полная версия

Saint Dionysius of Alexandria
St. Dionysius of Alexandria: Letters and Treatises

To Xystus (Sixtus) II, Bishop of Rome

(Eus., H. E. vii. 9)

(The fifth about Baptism)

I truly desire counsel, brother, and ask an opinion from you, being afraid lest after all I am wrong in my treatment of a case that has come before me as follows —

One who is reckoned faithful among the brethren who meet together, of old standing, having been a member even before my ordination (as Bishop), and I fancy even before the appointment of the blessed Heraclas, had been present at a recent baptism and heard the questions and answers (in that service). He came to me weeping and bemoaning himself and falling at my feet, confessing and protesting that the baptism he had received among the heretics was not this, nor had anything in common with it: for that was full of impiety and blasphemies:¹⁰¹ and he said that he was now sore pricked in the soul and had no courage even to lift up his eyes to God, because he had started with such unholy words and rites, and so he begged to obtain this thorough means of purification and acceptance and grace. But this I did not venture to do, saying that his so long being in communion with us was sufficient for the purpose. For as he had heard the Giving of Thanks (Eucharist) and joined in saying the Amen,¹⁰² and stood¹⁰³ at the Table¹⁰⁴ and stretched forth his hands to receive the holy Food and had taken it and partaken of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ for a considerable period, I should not venture to put him back to the beginning once more. So I bade him take courage and approach for the receiving of the Holy Things with sure faith and good hope. But he ceases not to grieve, and shrinks from approaching the Table and can with difficulty be persuaded to stand with (the Consistentes)¹⁰⁵ for the Prayers.

To Conon ¹⁰⁶

(Pitra, Spic. Sol. i. 15, from a Bodl. MS. dated 1062)

As to those who are nearing the end of life, if they desire and beg to obtain absolution, having before their eyes the judgment to which they are departing, considering what is in store for them, if they are handed over thereto bound and condemned, and believing that they will gain relief and lightening of punishment there, if they be loosed here – for these the approval of the Lord is true and assured – these, too, it is part of the Divine mercy to send on their way free. If, however, they afterwards continue to live, it does not appear to me consistent to bind them again and load them with their sins. For when once absolved and reconciled to God, and pronounced again to be partakers of Divine grace and dispatched as free to appear before the Lord,¹⁰⁷ so long as nothing wrong has been done by them in the meantime to bring them back into bondage for their sins were most unreasonable. Shall we after that¹⁰⁸ impose on God the limits of our judgment, to be kept by Him while we observe them not ourselves, making parade of the goodness of the Lord¹⁰⁹ but withholding our own? Nevertheless if any one, after recovery, should show himself in need of further treatment, we counsel him, of his own accord, to humble and abase and lower himself, with a view to his own improvement and also to what is seemly in the eyes of the brethren and irreproachable before those without.¹¹⁰ If he consent to this, he will be the gainer: but, if he should object and refuse, then no doubt that will be a sufficient ground for a second exclusion.

From the Writings about Repentance

(Mai, Class. Auct. x. 484, from a Vat. MS.)

But now we do the contrary. For him whom Christ in His goodness seeks when wandering upon the mountains, and calls to Himself when fleeing, and lays upon His shoulders when found at last,¹¹¹ him we resolutely repel when he approaches. Nay, let us not adopt so evil a counsel for our own sake, nor drive the sword into our own heart. For they that endeavour to injure or, on the other hand, to benefit others, may not altogether have the effect they desired upon them, but they do bring about good or evil for themselves and replenish their store either of heavenly virtues or of undisciplined affections. And these taking good angels as their companions and fellow-travellers,¹¹² both here and hereafter, in all peace and freedom from every evil, will be allotted the most blessed inheritances for eternity and will ever be with God, the greatest good of all; and those will forfeit at once the peace of God and their own peace, and both here and after death will be handed over to tormenting demons. Let us then not repel those who return, but gladly welcome them and number them with those who have not strayed, and thus supply that which is wanting¹¹³ in them.

To Domitius and Didymus

(Eus., H. E. vii. 11)

(Part of an Easter Letter)

(1) It is superfluous to mention by name the many members of our body, who are unknown to you: but you should know that men and women, young and old, soldiers¹¹⁴ and civilians, every class and age, some by the scourge and fire and some by the sword have conquered in the fight and carried off their crowns, while with some even a very long period did not prove sufficient to show them acceptable to the Lord (as martyrs), as in fact seems to be the case even now with me.¹¹⁵ Wherefore I have been put off until a time which He Himself knows to be the right one by Him who saith: “In a time acceptable I heard thee, and in the day of salvation I succoured thee.”¹¹⁶ For since you inquire and wish to be informed how we fare, by all means hear our experiences: how that when we were being led away prisoners by a centurion and duumviri¹¹⁷ with their soldiers and servants, viz. myself and Gaius, Faustus, Peter and Paul, certain of the inhabitants of the Mareotis came upon us, and with violence dragged us off against our will and in spite of our protests.¹¹⁸ And now I with Gaius and Peter only, deprived of the company of the other brethren,¹¹⁹ am shut in a desolate and dreary part of Libya, three days’ journey from Parætonium.¹²⁰

And further on he says —

(2) In the city there have concealed themselves, secretly looking after the brethren, from among the presbyters Maximus,¹²¹ Dioscorus, Demetrius and Lucius (for Faustinus and Aquila, who were better known in the world, are wandering in other parts of Egypt), and of the deacons Faustus, Eusebius and Chæremon, who survived those who perished in the pestilence.¹²² Eusebius was he whom from the beginning God strengthened and inspired to perform many services for the confessors in prison with all energy, and to carry out at no small risk the last offices for the perfect¹²³ and blessed martyrs in decking out their bodies (for burial). For up till now the Prefect does not cease from cruelly slaying some of those who are brought before him, as I have already said, and from tearing others in pieces with instruments of torture, while he crushes the spirits of others again with chains and imprisonment, forbidding any to visit them and making search lest any should be found doing so. Nevertheless, God gives them some respite from their miseries through the zeal and steadfast efforts of the brethren.

To Hermammon

(Eus., H. E. vii. 1, 10, 23)

(Part of another Easter Letter)

(1) Even Gallus¹²⁴ did not know the flaw in Decius’s policy, nor did he foresee what it was that upset him, but stumbled over the same stone that was right before his eyes. For, though his reign was prospering and things were going according to his mind, he drove into exile the holy men who were interceding with God for his peace and health, with the effect that with them he drove out also their prayers on his behalf.

So far on that point, and then again he discourses about Valerian in the same letter —

(2) To John also it is revealed in like manner, when he says: “There was given him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemy, and there was given him authority and forty-two months.”¹²⁵ And both these things are to be wondered at in the case of Valerian,¹²⁶ and of them it is especially to be observed how his prosperity lasted so long as he was gentle and well-disposed towards the men of God.¹²⁷ For none of the Emperors before him were so kindly and favourably affected towards them, not even those who were said to have been openly Christians,¹²⁸ as he manifestly was, receiving them at the beginning in a most familiar and friendly spirit: indeed, his whole house was filled with devout persons and was a veritable Church of God.¹²⁹ But he was persuaded to abandon this treatment by that tutor and chief ruler of Egyptian magicians,¹³⁰ who instructed him to slay or persecute, as adversaries and hinderers of his vile and detestable sorcerers, the pure and holy persons, who are and were able to confound the devices of accursed demons by being present and seen and merely breathing on them and uttering words,¹³¹ while he also incited him to perform unholy rites and detestable juggleries and abominable sacrifices such as the killing of wretched boys and the slaying of unhappy fathers’ children and the dividing of new-born entrails asunder and the cutting up and mutilating of bodies which are God’s creation,¹³² in the hope that such doings would bring them Divine favour.

And to this he adds as follows —

(3) Fine offerings at all events did Macrianus make to them (sc. the demons) to propitiate them for the Empire which he hoped for, when, in his former position as so-called officer in charge of the Emperor’s general (καθόλου) accounts he entertained no reasonable (εὔλογον) nor catholic (καθολικόν) sentiments,¹³³ but fell under the prophet’s curse, who says: “Woe to those who prophesy out of their own heart and see not the general (τὸ καθόλου) view.”¹³⁴ For he did not understand the workings of Universal (καθόλου) Providence,¹³⁵ nor suspect the approach of Judgment on the part of Him who is before all things and through all things and over all things.¹³⁶ Wherefore he has become also the enemy of His universal (καθολικῆς) Church and has alienated and estranged himself from God’s mercy and banished himself as far as possible from his own salvation, verifying in this his personal name.¹³⁷

And again further on he says —

(4) For Valerian, through being persuaded to this policy by him, exposed himself to insults and injuries according to that which was said to Isaiah: “And these men chose their ways and their abominations which their soul desired, and I will choose their mockings and will recompense them their sins.”¹³⁸

But this man (Macrianus) in his mad lust after imperial power for which he had no qualifications, being unable to deck his own crippled body with the imperial robes, put forward his two sons, who thus became liable for their father’s sins.¹³⁹ For the prophecy clearly applies to them which God spake: “visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”¹⁴⁰ For he brought upon his sons’ heads his own evil desires in which he had succeeded and involved them in the consequences of his own wickedness and hatred of God.¹⁴¹

Then there is a section in which he refers to the peaceful times under Gallienus —

(5) So after thus inciting one of the Emperors before him and attacking the other, he speedily vanished with all his family, root and branch,¹⁴² whilst Gallienus was proclaimed and acknowledged by all, being at once the old and the new Emperor, having preceded the usurpers and remaining after them. For, in accordance with that which was spoken to the prophet Isaiah, “behold the things predicted from the beginning have come to pass, and new things which will now arise.”¹⁴³ For as a cloud having overcast the sun’s rays and screened them for a while shades it and shows itself in its stead, and then when the cloud has passed off or been dissipated the sun which was shining before emerges and shines forth again, so it is with Macrianus; after coming forward and gaining access for himself to the imperial power which belonged to Gallienus, he ceases to be, since he was of no account, and the other resumes the position he had before. And the Empire, having cast off, as it were, its old age and purged itself of its former badness, now bursts into greater splendour, is seen and heard from afar and pervades the whole world.

Then in due order he indicates the date of this letter in these words —

(6) And once more it occurs to me to consider the days and years of this period of the Empire. For I observe that the ungodly persons (I have mentioned) after a short period of honourable mention have lost their good name, but (Gallienus) who was more righteous and loved God better,¹⁴⁴ having completed the seven years’ period, is now passing through his ninth year:¹⁴⁵ therefore let us keep the Feast.¹⁴⁶

To the Brethren in Alexandria

(Eus., H. E. vii. 22)

(Part of another Easter Letter)

(1) Other men would not think the present a time for “keeping festival: nor, indeed, is this nor any other such a time to them; I speak not of times obviously sorrowful, but even of such as they might consider most joyful. In these days there are lamentations everywhere, and all are mourning: wailings resound through the city by reason of the number of the dead and the dying day by day. For, as it is written about the firstborn of the Egyptians, so now also “a great cry arose: for there is not a house in which there is not one dead.”¹⁴⁷ I would, indeed, there were but one; for the things that have before now befallen us were truly many and grievous.¹⁴⁸ First of all they drove us into exile and we kept the feast then too by ourselves, persecuted and harried to death by all, and every place where each particular affliction befel us became the scene of our festal assembly, open country, desert, ship, inn or prison, and our perfect¹⁴⁹ martyrs spent the brightest of all feasts, being entertained in heaven above. But after this war and famine seized us, which we endured in common with the Gentiles, having undergone alone all the injuries they had inflicted on us and then having to share in the evils they wrought on one another and suffered: and once more we rejoiced in the peace of Christ, which He has given to us alone. But now after we and they had obtained a very brief respite, this pestilence has overtaken us, which is to them a more fearful thing than all former fears and more terrible than any calamity whatever, and to quote an expression of an historian of their own,¹⁵⁰ “a thing which alone has exceeded all men’s expectation,” while to us it was not so much that as a discipline and a testing no less severe than any of the rest: for it did not spare us, though it attacked the Gentiles in great force.

To this he adds as follows —

(2) At all events most of the brethren through their love and brotherly affection for us spared not themselves nor abandoned one another, but without regard to their own peril visited those who fell sick, diligently looking after and ministering to them and cheerfully shared their fate with them, being infected with the disease from them and willingly involving themselves in their troubles. Not a few also, after nursing others back to recovery, died themselves, taking death over from them and thus fulfilling in very deed the common saying, which is taken always as a note of mere good feeling; for in their departure they became their expiatory substitutes.¹⁵¹ At all events, the very pick of our brethren lost their lives in this way, both priests and deacons and some highly praised ones from among the laity, so that this manner of dying does not seem far removed from martyrdom, being the outcome of much piety and stalwart faith. So, too, taking up the bodies of the saints on their arms and breasts, closing their eyes and shutting their mouths, bearing them on their shoulders and laying them out for burial, clinging to them, embracing them, washing them, decking them out, they not long after had the same services rendered to them; for many of the survivors followed in their train. But the Gentiles behaved quite differently: those who were beginning to fall sick they thrust away, and their dearest they fled from, or cast them half dead into the roads: unburied bodies they treated as vile refuse;¹⁵² for they tried to avoid the spreading and communication of the fatal disease, difficult as it was to escape for all their scheming.

To Hierax an Egyptian Bishop

(Eus., H. E. vii. 21)

(Part of another Easter Letter)

But what is there surprising in its being difficult for me to correspond even by letter with those who are sojourning at a distance, seeing that it has proved impossible to talk even with myself and to take counsel with my own soul? At all events, with my own kith and kin, with the brethren of my own house and life, citizens of the same Church, I have to communicate by letters and to get them through seems impracticable. For it were easier for one to pass, I say not across the frontier, but even from East to West, than to visit one part of Alexandria from another. For that vast, pathless desert which it took Israel two generations to traverse is not so impassable and hard to cross as the central street of the city, nor is the sea, which they had for a carriage-road when the waters were parted asunder to make a passage through. And our still and waveless harbours¹⁵³ have become an image of those in the passing of which the Egyptians were overwhelmed; for they have often appeared like the Red Sea from the blood which was in them. And the river which flows past the city at one time appeared drier than the waterless desert and more parched than that which Israel crossed over when they were so thirsty that Moses cried out and drink flowed out of the steep rock from Him that worketh wonders:¹⁵⁴ and at another time it was so full as to overflow the whole neighbourhood, both roads and fields, and to threaten a return of the flood which occurred in the days of Noah. But in either case it runs polluted with blood and slaughter and drowned corpses, as under Moses it happened to Pharaoh, when the river turned to blood and stank.¹⁵⁵ And what other water could cleanse all this but the water which itself cleanseth all things?¹⁵⁶ How could the mighty ocean which man cannot cross, overspread and sweep away this horrid flood? or how could the great river that goeth out of Eden wash off the stain, though it were to divert the four heads into which it is divided into the single head of the Gihon?¹⁵⁷ or when would the air, reeking everywhere with the evil exhalation, become pure? For such mist from the ground and breezes from the sea, airs from the rivers and vapours from the harbours are given off that for dew we have the impure fluids of corpses rotting in all their component elements. After all this do men wonder, are they at a loss, whence come the continual pestilences, whence the dire diseases, whence the divers ravages, whence the wholesale destruction of life, why the largest city no longer contains in it its former multitude of inhabitants, from infant children to the most advanced in years, whom it used to nourish in other days to a green old age,¹⁵⁸ as the saying went, whereas these from forty up to seventy years of age were so much more numerous then that their number is not now reached even when all from fourteen to eighty are enrolled and put together for the public distribution of food,¹⁵⁹ and thus those whose looks show them to be quite young have become as it were of equal age with those who have long been advanced in years. And though they see the race of man on earth thus dwindling ever and being exhausted, they do not tremble,¹⁶⁰ as its total extinction proceeds and draws near.

(From another Easter Letter)

[This fragment is given in the Sacra Parallela Rupefucald., fol. 70 and 71, where it is ascribed to Dionysius’s “Fourth Easter Letter.” It is by no means clear which Letter is meant, but the main thought (of the cunning devices by which Love wins its way) is quaintly beautiful and well worthy of our author]

Love leaps out in utmost eagerness to confer some benefit even on an unwilling object: yea, often on one who shrinks in shame and tries to shun kind treatment from dislike of being burdensome to another, and would fain put up with his annoyances alone, in order not to cause trouble and inconvenience to any. He that is full of Love craves leave to suffer and endure: to be in evil case, he thinks, gives opportunity for being helped, and he will do the greatest favour to another, not himself, if through that other the evil, which is his own, is made to cease.¹⁶¹