The History of the Church: From Christ to Constantine (Penguin Classics)

During this letter Pinytus’ orthodoxy concerning the religion, his anxiousness to assist these less than him, his studying and snatch of theology, are reflected to perfection. there's additionally extant an epistle of Dionysius to the Romans, addressed to the then bishop, Soter. i will not do greater than quote the passage during which he commends the customized saw at Rome right down to the persecution of our personal day: From the beginning it's been your customized to regard all Christians with unfailing kindness, and to ship contributions to many church buildings in each urban, occasionally assuaging the misery of these in want, occasionally offering in your brothers within the mines through the contributions you've got despatched from the beginning. therefore you Romans have saw the ancestral Roman customized, which your respected Bishop Soter has not just maintained yet enlarged, through generously supplying the considerable provides disbursed between God’s humans, and by way of encouraging with encouraged phrases fellow-Christians who come to town, as an affectionate father encourages his little ones. 2 within the related letter he refers to Clement’s Epistle to the Corinthians, proving that from the first actual it have been known to learn it in church. He says: this day being the Lord’s Day, we stored it as a holy day and browse your epistle, which we will learn usually for its invaluable suggestion, just like the previous epistle which Clement wrote in your behalf. Dionysius tells us that his personal epistles have been tampered with: whilst my fellow-Christians invited me to write down letters to them I did so. those the devil’s apostles have jam-packed with tares,1 eliminating a few issues and including others. For them the woe is reserved. 2 Small ask yourself then if a few have dared to tamper despite the notice of the Lord Himself, once they have conspired to mutilate my very own humble efforts. as well as those there's an extant letter of Dionysius to Chrysophora, a faithful Christian lady. He writes such a lot effectively, and imparts to her the religious nourishment that she calls for. that's the entire record of Dionysius’ writings. Bishop Theophilus of Antioch 24. From the pen of Theophilus, already pointed out as Bishop of Antioch, 3 rudimentary treatises To Autolycus are extant, as is one other with the identify opposed to the Heresy of Hermogenes, during which he attracts at the Revelation of John. a few Manuals of user-friendly guide have additionally survived. at the moment heretics have been as busy as ever spoiling like tares the natural seed of the apostolic instructing; so the pastors of the church buildings in every single place, as if riding away savage beasts from Christ’s sheep, strove to maintain them at bay, now by means of warnings and admonitions to their congregations, now by means of extra militant motion, via subjecting the heretics to oral direct wondering and confutation, and eventually via written polemics within which they hired the main unanswerable proofs to demolish their inaccurate rules. That Theophilus took the sector opposed to them with the others is obvious from an admirable paintings which he wrote in resolution to Marcion, and which were preserved until now in addition to the others i've got named.