Works Dionysius of Alexandria Epistula ad Fabium Antiochenum To Fabius, Bishop of Antioch

10.

Those sainted martyrs, accordingly, who were once with us, and who now are seated with Christ, 1 and are sharers in His kingdom, and partakers with Him in His judgment 2 and who act as His judicial assessors, 3 received there certain of the brethren who had fallen away, and who had become chargeable with sacrificing to the idols. And as they saw that the conversion and repentance of such might be acceptable to Him who desires not at all the death of the sinner, 4 but rather his repentance, they proved their sincerity, and received them, and brought them together again, and assembled with them, and had fellowship with them in their prayers and at their festivals. 5 What advice then, brethren, do you give us as regards these? What should we do? Are we to stand forth and act with the decision and judgment which those (martyrs) formed, and to observe the same graciousness with them, and to deal so kindly with those toward whom they showed such compassion? or are we to treat their decision as an unrighteous one, 6 and to constitute ourselves judges of their opinion on such subjects, and to throw clemency into tears, and to overturn the established order? 7

  1. As to the martyrs' immediate departure to the Lord, and their abode with Him, see Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. xliii., and On the Soul, v. 55. [Vol. iii. p. 576; Ib., p. 231.] ↩

  2. That the martyrs were to be Christ's assessors, judging the world with Him, was a common opinion among the fathers. So, after Dionysius, Eulogius, bishop of Alexandria, in his fifth book, Against the Novatians. Photius, in his Bibliotheca, following Chrysostom, objects to this, and explains Paul's words in 1 Cor. vi. 2 as having the same intention as Christ's words touching the men of Nineveh and the queen of the south who should rise up in the judgment and condemn that generation. ↩

  3. sundikazontes. See a noble passage in Bossuet, Préface sur l'Apocal , § 28. ↩

  4. Ezek. xxxiii. 11. ↩

  5. Dionysius is dealing here not with public communion, such as was the bishop's prerogative to confer anew on the penitent, but with private fellowship among Christian people.--Vales. ↩

  6. adikon poiesometha is the reading of Codices Maz., Med., Fuk., and Savil., and also of Georgius Syncellus. Others read adekton poiesometha, "we shall treat it as inadmissible." ↩

  7. The words kai ton Theon paroxunomen, "and provoke God," are sometimes added here; but they are wanting in Codices Maz., Med., Fuk., Savil., and in Georgius Syncellus. ↩

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