On the Opinion of Dionysius

You have been slow to tell me about the present dispute between you and the enemies of Christ; for even before you kindly wrote to me, I had made careful inquiries and learned about the matter, which I was glad to hear. I approved of the right opinion your piety holds about our blessed fathers, while on this occasion I once again recognize the unreasonableness of the Arian madmen. For since their heresy has no ground in reason and no explicit proof from holy Scripture, they have always resorted to shameless evasions and plausible fallacies. But now they have also dared to slander the fathers; and this is not out of character, but entirely consistent with their perversity. For is it any wonder that people who have presumed to 'take counsel against the Lord and against His Christ' are also vilifying the blessed Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, as a partisan and accomplice of their own? For if they choose to praise a man to support their own heresy, even if they call him blessed, they do him no slight insult, but a great one indeed; just like robbers or evil men who, when branded for their own practices, claim respectable people as members of their number and so defame their good character.

If, then, they have confidence in their opinions and statements, let them set out their heresy openly, and show from it whether they think they have any religious argument in their defense, either from Scripture or from human reason. But if they have nothing of the kind, let them keep quiet. For they will find nothing anywhere except greater condemnation of themselves. First, from the Scriptures: John says, 'In the beginning was the Word,' whereas they say, 'He did not exist before He was begotten'; and David sings, in the person of the Father, 'My heart uttered a good Word' (Septuagint), whom they claim exists in thought only and originated from nothing. Again, John says in the Gospel, 'All things were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made,' and Paul writes, 'There is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,' and elsewhere, 'All things were created in Him.' How, then, will they have the nerve (or rather, how will they escape disgrace) to oppose the sayings of the saints by claiming that the maker of all things is a creature, and that He in whom all created things have come into being and exist is a created thing? Nor, second, do they have any religious argument from human reason left in their defense. For what person, Greek or barbarian, dares to call one whom he confesses to be God a created thing, or to say that He did not exist before He was made? Or what person, having heard the one he believes to be God alone say, 'This is My beloved Son,' and 'My heart uttered a good Word,' will dare even to say that the Word from the heart of God came into being out of nothing? Or that the Son is a created thing and not the true offspring of the one who speaks? Or again, who, hearing the one he believes to be Lord and Savior say, 'I am in the Father and the Father in Me,' and 'I and the Father are one,' will presume to separate what He has made one and kept indivisible?

Seeing this themselves, then, and having no confidence in their own position, they tell lies about religious men. But it would have been better for them, isolated as they are and seeing that under examination they were at a loss and silenced on every side, to have turned back from the path of error instead of claiming men they do not know, so that they would not be refuted by these men too and carry off all the more disgrace. But perhaps they never wish to depart from this wickedness of theirs; for they imitate this trait of Caiaphas and his party, just as they learned from them to deny Christ. For when the Lord had done so many works, by which He showed Himself to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God, they too, being refuted by Him, from then on thought and spoke against the Scripture in everything, and, unable to face the proofs against them for a moment, turned to the patriarch with the words, 'We have Abraham as our father,' thinking in this way to cloak their own unreasonableness. But they gained nothing by these words, nor will these men, by speaking of Dionysius, be able to escape the guilt of those others. For the Lord convicted those others of their wicked deeds with the words, 'Abraham did not do this,' while the same truth will again convict these men of their impiety and falsehood. For Bishop Dionysius did not side with Arius, nor was he ignorant of the truth. On the contrary, both the Jews of that day and the new Jews of the present day inherited their mad hostility to Christ from their father the devil. Well then, strong proof that here again these men are saying what is not true and are slandering the man is the fact that he was neither condemned and expelled from the church for impiety by other bishops, as these men have been expelled from the clergy, nor did he leave the church of his own accord as the partisan of a heresy; he died honorably within it, and his memory is kept and recorded among the fathers to this day. For if he had sided with these men, or had not defended what he had written, he too would no doubt have been treated as these men have been.

And indeed this would be enough to refute completely the new Jews, who deny the Lord, slander the fathers, and try to deceive all Christians. But since they think they have, in certain parts of the bishop's letter, pretexts for slandering him, come, let us look at these too, so that even from them the emptiness of their reasoning may be exposed, and they may at last stop blaspheming the Lord, and at least, with the soldiers, when they see creation bearing witness, confess that He is truly the Son of God and not one of the created things. They say, then, that in a letter the blessed Dionysius said 'that the Son of God is a creature and made, and not His own by nature, but alien in essence from the Father, just as the vinedresser is from the vine, or the shipbuilder from the boat; for, being a creature, He did not exist before He came to be.' Yes, he wrote it, and we too admit that his letter reads this way. But just as he wrote this, he also wrote very many other letters, and they ought to consult those too, so that the man's faith may be made clear from all of them, and not from this one alone. For the craft of a shipbuilder who has built many triremes is judged not from one but from all. If, therefore, he wrote this letter they speak of simply as an exposition of his faith, or if this was his only letter, let them accuse him to their hearts' content — for this suggestion really amounts to an accusation. But if he was led to write as he did by the occasion and the person concerned, while also writing other letters defending himself where he had been suspected, then they should not have ignored the reasons and hastily cast a slur on the man, or they will appear to be merely hunting for stray expressions while passing over the truth found in his other letters. For a farmer also treats trees of the same kind now in one way and now in another, according to the character of the soil he is dealing with; and no one would blame him for cutting down one, grafting another, planting another, and uprooting yet another. On the contrary, on learning the reason, one admires the versatility of his skill all the more. Well then, unless they have read the writing superficially, let them state the main subject of the letter; for in this way the malice and unscrupulousness of their scheme will come out. But since they do not know it, or are ashamed to state it, we must state it ourselves.

At that time certain bishops in Pentapolis, in Upper Libya, sided with Sabellius. And their views were so successful that the Son of God was hardly preached in the churches any longer. When Dionysius heard of this, since he was in charge of those churches, he sent men to advise the guilty ones to give up their error; but when they did not stop, and grew more shameless in their impiety, he was forced to meet their shameless conduct by writing the letter in question, and to expound from the Gospels the human nature of the Savior. Since those men were growing bolder in denying the Son and in attributing His human actions to the Father, he wanted, by showing that it was the Son and not the Father who was made man for us, to persuade the ignorant that the Father is not a Son, and so by degrees to lead them up to the true Godhead of the Son and the knowledge of the Father. This is the main subject of the letter, and this is why he wrote it: because of those who had so shamelessly chosen to alter the true faith.

Well then, what does the heresy of Arius have in common with the opinion of Dionysius? Or why should Dionysius be called like Arius, when they differ so widely? For the one is a teacher of the Catholic Church, while the other invented a new heresy. And while Arius, to set out his own error, wrote a Thaleia in an effeminate and ridiculous style like Sotades the Egyptian, Dionysius not only wrote other letters as well, but composed a defense of himself on the suspect points, and came out clearly as holding right opinions. If, then, his writings are inconsistent, let them not draw him to their side, for on this assumption he is not worth believing. But if, after he had written his letter to Ammonius and fallen under suspicion, he made his defense so as to improve on what he had said before, yet did so without changing his position, it must be evident that he wrote the suspect passages in a qualified sense. And no one has any business to construe maliciously what is written or done in such a sense, or to twist each passage to a meaning of his own. For even a physician, according to his knowledge, often applies to the wounds he is treating remedies that seem unsuitable to some, with nothing but health in view. In the same way, a wise teacher's practice is to arrange and deliver his lessons according to the characters of his students, until he has brought them over to the way of perfection.

But if they accuse the blessed man (for the Arians' arguments about him are in fact accusations against him) simply for writing this way, what will they do when they hear even the great and blessed Apostles in the Acts? First Peter says, 'Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know — this man, handed over by the determined plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.' And again: 'By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you well.' And Paul relates in Antioch of Pisidia how God, 'when He had 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 My will. From this man's offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as He promised.' 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 the man whom He has appointed; and He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.' Or Stephen, the great martyr, when he says, 'Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.' Indeed, it is high time for them to brazen it out (for nothing is too daring for them) and claim that the apostles themselves sided with Arius; for they declare Christ to have been a man from Nazareth, and capable of suffering.

Well then, since these men imagine such things, did the Apostles, because they used the language above, regard Christ as only a man and nothing more? Certainly not. The very idea is out of the question. Here too they acted as wise master builders and stewards of the mysteries of God, and they had good reason for it. For the Jews of that day, in error themselves and misleading the Gentiles, thought that the Christ was coming as a mere man of the seed of David, like the rest of David's descendants, and would believe neither that He was God nor that the Word was made flesh. For this reason the blessed Apostles very wisely began by proclaiming to the Jews the human characteristics of the Savior, so that, having fully persuaded them from visible facts and from the miracles that were done that the Christ had come, they might go on to lead them up to faith in His Godhead, by showing that the works He had done were not those of a man but of God. Indeed, Peter, who calls Christ a man capable of suffering, at once went on to add, 'He is the Prince of Life,' while in the Gospel he confesses, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' And in his Epistle he calls Him Bishop of souls and Lord both of himself and of angels and Powers. Paul, again, who calls Christ a man of the seed of David, wrote this to the Hebrews: 'who, being the brightness of His glory and the very image of His being,' and to the Philippians: 'who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a prize to be grasped.' But what can it mean to call Him Prince of Life, Son of God, brightness, express image, equal with God, Lord, and Bishop of souls, if not that in the body He was the Word of God, through whom all things were made, and is as indivisible from the Father as the brightness is from the light?

And Dionysius, accordingly, did as he had learned from the Apostles. For as the heresy of Sabellius was creeping in, he was forced, as I said before, to write the letter in question, and to hurl at them what is said of the Savior with reference to His humanity and His humiliation, so as to stop them, by means of His human attributes, from saying that the Father was a son, and so to make the teaching about the Godhead of the Son easier for them, when in his other letters he calls Him from the Scriptures the word, wisdom, power, breath, and brightness of the Father.⁠a For example, in the letters written in his defense, speaking as I have described, he grows bold in the faith and in devotion to Christ. So just as the Apostles are not to be accused because of their human language about the Lord — since the Lord has been made man — but are all the more worthy of admiration for their wise reserve and timely teaching, so Dionysius is no Arian because of his letter to Euphranor and Ammonius against Sabellius. For even if he did use humble phrases and examples, they too come from the Gospels, and his justification for them is the Savior's coming in the flesh, because of which not only these things but others like them are written. For just as He is the Word of God, so afterward 'the Word became flesh'; and while 'in the beginning was the Word,' the Virgin conceived at the completion of the ages, and the Lord has become man. And the one indicated by both statements is one Person, for 'the Word became flesh.' But the expressions used about His Godhead and about His becoming man are to be interpreted with discernment and in keeping with the particular context. Whoever writes of the human attributes of the Word also knows what concerns His Godhead, and whoever expounds His Godhead is not ignorant of what belongs to His coming in the flesh; distinguishing each like a skilled and 'approved money-changer,' he will walk in the straight way of piety. So when he speaks of His weeping, he knows that the Lord, having become man, shows His human character in weeping, while as God He raises Lazarus; he knows that He used to hunger and thirst in the body, while as God He fed five thousand people from five loaves; and he knows that while a human body lay in the tomb, it was raised as God's body by the Word Himself.

Dionysius, teaching exactly this, wrote in his letter to Euphranor and Ammonius, with Sabellius in view, about the human attributes of the Savior. For to this latter class belong the sayings, 'I am the Vine and My Father is the Vinedresser,' 'faithful to Him who made Him,' 'He created me,' and 'made so much better than the angels.' But he was not ignorant of the passages, 'I am in the Father and the Father in Me,' and 'Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.' For we know that he mentioned them in his other Epistles; and while mentioning them there, he also mentioned the human attributes of the Lord. For just as 'being in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a prize to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave,' and 'though He was rich, yet for our sake He became poor,' so, while there are lofty and rich descriptions of His Deity, there are also humble and poor expressions that relate to His coming in the flesh. That these are used of the Savior as man is clear on the following grounds. The vinedresser is different in essence from the vine, while the branches are of one essence with it and akin to it, and are in fact undivided from the vine, since it and they have one and the same origin. But, as the Lord said, He is the vine and we are the branches. If, then, the Son is of one essence with us and has the same origin as we do, let us grant that in this respect the Son differs in essence from the Father, as the vine does from the vinedresser. But if the Son is different from what we are, and He is the Word of the Father while we are made of earth and are descendants of Adam, then the expression above should not be referred to the deity of the Word, but to His human coming. For this is also how the Savior said it: 'I am the vine, you are the branches, My Father is the vinedresser.' For we are akin to the Lord according to the body, and that is why He said, 'I will declare your name to my brothers.' And just as the branches are of one essence with the vine and come from it, so we too, having bodies of the same kind as the Lord's body, receive from His fullness, and have that body as our root for our resurrection and our salvation. But the Father is called the vinedresser, for it was He who by His Word cultivated the Vine, namely the humanity of the Savior, and who by His own Word prepared for us a way to a kingdom; and no one comes to the Lord unless the Father draws him to Him.

This, then, being the sense of the expression, it follows that it is of the vine, understood in this way, that it is written: 'who was faithful to Him who had created Him,' 'made so much better than the angels,' and 'He created me.' For when He had taken what He was to offer on our behalf, namely His body from the Virgin Mary, then it is written of Him that He had been created, formed, and made; for such phrases apply to human beings. Moreover, it is not that He was made better than the angels after (His taking) the body, or He would appear to have been less than or equal to them before. But writing to Jews and comparing the human ministry of the Lord with Moses, he said, 'having been made so much better than the angels,' for the law was spoken through angels, because 'the law was given through Moses, but grace came through Jesus Christ,' and the gift of the Spirit. And whereas in those days the law was preached from Dan to Beersheba, now 'their sound has gone out into all lands,' and the Gentiles worship Christ, and through Him know the Father. These things, then, are written of the Savior as man, and not otherwise.

Well then, when Dionysius wrote of the human characteristics of the Son and so called Him a creature, did he mean, as the adversaries of Christ keep repeating, that He was one man among others? Or when he said that the Word was not proper to the essence of the Father, did he hold that He was of one essence with us human beings? He certainly did not write this way in his other letters; in them he not only shows a correct opinion, but practically cries out against these people, saying, as it were: I do not share your opinion, you enemies of God, nor did my writings give Arius a pretext for impiety. But writing to Ammon and Euphranor because of the Sabellianizers, I mentioned the vine and the vinedresser and used other similar expressions, so that, by pointing out the human characteristics of the Lord, I might persuade those men not to say that it was the Father who was made man. For just as the vinedresser is not the vine, so the one who came in the body was 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, namely ourselves. In this sense, then, I wrote as I did to Euphranor and Ammonius; but I confront your shamelessness with the other letters I have written, so that people of sound mind may know the defense they contain and my right thinking in the faith of Christ. The Arians, then, if their understanding were sound, ought to have thought and held this about the Bishop: 'for all things are plain to those who understand, and right to those who find knowledge.' But since, not having understood the faith of the Catholic Church, they have fallen into impiety, and so, crippled in their understanding, think that even straight things are crooked and call light darkness while thinking that darkness is light, it is necessary to quote from the other letters of Dionysius too, and to state why they were written, to the greater condemnation of the heretic. For it was from them that we ourselves learned to think and write about the man as we are doing.

This was the occasion for his writing the other letters. Bishop Dionysius had heard about the affairs in Pentapolis and, in zeal for religion, had written, as I said above, his letter to Euphranor and Ammonius against the heresy of Sabellius. Some of the brothers belonging to the Church, of right opinions, but without asking him so as to learn from him how he had written, went up to Rome and spoke against him in the presence of his namesake Dionysius, the Bishop of Rome. On hearing it, the Bishop of Rome wrote at the same time against the followers of Sabellius and against those who held the very opinions for which Arius was cast out of the Church when he voiced them; he called it an equal and opposite impiety to side with Sabellius or with those who say that the Word of God is a thing made, formed, and originated. He also wrote to Dionysius to tell him what they had said about him. And Dionysius at once wrote back and titled his books 'a Refutation and a Defense.' Note here the detestable gang of the enemies of Christ, and how they have stirred up their own disgrace against themselves. For since Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, also wrote against those who said that the Son of God was a creature and a created thing, it is evident that the heresy of the Arian enemies of Christ has been anathematized by all, not now for the first time but long ago. And Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, defending the letter he had written, appears in turn as neither thinking as they claim nor having held the Arian error at all.

And the mere fact that Dionysius made his defense on the matters these people harp on is completely enough to condemn the Arians and to show their malice. For he wrote not in angry controversy, but to defend himself on the points where he was under suspicion. And in defending himself against charges, what does he do but, while disposing of every charge he was suspected of, by that very fact convict the Arian madmen of malice? But to complete their confusion by means of what he wrote in his defense, come, let me set his actual words before you. For from them you will learn, first, that the Arians are malicious, and second, that Dionysius has nothing to do with their error. To begin with, then, he titled his letter a Refutation and a Defense. This means, surely, that he aims to refute false statements and defends himself for what he has written, showing that he did not write as Arius supposed, but that, in mentioning what is said about the Lord in His human aspect, he was not ignorant that He was the Word and Wisdom undivided from the Father. Then he blames those who spoke against him for not quoting his language as a whole but garbling it, and for speaking not in good faith but dishonestly and arbitrarily. And he compares them to those who used to attack the letters of the blessed Apostle. This complaint of his entirely clears him of sinister suspicion. For if he considers the detractors of Paul to be like his own, he shows precisely this: that he wrote as he did in Paul's sense. At any rate, in answering each of his opponents' charges in turn, he explains all the passages they cited; and whereas in those passages he overturns Sabellius, in his later letters he shows how sound and pious his own faith is. So, whereas they would have it that Dionysius held that 'God was not always a Father, the Son did not always exist, but God existed without the Word, while the Son Himself did not exist before He was begotten; on the contrary, there was a time when He was not, for He is not eternal but came into being later' — see how he replies! Most of what he said, whether in the form of investigations, collective inferences, refutations by questioning, or charges against his accusers, I omit because of the length of his discourses, inserting only what bears directly on the charges against him. In answer to these, after some prefatory matter, he writes the following in the first book, titled 'Refutation and Defense.'

'For there was never a time when God was not a father.' And he acknowledges this in what follows, 'that Christ is forever, being Word and Wisdom and Power. For it must not be supposed that God, having at first no such offspring, later begot a Son, but that the Son has His being not from Himself but from the Father.' And a little further on he adds on the same subject, 'But being the brightness of eternal light, He is certainly eternal Himself; for since the light always exists, it is evident that the brightness must always exist as well. For it is by its shining that the existence of light is perceived, and there cannot be light that does not give light. Let us come back to our examples. If there is sun, there is sunlight, there is day. If there is none of these things, it is quite impossible for there to be a sun. If, then, the sun were eternal, the day too would never cease. But in fact, since that is not so, the day begins and ends with the sun. But God is eternal light, never beginning nor ceasing. So the brightness lies before Him eternally, and is with Him without beginning and ever-begotten, shining in His Presence, being that Wisdom which said, I was the one in whom he rejoiced, and daily I was glad in his presence at all times.' And again after a little he takes up the same subject with the words, 'Since the Father, then, is eternal, the Son is eternal, being Light from Light; for if there is a parent, there is also a child. But if there were no child, how and of whom could there be a parent? But there are both, and eternally.' Then again he adds, 'Since God, then, is light, Christ is brightness; and since He is Spirit, for God is a Spirit — in the same way Christ is called the breath, for He is the breath of the power of God.'⁠a And again, to quote the second book, he says, 'But only the Son, who is always with the Father and is filled with Him who IS, Himself also IS from the Father.'

Now if the sense of these statements were doubtful, there would be need of an interpreter. But since he wrote plainly and repeatedly on the same subject, let Arius gnash his teeth when he sees his own heresy overturned by Dionysius, and hears him say what he does not want to hear: 'God was always Father, and the Son is not absolutely eternal, but His eternity flows from the eternity of the Father, and He coexists with Him as brightness with the light.' And let those who have so much as imagined that Dionysius sided with Arius drop such a slander against him. For what do they have in common, when Arius says, 'The Son did not exist before He was begotten, but there was once a time when He was not,' whereas Dionysius teaches, 'Now God is eternal Light, neither beginning nor ever to end; accordingly the brightness lies before Him eternally and coexists with Him, shining before Him without beginning and ever-begotten'? In fact, to meet the suspicion of others who claim that Dionysius, in speaking of the Father, does not name the Son, and again in speaking of the Son does not name the Father, but divides, removes, and separates the Son from the Father, he replies and puts them to shame in the second book, as follows.

'Each of the names I have mentioned is inseparable and indivisible from the one next to it. I spoke of the Father, and before referring to the Son I indicated Him too in the Father. I referred to the Son — and even if I did not also expressly mention the Father, He was certainly to be understood beforehand in the Son. I added the Holy Spirit, but at the same time I also added both from whom and through whom He proceeded. But they do not know that neither is the Father, as Father, separated from the Son — for the name carries that relationship with it — nor is the Son exiled from the Father. For the title Father denotes the common bond. And in their hands is the Spirit, who cannot be parted either from Him who sent Him or from Him who conveyed Him. How then can I, who use these names, imagine that they are cut apart and completely separated from one another?' And after a little he goes on, 'In this way, then, we extend the Monad indivisibly into the Triad, and conversely gather the Triad together without diminution into the Monad.'

Next he refutes them on their charge that he called the Son one of the things originated, and not of one essence with the Father (again in the first book), as follows: 'Only, in saying that certain things were perceived to be originated and created, I gave them as examples in passing, as being less adequate, saying that neither was the plant [of one essence] with the farmer, nor the boat with its builder. Then I dwelt more on more apt and suitable comparisons, and went at greater length into those nearer the truth, working out various proofs, which I wrote to you in another letter; and by these proofs I also showed that the charge they bring against me is untrue, namely, that I denied that Christ is of one essence with God. For even if I argue that I have not found this word (ὁμοούσιον) or read it anywhere in the Holy Scriptures, my later reasonings, which they have suppressed, do not conflict with its meaning. For I gave the example of human birth, evidently as being of the same kind, saying that parents certainly differed from their children only in not being the children themselves; otherwise it would follow that there were neither parents nor children. And, as I said before, circumstances prevent me from producing the letter; otherwise I would have sent you the exact words I used then, or rather a copy of the whole letter, which I will do if I have the opportunity. But I know and remember that I added several comparisons from related things. For I said that a plant grown from a seed or root was different from what it grew from, and at the same time entirely of one nature with it; and that a stream flowing from a spring takes another form and name — for the spring is not called a river, nor the river a spring — and that both existed, and that the spring was, as it were, a father, while the river was water from the spring. But they pretend not to see these and similar written statements, and act as if they were blind, while they try to pelt me from a distance with two disconnected expressions like stones, not knowing that in matters beyond our knowledge, which require training to grasp, not only foreign but even contrary examples often serve to illustrate the problem at hand.' And in the third book he says, 'Life was begotten from Life, and flowed like a river from a spring, and from unquenchable Light bright Light was kindled.'

Who that hears this will not set down as mad those who suspect Dionysius of siding with Arius? For look: in these words, by arguments based on truth, he tramples on Arius's entire heresy. By the comparison of the Brightness he destroys the statements 'He did not exist before He was begotten' and 'There was a time when He was not,' as also by saying that His Father was never without offspring. Their claim that He was made 'out of nothing' he destroys by saying that the Word was like a river from a spring, a shoot from a stock, a child from a parent, Light from Light, and Life from Life. Their walling off and separating of the Word from God he overthrows by saying that the Triad is gathered together into the Monad without division and without diminution. And their statement that the Son has no part in the Father's essence he tramples down unequivocally by saying that the Son is of one essence with the Father. Here one must wonder at the impudence of these irreligious people. How can they, when Dionysius, whom they claim as their partisan, says that the Son is of one essence, go about buzzing like gnats with the complaint that the Synod was wrong to write 'of one essence'? For if Dionysius is their friend, let them not deny what their partisan holds. But if they think the expression was used wrongly, how can they keep repeating that Dionysius, who used it, sided with them? All the more so since he does not appear to have written these things merely in passing; having written other letters before, he convicts of falsehood those who had charged him with not saying that the Son was of one Essence with the Father, while he refutes those who thought he said that the Word was originated, showing that he did not hold what they supposed, and that even if he had used the expressions, he had done so only to show that it was the Son, not the Father, who had put on the originated, formed, created body; and that is why the Son is also said to have been originated, created, and formed.

Clearly, since he had previously used such expressions, while bidding a long farewell to the Arians, he asks his hearers for good faith — being entitled to plead the difficulty, or perhaps one may say the incomprehensibility, of the problems involved — namely, that they judge not by the words but by the writer's meaning, all the more so since there is a great deal to show his intention. For instance, he says himself: 'I used the examples of such relations in passing, as being less adequate, the plant and the farmer, for instance; while I dwelt on the more pertinent examples and went at greater length into those nearer the truth.' But a man who says this shows that it is nearer the truth to say that the Son is eternal and from the Father than to say that He is originated. For the latter denotes the bodily nature of the Lord, but the former the eternity of His Godhead. In the following words, for instance, he maintains — and not only that, but deliberately and with genuine demonstrative force — that those who charged him with not saying that the Son is of one essence with the Father are refuted: 'even if I did not find this expression in the Scriptures, yet gathering their general sense from the Scriptures themselves, I knew that, being Son and Word, He could not be outside the Essence of the Father.' And that he does not hold the Son to be a thing created or formed — for on this point too they have quoted him repeatedly — he says in the second book as follows: 'But if any of my slanderers, because I called God the Creator the maker of all things, thinks that I mean He is the Maker of Christ too, let him note that I had previously called Him Father, a term in which the Son is also implied. For after I said that the Father is Maker, I added that neither is He Father of the things He created, if the one who begot is to be called Father in the strict sense. The wider sense of the term Father we will work out in what follows. Nor is the Father a maker, if by maker is meant simply the craftsman. For among the Greeks, philosophers are called makers of their own discourses. And the Apostle speaks of a doer (ποιητής) of the law, for people are called doers of inward qualities, such as virtue and vice; as God said, I looked for one to do justice, but he did wickedness.'

Truly, whoever hears this is reminded of the divine oracle that says, 'Wherever the impious turns, he is destroyed' (Septuagint). For look: turning cunningly in every direction, these impious men are destroyed, having no excuse here either regarding Dionysius. For he teaches openly that the Son is not a thing made or created, while he takes to task and corrects those who accuse him of having said that God was the creator (of Christ), since they failed to notice that he had previously spoken of God as Father, an expression in which the Son is also implied. In saying this, he shows that the Son is not one of the creatures, and that God is not the maker but the Father of His own Word. And since some had ignorantly objected that he called God the maker of Christ, he defends himself in various ways, showing that not even here is what he said open to blame. For he had said that God was the maker of Christ with regard to His flesh, which the Word took, and which was in itself created. But if anyone were to suspect that this referred to the Word, here too they were bound to give him a fair hearing. 'For as I do not hold that the Word is a creature, and I call God not His maker but His Father, even if in passing, while referring to the Son, I call God a creator, I can still defend myself even here. For the Greek philosophers call themselves makers (ποιηταί) of their own discourses (λόγοι), although they are their fathers; while the Divine Scripture describes us as makers (doers) even of the motions of our hearts, speaking of doers of the law and of judgment and justice.' So on every side he demonstrates not only that the Son is not a thing made or created, but also that he himself has nothing to do with the Arian error.

For let no Arian suppose that he says anything even of the following kind: The Son coexists with the Father in such a way that, while the names are correlated, the things are far apart; and since the Son did not always coexist with the Father, God received the additional name of Father when the Son came into being, and His coexistence with Him dates from that time, as happens with human beings. On the contrary, let him look at and keep in mind what we have said before, and he will see that the faith of Dionysius is correct. For in saying, 'For there was no time when God was not Father,' and again, 'God at any rate is eternal light, without beginning and never to end; accordingly the brightness is eternally before Him and coexists with Him, without beginning and ever-begotten, shining in His presence,' he should make it impossible for anyone to entertain any such suspicion against him. Moreover, the examples of the spring and the river, the root and the branch, and the breath and the vapor put to shame the adversaries of Christ when they keep repeating the contrary against him.

But since, in addition to all his own iniquities, Arius has also raked up this expression as if from a dunghill, adding that 'The Word is not the Father's own, but the Word that is in God is different, while this one, the Lord, is outside the Essence of the Father and has nothing to do with it, and is called Word only conceptually, and is not by nature and in truth the Son of God, but is called Son, He too, by adoption, as a creature'; and since, saying this, he boasts among the ignorant as though here too he has Dionysius as his partisan, look at the faith of Dionysius on these points too, and how he contradicts these perversities of Arius. For in the first book he writes as follows: 'Now I have said that God is the spring of all that is good, while the Son has been described as the river that proceeds from Him. For a word is an outflow of the mind, and, to borrow language that applies to human beings, the mind that issues by the tongue is drawn from the heart through the mouth, coming out different from the word in the heart. For the word in the heart, after sending forth the other, remains as it was; but the other is sent forth, flies out, and is carried in every direction. And so each is in the other, and each is distinct from the other; they are one and at the same time two. In the same way the Father and the Son were said to be one, and the One in the other.' And in the fourth book he says: 'For our mind utters the word from itself, as the prophet says, My heart uttered a good word; and while each is distinct from the other, occupying a place of its own, the one dwelling and stirring in the heart, the other on the tongue, yet they are not separated or lost to one another for a moment; the mind is not without utterance (ἄλογος), nor the word without mind. The mind creates the Word, being revealed in it, and the Word shows the mind, having originated in it; the mind is, as it were, an inward word, and the word a mind going forth; the mind passes over into the word, while the word carries the mind around among the hearers; and so the mind, through the word, finds a home in the souls of the hearers, entering in along with the word. The mind is, as it were, the father of the word, existing in itself, while the word is, as it were, the son of the mind, having its origin not, of course, before the mind, nor alongside it from some external source, but by springing out of it. So the mighty Father and universal Mind has the Son before all things as His Word, Interpreter, and Messenger.'

Arius either never heard these things, or heard them and in his ignorance did not understand. For otherwise, had he understood, he would not have so grossly libeled the Bishop, but would certainly have reviled him too, as he did us, because of his hatred of the truth. For as an adversary of Christ, he will not hesitate to persecute those who hold the doctrine of Christ too, as the Lord Himself said beforehand: 'If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.' Or, if the leaders of impiety think Dionysius was a partisan of theirs, let them write and confess what he did. Let them write about the vine and the vinedresser, the boat and the shipbuilder; and let them at the same time confess, as he did in his defense, the Unity of Essence, and that the Son is from the Father's Substance and eternal; and the relation of mind and word, the spring and the river, and the rest; so that they may see from the very contrast that he used the first kind of language for a special purpose, but the second as expressing the full meaning of the Christian Faith. And so, by adopting this language, let them retract what they have held in conflict with it. For in what way does the faith of Dionysius even come close to the mischief of Arius? Does not Arius restrict the term Word to a conceptual sense, while Dionysius calls Him the true Word of God by nature? And while the one banishes the Word from the Father, the other teaches that He is the Father's own and inseparable from His Essence, as the word is from the mind and the river from the spring. If, then, anyone is able to separate and banish the word from the mind, or to part the river and the spring and wall them off, or to say that the river is of another essence than the spring and to show that the water comes from elsewhere, or dares to divide the brightness from the light and say that the brightness is from another essence, then let him join Arius in his madness. For such a person will no longer have even the appearance of human intelligence. But if Nature knows that these are indivisible, and that the offspring of those things is their very own, then let no one side with Arius any longer or slander Dionysius, but rather on these grounds admire the plainness of his language and the correctness of his faith.

For against the madness of Arius when he says that the Word that is in God is distinct from the one of whom John said, 'In the beginning was the Word,' and that God's own wisdom within Himself is not the same as the one the Apostle refers to as 'Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,' Dionysius resists and denounces any such error, as you may see in the second book, where he writes on the subject as follows: 'In the beginning was the Word; but it was not the Word that sent forth the Word, for the Word was with God. The Lord has been made wisdom; so the one who sent out Wisdom was not Wisdom, for I was the one, says Wisdom, in whom He delighted. Christ is truth; but Blessed, He 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 the offspring of the Father a creature, but the Own-begotten of His essence. And again, the Word who came forth is not the Father, nor is He one word among many; He alone is the Father's Son, the true and genuine Son by nature, who both is in Him now and is eternally and indivisibly from within Him. So the Lord is both Wisdom and Truth, and does not come second after another wisdom; He alone is the one through whom the Father made all things, in whom He made the manifold essences of created things, through whom He is made known to whomever He wills, and in whom He carries out and accomplishes His universal providence. For Dionysius recognizes Him alone as the Word of God. This is the faith of Dionysius; for I have collected and copied a few statements from his letters, enough to encourage you to add to their number, and to put the Arians to utter shame for their libel against the Bishop. For in everything he wrote, down to the details, he exposed their error and branded their heresy.

So it is also clear that even the letter to Euphranor and Ammonius was written by him in a different sense and for a special purpose. His defense makes this plain. And truly this is an effective form of argument for overthrowing the madness of Sabellius, for anyone who wants a short way with those heretics: not to start from expressions that apply to the deity of the Word, such as that the Son is God's Word and Wisdom and Power, and 'I and the Father are one,' or they may twist what is well said and use such expressions as a pretext for their shameless contentiousness when they hear the texts 'I and the Father are one' and 'Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father'; but to emphasize what is said of the Savior as Man, as He Himself did, such as His hungering, thirsting, and being weary, and how He is the Vine, and how He prayed and suffered. For the lowlier these expressions are, the clearer it becomes that it was not the Father who was made man. For when the Lord is called the Vine, it follows that there must also be a vinedresser; when He prayed, that there was one to hear; and when He asked, that there was one to give. Such things show the madness of the Sabellians far more readily, because the one who prayed was one, the one who heard another; one the Vine, another the Vinedresser. For whatever expressions are cited to distinguish the Son from the Father are used of Him because of the flesh He bore for our sake. For created things are distinct in nature from God. Accordingly, since the flesh is a created thing, and 'the Word,' as John says, 'became flesh,' although He is by nature the Father's own and inseparable from Him, yet because of the flesh the Father is widely distinguished from Him. For He Himself allows what is appropriate to the flesh to be said of Him, so that it may be made plain that the body was His own and not anyone else's. And since this is the sense of these sayings, Sabellius will be refuted all the more quickly, once it is proved that it was not the Father who became flesh, but His Word, who also redeemed the flesh and offered it to the Father. And having refuted and persuaded him in this way, one will next be able to teach him more readily about the deity of the Word: that He is the Word and Wisdom, Son and Power, Brightness and Express Image. For here again it necessarily follows that, since the Word exists, the Father of the Word must also exist; since Wisdom exists, its Parent exists too; and since Brightness exists, so does the Light; and that in this way the Son and the Father are one.

Dionysius knew this when he wrote. By his first letters he silenced Sabellius, and in his others he overcame the heresy of Arius. For just as the human attributes of the Savior overthrew Sabellius, so against the Arian madmen one must use proofs drawn not from the human attributes but from what signifies the deity of the Word, so that they do not twist what is said of the Lord because of His Body, think that the Word is of the same nature as us human beings, and so remain in their madness. But if they are also taught about His deity, they will condemn their own error; and when they understand that the Word became flesh, they too will in the future more easily distinguish the human characteristics from those that befit His deity. Since this is so, and Bishop Dionysius has been shown by his writings to be pious, what will the Arian madmen do next? Convicted on this evidence, whom will they dare to slander next? For since they have fallen from the foundation of the Apostles and have no settled mind of their own, they must look for some support, and if they can find none, then slander the fathers. But no one will believe them any longer even if they try to libel them, for the heresy is condemned on every side. Unless perhaps from now on they will speak of the devil, for he is their only partisan, or rather it was he who suggested their heresy to them. Who, then, can still call people 'Christians' whose leader is the devil, and not rather 'Diabolici,' so that they bear the name not merely of adversaries of Christ but of partisans of the devil? Unless, indeed, they turn around and, rejecting the impiety they have contrived, come to know the truth. For this will at once be for their own good, and so it is fitting for us to pray for all who are in error.