On the Opinion of Dionysius

You have been slow to inform me about the present dispute held among you with the Christ-fighters; for even before your affection wrote, I had learned of it, being eager to inquire about such things and glad to hear of them. I welcomed your piety, which thinks rightly about our blessed fathers; and I have recognized now once more the irrationality of the Ariomaniacs. For since their heresy has nothing reasonable in it, nor any text from the divine Scripture for proof, they have always supplied themselves with shameless pretexts and plausible sophisms; but now they have dared to slander the fathers too. And this is not foreign to their malice, but quite in keeping with it. For when men have undertaken to plot against the Lord and against his Christ, what wonder is it if they also revile the blessed Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, as one who shared their opinion and their mind? For whomever these men seem to praise for the support of their own heresy, even if they call him blessed, they slander not lightly but greatly—like robbers and men of disreputable life, who, when reproached for their own practices, number the chaste among themselves, slandering their chastity.

If, then, they are confident in what they think and say, let them bring forward their heresy naked, and show from it whether they think they have anything from the Scriptures, or even some pious human reasoning, in their defense; but if they have nothing of the kind, let them be silent. For nowhere will they find anything but a refutation of themselves. From the Scriptures: when John says, “In the beginning was the Word,” of whom these say, “He was not before he was begotten”; when David sings in the person of the Father, “My heart has uttered a good Word,” of whom these say that he exists only in notion and came to be from nothing; then, when John again proclaims that “all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be,” and Paul writes, “One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” and elsewhere, “For in him all things were created”—what boldness will these men have, and will they not rather incur shame, opposing the words of the saints when they say that the Creator of all is a thing made, and that he in whom the creatures came to be and hold together is a creature? Nor is any pious human reasoning left to them in their defense. For what man, Greek or barbarian, will undertake to call him whom he confesses to be God a creature, or to say that he was not before he came to be? Or what man, hearing him whom he has believed to be the only God say, “This is my beloved Son,” and “My heart has uttered a good Word,” will dare even to say that the Word from the heart of God came to be from nothing, or that the Son is a creature and not the proper offspring of him who speaks? And again, who, hearing him whom he has believed to be Lord and Savior say, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” and “I and the Father are one,” will undertake to divide what he has united and kept undivided?

Seeing this themselves, and having no boldness in their own case, they slander the pious. But since they are destitute of everything, and see themselves at a loss on every side in the questions and left gaping, they ought rather to repent and turn from the way of error, and not number among themselves those whom they do not know, lest they be refuted by them too and bring on themselves greater shame. But perhaps they will never be willing to give up such craftiness; for in this too they have emulated Caiaphas’s party, just as they have learned from them to deny Christ. For they too, when the Lord had done so many works by which he made himself known as the Christ, the Son of the living God, and they were refuted by him, thinking and saying everything contrary to the Scriptures and unable to face even for a moment the refutations against them, took refuge in the patriarch, saying, “We have Abraham as our father,” and thinking that by this they could cover their irrationality. But neither did they gain anything by saying this, nor will these be able to escape the same charge as those by naming Dionysius. For the Lord refuted those men in their lawlessness, saying, “Abraham did not do this”; and the same truth will refute these in their impiety and their lies: that Dionysius the bishop neither held the views of Arius nor was ignorant of the truth. Rather, both the Jews of that time and these new ones have inherited the Christ-fighting madness from their father the devil. It is a great proof that they are not telling the truth in this either, but slandering the man, that he was neither condemned for impiety by other bishops and cast out of the episcopate, as these men were cast out of the clergy, nor did he himself go out of the church as the champion of a heresy; but he fell asleep well within it, and his memory is still among the fathers and is recorded. For if he had held their views, or had not defended himself concerning what he wrote, there is no doubt that he too would have suffered the same as they. [4] This would be enough for the complete condemnation of the new Jews, who deny the Lord, slander the fathers, and try to deceive all Christians. But since they think they have pretexts for their slander of the bishop in certain parts of a letter of his, come, let us examine these too, so that from them too their idle talk may be shown, and that they may at last, however late, stop blaspheming the Lord among themselves, and may confess, at least with the soldiers, seeing creation bear witness, that truly this is the Son of God, and is not one of the creatures. They say, then, that the blessed Dionysius said in a letter that the Son of God is a thing made and originated, and not proper to the Father by nature, but foreign to him in essence, as the vinedresser is to the vine and the shipbuilder to the boat; for being a thing made, he was not before he came to be. He did write it, and we too acknowledge that there is such a letter of his; but as he wrote this one, so he also wrote very many other letters, and they ought to have read these too, so that the man’s faith might be shown from all of them and not from the one alone. For when a shipbuilder has built many triremes, his skill is judged not from one but from all. If, then, he wrote the letter they speak of simply as a statement of the faith, or wrote this one alone, let them accuse him as they wish; for such a mind truly deserves accusation. But if the circumstances of a time and of persons drew him to write such things, and he wrote other letters again, defending himself concerning what he was suspected of, then they ought not to have left out the reasons and rashly brought odium upon the man, lest they seem to hunt only for little phrases and to pass over the truth in the other letters. For a vinedresser too tends the same trees differently at different times because of the quality of the soil beneath; and no one would blame him because he prunes this one and grafts that, plants one and uproots another; rather, when he learns the reason, he will admire the variety of his skill. So if they have not read the writings carelessly, let them tell the occasion too …; but since they either do not know it or are ashamed to tell it, we must.

In the Pentapolis of Upper Libya at that time some of the bishops held the views of Sabellius, and they prevailed so far with their notions that the Son of God was all but no longer preached in the churches. Dionysius learned of this—for he had the care of those churches—and sends and counsels those responsible to cease from their false doctrine. But as they did not cease, but were even more shameless in their impiety, he was forced, because of their shamelessness, to write that letter and to set out from the Gospels the human things of the Savior, so that, since they very boldly denied the Son and ascribed his human things to the Father, he, by showing that it is not the Father but the Son who became man for us, might persuade the ignorant that the Father is not the Son, and so might gradually lead them up to the true divinity of the Son and to the knowledge of the Father. This is the occasion of the letter, and it was for this reason that he wrote as he did, because of those who so shamelessly wished to alter the faith of the truth.

What likeness is there, then, between the heresy of Arius and the mind of Dionysius? Or why is Dionysius named as if he were Arius, when the difference between them is great? For the one is a teacher of the catholic church, while the other became the inventor of a new heresy. Arius, setting out his own false doctrine, wrote a Thalia in an effeminate and ludicrous style, after the manner of the Egyptian Sotades; but Dionysius wrote other letters too, and defended himself concerning what he was suspected of, and was shown to think rightly. If, then, he writes contrary to himself, let them not drag him over to their side; for in that case he is not trustworthy. But if, having written the letter to Ammonius, he was suspected and defended himself, correcting what he had said first, and after his defense did not change again, it would be plain that what was suspected he wrote by way of accommodation. And what is written and done by way of accommodation must not be taken maliciously and dragged by each person to his own purpose. For a physician too often applies to the wounds before him, as he himself knows best, remedies that seem to some unsuitable, having no other aim than health; and this is also the way of a wise teacher, to adapt himself to the characters of those he is teaching and to speak accordingly, until he leads them over into the way of perfection.

If they blame the blessed man merely because he wrote in this way (for the pretexts the Arians use on his behalf turn into charges against him), what will they do when they hear the great and blessed apostles too in the Acts? Peter says: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this man, delivered up by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed up by the hands of lawless men and killed”; and again: “By the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands before you well.” Paul explains at Antioch in Pisidia that “God, having removed Saul, raised up David to be king, of whom he also testified and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ Of this man’s offspring God has brought to Israel, according to promise, a Savior, Jesus”; and again at Athens: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, having given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Or Stephen, the great martyr, when he says: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of …”

Since those men imagine such things, did the apostles, then, because they used these words, know Christ only as a man and nothing more? Far from it! One cannot even entertain such a thought. Rather, they did this too as wise master builders and stewards of the mysteries of God; and they have a sound reason. For since the Jews of that time, having gone astray themselves and led the Greeks astray, thought that the Christ was merely a man, who would come from the seed of David like the other children born of David, and did not believe that he was God, nor that the Word became flesh, for this reason the blessed apostles with great understanding first explained the human things of the Savior to the Jews, so that, having fully persuaded them from the signs that appeared and were done that the Christ had come, they might then lead them up to faith in his divinity too, showing that the works done were not those of a man but of God. Indeed, Peter, who spoke of the Christ as a man who suffered, at once added, “He is the Author of life”; and in the Gospel he confesses, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”; and in his letter he says that he is the overseer of souls, and Lord of himself and of angels and powers. And again Paul, who said that the Christ was a man from the seed of David, wrote to the Hebrews, “who, being the radiance of his glory and the impress of his hypostasis,” and to the Philippians, “who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” And to say “Author of life,” and “Son of God,” and “radiance,” and “impress,” and “equal to God,” and “Lord” …

Dionysius, then, having learned this from the apostles, did the same. For since the heresy of Sabellius was spreading, he was compelled, as I said before, to write that letter and to hurl against them what is said of the Savior in a human and lowly way, so that, having cut them off by means of the human things from saying that the Father is the Son, he might make the teaching about the divinity of the Son easier for them, when in his other letters he calls him, from the Scriptures, Word, Wisdom, Power, Vapor, and Radiance of the Father. In the letters of his defense, at any rate, saying such things, he speaks boldly in the faith and in piety toward Christ. As, then, the apostles are not to be accused because of the human words about the Lord (for the Lord did become man), but are rather worthy of admiration for their accommodation and their teaching suited to the time, so Dionysius is not an Arian because of his letter to Euphranor and Ammonius against Sabellius. For even if he used lowly words and illustrations, these too are from the Gospels; and he has as the reason for them the Savior’s coming in the flesh, because of which these and similar things are written. For as he is the Word of God, so afterwards “the Word became flesh”; and “in the beginning was the Word,” but the Virgin at the consummation of the ages conceived in her womb, and the Lord became man. And the one signified by both is one, for “the Word became flesh”; but the words spoken about his divinity and about his becoming man each have their own interpretation, suited to what is said. Whoever writes of the human things of the Word knows also the things concerning his divinity; and whoever expounds his divinity is not ignorant of what is proper to his coming in the flesh; but distinguishing each like a skilled and approved money-changer, he will walk in the straight way of piety. When, then, he speaks of him weeping, he knows that the Lord, having become man, shows the weeping as belonging to the human, but raises Lazarus as God; and he knows that he hungered and thirsted in the body, but fed five thousand from five loaves as God; and he knows that it was a human body that lay in the tomb, but that it was raised, as the body of God, by the Word himself.

Teaching these things, Dionysius too, in the letter to Euphranor and Ammonius, wrote because of Sabellius about the things said of the Savior in a human way. For these are said of him in a human way: “I am the vine, my Father is the vinedresser,” and “faithful to him who made him,” and “he created,” and “having become so much better than the angels.” But he was not ignorant of “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” and “He who has seen me has seen the Father”; for we know that he wrote these things in his other letters; and there too, when writing them, he mentioned the human things of the Lord. For as “being in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” and “though he was rich, he became poor for our sake,” so, while the words about his divinity are lofty and rich, the expressions about his coming in the flesh are lowly and poor. That these things are said of the Savior in a human way one may see from this: the vinedresser is foreign in essence to the vine, but the branches are of the same essence and kin to the vine and inseparable from it, and they and the vine have one and the same origin. And, as the Lord said, he is the vine, we are the branches. If, then, the Son is of the same essence as we are and has the same origin as we have, then in this respect let the Son too be foreign in essence to the Father, as the vine is to the vinedresser; but if the Son is other than we are, and he is the Word of the Father, while we came from the earth and are descendants of Adam, then the text ought not to be referred to the divinity of the Word, but rather to his human coming. For the Savior also said this: “I am the vine, you are the branches; my Father is the vinedresser.” For we are kin to the Lord according to the body; and for this reason he said, “I will declare your name to my brothers.” And as the branches are of the same essence as the vine and come from it, so we too, having bodies of the same kind as the body of the Lord, receive of his fullness, and have that body as our root for the resurrection and salvation. And the Father is called the vinedresser, for it was he who cultivated the vine through the Word, and the vine is the Savior’s humanity; and he himself, through the Word himself, prepared for us the way to the kingdom; and no one comes to the Lord unless the Father draws him to him.

Since the text has this interpretation, it follows that it is about the vine, so understood, that these are written: “faithful to him who made him,” and “having become so much better than the angels,” and “he created.” For when he took what he had to offer for us—and this was the body from the Virgin Mary—then it is written of him that he was created and made and came to be; for such expressions fit men. Moreover, it was not after … that he became better than the angels, as if before he might appear to be less than they or equal to them; but writing to Jews and comparing the Lord’s human ministry with that of Moses, the apostle said, “having become so much better than the angels”; for the law was spoken through angels, since the law was given through Moses, but grace came through Jesus Christ, and the supply of the Spirit. And then the law was proclaimed from Dan to Beersheba, but now “their voice has gone out into all the earth,” and the nations worship Christ and through him know the Father. These things, then, are written of the Savior in a human way, and it is not otherwise.

Did Dionysius, then, as the Christ-fighters keep chattering, in writing of the human things of the Son and so calling him a thing made, mean that he was one of men? Or, in saying that the Word is not proper to the essence of the Father, did he think that he was of the same essence as us men? Yet he did not write thus in his other letters; on the contrary, in them he is seen to think rightly, and through them he can cry out against these men, saying: “I am not of the same opinion as you, you God-fighters; nor did what I wrote give Arius a pretext for impiety. But writing to Ammonius and Euphranor because of the Sabellianizers, I mentioned the vinedresser and the vine and other such texts, so that, by showing the human things of the Lord, I might persuade them not to say … ; for as the vinedresser is not the vine, so the one who came to be in the body is not the Father but the Word; and the Word, having come to be in the vine, was called the vine because of his bodily kinship with the branches, which we are. With this meaning, then, I wrote the letter to Euphranor and Ammonius; but against your shamelessness I set the other letters written by me, so that the wise may know the defense in them and my right thinking in the faith of Christ.” The Arians too, if they had a sound mind, ought to have reasoned and thought in this way about the bishop; for “all things are plain to those who understand, and right to those who find knowledge.” But since, not having learned the faith of the catholic church, they have fallen into impiety, and their mind is now blinded, they think even straight things crooked, and call light darkness and think darkness light. It is therefore necessary to set out what is in the other letters of Dionysius too, and the reason for them, for the greater condemnation of the heretics; for it is from them that we ourselves have learned to think and write as we do about the man.

The occasion for which he wrote the other letters is this. When Dionysius the bishop had learned of the affairs in the Pentapolis and, in zeal for piety, had written, as I said before, the letter to Euphranor and Ammonius against the heresy of Sabellius, some of the brothers of the church, who thought rightly but did not ask him so as to learn from him why he had written as he did, went up to Rome and spoke against him before his namesake Dionysius, bishop of Rome. When he heard it, he wrote at once both against those who held the views of Sabellius and against those who thought the very things for saying which Arius was cast out of the church, saying that the impiety of Sabellius and that of those who say that the Word of God is a creature and a thing made and originated are equal and diametrically opposite. He also wrote to Dionysius to inform him of what they had said against him. And he at once wrote back, and entitled his books Refutation and Defense. Here observe the abominable workshop of the Christ-fighters, and how they themselves have stirred up shame against themselves. For since Dionysius, bishop of Rome, wrote also against those who say that the Son of God is a creature and a thing made, it is shown that the heresy of the Christ-fighting Arians was anathematized by all, not now for the first time but long ago. Then, since Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, defended himself concerning the letter he had written, he too is seen neither to have thought as they say, nor to have held the false doctrine of Arius at all.

And for the complete condemnation of the Arians and the proof of their slander, it is enough that Dionysius defended himself at all concerning what these men keep chattering about. For he did not write back as one contending, but as one defending himself concerning what he was suspected of; and one who defends himself concerning what he is accused of, what else does he do but dissolve every suspected charge against him, and in this very act convict the Ariomaniacs as slanderers? But so that these men may be put to greater shame by what he wrote in his defense, come, let me set his own words before you; for you will learn from them that the Arians are perverse, while Dionysius is a stranger to their heterodoxy. First, then, he entitled his letter Of Refutation and Defense. What does this mean but that he refutes those who lie and defends what he wrote, showing that he did not write as Arius supposed, but that, in mentioning what is said of the Lord in a human way, he was not ignorant that he is the Word and Wisdom inseparable from the Father? Then he blames those who spoke against him for not quoting his words whole but cutting them up, and for speaking as they wish, not with a good conscience but an evil one; and he likens them to those who slander the letters of the blessed apostle. Such a complaint of his completely frees him from base suspicion. For if he regards those who spoke against Paul as like those who spoke against him, he shows nothing other than that he wrote as he did holding the views of Paul. Indeed, meeting each of the things said by his accusers, he corrects everything they bring forward; and in those letters he overthrows Sabellius, while in these he shows his own pious … whole. … Dionysius: “God was not always Father, the Son was not always; but God was without the Word, and the Son himself was not before he was begotten; but there was once when he was not; for he is not eternal, but came to be afterwards”—see how he answers. Most of his words, in which he either examines by inquiry, or draws conclusions by reasoning, or refutes by questioning, or blames his accusers, I pass over because of their length, and set down only those necessary for the charge. Defending himself, then, against those charges, he writes in these words in the first book, entitled Of Refutation and Defense, after other things, as follows: [15] “For there was not a time when God was not Father.” And he acknowledges this in what follows: “that Christ always is, being Word and Wisdom and Power. For it is not that God, being at first without offspring of these, then begot a child; but the Son has his being not from himself, but from the Father.” And a little later he says again about the same: “Being the radiance of eternal light, he himself is certainly eternal too; for since the light always is, it is plain that the radiance always is. For it is by its shining forth that light is understood to exist, and light cannot be without giving light. Let us come back again to our illustrations. If there is a sun, there is a ray, there is day; if none of these exists, the sun is far from being present. If, then, the sun were eternal, the day too would be unceasing; but as it is, since this is not so, the day began when the sun began, and ceases when it ceases. But God is eternal light, neither having begun nor ever ending; so the radiance lies before him eternally and is with him, without beginning and always begotten, shining forth before him, which is the Wisdom that says, ‘I was she in whom he delighted; and daily I rejoiced before his face at all times.’” And again a little later he adds about the same: “The Father, then, being eternal, the Son is eternal, being light from light; for if there is a parent, there is also a child; and if there were no child, how and of whom could he be a parent? But both are, and are always.” Then again he adds this: “God, then, being light, Christ is radiance. And since he is Spirit—for ‘God,’ it says, ‘is spirit’—correspondingly Christ again is called vapor; for ‘she is a vapor,’ it says, ‘of the power of God.’” And from the second book again he says: “Only the Son, being always with the Father and filled with him who is, himself also is, being from the Father.”

If these things had been said ambiguously, they would need an interpreter; but since he wrote clearly and often about the same things, let Arius gnash his teeth, seeing his heresy overthrown by Dionysius and hearing him say what he does not want to hear: “God was always Father, and the Son is not simply eternal, but since the Father is eternal, the Son too would be eternal, and he is with him as the radiance with the light.” And let those who have so much as suspected that Dionysius held the views of Arius lay aside such defamation of him. For what fellowship is there between them, when Arius says, “The Son was not before he was begotten, but there was once when he was not,” while Dionysius teaches, “But God is eternal light, neither having begun nor ever ending; so the radiance lies before him eternally and is with him, without beginning and always begotten, shining forth before him”? For against the other suspicion too, of those who say that Dionysius, in speaking of the Father, does not name the Son …, but divides and removes and parts the Son from the Father, he answers and puts them to shame, saying in the second book: [17] “Each of the names spoken by me is inseparable and indivisible from the one next to it. I spoke of the Father, and before I brought in the Son, I signified him too in the Father. I brought in the Son; even if I had not mentioned the Father before, he would certainly have been included beforehand in the Son. I added the Holy Spirit, but at the same time I adjoined both from where and through whom he came. But they do not know that neither is the Father, as Father, estranged from the Son—for the name begins the bond between them—nor is the Son exiled from the Father; for … ; and in their hands is the Spirit, who cannot be deprived either of him who sends or of him who conveys him. How, then, could I, who use these names, think that they are divided and wholly separated from one another?” And a little later he adds: “Thus we expand the Monad indivisibly into the Triad, and again gather up the Triad without diminution into the Monad.”

Then, when they blamed him for saying that the Son is one of the originated things and not of the same essence as the Father, he refutes such men in the first book, saying: “But I, having said that some things are understood to be originated and some made, gave examples of such things in passing, as being less useful, … the boat; then I dwelt on those that were fitting and more apt, and went more fully into the truer ones, devising various further proofs, which I also wrote to you in another letter; in which I also refuted the charge they bring against me, which is false, that I do not say that Christ is of the same essence as God. For even if I say that I have not found this word, … I set forth [human] generation, plainly as being of the same kind … and that the river is the water from the spring. But these and such things they pretend not even to see written, but act as if they were blind; and with two detached little phrases they try to pelt me from afar, as with stones, not knowing that, with things that are not understood and need to be brought toward knowledge, not only different but even contrary proofs often become indications of what is sought.” And in the third book he says: “Life was begotten from life, and flowed as a river from a spring, and from unquenchable light a bright light was kindled.” [19] Who, hearing these things, will not condemn the madness of those who suspect that Dionysius held the views of Arius? For see how by these words he plainly tramples on their whole heresy with the reasonings of the truth. “He was not before he was begotten” and “There was once when he was not” he destroys by the account of the radiance, saying that the Father was never without offspring of him; their “from nothing” he destroys by saying that the Word is like a river from a spring, and a shoot from a root, and a child from a parent, and light from light, and life from life; their cutting off and dividing the Word from God he destroys by saying that the Triad is gathered up undivided and undiminished into the Monad; and their saying that the Son is foreign to the Father’s essence he openly tramples by saying that the Son is of the same essence as the Father. At this one might well marvel at the shamelessness of the impious: how, when Dionysius, whom they call one of their own opinion, says that the Son is “of the same essence,” they themselves go about buzzing like gnats that the council did not write “of the same essence” rightly. For if Dionysius is their friend, let them not deny what their like-minded friend holds; but if they think it was rightly said, how can they bandy about Dionysius, who says this, as holding their views? Especially since he is not seen to say these things casually, but, having first written other letters, he refutes as liars those who spoke against him as not saying that the Son is of the same essence as the Father; and those who think he calls the Word originated he rebuts, since he did not think as they suppose; but even if he used the words, he says he used them for this purpose only, to show that it is not the Father but the Son who put on the originated, created, and made body; and for this reason the Son is said to have come to be, and been made, and been created.

Indeed, since he had been led to write such expressions earlier, he bids the Arians a long farewell, and asks of his hearers a good conscience, putting forward the difficulty, and perhaps even the incomprehensibility, of the matters under inquiry, so that they may judge not the words but the meaning of the writer, especially when most things bear witness to his thinking. At any rate he himself said: “Of such things, as less useful, I gave the examples in passing, the plant and the gardener; but I dwelt on the more apt ones and went more fully into the truer ones.” One who says this shows that it is truer to say that the Son is eternal and from the Father than that he is originated; for by the latter the bodily nature of the Lord is signified, by the former the eternity of his divinity. In these words, at any rate, he affirms that those who charged him with not saying that the Son is of the same essence as the Father were refuted by him—not simply, but with understanding and true proof—saying: “Even if I did not find this word in the Scriptures, yet, gathering the sense from the Scriptures themselves, I knew that, being Son and Word, he could not be foreign to the essence of the Father.” And that he does not think the Son to be a creature or a thing made (for on this point too they have bandied his name), he says thus in the second book: “But if any of the slanderers, because I called God the maker and creator of all things, supposes that I call him maker of Christ too, let him hear me having first called him Father, in which the Son too is written along with him. For after calling the Father maker, I added: And neither is he father of the things of which he is maker, if he who begets is properly understood as father (for we will work out the breadth of the title father in what follows); nor is the father a maker, if only the craftsman is called maker. For among the Greeks the wise are called makers of their own words; and the apostle said, ‘doer of the law’; and men become doers of things within the heart, virtue and vice, as God said: ‘I waited for him to do judgment, but he did lawlessness.’”

Truly, on hearing these things one should remember the divine oracle that says: “Wherever the impious man turns, he vanishes.” For see, turning this way and that at every point, the impious vanish, having no pretext concerning Dionysius even in this. For he plainly teaches that the Son is neither a thing made nor a creature; and he blames and corrects those who slander him for calling God maker, because they did not perceive that he had first called God Father, in which the Son too is written along with him. In saying this he shows that the Son is not one of the things made, nor God his maker, but that God is Father of his own Word. And since some carelessly charged him with calling God the maker of Christ, he therefore defends himself in various ways and says that even so his statement is not blameworthy; for he says that he called him maker because of the flesh which the Word assumed, since it was originated. “But if anyone should suppose that this was said of the Word, even so they ought to have heard it without contentiousness. For as I do not think the Word a thing made, so I do not call God his maker but his Father; and even if, in speaking of the Son, I said in passing that God is maker, even so a defense is possible. For the wise among the Greeks call themselves makers of their own words, though they are fathers of their own words; and the divine Scripture calls us makers even of the movements of the heart, speaking of doers of law and of judgment and of righteousness.” So on every side he shows that the Son is neither a creature nor a thing made, and that he himself is a stranger to the Arian false doctrine.

For let no Arian suspect him, even in this, of saying: “The Son coexists with the Father in such a way that the names are joined to one another, while the realities are very far apart from one another; and the Son did not always coexist with the Father, but from the time the Son came to be, from then on God was called Father and thereafter coexists with him, as happens with men.” Rather, let him consider and remember what was said before, and he will see that Dionysius’s faith is correct. For since he says, “For there was not a time when God was not Father,” and again, “But God is eternal light, neither having begun nor ever ending; so the radiance lies before him eternally and is with him, without beginning and always begotten, shining forth before him,” no one ought to suspect anything of the kind against him at all. And the illustrations of the spring and the river, and of the root, and of the …

But since, in addition to all his other evils, Arius has also raked together this little phrase for himself, as from a dunghill, and adds that “the Word is not proper to the Father; but the Word in God is one, while this Lord is foreign and alien to the Father’s essence, and is called Word only in notion; he is not by nature and truly Son of God, but he too is called Son by adoption, as a creature”; and since, saying such things, he boasts among the ignorant that in these too he has Dionysius as one of his opinion—see the faith of Dionysius on these matters too, and how he fights against such malicious views of Arius. For he writes thus in the first book: “It has been said already that God is the spring of all good things, while the Son is described as the river poured forth from him. For a word is an effluence of mind, and, to speak as of men, it is channeled from the heart through the mouth, the mind that leaps forth through the tongue becoming other than the word in the heart. For the one, having sent forth the other, remained, and is as it was; the other, sent forth, flew out and is carried everywhere. And so each is in the other, being other than the other; and they are one, being two. For so too the Father and the Son were said to be one, and in one another.” And in the fourth book he says thus: “For as our mind brings forth the word from itself, as the prophet said, ‘My heart has uttered a good word’; and each is other than the other, having obtained its own place separate from the other, the one dwelling and moving in the heart, the other on the tongue and in the mouth; yet they are not apart, nor are they ever deprived of one another, nor is the mind without word, nor the word without mind; but the mind makes the word, appearing in it, and the word shows the mind, having come to be in it; and the mind is like a word lying within, while the word is mind leaping forth; and the mind passes over into the word, while the word carries the mind round to the hearers; and so the mind, through the word, is settled in the souls of the hearers, entering in together with the word. And the mind is, as it were, father of the word, existing by itself; while the word is, as it were, son of the mind—impossible before it, yet not coming to be together with it from somewhere outside, but having sprung from it. So the Father, the greatest and universal Mind, has the Son first, as his Word, interpreter and messenger.”

Either Arius never heard these things, or, having heard them, the ignorant man did not understand them; for if he had understood, he would not have lied so grossly against the bishop, but would surely have reviled him too, as he does us, out of hatred for the truth. For being a Christ-fighter, he will not hesitate to persecute those who hold the views of Christ as well, as the Lord himself foretold: “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too.” Or if the champions of impiety think that Dionysius is of one mind with them, let them write these things and confess them. Let them write of the vine and the vinedresser, the boat and the shipbuilder; and at the same time let them confess also what he said in his defense—“of the same essence,” and that the Son is from the essence, and is eternal, and the mind in relation to the word, and the spring and the river, and the rest—so that from the very difference they may at least learn how he said the former by way of accommodation, and the latter as the account of the pious faith requires. And then, by saying these things, let them do away with what they have thought against these very things. For what is there in the faith of Dionysius that comes even close to the evils of Arius? Does not Arius say that the Word is Word only in notion, while Dionysius says he is the true and natural Word of God? And the one estranges the Word from the Father, while the other teaches that he is proper to and inseparable from the essence of the Father, as the word is to the mind and the river to the spring. If, then, anyone can divide and estrange the word and the mind, or part the river and the spring and separate them by a wall, or call the river of a different essence from the spring and show its water to be foreign, or dares to separate the radiance from the light and say that the radiance is from another essence and not from the light, let him rave with Arius; for such a person will be seen no longer to have even a human mind. But if nature knows these to be inseparable, and their offspring proper to them, let no one any longer hold the views of Arius nor slander Dionysius; but rather let him admire, from these passages, the clarity of his speech and the correctness of his faith. [25] For that Dionysius again opposes and attacks the madness of Arius, who says that the Word in God is one, and he of whom John says, “In the beginning was the Word,” is another, and that God’s own wisdom in him is one, and that of which the apostle says, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,” is another—see again how he writes on these matters in the second book: “In the beginning was the Word; but he who put forth the Word was not Word; for the Word was with God. The Lord became Wisdom; he who sent forth Wisdom, then, was not Wisdom; for ‘I was,’ it says, ‘she in whom he delighted.’ Christ is Truth; ‘but blessed,’ it says, ‘is the God of truth.’” Here he overthrows both Sabellius and Arius, and shows both heresies to be equal in impiety. For neither is the Father of the Word himself the Word, nor is what is from the Father a thing made, but the proper offspring of his essence. Again, the Word who came forth is not the Father; nor again is this Word one out of many, but he alone is Son of the Father, true and genuine by nature, who both is now in him and is eternally and inseparably from him. So the Lord is Wisdom and Truth, and is not second to some other wisdom; but he alone is the one through whom the Father made all things, and in whom he established the various essences of originated things; through him he is made known to whomever he wills, and in him he exercises and works his providence over all things. For Dionysius too knows this one alone as Word of God. This is the faith of Dionysius; for I have written after collecting a few things from his letters, which can give you occasion to add more, and give the Arians the greatest shame for their slander against the bishop. For in all things, and in each of the things he wrote, he refuted their perversity and exposed their heresy.

So from these it is shown that the letter to Euphranor and Ammonius too was written by him with another intention, by way of accommodation; for his defense also shows this. And this is truly a persuasive method for overthrowing the madness of Sabellius: whoever wishes to refute such men quickly should not begin from the texts that signify the divinity of the Word—that the Son is Word and Wisdom and Power, and “I and the Father are one”—lest they, misinterpreting what is well said, take such texts as a pretext for their shameless contentiousness, hearing “I and the Father are one” and “He who has seen me has seen the Father”; but he should bring forward what is said of the Savior in a human way, as Dionysius himself did, such as hungering, being weary, being the vine, praying, and suffering. For the lowlier these things are said to be, the more it is shown that it was not the Father who became man. For if the Lord is called the vine, there must also be a vinedresser; if he prays, there must be one who hears; if he asks, one who gives. Such things show up the madness of the Sabellians more easily: that he who prays is one, and he who hears another; the vine one, and the vinedresser another. For whatever texts are said as if estranging the Son from the Father are said of him because of the flesh which he bore for our sake; for originated things are foreign to God by nature. For this reason, since the Word came to be of the flesh, which is originated—as John says, “the Word became flesh”—although he is by nature proper to the Father and inseparable from him, yet because of it the Father too is said to be far from him; for he himself allows the things proper to the flesh to be said of him, to show that the body was not another’s but his own. This being the meaning, Sabellius will be more quickly refuted, that it is not the Father who became flesh but his Word, who also redeems the flesh and brings it to the Father. And having refuted and persuaded him in this way, one will then teach more readily about the divinity of the Word too: that he is Word and Wisdom, Son and Power, Radiance and Impress. For here again one must understand that, since the Word exists, there must also be the Father of the Word; and since Wisdom exists, there must be its parent; and since the radiance exists, there must also be the light; and so the Son and the Father are one.

Knowing these things, Dionysius wrote; and in those letters he muzzled Sabellius, while in these he overthrew the Arian heresy. For as the human things of the Savior overthrow Sabellius, so against the Ariomaniacs one must draw the refutations not from the human things but from what signifies the divinity of the Word, lest these men too, misinterpreting what is said of the Lord because of the body, think that the Word is such as we men are, and so persist in their madness. But if these too are taught about his divinity, they will condemn their own malice; and having learned more easily that the Word became flesh, they too will thereafter distinguish the human things from those befitting the divinity. This being so, and Dionysius the bishop having been shown from what he wrote to be pious, what will the Ariomaniacs do now? Whom will they slander next, now that they are refuted on this count? For since they have fallen from the foundation of the apostles and have an unstable mind, they must seek some prop, and, not finding one, must then slander the fathers. But no one will believe them any longer, even if they force themselves to slander; for the heresy has been condemned by all—unless perhaps they will next speak about the devil; for he alone agrees with them; or rather, it is he who suggests the heresy to them. Who, then, would any longer call those whose leader is the devil Christians, and not rather devilish, so that they may be called not only Christ-fighters but devilish too—unless indeed they change, and deny the impiety they invented, and acknowledge the truth? For this would benefit them …