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Dionysius
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Introductory Note to Dionysius, Bishop of 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.
[802] ἰσχυριζόμενοι here for διισχυριζόμενοι.—Vales.
[803] πρὸς τὸ ἑξῆς ἀπεῖπον. It may also mean, “renounced the faith in the prospect of what was before them.”
[804] A blessed one. Alluding to Matt. v. 10, 12.
[805] μετὰ πολύν. But Codices Med., Maz., Fuk., and Savilii, as well as Georgius Syncellus, read μετ᾽ οὐ πολύν, “after a short time.”
[806] ξυστῆρας.
[807] Here Valesius adds from Rufinus the words καὶ ᾽Αμμωνάριον ἕτερα, “and a second Ammonarium,” as there are four women mentioned.
[808] In Georgius Syncellus and Nicephorus it is given as Aster. Rufinus makes the name Arsinus. And in the old Roman martyrology, taken largely from Rufinus, we find the form Arsenius.—Vales.
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