1. Peace had but just been restored when he returned to Alexandria;²³¹⁰

2310 This was after the fall of the usurper Macrianus, probably late in the year 261 or early in 262 (see above, chap. 13, note 3).

2311 This epistle written by Dionysius during the civil war to his scattered flock is no longer extant.

2. And in another festal epistle written later to Hierax,²³¹²

2312 Of this Hierax we know no more than is told us here.

“What wonder is it that it is difficult for me to communicate by letters with those who live far away, when it is beyond my power even to reason with myself, or to take counsel for my own life?

3. Truly I need to send letters to those who are as my own bowels,²³¹³

2313 cf. Philemon, vers. 12.

4. For the very heart of the city is more intricate and impassable than that great and trackless desert which Israel traversed for two generations. And our smooth and waveless harbors have become like the sea, divided and walled up, through which Israel drove and in whose highway the Egyptians were overwhelmed. For often from the slaughters there committed they appear like the Red Sea.

5. And the river which flows by the city has sometimes seemed drier than the waterless desert, and more parched than that in which Israel, as they passed through it, so suffered for thirst, that they cried out against Moses, and the water flowed for them from the steep rock,²³¹⁴

2314 ἐκ πέτρας ἀκροτόμου. The adjective is an addition of Dionysius’ own. The LXX of Ex. xvii. 6 has only πέτρα, “rock.”

6. Again it has overflowed so greatly as to flood all the surrounding country, and the roads and the fields; threatening to bring back the deluge of water that occurred in the days of Noah. And it flows along, polluted always with blood and slaughter and drownings, as it became for Pharaoh through the agency of Moses, when he changed it into blood, and it stank.²³¹⁵

2315 ἐποζέσας; the same word which is used in the LXX of Ex. vii. 21.

7. And what other water could purify the water which purifies everything? How could the ocean, so great and impassable for men, if poured into it, cleanse this bitter sea? Or how could the great river which flowed out of Eden, if it poured the four heads into which it is divided into the one of Geon,²³¹⁶

2316 Γηὼν; LXX (Gen. ii. 13), Γεῶν; Heb. גִּיחֹון; A.V. and R.V., Gihon.

8. Or when can the air poisoned by these noxious exhalations become pure? For such vapors arise from the earth, and winds from the sea, and breezes from the river, and mists from the harbors, that the dews are, as it were, discharges from dead bodies putrefying in all the elements around us.

9. Yet men wonder and cannot understand whence these continuous pestilences; whence these severe sicknesses; whence these deadly diseases of all kinds; whence this various and vast human destruction; why this great city no longer contains as many inhabitants, from tender infants to those most advanced in life, as it formerly contained of those whom it called hearty old men. But the men from forty to seventy years of age were then so much more numerous that their number cannot now be filled out, even when those from fourteen to eighty years are enrolled and registered for the public allowance of food.

10. And the youngest in appearance have become, as it were, of equal age with those who formerly were the oldest. But though they see the race of men thus constantly diminishing and wasting away, and though their complete destruction is increasing and advancing, they do not tremble.”

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