On the Opinion of Dionysius

Contents

Reading pages: 1–14 · 16–27

1. 1Athanasius writes to a correspondent because the Arians claim that Dionysius of Alexandria shared their views.
2. 2The Arians can find support neither in Scripture nor in pious human reasoning for calling the Son a creature.
3. 3Dionysius died in the communion of the church; the Arians cite one letter of his, but his other letters and the occasion of that letter must be considered.
4. 5Dionysius wrote the disputed letter against Sabellian bishops in the Pentapolis, stressing the Son’s human traits to show that the Son, not the Father, became man.
5. 6Unlike Arius, Dionysius defended and corrected his letter, which he had written by way of accommodation, as a physician or teacher adapts to his patients or pupils.
6. 7If Dionysius is blamed for speaking of Christ’s humanity, the apostles in Acts must be blamed too, since they also spoke of him as a man.
7. 8The apostles first spoke of Christ’s humanity to persuade the Jews he had come, and then taught his divinity.
8. 9Like the apostles, Dionysius stressed Christ’s human traits against Sabellius, while elsewhere calling him Word, Wisdom, and Radiance of the Father; the one Christ is spoken of both as God and as man.
9. 10Dionysius’s image of the vine and the vinedresser refers to Christ’s humanity, of which we are the branches, not to his divinity.
10. 11Texts such as “faithful to him who made him” and “better than the angels” refer to Christ’s humanity and his ministry compared with that of Moses.
11. 12Dionysius’s other letters show that he did not mean Christ to be a mere man; Athanasius will quote them.
12. 13Some brothers denounced Dionysius of Alexandria to Dionysius of Rome, who condemned both Sabellianism and the creature doctrine; Dionysius of Alexandria then wrote his Refutation and Defense.
13. 14Dionysius entitled his reply a Refutation and Defense, and in it he taught that the Son is eternal, as radiance from eternal light.
14. 16Dionysius taught that the Father was always Father, and that the names Father, Son, and Spirit are inseparable: the Monad is expanded into the Triad and the Triad gathered into the Monad.
15. 18Dionysius explained that his lowly examples were used in passing and that he held the Son to be of the same essence as the Father; the Arians cannot both claim him and reject “of the same essence.”
16. 20Dionysius asked to be judged by his meaning: he called the Son of the same essence as the Father in sense, and called God “maker” only in a broad sense of the word.
17. 21Dionysius explained that he called God “maker” in relation to Christ’s flesh, or in the loose sense in which an author “makes” his words.
18. 22Dionysius did not mean that Father and Son are joined only in name, for he taught that God was always Father and the radiance eternally with him.
19. 23Against Arius’s claim of two Words, Dionysius compared the Son to the word that springs from the mind, distinct yet inseparable.
20. 24Dionysius’s teaching on the true Word, inseparable from the Father as river from spring, overthrows both Arius and Sabellius.
21. 26Against the Sabellians one should begin from Christ’s human traits, which show that the Son, not the Father, became flesh, and then teach his divinity.
22. 27Against Sabellius, Christ’s human traits are decisive; against the Arians, his divine titles; the Arians, having no support in the fathers, follow only the devil.