St. Dionysius of Alexandria: Letters and TreatisesDionysius, of Alexandria, Saint
Religion
St. Dionysius of Alexandria: Letters and Treatises
Dionysius, of Alexandria, Saint
Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600 -- Sources
(4) (_Ibid._, 23). For, as our mind overflows with speech[260] of itself,
as says the prophet: “My heart overfloweth with good speech,”[261] and
each is diverse from the other, each occupying its proper place distinct
from the other, the one dwelling and moving in the heart and the other on
the tongue and in the mouth, and yet they are not entirely unconnected
nor deprived of one another; the mind is not speechless, nor the speech
mindless, but the mind produces the speech, revealing itself thereby; and
the speech shows the mind, having been gendered therein; the mind is, as
it were, the inlying speech and the speech is the issuing mind; the mind
is transferred into the speech and the speech displays[262] the mind to
the hearers; and thus the mind through the speech gains a lodgment in the
souls of those that hear, entering together with the speech, and the mind
is, as it were, the father of the speech, having an independent existence
withal; and the speech is, as it were, the son of the mind, being an
impossibility prior to the mind, yet brought into association with it
from any outside source, but springing from the mind; even so the Father,
who is the Almighty and Universal Mind, has the Son, the Word as the
Interpreter and Messenger of Himself.
Additional Note to p. 12.
Jerome (in his letter _ad Evangelum_) is responsible for the assertion
that Dionysius was the last who, in accordance with the original custom
of the Church of Alexandria, was nominated as Bishop by his
fellow-presbyters there. Subsequently the Bishop was chosen (at least in
theory) by the whole body of the faithful in the diocese, as in other
parts of Christendom. Jerome’s words do not seem to include consecration
also by a fresh laying of hands by the presbytery, though Bishop
Lightfoot (_Philippians_, p. 231) inferred from certain other evidence of
a not very decisive kind that this was the case and that it was rendered
necessary at first by the Bishop of Alexandria having had no other
Bishops with him in Egypt until 190. Others hold that no fresh laying on
of hands at all had been considered necessary, which is hardly probable.
Mr. C. H. Turner (_Cambridge Medieval History_, vol. i.) has suggested
that Jerome was misled by Arians who had their own interests to serve in
making the assertion, while he himself was too ready to credit it in his
zeal to uphold the presbyterate against the arrogant claims of the Roman
deacons at that time. The present writer ventures to think that Jerome’s
statement, if correct, refers only to nomination and that an episcopal
consecrator had been found elsewhere (_e. g._ in Africa or Palestine or
Syria) for the laying on of hands as usual.
FOOTNOTES
[1]In one of Eusebius’s works (the _Præparatio Evangelica_) he is quoted
side by side with great authors like Plato and Aristotle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account