[81]This was, according to Benson (_Cyprian_, p. 354), a threat which he did not actually carry into effect, and was only meant to restrain them from adopting Cyprian’s attitude on the matter.
[82]_i. e._ those of Iconium and Synnada (_circ._ 230): Dionysius may also be referring to the three much more recent councils which Cyprian had held at Carthage between 254 and 256 (_i. e._ since his letter to Stephen above). By this time he had by patient inquiry found out much more than he had known at first of what was necessary to be known before coming to a decision.
[84]See note on p. 54. Dionysius became afterwards Bishop of Rome in 259: a fragment of a letter from our Dionysius to him is printed on p. 58. His famous letter to our Dionysius on the Sabellian controversy is not included in this volume. Part of a letter to Philemon is given on p. 56. He was a Roman Presbyter.
[85]On the north-west coast of Cyrenaica, one of the five chief cities which gave its name to the Libyan Pentapolis. Sabellius denied the three Persons in the Trinity, and held that the Person of the Father who is One with the Son was incarnate in Christ: see further p. 19.
[86]There seems no doubt that this is the right reading here, though most of the MSS. read “God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ”; but clearly Dionysius is only speaking of God the Father in this clause and of Jesus Christ in the next. See 2 Cor. i. 2, Eph. i. 3, etc.
[87]It was Dionysius’s treatment of this subject which afterwards gave Arius the heresiarch of Alexandria an opening for claiming his teaching in support of his own tenets, though there is no Arian suggestion, of course, in this phrase: see p. 20.
[89]Eus., _H. E._ vii. 26, mentions letters to Ammonius, Bishop of Bernice, Telesphorus Euphranor and Euporus in this connexion. Athanasius appears only to have known one joint letter to Ammonius and Euphranor.
[90]Dionysius seems to distinguish here two kinds of writings: (1) those that were based on systematic research and criticism, and (2) those that handed on the more traditional and less critical views and statements of the past.
[91]Divine interposition is more vaguely suggested above on p. 44. S. Augustine’s statement should also be compared, that at a critical moment of his conversion he heard a voice saying, “Take and read” (_Conf._ vii. 12, § 29); S. Polycarp likewise heard a voice from heaven saying, “Be strong and play the man,” as he was led into the arena.