then Bishop of Alexandria, who admitted him in due course. Whether this was actually the cause of his conversion or not, we know from what he has himself told us in his letter to Philemon (p. 56), that both before and after baptism he was a diligent student of all that was written for and against Christianity.

Was He Married or Not?

5. Whether, in accordance with the common practice of the Eastern Church at that time, Dionysius was married or not, is a moot point. He addressed his treatise περὶ Φύσεως to one Timotheus ὁ παῖς, and we read of ὁι παῖδες (of whom Timotheus was one) as accompanying him in his flight (p. 44). One would naturally infer from this that he was then a widower (his wife not being mentioned), and that these were his sons; but they may have been his pupils, on the supposition that he was still Catechete as well as Bishop, or, which is less likely, his servants.^[2]

He becomes Head of the Catechetical School

6. When Demetrius died in 231, Heraclas, who for some years had been associated with Origen at the Catechetical School and had just been left in charge of it by him on his final retirement that year from Alexandria, was elected Bishop, while Dionysius, who had himself been a pupil of Origen there, was appointed to fill the vacancy he created. It is possible that the treatise περὶ Φύσεως, extracts from which are given below (on pp. 91 ff.), was composed while Dionysius held this important post, and that a commentary on Ecclesiastes, some genuine fragments of which probably remain, belongs to the same period. The former of these is much the more valuable work, for in it for the first time a Christian undertook systematically to refute the atomistic theories of Epicurus and his followers.

He becomes Bishop of Alexandria

7. Sixteen years later, in 247, upon the death of Heraclas, Dionysius succeeded to the bishopric as the fourteenth occupant of the see, possibly, as has already been suggested, without at once resigning his post at the School. Philip the Arabian (of Bostra) had then been Emperor for three years, a position he was destined to retain for two years longer. Like Alexander Severus before him, he was known to favour the Christians, and Dionysius himself bears witness to the comparative mildness of his rule (p. 37). For a short time, therefore, the new Bishop and his flock were left in peace, though even before the death of Philip signs of the coming storm appeared. In the last year of his reign Dionysius tells Fabius, Bishop of Antioch (p. 35), that “the prophet and poet of evil to this city, whoever he was,” stirred up the populace against the Christians in Alexandria, and several persons were cruelly martyred. This reign of terror lasted some time, but was interrupted in the autumn of 249 by the revolution which caused the deposition and death of Philip, and which set Decius on the throne in his stead. The respite was only too brief, for by the beginning of the new year the edict which Decius had issued was being actively carried into effect. The Bishops were at first singled out for attack. Origen, though not one of them, was included among the earlier victims—on account, no doubt, of his prominence as a scholar and a teacher—being imprisoned at Tyre and cruelly tortured, though not actually martyred.

Under the Persecution of Decius

8. Decius’s reversal of his predecessor’s policy towards the Christians was probably due to reasons of state and expediency rather than, as Eusebius implies, to mere spite and hatred of Philip and all his ways. Anyhow, the severity of the Decian persecution is undoubted, and it fell with great force upon the Church at Alexandria. The Prefect of Egypt, Sabinus, lost no time in attacking Dionysius and his followers. Many endured tortures or death, or both. Dionysius himself, after waiting four days, fled and was sought for by a secret service messenger (frumentarius, see note on p. 43) sent by Sabinus. A brief search was sufficient to recover him, and he was carried off with four of his companions to Taposiris. But through a strange interposition of Providence (related on pp. 44 f.) he was rescued by a wedding party of rustic revellers and removed to a place of safety in the Libyan Desert, where he appears to have been left unmolested, with two of his four companions (see pp. 64 ff.), till the persecution ceased and he was able to return to the city. In after days Dionysius’s action in fleeing on this occasion was violently attacked by a certain Bishop Germanus, who was perhaps one of his suffragans. Germanus boasted of his own much braver conduct under persecution. Dionysius in his reply (see especially pp. 43 and 45) maintains that it was not of his own will nor yet without divine intimation that he had fled, and that he had suffered far more than his critic for the Faith. Decius’s rule was brought to a calamitous end in 251, but Gallus, who succeeded him, continued his treatment of the Christians for another two years, when he, too, suffered an untimely fate.

9. For the next four years the Church of Alexandria enjoyed comparative rest and peace. In 253 Æmilianus^[3] the Governor of Pannonia and Mœsia, who had in that spring wrested the imperial power from Gallus, was in his turn, after four months’ rule, defeated by Valerian and his son Gallienus, and slain by the soldiery. The new Emperors (father and son) left the Christians alone during the first four years of their reign—a somewhat surprising fact, when it is considered that Valerian had been specially chosen to fill the office of “Censor,” which Decius had revived. It may in some measure have been due to what Archbishop Benson (Cyprian, p. 457) calls his “languid