Was Eusebius accurately recounting Dionysius of Alexandria’s letter?

The Orthodox Christian Theology piece on “Was Eusebius accurately recounting Dionysius of Alexandria’s letter?” is circling something important, even if I’m not convinced his big leap really lands.

Truglia’s starting point is straightforward enough. Put Eusebius’ paraphrase of Dionysius of Alexandria in Church History 7.5–7 side by side with Dionysius’ other extant fragments on rebaptism and heretical baptism – letters to Stephen, to Xystus/Sixtus II, to various Eastern bishops – and the picture doesn’t quite line up. Eusebius gives us a Dionysius who sounds like a clean witness for Stephen’s Roman line: cautious, moderate, basically in step with Rome. The surviving Dionysian material, plus Jerome and the conciliar dossier, points to someone much closer to Cyprian’s anxieties, or at least not a simple Roman mascot. Truglia is right to lean into that tension.

He also zeroes in on a real problem in the text itself. The passage in HE 7.5–7 is internally awkward: the pronouns are slippery, the way “Dionysius and Philemon” are mentioned doesn’t mesh neatly with what we know from the other letters, and the whole thing reads like someone has stitched together excerpts from a dossier rather than preserved a clean, continuous authorial letter. That’s almost certainly true. Modern work on Eusebius has been saying for some time that he is relying on florilegia, excerpt-books, and already-curated collections, not pristine archives; and that he is highly tendentious in how he arranges them.

Where Truglia goes further is in his proposed “fix.” If you flip the attribution and read the crucial section not as Dionysius of Alexandria writing about others, but as Sixtus of Rome writing about Dionysius, the theology and the story flow more naturally. On this reading, HE 7.5 is basically misattributed: Eusebius has taken material addressed to Dionysius and made it look like something from him. That move then supports a larger polemic: if Eusebius has mis-framed the letter, then “Dionysius backed Stephen/Rome, case closed” collapses, and Rome’s favorite third-century witness on rebaptism becomes much less usable.

On the narrow level, he’s not wrong about the mess. The Dionysian dossier is a train-wreck. Most of his letters come to us only through Eusebius. The rebaptism material is obviously stitched together. Other ancient witnesses – Jerome, conciliar acts, and above all Athanasius’ De sententia Dionysii – preserve a Dionysius who got himself into serious trouble for the way he talked about the Son and about heretical baptism, and who had to write “books of refutation and apology” to dig himself back out of the hole.

On top of that, Athanasius bluntly admits that a letter where Dionysius calls the Son ποίημα and γενητός and compares him to a vine made by a farmer or a ship built by a shipwright really is his – and that if we took that letter “simply as his faith,” it would be genuinely damnable. His entire defense hangs on context, later clarifications, and the idea that Dionysius was speaking “economically” against Sabellians. If you want a clean, straight-line, always-proto-Nicene Dionysius, Athanasius is not your friend.

So yes: treating HE 7.5 as if it were a transparent, decisive “Dionysius backed Stephen, end of discussion” is naïve. Truglia is absolutely right to push back on the apologetic use of that passage, and to remind readers that Eusebius is working with a dossier that is both fragmentary and heavily processed.

Where I’m less persuaded is the jump from “Eusebius’ presentation is inconsistent and probably based on a flawed florilegium” to “this isn’t really Dionysius at all; it’s Sixtus.” There is, as Truglia himself has to concede, no manuscript evidence whatsoever for this re-attribution. Eusebius is very explicit elsewhere when he distinguishes between letters from Dionysius of Alexandria, letters from Dionysius of Rome, and synodal letters addressed to them; he is not treating “Dionysius” as a mushy blur of authorities. The idea that he has simply reversed sender and recipient at precisely the place most attractive to later anti-papal polemics is possible, but it is a reconstruction driven almost entirely by theological fit – by how Dionysius “ought” to think – rather than by hard textual or codicological data.

In other words, the blogger’s instinct that the dossier is being massaged is sound. His specific solution – “this bit is actually Sixtus” – feels more like a clever conjecture than something the evidence forces us to accept.

Once you bring Athanasius into the picture, you get a more plausible (and, frankly, more interesting) four-stage story. First, Dionysius of Alexandria writes harsh anti-Sabellian letters to the Pentapolis using language that really does sound like later Arian slogans. Second, some of his own people are alarmed and go over his head to Rome, denouncing him “before his namesake, Dionysius, bishop of Rome.” Third, that Roman Dionysius writes a doctrinal letter condemning both Sabellius and people who call the Son κτίσμα and ποίημα; this becomes a pre-Nicene anti-Arian proof-text. Fourth, Dionysius of Alexandria writes his Refutation and Apology, where he tries to reclaim his reputation by stressing eternal generation, “always Father, always Son,” and effectively articulating a pre-Nicene version of what Athanasius will later call homoousios.

If you read Eusebius with that sequence in mind, he suddenly looks less like an outright bungler and more like a theological editor. He compresses the story, flattens the chronology, splices the Roman and Alexandrian material, and foregrounds Dionysius’ Apology so that the final, “safe” Dionysius becomes the only Dionysius most readers ever see. The earlier, dangerous Dionysius is still there in outline, but his rough edges are filed down in the interests of producing a coherent, proto-Nicene great man.

Once you see that, the whole mid-third-century section of Church History starts to look strange in a different way. From late Book 6 through almost all of Book 7, Dionysius of Alexandria absolutely dominates Eusebius’ narrative. The Decian persecution in Egypt, the Novatian crisis, the Sabellian controversy, the rebaptism quarrels, the pestilence and famine under Gallienus, the run-up to the Paul of Samosata synods – for a stretch of about thirty years, the “history of the Church” is effectively the history of Dionysius’ correspondence. That’s odd if what you think Eusebius is doing is telling a Rome-centered story with an Alexandrian side-channel. It makes much more sense if, in Eusebius’ sources and imagination, Alexandria in this period is behaving like the de facto hub of the Christian world, and Dionysius is the man at the wheel.

And this is where the political context matters. The “inquisition” of Dionysius by his Roman namesake is supposed to take place right in the middle of the crisis of the third century. Valerian is defeated and captured by Shapur I. Gallienus is fighting for his life in the West. Postumus has carved out a Gallic mini-empire. In the East, Macrianus and his sons are playing emperor until Odaenathus of Palmyra muscled his way into the vacuum. Rome is still Rome, but it is not the serene, centrally functioning doctrinal court of later imagination. Alexandria, by contrast, remains the key grain port, a massive population center, and a place where an aggressive, literate bishop with Origen’s education in his bloodstream can plausibly act as something like a global coordinator of Christian policy.

In that environment, the picture of a tidy Roman doctrinal tribunal summoning Dionysius of Alexandria and neatly interrogating him feels almost too good to be true. It looks a lot like a later, smoothed-out memory in which Rome is retroactively inserted as the normal court of appeal, and the messy East–West power realities of the 250s and 260s are politely ignored.

Which brings me back to the blog and beyond it. Truglia is after Eusebius on one specific point: he thinks HE 7.5 is mis-framed, possibly misattributed, and that this has been used to enlist Dionysius as a straightforward Roman witness in the rebaptism debates. On that narrow target, he scores a hit: HE 7.5 should not be treated as a slam-dunk Romanist proof-text, and Eusebius is clearly harmonizing and compressing a much messier dossier.

But once you’ve noticed how much Eusebius leans on Dionysius, and how completely Dionysius fills out his picture of the mid-third-century church, it’s hard not to ask a bigger question. Maybe the real distortion is not just in who wrote one awkward paragraph, but in the way later tradition has duplicated and redistributed “Dionysius” between Alexandria and Rome. When Athanasius talks about the bishop of Rome “of the same name” hauling Dionysius of Alexandria over the coals, when Eusebius studiously distinguishes “Dionysius of Rome” from “Dionysius of Alexandria” yet lets the Alexandrian Dionysius run the show for thirty years, you can feel a seam in the narrative. At the very least, it suggests that what we are seeing in Church History is not a neutral transcript of nice, clean Roman files, but a fourth-century Caesarean bishop carefully re-architecting a past in which Alexandrian dominance has to be acknowledged and then gently folded back under Roman, Nicene, and imperial norms.

So: was Eusebius “accurately recounting Dionysius of Alexandria’s letter”? In the sense that he is transmitting genuine Dionysian material, yes. In the sense that his framing, attribution, and sequencing faithfully preserve how the controversy actually unfolded, probably not. The Orthodox Christian Theology piece is right that the letter as we now read it in HE is part of a montage rather than a clean original. But the more you sit with the dossier, the more the problem looks bigger than one letter: the entire Dionysian file has been processed to make a third-century Alexandrian pope-in-all-but-name look like a tame, proto-Nicene supporter of a Roman system that barely existed in his lifetime.

Date / Period	Dionysius of Alexandria	Dionysius of Rome	Emperor(s) / Crisis Context
c. 190	Born ca. 190; later pupil of Origen; eventually head of the catechetical school in Alexandria.	(Birth unknown) Greek-origin presbyter active in the Roman church (later bishop).	Commodus; then Severan emperors. Unified empire; Rome–Alexandria link intact.
247–248	Succeeds Heraclas as Bishop of Alexandria.	—	Philip the Arab (244–249). Early military unrest; beginnings of the Crisis of the Third Century, but Egypt still under Roman control.
249	Riot in Alexandria (Novitius-type prophet; martyrs Metras, Quinta, etc.); rising hostility before Decius’ edict.	Pope Fabian (236–250) at Rome.	Decius (249–251). Empire-wide persecution; structures stressed but no political separation of Egypt from Rome.
250–251	Decian persecution: Dionysius flees toward Libyan desert; letters to Fabius of Antioch; supports Cornelius against Novatian; all activity anchored in Alexandria/East.	Pope Cornelius (251–253), then Lucius (253); Novatian schism at Rome.	Decius; Trebonianus Gallus. Crisis intensifies; communications harder but Egypt still formally Roman.
252–253	Post-persecution leadership; correspondence on discipline and unity.	Lucius dies 253; Stephen I (253–257) bishop of Rome.	Trebonianus Gallus & Volusian; Aemilian; then Valerian (from 253). Rapid turnovers; East–West channels increasingly insecure.
253–257	Rebaptism controversy: letters to Stephen I and others on heretical baptism; Dionysius functions as a key Eastern voice.	Presbyter Dionysius supposedly active in Roman clergy under Stephen I, later praised as “excellent and learned.”	Valerian (253–260). Frontier wars, Persian pressure; deepening instability but still one emperor over Rome and Egypt.
257–258	Further letters (e.g. on Lucian); anti-Sabellian clarifications later used in accusations/defense.	Pope Xystus (Sixtus II) (257–258); martyred 6 Aug 258; see vacant until 259.	Valerian. Renewed persecution; Rome–Alexandria/Antioch communication obstructed, though Egypt remains (for the moment) under Roman crown.
259	Still bishop of Alexandria, now elderly.	22 July: Dionysius elected Bishop of Rome; begins pontificate of restoration after persecution.	Gallienus sole emperor (259–268). Attempts recentralization amid ongoing Crisis.
260	Composes Apologia against Sabellian views; governs Alexandria.	Roman synod under Dionysius of Rome on Trinitarian doctrine and on reported statements of Dionysius of Alexandria.	Gallienus issues edict of toleration. Macrianus & Quietus’ eastern usurpation (c. 260–262) pulls Egypt into a rival imperial orbit → practical political separation between Rome and Egypt during this phase.
c. 260–264	Ongoing letters and treatises (e.g. against Nepos’ chiliasm; on discipline and doctrine) from Alexandria.	As pope, associated with aid to distant churches (e.g. Cappadocia) and internal Roman organization (parishes, cemeteries).	Gallienus. After suppression of Macrianus/Quietus, Egypt formally “back” under Gallienus, but the recent split and the concurrent Gallic Empire show how contingent Rome–Alexandria linkage is in practice.
264–265	Dies ca. 264/5 (12th year of Gallienus) after ~17-year episcopate; succeeded by Maximus of Alexandria.	Dionysius of Rome continues as bishop.	Gallienus. Crisis unresolved; major sees operate with significant regional autonomy by necessity.
268	—	Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata addresses Dionysius of Rome and Maximus of Alexandria; Dionysius of Rome dies 26 Dec 268; succeeded by Felix I.	Claudius II Gothicus (268–270). Soon after, under Aurelian, Egypt will again be seized (270–272) by Palmyra (Zenobia) before reconquest—another clear episode of Egypt outside direct Roman control, underscoring that any narrative of seamless Roman (or Roman-episcopal) control over Alexandria in this era is historically bogus.

Section	Main focus / sources	% Dionysius of Alexandria	Notes	Period (approx.)
6.39	Fabian & Roman succession; Heraclas; Dionysius first mentioned	10	Scene-setting; Dionysius only appears as successor in Alexandria	c. 236–247
6.40–41	Decian persecution at Alexandria from Dionysius’ letters	95	Flight, arrest, early martyrdoms; Eusebius mainly excerpts Dionysius	249–251
6.42	Further Alexandrian martyr narratives from Dionysius	90	Continuation of Decian violence via Dionysius’ reports	249–251
6.43	Novatian schism via Cornelius, Cyprian, Roman synod	0	Non-Dionysian Roman/African dossier	251–253
6.44–46	Serapion; letter to Novatus; catalogue of Dionysius’ letters	100	Book 6 ends as a Dionysius archive	c. 251–257
7.1	Decius & Gallus; judgment via Dionysius to Hermammon	80	Emperors interpreted through Dionysius	250–253
7.2–4	Baptism of heretics: Stephen vs Cyprian using Dionysius’ correspondence	70	Core documentation and mediation from Dionysius	251–257
7.5	Peace & list of Eastern bishops from Dionysius	90	Geographical-ecclesial map from a Dionysian letter	mid–late 250s
7.6–7	Sabellius controversy; Dionysius’ theology & vision	100	Dionysius as doctrinal voice	mid–late 250s
7.8–9	Against Novatian; baptism cases via Dionysius	90	Discipline/pastoral policy from Dionysius	mid–late 250s
7.10–11	Valerian’s persecution; Dionysius’ trial, exile, mission	85	Political-religious narrative through Dionysius’ letters	257–260
7.12	Martyrs at Caesarea in Palestine	0	Independent anecdote; non-Dionysian	257–260
7.13	Gallienus’ edicts restoring churches	40	Imperial rescripts; Dionysius among named bishops	260
7.14	Bishop lists in major sees	10	Cataloguing; Dionysius as Alexandrian reference point	260s
7.20–22	Festal letters: Alexandrian civil war, famine, plague, Christian care	95	Social crisis seen almost entirely through Dionysius	early–mid 260s
7.23	Gallienus & Macrianus; theology of empire via Dionysius	80	Dating & evaluation from Dionysius’ correspondence	mid–late 260s
7.24–26	On the Promises; anti-chiliasm; Apocalypse; anti-Sabellian works	100	Eusebius turns to Dionysius as exegetical authority	260s
7.27–30	Paul of Samosata; synods; Malchion; encyclical to Dionysius of Rome & Maximus	20	Dionysius of Alex invited but absent; Antiochene acts dominate	c. 260–268
7.31–32	Later 3rd-c. bishops; Anatolius, Pierius; toward Diocletian	10	Broader prosopography; Dionysius as succession landmark	c. 270s–303
Overall (6.39–46 & 7)	Mid-3rd c. narrative structurally built on Dionysius’ letters, with Novatian & Paul of Samosata dossiers as main non-Dionysian blocks	≈75–85	Eusebius’ coverage of c. 249–270 is unusually Dionysius-centric—striking given later Arian appeals to Dionysius as a quasi-precursor	c. 249–270 core; extends to early 4th c. in closing sections

Issue / Letter Cluster	Patrick (Craig) Truglia “Orthodox Christian Theology” blog on Eusebius	Athanasius’ "Περὶ Διονυσίου" (De Decretis 1–20) timeline & reading
Anti-Sabellian letter(s) to Pentapolis (Euphranor, Ammonius etc.)	Treats the sharp anti-Sabellian “made/creature” language as genuinely Dionysian, strongly subordinationist and close to later Arianism; suspects later smoothing and mis-framing.	Affirms Dionysius really wrote such a letter with harsh terms, but as pastoral/oikonomic against Sabellius, not fixed dogma; this is step (1) in the affair, not his final theology.
Accusations against Dionysius of Alexandria	Assumes Roman awareness; used mainly to frame Eusebius’ confusion/airbrushing, less interest in motives of accusers.	Some Egyptian/Libyan bishops, orthodox but alarmed, go to Rome without first asking Dionysius; they report his wording to Dionysius of Rome and trigger official inquiry.
Letter of Dionysius of Rome	Material Eusebius ascribes to Dionysius of Alexandria is argued to be (or include) a Roman letter (or Sixtus II) addressing Dionysius; Eusebius is said to conflate/misattribute, creating artificial harmony with Rome.	Clearly distinguishes: Dionysius of Rome writes condemning both Sabellianism and those calling the Son κτίσμα/ποίημα; Athanasius cites this as early anti-Arian precedent, coordinated with but not confused with Alexandrian letters.
Dionysius of Alexandria’s “Refutation and Apology” (ἐλεγχοῦ καὶ ἀπολογίας βιβλία)	Downplays the Apology as later corrective; stresses that the earlier problematic formulae are real and that Eusebius’ compilation blurs their force and context.	Crucial: Athanasius quotes to show Dionysius confesses eternal generation, “always Father, always Son,” rejects ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων, and teaches in effect ὁμοούσιον; these books are step (4), Dionysius’ mature norm that interprets the earlier letter as oikonomic.
Eusebius’ arrangement (HE 7[ ]5–7[ ]7; 7[ ]24–26)	Alleges Eusebius: (1) splices disparate texts; (2) misattributes Roman material to Dionysius of Alexandria; (3) uses this to make him look consistently pro-Roman and proto-Nicene; conclusion: tendentious and unreliable.	On Athanasian-friendly reading, Eusebius is using the same dossier to highlight Dionysius’ final orthodox stance: by excerpting Apology and Roman letter together, he subordinates the oikonomic harsh phrases to the later, clearer confession—more harmonizing than falsifying, but historically smoothing.
Arians’ appeal to Dionysius	Once Eusebius’ montage is unwound, Dionysius’ original language really does sound Arian-ish; Eusebius’ treatment obscures that tension.	Athanasius concedes the language, but: argues Arians cherry-pick; when read with Apology and other letters, Dionysius explicitly contradicts “ἦν ποτε ὅτε οὐκ ἦν” and “κτίσμα ὁ υἱός” and so is a witness against Arianism.
Chronological upshot	Eusebius’ ordering is seen as a “montage” that fuses stages and sources, creating a falsely seamless, safe Dionysius aligned with Roman policy and Nicene-style theology.	Implied sequence: (1) anti-Sabellian letter to Pentapolis; (2) denunciation at Rome; (3) doctrinal letter from Dionysius of Rome; (4) Dionysius of Alexandria’s Refutation & Apology. Reading Eusebius through this Athanasian timeline lets us see him as prioritizing the end-state (orthodox Dionysius) while blurring the earlier controversy.

Issue / Letter Cluster	“Orthodox Christian Theology” blog on Eusebius	Athanasius’ Περὶ Διονυσίου (De Dionysio) timeline & reading	Eusebius’ apparent chronology / placement	Approx. year(s)
Anti-Sabellian letter(s) to Pentapolis (Euphranor, Ammonius, etc.)	Takes the sharp anti-Sabellian “made/creature” formulas as genuine, strongly subordinationist, close to Arian language; suspects later smoothing and mis-framing by Eusebius.	Step (1): Dionysius really wrote such a letter, but oikonomically, to break Sabellianism in Pentapolis. Not his full or final doctrinal statement.	Implicitly placed as a background to 7.6–7.7; Eusebius alludes to Dionysius’ anti-Sabellian stance but does not fully foreground the problematic phrases; treats it as part of his teaching “against Sabellius.”	c. 257–259 (late Valerian / just before persecution crisis)
Accusations against Dionysius of Alexandria	Assumes serious grounds in his wording; reads Eusebius as obscuring how problematic it was and how strong the charge must have been.	Step (2): Some bishops (orthodox but alarmed) go up to Rome and report Dionysius’ language to Dionysius of Rome without first consulting him; their report sparks the Roman inquiry.	Not narrated as a separate dramatic stage; can be inferred from the way HE 7.7 presupposes controversy and response, but Eusebius compresses it inside his excerpts from Dionysius’ own apology.	c. 259–260
Doctrinal letter of Dionysius of Rome	Argues that material Eusebius attributes to Dionysius of Alexandria is actually (or partly) Roman, and that Eusebius conflates sources to create artificial harmony and proto-Nicene alignment.	Step (3): Dionysius of Rome writes both against Sabellians and against those calling the Son κτίσμα/ποίημα; writes also directly to Dionysius of Alexandria. Athanasius uses this as pre-Nicene condemnation of Arian formulas.	Reflected in HE 7.7’s theological summary; Eusebius seems to integrate Roman doctrinal points into a continuous dossier, making Rome + Alexandria sound jointly consistent.	c. 260–261 (early pontificate of Dionysius of Rome, 259–268)
Dionysius of Alexandria’s Έλεγχος καὶ Ἀπολογία (“Refutation and Apology” books)	Acknowledges them but emphasizes that they are later, corrective; suspects Eusebius lets these override the force of the earlier subordinationist language and so sanitizes the record.	Step (4): Central. Athanasius piles up quotations: eternal generation, “always Father, always Son,” rejection of ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων, analogies of light–radiance, spring–river, etc.; claims these show Dionysius’ true, stable mind was Nicene-compatible.	Quoted extensively in HE 7.7 and 7.24–26 as Dionysius’ theological position; placed by Eusebius after mention of the controversy so that the Apology functionally resolves it and defines Dionysius’ theology.	c. 261–262 (soon after Roman inquiry; under Gallienus)
Eusebius’ arrangement of the dossier (HE 7.5–7.7; 7.24–26)	Claims Eusebius: (1) splices different letters; (2) misattributes Roman to Alexandrian; (3) presents a flattened, consistently safe, Roman-aligned, proto-Nicene Dionysius. Concludes the montage is tendentious.	Athanasius-style reading treats Eusebius’ ordering as basically tracking steps (1)–(4) but telescoped: early anti-Sabellianism → complaint → Roman reaction → Alexandrian Apology. Eusebius is seen as highlighting the final orthodox settlement rather than the messy process.	By juxtaposing the anti-Sabellian material (7.6–7.7) with the Apology and exegetical fragments (7.24–26), he makes Dionysius’ end-state dogmatic voice dominate; chronology is subordinated to theological coherence.	Compilation c. 3rd decade 4th c.; representing events c. 257–262
Arians’ appeal to Dionysius	Once Eusebius’ montage is “unspliced,” Dionysius’ early language looks like real precedent for Arian formulas; Eusebius is accused of disguising this.	Athanasius concedes one harsh letter exists and sounds bad in isolation; insists that, read with the Apology and other letters, Dionysius explicitly contradicts “ἦν ποτε ὅτε οὐκ ἦν” and “κτίσμα ὁ υἱός” and so cannot be claimed for Arianism.	Eusebius’ selection already anticipates Athanasius: by privileging Apology-style material, he tacitly disarms Arian proof-texting from Dionysius; the tension is present but narratively muted.	Athanasius writing 330s–340s, reading events of 250s–260s through Nicene lens
Chronological upshot	Blog: Eusebius’ ordering is a constructed “montage” that erases sequence and conflict, yielding a falsely seamless picture of Dionysius as ever-aligned with Roman and Nicene theology.	Athanasius: real four-stage process; but outcome is unambiguous. The same dossier (including the rough letter) proves, when read whole, that Dionysius ends fully on Nicene side and that Arian appeals are dishonest.	On a sympathetic reconstruction, Eusebius’ chronology is theological editing: he compresses (1)→(4) to present Dionysius as a coherent witness of the “great tradition,” already converging with Roman confession and foreshadowing Nicaea.	Event sequence c. 257–262; Eusebius’ HE c. 310–325; Athanasius’ polemic post-325