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Dionysius
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Introductory Note to Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria.
[781] This happened in the first persecution under Decius, when Dionysius was carried off by the decision of the prefect Sabinus to Taposiris, as he informs us in his epistle to Germanus. Certainly any one who compares that epistle of Dionysius to Germanus with this one to Domitius, will have no doubt that he speaks of one and the same event in both. Hence Eusebius is in error in thinking that in this epistle of Dionysius to Domitius we have a narrative of the events relating to the persecution of Valerian,—a position which may easily be refuted from Dionysius himself. For in the persecution under Valerian, Dionysius was not carried off into exile under military custody, nor were there any men from Mareotis, who came and drove off the soldiers, and bore him away unwillingly, and set him at liberty again; nor had Dionysius on that occasion the presbyters Gaius and Faustus, and Peter and Paul, with him. All these things happened to Dionysius in that persecution which began a little before Decius obtained the empire, as he testifies himself in his epistle to Germanus. But in the persecution under Valerian, Dionysius was accompanied in exile by the presbyter Maximus, and the deacons Faustus, and Eusebius, and Chæremon, and a certain Roman cleric, as he tells us in the epistle to Germanus.—Valesius.
[782] ἐν τῇ νόσῳ. Rufinus reads νήσῳ, and renders it, “But of the deacons, some died in the island after the pains of confession.” But Dionysius refers to the pestilence which traversed the whole Roman world in the times of Gallus and Volusianus, as Eusebius in his Chroniconand others record. See Aurelius Victor. Dionysius makes mention of this sickness again in the paschal epistle to the Alexandrians, where he also speaks of the deacons who were cut off by that plague.—Vales.
[783] περιστολὰς ἐκτελεῖν. Christophorsonus renders it: “to prepare the linen cloths in which the bodies of the blessed martyrs who departed this life might be wrapped.” In this Valesius thinks he errs by looking at the modern method of burial, whereas among the ancient Christians the custom was somewhat different, the bodies being dressed out in full attire, and that often at great cost, as Eusebius shows us in the case of Astyrius, in the Hist. Eccles., vii. 16. Yet Athanasius, in his Life of Antonius, has this sentence: “The Egyptians are accustomed to attend piously to the funerals of the bodies of the dead, and especially those of the holy martyrs, and to wrap them in linen cloths: they are not wont, however, to consign them to the earth, but to place them on couches, and keep them in private apartments.”
[784] Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., vi. 45.
[785] Jerome, in his Catalogus, where he adduces the beginning of this epistle, gives Novatianus for Novatus. So in the Chronicon of Georgius Syncellus we have Διονύσιος Ναυατιανῷ. Rufinus’ account appears to be that there were two such epistles,—one to Novatus, and another to Novatianus. The confounding of these two forms seems, however, to have been frequent among the Greeks. [See Lardner, Credib., sub voce Novat. Wordsworth thinks the Greeks shortened the name, on the grounds which Horace notes ad vocem “Equotuticum.” Satires, I. v. 87.]
[786] We read, with Gallandi, καὶ ἦν οὐκ ἀδοξυτέρα τῆς ἕνεκεν τοῦ μὴ ἰδωλολατρεῦσαι (sic) γινομένης, ἡ ἕνεκεν τοῦ μὴ σχίσαι μαρτυρία. This is substantially the reading of three Venetian codices, as also of Sophronius on Jerome’s De vir. illustr., ch. 69, and Georgius Syncellus in the Chronogr., p. 374, and Nicephorus Callist., Hist. Eccles., vi. 4. Pearson, in the Annales Cyprian., Num. x. p. 31, proposes θῦσαι for σχίσαι. Rufinus renders it: “et erat non inferior gloria sustinere martyrium ne scindatur ecclesia quam est illa ne idolis immoletur.”
Epistle III.—To Fabius, Bishop of Antioch.
[787] Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., vi. 41, 42, 44. Certain codices read Fabianus for Fabius, and that form is adopted also by Rufinus. Eusebius introduces this epistle thus: “The same author, in an epistle written to Fabius bishop of Antioch, gives the following account of the conflicts of those who suffered martyrdom at Alexandria.”
[788] καὶ φθάσας ὁ κακῶν, etc. Pearson, Annales Cyprian. ad ann., 249 § 1, renders it rather thus: “et prævertens malorum huic urbi vates et auctor, quisquis ille fuit, commovit,” etc.
[789] εὐσέβειαν τὴν θρησκείαν δαιμόνων. Valesius thinks the last three words in the text ( = service to their demons) an interpolation by some scholiast. [Note θρησκείαν = cultus, James i. 27.]
[791] [To this day St. Apollonia is invoked all over Europe; and votive offerings are to be seen hung up at her shrines, in the form of teeth, by those afflicted with toothache.]
[792] τὰ τῆς ἀσεβείας κηρύγματα. What these precisely were, it is not easy to say. Dionysius speaks of them also as δύσφημα ῥήματα in this epistle, and as ἄθεοι φωναί in that to Germanus. Gallandi thinks the reference is to the practice, of which we read also in the Acts of Polycarp, ch. 9, where the proconsul addresses the martyr with the order: λοιδόρησον τὸν Χριστόν—Revile Christ. And that the test usually put to reputed Christians by the early persecutors was this cursing of Christ, we learn from Pliny, book x. epist. 97. [Vol. i. p. 41.]
[793] Or, shrink from.
[794] ἐφέστιον, for which Nicephorus reads badly, ᾽Εφέσιον.
[795] ἐπιπολύ.
[796] ἀθλίους. But Pearson suggests ἄθλους, ="when insurrection and civil war took the place of these persecutions.” This would agree better with the common usage of διαδεχομαι.
[797] ἀσχολίαν του πρὸς ἠμας θυμοῦ λαβόντων. The Latin version gives “dum illorum cessaret furor.” W. Lowth renders, “dum non vacaret ipsis furorem suum in nos exercere.”
[798] This refers to the death of the Emperor Philip, who showed a very righteous and kindly disposition toward the Christians. Accordingly the matters here recounted by Dionysius took place in the last year of the Emperor Philip. This is also indicated by Dionysius in the beginning of this epistle, where he says that the persecution began at Alexandria a whole year before the edict of the Emperor Decius. But Christophorsonus, not observing this, interprets the μεταβολὴν τῆς βασιλείας as signifying a change in the emperor’s mind toward the Christians, in which error he is followed by Baronius, ch. 102.—Vales.
[799] In this sentence the Codex Regius reads, τὸ προῤῥηθὲν ὑπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν παραβραχυ τὸ φοβερώτατον, etc., ="the one intimated beforetime by our Lord, very nearly the most terrible one.” In Georgius Syncellus it is given as ἠ παρὰ βραχύ. But the reading in the text, ἀποφαῖνον, “setting forth,” is found in the Codices Maz., Med., Fuk., and Savilii; and it seems the best, the idea being that this edict of Decius was so terrible as in a certain measure to represent the most fearful of all times, viz., those of Antichrist.—Vales.
[800] ἀπήντων δεδιότες.
[801] οἱ δὲ δημοσιεύοντες ὑπὸ τῶν πράξεων ἤγοντο. This is rendered by Christophorsonus, “alii ex privatis ædibus in publicum raptati ad delubra ducuntur a magistratibus.” But δημοσιευοντες is the same as τὰ δημόσια πράττοντες, i.e., decurions and magistrates. For when the edict of Decius was conveyed to them, commanding all to sacrifice to the immortal gods, these officials had to convene themselves in the court-house as usual, and stand and listen while the decree was there publicly recited. Thus they were in a position officially which led them to be the first to sacrifice. The word πραξεις occurs often in the sense of the acts and administration of magistrates: thus, in Eusebius, viii. 11; in Aristides, in the funeral oration on Alexander, τὰ δ᾽ εἰς πράξεις τε καὶ πολιτειας, etc. There are similar passage also in Plutarch’s Πολιτικὰ παραγγέλματα, and in Severianus’s sixth oration on the Hexameron. So Chrysostom, in his eighty-third homily on Matthew, calls the decurions τοὺς τὰ πολιτικὰ πράττοντας. The word δημοσιεύοντες, however, may also be explained of those employed in the departments of law or finance; so that the clause might be rendered, with Valesius: “alii, qui in publico versabantur, rebus ipsis et reliquorum exemplo, ad sacrificandum ducebantur.” See the note in Migne.
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