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| From the Two Books on the Promises.
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The Works of
Dionysius.
Extant Fragments.
————————————
Part I.—Containing Various
Sections of the Works.
————————————
I.—From the Two Books on the
Promises.612
| 612 In
opposition to Noëtus, a bishop in Egypt. Eusebius, Hist.
Eccl., vii. 24 and 25. Eusebius introduces this extract in
the following terms: “There are also two books of his on
the subject of the promises. The occasion of writing these was
furnished by a certain Nepos, a bishop in Egypt, who taught that the
promises which were given to holy men in the sacred Scriptures were to
be understood according to the Jewish sense of the same; and affirmed
that there would be some kind of a millennial period, plenished with
corporeal delights, upon this earth. And as he thought that he
could establish this opinion of his by the Revelation of John, he had
composed a book on this question, entitled Refutation of the
Allegorists. This, therefore, is sharply attacked by
Dionysius in his books on the Promises. And in the first of these
books he states his own opinion on the subject; while in the second he
gives us a discussion on the Revelation of John, in the introduction to
which he makes mention of Nepos.” [Of this Noëtus, see
the Philosophumena, vol. v., this series.] |
————————————
1. But as they
produce a certain composition by Nepos,613
| 613 As it is
clear from this passage that this work by Dionysius was written against
Nepos, it is strange that, in his preface to the eighteenth book of his
Commentaries on Isaiah, Jerome should affirm it to have been composed
against Irenæus of Lyons. Irenæus was certainly of the
number of those who held millennial views, and who had been persuaded
to embrace such by Papias, as Jerome himself tells us in the
Catalogus and as Eusebius explains towards the close of
the third book of his History. But that this book by
Dionysus was written not against Irenæus but against Nepos, is
evident, not only from this passage in Eusebius, but also from Jerome
himself, in his work On Ecclesiastical Writers, where he speaks
of Dionysius.—Vales. [Compare (this
series, infra) the comments of Victorinus of Petau for a
Western view of the millennial subject.] | on which they insist very strongly, as if
it demonstrated incontestably that there will be a (temporal) reign of
Christ upon the earth, I have to say, that in many other respects I
accept the opinion of Nepos, and love him at once for his faith, and
his laboriousness, and his patient study in the Scriptures, as also for
his great efforts in psalmody,614
| 614
τῆς
πολλῆς
ψαλμῳδίας.
Christophorsonus interprets this of psalms and hymns composed by
Nepos. It was certainly the practice among the ancient Christians
to compose psalms and hymns in honour of Christ. Eusebius bears
witness to this in the end of the fifth book of his
History. Mention is made of these psalms in the Epistle of
the Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata, and in the penultimate
canon of the Council of Laodicea, where there is a clear prohibition of
the use of ψαλμοὶ
ἰδιωτικοί in the
church, i.e., of psalms composed by private individuals. For this
custom had obtained great prevalence, so that many persons composed
psalms in honour of Christ, and got them sung in the church. It
is psalms of this kind, consequently, that the Fathers of the Council
of Laodicea forbid to be sung thereafter in the church, designating
them ἰδιωτικοί, i.e.,
composed by unskilled men, and not dictated by the Holy Spirit.
Thus is the matter explained by Agobardus in his book De ritu
canendi psalmos in Ecclesia.—Vales. [See vol. v., quotation from
Pliny.] | by
which even now many of the brethren are delighted. I hold the
man, too, in deep respect still more, inasmuch as615
| 615
ταυτῆ
μᾶλλον ᾗ
προανεπαύσατο: it may mean, perhaps, for the way in which he has gone to
his rest before us. | he has gone to his rest before us.
Nevertheless the truth is to be prized and reverenced above all things
else. And while it is indeed proper to praise and approve
ungrudgingly anything that is said aright, it is no less proper to
examine and correct anything which may appear to have been written
unsoundly. If he had been present then himself, and had been
stating his opinions orally, it would have been sufficient to discuss
the question together without the use of writing, and to endeavour to
convince the opponents, and carry them along by interrogation and
reply. But the work is published, and is, as it seems to some, of
a very persuasive character; and there are unquestionably some
teachers, who hold that the law and the prophets are of no importance,
and who decline to follow the Gospels, and who depreciate the epistles
of the apostles, and who have also made large promises616
| 616
κατεπαγγελλομένων,
i.e., diu ante promittunt quam tradunt. The metaphor
is taken from the mysteries of the Greeks, who were wont to promise
great and marvellous discoveries to the initiated, and then kept them
on the rack by daily expectation, in order to confirm their judgment
and reverence by such suspense in the conveyance of knowledge, as
Tertullian says in his book Against the
Valentinians.—Vales. [Vol. iii.
p. 503.] | regarding the doctrine of this composition,
as though it were some great and hidden mystery, and who, at the same
time, do not allow that our simpler brethren have any sublime and
elevated conceptions either of our Lord’s appearing in His glory
and His true divinity, or of our own resurrection from the dead, and of
our being gathered together to Him, and assimilated to Him, but, on the
contrary, endeavour to lead them to hope617
| 617 Reading
ἐλπίζειν
ἀναπειθόντων
for ἐλπιζόμενα
πειθόντων, with
the Codex Mazarin. | for things which are trivial and
corruptible, and only such as what we find at present in the kingdom of
God. And since this is the case, it becomes necessary for us to
discuss this subject with our brother Nepos just as if he were
present.
2. After certain other matters, he adds
the following statement:—Being then in the
Arsinoitic618
| 618
ἐν μὲν οὖν τῷ
᾽Αρσενοείτῃ.
In the three codices here, as well as in Nicephorus and Ptolemy, we
find this scription, although it is evident that the word should be
written ᾽Αρσινοειτῃ
, as the district took its name from Queen Arsinoe.—Vales. |
prefecture—where, as you are aware, this doctrine was current long ago, and caused
such division, that schisms and apostasies took place in whole
churches—I called together the presbyters and the teachers among
the brethren in the villages, and those of the brethren also who wished
to attend were present. I exhorted them to make an investigation
into that dogma in public. Accordingly, when they had brought
this book before us, as though it were a kind of weapon or impregnable
battlement, I sat with them for three days in succession from morning
till evening, and attempted to set them right on the subjects
propounded in the composition. Then, too, I was greatly gratified
by observing the constancy of the brethren, and their love of the
truth, and their docility and intelligence, as we proceeded, in an
orderly method, and in a spirit of moderation, to deal with questions,
and difficulties, and concessions. For we took care not to press,
in every way and with jealous urgency, opinions which had once been
adopted, even although they might appear to be correct.619
| 619
εἱ καὶ
φαίνοιντο.
There is another reading, εἱ
καὶ μὴ
φαίνοιντο,
although they might not appear to be correct.
Christophorsonus renders it: ne illis quæ fuerant
ante ab ipsis decreta, si quidquam in eis veritati repugnare videretur,
mordicus adhærerent præcavebant. | Neither did we evade objections
alleged by others; but we endeavoured as far as possible to keep by the
subject in hand, and to establish the positions pertinent to it.
Nor, again, were we ashamed to change our opinions, if reason convinced
us, and to acknowledge the fact; but rather with a good conscience, and
in all sincerity, and with open hearts620
| 620
ἡπλωμέναις
ταῖς
καρδίαις.
Christophorsonus renders it, puris erga Deum ac simplicibis
animis; Musculus gives, cordibus ad Deum expansis; and
Rufinus, patefactis cordibus. [The picture here given of a
primitive synod searching the Scriptures under such a presidency, and
exhibiting such tokens of brotherly love, mutual subordination (1 Pet.
v. 5), and a prevailing love of the truth, is to me one of the most
fascinating of patristic sketches. One cannot but reflect upon
the contrast presented in every respect by the late Council of the
Vatican.] | before God, we accepted all that could be
established by the demonstrations and teachings of the Holy
Scriptures. And at last the author and introducer of this
doctrine, whose name was Coracion, in the hearing of all the brethren
present, made acknowledgment of his position, and engaged to us that he
would no longer hold by his opinion, nor discuss it, nor mention it,
nor teach it, as he had been completely convinced by the arguments of
those opposed to it. The rest of the brethren, also, who were
present, were delighted with the conference, and with the conciliatory
spirit and the harmony exhibited by all.
3. Then, a little further on, he speaks
of the Revelation of John as follows:—Now some before our
time have set aside this book, and repudiated it entirely, criticising
it chapter by chapter, and endeavouring to show it to be without either
sense or reason. They have alleged also that its title is false;
for they deny that John is the author. Nay, further, they hold
that it can be no sort of revelation, because it is covered with so
gross and dense a veil of ignorance. They affirm, therefore, that
none of the apostles, nor indeed any of the saints, nor any person
belonging to the Church, could be its author; but that
Cerinthus,621
| 621 This
passage is given substantially by Eusebius also in book iii. c. 28. | and the heretical
sect founded by him, and named after him the Cerinthian sect, being
desirous of attaching the authority of a great name to the fiction
propounded by him, prefixed that title to the book. For the
doctrine inculcated by Cerinthus is this: that there will be an
earthly reign of Christ; and as he was himself a man devoted to the
pleasures of the body, and altogether carnal in his dispositions, he
fancied622
| 622 The text
gives ὀνειροπολεῖν,
for which for which ὀνειροπολεί
or ὠνειροπόλει
is to be read. | that that kingdom
would consist in those kinds of gratifications on which his own heart
was set,—to wit, in the delights of the belly, and what comes
beneath the belly, that is to say, in eating and drinking, and
marrying, and in other things under the guise of which he thought he
could indulge his appetites with a better grace,623
| 623
δι᾽ ὧν
εὐφημότερον
ταῦτα ᾠήθη
ποριεῖσθαι.
The old reading was εὐθυμότερον
; but the present reading is given in the mss.,
Cod. Maz., and Med., as also in Eusebius, iii. 28, and in Nicephorus,
iii. 14. So Rufinus renders it: et ut aliquid
sacratius dicere videretur, legales aiebat festivitates rursum
celebrandas. [These gross views of millennial perfection
entailed upon subsequent ages a reactionary neglect of the study of the
Second Advent. A Papal aphorism, preserved by Roscoe, embodies
all this: “Sub umbilico nulla religio.” It was
fully exemplified, even under Leo X.] | such as festivals, and sacrifices, and
the slaying of victims. But I, for my part, could not venture to
set this book aside, for there are many brethren who value it
highly. Yet, having formed an idea of it as a composition
exceeding my capacity of understanding, I regard it as containing a
kind of hidden and wonderful intelligence on the several subjects which
come under it. For though I cannot comprehend it, I still suspect
that there is some deeper sense underlying the words. And I do
not measure and judge its expressions by the standard of my own reason,
but, making more allowance for faith, I have simply regarded them as
too lofty for my comprehension; and I do not forthwith reject what I do
not understand, but I am only the more filled with wonder at it, in
that I have not been able to discern its import.624
| 624 [The
humility which moderates and subdues our author’s pride of
intellect in this passage is, to me, most instructive as to the limits
prescribed to argument in what Coleridge calls “the faith of
reason.”] |
4. After this, he examines the whole book
of the Revelation; and having proved that it cannot possibly be
understood according to the bald, literal sense, he proceeds
thus:—When the prophet now has completed, so to speak, the
whole prophecy, he pronounces those blessed who should observe it, and
names himself, too, in the number of the same: “For
blessed,” says he, “is he that keepeth the words
of the prophecy of this book; and I John who saw and heard these
things.”625
That this
person was called John, therefore, and that this was the writing of a
John, I do not deny. And I admit further, that it was also the
work of some holy and inspired man. But I could not so easily
admit that this was the apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of
James, and the same person with him who wrote the Gospel which bears
the title according to John, and the catholic epistle. But
from the character of both, and the forms of expression, and the whole
disposition and execution626
| 626
διεξαγωγῆς
λεγομένης.
Musculus renders it tractatum libri; Christophorsonus gives
discursum; and Valesius takes it as equivalent to οἰκονομίαν,
as διεξαγαγεῖν
is the same as διοικεῖν. | of
the book, I draw the conclusion that the authorship is not his.
For the evangelist nowhere else subjoins his name, and he never
proclaims himself either in the Gospel or in the epistle.
And a little further on he
adds:—John, moreover, nowhere gives us the name,
whether as of himself directly (in the first person), or as of another
(in the third person). But the writer of the Revelation puts
himself forward at once in the very beginning, for he says:
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which He gave to him to show to
His servants quickly; and He sent and signified it by His angel to His
servant John, who bare record of the Word of God, and of his testimony,
and of all things that he saw.”627
And then he writes also an epistle,
in which he says: “John to the seven churches which are in
Asia, grace be unto you, and peace.” The evangelist, on the
other hand, has not prefixed his name even to the catholic epistle; but
without any circumlocution, he has commenced at once with the mystery
of the divine revelation itself in these terms: “That which
was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with
our eyes.”628
And on
the ground of such a revelation as that the Lord pronounced Peter
blessed, when He said: “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona;
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which
is in heaven.”629
And again in the second epistle,
which is ascribed to John, the apostle, and in the third, though they
are indeed brief, John is not set before us by name; but we find simply
the anonymous writing, “The elder.” This other
author, on the contrary, did not even deem it sufficient to name
himself once, and then to proceed with his narrative; but he takes up
his name again, and says: “I John, who also am your brother
and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus
Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos for the Word of God, and
for the testimony of Jesus Christ.”630
And likewise toward the end he speaks
thus: “Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the
prophecy of this book; and I John who saw these things and heard
them.”631
That it is a
John, then, that writes these things we must believe, for he himself
tells us.
5. What John this is, however, is
uncertain. For he has not said, as he often does in the Gospel,
that he is the disciple beloved by the Lord, or the one that leaned on
His bosom, or the brother of James, or one that was privileged to see
and hear the Lord. And surely he would have given us some of
these indications if it had been his purpose to make himself clearly
known. But of all this he offers us nothing; and he only calls
himself our brother and companion, and the witness of Jesus, and one
blessed with the seeing and hearing of these revelations. I am
also of opinion that there were many persons of the same name with John
the apostle, who by their love for him, and their admiration and
emulation of him, and their desire to be loved by the Lord as he was
loved, were induced to embrace also the same designation, just as we
find many of the children of the faithful called by the names of Paul
and Peter.632
| 632
It is worth while to note this passage of Dionysius on the
ancient practice of the Christians, in giving their children the names
of Peter and Paul, which they did both in order to express the honour
and affection in which they held these saints, and to secure that their
children might be dear and acceptable to God, just as those saints
were. Hence it is that Chrysostom in his first volume, in his
oration on St. Meletius, says that the people of Antioch had such love
and esteem for Meletius, that the parents called their children by his
name, in order that they might have their homes adorned by his
presence. And the same Chrysostom, in his twenty-first homily on
Genesis, exhorts his hearers not to call their children carelessly by
the names of their grandfathers, or great-grandfathers, or men of fame;
but rather by the names of saintly men, who have been shining patterns
of virtue, in order that the children might be fired with the desire of
virtue by their example.—Vales. [A
chapter in the history of civilization might here be given on the
origin of Christian names and on the motives which should influence
Christians in the bestowal of names. The subject is treated,
after Plato, by De Maistre.] | There is,
besides, another John mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, with the
surname Mark, whom Barnabas and Paul attached to themselves as
companion, and of whom again it is said: “And they had also
John to their minister.”633
But whether this is the one who
wrote the Revelation, I could not say. For it is not written that
he came with them into Asia. But the writer says:
“Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to
Perga in Pamphylia: and John, departing from them, returned to
Jerusalem.”634
I think,
therefore, that it was some other one of those who were in Asia.
For it is said that there were two monuments in Ephesus, and that each
of these bears the name of John.
6. And from the ideas, and the expressions, and
the collocation of the same, it may be very reasonably conjectured that
this one is distinct from
that.635
| 635 This is
the second argument by which Dionysius reasoned that the Revelation and
the Gospel of John are not by one author. For the first argument
he used in proof of this is drawn from the character and usage of the
two writers; and this argument Dionysius has prosecuted up to this
point. Now, however, he adduces a second argument, drawn from the
words and ideas of the two writers, and from the collocation of the
expressions. For, with Cicero, I thus interpret the word
σύνταξιν.
See the very elegant book of Dionysius Hal. entitled Περὶ
συντάξεως
ὀνομάτων—On the
Collocation of Names; although in this passage σύνταξις
appears to comprehend the disposition of sentences as well as
words. Further, from this passage we can see what experience
Dionysius had in criticism; for it is the critic’s part to
examine the writings of the ancients, and distinguish what is genuine
and authentic from what is spurious and counterfeit.—Vales. | For the
Gospel and the Epistle agree with each other, and both commence in the
same way. For the one opens thus, “In the beginning was the
Word;” while the other opens thus, “That which was from the
beginning.” The one says: “And the Word was
made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as
of the Only-begotten of the Father.”636
The other says the same things,
with a slight alteration: “That which we have heard, which
we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands
have handled, of the Word of life: and the life was
manifested.”637
For
these things are introduced by way of prelude, and in opposition, as he
has shown in the subsequent parts, to those who deny that the Lord is
come in the flesh. For which reason he has also been careful to
add these words: “And that which we have seen we testify,
and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was
manifested unto us: that which we have seen and heard declare we
unto you.”638
Thus
he keeps to himself, and does not diverge inconsistently from his
subjects, but goes through them all under the same heads and in the
same phraseologies, some of which we shall briefly mention. Thus
the attentive reader will find the phrases, “the life,”
“the light,” occurring often in both; and also such
expressions as fleeing from darkness, holding the truth, grace, joy,
the flesh and the blood of the Lord, the judgment, the remission of
sins, the love of God toward us, the commandment of love on our side
toward each other; as also, that we ought to keep all the commandments,
the conviction of the world, of the devil, of Antichrist, the promise
of the Holy Spirit, the adoption of God, the faith required of us
in all things, the Father and the Son, named as such
everywhere. And altogether, through their whole course, it will
be evident that the Gospel and the Epistle are distinguished by one and
the same character of writing. But the Revelation is totally
different, and altogether distinct from this; and I might almost say
that it does not even come near it, or border upon it. Neither
does it contain a syllable in common with these other books. Nay
more, the Epistle—for I say nothing of the Gospel—does not
make any mention or evince any notion of the Revelation and the
Revelation, in like manner, gives no note of the Epistle. Whereas
Paul gives some indication of his revelations in his epistles; which
revelations, however, he has not recorded in writing by
themselves.
7. And furthermore, on the ground of
difference in diction, it is possible to prove a distinction between
the Gospel and the Epistle on the one hand, and the Revelation on the
other. For the former are written not only without actual error
as regards the Greek language, but also with the greatest elegance,
both in their expressions and in their reasonings, and in the whole
structure of their style. They are very far indeed from betraying
any barbarism or solecism, or any sort of vulgarism, in their
diction. For, as might be presumed, the writer possessed the gift
of both kinds of discourse,639
| 639 The old
reading was, τὸν
λόγον, τὴν
γνῶσιν. Valesius expunges
the τὴν
γνῶσιν, as disturbing the sense,
and as absent in various codices. Instead also of the reading,
τόν τε
τῆς σοφίας,
τόν τε τῆς
γνώσεως, the same editor
adopts τόν τε
τῆς γνώσεως,
τόν τε τῆς
φράσεως, which is the
reading of various manuscripts, and is accepted in the
translation. Valesius understands that by the ἑκάτερον
λόγον Dionysus means the λόγος
ἐνδιάθετος
and the λόγος
προφορικός,
that is, the subjective discourse, or reason in the mind, and the
objective discourse, or utterance of the same. |
the Lord having bestowed both these capacities upon him, viz., that of
knowledge and that of expression. That the author of the latter,
however, saw a revelation, and received knowledge and prophecy, I do
not deny. Only I perceive that his dialect and language are not
of the exact Greek type, and that he employs barbarous idioms, and in
some places also solecisms. These, however, we are under no
necessity of seeking out at present. And I would not have any one
suppose that I have said these things in the spirit of ridicule; for I
have done so only with the purpose of setting right this matter of the
dissimilarity subsisting between these writings.640
| 640 [The
jealousy with which, while the canon of New Testament Scripture was
forming, every claim was sifted, is well illustrated in this remarkable
essay. Observe its critical skill and the fidelity with which he
exposes the objections based on the style and classicality of the
Evangelist. The Alexandrian school was one of bold and original
investigation, always subject in spirit, however, to the great canon of
Prescription.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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