Primary source · Koine Greek
The Letters of Dionysius of Alexandria (fragments)
Dionysius the Great, bishop of Alexandria · AD 249–265
What this text is
Festal letters and pastoral dispatches from the Decian terror, the plague, and the chiliast crisis — kept alive almost wholly inside Eusebius's history, including his humane On the Promises against Nepos.
Profile of Dionysius the Great →
Public-domain translations
S. D. F. Salmond (ANF, 1886)
Most of our brethren were unsparing in their exceeding love and brotherly kindness. They held fast to each other, and visited the sick fearlessly… and drew on themselves the sickness of their neighbours. (From the festal letter on the plague.)
Manuscript witnesses
Eusebius, Church History VI–VII (carrier)
c. 325 (medieval copies)Nearly all of Dionysius — the persecution letters, the Easter letters, the Sabellian dossier — survives as Eusebius's long extracts.
Patrologia Graeca, vol. 10 (Migne)
1857Standard pre-critical text of the corpus.
Provenance
Alexandria, AD 247–264; the letters survive as quotations
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- The Letters and Other Remains of Dionysius of AlexandriaCharles Lett Feltoe, 1904The collected fragments (public domain edition).
- Dionysius of Alexandria and the Pentapolis (studies)(in) Bienert, Dionysius von Alexandrien, 1978The standard modern monograph.