On the Opinion of Dionysius 1–14

You have been slow to inform me about the present dispute held among you with the Christ-fighters; for even before your affection wrote, I had learned of it, being eager to inquire about such things and glad to hear of them. I welcomed your piety, which thinks rightly about our blessed fathers; and I have recognized now once more the irrationality of the Ariomaniacs. For since their heresy has nothing reasonable in it, nor any text from the divine Scripture for proof, they have always supplied themselves with shameless pretexts and plausible sophisms; but now they have dared to slander the fathers too. And this is not foreign to their malice, but quite in keeping with it. For when men have undertaken to plot against the Lord and against his Christ, what wonder is it if they also revile the blessed Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, as one who shared their opinion and their mind? For whomever these men seem to praise for the support of their own heresy, even if they call him blessed, they slander not lightly but greatly—like robbers and men of disreputable life, who, when reproached for their own practices, number the chaste among themselves, slandering their chastity.

If, then, they are confident in what they think and say, let them bring forward their heresy naked, and show from it whether they think they have anything from the Scriptures, or even some pious human reasoning, in their defense; but if they have nothing of the kind, let them be silent. For nowhere will they find anything but a refutation of themselves. From the Scriptures: when John says, “In the beginning was the Word,” of whom these say, “He was not before he was begotten”; when David sings in the person of the Father, “My heart has uttered a good Word,” of whom these say that he exists only in notion and came to be from nothing; then, when John again proclaims that “all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be,” and Paul writes, “One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” and elsewhere, “For in him all things were created”—what boldness will these men have, and will they not rather incur shame, opposing the words of the saints when they say that the Creator of all is a thing made, and that he in whom the creatures came to be and hold together is a creature? Nor is any pious human reasoning left to them in their defense. For what man, Greek or barbarian, will undertake to call him whom he confesses to be God a creature, or to say that he was not before he came to be? Or what man, hearing him whom he has believed to be the only God say, “This is my beloved Son,” and “My heart has uttered a good Word,” will dare even to say that the Word from the heart of God came to be from nothing, or that the Son is a creature and not the proper offspring of him who speaks? And again, who, hearing him whom he has believed to be Lord and Savior say, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” and “I and the Father are one,” will undertake to divide what he has united and kept undivided?

Seeing this themselves, and having no boldness in their own case, they slander the pious. But since they are destitute of everything, and see themselves at a loss on every side in the questions and left gaping, they ought rather to repent and turn from the way of error, and not number among themselves those whom they do not know, lest they be refuted by them too and bring on themselves greater shame. But perhaps they will never be willing to give up such craftiness; for in this too they have emulated Caiaphas’s party, just as they have learned from them to deny Christ. For they too, when the Lord had done so many works by which he made himself known as the Christ, the Son of the living God, and they were refuted by him, thinking and saying everything contrary to the Scriptures and unable to face even for a moment the refutations against them, took refuge in the patriarch, saying, “We have Abraham as our father,” and thinking that by this they could cover their irrationality. But neither did they gain anything by saying this, nor will these be able to escape the same charge as those by naming Dionysius. For the Lord refuted those men in their lawlessness, saying, “Abraham did not do this”; and the same truth will refute these in their impiety and their lies: that Dionysius the bishop neither held the views of Arius nor was ignorant of the truth. Rather, both the Jews of that time and these new ones have inherited the Christ-fighting madness from their father the devil. It is a great proof that they are not telling the truth in this either, but slandering the man, that he was neither condemned for impiety by other bishops and cast out of the episcopate, as these men were cast out of the clergy, nor did he himself go out of the church as the champion of a heresy; but he fell asleep well within it, and his memory is still among the fathers and is recorded. For if he had held their views, or had not defended himself concerning what he wrote, there is no doubt that he too would have suffered the same as they. [4] This would be enough for the complete condemnation of the new Jews, who deny the Lord, slander the fathers, and try to deceive all Christians. But since they think they have pretexts for their slander of the bishop in certain parts of a letter of his, come, let us examine these too, so that from them too their idle talk may be shown, and that they may at last, however late, stop blaspheming the Lord among themselves, and may confess, at least with the soldiers, seeing creation bear witness, that truly this is the Son of God, and is not one of the creatures. They say, then, that the blessed Dionysius said in a letter that the Son of God is a thing made and originated, and not proper to the Father by nature, but foreign to him in essence, as the vinedresser is to the vine and the shipbuilder to the boat; for being a thing made, he was not before he came to be. He did write it, and we too acknowledge that there is such a letter of his; but as he wrote this one, so he also wrote very many other letters, and they ought to have read these too, so that the man’s faith might be shown from all of them and not from the one alone. For when a shipbuilder has built many triremes, his skill is judged not from one but from all. If, then, he wrote the letter they speak of simply as a statement of the faith, or wrote this one alone, let them accuse him as they wish; for such a mind truly deserves accusation. But if the circumstances of a time and of persons drew him to write such things, and he wrote other letters again, defending himself concerning what he was suspected of, then they ought not to have left out the reasons and rashly brought odium upon the man, lest they seem to hunt only for little phrases and to pass over the truth in the other letters. For a vinedresser too tends the same trees differently at different times because of the quality of the soil beneath; and no one would blame him because he prunes this one and grafts that, plants one and uproots another; rather, when he learns the reason, he will admire the variety of his skill. So if they have not read the writings carelessly, let them tell the occasion too …; but since they either do not know it or are ashamed to tell it, we must.

In the Pentapolis of Upper Libya at that time some of the bishops held the views of Sabellius, and they prevailed so far with their notions that the Son of God was all but no longer preached in the churches. Dionysius learned of this—for he had the care of those churches—and sends and counsels those responsible to cease from their false doctrine. But as they did not cease, but were even more shameless in their impiety, he was forced, because of their shamelessness, to write that letter and to set out from the Gospels the human things of the Savior, so that, since they very boldly denied the Son and ascribed his human things to the Father, he, by showing that it is not the Father but the Son who became man for us, might persuade the ignorant that the Father is not the Son, and so might gradually lead them up to the true divinity of the Son and to the knowledge of the Father. This is the occasion of the letter, and it was for this reason that he wrote as he did, because of those who so shamelessly wished to alter the faith of the truth.

What likeness is there, then, between the heresy of Arius and the mind of Dionysius? Or why is Dionysius named as if he were Arius, when the difference between them is great? For the one is a teacher of the catholic church, while the other became the inventor of a new heresy. Arius, setting out his own false doctrine, wrote a Thalia in an effeminate and ludicrous style, after the manner of the Egyptian Sotades; but Dionysius wrote other letters too, and defended himself concerning what he was suspected of, and was shown to think rightly. If, then, he writes contrary to himself, let them not drag him over to their side; for in that case he is not trustworthy. But if, having written the letter to Ammonius, he was suspected and defended himself, correcting what he had said first, and after his defense did not change again, it would be plain that what was suspected he wrote by way of accommodation. And what is written and done by way of accommodation must not be taken maliciously and dragged by each person to his own purpose. For a physician too often applies to the wounds before him, as he himself knows best, remedies that seem to some unsuitable, having no other aim than health; and this is also the way of a wise teacher, to adapt himself to the characters of those he is teaching and to speak accordingly, until he leads them over into the way of perfection.

If they blame the blessed man merely because he wrote in this way (for the pretexts the Arians use on his behalf turn into charges against him), what will they do when they hear the great and blessed apostles too in the Acts? Peter says: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this man, delivered up by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed up by the hands of lawless men and killed”; and again: “By the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands before you well.” Paul explains at Antioch in Pisidia that “God, having removed Saul, raised up David to be king, of whom he also testified and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ Of this man’s offspring God has brought to Israel, according to promise, a Savior, Jesus”; and again at Athens: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, having given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Or Stephen, the great martyr, when he says: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of …”

Since those men imagine such things, did the apostles, then, because they used these words, know Christ only as a man and nothing more? Far from it! One cannot even entertain such a thought. Rather, they did this too as wise master builders and stewards of the mysteries of God; and they have a sound reason. For since the Jews of that time, having gone astray themselves and led the Greeks astray, thought that the Christ was merely a man, who would come from the seed of David like the other children born of David, and did not believe that he was God, nor that the Word became flesh, for this reason the blessed apostles with great understanding first explained the human things of the Savior to the Jews, so that, having fully persuaded them from the signs that appeared and were done that the Christ had come, they might then lead them up to faith in his divinity too, showing that the works done were not those of a man but of God. Indeed, Peter, who spoke of the Christ as a man who suffered, at once added, “He is the Author of life”; and in the Gospel he confesses, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”; and in his letter he says that he is the overseer of souls, and Lord of himself and of angels and powers. And again Paul, who said that the Christ was a man from the seed of David, wrote to the Hebrews, “who, being the radiance of his glory and the impress of his hypostasis,” and to the Philippians, “who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” And to say “Author of life,” and “Son of God,” and “radiance,” and “impress,” and “equal to God,” and “Lord” …

Dionysius, then, having learned this from the apostles, did the same. For since the heresy of Sabellius was spreading, he was compelled, as I said before, to write that letter and to hurl against them what is said of the Savior in a human and lowly way, so that, having cut them off by means of the human things from saying that the Father is the Son, he might make the teaching about the divinity of the Son easier for them, when in his other letters he calls him, from the Scriptures, Word, Wisdom, Power, Vapor, and Radiance of the Father. In the letters of his defense, at any rate, saying such things, he speaks boldly in the faith and in piety toward Christ. As, then, the apostles are not to be accused because of the human words about the Lord (for the Lord did become man), but are rather worthy of admiration for their accommodation and their teaching suited to the time, so Dionysius is not an Arian because of his letter to Euphranor and Ammonius against Sabellius. For even if he used lowly words and illustrations, these too are from the Gospels; and he has as the reason for them the Savior’s coming in the flesh, because of which these and similar things are written. For as he is the Word of God, so afterwards “the Word became flesh”; and “in the beginning was the Word,” but the Virgin at the consummation of the ages conceived in her womb, and the Lord became man. And the one signified by both is one, for “the Word became flesh”; but the words spoken about his divinity and about his becoming man each have their own interpretation, suited to what is said. Whoever writes of the human things of the Word knows also the things concerning his divinity; and whoever expounds his divinity is not ignorant of what is proper to his coming in the flesh; but distinguishing each like a skilled and approved money-changer, he will walk in the straight way of piety. When, then, he speaks of him weeping, he knows that the Lord, having become man, shows the weeping as belonging to the human, but raises Lazarus as God; and he knows that he hungered and thirsted in the body, but fed five thousand from five loaves as God; and he knows that it was a human body that lay in the tomb, but that it was raised, as the body of God, by the Word himself.

Teaching these things, Dionysius too, in the letter to Euphranor and Ammonius, wrote because of Sabellius about the things said of the Savior in a human way. For these are said of him in a human way: “I am the vine, my Father is the vinedresser,” and “faithful to him who made him,” and “he created,” and “having become so much better than the angels.” But he was not ignorant of “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” and “He who has seen me has seen the Father”; for we know that he wrote these things in his other letters; and there too, when writing them, he mentioned the human things of the Lord. For as “being in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” and “though he was rich, he became poor for our sake,” so, while the words about his divinity are lofty and rich, the expressions about his coming in the flesh are lowly and poor. That these things are said of the Savior in a human way one may see from this: the vinedresser is foreign in essence to the vine, but the branches are of the same essence and kin to the vine and inseparable from it, and they and the vine have one and the same origin. And, as the Lord said, he is the vine, we are the branches. If, then, the Son is of the same essence as we are and has the same origin as we have, then in this respect let the Son too be foreign in essence to the Father, as the vine is to the vinedresser; but if the Son is other than we are, and he is the Word of the Father, while we came from the earth and are descendants of Adam, then the text ought not to be referred to the divinity of the Word, but rather to his human coming. For the Savior also said this: “I am the vine, you are the branches; my Father is the vinedresser.” For we are kin to the Lord according to the body; and for this reason he said, “I will declare your name to my brothers.” And as the branches are of the same essence as the vine and come from it, so we too, having bodies of the same kind as the body of the Lord, receive of his fullness, and have that body as our root for the resurrection and salvation. And the Father is called the vinedresser, for it was he who cultivated the vine through the Word, and the vine is the Savior’s humanity; and he himself, through the Word himself, prepared for us the way to the kingdom; and no one comes to the Lord unless the Father draws him to him.

Since the text has this interpretation, it follows that it is about the vine, so understood, that these are written: “faithful to him who made him,” and “having become so much better than the angels,” and “he created.” For when he took what he had to offer for us—and this was the body from the Virgin Mary—then it is written of him that he was created and made and came to be; for such expressions fit men. Moreover, it was not after … that he became better than the angels, as if before he might appear to be less than they or equal to them; but writing to Jews and comparing the Lord’s human ministry with that of Moses, the apostle said, “having become so much better than the angels”; for the law was spoken through angels, since the law was given through Moses, but grace came through Jesus Christ, and the supply of the Spirit. And then the law was proclaimed from Dan to Beersheba, but now “their voice has gone out into all the earth,” and the nations worship Christ and through him know the Father. These things, then, are written of the Savior in a human way, and it is not otherwise.

Did Dionysius, then, as the Christ-fighters keep chattering, in writing of the human things of the Son and so calling him a thing made, mean that he was one of men? Or, in saying that the Word is not proper to the essence of the Father, did he think that he was of the same essence as us men? Yet he did not write thus in his other letters; on the contrary, in them he is seen to think rightly, and through them he can cry out against these men, saying: “I am not of the same opinion as you, you God-fighters; nor did what I wrote give Arius a pretext for impiety. But writing to Ammonius and Euphranor because of the Sabellianizers, I mentioned the vinedresser and the vine and other such texts, so that, by showing the human things of the Lord, I might persuade them not to say … ; for as the vinedresser is not the vine, so the one who came to be in the body is not the Father but the Word; and the Word, having come to be in the vine, was called the vine because of his bodily kinship with the branches, which we are. With this meaning, then, I wrote the letter to Euphranor and Ammonius; but against your shamelessness I set the other letters written by me, so that the wise may know the defense in them and my right thinking in the faith of Christ.” The Arians too, if they had a sound mind, ought to have reasoned and thought in this way about the bishop; for “all things are plain to those who understand, and right to those who find knowledge.” But since, not having learned the faith of the catholic church, they have fallen into impiety, and their mind is now blinded, they think even straight things crooked, and call light darkness and think darkness light. It is therefore necessary to set out what is in the other letters of Dionysius too, and the reason for them, for the greater condemnation of the heretics; for it is from them that we ourselves have learned to think and write as we do about the man.

The occasion for which he wrote the other letters is this. When Dionysius the bishop had learned of the affairs in the Pentapolis and, in zeal for piety, had written, as I said before, the letter to Euphranor and Ammonius against the heresy of Sabellius, some of the brothers of the church, who thought rightly but did not ask him so as to learn from him why he had written as he did, went up to Rome and spoke against him before his namesake Dionysius, bishop of Rome. When he heard it, he wrote at once both against those who held the views of Sabellius and against those who thought the very things for saying which Arius was cast out of the church, saying that the impiety of Sabellius and that of those who say that the Word of God is a creature and a thing made and originated are equal and diametrically opposite. He also wrote to Dionysius to inform him of what they had said against him. And he at once wrote back, and entitled his books Refutation and Defense. Here observe the abominable workshop of the Christ-fighters, and how they themselves have stirred up shame against themselves. For since Dionysius, bishop of Rome, wrote also against those who say that the Son of God is a creature and a thing made, it is shown that the heresy of the Christ-fighting Arians was anathematized by all, not now for the first time but long ago. Then, since Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, defended himself concerning the letter he had written, he too is seen neither to have thought as they say, nor to have held the false doctrine of Arius at all.

And for the complete condemnation of the Arians and the proof of their slander, it is enough that Dionysius defended himself at all concerning what these men keep chattering about. For he did not write back as one contending, but as one defending himself concerning what he was suspected of; and one who defends himself concerning what he is accused of, what else does he do but dissolve every suspected charge against him, and in this very act convict the Ariomaniacs as slanderers? But so that these men may be put to greater shame by what he wrote in his defense, come, let me set his own words before you; for you will learn from them that the Arians are perverse, while Dionysius is a stranger to their heterodoxy. First, then, he entitled his letter Of Refutation and Defense. What does this mean but that he refutes those who lie and defends what he wrote, showing that he did not write as Arius supposed, but that, in mentioning what is said of the Lord in a human way, he was not ignorant that he is the Word and Wisdom inseparable from the Father? Then he blames those who spoke against him for not quoting his words whole but cutting them up, and for speaking as they wish, not with a good conscience but an evil one; and he likens them to those who slander the letters of the blessed apostle. Such a complaint of his completely frees him from base suspicion. For if he regards those who spoke against Paul as like those who spoke against him, he shows nothing other than that he wrote as he did holding the views of Paul. Indeed, meeting each of the things said by his accusers, he corrects everything they bring forward; and in those letters he overthrows Sabellius, while in these he shows his own pious … whole. … Dionysius: “God was not always Father, the Son was not always; but God was without the Word, and the Son himself was not before he was begotten; but there was once when he was not; for he is not eternal, but came to be afterwards”—see how he answers. Most of his words, in which he either examines by inquiry, or draws conclusions by reasoning, or refutes by questioning, or blames his accusers, I pass over because of their length, and set down only those necessary for the charge. Defending himself, then, against those charges, he writes in these words in the first book, entitled Of Refutation and Defense, after other things, as follows: [15] “For there was not a time when God was not Father.” And he acknowledges this in what follows: “that Christ always is, being Word and Wisdom and Power. For it is not that God, being at first without offspring of these, then begot a child; but the Son has his being not from himself, but from the Father.” And a little later he says again about the same: “Being the radiance of eternal light, he himself is certainly eternal too; for since the light always is, it is plain that the radiance always is. For it is by its shining forth that light is understood to exist, and light cannot be without giving light. Let us come back again to our illustrations. If there is a sun, there is a ray, there is day; if none of these exists, the sun is far from being present. If, then, the sun were eternal, the day too would be unceasing; but as it is, since this is not so, the day began when the sun began, and ceases when it ceases. But God is eternal light, neither having begun nor ever ending; so the radiance lies before him eternally and is with him, without beginning and always begotten, shining forth before him, which is the Wisdom that says, ‘I was she in whom he delighted; and daily I rejoiced before his face at all times.’” And again a little later he adds about the same: “The Father, then, being eternal, the Son is eternal, being light from light; for if there is a parent, there is also a child; and if there were no child, how and of whom could he be a parent? But both are, and are always.” Then again he adds this: “God, then, being light, Christ is radiance. And since he is Spirit—for ‘God,’ it says, ‘is spirit’—correspondingly Christ again is called vapor; for ‘she is a vapor,’ it says, ‘of the power of God.’” And from the second book again he says: “Only the Son, being always with the Father and filled with him who is, himself also is, being from the Father.”