De Sententia Dionysii

⁵ The occasion of Dionysius' writing against the Sabellians.

At that date certain of the Bishops in Pentapolis, Upper Libya, held with Sabellius. And they were so successful with their opinions that the Son of God was scarcely any longer preached in the churches. Dionysius having heard of this, as he had the charge of those churches, sends men to counsel the guilty ones to cease from their error, but as they did not cease, but waxed more shameless in their impiety, he was compelled to meet their shameless conduct by writing the said letter, and to expound from the Gospels the human nature of the Saviour, in order that since those men waxed bolder in denying the Son, and in ascribing His human actions to the Father, he accordingly by demonstrating that it was the Son and not the Father that was made man for us, might persuade the ignorant persons that the Father is not a Son, and so by degrees lead them up to the true Godhead of the Son and the knowledge of the Father. This is the main subject of the letter, and this is the reason why he wrote it, by reason of those who so shamelessly had chosen to alter the true faith.