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Introductory Note
to
Dionysius, Bishop of
Alexandria.
————————————
[a.d.
200–265.] The great Origen had twin children in Gregory and
Dionysius. Their lives ran in parallel lines, and are said to
have ended on the same day; and nobly did they sustain the dignity and
orthodoxy of the pre-eminent school which was soon to see its bright
peculiar star in Athanasius. Dionysius is supposed to have been a
native of Alexandria, of heathen parentage, and of a family possessed
of wealth and honourable rank. Early in life he seems to have
been brought under the influence of certain presbyters; and a voice
seemed to speak to him in a vision607
encouraging him to “prove all things,
and hold fast that which is good.” We find him at the feet
of Origen a diligent pupil, and afterwards, as a presbyter, succeeding
Heraclas (a.d. 232) as the head of the school,
sitting in Origen’s seat. For about fifteen years he
further illuminated this illustrious chair; and then, in ripe years,
about a.d. 246, he succeeded Heraclas again as
bishop of Alexandria, at that time, beyond all comparison, the greatest
and the most powerful See of Christendom.
For a year or two he fed his flock in peace; but
then troubles broke in upon his people, even under the kindly reign of
Philip. Things grew worse, till under Decius the eighth
persecution was let loose throughout the empire. Like Cyprian,
Dionysius retired for a season, upon like considerations, but not until
he had been arrested and providentially delivered from death in a
singular manner. On returning to his work, he found the Church
greatly disturbed by the questions concerning the lapsed, with which
Cyprian’s history has made us acquainted. In the letter to
Fabius will be found details of the earlier persecution, and in that
against Germanus are interesting facts of his own experience. The
Epistle to the Alexandrians contains very full particulars of the
pestilence which succeeded these calamities; and it is especially
noteworthy as contrasting the humanity and benevolence of Christians
with the cruel and cowardly indifference of the pagans towards the
dying and the dead. Seditions and tumults followed, on which we
have our author’s reflections in the Epistle to Hierax, with not
a few animated touches of description concerning the condition of
Alexandria after such desolations. In the affair of Cyprian with
Stephen he stood by the great Carthaginian doctor, and maintained the
positions expressed in the letter of Firmilian.608
| 608 Vol. v.
p. 390, this series. | Wars, pestilences, and the
irruptions of barbarians, make up the history of the residue of the
period, through which Dionysius was found a “burning and a
shining light” to the Church; his great influence extending
throughout the East, and to the West also. I may leave the
residue of his story to the introductory remarks of the translator, and
to his valuable annotations, to which it will not be necessary for me
to add many of my own. But I must find room to express my
admiration for his character, which was never found wanting amid many
terrible trials of character and of faith itself. His pen was
never idle; his learning and knowledge of the Scriptures are apparent,
even in the fragments that have come down to us; his fidelity to the
traditions received from Origen and Heraclas are not less conspicuous;
and in all his dealings with his brethren of the East and West there
reigns over his conduct that pure spirit of the Gospel which proves
that the virgin-age of the
Church was not yet of the past. A beautiful moderation and
breadth of sympathy distinguish his episcopal utterances; and, great as
was his diocese, he seems equally devoid of prelatic pride and of that
wicked ambition which too soon after the martyr-ages proved the bane of
the Church’s existence. The following is the
Translator’s Introductory
Notice.
For our knowledge of the
career of this illustrious disciple of Origen we are indebted chiefly
to Eusebius, in the sixth and seventh books of his Historia
Ecclesiastica, and in the fourteenth book of his Præparatio
Evangelica.609
| 609
There are also passages, of larger or smaller extent, bearing
upon his life and his literary activity, in Jerome (De viris
illustr., ch. 69; and Præfatio ad Lib., xviii.,
Comment. in Esaiam), Athanasius (De Sententia Dionysii,
and De Synodi Nicænæ Decretis), Basil (De Spiritu
Sancto, ch. 29; Epist. ad Amphiloch., and Epist. ad
Maximum). Among modern authorities, we may refer specially to
the Dissertation on his life and writings by S. de Magistris, in the
folio edition issued under his care in Greek and Latin at Rome in 1796;
to the account given by Basnage in the Histoire de
l’Eglise, tome i. livre ii. ch. v. p. 68; to the complete
collection of his extant works in Gallandi’s Bibliotheca
Patrum, iii. p. 481, etc.; as well as to the accounts in
Cave’s Hist. Lit., i. p. 95, and elsewhere. | He appears to
have been the son of pagan parents; but after studying the doctrines of
various of the schools of philosophy, and coming under the influence of
Origen, to whom he had attached himself as a pupil, he was led to
embrace the Christian faith. This step was taken at an early
period, and, as he informs us, only after free examination and careful
inquiry into the great systems of heathen belief. He was made a
presbyter in Alexandria after this decision; and on the elevation of
Heraclas to the bishopric of that city, Dionysius succeeded him in the
presidency of the catechetical school there about a.d. 232. After holding that position for some
fifteen years Heraclas died, and Dionysius was again chosen to be his
successor; and ascending the episcopal throne of Alexandria about
a.d. 247 or 248, he retained that See till his
death in the year 265. The period of his activity as bishop was a
time of great suffering and continuous anxiety; and between the terrors
of persecution on the one hand, and the cares of controversy on the
other, he found little repose in his office. During the Decian
persecution he was arrested and hurried off by the soldiers to a small
town named Taposiris, lying between Alexandria and Canopus. But
he was rescued from the peril of that seizure in a remarkably
providential manner, by a sudden rising of the people of the rural
district through which he was carried. Again, however, he was
called to suffer, and that more severely, when the persecution under
Valerian broke out in the year 257. On making open confession of
his faith on this occasion he was banished, at a time when he was
seriously ill, to Cephro, a wild and barren district in Libya; and not
until he had spent two or three years in exile there was he enabled to
return to Alexandria, in virtue of the edict of Gallienus. At
various times he had to cope, too, with the miseries of pestilence and
famine and civil conflicts in the seat of his bishopric. In the
many ecclesiastical difficulties of his age he was also led to take a
prominent part. When the keen contest was waged on the subject of
the rebaptism of recovered heretics about the year 256, the matter in
dispute was referred by both parties to his judgment, and he composed
several valuable writings on the question. Then he was induced to
enter the lists with the Sabellians, and in the course of a lengthened
controversy did much good service against their tenets. The
uncompromising energy of his opposition to that sect carried him,
however, beyond the bounds of prudence, so that he himself gave
expression to opinions not easily reconcilable with the common orthodox
doctrine. For these he was called to account by Dionysius bishop
of Rome;610
| 610 [Not,
however, as an inferior, but as one bishop in those days remonstrated
with another, and as he himself remonstrated with Stephen. See
infra.] | and when a synod had
been summoned to consider the case, he promptly and humbly acknowledged
the error into which his precipitate zeal had drawn him. Once
more, he was urged to give his help in the difficulty with Paul of
Samosata. But as the burden of years and infirmities made it
impossible for him to attend the synod convened at Antioch in 265 to
deal with that troublesome heresiarch, he sent his opinion on the
subject of discussion in a letter to the council, and died soon after,
towards the close of the same year. The responsible duties
of his bishopric had been
discharged with singular faithfulness and patience throughout the
seventeen eventful years during which he occupied the office.
Among the ancients he was held in the highest esteem both for personal
worth and for literary usefulness; and it is related that there was a
church dedicated to him in Alexandria. One feature that appears
very prominently in his character, is the spirit of independent
investigation which possessed him. It was only after candid
examination of the current philosophies that he was induced to become a
Christian; and after his adoption of the faith, he kept himself abreast
of all the controversies of the time, and perused with an impartial
mind the works of the great heretics. He acted on this principle
through his whole course as a teacher, pronouncing against such
writings only when he had made himself familiar with their contents,
and saw how to refute them. And we are told in Eusebius,611
| 611 Hist.
Eccl., viii. 7. | that when a certain presbyter once
remonstrated with him on this subject, and warned him of the injury he
might do to his own soul by habituating himself to the perusal of these
heterodox productions, Dionysius was confirmed in his purpose by a
vision and a voice which were sent him, as he thought, from heaven to
relieve him of all such fear, and to encourage him to read and prove
all that might come into his hand, because that method had been from
the very first the cause of faith to him. The moderation of his
character, again, is not less worthy of notice. In the case of
the Novatian schism, while he was from the first decidedly opposed to
the principles of the party, he strove by patient and affectionate
argumentation to persuade the leader to submit. So, too, in the
disputes on baptism we find him urgently entreating the Roman bishop
Stephen not to press matters to extremity with the Eastern Church, nor
destroy the peace she had only lately begun to enjoy. Again, in
the chiliastic difficulties excited by Nepos, and kept up by Coracion,
we see him assembling all the parochial clergy who held these opinions,
and inviting all the laymen of the diocese also to attend the
conference, and discussing the question for three whole days with all
these ministers, considering their arguments, and meeting all their
objections patiently by Scripture testimony, until he persuades
Coracion himself to retract, and receives the thanks of the pastors,
and restores unity of faith in his bishopric. On these occasions
his mildness, and benignity, and moderation stand out in bold relief;
and on others we trace similar evidences of his broad sympathies and
his large and liberal spirit. He was possessed also of a
remarkably fertile pen; and the number of his theological writings,
both formal treatises and more familiar epistles, was very
considerable. All these, however, have perished, with the
exception of what Eusebius and other early authors already referred to
have preserved. The most important of these compositions are the
following: 1. A Treatise on the Promises, in two books,
which was written against Nepos, and of which Eusebius has introduced
two pretty large extracts into the third and seventh books of his
History. 2. A Book on Nature, addressed to
Timotheus, in opposition to the Epicureans, of which we have some
sections in the Præpar. Evangel. of Eusebius. 3. A
Work against the Sabellians, addressed to Dionysius bishop of Rome,
in four books or letters, in which he deals with his own unguarded
statements in the controversy with Sabellius, and of which certain
portions have come down to us in Athanasius and Basil. In
addition to these, we possess a number of his epistles in whole or
part, and a few exegetical fragments. There is a Scholium in the
Codex Amerbachianus which may be given here:—It should be known
that this sainted Dionysius became a hearer of Origen in the fourth
year of the reign of Philip, who succeeded Gordian in the empire.
On the death of Heraclas, the thirteenth bishop of the church of
Alexandria, he was put in possession of the headship of that church;
and after a period of seventeen years, embracing the last three years
of the reign of Philip, and the one year of that of Decius, and the one
year of Gallus and Volusianus the son of Decius, and twelve years of
the reigns of Valerian and his son Gallus (Gallienus), he departed to
the Lord. And Basilides was bishop of the parishes in the
Pentapolis of Libya, as Eusebius informs us in the sixth and seventh
books of his Ecclesiastical History.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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