Читать книгу A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Joseph Cullen Ayer - Страница 28

Moreover, there is still current an Epistle of Dionysius to the Romans, addressed to Soter, bishop at that time. But there is nothing like quoting its words in which, in approval of the custom of the Romans maintained until the persecution in our own time, he writes as follows: “For you have from the beginning this custom of doing good in different ways to all the brethren, and of sending supplies to many churches in all the cities, in this way refreshing the poverty of those in need, and helping brethren in the mines with the supplies which you have sent from the beginning, maintaining as Romans the customs of the Romans handed down from the fathers, which your blessed bishop Soter has not only kept up, but also increased, helping the saints with the abundant supply he sends from time to time, and with blessed words exhorting, as a loving father his children, the brethren who come up to the city.” In this same epistle he also mentions the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, showing that from the first it was read by ancient custom before the Church. He says, therefore: “To-day, then, being the Lord's day we kept holy; in which we read your letter; for reading it we shall always have admonition, as also from the former one written to us through Clement.” Moreover, the same writer speaks of his own epistles as having been falsified, as follows: “For when the brethren asked me to write letters, I wrote them. And these the apostles of the devil have filled with tares, taking away some things and adding others. For them there is woe in store. So it is not marvellous that some have tried to falsify even the dominical scriptures [i.e., the Holy Scriptures], when they have conspired against writings of another sort.”

[pg 025]