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Kitabı oku: «St. Dionysius of Alexandria: Letters and Treatises», sayfa 5

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To Basilides, Bishop of the Churches in the Pentapolis (Cyrenaica)

[This canonical Letter was accepted at the third Council of Constantinople in Trullo (A.D. 680)]

Dionysius to Basilides my beloved son and brother and godly fellow-worker, greeting in the Lord.

(1) You sent to me, my most faithful and learned son, to inquire at what hour one ought to end the fast before Easter.162 For you say that some of the brethren maintain one should do so at cockcrow:163 and some at evening.164 For the brethren in Rome, so they say, await the cockcrow: but concerning those in the Pentapolis you said they broke the fast sooner. And you ask me to set an exact limit and a definite hour, which is both difficult and risky. For it will be acknowledged by all alike that one ought to start the feast and the gladness after the time of our Lord’s resurrection, up till then humbling our souls with fastings. But by what you have written to me, you have quite soundly and with a good insight into the Divine Gospels established the fact that nothing definite appears in them about the hour at which He rose. For the Evangelists described those that came to the tomb diversely – that is, at different times, and all165 said that they have found the Lord already risen: it was “late on the Sabbath day,” as S. Matthew puts it:166 and “early while it was yet dark,” as S. John writes; and “at early dawn,” as S. Luke; and “very early … when the sun was risen,” as S. Mark. And when He rose, no one has clearly stated; but that “late on the Sabbath day, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week,” about sunrise on that day those who arrived at the tomb found Him no longer lying in it, that is agreed to. And we must not imagine that the evangelists are at variance and contradict one another: but even if there seem to be some small dispute upon the matter of your inquiry – that is, if though all agree that the Light of the world167 our Lord arose on that night, they differ about the hour, yet let us be anxious fairly and faithfully to harmonize what is said.

What is said, then, by Matthew runs thus: “Late on the Sabbath day, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was as lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the watchers did quake and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek Jesus which hath been crucified. He is not here; for he is risen, even as he said.” As to this word which he uses for “late,” some will think, in accordance with its common acceptation, that the evening of the Sabbath is signified; but others, understanding it more scientifically, will say it is not that, but “the dead of night,” the word used signifying an advanced stage of lateness.168 And because he means night and not evening, he adds “as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week” and (the women) had not yet come, as the rest say, “bringing spices” but “to see the sepulchre.”169 And they found the earthquake had occurred and the angel seated on the stone, and heard from him the words: “He is not here: he is risen.” Similarly, John says: “On the first day of the week came Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb.” However, by this account, “when it was still dark” although towards dawn, He had gone forth from the tomb. But Luke says: “On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment. But on the first day of the week at early dawn (the women) came unto the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.” “Early dawn” indicates, perchance, the morning light appearing before (the sun itself) on “the first day of the week.” In consequence, it was when the Sabbath had now completely passed, with the night that followed, and when a new day was beginning that they came bringing the spices and ointments, by which time it is clear that He had risen long before. To this, also, corresponds what Mark says: “(The women) brought spices that they might come and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week they come to the tomb, when the sun was risen.” For he, too, says “very early,” which is the same thing as “at early dawn”: and he has added, “when the sun was risen.” For their start and their journey began, it is clear, “at early dawn” and “very early”: but they had gone on spending time both on the road and around the tomb until sunrise. And on this occasion also170 the white robed young man says to these women: “He is risen: he is not here.”

As things stand thus, we pronounce this decision for those who inquire to a nicety at what hour or what half-hour, or quarter of an hour, they should begin their rejoicing at the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead: those who are premature and relax before midnight, though near it, we censure as remiss and wanting in self-restraint; for they drop out of the race just before the end, as the wise man says: “that which is within a little in life is not little.”171 And those who put off and endure to the furthest and persevere till the fourth watch, when our Saviour appeared to those who were sailing also, walking on the sea,172 we shall approve as generous and painstaking. And those midway who stop as they were moved or as they were able, let us not treat altogether severely. For all do not continue during the six days of the fast either equally or similarly:173 but some remain without food till cockcrow174 on all the days, some on two, or three, or four, and some on none of them. And for those who strictly persist in these prolonged fasts and then are distressed and almost faint, there is pardon if they take something sooner. But if some, so far from prolonging their fast do not fast at all, but feed luxuriously during the earlier days of the week, and then, when they come to the last two and prolong their fast on them alone, viz. on Friday and Saturday, think they are performing some great feat by continuing till dawn, I do not hold that they have exercised an equal discipline with those who have practised it for longer periods. I give you this counsel in accordance with my judgment in writing on these points.

[Three rulings follow on points which it is not necessary to set out here]

(2) These answers I give you from respect for you, beloved, not because you were ignorant of the subjects of your inquiry but to render us of one mind and soul175 with yourself, as indeed we are. And I have set forth my opinion for you to share not as a teacher but as it becomes us to discuss one with another in all simplicity: and when you have considered it again, my most sagacious son, you should write again and tell me whatever seems to you better or what you judge to be as I have said.

I pray that you may prosper, my beloved son, as you minister to the Lord176 in peace.

TREATISES

“On the Promises”

(Eus., H. E. vii. 24 and 25)

(1) Seeing that they bring forward a composition of Nepos,177 on which they rely too much as showing irrefutably that the Kingdom of Christ will be on earth, though I accept and love Nepos for many other things, his faith, his laboriousness, his study of the Scriptures, and the many psalms he has written,178 by which already many of the brethren are encouraged, and though I hold him in all the greater respect because he has gone to his rest before us, yet the truth is so dear to me and to be preferred that I can indeed applaud and give my full assent to right propositions, but must examine and correct whatever appears to be unsoundly stated. And if he were still with us and propounding his views merely by word of mouth, a discussion without writing would have sufficed to persuade and convince our opponents by way of question and answer. But now that this writing of his is published, which many think most convincing, and certain teachers hold the law and the prophets of no account and have relinquished the following of the Gospels and depreciated the Epistles of the Apostles, while they parade the teaching of this book as if it were some great and hidden mystery and will not allow our simpler brethren to hold any high and noble opinion either about the glorious and truly Divine appearing of our Lord179 or about our rising from the dead and our gathering together and being made like unto Him,180 but persuade them to hope for mean and passing enjoyments like the present in the Kingdom of God, it is necessary that we also should discuss the matter with our brother Nepos as if he were still alive.

Further on he adds —

(2) So being in the district of Arsenoe, where, as you know,181 this teaching prevailed long before, so that both schisms and the defection of whole churches have occurred, I called together the presbyters and teachers182 among the brethren in the villages, such of the brethren as wished being also present, and invited them publicly to make an examination of the matter. And when some brought forward against me this book as an impregnable weapon and bulwark, I sat with them three days in succession from dawn till evening and tried to correct the statements made. During which time I was much struck with the steadiness, the desire for truth, the aptness in following an argument and the intelligence displayed by the brethren, whilst we put our questions and difficulties and points of agreement in an orderly and reasonable manner, avoiding the mistake of holding jealously at any cost to what we had once thought, even though it should now be shown to be wrong, and yet not suppressing what we had to say on the other side, but, as far as possible, attempting to grapple with and master the propositions in hand without being ashamed to change one’s opinion and yield assent if the argument convinced us; conscientiously and unfeignedly, with hearts spread open before God, accepting what was established by the exposition and teaching of the holy Scriptures.

At last the champion and mouthpiece of this doctrine, the man called Coracion,183 in the hearing of all the brethren that were present agreed and testified to us that he would no longer adhere to it nor discourse upon it nor yet mention nor teach it, on the ground that he had been convinced by what had been said against it. And of the rest of the brethren some rejoiced at the conference and the reconciliation and harmonious arrangement which was brought about by it between all parties.

Further on he says this about the Revelation of John —

(3) Certain people184 therefore before now discredited and altogether repudiated the book, both examining it chapter by chapter and declaring it unintelligible and inconclusive and that it makes a false statement in its title.185 For they say it is not John’s, no nor yet a “Revelation,” because of the heavy, thick veil of obscurity which covers it:186 and not only is the author of this book not one of the Apostles but he is not even one of the saints nor a churchman at all;187 it is Cerinthus,188 the founder of the heresy that was called Cerinthian from him, and he desired to attribute his own composition to a name that would carry weight. For the substance of his teaching was this, that Christ’s Kingdom will be on earth, and he dreams that it will be concerned with things after which he himself, being fond of bodily pleasures and very sensual, hankered, such as the satisfying of his belly and lower lusts, that is eating and drinking and marrying and such means as he thought would provide him more decorously with these pleasures, feasts and sacrifices and the slaying of victims. I should not myself venture to reject the book, seeing that many brethren hold it in high esteem, but, reckoning the decision about it to be beyond my powers of mind, I consider the interpreting of its various contents to be recondite and matter for much wonder. For without fully understanding, I yet surmise that some deeper meaning underlies the words, not measuring and judging them by calculations of my own; but giving the preference to faith,189 I have come to the conclusion that they are too high for me to comprehend, and so I do not reject what I have not taken in, but can only wonder at these visions which I have not even seen (much less understood).

Besides this, after examining the book as a whole and showing that it is impossible to understand it in its literal sense, he proceeds —

(4) So having completed practically the whole prophecy, the prophet190 pronounces a blessing on those who keep it and indeed on himself also: for “blessed,” saith he, “is he that observeth the words of the prophecy of this book and I John who saw and heard these things.”191 That he was called John, therefore, and that the writing is John’s I will not dispute. For I agree that it is the work of some holy and inspired person but I should not readily assent to his being the Apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, whose is the Gospel entitled “According to John” and the General Epistle.192 For I conclude that he is not the same (1) from the character of each, (2) from the style of the language and (3) from what may be called the arrangement of the book. For the Evangelist nowhere inserts his name nor yet proclaims himself either in the Gospel or in the Epistle…

(5) But John nowhere speaks either in the first or in the third person about himself, whereas he that wrote the Revelation straightway at the beginning puts himself forward: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which he gave him to show to his servants speedily, and he sent and signified (it) by his angel to his servant John who bare witness of the word of God and of his testimony, even of all things that he saw.”193

Then he also writes an Epistle: “John to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace.”194 Whereas the Evangelist did not put his name even at the head of the Catholic Epistle but began with the mystery of the Divine revelation195 without any superfluous words: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes.”196

For it is over this revelation that the Lord also pronounced Peter blessed, saying: “Blessed art thou Simon bar Jona, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to thee, but my heavenly Father.”197 Nay, even in the second and third extant Epistles of John, short though they are, John does not appear by name but he writes himself “the elder” anonymously. Whereas our author did not even consider it sufficient to mention himself by name once and then proceed with his subject, but he repeats the name again, “I John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and in the patience of Jesus, was in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.”198 In fact, at the end also he says this: “Blessed is he that observeth the words of the prophecy of this book and I John who saw and heard these things.”199 That he which wrote these things, therefore, is John, we must believe as he says so: but which John is not clear. For he does not say, as in many places in the Gospel, that he is the disciple beloved of the Lord, nor the one that reclined on His breast, nor yet the brother of James, nor yet the one that was the eyewitness and hearer of the Lord. Surely he would have used one of the aforesaid descriptions, when desirous of clearly identifying himself. And yet he does nothing of the kind, but calls himself our brother and partaker with us, and witness of Jesus and blessed for the seeing and hearing of the revelations. I suppose that many bore the same name as John the Apostle, who by reason of their love towards him and from their admiration and emulation of him and desire to be loved by the Lord like him, were glad to bear the same name with him, even as many a one among the children of the faithful is called Paul or Peter.200 There is then another John also in the Acts of the Apostles, the one called Mark whom Barnabas and Paul took with them and of whom it says again: “And they had John as their attendant.”201 But as to whether he is the writer, I should say no. For it is not written that he arrived in Asia with them, but “Paul and his company,” it says, “set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia; and John departed from them and returned to Jerusalem.”202 And I think there was yet another among those who were in Asia, since they say there were two tombs in Ephesus and each of them are said to be the tomb of John.203

Again, from the thoughts and from the actual words and their arrangement this John may be reasonably reckoned different from the other.204 For the Gospel and the Epistle agree with each other and begin in a similar way. The one says “In the beginning was the Word:” and the other “That which was from the beginning.” The one says “And the Word became flesh and tabernacled in us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father:” the other uses the same or almost equivalent expressions, “That which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld and our hands handled concerning the Word of Life, and the Life was manifested.”205 For he starts in this way because he is dealing, as he shows in what follows, with those who say that the Lord has not come in the flesh.206 For which reason he is careful to add also: “And we have seen and bear witness and announce unto you the eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard we announce also unto you.”207 He is consistent with himself and does not diverge from his own propositions, but treats them throughout under the same heads and in the same terms, of which we will briefly recall; for instance, the attentive reader will find in each book frequent mention of the Life, the Light, the turning from darkness,208 constant reference to the Truth, Grace, Joy, the Flesh and the Blood of the Lord, the Judgment, the Forgiveness of sins, the Love of God towards us, the command to us to love one another and that we must keep all the commandments: again there is the conviction of the world, of the devil, of the antichrist, God’s adoption of us as Sons, the Faith, which is everywhere required of us, the Father and the Son everywhere: and generally throughout in describing the character of the Gospel and the Epistle one and the same complexion is to be observed in both. But the Revelation is quite different from them, foreign, out of touch and affinity with them, not having, one might almost say, one syllable in common. The Epistle contains no reminiscence nor subject dealt with in the Revelation nor the Revelation in the Epistle (to say nothing of the Gospel), whereas Paul in his Epistles did give some indication even about those revelations which he has not actually described.209

And yet once more one can estimate the difference between the Gospel and Epistle and the Revelation210 from the literary style. For the first two books are not only written in irreproachable Greek, but are also most elegant in their phrases, reasonings and arrangements of expression. No trace can be found in them of barbarous words, faulty construction or peculiarities in general. For St. John seems to have possessed both words, the Lord having graciously vouchsafed them to him; viz. both the word and knowledge of the word of speech.211 That this John had seen a Revelation and received knowledge and the gift of prophecy,212 I do not deny, but I observe his dialect and inaccurate Greek style, which employs barbaric idioms and sometimes even faulty constructions, which it is not now necessary to expose. For I have not mentioned this in order to scoff, let no one think so, but simply to point out the dissimilarity of the writings.

162.I have adopted our modern mode of expression, but in the early Church Pascha was often used for the fast which receded Easter as well as for the feast itself, and that is how Dionysius uses it here.
163.i. e. at 3 a.m. on Easter Day, the traditional hour of our Lord’s Resurrection, especially in the West.
164.i. e. at 6 p.m. on Easter Eve.
165.“All,” i. e. “who came,” or perhaps “all the four evangelists.” The “difference” is not really confined to the time, but to the parties which came, the other devout women coming later than the two Marys.
166.The four references are to Matt. xxviii. 1, John xx. 1, Luke xxiv. 1, and Mark xvi. 2.
167.Cf. John ix. 5, etc.
168.The Council in Trullo (A.D. 680) accepted this second meaning and consented to Dionysius’s ruling on the point raised without reserve.
169.Dionysius thinks that S. Matthew’s account, with which S. John’s tallies, speaks of the two Marys coming to look at the tomb about midnight on Easter eve or morning, while S. Luke and S. Mark mentioned certain women who arrived at the tomb somewhat later, when the sun had just risen, but one at least of the Marys mentioned by S. Matthew is identical with one of those mentioned by S. Mark and apparently by S. Luke. Possibly, however, Dionysius means that the two Marys took part in both visits to the tomb. Dr. Swete on S. Mark and Dr. Westcott on S. John should be consulted by any one who wishes to pursue the question further.
170.i. e. as on the former occasion mentioned by S. Matthew and S. Mark.
171.The author of this saying (which is equivalent to our proverb, “A miss is as good as a mile”) is not known. Basil (de Baptism. ii. i) quotes something like it, but with a different turn, and he, too, attributes it to “one of our wise men,” but perhaps he is only referring to Dionysius in this passage.
172.Cf. Matt. xiv. 26.
173.He means the six days of what we call Holy Week, but he gives no indication whether the Lenten fast was then confined to those days in Alexandria and the Pentapolis or lasted longer. By “equally” he proceeds to explain is meant the length of the fasting (six days or two, and so on), and by “similarly” the manner or degree of it (till cockcrow or till evening).
174.The verb used (ὑπερτιθέναι, Lat. superponere, to exceed) is the technical one for this prolonged fast: the ordinary fast ended at 6 p.m. and that of the station days (Wednesday and Friday) at 3 p.m.
175.Cf. 1 Pet. iii. 8 and Phil. ii. 20.
176.The expression comes from Acts xiii. 2, where, however, it describes a special act of worship rather than “ministering” in general.
177.Nepos had apparently been Bishop of Arsenoe in Egypt, and was the author of a work (Ἔλεγχος Ἀλληγοριστῶν) putting forward grossly material views of the Millennium. Dionysius refuted it in a carefully prepared treatise in two books. This extract is from the second book, and deals chiefly with the authorship of the Revelation of St. John the Divine in a way very characteristic of his large-hearted and broad-minded spirit.
178.Or Dionysius may mean that he had encouraged the singing of the Psalms in service.
179.Cf. Tit. ii. 13, 2 Thess. ii. 8, etc.
180.The reference is to 2 Thess. ii. 1 and 1 John iii. 2.
181.It does not appear to whom Dionysius addressed this treatise, but he usually did address what he wrote to some particular person.
182.Here the two offices are conjoined as in 1 Tim. v. 17. The “teacher” as an officer of the Church is mentioned in several of the early Church Orders.
183.Nothing more is known of him: either he had succeeded to the leadership since the death of Nepos, or on this particular occasion took the lead.
184.The allusion is probably to Gaius of Rome and his school rather than to the Alogi, as they were called, of the East; but both these bodies were strongly opposed to Millenarian views.
185.If this refers to a formal division into chapters, it disappeared afterwards, for a new division was devised in the sixth century, on which our present system is partly based.
186.Dionysius plays here on the meaning of the Greek word for Revelation, ἀποκάλυψις, “unveiling.” He is fond of such a device.
187.If that is the meaning of the words employed, then “saints” (ἅγιοι) is not used in its New Testament sense for the “faithful” generally, but a distinction is made more like the later use of the word for those who attained higher saintliness than the rest; but perhaps the phrase for “churchmen” implies “clerical or ecclesiastical persons,” and “saints” has its earlier sense.
188.Cerinthus was the earliest exponent of Gnostic views, and as such much abhorred by St. John the Apostle.
189.i. e. reckoning that it is a matter where faith rather than reason should act; or perhaps the translation should be “giving more weight to (the author’s) trustworthiness.”
190.This title is to be noticed, as the author himself never actually describes himself by it. Dionysius is much more cautious as to the authorship than Origen, his former master, who attributed the book to St. John the Evangelist without hesitation, according to Eusebius, H. E. vi. 25, 9.
191.Rev. xxii. 7, 8: but Dionysius has no authority for joining the latter clause on 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” (τῆς φράσεως) for St. Paul’s “of wisdom.”
212.Cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 6 and 8.
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