1Dionysius explains that the Gospels do not fix the hour of the resurrection, harmonizes their accounts, and advises that the Easter fast should not be broken before midnight, though those who end it between midnight and dawn are not to be troubled.
2Dionysius holds that menstruating women should not approach the holy table or receive the body and blood of Christ, though anyone may pray in any condition.
3Married couples are to judge for themselves when to abstain from intercourse for prayer, following Paul.
4Those who have had an involuntary nocturnal emission are to follow their own conscience about approaching communion.
5Dionysius closes by saying he wrote not as a teacher but as a colleague, and asks Basilides for his judgment.
authentic · Generally accepted as Dionysius's (it was received among the canonical letters of the Greek church).
Standing
Honoured by the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Honoured as a saint or in a church calendar by: Catholic, Orthodox.
Older English translation
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 6 (1886) (public domain, at CCEL; for comparison: our translation is made from the original first and checked against it afterwards) · ANF 6 prints it as the Epistle of Dionysius to Basilides, with its canons.
Date
ca. 247-265 (approximate) · Written while Dionysius was bishop; the year is not known.
Written at
Alexandria, Egypt (probable)
Addressed to
Basilides, bishop of the Pentapolis
Language
Greek
Genre
letter
Reference system
0 = salutation, 1-4 = the four canons, 5 = closing (Routh's divisions)
SBL abbreviation
Ep. Bas.Not yet checked
Clavis
CPG 1630 (not yet checked)
Text from
M. J. Routh, ed., Reliquiae Sacrae, 2nd ed., vol. 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1846), 223-234 (Printed edition in the public domain; Tesseract OCR of a public-domain scan (Internet Archive))