Dionysius

Footnotes

Introductory Note to Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria.

^[866] ὡς εἶπον. Codices Maz. and Med. give εἰπεῖν, “so to speak;” Fuk. and Savil. give ὡς εἶπεν ὁ ἀπόστολος, “as the apostle said.” See on 1 Cor. v. 3.

^[867] [Acts xiv. 27; Rev. iii. 8. If the author here quotes the Apocalypse, it is noteworthy. Elucidation, p. 110.]

^[868] ἡμᾶς δὲ μᾶλλον ἐν ὁδῷ καὶ πρώτους καταληφθησομένους ἔταξεν.

^[869] τὰ Κολλουθίωνος, supplying μέρη, as Dionysius has already used the phrase τὰ μέρη τῆς Λιβύης. This was a district in the Mareotic prefecture. Thus we have mention made also of τὰ Βουκόλου, a certain tract in Egypt, deriving its name from the old masters of the soil. Nicephorus writes Κολούθιον, which is probably more correct; for Κολλουθίων is a derivative from Colutho, which was a common name in Egypt. Thus a certain poet of note in the times of Anastasius, belonging to the Thebaid, was so named, as Suidas informs us. There was also a Coluthus, a certain schismatic, in Egypt, in the times of Athanasius, who is mentioned often in the Apologia; and Gregory of Nyssa names him Acoluthus in his Contra Eunomium, book ii.—Vales.

^[870] κατὰ μέρος συναγωγαί. When the suburbs were somewhat distant from the city, the brethren resident in them were not compelled to attend the meetings of the larger church, but had meetings of their own in a basilica, or some building suitable for the purpose. The Greeks, too, gave the name προάστειον to places at some considerable distance from the city, as well as to suburbs immediately connected with it. Thus Athanasius calls Canopus a προάστειον; and so Daphne is spoken of as the προάστειον of Antioch, Achyrona as that of Nicomedia, and Septimum as that of Constantinople, though these places were distant some miles from the cities. From this place it is also inferred that in the days of Dionysius there was still but one church in Alexandria, where all the brethren met for devotions. But in the time of Athanasius, when several churches had been built by the various bishops, the Alexandrians met in different places, κατὰ μέρος καὶ διῃρημένως, as Athanasius says in his first Apology to Constantius; only that on the great festivals, as at the paschal season and at Pentecost, the brethren did not meet separately, but all in the larger church, as Athanasius also shows us—Vales.

^[871] ἀποφάσεις.

^[872] Maximus, in the scholia to the book of Dionysius the Areopagite, De cœlesti hierarchia, ch. 5, states that Dionysius was by profession a rhetor before his conversion: ὁ γοῦν μέγας Διονύσιος ὁ ᾽Αλεξανδρεων ἐπισκοπος, ὁ ἀπὸ ῥητόρων, etc.—Vales.

^[873] τῶν ἐναντίων ἁπειλῶν.

^[874] This Sabinus had been prefect of Egypt in the time of Decius; it is of him that Dionysius writes in his Epistle to Fabius, which is given above. The Æmilianus, prefect of Egypt, who is mentioned here, afterwards seized the imperial power, as Pollio writes in his Thirty Tyrants, who, however, calls him general (ducem), and not prefect of Egypt.—Vales.

Epistle XI.—To Hermammon.

^[875] Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., vii. 1, 10, 23. Eusebius introduces this extract thus: “In an epistle to Hermammon, Dionysus makes the following remarks upon Gallus” the Emperor.

^[876] κατὰ νοῦν is the reading in the Codices Maz., Med., Fuk, and Savil., and adopted by Rufinus and others. But Robertus Stephanus, from the Codex Regius, gives κατὰ ῥοῦν, “according to the stream,” i.e., favourably.

^[877] Eusebius prefaces this extract thus: “Gallus had not held the government two full years when he was removed, and Valerian, together with his son Gallienus, succeeded him. And what Dionysius has said of him may be learned from his Epistle to Hermammon, in which he makes the following statement.”

^[878] ἐξουσία καὶ μῆνες τεσσαρακονταδύο.Rev. xiii. 5. Baronius expounds the numbers as referring to the period during which the persecution under Valerian continued: see him, under the year 257 a.d., ch. 7. [See Introductory Note, p. 78, supra. Here is a quotation from the Apocalypse to be noted in view of our author’s questionings, part i., i. 5, p. 83, supra.]

^[879] The text is, καὶ τούτων μάλιστα τὰ πρὸ αὐτοῦ ὡς οὕτως ἔσχε συννοεῖν· ἕως ἤπιος, etc. Gallandi emends the sentence thus: καὶ αὐτοῦ τὰ μάλιστα πρὸ τούτων, ὡς οὐχ οὕτως ἔσχε, συννοεῖν, ἔως ἤπιος, etc. Codex Regius gives ὡς μὲν ἤπιος. But Codices Maz. and Med. give ἕως ἤπιος, while Fuk. and Savil. give ἔως γὰρ ἤπιος.

^[880] He means the Emperor Philip who, as many of the ancients have recorded, was the first of the Roman emperors to profess the Christian religion. But as Dionysius speaks in the plural number, to Philip may be added Alexander Severus, who had an image of Christ in the chapel of his Lares, as Lampridius testifies, and who favoured and sustained the Christians during the whole period of his empire. It is to be noted further, that Dionysius says of these emperors only that they were said and thought to be Christians, not that they were so in reality.—Gallandi

^[881] ἀρχισυνάγωγος.

^[882] Baronius thinks that this was that Magus who, a little while before the empire of Decius, had incited the Alexandrians to persecute the Christians, and of whom Dionysius speaks in his Epistle to Fabius. What follows here, however, shows that Macrianus is probably the person alluded to.

^[883] εὐδαιμονήσοντας. So Codices Maz., Med., Fuk. and Savil. read: others give εὐδαιμονήσαντας. It would seem to require εὐδαιμονήσοντα, “as if he would attain;” for the reference is evidently to Valerian himself.

^[884] By the αὐτοῖς some understand τοῖς βασιλεῦσι; others better, τοῖς δαίμοσι. According to Valesius, the sense is this: that Macrianus having, by the help and presages of the demons, attained his hope of empire, made a due return to them, by setting Valerian in arms against the Christians.

^[885] ἐπὶ τῶν καθόλου λόγων. The Greeks gave this name to those officials whom the Latins called rationales, or procuratores summæ rei. Under what emperor Macrianus was procurator, is left uncertain here.

^[886] οὐδὲν εὔλογον οὐδὲ καθολικὸν ἐφρόνησεν. There is a play here on the two senses of the word καθολικός , as seen in the official title ἐπὶ τῶν καθόλου λόγων, and in the note of character in οὐδὲ καθολικόν. But it can scarcely be reproduced in the English.

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