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| To the Alexandrians.
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Epistle XII.—To
the Alexandrians.905
| 905
Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., vii. 22. Eusebius prefaces
the 21st chapter of his seventh book thus: “When peace had
scarcely yet been established, he (Dionysius) returned to
Alexandria. But when sedition and war again broke out, and made
it impossible for him to have access to all the brethren in that city,
divided as they then were into different parties, he addressed them
again by an epistle at the Passover, as if he were still an exile from
Alexandria.” Then he inserts the epistle to Hierax; and
thereafter, in ch. xxii., introduces the present excerpt thus:
“After these events, the pestilence succeeding the war, and the
festival being now at hand, he again addressed the brethren by letters,
in which he gave the following description of the great troubles
connected with that calamity.” |
————————————
1. To other men, indeed, the present state
of matters would not appear to offer a fit season for a festival:
and this certainly is no festal time to them; nor, in sooth, is any
other that to them. And I say this, not only of occasions
manifestly sorrowful,906
| 906
οὐχ
ὅπως τῶν
ἐπιλύπων is the
reading of Codices Maz., Med., and Savil.; others give, less correctly,
ἐπιλοίπων. | but
even or all occasions whatsoever which people might consider to be most
joyous.907
| 907 The text
gives, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽ εἴ
τις
περιχαρὴς ὃν
οἰηθεῖεν
μάλιστα, which is put
probably for the mere regular construction, ὃν
οἵοιντο ἀν
μάλιστα
περιχαρῆ.
Nicephorus reads, εἴ
τις
περιχαρης ὢν
οἰθείη. The idea is, that
the heathen could have no real festal time. All seasons, those
apparently most joyous, no less than those evidently sorrowful, must be
times void of all real rejoicing to them, until they learn the grace of
God. | And now
certainly all things are turned to mourning, and all men are in grief,
and lamentations resound through the city, by reason of the multitude
of the dead and of those who are dying day by day. For as it is
written in the case of the first-born of the Egyptians, so now too a
great cry has arisen. “For there is not a house in which
there is not one dead.”908
And would that even this were
all!
2. Many terrible calamities, it is true, have also
befallen us before this. For first they drove us away; and though
we were quite alone, and pursued by all, and in the way of being slain,
we kept our festival, even at such a time. And every place that
had been the scene of some of the successive sufferings which befell
any of us, became a seat for our solemn assemblies,—the field,
the desert, the ship, the inn, the prison,—all alike. The
most gladsome festival of all, however, has been celebrated by those
perfect martyrs who have sat down at the feast in heaven. And
after these things war and famine surprised us. These were
calamities which we shared, indeed, with the heathen. But we had
also to bear by ourselves alone those ills with which they outraged us,
and we had at the same time to sustain our part in those things which
they either did to each other or suffered at each other’s hands;
while again we rejoiced deeply in that peace of Christ which He
imparted to us alone.
3. And after we and they together had
enjoyed a very brief season of rest, this pestilence next assailed
us,—a calamity truly more dreadful to them than all other objects
of dread, and more intolerable than any other kind of trouble
whatsoever;909
| 909
Dionysius is giving a sort of summary of all the calamities which
befell the Alexandrian church from the commencement of his episcopal
rule: namely, first, persecution, referring to that which began
in the last year of the reign of Philip; then war, meaning the civil
war of which he speaks in his Epistle to Fabius; then pestilence,
alluding to the sickness which began in the time of Decius, and
traversed the land under Gallus and Volusianus.—Vales. | and a misfortune
which, as a certain writer of their own declares, alone prevails over
all hope. To us, however, it was not so; but in no less measure
than other ills it proved an instrument for our training and
probation. For it by no means kept aloof from us, although it
spread with greatest violence among the heathen.
4. To these statements he in due
succession makes this addition:—Certainly very many of our
brethren, while, in their exceeding love and brotherly-kindness, they
did not spare themselves, but kept by each other, and visited the sick
without thought of their own peril, and ministered to them assiduously,
and treated them for their healing in Christ, died from time to time
most joyfully along with them, lading themselves with pains derived
from others, and drawing upon themselves their neighbours’
diseases, and willingly taking over to their own persons the burden of
the sufferings of those around them.910
| 910 ἀναμασσόμενοι
τὰς
ἀλγηδόνας.
Some make this equivalent to mitigantes. It means properly
to “wipe off,” and so to become “responsible”
for. Here it is used apparently to express much the same idea as
the two preceding clauses. | And many who had thus cured others of their
sicknesses, and restored them to strength, died themselves, having
transferred to their own bodies the death that lay upon these.
And that common saying, which else seemed always to be only a polite
form of address,911
| 911
μόνης
φιλοφροσύνης
ἔχεσθαι. | they expressed in
actual fact then, as they departed this life, like the
“off-scourings of all.”912
| 912 The
phrase περίψημα
πάντων refers to 1 Cor. iv. 13. Valesius supposes that among the
Alexandrians it may have been a humble and complimentary form of
salutation, ἐγώ ειμι
περίψημά
σου; or that the expression περίψημα
πάντων had come to be habitually
applied to the Christians by the heathen. | Yea, the very best of our brethren
have departed this life in this manner, including some presbyters and
some deacons, and among the people those who were in highest
reputation: so that this very form of death, in virtue of the
distinguished piety and the steadfast faith which were exhibited in it,
appeared to come in nothing beneath martyrdom itself.
5. And they took the bodies of the saints on
their upturned hands,913
| 913
ὑπτίαις
χερσι. [See Introductory Note, p.
77.] |
and on their bosoms, and closed914
their eyes, and shut their mouths. And carrying them in
company,915
and laying them out
decently, they clung to them, and embraced them, and prepared them duly
with washing and with attire. And then in a little while after
they had the same services done for themselves, as those who survived
were ever following those who departed before them. But among the
heathen all was the very reverse. For they thrust aside any who
began to be sick, and kept aloof even from their dearest friends, and
cast the sufferers out upon the public roads half dead, and left them
unburied, and treated them with utter contempt when they died, steadily
avoiding any kind of communication and intercourse with death; which,
however, it was not easy for them altogether to escape, in spite of the
many precautions they employed.916
| 916
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