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Introductory Notice
to
Peter, Bishop of Alexandria.
————————————
[a.d. 2602227
2227
This first date is conjectural. | –300–311.] Entering
upon the fourth century, we may well pause to reflect upon what
Alexandria has been to the Church of Christ,—the mother of
churches, the mother of saints, maintaining always the intellectual and
even the ecclesiastical primacy of Christendom. “Ye are the
light of the world,” said the great Enlightener to the Galileans
of an obscure and despised Roman province. But who could have
prophesied that Egypt should again be the pharos of the world, as it
was in Moses? Who could have foreseen the “men of
Galilee” taking possession of the Alexandrian Library, and
demonstrating the ways of Providence in creating the Bible of the
Seventy, and in the formation of the Hellenistic Greek, for their
ultimate use? Who could have imagined the Evangelist Mark and the
eloquent Apollos to be the destined instruments for founding the
schools of Christendom, and shaping scientific theology? Who
would not have looked for all this in some other way, and preferably in
Athens or in Rome? But who would have expected the visit of God
Incarnate to Nazareth, and not to Alexandria?
In Peter’s day Antioch was coming to be a school
under the influence of Malchion’s genius and that of the bishops
who withstood Paulus of Samosata. Malchion had taught there in
the “School of Sciences,” and learning was once more to be
made the handmaid of true religion. But Alexandria was still the
seat of Christian illumination and the fountain of orthodoxy; its very
ferment always clarifying its thought, and leaving “wine well
refined,” and pure from the lees.
To this subject I shall have occasion to refer
again in an elucidation subjoined to the works of Alexander (successor
to Peter), in which, for a final view of the great Alexandrian school,
I shall gather up some fragments in brief outline. Here it may be
enough to remark, that, until the definite development of the school of
Antioch (circa a.d. 350), I have
regarded the whole Orient as dominated and formed by the brain of the
grand metropolis of Egypt and the Pentapolis. I have considered
the great Dionysius as really presiding in the Synod of Antioch, though
absent in the body, and have regarded Malchion as his voice in that
council, which we must not forget was presided over by Firmilian, a
pupil of Origen, and a true Alexandrian disciple.
Peter’s conflict with Meletius shall be
noted in an elucidation. We shall see that the heresy of Paulus
as well as the Meletian schism are but chapters in one prolonged
history, of which the outcrop was Arianism. Now, as to Alexandria
we owe the intrepid defenders of truth in all these conflicts, we must
not forget that they are to be judged by the product of their
united testimony, and not by their occasional individualisms and
infirmities of mind and speech while they were creating the theological
dialect of Christendom and the formulas of orthodoxy.
Peter was able to maintain his canonical authority
against the mischievous rebellion of Meletius; and the history of this
schism is forcibly illustrative of those ἀρχαῖα ἔθη which
the Nicene Synod recognized, confirming the primacy of Alexandria, and
striving to suppress Meletianism by firm but moderate measures based upon the
primitive maxims. Peter left a pure and holy memory to the
Church, and sealed his testimony in martyrdom.
Translator’s Introductory
Notice.2228
2228
[After Gallandi, by the translator, the Rev. James B. H. Hawkins,
M.A.] |
Eusebius alone, of the
more ancient writers, speaks in terms of the highest praise of Peter,
Bishop of Alexandria. He was, says he, a divine bishop, both for
the sanctity of his life, and also for his diligent study and knowledge
of the Holy Scriptures;2229
2229
θεῖον
ἐπισκόπων
χρῆμα, βίου τε
καὶ ἀρετῆς
ἕνεκα καὶ τῆς
τῶν ἱερῶν
λόγων
συνασκήσεως. Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., lib.
ix. cap. 6; lib. viii. cap. 13; lib. vii. cap. 32, towards the
end. | and in another place he styles him
“that excellent doctor of the Christian religion,” who,
indeed, during the whole period of his episcopate, which he held for
twelve years, obtained for himself the highest renown. He
obtained the bishopric of Alexandria next in succession to
Theonas. He governed that church about three years before the
persecution broke out:2230
2230
πρὸ τοῦ
διωγμοῦ
τρίσιν οὐδ᾽
ὅλοις
ἡγησάμενος
τῆς
Εκκλησίας. | the rest of his time he spent in
the exercise of a closer discipline over himself, yet did he not in the
meanwhile neglect to provide for the common interests of the
Church. In the ninth year of the persecution he was beheaded, and
gained the crown of martyrdom. So far we have the account of
Eusebius, whom Dodwell2231
2231
Dodwell, Dissert. Sing. ad. Pears., cap. 6, sec. 21, p.
74. | proves to have accurately distributed
the years of Peter’s episcopate. After Peter had spent
twelve years as bishop, and in the ninth year of the persecution which
broke out under Maximin, he was beheaded; so that his martyrdom falls
in the year of our Lord 311—as the Egyptians reckon on the 29th
day of the month Athyr, which answers to our 25th of November, as
Lequien,2232
2232
Lequien, Oriens Christ, tom. ii. p. 397. | after
Renaudot,2233
2233
Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex., p. 60. | has
observed.
St. Peter wrote in the fourth year of the
persecution, a.d. 306, some Canons Penitential
with reference to those who had lapsed. They are to be met with
in every collection of Canons. In the Pandecta
Canonum of Bishop Beveridge,2234
2234
Συνοδικὸν.
Vol. ii. p. 8, fol., Oxon., 1672. | they are accompanied by the notes of
Joannes Zonaras and Theodorus Balsamon. Upon these Penitential
Canons, however, Tillemont2235
2235
Tillemont, Mem., tom. v. p. 450. | should be consulted. Moreover,
according to Renaudot,2236
2236
Renaudot, l. c., p. 61, seqq. | Echmimensis, Ebnapalus, Abulfaragius,
and other Oriental Christians of every sect, make use of the testimony
of these Canons; and in the anonymous collections of them called
Responsa, some fragments of other works of Peter are
extant. Some of these are praised by the Jacobites, in the work
which they call Fides patrum. In another work, entitled
Unio pretiosus, occurs a homily of Peter on the baptism of
Christ.
The fragments of the other writings of this holy martyr,
which have been preserved by the Greeks, are here appended to the
Penitential Canons. For instance: (1) An extract from his
book De Deitate, which is extant in the Acta Conciliorum
Ephesini et Chalcedonensis; (2) Another fragment from the homily
De Adventu Salvatoris, cited by Leontius Byzantinus in his
first book against Nestorius and Eutyches; (3) An epistle of the same
prelate to the Alexandrine Church recently published, together with
some other old ecclesiastical monuments by Scipio Maffei.2237
2237
Maffei, Osservazione Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 17. | Peter
is said to have written this epistle after one addressed to Meletius,
Bishop of Lycopolis. In it, after interdicting the Alexandrians
from communion with Meletius, he says that he will himself come in
company with some wise doctors, and will examine into his tenets;
alluding, most probably, to the synod held afterwards at Alexandria, in
which Meletius was deposed from his office. Athanasius
says,2238
2238
Athanasius, Apol. contra Arian, sec. 39, tom. i. p.
177. | respecting
this synod, “Peter, who was amongst us as bishop before the
persecution, and who died a martyr in the persecution, deposed in
common council of the bishops, Meletius, an Egyptian bishop, who had
been convicted of many crimes.” But with
respect to the time in which
the mournful Meletian schism commenced, Maffei2239
2239
Maffei, l. c., p. 24. | defends the opinions of
Baronius,2240
2240
Baronius, Ad Annum, 306, sec. 44. [Elucidation I.] | who connects it
with the year a.d. 306, against Pagius and
Montfaucon, both from this epistle of Petrus Alexandrinus, and also
from another of the four bishops, of which Peter makes mention in his
own; (4) A passage from the Sermo in Sanctum Pascha, or
from some other work of Peter’s on the same subject, is given in
the Diatriba de Paschate, prefixed to the Chronicon
Alexandrinum S. Paschale, and published separately in the
Uranologion of Petavius, fol. Paris, 1630, p. 396.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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