who succeeded him, continued his
treatment of the Christians for another two years,
when he, too, suffered an untimely fate.
9. For the next four years the Church of Alexandria enjoyed
comparative rest and peace. In 253 ÆmilianusNot
the Prefect of Egypt of that name mentioned by Dionysius on
p. 46,
though he did afterwards try to usurp the throne (see
p. 16).
the Governor of Pannonia and Mœsia,
who had in that spring wrested the imperial power
from Gallus, was in his turn, after four months’ rule,
defeated by Valerian and his son Gallienus, and slain
by the soldiery. The new Emperors (father and son)
left the Christians alone during the first four years
of their reign—a somewhat surprising fact, when it
is considered that Valerian had been specially chosen
to fill the office of “Censor,” which Decius had
revived. It may in some measure have been due
to what Archbishop Benson (Cyprian, p. 457) calls
his “languid temperament” as well as to his son’s
connexions with the Christians through his wife
Cornelia Salonina.
His Action about Heretical Baptism
10. During this interval of peace, but chiefly
towards the end of it, Dionysius took part in that
controversy about heretical baptism to which the letters on
pp. 51 ff.
belong. Up till now various parts
of Christendom had followed various customs on this
matter without much disputing. In Asia Minor and
in Africa baptism by heretics was not recognized,
while in the West baptism with water in the name
of the Trinity or of Christ was held valid by whomsoever
performed. Before the middle of the third century,
however, the difference of practice gradually
became more and more a matter of controversy. In or
about A.D. 230 two synods were held one after the
other at Iconium and at Synnada (see
p. 58, n.),
which confirmed the opinion that heretical baptism was
invalid: and some twenty-five years later on Cyprian
of Carthage convened several synods in North Africa,
which arrived at the same conclusion. Thereupon
a violent quarrel arose between Cyprian and Stephen
the Bishop of Rome; this became, perhaps, all the
keener, because of the former alliance and co-operation
between Cyprian and Stephen’s predecessor,
Cornelius, in combating the Novatianist schism,For
Dionysius’s share in this dispute see his letter on
p. 50.
which had eventually led also to heresy over the
restoration of those who had lapsed under persecution.
Severe language was now used on both sides,
and other leading Churchmen of the day were naturally
drawn into the discussion: among them our Dionysius,
who—after the first, at all events—with
characteristic sagacity steered a middle course and
advised that the older spirit of toleration should be
maintained, the circumstances of different churches
requiring different methods. Fragments of five
letters on this subject have come down to us, all
addressed to the Church of Rome or rather to representative
members of that Church, the first of them probably
written in 254 when the Novatianist schism was subsiding
(see p. 52),
and the others belonging to the year 257
(see pp. 54 ff.).
Under the Persecution of Valerian
11. Suddenly, in the summer of that year, the
Church was startled by the issue of an edict which
revived the reign of terror and threw her into a state
of persecution which lasted for more than three years.
This unexpected change of treatment is attributed
by Dionysius to the influence of Macrianus, who
at one time held the office of Rationalis (Treasurer
or Accountant-General) to the Emperor. This man
was apparently a cripple in body, but mentally and
otherwise a person of considerable ability and force
of character: but he seems to have associated himself
in some way with the soothsayers of Egypt,Dionysius’s
phrase about him on
p. 66
is “tutor and chief ruler of Egyptian magicians”;
see note 3 in loco.
and to have conceived a violent hatred against the
Christians. Quite early in the proceedings which
were instituted against them at Alexandria in consequence
of the edict, Dionysius, with several of his clergy, was
brought before Æmilianus the Prefect,This
Æmilianus was one of several who afterwards
attempted to seize the throne; see above,
p. 14.
Macrianus was another of them in Egypt
(p. 68, n.).
and after examination—chiefly as to his loyalty to
the Emperors, which his refusal to pay them divine
honours rendered doubtful—was banished first to a
place called Cephro (probably not far from Taposiris,
where he had been sent before), and then somewhere
on the high road in the district called Colluthion.
Dionysius’s own account of the circumstances which
led to and attended this second exile is given on
pp. 46 ff.,
an account which is valuable, among other
reasons, because it is largely drawn from the official
memoranda of the Prefect’s court, and because it
shows how both sides did their ineffectual best to
understand each other’s position.
Restoration of Peace
12. The persecution lasted till the autumn of 260,
and was then, on the disappearance of Valerian,
stayed by an edict of Peace issued by his son Gallienus,
who was now left alone upon the throne. The
Greek version, which Eusebius gives us, is apparently
not that of the actual edict, but of the Emperor’s
letter or rescript which applied it to Egypt. It is
addressed to Dionysius and other bishops, and runs
as follows: “I have ordained that the benefit of
my concession be enforced throughout the world,
to the effect that men should withdraw from (i. e.
not interfere with) your places of worship. And
accordingly ye, too, may use the terms of my rescript,
so that none may interfere with you. And this,
which may with authority be carried out by you,
has already been granted by me some time ago.
And accordingly Aurelius Quirinius, who is in charge
of the Exchequer,The office indicated seems to be
the same as that of Rationalis mentioned above on
p. 16. shall preserve this form now given
by me.” Instructions were also issued permitting
the Christians to have free access to their cemeteries—a
privilege which was always much prized.
His Return to Alexandria
13. It is practically certain that Dionysius returned
to Alexandria as soon as Gallienus’s edict came into
operation there. But almost immediately fresh
disturbances were felt in the city, followed by one
of those frequent outbreaks of pestilence to which
the East was always liable, and these hindered for a
time his work of bringing the brethren together
again. The disturbances are with good reason thought
to have been those connected with the attempt of
Macrianus to overturn the power of Gallienus in
Egypt, though that country was so often the scene
of tumults and civil wars for the next twelve years
and more that it is almost impossible to identify
any particular disturbances with certainty during
this period.
The Troubles Connected with his Protest against Sabellianism
14. For another five years Dionysius was spared
to administer his charge and to benefit the Church
at large with his prudent counsels. But, though
attacks upon himself never seem to have troubled
him very much, he had still to endure one such attack
which probably grieved him more than all the rest,
and the after results of which lingered on till the days
of Athanasius and Basil in the next century. This
was in connexion with the Sabellian controversy,
especially that phase of it which had recently arisen
in the Libyan Pentapolis (on the north-west coast of
Cyrenaica). Sabellius was a native of the district,
and his heresy consisted in laying too much stress on
the unity of the Godhead and in so hopelessly confounding
the Three Persons in the Trinity as to imply that the Person
of the Father was incarnate in Christ. It is in 257 that we
first find Dionysius, in a letter to Xystus II
(see p. 55),
calling the attention
of the Bishop of Rome to these views, by which time
Sabellius was himself probably already dead. From
what he says there, it appears as if Dionysius was
unaware that these views were not of quite recent
origin and were already rather prevalent in both
East and West, whilst his words seem also to imply
that this later phase of Sabellianism endangered the
dignity of the Third Person as well as of the First
and Second. In Libya the heresy gained such a
hold upon the Church that it even infected certain
of the Bishops, and the Son of God was no longer
preached. Dionysius, therefore, feeling his responsibility
for the churches under his care, became active
in trying to eradicate the evil. Among a number of
letters which he wrote on the subject, there was one
(about the year 260) in which he made use of certain
expressions and illustrations with regard to the Son
of God, which were seized hold of by some members
of the Church either at Alexandria or in the Pentapolis
as heretical. This letter was apparently one of
the later letters of the series, when his earlier overtures
had failed to produce the effect he desired.
15. Dionysius’s critics laid a formal complaint
against him before his namesake (Dionysius), who had
by now succeeded the martyred Xystus II as Bishop
of Rome; they accused him of having fallen into
five errors himself, while correcting the false views
of the Sabellians.
They were as follows, as we gather them from
Athan., de sent. Dion.:—
(1) Separating the Father and the Son.
(2) Denying the eternity of the Son.
(3) Naming the Father without the Son and the
Son without the Father.
(4) Virtually rejecting the term
ὁμοούσιος
(of one substance) as descriptive of the Son.
(5) Speaking of the Son as a creature of the
Father and using misleading illustrations
of their relation to One Another.
One or two of these illustrations which were
objected to will be found in the extract translated on
p. 103,
and they are sufficient to give some idea of
the rest. It may, however, be acknowledged that
neither Dionysius himself in his original statements
and in his attempts to explain them, nor Athanasius,
who, when Arius afterwards appealed to Dionysius
in support of his opinions, put forward an elaborate
defence of him, was altogether happy or successful.
16. Upon receiving the complaint mentioned, the
Bishop of Rome appears to have convened a synod,
which condemned the expressions complained of, and
a letter was addressed by him on the modes of correcting
the heresy to the Church of Alexandria. From
motives of delicacy he made no actual mention of
his Alexandrian brother-bishop in this letter, while
criticizing his views, though he wrote to him privately
asking for an explanation. A considerable portion
of the public letter has been preserved for us by
Athanasius, but it is not included in this volume,
nor is it necessary to particularize his treatment of
the question or to say more than this, that, though
the Roman Bishop wrote quite good Greek and gives
no impression that he felt hampered by it in expressing
his meaning, yet he does naturally exhibit distinct
traces of Western modes of thought as opposed to
Eastern, and is not always quite fair in his representation
and interpretation of what Dionysius had said.
Dionysius’s answer to his Roman brother was
embodied in the treatise called Refutation and Defence
(Ἔλεγχοσ καὶ Ἀπολογία),
some extracts from which (as given by Athanasius) will be found on
pp. 101 ff.
The following is an indication of Dionysius’s line
of defence against the five points raised against him,
other matters which arose more particularly between
him and his namesake of Rome being passed over.
(1) As to the charge of separating the Three Persons
in the Trinity, he distinctly denies it: all the language
he employs and the very names he gives imply the opposite:
“Father” must involve “Son” and
“Son” “Father”: “Holy Spirit”
at once suggests His Source and the Channel.
(2) As to the eternity of the Son, he is equally
emphatic. God was always the Father and therefore
Christ was always the Son, just as, if the sun
were eternal, the daylight would also be eternal.
(3) The charge of omitting the Son in speaking of
the Father and vice versa is refuted by what is said
under (1): the one name involves the other.
(4) Dionysius’s rejection or non-employment of the term
ὁμοούσιος
is less easily disposed of. He
practically acknowledges that, as it is not a Scriptural
word, he had not used it, but at the same time that
the figures he employed suggested a similar relationship,
e. g. the figure of parent and child who are of one family
(ὁμογενεῖς)
or seed, root and plant which are of one kind
(ὁμοφυῆ),
and again source and stream, and in another place the word in the
heart and the mind springing forth by the tongue (see
p. 106):
but for the unsatisfactoriness of this defence the reader
should consult Bethune-Baker, Early History of
Christian Doctrine, chap. viii. pp. 113 ff, who points
out that Dionysius had not grasped the Western
tradition of one substantia
(οὐσία)
of Godhead existing in three Persons.
(5) But the most serious misunderstanding naturally
arose from Dionysius speaking of the Son as
ποίημα
(creature), and illustrating the word by the
gardener with his vine and the shipwright with his
boat. His defence is that though he had undoubtedly
used such rather unsuitable figures somewhat casually,
he had immediately adduced several others more
suitable and apposite (such as those mentioned under
(4) above). And he complains that not only here,
but throughout, his accusers did not take his utterances
as a whole, but slashed his writings about and
made what sense of them they liked, not sincerely, but with
evil intent. He tries further to explain that in his context
ποιεῖν
(make) was equivalent to
γεννᾶν
(beget), as of a Father, not a Creator, which he maintains is
legitimate, but the defence is not very convincing all the same.
So far as we can now judge, however, his arguments
seem to have satisfied his critics at the time, and were
certainly held in high repute by the ancient Churches,
for they are quoted or referred to not only by Athanasius,
as has been stated, but also by Eusebius, by
Basil of Cæsarea (who is, however, much more
temperate in his support), and by Jerome and Rufinus.
Dionysius’s Last Days
17. It is evident that, in spite of this controversy,
his great reputation in the eyes of the Church was
maintained to the end: for when the Council of
Antioch was being summoned to deal with the troubles
connected with the heresies of Paul of Samosata, who held
views somewhat similar to those of Sabellius, Dionysius
was specially invited to attend. As was said above on
p. 10,
he excused himself from attendance on the ground of old age
and infirmity, but he sent a letter in reply to the invitation
which contained his views on the matter, and these were
unfavourable to the heretic. In 265, before the Council had
finished its sessions, he passed to his well-earned rest.
Dionysius as Author
18. From what has already been said, it will be
gathered that Dionysius was a person of remarkable
versatility, and at the same time unusually free
from those snares of the versatile man, shallowness
and inaccuracy. The critical remarks on the Revelation
of S. John the Divine from his treatise On the Promises
(περὶ Ἐπαγγελιῶν),
which are given in full (from Eusebius) on
pp. 82 ff.,
have received the most respectful consideration from such
authorities as Bishop Westcott and Dr. Swete and are well
worth reading, while some of the expositions of Biblical
passages attributed to him are probably genuine and
by no means destitute of merit, though none of
them are printed in this volume.
As Christian Philosopher
19. The long extracts which remain from his book On Nature
(περὶ Φύσεως),
directed against the Epicureans, show him to have possessed
on the whole a clear grasp of their tenets, together with
much genuine humour and entire absence of bitterness
of spirit in criticizing them.
The extracts given by Eusebius appear to be fairly
continuous throughout: they deal (1) with the
atomistic portion of the Epicurean philosophy, and
(2) with the more strictly “theological” portion of
it, the references to the hedonistic doctrine being
only slight and passing.
Dionysius begins by remarking that of the various
hypotheses which have been started as to the origin
of the universe, one of the least satisfactory is that of
Epicurus, viz. that it is the result of a chance concourse
of an infinite number of atoms, as they rush
through space.
He then proceeds to show by a series of illustrations
taken from human workmanship that mere chance
could never produce the wonderful results that we
see all around us. So, too, from the study of the
heavens the same inference must be drawn.
His next point appears to be that the difference in
durability, which Epicurus postulates for the various
bodies produced by atoms, goes to upset his theory.
If some products (e. g. the gods) are eternal and some
are short-lived, what determines the difference?
Some of the senseless atoms themselves must be
gifted with powers of directing, arranging and ruling.
But if it is mere chance, then Epicurus asks us, who
study the order and the phenomena of earth and
heaven, to believe the impossible.
The same conclusion is arrived at by the study of
man, whose mere body is a machine so marvellous
that some have emerged from the study of it with a belief that
Φύσις
herself is a deity. The higher powers, too, of man,
his mind and reason and skill, all point in the opposite
direction to Epicurus’s solution of the
problem. It cannot, surely, be the atoms rather than
the Muses which are responsible for the arts and
sciences.
The half-humorous allusion to these heaven-born
personages of heathen mythology leads Dionysius
to attack the Epicurean theory of the gods. According
to Epicurus, the gods in no way concern themselves
with mundane matters, but spend a serene
existence without labour or exertion of any kind.
But such an existence, says Dionysius, is so repugnant
to the very idea and instinct of man that it must be
absolutely false with regard to divine beings.
At this point occurs a short passage in which the
inconsistency of Democritus, from whom Epicurus had
confessedly borrowed his physics, mutatis mutandis,
is criticized, though it has only a general bearing
upon the line of argument. Democritus, he says,
who professed that he would have given the world
in exchange for the discovery of one good cause
(αἰτιολογία),
yet in putting forward his ideas of Chance as a cause could
not have been more absurd: he sets up
Τύχη
as the sovereign cause of the Universe,
and yet banishes her as a power from the life of men.
The truth is that, while practical men and even
philosophers find their highest pleasure in benefiting
others, by this theory the gods are to be kept from
any share in such pleasure.
One other inconsistency in the Epicurean writings
Dionysius next deals with, and that is Epicurus’s
own constant use of oaths and adjurations, in which
the names of those very beings occur whose influence
upon men’s affairs he so depreciates. This is, in
Dionysius’s opinion, due to his fear of being put to
death by the state for atheism, as Socrates had been:
though he is probably doing Epicurus a wrong.
The extracts end with a repetition of the appeal
to the wonders of the sky and of the earth as a
conclusive contradiction of Epicurus’s views.I
was much assisted in drawing up this summary of
περὶ Φύσεως
and also in writing the notes upon the extracts from the
text by Professor H. Jackson, of Cambridge fame.
A selection from these interesting portions of a
not unimportant work for its time will be found on
pp. 91 ff.
General Characteristics of his Writings
20. The letter to Basilides on several points of ecclesiastical
order (the larger portion of which is given on
pp. 76 ff.)
is a model of what such episcopal utterances should be:
it definitely states which is the highest and best course,
but leaves the decision to the individual conscience. But
it is to the general correspondence
(pp. 35 ff.)
that the bulk of English
readers will probably turn, and that deals with a large
variety of subjects: in some cases theological matters
like Novatianism and the baptism of heretics are
discussed; in others there are descriptions of the
martyrdoms of his time at Alexandria and his own
personal experiences under persecution, all told
with a vividness and a sobriety eminently characteristic
of the man: others are addressed to persons
or districts in his province, especially at Eastertide,
treating of matters of local and temporary importance,
while one or two incidents which he records are of
much value as illustrating church customs and
manners of the period (e. g. the case of Sarapion on
p. 42,
prayers for the Emperors on
p. 47,
matters connected with the celebration of Holy Baptism and
Holy Communion on
p. 59).
In his controversy with the Sabellians, as we have
already remarked, some of the expressions and
figures employed were insufficiently guarded or
explained and so laid Dionysius open to criticism:
but we must remember how much more easy it is for
us, who have the benefit of subsequent history and
experience, to see this and to correct it, than it was
for him and for his contemporaries to grope their
way, as they slowly but surely did, under the Divine
guidance to a fuller knowledge and a more accurate
statement of the truth.
21. It is further to be noticed how very seldom, if
ever, Dionysius offends against the principles of good
taste either when attacking opponents, or when describing
horrors, or when dealing with the mysteries
of the Faith. In controversy he always displays an
admirable moderation and sweetness of tone, which
is the more remarkable because his convictions were
strong and definite. This is especially to be observed
in his treatment of Novatianus the intruder
(see p. 50),
in his criticism of the deceased Nepos of Arsenoe
(see p. 82),
and to a less extent in his defence of
himself against the charges of Germanus
(see p. 43).
Even when he has to speak of one whom he believes
to have done him wrong, like the Prefect Æmilianus
(p. 48),
or of one whom his soul abhors like Macrianus
(p. 68),
his language is mild in comparison with that of many in
similar circumstances. So, too, when he takes upon himself
to describe the tortures and deaths of the martyrs
(pp. 35 f.),
or the ravages of pestilence
(p. 74),
he indulges in but few ghastly or revolting
details, though his narrative is always lively and
thrilling. And once more when he deals with such
a subject as the Eternal Sonship of our Lord, or, if
the passage (not here given) be authentic, His Death
and Passion, the same good taste and restraint of
language is to be observed.
22. Dionysius’s literary style is excellent for the
age in which he lived, and so far confirms the truth
of the statement that he had been a master of rhetoric
before his conversion. He gives evidence of having
read widely and to good purpose both in classical
and in religious literature. As to the former, he
actually quotes from or refers to Homer, Hesiod,
Thucydides, Aristotle, and Democritus: but his language
is really saturated with classical uses, and a
large number of the words and phrases which he
employs recall the best writers of antiquity. His
compositions exhibit signs of much care in production,
notably the treatise On Nature
(περὶ Φύσεως)
and the two Easter letters, to the Alexandrians and
to Hierax (pp.
70 and
73).
Here, and to a somewhat
less degree in the letter to Hermammon
(pp. 65 ff.),
he writes in a more rhetorical and elaborate manner than
in most of the other fragments which are extant, but
even in these passages he is seldom fantastic, or stilted,
or obscure; whilst in pure narrative or simple description
(e. g. in the letters which record his own or others’
sufferings and in the treatise On the Promises
(περὶ Ἐπαγγελιῶν)),
his language could hardly be more unaffected or better chosen.
Dionysius as Interpreter of Scripture
23. To what extent did Dionysius accept the principles
and methods of Origen, especially in the matter
of Biblical criticism and interpretation? The evidence,
such as it is, is rather doubtful and conflicting.
It is somewhat ominous that after the death of
Bishop Demetrius, whose denunciations had caused
the master’s removal from Alexandria and his retirement
to Cæsarea, we hear of no effort on the part of
Dionysius or of any other pupil to obtain his recall.
This certainly suggests that, great as their regard and
respect for him as a man and a scholar may have been,
they either felt themselves powerless to reinstate him,
or else considered his views and methods of advocating
them detrimental to the welfare of the Church at large.
On the other hand, it is pleasing to remember that
Dionysius wrote an epistle to his old teacher on the
subject of martyrdom, which we may presume was
designed to comfort him during his imprisonment at
Tyre. We learn, too, on somewhat late authority that
after Origen’s death Dionysius wrote a letter to
Theotecnus, Bishop of Cæsarea, extolling his
master’s virtues. The chief methodical comments on
the Bible, of the authenticity of which we may be certain,
are those contained in the fragments of the treatise
On the Promises
(περὶ Ἐπαγγελιῶν),
reproduced on
pp. 82 ff.
This was a direct reply to the Refutation of Allegorists
(Ἔλεγχοσ Ἀλληγοριστῶν),
in which Nepos of Arsenoe had thought to support his grossly
materialistic views of the Millennium by the Revelation of
S. John the Divine. As the title suggests, this work
had, no doubt, attacked Origen’s fondness for the
allegorical interpretation of Scripture, and especially
on the subject of the Millennium, and therefore we may
with some amount of certainty infer that Dionysius
in his refutation of Nepos would accept Origen’s
methods as a commentator. But the extracts preserved
by Eusebius deal almost wholly with the
authorship and textual criticism, and so give no
proper clue as to his method of interpreting the
subject-matter of the book.
In the letter to Basilides
(pp. 76 ff.)
the requirements
of the case do not call for a style of interpretation
which would bring out either a correspondence or a
disagreement with Origen’s methods, except so far
as it is marked by the frank and free exercise of
critical judgment. The commentary on the Beginning
of Ecclesiastes, if it is, as seems likely, in part
the work of Dionysius, is not inconsistent in style of
treatment with a general acceptance of his master’s
position. Procopius of Gaza, however, ranks him
among the opponents of the allegorical school of
interpreters, stating that it was in this very work
that Dionysius attacked his master, and a short extract
which has been assigned to it by Pitra (Spic.
Solesm., i, 17) is distinctly less allegorical in treatment
than the rest: it runs as follows—
“On Eccles. iv. 9, 10:
‘Two are better than one,’
etc. As we understand this literally, we do not
admit those who accept the interpretation of the
statements as referring to the soul and the body; for
it is by no means justified, seeing that the soul has
the entire control over the ruling and governing both
of itself and of the body, whereas the body is the
bondman of the soul, subservient and enthralled to
it in all its decisions. If, then, the soul be inclined
to what is mean and evil, and become careless of
better thoughts and considerations, the body is
unable to restore it and lead it back to higher things:
for that is not natural to it.”
There is also another short extract (on
Gen. ii. 8, 9The particular passage,
however, adduced by Procopius above is
Gen. iii. 21.) attributed to our
author, which is non-allegorical
in its treatment. The evidence therefore is inconclusive
on this point: for though Jerome also mentions
Dionysius as a commentator on the Bible three
times in his letters, he throws no further light on the
question.On this point C. H. Turner’s article in Hastings’s Dictionary
of the Bible, Vol. V, pp. 496 f. (on Patristic Commentaries),
may be consulted.
On the subject of Inspiration we have no ground
for thinking that Dionysius took up an independent
position.The passage on Luke xxii,
quoted by Dr. Sanday (Inspiration, p. 36), is of very
doubtful authenticity. He introduces his Biblical quotation
with the phrases current amongst early Christian writers.
The general impression therefore left upon the
reader is that Dionysius reverted to the more sober
methods of interpreting Scripture that prevailed
throughout the Church of his day as a whole, though
he approached his master’s theories in his usual sympathetic
spirit and availed himself of much that was
valuable in them.
His Place in the Church Kalendar
24. We hear of a Church dedicated to S. Denys in
Alexandria at the beginning of the fourth century,
which was destroyed by fire in a tumult in the time
of Athanasius. October 3 and November 17 are the
two most usual dates for his Commemoration in the
Kalendar, the former date more especially in the East, where he
is honoured as “a holy martyr.”“Martyr”
in this case need not necessarily be taken strictly as meaning
“one put to death for the Faith,” though no doubt
the mediæval tradition was in favour of his martyrdom
in that sense.
Concluding Remarks
25. The foregoing sketch is sufficient to show that, as
a man of action and a ruler of the Church, Dionysius’s
personality is no less striking than as a student, a
writer and a thinker. He was clearly a strong yet
conciliatory administrator of his province as Bishop
of Alexandria, just as he had been a competent and
successful teacher and director of sacred studies as
head of the Catechetical Schools—one who in each
capacity carried on and maintained the great traditions
which he inherited from S. Mark and his successors,
from Pantænus, Clement and Origen. And
not only at home and within his own jurisdiction, as
we have seen, did he worthily “magnify his office”
and “make full proof of his ministry”; for he made
his influence for good felt throughout Christendom.
Bishops and clergy from all parts naturally turned to
him in their difficulties for advice and guidance; and
it is impossible not to feel that his wonderful breadth
of judgment and his love of conciliation were of the
greatest value to the Church of the third century,
and will remain a model for imitation to each succeeding
age. Men will always be tempted, as they
were in that century, to speak strongly and to act
vehemently where their spiritual beliefs are involved,
and we may pray that God will never fail to raise
up amongst the rulers of His Church men of the type
of S. Denys the Great of Alexandria.
Bibliography
26. The first attempt at making a full collection of
our author’s remains was undertaken by Simon de
Magistris, whose edition was published at Rome in
1796. Routh (Reliquiæ Sacræ, tom. iii. and iv.;
Oxford, 1846) and Migne (Patr. Græc. tom. x.) published
considerable portions with Latin notes, while
Gallandius (Bibliotheca vett. patrum, app. to vol. xiv.),
Pitra, Mai and (more recently) Holl in vol. v. of Texte
und Untersuchungen (neue Folge) have printed a
number of fragments from various sources and of
very varying degrees of probable authenticity.
The earliest list of Dionysius’s literary productions,
except the scattered references to be found in the
Ecclesiastical History
of Eusebius, is that of Jerome
(de viris illustribus, 69),
which more or less tallies with
what we gather from Eusebius. The student will,
however, find a complete modern list of them, together
with other valuable matter, in Harnack, Altchrist. Lit.,
vol. i. pp. 409-27, and in Bardenhewer, Altkirch. Lit.,
vol. ii. pp. 167-91: the account in Krüger, Early
Christian Literature (Eng. Trans.) is much shorter.
Several compositions mentioned by Eusebius and
Jerome are only known to us by name, unless some of
the short extracts attributed to Dionysius come from
one or other of them, and the contents of them are
almost wholly matter for conjecture. The most important
of these is perhaps the
ἐπιστολή διακονικὴ διὰ Ἱππολύτου
(Eus., H. E. vi. 45),
because of the various theories which have been put forward
about it. Dom Morin (Revue Bénédictine,
xvii., 1900), for instance, suggested that Rufinus’s
translation of the doubtful epithet
(διακονική)
being de ministeriis, it was none
other than the Canons of Hippolytus, and that the
Canons were afterwards attributed to the church-writer,
Hippolytus, through a mistaken identification
of the unknown bearer of Dionysius’s missive with
the well-known author; but the theory has not met
with much acceptance since, and the discussion has
of late died down, quite different views being now
held about the Canons of Hippolytus.
It may also be mentioned that several fragments in
Syriac and in Armenian are attributed to Dionysius,
but only three of these, in the former language, appear to be
genuine: one is a translation of the letter to Novatian
(p. 50),
and the two others are, whether rightly or wrongly, thought
to be part of the Letter to Stephanus on Baptism, and will be
found as §§ 2 and 3 of it on
pp. 53 ff.
The article on
Dionysius
in Smith’s
Dictionary of Christian Biography
is by Dr. Westcott, and, though
not very full, is, it is needless to say, worthy of being
consulted.
Three German books on our author will also be found useful,
though not very recent: viz.
Förster, de doctrin. et sententiis Dionysii, Berolini, 1865;
Dittrich, Dionysius der Grosse, Freiburg, i.B., 1867; and
Roch, Dionysius der Grosse über die Natur, Leipzig, 1882.
Of these the second is the most important
for the general student.
Dr. Salmond produced a serviceable translation of
the fragments in 1871
(T. & T. Clark’s series, Edinburgh),
and since then we have had Dr. Gifford’s (in
his scholarly edition of Eus., Præpar. Evang., Oxford,
1903), of such as there appear.
For the general history of the period much valuable
help will be found in Archbishop Benson’s Cyprian,
London, 1897; P. Allard, Histoire des Persécutions,
vols. ii. and iii., Paris, 1886, and Aubé, L’Eglise et
l’Etat dans la 2de moitié du 3me Siècle.
A full collection of all the genuine and doubtful
extracts appeared in the series of Cambridge Patristic
Texts, with introductions and notes by the present
editor, in 1904.
LETTERS
(1) The persecution did not begin amongst us with
the Imperial edict; for it anticipated that by a whole
year. And the prophet and poet of evil to this city, whoever he
was,It looks as if Dionysius was afraid to mention his name.
Perhaps it was Sabinus the Prefect. The word “poet” in
Greek means properly “maker,” and there is evidently a
double entendre in its use here. was beforehand in
moving and exciting the heathen crowds against us, rekindling
their zeal for the national superstitions. So they
being aroused by him and availing themselves of all
lawful authority for their unholy doings, conceived
that the only piety, the proper worship of their gods
was this—to thirst for our blood. First, then, they
carried off an old man, Metras, and bade him utter
impious words,i. e. against Christ
(1 Cor. xii. 3).
and when he refused they beat his
body with sticks and stabbed his face and eyes with
sharp bulrushes as they led him into the outskirts
of the city and there stoned him. Then they led a
believer named Quinta to the idol-house and tried to
make her kneel down, and, when she turned away in
disgust, they bound her by the feet and hauled her
right through the city over the rough pavement, the
big stones bruising her poor body, and at the same
time beat her till they reached the same spot, and
there stoned her. Thereupon they all with one
consent made a rush on the houses of the believers,
and, falling each upon those whom they recognized
as neighbours, plundered, harried and despoiled
them, setting aside the more valuable of their possessions
and casting out into the streets and burning
the cheaper things and such as were made of wood,
till they produced the appearance of a city devastated
by the enemy. But the brethren gave way and submitted
and accepted the plundering of their possessions
with joy like unto those of whom Paul also
testified.The reference is to Heb. x. 34.
It will be noticed that Dionysius attributes this Epistle to S. Paul,
either inadvertently or in accordance with the Alexandrine tradition,
which Origen also accepts
(Eus., H. E., vi. 25).
And I know not if any, save possibly a
single one who fell into their hands, up till now has
denied the Lord.
Another notable case was that of the aged virgin
Apollonia, whom they seized and knocked out all her
teeth, striking her on the jaws: then they made a
pyre before the city and threatened to burn her alive,
if she would not join them in uttering blasphemies.
But she asked for a brief respite, and being let go,
suddenly leapt into the fire and was devoured by the
flames. Sarapion, also, they caught in his own
house, and after outraging him with cruel tortures
and crushing all his limbs, they cast him headlong
from the upper storey.
And we could go by no high road, thoroughfare,
or byway, either by day or by night; for everywhere
and always there was a constant cry that any one who
did not utter words of blasphemy must be dragged off
and burnt.
And this state of things prevailed for some time,
till the revolution and civil
warViz. the revolt of Decius in Oct. 249.
occupied the attention
of these unhappy men and turned on one another
their fury against us. And so we had a short breathing
space, as they found no leisure for raging against
us: but very soon the overthrow of the ruler who had
been not unfavourable to usi. e. Philip the Arabian, who was popularly supposed to
be half a Christian. is announced, and our
grave fears of being attacked are renewed. And, in
fact, the edict arrived, which was itself almost to be
compared with that foretold by the Lord, well-nigh the
most terrible of all, so as to cause, if possible, even
the elect to stumble.The reference is obviously to
Matt. xxiv. 24 (Mark xiii. 22)
though Dionysius has substituted “cause to stumble”
(σκανδαλίσαι)
for “cause to go astray”
(πλανῆσαι
or
ἀποπλανᾶν). Nevertheless all were panic-stricken,
and numbers at once of those who were in
higher positions, some came forward in fear, and some
who held public posts were led by their official duties;
others, again, were brought in by those about them,
and when their names were called, approached the
impure and unholy sacrifices; pale and trembling in
some cases as if they were not going to sacrifice but
themselves become sacrifices and victims to the idols,
so that they incurred ridicule from the large crowd
that stood by, and proved themselves to be utter
cowards both in regard to death and in regard to
sacrificing, whilst others ran readily up to the altar,
making it plain by their forwardness that they had
not been Christians even before. About such the
Lord’s prediction is most true that with difficulty
shall they be saved.The reference is very loosely to
Matt. xix. 23 and 25. And of the
restViz. those who held no prominent position; the ordinary
folk. some followed
one or other of the above, while others fled or were
captured: and of these last, again, some after going
as far as chains and imprisonment, and even after
being immured several days in certain cases, still,
before coming into court, forswore themselves; and
others, even after enduring some amount of torment,
failed at the last. But the steadfast and blessed
pillars of the Lord,Cp. Gal. ii. 9.
being strengthened by Him and
receiving due and proportionate power and endurance
for the mighty Faith that was in them, proved themselves
admirable witnesses of His Kingdom.Cp.
Acts xxviii. 23 and Rev. i. 9. Foremost
among them was Julian, a sufferer from gout,
unable to stand or walk; he was brought up with
two others, who carried him, of whom the one straightway
denied the Faith; the other, Cronion by name,
but surnamed Eunous (well-disposed), and the old
man Julian himself confessed the Lord and were
conveyed on camel’s back, and scourged as they rode
right through the city—big though it be, as ye know—and
at last were burnt with fire unquenchable, whilst
all the people stood round. And a soldier who stood
by as they were carried along and protested against
those who insulted them was denounced and brought
up, to wit God’s brave warrior Besas, and after heroic
conduct in the great war of piety was beheaded.
And yet another, a Libyan by race, who rightly and
happily was named Mauar (happy),There is evidently an
allusion here to Matt. v. 11 and
Luke vi. 22. though the judge
urged him strongly to renounce the Faith, would not
give in, and so was burnt alive. After them Epimachus
and Alexander, when they had remained a
long time in bonds and had endured endless tortures
from the “claws”Viz. the ungulæ,
with which the flesh was torn from the
bones. and scourges, were also consumed
with fire unquenchable. And with them fourOnly three
are mentioned in the text.
women: Ammonarion, a holy virgin, though the
judge tortured her vigorously for a long time because
she had declared beforehand that she would say
nothing that he bade her, kept true to her promise
and was led off to punishment; and of the rest there
was the aged and reverend Mercuria and Dionysia,
who, though she had many children, did not love
them above the Lord: these the Prefect was ashamed
to go on torturing in vain and be beaten by women,
and so they died by the sword without further tortures:
for the brave Ammonarion had exhausted all
their devices.
Then were delivered up three Egyptians: Heron,
Ater and Isidore, and with them Dioscorus, a lad of
about fifteen. And first of all the Prefect tried to
cajole the stripling with words, thinking he could
easily be won over, and then to force him by torments,
thinking he would soon give in, but Dioscorus
was neither persuaded nor forced. So the others
he cruelly lacerated, and when they, too, stood firm,
handed them over to the fire; but Dioscorus, who had
distinguished himself in public and had answered his
private questionings most wisely, he let off, saying that
he granted him a reprieve for repenting, on account of his age.
And nowi. e. some time between 251, when persecution ended
with the death of Decius, and 257, when Valerian revived it.
the godly Dioscorus is still with us, having waited for his longer
trial and his more determined conflict.
Another Egyptian, Nemesion, was falsely accused
of being an associate of brigands, but being accused
of that most untrue charge before the centurion, he
was then denounced as a Christian and came in
chains before the Prefect.The first was a martial
offence, the second a civil. And he having most
unjustly maltreated him with twice as many tortures
and stripes as the brigands had received, burnt him
to death between them, being honoured, happy man,
by the example of Christ.i. e. by being allowed
to follow Christ’s example.
Again a whole quaternion of soldiers—Ammon,
Zenon, Ptolemy and Ingenuus, and an old man,
Theophilus, with them, were standing before the
judgment seat, whilst some one was being tried for
being a Christian, and when he showed signs of
denying the Faith they were so provoked as they
stood by, nodding their heads, and stretching out
their hands and making gestures with their bodies,
that they drew the general attention to themselves,
and then, before any could seize them, they leapt
upon the standThis was the catasta, or platform,
which corresponded to our prisoner’s dock. of
their own accord, saying they
were Christians, so that the Prefect and his assessors
were frightened, and those who were being judged
seemed to take courage over what awaited them,
and their judges lost heart. So these soldiers walked
in brave procession from the court and rejoiced in
their witness (martyrdom), God giving them a
glorious triumph.Dionysius’s language recalls
2 Cor. ii. 14; Col. ii. 15
is different.
(2) And many others in the cities and villages
were torn asunder by the heathen (Gentiles), one of
which I will mention as an example. Ischyrion
acted as steward to one of the authorities at a wage.
His employer bade him sacrifice, ill-treated him when
he refused, and on his persistence drove him forth
with insults: when he still stood his ground, he took
a big stick and killed him by driving it through his vital parts.
What need to mention the multitude of those who wandered in deserts
and mountainsCf. Heb. xi. 38.
consumed by hunger and thirst and cold and diseases
and brigands and wild beasts? the survivors of
whom bear witness to their election and victory.i. e.
they showed themselves worthy of being among the elect.
Of these, also, I will bring forward one instance by
way of illustration. Chæremon was the aged Bishop
of what is called Nilopolis. He fled to the Arabian hillsA
range of hills to the east of the Nile seems to have been so
called. with his wifeOn the marriage of the clergy
at this time, see Bingham, Antiq., IV, v. § 5.
and never returned, nor were they ever seen again by the brethren,
who made long search, but found neither them nor their bodies.
And there were many who on those very Arabian hills were sold
into slavery by the barbarian Saracens,This is probably
the earliest extant mention of the Saracens—at least by
that name.
of whom some were with difficulty ransomed at high
sums, and others even yet have not been ransomed.
And these things I have described at length, brother,
not without purpose, but in order that thou mightest
know how many terrible things have taken place
amongst us, of which those who have had more
experience will know of more cases than I do.
(3) Accordingly, the holy martyrs themselves, when still amongst
us, who are now the assessors of Christ and partners of His Kingdom,
sharing His judgments and decisions,The opinion that the
martyrs passed at once to heaven and shared His throne was general
among the early Fathers (see Matt. xix. 28 and
1 Cor. vi. 2, 3). espoused the cause of
certain of the fallen brethren who had incurred the
charge of having done sacrifice, and seeing their
conversion and repentance and approving it as fit to
be accepted by Him who desireth not at all the death
of the sinner so much as his repentance,Cp.
Ezek. xviii. 23,
xxxiii. 11,
2 Pet. iii. 9. received
them, summoned them to assemblies, introduced them
and admitted them to the prayers and feasts.These
expressions are not to be pressed as if they assumed
episcopal authority. What,
then, do ye counsel us in these matters, brethren?
What ought we to do? Shall we acquiesce and
assent to them and maintain their decision and
concession and treat kindly those to whom they have
extended mercy? or shall we hold their judgment
wrong and set ourselves up as critics of their decision
and vex their kind hearts and reverse their
arrangement?
I will set out the following single example that
happened amongst us. There was a certain aged
believer amongst us, Sarapion, who had lived blamelessly
for a long time but yielded to temptation.
This man often begged to be restored, but no one
heeded him; for he had sacrificed. But he fell
ill, and for three days in succession he remained
speechless and unconscious. Then recovering a
little on the fourth day, he called to him his nephew
and said: “How long, my child, do ye keep me
back? hasten ye, I pray, and let me go speedily. Call
thou one of the elders (presbyters).” After this he
became speechless again. The boy ran for the elder,
but it was night and he was ill and could not come.
Now I had given instructions that if those who were
departing life asked and especially when they chanced
to have made supplication even before, they should
be absolved in order that they might depart in good
hope; he gave the boy, therefore, a morsel of the
Eucharist, bidding him moisten it and drop it into
the old man’s mouth. The lad went back with it.
When he drew near, before he entered, Sarapion
revived again and said: “Hast come, child? The
presbyter could not come, but do thou quickly what
he bade thee, and let me go.” So the boy moistened
it and dropped it into his mouth: and the other shortly
after swallowing it straightway gave up the ghost.
Was he not clearly sustained and kept alive until
he was absolved that, with his sin wiped out, he
might be acknowledged (by the Lord) for the many
good things he had done?
(1) Now before God I speak and He knoweth if I
lie;Cp. Gal. i. 20.
not at all on my own judgment nor yet without
Divine guidance did I take flight, but on a former
occasion also as soon as ever the persecution under
Decius was set up,i. e. in October 249.
SabinusThe Prefect of Egypt. sent a
frumentariusThis was a kind of soldier employed
on secret service
by the emperors and their provincial governors. to
seek me; and I awaited his arrival at my house for
four days, while he went round searching everywhere,
the streams, the roads and the fields, where he suspected
me to hide or go, but he never lighted on my
house, being held by blindness: for he did not believe
I should stay at home under pursuit. And hardly after the
four days when God bade me remove and unexpectedly made a
way for me, I and the boysProbably his sons, though
they might be his pupils or his servants. and
many of the brethren went out together. And this
was ordered by the Providence of God, as after events
have shown, in which perchance we have been useful
to some.
(2) For about sunset I with my companions having
fallen into the hands of the soldiers, was taken to
Taposiris, but TimotheusOne of “the boys.”
by the Providence of God
happened not to be present nor to be caught elsewhere.
But arriving afterwards, he found the house
empty and servants guarding it, and us carried off
prisoners.
(3) And what is the manner of His wonderful dispensation?
for only the truth shall be spoken. One
of the rustics met Timotheus as he was fleeing and
troubled,Whether Timotheus was making off to join Dionysius or
was fleeing in another direction is not clear.
and inquired the reason of his haste. And
he told the truth, and when the other heard it (now
he was going to a marriage revel: for it is their
custom to pass the whole night at such gatherings),
he entered and informed those who were reclining at
table. And they with one consent as if at a signal
all arose and came running at great speed and fell
upon us with loud cries, and when the soldiers who
were guarding us straightway took to flight, they
came upon us just as we were reclining on the bare
bedsteads. And I indeed, God wot, taking them at
first to be bandits who had come for plunder and
ravage, remained on the couch where I was, undressed
save for my linen under-garment,Cp.
Mark xiv. 52.
and began to offer them the rest of my raiment which was
at my side. But they bade me rise and go out as quickly as I
could. And then I, understanding why they had
come, cried out begging and praying them to depart
and leave us, and if they would do us a good turn,
I besought them to forestall those who had carried
me off and cut off my head themselves. And while
I thus cried, as they know who shared and took part
in everything, they raised me by force, and when I
let myself down on my back to the ground, they took
and led me out, dragging me by the arms and legs.
And there followed me those who had been witnesses
of all this, Gaius, Faustus, Peter and Paul, and they
also helped to carry me out of the township in their
arms, and then putting me on a barebacked ass, led
me away.
(4) I am really in danger of falling into much
foolishnessDionysius’s language here recalls
2 Cor. xi. 1, 17, 21 and
xii. 6, 11. and want of right
feeling through being
compelled of necessity to narrate God’s wondrous
dispensation concerning us. But since “it is good,”
it says,Viz. Tobit xii. 7, where the
best attested reading is “to reveal gloriously,”
instead of “(it is) glorious to reveal.”
“to keep close the secret of a king but
glorious to reveal the works of God,” I will come to
close quarters with our violent accuser, Germanus. I came before
ÆmilianThe Prefect of Egypt at that time. not
alone; for there followed with me my fellow-presbyterThough
Dionysius was Bishop, it is noticeable that he still associates
himself with the presbyterate here and elsewhere; cp.
1 Pet. v. 1, etc. Maximus, and deacons
Faustus, Eusebius and Chæremon. And one of the
brethren who was present from Rome came in with
us. Now Æmilian did not say to me at the start,
“Do not summon” (the brethren for public worship):
for that was superfluous and the last thing (to insist
on), since he was going back to the very beginning
of the matter. For the question was not about
summoning others but about not being Christians
ourselves, and it was from this that he bade us desist,
thinking that if I should change my mind, the others
would follow me. And I answered not unsuitably
nor yet very differently from the words: “We
ought to obey God rather than
men,”Acts v. 29.
but I testified outright that I worship the only God and none
other, nor will I ever alter nor desist from being a Christian.
Upon this he bade us go away to a village on the
borders of the desert named Cephro. Listen then
to what was said on both sides as it was (officially)
recorded: Dionysius, Faustus, Maximus, MarcellusMarcellus
seems to be the “brother from Rome” mentioned
above, and Eusebius is not now mentioned.
and Chæremon being brought in, Æmilian the Prefect
said: “In the course of conversation alsoThe word
“also” either refers to the imperial edict or
suggests that some written communication had been sent. I
described to you the clemency which our SovereignsViz.
Valerian and his son Gallienus.
have displayed towards you. For they gave you
opportunity of being liberated if you would adopt
a natural line of conduct and worship the gods who
protect the Empire and give up those who are contrary
to nature. What say ye then to this? for I
do not expect you will be ungrateful for their clemency
when they invite you to a better course.” Dionysius
answered: “It is not a fact that all men worship all
gods, for each worships certain whom he believes in.
So with us, we worship and adore the One God, the
Creator of all things, who has entrusted the Empire
also to the most religious Emperors, Valerian and Gallienus;
and to Him we prayCp. 1 Tim. ii. 2;
this laudable custom is often referred
to in early Christian writings. without ceasing
for their Empire that it may abide unshaken.”
Æmilian the Prefect said, “But who prevents you
from worshipping him also, if he be god, with the
natural gods? for you were ordered to worship gods
and those which all know.” Dionysius answered:
“We worship none other but Him.” Æmilian the
Prefect said to them: “I observe that you together
are both ungrateful and insensible of the leniency
of our Emperors. Wherefore ye shall not be in this
city but shall be dismissed to the parts of Libya and
stay in a place called Cephro, which I have chosen
at the bidding of our Emperors. And both you and
others will be absolutely forbidden either to hold
meetings or to enter the cemeteries so-called.This
restriction was constantly enforced by persecuting
emperors, because the graves of martyrs were a favourite
resort for prayer and worship. The word cemetery (=sleeping-place)
was introduced by Christians for graveyards. And if
any one were to appear not to have arrived at the
place I have ordered or were found at any assembly,
he will do so at his own risk. For the necessary
penalty will not be wanting. Be off therefore where
ye were bidden.” So he hurried me away even
though I was sick, granting me not a day’s respite.
What leisure, then, had I to call assemblies or not?This
is an indignant protest against Germanus’s charges.
(5) But we did not abstain even from the visible
assembling of ourselves together in the Lord’s
presence, but those who were in the city (Alexandria)
I the more earnestly urged to assemble, as if I were still
with them, being absent in the body, as it says, but present
in the spirit.1 Cor. xv. 3.
And at Cephro also a
large number of the Church were sojourning with us,
consisting of the brethren who had followed us from
the city or were present from other parts of Egypt.
There, too, the Lord opened us a door for the
word.Col. iv. 3.
And at first we were pursued and stoned, but later
not a few of the Gentiles left their idols and turned
to God. Thus the word was first sown through us
in their hearts who had not previously received it.
And as it were for this cause God having led us to
them, led us away again when we had fulfilled this
ministry.Cp. Acts xii. 25.
For Æmilian wished, as it seemed, to transfer
us to rougher and more Libyan-like parts, and
bade those who were scattered in every direction to
draw together to the Mareotis, assigning to each party
one of the villages of the district, but us he put more
on the road so that we should be the first to be
arrested. For he evidently managed and arranged
so that he might have us easy of capture whenever
he wished to seize us. And as for me, when I was
ordered to depart to Cephro, I did not even know
in what direction the place lay, hardly having heard
so much as the name before; and yet I went off
willingly and without trouble. But when it was
told me that they would remove me to the parts of
Colluthion, all who were present know how I was
affected. For here I will accuse myself. At first
I was vexed and took it very ill. For though the
place happened to be better known and more familiar
to us, yet people said it was devoid of brethren and
respectable folk, being exposed to the annoyances of
wayfarers and the attacks of robbers. But I found
consolation when the brethren reminded me that it
is nearer to the city, and that, while Cephro gave
much opportunity of intercourse with brethren from
Egypt in general, so that one could draw congregations
from a wider area, yet at Colluthion we should
more constantly enjoy the sight of those who were
really loved and most intimate and dear. For they
would be able to come and stay the night and there
would be district-meetings as is the case with outlying
suburbs.The brethren who lived on the outskirts of a city
like Alexandria were not bound to attend the mother church,
but had as it were chapels of ease in their own vicinities.
And so it turned out.
(6) Many indeed are the confessions of faith over
which Germanus prides himself: many are the things
which he has to mention as having happened to him.
Can he reckon up as many in his own case as I can in
mine—condemnations, confiscations, sales by public
auction, spoiling of one’s possessions, loss of dignities,
despisings of worldly honour, contempt of commendations
by Prefects and Councils and of opponents’
threats, endurance of clamourings and dangers and
persecutions and wanderings and tribulations and
much affliction, such as are the things which have
happened unto me under Decius and Sabinus and up
to the present time under Æmilian? But where
did Germanus appear? What talk was there of him?
However, I withdraw from the much foolishness into
which I am falling through Germanus; wherefore I
refrain from giving a detailed account of events to
the brethren who know all.
If it was against thy will, as thou sayest, that thou wast
promoted,Or perhaps “carried on” (to act as
thou didst). thou wilt prove this by retiring of
thine own accord. It were good to suffer anything and
everything so to escape dividing the Church of God. And
martyrdomStrictly speaking, Novatian’s withdrawal
was not very likely to involve actual martyrdom.
to avoid schism is no less glorious than martyrdom to avoid
idolatry. Nay, it is to my mind greater. In one case a man is a
martyr for his own single soul’s sake. But this is for the
whole Church. Even now wast thou to persuade or constrain the
brethren to come to one mind, thy true deedThe word is
κατόρθωμα
(success); perhaps “recovery” would bring out
the antithesis to “fall”
(σφάλμα)
better. were greater than thy fall. This will
not be reckoned to thee, the other will be lauded.
And if thou shouldest be powerless to sway disobedient
spirits, save, save thine own
soul.Gen. xix. 17 (LXX).
I pray for thy health and thy steadfast cleaving to peace
in the Lord.
To Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, in Reply to a Letter from him about
Novatian (circ. 253)
“The admirableAnother reading gives “blessed”
(μακάριος),
which, though less well supported by the MSS., makes the phrase
μακαρίως ἀνεπαύσατο
more pointed. Alexander entered into a blessed
rest whilst in custody.”
To Stephanus, Bishop of Rome
(Eus., H. E. vii. 4 and 5)
(The First of the Epistles about Baptism)
(1) Know now, brother, that all the Churches in the East and
even further afieldThis expression probably means to
include the Churches of Mesopotamia and Osroene, besides those
which he proceeds to mention below. which were divided,
have been united: and all their rulers everywhere
are of one mind, rejoicing exceedingly at the unexpected
peaceEusebius is mistaken in identifying this peace with the
cessation of persecution: the reference is to the subsiding
of the Novatianist schism in 254 which restored peace to
Christendom. The surprise and joy were due to the violence
of the language and other measures which the chief combatants
(Stephen and Cyprian) had employed. which has come about,
Demetrian in Antioch, Theoctistus in Cæsarea, Mazabbanes in
Ælia,Hadrian’s colony in Mount Sion was so named
(A.D. 132). Later on the older and more glorious name
of Jerusalem was restored to the see. Marinus in Tyre,
Alexander having fallen asleep, Heliodorus in Laodicea, Thelymidrus
being at rest, Helenus in Tarsus and all the Churches of
Cilicia, FirmilianusBishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia
(† A.D. 260), and one
of Origen’s distinguished pupils. On the baptismal controversy
he sided with Cyprian of Carthage. and all Cappadocia.
For I have mentioned only the more prominent of the Bishops,
in order that I may not make my letter too long nor
my narrative wearisome. Nevertheless, the whole
of Syria and Arabia, districts whose needs ye from time to time
supplyThe adroit reference to the wonted liberality of the
Roman Church is to be noted: other instances are given by
Salmon, Infallibility, p. 375. and to whom ye now
have sent an epistle, Mesopotamia also and Pontus and Bithynia,
and, in one word, all men everywhere exult in the harmony and
brotherly love displayed and praise God for it.Here again
Dionysius shows his adroitness, if Benson (Cyprian, p. 357)
is right in thinking that the list of churches
he gives suggests a repetition of the Pentecostal outpouring
of the Holy Ghost (Acts ii. 9 f.).
(2) If so be that any man speak a wicked thing of God like those
who call Him unpityingCp. the letter to Dionysius,
p. 58.
or any man living in the fear of other gods, the Law has
commanded that such a one be
stoned:Lev. xxiv. 13-16.
but we would stone these men with sound words of faith. Or if a
man receive not at all the mysteryThe word here used represents
μυστήριον,
denoting the
Christian revelation as
μυστήριον
often does. of Christ or alter
and distort it—(saying) that He is not God, or that he
did not become a man, or that He did not die, or that
He did not rise, or that He will not come to judge the
quick and the dead—or preach anything else apart
from what we preached, let him be a curse, says
Paul.Cf. 1 Cor. xvi. 22 and
Gal. i. 8, 9. Or if so be he have
wronged the word concerning
the resurrection of the flesh, let him be
already reckoned with the dead. For we speak in
carefulness concerning these things—in order that we
may be in agreement one with another, churches
with churches, bishops with bishops, priests with
priests. And in regard to causes and affairs about
matters which concern individual men—how it is
right to receive him who approaches from without and
how him who comes from withinThe former are converts
from heathenism, or perhaps from heresy; the latter Christians
who have lapsed.—we counsel to
obey those who stand at the head of every place who
by Divine electionThe word here is the Greek
χειροτονία
in Syriac letters, and so might also be rendered
“ordination.” are put into this
ministration—leaving to our Lord the judgment
of all things which they do.
(3) Those who were baptized in the name of the
three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit—though they were baptized by heretics who
confess the three Persons, shall not be re-baptized.
But those who are converted from other heresies
shall be perfected by the baptism of the Holy Church.The
MSS. from which this extract comes state that it is
from a letter to Dionysius and Stephanus of Rome. No such
letter is otherwise known, and it is not likely that Stephen’s
name would come second, as he was then bishop and Dionysius
only a presbyter, though later on he became bishop. Possibly
it is from the letter which our Dionysius tells us he wrote
to his Roman namesake and Philemon when they were of
the same opinion as Stephen:
see p. 55.
As far as the contents of the extract go, it is not at all incredible
that Dionysius was willing to admit the validity of such baptisms
as are specified: it was only heresies of a very fundamental
kind which he considered to invalidate baptism.
To Xystus (or Sixtus) IIThe successor to Stephanus in 257 as Bishop of Rome: he was martyred after one year’s reign.
(Eus., H. E. vii. 5, 3-6)
(The second on the same subject)
(1) (Stephen) therefore had sent word concerning
Helenus and concerning Firmilianus, and all the
bishops of Cilicia and Cappadocia and (be it noted)
of Galatia and all the neighbouring churches likewise—to
the effect that he would not hold communion with
them for this same reason, since, he says, they re-baptize
the heretics.This was, according to Benson
(Cyprian, p. 354), a threat
which he did not actually carry into effect, and was only
meant to restrain them from adopting Cyprian’s attitude on
the matter. And observe the importance
of the matter. For decrees had really been passed
about it in the largest synods of the bishops,i. e.
those of Iconium and Synnada (circ. 230): Dionysius
may also be referring to the three much more recent councils
which Cyprian had held at Carthage between 254 and 256
(i. e. since his letter to Stephen above). By this time he had
by patient inquiry found out much more than he had known
at first of what was necessary to be known before coming to
a decision. as I
am informed, so that those who come over from
heretical bodies, after a course of instruction, are
washed and cleansed from the defilement of the old
and unclean leaven.Cf. 1 Cor. vi. 11
and v. 7, 8.
About all this also I have written asking him for information.
(2) To our beloved fellow-presbyters also, Dionysius
and Philemon, who had formerly sided with Stephanus
and were correspondents of mine on the same matter,
I have written briefly the first time and more fully
now.See
note on p. 54.
Dionysius became afterwards Bishop
of Rome in 259: a fragment of a letter from our Dionysius
to him is printed on p. 58.
His famous letter to our Dionysius
on the Sabellian controversy is not included in this volume.
Part of a letter to Philemon is given on
p. 56.
He was a Roman Presbyter.
(3) The teaching which is now at work in Ptolemais of
Pentapolis,On the north-west coast of Cyrenaica, one of
the five chief cities which gave its name to the Libyan Pentapolis.
Sabellius denied the three Persons in the Trinity, and held
that the Person of the Father who is One with the Son was
incarnate in Christ: see further
p. 19. is impious, full of blasphemy about
the Almighty God and FatherThere seems no doubt that
this is the right reading here,
though most of the MSS. read “God the Father and our
Lord Jesus Christ”; but clearly Dionysius is only speaking
of God the Father in this clause and of Jesus Christ in the
next. See 2 Cor. i. 2,
Eph. i. 3, etc. of our Lord Jesus
Christ and full of unbelief about His only begotten
Son,It was Dionysius’s treatment of this subject which
afterwards gave Arius the heresiarch of Alexandria an opening
for claiming his teaching in support of his own tenets,
though there is no Arian suggestion, of course, in this phrase:
see p. 20.
the First-born of all creation,Col. i. 15.
the Incarnate Word, and displays want of perception concerning
the Holy Spirit. And therefore, when both official
communications from both parties arrived and some
of the brethren sought personal interviews with me,
I wrote what I couldEus., H. E. vii. 26,
mentions letters to Ammonius, Bishop
of Bernice, Telesphorus Euphranor and Euporus in this
connexion. Athanasius appears only to have known one
joint letter to Ammonius and Euphranor. by the Divine assistance and
gave a somewhat methodical explanation of the
matter, a copy of which I have sent you.
To Philemon
(Eus., H. E. vii. 7)
(The third on the same subject)
(1) I read both the critical researches and the traditional
treatisesDionysius seems to distinguish here two kinds
of writings: (1) those that were based on systematic research and
criticism, and (2) those that handed on the more traditional and less
critical views and statements of the past. of the heretics,
defiling my soul a little with their abominable opinions and yet
gaining this advantage from them, that I could
refute them for myself and abhor them much more
thoroughly. And indeed when a certain brother
among the presbyters tried to restrain me and
frighten me from contaminating myself with the
mire of their iniquity (he said I should ruin my soul,
and, as I perceived, there was truth in what he said),
a heaven-sent visionDivine interposition is more vaguely suggested above on
p. 44.
S. Augustine’s statement should also be compared,
that at a critical moment of his conversion he heard a voice
saying, “Take and read”
(Conf. vii. 12, § 29);
S. Polycarp
likewise heard a voice from heaven saying, “Be strong and
play the man,” as he was led into the arena.
came and strengthened me,
and words came to me which expressly ordered me
thus: “Read all that may come to thy hands: for
thou art competent to sift and test everything, and that was the
original reasonSee Introduction, p. 11.
of thy accepting the
Faith.” I acknowledged the vision as in agreement
with the apostolic voice which says to the more able:
“Approve yourselves bankers of repute.”This
is one of the more common apocryphal sayings usually attributed
to our Lord: hence the epithet “apostolic”
is somewhat strange.
(2) This cause and rule I received from our blessed
FatherThe word for “Father” here is
πὰπας
(pope), a colloquial form of
πατήρ
applied to any bishop (or even to one of the
inferior clergy sometimes) in the first ages. For Heraclas
see p. 11.
It is to be noticed, however, that this canon of
his dealt not with heretical baptism (such as Dionysius is
dealing with), but with actual or reputed perverts, and
stated the terms on which they were to be restored to the
Church of their baptism. Heraclas. For those that came
over from the heretics, although they had apostatized from the
Church—or rather had not even done that but were
informed against as resorting to some heretical teacher,
though still reputed members of our congregations—these
he repelled from the Church, and
did not restore them at their request until they had
publicly and fully stated all that they had heard
among those who set themselves against us; and then
he admitted them without requiring them to be
re-baptized: for they had received that holy gift
already.
(3) I have learnt this also, that the brethren in
Africai. e. the Church in Africa Proconsularis,
of which Carthage was the metropolis and Cyprian
the metropolitan.
did not introduce this practice (of re-baptism)
now for the first time, but it was also adopted some
time ago among our predecessors as Bishops, in the
most populous churches and well-attended synods of
the brethren, viz. in Iconium and Synnada,Iconium was the
chief city of Lycaonia (see Acts xiii.
and xiv.), and Synnada was an important town in Phrygia
Salutaris. These synods had been held some twenty-five
years before (in A.D. 230). and I cannot bring myself
to reverse their decisions and involve them in strife and
controversy. For “thou shalt not remove,” it says,
“thy neighbour’s boundaries, which thy fathers
set.”Deut. xix. 14.
For with Novatian we are reasonably indignant,
seeing that he has cut the Church in two and dragged
certain of the brethren into impieties and blasphemies
and introduced the most unholy teaching about God
and accuses the most gracious Jesus Christ our Lord
of being without pity,See above, p. 53.
and besides all this sets at
nought the holy laws and overthrows the confession of faith
before baptism,A confession of faith has always been
required before baptism: this Novatian virtually ignored by his
action. and altogether banishes the
Holy Spirit from them, even though there were some
hope of His remaining or even of His returning to
them.Here as elsewhere Dionysius shows his breadth of view
about God in recognizing that the Holy Spirit might in
some measure remain even with the lapsed.
To Xystus (Sixtus) II, Bishop of Rome
(Eus., H. E. vii. 9)
(The fifth about Baptism)
I truly desire counsel, brother, and ask an opinion
from you, being afraid lest after all I am wrong in
my treatment of a case that has come before me as
follows—
One who is reckoned faithful among the brethren
who meet together, of old standing, having been a
member even before my ordination (as Bishop), and
I fancy even before the appointment of the blessed
Heraclas, had been present at a recent baptism and
heard the questions and answers (in that service).
He came to me weeping and bemoaning himself and
falling at my feet, confessing and protesting that
the baptism he had received among the heretics was
not this, nor had anything in common with it: for
that was full of impiety and blasphemies:It is
strange that so old a believer should never have
noticed the difference before, but baptism was almost entirely
confined at that time to Easter and Whitsuntide, and he may
have always been absent. and he
said that he was now sore pricked in the soul and
had no courage even to lift up his eyes to God,
because he had started with such unholy words and
rites, and so he begged to obtain this thorough means
of purification and acceptance and grace. But this
I did not venture to do, saying that his so long being
in communion with us was sufficient for the purpose.
For as he had heard the Giving of Thanks (Eucharist)
and joined in saying the Amen,Cp.
1 Cor. xiv. 16. The Amen is either that after the
Consecration of the Elements or at the Reception of them.
and stood“Standing” was, and is still, the posture
in the East: Scudamore, Not. Euch., p. 637. at the
TableA somewhat rare word for “Altar” without some
descriptive epithet like “holy” or “mystic.”
and stretched forth his hands to receive the
holy Food and had taken it and partaken of the Body
and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ for a considerable
period, I should not venture to put him back to the
beginning once more. So I bade him take courage
and approach for the receiving of the Holy Things
with sure faith and good hope. But he ceases not to
grieve, and shrinks from approaching the Table and
can with difficulty be persuaded to stand with (the
Consistentes)The Consistentes were the last
order of penitents, who were allowed to remain after the dismissal
of the catechumens and other penitents, but did not join in the
oblation or communion itself: cf. Canons of Nicæa, No. xi.
for the Prayers.
To CononThe letter from which this is supposed to be an extract is said by Eusebius (H. E. vi. 46, 2) to have been on the subject of Repentance, and may possibly be “the instruction” which Dionysius says he had given on p. 42 above.
(Pitra, Spic. Sol. i. 15, from a Bodl. MS. dated 1062)
As to those who are nearing the end of life, if they
desire and beg to obtain absolution, having before
their eyes the judgment to which they are departing,
considering what is in store for them, if they are
handed over thereto bound and condemned, and
believing that they will gain relief and lightening of
punishment there, if they be loosed here—for these
the approval of the Lord is true and assured—these,
too, it is part of the Divine mercy to send on their
way free. If, however, they afterwards continue to
live, it does not appear to me consistent to bind them
again and load them with their sins. For when once
absolved and reconciled to God, and pronounced
again to be partakers of Divine grace and dispatched
as free to appear before the Lord,Viz. under the
impression that they were going to die. so long as nothing
wrong has been done by them in the meantime to
bring them back into bondage for their sins were
most unreasonable. Shall we after thati. e. after
thus pledging ourselves to them. impose on
God the limits of our judgment, to be kept by Him
while we observe them not ourselves, making parade of the goodness
of the LordCf. 1 Pet. ii. 3, where
Ps. xxxiii. (xxxiv.) 9 is quoted.
but withholding our own? Nevertheless if any one, after recovery,
should show himself in need of further treatment, we counsel
him, of his own accord, to humble and abase and lower
himself, with a view to his own improvement and
also to what is seemly in the eyes of the brethren and
irreproachable before those without.Cf.
1 Tim. iii. 7, etc. If he consent
to this, he will be the gainer: but, if he should object
and refuse, then no doubt that will be a sufficient
ground for a second exclusion.
From the Writings about Repentance
(Mai, Class. Auct. x. 484, from a Vat. MS.)
But now we do the contrary. For him whom
Christ in His goodness seeks when wandering upon
the mountains, and calls to Himself when fleeing, and
lays upon His shoulders when found at last,The reference
is to Luke xv. 4 ff. and
Ezek. xxxiv. 6, etc. him we
resolutely repel when he approaches. Nay, let us
not adopt so evil a counsel for our own sake, nor
drive the sword into our own heart. For they that
endeavour to injure or, on the other hand, to benefit
others, may not altogether have the effect they
desired upon them, but they do bring about good or
evil for themselves and replenish their store either of heavenly
virtues or of undisciplined affections. And these taking good
angels as their companions and fellow-travellers,Dionysius
is thinking perhaps of the story in Tobit v. 6,
where Raphael becomes the companion of Tobit’s son Tobias
on his journey. both here and hereafter, in all
peace and freedom from every evil, will be allotted
the most blessed inheritances for eternity and will
ever be with God, the greatest good of all; and those
will forfeit at once the peace of God and their own
peace, and both here and after death will be handed
over to tormenting demons. Let us then not repel
those who return, but gladly welcome them and
number them with those who have not strayed, and
thus supply that which is wantingOn the principle that
“charity thinketh no evil ... but hopeth all things”
(1 Cor. xiii.): similar but not identical
phrases (in words or sense) are found 1 Cor. xvi. 17,
2 Cor. ix. 12, xi. 9,
Phil. ii. 30, and
Col. i. 24. in them.
To Domitius and Didymus
(Eus., H. E. vii. 11)
(Part of an Easter Letter)
(1) It is superfluous to mention by name the many
members of our body, who are unknown to you:
but you should know that men and women, young
and old, soldiersThe difficulties of soldiers becoming
and remaining Christians were peculiarly great under the early
Emperors. and civilians, every class and age,
some by the scourge and fire and some by the sword
have conquered in the fight and carried off their
crowns, while with some even a very long period did
not prove sufficient to show them acceptable to the
Lord (as martyrs), as in fact seems to be the case
even now with me.That is, some had not yet been called
upon to be actual martyrs, Dionysius among them who was still
in exile. Wherefore I have been put off
until a time which He Himself knows to be the right
one by Him who saith: “In a time acceptable I heard
thee, and in the day of salvation I succoured
thee.”Is. xlix. 8.
For since you inquire and wish to be informed how we
fare, by all means hear our experiences: how that
when we were being led away prisoners by a centurion and
duumviriThese were the same civil officials as those mentioned in
Acts vi. 20 at Philippi, with their servants,
there called lictors
(ῥαβδοῦχοι):
the soldiers belonged to the centurion, of course. with their soldiers and servants, viz.
myself and Gaius, Faustus, Peter and Paul, certain
of the inhabitants of the Mareotis came upon us, and
with violence dragged us off against our will and in
spite of our protests.This has already been described on
p. 44.
And now I with Gaius and Peter only, deprived of the company of
the other
brethren,Including Timotheus who had been the means of his
escape. am shut in a desolate and dreary part of
Libya, three days’ journey from Parætonium.A
town on the coast 150 miles west of Alexandria.
(2) In the city there have concealed themselves, secretly looking
after the brethren, from among the presbyters Maximus,He and
the three deacons have already been mentioned on
p. 46.
They must have left Dionysius when he went into exile and returned
to Alexandria. Dioscorus, Demetrius and Lucius (for Faustinus
and Aquila, who were better known in the world, are wandering in
other parts of Egypt), and of the deacons Faustus, Eusebius and
Chæremon, who survived those who perished in the
pestilence.“In the island,” according to
Rufinus’s version, but it
is not clear what island he means: the pestilence is probably
one of those frequent epidemics which devastated North
Africa and other districts of the empire.
Eusebius was he whom from the beginning
God strengthened and inspired to perform many
services for the confessors in prison with all energy,
and to carry out at no small risk the last offices for the
perfectThe epithet “perfect,” though applied to
believers generally in the New Testament
(Matt. v. 28, etc.), was later
specially used of martyrs. and blessed martyrs in decking
out their bodies (for burial). For up till now the Prefect does
not cease from cruelly slaying some of those who are
brought before him, as I have already said, and from
tearing others in pieces with instruments of torture,
while he crushes the spirits of others again with
chains and imprisonment, forbidding any to visit
them and making search lest any should be found
doing so. Nevertheless, God gives them some respite
from their miseries through the zeal and steadfast
efforts of the brethren.
(1) Even GallusGallus succeeded to the empire
on the death of Decius
and his sons in 251, and reigned till 253, when it was wrested
from him by Æmilian, who was in turn ousted by Valerian
after four months’ rule. Dionysius makes no mention of
this episode, though he does of Macrian’s attempt later.
did not know the flaw in Decius’s
policy, nor did he foresee what it was that upset him,
but stumbled over the same stone that was right
before his eyes. For, though his reign was prospering
and things were going according to his mind, he
drove into exile the holy men who were interceding
with God for his peace and health, with the effect
that with them he drove out also their prayers on
his behalf.
(2) To John also it is revealed in like manner,
when he says: “There was given him a mouth speaking
great things and blasphemy, and there was given
him authority and forty-two months.”The quotation is
from Rev. xiii. 5, but the last words
follow a reading which has no support in the MSS. It
should also be noticed that Dionysius does not think it at
all certain that the author of the Revelation is the Evangelist:
see p. 86. And both
these things are to be wondered at in the case of
Valerian,Valerian reigned from 253 till his disappearance
in 260. The duration of the persecution was forty-two months, from
before midsummer 257 till late in 260. and of them it is
especially to be observed how his prosperity lasted so long as he
was gentle and well-disposed towards the men of God.Here the
expression means Christians generally, not
prophets or clergy as often. For
none of the Emperors before him were so kindly and
favourably affected towards them, not even those
who were said to have been openly Christians,Alexander
Severus and Philip the Arabian are no doubt meant.
as he manifestly was, receiving them at the beginning
in a most familiar and friendly spirit: indeed, his
whole house was filled with devout persons and was
a veritable Church of God.Compare such expressions in
S. Paul’s letters as Rom. xvi. 5,
1 Cor. xvi. 11, etc. But he was persuaded
to abandon this treatment by that tutor and chief ruler of
Egyptian magicians,No doubt Macrianus is meant, who is
mentioned further
on, but it is difficult to account for the exact epithets which
Dionysius here applies to him. Apparently he had been
Valerian’s tutor in some kind of magic, and had allied himself
somehow with the Jewish colony in Alexandria (hence
ἀρχισυνάγωγος),
who would, of course, be hostile to the Christians.
who instructed him
to slay or persecute, as adversaries and hinderers of
his vile and detestable sorcerers, the pure and holy
persons, who are and were able to confound the
devices of accursed demons by being present and seen
and merely breathing on them and uttering words,Christian
exorcists must be meant, though the claim to
supernatural powers which Dionysius makes for them is
sufficiently remarkable.
while he also incited him to perform unholy rites
and detestable juggleries and abominable sacrifices
such as the killing of wretched boys and the slaying
of unhappy fathers’ children and the dividing of
new-born entrails asunder and the cutting up and
mutilating of bodies which are God’s creation,This
was a frequent charge against the Christians themselves.
Here Dionysius turns it against their persecutors in Egypt.
in the hope that such doings would bring them Divine favour.
(3) Fine offerings at all events did Macrianus make
to them (sc. the demons) to propitiate them for the
Empire which he hoped for, when, in his former
position as so-called officer in charge of the Emperor’s general
(καθόλου)
accounts he entertained no reasonable
(εὔλογον)
nor catholic
(καθολικόν)
sentiments,It is very difficult, without a knowledge of Latin
and Greek, to understand Dionysius’s play on words throughout
this section. The office which Macrianus held was that of,
in Latin, Rationalis or Procurator summæ rei, in Greek
ὁ ἐπὶ τῶν καθόλου λόγων
(something like our Chancellor of the
Exchequer): hence Dionysius says he was not rational (or
reasonable) in his treatment of the Christians and showed
no catholic spirit towards them.
but fell under the prophet’s curse, who says: “Woe to
those who prophesy out of their own heart and see not the general
(τὸ καθόλου)
view.”Ezek. xiii. 3. Dionysius
takes the last phrase
(τὸ καθόλου),
as if it was the object of the verb, not an adverb,
in order to suit his argument. For he did
not understand the workings of Universal
(καθόλου)
Providence,This may perhaps mean that besides his other faults
Macrianus was tainted with the atheistic views of the
Epicureans, while Dionysius also alludes in this sentence to
the accounts which Macrianus would have to present to the
Emperor of his own administration. nor suspect the approach of Judgment
on the part of Him who is before all things and
through all things and over all things.Cf.
Eph. iv. 6 and
Col. i. 17. Wherefore
he has become also the enemy of His universal
(καθολικῆς)
Church and has alienated and estranged
himself from God’s mercy and banished himself as
far as possible from his own salvation, verifying in
this his personal name.Another play on words, as if
Macrianus was derived from the Greek
μακρός
(far off), which is somewhat doubtful.
(4) For Valerian, through being persuaded to this
policy by him, exposed himself to insults and injuries
according to that which was said to Isaiah: “And these
men chose their ways and their abominations which
their soul desired, and I will choose their mockings
and will recompense them their
sins.”Is. lxvi. 3, 4 (LXX).
Here the reference is to Valerian
falling into the hands of Sapor, the Persian King, who inflicted
grievous insults upon him, and kept him in captivity
till his death.
But this man (Macrianus) in his mad lust after
imperial power for which he had no qualifications,
being unable to deck his own crippled body with the
imperial robes, put forward his two sons, who thus
became liable for their father’s sins.Macrianus
was lame of one leg. After Valerian’s defeat
and disappearance (in 260), for which he was himself largely
responsible, Macrianus and his two sons, Macrianus junior
and Quietus, made an abortive attempt to seize the throne,
which was soon defeated. For the prophecy
clearly applies to them which God spake:
“visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth generation of them that
hate me.”Ex. xx. 5.
For he brought upon his sons’ heads his
own evil desires in which he had succeeded and involved
them in the consequences of his own wickedness
and hatred of God.The two Macriani were defeated and
slain by Aureolus, another usurper, in Illyricum, and Quietus
was put to death in the East.
(5) So after thus inciting one of the Emperors before
him and attacking the other, he speedily vanished
with all his family, root and branch,Dionysius is still
speaking of Macrianus, who had incited Valerian to attack the
Persians, and then had himself attacked Gallienus and tried to
usurp the throne. whilst Gallienus was proclaimed and
acknowledged by all, being at
once the old and the new Emperor, having preceded
the usurpers and remaining after them. For, in
accordance with that which was spoken to the prophet
Isaiah, “behold the things predicted from the beginning
have come to pass, and new things which will now
arise.”Is. xlii. 9, but Dionysius
has substituted, for the last phrase, a phrase from
xliii. 19. The original prophecy
applies to the triumph of Cyrus and the conversion of the world to
the worship of Jehovah. Its application in the text strikes
us to-day as too fanciful. For as a cloud having overcast
the sun’s rays and screened them for a while shades it and
shows itself in its stead, and then when the cloud has passed
off or been dissipated the sun which was shining
before emerges and shines forth again, so it is with
Macrianus; after coming forward and gaining access
for himself to the imperial power which belonged to
Gallienus, he ceases to be, since he was of no account,
and the other resumes the position he had before.
And the Empire, having cast off, as it were, its old
age and purged itself of its former badness, now
bursts into greater splendour, is seen and heard from
afar and pervades the whole world.
(6) And once more it occurs to me to consider the
days and years of this period of the Empire. For I
observe that the ungodly persons (I have mentioned)
after a short period of honourable mention have
lost their good name, but (Gallienus) who was more
righteous and loved God better,Whether Gallienus himself
was really a Christian is very
doubtful, but his wife, Cornelia Salonina, seems to have
been. having completed
the seven years’ period, is now passing through his ninth
year:This is a very obscure calculation, but the upshot of
it may be as follows: Gallienus was associated with his father
Valerian as Emperor seven years (253-60), then Macrianus
usurped the power (in Egypt) for one year, or rather more;
thus Gallienus regained the power in his ninth year (i. e. after
midsummer 261). Gallienus’s original Edict of Peace was
issued in Oct. 260, but the Rescript applying it to Egypt
was delayed for some time. The Easter festival for which
this letter was written, therefore, must have been that of 262.
therefore let us keep the Feast.Cf.
1 Cor. v. 8.
To the Brethren in Alexandria
(Eus., H. E. vii. 22)
(Part of another Easter Letter)
(1) Other men would not think the present a time
for “keeping festival: nor, indeed, is this nor any
other such a time to them; I speak not of times
obviously sorrowful, but even of such as they might
consider most joyful. In these days there are lamentations
everywhere, and all are mourning: wailings
resound through the city by reason of the number
of the dead and the dying day by day. For, as it is
written about the firstborn of the Egyptians, so now
also “a great cry arose: for there is not a house in
which there is not one
dead.”Exod. xii. 30.
I would, indeed, there were but one; for the things that have
before now befallen us were truly many and grievous.I
have translated the Berlin editor’s reading here, as
being the least unsatisfactory of those proposed. Others
give a text which may be rendered: “I would this were all:
for the things that befell us before drove us into many
grievous troubles.” But the exact meaning is doubtful,
however we take it. First of
all they drove us into exile and we kept the feast
then too by ourselves, persecuted and harried to death
by all, and every place where each particular affliction
befel us became the scene of our festal assembly,
open country, desert, ship, inn or prison, and our
perfectThis epithet for martyrs has already occurred on
p. 64.
martyrs spent the brightest of all feasts,
being entertained in heaven above. But after this
war and famine seized us, which we endured in
common with the Gentiles, having undergone alone
all the injuries they had inflicted on us and then
having to share in the evils they wrought on one
another and suffered: and once more we rejoiced in
the peace of Christ, which He has given to us alone.
But now after we and they had obtained a very brief
respite, this pestilence has overtaken us, which is
to them a more fearful thing than all former fears
and more terrible than any calamity whatever, and
to quote an expression of an historian of their own,This
is none other than a quotation from Pericles’s speech
about the plague at Athens in Thucyd. ii. 64, though in
Dionysius’s original phrase it sounds as if he meant some
local minor historian. “a thing which alone has
exceeded all men’s expectation,”
while to us it was not so much that as a discipline
and a testing no less severe than any of the
rest: for it did not spare us, though it attacked the
Gentiles in great force.
(2) At all events most of the brethren through
their love and brotherly affection for us spared not
themselves nor abandoned one another, but without
regard to their own peril visited those who fell sick,
diligently looking after and ministering to them and
cheerfully shared their fate with them, being infected
with the disease from them and willingly involving
themselves in their troubles. Not a few also, after
nursing others back to recovery, died themselves,
taking death over from them and thus fulfilling in
very deed the common saying, which is taken always
as a note of mere good feeling; for in their departure
they became their expiatory substitutes.The word Dionysius
uses here is the same as S. Paul, uses
(1 Cor. iv. 13:
περίψημα,
offscouring). It is said to
have been used at Athens of the human scapegoats thrown
into the river in time of famine: “Be thou my expiation
(περίψημα).”
Elsewhere it seems to have degenerated into a
sort of extravagant compliment: “I am your humble servant
(περίψημα).”
Dionysius suggests it might regain its
more serious meaning in the present case.
At all events, the very pick of our brethren lost their lives
in this way, both priests and deacons and some highly
praised ones from among the laity, so that this
manner of dying does not seem far removed from
martyrdom, being the outcome of much piety and
stalwart faith. So, too, taking up the bodies of the
saints on their arms and breasts, closing their eyes
and shutting their mouths, bearing them on their
shoulders and laying them out for burial, clinging
to them, embracing them, washing them, decking
them out, they not long after had the same services
rendered to them; for many of the survivors followed
in their train. But the Gentiles behaved quite differently:
those who were beginning to fall sick they thrust away, and
their dearest they fled from, or cast them half dead into the
roads: unburied bodies they treated as vile refuse;Here
again Dionysius uses an expression suggested by
S. Paul in Phil. iii. 8. for they
tried to avoid the spreading and communication of the fatal
disease, difficult as it was to escape for all their scheming.
To Hierax an Egyptian Bishop
(Eus., H. E. vii. 21)
(Part of another Easter Letter)
But what is there surprising in its being difficult
for me to correspond even by letter with those who
are sojourning at a distance, seeing that it has proved
impossible to talk even with myself and to take
counsel with my own soul? At all events, with my
own kith and kin, with the brethren of my own house
and life, citizens of the same Church, I have to communicate
by letters and to get them through seems
impracticable. For it were easier for one to pass,
I say not across the frontier, but even from East to
West, than to visit one part of Alexandria from
another. For that vast, pathless desert which it
took Israel two generations to traverse is not so
impassable and hard to cross as the central street of
the city, nor is the sea, which they had for a carriage-road
when the waters were parted asunder to make a
passage through. And our still and waveless harboursIt is
not clear whether Dionysius actually alludes here
to the well-protected harbours of Alexandria or (more loosely)
to the Lake Mareotis: probably to the former, because the canal
he refers to in the next sentence (though he calls it a river)
was cut from the Nile into one of the harbours and passed at the
back of the city between it and the Lake Mareotis.
have become an image of those in the passing
of which the Egyptians were overwhelmed; for
they have often appeared like the Red Sea from the
blood which was in them. And the river which flows
past the city at one time appeared drier than the
waterless desert and more parched than that which
Israel crossed over when they were so thirsty that
Moses cried out and drink flowed out of the steep
rock from Him that worketh
wonders:Cf. Ps. lxxvii. 13,
cxxxvi. 4, and
Wisd. xi. 4. The
whole passage, of course, refers to Exod. xiv.
and xvii. and at
another time it was so full as to overflow the whole
neighbourhood, both roads and fields, and to threaten
a return of the flood which occurred in the days of
Noah. But in either case it runs polluted with blood
and slaughter and drowned corpses, as under Moses
it happened to Pharaoh, when the river turned to blood and
stank.Cf. Exod. vii. 20, 21.
And what other water could cleanse all this but the water which
itself cleanseth all things?i. e. if the biggest
river and the ocean itself, as he proceeds
exaggeratedly to claim, cannot do so, what other
cleansing can there be?
How could the mighty ocean which man cannot cross,
overspread and sweep away this horrid flood? or
how could the great river that goeth out of Eden
wash off the stain, though it were to divert the four
heads into which it is divided into the single head of the
Gihon?Cf. Gen. ii. 10 ff.
Dionysius evidently adopts the later
Jewish view that the Gihon was the Nile, Æthiopia (or Cush)
being identified with Egypt.
or when would the air, reeking everywhere
with the evil exhalation, become pure? For
such mist from the ground and breezes from the sea,
airs from the rivers and vapours from the harbours
are given off that for dew we have the impure fluids
of corpses rotting in all their component elements.
After all this do men wonder, are they at a loss,
whence come the continual pestilences, whence the
dire diseases, whence the divers ravages, whence the
wholesale destruction of life, why the largest city no
longer contains in it its former multitude of inhabitants,
from infant children to the most advanced in
years, whom it used to nourish in other days to a
green old age,The meaning of the phrase employed by Dionysius
here (“hale old men”) comes from Homer,
Il. xxiii. 791 (cf. Virg., Æn. vi. 304);
but elsewhere a very similar phrase seems to suggest “a cruel,
untimely old age.” as the saying went, whereas these
from forty up to seventy years of age were so much more
numerous then that their number is not now reached even when all
from fourteen to eighty are enrolled and put together for the
public distribution of food,Evidently at Alexandria (the
capital of that country which was the chief granary of Rome) either
the necessitous citizens or perhaps all between forty and seventy
were entitled to receive doles of corn; but now the relief was
extended to all ages between fourteen and eighty.
and thus those whose looks show them to be quite
young have become as it were of equal age with
those who have long been advanced in years. And
though they see the race of man on earth thus dwindling
ever and being exhausted, they do not tremble,Either the
heathen are meant, who ought to tremble and
be convinced, or the Christians, who were too courageous
through trust in God to tremble.
as its total extinction proceeds and draws near.
(From another Easter Letter)
Love leaps out in utmost eagerness to confer some
benefit even on an unwilling object: yea, often on one
who shrinks in shame and tries to shun kind treatment
from dislike of being burdensome to another, and
would fain put up with his annoyances alone, in order
not to cause trouble and inconvenience to any. He
that is full of Love craves leave to suffer and endure:
to be in evil case, he thinks, gives opportunity for
being helped, and he will do the greatest favour to
another, not himself, if through that other the evil,
which is his own, is made to cease.The last sentence
is involved and obscure. I am not sure that my paraphrase
rightly expresses the thought.
To Basilides, Bishop of the Churches in the Pentapolis (Cyrenaica)
Dionysius to Basilides my beloved son and brother
and godly fellow-worker, greeting in the Lord.
(1) You sent to me, my most faithful and learned son, to inquire
at what hour one ought to end the fast before Easter.I have
adopted our modern mode of expression, but in
the early Church Pascha was often used for the fast which
receded Easter as well as for the feast itself, and that is
how Dionysius uses it here. For you say that some of the
brethren maintain one should do so at cockcrow:i. e. at
3 a.m. on Easter Day, the traditional hour of our Lord’s
Resurrection, especially in the West.
and some at evening.i. e. at 6 p.m. on Easter Eve.
For the brethren in Rome, so
they say, await the cockcrow: but concerning those
in the Pentapolis you said they broke the fast sooner.
And you ask me to set an exact limit and a definite
hour, which is both difficult and risky. For it will
be acknowledged by all alike that one ought to start
the feast and the gladness after the time of our Lord’s
resurrection, up till then humbling our souls with
fastings. But by what you have written to me, you
have quite soundly and with a good insight into the
Divine Gospels established the fact that nothing
definite appears in them about the hour at which He
rose. For the Evangelists described those that came
to the tomb diversely—that is, at different times, and
all“All,” i. e. “who came,”
or perhaps “all the four evangelists.” The
“difference” is not really confined to
the time, but to the parties which came, the other devout
women coming later than the two Marys. said that they
have found the Lord already risen: it was “late on the
Sabbath day,” as S. Matthew puts it:The four
references are to Matt. xxviii. 1,
John xx. 1,
Luke xxiv. 1, and
Mark xvi. 2. and “early while
it was yet dark,” as S. John writes; and “at early
dawn,” as S. Luke; and “very early ... when the sun was
risen,” as S. Mark. And when He rose, no one has
clearly stated; but that “late on the Sabbath day, as
it began to dawn towards the first day of the week,”
about sunrise on that day those who arrived at the
tomb found Him no longer lying in it, that is agreed to.
And we must not imagine that the evangelists are at
variance and contradict one another: but even if
there seem to be some small dispute upon the matter of your
inquiry—that is, if though all agree that the Light of the
worldCf. John ix. 5, etc. our
Lord arose on that night, they differ about the hour, yet let us
be anxious fairly and faithfully to harmonize what is said.
What is said, then, by Matthew runs thus: “Late
on the Sabbath day, as it began to dawn towards the
first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the
other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there
was a great earthquake: for an angel of the Lord
descended from heaven and came and rolled away the
stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was as
lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for
fear of him the watchers did quake and became as
dead men. And the angel answered and said unto
the women, Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek
Jesus which hath been crucified. He is not here; for
he is risen, even as he said.” As to this word which
he uses for “late,” some will think, in accordance
with its common acceptation, that the evening of the
Sabbath is signified; but others, understanding it
more scientifically, will say it is not that, but “the
dead of night,” the word used signifying an advanced
stage of lateness.The Council in Trullo
(A.D. 680) accepted this second
meaning and consented to Dionysius’s ruling on the point
raised without reserve. And because he means night and
not evening, he adds “as it began to dawn towards the
first day of the week” and (the women) had not
yet come, as the rest say, “bringing spices” but “to
see the sepulchre.”Dionysius thinks that
S. Matthew’s account, with which S. John’s tallies,
speaks of the two Marys coming to look at
the tomb about midnight on Easter eve or morning, while
S. Luke and S. Mark mentioned certain women who arrived
at the tomb somewhat later, when the sun had just risen,
but one at least of the Marys mentioned by S. Matthew is
identical with one of those mentioned by S. Mark and
apparently by S. Luke. Possibly, however, Dionysius means
that the two Marys took part in both visits to the tomb.
Dr. Swete on S. Mark and Dr. Westcott on S. John should
be consulted by any one who wishes to pursue the question
further. And they found the earthquake
had occurred and the angel seated on the stone, and
heard from him the words: “He is not here: he is
risen.” Similarly, John says: “On the first day of
the week came Mary Magdalene early, when it was
yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken
away from the tomb.” However, by this account,
“when it was still dark” although towards dawn, He
had gone forth from the tomb. But Luke says: “On
the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
But on the first day of the week at early dawn
(the women) came unto the tomb bringing the spices
which they had prepared. And they found the stone
rolled away from the tomb.” “Early dawn” indicates,
perchance, the morning light appearing before
(the sun itself) on “the first day of the week.” In
consequence, it was when the Sabbath had now completely
passed, with the night that followed, and when
a new day was beginning that they came bringing
the spices and ointments, by which time it is clear
that He had risen long before. To this, also, corresponds
what Mark says: “(The women) brought
spices that they might come and anoint him. And
very early on the first day of the week they come to
the tomb, when the sun was risen.” For he, too,
says “very early,” which is the same thing as “at
early dawn”: and he has added, “when the sun was
risen.” For their start and their journey began, it
is clear, “at early dawn” and “very early”:
but they had gone on spending time both on the road and
around the tomb until sunrise. And on this occasion
alsoi. e. as on the former occasion mentioned by S.
Matthew and S. Mark. the white robed young man says to these
women: “He is risen: he is not here.”
As things stand thus, we pronounce this decision
for those who inquire to a nicety at what hour or what
half-hour, or quarter of an hour, they should begin
their rejoicing at the Resurrection of our Lord from
the dead: those who are premature and relax before
midnight, though near it, we censure as remiss and
wanting in self-restraint; for they drop out of the
race just before the end, as the wise man says: “that
which is within a little in life is not little.”The
author of this saying (which is equivalent to our proverb,
“A miss is as good as a mile”) is not known. Basil
(de Baptism. ii. i) quotes something like it, but with a
different turn, and he, too, attributes it to “one of our
wise men,” but perhaps he is only referring to Dionysius in
this passage. And those who put off and endure to the furthest
and persevere till the fourth watch, when our Saviour appeared
to those who were sailing also, walking on the sea,Cf.
Matt. xiv. 26.
we shall approve as generous and painstaking. And
those midway who stop as they were moved or as they
were able, let us not treat altogether severely. For
all do not continue during the six days of the fast either equally
or similarly:He means the six days of what we call Holy Week,
but he gives no indication whether the Lenten fast was then
confined to those days in Alexandria and the Pentapolis or
lasted longer. By “equally” he proceeds to explain is
meant the length of the fasting (six days or two, and so on),
and by “similarly” the manner or degree of it (till
cockcrow or till evening). but some remain without food
till cockcrowThe verb used
(ὑπερτιθέναι,
Lat. superponere, to exceed) is the technical one for this
prolonged fast: the ordinary fast ended at 6 p.m. and that of the
station days (Wednesday and Friday) at 3 p.m. on all the days,
some on two, or three, or four, and some on none of them. And for
those who strictly persist in these prolonged fasts
and then are distressed and almost faint, there is
pardon if they take something sooner. But if some,
so far from prolonging their fast do not fast at all, but
feed luxuriously during the earlier days of the week,
and then, when they come to the last two and prolong
their fast on them alone, viz. on Friday and Saturday,
think they are performing some great feat by continuing
till dawn, I do not hold that they have
exercised an equal discipline with those who have
practised it for longer periods. I give you this counsel
in accordance with my judgment in writing on these
points.
(2) These answers I give you from respect for you,
beloved, not because you were ignorant of the subjects
of your inquiry but to render us of one mind and
soulCf. 1 Pet. iii. 8 and
Phil. ii. 20.
with yourself, as indeed we are. And I have set
forth my opinion for you to share not as a teacher
but as it becomes us to discuss one with another in all
simplicity: and when you have considered it again,
my most sagacious son, you should write again and
tell me whatever seems to you better or what you
judge to be as I have said.
I pray that you may prosper, my beloved son, as
you minister to the LordThe expression comes from
Acts xiii. 2, where, however,
it describes a special act of worship rather than
“ministering” in general. in peace.
TREATISES
(1) Seeing that they bring forward a composition
of Nepos,Nepos had apparently been Bishop of Arsenoe in Egypt,
and was the author of a work
(Ἔλεγχος Ἀλληγοριστῶν)
putting forward grossly material views of the Millennium. Dionysius
refuted it in a carefully prepared treatise in two books.
This extract is from the second book, and deals chiefly with
the authorship of the Revelation of St. John the Divine in
a way very characteristic of his large-hearted and broad-minded
spirit. on which they rely too much as showing
irrefutably that the Kingdom of Christ will be on
earth, though I accept and love Nepos for many other
things, his faith, his laboriousness, his study of the Scriptures,
and the many psalms he has written,Or Dionysius may mean that
he had encouraged the singing of the Psalms in service. by
which already many of the brethren are encouraged,
and though I hold him in all the greater respect because
he has gone to his rest before us, yet the truth
is so dear to me and to be preferred that I can indeed
applaud and give my full assent to right propositions,
but must examine and correct whatever appears
to be unsoundly stated. And if he were still with us
and propounding his views merely by word of mouth,
a discussion without writing would have sufficed to
persuade and convince our opponents by way of
question and answer. But now that this writing of
his is published, which many think most convincing,
and certain teachers hold the law and the prophets
of no account and have relinquished the following
of the Gospels and depreciated the Epistles of the
Apostles, while they parade the teaching of this book
as if it were some great and hidden mystery and will
not allow our simpler brethren to hold any high and
noble opinion either about the glorious and truly
Divine appearing of our LordCf.
Tit. ii. 13, 2 Thess. ii. 8,
etc. or about our rising from the dead and our gathering
together and being made like unto Him,The reference is to
2 Thess. ii. 1 and
1 John iii. 2. but persuade them to
hope for mean and passing enjoyments like the present in
the Kingdom of God, it is necessary that we also
should discuss the matter with our brother Nepos
as if he were still alive.
(2) So being in the district of Arsenoe, where, as
you know,It does not appear to whom Dionysius addressed this
treatise, but he usually did address what he wrote to some
particular person. this teaching prevailed long before, so
that both schisms and the defection of whole churches have occurred,
I called together the presbyters and teachersHere the two
offices are conjoined as in 1 Tim. v. 17.
The “teacher” as an officer of the Church is mentioned in
several of the early Church Orders. among the brethren in the
villages, such of the brethren as wished being also present, and
invited them publicly to make an examination of the
matter. And when some brought forward against
me this book as an impregnable weapon and bulwark,
I sat with them three days in succession from dawn
till evening and tried to correct the statements made.
During which time I was much struck with the steadiness,
the desire for truth, the aptness in following
an argument and the intelligence displayed by the
brethren, whilst we put our questions and difficulties
and points of agreement in an orderly and reasonable
manner, avoiding the mistake of holding jealously at
any cost to what we had once thought, even though
it should now be shown to be wrong, and yet not suppressing
what we had to say on the other side, but, as
far as possible, attempting to grapple with and master
the propositions in hand without being ashamed to
change one’s opinion and yield assent if the argument
convinced us; conscientiously and unfeignedly, with
hearts spread open before God, accepting what was
established by the exposition and teaching of the
holy Scriptures.
At last the champion and mouthpiece of this doctrine, the man
called Coracion,Nothing more is known of him: either he
had succeeded to the leadership since the death of Nepos, or on
this particular occasion took the lead. in the hearing of
all the brethren that were present agreed and testified
to us that he would no longer adhere to it nor discourse
upon it nor yet mention nor teach it, on the
ground that he had been convinced by what had been
said against it. And of the rest of the brethren some
rejoiced at the conference and the reconciliation and
harmonious arrangement which was brought about
by it between all parties.
(3) Certain peopleThe allusion is probably to Gaius of Rome
and his school rather than to the Alogi, as they were called, of
the East; but both these bodies were strongly opposed to Millenarian
views. therefore before now discredited
and altogether repudiated the book, both examining
it chapter by chapter and declaring it unintelligible
and inconclusive and that it makes a false statement in its
title.If this refers to a formal division into chapters,
it disappeared afterwards, for a new division was devised in the
sixth century, on which our present system is partly based.
For they say it is not John’s, no nor yet a
“Revelation,” because of the heavy, thick veil of
obscurity which covers it:Dionysius plays here on the meaning
of the Greek word for Revelation,
ἀποκάλυψις,
“unveiling.” He is fond of such a device.
and not only is the author of this book not one of the Apostles
but he is not even one of the saints nor a churchman at
all;If that is the meaning of the words employed, then
“saints”
(ἅγιοι)
is not used in its New Testament sense for the
“faithful” generally, but a distinction is made more
like the later use of the word for those who attained higher
saintliness than the rest; but perhaps the phrase for
“churchmen” implies “clerical or ecclesiastical
persons,” and “saints” has its earlier sense.
it is Cerinthus,Cerinthus was the earliest exponent of Gnostic
views, and as such much abhorred by St. John the Apostle.
the founder of the heresy that was called Cerinthian from him, and
he desired to attribute his own composition to a name that would
carry weight. For the substance of his teaching was this, that
Christ’s Kingdom will be on earth, and he dreams
that it will be concerned with things after which he
himself, being fond of bodily pleasures and very
sensual, hankered, such as the satisfying of his
belly and lower lusts, that is eating and drinking and
marrying and such means as he thought would provide
him more decorously with these pleasures, feasts
and sacrifices and the slaying of victims. I should not
myself venture to reject the book, seeing that many
brethren hold it in high esteem, but, reckoning the
decision about it to be beyond my powers of mind, I
consider the interpreting of its various contents to be
recondite and matter for much wonder. For without
fully understanding, I yet surmise that some deeper
meaning underlies the words, not measuring and judging them
by calculations of my own; but giving the preference to
faith,i. e. reckoning that it is a matter where
faith rather than reason should act; or perhaps the translation
should be “giving more weight to (the author’s)
trustworthiness.” I have come to the conclusion
that they are too high for me to comprehend, and so
I do not reject what I have not taken in, but can only
wonder at these visions which I have not even seen
(much less understood).
(4) So having completed practically the whole prophecy, the
prophetThis title is to be noticed, as the author himself
never actually describes himself by it. Dionysius is much more
cautious as to the authorship than Origen, his former master,
who attributed the book to St. John the Evangelist without
hesitation, according to Eusebius,
H. E. vi. 25, 9.
pronounces a blessing on
those who keep it and indeed on himself also: for
“blessed,” saith he, “is he that observeth the words
of the prophecy of this book and I John who saw and
heard these things.”Rev. xxii. 7, 8:
but Dionysius has no authority for
joining the latter clause on to the former, its construction
being “it is I John who saw and heard.”
That he was called John, therefore,
and that the writing is John’s I will not dispute.
For I agree that it is the work of some holy and inspired
person but I should not readily assent to his
being the Apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of
James, whose is the Gospel entitled “According to
John” and the General Epistle.i. e. the
First Epistle of St. John; the second and third
were not so described at first and rightly so.
For I conclude that he is not the same (1) from the character
of each, (2) from the style of the language and (3) from what
may be called the arrangement of the book. For the
Evangelist nowhere inserts his name nor yet proclaims
himself either in the Gospel or in the Epistle....
(5) But John nowhere speaks either in the first or
in the third person about himself, whereas he that
wrote the Revelation straightway at the beginning
puts himself forward: “The Revelation of Jesus
Christ, which he gave him to show to his servants speedily,
and he sent and signified (it) by his angel to his servant John
who bare witness of the word of God and of his testimony, even of
all things that he saw.”Rev. i. 1, 2.
One might almost think Dionysius was quoting from memory, for he
follows no extant text in omitting “God” before
“gave” (thus making Jesus Christ the subject and
“him” = “to John”) and “the things
which must come to pass” before “speedily”: also he
substitutes “his testimony” for “the testimony of
Jesus Christ,” though “his” still = “Jesus
Christ.”
Then he also writes an Epistle: “John to the
seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and
peace.”Rev. i. 4.
Whereas the Evangelist did not put his name even at
the head of the Catholic Epistle but began with the mystery of
the Divine revelationDionysius seems to contrast the
“Divine revelation” of
the Epistle which we can trust with that of the Book so-called
about which he felt less sure. without any superfluous
words: “That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes.”1 John i. 1.
For it is over this revelation that the Lord also pronounced
Peter blessed, saying: “Blessed art thou Simon bar Jona,
because flesh and blood did not reveal it to thee, but my heavenly
Father.”Matt. xvi. 17. Dionysius
substitutes the adjective “heavenly” for “which
is in heaven.” Nay, even in the second and third extant
Epistles of John, short
though they are, John does not appear by name but
he writes himself “the elder” anonymously. Whereas
our author did not even consider it sufficient to
mention himself by name once and then proceed with
his subject, but he repeats the name again, “I John,
your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation
and kingdom and in the patience of Jesus, was in the
isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and the
testimony of Jesus.”Rev. i. 9.
Here again the text is somewhat inaccurate “in the patience
of Jesus” having no support elsewhere. In fact, at
the end also he says this: “Blessed is he that observeth
the words of the prophecy of this book and I John who saw and
heard these things.”Rev. xxii. 7.
See note on p. 86, above.
That he which wrote these things, therefore, is John, we must
believe as he says so: but which John is not clear. For he does not
say, as in many places in the Gospel, that he is the
disciple beloved of the Lord, nor the one that reclined
on His breast, nor yet the brother of James, nor yet
the one that was the eyewitness and hearer of the
Lord. Surely he would have used one of the aforesaid
descriptions, when desirous of clearly identifying
himself. And yet he does nothing of the kind, but
calls himself our brother and partaker with us, and
witness of Jesus and blessed for the seeing and hearing
of the revelations. I suppose that many bore the
same name as John the Apostle, who by reason of
their love towards him and from their admiration
and emulation of him and desire to be loved by the
Lord like him, were glad to bear the same name with
him, even as many a one among the children of the faithful is
called Paul or Peter.It would seem likely, but by no means
certain, that Dionysius is speaking of strictly baptismal names
here. We have very slight grounds for being sure that the custom of
connecting the giving of a name at baptism was universal as
early as this. There is then another
John also in the Acts of the Apostles, the one called Mark whom
Barnabas and Paul took with them and of whom it says again:
“And they had John as their attendant.”See
Acts xii. 25 and
xiii. 5.
But as to whether he is the
writer, I should say no. For it is not written that
he arrived in Asia with them, but “Paul and his company,”
it says, “set sail from Paphos and came to
Perga in Pamphylia; and John departed from them
and returned to Jerusalem.”Ibid.,
xiii. 13.
And I think there was yet another among those who were in Asia,
since they say there were two tombs in Ephesus and each of them
are said to be the tomb of John.This assertion is taken
almost verbatim from
Eus., H. E. iii. 39,
where a passage is also quoted from Papias in which
John the Elder is mentioned as well as John the Apostle
among the Lord’s disciples.
Again, from the thoughts and from the actual words and their
arrangement this John may be reasonably reckoned different from
the other.This is the second argument which Dionysius adduces,
but he seems as if he now includes the third with it. See above.
For the Gospel and the Epistle agree with each other and begin in a
similar way. The one says “In the beginning was
the Word:” and the other “That which was from the
beginning.” The one says “And the Word became
flesh and tabernacled in us, and we beheld his glory,
glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father:”
the other uses the same or almost equivalent expressions,
“That which we have heard, that which we
have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld and
our hands handled concerning the Word of Life, and
the Life was manifested.”John i. 1,
and 1 John i. 1, 2.
For he starts in this way
because he is dealing, as he shows in what follows,
with those who say that the Lord has not come in the
flesh.Cf. 1 John iv. 2.
For which reason he is careful to add also:
“And we have seen and bear witness and announce
unto you the eternal Life which was with the Father
and was manifested unto us. That which we have
seen and heard we announce also unto you.”Ibid.,
i. 2, 3. He
is consistent with himself and does not diverge from
his own propositions, but treats them throughout
under the same heads and in the same terms,
of which we will briefly recall; for instance, the attentive
reader will find in each book frequent mention of
the Life, the Light, the turning from darkness,It
looks as if this phrase may be a marginal gloss on
the Light, which has crept into the text, as it occurs nowhere
in the writings of St. John nor elsewhere in the New Testament;
but the same might be said of the “adoption” below,
and one or two others of the other phrases are quite rare in St.
John’s writings, so that they may be all instances of the
thoughts, not the words being identical in the two books.
constant reference to the Truth, Grace, Joy, the Flesh and
the Blood of the Lord, the Judgment, the Forgiveness
of sins, the Love of God towards us, the command to
us to love one another and that we must keep all the
commandments: again there is the conviction of the
world, of the devil, of the antichrist, God’s adoption
of us as Sons, the Faith, which is everywhere required
of us, the Father and the Son everywhere:
and generally throughout in describing the character
of the Gospel and the Epistle one and the same complexion
is to be observed in both. But the Revelation
is quite different from them, foreign, out of touch
and affinity with them, not having, one might almost
say, one syllable in common. The Epistle contains no
reminiscence nor subject dealt with in the Revelation
nor the Revelation in the Epistle (to say nothing
of the Gospel), whereas Paul in his Epistles did give
some indication even about those revelations which he has not
actually described.The reference is to such passages as
2 Cor. xii. 1 ff.,
Gal. i. 12,
ii. 2, etc.
And yet once more one can estimate the difference between the
Gospel and Epistle and the RevelationThis is the third
argument.
from the literary style. For the first two books are
not only written in irreproachable Greek, but are
also most elegant in their phrases, reasonings and
arrangements of expression. No trace can be found
in them of barbarous words, faulty construction or
peculiarities in general. For St. John seems to have
possessed both words, the Lord having graciously
vouchsafed them to him; viz. both the word and knowledge of the
word of speech.A rather forced and fanciful statement.
Dionysius appears loosely to refer to
1 Cor. xii. 8, somewhat boldly
substituting “of speech”
(τῆς φράσεως)
for St. Paul’s “of wisdom.” That this John
had seen a Revelation and received knowledge and the gift of
prophecy,Cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 6 and 8.
I do not deny, but I observe his
dialect and inaccurate Greek style, which employs
barbaric idioms and sometimes even faulty constructions,
which it is not now necessary to expose. For
I have not mentioned this in order to scoff, let no one
think so, but simply to point out the dissimilarity of
the writings.
“On Nature”
(Eus., Præp. Evang. xiv. 23-7)
(1) How shall we bear with them when they say
that the wise and, for that reason, the good
productions of Creation are the results of chance
coincidences?i. e. the results not of design but of
the fortuitous intersection of lines of causation. Each of
which as it came into being by itself appeared to Him that ordered
it to be good and all of them together equally so.
For God “saw,” it says, “all things that he had
made, and behold they were very
good.”Gen. i. 31. And yet
they take no warning from the small, ordinary instances at their
feet, from which they may learnThe argument appears to be
that, as on a small scale design is “evident in the
construction or repairing of a thing but is absent in its
decay,” so the orderly creation and maintenance of the
Universe on the large scale implies intelligent direction.
that no necessary and profitable work is produced
without design or haphazard, but is adapted to its
proper purpose by handiwork, whereas when it falls
into a useless and unprofitable state, it then breaks
up and comes to pieces indefinite, and, as it chances,
because the wisdom which was concerned in its
construction no longer superintends and directs it.
For a garment is not woven by the woof standing up
without a weaver, nor yet by the warp weaving itself
of its own accord: but when it is becoming worn out,
the torn rags fall asunder. And a house or a city is
built not by receiving certain stones which volunteer
for the foundations and others which jump into the
courses of the walls, but because the builder brings
the stones that fit in the proper order: but when the
building is thrown down, each stone falls to the
ground just as it may. So, too, when a ship is being
built, the keel does not set itself below, while the
mast raises itself in the middle and each of the other
timbers takes the place which it chances to of itself.
Nor, again, do the planks of a wagon—said to be
100Hesiod (Works and Days, 554) is meant, but of course
100 stands here, as elsewhere, for an indefinitely large number. in number—become fixed in the position which
each found empty; but the builder in each case puts
the timber together suitably. But if the ship, when
it went upon the sea, or the wagon, when it was
driven along on land, comes to pieces, the timbers are
scattered wherever it may happen—in the one case
by the waves, in the other by the violent rush.
In the same way it would befit them to say that
the atoms also which are inoperative when they are
at rest and not worked by hands, are also useless when they move
at random.The point is that movement which is useful suggests
design: but as the movement of the atoms is without
design, it cannot be useful. For let these opponents
of ours look to these viewless atoms of theirs and
apply their minds to these mindless ones, not like
the Psalmist who confesses that this was revealed
to him by God alone: “Mine eyes beheld thy unfinished
work.”Ps. cxxxviii. (cxxxix.) 16. Dionysius quotes the best text
here of LXX, but his application is rather obscure. Apparently
he means that the Epicureans claimed to know without
either revelation or research what the Psalmist knew only
by revelation from God. So, too, when they say that those
fine webs which they speak of as being produced from
atoms, are self-wrought by them without skill or
sensation, who can bear to hear of these weaver
atoms whom even the spider excels in skill when he spins his web
out of himself.Dionysius says that even the spider has more
notion of design than the atoms, but the sarcasm is not quite to the
point.
(2) Who, then, is it that discriminates between
the atoms, gathering or scattering them, and arranging
some in this way to make the sun and others in
that way for the moon, and putting each of them
together according to the light-giving power of each
star? For the particular number and kind that made
the sun by being united in a particular way would
never have condescended to produce the moon, nor
would the intertwinings of the moon atoms have ever
become the sun. Moreover, even Arcturus, bright
as he is, would never plume himself on having the
atoms of Lucifer, nor the Pleiads those of Orion.
For Paul has well distinguished when he says: “There
is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon,
and another glory of the stars: for star differeth from
star in glory.”1 Cor. xv. 41.
And if the combination of the atoms,
as being soulless, was unintelligent, they needed an
intelligent artist to put them together: and if their
junction was without purpose and the result of
necessity, they being void of reason, some wise
herdsman drove them together and presided over
them: and if they have been linked together voluntarily
to do willing service, some wonderful master-craftsman
assigned them their parts and took the
lead; or, like an expert general, he did not leave his
army disordered and all in a muddle, but disposed
the cavalry in one part and the heavy armed troops
apart, and the javelin men by themselves and the
slingers where they ought to be, in order that
those who carried the same weapon might help
one another. And if they think this illustration
ridiculous because in it I make a comparison of
great bodies with small, we will come down to the
very smallest.
(3) If the atoms have no ruler over them, to speak
to them or to choose or to arrange them, but they
move, settling themselves of their own accord out of
the big rushing tumult and producing a big uproar
as they clash together, like coming to like without the Divine
intervention of which the poet speaks,“God ever brings
like to like.”—Homer, Od. xvii. 218,
a proverb quoted both by Plato and Aristotle.
and if they run and herd together, recognizing their
kinsfolk, truly the republic of the atoms is a marvellous
one, friends greeting and embracing one another
and hasting to take up their abode in one habitation:
some have rounded themselves off spontaneously into
the sun, that mighty orb, that they may produce the day, and some
perchance have flared up into the many pyramidsDionysius is
probably thinking of Plato’s Timæus 56B,
where the pyramid is said to be the geometrical shape of fire
which is the principal constituent of the bodies of the stars
(Professor H. Jackson). of stars that they may encircle
the whole expanse of sky, while others are ranged around it,
in order that they may—albeit undesignedly—form
the firmamentDionysius is here referring to such a passage as
Gen. i. 6 ff. No doubt the ancients thought the
vault of heaven was solid, enclosing the atmosphere which covers the
earth, and that the stars were either fixed upon it or moved in
their courses on its surface. and arch the atmosphere over for
the graduated ascent of the stars, and that the confederation
of these helter-skelter atoms may choose
their abodes and apportion the sky as homes and
stations for themselves.
(4) So far are these deniers of Divine Providence
from comprehending the invisible parts of the universe
that they do not even see what is visible. For
they appear not even to consider the ordered risings
and settings of the sun, conspicuous though they be,
let alone those of the other heavenly bodies; nor
yet to appreciate the assistance thus given to mankind
through them, the day being lighted up for
work and the night being darkened for rest. For
man shall go forth, it says, to his work and his labour until the
evening.Ps. civ. 23.
But they do not even take note of its otheri. e. the
sun’s yearly (as opposed to its daily) course.
revolution, by which it brings
about the fixed times and fair seasons and the regular
winter and summer solstices, under guidance of its
component atoms. Yet however much these poor creatures dislike it,
it is as the righteous“The righteous” here is a
very unusual equivalent for “the Christians”: it is
possible, however, that the translation
is: “however much these men disagree, being but poor creatures,
though righteous enough in their own estimate.”
believe: Great is the Lord that made him: and at His word he hasteneth
his course.Ecclus. xliii. 5.
Do atoms, ye blind, bring
you winter and rains, in order that the earth may
produce food for you and all the animals upon it?
do they introduce summer that ye may receive for
your enjoyment the fruits of the trees also? then
why do you not bow down and sacrifice to the atoms
that are the guardians of earth’s fruits? ungrateful
truly ye are, never offering them the smallest
firstfruits of the many gifts ye have from them.
(5) The many-tribed and much-mixed populace of
the stars which the much-roving and ever-scattered
atoms composed have (they say) apportioned among
themselves their places according to agreement,
setting up, as it were, a colony or a community,The idea is
of some stars being solitary, like a Greek or Roman colony
(ἀποικία)
with a constitution of its own, and
of others grouping themselves into constellations or communities
(συνοικία).
The colony had a founder
(οἰκιστής),
the community or household would have some sort of controller
(οἰκοδεσπότης).
without any founder or controller taking the lead
over them: and they observe the duties of neighbourliness
to one another by compact and peacably, not
transgressing the original bounds which they accepted,
as if they were under the jurisdiction of such atoms
as had regal power. But the atoms do not rule; how could they,
being of no account? Nay, listen to the Divine announcement
(λόγια):
“In the judgment of the Lord are his works from the beginning;
and from the making of them he disposed the parts thereof. He
garnished his works for ever and the beginnings of them unto their
generation.”Ecclus. xvi. 26 f.
(6) What well-ordered phalanx ever traversed an
earthly plain, no one stepping in front of others, nor
falling out of the ranks, nor obstructing his comrades,
nor falling behind them, in the way that the stars
advance ever in regular order, shield locked in shield—that
continuous, unwavering, unencumbered and unembarrassed host? Yet
certain obscure deviations (we are told) arise among them through
clashings and sideward motions:The natural motion of atoms
was downwards, but there was also a slight sideward motion, and when
they impinged a motion upwards by blows and tossings, and this
produced the shape of things. But Dionysius here says, how is that
theory consistent with the orderly march of the stars?
and that they who devote themselves to their study can always tell
the seasons and foresee the positions at which they will rise. Let,
then, these cuttersDionysius here plays on the derivation of
ἄτομοι,
from
τέμνειν
(= to cut). of the uncuttable and dividers
of the indivisible and combiners of the uncombined
and discerners of the infinite tell us by what means
occurs the encompassing journey round the heavens
in company? it cannot be because a single combination
of atoms has been without purpose hurled as
from a sling in this way, seeing that the whole encircling
band goes on its regular rhythmic way and
whirls around together; by what means those multitudinous
fellow-voyagers proceed in company albeit
they are without arrangement or purpose and unknown
to one another? Well did the prophet
include amongst things impossible and undemonstrable
that two strangers should run in company:
Shall two walk at all together, he says, unless they are
acquainted?Amos iii. 3 (LXX).
The A.V. and R.V. give the more exact meaning “agreed” to
the last word.
(7) (That to work is not toilsome to God.)
To work and to administer and to benefit and to
provide and the like are perchance vexatious to the
idle and thoughtless and feeble and iniquitous, amongst
whom Epicurus enrolled himself, when he conceived
such ideas about the gods. But to the earnest and
capable and intelligent and sober-minded, such as
those who love wisdom (or philosophers) ought to be
(and how much more the gods?), they are not only
not unpleasing and irksome but rather most delightful
and of all things most agreeable; for negligence
and delay in doing something useful is a reproach to them, as the
poetHesiod, Works and Days, iv. 408 and 411.
warns them,Viz. the heathen, to whom the poets were to some
extent what the prophets are to us Christians. when he
counsels: “Put not off till the morrow,” and further
threatens them: “He that procrastinates hath ever to struggle
against disasters,” while the
prophetJer. xlviii. 10.
instructs us still more solemnly when he says that virtuous deeds
are truly godlike, but he that despises them is
detestable: “for,” saith he, “cursed be he that
doeth the works of the Lord negligently.” Consequently,
while those who are untaught in any craft and are
imperfect from want of practice and familiarity with
the processes do find toil involved in their endeavours,
those who make progress in it, and still more those
who have reached perfection, are cheered by their
easy success in what they aim at, and would rather
accomplish and bring to completion the tasks they
are accustomed to than have all the good things of
mankind. At all events, Democritus himself, so
they say, used to maintain that he would rather
discover a single reason for a fact than gain the
Persian kingdom;The happiness of the King of Persia was
proverbial: see Hor., Od. ii. 12, 21, iii. 9, 4.
and that though he seeks his reasons so vainly and unreasonably,
starting as it were from a void beginning and a roving hypothesis
and not observing that fundamental NecessityBy
“Necessity” here Dionysius means not “Fate” in
the fatalist’s sense, but that supreme Will and Purpose of
God, which is opposed to the Epicurean doctrine of chance.
which is common to the nature of things existent, but considering
his conception of senseless and mindless
contingencies to be the highest wisdom of setting
up Chance as the mistress and queen of things universal
and even of things divine, and maintaining
that all things occur through her, and yet warning
her off from matters of human life and conduct and
accusing those who give her precedence there to be
devoid of judgment. At all events, at the beginning
of the “Precepts,”The title here given
(ὑποθῆκαι)
is not given in the list of Democritus’s works, but the
ὑπομνήματα ἠθικά
may be meant. he says: “Men have fashioned
the figure of Chance, as a cloke for their own folly:
for by nature chance fights against judgement.”
Thus they (the Epicureans) have said that this very
Chance, the great enemy of intelligence, yet has the
mastery over it; or, rather, by utterly uprooting
and abolishing the one, they set up the other in its
place: for they sing not of intelligence as happy, but
of chance as the equivalent of intelligence.It
is impossible to reproduce the play upon words here,
εὐτυχῆ τὴν φρόνησιν, ἐμφρονεστάτην τὴν τύχην.
The reference seems to be to such poetical passages as Soph.,
O. T. 977 ff., and Eur., Alc. 785 ff., where the practical wisdom
of leaving the future to take care of itself is extolled.
So, then, those who superintend works of beneficence
pride themselves in measures which advance the
interests of their kind, some as rearers of families,
some as directors of institutions, some as healers of
men’s bodies, some as ministers of state, yes, and
those who love wisdom (philosophers) and try hard
to instruct their fellows, likewise give themselves
great airs—unless Epicurus or Democritus will
venture to maintain that philosophizing is mere
vexation of spirit: but surely there is no pleasure
they would prefer to it. For even though they reckon pleasure
to be the absolute good, yet they will be ashamed to say that
to philosophize (seek wisdom) is not one of the higher forms
of pleasure.Epicurus himself contended that by
ἡδονή
(pleasure) he meant not sensual enjoyments so much as freedom
from pain of body and from disturbance of soul
(ἀταραξία),
the source of which was largely in the exercise of the mind and will:
see Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, pp. 473 ff.
And as to the gods, about whom the poets among
them sing as “givers of good gifts”The words quoted
(δωτῆρας ἐάων)
are a Homeric phrase, e. g. Od. viii. 325 and 335.
and these philosophers combine respect with banter,—the
gods neither give nor partake of any good things.
And in what manner do they find evidence that
gods exist? for they do not see them before their
eyes doing anything (even as those who admired
the sun and the moon and the stars said they were called gods
(θεοί)
because they run
(θέειν)
their course); nor do they attribute to them any creative
or constructive powers, in order that they make
them gods from the word
θεῖναι
(set, i. e. make):The derivation from
θέειν
is proposed by Plato, Cratyl. 397 C: that from
θεῖναι
by Herod, ii. 52, and of the two
the latter is the more likely
(√θε)
though Curtius suggests a root
θες
= to pray: see Peile, Introd. to Philology, p. 37
(3rd ed., 1875).
and on that ground the Maker and Creator of all
things is truly the only God; nor do they put forward
their management or jurisdiction or favours towards
men, in order that we may be induced to worship
them from motives of fear or reverence.
“Refutation and Defence”
(Eus., Præp. Evang. vii. 19)
(1) They are not pious, who hand over matter to
God as a thing without beginning for His orderly
disposition,These are probably some sort of Gnostics who took over
Manichean views of God and Matter, but not of the worst
kind, for they recognized that God had the control and
disposition of matter. maintaining that, being subject to
treatment and change, it yields to the modifications
imposed by God. For they should explain how
both the like and the unlike belong both to God and
to matter. For some one must be imagined superior
to either,Some one, i. e. who could give them the property of
being without beginning. and that may not be entertained about
God. For whence came it that there is in them both
the being without beginning, which is what is said to
be “like” in both and which is also conceived of
as different from both?“Different from both,”
because the being without beginning is not of the very essence of
both. See further on. For if God is of Himself
without beginning and the being without beginning
is, as some would say, His very essence, matter will
not be without beginning, too: for matter and God
are not identical. But, if each is what it is independently,
and to both belongs in addition the property
of being without beginning, it is clear that the being
without beginning is different from either and older
and higher than both. And thus the difference
between their opposing states is entirely subversive of
their co-existence, or rather of the one, viz. matter
existing of itself. Otherwise let them state the
reason why, both being without beginning, God is
not subject to treatment, unchangeable, immovable,
productive, and matter is the opposite, subject to
treatment, changeable, mobile, varying.
Again, how is it that God and matter came in
contact and combined? Was it that God adapted
Himself to match the nature of matter and exercised
His craft upon it? Nay, that is absurd that God,
like men, should work in gold and stone and busy
Himself in the other handicrafts which the various materials can
give shape and form to.A curious expression, for which one
would have expected
the opposite statement, viz. that the handicrafts can shape
and form the materials they deal with rather than that the
materials give the necessary methods and designs to the
handicrafts which deal with them. Up to this point Dionysius
has been combating the view with which the extract begins.
The rest of the extract proceeds to show what amount of
truth there is in it.
But if God endowed matter with the qualities
which He in His own wisdom determined, impressing
on it as with a seal the multiform and diverse shape
and fashion of His own workmanship, this account
of it is both proper and true, and yet further proves
that God, who is the fundamental principle on which
the universe exists, is without beginning. For to
its being (according to them) without beginning
God add its bearing certain qualities. So, then,
there is still much to be said in answer to these views,
but we do not propose to say it now. Nevertheless
they are expressed with more propriety than those
who are absolutely atheistical polytheists.The reference here
is to Manichean views of the worst
kind, i. e. that matter is not only without beginning, but
the source of evil and altogether independent of God.
(2) (Athan., de sent. Dion., 18). However, when I
spoke of certain things that had an origin
(γενητά)
and certain things that were made
(ποιητά),
I did indeed casually mention examples of such things,
recognizing that they were not altogether useful for
my purpose: for instance, I said that neither was
the plant the same as the husbandman, nor the boat
as the shipwright. But afterwards I dwelt at length
on those which were more to the point and cognate
to the subject, and went more into detail about these
truer examples, seeking out various additional
evidences which I set out for youi. e. Dionysius of Rome,
to whom this treatise was addressed. This particular “other
letter” does not seem to have been known to Eusebius, and when
Athanasius quotes this extract in another of his treatises he omits
the words “to thee.” also in another
letter: and in them I refuted as false the accusation
also which they bring against me, as not stating
that Christ is of one substance
(ὁμοούσιος)Athanasius himself was sparing in his use of the term,
and the Synod of Antioch (A.D. 264) refused to accept it,
as liable to misconstruction. with
the Father. For even if I sayi. e. in the letter to
Euphranor (about Sabellianism in Libya) which had given rise to the
Bishop of Rome’s intervention. that this word is not
found nor read anywhere in Holy Writ, yet these
later attempts of mine to explain which they have
ignored are not inconsistent with this conception.
For I compared human generation, which is clearly
a transmission of the parents’ own nature
(ὁμογενής),
saying that the parents were different from their
children in this single point, that they were not
themselves the children: or else it must needs be
that neither parents nor children should exist. The
letter itself I cannot, as I have said before, owing
to circumstances,It looks as if Dionysius was in exile when
he wrote this.
See above, p. 19.
lay my hand on: otherwise I
would have sent you my exact words, or rather a
copy of the whole letter: and I will do so, if I have
the opportunity. But I know from memory that I
added several illustrations from things kindred to
one another: for instance, I said that a plant coming
up from a seed or a root was different from that
whence it sprang and yet was absolutely of one nature
(ὁμοφυές)
with it: and a river flowing from
a source partakes of a different shape and name;
for neither is the source called river nor the river
source, and both these things exist,i. e.
each of the two is itself and not the other, as was
said above in the case of parents and children.
and the source is, in a sense, the father and the river is the
water from the source. But these and similar remarks
they pretend never to have seen written, but act as
if they were blind. They only try to pelt me from
afari. e. they had gone or sent to Rome, in order
to attack him. with those poor ill-fitting phrases
of mineViz. about the plant and the ship, which he
has already apologized for as not quite appropriate.
as with stones, failing to recognize that where a
subject is obscure and requires to be brought within
our understanding, not only do diverse but even
quite contradictory illustrations convey the meaning
sought for.
(3) (Ibid., 17.)
It has been already said that God
is the Fountain of all good things: and the Son is
describedi. e. in Scripture, e. g.
in such passage as Wisd. vii. 25,
to which he refers in the next sentence.
as the stream flowing forth from Him.
For the Word is “the effluence” of mind, and, to
use human phraseology, is conveyed from the heart
through the mouth, i. e. the mind that finds expression
by means of the tongue, being differentiated
from the word in the heart. For the one having
sent it forth remains and is still what it was; but
the other being sent forth issues and is carried in
all directions: and thus each is in each, being
different one from the other: and they are one, being
two. And it was in this way that the Father and
the Son also were said to be one and in one another.Sc.
in Dionysius’s letter to Euphranor: cf.
John x. 30,
xvii. 11, 21, 22.
The extract on
p. 106
below deals with the same thought more fully. In both places
Dionysius’s language is based on Philo’s discussion of the
λόγος ἐνδιάθετος
and the
λόγος προφορικός
(the conceived and the expressed word), de vita Mosis,
p. 230, Cohn.
Each of the titles employed by me is indivisible
and inseparable from its neighbour. I spoke of the
Father, and before introducing the Son I implied
Him, too, in the Father. I introduced the Son:
even if I had not already mentioned the Father He
would, of course, have been presupposed in the Son.
I added the Holy Spirit: but at the same time I
intimated both from Whom and through Whomi. e. from
the Father and through the Son: Dionysius seems to
have derived this view of the Holy Spirit’s Procession
from his master, Origen, though he is thinking here
rather of the Mission of the Spirit into the Church and its
members than of the eternal and necessary relations of the
three Persons in the Holy Trinity to one another, as the
sentences that follow indicate.
He came. But they are not aware that the Father
is not separated from the Son qua Father—for the
title (Father) is suggestive of such connexion (as Son
with Father)—nor is the Son cut off from the Father;
for the appellation “Father” denotes their common
bond. And the Spirit is the object of their dealings,Lit. in their hands: a striking expression which Athanasius
borrows from Dionysius in his Exposition of the Faith.
being incapable of desertion by either Him that sends,
or Him that conveys. How then can I, who use
these titles, hold that They are wholly divided and
separated?This is what Dionysius of Rome had imputed to our
Dionysius, though without the word “wholly” he would not
have altogether discarded the position.
(4) (Ibid., 23). For, as our mind overflows with
speechΛόγος
is translated throughout this passage by “speech”
(i. e. uttered words), except in the last clause, where
it refers to the Son Himself and where it must be rendered by
“Word” as usual: but obviously “speech”
is only part of the full meaning of
λόγος.
The whole passage should be compared with the preceding extract.
of itself, as says the prophet: “My heart
overfloweth with good
speech,”Ps. xliv. (xlv.) 1:
here R.V. translates
λόγον ἀγαθόν,
“a goodly matter,” in accordance with A.V.
and each is diverse from the other, each occupying its proper place
distinct from the other, the one dwelling and moving in
the heart and the other on the tongue and in the
mouth, and yet they are not entirely unconnected
nor deprived of one another; the mind is not speechless,
nor the speech mindless, but the mind produces
the speech, revealing itself thereby; and the speech
shows the mind, having been gendered therein; the
mind is, as it were, the inlying speech and the speech
is the issuing mind; the mind is transferred into the
speech and the speech displaysThe word used
(ἐγκυκλεῖν)
suggests the scenic device of the
ἐγκύκλημα,
by which some kind of change of scene was brought on to the stage
in the Greek theatre: see Classical Dict., s.v.
the mind to the hearers; and thus the mind through the speech gains
a lodgment in the souls of those that hear, entering
together with the speech, and the mind is, as it were,
the father of the speech, having an independent
existence withal; and the speech is, as it were, the
son of the mind, being an impossibility prior to the
mind, yet brought into association with it from any
outside source, but springing from the mind; even
so the Father, who is the Almighty and Universal
Mind, has the Son, the Word as the Interpreter and
Messenger of Himself.