Saint Dionysius of Alexandria

His change was so perfect that he wished to live only for God. He trampled underfoot all the glory of the world; he despised the advantages he might have expected from his birth, his merit, and the highest dignities. He placed himself among the disciples of Orig en, who Origène Famous theologian of whom Dionysius was a disciple. held the catechetical school in Alexandria. His progress in the science of religion and piety led to his elevation to the priesthood. He was placed in charge of the same school in 231, the year that Heraclas, who had also held this position, was elected Bishop of Alexandria; and, in 248, he succeeded him on the see of that city.

The reign of Philip had been favorable to the Christians, but the peace they enjoyed was disturbed by the exaltation of Saint Dionysius. A persecution incited by the populace of Alexandria caused the blood of several faithful to be shed in that city. Shortly after, Dec ius ma Décius Roman emperor responsible for the persecution of Christians in 250. ssacred Philip and took the purple. The persecution then became general and more violent. Horrible tortures were inflicted upon the Christians, without distinction of age, sex, or rank. Many fled to the mountains and into the woods, where they perished from hunger and misery. Some fell into the hands of the Saracens and were condemned to a servitude worse than death itself. But of all these evils, none touched the holy bishop more deeply than the apostasy of those who had allowed themselves to be overcome by torments. This scandal was, however, in some way repaired by the invincible constancy of the greater number and by the miraculous conversion of several pagans. Indeed, there were some among them who, having at first insulted the martyrs, were so struck by their gentleness and courage that they suddenly declared they were Christians and ready to suffer the most cruel tortures for the religion they were embracing. Two made this declaration in the very presence of the judge; and their courageous resolution surprised and frightened him at the same time. Having been condemned, they went to the place of execution thanking God and rejoicing in the glorious testimony they were rendering to Jesus Christ.

It was at the beginning of the year 250 that the bloody edicts of Decius were published in Alexandria. The holy bishop neglected nothing to prepare the soldiers of Jesus Christ for the combat. Sabinus, prefect or governor of Egypt, sent a guard to seize his person; but he escaped by remaining four days hidden in his house, where the guard did not go, persuaded no doubt that he could no longer be there. Dionysius then left, with the goal of finding a secure retreat. God permitted things to turn out otherwise; he fell into the hands of the persecutors, along with those who accompanied him, and all were led to the small town called Taposiris. A considerable troop of peasants, informed of what had just happened, took up arms and flew to the rescue of their bishop. They presented themselves to the guards, whom fear caused to flee, and made themselves masters of the prisoners. They forcibly took away the bishop, who was expecting death at every moment, and obliged him to provide for his safety. Dionysius withdrew into a desert in the province of Marmarica, and remained hidden there with the priests Peter and Catus, who had accompanied him, until the end of the persecution, which occurred in the middle of the year 251. During this interval, he did not cease to watch over the care of his flock, especially those who were suffering for the faith. He sent them priests to console them, and he gave them, through letters, instructions relative to the situation in which they found themselves.

Saint Dionysius had returned to Alexandria when he was informed of the schism formed against Pope Cornelius, which had Novatian Novatien Antipope and author of a rigorist schism. as its author. This antipope represented his election to him as having been conducted according to the rules. Dionysius gave him a response with which the intruder had no reason to be satisfied. "You should," he told him, "suffer anything rather than incite a schism in the Church. To die in defense of the unity of the Church is as glorious, and even in my opinion more glorious, than refusing at the cost of one's life to sacrifice to idols, because it concerns the general good of the Bride of Jesus Christ... If you bring your brothers back to unity, you will repair your fault, you will make it forgotten, and you will deserve just praise. If you cannot win over the others, you will at least save your own soul." The holy bishop wrote several times to the clergy of Rome and to the confessors who, deceived by appearances, had declared themselves in favor of the schism. His exhortations had the success he hoped for. The confessors renounced the schism before the end of the year, and as Novatian taught that

the Church had no power to remit certain sins, he ordered, to testify to the horror he had of this heresy, that communion be granted to all those who requested it at the hour of death.

Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, appeared to lean toward the excessive rigorism of Novatian regarding those who had fallen during the persecution. Saint Dionysius wrote him several letters on this subject. In one of these letters, he recounts what happened to Serapion. He was an old man who had had the misfortune of succumbing to the torments and sacrificing. He had been excluded from communion and had been in penance since his fall. An illness with which he was struck caused fears for his life. He spent three days without speaking and even without consciousness. Finally having come to himself, he cried out: "Why am I kept here? I ask to be delivered." He then told his grandson, still a child, to go fetch the priest; the latter was ill and unable to leave his house. He sent the Eucharist by the child, whom he instructed to moisten it so that it could flow into the old man's mouth. When the child arrived, Serapion said to him: "The priest cannot come; do what he ordered you, so that I may not be kept here any longer." Scarcely had he received the Eucharist when he expired with a light sigh. God, according to Saint Dionysius, miraculously preserved his life so that he would not be deprived of holy communion.

The holy bishop had the sorrow of seeing a portion of his flock perish from the plague that began in 250 and whose ravages were felt for several years. He provided all those attacked by this scourge with every assistance in his power. He inspired the zeal with which he was animated in the priests, the deacons, and even the laity, and many died as martyrs of charity on this occasion.

Some misunderstood passages of the Apocalypse gave rise to Millenarianism. This error consisted in believing that Jesus Christ would reign for a thousand years on earth with his elect before the day of judgment. Those who thought with Cerinthus that this reign would take place in the enjoyment of sensual pleasures were always regarded as abominable heretics. Millenarian Catholics claimed that it would only be a matter of spiritual pleasures. The Church tolerated this opinion for some time. Nepos, a pious and lear ned b Népos Bishop of the Arsinoites, defender of millenarianism. ishop of the Arsinoites, who died in Catholic communion, spread the doctrine of Millenarianism in that part of Egypt, understood in the latter sense; he even defended it in writing in two books entitled On the Promises. Saint Denis refuted them. He also made a journey to the district of Arsinoe, where he held a public conference with Coracion, the leader of the Millenarians. He spoke with such solidity, and at the same time with such gentleness and charity, that Coracion and his followers acknowledged that they had misunderstood Scripture, that their sentiment was contrary to tradition, and that one must hold to the common doctrine, which was contested only by a few doctors or by a few particular churches.

Our Saint always worked with zeal to maintain peace in the Church. When Pope Stephen threatened the Africans with excommunication because they persisted in wanting to rebaptize heretics, he wrote him the most pressing letters to urge him to suspend the execution of this threat. Saint Jerome was ill-informed when he attributed the opinion of the Africans to him, since, according to Saint Basil, he even admitted the baptism of the Pepuzians, which was rejected in Asia. This is because these heretics, through a series of variations common to all sects, corrupted in certain places the essential form of baptism, which they retained in other places.

Valerian having renewed the persecut ion agai Valérien Roman emperor under whom the martyrdom took place. nst the Christians in 257, Aemilian, prefect of Egypt, had Saint Denis arrested, along with Maximus the priest, Faustus, Eusebius, and Chaeremon, deacons, and a man named Marcellus, a Roman by birth. When they were brought before him, he pressed them to sacrifice to the gods who preserve the empire: "Not all men," replied Denis, "worship the same deities. As for us, we worship the true God, who created everything that exists and who has given the empire to Valerian and Gallienus. We ceaselessly offer Him prayers for the peace and prosperity of the reign of these princes." The prefect tried in vain to persuade them to join the worship of their God with that of the deities of the empire. Finally, he exiled them to Cephro in Libya. At the same time Libye Region of exile for Denis. , he forbade Christians from holding assemblies and from going to the places called cemeteries, that is to say, to the tombs of the martyrs. Saint Denis converted to Christianity the pagans who inhabited the country where he had been sent. But the prefect gave orders that he be taken, with his companions, to Collouthion, in the Mareotis. By this change of exile, the holy bishop found himself less distant from Alexandria, and more able to have correspondence there for the instruction of his people. During his exile, which lasted two years, he wrote two paschal letters.

The captivity of Valerian, whom the Persians took prisoner in 260, changed the face of affairs. Gallienus, by public edicts, restored peace to the Church, and Saint Denis had the freedom to return to the midst of his flock.

The heresies that troubled the Church at that time gave the holy pastor a new exercise. Sab ellius of Sabellius Heretic who denied the distinction of the divine persons. Ptolemais, in Libya, a disciple of Noetus of Smyrna, renewed the blasphemies of Praxeas by denying the distinction of the divine persons. Saint Denis, to whom the care of the Churches of the Pentapolis belonged, warned the authors of this error of the crime of which they were guilty, and urged them to return to the unity of the Church; but they stubbornly maintained their impious doctrine. They were condemned in a council held in Alexandria in 261. Pope Sixtus II, who reigned from 257 to 259, had been informed beforehand of the heresy of Sabellius by a letter that Saint Denis had written to him, a fragment of which Eusebius has preserved for us. In the letter that the same Saint wrote to Euphanor and Ammonius on the same subject, he insisted much on the humanity of Jesus Christ, in order to show that the Father is not the Son. Some people, who misunderstood the holy bishop of Alexandria, attributed to him a doctrine he did not teach, and slandered him to Pope Denis, successor of Saint S pape Denis Pope to whom Dionysius of Alexandria addressed his Apology. ixtus. This Sovereign Pontiff wrote to our Saint, who justified himself by showing that when he said that Jesus Christ was a creature and that he differed from the Father in substance, he was speaking only of his human nature. This was the subject of his Apology to Denis, bishop of Rome. In it, he further demonstrated that the Son, regarding the divine nature, is of the same substance as the Father. Saint Athanasius clearly showed this in his book on the opinion of Denis. Our Saint also established in the same work the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and the passages that Saint Basil reports from it do not allow one to doubt it.

Unfortunately, the writings of Saint Denis of Alexandria have not escaped the ravages of time; only a few fragments remain, along with his canonical epistle to Basilides. This epistle holds a distinguished rank among the ancient canons of the Church. The Saint mentions a difficulty that was proposed at the time, which concerned knowing at what hour of the morning one could break the Lenten fast on Easter day. "It is," he says, "at midnight that the fast is considered to end (which has long been decided regarding the precept of the Church); nevertheless, as it is neither natural nor ordinary to eat then, one could not do so without incurring the reproach of intemperance. One must therefore wait for the morning to break the fast." Christians then spent the entire night of the eve of Easter in prayer. The Saint speaks of the supererogatory fasts that were observed during the last week of Lent. Some fasted the last six days before Easter without taking any food; others fasted more or fewer days, according to their strength and devotion, from which it follows that this extraordinary fast was not a precept. Saint Denis insists again in his canonical epistle on the extreme purity of soul and body required in all those who approach the holy Table and who receive the body and blood of the Lord.

Some time before his death, he defended the divinity of Jesus Christ against Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, who joined to his heresy a n unbearable pri Paul de Samosate Heresiarch condemned at the Council of Antioch. de and many other vices. He was invited to the council held in Antioch in 264 against this heresiarch. His advanced age and infirmities not having permitted him to attend, he refuted the new errors in several letters that he wrote to the church of that city and in which he did not greet the one who was its bishop. Paul, through his hypocrisy, avoided for the time being the condemnation he deserved and remained on his seat for some time longer. Saint Denis died in Alexandria towards the end of the year 265, after having governed his church with as much wisdom as holiness for about seventeen years. His memory, says Saint Epiphanius, was preserved in Alexandria by a church that was dedicated under his name, and even more so by his incomparable virtues and his excellent writings.

Godescard; Dom Cellier; Fleury.