SAINT DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA. HISTORICAL AND LITERARY NOTICE.
(Galland., *Vet. Patr. Biblioth.*, vol. III, Proleg., p. xxx.)
I. Dionysius of Alexandria, surnamed the Great. Auditor of Origen, moderator of the School of Alexandria. The time when he was ordained bishop. His principal deeds. Monuments of his writings. The day of his death.
II. Most of his writings are lost. Those which are preserved among the ancients, now collected for the first time. Arranged according to temporal order.
III. On his *Elenchus* and *Apology*, discussed specifically.
IV. On what occasion such a work was written. Its value. What fragments survive. How they are distributed.
A Dionysius of Alexandria, by the ancient Fathers rightfully accorded the surname of "the Great" (a), was, as Jerome testifies (b), a very distinguished auditor of Origen, to whom he also dedicated his book *On Martyrdom* (c). Afterward the moderator of the Alexandrian School, he succeeded Heraclas in the episcopate in the third year of the reign of Philip, 247 A.D. (d). A few years after entering upon his episcopate, when the Decian persecution arose, he withdrew; but a short time later, he was seized by soldiers and led to Taposiris, where, by the will of God, he was wondrously rescued, albeit against his will, by a rustic band of Christians (e). Meantime, as the persecution raged, many at Alexandria underwent martyrdom for the name of Christ, whose glorious struggles Dionysius himself consigned to writing (f). In the year 252, he was present at the synod of Antioch, convened to put down the schism of the Novatians; to whom he also wrote an epistle (g). During that time, he refuted in two books, around the year 254 of Christ, the Egyptian bishop Nepos—by whose teaching the Arsinoites had been imbued with the error of the Chiliasts—where he also discoursed upon some matters worthy of note regarding the Apocalypse. Thereafter, in the dispute over rebaptizing heretics, he wrote many epistles to various persons for the purpose of restoring peace to the Church. When Valerian Augustus was harrying the Church of God with a dire persecution, after a noble confession made before Aemilian the Augustal prefect, he was forced to go to Cephro, a most uncultivated town in Libya; whence, a little later, he was ordered to migrate to Mareotis (h). While he was attacking the swelling Sabellian heresy, he was reported B to Dionysius the Roman pontiff, as if he were not thinking correctly concerning the consubstantiality of the divine Word with the Father: but he himself wiped away this stain smeared upon his reputation by writing four books. Then, indeed, after Valerian was captured by the Persians and Macrianus was killed with his sons, and peace was finally restored to the Christians by Gallienus, he returned to Alexandria toward the end of the year 261 (i), and was present to aid his fellow-citizens suffering from plague, famine, and civil war (j). Being called to Antioch to render judgment in the case of Paul of Samosata, because he was unequal to completing this journey on account of his advanced age and ill health, he pronounced his judgment by letters sent to the Antiochene Church. But at the time the synod was being held, the admirable man died, having completed seventeen years in the episcopate, seventeen (ἑπτακαίδεκα, as the author Eusebius attests (k)) under Gallienus, the Emperor of the eleventh year, at the beginning of 265 A.D. We have followed Lequien primarily in stitching together this Dionysian chronology (l). But as regards the day of Dionysius' death, the reader will perhaps not regret consulting Dodwell (m).
II. That Magnus Dionysius wrote very many things is clearly discovered from what has been said thus far, yet the greatest part of them has perished. But those things which still remain among the ancients from his literary monuments are certainly to be highly valued; these we now bring forth in public, collected for the first time from Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil, and other writers of the Church; so that the fragments, at least, of the works of such a great Father might to some extent make amends for and partially repair the loss we have sustained from the destruction of the rest. And many...
A endeavors to present them for consideration, along with others whether observed or even passed over; which, however, would lead us further away than is fitting from our plan. Since, therefore, we have briefly and methodically arranged the deeds of our holy Father, we have deemed it sufficient to have observed the same method of timing both in the fragments of his works and in the editing of his letters. If, however, anything remains that might call for some critical observation, the appended annotations will shed some light. For the rest, we have decided that one should not pass over what the most learned man, Peter Coutant [n], has observed regarding the fragments of the work inscribed *Refutation and Apology*; which, in this edition, occupy the fourth place in the first part of the Dionysian works, having been drawn up to an exact model by the study of the same most learned man. They are as follows.
III. The work of Dionysius of Alexandria, from which the proposed fragments were described, is cited in various places by Athanasius [o]. Basil [p] and Jerome [q] also make mention of it. But these two doctors do not describe it in the same way. For Jerome teaches that it is distinguished into four books; whereas Basil produces certain of its words as if from a second letter to Dionysius of the same name. In point of fact, however, it is certain from Athanasius that it is both distinguished into books and that the name of "letter" belongs to it; he indeed says in the letter *On the Opinion of Dionysius*, no. 13: "Dionysius, as soon as he could, for the purpose of clearing himself, published books which he inscribed *Refutation and Apology*," and concerning the same writing in no. 14 he speaks as follows: "He inscribed his letter with the title B *Refutation and Apology*." The letter, therefore, was divided into four books, and thus it is one of those which Dionysius calls "his own, dictated more fully and in the manner of a teacher" (διδασκαλικώτερον ἐξηγούμενος). It was not sent by him immediately upon being warned of his accusation. For, lest it should appear that he was failing the accusation if he delayed too long in writing back to the Roman pontiff, he sent this letter ahead to him, which he himself mentions below in no. 6, addressing the Roman [pontiff] in these words: "Καὶ σοὶ δι᾿ ἄλλης ἐπιστολῆς ἔγραψα." Therefore, the letter is not incorrectly called by Basil not only a letter, but also a *second* letter to Dionysius of the same name. At the same time, it is also the *Refutation and Apology*: the *Refutation* indeed of the adversaries and accusers of Dionysius, who are convicted and refuted in this work; the *Apology*, however, of Dionysius himself, who seeks to clear himself in the same work of the errors objected against him.
IV. This *Apology* of Dionysius is of the greater moment because it serves as a specimen for us of what the other Fathers who preceded the Nicene Council would have done, to whom some things had escaped which seemed akin to Arian impiety, had a similar necessity compelled them to explain their mind more openly. For from this, anyone is easily led to believe that there would have been no one among them who would not have condemned C the same perfidy just as Dionysius did. Regarding this work, Athanasius sets forth in no. 14 what he thought should be transcribed and what should be passed over, in this manner: "Passing over his very many words, by which he weighs the matters brought into question, or gathers them from the reasonings brought forward, or convicts the interrogated adversaries, or denounces his detractors, I will propose only those things which will seem necessary for clearing away the accusations." In those things, however, which he does transcribe, he does not preserve the order of the books in the least, but as the subjects treated required, he now brings forward one and another fragment from the first book, then another from the second, then the fourth, then again from the first, to which he joins another from the fourth. But since it is the intent of our work to accurately collect the remains of this same work, it has seemed better to present the individual fragments in the order which the books, from which they were described, maintain among themselves. If we examine the order of the events which preceded this work, it will be permitted to arrive in some way at the time around which it was composed. In truth, some letters of Dionysius of Alexandria against the Sabellians, published under Pope Xystus, gave the occasion for that accusation. D Thereupon, some Catholics, moved by this—the Alexandrian prelate himself being unaware—rushed to Rome and reported to the Roman pontiff those things in his writings that displeased them. Dionysius of Rome immediately admonished Dionysius of Alexandria. He, however, endeavored to satisfy him first with brief, and soon with longer letters as soon as possible, as Athanasius notes. Therefore, nothing prevents us from believing that this *Apology* of Dionysius pertains to the year 262. The learned Tillemont also thinks that it can be referred to the end of this year. And enough on the Great Dionysius.