St. Dionysius of Alexandria: Letters and Treatises

105

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.

106

The 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.

107

Viz. under the impression that they were going to die.

108

i. e. after thus pledging ourselves to them.

109

Cf. 1 Pet. ii. 3, where Ps. xxxiii. (xxxiv.) 9 is quoted.

110

Cf. 1 Tim. iii. 7, etc.

111

The reference is to Luke xv. 4 ff. and Ezek. xxxiv. 6, etc.

112

Dionysius is thinking perhaps of the story in Tobit v. 6, where Raphael becomes the companion of Tobit’s son Tobias on his journey.

113

On 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.

114

The difficulties of soldiers becoming and remaining Christians were peculiarly great under the early Emperors.

115

That is, some had not yet been called upon to be actual martyrs, Dionysius among them who was still in exile.

116

Is. xlix. 8.

117

These 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.

118

This has already been described on p. 44.

119

Including Timotheus who had been the means of his escape.

120

A town on the coast 150 miles west of Alexandria.

121

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.

122

“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.

123

The epithet “perfect,” though applied to believers generally in the New Testament (Matt. v. 28, etc.), was later specially used of martyrs.

124

Gallus 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.

125

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.

126

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.

127

Here the expression means Christians generally, not prophets or clergy as often.

128

Alexander Severus and Philip the Arabian are no doubt meant.

129

Compare such expressions in S. Paul’s letters as Rom. xvi. 5, 1 Cor. xvi. 11, etc.

130

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.

131

Christian exorcists must be meant, though the claim to supernatural powers which Dionysius makes for them is sufficiently remarkable.

132

This was a frequent charge against the Christians themselves. Here Dionysius turns it against their persecutors in Egypt.

133

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.

134

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.

135

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.

136

Cf. Eph. iv. 6 and Col. i. 17.

137

Another play on words, as if Macrianus was derived from the Greek μακρός (far off), which is somewhat doubtful.

138

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.

139

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.

140

Ex. xx. 5.

141

The two Macriani were defeated and slain by Aureolus, another usurper, in Illyricum, and Quietus was put to death in the East.

142

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.

143

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.

144

Whether Gallienus himself was really a Christian is very doubtful, but his wife, Cornelia Salonina, seems to have been.

145

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.

146

Cf. 1 Cor. v. 8.

147

Exod. xii. 30.

148

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.

149

This epithet for martyrs has already occurred on p. 64.

150

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.

151

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.

152

Here again Dionysius uses an expression suggested by S. Paul in Phil. iii. 8.

153

It 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.

154

Cf. Ps. lxxvii. 13, cxxxvi. 4, and Wisd. xi. 4. The whole passage, of course, refers to Exod. xiv. and xvii.

155

Cf. Exod. vii. 20, 21.

156

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?

157

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.

158

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.”

159

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.

160

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.

161

The last sentence is involved and obscure. I am not sure that my paraphrase rightly expresses the thought.

162

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.

163

i. e. at 3 a.m. on Easter Day, the traditional hour of our Lord’s Resurrection, especially in the West.

164

i. e. at 6 p.m. on Easter Eve.

165

“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.

166

The four references are to Matt. xxviii. 1, John xx. 1, Luke xxiv. 1, and Mark xvi. 2.

167

Cf. John ix. 5, etc.

168

The Council in Trullo (A.D. 680) accepted this second meaning and consented to Dionysius’s ruling on the point raised without reserve.

169

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.

170

i. e. as on the former occasion mentioned by S. Matthew and S. Mark.

171

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.

172

Cf. Matt. xiv. 26.

173

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).

174

The 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.

175

Cf. 1 Pet. iii. 8 and Phil. ii. 20.

176

The expression comes from Acts xiii. 2, where, however, it describes a special act of worship rather than “ministering” in general.

177

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.

178

Or Dionysius may mean that he had encouraged the singing of the Psalms in service.

179

Cf. Tit. ii. 13, 2 Thess. ii. 8, etc.

180

The reference is to 2 Thess. ii. 1 and 1 John iii. 2.

181

It does not appear to whom Dionysius addressed this treatise, but he usually did address what he wrote to some particular person.

182

Here 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.

183

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.

184

The 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.

185

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.

186

Dionysius plays here on the meaning of the Greek word for Revelation, ἀποκάλυψις, “unveiling.” He is fond of such a device.

187

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.

188

Cerinthus was the earliest exponent of Gnostic views, and as such much abhorred by St. John the Apostle.

189

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.”

190

This 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.

191

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.”

192

i. e. the First Epistle of St. John; the second and third were not so described at first and rightly so.

193

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.”

194

Rev. i. 4.

195

Dionysius 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.

196

1 John i. 1.

197

Matt. xvi. 17. Dionysius substitutes the adjective “heavenly” for “which is in heaven.”

198

Rev. i. 9. Here again the text is somewhat inaccurate “in the patience of Jesus” having no support elsewhere.

199

Rev. xxii. 7. See note on p. 86, above.

200

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.

201

See Acts xii. 25 and xiii. 5.

202

Ibid., xiii. 13.

203

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.

204

This is the second argument which Dionysius adduces, but he seems as if he now includes the third with it. See above.

205

John i. 1, and 1 John i. 1, 2.

206

Cf. 1 John iv. 2.

207

Ibid., i. 2, 3.

208

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.

209

The reference is to such passages as 2 Cor. xii. 1 ff., Gal. i. 12, ii. 2, etc.

210

This is the third argument.

211

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.”

212

Cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 6 and 8.

213

i. e. the results not of design but of the fortuitous intersection of lines of causation.

214

Gen. i. 31.

215

The 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.

216

Hesiod (Works and Days, 554) is meant, but of course 100 stands here, as elsewhere, for an indefinitely large number.

217

The point is that movement which is useful suggests design: but as the movement of the atoms is without design, it cannot be useful.

218

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.

219

Dionysius says that even the spider has more notion of design than the atoms, but the sarcasm is not quite to the point.

220

1 Cor. xv. 41.

221

“God ever brings like to like.” – Homer, Od. xvii. 218, a proverb quoted both by Plato and Aristotle.

222

Dionysius 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).

223

Dionysius 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.

224

Ps. civ. 23.

225

i. e. the sun’s yearly (as opposed to its daily) course.

226

“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.”

227

Ecclus. xliii. 5.

228

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).

229

Ecclus. xvi. 26 f.

230

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?

231

Dionysius here plays on the derivation of ἄτομοι, from τέμνειν (= to cut).

232

Amos iii. 3 (LXX). The A.V. and R.V. give the more exact meaning “agreed” to the last word.

233

Hesiod, Works and Days, iv. 408 and 411.

234

Viz. the heathen, to whom the poets were to some extent what the prophets are to us Christians.

235

Jer. xlviii. 10.

236

The happiness of the King of Persia was proverbial: see Hor., Od. ii. 12, 21, iii. 9, 4.

237

By “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.

238

The title here given (ὑποθῆκαι) is not given in the list of Democritus’s works, but the ὑπομνήματα ἠθικά may be meant.

239

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.

240

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.