^[101]It is strange that so old a believer should never have noticed the difference before, but baptism was almost entirely confined at that time to Easter and Whitsuntide, and he may have always been absent.

^[102]Cp. 1 Cor. xiv. 16. The Amen is either that after the Consecration of the Elements or at the Reception of them.

^[103]“Standing” was, and is still, the posture in the East: Scudamore, Not. Euch., p. 637.

^[104]A somewhat rare word for “Altar” without some descriptive epithet like “holy” or “mystic.”

^[105]The Consistentes were the last order of penitents, who were allowed to remain after the dismissal of the catechumens and other penitents, but did not join in the oblation or communion itself: cf. Canons of NicÆa, No. xi.

^[106]The letter from which this is supposed to be an extract is said by Eusebius (H. E. vi. 46, 2) to have been on the subject of Repentance, and may possibly be “the instruction” which Dionysius says he had given on p. 42 above.

^[107]Viz. under the impression that they were going to die.

^[108]i. e. after thus pledging ourselves to them.

^[109]Cf. 1 Pet. ii. 3, where Ps. xxxiii. (xxxiv.) 9 is quoted.

^[110]Cf. 1 Tim. iii. 7, etc.

^[111]The reference is to Luke xv. 4 ff. and Ezek. xxxiv. 6, etc.

^[112]Dionysius is thinking perhaps of the story in Tobit v. 6, where Raphael becomes the companion of Tobit’s son Tobias on his journey.

^[113]On the principle that “charity thinketh no evil ... but hopeth all things” (1 Cor. xiii.): similar but not identical phrases (in words or sense) are found 1 Cor. xvi. 17, 2 Cor. ix. 12, xi. 9, Phil. ii. 30, and Col. i. 24.

^[114]The difficulties of soldiers becoming and remaining Christians were peculiarly great under the early Emperors.

^[115]That is, some had not yet been called upon to be actual martyrs, Dionysius among them who was still in exile.

^[116]Is. xlix. 8.

^[117]These were the same civil officials as those mentioned in Acts vi. 20 at Philippi, with their servants, there called lictors (?????????): the soldiers belonged to the centurion, of course.

^[118]This has already been described on p. 44.

^[119]Including Timotheus who had been the means of his escape.

^[120]A town on the coast 150 miles west of Alexandria.

^[121]He and the three deacons have already been mentioned on p. 46. They must have left Dionysius when he went into exile and returned to Alexandria.

^[122]“In the island,” according to Rufinus’s version, but it is not clear what island he means: the pestilence is probably one of those frequent epidemics which devastated North Africa and other districts of the empire.

^[123]The epithet “perfect,” though applied to believers generally in the New Testament (Matt. v. 28, etc.), was later specially used of martyrs.

^[124]Gallus succeeded to the empire on the death of Decius and his sons in 251, and reigned till 253, when it was wrested from him by Æmilian, who was in turn ousted by Valerian after four months’ rule. Dionysius makes no mention of this episode, though he does of Macrian’s attempt later.

^[125]The quotation is from Rev. xiii. 5, but the last words follow a reading which has no support in the MSS. It should also be noticed that Dionysius does not think it at all certain that the author of the Revelation is the Evangelist: see p. 86.

^[126]Valerian reigned from 253 till his disappearance in 260. The duration of the persecution was forty-two months, from before midsummer 257 till late in 260.

^[127]Here the expressio n to the former, its construction being “it is I John who saw and heard.”

^[192]i. e. the First Epistle of St. John; the second and third were not so described at first and rightly so.

^[193]Rev. i. 1, 2. One might almost think Dionysius was quoting from memory, for he follows no extant text in omitting “God” before “gave” (thus making Jesus Christ the subject and “him” = “to John”) and “the things which must come to pass” before “speedily”: also he substitutes “his testimony” for “the testimony of Jesus Christ,” though “his” still = “Jesus Christ.”

^[194]Rev. i. 4.

^[195]Dionysius seems to contrast the “Divine revelation” of the Epistle which we can trust with that of the Book so-called about which he felt less sure.

^[196]1 John i. 1.

^[197]Matt. xvi. 17. Dionysius substitutes the adjective “heavenly” for “which is in heaven.”

^[198]Rev. i. 9. Here again the text is somewhat inaccurate “in the patience of Jesus” having no support elsewhere.

^[199]Rev. xxii. 7. See note on p. 86, above.

^[200]It would seem likely, but by no means certain, that Dionysius is speaking of strictly baptismal names here. We have very slight grounds for being sure that the custom of connecting the giving of a name at baptism was universal as early as this.

^[201]See Acts xii. 25 and xiii. 5.

^[202]Ibid., xiii. 13.

^[203]This assertion is taken almost verbatim from Eus., H. E. iii. 39, where a passage is also quoted from Papias in which John the Elder is mentioned as well as John the Apostle among the Lord’s disciples.

^[204]This is the second argument which Dionysius adduces, but he seems as if he now includes the third with it. See above.

^[205]John i. 1, and 1 John i. 1, 2.

^[206]Cf. 1 John iv. 2.

^[207]Ibid., i. 2, 3.

^[208]It looks as if this phrase may be a marginal gloss on the Light, which has crept into the text, as it occurs nowhere in the writings of St. John nor elsewhere in the New Testament; but the same might be said of the “adoption” below, and one or two others of the other phrases are quite rare in St. John’s writings, so that they may be all instances of the thoughts, not the words being identical in the two books.

^[209]The reference is to such passages as 2 Cor. xii. 1 ff., Gal. i. 12, ii. 2, etc.

^[210]This is the third argument.

^[211]A rather forced and fanciful statement. Dionysius appears loosely to refer to 1 Cor. xii. 8, somewhat boldly substituting “of speech” (??? ???????) for St. Paul’s “of wisdom.”

^[212]Cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 6 and 8.

^[213]i. e. the results not of design but of the fortuitous intersection of lines of causation.

^[214]Gen. i. 31.

^[215]The argument appears to be that, as on a small scale design is “evident in the construction or repairing of a thing but is absent in its decay,” so the orderly creation and maintenance of the Universe on the large scale implies intelligent direction.

^[216]Hesiod (Works and Days, 554) is meant, but of course 100 stands here, as elsewhere, for an indefinitely large number.

^[217]The point is that movement which is useful suggests design: but as the movement of the atoms is without design, it cannot be useful.

^[218]Ps. cxxxviii. (cxxxix.) 16. Dionysius quotes the best text here of LXX, but his application is rather obscure. Apparently he means that the Epicureans claimed to know without either revelation or research what the Psalmist knew only by revelation from God.

^[219]Dionysius says that even the spider has more notion of design than the atoms, but the sarcasm is not quite to the point.