St. Dionysius of Alexandria: Letters and Treatises

229

Ecclus. xvi. 26 f.

230

The natural motion of atoms was downwards, but there was also a slight sideward motion, and when they impinged a motion upwards by blows and tossings, and this produced the shape of things. But Dionysius here says, how is that theory consistent with the orderly march of the stars?

231

Dionysius here plays on the derivation of ἄτομοι, from τέμνειν (= to cut).

232

Amos iii. 3 (LXX). The A.V. and R.V. give the more exact meaning “agreed” to the last word.

233

Hesiod, Works and Days, iv. 408 and 411.

234

Viz. the heathen, to whom the poets were to some extent what the prophets are to us Christians.

235

Jer. xlviii. 10.

236

The happiness of the King of Persia was proverbial: see Hor., Od. ii. 12, 21, iii. 9, 4.

237

By “Necessity” here Dionysius means not “Fate” in the fatalist’s sense, but that supreme Will and Purpose of God, which is opposed to the Epicurean doctrine of chance.

238

The title here given (ὑποθῆκαι) is not given in the list of Democritus’s works, but the ὑπομνήματα ἠθικά may be meant.

239

It is impossible to reproduce the play upon words here, εὐτυχῆ τὴν φρόνησιν, ἐμφρονεστάτην τὴν τύχην. The reference seems to be to such poetical passages as Soph., O. T. 977 ff., and Eur., Alc. 785 ff., where the practical wisdom of leaving the future to take care of itself is extolled.

240

Epicurus himself contended that by ἡδονή (pleasure) he meant not sensual enjoyments so much as freedom from pain of body and from disturbance of soul (ἀταραξία), the source of which was largely in the exercise of the mind and will: see Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, pp. 473 ff.

241

The words quoted (δωτῆρας ἐάων) are a Homeric phrase, e. g. Od. viii. 325 and 335.

242

The derivation from θέειν is proposed by Plato, Cratyl. 397 C: that from θεῖναι by Herod, ii. 52, and of the two the latter is the more likely (√θε) though Curtius suggests a root θες = to pray: see Peile, Introd. to Philology, p. 37 (3rd ed., 1875).

243

These are probably some sort of Gnostics who took over Manichean views of God and Matter, but not of the worst kind, for they recognized that God had the control and disposition of matter.

244

Some one, i. e. who could give them the property of being without beginning.

245

“Different from both,” because the being without beginning is not of the very essence of both. See further on.

246

A curious expression, for which one would have expected the opposite statement, viz. that the handicrafts can shape and form the materials they deal with rather than that the materials give the necessary methods and designs to the handicrafts which deal with them. Up to this point Dionysius has been combating the view with which the extract begins. The rest of the extract proceeds to show what amount of truth there is in it.

247

The reference here is to Manichean views of the worst kind, i. e. that matter is not only without beginning, but the source of evil and altogether independent of God.

248

i. e. Dionysius of Rome, to whom this treatise was addressed. This particular “other letter” does not seem to have been known to Eusebius, and when Athanasius quotes this extract in another of his treatises he omits the words “to thee.”

249

Athanasius himself was sparing in his use of the term, and the Synod of Antioch (A.D. 264) refused to accept it, as liable to misconstruction.

250

i. e. in the letter to Euphranor (about Sabellianism in Libya) which had given rise to the Bishop of Rome’s intervention.

251

It looks as if Dionysius was in exile when he wrote this. See above, p. 19.

252

i. e. each of the two is itself and not the other, as was said above in the case of parents and children.

253

i. e. they had gone or sent to Rome, in order to attack him.

254

Viz. about the plant and the ship, which he has already apologized for as not quite appropriate.

255

i. e. in Scripture, e. g. in such passage as Wisd. vii. 25, to which he refers in the next sentence.

256

Sc. in Dionysius’s letter to Euphranor: cf. John x. 30, xvii. 11, 21, 22. The extract on p. 106 below deals with the same thought more fully. In both places Dionysius’s language is based on Philo’s discussion of the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and the λόγος προφορικός (the conceived and the expressed word), de vita Mosis, p. 230, Cohn.

257

i. e. from the Father and through the Son: Dionysius seems to have derived this view of the Holy Spirit’s Procession from his master, Origen, though he is thinking here rather of the Mission of the Spirit into the Church and its members than of the eternal and necessary relations of the three Persons in the Holy Trinity to one another, as the sentences that follow indicate.

258

Lit. in their hands: a striking expression which Athanasius borrows from Dionysius in his Exposition of the Faith.

259

This is what Dionysius of Rome had imputed to our Dionysius, though without the word “wholly” he would not have altogether discarded the position.

260

Λόγος is translated throughout this passage by “speech” (i. e. uttered words), except in the last clause, where it refers to the Son Himself and where it must be rendered by “Word” as usual: but obviously “speech” is only part of the full meaning of λόγος. The whole passage should be compared with the preceding extract.

261

Ps. xliv. (xlv.) 1: here R.V. translates λόγον ἀγαθόν, “a goodly matter,” in accordance with A.V.

262

The word used (ἐγκυκλεῖν) suggests the scenic device of the ἐγκύκλημα, by which some kind of change of scene was brought on to the stage in the Greek theatre: see Classical Dict., s.v.