Pierius the Catechist of Alexandria

be perfect; thus it is not because of the excellence of the Holy Spirit over the Son that the blasphemy against the Spirit is inexpiable and without pardon; but because for the imperfect there is forgiveness, whereas for those who have tasted the heavenly 22 gift and have been perfected 23, no apology or plea for forgiveness remains. ^B

PIERIUS THE CATECHIST OF ALEXANDRIA.—NOTICE

Pierius, presbyter of the Church of Alexandria under the emperors Carus and Diocletian (1), at the time when Theonas governed that Church, taught the people most flourishingly (2), and attained such an elegance of language and various treatises (3), which exist even to this day, that he was called the younger Origen. It is established that he was ^C a man of wondrous discipline and a seeker of voluntary poverty (4), and most learned in dialectic and rhetoric.

^D (1) Carus held the empire in the years 282, 283. Diocletian from the year 284 to 305. Theonas, who succeeded Dionysius in the bishopric of Alexandria, died in the year 300. FABRICIUS.

(2) Eusebius of Pierius, VIII, 32: "Among those who in our time have become very rare, we know of Pierius among the presbyters of Alexandria; and Meletius, the bishop of the churches in Pontus. But the former was proven by an extremely impoverished life and philosophic learning: being supernaturally practiced in contemplations and interpretations concerning divine things, and in discourses before the public of the Church. But Meletius..."

(3) If those were the twelve books of Pierius from which Photius, cod. 119, and Palladius in the Lausiaca, c. 12, narrate that Ammonius was able to recite many things from memory from the writings of Origen, Didymus, Stephen, and Pierius. FABRICIUS.

(4) Euseb.: "But the former was proven by an extremely impoverished life and philosophic learning." ID.

art, and after the persecution (5) to have spent all the time of his life in Rome. His is a very long treatise on the prophet Hosea (6), which the sermon itself demonstrates was delivered on the vigil of Easter.

Fragment from a certain writing (7) of Pierius on the former Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. St. Jerome brought forward this very brief fragment in Epistle 2 to Pammachius, for his books against Jovinianus.

Origenes, Dionysius, Pierius, Eusebius of Caesarea, Didymus, and Apollinaris have interpreted this Epistle (1 Cor.) most extensively; among whom Pierius, when he was examining and setting forth the sense of the Apostle, and had proposed to explain that: *I would that all men were even as myself*, he added: Ταῦτα λέγων Παῦλος, ^{A B C D} [these things says Paul], he preaches virginity outright.

Various discourses of Pierius the presbyter

ʼΑνεγνώσθη βιβλίου Πιερίου πρεσβυτέρου, δν καὶ σὺν τῷ ἀδελφῷ (8) Ἰσιδώρῳ τὸν ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ ἀγωνίσα-σθαι φασὶν ἀγῶνα· Παμφίλου τε τοῦ μάρτυρος ὑφηγητὴν τῶν ἐκκλησιαστικῶν γενέσθαι μαθημάτων· καὶ τοῦ κατὰ ᾿Αλεξάνδρειαν ἡγήσασθαι παιδευτηρίου. Λόγους δὲ τὸ βιβλίον περιεῖχε δώδεκα. Ἔστι δὲ τὴν φράσιν σαφής τε καὶ λαμπρός, ὥσπερ ῥέων τῷ λόγῳ, μηδέν τε ἐπιμελὲς ἐνδεικνύμενος. ᾽Αλλ᾿ ὡς ἐξ αὐτοσχεδίου ὁμαλῶς τε καὶ λείως ἠρέμα φερόμενος. Τοῖς δὲ ἐνθυμήμασιν, εἴπερ τις ἄλλος, γονιμώτατος. Πολλὰ δὲ ἔξω τῶν νῦν ἐν τῇ Ἐκκλησίᾳ καθεστηκότων, ἀρχαιοτρόπως ἴσως, ἀποφαίνεται, ἀλλὰ περὶ μὲν Πατρὸς καὶ Υἱοῦ εὐσεβῶς πρεσβεύει· πλὴν ὅτι οὐσίας δύο καὶ φύσεις δύο λέγει· τῷ τῆς οὐσίας καὶ φύσεως ὀνόματι, ὡς δῆλον ἔκ τε τῶν ἑπομένων καὶ προηγουμένων τοῦ χωρίου, ἀντὶ τῆς ὑποστάσεως, καὶ οὐχ ὡς Ἀρείῳ προσανακείμενοι, χρώμενος. Περὶ μέντοι τοῦ Πνεύματος ἐπισφαλῶς (9) λίαν καὶ δυσσεβῶς δογματίζει. Μάρτυς δὲ καὶ ὁ Πιέριος ἅμα τῷ ἀδελφῷ Ἰσιδώρῳ, τῶν ἀθλητικῶν ἀξιωθέντες στεφάνων, οἷς, ὡς φασι, καὶ νεὼς καὶ οἶκοι ὑπὸ τῶν εὐσεβούντων ἱδρύνθησαν.

[Translation of the Greek text above:] There was read a book by Pierius the presbyter, whom they also say underwent the struggle for Christ along with his brother (8) Isidorus; and that he became a guide to the martyr Pamphilus in ecclesiastical studies, and presided over the school at Alexandria. The book contained twelve discourses. He is clear and bright in his diction, as though flowing in speech, displaying nothing studied. But as if from spontaneous composition, moving on smoothly and gently and quietly. In his enthymemes, if anyone else, he is most fertile. Many things he declares, perhaps archaic, which are outside of those now established in the Church; but concerning the Father and the Son he holds pious views: except that he speaks of two substances and two natures; using the name of substance and nature, as is clear from the things following and preceding the passage, in place of hypostasis, and not as inclined toward Arius. Concerning the Spirit, however, he dogmatizes too dangerously (9) and impiously. Pierius was also a martyr, together with his brother Isidorus, having been deemed worthy of the crowns of the athletes, for whom, as they say, both temples and houses were founded by the pious.

FRAGMENTA

^Ahe affirms that [the Son] is subordinate to the glory of the Father. He has also a passage in that book which is inscribed *On the Gospel of Luke*, from which it is permissible to demonstrate that the honor or irreverence towards an image is the honor or irreverence towards the prototype. More obscurely, however, he indicates here too, according to the trifles of Origen, that souls pre-exist. In that book which he wrote *On the Passover* and *On the Prophet Hosea*, he deals also with the cherubim made by Moses and with the stone of Jacob; and while he confesses that they were indeed made, he prattles that they were granted only by reason of divine providence—as if they were nothing, or were something else, or that those things which were made were something else; for, he says, they bore no trace of any form, and he imagines that they bore only the appearance of wings.

^BHe has been engaged in reading his works. Indeed, this very Origen—would that the volumes of Pierius had also reached us—not only spoke often of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the other two persons of the Triad (his own words are in his *Commentary on the Gospel of Saint John*), but also in the place which I shall designate here, he taught the *synodion* [fellowship] of the Spirit. Cf. the passage of Origen in Eusebius, *Book I, Against Marcellus*, ch. 4, p. 22, Paris ed. Notable are the words of Origen concerning the holy principles, or discourses on the divine persons, in his 5th *Homily on Jeremiah*.

Regarding the books which were read by Photius; the same must be said concerning the treatise on Hosea mentioned immediately after, although concerning this, as if it were a separate and proper book, Jerome has spoken in his book *De viris illustribus*.

Regarding the cherubim in the work of Moses, see chapters XXXV and XXXVII of Exodus; regarding the stone set up by Jacob after the angels were seen by him ascending and descending, one must consult chapter XXVIII of Genesis. In this matter, too, Pierius had imitated Origen, suggesting that those two seraphim mentioned in Isaiah signify Christ and the Holy Spirit; nay, sometimes he pursued allegories, as I have said elsewhere, with such recklessness that he would, in truth, overturn the literal sense of the Holy Scripture wherein it was obviously dealing with true, historical events. Whether Pierius did this by following his master, or whether, on the contrary, he was engaged in an examination of the mystical or spiritual sense of certain Scriptures in a pious and sober manner, I do not know. But I also see that Jerome was so far deranged as to write to Nepotian in his epistle *On the Life of Clerics* that the history of David and Abishag the Shunammite was a fabrication based on a mime or an Atellan farce, if you follow the letter. Away, then, with these trifles of the allegorists, by which, on account of some things that are truly typical in Holy Scripture, and other things that are stated either tropically or are of ambiguous interpretation, men otherwise great, while they wished to capture others, damaged their own reputation. However, you may see the mystery of such an exposition handed down by Origen both elsewhere and in *Book IV of the Principles*, cap. 1, § 15, or the first chapter of the *Philocalia*, page 12, Spencer edition.

Hoeschelius wishes to read "And this is added," in the codices, which Hoeschelius cites in his notes. But perhaps the passage is sound, for which I have added the Latin interpretation in the same place. In the following words, Hoeschelius deletes the particle, which is absent from four codices.