26. The first attempt at making a full collection of our author's remains
was undertaken by Simon de Magistris, whose edition was published at Rome
in 1796. Routh (_Reliquiæ Sacræ_, tom. iii. and iv.; Oxford, 1846) and
Migne (_Patr. Græc._ tom. x.) published considerable portions with Latin
notes, while Gallandius (_Bibliotheca vett. patrum_, app. to vol. xiv.),
Pitra, Mai and (more recently) Holl in vol. v. of _Texte und
Untersuchungen_ (_neue Folge_) have printed a number of fragments from
various sources and of very varying degrees of probable authenticity.
The earliest list of Dionysius's literary productions, except the
scattered references to be found in the _Ecclesiastical History_ of
Eusebius, is that of Jerome (_de viris illustribus_, 69), which more or
less tallies with what we gather from Eusebius. The student will,
however, find a complete modern list of them, together with other
valuable matter, in Harnack, _Altchrist. Lit._, vol. i. pp. 409-27, and
in Bardenhewer, _Altkirch. Lit._, vol. ii. pp. 167-91: the account in
Krüger, _Early Christian Literature_ (Eng. Trans.) is much shorter.
Several compositions mentioned by Eusebius and Jerome are only known to
us by name, unless some of the short extracts attributed to Dionysius
come from one or other of them, and the contents of them are almost
wholly matter for conjecture. The most important of these is perhaps the
{epistolê diakonikê dia Hippolytou} (Eus., _H. E._ vi. 45), because of
the various theories which have been put forward about it. Dom Morin
(_Revue Bénédictine_, xvii., 1900), for instance, suggested that
Rufinus's translation of the doubtful epithet ({diakonikê}) being _de
ministeriis_, it was none other than the _Canons of Hippolytus_, and that
the Canons were afterwards attributed to the church-writer, Hippolytus,
through a mistaken identification of the unknown bearer of Dionysius's
missive with the well-known author; but the theory has not met with much
acceptance since, and the discussion has of late died down, quite
different views being now held about the Canons of Hippolytus.
It may also be mentioned that several fragments in Syriac and in Armenian
are attributed to Dionysius, but only three of these, in the former
language, appear to be genuine: one is a translation of the letter to
Novatian (p. 50), and the two others are, whether rightly or wrongly,
thought to be part of the Letter to Stephanus on Baptism, and will be
found as [S][S] 2 and 3 of it on pp. 53 ff.
The article on Dionysius in Smith's _Dictionary of Christian Biography_
is by Dr. Westcott, and, though not very full, is, it is needless to say,
worthy of being consulted.
Three German books on our author will also be found useful, though not
very recent: viz. Förster, _de doctrin. et sententiis Dionysii_,
Berolini, 1865; Dittrich, _Dionysius der Grosse_, Freiburg, i.B., 1867;
and Roch, _Dionysius der Grosse über die Natur_, Leipzig, 1882. Of these
the second is the most important for the general student.
Dr. Salmond produced a serviceable translation of the fragments in 1871
(T. & T. Clark's series, Edinburgh), and since then we have had Dr.
Gifford's (in his scholarly edition of Eus., _Præpar. Evang._, Oxford,
1903), of such as there appear.
For the general history of the period much valuable help will be found in
Archbishop Benson's _Cyprian_, London, 1897; P. Allard, _Histoire des
Persécutions_, vols. ii. and iii., Paris, 1886, and Aubé, _L'Eglise et
l'Etat dans la 2de moitié du 3me Siècle_.
A full collection of all the genuine and doubtful extracts appeared in
the series of _Cambridge Patristic Texts_, with introductions and notes
by the present editor, in 1904.