(1) To our blessed pope and bishop
of Alexander, the presbyters and deacons send greetings in the Lord. (“Confession
of Faith of Arius and his Colleagues to Alexander of Alexandria,” in Documents
of the Early ‘Arian’ Controversy and the Council of Nicaea [trans. David M.
Gwynn, Richard Price, Michael Whitby, and Philip Michael Forness; Translated
Texts for Historians 91; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2025], 67)
The title papas (pope) was
used in Alexandria some 50 years before its known attestation in Rome, and
first appears in a letter of Dionysius (bishop of Alexandria 247-64) referring
to his predecessor Heraclas (quoted in Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical
History VII.7.4). (Ibid., 67-68 n. 5)
The following is from Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 7.7:
And in the third of the letters On Baptism, which the same Dionysius
wrote to Philemon the presbyter at Rome, he presents the following: ‘I on my
part have read the compositions and traditions of the heretics, defiling my
soul for a little while with their abominable thoughts, but then receiving this
profit from them: the ability to refute them by myself and to loath them much
more. And when a brother, one of the presbyters, kept me off and frightened me
away from being involved in the mire of their wickedness, for he said that I
would injure my own soul, and he said truly, as I perceived, a God-sent vision
came and strengthened me, and a message which was for me bade me, saying
distinctly: “Read all things that you may receive in your hands, for you are
able to set right and prove all things, and this has been for you from the
beginning the cause of your faith.” I accepted the vision as agreeing with the
apostolic expression, which says to the stronger: “Be skilful
money-changers.” ’
Then, after making some remarks
about all the heresies, he adds, saying: ‘This rule and ordinance I received
from our holy father Heraclas.4 For, those who came over from the
heresies—rather, did not come over, but, while seeming to meet with the others,
were charged with associating with some one of the false teachers—he drove from
the Church, and did not admit them, though they besought it, until they
publicly related all that they had heard from those who resist the truth, and
then he admitted them without requiring a second baptism6 upon them;
for they had received the Holy Spirit from him.’ Then, after belaboring the
question at length, he adds this: ‘I have learned this also, that those in
Africa have not introduced this practice now for the first time, but long
before this in the days of the bishops before us in the most populous churches
and the synods of the brethren. In Iconium and Synnada and in many places this
was decided upon, and I do not dare by overturning their counsels to throw them
into strife. “For thou shalt not remove,” he says, “thy neighbor’s landmarks
which thy fathers placed.” ’
The fourth of his letters On Baptism was written to Dionysius of
Rome, who was then deemed worthy of the presbyterate, and not long afterwards
received the episcopate over those there. From this it is possible to see how
this man also was born witness by Dionysius of Alexandria as a learned and
honorable person. And among other things he writes to him in the following
words, when speaking of the affair of Novatian. (Eusebius of
Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, Books
6–10 [trans. Roy J. Deferrari; The Fathers of the Church 29; Washington, D.C.:
The Catholic University of America Press, 1955], 97-99)
