[2238] This Marcellus, the only one not mentioned in §3, above, is an otherwise unknown person.
[2239] ton para phusin. That the ton refers to "gods" (viz. the gods of the Christians, Æmilianus thinking of them as plural) seems clear, both on account of the theous just preceding, and also in view of the fact that in §9 we have the phrase ton kata phusin theon. A contrast, therefore, is drawn in the present case between the gods of the heathen and those of the Christians.
[2240] koimeteria; literally, "sleeping-places." The word was used only in this sense in classic Greek; but the Christians, looking upon death only as a sleep, early applied the name to their burial places; hence Æmilian speaks of them as the "so-called (kaloumena) cemeteries."
[2241] See above, note 9.
[2242] hos eipein, a reading approved by Valesius in his notes, and adopted by Schwegler and Heinichen. This and the readings hos eipen, "as he said" (adopted by Stroth, Zimmermann, and Laemmer), and hos eipon, "as I said" (adopted by Stephanus, Valesius in his text, and Burton), are about equally supported by ms. authority, while some mss. read hos eipen ho apostolos, "as the apostle said." It is impossible to decide with any degree of assurance between the first three readings.
[2243] 1 Cor. v. 3.
[2244] Col. iv. 3.
[2245] Libukoterous topous. Libya was an indefinite term among the ancients for that part of Africa which included the Great Desert and all the unexplored country lying west and south of it. Almost nothing was known about the country, and the desert and the regions beyond were peopled by the fancy with all sorts of terrible monsters, and were looked upon as the theater of the most dire forces, natural and supernatural. As a consequence, the term "Libyan" became a synonym for all that was most disagreeable and dreadful in nature.
[2246] Mareotis, or Mareia, or Maria, was one of the land districts into which Egypt was divided. A lake, a town situated on the shore of the lake, and the district in which they lay, all bore the same name. The district Mareotis lay just south of Alexandria, but did not include it, for Alexandria and Ptolemais formed an independent sphere of administration sharply separated from the thirty-six land districts of the country. Cf. Bk. II. chap. 17, notes 10 and 12, above. Mommsen (Roman Provinces, Scribner's ed. Vol. II. p. 255) remarks that these land districts, like the cities, became the basis of episcopal dioceses. This we should expect to be the case, but I am not aware that we can prove it to have been regularly so, at any rate not during the earlier centuries. Cf. e.g. Wiltsch's Geography and Statistics of the Church, London ed., I. p. 192 sq.
[2247] hemas de mallon en hodo kai protous katalephthesomenous ?taxen.
[2248] ta Kollouthionos (sc. mere), i.e. the parts or regions of Colluthion. Of Colluthion, so far as I am aware, nothing is known. It seems to have been a town, possibly a section of country in the district of Mareotis. Nicephorus spells the word with a single l, which Valesius contends is more correct because the word is derived from Colutho, which was not an uncommon name in Egypt (see Valesius' note ad locum).
[2249] kata meros sunagogai, literally, "partial meetings." It is plain enough from this that persons living in the suburbs were allowed to hold special services in their homes or elsewhere, and were not compelled always to attend the city church, which might be a number of miles distant. It seems to me doubtful whether this passage is sufficient to warrant Valesius' conclusion, that in the time of Dionysius there was but one church in Alexandria, where the brethren met for worship. It may have been so, but the words do not appear to indicate, as Valesius thinks they do, that matters were in a different state then from that which existed in the time of Athanasius, who, in his Apology to Constantius, §14 sq., expressly speaks of a number of church buildings in Alexandria.
[2250] Sabinus has been already mentioned in Bk. VI. chap. 40, §2, from which passage we may gather that he held the same position under Decius which Æmilianus held under Valerian (see note 3 on the chapter referred to).
[2251] We learn from chap. 20, below, that this epistle to Domitius and Didymus was one of Dionysius' regular festal epistles (for there is no ground for assuming that a different epistle is referred to in that chapter). Domitius and Didymus are otherwise unknown personages. Eusebius evidently (as we can see both from this chapter and from chapter 20) supposes this epistle to refer to the persecution, of which Dionysius has been speaking in that portion of his epistle to Germanus quoted in this chapter; namely, to the persecution of Valerian. But he is clearly mistaken in this supposition; for, as we can see from a comparison of §22, below, with Bk. VI. chap. 40, §6 sq., Dionysius is referring in this epistle to the same persecution to which he referred in that chapter; namely, to the persecution of Decius. But the present epistle was written (as we learn from §23) while this same persecution was still going on, and, therefore, some years before the time of Valerian's persecution, and before the writing of the epistle to Germanus (see Bk. VI. chap. 40, note 2), with which Eusebius here associates it. Cf. Valesius' note ad locum and Dittrich's Dionysius der Grosse, p. 40 sq.
[2252] Isa. xlix. 8.
[2253] See above, Bk. VI. chap. 40, note 10.
[2254] See ibid. §6 sq.
[2255] Parætonium was an important town and harbor on the Mediterranean, about 150 miles west of Alexandria. A day's journey among the ancients commonly denoted about 180 to 200 stadia (22 to 25 miles), so that Dionysius retreat must have lain some 60 to 70 miles from Parætonium, probably to the south of it.
[2256] On Maximus, see above, note 5.
[2257] Of Dioscorus we know only what is told us here. He is not to be identified with the lad mentioned in Bk. VI. chap. 41, §19 (see note 17 on that chapter).
[2258] Of Demetrius and Lucius we know only what is recorded here.
[2259] Faustinus and Aquila are known to us only from this passage.
[2260] On these three deacons, see above, notes 6-8.
[2261] See below, chap. 32, §5.
[2262] See chap. 28, note 8.
[2263] That is, until the persecution of Diocletian, a.d. 303 sq.
[2264] That is, according to Eusebius, in the time of Valerian, but only the events related in the first part of the chapter took place at that time; those recorded in the epistle to Domitius and Didymus in the time of Decius. See above, note 25.