[Dionysius of Alexandria].—The impulse to Biblical studies given by the teaching and example of Origen showed itself long after his death in the schools of Alexandria and Czsarea. The next three writers to be mentioned were all noted Origenists. St. Dionysius the Great of Alexan- dria —head of the catechetical school, perhaps from A.D, 233, and afterwards, A.D. 247 — 265, bishop —is hardly represented at all in extant documents except by fragments of his numerous
PATRISTIC COMMENTARIES
letters. But if, like his contemporary St. Cyprian, his primary importance lay in the influence which by means of his correspondence he exercised in the current ecclesiastical affairs both of his own pro- vince and of the Church at large, yet, like Cyprian, his literary activity was in no sense confined to this single channel. As a commentator he is known to have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes : but the case for regarding him as an expositor of particular books of the New Testament rests in several instances on single quotations, which (even if correctly ascribed to him rather than to some other Dionysius) may have come from other sources than a formal commentary or series of homilies. For the Pauline epistles the evidence seems some- what stronger at first sight, seeing that Jerome, Ep. xlix. 3, includes him in the list of those who had interpreted ‘very fully’ the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Yet ‘latissime’ is certainly meant to apply to the half-dozen authors enumer- ated taken together, rather than to each indi- vidual; and even though there is no suggestion in Jerome’s language of any limitation to the particular portion of the epistle (the 7th chapter) in reference to which their names are cited, it must not be overlooked that, of the six commenta- tors named here, only two recur in the parallel list for 1 Co 15° given in Zp. ecxix. Is there, then, any trace elsewhere of Dionysius’ work as a commentator on St. Paul? For if this allusion in Jerome stands quite alone, it will easily admit of a less stringent interpretation: a discussion on marriage, with express treatment of St. Paul’s language on the subject, might easily have had a place in one of the lost letters. If, on the other hand, there are independent grounds for includ- ing Dionysius among the early commentators on any other epistle, the case for taking Jerome’s statement literally will be immensely streng- thened. And such evidence appears to be offered in the statement—quoted by Harnack, Altchr. Litt. i. 423, from Christopher Wolf, Anecdota Greca, iv. (Hamburg, 1724) p. 62—that Dionysius of Alexandria was largely used in a Catena on the Romans: ‘illius mentio frequens est in Catena MS in epist. ad Romanos, quam B. Reiserus memorat in Catalogo MSS, p. 9.’ The reference is to Antonius Reiser, Index manuseriptorum bibliothece Augustanw (A.D. 1675), ‘Cod, 23: Catena in epistolam D. Pauli ad Romanos viginti et quinque patrum graecorum, videlicet Acacii, Athanasii, Basilii Magni, Czesarii, Chrysostomi, Clementis, Cyrilli, Damasceni, Didymi, Diodori, Carterii,* Dionysii Alexandrini, Dionysii Areo-
agite, Euthalii, Gennadii, Gregorii Theologi, sidori, Maximi, Methodii, Nysseni, Oecumenu, Origenis, Photii, Severiani, Theodoreti, Theo- phili” The Augsburg MSS passed during the course of the 18th cent. into the library of Munich, and the same MS is catalogued as grec. 412 in Ignatius Hardt, Catalogus codicum manuscrip- torum bibliothece regie Bavarice, iv. (Munich, 1810) p. 269. Hardt notes that Reiser was in error in including the names of Athanasius and Carterius, and in omitting those of Theodore of Mopsuestia and of Apollinaris. It will be noted that neither catalogue says anything of a ‘frequent’ mention of Dionysius, or for that matter of any other writer; and in fact the Catena is nothing more nor less than the second of those printed by Cramer. Dionysius of Alexandria is there men- tioned once only, and the quotation 1s one of
* Carterius was the colleague of Diodore in the school of theology which Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia at- tended: as he is not known to have written any exegetical works, and as, further, his name occurs in Reiser's list out of its alphabetical order, it is tempting to take Carterii as a genitive depending on ‘Diodori,’ so that Diodorus Carterii would be parallel to Eusebius Pamphili.
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PATRISTIC COMMENTARIES 497
exactly nine words: 7rd 6é¢ Ids "Iopaid avrt rod Oi mrevdves ketrat (p. 418; Ro 11°). The positive evi- dence ‘is therefore reduced again to Jerome, and Jerome’s words do not justify us in regarding Dionysius as a formal commentator on St. Paul.
[Pierius].— Another head of the catechetical school of Alexandria, towards the end of the 3rd cent., was Pierius. ‘The evidence for connecting him with the study of St. Paul is again Jerome's list of commentators on 1 Co 7,—with this dis- tinction, that Pierius’ words are actually cited (Hp. xlix. 3; Vallarsi, i. 233): ‘Pierius, cum sensum Apostoli ventilaret atque edisseret, et proposuisset illud exponere Volo autem ommes esse sicut meipsum [1 Co 77], adiecit raira Aéyw 6 Laidos avrixpds arya- play xnpicoe.’? As in the case of Dionysius, so in that of Pierius, there is no other evidence for a Pauline commentary than this reference in Jerome ; Jerome’s second list on 1 Co 15% omits his name also; and since we have independent grounds for Inowing (1) that Pierius commented at length on the opening of the Book of Hosea; (2) that the comment in question took the form of a homily or homilies at Easter, ¢.e. during the Easter eve vigil ; (3) that in the first of his ‘Paschal treatises’ (ev 7G mpbrw Tav eis Td Tdoxa) he strongly asserted that St. Paul had had a wife, but separated from her and dedicated her to God in the Church (Jerome, de Vir. Ill. 76; Philip of Side, fragments ; Photius, cod. 119),—Harnack concludes, not with- out reason, that St. Jerome’s citation is taken from this same treatise on the opening of Hosea, a passage which would offer an obvious opportunity for reference to 1 Co 7.