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Dionysius
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Introductory Note to Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria.
[901] προστάς. But Valesius would read προσστάς, adstans.
[902] προσπελάσας is the reading of three of the codices and of Nicephorus; others give προπελάσας.
[903] [Rom. xiii. 4, 6. St. Paul’s strong expressions in this place must explain these expressions. A prince was, quoad hoc, comparatively speaking, godly and pious, as he “attended continually to this very thing.” So, “most religious,” in the Anglican Liturgy.]
[904] Who ever expressed himself thus,—that one after his seven years was passing his ninth year? This septennium (επταετηρίς ) must designate something peculiar, and different from the time following it. It is therefore the septennium of imperial power which he had held along with his father. In the eighth year of that empire, Macrianus possessed himself of the imperial honour specially in Egypt. After his assumption of the purple, however, Gallienus had still much authority in Egypt. At length, in the ninth year of Gallienus, that is, in 261, Macrianus the father and the two sons being slain, the sovereignty of Gallienus was recognised also among the Egyptians. And then Gallienus gave a rescript to Dionysius, Pinna, and Demetrius, bishops of Egypt, to re-establish the sacred places,—a boon which he had granted in the former year. The ninth year of Gallienus, moreover, began about the midsummer of this year; and the time at which this letter was written by Dionysius, as Eusebius observes, may be gathered from that, and falls consequently before the Paschal season of 262 a.d.—Pearson, p. 72. Gall.
Epistle XII.—To the Alexandrians.
[905] Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., vii. 22. Eusebius prefaces the 21st chapter of his seventh book thus: “When peace had scarcely yet been established, he (Dionysius) returned to Alexandria. But when sedition and war again broke out, and made it impossible for him to have access to all the brethren in that city, divided as they then were into different parties, he addressed them again by an epistle at the Passover, as if he were still an exile from Alexandria.” Then he inserts the epistle to Hierax; and thereafter, in ch. xxii., introduces the present excerpt thus: “After these events, the pestilence succeeding the war, and the festival being now at hand, he again addressed the brethren by letters, in which he gave the following description of the great troubles connected with that calamity.”
[906] οὐχ ὅπως τῶν ἐπιλύπων is the reading of Codices Maz., Med., and Savil.; others give, less correctly, ἐπιλοίπων.
[907] The text gives, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽ εἴ τις περιχαρὴς ὃν οἰηθεῖεν μάλιστα, which is put probably for the mere regular construction, ὃν οἵοιντο ἀν μάλιστα περιχαρῆ. Nicephorus reads, εἴ τις περιχαρης ὢν οἰθείη. The idea is, that the heathen could have no real festal time. All seasons, those apparently most joyous, no less than those evidently sorrowful, must be times void of all real rejoicing to them, until they learn the grace of God.
[909] Dionysius is giving a sort of summary of all the calamities which befell the Alexandrian church from the commencement of his episcopal rule: namely, first, persecution, referring to that which began in the last year of the reign of Philip; then war, meaning the civil war of which he speaks in his Epistle to Fabius; then pestilence, alluding to the sickness which began in the time of Decius, and traversed the land under Gallus and Volusianus.—Vales.
[910] ἀναμασσόμενοι τὰς ἀλγηδόνας. Some make this equivalent to mitigantes. It means properly to “wipe off,” and so to become “responsible” for. Here it is used apparently to express much the same idea as the two preceding clauses.
[911] μόνης φιλοφροσύνης ἔχεσθαι.
[912] The phrase περίψημα πάντων refers to 1 Cor. iv. 13. Valesius supposes that among the Alexandrians it may have been a humble and complimentary form of salutation, ἐγώ ειμι περίψημά σου; or that the expression περίψημα πάντων had come to be habitually applied to the Christians by the heathen.
[913] ὑπτίαις χερσι. [See Introductory Note, p. 77.]
[914] καθαιροῦντες.
[915] ὁμοφοροῦντες.
[916] Compare Defoe, Plague in London.]
Epistle XIII.—To Hierax, a Bishop in Egypt.
[917] Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., vii. 21. The preface to this extract in Eusebius is as follows: “After this he (Dionysius) wrote also another Paschal epistle to Hierax, a bishop in Egypt, in which he makes the following statement about the sedition then prevailing at Alexandria.”
[918] Or, for.
[919] μεσαιτάτη τῆς πόλεως. Codex Regius gives τῶν πόλεων. The sedition referred to as thus dividing Alexandria is probably that which broke out when Æmilianus seized the sovereignty in Alexandria. See Pollio’s Thirty Tyrants.
[920] ἄπειρος. But Codices Fuk. and Savil. give ἄπορος, “impracticable.”
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