HistoricalChristian.Faith

Dionysius of Alexandria on the Old Testament Canon

Dates: c. 264 AD (Dionysius, c. 190 – c. 264/265; pupil of Origen, head of the Alexandrian catechetical school, and bishop of Alexandria from c. 248, “Dionysius the Great” of the mid-third-century Eastern church — his treatises and letters survive only as fragments quoted by Eusebius and others) · Wikipedia
Summary: Origen’s own pupil and successor at Alexandria, writing a few years after his master’s death, presses two of the disputed books into service as inspired Scripture. In his treatise On Nature he introduces Sirach with the formula “listen to the divine oracles,” ranking the deuterocanonical wisdom book among the inspired utterances; and in his doctrinal Epistle to Dionysius, Bishop of Rome he glosses Christ’s deity by reading the Wisdom of Solomon’s “breath of God’s power” alongside John 4:24. He draws up no canon-list, so he renders no canon-verdict; but his practice stands on the “using” side of the divide — the Greek-East counterpart, a generation on, to his teacher Origen’s working “keep” of the books read in the churches.

Claims & evidence

He cites Sirach (16:26–27) as “the divine oracles”

But listen to the divine oracles: “The works of the Lord are in judgment; from the beginning, and from His making of them, He disposed the parts thereof. He garnished His works for ever, and their principles unto their generations.”

— From the Books on Nature, §3 (against the Epicureans), in the extant fragments of Dionysius preserved by Eusebius, source.¹ The quoted words are Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 16:26–27. Arguing against the Epicurean doctrine that the ordered heavens arose from random atoms, Dionysius answers the chance-cosmology by appeal to Scripture — introducing the deuterocanonical wisdom book with “listen to the divine oracles” (ta theia logia), the very category of inspired utterance, and treating Sirach’s account of the Lord ordering His works as decisive against the philosophers. In the same treatise he weaves in the protocanonical Psalms (Ps 19:1; 33:5; 24:1) and the like; the deuterocanonical verse is adduced among them as the inspired word.

He reads the Wisdom of Solomon (7:25) as Scripture on the deity of Christ

Since, then, God is the Light, Christ is the Brightness. And since He is a Spirit — for says He, “God is a Spirit” — fittingly again is Christ called Breath; for “He,” saith He, “is the breath of God’s power.”

— Epistle to Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, From the First Book (§4), in the extant fragments preserved by Athanasius and Eusebius, source.² The words “He is the breath of God’s power” are Wisdom of Solomon 7:25 (“she is the breath of the power of God”). Defending the eternity and consubstantiality of the Son against the charge of Sabellianism, Dionysius builds a chain of scriptural titles — Light of Light, Brightness, Breath — glossing John 4:24 (“God is a Spirit”) with the Wisdom text to ground the title “Breath” for Christ. The Wisdom verse is handled exactly as the Johannine one beside it, “saith He” introducing both as the voice of Scripture; the force is woven christological exegesis rather than a bare “it is written” formula, a notch below the explicit “divine oracles” of the Sirach citation.

Notes

• Origen’s pupil, on the “using” side. Dionysius was taught by Origen and succeeded to his Alexandrian chair; his witness matters because it shows the very next generation of the Alexandrian school still using the disputed books as inspired Scripture in practice. Origen’s verdict was double — a Hebrew-sized canon by enumeration, a working “keep” of the books read in the churches; his pupil supplies a clean instance of that second, “using” half, with no enumeration to set against it.
• Graded force. The Sirach citation is the stronger: “listen to the divine oracles” (ta theia logia) classes the book among inspired utterances, a formula on a par with the “Scripture” labels of Clement of Alexandria and Cyprian. The Wisdom citation is moderate — the book is read as authoritative and set beside John’s Gospel to expound the deity of Christ, but woven into christological argument rather than headed by an explicit citation formula.
• Survives only as fragments. Neither work is extant whole; both passages reach us as fragments quoted by later writers (Eusebius for On Nature, Athanasius and Eusebius for the Epistle to Dionysius of Rome), so the citations are cited here by their section within the collected fragments rather than by a continuous text.
• Use, not a canon-list. Like Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Cyprian, Dionysius nowhere enumerates the Old-Testament books, so he renders no canon-verdict. He bears on the canon question as a witness to mid-third-century Greek-East practice — the datapoint weighed in the argument “Did the early church reject the deuterocanon…?” (assessed contested), against the flat claim that the primitive church did not reckon these books Scripture.

Sources